ON SS. ADULPHUS AND JOHN, BROTHERS AND MARTYRS AT CORDOVA IN SPAIN,
AT CORDOVA IN SPAIN
ABOUT THE YEAR 825.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Of their cult and deeds.
Adulphus, brother, martyr, at Cordova in Spain. (S.)
John, brother, martyr, at Cordova in Spain. (S.)
BY C. S.
These two Brothers Usuard in his Martyrology at the twenty-seventh day of September thus announces: On the same day, First set down by Usuard in the Martyrology of the holy brothers Adulph and John, who at the city of Cordova were crowned for Christ. Sollier noted upon this the following: The martyrs of Cordova are purely Usuardine; nor do I see anything to be observed concerning them, beyond what has more than once been said elsewhere; namely that they, brought from Spain and marked by ours (that is, by Usuard), first found a place in the sacred tables. The occasion by which the aforesaid Usuard could first have learned both of these and of the other martyrs of Cordova who suffered in the Arabian persecution we have already adduced both elsewhere and in SS. Emila and Jeremiah, tom. V of this month of September, p. 103, num. 3, where we said that it was his Spanish journey, in which, together with his companion Odilard, he transported in the year 858 from Cordova into Gaul the bodies of SS. George and Aurelius, whom the same persecution had carried off. The history of the translation, written by Aimoin, monk of St. Germain des Prés, thou hast reprinted among us from Mabillon's edition at the twenty-seventh day of July, in SS. George, Aurelius, and Natalia.
[2] One thing, which properly pertains to our subject, first related on this day, it will be well here to have observed; namely that mention is made of both our Martyrs in the same place, p. 461, num. 8, in these words: After many days therefore had passed, they come, with Jesus going before, delivered from countless storms of worldly billows, to Cordova, the city to which they were making their way. Those two (Usuard and Odilard) go on to the church of the blessed and great witness Cyprian, in which the bodies of the holy martyrs Adulph and John rest entombed. Further, although that opinion of Sollier is certain, there have nevertheless not been wanting those who believed that SS. Adulphus and John were first inscribed in the Martyrology not by Usuard but by Ado. Pietro de Natali, bishop of Equilio, in his Catalogue of the Saints, book 8, chapter 125, says thus: Adulphus and John suffered at Cordova, a city of Spain. Who, being beheaded for the confession of the Christian name, deserved to be crowned by Christ the Lord on the fifth of the Kalends of October, as Ado says in his Martyrology taken from the registers of Jerome.
[3] Ambrosio de Morales in the Chronicles of Spain, book 14, not by Ado, chapter 4, judged that they could not have been mentioned by Usuard, but by Ado of Vienne, whom he lays down to have preceded the other martyrologists in this part. But that opinion of Morales rests only on that old error, from which Usuard was believed to have written his Martyrology under Charlemagne, whereas it is now indubitable among the learned that he wrote under Charles the Bald, as may be seen in our Sollier in the Preface to the aforesaid Martyrology, chapter 3, article 3. Domenico Giorgi in the Annotations on the Adonian Martyrology of Rosweyde, which he reprinted, likewise remains in doubt whether the announcement of SS. Adulphus and John ought not rather to be ascribed to Ado; because the three Adonian codices which he used have the same words which we have just reported from Usuard. But whoever shall be willing to consult the pure Martyrology of the same Ado, published by Rosweyde and reprinted by Giorgi, and to compare it with the Usuardine not only at this day but also at many others, will not be able prudently to doubt that Usuard first inscribed in his Martyrology all those martyrs of Cordova who were crowned under the Moors, and that the Adonian transcripts in which the same are recounted have been interpolated. For the rest, of those three Vatican codices which Giorgi praised, one is not older than the eleventh century, and the other two than the twelfth, by his own judgment.
