CONCERNING SAINT SANCTIUS,
MARTYR AT CORDOVA IN SPAIN.
From the Memorial of St. Eulogius of Cordova, Priest and Martyr.
IN THE YEAR 851.
CommentarySanctius, Martyr at Cordova in Spain (St.)
G. H. & D. P.
The Tables of the Roman Martyrology celebrate St. Sanctius in these words: "At Cordova in Spain, Blessed Sancius, a youth, who, although educated in the royal court, Sacred cult, yet for the faith of Christ, in the Arabian persecution, did not hesitate to undergo martyrdom." In the Notes Baronius adds:
St. Eulogius wrote his martyrdom in book 2 of the Memorial of the Saints, chapter 3, and reports that he suffered in the Era eight hundred eighty-nine, from Christ the Lord the year eight hundred fifty-one. The words of St. Eulogius are these: "But Saint Sanctius, our hearer, the eulogy of Eulogius, a layman youth, formerly captured from the town of Alba in Gallia Comata, but now enrolled free among the military boys of the King, and nourished on the royal provisions; in the same royal city, under the same profession, on the Nones of June, in the Era as above, on the sixth day of the week, was prostrated and affixed." Thus Eulogius, who in the preceding chapter 2 had treated of the Martyrdom of Blessed Isaac the monk, and had said that he suffered on the said fifth day of the week, in the Era 889, as we too then reported. Indeed even before he composed his Memorial, in the very year of the aforesaid passion, on the 17th of the Kalends of December, in a Letter to be sent to Willesindus, Bishop of Pamplona; ending with an enumeration of certain Martyrs then recent: after Isaac, he says; "Sancio, a Layman, from the town of Alba, on the Nones of June in this very Era, triumphed by a martyr's death." His praises are reported by Galesinius on this day, Ambrosius de Morales in book 14 of the History of the Spains, chapter 6, Joannes Marietta in book 2, chapter 69, Martinus de Roa in On the Saints of Cordova, folio 90 and the two following, which things Joannes Tamayus Salazar asserts that he renders into Latin from the Spanish of the said Roa.
[2] Thus far Henschenius, leaving to our judgment whether the things thus rendered into Latin by Tamayus deserved to be added here. The Life written by Martinus de Roa is omitted, But re-reading all things carefully, in that long paraphrase of two pages, I find nothing at all of substance which the few words of Eulogius do not comprise, and beyond which Roa could have had nothing by which to amplify solidly the subject he had taken up. Thus the soldiery of the royal boys, to which Eulogius says Sancius was enrolled, and which he calls a Tirocinium, Roa names a work invented by King Issen, so that the young men, imbued with these military exercises, when necessity compelled, might easily hasten to arms, whom at that age they named Doncellos: but Tamayus adds in the Notes, that from these there even today dwell among the Turks the Janissaries. because it is only a paraphrase of the words of Eulogius; St. Isaac was said to have gone of his own accord to the judge, for the sake of professing the faith; Sancius is said by Eulogius to have been prostrated and affixed under the same profession. Extending this, Roa says: "He openly returned the royal stipend, with free voice rebuked the Pseudo-prophet, whom he called a soothsayer, an old trickster, and a most obscene architect of lies." Hence a long reproach of ingratitude, and as it were an accusation of the Christian law, as if Sanctius were teaching it, by the judge, and a more lengthy defense by the Martyr, is woven.
[3] and says he was beheaded, Finally, in these words the whole matter from Roa is concluded by Tamayus: "His neck being cut off, he flew away to the Lord. They placed his body across from the city beyond the Baetis, affixed on a stake, until, cast onto a pyre with the corpses of other Martyrs, and dissolved into ashes, with the cinder it consecrated the waters of the river." That is, of Isaac Eulogius had said that he was beheaded, and that his Body after some days, with the others who, by imitating him, were slain, was burned with fire and turned into ashes, and afterward cast into the river: but of Sancius he only says, that he was prostrated and affixed, indicating that manner of punishment, as it seems to us, by which today, while among the Turks and Hungarians, those guilty of treason, such as Sancius was reckoned, are stretched on the ground, and, a stake being driven through the body to transfix them, and with it to be raised on high, for a long death and a cruel spectacle, which they call impalement: yet his corpse, burned with the body of Isaac, Roa rightly conjectures from the aforesaid.
[4] Now as for the town of Alba, which Tamayus in the Notes understands to be Alba, which is also called Augusta Elicocorum by Ptolemy, but by Pliny Alba Helvorum; likewise born at Viviers; and which Brietius affirms was afterward called Vivarium, and today is called Viviers; that I can by no means approve, when it is a question of an author of the 9th century. For then the name of Vivariae alone was known, as Gregory of Tours proves, who in book 3, chapter 23, knows only the city of Viviers: Ado of Vienne in his Chronicle, the Parish of Viviers; Usuard on the 1st of May, the Territory of Viviers; and finally the Division of the dominions of Lothair, written a little after the death of Eulogius, between the Kings Louis and Charles, twice assigns Vivariae to the portion of Charles. But the city of Albi (which, also called Albigensis, commonly Alby, is found not only in the old Notices, but is also placed fourth among the eight cities of the first Aquitanian province) is repeatedly named by Gregory; which will better be attributed to Albi. and in the Annals of Eginhard for the year 767 the district of Albi is found mentioned. All which things and many more can be seen in Hadrianus Valesius in his Notice of the Gauls. From the town of Albi therefore, or Albigensis, it is more probable that Eulogius wrote, even though the copyist omitted one letter. Its own Bishop Constantius calls it a little city, in his Letter to Desiderius of Cahors; and it was twice as near to the Pyrenees as Viviers, and so more quickly exposed to the incursions of the Saracens, the Moors dominating Spain, occupied almost entirely from the year 720.