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Abitinian Martyrs
00:16:47
Forty-nine Christians were martyred during the great persecution under Diocletian in Roman North Africia in the town of Abitinia. The martyrs were persecuted for their commitment to Sunday worship and reception of the Eucharist. Dr. Elizabeth Klein reflects upon the importance of sacrifice and proper worship as the essential expression of being Christian.
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- [00:02]
A
You're listening to a podcast on Catholic Saints. This podcast is produced by the Augustine Institute, an apostolate helping Catholics understand, live and share their faith. Hello, welcome to Catholic Saints. My name is Mary and I am joined with Dr. Elizabeth Klein here at the Augusta Institute. Dr. Klein, thank you for joining us.
- [00:29]
B
Thanks for having me.
- [00:30]
A
We have a new episode for Catholic Saints and we are going to dive into the Abatean martyrs. We practice this, the Abbottinian martyrs.
- [00:42]
B
But you could also just say, like the martyrs of Abbottinia or if that was easier, Abbottinia. There you go. Okay, so Abbottinia is a town in Roman North Africa where 49 Christians were put to death in the year 304 in the Great persecution of Diocletian. So if you're a regular listener to the show, you probably talk about martyrs already. I'd like to talk about martyrs. And the persecution under Dian was the largest early Christian persecution. It was sort of empire wide by decree of the emperor. And so these Christians are killed for breaking the law promulgated by Dian about a year prior, which prohibited Christians from assembling to worship. So there's a lot of really interesting stuff in the story about why Christians need to worship and assemble in a group because they died for the sake of it. And it's. You may be familiar with some of the quotations from the story because there's a couple famous lines about sort of the Sunday obligation or going to mass that are better from this story.
- [01:44]
A
Before we dive in, may I ask, how did you discover these saints or the lives of these saints?
- [01:50]
B
I don't know. I guess I just read lots of early Christian stuff. I've always been interested in martyrs. Read a lot of martyrdom stories. Unfortunately, this story is quite lengthy. Most martyrdom stories are only like, I don't know, two to five pages. This one's about 25 pages. Unfortunately, it's not easily accessible. It's only translated in English in a book called Donatus Martyr the Church in Conflict in North Roman North Africa from Liverpool University Press. It's not a super expensive book, but it's like 30 or 40 bucks. You're not going to find it free online, but if you read Latin, you can look it up in the Patrilogia Latina, this story. But anyway, cool.
- [02:26]
A
And the feast day for these saints are it's what day?
- [02:29]
B
February 12th.
- [02:30]
A
February 12th.
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B
So they actually die over a period of time, but they're all put on trial on February 12th. So that's the day.
- [02:36]
A
Okay, wonderful. Please set the stage a little Bit more on what the cultural, political context was in which these saints were living.
- [02:45]
B
Yeah, So, I mean, it's the, like I said, early fourth century. And this is when Diocletian has these very unfriendly Christian policies and is attempting to stop Christians from assembling.
- [03:00]
A
Is he just pagan or is he.
- [03:02]
B
Yeah, Diocletian. Yeah.
- [03:03]
A
Okay.
- [03:03]
B
Yeah. So just kind of the reassertion of pagan worship. Often this happens in periods when this sort of, like military defeats or something. People are trying to, like, shake it up religiously or blame religious minorities or whatever. There's not a lot of detail around sort of how these people were found out. But they're arrested during the celebration of the liturgy. So it's like the entire congregation, including the priest Saturninus and four of his children. Two of Saturninus children were lectors, one was a consecrated version, and one is a child. And so he has a very moving confession. The youngest child of the priest Saturninus. There's also Davidus, who is a senator, as well as. There's a lot of. You know, you can find the full list of the names of the martyrs in the story, but not all of them have, like, lines, you know.
- [03:50]
A
Yeah, they're like roughly 1049. Oh, okay, there's 49. Yes.