[4] thence they passed into other Martyrologies and into the Roman From Usuard, therefore, the holy martyrs of Cordova of this day passed into other Martyrologies. Our manuscript Florarium of the Saints also announces them today in the very words of Usuard. On the same day Francesco Maurolico too has them, saying thus: At Cordova, of SS. Adulph and John, brothers. Briefly likewise Felicius: Of Adulph and John, brothers, of Cordova; where nevertheless the word of Cordova, that it may be true, must be taken of the place of their contest, not of their native country, as will be clear from what is to be said below. With somewhat more words Pietro Galesini celebrates them: At Cordova, of the holy martyrs Adulphus and John, who, the sons of Artemia, a most holy woman, religiously trained in every office of piety, on account of their outstanding constancy in defending the faith, worthy of a Christian mind, are crowned with a noble martyrdom in the Arabian persecution. In the Roman of this day they likewise have a place, on this same day in these words: At Cordova, of the holy martyrs Adulphus and John, brothers, who in the Arabian persecution were crowned for Christ.
[5] passed over: they are announced also on the following day. I add finally the Spanish Martyrology of Tamayo also, in
which they are thus recorded with a brief elogium: At Cordova in Baetica of Spain, of SS. Adulphus and John, brothers; who, born and sprung at Seville, went with their mother Artemia and their sister Aurea to the patrician city (Cordova), where, when they had determined to declare their faith to the Arabs and the errors of those men, being seized by them, as intrepid Combatants they gathered the first-fruits of the martyrs in the Saracen persecution. Of Artemia their mother, and of their holy sister Aurea the martyr, who did not suffer with them, discourse will recur below. All the martyrologists hitherto reported have made mention of our two Martyrs at the present twenty-seventh day; but Martín de Roa of the Society of Jesus in his Work on the Martyrs of Cordova, both in the preliminary Calendar and at p. 153, marks them both on the following day; although he acknowledges that their memory is kept in many churches of Spain on this twenty-seventh day of September. Philip Ferrarius also in his general Catalogue of the Saints recounted them at the twenty-eighth day in these words: In the same place (at Cordova), of the holy martyrs Adulphus and John, brothers; and he cited in the Annotations the ecclesiastical Tables of Cordova at this day, namely the twenty-eighth of September.
[6] On both days therefore the praised holy Brothers, martyrs, have obtained ecclesiastical cult in Spain. They are venerated on the 28th in the diocese of Cordova and of Seville, In the diocese of Cordova on the twenty-eighth day of September, as is clear from the praised Calendar of Martín de Roa, whose Spanish title is this: A Calendar of the feasts and Saints of whom it is written in this book, and the days on which they are celebrated in the church of Cordova, and that indeed with proper Offices approved by the Apostolic See, as the praised de Roa teaches elsewhere in his little Work on the Antiquity and authority of the holy martyrs of Cordova and on the Breviary of Cordova. Antonio de Quintanadueñas in the Church and Saints of Seville, p. 169, writes that that Office of SS. Adulphus and John at Cordova is only of semidouble rite, and traces its beginning back to the year of Christ 1581, in which, he says, Gregory XIII granted their solemnity; that is, I think, in which the Breviary of Cordova was approved by the aforesaid Pontiff. That on the same day they are venerated, or at least were venerated, in the whole diocese of Seville, we have from the Directory of that same metropolitan church, published in print at Seville in the year 1656, which I have at hand, and in which an Office from the common of martyrs with double rite of the second class is prescribed in these words: SS. Adulphus and John, brothers, martyrs, of Seville; double of the second class, in the whole diocese. The reason for so peculiar a cult seems to be no other than that which is there hinted, namely that the holy Martyrs were of Seville by birth, sprung from that same city or diocese. Quintanadueñas says that this Office was begun in the year 1624, in which he says they were acknowledged by the chapter of Seville as native Saints.
[7] Of the other day of their cult Ambrosio de Morales in his Scholia on book 2, chapter 8, of the Memorial of the Saints of St. Eulogius writes thus: and perhaps elsewhere in Spain on the 27th. But the martyrdom of Adulphus and John is in many ways most celebrated. Many churches throughout Spain celebrate their feast day. That is the twenty-seventh of September. Martín de Roa, reported above, agrees. Morales in the Chronicles of Spain, book 14, chapter 4, likewise assigns the same twenty-seventh day to their cult, but for many churches he put some; in which he has also John of Marieta, book 2 of the History of the Saints of Spain, chapter 67, agreeing. For my part I cannot deny to them that SS. Adulphus and John are honored on that day in some churches of Spain; yet I could wish that they had named the same, or some of them; for although I have consulted many Directories of various dioceses of Spain which exist in our Museum, I have found no memory of them at the aforesaid days in those, except in that of Seville, as I have already said, at the twenty-eighth day of September. Nor do I know why the people of Cordova and of Seville celebrate their feast on the twenty-eighth, since the day of their martyrdom seems to be known from no other source than from Usuard, by whom, first of all, we have shown above that it was recorded in the Martyrology.
