Justus and Pastor

ON STS. JUSTUS AND PASTOR, MM.

AT COMPLUTUM

IN SPAIN.

In the year 304.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Justus, Martyr, at Complutum (S.)

Pastor, Martyr, at Complutum (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR P. B.

§ I. The antiquity of their cult and its spread.

Complutum, in Spanish Alcalá de Henares, is a town and illustrious University of New Castile on the river Henares, The cult begun from the martyrdom, distant nearly six leagues from Madrid toward the East. This place Sts. Justus and Pastor once ennobled by their birth, their upbringing, and their most glorious martyrdom, if you regard its manner and their age: so that it ought not to seem a wonder if they there received sacred honors from the Christian citizens of the time, as soon as they had merited them by dying. Certainly the Spanish writers after our Acts say everywhere, with Ambrosio de Morales, who cites old Breviaries in his favor, in the General Chronicle of Spain, book 10, chapter 9, folio 348, that Dacian, after the cruelty inflicted upon these Boys was completed, whether from fear of sedition, or from despair of accomplishing anything there by punishments, where not only did no one fear them, but even tender youth, offering itself of its own accord, demanded them with unheard-of eagerness, suddenly departed from Complutum in terror; and that the pious citizens straightway used this occasion not only to bury the bodies of their Martyrs in the same place in which they had fallen, but also, an oratory being placed over the tombs, to venerate them. But that cult, however great it was then, was not long-lasting: since before the end of the same century there survived no traces either of the oratory or of the sepulcher; so that pledges so precious had to be revealed by a heavenly prodigy, lest oblivion should at last utterly abolish a religious observance long interrupted; as is gathered from St. Ildephonsus, bishop of Toledo, who flourished in the seventh century, in the book on Ecclesiastical Writers, chapter 2; where he has thus concerning Asturius, once his predecessor:

[2] after the finding of their bodies This man was both blessed in his priesthood, and worthy of a miracle: because he merited to find in an earthly sepulcher the limbs of those with whom he would be joined in heaven. For when he was discharging the priesthood of his see, he is said to have been admonished by a divine revelation to search out the Martyrs of God buried in the municipality of Complutum, which is situated at nearly the sixtieth milestone from his city. He, being stirred and hastening, found those whom both * the earth of the mound and the oblivion of time had pressed down, to be brought forth into the light and the glory of earthly recognition. These being found, refusing to return to his see, bound at once by servitude and by assiduity toward the Saints, he closed his last day. Whose see nevertheless, as long as he lived, no one approached. Hence, as antiquity has it, he is acknowledged as the ninth priest in Toledo, and the first in Complutum. The names of our Martyrs are not expressed here by Ildephonsus, says the cited Morales, folio 350, because it is not necessary; since to say Martyrs buried in the Complutensian municipality is just as much as to call them by their proper name: for no others besides Justus and Pastor are known to have been then either made or buried Martyrs at Complutum; as will be plain below from Prudentius. And that indeed is the common opinion of all. But from this argument another is drawn, to which neither Morales nor very many others sufficiently turned their mind, when they deferred both the Toledan episcopate of Asturius and the already mentioned finding of the sacred bodies to the beginnings of the fifth century:

[3] about the year of Christ 388 For if by the Martyrs buried at Complutum Sts. Justus and Pastor are most certainly designated, assuredly St. Paulinus of Nola must be judged to have buried his little son with them; since in the Panegyric on the death of the boy Celsus, Poem 15, otherwise 32, toward the end he writes thus:

Offspring long wished for, and not granted us, Unworthy to rejoice in pious posterity! We believe, Celsus, that he sports for you in the eternal greenery, A partaker of gladness and of life; Whom we committed to the Complutensian city, joined By the covenant of the tomb to the neighboring Martyrs; That from the near blood of the Saints he may draw That with which he may purge our souls in that fire.

And indeed our Rosweyde, Tamayo, and most recently Le Brun in the Paris edition of the works of St. Paulinus of the year 1687, and as many others as we have seen who have explained this text, have interpreted these things of Justus and Pastor. Already therefore the tomb of these Martyrs had been revealed, already the bodies found; and therefore Asturius had already for some time occupied the see of Toledo, when Paulinus buried his dead little one near their sepulcher, before the year of Christ 393, as is clear from his Acts at the day XXII of June; nay in the year 391, as Tillemont determines, volume 14, page 15, and Ferreras in the Historical Synopsis of Spanish Affairs at the year assigned (where nevertheless he wrongly confuses the boy Celsus with Paulinus's little son), and others. Hence the same Ferreras preferred to refer the finding narrated by Ildephonsus to the year of Christ 388, rather than to the following century, which Morales with others had done on account of the not sufficiently accurate chronology of the bishops of Toledo, concerning which the Most Eminent Aguirre may also be consulted, Councils of Spain, volume 2, dissertation 6.

[4] Further, from the testimony of St. Ildephonsus produced, anyone will easily conjecture it flourished again that by such a revelation of the sacred pledges not only was the former religious devotion among the Complutensians toward their Martyrs aroused; but besides was increased with all the increments that were possible. For what? If Asturius made so much of this treasure that, having begun a new episcopate there, and refusing to return to the see of Toledo, bound at once by servitude and by assiduity toward the Saints, he wished to close his last day there; shall we doubt that he adorned their relics, received in a more august mausoleum, to the best of his power, and enclosed this very thing in a new basilica, consecrated under the title of the same Martyrs? Or is it indeed credible that there was not at the same time instituted by him, or rather restored, some annual celebration of them, and an Office composed to be chanted there? For indeed unless he displayed such service to them, he must be said to have displayed one not worthy enough either of the prodigy which had happened to him, or of that his so singular affection of piety toward them, or finally of the office and power with which he was furnished. Wherefore I would not indeed dare so far to accuse those Spanish authors who build up something of the kind: as Morales, when in book 10 of his Chronicle, chapter 9, folio 351, he says that it is held for certain that that jasper coffer of theirs (concerning which we shall treat below, where we treat of the relics) is the work of the same Asturius. As much concerning the church of Sts. Justus and Pastor, and indeed a cathedral one, erected there by the same man, among others Rodrigo Méndez hands down, in the work which he entitles Población general de España, folio 29, and Juan Francisco Andrés in the Monument of Sts. Justus and Pastor, page 27. As to what pertains to the feast and the Office, some assert that the one which is read at the sixth day of August in the Isidorian Missal and Breviary was indeed adopted by St. Isidore; but was composed of old by Asturius. So judge the cited Andrés, page 21 and 29, and Tamayo both at this day and at the VII and VIII of March: but since they seem to have drawn this from the chronicle of pseudo-Dexter alone at the year of Christ 423; and others generally attribute that Office and Mass to St. Isidore as author; it is all one to me whether these, or others more ancient and now unknown, be conceded to Asturius.

[5] and through all Spain Certainly no one can deny that at the same time their name and sepulcher began to be most celebrated: for both the passage of St. Paulinus adduced proves this, and another no less explicit in Prudentius, the contemporary of Paulinus, in Hymn 4 of the Περὶ στεφάνων, thus reckoning our Martyrs among the most famous of Spain:

The blood of Justus, to whom Pastor clings, A double dish and twin gift, It will delight Complutum to bear in its bosom the limbs of the two.

As their fame grew, so grew also their cult, spread little by little over all Spain; as the churches everywhere dedicated under their title, or even enriched with their relics, give proof; of which some are very ancient, such as that at Medina Sidonia in Andalusia, of which Morales exhibits this most ancient inscription, book 10, folio 353: Here are laid up the relics of... Stephen, Julian, Felix, Justus, Pastor, Fructuosus, Augurius, Eulogius, Acisclus, Romanus, Martin, Quiriscus, and Zoilus, martyrs. This basilica was dedicated on the seventeenth of the Kalends of January, in the second year of the pontificate of Pimenius, in the Era 668, that is, in the year of Christ 630. Of nearly the same age is the monastery of Sts. Justus and Pastor at Compludo, or Bierzo, near Astorga, which we said was founded by St. Fructuosus in his Acts at the day XVI of April, page 431. See Morales in the place assigned, and Ferreras in the History of Spain at the year 646, number 13 and following; where he demolishes the Privilege of Chindaswinth, king of the Goths, published by Sandoval, on which the more certain epoch of the same monastery depends. To the same century belongs the church of our Martyrs at Alcácer do Sal, which is a town of Lusitania, founded in the year of Christ 682, as the inscription in Morales in the same place, folio 354, indicates; where he also subjoins that there was then no region in Spain so remote in which these Martyrs did not have some church distinguished by their names; although the definite beginnings of each are not known.

