ON SAINT HESYCHIUS, OR ISCIUS, BISHOP AND MARTYR OF CARCESA, OR CAZORLA, IN SPAIN,
IN THE FIRST CENTURY.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Hesychius, or Iscius, Bishop and Martyr of Carcesa, or Cazorla, in Spain (Saint)
FROM VARIOUS SOURCES
§ I. Saint Hesychius, with six others, was sent by Saint Peter into Spain.
[1] That visible sun which illuminates all places on earth, Spain, the remotest of provinces (at least of the once-known world), is accustomed to behold rising later in the morning and concealing its rays in the evening, as though plunging itself into the Ocean. Yet this same land was among the first, after Judea where it had risen, to receive the light of the Sun of Justice, through the preaching of the Apostle James, surnamed the Greater, as the long-established tradition of those peoples holds, handed down from generation to generation, confirmed by the authority of the Breviary now used by the Roman Church In Spain, few were converted by Saint James the Apostle and by the consensus of very many illustrious writers. But that few disciples attached themselves to him during the time he was in Spain is reported, says Mariana, De rebus Hispaniae, book 4, chapter 2, as do most other writers on the history of Spain. For having tarried there only a brief time, he was compelled to return to Judea, whether by some necessity of the infant Church or rather by the prompting of the Divine Spirit, who was preparing for him, first among the Apostolic college, the crown of martyrdom.
[2] Nevertheless, the virtue of the few who had been imbued with faith compensated for their small number. For seven of them, after the death of their Master and the translation (as is commonly believed) of his remains to Spain, are said to have journeyed to Rome, to have been there ordained bishops by Saints Peter and Paul, and to have been sent back to Spain. Although there are those who hold that they did not come to Rome from Spain, but were dispatched from Rome to Spain by those same Apostles from among the Roman clergy and their company of apostolic men Seven bishops sent thither by Saint Peter whom they kept ready at hand for such duties. But from whatever nation they sprang, wherever they were initiated into the mysteries of our faith, and through whosesoever agency, at Rome (as Usuard the monk wrote of them more than 800 years ago under May 15 in his Martyrology, and others after him) they were ordained bishops by the holy Apostles and directed to preach the word of God to the Spains, still at that time entangled in pagan error. And having preached the Gospel in various cities and brought innumerable multitudes under the faith of Christ, Torquatus at Acci, Ctesiphon at Vergium, Secundus at Abula, Indalesius at Urci, Caecilius at Eliberis, Esicius at Carcesus, and Euphrasius at Eliturgis, came to rest.
[3] This mission of theirs was explained at length by us on February 1, when we treated of Saint Caecilius, Bishop of Eliberis and Martyr, on the testimony of weighty authors, and especially the letter 64 of Blessed Gregory VII, Supreme Pontiff, to Alfonso VI of Castile and Sancho IV of Aragon and the bishops established in their dominions, dated in the year 1074, Indiction XII, on the 14th day before the Kalends of April, where among other things he speaks thus: On the testimony of Blessed Gregory VII "Since the blessed Apostle Paul indicates that he went to Spain, and since afterwards seven bishops are known to have been sent from the city of Rome by the Apostles Peter and Paul to instruct the peoples of Spain, who, having destroyed idolatry, founded Christianity, planted the faith, demonstrated the order and rite to be observed in divine worship, and dedicated churches with their blood—let your diligence not be unaware," etc. And then he cites in support of this both Spanish councils and decrees of the Roman Pontiffs, and among these the first letter of Saint Innocent I to Decentius, Bishop of Gubbio, dated on the 14th day before the Kalends of April, in the consulship of the most illustrious Theodosius Augustus (for the seventh time) and Palladius, that is, in the year of Christ 416, in which these words appear: "Especially since it is manifest nor from any other source that no one established churches in all Italy, Gaul, Spain, Africa, and Sicily, and the islands lying between, except those whom the venerable Apostle Peter or his successors appointed as priests," etc.