[8] Further, how notable athletes these two Brothers were may be judged from those few things Their Acts written by abbot Speraindeo which a contemporary and most weighty writer, St. Eulogius, priest of Cordova and martyr, left written of them for posterity in the Memorial of the Saints. In book 2, chapter 8, on the occasion of their mother Artemia, he says this: Who also (Artemia) had of old promised * to heaven a twin pledge through a martyr's death, namely Adulphus and John, who at the beginning of the reign of this prince (Abd ar-Rahman) manfully triumphed over the enemy. Whose deeds, shining like the stars of heaven, for the profit of the holy Church and as an example to the weak, our aged master and most illustrious doctor (of whom we made mention in the first book), abbot Speraindeo of blessed recollection and memory, composed in a fuller style. Of Speraindeo more may be seen in the place cited by St. Eulogius, where he praises his little Work written against the impious and impure dogmas of Mahomet, and recites much from it. Consult also, if you please, Nicolás Antonio in the Bibliotheca Hispana Vetus, tom. 1, book 6, chapter 7.
[9] no longer exist. But the more illustrious are the testimonies of Eulogius concerning SS. Adulphus and John and the eulogist of their contest, Speraindeo, the more earnestly do we grieve that their Acts written by him have perished, or at least lie hidden. For that they have been lost, Martín de Roa cited above, the praised Nicolás Antonio, and others, and most recently father Enrique Flórez of the Order of St. Augustine in his España Sagrada, published in Spanish a few years ago, tom. 9, p. 291, confess and lament. But why St. Eulogius did not write down the illustrious deeds of these as of the other Martyrs who triumphed in the Arabian persecution, a twofold reason may be assigned. The first is that they were extant, set forth in a fuller style by the famous abbot Speraindeo, when he himself was writing the Memorial of the Saints. The other cause the praised Flórez adds, tom. 10, p. 358; namely that St. Eulogius abstained from writing their acts because at the time in which they suffered there had not yet arisen among the Christians of Cordova the dissension about the martyrs who of their own accord presented themselves to the persecutors, and whom Eulogius had undertaken to defend in the Memorial of the Saints.
[10] The Acts which Tamayo published from a codex of Astorga, This loss, which the Spanish deservedly deplore, Juan Tamayo seemed to himself in some measure to have repaired in his Spanish Martyrology, in which at this day he brought forward Acts of SS. Adulphus and John from a certain manuscript Legendary of the church of Astorga, which he suspected to be a fragment of the aforesaid Passion written by abbot Speraindeo. Hence after those Acts he did not hesitate to subjoin: Thus far the Legendary of Astorga; and if we attribute to Speraindeo, the master of St. Eulogius, the setting forth of these Acts, as they seem without doubt to hint in their opening, then we have restored that Work praised by the holy priest and martyr (Eulogius), which had perished, and give it again to the Spanish church. What those things are, however, from which Tamayo so judged, he does not explain, unless perhaps what he had premised: The style, he says, savors of that antiquity which Eulogius also uses. For my part I cannot deny that in those Acts one or another barbarous word occurs which St. Eulogius also used; but that I should therefore believe them to be abbot Speraindeo's, neither his eloquence nor his manner of writing, as asserted by Eulogius, permits.
[11] are not the aforesaid abbot's, The praised abbot is by St. Eulogius, in the words given at num. 8, called a most illustrious doctor, and in book 1 of the same Memorial of the Saints a most eloquent man. Similar things of him has Alvarus Paulus of Cordova, his contemporary and friend, in Nicolás Antonio, tom. 1 of the Bibliotheca Hispana, book 6, chapter 7. With these agree the things which St. Eulogius in book 1 reported as written by him against the Mahometans, and which Ambrosio de Morales in his Scholia judged to be the very words of that famous abbot. But in vain would anyone seek that man's eloquence in Tamayo's Acts, or a likeness of their style to the passages reported by St. Eulogius. Then the praised abbot, by the same testimony of Eulogius, composed in a fuller style the deeds of SS. Adulphus and John, shining like the stars of heaven, for the profit of the holy Church and as an example to the weak. But on the contrary Tamayo's Acts are rather short and meager, and do not answer the expectation which Eulogius aroused concerning the abbot's little Work.
