Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by MaybeItsBecauseImALondoner (talk | contribs) at 22:15, 8 January 2025. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Papias and Maurus were a pair of Christian martyrs from an unknown era of persecution. Their cult as saints dates back to at least the 7th century and is recorded in pilrgim itineraries which record them as originally being buried in the Large Catacomb on via Nomentana. The Roman Martyrology records them on 29 January. Papias is sometimes mispelled Papianus.

According to the late (400-700 AD) and legendary martyrdom account Martyrdom of Marcellus and Companions, Papias and Maurus were soldiers martyred in the Diocletianic Persecution by order of the praefectus urbi Laodicius, who ordered they be beaten and whipped to death.

In 1590 their relics were rediscovered in Sant'Adriano al Foro Romano, whose titular see was then held by cardinal Agostino Cusani. He gave the relics to Santa Maria in Vallicella, where they were placed under the building's high altar with the relics of those of saints Domitilla, Nereus and Achilleus. Peter Paul Rubens painted the pair twice, once in 1606 with Saints Domitilla and Gregory the Great (Gemaldegalerie, Berlin) and once in 1608 solely with Gregory (Santa Maria in Vallicella, Rome).

References

1. (in Italian) "Trecanni entry".
2. "E02501: The Martyrdom of *Marcellus (bishop and martyr of Rome, S00529) and Companions..."

• Saints duos
• Groups of Christian martyrs of the Roman era
• Christians martyred during the reign of Diocletian