James the Greater

ON ST. JAMES THE GREATER,

APOSTLE AND MARTYR,

AT COMPOSTELA IN SPAIN.

IN THE YEAR OF THE COMMON ERA 43, OR 44.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY. PART ONE.

The distinction of the Saint, his cult, his Acts, the arena and time of his martyrdom; his relics, posthumous glory, patronage, and miracles.

James the Greater, Apostle and Martyr, at Compostela in Spain (S.)

BHL Number: 4061, 4065, 4066, 4071

BY THE AUTHOR G. C.

§ I. The distinction of this St. James from others of the same name, and his cult from various monuments.

Our Henschenius, together with Combefis, Florentinius, and other writers, distinguishes three disciples of Christ marked out by the name of James. The first, in his opinion, is James the son of Zebedee and brother of John the Evangelist, Some distinguish three Jameses, who was slain with the sword by Herod Agrippa. The second is James, the son of Alphaeus, who, after having proclaimed the doctrine of Christ in many places, at last, fastened to a cross, fell as a martyr at Ostracine. The third indeed is the son of Cleophas and Mary, commonly called the brother of the Lord, and ordained the first bishop of Jerusalem, who, after a long governance of the Church of Jerusalem, cast down from the pinnacle of the temple and struck with a fuller's club, completed his martyrdom. The Acts of the two latter were illustrated by Henschenius on the first day of May. But the first is venerated on this day, concerning whom so many and such various matters present themselves for examination, that I have been compelled to divide this Commentary into several parts, lest the abundance and diversity of the things to be said should breed confusion or obscurity.

[2] Baronius indeed, in his Ecclesiastical Annals, at the year of Christ 44, number 36, acknowledges only two Jameses, of whom Bzovius unskillfully confounded two, and judged James the bishop of Jerusalem to be the same as James, the son of Alphaeus, an opinion which others also have defended. But I cannot grasp how the Reverend Father Abraham Bzovius, of the Order of Preachers, doctor of sacred theology, could confound James of Jerusalem the bishop with James the son of Zebedee, when, in his Ecclesiastical History, compiled from the Annals of Baronius and other monuments, at the year of Christ 44, number 1, he so unskillfully wrote: It is probable that James, although bishop of Jerusalem, then went to the Spains, taught the mysteries of the faith, and by his admonition founded there a certain church under the name of the Virgin Mother at Saragossa; for Peter also, although then bishop of Antioch, passed through them all, and both many of the Fathers and the traditions of the churches attest that James, son of Alphaeus, illumined some part of the Spains with the light of the Gospel. This man therefore Herod seized on his return from the Spains, and struck with the sword. But had not the good man read the following words of Acts, chapter 12? And at the same time Herod the king put forth his hands to afflict certain of the church: and he killed James the brother of John with the sword. Did he not know that the Spaniards claim for themselves as their apostle James the Greater, the son of Zebedee? Did he not, finally, remember that at the same year, a little above, he had thus written concerning the persecution of Herod Agrippa: There was a James, not indeed that son of Alphaeus, who, called the brother of the Lord, was bishop of Jerusalem, but the brother of John, the son of Zebedee, by far the most illustrious both in Palestine and elsewhere for the holiness of his life, the glory of his deeds, and the propagation of the faith. It seems, therefore, that Bzovius here nodded, whom John George Herwart, chancellor of Bavaria, sharply assailed in his Mantissa for such gross errors. We proceed to demonstrate the ancient cult of our Saint.

[3] among whom St. James the Greater by an Office, In the sacred calendars of almost all nations this Apostle is celebrated. Most of the Greeks refer him to the thirtieth day of April, when in the Typicon of St. Sabas it is thus read: Τοῦ ἁγίου ἀποστόλου Ἰακώβου, ἀδελφοῦ τοῦ ἁγίου Ἰωάννου τοῦ θεολόγου. That is: Of the holy apostle James, brother of St. John the theologian. Then in the same place an Office is assigned, which is to be recited on that day. The printed Menaea, besides the proper Office, in which the praises of the holy Apostle are sung at length, have on the same day the following little verses: Ὡς ἀμνὸς Ἴακωβος ἀχθεὶς ἐσφάγη, Τῆς εὐσεβείας μηρυκίζων τοῦς λόγους. Κτεῖνε μάχαιρα φόνου Ἴακωβον ἐν τριακοστῇ. That is: Like a lamb led forth, James was slaughtered, of his own accord giving his neck to the sword, and ruminating the word of God. He was slain on the thirtieth day of April. Nothing in these is worthy of note, except that in the printed editions there is read the word μυρηκίζων, the meaning of which I could find in no lexicons. Therefore I suspected that a typographical error had crept in here (that this is not rare in such books I have learned by experience), and, transposing two letters, I substituted μηρυκίζων, which properly signifies one that ruminates. Moreover the third verse, which is a hexameter, was translated by Papebroch in the Greco-Muscovite Ephemerides prefixed to the first tome of May, where in the metrical Greek April this Greek line is rendered into Latin in the same kind of meter thus: The sword slays James with its wicked stroke on the thirtieth.

[4] In the Menaea already cited, after those little verses there follows an elogium, and adorned with an elogium by the Greeks, which I thus render from Greek into Latin: This man was the son of Zebedee, and brother of John the theologian, who, after the calling of Andrew and Peter, was called to discipleship by the Savior himself together with his brother. They at once, leaving their father, their ship, and simply all things, followed the Lord, who so loved them that to one he granted the grace of reclining upon his breast, and to the other of drinking the cup which he himself drank. These men, however, showed such zeal toward him that they wished to summon fire from heaven and to destroy the unbelieving. And indeed they would have done so, had not the goodness of Christ restrained them. For this reason, therefore, Christ took these men and Peter, the chief of the Apostles, to his prayers and other affairs, imbuing them with the more sublime and most secret doctrines. But Herod, after the passion and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, not enduring this James, both speaking freely and preaching the saving Gospel, seized him and took him off with the sword, and sent him as a martyr to Christ the Lord, the second after Stephen. The same things are read in the new Anthologion of the Greeks. Yet those things differ much from these which are found in the manuscript Menologium of the Emperor Basil, from which afterward, on another occasion, we shall set forth an elogium of the same Apostle.

[5] The Muscovites, in marking the day of the cult, imitate the Greeks: for on the thirtieth of April in the Slavo-Russian Menologium, and he is celebrated in the synaxaries of the Ruthenians and of other nations, which the most noble Baron de Sparwenfeld translated for us into Latin, it is thus announced: Of the holy apostle James, brother of St. John the theologian, who was slain by Herod at Jerusalem in the forty-fourth year under Claudius, the second martyr after St. Stephen. The Ruthenians in their Sobornik, that is, synaxary, which we received from Moscow about the year 1688 through the interpreter Father George David, missionary of our Society, refer to the same Apostle thus: Of the holy apostle James, brother of John the theologian, who was beheaded by King Herod at Jerusalem. The Arabo-Egyptian Martyrology, which Gratia Simonius, alumnus of the Maronite College at Rome and afterward archbishop of Tripoli in Syria, translated, has on the same day, the thirtieth of April, thus: The contest of the holy Apostle James, son of Zebedee, whom Christ, together with his brother John, called to the apostolate. The Ethiopians and Copts in the sacred Calendars edited by Job Ludolf make mention of the same on the fifth day of May very briefly thus: James the son of Zebedee. In another Coptic Menologium, which Selden published in print in his Councils of the ancient Hebrews, chapter 15, on page 397 the same holy Apostle is referred to on the twelfth day of April. Let these things said concerning the cult of the Greeks and of other eastern peoples suffice. Now let us bring forward some Latin Martyrologies and ecclesiastical Offices.

[6] In the most ancient Calendar of the Church of Carthage, which Mabillon edited among the Old Analecta, volume 3, from page 398, in the ancient Latin Martyrologies, on the sixth of the Kalends of January the feast of the apostle James, whom Herod killed, is celebrated. Yet the Little Roman and most other Latin Martyrologies commemorate this Apostle on the twenty-fifth day of July. So the Martyrology which Edmund Martène inserted from a manuscript of the monastery of St. Germanus of Auxerre in the New Thesaurus of Anecdotes, volume 3, and which he asserts was compiled about a thousand years ago under the name of St. Jerome, in the Breviary of the Apostles makes mention of St. James on the eighth of the Kalends of August in these words: James, which is interpreted supplanter, son of Zebedee, brother of John. This man preaches in Spain and the western regions, and, cut down by the sword under Herod, he fell, and was buried in Achaia Marmarica on the eighth of the Kalends of August. To this agrees the Gellonese Martyrology, which Luc d'Achery in the new edition of the Spicilegium, volume 2, page 25, affirms was drawn up at the beginning of the ninth century, and in which are read there the following: James, which is interpreted supplanter, son of Zebedee, brother of John: this man is a preacher in Spain and the western regions, and, cut down by the sword under Herod, he was buried in Achaia Marmarica on the eighth of the Kalends of August. The Blumian codex, written in the eighth century and edited by Florentinius after the Hieronymian Martyrologies, has nearly the same, whose words we shall give afterward. Concerning the place of burial, which here is called Achaia or Achaia Marmarica, we shall discourse at greater length hereafter.

[7] to Ado and Usuard Ado, in his little book on the festivals of the Apostles, has on the same day the following: The birthday of blessed James the apostle, brother of John the Evangelist, who was beheaded by King Herod at Jerusalem, as the book of the Acts of the Apostles teaches. The sacred bones of this most blessed Apostle, translated to the Spains and laid up in their farthest bounds, namely over against the British sea, are venerated with the most celebrated devotion of those nations. Usuard in his Martyrology abridged Ado, as is plain enough from these his words: The birthday of blessed James the apostle, brother of John the Evangelist, who was beheaded by King Herod. His most sacred bones, translated from Jerusalem to the Spains, and laid up in their farthest bounds, are venerated with the most celebrated devotion of those nations. Without doubt the author of the Roman Martyrology had both these Martyrologists before his eyes, in which we today read thus: Of St. James the apostle, brother of blessed John the Evangelist, who near the feast of Easter

was beheaded by Herod Agrippa. His sacred bones, translated from Jerusalem to the Spains on this day, and laid up in their farthest bounds in Galicia, are piously venerated with the most celebrated devotion of those nations and with a frequent concourse of Christians resorting thither for the sake of religion and of a vow. I judge it superfluous here to heap up other texts of the Martyrologies.

[8] and in other ecclesiastical monuments, After the birthday of Christ and the feast of St. Stephen the protomartyr, this Apostle is venerated together with his brother John in the Gothic Missal, which Thomasius and Mabillon edited from ancient manuscript codices; but on the twenty-fifth day of July his festivity is solemnly celebrated in the Missal and Breviary of the Mozarabs (concerning the authority and antiquity of these books, the treatise prefixed to this volume may be consulted), from which we have set forth, on another occasion, most of the things pertaining to St. James in volume 5 of June, from page 215. Cardinal de Aguirre likewise put the same Office to press again in volume 3 of the Councils of Spain, from page 271. The preaching of this holy Apostle in Spain is indicated in that Mozarabic Office, from which we shall afterward excerpt some things.

[9] With what great solemnity the feast of St. James is celebrated at Saragossa the same Saint has also been inscribed, is plain from the statute of that metropolitan church, which was framed in the year 1471 in these words: Considering that he himself (namely St. James, of whom the matter treats) founded the first church of this city, and by his presence preached the word of God in this our city, we ordain and appoint the birthday of the same most glorious Apostle, the twenty-fifth of July, to be celebrated in perpetuity in the metropolitan church of Saragossa under the solemnity of six Copes (this too is the most solemn manner of celebrating festivals among the Mozarabs). And although in the other Octaves of the Virgin the Office is commonly omitted for the sake of augmenting the solemnity, yet in these we have not thought it should be omitted, on account of the memory of the apparition by which the most glorious Virgin, while still living, appeared in this city to the same Apostle. It will be well to make mention of these things in the appendix.

§ II. The parents, homeland, manner of life of this holy Apostle, and his other Acts before the martyrdom.

[10] If one is pleased to believe Pseudo-Julian, he discovered a rare treasure, namely an authentic Life of St. James, The fables of Pseudo-Julian being omitted, written by the Apostle himself: for after he had brought a whole wagonload of lies into Spain in his Adversaria, he does not fear to add these things at number 47: These and other things are also collected from the genuine Acts of St. James, which the holy Apostle, the son of Zebedee, wrote about himself. Nay, that he may win greater credit for his fictions, at number 407 he thus writes: I translated the Life of St. James the Greater from the Latin tongue into Spanish, who did many miracles, and at Cadiz, as is written by a certain grave author, overthrew the temple of Gaditanian Hercules. O unhappy posterity, to whom it has been granted to find neither a Latin copy of this Life, nor a Spanish version! Ought not the labor of copyists to have dispersed a thousand transcripts of so precious a little work throughout the whole world? Was it not the concern of all Christians to know the illustrious deeds of so great an Apostle? But why do I wish that Acts, born only yesterday in the brain of Pseudo-Julian, be found in libraries? Why do I vainly seek an ancient copy of a more recent little fable? It is now known to learned Spaniards and to the rest what is the genius of Pseudo-Julian and of like fabulists, ready for the fashioning of anything whatever. For who would believe that the Gaditanian temple of Hercules was overthrown by St. James, which existed long after his martyrdom, and was famous for the impious worship of idolaters, as Pomponius Mela, in book 3 of his Geography, chapter 6, Philostratus in the Life of Apollonius, book 5, Silius Italicus, book 3, and other ancient writers testify concerning their own time? On this matter John Baptist Suárez de Salazar may also be consulted, in his Antiquities of Cadiz, book 3, chapter 1, which he published at Cadiz in Spanish in the year 1610. I freely confess that I have hitherto not yet seen the genuine and ancient Acts of St. James (for those that were put forth under the name of Abdias, first bishop of Babylon, are to be reckoned of no account). Wherefore concerning his deeds I shall here gather and examine only those things which I have found in authors worthy of credit.

[11] In the first place, who was the father of this holy Apostle, Matthew clearly indicates, chapter 4, verse 21, in these words: the father of this holy Apostle, And going on from thence (namely Jesus), he saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets: and he called them. To this Gospel text Pseudo-Julian, if it please the gods above, adds a new bit of learning, when in his Adversaria, number 60, he brings forth the following from his neo-antique treasury: The first bishop of Britain was consecrated, Aristobulus, who was also Zebedee, father of John and James the Apostles; who was also the brother of Cleophas and of Joseph, the spouse of the Mother of God, and father-in-law of Peter and Andrew. Afterward he followed Peter to Rome, after the death of James his son, whom he had followed to the Spains. Thence he followed Peter to Rome, and was sent into the Gauls; and in the year 60, together with Joseph of Arimathea his cousin and others, he set out for Britain, having left his brother Barnabas in Cyprus, and, excellently preaching the Gospel of Christ first with his son in Ireland, he adorned the pontifical fillets with the glory of martyrdom. I will not here abuse the patience of the learned reader by refuting this fable. If anyone is pleased to discuss this matter, let him see the things which were said in our Acts on the fifteenth day of March concerning Aristobulus the apostle of Britain. But I have firmly resolved, in this whole Commentary, no longer to defile my paper by recounting such fabrications, much less to waste time in refuting them.

[12] the mother, Although sacred Scripture does not expressly state who was the mother of St. James, yet Origen rightly gathers her name, writing thus on Matthew, tractate 35, near the end: But if one must form an opinion, and even give the name of the mother of the sons of Zebedee, I say that she herself was the one called Salome, "the peaceful." Then he renders the reason of his opinion: I have formed this opinion, he says, seeing in Matthew and Mark three chief women named, concerning whom the present discourse is had: and two indeed the present Evangelist (namely Matthew, upon whom he writes his tractates) sets forth, Mary Magdalene and Mary of James; but the third is called the mother of the sons of Zebedee. But in Mark that third one is called Salome; and according to Mark, those who had followed Jesus from Galilee went up with Christ into Jerusalem. I marvel, therefore, that the same woman is called Joanna by Nicephorus Callistus, in book 1 of his Ecclesiastical History, chapter 33, the mother of the sons of Zebedee, James and John. Nor do I here delay over certain Greeks who say that she was the daughter of St. Joseph, so as to make James and John kinsmen of Christ. Were I not mindful of my purpose, I would here bring forward the things which Pseudo-Julian in his Adversaria, numbers 61 and 408, fables concerning this mother of our Saint.

[13] the homeland, Adrichomius, in his Theater of the Holy Land, citing certain more recent authors, thus places the homeland of SS. James and John in the tribe of Zabulon, number 83: Saffa or Saffra, a city situated on a mountain, three miles distant from Nazareth, the homeland of Zebedee, Alphaeus, and of James and John the Apostles, in whose birthplace a beautiful church is to be seen. Quaresmius, in his Elucidation of the Holy Land, volume 2, book 7, pilgrimage 4, chapter 1, writes thus of the same place: Ascending from Nazareth through the mountains between south and west, when a journey of three miles is completed, there is found a hamlet called Saffa, in Arabic Deir, that is, a monastery… This place is celebrated and venerable, because it is believed to be the homeland of Zebedee, father of the holy Apostles James and John. Then, after citing the words of Adrichomius, he thus continues: Note that Adrichomius designates Saffa as farther from Nazareth, because he reckons it not, as we do, by the distance of three Italian miles, but by such as are completed in one hour, and so nine Italian miles. The church of which he speaks I did not see: perhaps it was demolished, and one was built on the summit of that place. That tradition does not seem sufficiently probable, since Saffa on the geographical maps lies too far from the sea of Galilee, that is, the lake of Gennesaret, and it is not likely that sailors or fishermen dwelt so far from the sea. But it is certain from the sacred Letters that Jesus, walking beside the sea of Galilee, called Peter and Andrew as they were fishing, and, going on a little from thence, saw James and John in a ship with Zebedee their father mending their nets. Wherefore I rather assent to Theodoret, who, in the Greco-Latin edition of our Sirmond, volume 1, page 659, interpreting the sixty-seventh psalm, thus briefly and clearly expresses their homeland: But Peter and Andrew, and James and John and Philip, were from the village of Bethsaida.

[14] From what has been said it scarcely seems able to be doubted concerning the obscure lineage of James, the condition of his life, which some extol, and the ignoble profession of life which he exercised before the apostolate. And yet here St. Jerome raises a scruple, who, in epistle 96, otherwise 16, to the virgin Principia, thus writes concerning our James's brother: Whence also Jesus loved John the Evangelist most; who, on account of the NOBILITY OF HIS BIRTH, was known to the high priest, and did not fear the snares of the Jews: so much so that he brought Peter into the courtyard, and alone of the Apostles stood before the cross, and received the mother of the Savior into his own keeping. Nicephorus Callistus, in book 2 of his Ecclesiastical History, chapter 3, gives another cause of this acquaintance: for he affirms that John was known to the high priest because he had sold to Caiaphas (in book 1, chapter 28, he calls him Annas) the inheritance left him by his father Zebedee. But we do not so easily believe that rather junior little Greek, who inserted many apocryphal things into his history. Nay, Jansenius of Ghent, in his Commentaries on the Gospel Harmony, chapter 138, brings forward not improbable reasons on account of which it is permitted to suspect that that disciple, known to the high priest, was not John. But let us return to our matter.

[15] Most of the Fathers acknowledge no nobility of birth in these brothers: for Basil the Great, in his Rules discussed at length, chapter 8, indicates others depress it, that all their wealth was placed in a single ship: In what manner indeed we should do so, he says, the holy disciples of the Lord admonished us by their example, James indeed and John, having left their father Zebedee, and the very ship on which their whole means of livelihood depended. St. Hilary, in book 2 On the Trinity, number 13, describes John as a man of the lowest lot, in this manner: For there stands with me, in defense of the difficulties set forth above, a needy fisherman, unknown, unlearned, his hands occupied with the line, his garment wet, his feet smeared with mud, wholly from the ship:… for he says, In the beginning was the Word, etc. St. Peter Chrysologus, in sermon 28, speaks in like manner: There is, therefore, he says, a poverty kindred to the virtues, and if poverty is held to be the parent of the virtues, the companion of the virtues, it befits us to understand why Christ so chose the poor for the office of virtue. Peter and Andrew, James and John, brotherhood twice joined, nay poverty twice doubled, are chosen to be the chiefs of the Apostles; poor in wealth, humble in station, mean in craft, obscure

in life, common in labor, given to vigils, delivered to the waves, denied honors, given over to injuries, with the aid of a net, by the mere catching of fish acquiring their food and clothing. These things surely bespeak no great nobility of birth.

[16] they are investigated according to the more probable opinion. Origen chooses a middle way, and distinguishes between sailors and fishermen: for in book 1 Against Celsus he thus elevates James and John above the condition of Peter and Andrew under that heading: It is manifest to those conversant with the Gospels, which Celsus does not even seem to have read, that the twelve Apostles were chosen by Jesus, Matthew indeed a publican; but those whom he confusedly calls sailors, he perhaps means James and John, because, having left the ship and their father Zebedee, they followed Jesus: for Peter and his brother Andrew, seeking their necessary food by nets, we ought to reckon not among sailors, but, as Scripture relates, among fishermen. But this distinction seems frivolous: for the Gospels intimate that James and John also were fishermen, since they were mending their nets. I will indeed admit, as Nicephorus Callistus, in book 2 of his Ecclesiastical History, chapter 3, says, that their father Zebedee was ἰδιοναύκληρος, that is, the master of his own ship, or a sailor who had his own ship, because that is in some way drawn from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 1, verse 20, where in Zebedee's ship there are said to have been hired servants. Yet this does not yet introduce that diversity of condition devised by Origen: for Peter too seems to have had his own ship, since in Luke, chapter 5, verse 3, Christ is said to have gone up into one ship, which was Simon's. Finally, in the same chapter of Luke, verse 10, James and John are called the partners of Simon, in Greek κοινωνοὶ τῷ Σίμωνι, as though having a common fellowship with Simon in the catching of fish. Our interpretation is confirmed by St. Epiphanius, heresy 31, otherwise 51, in the edition of our Petavius, volume 1, page 438, where he speaks thus: Of whom one was Andrew, but that the other was one of the sons of Zebedee, we have surmised by a most correct conjecture, on account of the fellowship and communion of the craft. In Greek: διὰ τὸ συνεργὸν, καὶ μέτοχον καὶ κοινωνικόν. These things, moreover, and others, not obscurely indicate that James was equal to the rest of the apostles in his humble lot. All things, therefore, being maturely weighed, I adhere to Basil the Great, Hilary, Peter Chrysologus, and others, and with reverence withdraw from Jerome.

[17] Certain uncertain narratives being passed over, In our manuscript codices many things are narrated concerning the Acts of James, and especially those which the holy Apostle wrought against Hermogenes the magician (others call him a heretic). But since these proceed from the workshop of Pseudo-Abdias the Babylonian, they are to us not a little suspect of fiction: for to a lying man, as the common proverb has it, we are not wont to give credence even when he speaks the truth. Joachim Perionius, a Benedictine monk, wrote the deeds of St. James in a style elegant enough; but he seems to have drawn part of his history from an infected or at least suspect source. Lest, therefore, we mingle with these Acts narratives little certain, or perhaps even fables, we shall here reduce to a compendium the chief deeds of St. James, gathered from sacred Scripture and other ancient monuments.

[18] the chief Acts of the Saint before the martyrdom, In the first place, St. Mark, chapter 1, from verse 19, thus explains his calling to the apostolate: And going on from thence a little (namely Jesus), he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were mending their nets in a ship: and straightway he called them: and, having left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, they followed him. But Matthew, chapter 4, verse 22, thus more clearly expresses his ready obedience: And they immediately, having left their nets and their father, followed him. Concerning the time and order of this calling, the interpreters of sacred Scripture, everywhere at hand, may be seen here, and especially St. Epiphanius, who, in the Petavian edition, volume 1, book 2, heresy 31, otherwise 51, from number 14, discourses curiously on this text. The same holy writer, in heresy 38, otherwise 58, in the edition already cited, pages 491 and 492, asserts that our St. James kept perpetual virginity. Moreover, in heresy 58, otherwise 78, page 1045, concerning the other James, bishop of Jerusalem, he has these things: Who indeed departed from this life at ninety-six years of age, having kept perpetual virginity: whose head was never shorn with iron: neither did he use baths, nor did he apply anything animate to his food, nor did he put on a second tunic; but he used only a linen mantle. Then to our purpose he subjoins these things: John and James, together with our James, embraced that same manner of life; of whom the two former were the sons of Zebedee. Thus Epiphanius, to whom in this matter we prudently give credence, since here he does not depart from the common sense of the Church or of the holy Fathers.

[19] Our Savior followed St. James with such great love that he willed him to be present at many miracles and secret mysteries. from the sacred Letters Hence he was present with Christ when he suddenly healed Peter's mother-in-law, oppressed with great fevers, and raised from death the daughter of Jairus the ruler of the synagogue. He was also a witness of the prodigious transfiguration, when Jesus on Mount Tabor manifested his glory to Peter, to him, and to John. Perhaps this singular benevolence of Christ gave courage to James and his brother, so that they sought the first seats in his kingdom; which St. Mark, chapter 10, from verse 35, thus narrates: And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, come to him, saying: Master, we desire that whatsoever we shall ask, thou wouldst do it for us. But he says to them: What would you that I should do for you? And they said: Grant to us that we may sit, one at thy right hand, and the other at thy left hand, in thy glory. But Matthew, chapter 20, from verse 20, affirms that the mother of James and John sought this prerogative for her sons. Certain interpreters of sacred Scripture easily reconcile this differing narrative of the Evangelists, and say that the mother's petition proceeded from the sons' petition: for since they themselves did not dare, they say, to seek these first dignities from Christ, they suborned their mother that she might ask it. Wherefore the sons spoke through their mother's mouth, or perhaps joined their own petition also to hers. Others explain these things otherwise. However it be, Christ answered them, as the chief authors of the ambitious petition, and set before them the cup of the passion, and taught that in his kingdom he is the greater who desires to be less. Both so deeply engraved this doctrine of their Master upon their minds, that afterward they fled every appearance of ambition, as an most ancient writer testifies, whom Eusebius, in book 2 of his Ecclesiastical History, chapter 1, cites in this manner: Clement indeed, in the sixth book of the Institutions, thus relates: For he says that after the Savior's ascension, Peter, James, and John, although the Lord had preferred them to the rest, did not on that account contend among themselves concerning the first grade of honor; but chose James, surnamed the Just, bishop of Jerusalem. Chrysostom and other Fathers of the Church discourse elegantly on this imperfection of the Apostles.

[20] they are gathered. Not without mystery either did Christ change the names of these brothers, as we read in Mark, chapter 3, verse 17, and called them Boanerges, that is, sons of thunder, because he had destined them for the illustrious propagation of his Gospel, so that by the crash of their preaching they might be as it were thunders, which would move the minds of unbelieving and barbarous men, and lead them over to penance and a holy life. How great, moreover, was their zeal may be gathered even from this, that they wished to consume with a thunderbolt the Samaritans who were unwilling to receive Christ into hospitality, as St. Luke, chapter 9, from verse 54, relates in these words: But when his disciples James and John had seen (the inhumanity of the Samaritans), they said: Lord, wilt thou that we command that fire come down from heaven, and consume them? And turning, he rebuked them, saying: You know not of what spirit you are. The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save. Although that excessive fervor was worthy of reproof, yet from it appears what was the disposition of these disciples on account of the injury inflicted upon their Master. It was also a manifest sign of peculiar favor that Jesus willed James, with the two others who had been witnesses of the glorious transfiguration on Mount Tabor, to be present at his agony in the garden of Gethsemane. And these are the chief things that have occurred concerning the Acts of St. James before the martyrdom. If any deeds of lighter moment have here been omitted, the diligent reader of sacred Scripture will easily find them. Finally, many authors, whom we shall bring forward in the second part of this Commentary, assert that St. James, after the division of the Apostles, set out for Spain, and thence returned to Jerusalem, and there consummated his martyrdom, of which we must now treat.

§ III. The martyrdom, its time, and place.

[1] The Holy Spirit willed to make us certain of the martyrdom of our Apostle, St. James was afflicted with martyrdom, which in Acts 12, verses 1 and 2, is thus briefly narrated: At the same time Herod the king put forth his hands to afflict certain of the Church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. A notable circumstance of this martyrdom a most ancient author handed down to memory, from whom Eusebius, in the Valesian edition, book 2 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 9, thus relates it: At the same time, namely under the principate of Claudius Augustus, Herod the king undertook to afflict certain of the Church, and slew James the brother of John with the sword. Concerning this James, Clement, in the seventh book of the Institutions, relates a thing altogether worthy of memory, as he had received it from his forebears. For he says that the man who had brought James to judgment, when he had seen him freely confessing the faith of Christ, moved by the man's constancy, affirmed that he too was a Christian. Both, therefore, he says, were led together to punishment. And when, on the way, his companion asked James to give him pardon, James, having paused a little: Peace to thee, he said, and straightway kissed him. Thus both together, beheaded, perished. Suidas, in volume 1 of his Lexicon, page 1201, at the word Ἡρώδης, relates nearly the same things; but he who was beheaded with James is there called ὁ κατήγορος αὐτοῦ, that is, his accuser. But whether he brought him to judgment, as Valesius translates, or accused him, it matters little, and this difference seems able easily to be reconciled. Pseudo-Abdias, in book 4 of the Apostolic History, adorns this martyrdom with many episodes, which it wearies me to recount here, because in this fabulous writer we cannot discern the true from the false. Now we must investigate the year of this slaying.

[22] But the reader must be forewarned that the disquisition of this martyrdom proceeds according to the system concerning the death

of Christ under the two consuls Gemini, in the twenty-ninth year of the common era, according to our chronology, which Henschenius and Janning in the Preliminary Diatribe before the first tome of April, and in the fifth tome of June in the preliminary Commentary on the Acts of SS. Peter and Paul on the twenty-ninth day of that month, §2 and 3, and elsewhere, proved by reasons so solid that Papebroch, convinced by them, deserted his former opinion, and in the paragraph just cited, in the Anamnesis, number 21, thus candidly wrote: Meanwhile I confess that I should not have wavered in the opinion of Henschenius my master, if I had then believed that that great obscuration of the sun, noted by Phlegon, could be reduced to the year 29. Noris, Pagi, Schelstrate, and other most learned men uphold the same year of the death of Christ, and not long ago the Reverend Father Honoratus a Sancta Maria, in his French Reflections on the rules and use of criticism, volume 3, book 5, dissertation 1, confirmed this epoch by many arguments. Bosch my colleague, not without mature examination, trod in the footsteps of these men, and lately, in the Tract on the Patriarchs of Antioch, which we prefixed to the fourth tome of July, so used that chronology that he rather established it than employed it as received on trust from others.

[23] And yet a certain heterodox critic, who reduced this Tract to a compendium, which a certain recent critic ineptly reviles, and here and there marked it with the censor's rod, in the Acta Eruditorum published at Leipzig in the year 1726, in the month of May, page 199, wittily reviles Bosch and the rest of the patrons of this opinion in these words: To wit, they so indulge themselves in the chronology of prelates, that they swallow and absorb whole years and lustra, provided only that Peter reign everywhere, just as the Spaniards do in the case of their James, for whose sake they subvert all chronological reckonings. An insipid and false epiphonema, in truth! What, I beseech you, do whole years and lustra here pertain to the catholic and pontifical governance of Peter? Would not Peter reign everywhere, even had he sat at Antioch but two years? Does not Peter reign everywhere among those catholic writers who do not follow our chronology? Truly we marvel that the Leipzig censor should stray off into such ineptitudes, and, contrary to the manner of his fellows, so impudently explode an opinion hitherto defended by most learned men. That I may say nothing more harsh against the man, I only ask him that, setting aside for a little his hatred of the Roman Pontiffs, he examine the foundations of our chronology, and attentively weigh the testimonies of the ancients, brought forward by the aforesaid defenders of it. Without doubt he will see that they prevail over his cavils and conjectures, by which he impugns Bosch, and which indeed to refute is no trouble for anyone, but not of this place, as perhaps it may be shown on another occasion.

[24] Therefore let us return from this digression to the way, and inquire into the year of James's slaying, as it is elicited from Flavius Josephus, concerning which our Cornelius a Lapide, in his commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 12, reports the diverse opinions of several authors. We reject all those which either place the death of St. James before the year 43 or defer it after the year 44, as will be plain from the following controversy, in which we only dispute whether St. James was slain by Herod Agrippa in the year 43 or 44. By the common consent of historians it is established that in the month of March of the year 37 Gaius Caligula succeeded the emperor Tiberius, who raised Herod Agrippa, the son of Aristobulus, from prison to the throne. But when this emperor was slain by conspirators on the ninth of the Kalends of February in the year 41, Claudius was substituted for him, who enlarged the kingdom of the same Herod, adding Samaria and Judaea. Flavius Josephus, in book 19 of the Jewish Antiquities, chapter 7, speaks thus of Herod's death: Then, worn out by torment which for five continuous days remitted nothing, he ended his life, having been born fifty-four years, after he had reigned for seven years: for he held the kingdom four years under Gaius Caesar; first in the tetrarchy of Philip for a triennium, to which in the fourth year at last was added also the tetrarchy of Herod: then for three years under Claudius Caesar, besides the aforesaid dominion, he reigned in Judaea also and Samaria, and at the same time Caesarea. In Greek it is read ἄγων … ἔτος … τῆς βασιλείας … ἕβδομον, that is, "conducting the seventh year of his reign." By which manner of speaking he indicates that the seventh year of his reign had not yet elapsed. But the same Josephus, about to narrate the death of Herod, had said a little before: And now he had completed the third year of his reign over all Judaea, when he came to the city of Caesarea, which formerly was called the Tower of Strato. In Greek, τρίτον δὲ ἔτος αὐτῷ βασιλεύοντι τῆς ὅλης Ἰουδαίας πεπλήρωτο, that is, "the third year, he himself reigning over all Judaea, was completed." But these things can easily be reconciled, since we do not know the determined day or month on which Herod Agrippa entered upon the kingdom given him by Gaius Caligula, as we shall soon see.

[25] From this chronological arrangement, when compared together, I thus argue: Herod, in the year of the common era 43, by the testimony of Josephus, had completed the third year of his Judaean reign, which he had received from Claudius in the year 41 after the 24th day of January, and so his death is to be deferred beyond the month of January of the year 44. And yet it cannot be deferred long after that time, since Josephus testifies that he died when he was conducting the seventh year of his former reign, which he received from Gaius Caligula in the year 37 about the end of March or the beginning of April: for that new emperor, who was elected in the month of March of the year 37, does not seem to have waited long to confer the kingdom on Herod, since Josephus, in book 18 of the Jewish Antiquities, chapter 8, writes thus concerning this matter: Moreover Gaius, having returned to Rome, bearing at the same time the body of Tiberius, celebrated the funeral with solemn rite most sumptuously; and when he wished to dismiss Agrippa, freed, on that same day, by the admonition of Antonia he forbore: not that she wished the man ill, but she denied that this haste was seemly, lest he should seem to do this out of hatred of Tiberius, if he straightway freed him whom the other had bound. Yet after not many days had elapsed, having summoned him to his house, he ordered him to be shorn and to change his garment. Then, a diadem being placed upon his head, he constituted him king of the tetrarchy which had been Philip's, the tetrarchy of Lysanias also being added, and for the iron chain he gave a golden one of equal weight. If, therefore, we compute up to the death of Herod the seventh year of his reign as running, or the third year of the same reign, augmented by Claudius, as completed, his death is most probably to be placed in the month of February or March of the year 44. This being posited, the slaying of James and the captivity of Peter would have to be drawn back to the year 43, since each happened a little before the Jewish Passover, as is manifestly gathered from the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 12.

[26] But if we fix the martyrdom of James and the captivity of Peter to the year 43, or 44. another difficulty arises, and there seems to be left too great a space of time between the injury inflicted on these Apostles and the death of Herod Agrippa: for Eusebius, in book 2 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 10, thus narrates the death of Herod: But the vengeance for the persecution stirred up against the Apostles was by no means long deferred against the king: but straightway the angel, minister of divine justice, exacted the penalties from him. For when, immediately after the crime committed against the Apostles, as is handed down in the Acts of the Apostles, he had set out for Caesarea, … the sacred Letters testify that he was suddenly struck by an angel of God, and, consumed by worms, perished. With this opinion very many interpreters of sacred Scripture agree. Yet others think that between the martyrdom of James and the death of Herod a longer interval of time intervened, concerning whom see our Cornelius a Lapide on the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 12. Perhaps too Josephus, when he says that Herod, after not many days had elapsed, was constituted king by Gaius, understood not a long delay of time, which not improbably may be extended to one month or another: for, on account of the reasons stated above and others unknown to us, Gaius could easily have waited from the month of March, in which Tiberius died, until May, before he adorned Herod with the public title of king. But if we say that Herod died at the end of April or the beginning of May of the year 44, James could have been slain in the same year before Passover, and Peter committed to prison; and thus all the things brought forward from Josephus and Eusebius will be reconciled, as will be plain to one considering. Whatever it be, I judge those to stray from true chronology who have assigned the martyrdom of James outside these two years. Wherefore at the beginning of this Commentary I noted in the margin the year 43 or 44, that is, after the death of Christ 14 or 15, according to our system, in which we manifestly prove that Christ was fastened to the cross under the two consuls Gemini, in the year 29 of the common era. Now let us discourse somewhat concerning the glorious arena of James's contest.

[27] The erroneous opinion of Jacques Charron scarcely merits being reported, much less refuted, the holy Apostle, not at Caesarea in Palestine, who, in the History of the Gauls, chapter 68, page 481, writes that James the Greater was afflicted with martyrdom in Spain, as the Marquis of Mondéjar testifies in a little work published in Spanish on the preaching of St. James, chapter 5, page 18. A gross hallucination, in truth, and unworthy of a Gallic historian! It is scarcely worthy of observation that Aloysius Lipomanus, in the Lives of the Saints, volume 2, folio 75, published thus concerning the place of James's martyrdom from corrupt codices of Isidore: This man fell, cut down by the sword by Herod the tetrarch in Marinarica of Achaia, and was buried in the same place. Concerning the various corruptions of this text we shall treat afterward. Certain Greeks will have it that he was crowned with the laurel of martyrdom at Caesarea, although from the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 12, it is manifest enough that Peter was not committed to prison at Caesarea, whither Herod betook himself after Peter's angelic liberation, but at Jerusalem, where James the Less also was, and the house of Mary the mother of John, who was surnamed Mark. But if Peter was seized at Jerusalem, it can scarcely be doubted that our James was slain a little before by Herod in the same place. Nevertheless the Menologium, collected by order of the Emperor Basil in the tenth century, has on the fifteenth day of November the following, which from our Greek manuscript I thus render into Latin: James the apostle was indeed one of the twelve Apostles; but he was the brother of St. John the Theologian, son of Zebedee the Galilean, whom the Lord, seeing with Zebedee their father beside the lake of Gennesaret mending their nets, as fishermen, called. But they, straightway leaving all things and their father, followed him, and were instructed by him, as disciples. But after the ascension of the Lord and the dormition of the holy Mother of God, John indeed received Ephesus, and taught there. But James, left at Jerusalem and traversing the twelve tribes of Israel, was seized by Herod the tetrarch at Caesarea in Palestine, and, beheaded by him with the sword, passed to heaven, reigning with the Lord and Master Christ, our most benign God. Ughellus

in volume 6 of Italia Sacra gave the latter part of this Menologium, and in the year 1136 rendered the same elogium of St. James a little differently. I wished to render it faithfully word for word, because the text is in some way ambiguous, and it can be doubted whether both the beheading and the seizure are to be referred to Caesarea in Palestine.

[28] as certain men think, Francis Maria Florentinius, in the Hieronymian Martyrology, page 121, citing this very Menologium of Basil, thinks that the seizure of St. James and his slaying are to be referred to Caesarea: for after setting forth the same elogium he speaks thus on the following page: Three things here seem worthy of note. First, that the martyrdom of James the son of Zebedee happened after the falling-asleep of the Mother of God; then, that he himself undertook to govern the Church of Jerusalem. The third, that he consummated his contest at Caesarea in Palestine. What he himself judges concerning these three opinions may be seen. We meanwhile shall explain our mind concerning the place of the glorious contest. If the Basilian Menologium means to signify that St. James suffered at Caesarea, we oppose to it the reasons indicated in the preceding number, and the immemorial tradition of the people of Jerusalem, concerning which Adrichomius (he describes, among other more celebrated places of the city of Jerusalem, the market of things for sale, which is situated in the upper part of the lower city, where fish and various wares were sold), in the Theater of the Holy Land, page 154, speaks thus: In this market St. James the Greater, brother of John, with his executioner, who was leading him to martyrdom, first of the Apostles, beheaded by Herod Agrippa, poured out his life with his blood: in whose honor to himself (perhaps it should be read "there") a notable temple was afterward erected, which the Armenian Jacobites now inhabit, and in it worship Christ after their manner. Concerning the same place the most illustrious prince Radziwiłł, in his Jerusalem pilgrimage, printed by the Plantin press at Antwerp in the year 1614, thus testifies, page 58: Among the first we saw the great church of the Armenians, built in that place in which Herod ordered St. James the Greater to be beheaded, Acts 12. At the entrance of the temple on the left, about its middle, near the wall, is the altar of the martyrdom of this glorious disciple of Christ. It has seven years of indulgences, and as many quarantines. Bernard Breydenbach, in his transmarine Pilgrimage, on the twelfth day of July, affirms that he saw the same church at Jerusalem.

[29] Francis Quaresmius, in the Elucidation of the Holy Land, volume 2, book 4, Pilgrimage 2, chapter 17, discourses thus copiously concerning that sacred place: Returning from the church of St. Thomas to the way but rather at Jerusalem from which we had turned aside, and going straight on, there occurs at once a monastery and church dedicated to the divine James the apostle, brother of St. John, by another name the Greater, from whom it also received its name. The cause of the building and dedication of this church is said to be that in that place the same Disciple of Christ happily consummated the course of his apostolate by a glorious martyrdom, and exchanged the present mortal life for the immortal… But that the particular place of beheading is that where the aforesaid church was built, of which we now speak, I have seen no one to gainsay. Then he cites the words of Adrichomius, which we produced above, to which he then subjoins these things: That the market of things for sale was in the upper part of the lower city, as Adrichomius says, I do not dispute; but that James was beheaded in the same, I do not believe: for all in these parts believe that this place pertains to the upper city and to Mount Sion. Perhaps he said that it is in the lower city, because it is in its upper boundary. Besides that church, a great and beautiful monastery has also been built there, which the bishop of the Armenians with his religious monks inhabits (for it now pertains to these, not to the Jacobites), and in the same the Armenian pilgrims are lodged.

[30] Afterward he brings forward the words of Boniface the Minorite, who in his Work on the perpetual cult of the Holy Land, book 2, mentioning the place he seems to have undergone martyrdom, sacred to the martyrdom of St. James, writes, among other things, these: For that church is great and very beautiful, having a hospice beside it, which the Spaniards built together with the church, in which the Spanish pilgrims who came to visit the Holy Land were lodged. Hitherto I have not been able to find at what time the Spaniards built that hospice and temple at Jerusalem. Finally Quaresmius supplies further notice of this building in this manner: To these things I now add that this church, excepting the churches of the most holy Sepulcher of our Lord and of St. Mary in Bethlehem, is more illustrious and more beautiful than all the others inhabited by Christians in these parts. From above it receives light from a vaulted arch, which is opened after the likeness of that in the temple of the most holy Sepulcher. On its right side, and almost in the middle, is a small chapel with an altar, and beneath it is a place covered with red marble, in which that holy Apostle, doctor and also virgin, as St. Epiphanius teaches in the Panarion, heresy 58, followed his Master with his head cut off, whom, placed on earth, he loved with his whole heart and a pure mind. Above is a table, where the unbloody Sacrifice of the altar is offered to God. Before that temple is a certain open court or atrium, where today, as also of old, frequently certain wares are exposed for sale, just as outside on the public way. The very great monastery abounds in many dwellings, is lofty, and from the terrace of the temple, which is higher than the other places, the whole city is discerned; nay, it dominates the citadel itself: a spacious garden adjoins it. And, in brief, that site and place is reckoned more fertile and better than the other places of Jerusalem. At length, after these things, he narrates how the body of that holy Apostle was translated from Jerusalem into Spain, concerning which translation we too must now treat.

§ IV. The translation of the sacred body into Spain.

The translation of St. James into Spain, which in various printed books John du Bosc, a Celestine monk, in the Floriacensian Library, edited a long history of this translation, which he suspects was drawn up about the year of Christ one thousand. Laurentius Surius, in the Lives of the Saints on the twenty-fifth day of July, published the same in print after him. Finally Cardinal de Aguirre inserted it in the Councils of Spain, volume 3, from page 120. But how much favor du Bosc won from the Spaniards by this first edition may be seen in our Gaspar Sánchez, in the disputation on the preaching of St. James in Spain, tract 3, chapters 19, 20, and following, where he shows that many false, absurd, and fabulous things are contained in that narration. We here omit that gloomy history, which can be read in the editions already cited, lest we augment this commentary with useless bulk. Yet, lest some curious person to whom those books are not at hand should complain, we substitute a shorter narration of the same translation, which is very like the longer, if you except a few things concerning the bearers of the relics and other circumstances. It is found in an ancient manuscript codex of the monastery of Marchiennes (so the title has it), a transcript of which is preserved in our Museum, ✠ Ms. 103, folio 64, which sounds thus: James, brother of John the Evangelist, is handed down to have preached in Spain, from which, when he was returning about the Paschal day to visit the church at Jerusalem, he found it grievously infested by two magicians, Hermogenes and Philetus: whose deceit he uncovered by signs and preachings, and led back the flock of the Lord, invaded by wolves, to the true Shepherd; moreover he converted the magicians themselves, the masters of error, with many others, to the true faith, and made them noble doctors of the Church.

[32] and in a manuscript codex Whence the Jews, kindled with zeal, stir up a sedition, seize James in fury, lead him to the praetorium of Herod, son of Aristobulus, and, sentence of condemnation being given by Herod, drag him to the place where he was to be beheaded; who on the way healed a paralytic, and converted the scribe who was dragging him with a rope to martyrdom: for he who had brought James to martyrdom, moved by penitence, himself also confessed that he was a Christian. Wherefore, a report being sent to Herod, both were led to punishment; and when they were being led on the way, he asked James to give him remission. But he, deliberating a little: Peace to thee, he said, and kissed him. Then he asked that water be brought to him, and baptized him, and thus was beheaded together with him: whose body is seized by Hermogenes and Philetus and his other disciples, is placed on a ship, that it might be hidden in some place, until, by the Lord's bounty, it might be worthily buried; having entered the ship, they fell asleep, and, awaking on the morrow, found themselves in Spain, where he had first preached. And so, carrying out the body, they place it upon a stone, which they presently behold sink into the same stone, like a liquid element.

[33] of the monastery of Marchiennes, There was at that time in those parts a most powerful woman, both in name and in action Lupa ("she-wolf"), holding the chief place of the whole province. Certain men therefore being left with the body, others go on to this lady, asking that a place of burial be granted them, that she who had refused to receive the doctrine of the living man might at least receive the body of the dead, sent to her by God. Then she sent the men, seized, to the most cruel king to be punished. But the king ordered them to be received into the depths of the prison, until he should consider by what death they should be killed. After these things, the king reclining at a banquet, they are brought out of the prison by an angel, and, the people looking on, go forth from the city. But the table being removed, the king sent servants to the prison, and ordered the shut-up men to be brought forth; but the servants, opening the prison, found no one. And when by the king's order they were sought everywhere, and some said that they had seen pilgrims passing through the city, men are sent swiftly to pursue them; but, the bridge which they were crossing being broken, they are plunged into the flood. Whence the king and his men, terrified with dread, recall the men with honor, and receive the faith of Christ and baptism. In the manuscript of the Floriacensian library it is said that the king with all his men was crushed, the crypt collapsing. But it matters little to us which of these invented the more probable things. Let us only hear the rest.

[34] Then, returning to Lupa, they ask that a place of burial be given them; not without admixed fables it has been inserted, but she, grieving that they had not only escaped the savagery of the king, but had also gained the king himself with all his men to Christ, attempts by some device to destroy them. She then had huge wild oxen, exceedingly fierce and untamed: she therefore commanded that they should place these oxen under the yoke, and convey the body of the Master, placed on a wagon, thinking that they would be torn to pieces by the oxen. But they, the sign of the cross being made, yoke the oxen like lambs, place the body of the Master on the wagon; and the untamed oxen led the body of the Apostle by a straight course into the palace of Lupa, set far from thence: which she seeing, believed in Christ, caused her palace to be consecrated into a church, in which she buried the holy Apostle, on whom she also conferred many possessions and other ornaments. There many miracles were done, and many

converted to the faith. But the same Apostle suffered under Herod Agrippa at the Paschal time; but his memory is solemnized on the eighth of the Kalends of August, when he was translated and buried, glorified by celestial signs. Here we are not pleased by the miracles multiplied without necessity, the king at that time in Spain, and not a few other things, which the prudent reader will easily observe. From these it is not obscurely gathered in what esteem the Floriacensian author is to be held, by whom, for the greater adornment of the drama, there is brought upon the scene a most monstrous dragon (these are his words) which had emptied all the villages set round about it with the horrid and horrible breath of its exhalation, had extinguished all things, had swallowed down the living creatures, and had crushed all the rest. But let us turn to more serious matters.

[35] The same translation is narrated much more simply and probably in the manuscript History of Compostela, it is given from the manuscript History of Compostela, which was collected before the middle of the twelfth century by diverse authors, and is still preserved in the archive of Compostela, as Ambrosio Morales and other Spanish writers everywhere testify. I saw in the year 1721 at Madrid, in the royal library, two transcripts of the same History of Compostela, from which I copied for our purpose the following: As therefore we have learned from the Gospel truth, our Lord and Redeemer, about to ascend into heaven on the fortieth day of his resurrection, commanded his disciples to preach the Gospel throughout the whole world, and to baptize the nations converted to the true faith in the name of the holy and undivided Trinity, saying: Go into the whole world, preach the Gospel to every creature, etc. The other Apostles therefore, by the command of the Lord, migrating to diverse provinces and to diverse cities in the zeal of Gospel preaching, blessed James, brother of St. John the apostle and evangelist (a later copyist here inserted into one exemplar: "preached in Spain and at Jerusalem, in which by Herod, etc."; with what faith, let the Compostelans see in their own autograph), remained at Jerusalem to preach the word of God, and there, beheaded by Herod for the confession of Christ and the assertion of the catholic faith, first of all the Apostles underwent martyrdom. Whence blessed Luke the evangelist, in the Acts of the Apostles, says: Herod the king put forth his hands to afflict certain of the Church: and he killed James, the brother of John, with the sword.

[36] in which it is reported much more simply and probably. The venerable body of which most blessed Apostle the Jews, led by malevolence and envy, neither wished to bury, nor permitted to be buried by the Christians who at that time were conversant at Jerusalem; but, as Pope Leo affirms in the epistle which he addressed to the Spaniards concerning his passion and the translation of his body into Spain, casting the whole body with the head outside the city, they exposed it to be devoured and consumed by dogs, birds, and wild beasts: but his disciples, forewarned by him while living, that they should transfer his body into the region of Spain to be entombed, taking the whole body with the head, as Pope Leo attests, in the nighttime, came by a swift path all the way to the shore of the sea. And when they were there anxious about a ship in which they might cross over into Spain, they found a ship divinely prepared for them on the shore of the sea, which, giving thanks to God unanimously, the most sacred body being placed on board, they exultantly boarded, and, Scylla with Charybdis and the perilous quicksands being avoided, the hand of the Lord steering, they came by a happy voyage first to the port of Iria. Then, carrying the venerable body to the place which then was called Free Gift (Liberum Donum), but now is called Compostela, they buried the body itself there under marble arches after the ecclesiastical manner. Afterward the same author narrates how the sepulcher of the holy Apostle, hidden on account of frequent persecutions, was at length after long oblivion revealed, concerning which revelation we shall treat in the following paragraph. Meanwhile note that in this narration no mention is made of Lupa or of the king of Spain, nor are miracles so frequent and so portentous reported.

[37] For the sake of Tillemont Now certain difficulties must be satisfied which Tillemont, in volume 1 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 597, note 7, proposes against this translation. First he says that this whole history rests upon a certain epistle of Pope Leo III, which indeed is praised by Baronius, but is not produced; nay, which has no place among the other letters of the Pontiffs in the edition of the councils. I confess that this epistle has hitherto not been inserted into the collections of the councils. But will Tillemont thence conclude that it never existed or even now does not exist, while daily very many epistles of the Pontiffs are brought to light which long lay hidden in darkness? Or perhaps did he wish that the very autograph of Leo be assigned or transcribed for him? But since the History of Compostela and other ancient monuments make mention of that epistle, he ought rather to have concluded that that autograph either perished, or somewhere still struggles with moths and worms. Certainly John Grimaldi, prefect of the Vatican archive, as Francis Macedo attests in the Diatribe on the coming of St. James into Spain, chapter 11, §1, inserted this epistle of Leo III into his book on select matters of the Pontiffs. But since that book of Grimaldi is not at hand for us, we shall transcribe those letters of Pope Leo, for the sake of Tillemont, from another source.

[38] The Breviary of Évora, which was printed at Lisbon in the year 1548, in the feast of the translation of St. James on the thirtieth day of December, from the epistle of blessed Pope Leo (so sounds the title of the ecclesiastical Office), proposes four lessons to be recited in this manner: the epistle of Leo III on the translation of St. James into Spain is set forth, Lesson I. Let your fraternity know, most beloved, in what manner the whole body of the most blessed apostle James was translated into Spain. For after the ascension of the Lord and the coming of the Holy Spirit, a year's revolution from the very passion of Christ, at the time of the unleavened bread, the most blessed apostle James, having gone through the synagogues of the Jews, seized at Jerusalem under the pontiff Abiathar, and together with Josiah his disciple, by the order of Herod, was beheaded. Lesson II. But his body was taken up by the disciples at night for fear of the Jews: who, an angel of the Lord accompanying, came to Joppa on the shore of the sea. But there, hesitating what they ought to do, by the nod of God a prepared ship was at hand. They embark rejoicing with the Foster-child of the Savior, and, sails hoisted, sailing with a prosperous wind and great tranquillity, they put in at the port of Iria in Galicia. Lesson III. Going out of the ship they placed the body in a certain little estate, called Free Gift, distant from the aforesaid city nearly eighteen thousand paces, where it is now venerated. But they found in the place an idol constructed by the pagans and a crypt, in which were iron instruments for working stones. Rejoicing, therefore, they demolished the idol piece by piece, and, the earth being opened, in a stone sepulcher which they had hollowed out, they laid up the body of the Apostle, a little house with an altar being made over it. Lesson IV. But after some interval of time, two remaining there, namely Theodore and Athanasius, the others returned to their own places by the same ship in which they had come. Those who remained, unceasingly keeping vigil there, at length died, and were then buried, by their own order (one on the right, the other on the left of the Master), by the peoples whom they had gained for God. Then in Lesson V the author of the Breviary thus proceeds: From the epistle of blessed Leo we have learned that the most holy body of James, etc. The same epistle is reported a little more fully by our John Mariana in the Disputation on the coming of St. James into Spain, chapter 12, and in the manuscript little work which is marked with the name of Pope Callistus II, whose authority we shall afterward examine. Which of these is the genuine epistle of Leo, I leave to the learned Spaniards to discuss. I at least have endeavored to satisfy Tillemont, who desired to see the epistle of Pope Leo.

[39] Tillemont opposes another doubt to this translation from a Greek anonymous writer, and some of his scruples are answered, prefixed to the works of Oecumenius, who, according to Tillemont's interpretation, asserts that the body of St. James is ἐν πόλει τῆς Μαρμαρικῆς, that is, in a city of Marmarica. But why did Tillemont truncate the Greek text of the anonymous writer? Why did he not add the word ἐκοιμήθη, "he fell asleep"? For thus the whole sense is expressed: ἐκοιμήθη δὲ ἐν πόλει τῆς Μαρμαρικῆς, "but he fell asleep in a city of Marmarica." But if St. James fell asleep, that is, died, in a city of Marmarica, I oppose to the anonymous writer Tillemont himself, who in the volume cited above, page 595, contends that St. James died not at Caesarea, but at Jerusalem. But lest we quarrel over a word, let us freely grant that the Anonymous meant to signify the burial in a city of Marmarica. What credit does this author merit, who writes thus of John in the same place: θάπτεται δὲ ἐν Ἐφέσῳ ἔτι ζῶν, that is, "But he is buried at Ephesus while still living." Moreover perhaps that Greek, ignorant of western matters and lands, read in some corrupt codex of the Latins that St. James rests in Marmarica, and thence made a city of Marmarica. Thus Freculph, bishop of Lisieux, in volume 2 of his chronicle, book 2, chapter 4, writes that he was buried within "marmorica." The Isidorian codices differ everywhere among themselves concerning this reading: for in some is read Carmarica, in others Marmarica, and in our ancient manuscript codex ✠ 117, near the end, he is said to be buried "in the marble citadel" (in arce marmaria). Ambrosio Morales and our John Mariana judge that in both places one should read "in a marble ark" (in arca marmorea), of which the diplomas of kings and other monuments of the Spaniards expressly make mention.

[40] [(on the occasion of these things, a various explanation of a certain corrupted word is also proposed)] Mariana, in the Disputation on the coming of St. James into Spain, chapter 7, speaks thus concerning this matter: As regards the latter, the codices vary. The Parisian edition has Carmarica; the one made at Madrid, Marmarica. I judge both readings corrupt, and to be corrected from the Toledan Breviary, where in the feast of St. James, in the sixth lesson, you have: He was buried IN A MARBLE ARK (IN ARCA MARMORICA, or marmorea), the traces of which reading exist in the ancient codices, since one reads ARCHIS MARMORICÆ, another ACHIMARMARICA, [as] the author who lately corrected that book. But rather from MARMORIS ARCA ("the ark of marble," which a friend suggested) MARMARICA was faultily made. And thence, I judge, arose the vulgar opinion that the sacred body was conveyed into Spain in a marble ship; and as a monument of the deed a rock is shown on the shore at Iria Flavia, shaped in the manner of a boat. Namely, as I interpret, the body, which, as the History of Compostela says, the Jews forbade from burial, the disciples secretly carried off, and, enclosed in a marble sepulcher and placed on a ship, bore into Spain. The common people, having seen the sepulcher, thought that he had been conveyed in it through the waters, as popular fame is wont to grow from a slight occasion. Maurus Castellá Ferrer, in the Spanish history of St. James, book 2, chapter 5, folio 135, contends that rather the word Tamarica should be substituted, because of old in Galicia certain peoples were called Tamarici from the river Tamaris, and thence the land Tamarica, as Pomponius Mela testifies, book 3 of his Geography, chapter 1. Pedro Mantuano defends that opinion more fully in his observations on the history of Mariana, page 117 and following. The same opinion pleases our Gaspar Sánchez in the Disputation on the preaching of St. James in

Spain, tract 3, chapter 14, where at the end he thus concludes: But from Tamarica to Carmarica or Marmarica the change is not great or unusual. But Thomas Tamayo de Vargas, defending the history of Mariana from page 149, impugns the conjecture of Mantuano with many arguments.

[41] Tillemont takes a third argument from Venantius Fortunatus, whom he thus interprets, which from Venantius Fortunatus as if he indicated that the body of St. James was in his age, that is, in the sixth century, still in Palestine. But let us hear Fortunatus himself, who in the edition of our Brouwer, book 8 of the Poems, chapter 4, has thus: Venerable Ephesus sends forth John, preeminent in merits, and the blessed land its holy Jameses. I desire to be taught why here Fortunatus must be explained of the place of burial. What forbids that he here speak of the arena of martyrdom, which fell to both Jameses in the Holy Land? Does he not also say: Noble Achaia sends its own Andrew; when yet already in the fourth century the body of St. Andrew had been translated from Achaia to Constantinople? But who would easily believe that that translation, which happened with such great pomp in the year 357, and was made illustrious by so many miracles and by the pens of writers, was unknown to Fortunatus? Hence I not improbably conjecture that by the sacred Poet there is signified only the region in which Andrew and both Jameses obtained the palm of martyrdom. If, however, anyone does not acquiesce in this response of mine, and thinks, with Baronius in the Annals at the year of Christ 816, number 71, that here there is treated the place of cult or of burial, I shall give another response, which Tillemont himself suggests. This therefore being posited, I roundly declare that Fortunatus did not know that the body of St. James had been translated into Galicia in the first century, since he was ignorant of the translation of St. Andrew made in the fourth century, which yet, as more solemn and nearer to his own time, he could more easily have known.

[42] More unhappily does he cavil from the false persuasion by which he thinks and from the silence of Lucas of Tuy, that Lucas of Tuy nowhere makes mention of the translation of St. James into Spain. Thus in volume 1 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, note 8, page 599, he speaks of this silence: Lucas, deacon and afterward bishop of Tuy (this is a city of Galicia near enough to Compostela) teaches us nothing, so far as I know, of the preaching of St. James in Spain, nor of his translation or of the revelation of his relics. He only says that Alfonso destroyed the city of Iria, and that he exalted with metropolitan honor the church of St. James the apostle, which he himself had built, with the assent of the reverend father Leo III, the Roman Pontiff. I cannot but here supply Tillemont with a new piece of information, which he does not seem to have found in this writer of the thirteenth century. As soon, therefore, as I inspect the Chronicle of Lucas of Tuy, edited in volume 4 of Hispania Illustrata (my adversary cites the same edition), at once in the very preface, page 2, these words of his met me: Excepting all these temporal goods, almighty God so enriched Spain with heavenly goods, that he transmitted to it the body of the protomartyr of the Apostles, James, to be embraced perpetually in the flesh. Does he teach us nothing of the translation of St. James into Spain, who affirms it in a few words as certain and known to all? Nay, even if Lucas of Tuy had never made a single word about that translation, was it to be doubted by Tillemont, when the older monuments, which we have already produced, expressly express it?

[43] At length Tillemont, after all his doubts, concludes he raises against that translation. that the body of St. James was probably translated in the seventh century from Jerusalem into Spain, that it might be withdrawn from the fury of the Saracens, then devastating Palestine. Then he adds that the same relics, when the Moors burst into Spain at the beginning of the eighth century, were perhaps hidden, and remained unknown until the ninth century, when under Alfonso the Chaste they are said to have been found. But I oppose to Tillemont's new system a single dilemma, which I desire to be solved by his followers. If the relics of St. James the Greater were in Palestine until the seventh century, they were there either known or unknown. If they were known, it is strange that Eusebius, Jerome, and other writers, when they speak of this St. James, never made mention of them, especially since they not rarely assign the relics and sepulchers of other Saints in the Holy Land. But if they were unknown, how could they be withdrawn from the persecution of the Saracens and translated into Spain in the seventh century? It is therefore more easily understood how through many centuries that sacred body was unknown in Galicia, which the first Christians had brought from Palestine, and which afterward, on account of the frequent persecutions of the heathen, lay hidden, and was not found until after many centuries. Concerning this finding I shall discourse in the following paragraph, and again meet Tillemont.

§ V. The revelation and presence of the body of St. James in Spain.

[Although the year in which the body of St. James was found in Spain cannot be fixed,] The writers do not agree in what year that precious treasure was detected in Spain: for Vaseus, in the Chronicle of Spain, refers the finding of that sacred body to the year 798. But others assign it to the year 816, or 825, or 835, as Juan de Ferreras testifies in the History of Spain, part 4, page 140, where he thinks that happy lot fell to Spain about the year of Christ 808. Ambrosio Morales, in the general Chronicle of Spain, book 13, chapter 43, folio 71 verso, writes that the relics of St. James were first found there in the year 835, because in the diploma of Alfonso the Chaste, which he had set forth in book 9 of the same work, chapter 7, folio 235, the era 873 is marked, which corresponds to the year of Christ 835. But to the same diploma, reported in others, is subscribed the era 863, that is, the year of Christ 825, as the praised Juan de Ferreras notes, part 4 of the History of Spain, page 160. Moreover from this diploma it is gathered that those sacred relics had been found some years before, since Alfonso there asserts that he ordered a church to be built in honor of St. James, and joined the see of Iria with the same holy place; which joining of the see the historians everywhere write was made under Pope Leo III, who died in the year 816. Even though from what has hitherto been said I cannot fix the certain year of that revelation or finding, yet I judge it more probable that it happened before the year 814 in which Charlemagne died; because the authors of the manuscript History of Compostela affirm that they received from the tradition of their elders that it was done in the time of Charlemagne.

[45] yet in vain does Tillemont raise scruples against that finding, Although Tillemont, in volume 1 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 599, note 8, forewarns that he is unwilling to litigate concerning this finding, yet in the course of it he plucks at it with so many cavils that at length he seems to doubt of the true existence of that sacred body in Spain. In the first place he complains that Baronius in the Annals at the year of Christ 816 cites generally all the writers of Spanish affairs for the history of this finding, and does not enumerate them singly, and that he does not confirm all the circumstances of this revelation from synchronous authors. But that most eminent man, overwhelmed with such great abundance and variety of matters to be written, did not think it necessary that a particular history, commonly received by all and approved by suitable witnesses among other writers of Spanish affairs, should be laboriously corroborated by him. Hence at the year of Christ 816, number 72, he thus speaks: Moreover from this time (namely when the body of St. James was found, of which he there treats) that sacred place, because it flashed with mighty miracles, began to be frequented by the concourse of the whole world; so that whoever should call that venerable sepulcher, open to the whole world, a storehouse of miracles, I think would attain the aim of truth, so that it is plainly a very small matter * to prove by writings the things which continually resound with the voices of so many graces received. Do you see that Baronius was unwilling to prove by writings the things which were confirmed by the consent of the whole world and by manifest miracles? Does Tillemont think that the Gauls, Italians, Belgians, Germans, and other foreigners were so dull that, without previous examination and only from a certain vague rumor, they undertook a long and difficult journey, and flowed together to Compostela from every side to honor the relics of St. James the apostle? Add that the piety of very many pilgrims was rewarded with miracles: for who would believe that a pilgrimage to the farthest bounds of Spain became so celebrated in the whole world without many and manifest prodigies? But it is in no way probable, says my adversary himself, page 600 (I use his argument here only, as an argument ad hominem), that God should for so long have approved an erroneous cult with so many and so great miracles.

[46] Yet since Tillemont desires ancient testimonies concerning this finding, which is here set forth to him, his desire must be satisfied. Therefore I shall here first bring forward those things which, concerning the concealment and revelation of the sacred sepulcher, I copied some years ago at Madrid, in the royal library, from the manuscript History of Compostela. That, indeed, after the translation narrated in the preceding paragraph, has thus: But the Christian religion had of old flourished in that place among the worshipers of the catholic faith, but the time of persecution pressing on, and the proud tyranny of the pagans trampling under foot the dignity of the Christian name, almost the whole cult of the Christian religion had for a long time now vanished there. In the whole time, therefore, of the Saracens, and for a long time also after the restoration of the faithful, the venerable tomb of the Apostle, frequented by the approach of no Christian, remained very long covered over with the density of shrubs and woods, and was revealed or known to no one until the time of Theodomir, bishop of Iria. But when it pleased almighty God to visit his laboring Church and mercifully to convert its adversity into the tranquillity of prosperity, he straightway changed the time by his powerful command, translated the kingdom of Spain, and, gentile superstition being trampled and utterly annulled throughout the Spanish region, raised up there the name and faith of his Christ. But before the expulsion of that plague, Myro, a king of good memory, receiving the scepters of the kingdom by divine dispensation, first constituted pontifical sees throughout the provinces of Spain according to the norm of the Roman church, the divine grace inspiring, and, choosing Andrew as bishop, exalted him with the see of Iria. To him indeed we read that these subscribed below succeeded in order (of whom we have no notice at all except their names): Dominic, Samuel, Gotomarus, Vincibilis, Felix, Hildiulf, Selva, Theodesind, Bemila, Roman, Augustine, Honoratus, Hindiulf. These names of the bishops, perhaps corrupted by the copyists, are written diversely in the different exemplars, as may be seen in Juan Vaseus in the Chronicle of Spain at the year 898, and in Maurus Castellá Ferrer in the History of St. James, book 3, chapters 1 and 5.

[47] from the manuscript History of Compostela, Then immediately are subjoined the following: But to the aforenoted bishops Theodomir is said to have succeeded, exalted to the same see by the disposing divine grace; in whose time the omnipotence of the divine Majesty deigned to visit and illumine the Western church, the sepulcher of so great an Apostle being revealed. But in what manner it was revealed to him, the following page discloses. For certain personages and men of great authority reported to the aforesaid

bishop that they had many times seen, in the nighttime, lights burning in the grove which had grown up over the tomb of blessed James through long antiquity, and that angels had frequently appeared to them there. Which being heard, he himself went to that place where they asserted they had seen such things, and beheld with his own eyes, without doubt, the lights burning in the aforesaid place. Inspired therefore by divine grace, he hastily approached the aforesaid little grove, and, looking about more diligently, he found among the woods and shrubs a certain little house, containing within itself a marble tomb. Which being found, giving thanks to God, he went without delay to the presence of the Chaste king Alfonso, who then reigned in Spain, and truthfully notified to him the matter, as he had heard it and seen it with his own eyes. And he, suffused with the joy of so great a hearing, entered these parts by a swift path, and, restoring a church to the honor of so great an Apostle, transferred the bishop of the see of Iria to this place, which is called Compostela, by the authority of many bishops and servants of God and noble men, and by royal privilege. But that this was done in the time of Charlemagne, we have heard from the report of many. But Theodomir the bishop lifted the eyes of his mind to the contemplation of the heavenly homeland the more confidently, the more frequently he beheld blessed James flashing with miracles and virtues after the basilica was made for him. Endowed therefore with the hope of heavenly things, after some time had intervened, he securely poured forth his life, the final lot supervening. Thus far the manuscript History of Compostela, which also Juan Vaseus and Maurus Castellá Ferrer had before their eyes in the places just cited.

[48] whose age and authority he does not seem to know well enough, But since Tillemont in the same place, page 600, explodes the History of Compostela as unknown to him and very recent, I shall gladly communicate to him a notice of it, and lead him to a most learned Spaniard, that he may learn the age and authority of that history. This is Nicolás Antonio, who in the Bibliotheca Hispanica, edited by the most eminent Aguirre after his death, volume 2, book 7, chapter 4, from number 64, thus testifies concerning this work: Among the other notable monuments of our ancient history, the History of the Church of Compostela has always been held in a certain preeminent place, whose authors were Munio, otherwise Martin of Mondoñedo, and Hugh of Porto, bishops of sees in Galicia, together with Gerard the presbyter. Afterward Nicolás Antonio in the same place shows by many arguments that these writers flourished before the middle of the twelfth century, which for brevity's sake I here omit to transcribe. But if perchance my adversary should suspect that by a Spaniard these domestic monuments are too much extolled, let him hear Vaseus the Belgian, most skilled in Spanish affairs, who in the often-mentioned Chronicle at the year 981 thus pronounces concerning the same instruments: Let the prudent reader follow what shall have pleased him more. Yet this I will not be silent about, that the History of Compostela is much older than Lucas of Tuy and Rodrigo of Toledo, and is with me of greater authority.

[49] Tillemont also complains that our Juan Mariana, in book 7 of his History, chapter 10, only cited the diploma of Alfonso the Chaste concerning this finding, and the very diploma of the synchronous king Alfonso is set forth to him. and did not offer it to him for examination, and therefore he demands that it be set forth to him. Even though he could have found it elsewhere, yet I shall comply with his demand, and shall subject the mentioned diploma to the examination of the learned. Ambrosio Morales saw it among the monuments of Compostela, and thence edited it in Spanish in the general History of Spain, book 9, chapter 7, folio 235. Maurus Castellá Ferrer, in the Spanish History of St. James, book 3, chapter 1, brings forth the same in Latin from the archive of Compostela, from which I here transcribe it. King Alfonso. By this command of our serenity we give and grant to this blessed James the apostle, and to thee our father Theodomir the bishop, three thousand round about the tomb of the church of blessed James the apostle: for the pledges of this most blessed Apostle, namely his most holy body, have been revealed in our time: which hearing, with great devotion and supplication we ran with the elders of our palace to adore and venerate so precious a treasure, and we adored him as the patron and lord of all Spain with tears and many prayers, and we willingly granted him the aforesaid little gift, and ordered a church to be built in his honor, and joined the see of Iria with the same holy place for our soul and the souls of our parents; so that all these things may serve thee and thy successors through all ages. The writing of this testament made in the era 867, on the day before the Nones of September. I King Alfonso confirm this my deed. Ramiro, I confirm. Sancho, I confirm. Suero, I confirm. Brandila the presbyter, I confirm. Ascarius the abbot, I confirm. Urrenaridus, I confirm. Of this diploma the History of Compostela also makes mention. But lest anyone marvel that this donation is called by the name of a testament, let him read Ambrosio Morales, who in the place just cited testifies that this word was formerly customary in similar donations, that they might have greater firmness. What this church was like, hastily built by Alfonso the Chaste in honor of St. James, may be gathered from the diploma of Alfonso III, which he gave about the end of the ninth century, as will be said afterward, and which Maurus Castellá Ferrer sets forth in Latin in the often-praised history, book 4, chapter 19.

[50] Finally Tillemont involves himself in so many doubts and scruples [Tillemont also rashly doubts of the presence of the body of St. James the apostle in Spain,] that he begins to be uncertain about the corporal presence of St. James the apostle in Spain: for from negative arguments and the timid expression of Rodrigo of Toledo he thus concludes, page 599: Therefore it is to be feared lest we be reduced to the IT IS BELIEVED of Rodrigo, and it be necessary to stand by the common opinion, which is not to be too deeply investigated, and of which perhaps a clear proof would not be found. For could there not have been at Compostela some holy James, who was confounded with the holy Apostle of the same name? Here Tillemont alludes to the expression of Rodrigo, archbishop of Toledo, who is said to have said in the Lateran Council that the church of Compostela grew rather late from the devotion of the pilgrims who came to it out of reverence for blessed James, whose body is BELIEVED to be buried there. Whether Rodrigo of Toledo put forth such things in the Lateran Council, I shall afterward discuss. Meanwhile I confess that Rodrigo, inflamed with party zeal, deliberately kept silent about, or cautiously wrote about, the things which pertained to the glory of the church of Compostela, as also is plain from the following text of the same writer, where by the word "it was believed" he strives to weaken the common tradition. Nevertheless from this very narration of Rodrigo it appears that long before his times the opinion of the corporeal presence of the holy Apostle in Spain was most widespread, as I shall now endeavor to show.

[51] as from Rodrigo of Toledo himself, Rodrigo therefore, in book 5 On the Affairs of Spain, chapter 16, thus narrates a certain miracle of St. James: In the thirteenth year, therefore, of Almanzor, the army being resumed, he entered through that part of Galicia which is called Portugal, devastating in hostile fashion the fortifications and cities. And when he had come to the maritime regions, he devastated also the city and church of blessed James; but, terrified by lightning, he abstained from that place where the body of the Apostle was BELIEVED to be, which yet he had purposed to violate. Nevertheless he carried off with him the smaller bells as a sign of victory, and placed them in the mosque of Cordova for lamps, which were there a long time. But Almanzor with his army, struck by the Lord for the crime of sacrilege, sustained a worthy vengeance: for he who had profaned the holy place of the Apostle, almost his whole army was consumed by an unclean plague of his own, namely dysentery: the rest perished by a sudden death. From these words I elicit that that opinion in the tenth century, in which this miracle happened, was so common that the Arabs themselves were not ignorant of it. For how did Almanzor, terrified by lightning, abstain from the body of St. James, which yet he had purposed to violate, unless he had before heard that that body rested there? That report, therefore, concerning the body of St. James in Spain must have been very public, before it reached the Arabs, incurious and ignorant of sacred relics. Moreover, if that sacred treasure was then commonly believed to be at Compostela, as Rodrigo says, by what right does he alone not consent to the harmonious tradition of his elders, unless he at the same time bring forward most weighty reasons on account of which he does not assent to the common opinion? But since he brought forward none such, I suspect not altogether rashly that Rodrigo was silent about the preaching, translation, and finding of St. James, and diminished the very certainty of the sacred tomb, lest perchance the archbishop of Compostela should claim for himself, from these prerogatives, the primacy, concerning which he himself had to dispute first against the prelate of Braga, and then against the one of Compostela, as will be said hereafter.

[52] the History of Compostela, But whatever was the cause of this silence and cold expression, I rather believe the authors of the History of Compostela, less remote from the place and time of that prodigy, who in the above-cited Madrid transcript narrate the same matter thus: Meanwhile Ruderic Velasquez and the father of the aforesaid bishop (there is understood Pelagius, prelate of Compostela, who lived in the tenth century), with the other counts of this land, led the Saracens with their leader Almezor into these parts: who, coming to Compostela, utterly destroyed the greater part of the wall of the church of blessed James, except its most sacred altar. Therefore most blessed James, willing that they should not escape unpunished from his church, which they had crushed with the heel of such great pride, struck them with so great a disease of dysentery that, very many of them being dead, very few returned to their own homes. And when their leader Almezor, by inward consideration, beheld his men being more sharply shaken by the danger of so great a vengeance, he is said to have consulted the guides of his journey as to who that one might be, whose hall had now been almost destroyed by their assault: by whose response indeed, finding for certain that James, one of the disciples of the Son of the Virgin Mary (whose name among them is called ebn Mary), was most certainly entombed there, and bearing penitence for so great audacity, he obstinately took to flight, and in fleeing, struck by a sudden languor, at Medinaceli, where he was buried, unhappily commended his soul to the bosom of Mohammed. You see that here St. James is said to be most certainly buried at Compostela, and not only that this is thus commonly believed. You see that this is affirmed of St. James the apostle. In vain therefore does Tillemont ask whether there could not have been at Compostela some St. James who was confounded with the Apostle of the same name.

[53] If anyone perhaps desires a more ancient testimony of this matter, let him hear Sampiro, bishop of Astorga, Sampiro of Astorga, a writer of the tenth century, who in the Sandoval edition, page 70, thus reports, if I am not mistaken, the same punishment of the Arabs: Meanwhile King Alcorexi, with many troops of the Hagarenes, entered Galicia through the Portuguese land, and came to Compostela, and laid waste all that land. To the church, therefore, and also the * sepulcher of blessed James he wished to approach with great audacity; but, terrified with God's consent, he returned. But our heavenly King did not forget the Christian people; he sent among the Hagarenes an infirmity of the belly, and not one of them remained who returned to the homeland whence he had come. I think that here the same punishment of the Arabs

is indicated, although their leader is called Alcorexi, who elsewhere is called Almanzor or Almezor: for that Arab could have been of two names, which among them is not rare, or perhaps the name was corrupted by the copyists, as many other things are read in this history of Sampiro. However it be, this writer of the tenth century clearly asserts the sepulcher of St. James at Compostela. But that he understands this of St. James the apostle is plain from the beginning of his history, where, in the same Sandoval, page 57, he thus expressly speaks: Then he continues to the church at Compostela, where the body of blessed James the apostle rests. Juan Vaseus, in the Chronicle of Spain at the year of the Lord 963 and 975, narrates the same prodigy more elegantly from the History of Compostela, and at the year 981 adds some things worthy of note concerning this narration, which the curious reader will be able to compare among themselves.

[54] Pope John X in the same century firmly persuaded himself of the corporeal presence of St. James in Spain: by Pope John X, for Baronius, in the Annals at the year of Christ 918, number 2, thus writes of him: The same Compostelan Acts teach that Pope John, as one wounded in conscience by many sins, languishing with sorrow of mind, among other remedies of his salvation devised this, that he should send in his name a legate to Compostela to venerate the body of James the apostle. And he gave letters to the holy bishop of the same place, Sisenand, that he should pour forth continual prayers for him before the same holy Apostle, that he might be propitious to him in this life, and in the hour of his death. The same legation of John X Ambrosio Morales narrates in Spanish from the most ancient history of the bishops of Compostela, book 15 of the general chronicle, chapter 47. Moreover to this purpose there can also be referred, against Tillemont, the things which below, §10, we shall say of the Compostelan pilgrimages.

[55] To these testimonies I add, out of abundance, a fragment of the epistle which King Alfonso III wrote to the canons of Tours in the year of Christ 906, and by Alfonso III as is expressed in the text itself. I indeed confess that at that time it was not the custom in Spain that the years from the Incarnation of Christ should be computed; but perhaps a certain later copyist followed the usage of his own time, and adapted the years of Christ to the Spanish era, just as in the same place he calls Sisenand archbishop of the apostolic see of James, although the metropolitan dignity was conferred on the church of Compostela long after the death of that Alfonso. Concerning that interpolation the very diploma should be consulted, which Baluze saw in the archive of St. Martin at Tours, as he testifies in book 7 of the Miscellanea, page 61. It matters not much to us of what authority that diploma is, since for establishing our opinion there are at hand from other sources the arguments which we gave above. At least Andreas Quercetanus (Duchesne), in the notes to the Cluniac Library, column 50, edited that whole epistle, as he had received it from Jean Masson, from which I shall excerpt only those things which pertain to our purpose. It thus begins: In the name of God, Alfonso, by the will and power of Christ king of Spain, to the most Christian flock and worshipers of the tomb of the blessed confessor of Christ Martin of the church of Tours, in Christ and through Christ eternal salvation.

[56] it is shown by the king of Spain. At length, after other matters which do not pertain to us, he thus concludes: For the rest, as to what you inquire, of which Apostle the tomb is here held among us, know most certainly. We have the sepulcher of James the apostle, [son] of Zebedee, Boanerges, who was beheaded by Herod, in the Marble Arks [in] the province of Galicia: for the hand of the Lord steering, as many truthful histories contain, his body was there conveyed by ship and buried. Whose sepulcher shines forth hitherto with many marvels (the demons are torn, sight is restored to the blind, gait to the lame, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb) and with many other marvels, which we have known and seen, and which the pontiffs and clergy of it have narrated to us. For how he was beheaded at Jerusalem by Herod, and hither carried and buried, or at what time, or in what manner, is evidently manifest to all, and the truthful epistles of our archbishops, and the histories of the fathers, and the utterances of many testify. But if we should now wish to narrate these things to you one by one, the pen would be vexed at greater length , whereby we should exceed the measure of a letter as befits , nay, the haste of the bearers, who were unwilling to delay. But, God helping, when your clerics shall have come to us, we do not refuse to direct to you all things more clearly and thoroughly explained , no lucubration being withheld; but what we have received from the holy fathers and hold in writing . God consenting, and all hesitation removed, believe assuredly that we hold what is right and just. But as to what you asked, how far off his tomb is distant from the ocean sea, know. Up to the place where, the Lord steering (understand: he landed), between two rivers, which ancient antiquity named Voliam and Sar, in the place which is called Bisria, of your * see, of the church of St. Eulalia of Iria, there are ten miles, and thence up to his glorious sepulcher there are twelve miles. Whatever be the case with this epistle, which Baluze alleges against the preaching of St. James in Spain, as will be said hereafter, I am of the opinion that in this paragraph I have removed most of Tillemont's scruples, so that he can call the finding of St. James the apostle in Spain, and his corporeal presence, into doubt only rashly. Now I shall dispatch the other difficulties raised concerning this sacred body.

* perhaps "too much" (read nimium for minimum)

* perhaps "to" (ad)

* that is, "the marble" or "of marble" arks

* "carried away" (asportatus)

* perhaps "it will be turned/rendered" (vertetur)

* perhaps "just/fitting" (justæ)?

* perhaps "thoroughly, kernel-wise" (enucleate)

* "more clearly, in writing" (clarius scripto)

* perhaps "of old" (veteris)

§ VI. The body of St. James falsely attributed to various churches.

[57] Who would ever have believed, after so many testimonies which we adduced above for the Compostelan relics of St. James, Christian Massaeus, and such as will recur below, that his body could be attributed to other places? Nevertheless Christian Massaeus, a presbyter of the congregation of St. Jerome, in the Chronicles of the world, book 8, page 101, thus roundly pronounces: In the year 44 King Agrippa killed St. James, brother of John, with the sword. This man, according to the flesh the son of Zebedee, according to the spirit the son of thunder, when he had thundered in Judaea by long preaching, went into Spain: of whom, when he had sufficiently experienced the hardness toward the faith, he returned into Judaea, where he suffered on the eighth of the Kalends of August. After many times Charlemagne translated him thence to Toulouse, where he now remains until now, and nothing of him is left at Compostela, except perhaps a few relics, which they suppose to be laid up under the altar. But it pleases the Apostle rather to honor with miracles that place where he was buried, than where he is now set. But we do not so quickly believe Massaeus asserting this. Where are the witnesses of that translation, where the records? For evident testimony is needed, that the Spaniards may be deprived of the possession of that sacred body, which he confesses they once had. At what time, I beseech, was this translation made from Galicia into Gaul? In the time of Charlemagne, he says, who translated him to Toulouse. But in the authentic Acts of Charlemagne, which were most accurately composed, I find nothing of the sort; nay, it is not certain, as we saw above, whether the body of St. James was found while Charlemagne was living. Massaeus, therefore, must have written this without mature examination, because perhaps he had read that it was so confidently asserted by the people of Toulouse, whom we shall now hear.