[12] Lastly, the writer of the Acts, although in his opening he says that he writes these things in order that from their example Christians may learn to confess the faith freely and not to shudder at torments, and although therefore he might in some measure seem to have flourished in the time of the persecution, nevertheless nowhere afterward hints even by a little word that he was contemporary with SS. Adulphus and John, with whom abbot Speraindeo certainly lived. Nay rather, his very manner of writing not obscurely signifies the contrary. For after the preface he thus begins the Acts: And so in the times of Abd ar-Rahman, king of Cordova, when his reign was taking its beginning, there was at Cordova a certain matron Artemia, etc.; which manner of speaking in no way savors of an author who wrote under that same king, as abbot Speraindeo did. No milder judgment upon the same Acts did Nicolás Antonio pass in the praised Bibliotheca, where, after he had said that the little Work of which we treat no longer exists, he thus continued: Yet Juan Tamayo wished it to be believed that he repaired this loss for us, by producing from a certain Legendary of the church of Astorga a relation of the martyrdom of SS. Adulphus and John; in which nevertheless I seem to myself to see much of Tamayo's own web, whereof I call as witnesses those to whose palate the taste of such lavish banquets is not unfamiliar.
[13] I know not whether Nicolás Antonio by these words meant to impeach the good faith of Tamayo himself, as he wished it to be believed, yet as of doubtful credit or of another by whom he was deceived: for my part, if one or the other must be said, I should prefer to believe that Tamayo was deceived rather than that he deliberately deceived. Further, in those Acts nothing is narrated which is either not conformable, or cannot be reconciled, with what St. Eulogius briefly recorded of the same Martyrs on the occasion of their mother Artemia and their holy sister Aurea. But there clings to me a suspicion and a fear that their author used that same Work of St. Eulogius, after it had been found after the middle of the sixteenth century, and added the rest as the subject seemed to require. Certainly he could have learned the illustrious Arabian family of the Saints from the same Eulogius's Memorial, book 3, chapter 17, and thence also borrowed both the barbarous words used by him and the accusation made by their kinsmen: for as Eulogius narrated of St. Aurea, who suffered many years after them, so the anonymous author narrated that these were accused by their kinsmen before the judge concerning the Christian faith.
[14] The doubt could be removed by that codex of Astorga, if indeed it exists, to be published; but not so the epitaph. They were the brothers of St. Aurea, whose age Tamayo passed over in silence, and which will not be altogether to be despised, if it was written before the Memorial of the Saints of St. Eulogius was found; but otherwise, if later. And so, although I can in no way ascribe those Acts to abbot Speraindeo, nor hold them for a fragment of his little Work, yet since the things which are narrated in them are partly consonant with the sayings of St. Eulogius, partly probable, I have determined to reprint them as Acts of doubtful credit, being about to warn the reader in the Annotations what in them is to be held certain and what doubtful according to what is presently to be said. The epigram, or epitaph of them, which Tamayo there sets forth under the name of Cyprian, archpriest of Cordova, must without any doubt be rejected among his supposititious offspring. In this penury of certain monuments it remains that we weigh a little the few things which St. Eulogius has handed down concerning our holy Martyrs. They had a sister, St. Aurea the virgin, who suffered thirty years or more after them under king Mahomad, whose Acts have been given among us at the nineteenth day of July from the oft-mentioned Memorial of the Saints, book 3, chapter 17, whence I transfer hither the following, which make to our purpose.
