Rudericus and Salomon

ON THE HOLY MARTYRS RUDERICUS, PRIEST, AND SALOMON, AT CORDOBA IN SPAIN.

IN THE YEAR 857

Rudericus, Priest, Martyr at Cordoba in Spain (St.)

Salomon, Martyr at Cordoba in Spain (St.)

[1] Cordoba, the Seat of the Saracen Kings, holds its special praise in this, that in the cruel persecution of these Kings it had among its citizens, or others coming there, so many and illustrious Martyrs, who defended the Christian faith with their blood. Of these the illustrious one was St. Eulogius the Priest, who suffered on the 11th of this March, The Acts from Eulogius: who left a Memorial of these Saints written in three books, and afterward inserted in the Apologeticus of the Holy Martyrs the contests of these two Martyrs, sacred cult which he asserts they completed on the third day before the Ides of March: on which day these words are read in the Roman Martyrology: At Cordoba, of the Saints Rudericus, Priest, and Salomon, Martyrs. There is added in Galesinius: They were both slaughtered for the faith with unconquered spirit, at the time when the war of the Saracens for storming the Church of God in Spain blazed most fiercely. Tamayo Salazar in the Spanish Martyrology venerates them with this eulogy: St. Rodericus, Priest of Egabro, when, mocked by his brother, he left his fatherland and was making for Cordoba, accused there by that same impious brother, was attacked with the sword and crowned a Martyr. On the same day also at Cordoba St. Salomon, a Tuccitan by birth, after he had endured the torments of prison and the mockeries of hunger, at length obtained the laurel of a Martyr for Christ. Thus he. But first, that he everywhere writes Rodericus with the letter O, Morales long ago strongly disapproved in his notes to the Apologeticus, or to this Life, where he asserts that in the most ancient manuscript books Rudericus is always read, St. Rudericus to be called so, not Rodericus, and that he had seen a gold coin of Rudericus, the last King of the Goths: which, with his face, had these letters inscribed around: IN DEI NOMINE RVDERICVS REX: and that he had seen some autograph subscriptions of Rudericus, Archbishop of Toledo, in the public archives throughout this whole metropolitan jurisdiction of Toledo, where he names himself Rudericus, not Rodericus, and that the Spaniards corrupted the true name Rudericus into Rodrigo. Secondly, Tamayo Salazar asserts that St. Salomon was a Tuccitan by birth: the proof is taken from the Chronicle of Luitprand recently thrust forth, in which at number 295 these words are read: Whence did St. Salomon originate? Rodericus and Salomon suffer at Cordoba, a Lusitanian by home, near the city called in Baetica Tucci of old, by some Fossina: the last words of which in Thomas Tamayo are expressed thus: called in Baetica Tucci by the ancients, by others Tossina. Tamayo Salazar exclaims that Luitprand is disordered, that there is a fault in Luitprand: and that Quintanadueñas, in the Saints of Seville, folio 301, drew out another error. If he had read Jorge Cardoso in the Lusitanian Hagiology, he would have seen new explanations. We think there is one fault and one single error among all these, that they put faith in the fictions lately published under the name of Luitprand. We follow the writers of Cordoba, Ambrosio de Morales and Martín de Roa, who wrote so magnificently about these Saints, when those books of Luitprand or of Julian Peter, of whom we shall treat presently, had not yet been forged. The Ecclesiastical Office is said on this day in the Church of Cordoba of these holy Martyrs under the semidouble rite.

