Liberatus and Companions

Liberatus and Companions were seven monk martyrs of Vandal Africa: Abbot Liberatus, the deacon Boniface, the subdeacons Servus and Rusticus, the monks Rogatus and Septimus, and the young Maximus. Liberatus led a monastery near Capsa (now Gafsa, in Tunisia). In February 484 the Arian king Huneric ordered the confiscation of the goods of Catholics and the application against them of the Roman imperial laws made against heretics; then the abbot was arrested with his six brothers.

Their story is told in the Passion of the Seven Monks, of unknown authorship, and in the History of the Persecution of the Province of Africa by Victor of Vita. Brought to Carthage, they were tortured to make them accept Arianism; when they refused, they were nailed to wooden boards on a ship prepared for carrying timber, and the ship was set on fire. The ship would not burn, so they were killed with blows of oars. The events took place on 2 July 483 or 484.

Their memorial is absent from the Calendar of Carthage and from the early general martyrologies. It entered the early medieval martyrologies on 16 August (Florus of Lyon) or 17 August (Ado and Usuard), and Baronius chose the 17th for the Roman Martyrology. After the revision following the Second Vatican Council, their memorial was moved to 2 July. Saints of the undivided Church, venerated chiefly in the West.