In his Latin treatise Praising the Saints, Victricius of Rouen lists a number of unnamed martyrs, possibly including Porphyrius, a companion of *Pamphilus (martyr of Caesarea in Palestine, S00240), *Isaiah (Old Testament prophet, S00282), *Perpetua (martyr of Carthage, S00009), and *Alban/Albanus (martyr of Verulamium, Britain, S01364). Written c. 396 in Rouen (northern Gaul).
Evidence ID
E08583
Type of Evidence
Literary - Sermons/Homilies
Literary - Theological works
Major author/Major anonymous work
Victricius of Rouen
Victricius of Rouen, Praising the the Saints 12
Nullus sit, carissimi fratres, dies, quo non his fabulis moremur. Ille martyr sub tortore non impalluit, ille percussoris moras festinatione praecessit, ille flammas avidus bibit; ille sectus est, sed integer stetit, ille felicem se dixit, cui contigit cruciari; ille inter manus carnificum, ne qua mora fieret properanti iussit redire fluminibus. Illa patris lacrimas doluit, ut filia, contempsit ut martyr; illa irritatione iram leonis mortis avida concitavit; illa ieiunante filio feris ubera plena porrexit; illa virgo monilia aeternitatis ornamenta percussori colla subiecit. Millia sunt, carissimi fratres, exempla virtutum, quae pagina sancta commemorat.
'Let there be no day, dearest brothers, when we do not linger over these stories. This martyr was not afraid under torture; this one hurried to anticipate the delays of the executioner; this one greedily drank in the flames; this one was cut to pieces, but stood intact; this one said he was fortunate because it was his lot to be crucified; this one, in the hands of the executioners, told rivers to draw back, lest he should be delayed in his haste. This one grieved for her father's tears as a daughter, but despised them as a martyr; this one, eager for death, provoked a lion to anger against her; this one, while her child went hungry, offered full breasts to the wild beasts; this virgin submitted to the executioner a neck adorned with the necklace of eternity. There are thousands of examples of virtue, dearest brothers, recorded in the holy pages.'
Text: Demeulenaere and Mulders 1985, 92
Translation: Clark 1999, 398-9.
Non Liturgical ActivityOral transmission of saint-related stories
Oral transmission of saint-related stories
Transmission, copying and reading saint-related texts
Source
In Praise of the Saints was composed by Victricius, bishop of Rouen (Rotomagus) in Gaul as an expanded version of his homily, delivered on the occasion of the arrival of relics of saints to Rouen. The relics were sent to Victricius by Ambrose, bishop of Milan, and the treatise was most probably written immediately after their festal reception, and given to the envoys, who took it back to Milan (Clark 1999, 365-366). The date of composition can be established firmly: the homily was delivered after the invention of the body of Nazarius in Milan on 28 July 395 (E00905; E02034), and before the death of Ambrose on 4 April 397. Bishop Ambrose discovered in Milan bodies of several saints and sent their relics to other bishops in Italy and Gaul. As suggested in § 6 of the treatise, the reception commemorated by Victricius was almost certainly the second occasion on which relics of saints were transferred from Milan to Rouen. The text deals mostly with the theology of relics, with some references to the event itself. The theological argument is sometimes difficult to comprehend.On the text see Demeulenaere and Mulders 1985, 55-63; Clark 1999; Wiśniewski 2010, 28-33.
(Marta Tycner)
Discussion
This passage, in which Victricius alludes to the stories of ten martyrs, six male and four female, without naming them, occurs towards the end of In Praise of the Saints. While one or two of Victricius' references are unspecific – 'this martyr was not afraid under torture' could obviously apply to innumerable martyrdom narratives – most provide sufficient detail to make their subjects seemingly identifiable, especially when one considers that Victricius can only be referring to martyrs who were known in Gaul by the relatively early date (c. 396) at which he wrote. In spite of this, most are surprisingly difficult to identify: out of ten martyrs mentioned, only three are identified by the editors of the standard edition of Victricius (Mulders and Demeulenaere 1985, 92), and one other by his English translator (Clark 1999, 399, n. 169). A relevant fact to bear in mind is that in Praising the Saints Victricius refers to several named martyrs who are otherwise unattested (see E00723), and it is quite possible that some of them are among those he alludes to in this passage.Gillian Clark observes of the martyr who 'grieved for her father's tears as a daughter, but despised them as a martyr' that she 'sounds like Perpetua' (S00009; see E01666), a reasonable identification given the considerations outlined above: Perpetua was one of the best known martyrs at the time when Victricius wrote.
