Aurelian

ON SAINT AURELIAN,

BISHOP OF ARLES IN GAUL,

IN THE YEAR 551.

HISTORICAL COLLECTION.

Concerning his beginning and end from the letters of Pope Vigilius, and concerning his cult.

Aurelian, Bishop of Arles, in Gaul (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR G. H.

Illustrious Prelates governed the Church of Arles in the sixth century of Christ. After Saint Caesarius and Auxanius One of these, Saint Caesarius, from Monk and Abbot of Lérins, on account of the exceptional fame of his doctrine and sanctity, was created Bishop in the year 502; and after a life excellently performed migrated to the Lord in the year 543 on the 27th day of August, on which his Acts will be elucidated. Saint Aurelian was created Bishop of Arles To this one was then substituted Auxanius, born of a father who was Prefect of the Praetorium, to whom Pope Vigilius delegated his vicariate in Gaul in the year 545. But he, the following year 546 being taken away by death, was succeeded by Saint Aurelian, of whom here we treat, whom the same Pope Vigilius constituted his Vicar in Gaul by sending this letter.

[2] To his most beloved Brother Aurelian, Vigilius. We commit the administration of our vicariate to your fraternity with willing mind, and we believe that, by the office of your Charity, all things are diligently completed in acts pleasing to God; Designated Vicar by Pope Vigilius, since the divine grace judged you worthy of the fellowship of the highest Priesthood; and the Christian and God-pleasing will of the most glorious Childebert King of the Franks, in bearing testimony to you, has acceded. Wherefore we commit our vicariate to your Charity by this authority, that all things which the statutes of our predecessors or of the Canons have sanctioned, you doing and observing with works fitting to God, you may be able to show that both our judgment and that of the aforesaid King concerning your Charity was right. For the authority of the holy Scriptures teaches us, that Christ God, our Lord and Savior, first willed to do all things which are good and to teach them. Acts 1. For it is written: I made indeed the former discourse, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began to do and to teach, until the day on which, giving commands to the Apostles through the holy Spirit, whom he chose, he was taken up. Likewise, that in admonishing Timothy the doctor of the gentiles, the Apostle says, We trust that you always have your Fraternity before your eyes. 2 Tim. 2 For he says: Be strengthened in the grace which is in Christ Jesus: and the things which you have heard from me through many witnesses, these commend to faithful men, who shall be fit to teach others also. And again the same: Carefully take care to exhibit yourself approved to God, a workman unashamed rightly handling the word of truth. And again: Labor as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Understand what I say: for the Lord will give you understanding in all things.

[3] If therefore the devil, the ancient enemy of the human race, shall have sown any tares among the Brothers, for discussing complaints, by his accustomed craftiness of wickedness; or if concerning any of the Priests, the rules of the elders being observed in all things, a complaint shall have been laid before your Fraternity; with Brothers and Coepiscopi taken to yourself, according to the quality of the matter in a competent number; discussing the cause by Canonical and Apostolic order, you shall define by that sentence which both accords with the statutes of our predecessors, and is pleasing to God who loves equity in all things. But if any contest of religion of the faith, which God avert, shall have arisen, or some such matter shall perhaps have emerged, which for its magnitude cannot there be defined; the truth being discussed, the series of the relation distinguished, he is admonished to refer graver causes and those of faith to the holy See, we exhort that you refer it rather to the consultation of our See. Because the testimony of our archive declares that your Predecessors, who are shown to have acted in the place of our predecessors, did so: so that, that disposition being observed, the unity of the Church persisting with stable firmness, may in all things enjoy the good of peace. Which, as it were a hereditary gift, Christ God, and our Lord and Savior, about to return to heaven, whence he was never absent, is read to have left to his disciples, saying: My peace I give to you, my peace I leave to you. John 14 And that your whole fraternity may be able to complete all things by diligent reason, to the Bishops, over whom for our vicariate we willed you to preside, we signify that we have destined precepts; to love the Bishops that both they ought to exhibit competent obedience to you, and your Fraternity, embracing them in the charity of Christ, by the examples rather of good works, to those things which are to be done pleasing to God, may always invite. That same we signaled to them with equal authority, that none without a Formata (letter of commendation) of your Fraternity dare to set out to more distant places, but that they ought to keep that custom, which it is established that the Vicar of our See has always had, and let them request a Formata from you, if, compelled by the necessity of their causes, they dispose to set out on longer journeys.

