ON ST. CUCUFAS, MARTYR,
AT BARCELONA IN SPAIN.
ABOUT THE YEAR 303.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
St. Cucufas, Martyr, at Barcelona in Spain.
BHL Number: 2000
BY THE AUTHOR P. B.
§ I. The ancient cult of the Saint; his name and birthday variously marked.
That this most celebrated Martyr was among the Catalans in Spain,
all the most ancient monuments attest. Brief indeed, but elegant and luminous, is that which is read in Aurelius Prudentius, who flourished chiefly at the beginning of the fifth century, in his book Περὶ στεφάνων (that is: On the Crowns), Hymn 4, in these words:
"Barcelona, relying on illustrious Cucufas, shall rise:"
by which we are indeed not obscurely taught that, just as other cities gloried in other Martyrs, which he there recounts, so Barcelona gloried especially in her Cucufas through those times; and not only gloried, but even relied on him; so that we understand that city to have been then already addicted and consecrated not to any cult of him whatever, but besides to his singular patronage and protection. With Prudentius agree the Martyrologies of well-nigh every age and kind; in which, however, as also among certain more recent historians, I would have it observed that the name of this Saint is expressed in one way and another: for he who in Prudentius, according to the most exact editions and the most ancient codices, of which we have two, is Cucufas, in others is Cucuphas (for so too it is written in the Litanies drawn from the prayer-book of Charles the Bald in Baluze, Capitularies, volume 2), in others Cucufans, Cucubas, Ququfas, Quoquofas, Cocofas, Cocovatus, etc. The Catalans call him San Culgat, the French saint Quiquenfat, whence churches in the diocese of Paris; and saint Couat, whence a name is given to a certain village in the diocese of Alet; and they variously inflect it otherwise; as you may see in Castellanus, in the additions to the Roman Martyrology at the 15th of February.
[2] The most ancient Martyrologies celebrate his birthday on the 16th of February; The most ancient of the Martyrologies leads the column, that one which, attributed to St. Jerome, Florentinius published and illustrated, when it celebrates the memory of our Saint on the 16th of February in these words: "In Spain, at Barcelona, the passion of St. Quoquofas." There follow others of the same class and at the same day, both those which Florentinius there produces, as the Antwerp, or rather Epternach, the Corbie, and the Blumian at the end of the book, and those which have been edited by us in briefer form, as the Reichenau, the Augsburg, the Labbean, that of the Queen of Sweden; and in the Spicilegium of d'Achery of the most recent edition, volume 2, page 27, the Gellone. The same larger Hieronymian is thought by some to announce the same Saint also, with the name dislocated, on the preceding day, the 15th of February; but in the briefer ones he nowhere appears on that day. The Corbie one besides proposes him on the 25th of July, as you may see in d'Achery in the cited Spicilegium, and in Florentinius. The ancient Martyrology which, from the place whence we received it copied, we call the Trier one of St. Maximin, mentions him also on the 12th of February and the 25th of July; but in the former place only on occasion of St. Eulalia; which Notker too did, who celebrates his memory on the 12th and 16th of February, and the 25th of July, and on this day indeed with a fairly long eulogy, which he borrowed from Ado. You may consult the Omitted matters in our Acts commemorated at the days of February.
[3] Others, however, both Martyrologists and biographers, from the ninth century down to our own age, but the more recent ones on the 25th of July, which the Acts also confirm, consecrate to his memory solely this 25th of July as his birthday; because, I believe, then first our Acts began to become known, in which that day is assigned to the martyrdom of Cucufas. Wandelbert seems to have preceded the rest, unless Florus anticipated him, which our Elders thought in the Martyrology which they prefixed to volume 2 of March. There followed thereupon Ado, Usuard, the Book of the sacraments of St. Gregory in the codex of Ratoldus, which was written in the tenth century, in Menard, page 170; and, not to recount many, the Roman Martyrology, which the Church now uses, thus today announcing the Saint: "At Barcelona in Spain, of blessed Cucuphas the martyr, who in the persecution of Diocletian, under the governor Dacian, having overcome very many torments, struck with the sword, migrated a victor into heaven." It is of service here also to append the eulogy of Ado: for it makes not only for approving the present cult of St. Cucufas, but also for demonstrating some antiquity of our Acts, of which it exhibits an epitome: thus, then, it has:
[4] "In the Spains, in the city of Barcelona, of St. Cucufas the martyr (understand the birthday, which word had preceded), whose epitome Ado gives on this day. who was born of the city of Scillis, and suffered at Barcelona under the proconsul Galerius, and Maximian and Rufinus. First most grievously tortured and beaten, then bound with chains, stretched out upon a gridiron, drenched with vinegar and mustard, he was ordered to be roasted. But when he appeared unharmed by the fire and the balls of flame, by the command of the impious judge he was led outside the city, and again cast into an abundant fire: which being extinguished by the divine will, he was again bound with iron and thrust back into custody, where he is consoled with a divine splendor. Again most cruelly beaten with iron and hide carding-combs, at the last, the sentence being pronounced: 'We order Cucufas, a rebel against the princes, and unwilling to sacrifice to the gods, to be struck with the sword'; being led to the eighth milestone from Barcelona, and executed with the sword, he consummated his martyrdom. Whose body is buried by the Christians with reverence. Whence afterward, translated not far from the city of the Parisians, it was entombed with honor in the church of the blessed martyrs Dionysius, Rusticus, and Eleutherius."
[5] The same day of his triumph the Spaniards long since assigned and celebrated, the same day the Spaniards long since and indeed with a peculiar Office, which Tamayo asserts in the Spanish Martyrology at this day, when he says: "In all the Breviaries of Spain we know that special Offices formerly existed." Which same thing before him Ambrosio de Morales testified in the general Chronicle of Spain, volume 1, book 10, folio 334; where he affirms that in the Breviaries of Spain the Acts of St. Cucufas are contained somewhat more ample than they are in the Martyrologies; and at the same time observes that there are very few churches there which do not recite an Office of him, and in it do not exhibit that narration of the martyrdom which he there subjoins in the vernacular idiom, and by which our Acts are reduced into a compendium; and so the day of the Saint's birthday is fixed at the 25th of July. And of the church of Evora indeed this is established also from the Portuguese Legend of the Saints of Diego do Rosario, printed at Lisbon in 1585; for at the 25th of July the Martyrdom of our Saint is said to be drawn from the Breviary of Evora and at the same time from St. Antoninus, part 1, title 8, chapter 1 (§28). An example of the same thing I found in the proper Offices of the Saints of the cathedral church and diocese of Barcelona, approved by Apostolic authority, and printed at Barcelona in the year 1668; for in them at the 27th of July is noted the feast of St. Cucuphas the martyr, double; and this rubric is subjoined: "Because this feast always occurs with the feast of St. James the apostle, therefore in the churches of the diocese of Barcelona which are not dedicated by the name of St. Cucuphas, it is always transferred to the 27th day. But if that day be a Sunday, it is transferred to the 30th of July." But in the Office itself there is nothing singular except the lessons of the second nocturn, which contain almost our Acts. I do not think that the same is still practiced in other churches throughout Spain: certainly I find nothing of this kind in the Directories of twenty-one dioceses and of some religious Orders of that kingdom, printed at Madrid in the year 1718.
[6] held for his birthday; although they transferred the Office. But that this was formerly in use among others, it is permitted also to conjecture from the Calendar of the Toledan Missal, of the Mozarabic rite, which, published in type in the year 1500, our Cuper not long since copied out at Toledo: for thus in it is written at the 8th of the Kalends of August: "Of James the apostle, of six copes" (this rubric is expressed on account of the solemnity of the Feast, not likewise that which follows) "of Christosotus and Cucufas and his companions, Martyrs, IX. LC." — that is, an Office of nine lessons: but what these companions mean, I do not know; nor do the Acts or other authors mention them; unless perhaps they are here wrongly joined to Cucufas, who according to the Mozarabic Breviary itself pertain to Christopher. But although the feasts of SS. James, Christopher, and Cucufas be noted on the same day, because they occur on the same day; yet by no means are their Offices recited on the same day among the Mozarabs; as I gather from their Breviary, which was printed two years after the Missal; where the proper Offices of these Saints are disposed in this order: "On the feast of St. James the apostle, brother of St. John the apostle and evangelist." Then follows his proper Office. Then: "On the feast of St. Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary," whose proper Office is subjoined. Then indeed: "On the feast of St. Christopher, or of his companions." And the proper Office follows. Finally: "On the day of St. Cucufas; let all things be said of one martyr," folio 318. You see that here the day destined for the Office of St. Cucufas is postponed not only to the feast of St. Anne, which according to the said Calendar falls on the 26th of July, but even deferred beyond the transferred feast of St. Christopher. Moreover, although here all things are prescribed from the common of one Martyr, yet the Hymn proper to the Saint ought to be excepted, which there follows, and which, because it is commended by Baronius, I have thought should here be represented, not as it was mutilated by Bivar in the Pseudo-Dexter Chronicle; but as it is most accurately drawn from the very fountain, the Mozarabic Breviary, I say, not a syllable being changed in the text, except when for a simple vowel letter a diphthong was to be expressed; the other emendations, for the most part drawn from Tamayo at this day, I shall set apart in the margin, the faults of the Sapphic metre being neglected. Behold it:
[7] "Barcelona, joyfully flourishing for Cucufas, honor the tomb of the holy body: Hymn from the Mozarabic Breviary. and, venerating the place of the sacred sepulchre, strew it with privet-blossoms.
This illustrious gift the Scillitan * city sent to you, and gave the blessed Felix when it gave him to the peoples of Gerona to be venerated by lot.
These, the honor of the tomb * being set apart, approach their own seats to be guarded; here the hall is celebrated at Barcelona, that one at Gerona.
Hence the blood of this kindly Cucufas * became clinging to * our region: therefore here, laying down his own members for us, he grants us to live.
