Peter Arbués

ON BL. PETER ARBUÉS, CANON REGULAR AND MARTYR, AT ZARAGOZA IN SPAIN,

IN THE YEAR 1485.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Peter Arbués, Canon regular and Martyr, at Zaragoza in Spain. (B.)

BY C. S.

§ I. His memory in the Martyrologies: his cult: his Life written by more recent authors: a compendium of the same to be printed.

[ ] Zaragoza, which the natives call Zaragoza, an ancient city of Tarraconensian Spain, On this day, on which he died, he is honoured remarkable for an archbishopric and the capital of the kingdom of Aragon, preserves in its metropolitan church of St. Saviour with religious and splendid cult the body of Bl. Peter de Arbués, commonly called the Master of Épila; whom, a Canon Regular of the same basilica and the first inquisitor of Aragon, the Jews, through hired assassins, stabbed there before the chief altar as he was praying, in the year of Christ 1485, whence two days later he breathed out his blessed soul on this 17th of September. Of him at the present day John Tamayo Salazar in the Spanish Martyrology makes mention thus: At Zaragoza in Spain, of Bl. Peter Arbués, martyr, who, when he had been the first apostolic inquisitor of that city against heretical depravity, while by his office he constantly inquired against those guilty of it, was stabbed within the corners of the metropolitan see by those same heretics, and, an undaunted combatant, sent forth his most pure spirit to his Creator. The same man Castellanus inserted in his universal Martyrology, where he also rightly distinguished the time of the wounds inflicted and of the death met from them, in words which I subjoin turned from French into Latin.

[2] At Zaragoza, Bl. Arbués, inquisitor, who died on this day (the 17th of September) from the deadly wounds with an office and Mass at Zaragoza which Jewish assassins inflicted on him on that night which fell between the 14th and 15th days of this month, while at the Matin Office the Invitatory Venite was being sung in the church of St. Saviour, of which he was a canon. In the Roman Martyrology he has not yet obtained a place, nor has he been enrolled in the register of the Saints by the supreme Pontiff through canonization. Yet that he is rightly mentioned by the praised martyrologists with the title of Blessed is established from those things which we are about to say below concerning his lawful cult, begun and continued more than a hundred years before the decree of Pope Urban VIII, and concerning his solemn beatification made by Pope Alexander VII in the year 1664. Meanwhile it will suffice to have set down here beforehand that the praised Alexander granted in the aforesaid Brief that an Office of him should be recited under a double rite, and a Mass celebrated of a martyr not a pontiff, every year according to the rubrics of the Roman Breviary and Missal, on the 17th day of September, on which he gave back his spirit to his Creator.

[3] and in some other places But these things (says the Pontiff in the same place) only in the places written below; namely in the cathedral church of Zaragoza, where as canon he obtained the palm of martyrdom and where his body rests; in the churches of the general inquisitor of the Spains, and of St. Martin of the inquisition of the kingdom of Aragon, where he first discharged the office of inquisitor, and from which by Apostolic authority he received that same office; and also in the mother church of the town of Épila, where he was born; and, as regards the Masses, also by priests coming thither. These things in the year 1664. Then in the year 1694 another Office of the same Blessed man was prepared, concerning which, at the end of the printed copy of it which I have in hand, the following may be read: Of Zaragoza. The above-written proper Lessons of the second Nocturn, and the Prayer of blessed Peter de Arbués the martyr, as they stand above, revised and corrected anew by the Most Eminent and most reverend lord Cardinal Casanate at the direction of the Congregation of sacred rites, the same sacred Congregation has approved, and has granted that hereafter they may be recited and printed in the metropolitan church of Zaragoza and in the other places in which the Office of the aforesaid Blessed man with the proper lessons and prayer is found to have been hitherto granted by Apostolic indult, on the 17th day of July 1694. It was subscribed: A. Cardinal Cybo. And below: B. Inghirami, Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites.

[4] The same Office and Prayer were at length in the year 1696 extended to other and much wider places, in Spain, and at Bologna namely when, as is read in the same copy, its proper lessons and prayer, at the most humble prayers of the archbishop and chapter of the aforesaid metropolitan church (of Zaragoza) presented to the sacred Congregation of rites by the Reverend Father Master Fr. Bernard de Cariñena y Ypenza, vicar general of the Order of the Bl. Virgin Mary of Mercy, the same sacred Congregation of rites, in all the kingdoms of Aragon, in the Spains only, in the city of Bologna, in all the churches of the general inquisition of the Spains, and also in all cities in which tribunals of the inquisition exist, and in which, as also in all the kingdoms enumerated,

churches, cities, and places the Office of the aforesaid Blessed man from the Common of one martyr is performed, at the report of the Most Eminent and most reverend Cardinal Colloredo, kindly granted that it might be recited and printed. On the 24th day of November 1696. It was again subscribed: A. Cardinal Cybo. And below: B. Inghirami, Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites.

[5] By Bononia here Bologna is designated, a famous city of the Papal dominion in Romagna, in Italy: formerly he was honoured on the 15th day. where the Office and Mass of Bl. Peter Arbués was without doubt granted to be celebrated because the Blessed man studied philosophy and Theology in that city, and, having obtained the mastership in both, publicly professed them, as will be established from what is to be said. The lessons of the first Nocturn are prescribed from the Epistle of Bl. Paul the apostle to the Romans: Brethren, we are debtors, etc.; those of the second Nocturn will be inserted in their places in the Commentary; and for the third Nocturn at last there is assigned a Homily upon the Gospel: There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, etc., as on the feast of St. Callistus, the 14th day of October. And the Prayer is this: Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that we may follow with fitting devotion the faith of Bl. Peter Thy martyr, who for the defence of that same faith deserved to obtain the palm of martyrdom. Through our Lord, etc. Before his solemn beatification he was honoured, not on this 17th day of September, on which he died, but on the 15th of the same, on which he was stabbed by the assassins. So we learn both from John Mariana, book 25 of the History, chapter 8, and others, and from the book of Informations often to be praised below, from which receive the following: The 34th witness on the 19th article testifies from sight that the faithful with a notable concourse in the city of Zaragoza honour the day of this Servant of God as one of the days of greater festivity, ringing the bells of the metropolitan church unceasingly all the 15th day of September from its first Vespers, as is done on the day of St. Valerius and St. Vincent, on which this great solemnity is kept, as of the principal patrons of the episcopal see of Zaragoza. Of his famous cult we shall give much more below.

[6] I have found the Life of our Blessed man written by no contemporary or near-contemporary, I shall not give the Life written by more recent authors, nor have I read that it is praised by others; whence Diego García de Trasmiera, presently to be praised, not undeservedly complains that from such a scarcity of writers few of his deeds have come to the knowledge of posterity. Yet many more recent writers, especially Spaniards, have made mention of him, whom Tamayo reviews in great number in his Notes to the Martyrology cited above. But among the rest, Vicente Blasco de Lanuza, penitentiary canon of Zaragoza, set forth his life, death, and miracles in heroic verse, in a little work which he entitled Peristephanon, or Of the Crowns of the Saints of Aragon, and, divided into five books, published at Zaragoza in the year 1623. After him Diego García de Trasmiera, inquisitor of Valencia, Sicily, and Toledo, composed a Life in Spanish in bound style, which was first printed at Monreale in the year 1647, that is, about sixteen years before his solemn beatification, and then reprinted with some supplement together with the Bull of beatification at Madrid in the year 1664.

[7] but a compendium of the same Yet another Life, likewise in the Spanish tongue, was published in the year 1690 from the presses of Zaragoza by John Gracián y Salaverte, of the Order of St. Mary of Mercy, historiographer of the province of Aragon, who testifies that he traces his descent through his mother from Elisabeth, the Blessed man's sister. These Lives we have indeed in our Museum; but since their authors, from the age in which they wrote, can win for themselves but slight authority, and seem in them to have said and embellished many things from conjecture, I have thought it better to use them for composing the Commentary than to print them turned into Latin. The same I have determined concerning the metrical Life inserted in the Peristephanon, and the more so because this swarms with its poetical phrases frequently to the point of nausea, and after the manner of poems amplifies the deeds with a more liberal style. Hence I prefer a brief compendium of the same Life, published in Italian at Rome at the time of the beatification in the year 1664, and inscribed to the most illustrious lord John Vaguer, canon of the metropolitan church of Zaragoza and procurator of the cause of the same beatification, which, rendered into Latin, I shall subjoin. I prefer, I say, this compendium, because it was more probably put together from the Acts of the beatification, and therefore ought to seem less liable to errors.

[8] published at Rome: I shall review the miracles and other things from elsewhere. Nevertheless, because the praised compendium ends at the Blessed man's death, omitting the miracles and other things which happened after it and pertain to the beginning and increase of his cult, these I shall subjoin in Latin from the cited Lives, lest I defraud the readers in any part. To the same end, as also for composing the Commentary on his Life, there will be useful to me the manuscript which our Papebroch copied from the book of Informations at the Father Procurator general's at Rome, and deposited at this day, in which, for obtaining his beatification, many things concerning his life, manners, martyrdom, miracles, and ancient cult are touched upon, and are set forth to be proved in the name of Philip IV, king of the Spains, of the most reverend lord inquisitor general of Spain, and of others whom it concerned. In its own place likewise I shall review in the Commentary the Brief of beatification, and the manner and solemn pomp with which it was publicly celebrated at Rome in the Vatican basilica of St. Peter. And lastly I shall praise in the course of the work the other authors who have written of the same Bl. Peter.

§ II. The Blessed man's native place: his noble parents, ancestors, brothers and sisters: his pious upbringing: his studies of letters, especially at Bologna: the laurel of the mastership and doctorate.

[ ] The Blessed man is born at Épila in Spain, That blessed Peter Arbués looked upon the first light at Épila is agreed among almost all who have made mention of his native place; and so it is also asserted both in the manuscript instrument praised above at n. 8, and in the Bull of beatification, in the words recited at n. 3, and finally in his proper Office. And Épila is a small town or castle of Spain in Aragon on the river Salo, called by the natives el Xalon, seven Spanish miles distant, according to Diego García Trasmiera in the Life, to the west of Zaragoza, in whose diocese it is. Vicente Blasco and John Gracián think it to be the same as the ancient Segontia, which the Itineraries of the emperor Antoninus, on the route which leads from Mérida to Zaragoza, set down as sixteen thousand paces distant from the latter. I said that almost all agree concerning this native place of the Blessed man: for the canons of Zaragoza, in a supplicatory little book offered to Pope Paul V in the year 1614 for obtaining his canonization, attempted to make him of Zaragoza in these words: Peter Arbués of Zaragoza, commonly called the Master of Épila perhaps for this cause, that the origin of his illustrious family was from a town of this name, etc. But this opinion of the canons has, so far as I know, no supporter, and is overthrown by so many contrary testimonies that it ought to delay no one.

[10] Further, from Épila his native place, and at the same time from the mastership of Theology with which he was adorned, (whence he was called the Master of Épila) Bl. Peter was commonly called Master-Épila, in Spanish el Maestro-Épila, so that he passes in the Spains by this name rather than by that of Peter de Arbués. Hence Pope Alexander VII in the Brief of beatification says that processes were drawn up concerning the martyrdom, etc., of the Servant of God Peter de Arbués, otherwise called Master of Épila. Of these things the praised poet Blasco sang thus in book 3:

Among our lands, ancient Segontia, Built upon the soft banks of the sung-of Salo, Afterwards called Épila, its ancient name being changed, And by king Alfonso freed from the chains of Mahomet, Girt round with towers and ancient walls, Happy in noble lords and fruitful in fields, About to pour forth gifts and all the bright riches of the earth, Nurse of crops, and fertile parent of godlike men, Brought forth holy Mastrepila, whom the Ruler of Olympus Granted as a star to a languishing world in the last time. And Segontia brought forth many others also, And herself bore men famous in arms and in the gown, Illustrious in word and in verse, and excellent In the studies of Minerva; like whom our Mastrepila Shall now be, the boundless light and glory of his fatherland. Whom Épila saw being born, and nursed, and heard him Pouring out his tender weeping to no purpose, And, as he wept, charmed him with song into sweet laughter, Letting fall her full breasts with coral-bearing lips.

Thus far he, heaping up remarkable praises of Épila, which there is no leisure here to examine.

It was the time when the sun had already run through the years Forty and four hundred after a thousand, and two.

To the same year 1442 John Gracián Salaverte binds his birth in the Life, chapter 1, n. 3; and coming closest to him, Diego García Trasmiera sets it one year earlier, namely 1441, while the author of the Compendium to be published fixes it in the year 1440. More discrepant is the manuscript instrument drawn up in the cause of Beatification in the year 1622, which we praised at n. 8, in which Bl. Peter is said to have been born in the town called Épila, of the diocese of Zaragoza, in the year 1435, or thereabouts. But that very correction or thereabouts sufficiently indicates that the year of his birth was not then sufficiently established; and therefore, since Diego García, John Gracián, and the author of the Compendium wrote later, and indeed the last two after the beatification, when meanwhile something more certain about the time of his birth could be ascertained, it is more likely that that happy birth fell in one of those three years, 1440 and the two following, or at least came nearer to them.

[12] of noble parents, Anthony Arbués Concerning the parents of whom he was born, the book of Informations has thus: The procurator of the cause sets out in articles, and wishes and intends to prove, how in the town called Épila, of the diocese of Zaragoza, in the year 1435, or thereabouts, of Christian and upright parents, Anthony de Arbués and Sancha Ruiz, lawful spouses, and of pure blood, there was begotten and born, in the form of lawful matrimony, Peter de Arbués, afterwards called Master of Épila; who was baptized according to the rite of the Holy Roman Church, and afterwards confirmed. And so it was, and is, the truth, public and notorious; and of all and each of the aforesaid there exist ancient memories and traditions and public voice and report. The same parents the author of the Compendium names, whom he affirms to have been notable no less for the nobility of the families from which they were born than for piety. In his proper Office, their names being omitted, mention is made of the nobility of his stock in this manner: Peter, by surname de Arbués, born at Épila in Aragon, drew from his pious and upright parents piety together with the brightness of blood.

[13] and Sancha Ruiz; his father's ancestors Anthony Arbués and Sancha Ruys are likewise named by Diego García Trasmiera, and he agrees concerning the nobility of both. John Gracián Salaverte reviews also some of Bl. Peter's ancestors, and his brother and sisters, thus: His father was called Anthony Arbués, his mother Sancha Ruiz, both of illustrious blood, nobles[*] of ancient stock; as their family arms of the Arbués attest, which display on a golden field three azure bands. There exist

notable monuments concerning their forebears in the archives of the most excellent counts of Aranda. The lord Peter de Épila Arbués entered into matrimony with the lady Constance de Ahones; and the Ahones were exceedingly rich, and one of the first families of the kingdom. The lord Peter Ahones was uncle (or paternal uncle, for in Spanish it is Tio) of king James, surnamed the Victorious; and of the same family two held the episcopal see of Zaragoza. His family shield bears a tongueless bell on a red field. Among other children he begot the lord Peter de Épila Arbués: as is established from the testament drawn up at Épila by Sancho Ladraz on the 13th day of January of the year 1354.

[14] some are reviewed, The lord Peter de Épila Arbués took to wife the lady Joanna Suñen, daughter of the lords of las Pedrosas: so it is established from the testament of the same lord Peter, made at Épila by Rodrigo de Sadaba, notary of that place, on the 15th day of August, in the year 1357. The lord Gonzalo Arbués, son of the lord Peter, had for wife the lady Joanna Ximénez de Villanueva, daughter of the lord Ximén García de Villanueva, a neighbour[*] of Épila, and of the lady Romea Ferrán Muñoz of Pamplona, of an illustrious family of the city of Calatayud: as the last testament of the lord Gonzalo asserts, written at Épila on the 29th day of July of the year 1424 by Martin de Salamanca, notary. The lord Gonzalo begot a son, the lord Anthony Arbués, father of Bl. Peter Arbués, who joined to himself in matrimony Sancha Ruiz, of the noble family of Sabada. These begot two sons, of whom the firstborn was called Anthony, the second Peter; and this was our Inquisitor and martyr.

[15] And they brought forth five daughters: the ladies Joanna, as also the Blessed man's brother and sisters. Eleanor, Isabella, Sancha, and Beatrice. Joanna married the lord John de Medrano of Épila; Eleanor into the family of the Garcías de Vera; Isabella the lord Anthony Salaverte, secretary to the Catholic king; Sancha into the family of the Francias. So the lord Anthony Arbués testifies in his testament, written at Épila on the 24th day of February in the year 1485 by Anthony de Abiego, notary of Épila; and Sancha Ruiz likewise in her own testament, drawn up by Martin Marín on the 27th day of July of the year 1464. In endowing all these daughters abundantly the father showed the wealth of his family. Their children were joined with illustrious families, namely with the family of Sesse, Pérez de Alfaro, Urries, Salaberte, and many others of distinguished nobility; which evidently demonstrate the nobility of our Martyr the inquisitor. Thus far the praised John Gracián, on whose credit let these things have been said.

[16] Concerning the name of Peter imposed upon him at the sacred font of baptism all likewise agree, Steeped in piety and letters, as also concerning his Christian training under pious parents, of which in the instrument of Information for the beatification it is read thus: Likewise, how the said Anthony and Sancha, spouses, instructed that same Peter, their lawful and natural son, in the Catholic faith in the rudiments of Christian doctrine, taking care, as befits good Catholics, that he should exercise himself in works of virtue. Besides, that from his first years he diligently applied himself to the elements of Grammar, and at the same time made happy progress both in these and in the study of virtues, his biographers affirm; and this Diego García and John Gracián set forth and embellish at some length, from conjectures, as I judge. All these things his proper Office briefly embraces in these words: From his pious and upright parents he drew piety together with the brightness of blood: for, being steeped in the best manners from his very cradle, he passed his boyhood in such a way that he judged nothing at that age to be cultivated by him before letters and Christian virtues. See also the Compendium of the Life to be published, n. 1.

[17] If we believe the praised John Gracián, the blessed Youth, being now well steeped in the precepts of Grammar, perhaps at Huesca, certainly at Bologna, to philosophy and theology was sent by his parents to Huesca, which is a city of Aragon, commonly called Huesca, and there in its then famous university heard philosophy; and returning thence to his father's house at Épila, he betook himself to Bologna for the sake of studying sacred theology in the Spanish college, in whose number of students he was enrolled. But of the philosophical teachings received by him at Huesca I have found nothing in others, from whom the author of the Compendium of the Life expressly affirms that he heard philosophy as well as theology at Bologna; which Vicente de Lanuza also not obscurely intimates. Hence that training of the Blessed man in the university of Huesca appears to me at the least doubtful. Concerning that at Bologna in Italy all agree, and concerning it the following may be read in the instrument for the beatification: Likewise, how that same Peter, being made a youth, was sent to the city of Bologna for the sake of study; where, giving his labour to letters and profiting much in theology, he deserved at length to be enrolled in the number of masters. Likewise, how, while still existing in that same city, he was elected a fellow of the remarkable college called of the Spains, in which, giving a proof of exceptional virtue, the greatest expectation was conceived of him.

[18] he applies himself, and with the laurel of the mastership The proper Office agrees, which has thus: As a youth trained in the liberal disciplines, and enrolled at Bologna in the college of the Spaniards, he so excelled in learning and erudition that he carried off thence the master's laurel of sacred theology. The author of the Compendium and others observe that he had been adorned before with the mastership of philosophy; concerning all which, as also concerning the time at which they happened, Diego García at §4 has in Spanish what I subjoin in Latin. Our Peter came to Bologna, where he gave such exceptional proofs in letters before the governors of the (Spanish) college, that, his knowledge being approved without difficulty, he was admitted likewise to prove the condition of his birth; which indeed was easy for him to do, since he was born of noble and upright parents. He entered upon the theological prebend of the college in the year 1468. Long before he had been created master of philosophy; and, that he might ascend through all the degrees of the exercises, he obtained the doctorate of sacred theology in the year 1473, on the 27th day of December, which was the second year (nay rather the third) of the Pontificate of Sixtus IV, as is established from the Annals of the famous and most learned university of Bologna.

