Maximilian of Celeia

ON ST. MAXIMILIAN OF CELEIA, BISHOP AND MARTYR, IN NORICUM MEDITERRANEUM,

ABOUT THE YEAR 308

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Maximilian, bp. M., at Celeia in Noricum Mediterraneum (S.)

BY D. A. B.

§ I. The place of the martyrdom; the Acts to be published.

Celeia or Cileia, situated on the borders of Pannonia, where the river Sann approaches the Save, of St. Maximilian, who suffered at Celeia, was the principal city and as it were the head of the whole of Noricum Mediterraneum. This city, known to Pliny and Ptolemy, was not ignoble in ancient times, as is testified by various monuments which Gruter, Welser and Lazius published, and some others which, having been brought to Vienna in the year 1728, are still seen on the staircase of the imperial library, as Aquilinus Julius Caesar, Canon Regular, writes in his Annals of Styria, page 28. It had formerly been an episcopal city; having been overthrown about the year of Christ 840, it was made the seat of an archdeacon; and in the most recent times, says the same Aquilinus on page 30, it was subjected to the archbishop of Gorizia, whereas otherwise it had obeyed the patriarch of Aquileia. That St. Maximilian was born at Celeia, suffered at Celeia and was buried there, various copies of his Life declare, both that published by Pez in the Scriptores Rerum Austriacarum, tome 1, col. 22, and others preserved in our Museum. This very thing the tradition of the citizens of Celeia generally carries, the marks of which the writer of the Annals of Styria supplies on page 228: For the place is still shown today at Celeia where he was beheaded and buried, and there exists there, by the testimony of Cuspinian, Megiser, Lazius and others, a church consecrated to his name. And Doctor Schönleben, part 3 of the Annals, page 201, says that he also saw at Celeia the spring where the head of the holy martyr fell when it was cut off… Outside the chapel, as the illustrious Valvasor relates, there is access to that spring, which exists under the altar; above it is read inscribed: SPRING OF THE BEHEADING OF ST. MAXIMILIAN. But why the writer of the present Roman Martyrology, after Molanus, whom he praises in the Notes subjoined to today's announcement of St. Maximilian, fixed the arena of the martyrdom at Celena, commonly Glinech or Cleinech, a village of the Norici in Austria on the river Enns, in the territory and diocese formerly of Lorch, now a little town near the city of Steyr on the road which leads from there to the city of Enns, I do not see: Ferrari wrote more rightly and more exactly, without doubt, in his general Catalogue of Saints, placing it at Celeia with the biographer of St. Maximilian, concerning whose composition some things now occur to be observed.

[2] That the Life of Blessed Maximilian had already been committed to writing when the 5th century was growing old The Acts, published by Pez from the Zell manuscript, his biographer hints in express words, who, after he had asserted in num. 22 that under Odoacer, king of the Rugi, and Theodoric, prince of the Ostrogoths, the church of Lorch had migrated into Italy with its clerics, books and the relics of the Saints, adds that a little book containing his life and miracles was also carried away there. On which hear Pez discussing in the Observation prefixed to the Acts of St. Maximilian, Scriptores Rerum Austriacarum, tome 1, page 21. Whether this, he says, is true, I greatly doubt, since Eugippius, who was personally present at the said migration, records nothing of the kind in the Life of St. Severinus, which Bolland published in tome 1 of January, page 486. Hansiz, led by the same reason, raises the same doubt in Germania Sacra, tome 1, page 33. For that migration, he says, which was made by order of Odoacer in the year 488, concerned only the Norici Ripenses and the towns situated on the Danube, as Eugippius, who was present at the same migration, exactly writes: that the inner Norici, or those of Celeia, as being far removed from the bank of the Danube, were comprehended in that command to migrate is not established. Whatever may be the case with that Life of St. Maximilian, that composition has not come down to our times; whether it also lit the way for the writer of his Acts, to be subjoined to this Commentary, is very uncertain. These Acts, drawn from the monastery of Zell and collated with diligent care with the codices of Lambach, Mondsee, St. Peter's and Vormbach or Formbach, Hieronymus Pez first published in the Scriptores Rerum Austriacarum, tome 1, page 22 and following.

[3] preserved in our Museum, I found four copies of those Acts sent to the Bollandian Museum, of which the first was drawn from the monastery of Rougecloître, the second from the codex of the Electoral Library of Munich marked with the number 467, the third from the imperial abbey of SS. Ulrich and Afra, and the fourth finally from a manuscript of the church of Passau. But of what age the manuscripts are from which our copies were excerpted, Gamans, who sent them, has not informed us. At the end, however, of the manuscript received from the Munich Library these words are read: Doctor Hartmann Schedel wrote this in the year of the Lord 1490, on the 21st day of the month of July, at Nuremberg. This manuscript therefore was written by hand in the fifteenth century, which Pez had also written of his own, which he published or collated. To these copies we add a certain codex exhibiting the same Acts, printed also towards the end of the fifteenth century, found in the same Museum, at the end of which, as in the Munich copy, are written the Collect, Secret and Postcommunion customarily recited in the Mass on the day sacred to St. Maximilian.

[4] written by an anonymous author after the year 1265, Further, who the writer was who committed the Life of St. Maximilian to writing, neither the Acts themselves teach us, nor is it established from any other monument. That he was either a canon or a cleric of Passau is no absurd suspicion, says Hansiz, because he very often calls Maximilian and St. Valentine our patrons (nums. 15, 16 and 21 of the Life to be published); whom in fact the church of Passau venerates as its own special protectors. That the author set his hand to composing his Work after the middle of the thirteenth century is plainly concluded from nums. 15 and following of the Acts themselves. But not even today, says the biographer, does the most bountiful grace of the Saviour cease to extend a hearing on account of the merits of the holy Man… For in the year of the Lord 1265, on the fourth day before the Kalends of November, about the third watch of the night, the gate of the city of Passau upon the bank of the Inn, towards the monastery of St. Nicholas, opened by the counterfeit keys of traitors, laid open a free entrance to the enemy: and that the biographer committed to writing things done in his own age is generally proved by the words with which he composed his narration, and which I shall here only cite summarily: num. 17: There was also in modern time a woman; num. 18: A certain citizen, whose name and person we knew; num. 20: A certain man of Ödenburg, going blind: on the morrow we saw him, having thrown away the staff that guided him, rendering most abundant thanksgivings to God and his Saints for his recovered sight; num. 21: We saw also a certain youth in the hospital of the city of Passau, both knees contracted from a long infirmity … and presently, the joints and sinews having been healed and made firm, walking upright. Hence the reader will be able without difficulty to learn what credit the biographer of St. Maximilian deserves in describing these things: but, that he may be able to give a more certain judgment, let him himself go through with me the several parts of the Acts.

[5] divided into three parts, here The copy from Zell published by Pez, collated with several others, and the other copies of which we treated in the preceding number, exhibit to us the Acts of St. Maximilian divided as it were into three parts. In the first part, some things having been premised about the beginnings of the Christian religion in Noricum Ripense and the institution of the churches, the biographer describes the birth of St. Maximilian, his parents, his life, the labours undertaken in the episcopate, and finally his martyrdom: in the second part are narrated the miracles wrought by the help of SS. Maximilian and Valentine, patrons of the church of Passau: in the third, finally, the author has much about the excellence of the church of Lorch, the extent of the diocese, and the immense largesses of the emperor Philip made to it. Since in the second part he has related in writing nothing except what he saw with his own eyes or heard proved by the testimony of others, therefore the things narrated here by him, as we said in num. [ ], seem certainly to be received with some veneration, and do not fear the sharp judgment of a censor. But the same is not to be said of the first and third parts, which the biographer worked out many centuries after the events, with perhaps no monuments, or very few, lighting his way (for in writing he mentions none), and brought into his Work things heaped together indiscriminately, sometimes despising the laws of sounder criticism, being little instructed in ecclesiastical matters. To this also are referred the things which Hansiz has, for whom Pez's censure had already lit the way. Nor is it my intention, says the author of Germania Sacra, tome 1, page 32, to approve all that is read in the biographer; for besides certain frivolous etymologies which he constructs at the beginning from the name of St. Maximilian, he also wrongly adds other things about Quirinus, predecessor of Maximilian, such as never existed, as has been indicated elsewhere: likewise about those little tales of the patrimony of Philip left to the church of Lorch. Nor did Pinius treat the first part of the same Acts with milder censure in the Commentary prefixed to the Acts of St. Pelagius the martyr, on the 28th day of August, nums. 56 and 57. Since the words of this hagiographer pertain chiefly to the Acts presently to be published, it is worth while to subjoin them here.

[6] called back to examination I have said, he says, that the Acts of St. Pelagius are not of great authority … What of the fact that the Acts of St. Maximilian of Lorch, in what they narrate of him before his episcopate, relate so many things similar to the life which St. Pelagius led before his martyrdom, that I suspect that either a confusion has been made here or a bad application? For the Passion of St. Maximilian, which we have from the Rougecloître manuscript, indicates that his parents had only one son … And when he had become seven years old, he was entrusted by his parents to a certain priest named Oranius … When therefore he had reached the thirteenth year of his age, his father … passed to the Lord by a happy end … Then after six years his mother, following her husband, happily closed her last day. And after the death of both, blessed Maximilian generously manumitted all his household, distributing of his estates to each according to his condition. And the remainder … he hid in the bosom of the poor and of those who serve God. Let the reader compare these things, says our hagiographer, with the Acts of St. Pelagius, nums. 1 and 2, and I am much mistaken if it does not seem unlikely that so many circumstances, and so similar, should fit two different persons. What Pinius has about the Life of St. Pelagius, why should I not dare to say also of the Acts of St. Maximilian, as far as concerns their first part, which seems to have been formed as it were on the same pattern? In this first part, then, of the Acts to be published, the reader will find very few things worthy of note, or not discordant with historical facts known from elsewhere: if, however, some things have occurred as if by chance, I have received them with diligent care, as rescued from the ancient ruins of Noricum and brought down to us through various disasters, to compose this preliminary Commentary from them, as may be seen in nums. 26, 27, 31, etc.: but the third part will exhibit to learned eyes nothing that has not been worthy of censure, whether the biographer speaks in it about the origin of certain churches and especially about the antiquity of the church of Lorch, or about the wonderful extent of this diocese, or finally about the immense estates with which the emperors Philip are said to have heaped it: for which reason I have not thought this last part of the Acts of our Saint should be published here in print: a very few things, however, which seemed to me worth reading, lest the reader should be defrauded of facts which appear of some moment in this composition, such as it is, I have inserted in the Annotations to the last chapter.

