The life of the Martyrs of Africa
Congregations that continued gathering for the Liturgy under their own bishops and clergy, rather than accept rebaptism into the Arian church, faced Huneric's order that such believers be put to death. On one occasion soldiers broke into a church where the faithful had gathered in secret for the Divine Liturgy; many in the congregation fled in the confusion, but some three hundred remained where they stood rather than abandon the service, and for that they were tortured and beheaded. Among the sixty-two clergy taken in the same persecution, two were burned alive and the rest had their tongues cut from their mouths, a mutilation meant to silence them; the Church's own memory of these events insists that several went on speaking and preaching regardless, their witness against the Arian teaching unbroken by the wound. The record of this persecution comes down chiefly through the account of Victor of Vita, a bishop of the province who lived through Huneric's reign and set down what he had seen. Three hundred and sixty-two are remembered together from this single episode, laypeople and clergy alike, kept in the Church's memory as a body rather than by individual name.