[4] These seven heroes were therefore sent into Spain after the year of Christ 58. For since Saint Paul the Apostle was brought to Rome in the second year of Nero, which was the year of Christ 56 When did they come thither?, and having been released from custody two years later, appears only then to have set out for Spain, and having returned thence to have been the one who urged Saint Peter to consecrate bishops to be sent there, this cannot have occurred earlier than the year 59 or 60, or even later. Having arrived there, at the city of Acci (which is the Ἄκκι of Ptolemy, book 2, chapter 6, among the inland cities of the Bastetani, called by Pliny, book 3, chapter 3, Colonia Accitana They first convert the people of Acci, and counted among the 62 peoples subject to the conventus of Carthage), they converted Luparia, a distinguished matron, and very many others, who were struck with wonder by an extraordinary miracle. For when, on account of the weariness of the journey (as Blessed Ado in his Martyrology under May 15, and Blessed Notker, and others record), they were resting a little and had sent disciples into the city to buy provisions, presently a multitude of pagans, who at that time happened to be celebrating a festival for their gods, pursued them all the way to the river: Struck with wonder by a remarkable miracle in which a bridge of marvellous size and solidity, after the Saints had crossed over, collapsed entirely by divine will along with the whole multitude of pursuers. Terrified by this miracle, the rest, following the example of a certain noble matron Luparia (who, divinely inspired, kindly received them and believed), abandoned their idols and believed in Christ the Lord. And shortly after, the same Bishop Ado adds: "There persists to this day a famous miracle as a commendation of their precious death. For on that same feast day, at the aforesaid city of Acci, at the tomb of Saint Torquatus, an olive tree, flowering by divine power, is laden with ripe fruit." An annual miracle. So he writes.
[5] Moreover, the fact that he commemorates those seven first bishops of Spain on that one day, whom their individual churches are said to venerate on different days, indicates that all of them together were honored on that same feast, as he says, at the aforesaid city of Acci, and that, namely, the memory of their arrival in Spain was recalled, and of the conversion of the pagans begun not without miracles And the memory of their arrival on May 15, as we reported from Francisco de Bivario on February 1, in the commentary on Saint Caecilius, §5, no. 28. And there we set forth what pertains generally to the first sowing of the Gospel in those regions, but quite briefly, since we considered what Mariana writes in chapter 2 of book 4: that since the antiquity of events (confirmed by no monuments of contemporary or even near-contemporary authors) undermines the certainty of the written account, and nothing certain can be adduced concerning the disciples of the Apostle James, the reader's judgment on the whole matter ought to be left free. Concerning Saint Caecilius, who on that day has his own proper veneration at Granada and elsewhere, we set forth some particulars: we omitted more, which others had freely drawn from lead tablets recently discovered near Granada—men otherwise learned—before those tablets were declared apocryphal by the judgment of the Roman Inquisition and by mandate of Pope Urban VIII. Concerning the other companions of Saint Caecilius we shall treat elsewhere; here we treat of Saint Hesychius, or Isicius, Iscius, Esicius, Hesicius, Hisicius, or Esitius, for authors express the name variously.
§ II. Where Saint Hesychius preached: chiefly at Carcesa.
[6] Saint Hesychius at first acted as a herald of the most sacred religion among the people of Acci together with his other companions, then elsewhere. Juan Marieta, book 1, chapter 4, writes that Saint Hesychius preaches at Vergium he preached at Vergium with Saint Ctesiphon, and afterwards at Carcesa. Thomas de Trujillo agrees, volume 2 of his Thesaurus concionum under May 1: "Ctesiphon," he says, "and Hesicius preached at Beria and at Carcesa." He is said to have come to rest here at Carcesa, either because, as Spanish writers commonly interpret, he founded a bishopric there, or because at that place
he ended his apostolic labors and was buried. But where that Carcesa, or Cartesa, actually stood is a matter of dispute.
Then at Carcesa. We shall first set forth how he is named in the ancient Martyrologies, whether already printed or still only in manuscript.
