ON THE ARRIVAL IN SPAIN
OF SS. TORQUATUS, CTESIPHON, SECUNDUS, INDALETIUS, CÆCILIUS, HESICHIUS, EUPHRASIUS, BISHOPS.
FIRST CENTURY
PrefaceTorquatus, Bishop (St.), arrival in Spain.
Ctesiphon, Bishop (St.), arrival in Spain.
Secundus, Bishop (St.), arrival in Spain.
Indaletius, Bishop (St.), arrival in Spain.
Cecilius, Bishop (St.), arrival in Spain.
Hesichius, Bishop (St.), arrival in Spain.
Euphrasius, Bishop (St.), arrival in Spain.
By the Author G. H.
[1] The greatest benefit which can divinely be bestowed on any region ought to be reckoned the light of orthodox Christian faith. Hence rightly the beginning of the conversion and arrival of the Saints, who illumined some regions with that sacred light, The arrival of these Bishops is celebrated I May, and scattered the Evangelical seeds among the peoples, is celebrated by posterity in some sort of thanksgiving for so great a gift formerly received and hitherto preserved. The Spanish Churches do this when in the month of May they hold the feast of the seven
Apostolic men, who, sent by SS. Peter and Paul the Apostles into that kingdom, by their arrival led the Gentiles from the superstition of idols to the true religion of Christ.
In the Missal and Breviary according to the Rule of B. Isidore called Mozarabic, which by command of Francis Ximenes
Archbishop of Toledo in the years 1500 and 1502 was printed, there is prescribed on the very Kalends of May the feast of Torquatus and his companions, Confessors and Pontiffs, of IX
Lessons, and this Prayer is recited: O God, who through
Thy most blessed Pontiffs Torquatus, Secundus,
Indaletius, Ctesiphon, Cæcilius, Hesichius and Euphrasius, didst will to summon to Thee an innumerable Hesperian people, grant we beseech Thee, that Thy Church may be governed by the same Rectors, whom Thou didst will to be at her head as Pastors. The same prayer in the Burgensian
Breviary printed about the year 1502 is recited for the Commemoration of these Saints on the said Kalends of May, but the rest of the Office is of SS. Philip and James the Apostles. In the mixed Missal according to the Order of the Toledan Church, which appeared in the year 1551, the Mass to be recited is referred to the Kalends of May with an added rubric, by which is indicated the Responsories and all other things to be recited as on the Birthday of many
Confessors; 5 May, in the Calendar however it is noted that the feast is transferred, namely to a day not impeded.
In the Proper Feasts of the diocese of Compostela printed in the year
1596, on the V day of May the feast of S.
Torquatus and his companions is celebrated, and the Office is recited from the Common of many Martyrs in the Paschal season.
[2] Furthermore the most celebrated cult of the same is prescribed on this day XV May, with such an elogium in Usuard.
On the Ides of May the Birthday of the holy Confessors Torquatus,
Ctesiphon, Secundus, Indaletius, Cæcilius,
Esicius, Euphrasius: who at Rome by the holy Apostles were ordained Bishops, and chiefly the 15th. and to preach the word of God, were sent to the Spains, then still entangled in gentile error.
And when they had evangelized in various cities, and had subjected innumerable multitudes to the faith of Christ,
Torquatus rested at Acci, Ctesiphon at Vergi, Secundus at Avila, Indalecius at Urci, Cæcilius at Eliberis, Esicius at Carcesum, Euphrasius at Eliturgi.
Thus Usuard and elsewhere others with the present-day
Roman Martyrology: in which at the beginning, the word
Birthday being omitted, it is said in Spain SS. Torquatus &c. but after the word subjugassent there is interposed: In that province in various places they rested, Torquatus at Acci &c. Wandelbert indicates them in this verse:
Seven Pontiffs together adorn Hesperia on the Ides.
