Nebridius

ON ST. NEBRIDIUS, BISHOP OF EGARA IN HISPANIA TARRACONENSIS

IN THE SIXTH CENTURY OF CHRIST

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Nebridius, Bishop of Egara in Hispania (St.)

By G. H.

[1] Egara, a city of Hispania destroyed by the Saracens, formerly distinguished by an episcopal See under the metropolis of Tarragona, whose location near Barcelona St. Nebridius Bishop of Egara, an episcopal city, is indicated by the division of the boundaries of dioceses and parishes of Hispania made by King Wamba, and indeed (as Garsia Loaisa attests from the testimony of all the historians of Spain) in the eleventh Council of Toledo, held in the fourth year of his reign, on the seventh day before the Ides of November, in the Hispanic Era 713, the year of Christ 675. In this division, under the metropolis of Tarragona, under the metropolis of Tarragona, the following is read: Barcelona shall hold these; from Mina to Pagella, from Usa to Bordel. Egara shall hold these; from Bordel to Paladera, from Montesa to Portella. Where the boundary of both Sees is established at Bordel. Moreover, Egara was distant from the city of Barcelona only four miles 4 miles from Barcelona, toward the north, near the town of Terraca, or Terrassa: as public instruments of the monastery of Terraca show, in which a church in honor of St. Mary the Virgin Mother of God, consecrated in the year 1112 by Bishop Raymundus Guillenus of Barcelona, is said to be in the County of Barcelona near the boundary of Terracia, next to the parish church of St. Peter in that same place, near Terracia, where in ancient times the church of Egara had been built. Indeed, in the year 1096, Folchus, Bishop of Barcelona, consecrated a church in honor of St. Martin within the boundaries of the church of St. Peter of Egara: to which that church had been subject from ancient times, saving in all things the rights of the church of Egara: as Franciscus Diagus shows with these words from ancient instruments, in book 1 of his work on the Counts of Barcelona, chapter 17.

[2] These things are more certain than what is reported in the adversaria of Luitprandus, where in number 68 the city which the Goths corruptly called Egara is said to have been called Baseda in the Castilian language by the Latins, which Ptolemy mentions, namely in book 2, chapter 6; and in number 57 Egara is said to have been called Beseda or Bosque de Malatesta in the time of the Moors: and in number 65 the ruins of Egara, a city of the greatest extent in the time of the Goths, are reported to be visible at the end of Laletania near the city of Basis, near the river, not the Clodianus. and the source and springs of the river Clodianus. But this river, according to Ptolemy, rising near the Pyrenean mountains among the Indigetes people, empties into the sea not far from Rhoda, commonly called Roses, a maritime town still existing there. Barcelona, however, is a city of the Laeetani, who are called Laletani by Luitprandus and others, where the smaller river, which soon flows into the Rubricatus river, but the Rubricatus, commonly called Llobregat, is adjacent to the above-mentioned Terraca, next to the ruins, as we said, of the city of Egara. For, as is added in the same adversaria of Luitprandus, number 69, in the Caesarean Era 769, that is in the year of Christ 731, John of Egara, when his city was destroyed, barely escaped, old and worn out by age, and set forth as a pilgrim elsewhere. To the thirteenth Council of Toledo, destroyed by the Saracens in the 8th century: in the Era 721, the year of Christ 683, Samuel the Priest subscribed, acting in the place of John, Bishop of Egara: he himself, however, was present at the fifteenth and sixteenth Councils of Toledo, in the Eras 726 and 731, that is, in the years of Christ 688 and 693. But when Hispania, after King Roderic was slain in battle, came into the power of the Saracens in the year of Christ 714: and according to Diagus, book 1, chapter 18, Barcelona was occupied by them in the year 717; the See united to Barcelona. so that Egara appears to have been destroyed at that time, and its episcopal See has since remained united to Barcelona, under its correction, without prejudice to its own rights, to the present day.

[3] Because of the documented memory of the city of Egara, which was as it were worn down by its ruins, many have fallen into errors, St. Nebridius was not Bishop while various persons have attributed different bishoprics to St. Nebridius. Charles de Saint-Paul in his Sacred Geography, among the ancient bishoprics of Hispania whose sees are uncertain, writes thus on page 189: Agraga, an episcopal city of Hispania in the Book of Councils, since Nebridius, Bishop of Agraga, is numbered among the Bishops of this region who subscribed to the second Council of Toledo, of Agraga in Hispania but in what province it existed, I cannot even conjecture. But Stephanus Garibai, book 8 of his Historical Compendium of Hispania, chapter 16, writes: Nebridius is called Bishop of Agraga, and is said to have had his see in Africa: others call him Bishop of Agabra: nor of Africa: not of Agabra in Baetica: for this is a city of Baetica, commonly called Cabra, which in that age was an episcopal city.

