Arcadius of Mauretania (died c. 302) is venerated as a

saint In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of Q-D-Š, holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and Christian denomination, denominat ...

and

martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...

. Tradition states that he was a prominent citizen of ''Caesarea'' in

Mauretania Caesariensis Mauretania Caesariensis (Latin for "Caesarean Mauretania") was a Roman province located in what is now Algeria in the Maghreb. The full name refers to its capital Caesarea Mauretaniae (modern Cherchell). The province had been part of the Kingd ...

(present-day

Cherchell Cherchell (Arabic: شرشال) is a town on Algeria's Mediterranean coast, west of Algiers. It is the seat of Cherchell District in Tipaza Province. Under the names Iol and Caesarea, it was formerly a Roman colony and the capital of the k ...

), who hid away in the countryside to avoid being forced to worship the

Roman gods The Roman deities most widely known today are those the Romans identified with Greek counterparts (see ''interpretatio graeca''), integrating Greek myths, iconography, and sometimes religious practices into Roman culture, including Latin litera ...

. His absence at the public sacrifices being noted, soldiers were dispatched to his house and arrested a relative they found there, despite the man's protests that he did not know where Arcadius was. Hearing of his relative's arrest, Arcadius returned and presented himself before the governor. His legend states that he suffered a grisly death. His limbs were cut off, joint by joint, until all that remained were his trunk and head. According to his legend, as Arcadius looked around at all the pieces of himself that had been hacked off and were lying on the ground, still being able to speak, he cried out, "You are happy, my members. Now you really belong to God. You have all been sacrificed to Him."

Notes

External links

Sant' Arcadio di Cesarea di Mauritania
{{DEFAULTSORT:Arcadius Of Mauretania Saints from Mauretania Caesariensis 302 deaths 4th-century Christian martyrs 4th-century Romans Year of birth unknown