[58] Nicolas Bertrand, who published in print the Deeds of the people of Toulouse in the year 1515, supposes the corporal presence of St. James at Toulouse as certain, and Nicolas Bertrand when there, folio 5 verso, he thus begins to enumerate the bodies of the Saints which rest in the church of St. Saturninus at Toulouse: First there lies and is openly shown the body and head of St. James the Greater, son of Zebedee. Then he speaks thus of the visitation of his body, folio 49 verso: About the year of the Lord 1385, the Lord willed to magnify the glory and praise of the Apostle and of the sacred body of blessed James the Greater, whose sacred corpse lay at Toulouse. Afterward he narrates how John, duke of Berry, coming to Toulouse with a great company of princes, venerated the relics of St. James, and offered three hundred gold pieces and other gifts, that the body of the Apostle might be placed in a more precious reliquary; which he relates was done in this manner: Moreover the duke himself, with the patriarch and several bishops, carried the vessels upon the altar: and the patriarch, blessing the silver sarcophagus and also the little chest of cypress, laid up the bones of the Apostle with great honor in the same chest, and, carefully closed, it was carried processionally through the whole church; and thence the divine office was celebrated as it were angelically, where there was a great abundance of bishops, archbishops, princes, and soldiers of the kingdom and of Toulouse: both from the royal house, and of Toulouse and of Auvergne; among whom the viscount of Polignac, the lord of la Voulte count of Armagnac, and others innumerable. That divine James, therefore, showed by many miracles that his body was at Toulouse, and that he greatly loved that city.

[59] [they wrongly attribute the body of St. James the Greater to the people of Toulouse,] Then he subjoins a miracle, which we shall afterward report, of a youth unjustly hanged, who by the intercession of St. James remained alive for a long time on the gallows, and was prodigiously freed. Finally he concludes in these words: Let us therefore honor that dear Cousin of Christ, who made the city of Toulouse illustrious with his sacred body and with many radiant miracles. At Toulouse blessed James also raised up several dead, their parents believing that his sacred body was at Toulouse: he gave light to the blind, healed paralytics, and restored to former health those entangled with divers infirmities. At length Bertrand thus confirms the opinion of the people of Toulouse by the authority of Pope Callistus II: Callistus himself prays and admonishes the Galicians, where the first burial of the divine James was, and the people of Toulouse, where the holy corpse was brought, that they extol with honors and magnify the great James, the brother of Christ. Here I say nothing of the unusual surname by which Bertrand or Callistus called James the Greater the brother of Christ: for I know that in the sermons on St. James which were inserted into the Cologne Library of the Fathers under the name of Callistus, there in volume 15 in the supplement, page 328, these things are read: Whoever therefore calls either James the son of Zebedee or James the son of Alphaeus the BROTHER of the Lord, speaks truly. But I also know that in the same sermons, which are commonly attributed to Pope Callistus II, the sepulcher of St. James is always assigned in Galicia, and nowhere is mention made of Toulouse. It falls, therefore, upon Bertrand or his defenders to show in what writings Pope Callistus admonished the people of Toulouse to extol with honors and magnify St. James the Greater in their city. But since Bertrand confidently asserts that the body of St. James was translated from Galicia to Toulouse, I ask of him or of the people of Toulouse by what

occasion, at what time so great a treasure was conveyed into Gaul. I require faithful witnesses and records of this translation: for since the Spaniards are prior in time, as the people of Toulouse are compelled to confess, they are also superior in right, which cannot be wrested from them, unless manifest testimonies of that translation be produced.

[60] whom the little fable inserted into the Acts of St. Heliodorus does not favor, Nor can the inept little narrative of a more recent age profit the people of Toulouse, which on the third day of July was inserted into the Acts of St. Heliodorus, bishop of Altino, in volume 1 of that month, page 649, in these words: But at that time bishops came from the borders of Gaul to the emperor Theodosius, and sought from him the body of the most blessed apostle James, son of Zebedee, brother of John, which had been placed in Judaea, saying: He was our preacher, grant us the body, most pious emperor. This being heard, the venerable Augustus sent to Jerusalem, and ordered the body of blessed James to be given back to the Gallic citizens. But when the body had been given back, blessed Heliodorus, by no means ignorant of this matter, came to the men of Gaul and addressed them with bland speeches, that they might grant him something of his most sacred body. And they, pleased by his speeches, gave him the right arm, and returned to their own homes with great joy. The holy man of God Heliodorus, his Jerusalem devotion completed and leave received from St. Jerome, returned to his homeland, and blessed it with a free piety: for he carried with him the relics of blessed James, which he also honorably laid up in the oratory of St. Andrew the apostle: wherefore great joy arose among the citizens. Whatever be the case with the arm of St. James, which in Ughellus, volume 5 of Italia Sacra, is said to be preserved now at Torcello in the Venetian dominion, this narration is repugnant to the very tradition of the people of Toulouse, who suppose that they received the body of St. James from Galicia. Moreover none of the more learned Gauls affirms that St. James preached in Gaul, which yet is asserted in this history. Finally, the uncertain Acts of St. Heliodorus, ill digested by an anonymous author, scarcely merit any credit, as was said in the same place in the preliminary Commentary and in the notes to his Life.

[61] Henri de Sponde (Spondanus), bishop of Pamiers in Gaul, and whose opinion Spondanus rightly moderates, indicates well enough what the people of Toulouse mean, when they glory that the body of St. James the Greater is possessed by them: for thus the most illustrious prelate writes concerning the same relics in the Epitome of the Annals of Baronius, at the year of Christ 44, number 4: But as regards the body of the Apostle; our Toulouse too glories in the possession of it, or at least of a great part. Nor are the things which one of the more recent Spanish historians (namely Maurus Castellá Ferrer, in the History of St. James, book 3) brought forward against this assertion of such a kind as to deny it. Those indeed say that the body of St. James is at Compostela, but they do not say that it is whole. But that a church can be said to have the body of some Saint, and that the place may on that account be to all an object of veneration, it is enough if it possess even a particle of it, will be shown below, year 55, numbers 3 and 4. Yet I would not say these things with a mind to overthrow the opinion of the body of St. James existing at Compostela; but rather that I may admonish that that church ought to be held in no less veneration, even if it does not possess it whole. I do not deny that a church enriched with only a part of the sacred body ought to be held in veneration, and that the slender relics of the Martyrs have a virtue equal to the whole body, as on another occasion I shall report from Theodoret, and can be proved from Gregory Nazianzen and other Fathers.

[62] Meanwhile from these words of the most illustrious Man I gather in what sense the above-praised Nicolas Bertrand, in the Deeds of the people of Toulouse, folio 5 verso, wrote thus hyperbolically: as is gathered from their other relics. First there lies and is openly shown the body and head of St. James the Greater, son of Zebedee. Likewise the bodies of the blessed apostles Philip and James the Less, besides the head of the latter, which was translated thence to Compostela, a city of Galicia (of the Compostelan head of St. James the Less we shall treat below), for the solace and devotion of the pilgrims flowing thither. Likewise the sacred bodies of the holy apostles of Christ, Simon and Jude. Likewise the body and head of blessed Barnabas, apostle of Jesus Christ. Then he recounts many other bodies of Saints, for which I understand parts. For who would believe that in a single church of Toulouse so many whole bodies of Apostles and other Martyrs rest? Nor is it new, in enumerating the relics of Saints, that the whole be put for the part: for this very thing Theodoret, in dialogue 3, to which he gave the title Impassible, and which is read in the Greco-Latin edition of our Sirmond, volume 4, there on page 138, thus testifies of his own time: This we too are wont to do: for by common names we call even a part. For, having entered the sacred edifices of the holy Apostles or Prophets or Martyrs, we ask: Who is placed in the ark? But those who know the truth, answering, say perhaps Thomas the apostle, or John the Baptist, or Stephen the standard-bearer of the Martyrs, or naming some other of the Saints, although sometimes very small relics are laid up. If the people of Toulouse also speak in this manner, we shall not wrangle, but gladly grant them some part of the sacred relics, on this condition, however, that they bring forward credible testimonies concerning them.

[63] [The historian of Dauphiné brings forward against the Spaniards another fabrication,] Nicolas Chorier, in the general history of Dauphiné, volume 2, book 1, section 8, page 15, devised a more inept fabrication against the Spaniards, which I have seen inserted also into the Dictionary of Moreri. After he had there narrated that Guigues VII, surnamed the Fat, count of Albon, after various injuries inflicted on St. Hugh, bishop of Grenoble, departed in the year 1107 for the sake of penitence into Galicia to St. James, and that then first those sacred pilgrimages were begun, he subjoins in the place just cited the following: A certain James, a man of noted sanctity (yet different from the Apostle of that name, whom all the ancient Martyrologies say died in Asia), had been buried before the church commonly called d'Écherolles, one league distant from Grenoble, and was honored there; but his head had been carried into Galicia, which the Spaniards did not hesitate to expose to cult as the head of St. James the apostle, that they might acquire for him greater veneration, and a more illustrious glory for their homeland. By what right are the Spaniards so lightly and confidently charged with a most base fraud? Where are the uncorrupted testimonies of that most grievous accusation found? Where in the world has the usage prevailed that to have accused should suffice? Wherefore I vindicate in few words the good faith of the Spaniards in this matter, although I could refute the whole narration by mere denial. In the first place it is false that the Compostelan pilgrimages to St. James first began at that time, since below, §10, we shall show that Gotescalc, bishop of Le Puy, in the middle of the tenth century, and others long before Guigues the Fat, went into Galicia to St. James. Moreover, who was that holy James, buried near Grenoble, of whom Saussay, Castellan, and the other Gallic Martyrologists keep deep silence? Finally Chorier ineptly asserts that all the ancient Martyrologies say St. James died in Asia. Who would deny this, or dare to deny it, since sacred Scripture affirms that he was slain with the sword by Herod, most probably at Jerusalem? But perhaps Chorier meant it to be understood that St. James was also buried in the East. Be it so; but what ancient Martyrologies handed down to posterity an Eastern burial of St. James? Why does he not rather believe the most ancient Martyrologists, Ado, Usuard, and other writers of the ninth century, who testify that the body of St. James the Greater was translated into Spain? Let these things be said in passing to blunt the rash assertion of that historian.

[64] on the occasion of which a certain tradition of Angers is exploded. What is read in the Menagiana, reprinted at Amsterdam in the year 1693, page 14, concerning the body of St. James, deserves rather to be laughed at than refuted. At Angers, in the church of St. Maurilius, says Ménage, the body of St. James is said to rest. And since Menard had on that account written in his history of Angers that that body, if it be not of James the Greater, is at least of the Less, this rule of law was placed in the margin: In obscure matters we always follow THAT WHICH IS THE LEAST. I think that here Ménage indicates the manuscript history of Menard, of which Jacques le Long, in the Library of Gaul, page 767, number 14961, makes mention in these words: Manuscript history of Angers, by the author Claude Menard, procurator of Angers. But whatever finally that history be, from this inept and ridiculous application of a juridical rule it is plain enough that that popular opinion is exploded by the more learned Gauls themselves.

[65] Not only the Gauls, but also the Italians, contend with the Spaniards concerning the body of St. James the apostle: [The Italians say that they have the body of St. James the Greater on Monte Grigiano,] for the ancient monuments of the church of Verona, collected by Raphael Bagatta and Battista Peretto, and partly digested into order by the most illustrious Agostino Valier, bishop of Verona, thus have, page 81: In the church of St. James on Monte Grigiano outside the city, or the monastery, is laid up the body of St. James the Greater the apostle, and there is preserved a glass vessel full of ashes, which, as was reported to us, are held for relics of St. Philip the apostle. There is also preserved a certain wooden ark full of bones, which are held for holy relics: for when in the year 1537 the chapel in which the body of St. James was placed was enlarged by Timothy of Lonigo, a monk, those bones were found in the same wooden ark in the wall beneath a stone, upon which had been placed the iron ark containing the body of St. James. Moreover the finding of that body, the miracles, the building of the temple, and, on this matter, the epistle of Pope Boniface IX are reported at length in the same monuments from folio 24. Yet here I say the same thing which Ferrari, in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, on the twenty-fifth day of July, in the annotation on page 458, answered in this manner: The Veronese repeatedly assert that they have the body of the divine James the Greater, found on Monte Grigiano in the year 1395 on the twenty-second day of May, as the monuments of their own church testify: of which finding mention is made in the diploma of Boniface IX granting the church of the said Mount to the Veronese. But since it is so manifest that the body of this holy Apostle is preserved at Compostela in Spain that it is not permitted to doubt of this matter, either they are involved in error, or they have only some part of his body.

[66] To say nothing of the first part of this disjunctive proposition, where perhaps they possess some of his bones, which most easily can be true, at least the second the Veronese cannot deny, since Boniface IX in his epistle speaks not of the body, but of the bones of St. James in this manner: Since therefore, as the petition set forth to us on your behalf contained, of old in the place called Monte Grigiano of the diocese of Verona, a certain church in honor and

under the name of St. James, as the foundations show, was founded and constructed, to which, from the fact that in it the bones of blessed James the Greater are said to have been newly found, and the Most High, by the intercessions and merits of the same blessed James, as is piously believed, has wrought many miracles, and works them daily, a great multitude of people flows together out of devotion, and you, kindled with the zeal of devotion, desiring to exchange earthly things for heavenly and transitory for eternal by a happy commerce, from the goods conferred upon you by God, for the salvation of your souls, and that the divine worship may there be augmented, have proposed to rebuild that church honorably and to endow it sufficiently, and to depute rectors and ministers to serve there perpetually in divine things; and it has been humbly supplicated to us on your behalf that we would deign, of apostolic benignity, to grant you the doing of the aforesaid things and the right of patronage of that church, and of presenting rectors and administrators to it: we, commending in the Lord your laudable purpose in this matter, and wishing to follow you with the special prerogative of favor, inclined to these your supplications in this part, grant you license to do the aforesaid things by apostolic authority, by the tenor of these presents, etc. Nay, that this is to be understood only of a certain part of the relics, the collectors of the Veronese monuments freely confess, folio 35, in these words: It must be known that by a pious extension it is wont to be said that somewhere the body of some Saint is held, because a good part of him is held there. Whence it is neither to be reprehended nor refuted that in the aforesaid monuments it was said that the body also of St. James the Greater the apostle rests on Monte Grigiano, although it is said to have been translated to Compostela. Now let us examine another body of the same Apostle translated into Italy in the fourth century, if it please the gods above.

[67] [and in the village of Zibido of the diocese of Milan they claim for themselves his whole body, except the arm,] Paolo Morigia, in the Sanctuary of the city and diocese of Milan, which was printed at Milan in Italian in the year 1641, page 231, writes that in the village of Zibido, eight miles distant from Milan toward Pavia, is honored the body of St. James the Greater, brother of St. John the Evangelist, which was translated thither from Constantinople by St. Eustorgius, bishop of Milan, about the year 312. But there is there a church dedicated to St. James, which now the Carmelites of the congregation of Mantua administer most religiously, in which the mentioned body is venerated with the highest veneration and a frequent concourse of people. Nor are miracles lacking, which are said to be done by the intercession of that St. James. Among other things it is to be wondered at that neither the village of Zibido, nor the neighboring fields (as the report is), ever suffer harm from hail. On account of these things and others which will be said below, I will easily let myself be persuaded that the body of some St. James rests there; but in no way will I believe that it is the body of St. James the Greater, which we showed above from ancient instruments to have first been found in Galicia about the ninth century. For how could the body of St. James the Greater be translated into Italy from Constantinople, where it is never read to have been? There was once at Constantinople the body of St. James the Less; but on that account I would not dare to affirm that it was translated into Italy. I rather suspect that that sacred body (of whatever St. James it finally be) was wrongly attributed to St. James the Greater by popular tradition, which grows and changes not a little with time: especially since Morigia confesses that everything rests upon the tradition of the inhabitants, and that he found nothing written concerning this matter. Nor can the solution which we gave in the preceding number have place here, namely by taking the part for the whole, since Pietro Paolo Bosca, in the Martyrology of the church of Milan, on the twenty-fifth day of July, page 216, thus depicts the present state of St. James of Zibido: His body is kept in a marble ark; whose lid, when it was changed after the elapse of years, the body was found almost whole, wanting only the other arm, clad in the garb of a pilgrim man. An iron grate covers the body, and it is veiled with a cloth of Attalic work woven with gold.

[68] Morigia, page 232, affirms that that venerable body was inspected by St. Charles Borromeo, and, [concerning which, however, St. Charles Borromeo in his visitation was unwilling to pass judgment.] while it was being translated to a more honored place, that thunders were heard, and lightnings flashed forth, which terrified not only those present, but also the neighboring peoples. He adds moreover that that body in the translation breathed forth so sweet an odor that it surpassed all the aromas of the world. But Pietro Paolo Bosca, after diligent inquiry, could learn nothing of these prodigies or of the translation: for in the place just cited he thus testifies: But I received nothing of this translation, although I inquired by letters of the most learned Carmelite Alessandro Maria Brianti, who affirmed that all the records of the monastery of Zibido had perished, when in former years Pavia had been besieged by the French. He says that one tradition survives concerning the divine Charles: for when he was surveying the diocese, and, staying at Zibido, had passed the night there sleepless, spending the night in prayer to God (perhaps that, breathed upon by the divine spirit, he might attain the truth concerning the body of St. James), departing from the altar of the same Saint, turning to the Carmelites, inhabitants of the monastery, he said: Lasciamo i corpi de i Santi, ove sono; Patri tenetene conto. (that is: Let us leave the bodies of the Saints where they are; do you, Fathers, take account of them.) It is certain, therefore, that the body of the divine James is preserved there; but of what James it is, since St. Charles Borromeo was unwilling to signify, neither can I deliver anything certain concerning it. We too leave to St. James of Zibido, whom we judge far different from James the Greater, his own veneration. For the rest, from all the competitors for the Compostelan sacred body we demand such documents as the Spaniards allege for themselves; which, as long as they shall not have been shown, we shall defend the ancient possession of the Spaniards.

§ VII. The manifold contention concerning his head, which diverse churches claim for themselves.

No less is the controversy concerning the head of St. James than concerning the body, various churches claiming it for themselves. The people of Toulouse The people of Toulouse, whom we saw above contending with the Spaniards concerning the body of the holy Apostle, firmly persuade themselves that they possess his head. Nicolas Bertrand, in the work already cited on the Deeds of the people of Toulouse, besides those things which in the preceding paragraph we reported from him, folio 49, writes thus of this possession: And first, concerning the foundation of the said church, it is to be noted at the outset that the episcopal see of Toulouse was in the church of blessed James, as is contained in many ancient instruments: which was the first church founded and erected in the city of Toulouse, and also in honor of blessed James, whose head was under the pillar which is near the altar of St. Quiteria; where there is or ought to be a great iron circle, unless it has been removed, and the head of the most blessed James depicted on the top of the round pillar of a single piece of stone. And a certain historian, canon of the said church, says in this manner: "I saw contained * in many instruments concerning the head of St. James, and I, being placed in the age of eighteen years, being a canon of the said church, and in the house and under the rod of the venerable memory of the Reverend Father lord Aycard de Quimbal, distinguished professor of decrees, canon and chancellor of Toulouse, accompanying him together with his squires and priests, I saw a certain Lombard or Italian knight, honorably attended, and in great state, seeking the said church of St. James in the cloister with the said lord chancellor, and bearing a great instrument sealed with divers seals and in great abundance.

[70] in Gaul, "And that knight, a pilgrim to Rome, had come from those parts, saying to the said lord chancellor, standing near the said pillar, these words in Latin words: Reverend lord master, very many err and have erred in going to the head of the most blessed James the Greater in the parts of Galicia: for it is here most certainly. And that this was true, he showed the said lord chancellor the instrument itself, and, it having been seen by the lord Aycard himself, and prayer having been made with bent knees before the pillar, several being present, the said lord chancellor in their presence with his hand strongly grasped the right hand of me, Giles, saying: Remember these things said and shown. And the said knight dined with him that day, and after dinner, and for a long time they spoke together. Yet I do not know whether the said lord chancellor caused a copy or VIDIMUS of the said instrument, drawn up concerning the aforesaid, to be retained." This instrument of the unknown knight does not seem to be ancient, and so is not to be greatly esteemed. It also matters little that it is not shown to us for examination, since Bertrand at once subjoins the following: Yet it is to be noted that with the same instrument a part of the head of the glorious James was found some fifteen years ago. Behold, the head of St. James the Greater, of which mention is made above, is changed into a part of the head. But if the people of Toulouse claim for themselves only a part of the head, we shall easily grant it, when they shall have legitimately proved that they received it from the Spaniards.

[71] and among the Venetians Among the Venetians also two churches litigate between themselves concerning the head of St. James the Greater, as I gather from a certain manuscript of the Queen of Sweden, in which there is treated of the Saints whose relics rest in the monastery of St. George at Venice. I am of the opinion that here is to be understood the monastery of St. George which lies on an island by Venice, and whose foundation Mabillon reports in the Benedictine Annals at the year 982. However it be, the title of our transcript is this: Concerning the venerable head of the blessed apostle James, existing long ago in this our monastery, as also now. Then the anonymous monk writes thus: It is established from the sacred histories, dearest brothers, that blessed Anna bore three daughters, of whom each was called Mary. Of these the first was the most blessed Virgin Mary, mother of our Lord and Savior; the second, who, joined in marriage to Alphaeus, bore James the Less, who was called the Just, and the brother of the Lord, as well as Simon the Canaanite, and Jude, who was also called Thaddaeus. The third, who was also called Mary Salome, joined to Zebedee, bore James the Greater and John the Evangelist: with the precious head of this apostle James we have been endowed by the benignity of God, which his image, depicted on the frontal of his altar, testifies, but also the solemnity which in the time of July at the said altar we honorably celebrate in his name every year. Pilgrims also, returned from Compostela, a city of Galicia, where his most holy body rests, testify that this very part of the head is lacking there. That which is here asserted concerning the three daughters of St. Anna, we shall show to be false on the following day, sacred to her.

[72] Then the same writer thus endeavors to defend his relics against the other church: two monasteries, But since the monastery of Saints Philip and James, formerly a member of St. Felix de Aimanis, and now

joined to the church of St. Mark, asserts that it likewise has the head of the holy apostle James, it must be held that that head is of St. James, son of Alphaeus, above written, who was also called the Less: for they celebrate his feast on the first day of May, to whose name that monastery is dedicated. Let us therefore render due thanks to God, who adorned us with the glory of so great a gift: for the head is the chief and principal member of the whole body; for it itself contains all the * senses, which in the other members are present singly, one in each; on account of which sometimes the head is also put for the whole body. Let us therefore cultivate it with devout and continual prayers, as our chief patron, whom we see so devoutly and so eagerly visited daily by pilgrims from divers regions, with so great labor of the very long Compostelan journey and inconvenience of expenses. I should prefer that the author, in place of these words, contributing nothing to the matter, had brought forward credible testimonies by which he might prove when and whence his monastery received these sacred relics. Until these be brought forward, I shall adjudge the cause to neither church, since neither alleges a legitimate title of its right.

[73] Carlo Bartolomeo Piazza, in the sacred Hemerologion of the city of Rome, on the twenty-fifth day of July, part 2, page 81, and other cities of Italy, besides other relics of St. James the Greater, assigns to us at Rome, in the church of the Twelve Apostles, which now the Franciscan Conventual Fathers possess, the sacred head of the same Apostle. When I had read this, I turned over certain authors who wrote of the Roman basilicas and relics, and investigated whether I should find any ancient testimonies for this head. But I lost oil and labor: for nowhere among them did I detect this treasure. Nay, the Reverend Father Bonaventura Malvasia, a Conventual Minorite, who in the year 1665 edited an historical Compendium of this basilica of the Twelve Apostles in Italian, and in chapter 15 enumerates the sacred relics of that church, makes no mention of the head of St. James, although in the same place, page 195, he thus speaks of the prodigious blood of that Apostle: In a phial is preserved the blood of St. James the Greater, which appears so liquid and ruddy as if it had recently been drawn from the veins of that glorious Apostle. I know not, therefore, where Piazza found that treasure, which lay hidden from Malvasia and other writers.

[74] Ferrari, in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, in the annotation on the twenty-fifth day of July, testifies that at Valenza on the river Po, in the diocese of Pavia, a head is preserved concerning the head of St. James the Greater which the inhabitants affirm to be of St. James the Greater, and which is shown to the people on this day with great celebrity, consisting of hair and flesh as if it had recently been cut off. But the praised Bosca, in the Martyrology of Milan on the same day, notes that, according to the Pavian acts of the episcopal visitations, this is the head of St. James the Less. But I dare not securely assent either to Bosca or to these Pavian acts, since the emperor Baldwin of Constantinople sent the head of St. James the Less, or the brother of the Lord, to the count of Artois, as is established from his epistle, written in the year 1240 on the ninth day of June, which, composed in the French language of that time, Edmund Martène edited in the New Thesaurus of Anecdotes, volume 1, column 1042. I know not whether Saussay, in the Supplement of the Gallican Martyrology on the Kalends of May, meant to indicate the same head, of which, part 2, page 1113, he thus speaks: At Compiègne, in the sacristy of the monastery of Saints Cornelius and Cyprian, the veneration of the precious head of St. James the Less the apostle, in which, magnificently laid up, there still appears the blow with which he was struck by the fuller. Moreover the Compostelans glory that they too have the head of the same James the Less in their church, which also bears the sign of the blow inflicted by the fuller's club, as we shall see afterward. To these add that on the first day of May, in the preliminary Commentary on the Acts of SS. James of Alphaeus and of Cleophas, §§5 and 6, we divided the same head into various parts.

[75] contend among themselves: From these things let the learned reader determine what is to be thought of the head of St. James, which Ughellus, in volume 7 of Italia Sacra, column 287, thus places near the city of Amalfi in the kingdom of Naples: For the rest, this monastery of St. Peter de canonica was of great esteem among the Amalfitans on account of the excellent religion of the Cistercian monks and the memory of Peter the Cardinal … The church of this abbey (the title being transferred), stripped, eighty years ago they handed over to the Capuchin friars to inhabit, near which, from the ruins of the old monastery, they raised a new enclosure for their use from the alms of the Amalfitans. There are preserved in this church several relics of Saints, enclosed in little vessels by Peter the Cardinal, and brought from Constantinople, namely the head of St. James the Greater the apostle, of St. Diomedes the martyr, etc. But Ughellus, in the same volume, column 243, had already said of the same church: Here is preserved the head of St. James the Less the apostle, of St. Diomedes the martyr, etc. The same error was left in the most recent Venetian edition of Italia Sacra, volume 7, columns 188 and 215. Let the Amalfitans therefore teach us, of which James the apostle they venerate the head; but let them remember that for the one or the other, testimonies must be adduced which overthrow the possession of others, such as I judge can hardly be brought forward by them.

[76] but the Belgians claim that sacred head for themselves by a better right. The Belgians are of the opinion that they have for many centuries now had, and still possess, the venerable head of St. James the Greater, or at least a great part of that sacred head. Nor indeed do they persuade themselves of this, induced by light or more recent arguments: for Wimann, a monk of St. Vaast and a contemporary of St. Bernard, as Raissius asserts in the Belgian Hierogazophylacium, page 525, writes thus of this matter: The kings of the Franks always embraced this monastery of St. Vaast with successive devotion, and exalted it with the collected relics of many Saints. Nevertheless this gift, noble and precious above gold and topaz, they added to our church from their treasures, namely the head of St. James the apostle, brother of St. John the Evangelist. Although Wimann does not express the name of the king by whom the monastery of St. Vaast at Arras was enriched with so precious a treasure, yet from other more ancient monuments of this monastery, says Raissius, it is most clearly proved that Charles the Bald, king of France, gave them the head of St. James, as Martin, abbot of this monastery, contemporary of Wimann, expressly narrates in a certain epistle; and he adds that Philip, count of Flanders, who had stealthily filched from them the aforesaid pledge of St. James, tutelary of the Spains, set out for Compostela, that he might be made more certain whether it were truly the head of St. James, tutelary of the Spains: at length, great and serious investigation being applied, he learned that many years back that sacred head had been carried into Flanders. This Compostelan journey of the count the ancient monuments of Aire also affirm.

[77] When Philip had violently wrested these relics from the monks of St. Vaast, concerning which between the count of Flanders and had retained them for six years in the church of St. Peter at Aire, meanwhile complaints were brought to the supreme Pontiff, Alexander III, who gave two epistles to Henry, archbishop of Reims, of which the first, inserted in the most recent collection of Edmund Martène, volume 2, column 747, orders the count of Flanders to be admonished to restore the relics taken away to the monastery of St. Vaast; but the other, which is read in Edmund Martène, in the volume cited, column 811, enjoins the same archbishop to compel the canons of Aire to give back the head of St. James. The latter epistle is conceived in these words: It has been brought to our hearing that the noble man Philip, count of Flanders, carried off by violence the head of blessed James from the church of St. Vaast, and is said to have placed it in the church of Aire. Whence, since we are unwilling that the aforesaid church of St. Vaast, which has no bishop except the Roman Pontiff, be deprived of its relics, as of its other goods, without reasonable cause, by apostolic writings we command your fraternity that you instantly admonish the provost and canons of the aforesaid church of Aire, and strictly compel them, to restore the aforesaid head with the other relics to the aforesaid church of St. Vaast, all occasion and appeal ceasing. But if, according to your admonition, they should perhaps be unwilling to give back the aforesaid head with the relics, subject the aforesaid church of Aire to interdict, delay and appeal removed, and in any other, to whatever the aforesaid relics shall have been carried, as long as these presents shall exist, forbid the divine offices to be celebrated. Given at Benevento, on the seventh of the Kalends of June.

[78] At length the count of Flanders, moved by the admonitions of the Roman Pontiff and of the archbishop of Reims, and the monks of Arras there was a long lawsuit, thought of composing the suit, and through Hugh, abbot of St. Amand, offered the monks of St. Vaast estates and possessions, that they might leave the relics to him. But Martin, abbot of St. Vaast, did not acquiesce in those conditions, but willed the sacred treasure, unjustly wrested from his monastery, to be restored, as is plain enough from his own letters, given to Philip, which Ferréol Locrius sets forth in the Belgian chronicle at the year of Christ 1174, and our Jacques Malbrancq, book 10 On the Morini, chapter 26. The count finally, seeing the constancy of the abbot of St. Vaast, entered upon another counsel of dividing the sacred pledge with the arbiters, who now for so many years had toiled at reconciling the parties. The arbiters approved the counsel, if the monks of St. Vaast should assent. But these gave their assent to this condition, thinking it better to obtain a part than to be without the whole. And thus that contention was ended, so that to the monks of St. Vaast the back of the head, to the people of Aire the front, was granted. And so the canons of Aire with great joy received the front part of the head, which afterward, in the year 1272, John Aleran, the tenth provost of this church, took care to adorn with a silver case, and which the faithful hitherto devoutly venerate, to whom Pope Nicholas IV granted indulgences, as Raissius relates in the Hierogazophylacium, page 404. But the ascetics of St. Vaast with great pomp and a frequency of people carried back the hinder part of the same head to their monastery, and Martin the abbot ordered a precious vessel to be fashioned, in which Peter, presbyter Cardinal of the title of St. Chrysogonus, legate a latere of Pope Alexander in the Gauls, in the year 1175, on the thirtieth day of April, laid up those relics, as from a synchronous author we said in volume 1 of January, page 160, where also, on the preceding page, we gave from the same writer the miracles which happened in that reporting of the sacred relics.

[79] they claim for themselves by a better right. Lest anyone perhaps say that these are the relics of another St. James, hear the testimony of the aforesaid ascetic of St. Vaast, who probably was present at the translation, and after the miracles done in his time, writes thus: In the same year also in which the aforesaid noble count of Flanders restored that venerable head of blessed James, kindled with the desire of praying and of inquiring the truth of the head itself, he went to St. James in the Spains for the sake of prayer: who, coming thither, began as a pious explorer to inquire more curiously whether the most sacred head of the same were held there; so that he might be made more certain whether it were most truly held among us, or there. Inquiry being made, a certain silver vessel was brought to him, in which by some it was said to be

the head, not of James the brother of John himself, but of James the Less, there deposited. But when the Count had most earnestly demanded that it be opened for him, and could by no means obtain it, it was intimated to him by certain elders that it was not held there at all, but had long ago been translated into Flanders. Hearing which, he returned to his homeland with joy, and, coming to Arras on the very night of the festival of blessed James, made us more certain and more cheerful concerning these matters. I would not have anyone think that out of love toward our Belgium we defend that opinion: for the homeland is indeed dear to us, but truth is more dear. Wherefore if perchance we are deceived, let the Spaniards bring forth the head of their Apostle, distinct from the head of St. James the Less, of which now also, as occasion offers, we must treat.

[80] On this occasion there is treated the time, The manuscript History of Compostela, near the end of book 1, explains at length how Maurice Bourdin, bishop of Coimbra (he commonly has an ill name, and in the year 1118 was antipope against Gelasius II, although Baluze, book 3 of the Miscellanea, from page 471, strives, against the torrent of historiographers, to vindicate his fame after many centuries), stealthily took away from a certain oratory near Jerusalem the head of St. James, and carried it into Spain, which afterward Diego, archbishop of Compostela, having received it as a gift from Queen Urraca, placed in the church of St. James. But after that history has set forth how this sacred treasure came to the knowledge of Maurice, and what things he contrived to carry it off, it adds these things to our purpose: At length on a certain seasonable night, the others being absent, the door of the church being shut, they attack the altar with the mattocks which they had stealthily brought with them, and, digging deep beneath the altar, as they had heard, they find a certain ivory vessel, and within another silver one full of relics: which taking, they depart with the bishop by night, and go to the holy city of Jerusalem, fleeing. Whom, when a certain hermit had seen passing by on the way at earliest dawn, he called them to him and said to them: I indeed know, dearest brothers, what you bear, and how precious a treasure you have stolen. Go, may the grace of God accompany you: for it is fitting that where the body of this Apostle is, there also should be his head. These last words led certain Spanish writers to believe that then first the head of St. James the Greater was brought into Spain.

[81] Francisco de Berganza, a Benedictine, in the Antiquities of Lesser Spain most recently edited at Madrid, by which the head of St. James the Greater part 2, page 34, wrongly contends, against Maurus Castellá Ferrer, that the head brought by Maurice pertains to St. James, the Apostle of Spain, and to establish his opinion he alleges the words of the History of Compostela already cited by us. But that man, who wishes to seem skilled in Spanish history, ought to have noticed that the same History of Compostela, transcribed by us in § IV, asserts that his disciples, forewarned by him while living, that they should transfer his body into the region of Spain to be entombed, taking THE WHOLE BODY WITH THE HEAD, as Pope Leo attests, in the nighttime, came by a swift path all the way to the shore of the sea. He ought to have called into doubt the epistle of Pope Leo, brought forward in the same paragraph, which thus begins: Let your fraternity know, most beloved, in what manner the WHOLE BODY of the most blessed apostle James was translated into Spain.

[82] Finally Berganza ought to have weakened the credit of a certain history, was translated into Spain. which Maurus Castellá Ferrer, book 3, chapter 2, narrates in Spanish, and from him Juan Tamayo de Salazar in the Spanish Martyrology on the first day of May thus in Latin: When the lord Juan de San Millán, bishop of Tuy, perhaps out of the regard of devotion, about the year of the Lord 1550 was visiting the apostolic basilica, and the minister deputed for this was showing the bishop the sacred relics in the sacristy of the church; when with a little rod he showed the head of St. James the Less, the prelate tenaciously doubted of its genuineness, saying: That, if it had been the head of St. James the Less, it would necessarily have to have the mark of the blow of the fuller's club in the skull. Then the minister, letting down the crust from the altar , and drawing out the head from it, pointed out to the doubting bishop the whole brain bruised and shattered by the blow of the club. By which evidence the prelate, compunct, a shower of tears being poured forth, suppliantly begged pardon from the Lord and from the holy Apostle. Let the Spaniards therefore choose to which assertion of the History of Compostela they prefer to give credit. Let them see whether the authority of Maurice, on which this whole narration rests, is to be preferred to the epistle of Pope Leo.

* read "contineri" (to be contained)

* read "ipsum"

* that is, letting down the chest from the altar

§ VIII. The part of the sacred head which the people of Pistoia in Italy possess.

The people of Pistoia in Tuscany chose St. James the Greater as the patron of their city after receiving the relics of his head, The Reverend Father Dominic Sardi of our Society, which St. Atto, their bishop, had obtained in the year 1145 from Diego, archbishop of Compostela, and had honorably placed in the cathedral church, a chapel being also built in honor of the holy Apostle, where through his intercession several miracles are related to have happened. When I had read these and similar things in volume 5 of our May, in the historical Commentary on the Acts of St. Atto, chapter 2, and, shaking out the drawers of our Museum, had discovered that the prodigies of St. James, long ago promised there, were hitherto awaited by us in vain, I wrote to the Reverend Father Dominic Sardi, rector of our college of Pistoia, that he would deign to send me a transcript of those miracles, which I had learned were preserved at Pistoia in an ancient manuscript codex. With the greatest care and diligence the Reverend Father Rector carried into execution the things which I had asked; nay, of his own accord he ordered other monuments, pertaining to the sacred relics of St. James, to be added, and took care that all these should be legitimately transcribed by a public notary and chancellor of the episcopal curia, as is more fully plain from the following instrument of the same notary.

[84] as is plain from the authentic instrument of the notary, In the name of the Lord. Amen. In the year from the Nativity of the Lord one thousand seven hundred and twenty-seven, in the fifth indiction, but on the seventh day of the month of January according to the Pistoian style, Benedict XIII being supreme Pontiff, the most serene John Gaston I, seventh duke of Etruria, reigning. To all and singular who shall see, read, and hear the pages of these presents I make undoubted faith, and attest, I the undersigned general chancellor of the episcopal curia of Pistoia, how before the most illustrious lord Giovanni Giacomo de Scarfantoni, doctor of law, patrician of Pistoia, apostolic protonotary, knight of the religion of St. Stephen, provost of the cathedral church of Pistoia, and, of the most illustrious and reverend lord D. Colombino de Bassi, by the grace of God and of the apostolic See bishop of Pistoia and Prato, vicar in spirituals and temporals and general judge-ordinary, there personally appeared the Reverend Father Dominic Sardi, rector of the college of the Society of Jesus in this city of Pistoia, and demanded from the same most illustrious lord vicar general a thing at once most equitable and most acceptable to the city of Pistoia, when, the letters of the Reverend Father Guillaume Cuper of the same Society, dated at Antwerp on the sixteenth of the Kalends of November 1726, having been rendered to him, he set forth at Pistoia that in the archive of the Work of St. James the apostle, patron of the people of Pistoia, there is found a book written in a very ancient character, in which a certain Contarini, a cleric, chancellor of Pisa, among other things recounted several things which pertained to the sacred body of the divine James, and to the church of Compostela in which it is most religiously preserved; and also committed to the memory of posterity those things which, by the merits and intercession of so great a Patron, beyond all the order and powers of nature, happened wonderfully to the people of Pistoia fleeing to his aid, or otherwise in whatever manner.

[85] obtained full notice concerning the Pistoian miracles and relics of St. James, He set forth also that miracles of this sort exist also in a very ancient volume, commonly called a Lectionary, which is preserved among the treasures of the chapel dedicated to the Apostle patron in the cathedral church of Pistoia: which chief volume (as they had their own chief volumes in the cathedrals of other cities) the clergy of Pistoia used, by ancient custom and institution, when they recited the divine offices before the reformation of the Roman Breviary, edited by the command of St. Pius V in the year 1568, and every year, when they celebrated for their Patron the vigils through the eight preceding days and the feast day with the subsequent Octave, they sought his miracles among the canonical hours from that volume in place of Lessons. All which things being thus set forth, he earnestly asked from the most illustrious lord vicar general that it be committed to one of the chancellors of this episcopal curia to betake himself to the said places, and to transcribe the things which shall seem to pertain to this matter. But because assent is not to be denied to those asking just things, and the merits of the Reverend Father Dominic Sardi toward this city are many, and nothing can be more at heart than that the glory of God and of his Saints, and especially of the most holy Patron, may grow warm, the aforesaid most illustrious lord vicar general gladly assented to the aforesaid petition, and therefore gave to me the undersigned chancellor his commands upon the premises: but I, about to execute the same commands, went to the aforesaid places, as the same Father Dominic Sardi indicated, and expressly to the archive of the above-said Work, and from the book above declared transcribed all and singular the things which follow, opportune faculty being given me by the most illustrious lords Workers of the said Work also, with all fidelity and diligence and word for word, as they are described in the book itself; namely. Then follow the epistles and other ancient testimonies concerning the venerable relics of St. James, which I here subjoin, according to the order of the matter and of the time, from the Pistoian manuscript, and add in the margin variant readings of some moment, which I found in the most recent Ughellian edition, volume 3 of Italia Sacra, from column 296.

[86] When St. Atto had striven to recall to his church Rainerius, celebrated for learning, who had been enrolled in the clergy of Pistoia, which pertain to St. Atto, and had gone over from Italy into England and thence to Compostela for the sake of teaching, Rainerius makes him more certain of the relics of St. James obtained by himself for the church of Pistoia, and answers him in this manner: To his most beloved father A. (that is, Atto, of which initial letters let it suffice to have admonished once) by the grace of God most reverend pontiff of the church of Pistoia, R. (namely Rainerius) by the same grace the least of all the levites of the same see, that which is always owed. Your desirable little letters being read through, we have been everywhere refreshed by their salutation, faithful prayer, promise of the Lord's benediction, giving of thanks, wondrous exhortation, salutary doctrine, honorable and useful command. Wherefore not gaping and immovable, but living and flying to it, I desire to become a stone after the example of that one which the builders rejected, which was made the head of the corner, beside which to remain is not safe, beyond it * to seek is foolish, teaching the way of life, yet first walking through it.

[87] Having first received from thee the praises of thanksgivings,

I therefore render the highest thanks and praises to thy sanctity: the bishop of Pistoia, for the plant does not thrive , dear father, which is often transplanted. Nothing is so useful as to profit in the passing. To thee therefore, most faithful promiser, and to my most sacred church of Pistoia, my mother, the divine clemency accompanying, when I ought and shall be able, I will return; and I have resolved, not undeservedly, to honor and help thee and her according to my strength. The virtue of thy innocence should be praised by me, but I feared to have diminished thy praises. For the Roman and Apostolic see, while I held my study at Winchester in England, broke forth into so great a praise of thy excellence in the court of the prelate of the Winchester men, through the lord Matthew, deacon and cardinal of St. George, who, questioned by me concerning the state of our and the Roman church, saying * that the Roman and Apostolic see would be blessed if it were guided by the direction of thy government, which gladdened me beyond what can be said.

[88] We read of blessed John the Baptist that in the desert he preached the word of life, from the city of Compostela and gave testimony to the Son of God, and denied that he himself was the Christ at the time when he would have been readily believed if he had said so, and the Savior never drew him thence, but permitted him to be seized and delivered into prison and to be diminished in head by Herod. But thee, drawing thee from the solitude of the desert, he leads all the way to the court of heaven; the prison of the monks being opened, he set the supreme pastor immovably upon the candelabrum of the church. Of John it was said: He was not that light. Of thee and the Apostles, whose place thou bearest, it is written: You are the light of the world. Thou dost surpass even blessed Ambrose in the finding and acquisition of sacred bodies: for he only set forth martyrs to his citizens; but thou, admirable father, wilt give thine both a martyr and an Apostle. I say not this to detract from the holy Fathers, but that God may in thee, in part, be glorified in our times, by thy most glorious merits, the divine grace nevertheless going before and following after, and by my not small labor and sweat, and with the most straitened difficulty I obtained not the least part of the relics from the head of the most blessed apostle James, brother of John the Evangelist, all persons interceding for me before the lord archbishop of the see of Compostela, who gave it, and the canons of the same church, and who placed it with his own hands in the little casket in which they are, a part which I do not promise, but faithfully and filially and devoutly I now send to you and to the holy mother church of Pistoia through Medius Villanus, a most prudent man, and your legate, and through Tebaldus his uncle.

[89] were transmitted, Suppliantly therefore and earnestly we implore your sanctity and piety that, with that reverence, with that * honor which so befits an Apostle and our mother church and your person, going out to meet it with clergy and people, if it please your majesty, a procession being made in order, you receive the above-said patronage, and lead it to your and our mother church, to which we delegate it, and treat it honorably, and, in honor of the above-said Apostle, in the basilica of our mother church of Pistoia, take care to consecrate an altar with a large benediction, as you signified to me by letters, as soon as possible. If you shall have done so, there will be one to tell the lord archbishop and me. The lord archbishop of the see of Compostela greets you through me, and all your canons, whom on your behalf I greeted, who rejoiced greatly, and embraces you with the highest love, on account of the solicitude and affection toward me which he perceives in your letters, often revolving that saying: Let not thy fraternity greatly marvel that we, unknown, write to one unknown. All the canons of blessed James the apostle greet you. Greet all the canons of the holy mother church of Pistoia. At present, O paternal sweetness, I think I am well, thanks be to God, and I am with you in heart and mind. I greet the lord Anselm, most holy monk of the monastery of St. Michael de Furcule, and all the brothers of the same place and congregation. That Rainerius does not seem to have returned to the church of Pistoia, because in the title of the epistle which the synchronous author prefixed to it, he is also called by Jerome of Vallombrosa cardinal, that is, canon of Compostela: for that the canons of Compostela should be so called, Pope Paschal II had granted. Hence our Papebroch, in volume 5 of May, in the historical Commentary on the Life of St. Atto, number 15, thinks that Rainerius, who indeed at that time, when he wrote these things, was not yet such, was afterward bound by that bond and incardinated into the church of Compostela, as he there speaks. But these and other things which might be observed in these letters make nothing to our matter. Wherefore let us proceed in reporting the ancient instruments.

[90] Diego Gelmírez, who governed the church of Compostela for a very long time, whose genuineness by the testimony of the archbishop of Compostela, thus confirms by his testimony the truth and genuineness of the relics which Rainerius had expressed in his letters: Diego, by the grace of God archbishop of the see of Compostela, and the whole assembly of the canons of the same church, to Atto most reverend prelate of the church of Pistoia, to all the canons of the same church, and to the consuls of the aforesaid city and the whole people, greeting and benediction in Christ. Know for certain, and in nothing doubt, that master Rainerius, most familiar to us and in every way most dear, as you wrote, our lord, and son of your church, speaks the truth concerning the relics of the body of the most blessed apostle James, which he received from us with the greatest difficulty, yet with kindly charity, and sent to you, but * that he heard from most prudent and elder men, canons of the church of blessed James the apostle, and in the truth of the matter from us, that it [is] the head of the most blessed apostle James, brother of John the Evangelist, whence with the highest reverence they were taken by us: and so among us it is believed to be, is said, and for certain is held. Therefore we beseech you that honorably, as is fitting, you receive the above-written relics of the aforesaid Apostle and treat them most honorably. Farewell.

[91] Then the archbishop of Compostela, desiring to know by letters in what honor the sacred relics of St. James were held at Pistoia, ordered this to be inquired through the mentioned Rainerius, who wrote to St. Atto in this manner: To Atto by the grace of God venerable bishop of Pistoia, Rainerius son of the church of Pistoia, and a humble levite, that which is always owed. The lord archbishop of the see of Compostela, in all things a most faithful friend, enjoined me, most holy father, that I should send to you, so that you might signify to him by your letters, through the pilgrims coming to the thresholds of blessed James the apostle, up to the next Easter or up to the Ascension, in what honor the patronage of blessed James the apostle is held among you, and how honorably placed, which he benignly bestowed on me, greatly wearied for this, and I sent to your sanctity. Suppliantly therefore I ask that you delay not to write back to him. Farewell. For the aforesaid archbishop said to me that he never hitherto did such and so great a thing for anyone.

[92] Without doubt St. Atto rendered an account of the honorable placing of those relics, given back and forth, and abundantly satisfied the just petition of Rainerius: for the prelate of Compostela answered him thus: Diego, by the grace of God archbishop of the see of Compostela, to Atto most reverend bishop of Pistoia, greeting, and the benediction of the most blessed apostle James. Your greetings, which we have often seen and heard, and the letters which you sent to a certain son of ours and master of the schools of the church of blessed James, a prudent man, namely the lord Rainerius, in which we learned that we were greeted by you through him; whence we give you thanks, and because you have honorably and most holily treated the most precious patronage of the head of the most blessed apostle James, which we gave to the above-said Rainerius, we render immense praises to God and to your sanctity. For hold it for certain, that if we had anything more, which is impossible for us, we would most diligently transmit it to you out of love of you and of master Rainerius. Wherefore we implore your clemency that you deign henceforth to make me a participant of your prayers and those of all the brothers of Vallombrosa, and a partner of your benefits, which we do for you, and now confirm in all the benefits of our church. We ask moreover that you deign to visit us by your letters, and likewise deign to obtain for us the letters of the above-said congregation: for truly thou art what thou art called, a pious archimandrite, and a sober bishop *. All the canons of our church greet you. We also greet your canons. Farewell.

[93] Finally Pope Eugene III, moved by the frequent miracles and by Pope Eugene III which he had understood from Atto were done by the intercession of St. James in the church of Pistoia, that he might promote devotion toward these relics of the holy Apostle, directed the following diploma to the neighboring bishops: Eugene, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the venerable reverend brothers, R. of Siena, O. of Volterra, N. of Florence, O. of Lucca , and G. of Luni, bishops, greeting and apostolic benediction. We believe it has come to your notice what and how great signs of miracles the omnipotent Lord willed to show at present through the merits of the blessed apostle James at his sacred altar in the church of Pistoia: whence the faithful peoples from diverse and remote parts of the earth began, out of the regard of devotion, to run together to the same venerable place, and to seek the remedies of their salvation. It is fitting therefore for the Christian faithful, and especially the neighbors, for so great a benefit conferred, to give thanks to our Redeemer, and to blessed James, his apostle, faithfully to exhibit the due obsequies of devotion. And therefore by apostolic writings, commanding, we enjoin you, that you strictly admonish your people and parishioners, that they in no way hinder men and women, from wherever they be, setting out to so sacred an oratory for the sake of devotion and prayer, nor presume to inflict on them any molestation or disturbance. But if they shall presume to do so, denounce them publicly as excommunicated, as sacrilegious persons and violators of the truce of God, and cause the same sentence of excommunication to be firmly observed through your parishes *, until they shall have made satisfaction. Given at Viterbo on the tenth of the Kalends of December.

[94] is proved by diplomas. The same Pontiff granted indulgences by another diploma to all the faithful of Christ who should visit the Pistoian altar of St. James, of which in our manuscript this is the tenor: Eugene, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to all the faithful of God devoutly visiting the oratory of the blessed apostle James, which is situated in the church of Pistoia, greeting and apostolic benediction. The ineffable magnitude of the divine clemency, which wills all men to be saved and to come to the acknowledgment of the truth, has shown very many clear kinds of divers miracles by the merits of the blessed apostle James at his most sacred altar, unto the compunction of the faithful, in the church of Pistoia. For, as we have learned from our venerable brother Atto, the religious bishop of the same city, and from many others reporting, the blind, the lame, the crippled, and those weak with other * divers languors, in the same place, through the prayers and merits, as we said, of blessed James, received the desired remedies of health. We therefore, giving thanks to the omnipotent Lord for so great a showing of divine grace, have thought it worthy that the Christian faithful who shall devoutly

visit the aforesaid venerable place with the regard of piety, may merit through us some relief of their sins, and therefore, trusting in the merits of the blessed apostles of Christ, Peter and Paul and the same James, by apostolic authority we appoint that as many as shall visit the aforesaid venerable oratory for the sake of devotion and prayer may rejoice together to have received an indulgence of seven days of the enjoined penance. Given at Viterbo on the tenth of the Kalends of December. Since, therefore, according to the testimonies hitherto reported, the people of Pistoia possess some portion of the sacred head, and the Belgians received a great part of the same long ago, as was proved in the preceding paragraph, I probably conclude that at this time little of the head of St. James the Greater remains at Compostela.

[95] To these ancient instruments are subjoined the stupendous benefits Miracles, most of which a synchronous author collected, conferred on the people of Pistoia and others imploring the patronage of St. James, which a certain cleric, by name Contarini, a synchronous writer and a witness beyond all exception, collected, as will appear from the very reading of the miracles. Yet I do not judge that all the miracles which are narrated in that manuscript codex were written by that Contarini. In the first place I conjecture this from the end of the third chapter, according to our division of the chapters, in which is read this clause, which indeed is written in a continuous series, but seems to be reducible to this rhythm:

The year of the Lord a thousand, And then the first twice-hundredth, And also the tenth of the Kalends Of April brings the days to be recalled; The author of this and the reporter, The writer of the deed performed.

From these words I conjecture that Contarini put an end to his writing on the tenth of the Kalends of April in the year 1201. This conjecture of mine is confirmed by the last miracle, which is expressly said to have been wrought on the Lord's Nativity in the year 1238. But since Contarini says that he wrote certain miracles from the report of St. Atto, and St. Atto died in the year 1153, or 1155, as others will have it, how did the same Contarini, after eighty and more years, write this last miracle, unless you make him more than a hundred years old, which without evident testimony is not rashly to be affirmed? Therefore I suspect that the miracles of the fourth chapter were successively added by others. Nor does this suspicion of mine diminish their value: for they seem to have been noted by contemporary witnesses at the time when they happened. Thus in chapter 4, number 291, whoever the writer be, has these things: But all the aforesaid things I understood more fully from, and heard from, him who had incurred the mentioned danger.

[96] This precious monument of antiquity, for whose mere transcription we paid eighteen Roman scudi, was exactly transcribed for us by the Pistoian notary, or more than fifty of our florins, we shall now for the first time publish in print at the end of this part, after the other miracles, to the greater glory of the holy Apostle. Moreover with how great accuracy the Pistoian notary transcribed these ancient instruments, he testifies after his transcript in these words: All and singular the above-said things, when I the undersigned chancellor transcribed them word for word, as the gravity of the matter demands, I was wanting neither in diligence nor in fidelity, so that I passed over not one jot or tittle, whereby faith may without all doubt be given to those things, for the more valid confirming of which the force of my oath is also added. Having at length discharged this duty, I betook myself to the treasures of the chapel of the blessed apostle James, in which, as the Reverend Father Dominic Sardi had advised, I found that volume called a Lectionary; which being examined, how diligently I found most of those miracles, which are mentioned above, to be recounted, and these, together with the above-described letters of Pope Eugene III inserted in the same place, to be recited in the divine Offices distributively, namely on the several days, in the vigils, that is, on the eight days preceding the feast of the Patron of the city, on the feast day itself, and also on the eight following, in place of Lessons. To these I think it worth while to add this, that some of those miracles which were committed to letters are seen also expressed with a very ancient brush on the walls of the treasury, where these most ancient monuments are kept. In faith and testimony of all and singular which things I, Ignatius Nicholas Bracali, son of the late D. Charles, doctor of both laws, citizen and public notary of Pistoia, and also general chancellor of the episcopal curia of Pistoia, have subscribed with my own hand, to the praise of God, and of the blessed Virgin Mary, and of the divine apostle James.

[97] whose faith is confirmed by another testimony. At length, according to custom, the legitimate authority of this notary or chancellor is thus confirmed by another testimony: Giovanni Giacomo Scarfantoni, doctor of law, patrician of Pistoia, apostolic protonotary, knight of the religion of St. Stephen, provost of the cathedral church of Pistoia, and, of the most illustrious and reverend lord D. Colombino Bassi, by the grace of omnipotent God and of the holy apostolic See bishop of Pistoia and Prato, vicar in spirituals and temporals, and general judge-ordinary. To all and singular we make faith and attest that the above-said lord doctor of both laws Ignatius Nicholas Bracali, general chancellor of this episcopal curia of Pistoia, was and is a public notary of Pistoia, lawful, worthy of faith, and not a little versed in reading through ancient characters, and such as he made himself above, and that to his writings, both public and private, undoubted faith has always been given and is given in court and out of it, as we also give it. In faith of which, etc. Given at Pistoia in the episcopal palace on the sixteenth day of January 1726 from the Nativity. Giovanni Giacomo Scarfantoni, vicar general. The transcript was fortified with the seal of the bishop of Pistoia in red wax, and below there had also subscribed Carlo Biagio Spinelli, doctor of both laws, episcopal chancellor. From these authentic instruments it is plain how much that notable unpublished document is to be esteemed, which we shall subjoin separately, after the thirteenth paragraph of this part, to the other miracles, as we promised above, ancient titles being prefixed, which after our manner we shall reduce to fewer chapters.

* Ughellus: "milliaris"

* Ughellus: "infra"

* Ughellus inserts something

* Ughellus: "utique"

* Ughellus: "non convalescit"

* perhaps "dixit"

* Ughellus: "&"

* Ughellus: "scilicet"

* Ughellus inserts "and most holy"

* Ughellus adds "and just"

* Ughellus: "prelate" (præsul)

* Ughellus omitted this

* Ughellus: "of Lucca" (Lucensi)

* Ughellus: "ours" (nostras)

* Ughellus: "others" (alii)

§ IX. His other relics honored in many places.

[98] For certain relics which under the name of St. James the Greater in Gaul, Andreas Saussay, in the Gallican Martyrology, on the twenty-fifth day of July thus magnificently announces the feast of the holy Apostle after his manner: The solemnity of St. James the apostle, son of Zebedee, but brother of St. John the Evangelist, beheaded at Jerusalem on the eighth of the Kalends of April by Herod, with whose most sacred pledges Gaul, supported, devoutly venerates at Arras the head, at Troyes the other arm, at Toulouse a no small part of the most precious body, preserved with worthy honor, and other sacred spoils elsewhere. Concerning the relics of Arras and Toulouse we have treated more than enough above, §7. Now let us also say a few things concerning the arm at Troyes. Nicolas Des-Guerrois, in the French history of the diocese of Troyes, folio 85, thinks that the arm of St. James the Greater was brought about the year 1209 from Constantinople to Troyes, where it is hitherto preserved in the monastery of St. Martin-ès-Aires in a silver reliquary, on which are engraved the following little verses:

Translated from thy city, Constantine, the arm Of James the Greater lies here reverently covered.

I suspect that these relics rather regard St. James the Less, since they are said to have been brought from the city of Constantinople, in which his bones once rested, as was said in volume 1 of May, page 27.

[99] Our Cajetan, in the Sicilian Martyrology, on the twenty-fifth day of July assigns to us another arm of the same Apostle in Sicily in these words: in Sicily, At Monreale, the translation of the arm of St. James the apostle. He indeed cites in the margin the records of the church of Monreale; but I desire a fuller explanation and proof of these relics. Nearly the same judgment is to be passed concerning the finger of St. James, which is preserved at Messina in the greater church, as I read in a certain little work on the relics which is subjoined to the Martyrology of Maurolico, and was printed at Venice in the year 1568: for in the edition of smaller form, folio 151, among the relics translated in the fifteenth century to the church of Messina is numbered the finger of St. James the apostle. On account of this expression it could deservedly be doubted whether the finger of St. James the Less or of the Greater is honored there. But the same little work, edited in the same year at the same place in the larger form, and appended to the Martyrology of Maurolico, by I know not what authority, attributes those relics, folio 117, thus to our Saint: The finger of St. James the Greater the apostle. What is to be thought of this matter, and what was the reason for changing the edition, the people of Messina will be able to discuss. I know not whether in another town of Sicily, which is called Calata Jeronis, commonly Caltagirone, the relics of our St. James are preserved; but I know that he is there venerated as a chief patron, and is famous for miracles, which yet never came to our hands, although they were long ago promised to us, as was said in the Notes to the miracles of Bl. Gerland, volume 3 of June, pages 658 and 659.

[100] An island of the kingdom of Naples, situated in the Tyrrhenian sea, in the kingdom of Naples, which took the name Capri from its episcopal city, commonly called Capri, also glories that it has relics of St. James the Greater, concerning which Ughellus, in volume 7 of Italia Sacra, column 353, writes thus: Three monasteries of Religious are counted in that island, of which the most beautiful and opulent is that of the Carthusians, where there is a temple noble for the cult of the divine James, fortified with a beautiful tower, founded by Giacomo Arcucci, lord of the island, who bequeathed to the monastery eight hundred gold pieces every year, in which the arm of the divine James, brother of John the Evangelist, is seen; and therefore dedicated to the divine James, where the founder himself is read to be buried, having died in the year 1386. But how much faith is to be given to Ughellus in that matter is easily gathered from §7, number 75, where we treated of the Amalfitan head of St. James.

[101] Jacopo Gualla, in the catalogue of relics which he prefixed to his Sanctuary of Pavia, and elsewhere in Italy are wont to be shown, greater certainty is required. enumerates the sacred remains of the Saints, which in the year 1499 were translated from the citadel of Pavia into its greater church. But among these he recounts the right arm of St. James the Greater the apostle. Onofrio Panvinio, M. Attilio Serrano, and others who described the seven churches of the City, assign to me also in the church of St. Paul outside the Roman walls the arm of St. James the Greater. Finally Gabriel Bucelin, in the Benedictine sacristy which he subjoined to his Menology, places a great part of the arm with three bones in the monastery of Andechs in Bavaria. But for all these relics we require firmer testimonies, as also for the right arm which is said to be preserved at Torcello in the Venetian duchy, as we said above, number 60.

[102] The relics of St. James the Greater at Liège The people of Liège in Belgium bring forward older and more solid documents for the arm of the same holy Apostle, which in the year 1056 they received from Compostela: for Albert, the second abbot of the monastery of St. James

abbot and an eyewitness, concerning these relics deposited by him in a certain altar, left these things written in a very ancient codex for the memory of posterity: The suffrages which, the divinity being propitious, befell this place in the time of my provisorship, I Albert, an unworthy abbot, put into this scroll, so that, if perchance the altar should be changed, it may lie hidden from no one in what manner these pledges of the Saints were laid up. In the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand fifty-six, in the ninth indiction, Henry III being emperor, Tietwin the pontiff presiding over this church of Liège, a certain one of our brothers, by name Robert, with some God-fearing men, by our license and benediction and that of all the brothers, went to Galicia for the sake of prayer, and asked that the relics of the most glorious apostle James be transmitted to this place by the king and the pontiff, and by the grace of God obtained it. There were sent particles from their bodies of the holy apostles James and Bartholomew, and of the holy martyrs Pancras and Sebastian, and by the order of the bishop, with the exultation and veneration of the whole city, they were presented to this temple.

[103] according to older Lambert, surnamed the Little, a religious of the same abbey, in a manuscript chronicle which he brought down to the year 1194, thus confirms the same translation of the relics: In the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 1056, in the ninth indiction, the coming of the relics of St. James the apostle, brother of St. John the Evangelist, and of Bartholomew the apostle (elsewhere is added: and of the holy martyrs Sebastian and Pancras), from Compostela, a village of Galicia; which the most noble king Garsea sent to bishop Dietwin through Robert the monk, afterward abbot of the same church of St. James. These, with so great honor and the joy of the whole people, and with miracles flashing, were carried to the church of the Apostle, so that the age of our elders neither before nor after remembered to have seen a happier day. The Chronicle of Gembloux, of Tongeren, and others make mention of these relics brought from Galicia, and the Deeds of the abbots of St. Lawrence express the same more distinctly in these words: In the time of Theoduin the church of St. James of Liège merited to be enriched with the arm of St. James the Greater, together with the relics of St. Bartholomew the apostle, and of Sebastian and Pancras the martyrs, Brother Robert, a monk of the same monastery, being sent to Galicia.

[104] and trustworthy monuments, Giles, a monk of Orval, who before the middle of the thirteenth century collected the deeds of the bishops of Liège from older monuments, in John Chapeauville's work on the Pontiffs of Liège, volume 2, from page 18 to 26, narrates this history at length, clothed with all its circumstances. But that he described it from older instruments, Giles indicates by this preface: But in what manner the arm of blessed James the apostle, brother of blessed John the Evangelist, from Galicia, with the relics of SS. Bartholomew the apostle, and Sebastian the martyr and holy Pancras, in the times of Theoduin himself, was translated into the city of Liège and honorably laid up in the monastery of St. James on the island of the aforesaid city, as we read in a certain book of the aforesaid church, to the honor of God and of the whole homeland we have thought worthy to annex to this work. Presently the same author sets up a prolix narration of the whole matter, which we here pass over, lest our Commentary grow too much. Yet since a more recent writer of the affairs of Liège has accurately reduced this history to a compendium, I here subjoin it for the sake of the reader, to whom perhaps the cited work of Chapeauville is not at hand.

[105] Our Bartholomew Fisen, in the History of the church of Liège, book 8, seem to be genuine, number 27, page 304, thus abridges the whole matter: By a happy increase of religion, a precious treasure, conveyed to Liège from the Spains, enriched the monastery of St. James. From it a monk, by name Robert (he was afterward the fourth abbot), having set out for Compostela with a mind piously disposed toward the Deity, together with others, some also of the nobility, was received with signal humanity by king Garsea; who, since he was courting a marriage with the sister of the emperor Henry, thought these clients of his were to be won over by every good office. And having heard that a monastery had recently been founded for St. James at Liège, he liberally granted to Robert the monk, at his request, the arm of the holy Apostle (I interpret it a signal portion of it, nor does aught else remain today), and added other relics of St. Bartholomew the apostle, and of the holy martyrs Sebastian and Pancras. Enriched with this noble treasure, Robert returned to Liège, on the very feast day of St. Servatius of the year (one thousand) fifty-six. The city, poured out to meet him, received him with signal and pious pomp. God is said afterward to have made his holy Apostle illustrious by prodigies. Indeed, a merchant who had cast off for profane uses the veil in which the sacred relics had been carried, felt his whole estate go to ruin, until he willed it, brought back to Liège, to be consecrated to St. James, and then in a short time gathered great wealth by a happy trade. Giles says that two banners, made from that veil, were preserved in the same temple down to his time. From such monuments I seem able safely to conclude that the true relics of St. James the Greater are honored by the people of Liège.

[106] From the things which we said above, §7, concerning the head of St. James divided between the monks of St. Vaast and the canons of Aire, as can also be asserted of the relics of Capelbrouck, it is easily gathered that those relics are also genuine, concerning which our Malbrancq, in volume 2 On the Morini, book 10, chapter 26, page 296, writes thus: When the head was cut, a certain little bone the size of a royal of Tours, says the writer, broken off, fell upon the altar; which the count at once snatched up, keeping it for himself: and as he was adorning the church of St. Peter, now recently restored, with the gift of the front of the head, so he judged it fitting to endow with that particle the chapel at Broc, or the church of Capelbrouck, likewise founded by him in former years; since that village had been attributed to those canons of Aire, whom in the year 1169 he had provided with sixteen benefices, sought especially from thence: and thus more inland Flanders might enjoy the cult and protection of the great Apostle; and in very fact, says the same writer, in that village an infinite multitude of people is gathered to that very bone even today for eight days before August.

[107] These things seem certain enough; but I am unwilling to pass the same judgment concerning the various relics but not concerning other relics of this sort of Belgium and Germany. which in Belgium are shown under the name of St. James the Greater, and which Raissius in his Belgian Hierogazophylacium everywhere commemorates. The same scruple cleaves to me concerning certain relics of Germany, such as Giles Gelenius, in book 4 On the greatness of Cologne, page 708, assigns in the sacred and pious Calendar in this manner: On the eighth of the Kalends of August, of St. James the Greater the apostle, whose jawbone is honored at Cologne in St. Pantaleon's, and other relics in other churches.

[108] Certain relics of uncertain quantity being passed over I know not what and how great were the relics of St. James the Greater, concerning which an anonymous author, whom John du Bosc thinks wrote in the tenth century, in the Commentary on the translation of St. James, edited in the Floriacensian Library, part 2, page 195, makes mention in these words: For there is in the parts of Neustria a church consecrated to his holy memory, in which his most glorious relics are venerated, subject to the Floriacensian basilica of St. Benedict, where we know so great miracles to be done by a daily working as befit so great an Apostle to work, which also elsewhere would suffice for very many basilicas of precious Saints.

[109] and remains of uncertain quality, Roger Hoveden, an English writer who flourished at the beginning of the thirteenth century, in the first part of the Annals, at the year of Christ 1116, narrates that Matilda, widow of the emperor Henry, returned to her father Henry, king of the English, bringing with her the hand of St. James the apostle: But the empress, he says, taking with her the incorrupt hand of blessed James the apostle and the imperial crown, returned to king Henry her father… But Henry, king of the English, for joy of the hand of blessed James the apostle, founded the noble abbey of Reading, and enriched it with many goods, and placed in it the hand of blessed James the apostle; but the imperial crown he laid up in his treasury. But since Hoveden does not express of which St. James the apostle that hand was, neither shall I determine anything. I pass over here the other relics of this holy Apostle, scattered through all Europe, because they are either of lesser moment, or lack ancient and authentic testimonies. Nor am I willing here to examine more curiously the traveling staff of St. James, and the other posthumous monuments of the same Apostle, which are wont to be piously visited by the Compostelan pilgrims, or shown elsewhere everywhere in Spain, concerning which may be seen Maurus Castellá Ferrer, book 3, chapter 1, Ambrosio Morales, book 9, chapter 7, and other Spanish writers.

[110] The Escorial relics of the same holy Apostle are recounted, Yet here deserve to be noted the notable parts of the same sacred body which are preserved with great veneration in the Escorial monastery of St. Lawrence, which Philip II, king of the Spains, built with plainly royal munificence, and enriched with a precious treasure of very many relics. In the manuscript Reliquary of that monastery, which is written with the highest care and elegance, four larger and two smaller bones of the holy Apostle are exactly recounted, to which the writer of the Reliquary subjoins these things in Spanish: Some marvel that the sacred remains of this holy Apostle are found outside Compostela, since his body is now entirely closed to all. But they do not notice that the prelate of that church did this afterward, lest at length by the devotion of pilgrims the whole body should be gradually carried off. I understand easily enough how the Catholic kings and other princes, before the tomb of St. James at Compostela was closed for the said reason, could obtain certain relics of this Apostle, and so that the bones of St. James the Greater which are honored in the Escorial monastery are true. But another difficulty offers itself to me, when I read the letters of donation, inserted in this Reliquary, by which Helena Dunckers, prioress of the Order of St. Benedict in Germany, in the year 1595 grants to Juan Bautista Massia of the Order of the Most Holy Trinity the great bone of the arm of St. James the apostle, son of Zebedee, that he may carry it back and lay it up in some monastery of his own or another Order, or of another church, in the parts of the Spains. Concerning that great bone, which together with the relics of St. Lawrence afterward came to the Escorial monastery of the Hieronymites, I now propose my doubt.

[111] The aforesaid prioress, in the letters of donation approved by the most illustrious archbishop of Cologne, concerning which some difficulty is proposed, strives to persuade that these are the genuine bones of SS. Lawrence and James the Greater, and to this end speaks thus: Which relics of the Saints Lawrence and James the apostle we for certain believe to be theirs, although it is not gathered from their most ancient writings, yet from time immemorial, and by no recollection of men, they are held for such, and are venerated in the same church. There is a certain stone in the same monastery, where Benedict the abbot confesses and testifies that [he] obtained these same and many other relics of the Saints from Pope Gregory I, also the Great. But now I ask, by what show of probability is Gregory the Great, who died at the beginning of the seventh century, said to have given to Benedict the abbot these relics of St. James the Greater, especially since the Spaniards will have it that all the sacred remains of their holy

Patron were carried into Spain in the first century, and there lay hidden and unknown until the beginning of the ninth century? I know indeed that a certain evasion can here be devised, and it can be answered that in the first century of the Church some bones of the holy Apostle could have been given to the Roman Pontiffs, which afterward came to Gregory the Great. But that answer, without a probable reason and legitimate testimony, does not seem to be admitted. I should therefore prefer to believe that this great bone pertains to James the Less, or to another Saint of the same name, which the simple tradition of the pious nuns attributed to St. James the Greater.

[112] No less a difficulty do the relics of St. James the Greater suffer as also concerning those which before the middle of the eighth century which before the middle of the eighth century were deposited in the monastery of St. Peter de Taberna (that is situated in the region of Ribagorza, and today, after various ruins, under the title of a Priory, is annexed to the abbey of St. Victorian, as the History of the monastery of San Juan de la Peña relates, edited in Spanish by the most ample lord Juan Briz Martínez the abbot, book 2, chapter 20), as is narrated in a very ancient codex of the monastery of San Juan de la Peña, from which Jerónimo de Blancas, in the Commentaries on the affairs of Aragon, edited a certain fragment, part of which, to be of use afterward, we here set forth.

[113] Therefore in this fragment, which is printed among the Commentaries of Jerónimo de Blancas, volume 3 of Hispania Illustrata, page 580, are said to have rested in the monastery of St. Peter de Taberna. Belascutus, a synchronous monk, testifies the following: The fury of persecution prevailed at the time when King Roderic ruled over Spain, and the Saracens entered the Spains… This persecution being learned, the holy bishop Bentius (namely of Saragossa, as is plain from what follows) gathered his disciples into one, and with tears said: … Now therefore, sons, acquiesce in the counsels of your father, and with your codices, and with the arm of St. Peter the apostle, and with the other relics of the Saints, let us either go to Rome, or flee to the mountains, where the Saracens cannot find us… With a few of his own he fled secretly from the city, … came to our monastery, and, as was fitting, our abbot lord Donatus with the whole congregation received him honorably: for he came with a great treasure… At the same time the most strenuous king Charles reigned over the nation of the Franks (no other can here be signified than Charles Martel, unless one wish portentously to extend the age of bishop Bentius), to whom lord Donatus sent me… Therefore after my return from France the holy bishop Bentius was still living, and appointed a day to dedicate new altars, in which he might lay up most holy… relics from the body of St. Paul the apostle, and of St. Andrew, and of St. James, brother of St. John the Evangelist… These things therefore being venerably completed, the bishops of the whole province being convoked, he appointed the day of the dedication of the church, and it was dedicated with great honor. At this dedication seven bishops were present… and I the sinner Belascutus: and I swear to you my most beloved brothers, by the day of the dread judgment, that this which I have set forth to you I have said in truth; because I saw it with my eyes, and if there be any things which I did not see, I heard them from the mouth of the faithful. It will help to make mention of these things afterward. But as regards the present difficulty of the relics, it seems to me to be solved like the preceding; unless one prefer to say that in the first centuries of the Church the sacred remains of St. James the Greater were divided. But if neither of these ways please, let the Spaniards themselves suggest another.

[114] The harmless error of certain Catholics, Let no one take it amiss that so rigid an examination of relics has hitherto been instituted by us: for we do this that we may stop the mouths of the heretics, who calumniate Catholics, as though without any discrimination they superstitiously enclose in cases whatever bones come to hand, and expose them to public veneration. Those sacrilegious men can know that most prudent decrees were issued by the Council of Trent, lest any fraud creep into the sacred relics, and they see how severely these are discussed by the Catholics themselves, and how certain testimonies of sanctity are required. Nor does the error of certain churches favor the most impudent lie of these enemies of the saints, which churches think that they have the relics of some Saint, which another church really possesses. Thus the people of Breisach in Germany (many examples of this kind occur everywhere in our Acts) piously venerate the bodies of SS. Gervasius and Protasius, and by their patronage obtain prodigious benefits, although these more probably rest at Milan in Italy, as our Papebroch in the appendix to the nineteenth day of June, volume 6 of that month, part 1, from page 209, after retracting his former opinion, ingenuously confesses.

[115] by which they invoke one Saint for another, Thus the most benign God, in several places in which the body of one and the same Saint is thought to be, on account of small relics of whatever kind of that Saint, or perhaps on account of the merits of some unknown Martyr, whose sacred bones rest there, works manifest miracles, as St. Gregory the Great, book 2 of the Dialogues, chapter 38, answers to Peter, asking about the cause of similar miracles, in these words: Where the holy Martyrs lie in their own bodies, there is no doubt, Peter, that they can show many signs, as they also do, and to those seeking with a pure mind show innumerable miracles. But because it can be doubted by weak minds whether they be present there to hear, where it is certain that they are not in their bodies, there it is necessary that they show greater signs, where the weak mind can doubt of their presence. But those whose mind is fixed in God have so much the greater merit of faith, as they know that there they are both not lying in the body, and yet not absent from hearing.

[116] Finally I conclude with Sassi, who in the apology for the bodies of SS. Gervasius and Protasius, chapter 8, it in no way favors the heretics number 24, writes thus of the same controversy: And so no prudent fear of error can underlie even the commonly received and constant cult of sacred relics: nevertheless the inscrutable judgments and unsearchable ways of the Lord, the purity of our religion being always unharmed, permit some things to be altogether in obscurity, some in doubt of place: nor can this be called an offense or a scandal of the Catholic faith: for since God is one, whom we first worship in his Saints; but the Saints themselves the most happy fellowship of eternal life so binds together that no chink of envy or emulation lies open; what evil, if under an unknown or another's name we pour out our homage to the heavenly spirits, provided that the spoils of laid-aside mortality which we worship as present be truly of some Saint? For neither to voices nor to syllables do we affix a superstitious cult, nor within the venerable reliquaries do we enclose and confine our prayers and vows, as the enemies of our faith falsely prate, but with mind and spirit we fly to heaven, and implore the aid and patronage of the Saints standing by the divine throne, and rejoicing together in the indissoluble fellowship of the same kingdom.

[117] Therefore an innocent slip of a name harms neither their glory nor our religion. nor does it hurt our faith. Nay, if we look intimately at the matter, both the cult of the Saints and the piety of the peoples receives a certain increase from these conflicts of opinions: for while several churches dispute concerning the same body, each one meanwhile spends all its strength that it may strive to attest by excellent offices of religion its veneration toward the Saints whose sacred remains it thinks it guards, and in this one thing there is concordant discord, that all, kindled with a holy emulation, the material of homage being as it were multiplied, conspire to the amplifying of their glory and the increasing in us of confidence and imitation of virtues, as is everywhere known by experience. Then he subjoins the example of the Poles and Bohemians, who contend sharply concerning the body of St. Adalbert, and in each kingdom solemnly celebrate his feast with an Octave, as our Papebroch, in volume 3 of April, page 177, shows.

§ X. The pilgrimages to the Compostelan relics of St. James instituted in ancient times.

Lucas of Tuy, in the chronicle of the world, which was edited in volume 4 of Hispania Illustrata, page 75, writes Although Charlemagne probably did not go to the sepulcher of St. James, that Charlemagne, king of Gaul, went to the sepulcher of St. James. The thresholds also of blessed James, he says, when the most Christian Charles, coming through the byways of Álava, visited for the sake of praying, by his healthier counsel king Alfonso destroyed the city of Iria, and exalted with metropolitan honor the church of St. James the apostle, which he himself had built, with the assent of the reverend father Leo III, the Roman Pontiff. To say nothing here of the metropolitan honor, which was first granted to the prelate of Compostela long after those times, since the synchronous and nearly contemporary authors, who wrote copiously and exactly the deeds done by Charlemagne, make no mention of this pilgrimage, I fear that Lucas of Tuy was deceived by Pseudo-Turpin, who in the History of Charlemagne, chapter 19, among other fables not unlike those of Amadis, thus narrates: Then, the greater armies being dismissed, Charles went in Spain to the thresholds of blessed James, and increased the Christians whom he found dwelling in that country; but those who had returned to the perfidy of the Saracens he either destroyed with the sword or sent as exiles into Gaul. Then he constituted prelates and presbyters throughout the cities, and, a council of bishops and princes being assembled in the city of Compostela, he ordained, out of veneration for blessed James the Greater, that all prelates and princes and Christian kings, namely Spanish and Galician, present and future, should obey the bishop of St. James. At Iria he by no means constituted a prelate, because he did not reckon it for a city, but ordered it to be a town subject to the see of Compostela. Then in the same council I, Turpin, archbishop of Reims, at the request of Charles, on the Kalends of June honorably dedicated the basilica and altar of blessed James with forty bishops.

[119] which journey Lucas of Tuy asserted perhaps from the fabulist pseudo-Turpin, It wearies me to report the other trifles of this masked fabulist, of whom our Possevino, in the Apparatus Sacer, at the word Tilpinus, volume 2, page 498, thus pronounces: But the fabulous little book which is falsely attributed to Tilpin or Turpin, neither Frodoard himself in his Tilpin, nor Hincmar, nor Lupus, nor Vitaldus, nor Adelmus and Theodulph, the gravest writers of those times (as also Papire Masson testifies in his Annals of Gaul), anywhere make mention of: many things prove it to have been written by an unskilled and lying man. Of the death indeed of Charlemagne it makes mention in the three hundred and second chapter, although it is established that, Tilpin being dead, a successor Wulfarius was given as archbishop to the people of Reims by the same Charles, and it is plain from the synod held at Reims in the year 813, convoked by Charlemagne, at the request of Wulfarius, archbishop of the people of Reims. Therefore that little book (as Masson rightly says) seems to have been written by an idle man for the pleasure of youth, not long after the reign of Charles the Bald: and a version of it is preserved in the royal library in Gaul, in the ancient and almost obsolete language of the Gauls, and in the most ancient characters. Baronius in the Ecclesiastical Annals

about the end of the year 812 shows that Lucas of Tuy, Rodrigo of Toledo, and other Spanish writers were led into error by this pseudo-writer, and in the same place explodes another fable of the same fictitious Turpin.

[120] yet in the ninth century, besides others, Yet I do not doubt that in the ninth century, at the beginning of which the sacred relics of St. James had first been detected in Galicia, very many of the faithful flowed together to this place: for Walafrid Strabo, who died in the year 849, intimates that his sepulcher was in his time famous for miracles, by these verses in Canisius, volume 6 of the Ancient Lessons, page 661:

Here too James, sprung from an ancient sire, Defends his lofty shrine with holy covering, Who, when pious Christ called from the margin of the sea, Left his own parent with the curved bark; First he converted the Spanish nations by his teaching, Turning the barbarous throngs by divine words, Who once cultivated ancient rites and lurid shrines Of a horrid demon, deceived by fraud. Very many stupendous signs did this Prelate work here, Which now are duly written on squared pages. Him savage Herod, tyrant tetrarch of the realm, Struck with the sword and slew by a cruel death, Whom the exalted Father, who by right triumphs over his Saints, Bore to the ethereal citadels with shining merits.

Some attribute this poem to Alcuin, or Albinus, among whose poems it is also printed; but since he died in the year of Christ 804, when perhaps the body of St. James was not yet found, or at least not so celebrated, I rather think, with others, that it is to be ascribed to Walafrid Strabo, who indicates that a shrine was erected to that Apostle, and that his stupendous signs were noted on pages in his time. The same is plain from Ado and Usuard, who in the same century wrote of the celebrated veneration of those relics, as we said above, number 7.

[121] In the same ninth century Alfonso III, king of Spain, with his royal family and many nobles, venerated the sepulcher of St. James, Alfonso III, king of Spain, visited it, after he had ordered his temple, built by Alfonso the Chaste with great haste and in rude work, to be magnificently restored, as he himself testifies in the diploma which Maurus Castellá Ferrer, in the History of St. James, book 4, chapter 19, sets forth whole, where among other things the pious king says these things: Therefore in the second year, in the tenth month, after, God helping and by the merit of the Apostle, it was built and completed (namely the Compostelan temple), we came into the holy place with our offspring, and from each see of a bishop, and from our kingdom all the magnates with the catholic people, where there was gathered no small crowd, etc.

[122] Moreover in the era of this diploma there is so great obscurity and diversity although from his diploma the certain year of that visitation cannot be fixed. that the certain year cannot be established in which this new temple was consecrated by the bishops in the presence of king Alfonso. Ambrosio Morales, book 9 of the General History of Spain, chapter 7, folio 239, had written that this happened in the year 873; but afterward, book 15, chapter 25, he thinks that it was done in the year 900. The most illustrious Sandoval, after the writers edited by him, page 245, ties this consecration to the year 876. Our Mariana, book 7 of the History of Spain, chapter 18, after adducing the diploma of Pope John VIII, for the same year thus concludes: The Compostelan temple, therefore, those bishops procuring it, was consecrated with solemn ceremony on the Nones of May, on Monday, the moon being eleven days old, the golden number being three, as Sampiro of Astorga is author, that is, in the year 876, to which all these notes agree by a certain reckoning. Baronius in the Ecclesiastical Annals, at the year of Christ 882, sets forth the same epistle of John VIII, and at the end of number 6 adds these things: Moreover, on the occasion of the pressing wars, both civil and external, the very dedication of the church of Compostela was for some time deferred. Pagi also may be seen, who in the historico-chronological Critique of Baronius, at the year 882, from number 5, discourses of this epistle of the Pontiff, and embraces the opinion of Sandoval, and explains various difficulties. But others refer the same to the year 899. Sampiro, bishop of Astorga, may be read, who in Sandoval, from page 57, narrates this history more fully. It suffices for us to have reported it in the same century in which the body of St. James was found. More certain is the year 874, in which the same king offered to St. James a golden cross: for, by the testimony of Ambrosio Morales, book 9, chapter 7, folio 239 verso, the following words are inscribed on it:

BY THIS SIGN THE ENEMY IS CONQUERED;

BY THIS SIGN THE PIOUS ONE IS DEFENDED.

