Saint Fabian, pope and martyr, who, though a layman, was divinely called to the pontificate, and, giving a glorious example of faith and virtue, suffered in the persecution of the Emperor Decius. Of his struggle Saint Cyprian rejoiced, that in governing the Church he had brought to completion an irreproachable and illustrious testimony. His body was laid to rest this day at Rome on the Appian Way, in the cemetery of Callistus.
Also Saint Sebastian, martyr, who, sprung from Milan, as Saint Ambrose relates, set out for Rome when the bitter persecutions were raging, and there suffered; and so in the City, to which he had come as a stranger, he obtained a dwelling place of perpetual immortality. His burial likewise took place at Rome, at the Catacombs, on this same day.