[4] But lest the Vicar of our See seem in anything less than his Predecessors, we believed it would be necessary to concede to you by the present authority the use of the Pallium, just as we had hitherto given to your predecessor, to foster peace between the Emperors and the King of the Franks, that the ornament of morals and of all good things may not be lacking to you, the blessed Apostle Peter favoring. It behooves therefore your Charity always with sacerdotal zeal to keep the treaties of inviolate grace between the Lords our most clement Princes, sons, and the most glorious man our son King Childebert. For it neither befits you to know, nor to be ignorant, what you necessarily preach, that the Scripture pronounces, saying: Blessed are the feet of those evangelizing peace, of those evangelizing good things. Rom. 10 And this too we desire your affection to do, that you return thanks by letters destined to the glorious man our son the Patrician Belisarius, who took from your man the labor of crossing to the most clement Prince; and to give thanks to Belisarius, but as soon as he received the answer, indicated it to us by his letters. May God keep you safe, dearest Brother. Given on the 10th Kalends of September, in the fifth year after the Consulate of Basil the most renowned man. Therefore in the Year of Christ 546.

[5] and to pray for the Emperors, Belisarius was then at Rome and was restoring its walls, Justinian and Theodora Augusti holding the Roman empire; between whom and Childebert King of the Franks, to whom the Province snatched from the Ostrogoths had fallen, the Pontiff commends peace to be fostered; sufficiently indicating also that under these beginnings not so wholly extinguished was every shadow of Imperial authority beyond the Alps, that the Bishops nearer to the Roman dominions did not still look back to it. This too is understood from a similar letter of the same Pontiff to Auxanius the Predecessor, where he thus admonishes him. It behooves therefore your Fraternity to pour forth prayers to our God with incessant supplications, that he may always keep with his protection the Lords our most clement Princes, sons, Justinian and Theodora, who for these things to be committed to your charity (namely with the Vicarial power and the Pallium), the most glorious and most excellent our son Belisarius suggesting, gave consent. We exhort also, that by sacerdotal labor between the most glorious man King Childebert, but also the aforesaid most Clement Prince, they preserve by paternal exhortation the documents of the grace conceived. Indeed the desire of expelling the Goths from Italy had made Justinian to think that the rising forces of the Franks were to be conciliated to himself, and therefore he wished a firm peace with them.

[6] Vigilius then also sent the above-cited Letter to all the Bishops established in the kingdom of Childebert, through which he thus commands them: Because long ago we had given to Auxanius, formerly Prelate of the city of Arles, the solicitude of our vicariate, but he, completing the course of the present life, who also commends to the Bishops, that they render obedience to Aurelian migrated from this light; in whose place our Brother Aurelian is known to have succeeded; we believed it very necessary, that this solicitude ought to be committed by us to the aforesaid, trusting; that he, both for the quality of his place, by good acts can complete all things that please God; and especially since our glorious son Childebert the King has borne testimony of a good conscience, for the devotion of his Christian will. It behooves therefore your Charity to render him competent obedience in all things, which, the Canons being observed throughout all, he shall have judged wholesomely according to the things defined by our Elders by our authority. And because it is altogether necessary, that for the various things to be performed with the Brothers, God helping, especially in coming to Councils. at fixed and fitting times

