Vincent means as it were 'kindling vice' (vitium incendens) or 'conquering fires' (vincens incendia) or 'holding victory' (victoriam tenens). For he kindled, that is, consumed vices through the mortification of the flesh; he conquered the fires of torments through the constant endurance of his sufferings; he held victory over the world through contempt of it. For he conquered the three things that were in the world, namely false errors, unclean loves, and worldly fears, which he conquered through wisdom, purity, and constancy. Of these Augustine says: 'That this world may be conquered together with all errors, loves, and fears, the martyrdoms of the saints teach and have taught.' Vincent, noble by birth but nobler in faith and religion, was the deacon of blessed Bishop Valerius.
Since he was of readier speech, the bishop had entrusted his own office to him, while he himself devoted himself to prayer and contemplation. By order of the governor Dacian they were therefore dragged to Valencia and consigned to a grim prison. And when Dacian saw that they had almost wasted away from hunger, he ordered them to stand before his sight; and seeing them sound and rejoicing, in anger he burst out with this cry: 'What do you say, Valerius, who under the name of religion act against the decrees of the emperors?' But when blessed Valerius answered too mildly, Vincent said to him: 'Do not, venerable father, mutter as if with a timid mind, but cry out with a free voice. If therefore you bid me, holy father, I will assail the judge with my answers.' He replied:
'Long ago, dearest son, I committed to you the care of speaking, and now, for the faith on which we stand, I commit the answers to you.' Then Vincent, turning to Dacian, said: 'Up to now your discourse has argued for the denial of the faith; but know that among Christians it is wicked prudence to blaspheme by denying the worship of the Deity.' Then Dacian, enraged, ordered the bishop to be sent into exile, but Vincent, as a stubborn and presumptuous youth—that others might be terrified by his example—he ordered to be stretched on the rack and torn apart in all his members. And when his whole body was being torn asunder, Dacian said: 'Tell me, Vincent, where do you now behold your most wretched body?' But he, smiling, said:
'This is what I have always desired.' Then the enraged governor began to threaten him with every kind of torment, unless he should yield assent to him. Vincent said to him: 'O happy am I, for the more grievously you think to be angry with me, the better you begin to show me mercy. Rise up therefore, wretch, and rage with all the spirit of your malice: you shall see that I can do more by the power of God while I am tortured, than you yourself can, who torture me.' At this the governor began to shout and to beat the executioners with rods and clubs. And Vincent said: 'What do you say, Dacian? You yourself avenge me on my torturers.' Then the governor, beside himself, said to the executioners: 'Most wretched men, you do nothing. Why do your hands fail?
You were able to overcome adulterers and parricides, so that they could conceal nothing amid the torments inflicted, and now Vincent alone has been able to overcome your torments.' Then the executioners fixed iron combs into the very depths of his ribs, so that blood flowed from his whole body and, the joints of his ribs being loosened, his inner organs lay exposed. And Dacian said: 'Have pity on yourself, Vincent, that you may be able to recover so beautiful a youth and gain release from the torments that are upon you.' And Vincent said: 'O venomous tongue of the devil, I do not fear your torments, but this alone I greatly dread, that you pretend to me that you wish to have pity. For the more angry I see you, the more and greater I exult.
I do not wish that you should lessen anything of the tortures, so that you may confess yourself conquered in all things.' Then, taken down from the rack and hurried to the gridiron of fire, rebuking the delays of the executioners, he hastened eagerly to his punishment. Of his own accord ascending the gridiron, he is there roasted, burned up, and consumed; iron hooks and burning plates are fixed into all his members, and while the flame is sprinkled over him, wounds are pressed upon wounds. Salt moreover is scattered into the fire, so that, leaping back upon his body wounded on every side, he might be more cruelly burned by the hissing flames. And now weapons are hurled not at his limbs but at his vitals, and now his inmost organs slip out from his body. Amid these things he remained motionless and, with his eyes lifted upward, prayed to the Lord.