[4] Others locate his bishopric in Gallia Narbonensis, then subject to the Goths: so Ambrosius Morales, book 11 of his General Chronicle of Hispania, chapter 49. In those times, he says, there always flourished in Hispania men eminent in learning: among whom four brothers excelled in holiness, learning, and dignity, who around that time were all held illustrious for their knowledge and virtue, and honored with episcopal dignity... One of them, Nebridius, seems certainly to have been Bishop of Agde: so subscribed in the Councils, also in the judgment of Vasaeus, because that city of Gaul was subject to the Goths, as is clear from the council held in that city. But Vasaeus in his Chronicle at the year of Christ 540 calls Nebridius Bishop of Agraga, not of Agde in Gallia Narbonensis, and adds that he was present at the second Council of Toledo. Our Mariana, book 5 of his work On the Affairs of Hispania, chapter 7, treats of these four brother bishops: and concerning Nebridius he pronounces ambiguously: Nebridius lived as Bishop of Agde in Gothic Gaul; Loaisa calls him Bishop of Egara. Miraeus copies Mariana, in his work on Ecclesiastical Writers, at chapter 21 of Isidore of Seville, which will be cited below. Joannes Marieta, book 5 of his work on the Saints of Hispania, chapter 13, enumerates him among the Confessor Bishops under this title: On St. Nebridius, Bishop of Agde. And then he reports the following: Nebridius was the brother of two Saints, Justus and Justinianus: nor of Agen in Aquitaine: and, as Vasaeus asserts, he was Bishop of Agen, a Gallic city in the province of Aquitaine. Concerning this Saint, St. Isidore and Abbot Trithemius treat. Furthermore, Brother Alphonsus Venerus in his Enchiridion, and Beuterus, and others who write about the Saints, also make mention of him, saying that he was a Saint, although they do not report more about him. Others attribute multiple bishoprics to him. Franciscus Padilla, volume 2 of his Ecclesiastical History of Hispania, century 6, chapter 22, places this title at the head: nor did he migrate from Egara to Agde. On four holy Bishops, St. Justus, St. Justinianus, St. Nebridius, and St. Elpidius, who were brothers, natives of Hispania, and flourished in it in those times. And concerning the episcopal see of St. Nebridius, after much discussion, he determines thus: He may, before he became Bishop of Agde, have been Bishop of Egara.

[5] Diagus, book 5 of the Annals of the Kingdom of Valencia, chapter 4, and Tamayus Salazar in the Hispanic Martyrology at this day, report that the first see of St. Nebridius was Bigorra in Gaul: which, on account of the storms of war that arose between Alaric, King of the Goths, He did not come from Bigorra to Egara, and Clovis, King of the Franks, when the city and province had been destroyed and depopulated, he left, and withdrawing to the episcopal city of Egara in Hispania, called by the title of its Minister, he accepted the government of the diocese. So they say, but their account finds less favor with us. The title of Minister at the Council of Tarragona, held in the sixth year of King Theuderic, in the consulship of Petrus, in the Era 554, the year of Christ 516, he appends thus in his subscription: made Minister of this Church, Nibridius, in the name of Christ, the least of priests, subscribed to the constitution of the sacred canons, Minister of the holy Church of Egara. So Garsia Loaisa published it in his Collection of the Councils of Hispania from ancient manuscript codices written in Lombardic letters, even with Gothicisms. But in the Councils frequently reprinted from the collection of Petrus Crabbaeus, Laurentius Surius, Severinus Binius, and that published under the auspices of Pope Sixtus V, it reads thus: Nibridius, in the name of Christ, the least of priests, Minister of the Church of Egara, subscribed to the constitution of the sacred Canons. Behold the consistent reading everywhere concerning the Church of Egara: yet perhaps, just as others substituted the bishoprics of Agraga, Agde, and others, so someone, when there seemed room for conjecture, placed in the margin the name of the Church of Bigorra, which Diagus erroneously conjectured from a marginal note by Loaisa to be found in the Toledo manuscript, and that he was called Bishop of Bigorra in Languedoc; not noticing that Loaisa says in his Notes that in this subscription all the manuscript codices agree on the Church of Egara. But even granting this; let these words be substituted: Minister of the Church of Bigorra, it would not thereby be established that from Bishop of Bigorra he became Minister of the Church of Egara, but rather the contrary. The city expressed by Tamayus Salazar as Biguerra is the city of Begorra in Gregory of Tours, book 9 of the History of the Franks, chapter 20: whether Bigorra is in Novempopulana, but at that time Ingenuus the Priest subscribed on behalf of Aper, Bishop of the city of Bigorra, to the Council of Agde, in the twenty-second year of King Alaric, who the following year was defeated and slain in battle by Clovis. This bishopric is in Novempopulana, or Aquitania III, whose see at this time is in the city of Tarbes on the river Adour. Diagus wished to indicate another episcopal city in Gallia Narbonensis, later called Languedoc by posterity — Beziers, I believe, or Beziers in Languedoc, commonly called Beziers: but by what argument he conjectures that city to have been destroyed by King Clovis — this indeed we cannot establish from the silence of the ancient writers.

