November XXVII

St. Maximus, Bishop of Riez, C.

See his life written by Dynamius, a patrician In Gaul, some time governor of Provence, and recelver of this rents of the Roman see In Gaul, as appears from St. Greg., l. 3, ep. 33. This work he dedicated to Us bricus. Faustus’s successor in the see of Riez, who died a hermit in 601. See Thilmont. t. 15; Fabriclus. Bibl. Medi et infim Latinil. l. 5, vol. 2. p. 209: Rivet. Hist. Litter. t. 2, p. 357. See also the homily of this saint’s successor. Faustus, bishop of Riez in his euloglum, published to Latin and French by Dom. d’Ahichi, in 1644.

about the year 460.

St. Maximus was born in Provence at Decomer, now called Chateau-Redon, near Dignie. His truly Christian parents saw him baptized in his infancy, and brought him up in the love and practice of virtue, and an enemy to its bane, the pleasure of the senses, which the saint from his childhood made it his study to subdue and often mortify, so that in his youth he was an excellent example of profound humility, and an absolute conquest of his passions; and his virtue increased with his years. He was well made, and by the sweetness of his temper, and the overflowings of a generous heart, engaged the esteem of all that knew him; but was aware of the dangerous snare of being betrayed into a love of company and the world; and, leading a very retired life in his father’s house, gave himself up to prayer, reading, and serious studies, in which he gave early displays of genius. His mind and heart were so engaged by heavenly things that he trampled on all worldly advantages, and made a resolution of observing a perpetual continence. Thus he remained some years in the world without living by its maxims, or seeming to belong to it; and, though among his friends, and in his own country, had no more relish for his situation than if he had been in exile, and surrounded by strangers. At last he broke the chain which seemed to fix him to the world, and, distributing his fortune among the poor, retired to the monastery of Lerins, where he was kindly received by St. Honoratus. When that holy founder was made archbishop of Arles, in 426, Maximus was chosen the second abbot of Lerins. St. Sidonius assures us¹ that the monastery of Lerins seemed to acquire a new lustre by his prudent conduct and bright example, under which the monks scarce felt the severities of the rule, so great was the cheerfulness and alacrity with which they obeyed him. The gift of miracles with which he was favored, and the great reputation of his sanctity drew great crowds to his monastery from the continent, which, breaking in upon his retirement, obliged him to quit the house, and conceal himself some days in a forest in the island; though we are assured that the chief reason why he thus lay hid in a very rainy season was, that the clergy and people of Frejus had demanded him for bishop. After this danger was over he again made his appearance at Lerins. It happened, however, no long after, when he had governed the abbey of Lerins about seven years that the see of Riez in Provence became vacant about the year 433, and he was compelled to fill it; for though he had fled to the coast of Italy to shun that dignity, he was pursued and brought back. His parents being originally of that city, the saint was looked upon there as a citizen, and, on account of his sanctity, received as an angel from heaven.* In this dignity he continued to wear his hair shirt and habit, and to observe the monastic rule as far as was compatible with his functions: he still retained the same love of poverty, the same spirit of penance and prayer, the same indifference to the world, and the same humility for which he had been so conspicuous in the cloister. But his patience and his charity found more employment, he being by his office the physician, pastor, and teacher, of a numerous people, and charged with the conduct of their souls to lead them to eternal life. Among the sermons which pass under the name of Eusebius Emisenus, three or four are ascribed to St. Maximus,² and the first among those of Faustus of Riez.³ He assisted at the council of Riez in 439, the first of Orange in 441, that of Arles in 454, and died on the 27th of November before the year 462. His body lies now in the cathedral of Riez, which bears jointly the names of the Blessed Virgin and St. Maximus.*

The study of the saints was the art of living well, and of putting on the spirit of Christ. This was their employment both in their deserts and in the world: this is the only end of man, the only means which can conduct him to present and future happiness. In the language of the holy scriptures this alone is called science: every other science is termed folly. Not but profane sciences teach many useful truths; but if compared with the infinite importance of this knowledge, they are of no value; and unless they are made subservient to it, and are directed and regulated by it, lead into frequent gross and fatal errors. This science is learned by listening to instructions, pious reading, and meditation, and opening to the heavenly doctrine not only our understandings, but also our hearts. And it is to be deeply and experimentally imprinted in our souls by the practice of all virtues. The disciples, going to Emmas, heard attentively the world’s Redeemer, but were only enlightened in the exercise of charity. Christ learned obedience from the things which he suffered. Humility, patience, meekness, and all other virtues acquire a new and heroic degree of perfection by being exerted and exercised with fervor, especially in times of trial.

