DE LAUDE MARTYRII. - A rhetorical panegyric (according to Dupin, a school exercise) in honour of martyrdom.
The work already appears in the list of writings of Cipriano (Cheltenham list) and was attributed to s. Cipriano by Lucifero di Cagliari, but it cannot be his work, nor that of Novaziano, as Harnack maintained, but rather of an unknown author in Africa, who knew the writings of Cipriano and who, in view of an approaching great epidemic, believed that the end of the world was near. According to U. Koch it was written around 253.
D'alcuni nuovi sussidi, ecc., in Opere minori, II (Studi e Testi, 77), Città del Vaticano 1937, p. 156 ff.; H. Koch, Cyprianische Untersuchungen (H. Lietzmann-Holl, Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte, 4), Bonn 1926, p. 334 ff.; id., ibid., p. 354 ff., also against A. d'Alès, who wished to attribute the work to the deacon Ponzio. Erik Peterson