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Ss. Dionysia and Companions
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Saints and feasts
Ss. Dionysia and Companions
Dativa, Aemilianus, Boniface, Leontia, Tertius and Majoricus, Martyrs
Dionysia and other African Catholics suffered under Huneric. Butler follows Victor of Vita in remembering their confession of the Trinity and the courage of Dionysia’s son Majoricus.
The reading
ⓘ Butler source
Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XII (December), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; December 6, “Ss Dionysia, Dativa, Aemilianus, Boniface, Leontia, Tertius and Majoricus, Martyrs,” pp. 128-129.
During the persecution under the Vandal king Huneric, African Catholics faced exile, torture and death. Butler draws on Victor of Vita in recording the sufferings of Dionysia, her sister Dativa, their kinsman Aemilianus and others who refused to abandon the Catholic faith.
Dionysia’s young son Majoricus was frightened by the sight of her torments. She reminded him of his baptism in the name of the Holy Trinity and encouraged him to remain faithful. He endured martyrdom, and she received and buried his body. The notice also recalls the suffering of Leontia, Tertius and Boniface.
Other confessors appear in the same account, including Servus and Victoria. Their stories should not be collapsed into a claim that everyone named died together or in the same manner. The reading preserves the shared witness of Christians who upheld their faith amid the persecution, while distinguishing the death of Majoricus from the sufferings and survival described for others.
Historical note
An original Novena Regina reading adapted and summarized from the cited pre-1962 source. This is not a transcription of Butler’s words.
Butler titles the group as martyrs but also recounts other confessors in the same notice. The reading does not assign a common execution to everyone named.
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