IN HONOR OF ST. JAMES THE APOSTLE

THE SERVANTS OF GOD ALFONSO

THE PRINCE WITH HIS CONSORT SCEMENA

THE QUEEN OFFER. THIS WORK WAS COMPLETED

IN THE ERA NINE HUNDRED AND TWELVE.

[123] To the Compostelan tomb of St. James in the tenth century Without doubt in the tenth century, the fame of miracles being scattered through the world, the sepulcher of St. James was frequented with a great concourse also of foreigners, even though all those pilgrimages have not come to our knowledge. I conjecture this from the journey which Gotescalc, bishop of Le Puy, undertook to St. James about the middle of this century. Denis de Sainte-Marthe, in the recently edited Gallia Christiana, volume 2, column 694, from ancient instruments writes thus of him: Gotescalc set out into Spain for the sake of prayer, and came to the farthest bounds of Galicia, to implore the suffrages of St. James. But in this pilgrimage he turned aside to the monastery of Albelda in the borders of Pamplona, and asked the pious abbot of this place, Gomesanus by name, that he write out for him the book of St. Ildefonsus on the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which he took with him, that he might enrich his church, noble by the patronage of St. Mary, with so great a treasure. This was done in the month of January, the era 989 happily running, that is, in the year of Christ 951, as is read in the preface of Gomesanus, which we give. I suspect that Gotescalc undertook this pilgrimage after the example of others, and that others also in the same century imitated his piety. But there is no leisure to inquire more laboriously into these particulars. Nor am I willing to commemorate the constant munificence and devotion of the Spanish princes toward St. James, concerning which Ambrosio Morales may be seen, in the General History of Spain, volume 1, book 9, chapter 7.

[124] and in the eleventh, How frequent was the concourse of foreigners in the eleventh century to the Compostelan relics of St. James is plain from the Acts of two Saints who in that century excelled in benevolence and hospitality toward the pilgrims visiting the sepulcher of St. James. The first is St. Adelelmus, whose body, enclosed in a magnificent tomb, I once venerated at Burgos. In his Life, which we gave on the thirtieth day of January, chapter 4, number 20, are read the following: Then thinking (namely the king and queen of Spain) that it did not sufficiently befit that a man of so great name and holiness should perpetually follow the court, they permitted him, at his request, to retire, a chapel or house of St. John the Evangelist being made over to him for a habitation, which the king had built at the walls of the city of Burgos for the receiving and helping by alms of the pilgrims tending to Compostela, to the sepulcher of St. James… When Adelelmus went to the habitation delivered to him, he began there most religiously to serve God, to minister sedulously to the pilgrims, to receive them under his roof, to refresh them with food, to free them from diseases.

[125] The other is St. Dominic of the Causeway, commonly called by the Spaniards San Domingo de la Calzada, as is gathered from the Acts of certain Saints, because, in fortifying and leveling the roads by which one went to Compostela, says Mariana, book 10, chapter 7, he gave diligent labor, he found the surname "Calzada" in the vernacular language of the Spaniards. I judge that the king used the industry of this man in constructing the bridges which he took care to have established from Logroño all the way to Compostela. His Acts may be seen, which our Henschenius illustrated on the twelfth day of May, volume 3 of the same month, from page 167. To these could be added two pilgrims, illustrious for sanctity, who in the same century went to the Compostelan sepulcher of St. James. The first is St. Simeon the hermit, whose Acts, God favoring, we shall illustrate on the twenty-sixth day of July. The other is St. Theobald, also a hermit, of whom we have already treated on the thirtieth day of June.

[126] In the twelfth century St. John, a Spanish hermit, imitated the charity of the two preceding Saints toward pilgrims, and especially in the twelfth, in whose Acts, edited in volume 1 of our June, these things are found, page 262: And when the church was completed, he built also beside it a refuge, in which the pilgrims might have a shelter, to whom he himself ministered necessaries according to his power… On the river which is called the Iberus (Ebro), from which all Spain by another name is called Iberia, he established a bridge in the village which is called Logroño, on which he is known to have expended no small part of the substance committed to him by God. Likewise in the city of Nájera he built anew a bridge, which, many times destroyed by the force of the water, was many times restored by him. Near the village of St. Dominic he made a wooden bridge over the torrent descending from the mountains of Cuculsa, whose length extends over the space of five hundred paces. Between the place of his habitation also, and a town named Octaporca, with his own hands he laid a pavement in the moist and watery places, that the pilgrims to St. James, wearied with the long labor, might have an easy passage. There are at hand in the same century very many examples of holy men who made pilgrimage to the Compostelan sepulcher of St. James. Some of them occur in the first half-year of our Work, whom I shall here briefly recount in the order of the volumes.

[127] First is offered, on the seventh day of January, Bl. Albert the hermit, many Saints, who, as the Acts say, volume 1 of that month, page 402, evading no labor of the journey or inconvenience of the body, the spirit of God, by which he was led, being his guide, goes into Galicia, to the sepulcher of St. James. When he was tarrying here, often was seen a dove flying to his right shoulder, and inserting its beak into his ear, and as it were whispering something to him. On the tenth day of February Henschenius had to unravel various knots concerning St. William the hermit, in which mention is made of another William, of whom in the same place, volume 2, page 440, these things are reported from Ordericus Vitalis: In the year 1137, in the third week of March, king Stephen came into Normandy… At the same time William, duke of the Poitevins, mindful of the evils which he had lately wrought in Normandy, moved by penitence, set out on pilgrimage to St. James. Then on Good Friday, the fifth of the Ides of April, he was fortified with holy communion, and before the altar of the blessed Apostle venerably died. Afterward, page 462, in the Acts of St. William the hermit, it is said: He came into Spain, and, having entered the city of the Compostelans, with all devotion visited the church of so great an Apostle, and poured out his heart like water before the sight of the Apostle. In volume 7 of May, from page 144, are illustrated the Acts of St. Bona, Virgin of Pisa, written by a nearly contemporary author, in which, page 150, is reported the pious pilgrimage of that Saint to St. James, and in the same place and the following pages are described the familiar and prodigious favors which the same

Saint received from the blessed Apostle. In volume 1 of June occurs St. Morandus, a Cluniac monk, who, as is there narrated, page 349, went to the memorial of St. James with several sponsors of the same way. Finally, in volume 5 of the same month are given the Acts of St. William, abbot and founder of the hermits of Montevergine, of whom, page 115, it is said: His homeland being left, content with a single cloak, even with bare feet, he undertook the journey without slackening, to visit the sacred thresholds of blessed James and of other Saints.

[128] and the pious countess of Holland instituted pilgrimages, To these can not incongruously be added the most pious countess of Holland, who in the same century visited the sepulcher of St. James, and on the way experienced his prodigious aid, as John de Beka narrates in the chronicle of Utrecht, edited with the notes of Buchelius, page 53, in these words: But Sophia the venerable countess, in prayers, alms, and fastings unwearied, was truly holy, through whom God worked miracles even in her lifetime: for this divine matron once undertook the way of pilgrimage to St. James, and by the chance of misfortune secretly fell among robbers, who strove with all their might to kill her, and violently to snatch away her jewels. But these robbers, God judging, by the merits of blessed James stood immovable, unable in any way to inflict any harm on themselves, and dreading to touch her, fortified by divine power: which miracle being seen, the aforesaid wicked men at length, groaning, begged pardon of her. For whose absolution the blessed matron implored the mercy of omnipotent God. This woman, beloved of God, set out now a third time for Jerusalem, and there, on the sixth of the Kalends of October (namely in the year 1176), happily falling asleep in the Lord, was entombed at the Teutonic hospital in Jerusalem. But lest the heterodox Batavians clamor with Buchelius against this miracle, let them read the ancient historians of their homeland, who for the most part report the same miracle, and among others William, a monk of Egmond, who in the Chronicle, in Antonius Matthaeus, volume 4 of the Analecta, after the same history graphically depicted, adds these things, page 45: This has been said and certified from the report of him who was present at her pilgrimage, and therefore feared the danger of death, afterward our monk. Let it suffice to have collected these things for the twelfth century.

[129] which were continued in the following centuries. How great was the concourse of pilgrims at the beginning of the following century is abundantly gathered from the letters of Pope Innocent III (they are read in the Baluzian edition, volume 2 of the epistles, book 10, page 43), who answers the archbishop of Compostela in this manner: You have set forth to us, being constituted in our presence, that, pilgrims coming from diverse regions to the church of blessed James, and some wishing to claim from others, through contentions and brawls, the custody of the altar by night, homicides sometimes happen, and sometimes wounds are inflicted. On account of which you have humbly asked that we would deign to provide for that church in another way than by the benefit of reconsecration. The church and the altar therefore remaining, let it be made known to your fraternity by the intimation of these presents, that it can be reconciled by water blessed with wine and ashes. Given at Viterbo on the twelfth of the Kalends of July, in the tenth year. The tenth year of the Pontificate, which is here without doubt noted, falls in the year of Christ 1207. We have in the fourteenth century a woman illustrious for sanctity, making pilgrimage to the sepulcher of St. James, namely St. Elizabeth, queen of Portugal, whose Acts our Janning, now exhausted in strength (it was his last lucubration), in whatever way endeavored to elucidate on the fourth day of July, volume 2, from page 169. But this and the later pilgrimages I omit, both because they are everywhere known, and because they make little to my intent, by which I only wished to show the continual veneration of the Compostelan relics from the time when they were first found.

[130] I know not to what century the pious pilgrimages of the Frisians pertain, The devotion of the Frisians toward St. James is set forth, concerning which Martin Hamconius, in his Frisia, folio 68, thus sings:

Great at Rome was the veneration of Peter and Paul, Great at Aachen the veneration of Mary the Mother: But nowhere greater was the devotion of the Frisians, who venerate The tomb of the divine James at Compostela. Visiting his sacred urn, Evermarus the noble Frisian Was slaughtered at Rutten eight centuries ago. To him are villages and gates, to him certain insignia Of the Frisians; to him are several temples dedicated. By his aid and prayers the Frisian youth, tending Into Syria, routed the Saracens near the city of Ulysses.

I do not understand how St. Evermarus, of whom we treated in volume 1 of May, from page 120, could have visited in the seventh century the then unknown relics of St. James. It is indeed read in his Acts: And so the man of God enters the way which tends into Galicia to St. James, and, having entered the church of St. James, and his suffrages being sought, returns to the lower parts of Gaul. But in the same place he is said to have been born when Pippin the middle was reigning, of St. Begga daughter of duke Ansegisus. But that Pippin reigned from the year 687 until 714. How therefore could St. Evermarus go to the Compostelan sepulcher of St. James, which was only found at the beginning of the ninth century? The writer of the Acts, therefore, either confused the various Pippins, which not rarely happens in Belgian history, or added the Compostelan pilgrimage to St. James, celebrated in his time, for ornament, because perhaps he had read or heard that St. Evermarus had made pilgrimage to divers memorials of the Saints.

[131] More easily are understood the things which are contained in the four last little verses, who in Portugal won a notable victory over the Moors, namely that in honor of St. James various churches in Frisia were dedicated, and that the Frisians, the aid of St. James being implored, won a notable victory over the Saracens, which Caesarius of Heisterbach, a contemporary writer, in the work of illustrious miracles and memorable histories, book 8, chapter 66, thus narrates: In the year of grace 1217, the crusaders from all Germany and Frisia, with nearly three hundred ships, about the Ides of July entered the port of Lisbon ; in which, while they tarried for some days, awaiting there several ships, at the petition of Severus, bishop of the said city, and of the bishop of Évora, and also of the Templars and Hospitallers, they besieged a fortress of the Saracens, by name Alcácer, that is, "the prison of all." But on the sixth day after the nativity of the blessed Mother of God, Mary, four kings of the Saracens gathered against them, having in their army up to a hundred thousand fighters: whom the Christians, lesser in number, but greater in faith, invoking St. James and blessed Vincent, patron of that region, and other Saints, whomever they could, met the enemies. But in the first encounter one of the kings fell; but of the slain there was no number: very many were captured: who, when they were led through the army by the Christians, sought the standards of the victors, asserting that a most white battle-line, bearing red crosses on the breast, had turned the multitude of their men to flight. Moreover the galleys , which they had brought by sea against the Christians, were put to flight by the terror of that heavenly vision. Which the pilgrims hearing, gave thanks to Christ, who deigned to send them from heaven the aids of his Martyrs. These things were reported to me by those who were present at the contest, and heard from the mouth of the Saracens the things which were said. Thus he. There may also be seen our Antonio de Macedo, in the Tutelary Saints of the Christian world, from page 429, where he narrates the same history more elegantly.

[132] Very many other writers, both Spanish and foreign, after they had gone to his sacred sepulcher, whom Juan de Ferreras cites in his Spanish History, part 6, at the year of Christ 1217, mention the same victory; but some of them report whom on that account Ubbo Emmius charges with superstition, that the Frisians first went to the Compostelan sepulcher of St. James for the sake of veneration, and this does not dissemble the heterodox writer of Frisia, Ubbo Emmius, who in the History of Frisian affairs, book 8, page 119, writes thus of this matter: Again, the sails being given to the wind, the north wind breathing, on the seventh day they put in at the Galician town Faro, conspicuous for its lofty tower, not far from Compostela, from which town almost all who were in the fleet, having gone to Compostela for the sake of superstition (thus in heretical fashion he sacrilegiously calls the veneration of the Saints) by a journey on foot, and having returned to the fleet, they tarried in the port of Faro until the ninth day, because the winds were adverse. Then he narrates how they came to Lisbon, and afterward afflicted the Saracens with a slaughter, in which he attributes the chief part to his Frisians. It is enough for us to have a heretical witness of the catholic cult which his countrymen and forefathers once bestowed on St. James. I pass over the other nations, which for many centuries down to our times flow together to the sacred relics from every part of the world. Yet it is worthy of note what Molina, in the description of Galicia, folio 3 verso, and after him Fernando de Ojea, a Dominican, write concerning the Slavs or Illyrians; namely that in Slavonia it was appointed that whoever should thrice visit the Compostelan sepulcher of St. James be free from tolls and other tributes.

[133] Moreover let the Lutherans, Calvinists, and other heretics, who with Ubbo Emmius charge pious pilgrimages of this kind with superstition, and explode the veneration of sacred relics, see their calumnies refuted in our Gretser, in the Work on sacred and religious pilgrimages, book 2, chapter 16. But if perchance that more recent corrector of their errors does not please them, let them at least hear a more ancient one, namely Theodoret, bishop of Cyrus, who in the Greco-Latin edition of the Works, volume 4, sermon 8 On the Martyrs, disputing against the gentile Greeks, seems to impugn the heterodox of our time, when, after enumerating the torments of the Apostles and Martyrs, he writes thus of their glory: For which cause the President of the contest conferred on them immortal glory, and a memory to be ended at no time. For although time is wont to corrupt all other things, yet it has preserved their glory incorrupt. And the noble souls of the triumphant ones now walk about heaven and are present in the choirs of the angels: but their bodies not the several monuments of each conceal, but cities and villages, having divided these among themselves, call them the preservers of souls and the physicians of bodies, and venerate them as presidents and guardians of cities, and by their intervention before the God of all obtain divine gifts through them. Their bodies being divided, the grace remains whole and undivided, and those slender and tiny relics have a virtue equal to the whole Martyr, cut into no parts: for the grace which is present distributes the gifts and measures its liberality by the faith of the suppliants. But you, not even these things induce you to praise the God of these; but you deride and hold in mockery the honor which is everywhere bestowed on them by all, and you count it an abominable crime to approach nearer to their tombs.

[134] Then, about the end of the same sermon, in the edition just cited, page 605, he thus proceeds: he is refuted from Theodoret. But the temples of the victorious Martyrs are seen bright and conspicuous, and preeminent in magnitude,

and illustrious with every kind of ornament, and spreading far the splendor of beauty. Nor do we come to these once or twice or five times a year, but we celebrate frequent gatherings; often also on each day we sing praises to the Lord of these, and those who are of whole health ask that it be preserved to them; but those who are afflicted with any disease ask that it be driven away. They ask also for children, who lack them, and those who are barren beg that they may become mothers: those who have obtained the gift ask that it be preserved safe to them. Those who set out on some pilgrimage ask of these that they be companions of the way, and guides of the journey: those who have returned safe give thanks, not approaching them as gods, but praying to them as divine men, and asking that they be willing to be intercessors for them. But that those who faithfully ask become partakers of their vows, their offerings openly testify, indicating the cure: for some hang up images of eyes, some of feet, some of hands, made of silver or gold: for the Lord of these accepts even small things and of little price, measuring the gift by the ability of the giver. But these indicate the driving away of diseases, for the attesting of which they were placed by those who received health: the same proclaim the virtue of those buried there; and their virtue declares the God of these to be the true God. Does not here Theodoret, a writer of the fifth century, graphically depict the ancient custom of the Christians, hitherto in use among the Catholics, when they invoke the Saints, and hang up votive offerings at their altars or sepulchers? Does not here he openly confound the new heretics, who rave contumeliously against the cult of the Saints and the veneration of sacred relics?

* that is, of Lisbon (Ulyssipo)

* that is, triremes

§ XI. The patronage of St. James in the wars of the Christians against the infidels.

Great was always the piety of the Spaniards toward St. James, which among the Belgians, formerly subject to them, In the time of Spanish dominion in Belgium they promoted not a little. Hence, besides the other traces of this piety which they left in Belgium, at Antwerp in the notable collegiate church which has St. James for patron, there was instituted in honor of the same Saint a congregation, notice of which was suggested to me by the very reverend lord Giles James de Plancken, canon of the same collegiate church and the present provost of the aforesaid congregation, who also very kindly communicated to me a manuscript book, in which the beginning and adornment of that erection are thus described: In the year 1672, on the eighteenth day of April, the Monday of Easter, there was celebrated in the notable collegiate church of the divine James the apostle the solemn institution of the congregation of the captains of Antwerp under the protection of St. James, as patron. Elegantly the choir, the high altar, and the music-gallery were adorned with forty banners, hanging round about the choir, the high altar, and the gallery. At the horn of the Gospel was erected a royal throne, in which was placed a royal seat and a painting representing our king Charles II. On a column at the horn of the Epistle hung a painting elegantly adorned round about, representing the count of Monterey, governor of Belgium. On two columns beside the seats of the canons hung, on either side of the choir, verses dedicated to the aforesaid count.

[136] At Antwerp a congregation was erected, On the high altar was erected a painting representing the divine James borne on a horse, triumphing over the Saracens, surrounded with many banners. In the gallery was placed a painting of the divine James brandishing a sword, from which hung round about the insignia of the consuls of this city who preside or have presided over the watch-chamber, which very many banners elegantly arranged surrounded. On the right part of the gallery were the insignia of the aforesaid count, on the left part those of our most reverend lord bishop Ambrose Capello. On this day, at half past twelve, Mass was solemnly celebrated by the most ample lord prelate of St. Michael, Macarius Simeomo, in the presence of our aforesaid bishop. There were present the governor of the citadel of Antwerp, the whole magistracy, the masters of the watch, all the captains, standard-bearers, etc. Then in the same manuscript book it is reported how the annual solemnity of this institution is celebrated on the feast of St. James, at which the captains and others are bound to be present. Finally follow the statutes of the same congregation, the form of blessing the banners, and other things which do not pertain to our purpose. Now let us proceed to the greater and more ancient monuments of Spanish piety.

[137] The Spaniards in the twelfth century instituted in honor of St. James an equestrian or military Order, [and from many centuries ago a military Order was instituted in Spain in honor of St. James,] which they commonly call "de la espada" (of the sword). I know that Maurus Castellá Ferrer, book 4, chapter 1, and other writers, trace the beginnings of this Order higher; but the most illustrious Sandoval, in the notes to the ancient authors first edited by him, from page 230, answered their arguments. With other learned writers, therefore, I think that this origin is to be deferred beyond the middle of the twelfth century. It is not for us here to produce or dissolve the several arguments on that matter. Wherefore if anyone is unwilling to acquiesce in our opinion, let him have an answer in the words of Mariana, who, in book 2 of the Affairs of Spain, chapter 13, after other things said of this Order, thus concludes: These things we had, which might be committed to writing concerning the beginnings of that Order, few for its dignity, too many for the measure of the work undertaken. Nor are we ignorant that some designate a more ancient origin; others from Alfonso the Chaste; others from the age of Ramiro. Indeed the zeal of illustrating that soldiery deceived both: for the diploma which is brought forward as granted more than a hundred years ago to the sacred virgins who at Salamanca have their name from the Holy Spirit, is accused of falsity by the more learned: by what arguments, it does not concern us to explain: the matter itself betrays itself, whether one weigh the style, abhorrent from the rudeness of those times, or consider the reckoning of numbering the years from the birth of Christ, not yet in these times received in Spain. But these things we let pass. For the rest, whoever desires to know the profession, propagation, privileges, and various successes of this Order, let him read Hippolyte Helyot, volume 2 of the Religious and Military Orders, chapters 39 and 40, where he collected many things from various authors concerning the Order of St. James.

[138] The institution of this Order had without doubt been preceded by various benefits who is said to have appeared in the battle of Clavijo, which the Spaniards felt were prodigiously conferred on them by their protector St. James in wars. Among these is numbered in the first place the famous victory of Clavijo, which our Mariana, book 7, chapter 13, narrates elegantly. But we, after our manner, prefer to hear the first author of that narration, Rodrigo of Toledo, who, in book 4 of the Affairs of Spain, chapter 13, sets it forth thus: But after these things king Ramiro, unwilling to be found idle from the service of God, attacked the places of the Arabs, and burned with fire all that he found, both in the villages and in the fields, even Nájera. Then the Saracens came against him with a very great multitude: but the army of king Ramiro, seeing the multitude, retired to the place which is called Clavijo. And when in the night he doubted of the contest, blessed James appeared to him, comforting him, that, certain of victory, he might on the following day renew the battle against the Arabs. And when at dawn he had risen, he revealed the vision to the bishops and magnates: who, giving thanks for the vision, all in common prepared themselves for the battle, to be strengthened by the oracle of the Apostle. But on the other side the Saracens, confiding in their multitude, went forth to the battle. Battle therefore being joined on both sides, the Saracens, disordered by confusion, turned their backs to the helmets * of the Christians, so that nearly seventy thousand of them fell; in which battle blessed James is said to have appeared on a white horse, bearing a standard in his hand. Then king Ramiro took Albelda, Clavijo, Calahorra, and many other places, which he added to the kingdom. From then, [as] is said, this invocation grew customary: "God help, and St. James." Then also they paid vows and offerings to blessed James, and in some places, not out of sadness or necessity, but of voluntary devotion, they still pay them. Lucas of Tuy, contemporary of Rodrigo of Toledo, with a few changes, reports the same history, which may be read in Hispania Illustrata, volume 4, page 76. From these Baronius and other more recent writers drew their material.

[139] Certain learned Spaniards call this victory into doubt, concerning which some Spaniards doubt, and think that it was confounded with another. Hear among them Joseph Perez, a Benedictine, in his Ecclesiastical Dissertations, page 203, speaking thus: In the first place, therefore, this makes greatly against it, that none of the more ancient writers makes mention of a battle so celebrated, and of so notable a victory. Not Sebastian, not Sampiro, not finally Pelagius of Oviedo. The first, that indeed is established, who mentioned it is Rodrigo of Toledo. But his testimony, although otherwise a grave author, is here of no greater weight than that of a modern writer, who, relying on no more ancient source, but following little rumors, should hand it down to memory: since from the time when that battle is said to have been fought to the age of Rodrigo four hundred years and more have flowed. Then, page 297, he discourses thus of the same matter: But that the tradition of the neighboring tract, in which the battle is said to have been fought, is alleged, ought to be esteemed of no more account. It is established, at least, from the ample testimony of Sebastian, that Ordoño I, son of Ramiro, inflicted a huge slaughter on the Saracens at Albelda and Mount Asturcus, commonly Laturce. That event may have given occasion to this tradition, which posterity, incurious and negligent of times, presently corrupted, and confounded with the celebrated battle at Calavicium, commonly Clavijo, which is near at hand. Nor is it probable that two so notable battles were fought within so brief a period of time in the same place. These arguments of Perez, although not to be despised, plainly do not settle the matter, nor overthrow the ancient tradition of the Spaniards; especially since Sebastian, bishop of Salamanca, expressly asserts of Ramiro I: He fought twice against the Saracens, and was victor. I know that Perez understands this of battles of lesser moment and as it were skirmishes. But this explanation of his is as easily rejected as it is brought forward. Moreover Francisco de Berganza, in the Antiquities of Spain, part 2, edited an old Chronicle from the monastery of St. Peter of Cardeña, where, page 583, the victory of Clavijo is clearly ascribed to Ramiro I.

[140] with whom we do not yet agree, Ángel Manrique, in volume 3 of the Cistercian Annals, page 112, thus endeavors to confirm the same tradition of his countrymen: Traces of the war, even today visited at Clavijo, Mariana attests, heaps of arms being dug up everywhere by the country-dwellers, townsmen of that place. We shall note more sacred traces, representing the emblem of St. James; common to the inhabitants, but perhaps on that account less observed, because common. Scarcely any stone is found in the place which does not bear before it the form of a little shell; VENERAS in the vernacular tongue we Spaniards call them. And, what you may marvel at, if it be broken into parts, it will form as many little shells as parts you shall have made. Whether to attribute this to the nature of the place, or to a perpetual miracle, let it be for others. We write only the ascertained and known matter. But these emblems of St. James do not settle the controversy, and seem rather to be attributed to the nature of the place than to a perpetual miracle: for Maurus Castellá Ferrer,

in book 1, chapter 21, confesses that similar emblems of St. James are found not far from the town of San Sebastián in Cantabria, where yet the Moors are not said to have been cut down by St. James in battle. That author indeed affirms that these grow there because in that place the holy Apostle was, when he preached the faith in Spain. But the most illustrious Sandoval, in the notes cited above, page 190, explodes this reason, and on the following page adds that not far from Vitoria, the chief city of Álava, in a spacious field innumerable stones are dug up which represent hearts and wheels. But although these are the emblems of St. Augustine and St. Catherine, who yet would thence conclude that they were ever in that province? But although these do not prove the victory of Clavijo, nevertheless, on account of the arguments alleged above, I adhere to the common tradition of the Spaniards, until a stronger reason or authority compel me to withdraw from it.

[141] although the diploma concerning this battle does not seem genuine. To prove the same victory there is also circulated a certain diploma of Ramiro I, which the most learned Perez inserted whole in the Ecclesiastical Dissertations, from page 287. But both he and Sandoval detected in it so many characteristic marks of falsity that it altogether appears to have been forged by an unskilled man, or at least afterward substituted for the genuine diploma, which perhaps was lost. But lest anyone from what has been said form a bad conclusion, I subjoin here those words which Perez prefixed to the same controversy, page 286: I profess that it is not of my mind and intention that by the things which shall here be said any prejudice should be brought to the ancient right of the church of Compostela: for we wish that to remain unshaken; since we believe that it rests not on this diploma alone, but on immemorial possession, and hold it for certain that, if not from Ramiro I, certainly from the second of that name, or from other princes, whose privileges have perished by the injury of a longer age, that most honorable and no less useful concession flowed: for it is not likely either that a most religious church wished to exact by fraud from the Christian peoples a thing not owed to it, or that the credulous people, in a matter which so greatly concerned them, suffered themselves to be gratuitously deceived. Wherefore let its right remain to it untouched, whatever the learned dispute against that diploma. These words we wish to be taken as our own.

[142] Not so great matter of doubting is furnished by the victory King Ferdinand which king Ferdinand, about the middle of the eleventh century, by the intercession of St. James won over the Moors. The monk of Silos, nearest to that age, and lately first brought to light by Francisco de Berganza, part 2 of the Antiquities of Spain, page 543, reports it thus: These being triumphed over, that Coimbra, the greatest city of those parts, which had presided over them, might be reduced to the worship of Christianity, the king by importuning sought the thresholds of blessed James the apostle, whose body is said to have been brought to Spain by the divine visitation of our Redeemer, and there, supplication being made for three days, that that war might have prosperous and happy issues, he asked the Apostle as intercessor for him before the divine Majesty. That venerable place being endowed *, therefore, king Ferdinand, relying on divine defense, boldly hastens to Coimbra, [and], his camp being set above it, sat down.

[143] For the rest, that his most devout prayer, how acceptable it was to God, wrested Coimbra from the Moors, may be clear to all, I have thought it worthy to express. For there was fulfilled in the devotion of king Ferdinand the sure saying of our Savior; Amen, saying, I say to you, whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, he will give you. For in this, that he importuned that that city be rescued from the rites of the pagans, and be brought back to the faith of the Christians; assuredly in the name of Jesus, which is interpreted Savior, he asked God the Father for its salvation. But because Ferdinand, still placed in corruptible flesh, did not know himself to be familiar with the divine grace through the merit of his life, he asks the suffrages of the Apostle, so that, for interceding, while he may approach the familiar acquaintance of the most pious Master. And so king Ferdinand fights at Coimbra with material arms, for the winning of whose victory James the soldier of Christ ceases not to intercede with the Master.

[144] Then the author explains how it became known to the people as St. James, appearing to a certain Greek, that this victory was won by the aid of St. James: At length the triumph granted from heaven to the most serene king Ferdinand the blessed Apostle made known at Compostela in this manner *. There had come from Jerusalem a certain pilgrim, a little Greek, as I believe, and poor both in spirit and in works, who, remaining a long time in the porch of the church of blessed James, day and night was intent on vigils and prayers. When he now used our speech a little, he hears the natives, frequently entering the holy temple for their necessities, appealing to the ears of the Apostle, naming him a good soldier. But he, within himself, asserting that he not only was not a horseman, but had never even mounted anywhere. Night coming on, the day is closed. Then, as was his custom, when the pilgrim was passing the night in prayer, suddenly caught up in ecstasy, the apostle James appeared to him, holding as it were certain keys in his hand, and addressing him with cheerful countenance, said: Yesterday, he said, deriding the pious vows of those praying, thou didst believe that I was never a most strenuous soldier. And saying these things, there was brought a most splendid horse of great stature before the doors of the church, whose snowy brightness, the gates being opened, illumined the whole church: which the Apostle mounting, the keys being shown, made known to the pilgrim that he would give the city of Coimbra to king Ferdinand on the morrow about the third hour of the day.

[145] had foretold. Meanwhile, the stars gliding away, when on the Lord's day the sun, first bright, had opened the world, the Greek, astonished at so great a vision, gathers into one all the clerics and all the chief men of the town, and, ignorant of this name and expedition, disclosing the matter to them in order, says that king Ferdinand entered Coimbra today: who, the day being noted, direct legates with haste to the camp of the most invincible king: who, cleverly making the journey, might perceive whether this vision proceeded from God, so that to the praise of his name it ought to have been made known? to his minister to this world. But the legates, after, hastening, they came to Coimbra, on the very day which the Apostle had signified at Compostela, found the king to have attacked the city at the third hour. For indeed, when for some spaces of time he had held the people of Coimbra shut within the walls, battering-rams being set round about, he had broken the wall of the city in part: which the barbarians seeing, sent legates with entreaties * to the king, who, asking only life for themselves and their children, delivered to the king both the city and all their substance, except a very small stipend for the journey. Rodrigo of Toledo, book 6, chapter 11, Lucas of Tuy, volume 4 of Hispania Illustrata, page 93, and Baronius, at the year of Christ 1040, number 2, report the same history. We have wished to give it from a contemporary or at least nearly contemporary writer.

[146] The Spaniards, The Christians, before the middle of the thirteenth century, by the aid of St. James obtained a victory, which Lucas of Tuy, who lived at that time, in volume 4 of Hispania Illustrata, page 114, describes in this manner: But in the following year (that is, of Christ 1230, as Odoricus Raynaldus and Juan de Ferreras note) Alfonso, king of León, besieged the city of Mérida, and took it. There was at that time a certain notable barbarian, by name Abenfuth, who expelled the Almohades from Spain, and became king of the barbarians. He was called by his own men the king of virtue, and, an innumerable army of Moors being gathered, he came to fight with Alfonso, king of León, who was at Mérida with few men. But king Alfonso, as he was strong and spirited, made his army cross by night the river Guadiana against the Saracens. The Saracens had fixed their tents beside the fortress of Alange, and saw in the early morning the battle-lines of our men prepared for war, and they arranged their own battle-lines, hastening to battle. The Lord was with king Alfonso and the Christian people, and in the encounter of that battle so many thousands of Saracens were laid low, that many towns of the barbarians remained empty, their inhabitants being destroyed in that battle. But Abenfuth, king of the barbarians, fled grievously wounded. Then king Alfonso, returning from the victory, besieged Badajoz, and after a few days took it. The Saracens had abandoned Elvas and several other fortresses, committing themselves to flight, which the Christians laid waste, since they found them empty. King Alfonso returned with much spoil and a great victory, praising God and blessed James, who granted him so nobly to triumph over his enemies: since in that battle blessed James visibly appeared with a multitude of white-robed soldiers, who laid low the Saracens with a strong hand. Thus far he.

[147] About the same time Alfonso, brother of St. Ferdinand the king, the aid of St. James being invoked, by the manifest aid of St. James inflicted near Jerez a huge slaughter on the Moors, which is described in the Life of St. Ferdinand, which we illustrated in volume 7 of May, where, page 323, after the victory of the Christians is narrated, the following are read: A great miracle in favor of the Christians is believed to have been wrought by God that day, the holy apostle James being sent to them to help them in battle, and this can be maintained for two reasons. First, because it was impossible that Christians so few should win such a victory over Moors ten times more numerous without such aid. Then because very many of the Moors themselves said that they had seen a horseman borne on a white horse, with a white standard in one hand, a drawn sword in the other, whom many other white horsemen followed; that they had also seen angels running through the air: and that these horsemen inflicted much more damage on the Moors than the Christians themselves, some of whom also testified that they had beheld the same. Without doubt I should find more examples of this kind, if I had leisure to turn over all the histories of Spain.

[148] Yet I am unwilling here to pass over the naval triumph of the Italians, and the Pisans, obtained by the aid of St. James in the thirteenth century, which our Antonio de Macedo, in the Tutelary Saints of the Christian world, page 128, thus sets forth: They relate that St. James the Greater the apostle was once also the patron of the Pisans: for under Frederick II of this name, king of Naples and at the same time emperor of Germany, it happened that two Pisan leaders, Oddo Gualdulius and Rogerius Piscis, having procured a strong fleet of ships, made sail for the Morea (so they call it), kindled with zeal of fighting against the enemies of the Christian faith. Battle being joined with them, it was fought long with doubtful outcome, the victory inclining to neither part; until, invoking the name of St. James with repeated cries, they made a vow of building in his honor a temple, namely in that Christian port at which they should first land: and they became partakers of their vow, a notable victory being won over the enemies, their ships partly captured, partly sunk, only a few having escaped by flight. Then, being carried by a prosperous voyage into the port of Naples on the twenty-ninth day of July, in the year 1238, they built to their patron James the apostle a temple, which in the course of time received the name of St. James the Sword-bearer: for in it the knights of the same military Order are wont to be initiated according to custom.

[149] Joseph de Magistris, who wrote the acts of his uncle

Francis's work on the state of the church of Naples with additions, a temple being promised in his honor, narrates the same history, page 427, and there sets forth the following verses, which he testifies he read on marble near the door of that church thus:

In the years one thousand two hundred thirty-eight After Christ was born, this work was built, On the fourth of the Kalends of September, in the tenth indiction *. Consul Oddo Gualdulius founded this hall, Rogerius Piscis with the rest of his countrymen. Here before was St. Peter de Fusarello; Behold *, now it is the Pisans', so the people calling it. Approach *, O Pisa, the praise, fame, and honor of the city, Whom the lands obey, whom the waves of the sea obey; James then willed to carve verses in the stone.

Whoever desires to understand this obscure inscription in whatever way, let him read, in the cited place, Joseph de Magistris, who explains the state of the mentioned church, built at Naples by the Pisans in honor of St. James, from the beginning down to his own times. Cesare Engenio Caracciolo, in Naples Sacred, edited in Italian in the year 1623, begins to describe the origin and progress of the same temple from page 469, where also on the following page he adduces the aforesaid little verses.

[150] and finally the Lusitanians in the East Indies, I add here, by way of a supplement, a notable victory of the Lusitanians, won by the intercession of St. James in the East, when Afonso de Albuquerque in the year 1510 recovered Goa. Our Maffei, in the Indian histories, near the end of book 4, narrates the whole matter, and after many things which it would here be long to transcribe, subjoins these to our purpose: Nor did the Lusitanians ascribe that victory to this sign alone (namely the image of the Crucifix, which they had found in the ruined walls of a certain house); because they seemed to have been in some manner introduced into the city by its aid; but also to the evident help of the divine apostle James, patron of the Spains: since, Goa being lost again, the barbarians endlessly inquired who that excellent leader was, distinguished by a scarlet cross and gleaming arms, who had wrought so great a slaughter, and had compelled the Mohammedan phalanxes to yield to the paucity of the Christians. Nor did Albuquerque show himself unmindful of the heavenly merit: for out of piety he ordered to be placed in the quarters of the soldiery of St. James at Palmela (which place of the territory of Lisbon is very well known) a staff enclosed in gold of vermiculated work with a hilt of carbuncles and pearls; and a silken hat with a gold and jeweled shell added; and likewise little gold globes pierced on a linen thread (these are the insignia of the Apostle once making pilgrimage): and then, dying, he bequeathed to the Compostelan temple of the same Apostle in the Galician land a hanging silver lamp of huge form with provision for a perpetual light.

[151] and other Christians often triumphed over the enemies of the true faith. If anyone desires to know more recent prodigies of this kind, let him go to our Antonio de Macedo, in the Tutelary Saints of the Christian world, from page 232, and to other historiographers, who handed down to memory the things bravely done by the Spaniards and Lusitanians in Africa and in either India. There may also be seen our Georg Crüger, in the Sacred Ashes of Bohemia, Silesia, and Moravia, on the twenty-fifth day of July, where, after enumerating the churches of St. James in those regions, he narrates how that holy Apostle, patron of Nysa, prodigiously put the Swedes to flight from the city of Nysa. We, with Crüger, leave the faith of this miracle with the inhabitants of this city who affirm it. Now a certain Lusitanian tradition of a stupendous victory must be discussed in a separate paragraph.

* read "gladiis" (swords)

* that is, endowed, or increased with gifts

* perhaps "ad"

* there is lacking "by art or engine"

* that is, made known

* read "convocat" (convokes)

* perhaps "to be made manifest" (manifestari)

* that is, entreaties (supplications)

* otherwise "in dictione"

* perhaps "&"

* read "Ad"

§ XII. Examination of a certain stupendous victory which is said to have been won over the Moors in Portugal by the invocation of the Mother of God and of St. James.

When once with Father Jean Feytens, who presides over the theological studies of our Society at Louvain, A stupendous history, notice of which came to us by chance, I was holding a familiar conversation on the Acts of St. James, he on that occasion narrated to me a prodigious history which he had read in the festive sermons of our Knittel. But the synopsis of the history contained that a few Lusitanians, besieged by the Moors in a certain fortress on the river Mondego, the aid of St. James being implored, and a sortie being made, had routed an incredible multitude of the enemy, and after the unhoped-for victory, returning to the fortress, had found alive the women and children whom before the sortie they had killed, lest they be exposed to the mockery of the Saracens and to the danger of denying the Christian faith. Having heard these things, I ingenuously confessed that among the various miracles of the holy Apostle I had never found anything similar, and I asked whether Knittel brought forward any witnesses of this prodigy. When he affirmed this also, and that book was not here in our library, I asked for a transcript of Knittel's narration, that I might consult the authors cited by him, and thus, after our manner, first detect the source of the wondrous history. After some weeks I received from Louvain the requested transcript of the miracle, which in Knittel, on the feast of St. James, after other things thus begins: I report one thing so stupendous that I would not believe it, did I not read it in Benedict Fernandez on Genesis, volume 3, in Bernardo de Brito, book 6 of the Cistercian Annals, chapters 27 and 28, in Elias of St. Teresa, of the Legation of the Church Triumphant, book 1, chapter 15, number 19. Then he subjoins the history itself, which we shall presently report from the older writers.

[153] Having received this notice, I inspected those three authors, we give it from Fernandez, who narrates how a few Christians, and found them faithfully cited by Knittel. Elias of St. Teresa, a discalced Carmelite, in the Legation of the Church Triumphant to the Militant, volume 1, page 91, cites our Fernandez, who, in volume 3 of the Commentaries on Genesis, section 8, on chapter 32 of Genesis, number 3, narrates the matter thus: At the time when all Spain, after the destruction of the Gothic kings, laid waste and cut off by the Mohammedans, was held under that barbarous and abominable yoke; yet in Portugal the Christians had some more fortified castles, which had not yet known the Saracen yoke. There was one in those very spacious and fertile plains, which the most pleasant Mondego waters, not far from Coimbra, which is now the most celebrated nurse of divine and human disciplines. That castle is now seen at Montemor-o-Velho, the most noble among the other towns of the whole kingdom. To besiege this an infinite multitude of Saracens had flowed together under the king of Cordova, Abderrahman or Almanzor: those very wide plains of the fields, which extend in every direction, were seen full of the forces of the barbarians: horsemen and footmen, like locusts, occupied everything.

[154] Then a most fierce war was begun against the townsmen, who, few in number, yet unwearied and prevailing in spirit, endured that grievous mass of the siege within the straits of the castle, under cover, for three years. But, the barbarian pressing more pertinaciously and always with new engines and arms and soldiers for the assault of the little town, besieged by innumerable Moors in a certain fortress of Portugal, John, an abbot of the order of St. Benedict, who acted as leader, fearing that the castle would without doubt be taken, and that he then, with all who were within, would be delivered to the hostile sword and to reproach, took a counsel indeed impious and unspeakable, and neither perpetrated nor heard of in any former ages, but perhaps excusable, through ignorance, from a pious intention. Come, he said, comrades, the matter is now brought to the extreme; the castle is to be taken, all are to be slaughtered who by their age were able to take up arms and resist the besiegers: the women and children are to fall to the enemy for mockery and for plunder, to whom, besides the intolerable yoke of servitude, there impends the danger lest, deceived or compelled, they desert the Christian religion and be transferred to the abominable sect of Mohammed. Therefore (which is more honorable and safer), the women and children being first slaughtered, lest they be exposed to the injuries of the barbarians, let us, a sortie being made, rush upon the opposing legions of the enemy, that at least, fighting bravely and manfully, we may meet a glorious death amid the slaughters of the Saracens.

[155] by the counsel of the abbot John slew the women and children, The counsel of John pleased all, and all in a short time, the women, children, and old men, their throats being cut, were slain to the last: and finally, all the goods being consumed by fire, the defenders alone who remained alive, the gates being suddenly opened, an assault being made upon the enemy, invoking Christ the Lord and St. James according to custom, flew upon them. God favored his warriors, who, though very few, routed that innumerable filth of the barbarians, ninety thousand being slain: then our men pursued the fleeing; then the camp full of all barbaric opulence was plundered by our men. But when the signal for retreat was given, they halted at a very dense thicket, lest, rashly entering the hiding-places of the woods within, they should lie open to the ambushes of the enemy; glad indeed of that prodigious victory, which they had won divinely by an almost bloodless battle; but too sorrowful, and with minds ulcerated more than can be explained or believed, on account of the deplorable slaying of the women and children, they return to the castle, that they might follow the corpses of their own with the due offices of lamentations and prayers even to burial. You would say the harp was turned into mourning, the glory of triumph into a sepulchral pomp. More like the vanquished than the victors, a wailing being raised even to heaven, deploring their own and their people's pitiable misfortune, the wretched men returned home.

[156] [whom, after the sortie was made and the victory won over the Moors, they found alive again,] Therefore, as they now approached the gates of the castle (O the immense clemency and equally the power of God!), the whole multitude of the slain came out to meet them: the women and children, all alive and unharmed, with festive songs celebrate together both the victory of the warriors and the miracle of life restored to the slain. Who, I beseech, will worthily explain the incredible joy and delight of minds in both? For the rest, as a perpetual testimony and monument of so unheard-of a miracle, they seemed marked with a certain admirable sign: namely in the throat of each, where the wound before gaped wide, a certain as it were red thread extended. Namely, what Gennadius said of Jacob, that he remained lame from the wrestling, that he might keep a continual and perpetual memory of that struggle, I shall excellently say of our people, that their throats were marked with a bloody color, that the memory of so stupendous a miracle both those who then lived and their posterity, immortally giving thanks to God, might perennially celebrate, and might also cultivate and love with due homage the great Mother of God, the Virgin, for whose favor and prayers that so notable prodigy was wrought by God: for near that dense thicket, where our warriors halted, a temple was built by that John, and dedicated to the Virgin Mother of God, whose wooden effigy also was seen to bear the same sign of blood in the throat, either because the image thus divinely granted so appeared, or because those grateful and pious mortals marked with that sign of theirs her to whom they referred the benefit received.

[157] Finally, adducing the witnesses of his narration, he thus concludes: and he cites the witnesses of his narration. More widely perhaps than was fitting we have reported this history, but it is yet worthy

that our men should not suffer it to be buried in the darkness of oblivion and silence, and that all nations also, to the greater glory of God and the honor of the Virgin Mother, should both know and admire it. This miracle, as it has been described by me, is attested, besides the very tradition brought down from the ancients to us, by the archives * of the Cistercian monastery, which, built in that place of the thicket where the fighting was broken off, is visited to this day, and finally by the most diligent historiographer of our nation, F. Bernardo de Brito, who in book 6 of the Cistercian Chronicle, chapters 27 and 28, wrote it in his native speech. Thus far our Lusitanian Fernandez, who without doubt set forth that prodigy according to the common tradition of his countrymen: for Bernardo de Brito, whom he praises, adorned the same miracle with other circumstances, which may be noted in his Chronicle in the place just cited. But neither must we stop here, since Brito in the same place indicates that he drew this stupendous history from the manuscript monuments of the monastery of Lorvão. Therefore let us proceed further, that we may investigate the first origin of this narration.

[158] But opportunely there here offers itself to us our Vasconcellos, Our Vasconcellos from the archive who in the Anacephalaeoses of Lusitania, page 540, treating of the mentioned temple of the Mother of God (in Portuguese commonly called nossa senhora de Ceiça), thus narrates the same history from the archive of Lorvão: You will find the origin of this little shrine at Lorvão in the archives, which has thus: At that time when the kings of the Moors administered the affairs of the Spains, and in some cities of Spain remnants of the Goths endured, there were very many professors of the Christian religion who acknowledged the king of León, to whom, by the law of nations, the Spanish state pertained. These, however, paying money in the name of tribute, with difficulty sustained the Christian cause. Among the other places in which the Christian rites were performed was the monastery of Lorvão, already founded there from the age of the divine Benedict, to which very many betook themselves, that, having given their name to that sacred family, they might spend their age with a wondrous contempt of human things. Among whom was a certain one, by name John, cousin of Alfonso, king of León, and uncle of king Ramiro, who, before he enrolled himself in the Benedictine family, had brought home honorable victories with the greatest praise. This abbot of Lorvão Alfonso endowed with the principality of Montemor, surnamed the Old, because it was then a well-fortified stronghold, yet very convenient for a few soldiers, so that from the revenues and produce collected thence provisions might be paid to the monks, and stipends to the soldiers who were in garrison.

[159] of the monastery of Lorvão It happened at that time that a certain one, washed in the sacred font, and nourished under the discipline of John, betook himself from the pastures of Christ to the sands of Mohammed, and most earnestly requested forces from Abderrahman, king of Cordova, with which he might utterly destroy the Christian cause: who, after various examples against Christian men, blockaded Montemor with a siege with this mind, that he might either take the citadel on unjust conditions, or mow down all to a man with the sword. Who, when they attempted the citadel with frequent assaults and stratagems, were repulsed with so great effort of spirit that the Moors, distrusting their affairs, thought of raising the siege; yet there was sharp toiling to intercept the supplies, lest they be brought into the citadel. Compelled by these things, John, going out beyond the walls, very often procured provisions not without blood. But indeed they were brought to those bounds of want that they must either make surrender, or perish, killed by hunger and thirst: both of which the abbot bore grievously, since he knew for certain that the Moors, having entered the stronghold, would lead the women and children into captivity with the greatest peril both of piety and of their bodies. And so he calls the warlike men to counsel, who, when they drew out longer delays in consultation, agreed, the opinions of all being unvaried, that they should slaughter the unwarlike crowd, namely the women, infants, and old men, and reduce the splendid furniture, and whatever of gold or silver there was, to ashes and cinders by fire let in; then, the forces being led out to battle-line *, they should join arms with the enemy, that, the hope of victory being wholly lost, they might avenge themselves and their people.

[160] These things being thus decreed, like men raging, tears flowing abundantly, they carry out their design. the same prodigious history That the abbot John might go before by example, he slew his sister with her children. At length, when, now desperate, they flew upon the enemy, they bore themselves so bravely that, the general of the enemy, a most impudent deserter of the Christian faith, being slain by the abbot's sword, the others broke into flight, close upon whose backs our men spiritedly pressed for some leagues. After the signal for retreat was given, our men returned to gather the spoils. You would see splendid furniture, precious garments, golden vessels, arms, horses, bridles, corpses lying everywhere through the fields. All that night, as far as through tears it was permitted, they celebrated the palm of victory: for who would take delight, those being slain whom he had held dearest in life? On the next day, at the first dawn, they see two men sitting on horses, coming to them in haste with a clustered gait, whose festive cries and rude voices struck the sky. Who, when they met the abbot, reported things greater than belief; namely that those whom they had slaughtered by the utmost butchery had, by the singular benefit of the Deity, been raised from the dead. It cannot be said how immortally they rejoiced at so hasty * a message, to which they gave no credit until they perceived the matter with their eyes. These all appeared marked with a purple thread where the blow was inflicted.

[161] reports a little differently. John, endowed with a certain lofty mind, distributes the spoils equally among all, adorned and enriched with which they retired to their ancestral homes, and he chose that vast solitude, where he had heard so joyful a message, that he might spend the rest of his life, made over to the most august Queen of heaven, to whom he owed himself and all his things by many titles, to whom he referred both the enemies destroyed and his own people brought back from the dead: wherefore he raised that little shrine, where he might consume his time in continual prayers to God, and took care that an effigy of the Mother of God, bearing the child Jesus in a soft embrace, should be fashioned from matter in memory of the benefit received, on which he ordered to be impressed the same thread which the raised bore on their necks, that the memory of so great a gift might be transmitted to immortality. There are those who assert that that effigy, fallen from heaven, offered itself of its own accord to John with the same scar on the neck which even in our age it is possible to see. Thus Vasconcellos, citing at the end Bernardo de Brito, who in the Cistercian Chronicle narrates that prodigy in nearly the same manner, and probably from the same instruments of the monastery of Lorvão, in Portuguese. Meanwhile I see that this narration differs from the preceding in various circumstances, which the curious reader will easily observe, if he shall wish attentively to compare together the text of Fernandez and of Vasconcellos.

[162] Now let us see what a certain learned Spaniard has judged concerning this portentous history. The Spaniards everywhere number this history among fables, He is Antonio de Yepes, a Benedictine, who in the general Chronicle of his Order, volume 1, folio 99, roundly declares that the deeds of the abbot John were contaminated with certain fables. Hear his words, which Thomas Weiss, a monk of the same Order at Neresheim in Swabia, in the Latin edition of that work, volume 1, page 96, thus renders from the Spanish idiom: Likewise Brito narrates rare events concerning a certain John, prelate of this monastery (namely of Lorvão, of which he there treats), whom he makes the uncle of king Ramiro, a prodigious conqueror of the Moors, and says that many dead owed their life restored to him. He promises that in the second part on the Monarchy of Portugal he will produce monuments of the archives, to procure faith for the history, which we in Castile * hold in place of a fable. But I for a while suspend my judgment, until he stand by his promises: for the history of the abbot John, as commonly circulated, has hitherto had no greater credit than that which is circulated concerning count Roland. But just as that author, who amplified beyond measure the deeds done by Roland, and, by mixing great trifles with true exploits, took away credit from history, so I altogether persuade myself that there was a certain abbot of this monastery, endowed with a brave spirit, who led soldiers against the Moors; that he won notable victories: on which, when someone sprinkled fables, he seemed to narrate mere dreams and to sell smoke. It is not here worth while to correct the drowsiness of the interpreter, who did not follow closely enough the Spanish text of the first writer, since from these we abundantly understand the opinion of Yepes.

[163] This censure of Yepes displeases Leo of St. Thomas, of whose censure the Lusitanian writer complains, who in the year 1644 at Coimbra edited the history of the Order of St. Benedict in Portuguese: for in volume 1 of the Portuguese Benedictines, tract 2, part 2, chapter 6, in the last §, he vehemently complains that the Castilians abrogate credit from this tradition of the Lusitanians, and meanwhile relate that similar events happened in Spain. Certainly Jerónimo de Quintana, in the History of the city of Madrid, book 1, chapter 60, after Francisco de Pareda, Alfonso de Salas, and other Spanish writers, narrates something similar concerning Garcia Ramírez, who, girt in a certain fortress by the Moors, his wife and daughters being first slaughtered, rushed with a small band of his own upon the enemy, and after winning a victory over them, returning, found his wife and daughters alive again, who, bending their knees before an image of the Mother of God (commonly nuestra Señora de Atocha), retained only a certain sign of a wound on the neck.

[164] because they write that similar prodigies happened in Spain. Thus Francisco Diago, in the History of the counts of Barcelona, book 2, chapter 14, Antonio Vicente Domenech, in the History of the Saints of Catalonia, book 2, folio 93 verso, and most recently Pierre de Marca, or Étienne Baluze, in book 3 of the Marca Hispanica, chapter 30, report that the daughter of the count of Barcelona, who many years before had been beheaded by Juan Garín, returned to life. Then the same Lusitanian writer, to remove from the Castilians all doubt, says that in the year 1636 he examined in the very town of Montemor what the inhabitants thought of this history. Then finally he asserts that he heard one or another citizen affirming that more than thirty persons, of the posterity of those beheaded, were known to them, who had the aforesaid scar, like a red thread, on the neck. It is not for us to compose those suits between the Lusitanians and the Spaniards, or straightway to give credit to the uncertain relations of more recent men, which Brito, Fernandez, and other older writers seem to have been ignorant of, since they made no word of that sign persisting in the posterity of the slain.

[165] [Ángel Manrique from a Lusitanian author brings forth the very diploma of the abbot John,] We shall therefore rather inquire whether to the confirming of that marvelous history any strength has accrued from the ancient monuments which Brito had promised to give in the second part of the Lusitanian Monarchy, as we understood above from Yepes. But since among all the parts of the Lusitanian Monarchy which we have in our library, this second alone is lacking to us, that defect must be supplied from Ángel Manrique, who in the Cistercian Annals, at the year of Christ 1195, chapter 5, among other things from that work brings forth the diploma

by which John, after winning the prodigious victory, thus renounces the office of abbot: In the name of the undivided and holy Trinity, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. This is the charter of the testament of donation and of perpetual renunciation, which I John the abbot make of my monastery of Lorvão, to you Theodemir the abbot and your brothers. Since I, after many labors and dangers which I bore in the fortress of Montemor against the Saracens, who wished to destroy that place and to take me captive, and, through the mercy of God, I conquered them, and slew more or less seventy thousand in the river and in the rout. And since God showed one prodigy, and gave life to the slain whom by my counsel they had beheaded, and on account of many other goods which I received from the hand of the Lord, since now I see the aforesaid fortress in peace, I give it and place it in the hands of king Ramiro, whose this land is, and of St. Mary with several others: but the monastery of Lorvão, which he had given me, I give to you Theodemir, both for your good living, and on account of the good help given us by you against the Saracens at Montemor, etc. The series of the renunciation and testament was made on the sixth of the Kalends of January, in the era 888. I John the abbot have confirmed it with my own hand. In Bernardo de Brito, book 6 of the Cistercian Chronicle, page 28, the same instrument is read in Portuguese, to which there, after the abbot John, king Ramiro and twelve other witnesses subscribe.

[166] If the genuineness of this diploma were established, of whose truth if it were established, we should admit that prodigy; we should admit that history, however portentous, with the Lusitanians, knowing that the hand of the Lord is not shortened in working prodigies: for we are not wont to abrogate credit from miracles because they are prodigious, but because they lack due testimonies, and often rest only on a popular and inconstant tradition. Thus on the twenty-fourth day of July we defended the stupendous Acts of St. Christina the Astonishing, which are confirmed by contemporary and trustworthy witnesses. But I suspect that the mentioned instrument was afterward forged by some unskilled man for the favor of the popular tradition, as the more learned Spaniards confess concerning the Clavijo diploma and several others.

[167] At least in this instrument, which is brought forth under the name of the abbot John, but since its subscription is false, the chronology is false, when that renunciation is said to have been made on the sixth of the Kalends of January, in the era 888, that is, in the year of Christ 850. How, I beseech, could the abbot John, at the end of the era 888, place the fortress in the hands of king Ramiro, who at the beginning of the same era was already dead and buried at Oviedo? How, on the twenty-seventh day of December in the year 850, does Ramiro subscribe to this abdication, who in the same year, on the Kalends of February, had died? But that Ramiro died in that year, besides the ancient writers, the old epitaph of the church of Oviedo testifies, which Ambrosio Morales, book 13 of the History of Spain, chapter 54, thus reads: There died Ramiro the king of blessed memory on the day of the Kalends of February, in the era 888. I beseech you all who shall read these things, that you cease not to pray for his rest. Concerning this year of death and epitaph the most eminent Baronius also may be seen, in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 850, number 4, with whom Pagi and other more exact chronologers agree.

[168] Although therefore Antonio Brandão, an abbot of the Cistercian Order, these and other more recent monuments of this tradition are suspect to us. in part 3 of the Lusitanian Monarchy, book 10, chapter 45, endeavors to defend these monuments, and to confirm them with other arguments, yet they do not cease to be suspect to us: such as they seemed also to other learned men, as Ángel Manrique confesses in the Cistercian Annals, who pronounces thus cautiously concerning them in the place just cited: Brito adds that there remains to this day an icon of the Virgin, which keeps the neck marked with a bloody scar in memory of the miracle which is believed to have been done by her intercession. Something similar is said to have happened at Madrid, near Castile, by a more recent event. It is not for me to dispute of either, as one to whom neither is it doubtful that it could have happened, nor can it be proved from elsewhere that it happened, than from these instruments and tradition, which many approve, others hold suspect. John is said to have remained in the same oratory as long as he lived, where he also lies buried, with a recent inscription placed over the sepulcher in our century, which briefly notes his history in these words:

John, once abbot of the monastery of Lorvão, uncle of Ramiro I, king of León, who in the year of the Lord 850, about to defend Montemor, had, with a small band of Christians, conquered Abderrahman II, king of Cordova (seventy thousand Saracens being slaughtered), and had beheld the women and little children, slain by his counsel, restored to life by the intervention of this sacred Virgin, here lies entombed.

* perhaps "archiva" (archives)

* perhaps "field" or "battle-line"

* perhaps "festive" (festivo)

* that is, Castile (Castella)

* that is, "I slew with a drawn sword"

* that is, aid (auxilium)

§ XIII. The author of the miracles, and their diverse narration.

We have in a double manuscript the miracles of St. James, Without doubt innumerable miracles were wrought by the patronage of St. James, which escaped the knowledge of posterity. Yet some were noted, concerning which formerly in Spain an Office was recited, as is plain from the ancient Lectionary of the monastery of Silos, from which Berganza, part 2 of the Antiquities of Spain, page 680, edited two Lessons. There is no need to transcribe them here, since we have a double manuscript in which these and several other miracles are contained. Our first transcript came from a manuscript codex of the Basilica of St. Peter, in which to each miracle its own author is added (these Vincent of Beauvais also distinguished in the Speculum Historiale, book 26, chapter 30 and following), as we shall afterward observe. The other is taken from a manuscript of the monastery of Marchiennes, which was collated by our Chifflet with other codices. In both manuscripts the substance of the matter is the same, but here and there the order of the chapters is changed, so that in the former certain things are placed after the miracles which in the latter are prefixed to them. Moreover the manuscript of Marchiennes, without any distinction of authors, has this title: The Book of the miracles of St. James the apostle, edited by Pope Callistus II. I confess that this little work is found under the name of Callistus in very many libraries, and is everywhere attributed to him by writers, nay even by Vincent of Beauvais is reported as his offspring. Yet what, with Ambrosio Morales, I think against various men concerning this matter, I shall candidly declare.

[179] which do not seem to have been written by Pope Callistus II, I do not deny that by Callistus, when perhaps he held the see of Vienne, or even when he was younger, out of his singular affection toward St. James, some of his miracles were collected; but that the whole of that work, as it now everywhere exists, is the genuine offspring of Callistus, I deny: for I should believe that I would do a great injury to that most learned Pontiff, if I attributed to him the parachronisms and other errors occurring in it. Nor can I easily persuade myself that this very little work, which now is circulated under the name of Pope Callistus, was approved by Pope Innocent II, if the epistle of Innocent be genuine, which our Mariana, in the Disputation on the coming of St. James into Spain, chapter 12, sets forth. Before I show this at greater length, let the reader himself judge from the front of the little work, which thus begins: Callistus, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the most holy convent of the church of Cluny, and to the most famous heroes William, patriarch of Jerusalem, and Diego, archbishop of Compostela, and to all the orthodox, greeting and apostolic benediction in Christ. Since in all parts of the world heroes more excellent than you in dignity and honor cannot be found, I have sent this codex on the virtues of blessed James to your paternity, so that if you shall be able to find anything to be corrected in it, your authority may, out of love of the Apostle, diligently amend it.

[171] as from the inept and false proem, Nevertheless for this codex I suffered innumerable anxieties: for while I was a scholar, and from infancy loving the Apostle, traversing lands and barbarous provinces for the number of fourteen years, I diligently wrote on a few and mean and rough scraps; that in one volume I might comprehend the miracles heard; so that the lovers of St. James might more aptly find together the things which are necessary to be read on feast days. O wondrous fortune! I fell among robbers, and, all my spoils being snatched, the codex alone remained to me: I was thrust into prisons and, my whole property being lost, and, as I have already said, the codex alone survived: in the depth of many waters I often fell, near to death, and the codex escaped by no means harmed *, though I was drowning. The house in which I was was being burned, and, my things being consumed, the codex escaped with me unburnt.

[172] Then the same author, after other things no less unpolished and wondrous, prefixed to them, which it is not worth while here to report, thus concludes: Thus therefore this little work has been made open to all, that it may profit as much those skilled in the grammatical art as those not understanding great things. Whatever is written in it is authentic, and expressed with great authority. The same we determine concerning the history of Charles, which is described by blessed Turpin, archbishop of Reims. Let the miracles of blessed James which are contained in this codex be read on his feast days each week, namely on that day on which his annual festivity preceded. Vincent of Beauvais, who flourished about the middle of the thirteenth century, book 26 of the Speculum Historiale, chapter 30, attributes things similar to these to Callistus. Whence in passing I gather that the little work of Callistus on the miracles of St. James was corrupted by someone after a hundred and a few more years, which space of time is great enough to alter and augment the writing of any author.

[173] I could examine various things in this prologue; but to have observed one or another gross error will suffice. it is shown. I ask therefore first that someone explain to me how Callistus II, who according to all chronologers died in the year 1124, could send his little work to William, patriarch of Jerusalem, who was only raised to the patriarchate of Jerusalem in the year 1130, as Papebroch shows in the preliminary treatise before volume 3 of May, page 47, number 200. Then I ask by what show of truth that most prudent Pontiff is said to approve the history of Pseudo-Turpin, which all the learned prove to be stuffed with insipid fables, and written by an unskilled and lying man, as I showed above, number 119, from Possevino and others. Yet I forewarn that by this reasoning I do not wish to abrogate credit from the miracles of St. James, even though they are placed under another's name and here and there interpolated.

[174] I marveled that the heretics, always ready to disown any works of the ancient authors The heretics readily attribute this little work to Callistus, when these are inconvenient to their sect, are here so ready to concede that little work to Callistus II. But at length I understood the mystery of iniquity: namely that it tends to this, that they may make Callistus the author of the fabulous history of Pseudo-Turpin. Among others Casimir Oudin, an unhappy apostate of his Order and of the faith,

in the Commentary on ecclesiastical writers, volume 2, column 69, thus lies in this matter: The author of this work is not Turpin, but Pope Callistus II, who three centuries after the death of Charlemagne feigned that fable, not that he might render Charlemagne, but that he might render St. James the apostle and the church of Compostela, which he ardently loved, more illustrious by these fables. Whence it is no wonder that in the manuscript codex of St. Benedict at Cambridge Callistus II calls this fable feigned by himself AN AUTHENTIC WORK, and is the first to make mention of it.

[175] This apostate here cites Papire Masson in the Annals of Gaul, to prove that this work is full of old wives' fictions; but he cautiously keeps silent [that they may make him the author of the fabulous history feigned under the name of Turpin,] as to what Papire Masson in the same Annals, book 2, page 92, judged concerning the author of that fable, in these words: Therefore that little book seems to have been written by an idle man for the pleasure of youth, not long after the reign of Charles the Bald: and a version of it is preserved in the royal library, in the ancient and almost obsolete language of the Gauls, and in the most ancient characters. If that history was written not long after the reign of Charles the Bald, who died in the year 877, how could Callistus feign it in the twelfth century? If he himself had feigned that history under the name of Turpin, could he with a sane brain have asserted in it that in the council of Compostela it was appointed that all prelates and princes and Christian kings, namely Spanish and Galician, present and future, should obey the bishop of St. James, as we reported above, number 118, from Pseudo-Turpin? Could he, I say, with a sane brain have asserted that all the prelates of Spain were subject to the bishop of St. James, since Pope Callistus himself first raised the church of Compostela to the metropolitan dignity? Certainly that faithless apostate will not persuade us by his authority that Callistus was so dull that he wished by these gross and manifest fictions to expose himself to the mockery of all. But let us leave that calumniator, who not long ago breathed forth an unhappy soul among the heterodox, and let us proceed to establish our opinion further.

[176] that both works, with Ambrosio Morales, Ambrosio Morales, in the General Chronicle of Spain, volume 1, book 9, chapter 7, folio 241, brings forward several reasons on account of which he takes the aforesaid little work of miracles away from Callistus. In the first place he deservedly marvels that the authors of the History of Compostela, who lived in the time of Callistus II, made no mention of that little book, although in it they often make mention of the things illustriously done by Callistus down to his death. Then he asserts that in the Compostelan exemplar of that work many absurd things and unworthy of so great a Pontiff are contained. It does not escape me that Pedro Mantuano, in the Observations on the history of Juan Mariana, from page 124, on account of frivolous conjectures contends that Ambrosio Morales did not see the Compostelan exemplar of that little work. But Thomas Tamayo de Vargas, in the History of Mariana defended against Mantuano in Spanish, from page 159, excellently defends the credit of Morales. Nay, I myself can confirm the assertion of Morales by my own testimony: for when in the year 1722 I stayed for some days at Toledo in our professed house, I remember reading a manuscript little book on the miracles of St. James, marked with the name of Pope Callistus II, and written from a Compostelan transcript (perhaps by our Mariana, who, dying at Toledo, left there many manuscript monuments of his assiduous and long labor), in which, among the counsels concerning the journey to St. James, there were so many ineptitudes and insults against the Cantabrians and the neighboring dwellers of the Pyrenean mountains, whom the French commonly call Basques, the Spaniards Baizaynos, that they moved me partly to laughter, partly to indignation.

[177] we judge unworthy of so great a Pontiff. Thus far I have examined the first chapter of our manuscript; now concerning the four following, which I do not judge should be given to the press, I shall also say a few things. In the second and third chapters many things are narrated concerning the passion and translation of St. James, which, to speak most mildly, are plainly uncertain. Besides other prodigies, there is brought in the king of Galicia, drowned, the bridge being broken, and a huge dragon, which the disciples of St. James killed with the sign of the Cross. To these is added the history of Lupa (here she is called Luparia) with the untamed oxen, all which above, §4, I rejected as little probable. The fourth chapter contains the epistle of Pope Leo, which is much longer than that which I set forth above, number 38, from the Breviary of Évora. In the fifth chapter, finally, there is treated of the three festivities of St. James, and there it is said that the certain day of his passion was revealed to someone, concerning which yet our Gaspar Sánchez, in the Commentaries on chapter 12 of the Acts, and other learned interpreters of sacred Scripture, still dispute. These chapters therefore being omitted, I shall subject to the press only the miracles of St. James, which yet are not all to be ascribed to Callistus, as I shall observe in the notes. But since our Sánchez, in the disputation on the preaching of St. James in Spain, tract 3, chapter 9, after Baronius, thinks that some things were added and attached to this little work of Callistus by others, I fear lest the very miracles were from time to time interpolated, especially those which are reported by the ancient writers in a very different manner, of which variety I now set forth one or another specimen.

[178] Guibert, abbot of Nogent, who died in the year 1124, Abbot Guibert narrates a miracle concerning a pilgrim tending into Galicia, in book 3 of his own life, chapter 18, narrates a wondrous history of a man killing himself by diabolical persuasion, in this manner: The things which I am about to say, unheard-of in our times, I received by the relation of a certain religious and truly humble monk, who indeed is called Joffred: he was once lord of the castle of Saumur and of other castles in Burgundy, whose life, because it is known to be truly kindred, we think his words … are to be compared. But the relation is thus: There was a certain young man in the upper parts of the lands adjacent to him, who had cleaved to a certain woman with a love not conjugal, that is, due, but usurious, to speak according to Solinus, that is, with an undue love. He, at some time coming a little to his senses, thinks of going to St. James in Galicia for the sake of prayer. But into the very mass of the pious intention a certain leaven is inserted: for carrying with him in that pilgrimage the girdle of the woman, he abuses it for her remembrance, and his upright offering is now not uprightly divided.

[179] Therefore, on the way, the devil, having gotten an occasion of assailing the man, appears to him in the likeness of James, who, deceived by diabolical fraud, and says: Whither dost thou tend? To St. James, he says. Thou goest not well, he says. I am James, to whom thou hastenest; but thou bearest with thee a thing most unworthy of my dignity: for since thou hast hitherto lain in the wallowing-place of all fornication, now thou wishest to seem penitent, and, as though pretending some fruit of a good beginning, thou professest to tend to my presence, since thou art still girded with the belt of that obscene little woman of thine. The man blushed at the objections, and, believing him truly the Apostle, replies: I know, lord, that I have both once and now most wickedly acted; tell me, I beseech, what counsel wilt thou give me setting out to thy clemency? If thou wishest, he says, to make worthy fruits of penitence for the base deeds perpetrated, cut off for my and God's fidelity that member whence thou didst sin, namely the virile part, and afterward take away likewise the very life which thou hast ill led, thy throat being cut. He said it, and, withdrawing himself from his eyes, left the man in much perversity of mind.

[180] Coming therefore to the lodging at night, he hastens to obey the devil, not, as he thought, the Apostle, who had admonished him. And so, his companions sleeping, he first cuts off his member, had killed himself, and by the patronage of St. James had returned to life, then plunges the knife into his throat. When the companions overheard the gasp of the dying man and the crackle of the blood bursting forth, they are roused from sleep, and, a light being applied, they see what had been done concerning the man. They grieve, finally, marking the deadly ends of their comrade, but not knowing what counsel he had received from the demon. Because therefore they were ignorant for what cause it had happened to him, yet they did not deny him the care of obsequies; and what had been undue for one thus dying, they commanded the offices of Masses to be celebrated for their fellow-pilgrim, as it seemed. Which being faithfully poured out to God, it pleased God that, the wound of the throat being mended, he should restore life to the dead man through his Apostle. Rising therefore, the man, all being astonished beyond what can be said at the man revived, begins to speak.

[181] which is elsewhere reported in another manner To those present therefore inquiring what mind he had in killing himself, he confesses concerning the diabolical apparition under the Apostle's name. Being asked what judgment he underwent in spirit after his suicide, he says: I was carried before the throne of God, in the presence of the common Lady, the Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, where also my patron the holy apostle James was present. There, when it was being treated before God what should be done concerning me, and the blessed Apostle, mindful of my intention, though sinful and still corrupt, was praying for me to that Blessed one, she herself from her most sweet mouth pronounced the sentence that pardon should be granted to the wretched man, whom the malignity of the devil under a holy likeness had thus caused to fall. Thus, God commanding, this happened to me, to return to the world for my correction, and for the announcing of these things. The elder therefore, who reported these things to me, narrated that he had heard them from him who had seen the man revived: for it was also reported that an evident and notable scar remained to him on the throat, which carried about the miracle, and that the mutilated part had had a residual little opening , so to speak, for the urine. Compare these things with those which are narrated among the miracles to be given after this paragraph, from number 227, and receive another example of like discrepancy.

[182] A common miracle concerning a youth unjustly hanged, Caesarius of Heisterbach, a monk of the Cistercian Order, in the History of miracles which he wrote about the year 1220, thus reports a prodigy concerning a youth unjustly hanged and marvelously preserved in life by the aid of St. James, book 8, chapter 58: A certain citizen of Maastricht set out with his son to St. James. It happened, if I remember well, that in a certain place his host lost I know not what, and, having suspicion of him, laid a charge of theft on him before the judge of the city. When he denied it and said: God knows, and St. James is witness, that I was never a thief, nor a thief's companion; the judge did not believe the words, but by the sentence of hanging condemned the innocent man. The son, seeing his father condemned, and that the testimonies of the brothers profited him nothing, weeping and wailing said to the judge: I ask you, lord, that out of regard for God and St. James you hang me, my father being released: for I know his innocence. By whose weeping and insistence the judge, at length overcome, absolved the father, and hanged him. But the father, exceedingly sad, going on with the companions, and visiting the thresholds of blessed

James, and supplicating him for the soul of his son, after he returned to the place of hanging, said to the brothers: Behold, brothers, my son: I pray that you halt a little, until I take him down and bury him.

[183] Hearing the voice of the father, he answered: Welcome, and marvelously preserved in life by the aid of St. James, father: for I still live. Taken down by him and asked what was the cause of so great a miracle, he said: The holy apostle James, from the hour when I was hung on this gallows until now, has sustained me with his hands. I did not hunger, I did not thirst, I felt nothing of pain, nor was it ever better with me in all the days of my life. And straightway both together hastening to the blessed Apostle, the son to pay his vow, the father to render thanks, they returned unharmed to the city of Maastricht. And the same miracle in the same city, as William our monk, canon there, reported to us, is very celebrated and most well-known. In our manuscript this is handed down to have happened at Toulouse, and is narrated in a different manner, as may be seen below from number 202.

[184] Lucius Marineus Siculus, in the work on the memorable affairs of Spain, book 5, near the end, writes that this miracle was done in the city of St. Dominic of the Causeway, Lucius Marineus Siculus writes that it happened in the city of the Causeway, and sets it forth far otherwise, in these words: A certain upright man and friend of God, and his wife, an excellent woman, with a young son of great uprightness, setting out to St. James of Compostela, enter this city (namely of the Causeway, of which he had treated above), wearied with the labor of the journey, and for the sake of resting halted in the house of a certain man who had a grown daughter: who, when she had seen the youth of fair face, was seized with love of him. And when the young man, being solicited and troubled by her, resisted her desire, she turned her love into hatred, and, desiring to harm him, at the time when they wished to depart, secretly placed her father's cup in his cowl. And when the pilgrims had departed in the morning, the girl cried out before her parents that the cup had been stolen from her. Which the magistrate hearing, at once sent servants to bring back the pilgrims: who, when they had come, the girl, conscious of her own crime, approached the youth, and drew the cup out of his cowl.

[185] Wherefore, the offense being discovered, the youth, led out into the field by an unjust sentence and without fault, was hanged on a noose, he writes that it happened, and the wretched parents, after they had bewailed their son, afterward departing, came to Compostela. Where, their vows being paid and giving thanks to God, presently returning they came to the place where the son had been hanged, and the mother, bathed in many tears, approached the son, the husband much dissuading. And when she looked up at her son, the son said to her: My mother, weep not over me: for I am alive, since the Virgin Mother of God and St. James (Louis de la Vega, to be cited below, substitutes for St. James St. Dominic of the Causeway) sustain me and keep me unharmed. Go, dearest mother, to the judge who falsely condemned me, and tell him that I live on account of my innocence, that he may order me to be freed and restore me to you. The anxious mother hastens, and, weeping more abundantly for excess of joy, meets the magistrate sitting at table, who wished to carve a roasted cock and hen: Magistrate, she says, my son lives, order him, I beseech, to be released. Which when the magistrate had heard, thinking that she said what she said out of maternal love in a dream, he answered, smiling: What is this, good woman? Be not deceived: for thy son lives just as these birds live. And scarcely had he said this, when the cock and hen leaped upon the table, and straightway the cock crowed.

[186] and adorns it with various circumstances, Which when the magistrate had seen, astonished, he at once goes out, calls the priests and the citizens: they set out to the youth hanged, and found him unharmed, and greatly rejoicing, and restore him to his parents; and, returning home, they take the cock and hen, and transfer them to the church with great solemnity: which, there shut up (matters admirable and testifying the power of God!), are kept. Where they live for seven years (for this term God appointed for them), and at the end of the seven years, before they die, they leave a young cock and a young hen of their own color and size, and this happens in that church every seven years. It is also of great wonder that all the pilgrims passing through this city, who are innumerable, take a feather of this cock and hen, and never do the feathers fail them. This I testify, because I saw it and was present, and I carry the feather with me. A similar prodigy concerning a cock already set out to be eaten is said to have been wrought for the favor of a certain Christian, who, imploring the aid of St. Dominic of the Causeway, was freed from the captivity of the Moors, as we reported in the Acts of that Saint, volume 3 of May, page 171.

[187] [one of which Louis de la Vega denies, although he agrees with him concerning the place,] Louis de la Vega, in the Life of St. Dominic of the Causeway, which he edited at Burgos in the year 1606 in Spanish, part 2, chapter 8, proposes a twofold narration of this matter, both of which on the twelfth day of May, on the page just cited, we translated into Latin. His latter narration agrees with that which we gave above from Marineus Siculus: but he charges that writer with fiction, because he asserts that the feathers of the cock and hen, which are daily distributed to the pilgrims passing there, are prodigiously multiplied. But he affirms, as an eyewitness, that in that church a certain cleric is appointed, who keeps those feathers and distributes them to the pilgrims; but he denies that the continual miracle of multiplication, so confidently asserted by Marineus Siculus, is seen or wrought in that city. Yet he strives with many arguments to prove that all the other prodigies are true, and testifies that, for the perpetual memory of the matter, in the upper part of the church there is exposed to the eyes of all the same gallows on which the pilgrim was hanged.

[188] against whom the people of Toulouse contend that it happened in their city. Nevertheless the people of Toulouse will have it that that miracle happened in their city: for Nicolas Bertrand, who in the year 1515 published in print the deeds of the people of Toulouse, thus narrates this matter, folio 49 verso: One miracle, which we read and also see painted in the several churches or chapels of blessed James, was done at Toulouse concerning a pilgrim going to blessed James at Compostela, who, remaining hanged one month by the false accusations of his Toulouse host, remained alive until the return of his father and mother, whom blessed James sustained: and the parents, seeing him alive on the gallows, go to the judge to complain of their son accused of a grave injury and calumny. But when the magistrate of Toulouse refused to believe it, unless the fowls, already roasted on the spit, going out crowed or flew, and, taking flight, departed from the fire chattering, he marveled. And when he had gone to the gallows, and saw the youth hanged alive, and asked the cause of his life, he said to the judge that [he] had been preserved by the merits of the divine James. Do you see how various things are handed down by various men? We do not settle that suit between the Spaniards and the Gauls; but we require from both older documents, especially concerning the cock and hen resuscitated, of which prodigy in Caesarius of Heisterbach and in our manuscripts there is deep silence. Now in the first place we shall give the miracles which are commonly circulated under the name of Callistus II, to which we shall then subjoin others from the Pistoian manuscript, of whose chief collector and authentic faith we admonished sufficiently above, §8.

* otherwise "infectus"

* read "hoc"

* that is, an opening (foramen)

MIRACLES, BY THE AUTHOR, AS IS REPORTED, POPE CALLISTUS II.

From the manuscript of the monastery of Marchiennes, which we collated with another manuscript of the Basilica of St. Peter.

James the Greater, Apostle and Martyr, at Compostela in Spain (S.)

BHL Number: 4072

FROM MANUSCRIPTS.

PROLOGUE.

It is exceedingly worth while to hand down the miracles of blessed James to writing, for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to commend them eternally to memory: The author forewarns how he collected these miracles. for when the examples of the Saints are narrated by the skilled, the hearts of the hearers are excited to the sweetness and love of the heavenly homeland. Which I, considering, while traversing barbarous lands, found some of these miracles in Galicia, some in Gaul, some in the Teutonic land, some in Italy, some in Hungary, some in Denmark ^a, some even beyond three seas ^b, written diversely in diverse places: some in barbarous shores, in which the blessed Apostle deigned to work them, I learned from those narrating who saw or heard them; some I saw with my own eyes: which I diligently commended to letters for the glory of the Lord and of the Apostle. Which, the more beautiful they are, so much the more dear. Nor let anyone think that I have written all the miracles and examples which I heard concerning him, but those which by the most true assertions of the most truthful men I approved to have been true. For if I should write all the miracles which I heard concerning him in very many places under the narration of many, my hand and study and parchment would fail sooner than his examples. Wherefore we command that this codex be reckoned among the truthful and authentic codices, and be diligently read in churches and refectories on the feast days of the same Apostle and on others, if it please.

NOTES.

CHAPTER I.

St. James frees captives, marvelously blots out a sin written in a bond, obtains a son for a barren woman, and raises the same from the dead.

Certain Christians captured by the Moors; The blessed apostle James, who first among the Apostles endured the pain of passion, toiled to eradicate utterly, by innumerable signs of virtues, the roughness of the nations which he watered with the doctrine of holy preaching, and who was, by divine gift, the worker of so great virtue in the exile of this present life, now, after in eternal felicity he has wiped away the sweat of his labor with the towel of remuneration, more fully pours out the exhibition of his virtue upon those who cease not to seek him through the affection of importunate petition. Whence a certain miracle, which we learned under the knowledge of truth, we set forth more clearly for the knowledge of those who come after by the series of this writing. When therefore in the times of king Alfonso, in the parts of Spain, the rabies of the Saracens grew more sharply, a certain count, by name Ermengot, seeing the religion of the Christians pressed down by the assault of the Moabites, surrounded by the strength of his army, beset himself ^a as it were under the arguments of an invincible battle to war down their savagery. But, our merits requiring it, his defense being overcome, he incurred the contrary of a triumph ^b. Wherefore the hostile fierceness, elevated with the pride of exaltation in the voice of arrogance, led twenty men, regenerated by the wave of faith,

of whom one discharged the priestly office, under the command of captivity into the city of Saragossa as a victory-prize, where, after the likeness of the perpetual blindness of hell, under the intolerable darkening of the prison, bound with the fetters of divers kinds, according to divine inspiration, at the admonition of the presbyter, they began thus to invoke blessed James: James, precious apostle of God, who under the office of piety piously succor the straits of the oppressed, stretching out the hand of thy consolation to the groans of so unheard-of a seizure, propitiously hasten that we, restored to liberty, may escape * from the chains by which we are monstrously bound.

[191] Whose almost irremediable voices blessed James hearing, shone forth in the darkness of the prison, thus addressing them: Behold, I am here, the aid of St. James being implored, they are marvelously freed. whom you called. Who, girded with the charity of so great a hearing, raising their faces, which for the greatness of grief they held fixed on their knees, fell down at his feet. Whose chains blessed James, condoling to the very heart, broke asunder by the aid of his virtue. Moreover, the right hand of his power being joined to the hands of the captives, snatched by divine power from the prison of so great danger, they came, he being their guide, to the gates of the city. But the gates, the sign of the cross of apostolic reverence being made, so freely ministered their egress, that, after they had gone out, they resumed the rigor of their former joining. Whom blessed James, a long space having glided by after cockcrow, the ray of light now almost springing forth, going before, led to a certain castle which was held under the protection of Christendom. Where also, perceiving himself to be called upon by them, he visibly ascended into the heavens. At whose command, calling upon him with a great noise of voice, the doors being opened, they were received within. But going out on the third day, they endeavor to return to their own homes. But after a little time, a certain one of them, seeking the thresholds of blessed James on the festivity of the translation of the same Apostle, which among us ^c is celebrated yearly on the third of the Kalends of January, announced to all that all these things were done thus, as we have written. This was done by the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes. To the supreme King therefore be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

[192] In the times of blessed Theodemir ^d, bishop of Compostela, A certain sinner his own crime, which had been written on a schedule, there was a certain Italian, who a certain great crime, which he had once wickedly committed, scarcely dared to confess to his priest and prelate. Which being heard, his prelate, terrified with horror of so great a crime, dares not ^e give him penance. Yet, moved by piety, he directs the sinner with a schedule, on which the same offense was written, to the thresholds of St. James for the sake of penance; charging him to implore the aids of the blessed Apostle with his whole heart, and to submit to the judgment of the prelate of the apostolic basilica. But he without delay went to blessed James in Galicia, and, penitent for having done so great a crime, upon his venerable altar, begging pardon from God and the Apostle with tearful sobs, on the feast day of St. James, namely on the eighth of the Kalends of August at the first hour, laid the bond of his guilt.