[19] and the doctorate is presented: In the instrument of his doctorate also they inscribed an unusual clause, a testimony of the great esteem which had been conceived in Italy of his knowledge; which, since it seemed to me singular, I wished to relate here in the same Latin tongue. They say therefore: "The manifold gifts of virtues with which the Most High has manifoldly distinguished the person of him, Peter de Arbués, master of arts and philosophy," etc. To the same aforesaid times John Gracián refers in the Life, chapter 4, although in one place the year 1663 is noted for 1673, perhaps through the carelessness of the typesetters. He adds another testimony also from the same Bolognese instrument, in which namely it is said, "a venerable man and of exceptional wisdom, and master of arts and philosophy, Peter Arbués," etc. But it will be of some help to have weighed all these things a little. As regards the years of his entering the Spanish college at Bologna and of his receiving the doctor's laurel, I shall readily believe them, since they could have learned that from the Bolognese records, and nothing occurs to the contrary. And on this reckoning the Blessed man, according to what was said at n. 11, may have been passing the thirtieth year of his age, or have exceeded it by one or two, when he was created doctor of sacred theology.

[20] he was there a student of the Spanish college. I cannot so far assent to them when they say that he, as soon as he came to Bologna, having before been distinguished elsewhere with the mastership of philosophy, was chosen a student of the Spanish college: for the author of the Compendium, of whom we made mention at n. 17, stands in the way, whom so far the instrument copied from the book of Informations and related in the same number also favours, since it treats of the labour bestowed by him on studies at Bologna before it treats of his admission into the aforesaid college; and thus sufficiently intimates that this was the reward of that labour. For the rest, the often-mentioned college had for its author Gil Albornoz, archbishop of Toledo, and Cardinal of St. Clement of the Holy Roman Church, of which he deserved excellently well, who took care that it should be erected and founded after the middle of the fourteenth century in that most famous academy of Bologna, and gave order that among its other students two Aragonese should perpetually be received. Concerning him Ciacconius may be seen in the Lives of the Pontiffs and Cardinals, vol. 2, where a notable eulogy of that great man is set forth according to his merits. Further, the virtues of Bl. Peter by which he shone at Bologna two Spanish writers, already often praised, celebrate; and for his remarkable humility they cite, from a Process drawn up in the year 1613, the testimony of doctor John Cercitus, a student of the aforesaid college: but they do not sufficiently distinguish whether he gave testimony in that year from things known from elsewhere, or whether he left attested in writing long before what he himself had seen, and which others afterwards reviewed in the Process. They add finally that our Blessed man taught publicly and with the highest praise at Bologna. And this stay of his at Bologna was without doubt the cause why his proper Office was extended by the Sacred Congregation of rites in the year 1696, as was said at nn. 4 and 5, to this city also.

in Spanish Infanzones*

or incolæ* (inhabitants)

§ III. He becomes a Canon Regular at Zaragoza, then inquisitor: he is slain out of hatred of the faith: the year, day, and circumstances of his death.

[ ] He becomes a Canon Regular at Zaragoza, Meanwhile, while Bl. Peter was shining before the academics of Bologna, he was elected canon of the metropolitan church of St. Saviour of Zaragoza. There flourished in that church a remarkable college of Canons Regular, into which afterwards, according to Gabriel Pennotto in the Tripartite History of the sacred Order of Canons Regular, book 2, chapter 31, n. 3, in the year 1604, at the procuring of Philip II, king of the Spains, secular canons succeeded. But certainly here there is an error either in the year or in the number of the king, since Philip II departed this life in the year of Christ 1598, Philip the third of that name succeeding him, in whose reign Diego Murillo also asserts that this was done, in Treatise 2 On the Excellences of the metropolitan church of Zaragoza, chapter 30. However that may be, it is established that Canons Regular resided in the praised church while Bl. Peter was chosen into their college. So it is clear from the book of Informations, where it is said: He was then elected a Canon Regular of the Order of St. Augustine, of the metropolitan church of Zaragoza, by the archbishop, chapter, and canons of the same church, where in the year 1476 he made solemn profession, as is the custom; applying himself most exactly to the Regular observance which he had professed, and daily profiting laudably. In like manner in the supplicatory little book for obtaining his canonization, offered by the metropolitan canons of the church of Zaragoza to Pope Paul V in the year 1614, we read of him: Having professed the institute of the Canons Regular of the Order of St. Augustine in this very church, with singular learning and erudition of the sacred Scriptures … gravity of manners and of life

he joined innocence. The lessons of his Office agree, in which, the year of his profession being however omitted, it is read: Presently, being taken into the number of the canons of the metropolitan church of Zaragoza, he always most constantly held to the Regular observance which he had vowed.

[22] Concerning the year the author of the Compendium also agrees, at nn. 2 and 293, where he makes profession in the year 1476. where he also assigns the day on which he made profession, the 9th of February, and the time at which he was first elected, the 30th of September, and the year 1474. Diego García and John Gracián likewise agree, of whom the latter interprets the election as the taking of the regular habit, saying: They clothed him with his habit on the 30th day of September in the year 1474. Each writer likewise says that John of Aragon, son of king John II, then held the bishopric of Zaragoza; which is consonant with the words of Diego Murillo, according to whom, in the Treatise On the Excellences of the metropolitan church of Zaragoza, the praised John, since he had not been initiated into the priesthood, presided over that same archbishopric under the name of administrator from the year 1460 to the 19th of November of the year 1475. The Prior under whom he made his profession the book of Informations indicates thus: Having made solemn profession of the canons Regular of St. Augustine in the year 1476 into the hands of doctor Michael Ferrer, Prior of the holy church of Zaragoza, he showed himself a true Canon Regular, most observant of his institute in all things, and a Religious of admirable example in deeds and words.

[23] He is appointed first inquisitor The Catholic sovereigns Ferdinand V and Isabella were labouring at that time to drive out of their kingdoms the wicked Mahometan sect and the perfidy of the Jews, who even after receiving baptism, whether with a feigned or a sincere mind, secretly practised their superstitious rites. To this end, the supreme Pontiff assenting, they had erected the sacred tribunal of the Inquisition, which should take cognizance of criminals of this kind. And so, the Reverend Father Thomas of Torquemada, of the Order of Preachers, being set over the general inquisition of the Spains, they diligently sought out other men outstanding in virtue and learning to whom that office might safely and worthily be committed in various places. And since Bl. Peter Arbués flourished in these gifts above the rest, he together with Gaspar Inglar, of the Order of Preachers, was declared by the praised Thomas the first inquisitor of Aragon in the year 1484, on the 4th day of May, according to the author of the Compendium. The election of so great a Man to so grave an office is ascribed to the sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella themselves in the Blessed man's proper Office in these words: And watching with equal zeal and solicitude not only over his own salvation but also over that of others, he so shone with all virtues that Ferdinand and Isabella, Catholic sovereigns of the Spains, when they wished to exterminate the Jewish perfidy from their borders, took care that he should be chosen the first inquisitor of the faith in Aragon. The book of Informations agrees, whose words we shall presently give.

[24] in the kingdom of Aragon, which office To the very same year Diego García and John Gracián also bind this; and they add that he, saying that he was unequal to so great an office, out of humility resisted not a little, that he might not accept it: which indeed Gracián asserts that John Gómez, an eyewitness of 70 years, left attested in the first Process. Concerning the same office laid upon him, and notably discharged, the book of Informations has the following: He was adorned with the cardinal virtues. First he shone in the virtue of prudence, choosing the best means for attaining the divine glory and eternal happiness; and he was so reckoned to excel in it that, when Ferdinand and Isabella of glorious memory, Catholic sovereigns of the Spains, had caused all Moors and Jews who refused to profess the Catholic faith to be expelled from their kingdoms, new instructions having been made for the inquisitors of heretical depravity, at the instance of the same sovereigns this venerable Man was[*] the first who was deputed inquisitor in the kingdom of Aragon by the Reverend Father Thomas of Torquemada, general inquisitor of the Spains of the friars of the Order of Preachers. He administered justice undauntedly in that same office and in others enjoined upon him, in the whirlwinds of causes suffering himself to be broken neither by tears nor by prayers, constantly rendering to each his own right.

[25] He showed fortitude in undertaking hard things for the love of God; he discharges vigorously. The virtues, so far that, when at one time he was warned by well-wishing friends to beware of the exceeding envy of the Jews stirred up against him in the exercise of his office of the holy inquisition, he was wont to answer that he was in no way anxious what might befall him from men, provided that he performed his office toward the immortal God and the Christian religion. He exercised great temperance both in moderating and restraining delights and desires concerning things of sense, and in the use of food, wasting his body that it might remain subject to spirit and reason, and despising all the enticements of the body. And again, after some things: In the office and function of inquisitor which he had assumed he bore himself so marvellously and with such constancy that he appeared to all openly a careful zealot for the exaltation of the holy faith and a most vehement persecutor of heresies; and by his diligence and solicitude in a short time many heretics, apostates, and relapsed persons paid the due penalty of their crimes, showing the most abundant fruit and the evident usefulness which then and thereafter ought daily to increase from the very erection of the tribunal of the holy inquisition in those kingdoms. Thus far the praised instrument, from which it will be of help to have subjoined here also his other virtues, which the postulator of the cause undertook to prove.

[26] So then it is read in the same: This Servant of God always lived in the Catholic faith, in which he shone, and persevered constantly to the death; he not only held sound and true doctrine, but also perseveringly taught others, both in public and in private discourses, instructing all in the true knowledge of the faith and in the perfect love of God, exercising himself in divers ways and unceasingly for that faith, and suffering many things for its increase and preservation… He showed that he placed all and the greatest hope in God, hoping to attain eternal life by the divine help and by the merits of Christ the Lord through meritorious works; and, relying on such confidence, he despised all temporal things for this end, that he might obtain the heavenly; and for this cause he suffered the greatest labours and hardships. He prayed gladly, and was carried away to the contemplation of heavenly things… He was endowed with great charity toward God, avoiding sins for love of Him, keeping His commandments, and for that cause despising worldly things and following Christ the Lord; he chose the Religious and regular life that he might serve Him; even as with the same charity he loved his neighbour, taking the utmost care that all universally should persevere in the observance of the Christian faith, instructing all by word, works, and example for the attaining of eternal life…

[27] He loved poverty as much as possible, choosing the Religious life for that cause, are briefly recalled. and showing himself liberal toward the poor, and exercising toward them works of mercy both corporal and spiritual… He was endowed with profound humility, rendering himself so mild and humble that with inferiors he seemed an equal, and with equals an inferior… He was exceedingly given to prayer and contemplation, being continually and devoutly present without intermission at the day and night offices. These things are there; to which John Gracián at chapter 6, n. 41, adds that he was also endowed with a prophetic spirit, and foretold to Master Martin García, canon, a man of notable piety and learning, the office of inquisitor and the bishopric of Barcelona. Besides, he says that he prophesied that the most flourishing kingdom and city of Granada would be snatched from the yoke of the Moors, that the Jews would be expelled, and that the office of the holy inquisition would be more highly exalted. But these last prophecies the Blessed man uttered after his death, as we shall see below; but whence John Gracián Salaverte learned the first we do not know.

[28] Assassins hired by the Jews, Further, the so remarkable virtues of the blessed Inquisitor, which won him the veneration of all good men, stirred up against him the implacable hatred of the Jews, to whom the unconquered constancy and holy severity of the blessed Man was grievous. And so those wicked men, holding nightly conventicles, began to deliberate about taking out of the way the ministers of the inquisition which they hated, and especially Peter (for Gaspar Inglar had already died at the end of January of the year 1484). Gracián affirms, from what monument I know not, that the chief authors of the faction were a certain Rabbi and some rich merchants, named Gaspar Santa Cruz, Matthew Ram, and Peter Sánchez. This is certain, that the slaying of Bl. Peter was decreed by the Jews, and that assassins were hired to carry it into execution. The first of these was John de Labadía, ready for every crime, and who pursued the blessed Inquisitor with the greater hatred because his sister had not long before been cast into the prison of the sacred tribunal and condemned to death, as the Compendium of the Life has at n. 9. The second was called John Sperandio, son of Salvador Sperandio, who, according to Gracián, was detained in the prisons of the same tribunal. To these two the same Gracián adds Vital Durante, a Frenchman by nation, Tristan de León, Anthony Gran of Valencia, and Bernard Leofan of Toulouse, all wicked men, accustomed to live from the oppression of the innocent.

[29] lying in wait for the Blessed man's life Yet they did not keep their machinations so secret but that they came under suspicion among the Catholics, some of whom — among whom Gracián writes that Anthony Salaverte, secretary to the Catholic king, was one — warned him of the imminent danger, and asked him to beware of their snares. But he, in no way terrified by these things, and ready to shed his blood for Christ, persevered in vigorously discharging his office no otherwise than before. And so the assassins, to accomplish the crime they had conceived, attempted to enter by night through the window of the chamber in which he slept; but they were caught, and were prevented by the voices of those who cried out, as Zurita has in vol. 4 of the Annals, book 20, Diego Murillo in the Treatise on the excellences of Zaragoza, chapter 22, Diego García, and John Gracián in the Lives. The first three writers add that the same assassins betook themselves the same night to the metropolitan church, that they might slay, as he came to the Matin Office, him whose house they could not break into; and, not finding him there, put off the sacrilegious slaying to the following night. But these things I cannot confirm from elsewhere.

[30] him by night between the 14th and 15th of September At length on that night which fell between the 14th and 15th days of September the wicked murderers accomplished their execrable undertaking in the metropolitan church itself. It is well to review the words of the Office on this matter. When therefore he was performing the sacred office of the inquisition with equal ardour of mind and profit to the Catholic faith, he drew upon himself great hatred from those who tenaciously maintained the Jewish perfidy and had relapsed into it. Being made more certain of their snares by friends and kinsmen, and when they urged him that, if he wished to look to his life, he should resign the ministry he had undertaken, he answered constantly that he would gladly undergo death for such a cause, and that he desired this alone, that from a bad priest he should become a good martyr. Nor was the outcome absent from his desires; for those wicked men, having often held a conventicle among themselves, plotted death against the Servant of God; and, assassins having been hired to perpetrate the crime, Peter as he prayed before the choir of the metropolitan church, at the beginning of the nocturnal Office, when those words of the psalm were being sung: "Forty years was I near to this generation,

and I said, These always err in heart" — they wounded him mortally with a repeated blow. He survived two days, giving thanks to God that he deserved to meet death for the defence of the faith, and praying for his murderers; and, after receiving the Sacraments of the Church, on the fifteenth of the Kalends of October, in the year 1485 from the restoring of salvation, he fell asleep in the Lord.

[31] Plainly consonant with these are the things which the book of Informations has on the same subject, as he prayed in the church they wound him mortally; and which I subjoin here. From the integrity of his life and his true zeal for the holy Catholic faith in exercising the said office of inquisitor he was exceedingly formidable to the Jews, who therefore, pursuing him and the tribunal of the inquisition then newly erected with inward hatred, conspired for his death, as though persuaded that by his destruction that tribunal must vanish away. And therefore, wicked assassins having been found, two of them, entering the church of Zaragoza stealthily at night-time, at the hour of Matins attacked the Servant of God as he knelt praying before the high altar and the most holy Sacrament on the Epistle side. And while there was being sung in the choir the versicle of the Invitatory at Matins, "Forty years was I near to this generation," and the Servant of God himself, reciting the angelic salutation, was uttering the words, Blessed is the Fruit of thy womb, the second — nay, the first — of the aforesaid criminal assassins, drawing his sword, struck him grievously in the neck, and at once, leaving him, fled; but the other, coming up, with his sword likewise drawn, pierced through the same venerable Man once and again. And he, bearing wounds of this kind patiently from those sacrilegious men, repeating again and again, Let Christ be praised, for I die for His holy faith, and repeating other things in the honour and praise of God, at length on Saturday the 17th of September 1485 fell asleep in the Lord.

[32] Concerning the year of the martyrdom all agree except John Marieta in the Ecclesiastical History of the Saints of Spain, from which wounds he in the year 1485 where at book 2, chapter 60, by a manifest error he referred it to the year 1537. Concerning the day also, on which he was stabbed by the assassins in the church and afterwards died, Jerome Zurita dissents from the rest, in book 20 of the Annals, chapter 65, where he writes that Bl. Peter died of the wounds received on Thursday, which was the 14th of September, at midnight, and at nearly the same hour at which he had been wounded on the preceding night. In the year 1485, to which Zurita with us refers the Blessed man's death, the 14th day of September was not a Thursday but a Wednesday, and therefore he seems to have wished to indicate that part of the night which had begun the 15th day. And he may have been led into this opinion from the fact that in his own age the feast of our Bl. Peter was celebrated at Zaragoza not on the 17th but on the 15th of September, on which he was not dead but mortally wounded, as we observed at n. 5. Further, to omit the rest, the year and the days of the wounds inflicted and of the death met from them are unanswerably proved against Marieta and Zurita by two instruments drawn up not long after by public notaries at Zaragoza, which we shall recite entire from Jerome Blanca's Commentary on the affairs of Aragon in the following paragraph, and from which meanwhile we here take a few things.

[33] The first, then, has thus: In the name of God. Amen. dies on the 17th day of September, Be it known to all that in the year from the Nativity of the Lord 1485, namely on the day entitled the seventeenth of the month of September, at the city of Zaragoza, in the see (that is, the metropolitan church) of the same city of Zaragoza, between the altar and the choir of the said see, where the reverend master Peter Arbués, otherwise Épila, formerly professor of sacred theology, formerly inquisitor of the holy faith, specially deputed by the holy Apostolic See, had been wounded and had fallen from the blows and wounds inflicted upon him on the fifteenth day of the aforesaid month and year, at the hour of Matins. Of which wounds on the present seventeenth day he passed away from this light and fell asleep in the Lord. The same things are read also in the other instrument, in which it is added that he died at nearly the same hour at which he had been wounded. With these agree the proper Office related at n. 30, the author of the Compendium to be published, Diego García, John Gracián, Jerome Blanca in the Commentary on the affairs of Aragon, and others. And the 17th day of September of the year 1485 was a Saturday, as the book of Informations cited at n. 31 has.

[34] having been carried to his house beforehand. I likewise do not know whence the same Zurita learned what he says in the same place, that, while the canons stood around the blessed Martyr as he lay on the ground sprinkled with his own blood, a certain citizen named Emmanuel de Ariño ran up from a neighbouring house, who first lifted him in his arms and carried him to the sacristy. Diego Murillo followed Zurita in this part; but Diego García, praising a most ancient book containing the acts of the chapter of that same church, asserts that the canons indeed, vehemently stricken by so unexpected a fall and by the bitterness of the thing, and not trusting their own eyes enough, stood a little while beside him as he lay; but that presently, the truth of the matter being ascertained, he was lifted by four of them and diligently cared for. And he says that that book is of so ancient a hand that it might seem to have been written at the time when the thing happened. The author of our Compendium in like manner affirms that the blessed Inquisitor was brought back to his own house by the praised canons, who had run to him from the choir where they had begun the Matin office; where after two days he flew to heaven, which appears the more likely.

