Justus of Urgel, St.
JUSTUS OF URGEL, ST.
Bishop of Urgel, Catalonia, Spain; b. Valencia (?); d. Urgel (?), after 546. According to isidore of seville (De viris illustribus, 33–34), he had three brothers: Bishops Justinianus, of Valencia; Nifridius, of Egara; and Elpidius, of an unknown see. Justus signed the acts of two councils: Toledo II, in 527; and Lerida, in 546. His allegorical explication of the canticle of canticles (Song of Songs), in which he alludes to the persecution of the Church in Spain by Arian Visigoths, is introduced by a letter to the Metropolitan Sergius of Tarragona, another to the Deacon Justus, and a prologue to the reader. His sermon on the feast of St. vincent of saragossa was used in the Mozarabic liturgy. He was entered in the Roman martyrology in 1586.
Feast: May 28.
Bibliography: Patrologia Latina, ed. j. p. migne, 217 V., indexes 4 v. (Paris 1878–90) 67:961–994. b. de gaiffier, "Les Notices Hispaniques du martyrologe Romain," Analecta Bollandiana, 58 (1940) 84; "Sermons Latin en l'honneur de S. Vincent antérieurs au Xe siècle," ibid., 67 (1949) 278–280.
[e. p. colbert]