[193] And when blessed Theodemir, prelate of the see of Compostela, adorned with the episcopal insignia, came to the altar to sing Mass on that very day at the third hour, by the aid of St. James he found blotted out. he found that schedule under the cloth of the altar, inquiring why or by whom it had been placed there. To whom, when the penitent had at once run up, and, on bended knees before him, all hearing, not without tears, related his own crime and the command of his prelate, by which he had come, the holy prelate, the schedule being opened, as if it had never been written with letters, found nothing written in it. A wondrous thing and great joy, great praise and glory are sung to God and the Apostle, saying: This was done by the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes. But the holy prelate, believing that he had obtained pardon before God by the merits of the Apostle, was unwilling to give him another penance for the crime perpetrated, except that he ordered him thenceforth to fast only on the sixth day, and, absolved from all his past offenses, sent him back to his homeland. Hence it is given to gather that whoever shall be truly penitent, and from distant shores, to ask pardon from the Lord and the aids of blessed James, shall seek Galicia with his whole heart, without doubt the bond of his offenses shall be blotted out forever.

[194] In the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand one hundred and eight, in the shores of Gaul a certain man, in hope of offspring, A barren woman bore a son, as is the custom, joined a wife to himself lawfully. With whom, dwelling a long time, his sins requiring it, he was frustrated of that hope. Whence grievously grieving that he lacked his own heir, he resolved to go to blessed James, and to ask him with living voice for a son. What more? There was no delay, and he went to his thresholds, and there, placing himself before his presence, weeping, shedding tears, and beseeching him with his whole heart, he was able to merit that for which he appealed to the Apostle of God. Therefore in his wonted manner, his prayer being completed, leave being sought from blessed James, he returned unharmed to his homeland. Where, resting three days, prayer being made, he approached his wife, from which union his wife, being made pregnant, the months being fulfilled, bore a son, on whom for joy he imposed the name of the same Apostle.

[195] who afterward, having died, by the intercession of St. James Who afterward advancing, being about the fifteenth year of his age, with his father and mother and with certain of his kinsmen, undertook the journey of blessed James. Who also, coming in health as far as the mountain which is called Oca ^f, there the boy, struck with a grievous disease, breathed out his soul. At whose death his kinsmen, raging like men possessed, filled the whole wood and the villages with their howls and clamors. The mother, however, breaking forth into greater grief, as though placed out of her senses, addressed blessed James with these words: Blessed James, to whom so great power was given by the Lord that thou gavest me a son, now restore him to me. Restore him, I say, because thou canst: for if thou shalt not do this, I will straightway kill myself, or cause myself to be buried alive with him. Meanwhile, all standing, and providing the funeral of the boy, and leading him to burial, by the mercy of God and the prayer of blessed James to the Lord, the boy was roused as from a deep sleep.

[196] is recalled to life: At which so great miracle all the bystanders, exceedingly exulting, praised God. But the boy, restored to life, began to relate, all standing by, how blessed James refreshed his soul, gone out from the body, from the third hour of the sixth day until the ninth hour of the Sabbath in his bosom, namely in eternal rest, and, the Lord commanding, restored it to his body, and, raising him from the funeral by the right arm, commanded him to walk swiftly the path of St. James with his kinsmen: and the youth said that it was then sweeter for him in that heavenly homeland than now in this most wretched one. And so at length he set out with his kinsmen to the thresholds of blessed James. What more? By his prayers he was created, at his venerable altar he was offered. By the Lord therefore this was done, and it is marvelous in our eyes.

[197] from which miracle the author deduces an inept and false argument. It is a thing new and unheard-of hitherto, that a dead man should raise a dead man. Blessed Martin, while still living, raised three dead, and our Lord Jesus Christ as many. But blessed James, dead, brought a dead man back to life. If our Lord and blessed Martin are read to have raised no one after death, but before death only three dead: therefore the dead themselves bear testimony that a dead man cannot raise a dead man, but the living. Which proposition is thus concluded. If a dead man cannot raise a dead man, but a living one: Therefore blessed James truly lives with God, because, dead, he raised a dead man. And so it is established that both before death and after death any Saint, God granting, can raise a dead man. Whoever believes in me, says the Lord, the works which I do, he also shall do, and greater than these shall he do. And elsewhere: All things are possible to him that believes.

NOTES.

CHAPTER II.

The Apostle rewards the service rendered to his pilgrim, marvelously preserves in life a youth unjustly hanged, and succors another man in straits.

In this present miracle of blessed James, son of Zebedee, the apostle of Galicia, it is proved to be true A certain pilgrim, deserted by his companions, what Scripture testifies: It is better not to vow than after a vow to turn back. For it is reported that thirty heroes in the shores of Lorraine, out of devotion of piety, proposed to visit the thresholds of blessed James in the parts of Galicia, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand and eighty. But because the human mind is sometimes changed among many promising, they undertook among themselves the common office and pact of mutual service and of preserving fidelity. Nevertheless one of that number was unwilling to involve himself in an oath of this kind. Then all these, having undertaken the proposed journey, as far as the Gascon city called the Closed Gate

^a, came unharmed. But there one of them, weighed down by infirmity, could in no way go: whom his companions, by the pact of promised faith, with horses and the carrying of their hands, with grievous labor, carried as far as the passes * of Cize ^b for fifteen days, since the space of this way is wont to be completed by the unencumbered in five days.

[199] and, faithfully helped by one of them, dies on the way, Then at length, weighed down and afflicted with excessive weariness, setting aside the pact of faith, they deserted the sick man. But he alone, who had not given him his faith, showed to the enfeebled man the work of faith and piety, not deserting him, and on the next following night kept vigils about him in the village of St. Michael at the foot of the aforesaid ^c mountain. But when morning was come, the sick man said to his companion that he would try to ascend the mountain, if he, being sound, would spend on him aid according to his strength. To whom he answered that he would not desert him even unto death. And so, when they had ascended to the summit of the mountain, namely with the greatest labor, the day is closed, and the most blessed soul of the sick man goes out from this wicked world, and is worthily placed, according to his merits, blessed James leading, in paradisiac rest. Which the living man seeing, greatly terrified, both by the solitude of the place, and by the darkness of the night, and by the horror of the present dead man, and being in the nation of the barbarous people of the Basques ^d, namely of the impious dwelling about the passes, feared beyond measure.

[200] [whom the holy Apostle prodigiously conveys to Compostela together with his companion,] And since he found no help from himself or from any man, casting his thought upon the Lord, he sought protection from blessed James with a suppliant heart. But the Lord, the fountain of piety, not deserting those who hope in him, deigned through his Apostle to visit the desolate man. For indeed blessed James, as it were a soldier sitting on a horse, came upon the man placed in straits, and said to him: What dost thou here, brother? Lord, said he, I greatly desire to bury my companion here: but by what means he may be buried in this waste I have not. Then he: Hand me, he said, this dead man: do thou also sit behind me upon the horse, until we come to the place of burial. And so it is done. The Apostle therefore carefully took the dead man in his arms before him, and made the living man sit behind him upon the horse. Wondrous virtue of God, wondrous clemency; wondrous aids of blessed James! That night, the interval of a journey of twelve days being traversed, before sunrise, one mile short of the monastery of the aforesaid Apostle, on the Mount of Joy ^e, he set both companions down from the horse, intimating to the living man that he should invite the canons of the aforesaid basilica to bury this pilgrim of blessed James.

[201] and commands the faithless companions to be admonished of the neglected service. Then he added, saying: When thou shalt have seen the obsequies of thy dead man honorably completed, and, passing the night in prayer after thy wonted manner, shalt have returned, near the city, by name León ^f, thou shalt have thy companions to meet thee; to whom thou shalt also say: Because concerning your companion, deserting him, you acted faithlessly, the Apostle announces to you through me that your prayers and your pilgrimages, until worthy penance, are utterly displeasing to him. Then at length, hearing these things and understanding that it was the Apostle of Christ, he wished to fall down at his feet. But the soldier of God appeared to him no more. These things being thus done, returning, he found his companions in the aforesaid city. To whom whatever had happened to him from their departure, how many and how great threats, on account of the faith toward their companion not fully exhibited, the Apostle had brought, he related in order. Which being heard, they marveled beyond what is right to be said, and, penance being received at once from the prelate of the city of León, they completed the journey of their pilgrimage. And by the Lord indeed this was done, and it is marvelous in our eyes. For these are the things which the Lord has done: let us exult and rejoice in them. Thus in this miracle it is proved that whatever is vowed to the Lord ought to be paid with cheerfulness: so that, paying worthy vows, one may obtain pardon from the Lord ^g.

[202] It must be handed down to memory that certain Teutons ^h, under the habit of pilgrimage, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand and ninety, going to the thresholds of blessed James, came with abundance of their riches to the city of Toulouse ⁱ, A youth tending to St. James, and there had lodging with a certain rich man. Who, a wicked man, under a sheep's skin simulating the mildness of a sheep, received them carefully, and by various drinks, as though under the grace of hospitality, fraudulently compelled them to be inebriated. O blind avarice, O the wicked mind of a man prone to evil! At length, the pilgrims being weighed down more than usual by sleep and drunkenness, the deceitful host, agitated by the spirit of avarice, that he might convict them as guilty of theft, and acquire for himself the money of the convicted, secretly hid a silver cup in a certain bag of the sleepers. Whom, after cockcrow, departing, the wicked host followed with an armed hand, crying out: Give back, give back the money withdrawn from me. To whom they said: Upon whomsoever thou shalt find it, thou shalt condemn him at thy will.

[203] Inquiry therefore being made, the two in whose bag he found the cup, namely father and son, and, falsely accused of theft, is hanged, unjustly seizing their goods, he dragged to the public judgment. But the judge, moved by the grace of piety, orders one to be dismissed, the other to be led to punishment. O bowels of mercy! The father, wishing to free the son, offered himself for punishment; the son, on the contrary, It is not just, said he, that a father be delivered to the peril of death for a son; but let the son undergo for the father the destruction of the appointed penalty. O venerable contest of clemency! Finally, by his own vow, the son is hanged for the liberation of his beloved father: but the father, weeping and mourning, goes on to St. James. But, the venerable apostolic altar being visited, the father returning thence, thirty-six days now being passed, makes a turning-aside to the body of his son still hanging, crying out with tearful groans and pitiable wailings: Alas me, son, why did I beget thee! Why, seeing thee hanged, have I endured to live!

[204] How magnified are thy works, O Lord! The hanged son consoles the father, [whom the father, returning from Compostela, finds alive on the gallows, and orders to be taken down.] and says: Do not, most loving father, mourn over my punishment, since it is none; but rather rejoice, because it is now sweeter for me than it would have been before in all my past life. For indeed the most blessed James, sustaining me with his hands, refreshes me with all manner of sweetness. Which the father hearing, ran into the city, calling together the people to so great a miracle of God. Who, coming and seeing this man, hanged for so long a time, still living, understood that from the insatiable avarice of the host he had been accused, but by the mercy of God saved. By the Lord plainly this was done, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore with great glory they took him down from the gallows. But the host, as he had ill deserved, by the common judgment condemned to death, they at once hanged in the same place ^k. Wherefore whoever are reckoned by the Christian name ought with great solicitude to take heed that they do not contrive to do to their guests, or to any of their neighbors, fraud of this kind, or anything like it; but let them study to spend mercy and kindly piety on pilgrims, so that thence they may merit to receive from God the rewards of eternal glory.

[205] St. James supplies a pilgrim with an ass, In the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand one hundred, when William was count of the Poitevins, Louis reigning as king of the Franks ^l, a deadly pestilence pitiably invaded the nation of the Poitevins; so that the head of a household with all his family was sometimes delivered to burial. At that time a certain hero, terrified by a slaughter of this kind, desiring to avoid this scourge, disposed to go through the parts of the Spains to St. James. Who, with his own wife and two little boys, placed upon his beast, came as far as the city of Pamplona. But there, his wife having died, his wicked host wickedly retained the substance which the man and wife had brought with them. But he, desolate of his wife, and altogether despoiled of money and of the beast on which he carried the little boys, dragging them with his hands, began the journey with grievous trouble to himself. To whom, wearied in the utmost strait and solicitude, a certain man of honorable dress with a very strong ass met on the way. Who, when he had heard from him, relating what and how great wretched adversities had befallen him, pitying him said to him: Since I consider thy greatest anxieties, I lend thee this my excellent ass to carry thy boys as far as the city of Compostela, of which I am a citizen, provided that thou restore it there.

[206] that he may seek Compostela, And so, the ass being received, that pilgrim, his little boys being placed upon it, came all the way to the thresholds of blessed James. Finally, when in his venerable basilica he was keeping vigil by night in a certain secret corner, the most glorious Apostle, clothed in splendid garment, appeared to him, saying simply: Dost thou know me, my brother? To whom he said: By no means, lord. I am, he said, that Apostle of Christ who in the shores of Pamplona lent thee my ass when thou wast in straits. But now I lend it to thee henceforth until thou return to thy own home; and I pronounce to thee that thy wicked host of Pamplona, because he unjustly retained thy spoils, is to be cast down from his own seat and to die grievously, and I intimate to thee that all the wicked hosts dwelling on the journey, who unjustly retain the property of their guests, whether living or dead, which ought to be given to churches and to the needy for the remedies of the departed, are to be condemned forever. As soon as the pilgrim, bowing down, wished to embrace the feet of him speaking, the most reverend Apostle vanished from his human eyes.

[207] and return to his homeland, But afterward the pilgrim, rejoicing at the apostolic vision and so great consolation, together with the ass and his little boys, the dawn reddening, returned from the city of Compostela, and, coming as far as Pamplona, found his host fallen from the seat of his house, his neck broken, altogether dead, as the Apostle had foretold him. Who, when he had come gladly to his homeland, his little boys being set down from the ass, at the entrance of his house that ass vanished from his eyes. Which many, hearing him relate, marveled beyond what is right to be said, saying: That it was either a true angel * ^m, or an angel existing in the likeness of an ass, whom the Lord many times sends round about those who fear him, to deliver them. By the Lord therefore this was done, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore in this miracle it is plainly shown that all crafty hosts are condemned with eternal death, who retain the property of their guests, living or dead, from which alms ought to be made to the churches and to the poor of Christ for the remedies of the dead. Every fraud therefore and every damnation may Jesus Christ our Lord, by the merits of blessed James the apostle, deign utterly to remove from all who believe.

NOTES.

CHAPTER III.

The aid rendered by the holy Apostle to those in peril at sea, and to other clients who had implored his help.

St. James certain Christians at sea In the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand one hundred and one, when a certain sailor, by name Frisonus, wishing to go to the Lord's sepulcher in the parts of Jerusalem for the sake of prayer, was leading by sea a ship full of pilgrims, a certain Saracen, by name Avitus ^a, came against him for the sake of fighting, wishing to lead all the pilgrims with him captive into the land of the Moabites. And when the two vessels, namely of the Saracens and of the Christians, met together and fought bravely, Frisonus fell between the two ships, clad in an iron cuirass, helmet, and shield, into the depth of the sea. Who, when he had been strengthened by the clemency of God, began to invoke in his heart blessed James, saying these words: Glorious and great James, and beyond what is right to be said most merciful apostle, whose altar I kissed with my unworthy mouth, with all these Christians committed to thee, deign to free me.

[209] At once the blessed Apostle appeared to him in the depth of the sea, from the peril of captivity and, seizing him by the hand, restored him unharmed to the ship, and immediately, all hearing, the Apostle said to the Saracen: Unless thou dismiss this little ship of the Christians, I will deliver thee and thy galley ^b to their power. To whom that Avitus answered: I pray thee, illustrious hero, why dost thou strive to carry off my prey? Art thou perhaps the God of the sea, who resistest our nation on the sea? To whom the Apostle said: I am not the God of the sea, but the servant of the God of the sea, succoring those in peril and crying to me both on the sea and on the land, as God wills. And straightway, by the virtue of God and the aids of blessed James, the ship of the Saracens began to be in peril from a violent tempest, and the vessel of the Christians, blessed James divinely leading, came to the desired place. And Frisonus, the Lord's sepulcher being visited, in the same year went to blessed James in Galicia.

[210] and from the peril of drowning In the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand one hundred and two, when a certain prelate, returning from Jerusalem and sitting in the ship by the gunwale ^c, the psalter being opened, was chanting, a certain violent wave of the sea, coming, snatched him with certain others into the sea. Who, when they were now distant from the ship about sixty ^d cubits, floating upon the waves, and were invoking blessed James with living voice, at once the Apostle was present to them: and standing with dry feet upon the waves of the sea beside them, he said to those in peril and crying that he was present to them: Fear not, my little sons. And straightway he commanded the sea to give back to the ship those whom it had ill snatched from it, and forewarned the sailors from afar, crying out, that they should hold back the vessel. And so it was done. The sailors held back the ship, and the wave, by the aids of blessed James, restored sound to the ship all whom it had ill invaded, the codex of the prelate, in which he was reading, being even still open and by no means damaged, and the Apostle at once vanished. By the Lord this was done, and it is marvelous in our eyes.

[211] But afterward that venerable prelate of the Lord, snatched from the perils of the sea by the aids of blessed James, he frees. went to the most glorious Apostle in the shores of Galicia, and to his honor composed this responsory, and in the first tone of the musical art thus sweetened it, saying: O hearer of all ages, O glory of the Apostles, O clear light of the Galicians, O advocate of pilgrims, O James, supplanter of vices, loose the chains of our offenses, and lead us to the port of salvation: and the versicle he thus composed: Thou who succorest those in peril crying to thee both on the sea and on the land, help us now, and in the peril of death. And again he repeated, saying: And lead us to the port of salvation.

[212] In the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand one hundred and three, a certain most noble soldier, illustrious by the race of the Franks, at Tiberias ^e in the shores of Jerusalem, A certain one, not fulfilling a vow made to St. James, is punished; vowed to go to his thresholds, if the apostle James would give him the power of conquering and destroying the Turks in war. To whom the Apostle, God granting, gave so great power that he conquered all the Saracens who fought against him. But because every man is called a liar in what he vows to the Apostle, the same soldier consigns it to oblivion. Wherefore he was deservedly sick even unto death. And so, when he could not speak on account of his exceeding infirmity, blessed James appeared in ecstasy to his squire, saying that if his lord fulfilled what he had promised to the Apostle, he would straightway have a remedy. Which the soldier, the squire relating it, learning, as soon as the priests who were there present gave him the staff of pilgrimage and the blessed scrip, indicated by a sign with his hand. Which being received, he escaped from the infirmity by which he was held, and, necessaries being taken, at once began to go to blessed James.

[213] Who, when he was in the ship, by a most cruel tempest the vessel began to be in peril, [but afterward, coming to his senses, together with others is snatched from the peril of shipwreck.] so that now, the waves of the sea rushing in, all who were in the ship were being utterly drowned. At once all the pilgrims, crying out with one voice: St. James, help us, promised, some that they would go to his thresholds; others vowed single coins for the work of his basilica: which coins the aforesaid soldier at once collected; and straightway the blessed Apostle appeared to them in straits, in human form, in the ship, saying: Fear not, my little sons, for behold, I am here, whom you called. Be confident in Christ, and salvation shall come to you here and in eternity. And straightway he lowered the ropes of the sail, cast the anchors, pacified the vessel, and commanded the tempest, and, great tranquillity being at once made, vanished. But he had such a face, namely comely and elegant, as none of them seemed to himself to have seen before or after. But afterward, by a tranquil course, the ship with the pilgrims came joyful to the desired port, namely in Apulia; and the soldier sent the collection of coins which he had received into the ark of blessed James for the work of the church.

[214] In the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand one hundred and four, when a certain pilgrim, returning from Jerusalem, sat over the gunwale of the ship for the sake of relieving himself, The Apostle preserves a certain one fallen into the sea, he fell from the ship into the great deep of the sea. To him, imploring blessed James with high-sounding voices, a certain other companion of his cast to him from the ship his shield into the sea, saying: May the most glorious apostle James, whose aid thou invokest, help thee. But he, the shield being received, blessed James divinely leading, swimming through the waves of the sea for three days and as many nights, following the track of the ship, came unharmed with the others to the desired port, and related to all how blessed James, in the hour in which he invoked him, had gone before him, continually holding with his hand the crown of his head.

[215] he frees one shut in prison, In the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand one hundred and five, there was a certain one, by name Bernard, seized at a castle by name Coranum * in Italy in the bishopric of Modena, bound with chains, and cast by his enemies into the depth of a certain tower. To him, imploring day and night with continual voice the aids of blessed James, the most glorious Apostle of Christ appeared, saying: Come, follow me as far as Galicia; and, his chains being burst, vanished. At once that pilgrim, the shackles ^f being hung at his neck, ascended without any human help to the summit of the tower, supported by the [aid] of blessed James. What more? From the height of the tower to the ground of the earth outside, without any injury, he made a single leap. But the lofty tower was sixty ^g cubits. Whence it was the more wonderful how he escaped death, who fell unharmed from so great a height.

[216] restores a sick man to health, But in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand one hundred and six, a certain soldier in the shores of Apulia was inflated in the throat with wind, like a filled wineskin: who, when he found from no physician a remedy of health, trusting in blessed James, said: That if he could find any little shell ^h, which is wont to be brought from St. James by the returning pilgrims, and with it should touch his own sick throat, he would straightway have a remedy. Which when he found with a certain pilgrim, his neighbor, with it he touched his throat, and is healed: and thence he sets out to the thresholds of blessed James in Galicia.

[217] and avenges an injury inflicted on his client. Likewise in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand

one hundred and thirty-five ⁱ, a certain Allobrogian ^k soldier, by name Dalmatius de Cavannis, unjustly struck with his fist on the cheek a certain rustic of his, Raimbert, a pilgrim of St. James, who was disputing with him. But Raimbert said, while he was being struck by the soldier: God and St. James, help me: and straightway, divine vengeance working, the soldier, his arm being twisted and also broken, made as it were lifeless, prostrate on the ground, and, absolved by the presbyters, begged pardon of him. Raimbert, he said, pilgrim of St. James, entreat the Apostle, in whom thou trustest, for my safety. To whom blessed James, entreated by Raimbert, restored his former health by divine clemency.

NOTES.

CHAPTER IV.

The prodigious liberation of a captive merchant, and of a soldier in peril in battle, and the worthy remuneration of the service exhibited to poor pilgrims.

In the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand one hundred and seven, a certain merchant, wishing to set out to the fair with his wares, A merchant unjustly committed to prison, approached the lord of that land, who by chance was staying in the village to which that merchant had come: asking and requesting from him that he would lead him safe with himself to that fair, and lead him back to his home. Who, assenting to his petition, promised that he would do it, and gave his faith. The merchant therefore, believing the words of so great a man, set out to those parts where the fair was held, with his wares. But after this, that man, who had promised him his faith to guard him and his goods, and to lead him safe forth and back, moved by the instinct of the devil, seizing his merchandise and his goods, thrust him into prison, and bound him strongly.

[219] But he, recalling to his memory the innumerable marvels of blessed James is marvelously freed, which he had heard from many, called him to his aid, saying: Blessed James, free me from this prison, and I promise to give myself and my goods to thee. Blessed James therefore, hearing his groans and prayers, on a certain night, the guards being still awake, appeared to him in the prison, and, commanding him to rise, led him all the way to the summit of the tower; which so inclined itself that it seemed to place its top on the ground, from which, descending without a leap and without injury, loosed from his bonds, he departed. But the guards, pursuing him, came beside him, and, by no means finding him, blinded, went back. Yet the chains with which he had been bound he carried with him to the basilica of the blessed Apostle in Galicia: which to this day, in testimony of so great a deed, hang before the altar of the most glorious James.

[220] In the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand one hundred and ten, and a soldier invoking St. James in battle, in Italy soldiers from two cities, at variance among themselves, came together to battle. Of whom one part, overcome by the other, turning their backs, began to flee in disorder. Among whom a certain soldier, wont to seek the thresholds of blessed James, fleeing, and perceiving part of his companions, fleeing in another direction, already captured and part slain, distrusting of his own life, began to cry to blessed James as about to profit him in aid, now scarcely with his voice, but by lamenting with a groan. At length with living voice, Blessed James, he said, if thou deign to free me from the imminent peril, I will hasten to thy court without delay, and will present myself and my horse (for I have nothing dearer or more precious) to thy presence.

[221] escapes the hands of the enemy. But this prayer and pledge being made, blessed James, who does not deny himself to those asking with an upright heart, nay represents himself as about to help as quickly as possible, appeared between him and the enemy, who, pursuing him more sharply, all the others now fleeing being consumed by the sword and by capture, thirsted to take him, and, by the protection of his shield, freed him from the enemy pursuing him six leagues. And lest this miracle should rather be ascribed to the strength of the horse than to the praise of blessed James (as is wont to be done by the enviers of the good and by the impugners of the church), and that every cavil of the envious might be removed, it was plain that that horse was not worth half of twenty shillings. He too, lest he should be guilty of his vow, offered himself and the horse before the presence of the blessed Apostle, and, that he might fully accomplish what he had vowed, the guards nevertheless gainsaying, presented it before the doors of the altar. For joy of which miracle the clergy and laity, running together to the church according to custom, gave thanks to God in hymns and psalms.

[222] A soldier bearing the bundle of a pilgrim woman, Three soldiers of the diocese of the church of Lyon, from the town of Dumereum *, agreed among themselves that they would go, for the sake of praying, to St. James the apostle in the shores of Galicia; and they set out. Who, when they were on the way of pilgrimage, found a poor little woman, who was carrying things necessary for herself in a certain little sack. But when she had beheld the horsemen, she asked that, taking pity on her, they would carry the little bundle which she bore on their beasts, for love of blessed James the apostle, and lighten for her the labor of so great a journey. One of whom, assenting to the pilgrim's petition, took up her bag and carried it. Therefore, evening coming, the woman, following, took from her little bundle the things necessary for herself, and at the first cockcrow, when the pilgrims on foot are wont to set out, gave back the sack to the horseman, and so, unburdened, went the more gladly on the way. In such wise the soldier, serving the little woman for love of the Apostle, hastened to the desired place of prayer.

[223] and setting another poor man upon his horse, But when they were twelve day-journeys distant from the city of blessed James, he found a poor man taken sick on the way, who began to beg him to lend him his horse to ride: so that he might be able to reach St. James; otherwise he would die on the way, because he could no longer walk. The soldier consented, dismounted, and set the beggar [upon his horse, and took his staff in his own hand, bearing also on his own neck the little bag ^a] of the little woman, which he had taken up. But when the soldier thus went on, constrained by the excessive heat of the sun and the weariness of the long journey, he began to be sick. Which when he felt in himself, considering that in many things he had often greatly offended, he equanimously endured his inconvenience, for love of the Apostle, going on foot all the way to his thresholds. Where, the Apostle being besought, being received into lodging, from the same trouble which he had taken on the way, he lay down on a little bed, and for some days lay, the languor growing heavier. Which the other soldiers, who had been his companions, seeing, approaching him, admonish him that he confess his sins, and seek to ask the things which befit a Christian, that he may more maturely fortify his departure.

[224] Hearing this, he turned away his face, and could not answer; having fallen into sickness and so for three days he lay without the utterance of a word: whence his companions were afflicted with vehement grief, both because they were in despair of his safety, and especially because he could not procure the salvation of his own soul. But on a certain day, when they thought he would sooner breathe forth his spirit, they sitting round about and awaiting his departure, sighing heavily he spoke: Thanks, he said, to God and to St. James my lord, because I am freed. Which those present inquiring what he signified, in that, thus lying, he had kept silence: I, he said, from the time I felt myself weighed down by languor, began silently to think within myself that I would confess my sins, be anointed with the sacred unction, and be fortified by the reception of the Lord's body. But while I was treating this in silence, suddenly there came to me a throng of foul spirits, which so oppressed me that from that hour I could indicate neither by word nor by sign what pertained to my salvation. Even the things which you said I understood well; but by no means could I answer: for the demons, who had flowed together to me, some bound my tongue, some closed my eyes, and some also turned my head and body hither and thither at their pleasure, I being unwilling.

[225] But just a little before I began to speak, there entered here St. James, he experiences the aid of St. James against the demons, bearing in his left hand the sack of the little woman, which I had carried on the way; but in his right hand he held the staff of the beggar, which I carried while the same rode my horse, on the very day on which the infirmity seized me. He had the staff for a lance, the sack for arms. And immediately, coming to me as with the indignation of fury, the staff being raised, he strove to strike the demons who had held me. Who at once fled, terrified: whom he, pursuing, compelled through an angel to go out hence. And behold, by the grace of God and of blessed James freed from those who vexed me by pressing me, now I am able to speak. But send quickly, and summon a priest, who may grant me the viaticum of holy communion: for I have no longer license to remain in this life.

[226] Who, when they had sent, while the priest made delay in coming, and piously dies. he publicly admonished one of his companions, saying: Friend, said he, henceforth serve not Girinus the Bald thy lord, to whom hitherto thou hast cleaved: for truly he is damned, and shortly about to perish by an evil death. That these things happened, the truth of the matter declared. For after that pilgrim had rested with a good end, and was delivered to burial, the companions returning and narrating what things were done, the aforesaid Girinus, surnamed the Bald, who had been a rich man, held their relation for a dream, nor amended himself at all from his depravity. Whence not after much space of time it happened that, while a certain soldier

was invading and killing another soldier with arms, he too, transfixed by the lance of the same soldier, perished ^b.

NOTES.

CHAPTER V.

The wondrous resuscitation of a man who by the fraudulent persuasion of a demon had killed himself.

To a certain youth who had committed fornication, Near the city of Lyon is a village in which a youth was dwelling, by name Giraldus, who, instructed in the furrier's craft, lived by the just labor of his hands, and, his father being dead, sustained his mother by his labors. This man vehemently loved St. James, to whose thresholds he was wont to come each year, and to offer his oblation. He himself had no wife, but alone with his old mother led a chaste life. But when he had contained himself for a good while, at length on a certain occasion, overcome by the pleasure of the flesh, he fornicated with a young girl. But when morning was come, because he had disposed himself for pilgrimage, with two of his neighbors, leading with him a certain ass, he began to go to St. James in Galicia. Who, when they were on the way, found a certain beggar setting out to St. James. Him they took with them, both for the sake of company and rather for love of St. James, bestowing on him the necessaries of food.

[228] there appears a demon, feigning that he is St. James, Going on therefore, they made several days together with gladness. Envying whose peaceful and charitable company, the devil in human form, honorable enough, secretly approached the youth who had fornicated at home, and said to him: Dost thou know who I am? But he said: By no means. And the demon: I am, he said, James the apostle, whom now for a long time thou hast been wont to visit each year, and to honor with thy gifts. Know that I greatly rejoiced over thee, since indeed I hoped a great good would come of thee: but lately, before thou didst leave thy home, thou didst fornicate with a woman, nor hast thou hitherto repented of it, nor wished to confess, and so thou hast set out on pilgrimage, as though thy pilgrimage were acceptable to God and to me. It ought not so to be done: for whoever wishes to make pilgrimage for love of me, it is first necessary that he open his sins by humble confession, and afterward, by making pilgrimage, punish the same things committed. Whoever shall do otherwise, his pilgrimage will not be pleasing to God.

[229] and persuades him, that to obtain pardon for his sin This being said, he vanished from his eyes. Hearing these things, the man began to be saddened, proposing in his mind that he wished to return home, and confess to his priest, and so, the journey being begun, go back. This therefore while he was treating within himself, in the same form in which he had appeared before, the demon came, saying to him: What is it that thou thinkest in thy heart, that thou wishest to return home? Dost thou think so great a crime can be redeemed by thy fastings or tears? Thou art much mistaken: but believe my counsels and thou shalt be saved; otherwise thou canst not be saved. For although thou hast sinned, yet I love thee, and therefore I came to thee, that I might give thee such counsel that thou mayest be able to be saved, if thou wilt believe me. To whom the pilgrim: So, he said, I was thinking, as thou sayest: but since thou assertest this profits me nothing unto salvation, tell me what pleases thee, whence I may be saved, and I will gladly perform it. But he: If, he said, thou desirest to be fully cleansed from the offense, cut off quickly the virile parts by which thou didst sin. At which counsel, terrified, he said: If I shall do to myself what thou counsellest, I shall not be able to live, and shall be the murderer of myself, which I have often heard is damnable before God.

[230] Then the demon, mocking: O, he said, foolish one, how little thou understandest the things which can profit thee unto salvation. he kill himself; which he carries into execution. If thou shalt die in such wise, thou shalt pass to me without doubt, because, by punishing thy offense, thou shalt be a martyr. O if thou wert so prudent that thou didst not hesitate to kill thyself! I certainly, with the multitude of my companions, would straightway come to thee, and would gladly receive thy soul to remain with me. I, he said, am James the apostle, who counsel thee. Do as I have spoken, if thou wishest to come to my fellowship, and to find the remedy of thy offense. Which being said, the pilgrim, as a simple man, animated to the crime, at night, his companions sleeping, drew out his little knife and cut off whatever was virile in those parts. Then, turning his hand, he set the iron upright, and, throwing himself upon its point, transfixed his own belly.

[231] But when the blood flowed abundantly, and he, tossing about, palpitated, His companions fleeing for fear, the awakened companions called him, inquiring what he had. Who, when he gave them no answer, but, anxious, drew his last breath, consternated, they rise in haste, kindle lights, and find their companion half-alive, and now no longer able to answer them. At which they were stupefied, and at the same time struck with fear lest his death should be imputed to them, if in the morning they were found in the same place, and they take flight ^a; but him, wallowing in his blood, and the ass and the poor man whom they were wont to feed, they abandon. But when morning was come, when the household had risen in the house and found him slain, not having certainty on whom to impute his killing, he calls the neighbors, and they carry the dead man to the church to be buried: before whose doors, while the sepulcher is prepared, on account of the flow of blood they set him down. And, no long delay intervening, he who had been dead returned to life, and sat up on the funeral bier. Which those present beholding, terrified, fled and cry out.

[232] By whose cry the peoples, roused, run up, inquire what has happened, the murderer of himself is recalled to life, hear that the dead man is restored to life. Who, when they had approached nearer, and had begun to address him, whatever had been done concerning him, with free voice before all he related. I, he said, whom you see raised from death, from infancy loved St. James, and served him as much as I could; but now, when I had resolved to go to him, and had come as far as this village, the devil, coming, deceived me, saying that he was St. James, and taught the whole order openly, as is said above, and subjoined: After I took my life from myself, and my soul was being straitened to go out from the body, there came to me the same malignant spirit which had deceived me, leading with him a great throng of demons. Who at once, without mercy, snatched me, and, weeping and emitting pitiable voices, bore me to the torments.

[233] and narrates it to the bystanders, Going therefore, we tend toward Rome. But when we had come to the wood which is situated between the city and the village which is called Labicanum ^b, St. James, pursuing us, flew up behind our backs, and, the demons being seized, said: Whence come you, and whither tend you? They say: O James, certainly it pertains nothing to thee: for he believed us to such a degree that he killed himself. We persuaded him, we deceived him, we ought to have him. To whom he: Concerning that which I ask, he said, you answer nothing; but you rejoice, boasting that you have deceived a Christian, whence you may have ill thanks: for he is my pilgrim, whom you boast to have. Assuredly you shall not bear him off unpunished. But blessed James seemed to me a youth, and of comely aspect, lean, of medium color, which is commonly called brown.

[234] how, the demons claiming it for themselves, He therefore compelling, we turned aside to Rome, where near the church of blessed Peter the apostle was a green and spacious place in the plain of the air, in which an innumerable throng of Saints had come to a council. Over which presided the venerable Lady, the Mother of God and perpetual Virgin Mary, many and illustrious nobles sitting at her right and left. Whom I began to consider with great affection of my heart: for never in my life did I anywhere see so beautiful a creature: for she was not of great, but of middling stature, of most beautiful face, delightful in aspect. Before her the blessed Apostle, my most pious advocate, at once stood before all, and made complaint concerning the deceit of Satan, how he had overcome me. Who presently, turned to the demons: O, she said, wretched ones, what did you seek in a pilgrim of the Lord and of my Son, and of James his faithful one? Your penalty might well suffice for you, nor were it needful that you should augment it by your malice.

[235] he was snatched away by the intercession of the Mother of God and of St. James, After the most blessed Lady had spoken, she mercifully bent her eyes upon me. But the demons being bound with great fear, all who presided over the council saying that they had acted unjustly against the Apostle by deceiving me, the Lady commanded me to be brought back to the body. St. James therefore, receiving me, at once restored me to this place. In such wise I died and was resuscitated. Which the inhabitants of that place hearing, greatly rejoiced, and straightway carried him into their house, and kept him with them for three days, publishing and showing him in whom God, through blessed James, had wrought so unusual and marvelous a thing. For his wounds were healed without delay, only scars remaining in place of the wounds. But in place of the genitals there grew for him flesh like a wart, through which the urine was emitted.

[236] and the same miracle, his companions afterward meeting him, The days being ended in which the inhabitants of the place had kept him with them for joy, he prepared his ass, and with the poor companion whom he had joined to himself on the way, undertook his journey. But when he had drawn near to the thresholds of blessed James, behold, the companions who had left him, returning, met him. Who, when he was still far off, and they had beheld those two driving an ass, spoke to one another: Those men, they say, are like our companions whom we left, the one dead, the other alive. Nor does the animal which they drive differ from that which was left with them, as far as it seems. But after they had drawn near, and by mutual recognitions had begun to know one another, learning what had been done, they greatly exulted, and, coming home, related the matter in order.

[237] But he who had been resuscitated, after he returned from St. James, and sets it forth to other men. confirmed by the very fact what the companions had first related: for he everywhere published the matter, as it was done: he showed the scars, and also what had been in the more secret place, he demonstrated to many desiring to see it. This man and all his works and the signs of his death the most reverend Hugh, abbot of Cluny ^c, with many others saw, and, for wonder, asserted that he was wont often to see this, as it was related: and we, for love of the Apostle, lest it should be blotted from memory, have committed it to letters,

commanding all, that through all the churches they should celebrate the feast of so great a miracle and of the other miracles of St. James on the fifth day of the Nones of October with worthy offices ^d.

NOTES.

CHAPTER VI.

The unbidden opening of a chapel, the prediction of victory against the Saracens, and the liberation of a man condemned to death.

A noble pilgrim, the oratory of St. James being shut, Lately the count of Saint-Gilles, by name Pontius, with his brother, came to St. James for the sake of praying. Who, when they had entered the church, and could not enter the oratory in which the body of the Apostle lies, at their pleasure, asked the sacristan ^a to open the oratory for them, so that they might be able to keep vigils before the apostolic body. But when they saw that their prayers were without effect (for that had been the custom, that after sunset the doors of the aforesaid oratory should remain shut until the morning grew light), they go sad to their lodgings. Whither, when they had come, they order all the pilgrims of their company to be present. To whom, standing by, the count said that he wished to go to St. James, they accompanying him with equal mind, if perchance he would deign to open to him by himself.

[239] asks that it be opened of its own accord to himself and to the other pilgrims, And when they concordantly and gladly received his word, they prepared for themselves lights, which they might hold in their hands in the same oratory. And so, evening being come, the lights being kindled, the men entered the church, in number nearly two hundred. Who, coming before the oratory of the blessed Apostle, with raised voice prayed: Most blessed James, they said, apostle of God, if it please thee that we come to thee, open to us thy oratory, that we may make our vigils before thee. A wondrous thing! Scarcely had they ended the words, and behold the doors of the same oratory resounded with so great a noise that all who were present thought them to have been broken into minute parts.

[240] and obtains it. Nevertheless, they being inspected, the bars of the lock and the chains by which they were fastened were broken and disjoined. And so the doors, opened without the hands of men by an invisible power, gave the pilgrims entrance. Who, greatly gladdened, entered; and so much the more exulted at the same miracle, as they the more evidently proved that the blessed Apostle, the soldier of the most invincible emperor, most truly lives; whom they saw so quickly present to their petition. In which matter it can be considered how ready to hear a pious petition is he who so kindly was present to the supplication of his servants. May thy clemency therefore, most benign apostle of God, James, succor us, so that we may thus beware the deceits of Satan in the course of this present life, and thus by good pursuits cleave to the heavenly homeland, that we may be able to come to it through Christ our Lord, thou helping.

[241] A Greek bishop staying at Compostela It is known to all, both clerics and laymen dwelling at Compostela, that a certain man, by name Stephen, endowed with divine virtues, his bishopric and pontifical office being laid down, out of love of blessed James sought from the parts of Greece the thresholds of the same Apostle. Who renounced the allurements of this world, that he might thus be able to cleave to the divine precepts. Refusing therefore to return to his own home, he approached the guardians of the shrine in which the most precious talent, namely the body of blessed James and the glory of Spain, is laid up, and, prostrating himself at their feet, asked that, for love of the most precious Apostle, for whose love he had set behind him the delights of this world and earthly pleasures, they would grant him a secret place within the church, where he might be permitted assiduously to give himself to prayer. But him, although wearing a mean habit, and bearing himself not as a bishop, but as a poor pilgrim, they, not holding in contempt, nay consenting to his just petition, prepared for him a certain hut in the manner of a little cell, constructed of rush coverings, within the basilica of the blessed Apostle, whence with straight face he could behold the altar; in which, keeping watch day and night in fastings, vigils, and prayers, he led a celibate and most blessed life.

[242] But on a certain day, when he was giving himself to his wonted prayer according to custom, he wonders that St. James is called a soldier by the rustics; a throng of rustics, running together to the special feast of the most precious James, and setting themselves near the little cell of that most holy man in the presence of the altar, began to beseech the Apostle of God in these words: Blessed James, good soldier, relieve us from present and future evils. Which word that most holy man of God, taking amiss that the rustics called him a soldier, rebuking them said: Most foolish rustics, foolish people, it befits you to call blessed James not a soldier but a fisherman; commemorating that at the Lord's voice, the fisherman's office being left, he followed the Lord: and that afterward he was made a fisher of men. But on the following night of that day on which the most holy man had commemorated concerning blessed James, the same blessed James, adorned with most white garments, and also clad in military arms exceeding the rays of the sun, as if made a soldier, holding two keys in his hand, appeared. Whom, calling him a third time, he thus spoke: Stephen, servant of God, because thou didst order me to be called not a soldier, but a fisherman, therefore I so appear to thee, that thou mayest no longer doubt that I am a soldier of God and his champion, and that I go before the Christians in battle against the Saracens, and am victor for them.

[243] But I have obtained from the Lord that to all who love me and invoke me with an upright heart I may be a protector and helper in all perils: to whom the Saint, appearing under the form of a soldier, foretells victory. and that thou mayest the more firmly believe this, with these keys which I hold in my hand, the gates of the city of Coimbra being opened, which for seven years is pressed by the siege of Ferdinand, king of the Christians ^b, on the morrow at the third hour, the Christians being let in, I will restore it to their power. This being said, he vanished from his eyes. But on the following day, matins being completed, calling the sounder part both of clerics and laymen, what he had seen with his eyes and heard with his ears he related to them in order. Which afterward by many arguments was proved to be true: for they wrote down the day and hour, in which, after the city was taken, messengers sent by the king bore testimony of the truth, asserting that on that day and hour the aforesaid city was taken. The truth therefore being known, the aforesaid Stephen, servant of God, asserted that blessed James prevails over all who invoke him in warfare, and preached that he was to be invoked by those contending for the truth. But he, that he might merit to obtain his patronage, augmented his penance for himself, and, more efficaciously keeping watch in prayers, there consummated the whole time of his life in the service of God; and at length received honorable burial in the basilica of blessed James the apostle.

[244] A soldier captured in war, the protection of St. James being invoked, And so, the course of many times gliding by, when now in our times blessed James had shone forth far and wide through the whole world with many signs of miracles, it happened that a very great war arose between the count of Fons Calcaria (Chaufour?) and another soldier of his, by name William. Who, when he rode firmly in battle against the count himself, they both concurred in war with their soldiers. But, the army of the soldier failing, he turned his back, and the same soldier, captured in war, was led into the presence of the count. And when the count himself had ordered him to be beheaded, and the soldier cried with a great voice: James, apostle of God, whom Herod at Jerusalem ordered to be slain with the sword, help me, and free me from the sword of the executioner, he sustained the stroke thrice aimed at his neck, his hands being raised to heaven, and no injury appeared in him.

[245] is marvelously freed from the sword of the executioner. But the executioner, seeing that with the edge of the sword he could not harm him, directed the point at his belly, that thus he might pierce him through. But blessed James so blunted it that he did not even feel his stroke. And when the count and all who were present marveled at these things, he ordered him to be led back * bound into his castle. But at the beginning of the following day, when he was invoking blessed James amid his groans, behold the Apostle himself, standing before him, said to him: Behold, I am here, whom thou didst call. Then the house itself was filled with so great an odor and most serene light, that all the soldiers and those who were there present believed themselves to be placed in the pleasantness of paradise, and in that very brightness, James going before and holding his hand, before all he came as far as the last gate of the castle, the guards being made as it were blind; and, the doors being opened, both together went as far as one mile outside the walls. Whence it came to pass that this soldier straightway, out of love of blessed James, came to his body and church on the day of his translation, and related all things, as we have said above, in order.

NOTES.

CHAPTER VII.

The healing of a sick man, the manifold liberation of a captive, the relief of poverty, and the punishment of certain men who neglected to celebrate the feast of St. James.

A man deprived of the use of his limbs is healed; And so in our time a certain illustrious man of Burgundy, by name Guibert, having for fourteen years suffered a diminution of his limbs, so that he could not even move a step, being placed upon his two horses with his wife and his servants, set out to St. James. Who, when he wished to be lodged * in the hospital of the same Apostle, near the church he was admonished in sleep that, until blessed James should stretch out his constricted limbs, he should always be intent on prayer in his church. And so, when he had kept vigil in the apostolic basilica for two nights, on the third night, keeping watch in prayer, blessed James, coming and taking his hand, raised him up: who, when he had asked him who he was, I am, he said, James the apostle of God. Then the man, restored to health, kept vigil in his church for thirteen days, and revealed these things to all with his own mouth.

[247] In the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand one hundred, a certain citizen of Barcelona is reported to have gone to the basilica of St. James in the shores of Galicia for the sake of pilgrimage. another, several times committed to prison, Who, when he asked from the Apostle only this, that he would free him from the captivity of his enemies, if perchance he should fall into it, returning to his own home, when on business he was going to Sicily, was captured at sea by the Saracens. What more? Through fairs and markets he is sold and bought thirteen times. But those who bought him, blessed James breaking his chains and bonds, could not hold him. First he is sold in Corociana, second at the city of Jazara in Slavonia, third at Blaye, fourth in Turcoplia, fifth in Persia, sixth in India, seventh in Ethiopia, eighth at Alexandria, ninth in Africa, tenth in Barbary, eleventh in the Desert, twelfth at Bougie, thirteenth at the city of Almería ^a; in which, when he was bound firmly with double chains about his legs by a certain Saracen, the same Apostle appeared to him imploring blessed James with high-sounding voices, saying: Because, while thou wast in my basilica, thou didst ask of me only the liberation of thy body, and not the salvation of thy soul, thou hast fallen into these perils; but because the Lord has had mercy on thee, he has sent me to thee, to snatch thee from these prisons.

[248] At once, his chains being broken through the middle, the blessed Apostle vanished from his eyes. he is freed; And so that man, loosed from his bonds, through the cities and castles of the Saracens, bearing in his hands a certain part of the chain in testimony of so great a miracle, openly began to return to the land of the Christians, the Saracens seeing. And when any pagan met him and tried to seize him, he showed him the part of the chain, and straightway the adversary fled from him. Many troops also of lions, bears, leopards, and dragons sought to devour him as he walked through desert places; but, the chain being seen which the Apostle had touched, they withdrew far from him. This man, returning again to the thresholds of blessed James, bearing the chain in his hands, with bare and even flayed feet, I truly found between Estella ^b and Guignum *; and he related all these things to me. In this example therefore those are to be reproved who ask of the Lord and of his Saints a wife or earthly felicity, or honors, or wealth, or the death of enemies, or the rest like these, which pertain only to the profit of the body, not to the salvation of the soul. If the necessaries of the body are to be asked, much more the rights of the soul, that is, good virtues, namely faith, hope, charity, patience, temperance, hospitality, largess, humility, obedience, peace, and the rest like these, are greatly to be asked, with which the soul itself may be adorned in the starry seats.

[249] another, finally, reduced to poverty, is helped. In the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand one hundred and thirty-one ^c, Louis reigning as king of the Franks, Pope Innocent presiding, a certain man, by name Bruno, of Vézelay the town of St. Mary Magdalene, returning from St. James, his money failing him, began to be in want. Who, while he had not whereof he might buy even a single pennyworth ^d of bread, on a certain day about the ninth hour, still fasting, ashamed to beg and very anxious, imploring with his whole heart the aid of blessed James, alone rested under a certain tree. But there, sleeping a little, he dreamed that blessed James, apostle of God, fed him with food. But awaking he found an ash-baked loaf at his head, on which he lived for fifteen days, namely until he came to his own home, sufficiently eating twice each day. And on the next day he found the same loaf in his sack. O admirable deed of the prophet Elias renewed! But because it was done by the Lord, it ought not to be marvelous in our eyes.

[250] Various men, contemning to keep the festivity of St. James, These are the memorable marvels which formerly happened, by the working of divine vengeance, to those not worthily keeping the feasts of St. James ^e. Among the Spaniards, at Tudela ^f, on the feast day of St. James, a certain rustic threshed wheat the whole day. But the day drawing toward evening, he entered the bath which is known to have been made of old beside the same castle by wondrous Saracenic work. And when he sat in it, straightway the skin of his back, from the shoulders to the legs, clung to the walls of the bath, and, all seeing, for the transgression of so great a feast, he breathed out his spirit. The people of the Basques at Albinetum, refusing to keep the day of St. James, worked the whole day: but, divine vengeance working, the whole castle of the same people is consumed by fire on the following night. Nor was there any who knew from which house the fire had proceeded, but it is said to have come from heaven.

[251] are punished. In the bishopric of Besançon, Bernard, who was called de Majora, drove with his cart the sheaves of the harvest the whole day, his neighbors nevertheless gainsaying. But the day drawing toward evening, he still thus working, a timely strong fire, coming from heaven, reduced the cart, the sheaves, and the oxen to ashes. But also certain women, who were present with the same Bernard, astonished, are carried off by others coming up into the neighboring fountain: and so even they scarcely escaped. Likewise Harduin, a soldier of the same town, on the same day drove his wagon with the sheaves of wheat the whole day; but divine vengeance in the evening blinded the eyes of the oxen. Among the Goths ^g in the province of Montpellier, by the order of a certain soldier of Mirepoix ^h, a certain rustic woman at the village of San Damiano on the day of St. James made and baked an ash-baked loaf: which, brought to the table and broken, before those reclining appeared bloody; and while it was broken more and more, so much the more it cast forth blood. Let us therefore cease from the works of the flesh, and let us work good things on the sacred solemnities of blessed James, that we may merit always and everywhere to be protected by his patronage, our Lord Jesus Christ granting it, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns God forever and ever. Amen.

NOTES.

OTHER MIRACLES WHICH HAPPENED IN ITALY.

BY THE AUTHOR CONTARINI, A SYNCHRONOUS CLERIC, AND IN MANY THINGS AN EYEWITNESS.

From the manuscript codex of Pistoia, whose authentic transcript we received in the year 1727.

James the Greater, Apostle and Martyr, at Compostela in Spain (S.)

BHL Number: 4079

FROM A MANUSCRIPT.

THE ANCIENT TITLES OF THE CHAPTERS.

Here begin the miracles of most blessed James newly done.

How the relics of blessed James were carried to Pistoia.

A miracle in the crossing of a river.

A miracle concerning a light.

A miracle concerning a paralytic woman freed.

A miracle concerning a crippled woman healed.

A miracle concerning a physician doubting of the miracles of St. James.

A miracle concerning a crippled woman dragging her buttocks along the ground.

A miracle concerning a most poor woman, having a husband and very many children, crippled for ten years.

A miracle concerning a certain man of San Baronto with sick legs.

A miracle concerning the son of a certain Florentine lady, crippled and hunchbacked.

A miracle concerning a dove.

A miracle concerning a dove which showed a poor little woman dying in the church.

A miracle concerning a crippled boy of Bologna.

A miracle concerning a certain Florentine of Montebono, crippled and withered for twenty years.

A miracle concerning another crippled man.

A miracle concerning a woman healed in the hand.

Concerning many other miracles.

A miracle concerning a demoniac freed.

A miracle concerning a certain man upon a mule.

A miracle of St. James the apostle concerning a certain youth of Pistoia, whose throat a needle had transfixed, freed.

Concerning a youth of the city of Pistoia sitting upon a horse, freed.

Concerning a rustic of Brandeglio of the county of Pistoia, freed from the peril of a tree.

A miracle concerning Milo of Savignano, condemned at Castro Prato to be dragged at a horse's tail and to the fire, freed.

PROLOGUE.

It is set forth on what occasion the city of Pistoia received the sacred relics of St. James from Compostela.

Rainerius the cleric, for the church of Pistoia In the province therefore called Tuscany, in the city which is called Pistoia, there was a certain cleric, by name Rainerius ^a, a deacon, sprung from the bishopric of that city, who for the sake of learning went into France, and there at Paris

stayed so long that he became prudent and powerful in letters. But after no long time he hastened to set out into Spain to St. James, whose prudence when Diego ^b, the venerable archbishop of the church of Compostela, had learned, he received him graciously and honorably, to whom the Lord, the bestower of all good things, gave grace in his sight: for he constituted him master of the schools of the church of blessed James, and made him a canon ^c; in whose grace and in the love of the clergy, when he grew more and more each day, it came to pass by divine dispensation that the venerable and religious Atto ^d, bishop of the church of Pistoia, through certain of his citizens setting out to the body of St. James the apostle for the sake of prayer, directed his own letters to the aforesaid Rainerius, master of the schools, whom he had never seen, as one known to one unknown, asking him and earnestly requesting that, if it should please in the sight of the divine Majesty, he would deign to send him, if it were possible, something of the most precious treasure of relics of most blessed James the apostle.

[253] At length there came to the ears of lord Diego, archbishop of Compostela, the fame of the goodness of the venerable Atto, he obtains relics of St. James from the archbishop of Compostela. bishop of Pistoia, how prudent, honorable, and most religious, and catholic in faith he was, who indeed had before been the wholly venerable archimandrite of the holy congregation of Vallombrosa: moved by the prayers and pious petitions of such and so great a man, and by the intervention of the aforesaid master Rainerius with the canons of the same church of blessed James the apostle, and suffused also with many tears, with the highest devotion and due veneration, taking some part of the relics of the most precious head of the most holy martyr and apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ, James, through distinguished men of the city of Pistoia, namely Tebaldus, and Medius the uncle of Tebaldus, Villanus ^e by name, and diligently laying up the same most precious treasure in a casket, took care to send it to the bishop of Pistoia, saying and in truth asserting that no mortal could ever obtain this gift. Which we believe and doubt not was truly done by the Lord, as by manifest and open indications the miracles will manifestly and openly declare.

NOTES.

CHAPTER I.

Miracles wrought in the very translation of the relics, and certain others following a little after the same.

For when the aforesaid people of Pistoia, bearing the most glorious relics, that is, remains, were returning from St. James, One of the legates, carrying the relics to Pistoia, and, associated with the French, came to a certain river to cross it by boat, and the masters of the boat burdened the pilgrims heavily with a price, the French, contending with them, altogether refused to give them that price which the sailors sought: for they said furiously against them: It is better for us to swim across the river ^a than to give you so great a price. Exhorting one another therefore that they should cross not by boat, but by the ford, he who bore the relics of St. James, boldly entering the river with his horse, and, like one unfamiliar, not knowing the ford, began to take a wrong and unknown way; whom, when his companions saw so perilously going through the liquid waves of the deep, they feared greatly, awaiting only the death of him who went before. Yet amid the straits, remembering the relics of St. James which he himself bore, he confidently besought him with prayers: St. James, he said, I carry thy most precious relics; before death forestall me, help me, that I may never be able to perish here.

[255] on the journey is freed from the peril of drowning, Presently, by the merits of the same Apostle, without great difficulty he came excellently to the other bank of the river, and blessed and praised the mercy of omnipotent God with all who were present on this side and beyond the river, who freed him from the fear of death and from so great a peril by the prayers of St. James the apostle. Let the city of Pistoia therefore be glad, exult, and rejoice together, and glory not a little in its exaltation, congratulate itself with very great joy, which indeed the omnipotent Lord willed newly and marvelously to visit through his holy Apostle; therefore let all Tuscany also rejoice, since, if it shall wish to cultivate the holy Apostle of the Lord with worthy honor, and shall study to celebrate him, and shall most devoutly hasten to his sacred solemnities with heart and mind, this salvation and gladness will be not only proper to the place in which his relics are laid up, but common to the whole province.

[256] and by night a light marvelously flashes forth from them, But when the aforesaid people of Pistoia were sedulously hastening to their own homes with the utmost effort, and on the journey itself acquired lodging in a certain borough, and, supper being made, the chambers being prepared, had given their wearied limbs to rest according to custom, the fire and the other lights of the house being extinguished, the hosts with whom they were lodged everywhere called them by name, frequently, in the middle of the night, often reporting such things to them: Brethren pilgrims and guests, why do you light up the house the whole night? Extinguish your lights, and, wearied by the long journey, rest and sleep, and permit us, desiring to sleep, to sleep. But they, having no light, and not understanding why this was said to them, asserted that they had by no means had the light of a fire, and had already extinguished their lamps: for this * is truly said to have been the casket, that is, the relics of blessed James.

[257] for the receiving of which St. Atto prepares a chapel, But Tebaldus and Medius Villanus returning from St. James to Pistoia, becomingly presented to the most reverend bishop Atto the most precious pearl, bringing also to him the epistle of the archbishop of Compostela, which I myself saw and read through, beseeching him together with master Rainerius to receive with due honor the sacred relics ^b, and with worthy veneration to build a proper chapel to the honor of God and of the Apostle himself in the greater church, namely of blessed Zeno ^c, bishop and confessor of the city of Pistoia, and there in a most fitting altar becomingly to place the casket, that is, the relics, of blessed James the apostle: which, as he ought, the bishop gladly and cheerfully received, and gave thanks to omnipotent God, for that he merited to have so precious a treasure. Why should I delay longer? He caused the chapel to be made honorably in the church of St. Zeno, and composed it; and there also built an altar, in which he afterward placed the aforesaid relics.

[258] But after the reception of the sacred relics the archbishop of Compostela and Rainerius the deacon many times most reverently visited the bishop of Pistoia by their letters, in which he honorably and solemnly venerates them. and no less asked that he should so act concerning the relics of St. James as they requested him by letters: for, presuming not a little of his goodness and honesty, they equally trusted; for in the epistles which they sent him, they much commended the same lord Atto the bishop and his sanctity, and abundantly praised him in all things; which epistles I Contarini the cleric, though unworthy, who wrote these things ^d, chancellor of the city of Pisa, saw with my eyes, read through, and held in memory, a truthful and faithful witness indeed, one of which epistles is this ^e. After many epistles therefore of entreaty, exhortation, and admonition, and the chapel of St. James being built, in the year one thousand one hundred and forty-five of the Lord's Incarnation, lord Atto the bishop, in the month of July, on the eighth day from the end, most devoutly consecrated the altar of St. James on the very day of the festivity of the same Apostle, with many most honorable clerics, Priors, and Parish-priests becomingly invited by him, as was worthy.

[259] But the consecration being done, and the solemnities of the Masses being solemnly celebrated, After the placing of the relics a certain sick man, the virtue of omnipotent God, through the merits of blessed James, openly declared to the people of Pistoia a great and illustrious miracle; for in the same city of Pistoia there was a certain sick man, who, his sinews being stretched, so rigid and dry had lain in bed for six continuous years, so that he was in no way fit for any use of the body, except that God had reserved a little strength in his hands, with which, others ministering to him, he took food; but he could never rise from the bed, or move himself: whom a certain most noble citizen of the people of Pistoia, by name Opitho, son of the late Eharardus, sustained with victuals for love of him who says: As long as you did it to one of these least, you did it to me.

[260] When therefore, the people returning from the church, the sixth hour being now passed, admonished by St. James to go to them, the aforesaid Opitho, a most illustrious man, according to custom sent food to the sick poor man by his little client (for the sick man himself is called by his own name Laetus—and this indeed a good omen; for from the greatest sadness he is suddenly made glad (laetus), whose body and soul the Lord saved through his most glorious apostle James), to whom the bearer of the food said: Brother Laetus, it is the hour of refreshment, take the food, and eat: who, when he had blessed the Lord, and the minister had set the food before him and gone away, Laetus the sick man began with giving of thanks to take the desired food; but after two morsels, in the midst of the very meal, by the divine nod he is seized with sleep, and thus the Lord sent slumber upon him, and in that slumber a certain man appeared to him, calling him by name: Laetus, he said, Laetus, what dost thou? Why dost thou rather tarry here? And he added: Rise quickly, and hasten to the memorial of my altar, which today the bishop of Pistoia has dedicated; to whom answering he said: Who art thou, lord, who callest me; what dost thou bid me do? For I, my lord, can by no means rise, nor tread the earth with my feet, nor lift my arms upward, who for six continuous years, wretched and rigid, dry and stretched, emptied of marrow, failing in body, have miserably lain in bed. Then he, answering, said to him: Rise, and fear not, nor doubt in anything, because I am James the apostle who speak with thee: hasten to the place which I have foretold thee, since without doubt thou shalt be freed.

[261] suddenly recovers the use of his limbs, Then he, awaking, his bones crackling, cried out with great voices: Help me, Lord God. But the little women of the neighborhood, hearing his voices, ran swiftly to

him, thinking that he would soon die. Thus they say: Brother Laetus, what hast thou, why dost thou cry out? Wilt thou perhaps receive penance? We will go for a priest, who may bring thee counsel for thy soul, since we see thee drawing near to death; for he was so wasted that very little flesh remained on his bones, and it seemed to all that he was shortly about to die. But he said to the women: My ladies, I do not now seek a priest, but I desire to set out to today's dedication of St. James, and I will go without doubt, the Lord helping; which being heard, the women, mocking him, because they despaired of his safety, and not thinking that he would in any way escape, did not believe, until they saw him walking, and followed him.

[262] [whom, healed, the writer himself, with many of the clergy and people, saw and examined.] But as he hastened to the church, men and women, running together from every side, marveled greatly, saying: Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who has done marvels for us today! And when he came who was wont to feed him, as soon as he saw him, with the clergy and people together he gave glory to God, who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen. And that very man I many times saw with my eyes before the altar of St. James, and all these things which I have narrated, as I had first heard from the whole clergy and people of that city, so I learned from his mouth, and the more confidently wrote, whose limbs were now all renewed, and the bones covered with flesh. Whom I saw glad (laetus) and cheerful, the month of the dedication of the altar being now completed, who as a proof to those coming remains there to the present.

[263] A paralytic woman is healed This miracle being most celebratedly published far and wide, there was a certain woman of Castel Piteccio, a paralytic, wretched, and most poor, who had utterly lost her whole side, whose hand also was withered, and she always begged, and could take nothing with that hand, because it was most tightly closed by paralysis; moreover her whole body was agitated by paralysis, and trembled after the likeness of the bird which is called "wagtail" ^f, and whatever was given her for alms, she could not take with her hand, but all things were fitted for her in a scrip which she bore bound about her neck. But this paralytic woman was wont, according to custom, frequently to go to the monastery of St. Mary de Sala ^g to receive alms, to whom a certain Benedicta, venerable abbess of the same monastery, with her sisters did good, by whose frequent exhortation she came to the oratory of St. James, that in that very place she might receive the gift of recovered health, who remained there so long in prayers, until omnipotent God opened her hand, and likewise took away from her the trembling of her limbs.

[264] before many witnesses, But this miracle, when I came to the oratory of St. James of Pisa, I was lodged at the aforesaid monastery of St. Mary de Sala, which is one mile distant from the city of Pistoia, and there from the same abbess of that monastery and her sisters I learned this present miracle; then I came to the city, and in like manner all testified, the bishop, and all the canons of the church of Pistoia, and the rest of the clergy, and the people of the same city. Afterward I both saw the woman herself, and spoke with her, and questioned her enough concerning this, and so she related all things to me in order, and showed me, before many, the hand which long before had been closed, like the other hand, in which there appeared the mark of the tops of the fingers, which, balled together, pressed one against another. Let us therefore give thanks to the omnipotent Lord, who deigned to free her by the prayers of blessed James the apostle. To him be glory, honor, and dominion through infinite ages of ages. Amen.

[265] But while, by these two, this fame grew more and more everywhere, and a copious multitude of men and women eagerly ran together to the church of blessed Zeno the bishop, in which are laid up the relics of blessed James the apostle, as also another crippled woman. it happened that a certain poor crippled woman came thither, and there awaited the mercy of omnipotent God. Prayer being made, that woman received health of all her limbs, and blessed and praised the great works of our Lord Jesus Christ with all who were present, and gave him many thanks. This sign therefore was published through the whole city of Pistoia, and is held celebrated there, and on account of it, without doubt, I have studied to write, taking thence no small authority both from clergy and laity: for I know in truth that to God nothing is impossible.

NOTES.

CHAPTER II.

The physician's doubt concerning miracles removed, health restored to paralytics and cripples, and a wondrous history concerning a certain dove.

A physician doubting of the miracles of St. James Likewise I desire to narrate to you a miracle which is by no means to be passed over. Therefore when all marveled on account of these miracles which God wrought through his apostle James, because in our time, especially in our parts, we never saw such things. There was in the city, and of the city of Pistoia, a certain physician, by name Frederick, who doubted concerning the marvels, and concerning this matter treated against the believing like an unbeliever. But he doubting of this, and giving no credit at all, on the Sunday following the consecration of the altar of St. James, when he had risen for matins, and was coming to the church in his wonted manner, he saw from afar in the church many lights of wax tapers, and meditated in his heart whether it could be that in that church of St. James there was patronage, and that those miracles were true which were published far and wide.

[267] is convinced by his own experience of the truth of them, And when he frequently revolved these things in his heart, on the very journey, at a certain well which is beside the way by which he was coming, not far from the church of blessed Zeno, he is suddenly led, thrusting his head into it, as if pushed by someone; into which he thus entered up to the ankles, sending his head downward, but holding his feet upward: who, remembering St. James, at once called him by name: St. James, apostle of Christ, quickly succor me, and have mercy on me: he had not yet ended the word, and behold, as it were in a moment, he is brought back to the upper parts; but there followed him a certain kinswoman of his who had seen him falling into the well: who straightway, not as an unbeliever, but as a believer, came to the church, and confessed that he had done ill in his unbelief; for since he himself had of his own accord been unwilling to believe the miracles of God, the divine piety compelled him henceforth to believe, and by believing, to preach what he had not believed. Which I, as from the bishop of the city, the clergy, and the people, and also from his mouth, learned, so I faithfully wrote; for he himself is a true witness, catholic in faith, lawful, and truthful. Let us therefore for these and for other benefits praise and bless the omnipotent Lord, whose dominion abides forever and ever. Amen.

[268] and three women But in those very days there was a certain poor woman of that very neighborhood which is beside the same church, so crippled that she could not otherwise move herself except by dragging her buttocks along the ground as she went, and she went not by the help of her feet, but by the support of her hands: for she had feet so turned back and twisted that they supplied her no service or help in anything, but with her hands, as I said, she scraped along the ground as she went *. To the church of blessed Zeno therefore she confidently went, and, prayer being made, by the merits of the most holy apostle James the Lord mercifully freed her without delay, who indeed before could work no work. But afterward she began to do the things which were necessary for herself, and to walk on her own feet, free and erect, whom I, with one of the canons, went to as quickly as possible, and diligently questioned her in order, beseeching whether it had thus been done to her by the Lord, as was said of her by all: she changed no word thereof, and also with her I found very many witnesses. This miracle finally was found most clear, who indeed before was known to be helpless by all the clergy of the same city and the people; but in that very, or the following, week I found her sitting and beating flax with her own hands in the square, which for a long time before she had done neither this nor the like. Let us therefore all give thanks to God. Amen.

[269] Another most beautiful miracle also, wrought on the eighth day of the consecration, I will announce to your fraternity. deprived of the use of their limbs, A certain woman of that very city, having a husband and very many children, on account of a long and excessive infirmity had come into much want; for she could perform no work with her hands: for in bed, crippled now for nearly ten years, she had miserably lain, and, what is shameful to say, her sins requiring it, on account of incontinence her husband compelled her to render him the debt of the flesh, yet so that in that very visitation by which God had so visited her, in the marriage-bed she had already borne four times, and her children, since they were little ones, wept daily, both from hunger and thirst, and because they could not have the consolation of their mother, for that she could not succor them.

Her husband therefore, taking her up, quickly carried her to the oratory of St. James, and there she remained for three days, but in these three days the Lord withheld his mercy over her.

[270] But thereupon her husband carried her back to her own house, by the patronage of St. James where he then found his children weeping and mourning; but the Lord heard the groans of the children, looking upon their poverty and misery: whom, when her husband had laid her down in bed, the woman is seized by a most sweet sleep, who then, called in a vision to rise and again go to the church, that she might give thanks to the Lord and to his Apostle, awaking straightway rose, and called her brother Martin with a great voice, and by entreaties invited him to go with her to give thanks; who, when he wished to take her by the hands to support her, she forbade him, and the others who had run up to help her, that they should not touch her, saying and asserting that she could go without another's aid, blessed James the apostle bringing her help. But, men and women beholding and running together from every side, and knowing her crippled for ten years, thus walking on her own feet and praising the Lord, all ran swiftly to the church, and, the clergy assembling, they chanted together "Te Deum Laudamus" with loud voice, and, the bells being rung in peal, all suffused with tears, and with bent knees, and prostrate on the ground, stretching their palms to heaven, gave glory to our Lord Jesus Christ and to his Apostle for so great and such a miracle. Likewise another certain paralytic crippled woman, dwelling in the place of Villis which is called Angellus, set out to the oratory of St. James, and there received the remedy of health.

[271] A certain man of San Baronto, whose monastery is situated in the mountains, distant from the city of Pistoia eight miles, which benefit was also conferred on a certain man, suffered for now nearly two years so great a trouble of sickness in his sinews that he could never move himself from any place unless he were dragged by someone: for his legs were so swollen and full of evil humors that he could in no way receive a remedy of health from any physician, who, of the means of his poverty which he had, had many times spent much for his liberation, and they profited him nothing. But the fame of St. James being published, for that the Lord wrought many virtues on account of his merits, the sick man hastened to the basilica of St. Zeno, where the patronage of the Apostle is laid up, and there by his prayers received the remedies of his health, who before, as I said, had paid out much to the physicians, and was so freed from the trouble of sickness that without delay he received soundness, and set out on pilgrimage into Spain to the basilica of blessed James the apostle. This miracle also, sufficiently open and published, and most celebrated in the same city, I learned from lord Atto the reverend bishop, the canons of the same church, and the whole clergy together with the people. Therefore let us give thanks to the omnipotent Lord, to whom is honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

[272] and on a boy of the city of Florence, In the city of Florence, which at that time was at enmity with the city of Pistoia, the fame of the same Apostle grew widespread. A certain woman who was there, as soon as she heard this, rose with joy, and took with her her son, crippled and hunchbacked, so that his head almost clung to his knees, and placed him on a vehicle, and cheerfully began and completed the glorious journey: which being completed, she entered the church of St. Zeno, and presented to blessed James her son, whose whole body had been balled together: but not long after the skin of his body began to be stretched and dilated, all beholding who were there present, and running together at the sound of the crackling bones, and with many others, his body was at once stretched out, and the head separated from the knees, and also erected upward and lifted up; yet on his back there still appears the little mark of that hump. This miracle was done before many and diverse peoples, namely of the people of Pistoia, of Florence, and of Lucca, and those who came from distant parts, who all together and unanimously blessed and praised the Lord with hands stretched to heaven. But that boy who was freed returned on foot to Florence with his mother, who before had come from Florence to Pistoia on a vehicle in a basket, as you have heard; at whose return some believed, and gave thanks to God; but some said that it was not he, like the Jews concerning the man blind from birth, whom Christ had enlightened.

[273] was conferred on those laboring under a like disease. But after these things there was equal concord between the believing and the unbelieving: for in the same city of Florence to this miracle other miracles also were added, which were done there by the Lord through the merits of the same Apostle. But the boy who, as we said, had been so balled together, came again with his mother to Pistoia to render worthy praises and due thanks to God and to blessed James, whom I myself, thanks be to God, saw with my eyes, who had been made exceedingly cheerful, colored, and plump, having no indication of his former infirmity, except a little of the hump which remained to him; for I saw him, and spoke with him, and questioned him diligently enough how and in what manner this happened to him, who, as I had heard from all, so related to me, to whom the lord bishop, I seeing, frequently made alms, and bore testimony concerning him. Which miracle the Florentines having known in truth, although then they had been greatly at enmity with the people of Pistoia toward one another, yet with exceeding veneration, with unshod feet, and clad in woolen garment, many of them thereupon began to come to St. James, especially the women, with compunction of heart, as they had been inspired from heaven.

[274] In those days another miracle so pious, so glorious, was done by the Lord, A wondrous narration concerning a wild dove, concerning which whoever shall wish worthily to meditate will be able to know enough that it pertains to the edification of all coming to the court of blessed James, and of all the Christian faithful. A certain girl of the field of Piteccio, when on a certain day within the third week after the consecration of the altar of St. James she was plucking hemp * from the garden, considering, saw a dove flying through the air, and afterward coming not far to her, and resting: which, when she beheld it not far before her, she asked the Lord and blessed James, saying: Lord, and blessed James, if those things are true which are said of thee at Pistoia, and thou workest those miracles which the people of Pistoia assert, grant me this dove coming into my hands; presently therefore the dove rose from the place in which it rested, and, mild and tame, as if now for a long time domestic, came to her; which, thus taking in her hands, she held as if it had been a lifeless body. Yet what did the girl do? She carried it to her house, showed it to her father, and indicated to him all things, and to all who were of that household, in what manner the dove had come into her hands.

[275] Some of them said: Let it be killed, that we may eat it. which, prodigiously caught and carried to Pistoia, Some others cried out under their breath: Let it not be killed, but be permitted to depart. So the girl loosened her hand, to see what it would do. That dove, which, going out of her hand, descended and mingled itself with the hens gathering food, nor ever afterward went out of the house, but thus, associated with them, remained, as if it had remained with them for many and long times. But all marveling with no small wonder at the great tameness of the aforesaid dove, which indeed up to that very day had been not domestic, but wild, going, they went to the priest of that village, studying to announce this deed to him; therefore the priest gave to the father and the girl a more salutary and useful counsel, as after his manner was divinely imposed upon him: On Sunday, he said, let us go together to our lord the bishop, and as he himself shall tell us, so let us do about it. Going therefore on Sunday to Pistoia, they presented the dove to the lord bishop, while in honor of St. James he most devoutly celebrated Mass with his canons upon the most sacred altar which had been consecrated in his honor. But the prelate, having heard the matter in order, received the dove, and placed it upon the wall of the screen which is about the altar of St. James, in which place it remained for three weeks, which never departed thence, except that sometimes, and very rarely, it flew through the church, but always, and without delay, returned to its former place, and there mild, humble, simple, and tame, sedulously remained; but it collected food with its beak either scarcely or rarely.

[276] But the people of Lucca and other strangers, plucking the feathers of its throat, carried them off with them out of devotion, remained a long time, as tame, at the altar of St. James, and showed them for a sign to those who had not seen; nor did it ever defend itself from injuries, whose throat was now stripped by the plucking of the feathers; so incautiously was this done, until it paid the debt of nature: and no wonder, for how could a living bird live which scarcely took food, and slept nothing at all? For the people ran together on every side day and night, and those coming by turns vexed it, in the night vigils were always kept, the clergy and people jubilated to the Lord with loud voices, very many lights burned there incessantly. How therefore, or in what manner, could that live which never ceased from so great a noise, but as if for a guard always remained there? Concerning whose departure therefore the whole clergy and people alike grieving, because it was to be greatly grieved for, counsel being taken, they resolved to hang up the skin together with its feathers on high in the church as a token to those coming. What could be sweeter, what more fitting in so great and such a matter, than this admirable sign which omnipotent God deigned to show us? There is no need to report anything more concerning the aforesaid dove, which indeed all coming thither saw openly and manifestly. Whence not only the laity or the clergy of the same city, but many religious, abbots, and priors, clerics, and laity from anywhere, can truly bear testimony thereof; and I too bear testimony, a truthful and faithful witness indeed, who saw it for a whole week with my eyes, and in truth touched it with my hands.

[277] and pointed out a woman near to death. In the aforesaid church many crippled, many sick and infirm of divers infirmities lie, awaiting alike the mercy of the Lord, and there a certain poor woman, and exceedingly sick, lay apart from the other sick in a corner of the church, and, I know not by what occasion, was abandoned by the guardians. But it came to pass that she drew near to death, and, no one seeing her, the dove, which stayed about the altar of St. James, rose thence, and flew, contrary to custom, all the way to the woman near to death, and, placing itself upon her body, rested; but those who were present,

considering the dove joined to the sick woman, greatly marveling, ran to her, desiring to know why it had turned aside thither: and they learned what they did not know, namely that the sick woman was soon to die: but, the crowds drawing near, the dove withdrew, and returned to its place beside the altar. Lifting therefore the sick woman thence with her pallet, they carried her out of the church, who after a little was dead, and honorably buried; whom indeed, as we believe, unless the dove had shown her, no one would have seen dying.

* perhaps "repebat" (crept)

* read "cannabem" (hemp)

CHAPTER III.

Many freed from various diseases and misfortunes.

A nun wretchedly distorted, Another miracle likewise I desire to declare to your charity. In the monastery of St. Peter de Campaliana there was a certain nun who had so lost her whole left side that she went not on her feet, but miserably on her hands, and dragged her buttocks along the ground: for the sole of the foot had been turned to the back, and the back into the place of the sole, and also the toes of the feet to the heel, and the heel was turned into the place of the toes; the ankle too, in the lower part of the body, had inverted its place, namely in the place where the sole was wont to remain. Leave therefore being received from her abbess, she came to the oratory of St. James, and there remained three days, and, not freed, returned to her monastery: who, when in the evening before compline she was reverently praying before the altar of St. Peter, and in that very prayer remembered the miracles of blessed James, the Lord suddenly restored all her limbs to their place by the merits of that Apostle. But the sisters, who were then in the cloister, at once ran up at the sound of the crackling bones. Leave therefore being again had from her abbess, she hastened and returned to give due thanks to God and to the blessed Apostle. The nun I saw and spoke with, and questioned enough concerning this matter, and she showed me the signs of her liberation: and therefore I have written these things the more confidently, and, that it may be believed the more truly, the same abbess who had received the aforesaid nun into the monastery, by name Fabronia, who is now abbess of the monastery of St. Peter the Greater of Pistoia, frequently related to me all things concerning her crippling, the signs which I had heard, and how miserably she went about.

[279] Moreover a certain boy of the bishopric of Bologna, almost wholly crippled, was led by his mother to the memorial of blessed James, and many others, that through his merits omnipotent God would deign to succor him, as indeed he mercifully succors many others; at length, the mercy of the Lord cooperating, he restored the son to his mother sound and unharmed.

He also without doubt gave light to many blind men of the bishopric of Florence and of divers other parts, and cured many sick and paralytics coming to him.

[280] But after these and other innumerable miracles, I being present, among whom a woman crippled for twenty years, another miracle also was done. When therefore, in the very year in which the altar was consecrated in honor of St. James, I went with the monks of St. Bartholomew of the borough of the city of Pistoia, on the third of the Nones of September, to celebrate the vigils on a certain day in the evening, and also with the whole people of the same parish, the lamps and tapers being kindled, and the responsory being sung, and prayer being made, as is the custom, a certain crippled man, who had come thither for the sake of recovering health, suddenly rose, and before a multitude of divers peoples, coming from distant parts, of clerics, of men and women together, his hands and feet being stretched out, which before had been crippled for twenty years, as he himself and all who knew him testified, came erect before the altar of St. James the apostle, whom they at once placed upon the screen, that he might show himself freed to all the people, and, his arms erected upward and his hands stretched out, bearing * himself this way and that, he gladly showed himself to all who were present, whose hands and arms indeed had been dry and withered; but the aforesaid helpless man was of the bishopric of Florence, namely of Montebono; for I too was present at this miracle. Then therefore we all gave thanks to the Lord, who deigned to work such great things through his Apostle.

[281] That same night also, the vigils being ended, and the clerics returning to their own homes, afflicted with various diseases and evils he healed in like manner another crippled man who was present, as I heard from the bystanders; who, coming to the altar, gave thanks to the most pious Lord with all who were present.

But that very night he restored her hand to a certain woman of the city of Pistoia, as I heard; but the woman was not in the church when he healed her, but in her house she besought St. James, and there he succored her.

How many are the weak, and the lame, blind, and crippled, paralytic, and diseased, who run together to the oratory of blessed James for the sake of recovering health, for whom God reserves his mercy, and holds it in his bosom, which he afterward shows them, either in the middle of the journey, or as they return to their own homes? For some he heals, some he frees from pains, some he enlightens, some he stretches out, some he cures of languors; for innumerable are those who come to render thanks to God, health being received. Truly many miracles concerning these are frequently done there and elsewhere, the parish-priests, presbyters, clerics reporting, and many laity asserting, that thus and thus, on such a day, it was done in my land concerning such and such a sick man or woman: whence it is most difficult to write all things.

[282] are restored to health. A certain demoniac came thither, and there received health, from whose body the Lord, for love of St. James, put the demon to flight. This I heard from many, but, the lord and venerable bishop Atto relating it to me, I have written it more and more confidently. In the same church also I frequently saw a certain boy with his legs stretched out and separated from the buttocks, the marks appearing on either part of the buttocks how before they had cleaved to him: but since they were so slender that scarcely only the bones were seen in them, covered with skin and very little flesh, he could not yet walk erect.

[283] The writer of the miracles himself, sitting upon a mule, When I had thus far written of the marvels of the most glorious Apostle at Pistoia, and it behooved me to return to Pisa, I came near the church of St. Martin situated on Monte Culio, which is four miles distant from the city of Pistoia. I saw horses laid up (?) on the mountain, and began to call the women from the mountain, inquiring of those who had led the horses to the mountain, to whom indeed I desired to join myself. Then the mule upon which I sat suddenly led me through a narrow path between a Little House and a Cottage which was there, I drawing back the rein of the bridle with both hands as I could; but I was unable to turn it back. When therefore I had thus suddenly known myself confined in so very narrow a place, and could not go back, nor descend to right or left, and the little beams of the Little House and the Cottage cohered not far from the ground, so that I could not pass thence except with body bent, I feared, because it was to be feared with a double fear, both because on no side could I descend, and lest, striking the little beams with my head, I should dash it.

[284] is marvelously snatched from the imminent peril of grievous injury, Moreover I feared much more, since the mule directed its steps hastily to the very small door of the stable which was beside the church, through which it showed that it wished to enter; for the height of the threshold of the little door was not greater than the height of the mule with the saddle on which I sat: to which, when the mule drew near, and I was now certain of entering, and dread and fear grew upon me much more, I meditated in my heart, saying: I cannot descend, I have no helper, I fear the little beams, under which I cannot pass except with body bent, nor even go back; confidently I asked the Lord and blessed James: Lord God, I said, and St. James the apostle, help me. This being said, I passed through the middle of the door of the stable with so great ease that I did not even feel that I touched a hair; but so the entrance of the little door was sufficient for me, as if I had passed through the most ample gates of any city; but when I knew myself to be in the stable, presently I descended from the mule, and grasped the bridle with my hands, and drew the mule out thence, and went out on foot with bent head, and the saddle of the mule also touched the threshold of the door in going out, and the breadth of both sides, namely on the right and left, and thus from top to bottom the mule filled the door. Thus therefore, as you have heard, the virtue of omnipotent God easily freed me by the glorious merits of his most holy apostle James. To him be praise and glory forever and ever. Amen.

[285] To the supreme King, the Lord of kings, and our Savior Jesus Christ, and he narrates, who deigned to be born of the inviolate Virgin, and, taking from her human flesh, for the salvation of the human race did not hesitate to be delivered to the hands of the guilty, and to undergo the torment of the cross, let us render immense thanks with jubilation, since by the marvelous virtue of his divinity he willed lately to declare a marvelous and new miracle, the merits of most blessed James requiring it, which is not to be passed over in silence, but among the other miracles which God has wrought through the same Apostle is deservedly to be recalled with celebrated memory, because a city set upon a mountain ought not to be hidden, nor a burning lamp to lie hidden * under a bushel.