[35] What of the prodigy of the bell-metal at Velilla? Neither do I know on what sure testimonies rests the prodigy of the bell-metal of Velilla, which others call Belilla, which, according to Murillo cited above, is a place eight or nine Spanish miles distant from Zaragoza. For some say that that bell on the same night and at the time at which the blessed Inquisitor was pierced through by the wicked men sounded of its own accord, until the strong rope by which its tongue or clapper hung to it was broken by the continual spontaneous striking. Others think that this happened at the very death of the Blessed man; and Diego García does not hesitate to assert that this prodigy is mentioned by so many historians that no room for doubting remains concerning it even to a scrupulous incredulity. Mention is made of the same also in the book of Informations in these words: On the same night and at the same hour on which the Servant of God was struck by those criminals, the bell commonly called della Vilella began prodigiously to be rung of itself and by itself alone, with such force and speed that it did not cease until the ropes by which the tongue was bound were broken. Whether these things were sufficiently proved in the Process I do not know; but in our Compendium nothing is read of them. It is easier to believe what the same writers say, that the people of Zaragoza, when the slaying of the blessed Man was heard, so blazed out against the Jews that, had not the magistrates and the viceroy himself and the archbishop Alfonso hindered it, they would have destroyed all the Jews by fire or by the sword. Yet the wicked assassins, being taken afterwards, paid the penalties of the sacrilegious slaying.

fuerit*

§ IV. The mourning of the metropolitan church of Zaragoza: the Blessed man's honourable burial: the prodigy of the blood shed there before, boiling up and multiplied.

[ ] The metropolitan church mourns for a year. What things were done at Zaragoza after the wounding and death of Bl. Peter, Trasmiera and Salaverte go on to set forth at some length, frequently praising the book of the acts of the chapter. Of these receive the following. From the day on which the Blessed man had been stabbed, the divine offices ceased for three days, and the altars were covered with black vestments; and after a dispensation had been given in this part and the church had been reconciled, the canonical Hours were said in a low voice and with closed doors. In the Nocturnal office psalm 108 was said, O God, be not silent in my praise; and before the Office was begun, a priest clothed in a black vestment, holding a cross in his hands, accompanied by two boys bearing torches and with their faces covered with a black veil, recited before the altar the psalms Miserere and others, the whole clergy meanwhile kneeling. This rite lasted a whole year, until the 29th day of September of the following year 1486. So they, in substance. Meanwhile Peter, two days after receiving the wounds, died most holily, as we have said, on the 17th day of September, that is, after the twelfth hour of the night which fell between this day and the 16th; and his venerable body, clothed in the sacred vestments of the canons Regular, was carried to the sacristy of the metropolitan church.

[37] Murillo writes that he was buried on the same day, which had fallen on a Saturday; The Blessed man's body is buried with pomp: and this agrees very well with the book of Informations, in which the miracle of his blood boiling up, which from the authentic instrument to be given below is established to have happened on the 29th day of September, is said to have taken place on the twelfth day after his burial. His funeral was honoured by their presence, besides the canons of the metropolitan church of St. Saviour, by the canons of the parish of St. Mary of the Pillar, commonly called del Pilar, and by all the Religious orders, and even by the most serene Alfonso of Aragon himself, archbishop of Zaragoza and viceroy, with all the colleges of counsellors, the nobles, and the consuls of the city; and the matter was performed with vast funeral pomp. For the place of burial they chose that very spot in which the Blessed man fell pierced through, where, the earth being dug out, they buried the sacred body in a stone coffin. And then that famous prodigy is testified by the book of Informations to have happened, of the blood which the Martyr had there shed by the swords of the impious, boiling up and marvellously multiplied, with a thronging people looking on; whence I have transcribed the following.

[38] As soon as the Servant of God's body was placed in the tomb, his blood, shed there before, marvellously all the blood shed in the place of the striking revived and began to boil, as though it had then been shed. Of the same prodigy mention is again made in the same place a little more at length and a little differently, in this manner: The Servant of God Peter de Arbués of Épila, being mortally wounded on the 15th day of September 1485 at night-time between the choir and the altar of the cathedral church of Zaragoza, from those same blows fell asleep in the Lord on the 17th of the same. His body being carried for burial to the same church, while the grave was being dug in that very place between the choir and the altar where he had been wounded, and where at present his honourable sepulchre is found, both before and after the burial of the body brought to the same church, the blood shed from the aforesaid wounds on the 15th day of September in that very place, and already dried by the distance of the preceding time, began to run, boiling and as though flowing from a living body, with great abundance over the ground and pavement of the aforesaid place, a numerous people flocking to see this as a marvel: whence many and divers persons ran up out of devotion to dip napkins and linen cloths in the said blood, a deed of this kind being universally reckoned an evident and prodigious miracle. This same fact eight eyewitnesses, examined at that time for the future memory of the thing, conclusively prove in fuller words.

[39] boils up and is multiplied; The difference between the two narratives lies in this, that in the first the miracle is said to have happened immediately

as soon as the Servant of God's body had been placed in the tomb, but in the second that his blood had been dried up both before and after his burial. But both will easily be reconciled if we take the word immediately with some latitude of time. Certainly to this prodigy sure credit is given by the instrument already elsewhere praised, which among others Jerome Blanca sets forth in the Commentary on the affairs of Aragon at the year of Christ 1485, whence I transfer the whole of it hither. In the name of God. Amen. Be it known to all that in the year from the Nativity of the Lord one thousand four hundred and eighty-five, namely on the day entitled the seventeenth of the month of September, at the city of Zaragoza, in the see (that is, in the metropolitan church) of the same city of Zaragoza, between the altar and the choir of the said see, where the reverend master Peter Arbués, otherwise Épila, formerly professor of sacred theology, formerly inquisitor of the holy faith, specially deputed by the holy Apostolic See, had been wounded and had fallen from the blows and wounds inflicted upon him on the fifteenth day of the aforesaid month and year, at the hour of Matins; of which wounds on the present seventeenth day he passed away from this light and fell asleep in the Lord. In which place he had shed[*] his blood.

[40] which is proved For which cause the church was polluted, so that they could not celebrate the divine Offices in it. For its repair, according to the order of holy mother Church, the said church was reconciled with ecclesiastical ceremonies. And then, both on the said fifteenth day and on the sixteenth and on the present day of the aforesaid month and year, the said place where the said blood had been shed was seen, examined, and very well recognized by very many and divers persons ecclesiastical and lay, in such wise that it could scarcely be recognized that it was a mark of blood; and if anything was seen of the said blood, it was as it were nothing, the colour of the said blood being almost wholly lost; and it was so dried up that it was impossible with any paper or cloth of linen, or of wool, or with any other thing whatever, to take up anything of the said blood. And so of the aforesaid things many and divers of Christ's faithful gave and made attestation and report publicly. — Before I go on, since it appears hard to believe that the blood on the same day in whose night it had been shed had so far vanished away, it will be of help to have observed that it had probably been already wiped away, either for the sake of reconciling the church, or by order of the archbishop-viceroy or of the magistrates, lest the sight of it should more vehemently stir up the people, gravely moved against the Jews, as we said, by the blessed Martyr's slaying. Unless perhaps it must be ascribed to another prodigy that that blood so suddenly vanished. I go on to review the rest.

[41] And because then, on the said seventeenth day, the Lord God most high so disposing from an authentic instrument that a greater memory should be had of the said reverend father, the lord master Peter de Arbués, otherwise Épila, inquisitor of the holy faith (who for the exaltation of the holy faith and for the extirpation of heretical depravity, as public report relates throughout the said city, suffered the said death), the said blood in the said place before the choir of the said see, where it had been shed, had come back and was flowing out, as though it had been freshly pressed forth. Whereupon the whole people ran swiftly to take of the said blood, some with paper and others with cloth of linen, and in divers other ways; and so great was the swiftness and the running of the people to lift up the aforesaid things and to take of the said blood, that a man could scarcely, among the crowd, save with great force and with great effort, approach and enter to the said place and to the said blood: in such wise that among all the people it was commonly reckoned a most evident miracle.

[42] Therefore, since the aforesaid things seemed most evidently to be for the exaltation of the holy Christian faith by a public notary before witnesses and for the honour and glory of the Christian faithful, for the defence of the Christian faith, and for the confusion of its persecutors and of other evil men, and because memory is slippery, in order that of the aforesaid, of so great and greatest an act, a perpetual memory may be had in the future, the reverend master Martin García, professor of sacred theology, canon of the said see of Zaragoza, as procurator of the much venerable chapter of the canons of the said see, required that by me the notary and the witnesses written below an ocular inspection be made and the said blood be recognized, and that a public instrument be made of the aforesaid. And I, Peter Lalueza, notary, then took a certain[] white[] paper in my hand, which, in the presence of the witnesses written below and of a very great multitude of the people who were there gathered with the greatest eagerness at the said place to see the said blood and to take of it, I publicly showed — the said white paper — and afterwards I set it and … (some things are lacking here, worn away perhaps in the original, as Blanca also noted with like signs) with it I touched the ground in that place where the said blood was; and with it I straightway took of the said blood, and with it the said paper was smeared, and I publicly showed[*] it to the witnesses written below and to all standing by there on every side: in the presence of all of whom the aforesaid things were done, and the aforesaid things were openly seen. And before the drawing up of this instrument a very great number of the people of the said city had taken of the said blood, and had publicly shown and published it throughout the whole city.

[43] Of all and each of which things, being urged and required by the said reverend master Martin García, written at the same time. the aforesaid procurator, I drew up and attested this public instrument in testimony and memory of all and each of the premises, which were done at the place, day, month, and year recited above at the beginning. In the presence, as witnesses to the aforesaid, of the magnificent and venerable men and lords, John López de Alberuela, Martin de Turrellas, Bartholomew del Molino, jurist, citizens; García Baylo, portionary of the see of Zaragoza; Dominic Catalán, James Carnoy, and Martin Pérez, notaries, inhabitants of the aforesaid city of Zaragoza.

The Sig✠n of me, Peter Lalueza, public notary of the city of Zaragoza, and by royal authority throughout the kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia; who was present at the aforesaid: and because I wrote it in part, and in part caused it to be written, and one public instrument, by the command of the reverend father the lord master John Talavera, friar of the Order of Preachers and inquisitor of the holy faith, at the instance of the venerable Peter de Fuentes, fiscal procurator of the holy inquisition of the Catholic faith, made to me on the second day of the month of October of the aforesaid year, reckoned from the Nativity of the Lord one thousand four hundred and eighty-five, by means of a public instrument received by the discreet James[*] Francés, public notary of Zaragoza, I drew out and delivered in this public form, and signed and closed the testimony itself of the premises with my accustomed sign. — Thus far the praised instrument in Blanca, from which Bzovius inserted it in his Annals; the grammatical errors being corrected, which we have judged should be kept, that we might give it genuine. The same instrument in abridgment Odorico Rinaldi also published, likewise in his Annals at this year.

[44] The same prodigy This same prodigy of the blood was renewed in the same year 1485 on the 29th day of September, as another public instrument gives assurance, which from the Commentaries of the praised Jerome Blanca I subjoin word for word. In the name of God. Amen. Be it known to all that in the year from the Nativity of the Lord one thousand four hundred and eighty-five, namely on the day entitled the twenty-ninth of the month of September, at the city of Zaragoza, and between the altar and the choir of the said see, where on the fifteenth of the aforesaid month and year the reverend master Peter Arbués, otherwise Épila, professor of sacred theology and inquisitor of the holy faith, had been wounded and had fallen and had shed[*] the blood of his body from the blows and wounds inflicted upon him, from which on the seventeenth day of the aforesaid month and year, at the hour of Matins, at nearly the same hour at which he had been wounded, he had sent forth his spirit; who, as public report relates, suffered the said death for the exaltation of the holy Christian faith and for the extirpation of heretical depravity.

[45] in the same year on the 29th day of September Vespers having been celebrated in a low voice and with closed doors on account of the death of the said reverend father Inquisitor from the said wounds, according as at that time, because of so most evil a crime, the divine Office was wont to be celebrated in the said see; and the psalm having now been said, "O God, be not silent in my praise," etc., and the other prayers which on that day are said and celebrated in the said church by the reverend and venerable lords the canons, portionaries, and other beneficed men and clerics in the said see, the cross and the faces of the infants (that is, the boys who serve the choir) of the same see being veiled (in token of mourning for the sacrilegious slaying wrought there) with certain ceremonies; while I, Peter Lalueza, the notary written below, and many and divers of Christ's faithful were in the said see, some of those there present, led by devotion, desiring to see the said blood shed from the body of the said reverend father Inquisitor from the blows and wounds of which he had fallen asleep in the Lord, came to the aforesaid place where the said blood had been shed. Which place, that it might not be handled irreverently, stood covered with a certain cloth of wool, commonly called Repostero or Razel (I judge it to be a kind of tapestry).

[46] And they took of the said cloth and uncovered[*] is renewed before several persons, and made manifest and open that place where the said blood had been shed. To which place (considering that the said reverend master Peter Arbués, otherwise Épila, the aforesaid inquisitor, was and is dead, and gave and laid down his life, as this public report relates, for the defence of the holy faith and the extirpation of heretical depravity) many and very many of those there present ran continually and swiftly with great affection and devotion to see the said blood. Among whom I, the notary written below, came to that same place and drew near, and I the said notary and the witnesses written below, with many and divers persons standing about there, recognized and examined that place and the said blood shed there well, attentively, and with the greatest attention. And we saw the mark of the said blood spread there of a considerable quantity and breadth, and, as it were in a certain corner of a certain side where the said blood was, we openly and manifestly saw the said blood redder and more coloured than in other parts; so much so that in that part it appeared and showed itself as though it had been freshly shed and newly marked out: in such wise that among the bystanders (considering that fifteen days were complete since the said blood had been shed, and that in the days past it had been seen wholly dried up) it was and has been reckoned an evident miracle.

[47] And then, for greater verification, I the notary

written below, in the presence of the witnesses written below and of others standing about there, as is shown from a like instrument, publicly touched with a certain cloth of linen the said place where the said blood appeared more coloured and redder and as it were fresh; and the said cloth was smeared with the said blood. And this same thing I did again straightway with a certain white paper, which, in touching with it the above-said place, was smeared with the said blood; and this publicly and openly in the presence of more than twenty persons. And when I withdrew from the said place, showing publicly to all there in the said see the said blood received by me, the magnificent García Montañés, gentleman of the said city, dwelling at Zaragoza, said that, since, in view of the aforesaid signs and of very many others of the said blood seen in these days past, it most evidently appeared that the aforesaid things were and redounded and manifestly showed that … (here again some words have fallen out) the said reverend master Peter Arbués, otherwise Épila, the aforesaid inquisitor, had suffered death for the defence of the holy faith and for the extirpation of heretical depravity.

[48] Therefore of the aforesaid, for the exaltation of the holy Christian faith drawn up on that matter, and by other and in memory for those to come, he required that by me the notary written below there be made one public instrument and more, and as many as should be necessary and fitting thereupon in testimony of the premises. Which things were done at the place, day, month, and year recited above at the beginning; in the presence, as witnesses to the aforesaid, of the honourable John Montañés, esquire, inhabitant of the town of Belchite, Christopher de Quirós, and Martin Sanz de Ledonia, of the household of the illustrious and most reverend lord archbishop of Zaragoza. — Thus far the instrument in the praised Blanca. Of the same matter mention is made in the book of Informations, in which, after the words concerning the first prodigious multiplication of the blood, given first at n. 38, there presently follows: and, what is more marvellous, twelve days after, when certain courtiers came, together with Peter Sanuza the notary, and lifted the tapestry with which the blood of this Martyr was covered, it was seen so fresh and ruddy that without difficulty a linen cloth and a certain leaf of paper could be dipped in it; as it were the blood of the just Abel raising its voice against the assassins, while the innocent man, being struck, mild and patient, complained of no one. The notary who is here called Sanuza writes himself Lalueza in Blanca; and therefore an error must be said to have crept into one place or the other.

[49] testimonies. One or the other, or both, was approved by the Apostolic See. Without doubt John Mariana had not seen these things when in book 25, chapter 8, of the History of Spain he spoke so doubtfully of the mentioned prodigy, saying: The body was laid in a sepulchre in the same place where the wounds were inflicted; at which time the blood was seen to boil, unless they were tricks of the eyes. That they were not tricks, the instruments which we have produced declare abundantly and more than abundantly; yet I add what Diego García at chapter 12, praising for the first miracle of the boiling blood both the things said above and other monuments, says in this manner: Of this matter public instruments were drawn up by the notaries Peter de Lalueza, James Francés, John de Anchías, and Antich de Vages. Then in the year 1537, fifty (and two) years after it had happened, six most weighty eyewitnesses testified the same in the Process made under Frederick of Portugal. And that both, or at any rate one or the other, miracle was proved at Rome in the process of his beatification we have from his proper Office, in whose 6th lesson it is read: There were not lacking prodigies after his death, of which this above all is memorable and approved by the judgment of the Apostolic See, namely the multiplication and boiling up of the shed gore in that same place of the metropolitan church in which the Martyr had suffered.

[50] What is said of the same blood turned into flowers But as these things rest on such certain testimonies that they cannot prudently be called into doubt, so another prodigy of the same blood, which John Gracián Salaverte relates at chapter 14 of the Life, must either be rejected among fables, or at any rate be taken only by way of metaphor. For he says that his sacred blood, when it began to boil up, as we said above, and to be multiplied, was marvellously turned into roses and other purple little flowers, both on the pavement and on the paper and the linen cloths in which it had been received. For this opinion he praises his historians; but he mentions none except Blasco de Lanuza and Jerome Manzano, of whom he brings in the first as singing thus in the Peristephanon:

The innocent blood (as a shoot in the reddening spring Is loosed into flowers) poured out through the bowels of the earth.

He has like things again in a Spanish hymn, as also does Manzano in his own, praised by the same Salaverte. But from the very Latin context of Blasco it is manifest that he speaks of a shoot bursting into flower, not of blood turned into one, and that he treats not of the blood of Bl. Peter, but of Abel's.

[51] is either a figure of speech or a fable. That this may be plain, it will be of help to have recited some of his verses. He says therefore thus:

As once the rustic Cain[*] cut down Abel, The holy shepherd, being goaded by bitter envy, The innocent blood (as a shoot in the warming spring Is loosed into flowers) poured out through the bowels of the earth, Seeking vengeance, sent its cries to the citadels Of the heaven-dwellers, demanding the axes of punishment for that death; So the sacred blood of Arbués, so the waves of blood Cry to the Lord, and raise on high to the palaces of the Father And of Christ the Redeemer's kingdom Vast groanings: and the earth, wetted with gore, Drives many sounds by its motion to the stars.

He speaks otherwise indeed in the Spanish hymn, but he must be said to have used a figure of speech there, after the manner of poets, since he himself in vol. 2, book 2, of the History of Aragon, chapter 12, again treating of the boiling blood, makes not even a word's mention of flowers. Let the same be the judgment concerning Manzano: for that nothing of the sort happened is beyond doubt from the unanimous silence on that matter both in the authentic instruments and in the other monuments alleged above.

effuderat*

quamdam*

albam*

i. e. ostendi* (I showed)

Jacobum*

effuderat*

i. e. nudarunt* (they laid bare)

Cainus*

§ V. His cult begun not long after his death: a marble sepulchre erected to him by Ferdinand and Isabella, sovereigns of Spain: lamps hung by decree of the city: his cult declared among the excepted cases in the decree of Pope Urban VIII.