[7] But when the same Pope Vigilius, in the year 544, on the 11th of April the day before Easter, On account of the three Chapters condemned, he writes to the solicitous Aurelian had condemned the three Chapters and the heretics by written letters spread abroad that he himself, by condemning the three Chapters, was impugning the Council of Chalcedon, and therefore various ones withdrew from his communion; Saint Aurelian Bishop of Arles wrote to him, whether the things that were being spread were true. To whom the Pope replied by a letter, inserted in Collation VII, which thus begins: We received the letters of your Fraternity, on the day before the Ides of July, Anastasius delivering them: and we return thanks to the Divine clemency, that we have re-read your solicitude in the cause of faith, or in the opinion of our person, to agree with the sacred mandates, so that worthily and fittingly the words of God are applied to your Charity: in which he says, I chose you a Priest out of all, that you might ascend to my altar, and bear before me a great name all the days of your life. 1 Sam. 2 It is necessary therefore for us, to relieve the solicitude of your Charity briefly in the meantime, as much as for the quality of the time we could, by a colloquy: so that in all ways you may be confident that we have absolutely admitted nothing, which is found (which be far) contrary to the constitutions of our Predecessors, or to the holy faith of the four Synods, which is one and the same, that is, Nicaea, Constantinople, the first of Ephesus and Chalcedon; or which pertains to the injury of the persons, who subscribed to the definition of the same holy faith, all things established in the 4 Councils remain inviolate. or is found adverse to the things defined by our Holy Predecessors Celestine, Sixtus, Leo, and others preceding and following: but that by us to all the aforesaid Synods one veneration, and one credence of faith is exhibited indubitably: and those, who do not follow all the abovewritten four Synods in the rectitude of faith, or one of them or all in faith depraves, or attempts to deprave or injure or repudiate, we cast off…Your Fraternity therefore, whom it is established to be through us the Vicar of the Apostolic See, let it make known to all Bishops, that they be not disturbed by any false writings or lying words or messengers by whatever reason … This also we believe is to be hoped … that your Fraternity be in this part too solicitous, and to our glorious son King Childebert (whom we have known to exhibit with the zeal of Christianity entire veneration to the Apostolic See, and he desires that through him King Childebert be asked, over which God willed us to preside) you cease not to supplicate, that in so great a necessity of things, he may pay solicitude concerning the Church of God, as we trust, with Christian devotion: so that, because the Goths with their King are reported to have entered the Roman city, he may deign to write to them, that they intermeddle not in prejudice of our Church, as it were of an alien law, and do nothing, or permit anything to be done by whatever reason, whence the Catholic Church may be disturbed… Hasten therefore, lest through the Goths the faith be disturbed. dearest Brother, that, persisting in the sincerity of the holy faith, you may guard with competent solicitude, God favoring, the peace of the Churches, which has either been committed to you by God through the merit of the Priesthood, or is mandated to you by Us through Apostolic authority by Vicarial power, and show yourself the Vicar of our See by works worthy of God. May God preserve you, dearest Brother. Given on the 3rd Kalends of May, in the 24th year of the Empire of our Lord Justinian perpetual Augustus, in the 9th year after the Consulate of Basil the most renowned man. This is the Year of Christ 550, since in the preceding year Totila had occupied Rome.

[7] He seems to have died in the year 553 at Lyons. How long after Saint Aurelian lived, is not altogether established, yet it seems to be gathered by the Sammarthani from a Letter directed by the Clergy of Italy to the Legates of the Franks, who were setting out to Constantinople, that he was still alive in the year 552, and perhaps in the year 553 migrated from this life to the Lord, on the 16th Kalends of July. For his successor Sapaudus presided at the 5th Council of Arles, or even sooner. in the 43rd year of King Childebert, on the 4th Kalends of July, that is in the Year of Christ 551. Now Saint Aurelian died at Lyons while he was passing through, whether setting out to the King or to some assembly, or thence desiring to return to his own See. But that reasoning of the Sammarthani is little certain: for the Letter, edited by Sirmond in volume I of the Councils of Gaul, only indicates, that there was then still living a certain Anastasius, whom (as we also saw above) the holy Bishop Aurelian of the city of Arles had directed to the blessed Pope two years before; and so nothing prevents that Aurelian had then already been claimed by fate, inscribed in the Sacred Fasti on 16 June. if indeed this could be confirmed from elsewhere. His memory is inscribed in the Martyrologies of Usuard, Ado, Bellinus and others with the Roman Martyrology, on this 16th of June, with the same words everywhere: At Lyons the deposition of blessed Aurelian Bishop of Arles. And his feast is celebrated in the Church and Diocese of Arles under a double rite, the argument of the Lessons of the second Nocturn being taken chiefly from the letters already related: but it is transferred to the following day, on account of the solemnity of Saints Quiricus and Julitta, of whom we treated above.

