DIOSCORUS, Saint, Martyr. - Son of a Christian lector of Cynopolis (Upper Egypt) and a tax collector, he was arrested by the curator of the city, and having refused to sacrifice to the gods and to hand over the sacred books, he was sent to Alexandria. There the Roman prefect Culcianus kept him in prison for a long time; then, having summoned him to trial and seeing him steadfast in the Christian faith, he inflicted various tortures on him three times, to which he showed himself insensible through an ecstatic rapture, and finally he had him beheaded (305 or 306). During the tortures he did nothing but pray to obtain the conversion of his executioners. Thus the Passio. Feast, among the Latins, on 18 May; among the Greeks, on 15 October.

The cult of D. has nothing to do with the pagan cult of the two Dioscuri, because his Passio (not later than the first years of the 6th century) is reliable in its fundamental outline.

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: Acta SS. Aloii, IV, Venice 1740, p. 145; H. Delehaye, Castor et Polluce dans les légendes hagiographiques, in Anal. holland., 23 (1904), pp. 427-32; H. Quentin, Passio s. Dioscuri, ibid., 24 (1905), pp. 333-44; F. I. Dölger, IXVIX, I, 3rd ed., Münster 1928, p. 145 ff.; P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, Gervasio e Protasio sono una imitazione di Castore e Polluce?, in Nuovo bull. di arch. crist., 9 (1903), pp. 109-26.

Celestino Testore

@incollection{ec4_dioscoro_santo_martire, author = {Testore, Celestino}, title = {Dioscoro, santo, martire}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {IV}, pages = {1679--1680}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/dioscoro-santo-martire} }

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Dioscorus, Saint, Martyr

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