San Isicio, or San Exiquio, or perhaps Saint Hisque, all of them Spanish renderings of the Romano-Greek Heyschius, is today the patron saint of Cazorla in Spain, a town of barely eight thousand inhabitants in that least touristy corner of Andalusia, the province of JaƩn, with Cordoba on one side and Granada on the other.
Hesychius was its first bishop, ordained in Rome by Peter and Paul, one of seven missionaries sent to Iberia to bring the Spanish to Christianity. He was stoned to death at a place called La Pedriza. The text of his Gospel is lost, so we cannot say what view of Christ it presented. That it was even written by this Hesychius is a matter of speculation, based only on the fact that no other Hesychius is known from this period. The records of his martyrdom say it happened in Carcere, which is identified with Cazorla, though it is equally plausible that it wasn't Cazorla at all, but Cieza, nearer the sea, in Valencian territory, inland from Alicante.
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