| Keywords |
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| ID |
2933 |
| Text |
Historia persecutionis Africanae provinciae (475 - 489) Victor of Vita |
| Quotation |
Videntes igitur Christi discipuli multa apud gentiles et inclita sacrificiorum sacrilegia, coeperunt praedicatione et conversatione sua ad cognitionem domini dei nostri barbaros invitare, et tali modo ingentem multitudinem gentilium barbarorum Christo domino lucraverunt, ubi antea a nullo fama Christiani nominis fuerat divulgata. Tunc deinde cogitatur quid fieret, ut ager iam cultus et egraminatus uomere praedicationis euangelicum susciperet semen et imbre sacri baptismatis rigaretur.
Mittunt legatos per itinera distenta deserti; peruenitur tandem ad ciuitatem Romanam, rogatur
episcopus, ut presbyterum et ministros credenti populo destinaret. Explet cum gaudio quod petebatur pontifex dei: construitur ecclesia, baptizatur multitudo maxima barbarorum, et de lupis grex fecundus multiplicatur agnorum. Hoc Geiserico relatione sua nuntiat Capsur. de qua re surgens invidia iubet famulos dei ligatis pedibus post terga currentium quadrigarum inter spinosa loca silvarum pariter interire, ut ducta atque reducta dumosis lignorum aculeis innocentium corpora carperentur, ita delegans, ut exitum suum invicem perviderent. |
| Translation |
§ 36 The disciples of Christ, seeing the many forbidden and sacrilegious sacrifices carried out by the pagans, began their preaching and way of life to invite them to the knowledge of the Lord our God, and by this means they gained an enormous multitude of pagan barbarians for the Lord Christ, in a place where the fame of the Christian name had hitherto been spread by no-one. Then they gave thought as to what should be done, so that the field which had now been cultivated and cleared of grass by the ploughshare of preaching might receive the seed of the gospel and be watered by the rain of holy baptism.
§ 37 They sent messengers across the long roads of the desert. At last they came to a Roman town and the bishop was asked to send a priest and junior clergy to the believing people. The pontiff fulfilled their request with joy: a church of God was built, a great throng of barbarians was baptized all together, and from those who had been wolves an abundant flock of lambs was multiplied. Capsur sent a report of this to Geiseric. His ill will was aroused, and he ordered that the servants of God were to have their feet bound behind the backs of four running horses and perish together in the thorny palces of the woods, the bodies of those innocent ones, as they were dragged to and fro, were cut to pieces by the spikes of the thorn bushes in the woods. He also ordered that they were to watch each others' death, one after the other. |
| Quotation source |
Historia persecutionis I, Par. 36-37, p. 9-10, translation: Victor of Vita: History of the Vandal Persecution, translation by John Moorhead, Translated Texts for Historians, vol. 10 (Liverpool University Press: 1992), p. 17 |
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