[7] The Martyrology of Usuard, published by Molanus with notes and an appendix in 1573 and 1583, which others call Carthesa has "Carthesae," as does the Roman Martyrology formerly revised by Cardinal Baronius at the command of Gregory XIII, and recently corrected under the authority of Urban VIII, although in the Frankfurt edition of 1631, among other typographical errors, "Carterae" was printed. Why the intermediate editions varied, we shall inquire presently. And Cartesa "Cartesae," without aspiration, appears in the Martyrology of Ado published by Heribert Rosweyde, although he noted in the margin that in one manuscript "Carcerae" is read. "Cartesae" likewise appears in the manuscript Martyrology of the Church of Thérouanne, which is that of Ado; in Peter de Natali; in the manuscript of Arnobius of Alberg, which is that of Usuard; in the Martyrology printed at Cologne in 1490, and in that printed at Lübeck in the same year with the Doctrinale Clericorum. In the manuscript of the house of Saint Jerome at Utrecht, "Tarcesae" appears to have been written by a copyist's metathesis for "Cartesae"; it is that of Usuard. The edition of the same Usuard by Molanus in 1568, as well as by Hermann Greven in 1515, Or Cartesus and a certain old manuscript of ours bearing the name of Bede, have "Cartesi"; the manuscript of Saint Mary's at Utrecht has "Carthesi." Maurolycus and Constantius Felicius have "Carthesiae." Bivario testifies that the same is found in the Breviary of Córdoba: but as for his claim that Molanus and Equilinus also wrote thus, we do not find this in them. Galesini reports that Saint Hesychius was placed over the bishopric of the city of "Cathesiana" (I believe he wrote "Carthesiana").
[8] Marieta and Trujillo, cited above, report that he preached at Carcesa, as does the published Bede both in the third volume of his works and separately printed by Plantin in 1564, and Notker, and three manuscripts of Usuard in our possession, Better, Carcesa likewise two manuscripts of Ado, of which one is in Saint Lawrence's near Liège and the other in the monastery of Lobbes, both very ancient, and another manuscript of the monastery of Saint Maximin at Trier, otherwise generally agreeing with Rabanus's Martyrology but here more copious than it. We have a certain exemplar of Usuard written out at least three or four centuries ago and brought from Lorraine, in which only "Caresae" is read, but with a thin smudge, so that the copyist appears to have wished to correct what he had written and restore "Carcesae" or "Cartesae." Finally, the twin exemplar of Usuard (which is preserved at Paris in the monastery of Saint-Germain, where he was a monk, one at least 400 years old, the other written in the author's own time or not long after, as the most learned Jacques Sirmond judged, when he had collated them with each other at my request, with the assistance of Father Jean-Baptiste Cortasius) both have "Carcesi," as does an exemplar of excellent quality Or Carcesus which belonged to Augustin Hunaeus and is now in our possession; likewise the manuscript of the Church of Prague, and the copy of a certain very old codex long since sent to us from Bruges, and the Martyrology printed at Paris in 1536.
[9] To what purpose, you will say, have these been so laboriously gathered? Namely, so that it may be clear to the reader that of the very many printed and manuscript exemplars of the Martyrology which we possess, not one has assigned Saint Hesychius the Apostle to Carteia. The first to write this, I believe, was the person who brought forward the Chronicle attributed to Flavius Dexter. From this a twofold edition of the Roman Martyrology was produced here at Antwerp Or also Carteia?, the first in 1608 without the annotations of Cardinal Baronius, the second with them in 1613, both after his death. Who was responsible for this alteration I do not know; the former reading was subsequently restored, as we said, by the authority of Urban VIII. Philippus Ferrarius, Prior General of the Order of the Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary, wrote "Carteca" in his Topography of the Roman Martyrology in 1609.
[10] Francisco de Bivario responds in his commentary on the Chronicle of Dexter at the year 52, no. 1, writing thus: "Whether one should read 'Cartheiae,' or 'Cartesiae,' or 'Cartesae,' is of no great concern; for in the ancient proper names of places, no small variation has been produced by the passage of time." That great change occurs with the lapse of time no one denies. But the question is not how much the name now in use differs from the ancient one, but by what name the place where Saint Hesychius came to rest was formerly called, so that from this a conjecture might be formed as to what it now is. Nor is what the same author adds relevant, that the name Carteia was widely accepted among Livy, Strabo, Pliny, and other ancient writers A famous ancient town of that name, so long as he does not produce a single one who wrote Cartesa, or Carcesa, or Carcesus, for Carteia. So much for the name; now for the location of the place which the Saint ennobled by his preaching, or even by his death.
