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Peter (St.) Exorcista and Marcellinus

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Peter (St.) Exorcista and Marcellinus

(It. SS. Pietro e Marcellino), two Romish saints always represented together, flourished during the last persecutions under Diocletian, about the opening of the 4th century. Their religious convictions, openly avowed, brought them to jail, and it so happened that even there they were sorely tried. Their jailer, Artemius, had a daughter, Paulina, who was sick. Peter promised to restore her to health if Artemius would believe in God. Then the jailer ridiculed him, saying, "If I put thee into the deepest dungeon, and load thee with heavier chains, will thy God then deliver thee?" To this Peter replied that it mattered little to God whether he believed or not, but that Christ might be glorified he desired that it should be done. And it was so; and in the night Peter and Marcellinus, dressed in shining white garments, came to Artemius in his own chamber. Then he believed, and was baptized with all his family, and three hundred others. When they were to die, it was ordered that the executioner should take them to a forest three miles from Rome, in order that the Christians should not know of their burial-place. So when they were come to a solitary place, and the executioner pointed it out as the spot where they were to die, they themselves cleared a space and dug their grave, and died encouraging each other. In the paintings of the churches they are represented in priestly habits bearing palms. They are commemorated by the Romish Church on June 2.