La invención de la hagiografía e iconografía de San Paterno de Bilbilis

Resumen

The hagiography and iconography of Saint Paterno of Bílbilis, as well as that of so many other saints of the Catholic Church, move between the dark borders of historical reality and literary invention. The Catholic Church states that Saint Paterno of Bílbilis preached in the year 138 and achieved the conversion to Christianism of the inhabitants of the Roman city of Bílbilis. The scholars of the 16th and 17th centuries invented a hagiography for Saint Paterno which responds to the necessity of building a solid legal argument in order to claim the promotion of the Collegiate Church of Santa María de Calatayud (Saint Mary of Calatayud) to Episcopal seat. When Alfonso I (Alphonse I) conquered Calatayud in 1120, he did not establish any diocesan seat in Calatayud. Pope Lucius III, by means of a papal bull dated in 1182, defined the territorial limits of the Archdeaconship of Calatayud, making it dependent upon the Diocese of Tarazona. Since the times of Pedro IV (Peter IV) and at specific moments during the reigns of Felipe II, Felipe III and Felipe IV (Philippe II, III and IV), both the inhabitants and the religious authorities of Calatayud intended to segregate the territory of the archdeaconship to convert it into a diocese. Together with social, economic and pastoral reasons, one of the most powerful and supportive arguments employed in the claim was that the evangelisation of Calatayud in the 2nd century had been prior to that of Tarazona, accomplished by Saint Prudencio (Saint Prudence) in the 6th century. At the same time as these legal arguments were being elaborated, a hagiography about Saint Paterno was becoming developed and its iconography was started to be promoted. However, the failure of the episcopal aspirations of Calatayud resulted in an only local and limited development of the iconography of Saint Paterno.