[11] That Chronicle attributed to Flavius Dexter, at the year of Christ 52, no. 1, states: "Iscius preaches at Carteia near the strait, traverses the whole coast of the inner sea, and preaches at Alona and at another Carteia in the interior, not far from Carthago Spartaria." That famous Carteia at the Strait of Hercules—at what place it stood, or perhaps still stands under another name—is debated. Livy, decade 3, book 8, describes the site of the ancient city thus: At the Strait of Hercules "Laelius, having sailed through the strait into the Ocean, brought his fleet to Carteia. That city is situated on the coast of the Ocean, where the sea first opens out from the narrow passage." And from this Ambrosio de Morales and Luís Nunes conclude that Carteia appears to have been the town now called Algeciras, not Tarifa, which is farther removed from the narrows of the strait and does not have a harbor such as exists at Algeciras Where Algeciras now stands, and which Livy and other authorities report was at Carteia. Still farther from the strait is Conil, not far from Cádiz, which some have supposed to be Carteia, as Ortelius attests.
[12] Pomponius Mela, book 2, chapter 6, mentions Alona thus: "The next gulf, the Illicitanus, has Alona Whether he preached at Alona?, Lucentiam, and, whence it takes its name, Illice." Ptolemy, book 2, chapter 6, calls it Ἀλωνάι in the plural; Stephanus calls it Ἀλωνίς, and he mentions another Alona, or Ἀλώνη, an island near Cyzicus, so called because its inhabitants ἁλῶν ἐργασίαν ἐπενόησαν, that is, invented the method of making salt. From this too the name of this Spanish Alona or Alonae derives. Not Alicante Bivario and other Spaniards would have it that it is now called Alicante, which is a most famous trading port in the kingdom of Valencia. But Isaac Vossius, in his very accurate observations on Mela, considers it to have been Lucentiam, which in Livy, decade 23, book 2, is called Longuntica by a copyist's error. But he maintains that Alona is the town which the Arabs formerly called Tudemir and the Spaniards call Guardamar But Guardamar, situated on a peninsula at the mouth of the river commonly called the Segura; for there are innumerable and most excellent salt-works at that town, as Rodrigo Méndez Silva also acknowledges in his description of the Kingdom of Valencia, chapter 25, although he would have it be Longuntica.
[13] But what is that other Carteia in the interior, "not far from Carthago Spartaria"? Bivario writes that it is called Cartaia, which, he says, is not on the seacoast itself but somewhat inland, separated from the sea. Whether at Carteia, or Cartaia, near New Carthage—which does not exist there? There is indeed the town of Cartaya, which some would have been founded by the Tyrians, others by the inhabitants of the Carteia situated at the strait. But that place is far from Carthago Spartaria, being quite close to the city of Ayamonte and the river Guadiana. Rodrigo Caro honestly confesses in his commentary on the Chronicle of Dexter: "About a Carteia near Carthago Spartaria I am in doubt. Today there is the town of Cartaia, but it is situated far from that region, beyond the jaws of the Strait of Cádiz, not far from Lepia." What he here calls Lepia is commonly called Lepe, one league beyond Cartaya toward the Guadiana river, lying halfway from the sea, on the stream called Saltes, as the same Rodrigo Méndez Silva reports in his description of Baetica, chapter 46, who also says that Lepe itself is a work of the Tyrians or other Phoenicians.
