THE PASSION OF THE MOST BLESSED MARTYRS WHO SUFFERED AT CARTHAGE UNDER THE IMPIOUS KING HUNERIC ON THE 6TH DAY BEFORE THE NONES OF JULY. (I) About to proclaim the triumphs of the blessed martyrs, I implore divine aid for the recounting of the things that were done, that He who granted them the victory of overcoming may extend to me, unworthy and undeserving, however slight an ornament of words. For then I shall be able to set forth the things that have been desired, if they themselves should deign to make supplication to the Lord for me, a wretched man.
(II) For the seventh year of the most cruel and most impious king Huneric was passing, and behold, the ancient enemy, that sluggish serpent indeed, brandishing the venoms of his triple-forked tongue, made use of Cyrila, once bishop of the Arriomanites, as his minister, subverting and gaining possession of the mind of the bloodthirsty king, so as to persuade him thus, that he could not hold a peaceful and long-lasting kingdom unless he destroyed the name of the innocent. Yet he himself, by the judgment of God, after not many days, forestalled by a most foul death, swarming with worms, breathed his last.
He began to persecute with bloody savagery the whole multitude of the catholics, which throughout the entire province of Africa had been multiplied like the sand of the sea, just as was foretold to the patriarch Abraham, so as to wound it with the sword of rebaptism and to defile with the foul filth of black squalor that robe of singular and pure baptism which Christ, purifying with the wine of His flesh and pressing it out in the wine-press of the cross, had made white. The tyrant too, savage and easily led as he was, receiving the serpentine suggestion, began with deadly edicts at one stroke to throw all Africa into commotion. First he thrust into cruel exile in far-off and remote regions a most numerous and great throng of priests and ministers:
to whom he ordered to be given, out of mercy, a twice-sharp kind of grain, which is granted to be eaten by beasts of burden alone, by no means crushed fine by the labor of the millstone, but mailed with the husk of the bran remaining; but afterward, as the madness of his impiety grew, the most cruel man commanded even this to be taken away. After a little while too he ordered all the churches alike, their venerable doors first being prejudged, to be closed up with huge masses of cement-work: for he ordered all the monasteries of men or of holy maidens to be given over to the gentiles, that is, to the Moors, together with their inhabitants. There was one wailing for all, one entire and full desire of dying for Christ.
Equal rivers of tears were flowing, because the Lord had permitted them to be fed with the bread of tears and to be given to drink in tears by measure, or perhaps without measure. Even if some part of the perishing ravens, going forth from the ark and gaping after dead carcasses, was found, nevertheless greater in the name of the Trinity is the number of the happy doves. How many noble and excellent men, lords of an ample and broad domain, exchanged earth for heaven and gave up at once their body together with their substance, and how many delicate and most noble women, against the modesty of nature and while the common crowd looked on, beaten with rods and tortured with various torments, bore away victorious trophies!
How many little infants, mocking the deadly edicts, despised the world before they had entered its alluring path! (III) Then there were seized also seven brothers, dwelling together as one in a monastery, so far as pertains to the concord of the Lord's service, since it is good and pleasant for brethren to dwell together in unity—that is, Bonifatius the deacon, Servus the subdeacon, Rusticus the subdeacon, Liberatus the abbot, Rogatus the monk, Septimus the monk, and Maximus the monk—in the number, indeed, of the Maccabee brothers, whom one mother, the catholic Church, had begotten and through the womb of the eternal font had wholesomely brought forth, from the territory of the city of Capsa, over which presided the holy Vindemialis, an excellent priest and a faithful bishop of Christ.
When they had been dragged to the city of Carthage, the serpent first wished to hiss at them with alluring blandishments, promising fleeting honors and the riches of immense pleasures, and also the friendships of the king, or many other things, which are wont to ensnare the souls of the foolish, the devil fowling them with worldly birdlime. But the soldiers of God spurned all these as if they were contagions, crying out with one voice: "One Lord, one faith, one baptism. Nor can that be repeated in us, with the Lord helping, which in the holy Gospel was commanded to be given once; for he who has once been washed has no need to be washed again, since he is wholly clean. Do what you will, inflict punishments upon our bodies:
it is better to suffer temporal torments for a little while than to pay eternal penalties and undergo everlasting torments. Keep what you promise, since you yourselves, together with those very riches, will perish after a little while. But no one will be able to pluck from the posts of our foreheads what the Artificer of the Trinity deigned to inscribe in the one baptism." (IV) Why say more? While they were divinely fortified with such constancy, they were ordered to be handed over to prison custody, and thus, more cruelly burdened with the weights of iron, they were assigned to dark places, where no mercy of leniency might smile upon them.