[ ] Not long after his death cult The pious life of Bl. Peter, his glorious death inflicted upon him out of hatred of the faith, and the prodigy of the shed blood publicly attested, could not but win the veneration of the people of Zaragoza and stir up confidence, so that they should invoke with religious observances the powerful patronage of him whom they in no way doubted to be already a friend of God in heaven. Certainly it is asserted that this was done in the book of Informations, whence I have excerpted the following. The venerable Man, both while he was among men and also after his death, was commonly reckoned, as also today he is reckoned by all Christ's faithful, even by princes and ecclesiastical persons, for a man adorned with all the above-said virtues, just, holy, and a friend of God — venerating him as such, proclaiming him, and imploring him with God in their necessities and infirmities, pouring out prayers, painting his images with rays publicly and openly, even in churches, and causing them to be painted, and venerating such images as of a Saint, holding his garments and relics as of a Saint with the utmost devotion, and doing and exercising all and each of the other things which are wont to be done and exercised toward eminent Saints and friends of God. In proof of which there exist very many and most weighty writers, who in their writings afford ample testimonies concerning the illustrious holiness and miracles of this Servant of God, which here in the place of articles the procurator of the cause repeats and produces.

[53] The praised testimonies are not in our manuscript, but others recite various ones, is shown him by the people, of which I subjoin one from John Gracián. Many, he says, have made honourable mention of the illustrious Martyr; and first indeed the lord Martin García, a contemporary doctor and canon of the church of Zaragoza, who succeeded him in the office of inquisitor and was afterwards created bishop of Barcelona, says in Sermon 39: "As there are two Apostles in the Church of God, namely Peter in the East and James in the West, so there are two Martyrs and inquisitors, one in the East, saint Peter of Verona, the other … in the West, Bl. Peter of Zaragoza, who, both dying for the faith of Christ, made illustrious the East and the West." From Peter's holiness the gravity of his slaying was also much enlarged by John de Colmenares, abbot of Daquilar of the Order of St. Bernard and inquisitor general of Aragon, in the sermon which he preached when his sacrilegious assassins were handed over to the secular judge, of which I have in hand a manuscript copy brought from the Spains by our Pinius. But it is not necessary to review here more testimonies of writers for his virtues, which the Apostolic See has already approved. I return to the book of Informations.

[54] and his sepulchre is made illustrious by benefits. In it, after a few things concerning the cult shown him soon after his burial, and the benefits obtained from God by his patronage, it is again read thus: So great was the devotion and piety of Christ's faithful toward the Servant of God, that his sepulchre has been and is visited and venerated by a numerous throng of the people, pouring out devout prayers there; and recourse has been had to it by very many afflicted with divers diseases and sicknesses, with a notable concourse, for obtaining health from his intercession with God; and, that being obtained, by fixing votive panels there, which together with tapers, garments, and other offerings in great quantity still hang there. Meanwhile, when the year from the blessed Martyr's slaying — in which the metropolitan church, as we said above, mourned — had now elapsed, his obsequies were solemnly celebrated on the 28th (others have the 29th) day of September with so great a concourse of people and with so great preparation and pomp that, according to Zurita in the Annals, the people seemed to be keeping the feast of some glorious martyr already canonized by the Church. Of the same solemnity Diego García also treats in the Spanish Life, praising a most ancient register of the same church, from which he recites the following: On the day of the feast they raised a tomb above his body, where it is buried, and encircled it with forty tapers.

[55] Ferdinand and Isabella, Catholic sovereigns, Then the people's devotion and confidence toward the Blessed man grew more and more, and the number of benefits, moved by which the Catholic sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella took care that a noble mausoleum should be made for him at their own expense, as is read in the same book of Informations in this manner: In view of the universal devotion toward the Servant of God and the concourse of the people, Ferdinand and Isabella of happy remembrance, sovereigns of the Spains, a costly sepulchre of alabaster with the figure of the same venerable Man, at their own

expense, to be built, as a memorial still stands publicly on a marble stone. Of the same it is read thus in his proper Office: Ferdinand and Isabella with royal munificence took care that his body should be buried there in wrought marble. Diego García and John Gracián affirm that this was done in the year 1487, that is, two years after the Blessed man's death. The former of these asserts besides that the history of his slaying is shown carved on that same marble tomb, which is plainly conformable to the words of Vicente Blasco de Lanuza, who sang thus of the same mausoleum in book 5 of the Peristephanon.

Plate, which keeps the inscribed name through the ages, Which tells the time of his death, which shows the limbs Of Peter shut in the sepulchre; until the last of days Burn the cloud-bearing mountains and destroy the world. Hence rises a great mass: noble marble covers all, Carved with the figures of Peter's history set here and there. The image of his savage death lies open, painted To the life: the marbles are seen surrounded with railings, Adorned with the various triumphs Of the deeds of father Arbués.

Thus he. The inscriptions of the same sepulchre John Tamayo sets forth in the Spanish Martyrology at this day, where he has these things: The first and more ancient epitaph, which by order of the Catholic sovereigns was found written on the inner part of the sepulchre, above the very body of Bl. Peter Arbués the martyr, upon a flat marble stone, when by Apostolic commission the monument was opened on the 30th day of the month of January in the year 1623 from the birth of Christ the Lord, is of this kind:

HERE LIES THE REVEREND MASTER

PETER ARBUÉS, BORN OF ÉPILA,

CANON OF THIS DEAR SEE,

A MOST UPRIGHT INQUISITOR OF HERETICAL

DEPRAVITY, IN THIS SAME PLACE SLAIN BY

HERETICS,

THE 15TH OF THE KALENDS OF OCTOBER, IN THE YEAR 1485.

[57] Of the same purport is the second epitaph, carved in capital letters on the outer and uppermost part of the sepulchre, they take care to have erected for him at their own cost. which declares his life, offices, functions, death, the cause of his contest, and its time also, in this order:

THE REVEREND MASTER PETER DE ÉPILA,

CANON OF THIS SEE, WHILE HE CONSTANTLY INQUIRED

BY HIS OFFICE AGAINST HERETICS, WAS HERE STABBED BY

THE SAME, WHERE ALSO HE WAS ENTOMBED,

IN THE YEAR OF THE LORD 1485, ON THE 17TH OF SEPTEMBER,

BY THE COMMAND OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA,

REIGNING IN BOTH SPAINS.

But afterwards, on the front of the same sepulchre, Isabella, Catholic queen of the Spains, ordered a third epitaph to be set up, written on a single stone, on account of the singular devotion with which she followed the holy Martyr, thus:

THE SAME ISABELLA, QUEEN OF THE

SPAINS, OUT OF SINGULAR[*]

PIETY TOWARD CHRIST, TO HIS CONFESSOR OR

RATHER MARTYR PETER ARBUÉS,

S. I. C. M.

[58] In the fifth year after the Blessed man's martyrdom, 1490 of Christ, His sepulchre is made illustrious with votive lamps by public decree of the city his aforesaid sepulchre was honoured with a perpetual votive lamp. To this effect Diego García de Trasmiera praises the book of the acts of the metropolitan chapter, folio 60, whence he recites the following in Spanish, which I render into Latin. In the year 1490 the city, the chapter and council being assembled, ordained that a silver lamp of fifty ounces should be made, which should be set before the sepulchre of the glorious Master of Épila, and that another lamp should be made with its own vessel, which should burn always day and night, and which, with its vessel and the other necessaries, the city's treasurer should perpetually maintain: and so it was done, and the silver vessel and the second lamp were set up. This silver lamp is said in the book of Informations to have been offered by the city in fulfilment of a vow for the staying of the plague which had raged at Zaragoza, and to have been of the weight of fifty ounces, with an annual charge that from the goods of the city there should be paid out every year four robas of oil, making 144 pounds. Hither likewise belong the things which in the same book are again read a little differently in these words: Four or five years after the happy passing of the Servant of God the devotion of the people toward his sepulchre so increased that by public council, common vow, and decree of the city of Zaragoza it was resolved that perpetual lights of some lamps should be set beside the sepulchre, which should burn continually in his veneration, in the same manner and form in which other venerable martyrs are honoured, choosing him for Patron for the benefit received of deliverance from the contagion of the plague then raging in those parts.

[59] by decree of the city his cult Zurita names the jurats of the city (so the people of Zaragoza called a certain magistracy of theirs) under whom this was ordained: Peter Torellas, Laurence Molón, and Albert de Oriola. To that lamp there were afterwards added other votive ones and offerings: for Gracián writes, from the book of visitations of the same church, that in the year 1548 there hung at the Blessed man's sepulchre six silver lamps and a great store of offerings likewise of silver — images, hands, feet, eyes — and other precious gifts. Of his yearly feast, wont to be kept solemnly every year on the 15th day of September, we have already treated above at n. 5, which consult. Meanwhile, while the cult of Bl. Peter took new increases daily, and the cause of his beatification was already being pursued with the Apostolic See, as we shall say below, decrees were published by Pope Urban VIII in the year 1625 and confirmed in the year 1634, by which all public cult was forbidden to be shown to servants of God not yet canonized or beatified by the Apostolic See, except to those who are honoured either by the common consent of the Church, or by an immemorial course of time, or by the writings of the Fathers and of holy men, or by the knowledge and toleration of the Apostolic See, or of the ordinary, over a very long time.

[60] is declared among the excepted cases in the Decree of Urban VIII Hence, when the most reverend lord Peter Francis de Rubeis, promoter of the faith, protested against the cult which the people of Zaragoza continued to show to Bl. Peter, John Francis Campodarbe, procurator of the cause of his canonization, in the year 1652, on the 23rd day of March, obtained a decree by which, Innocent X, supreme Pontiff, assenting, it was declared that an excepted case in the decrees of the praised Pontiff Urban VIII was established. And indeed it was not difficult for the people of Zaragoza to prove an immemorial time of cult. For since this time, by Urban's declaration, is one which exceeds a hundred years, and the cult began, according to what has been said, not long after the martyrdom endured in the year 1485, and persevered, if you count from this year to the year 1634 (which Benedict XIV, Supreme Pontiff, happily reigning, proves is to be taken as the term, in his excellent Work On the beatification of the Servants of God and the canonization of the Blessed, book 2, chapter 22) — if, I say, you count from the year 1485 to 1634, you will find that about the hundred and forty-ninth year of his cult had run.

[61] is declared by Innocent X. There exists the decree of this declaration of the sacred Congregation of rites, inserted in an instrument of a public notary of the same sacred Congregation, in John Salaverte in the Spanish Life, whence I transfer it hither. A particular process concerning the case excepted from the decree of Urban VIII of happy remembrance, published in the Most Holy Inquisition concerning cult not employed, having been reported by the Most Eminent lord Cardinal Sacchetti, with the pronouncement of the archbishop of Zaragoza, delegate in the cause of the servant of God Peter de Arbués, otherwise M. of Épila, proposed by the Congregation of sacred rites, it seemed to the Most Eminent Fathers, the Reverend Father lord promoter of the Faith being cited[*], that it is established that cult was shown to the said Servant of God, and is at present shown, and that it is comprehended among those excepted from the decrees of the Most Holy Inquisition, and therefore is in no way contrary to the aforesaid decrees, and that it is possible to proceed to further matters, if it shall please Our Most Holy Lord. On the 23rd day of March 1652. Whereupon, a report having been made by the Most Eminent lord Cardinal Capponi on the 29th day of April 1652, the Most Holy Father assented. Frederick, bishop of Albano, Cardinal Cornelius. In place of the ✠ seal. Bernardinus Roccius, secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites.

singulari*

elsewhere citra*

§ VI. Some apparitions of the Blessed man, and his patronage against the plague: various kinds of diseases healed: two dead men restored to life.

[ ] Some out of many miracles are related. We have already often made general mention of the miracles and benefits wrought and obtained through the patronage of Bl. Peter; now let us come to particulars. In the book of Informations two Processes concerning them are said to have been anciently formed by ordinary authority: one in the fifth year after the Blessed man's martyrdom, that is, 1490 of Christ, the other in the year 1537. Of the former Diego García also makes mention, asserting that this Process was entitled of the apparitions of the blessed Maestre Épila. Very many of these miracles Vicente Blasco de Lanuza celebrated in heroic verse; but since he wrote before the beatification, and by the law and licence of metre sometimes adorned or curtailed the facts too much, I prefer to follow John Gracián Salaverte in the Life, and to render his words from Spanish into Latin, and, where it shall be necessary, to illustrate and confirm them from the book of Informations, or from our manuscript drawn from it, in which many miracles of this kind are briefly touched upon, to be further proved thereafter. And so the praised Salaverte, beginning from the apparitions, entitled chapter 13: The apparitions of the illustrious Martyr: he is patron against the plague; and presently went on with the words which I subjoin.

[63] The apparitions of the dwellers in heaven are singular arguments of their glory, The Blessed man, appearing to a certain priest, fosterings of our faith and of the hope of an eternal reward and of the resurrection of bodies on the last day. I shall set forth to those devoted to our Saint those which were approved in the various processes concerning his apparitions and miracles. On Friday the 19th of February in the year 1490, the fifth after the Martyr's death, the venerable lord Blasco Gálvez, vicar of the said place (Aguilón), who had been in the service of the holy Inquisitor and had been greatly esteemed by him for his remarkable virtue, before doctor Peter de Oropesa, vicar general of the archbishopric of the most serene lord Alfonso of Aragon, the holy Gospels and the corporals (that is, the linen cloths on which the Body and Blood of Christ are laid at Mass) being set before him and touched, and being sworn, spoke — nay, he asked and demanded of the commissary judge that it be permitted him to swear upon the Body of the Lord, and in fact said the following: In the year 1486 or 1487, on a certain day of the Lenten fast at the seventh hour of the morning, when I was in the royal palace of the Aljafería, blessed master Peter Arbués the inquisitor appeared to me in his canonical habit, and called me: Lord Blasco. At the presence of the Man I fell down for fear, quivering like one dying. — Before I go on, I observe that it ought to seem strange that Blasco Gálvez, when he rightly remembered the other dates, should have doubted about a year from which he was not far distant. For which cause it is permitted to suspect that that doubt was rather Gracián's own, who did not discern whether in his manuscript the year 1486 or 1487 was read. Now let us resume the narrative.

[64] delivers some admonitions. After a brief observation, which does not make for our purpose, Salaverte, or Blasco in him, goes on thus: Two days having passed, he appeared to me a second time in the same palace at the top of certain steps; and although I was struck by the Martyr's presence, yet I was more encouraged when, addressing me by my own name, he said: Lord Blasco, go, speak to my brother master Martin García and to the inquisitors. And it seemed to me that he spoke in my ear; and whatever things

he said to me, I declared to them, as he had bidden. And they were certain things pertaining to the furthering of the exercise of the holy office, and to the great glory which he enjoyed and which he hoped would come to the inquisitors as a reward of the labours which they underwent for God's cause in the cause of the holy Faith. Of this same apparition it is read thus in the book of Informations, among the other things which the procurator of the cause had undertaken to prove: After his glorious passing to heaven he appeared visibly to a certain priest who had served him while he lived, surrounded with great splendour and brightness, making manifest the glory and blessedness he had obtained. The same is also related in Diego García in the Additions, from a book published in the year 1652 by doctor Michael Anthony, archdeacon of Zaragoza, from whom perhaps Salaverte learned it. I pass on to another apparition, granted to the same Blasco Gálvez.

[65] Appearing to him a second time in glory, he gives various commands, In the same year, says the praised Salaverte, on the Night of the Lord's Nativity, in every respect fortunate for the venerable priest, the vicar at Aguilón, when he, being in his church at the eleventh hour of the night and going out through a low door, bowed his head and set his foot on the third step of the stairs, there a splendour like the sun suddenly dazzled his eyes and blinded him with abundance of light; and when he cried out, "Jesus," the glorious Martyr answered: Be He with all. The voice heard, he (Blasco) said, was sweet, gentle, proper to holy master Peter Arbués, such as I had known. At this so great a sweat came over me as I had never at any other time felt, which the Saint noticing, and encouraging me, said: Lord Blasco, fear not. And, much refreshing me, he charged me to make the archbishop, the lord Alfonso, more certain concerning some matters to be signified to his father the Catholic king, foretelling to him and to the Catholic queen happy successes among men, a long life, and eternal glory for their merits, favour, and protection afforded to the inquisition: let the sacred tribunal persevere for the defence of the faith and the terror of enemies; let them suffer no Moor among the new subjects, nor set any measure in expelling them; let me warn the archbishop to further the holy inquisition, and not to lend ears to those who oppose it. Besides he said: Tell the inquisitors to commend me to them, that they may vigorously discharge the holy office, since by labours of this kind I have obtained a place in eternal glory among the martyrs.

[66] promises his patronage against the plague, But among the prosperous successes which the Blessed man is said to have promised to the sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella in the words just recited, the chief seems to have been the taking of the city and kingdom of Granada, which, the Moors being subdued, they happily added to their dominion, as among others may be seen in Odorico Rinaldi in the continuation of the Ecclesiastical Annals of Cesare Baronius, at the year of Christ 1491 and the following. Let us return to Salaverte; who, some things being interposed which I knowingly pass over, at length continues thus: To this he said to me (namely the Blessed man): I, Peter Arbués, have obtained this grace, that whoever shall commend himself to our Redeemer Jesus and to His most holy Mother Mary, and to saint Sebastian, to whom I was very devoted, whether it be man or woman, if, touching my tomb with bended knees, he shall piously make the sign of the Cross, and shall once recite the Lord's Prayer in honour of the Lord Jesus our Redeemer, and the angelic salutation in honour of the Virgin Mary, and shall say: Pray for me, blessed Peter Arbués, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ — he shall be free of the plague which has now arisen, as thou shalt see. When the above-said words had been uttered by blessed master Peter Arbués and heard by me, there spoke on the left another voice, more slender and thin, without doubt produced by an angel, or by St. Sebastian, or by St. Peter the martyr and inquisitor (namely of Verona), his great patrons and friends; and it said the following: By always bestowing alms for the furthering of the chapel which is to be built for him, and by religiously honouring him, thou shalt enjoy the best health: this grace he obtained by the death which he endured for the defending of the faith of our Lord Jesus the Redeemer.

[67] Hearing the voices of both, I took heart, and, since I saw no one, and heals his hernia. I said: They will not believe me. One of them, namely the glorious Peter Arbués, answered, and said very sweetly: Nay, they will. If they do not believe thee, thou shalt bear witness with what hernia (an incurable evil) thou hast laboured, and that thou wast healed by my hand. Praised be our Lord Jesus, amen. The venerable priest adds that he called him a Saint; but that the Martyr replied: Lord Blasco, do not call me a Saint. He answered: And why, my lord? To whom the illustrious Martyr replied: I hope to be one. At the end of the colloquy the holy Inquisitor gave order that the grace which he had obtained from God should be written on two schedules, and that one of them should be hung on the doors of the metropolitan church of St. Saviour, the other on those of St. Mary del Pilar. The good priest, his hernia being cured, under which he had laboured twenty-five years, remained without any other physician or medicine so perfectly healed as though he had never been afflicted with that disease. Credit was given to his words, and in both matters (namely in the curing of the hernia and in the Blessed man's patronage against the plague) the glory of God was made manifest. From that same venerable priest arose the pious custom of the faithful of going three times round his prodigious tomb, and of reciting at its corners the prayers which the Saint taught. For the rest, that the patronage of Bl. Peter was happily implored in time of plague, as he himself had promised, is clear from what was said at n. 56 concerning the public decree of the city.

