Priest on The African Fathers

Caesarius and Julian

you@example.com (Your Name) — Wed, 01 Nov 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Year: unknown / date uncertain.
Feast Day: Nov 1

The former was a deacon from North Africa and the latter a priest. Both were martyred in Terracina in Italy. The church of St Caesarius in Rome is dedicated to St Caesarius.

Rogatian and Felicissimus

you@example.com (Your Name) — Thu, 26 Oct 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Year: 256.
Feast Day: Oct 26

Rogatian, a priest, and Felicissimus, a layman, belonged to the church of Carthage in North Africa where they were martyred.

Priscus, Castrensis, Tammarus, Rosius, Heraclius, Secundinus, Adjutor, Mark, Augustus, Elpidius, Canion and Vindonius

you@example.com (Your Name) — Fri, 01 Sep 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Year: 5th cent.
Feast Day: Sept 1

Priscus, a bishop in North Africa, and his priests were cast adrift in a boat by the Arian Vandals. They reached the south of Italy, where eventually Priscus became Bishop of Capua.

Numidicus and Companions

you@example.com (Your Name) — Wed, 09 Aug 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Year: 251.
Feast Day: Aug 9

A group of martyrs burnt at the stake at Carthage in North Africa under Decius. Numidicus was dragged still breathing out of the ashes of the funeral pyre and was ordained priest by St Cyprian.

Gaius and Leo

you@example.com (Your Name) — Fri, 30 Jun 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Year: unknown / date uncertain.
Feast Day: June 30

Martyrs either in North Africa or in Rome, Gaius was a priest and Leo a subdeacon.

Caecilius (Caecilian)

you@example.com (Your Name) — Sat, 03 Jun 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Year: 3rd cent.
Feast Day: June 3

A priest in Carthage in North Africa who converted St Cyprian to Christ. St Cyprian never ceased to revere his name, adding it to his own, and on Caecilius’s repose, he looked after his wife and children.

[1] The sacred Tables of the Roman Martyrology, reviewed and augmented under Gregory XIII, on this third of June have these words: At Carthage, of St. Cæcilius the Presbyter, who led St. Cyprian to the faith of Christ. St. Jerome in his On Ecclesiastical Writers chapter 67, mentions both thus: Cyprian the African first gloriously taught Rhetoric: thereafter, at the persuasion of the Presbyter Cæcilius, from whom he also took his cognomen, having become a Christian, he disbursed all his substance to the poor; and after no long time, having been elected to the Presbyterate, he was also made Bishop of Carthage, etc.

[2] All these things redound to St. Cæcilius the Master. About whom St. Pontius the Deacon, disciple of St. Cyprian the Bishop, mentioned by us on March VIII, in the Life of the same St. Cyprian, to be illustrated on September XIV, says thus: He had indeed living among us also a fellowship with a just man and of memorable memory, Cæcilius, then a Presbyter both in age and in honor, who had corrected him from secular error unto the knowledge of true Divinity. Him he loved with every honor and all observance, taking up with obedient veneration, not so much as a friend equal of soul, but as a parent of his new life. At length that one, soothed by his obediences, was provoked by the merit of so immense a love to such a degree that, departing from the world, his summons being now nigh, he commended to him his wife and children; that whom he had made a partaker of the communion of the sect, he might afterwards make an heir of his piety. Later writers have generally followed St. Pontius in praising Cæcilius, among whom Paul the Deacon began the Passion of St. Cyprian thus: In the times of Valentinus the most iniquitous Emperor, there was at Carthage, which is in Africa, a most glorious man, by name Cyprian: who first taught Rhetoric, then was converted to the faith of Christ by a certain Presbyter, by name Cæcilius, and likewise took the name of Cæcilius.

[3] Among other Acts of the Martyrdom of St. Cyprian we found some Mss. at Rome in the Vallicellan Library of the Fathers of the Oratory with this beginning of the Prologue: Cyprian the African, outstanding Rhetorician, Bishop of the Carthaginian See, allured by a certain Cæcilius the Presbyter, took his cognomen also from the same venerable Priest: by whose skill and sanctity not only does Carthage shine, but almost the whole Church gleams with his eloquence. And these I think to be the Mss. cited in Baronius’s Notes on the Roman Martyrology: for no ancient Mss. Martyrologies (and we have seen all those which are at Rome) have the name of Cæcilius anywhere. Finally James Pamelius in the Life of St. Cyprian, collected by himself from his writings, has these words: He had as Catechist, who also brought him over to the knowledge of the true faith, Cæcilius the Presbyter; from whom he took also the forename Cæcilius: of whom Cyprian himself also makes mention, in his epistle to Florentinus. This is epistle LXIX, in which he calls himself Cæcilius Cyprianus Bishop of the Christians.

[4] Thus far our Henschenius, most diligently investigating, not only those Mss. which the Curators of the Gregorian Martyrology could have seen, but also the centennial: so that it seems altogether certain that they here too used that liberty which we have seen them assume elsewhere too, and especially in the Acts of St. Gregory Nazianzen on May IX, whose many kinsmen and friends, with the title of Sanctity, they first inserted into the Roman Martyrology; for which the day was chosen which seemed more convenient, with no example or author. There is indeed in the most ancient Calendar of the Carthaginian Church, which Mabillon inserted and published in the third Tome of the Old Analects in the year 1682, somewhat after Henschenius’s death, on II Ides of May the memory inscribed of Saint Felix, Cæcilius, and Companions; and it is probable that these are those Forty who in the Hieronymian Martyrology are by name recorded as having suffered on the Nones of May in Africa, among whom are two Felixes, one Felicia, also one Cecilius or Cecilus; but who would rashly divine that this is Cæcilius the Presbyter, instructor of Cyprian? But on this III Nones of June there is deep silence concerning him; nor anywhere else there is his name found.

