Cerealis

Cerealis was the name of several persons in early Christian history:

1. Avicarius sent by Hadrian to arrest the two brothers Getutlus and Amantius, tribunes and Christians, at Tivoli. He was converted by them, baptized by Sixtus I, arrested with them by one Licinius, and beheaded, June 10, cir. 124 (Tillemont, 2, 242).

2. A soldier converted by his prisoner, pope Cornelius, and beheaded along with him; as also his wife, Sabina, whom the pope had cured of palsy. See Tillemont, 3, 744.

3. A bishop (surnamed Afer) of Castellum, in Numidia, the author of a Libellus contra Maximinum Arianum. His own episcopal city and the neighboring towns having been devastated in the religious war carried on by Hunneric and his nephew Gundamund against the Catholics, Cerealis took refuge in Carthage, A.D. cir. 485, where he was confronted by Maximus, the Arian prelate of the Ariomanitne (or Armmonite), who reproached him with the calamities which had fallen on those of the orthodox faith, as a proof of the displeasure of God. Being challenged by Maximus to prove the points at issue between the Arians and the orthodox from Scripture alone, he accepted the challenge on twenty assigned heads, each of which he demonstrated in favor of the Catholics by two or three quotations from the Bible. Maximus deferred his reply from day to day until he allowed judgment to go against him by default. See Gennadius, 100. 96, Cave, Historia Literaria, 1, 460.