ON S. ISAAC THE MONK
MARTYR AT CORDOVA IN SPAIN.
THE YEAR 851.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
On the writer of the Martyrdom, and his mention in the Martyrologies.
Isaacus Monachus, Martyr at Cordova in Spain (S.)
G. H.
[1] That Cordova, a most illustrious city of Spanish Baetica, was the palæstra of illustrious Martyrs, we have often said and shall say, chiefly in this month of June; The Acts of martyrdom written by S. Eulogius in which very many suffered under the Saracens, whose royal city it was. The contests of these Martyrs S. Eulogius, Doctor of Cordova and Archbishop-elect of Toledo (who also himself afterwards merited to be crowned with glorious martyrdom on March 11, when we illustrated his Acts), described in his Memorial of the Saints; but earlier through a letter, in the same year, of the Incarnation 851, Memory among others and in the sacred fasti Era 889, given to Willesindus Bishop of Pamplona, briefly indicated, that in the following year, after Perfectus the Presbyter on the 14th Kal. of May fell, on the 3rd Nones Isaac the Monk fell: afterwards in the Preface to the said Memorial he treats of S. Isaac the Monk: finally in book 2 chapter 2 he sets forth his Martyrdom. That Memorial Ambrosius Morales illustrated with his Commentaries, who separately in book 14 of the General Chronicle of Spain chapter 7 describes the Martyrdom of S. Isaac: as also did John Marieta, in book 3 of the Ecclesiastical History of the Saints of Spain chapter 10; Martin de Roa, On the Saints of Cordova folio 87; and others. A few years after the martyrdom S. Isaac was inscribed in the Martyrology of Usuard with these words: In the city of Cordova of B. Isaac the Monk, who when he was twenty-seven years old, for the faith of Christ was killed by the sword. Followed Bellinus, Grevenus, Molanus, Galesinius, Canisius; and before them various Martyrologies written by hand and printed, and especially the Roman often recognized by the authority of the Supreme Pontiffs. Encomium from the Indiculus Luminosus. The Additions of Grevenus to Usuard place him on the V day. Morales on chapter 2 of book 2 has some encomium from the Indiculus Luminosus, as of an older author, which is of this kind. By zeal of God Isaac the religious, not by human instigation, but moved by divine; nor walking the path customary in our times, but the obliterated; not bearing in mind the ancient smoke of persecution, approached the Judge: and those things which another vexed by the dire scourge denied, which the weak boaster proclaimed amid the blows that he had not said; the strong athlete, the warring soldier, with more abundant persecution confirmed, with stronger battle intended, and with noble mind inclined, with noble death accomplished, consummated, fulfilled: that he might show to men that he was moved by zeal of faith, not anticipated by fear of necessity; that with constant trust fighting the wars of the Church, openly and clearly he might bring forth what by certain indications more than apprehended they were eager to confirm. That the Lord might also bring forth to the world the victory of His athletes, and to the rude age might make manifest the constancy of His soldiers, and might show that even in the last times He had victors, who would fight the wars of the Lord with that instinct with which the first had intended.
ACTS OF THE MARTYRDOM.
By the author S. Eulogius the Martyr.
Isaacus Monachus, Martyr at Cordova in Spain (S.)
BHL Number: 0000
FROM MS.
From the Preface.
[1] I indeed, calling this volume the Memorial of the Saints, had commented on those a arcisteria only; from which that prior globe of monks had proceeded to resist the most mendacious prophet. But after I learned that from cities, hamlets, little towns, and castles, men and women had eagerly broken forth to this contest, and learned that no one feared the tribunal of the Prefect, Among very many Martyrs but saw that all had unhesitatingly chosen death for the testament and laws of our God; I dedicated [it] to all Churches founded upon the most solid rock; that all might have so much from the triumph of these for the example and joy of their consolation and glory, as it was for them to have come from various places, the chief S. Isaac and into the example of the whole Church to have undergone the perils of passions. But I think that among them the principate is held by S. Isaac the Monk, who first descending from b the Tabanensian cenobium into the forum, approached the Judge, and addressed him with these words: I would wish (he says), Judge, to become a zealous worshipper of the faith, if only you would not delay to set forth to me its order and reason. To whom when, willingly as if to a young man about to believe as a recruit of his faith, with puffed-out cheeks, swelling throat, words of instruction crackling within the hollows of the palate his deceitful tongue brought forth, he convicts the law of Muhammad: he foretold that the author of this sect would be Muhammad; who, illustrated by the magisterium of the Angel Gabriel, received the word of Prophecy from the Most High to be brought back to the nations; instituted the law, discoursed of Paradise, and taught a kingdom of the heavens full of feasts and the lusts of women. But also many other things, which here it would be very long to set down, from the rite according to vain arbitrium proceeding, at once that venerable youth the Monk, as he was preeminently imbued with Arabic letters, giving him a response in Arabic: He has lied to you, he says (so may he waste away with divine curses), who, implicated in such a crime, invaded the troops of such lost ones, and committed them with himself to the pit of the lower regions. For he indeed full of a demon, favoring demonic deceits, offering a lethal cup to the sick, shall suffer the death of eternal perdition. Why do you, endowed with knowledge, not withdraw from such perils? Why not, renouncing the ulcer of the pestiferous dogma, do you choose the perennial Evangelical health of the Christian faith?
