Ctesiphon

ON ST. CTESIPHON, BISHOP, OF VERGIUM IN SPAIN.

FIRST CENTURY.

Ctesiphon, Bishop, of Vergium in Spain (Saint)

D. P.

[1] Usuard inserted into his Martyrology the common commemoration of the first seven Apostles and Bishops of Spain, and from him Baronius placed it in the Roman Martyrology on May 15. Common commemoration with the others on May 15, Not satisfied with this, various churches have taken up particular ones to be venerated on individual days. Thus the people of Granada ordained that the month of February should begin with Saint Caecilius, the following month of March with Saint Hesychius, and this month of April with Saint Ctesiphon; others are venerated in other places on various days. particular veneration at Granada on this day; Ferrarius, following the Granadan Fasti, inscribed in his General Catalogue of Saints, "At Granada in Spain, of the holy Martyrs, Bishop Thesiphon and his disciples." What could generally be said concerning the time of the mission and ordination of all seven has been said by us on the Kalends of February and March. We by no means think the same things are to be rewoven here, nor on account of the tablets of Granada or the assertion of the pseudo-Dexter are we to depart from the first and most ancient information which Usuard has given us concerning those apostolic men, so that we should wish to doubt whether each one rests and died in the places which are there indicated; although more recent Spaniards, Marieta, Tamayo, and Cardoso—this one in the Lusitanian Hagiology, the bare notice from Usuard: that one in the Spanish Martyrology, on this same day—go into an entirely different opinion, which has been sufficiently examined elsewhere. The words of Usuard on the Ides of May are these: "The birthday of the holy Confessors Torquatus, Ctesiphon, Secundus, Indaletius, Caecilius, Hesychius, and Euphrasius, who were ordained bishops at Rome by the holy Apostles and sent to preach the word of God to the Spains, at that time still entangled in pagan error. And when they had evangelized in various cities and had subjected innumerable multitudes to the faith of Christ, Torquatus came to rest at Acci, Ctesiphon at Vergium, Secundus at Abula, Indaletius at Urci, Caecilius at Eliberis, Hesychius at Carthesa, Euphrasius at Eliturgis."

[2] Therefore, we hold that Ctesiphon came to rest at Vergium; nor do we adjoin to him as companions Maximus, Lupercius, and Musitanus, along with more recent writers, everything else concerning him is suspect. since we lack a suitable authority; nor do we define anything concerning his martyrdom. By what method and among whom Ctesiphon sowed the faith, in the common silence of the ancients we patiently remain ignorant, but we would strongly wish to know more distinctly the place of his burial named by Usuard. For here authors depart into very diverse opinions. Bivarius, expending good labor and great erudition unsuccessfully in illustrating the inventions of the pseudo-Dexter, Whether Vergium or Vergelia, which is now Beria? is wholly intent on defending and upholding the reading of his fabricator, that Vergium is the same as Vergilia, so called from a compound name with the particle "ili," as if it were the city of Vergium, and that it is the town of Verza, on the shore of the Baetic sea, not far from Almeria in the Kingdom of Granada, which in geographical maps is commonly written Beria. Someone thinks that Abdera or Adra, nearest to Veria and more distant from the shore, should be understood; but Ptolemy contradicts this, making Abdera, Beria, and Vergilia very different cities—this last indeed far from the sea, the others placed at the sea itself, but separated from one another by a full interval of sixty miles.

[3] Between Almeria and New Carthage is a city today called Vera, which by its ancient name was called Virgi, and many more recent writers consider the whole gulf from the Charidemian promontory to be the Virgitan gulf. Pomponius Mela supports this, naming the city Virgi; nor does Pliny differ much, when he writes of the Urgetan gulf and of Urgia, surnamed Castrum-Julium; for easily the letter "i" could have fallen out, or been omitted on account of varying pronunciation of the same name. For assigning this city therefore to Saint Ctesiphon, or Virgis which is now Vera? Georgius Cardoso stands, and the very great similarity of the names Virgis and Vergis supports him. But how a city situated in such a convenient place, and even now by no means contemptible, should have lost its episcopal dignity, is not relevant to investigate, since not even this is established, that there were ever any bishops of Vergium, but only that Ctesiphon rested there: who could have had his see in the metropolis of the Bastitani, today called Baza, where his successors were Theodore, Eusebius, and Basil, named in the Third, Fourth, and Fifteenth Councils of Toledo. For if Torquatus at Acci and Indaletius at Urci, in neighboring cities of the same Bastitani, left bishoprics founded, as is undoubted from their successors repeatedly named, why could not Ctesiphon have fixed his see in the same district of Baetica and in the very metropolis of Basta, and from there have gone out at times to Vergium or Virgim, a maritime place and perhaps the chief port or emporium of the Bastitani, for the sake of preaching or of business; and thus there have found a tomb which still lies hidden?

