A Church which, like Jesus, is born Roman and which, despite certain sporadic conflicts with the apparatus of power, unfolds and develops under the shelter of the pax romana, and continues to take part in Rome’s procession. The “paths of salvation” — like those of Campanian or Arezzo sigillata, municipal organization, or the cult of Cybele — are in fact the paths that come from or lead to Rome, and they follow approximately the same routes and basic conditioning factors. For the cis-Pyrenean area, the most important is the great Tarraco–Virovesca–Ad Legionem VII Geminam route, the backbone of Roman penetration into the northern sub-Meseta and a point of convergence for a vast network of local and regional roads.
Scholars agree in identifying it as the area of the earliest Christian penetration on this side of the region, as evidence of such penetration appears successively from the Tetrarchic period onward in the southern strip (the tradition of the martyrdom of Emeterius and Celedonius at Calagurris; the celebration of the Council of Caesaraugusta in 380; texts by Prudentius concerning martyrial cult, bishop, and baptistery at Calagurris, etc.).
In the trans-Pyrenean area, it is the Narbo–Tolosa–Burdigala axis — along its various alternative routes departing from the capital of the Tectosages — that represents the earliest and most decisive Christianizing penetration. The origins of some Novempopulan churches may thus be traced back to the first decades of the fourth century (the presence of the Church of Elusa at the Synod of Arles in 314; epigraphic evidence attesting to the existence of presbyters in the civitas Convenarum from 347 onward, etc.).
It would nevertheless remain necessary to specify the impact of the new religious form on the various spheres of life of the political units in which it is documented, since the presence of a Christian community — presbyteral or episcopal — in the capital of a civitas does not, in principle, say much about the specific weight of that community within the urban collective, and even less about its influence on the more or less immediate countryside, that is, on the territorium of the civitas.
Finally, one should not forget that the cartographic representation of the evidence for Christian penetration in the region reveals a total absence of such evidence in a relatively broad territorial area, centered on — and extending well beyond in several directions — historical Euskal Herria. This area, which from a morphological-cultural perspective we have been describing as saltus, is characterized by relatively low Romanizing pressure and is described, precisely toward the end of the fourth century (at a time of maximum Christian expansionist euphoria in this part of the West), in texts by Ausonius and Paulinus as developing cultural forms situated at the opposite pole from classical civilitas-humanitas. A few years later, in connection with the Bagaudae conflict, it appears openly opposed to the Roman establishment.
This area is also considered to be the only corner of this part of the Western Roman Empire that managed, albeit with difficulty, to preserve its ancient pre-Latin language. All of this seems to give rise to the suspicion that the Christian Church does not venture into the saltus during the colonial phase: certainly not at the beginning, when the Roman Church — perhaps too Roman for its own good — is seen defining itself through an urban form of presence and virtually disregarding the pagani; but not later either, when, with the crisis of urban civilization, the economic and political weight of the countryside increases and a return to the land is imposed, because by then the mechanisms that make the position of the Roman establishment in the region fundamentally fragile are already under way (resurgence of indigenism, invasions, Bagaudae crisis).
There are several legendary versions. One of them refers to the first cloud, for according to this tradition, before that time it neither rained nor were clouds seen in the sky. These inhabitants are called mairus. A legend from Oiartzun recounts the event as follows:
Azkeneko Mairuk (= The Last Mairus)
[Basque text preserved]
[They say that the mairus lived in caves. At that time, no doubt, clouds were not seen; but one day a beautiful cloud appeared in the sky, and all were filled with wonder. They had a very old grandfather, who had long been blind. Thinking that he would know what the cloud meant, they took him from the corner of the cave where he lay and brought him out to the light of the entrance. As he was blind, they opened his eyes with beech forks that they had specially made in the forest. When the old man saw the cloud, he said: “Young ones, our time has passed; Jesus has been born into the world, and we are lost.” Having said this, they all crouched down, went into the cave, and that was the end: they never came out again. That is why, when we fell to the ground after stumbling over something, the old man would say to us: “Will it be necessary to open your eyes with beech forks, like the mairu?”]
(Told in 1920 to Lekuona by Juan M.ª of Oiartzun), Auñamendi, no. 12, pp. 46–47.
This legend of the appearance of a mysterious cloud or a star is very widespread. In Zaldibia, it concerns gentiles who, while engaged in festivities and games in the meadow of Argaintxabaleta, saw the mysterious cloud approaching them. Frightened, they rushed into the forest of Intzensao and all entered a dolmen that still exists in Arraztaran and has since been called Jentillarri.
One of the most detailed oral narratives is the one that recounts the end of the gentiles, confirming the earlier accounts with new details and also calling Jesus Kixmi.
Jentillen Akabarea (= The End of the Gentiles)
[Basque text preserved]
[They say that while the gentiles were living in a cave in Leizai, an extraordinarily beautiful star appeared in the sky. Upon seeing it, the gentiles were greatly frightened and wondered what was about to happen in the world. On one occasion they brought out of the cave a half-blind old gentil, opened his eyelids with an oven shovel, and turned his gaze toward the sky, thinking that he would know what the star meant. As soon as he saw it, he cried out: “Ah, my children! the Kixmi has been born; now we are lost. Throw me down from here.” The gentiles called Jesus Christ Kixmi, and they say that Kixmi means monkey. As he had said, they hurled him down the rocks, and thus the old gentil died. Later, when Christianity began to spread throughout the world, all the gentiles scattered and eventually disappeared.]
(Told in 1917 by José M.ª de Auzmendi, from Ataun), Auñamendi, no. 12, p. 45.