Vitalis

ON ST. VITALIS, MARTYR, AT ABULA IN SPAIN.

Vitalis, Martyr at Abula in Spain (Saint)

J. B.

[1] I find three men named Vitalis who hold a celebrated name among the Spaniards. The first is he who is recorded to have undergone martyrdom at Rome on February 14 with Saints Zeno and Felicula. Three Saints named Vitalis, Martyrs, in Spain The second is he who was instructed in the faith of Christ at Rome by St. Sebastian, together with Tranquillinus and others, and was afterwards crowned with martyrdom in Campania on July 11; they hold him to have been the father of Saints Justus and Pastor. The third was the servant and companion in martyrdom of St. Agricola, and is venerated with him on November 4; but Joannes Marietta, book 2 of his work on the Saints of Spain, chapter 98, writes that their relics were translated to the city of Najera, where they are celebrated on November 27.

[2] At Abula on February 6, with the rite of a double feast, St. Vitalis the Martyr is venerated, one is venerated at Abula, as is evident from the Order for reciting the Divine Office, printed at Madrid in the year 1635. Whether he is one of those three, I would not readily pronounce. Pope Clement VIII sent his body in the year 1595 to Sancho de Avila, his body was sent there, translated from Rome: then Bishop of Cartagena Spartaria, who was subsequently promoted to the see of Jaen, then to Siguenza, and finally to Plasencia. He, since he was both a native of Abula and had first been a canon there, honored the Church of Abula with this treasure in the year 1600, as Aegidius Gonzalez Davila testifies in volume 2 of his Ecclesiastical Theatre of Spain, in the catalogue of the Bishops of Plasencia; and he mentions it again when treating of the bodies of the Saints resting at Abula. Sancho de Avila himself, in book 3 of his work On the Veneration of Sacred Relics, chapter 8, number 3, testifies that the body of St. Vitalis the Martyr was given to him by Clement VIII, and that he would bequeath it to the Church of Abula, along with the many relics of the Saints that he had in his oratory, to be placed in a chapel that he was having constructed.

[3] I conjecture that this Vitalis was held by Bishop Sancho and other Spaniards to be the one who, as stated above, was the companion of Zeno and Felicula. For, as Franciscus Bivarius states in his Commentary on the Chronicle of Dexter, a book was written about him by Sancho de Avila. this same Sancho, no less distinguished for his learning and writings than for the eminence of his lineage, while serving as Bishop at Jaen, published a special book on the life and martyrdom of St. Vitalis, the first Archpriest of Toledo. We have not yet been able to see that book. We suspect, however, that Sancho wished to celebrate the deeds and memory of the Vitalis whose body he had received from Rome.

[4] Bivarius adds that in that booklet Sancho confirmed his narrative with the testimony of Dexter. The Spaniards believe he was Archpriest of Toledo. Dexter indeed, at the year 105, number 6, writes that Vitalis and other holy men were consulted by St. Eugenius concerning the primacy of Spain; and at the year 110, number 6, he has the following: The wondrous contest of St. Vitalis, the first Archpriest of Toledo (of those whom we know to have come), who had come to Toledo with Zeno and Felicula and returned to Rome from Chersonesus, was such that it was written to the churches of the whole West. Bivarius interprets this as follows: After he had rested some time at Toledo, setting sail from Chersonesus (that is, the Peninsula, or Peniscola of Valencia), he hastened to Rome with his companions, where they received the palms of martyrdom.

[5] More about St. Vitalis is found in Hieronymus de la Higuera, one of our brethren, in his Diptych of Toledo, and finally this: I believe (and so the history relates) that St. Marcellus sent his brother, named Vitalis, his Archdeacon, to them (namely, Nereus and Achilleus) to console, refresh, and encourage them: crowned with martyrdom at Rome. in which office of piety St. Vitalis, brother of St. Marcellus and Archpriest, spent some time. After that time had passed, he returned to his brother and bishop, St. Marcellus. Afterwards, on account of very weighty affairs, he sent the same man to Paris to confer with St. Dionysius; thence he ordered him to go to Pope Clement, to render account to him of his embassy and of the progress of the province in faith and religion. Meanwhile St. Clement was sent into exile; Vitalis was the companion of his exile, and after Clement's death, he returned to Rome and, under Trajan, suffered a glorious martyrdom for the faith together with Felicula the Deaconess and another companion. All of this we have neither the intention nor the leisure to confirm or refute; therefore we leave it to the credibility of the cited authors.