[2] A certain Salomon, a Martyr who also suffered at Cordoba, is put forward on the 8th of February in absolutely all the manuscript codices, and of the best note, St. Salomon on 8 February and in the printed Martyrologies of Usuard, in these words: In the city of Cordoba, of Salomon the Martyr. In the Chronicle of Julian Peter, at number 96, these words are read: In the city of Cordoba in Spain at this time the memory is celebrated of the holy Martyrs Peter the Priest, Eutychius, Hieremias the Martyr, who suffered most bravely in the persecution of Trajan. And there too of St. Salomon in the same persecution, on the eighth day of February. wrongly carried over with others to the persecution of Trajan: Of the former seem to be meant these words of Usuard on the 7th of June: Likewise at Cordoba, of the Saints Peter the Priest, Aventius, Hieremias and three others. All six are expressed with their names thus in the Roman Martyrology: At Cordoba, of the holy Martyrs Peter the Priest, Walabonsus the Deacon, Sabinianus, Wistremundus, Habentius and Hieremias, monks. Where the name Habentius stands in place of Aventius, for whom Eutychius has been put in the Chronicle of Julian. St. Eulogius treats of these six in book 2 of the Memorial of the Saints, chapter 4, and asserts that they were killed in the Era 889, that is, the year of Christ 851. How far are these times from the empire of Trajan? Accordingly Tamayo Salazar prudently suppressed in deep silence the said words of the Chronicle of Julian Peter, both at this 13th of March, where he cites Usuard and others who had referred St. Salomon to the 8th of February, and at the said 7th of June, where he treats at length of the other six. But let us return to the cult of St. Salomon, whom, when Galesinius had also referred him to the 8th day of February, he cites Eulogius and Usuard in his Notes, and at this 13th of March he indicates that St. Salomon was treated of above, namely on the 8th of February: at which day, when we made mention of him among the Omitted, we referred the reader to this one, and we judge that on that day some Translation of the body took place: especially since among the people of Cordoba no memory of any other Salomon is had. In the Centula manuscript at the 8th of February, in place of Cordoba the city of Concordia is cited, and in the Trier manuscript the Province of Lusitania, which we wished to indicate to the curious reader and investigator of antiquity.

PASSION

From the Apologeticus of the Holy Martyrs written by St. Eulogius.

Rudericus, Priest, Martyr at Cordoba in Spain (St.)

Salomon, Martyr at Cordoba in Spain (St.)

BHL Number: 7351

BY ST. EULOGIUS.

CHAPTER I.

The wrong and betrayal inflicted on St. Rudericus by his Mahometan brother: his captivity.

[1] The blessed Rudericus, Priest, born in a certain village ^a of Egabro, merited in the same city the teaching of the holy law and the Priestly rank. He had two brothers, St. Rudericus of Egabro, Priest, but of these one held the faith of Christ more rightly, the other, depraved by pagan error, spurned the Catholic religion. He, as he remained at discord with the holy faith, so was always stirred in discordant conflict with his Catholic brother on the occasions of various matters. For one night, on I know not what occasion, about to settle his brothers' quarrel, he is injured: when they were engaging each other in tumultuous dispute, and raging against one another in foul enmity, the holy Priest intervened in their midst to calm the quarrel. They, all now inflamed with excessive fury, wrapped the Priest up in their blind indignation, and, more unknowing than willing, assailed him almost to death.

[2] Greatly bruised by this beating, while, destitute of all strength, he laid his broken limbs upon his bed; lifeless, he is carried about by his Mahometan brother as an apostate, that profane brother, placing him on a bier, had him carried on men's shoulders to and fro through the villages and all the places nearby, and, as a true imitator of the devil, by fraudulent machination composed over the lifeless Priest a testimony of iniquity, saying: This my brother, a Priest, pricked by the visitation of God, has chosen the worship of our faith, and, as you see, being now at his last, he would not depart from the world before this was made known to you. So, going about various places with him, he narrated these and similar things about him in criminal words; he himself being entirely unaware, nay not even sensing, what that wicked man was contriving against him. the matter known, being made well, he flees: But by the dispensation of God, after some days, the Priest, delivered from the troubles of sickness and restored in strength, when he had learned the deceitful contrivances of his wicked brother; after the example of the Lord, who, to instruct us, avoided the snares of Herod, or as no deaf hearer of the holy Gospel, by which we are bidden to hide ourselves from city to city for the sake of avoiding persecution; leaving his own countryside, he betook himself elsewhere to serve Christ freely. Matt. 2., Matt. 10 As if he could escape temporal punishment, for whom a Martyrdom predestined divinely from the foundation of the world was being prepared: or as, by hiding himself for a time, he deceived his profane pursuer, so he could also be absent from the eyes of his pious Redeemer and caller to the kingdom.