St. James, Surnamed Intercisus, M.

St. James was a native of Beth-Lapeta, a royal city in Persia, and a nobleman of the first rank, and of the highest reputation in that kingdom for his birth and great qualifications, both natural and acquired, and for the extraordinary honors and marks of favor which the king conferred upon him, and which were his most dangerous temptation. For when his prince declared war against the Christian religion,^† this courtier had not the courage to renounce his royal master and benefactor’s friendship; and, rather than forfeit his favor, abandoned the worship of the true God, which he before professed. His mother and wife were extremely afflicted at his fall, which they ceased not every day bitterly to deplore before God, and earnestly to recommend his unhappy soul to the divine mercy. Upon the death of king Isdegerdes they wrote to him the following letter: “We were informed long ago that, for the sake of the king’s favor and for worldly riches, you have forsaken the love of the immortal God. Think where that king now lies, on whose favor you set so high a value. Unhappy man! behold he is fallen to dust, which is the fate of all mortals; nor can you any longer hope to receive the least succor from him, much less to be protected by him from eternal torments. And know that if you persevere in your crimes, you yourself, by the divine justice, will fall under that punishment, together with the king your friend. As for our parts, we will have no more commerce with you.” James was strongly affected by reading this letter, and began to reflect with himself what just reproaches his apostacy would deserve at the last day from the mouth of the great Judge. He appeared no more at court, shunned the company of those who would have endeavored to seduce him, and renounced honors, pomp, and pleasures, the fatal lure which had occasioned his ruin. We see every day pretended penitents forget the danger they have just been rescued from; lay their hands again upon the hole of the aspic which stung them before, and unadvisedly put their foot into the snare out of which they had just escaped. The very beasts which have been once taken in a gin, if they have broken it and recovered their liberty, by bare instinct never venture themselves again in that place. Infinitely more will every man who governs himself by reason or religion, or who sincerely abhors sin above all evils, fly all the approaches of his mortal enemy. This was the disposition of our true penitent; nor did he stick, in the bitterness of his grief for his crime, openly to condemn himself. His words were soon carried to the new king, who immediately sent for him. The saint boldly confessed himself a Christian. Vararanes, with indignation and fury, reproached him with ingratitude, enumerating the many high favors and honors he had received from his royal father. St. James calmly said, “Where is he at present? What is now become of him?” These words exceedingly exasperated the tyrant, who threatened that his punishment should not be a speedy death, but lingering torments. St. James said, “Any kind of death is no more than a sleep. May my soul die the death of the just.”¹ “Death,” said the tyrant, “is not a sleep; it is a terror to lords and kings.” The martyr answered, “It indeed terrifies kings, and all others who contemn God; because the hope of the wicked shall perish.”² The king took him up at these words, and sharply said, “Do you then call us wicked men, O idle race, who neither worship God, nor the sun, moon, fire, or water, the illustrious offspring of the gods?” “I accuse you not,” replied St. James, “but I say that you give the incommunicable name of God to creatures.”

