The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity

Victor of Vita, History of the Vandal Persecution, Book 1:

Summary:

Book 1 of Victor's work tells of the Vandals' crossing into Africa (in 429) under King Geiseric, the conquest that followed (culminating in the fall of Carthage in 439), and Geiseric's consolidation of power. It closes with the king's death in 477. There are in Victor's account plenty of horrors perpetrated by the Vandals, but in this book they are largely attributed to material greed, rather than religious antagonism.

There are, however, some instances, particularly towards the end of the book, in which Victor attributes Vandal brutality to their 'Arian' antagonism towards the native Catholics:

1.10. Bishops Pampinianus of Vita (in Byzacena) and Mansuetus of Urusi (in Proconsularis) are both burned with hot irons. [A case in which it is not clear whether this was just to extract wealth or whether it also had a religious element to it.]

1.19-21. Victor tells how Geiseric attempted to get the comes Sebastianus [for whom see PLRE III, 983-4, 'Sebastianus 3'] to adopt Arian beliefs and accept rebaptism, which he steadfastly refused, and how he later had him killed. [This, however, is not attributed to religious antagonism.]

1.24-27. After the Vandal sack of Rome [in 455] the bishop of Carthage, Deogratias, ministered tirelessly to the captives who had been brought to Carthage. (27) The Vandals frequently wished to kill him (voluerunt saepius enecare), but God spared him this fate by granting him a peaceful (if early) death. Victor then describes his burial: 'Moved by their love and desire for him, the people would have snatched the limbs of the worthy body had he not, by sensible counsel, been taken and buried before the multitude knew of his death (Cuius amore et desiderio populus attentus potuerat membra digni corporis rapere, nisi consilio prudenti, dum auocatur, nesciente multitudine sepeliretur).

1.28. Thoma, an administrator (ordinator) who had served Deogratias, is flogged by the Vandals but takes pride in the fact [it is not clear from Victor's account whether this was for religious reasons].

1.30-38. 'Many martyrdoms are known to have occurred, and there was a huge and multiple throng of confessors; from which I will attempt to narrate some accounts' (Sed etiam martyria quam plurima esse probantur, confessorum autem ingens et plurima multitudo; ex quibus aliqua narrare temptabo). Victor then tells the story of two slaves, Maxima and Martinianus, whom their master compelled to marry. Maxima persuaded Martinianus that they should live chastely, they persuaded Martinianus' brothers to do likewise, and they all fled and joined monasteries. (33) They were then hunted down by their master and cruelly beaten. (34) However 'while the blood flowed and their flesh was stripped to reveal their inner organs, on the following day, healed by Christ, they were always restored unharmed' (dum sanguis effluerat et dissipatis carnibus uiscera nudarentur, sequenti die Christo medente semper incolumes reddebantur). Maxima in particular was miraculously cured of terrible injuries, as Victor himself heard recounted on oath by the man who had guarded her in custody. Their Vandal master, who had ordered these beatings, died along with his children and the best of his animals. The male slaves were given to a pagan king of the Moors and exiled to live under his rule, but Maxima was freed (and lives on, known in person to Victor). (36) The exiled slaves managed to convert their Moorish masters, received a priest from Roman territory, and built a church. Geiseric, hearing of this, ordered that they be killed one by one by being dragged along the ground by four horses. (38) As each one died, they thanked God for granting them this access to heaven. Great miracles (ingentia mirabilia) happen in that place: 'For the late and blessed Faustus, bishop of Buruni, told us that in his very presence a blind woman had been given back her sight' (Nam nobis beatus quondam Faustus, Burunitanus episcopus, attestatus est caecam quandam mulierem inluminatam fuisse, ubi ipse erat praesens).

1.43-46. Victor recounts the suffering of Armogas, a man at Geiseric's court. He was tortured by having strings tightened round him, but they always miraculously broke, and by being suspended upside-down by one foot, but, even in this condition, 'he was seen by all to be sleeping as if on a feather bed' (dormire quasi super lectum plumis stratum omnibus uidebatur). (44) His master, Theoderic (Geiseric's son) wanted to behead him but was dissuaded by an Arian priest from doing this, lest 'the Romans begin to proclaim him a martyr' (incipient eum Romani martyrem praedicare). Instead he was sent to dig ditches for vineyards and later to serve as a cowherd. Foreseeing his death, Armogas asked to be buried under a specific tree. (46) When his grave was dug there, a magnificent marble sarcophagus was revealed ready to take the body.

1.47. Geiseric first cajoled and then threatened the chief mime-artist (archimimus) Mascula with death, to persuade him to convert. But because he expressed no fear (and therefore might have been praised as a martyr), he was spared death, being nonetheless a confessor.

1.48-50. Saturus, the procurator of Geiseric's son Huneric, was threatened that, if he did not convert, his position, all his wealth, and his wife and children would be taken away - she to be married to a camel driver. Saturus' wife, like 'another Eve' (alia Eva), tried to spare them all this fate by persuading Saturus to convert; but he held hard, losing everything but preserving his faith.


Text: Lancel 2002.
Summary and translation: Bryan Ward-Perkins.

Miracle at martyrdom and death
Miracle after death
Healing diseases and disabilities
Miracles experienced by the saint

Slaves/ servants
Ecclesiastics - bishops

Source

Discussion

Bibliography