- [03:57]
B
And four of the martyrs are named Felix. So if you're inspired by this martyrdom story and you want to name your children after the martyrs of Abbotinia, you can name son Felix because four of them are named Felix.
- [04:07]
A
That's a good name.
- [04:08]
B
Yeah. So I guess also a trigger warning. If you do go to look up this martyrdom story, It's a little more graphic than a lot of other martyrdom stories. It's accurate in terms of its description of Roman torture. But, you know, he may not be wanting to read its children. If you don't want to talk about claws rending flesh and these kinds of things.
- [04:26]
A
So would you say the torture these martyrs experienced was typical for that time period?
- [04:30]
B
Yes, it's very typical. So if you're interested in sort of what these court proceedings were like and kind of like a very historical perspective on early Christian martyrdom, I would recommend. Recommend Wolfram Kinzig's Christian Persecution in Antiquity. I might have mentioned this book before. I don't remember. But he kind of wrote it in response to maybe some popular things that have come out in the last 10 or 20 years that say, oh, Christians weren't really persecuted. Christians have a persecuting complex. They didn't really understand Roman society. Da, da, da. So he, he really wrote it to kind of lay out in a very dry historical way. Now, these are the facts of sort of Roman torture. These are the facts of Roman court proceedings. These are the numbers of Christians that likely suffered torture or death. And so it's very. It's very helpful. But yes, also very graphic. Romans had a theory that people told the truth under torture, which we now know is the opposite is true. But they. So Christians talk about making a good confession. Right. Which is kind of ironic because usually when you confess, it's like you're confessing your. Your guilt. And so the Romans torture them to get them confess their guilt. So Tertullian says Christians are the only ones who are killed sort of for like their true confession. And so they do confess under torture. They confess the truth, which is that they're Christian. Okay. And then die for it.
- [05:50]
A
So interesting.
- [05:51]
B
So, yeah, just a kind of FYI, if you're going to read this particular story, but as I mentioned, one of the most interesting aspects of this story is the kind of references to the Eucharist and the importance of gathering for worship, because as I said, they are specifically sort of tried for breaking the law on assembling. And so a lot of the martyrs confession is like, we are Christians, we do assemble. We are Christians, we do gather. We have to gather. And I think that's really beautiful. And we take for granted, I think, our ability to gather and go to mass to the point where we choose not to do it, whereas they chose death rather than not.
- [06:35]
A
There's a lot of places in the world today too, where I'm sure that with that underground church or that secrecy to practice the faith, this story would resonate with them. Whereas in the United States, we're still. We have accessible. We. We're just so blessed. So we can take it for granted, the freedom that we do have.
- [06:56]
B
Yeah. So I thought I would just read a little bit of one, kind of the most famous line from this martyrdom story, which, you know, maybe you've heard. John Paul II quotes some of the lines of these martyrs in his. I can't remember. It's an encyclical or letter. Anyway, it's called Dies Domini, the Day of the Lord. It's about the Sunday obligation from the late 90s. And so the martyr emeritus. I'm just going to read a little bit apart. So once emeritus was charged, the proconsul said, were assemblies held in your home against the order of the Emperor emeritus filled with the Holy Spirit said to him, we did hold the Lord's Supper in my home. In reply, the proconsul said, why did you permit them to enter? He responded, because they are my brothers and sisters. I could not prevent them from doing so. Then the proconsul said, you should have prevented them. In response, Emeritus said, I could not because we cannot go without the Lord's Supper. And this line, I could not because we cannot go without the Lord's Supper.
- [07:55]
A
Beautiful.
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B
In Latin, it's actually like. It's literally sine dominico non possumus, which means, without the Lord's thing, we can't even. It's like. It's kind of hard to translate. It's like, without the Lord's, we can't.
- [08:12]
A
Wow.
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B
And so the Lord's thing, they translated the Lord's Supper, but probably refers either to the Eucharistic elements or to kind of the liturgy as a whole. So it's like, we can't survive. We can't function. And I just, like, think about, like, well, they're my brothers and sisters. I couldn't. I couldn't stop them because I would kill them. They would die if I didn't let them come without the Eucharist anyway.
