Martyr Saturus of Carthage

Martyr Saturus of Carthage suffered around 203 AD in Carthage (North Africa) during the persecution of Emperor Septimius Severus. He was the catechist and teacher of a group of young Carthaginian Christians preparing for baptism, among them Saints Perpetua, Felicity, Revocatus, Saturninus, and Secundulus. On learning of his catechumens' arrest, Saturus voluntarily surrendered himself to the authorities to share their fate. In prison, Saint Perpetua received a vision in which Saturus was the first to climb a ladder into the Heavenly Kingdom, taken as a sign of his special boldness before God. Before his execution in the arena, Saturus himself asked to be given to a leopard, calling it "a second baptism, in blood." Wild beasts — a bear and a leopard — did not immediately kill the martyrs, and the survivors, Saturus among them, were then beheaded by the sword. Saturus left his own written account of the visions granted him, which, together with Perpetua's diary, forms part of the famous early Christian text "The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity." His feast is kept on February 1/14, together with the other Carthaginian martyrs.