Here, full of faith, loving Christ in return, he suffers the tyrant hostile to the light; and soon, to be made blessed, he is worn down *, tortured by twice-six soldiers.
Struck by the excessive slaughter of the raging one, he poured out his entrails as if about to perish; which, restored, he received * back into his belly. Sound within the hour.
Cast into the flames, by his prayers he destroys the threatening * force of the fire brought near. The flame cannot too greatly burn * upon the blessed body.
Ordered to be burned by the torches of the fiery gridiron: the nourishments of the burning swell; but they harm the Servant nothing … * of the punishments.
Thereafter that Pious one endures the iron carding-combs striking upon him with a blow. Thus , his head cut off, into the heavens his spirit breathes forth.
Now favor, O Martyr, the prayers of your clients; instruct also the citizen; protect the people; and soothe the pious hearts of the priests with the love of peace.
Sin being taken away, let the soul grow green: let us all be sated with heavenly bread: let the Spirit adorn with song * the fallen, corrupted members.
Let not the joint of the ruinous flesh be destroyed
nor the body oppressed by food * and vices: let not the souls be burned in the hidden fire of evils.
That the pious ones, holding with you, blessed Cucufas, the kingdoms of heaven by their merits, may give to our God a resounding, pleasing melody with the tongue.
Celebrating glory to the Father with honor *: glory to the Son the heavenly ones shall sing again *, with whom the one holy Spirit stands associated. Amen."
[8] Of this poem the discourse recurs below. Three other Hymns besides Tamayo brings forward on this day, An ancient Office in the monastery of St. Cucufas near Barcelona. drawn out, as he says, from the most ancient and manuscript Office of the monastery of St. Cucufas del Vallès near Barcelona; but because they bring no light to our history, I am content to have indicated them. But with how great solemnity our Saint was accustomed long ago to be celebrated in that monastery on this very day and the following, we easily understand from those lessons which John Baptist de Castellarnau, a man most devoted to our studies, then monk and vicar general of that monastery, transmitted to us, copied from its most ancient parchment Lectionary, in the year 1627. Although he confesses that he did not copy out all which he had found there concerning St. Cucufas; but only those which comprised our Acts entire, without the translation; but that he wished to pass over the rest, because they added nothing new, but only embellished all the same things with different words. From these, I say, we understand that the Office was there anciently celebrated with an octave, and indeed on the first day, or the 8th of the Kalends of August, with twelve proper lessons, as also on the Sunday within the octave: for of the rest we have received nothing. Moreover, from what has been said, it ought to seem doubtful which at length of the various days, which we have assigned throughout this whole paragraph, agrees in fact with the martyrdom of Cucufas; since all (unless perhaps you except the 12th of February) are noted as birthdays, no mention of a translation being made. But this I shall discuss more conveniently in the following paragraph, when I have said a few things concerning our Acts, of what value they seem to be.
Annotations* Scillitana * tumulis * Cucufatis * heres * teritur * recipit * minacem * Bivar: ardere * supply: rigores (harshnesses) * Sicque * æthra * crimine * perimantur * artus * or "cibis"? * Tamayo: celebrent * Tamayo: recitent
§ II. The ancient Acts; various judgments concerning them, and how far they are to be admitted.
[9] We have manuscript Acts, whose style Surius changed. We have manuscript Acts of St. Cucufas from the monastery of St. Maximin of Trier, to which our Bolland formerly noted that the same exist, but without prologue, in the Manuscript of St. Hubert, of which monastery it has been spoken often elsewhere; but Henschen, that the same are also in a parchment codex of the Queen of Sweden in quarto. There are also, at this 25th of July, some in our parchment Vaucelles codex marked P Manuscript 157; and in the Lessons which we received from the monastery, as I noted before, of Vallès near Barcelona; but in these the prologue is lacking, not in that one: but in neither place is there one word concerning the translation. The same were used, in the Spanish History of the ancient counts of Barcelona, by Francisco Diago, from a most ancient, as he says, Flos Sanctorum, written by hand on parchment, and preserved among the chapter of the cathedral church of Barcelona ever since the year 1360, when that chapter had acquired it, as a most rare monument, from a certain clergyman William de Muntels; but neither in this, according to Diago, was any mention of a translation made. The same Lawrence Surius made public, from ancient manuscript books indeed, but with the style changed here and there, as he confesses; yet not so much but that he faithfully and closely adhered to our exemplars, as far as pertains to the facts and their order and sentences. These same, finally, the Spanish authors, some of whom we shall produce in the course, eagerly seized upon.
[10] Certain persons proscribe them, And the Spaniards indeed make very much of them; Diago first of all in the cited work, book 1, folio 17; where he says that this history is of great authority, and deserves all credit. Yet I would not say that absolutely all thought so; since Francisco Bivar, in the commentaries on his Dexter Chronicle, page 329, hints something else in these words: "Moreover, the Acts of holy Cucuphas of Barcelona exist in Surius, volume 4, the 25th of July, and in Equilinus, book 6, chapter 136. But the same are MORE HAPPILY sung in the Sapphic poem, the sacred Hymn, which is read in the Toledan Breviary." You have that hymn in the preceding paragraph. The same thing before him Baronius had signified in the same words, on this day in the notes to the Roman Martyrology, not only carping at those Acts as they exist in Surius or Equilinus, but also as they are read in Mombritius. Tillemont, protecting himself with this opinion of Baronius, not only proscribes the Surian Acts, volume 5 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 58, but also, page 609, depicts them in this manner: "The Acts of St. Cucufas, which are in Surius at the 25th of July, at the beginning indeed, on account of the gravity of the style, seem good enough; but they afterward degenerate, and become utterly intolerable. Baronius seems to acknowledge this, when he says, etc." No milder is the French Legendist, who everywhere follows Tillemont, in the critical index which he prefixes to the month of July, where he thus pronounces: "His Acts (those of St. Cucufas), composed by a monk of St. Denis in the ninth century, have no authority. The author can scarcely be admitted, except as a testimony of the translation of his relics."
[11] Three judges seem to have impelled Baronius to that censure of his, under whom St. Cucufas is said to have suffered, as of untrustworthy credit; and the prodigious punishment and sudden death of two of them, as also of some of the ministers, at his imprecations: for these things are narrated in the Acts; not likewise in the Toledan Hymn, which he praises, and which in the rest agrees almost with the Acts. Hence too, in the correction of the Roman Martyrology, he seems to have avoided that which in Ado, Usuard, Notker he had read concerning the three judges on this day, and to have put in its place "under the governor Dacian," as we saw above, no. 3. The same three judges the cited Legendist reproaches, under whom "the author of the Acts," he says, "against all appearance of truth, would have it that St. Cucufas suffered." Tillemont expresses no cause of his criticism; nor do those three judges seem to strike him so much as the Dacian substituted in their place, whom he says he does not see whence he was taken into the Martyrology. Truly the Flos Sanctorum, and the Treasury of preachers, assigned in the notes by Baronius, are not instruments suitable of themselves to attest this matter. Yet that most learned man could have put Dacian in this place, because he was prefect of the Spains under Diocletian and Maximian, and the same most fierce in persecuting and torturing the Christians; as Tillemont himself also proves, where he sets up a discourse of St. Vincent, in the same volume, page 217; and then also because St. Felix, the companion of our Cucufas, is read in the manuscript Acts, which will be brought forward on the 1st of August, to have suffered martyrdom under that same Dacian. But that which displeased Tillemont in our Acts, and seemed intolerable, I think, is that in these the Saint is reported to have prayed — however much under the condition there expressed — and to have obtained from God the destruction of his persecutors: for from a similar cause, in the same volume, page 718, he renders suspect the letter accustomed to be attributed to St. Anastasia, widow and martyr; as though vows of this kind ill agree with Christian patience and meekness.
[12] Meanwhile both he and the Legendist confess that these Acts were composed already in the ninth century, and composed after the year 835; which is not proved. and that Ado read them and followed them in the Martyrology which he drew up about the year of Christ 858 or a little earlier; but they deny that they existed before the year 635; since they commemorate a translation made in that year. Of Ado the matter is perspicuous from his text, in which he everywhere uses the very words of the Acts, above, no. 4. The year 835 too is expressed in Surius, not indeed in the Acts of the martyrdom, but in the history of the translation subjoined to them, which Ado indeed also read; but yet it is so different from the same Acts of the martyrdom that in various Manuscripts it does not appear, as we noted a little before. And so Francisco Diago, in the History of the counts of Barcelona, book 1, chapter 10, because in the ancient exemplar of the Acts there was nothing of the translation, judged that they were composed before it. But that appendix could have been subjoined later to the martyrdom long since described, even by a monk (if it is thus pleasing to divine with the Legendist) of St. Denis. But how long before the appendix of the translation the bare Acts of the martyrdom came forth, is clear by no indication at all: for the age of the writer is as hidden from us as his name. He certainly does not make himself equal to the Martyr, nor nearly contemporary.
[13] To these we shall give more ancient ones from Mombritius; What of this, that than those very Acts, which, because they are read in various codices without the appendix of the translation, we said might be judged composed before the translation was made, others, in our judgment indeed, are found more ancient? Certainly those which Mombritius, in volume 1, brought to light from his Manuscripts, are so concise and succinct that we do not hesitate here to prefer them to the rest as earlier in age; inasmuch as they have nothing less of the matter, but much less of words: so that these ought rather to seem amplified through those, than those contracted through these: for in manuscript Acts things are wont to grow with age, not to be diminished. Hence the proconsular Acts, and those held for genuine, are almost most simple and most brief, while the spurious and recent ones for the most part run riot. This moved us, so that, our Manuscripts being suppressed, we reprinted the Mombritian Acts: nor do we think that anyone will take it ill, since both these are rare, and those others, which we mentioned, may be seen in the most common Surius, changed indeed here and there in words, as we forewarned, and in style, but very moderately and faithfully: which anyone will easily conjecture of himself, if he compares what we shall subjoin concerning the translation from the Trier Manuscript with what is published in Surius.
