Acts of the Purgation of Felix of Aptunga

Proceedings of the Exoneration of Felix, Bishop of Abthugni.

*** In the municipality of Abthugni, Gallienus the duumvir said: “Since you are present, Caecilianus, hear the letter of my lord Aelius Paulinus, vir spectabilis, acting vicar of the prefecture, what he has deigned to order according to the letter given to us, which requires you to name both the clerk you had at the time of your magistracy and the record-keeper. But since the record-keeper of that time has died, you will have to bring with you all the acts of your magistracy, according to the tenor of the letter of the same lord of mine, and you must set out for the colony of Carthage with your clerk. The curator is present, in whose presence we require this of you. What do you answer to this?” Caecilianus said: “As soon as you brought me the letter of Aelius Paulinus, vir spectabilis, acting vicar of the prefecture, I sent at once to Miccius the clerk to come and bring me the records drawn up at that time, and he is still searching. Since it is no short time since I held the duumvirate—it is eleven years—when he finds them I will obey so great a command.” Gallienus the duumvir said: “It is in your interest to obey the order; for you see that the order is sacred.” Caecilianus said: “I am devoted to so great a command.”

Likewise, when shortly afterwards Miccius the clerk had arrived, Fuscius the duumvir said: “You too have heard, Miccius, that you must go together with Caecilianus to the office of the vicar, vir spectabilis, so that you may bring with you the documentation of that time. What do you say to this?” Miccius answered: “The magistrate, when his year was over, took all his acts home ***”

*** if wax tablets can be found among them, I am searching.” And while he was searching, Quintus Sisenna the duumvir said: “The office has answered what it knows.” Apronianus said: “If the magistrate had taken away all his acts, where are the acts that were issued or drawn up then, so long ago?” And as he spoke, Aelianus the proconsul said: “Both my questioning and the answers of each person are contained in the record.” Agesilaus said: “There are, moreover, other letters necessary to this matter; it is important that they be read.” Aelianus the proconsul said: “Read, with Caecilianus listening, so that he may recognize whether he himself dictated it.” Agesilaus read out:

“In the consulship of (Volusianus) and Annianus, on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of September, in court before Aurelius Didymus Speretius, priest of Jupiter Best and Greatest, duumvir of the splendid colony of Carthage, Maximus said: I speak in the name of the elders of the Christian people of the catholic law. The case will have to be pleaded before the most mighty emperors against Caecilian and Felix, who are trying with all their force to seize the primacy of that same law. Evidence of their crimes is being gathered against them. For when persecution was proclaimed against the Christians—that is, that they should sacrifice or hand over to be burned whatever scriptures they had—Felix, who was then bishop of Abthugni, had given his consent that the scriptures should be handed over by the hand of Galatius, so that they could be burned in the fire. And at that time the magistrate was Alfius Caecilianus, whom you deign to see present. And since it was the duty of the office at that time that by proconsular order all should sacrifice and hand over any scriptures they had, according to the sacred law, I ask, since he is present, and you see that he is an old man and cannot travel to the sacred court, that he make a deposition in the record whether he has already given a letter concerning the agreement according to (the acts) held by him, and whether what he set down in the letter is true, so that their conduct and good faith may be laid bare in the sacred court. With Caecilianus standing by, Speretius the duumvir said: Do you hear what has been deposited in the record? Alfius Caecilianus said: I had gone to Zama with Saturninus to buy linen. And when we came there, the Christians themselves sent to me in the praetorium to say: Has the sacred order reached you? I said: No, but I have already seen examples; at Zama and at Furni I saw basilicas being torn down and scriptures burned. So bring out whatever scriptures you have, so that the sacred order may be obeyed. Then they sent to the house of Bishop Felix to take the scriptures from there, so that they could be burned according to the sacred order. So Galatius went with us to the place where they had been accustomed to celebrate prayers. From there we took the chair and the letters of greeting, and all the doors were burned according to the sacred order. And when we sent to the house of the same Bishop Felix, the public officers reported that he was away. For later, when Ingentius, clerk of Augentius, with whom I held the aedileship, came, I dictated a letter to that same colleague, which I wrote to the same Bishop Felix. Maximus said: He is present; let the same letter be shown to him, that he may recognize it. He answered: That is it. Maximus said: Since he has recognized his letter, I will read it, and I ask that it be entered in full in the record. And he read out: “Caecilianus to his kinsman Felix, greeting. When Ingentius met my colleague Augentius, his friend, and inquired whether in the year of my duumvirate any scriptures of your law had been burned according to the sacred law *** that Galatius of mine publicly brought out letters of greeting of your law from the basilica. I wish you good health. This is the sign which the Christians sent me as an entreaty, and he whose praetorium it is; and you said: Take the key, and whatever books you find on the chair and codices on the stone, take them. But see that the officers do not take the oil and the wheat. And I said to you: Do you not know that where scriptures are found, the house itself is torn down? And you said: What then shall we do? And I said to you: Let one of your people take them into the courtyard where you hold prayers, and let them be put there. And I will come with the officers and take them. And we came there and took everything according to the sacred order.” Maximus said: Since the reading of his letter, which he himself acknowledged that he sent, has been recited in the record, we ask that what he has said be fixed in the record. Speretius the duumvir said: What you have said has been written down.”