[7] and collated with other manuscripts, we publish. Of the various copies, I have thought that the Zell copy, already published by Pez and collated with those of Lambach, Mondsee, St. Peter's and Formbach, should be subjoined here in new type; which I have again collated with that ancient codex printed in the first cradle of the art of printing, and with other manuscripts, namely the Passau, the Munich, that of SS. Ulrich and Afra, and also that of Rougecloître, which are preserved in the Museum of the hagiographers, the variant readings observed from this collation of the different copies being added among the Annotations. And let these things said about the Acts presently to be published suffice.

§ II. Catalogues of the Bishops of Lorch: of the first bishops of this church, where chiefly of St. Maximilian and of the years spent by him in the episcopate.

Of the Bishops of Lorch Laureacum, or rather Lauriacum, the principal city of the whole of Noricum Ripense, that is, placed on the bank of the Danube, and formerly the metropolis for the Christians, of which various writers have said much, and Henschen at the 4th day of May, sacred to St. Florian the martyr, page 42, having experienced various calamities, at length utterly overthrown by the Huns and Avars, left a slight trace of itself in the village of Lorch or Lorich. Since the Catalogues of the bishops who presided over this church contribute not a little to illustrating the Acts of St. Maximilian, it will without doubt not be beside the point to discuss them briefly. Lambeck, having come upon two in the Imperial Library, supplied information about them in book 2, chap. VIII. The first, about which some things occur to me to be observed, composed by Bernard, a monk in the most celebrated abbey of Kremsmünster at the beginning of the fourteenth century, Pez published in the Scriptores Rerum Austriacarum, tome 1, page 1297: the other, which Schritovinus had composed about the year 1452, and which some learned men had promised to publish in print, still lies unpublished in the same Imperial Library. These two Catalogues are mentioned by Hansiz, the writer of Germania Sacra, praising the manuscript instruments which he used in writing his work. The same author here names several others, but because he either supplies a very brief description of them, or because most of them pertain less to the beginnings of the church of Lorch, I forbear to speak of them.

[9] Hieronymus Pez brought into his Work the two Catalogues just mentioned. Catalogues, published by Pez, The first, entitled Brief Chronicle of the Archbishops and Bishops of Lorch and Passau, found in the Library of the monastery of Zwettl and written from a parchment codex in a hand of the 14th century, was carried down by an anonymous author to the year 1216, namely that in which the Order of Preachers is written to have begun, and Pez regards this list as the older. The second, unearthed by Pez from the papers of the renowned canonry of Waldhausen, bears this title: Chronicle of the Pontiffs of Lorch and Passau, by Bernard of Noricum, cenobite of Kremsmünster, of the Order of St. Benedict: which, sent also by Father Gamans to the Museum of the Hagiographers, exists in manuscript under the letter G, num. 67. A third Catalogue, further, copied from the Archive of the canonry of St. Pölten, was published among his miscellanies by Raimund Duellius, a religious of the same canonry, book 2, page 297 and following: for brevity's sake I shall call the first of these Catalogues the Pezian, from Pez, who first published it; the second the Kremsmünster, from the monastery of Kremsmünster in which it was made; the third finally the Duellian, from Duellius, its editor. That the Pezian Catalogue was composed by an anonymous author about the year 1216 I have just shown. And although the author carried down the Kremsmünster Catalogue to the year 1322, yet it is scarcely permitted to doubt that he went through ancient monuments and transcribed a great part of them, as Pez observes, since in various places he appeals to very ancient exemplars, and likewise to authentic writings from which he drew his material. Whoever they are who wrote the Duellian Catalogue, it is most certain from the very words of the author at the end that one of them put the last hand to it in the sixteenth century. I transcribe them here: Urban, son of Rudolf von Frenbach by Juliana von Radelhoffen, from canon of Salzburg and Provost of Passau, was elected bishop of Passau on the 15th day before the Kalends of September in the year of the Lord 1561, at the age of 36. Let posterity add what they will. A. Made in the year of the Lord 1570, in 142 days. Util. But about the year 851 the anonymous author who first drew up this List has this: Hartwig, archbishop of Lorch and Passau, a bishop powerful in word and work, as the monuments testify, by far most dear to the emperors Louis, Lothair and Louis II for the sake of his virtue, presides 26 years; he died on the 3rd day before the Ides of May 866. From which words it becomes clear that the first writer not only drew his Work from ancient monuments of the church either of Lorch or of Passau, but also, as it seems, composed it about the year 866. But, that the reader may be able to distinguish or compare these three Catalogues, I set them before his eyes, taking out and rejecting what pertains less to the beginnings of the church of Lorch, or what does not conduce to elucidating the Acts of St. Maximilian. I begin from the words with which the author of the Pezian Catalogue starts it.

[10] published by Pez, Blessed Peter, he says, preaching at Rome, sent St. Mark to Aquileia to preach, who there with many others converted Hermagoras and Fortunatus. Then he also ordained Ermachoras bishop of Aquileia, who, preaching to others, converted Syrus and Eventius, whom he directed to Pavia, sowing the word of the Lord. Finally they preached to other cities, namely of Verona, Brescia and Lorch. Many cities, therefore, having been converted to the way of truth in successive times, the patriarchate of Aquileia was made, and the archbishopric of Lorch. But on account of the tyranny of the unbelievers and the opposition of the Romans, the metropolis of Lorch lacked the dignity of priestly benediction for two hundred years, or nearly: nay, the Christians dwelling there were for the time few, and secretly practised divine worship in hiding-places. For if any were caught, they were either tortured with sharp scourges or deported into exile, or put to death by the sword. Whence it came about that St. Maximilian and blessed Florian, with forty other martyrs, were put to death: and St. Severinus was driven into exile, who also exhorted others not to migrate to foreign and distant nations. But the emperor Philip, who first of the emperors publicly received the Catholic faith, with his son Philip the Younger, magnificently exalted with wealth and honours the church of Lorch, lowly before their time: … which metropolis of Lorch indeed … for many times had very many cities subject to it … To which also the most blessed Lawrence, the levite, was deputed as principal patron, who was crowned with martyrdom a short time after the Augusti.

But before his martyrdom, after some archbishops, there sat in the same, namely that of Lorch, the archbishop Eutherius, under Pope Stephen, in the year of the Incarnation of the Lord 268 (read rather: 258.)

After this, in the year of the Lord 284, sat the archbishop Maximilian, who was slain at Celeia, whence he was a native, under the emperor Numerian.

After this, in the third year, St. Florian, tribune of the soldiers, was crowned with martyrdom with many others through the prefect Aquilinus in the time of Diocletian.

In these times, namely from the year of the Lord 308 to the year 400, no certain prince of Bavaria and archbishop of Lorch is found.

In the year of the Lord 400 St. Constantius sat as archbishop at Lauriacum. Of him it is read that before Mass he prayed through the psalter, as Pope Celestine instituted…

So much the Pezian Catalogue. Take now what the Kremsmünster supplies.

[11] Bernard of Noricum, by whom it was composed, begins it thus: or from the papers of the Kremsmünster monastery, Leaving aside at what time the province of Bavaria or the church of Lorch arose, or by whom it was specially converted to the faith, let it suffice to have said that first St. Philip the Apostle, directed by the apostles, preached in Scythia. Now Scythia is a province, or rather a region, of Europe according to Isidore, to which is joined Germany, which contains Noricum. Likewise St. Peter sent Blessed Mark the Evangelist to Aquileia for the sake of preaching, who there converted Saints Emerchora and Fortunatus with very many others, Emerchora being ordained bishop. Through these first sowers of the word of God, therefore, the said church of Lorch, IF IT WAS THEN FOUNDED, could receive the Word of God. To this church, endowed with immense estates and provinces by the emperor Philip and spread through its XXII cities, the most blessed Lawrence the Levite was deputed from the same times, who was crowned with martyrdom a short time after the Augusti, delivered to death by the guile of Decius. So the author has it. But before his martyrdom, after some archbishops (he names none of these, nor does the Pezian List), there sat there, namely at Lauriacum, the archbishop St. Eutherius,

who was present at the council of Sardica (this is lacking in the Pezian) under Pope Stephen in the year of the Lord 268 .. (read about the year 258.)

In the year of the Lord 284 sat there the archbishop Maximilian, who was slain at Celeia, whence he had been a native, under the emperor Numerian…

In the year of the Lord 287 Florian, tribune of the soldiers, is crowned with martyrdom with many others through the prefect Aquilinus at Lauriacum under the emperor Diocletian.

In the year 308 St. Quirinus, son of the emperor Philip, suffered. A bishop is not written.

In these times, namely from the year of the Lord 308 to 400, no certain prince of the Bavarians or archbishop of Lorch is found, and the people with all their goods passes over to Naples.

About the year of the Lord 400, a little more or less, there sat at Lauriacum the archbishop St. Constantius, and St. Valentine and St. Severinus the confessor. Of him it is read that before Mass he prayed through the psalter, as Pope Celestine instituted.

Hence the reader will easily make out that this Catalogue, in those things which pertain to the History of the Church of Lorch, was put together in almost the same words as the Pezian, and that Bernard of Noricum composed his own with that one lighting his way. But far different from these two Catalogues of the Bishops of Lorch is the Duellian, which also I place under the eyes of readers.

[12] or finally published by Duellius, Using no preface, its author has at once thus:

Mark, colleague of St. Paul, taught the Gospel at Lauriacum in the year of Christ 60.

Lawrence about the year of Christ 90.

The bishops next following down to the year of Christ 200 have perished. So the author.

St. Florian, a Pannonian horseman from Ceysselmur, preached for some time to the church of Lorch; he suffered in the year 230, or rather after the year 304.

Gebhard presided over the church of Lorch in the year of Christ 250, at this most wretched time when the Ostrogoths, under their leader Echina, were laying waste the provinces along the Danube with sword and fire.

St. Eutherius or Eleutherius succeeded in the year 260. He was present at the council of Sardica.

St. Quirinus, brother of the emperor Philip, a man most illustrious by nobility of blood, virtue and learning, liberal towards the church, and who conferred his entire patrimony on it in the year of the Lord 265.

