Primary source · Latin (Greek recension extant)

The Passion of Irenaeus of Sirmium

Anonymous (court-record based) · c. AD 304+

What this text is

Among the earliest and most sober of the Danubian martyr-acts: the young bishop's interrogations before Probus, his family weeping at the bar, and the sentence of the sword and the river Sava.

Public-domain translations

Working translation (from the Latin)

'Have pity on thy youth,' said Probus the governor; 'thou hast a wife: sacrifice.' Irenaeus said: 'My wife and my children have God, whom they may have as I do... I have a commandment of my Lord Jesus Christ, to whom I hasten.'

Manuscript witnesses

Legendary manuscripts of the Danubian acta

9th c. onward

The passio travels in the medieval passionals; its sober court-record core marks it as early.

SURVIVING WITNESSES

Ruinart, Acta primorum martyrum sincera

1689

The classic collection of the 'sincere' (authentic) martyr-acts.

PRINTED PROXY

Provenance

Sirmium, Pannonia (modern Sremska Mitrovica)

Editions & scholarship

Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.

Figures named in this text (1)