The Latin Martyrdom of *Typasius (martyr of Tigava, S02925) recounts the story of a soldier who abandons the army for a Christian life and is initially favoured by the emperor Maximian, but eventually martyred in Tigava (Mauretania Caesariensis, western North Africa); after his death, fragments of his shield cure the sick. Written in North Africa, probably at the beginning of the 5th c.
E08153
Literary - Hagiographical - Accounts of martyrdom
Martyrdom of Typasius
I. 1. The general political situation of the Roman Empire in the times of Diocletian is described. The emperor Maximianus was sent by Diocletian to Mauretania Sitifensis to raise soldiers against the Berbers.
2. Typasius had been a soldier, but he abandoned the army to consecrate himself totally to the Christian life. However, he was forced again into active service. On the day before battle the emperor Maximianus wished to make a donative to the soldiers. Before it happened, the angel Gabriel appeared to Typasius and described to him what was going to happen.
3. On the next day, Typasius declined to accept the gold from Maximianus, and declared himself to be a soldier of Christ. He promised the emperor that if he was allowed to serve Christ, the imperial armies would overwhelm their enemies in forty days on all fronts. Maximianus put Typasius under guard.
4. On the next day, the Berbers were routed by Maximianus, and within forty Roman victories were reported from all provinces where wars were waged. The emperor Maximianus gave Typasius an honourable discharge from the army. Typasius returned home and built a monastery for himself on his land.
II. 1. After some years, Maximianus forgot the divine favours granted to him and sent to Africa the edict ordering the persecution of Christians. Typasius was conducted before Claudius, the dux of Mauretania Caesariensis.
2-4. Claudius ordered Typasius to take back his arms and to sacrifice to the gods. Typasius refused to both. Claudius made the soldiers put the military belt on Typasius and place a spear in his hands, but both were immediately torn into pieces. Typasius was then imprisoned.
III. 1. Post aliquot autem tempore dum per ciuitates in conuentum pergeret, Claudius comes in itinere secutus est sanctum Typasium et mirabatur quod per tantum tempus positus in custodia non fuisset aut squalore aut inedia maceratus. Subito eius strator a diabolo correptus de equo cecidit et spumans grauiter uexabatur. Cum autem fugerent uniuersi, sanctus Typasius occurrit et ei signum Saluatoris nostri in fronte salutari digno posuit. Continuo strator liberatus surrexit et genua sancto Typasio coepit osculari. Et ex illo die Claudius comes semper illi de conuiuio suo escas copiosissimas dirigebat. Quas sanctus Typasius dum acciperet, non comedebat sed omnia pauperibus erogabat.
‘Some time afterwards, while the comes Claudius was travelling around the towns for the assizes, he accompanied saint Typasius on the journey, and was amazed that although he had been kept in custody for so long he was unmarked by the starvation or squalor. Suddenly the strator [esquire] of Claudius, seized by the devil, fell from his horse, and began violently shaking and foaming at the mouth. When all fled him, holy Typasius ran up to him and made the sign of the cross with his saving finger upon his forehead; and the strator was immediately freed from the devil, got up, and began to kiss the knees of holy Typasius. And from that day onward the comes Claudius always sent to him from his table the choicest food. When saint Typasius received this, he did not gorge himself, but gave it all to the poor.’
2-4. During a public assembly, Typasius was the only one not to offer a sacrifice of incense. A disturbance arose among the soldiers, and some officers insisted to Claudius that he force Typasius to sacrifice. Claudius tried to convince Typasius to do it, but when he repeatedly refused, he condemned him to death.
5-6. Typasius was beheaded.
Et super ipsum tumulum posuerunt eius scutum; de quo scuto uniuersi christiani minuta fragmina abscindentes pro sua fide rapiebant et languentibus et parliticis et demoniacis et omnibus male habentibus superponentes curati sunt.
Tunc Doncius praepositus et Lucius decurio, qui fuerunt in morte Typasii seditionis auctores, dum starent ante Claudium ducem, subito solutis omnium membrorum neruis ruptisque uisceribus atque oculis amissis, incensi febribus et tormentis exspirauuerunt ita ut omnes populi eorum exsecrarentur interitum etuniuersi declamarent sanctum martyrem Typasium diuino arbitro fuisse defensum.
‘And above his burial mound they placed his shield. According to their religiosity, all the Christians used to break off and take small fragments from this shield, and when these were applied to the weak, the paralytic, the possessed, and all who were suffering, they were cured. Then the praepositus Doncius and the decurio Lucius, who had been the causes of the disturbance which had resulted in the death of the martyr Typasius, while they were standing before the dux Claudius, suddenly burned with fever and pain. They lost control of their limbs, their bowels burst, their eyes fell out, and they died. This happened so that all peoples might curse their death, and cry out that the holy martyr Typasius had been defended by divine retribution.’
IV. 1. The demise of the rule of Diocletian and Maximianus is described, caused by the will of Jesus Christ to avenge 'the churches and the martyrs'.
