Felix and Adauctus

Felix and Adauctus (d. 303) were according to tradition, Christian martyrs who were said to have suffered during the Great Persecution during the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian.

The Acts, first published in Ado's Martyrology, relate as follows: Felix, a Roman priest, and brother of another priest, also named Felix, being ordered to offer sacrifice to the gods, was brought by the prefect Dracus to the temples of Serapis, Mercury, and Diana.

Their church in Rome, built over their graves, in the catacomb of Commodilla, on the Via Ostiensis, near the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, and restored by Pope Leo III, was discovered about three hundred years ago and again unearthed in 1905 (Civiltà Catt., 1905, II, 608).

Pope Leo IV, about 850, is said to have given their relics to Irmengard, wife of Lothair I; she placed them in the abbey of canonesses at Eschau in Alsace.

The painter Carlo Innocenzo Carlone (1686–1775) painted The Glorification of Saints Felix and Adauctus (1759–61), seen above.