[14] Nevertheless, those who fabricated that pseudo-Dextrian Chronicle had another Carteia in view: namely the one thus mentioned by Livy, decade 3, book 1, speaking of Hannibal: "He first led his army into the territory of the Olcades (that people, beyond the Ebro, was more in alliance than under the sovereignty of the Carthaginians) … He storms and plunders Carteia, the wealthy city, Whether at Carteia among the Olcades capital of that people. Struck with fear at this, the smaller communities submitted to a tribute and accepted his authority. The victorious army, rich with spoil, was led back to New Carthage for winter quarters … In early spring the war was advanced against the Vaccaei. Hermandica and Arbacala, cities of the Carteians, were taken by force. Arbacala was long defended both by the valor and the numbers of its townspeople. The fugitives from Hermandica, having joined themselves with the exiles of the Olcades, a people subdued the previous summer, stirred up the Carpetani: and attacking Hannibal as he returned from the Vaccaei, not far from the river Tagus, they threw his column into disorder, burdened as it was with plunder." Concerning these expeditions of Hannibal, Mariana writes thus briefly in book 2, chapter 9: "At first arms were turned against the Carpetani, a people surpassing all others of that province in ferocity and numbers. The cause is not clear. First the Olcades, where Ocaña now stands (Stephanus places the Olcades near the Ebro), and Carseia, the capital of their people, were overwhelmed. Then others were defeated in a notable battle at the Tagus." Ocaña, or Occanna, as Nunes writes in his work on Spain, chapter 47 (who approves Mariana's opinion), is a city of the kingdom of Toledo. Those whom Livy writes were subdued and calls the Carteii, Polybius in book 3 calls the Vaccaei, or Οὐακαῖοι, and their captured cities Helmantica (some translate it as Salamanca) and Arbacala, Ἑλμαντικὴν καὶ Ἀρβουκάλην. The same author calls the captured city of the Olcades not Carteia but Althaea. Stephanus likewise says: "Ἀλθαία, πόλις Ὀλκάδων" Which others call Althaea?, "Althaea, a city of the Olcades." But I am not sure he is correct in what he adds: "οἱ δὲ Ὀλκάδες ἔθνος Ἰβηρίας, πλησιόχωροι Καρχιδόνος, ἣν ἐκάλουν καὶ καινὴν πόλιν"—"The Olcades are a people of Spain, neighbors of Carthage, which they also called the new city." But elsewhere: "Ὀλκάδες, ἔθνος Ἰβήρων, τῶν ἐντὸς Ἴβηρος τοῦ ποταμοῦ"—"The Olcades, a people of Spain, on this side of the river Ebro." But if the Olcades dwelt near Ocaña and around the Tagus, or near the Ebro, their city was not near Carthage, whether you call it Carteia or Althaea; nor was it "in the interior sea," as the fabricator of that Chronicle puts it—a phrase that the most elegant Dexter would hardly have used.
[15] It is not sufficiently established, therefore, from the testimony of this pseudonymous author that Saint Hesychius preached at Carteia, since the other codices, even the most ancient, protest otherwise. As for Alona, since he alone asserts it, with authority so uncertain in other matters, one can neither safely assent nor care to refute it. Where, then, did Saint Hesychius finally either fix his see or end his life?
Mariana, book 4, chapter 2, writes: "He was bishop of Carthesa, not far from Astorga." Marieta, book 1, chapter 14, says he preached the Gospel at Carcesa Whether at Carthesa near Astorga?, which is near Astorga. Bivario writes that those who read "Carthesia" with the Breviary of Córdoba place it near Astorga, and that it is thought to be the place now called Ventosa. He says, however, that they err throughout all Spain, because among the ancient and approved authors no city called Carthesia exists in the whole region of Astorga. I believe that those who wrote this must have read the name of that city somewhere, even though they did not indicate where; for not all the names of cities are recorded in all writers, even in those who treated geography ex professo, let alone in historians, who in recounting the events they narrate often do not even specify the places where they occurred. Bivario continues: "Besides," he says, "Saint Iscius and his companions exercised the office of preaching in coastal Baetica, and not in the inland provinces of Spain." This is because Dexter, at the year 44, asserts that they returned to the southern parts of Spain, that is, to coastal Baetica; and from this he concludes that they all preached there and did not advance into the interior. But Saint Secundus penetrated as far as Abula, certainly far from coastal Baetica: why could Hesychius not likewise have journeyed to places near Astorga? "Because," says Bivario, "at that time Saint Ephrem, Bishop of Astorga, designated by Saint James for that province, was engaged in the conversion of that region, so that it would not have been necessary for Saint Iscius to have been appointed bishop in so nearby a city." As if the cities were not also near one another in which Saints Torquatus, Ctesiphon, Indalesius, and Caecilius are said to have been bishops—Acci, Vergium, Urcum, and Eliberis! And indeed we shall demonstrate on March 7 that Saint Ephrem was neither Bishop of Astorga nor lived in that era. Nevertheless, we do not think Saint Hesychius should be assigned to a Carcesa near Astorga, but rather to another Rather at Cazorla, closer to the city of Acci, Illiturgis, Eliberis, and the other places named, namely the one now called Cazorla, of which we treat in the following section.