[6] it began to be spread; So the same author, folio 355, says that their parish churches at Toledo, Madrid, Salamanca, and, if it has not yet fallen, at Augustobriga, are exceedingly ancient. The metropolitan church of Narbonne was from time immemorial illustrious under the title of Sts. Justus and Pastor; as you will gather from the diploma of Charlemagne in the Sainte-Marthe brothers. To these add the ancient monasteries: that of Lejul, situated among the ridges of Cordova, which St. Leovigild the martyr once inhabited, concerning whom we shall have to treat at the day XX of this month; that of Covarrubias, or of Augusta Nova, concerning which Morales in the same place, folio 355 and following; likewise another founded by St. Genadius, bishop of Astorga; concerning which see his Testament in our work at the day XXV of May, page 96. And indeed what need is there to review monasteries, churches, or individual places distinguished by a particular title of our Martyrs

consecrated by their cult and name, in too long an order here; since not even all the dioceses in whose proper Offices he found their memory celebrated did it seem good to Tamayo to enumerate one by one? For having reviewed at this day those of Toledo, Zamora, León, Plasencia, Sigüenza, Seville, Calahorra, Palencia, Ávila, Cuenca, Cartagena, Burgos, Compostela, Pamplona, and Huesca, as though wearied with counting he adds: And in others also of Spain everywhere.

[7] Nor indeed could the so religious veneration of the same Martyrs be long confined within the borders of Spain, nay through the whole Church. without being poured out in a short time through the universal Church. This shines forth first from the most ancient of all codices of the Hieronymian Martyrology in Florentinius, in which at the day XXV of this month this announcement of them is read: In the Spains, at the place Complutum, of Justus, of Pastor: then from the other universal ones likewise, which came forth in the ninth century, of Florus, Ado, Usuard, Notker, whose texts at this day scarcely differ from that of today's Roman Martyrology, which stands thus: At Complutum in Spain, of the holy martyrs Justus and Pastor, brothers; who, while as yet boys they were being steeped in letters, casting away their tablets in the school, ran of their own accord to martyrdom; and soon, being ordered by the governor Dacian to be seized and beaten with cudgels, when they strengthened themselves most constantly with mutual exhortations, were led outside the city and had their throats cut by the executioner.

[8] If you ask the reason why in the Hieronymian Martyrology, as also in a certain manuscript Adonian codex of the Morini, Their birthday is the sixth day of August; these Martyrs are referred to the XXV of August; we confess that we are altogether ignorant of it: for we believe that their true birthday was the sixth day of August; which is the most constant tradition of the Spanish churches, still observed in use in several of them, and especially in that of Complutum, and confirmed by the authority both of the old Isidorian Breviary, and of the ancient inscription of Cardeña (which we shall give on this same day, where the discourse will be of the two hundred Martyrs of the same monastery), and finally of all the Martyrologists and Hagiographers who have made mention of Sts. Justus and Pastor since the eighth century. But if certain churches now, on account of the feast of the Transfiguration or some other impediment, transfer the Office of our Martyrs to the VII or VIII of August, those same churches advise in their proper Lessons that the martyrdom happened on the eighth of the Ides of August, as is had in the Toledan ones.

[9] We think therefore that, wherever they are celebrated on other days or months, although they are not celebrated on that day or in that month only. this is not done in order to assert and observe their true birthday, as though it were to be removed from the eighth of the Ides of August; but for whatever other causes: thus the church of Huesca, when it fixed their solemnity from all memory back, as Andrés affirms on page 224, to the first Sunday of September, assuredly never wished by that arrangement to fix their birthday there; since Sunday is always a movable day, and occupies a different day each year. Among the Compostellans, besides the birthday, the sixth of August, there is moreover observed the anniversary memory of that translation, of which it will be spoken below, on the seventh day of March, as you may see in Tamayo. The metropolitan church of Narbonne also, besides the same birthday, celebrates likewise on the XIX day of February a certain translation of relics, solemnly performed, as Saussay says in the Supplement of the Gallican Martyrology, page 1155, in the year of Christ 1335. What moved the Compostellans to transfer their memory from the sixth day of August, once observed there, to the seventh of October, as Tamayo affirms he observed in the more recent Breviary of the same church of the year 1569, I have indeed nowhere found: I wonder more that in the proper Offices of that diocese, printed at Compostela in the year 1596, mention of Sts. Justus and Pastor is altogether omitted. Thus far concerning the cult, concerning which more may be gathered from the following paragraphs.

* read "and whom"

§ II. The Acts; the fatherland, parents, and age of the Martyrs; the time of the martyrdom.

The Acts seem to have been written in the fourth century in prose; Since these Martyrs never appeared before a judge, much less were interrogated by him, or judged in the accustomed manner, there is no reason why public Acts of their contest should be believed ever to have existed. Yet we judge those which survive to be very ancient, and perhaps composed for the use of the church of Complutum (as we know was often done elsewhere also) by someone who had been present at the deeds, not very long after the martyrdom. Certainly Surius, or Mosander in the supplement to the Surian work, says that he excerpted them (the style being nevertheless changed everywhere) from the most ancient codices: and we have the beginning of the same in our parchment codex Q Ms. 7, which seems older than the ninth century, worn away everywhere and mutilated, and especially (which we most greatly lament) in this place, where formerly two leaves at least were cut out after this beginning of our Acts: In those days, when the most cruel Datianus, provoked by the instigation of the serpent and the counsel of the devil, was raging through the whole world, that whatsoever Christians through various... From this fragment meanwhile we gather that that ancient copy agrees almost in every single letter with another which, received from a manuscript of St. Maximin at Trier, we shall publish below; and therefore also with those which lay before Surius or Mosander, nay from which nine centuries ago the most famous Martyrologists sampled their compendia. But the author himself at number 3 can seem to have designated the age of the prototype far more precisely; since he mentioned only that first basilica, and indeed as still then subsisting, which after the departure of Dacian, and (I think) the peace restored to the Church, they built over the neighboring, but nevertheless separate, tombs of both Martyrs: separate tombs, I say: for he says that over each of their (the Martyrs') bodies, with one basilica protecting them, venerable altars were consecrated under their titles. But that basilica had perished when Asturius presided over the church of Toledo, as the fourth century was declining, nor did any knowledge of those tombs survive, except among the Blessed above, as we have already seen from Ildephonsus; but Asturius enclosed the bodies, when found, in one and the same sepulcher, of which we shall speak afterward; as Morales asserts is held for certain, book 10, folio 331: nor are they ever afterward known to have had at Complutum any other than this same common and precious and single sepulcher. Our anonymous writer therefore seems to have written long before the finding of the bodies; and consequently not very long, as I just noted, after the contest of Sts. Justus and Pastor.

[11] long before they appeared in verse in the Isidorian Office: And so we think these Acts of our Martyrs to be more ancient than those things which are read on this day in the old Isidorian Office, whether those were composed by Asturius at the close of the fourth century, or two centuries later by St. Isidore of Seville, or by any other prelate in between: for I have not yet found anyone who has determined that that Office is later than Isidore. But it is even now in use among those who at Toledo and elsewhere follow the Mozarabic rite, concerning which it has been treated more than once elsewhere, and at length in the Preliminary Treatise to the sixth volume of July. That Office indeed touches upon the Acts of Sts. Justus and Pastor more than once in the proper Mass; but scatteredly; as may be seen in Francisco Diego de Aynsa y de Yriarte in the Antiquities of Huesca, book 2, chapter 32; but in the same place in the Hymn at Vespers they are recited entire in historical order: wherefore we have judged that this too is to be reprinted below; and it is chiefly this which we here call by the name of the Isidorian Office, and which we say is later than the Acts praised before, and this especially from the fact that it agrees excellently with them as far as the slaying of the Martyrs; but omits the things which are afterward added concerning the first basilica, concerning the separate tombs of the Martyrs in it, concerning the different altars placed over each. For to what end, I pray, shall we say that those things were passed over there which had immediately followed the martyrdom; unless because, when the hymn-writer was writing, that basilica had already fallen, another already occupied its place, in place of two tombs there was already but one, and finally the arrangement of the place had already been so changed that the things which had been written before could no longer agree with it? And it certainly was not fitting that those attending the Office in the church of Complutum should hear everything different from what they were then beholding with their eyes before them.

[12] From what has been said it follows that these Acts ought to merit great credit with all, whence they ought to be of great authority, both on account of their antiquity, and on account of the antiquity of the Isidorian Office, which agrees with them through every chapter of the history as far as the burial. Nor indeed even in this age, in which there is everywhere such license of the severest censure, has anything hitherto been able to be devised which ought to diminish it among men of sense. Tillemont indeed says, Ecclesiastical Monuments, volume 5, page 58, that these Acts are exceedingly brief; and yet full of useless words: but first, those judged otherwise who in Tamayo amplified these very same with many more words by no means necessary. Next, it is one thing for Acts to be old and true; another for them to be composed concisely and with art, such as those generally are which are called public or proconsular. These have as their author a Christian, pious and truthful rather than lettered; with men of which sort even today the most cultivated churches abound, being wont to defer more weight generally to their simplicity than to the most polished literature of the rest.