St. Maximilian, born at Celeia of most noble parents, is set over it in the year 268: he suffered at Celeia in the year 288.

Here the names of the bishops are lacking for 139 years on account of the barbarian incursions. So in the copy.

Constantius, a monk from the cell of St. Severinus, was set over it in the year 427. He is said to have died in the year 487.

[13] falsely Whoever goes through these three Catalogues with attentive eyes will certainly soon observe, first, that their writers derive the beginnings of the Christian religion from the first century of the Church, and that the light of the faith, arising from the city of Aquileia, was brought to the Norici Ripenses through Mark the Evangelist or his disciples. Secondly, that although the Duellian Catalogue exhibits far more bishops, yet a huge gap lies open in it, and no continuous series of them exists, as has happened in most churches of Italy, Gaul or Germany, which, with an endeavour more ambitious than solid and true, boast that they were founded by the Apostles themselves or at least by those whom they had taught; and thirdly, finally, that the little tale of the emperor Philip bestowing twenty-two cities on the church of Lorch, and the absurd munificence of that prince, manifest today even to all bleared eyes, has crept equally into the said three Catalogues. What is to be thought of these things, then, let the learned reader himself see. But before I proceed further, I wish him to be warned that I shall speak only of the bishops who sat at Lauriacum or were set over the church of Lorch; and not also of the Apostles or apostolic men who, sent to Noricum in the first or second century, scattered there the seeds of the Gospel by the preaching of the Word. Among these the Catalogues place Mark the Evangelist, Hermagoras, Fortunatus, Syrus, Eventius, etc., who, directed from the See of Peter or from the city of Aquileia, were heralds of religion in Noricum. Some also number among them Blessed Luke, who, says Hansiz, tome 1 of Germania Sacra, corollary 2, going from Dalmatia into Italy, illustrated Noricum above others by the preaching of the Gospel. What especially induced Hansiz to write this was certain verses inscribed on an ancient tower of the town of Enns in Upper Austria, which I subjoin here:

You behold a small city and of no great name, Which yet the eternal God cares for and loves. This is what remains of Lauriacum: on these shores Mark With Luke had professed the teaching of Christ.

Although these verses smack of the style of the middle age, in which, Lauriacum having been destroyed, they were composed, yet since they may be used as witnesses of a not contemptible tradition of the townspeople, there seems no reason why I should reject them and the tradition asserted by them, provided that the learned confess with me that Mark, Luke and the other apostolic men neither sat as bishops at Lauriacum, nor that a church was founded there in these times or any ecclesiastical assembly furnished with a bishop, priests and other ministers. These things being laid down, I now turn my discourse to those who are regarded as bishops by the writers of our Catalogues. Only two, namely Eutherius and Maximilian, before Constantius, who, as authentic monuments show, occupied the see of Lorch, are exhibited by the older Catalogues, the Pezian and the Kremsmünster: but to these the Duellian codex adds three others, and indeed before Eutherius and Maximilian. But in what place these three bishops are to be held, whom it names Lawrence, Jerard and Quirinus, and whether they are not rather to be placed among the apocryphal or supposititious, with Hansiz, Germania Sacra, tome 1, page 127 and following, in the third corollary at the end of that tome, it will be helpful to have inquired here.

[14] And indeed, to begin from Lawrence: his name is read inscribed neither in the ancient Annals of Passau, Lawrence, which Hund received from Bishop Urban to read, nor in the older tables. If the Kremsmünster codex speaks of a certain Lawrence, he is the celebrated martyr burned at Rome in the year 258, who perhaps went to the Norici for the sake of preaching the Gospel, but who had been distinguished with the levitical, not the episcopal character. And although Schritovinus, who flourished in the 15th century, seems to mention another Lawrence, he nevertheless writes of him in such a way as not to conflict with the words of the Kremsmünster Catalogue. I subjoin here the words of that writer, as they are found in Hansiz, page 27: There was, he says, a certain Lawrence who came to Lauriacum with the others named before, Blessed Mark, from whom, as has seemed to some, Lauriacum received its name and the faith; but since he adds or, as has seemed to others, on account of the most blessed Lawrence, in whose honour the church of Lorch was dedicated, he speaks of this Lawrence, whoever he was, in such a way that he seems rather to have understood Blessed Lawrence the levite and martyr. I pass over the opinion of Bruschius and Hund, who followed Schritovinus, by which they judge that that Lawrence, either a bishop or an archdeacon and martyr, gave its name to Lauriacum. For who will suppose that in these times, hostile to the Christian name, Lauriacum, not unknown in the days of the first emperors of Rome, as most of the monuments cited by Welser, Lambeck and others testify, received its name from a Christian? Therefore, I shall conclude also with the words of Hansiz: To this alone our opinion is reduced, that there was no prelate Lawrence of this name, to whom either the city owes its appellation or the cathedral church was dedicated.

[15] Jerard To the same class of the apocryphal Hansiz consigns Jerard, whom Hund after Bruschius had placed in the Tables of the Bishops of Lorch. Of this bishop Bruschius has this on page 27 of On Passau and Lauriacum, book 1, edition of the year 1553: Jerard presided over the church of Lorch in the year of the Lord 250, in which Philip, lord of both Pannonias (not a native of Pannonia, since he is called an Arab of Trachonitis by Sextus Aurelius Victor, On the Caesars, chap. 28) who first among the Roman emperors, instructed by the teaching of the great Origen, having cast away idolatrous pursuits, professed Christ, is read to have exalted with honours and riches the church of Lorch, hitherto poor. Thus Bruschius, whose words Hund copied almost entirely. But since the ancient Catalogues do not exhibit Jerard, to use the words of Hansiz, I hold both Jerard and the patrimony of the Philips, which those ancient ones cited by Schritovinus likewise relate, in the same account.

[16] and Quirinus are wrongly inserted, Hansiz judges that Quirinus is to be held in the same esteem, to whom nevertheless the Duellian Catalogue, Bruschius, Hund and some biographers had given a place among the bishops of Lorch, who assert that he was born of the emperor Philip, then taken up to the government of the church of Lorch, soon translated to the see of Aquileia, and finally, while the Diocletianic persecution was raging, drowned in the waters. But that in weaving this history of Quirinus as many fictions as almost words have crept in, everyone sees. For the emperor Philip had an only son, proclaimed Caesar by his father, whose name was Caius Julius Saturninus, and who was himself also slain by the soldiers a little after his father's death, as Aurelius Victor writes, On the Caesars, chap. 28, Eutropius in the Breviary, chap. 3, book 9, Jordanes on the Succession of Kingdoms, chap. 8. Who, then, would believe that a Quirinus who was the son of the emperor Philip was raised to the mitres of Lorch and Aquileia? Hence Ughelli, who, induced only by the authority of Hund, had brought the name of Quirinus among the bishops of Aquileia, although he had not read it, as he himself confesses, inscribed in the ancient Tables of the church of Aquileia, is corrected by Coleti, who saw to the new edition of the Italia Sacra, in the Notes appended on pages 22 and 23 of tome 5. And indeed there is no mention of Quirinus in those various Catalogues of the Bishops of Aquileia which Bernardo de Rubeis published in the year 1740 in the Appendix to the Monuments of the church of Aquileia, page 6 and following. Moreover, that Quirinus who about the year 308 perished, cast into a river with a millstone hung about his neck, and whose Acts were illustrated by Papebroch at the 4th day of June, page 280, did indeed sit as a bishop in Noricum, but was set over the church of Siscia, not of Lorch. Bruschius and Hund wrongly assert that the body of St. Quirinus, bishop of Lorch, having been first carried to Rome and then translated to the monastery of Tegernsee, is preserved there with due cult. The sacred pledges which are laid up among the monks of Tegernsee belong not to St. Quirinus the bishop but to another, whose Acts Henschen published at the 25th of March. Hence you will easily argue that a Quirinus of Lorch was fused by these writers out of that one of Siscia and another slain at Rome for the faith of Christ, and is deservedly to be struck out of the Tables of the church of Lorch.

[17] That Eutherius, otherwise Eleutherius or Leutherius, presided at Lauriacum as bishop, and rightly, on the other hand, among the bishops of Lorch, all the Catalogues and Annals of Passau, which Hund cites in his Metropolis Salisburgensis, page 287, testify. Therefore Eutherius, as appears, is with full right to be inscribed among the bishops of Lorch: but whether he is to be brought into the sacred tables of this church before or after St. Maximilian may be raised as a doubt among the learned; Hansiz, among those whom he calls uncertain bishops of the see of Lorch, assigns him a place about the year 347 in the tables made by himself, induced chiefly by this reason, that about this year the council of Sardica was celebrated,

to which, according to the Kremsmünster and Duellian Catalogues, Eutherius subscribed as from the Pannonias. But in both Noricums, within whose limits Pannonia, whether Upper or Lower, extended, or in Pannonia, which stretched from Mount Cetius as far as the Save, there were several cities raised to episcopal sees in the fourth century, namely Curta, Carpis, Stridon, Sabaria, Scarabantia, etc.: wherefore there is no reason why that Eutherius of the Pannonias should be said to have presided over the city of Lorch rather than over others. But also in the other Table of the Bishops who were present at this council, placed at the end of the same council, tome 2 of Labbe's Councils, col. 662, these words are read inserted: Euterius a Procia de Caindo, which words, as Hansiz himself notes, are beyond doubt corrupt and need an Oedipus, and certainly do not designate the church of Lorch. That Eutherius acted as bishop of Lauriacum before St. Maximilian I bring myself to think the more willingly, first because all the Catalogues exhibit him placed before St. Maximilian, who certainly underwent martyrdom before the Nicene synod and therefore before the council of Sardica: second, because in these Tables of the Bishops the episcopate of Eutherius is placed under Pope Stephen, the first of this name, who presided over the Roman See from the year 256 to the second day of August of the year 260, and not under the supreme Pontiff Julius, with whose consent this council was held: third, because, since these words, He was present at the council of Sardica, are not read in the older Catalogue, namely the Pezian, we may not undeservedly suspect that they were brought into the other Tables, the Kremsmünster and the Duellian. For it may have happened that, when the writers of the Kremsmünster and Duellian Catalogues had seen Eutherius of the Pannonias listed among the bishops who subscribed to the synod of Sardica, they referred this, no account being taken of the times, more readily than was fitting, to their own bishop of Lorch of the same name, from an excessive zeal to ascribe to him what would be glorious: fourth, because in various Catalogues and Annals, cited by Hund on page 287, the see of Lorch is asserted to have been vacant, on account of the persecutions of this time and the disasters of the churches, from the year 308 to the fifth century, in which Constantius was set over it. No bishop, therefore, nor Eutherius himself, had undertaken to administer this church in the year 347.