[68] A fourth apparition, Salaverte continues, befell Mary de Ciria, He appears to a woman whose mouth, being distorted, wife of Simon Blasco, an inhabitant of the noble and famous city of Calatayud (commonly Calatayud, a city of Spain in Aragon; some call it in Latin New Bilbilis). This lady was afflicted with a certain most grave infirmity, from which her mouth remained distorted and drawn to her ear with great torment and unsightliness. Fourteen years she had passed in that most vehement pain, and had found no remedy among men, when, hearing the fame of the prodigies of St. Peter Arbués, she reverently ran to his patronage, and performed a novena at his miraculous sepulchre. On a certain day, having fallen as it were lifeless into a swoon of mind, in that parenthesis of life she beheld most holy Mary with her most precious Son in her arms, and at her side the heroic Martyr marked with the wounds of his martyrdom, so vivid, so fresh, as though they had then first been inflicted by the Jews.

[69] he restores to its natural position. A dumb and deaf man It seemed to her (Mary de Ciria) that she fell upon her knees before the Queen of heaven and the holy Martyr, and, prostrate, besought them to heal her. The prayer being ended, and being made mistress of herself again, she suddenly found herself healed without any trace of so great an evil, which she had suffered so many years. This stupendous miracle the Church approved; namely the sacred Congregation of rites held before Pope Alexander VII on the 25th day of September of the year 1661, in whose decree, to be given below, it is said that there is established the miracle of the instantaneous healing of Mary de Ciria from a distorted mouth. But in what year that miracle happened I have nowhere found. Let us return to John Salaverte. In the Process, he says, drawn up while Paul III steered the ship of St. Peter, and while the lord Frederick of Portugal held the archbishopric of Zaragoza, at the request of the invincible emperor Charles V, the following miracle and apparition of St. Peter Arbués were proved. Bernard Francés, an inhabitant of the ancient city of Ainsa, which is a castle and municipality of the kingdom of Sobrarbe (commonly Sobrarve, now a district in the kingdom of Aragon), had been born deaf and dumb, and so remained for many years.

[70] is given hearing and speech: He came to the imperial city (Zaragoza) to implore the patronage of the Inquisitor-martyr. Fourteen nights he kept watch at his famous sepulchre; and when he had by no means obtained the soundness he desired, because it was not then expedient, he returned to his own country. On the third Sunday of Lent, on which the Church calls to mind the stupendous miracle by which Christ granted hearing and speech to a man dumb and deaf from birth (nay rather, on which the Church reads the Gospel of the dumb demon cast out by Christ), Bernard commended himself to the glorious Martyr, and, as it were with his mind alienated from his senses, remained so for the space of two hours. In this ecstasy he saw our Saint clothed in a garment so white that it surpassed the snows, who with a face full of unspeakable splendour showed him who he was, lest he should not know so divine a patron. Presently the dumb man, waking, sent forth words in praise of God and of his prodigious physician St. Peter Arbués, through whose patronage he had gained perfect health. He came to Zaragoza to give thanks at the honorary tomb of the sacred Martyr. This solemn miracle has been authentically proved.

[71] a mouth eaten away by gangrene suddenly healed. There follows chapter 14, where, having said among other things that out of very many approved miracles he will relate only a few, in the first place he treats of the boiling up and multiplication of the blood, of which we have said enough in §4. After these things he goes on thus: In Elisabeth de Andreu of Mazaleón, of four years of age, there arose an ulcer or gangrene in the mouth, and it crept over her face, and, eating away the flesh, spread little by little with a terrible stench; and, her mouth being eaten away, her face rotted. She seemed not a human being but the image of death; nor could she be looked upon without tears and grief. Her parents, grieving grievously, when they had learned of the miracles of our Saint, carried her to his sepulchre, and there performed a nine days' devotion. On the third day the girl lay as it were lifeless in her afflicted mother's arms, and in that swoon two little bones fell from her mouth. Elisabeth, being restored to her senses, was suddenly healed; and, no deformity being left, she was so given back to her natural beauty that her parents did not know her. Wonder and applause equal to the prodigy followed; and thanks being rendered to the beneficent Patron, the miracle was authentically written down, and was one of those approved by the Church. And it was approved by the Sacred Congregation of rites held before Pope Alexander VII in the year 1663, on the 25th day of September, as is clear from the Decree praised at n. 69, in which it is said that there is established the sixth miracle, likewise of the instantaneous healing of Elisabeth de Andreu from ulcers of cancer in the mouth.

[72] Here Salaverte inserts some things concerning the blessed Martyr's assassins, Two dead boys, which as not pertaining hither I pass over. Then he adds: Among the miracles proved by the bishops of Tarazona and Barbastro, commissaries of the Apostolic See, it is proved that two dead boys were restored to life. The first of them died at Villamayor, a village near Zaragoza. The bells were already being rung that he might be carried to burial; the mother meanwhile, who loved him most tenderly, bewailing the death of her dearest pledge, took up his corpse in her arms, and with great anguish of heart, with feeling and sense of soul, said to St. Peter Arbués, toward whom she was borne with singular devotion: Holy Maestrepila (so they called the Martyr in those ages), this son of my bowels I offer to thee; he is thine; raise him up, my Saint. In the same moment the lively colours which his pale

death had quenched he received, he opened his eyes, moved his lips, and with a glad face looked upon his mother. Singular was the wonder and gladness of the people, accompanied by whose chief men the mother came with her son to the sepulchre of St. Peter Arbués, where among other gifts she offered his burial linen, as it were the banner of the miracle; which also was authentically proved with solemnity.

[73] At Zaragoza the son of a certain woman died, called back to life: to a man at once paralytic and dumb who carried him with living faith to the Saint's sepulchre, and there persisted with such desire, affection, and prayers for obtaining her son's life through his powerful patronage, that according to the measure of her faith she was made mistress of her desire. The boy revived; the mother gave forth words mingled with tears, into which she broke out for joy; the glory of God and the patronage of the Inquisitor-martyr was made manifest; the same church resounded with great joy and voices; at the fame of that matter the city was moved. From the metropolitan church also solemn thanks were given to St. Peter Arbués; the miracle was authentically committed to writing, and the burial linen was hung at his prodigious tomb as a memorial. A certain honoured husbandman of Tosos, called John Fernández, laboured under palsy in various members of his body, and, the evil invading his tongue, had become dumb. Twenty-five years there were in which he had lain destitute of every human remedy, when he commended himself to St. Peter Arbués, that he might be his only antidote in so long and sharp a torment.

[74] On a certain night he dreamed that he saw the sacred Martyr, the use of tongue and limbs is granted. who said to him: I have obtained for thee from the mighty hand of God the health thou desirest. The sick man awoke; and because his happiness was no vain dream (for dreams are sometimes truthful, such as were those of Joseph and of Pharaoh's butler), with firm hope of his health he took care to be carried to the tomb of the holy Inquisitor. There he began a nine days' devotion, and with admirable circumstances gained entire health. On each of the nine days he took away from him one of the incurable evils with which he was afflicted. On the first day he stretched out and softened the sinews which had withered and were contracted; on the second day he cured one arm; and so on each of the remaining days the several members of his body, always working some miracle. On the last day, his tongue being healed, he gave back to him the faculty of speaking, that he might use it to render thanks to St. Peter Arbués, as his only patron and advocate, in whose favour the Almighty wrought so great prodigies in one man according to his confidence and faith.

§ VII. Other miracles obtained through his patronage: his tomb, images, and relics likewise made illustrious.

[ ] A girl's evil of the throat and eyes, I go on to review the rest from the same Salaverte. At Valencia (a city of Tarraconensian Spain, capital of the kingdom of Valencia) the young lady Mary Mascón, of twelve years of age, suffered some malignant tumours in her throat. Besides this, so biting a humour had flowed down into her eyes that it deprived the most afflicted girl of sight also. Destitute of every earthly remedy, on a certain night she dreamed of a heavenly one. She saw a man, or an angel, asking whether she wished to be healed. She answered what she vehemently desired, namely a blind girl her sight: Yes indeed, Lord. Then he said, Follow me, and thou shalt be entirely freed of thy diseases. The girl asked, But whither, Lord, must we go? He replied: To the city of Zaragoza, to the sepulchre of St. Peter Arbués. I am ready, said the young lady Mary; and presently the happy guide of the journey disappeared, and she awoke. She firmly believed the heavenly messenger, and told her parents, who vehemently desired her soundness, what had befallen her. Her father, the lord Peter Mascón, and her mother, the lady Castellana Velvis, accompanied her to Zaragoza. They began a nine days' devotion at the holy Martyr's tomb in the year 1538, on the 31st day of June (there is here an error in the number or in the month, since June has only 30 days), and before they had finished it she stood free of every evil and was given entire sight. Thanks were given to God, and credit was given to the miracle.

[76] likewise another's afflicted throat, and two others John Solórzano, an apothecary of Zaragoza, dreamed that he knelt at the Saint's sepulchre, when he beheld him in the habit of the choir and with the wounds of his martyrdom. Presently with tender affection he begged of him that he would heal the great sore of his throat, and would cure his son, who from a double hernia was tormented with the sharpest pains. The Saint came to him, and he felt his throat touched by his hand, and, waking from the touch, found himself restored to entire health. Then with great confidence he looked upon his son, and found him without any trace of either hernia. He paid due thanks to St. Peter Arbués, offered a notable votive gift, and both miracles were authentically examined and recorded. Of both these miracles mention is also made in the book of Informations, in which it is read thus: John Solórzano, a neighbour of Zaragoza, having in his throat a certain sore which for seven weeks and more had tormented him, and a certain son of his labouring under the infirmity of hernia, trusting in the prayers and intercession of the Servant of God, to whom he commended himself, seeing him in sleep and entreating him, on the following day found himself and his son whole. And that that John, who was above called an apothecary of Zaragoza, is here called a neighbour of Zaragoza, may have arisen from the Spanish word vecino, which signifies both an inhabitant and a neighbour of some place. I go on to other things.

[77] A certain lovable boy, Athanasius by name, suffered the sharpest pains from double hernias. he suddenly heals a hernia. He, being carried to St. Peter Arbués, the torment ceasing, stood by glad and brisk like an angel; but when he was being carried back outside the church, he wept and complained most vehemently that he was tormented with sharp pains. These pains on a certain night were so sharp that by his cries and lamentation he did not let even the neighbours sleep. And so at the second or third hour of the night they carried him to the church of St. Saviour; but they found the doors shut; and although they had knocked much and called out (namely that the keeper of the church might open the doors for them), they received no answer. Athanasius therefore being set down at a certain chink of the door, they implored the Saint's aid, beseeching him with loud voices to heal him. And the mighty Patron heard them, who neither sleeps nor shall slumber while we need his help. The boy was given perfect health without any trace of the evil. This miracle was authentically proved in the year 1504. Of the same prodigious healing the book of Informations makes mention thus: Whereas a certain little boy, called Athanasius Palacio, labouring under the infirmity of hernia, was wont to be brought by his parents to the sepulchre of the Servant of God, in which he was wont to find rest, on a certain night, being vehemently oppressed, about midnight he was led to the metropolitan church where the said sepulchre was; and the doors being found shut so that he could not enter, by looking at the sepulchre through a little chink of the door which faces the square, the Servant of God being invoked from the heart, he was at once found whole.

[78] At Torrecilla (it is a place near Zaragoza) Peter Escartín was tormented by an evil of the urine, and the deadly disease so pressed upon him A man from a retention of urine, and another that the physicians and surgeons despaired of his health; and this judgment being signified to him, one of them said to him amid inexplicable pains: There is nothing on earth whence thou canst hope for relief; commend thyself to holy Maestrepila, most famous for miracles. The sick man raised himself courageously from his bed with living faith, and, his hands lifted to heaven and his knees fixed on the ground, implored the Saint's aid with a loud voice, promising that he would keep vigil at his sepulchre. And without delay he suddenly voided without any hindrance all the urine that had been retained and corrupted, and while he lived he felt no trace of so deadly a disease. He fulfilled his vow, offered a gift as a token of a grateful mind, and the miracle was proved. Michael de Cellas passed twelve years amid the sharpest torments with deep sighs and lamentations, his urine turning black and turned into stones; and the evil had already driven roots so deep that he had been brought to the jaws of death.

[79] His life tossed without oar and without hope in the little vessel of his body, from stones, and a woman from hernia and an evil of the heart, he delivers. when on a certain night he dreamed that the almost sunken little ship of his life must be drawn out of so present a peril, if he should visit the famous tomb of St. Peter Arbués. Being awakened, he began a nine days' devotion that very day with sure confidence; and on the fourth day, while he stayed at the Saint's sepulchre, he was alienated from his senses, and in that ecstasy and swoon of mind he saw several heavenly persons; among whom without doubt the chief was our unconquered Martyr, although from Michael's testimony it is not established who they were; either because patrons are not easily recognized, or because his heavenly Protector hid himself under the splendour of light. The outcome proved what the matter was: for, being restored to himself, he was so perfectly healed as though he had never suffered anything of the kind. Anna Gálvez was afflicted with two evils, namely a hernia and a heart-pain so frequent and vehement that several times she was believed dead. She visited the sacred tomb for nine days, and although she had asked the Saint only to heal her hernia, she recovered from both evils; because all things yield to his power, in that the divine Omnipotence has committed to the holy Inquisitor a certain power as it were infinite in favour of those who flee to his patronage.

[80] He chastises those who despise him, and heals them when penitent: On the solemn day sacred to our Martyr, a certain pious woman said to her husband: Hast thou visited the Saint's sepulchre? To whom he, answering foolishly, said: I have no need of holy Master-Épila; I labour under no hernia. These are his very words. But behold, on the same day, being gravely chastised by the divine hand, he suffered a hernia on either side, according to doctor John Bonilla. For ten years he had laboured under that evil, when the miracle happened which gave credit to it. — These things are obscure; yet he seems to have wished to signify that the same man was healed after ten years, and confessed what had befallen him. After these things he adds another like it. To John Domper his wife said: I have seen many going round the Saint's sepulchre; hast thou also done so? He answered: I am not ruptured; there is no reason why I should go round his sepulchre. Presently, in the same moment, his bowels descending vehemently, he felt a hernia; and, acknowledging his fault with penitence, he visited devoutly and humbly the sepulchre of St. Peter Arbués and sought health. The Saint heard him as he prayed, and in a single moment of time restored him to his former soundness.

[81] He gives speech to one born dumb. Most famous was the miracle which he wrought in the son of the marquis of Berlanga, born dumb. For twenty years an infirmity had held his tongue captive, and no human remedy had profited. Equal to the fame of the miracles of St. Peter Arbués was the firm faith of his parents, who sent him to Zaragoza that he might be healed by his admirable aid, and, firmly trusting that he would obtain speech,

they took care that a nine days' devotion should be made by him. And while he went round the glorious tomb, the dumb man spoke. His first word was Jesus; and, that most sweet name being repeated, he then invoked the Saint, and his tongue remained so free thereafter that no trace of the former evil remained. Of this miracle also mention is had in the book of Informations in these words: There was carried with pious devotion to his sepulchre a certain man dumb from birth, son of the marquis of Berlanga; and, prayers being uttered, he at once received speech, and the first word sent forth was: Jesus.

[82] To a preacher's memory Of a plainly different kind and singular is what the often-praised Salaverte presently subjoins in the same place in these words. In a Process drawn up in the year 1623, on the 23rd day of January, Father brother Dominic Gaztelu, of the Order of Preachers, declared in the name of the Most Eminent lord Cardinal Xavierre that, when there had been committed to him, as first professor of the academy of Zaragoza, the sermon upon the Bull of the holy war on Septuagesima Sunday in the metropolitan church of St. Saviour, and when he had written the sermon and diligently committed it to memory, God permitted that, while he went from the sacristy to the pulpit to preach, it so far fell out of his memory that he did not remember even one word. Being therefore vehemently anxious, he made known his distress to his companion (this was the said Father brother Dominic), who, consoling him, urged him to commend himself to St. Peter Arbués, whose sepulchre is in the same church in view of the pulpit; which both did earnestly. The preacher ascended the pulpit, and while ascending, turning his eyes to the Saint, said: Holy blessed one, unless thou succour me in these straits, it is all over with me. He had ascended, and, gazing with lynx eyes upon the honorary tomb, he perceived a most marvellous thing. He saw there in one place his whole sermon written out to the letter, so that he recited it whole most learnedly and eloquently, with not a jot omitted. He gave thanks to God, published the prodigy, and as long as the Cardinal lived he himself was the herald of that miracle.

[83] Whatever be the case as to this prodigy, which we can neither deny nor confirm from elsewhere, he is said to have come wonderfully to the rescue. it will be of help to have observed from Alfonso Ciacconius, vol. 4 of the Roman Pontiffs, Col. [ ], that Jerome Xavierre, born at Zaragoza, gave his name as a young man to the sacred Order of Preachers, and taught Theology publicly in his native city, and, after other offices and the general mastership of his Order, was created Cardinal by Pope Paul V in the year 1607, and in the following year departed this life. Hence it is clear, first, that that sermon was preached by Jerome Xavierre before he was a Cardinal. Secondly, that he had long since departed from among the living when Father Dominic Gaztelu in the year 1623 testified the aforesaid; and therefore that he could not properly testify these things in that Cardinal's name, as though delegated by him. So therefore take those words to mean that father Dominic reported what he had once heard from the Most Eminent Xavierre. Now let us hear Salaverte again.

[84] The most illustrious lord, brother Francis Gamboa, He cures a boy's hernia. archbishop of Zaragoza, approved the miracle which the holy Inquisitor wrought in the year 1670, on the 14th day of the month of May, in Alfonso Soriano, a boy of sixteen months. His mother Mary Taguada, accompanied by Mary Aznar, carried the boy to the Saint. And he was ruptured on the right side with great swelling and torment, which he had suffered for one year, no remedy being applied except bandages with which, as the disease required, he was diligently bound. On the same day, while they were tightening the girdle, they had found that the malignant swelling always increased; and the parents' only hope was placed not in human medicine but in St. Peter Arbués. The mother prayed and besought for the health of her son; Mary Aznar, leading the little boy by the hand, went round the sepulchre. At the third circuit the bandages were broken into four pieces, which the boy, stepping back one pace at their noise, lifted with his own hand. Presently the mother ran up; she looks upon the boy, and, all hernia and swelling being driven away, knows him to be altogether sound. The metropolitan church sang Te Deum laudamus to render thanks to God. The most serene lord John of Austria (natural son of Philip IV, king of the Spains, grand prior of Castile and supreme commander of the armies) ordered the little boy to be brought to him, and said: God has claimed this little angel for Himself very early. And he admonished the father to show himself grateful to God and to the holy Martyr, and to clothe the boy in the Saint's habit. On that very day, half an hour after the miracle had happened, I (namely Salaverte) was in the metropolitan church.

[85] After these things the same author, treating in general of the Blessed man's other miracles, His sepulchre is made illustrious by many votive offerings. asserts that they are almost innumerable, and that this is established both from the votive offerings hung at his sepulchre and from authentic testimonies. And as regards the votive offerings, Blasco de Lanuza in book 5 of the Peristephanon, describing Bl. Peter's sepulchre, sang thus among other things concerning them:

Surrounded with railings The marbles are seen, adorned with the various triumphs Of the deeds of father Arbués: many miracles Of the unconquered Martyr. Nowhere to be numbered hang The tokens of health granted to the peoples, of wax, Memorials of ruddy silver and of various metal; Linen cloths which long ago lay upon the wretched bier, And fillets of flax, and bindings of a broken limb Of a body cut open, and many signs of diseases: For Peter, famous for a thousand miracles, shines As an Arcturus[*] to increase the Iberians.

Thus he. But Salaverte adds besides that like things frequently happen in other places also where images or relics of the blessed Martyr are kept.

