U

Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

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April 8 · Martyr

St. Ulpian

St. Ulpian

Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

Traditional feast

April 8
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

Not verified yet

Represents

Martyr

Their story

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

Ulpian was a young Christian of Tyre. Encouraged by the example of St Apian and other martyrs at Caesarea, he boldly confessed Christ before the cruel judge Urbanus.

The governor had him scourged and then racked until his joints were dislocated and his bones broken. He was then sewn into a leather bag with a dog and an asp, carried to the shore on a cart drawn by black bulls, and thrown into the sea. Butler's source is Eusebius (bishop of Caesarea, d. c. 339, the first historian of the Church), On the Martyrs of Palestine, chapter 5.

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 April 8 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. Authority. — Eusebius in his History of the Martyrs of Palestine, c. 5, contemporary and perfectly trustworthy.] Ulpian or Vulpian was a youth of Tyre, who was cast into the sea in a leathern sack together with a dog and an asp, which were sown up in it with him.

Feast days

Feast: April 8

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

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

Also on April 8
P

St. Pancras of Taormina

April 8 · Bishop, Martyr
A

Sts. Agape

April 8 · Widow, Martyrs
U

St. Urbicius of Clermont

April 8 · 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.