Isaiah

ON ST. ISAIAH, PROPHET AND MARTYR.

IN PALESTINE.

Isaiah, Prophet and Martyr, in Palestine (S.)

By the Author J. B. S.

That not only the title of Saint, but also that of Martyr, is owed to the Prophet Isaiah, and that this was long ago most fully received in the Church, is taught—besides our own Martyrologies—by other writers older than the Martyrologists; among whom the illustrious Philosopher of the second century and glorious Martyr St. Justin, in his Dialogue with the Jew Trypho, The testimonies of the ancients concerning St. Isaiah demonstrating from our holy Isaiah the twofold coming of Christ the Redeemer, reproaches him, that it can seem no wonder to anyone that the Jews, not understanding these things, persecuted the Christians with implacable hatred, since they themselves had brought death upon the sacred Prophets, having struck out from the sacred Letters the manner of death, as he indicates plainly enough on page 21, section 2, of the Bibliotheca Patrum, Cologne edition: but more expressly on page 32, where he says that many prophecies are conceded by the Jews, which, if their teachers had understood them, they would surely have removed—just as also those things which are told concerning the death of Isaiah, whom, he says, you cut asunder with a wooden saw. To the same opinion have spoken those who are circulated under the names of Epiphanius and Dorotheus, writers certainly ancient, as well as St. Isidore of Seville, On the Fathers of the Old Testament, who also himself expressly testifies that the Prophet was stretched out by the impious Manasseh, ordered to be sawn from the crown of the head through the middle with a saw, and by that atrocious punishment and torment was extinguished. Nor is there doubt that St. Zeno, Bishop of Verona, hands down the like, cited in a note by Baronius, so that I need not here recount at greater length Tertullian, SS. Jerome and Augustine, Theodoret, and others, whence not badly you might apply to St. Isaiah the words of Paul, "They were sawn asunder."

[2] There exist other elogia of St. Isaiah, published by various authors in various styles, of which some manuscripts too are found among us, and elogia adorned by various writers collected and adorned more briefly or more copiously according to the genius of the writers. Some of them dwell on narrating the deeds of the holy Prophet; others run through his prophecies and their fulfillment; others insist on ordering the times, extending the Saint's life to 130 years, and inquiring not a little concerning his wives and children—most of which things we have judged should here be passed over. For we do not enter upon the Chronology of the Old Testament; the things which pertain to the various senses of the prophecies are fully explained by the interpreters; some compendium of his life and deeds Peter of Equilino, Bishop, has put together from true and doubtful sources, which we shall give in full below: for of these Saints we pursue in this work not so much their prolix histories as the cult admitted for them in the Church. Nevertheless it has not seemed fitting to pass over those things which, pertaining hither from the encomium of St. Isidore, can be added in a few words to Equilino's narration—namely, that there was in Isaiah so great sanctity and excellence of life, that he is said to have had only one tunic of haircloth. Although also afterward, for the sins of the people, he went about and covered his limbs with sackcloth; but laying aside even this last, according to the command of the Lord, with body naked and foot bare, he moved about in the assembly of the peoples, and thus endured the summer's heat and the frosts of winter and the storms of rain, that he might obey the precept of God and bewail the sins of the people.

[3] As for what pertains more closely to the cult, to begin with the Greeks: It is honored by the Greeks on 25 January and 9 May; Bollandus noted, among the passed-over on 25 January, that a commemoration of St. Isaiah the Prophet, near St. Lawrence at Constantinople, was wont to be made on that day, as is clear from the Menaia and Maximus Cythereus; which commemoration, or for what reason it was instituted, he says, is hidden from us: nor has the cause of that festivity been able hitherto to be sufficiently clearly proved by anyone. Some reason might seem to be drawn from Codinus, On the Origins of Constantinople, page 48, where he has it thus: The temples of SS. Isaiah and Lawrence were built by the Emperor Marcian and his wife Pulcheria; in whose time the holy body of Isaiah the Prophet was brought to Jerusalem. Cedrenus speaks otherwise below: but from the praised Codinus it should be conjectured that in the time of these Emperors the aforesaid church of St. Isaiah was dedicated on that day, 25 January, whence that commemoration was instituted and observed. The text of the Menaia for that day settles nothing: τῇ αὐτῇ ἡμέρᾳ τοῦ ἁγίου Προφήτου Ἡσαΐου πλησίον τοῦ ἁγίου Λαυρεντίου. Nor does Du Cange, in his Constantinopolis Christiana page 100, dare to suspect anything else than that these pertain to the dedication of the shrine, although this is no more certain to him than to us, since the Greek fasti have neglected to explain the matter. These reasons, I say, would suggest at least a probable rationale for that day's cult, unless the same Greeks disturbed the matter from another quarter.