[4] If however anyone contends altogether that this Saint should be removed farther from his companions, and should be pleased to wander toward the Pyrenees mountains, he will encounter the fortress Vergium, or a fortress named by Livy in the territory of the Laccetani, commemorated by Livy, Decade 4, Book 4; whose inhabitants and neighbors the same writer calls Vergestani, describing how Marcus Porcius Cato, the Roman consul, having transferred the auxiliaries of the same people in their war from the Turdetani to the Celtiberi, and having received the rest in surrender, took by stratagem the city of the Lacetani, and immediately moved from there to the fortress of Vergium: which was the chief receptacle of robbers, having been occupied by them against the will of the prince of the place, from which they continually made incursions into the pacified fields of the province. That all these things took place across the Ebro clearly appears from Livy's very narrative, so that there can be no doubt that this Vergium, commemorated by him, is to be sought between that river and the Pyrenees mountains. And here I would willingly read "Iacetani" for "Lacetani," so called from Iaca, a city in Aragon still famous and episcopal today; or rather of the Iaccetani? for Livy calls them a remote and wooded people, to whom accordingly the roughness of the diocese of Iaca suits better than the pleasant plain of Catalonia; although in this latter (and indeed at the Ebro in the diocese of Tortosa) Ortelius places the Iaccetani, while the authors of the Ptolemaic maps locate the Laccetani. For the same Livy makes the Suessetani neighbors to his Lacetani, or rather Iacetani: whose city Suessatium is written by Antoninus, but by Ptolemy Suestasium, with the letters simply interchanged; and some think that it is today called Sangüesa, on the river Aragon, between Jaca and Pampelona, a conjecture by no means inept.

[5] whether this is the same as the Bergidum of Ptolemy, But where shall we conceive this Vergium fortress to have been, so that from the victory at Iacca moving their forces the march would not have been too long? Here indeed the water sticks. Ortelius, and from him Ferrarius, suggests the Bergidum of Ptolemy, to be sought between Jaca and Osca or Huesca, so that now no traces of the name remain; according to whom the Bergestani and Vergestani would be the same. But since Livy in the cited book makes them different, it does not help this conjecture that one might believe in Ptolemy Bergidum has crept in for Bergium, and for those who pronounce differently Vergidum for Vergium. Therefore, these being left between Jaca and Osca, or rather with the modern Xaverium? Livy's Vergium and the Vergestani are to be sought elsewhere, and indeed through the precipices of conjectures. To one running through all the modern names of the places that lie to the south and west of the city of Jaca, there occurs Xaverium, vulgarly Xavier, a name most ancient in both places (which you might suspect is called Castrum-Vergium, as it were Ca-ver, with the names joined): one in the Pampelonan district, ennobled by the birth of the great Apostle of the Indies and Japan; the other in the very Iaccitan region, on this side of the river Gallega, in maps called Xavierre-latro, as perhaps it was once fully named Castrum-Vergii-latronum, both for distinction from the former and perhaps from the memory of robberies, from there, as Livy recalls, overflowing into the pacified fields of the Roman province. And thus far concerning Livy's Vergium.

[6] Something more seems to be required for us to attribute either of these, or even the Bergidum of Ptolemy mentioned first, and whether Saint Ctesiphon pertains to these parts? to Saint Ctesiphon. For from whence shall we make it probable that, in so many years as have flowed from the times of Hannibal and Cato to the faith preached in Spain, the celebrity of the place not only remained, but was even increased; whose trace though now scarcely survives, yet its greatness allured Ctesiphon to establish an episcopal see there? And again, whose misfortune was so great that, having received the light of Christian faith, it soon failed, so much so that no bishop of the Vergestan or Vergensian church is found to have subscribed in any councils anywhere, nor is that church itself named in any descriptions of the Spanish dioceses? Content therefore to have proposed these things for the students of ancient geography to weigh and evaluate, concerning the name of the Saint himself we here add that it is variously written by various authors, and many have erred in it, writing Tesiphon or Thesiphon; but Chthesiphon seems less correctly written, if you regard the Greek etymology: for Chthesiphon from χθὲς and φάω, a kind of fabrication from Arabia. "shining yesterday," has an entirely unsuitable meaning. But Ctesiphon from κτῆσις, "splendid in possessions," signifies a most auspicious nomenclature.

[7] Moreover, that this man of whom we treat was the brother of Saint Caecilius, and was called by his Arabic and native name Abenathar, we no more believe on the basis of one (whom Bivarius cites) of the books,

found under the Sacred Mount of Granada, than from the others likewise found in the same place and named by the aforesaid author as Arabic, that the true title and true antiquity of D. Tesephon is to be preferred. But what should be said concerning the Relics likewise found there, we prefer to leave to a greater examination, since the chief defenders of both have always judged that these and those are joined by an indissoluble bond, so that with those Granadan tablets and writings not being admitted (which is necessary), and likewise the books found under his name, one cannot separate the certainty or falsity of either from the other.