[15] born of a noble Arab father, At that time (the words are St. Eulogius's) a certain noble virgin, by name Aurea, sister of SS. Adulphus and John, martyrs, of whom we made mention in the preceding (namely book 2, chapter 8, as I said), who from the time of their conflict enjoyed the reward of their devotion, when, the pursuits of holy religion being disclosed, she was dwelling in the monastery of Cuteclara … for nearly thirty years and more, giving to all knowledge of her faith, and overshadowed by no fears, she carried on the converse of her Christianity in open encounter. And because she was girt about with a lineage by birth, and was adorned with the great pride of Arabian descent, none of the outsiders dared to attack the virgin's faith; until certain of her own people from the province of Seville, whence she drew her family, … coming to test the truth of the rumor brought to them concerning the virgin's faith and purpose, craftily feign that they visit their kinswoman for the sake of being entertained *, etc. He then subjoins that the judge of Cordova also, before whom she was accused of the Christian religion by those crafty friends, was joined to her by kinship: Who himself also, he says, by right of birth clung to the same virgin by intertwined lineages.
[16] of a Christian mother, a most pious woman, From these things we have that SS. Adulphus and John (being the brothers of St. Aurea) were sprung from a noble Arabian family and from the Mahometan sect, unless anyone should wish, without any foundation, that they were only uterine brothers of St. Aurea and born of another father. It is not known whether their father, of whom Eulogius is silent, ever worshiped Christ; but that he was once a Mahometan, or at least was so believed, is clear enough from what has been said above. The Acts to be published make him a heathen. Somewhat better known is their mother from St. Eulogius, who in book 2, chapter 8, calls her a woman of the highest sanctity, by name Artemia, and relates that she presided over the female monastery of Cuteclara, thus continuing after the words given at num. 8: Artemia therefore, excelling the other women dwelling in the same monastery by the grace of her sanctity and advanced age, or on account of her Martyr sons, was set over the whole convent of virgins of the monastery by the command of his authority. It is most probable that she was born not of the Arabian race, but of the native Christians of Spain, and that she imbued her children with Christian precepts, her husband consenting or conniving. Certainly St. Aurea professed before the judge that from her infancy she had worshiped Christ. Whom from my infancy, she says, I had learned, I have worshiped, I have kept the faith, I have maintained my purpose.
[17] in the city or diocese of Seville, whence with their mother As regards their native country, writers commonly lay down that they were of Seville, if not from the city itself, at least sprung from its diocese. So they gather from the words of St. Eulogius, adduced above at num. 15, in which St. Aurea is said to have drawn her family from the province of Seville, in which her kinsmen were then still dwelling. Hence also the clergy of Seville hold them for their own countrymen, and venerate them with an Office of double rite of the second class throughout the whole diocese, as has been said above. Yet that they suffered at Cordova all agree, and it is established from their burial in the church of St. Cyprian at Cordova, on which see num. 2 of this Commentary. Near the same city was also the monastery of St. Mary of Cuteclara, over which we have seen that Artemia presided, and in which St. Aurea dwelt. But at what time, or for what cause, they migrated from the diocese of Seville to Cordova, is not ascertained. In the Acts to be published Artemia is said to have withdrawn thither with her Sons because several Christians flourished there.
[18] It is most probable that Artemia, her husband being dead, or perhaps converted to the faith, they migrated to Cordova, did this in order that, far from those kinsmen who followed the Mahometan impiety, she might with her children serve Christ more safely and more tranquilly. Now the Christians at Cordova then enjoyed free exercise of their religion, and had public churches and monasteries, the Moorish kings so permitting, lest they should strip the region of inhabitants, and that by this connivance they might make Cordova, which they were zealous to adorn above other cities, the more populous. Nay, even in the very court of the kings of Cordova Christians performed honorable offices and earned salaries, until Mahomad, the successor of Abd ar-Rahman II, at the very beginning of his reign expelled them from it, as may be read in Eulogius. Antonio Yepes, according to Tamayo, wrote that SS. Adulphus and John were monks; which he himself rightly denies to be proved by any testimony of the ancients.
[10] Of the kind of punishment by which these two holy Brothers were crowned where they underwent martyrdom for Christ St. Eulogius recorded nothing; in the Acts to be published they are said to have been beheaded, perhaps on no other ground than that this was the ordinary supreme punishment of martyrs among the Moors, after which their bodies were wont either to be hung on a gibbet or cast into the river. However that may be, that their contest was glorious Eulogius testified, as reported at num. 8. Of the same he again makes mention in book 3, chapter 17, writing of St. Aurea, that that virgin, when out of human frailty she had denied Christ with her mouth, was roused by their memory to the confession of the faith, lest she should be shut out from the fellowship of her brothers, namely Adulphus and John, blessed martyrs. The year of the martyrdom cannot be certainly determined, nor yet do the assertions of Eulogius allow us to stray far from it. For first indeed at num. 8 he says that they suffered at the beginning of the reign of prince Abd ar-Rahman II, who reigned from the year of Christ 821 until 852.
