Dionysia

Dionysia (1), virgin martyr at Lampsacus, a.d. 250. Seeing Nicomachus suddenly seized with madness and dying in horror, after having denied the faith under torture, and sacrificed to the heathen gods, Dionysia cried out, "Miserable and most wretched man! Why, for one hour's respite, didst thou take to thyself unceasing and indescribable punishment!" The proconsul Optimus hearing her, asked if she were a Christian. "Yes," she answered, "and that is why I weep for this unhappy man, who loses eternal rest by not being able to suffer a moment's pain." The proconsul dismissed her with a brutal order. Next day, having succeeded in maintaining her chastity, she escaped, and joined Andrew and Paul, two Christians who were being stoned to death. "I wish to die with you here," she said, "that I may live with you in heaven!" Optimus ordered her to be taken from Andrew and Paul, and beheaded, May 15, 250, the 2nd year of Decius. Ruinart, Act. Sinc. Mart. p. 159; Ceillier, ii. 118.

Dionysia (2), at Alexandria, a.d. 251, mother of many children, who, loving her Lord more than her children, died by the sword, along with the venerable lady Mercuria, without being tried by torture, as the prefect had succeeded so ill with Ammonarion that he was ashamed to go on torturing and being defeated by women (Dion. Alex. ad Fab. ap. Eus. H. E. vi. 41

Dionysia (3), St., a Christian martyr in the 5th cent. According to the narrative of Victor Vitensis, her contemporary, she was a lady of rare beauty in Africa, who preferred tortures, shameful indignities, and death to renouncing her faith; a victim of the persecution of the orthodox or Catholic Christians by Hunneric, king of the Vandals. The date assigned for her martyrdom is 484.

See Victor Vitensis, de Persecutione Africanâ, V. c. 1; ap. Migne, Patr. Lat. lvii.; Tillem., Mémoires, t. xvi. (Paris, 1701, 4to); Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici, t. viii. p. 463 (Lucae, 1741, fol.).