[4] the reason for which matter cannot easily be given. For why is he honored with a solemn office among the same Greeks, and among those who follow their rite, the Ruthenians and others, on 9 May, as is also observed there among the passed-over? (The Copts commemorate him on 6 September and 29 December.) And here too the reason must be divined, perhaps very arbitrary: either that on that day his body was brought to Constantinople, or that it was then first deposited in the shrine of St. Lawrence, or that it was thence translated. From the Menaia you would receive no more light here than above; they read thus: Ἄθλησις τοῦ ἁγίου ἐνδόξου προφήτου Ἡσαΐου, where not a translation or dedication of a church, but the contest of the holy Prophet is indicated, as see also in the Graeco-Muscovite Ephemerides before volume 1 of May. With a longer elogium the Menaia pursue the Saint, with a briefer the Menologium. But these too are all referred to his martyrdom. Nor indeed does the narration of Codinus concerning the time of the translation of the holy Prophet's body seem so certain, since, by the testimony of Cedrenus in his Historical Compendium, in the 35th year of Theodosius the Younger, that is, in the year of Christ 442, the relics of the seer Isaiah were brought from Paneas and placed in the temple of the divine Lawrence. These things indeed I think are to be reconciled thus: that the first translation must have been made from Jerusalem to Paneas or Caesarea Philippi; then the other translation of St. Isaiah to Constantinople is owed to Theodosius, but the building of the temple to Marcian and Pulcheria. Furthermore, those things must be rejected which you will find written in the Paschal Chronicle page 155 and in others, as though in the 7th century the holy Prophet still lay in his former sepulchre at Jerusalem.

[5] The agreement of the Latins on 6 July. Concerning the cult among the Latins the controversy is shorter, for that he was recorded by a manuscript Florarium on 1 May, or by others perhaps on another day, that this was wrongly done is taught by the agreement of the remaining Classical Martyrologies after Bede—the Little Roman, Wandelbert, Rabanus, Ado, and Usuard—among whom the commemoration of St. Isaiah is constantly celebrated on this day. I have long since warned that the memory of the Saints of the Old Covenant is rare in the Hieronymian Martyrologies, as also that the days were often selected at will, to be assigned to the cult of these and other Saints. Bede and his copier Rabanus read simply: Of Isaiah the Prophet. The Little Roman had written: Of Isaiah and Joel the Prophets; from which Ado, The Nativity of Isaiah and Joel the Prophets. Thus joined, Usuard separated them, transferring Joel to the 13th of this month, as we shall say there. To the same Usuard is appended an elogium perhaps received from St. Isidore: In Judea, of Isaiah the Prophet, who, cut into two parts, died, and was buried under the oak of Rogel, near the passage of the waters; which is the very announcement of the present-day Roman Martyrology. The additions or elogia of the more recent Martyrologists are not of such value that they deserve to be described here; but place must be given to the Metrical Martyrology of Wandelbert:

The excellent seer, cut asunder the day before, throughout the world By his martyrdom, Isaiah, shines with virtue and with mouth.

[6] Concerning the Saint's various relics and the temple at Bologna. The veneration of the holy Prophet in the Latin Church was increased not a little by his sacred relics obtained in various places; which—in what century they passed hither, at what time the treasury of St.-Denis near Paris obtained a portion—I would not indeed dare to divine. Nor indeed are those alone mentioned in the world, for in the proper office of the metropolitan church of Brindisi, printed at Rome in the year 1583, in the catalogue of relics, some also of St. Isaiah are numbered. Masinius likewise, surveying his Bologna, in two temples, namely of St. Stephen and of St. John in the Mount, found remains of the holy Prophet, which it is a wonder are not preserved in the parish church there dedicated to his name, as the same Masinius testifies. In the Sacred and Civil Magnitude of Cologne, at the temple of St. Gereon page 266, Gelenius recorded not indeed a part of the body of the holy Prophet, but "of the Sepulchre of Isaiah." Nor does our Belgium lack a particle of the precious remains, since Rayssius noted in his Hierogazophylacium page 278, that in the monastery of La Thure there are honored some of the bones of Isaiah the Prophet: which Brasseur has more distinctly in the Cimeliarchium of the same abbey: a little bone of Isaiah the Prophet, with a rather short Greek inscription. Whence I might seek more, I have not; although I do not doubt that in other sanctuaries elsewhere relics of the same holy Prophet are guarded, which we would not rashly say were brought to the West in the time of the sacred wars. Nor will I inquire further concerning the churches. Ughelli, in volume 5, reports a temple consecrated to St. Isaiah at Venice.

[7] It now remains only that we subjoin those things which the praised Bishop Equilino either received from elsewhere, or by his own effort

collected, The elogium of Peter of Natalibus let us here set forth. Thus it stands, in book 6, chapter 60.