[13] No more solid are the things which Baillet, treating of our Martyrs at this day in his Critical Table, thus pronounces: although certain critics endeavor to gnaw at it. Their Acts, although brief, are suspect of various additions; but neither are they original. Yet they are judged true in what they contain, if one excepts the speeches which (below at number 2) are attributed to the Saints, even then little ones. So he, relying on no argument, but, as often elsewhere, on his own authority alone. But I ask, how could he, who read those Acts in no old codex, but in Surius alone, sniff out additions made, without any collation of copies? For that they are not original, as they are read in the Surian work, he could easily gather from the same place from the prefatory admonition, where their style is said to have been everywhere changed. But what are those additions? Are they of things, or only of words? For if it is a question of words alone, an answer has already been given in the preceding number. Of things also, he says: for although the things contained in the Acts are judged true, yet the speeches placed at number 3 ought to be excepted; and consequently they are not to be judged true, but false and foisted in by an interpolator. If you were to say that they were amplified, perhaps I would bear it; but since you call them false, prove it. They are too studiously devised, you say, to suit little ones. A fine reason indeed! You yourself grant one of them eight years of age, the other thirteen: and you deny that they could say anything aptly to the present matter; especially in that time of persecution, in which nothing could be daily debated more frequently either by parents or by any other Christians whatever

than the things which they heard, which pertained to inflaming souls to martyrdom? Which of these, tell me, was more wonderful at that age: to fly of their own accord to the tyrant and to punishments; or, as the Acts declare, to discourse thus concerning martyrdom? The former, without doubt. Since therefore you confess that that very thing is truly narrated of these Little Ones in the Acts, why do you accuse the other of falsehood? Certainly each is equally confirmed from the Isidorian Hymn, although in compendium. But in the most ancient Mass of the same rite, in Aynsa, page 267, it is said of God: And who in them (Justus and Pastor), when they were exhorting one another to the passion, deigned to speak by the gift of grace. Grant, therefore, that those exhortations cannot without a prodigy be squared with the age of our Little Ones; are they on that account straightway to be proscribed as false? By no means; but rather to be attributed to Him who makes the tongues of infants eloquent; which ought to hold good chiefly here, where the credit of the Acts could not otherwise be impugned.

[14] The fatherland of the Martyrs, Complutum; From the Acts we descend to those things which are found observed by more recent writers for their explanation, concerning the fatherland, parents, age, etc., of the Martyrs. And concerning their fatherland indeed the common opinion of the Spaniards, approved also by the authority of the Roman See at this day in the proper Lessons of the church of Toledo, is that both were Complutensians; which the Acts themselves also hint not obscurely, when they testify that they attended the schools there at a tender age. Nor indeed was there ever here any contention of other cities or peoples, such as commonly occurs in a doubtful matter, when each wishes that glory to be its own which it grudges to another, unless it be obtained by the most certain right. I do not know, therefore, what Tamayo means on this day, page 401: for he seems to assign them as fatherland Thermeda, once a town, now a village, four leagues distant from Complutum, as Morales says, book 10, folio 356, commonly Tielmes. But indeed if he means this, he fights with himself at the second day of July, page 18, letter B, where he affirms that they were born at Complutum.

[15] Christian parents; but unknown: Justus and Pastor were not only fellow-citizens; but also brothers; as is clear from the Acts and the Martyrologies. But of what parents were they sprung? Morales, book 10, folio 347, says that certain men were found in Spain who wished to assert that the father of both was St. Marcellus, the centurion and martyr, who is venerated on the XXX of October. Their opinion he utterly extinguished when he denied that it rested on any foundation. Another thereupon emerged from the fabricated chronicles of Dexter, Luitprand, and the like, which substitutes for Marcellus as the parent of these Brothers that St. Vitalis of whom we treated with the other Martyrs of happy Campania on the 2nd day of July, page 307 and the following. The novelty of this the most learned bibliographer of Spain, Nicolás Antonio, assails in a manuscript work, certain fragments of which we have received, at the day VI of August, in these words: Nor was it anywhere among us heard by report, what Dexter, Valderedus, Luitprand, Julian, Aulus Halus, whom Tamayo has collected, have gone about attesting today in rivalry with their most empty and most futile testimonies. Then he demolishes the same opinion with several arguments; to which others also could be added, were it not enough to have named its first authors, that it may not find credit among the prudent. More insipid is the assertion of certain men who made St. Martha, virgin and martyr of Astorga, whom at the day XXIII of February, page 361, we said fell under Decius, the aunt and nurse of Justus and Pastor: which not even Tamayo himself could swallow at this day. Therefore concerning the parents this only is established, that they were Christians, as the Acts relate; and citizens not of the lowest rank; since they placed their children in a school to be cultivated in the liberal disciplines.

[16] What year of age each had reached is disputed: an age greater than 7 and 9 years, for although in the Apostolic Brief of St. Pius V, Pope, to the bishop of Huesca and Jaca, given on the twelfth day of April, 1567, and published in Tamayo in the Martyrology at the day VII of March, and by others, they are said at the time of the martyrdom to have been, the one nine, the other seven years old; and Morales affirms, folio 349, that this can safely be believed, and the more recent Spaniards have everywhere believed it; as being what agrees excellently with those phrases by which both our Acts and the Breviary and Missal of Isidore define the age of the Martyrs; nay, because it ought to be thought that it did not creep rashly into the Pontifical Brief, but was derived thither from some authentic and original instrument, as Morales speaks in the same place: yet with all these things Juan Francisco Andrés does not acquiesce, in the Monument of Sts. Justus and Pastor, chapter 9, having himself twice contemplated and measured the bones of both; but he comes over to the opinion of Juan Vaseo and Álvar Gómez, who will have it that both Martyrs died as adolescents, that is, not less than the fourteenth year of age. But the things which seem in the Acts and the Mozarabic Office to argue a far more tender little age of theirs, he endeavors in the same place to show, by producing examples from elsewhere, were not rarely attributed to adolescence. And certainly the things which at the day XXI of January are recited from St. Ambrose concerning St. Agnes in the Roman Breviary ought, unless I am mistaken, to signify to anyone a much lower age, if the author had not added in these express words: She is handed down to have suffered martyrdom at thirteen years. To the Pontifical Brief the answer is easy: for St. Pius there asserts nothing; but narrates the things which had lately been set forth to him by order of Philip, the Catholic king. He caused it to be set forth to us lately, he says, our most dear son in Christ Philip, Catholic king of the Spains, that the holy Justus and Pastor... in the year (Behold for yourself a fit expositor, whoever he was!) of human salvation SEVEN HUNDRED AND SIX, the one nine, the other seven years old, by the order of Decianus, then governing those regions under the emperor Diocletian... underwent martyrdom, etc. Tell me, is he who set forth the year of martyrdom so ignorantly to be judged to have hit the mark as to the years of age of both? We nevertheless, until something more evident be brought forward concerning the quantity of the individual relics, incline rather to that opinion which sets their age lower than adolescence. See below, §3, from number 28.

[17] Now if the age of each compared mutually with the other is required, and that of Pastor greater than that of Justus: Baillet on this day expresses it thus (I know not on what reason or authority): The elder, of nearly thirteen years, was called Justus; the other, being only in his seventh or eighth year, had the name Pastor. Certainly contrary is the tradition of the Spaniards, thus set down in the proper Office of the church of Toledo at this day: For Justus, the younger, fearing perhaps that his brother might distrust his own constancy, thus first addresses Pastor, etc. This tradition moreover, to pass over the rest, Ambrosio de Morales, folio 349, Diego de Aynsa, page 265, and Juan Francisco Andrés, page 21, defend, by the measurement of the sacred bones of each; from which they assert it is evidently gathered that Justus was younger than Pastor. But that Justus is everywhere wont to be named before Pastor, they judge was done for some cause other than that of age; namely because the younger bore the punishment before the elder; or because the former by his exhortation offered himself to the latter as a kind of leader and instigator.

[18] the year of the martyrdom 304 Concerning the year of the martyrdom of both of these it is wonderful how variously some have thought, while some referred it to the eighteenth year of the emperor Trajan, others to the tenth of Hadrian, others to the year of Christ 296, others elsewhere; as Andrés notes, page 22 and the following. Yet the matter could be defined most nearly from the Acts themselves with no trouble: for they testify that these martyrdoms happened at the time when Dacian was raging most cruelly in the Spains against all Christians whatsoever. But that Dacian was governor there under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, and the most atrocious minister of their savagery in persecuting the worshippers of Christ, is established from the most ancient Acts of St. Vincent the martyr, volume 2 of January, page 394. It is gathered besides from Eusebius, On the Martyrs of Palestine, chapter 3, that the edict of the same emperors, by which not now only the ministers of the churches, as before, but all Christians indiscriminately were exposed to torments and slaughter, pertains to the second year of the persecution, about the beginning of the year of Christ 304 (as Tillemont observes, volume 5 of Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 49 and the following). There is therefore no reason why another year should be sought than that same year of Christ 304: since these our martyrdoms pertain to the month of August; but in the month of May of the following year Diocletian and Maximian Herculius abdicated the empire; nor is Dacian known to have retained the office of governor under other emperors, much less to have exercised it so monstrously: for although in the Preliminary Commentary to the Acts of St. Afra, M., we denied that with the said change of empire the persecution in Spain was altogether extinguished; yet we contended in the same place that it was then made milder than to torture the constancy of Christians with various kinds of torments; which our Acts relate concerning Dacian.