[286] When therefore a certain youth of Pistoia, Bujamonte by name, on the holy day of Venus, that is, the sixth day of the week, how a youth was freed from a needle fixed in his throat. on which Jesus Christ the Son of God for us sinners took up the gibbet of the cross *, and on the third day rose again, was supping with the desirable appetite, as is the manner of youth, a certain morsel ^a of bread, in which a certain iron needle, he being wholly ignorant, by unlucky mischance lay hidden, suddenly swallowing it down, he felt it sharply turned in his throat, and thus, tortured for some time by the intolerable pain of the pricking, and distressed, and moreover most grievously set in so great a dread of mortal peril, he began with tears to beg the succor of most blessed James, by whose cry, penetrating heaven, as I truly believe, through the intercession of the Apostle, the youth, provoked to a cough, as it pleased God, vomited up the needle with no small quantity of blood; which, before it had been beheld, was thought to be not a needle, but any little straw or thorn; who, thus freed from so pestilent a torment by the nod of God and the prayers of St. James, at once taking that needle, presented it, with face bathed in tears, to the presbyter of the chapel of St. James, and, several others being present, to lord Bono ^b, the venerable bishop of Pistoia; as I myself saw with my eyes, and understood more fully the outcome of the matter, how it had happened, from the same youth in order: for that same needle long hung evidently upon the altar of the holy Apostle in testimony of so precious a miracle, to be published far and wide by public relation. Honor to the nourishing Father, glory be always to the Son, who by the merits of the Apostle wrought the work of a miracle.

Amen. The year of the Lord a thousand, and then the first twice-hundredth (1201), and also the tenth of the Kalends of April brings the days to be recalled; the author of this and the reporter, the writer of the deed performed. ^c

NOTES.

CHAPTER IV.

Two snatched from great perils, and another prodigiously withdrawn from extreme punishment.

A youth sitting upon a fierce horse, In the same year also, on the coming of the solemn and desirable festivity of the illustrious and most precious apostle James, when the squires, the glory of military solace inviting, as the ancient and long custom of the land requires, were playing at a gallop with lances on horseback, a certain boy, son of the noble man Gherarduccio, late of the family of the Letaminii of Montemurlo, near the stream which is called Umbroncellus, from the lower part of the Lucca gate of the city of Pistoia, was running a huge horse: which, being great both in body and in height, and monstrously incited by equine ferocity, the reins of its bridle being broken, is carried, like a swallow, most swiftly by its flight; so he too was borne along by a raging course of immoderate strength and most swift. But the boy, placed in so timorous and most grievous a peril of his person, unceasingly asking the aid of the Apostle with tearful face and lofty voice: St. James, he said, help me. Men also and women, beholding him in so great a crisis, said: May Christ help thee, and the holy Apostle whom thou implorest as thy helper.

[288] and brought into great peril of life, But that war-horse ^a, driven, as is believed by some, by a demoniacal * madness, thus running with the boy, as is said above, in the middle of the public way which is called the paved road ^b, ferociously taking an inestimable and, as I judge, unheard-of leap upward, over a bench ^c, and many cloths placed upon it in the wonted manner for sale before the door of a certain house, by name Date, built at the Lucca gate, in which divers kinds of merchandise are sold, and over a very great stone, the threshold ^d of the aforesaid shop of the house, leaped most furiously inward, the boy and the horse alike, as it pleased God, remaining wholly unharmed: but the impressed tracks of its hind feet appear evidently enough on the said threshold. Nor could this war-horse in any way go back whence it had passed, but was led forth by men from elsewhere through the ample door of the house, thanks being gladly given to God and to blessed James, who through the merits of his Apostle, by the power of divine virtue, preserved the boy and the horse unharmed. But how small is the height of the instruments which are set up there for the work of things for sale, beneath which that same horse leaped, is not to be consigned to oblivion: for the space from the pole, from which certain wares, namely tapers and some others, then hung, to the bench, is of seven half-feet, less by nearly one inch: for the mat firmly fixed above with wood and sharp points, which is built before the shop of the same dwelling to ward off the heat of the sun and also the assault of waters and rains, is distant from the ground of the earth only by three arm-lengths ^e and a half: for the length of the leap of the animal itself takes the space of eighteen feet, diligently measured, as it was measured according to measure.

[289] So wondrous a thing and worthy of admiration we have scarcely or never heard to have happened anywhere in our times up to now, is preserved unharmed by the aid of St. James, that so great an animal, so corpulent and great in size, should have passed through so narrow, perilous, and entangled a place, together with the boy sitting upon it, untouched and unhurt. But what God is great, as our God? He is the God who alone does marvels; for he, although he is great in great things, yet daily works marvels in the least. Let the clergy and people of the city of Pistoia therefore rejoice, brethren, with the whole bishopric, and rejoice with great joy exceedingly; since Jesus Christ has deigned to bestow on us so great and such a Patron: for by his patronage the whole city is made illustrious, and by his pious intercession he newly and marvelously declared this miracle, an innumerable multitude of peoples seeing. To him also let us study always to give due praises and thanks, with whom nothing is found impossible: to whom is honor, glory, and dominion, abiding without end forever and ever. Amen.

[290] That the Lord is great and greatly to be praised, and of his greatness there is no end, is sung with sweet-sounding voice by the mouth of David. as also a rustic, by the intercession of the same Saint We too, by the many and innumerable miracles which he this day deigned to work in his Saints, sufficiently evidently hear, and behold with our bodily eyes, among which a certain miracle, which is not to be passed over in silence, Jesus Christ willed to declare to the world through the merits of his apostle James: for a certain man, Romeus by name, son of Marinellinus of Brandeglio, when he had stayed two years in Versilia, on the festivity of St. Mary Magdalene, setting out to the place which is called Vallis Bona, where silver is dug, hastily ascended through a certain mountain to split a felled beech for sustaining the crypts of the earth, lest they should fall, where the silver vein had been found, which beech, moved by the stroke of the axe against him who struck, most ruinously rolled him down, perilously turning through the ruins of the mountain, all the way to another beech which was not felled.

[291] But he, thrust in more tightly by the head between both beeches, remained there for nearly half a day, firmly bound, afflicted with cruel torment; is snatched from manifest peril of death. but, both in the disaster of the fall and in that of the confinement, the patronage of God and of most blessed James the apostle being often sought, and his cry, long suffering the penalty, striking back the ears of certain men distant from the place by nearly two miles, as it pleased God, eight of them, having inquired what it might be, ran swiftly thither; but one of those who went forward, seeing this man so remaining on the ground, fell half-dead for fear; but the rest, going on to the afflicted man, began to ask how it had happened to him. He, relating his fall with feeble voice, tearfully begged the aid of God and the Apostle and of them: who, the divine and apostolic name being invoked, manfully seizing that tree, and drawing it upward, so removed it that he escaped so great a peril through the merits of the Apostle, the power of the Savior cooperating. But the beech was so huge that sixty men could move it little or nothing, unless God were with them, as he was with those eight, who exercised their strength, the virtue of Christ being added, upon the tree. But all the aforesaid things I understood more fully from, and heard from, him who had incurred the mentioned peril. Let us therefore render praises and thanks to the omnipotent Lord, to whom all things are possible and shall be forever and ever. Amen.

[292] A certain man dragged at a horse's tail, When a certain man, Milo by name, son of the late Fidenrichus of the village which is called Savignano, of the district of Prato, was accused before lord Rudolph the count, Podestà of the people of Prato ^f, under the pretext of a certain excess, by certain persons, the same lord Rudolph, after the manner of Podestàs striking terror into their subjects, or more strongly, rashly * condemned the said Milo to a penalty of this kind: namely that Milo should be dragged at a horse's tail through all the borders of the fortress of Prato, and afterward be assigned to the fire to be burned; and, being thus condemned, the aforesaid Milo was straightway bound to the tail of a certain beast, and thus, his feet being bound to it, and his hands behind his back, was dragged through the borders of the same fortress at the tail of that beast going with rapid course: who, when he was monstrously dragged, the same Milo, having a contrite heart and great confidence in God, and hoping that blessed James, whose vigil was celebrated on that very day, would be his liberator, ceased not to implore the aid of God and of his Apostle. But God, whom no secret escapes, and who sees all things outward and inward, considering his heart, and that those who had accused Milo had given a manifest cause for his condemnation, by his wondrous power and the merits of the same Apostle, put his hand under Milo, snatching him wholly from this torment, no injury remaining in any part of his body. For indeed he who is delivered to be punished with so great a peril is wont to be so tortured that no soundness remains in him; but the aforesaid Milo escaped, remaining wholly unharmed, the mercy of God and of the said Apostle going before.

[293] But although so great and so wondrous a matter was held marvelous in the eyes of all, and now, the fire being applied, to be burned, nevertheless the Podestà himself, wishing to inflict the penalty of burning on the same Milo, a great stake or column being fixed in the bed of the Bisenzio ^g, where for this the people of Prato had assembled to see, ordered him to be bound to that stake: who, when he was sitting, having on his back only a shirt, nor on his head anything except … he had been bound to the same stake between his legs strongly with ropes, and had his hands bound behind his back, presently the said Milo was surrounded on every side with dry wood, and with stubble or brooms in very great quantity there prepared , and above him very much stubble was placed, so that he might more easily be consumed by the fire: and when the fire had been applied there, and its flames continually grew, burning immoderately, the aforesaid Milo, set in the midst of so great a heat, unceasingly with tears demanded with a great voice the protection of God and of the aforesaid Apostle, awaiting the mercy of God and of his Apostle to come to him, as before; omnipotent God also, who is wont gloriously to work miracles in his Saints, and to succor the afflicted with the mercy of kindly compassion, wishing to show, to his own and to his Apostle's honor, the power of his Deity in Milo, who awaited mercy, forbade the said fire to attempt to touch Milo, enclosed by it: for the Creator forbade the creature to extend its strength upon the same Milo, at which prohibition the said fire so cooled that its heat, its own property being lost, could not harm him in the same Milo, nor inflict on him anything of grievance: whence the said Milo, divinely taken out from the burning, was preserved unharmed in all things amid the flames.

[294] Rightly by this so great * and so illustrious a miracle, worthy of all reverence, the Catholic faith is strengthened, is preserved free from all injury, and the unbelievers, openly confounded, can recognize the error of their

blindness. Henceforth the damnable contention of the reprobate shall cease, as often as so miraculous a matter shall be called to memory. Truly our Lord God himself willed to renew in Milo that precious miracle which he once wrought concerning the three boys freed from the surrounding flames in the furnace of fire, that the pernicious heresy might cease, and to the faithful firmer hope and more sincere devotion might be added. Then, when the same fire consumed the stake, the stubble, and the aforesaid wood, sharply burning, and Milo himself was believed to be already wholly consumed by the fire, and it had even been said that prayers should be made to God for his soul, the said Milo, the ropes being burned with which he had been bound, sitting at the said stake, and the other bindings of his hands and feet, rose up in the midst of that same fire, truly appearing sound, having no injury or loss either in any hair of his head, or in any part or particle of his body: yet on every side the flaming fire, lest Milo could go forth thence, resisted; but the clemency of God succoring him strongly to the end, it came to pass that the flames, opening themselves, afforded the said Milo a path through the fire, by which he went out unharmed from them. Meanwhile the people of Prato, beholding Milo himself free from the bonds of death, enjoying bodily soundness, and having no injury, marveled with no small wonder, rendering all manner of praises to God, to whom nothing is impossible, and to blessed James the apostle.

[295] What God therefore is great, as our God? He it is who did the aforesaid things miraculously, and who alone does great marvels. and thus withdrawn from the supreme punishment He it is who did and does all things whatsoever he willed and wills, in heaven, and on earth, in the sea, and in all the deeps. He it is whom the elements obey, and who willed to forbid the flames, lest they should harm Milo; to whom, as to our Lord God, and to his blessed apostle James, for whose love these things were done, most beloved brethren, offering honor and glory without end, may we, by the grace of God himself and of the said Apostle, merit to be snatched from the flames and torments of this world, about to gain the joy of the heavenly life. And all these things were done at the said fortress of Prato of the diocese of Pistoia, which fortress, no small and famous, is reckoned noble and preeminent among the other fortresses of Italy, in the year of the Lord's Nativity 1238, on the ninth of the Kalends of August, namely on the day of the Vigil of the above-said Apostle, in the eleventh Indiction ^h.

[296] he came to Pistoia, to give thanks publicly to St. James. But although the glorious merits of the said Apostle are everywhere, yet because the city of Pistoia, adorned with the merits and suffrages of that Apostle, unceasingly resounds his praises, and in his solemnities and honors is found preeminent, the said Milo, coming to that city with a glad mind, presented himself, on bended knees with all reverence, at the altar of that Apostle, built in the greater church of Pistoia, where the Omnipotent works many precious miracles through him, offering him tapers, and giving thanks to that Apostle * for so great benefits conferred on him: and when the bells were rung to the praise of God and of the said Apostle, and the people of Pistoia had assembled in that greater church, the aforesaid Milo, when he was on the pulpit of that church, related all the aforesaid things diligently to the canons of the same, and, lest any doubt of the aforesaid should come to anyone, showed, an oath being bodily taken, that all the aforesaid were true, as they are narrated above, before the said people, and, many people of Prato being present, who had been present at the said miracles, and saying that all the above-said things without doubt contained the full truth, the aforesaid canons also, and other clerics, devoutly singing "Te Deum laudamus," and all praising and blessing the name of God and of the mentioned Apostle.

NOTES.

PART TWO OF THE HISTORICAL COMMENTARY

On the preaching of St. James in Spain.

James the Greater, Apostle and Martyr, at Compostela in Spain (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR G. C.

§ I. To what peoples St. James is said to have preached.

Just as various regions claim for themselves the sacred body or head of St. James, as we saw above, so also diverse peoples trace the first documents of their faith to the preaching of the same Apostle. [The Sardinians will have it that St. James preached in their island before he went to the Spains,] There is no doubt that he announced Christ to the Jews in the East, since at Jerusalem he fell a martyr for the confession of the Christian faith; but it is more uncertain in what places in the West he preached the Gospel. The Sardinians contend that they were the first whom that holy Apostle illumined with the light of Christian doctrine. Dionysius Bonfant, of Cagliari, doctor of sacred theology and of jurisprudence, in the Triumphs of the Saints of Sardinia, book 1, chapter 5, and other Sardinian writers, endeavor to persuade us of this tradition of their island. Salvatore Vitale, of the Order of St. Francis, in the Annals of Sardinia, part 2, at the year of Christ 37, page 18, thus parabolically, not to say ridiculously, proves the same glory of his homeland: The coming of James into the Spains being seen, it is worth while to see him forestalled in Sardinia: for he came to us before you, Spaniards. Is not Sardinia, "Sandaliotis," the sacred sandal, the shoe of the Apostles? Hence it is fitting that James was shod with this sandal for the Spains: for, as Mark testifies, the Apostles went to preach shod with sandals, they ought not to go barefoot. Nor do we deny that here he speaks mystically of that sandal: nevertheless it makes for our matter (and let it be lawful, come, to say it) that the blessed apostle James, before he attempted the thickets of Spain, fortified his feet with the sandal of Sandaliotis: for, taking his journey from Joppa, by a straight course of navigation directed, he trod the sands of Cagliari; since from the port of Joppa he could by no means reach any other than the Cagliaritan part of the island more equitably and rightly, nay and more conveniently. This trifling reasoning only proves that St. James could first have landed at the island of Sardinia.

[298] More to the point are the things which the same writer subjoins in these words: which they endeavor to prove from the Armenian Breviary, That James came into Sardinia before he penetrated into Spain, the elogia of men supreme in literary and historical matters testify. There is in the first place the Armenian Breviary, whose testimony the most illustrious and most reverend Paulo Pacheco, bishop of Mars, translated from Armenian into Spanish, the son, I say, of the most noble lord Don Juan Pacheco, of the soldiery of St. James, an illustrious knight, orator and nuncio of the Emperor Charles V to the Armenian princes … This Breviary was ordained and digested by the archbishop or patriarch of Jerusalem about the year of the Lord 1054. Then he subjoins the Spanish version of the Armenian Lesson, in which it is said that St. James set sail from the port of Joppa to Sardinia, and thence landed at Cartagena in Spain, and, many cities being traversed, came into Galicia. Finally the same Lesson adds that he set out from Galicia to Saragossa, and there, by the command of the Mother of God, built a chapel in her honor, and at length from the port of Tarragona again gave his sails to Palestine.

[299] of whose antiquity and authority it is hitherto not established, If so great be the antiquity or authority of this Breviary, I marvel that the Postulators of Saragossa did not confirm their tradition at Rome by this testimony, which certainly among others would have been most clear and most ancient. Nor say that it was unknown to them; since in Fernando de Ojea, in the History of St. James, chapter 6, in Diego de Murillo, a Minorite, in the Miraculous Foundation of the Mother of God of the Column, chapter 32, page 270, and in other Spanish writers, the same is everywhere reported. Hence I conjecture that the authority of the Armenian Breviary was suspect to the people of Aragon. Moreover it does not please that this Breviary is said to have been ordained and digested by the archbishop or patriarch of Jerusalem, since the Armenians had their own metropolitan, and both Armenias were subject to the patriarch of Constantinople, as may be seen in Charles of St. Paul in the Sacred Geography, reprinted at Amsterdam in the year 1704, book 9, page 247, or perhaps afterward it was subjected to the patriarchate of Antioch, as is gathered from the Armenian History edited by Clemente Galano at Rome in the year 1650, part 1, chapter 25, from page 373. Yet if anyone shall solidly prove that this testimony of the Armenian Breviary is genuine and ancient, I shall gladly lay aside all suspicion of it, and easily admit that St. James stayed a short space of time in Sardinia, since that could have happened not so difficultly in his passage to Spain.

[300] [and the Spaniards, each province claiming for itself, before others, the first preaching of that Apostle,] On firmer foundations rest the Spaniards, as we shall see in the following paragraph, when they affirm that St. James promulgated the Christian law in his homeland. But among them there is no agreement from what province he began the apostolic preaching, and in what places he announced Christ. If it please to believe Aulus Halus, whom Juan Tamayo de Salazar always has ready to prove anything whatever, and whose fictitious poem he reports in his Spanish Martyrology on this day, the holy Apostle traversed almost all the provinces of Spain, and in nearly every city taught the Christian faith. But while the Spaniards contend among themselves concerning the primacy of the apostolic preaching, they give courage to their adversaries to deny more confidently that St. James came into Spain.

[301] give their adversaries occasion of doubting whether he preached in Spain at all. But lest this be perhaps taken ill from a Belgian, let them hear their countryman Francisco de San Agustín Macedo, who in the Diatribe on the coming of St. James into Spain, chapter 1, discourses thus of this matter: That James came into Spain

is more certain than certain. That is less established, into what province he came. Since therefore Spain is distributed into many provinces, each one claims him for itself with a certain pious zeal, and from ancient time calls him its own, and endeavors to show this by arguments; which, when they are set forth here and there, while some refute others, render it doubtful into which he came: but since he could not have come into Spain except through one province, and these show, arguing against each single one, that he came into none for certain, it comes to pass that it is doubted whether he came into Spain at all. Nor is it enough for them to enjoy James, which would be easy for composing the disagreements, so that one province after another received him in a certain order and series of time; but each one wishes to have him with the prerogative of primacy: for they are so lovers of religion that they wish to have the first place, not content to have had him unless they had him before others. And so they contend about the first, because it seems base to stand in the second or third. So are the Spaniards disposed toward honors, that they wish either the highest or none. Therefore the province of Tarraconensis calls him to itself; Baetica says he is owed to it; Lusitania contends that he is its own; Galicia draws him to itself. All lay hold of him, and while they try to seize him, they draw and tear him in diverse directions, so that he seems to be nowhere, whom they by no means suffer to be with any single one. Thus he candidly explains his mind. Yet that this contention of the Spaniards in no way harms their tradition I shall afterward show from the same writer.

[302] Some will have it that by St. James, returned from Spain, It is not probable that St. James instructed the Gauls, English, the Gauls, English, Irish, Venetians, nay and the Armenians also, were instructed in the Gospel doctrine. What I think of these apostolic excursions I shall briefly say. As regards the instruction of the Gauls and English, that is first, so far as I know, reported by Pseudo-Dexter, who in the Chronicle at the year of Christ 41 thus pronounces: James, returning, visited the Gauls and the Britains, and the towns of the Venetiae, where he preaches. Aulus Halus, under the mask of an ancient poet of Bordeaux, but lately born from the fabulous brain of a more recent Spaniard, endeavors to confirm this deceitful oracle of Pseudo-Dexter, when in the poem cited above, in Tamayo, on the 25th day of July, he thus sings of St. James: Gladly he returned to the city of the Isacidae, whither he is believed on the way to have visited my Gauls, and to have touched the hard Britons. But our Alford, in the Ecclesiastical Annals of Britain, at the year of Christ 41, number 1, having scented the fraud, after adducing the words of Pseudo-Dexter, thus prudently concludes: For the rest, I prefer to assert the first beginnings of the faith taught in Britain by more certain arguments.

[303] Nor is it probable what Vincent of Beauvais, the Irish, printed at Venice in the year 1591, book 8 of the Speculum Historiale, chapter 7, writes in these words: The Apostles therefore going to the diverse climes of the world, by the nod of God James, landed on the shores of Ireland, intrepidly preached the word of God. But I am of the opinion that by the error of the copyist or typesetter Hibernia (Ireland) was put for Iberia, as is gathered from the context, and it was corrected in the later Douai edition. I know not whether Pseudo-Julian followed the error of the Venetian edition, or wished to flatter the Irish, when in the Adversaria, number 409, he says that the sacred body of St. James was conveyed from Judaea into Spain by the disciples whom he had made such in Ireland. However it be, this we place either among blunders or among fictions, with Henry Spelman, who in the Apparatus to the councils of England, volume 1, page 2, judges thus of this opinion: I pass over what some suggest concerning the coming of St. James into Ireland and the British islands; since none of the more ancient writers, so far as I know, has affirmed this, and it does not seem to have been handed down by the later writers from any other source than from those who wrongly substitute the IRISH and IRELAND for the IBERIANS and IBERIA (that is, Spain), to whom and where many assert that James preached, before he had returned to Jerusalem , when he had been killed by Herod Agrippa *.

[304] It is obscure what Pseudo-Dexter meant to signify by the towns of the Venetiae, where he pretends St. James preached. or imbued the Venetians with Christian doctrine, If he understood Venice, situated on the Adriatic sea, he feigned too grossly, since that city is said to have been first founded in the fifth century. Bivar saw this difficulty, and, desiring to defend the authority of his dear Dexter, comments on his text more subtly than truly: But, he says, what is asserted concerning the Venetiae is not to be understood as said of the city which now exists under that name, situated on the Adriatic gulf: for at that time it had not yet been founded. But the towns of Eastern Gaul were called Venetiae, as may be seen in Ptolemy and Pliny; and since these are situated toward England, it is easily understood that the Apostle visited them, when he tended from Gaul into England or the Britains: unless one wish that Dexter did not advertently say "he visited the Venetiae," but "the towns of the Venetiae," those, I say, which were situated near the place where afterward the very rich city of Venice was built: for that formerly also the Veneti inhabited that region, Silius Italicus is an irrefragable witness. I at least praise the ingenious attempt at explanation; but on these things one must not dwell longer, since I do not believe that St. James promulgated the Gospel in Gaul or Italy, unless it be proved by more trustworthy testimonies. I suspect that Pseudo-Dexter incautiously understood the Venice of the Adriatic sea, and seized the occasion of this fiction from a Venetian inscription which he could read in Ambrosio Morales, and of which I shall now say a few things.

[305] even though at Venice from time immemorial Francesco Sansovino, in the Italian description of the city of Venice, book 4, page 72, narrates how some inhabitants of that province, to avoid the incursions of the barbarians, fled to the neighboring lagoons, and there built certain houses. And when in one of them a fire had arisen, the aid of St. James being invoked, and a vow being made, the fire was prodigiously extinguished by a sudden rain. He adds that after this miracle, in the year 421, a temple was built in honor of St. James in the same place which is now commonly called Rialto, whose various restorations he afterward reports, but of the preaching of St. James among the Venetians he makes no word. Ambrosio Morales, in the General Chronicle of Spain, volume 1, book 9, chapter 7, mentions also this temple, and sets forth the memorial of the first building, engraved on stone, in this manner:

The foundations of this temple, erected by vow to the divine apostle James, were laid in the year of Christian salvation 421 , on the 25th day of March, Zosimus being Roman pontiff, Honorius reigning. The dedication was celebrated in the following year, on the same day, by four bishops, Severianus of Padua, Hilarius of Altino, Jucundus of Treviso , and Epodius of Oderzo; but the care was first delegated to Felix the priest.

The years reckoned here from the Incarnate Word do not please me, since that manner of computing was not yet in use at that time, and was first employed about the middle of the sixth century by Dionysius Exiguus, as the chronologers everywhere relate. Moreover it is false that Zosimus was Roman Pontiff in the year 421: for in the year 418, Zosimus being dead, Boniface succeeded, as Baronius has at this year, and it is established from the most ancient catalogues of the Roman Pontiffs.

[306] For these reasons I began to suspect that this Venetian inscription was substituted by some more recent person for another long ago destroyed. a church was built in his honor, And that my suspicion was not vain I afterward learned from Ughellus, who in volume 5 of Italia Sacra sets forth the same inscription whole and restored by others, after he had, in the preceding column, thus prefaced concerning its occasion: Of all the churches (he treats of the patriarchs and churches of Venice) the most ancient is that of the divine James at Rialto, raised by the people of Padua for this cause: for when, Attila raging, they had, with the neighboring peoples, fled to Rialto, about to receive the exiles of the cities cut off by the barbarians, and to prepare a new and safer dwelling; which while they build with continuous works, so persistent a fire, not without the Deity, invaded the prepared cottages, that it could not * be extinguished before they had vowed a temple to be built to the divine apostle James. Which is narrated to have been the first here at Rialto, as is read on a certain marble tablet, whose very words we have taken care here to transcribe.

[307] Then he subjoins the inscription whole, and repeatedly renewed, whose inscription is examined. which has thus:

The foundations of this temple, erected by vow to the divine apostle James, were laid in the year of Christian salvation 420 , on the 25th day of March, Zosimus being Roman Pontiff, Honorius emperor. The dedication was celebrated in the following year, on the same day, by four bishops, Severianus of Padua, Hilarius of Altino, Jocundus of Treviso, and Epodius of Oderzo. But the care was first assigned to Felix the priest. These things, nearly abolished by antiquity, were discovered by the industry of Natale Regia, canon of Ceneda, who, elected parish-priest *, and the said temple being restored into a more splendid church, that he might leave to posterity a monument of the building, consecration, restoration, and election, took care to have these things noted on marble: all which, corroded and almost consumed by the injury of time and place, Hieronymus ab Aqua of Murano, Canon of St. Mark, and parish-priest of this church, ordered to be restored on this marble, in the year of the Lord 1600, on the 25th day of March.

Although from these things it is plain that this inscription is more recent, yet I confess that from it the ancient and immemorial cult of St. James at Venice is rightly demonstrated. There may also be seen on this matter Bernardino Scardeone, in the work on the Antiquity of the city of Padua, book 2, class 6, page 106.

[308] Antonio Caracciolo, of the Order of Clerks Regular, a presbyter, The same Apostle does not seem to have preached the Gospel to the Armenians, in the Biga of illustrious controversies, number 42, extends the apostolic zeal of St. James even to the Armenians, in these words: The Spanish tradition is more and more strengthened by the Armenian tradition in the East: for even Armenia itself, though it be very remote from Spain, yet keeps, wherever it now has Christians among the Turks (and it has very many indeed), that blessed James once went to the Spaniards, and holds it so firmly that in the vow of pilgrimage to the Compostelan church of St. James it is most difficultly dispensed among the Armenians, for that they believe that the Apostle, returning from Spain to Palestine, passed through Armenia, and there disseminated the Gospel. Let those be asked who of that nation, presbyters or bishops, come to Rome for business or for religion: they will openly confess what we assert, and what we have received on certain and grave testimony.

[309] although the more recent Armenians assert it. I easily believe that the Armenians of today will confirm this tradition by their testimony; but it must be more recent, since in the ancient monuments of that nation nothing similar is found: for in the above-mentioned history of that people, which Clemente Galano edited in Latin and Armenian, and illustrated with annotations, where there is treated of the first beginnings of the Christian religion brought into this region, part 1, chapter 1, only the following are read: After the glorious ascension of our Lord Jesus

Christ into heaven, the most blessed apostles, having received the Holy Spirit, divide among themselves all the regions of the world, lots being drawn. But the holy apostles Bartholomew and Thaddaeus set out into the Armenian regions, which had fallen to them by lot; and there, slain by Sanatrugh, king of the Armenians, they completed their martyrdom. Here, if anywhere, mention ought to be made of St. James. These things being premised, we shall defend the preaching of St. James in Spain alone, and, the foundations of our opinion being laid, we shall endeavor to solve the contrary arguments of certain writers, when we shall first have explained the origin and progress of that controversy.

* read "Jacobum"

* read "Hierosolymas"

* read "est"

* others read 420 (CCCCXX)

* perhaps "TARVISINUM" (Treviso)

* read "potuerit"

* perhaps "ABOLITA"

* Scardeone notes it in the year 1503

§ II. On what occasion and how it began to be doubted concerning the coming of St. James into Spain.

[310] Baronius deserted the common tradition which he had before defended, Thomas Stapleton, a most learned Englishman, who died piously in the year 1598, in book 1 On the Greatness of the Roman Church, chapter 3, shows how certain the tradition of St. James's coming to Spain was held in his time, when he thus writes: It is true and undoubted that, the whole world being distributed as it were into provinces, the preaching of the word being first made in Judaea and Samaria according to the order prescribed by Christ, Peter in Italy, Paul in Greece, Andrew in Achaia, John in Asia, and James in Spain most widely propagated this Gospel, of which Rome is the head. Cardinal Baronius endeavored then also to confirm the common opinion of the Spanish preaching by several testimonies in the notes to the Roman Martyrology, and afterward in the Ecclesiastical Annals, volume 1, at the year of Christ 44, number 1, indicates that he still adhered to the same opinion, in these words: But as regards James himself; since all the churches of the Spains equally profess that the same Apostle before went to the Spains, and there first preached the Gospel, and gathered some disciples, we have nothing more to say of that matter than what has been noted by us in the Roman Martyrology; which let him consult who desires this: for here it is only in mind to treat of his martyrdom, which is reputed the more clear and celebrated in that he is known first among the Apostles to have merited so great glory. But the same most eminent writer, in volume 9 of the Annals, at the year of Christ 816, from number 48, changed his mind, or at least called his former opinion into doubt. But on what occasion this was done, receive briefly from the certain relation of another most eminent man.

[311] Cardinal de Aguirre, in volume 1 of the Councils of Spain, dissertation 9, excursus 2, number 14, reports the cause of this change in these words: chiefly impelled by the dissertation on the primacy of Toledo, In that as it were peaceful possession the same tradition persisted from immemorial course, I do not say of years, but of centuries, when the most illustrious man Garsias Loaisa, canon of Toledo, tutor of the most serene prince of the Spains, afterward king Philip III, nine years later (namely from the publishing of the Roman Martyrology with the notes of Baronius), that is, in the year of Christ 1593, edited the councils of Spain, and on their occasion a tract or dissertation on the primacy of the church of Toledo, in whose defense he brings forward a certain narration (I know not whence received) of a contest held in the general Lateran Council celebrated under Innocent III in the year 1215, between the archbishop of Toledo, lord Rodrigo, on the one part, and the archbishops of Braga, Tarragona, and Compostela on the other, concerning the primacy of the churches of Spain, each of them contending that it was owed to no other than to his own church.

[312] But although Loaisa had, for asserting that primacy of his church of Toledo (of which he was then a canon, which Garsias Loaisa edited from a manuscript codex: and afterward archbishop), several and most valid foundations, yet he wished to add another new one from a certain narration of those things which were said, alleged, and disputed back and forth between the aforesaid archbishops in the Lateran Council under Innocent III concerning that controversy. But among these there is one by which the coming of St. James into Spain, and his preaching in it, seems to be called into doubt by the archbishop lord Rodrigo, or rather to be reckoned among old wives' fables. When Cardinal Baronius had read these things, and believed them true, he began greatly to doubt of the preaching of St. James in Spain, not daring to persist in his ancient opinion. Then he marvels that the most learned Baronius scented nothing of supposition or fraud in that narration, whose falsities, anachronisms, contradictions, and other absurdities Francisco Macedo the Lusitanian, and the most excellent Marquis of Mondéjar, and other learned Spaniards afterward most clearly demonstrated.

[313] Meanwhile the new judgment of Baronius was esteemed so highly that the preaching of St. James in Spain, which in the Roman Breviary under Pius V was recited absolutely, [on this occasion the preaching of St. James in the Roman Breviary was restricted to the tradition of the Spanish church,] under the pontificate of Clement VIII was restricted to the tradition of that kingdom; for before, in the time of St. Pius V, it was read thus: Then, Spain being traversed, and the Gospel there preached, he returned to Jerusalem. But afterward Clement VIII ordered this passage in the proper lessons of St. James to be thus changed: That he went to Spain, and there converted some to the faith, is the tradition of the churches of that province: from whose number seven bishops, afterward ordained by blessed Peter, were first sent into Spain. But this change did not equally move all the writers of that time, nor recall them from the ancient opinion: for after it, in the year 1626, Cornelius a Lapide, in the Commentaries on chapter 12 of the Acts, verse 2, wrote: That James preached in Spain is the universal, immemorial tradition, not only of Spain, but of the faithful everywhere, which no one can gainsay.

[314] Nay, our Sánchez, in the Disputation on the preaching of St. James in Spain, tract 2, which change our Sánchez contends favors the Spanish tradition, chapter 9, contends that that formula of the change much favors the Spanish cause. Since meanwhile he knew that the Spaniards were not a little disturbed by that change, he objects to himself in the following chapter these things: But thou wilt say, if this clause supposed by Clement so greatly favors the Spanish cause, which it shows to be confirmed by the tradition of so many churches; if it so openly says that seven worthy men, whom Peter would afterward ordain bishops, were converted by James in Spain, whence it becomes more than probable that several others of lesser note, or of the other sex, were called by James to the Church. If the Spanish matter stands thus, why do the Spaniards take it so grievously that the ancient clause concerning Spain traversed was removed, and in its place substituted that which we have now expounded according to the sense, as we thought, of the Pontiff?

[315] who yet at the same time explains why it displeased the Spaniards. To this objection formed by himself he then subtly answers thus: Indeed, if all brought a sincere and simple mind to the words of Clement, or were of such learning or genius that they could explore their sense, or conjecture concerning the mind of the Pontiff, there would be less for the Spaniards to labor over concerning the clause lately introduced. But who would instruct the rude and unskilled crowd; or would inform those most unfairly disposed toward the name of the Spaniards to the true sense of those words? From this ignorance, or from a mind less affected toward the glory of the Spaniards, it has arisen that very many now speak more freely of the first Master of the Spaniards, others doubt, and finally the most ancient tradition concerning James has less firmness. Since therefore for that cause the credit of the tradition is now with many lighter than before, and it seems necessary to meet not only the judgments of the prudent, but also the lightest rumors of the crowd, and the vain dreams of the imprudent and raving, the Spaniards piously grieve, and deservedly contend, lest that which up to this age held the weight of undoubted faith should now be set before the prudent reasoning of anyone, nay even before the futile thought and free speech, and lest one should speak boldly and ignorantly from his own notion, rather than modestly and wisely from the sense of the Pontiff. The Spaniards therefore fear and deservedly beware, not that inconvenience which can come from prudent and fair estimators of things, but that which can come from the unskilled and unfair.

[316] [The Spaniards so assailed Baronius that he is said to have returned to his first opinion,] Perhaps for the cause already alleged by Sánchez, very many Spanish writers leaped forth from every side to assail Baronius, of which matter Spondanus, in the Epitome of the Ecclesiastical Annals, at the year of Christ 44, number 4, writes thus: Against him rose up, for the tradition of their churches, all Spain, many writings on that matter being published by every kind of men, which if Baronius had seen, even though they do not necessarily prove what they wish, are yet of such a kind that they could have kept him in his former opinion. Nay, what is greater, the most truth-loving Baronius, some of their arguments being seen and weighed, is said to have returned to his first opinion, as Diego del Castillo testifies, who, sent to Rome in the time of Clement VIII, composed a book for the defense of the preaching of St. James, which he afterward edited in Spanish, in whose preface he says that he can truly and on oath assert that he then gave his book, written in Latin, to Cardinal Baronius, who, having read it diligently, answered him in Italian in the presence of several of his ministers that the book was excellently composed and worthy of the press; and repeated these words: Print it, that others be not deceived concerning the coming and preaching of St. James in Spain. Then Diego del Castillo adds that he marveled at so great humility of the most eminent man. The Postulators of the proper Office of Saragossa, of whom there will be treatment in the appendix of this Commentary, at Rome, in the Response to the animadversions of the Reverend Father the Promoter of the faith, number 9, brought forth the same testimony.

[317] At length the Spaniards by their complaints and arguments so far prevailed at Rome and so far prevailed at Rome that the restriction was removed, that in the year 1635, the matter being maturely and long examined on both sides, the Clementine formula, restricted to the Spanish tradition, was again changed by Urban VIII into an absolute one, which even today we read in the Breviary in this manner: Then, having set out into Spain, he there converted some to Christ, from whose number seven bishops, afterward ordained by blessed Peter, were first sent into Spain. How this was done, Michael de Erze Ximénez, canon of León, the promoter of this cause, narrates more fully at the beginning of the book which he wrote in Spanish on the coming of St. James. Bartholomew Ranaldus of Lucca, apostolic protonotary, in the notes to the ecclesiastical Offices of the year 1635, thus briefly observes the same: The affirmative statement which was in the Roman Breviary of Pius V concerning the preaching of St. James in Spain, and by the revision of Clement VIII had been reduced to the tradition of those churches of that province, now has been restored

in a fuller form by the new revision of the most holy Urban VIII. But although by this judgment no small strength accrued to the Spanish cause, yet after it Christian Lupus the Belgian, of the Order of St. Augustine, Natalis Alexander of the Order of St. Dominic, Tillemont, and certain other Gauls either called that tradition into doubt or openly impugned it.

[318] Finally receive a brief recapitulation of all that has been said from the words of Francisco Macedo, which Clement VIII had ordered to be inserted in the Roman Breviary, who in the Diatribe already praised, chapter 10, §3, thus reduced to a compendium the history of the whole controversy: The ancient Roman Breviary, he says, affirmed for certain that St. James came into Spain; and this Pius V in his correction willed to be whole and inviolate. Afterward, when Cardinal Baronius, on account of that Toledan manuscript unhappily found by Garcia Loaisa, had begun to be uncertain concerning it, the authority of so great a man moved the City. A contention therefore arose whether it were fitting to retain the ancient formula, which signified the Roman Church as the author of that matter, and made it in a manner of public faith and sacred, or to conceive another anew which should transfer the matter, with the faith only of the Spanish nation, to the tradition of the Spains, so that it might stand relying on its own authors, nor be received within the Roman bosom. This seemed to Clement VIII more equitable and more fitting: since especially, the tradition being affirmed, the faith of history seemed by no means to totter. Great weight to this opinion was added by the new doubt of Cardinal Baronius, whose judgment was most grave, concerning the coming of St. James into Spain. Wherefore, chiefly by his authority, the ancient and old formula of the narration was changed, a new particle of the tradition being inserted, which was of this kind: That he then WENT to Spain, and CONVERTED SOME DISCIPLES TO THE FAITH, IS THE TRADITION OF THE CHURCHES OF THAT PROVINCE.

[319] [in which, however, the ancient formula of Pius V was not renewed in the same words,] The report reached the Spaniards: they could not but grieve vehemently at the unexpected correction. And when, among the other men of that nation, one learned and notable lover of his homeland, Diego del Castillo, was then at Rome, he wished to resist the decree, and to uphold the ancient formula of the Breviary. He wrote a commentary upon it, which, when he had given it to Baronius himself to read, he, marveling, confirmed that it was suitable, and altogether approved by him. Yet he could not recall the writing, which was already printed. Until, Urban VIII being Pontiff, who was seriously thinking of the revision of the Breviary and Missal and of the other things which pertain to divine worship and the sacred rites, the correction of the Offices, D. Michael de Erze Ximénez, an energetic and learned man, striving for it, it began to be treated of restoring the old lesson and introducing the new. A hard province it seemed; but by the intervention of Cardinal Borgia, the royal legate of Spain to the Pontiff Urban, the cause was admitted and undertaken. Nothing was more diligently and accurately examined, nothing more often and more weighed and treated: until, the matter being perceived and explored, the new lesson was made obsolete and the old renewed.

[320] as Francisco Macedo wrongly affirms. When that writer here at the end says that the old lesson was renewed, this is not so to be understood as if before Clement VIII the same words were read in the Roman Breviary which afterward were inserted in it by Urban VIII: for the Roman Breviary, edited at Antwerp by the order of St. Pius V in the year 1569, in the proper Lessons of St. James, has thus: Then, Spain being traversed, and the Gospel there preached, he returned to Jerusalem. Clement VIII restricted this absolute assertion to the tradition of the Spanish churches thus: That he went to Spain, and converted some disciples to the faith, is the tradition of the churches of that province. Finally Urban VIII again changed this formula of restriction into an absolute one, which hitherto we recite in the Roman Breviary thus: Then, having set out into Spain, he there converted some to Christ; from whose number seven bishops, afterward ordained by blessed Peter, were first sent into Spain. Whence it is plain that Francisco Macedo erred, when in the Diatribe, chapter 3, §3, he asserts that this last formula, whose same words he describes, was in use before Clement VIII.

§ III. The preaching of St. James in Spain rests chiefly on tradition.

[The Spaniards deservedly complain that more testimonies are demanded for their tradition,] The Spaniards not undeservedly complain that older testimonies are demanded of them for this preaching of St. James than are exacted of other peoples for the traditions of their churches, since yet in Spain, so often occupied and devastated by various nations, the ecclesiastical monuments of the first centuries must have perished, if they had been consigned to writing. Let us hear here the praised Gaspar Sánchez, who in the work cited above, tract 2, chapter 5, discourses thus of this matter: There are those who desire the weight of canonical faith or of ancient history, which may bring forth something certain concerning the coming of James, in which a curious and attentive mind may acquiesce. … He acts indeed unfairly who requires of the Spaniards concerning James what he can show of no other of the provinces concerning other Apostles, very few excepted. For neither did Luke in the Acts of the Apostles pursue all the things which in the first times of the Church were done by the Apostles. Of John and his brother James, and of the other James, bishop of Jerusalem, scarcely one word; of the deeds or sayings of the others a wondrous silence. Of Paul and Peter, and of the state of the Church in its cradle, that work seems to have been undertaken by Luke: but of Peter and Paul how great things are omitted, who does not see? Indeed the Church would be ignorant of very many things concerning Paul, had it not learned them from Paul's epistles. Let those curious men therefore cease to exact of the Spaniards concerning James what neither the Antiochenes nor the Romans can render concerning Peter and his chair.

[322] I shall treat of the ancient histories; but if the adversaries exact this of us less unfairly indeed, than for the traditions of other churches, yet less becomingly and kindly. How many illustrious things once happened, which yet long lay hidden in darkness, nor would anything of them have been known to posterity, unless after long ages, by some revelation or heavenly sign, or by some special providence, they had been called forth into the light and knowledge of men? It had been unknown to Toledo that it received the first seeds of the Gospel from Eugenius, whom it now implores as its own apostle and prelate, until after the thousand and one hundredth year Raymond, prelate of Toledo, while for the sake of religion he entered the temple of St. Dionysius, found the body of Eugenius, whom he then first acknowledged as bishop of Toledo. Who would have known either the noble martyrdom or the place of burial of Gervasius and Protasius, unless after many ages it had been made known to Ambrose from heaven? It would be long to number the several instances; but I shall say something of Spain which the adversaries dare not deny; nor can they, who surely will not think that the last memory of the deed is to be called. Baronius concedes, volume 9, at the year of Christ 816, that the body of James is in Spain, yet unknown until the time of Alfonso, surnamed the Chaste, that is, after nearly eight hundred years; but found by various prodigies from heaven. The same he also confesses concerning Spain traversed by the preaching of Paul, which, since he thinks it certain, yet attributes to the lack of writers that we have nothing handed down to memory of his deeds.

[323] It is sufficiently known, I believe, to all, how grievously in Spain the savagery of Diocletian raged against although the persecution of Diocletian the followers and the name of Christ, Dacian being taken into that charge, the administrator of his cruelty, whose bloody traces exist everywhere throughout all Spain: for it is known to those who are moderately versed in Spanish learning how abundantly at that time the blood of the Martyrs watered and made fruitful the Spanish fields. But that cruelty of Diocletian declared war not only on the worshipers of Christ, but also on the writings which pertained to the memory of the Saints and to the Christian religion. Then he subjoins several testimonies by which he proves that the sacred codices of the Christians were formerly burned by the heathen. It will here suffice for us to have given the words of Arnobius, who, after exploding the emptiness of the gods, in book 4 Against the Gentiles, near the end, thus complains of this injury: But if some indignation for your religions possessed you, these writings rather, these books you ought long ago to have burned, these to have demolished, these theaters rather to have dissolved, in which the infamies of the deities are daily published in shameful fables: for why did our writings deserve to be given to the fire?

[324] against the Christians in Spain, Moreover from Prudentius, the Spanish poet, he shows that that rage of the heathen penetrated even into Spain, and that there perished the books in which were contained the deeds of the Martyrs written by the Christians. Prudentius, who flourished in the fourth century, in the book Peristephanon, hymn 1, which he wrote in praise of SS. Emeterius and Chelidonius, thus complains of that loss:

O worn-out oblivion of silent antiquity! These things are grudged us, and the very fame is extinguished: For the blasphemous henchman once carried off the little papers, Lest the learned ages, by tenacious little books, Should scatter through the ears of posterity, with sweet tongues, The order, time, and manner of the passion handed down.

[325] and afterward the irruption of the Arabs destroyed most of the monuments, In the Gothic Missal, which St. Isidore of Seville is said to have reduced into order, in the annual festivity of the same Martyrs are read the following: Neither did negligence lose those pages, nor did chance abolish them, nor did decaying antiquity corrupt them, but the malice of the persecutor grudged them. From these Sánchez thus concludes: Whence also it is plain how unfairly they deal with us who require of us the most ancient testimonies, since the armed cleverness of the most powerful men took care to abolish them with so great zeal. Finally he adds that the remaining monuments which could escape the edict of Diocletian and the cleverness of Dacian, afterward, in the wretched devastation of all Spain, the barbarous fury of the inundating Arabs destroyed. A rich witness of this ruin is cited, Rodrigo of Toledo, who in the preface to king Ferdinand confesses that he laboriously investigated and more laboriously compiled the things which he wrote concerning the affairs of Spain, from parchments and scraps: For in the time of the devastation of the Arabs (says Rodrigo in the same place) the writings and books perished with the perishing homeland.

[326] Mariana concerning the silence of the surviving writers But if thou sayest that not even those Spanish historians who escaped the rapacious hands of the gentiles or the Arabs, and are still daily read, make mention of the preaching of St. James in Spain, Mariana answers, in the Disputation on the coming of St. James the Greater, chapter 6, in this manner: Let these things be said concerning the finding of the body, which yet Sampiro confesses to be at Compostela. That he was silent concerning the coming of the Apostle I do not wonder: for none of our historians of that age is extant; nor indeed do those whom we have named extend their narration to the first times of the Church, content with those things which happened nearest to their age: perhaps also they left untouched a most widespread matter, and which was in the mouth of all, that the Apostle came into Spain… Rodrigo

of Toledo, who attained better times and greater light, I suspected to have been hostile to the church of Compostela, which refused to acknowledge the primacy of Toledo, and out of zeal to have kept silent in his history whatever could favor its dignity.

[327] gives the reason, Then he thus begins the tenth chapter of the same Disputation: Enough testimonies, if I am not mistaken, are at hand of foreign men in this cause; let the discourse turn itself to our countrymen, whose faith ought not to waver because they are natives: but it is rather fair to think that they had their own affairs better explored than others. Rightly says one: Concerning the origin of a people, the people itself is more believed than foreigners and remote men: concerning whom I will not deny that in ancient times there was great barbarism, and history no less disturbed than the commonwealth; so that none of the ancient historians of Spain made mention of the coming of James, the translation, and the finding of the body. I believe, because they thought that the most celebrated things, which were in the mouth of the whole people, needed no monuments of letters that their memory might be propagated.

[328] Sánchez, in the praised disputation, tract 2, [and Sánchez will have it that the immemorial tradition of the Spaniards suffices for this opinion,] chapter 1, contends that the tradition concerning the Spanish preaching of St. James is such that it would have to be received, even though it were destitute of ancient testimonies. Behold his words: If for the Spanish cause nothing stood but a tradition higher than all memory, it would be thought to have protection enough, because a common and conspiring consent, interrupted by no time, has that authority which nothing but great or unshaken faith could overthrow or weaken: which if thou take away from the midst, of necessity many of those things fall which the Church now religiously keeps. Which if anyone should condemn or bring into doubt, he himself would be held guilty of violated religion. Nor would the heretics of this age buy it at a small price, if the religion of traditions were either taken from the midst, or reckoned suspect and doubtful: from a longer disputation of which matter the studies of others altogether free me, who have entered upon longer disputations concerning the weight and faith of traditions. See meanwhile Bellarmine, volume 1 of the Controversies, where he edited a luminous treatise on the unwritten word of God, that is, on traditions. But what there was said concerning the unwritten word of God, brought down from the mouth of the Apostles through the hands of posterity even to us, that is, concerning canonical faith, the same ought altogether in its own manner to be reckoned, in its own manner, concerning history not written, but brought down to posterity by constant report, that is, concerning human faith.

[329] Concerning the same silence of the historiographers our Suárez, in the work on the virtue and state of religion, book 2, which Suárez also thus confirms. chapter 9, number 15, discourses thus: It matters little indeed that the private human histories of those times made no mention of that pilgrimage of James; both because in that pilgrimage of James nothing happened so public and prodigious that the fame of it went out into the whole world, whereby the historians could be excited to hand it down to memory; and also because in those times there were not in Spain diligent writers of the things which were done in it: but foreigners could not easily have knowledge of them, except perhaps of those which pertained to public wars and to the state and dominion of the commonwealth: for of other things pertaining to religion they had little or no account or care. Whence, since in that age there were not ecclesiastical writers who made mention of the affairs of Spain, except slight, it is no wonder that in the ancient histories nothing is found concerning this journey of James into Spain. For indeed, if Luke had not left the Acts of Peter and Paul written for posterity, many pilgrimages and preachings of those Apostles would have been consigned to oblivion, nor could they have been known otherwise than from the tradition of the very churches which they had founded: just as the journey of Peter to Antioch, which is omitted by Luke, was known not otherwise than from the tradition of that church, nor would it have come to our knowledge, unless from the monuments of that church Clement of Alexandria, and from him Eusebius and Jerome, had left it written.

[330] Since Natalis Alexander defends the landing of St. Mary Magdalene in Provence, Certainly to this tradition Natalis Alexander ought to have acquiesced, who, in Dissertation 17, section 1, defends the landing of blessed Mary Magdalene in the Gauls, destitute of ancient testimonies, on account of tradition, as he confesses in volume 3 of the most recent edition, page 178, in these words: In the ancient ecclesiastical history there is indeed no testimony of this matter, and of the landing of the holy sisters with their brother in Provence: but of it a witness is the tradition of the churches of Provence, supported by those monuments which, taken together, are of no light weight, and to which there is nothing in ecclesiastical history that expressly resists. By a better right the Spaniards can say the same concerning the coming of St. James into Spain, which is supported by more and older monuments, as will be proved in the following paragraphs. But that in this first encounter with my adversary I may act somewhat more liberally, I will freely grant for a while that for either tradition the weights of reason and authority are equal. Why then does he admit the Gallic tradition, and reject the Spanish? Could it not here be said that the will stands for reason? Would not love of homeland perhaps here have some place, which sometimes, out of severe Aristarchi in another's cause, makes clement judges of a domestic suit? Surely more consistently Natalis Alexander would have admitted either neither or both traditions.

[331] [and teaches that the traditions of churches are rather to be followed than overthrown,] Let us however hear Alexander himself, when in the aforesaid Dissertation, page 179, he renders the reason why he defends the Gallic tradition of the Provençals. That I undertook this part, he says, was effected by a disposition abhorring from novelty, and because I thought it the office of a Catholic and religious theologian to follow rather than overthrow the traditions of churches, where there is treatment of their origins … For I think that whatever talent of writing has been bestowed on me by God is for edification, not for destruction. If he thought it the office of a Catholic and religious theologian to follow rather than overthrow the traditions of churches, where there is treatment of their origins, why does he endeavor to destroy the tradition of the Spanish church, which ascribes its origin to St. James? Would that Natalis had said this from the heart, and had always preserved a disposition abhorring from novelty, and had used the talents granted him by God for the edification of the Church! Then certainly he would not have appealed from the constitution of Clement XI, which begins Unigenitus Dei Filius, to a future council, with the greatest scandal of Catholics. But let us go on to assail the man with his own arms.

[332] negative arguments When Launoy opposes to the coming of St. Mary Magdalene the silence of Cassian, Salvian, Victor of Marseille, Eucherius of Lyon, Caesarius of Arles, and other celebrated writers who flourished at Marseille or in Gaul, Alexander, on the page just cited, answers that these arguments are futile, because they are negative. For who would say that the appearance of the star which led the Magi to the cradle of Christ was fictitious, because no writer of the Gospel except St. Matthew mentioned it? Who would blurt out that the resurrection of Lazarus was fictitious, because SS. Matthew, Mark, and Luke did not commend it to writing? Who would count among fables the marvelous conveyance of the shrine of the Mother of God to Loreto, on account of the silence of St. Antoninus, who was both a contemporary author and near to the Loreto region? Wrongly therefore does Launoy infer from the silence of those authors that Bl. Magdalene never landed in Provence, or that her sacred body does not rest there. It must be added that time and fortune have grudged us many works of those authors, as is established from Honorius of Autun, Isidore of Seville, and Trithemius, who wove a catalogue of ecclesiastical writers: from which perhaps, if they survived, the truth of our opinion would be proved. But in those works which we have at hand, no occasion offered itself of speaking of Lazarus, Magdalene, Martha, or Maximinus, since they treated of far other subjects.

[333] But when Launoy urges that even concerning this landing of St. Mary Magdalene in Provence the ancient authors were silent and explodes the silence of writers, who inserted the compendious Acts of the Saints into their Martyrologies or writings, Alexander answers in the same place that it ought not to seem wonderful that Bede, Usuard, and Freculph, who flourished in regions far remote from Provence, namely either in England or in the parts of northern Gaul, in the eighth and ninth centuries, distant by so great an interval from the landing of blessed Magdalene in Provence, wrote nothing of these matters, which then were known almost only by the tradition of the churches of Provence. Then he also endeavors to explain how Ado, prelate of Vienne and neighbor of Provence, was silent concerning the same landing of the Saint. I do not discuss with what probability all these things are said, because I do not here intend to weaken the tradition of the Provençals. But what is there in these responses which the Spaniards cannot the more easily retort against their adversaries?

[334] Moreover Alexander could have applied to the Spanish preaching of St. James the rule which, and he easily embraces certain traditions of Gaul, in the same volume, page 168, he brings forward for proving the coming of St. Dionysius the Areopagite into the Gauls from Tertullian, who in the book On Prescriptions against heretics, chapter 31, thus delivers for discerning true traditions: From the very order it is manifested that that is of the Lord and true which was earlier handed down; but that is foreign and false which was later introduced. From this rule of Tertullian, Alexander thus argues against his adversaries: Whence I gather that the assertion concerning two Dionysii, of the one Athenian and Areopagite, of the other Parisian, who came into the Gauls only under Decius, is false, because it was born far later than the other opinion, which maintains one Dionysius, bishop of the Athenians and of the Parisians, and the same Areopagite, because he was sent into the Gauls by St. Clement. For this one, for eight and more centuries, none gainsaying, Gaul claimed as its apostle, until the learned men Sirmond and Launoy raised the standard of the other opinion. Can not the same things more probably be said of the coming of St. James into Spain, since the adversary himself is compelled to confess that that opinion prevailed a little after the eighth century? Therefore the contrary opinion was born later, since for eight and more centuries, none gainsaying, Spain claimed this Apostle for itself, until the most eminent Baronius raised the standard of the other opinion. Nay, even if it be freely granted that Rodrigo of Toledo denied that tradition, nevertheless the rule of Tertullian will hold equally among the Spaniards as among the Gauls, because that opinion of the Spaniards, according to the adversary, was at least in the ninth century handed down, and in the thirteenth century first denied.

[335] controversial among the learned Gauls themselves, But then the adversary praises in the same place the prudence of the archbishop of Paris, who willed the Gallic tradition concerning St. Dionysius to be retained, in these words: Finally, when select theologians from the sacred faculty of Paris had, for the amendment of the Parisian Breviary, diligently weighed the question concerning St. Dionysius the Areopagite and bishop of Paris,

and had debated on both sides, each weighed with its own weights, before the most illustrious archbishop François de Harlay I, the most sagacious prelate, and fitted, by his eminent gifts of genius and learning, for rightly judging of things pertaining to ecclesiastical antiquity, judged that to the ancient tradition of the Gallican church concerning one Dionysius the Areopagite and bishop of Paris its honor should be preserved in the ecclesiastical Office; and that the pious opinion of our forefathers should not be overthrown, which at least the rights of a probable opinion, and weights not to be despised, confirm.

[336] [he could have admitted the Spanish preaching of St. James on a stronger foundation.] This judgment of his predecessor the most illustrious Louis-Antoine de Noailles, the present archbishop of the church of Paris and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, thought should be reformed, who in the Parisian Breviary, which in the year 1700 was edited by his authority and with the consent of the venerable chapter, distinguished two Dionysii, and prescribed that on the 3rd day of October a semi-double Office of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, and on the 9th of the same month a solemn greater Office of Dionysius of Paris and his companions, should be recited. I do not reprehend Natalis Alexander for having too scrupulously followed the first judgment of the most illustrious François de Harlay, but I accuse him of inconsiderateness, that for graver reasons he did not embrace the opinion of Pope Urban VIII, by whom, after a severe examination, he knew that the absolute assertion of James's preaching had been restored to the Roman Breviary. With less scruple indeed he could have acquiesced in the immemorial tradition of the Spaniards, which I shall now confirm by several reasons and testimonies.

§ IV. That tradition is established by certain reasons and by the testimonies of the ancients.

Most probably some one of the Apostles was sent to teach the Spaniards, We read in the sacred Letters that Christ after his resurrection, before he ascended into heaven, gave the Apostles the command of promulgating the Gospel, not only in Judaea and Samaria, but also in other regions, where the nations sat in the darkness of idolatry and in the shadow of death: for Matthew, chapter 28, thus writes: And the eleven disciples (Judas Iscariot the twelfth had already hanged himself with a noose) went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them … and Jesus coming spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. But Luke, in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 1, verse 8, testifies that Jesus said to them: You shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth. Since this speech is directed to all the Apostles, I do not see why James the son of Zebedee ought to be excepted from the commanded instruction of the gentiles. But since all nations are commanded to be taught, why is the Spanish nation excluded?

[338] Certainly Jerome did not exclude the Spaniards from the preaching of the Apostles, and Jerome and Theodoret relate, and this was more probably St. James, as will be more fully demonstrated afterward. Theodoret, contemporary of Jerome, the most learned bishop of Cyrus, did not exclude them, who in sermon 8 On the Martyrs (it occurs among his Works, edited in Greek and Latin at Paris in the year 1642, volume 4, from page 591), thus writes concerning the doctrine and glory of the Apostles: For when they (namely the heathen, of whose conversion he here treats) draw the streams of sacred doctrine, they not only do not deride the tongues of the Apostles, but rather greatly admire that men wholly devoid of eloquence, some taught fishing from boyhood, some wont to stand at the tables of publicans, some to exercise the cobbler's craft, at once came forth ministers of the divine oracles and dispensers of heavenly goods, and salutary drivers-away of evils, and clear luminaries, illuminating not only one nation, but wheresoever this sun which we behold pours forth its rays. But all especially admire and look up to this, that now dead they perform even now those things which living they were wont to do. Nay indeed far greater and clearer are the things which have been done by them after they departed hence: for when, clothed in bodies, they dwelt among men, they went now to these, now to those peoples, and now addressed the Romans, now the Spaniards or Celts. But after they betook themselves to him by whom they had been sent, all continually enjoy them: not only the Romans, and those who love the yoke of the Romans and are governed by them, but also the Persians and Scythians and Massagetae and Sarmatians and Indians and Ethiopians, and, to say it once for all, all the bounds of the earth. Here at least thou seest that, according to the opinion of Theodoret, some one of the Apostles was sent to the Spaniards, whom we, for reasons said and to be said, think more probably to have been St. James the Greater.

[339] Nor can it be said that to St. James was only destined the conversion of the Spaniards, whose mission cannot be said to have been hindered by martyrdom, but that he perished in Judaea by the sword of Herod before he could depart to instruct the nations: for to those who should seek such an evasion I would oppose the words with which our Mariana answers Rodrigo of Toledo (we suppose for a while with Mariana that that controversy was agitated in the Lateran Council, and that Rodrigo gave a similar answer), in the tract on the coming of St. James into Spain, chapter 10, thus: But indeed, he says, to what end was the care of preaching in Spain given to James, if he was not to have the faculty? Or shall we think that the Apostles in that matter followed human reasons, and were not rather, in a most grave matter, moved by divine inspiration, lest they should err? Thus from his confession (namely of Rodrigo of Toledo) what causes doubt is refuted, and from what is conceded is confirmed that in which he seemed to waver. By no means can the most eminent Baronius approve this answer of Rodrigo of Toledo, who in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 44, number 20, asserts that the division of the provinces among the Apostles was accomplished by a special instinct of the Holy Spirit, and in the same place, number 21, thus concludes: Admonished therefore by these and other examples, we say that the several Apostles were sent away into those regions of the world to which the Holy Spirit by private instinct willed them to set out.

[340] Besides other things on this matter to be reported hereafter, St. Mark seems to preclude the entrance to this evasion, when in chapter 16 he intimates that this command of Christ was carried into execution, in these words: since, besides the reasons contrary to this evasion, St. Mark, Last of all he appeared to those eleven as they were at table, and reproached their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen him risen again. And he said to them: Go into the whole world, preach the Gospel to every creature… But they going forth preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs that followed. From this clause of St. Mark I gather that St. James the son of Zebedee also, among the other Apostles, set out to announce the Christian doctrine to the nations; but since no gentile nation claims this Apostle for itself with a better right and an older tradition than the Spanish, I most probably conclude that he preached in Spain: for although the apostle Paul perhaps also preached the Gospel in Spain, yet the things which here and above we have reported from the Evangelists cannot agree with him, as is manifest to anyone considering the time and the text.

[341] St. Justin the philosopher, The most ancient writers of the Church imitate the phrase of sacred Scripture, among whom St. Justin, philosopher and martyr, about the middle of the second century wrote to the emperor Antoninus Pius and to the Roman senate and people an apology for the Christians, which is inserted in the Cologne Library of the Fathers, and in which, after narrating the life of Christ, volume 2, page 47, he has these things concerning the Apostles: And that it was so done you can believe: for at Jerusalem TWELVE MEN IN NUMBER WENT OUT INTO THE WORLD, and they ignorant and unlettered, and endowed with no faculty of speaking, by divine power SET FORTH TO EVERY KIND OF MEN that they were sent by Christ to teach all the word of God. Then in the same place, page 48, he says: The word foretells, in which there was power, which his Apostles, having gone out from Jerusalem, preached everywhere. Finally, on the following page, he again thus inculcates these things: But afterward, when he (namely Christ) had been raised from the dead and had shown himself to them, and had taught them the prophecies in which it had been foretold that all these things should be, and they had seen him returning into heaven, and had believed, and had received the power sent to them from thence by him, and had set out to every kind of men, they taught these things, and were called Apostles. Since James the Less remained in Judaea to govern the church of Jerusalem, without doubt in the number of twelve, which, with Matthias and Paul, the remaining ten Apostles who set out to the nations constituted, James the Greater is comprehended. Nor do I see by what reason it can be said that to our St. James was only assigned a province of preaching, since St. Justin expressly asserts that those twelve men in very fact departed from Jerusalem, went out into the world, everywhere preached, and set forth to every kind of men the Christian doctrine.

[342] [and Tertullian testify that the Apostles, having set out from Jerusalem, preached to the nations.] Tertullian in the book On Prescriptions against heretics, chapter 20, thus speaks of the preaching of the same Apostles: Christ Jesus our Lord, … as long as he dwelt on earth, himself declared, whether openly to the people or apart to the disciples; of whom he had chosen twelve chief ones to his side, destined masters for the nations. And so, one of them being struck off, the remaining eleven, departing to the Father after the resurrection, he commanded to go and teach the nations, to be dipped into the Father, and into the Son, and into the Holy Spirit. Straightway therefore the Apostles (which appellation is interpreted "the SENT"), having assumed by lot the twelfth, Matthias, into the place of Judas, by the authority of the prophecy which is in the psalm of David, having obtained the promised power of the Holy Spirit for miracles and eloquence, first through Judaea, the faith in Jesus Christ being attested, and churches being established, thence, having set out into the world, promulgated the same doctrine of the same faith to the nations, and accordingly founded churches in each city, etc. Cardinal de Aguirre, volume 1 of the Councils of Spain, dissertation 9, excursus 2, number 17, from these and similar expressions of the ancients thus argues: Why should not James be comprehended in those words uttered without any exception, according to the most ancient tradition of almost the whole Christian world? So that, as the others of the Apostles were sent to diverse regions, so also James to Spain? I confess indeed that by this argument the matter is not altogether settled; but who would deny that these and other things favor the most received tradition of the Spaniards, so that things which cannot avail singly, may, being many, help.

[343] Of this kind also are the reasons which Francisco Macedo, Francisco Macedo the Lusitanian, adduces for that tradition, when in the Diatribe, chapter 6, from the translation of the body of St. James into Spain he infers the preaching of the same Apostle living in it, in this manner: For what cause, I beseech, did the disciples of St. James carry his body, when dead, from Judaea (for all write, and Loaisa confesses, that it was carried by them) into Spain? Except that they had before been in it with the same Apostle, or knew that he had been there. Certainly no other cause could there be,

as will be plain to one considering the matter. For how, or why, from so distant a region into that farthest part of Spain and of the world, which is called by sailors the END OF THE EARTH, would they transport that body of the Apostle, the task being undertaken through so great a vastness of a double sea, the Mediterranean and the ocean being traversed? Those shores, those ports were known to them, nay and the will of the Apostle was perceived, that his body should be transferred thither after death.

[344] Nor do I yet delay at what time it was carried thither: behold, in the sepulcher of St. James for I do not think it makes much for the cause, which someone perhaps thought greatly to concern, whether it was carried in the same year in which he suffered, which is commonly affirmed, or afterward: for provided it was conveyed into the Spains by the disciples, the force of the argument remains entire, the question of time, which is more difficult, being cut off. For I am unwilling to assume into an argument anything but certain and explored things. But since it is altogether perceived and explored that the body of James the apostle was carried into Spain by the disciples, I wish thereby to persuade that it was carried thither dead because he had stayed there alive: from which argument the year in which the disciples carried him detracts nothing. But that those who carried him out were disciples, all relate who have written of that translation, and Baronius and Spondanus and Bisciola, and Garcia Loaisa confess… And indeed it was the custom that disciples should take care to bury the bodies of their masters, as we have concerning the body of John the Baptist, buried by the disciples, in Mark; and this we are taught by the example of the body of Christ, cared for and entombed by Joseph and Nicodemus.

[345] The same writer, in the catalogue of authors whom he cites for his opinion after the Diatribe, which is in Galicia, page 214, reports the testimony of St. Jerome, by which he signifies that the Holy Spirit distributed lots to the Apostles, that one should go to the Indians, another to the Spains, another to Illyricum, another to Greece, and each one should rest in the province of his own Gospel and doctrine. Then from these last words of the holy doctor he thus discourses: This last clause designates James, whom he had by no means named: for when he says that the several Apostles had their burials in their own provinces where they preached (for that is "to rest"), since it is established from elsewhere that the divine James is placed in Spain, he manifestly shows that he made mention of him when he spoke of the Apostle sent into Spain. And so from his tomb James cries out, Jerome being author, that he preached in Spain, and that this pertains to the epitaph, so that the second testimony may agree with the first. Our Sánchez, tract 2, chapter 2, number 2, understands the same words of St. Jerome also in that sense, thus writing: Where, I confess, the name of James is not heard; but that the speech is of James the apostle of the Spains, that which thou readest at the end not obscurely persuades: for if, the Holy Spirit disposing, the Apostle "rests" there, that is, is buried, according to the common phrase of Scripture, where he sowed the seeds of the Gospel, who would deny that Jerome meant to signify that Spain fell by lot to James, when it is established that he obtained a place of burial among the Spaniards? The most eminent Aguirre interprets the text of Jerome in the same manner, as we shall see in the following paragraph, where we shall weigh a double testimony of the same holy Doctor against the adversaries.

[346] and from the singular affection of the Spaniards Francisco Macedo, in the mentioned Diatribe, chapter 7, elicits a similar consequence from the peculiar love of the Spaniards toward St. James, and from the affection which in turn the holy Apostle often showed to the Spaniards, as to his clients. I shall here again transcribe his reasoning: for in this whole controversy I prefer to use others' words rather than my own; both because in it scarcely anything occurs which has not been said before; and because I do not wish to diminish the force of the arguments on either side. And so that writer, in the place just cited, speaks thus: Whoever knows the causes and rights of clients and patrons, to him at last it will be clear that St. James came into Spain. For what people ever gave itself into the clientage of some leader or prince, whom it had not first seen set over its province or city? This will be plain to one reading the histories of the Romans; and indeed reason persuades that one commends oneself only to him whom one thoroughly knows. Wherefore those who undertook the patronage of some nations had traversed their provinces, and had either subdued them by arms or bound them by benefits: of which kind we read were the Marcelli, Fabii, Metelli, Scipiones, by whom the conquered nations were received into clientage.

[347] toward the same holy Apostle Under this title the peoples of the Spains professed themselves clients of James, and he showed himself their patron: for no other reason of either the clientage or the patronage could there be. Whence, I ask, so great a religion, so many obsequies, so many offices of the Spaniards toward James, so present a protection of his, so certain a patronage of James toward the Spaniards, except from this his dwelling among them, and preaching, and teaching? Why did they not adopt another of the martyrs, either of their own countrymen or of their neighbors? Whence could they know James, if he had not surveyed the Spains, if he had not instructed their peoples? Certainly they ought to have known him least of all, if he had not gone out from Judaea. He lived but little: if within those straits in which he lived he had died, who would at last acknowledge him? Or if they knew him, by what reason would they have preferred him to others? It was surely more fitting to choose either Peter, or Paul, or Bartholomew, or Matthew, or Andrew, or John, who did not withdraw far, as patron. The Spaniards would do injury to Peter and Paul, the chief Apostles, of whom Peter, according to Metaphrastes and others, came into Spain; or if (which I judge more true) he did not come, at least sent bishops thither, as we said above from Innocent in the epistle to Decentius. But Paul either went to the Spains, as Mariana testifies, who confirms it by great authors to be produced below; or if that be less proved, he certainly desired and resolved to go, as is openly shown in the epistle to the Romans.

[348] Therefore a most just cause must have intervened which impelled the Spaniards to prefer James to these, he infers his preaching in Spain. which could not be just, unless it were this which rests on his coming. Him indeed the Spaniards love as a father, cultivate as a master, follow as a shepherd, venerate as a lord. They use him as leader and patron against their enemies, implore his present deity, and by his name, as by a watchword, profess themselves his soldiers. When they enter battle, that they may take courage for themselves and dishearten the enemy, in the first onset, which is wont to be the more vehement, they thunder forth that cry: St. James; press on, Spain! (Santiago; cierra España!) Whence this so great confidence in the Apostle, so great hope, so great ardor, except from the love implanted in him and inborn piety? And so they bind themselves to him by a military oath, and, an Order being dedicated to his name, religiously bind themselves to his service, so that of no nation toward any other holy patron are there clearer indications of love and religion than those of the Spanish nation toward James. After these things he fully demonstrates how faithfully the holy Apostle answers this love of the Spaniards, by granting his clients prodigious victories and other benefits, of which we treated abundantly in part 1, §2.

§ V. St. Jerome relates the preaching of St. James in Spain.

I am unwilling here to imitate certain writers who, to defend the preaching of St. James in Spain, scrape together testimonies from every side, Apocryphal or suspect authors being omitted, even fetched from the first centuries of the Church, and meanwhile care little whether they are everywhere held apocryphal by the learned. Wherefore I forewarn that no witnesses are to be produced by me in the course of the work concerning whose faith one can prudently doubt. Hence I was unwilling to allege the testimonies of Hippolytus, Bede, or Anastasius Sinaita, who, the latter, is said to have written thus in the Arabic book on the Passions of the Apostles: On this day St. James the apostle, brother of John, son of Zebedee, was afflicted with manifold martyrdoms; and this after he went into the West into the city of Andiat: and he did among them miracles at which men, astonished, were amazed, so that he converted them to the knowledge of the most high God. Then he returned to the cities of Palestine, and preached among them the Gospel of Christ. Our Sánchez, tract 2 on the coming of St. James into Spain, chapter 2, numbers 7 and 8, subtly explains how by the West and Andiat Spain is understood. But I put no force in this testimony, since the most eminent Aguirre, volume 1 of the Councils of Spain, dissertation 9, excursus 3, page 142, judges thus cautiously of it: Within the same sixth century flourished St. Anastasius Sinaita, whom some Spaniards allege for the same preaching of St. James in the book on the Passions of the Martyrs. But in truth nowhere do I find that book written by Anastasius. Nor do those seem to make mention of it who have treated of ecclesiastical writers … Whence I would not dare to rely on so uncertain a testimony of Anastasius for asserting the preaching of St. James in Spain, nor does it need empty or airy supports.

[350] the preaching of St. James in Spain In the first place I ingenuously confess that I have hitherto not found a certain asserter of this tradition older than Jerome; but such is the testimony of that holy Doctor that the adversaries in vain endeavor to elude it, as we shall now see. Jerome therefore in the Commentaries on chapter 34 of Isaiah, according to the most recent Parisian edition of the year 1704, volume 3, columns 279 and 280, has these things: We shall so interpret allegorically, that we may teach that the stags, that is, the Apostles … met one another in Jerusalem, and saw mutual sight of each other, and passed through and left it, and went on to diverse provinces, because the Lord had commanded them: Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; and his spirit gathered them, and gave them lots and divided them, that one should go to the Indians, another to the Spains, another to Illyricum, another to Greece, and each one should rest in the province of his own Gospel and doctrine.

[351] is confirmed by the testimony of St. Jerome, Cardinal de Aguirre, volume 1 of the Councils of Spain, page 140, from this text of St. Jerome thus argues: By which words, besides that apostle who preached in Illyricum, there is comprehended some one who promulgated the Gospel in Spain. But that other was none, nor is read to be, than James. But that Paul preached in Illyricum we have attested in Romans 15, verse 19 itself. It remains therefore that James, in the judgment of Jerome, preached in Spain. Nay, he alone, according to the phrase of Jerome, rested in Spain, as in the province of his own Gospel and doctrine, just as the others of the Apostles in the provinces committed to them: for although he fell for Christ in Judaea, almost immediately his body was translated into Spain by the disciples, as is known to the whole Christian world.

And so, according to the opinion of Jerome, the very rest of the body of St. James in Spain denotes that he preached in it.

[352] which Natalis Alexander endeavors to elude, Natalis Alexander, in the Ecclesiastical History reprinted at Paris in the year 1714 (this edition of his works I always follow in this Commentary, which it suffices to have noted here once), volume 3, section 1, dissertation 15, page 160, seeing that he is constrained by the authority of Jerome, thus endeavors to solve this knot: I answer, he says, that this testimony of St. Jerome, if it prove anything, evinces only that Spain fell by lot to some one of the Apostles, who ought to imbue it with the faith, after they were dispersed. Be it that it was St. James: but by the martyrdom which he underwent before the dispersion of the Apostles, he was hindered from setting out into this region. Then he also retorts against the Spaniards an argument, conceived in the words of St. Jerome, and taken from the epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, which I shall afterward solve expressly, when I shall first have drawn the present knot a little tighter, and cut off from the adversary all hope of escaping. Certainly this violent explanation of Natalis Alexander does not seem able easily to be reconciled with the text of St. Mark adduced above, where he says: But they going forth preached everywhere. Moreover this new interpretation, devised without any foundation, manifestly resists St. Justin Martyr and Tertullian, whose words I gave in the preceding paragraph, inasmuch as they expressly assert that at Jerusalem twelve men (namely, James the Less being left in Judaea to govern the church of Jerusalem, the rest with the apostle Paul, destined to instruct the nations, constituted the number of twelve) in very fact went out into the world, and set forth the Christian doctrine to every kind of men. Why then should not James the Greater be numbered among the other apostles, who, having set out into the world, as Tertullian says, PROMULGATED the same doctrine of the same faith to the nations? Why is that denied concerning our James alone which is affirmed generally concerning the rest of the Apostles?

[353] Nay, St. Jerome himself, whose authority from another text is objected to the Spaniards, to whom, besides others, Jerome himself, precluded this evasion to Natalis Alexander, when in the same Commentaries on chapter 42 of Isaiah, volume 3 of the edition already cited, column 319, he thus writes: Into all the earth went out the sound of the Apostles, and to the ends of the world their words … For Jesus, seeing the Apostles on the shore beside the sea of Gennesaret MENDING THEIR NETS, called and sent them into the great sea, that of fishers of fishes he might make them fishers of men, who from Jerusalem all the way to Illyricum and the Spains preached the Gospel; capturing in a short time even the very power of the Roman city. I would here have it observed that Jerome does not say that those Apostles only resolved to preach the evangelical law in those regions, or were designated to preach it, but from Jerusalem, he says, all the way to Illyricum and the Spains they PREACHED the Gospel.

[354] Lest anyone here be delayed by the power of the Roman city captured by those Apostles, whose words I so understand Jerome, as if he say that the peoples subject to the Romans, who constituted no small part of the Roman power (at that time Rome was mistress not only of Illyricum and Spain, but of almost the whole world), were captured by those fishermen with the sweet bait of the evangelical doctrine, and thus the idolatrous power of the Roman city was diminished. It could also be said that St. John in a certain manner captured the heathen power of the Roman city, after, plunged into fiery oil, he suffered nothing, as Tertullian in the book On Prescriptions against heretics, chapter 36, affirms. St. Jerome, book 1 Against Jovinian, chapter 15, relates the same prodigy in these words: But Tertullian reports that, sent at Rome into a vat of boiling oil, he came out purer and more vigorous than he entered. It could therefore be said, in a mystical sense (in which indeed the capture of the Roman power is here to be understood), that by this stupendous preservation of the unharmed John the power of the Roman emperor was constrained, who had adjudged the holy Apostle to death. Perhaps also many Romans were by this miracle converted to the Christian faith, and in this manner the idolatrous power of the Roman city was captured or at least diminished, as I said a little before. If this varied interpretation please not someone, let him suggest a better concerning those Apostles who were called by Christ while they mended their nets: for we firmly adhere to St. Jerome, who, according to the characteristic words of the Gospel, without doubt here treats of James and John, whom Jesus called to the apostolic office καταρτίζοντας τὰ δίκτυα αὐτῶν, That is: properly mending their nets, as will presently be more openly declared.

[355] are elucidated by certain observations, Although it is not handed down in writing that either of the Apostles of whom St. Jerome here treats announced the Christian law in Illyricum, yet it could easily have happened that John, many of whose apostolic expeditions we are ignorant of, at some time made an excursion from Ephesus even to that region. Certainly that John, whose life was long, preached the Gospel to peoples more remote from Asia Minor, the most eminent founder of the Ecclesiastical Annals relates, at the year of Christ 44, number 30, in these words: Moreover, that John did not always remain in Asia, but also traversed other regions of the East in preaching the Gospel, there are many testimonies: for that he ascended to the Parthians the title of his own first epistle, which was formerly read as inscribed "to the Parthians," easily shows. But that he penetrated still further parts of the East and imbued Basra with the Christian faith, we have received by the certain and trustworthy relation of the most religious Fathers of the Society of Jesus, who in our times, having set out to the Indies for the sake of evangelical preaching, learned these things from the tradition of the same people received from their forefathers. This Parthian expedition of St. John is elicited from the very title of the epistle which was written to the Parthians, as St. Augustine, book 2 of the Gospel Questions, chapter 30, testifies, concerning which Tillemont, volume 1 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 336, and Natalis Alexander himself, volume 3, page 16, may be consulted. If St. John departed from Ephesus to such distant regions, why could he not the more easily have made an excursion as far as Illyricum?

[356] However it be, it is clearly plain that St. Jerome here speaks of John and his brother James, he precludes every evasion, since Jesus found these alone mending their nets, as Matthew testifies, chapter 4, verse 21, in these words: And going on from thence he saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father MENDING THEIR NETS; and he called them. But when Christ called Peter and Andrew, he found them casting a net into the sea, as the same Evangelist had said in the cited chapter, verse 18. Whence the most eminent Aguirre, in the work just cited, volume 1, page 140, thus rightly reasons: But it is established from Matthew, chapter 4, verse 21, and Mark, chapter 1, verse 19, that those Apostles called by Christ, while they mended their nets, were James and John, sons of Zebedee. One therefore of the two preached in Spain, in the judgment of Jerome; and certainly James, since no one has said it of John. These two testimonies of Jerome we so weigh that they preclude the interpretations of the adversaries and the evasions of Natalis Alexander. These seem to me so solid that he cannot prudently doubt of the opinion of St. Jerome who shall attentively revolve it with a mind free from prejudices.

§ VI. The same tradition is read in the most ancient Office of Spain from time immemorial.

The most ancient Spanish Office, which is commonly called Gothic or Mozarabic, Cardinal Bona from the Mass of St. Martin, nearly attains the age of St. Jerome, or perhaps even surpasses it, as the most learned Marquis of Mondéjar contends in the Spanish tract on the preaching of St. James, chapter 24. At least the most eminent Giovanni Bona, book 1 of the Liturgical Matters, chapter 11, thinks that this divine Office was in use in the fifth century, and proves it from the Mass of St. Martin, which is found in the Mozarabic Missal, and in which are read these words: This man, whom the times of our age brought forth, mayest thou command to bring aid to our times. But the Cardinal in the same place notes that Martin died in the year of the Lord 402 (others assign the year 397 or 400 to his death), and a little after his death began to be honored with public cult.

[358] Then the most eminent writer goes on to show that St. Isidore was not the first author of this rite, and by other monuments and to this end discourses thus: Then, if Isidore was the author of this Office, why do neither Braulio of Saragossa nor Ildefonsus of Toledo, holy men and familiars of Isidore, the former in the elogium of Isidore himself, the latter in the book On Ecclesiastical Writers, make any mention of a work so excellent? To these is added that the fourth Council of Toledo commemorates several rites of this Office, in canon two and the following, as already before in use: and likewise the third Council of Toledo, forty-four years before the fourth, in canon two, appointed that in the several churches the creed should be recited (namely immediately after the consecration of the Body and Blood of the Lord) before the Lord's Prayer is said, which is a custom peculiar to the Mozarabic Mass. Isidore himself also, in the book On Ecclesiastical Writers, recounting the writings of Leander his brother, and his predecessor in the see of Seville, testifies that he labored with no small zeal on ecclesiastical Offices, and composed many things sweetly in the praises of the sacrifice and in psalms.

[359] Juan Mariana, book 6 On the affairs of Spain, chapter 5, gathers the antiquity of the Gothic Office, says that the usage prevailed that the Mozarabic rite be attributed to Isidore, yet that Leander devised some things. But if Leander only devised it, I should believe that this Office is older than the third Council of Toledo, at which Leander was present, and was already in use in the fifth century, as we just now showed from the Mass of St. Martin; but that concerning its first author it is not established, that it was however illustrated by Leander himself, augmented by Isidore, and amplified by others in the progress of time. Pagi, in the historico-chronological Critique of the Annals of Baronius, at the year 633, number 29, uses the same arguments and words of the most eminent man. Since it is not of our purpose to pursue these things here more fully, see what has been said concerning the antiquity and rite of that ecclesiastical Office in the preliminary tract of this volume.