[3] Concerning the arrival of these in Spain the following verses are found in the said Breviary or Missal according to the rule of S. Isidore: which whether S. Isidore himself composed or another afterwards, is not clear: they themselves run thus.
Now the white toga of the Romulean City,
The mark of the Seven Pontiffs, shines forth: Sent by the Apostles from Rome to Spain,
Sent to Hesperia, whom from the Apostles
Ancient tradition assigns to the faith.
These are the visible indices of light:
Torquatus, Ctesiphon, and Hesichius,
This Indaletius, or Secundus,
Joined with Euphrasius and Cæcilius are.
These, endowed with the Evangelical lamp,
Survey the parched parts of the Western region,
That so they may burn with Catholic fires,
That dark guilty things may yield to the torches.
At Acci forthwith the nearest happens to the men
Where they sit twice six stades distant,
They send followers to seek food,
That they might refresh their tired limbs with viands.
There the disciples behold the idols of the Gentiles, not without harm repulsed by the idolaters of Acci,
Cultivated with vain rites;
Whom while they implore with tears that they be despised,
They are rather terrified by impious daring deeds.
Soon the insane raging crowd of attendants,
When in these they recognized the marks of the faith,
To the bridge of the river up through steep places,
With swift onset drives them in flight.
But the bridge, stronger than the very strong shellfish,
Is suddenly bent and dissolved into parts,
Snatching the just from the hands of the enemies,
Sinking the enemies in the river-flood.
This is the first way of the faith of the peoples,
Among whom the holy woman Luparia, they convert Luparia, and very many others:
Approaching the Saints sees and beseeches,
Placing the warnings of the Saints in her breast.
Then the handmaid of Christ attending to the obedience
Of the Saints, resolves to build a structure,
Where the wave of the baptistery might be opened,
And grace might wipe away the faults of all.
There the holy woman of God is dipped,
And dipped in the laver of life is born again:
The people here straightway flies to the faith,
And becomes manifold in the Catholic dogma.
After these the dear sodality of Pontiffs,
Hastening is divided into seven cities;
That divided into places they might pour forth the dogmas, divided through various cities they plant the faith of Christ.
And burn the peoples with scattered fires.
After these, in the borders of Hesperia implanted
Shone forth the grace of the precocious faith:
Hence by various signs and the power
Of virtues she provokes men to believe.
From hence renowned by the fruits of justice,
They terminate life with manifold interest,
Buried in tombs in their own cities:
Thus for the scattered ash there is one crown.
Hence thee, mighty unique throng, sevenfold
With prayer we ask from the hidden of the breast,
That by your prayers as a star in the heavens
We may be borne, companions to the citizen Angels,
Be there glory to the Triune Lord, to the One
Father with the Begotten and Paraclete,
Who alone is Lord Triune and One,
Mightily containing the ages of the ages. Amen.
[4] Thus far that Hymn: with which a not dissimilar elogium agrees
Ado, Birthday of the holy Torquatus, Ctesiphon, The same things from Ado are confirmed.
Secundus, Indaletius, Cæcilius, Esicius, Euphrasius.
Who at Rome by the holy Apostles were ordained Bishops, and to preach the word of God to the Spains, then still entangled in gentile error, were sent. And when they had come to the city of Acci, and on account of the labor of the journey resting a little, for the sake of buying victuals had sent disciples into the city; soon a multitude of Pagans, who then by chance were celebrating festivals to their gods, pursued them as far as the river: in which a bridge of wonderful magnitude and firmness erected, while the Saints were crossing, by the nod of God with all the multitude of pursuers utterly fell. At which miracle the rest were terrified, and following the example of a certain great
Senatress Luparia (who divinely inspired receiving them kindly believed) leaving the idols, they believed in Christ the Lord.