[18] and Eutherius, Induced, therefore, by the weight of these reasons, I judge it more probable that Eutherius, inscribed in all the Catalogues, is not only to be numbered among the bishops of Lorch, but also acted as bishop of Lauriacum before the times of St. Maximilian, and therefore before the council of Sardica had been held. The same man, says Bruschius, whose words Hund expressed in his Metropolis Salisburgensis, had professed and propagated Christian doctrine in Fabiana, which today is Vienna, the metropolis of Austria, about the year of Christ 260. Nothing at all therefore prevents us from setting the episcopate of Eutherius at about this year, especially since at this time, or rather from the year 256, Stephen was set over the Roman Church, during whose administration of it Eutherius is asserted in all the Catalogues to have acted as bishop. Further, I think it likely that Eutherius left the see of Lorch about the year 257 or 260, either by death or by some other chance whatever, from this, that in the Acts of St. Maximilian presently to be published, num. 8, and cited by Bruschius, Pope Sixtus, who sat at Rome in this year or about it, is said to have granted to our Maximilian full power of preaching the word of God to the people of Lorch: for truly, if Eutherius had still been among the living, or had presided over the see of Lorch, Maximilian would have received this faculty of preaching from him, and not from the supreme Pontiff. Hence it follows that Eutherius exchanged life for death before the twenty-first of July of the year 261, or even before the sixth of August of the year 258, of which days the one is assigned by Pagi, the other by Papebroch, as the day of death of Pope Sixtus.

[19] and, having acted as apostle in Noricum for about twenty years, Concerning St. Maximilian, says Hansiz, Germania Sacra, tome 1, page 30, two things are held as undoubted. The first concerning the episcopate of Lorch: the other concerning the martyrdom suffered at Celeia. Both are ratified by the legitimate tables of the martyrs (he could have added, and by all the Catalogues of the bishops of Lorch) and finally by tradition and inveterate cult among the Norici. I do not raise the question whether he ought to be called bishop or archbishop: for this word was invented later. But at what time Maximilian was taken up as bishop of Lorch, or for how many years he was set over this church, is very difficult to define. If you listen to the biographer writing in nums. 7 and 8, the beginnings of his episcopate will have to be traced from the death of Eutherius, that is, from about the year 260, or from the two years preceding. For since, as he says there, having been elected bishop with all the votes of clergy and people, he received from Pope Sixtus, who sat at Rome about the year 258 or 260, the faculty of preaching the word of God in Noricum, what, I ask, would the Saint have received from the supreme Pontiff, unless Blessed Sixtus had endowed him with the episcopal character? Bruschius differs from the biographer here, On the Bishops of Lorch, book 1, page 33 and following, edition of the year 1553, whose words Hund almost reproduced in his Metropolis Salisburgensis. He too had fled, says Bruschius, as innumerable other Christians, into Italy in the Decian persecution, where, when he had become known at Rome to Blessed Xystus, the second Roman bishop of that name, he was admonished and persuaded by that same Roman Pontiff to return to the Pannonias and to recall from exile and restore anew the churches stricken and fallen away through fear of the tyrants… And Pope Xystus confirmed him as he was about to depart, and, adding at the same time the Apostolic blessing, granted him full authority both of propagating the word concerning Christ the Son of God and of gathering together again churches for the same Christ through the Pannonias … When he had preached magnanimously at Lauriacum … he was soon received with great longing by the very remnants of the Christians, and taken up as bishop of the church of Lorch (in the very year of the Lord 268). Thus Bruschius; by which words he indicates that, before Maximilian was raised to the mitre of Lorch, he spent eight or nine years intent on apostolic labours among the Norici. But I contend that he spent far more on them. And indeed, since Blessed Maximilian received from Pope Sixtus, who, by the witness of Pagi and Papebroch, died about the year 258 or 260, full power of disseminating the word of God among the Norici, and yet, as I am about to say, did not ascend the chair of Lorch until the year 282 or 284, it follows that he acted as apostle in Noricum for twenty years and more before he was inscribed as bishop in the tables of this church. Maximilian, then, who in all the Catalogues is proclaimed as his successor, did not immediately take the place of Eutherius, who died before the year 258 or 260, but for a long space of time the church of Lorch, disturbed either by the onrushing barbarians or by the persecution which the emperor Decius had proclaimed, remained sorrowful and widowed; to succour which, sent by the supreme Pontiff Sixtus, he laboured for twenty years and more, until about the year 282, clergy and people acclaiming, he was proclaimed bishop of Lorch; but this, as the chief hinge on which the whole difficulty turns, must be confirmed by some proof.

[20] The Salzburg Chronicle supplies me with an instrument on this matter not to be despised, he was proclaimed bishop of Lorch only about the year 282, published by Pez among the Austrian writers, tome 1, col. 317 and following, which, by the testimony of the same Pez, was first written very elegantly on parchment in the twelfth century, as the characters of the manuscript codex show, which afterwards other and yet other contemporary authors carried down to the 14th century, as is manifest from the diversity of hands and the forms of the writings; and, as is likely, put together from ancient papers of the abbatial monastery of St. Peter at Salzburg. Under the year 282 are read the words which I transcribe here: Probus is slain, Pope Eutychian sat, St. Maximilian sat as bishop of Lorch. And indeed that Probus was slain by the soldiers in this very year, and that Eutychian, elected from the year 275, was then sitting at Rome, is testified by Tillemont, History of the Emperors, tome 3, page 540, and by Pagi, who differs a little from Papebroch concerning the time in which Eutychian held the Pontificate. Nor do the authors of the Pezian and Kremsmünster Catalogues differ much from the words of the Salzburg Chronicle related above, who attach the episcopate of Maximilian to the year 284: for truly, since our Saint did not undergo martyrdom until the year 308 or thereabouts, as I shall say below, the writers of this Chronicle and of these Catalogues could bind his episcopate to these two years; inasmuch as he, distinguished with the episcopal character in the year 282, was sitting in the year 284, and did not give his soul for Christ until the year 308. Hence some light arises concerning the years in which St. Maximilian presided over the Church. The writer of the Duellian Catalogue asserts that St. Maximilian was set over the church of Lorch for only 20 years, who has thus: He is set over it in the year CCLVIII. He suffered at Celeia in the year CCLXXXVIII.

[21] and having spent about 26 years in this office, Bruschius adds one above these twenty years, whose words Hund brought into his Metropolis Salisburgensis, and which I subjoin here. When he had presided over the church of Lorch piously and, as befits a minister of Christ, for almost twenty years … it happened in the year 288 that he went down to his native land, to the place of his birth, namely the city of Celeia, where he is struck with the sword in the two hundred and eighty-ninth year after the Lord's Nativity, on the fourth day before the Ides of October. From which words of Bruschius it follows that the Saint spent twenty-one years in administering the church of Lorch. Although the biographer of our Saint does not count the years of his episcopate in express words, he nevertheless hints not obscurely that Maximilian was set over that church for twenty-four and even more years: for truly, since according to this author St. Sixtus, who died about the year 258 or 261, conferred on him the sacred character of the episcopate, and he did not suffer until the year 288 or 289, as most copies of his Acts published by Pez have, and others collated with these or preserved in our Museum, it follows from this that our Saint sat as bishop at Lauriacum for 26 years and more. But this too will come out more and more likely from what is to be said in the following §§, where I shall show, from the words of the Pezian Catalogue, that he was diminished by a head only about the year 308, in the Diocletianic persecution, three years before the martyrdom of St. Florian. Hence, although Bruschius, the writer of the Duellian Catalogue, the biographer of our Saint, the Salzburg chronologer and the author of the Pezian Chronicle disagree among themselves concerning the year in which he was taken up as bishop and the year in which he underwent martyrdom, yet all have this one thing, and indeed as worthy of note, namely that Maximilian was set over the people of Lorch as bishop for twenty years and more; nay, that he spent twenty-eight or even twenty-nine years in the episcopate most copies of his Life testify, and I the same of years

spent in the prelacy, who, relying on the Salzburg chronologer, asserting that the Saint was taken up as bishop of Lauriacum in the year 282, have judged that his martyrdom is to be placed, from the words of the Pezian Catalogue, about the year 308. And this I judge can be said more probably about the years spent by St. Maximilian in the episcopate.

[22] That greater light may come to the Acts of St. Maximilian, and that the history of the church of Lorch may be more and more illustrated, by preaching, since Lauriacum, by various, as appears, it will perhaps not be beside the point to say what was the state of this city at the time when the holy Bishop suffered martyrdom. What the state of the church of Lorch was from the year 356, in which St. Martin, the most celebrated prelate of the city of Tours, went to Pannonia to preach, down to the middle of the fifth century, in which St. Valentine was designated bishop of the church of Passau, Hansiz has already weighed, Germania Sacra, tome 1, page 48 and following. It is not my intention, then, to go over that epoch again here, but I shall run through another, namely that which St. Maximilian himself, intent on apostolic labours, made illustrious, with one or another monument of Noricum lighting my way.

