CARPUS, PAPYLUS, and AGATHONICE, SS. — Martyred at Pergamum (Asia Minor), probably during the persecution of Decius (250–51). The acts of their interrogation and death are authentic: C. was bishop and P. deacon. After the regular interrogation they were suspended from a stake and burned alive. Immediately afterward the Christian A. was judged and executed in the same manner. Their feast is on 13 April.
BIBL.: P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, Di una nuova recensione del martirio dei s. C., P. e A., in Note agiografiche, fasc. VI (Studi e Testi, 33), Roma 1920, pp. 3–45; H. Delchaye, Les Passions des martyrs et les genres littéraires, Bruxelles 1921, pp. 136–41, 414–23 (the author was still unaware of P. Franchi’s study); Martyr. Romanum, p. 137. The texts of the Latin and Greek recensions of the acts in R. Knopf, Ausgewählte Märtyrerakten, 3rd ed., Tübingen 1929, pp. 5–13.