ON ST. MAXIMUS OR MAXIMINUS, BISHOP OF AIX-EN-PROVENCE IN GAUL.
CENTURY I, IV OR VI.
PROBLEMATIC COMMENTARY.
On the uncertainty as much of the cult, as of the age and the name.
Maximus or Maximinus, Bishop of Aix-en-Provence in Gaul (S.)
G. H.
[1] Aix-en-Provence, a city of Provence on the river Arc, is situated between Marseille and the Rhone, illustrious for its Archbishopric, University, and Parliament. Its first Bishops, according to Antoine Demochares de Mouchy, in his treatise De Divino Missae sacrificio printed at Paris in the year 1562, The time of the See of the first six Bishops is uncertain: in chapter 32, are reckoned to be these three: St. Maximus, St. Cedonius, Maximus at the fourth Council of Orleans. Jean Chenu, in his Chronological History of the Bishops of Gaul, published in the year 1622, sets forth the same three: but the first he calls Maximus or Maximinus. With Claude Robert in his Gallia Christiana, published in the year 1631, these are enumerated: St. Maximinus, St. Cedonius or Chelidonius, Lazarus, Basil, Maximus: to whom by the Sammarthani is added before Maximus, Macarius. Ferrari and Saussay, on May 30, refer to the Ordination of St. Maximus, the first Bishop of Aix, as was said there among the Passed-over. But that the reckoning of time may be observed, we shall proceed from the more certain to the less certain: and so Maximus, mentioned in the last place, subscribed the Council of Orleans, held around the year 541. But the one whom the Sammarthani place in the fifth position is Macarius, who, from a tract of the Vindiciae Provinciae, is referred by them to the year 506. The fourth, inserted by Claude Robert, is Basil, who, he says, was present at the obsequies of St. Honoratus, Bishop of Arles, indeed of St. Hilary, Bishop of Arles. Which error, however, the Sammarthani copied from Claude Robert. We gave on May 5 the Life of St. Hilary, composed and recited in some Synod of Arles, by one of the younger Bishops, who as a young man had been present at the Saint's obsequies. In this, at number 31, the following is read: While individuals desire to pluck off a fringe and to touch the body: the industry of St. Basil, then Presbyter, now Supreme Pontiff, found, that he should snatch up the greatest part of the covering, torn with both hands, with which his body was covered; and withdrawing further off, by dividing should distribute to the peoples. Jacques Sirmond, on the sixth epistle of book 7, inscribed by Sidonius Apollinaris to Basil the Pope, conjectures that this Basil was Bishop of Aix, and thus promoted to that See, after the year 449, in which St. Hilary migrated to Christ. But the third, called Lazarus, is brought forth by Claude Robert and the Sammarthani, without any proof, to the year 420.
[2] Why not consequently should St. Maximinus or Maximus the first, and St. Sedonius or Cedonius or Chelidonius, have lived in the fourth century of Christ, when there was peace for the Churches, whether St. Maximinus could be ascribed to the 4th century: and have migrated to Christ, and therefore be venerated among the Confessors, St. Maximinus on June 8, but St. Sedonius on August 23? Anxious to establish the veneration of this St. Maximinus, on such or any other day whatsoever, we have surveyed whatever we have in the ancient Martyrologies, both as many manuscripts as possible, and printed ones; and we were greatly astonished that nothing about him is found, at least added, in the four copies of the Hieronymian Martyrology; that nothing is had in Bede, both genuine and supposititious; that nothing is read in Florus, Rabanus, Usuard, Ado, Wandelbert, Notker, or Bellinus and others like them. rather than in the silence of the ancients. Nay rather in the ancient Litanies of Aix no St. Maximinus is found, as Claude Castellanus, a Parisian Canon, who said he had seen them himself, asserted to us. There is nevertheless referred, but on the preceding day, St. Maximinus Bishop of Aix, in some MSS. by no means ancient; such as those of the Carmelites of Cologne, of the Carthusians of Utrecht, and a certain Parisian one.