[8] Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology, besides the elogium, which he has of him in its proper place; adds another in the supplement in these words: At Lyons Saint Aurelian the Bishop, who from Abbot of Allaix called to the helm of this See, preserved by pure conduct the footsteps of Saint Remigius, whose place he took, Another Aurelian, distinct from this one, Bishop of Lyons and noble for most pious morals and clear acts of religion, after he had often been present at the Sacred Assemblies, for the better constitution of the Ecclesiastical polity, consummated by a most Christian end, attained to the reward of his holy labors. So Saussay; but since these things are to be understood of some much younger Aurelian, in the ninth century Archbishop of Lyons, they seem to be referred here only on the occasion of Saint Aurelian Bishop of Arles, who died at Lyons. For Jacobus Senertius asserts in his Archbishops of Lyons, that this Aurelian is not noted in the edition of the Breviary of Lyons: but in some copies of the Church of Saint Nicetius is added by a manual pen to the month of June, and is celebrated in it; and the book of obituaries says in a simple word that he departed from the living on the 4th Nones of July without note of year. On which day however we do not find his name in any Fasti. If anyone shall suggest something else, whence it may be proved that ecclesiastical veneration is due to him, it can be treated of him on the 4th of July, or certainly on the 28th of October, on which Saint Remigius his Predecessor, related above, is referred by Saussay, on which also he is said by the Sammarthani to have been translated to a better life.

[9] Ferrarius in the Catalogue of Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology, The same Aurelius who is Saint Aurelian. on this 16th of June thus writes: At Arles in Gaul Saint Aurelius Bishop of Arles, and this he notes from the tables and offices of the Saints of the Church of Arles transmitted to him from there, where his life is contained, and is read in the Church. We have the proper Offices of the Saints of the Church of Arles, printed in the year 1612 and in the year 1656. In these moreover he is called not Aurelius but Aurelian, and is inserted in the Roman Martyrology on this 16th of June. It must however be confessed that in the Translation of Saint Honoratus Bishop of Arles, Aurelius too is written, when concerning the Basilica of Saint Honoratus it is said: There the body of blessed Honoratus was placed in its coffer. There the most blessed members of the blessed Pontiffs Aurelius, Concordius, Aeonius, Virgilius, Rothlandus sanctify the aforesaid places. Where the natal day of each is treated, and Saint Aurelius or Aurelian is said to be venerated on 16 June.

ACTS OF THE FINDING

common to Saint Aurelian and eight others, consigned in a Public instrument.

From the Collectanea of Petrus Franciscus Chiffletius

Aurelian, Bishop of Arles, in Gaul (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

[1] After that Collection, composed long ago by Henschen, there came to us by the benevolence of our Fathers of Paris, John Harduin acting, Prefect of the Library and famous for learned books published in the light, a great Treasure of sacred monuments, found in the coffers of Father Petrus Chiffletius who died there; from which we drew much on the 6th of June, treating of Saint Claudius: Recognizing in the year 1308 here indeed from the Acts of the Finding entitled above (to serve as a supplement of April, because on the 2nd day occurs the festivity of Saint Nicetius Bishop of Lyons, in whose church the monuments of himself and of eight others were recognized) here, I say, we shall give those things which concern Saint Aurelian; not the one of Lyons (concerning whom above Henschen, and who must have been buried elsewhere, or certainly was not at all held for a Saint, nor placed among the Saints) but the one of Arles, as the verses inscribed on the tomb prove. The instrument itself thus begins.

[2] In the name of the Lord. Amen. In the year of the same 1308, on the Friday before the feast of blessed Bartholomew the Apostle, in the 6th Indiction, in the third year of the Pontificate of the Lord Pope Clement the fifth, the tombs of the Saints in the church of Saint Nicetius, through the present and public instrument let it be evidently clear to all, that we Hugo by the grace of God Bishop of Tiberias,… by virtue of a commission made to us (on the part of the Canons of Saint Nicetius, supplicating attentively, that since several bodies of Saints rest in the church of Saint Nicetius, by whose merits, as the assertion of Apostolic letters holds, very many miracles shone forth, it might by our permission be lawful to have the said bodies of the Saints raised, the accustomed honor and solemnity being observed, by the commission of the Chapter, contemplating a translation, that, placed in fitting places near the same church, they might be exalted by the devout veneration of the faithful and by due praises) by virtue, I say, of such a commission; having called and being assisted by the religious men, Brother Jacobus the Sacristan, and Brother Guillermus de Lux, of the Order of Preachers of the Convent of Lyons, Brother Dionysius holding the place of the Guardian, and Brother Bernardus de Lugniaco of the Order of Minors of the Convent of Lyons, the Prior of the Carmelites, and Brother Joannes de Nauziaco of the same Order of the Convent of Lyons, and the Notaries undersigned; we came to the church of Saint Nicetius aforesaid, and in the presence of the aforesaid and of several other Clerics and Laymen witnesses worthy of faith, called and asked for this, we found behind the high altar of the said church certain small altars; beside which there were on marble stones, appearing above ground, certain letters or ancient writings: which writings we saw, and for the greater part caused to be transcribed by the Notaries undersigned, and exemplified diligently in the presence of the aforesaid.