[14] which nevertheless we do not dare to call sincere; but neither to reject: But someone will say that these very ones are less approved by Baronius; and that what by others is above censured in the Surian Acts, the same occur in the Mombritian. Be it so, indeed: for neither do we give these as everywhere sincere, but as earlier and simpler than the rest which survive. Moreover, we do not deny that they seem with reason suspect, which are narrated concerning the Saint's prayer, and the punishment of Galerius and the soldiers, no. 3; and then what in the following number is read of the ministers consumed by fire; and likewise what, no. 5, concerning the Martyr's prayer, and the immediate destruction of Maximian and the idols, similar to the former things, is reported: for although these things could altogether have happened, and be explained in a sound sense; who yet would think that so great credit is owed to an uncertain and single author? Nay, if these things were done
these things, and indeed in an open place and before the eyes of all; why has no one, besides this obscure writer, commemorated them? Why is there no memory of things so marvelous celebrated through the foreign churches; not even through the African ones, whence he was born and had lately gone forth? Why would St. Augustine rather have passed over deeds so illustrious done there, than the Acts of St. Vincent, the martyr of Saragossa, which he so often commends, though surely much less marvelous, and in no way properly pertaining to the Africans? And what more? St. Ado himself, when he had read these things, yet dissembled, and did not copy them like the rest: but for what cause? unless because either he himself did not approve them, or thought they would not easily be approved by others. Add that the same are far removed from the Hymn of the Mozarabs. We say, therefore, that these seem suspect; false or fabricated we do not say.
[15] But the rest, which Ado adopted, are not so unusual in martyrdoms [although they are less suspect, insofar as they agree with Ado and the Toledan Hymn;] but that they may more easily seem narrated truly of the illustrious Cucufas (as Prudentius calls him): for that he builds up those three judges from the Acts, although this offends some, yet will appear by no means wonderful to those who have read Lactantius, On the Deaths of the persecutors, chapter 7. But as for what pertains to the torments of our Martyr, which either did not harm him, or were immediately removed by sudden prodigies, these would be not a little confirmed from the Toledan Hymn, if only it could be brought back to the times of St. Isidore, which is not ascertained by us. Tillemont, page 609, thinks it less elegant than that it can be held either ancient or of great authority; and that it cannot even safely be asserted to have been composed before the year 835; because, although it discourses splendidly of the Saint's tomb, yet it expresses nothing clearly enough concerning the body as still then resting there. We confess that in this Breviary of the Mozarabs many things inserted after Isidore are read, such as those which treat of more recent Saints; but those things which are set down concerning St. Cucufas, a martyr formerly so illustrious, so ancient, who suffered and was buried and celebrated in Spain — if these are snatched from St. Isidore as author, what at length out of all the Isidorian or Toledan Offices will be left to him? The frequent and barbarous copying of those codices could have detracted much from the elegance; of which Alcuin complained already so many centuries ago, as we said in the Commentary on the Acts of SS. Speratus and companions, Martyrs, at the 17th of this month. But that in that Hymn the tomb without the body is not treated, is clear enough, I think, from strophes 2, 3, and 4. Moreover, the fragment following the Acts, in which the translation is described, is without doubt of an author who wrote not very many years after the translation made in the year 835; since Ado about the year 858 read and followed him.
[16] But neither do we think it to be doubted that our Saint bore the palm of martyrdom under Diocletian and Maximian, as also in assigning the time of this martyrdom that is, in the year of Christ 303, which from the 23rd of February was the first of the persecution; or 304 (for in the year 305, on the Kalends of May, those tyrants abdicated the empire). For this our manuscript Acts affirm: and although the Mombritian ones do not express it, nor Ado; yet they hint it, when they build up three judges and ministers of the persecution in one city at almost one time; since a multitude of men of this kind was never so under other tyrants, so that Lactantius makes it as it were proper to these times, in the case of Diocletian: "Many governors," he says, "and more offices lay heavy upon single regions, and now almost upon cities; likewise many accountants and masters and vicars of the prefects; with all of whom civil acts were very rare; but only condemnations and proscriptions frequent." And the same is doubtless to be thought of his colleague, under whom Spain was, Maximian: for the same author, in the following chapter, says that he was similar to Diocletian, and "his most bloody treasury," he says, "abounded with ill-gotten wealth"; so that you may argue that he was no less diligent, through his ministers, in condemning the Christians everywhere, and in proscribing the goods of those slain. And indeed the same persecution must be said to have taken away Cucufas, which crowned his companion St. Felix; but that this was the Diocletianic one, we shall see at the 1st of August. And this indeed is now the common opinion of almost all: for Dodwell and Morin, making an outcry, we do not delay upon, concerning whom Pagi may be seen in the Critical remarks at the year of Christ 303, no. 12, and several others.
[17] and indeed in the month of July, and its 25th day; The month too and day of the martyrdom the same as our Acts, Wandelbert (and before him probably Florus), Ado, and the rest whom we gave in the preceding paragraph, assign to the 25th of July, and perhaps before all these the Spanish Mozarabs. And why not rightly? "The most ancient Martyrology," you say, "opposes, which is called the Hieronymian; whose principal exemplars did not mention this holy Martyr on that day and month, but on another month and days; namely the 15th and 16th of February." Hence Castellanus, in the additions to the Roman Martyrology, gathers that the Saint expired on the 15th of February, but was buried the next day; the French Legendist, already often named, approving his opinion concerning the day of the martyrdom. But whether on the 15th of February our Saint is treated there, let it be the reader's judgment: for thus it is announced in the codices of Florentinius: "Warciana in Spain, the passion of St. Loquunfas"; in the Corbie one: "At Barcelona in the Spains, the passion of holy Loguumfas"; in the most ancient Epternach one: "Arciana in the Spains, the passion of Locufas." Are not these rather enigmas than announcements of St. Cucufas? Certainly none of these names is attributed to our Saint the next day in the same codices. And so the conjecture of our Elders, by which they perhaps thought Cucufas here designated, Florentinius does not dare to follow; whom in this place consult.
[18] to which the ancient Martyrologies are no obstacle. But on the 16th of February indeed the passion of St. Cucufas is celebrated in all of them, as we reported above: but who would say how ancient that announcement is? For that several things gradually accrued to that ancient Martyrology, all confess, and the matter is manifest. But of this we have no light suspicion. For those codices of which we treat were all composed outside Spain; outside which St. Cucufas seems to have been unknown, until under Charlemagne, together with his relics, St. Fulrad carried a notice of him thence to the Gauls and Germans: or if perhaps he had already become known through the writings of Prudentius, yet from these his birthday or the day of his passion could not be designated. Hence we opine that Cucufas first began to be inscribed in the Hieronymian Martyrology after the translation of his relics; and, since not even yet were the Acts sufficiently known in Gaul or Germany, that in place of the day of the martyrdom was chosen the day of the translation, which in fact is said in the Acts, according to Surius, to have been the 16th of February. Nor does it matter that there is written "the passion of St. Cucufas," not "the translation of St. Cucufas." For the word "passion" does not always in those codices signify the day of the passion or martyrdom; as may be observed on this very day, on which the same codices have, the Lucca ones indeed: "The passion of St. James the Apostle"; but others: "The birthday of St. James the Apostle": since it is certain by the opinion of all that the martyrdom of St. James happened not in the month of July, but about Easter. We believe, therefore, that the birthday of St. Cucufas was at first unknown to those copyists, until his Acts, first drawn out from somewhere in Spain, as I think, began to be spread through Gaul: from which the true day of the martyrdom first began to become known and to be commonly used by all; even in the Hieronymian Martyrology itself, at least according to the Corbie codex, which on this day see in d'Achery, of the reprinted Spicilegium, volume 2. So certainly Florentinius thinks with us, at the 16th of February, and others everywhere, besides Castellanus and the Legendist whom I mentioned, the Frenchman; whose inconstancy I indeed wonder at, by which at once he praises the credit of the writer of the Acts, at least in those things which pertain to the first translation; and at once himself subverts the same in those things, by fixing the 15th of February for the translation made, but for the martyrdom the 25th of July.
§ III. The place of the martyrdom and of the burial; the translation of the whole body, or of a part only, first into the Vosges, then to Saint-Denis near Paris.
That Barcelona was the chief combat-place of this Athlete, Prudentius, the Acts, the Martyrologies, which we have produced, He seems to have been slain in the castle of Octavianus near Barcelona, all attest: there he was apprehended, there he suffered most of the torments; there the final sentence of the head was passed upon him. Which things indeed suffice, that his martyrdom may simply be ascribed to Barcelona; although, having been ordered to be dragged outside it to death, at the eighth milestone thence he at last submitted his head to the sword; as they affirm, not indeed the Mombritian Acts, but those other later ones, as we think, which in this matter too Ado followed, yet omitting the name of the place, which is variously read in the Manuscripts; and in ours indeed, the Trier and the Vaucelles, Optianus; but in Surius, Tianus; but in the Lectionary of the monastery of St. Cucufas, and the manuscript Flos Sanctorum in the above-praised Diago, Octavianus; and so too have Antonio Vicente Domenech in the Saints of Catalonia, Francisco de Padilla in the Ecclesiastical History of Spain, and John Baptist de Castellarnau in the sheets formerly sent hither; in which he complains, concerning the proper Office of St. Cucufas accustomed to be recited throughout the diocese of Barcelona, that there the holy Martyr is said to have been slain at Barcelona. But this, as I noted, can be roundly asserted, however much he be fixed as slain at Octavianus; and that both on account of the things I just said, and also because Octavianus is not very far distant from Barcelona. But Octavianus, or the castle of Octavianus, was situated in the territory of Vallès on a fertile and healthful mound, so called perhaps, says the most illustrious Peter de Marca in his Marca Hispanica, book 2, chapter 16, no. 5, from the fact that "Octavius Augustus, marching against the Cantabrians, pitched his camp there." In that place was founded the celebrated monastery of St. Cucufas, of the Order of St. Benedict, commonly San Cugat. Which place the ancient diplomas of the kings of the Franks show to have been formerly called Octavianus.
