Primary source · Greek
The Passion of St Sabbas the Goth
The church of Gothia, in a letter to the churches of Cappadocia · AD 372, within months of the martyrdom
What this text is
A letter from the Gothic church beyond the Danube describing the arrest and drowning of Sabbas on 12 April 372, sent with his relics by way of Ascholius of Thessalonica to Basil of Caesarea. It is the only surviving narrative of a martyrdom among the Goths written by Goths, and one of the very few martyr acts of any period that can be dated to within months of the event. It names the presbyters Sansalas and Gouttica, the persecuting noble Atharidus and his father Rothesteus, and describes the villagers who tried to shield their Christian neighbours by swearing false oaths — which Sabbas refused to accept. The two records the archive formerly kept for this one letter were merged on 20 August 2026; the surviving record carries the working translation of the opening and the closing formula.
Public-domain translations
Peter Heather and John Matthews, The Goths in the Fourth Century (Liverpool, 1991) — English
Working translation (from the Greek)
'The Church of God that sojourns in Gothia to the Church of God that sojourns in Cappadocia... Sabas, a Goth by race, orthodox in faith, reverent and ready in all obedience... was drowned in the river Mousaios, in his thirty-eighth year, on the third day after the feast of Pascha.'
Manuscript witnesses
Menologion manuscripts (April 12/15)
10th c. onwardThe letter preserved whole inside the Byzantine hagiographic collections; edited by Delehaye (1912).
Provenance
Gothia beyond the Danube, sent to Cappadocia with the relics
Editions & scholarship
Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.
- ‘Saints de Thrace et de Mésie’, Analecta Bollandiana 31, pp. 216–21Hippolyte Delehaye, 1912The critical edition of the Greek text of the letter.
- The Goths in the Fourth Century, Translated Texts for Historians 11, pp. 109–17Peter Heather and John Matthews, 1991English translation with historical commentary on the Gothic church beyond the Danube.
Figures named in this text (6)
A letter from the church in Gothia to the churches of Cappadocia, written within months of the event, describing how a Gothic layman named Sabas was drowned in the river Museus on 12 April 372 for refusing to eat meat sacrificed to idols — and how his own neighbours twice tried to shield him. It is a rare view of a Christian community beyond the Danube frontier, told by that community itself rather than by an imperial historian. ⚠ No stable public-domain copy of the letter is online: the text formerly linked here (attalus.org) answered 404 on 20 August 2026 and the link was removed rather than left to fail. The critical Greek is Hippolyte Delehaye, ‘Saints de Thrace et de Mésie’, Analecta Bollandiana 31 (1912), pp. 216–21; the standard English is Peter Heather and John Matthews, The Goths in the Fourth Century, Translated Texts for Historians 11 (Liverpool, 1991), pp. 109–17, which is in copyright. The archive quotes its own working translation of the opening and the closing formula on the event record for AD 372.