The king, whose wrath was more and more kindled, called together his ministers and the judges of his empire, in order to deliberate what new cruel death could be invented for the chastisement of so notorious an offender. After a long consultation the council came to a resolution, that, unless the pretended criminal renounced Christ he should be hung on the rack, and his limbs cut off one after another, joint by joint. The sentence was no sooner made public but the whole city flocked to see his uncommon execution, and the Christians, falling prostrate on the ground, poured forth their prayers to God for the martyr’s perseverance, who had been carried out from the court without delay to the place of execution. When he was arrived there he begged a moment’s respite, and, turning his face towards the east, fell on his knees, and, lifting up his eyes to heaven, prayed with great fervor. After waiting some time the executioners approached the intrepid servant of Christ, and displayed their naked cimeters and other frightful weapons and instruments before his eyes; then they took hold of his hand, and violently stretched out his arm; and in that posture explained to him the cruel death he was just going to suffer, and pressed him to avert so terrible a punishment by obeying the king. His birth, and the high rank which he had held in the empire, the flower of his age, and the comeliness and majesty of his person, moved the whole multitude of spectators to tears at the sight. The heathens conjured him with the most passionate and moving __EXPRESSION__s and gestures to dissemble his religion only for the present time, saying he might immediately return to it again. The martyr answered them, “This death, which appeared to them to wear so dreadful a face, was very little for the purchase of eternal life.” Then, turning to the executioners, he said, “Why stand ye idle looking on? Why begin ye not your work?” They therefore cut off his right thumb. Upon which he prayed thus aloud: “O Saviour of Christians, receive a branch of the tree. It will putrefy, but will bud again, and, as I am assured, will be clothed with glory.” The judge, who had been appointed by the king to oversee the execution, burst into tears at this spectacle, and all the people that were present did the same, and many cried out to the martyr, “It is enough that you have lost thus much for the sake of religion. Suffer not your most tender body thus to be cut piecemeal, and destroyed. You have riches: bestow part of them on the poor for the good of your soul; but die not in this manner.” St. James answered, “The vine dies in winter, yet revives in spring; and shall not the body when cut down sprout up again?” When his first finger was cut off, he cried out, “My heart hath rejoiced in the Lord; and my soul hath exulted in his salvation.³ Receive, O Lord, another branch.” Here the joy of his heart seemed sensibly to overcome the pain he suffered, and appeared visibly in his countenance. At the lopping off every finger he exulted and thanked God afresh. After the loss of the fingers of his right hand, and again after those of his left, he was conjured by the judges to conform, and save himself. To whom he meekly answered, “He is not worthy of God, who, after putting his hand to the plough, shall look back.” The great toe of his right foot was next cut off, and followed by the rest; then the little toe of the left foot, and all the others after it. At the loss of each part the martyr repeated the praises of God, exulting as at a subject of fresh joy. When his fingers and toes were lopped off, he cheerfully said to the executioners, “Now the boughs are gone, cut down the trunk. Do not pity me; for my heart hath rejoiced in the Lord, and my soul is lifted up to him who loveth the humble and the little ones.” Then his right foot, after that his left foot: next the right, then he left hand were cut off. The right arm and the left: then the right, and after that the left leg felt the knife. While he lay weltering in his own blood, his thighs were torn from the hips. Lying a naked trunk, and having already lost half his body, he still continued to pray and praise God with cheerfulness, till a guard, by severing his head from his body, completed his martyrdom. This was executed on the 27th of November, in the year of our Lord 421, the second of king Vararanes. The Christians offered a considerable sum of money for the martyr’s relics, but were not allowed to redeem them. However, they afterwards watched an opportunity, and carried them off by stealth. They found them in twenty-eight different pieces, and put them with the trunk into a chest or urn, together with the congealed blood, and that which had been received in linen cloths. But part of the blood had been sucked up by the sun, and its rays were so strongly dyed therewith as to unge the sacred limbs of the martyr, upon which they darted, with a red color. The author of these acts, who was an eye-witness, adds, “We all, supplaint implored the aid of the blessed James.” The faithful buried his remains in a place unknown to the heathens. The triumph of this illustrious penitent and martyr has, in all succeeding ages, been most renowned in the churches of the Persians, Syrians, Coptes, Greeks, and Latins. See his genuine Chaldaic Acts in Steph. Assemani, Acta Mart. Orient, t. 1, p. 237. The Greek translation, copied by Metaphrastes, &c., has been interpolated See likewise the learned Jos. Assemani, Bibl. Orient, pp. 181 and 402 Also in Calendaria Univ. t. 5, p. 387, and Orsi, l. 27, n. 6, t. 12, p. 9.

St. Maharsapor, M.

This glorious martyr was a Persian prince of noble extraction, but far more distinguished by his virtue, and by his zeal for the Christian faith. On this account the persecution was no sooner raised by Isdegerdes, but Maharsapor was seized the first of all others, together with Parses and Sabutaca. The two latter, after divers tortures, finished their martyrdom by the order and sentence of a judge named Hormisdavarus, a man raised to that dignity from a slave, but still baser by his manners than by his birth. By this inhuman and vile magistrate Maharsapor was often examined, and put to the torture; after which he was left to languish three years in prison, in stench and hunger. This term being elapsed, the same judge again examined the champion of Christ, and, finding him steadfast and invincible in confessing Christ, he condemned him to be thrown into a dark pit, there to perish with hunger. Several days after this sentence had been executed, certain officers and soldiers opened the pit, and found the martyr’s body without life indeed, but in light, and on his knees, as if he had been at prayer, in which posture the saint, triumphing by such a death over his enemies, had breathed out his pure soul. St. Maharsapor suffered in October, in the year of our Lord 421, the second of Vararanes V. See Stephen Evodius Assemani, Act. Mart. Orient, t. 1, p. 234.

