St. Nemesion

Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

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December 18 · Martyr

St. Nemesion

St. Nemesion

Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

Traditional feast

December 18
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

December 19 (also listed: September 10)
Secondary source · Wikipedia

Represents

Martyr

Their story

Adapted in modern English from Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints · little is known

In the persecution of Decius, Nemesion, an Egyptian, was arrested at Alexandria on a charge of theft. He cleared himself, but was then accused of being a Christian. The Augustal prefect had him tortured twice as hard as the thieves and burned with them.

Four soldiers, Ammon, Zeno, Ptolemy and Ingenuus, and a man named Theophilus encouraged a confessor on the rack and were beheaded for it. Butler and Baring-Gould agree on about 250.

Early life

The book says little or nothing about early life. This is how the account begins.

Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 0 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.

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 December 18 with a short prayer, and ask for their help.

Read more

The full original · 0 words

Read Baring-Gould’s full account

Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman Martyrology. Ado, Usnardus, &c. Authority: — The Letter of S. Dionysius of Alexandria on the persecution in his diocese, in Eusebius, H. E. vi. 41.] CERTAIN Nemesion,” said Dionysius, bishop rjBl 1 of Alexandria, in his letter to Fabius of Antioch, AqSjI “ an Egyptian, was accused at first of being a ===* companion of thieves; but when he had repelled this chaige before the centurion as a calumny, devoid of truth, he was charged with being a Christian, and was brought as a prisoner before the governor. He, a most unrighteous judge, inflicted a punishment more than double that awarded to robbers, both scourges and tortures, and then committed him to the flames between thieves, thus honouring the blessed martyT after the example of Christ” IDtc. to December ao.

Feast days

Feast: December 19
Traditional: December 18

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

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

Also on December 18
Sts. Rufus and Zosimus

Sts. Rufus and Zosimus

December 18 · Martyrs
M

St. Moyses

December 18 · Martyr
B

St. Bodagisl

December 18 · Confessor
← All 1726 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Story sources

Sources

Credits

Image: Saint Nemesius and Saint John the Baptist.png · Spinello Aretino · Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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.

Image: Spinello Aretino, Wikimedia Commons (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.