Venerable Martyr Patermuthius, Venerable Martyr of Egypt

DATE FILLED IN, CAPTION FRAGMENT REPLACED: the date field was previously empty and the text was merely a fragment of a catalog caption. It is also clarified that the "robber" and "martyred with a disciple" strands of the tradition are not two competing stories about different people, but a single narrative about the same saint; the surviving image (two monastic figures together) fits well with the pairing of "the elder Patermuthius and his disciple Coprius."

Venerable-martyr Patermuthius of Egypt suffered for Christ under Emperor Julian the Apostate (361–363). In his youth he was a pagan and the chief of a band of robbers, but after a miraculous conversion he repented, was baptized, and withdrew into the Egyptian desert, where he devoted himself to fasting, prayer, tending the sick, and burying the dead, attaining great sanctity and the gift of wonderworking. His disciple and spiritual son Coprius later became the eyewitness who recorded his elder's life.

When the hermits were reported to the apostate emperor Julian, he had them brought before him and tried by deceit to turn them from Christ, claiming he himself had once been a Christian but had found the truth in the pagan gods. Coprius wavered momentarily, but, admonished by his elder's tearful prayers and pleas, again confessed himself a Christian and was subjected to brutal torture — red-hot tongs and a furnace — emerging unharmed by divine power.

A soldier named Alexander, witnessing the martyrs' steadfastness, believed in Christ and was likewise condemned to be burned. The enraged Julian ordered Patermuthius and Coprius beheaded. Their feast, together with Martyr Alexander, is kept on July 9/22.