Vitalus, Buried Alive at Ravenna for the Name of Jesus Christ, in the Year 99

Vitalus, before his conversion, was a Roman knight and a citizen of Milan. He had come to Ravenna with Paulinus, the judge; but when he saw the bloodthirstiness of his lord, whom he had until then served faithfully according to the manner of the world, he bravely left him, and at once enrolled himself under the banner of Christ, but was very soon arrested by the enemies of truth. For Paulinus, his lord, did not know why he had left him; but having learned that he had encouraged Urticinus, who had just before been beheaded with the ax for the faith, when Urticinus wavered, and had kept him from sacrificing to the gods, and had also buried him after his death, he came to suspect that he too must be a Christian. Upon this suspicion, and through the accusations of others, he had the pious Vitalus arrested; and having found from his own confession that he was really a Christian, he had him put on the rack, to try him, whether he would not renounce Christ.

Then Vitalus spoke to Paulinus, the criminal judge, in these words: "You must certainly be deprived of your reason, to think that I should be deceived by you, and brought to eternal suffering in soul and body, while I have sought to deliver others from the danger of delusion."

A wicked heathen priest, seeing that he held firmly to Christ, and would in no way do honor to the gods, advised Paulinus to bury Vitalus alive. Paulinus, following the evil suggestion of this priest, had a deep pit dug down to the water, at the place where the Christians were usually executed, called ad Palmam, because a palm tree stood there; and he had Vitalus buried in it, up to the middle (of his body), and then covered up with stones and earth.

Now when Valeria, the wife of Vitalus, after the death and burying alive of her husband, returned home from Ravenna to Milan, where she lived and had her children, she could not remain hidden long, but made herself known as a Christian woman; for when she was pressed to eat what had been offered to idols, she very steadfastly refused and resisted, and indeed, moreover, openly rebuked the idolaters, saying, "I am a Christian, and can therefore in no way eat what is offered to Sylvanus, your god."

Then these idolaters seized her, and beat her to death with sticks. She was buried at Milan by the Christians. This happened by virtue of the first persecution, or the edict of Nero, which, it is stated, remained in force under Vespasian and under Domitian. A. Mell. Hist., folio 16, column 3, about Luke. [n127-1]

Concerning this martyrdom see the authors mentioned above, noted with regard to Urticinus.