[20] The same perhaps must be thought concerning the place of the burial: for that the Saint was buried in the same place where he fell, and buried there, our manuscript Acts hint, and Surius, though somewhat obscurely. The Lessons of the monastery of Vallès express it more clearly, as also the manuscript Flos Sanctorum of Barcelona in Diago: and it is no slight argument of this matter, that in the same place the illustrious monastery of St. Cucufas, as will be noted below, was erected by him who had cared, somewhat before, that his relics should be translated into Gaul; and that as it were to compensate for the treasure which he had carried away; as writes
Morales in the Chronicle, book 10, chapter 2: "For certain," he says, "I hold that the emperor Louis, son of Charlemagne, when he took Barcelona, carried off to Paris this sacred body; and in his honor, and as it were in compensation, ordered to be built there near Barcelona a monastery of this Saint, whence the name was given to the place; as is written in the Annals of Aragon." Thus he; who nevertheless, like most other Spaniards also, affirms that St. Cucufas was simply buried at Barcelona; whether he understood this in a broader manner, for the places near Barcelona, or in a less broad and restricted-to-the-city one; for in either sense the matter can be taken: hence Francisco de Padilla, not daring to determine either, says indeed that our Martyr fell at the eighth stone from the city, and was entombed by the Christians; "but where," he says, "I do not say, because no author says it"; although the authors whom he cites in the margin, Ecclesiastical History of Spain, Century 4, chapter 2, assert that he was buried at Barcelona. Otherwise, I believe, he would have decided, if he had had in his hands the manuscript instruments which we have assigned in this number. Certainly, if you would have the martyrdom consummated outside the city, it is difficult to believe that the body was then brought back by the Christians, so that they might dangerously render to him his final obsequies within the city agitated by tyrannic furies, which could be rendered outside it much more safely.
[21] and thence translated first into the Vosges From that former tomb (not from Rome, as says Doublet, Antiquities of the abbey of St. Denis, book 1, chapter 28, and the codex of St. Victor, of which below, no. 23) the relics of St. Cucufas were translated first into the cell of Lebraha in the Vosgian forest by St. Fulrad, abbot of the monastery of St. Denis near Paris; then by the abbot Hilduin to the very basilica of St. Denis, our manuscript Acts attest; and from these St. Ado, who nevertheless, for the sake of compendium, names neither Fulrad nor Hilduin; nor makes mention of the cell of Lebraha; inasmuch as neither were these sacred pledges laid there in a tomb, nor did they long remain, being deposited there rather for a while than destined in perpetuity; if indeed they were ever deposited there: for from the very testament of St. Fulrad, which Mabillon exhibits in the Acts of the Saints of the Benedictine Order, saeculum 3, part 2, page 341, and Michael Félibien in the monuments subjoined to the History of the monastery of St. Denis, page 38, from that testament, I say, it is established that St. Cocovatus, as he is there called, in the ninth year of Charlemagne from his succession to his father's kingdom, but the fourth of the kingdom of Italy, of Christ 777, before October, in which the ninth year of Charles expired, rested not in the cell of Lebraha, but in another built by the same Fulrad in the Vosgian forest upon the river Laima, which was called Fulrad-cell. And so either the relics brought from Spain were not at Lebraha; or they certainly did not remain up to the year just mentioned, much less up to the times of Hilduin; or finally, after that testament was written, they were first carried thither from Fulrad-cell, and thence further to St. Denis: for Castellanus, in the Roman Martyrology at the 15th of February, gathering from Ado that the relics of our Saint were carried straight from Barcelona to the basilica of St. Denis, does not even seem to need refuting. But of the cell of Lebraha it was spoken at the 17th of February in the historical Commentary on St. Fulrad the abbot, §3; where also concerning this translation of St. Cucufas you will find some things.
[22] not under king Pepin, or Louis the Pious; but under Charlemagne; On what occasion, or in what year, this translation was instituted, who may define? Le Cointe refers it to the year of Christ 756, no. 39; the French Legendist does not indeed determine the year; yet asserts that it happened under Pepin; but neither has anything by which to make credit of his statements. Later the manuscript Acts fix it, when they affirm that the relics were carried from Spain into the cell built by the magnificence of Charlemagne (then indeed king; although by prolepsis he is there called emperor); for no other place at all is assigned in which, after the Spanish translation was made, they were deposited even for the least time; which nevertheless the author ought to have indicated, if before the reign of Charles and the monastery built by him they had for some years been deposited in another. Under Charles, therefore, not under Pepin, it seems to have happened. Nor accordingly do the several Spanish writers err the less, as Thomas de Trugillo in the Treasury of preachers, volume 2, at the 1st of August; John de Marieta in the Saints of Spain, book 2, chapter 8; the before-cited Diago, and following him Antonio de Yepes in the Chronicle of the Order of St. Benedict at the year of Christ 778, and others, who with Ambrosio Morales, above, no. 20, attribute it to Louis the Pious after the taking of Barcelona by surrender: since from the testament of St. Fulrad it must be certain that St. Cucufas already rested in the Vosges from the year of Christ 777, in which Louis was not yet born. Add also that St. Fulrad, who played the chief part in this translation, died in the year of Christ 784, when Louis numbered only six years of age. What if in that very year in which he made his testament, Fulrad had obtained these relics from the Spains? He certainly could, as he was most desirous of sacred treasures of this kind, have snatched a notice of this treasure, and an occasion of acquiring it, from that leader of the Moors who in the year 777, attended, doubtless to court favor, by some Christians, came to Paderborn to Charles, and surrendered to him Saragossa and other cities over which he presided; as Eginhard has in the Annals. That the 16th of February is assigned to this translation we have already said above.
[23] There follows another translation, or rather the complement of the same; but from the Vosges to St. Denis near Paris in the year 835. when, whether from the cell of Lebraha or from Fulrad-cell, the remains of St. Cucufas were at last brought to a stable and worthy place for so great a deposit, namely to the basilica of St. Denis near Paris, and that by the care, as the Acts report, of the abbot Hilduin; not, however, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation, as our copy has, the eight hundredth; but the eight hundred and thirty-fifth, as Surius better reads in his Manuscripts: for Hilduin succeeded St. Fulrad, after Maginarius, Fardulf, and Walto, first in the year of Christ 814, and presided until about the year 843; as appears from the History of the monastery of St. Denis lately published, and the prefixed catalogue of abbots: for almost fifty years, therefore, these relics had been kept in the Vosges, when they were at last brought to St. Denis in the year just mentioned, and there were most honorably laid on the eighth day of the Kalends of September, or the 25th of August. I know that another year is assigned to this translation in a certain manuscript Treatise on the translation of relics to St. Denis, some fragment of which, concerning SS. Hippolytus and Cucufas, our Papebroch formerly copied from a codex, as is noted, of St. Victor, 873: for there it is narrated as made in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 816. But that instrument is more recent than our Acts by at least three centuries, since it mentions king Robert, who died in the year of Christ 1031, as having departed this life; and moreover in its chronography is in no way accurate: for it makes St. Fulrad survive Charlemagne, who nevertheless died thirty whole years before Charles; there are in it also other things which do not please; but these suffice, that anyone may understand of what value it is here.
[24] Even now, among many other good ones, the monks of St. Denis glory in this treasure, Where it is still preserved. But whole? which they keep in a chapel which is called from that holy Cucufas, in the rear part of the choir, in a poorer casket, however, than formerly; as appears from the description of the church of St. Denis, which is subjoined to the History of the same abbey, chapter 2. But it is asked whether the whole body is there either now, or was ever brought thither; or only some part of it. That the whole was translated thither, the more ancient monuments hint; since they express not a part of the body, but simply the body. So our Acts, no. 7: "And thence his venerable body was translated by Fulrad, etc." So Ado above: "Whose body is buried by the Christians with reverence. Whence afterward translated, not far from the city of the Parisians … it was entombed." So too St. Fulrad himself in his testament: "A third cell," he says, "within the wastes of the Vosges I built, where holy Cocovatus rests, upon the river Laima, which is called Fulrad-cell." So finally the emperor Charles the Bald, in the Precept for the partition of St. Denis, in the Benedictine Annals at the year 862, no. 108, among the Saints whose bodies were buried at St. Denis, names in the fourth place holy Cucufas. And the same manner of speaking is still observed in a certain catalogue of the things to be seen in the abbey of St. Denis, printed for the use of the common people and pilgrims at Paris in the year 1700. It must nevertheless be confessed that, where the relics of the Saints are treated, there is frequent use of synecdoche, by which the whole is taken for a part, at least a notable one.
[25] The Spaniards deny it; saying that the body remained among them, And in this sense the Spaniards will now easily admit the cited texts: for it is false, which Tillemont, adducing Florentinius, fastens upon them, Ecclesiastical Monuments, volume 5, page 58, as though they would have it that the head and body of this holy Martyr are still among them in the monastery near Barcelona. They say that they have the body, but "besides the head," as Florentinius speaks, that is, without the head; not indeed "with the head," as Tillemont wrongly interprets, because he had not inspected Tamayo, alleged in his favor by Florentinius; for if he had seen him in the place assigned, whether at the 29th of April, or also at the 25th of July, he would surely have observed that the head of our Martyr is in express words granted to the monastery of St. Denis by Tamayo, and so also by Florentinius. Nor indeed is Tamayo the only one among the Spaniards to confess this; but others too, in such a number that I have not seen even one who denies that this sacred head at least was translated to St. Denis. I said, "at least the head": for there are those who besides grant them some bones; as Yepes in the Benedictine Chronicle, volume 3, folio 264. Nay, Diago, in the place praised above, seems to be content, if the Spaniards be said to have retained a part of the body, and the French to have obtained a part (perhaps even the greater). Yet that only the head was formerly carried into Gaul, the monks of the monastery of St. Cucufas near Barcelona assert with Tamayo; and to the same opinion Florentinius, at the 16th of February, seems to adduce Notker; but wrongly: for he nowhere here makes any mention of a translated head, but of a body; as will be manifest to those reading him at the 25th of July. And so what Castellanus, in the notes to the Roman Martyrology at the 15th of February, affirms from Notker concerning the head also preserved at Paris, that he himself
shows that he snatched from Florentinius, not from Notker himself.