[20] But at num. 15 he writes that St. Aurea from the time of their conflict (or martyrdom) … [at the beginning of the reign of Abd ar-Rahman, and therefore they are wont to be held] dwelt in the monastery of Cuteclara … for nearly thirty years and more, when she herself also obtained the palm of martyrdom; which he writes happened in the year 856, on the nineteenth day of July. Let us therefore subtract thirty years from the year of Christ 856, and there will come out the year 826; but because he lays down that more than thirty years intervened between the martyrdoms of the Brothers and of the sister, they could easily have suffered in the year 825 or 824, and thus nearer to the beginning of the reign of Abd ar-Rahman II. Cardinal Baronius in the Annals at the year of Christ 821 rightly also bound their martyrdom to the beginnings of the reign of the said prince, no year being determined; but in the Annotations on the Roman Martyrology he fixed it at the year 851, and Domenico Giorgi in the new edition of the Adonian Martyrology at the year 852. From these John of Marieta did not much dissent in the Saints of Spain, book 2, chapter 67, where he designated the year 850, or the one immediately preceding or following. That the reckonings of all these are faulty is manifest from what has been said.
[21] For the rest, these holy Brothers are wont to be held for the first martyrs for the first martyrs who suffered under the Moors at Cordova. who, triumphing at Cordova over Mahometan impiety, sealed their faith with their own blood; not because it is established that none before these were slain there under the Moors for the faith, but because these are the first whose memory survives; for St. Eulogius began his Memorial from the year of Christ 850, from which the beginning of the persecution, commonly called the Arabian, is wont to be reckoned among the people of Cordova, and which was the twenty-ninth year of Abd ar-Rahman, in the beginnings of whose reign we have said that SS. Adulphus and John were crowned. Of their sacred bodies, which according to what was said at num. 2 were resting in the year 858 at Cordova in the church of St. Cyprian, I have afterward read nothing further. I therefore subjoin the Acts from Tamayo.
Annotata* perhaps: præmiserat
* that is, of their martyrdom
* perhaps: incusare?
* another reading: sospitandi
ACTS
Of slight credit. From a manuscript Legendary of Astorga
Published by Juan Tamayo in his Spanish Martyrology.
Adulphus, brother, martyr, at Cordova in Spain. (S.)
John, brother, martyr, at Cordova in Spain. (S.)
BHL Number: 0084
From the printed edition.
The author's preface. The martyrial a expedition of the passion, dearest brethren, of the most illustrious youths Adulphus and John, brothers, sought by you and set out by me, God favoring, though with unequal strength, I lay open to the whole Spanish church, that the other worshipers of Christ who follow them, fortified with their courage, may know both to approach without fear the prize of confession, and, intrepid, to shudder at the horrors of torments and tortures. For as the apostolic page teaches us, with the heart we believe unto justice, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. What difference then is there between believing in Christ secretly and publicly not knowing Christ? Public confession the Lord's word in the Gospel sanctifies, whereby it promises eternal salvation to those who confess. To believe with the heart will avail unto justice, unless a case arise in which it is fitting to make manifest what is carried in the heart; for then the belief of the heart does not suffice, but there will be need of the open outcry of confession, and if this be lacking, the Lord's threat immediately follows: “He that shall deny me before men, I will deny him before my Father who is in heaven.” Therefore this whole setting-out of the present prelude tends to this end: both that we should follow the example of our Martyrs, who, knowing how to retain the teachings of Christ in the recesses of the heart for the obtaining of justice, were able afterward, on a profitable occasion, to make them public * and to confess them for the embracing of salvation; and that truth, set forth with pure simplicity, may sharpen the minds of those who follow to an intrepid confession of Christ.