After these things evangelizing in various cities, and subjecting innumerable multitudes to the faith of Christ, Torquatus at Acci,
Ctesiphon at Vergi, Secundus at Avila, Indalecius at Urci, Cæcilius at Eliberis, Esitius at Cartija, Euphrasius at Eliturgi rested. There stands forth even today an illustrious miracle for the commendation of their precious death.
For on the same solemnity at the aforesaid Accitan city at the sepulcher of S. Torquatus an olive tree divinely flowering is loaded with mature fruits.
Thus Ado and after him Notker, and Peter de Natalibus bk. 5 ch. 3, adding that by the liquor of those olives sicknesses are healed. and from the Pinnatensian Brev. Tamayo-Salazar from a Complutensian MS., written in Gothic letters, refers this history more amply deduced, which the reader can see with him, since he scarcely adduces anything which is not more sincerely found in the related
Hymn and Ado's elogium. We gave on the XXX day of April the Translation of S. Indaletius, to the Pinnatensian S.
John the Baptist monastery in Aragon, made in the year
1084. From the same monastery's Old Breviary transcribed (so far as is gathered from the end) the history of the Apostolic mission for an Office of three Lessons, and was found by us at Rome in a certain collection of similar monuments, which had been with Cardinal Sanseverino, and then was found with his nephew D. Joseph Costa.
This, because it pleases beyond others similar, we judge also to be given.
[5] Furthermore each one of the Saints whom I mentioned has his own day dedicated to his veneration; and they are venerated almost as Martyrs today: and so concerning each separately we have treated or are still going to treat in the proper place, namely when they are named in various Calendars: S. Euphrasius on XIV January, S. Cæcilius on the Kalends of February, S. Hesichius on the Kalends of March, S. Ctesiphon on the Kalends of April, S. Indaletius, on the day XXX of the same April, S. Secundus on II May.
The one that remains, S. Torquatus, also held as the leader of the rest, The cult of each on various days,
remained with the Accitans: whose city is still Episcopal, commonly called Guadix: venerating in its whole diocese on the day XIV of June S. Torquatus Bishop and Martyr as primary Patron, under the rite of the first class with an Octave. Meanwhile in the church of Orense and its diocese, and chiefly in the monastery of Cellanova, he is venerated under the double rite on this XV
May; for the reason that S. Rudesindus brought S. Torquatus' bones to the said Cellanova founded by him, as before his Life we deduced at length on the Kalends of March §1 n. 6.
[6] George Cardoso in the Lusitanian Hagiology referred only
Torquatus to the very Kalends of May, on which we indicated above all are referred by others, The body of S. Torquatus uncovered at Cellanova in 1593, & concerning his Relics in the Annotations he speaks thus: The sepulcher of this holy
Confessor of Christ, by command of Philip the Prudent, at the supplication of the Accitan church, was opened in the year 1593: and there was found the body wrapped in linen cloth most subtle and white, interwoven with red silk threads, and so new, as if at that very hour they had buried him there. The flesh, dissolved into ashes, had flowed down: but the heart remained intact and conditioned with aromatics; the cranium however, wrapped in a bloody sudarium, retained the fissure of the wound inflicted, whence it appeared he had been consummated by true martyrdom: and the same can be proved by the Arm with the hand, with its flesh still, but dried up, covered and preserved in the Vegian monastery of the Cistercian Order near Carrión: for here too is seen a gaping wound, between the fourth and fifth fingers, which they say is from the lance which took the Saint's life.
In the said opening of the sepulcher the Abbot took out the elbow of the other arm, & of the two pipes from which it is composed, he sent one to the King for the Escurial monastery, the other with the thumb he gave to the Accitan Cathedral: relics communicated to various places. To the College of the Society of Jesus also in the same city one bone fell, another to the Compostellan church, another finally to the Auriensian: and in all places on occasion of the said Relics the Saint is most devoutly venerated. What remained of the rest of the bones of the whole body, enclosed in a precious silver ark, with great pomp was translated
I March in the year 1601 to the major chapel, and placed opposite the body of S. Rudesindus; so that in that religious and opulent church together both as Patrons might be honored.
