Terentius of Carthage

Holy Martyr Terentius of Carthage suffered in the time of the emperor Decius (249-251), together with a company of believers. The emperor had issued an edict requiring all his subjects to offer sacrifice to the idols. Fortunatian, the governor of Africa, gathered the people in the square, displayed the instruments of torture and announced that no one would be spared the sacrifice. Many were frightened and complied, but forty Christians, led by Terentius, boldly confessed their faith in the Saviour.

Fortunatian was amazed at their courage and asked how they, sensible men, could confess as God one who had been crucified as a criminal. Terentius answered that they believed in the Saviour who had willingly accepted death on the cross and had risen on the third day. Realising that Terentius was encouraging the others, the governor shut him in prison with three of his closest friends, Africanus, Maximus and Pompius. The others, among them Zeno, Alexander and Theodore, he tried to force to renounce Christ, but neither persuasion nor torment moved them, whether hot iron, vinegar poured on the wounds, salt, or iron claws.

Brought then into the temple, the martyrs prayed to God to bring down the house of idols, and the idols fell and shattered, and then the whole temple collapsed. The governor ordered them to be put to death, and the thirty-⁠six bowed their heads beneath the sword, praising God. Terentius, Maximus, Africanus and Pompius were then bound in heavy chains and left to starve in prison, but an angel of the Lord removed their chains and fed them. The governor had sorcerers bring snakes and reptiles into the prison, but the serpents turned on the sorcerers and bit them. Enraged, Fortunatian ordered the four beheaded. The Christians took their bodies and buried them with honour outside the city.

Saint Terentius is commemorated, according to the calendar, on 26 March, 23 April and 10 November.