Lives Of The Saints
May 18
St Venantius
Venantius stands as a youthful martyr of striking courage. His life is remembered for constancy under repeated torments and for a witness stronger than fear.
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St Venantius
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Brief life
Venantius is remembered as one of the young martyrs whose courage seems almost too great for his years. Seized in his mid-teens as a Christian, he was dragged before judges, threatened, tortured, imprisoned, and repeatedly pressed to abandon the faith. The account is full of the old martyr language of constancy under torment, divine help, and conversions sparked by witness, but the center remains simple: a boy who would not deny Christ.
It remembers scourging, fire, prison, and miraculous deliverance before final martyrdom, and it treats his cult at Camerino as the lasting sign of how deeply his witness struck the Christian people. The portrait is vivid and heroic, centered on steadfastness rather than worldly strength.
Historical note
This life uses St Venantius because Butler gives him the principal date page and a clear martyr life.
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Nearby saint lives
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