Agesilaus said: “He has recognized the letter as far as ** the present; the remaining part, which he has just read, he says is forged.” Caecilianus said: “Sir, I dictated as far as where it has: ‘I wish you good health, dearest kinsman.’” Apronianus said: “This is how forgery has always been carried on—through terror, through play-acting, through an irreligious mind—by those who refused to agree with the catholic church. For while Paulinus was acting here as deputy of the prefects, a certain private man was suborned, who had something of a courier about him, to go to the faithful of the catholic unity and to induce and terrify them. So the conspiracy was uncovered. For it was contrived by falsehood against Felix, the most religious bishop, that he should seem to have betrayed and burned the scriptures. Ingentius, indeed—since everything he did was aimed against the holiness and religion of Caecilian—was suborned to come to Caecilianus the duumvir with a letter as if from Bishop Felix and to pretend to him that he had been sent by Felix. Let him say the very words by which this was made up.” Aelianus the proconsul said: “Speak.” Apronianus said: “‘Tell my friend Caecilianus,’ he said, ‘that I received eleven precious divine codices, and since I am now obliged to return them, say that you burned them in the year of your magistracy, so that I need not return them.’ On this matter, then, Ingentius must be questioned, how far these things were contrived and fabricated, and how far he wished to entrap the magistrate into a lie, so as to spatter Felix with infamy. Let him say by whom he was sent—but if (he devised) this machination against Felix's good name *, it was in order to detract from the honor and the beginnings of Caecilian. For there is a certain man who has been sent as an envoy through Mauretania and Numidia by the opposing side.”

And with Ingentius standing by, Aelianus the proconsul said: “On whose instructions did you undertake the things charged against you?” Ingentius said: “Where?” Aelianus the proconsul said: “Since you pretend not to understand what you are asked, I will put it more plainly: who sent you to the magistrate Caecilianus?” Ingentius said: “No one sent me.” Aelianus the proconsul said: “How then did you come to the magistrate Caecilianus?” Ingentius said: “When we had come, and the case of Maurus, bishop of Utica, who had bought his bishopric, was being heard, Felix the bishop of Abthugni went up to the city to deal with it, and said: Let no one communicate with him, because he has committed a fraud. And I said to him in reply: Neither with you nor with him, because you are a traditor. For I was grieved at the case of Maurus, my host, because I had communicated with him abroad, since I had escaped the persecution. Then I went to Felix's own home town; I took three elders with me, so that they might see whether he had really handed over or not.” Apronianus said: “Not so. He came to Caecilianus; ask Caecilianus.” Aelianus the proconsul said to Caecilianus: “How did Ingentius come to you?” Caecilianus answered: “He came to me at home; I was having lunch with my workmen; he came there and stood in the doorway. ‘Where is Caecilianus?’ he said. I answered: ‘Here.’ I said to him: ‘What is it? Is all well?’ ‘All is well,’ he said. I answered him: ‘If you do not mind eating, come and eat.’ He said to me: ‘I will come back here.’ He came there alone. He began to say to me: ‘Look, find out for me in this way and inquire whether scripture was burned in the year of my duumvirate.’ I said to him: ‘You are a nuisance to me; you are a man sent by others; take yourself off from me.’ And I sent him away from me. He came there again with my colleague, with whom I had been aedile. My colleague said to me: ‘Felix our bishop has sent this man here so that you may make him a letter, because he received precious codices and does not want to return them; write to him that they were burned in the year of your duumvirate.’ And I said: ‘Is this the good faith of Christians?’”