- [08:40]
A
That's beautiful.
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B
This is something that John Paul II points out, why Christians must celebrate on Sunday. Why? It's because, I don't know. It can seem kind of like an arbitrary rule, like, underpaint immortal sin. You can't miss Mass on Sunday. Like, whatever. Not that important. I've got things to do. What if something comes up? And of course, you know, if you have.
- [09:02]
A
Or I'll go receive, you know, the Eucharist on Monday, or I'll go to daily Mass, a different day of the week, Right?
- [09:07]
B
And of course, we have a legitimate reason for being impeded to going to Mass. You know, don't be overly scrupulous. But this idea that what is the actual, like, point of being a Christian? Like, what is the end goal of being a Christian? Right? It's not just to be nice to people. It's not just to live a moral life. I mean, these are all part of what it means to be Christian. But ultimately, what it means to be Christian is to offer proper, perfect worship to God. And that's like, what we'll be doing in eternity. You know, we're not gonna have to fight against our vices or worry about our material possessions, thanks be to God. We're gonna be worshiping God before the throne eternally. And so in order to, like, feed our basic, most basic vocation as Christians, we Have to celebrate the Lord's Day. And that's part of. Part of something John Paul's talking about, about that being lost, that kind of prime vocation of the Christian. And also just we have so much noise, like we can fill our time with so many things that all of a sudden the time we give to God like shrinks and shrinks.
- [10:08]
A
Yes, very interesting. Can you lean in more to why we need to congregate together or what these saints reveal about, you know, why can't we just do this worship by ourselves? I mean, one, I'm not a priest, so I wouldn't be able to. So maybe that's the answer. But yeah, why is that. That communal aspect so necessary?
- [10:29]
B
Yeah, that's actually a really good question. Especially in North Africa, which is, you know, the area that I'm most expert in. I read a lot about the corporate identity of the church and the relationship between the church and the Eucharist are. Is so intimate. Like, for someone like Augustine, if you say the phrase body of Christ, that means Christ in the Incarnation, Christ in the Church, and Christ in the Eucharist. And these three things, that's where they are manifested.
- [10:53]
A
Interesting.
- [10:53]
B
It's not really manifested unless it's part of the sort of the mystical body and the sacramental body are held really closely together. And so in one of Augustine's homilies, he asks his congregation, you know, because there's like, you know, question and answer more, a little bit more interaction. He asks them, from whom did you receive your faith? You know, and if you ask that question to someone today, they probably say like grandma or whatever, which is a perfectly true answer. But apparently his congregation answered Mater Ecclesia, Mother Church. And it's like, who would give that answer today, right? Who would say, I received my faith from mother Church? And so they really see true worship isn't something you can conjure up on your own by your own power. True worship is given by the one true high Priest and his true sacrifice and his true church. That's how you gain access to true worship. And the sacrifice of the Eucharist is not just the sacrifice of sort of the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ. It's the sacrifice of his mystical body, which is his church. And so Augustine emphasizes this a lot. It's a sacrifice, meaning you, it's how you, the church learns to offer sacrifice.
- [11:58]
A
That's really helpful, thank you. I think I do underestimate what that mystical body, how that, how I interact with the mystical body of Christ in my, in my life. In my faith. Yeah, I underplay it. That's what I'm looking for.
- [12:11]
B
Yeah. And I think it's easy to get a bit of a consumeristic culture vis a vis the Eucharist. Like, I go to receive something. This kind of, like, came out during COVID almost where it was like, people were like, well, I need to have the Eucharistic species. It's like, owed me. And it's like, well, I mean, it's like, we cannot live without the Eucharist, so we do want it. But the whole point of the Eucharist, right, is to conform yourself to Christ such that you become a perfect sacrifice. So it isn't just about, like, some superfood that you get and, like, powers you up to be holy. Right in itself is the very essence of what everything that you need to become and do. Which is why Augustine says when you say amen, in response to the words the Body of Christ, he says, you agree to be that very body. You're like, agree signing the contract. They say, the body of Christ. And when you receive it, it's like, well, it's a obligation, not just a gift. Both.