§ III. Their sepulcher; the translations and condition of the bodies.

The MM. were buried where now is the basilica of Complutum. From the Acts, number 3, we understand that our Martyrs were buried in the same place where they suffered; that is, in the field which from its fertility, as Morales affirms, folio 348, they called Laudabilis; and which at that time indeed, as the same most skilled author of Spanish antiquities asserts, was placed outside the circuit of the city of Complutum; but was afterward enclosed by it, when it was transferred to another site, which it holds even today. He says that this same place was both divinely assigned to Asturius, and adorned by him, the bodies of the Martyrs being placed and joined together in the same new tomb, and a church built over it, as we mentioned before; and that several centuries afterward it was ennobled by Alfonso Carrillo, and then also by the most eminent Francisco Ximénez, archbishops of Toledo, with the more spacious and august building of the collegiate basilica which is now seen. He denies accordingly that the place of the sepulcher was ever changed; but constantly asserts that it remained from the beginning there where it now is; namely in the underground oratory beneath the chief altar of the greater church: and that Asturius indeed, when by divine inspiration he dug up this treasure, had no reasons for transferring it elsewhere; but many for leaving it in the same place; and chiefly because no place could be found more worthy of it than that which had once been steeped and consecrated by the copious blood of the same Martyrs: but that Carrillo and Ximénez, when they adorned the same place with new buildings, did it with so great religious scruple that of those things which had existed there from time immemorial they did not dare either to demolish or to move from their original site even a single jot. From these things, moreover, determine of what credit those things are worthy which pseudo-Dexter after the times of Morales thus blurts out at the year of Christ 423, number 8: Asturius of Toledo, the bodies of Sts. Justus and Pastor

martyrs, having first been translated within the walls of the Complutensian city, honors with a basilica. Certainly St. Ildephonsus said that these were found and venerated by Asturius; he did not say that they were translated.

[20] The first translation, then, of those sacred bodies, but thence translated by St. Urbicius which Morales builds up, folio 356, and after him Aynsa, book 2, chapter 25, is ascribed to St. Urbicius the hermit, of whom we shall have to treat in this work at the day on which he is venerated, the XV of December; when his age can also be examined more laboriously, which Vicente Blasco de Lanuza calls into doubt in the continuation of the Annals of Zurita, volume 1, book 1, chapter 37: meanwhile we shall here follow the common opinion with the authors just assigned; according to which St. Urbicius was captured in Spain in the Saracen war, about the year of Christ 714, and carried off into Galicia into slavery. After some years, by the patronage of our Martyrs, whom he venerated intensely, being dismissed free by a not harsh master, he came to Complutum; both that he might render immense thanks to them in person at the sepulcher; and also, if the matter allowed, that he might in some way repay them, namely by carrying off with him their sacred pledges from the Saracen dominion to safer places, and so in turn in a certain way claiming them into liberty out of dangers and servitude. The business succeeded; and having by a pious theft obtained a suitable occasion, he reached Bordeaux, whence he sprang, safe and unharmed with both bodies of the Martyrs. Thence, moreover, being stirred to the course of a more perfect life, after he had, the Pyrenean mountains being crossed again, laid the rudiments of the monastic institute in the diocese of Huesca with a certain Martin, a monk of the Benedictine Order, then noble there for sanctity, he inhabited alone most holily for fifty full years a harsh hermitage in the Valley of Nocito, situated about five leagues to the north from the city of Huesca. Where also after his death, as he had while living previously commanded, he rested buried a very long time between the bodies of the Martyrs, never anywhere let go by him; namely from nearly the year 800 until the end of the fifteenth century.

[21] And these things, concerning the first translation from the sepulcher at Complutum to the Valley of Nocito by St. Urbicius, to the Valley of Nocito in the eighth century; this author confirms in the same place, first from the ancient and perpetual tradition of the natives (with which agree the proper Lessons on St. Urbicius in the Breviary of Huesca, at the day XV of December, recited in Tamayo from the edition of the year 1509). Next, from the sepulcher of St. Urbicius itself, in the church consecrated under his name near the Valley of Nocito: for in it there are seen on either side of Urbicius's body empty places, where before the second translation the bones of the Martyrs rested; and that it was so reported to him by weighty men, who had taken in this matter with their own eyes. Finally, from the testimonies of certain old men, surviving while he wrote, who even then remembered that time in which the bodies of our Martyrs had been carried away thence. But that that translation happened not very long after the Spains were subdued by the arms of the Moors, he also gathers from this, that St. Eulogius the martyr, in his epistle to Wielisind, bishop of Pamplona, narrating a journey undertaken about the year 840 (as Morales judges), asserts that he went down to Complutum, and there lodged with Venerius, the bishop of the place, until the fifth day from his arrival; and yet makes no mention of the bones of Sts. Justus and Pastor. Namely, the learned man thinks it altogether follows from this that before that time the bones of the same Martyrs had been carried away from Complutum: for if they had been preserved there until then, Eulogius would without doubt have visited them: but if he had visited them, he would by no means have kept silent about it to his Wielisind, greedy of pious news of that kind. See volume four of Spain Illustrated, page 230 and following. But Ado is against it, you say, who after that journey of St. Eulogius writes expressly of these Martyrs and of the church of Complutum at this day: Where also they rest in the basilica of their own name. It can be replied that Ado drew these things from the ancient Acts, earlier than the translation, and that he did not from elsewhere obtain in Gaul knowledge of the bodies furtively translated; which Usuard, setting out into Spain some years afterward, seems to have received, since on the same day, copying out Ado, he altogether omitted the words just set forth.

[22] and hence, The truth of this translation the Complutensians themselves afterward asserted, when, seeking back their own with the greatest zeal through more than one of their archbishops, they demanded them from nowhere else than from the church of St. Urbicius in the Valley of Nocito first, and thereupon from that of St. Peter the Old at Huesca, as will be plain from what follows. This was the care especially of Alfonso II, surnamed Carrillo de Acuña, who sat at Toledo from the year 1445 until 1482, and was meanwhile so affected toward the Complutensian Martyrs that he did not hold it enough to have either restored their church at Complutum, or increased it by some part of the building (as, against Gómez, volume 1 of Spain Illustrated, page 1019, Morales and others will have it), and to have founded in it a wealthy college of canons; unless he moreover enriched it with the bones of its guardian Martyrs brought back by right of postliminy from the Valley of Nocito. That he might obtain this, he appeals to Ferdinand, the Catholic king: Ferdinand commits the matter by letters to Alfonso, his son, then archbishop of Saragossa (whence you may gather that this happened after the year 1477), but not yet (as some rashly write) viceroy of Aragon; for he was not honored with that dignity before the death of Carrillo, although in the same year of Christ 1482 in which the latter had died, as Zurita reports, Annals of Aragon, volume 4, folios 316 and 318. Alfonso, moreover, while he obeys his father, easily perceives that the people of Nocito can be induced neither by right nor by any authority however great to let go a treasure so long possessed. Judging therefore that art rather was to be used here, he sent two monks to the sepulcher of St. Urbicius, in appearance indeed that they might carry oil for feeding the lamp there; but in reality that, if there were opportunity, they might secretly carry off thence the sought-for relics of our Martyrs. And they did indeed accomplish this; but the theft being soon discovered and made known by a certain Venticus, a cleric of the place, the inhabitants flew so promptly to pursue the fugitives that, having overtaken them in the neighboring village of St. Eulalia the Greater, they were already preparing to hurl them headlong from the highest summit of a rock; when the men of St. Eulalia ran armed to the aid of the wretched Brothers, and each aimed his bow at the tumultuous crowd of the Nocitans, doubtless about to transfix very many, had not a miracle intervened, by which the strings of all the bows at once being broken, they sent forth not even a single arrow. But then the men of St. Eulalia, casting away their useless arms, turning to prayers, so appeased the Nocitans that, the booty of the sacred bodies being recovered, they allowed the monks to depart safe and at the same time empty-handed.

[23] This mishap afterward so far from breaking the hope of Francisco Ximénez, raised to the mitre of Toledo in the year 1495, not without prodigies, that in the year 1499 he impelled the same archbishop of Saragossa, and now vicar of King Ferdinand in Aragon, to repeat his attempts in the same business. But he, attributing the misfortune of the former expedition rather to the imprudence of the monks and to the vigilance of the Nocitans than to an adverse counsel of the Powers above (for he did not give credit to the prodigy mentioned before), committed a second one to robbers most practiced in thefts and rapines, whom he had in prison, already destined for the extreme penalty, on this condition, that if they brought to him the already mentioned relics, they should obtain not only pardon of all their former crimes, but also a most ample recompense and reward for this deed. At once all of them (for there were seven, called the Linares, and born and having plundered in the Valley of Nocito itself), exulting at a condition so unhoped-for, go to their native Valley; by night they burst into the church and sepulcher of St. Urbicius, and from either side of it snatch away the demanded bodies of the Martyrs; not, however, without the greatest terror; because in a wonderful manner (as they afterward confessed) the body of St. Urbicius seemed in a certain way to resist the theft and to defend the Martyrs. Hence they immediately rush away into hiding-places and the trackless windings of the mountains, through which, going on for three whole days, they were continually surrounded with mists so dense that one could not see another. Whence, seized with a new dread, when they had come to the second milestone from the city of Huesca, they by no means dared to go further, unless the burden which they unworthily carried were there secretly laid down in the church of St. Michael.

