In former times the ancients, out of zeal for wisdom, by no means ceased constantly to examine and to inquire what things, and of what kind, had befallen the provinces, places, or regions—whether prosperously or otherwise—upon which, or in which, they might whet the pen of their genius, and offer to those ignorant of history the fragrant flowers of their teaching, served up as a freely given gift from baskets; and they took pains that what had perhaps been done in part should by no means lie wholly hidden. But they, puffed up with the haughtiness of worldly love, were eager that the glory of their own self-exaltation should be praised and spread far and wide. But your venerable studiousness, desiring to weave together a history, inquires indeed with a like fervor, yet with a different love;
and they that they might be praised in the world, but you that you may appear illustrious in the age to come, and may say: 'In the Lord shall my soul be praised: let the meek hear and rejoice' (Ps. 34:2-3). You will be able, as you have wished, because every best gift and every perfect gift you have received from heaven, having been instructed by so great a bishop, and by the blessed Diadochus, worthy of every kind of praise for his preaching, of whose sayings there stand, like shining stars, very many monuments of catholic doctrine. And it is enough for you that you should equal the teaching of your teacher, since it is enough for the disciple that he be as his master. I see another Timothy, instructed in the sacred Scriptures from the cradle of infancy, and likewise, among others, Luke, exalted and ready in the teaching of the nations, a physician by art, a disciple of the apostle Paul.
For I, bowing the neck of obedience to the command of him who orders it, will try to set forth gradually and briefly the things that befell the African regions while the Arians raged; and like a rustic laborer gathering gold with weary arms out of hidden caverns, I will not hesitate to hand over the ore — still soiled and unrefined in appearance — to be tested by the skilled judgment of the fire, that he who is a master of the mint may stamp it into solid coins. (I, 1) It is now, as is well known, the sixtieth year —
— that is, the sixtieth year is now reckoned since that cruel and savage people of the Vandal nation reached the borders of wretched Africa, crossing over by an easy passage through the straits of the sea, where this great and broad expanse between Spain and Africa narrows itself to a strait of barely twelve miles. When therefore the whole multitude had crossed over, Geiseric their leader, with all his cunning — so as to make the report of his people terrible — at once ordered the whole multitude to be counted, down to the child whom the womb had brought forth into this light up to that very day. Those who were found — old men, young men, little children, slaves and masters — were numbered at eighty thousand. This report, once spread abroad, causes such a great number of armed men to be reckoned even to this day by those who do not know the truth, though their force is now small and weak.
Finding therefore a peaceful and quiet province, the beauty of all that flourishing land, wherever they pressed forward with their bands of impiety, they laid it waste by devastation, exterminating everything with fire and slaughter. Nor did they spare at all the fruit-bearing trees, lest perchance those whom the caves of the mountains or the crags of the earth or any secluded places had hidden might, after their passing, be nourished by such fodder; and thus, raging again and again with such cruelty, no place remained immune from their contagion. Above all they raged the more wickedly against the churches and the basilicas of the saints, the cemeteries and the monasteries, so that with greater fires they burned down the houses of prayer rather than the cities and all the towns.
Where by chance they found the doors of some venerable hall shut, they vied with one another in opening the entrance with strokes of their axes, so that it might then rightly be said: as in a forest of trees they cut down its gates with axes; together they struck it down with hatchet and axe. They have set fire to your sanctuary; they have defiled on the earth the tabernacle of your name. (I, 2) How many distinguished bishops and noble priests were then put to death by them with various kinds of torments, that they might hand over whatever gold or silver they had, whether their own or the church's! And while, under the pressure of torments, what they had was the more readily produced, they again pressed the offerers with cruel torments, supposing that they had handed over a part and not the whole;
and the more was given, the more they believed someone still had. Prying open the mouths of others with bars of stakes, they crammed foul filth into their throats for the sake of confessing where their money was; some they tortured by twisting cords on their foreheads and shins until the cords roared; very often they poured sea-water, into others vinegar, dregs of oil, fish-brine, and many other cruel things, placed to the mouth as into soaked wineskins, without mercy. Neither the weaker sex, nor regard for nobility, nor reverence for the priesthood softened their cruel hearts; but rather there the wrath of their fury was heaped up the higher, where they had beheld the honor of dignity.