[3] in the cruel persecution of King Mahomet, About the same time, therefore, the madness of the governor was raging grievously against us, so that at Cordoba, once Patricia, but now the most flourishing city of the Arab kingdom, it overturned some towers of the basilicas, demolished the citadels of the temples, and laid low the heights of the pinnacles: which were the bearers of the bells, to signal daily to the worshipers of Christ the canonical assembly. Finally, when the wicked offspring knew the desired wish of his ^b father, that he should infest the Church of God by whatever means and forces he could; the dark progeny exercised with more eager desire every effort of cruelty against the sons of light: and he thinks he obtains less merit unless he blazes with the utmost fury for the overthrow of the faithful. For the holy Truth had foretold this to His hearers, saying: They will put you out of the synagogues, and whosoever killeth you will think that he doth a service to God. John 16 And again: These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace; but in the world you shall have distress.

[4] When, then, for the need of household affairs, the blessed Priest had come down from the inner mountain country of Cordoba, he comes from his hiding-places to Cordoba: whither he had formerly betaken himself with a view to hiding, to the market, in which the selling of goods was carried on, he was recognized by his wicked brother meeting him. When he saw him bearing ^c the marks of the pious religion, he, having assailed him with no small injuries, offered him to the Judge as an exquisite gift, accused by his impious brother laying against him before the arbiter the complaint of transgression of the Mahometan sect, which he had formerly confessed that he would truly practice. But the soldier of God, now illumined by a heavenly gift, did not, as formerly, turn his back to his adversaries, but, endowed with great fortitude, declared to the judge that he had never been cut off from Christ, that he had never at any time consented to the perverse dogma: and he confessed that he was not only a Christian, but also a minister of Christ.

[5] The Judge, thinking first to recall him with flattering addresses, he confesses himself a Christian and a Priest: said: You can be honored with abundance of goods and the fasces of dignities, and escape the sentence of death which hangs over you, if, reforming yourself to your former vows with revived ardor, you believe our prophet to have been sent in truth by the Almighty, unmoved by flatteries and threats, and testify that Christ is not God. To him the blessed Priest said: Propose these things to be observed, I say, Judge, to those who perhaps, devoted to your laws and immersed in profane rites, with a preference aim at temporal advantage rather than eternal honor. Phil. 1. But we (for whom to live is Christ and to die is gain, to whom that holy Key-bearer of the future kingdom said: Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life; who admonished His disciple in prison, saying: Blessed is he that shall not be scandalized in me), why should we leave the cup of the perennial fountain, to drink a whirlpool turbid with the mire of falsehood and the filth of vices? John 6., Matt. 11. Or with what vengeance is the wantonness of sons to be punished, who, spurning the pious rights of their parents, seek the unjust companionship of a stepfather? Moved by these words with vehement fury, the Judge ordered the Martyr to be put in the prison-house: Let him go, he said, to the custody of the condemned; he is condemned to the prisons: let the horrid caves of the prisons receive him to be wasted; let him enjoy the solace of parricides and thieves: so that, deprived wholly of all solace, even so his obstinate rashness may be crushed.

[6] The servant of God went with cheerful face and exulting spirit into that cave of the guilty, he who truly knew that the Author of his salvation is present everywhere when invoked, in prison he rouses himself: and cannot be absent from any situation, whose dominion penetrates every place: who also, by the powerful command of His Divinity, had once given a faithful promise to His followers, saying: Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. Matt. 28, 20 These, devil, are the threatening laws of your savagery: these are your exquisite terrors. But it has been said to us: Fear ye not them that kill the body; for they have nothing more that they can do, but rather fear Him who can destroy both body and soul and cast them into hell. Matt. 10, 28., Matt. 10, 17 And again: They will deliver you up in Councils, and in their Synagogues they will scourge you, and you shall be brought before Governors and Kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the gentiles. he insults the devil. But he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved. If, then, you can, engage against the soul, and overcome the spirit persistent in its confession: you will see me rather make progress through torments: and the more you blaze, the more you will always fail, and you will make me arrive more happily at glory.

