A

Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

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October 4 · Martyr, Virgin

Sts. Adauctus and…

Sts. Adauctus and Callisthene

Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

Traditional feast

October 4
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

Not verified yet

Represents

Martyr
Virgin

Early life

Selected sentences from the original account, unaltered.

Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 17 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.

Callisthene recovered the body of her father, brought it to Ephesus, and built a church over it.

What they represent

How they teach us to live

Drawn from themes in the original account

Learn from the kind of life it was. Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

Keep their day. Remember them on October 4 with a short prayer, and ask for their help.

Read more

The full original · 17 words

Read Baring-Gould’s full account

Baring-Gould’s sources: Greek Mensea and Menology. Some Latin Martyrologies.] Adauctus, a citizen of Ephesus, suffered martyrdom in Mesopotamia, in the persecution of Maximin. His daughtei Callisthene cut her hair short, disguised herself as a young man, and concealed herself in Nicomedia. After eight years she went to Thrace, and lodged with a woman who had a daughter with delicate eyes. Callisthene, by careful attention, healed the girl, and the mother desired to marry the two, that they might settle in her house and be the comfort of her old age. Callisthene was then obliged to tell her story. She went next to Constantia, the wife of Licinius, and told her her case, and the empress procured for her the restoration of her father's property which had been confiscated.

Callisthene recovered the body of her father, brought it to Ephesus, and built a church over it.

Feast days

Feast: October 4

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from Sts. Adauctus and…'s story, and a nudge to keep going.

Also on October 4
C

Sts. Crispus and Caius

October 4 · Feast
T

Sts. Thyrsus

October 4 · Martyrs
D

Sts. Domnina

October 4 · Martyrs
← All 1726 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Sources

Credits

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain.

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain in the United States. Reproduced unedited, except for short bracketed notes in grey that we added to explain names and terms (“S.” is the old abbreviation for Saint). Some history and judgments reflect 19th-century scholarship.