The Passion of Marian and James · §10 · Acts of the Martyrs

Lay Christians die first while clergy wait

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The narrator explains the delay in prison while many lay Christians are executed before Marian, James and the other clergy.

Meanwhile, over the course of many days, a great company of our brothers was sent over to the Lord through the outpouring of blood, while the mad rage of the raving governor could not reach its victim in Marian and James and the clergy, because it was still busy with the wounds of so many laymen. For a calculating cruelty had divided the ranks of our religion from one another, supposing that laymen, once separated from the clergy, would yield to the temptations of the world and to its own terrors. So our dearest and most faithful soldiers of Christ and the rest of the clergy began to grow somewhat sorrowful, since the laymen were having fully discharged the praise of their own contest, while so slow and so late a victory was being held back for them.

Latin

Interim per dies plurimos effusione sanguinis transmittebatur ad dominum numerosa fraternitas, nec peruenire ad Mariani et Iacobi clericorumque uictimam rabies insanientis praesidis poterat, laicorum tam multis occupata uulneribus. Nam ita inter se nostrae religionis gradus artifex saeuitia diuiserat, ut laicos a clericis separatos temptationibus saeculi et terroribus suis putaret esse cessuros. Ergo carissimi nostri et fidelissimi milites Christi ceterique de clero contristari aliquantulum coeperant, quod, laicis certaminis sui laude perfunctis, seruaretur sibi tam lenta et tam sera uictoria.

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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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