CHAPTER II

The acquaintance of Saints Rudericus and Salomon formed. Their constancy in the faith. Their martyrdom.

[7] Saints Rudericus and Salomon, having become acquainted in prison, Rudericus found in prison Blessed Salomon, whom the cruelty of the persecutors had long since bound there for confessing the name of Christ. For he too was assailed with a similar charge, in that, spurning the worship of the holy religion, he had for some time adhered to the Mahometan sect. Forthwith they are knit together by an undivided vow, and, ministering to each other the aids of consolation, they arm each other for accomplishing the contest; resolving this in common, that, having trampled on the affections of the world, they should cleave to God daily in pious service. The agreement of both becomes concordant in the fear of God, they encourage each other to martyrdom: their limbs are wasted with fasts, wearied with vigils, filed down with hair-shirts, pricked with meditations, refreshed with prayers: and so, burning with a certain ardor for the heavenly fatherland, they desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ: hastening to see the face of Him whom they served, for love of whom, not fearing the failure of time, they flee this life as some monstrous peril.

[8] While the Saints, then, remained in the exercise of the heavenly offices, and rendered daily to the pious Redeemer the ceremonies of praises, they held that cave as the highest delights. Wherefore the Judge, led by most wicked zeal, separated from one another, rebuked the keepers of the prison with a savage edict, and ordered them to be torn apart from each other, and commanded with all the furies of his madness that they should not be visited by anyone for the purpose of visitation. But in nothing do you help yourself, devil, when by this separation you think to weary the constancy of the Saints, in whom there abides one and the same indissoluble vow of dying for Christ. For these blessed Confessors, ^a unlike in order and nation, not unequal in charity, although they entered the field of contest at different times, they remain constant: yet, fired with one and the same ardor of faith, set up for the world an outstanding example of blessed passion.

[9] Meanwhile, not many days after, the Judge, ordering them to be brought before his gaze, they are set before the Judge: at once invited them to his rite, and attempted to persuade by abundance of goods and dignity of honors those whom the holy Divinity had inscribed, chosen and predestined before the foundation of the world, in the adoption of sons of God. Considering their persistence in the profession of God, after a second and third exhortation he resolved that they should be punished according to the decree of the King. But before they went out to the public place, throwing themselves at the feet of their fellow-prisoners, they asked that they should be helped by continual entreaties, lest, overtaken by human temptation, they should look back, and be disturbed from the sight of receiving the banner of victory. they commend themselves to the prayers of others: So, reconciled by the kiss of peace, those who had never been separated by dispute, all weeping for joy, beg to be protected by the favors of the Saints. And so, the ministers urging them, they leap forth with more eager desire, hastening more swiftly to the place where they should consummate their passion.

[10] And when the hour of execution was now at hand, they were again exhorted more flatteringly by the Judge with the show of riches and of lofty honors, they are tempted again with flatteries, bravely rejected by St. Rudericus: which they would assuredly enjoy if they returned. The Saints refused, as from the beginning, the Judge's offer: so that the most holy Rudericus, quickened by a certain spiritedness, already illumined by a gift from above, boldly answered him, saying: How do you compel us, abandoning piety, to turn aside into a byway, us who, instructed in the sacraments of the holy faith, bravely weep for your ignorance, whom we see infected with so great an error? For we judge this sect so detestable that we would not suffer it to be practiced even by our dogs; how much more should we subject ourselves to its most deceitful fictions? Or why should we be delighted by abundance of goods or the dignity of passing honors, about to lose all things at once, perhaps in the very moment of delight, death intervening: we who know that with Christ our crowner there remain riches of ineffable things, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have they ascended into the heart of man, promised to those who love Him? And therefore swiftly put forth the vengeance of your cruelty upon us, whom you see in no way desisting from the confession of Christ even unto death: that the things which are owed to the enemies of God may accrue to you in a heap, and the reward long deferred may come quickly to us.