We can however presume that he died holily, who lived holily and nurtured so distinguished a Bishop and Martyr. But those to whom the faculty was given by the Pontiff of correcting the Martyrology not only according to ancient Mss., but also augmenting it with Saints added from elsewhere, may have thought it permitted to themselves also to attribute, both the title of Saint, and a definite day in the work entrusted to them, to those praised among the Ancients and seeming to be well deserving. Both certainly the Latins seem to have done in former times, who inserted into Martyrologies many, still customarily read in the Roman; whose either miracles or virtues St. Gregory so narrates in the books of the Dialogues, that of the manner or day of their death he has nothing, nor are their bodies known from elsewhere, in the places where they lived or died, to have any veneration. The Greeks have been even more liberal in this kind, when they inserted into their Synaxaria as many names of those as possible, who either in the Sacred Scriptures, or in the Acts of the Saints, or finally in the Lives of the Fathers as we call them, were found praised, without further notice. But these examples insofar as they avail in excusing, before the decrees of Urban VIII, Baronius and his associates, employed for the edition of the Roman Martyrology; whose judgment, so long as the Church does not disapprove, neither do we presume to disapprove:

we shall not therefore be bound also to approve or follow the founders of monastic or national Fasti, who after those Decrees wished it to be lawful for themselves, to add to illustrious men of their Order or Nation the title of Sanctity or Beatitude, and to choose for them at their own judgment a Natal day, as it were, which they had nowhere found. But this judgment too we leave to the Sacred Congregation of Rites; by whose decision if now a reformation of the Roman Martyrology were to be made, perhaps some would be omitted, of whose ancient cult and day of cult it is not sufficiently established. It is not for us to change anything in that Martyrology. And therefore we leave St. Cæcilius, as we found him.

https://www.actasanctorum.org/june/day-03/caecilius.html

Agapius and Companions

you@example.com (Your Name) — Sat, 29 Apr 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Year: c 259.
Feast Day: Apr 29

Born in Spain, Agapius and Secundinus, bishops or priests, were exiled to Cirta in Numidia in North Africa in the persecution under Valerian. There they suffered martyrdom together with Tertulla and Antonia, virgins, and a certain woman with her twin children.

Agapius, Bishop, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Secundinus, Bishop, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Theodorus, Priest, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Marianus, Lector, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Jacobus, Deacon, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Aemilianus, soldier, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Tertulla, Virgin, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Antonia, Virgin, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Likewise a woman with two twins, Martyrs at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saints)Secundianus, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Concordius, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Florianus, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Gaber, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Gaianus, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Postumus, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Momminus, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Quintianus, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Cassius, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Fasilus, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Florentius, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Demetrius, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Gududus, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Crispinus, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Crispinus, another, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Donatus, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Zeon, Martyr at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saint) Many others, Martyrs at Cirta and Lambaesa in Numidia (Saints)

The most eminent Baronius in his Ecclesiastical Annals, at the year of Christ 262 no. 34, writes that among the butcheries of the whole province of Africa, carried out in the persecution of the Emperors Valerian and Gallienus, that one seems fiercer than the rest, which is found to have taken place in Numidia. That there exists, he says, concerning it an epistle written by one of those Confessors, already designated as a Martyr, who himself a fellow prisoner, composing chiefly the history of Jacobus the Deacon and Marianus the Lector, also makes mention of other Martyrs, namely of Agapius and Secundinus the Bishops, of Aemilianus a most illustrious man, of Tertulla and Antonia the Virgins, and of a certain mother with her twins, and of many others. As far as it is possible to conjecture from the style, the same Baronius says he seems to have been a disciple of Cyprian, whose diction he imitates somewhat in his writing; a noble monument of antiquity, recognized by us, and diligently corrected with great zeal applied (as much as was possible in matters so very ancient and in corrupted codices). This therefore, both for the remarkable knowledge of the matters transacted, and also that from those things which have been faithfully written down, we may be able to contemplate the other Acts of the Martyrs which have not been written or have perished through the injury of time, we judge it worth the labor to describe in the Annals. Thus Baronius. The same Acts Lawrence Surius published on this day, April 29: which we give again taken from four manuscript codices, namely from the Passional of the Cathedral Church of Saint Lambert at Liège, formerly of Saint Victor of Paris, written six hundred years ago; then from a perhaps older manuscript of the Trier monastery of Saint Maximinus; moreover from the notable parchment manuscript of the monastery of Boddeken, of the Order of Canons Regular of Saint Augustine in the diocese of Paderborn; finally from the Utrecht manuscript of Saint Salvator; except that the same Acts in the last two codices are more contracted.

https://www.actasanctorum.org/april/day-30/agapius-and-secundinus-bishops.html

Saturninus, Dativus, Felix, Ampelius, Victoria and Companions

you@example.com (Your Name) — Fri, 11 Feb 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Year: 304.
Feast Day: Feb 11

A group of forty-six martyrs in Albitina in North Africa. They were arrested at the liturgy and sent to Carthage for examination. Saturninus was a priest, and with him suffered his four children, Saturninus and Felix, readers, Mary, a virgin, and Hilarion, a young child. Dativus and another Felix were senators. Other names from this group which have come down to us are: Thelica, Ampelius, Emeritus, Rogatian and Victoria, a holy virgin of undaunted courage. The child Hilarion, when threatened by the magistrates while his companions were being tortured, replied: ‘Yes, torture me too; anyhow, I am a Christian’. They all died in prison.

Eugyppius

you@example.com (Your Name) — Sat, 15 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Year: c 535.
Feast Day: Jan 15

Born in North Africa, he was ordained priest at Rome and was a companion of St Severinus of Noricum in Austria, whose Life he wrote.