ON ST. LAMBERT THE FARMER, MARTYR AT ZARAGOZA IN SPAIN.
CommentaryLambert the Farmer, Martyr at Zaragoza in Spain (St.)
BY D. P.
[1] The present tables of the Roman Martyrology, after the Martyrs of Zaragoza, reported in the order which we established above — namely, so that first are named those 18 whom we think were cut down in the city, after the confused slaughter of the innumerable multitude outside the gates; then is set Saint Encratis, who outlived her own martyrdom; then Cajus and Crementius, reported today in the Roman Martyrology, commended by the tasted cup of martyrdom — after these, I say, reported in such order, they add: "Likewise in the same place, Saint Lambert Martyr." In the Annotations only Vasaeus is cited, in the Chronicle of Spain at the year 606, but many more in the Flower of the Saints of Spain. That Lambert has his ancient cult at Zaragoza as Martyr, we by no means doubt: since Martinus Carilius, Canon of Zaragoza, in chapter 5 of the Life of Saint Valerius says he is venerated at Zaragoza on June 19, "The altar and sepulcher of Saint Lambert, in the church of Saint Engratia, on the right side of the greater altar dedicated to Saint Engratia, is seen." Tamayo adds in his Spanish Martyrology: "Lest the joys of so many festivities be performed on one day, the careful diligence of the Church distinguished them into different days, and assigned the feast of Saint Lambert to June 19."
[2] with a proper lesson Prudently indeed and carefully: but we greatly fear that the compilers of the Breviary printed in 1573 did not use the same prudence and care, when, partly from their own conjectures, partly from certain uncertain popular narratives, or from paintings and images not well understood, they composed such a Lesson concerning him to be recited among the Divine Offices, confused in matters and times. "When the impious Dacian was pouring out the poison of his ferocity upon the people of Zaragoza, in which he is said to be under Dacian the herald's trumpet sounded throughout the whole city, through the whole forum, and through the crossroads the tyrannical edict was proclaimed, that no one should worship Jesus. So, for fear of punishments, the son was betraying the father, the father was accusing the son, and the souls of men, affected by diabolical arts, were held. There was then in that time Lambert, a true worshipper of God, living under the lordship of a certain unbeliever: who, after frequent battles of words with his master concerning the living God against the vain gods, one day when he was doing the work of farming, is forewarned by his lord that he must adore the gods, or succumb to the sword. And when the most valiant athlete of Christ persisted in faith, the enraged lord with drawn blade cut off his neck, accustomed to the yoke of Christ. But the most holy body of the living victim, when the head was torn from the neck, his head cut off for the cause of the faith with the tongue still throbbing in praise of Christ, bore it with his own hands, and with the oxen with which he was plowing going before, with firm step he proceeded to the place where then the quiet and happy throng of innumerable Martyrs slain was lying. Truly most glorious among Martyrs was this divine Martyr, whose body is not borne on a bier, who needs no bearer; but by a noble and unusual kind of obsequies, he bore it to the heap of other Martyrs. carrying his head in his own hands, he seeks the place of burial; designating by his very station with whom he ought to be buried. Some add that he spoke those words of Psalm 149: 'The Saints shall exult in glory, and they shall be joyful in their beds'; and thus he fell among the other bodies of the Martyrs."
[3] In the silence of Prudentius and the Acts, If these things here narrated had happened in the time of Dacian, how would Prudentius have passed over so fit a material for adorning his poem? not even enveloping in silence those who, having died by bloodless death, only lightly tasted the savor of Martyrdoms? so that it is clear that all those were carefully named whose generous bravery could contribute anything to the commendation of their City. How also would the Author of the Acts, himself also of Zaragoza, have been silent concerning him? gathering into one whatever of the Martyrs of that age had come down to his times by the report of the ancients and the relation of the pagans.
[4] That the martyrdom of this Saint Lambert cannot in any way be referred to the persecution of Dacian, and having regard for the Frankish name also seems to be gathered from his very name, such as you may nowhere read in any part of Spanish history, as long as that nation was under the Roman Empire, indeed nor in the Gallic Provinces. What then? We judge that, as the name, so the race of Lambert was Frankish, and that having been carried off into slavery from the provinces which they possessed in the neighboring Narbonese Gaul, and handed over to some still Arian Goth or Alan, he, himself imbued in his homeland with the Christian faith, held the same so constantly that this was the occasion of his death inflicted by the cruel barbarian. Following such a conjecture, you might not incommodiously refer his Martyrdom to about the 6th century. It seems rather that he was killed under the Arians or Saracens. If later times please more, when also Frankish names could have prevailed among Goths now Christian, so that this Saint might be believed to be a native; then indeed one may opine that under the tyranny of the Saracens, which the Spanish provinces suffered for several centuries, the laurel of martyrdom fell to Lambert: whose body, because either then or afterwards was buried in the church of Saint Engratia and joined to the Mass of holy Martyrs, the opinion prevailed among the common people that in the same persecution he too had shed his blood. However that may be, because we do not believe he suffered under Diocletian and Maximian, we do not labor to explain, with Morell in Part 2 of the History of Zaragoza, Carillo in the Life of Saint Valerius chapter 7, or Tamayo in the Martyrology, how his body was not reduced to ashes, as were those of those innumerable Martyrs with whom he is said to be associated.