[11] Hereupon the wicked Judge, gnashing his teeth with sharper cries, both are punished by beheading: bringing forth the final sentence of his cruelty, said to the lictors: Hasten to cut off the necks of the rebels, and to turn back more swiftly upon the heads of the despisers the vengeance due. So, set upon the edge of the ^b riverbed, they fortified themselves with the sign of the Cross, and so in turn were laid low by the sword. Of whom the Priest of God, falling first, entered heaven as the leading triumpher. Which the Judge wished to be done for this reason, that so perhaps by the horror of the severed corpse the mind of Blessed Salomon might be bent: whom, proving him constant and most brave after various enticements of deceptions, he ordered at last to be slain by the avenging sword. Yet the head, not wholly cut through, clung to his neck, because the sword brought a speedier death to Blessed Rudericus than to this Salomon.

CHAPTER III

The bodies of Saints Rudericus and Salomon thrown into the river Baetis: carried to the bank, found, and laid in churches.

[12] But since the crafty serpent cannot withstand souls going to the kingdoms of the heavens, [The bodies of the Martyrs, bound to stones, are sunk by night in the river Baetis:] he still stirs up war against the lifeless bodies: as if he could overcome dead corpses, when there was now no spirit which would rather mock the torments than feel them: or as if any title of victory were thought to be had in entering upon war with the dead. That the Martyrs, then, might share in the sufferings of Christ, the Governor, armed by the devil with the instinct of ferocity, under whose dire cruelty the whole dignity of Cordoba was then grievously harassed, ordered the bodies soaked with martyrs' blood to be fastened with their feet turned upward, and thereafter hidden in the river's depth. That same night, bound with a huge weight of stones, they were sunk separately in a most vast whirlpool. The wretch hoped to command the elements of the waves, which knew how to attend more excellently to the command of the Creator, so that they not only preserved the martyrs' riches entrusted to them from the beasts, but also carried the limbs, snatched from the weight of the rocks, with the gentle rowing of the floods to a place of rest.

[13] I meanwhile, Eulogius the sinner, who had long since resolved to work out by my pen the deeds of the Blessed, seen by St. Eulogius most beautiful, and as if about to speak, when the report of their consummated passion was running about everywhere, having finished the solemnities of the Masses, went, quickened by a certain daring, to visit their bodies, and was not afraid to approach nearer than the rest of the throng of onlookers. And my Redeemer, who will examine this commentary, is witness that I do not lie, that those severed corpses shone with such beauty of comeliness that you would have believed that, if they were asked by anyone, they would at once speak.

[14] they are carried to the shores: Some also, coming from the throng of the gentiles, took the little stones of the river which were sprinkled with the blood of the Martyrs, and, washing them in the waters, threw them into the ^a Deep, lest they should be for the Christians a profit of relics: not knowing that it would do no harm to take away a part from those to whom the Lord had decreed to give the whole ^b passion. For the limbs entrusted to the hiding-places of the seaweed, and assigned to the deep bosoms of the abysses, which had received them as much to be hidden as to be served up as food for the fishes, at once divinely called back to those above, not only cannot be retained; but also, by a gentler breath, with the reciprocating alternation of the floods, those which were held dispersed are set out unharmed on the shores.