[26] It may nevertheless seem strange that nothing on this matter is read more distinctly or clearly in the proper Offices of the diocese of Barcelona; nay, that only the head was translated into Gaul. for thus they have, on the feast of St. Cucufas, in the second nocturn, third lesson: "Cucuphas, struck with the axe, attained the illustrious palm of martyrdom on the 8th of the Kalends of August. Whose body, first buried at Barcelona, was afterward translated into Gaul, and laid up in the church of St. Denis, which is not far distant from Paris." Long since the monks of St. Cucufas complained of this, and laid the blame on Father Giles of the Society of Jesus, rector of the college of Barcelona toward the beginning of the past century; to whom (as a man, as they themselves attest, most learned) the church of Barcelona had committed the province of composing the proper lessons of the Saints. For thus John Baptist de Castellarnau, monk of the said monastery, and vicar general, as I noted above, wrote to us in the year 1627: "Father Giles (el padre Gil) did not employ diligence enough in the quaternion which he composed concerning the Saints of the bishopric of Barcelona. He put in it also that the body of St. Cucufas is at Paris: and I remember that he was asked, sixteen years ago or more, by the cathedral of Barcelona, to come to this house, to explore the matter more thoroughly. He himself came, and with him the canon Peter Pla, now sacristan; and he emended this passage with his own hand and letters in the quaternion, which I keep in my possession, in this manner: 'Whose sacred relics, partly translated into Gaul and laid up in the church of St. Denis near Paris; partly are held in great veneration in the monastery of St. Cucufas of the Order of St. Benedict not far from Barcelona.' But not even this retraction pleases me," says Castellarnau in the same place; "because the Saint died in this place, not at Barcelona; and at Paris they have only the head." The same matter, described somewhat more fully, the same man sent to us in the following year, adding that Giles had asserted that shortly the quaternions would be brought again to the press; and that then he would emend all in them, as he had there already emended in writing. "But," he says, "since the printing has not been resumed, this so notable an error even now perseveres in them." Nay, it persevered long even afterward: for the edition from which we gave the above text was made at Barcelona in the year 1668: whether this happened by error, or by design, it is not for us to decide. Meanwhile we shall here give what the Spaniards bring forward for their possession; after we have said a few things concerning the monastery of St. Cucufas.
§ IV. The monastery of St. Cucufas of Octavianus; the recognition of the body of the same Martyr made in it in the year 1079; the arguments of the Octavians for their possession.
That a monastery of St. Cucufas was erected there for the Benedictine Order, we noted above, where that Martyr put an end to his glorious combat, his head cut off; The monastery of St. Cucufas near Barcelona that is, in the place called Octavianus, as it is in the Precept of king Lothair of the year 988 in Peter de Marca in the appendix of the Marca Hispanica, column 937: hence too it is called the Octavian monastery in another instrument of the eleventh century, which you have in the same place, column 1053. Yet the common people today are accustomed to call it San Cugat, or San Cugat del Vallès, because it is situated in the territory of Vallès at the eighth milestone from the city of Barcelona. Its beginnings are ancient and august, but not sufficiently ascertained hitherto. Castellarnau refers them both to the year of Christ 785 and to Charlemagne as founder; and this last he says is doubtful to no one. They certainly did not doubt to affirm the same, Diago in the History of the counts of Barcelona, book 1, chapter 10, Domenech, On the Saints of Catalonia, at the 27th of July, Yepes in the Benedictine Chronicle; and these two indeed carry back the beginnings of this monastery to the first expedition of Charlemagne into Spain against the Saracens, that is, to the year of Christ 778. Others, however, prefer to ascribe that work to Louis, son of Charles, after the taking of Barcelona under his father's auspices in the year 801, as Morales, produced above, no. 20, Marieta, On the Saints of Spain, book 2, chapter 8, Peter de Marca, Marca Hispanica, book 3, column 334 and following, Mabillon, Benedictine Annals, volume 2, page 497; whose opinion appears to us the truer, insofar as before the year 801 there was so great a vicissitude of the affairs of Barcelona, now the Franks, now again the Saracens ruling, that in it there seems to have been neither space nor faculty of building a monastery, much less the mind, for either Charles or Louis or both: for either both erected and founded that monastery together; or at least what either of them furnished first, the other afterward confirmed, as is manifest from the Precepts of both, called for by king Lothair, in the place assigned a little before.
[28] [claims for itself the possession of his body, from the subjoined history of the finding.] Very many things concerning this his monastery the praised Castellarnau communicated to us, which if we should recount severally, the matter would grow to an immense bulk. For there are five heads in Domenech and Yepes just cited, from which that monastery is to be numbered among the most celebrated not only of Catalonia, but also of all Spain; namely antiquity; imperial foundation; the number and nobility of the religious (for from the year 1541 it was enacted that only nobles could be admitted here); riches and most ample revenues; and finally a treasure of sacred relics to be esteemed at no sufficient price. These he augments with many additions, which pertain to the description of the place, the privileges of the Roman Pontiffs, the rights of the monastery and abbots, the immense alms, the hospitality accommodated by fixed laws to the condition of all pilgrims and comers of every kind, and other things. He adds too a series, or rather a history, of all the abbots whom he could draw out from ancient monuments, and carries it down to his own times. But all these are too long to be reported here. The same man sent, concerning the Saints whose bodies rest there, whatever occurred worthy of note to one searching through the archives. In this very copious heap, from a manuscript and very ancient Lectionary, as he affirms, he brings forward the history of the finding of the body of St. Cucufas the martyr, which alone makes for the present matter: for on it alone rests the possession which the Octavians claim for themselves of the said treasure. And although from that same Lectionary Domenech gave the same history in Spanish, in the Saints of Catalonia at the 29th of April, and on the same day Tamayo in Latin in the Martyrology; yet because the latter omitted some things, and the former contracted all, we shall represent it from the Castellarnau copy, as, by his testimony, it is read in the source. Thus, then, it has:
[29] Lesson I. "The finding of the body of the most blessed martyr of Christ Cucuphas, A certain Lazarus, made a monk of St. Cucufas, which was made in his monastery, which by the ancients was called Octavianus, distant from the city of Barcelona by the eighth milestone. A certain man coming from the parts of Spain to the aforesaid city of Barcelona, by name Lazarus, when he had heard the fame of the aforesaid monastery of the most glorious martyr of Christ Cucuphas, went to Andrew, venerable abbot of the same place; and with tears embracing his footsteps, he vowed that he would become a monk of the aforesaid monastery. Lesson II. Which at first refusing, the abbot would not give assent. At length overcome by his tears and prayers, and supported by the counsel of all good men, he yielded; and led him with him to the monastery. And when he stayed there some days, it happened that the most religious abbot of Ripoll came to the aforesaid monastery. But the aforesaid abbot Andrew, seeing the assiduous humility of the said man, together with the counsel of the brethren and of the same abbot of Ripoll, delivered to him the habit of holy religion.
[30] Lesson III. But afterward, humbly abiding * among the brethren, on account of anger he is possessed by a double demon. the envious enemy of all good men inflicted upon him a temptation of his craft: for the days of the holy Lord's Resurrection being over, the day of the Litanies coming, on the second weekday, which is before the feast of the Lord's Ascension, at the first hour of the day, when with intent prayers all the brethren were offering sacrifices to God for the dead, the aforesaid Lazarus, standing before the altar of the holy Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary, consecrated to God in the same monastery, suddenly seized by the devil, fell. Lesson IV. At which the brethren, being terrified, came, bearing with them the wood of the Lord's Cross, adjuring him by the power of that most precious wood, to make manifest to them for what cause he had presumed to seize him. And he would not confess. But at the third and sixth hour of the same day, being again and again vexed, he long remained mute. But as the brethren were celebrating the evening synaxis, again the demon seized him. And the aforesaid brethren came to him, bearing with them the banner of the Lord's Cross, and adjuring him by the power of that wood; with great force they confessed that they were two most unclean demons. The name of one was Zenab; but the other was called Ynt. At the same time they also confessed that on account of the exceedingly great anger which he always had, they had found occasion of entering into him.
[31] Lesson V. But the brethren, leading the whole night sleepless, And when the body of the hidden Martyr was laid upon him, and likewise keeping vigils before the venerable martyrs Cucuphas and Severus, with assiduous prayers besought the Lord, that he would deign to succor them. But on the morrow all celebrating Masses for him, and remaining in great sadness, when now it was the hour of the day that all the brethren should, according to custom, sit in the chapter, and, dismayed in mind, discuss among themselves concerning that which had happened; suddenly again the demons seized him. But they, rising, came to him. Lesson VI. And finding him, with closed eyes and clenched teeth, lying on the ground before the image of blessed Mary within the cloister, they began the more earnestly to sing Psalms and Litanies to the Lord for him. But with great veneration, and with candles, with censers and incense and holy water, they brought the wood of the Lord and the most blessed martyr and pontiff Severus, and at the same time also another most glorious Martyr, who by the ancients was called the hidden Martyr.
