Gaudiosus

ON ST. GAUDIOSUS, BISHOP OF TARAZONA IN SPAIN,

SIXTH CENTURY.

Gaudiosus, bishop of Tarazona in Spain. (S.)

BY C. D. S.

What we have more than once lamented has happened to very many other Spanish saints, that misfortune has also befallen our Gaudiosus, St. Gaudiosus, whose history, with apocryphal documents set aside, that the inventions with which the apocryphal chronicles forged at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century swarm have cast over his history many mists of fables. Those inventions, after his manner, Tamayo de Salazar sedulously collected and displayed for pure light in his Spanish martyrology Volume VI, pp. 59–61., but Nicolás Antonio, no less learnedly than keenly and strongly, in the Bibliotheca Hispana Vetus Book V, chapter 8, n. 434–448 (volume I, pp. 427–431). discussed and overthrew them, so that it does not seem that we should now linger in undertaking again this surely unpleasant labour, and the life of St. Gaudiosus should be shown from sincere monuments alone.

[2] solely from an elogium But these indeed are neither many nor very ancient. In the first place is to be set the elogium (they commonly call it an epitaph) inscribed on parchment which was found near the body of St. Gaudiosus by those who in the year 1573 opened his tomb, in order to carry his venerable bones from the monastery of St. Victorian, where they lay buried, to the church of Tarazona Ibid., n. 436., composed in these words Ibid., n. 443; España Sagrada, volume XLIX, p. 317.: In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. In this coffin are enclosed the bones of the glorious Bishop Gaudiosus, whose spirit happily walks in the mansions of the highest Father. He, an Iberian by family, was born of a most noble father, Guntha by name, who was spatharius of Theoderic, king of the Goths, and brought forth of a no less illustrious mother, Neumantia by name; by these same parents he was handed over to blessed Victorian, within his boyish years, to be taught. He, formerly the nursling of the pious father, as his merit grew was set as bishop over the Church of Tarazona. In which rule, after many spaces of time, returning to his own home for the sake of visiting his mother, sickness pressing upon him, he closed his last day on the sixth before the kalends of November, and was buried in the church of blessed Mary on his own little estate, which is called Scurrius *.

[3] found near his body In which place, when the unbelieving Moors invaded the whole of Spain, he long lay hidden in neglect. Afterwards, when by the power of God the enemies of Christ had been expelled some distance from the Pyrenees mountains, certain common men, with rustic presumption, yet with faithful spirit, dug him up from there and carried him to their own church, which is in the town of Fossatum, founded under the honour of St. Martin, bishop. From which, many years having passed, a divine revelation having gone before, he was carried by three religious monks to the monastery of St. Victorian in the silence of night, on the 7th before the kalends of October, and placed in this little vessel; so that where the ashes of the master are honourably venerated, there the disciple may enjoy a share of the same honour, and that with his master he may be a present hearer of those who pray, who when he lived was a ready imitator of the virtues of his master. Amen.

[4] and from the lessons of an ancient breviary of Tarazona In some points there departs from this the other elogium which the distinguished Vicente de la Fuente offers from the Breviary of Tarazona printed in the year 1541 España Sagrada, volume cited, p. 315., observing that it was taken from more ancient manuscript breviaries, where it was distributed into nine very brief lessons Ibid., p. 84.. Gaudiosus, a Spaniard by nation, of the province of Tarragona, had for father Yuntha *, who was held great among the intimates of Theodoric, king of the Goths, and his wife Neumacia was renowned for no less nobility. These spouses, living for some time in marriage, at length rejoicing very much at the birth of a desired offspring, gave him the name Gaudiosus in the regeneration of the sacred font. And desiring (since he is truly noble whom his own virtue ennobles) that he should adorn the nobility of his family with virtues, they handed over the boy, now weaned, like another Samuel, to blessed Victorian to be educated in the monastery of Asanium: for Victorian at that season was illustrious in every kind of virtue. He instructed the boy he had received with the greatest diligence, as much by word as by example, in divine things, taking care above all that he should count worldly pomps and carnal delights as nothing.

