ON ST. MAGINUS OR MAXIMUS, MARTYR AMONG THE TARRACONESE IN CATALONIA,
Under Maximinus, as is reported.
A collection concerning his worship, miracles, and Acts.
Maginus or Maximus, M. among the Tarraconese in Catalonia (St.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. P.
Tarragona is a city of Spain in
Catalonia, in whose territory
St. Maginus fought and conquered,
or, as others name him,
Maximus, His memory in the Roman Martyrology, adorned with the laurel of martyrdom
and with public worship. He is recorded
in the Roman Martyrology on this day: At Tarragona,
of holy Maginus the martyr. Juan Mariana, On
the Affairs of Spain, book 4, chapter 9, at the year 236:
Maximus, he says, and his companions are recorded to have poured out their blood
for religion at this time, at the cave
of the Brufaganya mountain, twenty-four thousand paces
from Tarragona. Whence he was dragged out to death,
he is honored in that place, a temple being dedicated there; and
perhaps this is that Maximus whom the citizens of Tarragona
have been wont commonly to call Saint Magi.
Ambrosio de Morales in the Chronicle of Spain, book
9, chapter 43, writes that no mention of St. Maximus
is had in the Martyrologies, nor in the bishop of Equilio,
nor in the breviaries, of which
he affirms that he saw many in Spain. But he judges
that that Saint is the same whom at Tarragona
they commonly call St. Magi, the same name having also been transferred
to many men from the pious affection of their fathers.
[2] Domenech in the History of the Saints of Catalonia
gathered various things about St. Maginus from folio 78 verso, a sacred house:
and among other things will have it
that he was canonized, and that Sagarra,
who was secretary to Alexander VI, found this testification about the matter — Of Maginus
the martyr, who suffered for Christ in the mountains of Brufaganya —
written in the Catalogue of the Saints,
and sent the same to the place of St. Coloma, his own
native place. The said testification or writing in Padilla,
part 1 of the Ecclesiastical History of Spain,
century 3, chapter 4, fol. 103, thus begins: The canonization
of Maginus the martyr; which has no
show of truth. Domenech records that his body
was buried in the same place in which he was beheaded,
namely in a chapel of the church beneath the altar:
likewise that it does not please God that that body
should be beheld and exposed to public veneration,
the hands of those to whom the care of digging it up had been committed
being seized with paralysis when the earth had been dug out
down to the sepulchral stone, and afterwards
restored to their former state by the prayers of the bystanders,
as the same Domenech relates. It remains
that we narrate what is reported about the Saint's other prodigies.
[3] certain miracles Morales, from Lluís Icart's book On the Greatness
and memorable Affairs of the city of Tarragona, affirms
that in the Saint's cave (for he is said to have led
a solitary life in it, as will afterwards
be seen) and in his church many miracles
happened, sufficiently approved. But since that author
is not at hand for us, we shall gather from elsewhere
certain miracles, whether they be the same or
different. Domenech, after he had said in general
that the blind, the deaf, the fevered, those laboring under a contagious disease
and other infirmities, are healed in his chapel,
and that God had put into his fountain a power
of curing various infirmities, subjoins these things
one by one.
[4] are related. Pau Ferrer, from the place of St. Coloma de Queralt,
as Domenech calls it, being utterly deprived of sight by a great
infirmity, and blind for two months,
seeks a remedy at the cave and burial-place of the holy Martyr,
and obtained the perfect use of his eyes.
Miquel Mercer, from the place Benicarló, had been taken
by the Moors, and, because he was ill treated by them,
fell sick and was deprived of hearing. But,
returning from captivity, St. Maginus being invoked, he recovered
the use of that sense.
Bernat Folgar, born at St. Clair in
the kingdom of France, was most miserably afflicted with the French disease.
He appointed a novena in the Martyr's chapel,
washed himself with the water of his fountain, and obtained perfect
health.
The wife of the lord Lord, from the place which is called Burriana,
in the kingdom of Valencia, had contracted a pestilent plague
and a very grievous fever: and while
she was already struggling with death, her husband
offered her water from the Martyr's fountain to drink,
and bound himself by a certain vow: and at the same hour in which
she had drunk the said water the fever left her, and
within four days she recovered.
A certain woman, contracted and paralytic, a vow being made
both by herself and by her husband, was made whole
on the fifth day.
The wife of Joan Morat, from the place Olot in the bishopric
of Girona, was barren for seventeen years:
she applies to herself the Saint's measure (perhaps a girdle
is here indicated) with great devotion,
and at the end of nine months bears a son. In fine,
this Saint works so many miracles, as Domenech
adds, that they are as it were infinite. These things we give upon
the credit of Domenech, who relates the foregoing about him.
[5] What Marieta, Domenech,
and Morales record about the Martyr's Acts The Acts, is of no authority
for us, or of very little, because no ancient monument is shown
from which they were transmitted to posterity from the third century
of Christ, in which Maximinus lived, and in whose reign
this holy Champion is reported to have obtained the crown
of martyrdom. Yet we render into Latin
what is had in Morales in Spanish from Icart to this
effect: The Saint, he says, dwelling in the mountains
which have the name of Brufaganya, six leagues distant
from the city (the discourse is about Tarragona),
and hidden in a cave, that he might serve God,
because he was a Christian, a certain governor of the emperors ordered
to be brought to the city; and when he could not remove him
from the Christian faith, he consigned him
to harsh custody. Where he healed the governor's daughter, possessed
by a demon: and afterwards, being loosed from prison by a miracle,
he returned to his cave in the mountain:
whom the governor ordered to be sought there; and after
torments at length his head was cut off, many
miracles having been wrought in that cave and in the Saint's church
which is there, as he will find, he says, with sufficient
approbation, who shall be willing to see it in the said
author.
[6] and certain apocryphal things stitched on to them. Domenech narrates from popular report
that in the places where drops of the blood fell
there spring up roses having one or another spot of a blood-red
color on their leaves, in testimony
of that blood which the Martyr there
shed; but that today, as he adds, few of these
roses are found, for reasons which he subjoins.
But that report displeases us, both because it is popular
and because it seems to have much
of fancy. Tamayo, treating on this day of our holy
Martyr, opens after his accustomed manner his workshop
of falsehoods, infamous for the wagon-loads which have come forth
from it. For besides the counterfeit
Flavius Dexter and Luitprand, whom he alleges,
he brings forward metrical Acts which he affirms were written by St. Orentius,
bishop of Elvira. In Hardouin indeed, tom. 2 of the Councils, column
1044, Orontius, bishop of the city of Elvira,
subscribes the council of Tarragona held in the year of Christ
516; but there is added in the margin
perhaps of Lérida, of the province of Tarragona;
but another prelate of either see we do not
know; much less a saint and biographer such as
is obtruded by Tamayo, accustomed as he is to masked authors,
and about whom he treats at greater length at the day VII of July:
where the fictitious Maximus with his commentators
comes forth upon the stage. What is had at
that day among our Passed-over may be consulted.