How great burdens they laid on great priests and on so many illustrious men, as if upon camels or other kinds of beasts of burden, I cannot fully tell; they drove them with iron goads to keep walking, and some of these, beneath their loads, miserably gave up their souls. Aged maturity and venerable gray hairs, which had whitened the hair of the head like white wool, claimed for itself no mercy from these guests. But the barbarian fury, seizing even little ones from their mothers' breasts, dashed the innocent infancy to the ground; others, holding them by the feet from the opposite side, tore them apart from the natural passage clear up to the crown of the head; when then perhaps captive Zion sang:
the enemy said: I will burn my borders, I will slay my infants, and I will dash my little ones to the ground. (I, 3) In some buildings — great mansions or houses — where the work of the fire availed less, having despised the roofs they leveled the beauty of the walls to the ground, so that now that ancient splendor of the cities does not even appear to have existed at all. And very many towns are inhabited either by few or by no dwellers. For even today, if any remain, they are by degrees being made desolate, just as there at Carthage they utterly destroyed the Odeon, the theater, the temple of Memory, and the street which they used to call Caelestis.
And to speak of what is essential: the greater basilica, where the bodies of the holy martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas are buried, that of Celerina or of the Scillitans, and others which they did not destroy, they appropriated for their own religion by tyrannical license. But where any fortifications appeared which the hostility of barbaric fury could not storm, gathering countless throngs around the encampments, they tortured them with deadly swords, so that, the corpses rotting, they might kill by the stench of the decaying bodies those whom they could not reach because the defense of the walls held them off. How many and how numerous priests were then tortured by them, who could explain?
For then also Pampinianus, the venerable bishop of our own city, was burned over his whole body with plates of glowing iron. Likewise Mansuetus of Urica was burned in the Fornitan gate. At which storm the city of Hippo Regius was besieged, which the blessed Augustine — worthy of all praise, the composer of many books — governed as bishop. Then that river of eloquence, which used to run abundantly through all the fields of the church, was dried up by that very fear, and the sweetness of its delight, once poured forth more sweetly, was turned into the bitterness of wormwood, so that the saying of David might fit: while the sinner stood against me, I was dumb and was humbled, and I kept silence even from good things.
Up to that time he had already completed two hundred and thirty-two books, besides countless letters, the exposition of the whole Psalter and of the Gospels, and the popular treatises which the Greeks call homilies, the number of which it is quite impossible to grasp. (I, 4) Why say more? After these savage acts of impiety and madness, Geiseric held and entered Carthage itself, the greatest city, and reduced that ancient, freeborn, and noble liberty into servitude; for he also took captive no small multitude of the city's senators. Then he set forth a decree, that each one should offer up whatever he had of gold, silver, gems, and precious garments;
and thus in a short time the rapacious man, by such diligence, stripped away their ancestral and paternal wealth. Apportioning also each of the several provinces, he reserved for himself Byzacena, Abaritana, and Getulia and part of Numidia, but divided to his army Zeugitana and the Proconsular province by the cord of inheritance, while Valentinian, still emperor, was defending the remaining provinces, though already devastated; after whose death he obtained the whole compass of Africa, and with his accustomed pride also held the greatest islands — Sardinia, Sicily, Corsica, Ebusus, Majorca, Minorca, and many others. One of these, namely Sicily, he afterward granted to Odoacer, king of Italy, by right of tribute;
from which Odoacer paid him tribute at various times as to a lord, while reserving some part for himself. Moreover, he did not in the least hesitate to command the Vandals to drive bishops and noble laymen utterly stripped from their own churches or seats: and if, when the choice was set before them, they delayed to depart, they should remain perpetual slaves. This too was done in very many cases. For we have known many bishops and laymen, distinguished and honored men, to be slaves of the Vandals. (I, 5) But then he commanded that the bishop of the said city, that is of Carthage, manifest to God and men, by name Quodvultdeus, and a very great throng of clergy, placed on broken ships, naked and despoiled, be expelled.
Whom the Lord, by the compassion of his goodness, deigned to bring by prosperous voyage to Naples, a city of Campania. He crushed the multitude of senators and honored men first by cruel exile, then cast them out into a region beyond the sea. For when the bishop had been driven out, as we said before, with his venerable clergy, he at once appropriated for his own religion the church named Restituta, in which the bishops always used to reside, and took away all the churches that were within the walls of the city, together with their riches. But also outside the wall he seized whatever he wished, and especially two excellent and spacious churches of the holy martyr Cyprian — one where he shed his blood, the other where his body is buried, which place is called Mappalia.