[23] That the city of Lorch was utterly overthrown before the year 370 is related in express words by an inscription at the beginning of the fourth century which Lazius, Gruter, Pighius, Lambeck, Imperial Library, book 2, chap. 8, page 637, and Hansiz have brought into their books. It consists of these following words: By the most salutary command of our lords Valentinian, Valens and Gratian, perennial Augusti, the auxiliary soldiers of Lauriacum committed to his care, the most illustrious man Equitius, count and master of both services, ordering it, Leontius the prefect also pressing it on, brought this fortress from its foundations to the final hand of completion in the third consulate of the same lords. Therefore in the year 370, about which Valentinian and Valens proceeded consuls for the third time, the fortress of Lauriacum, which in the preceding years had been reduced to the lowest, was brought to completion, not so that it should be given the name of a city, as formerly, the principal city of the whole of Noricum Ripense, but only of a fortress, which is not to be passed over in silence. If you ask who were the authors of this overthrow: Calles, the writer of the Annals of the German church, exhibits the Marcomanni, Quadi and others, who, rampaging through Pannonia and both Noricums in the years 229, 231, 232, 260, 355, 357, 358 and 364, laid waste almost everything with fire and sword. But in what year, or at what time, the city of Lauriacum was so destroyed that before the year 370 it was not even called by the name of a fortress, I do not know. That this city had already been worn down by some calamity at the beginning of the fourth century is revealed by the Acts of St. Florian, who underwent martyrdom only three years, as I shall show below, after St. Maximilian, which Henschen published in the first place at the 4th of May, page 462. For in these Lauriacum is read designated only under the word Castrum; but I subjoin the biographer's words. When the order of the sacrilegious princes, he says, had come to Noricum Ripense, Aquilinus the governor administering it, then the governor, coming to the castrum of Lauriacum, began vehemently to search out the Christians, and certain Saints to the number of forty were seized. Whether, therefore, by castrum you understand, with Isidore, whom Pitiscus praises in the Lexicon of Roman antiquities, a castellum, places which are adorned with no dignity of a city, or a small town fortified with walls, situated in a high place; or whether you call castra lesser cities subject to more eminent ones; or whether, as Valois writes in the Preface to the Notitia of the Gauls, page XVIII, you call castra and castella not a few places which ought to be content with the name of villages, which, either overthrown by wars, or exhausted by pestilence, or by the lapse of time, have become smaller and more deserted than they were formerly; it is permitted to argue, by not improbable weights of reasons, that Lauriacum at the beginning of the fourth century had already fallen away from its former splendour: that it was not then the head or principal city of the whole of Noricum Ripense, nay, not even the seat of the governor Aquilinus, who seems to have come to Lauriacum only to search out the Christians.

[24] had been worn down by disasters, Nor may you say that in the Acts of St. Florian which Henschen drew from the Charterhouse of Gaming, and in those which Pez published, copied from the Melk codex, Scriptores Rerum Austriacarum, tome 1, col. 39, Lauriacum is everywhere given the name of a city: nay, that a remarkable testimony is read about Lauriacum, conceived in these words: The governor, full of cruelty, entering the noble castrum of Lauriacum, which so excelled the rest in abundance of riches, valour of arms, numerousness of people, breadth of walls and celebrity of fame, that it scarcely suffered the Roman citadel to be preferred to it, began to persecute and bind all, etc. In these days, therefore, the city of Lauriacum was most celebrated and not to be designated under the word of town or castrum. But this manner of writing, which smacks of the ambitious style of an orator rather than the simple and modest style of a historian, is not found in the Acts published by Henschen in the first place and, by the judgment of that hagiographer, num. 3 of the Preliminary Commentary, to be esteemed more highly, and it savours of the author who committed them to writing together with the Miracles in the thirteenth century, as Pez observes, col. 38. Moreover, these things about Lauriacum are not in the Acts which this editor regards as genuine, sincere and older, which he copied from a codex of eight hundred years in the Library of St. Emmeram. Who this anonymous author was, says Pez, page 35, num. 2, or when he flourished, is uncertain: no trace at all having been left in his words from which you may understand his age and condition. Yet I would believe that he lived earlier than blessed Rabanus, created archbishop of Mainz from abbot of Fulda in the year 847, from this, that the latter in his Fasti of the Saints, at the 4th day before the Nones of May, commemorates the martyrdom of St. Florian in almost the same words as our anonymous author. For in these no ambitious description of Lauriacum is found, which is exhibited under the bare word castrum, by whose description I think we must stand. This splendid city of Lauriacum, then, at the time in which St. Florian the martyr fell here, that is, three years after the death of St. Maximilian, having been not a little diminished in the course of the fourth century, the barbarians frequently breaking in, was reduced to such a point that before the year 370 it lay as if buried in its own ruins; until, under the rule of the three Augusti, it rose from its rubble into a new fortress: hence perhaps it happened (for let it be permitted to me to make some conjecture here) that at least from the year 308, that is, from the death of St. Maximilian to the episcopate of Constantius, no bishop was deputed to the government of the church of Lorch, its care being then perhaps borne, because in those most wretched days Lauriacum had been either worn down or entirely overthrown by various disasters, by the bishop either of Passau or of some other of those whom they call regionary bishops. So at least a not improbable reason seems able to be given why an immense gap of almost a hundred and eighty years has crept into all the Catalogues, the Pezian, the Kremsmünster and the Duellian; which I willingly leave to the learned to weigh, and also to reject, if it seems good.

[25] Intent on apostolic labours, St. Maximilian laboured so diligently St. Maximilian benefited the city of Celeia even when persecution was imminent that he did not confine the ardour of his zeal within the limits of Noricum Ripense or of the diocese of Lorch, even when the Diocletianic persecution was imminent. I transcribe here the words of the biographer which conduce to proving the matter, taken from num. 9 of the Acts to be published: As the term of his calling therefore drew near, when he had now diligently sown the little plant of the Catholic faith through the whole province and had watered it with the fruitful showers of saving doctrine, at the Lord's command he went to the place of his birth, that the same earth which had begotten him might send him on to paradise: for he knew that certain shrubs of errors were still sprouting to the ruin of the new crop, which he strove with the greatest diligence to root out, while he dug that land with the hoe of the word of God. Hence Hansiz rightly numbers Maximilian among the Apostles of both Noricums, Germania Sacra, tome 1, Corollary 11, in these words: St. Maximilian, who, besides the care of Noricum Ripense and Pannonia, established in the faith of Christ also Noricum Mediterraneum, and its then head Celeia, his native place, by his preaching and martyrdom. Nor is it wonderful that the holy Bishop went out beyond the limits of the diocese of Lorch to bring help to the church of Celeia: for truly in these stormy days the various dioceses, especially in the Western parts, were not so distinguished by fixed boundaries as they afterwards were, when peace had been restored to the Church under Constantine; so that, either on account of the imminent rage of the persecutors or the rampaging barbarians, bishops and apostolic men ran hither and thither to promote the Christian cause more happily. How many provinces St. Martin of Tours went through in the fourth century no one is ignorant. But lest we wander outside the parts of Noricum Ripense harassed by so many disasters, St. Valentine, whose Acts were illustrated in tome 1 of January, pages 369 and 1094, although sent in the 5th century as bishop to the people of Passau, is nevertheless called by Eugippius, a contemporary author, in the Acts of the abbot St. Severinus, of whom Bolland treats at the 7th of January, num. 50, formerly bishop of the Raetias, because he laboured not a little among the Raetians. If, therefore, things were so in the Noricums in the 5th century, how much more at the end of the third century or the beginning of the following one, when the Christian cause still lay almost in its cradle? But let us now proceed to the times of Bishop Constantius.

[26] Between St. Maximilian and Constantius, who is inscribed in all the Catalogues, as also Constantius almost a hundred and eighty years elapsed, in which, as we have already hinted, no bishop sat at Lauriacum; nay, Constantius is the first whose episcopate is proved by unshaken monuments. It will help to cite them here. Eugippius supplies the first, who in the Acts of St. Severinus, his master, number 36, has thus: The citizens of the town of Lauriacum and the fugitives from the upper fortresses, scouts having been sent to the suspected places, guarded against the enemy as far as they could by human solicitude… The servant of God Severinus, having protested these things for three days, as the day was now drawing to evening, sending a monk named Valens to St. Constantius, the pontiff of the same place, and to the others dwelling there, said: "This night, the watches having been disposed along the walls according to custom, keep guard more strictly, beware of the snares of the enemy coming upon you." A second testimony for the episcopate of Constantius is exhibited by the Life of St. Antony, monk of Lérins, his nephew, of whom in this Work at the 17th day of July, composed by Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, who died in the year 521, and published among the works of the same by Sirmond in the year 1610, in which on pages 418 and 419 it is written thus of Constantius the prelate, uncle of St. Antony: At that time most flourishing, who, amid these storms of the times, lest he should have any support in the world, the land having been assigned to enemies, was freed by the human law: hence Hansiz, page 84 of Germania Sacra, assigns the death of Constantius to about the year 489 or 490.

[27] and Theodore are numbered among the bishops of Lorch. Theodore next took the place of Constantius, to whom there is extant the celebrated letter of Symmachus, who sat at Rome from the year 498 to 514, published by Hund and reprinted in Labbe's Councils, tome 4, col. 1311, by which the supreme Pontiff

grants to Theodore, archbishop of Lorch, the pallium, to be used according to the custom of his church founded by the apostles; therefore in the time of Pope Symmachus, that is, about the end of the fifth century or the beginning of the sixth, Theodore was set over the administration of the church of Lorch; but in what year he was elected bishop or in what year he left this see is held entirely uncertain. But whether Erchemfrid, Philo, Ottochar, Bruno and Theodore II sat at Lauriacum, Hansiz raises no small doubt, who besides Wilo numbers none among the bishops of Lorch. He is said to have held the helm about the year 737, when, Lauriacum having been destroyed, he went to Passau to fix his see there. In these times, says Bernard of Noricum in his Catalogue, St. Boniface of Mainz divided the province of Bavaria and the archbishopric of Lorch into four dioceses or parishes. From then on some light begins to shine on the series of the Bishops of Lorch, which in the preceding times is wrapped in much darkness. But let these things about the first bishops of the church of Lorch now suffice.

§ III. Of the beginnings of the church of Lorch, not unlike the beginnings of the churches of Gaul.

Hence the beginnings of the church of Lorch Of the origin of the church of Lorch Hieronymus Pez, Hansiz, Sigismund Calles and Aquilinus Julius Caesar, writer of the Annals of Styria, have disputed at length. It is not my intention to stir up again disputes formerly aroused but now almost laid to rest; intending to say some things about the beginnings of this church, I shall not run out beyond the limits of Noricum Ripense, as though confined within them in my discussion; nay, I shall endeavour to define the matter itself, pertaining chiefly to the ecclesiastical history of Noricum Ripense, from monuments drawn from those which survive from the ruins of Noricum. To pursue the question more closely, then, it is clear from what has been said above that only two bishops presided over the church of Lorch before Constantius, to whom this see is assigned by authentic monuments, Lawrence, Gerard and Quirinus being rejected as fictitious, inscribed undeservedly in the Duellian Catalogue, as I showed in nums. 14, 15 and 16: and since Eutherius was contemporary with Stephen, the supreme Pontiff, the first of the name, I think that the years of his episcopate are hence to be assigned to the times of Decius, and therefore that the beginnings of the church of Lorch are to be fixed in the middle of the third century or at the waning of the third century, whether you place Eutherius in the first place in the tables, or, with Hansiz, Blessed Maximilian before Eutherius: for since the latter underwent martyrdom in the Diocletianic persecution, everyone will say that he undertook to govern the church of Lorch either at the end of the third century or about the beginning of the following one.

