Saint Valerian and Other Martyrs
  December 15th  

    In addition to St. Dionysia and those mentioned with her on the sixth, other victims of the Vandal persecutions are commemorated this month. Under King Genseric took place the martyrdom of the bishop Valerian "who, when more than eighty years old, was told to give up the sacred vessels of his church. On his constant refusal so to do it was commanded that he be driven out of the city by himself and that no one be allowed to receive him in his house or on his land; wherefore he remained for a long time in the public street, uncared for, under the open sky, and in this confession and defence of Catholic truth he ended the course of his blessed life." On the morrow, likewise, is kept the feast of the many consecrated virgins who suffered under Huneric. They were hung up by the arms and jerked up and down, branded with hot irons, sold into slavery, driven into the desert and in other ways harried and killed for Christ's name sake.

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We know nothing of these martyrs beyond what we learn from the Historia Wandalicae Persecutionis (bk i, c. 39) by Victor of Vita. See also Quentin, Martyrologes historiques, p. 353.

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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