But who could endure, and be able to recall without tears, that he commanded the bodies of our dead to be carried to burial in silence, without the solemnity of hymns? He added further that even the part of the clergy which had remained should be handed over to penal exile. And while these things were going on, the great priests and distinguished men who survived in the aforementioned provinces, which he had divided among the Vandals, resolved to approach the king for the sake of supplication. When he had gone out, as is the custom, to the Maxulitan shore, which by common speech is called Ligula, having already lost their churches and goods, they came as suppliants, asking that, for the consolation of God's people, at least the means of dwelling might be granted, now that the Vandals were already in power.
To whom, it is attested, he replied through an interpreter with raving mouth: I have decreed to dismiss none of your name and race, and do you dare to demand such things? He even wished to drown them in the nearby sea at that very hour, had he not been long begged by his own men not to do so. Withdrawing, worn out with sadness and grief, they began, as best they could and where they could, to celebrate the divine mysteries, their churches having been taken away. But thereafter, as the kingdom grew in wealth, greater pride too began to spread. (I, 6) I will relate a deed which was done at that very time. There was a certain count, Sebastian, son-in-law of that famous count Boniface, keen in counsel and vigorous in war; whose counsels Geiseric found necessary, even as he dreaded his presence.
But desiring to destroy him, he sought an occasion for his death from religion. The king devised that, in the presence of his bishops and his household, he would approach Sebastian thus. 'Sebastian,' he said, 'I know that you have sworn to have cleaved to us faithfully, the truth of which oath your labors and vigilance demonstrate. But that your friendship may remain ever joined and continual with us, it has pleased our priests here present that you become a worshiper of that religion which both we and our people venerate.' To whom Sebastian, finding the matter wonderful and necessary in many ways, answered shrewdly for the occasion: 'I ask, my lord king, that now a single loaf of the purest and finest flour be brought.'
And since Geiseric had not perceived Sebastian's victory, he at once ordered it to be brought. So Sebastian, taking the purest loaf, spoke thus: 'For this loaf, that it might come to such adornment of splendor and be deemed fit for the royal table, after the foulness of the bran had been sifted away, the lump was sprinkled with the finest flour and passed through water and fire; therefore it is held both bright to look upon and pleasant to eat. So I too, ground by the mill of the Catholic Mother and purified by the sieve of examination like clean fine flour, was watered with the water of baptism and baked by the fire of the Holy Spirit. And as this loaf came from the oven, so I too, through the offices of the divine sacraments, came up clean from the font, God being the craftsman. But let it be, if you will, as I myself propose.'
'Let this loaf be broken into pieces, soaked with water and sprinkled again, and put into the oven: if it comes out better, I will do what you urge.' When Geiseric, with all who were present, had heard this proposal, he was so bound that he could not free himself at all. Whom he afterward, by an argument of another kind, killed as a warlike man. (I, 7) And to return to the point from which we digressed: he terrified them with deadly commands, that in the midst of the Vandals our people should by no means draw breath, nor anywhere be granted a place to the groaning for praying or offering sacrifice, so that then the oracle of the prophecy might be manifestly fulfilled: there is in this time no prince or prophet or leader, nor any place for sacrificing to your name.
For also various false accusations were not lacking daily even against those priests who lived in those regions which paid tribute to the palace. So that if perchance anyone, as is the custom, while admonishing God's people, had named Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Holofernes, or some such, it was thrown at him that he had said these things in the person of the king, and he was at once thrust into exile. For this kind of persecution was carried on here openly, elsewhere secretly, so that the name of the godly might perish by such snares. Wherefore we have known very many of the priests to have then been banished:
such as Urbanus of Girba, Crescens metropolitan of the city of Aquitana, who presided over a hundred and twenty bishops, Habetdeus of Teudala, Eustratius of Sufetula, and two Tripolitans — Vicis of Sabrata and Cresconius of Oea — and Felix bishop of the city of Adrumetum, for this reason, that he had received a certain John, a monk from overseas; and many others besides, whom it would be tedious to recount. Yet while these were placed in exile, when death befell them, it was not permitted to ordain others in their cities. Amid these things, however, God's people, standing firm in the faith, like swarms of bees building their waxen dwellings, by growing were strengthened with the honeyed reckonings of faith, so that that saying might be fulfilled:
the more they afflicted them, the more they were multiplied and grew exceedingly strong. (I, 8) After these things it came about, at the supplication of Valentinian Augustus, that after a long silence of desolation a bishop named Deogratias was ordained for the church of Carthage; of whom, if anyone should strive to run through little by little the things the Lord did through him, words would begin to fail before he could explain anything. So when that bishop had been appointed, it came to pass, our sins pressing hard, that Geiseric captured Rome, that once most noble and famous city, in the fifteenth year of his reign; and from there at the same time he took captive the riches of many kings together with their peoples.
