Fox's Book of Martyrs: Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant; Deaths of the Primitive Protestant MartyrsFoxe, John
HistoryHistory
Fox's Book of Martyrs: Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant; Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs
Foxe, John
Church history; Martyrs; Persecution
In the year 304, when the persecution reached Spain, Dacian, the
governor of Terragona ordered Valerius the bishop, and Vincent the
deacon, to be seized, loaded with irons, and imprisoned. The prisoners
being firm in their resolution, Valerius was banished, and Vincent was
racked, and his limbs dislocated, his flesh torn with hooks, and was
laid on a gridiron, which had not only a fire placed under it, but
spikes at the top, which ran into his flesh. These torments neither
destroying him, nor changing his resolutions, he was remanded to prison,
and confined in a small, loathsome, dark dungeon, strewed with sharp
flints, and pieces of broken glass, where he died, Jan. 22, 304.--His
body was thrown into the river.
The persecution of Diocletian began particularly to rage in A. D. 304,
when many christians were put to cruel tortures, and the most painful
and ignominious deaths; the most eminent and particular of whom we shall
enumerate.
Saturninus, a priest of Albitina, a town of Africa, after being
tortured, was remanded to prison, and there starved to death. His four
children, after being variously tormented, shared the same fate with
their father.
Dativas, a noble Roman senator; Thelico, a pious Christian, Victoria, a
young lady of considerable family and fortune, with some others of less
consideration, all auditors of Saturninus, were tortured in a similar
manner, and perished by the same means.
Agrape, Chioma, and Irene, three sisters, were seized upon at
Thessalonica, when Diocletian's persecution reached Greece. They were
burnt, and received the crown of martyrdom in the flames, March 25, A.
D. 304. The governor, finding that he could make no impression on Irene,
ordered her to be exposed naked in the streets, which shameful order
having been executed, she was burnt, April 1, A. D. 304, at the same
place where her sisters suffered.
Agatho, a man of a pious turn of mind, with Cassice, Phillippa, and
Eutychia, were martyred about the same time; but the particulars have
not been transmitted to us.
Marcellinus, bishop of Rome, who succeeded Caius in that see, having
strongly opposed paying divine honours to Diocletian, suffered
martyrdom, by a variety of tortures, in the year 321, comforting his
soul till he expired with the prospect of those glorious rewards it
would receive by the tortures suffered in the body.
Victorius, Carpophorus, Severus, and Severianus, were brothers, and all
four employed in places of great trust and honour in the city of Rome.
Having exclaimed against the worship of idols, they were apprehended,
and scourged, with the plumbetae, or scourges, to the ends of which were
fastened leaden balls. This punishment was exercised with such excess of
cruelty, that the pious brothers fell martyrs to its severity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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