[5] [in] And he, no sluggish imitator of his teacher, was made prelate of the church of Tarazona. He, like a lamp set on a lampstand, shone the more brightly in that the Church of God was then so darkened by the Arian dogma that every bravest man did not Perhaps non non. Note of the distinguished de la Fuente. fear to profess himself a Catholic. Yet he, seeing Pope John, Symmachus the patrician, Boethius the poet, and very many others slain by the Arians in those times for the defence of the Catholic faith, could not be restrained from preaching the truth, desiring himself also to end his life for Christ, if the occasion should arise. At length, full of years and merits, about to visit the monastery in which he had been educated, in the place Descoroni De Scoroni or d'Escoron. Note of the same., which had been of his paternal right, he was weighed down by sickness; where not many days later, having received the sacraments of the Church, with religious men standing around, he fell asleep in the Lord, on the third of the nones of November; buried there in the church dedicated to the Holy Virgin, next to the altar. And some cycles of years having passed, on account of the frequency of miracles his body was translated to the said monastery of Asanium, and joined to the body of St. Victorian, that those who had lived together might also rest together. He flourished about the year of the Lord five hundred and thirty.

[6] and he is known by a brief mention in the Life of St. Victorian, If to these you add what is read of St. Gaudiosus in the Life of St. Victorian written from ancient documents by Francisco Diego de Aínsa, namely: From this training (of St. Victorian) there came forth Gaudiosus, a bishop of Tarazona of great virtue: he, among the illustrious works of virtue he carried out, conferred many gifts, estates, farms, on the church or monastery of St. Martin, over which St. Victorian presided (and which afterwards received its name from him), to be possessed by perpetual right Acta Sanctorum, volume I of January, p. 741, number 20.; you now have all that can be reckoned concerning the history of our saint in place of original documents, older notices being lacking.

[7] he seems to have flourished about the year 530. That St. Gaudiosus flourished about the year 530, as the lesson of the breviary of Tarazona affirms, or a little later, if you look to his episcopate, is easily confirmed from what is read in the more ancient elogium or epitaph of him. For his father was spatharius, that is, armour-bearer or bodyguard Compare Du Cange, Glossary, Henschel edition, volume VI, p. 317., of Theoderic, king of the Goths; and he ruled Spain on behalf of Amalaric from the year 510 to the year 525. Moreover Gaudiosus is said to have been handed over as a little boy to St. Victorian, namely abbot of the Asanian monastery near Huesca, which was at first distinguished by the title of St. Martin. Since he by Venantius Fortunatus (for

Mabillon has amply demonstrated that the poem of Venantius Book IV, Poem 11 (Migne, Patrologia Latina, volume LXXXVIII, p. 163). was sent to Victorian of Asan, and not to any abbot of Agaunum, who certainly did not exist at that time) Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, Century I, p. 189. is said to have presided over his monastery for twice six lustra, that is, sixty years, you will easily with Mabillon draw back the beginning of his rule to the opening of the sixth century. But it is not possible to define further in what year Gaudiosus was born, or in what year he died. And concerning the very day of his death the elogia cited above disagree: for the epitaph indicates it to have been the sixth before the Kalends of November or the 29th of October, but the lesson of the Breviary of Tarazona the 3rd of the Nones or the 3rd day of November. Certainly on this latter day his church venerated him, and thence Tamayo, Ferrari and Castellano announced his memory.

[8] His relics were often translated. Two translations of the body the epitaph records; but about what years they were carried out it passes over in silence. That the relics of Gaudiosus were more than once carried from the monastery of St. Victorian, and then to other places, the distinguished de la Fuente indicates, on what authority I do not know España Sagrada, volume XLIX, p. 84.. Most recently, at last, in the year 1573 Compare above, number 2. they were placed in the cathedral church of Tarazona, where they are still kept, enclosed in a silver effigy of the saint representing the upper part of the body in the natural size of a man and of no inelegant workmanship, which with similar statues of St. Prudentius, St. Atilanus and St. Aemilian is placed on the high altar for ornament on the more solemn feasts España Sagrada, volume XLIX, p. 85..

[9] Rashly some affirm that he was a Benedictine, others an Augustinian monk. Further, from what has been brought forward it is easily established that there is no reason why with some Compare ibid. we should say that our saint lived under the discipline of the Benedictine rule in the Asanian monastery, especially since that rule had not yet been introduced into Spain at that time, nor why with Luigi Torelli [Ristretto delle vite degli huomini e delle donne illustri in santità dell' Ordine Agostiniano, p. 84.] we should count him among the Augustinian hermits.

* elsewhere In hoc loco.

* elsewhere patrios.

* elsewhere Scurubis.

* elsewhere Guntham.