[86] A sacred image of the Blessed man He asserts that one true likeness of the Blessed man of this kind, painted on a panel of walnut, more than two hundred years old, is in his own family, to whose firstborn it belonged by hereditary right; which was then his own brother Joachim Gracián Salaverte's, and had formerly been his mother Frances Salaverte y Serna's, who traced her origin in a direct line from Elisabeth, Bl. Peter's own sister. And he affirms that this shone with so many miracles that the chapel in which his mother honourably kept it could not hold the votive offerings daily offered by various persons. He adds that either this one or another, set forth on an altar in the church of the convent of the Order of St. Mary of Mercy for the redemption of captives at Calatayud, at once became famous for so many prodigies that they can scarcely be written. Then, on the same authority, the most illustrious lord Diego Antonio Francés de Urrutigoyti, bishop of Tarazona, gave to the same church precious relics of the Blessed man, which, being honoured there with singular veneration, likewise became famous for frequent miracles.

[87] and a linen garment famous for benefits. His rochet also, that is, the upper linen garment which the canons use in choir, and with which Bl. Peter was clothed when he was stabbed by the assassins, dyed with his sacred blood, he says was formerly in the family of the lords Oriolas and Vera, kinsmen of the Blessed man, but then in the hands of the most excellent lord Denis Ximénez de Urrea, count of Aranda, marquis of Villanueva, etc., as heir of so remarkable a relic and of an illustrious house. And it was kept by him in a certain chapel in a precious case, wrapped in a silken veil adorned with golden threads, and open on one side so that it could be seen for the sake of veneration. Its edge also is wont to be dipped in water, which, drunk by the sick, has been, as he says, the salvation of almost countless persons.

Arcturus*

§ VIII. Certain other miracles or benefits, related in the book of Informations.

[ ] Through the Blessed man's patronage Besides the miracles already reviewed, many are briefly touched upon in the often-praised book of Informations, which were afterwards to be proved. These our Papebroch, as I have already noted above, once copied at Rome, the words of the witnesses being however omitted, either because they did not stand in the cited book, or because he did not judge it worth the pains to relate their lengthy testimonies. These, so touched upon, I shall here review from the praised manuscript of Papebroch, those things being passed over which in the preceding paragraphs, as occasion offered, I have already related. And they are the following: Almighty God, for the glory and honour of His Name, and for the strengthening of the Catholic faith, and to make manifest the holiness of His Servant, and to prove the universal opinion and report concerning him, not from art, nor from the force of words, nor from an unlawful compact, but from his merits and intercession, has mercifully deigned and still deigns to work very many miracles, delivering from various perils, labours, temptations, tribulations, and infirmities those who have implored and do implore his help humbly and devoutly, as is to be specified in some part in the following articles…

[89] Joanna Ramírez, wife of Anthony la Forcada, when she had carried her son Anthony, labouring under the infirmity of hernia, to the sepulchre of the Servant of God, many from hernia, and had offered him there, he received health. Agnes Ramírez, when a certain son of hers laboured under the infirmity of hernia, and moreover had three wounds in his thigh, fleeing to the intercession of the Servant of God, obtained that he should be wholly healed. Peter Las Yeguas, shoemaker, a neighbour of Zaragoza, having Michael Sunz his son labouring under the infirmity of hernia, obtained by the merits and intercession of the Servant of God, to whose prayers he had committed him, that he should be healed. John della Casta, son of James, labouring under a very great infirmity of hernia and having a rupture in those parts, was healed by the prayers and merits of this Servant of God, to whom he had committed himself; and this was seen among others by Peter de Aries, otherwise de Zapias. Raymund, son of Peter Arqués, merchant of the city of Zaragoza, wearing a truss[*] and being injured in the kidneys, being sent to the sepulchre of the Servant of God, deserved to be healed by the intercession of him to whom he commended himself. Barbara Paschasseg, having Michael de Logroño born with the infirmity of hernia, at the urging of certain women friends carried him, destitute of every human remedy, to the sepulchre of the Servant of God, and there he was miraculously healed…

[90] Dominic Sancto, silversmith, a neighbour of the town of Monzón (it is a town of Aragon, called in Latin Montio, set on a hill between Lérida and Barbastro), from numbness of the limbs, when he had been so hindered for three years by pain of his arms and legs that he could not work, hearing the miracles of the Servant of God recounted, and commending himself to his intercession and patronage, was healed. Simon de Espern, groom, an inhabitant of the place of Sada, having his arms made crooked by temporal medicines and his knees turned inward, was healed and made whole again by the prayers and intercession of the Servant of God. Lucy del Pont, wife of Michael Guis, a neighbour of Zaragoza, when she had now for four months been made useless, so that she could not work, being forsaken by every remedy, commended herself to the Servant of God, and, walking many times round his sepulchre, was healed. Peter Zerro, husbandman, a neighbour of Zaragoza, when a certain son of his, falling (it was now four years ago) from a walnut tree, had one arm and his back left broken in such a way that he could not command the aforesaid arm (that is, use it), the miracles of the Servant of God being heard, began to make a novena about his sepulchre; and at once the curvature of the back began to abate and the arm to obey.

[91] Mariana de Bolas, widow of Luke Brerge

a citizen of Zaragoza, burdened with the infirmity of perlesia (that is, palsy), or palsy commending herself to the intercession of the Servant of God, and having visited his sepulchre and made novenas about it, remained entirely cured. James Merpaita, a familiar of the holy office of the Inquisition, when he had caused many remedies to be applied for the health of a certain son of his labouring under the disease of hernia, without any effect, at length fleeing to divine remedies and commending his son to the prayers of the Servant of God, novenas being made about his sepulchre, obtained that he should come off whole without any hurt. A certain little boy, named Christopher della Costa, labouring under the infirmity of rupture, being carried from the place of Zabrust, of the archbishopric of Zaragoza, to keep vigil about the sepulchre of the Servant of God, about midnight, while he was as it were beginning to fail and almost to die, at once the trusses miraculously fell off, and he remained whole without any hurt; and the canons, then singing the Matin office, when the miracle was heard, for joy ordered the bells to be rung.

[92] A certain girl, having withered limbs and walking supported by two pieces of wood, and others labouring under other evils, as soon as she went round the sepulchre of the Servant of God with her mother, the wooden supports suddenly fell down, and she began to walk alone and freely without any hindrance… A certain son of Mary Novalles, labouring under the infirmity of hernia, being commended to the prayers of the Servant of God, when he began a novena, as is the custom, on the 14th of September, in the yearly memory of the day on which he suffered martyrdom (because, namely, Bl. Peter was stabbed in the church at midnight between the 14th and 15th days), the truss was broken and fell to the ground, the boy being found wholly whole. A certain son of Peter de Armedia and Joanna Ricarte, labouring under the same infirmity, being commended to the Servant of God, the trusses which he wore being broken, was miraculously healed. Of a like disease, by the intercession of this Servant of God to whom he was commended, was healed the son of Isabella de Alienga, afterwards vicar of the place of Blesta, named Gabriel Ripol. A certain little boy suffering a rupture on either side, having fulfilled the counsel of a certain woman to whom he had been carried, that he should make a novena about the sepulchre of this Servant of God, on the sixth day, when he returned to that same woman, was found whole without any rupture or hurt…

[93] It was and is the truth that, besides the above-said miracles, obtain soundness. set out in articles as above, there have been and are very many other notable miracles proceeding from the intercession and merits of this Servant of God in divers parts, to be specified particularly and one by one before the remissorial judges, concerning which fully informed witnesses will depose. Very many of Christ's faithful, seeing the fame of the holiness and the miracles of this Servant of God daily increasing, being led by pious devotion, have made divers legacies for the expenses to be incurred in obtaining his canonization, as several testaments concerning the premises exist. — After these things Papebroch observes that interrogatories were framed to be set before the witnesses, and other things pertaining to the prosecution of the process; and after many things he adds: Then in the year 1630 the begun examination of the miracles is continued at folio 747 of his codex in these words: Reverend father, among very many other miracles proceeding from the merits and intercession of the Servant of God Peter Arbués, out of a most ancient Process of the year 1490 and another of the year 1537, framed by ordinary authority, … the following seem to be proved.

[94] A trembling of the hand taken away, Louis de Burgos, after a fever which he had suffered for a month and a half, remained affected with such a trembling of the right hand that with it he could scarcely drink or eat. Being admonished to commend himself to Our Lord Jesus Christ and to the glorious Virgin, and to be devoted to the Master of Épila, he at once went to the cathedral church, and, leaning on the tomb of that Master of Épila, after a prayer poured out on bended knees to the blessed Virgin, and[*] that the lord Master of Épila should be his intercessor, having thereupon bought a votive offering of wax (that is, a waxen offering) of an arm with its hand, while returning to that same cathedral with such an offering, on the very journey he was freed from that trembling of the hand and remained whole, a short space of two hours' time intervening between the above-said admonition and coming to the aforesaid church and the deliverance thus obtained as above. The fact, thus narrated as above, is proved by the deposition of that same Louis, who has as fellow-witness Eximeno de Embún, who had thus admonished him as above, together with James Filipe, who, as he testifies, saw all that was deposed by Eximeno, and was present.

[95] Peter Oleron, when he was a boy of five years, a bent boy set upright; playing with other boys, being thrown from the stair of St. Mary of the Miracle of the city of Zaragoza, a certain bone of his back being broken, remained humpbacked, and, the hump growing daily so much that, being now made ten years old, he walked in the shape of a bow, a certain fleshy growth having come over it, concerning the cutting of which there was discussion among the surgeons. Being set in this state and age, having asked a coin of his father for buying a candle, and setting it burning before the sight of holy Master of Épila, and insisting that a coin of this kind be given him every day for the said candle, out of which he wished to make a novena to the said Saint; the following day, the coin being received, taking his way alone to the church and the aforesaid tomb between the fifth and sixth hour of the day, and prayer being made, between the eighth and ninth hour of the same day he was found to walk upright and not in the manner in which he was wont, the people running together to it. The fact is proved by Arnold de Oleron the father, who has as fellow-witness Peter his son, with whom there is added the deposition of John de Robres, who seems to agree in the substantials.

[96] John or Peter Crespo, an innocent, walking at first on the ground with hands and feet along the earth, the use of legs and arms restored: a hernia cured. and thereafter, after some years, with two supports or crutches, having heard the miracles which proceeded from the intercession of the Master of Épila, coming to the church and praying, after three hours began to walk very upright with one support only; he found his shins, which he before had bent, restored to him very straight, and he was seen to have raised his arms, which he could not raise above his head, having obtained great health as regards legs and arms. The fact is proved from the deposition of two eyewitnesses of their own knowledge, namely the seventh and the ninth witness. Anthony Forcada, a boy of six or seven years, ruptured or broken on two sides, from which his bowels came out as far as his knees, after many human remedies vainly applied, being weakened by fever, when he was found set in great danger of life, Agnes Ramírez his mother, having recourse to the intercession of the servant of God the Master of Épila, a novena being made at his sepulchre and alms given for three Masses, when the novena was completed and the Masses celebrated, the girdle holding up the bowels fell, and the boy Anthony is found healed. This fact is conclusively proved from the deposition of six witnesses already from the year 1537, namely the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth. — It may be doubted whether this is not the same miracle which we have already related at n. 89; yet some difference occurs between the accounts.

[97] Catherine Piñós, a girl of Zaragoza, weakened in her left side, A palsied girl, and others so that she could use neither her left hand nor her left leg, after human remedies vainly applied, coming by vow to the sepulchre of the servant of God Peter Arbués in the church of Zaragoza, and the visitation being repeated for nine days with the celebration of Mass, came off whole and free. The fact Catherine herself relates and proves, speaking of her own person, and it is confirmed from the deposition of four witnesses testifying concordantly. Whereas Don[*] Michael Baptista de la Nuza had a son from birth, named Don Martin Baptista, ruptured with so great a rupture that very ordinarily his bowels descended into the purse or bladder, so that from the manifest danger there was doubt of his life; after several human remedies applied which had profited nothing, the same Don Michael and his wife, having confidence in the Servant of God, charged the nurse to carry the infant boy to the sepulchre and to go round it in visiting it, offering on each occasion one candle and one coin. And that charge being fulfilled, after several times of continued visitations performed in one novena, the same boy was found whole and wholly cured; who, although not yet of the full age of three years, being asked who had healed him, answers: The Master of Épila. The fact four witnesses concordantly prove, among whom the most reverend Jerome Baptista de la Nuza, bishop of Ablanacinum (that is, of Lobetum; and Lobetum, called by the natives Albarracín, is an episcopal city in the kingdom of Aragon), his uncle; Don Michael Baptista de la Nuza the father; the nurse herself; and the surgeon.

[98] ruptured persons, a nine days' devotion being made at the sepulchre, James Mesquita of Zaragoza, playing with a pike as a trial of his strength, in which he took delight, came off ruptured; and his bowels began to descend upon him. On account of which infirmity, when he wore a truss and had applied many human remedies with great expense, without their having profited at all, at length out of the devotion which he and his parents and forebears bore toward the Servant of God on account of the public and great miracles which God had wrought and was working, healing divers infirmities and especially ruptures, he determined to make, as in fact he made, a novena at the sepulchre of that Servant of God, going round the sepulchre and setting up lights, as is the custom, and commending himself to him with great affection, that he might intercede with God for his health. Which novena being performed, on the same ninth day toward evening, when he had made his prayer, commending himself to the same Servant of God, while he had set his hand upon the sepulchre to pray, his truss fell from him, and he felt that the strap by which it clung and was fastened had been broken, although the aforesaid strap was of a certain hide called de Ante (that is, of buffalo), which two men could scarcely have broken; and at once, finding himself cured by touching, he gave thanks to God. The fact James himself relates and proves in his own person and deed, and three other witnesses concordantly confirm it, of whom two are James's own brothers.

[99] are restored to soundness. Anthony Christopher de la Tassa, a boy of two years of age, only son of Anthony Matthew de la Tassa and Ursula de Longa, being ruptured so that his bowels descended into the bladder, and the thing seemed very great and monstrous, having suffered an infirmity of this kind for a year, after many human remedies applied without fruit, when he was already destined for the surgeon's work, that he should open him, at length both parents, with the great devotion which was and is held in their house toward the servant of God the Master of Épila, and their son being commended to him with a firm resolve of making a novena at his sepulchre with the celebration of nine

Masses and the giving of alms, going round the sepulchre after the custom; in fulfilment of this votive resolve the novena was begun immediately on the following day with the other premises, and in the last days, before the novena was completed, when the boy himself was being led by the hands in going round the sepulchre, in that very circuit the girdle fell, and he remained whole and cured miraculously. The fact Anthony the father and Ursula the mother prove as fellow-witnesses, and a third witness, the surgeon, corroborates it. Thus far the Papebrochian manuscript transcribed from the praised book of Informations.

* i. e. labouring under a hernia

add postquam dixisset* (after he had said)

i. e. domino* (lord)

§ IX. The beatification of Peter, sought by the emperor Charles V and by Philip III and IV, sovereigns of the Spains, is brought to its end by Pope Alexander VII.

[ ] The emperor Charles V asks his canonization So precious a death of the blessed Inquisitor, and the very many miracles which followed it, deservedly demanded that his public cult should be pressed for by solemn canonization with the Apostolic Roman See; nor did those whom it concerned suffer their pains to be lacking in this part either. For already from the year 1490, that is, the fifth after his death, a process concerning the miracles was formed at Zaragoza, as writers everywhere testify, and the book of Informations, which also mentions a second, drawn up in the year 1537. In the same sixteenth century the emperor and king of the Spains Charles V took care that his cause should be laid before the Roman Pontiff, and besought that, when it had been duly discussed, he would enrol the Servant of God Peter in the catalogue of the Saints. So among others the book of Informations expressly teaches in these words: The fame of the holiness and miracles of this Servant of God increasing daily more and more, Charles V, emperor, of happy memory besought the supreme Pontiff Paul III for his canonization. Vicente Blasco de la Nuza in vol. 2 of the Ecclesiastical and Profane History of Aragon, book 2, chapter 13, says that this was done in the year 1535; but in the supplicatory little book offered for the same end by the metropolitan church to Paul V in the year 1614, which he recites in the same place, it is referred to the year 1539.

[101] In which of the two places the year is the more rightly noted I have not ascertained for certain from elsewhere; from Pope Paul III: yet for the first there makes what Diego García de Trasmiera says, namely that in the year 1537 a process concerning his miracles was drawn up by the bishop of Zaragoza, at the request of the emperor Charles V and by the order of Pope Paul III. John Mariana in book 25 of the History of Spain, chapter 8, speaks thus doubtfully, as though the praised emperor had already obtained from that same Pontiff that sacred honours should be publicly shown to Bl. Peter. For he says thus: By decree of the senate somewhat after his death a lamp was added to the sepulchre, which is granted only to men consecrated and dedicated to heaven. Charles V, the august, took care that this too should be done by the authority of Pope Paul III. Thus was due honour paid to his merits: for on the fifteenth day of September also his memory is celebrated with yearly rites. But if Charles obtained anything of the sort from Pope Paul, it is established that the cause of his beatification was then by no means brought to the desired end. I said, If he obtained anything of the sort; for to me indeed, from the silence of others, it appears most likely that Mariana was mistaken, and that on account of the canonization sought by Charles V he believed that the yearly feast had been granted by Paul III, which, as we have said, the people of Zaragoza formerly celebrated in the metropolitan church by the authority of their archbishop on the 15th day of September, on which Peter had not died but had been stabbed.

[102] the same is sought from Paul V by Philip III, Following in the steps of Charles V, Philip III, king of the Spains, in the year 1614 besought Pope Paul V for the same cause. The same thing in the same year, in the month of September, the metropolitan canons of Zaragoza also did, whose letter given to the praised Pontiff on that account it will be of help to have set forth here from Vicente Blasco de la Nuza, cited above at n. 100. Most blessed Father, Peter Arbués of Zaragoza (nay rather of Épila, as we said in §2), commonly the Master of Épila, perhaps so called for this cause, that the origin of his illustrious family was from a town of this name, having professed in this very church the institute of the canons Regular of the Order of St. Augustine, so joined gravity of manners and innocence of life with singular learning and erudition of the sacred Scriptures, that Ferdinand the Catholic king (who by his zeal for propagating and preserving the Christian faith at that time introduced into Spain the office of the holy inquisition) took care that he should be set among the first as Apostolic Inquisitor against heretical depravity over the kingdom of Aragon[*]. In which office he acted so constantly that, being wholly bent upon detecting and punishing the crimes of heretics, he stirred up against himself the bitterest hatred of the enemies of truth and of men infected with the stain of heresy.

[103] and by the canons of Zaragoza, Therefore no small band of heretics conspired for his death, and dealt with assassins, a most wicked price being fixed for them, that they should take out of the way Peter Arbués, most hateful to those perfidious men on account of the zeal for the faith of Christ with which he burned. For perpetrating which wicked deed the most wicked assassins were watching for an occasion, and this seemed to them the more convenient: Peter rose at midnight to confess to the Lord, following the example of David, and, coming into the church with the other canons his brethren, was present at the sacred Matins every night. Hence, the occasion both of place and of time being seized, when the venerable Peter at that very midnight, being about presently to enter the choir to celebrate the matin Office after the custom, was praying on bended knees before the sacred Eucharist, the abandoned assassins, hidden treacherously within the church, as soon as Peter was seen, attacked him, and, among other blows which they aim, inflict a mortal wound on his throat; and, the jugular veins being cut, the innocent gore flowing from them besprinkled the pavement of the sacred building. The innocent Man fell straightway to the ground, giving thanks to the Lord Jesus that he suffered for the defence of His faith.

