St. Liberatus, Abbot, and Six Monks, Martyrs


HENERIC, the Arian Vandal king in Africa, in the seventh year of his reign, published fresh edicts against the Catholics, and ordered their monasteries to be every where demolished. Seven monks who lived in a monastery near Capsa, in the province of Byzacena, were at that time summoned to Carthage. Their names were Liberatus the Abbot, Boniface deacon, Servus and Rusticus subdeacons, Rogatus Septimus, and Maximus, monks. They were first tempted with great promises; but answered, “One faith, one Lord, and one baptism. As to our bodies, do with them what you please, and keep to yourselves those riches which you promise us, and which will shortly perish.” As they remained constant in the belief of the Trinity, and of one baptism, they were loaded with irons, and thrown into a dark dungeon. The faithful having bribed the guards, visited them day and night, to be instructed by them, and mutually to encourage one another to suffer for the faith of Christ. The king being informed of this, commanded them to be more closely confined, loaded with heavier irons, and tortured with inventions of cruelty which had never been heard of till that time. Soon after, he condemned them to be put into an old ship, and burnt at sea. The martyrs walked cheerfully to the shore, contemning the insults of the Arians as they passed along. Particular endeavours were used by the persecutors to gain Maximus, who was very young; but God, who makes the tongues of children eloquent to praise his name, gave him strength to withstand all their efforts, and he boldly told them, that they should never be able to separate him from his holy abbot and brethren, with whom he had borne the labours of a penitential life for the sake of everlasting glory. An old vessel was filled with dry sticks, and the seven martyrs were put on board and bound on the wood; and fire was put to it several times, but it went out immediately, and all endeavours to kindle it were in vain. The tyrant, in rage and confusion, gave orders that the martyrs’ brains should be dashed out with oars; which was done, and their bodies were cast into the sea, which, contrary to what was usual on that coast, threw them all on the shore. The Catholics interred them honourably with solemn singing, in the monastery of Bigua, near the church of St. Celerinus. They suffered in the year 483. See their authentic acts, published by Ruinart, at the end of his edition of Victor Vitensis’s History of the Vandalic Persecution.	1

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