ON ST. GREGORY, CONFESSOR,
WHO IS VENERATED AT ALCALÁ DEL RÍO, IN ANDALUSIA.
More probably in the year DIV.
CommentaryGregory confessor, who is venerated at Alcalá del Río in Andalusia (S.)
J. S.
The place in which this Saint has a church dedicated to him is a village on the river Guadalquivir, situated between Seville and Cordova, The place in which the Saint is venerated: his age assigned from an epitaph: but nearer to Seville. Hence Ferrari in his General Catalogue records him today thus: At Alcalá in Spain near Seville, of S. Gregory the confessor. Marieta in the History of the Saints of Spain, book 6, chap. 43, writes of him in Spanish what I render into Latin: In the year DIV died this Spanish saint Gregory, who is venerated at Alcalá del Río: it is a place two miles above Seville, distinguished with the title of a duchy. He has there a church, which the Catholic sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella caused to be built, moved by the fame of the many miracles which that Saint had wrought, and by the great devotion of that whole region toward him. In it these sovereigns ordered the bones of that Saint to be laid, enclosed in a gilded chest with iron gratings. Nevertheless there is shown in the same place the sepulcher in which that Saint was found many years ago, with the stone above, which is even now there in the church, and contains this Latin epitaph.
> In this tomb lies the servant of God Gregory, who lived more or less LXX years, departed in peace, on the ninth day of September, in the era DXLII.
[2] certain observations upon these, The author adds that that era agrees with the year of the Lord 504; and that he found no more about S. Gregory. Exactly the same things about S. Gregory Ambrosio de Morales relates in the General Chronicle of Spain, book XI, chap. 41. He adds however, first, that it is established from a certain inscription that the church of S. Gregory was built by Ferdinand and Isabella. Secondly he observes that the letters of the epitaph given are so worn away that he was not certain about the day and year of death, since it can also be read on the fifth day of September; just as also the era can be so read that it agrees with the year 554. He gives notice however that it should more probably be read as I have given above. The same opinion Juan de Ferreras follows in the History of Spain at the year 504, where he narrates the same things in summary, and says that no more is known about S. Gregory. Thirdly Morales observes that there was carved on the sepulchral stone the ancient sign of the labarum with the name of Christ inserted, and that at the sides were the letters A and O, or Alpha and Omega. Then the same writer disputes at length in order to show that this was a sign of the Catholics, because in the time of this holy Gregory the Arian Goths were ruling in Spain. For the rest, it is not necessary to transfer hither those few things which are added to the aforesaid from the pseudo-chronicle of Maximus in the Spanish Martyrology of Juan Tamayo de Salazar, since they have no authority.