[360] From these things I thus argue: if already in the fifth century the memory of St. Martin of Tours was celebrated in that Spanish Office, without doubt in the same at that time were kept the feasts of the Apostles, to whose preaching all Christians owe the knowledge of their Redeemer. in which the coming of St. James into Spain is asserted, Moreover in these ecclesiastical books, the use of which still persists in certain churches of Spain, and which in the year 1722 I had before my eyes at Toledo, the feast of St. James is celebrated with a solemn Office, from which I have excerpted the following, which make greatly for our purpose.

Then the great sons of thunder, Having obtained by the prayer of their illustrious mother,

Shine, each with the insignia of the summit of life, John ruling Asia alone with his right hand, And his Brother, placed on the left, Spain.

Moreover in the same place, by the testimony of the most eminent Aguirre, is read that Responsory: There is present to us a most joyful day of the most excellent apostle James, by whose most salutary preaching the people of all Spain began to know their Redeemer. These and similar things were anciently sung in the churches of Spain, and are still yearly repeated in the Mozarabic Office, not without a tradition always continued in Spain from the first times of the Christian era.

[361] and whose authority Natalis Alexander Nevertheless Natalis Alexander thinks that these ancient monuments of the sacred books were blown away by him with a single breath, and ineptly answers that that Toledan Office, in which the coming of St. James into the Spains is kept in a sacred hymn, was not approved by the Roman Church. What does the approbation of the Roman Church here make to the matter? Ought the writings of Philostorgius, Eusebius of Caesarea, Socrates and Sozomen, and of other ancient authors, to be approved by the Roman Church, that from them some historical fact may be established? Do I not rightly gather from that most ancient Office what was anciently the opinion concerning the coming of St. James into Spain, although it was not approved by the Roman Church?

[362] endeavors to decline by a frivolous answer. Alexander ought to have denied the antiquity of those ecclesiastical books, if he wished to weaken this testimony opposed to him; but he could not deny it, since in volume 5, page 552, treating of the fourth Council of Toledo on canon eleven, he noted these things: But to the Mozarabic rite, which Spain then used, pertains this canon, which, when certain priests perverted it, the Spanish fathers animadverted upon them, decreeing the penalty of excommunication against those who should violate this order. Of so great moment is it religiously to follow the rite and order of one's church! Then, in the same volume, page 568, the arguments of the most eminent Giovanni Bona, which we just now set forth above, he inserted in nearly the same words into his Ecclesiastical History. But since he opposed nothing to them, he seems to have acknowledged the venerable antiquity of the Mozarabic Office. But let us entangle the man, sometimes forgetful of himself, in his own answer. Natalis, volume 3, page 164, asserts that St. Martial came to Limoges in the first century, and there preached the Gospel, and proves this, first, from the records and sacred Offices of the church of Limoges. Did the Roman Church approve these records and sacred Offices of the church of Limoges? What here the adversary is about to answer, we by a better right shall retort against him, as will be plain from what follows.

[363] The false reasoning of the adversary is set forth. Meanwhile let us hear the false consequence which Alexander thus deduces from this inept antecedent: Whence, since the tradition of the Roman church is to be preferred to the tradition of any particular church, it is more probably asserted that St. James never set out into Spain, because the Roman Church denies it, than that he set out thither, because the Spanish church relates it. We gladly confess that the tradition of the Roman Church is to be preferred to any traditions whatever of other churches; but where, I beseech, did the Roman Church deny the coming of St. James into Spain, which it expressly affirms in the Office which by its command we yearly recite? Moreover the most illustrious and most reverend Gaspar de Quiroga, archbishop of Toledo and at the same time most eminent Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, ordered to be edited the proper Offices of his diocese, to which he prefixed this title: The proper Offices of the Saints of the church and diocese of Toledo, approved by our most holy lord Gregory XIII, Sixtus V, and Paul V.

[364] For the rest, in the epistle of the most illustrious prelate prefixed to these Offices, and from the Breviaries, it may be seen with how great diligence these proper Offices were collected, and how Gregory XIII, after a severe examination, approved them. But among these Offices, on the 30th day of December, the translation of St. James is kept, and in the second Nocturn, lesson 4, are read the following: Whose body, lest it should be affected with some ignominy by the Jews, the most bitter enemies of the Christian faith, his disciples, divinely admonished, placed on a ship, praying God that he would direct their course, and carry the ship into those lands where he would that the body of the most holy Apostle be buried. God therefore being the leader, the ship, carried through the vast sea, shortly came into Spain, which James living had surveyed, and in which he had at some time, with great labors, disseminated the word of God. Does the Roman Church deny that which the Roman Pontiffs approve? What kind of approbation of the Roman Church in historical facts does Alexander demand? Does he perhaps require a general council in which the lessons of the Breviary, whether of Toledo or of Rome, should be approved?

[365] Here I see no evasion for the adversary, unless he recur to that saying of his which, whose testimonies are not rashly to be rejected, volume 3, page 732, he pronounced against the Roman Breviary in these words: To the confirmation I answer, that the authority of the Roman Breviary cannot effect that fables should turn into histories, nor ought whatever things are inserted in the Breviary to be reckoned of explored and unshaken truth, which it would be easy to prove by many instances. We know that not all things which are read in the Roman Breviary are to be reckoned of explored and unshaken truth. But it must be remembered that we here have to do with a man who, to establish his own opinions, often calls in to his aid the authority of the Roman Breviary or Martyrology. Thus, volume 3, page 47, to prove that the Acts of the martyrdom of St. Andrew are genuine and sincere, he uses, among other things, the testimony of the Roman Breviary: The Church, he says, reads these Acts in the Office of St. Andrew, nor is any error noted in them. Does not the Church likewise read the Spanish preaching of St. James in his Office? What error, moreover, is noted in these Lessons? Is perhaps in them the sole preaching of St. James in Spain, which is in question, to be reckoned erroneous? But that error must be demonstrated by invincible reasons before the authority of the Roman Breviary is impugned. Certainly Tillemont, volume 1 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, from page 589, opposes several difficulties against these Acts of St. Andrew, which the Reverend Father Ambrose Gardeboso, a Carmelite, in the Synopsis of ecclesiastical history, volume 1, section 1, part 1, book 2, dissertation 2, question 2, reduced to eighteen heads, and there endeavors to solve. In this controversy we do not mingle ourselves, who here only argue ad hominem, which kind of argument we have already often used, and shall use henceforth.

[366] and from the pontifical approbation of the Gothic Office Perhaps some defender of Alexander will say that those ancient Gothic Offices were corrupted by heretics, as Alcuin, book 2 Against Elipandus of Toledo, confesses, and Pope Gregory VII in certain epistles not obscurely indicates, and so that their authority is to be little esteemed. I could here vindicate the orthodoxy of those ecclesiastical books by various arguments; but since my colleague has treated of this matter in the preliminary tract of this volume, I do not put my sickle into another's harvest, and for the adversary's sake I grant for a while that into that Mozarabic rite, by the lapse of time, certain errors crept. But why is the coming of St. James into Spain to be numbered among them? At least it must be reckoned that those errors, if there were any, were corrected, when the most eminent Francisco Ximénez restored that ancient rite, almost extinguished, and Pope Julius II in the year 1508 approved its restoration, as may be seen more fully in the preface of Alfonso Ortiz which he prefixed to the Mozarabic Missal, and in the other instruments which are inserted in the already-mentioned preliminary tract.

[367] is refuted, Moreover from that sacred Office, which hitherto persists in the Toledan chapel of the Mozarabs, and whose rite the Pontiff approved, there is yearly sung the same hymn, part of which I opposed to Natalis Alexander above. If therefore the Roman Church denies the coming of St. James into Spain, why did the Roman Pontiff leave that historical error in the Mozarabic Breviary? Nay, why did other Pontiffs insert the same in the Roman Breviary? How, finally, did so many churches of diverse nations conspire to assert that error in their sacred Offices, as we shall presently ask of the adversary? If anyone should contend that Natalis Alexander by this manner of speaking regarded the letters of Innocent I and Gregory VII (which yet here he intimates by no sign), and from them elicited the opinion of the Roman Church, we shall afterward endeavor to satisfy him. Meanwhile thus far we have shown that this answer of the adversary is inept and false.

[368] which refutation is confirmed by an argument ad hominem. Yet it pleases to conclude this paragraph again with an argument ad hominem, as it is commonly called. Natalis Alexander, volume 3 of the mentioned edition, page 168, proves the coming of St. Dionysius the Areopagite into the Gauls, among other things, from the Breviaries and Missal books of all churches, nay of almost the whole Christian world, which testify that St. Dionysius the Areopagite, sent into the Gauls by St. Clement, founded the church of Paris, and underwent martyrdom at Paris. Who, moreover, he says, would say that so many churches erred in this tradition, and conspired to the assertion of a fable? But a similar argument for the coming of St. James into Spain Alexander could have found in the Reverend Father Francisco Macedo, in the Diatribe, chapter 16, where, besides the Roman, Milanese, and Mozarabic Office, are recounted the Breviaries of Italy, Gaul, Dalmatia, Poland, Germany, Armenia, and Spain, to which could be added others of the religious Orders, which acknowledge the preaching of St. James in Spain. And so let him think the same which Alexander there objects to his adversaries said to himself, and let us question him in his very own words: Who, moreover, would say that so many churches erred in this tradition, and conspired to the assertion of a fable?

§ VII. St. Isidore of Seville confirms the same tradition by his testimony, which is vindicated for him.

Before the middle of the seventh century Isidore, prelate of Seville, in the book On the Birth and Death of the Fathers, chapter 73, relates the Spanish preaching of St. James in these words: Here the constant text of Isidore, James the son of Zebedee, brother of John, fourth in order, wrote to the twelve tribes which are in the dispersion of the nations, and preached the Gospel to the peoples of Spain and of the western places. Here the word "wrote" displeases some, by which St. Isidore attributes the Catholic epistle to James the Greater, which Eusebius, Jerome, and the Council of Trent ascribe to the other James, the brother of the Lord. Wherefore Juan Bautista Pérez, Juan Grial, and very many others think that this word crept wrongly into the text of Isidore, and was added by some unskilled copyist, and prove this from Isidore himself, who in the prologues to the books of the Old and New Testament expressly has these things: James, the brother of the Lord, wrote one epistle pertaining to the edification of the Church.

[370] But this answer does not please others, among whom our Ignazio Zuleta, in the Commentaries on the mentioned epistle of St. James, prolegomenon 1, number 11, thus writes: concerning whose reading the Spaniards dispute among themselves, Doctor Grial, and, following him, father Mariana, suspect that the word WROTE was there additional; yet on no foundation, since in all the ancient codices, without any

variation it is read, and it is consequent to the opinion elsewhere handed down by the same holy doctor. Then to the contrary testimony of Isidore, taken from the prologues to the books of the Old and New Testament, he answers in the same place, number 13, that he indeed before thought thus, but afterward changed his mind in the book On the Life and Death of the Fathers, which he composed after the other little work, namely when he had examined and digested the Gothic Office, in which that epistle is manifestly attributed to St. James, the apostle of the Spains.

[371] Zuleta followed in this matter our Sánchez, who, discoursing of the preaching of St. James in Spain, tract 3, agrees with the Gothic Office, and indicates, chapter 12, number 2, had indicated the same opinion of his in these words: Some, to defend Isidore, and to prove that the work On the Life and Death of the Saints (the same book is marked with various titles, as will be plain in the course of the work) is his, judge that that WROTE should be expunged, as if inserted by the error of the copyists, so that James is said not to have written, but to have preached to the tribes dispersed among the nations. Perhaps this is true; nor is it wonderful that, in so many centuries (so often and so variously were the books of Isidore transcribed), that inopportune word crept in. But, that I may truly and ingenuously confess what I think, I judge that this was the opinion of Isidore, that he thought that that epistle was composed by none other than by James, the son of Zebedee. Then in the following number he brings forth certain words of the Gothic Office, from which he demonstrates that that epistle was anciently ascribed to James, the son of Zebedee. But Zuleta embraces this latter opinion of St. Isidore as more probable.

[372] But lest anyone despise the authority of Isidore, for that he changed his opinion, the praised Sánchez in the same place, number 4, thus defends that fact: [that the holy doctor changed his opinion concerning the author of the Catholic epistle.] This perhaps someone will judge little worthy of the name of Isidore, that in the preface to the books of the New Testament he says that James the brother of the Lord is the author of the epistle. If there is anyone who so judges, of necessity let him also condemn Augustine, Jerome, St. Thomas, and other great doctors of the Church, who, at a new knowledge of things, embrace a new opinion also, which before they had not approved. But if it were in the same work and study, it would be less to be borne; but in different works, where different reasons also occur, it is usual and not unworthy of pardon.

[373] whom at last he thought to be James the Greater. Isidore thought, I believe, before, that that canonical epistle was written by James the Less, and left this attested in that preface: but when it was given to him by the fourth Council of Toledo to compose an ecclesiastical Office common to all Spain, as is the common opinion of the Spaniards, and he saw that in the Offices which were variously recited in Spain, from which he himself compacted the Breviary which we call Gothic or Mozarabic, the writer of that epistle was called the son of Zebedee, moved by that ancient tradition and by the authority of the sacred Offices, which is indeed most grave, he changed his opinion, and both in the book On the Life and Death of the Saints, and in the Mozarabic Office, said that that epistle was composed by James the Greater. Indeed it is not altogether improbable that St. Isidore, by the order of the fourth Council of Toledo reducing the various Offices of Spain to the same norm, found this tradition in the ancient Missal of the church of Toledo, and therefore withdrew from his former opinion. Thus the most eminent Baronius, having received notice of the Loaisan commentary, deserted the opinion concerning the preaching of St. James in Spain, which before he had defended in the notes to the Roman Martyrology and in the first volume of the Ecclesiastical Annals, as was said above, and will be said again below.

[374] The question concerning the certain author of the Catholic epistle But, thou wilt say, this latter opinion of St. Isidore resists the Council of Trent and the common opinion of writers. Zuleta, in the prolegomenon just cited, number 20, thus sets forth the first part of this objection: To the argument taken from the Council of Trent, which is the Achilles of the contrary opinion, the patrons of that opinion answer by a double way; first, that one thing is said by the council enunciatively, another definitively. It is said definitively that the epistle was written by James the apostle, and is a writing of canonical authority, and this in session four, canon one, where it defines the canonical writings and their authors; but it is said enunciatively that the epistle was written by James, the brother of the Lord, which is said in session fourteen, adduced: for there it is only defined that extreme unction was promulgated by James. But those things are understood to have the force of law in councils which are said dispositively * and not enunciatively.

[375] Then, besides other things confirming this explanation of his, is not defined by the Council of Trent, he cites the testimony of Gaspar Sánchez, who, tract 3, chapter 12, number 3, intimates the same in these words: Nor in the matter itself is there danger, in whatever manner thou thinkest, provided thou confess the epistle to be canonical and written by an apostle, since concerning the one or the other James the Church has defined nothing, and of each the faith is equal and canonical. Then Zuleta endeavors to solve the same objection by another way, namely by explaining how James the Greater also, in a certain sense, can truly be called the brother of the Lord. These and other things pertaining to this controversy may be read in him in the same prolegomenon, where also most of the foundations of either opinion are more fully reported.

[376] Our Pierre Poussines, in the exposition of the Apocalypse which he edited at Toulouse in the year 1685, and although the opinion of St. Isidore be less common, page 79 and following, from chapter 6 of the Apocalypse, verse 1, confirms this latter opinion of St. Isidore, and to the second part of the above-said objection, which is drawn from the huge number of opposing authors, there thus modestly answers: Against these straightway runs diametrically the common opinion, which makes James the Less, commonly called the brother of the Lord, the author of this epistle. I know, and freely confess, that very many both were formerly and are today of that opinion: yet I beg the prudent reader that he be not loath to turn his mind to these things which I presently report. Then he sets down the chief foundations of the Isidorian opinion, after which he thus concludes: To which testimonies, since this conjecture from the book of the Apocalypse is added, what fair estimator would not judge that this opinion, though less common, yet ought to seem by no means to be spurned, which affirms the Catholic epistle to have been written by James the Greater? Sánchez opposes to this multitude of adversaries the Gothic Office, which, approved in the fourth Council of Toledo by the most learned and most holy prelates of Spain, and hitherto in use by the consent of the Roman Pontiffs, by its public authority is equivalent to many writers. But the praised Zuleta, number 16, cites Alfonso, king of Castile and León, surnamed the Wise, Jacopo Filippo of Bergamo, Sebastián Forra, Diego Daza, and not a few others, who embrace the Isidorian opinion.

[377] There could also be alleged for this opinion older testimonies, it is not, however, so improbable or exotic, such as one is found in the Syriac New Testament, which Johann Albrecht Widmanstadius edited at Vienna in Austria in the year 1572, in these words: In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ we seal the three epistles of James, Peter, and John. These are they who were witnesses of the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, when he transformed himself before their eyes on Mount Tabor. Some think that this Syriac version of the New Testament was made by some disciple of the Apostles. Whatever be the case with the antiquity of this version, to this testimony agrees an old author who is inserted in the Cologne Library of the Fathers, volume 5, part 2, and by whom there, page 645, the writer of this epistle is called "the third elect witness of the Lord's glory." I know that this author is deservedly accused of the Pelagian heresy, and is sometimes wrongly cited under the name of Pope Sixtus III; but who would on that account deny that he is ancient? To these are added other arguments, which may be seen in our Poussines in the pages just cited.

[378] Yet I am unwilling, with Zuleta and the other defenders of this opinion, to struggle against the torrent, so that on that account his testimony can be refused. and therefore I rather judge that this epistle should be ascribed to James the Less. I only contend that this opinion of St. Isidore is not so exotic that on that account the book On the Birth and Death of the Fathers ought to be adjudged not his, which also the often-praised and praiseworthy Sánchez, tract 3, chapter 12, number 1, proves in this manner: I first think that it is too severe a censure which takes away from some grave doctor, especially of the ancients, when even the most grave matters were less explored and certain, some work, because it agrees less with the opinion of others, or even with those things which were handed down by the same author in other places. How many things wouldst thou deny to Tertullian, Origen, Jerome, and Augustine, who wrote not a few things which either others disapprove, or they themselves of their own accord condemn and retract? I abstain from examples, which are indeed many. These things also apply to the Gothic or Mozarabic Office, whose antiquity and authority are not diminished on account of this singular opinion.

[379] [Natalis, following Baronius, thinks that this work was forged under the name of Isidore,] Natalis Alexander, volume 3, page 158, brings a graver suit against this little work of Isidore: for to the testimony of Isidore which I alleged at the beginning of this paragraph he roundly answers that it is now nearly established among the learned that the book On the Life and Death of the Saints, which is circulated under the name of St. Isidore, is not the genuine offspring of St. Isidore, since in it several things are read unworthy of the genius of Isidore, nay and putrid lies, as the most eminent Cardinal Baronius writes in the notes to the Martyrology on the 25th day of July. It does not escape me that these things were written by the most eminent Baronius in the notes to the Roman Martyrology. But I am also not ignorant that Francisco Macedo, in the Diatribe, chapter 11, thus answered this censure of Baronius: I find in Baronius, in the Annals, in which he desires greater faith to be given to himself, and in the same first volume of the Annals, and after he had written these things about these authors in refuting them, one of them, Isidore, cited in the works which he had rejected, and thence testimonies, suitable in his judgment to make faith, taken, and himself placed among the gravest Fathers of the Church: for when he recounts the Fathers who related that Paul went to the Spains, he numbers Isidore also, and cites the book On the Life and Death of the Saints.

[380] from whom, however, Baronius afterward used a testimony. It is indeed true that he clears himself by adding: Isidore, he says, OR WHOEVER THAT AUTHOR IS. I am candid, I confess, and he cautious. But he does not escape: for when he cites him, whether under the name of Isidore or under another, he does not lower his authority; nay by it he confirms that opinion of the Fathers: nor does he call him Pseudo-Isidore, but, whoever finally he be, he receives him. Why then does he reject him, and with injury, when as author of the coming

of James into Spain? Let him bear him, and in the same manner in which he afterward cites him. Let him doubt of the name of the author, but not detract from the authority of the book. Let him suffer him to be adduced by the Spaniards, just as he is adduced by himself in this place of the Annals. For the Spaniards, I think, care little whether he be Isidore or another writer of his age, provided he be suitable, of which kind Baronius thinks him to be, when he recounts him among the gravest Fathers. To these, for the sake of clarity, I add, what appears plainly enough, that these notes to the Roman Martyrology were written by Baronius before the first volume of the Annals, since the most eminent writer, in that volume, at the year of Christ 44, number 1, treating of the Spanish preaching of St. James, thus speaks: We have nothing more to say of that matter than what has been noted by us in the Roman Martyrology. These things evince that Baronius here was not consistent with himself. But it is surely no wonder that a man, overwhelmed by a great mass of business and of books, should sometimes have been forgetful of himself, as is wont sometimes to happen to writers of a vast work. Wherefore we sometimes both ask and give this pardon in turn, and always desire this to be indicated to us.

[381] I do not indeed deny that this book, on account of certain slight or little probable narratives, is adjudged not St. Isidore's by some learned men; Others vindicating the same work for Isidore, but otherwise think of this work the most eminent Aguirre, the Marquis of Mondéjar, Gaspar Sánchez, and several others with Nicolás Antonio, who last, in volume 1 of the Bibliotheca Hispanica, book 5, chapter 4, number 114 and following, assigns many ancient exemplars of this work in diverse libraries of Europe. Moreover these learned men oppose to the criticism of the adversaries the holy prelates Braulio of Saragossa and Ildefonsus of Toledo, both contemporaries of St. Isidore, of whom the first, in the notice of the books of blessed Isidore, in Miraeus, part 1 of the Ecclesiastical Library, page 77, thus writes of it: He edited … one book On the Birth and Death of the Fathers, in which he noted down their deeds, and also their dignity and death and burial, with sententious brevity. But the other, in the same Miraeus, page 97, recounts among the other Works of Isidore the book On the Birth and Death of the Prophets, or of the Fathers, as other exemplars have it. Sigebert of Gembloux, in the same place, page 139, indicates the same little work of Isidore, the title being somewhat augmented, and asserts that, among other things, he wrote On the Birth, Life, and Death of the holy Fathers who are extolled in the praises of the Scriptures. These ancient testimonies drove Natalis Alexander at least so far that, volume 5, page 565, he admonishes that he only denies to St. Isidore the book On the Life and Death of the Saints which we have, so that he confesses that a similar book was written by Isidore. If by these words he means to indicate that that book of St. Isidore which we have is not everywhere genuine, but here and there corrupted, we shall easily agree, as I shall now say.

[382] The arguments on both sides being weighed without party zeal, we think that it was from time to time interpolated: I judge, with our Labbe in the work On ecclesiastical writers, that this book On the Birth and Death of the Fathers is to be attributed to St. Isidore, but that the same was from time to time corrupted by an unskilled or malevolent interpolator. Some excuse the historical errors of St. Isidore, for that he wrote in Spain, far distant from the East, from which rare books were conveyed into it, and thence conclude that he had not an accurate knowledge of very many things. Others suspect that he was too credulous, and thus inserted into his writings the false and heteroclite opinions of certain men, not so much on his own faith as on another's. Neither of these conjectures pleases me, although neither contradicts my opinion: for even if I should grant that St. Isidore was not very skilled in Eastern matters, would it thence follow that he was also ignorant of Spanish matters? Did the prelate of Seville not know what tradition there was in his time in Spain concerning the preaching of St. James? But if I should even freely confess that he was too credulous in admitting certain narratives, that certainly would have no place in Spanish matters, which he could easily investigate by himself. And so I wish more consideration to be had for the honor of so great a doctor, and rather think that this work of his On the Birth and Death of the Fathers was afterward interpolated.

[383] Hence perhaps someone will infer that thus also the Spanish preaching of St. James was thrust into this book of Isidore by that interpolator. [from which it does not follow that the testimony concerning the Spanish preaching of St. James] But I answer that this inference altogether collapses when the most ancient manuscript codices are inspected, of one of which the most illustrious Pierre de Marca, in the epistle given to Henri de Valois, and edited by us in volume 5 of June, from page 544, with animadversions, thus testifies: To these I thought should be added the testimony of a most ancient manuscript codex from the library of St. Germain of Paris, in which that tract of Isidore (namely On the Birth and Death of the Fathers, or, as he himself calls it, On the Life and Death of the Saints), written eight hundred years ago, is contained together with other books of the same author… Nor is it to be dissembled that in the same codex it is read that Spain was given to James the apostle, and that he preached the faith to the Spains: which authority of the ancient codex ought to remove from certain persons the suspicion conceived of a reading perhaps vitiated in that place in the former editions by someone zealous for the Spanish party. In no way can this most grave judgment of the learned Gallic prelate be suspect. Pedro de Fuentidueña, canon of Salamanca, who with great celebrity of his name was present at the Council of Trent, saw the same book of Isidore in eight old codices, from which, collated among themselves, he left a most correct exemplar, as the most eminent Aguirre testifies, volume 1 of the Councils of Spain, dissertation 9, excursus 4, where he also recounts several manuscript exemplars of the same little work.

[384] was also corrupted, as is shown from the ancient manuscripts. To these is added an ancient codex of our Museum marked ✠ Ms. 117, in which, after other works of the holy Fathers, near the end is read this title: In the name of the Lord begins the Birth and Life or Death of the holy Fathers who are extolled in the praises of the Scriptures. And so this parchment codex of ours, in which before the two immediately preceding little works of the same doctor the name of Isidore is clearly expressed, and which could contend with the St. Germain one in the antiquity of the characters, has in the text, to our purpose, the following: James, son of Zebedee, brother of John, fourth in order, wrote to the twelve tribes * which are in the dispersion of the nations, and preached the Gospel to (supply: the peoples or nations of) Spain and of the western places, and poured the light of preaching into the setting of the world: this man, cut down by the sword by Herod the tetrarch, fell, buried in the marble citadel. Gaspar Sánchez, tract 3, chapter 13, learnedly explains how here by Isidore Herod can be called tetrarch, who in the Acts of the Apostles is called king. Moreover concerning the "marble citadel," which expression here comes nearer to the "marble ark," in part 1 of this Commentary, from number 39, enough has been said. From this consent of the ancient codices I conclude that it cannot prudently be doubted that St. Isidore committed to writing the coming of St. James into Spain.

[385] The testimony of St. Braulio is not so certain, It is not so certain whether St. Braulio, disciple of Isidore and afterward bishop of Saragossa, left the same tradition written for posterity. Constantino Gaetani, an abbot, in a certain little work in which he endeavors to vindicate SS. Isidore of Seville, Ildefonsus of Toledo, and Gregory the Great for the Benedictine Order, from the sermon on the praises of blessed Isidore brings forward, under the name of St. Braulio, these words: Meanwhile, dearest brethren, it is worthy that the whole Church should extol with praises this most holy confessor Isidore; but especially the Church of the Spains, which before others shone forth more especially with his most salutary doctrine: for as Gregory the doctor succeeded Peter at Rome, so blessed Isidore in the parts of the Spains succeeded James the apostle in doctrine: for the seeds of eternal life which most blessed James sowed, this most blessed doctor Isidore, by the word of preaching, as one of the four rivers of paradise, sufficiently watered, and illuminated all Spain both by the example of good work and by the fame of sanctity, like a most splendid ray of the sun. To this those seem to have looked who lately composed the new Office of St. Isidore, in whose second Nocturn we read that St. Braulio not only compared him to Gregory the Great, but also judged that he was given from heaven, in the place of James the apostle, for the instruction of Spain.

[386] I indeed know that some writings under the name of Braulio were forged now nearly a century and a half ago, because in a certain manuscript codex it is read concerning the same preaching, which came forth together with Dexter, Maximus, and other pseudographs; but this fragment cannot be suspect of so recent a fiction, since Constantino Gaetani, page 5 of his mentioned little work, in the notes to that elogium of St. Isidore, thus writes: For the rest, this whole sermon, which we have hitherto by no means been able to obtain, exists in the anciently hand-written work of Isidore's Etymologies, which is preserved among the Carthusian monks of the monastery of Aula Dei situated in the territory of Saragossa. Of the same codex, preserved there, several others have made mention. Since therefore that sermon existed in the time of Constantino Gaetani in an ancient manuscript codex among the Carthusians of the said place, it is without doubt older than the fig-tree fictions which do not yet number an age of a hundred and fifty years. But although from what has been said it follows that this sermon cannot be accused of a more recent supposition, yet it cannot thence be certainly concluded that it is the genuine offspring of St. Braulio: for our Mariana, according to the faith of the ancient manuscripts, thinks that these and similar things were added by Lucas of Tuy. That candid historian of Spain, in the Disputation on the coming of St. James into Spain, chapter 10, thus speaks: Lucas of Tuy likewise, a little less than four hundred years ago, inserted many things of his own into the Chronicle of Isidore, and added several to his own age, of which work the first part is cited by many, through error, under the name of Isidore, since Lucas mixed in many discordant things, unworthy of the gravity of Isidore.

[387] Mariana then, a little after, thus has, nearer to our matter: In the additions to the Life of the divine Isidore, because Lucas of Tuy interpolated this little work of Braulio, patched together by Braulio as author, he (Lucas of Tuy) left it testified in express words that James came into Spain. Those additions of Lucas some, through error, cite as though the very words of Braulio. But the faith of all the old codices gainsays it, where after the book of Isidore On illustrious men is placed the Life of Isidore, by the author Braulio. In the very edition of the Works of the divine Isidore lately made at Madrid, both in that place and at the beginning of the book of the Etymologies, there exists that Life of Isidore, sincere, not defiled with foreign patchwork. Against this opinion of Mariana Pedro Mantuano, in the observations on his history, page 108, sharply rises up; for it stands Thomas

Tamayo de Vargas, in the defense of the same history against Mantuano, from page 128, who on both sides bring forward their arguments.

[388] I would not in this controversy draw out a contentious rope, or define anything, since the whole decision of the suit depends on an ocular inspection of the manuscript codices, [which would have to be discerned by an ocular inspection of the manuscript codex.] by which it would have to be examined by a man skilled in ancient characters whether the Carthusian codex in the territory of Saragossa, or the others assigned by others, in which the Spanish preaching of St. James is expressed, surpass the age of Lucas of Tuy. If this interpolation of Lucas of Tuy holds also in the book On the Birth and Death of the Fathers, our opinion is confirmed, by which we said above that that work of St. Isidore was corrupted by someone. Nor yet does it thence in any way become suspect or doubtful, the testimony of the same doctor for the coming of St. James into Spain, since the mentioned codex of our Museum and the St. Germain one, in which this is expressly read, in the antiquity of the characters far transcend the times of Lucas of Tuy.

* whether "definitive"

* read "tribubus"

§ VIII. The same tradition is confirmed by St. Julian, who in the seventh century governed the church of Toledo.

By the testimony of St. Julian, prelate of Toledo Julian, prelate of Toledo, who flourished toward the close of the seventh century, and whose Acts our Elders diligently illustrated in volume 1 of March, from page 782, in the Commentaries on the prophet Nahum, inserted in the Cologne Library of the ancient Fathers, volume 7, page 524, relates the Spanish preaching of St. James in these words: These therefore were the feet of the Lord, which carried him by preaching through the whole world: for Peter carried him to Rome, Andrew to Achaia, John to Asia, Philip to Gaul, Bartholomew to Parthia, Simon to Egypt, James to Spain, Thomas to India, Matthew to Ethiopia, Jude Thaddaeus carried him to Mesopotamia, James the son of Alphaeus kept him at Jerusalem. Each one scattered Christ by his own lot without filth; but through Paul he is dispersed through the whole world. To no one ought this little work of St. Julian be suspect of fiction, as Cardinal Aguirre, in the mentioned dissertation, number 49, thus rightly admonishes: Nor is it lawful to suspect that anything of mongering crept into that testimony so manifest, extracted from a Bavarian codex, first indeed by Henry Canisius, who edited it in Germany; then by Feuardent, afterward by Marguerin de la Bigne, volume 1 of the Library of the Fathers, page 583, and at length by the Anissons in volume 12 just cited: and this in the midst of Gaul, where there is neither the custom, nor can any utility be hoped for, if anyone flatter the Spaniards, or promote their honor more than is just.

[390] Natalis Alexander opposes certain cavils, Yet Natalis Alexander, in the edition already several times cited, volume 3, page 159, thus endeavors to weaken this testimony: I answer, he says, that it is uncertain whether that work is St. Julian's of Toledo, which was edited from only one manuscript codex, mutilated on every side and swarming with faults; and it expounds only four or five verses of the prophet Nahum. Those Leonine verses which are read at the end of the testimony just praised indicate an author more recent than Julian. I could here give Alexander, only the names being changed, the same answer which he himself, volume 3, page 161, defending the preaching of the Gospel in Gaul in the first century, gave to his adversary in these words: Launoy detracts from the faith of this epistle, and denies that it is St. Cyprian's, which no mortal before him dared. I do not dispute whether Launoy did this by right or by wrong. But no one, either, before Natalis Alexander, so far as I know, dared to adjudge these commentaries on the prophet Nahum not St. Julian's. Let there be read, if it please, our Labbe On ecclesiastical writers, Nicolás Antonio in the Bibliotheca Hispanica, and the heterodox Cave himself in the Literary History, all of whom ascribe this little work to that holy prelate, and mention no one denying it. But I shall now show that all the cavils of Alexander, alleged against this authority of St. Julian, lack a solid foundation.

[391] First, it is altogether frivolous that he rejects that little work of St. Julian as uncertain, the first of which, because it came forth only from one manuscript codex: for, to omit others for brevity's sake, I use an argument ad hominem. Natalis Alexander himself, volume 4, section 4, chapter 6, article 3, enumerating the works of Lactantius, at the end of the article, page 103, thus writes: He edited in his old age the book On persecution, or On the Deaths of the persecutors. A notable work, which had hitherto lain hidden, the distinguished man Étienne Baluze drew out of darkness. But how does he call that work notable, which was edited from only one manuscript Colbertine codex, and that a faulty one, as its first editor Baluze, in the notes inserted in volume 2 of the Miscellanea, from page 347, freely confesses? By what reason does Alexander ascribe it to Lactantius, since in the Colbertine manuscript alone the name of Lucius Caecilius is read, as he could have learned from the repeated printing of the same little work, which Nicolas le Nourry, a Benedictine monk, in the year 1710 at Paris took care to be made from the same single manuscript, and adorned with various dissertations? Moreover that book On the Deaths of the persecutors (whoever finally its author be) is of great authority among the learned, and is rejected by no one for that it came forth from only one manuscript codex.

[392] Nor has it any strength for proving the cavil of Alexander the second, that that little work of St. Julian is mutilated, and expounds only four or five verses of the Prophet: for the author could have died with this work begun; but if he completed the whole, this exordium being preserved, the rest could have perished, or perhaps still struggle somewhere with moths and worms. However it be, the completeness of any work makes nothing to its sincerity, unless you wish to abrogate the faith of all the imperfect lucubrations of the holy Fathers, and of other fragments, which yet, for illustrating history, at this time are everywhere so studiously and so avidly sought. Certainly we, on the 13th day of July, from the single Greek manuscript of Pierre Séguier, Chancellor of France, edited the Life of St. Stephen the Sabaite, headless and mutilated in a great part of itself, which yet was written by Leontius, a disciple of the Saint, and has such singular characters of truth that it is far to be preferred to many entire Acts of Metaphrastes.

[393] Equally inept is the argument which he forms from the above-said clause of St. Julian in this manner: and the third Those Leonine verses, he says, which are read at the end of the testimony just praised, indicate an author more recent than Julian. That the objection of Alexander may be more clearly understood, it must be known that, according to Du Cange in the Glossary and Macri in the Hierolexicon, rhythmic verses are called Leonine from a certain Leo, a poet, who first affected them in the eleventh century. He means therefore to indicate that the author of this Commentary on Nahum is later than the tenth century. But what if I deny that at the end of that testimony are read rhythmic verses, which the Greeks call ὁμοιοτελεύτας, That is: ending alike? How will Natalis Alexander prove that they are Leonine verses?

Each one scattered Christ by his own lot without filth; But through Paul he is dispersed through the whole world.

[394] It could be doubted whether St. Julian intended to write these in bound style, since the first verse is not tied by legitimate meter, are most easily destroyed. and each is added to the rest of the prose in the same tenor, just as we set them forth at number 389. But let us grant that Julian wished to conclude his testimony with two little verses. Are they Leonine? Do in the first hexameter "sorte" and "sorde," and in the second the words "vero" and "orbe," end alike? Nay, even though through inadvertence one or another verse ὁμοιοτέλευτον, that is, ending alike, had fallen from the author, is his age therefore to be removed after the tenth century? No one certainly thinks Virgil and Ovid to be younger, although the former, in book 12 of the Aeneid, has this rhythmic or Leonine verse:

He turned aside with his right hand the faces of the swift horses (Ora citatorum dextra contorsit equorum).

But the latter, in the most elegant speech of Ulysses, wrote:

If you think that anything remains to the fates of Troy (Si Troiae fatis aliquid restare putatis).

And in the epistle of Hermione to Orestes:

As husband, I pray, succor thy wife; as brother, thy sister (Vir precor uxori, frater succurre sorori).

And so that argumentation of Alexander would only prove something if here the speech were of an entire poem in which the Leonine meter were studiously affected, such as we gave in the Life of St. Alexius, volume 4 of July, from page 254.

[395] Finally he refuses to admit the authority of Julian, At length Natalis, seeing that his little reasons are too weak to take away those commentaries from that holy archbishop of Toledo, roundly rejects his authority in the same place in these words: But although that little commentary were Julian's, greater faith ought not to be given to it than to sacred Scripture, from which it is gathered that St. James never set out into the Spains, and than to Innocent I, Hormisdas, and Gregory VII, the supreme Pontiffs, from whose testimony the same has been proved above. Certainly St. Julian could as much have erred concerning St. James as concerning St. Philip the apostle, whom he asserts, without foundation, to have preached the Gospel in the Gauls. The first member of this answer is most true, if it can be shown from the sacred Letters that St. James did not come into Spain. If Natalis seriously believed that the coming of St. James into Spain is repugnant to sacred Scripture, he could compendiously terminate this whole controversy, and with that sponge alone blot out the immemorial tradition of the Spaniards and all their arguments. He would not therefore have needed laboriously to dispute concerning the text of St. Jerome, concerning the authority of St. Isidore, and other ancient testimonies. It would only have to be shown that the coming of St. James into Spain is denied by sacred Scripture: for we all freely confess that greater faith is to be given to sacred Scripture than to any tradition of peoples, or even to the most grave authority of the holy Fathers. But Alexander seems, when he is in straits, to flee only to this altar. Thus, after reporting certain writers of the ninth and tenth centuries, whose manifest testimonies he cannot deny, he thus in other words recurs to the same answer: We have the firmer prophetic word. But what he here so confidently repeats concerning the authority of the sacred Letters and of the Roman Pontiffs, as contrary to the coming of St. James into Spain, we shall afterward discuss one by one.

[396] which from the very words of the adversary Meanwhile we shall again assail the adversary with his own arms, and from his other words we shall deduce that he here asserts without any foundation that St. Julian erred in designating the province of James's preaching. Alexander, volume 5, page 568, wove an honorable elogium of St. Julian, which I thus abridge: Julian of Toledo … succeeded Quiricus in the see of Toledo … and governed that church from the year 680 to the eighth day of March of the year 690, in which he exchanged life for immortality … The sanctity of his life inserted him into the number of the heavenly ones, and into the calendars, as the Martyrologies testify. He was of an easy, copious, and sweet genius; of eminent erudition, which his left monuments testify, and especially the work which he entitled PROGNOSTICON OF THE FUTURE AGE, distinguished into three books, in which he speaks more frequently in the words of SS. Cyprian

and Augustine than in his own … He also wrote commentaries on the prophet Nahum (here Alexander seems forgetful of himself, when without any mark of doubt he attributes this little work to St. Julian), which, edited by Henry Canisius from a manuscript codex of the Bavarian library, were transcribed into the Libraries of the Fathers.

[397] Then, after enumerating his other writings, he adds this: is vindicated for the holy prelate, He augmented the Gothic or Mozarabic Office with many prayers and Masses, as the same Felix, his successor, testifies. Here in few words I ask the adversary whether he can persuade himself that St. Julian, a man endowed with eminent sanctity and erudition, who was wont to speak more frequently in the words of the holy Fathers than in his own, rashly asserted the Spanish preaching of St. James. Can it be said without injury that this opinion first came forth from the brain of the holy man? Does it not seem certain that he drew it from tradition or from the writings of the ancients? It is indeed most probable that this holy archbishop of Toledo found that tradition consigned in the Gothic Office, to which he himself added certain prayers and Masses: for who would believe that the feasts of the Apostles were in the time of St. Julian not yet solemnly celebrated in Spain? Finally, with no show of truth can it be affirmed that a holy and learned man inserted that tradition into his writings against the authority of sacred Scripture, to which the adversary here importunely recurs.

[398] But as regards the Gallic preaching of St. Philip, and is by no means to be rejected, on account of which he charges the mentioned commentaries of St. Julian with error, that surely is not so lightly to be exploded, since the most illustrious Pierre de Marca, in the already-praised epistle to Valois, renders the preaching of St. Philip in Gaul plainly probable by various ancient testimonies, and confirms it, among other things, especially from Eusebius, who in the Evangelical Demonstration, book 3, chapter 5, asserts that the Apostles carried the light of faith not only to the Roman provinces, but also to other kingdoms, and even to the British islands themselves. From this assertion of Eusebius that most illustrious archbishop thus argues: I think indeed that no one is so insipid as to persuade himself that the Apostles, solicitous for the Britons divided from the whole world, were more negligent in the Gauls, through which is the way to the Britains, in imbuing them with the truth by themselves or by legates. Which they excellently performed through Philip, one of their college.

[399] These and other arguments of the most learned prelate so moved our Papebroch, although he asserts that St. Philip preached in Gaul. a man not too credulous, that in the animadversion to the aforesaid epistle, volume 5 of June, page 546, he does not deny that Gaul was, at least in passing, instructed in the Christian doctrine by Philip and others, and that there some seeds of the Gospel were cast by the Apostles, which in the first and second century of Christ germinated in whatever way amid persecutions, although at that time they did not yet produce so great fruits that bishoprics were instituted according to the number of provinces or even of the greater cities. But this controversy, alien here from my purpose, I leave in the middle, and only contend that faith is to be given to this holy prelate of Toledo in Spanish matters: for he could know what tradition there was in his time in Spain concerning the preaching of St. James. Without doubt he had drawn it from common fame, or from the aforesaid writings of St. Isidore and the older Office of his church. Certainly it must be granted that this opinion was not first devised by himself, or rashly asserted.

§ IX. The Spanish preaching of St. James is corroborated by the most ancient Martyrology of Auxerre and by certain testimonies of the eighth century.

Natalis Alexander vehemently extols I could easily ascribe to the beginning of the eighth century, or even to the preceding centuries, the Martyrology of Auxerre, if I wished to imitate Natalis Alexander in extolling the antiquity of the Martyrologies, when they favor his opinion: for volume 3, page 172, he thus magnificently pronounces of the Martyrology which, written in a codex of the monastery of Corbie about six hundred years ago, was edited in print by Luc d'Achery in volume 4 of the Spicilegium: In that Martyrology, therefore, which is the most ancient of all, and which, if not edited by Jerome himself, the most learned man Henri de Valois, in the dissertation on the Roman Martyrology which Rosweyde edited, thinks was published a little after the death of Jerome himself by an uncertain ecclesiastical author: in that Martyrology, I say, these things are read on the 7th of the Ides of October: At Paris, the birthday of the holy Dionysius the bishop, Rusticus the presbyter, Eleutherius the deacon.

[401] the antiquity of the Corbie Martyrology, favoring him, I do not deny that that Martyrology is ancient; but whether it be the most ancient of all, and published a little after the death of Jerome himself, he will not easily determine who shall have attentively weighed, in volume 3 of the New Thesaurus of Anecdotes, in the preliminary admonition to some most ancient Martyrologies or Calendars, these words of Edmund Martène: But whether anywhere exists the Martyrology which was composed under the name of Jerome, pure and unadulterated, such as it was written by the author, I would not rashly assert: for what befell the book of Sacraments of St. Gregory, we do not doubt happened to the Hieronymian Martyrology; namely, so augmented with additions, so diminished with truncations, that now the primary offspring of the author, with whatever diligence applied, cannot be recognized.

[402] If, I say, I wished to imitate Natalis Alexander, [to which the Martyrology of Auxerre ought not to yield, confirming the tradition of the Spaniards,] I could easily by a similar reasoning refer that Martyrology, in which the Spanish preaching of St. James is asserted, to the seventh or sixth century, since its editor Edmund Martène, in the volume just cited, prefixes to it this title: An old Martyrology, compacted about a thousand years ago under the name of St. Jerome. From a manuscript of the monastery of St. Germain of Auxerre. Moreover in that Martyrology, in the same place, as I remember saying again at the beginning of this Commentary, number 6, it is thus read: James, which is interpreted supplanter, son of Zebedee, brother of John: this man preaches in Spain and the western regions, and, cut down by the sword under Herod, he fell, and was buried in Achaia Marmarica on the 8th of the Kalends of August.

[403] That the curious reader may better know the manuscript codex which is shown to be very ancient. from which this testimony for the coming of St. James into Spain is taken, let us hear the praised editor, who in the preliminary admonition, among the enumeration of the other Martyrologies, thus prefaces concerning it: The codex of St. Germain of Auxerre, from which I described it, reckons about eight hundred years; it exhibits no Saint who did not live before a thousand years ago: in this it differs from the Acherian ones and the Florentinian, that it brings forth far fewer names of Saints; that it exhibits some things omitted by them, and more often indicates the places of martyrdom and the titles of dignity of the martyrs; in the rest it agrees with them in many things. But whether the more prolix are to be preferred to the shorter Martyrologies, and were thus composed by the primary author, let the judgment be with the literate. Yet it moves me that rivers, the nearer they are to their source, are wont to be the less diffused; but the more they recede from it, the more also they are widened, and it is easier to add many things to writings of this kind than to take away. And in truth we observe that all the ancient Martyrologists are very brief; but those who wrote last pursued their work in a more diffuse style, and augmented it with a far greater number of Saints. Although from what has been said it could be gathered that this Martyrology of Auxerre ought not in antiquity to yield to the Corbie one, yet since concerning its certain age it is not established, I define nothing, and proceed to more certain things.

[404] In the eighth century St. Beatus the presbyter, of whom our Henschenius treated on the 19th day of February, The coming of St. James into Spain in the exposition of the Apocalypse, book 2, thus subscribes to the same tradition: These twelve are the disciples of Christ, preachers of the faith, and doctors of the nations; who, while they are all one, yet each of them received his own lots for preaching in the world: Peter Rome, Andrew Achaia, Thomas India, James Spain, John Asia, Matthew Macedonia, Philip Gaul, Bartholomew Lycaonia, Simon Zelotes Egypt, James the brother of the Lord obtained Jerusalem; but to Paul, with the other Apostles, no proper lot is handed down, because he is chosen master and preacher in all nations.

[405] Some have wrongly ascribed these words to Apringius, St. Beatus asserts, bishop of Beja in Lusitania, who flourished in the sixth century, as may be seen in the most eminent Aguirre, dissertation 9, excursus 3, number 30 and following. But lest anyone doubt whether this work is to be attributed to St. Beatus, let him go to Nicolás Antonio, volume 1 of the Bibliotheca Hispanica, who, book 6, chapter 2, number 41, vindicates the commentaries on the Apocalypse for Beatus, and demonstrates that they are had in manuscript in various places. Juan de Ferreras, in the Dissertation on the preaching of St. James in Spain, number 23, also testifies that the same work is extant in manuscript at Madrid in the royal library, and that at its end it is noted that Facundus, in the era 1085, that is, in the year of Christ 1047, transcribed it.

[406] If anyone had before objected to Natalis Alexander this text of Beatus, whose authority Natalis Alexander uses elsewhere which not long ago certain learned Spaniards drew from manuscript codices to confirm their tradition, without doubt, on account of the Gallic preaching of St. Philip which is expressed in it, he would have been unwilling to admit the authority of that holy writer, just as above he spurned the testimony of St. Julian for the same cause. But then, besides the answer which I gave in the same place, number 398, I would have retorted the argument against the adversary, and questioned him in this manner: Tell me, I pray, is not this the same Beatus the presbyter whom, in volume 3 of your Ecclesiastical History, page 46, you affirm to have written against the error of Elipandus in the year 788 or 789? If he is the same, as you are compelled to confess, why do you use his authority in the first place to prove that the martyrdom of St. Andrew was genuinely and sincerely written by the presbyters of Achaia a little after the middle of the first century?

[407] against his own adversaries, Could not the adversaries of this opinion, besides other things of which this is not the place to treat, answer you that Beatus could as much have erred in approving the Passion of St. Andrew as in assigning the preaching of St. Philip, whom he asserts, without foundation, to have preached the Gospel in the Gauls, as you above pronounced concerning St. Julian? Could not your adversaries say this with a better right, since Beatus, on account of the neighborhood of Gaul and Spain, could more easily judge concerning the preaching of St. Philip in Gaul than concerning the history of the martyrdom which St. Andrew consummated in far-distant Achaia? For do you not remember that, volume 3, page 184, on account of the much smaller distance of places, you thus rejected the testimony of Gregory of Tours: I answer that Gregory of Tours, having followed the faith of the Greeks, easily erred with them: which is no wonder, since he was ignorant of the tradition of the churches of Provence, and dwelt far from Provence? Do you see to what consequences you expose yourself, and how easily these can be retorted against you?

[408] and to whom he ascribes the same work from which this testimony is taken, Nor can you adjudge this commentary on the Apocalypse not St. Beatus's, since, referring it to the eighth century, in volume 5 of your Ecclesiastical History, page 686, you thus speak of it: Beatus the presbyter also wrote a commentary on the Apocalypse, as the anonymous author of his Life testifies: this Morales says he saw in the church of Valcavado (in Spanish Valcabado), not far from the town of Saldaña of the diocese of León, which place is celebrated by the memory and cult of St. Beatus. Then, a little below, to prove that Beatus was enrolled in the monastic Order, you adduce, among other things, the prologue of the same work thus: Likewise it is established from the preface of his Commentary on the Apocalypse, hitherto unedited, whose words Ambrosio Morales reports. Then follow the words of Beatus to Etherius, whom he calls a partner of the Order. But there is no leisure to dwell longer on these things.

[409] which is confirmed by a Martyrology of the eighth century. To the same eighth century pertains the Blumian Martyrology, which was written in the year 772, as Florentinius gathered from the first page of the most ancient codex, and indicated after the edition of the Hieronymian Martyrology, page 1055. Then, from page 1056, from the same Blumian, he subjoined the Breviary of the Apostles, in which is read the following elogium of St. James: James, which is interpreted supplanter, son of Zebedee, brother of John; this man is preached * through Spain and the western places, and, cut down by the sword under Herod, he fell, and was buried in Achaia Marmarica on the 8th of the Kalends of August. I would have it noted that the testimonies hitherto alleged preceded the finding of the body of St. James, which happened toward the end of the eighth century, or more probably at the beginning of the ninth, as we said in part 1, §5, number 44. Whence no one can suspect that the opinion concerning the coming of St. James into Spain arose from this revelation of James's sepulcher. Hence also collapses the answer of Natalis Alexander, which he thus renders to us as though from a tripod: I answer that this opinion prevailed after the eighth century, which all the aforesaid authors embraced undiscussed. But concerning this saying of his a fuller discourse will recur below.

* read "prædicat" (he preaches)

§ X. The same tradition is proved from the authors of the following centuries.

At the beginning of the ninth century the Gellonese Martyrology, whose words I set forth in part 1, number 6, affirms the Spanish preaching of St. James; [The tradition of the Spaniards is asserted in the ninth century by various foreign writers,] which, since it was found and printed in Gaul, cannot be of suspect faith to the adversaries. Before the middle of the same century flourished Freculph, bishop of Lisieux in Gaul, who in volume 2 of the Chronicle, book 2, chapter 4, has these things: James, son of Zebedee, brother of John, fourth in order, wrote to the twelve tribes, and preached the Gospel to (supply: the peoples or nations of) Spain and of the western places, and poured the light of preaching into the setting of the world. This man, slain by the sword by Herod the tetrarch, fell, buried within "marmarica." Freculph seems here to have had before his eyes some codex of Isidore of Seville, because he transcribed not only his words, but also his opinion concerning the author of the Catholic epistle. At the same time Walafrid Strabo, abbot of Reichenau in Germany, whose whole poem I brought forth on another occasion in part 1, §10, number 120, sang thus of our St. James:

First he converted the Spanish nations by his teaching, Turning the barbarous throngs by divine words.

[411] At the beginning of the tenth century, which for the lack of writers is wont to be called obscure, and at the beginning of the tenth century by Notker, Notker, a Benedictine monk of St. Gall, in his Martyrology on the 8th of the Kalends of August reports the same tradition in these words: The birthday of blessed James the apostle, son of Zebedee, brother of John the Evangelist, who by the command of King Herod was beheaded at Jerusalem, as the book of the Acts of the Apostles teaches. The most sacred bones of this blessed Apostle, translated to the Spains, and laid up in their farthest bounds, namely over against the British sea, are venerated with the most celebrated devotion of those nations. And not undeservedly, because by his corporal presence and doctrine and the efficacy of signs those same peoples are reported to have been converted to the faith of Christ; for the confirmation of whose faith blessed Paul also promises that he will go. Notker, far removed from Spain, is not to be thought to have written this rashly, but from trustworthy testimonies and the common tradition of his time, which I wish to be understood also of the authors mentioned above.

[412] Natalis Alexander cavils against this testimony of Notker in this manner: whose testimony Natalis Alexander plucks at, Notker writes that the preaching of St. James in the Spains IS REPORTED; but he does not intimate that this report is most certain: and he speaks in an altogether different manner of the sacred relics of the aforesaid Apostle, and of his journey into the Spains. But Cardinal Aguirre, in the often-praised dissertation, number 62, thus answers this scruple: Vain is the evasion of those who say that Notker does not assert the truth of that tradition, but only reports it: for he not only narrates it as existing among the Spaniards, but also confirms and proves it, especially by those words NOT UNDESERVEDLY. For he says that the great celebrity of St. James in Spain is reasonable, not only on account of the corporal presence of James in it, but also on account of the doctrine, preaching, and miracles by which he converted the Spaniards to Christ; which he certainly would not say if he thought that tradition, or common opinion concerning the preaching of James in Spain, uncertain or doubtful.

[413] to whom, besides other answers, Before I press the answer of the most eminent man further, I ask of Alexander why, objecting to himself the mentioned testimony of Notker, he suppressed these last words of it: for the confirmation of whose faith blessed Paul the apostle also promises that he will go. Why, I beseech, did the adversary keep silent about this clause? Did he fear lest the opinion of Notker should appear more certain from it? Or was he afraid lest it should supply matter for explaining the text of St. Paul, which he thinks to have so much strength against the Spanish preaching of St. James, as will afterward be seen? Whatever be the cause of this omission, I here desire greater sincerity or accuracy in the adversary. But now to the cavil of Alexander I answer that the word "are reported" does not always sound the uncertainty of some narration, but sometimes its confirmation. Thus if, for example's sake, I should say that the Romans are reported to have been converted to the Christian faith by the doctrine and miracles of St. Peter, in no way do I signify that I doubt of the preaching of Peter among the Romans; especially if I add that St. Paul afterward came to Rome for the confirmation of their faith: for by this phrase I sufficiently indicate that they were before instructed by Peter. That I may safely and most probably assert it, it suffices that I know that both these preachings are handed down by trustworthy authors, even though no one of them determinate now occurs to me. In this sense perhaps Notker said that the Spaniards are reported to have been instructed by the doctrine of St. James, namely by the ancient writers from whom he had gathered his Martyrology, even though he was not wont for the most part to cite them.

[414] the solution of the cavil suggested by himself is rendered. But why do we laboriously refute an argument whose solution the adversary himself in another place incautiously suggests to us: for when Alexander, volume 3 of the often-mentioned edition, page 170, defends the coming of St. Dionysius the Areopagite and his companions into the Gauls, for his opinion concerning St. Saturninus he cites the words of Gregory of Tours, which in him, book 1 On miracles, chapter 48, thus sound: Saturninus the martyr, ordained by the disciples of the Apostles, AS IS REPORTED, was sent into the city of the people of Toulouse. But when he saw that this testimony of Gregory of Tours could be eluded by the adversaries of his opinion by an obvious answer, he thus anticipated their objection in the same place: Nor does it stand in the way that in those latter places Gregory of Tours used this word AS THEY REPORT; as though he had the mission of Saturninus and Eutropius from the disciples of the Apostles only from uncertain report: for although this formula is sometimes that of one doubting, yet not all things are uncertain to the historians which they write with these formulas added. If it was permitted to Alexander to explain the phrase AS IS REPORTED without any diminution of certainty, why is it not permitted to us, against him, thus to expound the word ARE REPORTED, which often has a lesser signification of doubt, as I have already said above?

[415] Only some asserters of the same tradition are recounted, About the middle of the eleventh century Metellus, a monk of Tegernsee, in Canisius, in the appendix of volume 1, pages 60 and 61, in the Quirinalia, or poems written in praise of St. Quirinus the martyr, thus sings of the preaching of certain Apostles in various regions, and namely of St. James in Spain:

From the bounds of India, where the rising sun gives day; The fields which Thomas holds, All the way to the Spaniards shut in by the axis of the western star, Whom James taught, From the perpetual colds of the Scythians forever, Which Philip had borne, To the regions next to the scorched zone where * ... the swarthy Ethiopians, Matthew, The whole world had now learned the doctrines of salvation; Barbarism being left behind.

[416] At the end of the same century flourished the venerable Hildebert, who in the eleventh century, bishop of Le Mans and afterward archbishop of Tours, who among his miscellaneous poems, edited at Paris in the year 1708 together with his works, has these things concerning the two Jameses:

Let no one henceforth quarrel about the Jameses. This one was born of Alphaeus, the other from Zebedee. Whom thou heardest first, remember to assert the brother of Christ; And placed at Jerusalem, whom we read was often sought, And commonly he is wont to be solemn on the Kalends of May. But this last was the brother of the Apocalyptist, And rejoices to have the soil of Galicia as its cultivator.

By "cultivator," in which the land of Galicia rejoices, why should not he be understood who spiritually cultivated Galicia, that is, imbued it with the Christian faith?

[417] In the following century Godfrey of Viterbo, a presbyter, in the Chronicle in the twelfth, which was edited at Frankfurt in the year 1584 among the writers of German affairs, volume 2, part 15, column 363, after assigning the provinces of the other Apostles, thus sets forth the lot of each James: James, remaining in Judaea, governed the church of Jerusalem: for the other James had been beheaded by Herod, who yet, as is said, had before preached to the Spaniards, where still his most illustrious sepulcher is held. I scarcely doubt that Godfrey of Viterbo excerpted those things from Otto, bishop of Freising, who in book 3 of his Chronicle, chapter 15, had explained the various lots of the Apostles in almost the same words about the middle of that century. But lest the phrase "as is said" offend anyone, I desire it to be observed that Godfrey of Viterbo, in the edition already mentioned, volume 2, part 14, column 326, absolutely affirmed the preaching of St. James the Greater in these words: He preached the Gospel to the Spains and the western nations, and poured the light of preaching into the setting of the world. He himself, cut down by the sword by Herod the tetrarch, fell on the 8th of the Kalends of August, buried in the marble citadel. This last passage that author probably transcribed from Isidore, or Freculph, or other ancient writers, who expressed that preaching of St. James in nearly the same manner, as will become manifest to one recalling the preceding paragraphs.

[418] From the thirteenth century I select only two or three witnesses of the same tradition, and flourished in the thirteenth, among whom the elder is Thomas of Cantimpré, of the sacred Order of Preachers, who in book 2 On Bees, chapter 25, indicates that James the Greater offered to the Lord Spain, instructed in the Christian law. Him follows Martin of Poland, of the same Order of St. Dominic, elected to the archbishopric of Gniezno, who in the Chronicle, printed by the labor of Suffridus Petri at Antwerp, page 117, thus speaks: James the Greater, going about Spain, is at length beheaded at Jerusalem. Some refer to the same century William Durandus, bishop of Mende, who in the Rationale of the divine Offices, book 7, chapter 17, thus writes: James the Greater, son of Zebedee, brother of John the Evangelist, was sent to preach to the Spaniards; but since he could convert only one prince there, he returned to Jerusalem: but at length, beheaded by Herod, and carried back into Spain, those whom living he could not convert, dead he converted by a divine miracle. Others attribute this work to William Durandus the younger, also bishop of Mende, who died in the fourteenth century, and whom they think, on account of the likeness of name, surname, and dignity, to have been confounded with his uncle. It matters little to us here whether this testimony pertain to the end of the thirteenth century or to the beginning of the following. At least Natalis Alexander cannot explode this witness as more recent, since he himself, in Dissertation 17, volume 3, page 178, endeavored to prove the landing of St. Mary Magdalene in the Gauls from the same work of that author.

[419] because in the following centuries In the following centuries so numerous a throng of authors affirming the same offers itself that it is not necessary here to bring forward their testimonies, since the adversaries themselves confess that that opinion was in these last times altogether common. I omit therefore St. Vincent Ferrer, Alfonso Tostado, St. Antoninus of Florence, Cardinal Torquemada, and other men illustrious for sanctity and doctrine, who inculcated that tradition from the pulpit to their hearers with living voice, and left it to posterity in writing. Nor was this preaching of St. James handed down in writing only by Spaniards or Lusitanians, although they themselves can be the best witnesses of their tradition, but, received also among various nations of Europe, it flew through the whole Christian world, as may be understood from what has been said above.

[420] an innumerable multitude of them occurs. The Postulators of the cause of Saragossa, of whom below in the appendix of this Commentary discourse will recur several times, wove a catalogue of more recent authors, in which, besides innumerable Spaniards, are recounted fourteen Italians, nine Gauls, nine Germans, twelve Belgians, two Poles, and one Dalmatian, all of whom inserted the coming of St. James into Spain in their books. Nay, I now most recently understand that the royal academy of Portuguese history, which not long ago was instituted at Lisbon, in the collection of documents, volume 5, proved the journey of St. James the Greater into Spain from five hundred authors. I am of the opinion that the greatest part of these writers is more recent; but of their antiquity and authority I can determine nothing certain, since those Lusitanian Works have not yet come to my hands, and this lucubration of mine is now to be subjected to the press. Meanwhile I shall congratulate the learned Lusitanians if they have drawn out of darkness any older defenders of James's coming, hitherto unknown to me. Nor do I doubt that those testimonies will be of the best note, since that most prudent academy in its statutes proscribed the pseudo-chronicle of Flavius Dexter and similar fictions of fabulists.

[421] The false answer of Natalis Alexander Natalis Alexander had nothing to oppose against the writers reported in this paragraph, except the following answer: I answer, he says, that this opinion prevailed after the eighth century, which all the aforesaid authors embraced undiscussed. Besides that this answer is false, as is plain from the preceding paragraphs, it is surely wonderful that it could be given by that man, all of whose testimonies for the landing of St. Mary Magdalene in Provence (except one, of which I shall presently speak) are later than the eighth century: for he takes the second proof of that tradition from a manuscript codex of the church of Sisteron, of whose antiquity he subjoins these things: Moreover it is established that this manuscript is most ancient, and to be referred to about the ninth century. Why, I pray, does he adduce this and other testimonies of the following centuries, if faith is not to be given to writers later than the eighth century when they speak of things done in the first century? What if I also answer that that opinion concerning the landing of St. Mary Magdalene in Gaul prevailed after the eighth century?

[422] But Alexander will say that he proved that tradition in the first place from the Acts of the tutelary Saints of the church of Toulon, is refuted by an argument ad hominem, or from a most ancient codex containing those Acts, which was written by the order and pious care of Desiderius, bishop of Toulon, in the year 572. I hear it, and without further discussion I believe Alexander affirming it. Yet to this private instrument of the Gallic tradition there prevails the public testimony of St. Jerome, who a century and a half before openly favors the Spanish tradition, as above, §5, I endeavored to evince. To this single codex there is at least equivalent the testimony of the Gothic Office, of SS. Isidore, Julian, Beatus, and of the most ancient Martyrologists, who before the eighth century consigned to writing the Spanish preaching of St. James.

[423] Nor are the arguments firmer by which Natalis Alexander endeavors to prove and is elicited from the very words of the adversary, that the body of blessed Mary Magdalene rests among his Brethren Preachers in the town of St. Maximin. It is worth while to hear himself discoursing of this tradition, volume 3, pages 181 and 182: Although this controversy, he says, is not altogether necessary for ecclesiastical erudition, nor pertains to the first century of the Christian name; yet, an occasion being given, and that I may gratify the men of my Order who claim the relics of Magdalene for themselves, I undertake to establish this truth against lord Launoy, not indeed by those arguments which are fetched from the ancient writers of ecclesiastical history, or from the testimony of the holy Fathers: for of this kind I confess none occur at present; but by that kind of proofs which are supported by the traditions of churches and by most approved instruments, and which can move men of sense and by no means critical beyond sobriety. If the defenders of the Spanish tradition had fled to a similar prologue, how great matter of glorying would they have furnished to Natalis Alexander? But let us hear his proofs.

[424] Here again all the instruments which he heaps up to establish his opinion that the Spanish tradition is equivalent, or rather prevails, are later than the eighth century, except a single scrap of uncertain age, which indeed Alexander was pleased to refer to about the fifth century, because it was written on a waxed tablet. This conjecture of his concerning the antiquity of the scrap he thus endeavors to establish: That kind of writing on tablets smeared with wax is established to have flourished in the fifth century, and afterward is not read to have been in use. But it does not rightly follow that that kind of writing was not in use in the sixth or seventh century, even though this be not read. Thus it is not read that in the third or fourth century there was in Provence a tradition of the landing of St. Mary Magdalene, and yet Alexander will have it that it was there then.

[425] He ought here to have remembered the answer which he had given to Launoy, to the various traditions of the Gauls which he defends, impugning the coming of St. Trophimus into the Gauls in the first century, thus, page 163: Plainly trifling, because it is a negative argument. He ought to have recalled the axiom which he had so confidently opposed to the same Launoy, denying the landing of St. Mary Magdalene in Provence, page 179, namely that these arguments are futile because they are negative. Thus far I have argued ad hominem, as they commonly say, nor did I intend to overthrow the tradition of the people of Marseille or of St. Maximin; but I only wished to show that the immemorial tradition of the Spaniards rests on more solid foundations, and so ought not to have been so rashly rejected by Alexander.

[426] and to which he confesses that difficult arguments can be opposed, For the rest, Natalis Alexander, in the same place on the page just cited, is compelled to confess that not slight difficulties can be opposed to these and his other opinions: However it be, he says, I was unwilling to disturb the tradition of the churches of Provence, where it concerns St. Mary Magdalene; nor to overthrow the tradition of the churches of Gaul agreeing with the Roman and Greek, where the matter concerned St. Dionysius; nor to adjudge the works of Dionysius not the Areopagite's, although I well knew that those opinions could be impugned by specious and difficult arguments, to which I answered to the best of my power, and showed, as I think, probable answers, no less than the contrary arguments.

[427] such as we do not deny are wont to be objected also against our opinion. Whether Alexander everywhere gave probable answers, let the fair estimators judge who have thoroughly examined these ecclesiastical controversies on both sides. But what Alexander here confesses of his opinions, I shall not deny of mine: for I am not ignorant that against the coming of St. James into Spain many things also are wont to be objected; but I hope, God granting, that I shall satisfy the several arguments of the adversaries and namely of Natalis Alexander. At least I promise that no difficulty shall be dissembled by me, nay even some shall be added of my own accord, which by no one, so far as I know, has hitherto been opposed to the Spaniards. Now I shall approach the matter itself.

* Is it not perhaps "qua albificat" (where it whitens/dawns)?

§ XI. The arguments of the adversaries drawn from time and place are answered.

[428] Other adversaries of the Spanish tradition being omitted, The most eminent Baronius, in volume 9 of the Ecclesiastical Annals, at the year of Christ 816, from number 48, on the occasion of the controversy which is said to have been agitated between Rodrigo of Toledo and the archbishop of Compostela concerning the primacy of Spain in the Lateran Council under Innocent III, furnished the chief arms with which the coming of St. James into Spain could be impugned. Against Baronius Juan Velázquez, Juan Mariana, Gaspar Sánchez, Thomas Malvenda, and other Spanish writers sharply contended, and preserved their tradition unharmed. Yet afterward Natalis Alexander, Sébastien Tillemont, and certain more recent Gauls avidly snatched up the Baronian weapons, and endeavored to sharpen them, now often retorted and blunted, although they scarcely bring anything of any moment which had not been objected already before. I care nothing here for the heterodox writers, who recook the same cabbage, and not only deny the preaching of St. James in Spain, but also deny that his sacred relics ever were at Compostela, or now are. For what would you do with those men who rashly explode miracles, revelations, and the very apostolic traditions? To me therefore here the matter is only with those who profess their name among Catholics.

[429] I had resolved to oppose Cardinal Aguirre to Cardinal Baronius, we answer chiefly to Natalis Alexander, that after the singular contest of these illustrious champions the fair reader might decree the triumph to one or the other party. But I had to change my mind, because all the arguments of Baronius are so disposed that the Aguirrian answers cannot distinctly and clearly be fitted to them. Since therefore the objections against the Spanish preaching of St. James, formerly alleged, are set forth in a more distinct order by these more recent men, for the sake of clarity I shall tread in their footsteps, and thus by the same labor one by one

I shall endeavor to refute the ancient arguments of Baronius and the new difficulties of others. Nor am I the first to take this counsel: for I see that the same was done by the most learned Marquis of Mondéjar and the most eminent Cardinal Aguirre, who answered chiefly to Natalis Alexander.

[430] The first argument of the adversaries is taken from the time [whose opinion concerning the time in which the Apostles were divided is uncertain,] in which the Apostles were divided, and they say that St. James the Greater was afflicted with martyrdom before the Apostles were dispersed into the various provinces of the world, and so that he could not preach in Spain. Natalis Alexander endeavors to prove that the Apostles were not divided before the second persecution, which was stirred up by Herod against the Church, when, our James being slain, he committed Peter to prison: for in the first persecution, he says, in which St. Stephen was overwhelmed with stones, the Apostles were not yet dispersed, but only the disciples, and this he gathers from Acts 8, verse 1, where it is read: And there was made in that day a great persecution in the Church which was at Jerusalem, and all were dispersed through the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the Apostles. But Tillemont himself, volume 1 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 597, confesses that this reasoning has little strength, since it is not established concerning the time in which the division of the Apostles was made. For the rest, the Spanish writers dissolve this objection in various ways, as may be seen in volume 4 of July, from page 10, where I reported the diverse opinions concerning the division of the Apostles.

[431] Spondanus, in the Baronian Epitome at the year of Christ 44, which the Spaniards endeavor to dissolve in various ways, number 7, notes the following concerning the diverse opinions of the Spaniards in this matter: Since some refer the division of the Apostles to some years, others to others, those Spaniards who wrote against Baronius, to defend their tradition concerning the coming of St. James into Spain, endeavor to prove by certain conjectures and arguments not so to be despised that it happened when Peter and James went to Samaria, or even after the Lord's ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit, even though not all at once set out to their provinces. Whose arguments, however, there are others who, though thinking with them concerning the coming of St. James, refute by other reasons, as they think, certain; and there will be, I suppose, others who will in turn confute their argumentations: so that they seem indeed to bring a new danger of ruin to the building which they establish with such weak props. Whatever be the case with this judgment of the most illustrious man, at least the chronological argumentation of the adversaries causes me no trouble, since according to our system concerning the death of Christ under the two consuls Gemini, the division of the Apostles is to be assigned to the fortieth year of the common era, as on the 15th day of July, in the place just cited, I showed more fully.

[432] Christian Lupus the Belgian, of the Order of St. Augustine, in the scholia to the book of Tertullian On Prescriptions against heretics, chapter 20, page 379, from the testimony of Apollonius, [and to whom the opinion of Lupus is to be preferred, which yet causes us no trouble.] who according to Eusebius, book 5 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 8, reports these things as from the tradition of the ancients, that the Lord commanded his Apostles that within twelve years they should not depart from Jerusalem, deduces against the Spaniards the following corollary: Fourthly we learn that the preaching of St. James the apostle is not free from scruples: for he in the forty-fourth year, before those twelve had elapsed, was struck with the sword by King Herod, and therefore seems not to have gone out of Judaea. But neither does this weapon strike us, who admit the ancient tradition of Apollonius, and assign the martyrdom of St. James to the year 43 or 44 of the common era, so that after the division of the Apostles three or four years remained, in which that holy Apostle could preach in Spain and return to Jerusalem. I do not deny that by the venerable authority of Clement of Alexandria and Apollonius, which we defended in volume 4 of July, pages 12 and 13, the Spaniards can be pressed, whom I marvel not yet to have embraced the system concerning the death of Christ under the two consuls Gemini, which our Henschenius in the preliminary Diatribe before volume 1 of April solidly established, and Schelstrate, Pagi, and certain other learned men now follow in their writings. Moreover this care I leave to the Spaniards: for we here need not labor, since in our opinion we easily extricate ourselves from those difficulties, as will be plain to one considering.

[433] The argument which the adversaries form from the contention of the Spaniards, Another argument of certain adversaries is taken from the place through which St. James is said to have come into Spain, and concerning which there is sharp dispute among the maritime peoples of Spain: for Francisco Macedo, in the Diatribe already often praised, chapter 3, §6, testifies that the first landing of the holy Apostle is claimed by the Tarraconensians, Valentians, Baeticans, Lusitanians, and Galicians with an equal right of tradition, and that this prerogative is denied to each single province by the others contending among themselves. Whence the adversaries, by his own testimony, set up such a reasoning: Since it is not established at what province of Spain St. James landed, and some impugn others with Spanish arguments, he does not seem to have landed at any port of Spain: for he must have entered through some part; but, the distribution of parts being made, each single one is excluded by the inhabitants of the other provinces: through none therefore did St. James enter, and so he did not enter Spain: for as it can evidently be inferred that some thing was not done this week, if it happened neither on this nor on that nor on the other days of the week, so also it rightly follows that St. James was never in Spain, if he entered through neither this nor that nor all the other enumerated provinces. Thus indeed they argue more acutely than solidly.

[434] is solidly Francisco Macedo, in the Diatribe, chapter 10, §4, altogether satisfies this sophism: wherefore I here only transcribe his words: Yet, he says, this argument is easily confuted: for from this, that the several provinces fight for drawing James to themselves, it does not follow that he did not come into Spain; nay it follows that he came: for unless he had come, the provinces would not contend to draw him to themselves. Therefore they endeavor each to claim him for themselves, because they think it certain that he was in Spain. Whence the argument is inept: the several fight, and impugn the others; therefore he did not come. Nay, because he came, therefore each one endeavors to draw him to himself. Otherwise, by fighting for themselves and impugning others, it would follow that Homer was not a Greek, because so many cities contended about him, Smyrna, Rhodes, Colophon, Salamis, Ios *, Argos, Athens. Surely it came into no one's mind to deny that Homer was a Greek because there was dissension and contention about him among seven cities. Why then did not those cities fight among themselves about Anacharsis, or Numa Pompilius? Namely, because they knew that Anacharsis was a Scythian, Numa a Roman; and that those who were not Greeks could not try to draw them to Greek cities. Homer they could claim, because, since he was born in Greece, he could be born in this or that city. Thus, since it was established that James the apostle went to Spain, and could not enter it except through some certain province, the several provinces wished to affirm that he landed at their own port first. And this proceeded from zeal both of piety and of religion toward the Apostle; which would be altogether empty, unless James had come to those regions. But let the adversaries say why the provinces of Spain do not litigate, do not contend, about John, Bartholomew, Matthew, or Simon, or about James the Less, except because they know that none of these came into Spain?

[435] Hence therefore a most firm argument is taken, that James the apostle penetrated into Spain, in that not about others, and is subtly refuted. but about that one alone, the several provinces contend with so sharp and pertinacious a zeal. And whereas they could likewise assert of Peter and Paul (which is not improbable) that they came to Spain, as we indicated above; yet there is no contention among the Spanish authors about claiming these for themselves; as if they did not pertain to them, they leave them to other provinces. On James the apostle alone they dwell. Hence the Tarraconensians, hence the Baeticans leap up, seize him, and study to draw him to themselves, because they think that, when he came into Spain, he landed at their own ports, and so that each can claim him by the right of hospitality. And indeed from the arguments which each brings forth for himself, it appears that the Apostle traversed almost the whole of Spain: and this perhaps it were more equitable to say, and to make the good of his coming and preaching common to all; but the Spaniards, not content with this, while each wishes to claim that hospitality, impugn one another; yet they do not deny that James was among others and preached: for provided they were the first in receiving him, they do not hesitate to share with others; but they deny that he came to others before he came to them. I leave the Spaniards to fight among themselves about that prerogative of first hospitality, since it suffices me that St. James preached in Spain. I care little also how long, and in what places, that Apostle promulgated the Christian law in Spain, since these particular circumstances of the preaching cannot be proved from ancient and trustworthy monuments, as in §1 of this part, number 300, I briefly indicated.

* read "Chios"

§ XII. The difficulty objected from the epistle of the apostle Paul against the coming of St. James into Spain is explained.

[436] On account of the preaching of St. Paul in Spain, St. Paul, being still in the East, resolved to go to the Spaniards, as is established from the epistle which he gave at Corinth to the Romans, where, chapter 15, verse 24, he thus speaks: When I shall begin to set out into Spain, I hope that, passing through, I shall see you. And a little after, verse 28: Through you I shall set out into Spain. It is disputed among the learned whether he carried this resolution into execution, as may be seen more fully in our Gaspar Sánchez, in the Tract on the preaching of the holy apostles Peter and Paul in Spain. Natalis Alexander avidly embraces the affirmative opinion, and thus proposes his thesis, volume 3, page 157: It is established by tradition that St. Paul, having set out into the Spains, there founded a church. He rightly says that this journey of St. Paul into the Spains is established by tradition, since no writer of the first three centuries is found to have committed it to writing.

[437] which yet some deny, Yet that tradition is denied by Pope Gelasius I, in Gratian, cause 12, question 2, chapter "beatus," and by St. Thomas, in the commentaries on the cited text of the Apostle, lesson 3, to omit Domingo de Soto and other more recent writers. In Spain itself Lucas of Tuy doubted of this tradition, a writer contemporary with Rodrigo of Toledo (who makes no mention of the coming of St. Paul into Spain), who in the preface to the Chronicle of the world, volume 4 of Hispania Illustrata, page 2, thus speaks: God so enriched Spain

with heavenly goods, that he transmitted to it the body of James, the protomartyr of the Apostles, to be embraced perpetually in the flesh, and conferred on it Paul, the doctor of the nations, to be more especially venerated in the spirit: for when the same Apostle wrote to the Romans, he said that he would make a passage through them and come to the Spains; whether he came in the body, although certain writings which seem authentic testify that he came corporally, we nevertheless do not know. We firmly believe that he fulfilled his promise, if not in the body, in the spirit. If the silence of Rodrigo of Toledo, the doubt of Lucas of Tuy, and the contrary opinion of Pope Gelasius and of St. Thomas did not remove Alexander from asserting the tradition of Paul's coming, neither ought similar things to terrify us in defending the preaching of St. James, who at the same time admit the Spanish pilgrimage of St. Paul, and more consistently defend both traditions. Now let us proceed to dissolve the difficulty.

[438] the tradition of the Spaniards is impugned from the epistle of the same Apostle, Paul in the same epistle to the Romans, concerning his apostolic expeditions hitherto made from Jerusalem all the way to Illyricum, in the same chapter 15, verses 20 and 21, had written thus: But so have I preached this Gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another's foundation; but as it is written: They to whom he was not announced shall see; and they that have not heard shall understand. Some from these last words of the Apostle infer that St. James did not preach in Spain. If, they say, St. Paul, according to the more common opinion of the Fathers and interpreters, set out into Spain to promulgate the Gospel, certainly St. James had not before preached there; otherwise St. Paul would have preached the Gospel where Christ had already been named, and would have built upon another's foundation, which is repugnant to the text just adduced. Thus indeed they argue. But we shall now bring forth a different explanation of these words, that it may appear that the Spaniards do not lack various means by which they may solve this difficulty.

[439] Hugh of St. Cher, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, who flourished about the middle of the thirteenth century, whose text is conveniently thus explained, thus expounds the objected place of the Apostle: He preached where Christ was not named, chiefly, though also to others. That most learned interpreter therefore will have it that St. Paul preached chiefly to those to whom the Gospel of Christ had not yet been announced, although the Apostle does not deny that he sometimes preached also to those who had already had some knowledge of the Christian law, but signifies that for the most part he did not build upon another's foundation. To this Hugonian interpretation the Greek text of the Apostle favors, in which is read φιλοτιμούμενον εὐαγγελίζεσθαι, That is: I strove, aspired, or endeavored to preach; as if he should say: as much as was in me, I especially applied myself to this, that I might announce the Christian faith to those to whom Christ was not yet known.

[440] But this manner of speaking does not hinder so that it does not stand in the way of the Spanish preaching of St. James, that he should also sometimes have preached to some to whom others had already announced Christ, among whom the Spaniards can be numbered, since especially St. James is said to have converted very few. Certainly this proposition of St. Paul cannot be understood strictly and universally, as if the Apostle always studiously took care never to preach where Christ had been announced: for he himself preached at Damascus, where there were already before Christians, whom, still persecuting the Church, he wished to lead bound to Jerusalem, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 9. He preached at Antioch, where certain disciples, dispersed in the first persecution, had already imbued many with the Christian doctrine, as is plain from the same Acts, chapter 11. Finally, to omit other things, in this very epistle he instructs by writing the Romans, and afterward taught by word, those whom yet Peter had already instructed.

[441] Francisco Macedo in the Diatribe, in the last chapter, a similar explanation being given, and by Francisco Macedo is thus turned against the adversaries, turns the text of the Apostle to the impugning of the adversaries, and endeavors from it to prove the Spanish preaching of St. James in this manner: Nay, I add a conjecture, he says, to confirm the common doctrine of James's coming into Spain, by which I retort the argument against the adversaries: for Paul speaks so as to signify that in that preaching he had only effected this, that he preached Christ to nations ignorant of him, and, that journey being completed, that he was free to preach everywhere, both where Christ had been announced and where he had not. Whence it follows that in Spain Christ had already been preached. But I recommend my conjecture thus: Paul confesses that he wishes to come to Rome, yet was prevented from coming, on account of that preaching of his which he had undertaken in the regions which lacked the light of faith: this is established from the same chapter, number 22. But the impediment was that preaching; which being finished, he wished to come to Rome, and thence go to Spain, and be conducted by the Roman faithful, which he expressly says at number 24: WHEN I SHALL BEGIN TO SET OUT INTO SPAIN, I HOPE THAT, PASSING THROUGH, I SHALL SEE YOU, AND BE CONDUCTED THITHER BY YOU, IF FIRST I SHALL HAVE ENJOYED YOU IN PART.

[442] so that it even favors the tradition of the Spaniards. Whence I gather, first, that there had now ceased in Paul that zeal of preaching where Christ was not announced: for at Rome, whither he was going, there was already faith and a Church established. Second, that there was not the same necessity of preaching in Spain as in other regions where Christ had not been announced: for if there were so great necessity, Paul would not turn aside to Rome, nor wish to tarry there so long, until he enjoyed and was satisfied with the sight and company of the Romans. For how could he who excused the impediment of coming to Rome arising from the preaching which delayed him among the nations who had not known Christ, and preferred that preaching to the sight and company of the Romans, now, Spain being left, tarry at Rome, if in it Christ had not been announced? Certainly if it were not already imbued with the doctrine of the faith, and were altogether ignorant of Christ, Paul would not tarry at Rome, nor rest in it; but would either tend straight into Spain, or shortly migrate thither from Rome. Third, that Paul says he is to be conducted by the Romans into Spain is a sign that either those Romans had been in Spain and come from it, or at least that Spain was known to them, and it was perceived that there were Christians in it: for to what end would Paul wish to be conducted by them, unless, the faithful conducting him being in Spain, the faithful were known and familiar? But if these things are true, as they appear, not only does this place of Paul's epistle to the Romans in no way stand in the way of the coming of St. James into Spain, but even favors it. Let the reader compare this reasoning with the whole discourse of St. Paul, and attentively weigh it: we meanwhile shall adduce other expositions of the Pauline text.

[443] The same text of St. Paul The most eminent Aguirre, dissertation 9, number 104, solves the argument of the adversaries otherwise, by this plain answer: Whoever thus objects does not attend to the time in which the epistle to the Romans was written by the Apostle: for that happened in the year of Christ 58, while Paul was at Corinth; whence he sent it to the Romans by Phoebe, as the Greek, Syriac, and royal Latin Bibles have at the end of the epistle, at which time Peter had gone from Rome into Britain, and therefore is not saluted in it. But the preaching of Paul in Spain happened much later: namely after the year 61, in which Luke put the finishing stroke to the Acts of Paul and of the Apostles: for then he was first freed from prison under Nero, and therefore could set out into Spain. Wherefore when he wrote at Corinth to the Romans he most truly said that he had thus far preached the Gospel, not where Christ had been named, nor built upon another's foundation. With this, however, it is consistent that he afterward preached where the name of Christ had already been heard, and built upon a foundation laid by others: which is plain from Rome itself, where Peter had already before preached, and laid a foundation, before Paul came thither. What wonder therefore if likewise, after his coming to the city, he went on thence into Spain, although James had before preached there, and laid the foundations of the faith?