[15] the body and head of St. Rudericus found in the sand Indeed, the head of the blessed Priest had not clung to his neck, because the attendant had torn it off once with one stroke. And therefore the head was cast in one place and the body in another, and it is found in one place covered with sand by the inhabitants of the little village ^c to which it had been exposed by the waves carrying it. Meanwhile, when the knowledge of the place of rest of the Saints exceeded the time of almost twenty days, and they gave no sign of appearing; it is disclosed unexpectedly by the report of certain gentiles, after 20 days they are carried to the monastery of St. Genesius, who related this to a certain Priest dwelling at the ^d little village of Tertios, where the monastery ^e of St. Genesius is founded. Compelled by this news, the same Priest went to bring the blessed corpse to his Church. As he returned, a great throng of the faithful ran to meet him, panting to pay due honor to the supreme triumpher, who had not disdained to sustain such things for his God as an example to Catholics. And because, with the failing of the sun, a thick chaos of darkness was gliding in, the night illumined with torches: and blind night had changed the whole aspect of the world, the dark horror is driven out by the manifold torch of lamps by the ministry of the people coming to meet him, so that, with excessive splendor illuminating all things, that night showed a revived day emerging. All wept for joy, grief was mingled with dancing, and, with no sadness contracting the face, the eye poured forth a pious lament.

[16] they are uncovered by the Bishop, breathing a sweet odor, The venerable Pontiff too is present, thronged by a band of happy Clerics, hastening with more ardent desire to be present at such obsequies; who at once approach the holy relics, and the illustrious Bishop uncovers them, and caresses the holy limbs with kisses. The recesses of the chamber, into which the Priest had first brought the blessed body, are fragrant with a wonderful odor of sweetness, and they say that all the pavements of the little cell, even when the dust had been removed, breathed for some time the scent of a most sweet odor. It is a matter of astonishment to all that no putrefaction had consumed the unburied body, no pestilence infected it, no wasting corrupted it, no ravenous hunger of beasts or birds tore it apart, nor had the interval of so many days, degenerating, changed the quality of its own skin. And so, by the office of the Priests and Religious, bringing the holy body from the Priest's cell into the Church to be buried; plainly incorrupt, all give an outstanding shout of heavenly hymns, the mouths of the faithful resound with melody in fitting song, all make loud the euphony of divine chant, the courts of the Lord are filled with the holy murmur of psalms, they are buried in the church. and all, as if from one mouth, pay the ode of happy praises, and, with all resounding in sweet harmony and the inner parts of the whole hall shining with a large supply of lights, it intimated that Christ the King, with the army of the Heavenly ones accompanying Him, was present at that spectacle at the obsequies of the Saints.

[17] The body of St. Salomon is believed to have been carried into the sea. The rite of the most holy Rudericus being completed, then, the intention of all became more ardent to seek the little body of Blessed Salomon, which, by the report of many, was believed to have been carried by the force of the river into the sea. For this opinion had restrained the provident daring of the Christians more than the raging conspiracy of the Governor, which had promised that whoever searched for the relics would be punished by harsher laws. For when no sign of the hidden body was at hand, and the hope in the beneficence of God moved all, who is wont to reveal hidden things and to hide open ones, by the prerogative in a certain way of the power of Divinity, by which in heaven and on earth, in the sea and in the abysses, it is known by divine apparition to lie hidden among the thickets, He orders, disposes and makes whatever He wills: suddenly, through sleep, it admonishes the aforesaid Priest in what place the body of the Martyr lay hidden. And when the Priest asked the one admonishing him about the place of his hiding, and sought to be instructed as to what sign of exploring he ought to hold to: On that bank of the river, he said, which belongs to the village of Nymphianum, there, cast out by passers-by among the thickets of tamarisks, I enjoy the mean sepulcher of a muddy turf. That Priest went securely to the place divinely shown to him, he is carried to the church of Saints Cosmas and Damian. and found it no otherwise than as it had been shown him by revelation. And, at once adorned with the highest services of reverence, carrying it to the village ^f of Colubris, it is honorably buried by the office of the venerable Priests of God in the basilica of Saints Cosmas and Damian.

[18] ^g The time of the martyrdom. And the blessed Martyrs consummated their contest on the third day before the Ides of March, in the Era 895, our Lord Jesus Christ reigning for ages of ages. Amen.