[6] There followed the Synod of Gerona in the seventh year of King Theuderic, in the consulship of Agapetus, in the Era 555, the year of Christ 517, to which Nibridius, in the name of Christ, Bishop, subscribed: He subscribes to other Councils. but the see is not indicated for any of the subscribing bishops. Again, in the second Council of Toledo, in the Era 565, in the fifth year of King Amalaric, the year of Christ 527, the following is read: Nibridius, in the name of Christ, Bishop of our Church of Egara, having arrived after some time, reread, approved, and subscribed to this constitution of my fellow priests held in the city of Toledo, saving the authority of the ancient canons. So from the same manuscript codices Loaisa reports, whereas in the previously indicated printed books it read Bishop of Agraga: which we have rejected above. The same Loaisa notes in his annotations that he found that Council held at Lugo, in a manuscript where the boundaries of bishoprics are discussed, called Exara, Egara is erroneously placed in Aragon. not Egara: whence he conjectured it to be Gea de los Caballeros near Saragossa. Loaisa is followed by Gaspar Escolanus, book 2 of the History of Valencia, chapter 9, number 3, and Padilla, volume 2 of the Ecclesiastical History of Hispania, century 6, chapter 22. But from what has been related above, that opinion plainly collapses: and the consistent reading of Egara in other passages prevails.

[7] Tamayus Salazar reports that St. Nebridius was elevated from the See of Egara to that of Barcelona, in his Acts composed by himself. Therefore, he says, He does not seem to have left it to become Bishop of Barcelona, the blessed man, instructing the Catholic people with these good works and the spirit of teaching, offered such a fragrance of holiness to all, that after some years had passed, aided by his merits, when the Bishop of Barcelona had departed from life, the illustrious prelate was transferred to the cathedral of that city. While he therefore governed that see, Sergius, Bishop of the Church of Tarragona and Metropolitan of the province, convened another synod at Barcelona in the year of Our Lord 540, at which ten canons were decreed, in the proposing and ordering of which the blessed man labored wonderfully with the singular learning he possessed. Loaisa found the Canons of Barcelona only in a Hispalense codex written in the year of Christ 962: to which the following exordium is prefixed: When the holy Bishops assembled in the name of God at Barcelona — that is, Sergius the Metropolitan, Nibridius of Barcelona, Casotius of Empurias, Andreas of Lerida, Stafilius of Gerona, Joannes of Saragossa, Asellus of Tortosa — they determined that these things should be observed. This synod lacked a chronological date indicating when it was held: therefore Loaisa added the Era 578, which is the year of Christ 540 indicated by Tamayus Salazar. Conversely, Diagus, book 1 on the ancient Counts of Barcelona, chapter 17, reports that synod to have been held in the seventh century of Christ, and that Nebridius succeeded Bishop Emila, who subscribed to the Council of Egara in the Era 652, in the third year of King Sisebut, the year of Christ 614: and he adds that the above-named John, Bishop of Saragossa, was the brother and predecessor of St. Braulio. He subscribed to the fourth, fifth, and sixth Councils of Toledo, held in the Eras 671, 674, and 676, that is, in the years of Christ 633, 636, and 638. St. Braulio presided over the Church of Saragossa for nearly twenty years and is venerated on March 26. Let us grant, however, that the synod was held in the year of Christ 540; it does not immediately follow that one and the same Nebridius was first Bishop of Egara, then of Barcelona.

