ON SAINT MAXIMINUS
BISHOP OF TONGRES IN BELGIUM.
Sylloge on his cultus, age, translation, and on his being distinguished from S. Maximinus of Trier.
ABOUT A.D. CCC.
CommentaryMaximinus, Bishop of Tongres in Belgium (S.)
G. H.
[1] Saint Maximinus, the eighth Bishop of Tongres, succeeded S. Martin, who died about the year two hundred and seventy-six, Translation of the body to Maastricht. of whom we shall treat at length on the following day, June XXI. In whose Acts he is designated as his successor; and his sacred body, with the remains of S. Martin and of six other Bishops, is believed to have been brought to Maastricht by S. Servatius, which in his Acts on May XIII is examined at number 25 — indicated but by no means proved; for we showed that the holy Servatius was solicitous only of his own burial, and likely cared for nothing else: but we judged it more likely that such a translation was made after the second devastation of the Tongrians, by the Huns following Attila, in the year CCCCLI; or even after the Servatian Basilica was built by S. Monulphus toward the end of the VI century.
[2] Giles of Orval the Monk, in his Additions to Hariger chapter XVII, celebrates the eight Bishops who succeeded B. Maternus in the See of Tongres, and concerning this Saint sets forth these things. Memory June 20. In the eighth number is ordained Blessed Maximinus the Bishop, magnificently perfected by the sanctity of the eight beatitudes. Bartholomew Fisen, in his Flowers of the Church of Liège, on this day XX of June, brings forth S. Maximinus the eighth Bishop in these words: To enjoy the sanctity of this Bishop was once granted to the Tongrians: posterity rejoices in the honors of him alone. There are some who think him to have been a Martyr, nor is it difficult to persuade. For palms of this sort were yielded in those times by almost daily contests. But what deeds were done by Maximinus we are ignorant of, He lived under Diocletian: God knows them and crowns him with eternal glory. We judge him to have died in the times of the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian; whether he was made a Martyr we doubt. Then the See of Tongres was vacant of a Bishop until the year CCCVIII, as we said in the Preliminary Exegesis before the second Tome of May.
[3] In the same place we proved that the names of the eight Bishops of Tongres, and among them S. Maximinus, were wrongly thrust into the Catalogue of the Bishops of Trier, some hold him a Martyr, from a certain Chronicle of Trier fabulous about the beginning, which we confirm in the Acts of S. Valentine on June VII and S. Martin on June XXI. Grevenus however refers him as of Trier, in the Auctarium of Usuardus, with the Martyrology of Cologne and Lübeck printed under the note of the year 1490, where he is called Martyr, from which title Ferrarius abstains. In the Ms. Florarium of Saints, on the day XIII of September these things are read: On the same day the deposition of S. Maximinus the eighth Bishop of the Church of Tongres. cultus also on September 13 Antony Monchiacenus Demochares, On the Divine Sacrifice of the Mass chapter 33, recounts the Bishops of Trier, and sets the successor of S. Martin as the XXVI Bishop S. Maximus or Maximinus at the Council of Cologne in the year CCCXLVI. But he is altogether different from this S. Maximinus of Tongres, and confused with S. Maximinus of Trier. succeeded S. Agricius, and his Acts we have illustrated on the day XXIX of May. In the proper Offices of the Church of Trier, printed in the year MDCXLV, on this day is celebrated the memory of S. Maximinus the Bishop and Martyr, and all things are recited from the Common.