[7] The Guimaranensian people, whom in his Antiquities
Canon Gaspar Estazo supports, maintains that the body of the same Saint is preserved in a church which that town has under his name, whether the body of another Torquatus at Guimarães subject to the Collegiate church; and therefore an Office for him is held there also XV May. But on the day XXVI of February we showed, that this is the body of another S. Torquatus: whose discovery in the same place, which once belonged to the Canons
Regular, recurs on XIV July. Thus far
Cardoso: who if he had also completed and edited the other six months of his Hagiology, we could say more about such a discovery on the said day of July: for he of whom he treated in February day XXVI, is the same of whom we with Tamayo treated on the day XXIV of the same month, Torquatus surnamed
Felix, from Archpresbyter of Toledo Bishop of Iria, then of Porto and Braga, killed for the cause of the faith by the Saracens in the year 724. That he existed in the nature of things, much less, beyond the custom of that age, and according to the corruption of this time, migrated from See to See, we cannot believe on the sole most lying Chronicle of pseudo-Julian, even numbering the years of Christ for that century, in which such Chronology was utterly unknown to the Spaniards, content with their own Era both then and long after.
If the body which was found at Guimarães, should from elsewhere become certain to us truly to be of some S. Torquatus, of him, who he was and when he lived, we shall rather confess that we are ignorant, than trust anything to such a supposititious writer.
[8] Furthermore to the seven Bishops aforenamed there are added by Maurolycus, Athanasius and Theodorus companions of S.
James, left in Spain, Whether SS. Athanasius and Theodorus are to be joined? entombed near the Master's sepulcher at Compostella. Following Maurolycus are Felicius, Galesinius, and Ferrarius. In the Proper Offices of the Compostellan Church we said that on the day V of May are referred
S. Torquatus and Companions, among whom are numbered SS.
Theodorus and Athanasius, whose bodies are placed in the Compostellan Church. But Tamayo Salazar asserts the said S. Athanasius to have been Bishop of Saragossa, and to be venerated on the Kalends of November. We set both aside, at least until the Acts of S. James the Apostle, where all things together must be more accurately examined.
ACTS
From the ancient Pinnatensian Breviary in Aragon.
Torquatus, Bishop (S.), arrival in Spain.
Ctesiphon, Bishop (S.), arrival in Spain.
Secundus, Bishop (S.), arrival in Spain.
Indaletius, Bishop (S.), arrival in Spain.
Cecilius, Bishop (S.), arrival in Spain.
Hesichius, Bishop (S.), arrival in Spain.
Euphrasius, Bishop (S.), arrival in Spain.
BHL Number: 8311
[1] After the glorious triumph of the Lord's Ascension, the fervor of the holy Spirit now reigning in the Apostles, both from God's dispensation and from the precept of preaching, divers persons disposed to migrate to divers places. Sent by the Apostles from Rome, For accomplishing the office of so great salvation, the seventy Disciples too were a help to them with welcoming arms, of whom seven worthy of perpetual name, Indalesius, Torquatus, Secundus,
Thesiphon, Cecilius, Hesichius, and Eufrasius, at Rome ordained Bishops by the holy Apostles, attached themselves to Blessed
James destined to convert the Spains: whom withdrawing to the heavenly seats with little fruit, persuading themselves by divine nod, that what alive he had not been able, dead they should fulfill, they brought to the Spains, with supreme guidance accompanying. Hence destitute of the consolation of so great a Master, with due honor and place buried, Spain abounding with gentile error and the superstition of idols
(lest at least we pass over this one thing in silence)
they come to the Accitan City, who not far from the city about twelve stades settled with wearied limbs; that they might indulge a little the limbs which had been worn out by the prolixity of the journey; and themselves, whom the long journey had worn down, by resting might refresh, and having taken up the path, not weary, manfully might walk. But although in the limbs of the body, by which they were borne, they seemed worn down; yet they were strengthened by heavenly aid and spiritual grace, the testimony coursing through them, which says: The Saints who hope in the Lord shall have fortitude. Therefore when, as we have learned, the venerable Bishops in the place which we have already mentioned had sought to rest; to the City of Acci, on account of the lack of food, they sent their followers.