[8] Concerning St. Nebridius and his brothers, Isidore of Seville treats in his work On Ecclesiastical Writers, chapters 20 and 21. Justinianus, he says, from Hispania, Bishop of the Church of Valencia, one of four brothers, all bishops, born of the same mother, St. Isidore of Seville mentions St. Nebridius and his three brother bishops wrote a book of Responses to a certain Rusticus... Justus, Bishop of the Church of Urgell in Hispania, and brother of the aforesaid Justinianus, published a short treatise of exposition on the Song of Songs... His brothers Nebridius and Elpidius are also reported to have written certain things, but since we are unfamiliar with them, we confess they must rather be passed over in silence. So Isidore, who, because in the preceding chapter he had treated of Facundus the African, here writes that Justinianus was a native of Hispania, as most generally interpret. He indicates the time by speaking of Justinianus, whom he says flourished in Hispania in the times of Theudas, Prince of the Goths: Julian in his Chronicle. who succeeded Amalaric in the year 531. Under Amalaric these four brother bishops are placed in the Chronicle attributed to Julian the Archdeacon, where the following is read at number 272 and following: St. Montanus under Amalaric holds a Council at Toledo. Justinianus, the holy Bishop, who was present at the Council of Valencia in Hispania, wrote to Bishop Rusticus. Here flourish Elpidius, brother of Nebridius, Bishop of Lyon, and the holy Bishop Nebridius of Egara in Hispania. So it reads there. That the Council of Toledo was held in the year 523, and that St. Nebridius subscribed, we stated above. The other Council, that of Valencia, was celebrated in the Era 584, in the fifteenth year of King Theudis, the year of Christ 546: and Justinus is read to have subscribed, who is here Justinianus. Concerning the bishopric of Elpidius at Lyon, there is greater controversy. St. Helpidius, or Elpidius, did preside over this see, but according to all the tables of bishops, a full century earlier — of whom we shall treat with the Roman Martyrology on September 2, and of St. Justus, Bishop of Urgell, on May 28. But that all four brothers were Doctors, Bishops, and Saints, and are so considered in the Church of Hispania, Gaspar Escolanus reports in book 2 of the History of Valencia, chapter 9, number 6. The same four holy brothers are also so called by Diagus, book 5 of the Annals of the Kingdom of Valencia, chapter 4.

[9] Tamayus Salazar inscribed St. Nebridius on the fifth day before the Ides of February in the Hispanic Martyrology with these words: At Egara in Hither Hispania, St. Nebridius, Bishop of that city: who was the full brother of SS. Justinianus, Justus, and Elpidius, Bishops of the sees of Valencia, Urgell, and Lyon in Gaul, The name of St. Nebridius in Hispanic Martyrologies. had first ascended the see of Bigorra in Aquitaine: which being destroyed, he assumed the episcopal insignia of Egara, a man conspicuous for learning and holiness (whose eulogy, together with the commemoration of his brothers, the Blessed Isidore composed), full of days and virtues, he fell asleep in the Lord as an illustrious Confessor. So it reads there. The See of Bigorra we have discussed above. He adds in his Notes that the day of his death was supplied by the Hispanic Martyrology of Hieronymus Roman de la Higuera, not yet published, in which the following is read: At Egara near Saragossa in Aragon, St. Nebridius, who was Bishop of Agde in Gaul, then of Egara, brother of the holy Bishops Justinianus, Justus, and Elpidius, whom St. Isidore mentions: he was an outstanding, learned, and holy Prelate, who rested in the Lord on the fifth day before the Ides of February in the year 545. So he writes. He translates Egara into Spanish as Gea de los Caballeros cerca de Zaragoza de Aragon, which we have rejected above along with the bishopric of Agde. The same Tamayus Salazar cites a manuscript codex written in very ancient letters, the original autograph of which he received through the kindness of Thomas de Herrera, in which the Acts of the Saints of Hispania are contained in alphabetical order, and these words are reported: Our Isidore, from whom the Spanhemensis draws, treats of four holy Hispanic bishops: whose names are these: Nebridius, who was the eldest, received some bishoprics in Gaul and Hispania, as can be seen in the Councils. His memory is celebrated on the fifth day before the Ides of February, which he reached to the year 545, but did not exceed. So it reads there. The Spanhemensis is Abbot Trithemius, who flourished most notably at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and in his book On Ecclesiastical Writers at the year 540 calls Nebridius and Elpidius learned and erudite men, who composed various short works, which however have by no means come to hand, as he himself acknowledges.

+ Biggerrens.