Primitivus of Zaragoza

Who they were

At Zaragoza in Spain, the commemoration of Saints Optatus and seventeen companions, martyrs, who during the persecution of the emperor Diocletian were tortured and put to death; their noble martyrdom was celebrated in verse by Prudentius.

Their names are: Saints Lupercus, Successus, Martial, Urban, Julia, Quintilian, Publius, Fronto, Felix, Caecilian, Evodius, Primitivus, Apodemius and four others, who are said to have all been called Saturninus.

Among those named is Saint Primitivus.

The miracles

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

Why that counted as sanctity

The Roman Martyrology remembers him on 16 April among the eighteen martyrs of Zaragoza who were tortured and killed under Diocletian and whose martyrdom Prudentius celebrated in verse.