§ III. Saint Hesychius underwent martyrdom near Cazorla, which was formerly Carcesa, where he is also venerated as the Apostle of that place.
[16] With what success Saint Hesychius disseminated the word of God is nowhere explicitly narrated, except that Usuard and those who followed him pronounce in general terms of him and his six companions that they brought innumerable multitudes under the faith of Christ. It is equally obscure how many years he devoted to the exercise of that apostolic office. How long did he preach? For what is written in the Chronicle of Dexter does not deserve credence, nor what is read in the lead tablets discovered near Granada in 1595; and indeed the reading and defense of these tablets has been prohibited, as we said at length on February 1, when we were discussing Saint Caecilius. As we related above, Saint Paul the Apostle was brought captive to Rome in the second year of Nero, which was the year 56 of the common era, according to our reckoning. He is thought to have been detained there for two full years, and then to have set out for Spain, as he had previously promised, in the year 58 or the following. And when he had returned thence to Rome, Sent to Spain after the year of Christ 59 only then were Saint Hesychius and his companions ordained bishops by him and Saint Peter; they were sent by Peter into Spain, perhaps in the year 59, no earlier, and perhaps even later.
[17] Yet that illustrious Chronicle attributed to Dexter states the following about them at the year of Christ 57, which was the third year of Nero: "Certain of these disciples of Saint James, under Alotus, Nero's judge, while gathering for a council at Eliberris, Not therefore killed in the year 57 were burned by fire, stripped of their own and all their people's goods, and dying nobly, were crowned for the faith of Christ." But the apocryphal tablets say of Saint Iscius: "In the second year of the reign of Nero, on the Kalends of March, he suffered martyrdom in this place of Illipula, the chosen one being Saint Iscius, disciple of the Apostle James, with his disciples Turillus, Pannuntius, Maronius, Much less in the second year of Nero Centulius, passing through the midst of fire in which they were burned alive, seeking eternal life: so that the stones were converted to quickite, whose dust lies in the caverns of this sacred mountain, which (as reason demands) should be venerated in their memory." Bivario praises the "wonderful harmony of Dexter and the Granada tablets," although the discrepancy is manifest. For according to the erroneous calculation of certain scholars, which Cardinal Baronius also followed, Which is wrongly asserted by some in both cases Nero is said to have assumed the helm of empire on October 13 of the year of Christ 56, so that the Kalends of March in the second year of Nero, when the tablets report that Saint Iscius and his disciples suffered martyrdom, would correspond not with the year of Christ 57, as Dexter has, but with 58. According to correct chronology, however, on the 3rd day before the Ides of October in the year 54, in the consulship of Marcellus and Aviola, upon the death of Claudius, Nero was made Emperor, and the month of March in the second year of his reign falls in the common year of Christ 56. By whatever calculation Bivario may wish to reckon, the tablets will nonetheless not agree with Dexter. And both of these will be refuted by the aforementioned Blessed Gregory VII, who nearly 600 years ago wrote to the kings and bishops of Spain that those seven bishops were not consecrated except after the return of the Apostle Paul from Spain, and were sent there by Saint Peter, the Prince of the Apostles; nor should the diligence of those same kings and bishops be unaware of this. I greatly prefer the judgment of that most holy and most learned Pontiff over both the Chronicle ascribed to Dexter, stitched together with more zeal than skill, and those tablets, engraved perhaps in the time of the Moors by some unknown person and to what end I know not.
