Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/904

 of orthodoxy against Saturninus, Ursacius, Valens, and the emperor. In 356 Saturninus presided at the council of Béziers, which decreed the exile of Hilary; and it seems probable from allusions in Hilary's writings that he was also at the council of Rimini in 359, and was one of the legates dispatched thence to the emperor at Constantinople (Hil. ad Const. Aug. ii. 3; Migne, Patr. Lat. x. 565). This seems to have been the zenith of the bishop's fortune. Hilary, not long after, returned to Gaul; and Saturninus, still unbending in his opposition, was deprived of his see, and even excommunicated, as is thought, at the 1st council of Paris in 362.

[S.A.B.]

Scapula, a proconsul of Africa, with whom Tertullian remonstrated for his persecution of the Christians; not because the Christians feared martyrdom, but solely because their love for their enemies made them desire to save them from the guilt of shedding innocent blood. Tertullian recounts the temporal calamities which had overtaken former persecutors of the Christians, and denounces the injustice of punishing men pure in life and loyal, and whose innocence the magistrates fully acknowledge by their evident unwillingness to proceed to extremities and by their exertions to induce the accused to withdraw their confession. If, as had been done in another province, the Christians of Carthage were to present themselves in a body before the proconsul's tribunal, the magistrate, he says, would find before him thousands of every age, sex, and rank, including many leading persons, and probably relations and intimates of his own friends, and might well shrink from severities which would decimate the city. The tract is later than the emperor Severus, of whom it speaks in the past tense.

The Scapula addressed was probably Scapula Tertullus, one of the ordinary consuls in 195. The usual interval between consulship and proconsulship was 15 to 20 years; this also would place the proconsulship not very long after Severus died on Feb. 9, 211.

[G.S.]

Scillitan Martyrs, 12 martyrs at Carthage (one of them Felix) from the African town of Scillita. According to their Acta, one of the women, Donata, when they were called upon by the consul, Saturninus, to sacrifice, replied, "We render honour to Caesar as Caesar, but worship and prayers to God alone." On receiving their sentence they thanked God. It was Ruinart's theory that the Scillitan Martyrs suffered under Sept. Severus between 198 and 202. M. Léon Renier, an eminent French archaeologist, however, noticed that the first line of the received codices of the Acts of these martyrs gave the names of the consuls for the year of the martyrdom very variously, a fragment published by Mabillon (Vet. Analect. t. iv. p. 155) reading, "Praesidente bis Claudiano consule." He therefore suggested that the word "bis" ought to follow a proper name indicating a second consulship, and that the word "consule" ought to be replaced by "consulibus." Finding, moreover, in the Fasti the names Praesens II. and Condianus as consuls for 180, he proposed that the first line of our Acts should be read, "Praesente bis et Condiano Consulibus." Then in 1881 Usener, a Bonn professor, published a hitherto unknown text of these Acts from a Greek MS. in the ''Bibl. Nat.'' of Paris, dating from the end of 9th cent., and explicitly naming the very two consuls Renier suggested, Praesens II. and Condianus. There is no mention of Severus. It quite correctly speaks of one emperor, since Commodus on July 17, 180, was sole emperor. The proconsul of Africa is Saturninus. He continues the policy of the previous reign, which is not yet modified by the domestic influences which led Commodus to favour the Christians. In 177 persecution had raged at Lyons. It was now the turn of Africa. Usener regarded the Gk. text discovered by him as a translation from Latin. Aubé, viewing the Gk. text of Usener as an original document and the source of all the Latin texts, replied to Usener's arguments, pointing out that Greek was largely spoken at Carthage in the latter half of 2nd cent., and urging many critical considerations from a comparison of the Latin and Greek texts which seem to support his view. For a further discussion of the question see Aubé and Usener. To the Biblical critic these Acts in both shapes are interesting, as indicating the position held by St. Paul's Epp. in 180 in the N. African church. The proconsul asked the martyr Speratus what books they kept laid up m their bookcases? He replied, Our books, or, as the Latin version puts it, the four Gospels of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in addition the Epistles of Paul the holy man. Etude sur un nouveau texte des Actes des Martyrs Scillitains (Paris, 1881); cf. Lightfoot's Ignatius, t. i. p. 507.

[G.T.S.]

Sebastianus (2), Jan. 20, military martyr at Rome under Diocletian. He was of Milan, where he commanded the first cohort. He confessed Christ, and was shot (apparently) to death with arrows in the camp. He was celebrated in the time of St. Ambrose (Enarr. in Ps. 118, No. 44), and is the favourite saint of Italian women, and regarded as the protector against the plague. His symbol is an arrow.

[G.T.S.]

Secundinus (11), a poet, a contemporary and correspondent of Sidonius Apollinaris (Ep. v. 8) who apparently highly esteemed Secundinus as a writer of hexameter verse on minor subjects, such as royal hunting parties and marriages. Secundinus afterwards attempted satire, and Sidonius highly commends a composition in hendecasyllabic metre, urging him to continue this kind of composition. It appears (Ep. ii. 10) that some of his hexameters were inscribed upon the wall of the basilica built at Lyons by Patiens (bishop c. 451–491), and he may have been one