[3] they transcribe the Epitaph of Saint Aurelian, And first, on the first southern altar, which is called the altar of blessed Nicetius… Subsequently near the altar of Saint Sacerdos, we found

the tomb of Saint Aurelian, as it appeared comprised in the writing on the superimposed marble stone; which, among other things, is such.

The lofty summits of the world are overturned by grievous fall, The bright peaks * of the City fall like lightning-bolts; And the losses of the sheep are laid bare by the death of the Shepherds, When they bear away their mystic sayings taken from them. And the native laments of a twofold people resound, When they were wont to give the holy doctrines of pasture. Whereby he proves, with lament, lost from the breast of the peoples, Alas! your glory, alas! your * divinity (numen), Aurelian. You shone for the renowned Pontiff in doctrine, in worship, With * whom Arles was glad in worthy gift. But the holy fellowships of heaven snatch away the souls, Which from here God releases to depart from their bodies. Therefore all rightly take consolations for him taken away, Whom * they know to have ascended to the stars of the pole by his merits. The world does not retain him * by the right of the confining sepulchre, Whom the ample right hand of the most high God receives. Nor shall * his name die in coming ages, Whom the renowned doctrines teach * ever to live. * He commands, alas! again, numbering five lustra (five-year periods), And with three years added, the limits being completed. The frail one * forsook the earthly use of the body, Here leaving to the elders, in his early time, his form, There receiving in eternal time the life, Weaving (winning) the promised * rewards of Christ for the redeemed. Whoever, anxious, surveys the monuments of sorrows, Here you yourself groan over your own equal lot.

[4] And there follow several verses, which on account of the fracture of the marble cannot be read: whence it is understood that the Saint died in Indiction 14. just as all those words could be read only imperfectly, which the margin exhibits marked with **, and which in the context we have corrected by conjecture, so as to consult the Reader's weariness; even without them, the poetry of that time, not very cultivated, offends not a little, as appears even from this: if however it is of the sixth century, and not of some later one, in which those verses were thus composed, or rather renewed. In the margin of the tomb is written: He died on the 16th of the Kalends of July, eleven (times) after Justinus, Indiction 14: with which Death agrees the book which is read at Prime, namely the Martyrology used for several centuries at Lyons. But what is that, in the year 551. eleven after Justinus? Pagi teaches, in his most accurate Hypatic dissertation page 324, that the year 540, which others noted V P C Paulini, that is, the fifth after the Consulate of Paulinus, was noted by others by Justin the Younger alone. Hence if some at Lyons began to number after the Consulate of that one, the eleventh after the first will be the year 551; which since it also numbered Indiction 14, nothing more fitting could be wished: and so the doubt about the year of death, proposed above by Henschen, will remain resolved, nor will Aurelian have lived to the year of the letter written to the Legates directed to Constantinople. For the Post-consulates of the same Justin cannot make for this, which he himself instituted to be numbered after the year 568, in which now as sole Emperor he again entered his second Consulate: for the time of the succeeding Bishops does not permit Aurelian beyond the year 53 of that century, much less beyond 75, and in the 53rd year of his age. to have lived: and the Indiction which ran after this, was numbered not 14, but 9. Besides, in such a calculation, the saint would not yet have attained the 24th year of his age, when in the year 546 he was endowed with the Pallium, if indeed when he died he had only completed the 53rd year of his age: for this is what is said, that he forsook the use of the body

— Again numbering five lustra of five years. And with three years added, the limits being completed.

In this calculation, moreover, which is shown to be wholly tenable, Aurelian will have been born in the penultimate year of the 5th century; and so made Bishop in the 47th year of his age; he will have held the Episcopate only six years, carried off by a funeral truly premature and worthy to be mourned. Let us return to the Instrument.