[24] But when, being relieved of that pack, a more atrocious fear straightway harassed them, to the city of Huesca their plan being suddenly changed, they took up the pledges again and, wrapping them up, carried them as far as Huesca within the bounds of the parish of St. Peter the Old, John Cortés, Prior of the same parish church, being forewarned of the whole matter by a secret messenger; I believe because they wished to restore to him what they neither dared nor were able to carry further or to keep longer: for the church of St. Urbicius, which they had despoiled, together with its revenues, pertained to the church of St. Peter the Old at Huesca. The Prior therefore, stirred both by this announcement and by the bells of his own church sounding of their own accord, no mortal impelling them, with his clergy accompanying him, searches for and finds the house to which the robbers had turned aside; and the sack found in it, with the relics of the Martyrs placed in it, he carries to his parish church, the chief men of the city being informed and hastening to the solemnity of a matter so great and so unhoped-for.

[25] But this translation happened in the year which we have said, in the year 1499, of Christ 1499, in the month of November, when the celebrated holidays of St. Martin were being kept among the people of Huesca; as Aynsa testifies, book 2, chapter 27, whose narration we have here abridged, as resting, as he asserts, on an instrument (he himself calls it an information) drawn up at Huesca by public authority from the testimonies of men weighty in age and credit, who, being lawfully interrogated, reported all these things as some of them had seen them in person, some had heard from eyewitnesses; resting besides on the credit of a certain old and manuscript little book, which he narrates that he read in the same city; resting finally on the juridical examination and confession of the Linares robbers (whom we just mentioned, and who all, on the testimony of Morales, perished within one year, partly by the rope, partly by private slaughter). What then, you say, of the Breviary of Huesca cited above at number 22, which, printed, as Tamayo has it, in the year 1509, seems to signify that the body of St. Urbicius remained until that time in its own church between the bodies of these Martyrs placed on either side? It can be answered that that passage is to be explained by a separation of the clauses; so that the sense is that the body of St. Urbicius still rested there then (but alone), where before it had been entombed in the midst between the bodies of the Martyrs: or, if you prefer, say that that Breviary (if it was really printed in the year 1509) was reprinted from another copy, older than our translation, without sufficient examination of what had to be changed.

[26] where they rest in the church of St. Peter the Old; Scarcely had this immense treasure fallen to the church of St. Peter, as has been narrated, when both John III, the prelate of Huesca, and the cathedral chapter, as they call it, contended that it was owed to them;

but the case being easily judged in favor of Cortés, a place was straightway chosen in the church over which he presided, in which the sacred deposit might be honorably laid up; namely the chapel until then called that of St. Albinus, but thenceforth that of Sts. Urbicius, Justus, and Pastor; where, wrapped in linen cloths and enclosed in a walnut chest, it was first placed beneath the altar in a crypt prepared for it, until about the year 1510, when it wanted little but that it should be seized again: for the thieves had already almost removed the lock of the chest by boring around it, when, terrified by the shouts of the watchful sacristan and the ringing of the bronze bell, they fled without accomplishing the deed. This was the cause why the chest was soon raised on high, and more safely placed within iron gratings in a hollow of the wall toward the vault overhanging the altar. Then various and precious adornment was little by little added to the place; until in the year 1643, in the month of September (as Andrés then wrote in the little work often praised, chapter 11), that oratory seemed so narrow for the multitude of those flocking to it, that another more spacious one began to be built outside the walls of the church, yet contiguous to it, into which the Martyrs might afterward be carried. But dismissing the things which pertain to outward magnificence, let us here rather contemplate the relics themselves, and what of them, and how much, is kept shut up there, with seven keys in all religiously deposited, partly with the treasurer of the same church, partly with the chief magistrate. This matter Diego de Aynsa will excellently set forth; who, after he had narrated in book 2, chapter 27, that these relics of the Martyrs were unwrapped from the linen cloths and received into two reliquaries, and so placed in the same walnut chest, concerning which above, in the year of Christ 1570, testifies afterward in the same place, chapter 31, that the same reliquaries of Sts. Justus and Pastor were taken out from the aforesaid chest in the year 1617, so that in a circle of chosen witnesses from the clergy and the civil magistracy they might be adorned with a more august ornament (the relics being without doubt exposed for the time, while this was done, in the sight of the witnesses); and that he himself was then present among them, and, according to his zeal, beheld each of the things which he will report, as much as he pleased; and therefore that he can assert them as altogether certain.

[27] where their relics one by one were seen Then he subjoins that the shrine of St. Pastor is the larger of the two; and that in it his body is seen still rightly compacted and cohering; that the belly, the shoulder-blades, the breast are so covered with their own skin that no bones are bared; that the knees are bent back onto the breast; but the arms, the shoulders being pressed down, twisted onto the back; that perhaps St. Urbicius did this, so as to carry it more conveniently: that skin also clings to the head; that finally nothing is lacking to the body, except the left shin together with the foot, which was carried to Complutum; then certain little bones of the foot, as he thinks, and of the hands, carried off hence to the church of the Escorial at the king's request in the year 1570; and other particles, distributed at different times and places. He adds also that from the head and the other members it appears that this Martyr was of a rather large stature and bodily bulk; but that for the rest he counted only nine years of age: for at that time human bodies were everywhere more vast. These things, as paradoxical as they are, the author, good as well as simple and credulous, strives to prove by examples truly exceedingly unfit for his purpose: namely of the Egyptian, whose stature was five cubits, from 1 Chronicles, chapter 11; then of King Saul, who from his shoulder and upward was taller than all the people, from 1 Kings, chapter 9. What, I pray, do these things make for that century in which St. Pastor lived? Nay, if such a stature was so rare a thousand years and more before our Martyrs were born, that even then it seemed prodigious, and was granted to Saul alone among a most numerous people; by what reasoning can it be gathered thence that in the fourth century after Christ the bulk of human bodies was everywhere gigantic? But I let these things pass; nor would I have touched them at all, had I not wished the opinion of Aynsa concerning so great a size of the bones to become plain hence to the reader; so that he judged it could not be fitted to a boy of nine years, unless he made him at the same time a giant.

[28] In the other shrine, he says, is the body of St. Justus, which, Diego de Aynsa in the year 1617; as being more tender, is wholly dissolved. Relics are believed to have been plucked from it on various occasions. Yet there survive from the arms, thighs, and shins seven oblong bones, thick and entire; then very many fragments, larger and smaller, and among them a large part of the coccyx; besides, a foot still inserted in its shoe, which is certainly ancient and of leather; then a shirt and drawers, both of linen and sprinkled with blood, of a color indeed faded, yet manifestly bloody. From the extremities of the linen drawers there hang on this side and that two bands, likewise of linen, for binding the hose (rather for wrapping the nakedness of the legs, as Andrés judges). From the shoe also there comes forth one thong on either side, for fastening the shoe to the foot after the manner of the mountain people. All of which (namely what has been described in this and the preceding number) many, both noble and common, beheld not without the tenderest sense of piety on the occasion already mentioned, at the end of August of the year 1617, and to me among the first that most happy lot then fell, inasmuch as I was then the workman of the same parish (so is he there called upon whom the care of the fabric and treasury lies), and so I could satisfy myself abundantly, contemplating the same things once, and again, and oftener. Whence in this matter full credit is owed me, and greater than in other matters; namely those which he had not, as this one, taken in with his own eyes. It also makes for credit that Aynsa narrates these things in a distinguished work, published in the year 1619 (when namely either all or most of the witnesses survived) in the city of Huesca itself in the vernacular tongue and from the public press.

[29] and in the year 1644 Juan Francisco Andrés, The same reliquaries, as he himself narrates in chapter 9, by a rare and singular favor, with witnesses delegated as is the custom, doctor Juan Francisco Andrés twice inspected; once on the XVI day of April, again, so that he might observe certain things more accurately with a second consideration, on the VII of September of the year 1644; in which, some days afterward, he brought to light in the same place the Monument of Huesca of the holy MM. Justus and Pastor. He confesses, however, that he could not discern all the things which Aynsa had seen, on account of the crystals inserted afterward, through which, when the shrines are opened, the enclosed heap of relics can indeed be beheld, but by no means touched, much less separated. He observed meanwhile, besides those things which we have reported from Aynsa, and others which pertain to the adornment and defense of the place: first, that when the shrine of St. Justus was opened for him, from his relics through the crystal panes set before them there emanated a most sweet odor, and diffused itself through the whole chapel. Secondly, that of his bones some are seen white as ivory, but others altogether dry and covered with desiccated flesh. Thirdly, that of his shoe with the foot enclosed the form and dimension is altogether the same as that which he himself has exhibited most accurately delineated on the spot after page 186. Behold therefore both here reproduced from his copy, so that it cannot differ even by a single jot.