Demeulenaere and Mulders make three identifications: of the martyr who 'greedily drank in the flames' as Porphyrius of Caesarea in Palestine, who is mentioned in Eusebius' Martyrs of Palestine as one of the companions of the prominent theologian and martyr Pamphilus (S00240); of the one who was 'cut to pieces, but stood intact' as the prophet Isaiah (S00282); and of the one who 'in the hands of the executioners, told rivers to draw back, lest he should be delayed in his haste' as the British martyr Alban (S01364).
Porphyrius is mentioned by Eusebius (E00391) as a member of the household of Pamphilus (S00140) who was arrested and burned alive after publicly objecting to the death sentence passed against Pamphilus (Mart. Pal. 11.19), and was so eager for martyrdom that when fire was kindled around him 'he drew in the flame with his mouth from this side and from that, to speed his steps upon the journey that lay before him' (trans. Lawlor and Oulton 1927, 389). This seems a plausible fit for Victricius' words, but the identification raises a number of problems: the only known text in which Porphyrius is mentioned is Eusebius' Martyrs of Palestine, and it is not at all clear that this was known in the Latin West when Victricius wrote (even Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History had not then been translated into Latin). Porphyrius is also one of very many martyrs mentioned in Eusebius' work: he receives no particular emphasis in the work as a whole and appears to have had no cult even in the Greek or Syriac world. It is thus unclear how Victricius would have been aware of him, let alone have alluded to him as a figure familiar enough for his audience to 'linger over'. This identification therefore seems unlikely.
In the case of the prophet Isaiah, there was a – post-biblical – tradition that he had been martyred by being sawn vertically in half. As well as being mentioned by Prudentius (E00884), this is described in Potamius of Lisbon's On the Martyrdom of the Prophet Isaiah (De martyrio Esaiae prophetae), a work which predates Victricius. Potamius claims that Isaiah remained standing until the executioners had completely separated the two halves of his body, which corresponds to Victricius' reference to someone who was 'cut to pieces but stood intact'. This identification is therefore plausible.
The item in Victricius' list that has attracted the most scholarly attention is his reference to a martyr who 'in the hands of the executioners, told rivers to draw back, lest he should be delayed in his haste'. This has long been taken as a reference to Alban, since his Martyrdom (E07536) describes a river miraculously drawing back to allow him to pass across it on his way to execution (Martyrdom of Alban 3 and 7). In addition, Victricius mentions in Praising the Saints (§ 1) that he had recently visited Britain, so he had an opportunity to encounter Alban's cult even if it was not yet widely known. If this reference is accepted as being to Alban, then it is the earliest surviving evidence of him or of his cult, whose next datable attestation is in the Life of Germanus of Auxerre (E05846), composed sometime between about 450 and 480.
Bibliography
Edition:Demeulenaere, R., and Mulders, J., Foebadius, Victricius, Leporius, Vincentius Lerinensis, Evagrius, Ruricius (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 64; Turnhout: Brepols, 1985), 69-93.
English translation with introduction:
Clark, G., "Victricius of Rouen: Praising the Saints," Journal of Early Christian Studies 7:3 (1999), 365-399.
Polish translation with introduction:
Wiśniewski, R., Poczatki kultu relikwii na Zachodzie (Akme. Zrodla starozytne; Warszawa, 2010).
Further reading:
Clark, G., "Translating relics: Victricius of Rouen and fourth‐century debate," Early Medieval Europe 10:2 (2001), 161-176.
Lawlor, H.J, and Oulton, J.E.L., Eusebius Bishop of Caesarea, The Ecclesiastical History and the Martyrs of Palestine. 2 vols. (London: SPCK, 1927-28).
Potamius of Lisbon, De martyrio Esaiae prophetae, ed. M. Conti (with facing English translation), in: Potamii episcopi Olisponensis opera omnia (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 69A; Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), 197-203.
Record Created By
David Lambert
Date of Entry
24/03/2026
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00009 | Perpetua, Felicitas and their companions, martyrs of Carthage | Uncertain | S00140 | Pamphilos, martyr of Caesarea in Palestine, and companions | Uncertain | S00282 | Isaiah, Old Testament prophet | Uncertain | S01364 | Albanus/Alban, martyr of Verulamium (Britain) | Uncertain |
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