MAMA, saint, martyr. - Greatly venerated in the ancient Christian East and commemorated in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum on 17 Aug. and in the Greek Synaxaria on 2 Sept. His body rested at Caesarea in Cappadocia, and over his tomb, toward the middle of the 4th cent., the brothers Gallus and Julian the Apostate, then relegated to Macellum, erected a basilica (Sozomen, Hist. eccl., V, 2). His feast was celebrated with a great concourse of people.
From the discourses delivered in his honour by St Basil and St Gregory Nazianzen it can only be inferred that he was a shepherd and that he died during the reign of Aurelian. The Passio, written toward the end of the 4th cent. by three self-styled bishops, is highly legendary. According to it, M. was educated by the bishop of Caesarea, Tamasio; at the age of twelve he withdrew into a cave, where he lived together with wild beasts. Captured by soldiers and brought before the tribunal of the governor Alessandro, after various tortures he was shut up in prison and left without food for a month. Finally, he was led into the amphitheatre to be exposed to the wild beasts, but died without their having touched him.