[5] We wishing, says Hugo, those aforesaid (things being done), which being collated with the old Martyrologies. concerning and over the premises, as the quality of the fact requires, to be more fully certified concerning the said writings, and their dates, caused an examination and collation to be made with the Legends of the said saints, and with the book of Bede or the book wont to be read at Prime, having on the other part also a probation of the Calendar. Moreover, because among other things, the aforesaid examinations all agreeing, one doubt seemed to us, over which in the aforesaid book of Bede or that which is read at Prime, we saw to be contained that the burials of the aforesaid Saints were at Lyons in the church of the Apostles, by the counsel of the aforesaid assisting us, we sent the very Notaries undersigned to the Cathedral church with the said writings, shown to us by the said Sacristan and Canons, to see whether the book which is read at Prime in the greater church was the same and similar to that which the Sacristan and Canons aforesaid showed to us, and to inquire whether the church of Saint Nicetius is held to be the church of the Apostles. the certainty of the Epitaph is proved, Which Notaries, being certified upon this, both by the inspection of the writings and books, and by the assertion and testimony of the Dean and certain elders worthy of faith of the said greater church, reported to us that it was so, as the said Sacristan and Canons had shown.

[6] but the tomb is not opened. Then indeed it pleased to open the tomb of Saint Annemundus, Bishop of Lyons, to explore, whether truly the body was present there, of which some doubted: and it being found, as will be related on the 28th of September, dedicated to his cult … concerning all and singular the aforesaid thus as has been said inquired into, done and seen, we ordered by the same undersigned Notaries called for this, a public instrument to be given and made. Why, however, were not similarly opened then the monuments of the others, equally recognized and found of the saints? I believe because there was no doubt concerning the presence of their bodies in them. This was perhaps done afterward, if they were ever (which seemed to be intended) placed in more fitting places. Concerning which, since nothing is found written, and namely concerning the body of Saint Aurelian; neither do we dare to assert anything even by divination: we fear moreover lest in that funereal slaughter of sacred things of the year 1561, made by the Huguenots, they were dissipated; and we shall be glad to learn, at the next occasion of supplementing April, what was done with the body of Saint Nicetius and of the others and of this one namely Saint Aurelian.

* (for "versantur") vexantur (are vexed) * (for "cacumina est") flumina (rivers) * (for "patescunt") positarum * (for "ferunt") tenunt * (for "geminæ") Gemina & jam * (for "soliti") Consulti * (for "numen") numina * (for "Cum") cumq; * (for "animas") anima * (for "morte") morum * (for "arctantis jure") certantis vita * (for "sua … morientur nomina") suo … morietur nomine * (for "inclita") dogmata * (for "Præcipit heu! rursum, numerans") Præcipit heu cursum numerū * (for "Et tribus") adjectis * (for "Deseruit fragilis") fragilē * (for "Pollicita plectens redemptis") Pollicitam pl. reddentis

ON THE SAINTS COME FROM SYRIA, MAURUS THE PRESBYTER, AND HIS SON FELIX AND THE LATTER'S NURSE,

IN THE SPOLETAN FIELD OF UMBRIA,

6th CENTURY.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Concerning the cult, age and life collected from rather ancient Manuscripts.

Maurus, Presbyter, Newcomers from Syria in Umbria (S.) Felix his son, Newcomers from Syria in Umbria (S.) His Nurse, Newcomers from Syria in Umbria (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR G. H.

That these two saints flourished near Spoleto Ferrarius asserts in the general Catalogue, from the Tables of the Church of Spoleto, Sacred Cult. which keeps their Birthday on this day. Celebrated, he says, is the memory of these in the valley of the Nar near Spoleto, in which they are said to have lived. Concerning them in the Manuscript monuments of the aforesaid Church, although in them certain less probable things are contained. The bodies are kept in the church of Saint Felix in the Castle of the same name on the river Nar, in that valley fifteen miles from Spoleto. Thus far there. The place is noted on the Geographical maps as S. Fele, on the said river Nar, which thence washing Interamna and Narni, afterward flows down into the Tiber. The said Manuscript monuments moreover seem to be the very ones which, after the Life of Saint Sensius, illustrated on the 25th of May, Ughelli received from the Manuscripts of the most Illustrious and most Reverend Lord Philippus Jacobus Leoncillus, Patrician of Spoleto and Prior of the Cathedral church; and Ughelli himself gave them to us with this tenor:

[2] Saint Maurus…before he departed from the city of Syria, named Caesarea, Saint Maurus terrified by his wife, Euphrosyna his wife with many tears detained him, lest he forsake the infant Felix and his only son: and easily led by these persuasions, he had already resolved to be unwilling to set out with the others. Then one of the Companions, named Christophorus, said to him: It is written in the Gospel: he who loves father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me. Matt. 10:37, 39. You seem now to lack understanding, Maurus, you who love a man formed from mud more than your creator, who makes men rise again. Do not, I beseech, forsake so many companions, but, roused by his companions, he departs and rather dispose to be with us: that, if it shall please God, to be crowned with martyrdom in Italy, together with us you may be able to attain the perennial and unfading life of the heavenly kingdom. And by these and other sayings of the Gospel, with his son Felix, his mother opposing, Maurus, very greatly incited, disposed to proceed to martyrdom with his son. But, his mother Euphrosyna still more loudly objecting, Felix the boy rising up against her, uttered such words: Do you, the devil persuading, wish to disturb my father's contest? Do you not know it is written, that a good woman is the crown of her husband, but a bad one his confusion? Prov. 12:4. By whose words Euphrosyna was so moved, and at last consenting. that easily giving her assent, she said to her husband: May God and our Lord Jesus Christ make your journey prosperous.

[3] Maurus moreover with the little leaf (i.e. the child) and his nurse, boarded the ship with the other companions. And when the ship too was being covered by the waves, the storm is calmed by prayer: the barbarian sailors of it, prostrate at the feet of these Saints, said: We beseech you, beloved of God, that you pour forth prayers for us to your Christ, that we may be delivered from these waves. And when the men of God prayed, at once the storm seemed to cease. By which miracle the sailors being led, the Roman temples are visited: embraced the faith of Christ. At last they came to Rome unharmed, and the thresholds of the holy Apostles, and the Churches and basilicas of other Saints, they frequented there for some days. And when through various places of Italy they had disposed to separate (that, after the persecutions and martyrdoms of the faithful of Christ had ceased, they might be able to take care that the peoples persevere in the faith of Christ, and do other pious works) Saint Joannes the Abbot, this Maurus, the place of habitation is chosen. Saint Laurentius, Saint Isaac Abbot of Saint Julian, came to Umbria and to its city of Spoleto. But Saint Maurus wished to live with his son Felix near the valley of Nariti by the bank of the river Nar: and there, a dwelling being constructed, assiduously intent on prayers, vigils, and other holy works, together with his son Felix, who had grown up with the years in wisdom and the grace of God, he led his life.

[4] This is the prior part of the Manuscript Life, with which agree well enough the Acts of the Saints just related, of whom the first is Saint Joannes Abbot of Parano near

Spoleto: whose Acts we gave from Manuscripts and from Mombritius on the 19th of March. the sanctity of the companions is explained, The other is Isaac Abbot of Spoleto, whose Acts we illustrated from the Dialogues of Saint Gregory and others on the 11th of April. The third and chief is Saint Laurentius the Illuminator, ordained Bishop of Spoleto around the year 541, whose Life written in Italian by Ludovico Jacobilli, rendered into Latin with long annotations and some things observed in an Appendix, was published on the 3rd of February: Bernardinus de Comitibus of Campello, in volume 1 of the History of Spoleto published in the year 1672, book 10, asserts that these three saints flourished around the year 550. Whence it is also established that at the same time and century Saints Maurus and Felix lived in sanctity. It was hinted at the beginning that Maurus came with three hundred companions from Syria, which number, somewhat suspect, lest the Reader be offended at the threshold, we indicate to have been omitted by us. There followed the story of the contagious dragon killed by Saint Maurus, concerning which Leoncillus, from the judgment of the Reverend Father Antonius Gallonius of Rome, Presbyter of the Vallicella, and what is the sense concerning the dragon killed. and on his authority that of the earlier Caesar Cardinal Baronius of the Holy Roman Church treating of Saint George, thus subjoins at the end of the Life: We are not ignorant that this narration of the killed serpent can be the symbol of a vanquished demon, as we discoursed more fully in the Life of Saint Sensia, in whose Acts almost the same is held. The Reader being thus forewarned, we subjoin the matter itself to his judgment.

