Event · AD 180 · Carthage

The Scillitan martyrs, AD 180

The Scillitan Martyrs at Carthage — earliest dated Latin Christian text

**The earliest dated document in Latin Christianity, and it is a transcript.**

On 17 July 180, at Carthage, the proconsul Vigellius Saturninus examined six people from Scilli. The record the archive holds — `scillitan` — is short enough to read in two minutes and contains almost nothing but the exchange. **That is what makes it valuable: nobody had time to shape it.**

## What the six say

**Speratus** answers the offer of pardon by refusing to swear by the genius of the emperor, and says he has never done wrong: **“if I am ill-treated, I give thanks.”** Asked what is in his case, he answers **“books, and letters of Paul, a just man”** — which is, in passing, the earliest datable reference to Christians carrying Paul’s letters as a physical collection.

**Cittinus** says: **“We have none other to fear, save only our Lord God, who is in heaven.”** **Donata**: **“Honour to Caesar as Caesar; but fear to God.”** **Vestia**: “I am a Christian.” **Secunda**: “What I am, that I wish to be.”

**Three of the six are women, and they answer in their own voices.** The archive holds all six.

## Why the archive treats it as evidence rather than devotion

It has the shape of a court record: date, place, magistrate named, the offer of thirty days’ reprieve, the sentence read out, and the closing formula. There is **no miracle, no vision, no crowd converted** — the features that accumulate in later passions and that make them hard to use. The absence of embellishment is the argument for its early date, and it is why a document of twelve exchanges is one of the archive’s most cited.

The sources for this event

Every source the record rests on, with what it says and what it cannot carry.

The Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs

c. AD 180

Acta Martyrum Scillitanorum

[**17 July 180, Carthage, before the proconsul Vigellius Saturninus** — the earliest dated document of Latin Christianity, and in the form of a transcript. **Speratus**: “I have never done ill; if I am ill-treated, I give thanks”; asked what is in his case, **“books, and letters of Paul, a just man”** — in passing, the earliest datable reference to Christians carrying Paul’s letters as a physical collection. **Cittinus**: “We have none other to fear, save only our Lord God, who is in heaven.” **Donata**: “Honour to Caesar as Caesar; but fear to God.” **Vestia**: “I am a Christian.” **Secunda**: “What I am, that I wish to be.” **Three of the six are women and all answer in their own voices.** — There is **no miracle, no vision, no crowd converted**; the absence of the embellishment that fills later passions is the argument for the early date.]

The Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs — held in this library. English: Ante-Nicene Fathers 9, public domain.

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Figures in this event (6)

Scholarship

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