Life and Charity
The synaxarion describes Quadratus as descended from an illustrious family who possessed considerable wealth. Rather than employing his resources for himself, he directed them toward fellow Christians who had been imprisoned during the persecutions, providing for the captives and sustaining their courage.
By one account he bribed the prison warder in order to enter and bring food to the imprisoned believers and to uphold them in their faith. When the imprisoned Christians were brought to interrogation and remained silent, it was Quadratus who answered on their behalf.
Confession and Martyrdom
When the proconsul Perennius came to Nicomedia as the envoy of the emperor Decius, Quadratus voluntarily presented himself before him to strengthen the imprisoned brethren by his example. The vita relates that Perennius first attempted to win him over with rewards and honors, then ordered him imprisoned, laid on a bed of nails, and weighed down with a large stone.
The account further relates that Quadratus was tied into a sack filled with poisonous serpents and cast into a deep pit, yet was found whole and unharmed the following morning; that he was placed upon a red-hot iron grate and emerged unharmed from the flames; and that he was forced to travel through several cities, including Nicea, Apamea, Caesarea, Apollonia, and the region of the Hellespont, enduring continuous torments along the way.
By tradition, two noblemen named Saturninus and Rufinus were moved with pity for the martyr as he was beaten, and were themselves beheaded. Urged a final time to renounce Christ, Quadratus is recorded as replying, in his own words, that since childhood he had acknowledged Christ as the one and only God and knew no other. He was beheaded by order of Perennius.