And when that multitude of captivity reached the African shore, the Vandals and Moors, dividing the huge quantity of people as is the custom of barbarians, husbands were separated from wives, children from parents. At once the man full of God and dear to him set about selling off all the vessels of ministry, gold and silver, and freeing them from barbarian servitude into liberty, so that the wedded pairs might remain joined and the children be restored to their parents. And because no places were sufficient to receive so great a multitude, he assigned two named and spacious basilicas, of Faustus and of Novae, with couches and bedding, decreeing for each single day how much each should receive according to his need.
And because the unfamiliarity of the voyage and the cruelty of captivity had afflicted very many, there was among them no small number of the sick, whom that blessed bishop, like a devoted nurse, went round at every moment with physicians following, accompanied by food, so that, the vein being examined, whatever each needed might be given in his presence. Nor did he rest from this work of mercy even in the night hours, but kept going, running through the individual beds, inquiring how each one fared. He had given himself over so wholly to labor that he spared neither his weary limbs nor his now decaying old age. Kindled with envy at this, the Arians wished often to kill him by very many treacheries. Which the Lord, I believe, foreseeing, willed quickly to free his sparrow from the hands of the hawks.
His departure the city's captives so bewailed that they then thought themselves rather handed over into the hands of the barbarians, when he went forth to heaven. He held the priesthood for three years. Through love and longing for him the eager people might have snatched the limbs of that worthy body, had he not, by prudent counsel, while attention was drawn away, been buried without the multitude's knowledge. (I, 9) And because one must not always keep silence about the impieties of the heretics, nor can it be unseemly which tends to the praise of the one who endures, the ordainer of the aforementioned priest, a man named Thomas, while he was often hard-pressed by their various snares, on a certain occasion they beat the venerable old man with rods on his bared body in public.
But he, reckoning this not for reproach but for the reward of his glory, rejoiced in the Lord. Hence it came about that, after the death of the bishop of Carthage, he forbade bishops to be ordained for the Zeugitan and Proconsular province; of whom the number was a hundred and sixty-four. This number, gradually diminishing, now — if indeed they themselves survive — only three appear to be: Vincentius of Gigita, Paulus of Sinna (truly Paul in merit and in name), and another, Quintianus, who now, fleeing the persecution, dwells as a stranger at Edessa, a city of Macedonia. (I, 10) But also very many martyrdoms are proved to have occurred, and an immense and very great multitude of confessors; of which I will attempt to narrate some.
There were then the slaves of a certain Vandal — this Vandal was one of those whom they call millenarii — Martinianus, Saturianus, and their two brothers. And there was also a fellow-slave of theirs, an excellent handmaid of Christ, by name Maxima, comely in body and in heart alike. And because Martinianus was an armorer and seemed quite acceptable to his master, and Maxima had charge of the whole household, the Vandal believed that, to make the said servants more loyal to himself, he should join Martinianus and Maxima in the bond of marriage. Martinianus, after the manner of worldly young men, desired marriage, but Maxima, already consecrated to God, refused human nuptials.
But when it came about that the secret silences of the bedchamber were entered, and Martinianus, not knowing what God had decreed concerning him, with a husband's confidence desired to lie down as with a wife, the said handmaid of Christ answered him with a living voice: 'I, O Martinianus my brother, have dedicated the members of my body to Christ, nor can I obtain a human marriage, having already a heavenly and true bridegroom. But I will give counsel: if you will, you too can grant it to yourself, since you may — that you also delight to serve him to whom I have desired to be wedded.' So it came to pass, the Lord providing, that the young man too, obeying the virgin, gained his own soul.
The Vandal, then, not knowing the commerce of the spiritual secret, Martinianus, pricked in heart and changed, persuaded even his own brothers that they should hold the treasure he had found in common, as brothers. So, converted together with his three brothers, with God's maiden also accompanying them, going out secretly by night, they joined themselves to the monastery of Tabraca, over which the noble shepherd Andreas then presided. But she dwelt not far off in a monastery of maidens. When therefore the barbarian inquired with searchings and frequent gifts, what had been done could not be concealed.
Finding therefore that they were now not his own but Christ's possessions, he cast them into chains and harassed God's servants with various torments, dealing with them not only that they might be coupled together, but, what is more grievous, that through the filth of rebaptism they might befoul the ornaments of their faith. This very thing came even to the notice of Geiseric: the king decreed that the implacable wild man should afflict the slaves as long as they yielded to his will. He orders stout clubs to be made in the manner of saws, as if palmed, with stumps, which by shaking the backs would not only break the bones but also leave the boring spikes within.