[5] The credence also of that miraculous joining to the other Martyrs we confess is to us very ambiguous, and as others are similarly depicted with head in hands. both because we are universally persuaded that that frequent carrying of heads, believed of very many Martyrs from popular tradition alone, has no other foundation than that beheaded Martyrs were everywhere usually sculptured and painted with the head in hands, just as other Saints are also painted or depicted bearing their torn out or cut off members, so that the kind of martyrdom might be known; and also because for the confirmation of so prodigious a matter no guarantee is had from antiquity. Francisco de Bivar indeed, in the Commentary on the Chronicle of Dexter, year 300 number 14, says that what is reported of Saint Lambert is worn smooth among all writers of Spanish matters: more does not persuade the credit of the authors. that thus indeed Morales reports of him, book 10, chapter 6, Villegas, Trujillo, Vasaeus, and the rest:...That he saw near the sepulcher of Saint Engratia this history carved on the marble of the sepulcher of the same Saint Lambert in images. But what if these images were sculptured only in this or the preceding century? Certainly the authors he cites have no antiquity at all: and they are accustomed to transcribe one from another, adding and subtracting as each more pleases, careless of investigating the primary source. Let its honor remain for the holy Relics: it will not be less on that account, if some Martyr be judged less ancient; nor does he detract anything from the well-founded traditions of the elders, who refuses to admit into their class whatever little narratives confused in matters and times.
[6] Adrian VI devoted to the Saint However these things may stand, it is certain that the cult of Saint Lambert, of whom we treat, was signally illustrated among the people of Zaragoza by him who on behalf of the Emperor Charles V once presided over all Spain and pacified it in tumult: Adrian, I say, the Cardinal, afterwards Pope of the same name, Adrian VI, who, being by origin a Belgian born at Utrecht, and being said to bear the greatest devotion toward Saint Lambert the Bishop of Utrecht and Patron of the whole Principality of Liège, could not but also be most devotedly affected toward this Saint in so great a distance of places bearing the same name. receives the jaw-bone Therefore, in the year 1522, when elected to the Chair of Peter, he landed at Zaragoza, and had nothing more at heart than to go to the church of Saint Engratia, where, having adored the body of Saint Lambert, he opened the casket, and took away the jaw and four joints still clothed with their flesh, and placed them in a silver chest, offered for that end by the Magistrate of the city. So Joseph Sigüenza in book 1, chapter 12, of the Hieronymian Chronicle, narrating at length the whole series of the matter, and from him Carillus in the Life of Saint Valerius.
[7] from which, when extracted, blood is reserved. The memory of the deed was soon inserted in the Breviary, and at the end of the Lesson reported above these words were added: "Adrian VI Supreme Pontiff, while journeying to Rome, visited the relics of the Saints at Zaragoza, and took away with him as a gift part of the jaw of the Lord Lambert; and while it is being extracted, they report blood to have flowed, a thousand years and more after the martyrdom. At Rome today it is religiously venerated." Nor was that dripping of small drops, but so copious that received into a silver basin, after the thickened gore stood, received into a crystalline reliquary, it is even today preserved, with this inscription: "The blood of Saint Lambert, citizen of Zaragoza," which, says Carillus, "I saw and held in my hands." Some portion of the same bloody mass, together with the entire radius of the arm and testimonial letters thereupon executed, are preserved in the monastery of Saint Lambert, with his approval is founded the monastery of Saint Lambert
which in the very field which he had irrigated with his sweat while living and his blood while dying, and where a hermitage had long been kept, the piety of the people of Zaragoza raised for the Order of the Most Holy Trinity; as the aforesaid Adrian VI expounded in the Bull concerning that foundation dispatched at Tarragona on the 26th day of June — who previously also, while he stayed at Zaragoza (he stayed, however, from the middle of Lent until Pentecost), is said more often to have visited the place as a venerator.
[8] Carillus recites the words of the Bull thus: "Indeed on behalf of the beloved son John Ferrer, of the Order of the Most Holy Trinity of the Redemption of Captives, Master Professor in Theology, in the place of Martyrdom a petition presented to us recently set forth, that after, on another occasion, the beloved sons the citizens of Zaragoza, considering the greatest affection of devotion which for a long time we bore and now bear toward the holy Martyr Lambert, at the instance of the said John, a certain place existing outside the walls of the city of Zaragoza, where the said Saint Lambert manfully endured martyrdom for the only-begotten Son of God, and near which (as is piously believed) a certain bush is found planted by the hand of the same Saint Lambert himself, for the purpose that there a certain monastery of his said Order should be built under the invocation of the same Saint Lambert, by pure and irrevocable donation (which is called between the living) unanimously donated to the same John."
[9] There is no leisure to conjecture, with Murillo and others, when and on what occasion and in what manner that bush was planted, where the thorn-bush planted by him was seen and whether it grew up from a dry rod fixed in the earth: one would rather, with the same, wonder at the negligence of those who, a monument of religion so ancient, as was believed, surviving to our own age, did not better preserve, so that it was permitted to a careless gardener of the monastery to cut it down; unless I preferred to believe, with the increased celebrity and frequency, both of religious who grew to fifty, and of seculars coming there; and with very many plucking or asking some little portion of the same thorn, there was danger lest the whole might disappear; and it seemed more advisable to cut away what remained, and, clothed with silver plates, to preserve it. As the same Murillo writes is preserved, describing at length the aforesaid convent and its ornaments. And a confraternity is instituted. The same testifies that the Archbishop of Zaragoza Ferdinand of Aragon contributed more than ten or twelve thousand ducats to its building: and among its other ornaments he numbers a most ornate chapel in the church, which the old Confraternity of Saint Lambert instituted there does not cease to embellish, under the invocation of Our Lady of the Remedy, whose miraculous image is there.