[104] whose supplicatory little book But thence, being carried out into his chamber, with steadfast mind, and disturbed by no feeling against his strikers, nay rather praying well for them in Christ, having shed his blood for Christ, he passed to Christ in the year from His Nativity 1485, on the 17th day of September. He led a pious, religious, holy life; out of zeal for the Christian faith he sought death[*]; by his merits and prayers many benefits of divers kinds were divinely conferred upon men, and many miracles were done, and are conferred and done today. Wherefore in the opinion of all he is held holy, and from his death down to these our times he is honoured with pious veneration. Moved by the fame of his holiness and miracles, already in the year 1539 Charles V, emperor of the Romans, of glorious memory, urgently asked by letters of Paul III, Supreme Pontiff of happy remembrance, your Holiness's Predecessor, that he would deign to depute the Apostolic Nuncio then set in the kingdoms of Spain, or another prelate or prelates, who should duly examine the holiness of life of this blessed Peter, the death endured for the faith of Christ, the miracles, and all else, by which the way should be paved for referring him among the Saints.

[105] This care of the most skilled emperor was interrupted by the difficulties of the times and of the wars; to the same Pontiff is reviewed. but the benefits toward those who, afflicted with various diseases and miseries, flee to this Saint's sepulchre are never interrupted. Nay, greater and more marvellous ones appear daily; by which every order of this kingdom of Aragon is as it were compelled, and especially this our chapter of Zaragoza, of which blessed Peter was a noble portion, to perform all those things which may show a grateful, devout, and pious mind toward him: by his intercession it feels itself divinely heaped with so many gifts. Wherefore that which was long ago besought and for so many years interrupted, we now, bound by new benefits with more fervent zeal, call back anew, and humbly beseech of your Holiness that what was as it were sown and planted by Paul III of happy remembrance may, while Paul V holds the helm of Peter's ship and steers it happily and prudently, receive increase, to the glory of Almighty God, who is marvellous in His Saints; and whom we beseech with assiduous prayers to preserve your Holiness very long. At Zaragoza, on the 15th day of September, in the year of the Lord 1614.

[106] To the pious prayers of king Philip and of the rest Paul V assented, The Process then begun, afterwards under Gregory XV who in the year 1615 delegated as judges for that cause Francis Sarrato, archbishop of Damascus, John Baptist Coccinus, and Alfonso Manzanedo, auditors of the Rota; who in the same year delegated as their commissaries for examining the miracles and virtues the Aragonese bishops of Tarazona and Teruel, as the praised Lanuza and Diego García testify; and they add that the same mandates were renewed by the same Paul V in the year 1618; but then, according to Lanuza, the archbishop of Zaragoza and his suffragans of Tarazona and Lobetum were the delegated judges in Aragon. Meanwhile the praised Pontiff Paul and Philip, king of Spain, died in the year 1621; to the first of whom Gregory XV succeeded in the Chair of St. Peter, to the other in the kingdom Philip the fourth of that name. He, following his father's examples, in the year 1622 likewise employed his authority and prayers with the new Pontiff for furthering Peter's beatification. So it is clear from the often-praised book of Informations, or from the copy which Papebroch transcribed from it, at the beginning of the latter of which these things are read: For showing forth the purity of faith, the holiness of manners and life, and the excellence of the heroic virtues of the venerable Peter de Arbués, called the Master of Épila, inquisitor of heretical depravity, and the miracles proceeding from God the Best and Greatest through his intercession and merits, the procurator of the most serene and Catholic Philip IV, king of the Spains, of the most reverend lord Inquisitor General of the inquisition of the Spains, of the tribunal of the inquisition of Aragon, of the deputies of the same kingdom, of the people of the city of Zaragoza, of the chapter and clergy of the metropolitan church, and of the Brethren of the confraternity of St. Peter martyr, in the cause of his canonization gives and produces the articles written below, etc.

[107] The delegated judges were the two named above, John Baptist Coccinus, is furthered, and the Blessed man's sepulchre is visited. Alfonso Manzanedo, and James Cavalerius, auditors of the Rota; but in Aragon there were appointed by remissorial letters the bishops of Tarazona and Barbastro, by whom, as is said in the book of Informations, the witnesses were examined and a great process compiled thereupon and transmitted to the most reverend lords at the court. The same two bishops are said to have visited the sepulchre of Bl. Peter in these words: In the same Process, folio 53 and following, there is a visitation of the sepulchre of that Servant of God, made by the same bishops, the delegated judges. What was done in that visitation my Papebrochian copy does not explain; but Diego García affirms that the chief nobility of the city of Zaragoza stood by, and that the venerable body was found with a manifest wound in the left jaw, to which remains of blood even then clung. Finally, lest by a longer relation of the processes I breed weariness in my readers, I hasten to the end which the pious efforts of the people of Zaragoza at length obtained under Pope Alexander VII by the solemn beatification of Bl. Peter the martyr.

[108] Under Pope Alexander VII his martyrdom, Our Most Holy Lord Benedict XIV, in his remarkable Work often praised and to be praised by us, On the beatification of the Servants of God and the canonization of the Blessed, of the second edition made at Padua, book 3, chapter 13, n. 12, teaches that the cause of his martyrdom, the things which Peter Francis de Rubeis, promoter of the Faith, had disputed against it being rejected, was approved by the sacred Congregation of Rites, and that it was decreed by it that his martyrdom and the cause of his martyrdom are established. It will be of help to have reviewed the Most Holy Lord's own words. He had asked there whether it is enough for martyrdom that the tyrant be moved to inflict death out of hatred against the faith of Christ, although he take the occasion of the death from another matter which either does not pertain at all to the faith of Christ itself, or pertains to it only accidentally. And after he had answered in the affirmative, and had proved it by the examples of some holy Martyrs, he continued in these words: Anyone will be able with easy effort to know that it suffices for martyrdom if the persecutor be moved to inflict death by hatred of the faith, although the occasion of the death arose from another matter which by reason of the circumstances would not pertain to the faith.

[109] is approved by the sacred Congregation of rites, The same is more clearly proved from the causes of blessed Josaphat of Polotsk and of Peter Arbués: for although in the first Anthony Cerrus, then promoter of the Faith, had strenuously objected that Josaphat's death was derived not from hatred of the Faith but from the imprisonment of a certain schismatic priest; and in the second Peter Francis de Rubeis, likewise promoter of the Faith, having collected proofs, had attempted to show that death was inflicted on Peter not out of hatred of the Faith, but for this reason, that those who killed him contended that the tribunal of the most holy inquisition ought not to be brought into the kingdom of Aragon together with the right of confiscating the goods of offenders, and because two of the assassins pursued the Servant of God with hatred for having caused their father and sister, whom they reckoned innocent, to be committed to the prisons of the inquisition; the postulators nevertheless taking exception and demonstrating by unanswerable arguments that hatred of the Faith was the true cause of the death of the aforesaid Servants of God, and therefore that what had been brought forward by the promoters was to be referred to the occasion of the death — the Congregation of sacred rites judged that the martyrdom and the cause of the martyrdom are established, and each was referred to the number of the blessed Martyrs according to what has been said elsewhere.

[110] That decree of the sacred Congregation concerning the martyrdom and cause of martyrdom of Bl. Peter Arbués, made on the 12th day of December of the year 1661, the same Most Holy Lord Benedict XIV reviewed in book 1 of his most praiseworthy Work, whose decree is set forth. The miracles also are approved: chapter 30, n. 4, whence I transfer it hither. The doubt being proposed by the Most Eminent lord Cardinal Sacchetti, whether the martyrdom and cause of martyrdom of the Servant of God Peter de Arbués be established, the Most Holy Father, after previous discussion, by the counsel of the Brethren judged that the martyrdom and the cause of martyrdom are established; and therefore that further steps must be taken, namely to the discussion of the miracles, if any the Almighty has deigned to work by the intercession or regard of the same Servant of God: on the 12th day of December 1661. After these things, concerning the miracles discussed and proved, the same Most Holy Father, producing another decree, subjoins thus in the same place: Therefore the miracles were examined and approved, as is taken from this other decree. Then follows the decree; which, since to produce it whole would not make for the Most Holy Lord's purpose, I shall here review entire from the Appendix to the Spanish Life by Diego García, where it also stands in Latin.

[111] The doubt proposed by the Most Eminent Chigi being keenly discussed, and an Office with Mass in the metropolitan church of Zaragoza is permitted, whether the twelve miracles taken from the compulsorial Process be established, the sacred Congregation of rites, held before the Most Holy Father on the 25th day of September 1663, declared that the third and sixth miracle[*] are established; namely, the third of the instantaneous healing of Mary de Ciria from a distorted mouth, and the sixth likewise of the instantaneous healing of Elisabeth de Andreu from an ulcer of cancer in the mouth: and therefore, a full and distinct report having been made by the same Cardinal Chigi of all those things which have been done in the same cause, and concerning the holiness of life, the virtues, the martyrdom and cause of martyrdom, the prodigy of the boiling up and multiplication of the blood, and the above-said miracles, the same sacred Congregation judged that at any time it may be safely proceeded to the solemn canonization of Peter Arbués according to the rite, etc.; considering that it is a question of a Martyr with prodigies and miracles maturely discussed and formally approved. But meanwhile, until the act of solemn canonization be come to, the Most Holy Father assented that letters in the form of a Brief be granted concerning the cult of the Blessed to be shown to the same Servant of God in the metropolitan church of Zaragoza with an Office and Mass to be taken from the Common of one Martyr not a pontiff; yet after such letters shall, according to the decree lately published by his Holiness in the Vatican basilica, have been exhibited to the Congregation of sacred rites and given over to execution. On the 19th day of March 1664. M., Bishop of Sabina, Cardinal Ginetti. Bernardinus Casalius, secretary of the Congregation of sacred rites.

[112] The Pontifical decree of which mention has just been made after the solemnity had been performed at Rome in the Vatican. was published by Pope Alexander VII, who, to provide for the sacred dignity of beatification and to meet the inconveniences which might otherwise arise, prudently appointed that thereafter the solemnity of beatification should be performed first of all places in the world in the Vatican basilica of St. Peter at Rome. For before his times no solemnity of beatification had been wont to be held at Rome, at least in the Vatican basilica, as the Most Holy Lord Benedict XIV, praised above, again teaches in the same most learned Work, book 1, chapter 24: But, the causes being completed, after previous discussion both of the virtues and of the miracles, and the Brief being dispatched and delivered to the Postulators, if the feast of beatification were held in the City, it was held only in the church of that Order which the Servant of God, if he were a Regular, had professed, or in the church of that nation from which the Servant of God had been born, if that nation had its own church in the City. And that this solemnity was observed in the cause of our Bl. Peter we shall see in the following paragraph.

curarit*

perhaps oppetiit*

elsewhere miraculis*

§ X. He is enrolled among the Blessed by Alexander VII: the solemnity of the beatification performed at Rome in the basilica of St. Peter: his body translated into a costly chapel.

[113] Pope Alexander VII, having published a Brief, In the same year 1664, on the 17th day of April, Alexander VII, Roman Pontiff, published the Brief of the beatification of Peter Arbués, a copy of which, printed at Rome at that time by the presses of the reverend Apostolic Chamber, I have in hand, and which I here reprint word for word. A Brief of Our Most Holy Lord, the Lord Alexander VII, by divine Providence Pope, of the Beatification of Peter de Arbués, canon of the metropolitan church of Zaragoza, first Inquisitor in the kingdom of Aragon.

POPE ALEXANDER VII.

For a perpetual memorial of the matter.

The most valiant athletes of Christ, who came out of great tribulation and washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb, by whose death, precious in the sight of the Lord, religion was defended, faith heaped up, and the Church strengthened — as after the contest the just Judge gives them as victors the crown of justice in heaven, so it is fitting that they be honoured on earth with the devout veneration of the faithful, so that they who are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple may deign to help our weakness by their intercession. To which end, applying ourselves with earnest zeal in accordance with our pastoral office, by which by divine disposition we preside over the governance of the Catholic Church, we gladly hear the desires of Catholic kings and of other faithful of Christ demanding this same thing, according as, all things being weighed in the balance of mature discussion, we know it to be wholesomely expedient in the Lord for the glory of Almighty God, for the strength and increase of the Christian religion and of the Catholic faith, and for the exaltation of holy mother Church.

[114] enrols him in the register of the blessed martyrs, Whereas therefore, at the prayers of our most dear son in Christ Philip, Catholic king of the Spains, and of our beloved sons the general inquisitor and all the ministers of the holy inquisition of the Spains, and of the Deputies especially in the kingdom of Aragon against heretical depravity, and also of the chapter of the metropolitan church, of the clergy, of the jurats and people of the city of Zaragoza, processes have been duly and rightly drawn up concerning the holiness of life, the virtues, the martyrdom, the cause of martyrdom, and also the prodigy of the boiling up and multiplication of the blood, and other miracles wrought by God through the intercession of the servant of God Peter de Arbués, otherwise called the Master of Épila, while he lived canon of the aforesaid metropolitan church of Zaragoza and first Inquisitor in the said kingdom of Aragon, deputed by Apostolic authority; who, while he was exercising the office of inquisitor faithfully and with the highest zeal for the Catholic faith, was said to have received the palm of martyrdom, being savagely slain by certain wicked assassins infected with Jewish perfidy, out of hatred of that same Catholic faith; and whereas the same processes have been most carefully discussed in the Congregation of our venerable brethren the Cardinals of the holy Roman Church set over the sacred rites, and at length, a full and distinct report of all that has been done in the cause having been made before Us, the aforesaid Congregation of Cardinals, with Our assent, has judged that at any time it may be safely proceeded to the solemn canonization of the same servant of God Peter Arbués according to the rite of the holy Roman Church and the disposition of the sacred canons, considering that it is a question of a Martyr with a prodigy and miracles maturely discussed and formally approved: hence it is that We, inclining to the pious supplications of the aforementioned king Philip, of the Inquisitors, of the chapter, clergy, jurats, and people, humbly presented to Us on this matter, by the counsel and unanimous assent of the aforesaid Cardinals grant that the aforementioned servant of God Peter Arbués be hereafter called by the name of Blessed, and that his body and relics be set forth for the veneration of the faithful (yet not to be carried about in processions).

[115] Let his images also be adorned with rays or splendours, and decrees that he is to be honoured with public cult. and let an Office be recited of him under a double rite, and a Mass celebrated of a Martyr not a pontiff, every year according to the Rubrics of the Roman Breviary and Missal, on the seventeenth day of September, on which he gave back his spirit to his Creator. But these things only in the places written below, namely in the cathedral church of Zaragoza, where as Canon he obtained the palm of martyrdom and where his body rests; in the churches of the general inquisitor of the Spains at St. Martin's of the inquisition of the kingdom of Aragon, where he first discharged the office of Inquisitor and from which he received that same office by Apostolic authority; and also in the mother church of the town of Épila, where he was born; and, as regards the Masses, also by priests coming thither. Besides, yet only for the present year beginning from the date of these letters, We give faculty of celebrating in the above-said churches the solemnities of his beatification with an Office and Mass under a greater double rite, on a day to be appointed by the ordinary and to be published within six months. But at Rome in the church of St. Mary of Montserrat, of the nation of the kingdom of Aragon, within two months, yet after the same solemnities shall have been celebrated in the basilica of the Prince of the Apostles,

We likewise permit them to be celebrated. Notwithstanding Apostolic constitutions and ordinances and the decrees published concerning non-cult, and all other things whatsoever to the contrary. And We will that to transcripts or copies of these same present letters, even printed ones, fortified with the hand of the secretary of the aforesaid Congregation, the very same credit be given by all and everywhere, as well in judgment as outside it, as would be given to these presents themselves, if they were exhibited or shown. Given at Rome at Saint Mary Major, under the ring of the Fisherman, on the 17th day of April 1664, in the ninth year of Our Pontificate.

S. Ugolinus.

[116] Consequently upon these things the solemnity of the beatification was completed at Rome in the Vatican basilica on the 27th day of the same month of April of the year 1664. The solemnity of the beatification So we learn from the praised Work of the same Most Holy Lord Benedict XIV, book 1, chapter 24, n. 6, where he, observing that this beatification is the second which after the decree of Alexander VII, of which we made mention above, was solemnly made in the said basilica, writes thus: The second solemn beatification (for he had said the first was that of the servant of God, now saint Francis de Sales) was that of the servant of God Peter de Arbués, otherwise the Master of Épila, canon of the metropolitan church of Zaragoza and first Inquisitor of the kingdom of Aragon; and the same was completed on the 27th day of April 1664, and then some things pertaining to the said solemnity were published in the City. Yet some error, perhaps typographical, seems to have crept into the day of the month. For the same solemnity of beatification is said to have been completed in the praised basilica on the 20th of April in the Account presently to be recited; and, that I may not think an error lurks in this, the dedicatory epistle set before the Account makes for it, which is dated the 21st of April of the same year 1664. As regards those things which were then published at Rome, of them I have at hand a certain Italian Account then printed at Rome, and dedicated to the most illustrious lord John Vaguer, doctoral canon of the metropolitan church of Zaragoza and procurator of the same cause of canonization, which contains both a compendium of the Life of Bl. Peter, which we shall review in Latin, and the solemnity of the beatification held in the Vatican basilica. But because from what has been said above that beatification was the second which was solemnly celebrated there, I have judged that it would not be unwelcome to the reader if I set forth here the praised Account in the Latin tongue. It is therefore of this kind.

[117] performed in the Vatican basilica, whose adornment, After that long space of nearly two centuries, God, a giver by no means sparing toward His well-deserving servants, did not suffer that the unconquered martyr Peter Arbués, canon of the metropolitan church of Zaragoza and first inquisitor in the kingdom of Aragon, should any longer lack the accidental glory of the Blessed on earth, who, enrolled in the catalogue of the Saints in heaven, already triumphed among those above. Hence the Brief of his beatification, signed by the hand of His Vicar, Alexander VII, on the 17th day of the current month of April, was celebrated with a solemn office in the Vatican basilica of St. Peter on that Sunday, the 20th of the same month of April. This basilica was, in accordance with its own magnificence, wholly adorned with plush and cloths interwoven with gold, and with silken Damasks likewise set off with golden borders, among which hung those most beautiful tapestries which, painted by the most famous painters, are of no less price than the gold with which they are utterly and magnificently interwoven. The greater doors of the basilica were adorned by a likeness of the Blessed man, painted on a spacious canvas, and by the arms of our monarch the Catholic king and of the kingdom of Aragon, beneath which, that satisfaction might be given no less to the piety than to the curiosity of the people, the following was read: THE CHAPTER AND CANONS OF THE METROPOLITAN CHURCH OF ZARAGOZA, TO BL. PETER DE ARBUÉS, THEIR COLLEAGUE AND MOST UNCONQUERED MARTYR.

[118] and the other things pertaining to that festivity, A thousand and a hundred great torches were set in various silver and gold candlesticks throughout all the altars to illuminate the church. Behind the high altar, within the space of the greater presbytery, a costly and magnificent stage was erected, which had for walls such richly woven cloths, and for a roof the usual great awnings interwoven with gold. At the end of the stage a great altar occupied the place of the Pontifical throne, above which, under a precious crowned canopy, was set the sacred image of the Blessed man, which, expressed to the life by the eminent painter Giacinto Brandi, stirred in all a vehement desire to see removed the woollen curtain with which it was then veiled. Presently the most illustrious lord Altieri, bishop of Camerino and assistant to Our Most Holy Lord, being asked by the chapter of the same basilica to perform that solemnity, clothed in alb and red cope with a precious mitre, and attended by two canons adorned with tunic and dalmatic, the clergy and chapter going before with the Cross, went out from the sacristy in the manner of suppliants to adore the most holy Sacrament. Then, having venerated the most sacred bodies of the Apostles, he betook himself to the stage and to the altar erected for the solemn ceremony; where he sat on the Epistle side in a more eminent seat. There, on the right side of the Gospel, the lord Cardinals and the consultors of the Congregation of sacred rites sat clothed in violet garments; but on the left, after the Most Eminent Cardinal Barberini, archpriest, the lords the canons, and John Vaguer, doctoral canon of the metropolitan church of Zaragoza, procurator of the cause of the canonization of the same Blessed man; and lastly on the lower benches there assisted the beneficed men, with the beneficed clerics and the rest of the clergy of the same basilica.

