African Martyrs Liberatus the Physician With His Wife and Two Sons and Another Boy and Crescentius the Priest

CONCERNING THE HOLY AFRICAN MARTYRS LIBERATUS THE PHYSICIAN WITH HIS WIFE AND TWO SONS AND ANOTHER BOY AND CRESCENTIUS THE PRIEST.

AROUND A.D. 484.

Liberatus the Physician, his wife and two sons, Martyrs in Africa (SS.)

Another boy, Martyr in Africa (S.)

Crescentius the Priest, Martyr in Africa (S.)

[1] Maurolycus in his Martyrology adds these to the preceding Martyrs as having suffered in the same persecution under King Huneric: "Likewise," he says, "the passion of S. Liberatus the physician with his wife in Africa, slaughtered under the Arians, and of their two sons and another seven-year-old boy drowned in the deep, Names in various Martyrologies, and also of Crescentius the Priest, who wasted away enclosed in a cave of the mountain near the city of Turzetana." Felicius has the same, but calls the city Zurzatana, below Misentina and Miritana. Galesinius begins this day with them thus: "The tenth day before the Kalends of April. In Africa, of the holy Martyrs Liberatus the physician and his wife and sons." Ferrarius, following Galesinius, also placed them first in his General Catalogue. They are also included in the second edition of the German Martyrology. Richard Whitford in his Martyrology, published in English in 1526 at London, adds not only all those here reported, but also twelve other boys who suffered many things at that time. Peter de Natalibus preceded them, who in book 3, chapter 221, treats of these twelve boys, and in the following chapter of the others, and adds that their passion is observed on the tenth day before the Kalends of April. Their contest was described by the eyewitness Victor of Utica or Vita, in the same book 3 of the Vandal Persecution, from which we also give their Acts.

[2] "With such violence, before our eyes, there at Carthage, the son of a certain nobleman, about seven years old, was by order of Cyrilla separated from his parents, while his mother, with wanton disregard for matronly modesty, with loosened hair ran after the abductors through the whole city, the little child crying out as he could: 'I am a Christian, I am a Christian, I am a Christian.' And stopping his mouth, they plunged the innocent infant into their pool. In like manner it is proved that the same was done to the sons of the venerable physician Liberatus. For when by the King's command he was ordered to be sent into exile with his wife and children, the Arian impiety devised to separate the little sons from their parents, Events related by Victor, so that through the affection of parental love, they might also overthrow the virtue of the parents. The tender pledges of their sons were torn from their parents: and when Liberatus wished to shed tears, he was rebuked by his wife's authority, and at the very point of his departure his tears were immediately dried. For his wife said to him: 'Are you, Liberatus, going to lose your soul on account of your children? Reckon them as never having been born: for Christ himself will surely vindicate them. Do you not see them crying out and saying, "We are Christians"?' But what this woman did before the judges must not be passed over in silence. For when she and her husband, although separately, were held in prison custody, so that they did not see each other at all, the woman was given a message and told: 'Lay aside now your stubbornness: behold, your husband has obeyed the King's command and has become our kind of Christian.' And she said: 'Let me see him, and I shall do what God wills.' Therefore, brought out of prison, she found her husband standing with a great multitude, bound before the tribunal: and thinking true what the enemies had invented, she seized the hem of his garment near his throat with her hand and strangled him in the sight of all, saying: 'You wretch and reprobate, unworthy of the grace and mercy of God, why did you wish to glory for a moment and perish forever? What good will gold do you? What good silver? Will they deliver you from the furnace of hell?' She said many other things. Her husband answered: 'What is the matter, woman? What seems right to you? Or what have you perhaps been able to hear about me? I, in the name of Christ, remain a Catholic, nor can I ever lose what I hold.' Then the heretics, conscious and exposed in their lie, were utterly unable to disguise their deceit. And because we briefly mentioned above the violence of their savagery, many, fearing it, some in caves, others in desert places -- men or women, with no one aware of them -- shut themselves away: and there, with no sustaining food coming to their aid, overcome by hunger or cold, they breathed out their crushed and afflicted spirits; amid these trials of affliction, carrying with them the security of unviolated faith. For thus Crescentius the Priest of the city of Mizentina was found in a cave of Mount Ziquensis, already decomposed, his corpse dissolving."

[3] Concerning the twelve boys, Victor writes: "At the suggestion of a certain apostate Lector named Teutheric, whom he knew as vigorous singers and apt for musical melodies, he says that by his designation twelve little children should be separated, as also of the other twelve boys, whom he, while still a Catholic, had then had as disciples. Immediately at his suggestion, men were sent in haste, and by the force of barbarian fury the group of twelve boys was recalled from their journey. They were separated in body, not in spirit, from the flock of the Saints: who, fearing the precipice, with sighing tears, clung to the knees of their companions with their hands so as not to be torn away; but heretical violence, separating them with threatening swords, recalled them to Carthage. But when they were dealt with not by blandishments, as one might with such an age, they were found superior to their years, and lest they should fall asleep in death, they lit for themselves the lamp of the Gospel light. The Arians were gravely indignant at this and ashamed to be overcome by boys. Whence, inflamed, they ordered them to be subjected to the rod, whom they had already scattered with various beatings just a few days earlier. Wounds were pressed upon wounds, and the restored punishment raged anew. It happened, with the Lord strengthening them, that neither did the younger age fail in its suffering, and the spirit grew ever stronger, fortified in faith. These Carthage now venerates with wondrous affection, and beholds the choir of boys as if it were the twelve Apostles. They live together, eat together, sing psalms together, and glory together in the Lord." So Victor. Yet these twelve boys, because their death is not certain, and therefore they are not mentioned by Maurolycus, Felicius, Canisius, and others, we have omitted from the title: but since they are reported by Peter de Natalibus and Whitford, we have appended their Acts to the others.

*Alternatively: Cyrilli. *Alternatively: Miritanae. *Alternatively: Quisensis.