[2] The Saints migrate from the province of Seville to Cordova, And so in the times of Abd ar-Rahman, king of Cordova, when his reign was taking its beginning b, there was at Cordova a certain matron named Artemia c, adorned with the mark d of illustrious ancestors, but more notable for the excellent handfuls of her virtues, who, being joined also to a most noble man, though a heathen, had borne from that marriage three children, namely Adulphus, John, and Aurea, a most honorable virgin; who, following the teaching of their Christian mother, learned as believers the doctrines of the faith, and spurned the errors of their father
with one accord. This most blessed matron therefore, from the province of Seville, of which she was a native e, that she might as a Catholic be the better imbued with the sacred mysteries of the faith, because there were here many worshipers of Christian truth, withdrawing to Cordova, at once hiring a house in which she might dwell, there trained her Sons in the rules of piety. They with constancy worshiped Christ God in truth, and although the Youths were many times torn by the reproaches of the gentiles, they both bore the Lord in their heart and praised Christ by the confession of their mouth.
[3] But when the kinship of certain men, who were bound to the most blessed Youths by the tie of relationship on their father's side, where, worshiping Christ and by their Mahometan kinsmen could not bear that the purpose of Adulphus and John should be marked with the brand of Christianity, they admonished them by a secret exhortation through their own people that they should busy themselves to follow their father's sect; but that if they should be willing to despise the precepts of Mahomet, the prophet of God, they threatened that they would forthwith be dragged to the judge's tribunal. And so the holy Brotherhood heard the untimely insistence of their kinsmen's embassy and the perfidious execration of their admonition; and they who had believed with the heart unto justice confessed the Catholic faith with the mouth unto salvation. Therefore, extolling the doctrine of Christ and execrating the abyss of the false prophet's foulness, they declared with intrepid heart that for the faith they had received they would endure torments and tortures, of whatever kind the monstrous insolence of the judge should busy itself to wring from them.
[4] At this answer their kinsmen, driven by furies, went at once to the judge, accused before the judge, and, denouncing the constancy of the holy Youths in the confession of the Christians' faith and their perfidy in mocking the law of the prophet, demand that against them the rod of correction be carried out f. The profane cruelty of the wicked judge orders the young Brothers to be brought forthwith into his monstrous sight; and when the nefarious hand of the executioners seized them, it brought them at once to the tribunal with frequent howling and continual clamor, as is the custom of that people. To whom the judge, their kinsmen being present and accusing them, said: By what right, noble Men, who rejoice in your father's nobility and enjoy the exemption of his family, do you, following your mother's faith, wish to be made illustrious by your father's lineage, and yet endeavor to be disfigured by your mother's perfidy? What is this? If your father's splendor ennobles your comeliness on every side, why shall not the pattern of his religion besides adorn your actions? It is assuredly of our law that a son who is made illustrious by his father's honor should also follow the keenness of his parent's teaching. Therefore, valiant Men, either embrace your father's law, or, being exposed to dire tortures, make ready your delicate bodies to feel our cruelty.
[5] Then the holy Martyrs answered the judge: No lineage is comely with nobility and bravely confessing the faith, which leads a man to destruction. Why should we cleave to our father's teaching, which is ignoble, which is profane, which is unjust? Let the splendor of family therefore yield to true virtue; let the ennobled offspring of forefathers yield to open truth. Christ ennobles, who is God, to serve whom is to reign. His faith we embrace, his law we worship. All that is not of this faith is fleeting, is wicked g, is not of God. Therefore thou wilt be able to come to stripes; and our bodies, of which alone thou art judge, we place in thy hands, and for Christ we renounce all the badges of our nobility. The judge blazed out , and when he had not been able by the blandishments set before them to snatch Christ from the hearts of the Martyrs, he condemned them by capital sentence and delivered them to their accusing kinsmen; who, enticed with the insolent voracity of wolves, arranged to carry out the nefarious sentence of the judge by the hands of executioners .
[6] they were slain and buried by Christians. Which being done, the illustrious Martyrs offered their throats to the sword h, and their spirit to the Creator on the fifth of the Kalends of October. Whose bodies were afterward taken up under cover of night and honorably buried i; but their souls, flying to unfading glory, enjoy for ever the beatitude of Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth for ever. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
* propalare
* that is, excanduit
* carnificum