[119] All being seated in this manner, one of the masters of ceremonies of the chapter led to the Most Eminent Cardinal Ginetti, then employed prefect of the Congregation of sacred rites, the lord Casale, who, although he was a canon of the basilica, nevertheless as secretary of the same Congregation, and with the Pontiff's special leave, assisted at that festivity with a rochet (which is a kind of linen garment of canons for the use of the choir) and a mozzetta, and held a place among the consultors together with the lord Febei, prefect of the Holy Spirit, and the lord Alberici, secretary of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide, who both by the same leave yielded the rank of their canonry that they might discharge the office of consultors. After these things the praised lord canon, procurator of the cause, being led by another master of ceremonies, coming to the same Most Eminent Cardinal prefect, reverently offered him the Brief of the beatification of our Martyr, that it might be given over to execution, so far as concerned the solemnity to be performed in the Vatican basilica before the other places. The Cardinal, having received the Brief, sent it through the most illustrious Casale to the Most Eminent Cardinal Barberini, who as head of the basilica ordered its execution without delay. Hence immediately, on a platform prepared for that end, that Brief was read in a loud voice by a certain sacristan of the same church (so certain among the clerics are called from their office), the notary of the same Congregation assisting.

[120] These things being done, the most illustrious bishop of Camerino, accompanied by deacon and subdeacon, are reviewed. having laid aside his mitre, intoned the hymn Te Deum laudamus, etc.; at whose beginning the Blessed man's likeness was unveiled, and was honoured by the celebrant and the rest with knees bent to the ground, while meanwhile the other, which, hung above the door of the basilica, had likewise been veiled, was uncovered, and on the greater open space, amid the sound of trumpets, the noise of drums, and the roar of small pieces of ordnance, was festively saluted with the vast joy of all. The hymn being finished, which had been sung with most sweet music by four choirs, and the versicle being said, Pray for us, Bl. Peter, etc., the bishop of Camerino sang the Prayer of the Blessed man; then, incense being put in the thurible, he ascended to the highest step of the altar and venerated the holy image with incense three times. Afterwards, returning to his seat, he there put on the pontifical vestments which he used in the Mass. Meanwhile the canon procurator distributed to the Most Eminent Cardinals copies of the Brief and images of the Blessed man printed on more precious silk cloth and magnificently adorned with gold; and consequently to the canons and consultors of the sacred Congregation other like images on cotton cloth, and others printed on paper to the beneficed men and beneficed clerics and to the rest who were present in the choir. The bishop, clothed in the sacred vestments, with the canons, the deacon and subdeacon assisting, celebrated Mass from the common of Martyrs not pontiffs in the Paschal season. But how great was the concourse of people, who had flowed together without number to that sacred festivity for obtaining plenary indulgences and the remission of sins, is not so easy to say as to believe — that the whole City ran thither to venerate the Blessed man's image. Thus far the said Account.

[121] The Blessed man's body is translated into a chapel, The solemnity of the beatification having been performed in the Vatican basilica in the manner we have said, it is not to be doubted that the Aragonese celebrated the same within the two months of that year, according to the faculty given in the Apostolic Brief, in the church of St. Mary of Montserrat. Then also throughout the Spains the same solemnity was repeated in the churches designated in the same Brief; but it is not worth the pains to linger longer on these things. Then the cult of Bl. Peter grew, and his body was brought into a magnificent chapel built of various precious marble within the same metropolitan church in which he had been buried. A picture or drawing of this chapel, together with a description of it in Spanish, our John Pinius, while he was staying at Zaragoza in the year 1722, received from the most worthy lord Rubio, canon of the same metropolitan church; both of which I here set forth for the pious reader, to the greater glory of the blessed Martyr — the one engraved on copper by our engraver, the other rendered into the Latin tongue, as follows.

[122] which is briefly described, Its diameter and floor contain forty (Aragonese) palms square. The whole inner structure of the chapel is of Gothic architecture, most beautifully adorned. In the middle of the said chapel, within a square space of twenty palms, a tabernacle is erected like the Roman one in the basilica of St. Peter; but that is of cast bronze, this of black and white marble and jasper, admirably wrought and composed. Within this tabernacle stands a wide altar for celebrating Masses, beneath which lies the body of the glorious Saint, and it can be seen through gratings set into the said altar; and the Saint's relics are enclosed in a crystal case. Upon the same altar is set the famous likeness or statue of the Saint in white marble. All these things are girt about with enclosures of gratings of cast bronze and with bases of black stone and jasper, of the height of seven palms, with their acroteria and candlesticks for lighting lights. The whole floor of the same chapel is paved with black and white marble; the walls are encrusted with plates of most precious Genoese or Pisan marble up to the vault, which is covered with three elegant historical paintings, in which the life and martyrdom of our Saint with many prodigies and miracles are set forth. A magnificent border runs round these paintings; and, that its carving may be conformable to that Gothic architecture, it displays a series of pomegranates, and is excellently gilded. Its vault also, which keeps the same architecture, with its lantern likewise painted and gilded, occupies the whole inner fabric.

[123] There is no need to describe the outer face, since the plate set below, engraved on copper, more clearly

sets it forth and is set forth engraved on copper. than it can be expounded in words. This one thing it will be of help to have observed here, that this also was richly built of various marble — black, white, and jasper — either wholly, or at least in the greater part of it: which of the two it is, is not sufficiently expressed in my manuscript; yet the first is altogether likely and more conformable to that same manuscript. The statue which appears in the middle beneath the window represents the Saint in the habit of the canons Regular, with the palm and the instrument of his martyrdom. Now I subjoin the Life.

A BRIEF LIFE

From the Italian Account printed at Rome.

Peter Arbués, Canon regular and Martyr, at Zaragoza in Spain. (B.)

From the text published at Rome.

[ ] Born of noble parents and piously brought up Our Bl. Peter was born in the year of the world's redemption 1440 ^a in the castle of Épila ^b, of the territory of Zaragoza ^c, of parents no less notable for the nobility of the families ^d from which they had sprung than conspicuous for the religious life which they led. Scarcely had Anthony Arbués his father and Sancha Ruiz his mother brought him forth to the world, when they were zealous to bring him forth again to heaven through a holy upbringing: to which end, being from his earliest age delivered to prudent and pious teachers, he began to learn the first elements of faith and the Catholic doctrines in his father's house, where, the kindly watchfulness of his parents being added to his good natural disposition, within a short time he steeped his mind in the divine precepts, in the love of the Crucified, and in the fear of Almighty God. Hence it came about that from his first years, on account of the purity of his manners, he was held for a grown man in the divine service, to which he consecrated whatever time was left over from his studies, warily taking care lest, while he fitted his understanding to human sciences, his soul should be idle from its exercises in the heavenly school.

[2] Being steeped in humane letters, he is sent to Bologna ^e, At Bologna he is given the masterships; then to give his labour to philosophy and theology; in which he made such swift progress that, quickly reaching their goal, he was to his masters the greatest solace, to his fellows an example, and to all a singular wonder — most of all since, the fervour of the spirit being always joined with his advance in letters, the peace and tranquillity of his mind, which sacred orators urged from their pulpits, was in no way disturbed by the philosophical questions which the masters agitated in their chairs. And so he here soon obtained the laurel of the philosophical mastership; then for his merits he was enrolled among the students of the college ^f in the same academy, and not long after was created master in theology also, and thereupon was raised to the doctorate of both, the whole city applauding. Meanwhile, as with the honours obtained there grew a desire of possessing them worthily, and the fame of his virtues and learning grew daily more and more illustrious, whatever he himself might strive against it out of humility, at length in the year 1474, on the 30th day of September, he was chosen among the canons Regular of the metropolitan church of Zaragoza.

[3] In the year 1476, on the 9th day of February, he solemnly professed that sacred institute ^g, made a Canon Regular at Zaragoza, which by the observance of the religious life he rendered so much the more illustrious and venerable on earth as he rendered it richer in merits and dearer to God. It seemed to the Servant of God that through this state of a canon Regular, as though by a mark, he had been designated a true follower of the Crucified, and had been abundantly exempted from every debt of human intercourse: incited by which holy consideration he was zealous to perfect the blameless plan of his life with such effort that, continually multiplying works of virtue, he was in all his actions held by all as a genuine likeness and example of holiness. The brevity of this compendium, confined to a single sheet, does not allow it to be lightly indicated, much less expounded, how sublime the virtues were that possessed his soul. Wherefore, passing over the arguments which might be taken from the death which the Martyr met and from the angelic life which he led, I shall in these few lines briefly set forth his martyrdom only. I shall therefore pass over what I might say of the living faith with which he always adored God in his heart without searching into His impenetrable secrets. I shall not set forth how he subjected his love to the divine essence, united in three distinct Persons, which the human mind does not comprehend, always praising and magnifying the Godhead which is without beginning.

[4] he shines wondrously in every kind of virtue. I shall keep silence how, calling to mind with veneration the most holy humanity of Christ and the mystery of our redemption, he applauded himself for the inestimable benefit without scrutinizing the incomprehensible power of the Giver; and because he well knew that, for a living faith to be preserved, there is need of a daily nourishment of works, his mind sought nothing outside God, his senses were engaged with divine things alone, his understanding meditated on nothing but heavenly things, his memory turned over nothing but the goodness of the Creator, his will did not work save to submit itself to the will of the divine Almighty. But to what heroic deeds the hope of immortal life in the fatherland led him, with faith as a sure guide, the fuller Histories of his life will teach. In these it may be read how Bl. Peter grievously detested his own deeds, as though he had been the greatest of all sinners who live, and nevertheless trusted wholly in the blood of Jesus Christ as in a precious treasure sufficient for redeeming the faults of all, even if a thousand worlds existed. In the same it is read with what contempt he trod down fleeting honours, and with what greatness of mind he bore the injuries done him by others; because, contemplating assiduously the magnificence of the heavenly kingdom alone, he sought this one thing with pious confidence, and placed in it all his hope.

[5] But his intense love, by which he strove to be joined to God; his inward hatred with which he pursued sins; the anxious care with which he watched over his neighbour; his tender love of enemies; the pious counsels given to the great; the works of mercy bestowed upon the poor; and the examples of a most upright life shown to all — these shall always proclaim the charity which fed upon his soul with a most sweet burning. The choice which he always employed for increasing more surely and fittingly the divine glory and for obtaining eternal blessedness testifies abundantly and more than abundantly with what prudence he was endowed. The glory with which he discharged the venerable office of inquisitor in the kingdom of Aragon, ever to live in the memory of posterity, will commend the integrity of his justice. The most arduous undertakings and the sure dangers of life which he entered upon, when God's honour and the Catholic religion so demanded, will likewise celebrate the unconquered fortitude with which he was armed. The rigid bridle with which he tamed the rebellion of the senses, and the long fasts and vigils with which he subjected his body to reason and his flesh to the spirit, will never be silent about the praises due to his temperance.

[6] Meanwhile the Catholic sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella, who a little before by the valour of arms, after the formidable war of Granada, Ferdinand and Isabella cause the tribunal of the holy inquisition had freed almost all Spain from the Saracen tyranny by which it had been oppressed ^h, while they were restoring their kingdoms to their former tranquillity, laboured most zealously with pious solicitude to devote them wholly to the Christian religion. And since they were kindled with greater zeal for the divine worship than with desire of a wider kingdom, with generous severity they ordered all unbelievers who refused to embrace the Evangelical truth to go into exile ⁱ. But because the wound inflicted on the people by the various abominable sects of the Saracens, the Jews, and other unbelievers had now for the space of so many years festered and eaten deep, they feared that it could be healed by the remedies at hand. Hence, having recourse to the authority of the supreme Pontiffs Sixtus IV ^k and afterwards Innocent VIII ^l, they besought that the tribunal of the holy inquisition be erected, which, separating with the highest authority the grain of good subjects from the tares of the impious, might root out of their kingdom every seed of perfidy.

[7] This request of the princes, which looked to the great profit of the Christian faith, to be erected. The Blessed man is made inquisitor in Aragon: was not only heard by Christ's Vicar, but, being reckoned as one of their innumerable heroic and religious actions, brought it about that with the common applause of the whole world the glorious surname of Catholic ^m was confirmed to them; which, handed down to their posterity, still endures, as in these, with the same title, the same zeal for propagating and establishing religion shall perpetually endure. There was therefore chosen as general inquisitor father brother Thomas of Torquemada, of the Order of Preachers, and to him was given the faculty of substituting other inquisitors through the provinces in the lower tribunals. He on the 4th day of May in the year 1484 laid that office in the kingdom of Aragon upon father brother Gaspar Inglar, of the same Order of Preachers, and upon our blessed Peter Arbués, who from the castle of Épila, where he was born, is commonly called Master-Épila. Scarcely had Peter shown to the jurats ⁿ of Zaragoza the royal letters in which Ferdinand charged the magistrates to support with strong help the newly erected sacred tribunal, when severe edicts against Jewish and Mahometan superstitions were published by the chosen inquisitors, and consequently divers sentences pronounced against the guilty.

[8] The punishment of a few shook the minds of many, and those who under a false show of the Christian religion veiled Hebrew perfidy began to be struck by the careful search with which they heard that their secret sacrileges were being inquired into. whom, as he vigorously discharged his office, But after they understood that their envoys, whom they had insolently sent to Córdoba to the king that he should not protect that new tribunal by his royal authority, had been repulsed by him with contempt and threats, and that the tumults stirred up under pretext of the prerogative and liberty of the kingdom had collapsed with evident profit to souls, they entered upon a diabolical counsel of taking Arbués out of the world by assassins. Already from the end of the month of January of the year 1485 Peter's colleague Inglar had ceased to live, and therefore all the authority of the inquisitor's office, together with all the ardour of discharging it vigorously, which before had been divided between two, resided in him alone; and the impious men thought that, Peter being publicly slain, they would have nothing more to fear from the dread tribunal of the inquisition and from the just threats of punishments — as though a like fear of a violent death would deter all from exercising the office of inquisitor, and so the tribunal of the holy office, hateful to them, must be utterly suppressed.

[9] the unbelievers, having hired assassins, This wicked counsel, confirmed in various conventicles, they anxiously took care to give over to execution, a certain criminal man being chosen for the execrable murder, who had been wont to refresh his perfidy in human blood. He, John de Labadía by name, despised all difficulties in carrying it out, out of the hatred with which he pursued the Blessed man on account of the ignominious death to which his sister had a little before been condemned by that same tribunal; and he only watched for an opportunity that he might accomplish the crime more surely and safely. Meanwhile, whether it came about from the well-known boldness of the Jews, ready for every wickedness, or from the love which the Blessed man had won for himself among Catholics, it is established that he was warned in good time by many of the perils hanging over him. But he, no less undaunted amid threats than inexorable to entreaties, relaxed nothing of his just vigour against the wicked apostates, but with truly Christian fortitude answered his friends that he was little anxious what human perfidy might plot against his head, and that he had always had before his eyes the service of God alone and of the Catholic religion; and that if by the divine mercy he were to be sacrificed as a victim to the hatred of the unbelievers, he besought his crucified Jesus to make him from a bad priest, such as he was, into a most excellent Martyr, such as

he desired to be.

[10] resolve to slay him. Peter therefore, pursuing his office without dread, and watching over the salvation of others' souls rather than of his own body, redoubled his fatherly admonitions to bring back those wretched men to better things, and yet did not depart from the severity which the obstinacy of the rebellious demanded. But John de Labadía, having now shared out the Blessed man's slaying and a great sum of gold with another John, surnamed Sperandio, and with Vital Durante, only awaited and sought an occasion to deliver him up. And, as though the assassins had persuaded themselves that the enormity of their crime would be the easier and the more famous if it were accomplished before God, whom they provoked by abominable rites, they chose the metropolitan church of Zaragoza as the theatre of their impiety. Each of the canons had convenient dwellings in the same church; Bl. Peter alone had to live outside the church in the palace of his tribunal ^o. But why do I say that he lived outside the church — he to whom, with his mind ever fixed on God, every place was God's church and every hour a time of prayer? Yet, not content with the contemplation of the mind alone, he set his body so frequently within the sacred walls of the church that whatever time was left over from the public office of inquisitor he spent there wholly in private prayers.

[11] Praying in the church by night, he is wounded Nay, so great was his assiduity in frequenting the choir that, nightly rest being neglected, he was always present at the Hours and the matin prayers and all the rest, and never withdrew himself from them because of the season of the year, the horror of the darkness, or fear of those lying in wait. When the impious had noticed this, that innocent victim was, on that night which preceded the 15th day of September in the same year 1485 [p], sacrificed out of hatred of the Catholic religion upon the very altars of God, who from eternity had prepared for his holy soul a seat of immortality in the assembly of His martyrs. On this night, therefore, an ambush being secretly laid, the assassins, observed by no one, hid themselves in that same church a little before the Blessed man came; who came thither clothed in the sacred habit, that he might be present at the matin praises with which the praised canons venerate the supreme King of glory every night. But scarcely had he fallen upon his knees before the high altar and lifted his eyes to God, at that very time at which the versicle was being sung in the choir, Forty years was I near to this generation, etc., when the wicked Jews, as though about to avenge the reproach by which in that chant the obstinacy of their forefathers was rebuked, came forth from their ambush; and while Peter was praising the Queen of angels with these words of the angelic salutation, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, he was assailed first by Durante, then by Sperandio, and was pierced through with divers strokes of their swords.

[12] But although he was left by them dying on the ground, and, carried back to his house, yet, living better than ever at any other time, with mind lifted to heaven he broke out into these most holy words: Praised be Jesus Christ, for I die for His holy faith. The detestable crime being accomplished, the sacrilegious men thought only of flight; but a sudden and unwonted fear so shut it off from them that, without the help of several accomplices who were at hand ready to bring aid and who drove them out of the church with great force, they would then by no means have withdrawn themselves from the punishment to which they were shortly afterwards adjudged by divine and human justice [q]. At these noises the canons run up; and, finding the Inquisitor — who, his soul being hindered only in his tongue, complained nothing of the untimely death inflicted on him out of hatred, but exulted in the immortal life to which he was being called by divine love — they carefully carried him back to his house.

[13] There, drying with the fire of tender charity the tears which the bitterness of the deed had wrung from his friends, he dies two days later in the year 1485, on the 17th day of September. he exhorted them all to tranquillity, that they might not disturb his own, with which he died. Yet if they believed there was anything in his death worthy of lamentation, let them grieve for the offence against God which had arisen from the crime of the assassins, not for the end of his life, which after the fault of our first parents is unavoidable for all. In this manner, through the whole two days that he survived, now consoling his friends, now praying for his enemies, and assiduously praising God, after receiving the Sacraments of the Church with the same faith and piety with which he had venerated them while he was in good health, on the 17th day of September he departed to enjoy the reward of his labours in the fatherland of the Blessed, leaving on earth a great fame of holiness, worthy of the things which he had done while he lived.

NOTES.

p. That the year and the day on which he was stabbed in the church, and on which he afterwards died, are established, we have proved in the Commentary, §3.

q. The chief partakers of the crime we have reviewed in the Commentary at n. 28.