He adds also that this shoe is wholly of black color; but that its lower part, from which rise on either side the thongs by which the opening is drawn tight above, is made of tanned leather; but the upper part, which they also call the hose, of linen cloth. He observed, fourthly, that the thigh-bone of St. Justus is half an Aragonese ell long, with a twelfth part. Whence he judges it follows, according to the laws of human proportion, that the stature of this Martyr equalled nine palms, or seven feet in all, four fingers being taken away: which, because the author could not persuade himself of it, suspecting an error in the first measurement of the aforesaid bone, he returned to the sanctuary, as we said before; and perceived that he had by no means gone astray.

[30] Concerning St. Pastor he notes, first, that the thigh-bone appeared then loosened from the frame of the rest of his body; who among other things observed yet not yet stripped of all flesh. Secondly, that the head is partly covered with a very hard skin, partly exhibits bone bare and most white; but that it is of as great bulk as the heads of men are now wont to be. Thirdly, that a wonderful odor breathes from all his relics. Fourthly, that from the measurement of his thigh-bone a stature of nine and a half palms with two fingers is gathered. Fifthly, that Aynsa erred above in two ways; and first indeed, that he asserts the relics of the Escorial to have been translated in the year 1570, when the year 1568 ought to have been noted: next, that he will have it that only certain little bones of the foot and hands were translated thither; whereas it is established that they were larger and oblong, called in Spanish "canillas"; of which sort there are two in the leg, below and above the knee, and as many in each arm from the shoulder to the hand, and of which sort accordingly Aynsa could not have seen even so many in the Huescan sacristy as he enumerates, as you will conjecture from what is to be said below.

[31] As to what pertains to the stature of either Martyr, I fear indeed the quantity of the sacred bones. lest he who contends that it was either greater than that of ordinary men, or even equal to it, may at last compel readers to hesitate whether in truth the relics of Huesca ought to be judged rather those of our Martyrs than of others; concerning which, however, we know that there has hitherto been no doubt, nor do we think that there can be any, except most rashly. For who would believe that those things could have been written in any true sense, concerning young men bearing before them a manly form and strength, which are read in the Acts and the Isidorian Mass concerning the tender age of these Martyrs, their most tender body, their school and tablets, or writing-boards, etc.? Then the laws of proportion which are adduced, if they be applied to one member or another only, how uncertain a conjecture do they beget concerning the dimension of the whole body, especially when it is a question of the young? Here we have Andrés confessing it. Nor indeed do those laws teach from the measurement of one member how large each body is; but how large it ought to be, that it may be said to be most perfectly constituted through each of its members. Whence you may find not a few, especially boys, who, although they are equal in stature, yet differ in the quantity of their individual members, so that one has a longer hip, a shorter shin, and so of the rest; nor yet are they on that account commonly reckoned deformed. But if from the longer hip you determine by those laws of proportion concerning the whole length of the body; and then apply the same again to the shorter shin; how much, I pray, will you make the same man greater and less than himself? But why do I say these things? I shall not, I think, do injury to the authors produced, if I oppose to their judgment the judgment, most weighty in all Spain, of Ambrosio de Morales, who, I know not whether he discussed anything more laboriously than the things which are in any way referred to these Martyrs. And yet so far is he from having judged that from the observed quantity of those bones a manly stature could be gathered, that on the contrary he himself gathered from the same a boyish one, Chronicle, book 10, folio 349: They were, he says, altogether boys, when

these Martyrs suffered; as may still be seen from their sacred bones. Next, who would not fit that foot or shoe, which we have already given so carefully measured by Andrés himself, to a boy of about eight years and of a stature moderate for his age, rather than to a manly body, or to one greater than this; since the ordinary foot of a man is nearly half as long again? These things have brought it about that we have judged that neither Aynsa nor Andrés is to be stood by in this matter thus far.

§ IV. The relics of the same honored in various places: frequent miracles.

[Fragments of the relics at Medina Sidonia, at Alba Nova, and near it; likewise at Oviedo,] From the preceding paragraph we have learned that some parts, greater and lesser, are now lacking to the bodies of these Martyrs among the people of Huesca. It is now asked whither and when they were translated. Morales, book 10, folio 356, denies that it is doubtful that their distribution was begun before the bodies had been carried off from Complutum by St. Urbicius. And rightly: for before that time, namely in the year of Christ 630, there were already relics of Sts. Justus and Pastor at Medina Sidonia; as the inscription exhibited above at §1, number 5, makes plain. The same man thinks the same both in the same place and on the preceding folio (yet more timidly) concerning those which were had in the tenth century in the noble monastery of Covarrubias in Old Castile. But if this is true, it will be allowed not rashly to suspect the same concerning the bones of the same Martyrs which Andrés assigns to the monastery of St. Peter of Arlanza, chapter 10: for it is very near to Covarrubias, and of the same (namely Benedictine) institute. But neither would I deny that to those times can be referred those which Alfonso II, king of the Asturias, surnamed the Chaste, had and laid up toward the beginnings of the ninth century in the sanctuary of Oviedo, which they call the holy chamber; as an old inscription in Morales indicates, Chronicle, book 13, folio 64. For the rest, this author affirms, book 10, folio 356, that whatever of them was distributed before the eighth century was exceedingly small; since, he says, the bodies remained entire in their sepulcher until Spain was overthrown by the Arabs. But we would rather that this were proved than asserted; yet we do not deny that they were afterward divided more liberally and more often; and first indeed into some Gallican churches; but then into Spanish ones.

[33] at Narbonne and elsewhere in Gaul, I said: Into some Gallican churches; because Baillet observes at this day that some churches of Gascony, Guienne, and the neighboring provinces glory in the relics of our St. Pastor. That in the metropolitan church of Narbonne the head of St. Justus, M., is preserved in the greatest honor, with other remains both of himself and of his Brother Pastor, no one doubts. Others our Antonio de Quintanadueñas assigns, about the tenth milestone from Narbonne toward the North, in the Benedictine monastery of St. Pons de Thomières, in the Saints of Toledo, page 389; but he does not add what they are, or whose; whether of Justus, or of Pastor, or of both; although I would easily believe that relics of both, and indeed notable ones, were translated thither; since Peter I, king of Aragon, about the year 1094 had subjected to the same monastery, in which he also had a son as a monk, the church of St. Peter the Old at Huesca; and to this the church of St. Urbicius in the Valley of Nocito, in which our Martyrs rested a very long time. Go to the Annals of Zurita, volume 1, book 1, chapters 31 and 32, as also Aynsa, book 2, chapter 26. The monks of St. Pons therefore long had the very fountain of all the relics in a certain way in their own power, especially from the year 1134 until 1137, in which one of that sacred company, now a veteran, namely that very one whom I mentioned, the son of King Peter, Ramiro the second, occupied the throne of Aragon, compelled by the necessity of the times.

[34] Nay rather, that at that same time, and through the abbot of the same monastery, the relics of the Complutensian Martyrs which it possesses to this day were obtained from the same king for the church of Narbonne, concerning which it is disputed at what time they were brought thither; is the common opinion of the Spaniards; although, as Morales confesses in Aynsa above, they cannot confirm it from any other source than from the tradition of the people of Huesca. And certainly to one considering the attendant circumstances it cannot but seem exceedingly probable. Saussay, however, builds up another in the supplement of the Gallican Martyrology, page 1155; where, treating of these Martyrs, he says, Whose bodies afterward, happily rescued by St. Urbicius the monk from the rage of the Moors occupying Spain, were first carried into Gaul, then brought back into Spain, and laid up at Huesca; a part, however, being left in Gaul in return for hospitality. With the remains and titles, therefore, of these illustrious Martyrs of Christ, the greater church of Narbonne shines glorified to this day. So he; but whence he drew it, he is deeply silent: but his authority alone very often wavers; nor is it generally among the learned of so much account as it was in this place with Baillet, who by following it did not much strengthen it. A third opinion is reported by the Sainte-Marthe brothers in Christian Gaul of the first edition, volume 1, page 374, where it is said concerning Guifred de Cerdagne, archbishop of Narbonne: He brought to Narbonne from Spain the bodies of the Saints Justus and Pastor from Pardinacum (which place in Spain is unknown to us) in the year 1058. And a confirmation is subjoined: As is in the ancient Martyrology of St. Paul's; which church is a collegiate one in the suburb of Narbonne, once abbatial. Would that a sufficiently suitable antiquity of that Martyrology were established! For neither does Pardinacum, put in place of the Valley of Nocito, in which the bodies then were, and indeed under the dominion of the Saracens until the year 1096, please us sufficiently. Next, although the figure of synecdoche is very much used in this kind, by which any parts whatever of bodies are called absolutely bodies; yet those who have written of these Narbonnese relics in Gaul are not wont to use it now; as they would do, I believe, if antiquity had approved the usage there.