[5] But the inhabitants, having heard the fame of their sanctity, came to Maurus, asking that by the power of God he free them from the contagious breath of a Dragon, which however they were ignorant where it lurked: but they only knew that very many were endangered by its venom. Maurus indeed, a fervent prayer being made to God, an ancient account of that matter, rising in the morning with a certain iron instrument for cutting stones, God leading, came to the place of the dragon: and there, the sign of the Cross first made, he fixed in the ground the staff which he carried, which miraculously at once put forth flowers and leaves. Which when Saint Maurus had seen, suffused with the greatest joy, he began to cut the stone, with the intention of establishing there some dwelling. But when he had attempted this kind of thing, he threw a certain handle into the river Nar: that by that sign the nurse of his son, as she had before been admonished, might know the hour for bringing food: who at once hastened with food to Maurus. And she not noticing, Felix the boy, contrary to what his father had warned, followed. Who when he had come to the river, the nurse seeing, and very anxious for his safety, the boy with dry feet crossed through the middle of the river: which at once ceased to flow, and so remained for the space of two hours. And when blessed Maurus had received this from the nurse, he gave thanks to God: and, food being taken, again set himself to cutting stones. At last, being warned by his son of the dragon's breath, he saw it casting from its nostrils a mist, and from its eyes as it were a flame, and coming against him: which striking with the iron, which he had in his hands, he killed, and took off its head. And when this dragon, on account of its length (for its measure was nearly ninety feet) could not, as a vast animal, be submerged in the river; Maurus alone, relying on divine virtue, cast it headlong into the river; and tearing out a rock by God's miracle, rolled it over its body: from which over the space of three days so much blood flowed, that it was carried out by the Nar into the Tiber.

[6] Behold the second part of the Life concerning the wondrous killing of the dragon, of which Ferrarius, in the general Catalogue related above, seems to have said, that certain less probable things are contained. Meanwhile the same Ferrarius, moderated by others. citing the monuments of the Church of Spoleto, in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy related the same matter, the circumstances changed, thus: Maurus, the rock at last being broken through, saw a serpent five feet long, putting forth foul fire from its mouth: which, fortified with the sign of the Cross, attacking with the iron, he killed. Jacobilli on the Saints of Umbria describes most things from the Acts, but says the dragon had a length not of ninety, but of nine feet. Why should we not, with Leoncillus, assert it to be the symbol of a vanquished demon? But let us proceed to the third part of the Life.

[7] Saint Felix afterward, with his father Maurus persisting in holy works, The dead raised by Saint Felix began day by day to grow more and to understand. It happened moreover, that a certain widow, whose son had died, ran to Saint Felix, that by that power of God, by which the worst dragon had been slain, he might recall her son to life. Then Saint Felix approached the corpse of the dead boy: and when he had prayed to the Lord for his life and resurrection; an Angel appeared, announcing that he had obtained grace from God: and forthwith that boy was awakened. But the following night the Angel again appeared to Saint Felix, and reported that he was inscribed in the book of life; and foretold that after three days, together with his nurse, he would migrate from the world. and he being forewarned of his death meets it. Which when he had reported to his father, he was at first affected with the greatest grief. But understanding that the heavenly kingdom was prepared for himself and his son, and that all things happen by the will of God, he acquiesced: and to his son and his nurse he handed over the Sacraments of the Church. And at the said time both fell asleep in the Lord, on the sixteenth Kalends of July: whose bodies Saint Maurus buried by the river Nar. In which place today under the invocation of the same Saint Felix an ancient temple is seen: on whose front above the temple door all these things sculpted on a marble tablet are seen, and are related from the Life of this Saint Felix, found in the said place.

[8] Thus far that Life, by Leoncillus, from the more ancient monuments, which it has not yet been permitted to see, described faithfully enough, nor without censure: whence, on account of the Sacraments ministered to the Son and his Nurse, we understand that Saint Maurus himself was a Presbyter; to which grade, since the usage of the Eastern Churches does not forbid the use of one wife, I would not by divination assert, that he either before his departure from Syria abstained from her, The last deeds of Saint Maurus. or only in Italy was ordained Presbyter. Jacobilli adds the year in which Saint Felix died, five hundred thirty-five: but perhaps he died much later, according to what was related above from Bernardinus of Campello. Jacobilli moreover judges, that Saint Maurus lived twenty years afterward in the monastery erected there, and, the rule of Saint Benedict being assumed, was the first Abbot there: and perhaps also on the 16th day of June departed from life, and was there buried. The temple constructed there is said to be reckoned as if double, on account of the subterranean church, in which there is an altar, at which also Mass is celebrated; and at its sides are seen stone sepulchres, in which the bones of three bodies with as many heads are kept, of Saints Felix, Maurus, and the nurse. The neighboring monastery moreover was afterward, by indult of Pope Clement VII, given in Commendam, as they call it, to the family of Laurus of Spoleto, which still possesses it.