- [13:03]
A
And yeah, it's interesting. And these martyrs in particular were.
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B
It was.
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A
It was a Eucharistic presence, too. Like, there's. People are martyred for many reasons, but they were martyred because they were caught celebrating the Eucharist, the celebration of the Eucharist for that particular devotion as well. Their bodies became that sacrifice.
- [13:24]
B
Yeah, I think this. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I think that. That the idea that they become the sacrifice that they were offering in their martyrdom is something that's very strong. I'm sure I've talked about it before. Cause it's one of my favorite things to talk about, the relationship between martyrdom and Eucharist in the early Church, that for them, the final offering of thanksgiving is of your entire life, ideally, if possible, in red martyrdom, that's the offering of thanksgiving. And so you will hear a lot of liturgical exchanges or phrases in martyrdom stories, because in a sense, to them, this is like, the most real enactment of the Eucharistic liturgy is when you actually pour out your blood, which is kind of what you commit yourself to when you receive the sacrifice of Christ. You commit yourself to giving everything. And so in the Martyrdom Confessions, one of the martyrs, Tazilita, says, while under torture to you be thanks. I cannot thank you enough. So this idea of giving thanks to God and the act of death as an act of thanksgiving is very common. Right. The most Common response of the martyrs in response to the death sentence is thanks be to God, which we would, you know, recognize from the liturgy. But to them, that's like. That's like the final pronouncement that they're worthy to be like Christ.
- [14:32]
A
Beautiful. I cannot. Thank you, Anesh. That is so true as well. I love that. Are there any other quotes or, you know, from their lives or their stories that are worth mentioning?
- [14:44]
B
Yeah, I mean, I have a couple there, but I think I said the ones that I mostly wanted to say. Oh, I wanted to have one more, actually. This is not from one of the martyrs, but it's from the. Whoever compiled. We don't know who wrote the martyrdom story, but he makes a comment on one of the confessions. So this is to the judge. We are Christians. We can do no other than to keep the law of the Lord even unto shedding of blood. Battered by such speech, the enemy said to Felix, I'm not asking whether you are Christians, but whether you held assemblies or whether you have any scriptures. Oh, stupid and laughable inquiry of the judge. He said, if you are Christian, shut up about it. He had an answer. Whether you were in the assembly. As if one could be a Christian without the Lord's Supper, or the Lord's Supper can be celebrated without a Christian. Or do you not know, O Satan, that the Christian exists through the Lord's Supper and. And the Lord's Suppers in Christians, neither can exist without the other.
- [15:39]
A
Wow. And this is. This is written in three hundreds. Yes. But that. Reflecting the church community in that time period.
- [15:49]
B
Yeah. So hopefully. I don't know. I just think the smartdom story is really cool. But hopefully a helps you not take Mass for granted. Yes. And two helps you understand kind of the final goal of going to Mass. Right. Is to. Is to give yourself all the way to the point of death. I mean, for us, the point of death will probably just be continuing to go to daily Mass over our whole life and sort of give ourselves over in sacrifice. But that is the ultimate goal. Right. Viaticum, the last thing we receive is the Eucharist. You know, food for the journey. But the journey is our whole life up to up to death. We give it all.
- [16:20]
A
Yes. Thank you. And be edification of the presence of the mystical Body of Christ as well. How that is just a part of the Eucharist and the liturgy and should not be taken for granted as well. Well, thank you. This was fascinating. I'm glad to learn about another. I'm not going to call them obscure I would say lesser known martyrdom stories of saints because they. They can reveal a lot to us today.
- [16:44]
B
Yeah. Thanks for letting me share.
- [16:45]
A
Thank you. And thank you for listening.