But that people of the aforesaid city, ever faithful in the Lord, having given a bribe to the jailers, frequented the martyrs of Christ day and night, and were so strengthened by their teaching and by the virtue of faith, that they themselves also desired with full delight to endure such things for the name of Christ, and readily to submit their necks to the hilt of the persecutor. But this reached the tyrant's ears; and he, kindled with the drunkenness of fury, orders them to be driven to still-unheard-of punishments and to be burdened with greater chains, and commands a ship to be filled with bundles of dry wood, and that, with all bound in it, in the midst of the open sea, with fire set beneath, they be burned together.
(V) And when these had been led out from custody, the multitude of God's people was leading the warriors of the Trinity like innocent lambs to the sacrifice, and looked upon the weight of the roaring chains as if they were a kind of necklaces, because those were not fetters but rather ornaments. And so they advanced with confidence to the punishment, as if hastening together to a banquet, with one voice singing to the Lord through the rounds of the streets: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will. This is for us a longed-for day, and more festive than any solemnity. Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold, now is the day of salvation, when for the faith of the Lord our God we are brought forth to the prepared punishment, lest we lose the garment of the faith we have acquired."
But they cried out also to the peoples with a public voice: "Fear not, O peoples of God, nor dread the threats and terrors of present tribulations, but rather let us die for Christ, just as He also died for us, redeeming us with the price of His blood. Yet one of them, who seemed an infant among them, by name Maximus, the authors of evils strove with vehement effort to separate from the fellowship of the saints, saying: 'O little infant, why do you hasten to death? Leave them, they are mad, and hear our counsel, that you may be able to find the remedy of life and to approach the palace of so great a king.' Then he, of boyish age indeed yet of aged maturity, cried out:
"No one separates me from my holy father, Abbot Liberatus, and from my brothers, who nurtured me in the monastery. With them I have lived in conversation in the fear of God, with them I desire to undergo the passion, with whom I believe that I shall find also the glory to come. Do not suppose that you can seduce my boyhood: the Lord willed to gather us seven together at once, He will at once deem all worthy to be crowned with one martyrdom. Just as no one could perish from that sevenfold number of the happy Maccabees, so also the sevenfold number of our congregation shall find no loss. For if I deny Him, He also will deny me, since it was said by Him: 'Whoever shall deny me before men, I also will deny him before my Father, who is in heaven.'"
'and whoever shall confess me before men, I also will confess him before my Father who is in heaven.' (VI) Having therefore been brought in haste to punishment at the harbour, in accordance with the will of the unspeakable king and of his cruel ministers, they were carried—nailed rather than bound, with hands and feet stretched out. And when fire had been thrown upon the wood, at once, by divine command and in the sight of all, it was extinguished; and though it was again and again renewed with feeding fuel, time after time the masses of flame in the pyres were quenched. And when the tyrant was thereupon filled all the more with fury and with shame, he ordered them to be killed with the levers of oars, and so each one to be done away with, after the manner of dogs, by having their skulls crushed.
By such a kind of death they happily rendered up their owed spirit to the Lord, nor did they tremble to be put to death by the battering of wood, they whose every hope had ever been in the wood (of the Cross). But when their venerable bodies were cast into the sea, at once—contrary to the nature of the deep—at that very hour the sea hastened to return the unharmed bodies to the shore, nor did it dare, as is its custom, to keep them in the depths for the delay of three days, lest it should fail in the least to obey the Lord's command. At this kind of miracle even the tyrant himself, though unrepentant as is reported, was struck with dread. But the multitude that was present, rejoicing, handed over the bodies of the holy martyrs to careful burial, the venerable clergy of the church of Carthage going before;
where also the deacons worthy of proclamation, now for the third time made confessors, Salutaris and Muritta, bearers of the relics, were present. (VII) The blessed relics of the saints were therefore buried with solemn hymns in the monastery of Bigua adjoining the basilica which is called of Celerina. And thus in the confession of the Trinity the most blessed martyrs suffered, and, with the Lord crowning them, they finished the glorious course of their contest. To Him be honour and glory unto the ages of ages. Amen. HERE ENDS THE AFRICAN HISTORY. HERE BEGINS THE FIRST BOOK OF THE ROMAN HISTORY.