Tarcisius of Rome

Pope Damasus, a century after the fact, carved his epitaph in the catacombs of Saint Callixtus, on the Appian Way: Tarcisius was carrying the holy mysteries when a band demanded he show them, and he chose to die torn apart rather than give the holy things to dogs. That is all the earliest source says — neither age, nor trade, nor year. A sixth-century legendary addition made him an acolyte who died in 257, and Cardinal Wiseman's novel fixed the image of the child in the nineteenth century. His cult took on new vigour with the eucharistic congresses, and he is today the patron of altar servers.