[2] struck on the face These and similar things with chaste mouth, with the highest daring of reverence and force, with a most sharp tongue, with blessed Isaac discoursing, the Judge troubled with excessive amazement, and made as it were mad, is reported to have wept profusely: and occupied by a certain dullness of mind, is said to have scarcely been able to answer the Monk reproaching him: and so with his hand extended striking his face, immediately the Monk said: Do you dare strike a face like to the image of God? see what reason for this you must give. Therefore, caught by the wise men sitting with him, he is rebuked, that, forgetting the gravity of a censor, he had lightly through himself proceeded to strike the Martyr; and especially, because according to the sentence of their laws, he who is worthy to die for a crime, ought to be torn by the abuses of no punishment. Then the Judge turning to S. Isaac said: Perhaps drunk with wine, or seized by phrenesy, intrepid he responds: you cannot easily attend to those things which you bring forth. For the sentence of our very prophet, whom you rashly assail with abuses, remains irrefragable, that those should be punished who do not fear to profess such things about him. To whom venerable Isaac with intrepid response said: I indeed, Judge, am neither drunk with wine, nor wounded with any disease; but burning with zeal of justice; with which I have found your prophet, and you yourselves, to be devoid, I have set forth the truth to you: for which if furious death should come, willingly will I receive it, placid will I undergo it, nor turn my neck from its blows. For I have known the Lord to have said; Blessed are those who suffer persecution for justice, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matt. 10
[3] Then the Judge handing him over to prison, forthwith made known the cause of him to the King; who, terrified by the outcome of so great an accusation, The Martyr died in the year 851, immediately with more ferocious mind brings forth a fierce edict, saying, that everywhere he ought to be made subject to death, who brought such reproach against the author of his faith. Hence the servant of God, condemned to death, is struck on the crown; hence raised on a stake he is hung head downward, and beyond the river is placed for the spectacle of the city, on the 3rd Nones of June, on the fourth feria. Era c 889. Whose body after some days with the rest, who were slain by imitating him, having been cremated with fire, and turned into ashes, was thereafter cast into the river.
[4] But it is necessary to set forth, with what indications or prodigies this B. Isaac was noted in infancy: in infancy famous for prodigies: that we may believe him to have been divinely chosen from that to the crown of martyrdom, from which when placed in his mother's womb he brought a very terrible stupor to his parents. For three times in one day, a little before he was born, he was seen to speak: by the novelty of which thing the woman terrified, almost dead, could in no way understand the force of the words. Also at another time, when he was still seven years old, a certain virgin sees through a vision a globe of light descending from heaven; and among the whole throng of those waiting, he alone extending his arms received the light with his hands, and drank in all its brightness cast into his mouth; all then calling him happy and truly blessed, worthy of such a gift. These are the prodigies and signs of his infancy, which long before portended him worthy of martyrdom.
[5] For a certain Priest from the Tabanensian cenobium, from which the same Blessed one had proceeded to the contest, the solemnities of the Masses being performed on the Lord's day d, that is, on the seventh of the Ides of June, which had fallen after the fifth day of his martyrdom, and after his death honored by a vision. lying down on a certain bed of the Brethren, began to fall asleep a little; and behold suddenly through a dream he saw a boy of most beautiful grace coming from the parts of the East, and bearing in his hands a sheet of wondrous beauty standing by him: which receiving from him, he began to read its writing. For it was written with these words: Just as our Father Abraham offered Isaac his son to God in sacrifice, so also now Saint Isaac, in the sight of the Lord, offered sacrifice for the Brethren. And forthwith certain men coming from the city, said that the Blessed e Jeremiah had been crowned by Martyrdom with others, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whose example several were destroyed before the public under the same profession.
Book 2, chapter 2
[6] Blessed Isaac, then, born of noble and wealthier parents of the citizens of Cordova, while he was entering the earliest years of adolescence, and most tenderly dwelt amid the wealth and goods of his parents, so much so that, skilled and learned in the Arabic language, he discharged the office of f exceptor of the public administration; suddenly by spiritual
burning ardor, Epitome of his life and martyrdom. choosing the life of Monks, sought the hamlet of Tabanos: which in the parts of the North, between the precipices of mountains and dense forests, seven miles distant from the city, is adorned by most beautiful rumors of men and handmaids of God in the exercise of monastic life. For in the same cenobium he had as his cousin Jeremiah, a man endowed with the highest reverence of the fear of God: who also illustrious in resources, and abounding in things, and his venerable wife Elizabeth, and his children, and nearly all his kindred, laying at their own expense the foundations of that cenobium, to adhere by perennial obedience to the divine laws, had previously betaken themselves there. There for three years B. Isaac under regular disciplines, or under the most reverend Abbot Martin, brother of the said woman, fighting in his holy proposal; suddenly illustrated divinely, going to the forum, sought the Judge, and in the order in which I have arranged in the preface of the book, with happy death under the testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the same royal city on the 3rd Nones of June, on the fourth feria, in the Era 889, fell. g Whose body suspended on a torture-frame, after some days with the rest, who were cut down imitating him, committed to most rapacious fire, was reduced even to the last ashes, and thereafter was immersed in the river to be lost.