[3] from later writers alone On this day, however, Molanus first occurs in his Additions to Usuard, edited by him in the year 1573, where in different lettering he has the following: In Gaul, in the city of Aix, the deposition of B. Maximinus, first Bishop and Confessor of the city: to which Baronius in the Roman Martyrology added the following: Whom they hand down to have been a disciple of the Lord: and for this tradition he alleges Peter in his Catalogue book 5 chapter 101, and Demochares in the Tables of the Bishops of the Church of Aix. But this man has his material from Peter de Natalibus; held to be a disciple of Christ, but that one, Plebanus of the holy Apostles at Venice, began this Catalogue on the day of St. Barnabas in the year 1369, and finished it on May 16 in the year 1371, more anxious to heap up many things within few times, than to give solid, genuine, and select things; and what he sets forth about St. Maximinus, he asserts he extracted from the Legend of Magdalene, which Baronius following adds in his Notes, that the deeds are interwoven with the Acts of SS. Martha and Mary Magdalene. & companion of St. Mary Magdalene. The controversies about the coming of St. Mary Magdalene and her companions into Provence, hitherto sufficiently stirred up, it does not yet please us to enter upon; it will be done in the month of July, when both are venerated. Meanwhile we refer the curious reader to François Bosquet, who in book 1 of his Ecclesiastical History of the Gallican Church chapter 3 treats of this controversy. The Sammarthani heap together various things on both sides in the eulogy of St. Maximinus, and conclude, as we also do, with this opinion of Bosquet. That tradition is supported by some authority too, against which let it be far from us
[4] Thus far Henschen: after whose death I received the Offices proper to the Church of Aix, printed in the year 1668, where on the 8th of April, Discovery 8 April, but is it of this one? the feast of the Translation of St. Maximinus is prescribed; and all things are ordered to be done, as on the principal Feast, except the Antiphons, at Magnificat and Benedictus, and this Collect: Grant us, we beseech, almighty God, to glory in the translation of thy blessed Apostle Maximinus; that as by his merits thou hast deigned to lead back thy flock to the way of truth, so we may always be raised up by his patronage, and obtain the glory of eternal beatitude. The body must have been found and translated quite recently: for in the Collection of Holy Bodies and other Relics, which are in Provence, printed in French at Grenoble in the year 1636, the Head is indeed said to be in the Cathedral of Aix, Church of St. Maximinus, known to Paschal II in the year 1104, but concerning the body there is deep silence, even where the Relics preserved in the Royal and Parochial church of St. Maximinus are named, attributed to the Father Preachers in the town of the same name, six leagues distant from the Metropolis of Aix; which Parish, although now it is believed to be of Aix-Maximinus, had nevertheless that name much earlier than this one, unknown to the ancients as has been shown, was named among the Provincial Saints.
[5] it seems to be of the Trier Bishop Now Gaul knew two Saints Maximinus, one Bishop of Trier, born and dead in Aquitaine, brother of St. Maxentius Bishop of Poitiers, perhaps also of St. Maxima Virgin venerated at Fréjus; whose Acts as Bishop we illustrated on May 29; the other, Abbot of Micy near Orleans, who is venerated on December 15, commonly St. Memin, while the other is called St. Maximin. Each is Patron of various churches throughout Gaul. I would rather say therefore that one of these is Patron also of this one, than him whose cult was unknown before the Preachers around the year 1280, by the doing of Charles of Anjou King of Sicily, obtained that church and monastery. Pope Paschal II mentions it in the year 1104, in the enumeration of the Cells pertaining to the monastery of St. Victor of Marseille in the Bishopric of Aix. Since however that church acknowledges as patron St. Maximinus the Bishop, I would believe it always to have been so, and from this perhaps was born Maximinus of Aix, and therefore that it is the church of the Bishop rather than the Abbot. As however on the occasion of the church of St. Maximinus of Trier dedicated among the Burgundians, the opportunity was given to the Chiffletii of inventing a Bishop of Besançon of this name; so the opportunity also could be given to the people of Aix; among whom perhaps there was no other Bishop, either Maximus or Maximinus, than the one subscribed to the Council of Orleans in the year 541; whose body, found and elevated at some time, was believed to be that of the Elder, commonly already supposed to have come with the Magdalene; for Maximus, of the century & Bishop. and therefore the Head separately preserved, the rest of the bones laid in that place, where they were lately again found on the 8th day of April. But of none of these things will I affirm anything; and therefore I wish nothing to be detracted from the esteemed holiness of these Relics, nor the first place in the Martyrology, which Baronius already ascribed to the Aquensian Maximinus, to be denied to him, until the Church shall have decided otherwise. Meanwhile I prefer to confess that the first Bishops of the Church of Aix are unknown to me, up to the 6th century and the Council of Orleans; rather than to assume the so uncertain for certain.