[2] The idolaters of Acci punished, There was being held therefore the day on which to Jove and Mercury or
Juno ritualistic gentility was celebrating festivals, and forgetful of Him sitting on the supreme throne, with most vain cult paid solemnities to noxious and dead images.
Then namely into the walls of the aforesaid city the disciples of the venerable Elders entering, saw the most unhappy crowd, ensnared in the snares of supreme deception, and submerged in the precipitation of the perpetual abyss, so that even by that which it seemed to perpetrate with polluted hands, it believed it could be saved. And when the pestiferous gathering of those same men had approached the companions of the holy Elders, the venerable cult of religion and the habit of the pious faith of Priests being recognized in them, the unspeakable enemy pursues them as far as the river, on which a bridge was constructed of ancient mass; and there by divine miracle laboring, a work which by no age could be believed about to be dissolved, at the same moment is found submerged, and with the bloody people in the very channel of the river the pagan sedition is submerged.
[3] they convert Luparia, For then while the saints sang, Horse and rider he cast into the sea, the servants of God are freed.
Seeing which event the greatest part is pressed by vehement terror, among whom was a certain Senatress, renowned in possessions, and adorned with the inflammation of the holy Spirit, named Luparia: who when she had found out about the same Saints' fame, eagerly dispatched her messengers to them, through whom with utmost prayers she requested, that they should come into her presence. As soon as the woman was permitted to see them, whose interior of the breast already heavenly gifts had enriched, whence the most holy Elders were, she boldly inquires: and when they confessed that they were sent by the holy
Apostles, to preach the kingdom of God and the Gospel, to the woman inquiring; while they taught and said,
That every one who believes in Christ shall not see death forever, but shall possess the life of Angels; immediately the new disciple of the holy Fathers acquiesced to believe, and asked the gift of holy baptism; not however before she asked that the Saints choose to build a church.
Which command being received, she so long bestowed care on the work, until they brought all the building to the summit. When however the work now stood completed, and all things had pleased the Saints; they construct a font according to custom, in which the woman of holy devotion should be poured forth with the wave of the salutary laver. Whose holy example all the peoples following, and very many others. who venerated the empty superstition of idols, left the temple of the inveterate crime, and pursue with eager minds the doctrine of the holy Elders. From then on the polluted seat of idols is left, and there an altar consecrated to S. John the Baptist is erected, and with the faith growing the people of Christ is increased.
[4] Then the saints are not separated in mind, nor in faith: but for the dispensing of God's grace through divers cities they are divided and preach. In divers places they preach the faith of Christ. Our most blessed
Indaletius, especially at Urci (that meanwhile we may pass over with dry foot other places and most holy deeds, this brief period not allowing them), evangelized with his whole heart. Torquatus moreover at Acci, Cecilius at Eliberis,
Cthesiphon at Vergi, Secundus at Avila, Esitius at Cartesa,
Euphrasius at Eliturgi: in which cities tarrying, they ceased not to preach the word of life.
And so it was done, that while the servants of God preach the heavenly gifts, great fruit of the holy Church was acquired: whence after a little time (with many peoples now at length converted to the Lord) the most worthy triumphs of their labors, with their glorious bodies resting in those places they brought back: and as one to others, so to us, however unworthy, and with no merits of ours requiring it, the venerable rewards of his Relics
Indaletius the most holy Prelate did not disdain to leave. To whose sacrosanct pledges, to all justly and with becoming devotion asking, the immense benefits of omnipotent God, by his merits, are found and bestowed, through Him who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.