The Passion of Marian and James · §12 · Acts of the Martyrs

The mass beheading and the signs seen at death

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The narrator describes the beheading of Marian, James and the other clergy together by a river outside the city.

What you would have seen there was strange, with carefully devised shortcuts for raging. A great crowd of the righteous pressed hard upon the executioner's hand and upon the very sword given over to so many necks, so skillful cruelty marched the drawn-up ranks of the column through in order, so that the blow of the sacrilegious striker would fall on holy necks with a kind of rush of fury. Lest that bloody and barbarous work become unmanageable, it found for itself this swift way of getting the crime done. If the striker himself had stood in one place to strike, the heaped pile would have heaped up an immense slaughter of bodies; in the end the riverbed itself, filled with so great a slaughter, would have allowed no room.

Then their eyes were veiled in the usual way for the blow of the iron, yet no darkness closed the gaze of their free minds, but a lavish and measureless splendor of immense light burst forth. Many spoke with the brothers next to them and standing beside them of the wonderful things they still saw, though their eyes were not bodily open to sight: horses gleaming snow-white from above, carrying young men clothed in white. Nor were martyrs lacking from that same company who confirmed their companions' report by what their ears told them, for they recognized the neighing and pounding of the horses when they heard it.

There too Marian, already filled with a prophetic spirit, proclaimed with confidence and courage the coming vengeance for righteous blood, and threatened the varied blows of the world as if already from the height of heaven: pestilence, captivities, famine, earthquakes, and the tormenting poisons of the fly swarm. By that proclamation the martyr's faith not only struck at the pagans but also sounded to the brothers an incentive to match his courage, as it were a trumpet call, so that amid so many blows of the world God's righteous would seize the chance of so good and precious a death.

Latin

Mira tunc ibi cerneres et exquisita conpendia saeuiendi. Namque cum manum carnificis gladiumque ipsum tot ceruicibus deditum numerosus iustorum populus urgueret, artifex feritas dispositas agminum series per ordinem dirigebat, scilicet ut sacrilegi percussoris ictus uelut impetu quodam furoris pia colla percuteret. Deinde ut ne inexplicabile fieret cruentum illud et barbarum ministerium, hanc sibi expeditionem sceleris inuenit. Nam si uno in loco percussurus ipse consisteret, inmensam stragem corporum cumulus aceruaret; ipse denique spatium tanta strage conpletus alueus denegaret. Tunc oculis sub ictu ferri de more uelatis, nullae tamen aciem liberae mentis clausere tenebrae, sed largus atque inaestimabilis splendor inmensae lucis effulsit. Nam et plerique cum proximis et assistentibus sibi fratribus, quamuis carnaliter in uisum acies non pateret, uidere se tamen mira quaedam loquebantur, quod sibi apparerent equi desuper niueo colore candentes, quibus ueherentur iuuenes candidati. Nec defuere ex eodem martyrum numero qui collegarum relationem adtestarentur auribus et ex audito equorum fremitu ac sono recognoscerent. Ibi tunc et Marianus, prophetico spiritu iam repletus, fidenter ac fortiter praedicabat proximam iusti sanguinis ultionem, uariasque saeculi plagas uelut de caeli iam culmine minabatur, luem, captiuitates, famem, terraeque motus et cynomiae uenena cruciantia. Qua praedicatione non tantum gentilibus insultabat fides martyris, sed etiam fratribus incentiuum aemulandae uirtutis et quasi classicum praecanebat, ut inter tantas saeculi plagas a iustis dei tam bonae atque pretiosae mortis raperetur occasio.

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About this text

A friend who shared their road tells how Marian, a reader, and James, a deacon, were arrested near Cirta in Numidia, tortured, strengthened by visions in prison at Lambaesis, and beheaded by a river with many others.

The writer, who does not give his name, was a close companion of the martyrs, arrested with them but later released, writing to Christian brethren as the fraternity and people of God during the persecution under Emperor Valerian in Numidia. At Marian and James's own request he records their contest not to boast of their crown on earth but so the people may be armed by their example for faith.

Bishops Agapius and Secundinus suffered first after calling at the writer's house, and Marian and James were then arrested near Cirta, confessed Christ and their offices, suffered hanging torture, and endured prison with prayer. In prison they and fellow prisoner Aemilianus report their own visions in their own quoted words, with a tribunal voice and Cyprian heard and seen in Marian's account, a shining youth in James's, a rose crowned boy promising a heavenly meal in another, and a pagan blood brother whose questions in Aemilianus's dream are quoted and answered. After delay while many lay Christians were executed, the clerics were condemned by the governor at Cirta and beheaded together by a river outside the city, with light, white horsemen, Marian prophesying coming judgments, and Marian's mother rejoicing over his body, alongside Tertulla and Antonia, Mary the mother, Secundinus, and a twin boy with his mother.

A reader needs only a few renderings used here. Governor is the Roman provincial governor, reader is the lower clerical office Marian avows and deacon is the office James avows, confession of faith is the open avowal I am a Christian, crown is heavenly reward, execution platform is the high stepped place of display and death, official report is the written charge and confession sent with prisoners, and love feast is the heavenly meal after death. Cyprian is the dead bishop martyred at Carthage who appears to welcome them, the Decian persecution is the earlier persecution James had already survived, the only formal scriptural sentence is the camel through the needle's eye cited as Matthew 19:24 with parallels in Mark 10:25 and Luke 18:25, and the closing joy points to 2 Maccabees 7.

Printed text used

Translated from Oscar von Gebhardt, Acta martyrum selecta (Berlin: A. Duncker, 1902) (Latin)

This work has passed our source check. We made this study translation with AI help. No scholar has yet certified it as faithful and complete. Open Latin on any section, or the Latin source link, to see the source text. It is not a critical edition.

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