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.