[35] To the Complutensians there survived from the old loss two consolations, small ones of a huge grief, [At Complutum are preserved the sepulcher and the stone on which the MM. were slain,] but nevertheless always held in great esteem: namely the common mausoleum of both Martyrs, and the rock on which their heads were cut off. Both Morales depicts, book 10, folio 351; and he says that the sepulcher is very sumptuous, and worthy both of the Martyrs and of the notable piety of him who gave it: for it is cut wholly from a single and most precious jasper (understand a variegated marble); equalling twelve feet in length, four in breadth, three in outward height, two in inward, that is, of the hollow, and in thickness of the sides all around somewhat more than half a foot; so that it could conveniently hold both sacred little bodies (in Spanish "uno contra otro"; which I translate:) set opposite to one another; and further that it is wholly polished on the outside, except that the base projects below; but above, an incision runs around the edges, fitted for the inserting, as far as appears, of a lid of the same material, which is now lacking, and ought to be supplied with a new one: but that however hard that marble may be, yet it could not so resist the pious desire for sacred relics of any kind whatever, but that many fragments were struck off from it around at the corners: for the rest, that this sepulcher is now kept on the top of the altar in their chapel; as also the stone on which they suffered the punishment of the sword, raised on high, and placed upon stone lions of very ancient work, and encircled with gratings, and within these adorned with cabinet-work ornament: but that this stone is a whole ell long, more than half broad; that on it there appear two oblong hollows, which no one could believe were formed by the hands of men; or divine to what end they could have been formed there; that for the rest it is flat: and that thus both this sacred stone and the august sepulcher bear before them so great an antiquity and majesty, that to one beholding them with fair eyes no other thought comes than of heaven and of the glory of God, who can thus, and knows, and wills to provide for the glory of His Saints.

[36] likewise notable bones, recovered in the year 1568: These things, I say, survived (as they survive even today) to the Complutensians, as monuments, shall I say, of their Martyrs, or of their former loss; when at last, stirred, I think, by the sight of these again, they endeavored happily to recover, not now entire bodies, as they had lost them (which once, twice, and perhaps a third time they had attempted in vain), but notable parts of them, by the help of a most powerful king, and that in the year of Christ 1567; in which Philip II, king of the Spains, obtained from St. Pius V, Pope, a most severe mandate, directed to the bishop of Huesca by an apostolic Brief on the XII day of April, by which the latter was commanded, in virtue of holy obedience, etc., the present letters being seen, to transmit honorably to the church of Complutum half, or another part, of the bodies of the said holy Martyrs. To these things the prelate of Huesca was indeed prompt; but a sedition of the people, foreseen from no doubtful indications, interposed a delay, which at length letters of the king and of prince Charles dispelled. And so on the XV day of January in the year 1568, with public and solemn rite, the most illustrious Lord Pedro Agustín, bishop of Huesca, took from the relics of St. Pastor THE WHOLE LEFT LEG, TOGETHER WITH THE FOOT UNITED TO THE SAID LEG, BEGINNING FROM THE KNEE (or, as the instrument of the resignation made at Complutum has it, THE LEFT LEG FROM THE KNEE DOWNWARD, TOGETHER WITH ITS FOOT AND THE TOES AND NAILS, COVERED WITH FLESH AND SKIN); but from the relics of St. Justus TWO VERTEBRAE OF THE BACK WITH ONE RIB. These, after other ceremonies observed for the security and at the same time the magnificence of the business, being duly closed and sealed, were carried out from the city of Huesca with great pomp, with a most numerous escort of all the orders, on the XXIV day of January; and, escorted and received along the way everywhere with singular concourse, pageantry, and piety, they reached Complutum on the VII day of March; with how great joy of the citizens, academics, and clergy, with how notable a triumph, it is not needful to say; from this gather the rest, that they inscribed the memory of this day in the sacred Calendars, lest it should ever fall away, to be recalled with an anniversary celebration in perpetual times. The delivery, however, and the lawful resignation of the reliquary received, was deferred to the tenth day of the same month. All these things, proved at greater length by authentic instruments, may be read in Morales in a particular little book concerning these Martyrs, in Aynsa, book 2, from chapter 28 to 32, in Andrés, chapter 6, and finally in Tamayo in the Martyrology at the day VII of March.

[37] In the same year the same king obtained from the same holy Pontiff another apostolic Brief, [others obtained by the men of the Escorial in the year 1569. The relics of Saliceto.] given on the XV day of December, and exhibited by Andrés, chapter 8, with faculty of receiving by himself or his men, without any scruple of his own or hindrance of any other whatsoever, whatever relics of Saints or others which in whatever parts of the world it should happen to be kindly and graciously given and bestowed by any persons whatsoever having them, and of transferring them with due reverence and veneration to the church of the monastery

of St. Lawrence (commonly of the Escorial, most celebrated in the whole world). By force of this Pontifical decree, Pedro Agustín, bishop of Huesca and Jaca, testifies in the same author that, besides other relics graciously assigned to the king by the people of Huesca, he took out on the IV day of the month of January, in the year from the Nativity of the Lord 1569, and sent to the king, with the express consent and spontaneous will of the citizens, and the applause of the parishioners and of the others standing by, from the reliquaries of our Martyrs one shin-bone of St. Justus, and another shin-bone of St. Pastor, or, as was ascertained in the delivery, resignation, and acceptance of the same relics lawfully made by the men of the Escorial on the XXIX day of the same month, of St. Justus one oblong and thick bone (in Spanish "canilla") of the thigh: of St. Pastor the shin from the knee downward, with part of the heel, covered for the greater part with its own sinews and skin. In the alphabetical manuscript Relic-list of the monastery of the Escorial, which our Cuper copied out there in the year 1722, those relics are described thus: Of St. Justus: An entire thigh-bone, half an ell and two fingers long. It has here and there some parts of dry skin: but of St. Pastor thus: One leg from the knee downward, with its own flesh and sinews, two thirds long — supply, parts of one ell. Concerning this translation, more in José de Sigüenza, in the History of the Order of St. Jerome, part 3, book 3, discourse 5; but very much and authentic material in the praised Andrés, throughout chapter 8. We judge that two bones of these Martyrs were translated later, which the same man (unless I am mistaken) testifies are honored in the most celebrated monastery and sacristy of the Friars Minor at Saliceto in the province of Castile — he who both founded the sacristy, and procured these and other relics of very many Saints, the most illustrious Lord Pedro González de Mendoza, then archbishop of Granada, in the History which he published at Granada in the year 1616 of the same Convent of St. Mary of Saliceto (in Spanish, del monte Celia de nuestra Señora de la Salçeda), page 863. Thus far concerning the relics which have indeed occurred; now a few things concerning the miracles.

[38] That these were once most frequent, our Acts assert at number 3, The miracles of these MM. asserted in general, and the Isidorian Hymn at number 4. The same ought to be gathered from the celebrity and propagation of their cult, which without frequent prodigies is not wont even to subsist, much less to be increased and spread more widely: whence it follows that that veneration can be judged no less continued down to our own age than amplified. There is added that immense hope and confidence which the Complutensians especially and the people of Huesca long ago conceived concerning the powerful patronage of these Martyrs, especially in the gravest and public calamities: for in these an ancient custom in both places prescribes, as a most certain amulet, that the relics of our Martyrs be brought forth into the light by lawful authority from the sacred hiding-places in which they are otherwise wont to be kept constantly laid up and fortified, for the public supplications both of the whole city and of the villages lying far around. Concerning the people of Huesca, Aynsa testifies this, book 2, chapter 29, page 251: concerning the Complutensians we have learned the same from their public manuscript instruments deposited in the archive of the collegiate church of Sts. Justus and Pastor, martyrs, and communicated to us in the year 1722 by transcripts. Add the many votive offerings which Aynsa narrates are seen hung up in the chapel of Huesca, page 260, witnesses of as many benefits received through them. Yet out of all these very few are found written down one by one, of which it will suffice to have touched the chief here with a finger.

