Saturninus, Dativus, Felix and Companions, Saints, Martyrs

SATURNINO, DATIVO, FELICE E COMPAGNI, SANTI, MARTIRI

Feast day: 11 February

SATURNINUS, Dativus, Felix and Companions, Saints, Martyrs. - They are commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on February 11.

Their laterculus comes from Usuard, who was the first to introduce them into his Martyrology. St. Augustine, however, attests that their feast in Africa was celebrated on the 12th (PL 43, 643), but even this was the dies natalis of only some of them, because others died on different days in prison, whether of hunger or from the wounds received during the torture of the interrogations. In the Hieronymian Martyrology, in fact, they are commemorated on different days. The original acts of the trial existed, but today they are lost; a 5th-century recension of them survives, reworked by a Donatist with openly polemical intent.

After the first Edict of Diocletian, 49 Christians of Abitinae, among them women and children, led by the presbyter S., had gathered in a private house to celebrate the liturgy. Surprised by the guards, they were arrested and, after a summary interrogation on the spot, were sent to Carthage to the tribunal of the proconsul Anullinus. There they were interrogated individually and subjected to torture, but all unanimously confessed the faith, resisting all torments heroically. Shut up in prison, they were left there to perish of hunger and privation.

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: Acta SS. Februarii, II, Paris 1864, pp. 513-19; H. Delehaye, Les passions des martyrs et les genres littéraires, Brussels 1921, pp. 114-17; id., Les origines du culte des martyrs, ibid. 1933, p. 386 ff.; P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, La Passio dei martiri abitinensi, in Note agiografiche, VIII (Studi e testi, 65). Vatican City 1935, pp. 3-71; Martyr. Romanum, p. 57 ff.

Agostino Amore

@incollection{ec10_saturnino_dativo_felice_e_comp, author = {Amore, Agostino}, title = {Saturnino, dativo, felice e compagni, santi, martiri}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {X}, pages = {1967--1968}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1953}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/saturnino-dativo-felice-e-compagni-santi-martiri} }

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