[29] And this indeed is the more worthy of observation, because about the same time, the middle of the 3rd century, most of the churches of the Gauls, are to be placed only in the middle of the 3rd century, or about it. namely those of Toulouse, Tours, Narbonne, Paris and Limoges, as is clear from the Acts of St. Saturninus published by Ruinart among the Acta Sincera of the Martyrs, page 109 and following, and from Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, book 1, chap. 30, are said to have arisen and been founded under the consuls Decius and Gratus: for from this time the bishops, succeeding one another in turn, are seen inscribed in the tables of the churches: nay, before this celebrated epoch no series of bishops at all appears: scarcely one or another who can for certain be named as set over the churches; uncertain, therefore, all the things which are carried about by the asserters of the opposite opinion concerning the primitive origin of those churches from Acts or other monuments of the middle age. These things learned men noted long ago: the writers of the new Gallia Christiana, Longueval in the Preface prefixed to the History of the Gallican Church, Papebroch at the 30th of June illustrating the Acts of St. Martial, Du Sollier in the Commentary prefixed to the Acts of St. Memmius, bishop of Châlons, under the 5th day of August, Limpens at the 3rd day of September, sacred to St. Mansuetus, bishop of Toul, Perier at the 14th day of September discussing the Acts of St. Maternus the bishop, and finally the most illustrious Lord von Hontheim, writer of the History of Trier, all of whom with singular learning have illustrated the origin of the various churches in their writings. Nor does small authority accrue from these to the history of the church of Lorch, which has the same beginnings as the most celebrated churches of the Gauls: for in Noricum Ripense, as in many other provinces of Gaul, the light of the Gospel preaching, arising from the first century of Christ, made the same progress, that is, slow and very slight, as I shall presently show: churches were planted later, and scarcely any succession of bishops is found before the times of Decius, who Pagi proves assumed the purple in the year 249.

[30] Not on that account, however, do I deny that the light of the Gospel preaching shone upon the inhabitants of Noricum Ripense from the first or second century, as I have already hinted. That indeed, as most probable, [This is confirmed from the fact that the Gospel, perhaps in the first or second century,] is proved by Pez, Hansiz, Sigismund Calles and the writer of the Annals of Styria, and is hinted in not obscure words by Veit Arnpeck, Chronicle of the Bavarians, book 1, chap. 14 and following, and by the Catalogues of the bishops of Lorch published among Pez's Anecdota, tome 3, part 3, col. 38 and following, all of which report that the rays of the Christian faith penetrated to the Norici Ripenses and to the city of Lorch, the head of all Noricum, from the City and from Aquileia through the apostles or their disciples. But, to say what the case is, while these writers of the Catalogues fix the first origin of the Christian religion in the first century, they speak so doubtfully that they seem to wish to win very moderate credence for their statements. So has the author of the Pezian Catalogue: The beginning of the Catholic faith at Lauriacum IS BELIEVED to have been begun in the time of the Apostles. But the author of the Kremsmünster Catalogue reveals his mind, doubtful on that matter, in still clearer words. These are his words: Through these first sowers of the word of God, namely Philip, who preached in Scythia, to which is joined Germany, which contains Noricum, St. Peter, Mark the Evangelist, Ermachoras and Fortunatus, the said church of Lorch, IF IT WAS THEN FOUNDED, COULD receive the kingdom of God. Hence you will without doubt, and not undeservedly, conclude that those writers discoursed not from undoubted monuments of this church, but from some tradition or other, both about the preaching of the Gospel among the Norici in the time of the apostles and about the first origin of the church of Lorch, which, sticking as if in doubt, as is clear from their words, they set back in the times of the Apostles.

[31] announced in Noricum, made slight progress there, as in the Gauls, Of the beginnings of the Christian religion among the Gauls, seven bishops writing to St. Radegund in the year 567 relate this, Councils of Gaul, tome 1, page 248: When, with the very rise of the Catholic religion, the beginnings of the venerable faith had begun to breathe in the Gallican territories, and the ineffable Sacraments of the Lord's Trinity had then as yet come to the knowledge of few. Not otherwise speaks the biographer of St. Saturninus, bishop of Toulouse, whose work Ruinart published among the Acta Sincera of the Martyrs, page 109 and following, num. 2. At that time, he says, when, after the bodily coming of the Saviour our Lord Jesus Christ, the sun of justice, risen in the darkness, had begun to illuminate the Western region with the splendour of faith, after the sound of the Gospels had gone out GRADUALLY AND STEP BY STEP into all the earth, and with like progress (the Saint-Germain codex has, as Ruinart notes, and with great progress, five other codices and with slow progress) the preaching of the apostles had flashed forth in our regions, when rare churches were rising in some cities through the devotion of a few Christians; but nevertheless numerous temples were smoking in all places with the fetid fumes of the wretched error of the heathen. That what the words just adduced indicate to have happened in the Gauls happened also in Noricum, that is, in the city of Lorch, is testified by not a single monument; and in the first place let there be the words with which the biographer of St. Maximilian begins his narration, num. 1, writing thus: We ought to extol with outstanding proclamations of praise the merits of our most holy father and patron Maximilian, through whose luminous teaching we FIRST obtained the knowledge of the name of Christ and the catholic faith. For since, as is understood from this text of the biographer, the people of Lorch first came to the knowledge of Christ, and he, as it is easy to gather from the things I adduced in num. 19 and following, did not announce the Gospel to the Norici before the middle part of the 3rd century had elapsed, it follows that before the middle of the 3rd century the people of Lorch either did not know Christ, or certainly did not give their names to his religion in great number; and that so the preaching of the Gospel then made among them either no progress or certainly only slight progress.

[32] Nay, that it made only slight progress even after the apostolic labours endured by St. Maximilian among them, as is also clear from the monuments set down here. the same biographer presently reveals. For after the words in which he enumerates the labours undertaken by the Saint in converting the people of Lorch to Christ, he says in num. 8: The wickednesses also of the unbelieving heathen, with whom the province still abounded… he taught them to acknowledge the Creator of all and to be united to the body of holy Church, outside which no one can be saved: and also in num. 9 of the Acts presently to be published the biographer calls the church which Maximilian had founded a little plant. Why, I ask, did he call the church of Lorch a little plant, except that it numbered few faithful, and had put forth only the tenderest roots, as having then scarcely sprung up? Hear the author of the Pezian Catalogue, who speaks of the first times of the church of Lorch in the following manner: On account of the tyranny of the unbelievers and the opposition of the Romans, the metropolis of Lorch lacked the dignity of priestly benediction for two hundred years or nearly; nay, the Christians dwelling there were for the time few, and secretly practised divine worship in hiding-places. From this, however, and from other things already said, it follows, first, that scarcely any church existed, the 3rd century being already grown up, when Blessed Maximilian came there for the sake of preaching the Gospel, from which it comes about that I would inscribe him among the first bishops, even if the writers of all the Catalogues had not inscribed him: second, that few Christians also had been formed, although no slight labours had been undertaken by the holy Prelate, when, the end of his life approaching, he sought Celeia, the arena of his martyrdom; whence I with full right think that religion made slow and tardy progress among the Norici Ripenses; which I have shown to have happened also in the Gauls, and which the various monuments I have brought forward indicate. Wherefore I would dare to say that the church of Lorch was founded neither in the first nor in the second century, but in the third, its middle part having already elapsed, although the Gospel was preached to the Norici in the 1st or 2nd century.

[33] But perhaps someone will say: Symmachus, who was taken up to the supreme Pontificate in the year 498, To the difficulty from the letter of Pope Symmachus in the letter inscribed to Theodore, archbishop of Lorch, asserts that this church was established by the same apostles by whom the very head of all, the Roman Church, was founded; therefore the beginnings of the church of Lorch are to be traced from the first century of the Christian era. But this difficulty can be satisfied on more than one head. First, the supreme Pontiff writes that the church of Lorch was founded by the apostles, not because they themselves laid its foundations, but because many were drawn to Christ by their disciples, announcing the Gospel in Noricum,

as he judged; or Symmachus writes so because those who had been sent by the holy Roman See were called legates of St. Peter, whose see is at Rome, as is proved by the most illustrious writer of the History of Trier, by Papebroch using the words and argument of Cordes, by Limpens at the third of September, sacred to St. Mansuetus of Toul, and by Perier in the Commentary prefixed to the Acts of St. Maternus on the 14th day of September, num. 7, page 364. The same manner of speaking was used by Agapetus II, who in the year 946 was substituted for Marinus, in a letter published in Germania Sacra, tome 1, page 197, writing thus: This church of Lorch, even in the beginning of the nascent Church and in the most savage persecution of the Christians, we know to have received the rudiments of the Catholic faith from the teachers of this See. For both supreme Pontiffs, as is clear from the words of their letters recited above, certainly speak of the first founders of the church of Lorch.

[34] drawn But those whom Symmachus put on a level with the apostle Peter and the others who laid the foundations of the Roman Church, or says were contemporary or nearly contemporary with them, Agapetus calls only teachers of this See, namely the Roman, or sent from this See to teach the people of Lorch the rudiments of the faith. That those two Pontiffs therefore wished to designate the first bishops of Lauriacum there is no doubt. And indeed the writer of his Acts presently to be published asserts in clear words, num. 3, that St. Maximilian received from the Apostolic See the faculty of preaching the word of God: and how much he toiled in founding the church at Lauriacum, how much in drawing the people of Lorch to Christ, the same biographer declares in various places. Moreover, when Agapetus mentions a most savage persecution in the beginning of the nascent Church, and when he ascribes the beginnings of the church of Lorch to teachers deputed by the Roman See to teach the people of Lorch the rudiments of religion, what else does he intend to show but the most savage times of Diocletian, in which very many who had given their names to Christ were consigned to punishments and death; while this persecution was raging, Florian and forty others made the church of Lorch illustrious by a glorious contest; Maximilian himself fell a martyr at Celeia. All these things, however, the supreme Pontiff attributes to the first apostles or founders of the church of Lorch, and hence he sufficiently indicates, as I think, that its beginnings are to be fixed at this time. And indeed that the church of Lorch was planted when the 3rd century was already grown up, I have shown at length above in the preceding § while discussing Eutherius and Maximilian; and even if this could be argued not obscurely from the letters of Symmachus and Agapetus compared with one another, it would not on that account have to be believed that it was in fact founded by them (the apostles), contrary to what I have already shown. For the diplomas of the supreme Pontiffs are not of such weight in establishing the truth of some fact. Let us hear Perier discussing this matter at the 14th day of September, num. 47.

