Abundius of Rome

Holy Martyr Abundius of Rome suffered on 26 August, together with Irenaeus, for burying the body of the martyr Concordia. His company includes Hippolytus, Irenaeus, Abundius and the martyr Concordia. They are commemorated on 26 August.

Hippolytus had been the head and warden of the prisons of Rome in the time of Decius and Valerian (249-259). He had been brought to Christ by the martyr Lawrence, commemorated on 10 August, whose body he had buried. Learning of it, the emperor detained Hippolytus and asked him mockingly whether he too had become a sorcerer, that he had stolen the body of Lawrence. The saint confessed himself a Christian and was cruelly beaten with rods, but answered only that he was a Christian. The emperor ordered him dressed in a soldier's clothes and told him to remember his rank and sacrifice to the gods with him, as before. The martyr answered that he was a soldier of Christ, his Saviour, and wished to die for Him. Then all his property was taken, his nurse, the martyr Concordia, was beaten to death with rods of tin, all his household was beheaded before his eyes, and he himself was tied to wild horses, which dragged him over stones to death. This happened on 13 August 258, the third day after the martyrdom of the archdeacon Lawrence, as he had foretold to Hippolytus. At night the priest Justin secretly buried all the martyrs at the place of execution. The body of Concordia was thrown into an unclean place in Rome.

After a time two Christians, Irenaeus and Abundius, learned from a soldier where the body of the martyr had been thrown and buried it beside Hippolytus. For this they were drowned on 26 August, as the martyr had been. The Christians took the bodies of the martyrs out by night and buried them beside the relics of the archdeacon Lawrence.