Sabinus of Rome

Holy Martyr Sabinus of Rome suffered in the year 269, in the group of the Holy Hieromartyr Hippolytus, bishop of Ostia, of Censorinus and of the virgin Chrysia, with twenty martyrs.

Sabinus was beaten with a heavy hammer, then hung from a tree and burned with fire; in the torments he gave his soul to the Lord. With him suffered Censorinus, the first official in the time of Claudius II (268-270), who raised a dead man in the Name of Christ in prison, after which twenty guards became Christians and were beheaded with him, and the virgin Chrysia, tormented and drowned in the sea. St Hippolytus, bishop of Ostia, learning of the martyrs' torments, came to the trial, though old, and rebuked the tormentor; after much torment he was bound hand and foot and thrown into the sea.

The relics of Hippolytus were laid in Rome, in the church of the Holy Martyrs Lawrence and Pope Damasus. Hippolytus had been a disciple of St Irenaeus of Lyon and is known as a theologian who wrote many works against heretics: a Paschal Canon, a work on Christ and a word on the Antichrist, as well as many commentaries on Holy Scripture, on Genesis, Exodus, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, the Gospels of Matthew, Luke and John, on the prophets Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and Zechariah, on the Psalms of David and on the Apocalypse. Part of his writings survive only in fragments; the words on Theophany and on the prophet Daniel are preserved whole, models of the art of ancient church preaching.

St Sabinus is commemorated on 12 February (30 January in the old style), in the new style.