[32] the tortured spirits confessed that that was the body of St. Cucufas, Lesson VII. When they came thither, at once the demons were disturbed. And laying the bodies of the aforesaid Saints upon the breast of the vexed one, the demons began to cry out that two great mountains stood upon them. And when they were asked who those mountains were, howling, and vociferating exceedingly in the likeness of swine, they uttered dire voices, saying: "One is called Cucuphas; but the other Severus, martyr and pontiff." But the brethren not believing (it is clear that it should be read, "the brethren not believing"), but on the contrary saying to them that that spirit was a liar, like his father also, and that the body of the most blessed and most glorious martyr Cucuphas was not there, they again confessed that Cucuphas was without doubt holy, whose body tormented them. But the monks , still remaining in the same
doubt, and rebuking them yet more sharply, the demons confessed that it was truly the body of the most blessed Cucuphas which was held upon the breast of the vexed man; but that it was by no means entire; because his head was buried in a greater land, which is France.
[33] by whose power one of them is expelled: Lesson VIII. And when with intent mind the aforesaid brethren with tears and prayers besought the Lord, that of his clemency he would deign to show them the power of that most glorious Martyr, the demons, crying again, said that the most holy martyr of Christ Cucuphas was compelling one of them, by name Zenab, to go out; and he confessed that he could not stand there, because, burning him with a very great fire, he was compelling him to depart. And so, crying and much rending him, and gnashing his teeth and withering, with a great stench he departed. And the man became as it were dead. And when he was asked by the brethren why he was silent, and answered nothing; he manifestly confessed that the aforesaid demon, by name Zenab, had been thence expelled by the power of God, and by the merits of that most glorious martyr, the body of Cucuphas, who until now was called the Hidden: but now was without doubt manifestly revealed. Then the aforesaid brethren began ineffably to render thanks to God, who through his holy Martyr deigned to show such miracles wrought to his servants.
[34] but the other by the applied relics of SS. Simon and Jude. But at last the brethren began to ask the other demon, by name Ynt, why he made delay in going out. Then he began to cry and say that he would not go out thence except by the relics of the holy Simon and Jude. But when the brethren had with great veneration brought them, the demon asked that he might be permitted to adore them. And when he adored them, he confessed that from them a burning fire went forth, which would burn him, and that he could not stand before them; who, Simon and Jude, the Apostles of God, had already at another time cast him out of a certain woman beyond the sea. And so the aforesaid brethren , abiding in prayers and tears, by the power of God and the prayers of the holy Apostles, the man was healed.
[35] Recognizing, therefore, this revelation of the most blessed Cucuphas of Christ, and having ever before our eyes the mortal remains of so great a Father, we have taken care to write to all the churches * of the catholic faithful; [This finding happened in 1079, on the 29th of April, on which day it is celebrated.] but especially to the citizens of Barcelona, that the renowned city, which deserved to have such and so great a Preacher, may now have with God a most pious Intercessor; so that both they and all who shall make memory of that most glorious Martyr, and shall likewise devoutly frequent his place and tomb, may immediately obtain the most benign effect of their prayers, by the help of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, receiving his Martyr in peace, makes him shine with miracles; to whom be honor and glory, power and might, through the unfailing ages of ages. Amen." This finding was made in the year from the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ 1079; in the era 1117, the second Indiction, on the 3rd of the Kalends of May. "All this I copied from the Lectionary," subjoins Castellarnau. But Tamayo, at the 29th of April: "Let this festivity of the Finding of his sacred remains," he says, "be announced among the monks of St. Cucuphas del Vallès near Barcelona, where the miracle occurred." Elsewhere, however, nothing is made of it, not even at Barcelona, which you would wonder at; as we gather from the proper Offices of that diocese, and the directory of the year 1719, which we saw.
[36] I said above that on this single narration the Spaniards rest, when they assert Other arguments for the possession of the Spaniards that that body remained among them, except the head, which they confess to have been translated into Gaul: for the other arguments which they bring forward to this matter either do not stand, or are later than this finding, and suppose it. Of the former kind a single one is adduced by the above-cited Diago, and Antonio de Yepes holds it as solid at the year of Christ 778; and it comes to this: A monastery was raised by Charlemagne in honor of St. Cucufas in that place, where he had formerly suffered death and still was buried, and that in the year of Christ 778, when that emperor first came into Spain: but the translation of St. Cucufas was instituted under Louis, son of Charles then still surviving, after the subduing of Barcelona (in the year 801): therefore he was not wholly translated into Gaul: for it is incredible that Louis would have wished so to enrich the royal monastery of St. Denis with another's treasure, as to despoil altogether of it the Octavian monastery, to which it was proper, inasmuch as it had lately been consecrated by his martyrdom, dedicated by his name, and laid upon his sepulchre by Charles his father. This argument does not stand, I say: for it is false that the monastery of St. Cucufas was founded before his relics were carried elsewhere: for we have shown that they were carried away before Charles set foot in Spain, and so before Louis was born; since not even the Octavians themselves will have their monastery to be so ancient. And so Morales above, although he fixes these relics as translated later than they were in fact translated, yet believes the monastery to have been erected afterward, as it were in compensation for the treasure previously carried away from that place.
[37] Of the second kind is that which Castellarnau wonderfully extols, and which is sought from the eyewitness testimony of Father Giles, suppose this history, of whom above, no. 26. Likewise another, which Domenech urges, at the 29th of April, from the authentic instrument of the translation of St. Severus, bishop and Martyr, from which he recites this fragment: "At length the Lord, benignly granting the desire of his heart to the said king (Martin of Aragon), did not permit him to be defrauded of the reward of his labors by his will. For on the day called Monday, the third of the month of August, in the year from the Nativity of the Lord 1405, he benignly converted the hearts of the abbot and the aforesaid monks (of the Octavian monastery), that they should assent in these matters to the will of the said king. And going out from the chapter of the said monastery, in which they had been specially and capitularly gathered for this business, they came to the church of the said monastery, in which they found the most reverend father in Christ, the lord friar John, by divine mercy bishop of Huesca, confessor of the said lord king; and the honorable Peter William Jofre, precentor, Ferrer Despujol, canons of the said see; Galceran de San Miniato, knight, councillor and chamberlain of the said lord king; Francis Burges and Mark Turel, councillors of that year of the said city, appointed by the said lord king for greater truth and testimony concerning the things to be done in this matter: and approaching with contrite minds and great devotion to the high altar of the said church, there was opened a certain great caxia (that is, casket) of silver, which contained within it two caxias; of which the one was of wood, but the other was woven of twigs. In the wooden caxia were the bodies of holy Cucuphas, and of the aforesaid St. Severus." I believe it; but whence was the body of St. Cucufas recognized, unless from the signs affixed in the year 1079? For before that time it had nothing whence it could even by those very monks be discerned whose it was, so that it had accordingly been accustomed to be called by them the hidden Martyr; as is clear from the history already given, and from the instrument to be produced below, no. 41. These things, therefore, rest on that credit and that weight which will appear to be in the history recited a little before, for establishing the possession of the Spaniards.
[38] and rest on it. Moreover, if anyone should ask at what time the Octavian body first began to be called that of the Hidden Martyr, we confess that we have nowhere found it; but the cause of this name, and of the lost notice of the true name, Castellarnau refunds upon the incursions of the Moors, by which the monastery was more than once devastated. I do not know indeed what those things mean which the same man writes in the Catalogue of abbots, under Andrew Riculf, under whom he affirms the said finding to have happened; for there, when he had denied that anything of the relics of St. Cucufas ever passed to the Gauls, except the head, he subjoins: "For his body was always preserved in this monastery under the name of the hidden Martyr; and also anciently he is read to rest here in the Chartulary, folio 374, in the 10th year of Louis the Stammerer, son of Charles the Bald, and from the Incarnation in the year 887; and also in the 2nd year of king Lothair, and from the Incarnation in the year 975." I do not understand, I say, by what name in the years here assigned the body of our Saint is read to have rested there, whether by the proper name of Cucufas, or by the strange and obscure one of the Hidden Martyr: for if by the name of Cucufas it had then been believed to be there, this indeed would avail much to strengthen the possession of the Spaniards. Although who would easily let himself be persuaded of this from passages of the Chartulary so corrupt? To us at least those are suspect which link the tenth year of Louis the Stammerer with the year of Christ 887: for he died in the year of Christ 879, having been king of Aquitaine from the year 866, but of all Gaul only from the year 877, and that at its close. The year of Christ 975 too is called the second of Lothair, when it was the twenty-first. It remains, therefore, that the cause of the Octavians be weighed rather upon the sole history of the Finding.
Annotations* consistenti * imponentibus illis * nay, "monachis," etc. * ignem ardentem * fratribus, etc. * perhaps "Ecclesiæ Catholicæ" (the Catholic Church)
§ V. Other translations of his relics. Likewise whether another besides this our St. Cucufas is to be admitted.
Out of the two churches, namely of St. Denis and of St. Cucufas, there is no doubt that some part of the relics could be translated to others. The relics of St. Guniforth wrongly taken for the relics of St. Cucufas. We think, nevertheless, that Castellanus errs, in the additions to the Roman Martyrology at the 15th of February, when he thinks they were carried to Pavia, where our Saint is celebrated under the name of Guniforth on the 22nd of August; nay, and to St. Maurice among the Senones, where under the same name he is venerated on the 25th of February. What moved him to wish holy Guniforth confounded with holy Cucufas, I indeed know not; unless perhaps he knew no Guniforth among the Saints; and therefore thought that another was to be understood, who might seem in some way to approach the name of Guniforth. But even so he rashly snatched up our Martyr: for Cucufas and Guniforth are too dissonant for one name to be believed to have come from the other. We deny that by the name of Guniforth another ought to be understood than the very holy martyr Guniforth himself, who is far different from holy Cucufas, as will be clear from his Acts at the 22nd of August, on which he is venerated among the people of Pavia: meanwhile they can be read in Mombritius, in the first volume toward the end.