[39] some also one by one. In the year 1568, on the III day of February, when the relics of the Martyrs, which were being transferred from the church of Huesca to that of Complutum, were for a time deposited on the altar among the monks of Huerta, sworn witnesses affirmed that seven or eight beats of the bones stirring within the reliquary were distinctly heard, and that once and again: and that in the same place on the following day a certain servant of the same monastery, now useless for his office, at once invoked the Saints and at once was freed from paralysis: that moreover at the same time a woman brought thither from four leagues away, contracted in her whole body for six years, when she girded herself with a small girdle applied to the reliquary, straightway departed wholly healed. On the VI day of February, when the relics had reached Sigüenza, they conferred on a girl paralytic from the womb the use of all her limbs: the matter has been proved by public records. On the XIX day of the same month the relics had scarcely reached Guadalajara, when the lady María Calderón, having venerated them in person, obtained by prayer in a moment the former vigor of her body, which paralysis had for nearly a whole year wholly taken from her. And this prodigy was lawfully examined and approved. Go for all these things to Aynsa, book 2, chapter 30. But neither did the translation next to this, of which at number 38, that of the Escorial, however almost clandestine, lack a miracle: for Juan Regla, Prior of the Hieronymites at Saragossa in the monastery of St. Engratia, a man of the greatest merit among his own, and to whom the king himself had committed that translation, testifies in José de Sigüenza assigned above, that, when he had come with the relics received at Huesca to Daroca (it is a city of the Aragonese), there a little after the fourth hour of the morning he was roused from sleep by two youths, clad in linen after the manner of acolytes, and excelling in wonderful beauty, with these words: Arise, let us celebrate Mass: and that he replied: Let it be so by all means; and so came presently to the church, and there, with those same ministering, performed the bloodless Sacrifice; and that he and they did this same thing daily thereafter throughout the whole journey, until he had carried the relics to the appointed place: and that he never doubted that those acolytes of his were the very Martyrs whose bones he was carrying. Other miracles of St. Justus, martyr (as is believed there) of Complutum, are frequent at Séguret among the French in Provence, concerning which our Jean Colombi deserves to be read, Various Little Works, book 4, page 415 and the following. We subjoin the Acts promised in the second paragraph.

THE ACTS

By an anonymous but most ancient author; from a Trier manuscript of St. Maximin, collated with the Surian edition.

Justus, Martyr, at Complutum (S.)

Pastor, Martyr, at Complutum (S.)

BHL Number: 4595

FROM A MANUSCRIPT.

Both, by desire of martyrdom, anticipate Dacian, In those days, when the most cruel Dacian, provoked by the instigation and counsel of the serpent, was running raging through the whole world, that whatever Christians in various regions he should hear had led a holy life, he might torture them with various kinds of torments, and turn the dominion of all peoples to the rite of his sacrilegious religion, suddenly, when the convenience of the journey had brought him passing through to the city of Complutum, and almost the whole city had learned of his dreadful reputation; this being ascertained, these two children Justus and Pastor, casting away in the school the tablets on which the letters of their tender age were contained, did not take them up for the study of the mastership of this world or of a teacher ^a; but as approved disciples of Christ ran with eager devotion to the spectacle of their own martyrdom ^b; and when they anxiously beheld and took in with intent heart what the fury of the mad Dacian was searching out; it was announced to Dacian that these two little children were Christians, and had been born of Christian parents. Accordingly they have also come together to this spectacle, that if by your clemency there should be a searching out of Christians ^c, they may of their own accord offer themselves to be punished.

[2] And when the most cruel Dacian had noted this more carefully, and, animated by mutual exhortations, straightway moved by the anger of indignation, he ordered them to be seized unheard and to be beaten with great torture, fearing lest, while they should have brought them into his presence to be interrogated, they might prepare the minds of the others standing by for the confession of the name of Christ; or lest, while he had not prevailed over them, he should see his own wickedness publicly overcome by children. And when they had been seized, before they suffered punishment, the blessed Martyrs, joyful, the angel of God breathing upon them, thus strengthened one another in turn. Justus says: Do not, brother Pastor, greatly fear this temporary suffering: do not fear the wounds of the smiting blows upon your most tender body: do not dread the impending sword; because, if, with the Lord Jesus Christ assenting, it shall befall us to hasten to His glory, we receive in the future age a worthier share of His fortitude, who has not diminished our littleness; but has led it to the perfection of the Martyrs, and to the crown of the Angels. Established here indeed for a brief time in age, we owe a small life among men: but there, in length of days, if we are pleasing to Him, we shall partake of the abundance of eternal life. To whom the most holy Pastor replied: Worthily indeed, brother Justus, does it befit you so to pray, that the justice which you bear in your name you may receive together with your brother Pastor: for let it be light for us, for the confession of our Lord Jesus Christ, that our little bodies be slain and our blood poured out; that in the heavenly sanctuary it may be permitted us to adore the divine body of Christ and His precious blood. Let not the affection of parents or of kinsfolk call us back, nor let us grieve for our age, which quickly perishes; but let us hasten to the summits of the heavens; where for our infancy and for our parents we may merit to obtain pardon of their sins ^d.

[3] they gloriously consummate it. But when those violent executioners who had been sent saw them speaking such things with one accord, they announce to Dacian what he should command concerning them, whom they had heard thus boldly consoling themselves for the name of the Lord. Which having heard, Dacian, astounded, says: These, he says, are not worthy to be presented to our sight: for if these, who neither wished to plead their infancy's tenderness, nor wished to adore the venerable worship of our gods, shall live, what will they be? Straightway therefore he ordered them to be slaughtered far from the city. And when they had been led into the Field Laudabilis, with none resisting, they there received a worthy martyrdom for the name of Christ. Whose souls forthwith He preserved, and, the heavenly gates being opened, with angels and the choirs of Martyrs triumphing, He placed them in eternal rest in the heavenly seats ^e. But after the swift passing of the most unclean Dacian, those showing forth Christ buried their bodies honorably in the same place where they suffered, and over each of their bodies, with one basilica protecting them, they consecrated venerable altars under their titles. Which holy place our Lord Jesus Christ so filled with the majesty of His power, that whoever with pure faith and entire devotion has sought their venerable suffrages, by whatever infirmity he has been held, or oppressed by the harassment of enemies,* may straightway be freed by their help. Whence it behooves us, with united voice of praise, to sound forth on their festival the songs of psalms, saying: Rejoice, you Just, in the Lord; praise befits the upright; that we too on this day may offer with gifts worthy praises to the Most High for the martyrdom of those who for the kingdom of heaven and for the preserving of us all poured out their precious blood: that the name of the Lord may be blessed forever and ever. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

Have now, reader, the Acts as they are read in the Breviary of the Mozarabs, printed at Toledo in the year 1502, in the Hymn, of which we spoke in the Preliminary Commentary at number 4 and number 12.

* read "most tender"

* Surius, "we have had"

* perhaps "to delight." Surius, "to gain"

* read "the Savior" with Surius

* read "setting out" with the same

* rather "The Christians going out." Surius

* that is, of evil spirits

THE METRICAL ACTS

By an author either Asturius, bishop of Toledo, or, as most will have it, St. Isidore of Seville: from the printed Office of the Mozarabs.

Justus, Martyr, at Complutum (S.)

Pastor, Martyr, at Complutum (S.)

FROM A MANUSCRIPT.

O everlasting Word of God, brought forth from the Father's mouth, Who, applying the feeble instrument of infants, Invocation of divine help. Grant them to breathe a breath, that they may utter the sound of a voice: Be You kindly present to us, loose the fibres of our throat, Furnish our mouths with speech, fill our hearts with tears; That we may sing before the feasts of the Sacred Ones with worthy songs.

Behold Justus; behold Pastor; both joined by blood; Whom the pious kinship of brotherhood had joined, The equal unity of a consecrated passion brought in.

[2] These, however, kept in the schools, while they are being instructed in letters, The holy Boys run of their own accord to martyrdom; Hearing that the tyrant enters the city persecuting, Straightway leave the school, and refuse their little tablets;

Then at a run they seek the presence of the governor, And, following the cross of Christ, they arm their feeble body, That they might bravely accomplish the triumphs of the passion.

Suddenly announcing this to Dacian, they say: Behold, little ones professing Christ are coming, Of their own accord to suffer death of the passion, and slaughter ^a.

[3] Thereupon the governor is present, troubled, stirring up savagery, To his fierce ministers he cries out that they be seized, which both obtain. Bidding their tender bodies be cut with cudgels.

Then, behold, they address consecrated words to one another: It is time duly to receive the temporal punishments of the body, Whereby they may possess future joy with the angels.

Soon, hearing the constancy of the Martyrs, Dacian, Roused into fury, dictates this sentence, That both Brothers, slain, should perish by a dire death.

At once the raging attendants drag them To the open place of the field which they call Laudabilis; There they are struck with the sword, they are crowned with laurel by their blood.

That holy gore of the Little Ones, for the salvation of the peoples, And where many signs of healings flow together for the sick!

For here the divine power conquers the wrath of the demons; It cures the sore; it heals the limbs, and tempers the pains; It receives the vows of all, and lifts up the falling.

Now, relying on the passion of your own, rejoice,* city Rightly called Complutensian, in whose kindly blood you are washed; And soon render to the Twins the songs owed as vows.

Here, O God, we beseech You, that You hear those who pray; Drive away diseases, loose bonds, and relax our crimes: And may we unharmed seek the fatherland to come:

Grant the love of Your name in Your little servants: Let us love nothing temporal; let us love one another; Let us follow You, let us sing You, let us enjoy You perpetually.

Praise to You through all time, undivided Trinity, Praise, honor, and highest power, singular glory; Which may proclaim You God of the ages unto the ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

* read "rejoice"