Candida: An Ante-Nicene Martyr in Persia

The Syriac passion account of Candida, a third-century Christian wife of the Persian king, has received scant acknowledgement in modern scholarship. The account of her martyrdom is valuable as an unexplored parallel to the better-known female martyrs from the Roman world, for its probable early date relative to other Persian martyr narratives and for providing a valuable window into the obscure world of early Syriac Christianity. This article aims to bring this sequestered martyr into the broader scholarly conversation about martyrdom in early Christianity through an analysis of its historical context and its literary character.