And when the attendants had reported these things to Dacian, 'Alas,' said Dacian, 'you are being conquered; but now, so that he may live longer in pain, shut him up in the foulest prison and there heap up the sharpest potsherds, fasten his feet in the stocks, and without any human comfort leave him thus stretched out upon the potsherds; and when he has expired, report it.' The cruel attendants serve their crueler master as quickly as possible; but behold, the King, for whom the soldier suffers, changed the punishment into glory: for the darkness of the prison is driven out by an immense light, the roughness of the potsherds is changed into the sweetness of all flowers, the fetters are loosed, and he enjoys the venerable comfort of angels.
And as he walked over the flowers, singing psalms with the angels, a sweet harmony and a wondrous fragrance of flowers spread far and wide. The terrified guards, when through the cracks of the prison they had seen what was within, were converted to the faith. Hearing this, Dacian, beside himself, said: 'And what more shall we do to him? For behold, we are conquered. Let him be transferred to a little bed and laid upon softer bedding, lest we make him more glorious if perchance he should fail under the torments; but after he is restored, let him be punished again with new torments.' So when he had been carried to a softer couch and had rested there a little while, he immediately gave up his spirit, about the year of the Lord 287, under Diocletian and Maximian.
When he heard this, Dacian was greatly terrified, and grieving that he had been so defeated, he said: 'Although I could not overcome him while living, I will at least punish him though dead, and thus I shall be sated with his torment, and thus victory may yet come to me.' By Dacian's order, therefore, his body was exposed in a field to be devoured by birds and beasts; but at once it was guarded by the protection of angels and preserved untouched by the beasts. Indeed a raven, though given to gluttony, drove off other birds larger than itself by the beating of its wings, and put to flight a wolf that ran up, by biting and shrieking; and it was seen perched with its head turned, gazing upon the holy body, as one who marveled at the angels' guard there. Hearing of this, Dacian said:
'I think that I shall not be able to overcome him even though he is dead.' He therefore ordered a huge millstone to be tied to his body and it to be cast into the sea, so that what on land could not be consumed by beasts might at least in the sea be devoured by sea-monsters. The sailors therefore carrying his body out into the sea sank it; but swifter than the sailors themselves, the body made for the shore. It was found, by his own revealing, by a certain matron and some others, and was honorably buried by them. Of this martyr Augustine speaks thus: 'Blessed Vincent conquered in words, conquered in torments, conquered in confession, conquered in tribulation, conquered when burned, conquered when drowned, conquered while alive, conquered when dead.' The same:
'Vincent is tortured that he may be tested, is scourged that he may be instructed, is beaten that he may be made firm, is burned that he may be purified.' Ambrose too in the Preface speaks thus of him: 'Vincent is tortured, beaten, scourged, and burned, yet his unconquered soul is not shaken for the holy Name; burning more with the fire of zeal than of iron, bound more by the fear of God than of the world; he willed rather to please God than the tribunal, he loved rather to die to the world than to the Lord.' Likewise Augustine: 'Before our eyes a marvelous spectacle has been set:
an unjust judge, a bloody torturer, an unconquered martyr — a contest between cruelty and piety.' Prudentius also, who flourished in the time of Theodosius the elder, who began in the year of the Lord 387, says that he replied thus to Dacian: 'Torments, prisons, iron claws, the plate hissing with flames, and even death, the last of punishments — to Christians these are but a game.' Then Dacian said: 'Bind him, twist back his arms, stretch him up and down, until the joining of his bones, torn apart, cracks limb by limb, so that through the gaps of his wounds his exposed liver may quiver.' This soldier of God was laughing, reproaching the bloody hands because the fixed claw did not enter his limbs more deeply. When he was in prison, an angel said to him:
'Rise up, illustrious martyr, rise up secure, and join yourself as our companion to the holy assemblies. O most unconquered soldier, stronger than the strongest, now the very savage and harsh torments tremble before you as victor.' Prudentius cries out: 'You alone, marked with honor, you alone have borne the palm of a twofold prize; you have at once won two laurels.'