Silvanus (2) , bp. of Gaza, a martyr in the persecution of Maximin, c. 305. He was a presbyter at its outbreak, and from the very beginning he endured many varied sufferings with the greatest fortitude. Not long before his martyrdom, which was one of the last in Palestine, he obtained the episcopate. Eusebius speaks with high admiration of his Christian endurance, saying that he was "reserved to the last to set the seal, as it were, to the conflict in Palestine" (Eus. H. E. viii. 7, 13). He was decapitated, according to the Roman martyrology, on May 4., 308. Theoph. p. 9; Le Quien, Or. Christ. iii. 605.
[E.V.]
Designed to render to a wider circle, alike of clergy and of laity, the service which, as is generally admitted, has been rendered to the learned world by The Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects, and Doctrines, published under the editorship of Dr. Wace and the late Dr. Wm. Smith, about twenty years ago, in four large volumes.Wikipedia
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