Isaiah the Prophet, sprung of noble stock in Jerusalem, is reported to have been begotten of a father Amos—not indeed that Amos who is the third among the twelve minor Prophets, but of another, a noble man of Jerusalem. For this one arose from Jerusalem, that other from Tekoa: this one was not lowest in birth, that other was a shepherd of sheep and a countryman. For to the sanctity of this Isaiah the divine Scripture bears witness in very many places, and all the doctors, and Josephus the historiographer of the Jews; and they teach more expressly that his life's end, which he accomplished by martyrdom, is to be reckoned in the catalogue of the holy Fathers. Now Isaiah began to prophesy under Uzziah, King of Judah, and Jeroboam, King of Israel; his prophecy extends through the times of the three following Kings, namely Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, Kings of Judah, as he himself testifies in his exordium: and under King Manasseh he made an end of prophesying and of living, about the beginning of that reign. Now this man, as Jerome says, was eloquent in his speech, inasmuch as he was a noble man and of urbane elegance, having nothing of rusticity mingled in his eloquence; whence it came about that, above the rest, the translation could not preserve the flower of his speech. He is also to be called not so much a Prophet as an Evangelist, for so did he pursue to the clear light all the mysteries of Christ and of the Church, that one would think he was not prophesying of the future, but weaving a history of things past.

[8] Now Isaiah prophesied in Jerusalem and in Judea, from various writers and also to the ten tribes led into captivity, and wove his oracle concerning both kingdoms, now jointly, now separately. And although at times he looks to the present history, and, after the captivity of Babylon, signifies the return of the people, yet in Judea all his care is concerning the calling of the Gentiles and the coming of Christ. This holy Prophet strengthened Hezekiah, King of Judah, by a divine response made to himself, that he should not fear before the face of Sennacherib, King of the Assyrians, when he had besieged Jerusalem, promising the King both a plague upon the enemies and salvation among the people of God. Which also was done, an angel of the Lord smiting a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians, and putting Sennacherib to flight, as was said above in the deeds of King Hezekiah. Namely on 24 June, where he joined him with Josiah, as also did Grevenus, whom Canisius copied. But Henschenius judged that those two Kings ought rightly to be referred among the passed-over on 23 June, where Grevenus placed them, because he had not found them in the more ancient Fasti. By what means that liberty of ascribing those Saints of the Old Testament to our own Fasti arose, I have not carelessly intimated on 1 July, in the treatise on St. Aaron; nor do I see why the recent Gallic Legendary, otherwise hypercritical, ought to have imitated it. Let us return to Isaiah.

[9] By this man's prayers also the Lord, appeased over the tears of the same King, of not sufficiently indubitable faith when he had first decreed to slay him, added fifteen years to his life; in sign of which he made the sun go back through ten hours in the ecliptic, as was said above in the same history. In the times of this Prophet also there was a pool outside the city, when the army of Sennacherib, King of Babylon, besieged Jerusalem; but by his prayers Isaiah obtained from the Lord that it was dried up when the enemies came down to it, and, when the citizens went out, going down to that same fountain, the waters were there as before: and, according to what Epiphanius says, at the prayers of Isaiah the waters came forth from the fountain of Siloam more copiously than usual—for this pool is called in the Gospel the Pool of Siloam. These things are from pseudo-Epiphanius, doubtless augmented and adorned not a little from the traditions of the Jews. The true history is handed down in 2 Paralipomenon Chronicles chapter 32: And when Hezekiah had seen this, namely that Sennacherib was come, and that the whole force of the war was turned against Jerusalem, having taken counsel with the Princes and the bravest men, that they should stop up the heads of the fountains which were outside the city: and this being decreed by the sentence of all, he gathered a very great multitude, and they stopped up all the fountains, and the brook which flowed through the midst of the land. See there more things pertaining to Isaiah, as also in 4 Kings chapters 18, 19, etc. We have already warned that in Equilino's elogium things doubtful are mingled with true. Thus he proceeds.

[10] Now Hezekiah being dead, when his son Manasseh had begun to reign, put together. and had renewed the idols and altars of the images which his father had destroyed, and had made the people to err in the ways of the Gentiles; and when the Prophets also, sent by the Lord, reproved him, he spared none of them, but empurpled the streets of Jerusalem with the blood of the Prophets. Among his other crimes, moreover, he caused Isaiah the Prophet—his maternal grandfather according to the Hebrews, or according to others his kinsman—to be cast out of Jerusalem, near the said Pool of Siloam, and to be sawn through the middle with a wooden saw. And when he was in anguish at the beginning of the sawing, he asked that water be given him to drink: and when they would not give it to him, the Lord from on high sent water into his mouth, and at once he expired, nor did the executioners thereupon desist from the sawing. For on account of this sending of water was confirmed the name of Siloam, which is interpreted "sent." Nor did they bury him in the sepulchre of the Prophets, but under the oak of Rogel, near the passage of the waters of the said pool, which Hezekiah had made. Whence, unto the perpetual memory of the holy Prophet, still the waters in the Pool of Siloam bubble up, not continually, but at certain hours. And because by the prayer of the holy man those waters had been given divinely by the Lord, the people gloriously buried the Prophet in the aforesaid place on the day before the Nones of July, that also by his prayers, after his death, they might unceasingly enjoy the benefit of these waters. These things [are] from Josephus and Jerome, and from the Scholastic History, and from the Chronicle of William.