[35] it is answered What is to be said, he says, of Pontifical bulls or letters which set forth some fact, Papebroch teaches in the Responses to the exhibition of Father Sebastian of St. Paul, part 1, art. 2, §§10 and 14, where he has set out clearly enough what, according to the theologians, may be judged without irreverence towards the Apostolic See concerning historical facts which do not pertain to matters of faith, morals and rites, and which are related in such Bulls without definition only from the report of others and the common opinion of the time: not to do over what has been done, I shall simply recite what the most illustrious von Hontheim has here, and his answer to the bulls objected to him… An opinion, although it has been believed by one or several, nay by all, through many centuries, does not by that acquire new weight, and remains such even if it has been related in the charters of princes. We shall confirm this by the authority of Sirmond, tome IV of his Works, page CCCCC, in another cause indeed, but a Trier one, writing thus to Father Alexander Wiltheim: "As regards, then, the diploma of Dagobert for St. Maximin, the judgment, I think, ought to be the same as of all the others which proceed from Pontiffs or from princes. Each of these obtains force and authority in those things which they decree or which they grant; in the rest, which they relate as having been set forth to them by others, they create no other credit than was that of those who set them forth. And that uncertain and false things are very often suggested there is no doubt." Wherefore also no one of the learned has hitherto judged that the mentioned diplomas of Pontiffs and Emperors (although they have been in the public light for a hundred years and more) contribute much to the decision of this question. The most illustrious von Hontheim had previously reviewed the Bulls of the Pontiffs and the Diplomas of the emperors by which Blessed Eucharius, with Valerius and Maternus, is asserted to have been sent by St. Peter and the church of Trier to have been planted by them. And therefore, by the judgment of the various learned men whose opinion we have just related, the Bulls of the Pontiffs can contribute little to the belief that the church of Trier was founded by Blessed Eucharius or others sent by St. Peter: so also the letter of Pope Symmachus praised above, even if it asserted so clearly and expressly that it could not be expounded in another sense that the church of Lorch was founded by the apostles themselves, could not greatly conduce to our believing that it was in fact founded by them.

§ IV. Of the chronological Notes attached to the Acts of St. Maximilian: the time of his martyrdom is established from the Acts and some other monuments.

[The martyrdom of St. Maximilian neither in the year 281, to which it is attached in the Zell copy of his Acts,] The biographer of Blessed Maximilian put chronological notes into his composition, which I transcribe here: Now Blessed Maximilian, archbishop of Lorch, suffered for the faith of Christ near the city of Celeia, outside the walls, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 281, on the fourth day before the Ides of October: Pope Caius, who afterwards suffered under Diocletian, presiding over the Roman Church; Carus, Carinus and Numerian holding the Roman empire together, under Eulasius the judge or tyrant. The Lambach copy, which Pez collated with the Zell one, marks the year 288 on the third of October, which day of death is fixed in all the other codices, both printed and manuscript, preserved in the Bollandian Museum, on the fourth day before the Ides: nor is there any controversy among the learned about the day of death so set down. But in the codices of Formbach, which Pez used, of Rougecloître, Munich, SS. Ulrich and Afra, Passau, and in the anciently printed exemplar, the year of the Saint's death is written 289. But whether that year was 281, or 288 or 289, it does not on that account disagree less with the other epochs which I have just copied from the biographer: and first indeed, in the year 281, Probus still being in power, Carus and his two sons had not yet assumed the purple; nor had Caius himself been substituted for Eutychian, who did not depart from the living until the month of December of the year 283. Therefore, if you set down the martyrdom of our Saint at this year, the other epochs or chronological notes collapse, which the biographer, deducing them from the pontificate of Caius and the empire of Carus, inscribed in the Acts. But if you judge that the death of St. Maximilian is to be placed with the Lambach codex at the year 288, or with the other copies at the year 289, how could it be that St. Maximilian should be said to have suffered while Carus and his sons were governing the Roman empire, who, long since slain by different kinds of death, had yielded place and empire to Diocletian from the year 284? And therefore the years 288 and 289 cannot be attached to the empire of Carus and his sons, or ascribed as the year of death of our Saint.

[37] nor in the year 283 or the following, But in order that they might in whatever way favour the chronological notes which the biographer put into the Acts of St. Maximilian, some learned men have adhered to one or another of them, among whom Hansiz, who judged that the Saint's martyrdom could be placed at the year 283, in which Carus and his sons Carinus and Numerian were governing the Roman empire and Caius was sitting as bishop at Rome, or finally at the following year 284, to which both the older Catalogues, whose words we recited above, and some martyrologists, who write that he suffered under Numerian, fix his martyrdom; Calles and the writer of the Annals of Styria followed Hansiz. But while the author of Germania Sacra assigns the year 283 or 284 as the year of death of our Saint, he certainly strikes upon new rocks: for truly on the twelfth day of October of the year 283 Carus and his sons were indeed holding the empire, but Caius had not yet been taken up to the supreme Pontificate, who took the place of Eutychian only in the month of December of the same year: that new epoch, then, by which Hansiz wished to attach the day of Maximilian's death in the year 283 to the pontificate of Caius and the empire of Carus, falls by its own weight. And when he attaches the day of death, namely the twelfth of October, to the following year 284, another difficulty presently arises which is not easy to solve. For already from the month of January of the same year Carus, as Pagi proves by clear weights of reasons, num. II at this year, had been killed, whom Numerian also, slain by the snares of Aper, followed before the month of October: Caius indeed was set over the Roman Church, but on the twelfth day of October, on which St. Maximilian celebrated his martyrdom, Diocletian had been substituted for Carus and Numerian, who, by the witness of the same Pagi, num. III, having been proclaimed emperor at Chalcedon on the 17th day of September, then on the 5th day before the Kalends of October entered Nicomedia clothed in purple; wrongly, therefore, do Hansiz, and with him Calles and the writer of the Annals of Styria, bind the Saint's death to this year 284, advanced to the 12th day of October, and at the same time attach it to the empire of Carus and Numerian.

[38] The older Catalogues of the Bishops of Lorch and the martyrologists also attach the martyrdom of the Saint to the year 284; nor finally in the year 289, but what is to be judged both of these and of those I briefly hinted in num. 18 and shall show below, as soon as I have weighed also the opinion of those who place the martyrdom of the Saint at the year 289, under the rule of Diocletian, and some other things. Bruschius, Hund, with Schritovinus as leader, says Hansiz, and Ferrari in the General Catalogue of the Saints inscribed the martyrdom of St. Maximilian at the year 289 under the emperor Diocletian: and indeed, since in this year Diocletian, who had long since taken the place of Carus and his sons, was in power, it does not at once appear why the Saint, whose death is fixed in some copies of the Acts to the year 289, could not be said to have suffered martyrdom under his empire in this year. But, as Ruinart observes in the Preface to the Acta Sincera of the Martyrs, page LVII, Paris edition, We do not deny that in the first times of Diocletian the church was disturbed by no edicts, nor that the Christians were then sought out, especially in those places which were under the special care of Diocletian, as is established from the beginning of book 8 of the History of Eusebius. Whence, if there were then some martyrdoms, they were accomplished either by the authority of the old laws, or from the disposition of the governors, or on some other occasion, without edicts. Since, therefore, from what is to be said below, St. Maximilian was condemned to capital sentence by virtue of some edict passed by Diocletian against the Christians,

and since none was passed by that emperor before the year 303, it follows from this that the death of the holy Bishop cannot be set down before this year, from as early as the year 289.

[39] But I do not dwell longer on refuting the opinion of Bruschius and Hund, but in the Diocletianic persecution, and indeed not before the year 303 since in the following numbers I am going to state the time at which St. Maximilian in fact underwent martyrdom. This one thing it will help to have noted here in passing: that among the learned who have discussed the time of his martyrdom there has been absolutely no one who has drawn his calculation from the chronological notes, taken together, put into his History by the biographer; but all, adhering to one or another, have judged that the rest, as being opposed to one another, were to be rejected at pleasure. And indeed in what way would they have undertaken to reconcile, for example, the year 281 or 288 or 289 with the pontificate of Caius and the empire of Carus and his sons? I certainly, not being able to solve such great difficulties, judge that all these chronological notes which the biographer inscribed in the Acts of St. Maximilian are to be regarded as spurious, undeservedly added, and therefore to be entirely rejected, yet in such a way that I do not deny that he acted as Bishop and Apostle under Caius the supreme Pontiff, while Carus and his sons Carinus and Numerian held the Roman empire together, although meanwhile, because of the things now to be said, I bring myself to think it more probable that he was slain for Christ under Diocletian, and indeed after the year 303. To one turning over the Acts of St. Maximilian there at once occur the words with which Eulasius the governor addresses the Saint standing before the tribunal, and they are these: Eulasius said: Do you not know that an edict has long since been issued by the most invincible emperors and by the Roman senate, that all should be punished with various torments who confess that that Crucified one whom you preach is God, who without the authority of the sacred senate deified himself? Indeed very many accomplices of your sect, having with obstinate mind experienced in their own bodies that formidable sentence of the same edict, both in the Roman city and elsewhere in the world, are seen to have left to posterity a sufficiently evident example of coming to one's senses.

[40] most probably to be set down At the time, then, at which the things here mentioned happened, an edict had been issued by the emperors by which Christians were consigned to punishments; and that this was none other than that celebrated decree, published throughout the whole world by order of Diocletian and Maximian, by which, as Lactantius writes, printed at Paris in the year 1748, in the book On the Deaths of the Persecutors, chap. 13, page 199, it was provided that men of that religion should lack all honour and dignity, should be subject to torments, from whatever order or rank they came, that every action should be warm against them, everyone will easily believe, having regarded the words of Eulasius which I have just now recited from the biographer of the Saint. For Carus, and his sons Carinus and Numerian, whom he had proclaimed Augusti, had not put forth a similar edict; and since those which Decius, Gallus and Valerian had published not only subjected the Christians to torments and punishments but ordered them to be punished with death, it appears very like the truth that Eulasius spoke, through the words already recited above from the biographer, of the decree mentioned in the words of Lactantius just transcribed here, which was published throughout the whole world against the Christians in the year 303 at the command of Diocletian; and since, as is clear from these things, that decree was objected to Maximilian by Eulasius before he fell for the faith, hence indeed it likewise comes out very like the truth that the Saint was put to martyrdom not indeed by virtue of the same decree, but of another far more severe one, which was added to that former one, decreeing only punishments against the Christians, by Diocletian, as Lactantius in the place just cited not obscurely reveals, not long after the first, at the urging of Galerius Maximian, and which stirred up the persecution which for several years raged most cruelly against Christians of every age, condition and sex, not only with torments but with various kinds of death.