Ingentius said: “Sir, let Augentius come too. I too am a man of rank, and may my rank perish, and we have his side as witness.” Aelianus the proconsul said to Ingentius: “You will be refuted on another count.” Aelianus the proconsul said to the staff: “Make him ready.” And as he was being made ready, Aelianus the proconsul said: “Let him be hung up.” And as he was being hung up, Aelianus the proconsul said to Caecilianus: “How did Ingentius come to you?” He answered: “He said: Our Felix has sent me here so that you may write to him that there is some ruined man, I do not know who, … ‘I have very precious codices with me and do not want to return them.’ So make a letter that they have been burned, so that he may not reclaim them. And I said: Is this the good faith of a Christian? And I began to rebuke him. And my colleague said: Write to our Felix. And so I dictated the letter, which shows as far as I dictated it.”

Aelianus the proconsul said: “Hear without fear the reading of your letter; recognize how far you dictated.” Agesilaus read out: “*** I wish you, dearest kinsman, good health for many years.” Aelianus the proconsul said to Caecilianus: “Did you dictate this far?” He answered: “This far; the rest is forged.” Agesilaus read out: “By this sign, which you sent me as an entreaty, except I and you and he whose praetorium it is, and he said: Take the key, and whatever books you find on the chair and codices on the stone, take them. But see that the officers do not take the oil and the wheat. And I said: Do you not know that where scriptures are found, the house itself too is torn down? And you said: What then shall we do? And I said to you: Let one of you take them into the courtyards where you hold prayers, and let them be put there. And I will come with the officers and take them. And (we came there) and took everything as agreed, and burned them according to the sacred order. Maximus said: Since the text of his letter too has been read in the record, which he himself acknowledged and said that he had sent, we ask that this be fixed in your record. Speretius said: What you have said has been written down.” Caecilianus answered: “From that point it is forged; my letter goes as far as where I said: ‘Farewell, dearest kinsman.’” Aelianus the proconsul said: “Whom do you say added to the letter?” Caecilianus said: “Ingentius.” Aelianus the proconsul said: “Your statement is fixed in the record.”

Aelianus the proconsul said to Ingentius: “You are being tortured so that you do not lie.” Ingentius said: “I erred; I added to this letter, grieving over the case of Maurus, my host.” Aelianus the proconsul said: “(Constantine) Maximus, ever Augustus, and Licinius Caesar deign to show such piety to the Christians that they do not wish their discipline to be corrupted, but rather wish that religion to be observed and practiced. So do not flatter yourself that, because you tell me you are a worshipper of God, you cannot be tortured. You are being tortured so that you do not lie, which seems foreign to Christians. And so speak plainly, so that you are not tortured.” Ingentius said: “I have already confessed without torture.” Apronianus said: “Deign to ask him by what authority, by what deceit, by what madness he went round all the Mauretanias, and the Numidias too, and on what grounds he stirred up sedition against the catholic church.” Aelianus the proconsul said: “Were you in the Numidias?” He answered: “No, sir; let there be someone to prove it.” Aelianus the proconsul said: “Nor in Mauretania?” He answered: “I went there to trade.” Apronianus said: “In this too he is lying, sir—for one cannot reach the region of Mauretania except through the Numidias—since he says he was in Mauretania but not in Numidia.” Aelianus the proconsul said to Ingentius: “What is your condition?” Ingentius said: “I am a decurion of Ziqua.” Aelianus the proconsul said to the staff: “Let him down.” When he had been let down, Aelianus the proconsul said to Caecilianus: “What you have said is false.” Caecilianus answered: “No, sir. Order the man who wrote the letter to come; he is his friend; he will say how far I dictated the letter.” Aelianus the proconsul said: “Who is the man you wish to come?” Caecilianus said: “Augentius, with whom I was aedile. I cannot prove it except through Augentius himself, who wrote the letter; he can say how far I dictated to him.” Aelianus the proconsul said: “Is it established, then, that the letter is forged?” Caecilianus answered: “It is established, sir; I am not lying, on my life.” Aelianus the proconsul said: “Since you held the duumvirate in your home town, your words ought to be believed.” Apronianus said: “Nor is it anything new for them to do this; moreover, they have added to the records what they wished; it is by now a craft with them.” Aelianus the proconsul said: “From the declaration of Caecilianus, who says that the records were falsified and much added to the letter, it is made plain with what intent Ingentius did these things; and therefore let him be taken back to prison, for he is needed for stricter examination. But it is plain that Felix, the religious bishop, is clear of the burning of the divine documents, since no one has been able to prove anything against him, that he betrayed or burned the most religious scriptures. For the examination of all, written above, has made it plain that no divine scriptures were found or damaged or burned. It is contained in the record that Felix the religious bishop was neither present at that time, nor gave his consent, nor ordered any such thing to be done.” Agesilaus said: “About those who came to inform your authority, what does your authority order?” Aelianus the proconsul said: “Let them return to their homes.”