[18] But even had these not been censured by Rome, far greater weight would the ancient tradition and devotion of the people of Cazorla have with me. Cazorla is a city situated on the borders of Baetica, Murcia, and Castile, Where is Cazorla situated? two leagues from the source of the river Guadalquivir, as Ambrosio de Morales testifies in chapter 22 of his Description of Spain, who thinks it is the same city that Strabo in book 3 calls Castaon—though some prefer to read Κασαλῶνα rather than Κασαῶνα, Not formerly called Castaon and Polybius in book 11 also names Κασαλῶνα. Stephanus says: "Κασάλων, μεγίστη πόλις Ὡρητανίας," that is, "Castalon, the greatest city of Oretania." In Ptolemy also, book 2, chapter 6, Κασουλών is placed among the Oretani. But that is Castulo, a most famous city in Livy, decade 3, book 4; and Morales in the cited book, chapter 1, writes that it stood where Cazlona is now seen, three leagues from the city of Baeza. Cazorla is twice that distance from the same Baeza, and the river Vega runs through its midst, according to Rodrigo Méndez Silva. Antonio Cianca, in his history of Saint Secundus, book 1, chapter 15, writes that it was formerly called Carcesa But Carcesa, and that this is proved from the ancient written records preserved there.
[19] The same author says that there flourishes there a public tradition, received from their ancestors, that Saint Esicius was the Apostle of that city and was there crowned with martyrdom. For there is a field not far from the city Near this place Saint Hesychius was stoned to which he is said to have been dragged and there overwhelmed with stones, and in it a heap of stones is visible, piled up by human hands, on a hill near an anchorite's dwelling dedicated to Saint Mark the Evangelist. To this hill the clergy and people of Cazorla resort every year with a most solemn procession, by most ancient custom, on one of the Sundays of the month of May. An annual procession to the place of his death There a quite elegant altar is erected, and the sacrifice of the Mass being offered upon it, the feast of Saint Esicius is celebrated. In honor of this Saint, very many of the townspeople and neighbors are called by the name Esicius, just as at Abula they are called Secundus, after Saint Secundus, the colleague of Saint Hesychius. So Cianca records.
[20] Juan Tamayo de Salazar, in his Spanish Martyrology under March 1, says that Cianca should not be heeded: "Because," he says, "it is answered that Saint Iscius did not suffer at Carcesa, but was translated, or rather honored, as the Apostle of that city, with an altar or a temple." From this, light is shed on the verses of Isidore, in the hymn from the Mozarabic Breviary previously cited by Salazar himself:
"Enclosed in tombs within their own cities: / Thus for their scattered ashes there is one crown."
At least he is traditionally held to have been the Apostle of that place. Not because each of the seven bishops received such a crown in his own see; but because the scattered ashes, which elsewhere were laid to rest through martyrdom, were gathered and buried within the precincts of their tombs in their own cities, which they had received by pontifical title. We accept what Tamayo grants: that Carcesa appears to have stood where Cazorla is, and that Saint Hesychius, or Iscius, was its Apostle. The same is written by Rodrigo Méndez Silva, along with what we reported from Cianca concerning the annual veneration of Saint Hesychius.
[21] Since, however, we have not found on which day in particular he is venerated at Cazorla, we have placed his feast on this day, following the same Tamayo de Salazar Why his feast is placed here and other more recent Spanish writers—though they appear to rely on those Granada tablets, to which we give very little, or indeed no, credence until something else has been decreed at Rome. The order for reciting the Divine Office for various churches, printed at Madrid for the years 1636 and 1647, prescribes the following for the Church of Granada on the Kalends of March: "Hiscius, Bishop, and his disciples, Martyrs, double of the 2nd class (the year 1647 has 1st class), was yesterday." But we find no mention anywhere of Saint Hesychius on the previous day, that is, February 28 (as we noted there), much less of the companions, whom we likewise judged should be entirely omitted here, since their names came forth from those Illipulitan tablets alone. Ferrarius, before those tablets were prohibited by Urban VIII or the Roman Inquisition, had enrolled them in the General Catalogue of Saints absent from the Roman Martyrology; more cautiously, Tamayo omitted them.
[22] A manuscript Martyrology of the Church of Saint Gudula in the city of Brussels Whether he was famous for miracles? seems to attribute miracles to Saint Hesychius and the other five companion bishops equally as to Saint Torquatus, in these words: "And while each in his own see, Saint Torquatus is rendered illustrious by miracles at the city of Acci." Likewise the Martyrology printed at Lübeck in 1490 with the Doctrinale Clericorum pronounces universally of all those seven men: "Illustrious for miracles, they rested in peace."