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St. Hippolytus and Cassian
August 13, 2021
One of the most illustrious martyrs who suffered in the reign of Gallus was St. Hippolytus, one of the twenty-five priests of Rome who had the misfortune for some time to have been deceived by the hypocrisy of Novatian and Novatus and to have been engaged in their schism; but this fault he expiated by his public repentance and a glorious martyrdom. The last words of the martyr were, “Lord, they tear my body, receive thou my soul.” St. Cassian was a Christian schoolmaster and taught children to read and write at Imola. As he constantly refused to sacrifice to the gods, his barbarous judge, learning of his profession, commanded that his own scholars stab him to death with their iron writing pencils, called styles. He was exposed, naked, in the midst of two hundred school boys who made a barbarous sport out of their task.