Victor of Vita, in his History of the Vandal Persecution (3.14), recounts how a boy of Carthage (central North Africa), baptised into the Nicene Church, resisted an Arian attempt to re-baptise him, invoking the name of *Stephen (the First Martyr, S00030). Written in Latin, probably in Carthage, 484/489.
E01981
Literary - Other narrative texts (including Histories)
Victor of Vita, History of the Vandal Persecution
Victor of Vita, Book III.49:
Tali uiolentia, nobis uidentibus, ibi Carthagine filius cuiusdam nobilis annorum circiter septem iussu Cyrilae a parentibus separatus est, matre sine uerecundia matronali solutis crinibus post raptores tota urbe currente, infantulo clamante, ut poterat: "Christianus sum, Christianus sum, per sanctum Stephanum Christianus sum". Cui et os opturantes insontem infantiam in suum gurgitem demerserunt.
'I was looking on when a noble man's son, about seven years old, was separated from his parents here at Carthage with violence of the same kind, on the orders of Cyrila. His mother, laying aside womanly modesty, let down her hair and ran after the abductors through the whole city, while the little child cried out as best as he could: "I am a Christian! I am a Christian! By St Stephen, I am a Christian!" But they closed his mouth and plunged him, guiltless child that he was into their whirlpool.
Text: Lancel 2002, 200-201.
Translation: Moorhead 1992, 84.
Prayer/supplication/invocation
Saint as patron - of an individual
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesChildren
Foreigners (including Barbarians)
Source
Victor was probably a presbyter at Carthage when he wrote the History of the Vandal Persecution, in 484 or shortly thereafter; he was certainly a churchman and he was very well informed of events and documents in the provincial capital.His work gives an account of the Vandal invasion of Africa (429-39) under king Geiseric, but focuses primarily on the sufferings of the Nicene church in Africa during the reign of Huneric (477-84). Victor was an eyewitness of some of the events which he describes (e.g. E01981).
The work is dedicated to an unnamed churchman, probably Bishop Eugenius of Carthage, who features prominently (and very favourably) in the work, even effecting, with due humility, the cure of a man's blindness (E08294, 2.47-51).
Victor names many martyrs and confessors who died or suffered under Vandal persecution. For a few of these, there is evidence from other sources that some cult developed around them, and these we have treated as individual 'saints': Eugenius of Carthage (S00034); Laetus, bishop and martyr of Nepte (S02837); Seven monastic brothers martyred at Carthage (S02936); and some confessors who had their tongues cut out but were still able to speak (S01481). The other martyrs and confessors we have grouped together on three evidence cards, covering: the reign of Geiseric (E08293; S03007); the reign of Huneric before 484 (E08294; S03008): and the persecution of 484 (E08295; S03009).
Discussion
It is not clear whether the boy invokes *Stephen as his patron saint or as a witness of his baptism.Bibliography
Editions:Lancel, S. (ed.), Histoire de la persécution vandale en Afrique suivie de la passion des sept martyrs et du Registre des provinces et des cités d'Afrique (Paris: Belle Lettres, 2002).
Petschenig, M. (ed.), Victoris episcopi Vitensis Historia persecutionis Africanae provinciae (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 7; Wien 1881).
Halm, K. (ed.), Victor Vitensis. Historia persecutionis Africanae Provinciae (Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Auctores antiquissimi 3,1; Hanover 1879), 1-58.
Translation:
Moorhead, J. (trans.), Victor of Vita: History of Vandal Persecution (Translated Texts for Historians 10; Liverpool: Liverpool Univeristy Press, 1992).
Robert Wiśniewski
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00030 | Stephen, the First Martyr | Stephanus | Certain |
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Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Robert Wiśniewski, Cult of Saints, E01981 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E01981