[444] is expounded in various ways Nay, even if the words of the Apostle regarded the future time as well as the past, and were to be taken rigidly, yet they would not altogether exclude the preaching of St. James, since Spain is so spacious that St. Paul could easily have preached in certain towns or places of that region in which St. James had before laid no foundations of the evangelical truth: for nothing compels us to assert that St. James illumined every province of Spain with the light of faith. But it is not necessary to flee to that solution, as is gathered well enough from what has been and shall be said.

[445] Our Alfonso Salmerón, volume 13, book 4, disputation 11, thinks the explanation most consonant to the words of Paul is thus expounded by learned men, which he delivers in this manner: The third sense is that he preached to the nations among whom Christ had not been named through the old law, nor foretold, nor prefigured, nor expected: for he persists in confirming his opinion, by which he asserted that he was the apostle of the nations from the time when he was set apart with Barnabas and sent to preach to the nations. To this interpretation agrees the whole context of Paul, and especially the testimony taken from chapter 52, verse 15, of Isaiah, which the Apostle adduces to the confirmation of his saying in these words: As it is written: They to whom he was not announced shall see, and they that have not heard shall understand. Without doubt here Isaiah spoke by the prophetic spirit of the gentiles, afterward to be converted to Christ, who had known no oracles of the prophets, had heard no preaching concerning the Messiah, and had had no foundation of the Christian faith, as the Jews had, to whom these things could become known from the sacred monuments and the preaching of their masters. Thus also St. Jerome understands this place of Isaiah, as we shall presently see.

[446] Hence it can easily be gathered in what sense the Apostle said that he did not build upon another's (namely the ancient prophets') foundation. so that it in no way contradicts the Spanish preaching of St. James, Nor does it matter that St. Paul also from time to time announced Christ to the Jews: for he did this rather because some just reason occurred than because he was destined to that office. Thus in the first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 1, he baptized Crispus and Gaius, and the household of Stephanas, although a little after he says: For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel. Therefore, according to this exposition, which some notable interpreters of sacred Scripture embrace, St. Paul signifies nothing else than that he was sent chiefly to instruct the nations (granted that on occasion he also taught the Jews), to whom neither the name of Christ before, nor the oracles of the prophets, had come.

[447] From what has been said, St. Jerome can easily be explained, who in book 2 of the Commentaries on the prophet Amos

chapter 5, in the most recent Parisian edition, volume 3, and the place of St. Jerome objected by Alexander thus writes of St. Paul: He was poured out over the face of the whole earth, that he might preach the Gospel from Jerusalem all the way to Illyricum, and might build not upon another's foundation, where it had already been preached, but might tend all the way to the Spains, and run from the Red Sea, nay from the Ocean all the way to the Ocean … so that the earth should fail before him sooner than the zeal of preaching. Easily, I say, according to the interpretations of the Pauline text already given, these things can be explained: for St. Jerome could not wish more than the Apostle himself meant to signify. Nevertheless Natalis Alexander, the text of the Apostle being omitted, retorts these words of St. Jerome, as more opposed to the coming of St. James, against the Spaniards.

[448] [may admit a convenient explanation according to the other words of the holy Doctor,] Lest any objection of Alexander lack a special solution, I expound the words of the holy Doctor according to the explanation given at number 445 and following, which seems more consonant to his mind, although the others are not on that account to be rejected. Nor for that do I need any other interpreter than the holy Doctor himself, who in book 14 of the Commentaries on Isaiah, chapter 52, in the Parisian edition, volume 3, column 382, thus elucidates the words of the prophet adduced above by St. Paul: They who had not had the law and the prophets, and to whom he had not been announced, they themselves shall see and understand … In comparison with whom, the hardness of the Jews is reproved, who, seeing and hearing, fulfilled in themselves the prophecy of Isaiah, etc. Compare these with the things I said above, and thou wilt see all the difficulty straightway vanish. Moreover, if the argumentation of Alexander were legitimate, the holy Doctor would contradict himself, since he affirmed the Spanish preaching of St. James elsewhere, as I showed above, §5.

[449] as also a certain Ambrosiaster, alleged by the same adversary, Yet Alexander does not yet acquiesce, but scrapes together from every side patronage for his desperate cause. Whence at the end of the dissertation, volume 3, page 160, he objects to the Spaniards I know not what Ambrosiaster, who in the Commentaries on chapter 15 of the epistle to the Romans has the following: He (namely St. Paul) promised that he would come at the time when he was to go to Spain, because there Christ had not been preached. I ask first, who is that Ambrosiaster who under the feigned name of St. Ambrose wrote those commentaries, or whose works at least were wrongly attributed to the holy Doctor? The most eminent Bellarmine, in the book On ecclesiastical Writers, where he examines the works of St. Ambrose, adjudges these commentaries not the holy Doctor's for many causes, and makes this conjecture concerning their writer: It is therefore credible, he says, that the author of these Commentaries is Hilary the Roman deacon, who propagated the schism of Lucifer, and also wrote not a few books, as St. Jerome testifies in the last dialogue against the Luciferians. But whoever be their author, the same Bellarmine a little before affirms that in these commentaries there are not a few things which seem to contain the errors of Pelagius, as is clear from the commentaries on the epistle to the Romans.

[450] we easily explain in his own words, Yet since that author, whoever finally he was, seems to be ancient, for Natalis Alexander's sake I shall show that he is not opposed to the coming of St. James into Spain. Nor for demonstrating this is there need of great effort, since that writer explains himself well enough, if the whole text be read, which Alexander in bad faith truncated, lest the solution of the objected difficulty from the very sense of the author should of itself run into the eyes. Ambrosiaster therefore first thus comments on the often-mentioned place of St. Paul: Not without cause he says that he strives to preach there, and not where Christ was named, knowing that the pseudo-apostles delivered Christ otherwise than was fitting: for they went about for this, that under the name of Christ they might enslave the people to other doctrines, which afterward to correct was of the greatest labor. Therefore he wished to forestall them, that he might deliver the words of an inviolate preaching to the hearers, and that the ordered surface, in a straight line, might have the strength of an unimpaired foundation. Then, after other things concerning the same Apostle, he subjoins these: Yet he promised that he would come at the time when he was to go to Spain, because there Christ had not been preached, that he might occupy their minds (because for the pseudo-apostles the journey to them was difficult), therefore if he went later, it would not be troublesome.

[451] That author therefore only means to say that St. Paul for the most part did not preach without any injury to the Spanish tradition. where Christ had been named by the pseudo-apostles, but that he endeavored to forestall them, lest he should be compelled to build upon the corrupted foundation of others. He also indicates that the holy Apostle for that cause tarried so long in the East, and would at length come to the West, where from the pseudo-apostles there was less danger, for that the journey to those regions was too difficult for them. But all these things in no way incommode the Spanish tradition: for Paul could afterward announce Christ in Spain, because there not some pseudo-apostle, but the most faithful disciple of Christ, St. James, had preached. I indeed ingenuously confess that that Ambrosiastrian interpretation of the sacred text does not much please me, although the same is also delivered by certain others. But who would take it ill that the objected author is explained by me in his own words? Why is it not permitted me to use the same arms for defending which the adversaries use for impugning?

§ XIII. The objection which is formed from the epistle of Pope Innocent I is solved.

The adversaries do not cease to oppose again and again to the Spaniards the epistle of Pope Innocent I, who in the year 416 wrote to Decentius, bishop of Gubbio, in this manner: The epistle of Pope Innocent I, If the priests of the Lord wished to keep whole the ecclesiastical institutes, as they were handed down by the blessed Apostles, no diversity, no variety would be had in the orders and consecrations themselves. But while each one thinks that not what was handed down, but what has seemed good to himself, is to be held, thence diverse things in diverse places or churches are seen either to be held or celebrated, and scandal is made for the peoples, who, while they know not that the ancient traditions have been corrupted by human presumption, think either that the churches disagree with them, or that a contrariety has been introduced by the Apostles or apostolic men. For who does not know, or does not observe, that what was handed down by Peter the chief of the Apostles to the Roman Church, and is guarded until now, ought to be kept by all; and that nothing ought to be superinduced or introduced which has no authority, or seems to receive its example from elsewhere? Especially since it is manifest that in all Italy, the Gauls, the Spains, Africa, and Sicily, and the islands lying between, no one instituted churches, except those whom the venerable apostle Peter or his successors constituted priests. Or let them read whether in these provinces another of the Apostles is found or is read to have taught. Who *, if they do not read, because they nowhere find it, they ought to follow this which the Roman Church guards, from which it is not doubtful that they received their beginning; lest, while they are zealous for foreign assertions, they seem to omit the head of the institutions.

[453] This whole epistle, with eight decrees pertaining to ecclesiastical rites, is read in the Labbe Collection of the councils, volume 2, from column 1245, which the adversaries object to the Spanish tradition, and was lately again edited by Pierre Coustant, a Benedictine monk, among the epistles of the Roman Pontiffs, volume 1, from column 855. A compendium of it is also inserted into the Canon law, part 1 of the Decree, Distinction 11, chapter "Quis nesciat." I have transcribed the first part of that epistle, which makes greatly for our purpose, from the most recent edition of the pontifical epistles. The impugners of the Spanish tradition especially weigh those words which in the preceding number I expressed in capital letters, and from them infer that St. James did not preach in Spain, since Innocent the supreme Pontiff expressly affirms that in the Spains and the other enumerated regions churches were instituted by no one except by those whom St. Peter had sent thither. Nay, he adds that it is neither read nor found that there another Apostle besides Peter taught through his legates. But those were sent into Spain after the martyrdom of St. James the Greater. Whence the adversaries confidently conclude that St. James by no means taught the Christian faith in Spain.

[454] Francisco Macedo interprets it of the erection of churches or bishoprics, Francisco Macedo sufficiently solves this difficulty in the Diatribe, chapter 10, §5, in whose words therefore I here first answer: The testimony of Innocent I, he says, has two parts. The first affirms that in Italy, Gaul, the Spains, Africa, and Sicily no one instituted churches except those whom the venerable apostle Peter or his successors constituted priests. This contains nothing against the general tradition, which relates that James came into Spain and there preached; but against the tradition of particular churches, which affirm that they were instituted by him, and received bishops from James: concerning which I abstain from speaking, who do this, that I may prove generally that James evangelized in Spain, which could be done without the erection of churches and the institution of bishops. Wherefore my truth stands with the doctrine of Innocent. I grant to Innocent that only Peter and the Pontiffs his successors sent bishops into Spain, and instituted churches in it; but I deny that the apostle James did not preach: for it is one thing to preach, another to institute churches: since especially it is established among the ancient authors that James converted only seven or nine men, who are not enough to institute a church, not even one, much less several, which Innocent denies to have been erected. By this reasoning the ancient tradition remains unshaken, as it was proposed and asserted by us.

[455] Then, certain things being interposed, to explain the other part of the Innocentian testimony he thus proceeds: The second causes trouble. so that St. James preached the Gospel in Spain, Or let them read, he says, whether in these provinces another of the Apostles is found or is read to have taught. He denies therefore that it is anywhere read that another Apostle taught, that is, preached, there, besides Peter, not that he affirms that this one preached in those provinces, but that he sent preachers thither. By this particle James seems to be excluded from Spain. First, one might marvel that Innocent denies that it is read anywhere that another Apostle went to those provinces, since Paul came into Italy, and was at Rome and taught; and this is established of faith, since it is had in the Acts of the Apostles. Then, to speak of the Spains, how many Fathers, both Greek and Latin, write that Paul preached there?… But since it is not credible that Innocent ever read that none of these, or of others who wrote, taught that the Apostles preached in the provinces of which he speaks, the text of the epistle being diligently inspected, and the mind of Innocent considered, it appears that he spoke only in that sense in which he had begun, by denying that any other Apostle besides Peter erected churches in those provinces

and instituted bishops; and so that this second part returns to the first, and that Innocent thenceforth affirms nothing other than what he had first asserted in it: for he could not deny that Paul preached at Rome; but because at Rome he had neither given a bishop nor instituted churches, he took no account of the coming or of the preaching, because of that he did not at all think; but he wished to make mention only of that preaching which was joined with the erection of churches and the institution of bishops.

[456] This is plain from the context of the epistle, which contains the aim [even though there he did not institute a bishopric or a church strictly so called,] at which his mind aims. This was to conserve and guard the ecclesiastical institutes, and the common and ancient traditions pertaining to public discipline, which he would not have mingled and corrupted with new and foreign institutions. But since these did not pertain to the private faith of individuals, but to the common administration of the churches, he spoke of their institution, by this argument, that since they were erected by Peter alone and his successors, they ought not to be governed by other institutions than those which at the beginning they had received from their authors.

[457] I have nothing to add to these things, except one or another example by which may be confirmed the distinction between the simple preaching of the Gospel and the institution of churches, which interpretation is confirmed by some examples. which latter requires a Christian flock subject to its pastor, so that the bishop is in the church and the church in the bishop, as St. Cyprian speaks, according to the edition of Pamelius, in epistle 69 to Florentius Pupianus. Thus in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 8, we read: And there was made in that day a great persecution in the church which was at Jerusalem, and all were dispersed through the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the Apostles … They therefore who were dispersed went about preaching the word of God. Yet nowhere are these read to have instituted churches. Certainly the same preached Christ at Antioch, and yet did not there institute a church, which afterward Peter, the first bishop of that city, founded, as will be said in the following paragraph. Thus Paul immediately after his conversion preached Jesus at Damascus; and yet he does not seem to have there instituted a church. I do not doubt that the Apostles and other disciples of Christ taught the evangelical faith in several places where only afterward episcopal chairs were erected. It is plain therefore that the preaching of the Gospel can subsist without the institution of churches. The same distinction Baronius acknowledged, whose words we shall report in the following paragraph, and so he seems tacitly to approve our interpretation of the Innocentian epistle.

[458] Nevertheless the same most eminent writer, in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 816, number 51, brings forth a fragment of the same epistle against the Spaniards, The argument of Baronius, taken from the same epistle, is refuted, and from it thinks it evidently demonstrated that before the times of Innocent himself nothing was written of the coming of St. James into Spain, I shall say more, nor known, or if known, certainly not believed, nor for many centuries of time. But at least concerning the coming of St. James into Spain, six or seven years before the epistle of Innocent, Jerome had written, whose words we weighed against the adversaries in part 2, §5: for Baronius himself, at the year of Christ 409, number 14, and Tillemont, volume 12 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 293, affirm that the Commentaries on Isaiah, from which we took a double testimony for the Spanish preaching of St. James, were written by Jerome in the year 408 or 409, since yet the epistle of Innocent to Decentius was given in the year 416. But when Baronius in the same place adds "many centuries of time," and immediately subjoins against the Spaniards certain fragments from the epistle of Pope Gregory VII, which was written in the year 1074, he meant to intimate that the Spanish tradition was not even before the times of that Pontiff handed down in writing, or known, or at least believed. But how alien this is from truth is plain from the testimonies of holy and learned men adduced above, and from the other monuments of the Spanish tradition, which far preceded the age of Gregory VII.

[459] [and a comparison is made between the Milanese tradition, which he himself defends,] On the occasion of this argument which Baronius opposes to the Spanish preaching of St. James, I would gladly learn whether before the times of Innocent I anything was written, known, or believed concerning the preaching of St. Barnabas in Liguria, or the institution of the church of Milan, which the most eminent author, in volume 1 of the Annals at the year of Christ 51, number 54, attributes to him in these words: But that he himself (namely Barnabas, of whom he there treats) came into Italy, and preached the Gospel in Liguria, and erected the most noble church of the Milanese, and far and wide happily propagated the faith of Christ, firm traditions, and the monuments of the same church, confirmed by the testimonies of several writers, make certain and undoubted faith. I ask whether the monuments of the church of Milan, and the praised testimonies of several writers, surpass the age of Innocent I, since St. Ambrose was silent concerning this glory of his church, as was observed in the Acts of St. Barnabas, volume 11 of June, page 430.

[460] and the Spanish, which he rejects, a comparison is instituted, Although I would not from this silence of St. Ambrose impugn the common tradition of the church of Milan, yet I doubt whether the Milanese can bring forth, to confirm it, older and more solid testimonies than are those which we produced above to prove the preaching of St. James in Spain. Let these things said on the occasion of the Baronian argumentation suffice. I am unwilling here to press the reasoning of certain authors who argue ad hominem, and contend that that preaching of St. Barnabas in Italy, or the erection of the Milanese chair, is repugnant to the letters of Innocent, and so is to be explained by the most eminent defender of the Milanese tradition, especially since St. Barnabas commonly has the surname of apostle. I am unwilling, I say, to press this much, since I foresee that this whole reasoning can be eluded in another way, and it can be freely rejoined that Innocent here speaks only of the Apostles strictly so called, among whom St. Barnabas is not to be numbered. But now in few words I shall propose another argument, on account of which the epistle of Innocent must be explained equally by the most eminent adversary and by us.

[461] Baronius, at the year of Christ 58, number 173, narrates how St. Paul in the island of Malta, where he wintered for three months, [to which is added another difficulty, on account of which the epistle of Innocent must be explained equally by him and by us.] wrought many miracles, after which he thus proceeds: But Paul not only conferred these things on the Maltese, that all who labored under sickness were cured, but also imbued them with the Christian religion, and set Publius himself, converted to the faith of Christ, over them as bishop. But Malta is situated over against Pachynus, a promontory of Sicily, as in the same place, number 172, the most eminent adversary noted from Strabo. If therefore it be manifest, by the testimony of Pope Innocent, that in all Italy, the Gauls, the Spains, Africa, and Sicily, and the islands lying between, no one instituted churches except those whom the venerable apostle Peter or his successors constituted priests, how did Paul in the island of Malta, which is situated between Sicily and Africa, institute a church? If besides Peter no other of the Apostles is found or is read to have taught in these provinces, how did Paul teach the Gospel in that lying-between island? Whatever Baronius may here say, by the same right it can be answered by the Spaniards. Now we turn the disputation to the other adversary, who everywhere furnishes us ample matter for discoursing.

[462] Natalis Alexander among his arguments cunningly passed over this epistle of Pope Innocent, [To Natalis Alexander, who elsewhere is compelled to object that epistle to himself,] and did not dare to oppose it to the coming of St. James into Spain, because he knew that its words were to be explained equally by himself and by the Spaniards. Yet on another occasion he was compelled to report a fragment of it, namely when, defending the Spanish preaching of St. Paul, volume 3, page 157, he thus objects to himself: It is argued in the second place from Innocent I, the Roman Pontiff, writing in the epistle to Decentius that none of the Apostles, except St. Peter, imbued the Spains and the other provinces of the West with the faith of Christ: Let them read, he says, whether in these provinces another of the Apostles is found or is read to have taught. But if they do not read it, because it is nowhere found, they ought to follow this which the Roman Church guards, from which it is not doubtful that they received their beginning. Therefore St. Paul nowhere set out into the Spains. From this objection it is plain that those words of Innocent can be alleged as much against the Spanish preaching of St. James as of St. Paul. Alexander therefore tacitly confessed that that epistle does not contradict the coming of St. James into Spain, since he did not oppose it to the Spaniards. But let us see how lightly he extricates himself from that difficulty.

[463] He endeavors to solve this objection in scholastic fashion in these words: is satisfied from his own answer; I answer by distinguishing the antecedent: Innocent I says that no one except St. Peter imbued the Spains and the other regions of the West with the evangelical doctrine, and that he by no means comprehends St. Paul in that exception, I concede: and that he comprehends him, I deny. But that distinction seems to suppose what is in question, to speak here also in scholastic fashion. If Alexander judges this distinction of his to be solid, he will not take it ill that the same be used by us, and only the name of St. James be substituted for the name of St. Paul. Let us however hear his explanation, which he thus subjoins: For since Innocent is busy to bring over the Spanish churches to the rite of the Roman church, and it is established that they were instituted not only by St. Peter, but also by St. Paul, and translated and propagated into those regions which they undertook to imbue with the faith, there is no reason why he should except St. Paul from the number of those who brought the light of the Gospel to the Western regions and to Spain itself. In the first place it is false that Innocent is busy in this epistle to bring over the Spanish churches to the rite of the Roman Church, since he wrote it to Decentius, a bishop in Italy. Moreover the Pontiff there only complains that some do not keep the ecclesiastical institutes as they were handed down by the blessed Apostles. But what has this to do with the preaching of St. James, even if such an abuse had crept into Spain? Now I offer another exposition of the epistle.

[464] but for others' sake another interpretation of the same epistle is given, Cardinal Torquemada, the Archdeacon, the Provost of Milan, and other interpreters of the canons, on the already-cited chapter "Quis nesciat," so expound the words of Innocent that he meant only to signify that none of the Apostles instituted churches or taught in the regions named there, unless he had received power from Peter: for this was granted by Christ to Peter alone, as the head of the whole Church, and to his successors in the Apostolic see; but to the other Apostles dependently on Peter, who therefore can be called the founder of all the churches. In this sense Pope Stephen VI, in Baronius at the year of Christ 885, number 10, writes the following to the emperor Basil: I beseech therefore thy piety that thou cleave to the decrees of the chief of the Apostles, that their name

may have honors and dignity: for the institution and priesthood of all the churches which are in the world took their origin from Peter the chief. What therefore Innocent said of the Western churches, that very thing he could assert of the Eastern. But because it was long to enumerate them singly, and he was writing back to a Western bishop, he was content to have pronounced it of the chief regions of the West.

[465] which by the words of St. Leo the Great, According to this by no means violent interpretation therefore we say that neither did James come from Asia into Spain, nor there institute any churches (if in fact he constituted any) except with the consent and will of Peter, who is set before both the calling of all the nations, and all the Apostles, and all the fathers of the Church, so that, although in the people of God there be many priests (the common edition adds: and many pastors), yet Peter properly rules all whom Christ also principally rules. So speaks Leo the Great, sermon 3 on the anniversary of his assumption, and in the same place to our purpose he subjoins these things: A great and wonderful fellowship of his power, most beloved, the divine condescension bestowed on this man, and if it willed anything to be common to the other chiefs with him, it never gave, except through him, whatever it did not deny to others. The same holy Pontiff in the epistle to Anastasius, bishop of Thessalonica, which is reported in our Labbe, volume 3 of the councils, toward the end thus writes: Among the most blessed Apostles, in the likeness of honor, there was a certain distinction of power, and although the election of all was equal, yet to one it was given that he should be preeminent over the rest.

[466] and by other testimonies and arguments is confirmed. To this explanation, which we judge to be confirmed not a little by the authority of St. Leo the Great, also subscribe the Theologians, among whom our Gretser, in the Defense of the Controversies of the most eminent Bellarmine, volume 1, asserts that the supreme power and the universal faculty of preaching throughout the whole world was given to the other Apostles; but dependently on Peter. Then, in volume 2 of the same work, column 507, against a heretical calumniator he concludes that neither St. James went into the Spains, nor St. Paul to Rome and into the other parts of the world, except by the leading and auspices of Peter, as the supreme pastor and ecclesiastical governor, and that in this respect Innocent wrote what he wrote. If the epistle of Innocent be crudely and strictly understood, I truly do not see how it can be reconciled with the divine testimonies of sacred Scripture and the most received traditions of certain peoples: for Paul taught the Christian faith in the island of Malta and in the city of Rome, as is gathered from the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 28. It is the almost harmonious opinion of the interpreters, and of the adversaries themselves, that St. Paul preached in Spain: and yet he was another apostle than Peter, nor was he his successor, as the most learned Cardinal Torquemada in the first part of the Decree, Distinction 11, on the chapter "Quis nesciat," cleverly observed, where on that account, with several interpreters of the canons, he embraced the explanation which we gave above, number 464. That the Maltese, Roman, and Spanish preaching of St. Paul being admitted, how will it be true that none of the Apostles except Peter taught in Italy, Gaul, Spain, Africa, Sicily, and the lying-between islands, unless the words of Innocent be taken in one or the other manner, as they are explained in this paragraph?

* otherwise "Quod"

§ XIV. The difficulty which the adversaries object from the epistle of Pope Gregory VII is answered.

I could have dissolved by the same labor, in the preceding paragraph, the difficulty here to be set forth, as I see has been done by others. The epistle is reported But for the sake of clarity I wished to answer this objection distinctly, both because the preceding paragraph would run too far, and because Natalis Alexander, the authority of Innocent I being omitted, presses chiefly this testimony of Gregory VII, as though it had a certain singular force, and by it alone the Spanish tradition were overthrown. That Gregory, in the Labbe collection of the councils, volume 10, column 53, writes to Alfonso king of Castile and Sancho king of Aragon in the year 1074 in these words: Since the blessed apostle Paul signifies that he went to Spain (Baronius, reporting the same epistle, notes in the margin: "wished to go"), and afterward seven bishops were directed from the city of Rome to instruct the peoples of Spain by the apostles Peter and Paul, who, idolatry being destroyed, founded Christianity, planted religion, showed the order and office in performing the divine worship, and dedicated the churches with their blood, let your diligence not be ignorant how great concord Spain had * with the city of Rome in religion and in the order of the divine office, is plain enough: but after the kingdom of Spain was long polluted by the madness of the Priscillianists, and depraved by the perfidy of the Arians, and separated from the Roman rite, the Goths first bursting in, and at length the Saracens invading, not only was religion diminished, but even the worldly wealth was shaken.

[468] Wherefore, as dearest sons, I exhort and admonish you, of Pope Gregory VII, that you, as good offspring, even after long divisions, yet at last acknowledge the Roman church as truly your mother, in which you may also find us your brothers, receive the order and office of the Roman church, not of the Toledan or of any other *, but of that which by Peter and Paul upon the firm rock was founded through Christ, and consecrated with blood, over which the gates of hell, that is, the tongues of heretics, could never prevail, and hold it, as the other kingdoms of the West and North. For whence you do not doubt that you received the beginning of religion, it remains also that thence you receive in the ecclesiastical order the divine Office: which the epistle of Pope Innocent directed to the bishop of Gubbio teaches you, which the decrees of Hormisdas sent to the bishop of Seville intimate, which the councils of Toledo and Braga demonstrate, which also your bishops lately coming to us promised, according to the constitution of the council, to do by their writings, and confirmed in our hand. The Marquis of Mondéjar, in his Spanish dissertation on the coming of St. James, chapter 17, sets forth in Latin the ancient testimonies of the Pontiffs and councils here cited by Gregory VII. But we have already answered the epistle of Innocent I in the preceding paragraph, and the other monuments in no way augment the difficulty, as will become manifest to one wishing to read them in the Marquis.

[469] from which Natalis Alexander, impugning the tradition of the Spaniards, Natalis Alexander, from the beginning and end of that epistle, deduces this conclusion: Moreover if the faith of Christ had been brought into the Spains by St. James, and the aforesaid seven bishops had been his disciples (as the more recent Spaniards feign), Gregory VII would not have referred the foundation of the Spanish churches only to the apostle Paul, and to the disciples of Peter and Paul, nor would he have confirmed it by the most certain monuments of ecclesiastical antiquity. The adversary does not press his case clearly and validly enough; wherefore he would rather have set up the argumentation in this manner: if James had preached in Spain, the seven bishops afterward sent by Peter and Paul would not there have founded Christianity, nor planted religion, as Gregory VII speaks (for this can properly be said only of the first preachers of the Christian faith), but would only have cultivated the seed of the Gospel cast by another, and watered another's plantation. Whence according to the phrase and mind of Gregory it follows that St. James did not before preach in Spain. Before I satisfy this argument more fully, I shall briefly skirmish against Alexander with those arms which he himself supplies me.

[470] is refuted by an argument ad hominem, Natalis, volume 3, dissertation 15, page 157, thus writes: It is established by tradition that St. Paul, having set out into the Spains, there founded a church. But I now thus assail the adversary: if Paul founded the church of Spain, how could Gregory VII assert that it was founded and planted by seven bishops directed from Rome into Spain by Peter and Paul? But if those seven bishops founded and planted it, how is Paul said to have founded the Spanish church? However Alexander shall decline this blow, he will likewise show me how I ought to turn aside his own point. Now I break all the force of the proposed argument in various ways.

[471] and the solution being omitted which the adversaries themselves suggest, If Gregory VII manifestly denied the Spanish tradition, I could seize the answer which Natalis Alexander, in the place just cited, gave to the authority of Pope Gelasius, objected to himself on another occasion, in these words: Then, even if Gelasius had denied the journey of St. Paul into the Spains, what against so great a cloud of witnesses, against a tradition confirmed by the testimonies of so many holy Fathers, would the authority of one Pontiff, writing from private opinion, prove? Baronius, at the year of Christ 61, number 3, answers nearly the same in this manner: But although Gelasius were an asserter of the contrary opinion, yet if the same controversy is to be defined by the number of witnesses, for one Gelasius there are several, not unequal to him in erudition, who more gladly agree with the journey of Paul into the Spains. I could by a similar answer escape all the difficulty, since Jerome, Isidore, Julian, Beatus, and others older than Gregory VII, and not unequal to him in sanctity and doctrine, expressly affirm the Spanish preaching of St. James, as I showed above. But it is by no means necessary to escape by this way, since Gregory is not opposed to the immemorial tradition of the Spaniards, confirmed by so many testimonies.

[472] First therefore, with Cardinal Aguirre, volume 1 of the Councils of Spain, dissertation 9, excursus 9, I answer with Cardinal Aguirre the proposed difficulty is answered. that Gregory VII by those words in no way makes mention of James the apostle, nor denied his preaching in Spain: for how could he deny that which was circulated by a constant and most ancient tradition, not only in Spain, but also in Italy, Germany, and Gaul?… And so Gregory does not deny that James preached in Spain; but he passes it over untouched, because it made nothing to the aim of that epistle, in which he exhorts the kings of Spain to keep the rites and order of the sacred things of the Roman Church. But to obtain this end he judged it opportune to recall to memory how Paul signifies that he went to Spain, and that afterward, together with Peter, he directed seven bishops, who, idolatry being destroyed, founded Christianity, planted religion, etc. For thence Gregory deservedly gathers that the Spaniards ought in the ecclesiastical rites and divine Offices to imitate the Roman Church, from whose two chiefs Peter and Paul they had received Christianity, religion, and the order of sacred things through bishops sent from the City. But whether besides this James preached in Spain, and his disciples, before they were ordained bishops by Peter and directed from Rome into Spain, or not, Gregory in no way declares, because it did not pertain to his aim.

[473] Perhaps someone here will again contend It can be said that the churches were founded or instituted by someone, that this is sufficiently declared by Gregory, when concerning the disciples of Peter and Paul sent from Rome he testifies that they founded Christianity in Spain and planted religion, since the name of founders and planters befits the first sowers of the Gospel, according to that saying of Paul, 1 Corinthians 3, verse 6: I planted, Apollo watered: but God gave the increase.

But besides the things which above, number 470, I opposed to Natalis Alexander, this knot is to be solved by Gregory himself, who not obscurely indicates that Paul set out into Spain for the sake of preaching, and that afterward he sent seven bishops into it, who there founded Christianity and planted religion. For how can it cohere that those disciples were in Spain planters of that religion which Paul had before planted by his preaching? The same difficulty is to be unraveled by Baronius, Alexander, and all the other writers who defend the Pauline preaching in Spain. The words of Gregory therefore need explanation, nor is the word of foundation and planting to be taken so strictly that it always signifies the first announcement of the Christian faith, which I shall now demonstrate by an evident example.

[474] Our Labbe, volume 4 of the councils, column 883, reports the epistle of Pope Leo I, who to Maximus, bishop of Antioch, among other things thus writes: And therefore, dearest brother, even though in them others before preached the Gospel, it behooves thy love to perceive with all thy heart over the government of which church the Lord willed thee to preside, and to remember that doctrine which the chief of all the Apostles, most blessed Peter, founded, through the whole world indeed by uniform preaching, but by special teaching in the city of Antioch and of Rome. If I should from this testimony of Leo infer that no one before Peter taught the Gospel at Antioch, deservedly the Acts of the Apostles would be objected to me, in which, chapter 11, are read the following: And they indeed who had been dispersed by the tribulation which had happened under Stephen, went about as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to none but only the Jews. But some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they had entered Antioch, spoke also to the Greeks, announcing the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number of those believing was converted to the Lord. Thou seest here preachers of the faith at Antioch before Peter founded the church of Antioch. What therefore hinders that St. James preached the Gospel in Spain, and afterward the seven bishops sent by Peter and Paul founded the Spanish church?

[475] as Cardinal Baronius confesses It will help here to hear the explanation of Baronius, who at the year of Christ 39, number 16, thus writes: Now therefore, that we may say the see of Antioch was founded or erected by Peter, it is not to be understood that Peter there first preached the Gospel: for that this was done by those disciples who, after the slaying of Stephen, were driven from Jerusalem, is held sufficiently explored and perceived by the testimony of Luke (which we have said). But it is to be taken that the church of Antioch is thus said to be founded by Peter, namely because to it a chief dignity was conferred by Peter, that it might be called and be the greatest of the Eastern sees. For if before Peter other disciples preached the Gospel at Antioch, by whom a foundation of the church seemed to be cast, although Peter and Paul afterward preached the Gospel to the same, certainly on that side they could not be called founders, according to that which the same Paul, writing to the Romans, says: So have I preached this Gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another's foundation.

[476] But if in any way, because Peter preached the Gospel at Antioch after others, in express words, he must be said to have founded that church, certainly nothing on this account is to be attributed more to Peter than to Paul, since he too there rendered excellent service in the same matter. For as regards this, Ignatius, writing to the Magnesians, attributes no more to Peter than to Paul, affirming that the church of Antioch was founded by both. Wherefore, that it may be said peculiarly of Peter (as all relate) that the church of Antioch was founded, it must be said that Peter first erected or instituted the patriarchal see of Antioch: for doing which (if we wish to say this also) there was surely no necessity that Peter should go to Antioch, since wherever he acted, he could perform it by his authority, in which he prevailed. What if I, according to this exposition, shall say that those seven bishops are called founders of the Spanish church, because by the authority granted them by Peter they there erected episcopal chairs, and conferred on them a special dignity, just as Peter for that cause is called the founder of the church of Antioch? That surely by no means excludes the earlier preaching of St. James in Spain, as is manifest from the example of the church of Antioch already adduced.

[477] If the answers hitherto given do not yet satisfy someone, to which is here subjoined another explanation of the most eminent Aguirre, I add a last one, which Cardinal Aguirre in the place just cited renders in these words: We freely grant to the authority of Gregory (although defining nothing ex cathedra, and liable to error concerning a pure fact of ecclesiastical history and of the tradition of the Spains, which is to be sought only from their churches and peoples) — we grant, I say, that the disciples sent by Peter and Paul from Rome performed in Spain all those things which Gregory mentions. What if those very men had before been disciples of St. James, and had preached with him in Spain with small fruit, and had at the same time returned to Jerusalem: but afterward, the Master being slain by Herod, hastening to Rome, ordained bishops by the apostle Peter, went again into Spain, preached again, and constituted churches? Nothing in this explanation is violent, nothing exceeds the limits of probability: for if the disciples of St. James, who together with him had scattered the evangelical seed in Spain, afterward, consecrated bishops by Peter, returned thither, and constituted churches, and ordered the ecclesiastical rites according to the Roman institution, Gregory the Pontiff legitimately gathers how great concord Spain had with the city of Rome in religion and in the order of the divine Office, and by right exhorts the Spaniards to receive from thence the order of the ecclesiastical rite, whence they received the beginning of religion.

[478] Aguirre rightly observes that this exposition of his agrees excellently with the testimony of Gregory, [by which it is excellently reconciled with the epistle of Gregory VII and the Spanish tradition.] with the ancient tradition, and with the Lessons of the second Nocturn, approved at Rome after long examination, in the second of which we today read thus concerning St. James: After the ascension of Jesus Christ into heaven, preaching his divinity in Judaea and Samaria, he led very many to the Christian faith. Then, having set out into Spain, he there converted some to Christ, from whose number seven bishops, afterward ordained by blessed Peter, were first sent into Spain. Behold, in these most accurately examined Lessons, those seven bishops, afterward sent by Peter into Spain, are numbered among the ancient disciples of St. James. Wherefore with the same most eminent man I thus conclude: And so, the testimony of Gregory VII being wholly admitted, there still remains true the preaching of St. James in Spain, and that the disciples together with him founded Christianity and planted religion; but then, after the death of James, ordained bishops by St. Peter, and sent into Spain, performed more perfectly and fruitfully that very thing which before, together with James, they had begun. After these explanations I do not think that to a man of sense any scruple remains from this epistle of Gregory VII against the preaching of St. James in Spain.

* read "had" (habuisset or habuerit)

* read "of another" (alius)

§ XV. The suit is set forth on the occasion of which Rodrigo, archbishop of Toledo, is said to have denied the preaching of St. James in Spain.

[479] [The commentary of an anonymous writer, on account of which Baronius changed his opinion,] Now I approach the chief argument of the adversaries, which they form from the words of Rodrigo Ximénez, archbishop of Toledo, who in the full synod of the Lateran, held under Innocent III, is said roundly to have denied, or at least called into doubt, the coming of St. James into Spain. This is the invulnerable Achilles, as they indeed think, who so terrified the most eminent Baronius that he deserted his former opinion, as he himself, at the year of Christ 816, number 49, confesses in these words: For this was that distinguished Rodrigo, archbishop of Toledo, writer of the history of Spanish affairs, praised by the mouth of all: by whose authority, I confess, struck, I halted for a while, and called into doubt what I remember to have said in the notes to the Roman Martyrology concerning the coming of James into the Spains, and thought that all should be weighed by a deeper investigation and a graver balance, on account of those things which are found asserted by so great a man in so great a council without the refutation of so great an adversary. The most eminent Aguirre marvels that the most grave Cardinal Baronius, with the erudition and critical judgment in which he prevailed for discerning between genuine and spurious writings, scented nothing of supposition or fraud in that narration; nay, chiefly on account of it changed the opinion which he had before solidly established in the notes to the Roman Martyrology, and which no one until then had impugned. So he, dissertation 9, number 15.

[480] it was first edited from the Toledan manuscript by Loaisa, I have already said above, §2, number 311, that this whole controversy, which is said to have been ventilated in the Lateran Council between Rodrigo of Toledo and the other prelates of Spain concerning the right of primacy, was first given to the public light by Garsias Loaisa. Afterward Binius, Labbe, and Harduin inserted the same into their collections of councils. The Marquis of Mondéjar, in the often-praised Spanish dissertation, edited that whole disputation, collated with the transcript of Loaisa, from the Toledan manuscript codex, and distinguished it into twenty-four numbers, each of which he examined with severe criticism, as will afterward be plain. It is neither in my leisure nor to my liking to transcribe this whole farrago of dirges, which any curious person will easily find in the cited authors. Wherefore it will here suffice to set forth a certain fragment of that futile disputation, which regards our matter more nearly, and from which it will easily be gathered what credit the rest deserve.

[481] [in which, besides other things, is reported the suit between the prelate of Compostela and of Toledo,] I have taken this part of the altercation from Garsias Loaisa, the first editor, who in the collection of the councils of Spain, printed at Madrid in the year 1593, after reporting the contention of Rodrigo of Toledo with the archbishop of Braga, page 290, has these things: The Compostelan likewise on the same day in full consistory answered: Holy Father, certainly the petition of lord Rodrigo seems derisory, that the church of Compostela, so ancient and noble, founded in honor of the apostle James, kinsman of the Lord, who first sowed the word of the Lord in Spain, and converted infinite numbers to the faith of Christ, whose body rests in the same church, should now (which be far off) obey the church of Toledo. Then on the following page the prelate of Toledo is said to have answered the archbishop of Compostela thus: But lord Rodrigo, archbishop of Toledo, having asked and obtained faculty from the lord Pope, answered: Holy Father, O that this cause might now remain on the reasons proposed by the reverend archbishop of Compostela, and that other allegations from every side should cease, especially if by the aforesaid he believes that he can defend that he owes no obedience to the church of Toledo. To which I briefly answer. My cause will perhaps seem derisory, yet not to the wise, but to the unwise.

[482] These things being premised, if it please to believe the anonymous author of the mentioned commentary, who latterly the antiquity Rodrigo of Toledo

thus refuted the inept objection of the prelate of Compostela by a false and still more inept answer: If thou thinkest that the antiquity of the church of Compostela makes for thee, that antiquity is contained within the space of a hundred and nine years; which I thus persuade. Lord Pope Callistus, at the instance of the prince, clergy, and peoples of Spain, transferred the metropolitan right of the ancient and most celebrated city of Mérida to Compostela in the year of the Lord 1124, both because the city of Mérida was set under the dominion of the Saracens, and because the devotion of the pilgrims, who out of reverence for blessed James, whose body is believed to be buried there, was always growing for the better: for up to these times that place, in which the church of Compostela is now situated, was a certain very small oratory. Older therefore is the church of Toledo, which was founded from the time of Eugenius, who was a disciple of the apostle Paul.

[483] If he endeavors to defend his cause by the nobility of the church, on account of the invocation of blessed James; and frivolously impugns the nobility of the church of Compostela although the appellation of the Apostles be noble and illustrious, yet more noble and more illustrious is that of the blessed Virgin, by whose invocation and name any church whatever is made most august and most celebrated, and especially the Toledan, which the most holy Virgin herself deigned and willed to visit by her presence, when once to blessed Ildefonsus, archbishop of Toledo, offering sacrifice to the Lord, and to all present who heard the divine Office, she showed herself visible. If moreover, for the confirmation of his cause, he adduces the kinship of the Lord, certainly no one of sound mind is ignorant that by a closer bond of kinship the blessed Virgin was joined to the Lord, whom she conceived, bore, nourished, and followed even to the gibbet of the cross and the sepulcher.

[484] Then Rodrigo of Toledo brings forth against the prelate of Compostela those things which most please the adversaries: by denying the coming of St. James into Spain If he also adduces, he says, the first promulgation of the divine word and the conversion of very many to the faith of Christ in Spain, let those who have known the divine Page bear testimony: I have only read that power was given him of preaching in Spain; but meanwhile, while he sowed the divine law through Judaea and Samaria, under Herod at Jerusalem, his head being cut off, he breathed out his soul and rendered it to the Lord. How then did he preach there, whither he had not yet entered? Or without preaching, whom, I beseech, did he convert to the Lord? I remember well that in my first years I received from certain holy nuns and religious widows that very few were converted to the faith by his preaching: in which, when he saw so small progress made, he returned to his homeland and died.

[485] and by diminishing the glory of his sepulcher. If they also adduce the nobility of the burial, that St. James lies there, I gladly assent with those who assert it; although some affirm that his body rested at Jerusalem, and afterward, snatched by the disciples, was carried and buried at Compostela. But be it far from me, for the glory of this primacy, to assert that the body of the blessed Virgin, which we firmly believe to be glorious in the heavens with the Lord, was ever buried in the church of Toledo, to be daily trodden by human feet: for I would rather suffer myself to be torn limb from limb than turn my mind to affirming this. Let the lord of Compostela therefore see whether he ought to submit the fasces to the church of Toledo. But, the reasons being omitted, let him, if it please, answer the proposed question. But the lord of Compostela answered that although the Toledan were primate of the Spains, which was most false, yet his suffragans ought not to obey him in anything. By which answer many believed that the Compostelan had contested the suit.

[486] Francisco Macedo, hitherto supposing that suit to be true, Francisco Macedo, in the often-praised Diatribe, chapter 10, §2, thus rises up against Rodrigo Ximénez, archbishop of Toledo: By tradition, whatever Ximénez objects on the contrary is confuted. But I wish to join hand with this adversary, and to slay him with his own sword. First he demands that authors from the Scriptures be given him. Let him likewise give us an author from the Scriptures who denies it. We are therefore equal in this matter. By tradition we conquer, which unless he believe, how will he persuade us that Eugenius was the first bishop of Toledo? And yet that is not the tradition of all Spain, as is that of James's coming. I press Baronius likewise. Let him say by what Scriptures it is proved that Peter came to Rome, since yet nothing is more certain than that. Scriptures therefore are not always to be demanded: it is enough to show the tradition, and that no Scriptures stand in its way, which we, I think, have accurately done.

[487] disputes against Rodrigo of Toledo, I return to Ximénez, the narration being admitted, of which afterward. He saw how great moment there was in traditions, and endeavored to weaken that tradition of James's coming into Spain, and attributed it to certain religious widows and nuns, as if he would break it. But how could he deny that on which all the other primates of Spain relied? And so that one alone denied the tradition, the rest affirmed it. But there were the prelates of Braga, Compostela, Tarragona, and Narbonne; those two present; these by the mouth of those whom they had substituted for themselves as absent. But these represented the rest of Spain. To these therefore credit is to be given, not to Ximénez: for he could not alone overthrow a tradition which resides in many and has public faith. Then, to weaken the credit of Ximénez, he detects several errors in his history. Similar things he repeats in chapter 13, and at length in chapter 17 and following shows that this narration is altogether fictitious.

[488] Our Sánchez, in the Disputation on the preaching of St. James in Spain, tract 3, whose credit in this disputation our Sánchez diminishes, chapter 3, endeavors to diminish the authority of Rodrigo in another way, and thinks that, if the words are Rodrigo's, they were said not because he so thought, but because in that kind of contending he judged it permitted to himself, as to others who plead before judges; who, lest they should ignominiously lose the cause which they maintain in court, pretend that they know not many things, feign many things, which then the judges more severely weigh. But in those writings it is not said what the judges thought, but only what the advocate of the Toledan cause declaimed.

[489] More do those things please me by which the same author, at the beginning of the same chapter, number 2, abrogates the credit of that manuscript codex: who then by other arguments These things, he says, which seemed to Baronius so grave that they compelled him first to halt, and at length to condemn what in the annotations to the Martyrology he had before approved, are taken from a certain manuscript codex which is kept in the library of the church of Toledo, in which there is no public and legitimate faith which would vindicate it from the suspicion of levity, nay which, as will easily be plain to anyone moderately attentive, contains those things which seem less to agree with the time and place, or even with the nature of the matters which are treated. And first these letters, which are kept among those with whom the controversy is, unless they be attested by another's authority, that is, of him who could legitimately be judge in that cause, ought by no reason to make faith. But to these letters there is neither any weight from such faith, nor have they anything by which they may either show or prove their faith to themselves or to others. Nor is it there established who the writer is. Would it were established! Perhaps either his name or his levity would have taught in what place those manuscript monuments should be held.

[490] Moreover, in the same place, number 3, he argues from the silence of the council: makes that commentary suspect of fiction. But if the Compostelan cause was so sharply disputed in that synod, why in its acts does neither any trace of that cause or controversy appear? If the Toledan prelate was superior in that disputation; if he obtained what he contended concerning the primacy, as the writings themselves teach, why so great silence concerning so great a matter in that synod? Surely a place for this Toledan cause would not have been inopportune in the fifth chapter of that synod, where it is decreed concerning the dignity and order of the patriarchal sees. The praised Macedo, in the Diatribe, chapter 17, laboriously develops this argument of Sánchez, and assigns several chapters of the Lateran council in which this controversy could opportunely have been treated. He also shows that lighter causes were agitated in that synod, and precludes to the adversaries other evasions. Whence with our Sánchez, number 7, I conclude: As regards therefore this Compostelan controversy, first it seems to me, which I see is also greatly approved by others, that that disputation was feigned by someone who gave more to favor which he wished to win from the church of Toledo than to truth or to historical faith: or was written by someone of the number of those of whom in the city of Rome there is a great number, who collect rumors from the forum and the crossroads, which then they variously disseminate into one and another province.

[491] If anyone with Baronius should object that it is manifest enough that Rodrigo of Toledo denied the coming of St. James, The reason is rendered why Rodrigo of Toledo since in his history he made no word of his preaching in Spain, the same Sánchez answers in the little work just cited, tract 2, chapter 3, number 1: First I say that there was no reason why Rodrigo should have treated of James's preaching; because he omitted all that time into which James's preaching could fall: for when he had begun the Spanish history from those who first entered it after the common deluge, very many centuries being passed over, he hastened swiftly to the times of the Goths. But if he had wished to hand down the first institution of the church in Spain, or its progress, he would at least have said something of James's destination into Spain, and of his body buried there, which in that Lateran disputation he does not deny.

[492] [perhaps kept silent in his writings concerning the Spanish preaching of St. James,] Others say that it is no wonder that Rodrigo kept silent concerning the preaching of St. James, since he wrote not an ecclesiastical, but a profane, or for the most part a history of Spanish affairs connected with the profane. But whatever was the cause of this omission, at least Rodrigo nowhere in his writings denied the coming of St. James into Spain. But above, in part 1 of this Commentary, §5, we said that Rodrigo everywhere in his History studiously kept silent, or cautiously spoke, concerning the honor and prerogatives of the church of Compostela, of which silence or cautious speech we there gave some reason from conjecture.

[493] and by Natalis Alexander, objecting that silence also, But in this paragraph I had almost forgotten Natalis Alexander, who, after reporting the chief words of this suit, which without any scruple he supposes most true, thus extols the authority of Rodrigo of Toledo in this matter: These things, with the highest applause of all the Fathers, the most illustrious prelate urged, who also added that he had heard nothing concerning the preaching of St. James in the Spains from learned and trustworthy men; but only from pious women,

when he was younger. Wherefore in the History of Spanish affairs, which he wrote most accurately, he does not even lightly make mention of the journey undertaken by St. James into the Spains.

[494] [it is asked why the same writer was silent concerning the coming of St. Paul into Spain,] But why did Rodrigo of Toledo, in the History of Spanish affairs, which he is said to have written so accurately, make no mention of the coming of St. Paul into Spain? Did he perhaps hear this also only from pious women, and therefore was unwilling to insert it into his history? I know that this reason will not please Alexander. Let him therefore tell us another, on account of which that accurate writer of Spanish history omitted to commemorate that preaching of St. Paul, as useful as it was glorious to his homeland. But whatever cause of the silence Alexander shall allege, Rodrigo will always be silent. Let it therefore be permitted us, Rodrigo being silent, to defend the coming of St. James into Spain, just as the adversary defends with us the Spanish preaching of St. Paul, even though Rodrigo kept silent about it.

[495] and to whom again, the truth of that commentary being even freely granted, But Alexander will rejoin that the Spanish preaching of St. James was by Rodrigo of Toledo not only omitted in the History, but even publicly denied in the Lateran Council. I understand it, and for a while, for the sake of exercise, I grant it, since I do not yet dispute concerning the truth of that Toledan manuscript, and have resolved to be liberal toward this adversary. But he is not of such great authority in a historical matter that he ought to be believed against a tradition confirmed by so great a cloud of witnesses: especially since he has fallen into many errors within one or another page, and the falsity of the epoch established by him is evidently shown. These are the words of the inconsiderate adversary, by which, volume 3, page 168, he endeavors to diminish the authority of Severus Sulpicius, because in book 2 of the Sacred History against his opinion he had written these things: Under Aurelius, son of Antoninus, the fifth persecution was carried on, and then first martyrdoms were seen within the Gauls, the religion of God being received beyond the Alps rather late.

[496] If it pleased him thus to elude, or rather to refuse, the testimony of Severus Sulpicius, who flourished at the end of the fourth century, his own argument is opposed to him. why will it not be permitted me thus to reject the opinion of Rodrigo of Toledo, who in the thirteenth century is said to have denied the coming of St. James into Spain? What he adds concerning the errors committed by Severus Sulpicius against history also fits aptly upon Rodrigo of Toledo, as may be seen in Francisco Macedo, in the Diatribe, where in chapter 10, §2, and chapter 13, he recounts several errors of Rodrigo. But this accusation of errors befits much more the anonymous author of the Loaisan commentary, who from head to foot swarms with errors and ineptitudes, as Francisco Macedo and the Marquis of Mondéjar have fully demonstrated, and we shall show compendiously in the following paragraph. Yet this whole argument, which Alexander so greatly vaunts and thrice repeats, rests on the sole authority of that unknown writer. Thus far I have freely granted to the adversary and disputed ad hominem. But now from that masked Rodrigo, or rather from the anonymous inventor of that fable, I shall pull off the mask, and shall endeavor to evince that that whole disputation, edited by Loaisa, is unworthy of the most prudent Rodrigo of Toledo, and so was feigned by some idle trifler who wished to flatter the prelates of Toledo, whose rights do not need such defenders.

§ XVI. The narration of the same suit is shown to be inept and false.

To certain Spaniards I shall here seem to do what has been done, because the most excellent Marquis of Mondéjar so discussed and overthrew the narration published by Loaisa The anonymous narrator of the suit that he has left me nothing to do. Yet since he composed his most learned dissertation in Spanish, I think it will not be ungrateful to readers ignorant of the Spanish tongue if I here reduce his chief observations to a compendium. The anonymous narrator of the disputation errs in the very exordium of his commentary, where he thus speaks: In the year of the Lord one thousand two hundred, on the fifteenth day of the month of November, a holy and universal synod was celebrated at Rome in the church of St. Savior, lord Pope Innocent III presiding, in the eighteenth year of his pontificate.

[498] Wrongly here are expressed the year of the Lord and the day of the month: for it is established that that synod was held at Rome in the year 1215 on the 11th day of November, he ill marks the year and day on which the Lateran synod was held, as Raynaldus, volume 13 of the Annals, at the year of Christ 1215, number 2, demonstrates from the ancient writers. Moreover the same author of the mentioned narration, afterward unmindful of himself, contradicts himself, when at the end he sets this clause: These things were done at the Lateran, on the eighth of the Ides of October, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand two hundred and fifteen, in the eighteenth year of the pontificate of lord Pope Innocent III. Here indeed he rightly expressed the year of the Lord's Incarnation, but ill the day of the month. Let him who will make this tail agree with the head. At least hence it appears how true is the common proverb: A liar ought to have a good memory.

[499] A little after the beginning (in the Loaisan collection of the councils, page 288) that unskilled trifler brings Rodrigo upon the scene, and asserts, without any show of probability, and exhibits him preaching in the council in English, German, and other languages: Because, he says, from diverse provinces of the world both clerics and laymen had assembled, that he might satisfy all, the reasons and testimonies, uttered in the Latin tongue, he expounded to the laymen also in their maternal languages, to each; namely to the Romans, Germans, French, English, Navarrese, and Spaniards. Who would believe that Rodrigo was so versed in all these idioms that he could straightway make a public speech in them? But if he knew them, was it not unseemly, in such an assembly, to make a public discourse in that idiom which neither the Pontiff nor most of the Fathers of the council understood?

[500] that Rodrigo preached in it in various languages with the applause of all, If Rodrigo had harangued in so many foreign languages, he would rather have incurred the indignation of the prelates and legates present than obtained their applause, as the same trifler feigns in these words: But the exposition of this kind of preaching greatly pleased, inasmuch as it brought admiration to all on account of the acumen and subtlety of genius of the preacher, since from the time of the Apostles it has not been heard, or is found written, that anyone delivered the same discourse to the people, expounding all things in so many and so diverse languages. Not to dwell longer on these trifles: how did Rodrigo there preach the word of God, since in the contemporary Chronicle of Fossanova, in Ughellus, volume 1 of Italia Sacra, column 488, we read that at the beginning of the council a discourse was delivered by Pope Innocent himself? Our Labbe, volume 11 of the councils, part 1, from column 131, edited two sermons which that Pontiff pronounced in that synod. Certainly this place would have been more opportune for Rodrigo to bring forth the testimonies of his primacy, which in no way regarded the foreign people, and which it sufficed to have expounded in Latin to the Pontiff and the assembled Fathers of the council.

[501] and that in it he obtained the office of legate in the Spains for ten years, The same impostor subjoins to this fiction another fable in this manner: But in the same council he (namely Rodrigo of Toledo) obtained that for ten years he should discharge the office of legate in Spain. But it is manifestly false which is here so confidently pronounced: for in the year 1217 there does not seem to have been any Apostolic legate in Spain, since Honorius III committed the ecclesiastical business to various bishops of Spain, as may be seen in Raynaldus, volume 13 of the Annals, at the year of Christ 1217, numbers 84 and 85. After this year the office of legate in Spain was discharged by Cardinal Savelli, of whom our Oldoini, in the History of the Roman Pontiffs and Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, volume 2, column 57, thus writes: Cencio Savelli, a Roman, kinsman of Honorius III, by him created Cardinal bishop of Porto and St. Rufina, discharged the office of legation in Spain, as is handed down of him in the register of Honorius. Under the same Pontiff he died at Rome in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1219, having returned from Spain after discharging his legation. The same affirms Ughellus, volume 1 of Italia Sacra, column 150.

[502] which from Rodrigo's own History, I omit the others who are adduced by the Marquis of Mondéjar: for Rodrigo himself sufficiently convicts this anonymous author of falsity, when in the History of Spanish affairs, book 9, chapter 12, he thus makes mention of the apostolic legate of Spain: At that time (namely between the year 1224 and 1226) there was in the Spains as legate of the Roman church John of Abbeville, which is in the county of Ponthieu *, Cardinal bishop of Sabina, a good, wise, learned man, who, having celebrated councils in the several kingdoms, after he proposed the counsels of salvation, returned to the Apostolic see, three years of the legation being completed. How then did Rodrigo administer the office of legate in Spain for ten years from the year 1215?

[503] Let no one object to me the epistle of Pope Honorius III, and the epistle of Honorius III, which perhaps could be objected to us, who in Raynaldus, volume 13 of the Annals, at the year of Christ 1218, numbers 69 and 70, rouses the Spaniards to the holy war, and decrees to Rodrigo of Toledo the office of legate in these words: Behold an opportune time, as we believe, to rise up against those by whom you are surrounded, the Hagarenes … And although it seemed worthy and necessary that for this we ought to send to you a legate from our own side: yet because it was doubtful to us whether in moving war against them the counsels of the kings would agree, we, however, weighing the prudence of our venerable brother the archbishop of Toledo, the odor of whose name, although fame has long borne it to us with so great heralding that it seemed lavish in his praises, yet now we have found that fame to have been niggardly in the same, since we have found in him far more of knowledge, circumspection, modesty, honesty, and all industry than fame reported; on him we have thought this burden of the office of legation should be imposed, granting it to him for this throughout your provinces, that when in moving war against them the counsels of the kings shall have agreed, he, as another Joshua, may go before you, etc. Given at the Lateran, on the third of the Kalends of February, in the second year of our pontificate.

[504] Let no one, I say, object to me this epistle: for from it it is plain enough that that legation was extraordinary, is shown to be false. and that Rodrigo was deputed to attend to those things which did not impede the office of another apostolic legate. Moreover from the same epistle it is clear that Honorius III first in the year 1218 granted that office to Rodrigo, and accordingly that Rodrigo did not receive it under Innocent III in the Lateran synod, as the anonymous writer pretends. Perhaps that importunate flatterer had somewhere read or heard that Rodrigo had at some time discharged the office of apostolic legate, and thence unskillfully feigned that that dignity was publicly conferred on the prelate of Toledo in the Lateran Council, that from this honorable judgment of the ecumenical synod some glory might redound to the church of Toledo, or thence the primacy of the same church be confirmed. But to whatever end the anonymous author asserted this,

at least that this office of legation was by him not aptly placed in its own time, is plain from this very epistle of Honorius III, from which I also gather that Rodrigo of Toledo was not present at the Lateran Council, as I shall prove in the following paragraph.

[505] The fabulist adjoins to this office of legation certain incredible privileges, Besides the incredible privileges, which he narrates were granted to Rodrigo of Toledo in the same synod in this manner: But further it was permitted him that he might dispense with three hundred illegitimately born; that of these some might be promoted to sacred orders, others to benefices even having the cure of souls, the rest to dignities and honors at his will, and that he might dispense with certain excommunicated, sacrilegious, irregular, and concubinary persons. A grand privilege indeed, another example of which I desire to be shown me.

[506] Then he adds another prerogative, which he thus feigns to have been given to Rodrigo in the same Lateran Council: and the fictitious time of another prerogative, And he also obtained that, as soon as the city of Seville should be restored to the Christian cult, it should, without the noise of a trial, be subject to the church of Toledo by the right of primacy. I indeed admit that this right was at some time given to Rodrigo, but that it fell to him in the Lateran synod I utterly deny. This is elicited well enough from the very epistle of Pope Honorius III, who in Labbe, volume 11 of the councils, part 1, column 245, first in the year 1218 grants this power to Rodrigo archbishop of Toledo in these words: Hence it is that, attending to the nobility of the church of Toledo, out of regard for the spiritual devotion which it is known to have toward the Apostolic see, wishing to make a special favor in the metropolis of Seville and its province: to the same church, by the privilege of the present writing, we grant the right of primacy: appointing that, when the aforesaid metropolis shall have returned to the hands of the Christians, God favoring, thou, brother archbishop, and thy successors, may freely exercise in it those things which pertain to the office of primate. With what credit therefore is Rodrigo said to have obtained in the Lateran Council this privilege, which was given him only after three years by Honorius?

[507] the same fabulist attributes contumelious things to Rodrigo, There follows, in Loaisa, page 289, the altercation of Rodrigo of Toledo with the archbishop of Braga, in which occur so many parachronisms, falsities, ineptitudes, and other absurdities that it is irksome not only to refute them but even to report them. In a word, there Rodrigo, if we believe the anonymous writer, insipidly discourses, omits the chief testimonies of his primacy, most unskillfully disturbs the series of the Roman Pontiffs and emperors, and impotently reproaches the archbishop of Braga that among his predecessors he had Bourdin or Maurice the schismatic; as if he could not rejoin that Elipandus, a heretic, was once archbishop of Toledo. Surely these things do not agree with the knowledge, circumspection, modesty, and other endowments of Rodrigo of Toledo, which above, number 503, Pope Honorius III so greatly extols.

[508] Moreover (these are the words of Francisco Macedo, chapter 13 of the Diatribe) how puerile is that concerning the picture of the Pontiff and Bourdin, puerile things, to which it was necessary to point the finger, and to show the cardinals with a certain Sardonic laugh, and to incite them to contempt of the most grave prelate of Braga. Finally this Rodrigo narrates the history of Bourdin otherwise than he committed it to writing in book 6 of Spanish affairs, chapter 28, as will be manifest to one comparing both. It is not to my liking to dwell on those things which can be read, refuted in Latin by the Spaniards in the Marquis of Mondéjar, chapter 12, and by others, ignorant of the Spanish tongue, in Francisco Macedo, in the Diatribe, chapter 17 and following.

[509] and reasonings unworthy of so great a prelate, Now I proceed to refute the contest of Rodrigo of Toledo with the archbishop of Compostela, which in the preceding paragraph I set forth whole, and of which the often-praised Francisco Macedo, chapter 13, thus judges: That likewise is frivolous, to wish to stand in the way of a most ancient and most received tradition by restricting it to certain nuns and widows, since almost all the churches throughout all Spain resounded it in their breviaries and solemnities of Masses … Finally what is more inept than to bring in an argument from the kinship of James with the Lord Christ, as though this could make for the cause, and to impute it to the prelate of Compostela, who did not even think of that matter? What is more absurd than to try to institute a contest concerning dignity between the Virgin Mother of God and James the apostle, and to digress to what had not come into the mind of the bishop of Compostela, and to commemorate the history of the descent of the Virgin to St. Ildefonsus in the temple of Toledo? As if he would dare to compare the relics of the dead St. James with the glorious body of the most blessed Virgin: which no one, even out of his senses, could even have dreamed. To these futilities are added gross errors, of which I shall now briefly detect one or another.

[510] Rodrigo of Toledo is said to have thus argued against the archbishop of Compostela: and in depressing the antiquity of the church of Compostela If thou thinkest that the antiquity of the church of Compostela makes for thee, that antiquity is contained within the space of a hundred and nine years. If Rodrigo understands this of the church of Compostela from the time when it was first founded by Alfonso the Chaste, or afterward more magnificently restored by Alfonso III, he strays by several centuries from its true antiquity, as is plain from what I said in part 1 of the Commentary, §5, number 49, and §10, number 121. But he seems only to wish to designate the time from which that church was raised to the archiepiscopal dignity, since he immediately proves his assertion in this manner: Lord Pope Callistus, at the instance of the prince, clergy, and peoples of Spain, transferred the metropolitan right of the ancient and most celebrated city of Mérida to Compostela in the year of the Lord 1124. But in this sense too he is deceived: for from the year 1124, in which, according to pseudo-Rodrigo, the church of Compostela obtained the metropolitan right, to the year 1215, in which the Lateran Council was celebrated, not a hundred and nine, but only 91 years had flowed. But I think that Rodrigo was more skilled in arithmetic than that in a computation so easy and so small he should stray by so many years.

[511] If anyone should wish to excuse this arithmetical slip, and by the magnitude because by the drowsiness of the writer or copyist some error easily creeps into numbers, I shall not be a severe corrector of such faults. Yet I shall not so easily pardon another error which pseudo-Rodrigo, to depress the church of Compostela, thus obtrudes in the same context of the speech: Up to these times (namely of Pope Callistus II, of whom he had treated a little before) that place, in which the church of Compostela is now situated, was a certain very small oratory.

[512] That is altogether false, and contrary to Rodrigo himself; he committed gross errors, since concerning Alfonso the Great, who in the era 875, that is, in the year of Christ 837, began to reign, in book 4 of Spanish affairs, chapter 15, he writes the following: The church of St. James, which was of earth, he repaired with squared stones and marble columns. Then, in chapter 18 of the same book, he thus reports the most celebrated dedication of that church, to which very many prelates of all Spain had assembled: The king, the letters being seen, rejoiced with joy, and appointed a day on which the nobles and magnates and pontiffs should assemble, to dedicate the church of blessed James. More concerning this consecration of the church of Compostela has Sampiro of Astorga, in Sandoval, from page 75, where among other things he says that Alfonso built it very beautiful. How then, up to the year 1124, was that place, in which the church of Compostela is now situated, a certain very small oratory?

[513] Francisco Macedo, chapter 19 of the Diatribe, sets forth other reasonings of this kind of pseudo-Rodrigo, which it is wonderful were not observed by our adversaries. and shows that they disagree with the very history of the true Rodrigo. Moreover see the rest of the little narratives of that anonymous fabulist, partly false, partly insipid, exploded by the often-praised authors, because I have long been wearied of such trifles. Meanwhile I cannot sufficiently marvel how that unskilled author of the Toledan commentary, whoever finally he was, could so easily obtain credit among most learned men. What shall I say? New things delight, as the proverb has it, and sometimes deceive the most vigilant men. Thus many learned Spaniards, at the beginning of the last century, deceived by certain impostors, thought that they had found the genuine works of Flavius Lucius Dexter, Luitprand, and other ancient authors, and for this new treasure, as for their altars and hearths, sharply contended. But the keen industry of some detected the fraud, and time gradually taught that they were forged by more recent men under the false name of the ancients, so that now the literate world and the more clear-sighted Spaniards everywhere despise those pseudo-writers, and the Lusitanians lately prudently eliminated them from their academy. Now, to overthrow utterly the credit of this Loaisan commentary, I shall endeavor to show that Rodrigo, archbishop of Toledo, was not present at the Lateran Council.

* read "Pontivi" (Ponthieu)

§ XVII. From various instruments it is proved that Rodrigo of Toledo was not present at the Lateran Council.

In the time of Pope Innocent III the controversy concerning the primacy Pope Innocent III, in the thirteenth year of his pontificate, that is, of Christ 1210, gave letters to Rodrigo, archbishop of Toledo, by which in the Baluzian edition, volume 2, page 408, he thus confirms to him the primacy of Spain: By this reasoning therefore prudently induced, wishing to conserve the rights of the noble and famous church of Toledo, the proper and special daughter of the Apostolic See, we have thought, venerable brother Rodrigo, whom we love with true charity in Christ, that your reasonable petitions should be assented to with the affection of paternal piety: and therefore by the present page of privilege, after the example of Urban, Gelasius, Callistus, Honorius, Eugenius, Adrian, Alexander I, Alexander II, Alexander III, Urban, and Celestine our predecessors of happy memory, we confirm by apostolic authority the dignity of primacy through the kingdoms of the Spains to thee and to the church of Toledo, and the prelates of the Spains shall look to thee as primate, and shall refer to thee if anything worthy of question shall have arisen among them. The archbishop of Braga did not obey this decree of the Pontiff. Wherefore Rodrigo sent a certain cleric to the same Innocent, to press the execution of his decree. But the Pontiff in the year 1211 answered that, on account of the danger which threatened Spain from the Saracens, he could not now do it, but that at a more opportune time that suit should be settled, as is read in the responsive epistle of Innocent in Baluze, volume 2, page 530. Hence it is plain that this controversy between Rodrigo of Toledo and the archbishop of Braga was begun before the Lateran Council.

[515] between the archbishop of Toledo and of Braga But when Rodrigo in the year 1212, after winning a signal victory over the Saracens, again insisted that the decree of the Pontiff be carried into execution, the prelate of Braga, alleging the reasons of his resistance, prolonged the suit until the times of Pope Honorius III, who in Labbe, volume 11, part 1, column 244, thus writes to him and to the chapter of Braga: Before Pope Innocent of happy memory our predecessor, the suit between our venerable brother the archbishop of Toledo and thee, brother archbishop, concerning the primacy, being solemnly contested, a peremptory

term was assigned to you, at which you should send suitable proctors, with your reasons and defenses, to the Apostolic See. But when the proctors of the cause had afterward come to the Roman curia, and lacked the due instruments, they again asked a delay, which Honorius granted them until the next octaves of Pentecost. But he says that, this peremptory term being elapsed, he will proceed to the decision of the suit. From these things it is established that it is false what, after the mentioned commentary of the anonymous writer, Loaisa asserts in these words: All which things Rodrigo Ximénez performed publicly at Rome in the cause of his primacy, which he obtained: for the supreme Pontiff conferred on him the honor of primacy before all, as he had before granted in the diploma. The same error of Loaisa our Gabriel Cossart, in the notes to the Lateran Council, in the volume and part just cited, page 236, Nicolás Antonio, in the Bibliotheca Hispanica, volume 2, page 35, and other learned men before me, observed.

[516] Before I come to what in this paragraph I have undertaken to prove, I desire three things to be noted. First, I have hitherto found no writer [(of the suit then stirred up between the Toledan and the Compostelan none of the ancients make mention)] older than the Loaisan edition of the aforesaid commentary who affirms the presence of Rodrigo, archbishop of Toledo, at the Lateran Council. Second, neither Innocent nor Honorius, whose epistles pertaining to Spain Cardinal Aguirre, volume 3 of the councils, from page 403, edited, anywhere make mention of the primacy controverted between Rodrigo of Toledo and the archbishop of Compostela, so that this whole altercation in the Lateran synod the anonymous fabulist seems only to have produced from his own brain. Yet I do not deny that afterward a suit concerning the primacy was instituted at Rome between Rodrigo and the archbishop of Compostela: since Juan de Ferreras, in the History of Spain lately edited in Spanish, at the era 1273, or the year of Christ 1235, notes from older monuments that Rodrigo of Toledo on that account at that time departed for Rome, which same Roman journey below, number 519, is gathered well enough from Rodrigo's own History, although there the cause of the journey is not expressed. But at that time Innocent and Honorius had long died. Third, the letters of these two Pontiffs nowhere indicate that Rodrigo of Toledo, in the time of Innocent III, came to Rome on account of the controversy with the archbishop of Braga, to plead his cause in person; nay from them it is rather gathered that he sent the proctors of his cause to the City: for Innocent in the year 1211, in the Baluzian edition, book 14, epistle 57, thus answers the archbishop of Toledo: That we have not yet admitted the petitions which thou hast offered us through M. thy cleric concerning the business of the primacy, thou shalt know proceeded not from hardness, but from providence.

[517] The most illustrious Diego de Castejón, in the defense of the primacy of Toledo, among the instruments prefixed to the work, folio 24, reports an epistle given on the 12th day of January in the year 1215, was agitated at Rome on both sides through proctors, by which the same Pontiff enjoins the archbishop of Braga that before the feast of All Saints, next to come, … he send suitable proctors to his presence, that the cause itself (namely concerning the primacy controverted between Rodrigo of Toledo and himself) may be terminated with a due end. This also Pope Honorius confirms, whose words I brought forth above, number 515. The same is elicited from another epistle of Honorius, reported in our Labbe, volume 11, part 1, column 244, in which to Rodrigo of Toledo, concerning John the cleric, proctor of the archbishop of Braga, he thus writes: The same proctor asked that the term, peremptorily assigned to thee and to the aforesaid archbishop and his chapter, in the cause which concerning the primacy is agitated between thee and them, by Pope Innocent of happy memory our predecessor, … be prorogued, for that J. Gutiérrez, canon of Toledo, whom thou didst appoint proctor to the presence of those to whom was committed the reception of witnesses, was judged insufficient by them. It seems therefore that this cause, in the time of Innocent III, who died in the year 1216, on the 16th day of July, was conducted on both sides through proctors.

[518] although Rodrigo of Toledo afterward pleaded his cause there. Yet on that account I do not deny that Rodrigo went to Rome at other times: for before Honorius III he himself appeared, to defend the right of his primacy against the prelate of Braga; but afterward, in the time of Pope Gregory IX, he was again at Rome, to plead his cause against the archbishop of Compostela, or perhaps to transact certain other business. I would not dare to affirm that the same prelate of Toledo set out to Innocent III in the year 1211, even though, besides others, our Mariana, book 11 of the History of Spain, chapter 23, asserts it in these words: Rodrigo, prelate of Toledo, was sent to Rome to obtain pardon of sins for all who, in the manner usual in those times, distinguished by the notable cross, should assemble for the holy war. Not rashly could this journey of Rodrigo be doubted, since other authors write that Giraldus or Gerard, who had been elected bishop of Segovia, was sent to Rome to obtain from Innocent III indulgences for the Christians about to fight against the Moors. This legation of Giraldus, elect of Segovia, is elicited from the very letters of Pope Innocent, who in book 14, epistle 154, in the Baluzian edition, volume 2, page 582, answers Alfonso, king of Castile, that he grants remission of sins to all who shall help the Spaniards in the holy war, according, he says, to thy petition and the insistence of the beloved son the elect of Segovia, thy envoy, who was solicitous and attentive about the promotion of the same business. But Rodrigo of Toledo at that time seems to have departed into Gaul with certain prelates of Spain, to rouse the inhabitants of that kingdom to the war to be waged against the Mohammedans in Spain. But it matters little where Rodrigo then was, if he was not present at the Lateran Council, which in the year 1215 on the 11th day of November was begun, as I shall now show that he was not present.

[519] we gather from the silence of Lucas of Tuy In the first place let it be permitted me also to use the negative argument, by which the adversaries so often assail the Spaniards. Lucas of Tuy, contemporary of Rodrigo of Toledo, volume 4 of Hispania Illustrata, page 113, narrates that a great multitude of prelates assembled at the Lateran Council, and is silent concerning the presence of the archbishop of Toledo, of whom yet on the same page a little before he makes mention in these words: At that time the most reverend father Rodrigo, archbishop of Toledo, built the church of Toledo with wonderful work.

[520] and of Rodrigo of Toledo himself, Nay indeed Rodrigo in his writings makes no mention of this Roman journey, since yet elsewhere he is wont to commemorate the deeds done or omitted by himself. Thus in book 9, chapter 12, treating of the war of St. Ferdinand against the Moors, he says: In this expedition Rodrigo, pontiff of Toledo, was not present, who had remained at Guadalajara *, wearied by the sharpness of a fever. Thus in the same book, chapter 17, he renders the reason why he did not consecrate the church of Cordova, wrested from the Moors in the year of Christ 1236: And because the venerable John, he says, of whom we spoke, discharged the office of Rodrigo of Toledo the primate, who at that time stayed at the Apostolic See, the filth of Mohammed being eliminated, and water of lustration being poured over it, he changed the mosque into a church. He who thus speaks of himself, why would he keep silent that he was present at the most celebrated Lateran Council? I confess, however, that by this negative argument the matter is not plainly settled. Wherefore I proceed to other things.

[521] After the death of Alfonso VIII, king of Castile, and of Eleonora his consort, and by various Spanish affairs who both died in the year 1214, Rodrigo, archbishop of Toledo, who with three others had been constituted executor of the royal testament, undertook the guardianship of the younger king Henry, as is proved from certain ancient instruments which the Marquis of Mondéjar and other Spanish historians everywhere cite. Diego de Colmenares, in the History of Segovia, chapter 20, §1, reports a whole diploma of King Henry, given in favor of the church of Segovia, in the era 1252, that is, in the year of Christ 1214, on the eighteenth day of December, to which subscribes Rodrigo, archbishop of the see of Toledo, with many others, on the 18th day of January in the year 1215, when the assembly was held in the city of Burgos, as, §2, the same Colmenares relates, and the Marquis of Mondéjar confirms, who testifies that a transcript of this latter diploma, taken from the archive, is preserved with him.

[522] Since meanwhile Berengaria administered the kingdom of Castile in the place of her minor brother, at which the latter of these was present, the powerful family of Lara by various arts sought the procuration of the kingdom, and desired to reign under another's name, and effected so much that Berengaria, to preserve the tranquillity of the kingdom, was compelled to commit her brother to Álvaro de Lara, certain conditions being first demanded, which Rodrigo himself, book 9, chapter 1, thus sets forth: Which when the shrewd queen Berengaria had perceived, she granted it with grateful mind; but fearing the insolences which came, she made count Álvaro and the magnates swear that without the counsel of the queen herself they would neither take away land from any, nor give land to any, nor move war against the neighboring kings, nor impose the fine which in Spain is called "pecta" on any part of the kingdom: and they confirmed it by oath and homage in the hand of Rodrigo, pontiff of Toledo, and if they should do the contrary, they should be held by the infamy of treason. But these things seem to have happened in the month of March of the year 1215, as is inferred from a certain instrument of which Alfonso Muñoz, cited in the Marquis of Mondéjar, makes mention.

[523] Our Mariana, in narrating this history, disturbs the order of times and of the deeds done: and whose chronology our Mariana for in book 12, chapter 4, he asserts that the machinations of the Lara brothers succeeded according to their will, for that Rodrigo of Toledo had set out to the Lateran Council. Then in the following chapter he defers the oath taken by Álvaro de Lara, of which above, until the return of Rodrigo. This chronological arrangement does not please me: for since the Lateran synod was only ended toward the end of November in the year 1215, Rodrigo of Toledo could not have returned into Spain before the beginning of the year 1216. Meanwhile in volume 2 of Hispania Illustrata, page 161, I read an instrument by which the same Álvaro, after the unjust vexations of the churches and the violation of the former oath, promises better things; but to that instrument it is thus subscribed: The charter made at Soria… on the 15th day of February, in the era 1254, that is, in the year of Christ 1216.

[524] did not place accurately enough. And so, according to the opinion of Mariana, if Rodrigo returned from Rome into Spain at the beginning of January of the year 1216, between the first oath of count Álvaro, taken before Rodrigo, and the latter promise of amendment scarcely a month and a half could intervene. But Rodrigo himself, book 9, chapter 1, narrates that after the first oath of fidelity the following happened: He (namely Álvaro), with Gonzalo Rodríguez and his brothers, then favoring him, going out at once at Burgos, began to procure destructions, to humble the great, to drain the rich of the common people, to enslave the religious orders and churches, and likewise began to confiscate the thirds of the tithes, which pertained to the fabric of the churches. But, excommunicated by Rodrigo, dean of Toledo, who then discharged the office of the archbishop, he was compelled to restore them, and to swear that he would not attempt it henceforth. Who would believe that so many and so diverse things were done in so small a space of time? Add that

the assembly of the magnates at Burgos was held in the year 1215, as is elicited from what has been said above.

[525] that Rodrigo, prelate of Toledo, did not depart from Spain in the year 1215. Nor does it matter that Rodrigo, dean of Toledo, who then discharged the office of the archbishop, pronounced the sentence of excommunication against count Álvaro: for from this the absence of Rodrigo, archbishop of Toledo, does not follow, since most probably this prelate, overwhelmed with various and arduous occupations of the church and kingdom, always had a vicar for governing his vast diocese, to whom several affairs were committed, as we see even today done in many churches. Nor is this rashly said: for the general Chronicle, cited by the Marquis of Mondéjar, shows well enough that that sentence of anathema was pronounced by the order of the archbishop, and in part 4, chapter 10, has these words, which from the old Spanish idiom I thus faithfully render into Latin: And when the archbishop lord Rodrigo of Toledo saw this, he subjected the kingdom to interdict, so that he (namely Álvaro de Lara) compelled to give back all things taken away, who swore that he would thenceforth take away nothing more. If Rodrigo had not then been in Spain, certainly he would have indicated the cause of his absence, as above, number 519, he renders the reason why John consecrated the church of Cordova. Add that Rodrigo on the 20th day of April in the year 1215 was with the king at Ávila, where to the privilege given in favor of that city he thus subscribed: Rodrigo, archbishop of the see of Toledo. This the count of Mora testifies, in the Marquis of Mondéjar, volume 9, folio 306.

[526] From two diplomas, Moreover Rodrigo in the year 1215, on the 27th day of September, in the town of Arévalo, which is situated in Old Castile near the borders of León, subscribed to the donation which King Henry made to the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and which the Marquis of Mondéjar reports from a manuscript of Juan Lucas Cortés in these words: In the era 1253 (this corresponds to the year of Christ 1215), at Arévalo, on the twenty-seventh day of September, Henry king of Castile gives in perpetuity to the brothers of the hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, and to the commander who shall hold the castle of Consuegra, thirty "caficios" (it is a kind of Spanish measure, of which James I, king of Aragon, makes mention in the manuscript constitutions of Catalonia in Du Cange in the Glossary) of salt by the Toledan measure yearly for the work of the castle of Consuegra. There confirm it Rodrigo, archbishop of Toledo, Tello, bishop of Palencia, etc. Juan de Ferreras, supreme keeper of the royal library of Madrid, in the Latin Dissertation on the coming of St. James into Spain, number 43, affirms that this privilege is now preserved among his manuscript codices.

[527] If Rodrigo on the 27th day of September in the year 1215 was at Arévalo in Castile, to one of which he subscribed on the 27th of September in the year 1215, how could he in the same year be at Rome on the 8th of October, on which day the anonymous author of the Loaisan commentary fables that that contest of Rodrigo was held in the Lateran Council? But let us grant that the anonymous writer erred, and that the beginning of the Lateran synod is to be fixed on the 11th day of November. This being posited, if Rodrigo set out from the town of Arévalo to Rome by a land journey, he must have completed more than three hundred and fifty leagues in the space of forty-four days, which is little probable.

[528] Perhaps someone will say that he could in a short time cross by sea from Spain into Italy. to the other, about the beginning of the year 1216, Rodrigo subscribed in Spain, But who would easily persuade himself that Rodrigo in that case deferred the Roman journey so long, in which, besides the great interval of land which he first had to traverse from Arévalo to some port of the Mediterranean sea, all the certainty of arrival depended on the inconstancy of the wind? Add that Rodrigo must have returned from Italy into Spain in a similar space of time, since he could not depart from Rome before the beginning of December, and on the 15th day of January of the following year subscribed to another privilege at Madrid, as the praised Juan de Ferreras, in the History of Spain, at the year of Christ 1215, part 6, page 60, affirms.

[529] Finally, from the epistle of Honorius III, which in the year 1218 he gave to the bishops of Ávila and Burgos, and it is inferred from the epistle of Honorius III, and of which a fragment I set forth in the preceding paragraph, number 503, it is most probably elicited that Rodrigo was not present at the Lateran Council: for in it, among other things, he thus writes: We, however, weighing the prudence of our venerable brother the archbishop of Toledo, the odor of whose name, although fame has long borne it to us with so great heralding that it seemed lavish in his praises; NOW, however, we have found that fame to have been niggardly in the same, since we have found in him far more of knowledge, circumspection, modesty, honesty, and all industry than fame reported. From this manner of speaking I deduce a double sequel. The first is that Rodrigo of Toledo appeared before Pope Honorius, and was known to him from conversation; which nearer acquaintance is also confirmed from another epistle of the same Pontiff, written to Rodrigo of Toledo, which in Labbe, volume 11, part 1, column 244, thus begins: Thee, and John of Braga the cleric, proctor of our venerable brother the archbishop of Braga, being constituted in our presence, etc.

[530] The other consequence is that Rodrigo of Toledo was known to Honorius III before his pontificate only from fame, that he was not present at the Lateran Council toward the end of the year 1215, and so that he did not publicly contend in the Lateran Council with the mentioned archbishops concerning the primacy: for if he had there so disputed, and in so many and so diverse languages had harangued before Pope Innocent and the Cardinals to the amazement of all, as the anonymous writer feigns; how would Honorius not have heard him, who then, under the name of Cencio, shone with the cardinalitial dignity, as in Raynaldus, volume 13 of the Ecclesiastical Annals, at the year of Christ 1216, number 16, is reported from the ancient writers? How would this Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, through the whole time of the council, not have seen the prelate of Toledo, so celebrated? How, finally, after the death of Innocent III, raised to the Pontificate, could he write that Rodrigo of Toledo was before known to him only from fame, but that he now found in him more endowments of virtues than fame had reported? From these things therefore I most probably conclude that Rodrigo, archbishop of Toledo, was not present at the Lateran Council, although some more recent writers have written this, who, without ancient leaders, incautiously followed this inept and anonymous defender of the primacy of Toledo.

