Baring-Gould’s sources: Ado, Notker, Roman Martyrology; Spanish and P o r tu g ese Marty rologies. Authorities A hymn of Prudentius, and the Acts.] [ B 8 PWRUDENT 1 US, the Christian poet of Saragossa, describing the passion of these glorious martyrs, still fresh in the memory of the citizens of his native town. S. Optatus, and seventeen other stalwart soldiers of Jesus Christ, received the crown of martyrdom on the same day, in the persecution of Diocletian,, under the cruel governor Dacian. Two others, Caius and Crementius, died of their torments after a second examination. The blessed Encratia was another victim of the same magistrate. She was most barbarously tortured by his orders; her sides were lacerated with iron hooks, and one of her breasts was then cut 0$ and then part of her liver was tom out She was then sent back to prison, Apru i6.] vS\9. Martyrs of Saragossa.
…where her wounds mortified and she died. The relics [the bodily remains of a saint, or objects they used, kept with honor] of these martyrs are supposed to have been found at Saragossa in 1389.
Another Saragossian martyr commemorated this day is S. Lambert Of him Tamayus Salazar says, in his Spanish Martyrology, “ Lest there should be too much joy through so many festivals on one day, the Church with circumspection has separated them, and transferred the feast of S. Lambert to June 19th.” And Papebroeck, the Bollandist, adds, “Prudently and circumspectly indeed, but we very much doubt whether the compilers of the Breviary published in 1573 used the same prudence and circumspection, when, confusing times and events, they compiled the lessons for this saint, to be recited in the divine offices, partly from their own conjectures, partly from the uncertain tales of the vulgar, and partly from pictures and sculptures ill understood.”
S. Lambert is said to have been the husbandman of a well-to-do farmer, near Saragossa, at the time of the same persecution. His master having got into an altercation with him, whilst he was ploughing, insisted on his at once adoring the gods, and when the labourer refused, saying he was a Christian, his master struck him with the ploughshare and killed him. There seems, however, every reason to believe that Lambert suffered much later, under a Moorish master, for his name, of Teutonic origin, is evidence against the antiquity attributed to his martyrdom. He is represented in art with his head in his hands. I vol. nr.