Saint Virgil, Bishop of Saltzburg, C.

St. Virgil was born in Ireland, and distinguished at home for his learning and virtue. Travelling into France in the reign of king Pepin, he was courteously received by that prince, who kept him two years near his person, till the see of uvave, since called Saltzburg, falling vacant, he recommended him to that bishopric, and wrote in his favor to Odilo, duke of Bavaria, his friend and brother-in-law. Virgil trembled at the prospect, and, for two years, commissioned Dobda, a bishop whom he had brought with him from Ireland, to perform the episcopal functions, reserving to himself only the office of preaching and instructing, till he was compelled by his colleagues to receive the episcopal consecration in 766. He rebuilt, magnificently, the abbey of St. Peter, at Saltzburg, of which he had been himself for some time abbot, and he translated thither the body of St. Ruper founder of that see. This church became afterwards the cathedral. St. Virgil baptized at Saltzburg two successive dukes of Carinthia, Chetimar and Vetune, and sent thither fourteen preachers under the conduct of Modestus, a bishop, who planted the faith in that country. Having settled the affairs of his own church, he made a visitation of that of Carinthia, as far as the borders of the Huns, where the Drave falls into the Danube. Soon after his return home he was taken il! of a slow fever, and, after a fervent preparation, cheerfully departed to our Lord on the 27th of November, 784. Among the many saints who governed the see of Saltzburg, whose lives Canisius has collected, there is none to whom that church and its temporal principality are more indebted than to St. Virgil. See his life in Canisius, Lect. Ant., and in Mabillon, Act. Ben. t. 4, p. 310. Also Ware’s Writers of Ireland; Colgan, &c.

St. Secundin

bishop of dunseachlin, or dunsaghlin, in meath, called by the irish seachnal

He was nephew and disciple to St. Patrick, and died, 447. See Colgan, Ware, and the note on St. Ultan, 4th of Sept., p. 599.

¹ Carm. 16, v. 113.

* Faustus of Riez succeeded St. Maximus first in the abbacy of Lerins, afterwards in the episcopacy of Riez, and died about the year 493. His name and works are well known for his vigorous defence of Semipelagianism, which was not condemned by any definition of the church before the second council of Orleans, in 529. See his life in Ceillier, t. 14. p. 157 to 189; and principally in Rivet, Hist. Lit. t. 2. p. 585 to 619.

² Cave, Hist Littér. t. 1, p. 422.

³ Rivet, Hist. Litter. t. 2, p. 360.

* St. Maximus, patron of the diocese of Boulogne in Picardy, is called Masse by the common people at Boulogne, and Mans at Abbeville in Picardy. In the dioceses of Boulogne, St. Omer, and Ypres, he is singularly honored, but confounded by mistake with St. Maximus of Riez.

^† The death of Sapor II. in 380, put an end to the great persecution in Persia, which had raged forty years; and the church there enjoyed a kind of peace under the following reigns of Artaxerxes II. for four years, Sapor III. five years, Varanes, or Vararanes IV. eleven years, and Isdegerdes I. twenty-one years. This last prince was particularly favorable to the Christians, and in the government of his empire often paid great deference to the councils of St. Maruthas of Mesoportamia, and Abdas the bishop of the royal city, (as Theodoret and Theophanes mention,) till, towards the close of his reign, Abdas the bishop, by an indiscreet and unjustifiable zeal, set fire to a pagan temple; and, because he refused to rebuild it at the expense of the Christians, (which would have been positively to concur to idolatry and superstition,) he gave occasion not only to his own death, but also to a crnel persecution begun by Isdegerdes, and carried on by his son and successor Vararanes V. from the first year of his reign, in 421 to 427, when, being defeated by the troops of Theodosius the Younger, he was completed to restore peace to the church of Persia, as Barebræus, commonly called Albupharagius, and other Syrian writers relate: which account agrees with Theodoert and Cyril, the author of the life of St. Euthymius, cotemporary and neighboring Greek historians. Stephen Assemani assures us, that he saw in the East several valuable acts of martyrs who suffered in the persecution of Vararanes V. but could only procure those of St. Mahorsapor, and of St. James Intercisus.

¹ Num. 23:10.

² Prov. 10:28.

³ Ps. 15:9.

 Butler, A., The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (New York 1903) IV, 569-574.