[531] whose presence in that synod, however, the adversaries suppose as certain. After all things hitherto disputed, we hope that the fair arbiters of the whole controversy will not difficultly consent, that at least Natalis Alexander henceforth cease to sing to us this his victory-song: We have the firmer prophetic word, we have the more luminous testimonies of the ancient Roman Pontiffs, namely of Innocent I, Hormisdas, and Gregory VII, and also the most grave disputation of Rodrigo, archbishop of Toledo, in the ecumenical council, which the council and the Pontiff made their own by approving. This triumphal epiphonema of the adversary we have, I think, sufficiently discussed before: for in the twelfth paragraph of this part we proved that the prophetic word, or text of sacred Scripture, can be conveniently expounded in various ways without any injury to the Spanish tradition. Then in §§13 and 14 it was shown by diverse explanations that no testimonies of the Roman Pontiffs are repugnant to the Spanish preaching of St. James. Finally, in the three following paragraphs, we demonstrated that the public disputation of Rodrigo of Toledo in the Lateran Council, which the adversary calls most grave, is unworthy of so great a prelate, and was feigned by some scoundrel, which therefore the council and the Pontiff never heard, much less made their own by approving, as Natalis Alexander too confidently vaunts.

§ XVIII. A new argument against the preaching of St. James in Spain is objected, and dissolved.

The letters of abbot Caesarius Now there remains a last difficulty, and that in appearance not the least, which occurred to me by chance while I was seeking something else, and which I marvel has hitherto been objected to the Spaniards by no one. While I was turning over the posthumous work of the most illustrious Pierre de Marca, entitled Marca Hispanica or the Spanish Boundary, augmented and edited by Étienne Baluze, in book 4, columns 403 and 404, I found the following: There exists in the archive of the church of Vic an epistle of Caesarius, abbot of St. Cecilia at Montserrat, to Pope John, in which he narrates that he was ordained archbishop of the province of Tarragona in the synod of Compostela; but afterward, when he had set out into the province, that he was not received by the bishops, nay that he suffered grave contradiction from Peter of Barcelona, Arnulf of Girona, Atto of Vic, Wisad of Urgell, and Aymeric, metropolitan of the see of Narbonne.

[533] And since Caesarius, to win reverence for himself and authority for his ordination, said from which the preaching of St. James in Spain can be impugned, that he had been ordained before the body of blessed James the apostle, who had founded the Spanish churches, they answered him that no protection for his cause could thence be sought by him, since it was certain that this Saint was not the apostle of the Spains: Because THAT APOSTLE CAME HITHER SLAIN, they said, BUT BY NO MEANS ALIVE. It was for him to prove what was denied by the others. Yet he did not do it; but, turning to the distribution of the provinces made by the Apostles, he said that James preached [in] Spain and the western PLACES. Then he begs the Pope to be present to him against the contumacious. With what fidelity Baluze elicited this narration from the letters of Caesarius, will afterward be discussed. Meanwhile everyone sees well enough what the adversaries against the preaching of St. James in Spain can elicit from these words. If Natalis Alexander had found these things, without doubt he would have more confidently sung the triumph before the victory: since he so greatly extols the authority of Rodrigo of Toledo alone, whom he thought to have contradicted the preaching of St. James in Spain in the thirteenth century.

[534] To me these letters of Caesarius are rendered not a little suspect of fiction, the editor Baluze himself judges them false or interpolated. since in them he is said to have been ordained on the 3rd of the Kalends of December, in the era 938, that is, in the year of Christ 900, in which perhaps he was not yet born, as is manifest from the circumstances of the persons and other things. Wherefore I vehemently marvel that Labbe, the most eminent Aguirre, and most recently Harduin in their collections of the councils referred this synod of Compostela, of which in other ancient monuments no mention is made, to the same year 900. Baluze himself saw this anachronism, and therefore immediately after the compendium of the letters just mentioned thus notes: It seems difficult to establish the time in which these things were done: for in the epistle of Caesarius, which must be either false or interpolated, his ordination is said to have been performed in the era 938 (that designates the year of Christ 900, as I have already admonished), on the 3rd of the Kalends of December; which is manifestly false: for he was not yet distinguished by the name of archbishop at the end of the year 971 (nay later, since Benedict VI was first raised to the chair of Peter in the year 972 on the 20th day of December), in which Pope Benedict VI granted a privilege to him, then only abbot of St. Cecilia. Observe that the epistle of Caesarius is here called by Baluze false or interpolated.

[535] Antoine Pagi, in the historico-chronological Critique of the Annals of Baronius, volume 3, Antoine Pagi contends pages 776 and 777, disputes at length concerning this era, and contends that the epistle of Caesarius is not to be rejected, although in it the number of the years has been corrupted. Whence in the place just cited, at the year of Christ 900, number 10, he thus writes: The copy of these letters written by Caesarius could easily be corrupted in the numbers by an unskilled scribe; since the Spaniards long were ignorant of the ciphers used by their predecessors, and these were only in our age drawn out of darkness: they had forgotten, I say, that this cipher XV denotes XL, and T was used by them for a thousand, who therefore corrupted the subscriptions of many letters in which these were found. In the autograph of the letters of Caesarius it was written: era T VIIII, that is, era M VIIII (1009), and the scribe interpreted it era 938.

[536] Pagi pronounces so confidently that the mark T VIIII was placed by Caesarius, as if he had seen the autograph of his epistle, which yet he will not easily persuade me. I would more easily believe that error could have been made, if it were a matter of the addition, that only the numbers in that epistle were corrupted, omission, or transposition of one or another number. But if you wish to ascribe so great a change of numbers to the scribe, you will also be able to suspect that the passage concerning the preaching of St. James in Spain was inserted into these letters by a malevolent copyist, hostile to the Spaniards. Therefore this conjecture of Pagi is as easily denied as it is asserted. Nevertheless in the same place, number 11, he thus concludes: In the letters therefore of Caesarius to John XIII only the year of the Spanish era is corrupted, and they demonstrate for certain that the council of Compostela was convoked in the year 971.

[537] which being even freely granted, But let us freely grant to Pagi that the era was corrupted, and that M VIIII should be substituted, which corresponds to the year of Christ 971. This also being conceded, not slight scruples remain, which I desire to be removed for me. In the first place Pagi himself, at the year 900, number 8, thus speaks: In that year of Christ (namely 971, of which he there treats) Borrell, count of Barcelona, set out to the thresholds of the apostles Peter and Paul with Atto, bishop of Vic, and Gerbert, a monk of Aurillac, and obtained from Pope John, namely of this name the thirteenth, that the metropolitan right of the province of Tarragona be transferred to the see of Vic, and that both churches be united. But he adds that he learned this from Francisco Diago, a Dominican, who in the Spanish history of the counts of Barcelona, book 2, chapter 19, brings forth in Latin the whole bull of Pope John, given in the month of January, in the fourteenth indiction, concerning this matter, and in the following chapter shows, against Antonio Agustín, that it was written in the year 971, so that Pagi with hands and feet descends into his opinion.

[538] we argue ad hominem, But now from these things I thus argue ad hominem: If at the beginning of the year 971, when the city of Tarragona groaned under the yoke of the Saracens, the metropolitan right passed to the bishopric of Vic, and both churches were united under Atto, prelate of Vic, how was Caesarius, about the end of the same year 971 (namely on the 3rd of the Kalends of December, as is noted in the epistle of Caesarius), consecrated in the council of Compostela archbishop of Tarragona? How did he receive a church already united by the Pontiff to another? Would not Atto of Vic have complained of the injury, and said that the dignity which he had received from the Roman Pontiff could not be wrested from him by the council of Compostela? Yet nothing of these things is mentioned in the epistle of Caesarius, as we shall afterward see.

[539] and from the diploma of Pope Benedict VI Nor wilt thou hence escape by saying that only the title of archbishop of Tarragona was granted to Caesarius, since Tarragona was occupied by the Saracens: for Caesarius in his letters shows well enough that he wished for himself not the bare name of archbishop of Tarragona, but the metropolitan right over sixteen cities subject to the church of Tarragona, which he enumerates. Moreover I ask why Benedict VI, in the diploma which in the appendix of the Marca Hispanica, column 895, is reported from the archive of Montserrat, afterward writes to Caesarius in this manner: Benedict, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to Caesarius, abbot of the venerable monastery of St. Cecilia of Montserrat, and to all thy congregation, and to thy successors, perpetual salvation in the Lord. Why does this Pontiff not address Caesarius by the name of archbishop of Tarragona, which he had already had from the year 971? Are not those prelates whom we now commonly call bishops in partibus addressed by the Roman Pontiffs with the title of their church? Was it unknown in the Roman curia who bore the title of archbishop of Tarragona at that time? Or, finally, had Caesarius been consecrated against the will of the Roman Pontiff? But how then would he have dared to recur to the Roman Pontiff to have his right confirmed?

[540] Pagi indeed, number 12, answers that this title of the archiepiscopal dignity was dissembled by the Pontiff, we propose other difficulties to him. lest, it being commemorated, the other prelates of Catalonia should be disturbed. But this evasion is devised without any foundation: for, to omit other things, would not the bishops of Catalonia have been more disturbed, if they had seen a man arrogate to himself a title which the Pope did not dare to give him? Would they not have complained more loudly that Caesarius claimed for himself the dignity with which John XIII had before adorned the bishop of Vic, and which no Roman Pontiff had granted to Caesarius?

[541] I am not ignorant that this diploma of Pope Benedict is charged with fiction by Pagi, But just as Pagi judges the diploma of Pope Benedict supposititious, when at the same year, number 12, he thus discourses: But those letters seem suspect of falsity, and forged only to this end, that the abbots of the monastery of Ripoll might be more and more confirmed in the possession of the monastery of St. Cecilia: for besides the falsity of the subscription, the style of the rescript is dissonant from that which the Roman Pontiffs of those times used: for the Roman Pontiffs can neither take from their successors the power of ordaining things as shall seem better to them, nor excommunicate them. Then he shows that these discordant things are contained in that diploma. At length he renders the same diploma suspect by this negative argument: Finally, in the year 1023, in which Berengar, count of Barcelona, the parties being heard, adjudged the abbey of St. Cecilia to the monastery of Ripoll, as may be seen in the letters of the same Berengar just mentioned, the monks of the monastery of St. Cecilia showed no privileges against those of Ripoll; but on the sole possession, into which they had been thrust by force, they founded all their right. But if a few years before Benedict VI or VII had appointed anything in favor of the monastery of St. Cecilia, in this cause it would not have been passed over in silence. I confess that, on account of these and other reasons of Pagi, the credit of this diploma can deservedly be called into doubt. But if at the time when these letters were forged under the name of the Pontiff there had been a memory of the archbishopric of Caesarius, why would the forger of the diploma have kept silent about that title, which pertained also to the glory of the monastery of St. Cecilia?

[542] However the difficulties be solved or explained [so we suspect that these letters of Caesarius, on account of their puerile style,] which concerning the archbishopric of Tarragona I have hitherto proposed, at least concerning the letters of Caesarius I suspect the same which Pagi thinks is to be judged of the diploma of Pope Benedict: since, besides the manifest chronological error and the unusual manner of writing, several ineptitudes offer themselves in them. But lest I seem to have said this rashly, receive a specimen from the very epistle, which Baluze, book 7 of the Miscellanea, from page 57, edited whole, and which there thus begins: To him radiant with sidereal splendor like the luminaries of the bright heaven by the merits of virtues, flourishing like a swan gracious in repute, white as a lily, ruddy as a rose with the girdle of chastity, with a long execration of the ecclesiastical, as appears, the joy of fastings and vigils, and of those submitting their necks to obedience, connected by a fragrant sprinkling, an odoriferous unity, by the inseparable bonds of peace, love, and kindness and sweetness, whose prayer penetrates to the high and ethereal throne like incense … with brightness and the flight of humility the color shines again, and praise and less or nearly is seen to resound, to my lord John, I Caesarius, unworthy, by the grace of God archbishop of the province of Tarragona, which is founded in Spain. A puerile exordium indeed, and unworthy of an archbishop, which needs an Oedipus for interpreter!

[543] the false number of the year, Then he undertakes to set forth his cause in this manner: O my lord father, most holy Apostolic one, hear me, father, how I went to the house of St. James of the apostolic see, who is entombed in his apostolic see of Galicia. And I the unworthy above-said was at the house of St. James, and sought the blessing of the province of Tarragona or its munificences, that is, Barcelona, Egara, Girona, Empúries, Vic, Urgell, Lérida, Ictosa, Tortosa, Saragossa, Huesca, Pamplona, Auca, Calahorra, Tarazona. And there are made sixteen cities under the metropolitan of Tarragona. Then in a long order he recounts the names of the bishops by whom in the synod of Compostela he was elected archbishop of Tarragona on the 3rd of the Kalends of December, in the era 938, which corresponds to the year of Christ 900. Baluze and Pagi confess that this era is false, as has been said above at length.

[544] and the inept answers of the same abbot After these things Caesarius thus narrates the controversy arisen between himself and some bishops: Those bishops above written anointed me and blessed me of the same province of Tarragona and with its munificences, the cities written. And I Caesarius the archbishop, having returned to my named province, the bishops contradicted me, by these names: Peter, bishop of Barcelona, Arnulf, the late bishop of the see of Girona, Atto, bishop of the see of Vic, Wisad, bishop of the see of Urgell, and Aymeric, metropolitan bishop of the see of Narbonne. These already above written and named, because they said that that apostolate which is named Spain and the Western regions was not the apostolate of St. James; because that Apostle came hither slain, but by no means alive. And I gave them answer according to the canonical authority of the Nicene council, where there were three hundred and eighteen bishops, and according to the Toledan canon, where sixty-six bishops of the provinces of Spain and Gothia subscribed, published in the third year, lord Sisenand reigning, on the Nones of December, in the era 671. O lord, know ye that Peter received Rome, Andrew Achaia, James, who is interpreted the son of Zebedee, brother of John the apostle and evangelist, preached [in] Spain and the Western places, and, cut down by the sword under Herod, fell.

[545] we suspect to be fictitious. Then, the provinces of the other Apostles being enumerated, he thus unskillfully concludes against his adversaries: O holy father, I say that whoever contradicts this, that it were not true, is a contradictor of the Lord and of the law. Where, I beseech, did the Lord reveal, or in what law is it written, in what place the several Apostles preached? With what face therefore would Caesarius have dared to accuse those bishops, as contrary to the Lord and the law, on this head, before the Roman Pontiff? Surely he would more prudently have said that that opinion of the adversaries was repugnant to the common tradition or history. It will help, to the confirmation of my suspicion, to hear the epilogue of the same

epistle, which he no less ineptly and barbarously thus concludes: I beseech you, father, by God the Father omnipotent, that you cause your counsel and your letters to be transmitted to me through this priest named by name Galindo. And whenever I shall be able the sooner, with great reverence and honor, I make myself go to the threshold of St. Peter the apostle. And I desire to kiss your feet and to see your cheerful countenance. We ask that you give us such of your counsels whereby I may be able to be extricated over them. Only do as we ask, and deign to accommodate your ears to our prayers, lord and venerable Pope. Amen. So be it. Do you see from how obscure and suspect an instrument the preaching of St. James in Spain is impugned?

[546] I cannot sufficiently marvel that the most learned Baluze attributed so great authority to this epistle This epistle of Caesarius by the authority of King Alfonso III that in the notes to it, book 7 of the Miscellanea, page 61, he thus wrote: For the rest, it is greatly to be noted what Caesarius says in this epistle, that the bishops who contradicted him said that James the apostle came to Compostela slain, but by no means alive: with which opinion of theirs agree the letters of Alfonso, king of Spain, given in the year 906. These letters of Alfonso, which Baluze testifies he saw in the chartulary of Tours, I set forth in part 1 of this Commentary, §5. But I do not see how they favor the opinion of those bishops who denied that St. James came alive into Spain. Alfonso rather intimates that he is opposed to such an opinion, when at the beginning of the epistle he calls the prelate of Compostela the distinguished pontiff of the apostolic see of James. How would he have adorned the church of Compostela with the title of apostolic see, unless he had thought it instituted by James the apostle, or at least illumined with the light of the faith? For churches are not wont to be called apostolic because in them the bodies of the Apostles rest. Thus the church of Constantinople or of Amalfi is not called apostolic, even though the body of St. Andrew the apostle was translated to them, of which translations the Roman Martyrology on the 9th day of May makes mention.

[547] Nay, even if I should freely grant that Alfonso made no word, not even implicitly, concerning the preaching of St. James in Spain, Baluze wrongly confirms, I contend that this ought not to have been done by him in that epistle; which I thus prove. The people of Tours had asked whose Apostle's tomb was held in Spain. Alfonso answers that there rests most certainly the body of St. James, son of Zebedee, which had been translated from Jerusalem into Spain; and he makes no express mention of his preaching, both because there was no inquiry about it, and because the pressing departure of the couriers did not permit it to be explained at greater length. But if we should now wish to narrate these things to you one by one, says Alfonso in his letters, the pen would be turned at greater length, whereby we should exceed the measure of a proper epistle, nay the haste of the bearers, who were unwilling to delay. Then he promises that he will write out all things more clearly and thoroughly when the clerics of Tours shall come into Spain. How then does the epistle of Alfonso agree with the opinion of those bishops, which only answers the things which were asked, and does not explicitly mention the preaching of St. James, of which there was no question? There is also another point in which I require greater fidelity from Baluze, as I shall now show.

[548] and does not report faithfully or accurately enough, In the first place, in the whole epistle of Caesarius I nowhere find that the bishops opposing him said that it was certain that St. James the apostle did not preach the Gospel in Spain. They deny indeed that that holy Apostle came alive into Spain, but they do not assert that this is certain. Meanwhile Baluze, cited at the beginning of this paragraph, in the Marca Hispanica, column 404, exhibits to us such an answer of those prelates: They answered him that no protection for his cause could thence be sought by him, SINCE IT WAS CERTAIN that this Saint was not the apostle of the Spains. This affirmation of certainty, therefore, was little sincerely inserted by Baluze into the compendious exposition of the mentioned letters. If anyone deny this, I appeal to the text of the epistle of Caesarius, which Baluze himself, book 7 of the Miscellanea, from page 57, afterward edited with certain notes. Moreover from the fragments of the same epistle already reported it is gathered well enough what these prelates objected to Caesarius, and what he answered them. Yet Baluze, above number 532, thus concludes the synopsis of this suit abridged by him: It was for him (namely Caesarius) to prove what was denied by the others. Yet he did not do it; but, turning to the distribution of the provinces made by the Apostles, he said that James preached [in] Spain and the western PLACES. Now that clause of Baluze must be briefly discussed.

[549] how, to certain bishops When Caesarius answers that that holy Apostle preached through Spain and the western places, he probably spoke according to the common tradition of that time, or the commonly known text of some ancient writer. He seems indeed to have borrowed this manner of speaking from Isidore or the ancient Martyrologists, who use a similar phrase, and whose words we reported above, part 1, §1, and part 2, §6 and following. Nay, Caesarius thought his opinion concerning the preaching of St. James in Spain so manifest and certain that he seriously accused the bishops opposing that opinion before the Roman Pontiff, as if they contradicted the Lord and the law, as we saw above.

[550] denying the Spanish preaching of St. James, Certainly in the most illustrious Pierre de Marca so great is the authority of St. Isidore in this matter that in the epistle to Henri de Valois concerning the first preachers of Gaul he thinks that by this alone the Spaniards can defend their cause against the adversaries: for in it, immediately after the fragment which I brought forth in part 2 of this Commentary, §7, number 383, in our volume 5 of June, page 546, he thus writes: It is indeed disputed among the learned concerning the coming of James into Spain, chiefly on this head, that the Apostles had not yet withdrawn from Judaea, the lots of preaching among the nations being distributed to them; but just as by the authority of Isidore, who could draw his own from earlier writers, the Spaniards can defend themselves against the NOVELTY OF THE FEIGNED OPINION which is wont to be opposed to them, so it is permitted us to discourse of Philip. What would that most illustrious man have said, if he had seen the testimonies of St. Jerome and of the other ancients, which I adduced above, favor the coming of St. James into Spain? But let us return to Caesarius, who had already refuted the objection of those prelates by a more solid answer, which Baluze in the mentioned clause kept silent.

[551] Caesarius had answered. When the preaching of St. James in Spain was denied by those bishops, Caesarius cited for it the council of Toledo, which he asserted was celebrated in the era 671, that is, in the year of Christ 633. Did he not prove what was denied, who alleged against them so venerable a monument of antiquity? So great was the weight of that proof that even hitherto the most learned Spaniards bring forth the same argument for the coming of St. James, among whom the most eminent Aguirre, volume 1 of the Councils of Spain, dissertation 9, number 44, thus speaks of it: There is added a most urgent confirmation of the preaching of St. James in Spain, and at the same time of the opinion of St. Isidore, in the celebrated fourth Council of Toledo, over which he himself presided in the year of Christ 633. It may there be seen more fully how the most learned Cardinal confirms the coming of St. James into Spain from that council. To me it here suffices to have convicted Baluze of a not sufficiently sincere relation of this suit.

[552] Moreover if anyone should object that Caesarius, for the preaching of St. James in Spain, Although that suit is to us suspect of fiction, which alone is denied by those bishops in the same epistle, ineptly alleged in the first place the Nicene council, which makes no word of this question, I shall not gainsay it, even though I am not ignorant that that answer can be explained by another reason: I shall not gainsay it, I say, because thence my suspicion will be confirmed, that that writing was forged by some unskilled impostor, nor shall I contend longer with Baluze concerning the text of the epistle, which he himself, book 4 of the Marca Hispanica, column 404, confessed to be false or interpolated, although in book 7 of the Miscellanea, pages 60 and 61, he seems to wish to defend it.

[553] Nay, even if anyone should plainly satisfy all my doubts yet its truth being freely supposed, proposed in this paragraph concerning that epistle, and demonstrate to be true whatever is narrated to have happened between Caesarius and the mentioned bishops, yet we should not withdraw from our opinion, since from them it would only follow that that opinion, after the middle of the tenth century, was called into doubt by some. For Caesarius alleged that tradition as ancient and commonly received. The bishops opposing denied it, because they thought it hurtful to their cause: for we know that in controversies of this kind by each litigating party many things are dissembled, others denied, until they be manifestly proved. Behold therefore a suit which must be settled by other judges.

[554] we choose suitable judges to settle it, Wherefore I appeal to SS. Jerome, Isidore, Julian, Beatus, and other ancient and upright arbiters of this suit, who pronounce sentence against these bishops, and affirm the preaching of St. James in Spain. And so I, to whom in this matter nothing is either sown or reaped, would rather stand by the judgment of these men, illustrious for sanctity and doctrine, than by the denial of certain bishops who pleaded their own cause. Moreover here in its own manner has place that rule of Tertullian which above, number 334, I reported on another occasion thus: From the very order it is manifested that that is of the Lord and true which was earlier handed down; but that is foreign and false which was later introduced. But the testimonies of the Martyrologists and of the other holy writers which I adduced above for the coming of St. James into Spain precede by a long interval of time the contrary opinion of those prelates, as the impugners of the Spanish tradition themselves are compelled to confess.

[555] and we put an end to this question. And these things thus far have been disputed for the sake of the truth, which in this whole Commentary I have had before my eyes, ready to correct, if anywhere I have strayed from it: for I holily profess that I so approached the illustrating of this disputation that I thought the foundations of the Spaniards for asserting the preaching of St. James in Spain not so very solid. But afterward, various monuments being diligently shaken out, and all the arguments of both sides being maturely weighed, I found that the immemorial tradition of the Spaniards, confirmed by ancient testimonies, far prevails over all the arguments of the adversaries.

* otherwise "Guadalfaianæ," that is, Guadalajara

* perhaps in Spanish "pecho"

* otherwise "homagio" (homage)

APPENDIX

On the Saragossan image of the Mother of God, which St. James is said to have erected.

James the Greater, Apostle and Martyr, at Compostela in Spain (S.)

BHL Number: 5388

BY THE AUTHOR G. C.

§ I. What is the nature of that tradition of the Aragonese.

Although it does not properly pertain to our purpose to treat of the prodigious images of the most blessed Virgin, and to examine their origin, Cardinal Aguirre distinguishes since nevertheless the Saragossan effigy of the Mother of God, most celebrated throughout the whole world, has some connection with the deeds of St. James

it pleases, out of superabundance (these are the words of the most eminent Aguirre in the Greatest Collection of the Councils of Spain, volume 1, dissertation 9, excursus 7, number 77), to confirm more fully the very preaching of St. James by another most ancient tradition, of the coming of the Mother of God into the city of Saragossa, and of her apparition to blessed James preaching there.

[557] Moreover of what weight that tradition is, the same most eminent Cardinal indicates, among other ecclesiastical traditions, when in the place just cited, numbers 93 and 94, he distinguishes between apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions, and among the ecclesiastical themselves thus assigns various grades of historical authority: Even within the limits of purely ecclesiastical traditions, which are of an inferior condition, some are found more worthy of faith than others; and by so much the more, the more they rest on more ancient testimonies. Moreover the coming and preaching of St. James in Spain, and thereupon of his disciples, among all the ecclesiastical traditions just indicated holds the first place of dignity: since for at least twelve centuries down to now it is confirmed by the testimonies of the Fathers, the Breviary of St. Isidore, the diplomas of the Roman Pontiffs, and the persuasion of the churches of Spain continued to this very day, as we saw above.

[558] and the Saragossan tradition, But the apparition of the Mother of God made upon a column to James preaching at Saragossa, and the erection of that oratory in honor of her still living, although it have not so many certain and so ancient testimonies of the ancients for it as the coming of James into Spain, yet is still a tradition very ancient, confirmed by the privileges of Pontiffs and kings for many centuries, and approved by the books of very many grave writers for a long time: which therefore no one could refute without some rashness or impiety. Now let us see what that tradition contains.

[559] When in the year 1722 I stayed at Saragossa for one week and another, which is read in an ancient manuscript codex, the most ample lord Francisco Urquiola, dean of the metropolitan church, in the presence of some canons of the same church, showed me in the archive of St. Mary of the Pillar a parchment codex, at the end of which is narrated how the chapel of St. Mary of the Column was built. But that history (so far as I could conjecture from the character) seems to have been written about the thirteenth century, and to it is prefixed the following little preface: To the praise and glory of the supreme Trinity, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, who is the true God, Three and One, and to promulgate the benefits and heraldings of the Advocate of the human race, the Mother of the Son of the Most High, we announce to all the faithful, by a truthful and faithful narration, how from the beginning of the Christian religion the chamber or basilica of St. Mary of the Pillar of the city of Saragossa, and the church of the same, laid its foundation. Consequently we dispose to deliver to the knowledge of the faithful a few things which of the many marvels have come to our knowledge, the Son of the Virgin working, by the prayers and merits of the Mother, devoted to the chapel of the aforesaid Pillar. The Postulators of the proper Lessons for the second nocturn of the Office of the dedication of the metropolitan church of Saragossa, in the Summary, number 1, also set forth this prologue, and in the Position, number 9, gather from it that its writers speak as of a history received from immemorial time from their forefathers, since they say that they wish only to deliver to the knowledge of the faithful … a few things which of the many marvels have come to their knowledge.

[560] Then follows the history itself, which, taken judicially from the aforesaid manuscript codex, in which it is narrated how St. James, and reported in the Summary, number 1, I here faithfully transcribe. It has thus: After the passion and resurrection of our Savior Lord Jesus Christ, and his ascension into heaven by a golden flight, the most pious Virgin remained committed to the virgin John. But the number of the disciples increasing in Judaea, at the preaching and signs of the Apostles the perfidious hearts of certain Jews raged, and, stirring up a great and most cruel persecution against the Church of Christ, stoning Stephen, and nonetheless slaughtering divers others. Wherefore the Apostles said to them: To you indeed it first behooved to preach the word of God, but because you have rejected it, and judged yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold we turn to the nations. And so, going through the whole world according to the command of Christ, they preached the Gospel to every creature, each one in his own lot. But when they went out of Judaea, each one received leave to depart * and a blessing from that glorious blessed Virgin.

[561] Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit revealing, blessed James the Greater, brother of John, son of Zebedee, received a command from Christ after traversing the other cities of Spain that he should go to the Spanish parts to preach the word of God. But he, at once going to the Virgin, her hands being kissed, asked leave and blessing with pious tears. To whom the Virgin: Go, she said, son; fulfill the command of thy Master: and by him I beseech thee, that in a city of Spain, where thou shalt convert a greater number of men to the faith, thou there make a church in my memory, as I shall show thee. But blessed James, setting out from Jerusalem, came to the Spains, preaching. Passing thence through Asturias, he came to the city of Oviedo, where he converted one to the faith. And so, entering Galicia, he addresses the city of Padrón (?) *: thence hastening into Castile, which is called Greater Spain, at length he came into Lesser Spain, which is called Aragon, in that region which is called Celtiberia, where the city of Saragossa is situated on the bank of the river Ebro.

[562] came to the city of Saragossa, There therefore blessed James, preaching for many days, converted eight men to Christ, with whom, treating daily of the kingdom of God, he went out in part of the night to the bank of the river for the sake of rest, in a place where the chaff was thrown. For there, giving themselves to prayer after sleep, they avoided the disturbances of men and the molestations of the gentiles. And behold, after some days, the middle of the night shining, blessed James stood with the aforesaid faithful, wearied with contemplation and prayers. The rest therefore being given to sleep, in that very hour of midnight the blessed Apostle heard the voices of angels singing Ave Maria GRATIA PLENA; as if beginning, with a sweet invitatory, the matutinal Office of the Virgin: who, straightway bending his knees, saw the Virgin mother of Christ between two choirs of thousands of angels, sitting upon a certain marble pillar. The choir therefore of the heavenly soldiery of angels completed the matins of the Virgin with the versicle Benedicamus Domino.

[563] and there in honor of the Mother of God Which being finished, the most pious countenance of the blessed Virgin Mary how sweetly called the holy Apostle to her: Behold, she said, James my son, a marked place, and deputed to my honor, in which by thy industry my church may be built in my memory: behold moreover this pillar on which I sit: for my Son, thy Master, transmitted it from on high by the hands of the angels, about whose site thou shalt place the altar of the chapel. In which place especially, by prayers and reverence of me, the virtue of the Most High shall work admirable signs and marvels, namely for those who in their necessities shall implore my aid: and that pillar shall be in this place until the end of the world, and those worshiping Christ shall never fail from this city. Then the apostle James, gladdened with much joy, rendering innumerable thanks to Christ, rendered the same to the Mother. And behold, suddenly that heavenly assembly of angels, receiving the Lady of the heavens, led her back to the city of Jerusalem, and placed her in her little cell. For this is that army of thousands of angels which God sent to the Virgin in the hour in which she conceived Christ, that they might guard her and accompany her in all her ways, and keep the child unharmed.

[564] built a chapel, But blessed James, rejoicing at so great a vision and consolation, straightway began to build there a church, the aforesaid ones whom he had converted to the faith helping. But the aforesaid basilica takes about eight paces of breadth, and sixteen of length, having the aforesaid pillar at the head toward the Ebro with the altar, for the service of which church blessed James ordained one of the aforesaid as presbyter, as being the more suitable. But, consecrating the aforesaid church, and dismissing those worshipers of Christ in peace, he returned into Judaea, preaching the word of the Lord. And he entitled that church St. Mary of the Pillar. For this is the first church of the world dedicated in honor of the Virgin by apostolic hands. For this is the angelic chamber built in the first beginnings of the Church. This is the most sacred hall often visited by the Virgin, in which with angelic choirs the Mother of God was often seen to chant the matutinal psalms: for in it, by the intercession of the Virgin, benefits are bestowed on very many, and many wonders are wrought, our Lord Jesus Christ granting it, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns through infinite ages. Amen.

[565] And this is the common tradition of the Aragonese, which the Reverend Father Francisco Salvador Gilaberte, of the Order of Bl. Mary of Mercy for the redemption of captives, in his manuscript dissertation, which tradition the Reverend Father Salvador Gilaberte reduces to three heads, which he most kindly communicated to me at Saragossa, reduces chiefly to three heads in these words: And so our fathers announced to us three things together; first, that the Mother of God, still living, appeared to James at Saragossa upon a marble column sent from on high; second, that she commanded him to erect a chapel in her honor; third, that the Apostle at once obeyed, and built the basilica of the Pillar.

[566] The most learned Cardinal de Aguirre refuses to admit this second part of the tradition, the second of which the most eminent Aguirre refuses to admit. and of it, in the place cited above, number 97, thus speaks: But what some say, that the Mother of God commanded James to build an oratory in her honor, seems to have been introduced not long ago, without foundation among the ancients, and alien from the truth. For who would easily believe that the Mother of God, so signally humble that on that account she was raised to the highest dignity above all creatures, exacted from James that cult unusual to all mortals? Nor wilt thou sufficiently meet the difficulty if thou sayest that she commanded, not of her own accord, but by the admonition and inspiration of God, that this honor be bestowed on her by the Apostle and other Christians within her mortal life: for although this be absolutely possible, it seems incongruous to the most modest and most humble Virgin. Wherefore it is not to be thought that God inspired this to her, but only to James, who without any shadow of vainglory or show of presumption could venerate the Mother of God, the new prodigy of the world, with that new cult unusual to mortals. But the Saragossan postulators of the proper lessons, in the response to the animadversions of the Reverend Father the promoter of the faith, §8 and following, so satisfied this argument of the most eminent man that the sacred Congregation of Rites permitted that command of the Mother of God to be expressed in the Office, as we shall afterward see. Now let us set forth the foundations on which that tradition rests.

* that is, leave to depart

* that is, he preaches in it

§ II. The foundations of the Aragonese for their tradition.

I shall not here set forth in full the documents of proof, lest the commentary swell too greatly, but I shall extract from them only those which The Aragonese cite documents on behalf of their tradition, the Aragonese judge to bear most especially upon confirming the aforesaid tradition. Should anyone, however, wish to see those records in their entirety, he will find them in the Summary presented to the sacred Congregation of Rites, or in the places to be indicated here as we proceed.

In the first place there is cited the encyclical letter by which Peter Librana, bishop of Saragossa, in the year 1118, after Saragossa had been reclaimed from the servitude of the Moors, promulgated the indulgences granted by Pope Gelasius II to all the faithful who should lend a helping hand and afford aid toward the repair of the greater temple, which contained the small shrine of the Mother of God — a shrine which, according to the Spanish historians, amid the very persecutions of the pagans and the Moors, always stood unharmed even to this present day.

[668] by which Peter Librana in the year 1118 stirs up the Christians Cardinal Baronius, following Hieronymus Blancas, in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 1118, nos. 18 and 19, reports the diploma of Pope Gelasius and the letter of Peter, bishop of Saragossa, in which the following is read: "By the favor of divine clemency, and by your prayers and the boldness of brave men, you have sufficiently heard that the city of Saragossa has been subjugated to Christian hands, and that the church of the blessed and glorious Virgin Mary, which for long (alas, the grief!) lay subject to the dominion of the Saracens, has been set free — a church WHICH YOU KNOW TO BE STRONG IN A BLESSED AND ANCIENT NAME OF HOLINESS AND DIGNITY."

[569] toward restoring the church of the Mother of God at Saragossa, From these words, printed in larger type, the Aragonese argue thus: "The last words are with reason to be weighed in reference to our case: for although they enunciate nothing distinctly and specifically concerning a tradition of this sort, yet they hint at something remarkable which agrees wonderfully with it, whether the reason of antiquity or of holiness be considered: of the antiquity indeed of the basilica, as one which took its beginning from the time of the incipient law of grace; and of holiness, since that place was consecrated and sanctified by the presence and apparition of the Mother of God. Whence what the bishop of Saragossa comprehended in a general and tacit way in a few but pregnant words — WHICH YOU KNOW TO BE STRONG IN A BLESSED AND ANCIENT NAME OF HOLINESS AND DIGNITY — in his encyclical letter, addressing those to whom the matter was already known from elsewhere, our pious and constant tradition has explicitly preserved and unfolded."

[570] whose ancient renown Baronius acknowledges: Baronius, in volume 12 of the Annals at the place just cited, acknowledges the dignity and antiquity of this church, when, after both these documents have been set forth, he speaks thus: "Thus far the monuments of venerable antiquity, brought to light by the industry of Hieronymus Blancas in the Commentaries on Aragonese affairs concerning the archive of Saragossa, by which is unfolded the ancient custom of promulgating indulgences, and likewise the ancient cult of the most religious church of the most blessed Virgin called Del Pilar, which even to this day is frequented by the visitation not only of the Spanish peoples but also of foreigners, most widely known to the whole Christian world by illustrious fame." Here, I say, that most eminent writer does indeed acknowledge the ancient celebrity of that church, but could not admit its prodigious origin, since in volume 9, at the year of Christ 816, he denied the coming of St. James into Spain — unless someone should prove that he changed his opinion, concerning which matter we have said something before.

[571] on behalf of the same tradition they adduce the old Mass and collect, Another document of the same tradition is the proper Mass, anciently accustomed to be sung at the dedication of the apostolic — nay, angelic — basilica of blessed Mary the Greater and Del Pilar, which the chapter of Saragossa is believed to have set aside only from the time of St. Pius V, so that, according to the prescription of that Pontiff, it might religiously conform itself to the Roman Missal. I have in my possession an ancient copy of that Mass, printed in Gothic type, in which, among other testimonies of the aforesaid tradition, the following collect is read, which comprises all these things distinctly in these words: "Almighty and eternal God, who didst deign that thy most holy Virgin Mother should come, amid the choirs of angels, upon a marble pillar sent down from on high by thee, while she yet lived, so that the basilica of the Pillar might be built in her honor by James, the protomartyr of the apostles, and by his most holy disciples; grant, we beseech thee, that by her merits and intercession that may be made obtainable which we ask with faithful mind. Who livest and reignest, etc."

[572] The use of this collect, begun from time immemorial, (the latter is to this day sung daily) perseveres even to this day, when the chapter of the same church goes daily in procession to the chapel of the most blessed Virgin, where it is sung; as I myself, while residing at Saragossa, several times saw. The postulators, in the Position no. 12, reason thus concerning this collect: "This document is certainly of the gravest weight, since it contains ecclesiastical prayers, in which great care has always been taken lest anything be intermixed which might present even the appearance of error, or offend the truth in any part: for it can scarcely be supposed that ecclesiastical prelates would have permitted prayers of this kind to be recited, unless they had brought the tradition to the anvil and held it most true."

[573] There is preserved in the archive of the metropolitan church, and other testimonies, and in the Summary no. 10 is set forth in full, the edict of assurance (commonly called of the Safeguard), which in the year 1299 the city of Saragossa promulgated in the vernacular tongue of that time, and by which it provided that no one should trouble those making pilgrimage to the church of Saint Mary Del Pilar, lest the devotion of the pilgrims toward that sacred place should grow cold. Whence it is clear that at that time that venerable shrine of the Mother of God was frequented by a great concourse of people. In the same archive there exists a privilege (in the Summary no. 17 it is set forth in full) of John II, king of Aragon, granted in the year 1459, by which he grants several prerogatives in favor of that church, which among the other churches of Spain shines with divine mysteries and miracles, and concerning whose institution and building, as history attests, many miraculous things are related; and principally that marvel, that in the very lifetime of the blessed and glorious Virgin herself, and at her command, it was constructed and built by the blessed James the Greater, apostle, at whose head the blessed Virgin herself commanded a marble pillar to be fixed and set — the pillar which she had received transmitted to her from heaven, and above which she appeared to the same blessed Apostle. I think it not necessary to heap up here more testimonies of a later age, since in the time of King Ferdinand, surnamed the Catholic, that tradition had become so widely known that in his diploma of the year 1504 he judged that it was hidden from none of the Catholics of the West.

[574] Nevertheless I cannot forbear here to transcribe part of the diploma and the diploma of Pope Callixtus III, by which Callixtus III, supreme Pontiff, in the year 1456 grants indulgences to those visiting the church of St. Mary Del Pilar, in which, he says, "the said blessed Mary the Virgin, before she was assumed into heaven, appeared with Jesus Christ her Son and our Lord to the blessed James the Greater upon a marble column, and for this reason the church itself took the name of blessed Mary Del Pilar, and therein very many and infinite miracles are wrought daily by divine permission; and moreover the faithful of Christ, with great devotion and veneration, worship and venerate the image of the same blessed Mary and of her Son in a certain chapel of the same church, which was built at the command of blessed Mary by the said blessed James, and exists named and called the angelic chamber of the Mother of God Del Pilar, and they do not cease to visit it with great devotion." I omit the other diplomas of later Pontiffs; because no one doubts that this tradition was in these last centuries most fully received. For the same reason I pass over the innumerable writers of various nations who from the fifteenth century committed that tradition to writing. If anyone desires to know them, let him consult the Saragossan Process, presented to the sacred Congregation of Rites, where in the Position from no. 33 mention is made of these authors, and where in the Summary no. 21 a catalogue of them is woven together, comprising nearly two hundred.

[575] in which mention is made of the miracles wrought there, Since Callixtus III attests that in that sacred shrine, through the intercession of the most blessed Virgin, innumerable miracles are wrought daily (the Rev. Don Joseph Felix de Amada, canon of Saragossa, in a Spanish compendium printed at Saragossa in the year 1680, collected sixty of them), I shall select out of all a single one, so manifest that it ought to convince of their error the heterodox, who impiously calumniate or assail the cult of the Mother of God, unless they be willing to resemble certain obstinate Jews, who would not embrace the doctrine of Christ, even though they saw Lazarus recalled by him to life.

[576] [on occasion of which one is related, which happened in the year 1640 to a young man,] This befell in the year 1640, and at Saragossa underwent a rigorous examination before the most illustrious archbishop. Two years afterward it was published in Latin at Madrid by Peter Neurath, a physician of Trier, who at that time was sojourning in Spain, and who, after other matters not pertaining here, narrates the deed thus: "In these our days a leg cut off was restored to a young man in that very place; and that young man was Michael John Pellicer, nineteen years of age, born at Calanda (it is a village of Aragon, of the Order of Calatrava), son of Michael Pellicer, a farmer, and of Maria Blasco, inhabitants of the same village. He, while serving at Castellón de la Plana (it is a village of the kingdom of Valencia) his uncle James Blasco, fell from the cart in which wheat was being conveyed, and his right leg was crushed by the wheel. And since both he and his uncle were poor, he was carried to Valencia, to a hospital house. There, when various remedies had been tried and nothing availed, he sought the great infirmary of Saragossa, and committed himself to John de Estanga, a most expert surgeon and public professor of medicine there; who, seeing the leg wholly corrupted, cut it off four fingers below the knee, and consigned it to the earth."

[577] who miraculously recovered the amputated leg. The young man, when the scar had formed over, went to the shrine of Saint Mary, and there, now imploring the help of the Virgin, now begging alms from the passers-by, made himself known to all for a whole two years. In the year 1640, in order to visit his parents, he sought Calanda, his native place, whence, creeping to the neighboring towns, he sought his living and his parents'. On the twenty-ninth day of March, in the year one thousand six hundred and forty from the Virgin's childbearing, weary with gathering hay, at the hearth, with his father, mother, and two other fellow countrymen present, he laid aside his wooden leg and went to bed. At the eleventh hour of the night his mother, entering the bedchamber, was amazed to see two feet in her son's bed, and, suspecting that it was a soldier (for a cohort of them was then quartered there), ran to her husband, who, recognizing his son, roused him; and he burst forth into these words: "I was dreaming that in the chapel of the divine Virgin Del Pilar I was anointing my leg with the oil of the lamp." And the father: "Give thanks to God, the Mother of God has restored your leg to you": for the young man had until then been unaware of this.

[578] This stupendous deed was soon divulged that very night, This public prodigy, and all the inhabitants reckoned themselves eyewitnesses of it. On the following day the young man was led by a thronging populace to the church, there

the foot (which the most holy Virgin had left distorted, so that all might behold the miracle) recovered its natural position, and they acknowledged him truly two-footed whom the day before they had seen bereft of one leg: to which a notary then indeed gave public attestation.

[579] The young man, moreover, was brought to Saragossa, after a rigorous inquiry the matter was called into judgment, an advocate assigned, the witnesses examined, the cause debated, and at length, on the twenty-seventh day of April in the year one thousand six hundred and forty-one, a sentence, by which that deed is declared true and exceeding all the force of nature, was pronounced by the most illustrious and most reverend lord, the lord Peter Apaolaza, archbishop of Saragossa, with the subscription of the lord Antonio Xavierre, Prior of Saint Christina; the lord John Perat, vicar general and official canon of the holy metropolitan church of Saragossa; the lord Virto de Virto de Vera, archdeacon of Saragossa; the lord John Plano a Frago, official; the lord Philip Bardaxi, first interpreter of the sacred canons; the lord Diego Chueca, magistral canon of Saragossa; the lord Martin Irribarne, canon lector of Saragossa; Brother Bartholomew Foyas, Provincial of the Order of St. Francis; Brother Antonio Ortin Abbad, Provincial of the Order of the Minims of St. Francis of Paula; the lord Dominic Cebrian, first professor of theology at Saragossa.

[580] The sentence was promulgated by the doctors of both laws, juridically proved, the lord Philip Bardaxi, the lord Giles Fuster, and Michael Cipres, advocate and public notary. It was signed by Antonio Alberti Zaporta, apostolic notary and principal scribe of the ecclesiastical curia of Saragossa. Into the Annals, moreover, it was reported by the lord Thomas Tamayo de Vargas, royal historiographer of the Spains and the Indies, in those things which he added to the Enchiridion of the Time of the Rev. Father Friar Alfonso Veneri, of the Order of St. Dominic, lately published at Alcalá in the vernacular tongue.

[581] Let the heretics see whether they will so easily explode this, as they do that saying of St. John Damascene, it is objected to the heretics, and the rest of the things which we have received from our forefathers, and which are done among the Indians today. For this happened both in our own century and before many eyewitnesses, at Saragossa, a most populous city and the royal seat of Aragon, with Spaniards and Frenchmen looking on. The witnesses were examined, the cause was pursued through a whole year, and the sentence was juridically pronounced by the archbishop. And if they dare to contradict a matter so well known, who will not charge them with being shameless, and more incredulous than the Jews?

[582] To this is added the testimony of our own Hieronymus Brizius, who, in the censure prefixed to that little work, speaks thus: and it is confirmed by another testimony. "By command of the Rev. Don Gabriel de Aldama, vicar general at Madrid, I read the pamphlet concerning the stupendous miracle, unheard of in our century, of the divine Virgin Del Pilar, which I know to be true: for I knew the boy, first at Saragossa, without one leg, begging alms at the door of the shrine of the same Virgin, and I afterward saw the same man at Madrid (whither our Catholic king ordered him to be brought) walking on both legs: I saw the mark which the Blessed Virgin left as a sign of the incision: nor I alone, but the rest of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus of this college of Saragossa saw it as well: I knew the parents, to whom the canons of Saint Mary Del Pilar furnished sustenance: I knew the surgeon who cut off his leg. And it has been so elegantly written by the author that it may be published to the glory of God, in proof of our faith, and to the confusion of the heretics. This I judge, at Madrid in the college of the Society of Jesus, the 12th of March, in the year 1642." If these testimonies do not yet seem sufficiently authentic to the heretics, let them read the following paragraph, which I have here added for their sake, although our Commentary has already grown too greatly on that account.

§ III. The juridical sentence of the archbishop of Saragossa, by which the preceding miracle is confirmed.

The authentic sentence is produced That prodigy, which we related above from no. 576, having been maturely discussed through a whole year, and the witnesses rigorously examined, the most illustrious and most reverend archbishop of Saragossa, concerning the truth of it, in the year 1641 delivered a sentence, which we excerpt from the already mentioned Summary of the Aragonese postulators, which in no. 22 reports this authentic judgment thus: "In the name of God, etc. Be it known to all, that in the year from the nativity of the Lord 1641, on the 27th day of the month of April, at the city of Saragossa, before the most illustrious and most reverend lord Peter Apaolaza, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See archbishop of Saragossa, and royal councillor, etc., in a certain process and cause pending before the aforesaid most illustrious and most reverend lord archbishop, and in his chamber, entitled the process of the most illustrious lords, the sworn jurats of the council and university of the city of Saragossa, concerning the verification of a certain miracle, at the instance and supplication of the doctors Philip Bardaxi and Giles Fuster, etc., doctors of both laws, and Michael Cipres, notary and advocate of Saragossa, persons named by the said most illustrious lords Jurats and the council of the present city to conduct the said process, the said most illustrious and most reverend lord my archbishop delivered, read, and promulgated a certain definitive sentence in writing, of the following tenor:

[584] in which the archbishop of Saragossa asserts, "The names of Christ and of the blessed Virgin Del Pilar having been invoked. We, Don Peter de Apaolaza, by the grace of God and of the holy Apostolic See archbishop of Saragossa, and royal councillor, etc.: the whole present process having been viewed, and its merits attentively, diligently inspected, and with the greatest maturity searched out — the process which was made at the instance of the most illustrious lords Jurats, the council, and the university of the present city of Saragossa — it is established from it that God the best and greatest, who is glorious in his Saints, and marvelous in majesty, whose ineffable height of prudence, enclosed within no limits, comprehended within no bounds, by the assessment of upright judgment disposes alike things heavenly and things earthly, and who, although he magnifies all his ministers, adorns them with high honors, and makes them possessors of heavenly beatitude, yet those (that he may render worthy things to the worthy) he raises up with the more excellent insignia of dignities, and follows with the more abundant retribution of rewards, whom he acknowledges the worthier, and whom a greater excellence of merits commends — he willed to honor by a certain marvelous deed in these our times her who is exalted above all the choirs of the angels, whose throne is placed beside the throne of God, and who stood at his right hand in gilded raiment, the Virgin Mary, his mother.

[585] "For it is established that in the general hospital of blessed Mary of Grace of the present city, to Michael John Pellizero, that it is established from the juridical examination of witnesses, of the place of Calanda of this archbishopric, on account of illness the right leg had been cut off and amputated, and consigned to the earth in the cemetery of the said hospital two years and some months before the depositions of the said witnesses, as the 1st, 5th, and 7th witnesses depose upon the 11th and 12th articles. It is established also from the depositions of five concurring witnesses, namely the 8th, 9th, 10th, 12th, and 13th, upon the 21st and 22nd articles, that on the very night on which the miracle is said to have been done, which was in the last days of March of the past year 1640, one hour before the said Michael John Pellizero had gone to his bed walking upon the ground, the said witnesses saw the scar of the amputated leg, and with their own hands both touched and felt it.

[586] "It is established that a little after the said Michael John had lain down, that the leg amputated from the young man the witnesses 8 and 13, who are the parents of the said Michael, entering the bedchamber, found him sleeping with two legs, and, full of amazement, gave forth cries to rouse the said Michael from sleep; at whose clamor the witness 12, who had remained outside at the fire, coming thither, found the said Michael — whom a little before he had seen having only one leg — with two; and that the said Michael, being asked by his parents how this had come about, answered that he did not know. Yet that immediately upon being laid in the bed, being seized with sleep, he was dreaming that he was in the chapel of the Virgin Mary Del Pilar, anointing the scar of the leg with the oil of the lamp, and thus believed that this had been done by the most blessed Virgin, to whom, as he ascended the bed, he had earnestly and truly commended himself; which being seen, the said witness 12 (as he himself asserts upon the 23rd article) called the witnesses 9 and 10, who were neighbors, and who, together with him and the parents of the said Michael, a little before had seen the same having only one leg, and had handled the scar of the amputated leg — who, returning to Michael's house, both saw him with two legs and were amazed, as they themselves in their depositions upon the said articles attest.

[587] "From the depositions of which eight witnesses it is most fully established, and prodigiously restored to him, both concerning the lack of the leg in Michael himself, and concerning its restoration. Since also the identity of the person is proved in the process, concerning which a greater number of witnesses depose upon the 29th article; nay, even the identity of the leg, that it is the same which was amputated from him, is established from the signs given by the said Michael, and found by the witnesses in the said leg, as appears from the depositions of witnesses 8, 10, 13 upon the 24th article, concerning which also 5, 8, 11, and 13 depose upon the 30th article. It is established also from the depositions of several witnesses upon the 25th article concerning the great concourse of people on the following day to see the leg miraculously restored to the said Michael, and that they accompanied him to the church, to render thanks to God, where the sacrifice of the Mass was celebrated in thanksgiving, and where all the people saw the said Michael walking, and praising God, confessing his sins, and receiving the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, and they were filled with stupor and ecstasy at that which had befallen him, because they recognized that he was the one who a little before had been begging alms with only one leg; even as concerning that lame man, lame from birth, miraculously healed by blessed Peter, it is related in the Acts of the Apostles.

[588] after the pious young man "It is established, moreover, concerning the virtue and good morals of the same Michael from several witnesses upon the 6th article, and others, concerning his charity, in such wise that to succor his needy parents he set out from this city to the place of Calanda, whither he arrived with the greatest toil, and there through the neighboring places gathered alms for his own sustenance and that of his said parents — which are proofs of so great a benefit conferred upon him by God himself, because God gives grace to the humble. It is established, finally, concerning the said Michael's affection, faith, and hope toward the Virgin Mother of God Del Pilar, as appears from his own deposition upon the 9th article, where he affirms that immediately upon coming to this city to be cured of the infirmity of his leg, he went to the church of blessed Mary Del Pilar, and there made confession of his sins, and received the salutary sacrament of the Eucharist, before he approached the general hospital to be cured.

[589] had often commended himself to the protection of the Mother of God, "And upon the 9th article he asserts that in his torment, and at the time of the cutting and cauterizing of the leg, he always and with his whole heart invoked the aforesaid Virgin, and commended himself to her, and implored her help; and upon the article

13, that when the scar of the wound had somewhat hardened, his strength being still weakened, so that he could not help himself, walking upon the ground with a wooden leg, moved and drawn by devotion to the Virgin, he went to her temple, and rendered thanks for the health he had recovered, and anew offered himself and his life to the same Virgin; and upon the 16th article, agreeing with the first witness, he says that from grief in the remnant of the amputated leg he used to come to the chapel of the Virgin Del Pilar, and anoint himself with the oil of one of the lamps existing there; which, when he had reported it to the licentiate Estanga, master of surgery of the said hospital — the first witness in the present process — the latter answered him that the aforesaid anointing with oil was harmful to the curing of the wound on account of the moisture of the oil, while saving his faith in those things which the most holy Virgin could work; but the said Michael did not on this account cease from the anointing, as often as the occasion offered itself.

[590] as he himself attests, "And although several of the aforesaid things are established from the deposition of the said Michael alone, yet credence seems to be given to him, because he deposes concerning his own deed, nor is anyone's prejudice at issue, especially since a miracle can sometimes be proved even by a single witness — which, however, in the present case is not necessary, since the fact, from which the miracle results, is proved by several concurring witnesses, from whom it is established that in the present case are found all those things which are required for the nature and essence of a true miracle. For it was done by God at the prayers of the blessed Virgin Del Pilar, to whom the said Michael John commended himself from his heart; and it is above the order of all created nature, since the leg itself, cut off and amputated, cannot be restored; and it is for the corroboration of faith, because although we are among the faithful, faith can receive increase, according to that saying, Luke chapter 17, 'Increase our faith,' and Mark chapter 9, 'I believe, Lord; help thou my unbelief'; and it profited to foster the charity of the faithful and to increase the devotion of the Christian people, by which faith itself is preserved; besides which, according to the opinion of many, it is not of the essence of a miracle that it be done for the corroboration of faith. And finally it was done in an instant: for within so brief a time, as the process shows, the said Michael was seen without a leg and with it. Therefore there seems to be no doubting concerning it.

[591] "Nor do those things stand in the way which are deposed by the said Michael The most illustrious prelate resolves the difficulties, and by the greater part of the witnesses upon the 26th article — namely, that the said Michael could not at once set his foot firmly: for he had the sinews and toes of the foot contracted and hindered, nor did he feel natural warmth in the leg, and its color appeared deathly, nor was it equal in length and thickness with the other — all of which things seem to conflict with the essence of a miracle; both because it was not done in an instant, and because a thing so imperfect does not seem to come from God, who knows no imperfect work: for it is answered that it is of the nature of a miracle that it be done in an instant, this is true in those things which nature could work gradually — for example, in the restoring of health to one sick of a fever, which, that it may be known whether it was miraculous, can scarcely be known by any other sign than by the fact that it was done in an instant: for by the passage of time nature can do this without a miracle, and in doubt the healing would be judged natural, because a miracle must be above the powers of all created nature; but when nature can work neither in an instant nor gradually, then, even though the deed be not done in an instant, it will be reckoned a miracle, as in our case; for it is certain that nature cannot in any way restore to one whose leg has been amputated that leg, because from privation to possession there is no return.

[592] "Therefore, if the said Michael was seen having only one leg, but now possesses two, this was done miraculously, which might be opposed to this miracle, because naturally it was impossible; and if perfect soundness was not restored to the leg itself, this does not conflict with the essence of a miracle, because that which was to be done miraculously — namely, to restore the leg to the said Michael — was already done perfectly and in an instant; but the rest, such as warmth, extension, and the loosening of the limbs, the length and thickening of the leg, deliverance from feebleness, the recovery of strength and firmness — it was not necessary that these should be done miraculously, because all these things nature can furnish; and thus, although they were not done in an instant, they take nothing away from the miracle. Or it may be said that, although the merciful God could in an instant restore the leg and perfect soundness to it, yet, as the Gloss says on chapter 8 of Matthew, 'him whom he could have cured at once with a word, he cures gradually' (it speaks of that man blind from birth) 'to show the greatness of human blindness, which scarcely returns to the light as it were by degrees, and to indicate to us his grace, by which he aids the single increments of perfection.' Or let us say that here there was not succession of the miracle, but plurality: for even as in the said chapter 8 of Matthew the Lord Christ willed by one miracle to give obscure sight to the blind man, when he could have given clear sight, and by another miracle willed to perfect his sight, so that he saw clearly, and thus what could have been done by one miracle was done by two.

[593] and solidly proves, "So in our case God could also in the same instant have given perfect soundness to the said Michael; yet he willed by one miracle to restore his leg to him, though weak and mutilated, and by another miracle, after three days, that natural warmth should be communicated to the restored leg, that the sinews and toes should be extended, and that at length the leg should remain equal with the other: and thus there was not succession in the miracle, but a certain division, or multiplication, of the miracle; so that what could have been done by one might exist as done by two or more, to show perhaps that it was done at the prayers of the most blessed Virgin Del Pilar; by whose visitation, made by the said Michael, soundness was restored to him in its entirety, both for the recognition of the said Michael's faith and devotion and our own.

[594] that it cannot be ascribed to the powers of nature, "Nor, finally, can it stand in the way that some pain remained to the said Michael, because it is not contrary to the nature of a miracle if pain intervenes in the deliverance, or if he who is miraculously healed remains with pain, as appears in Mark chapter 9, where the spirit, at the Lord's command, went out from that deaf and dumb man, crying out and rending him much, so that he remained vexed as though dead, and many said that he was dead; even as it is not contrary to the nature of a miracle if in the healed there remain some weakness of body or of the limbs, some swelling, or some hardness; nor even if it be done with some ministry or aid of nature, or with some human medicine.

[595] and that therefore this prodigy, legitimately proved, "Wherefore, these and other things being considered, by the counsel of the undersigned illustrious doctors, both of sacred theology and of pontifical law, we say, pronounce, and declare, that to Michael John Pellizero, of the place of Calanda, of whom this present process treats, the right leg, which he before had amputated, was miraculously restored; and that thus it is not a work of nature, but wondrously and miraculously wrought, and to be ascribed to a miracle, as one in which concur all those things which by law ought to concur to the essence of a true miracle; even as by the present we attribute it to a miracle, and approve, and declare, and authorize it as a miracle, and so we say, etc. Peter, ARCHBISHOP."

[596] [and corroborated by several testimonies, he permitted to be publicly promulgated.] To this sentence of the most illustrious prelate subscribe several doctors of sacred theology and of both laws, and others, whose names were expressed in the preceding paragraph, no. 579. Finally, at the end of the aforesaid Summary, these things follow: "The said definitive sentence, thus delivered, promulgated, etc., was accepted, praised, and approved. At the instance and supplication of which persons, the aforesaid most illustrious lord archbishop granted a copy of the same, or letters of intimation of the above-written sentence, from all which, etc., a public instrument was drawn up." What more can be desired by a prudent man to establish belief? Would that the heterodox of our time, who are going to read these things, might weigh these and the like in the Acts of the Saints with a purified and mature mind, and return by postliminy to the bosom of the Catholic Church, in which alone they see miracles of this kind wrought!

§ IV. Difficulties raised against the tradition, to which the Aragonese reply.

I had before determined to set forth here all the objections of the most illustrious Promoter of the Faith, and the entire replies of the Aragonese to them; The most illustrious promoter of the faith against the Saragossan tradition but afterward I changed my counsel, both because I saw that the preceding parts of the Commentary had grown to too great a bulk, and because, after the Office had been obtained from the sacred Congregation of Rites, many of those arguments would lose their force by which, according to his duty, he contended that proper Lessons should not be granted to the people of Saragossa. Wherefore I shall here first draw together the intrinsic arguments, which the most illustrious promoter of the faith in his Animadversions no. 13 candidly confesses that he drew from Natalis Alexander; then I shall add a few things which are sought from certain more minute circumstances and from the long silence of writers.

[598] Accordingly Natalis Alexander, in the last edition of his Ecclesiastical History, volume 3, drew some arguments from Natalis Alexander, dissertation 15, page 159, sets forth his arguments, or rather his doubts, thus: "Further, who would believe that a church was raised to the Mother of God while she was yet living, by St. James? Who would persuade himself that the most humble Virgin commanded this? Who would imagine to himself that this was permitted under heathen emperors, and amid persecutions, in those times in which the Christians had no temples, but held their assemblies in private houses and in crypts, and in the very beginnings of the Christian religion?" This objection is reduced chiefly to three heads, to which reply is now made severally out of the Spanish authors.

[599] In the first place the oft-praised Cardinal de Aguirre, in volume 1 to whose objections of the Councils of Spain, dissertation 9, excursus 7, no. 79, replies thus to the first part of the doubts: "In passing, it is here to be observed that it should be reckoned incredible to no one that, not many years after the death of Christ, either James or some other of the Apostles dedicated to the Virgin Mother of God, while she was yet living, some temple or oratory, in the manner in which, according to the aforesaid tradition, it is believed to have been done at Saragossa: for in the first place no repugnance appears in it, since the wellnigh infinite dignity of the Mother of God, and her incomparable holiness above all the elect, and her purity, than which none greater under God can be conceived, as St. Anselm says, demand as it were by their own right some special cult, granted to no other mortal.

[600] "And this certainly is not to be thought to have happened save by the special ordination of God, together with the most eminent Aguirre

willing and commanding that this act of homage should be singularly paid to his Mother among all mortals; and taking care that no harm should follow therefrom." These things I have added to forestall certain objections of Natalis Alexander and others. And therefore no one can prudently reject, as unbecoming or contrary to reason, this singular honor rendered to the Mother of God by the apostle James, inasmuch as he was sufficiently conscious of her supreme dignity, according to which she was seen to have neither a first like her nor to have one following, as the Church sings, and inasmuch as he was besides divinely admonished to do it.

[601] Then, at no. 96, the same most learned Cardinal proceeds thus: the Aragonese reply. "But what wonder will it be, if to the Mother of God, wellnigh infinitely surpassing all the Saints, it was granted, not only that immediately after her dormition, but even in the course of her heavenly life, more splendid and brighter than the pure sun, some oratories should be built in her honor, both by James at Saragossa, and by other Apostles or disciples of Christ preaching in various places of the earth? Truly, just as this is not rashly to be affirmed in particular concerning some certain oratory or church, so neither is it to be rejected at pleasure, where altogether weighty foundations and ancient tradition persuade it." The postulators of the proper Office add many things to these, which may be seen in the Reply to the Animadversions of the Rev. Father, the Lord Promoter of the Faith, §7.

[602] Our own Sanchez contends that the command of the Mother of God To the other part of the doubt, by which it is hinted that that command to build the chapel is repugnant to the singular humility of the Mother of God, our own Gaspar Sanchez long ago met, when in his little work on the preaching of St. James in Spain, treatise 3, chapter 8, he discusses this argument elegantly, after his manner, thus: "Here, unless the plan of my undertaking required otherwise, I should have to treat, in Mary's cause, of the nature of humility and obedience, from which, as I persuade myself, it would become plain to anyone that the blessed Virgin devised nothing against the highest summit of humility, when she commanded a temple to be built for herself by James. Plainly humble is whoever, at the command of another whose authority it is impious to resist, is raised to some splendid and sublime degree of dignity. Nor ought he to be reckoned humble who wishes, by obstinate resolve, to cling in a sordid and lowly place, if from thence the will and authority of a superior calls him away. Plainly humble is he whom another's will bends and turns in whatever direction, and who no longer thinks he must obey his own.

[603] concerning building a chapel for herself, "Peter refused to stretch out his feet to be washed by his Master, because he thought himself unworthy of this office of kindness: this seemed indeed to proceed from humility, yet in such wise that something of an arrogant spirit is detected in it, since he wished to correct Christ's counsel, as though it less befitted his person, and as though Christ knew not what would be for the advantage or dignity of all. Wherefore Peter was altogether more humble when he said that he wished not only his feet, but also his hands and head, to be washed by Christ, than when with a free and bold voice he said, 'Thou shalt never wash my feet.'

[604] is not repugnant to her humility. Then, after a little, the same writer proceeds thus: "Who here would piously doubt that the blessed Virgin, while she commands a temple to be built for herself, was obedient to the divine will; since she attempted nothing either great or new upon earth save when inspired by divine impulse; since the Holy Spirit assiduously and familiarly assisted her? But if the blessed Virgin properly appeared to James, surely, having traversed so long a stretch both of land and of sea, she could not have come to that region of Tarragona save with God acting and approving, to whose will she had wholly devoted herself. Which must also be judged, if only a semblance of the Virgin was presented to the Apostle: for neither could it have been done by human power save with the divine aiding and permitting it." The postulators examine this question more fully in the Reply just cited, §8 and following, where they also refute the opinion of Cardinal de Aguirre, of which we made mention above at no. 566. But it is not permitted us to transcribe all these things, we who are debtors to many Saints. Wherefore let it suffice to have indicated them here.

[605] When in the third place Natalis Alexander asks how, at the beginning of the Christian religion, under heathen emperors, when the Christians had no temples, The other difficulty, proposed by Natalis Alexander, that sacred shrine of Saragossa could have been built in honor of the Mother of God, the oft-praised postulators reply thus, §6: "This objection is easily recognized to be of the very slightest weight: for it would have some force in some fashion, if the discourse were of some great temple, and one placed in the open air; but since the matter is of a tiny shrine, a little chapel or oratory kept secretly, whence the difficulty conceived? Indeed we confess that the Christians of old lacked temples which corresponded to the former signification of the word: for anciently not every sacred building was called a temple, but only the most spacious, as is known to all the learned. But from this nothing bears upon the present cause, or that could hinder the most eminent Fathers from the approbation of our Lessons, in which it is said that James, with his disciples lending aid, built a LITTLE SHRINE to God in honor of the blessed Virgin, which took its name from the column.

[606] Then from sacred and profane authors they learnedly show (the same thing the most eminent Baronius proves in the Annals, volume 1, at the year of Christ 57, from no. 99) that the Christians in the first beginnings of the Church had sacred buildings distinct from private houses, the Aragonese refute it, and at length conclude thus: "Behold, then, by how many and how great invincible arguments is dispelled that shadow of difficulty cast by Natalis Alexander — otherwise in this cause a writer already too prejudiced — concerning the primitive sacred shrine of the Column, small indeed, poor, not openly exposed at the beginning, but secretly and in hiding laid up and kept, even as both its fame attests, and writers and tradition establish belief."

[607] But since Natalis Alexander tacitly confesses that this prodigious building of the Saragossan chapel is related by all the Spanish writers, and, since he confesses it to be the common tradition of the Spaniards, the same postulators in the Reply so often mentioned, §5, argue against him thus: "The author supposes that all writers of Spanish affairs establish belief in the Pilar tradition, and have added their assent to it. But who would believe (that we may retort his form of arguing with a stronger foundation) that innumerable writers of Spanish affairs were universally blind, or willingly closed their eyes, lest they should see the obvious things which Natalis Alexander objects for his reply? For the straitened and afflicted beginnings of the Christian religion, even as the exceeding — beyond what can be told — humility of the most holy Virgin, none of them was ignorant; and nevertheless they all persisted in the opinion received from their forefathers, despising the shadows of difficulty springing up from those conjectures; inasmuch as they knew well that the steps of the nascent Church, and its increases, ought not to be measured by the rules of human prudence, but by the power of almighty God, by which, according to the prophecy of Daniel, a little stone cut from the mountain without hands broke the proud statue, reduced it to ashes, and thus grew into a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.

[608] "Further, the Christian religion both began and grew by signs, virtues, and miracles, and by the most singular providence of God assisting. they complain that the adversary did not acquiesce in it, Not, therefore, are the objections raised by Natalis Alexander to be esteemed as overthrowing the belief of our tradition; nay, the difficult things which they contain are altogether consonant with the infancy of the religion and with that first age of it, according to the divine counsels." Since, finally, that writer does not doubt of the possibility of the history, but only of the fact, the Aragonese complain that he did not acquiesce in the most celebrated tradition, and was unmindful of that rule which he had prefixed for himself in his Ecclesiastical History, volume 3 of the latest edition, dissertation 17, section 1, page 179, when he gives the reason why he maintains the tradition of the landing of St. Mary Magdalene, Lazarus, and Martha in Gaul — concerning which matter we have said much in the second part of this Commentary, §3.

[609] Reply is made by other arguments from Sanchez, Others object the apostolic poverty of St. James, the costly and difficult structure of the sacred building, the form and material of the Marian image, and by other minutiae of this kind carp at that tradition. But to them our own Sanchez, in the place cited above, replies as follows: "Truly these men, whoever they are, measure all things by human reasons, nor do they join to a divine work divine powers and might also. The same men, I believe, could much better have objected concerning the marble temple raised amid the waves in honor and as a tomb of Clement the Pope. If these things require the hands of men, there is no doubt that James contributed some labor to the fabric of that shrine; but neither will any pious man doubt, I think, that divine help there too intervened, as the ecclesiastical annals record to have happened elsewhere also: for either the angels themselves set their hands to it, as the Church sings concerning the marble shrine of Clement, and as concerning the temple consecrated to the name of Michael on Mount Gargano there is an ancient and constant tradition; or the minds of the people of Tarragona were so affected toward James and the cause of religion, that in a short time, without any hindrance to the evangelical preaching, that sacred building could be built; which surely, because it was small, and not so artfully polished, required not much labor or space.

[610] and the testimonies of ancient writers concerning this tradition Most, finally, derive the chief argument of their denial from the silence of the ancient writers, who made no mention of that shrine, though it persisted through so many centuries. But to this negative reasoning the postulators in the Reply, § last, meet thus: "But if more writings of the earlier centuries are not at hand upon this matter, no one will wonder who has revolved in his mind the most cruel disasters brought upon the Spanish kingdoms under Dacian their governor, who waged a cruel war not only against the faithful of Christ, but also against all writings pertaining either to the memory of the Saints or to the Christian religion, playing the part of the impious Diocletian." Then, after the ancient testimonies of this crafty cruelty, which I gave above at no. 324, they pass thus to the same calamity of the later centuries: "If any writings could escape the edict of Diocletian and the rage and armed diligence of Dacian, they perished utterly by the fury of the Arabs, who in the succeeding centuries laid waste the Spains… And what brought the ecclesiastical antiquity especially of Saragossa well-nigh to utter destruction was at length this: that at the time of the irruption of the Moors the bishop, who then was Bentius by name, having taken the sacred codices and very many relics of the Saints of the church of the Pillar, betook himself in flight to the mountains, as is established from the Chronicle of the monastery of Saint Peter de Taberna." A fragment of that Chronicle, or history, we gave in the first part of this Commentary, no. 113, so that it is not necessary here again to prove that flight of the bishop of Saragossa.

[611] are said to have perished through the repeated ruin of Aragon. Moreover, the postulators conjecture that these codices of Saragossa were afterward carried into the Pinnatense monastery of the Benedictine Order, which in Aragon

which stands in the mountainous region, were transferred (this is altogether probable, since Hieronymus Blancas found the very Chronicle of Taberna, having survived the flame, in the Pinnatense monastery), and that afterward they perished there, consumed by fire. However that may be, the praised Hieronymus Blancas, in the preface to his Commentaries, volume 3 of Spain Illustrated, page 572, indicates the loss of the ancient monuments of Aragon in these words: "Our ancient affairs, which I judge that you by no means are ignorant of, most learned Loaysa, are so difficult to know and so very obscure, that not only those things which were done in those early centuries, but those done in the age of our grandfathers, are scarcely comprehended by us, save by an abstruse and confused method. Many and manifold causes of that loss are alleged; these, however, are the chief: for in the very beginnings of the kingdom it is recorded to memory that the Pinnatense place of the holier treasury was consumed by fire, and, restored anew, many years after burned down in a very similar conflagration; and since there existed there copies of ancient privileges and public monuments to be preserved, all, burned by the flames, perished. Afterward, too, when other such things were being kept, deposited in the same place, they are reported to have been taken out by Raymond Berengar, count of Barcelona, son-in-law of King Ramiro II, about the year of Christ 1150." From these things at length they conclude that it is no wonder if the more ancient testimonies of the earlier centuries, written on parchment, cannot today be exhibited.

§ V. The proper Office obtained at Rome by the Aragonese on behalf of their tradition, and the public joy concerning it.

Although from time immemorial the feast of the dedication of the church of St. Mary of the Column had been celebrated, The Aragonese had before suffered a repulse at Rome, as appears from the Mass printed in Gothic characters, yet in the general assembly of Aragon, held at Saragossa in the year 1678, it was decreed that in the name of the kingdom itself application should be made to the supreme Pontiff, and that a proper Office, with an Octave and a historical narration of this miraculous apparition, should earnestly be sought from the Holy See, as is established from the Acts of the Curia, which the above-praised Rev. Father Francisco Salvador Gilaberte had copied out for me. But then the matter was drawn out at length, and at last the sacred Congregation of Rites, to which the petitions of the Catholic king and of the archbishop and chapter had been remitted, answered in the year 1694 that there was no place for the concession of proper Lessons. When afterward the cause was resumed, the most eminent Cardinal Gabrielli reporting, the sacred Congregation in the year 1704 persisted in the same opinion. From that time, on account of the tumults of war and other troubles by which Aragon was shaken, the cause was interrupted.

[613] Yet the Aragonese had not yet cast away all hope of obtaining the Office they did not despair of obtaining the proper Office; which they so greatly desired: for in the year 1717 they had scarcely for a little while recovered breath from the turbulent ruin of their fatherland, when they resolved again to press the same matter at Rome. Opportunely at that time, on account of the grave affairs of the Chapter, there was sent to the City the very Rev. Don Joseph Martinez Rubio, canon of Saragossa, whom for the sake of honor and friendship I here gladly name, to whom at the same time it was committed to inquire into the true causes of the former repulse, and prudently to urge for the obtaining of the Office.

[614] but instructed with better documents He therefore, by that skill in conducting affairs in which he excels, disposed the cause otherwise, briefly gathered firmer arguments, leaving aside the fabulous testimonies which had before offended the ears of the purpled Fathers, as the postulators in the Reply to the animadversions of the Rev. Lord Promoter of the Faith, no. 11, not obscurely indicate, when, to the most illustrious Promoter of the Faith objecting the repeated repulse, they answer that the state of the cause was altogether other than at present, both as to the proofs adduced and as to the quality and circumstances of the Office proposed: for of old the postulators, led by too great confidence, presented few documents, and those not in proving form, nor, as was right, authenticated; to say nothing of the fact that they had then laid great stress upon the Chronicles of Flavius Lucius Dexter, Marcus Maximus, and other similar books of untrustworthy credit, which, at the close of the sixteenth century, came to light under the assumed name of illustrious ancient writers, and with reason could stir the stomach of the most eminent Fathers; which we now never call in to our support, nor hold in any esteem, relying on authors of much better note and certain, and on monuments both most well known and more ancient than are those supposititious chronicles. Then they adduce other marks of discrepancy, which here for brevity's sake I omit.

[615] they eagerly resumed the interrupted cause, The matter indeed, on account of the brief stay of the praised canon in the Roman Curia, could not then be brought to a conclusion: for he returned to Saragossa the following year, after he had opened, so to speak, the first approach to the sacred tribunal of the Congregation for the obtaining of the Office. Since therefore now a greater hope of obtaining the Office shone forth, the cause began to be urged with new ardor, and the care of it was entrusted to the Rev. Father Joseph Nicolaus Cavero, of the Order of Blessed Mary of Mercy for the redemption of captives, who in the year 1719 was setting out for Rome. But then in the renowned metropolis of Aragon the work was greatly aglow: for authentic instruments were being juridically drawn out of the archives, arguments for the pious and ancient tradition were everywhere sought out and arranged in fitting order, all being directed by the Rev. Don Joseph Martinez Rubio, who had before understood at Rome the impediments to the desired success, and so knew best the state of the cause, and had learned by experience the style of the Roman curia in disposing processes of this kind.

[616] with all Spain conspiring toward that end. Nay, the minds of the Aragonese were so inflamed with love toward the most blessed Virgin, that in those afflicted times they erected from the foundations a magnificent temple in her honor at Saragossa, whose costly structure, not yet finished in the year 1722, I admired. Then too the pious fervor of the rest of the Spaniards appeared: for at once, in the name of the Catholic king, petitions for the concession of proper Lessons were presented to Innocent XIII, supreme Pontiff, which had been preceded by supplicatory letters from the archbishops, bishops, and chapters, a catalogue of all of whom is woven in the summary, no. 6, so that all Spain seemed to have conspired to win this cause.

[617] Finally in the year 1723, to confirm their tradition Meanwhile the Rev. Father Joseph Nicolaus Cavero, having handed over these instruments to the most eminent Cardinal Origo, diligently promoted the business committed to him, and after various discussions with the most illustrious promoter of the faith, brought it about that the matter was proposed on the 3rd day of July in the year 1723 in the Congregation before six Cardinals, and was nearly brought to the desired end, had not some scruple arisen concerning the proper lessons, which I here exhibit, for the sake of the curious reader, from no. 7 of the Summary: "Lesson IV. Among the Apostles who, after the admirable ascension of Christ into heaven, set out, the parts of the earth having been distributed among them, to teach all nations, James, surnamed the Greater, by divine counsel landed in Spain: where, when he had imbued a few disciples with the Christian mysteries, he stayed for a while at Saragossa, which is the head and metropolis of Aragon, and there was deemed worthy by the most blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, of a signal benefit, the memory of which, commended by celebrated tradition, very many monuments of antiquity also have propagated to posterity.

[618] "Lesson V. For to the Apostle, as they report, accustomed to withdraw by night together with his disciples to the bank of the river Ebro, to the sacred Congregation of Rites that he might more freely attend to the contemplation of divine things, the Mother of God, still dwelling among men, appeared, and gave herself to be seen standing upon a column amid the choirs of angels, and enjoined him to dedicate a chapel to almighty God. Wherefore James, delaying not at all, with his disciples lending aid, built a little shrine to God in honor of the blessed Virgin, which took its name from the column. And it is plainly to be wondered at, that in a region so often vexed by the enemies of the Christian name, and the Saracens especially, and with so many sacred temples either leveled to the ground or converted to profane uses, this shrine of the blessed Virgin stood perpetually in good repair.

[619] "Lesson VI. But amid the very disasters of unhappy times this sacred altar of religion, of holiness, they proposed the proper Lessons of the second Nocturn, and of public counsel, was a haven of salvation to the faithful inhabitants. But afterward, as the centuries advanced, when the peoples flowed together to it from all sides, it was most greatly ennobled by continual prodigies, and marked by the privileges and largesses of the supreme Pontiffs and kings. Moved by which, Innocent XIII, supreme Pontiff, for the enlarging of the cult of the immaculate Virgin, benignly granted that on the dedication of the same church, on the fourth of the Ides of October, an Office should be recited with solemn rite by all who in the city and diocese of Saragossa are bound to the canonical hours: on which very day the dedication of the church also of the holy Savior of the same Metropolitan is celebrated."

[620] Seeing therefore that the Rev. Father Joseph Nicolaus Cavero, which not being admitted, others were substituted and approved, the difficulty of the concession turned no longer upon the substance, but only upon the manner of the thing, changed the aforesaid Lessons of the second Nocturn, and substituted for them others, drawn from the sermon of St. Bernard on the dedication of a church, and at the end contracted the history of the apparition of the Mother of God in this manner: "Truly among the other sacred places which in the Spains are venerated with special devotion, that one is most well known by illustrious fame, which, consecrated to God under the name of the Virgin Mother at Saragossa, took its name from the column: for, as pious and ancient tradition holds, when James the Apostle, called the Greater, by divine counsel had landed in Spain, and had stayed for a while at Saragossa, there he was deemed worthy by the most blessed Virgin of a signal benefit; for to him, as is there related, when with some disciples he was praying by night at the bank of the river Ebro, the Mother of God, still dwelling among men, appeared, and enjoined him to build a chapel. Wherefore the Apostle, delaying not at all, with his disciples lending aid, dedicated a little shrine to God in honor of the same Virgin. But as the centuries advanced, a more august church was added, whose dedication, and also that of the other church of the holy Savior, in the city and diocese of Saragossa, is celebrated on the fourth of the Ides of October with anniversary solemnity." These latter Lessons were approved by the Congregation, held on the 7th of August in the year 1723, at which twelve Cardinals were present.

[621] as appears from the authentic decree, Wherefore the sacred Congregation of Rites, having made a report of these things to the supreme Pontiff, issued the following decree: "Whereas the archbishop, chapter, magistracy, and academy of Saragossa, and also several archbishops and bishops of Spain, presented some years ago most humble petitions to His Holiness Clement XI, and most recently the pious supplications of the most serene Catholic king Philip V were added to our most holy Lord Innocent XIII, for the concession of proper lessons of the second Nocturn on the feast of the dedication of the metropolitan church of Saragossa, and His Holiness remitted them to the sacred Congregation of Rites; the same sacred Congregation, upon the report of the most eminent and most reverend Lord Cardinal Origo, at the instance of Father Master Friar Joseph Nicolaus Cavero, procurator general of the Order of Blessed Mary the Virgin of Mercy for the redemption of captives, and having heard, both in writing and by voice, the Rev. Lord Prosper de Lambertinis, promoter of the faith, the matter having been several times maturely discussed, indulged and granted that on the feast of the dedication of the churches of the most holy Savior and of the most blessed Virgin of the Column of the city of Saragossa, for the second Nocturn the above-written proper lessons, drawn from the sermon of St. Bernard, with

the addition at the end of the sixth lesson of a few words, may and must be recited by all the faithful of Christ of the city and diocese of Saragossa who are bound to the canonical hours, on the 12th of October, on the feast of the dedication of the same churches, if it shall seem good to our most holy Lord. The 7th of August 1723." And a report of the aforesaid having been made by me the secretary to the same our most holy Lord, His Holiness benignly assented. On the 11th of the same month and year. Below was subscribed: "F. Cardinal Paulutius, Prefect." Then below the place of the ✠ seal was: "N. M. Tedeschi, archbishop of Apamea, secretary of the sacred Congregation of Rites."

[622] which especially affected the Aragonese with the greatest joy. It can scarcely be believed how great a joy the concession of this Office brought to all the Spaniards, and especially to the Aragonese: for as soon as sure tidings of the aforesaid decree arrived in the city of Saragossa, at once the metropolitan chapter, the magistracy, and the university broke forth into mutual congratulations, and communicated their joy to the Catholic king by letters; but the citizens of Saragossa, that report having spread through the city, straightway went forth into the squares at a brisk run, flowed together to the most sacred shrine of the Mother of God, and extolled the most blessed Virgin with various praises, which even the children repeated everywhere through the squares with joyful clamor. Soon the bells of all the churches were rung, festive fires were kindled, so many torches and other lights were lit that the darkness of the night was altogether overcome. In a word, the whole city poured itself forth into the utmost joy. I candidly confess that I am incapable of expressing here in few words the remaining triumphs celebrated through the solemn Octave of the dedication, the ingenious mottoes and verses, and the other ornaments of the squares, concerning which Don John Francis Escuder composed a whole book in Spanish. And so here I see only this to remain: that I heartily congratulate the Aragonese on the pious and ancient tradition, confirmed by the new judgment of the sacred Congregation, and commend myself to the most powerful patronage of the Mother of God of Saragossa.