Hilaria

Who they were

Saint Hilaria belongs to a group of four Roman martyrs, kept together in the Roman Martyrology on 3 December: her husband Claudius, herself, and their sons Jason and Maurus. According to the tradition recorded in the Martyrology of Ado, drawn from the Acts of Saints Chrysanthus and Daria, Claudius was an army tribune who, while interrogating the martyrs Chrysanthus and Daria, witnessed a miracle they performed and converted to Christianity together with his wife Hilaria, their sons, and seventy soldiers.

When the Emperor Numerian learned of this, he had Claudius thrown into the sea with a stone around his neck, while Jason and Maurus were condemned to beheading along with the seventy soldiers. Grief-stricken, Hilaria could not recover her husband's body, lost at sea, and as she was preparing to bury her sons she too was arrested; she asked to pause and pray before being killed, and was martyred during that prayer. The tombs of Hilaria, Jason and Maurus were still known on the Via Salaria as late as the seventh century.

The miracles

There was never a formal cause: she has been honoured as a saint since before the Church's formal processes began.

Why that counted as sanctity

Martyred with her husband Claudius and sons Jason and Maurus during the Roman persecutions, arrested while burying her sons; feast 3 December.

Connected on this site

• Saints Chrysanthus and Daria Saint
  “According to the tradition recorded in the Martyrology of Ado, drawn from the Acts of Saints Chrysanthus and Daria, Claudius was an army tribune who, while interrogating the martyrs Chrysanthus and Daria, witnessed a miracle they performed and converted to Christianity together with his wife Hilaria, their sons,…” — this site's research