And when the blood flowed out and the flesh was torn apart so that the entrails were laid bare, on the following day, Christ healing them, they were always restored unharmed. This was done very often and over a long time, and no traces of the wounds were seen, the Holy Spirit constantly healing them. After this Maxima is constrained to harsh custody and stretched on a cruel spike: and since the frequent visitation of God's servants did not fail her, in the sight of all the rotting strength of the huge timbers was loosened. This miracle is celebrated by the voice of all, and to us, to whom the custody pertained, he testified under oath that it had been so. (I, 11) But when the Vandal neglected to acknowledge the divine power, avenging wrath began to rage in his house. He himself dies, and his sons together;
the household and whatever of the animals was best perished together, and the mistress remained a widow, bereft of husband, sons, and substance. She offers Christ's servants to Sesao, a kinsman of the king, as a gift of favor; who, when he had received them as gifts with exceeding rejoicing, the demon, by the merit of the saints, began to torment his sons or domestics with various convulsions. In turn that kinsman, as it had happened, suggested it to the king. At once the king decreed that they should be handed over to a certain pagan king of the Moors, whose name was Capsur, to be banished. But Maxima, Christ's handmaid, confounded and conquered, he dismissed to her own will; she now survives as a virgin, mother of many virgins of God, by no means unknown even to us.
Arriving, they are handed over to the said king of the Moors, who dwelt in a part of the desert which is called Caprapicti. Christ's disciples, therefore, seeing among the pagans many unlawful sacrileges of sacrifices, began by their preaching and conduct to invite the barbarians to the knowledge of the Lord our God; and in this way they won for Christ the Lord an immense multitude of pagan barbarians, where before the report of the Christian name had been spread abroad by no one. Then it was considered what should be done, that the land now tilled and broken by the plowshare of preaching might receive the evangelical seed and be watered by the rain of holy baptism. They send legates by the long roads of the desert;
at length they reach the city of Rome, and the bishop is asked to appoint a presbyter and ministers for the believing people. The bishop of God fulfills with joy what was asked: a church is built, a very great multitude of barbarians is baptized, and from wolves a fruitful flock of lambs is multiplied. This Capsur reports and announces to Geiseric. At which matter, rising up in envy, he orders God's servants, with their feet bound behind the backs of running chariots, to perish together amid the thorny places of the woods, so that, dragged and dragged back, the bodies of the innocents might be torn by the brambly spikes of the wood, thus destroying them so that they should see in turn one another's end.
When they, near one another by reason of the untamed running horses, while the Moors lamented, beheld each other, each said farewell to the other in the narrow strait of flight thus: 'Brother, pray for me; God has fulfilled our desire: in this way one reaches the kingdom of heaven.' And so, praying and singing psalms, the angels rejoicing, they sent forth their holy souls: where to this very day Jesus Christ our Lord does not cease to work mighty wonders. For the blessed Faustus, once bishop of Boronita, testified to us that a certain blind woman had been given sight there, where he himself was present. (I, 12) From here Geiseric is inflamed against the church of God.
He sends a certain Proculus into the province of Zeugitana, to constrain all the Lord's priests to hand over the divine ministries or the books, that he might first strip them of arms and so the more easily, as a crafty enemy, take them captive unarmed. When they cried out that they could not hand them over, with rapacious hand they laid waste everything, and out of the palls of the altar — O wickedness! — they made themselves shirts and breeches. Yet that Proculus, the executor of this affair, eating his own tongue bit by bit, was in a short time consumed by a most shameful death. For then the holy Valerian, bishop of the city of Abensa, while he had manfully contended not to hand over the divine sacraments, was ordered to be driven alone outside the city;
and it was so commanded that no one should let him dwell either in house or in field. He lay for a long time naked in the public street under the open sky: he was more than sixty-nine years of age, whom we then, unworthy though we were, were counted worthy to greet in such an exile. (I, 13) On a certain occasion the Paschal solemnity was being celebrated; and while in a certain place which is called Regia, on account of the day of Paschal honor, our people were opening the church that had been shut against them, the Arians discovered it. At once a certain presbyter of theirs, Anduit by name, gathering a band of armed men with him, is inflamed to assault the throng of the innocent. They enter with drawn swords, snatch up weapons; others too climb the roofs and through the windows of the church scatter arrows.