Primary source · Latin

The Roman Canon (the martyrs of the Nobis quoque)

Latin liturgical tradition · core wording 4th–6th century

What this text is

The eucharistic prayer of the Roman church, whose two saint-lists fossilize the city's earliest devotion — seven women of the ancient persecutions standing together at the prayer's close.

Interlinear passages

Word-for-word glosses of the original; the complete public-domain translation is linked below.

Nobis quoque peccatoribus — the seven women
cumwithFelicitate,FelicityPerpetua,PerpetuaAgatha,AgathaLucia,LucyAgnete,AgnesCaecilia,CeciliaAnastasiaAnastasia

Public-domain translations

Literal gloss of the Latin

To us sinners also, thy servants, hoping in the multitude of thy mercies, grant some part and fellowship with thy holy apostles and martyrs: with John, Stephen, Matthias, Barnabas… with Felicity, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia, Anastasia, and all thy saints.

Manuscript witnesses

Ambrose, De sacramentis IV (earliest quotation)

c. AD 390

The Canon's central prayers quoted nearly verbatim in Milan — three centuries before complete mass-books survive.

EARLIEST WITNESS

Bobbio Missal & Old Gelasian (Vat. Reg. lat. 316)

8th c.

The first surviving sacramentaries containing the Canon entire.

EARLIEST COMPLETE CARRIERS

Provenance

Rome; core attested by AD 390, textual fixity by Gregory the Great

Editions & scholarship

Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.

Figures named in this text (6)