2-3. The execution of Maximianus by Constantine is described:
… profugit Massiliaeque oppressus causa Constantini iussu est peremptus ut de omnibus sanctus martyr Typasius doceatur de iudicio uindicatus.
Tertio iduum ianuariarum requieuit in pace. In cuius defensione semper adfuit Deus et Iesus Christus Filius et Spiritus Sanctus cui est honor et gloria, uirtus et potestas in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
‘…and Maximian fled to Marseilles where he was caught. He was executed at the command of Constantine for this reason, that all might learn from this punishment of the vindication of the holy martyr Typasius.
Typasius died on 11 January. At his defence were present God, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Theirs is honour and glory, power and strength for ever and ever. Amen.’
Text: Juri Leoni 2020
Translation: David Woods (https://www.ucc.ie/archive/milmart/Typasius.html)
Summary: Stanisław Adamiak
Saint’s feast
Cult PlacesBurial site of a saint - tomb/grave
MiraclesMiracle during lifetime
Miracle after death
Punishing miracle
Healing diseases and disabilities
Apparition, vision, dream, revelation
Miraculous protection - of communities, towns, armies
Miraculous interventions in war
Exorcism
RelicsContact relic - saint’s possession and clothes
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesSoldiers
Officials
Source
The text has been preserved in a single manuscript from the 13th century, which also contains the Martyrdom of Cassianus (E08056)De Smedt considered the text as a generally authentic account of the martyrdom, written soon after the event. Paul Monceaux had already some doubts about it, and modern scholars consider the account to be written at the end of the 4th century or the beginning of the 5th century. A reliance on Eutropius (see below) provides a terminus post quem for the redaction of the text of 369/70, and the probable influence of the Life of Martin moves it to after 396. It is argued by Juri Leoni that the text could not have been written in this form at the time of the Berber incursions after 417, when Augustine exhorted the Count Bonifatius not to abandon the military for the monastic life. More safely, the Vandal invasion of 429 should be considered as the most probable terminus ante quem.
Discussion
The historical details of the Martyrdom are taken from the Breviarium of Eutropius (the dependence is described in detail by Woods 1993). More complicated is the relation between the Martyrdom of Typasius and the Life of Martin (E00692). The similarities are clear: abandonment of a military career, a period of monastic life, refusal to accept the donative from the hands of the emperor. However, the direct influence of one text on the other, and the direction of this influence, cannot be taken for granted unconditionally. However, the dependence of our text on the Life of Martin is the majoritarian opinion, as expressed by Sabine Fialon.Several elements indicate that the text was not written at the time of the events described in it. In no other sources is there a trace of evidence for the recall of veterans related to the Diocletianic persecutions. The “monastic” period of the life of Typasius refers to the development of this form of life in the West in the final decades of the 4th century. Finally, the general tenor of the text is not hostile to the emperors, or to the army as such. This again moves us to the times of the Christian empire, and allows Alan Dearn to propose that the text was used by the Catholics in their polemic against the Donatists, who used the anti-imperial aspects of the acts of martyrdom to underpin their opposition to the pro-Catholic authorities.
The place of martyrdom is mentioned in the title of the text, as preserved in the lone mansucript: “Ticabis”, that is Tigava in Mauretania (Caesariensis to the year 293, and thereafter Sitifiensis), modern El Kherba in Algeria.
Typasius is not mentioned by any other source, apart from an inscription from Oppidium Novum (current Ain Delfa), not a long way from Tigava (E08154), which enumerates several saints, among them one named Typasius; his identification with the protagonist of this account remains, however, uncertain.
Bibliography
Editions:De Smedt, C., "Passiones tres martyrum Africanorum: ss. Maximae, Donatillae et Secundae, s. Typasii veterani et s. Fabii vexilleferi," Analecta Bollandiana 9 (1890), 107-134.
Leoni, J. (ed.), Mattei, P. (trans.), Actes et passions des martyrs militaires africains (Sources Chrétiennes 609; Paris: Éditions du Cerf 2020), 254-275.
Further reading:
Dearn, A., "The Passio s. Typasii veterani as a Catholic construction of the Past," Vigiliae Christianae 55:1 (2001), 86-98.
Fialon, S., Mens immobilis. Recherches sur le corpus latin des actes et des passions d'Afrique romaine (IIe-VIe siècles) (Collection des Études Augustiniennes. Série Antiquité 203; Paris: Institut d'Études Augustiniennes, 2018), 84-90.103-106.
Monceaux, P., "Étude critique sur la Passio Tipasii Veterani," Revue Archéologique 4:4 (1904), 267-274.
Scorza Barcellona, D., "Per una lettura della Passio Typasii veterani," Augustinianum 35:2 (1995), 797-814.
Woods, D., "A Historical Source of the Passio Typasii," Vigiliae Christianae 47:1 (1993), 78-84.
Stanisław Adamiak
02/08/2021
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S02925 | Typasius, martyr of Tigava | Typasius | Certain |
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Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Stanisław Adamiak, Cult of Saints, E08153 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E08153