Baring-Gould’s sources: Greek Mensea and Menology; inserted by Baronius in the Modem Roman Martyrology. Authority: — The Greek Acts written late, at what time, however, cannot be said. In the preface is said, 14 We have resolved not to cover with silence the holy life of Autonomns, which has come to us, but to hand it on to pious ears. For the acts of the martyr have come down to ns, partly written by some one before ns, who had a good intent, but not much skill, so that through ignorance he confused many things, and partly from men who were chosen to serve in the church of the martyr, who inquired into and collected the truth of these matters diligently.’'] Autonomus, a bishop, ordained in Italy, on the breaking out of persecution in the Peninsula, was filled with a sudden enthusiasm for preaching the Gospel in Asia Minor. He took ship, reached Bithynia, and made his way to Sora,1 and hid himself with a man called Claudius, whom he ordained deacon, and went round Lycaonia and Isauria, comforting and encouraging the faithful, and powerfully convincing the unbelievers. But when he heard that the Emperor Diocletian had come to Nicomedia, his missionary ardour at once impelled him to take ship to Claudiopolis in Pontus, and put as wide a space as possible between himself and the persecutor.

After a while he returned to Sora, saw that all was well there, and then went off to Limne, at the most extreme corner of Asia Minor, on the Euxine, where there wfas least chance of Christians being molested, or, to put it in another light, a greater missionary work might be accomplished. One day, when Autonomus had come to Sora, the inhabitants burst into his chapel, wrecked it and killed him whilst standing at the altar.

1 The Acts say Sorei: I presume it was Sora on the Partheneus, in Paphlagonia. •S-S. Mctcedonius and Others.