P

Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

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November 9 · Priest, Martyr

St. Papulus

St. Papulus

Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

Traditional feast

November 9
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

Not verified yet

Represents

Priest
Martyr

Their story

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

Papulus, or Papoul, was a priest and the colleague of St Saturninus, first bishop of Toulouse, in preaching the faith in southern Gaul in the third century. He is mentioned in the Acts (the written account of a martyr's trial and death) of Saturninus.

He was martyred in the Lauragais, nine leagues from Toulouse, about the beginning of Diocletian's (Roman emperor 284–305, who launched the last and fiercest persecution of Christians in 303) reign according to Butler. A church and abbey built there was enlarged by Charlemagne and made a bishopric in 1317. The town is now called St. Papoul.

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 November 9 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: Gallican Martyrology of Saussaye. Breviaries of Carcassonne and Toulouse. Authority: — The Lections in the Carcassonne Breviary, of no historical value.] S. Papulus is said to have been a priest in company with S. Satuminus, whose not altogether untrustworthy Acts we have. Papulus followed Satuminus into Gaul. On reaching Carcassonne, the magistrate Ruffinus shut them up in a tower, but they were delivered by the Most High, and went on their way to Toulouse. There their preaching met with great success. When S. Satuminus went into Spain, he confided the care of his converts in Toulouse to S. Papulus. His miracles, and success in converting people to the faith so exasperated the heathens, that they laid hold of Papulus, and after having subjected him to insult and torture, they cut off his head at Lauraguais, where in after times a church, and then a monastery, were erected. The body of S. Papulus was translated to the church of S. Satuminus at Toulouse, where it is still religiously guarded and honoured. In French he is called Saint Popoule.

Feast days

Feast: November 9

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

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

Also on November 9
S

St. Salaun

November 9 · Confessor
St. Victorinus

St. Victorinus

November 9 · Bishop, Martyr
T

St. Theodotus of Laodicea

November 9 · Bishop
← All 1726 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Story 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.