[40] More probable is that which Domenech subjoins to the fragment cited above, no. 37, in these words: [A molar of our Saint carried to Barcelona in 1410; and certain other things in 1628,] "Then in the year 1410, on the 9th of October, the reverend lord of San Hilario, canon of Barcelona, gave to the parish church of St. Cucufas of the said city one molar (or jaw-tooth)
one, with a particle of the same Saint (Cucufas, of whom there is the discourse). These relics were without doubt drawn from the said monastery of St. Cucufas, and from the holy body itself; as is established from a certain ancient writing, or, to say it better, from a juridical instrument of the same church, which Mosen Guardia, notary of Barcelona, communicated to me." But the parish church of St. Cucufas is within the city of Barcelona itself, erected and dedicated in the year 1024 in that place where the Martyr, unharmed, was formerly reported to have overcome the pyre; whence too it is called the church of St. Cucufas of the oven, or furnace (la iglesia de San Cucufate del horno); concerning which more in Diago, folio 93. Moreover, whether these relics perished, or seemed too slight, we do not know; Castellarnau certainly asserts that the rector of the same church and other ministers, in the name of the whole parish, came to the Octavian monastery, to obtain other relics, which, a silver casket having been adorned for that end, they might solemnly translate on the feast of the Epiphany of the Lord in the year 1628.
[41] "On this occasion," says Castellarnau, "we thought the chest should be opened in the year 1627, when in his casket this parchment was found. on the 29th of December, that we might discern what should rather be delivered. In the chest of the Saint I found a parchment, on which in a very ancient character these things were written: 'In the year of the Lord 1256, on the day before the Kalends of July, on the day of the solemnity of blessed Paul the Apostle, in the time of the lord Peter de Turricella, abbot of this monastery, we found these relics in the old altar of St. Cucuphas the martyr, constructed in the church of St. Cucuphas and anciently consecrated: first the relics of the most blessed Hidden Martyr, that is, St. Cucuphas, who at the time of the consecration of the aforesaid altar was called the Hidden Martyr; but afterward, the divine mercy disposing it, by the miracle of a certain demoniac monk, by name Lazarus, in the expulsion of the demon from him, since on account of the other bodies of the Saints mixed with it it could not be discerned, was so named by the demon himself: the relics of St. Severus, bishop and martyr; the relics of St. Hilary the Martyr, etc. … And these were present at the gathering of the aforesaid relics: P. de Turricella, abbot of this monastery, G. Gont, chaplain of blessed Mary, Bn. de Bisulduno, chaplain of St. James the Apostle,' etc.": for several witnesses are added, even laymen. Then Castellarnau subjoins that he was much delighted that it had been permitted to inspect and venerate the bodies of St. Cucufas and of the other Martyrs; and adds that he studiously turned over the bones of St. Severus, and found that seven-eighths of his body were among them; but of the body of St. Cucufas he adds nothing.
[42] Relics of St. Cucufas were also translated to Compostela, Another translation too of the bodies of SS. Cucufas and Silvester the martyrs is celebrated in the diocese of Compostela, and indeed with a double feast, as is established from the proper Offices of the said church printed at Compostela in the year 1596, at the 9th of April, when the whole Office is prescribed from the common of several Martyrs. The history of this translation, from ancient parchments, we gave at the 16th of April, after the Acts of St. Fructuosus, archbishop of Braga, page 436 and following. Whence you will understand that these bodies were translated from the church of St. Victor at Braga to the church of St. James of Compostela by Diego Gelmírez, at that time bishop of Compostela, "in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand one hundred and second … on the 17th of the Kalends of January": and there thereafter they have been held in such veneration, "that they are wont, if any necessity presses the people, frequently to be brought forth into public, not without great pomp and a concourse of suppliants," according to Molina in the Description of the kingdom of Galicia, folio 6. The same, of the body of St. Cucufas alone, Morales narrates, book 10, chapter 2, where he says that he too saw it, enclosed in a skillfully wrought casket, preserved in the church of St. James of Galicia; and adds (what after him several others affirmed) that there is celebrated the feast of the translation made by Gelmírez; which can be nothing else than that which we said is kept from the proper Offices on the 9th of April, although in them no open mention of a translation is made, and on another day and month, according to the cited history, it was translated: since in the same Offices no other memory of St. Cucufas, even the least, is enjoined on any day throughout the year.
[43] but whether of this our Saint? It is asked, therefore, whether that St. Cucufas the martyr is the same as ours, or another. The same the just-named Morales supposes; and denies accordingly that the whole body is there; but grants a notable part. The same thought, at the 12th of April, those who at Coimbra in the year 1591 published the Portuguese Martyrology; the same Thomas de Trugillo in the Treasury of preachers, volume 2, at the 1st of August; John de Marieta, who adopts not only the opinion of Morales, but also his words, in the History of the Saints of Spain, book 2, chapter 8; Alfonso de Villegas in the Flos Sanctorum of Spain at the 1st of August; Francisco Diago in the History of the counts of Barcelona, book 1, chapter 10; Francisco de Padilla, Ecclesiastical History of Spain, century 4, chapter 2; Antonio de Yepes in the Benedictine Chronicle at the year of Christ 778. But none of all these explains whence that part of the relics of St. Cucufas the martyr of Barcelona, which they attribute to the church of Compostela, was first drawn; whether from the monastery of St. Denis, or from the Octavian. Nicolás Antonio indeed thought, in his posthumous writings, some of which were communicated to us, that he had read this in Marieta in the cited place; but his words, taken from Morales, prove nothing; for thus they have: "Truxo estas reliquias de san Cucufate a Santiago de Galicia, mas a de quadrocientos años, el primer arçobispo de aquella iglesia don Diego Gelmírez; como en la Historia Compostellana se refiere." That is: "The first archbishop of that church, Don Diego Gelmírez, brought these relics of St. Cucufas to Santiago of Galicia more than four hundred years ago; as is related in the Compostellan History." Now these words it is permitted thus to interpret: "The first archbishop of that church, Don Diego Gelmírez, brought those relics of holy Cucufas to the church of St. James of Galicia, more than four hundred years ago, as is narrated in the Compostellan History": but not, as Antonio renders it: "He brought those relics from the monastery of St. Cucufas to the church of St. James, etc.": for this sense conflicts with the History of this translation, which we assigned above.
[44] Others think the contrary, that the Compostellan is plainly different from ours: which, not without astonishment, we read asserted in the cited posthumous manuscript work of Nicolás Antonio in these words: Or of another, namely of Braga? "For all hold it as undoubted, as many as have written among us the history of the Saints or of the Church, that this Barcelonan (Cucufas) is different from him whose relics are now preserved in the fostering Compostellan church, except one John Marieta, Dominican." It is clear that this is false, both from the preceding number, and from the note which the praised author there joins in the margin to these his words, "all, as many as … have written among us": for he adds: "Whom Tamayo praises at the 25th of July, volume 4." But so far is it from Tamayo's there praising all, as many as have written among the Spaniards the history of the Saints or of the Church, that for his opinion he could name no more than we just now for the opposite; namely, he praises Bivar with his pseudo-Dexter, whom no one assails more sharply than Nicolás himself everywhere; then Esteban de Garibay in the Compendium, book 7, chapter 8, and Juan Vaseo in the Chronicle at the year 304 (nay, 306); Francisco de Padilla, Ecclesiastical History of Spain, volume 1, century 4, chapter 19; who could be omitted; since in the preceding number he attests that the relics of Cucufas of Barcelona are at Compostela, not of another; and in this place he only says that Cucufas the martyr with three others is built up by Vaseo and Garibay as either known or having suffered at Braga; and at the same time denies that he found this in any other author; which is almost as much as if he roundly refuted it. There follow the lessons of the most ancient Breviary of Compostela at the 9th of April, as suspect to Antonio himself as will presently be said; then Lupus is cited in the Portuguese Martyrology, and following him Rodrigo da Cunha, History of Braga, part 1, chapter 43; and finally Tamayo's darling, Aulus Halus. There may be added also George Cardoso in the Portuguese Hagiology at the 15th of April, and Luís dos Anjos in the Orchard of Portugal, chapter 5.
[45] And these indeed, while they exhibit to themselves a twin Cucufas, concerning that second one, His difference from that one is not sufficiently proved: whom they distinguish from the Barcelonan, disagree greatly both with Tamayo and among themselves: for the pseudo-Dexter and Bivar will have him to have suffered at Iria Flavia under Diocletian, however much Tamayo tries to twist them elsewhere: Vaseo and Garibay under Diocletian indeed; yet not at Iria Flavia, but at Braga. The ancient Compostellan lessons agree with Bivar; and Nicolás Antonio (who doubts, first, whether the vaunted Breviary ever existed) in the cited Manuscripts adorns them with this eulogy: "I do not doubt that the lessons which he (Tamayo) thence (from the Compostellan Breviary) brings forward, as he is wont with other ancient monuments, with his own words and with matters mutually borrowed from the workshop of Dexter and Halus, secure in his falsehood, he has interpolated." Now certainly in the proper Compostellan there is nothing peculiar, but the whole Office is enjoined from the common of Martyrs, as we noted before. Lupus, according to Tamayo, contends that his Cucufas fought at Braga; da Cunha affirms him to have been born there and beheaded under Diocletian: Aulus Halus, "the juice and marrow of elegances," as he is here in jest called by Antonio, here, as elsewhere, alone agrees with his editor Tamayo, when he sings that that Cucufas suffered at Iria, and was afterward translated to Braga: yet Tamayo adds that the time of the martyrdom was not under Diocletian, but under Nero; not the 12th of April, as Luís dos Anjos has, nor the 15th of the same, as it pleased Cardoso; but the 25th of July, which day he says he found in his most ancient Compostellan Breviary: but on account of the solemnity of the Apostle (James), he says, it is anticipated by his apostolic church to the 9th of April, as is said in its rubric.
