ON ST. SISENANDUS, DEACON
MARTYR OF CÓRDOBA.
From St. Eulogius.
The year 851.
CommentarySisenandus, Deacon and Martyr, at Córdoba (S.)
J. B. S.
Concerning the martyrs of Spain in the ninth century under the tyranny of the Arabs, especially those of Córdoba, it has already had to be treated so often in this our work, that to repeat that history from the Memorial of St. Eulogius, or to vindicate at length their true palm and constant cult from Martín de Roa, His received cult, is not at all necessary. That Usuard inserted several of the number of those Córdobans into the sacred Fasti, has also been sufficiently said elsewhere: of St. Sisenandus he made no mention, who is not found either in his auctaria, not long ago edited. By the monastic Martyrologies of Wion, Dorganius, Menardus, and Bucelinus, with various elogia, he is marked as a deacon and monk, no doubt of their Benedictine Order, which titles however are nowhere expressed by Eulogius; whence also from that I judged that he should be called simply a deacon, as Baronius did before me. Galesinius and Ghinius also adorn the Saint with their encomia; but since the whole series of his martyrdom cannot be drawn more surely and clearly than from the praised Memorial; all these and the Breviaries also being passed over, the words of the Roman Martyrology at this day will suffice: At Córdoba in Spain, of St. Sisenandus, deacon and martyr, who for the faith of Christ was slain by the Saracens. Nor does anything here occur which needs examination or discussion.
[2] That St. Sisenandus was by origin of Beja, St. Eulogius expressly noted; fatherland and age, that city moreover the scholiast on book 2 of the Memorial chapter 5 thus describes: "The colony of Pax (Beja), formerly in Lusitania, which is established from Pliny, ennobled also by a juridical assembly, by the devastation of the Arabs occupying Spain, was reduced to the form of a small town, as we now behold it. It belongs to the kingdom of Portugal, and is called Beja. Concerning its name, situation, and antiquity many excellent things, as he always is wont, Andrés de Resende, writing to Vaseus. The destruction of that city Rasis pursues." But let these things suffice to be said to our purpose, lest here the excessive confidence, I think, of Tamayo, which without scruple we postpone to the authority of Morales, vainly detain us. Of the time of the martyrdom all things are equally certain, first of all the year, ennobled by so many other martyrdoms; namely of the Spanish Era 889, of Christ 851. Nor did the author of the Memorial omit the day, when he says: That he was slain by a glorious death on the seventeenth Kalends of August, on the fifth feria (Thursday). This is, says the scholiast again, the sixteenth day of July, which in that year occupied the fifth feria, which anyone will be able to detect from the foregoing; for forty and more days had passed without a martyrdom; namely from the VIII of June, on which the preceding band had completed its combat. Have now the whole matter from the already cited book and chapter of the Memorial.
[3] his martyrdom from St. Eulogius. Finally the most holy deacon Sisenandus, sprung from the town of Beja, was carried to Córdoba for the sake of learning, and there, worthily nurtured at the basilica of the most blessed Acisclus, where the body of the same
Martyr rests, worthily nurtured, as he himself related to his intimates, the most blessed Peter and Walabonsus, already placed among the martyrs in heaven, inviting him, he too undertook martyrdom. Who, while he remained bound in prison, they hand down that, illumined by a prophetic spirit, foreknowing, he announced the hour of his gibbet. For on a certain day, when he was fitting a reply to a certain friend who questioned him, and was writing him a paper in return, three or four little lines being already set down, suddenly, suffused with excessive cheerfulness, quickened as it were with a heavenly joy, rising from the place of his sitting, handing to the boy standing by, the bearer of the paper, to whom the soldier of Christ intended to return an answer, the paper half-written as it was, with many hearing, he said: "Withdraw now, son, lest thou be crushed by the onset of the satellites; for now the power of darkness, commanding me to be dragged from my chains, will now present me to itself to be beheaded." After this prophecy, he himself always persisting with immovable step, at the same moment the shouting lictors arrive, and with headlong fury lead him to the place where he was to consummate his martyrdom, beating him with fists and blows. The servant of God proceeds, with rejoicing spirit, sure of the crown of victory, who had been invited by the exhorting Saints to the heavenly banquet. For thus, presented to the judge, persisting in the holy confession with the same constancy as before, the delicate youth was slain by a glorious death, and, unburied, was left before the doors of the palace, on the seventeenth Kalends of August, on the fifth feria, in the Era as above: whose bones, after many days, by the gift of God, being found by certain women among the pebbles of the riverbed, are carried and reposited into the hall of the aforesaid martyr Acisclus.