Saint Victorian and Companion Saints
  March 23rd  

    Huneric, the Arian king of the Vandals, succeeded his father Genseric in 477. He at first showed a certain moderation in regard to his orthodox Catholic subjects in Mauretania, but in 480 a policy of relentless persecution was again resorted to. Amongst the more conspicuous victims were a group of martyrs who are honored on this day. Victorian, in particular, a native of Hadrumetum, who was one of the wealthiest citizens of Carthage, had been appointed proconsul by Huneric himself. When the persecuting edicts were published, the Vandal king did all in his power to induce this representative Catholic to conform to Arianism. When promises and threats alike failed to shake his adherence to the true faith, the courageous witness to Christ was subjected to horrible torments, but persevered gloriously until death released him. With Victorian the Roman Martyrology associates four others who suffered about the same time. Two of these, who were brothers, were subjected to the same torture which, more than a thousand years later, was employed by the priest-hunter, Topcliffe, to test the constancy of the Elizabethan martyrs. The two brothers were hung up by the wrists and heavy weights were attached to their feet. We are told that when one of them gave signs that his resolution was weakening, the other exhorted him so powerfully to endure further that the faint-hearted brother cried out to the executioners not to diminish but to augment his pains. Both were afterwards seared with red-hot plates of iron, but bore all patiently to the end.

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Our authority for these facts is the Historia Persecutionis Vandalicae by St. Victor, Bishop of Vita, a contemporary.

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Butler's Lives of The Saints, Herbert J. Thurston, S.J. and Donald Attwater Nihil Obstat: PATRICIVS MORRIS, S.T.D., L.S.S., CENSOR DEPVTATVS. Imprimatur: E. MORROGH BERNARD, VICARIVS GENERALIS WESTMONASTERII: DIE XXIII FEBRVARII MCMLIII