[46] therefore the Compostellan relics seem to be ours. But indeed more coherent and more ancient testimonies seem to be required, that another Cucufas besides the Barcelonan be admitted: for Dexter, Halus, and the Lessons from a Compostellan Breviary nowhere indicated, nowhere hitherto seen, cited by Tamayo alone, are of very little weight with the learned. Vaseo and Garibay, the most ancient of all cited, do not cite others, since they wrote in the sixteenth century, and that a mature one: nor that there were others, at least in any way known, de Padilla a little above sufficiently indicates for his time. But however great a multitude of more recent authors contributes nothing to the matter, unless it be fortified by another's solid authority. The same was already of old the judgment of our Elders concerning the other Cucufas and his companions, when in the Omitted matters at the 12th of April, where of St. Susanna
and her companions; and then in the Commentary on St. Victor, in the same place, page 78. Nor, however, do we in any way deny that some relics of St. Cucufas the martyr were formerly laid up at Braga, and thence translated to Compostela by Gelmírez; but we believe them to be rather of the Barcelonan than of another; although we confess that we are ignorant by what means, or whence, they came to Braga.
[47] The hermit Cucufas is fictitious. It only remains now that we subjoin his Acts, such as they are. But since we have here made mention of two Cucufas-martyrs, it is of service to admonish the reader even in a word that a third Cucufas is circulated, and indeed a hermit, who baptized St. Christopher in the font of baptism, and imbued him with the principles of the Christian faith: and therefore he is generally painted by the painters as guide or companion to St. Christopher; nay, and in Belgium a custom somewhere obtained long ago, that, if in a more solemn procession anyone were ordered to play the person of St. Christopher, another, whom the common people call Cucufas, should carry a lantern before him. But only a plebeian error invented this, arising, as Ambrosio Morales thinks, book 10, chapter 2, and after him Marieta, On the Saints of Spain, book 2, chapter 8, from the fact that the feast of SS. Christopher and Cucufas falls on the same day; whence the rude people thought them joined even in life, and so to be represented in some way together.
ACTS
From Bonino Mombritius and Manuscripts.
St. Cucufas, Martyr, at Barcelona in Spain.
BHL Number: 1997
From Mombritius and manuscripts.
St. Cucufas, sprung from the city of Scillis a of most noble and most wealthy birth, together with St. Felix b, equally most illustrious of the same city, SS. Felix and Cucufas, nobles of Scillis, sail to Barcelona: migrated to Caesarea by the sea c for the study of liberal letters. When there, being at leisure for the schools, they had learned by widespread report that the persecution of the Christians d had boiled up e in the parts of the East, presently, with a variety of precious wares, and no small number of ships too, they betook themselves to the Western region under the appearance and name of merchants: and so they landed at Barcelona. And they found that even in the Western parts the impiety of the princes was everywhere f raging. Whence, understanding that the time was at hand that they should reap in perpetual joy what they had sown in tears for a short time, they began more largely to devote themselves to works of piety and to alms, to which they had been diligently accustomed; and also to preach the word of salvation to private persons [g'] and to those flowing together to them through the houses; until they could expend all that they had brought upon the offices of mercy, and so at last, publicly confessing and preaching Christ, expend themselves also, as the outcome of the matter showed.
[2] Wherefore by unanimous agreement [h'] blessed Felix passed over to the city of Gerona g, this man, professing the catholic faith there, where, exercising himself in divine duties, he consummated a glorious martyrdom. But St. Cucufas, remaining at Barcelona, a populous city, together with a most constant and open faith and preaching, began to shine also with miracles, and grew in every grace of healings; he expelled demons by a word alone, and, confessing the power of the Lord, disturbed them even from the bounds of believers. Hearing this, the proconsul Galerius, soldiers being sent, ordered him to be brought before him. To whom, standing at his tribunal, he said: "Of what name [i'], most insane rebel, do you cultivate the patronage, you who contemn the commands of the princes, and shun the worship of the greatest gods?" To whom the Saint constantly: "To whom, most unwise one," he said, "do you command me to render worship, who were devised not by God's decree, but by the art of diabolic fraud and the stupidity of the most foolish and those like you?"
[3] By this answer Galerius, kindled with excessive fury and not containing himself from wrath, by Galerius's command he is most cruelly tortured; but not with impunity; delivered him to the torturers, saying: "Torture him so long, until you wring the spirit out of him." And when twelve soldiers in turn most grievously and with exquisite cruelty tortured him at length, so that his intestines, his body being burst by the very hard twisting of the scourges, lay open, he cried, saying: "Lord Jesus Christ, show your power upon the unbelievers, that, seeing, they may either believe and be converted, or perish and be destroyed. But the most impious Galerius, who thus rapidly [j'] raged against your Servant, if he is not predestined to life, slay quickly with your sword." This his prayer being completed, the soldiers who were torturing him, seeing his intestines poured out on the ground, were blinded. Galerius too with all his idols was suddenly consumed h. But the holy Martyr, his entrails being received back into his belly, was quickly healed by divine operation. And as he gave thanks, all the peoples too praised God, saying: "You are the true God, whom holy Cucufas worships."
[4] as neither was he a second time tortured with impunity, But when these things were brought to the notice of the governor Maximian, by his command cruel men i led him, wearied with the weight of chains, to his council; who, being asked by him what God he worshiped, answered: "Why do you ask about God in doubt, as though either there were several gods, or he himself, who is God, were divided? For I know no other God besides the true God, who made heaven and earth; whom I believe with my heart, and preach with all zeal." But he: "If your God is true, whom you say, let him now snatch you from my hands and from the torments prepared for you." To this the Saint: "And you, most wicked one, and your father the devil, with all the exquisite torments which you shall inflict on me, I mock, and by the power of God I despise: for truly you are of the highest madness and the extreme misery, who have forsaken God and worship the caskets of demons." Then the governor, raging, ordered him to be roasted on a gridiron, and, when burned, to be drenched with mustard and vinegar: but the soldier of Christ chanted, saying: "Hear, Lord, my justice," and the rest. And when he had finished the psalm, he was wholly healed. But the ministers of the punishments were consumed by the same fire.
[5] and a third time under Maximian. But after this the governor ordered an abundant fire to be made outside the city, and the Saint to be burned in it: who, cast there, prayed; and the fire was so extinguished that not even for the time [k'] of the burning did it remain; and he himself appeared wholly unharmed. Then the governor ordered him, bound with iron, to be brought back into custody; and, the door of the prison being closed, so great a splendor shone there, that, that light being seen, the guards believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. But in the morning the Martyr is presented to the governor, and by his command is beaten with iron and hide carding-combs k; and while he was being beaten, looking up to heaven with great weeping, he prayed and gave thanks: and a voice sounded from heaven: "Whatever you ask shall be given you according to your faith." Which being heard, the Saint prayed that the Lord would give him the power of overcoming all things, and that the tyrant Maximian, if by God's judgment he could not be converted, might more quickly perish with all his idols. Maximian at last had ordered the altars to be adorned, that he might offer sacrifices to the idols with the priests. And having mounted his chariot, and going thither, in the midst of the forum, by the will of God, he fell to the earth, and, miserably bursting, perished. The idols too, to which he wished to go to sacrifice, falling down, were reduced to dust.
[6] Until at last, under Rufinus, he was beheaded. Then all the people, adoring, began to cry and say: "Great is the God of the Christians and their most powerful deliverer." But Rufinus, who was seen to preside in the city, said to the holy Martyr: "Why, O most wicked one, do you make so great a multitude blaspheme the greatest gods, and confess the name of I know not whom, who is called Christ?" And when he had rendered his reason, by command of Rufinus his head was cut off. Whose body the Christians snatched, and, embalmed with spices, honorably buried on the 8th of the Kalends of August l.
In which place of his burial m the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, through his holy Martyr, grants a benign hearing to those who ask, and bestows the effect of pious petition, to the praise and glory of his name, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns God through all the ages of ages. Amen n.
[7] But blessed Cucuphas suffered for the glorious confession of the name of Christ, The translation of his relics. and was buried at Barcelona, as we said, on the 8th of the Kalends of August; and thence his honorable body was translated by Fulrad o, most reverend and glorious abbot of the monastery of the holy martyrs Dionysius the precious, Rusticus, and Eleutherius, on the 4th [p] of the Kalends of March, into the cell of the same monastery, which the same Fulrad built on his own property by the munificence of the lord Charles the emperor [q] of holy memory, and delivered to his patron the most glorious Dionysius; which is situated in the Vosgian forest, and is called Lebraha [r]. At which time, lying for a little while unburied, as it had been brought, by the more expeditious counsel of the religious father and abbot of the aforesaid monastery, Hilduin, by his diligent zeal and most devout desire (as he was a lover and worshiper of God and the Saints), in the crypt before the feet of that most holy Dionysius and his companions, which the same Hilduin built in honor of God and of his holy and inviolate Mother and of all the Saints, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation eight hundredth [s], but on the eighth day of the Kalends of September, it is venerated as buried.
ANNOTATIONS.
p Surius reads "the fourteenth"; and we believe him rather to be trusted here than our copy, which teems with the basest errors of the copyist. It also favors Surius that in the ancient Martyrologies some memory of our Saint is celebrated on the 14th of the Kalends of March, while at the 4th of the Kalends of March there is none anywhere. q That the title of emperor is here used by anticipation, we noted in the Commentary: for he was already emperor when this translation was being described; but not so while St. Fulrad survived. r To the Germans Leberaw, between Sélestat and the town of Markirch; consult the Commentary on St. Fulrad, 17th of February, §3, no. 17, or the Acts of the Saints of the Benedictine Order, saeculum 3, part 2, page 339; as also the Commentary prefixed to these Acts, no. 21. s Again there is an error of the amanuensis: for Hilduin was made abbot only fourteen years afterward. See the Commentary, no. 23, where we said that with Surius it should be read, "eight hundred and thirty-fifth." * the Manuscripts, "privatim" (privately) * the Manuscripts, "condicto" (by agreement) * the Manuscripts, "numinis" (of what divinity) * the Manuscripts, "rabide" (rabidly) * the Manuscripts, "so that not even the warmth remained"