[41] [and therefore by no means are those to whom the contrary is related, or those adduced here] His biographer indeed expressly relates, through the words already adduced in num. 36, that Maximilian suffered for the faith of Christ in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 281, and therefore before the persecution stirred up by order of Diocletian in the year 303; but he no less expressly at the same time records in the same place that this happened while Caius was supreme Pontiff and Carus, Carinus and Numerian held the Roman empire together; wherefore, since neither the Pontificate of Caius nor the empire of Carus, Carinus and Numerian reigning together can be reconciled with the year of Christ 281, as we showed in the place just cited, it is likely that that writer, who for the most part drew what he committed to writing from other documents or writers older than himself, did not receive the chronological notes already given, with which he fortifies the Saint's martyrdom, from monuments or authors of proved credit, so that we must not stand by them: on the contrary, since there is no reason why anyone should rightly suspect anything similar of that writer in respect of the edict which he mentions through the words recited in num. 40, and which we have already shown is none other than that which Lactantius writes, in the place cited above, was published by order of Diocletian in the year 303, there is certainly reason why, the chronological notes which we have just brought forward from the Saint's biographer being disregarded, it should be believed that this was objected to Maximilian by Eulasius before he underwent martyrdom, and therefore that the Saint shed his blood for Christ under Diocletian, or rather in the persecution stirred up by him.

[42] And that this is the more readily to be believed, and therefore that we must not stand by the chronological notes just mentioned, the chronological notes appears even from the fact that it is agreed among all that the Saint fell for Christ either under Numerian or under Diocletian, or rather in the persecution decreed by him; and it is well established from documents of proved credit that in this one indeed, but not likewise under Numerian, not a few were slain for Christ in Noricum and in Pannonia neighbouring to it, and among these St. Florian and St. Quirinus, of whom we have already brought the one into our Work on the fourth day of May, the other on the fourth of June. Pinius indeed, at the 26th day of August, on which he brought him, inscribed in the Roman Martyrology, into our Work, sets down Constantius, who suffered in Pannonia and is venerated at Constance in Swabia, under Numerian, both in the Commentary prefixed to the Acts of that Saint and in the marginal little note which is placed at their head; but since in the latter he adds as is reported, he thus clearly manifests that his mind on that matter is doubtful; and indeed not undeservedly; for although Notker and some other martyrologists likewise set down Constantius under Numerian, yet that he won the palm of martyrdom at that time was probably originally taken from his Acts; and that these are only of very slight credit everyone will confess who has turned over the Commentary composed by Pinius on them.

[43] But, you will say, the older Catalogues of the Bishops of Lorch, as well as some martyrologists, relate that St. Maximilian suffered under Numerian. [it is shown that we must stand neither by the Catalogues of the Bishops of Lorch nor by the martyrologists,] I admit, it is so: but those martyrologists are only rather recent, and are not known to have drawn the epoch which they so assign to the martyrdom of our Saint from monuments of sufficient antiquity and credit; and as regards the older Catalogues of the Bishops of Lorch, all these were written down no earlier than either the 13th or the 12th century, and since moreover they labour under not a few blemishes, there is no reason why Maximilian should not be believed to have suffered not under Numerian but in the Diocletianic persecution. Nor would anyone think that, because monuments of this kind, teeming with faults and blemishes, are held in slight or even no esteem, it would be all over with the whole history and all its foundations would have to be overturned. For although that would certainly have place if we were speaking of monuments which had found ancient authors speaking of things done either in their own age or certainly not far from it, yet a different judgment is to be passed on monuments which sprang up the space of several centuries after the things they record. For without any loss to history, whatever these report, if they are not supported by the testimony of either ancient writers or documents, can safely be rejected, that saying of Baronius then holding place: What is brought forward about things so ancient by a more recent writer without the testimony of an ancient author is despised. Wherefore, since the older Catalogues of the Bishops of Lorch of which we speak here were written either ten or certainly nine centuries after the age of St. Maximilian, there is certainly no fear that, while we reject what they relate about the Saint having suffered martyrdom under Numerian, history should suffer any damage from it, and so they ought not, as I have already warned, to prevent the Saint from being believed, on account of the things alleged above, to have been crowned with martyrdom not under Numerian but in the Diocletianic persecution.

[44] and that the Saint, by martyrdom, about the year 308, But since that persecution lasted for the space of some years, in what year did this then take place? The imperial edict by which savagery with torments against the Christians was ordered was objected to Maximilian, before he was put to death, by Eulasius, as we saw above; and since this, from what has been said, was most probably none other than that very celebrated edict of Diocletian promulgated against the Christians in the year 303, by the testimony of Lactantius, and further, at the time when it was objected to Maximilian by Eulasius, it was said to have been issued long since by the most august emperors, as the very words of the biographer recited in num. 39 hint, it follows that our Saint was most probably put to martyrdom about four or five years after the promulgation of the same edict made in the year 303, and therefore about the year 308. And indeed that this was done about that time can also be confirmed from the fact that the see of Lorch, after the martyrdom of St. Maximilian, who is placed in the last place before the year 308 in all the Catalogues of the Bishops of Lorch, is indicated by the writer of the Pezian and of the Kremsmünster Catalogue to have remained very long empty, or, what is the same, to have lacked a bishop from the year 308: for although these two authors do not deserve entire credit, nothing nevertheless prevents us from supposing that they drew their narration, by which they assert that the see of Lorch was empty from the year 308, from ancient writers or documents, and therefore that church, which is said to have lacked a bishop for the space of many years, seems to me to have in fact remained empty through the martyrdom of our Saint, who is inscribed in the last place before the year 308 in the aforesaid Catalogues. Therefore, from the related words of these two Catalogues, I judge that St. Maximilian most probably obtained the crown of martyrdom about this year 308.

[45] and indeed on the 12th day of October, we conclude, he was crowned. And indeed on the twelfth day of October, concerning which there exists, as far as I know, no controversy among the learned: only the Lambach copy, which Pez collated with the various ones he had at hand, fixed the death of the holy Prelate on the third day before the Ides of October, which I judge happened through the carelessness of the copyist: but other

copies preserved in the Bollandian Museum, and various Martyrologies, of which in the following §, place it under the following day. Hence everyone will say that St. Maximilian underwent martyrdom on this day. In the Martyrology of Augsburg, however, written in a hand of the twelfth century, and which Du Sollier cites in the Auctaria of Usuard, in today's announcement these words are found: Dedication of the basilica of St. Maximilian the confessor; because perhaps on this day the dedication of some church in honour of this Saint was celebrated, and it certainly does not follow from this that he was not crowned with martyrdom on this day. Further, since all the copies of his Acts, the one Lambach excepted, and various Martyrologies set down the day of his death at the 12th of October, one must, as I think, entirely assent to them.

§ V. The memory of St. Maximilian in the Fasti and the ecclesiastical cult shown to him.

The Saint, who in the sacred Fasti The present Roman Martyrology celebrates the memory of St. Maximilian in the following words: At Celena in Pannonia, of St. Maximilian, bishop of Lorch: which announcement, although conceived in brief words, the most eminent author of that Martyrology confesses in the Notes subjoined to the said announcement to have been taken from Molanus. His Acts, he says, are to be seen in the Library of Tournai (read Formbach) in Molanus, or with Cuspinian in Austria. Both martyrologists undeservedly set down Celena as the arena of the martyrdom, which all the copies of his Life, seen by Pez or preserved in the Bollandian Museum, and the constant tradition of Noricum Mediterraneum place at Celeia, as I showed in num. 1. It is certainly wonderful that in the ancient Martyrologies which are commonly called Classical the name of St. Maximilian is not found inscribed, whose memory nevertheless is so celebrated among the Norici that from at least the eighth century, as I shall presently show, the Saint is honoured with special veneration, and the most ancient Fasti of various churches, especially of Germany, have his name entered in them.

[47] And indeed the Martyrology of Murbach, published from a codex of 800 years by Martène, Anecdota, tome 3, on October 12 col. 1570, announces Maximilian today with Priscianus. The Calendar of Tegernsee, written at least 700 years ago, says Pez, Scriptores Rerum Austriacarum, tome 1, page 21, celebrates the holy Prelate in the words which I subjoin: On the 4th day before the Ides of October, of St. Maximilian the confessor. The Necrology of Ebersberg, which Oefele calls very ancient, Rerum Boicarum Scriptores, tome 1, page 15 and following, that of Diessen, written in a hand of the 12th century and published by the same Oefele on page 65, the Martyrology of Lérins, committed to writing 600 years ago, as Martène observes in the tome just mentioned, col. 1625, and the Calendar of Melk of the same age, of which Pez, just cited, speaks, record our Saint in these or similar words, which I transcribe here: Of Maximilian, bishop and confessor; the Martyrology of Augsburg, already cited by me, exhibits the dedication of some basilica of St. Maximilian. To these codices, copied 800, 700 and 600 years ago, let it be permitted to subjoin the manuscript Florarium, very well known in this Bollandian Work and written after the middle of the fifteenth century, in which today there follows a very long announcement of St. Maximilian, taken from his Acts, in which the year of his death is fixed to the year 286. To the Florarium are added the Martyrologies of Greven, of the Lübeck-Cologne edition, and of Molanus, to whose announcement for today is read subjoined the translation of the Saint's relics, made either by Blessed Rupert or by Henry, duke of the Bavarians, whom Molanus wrongly calls the emperor Henry II. Here also I shall name the more recent Martyrologies which have the name of St. Maximilian inscribed in them, namely the German one of Canisius, or rather of Walasser, and those of Felicius and Maurolycus, from the words of all of which it is clearly proved that he has been held in singular veneration both in past centuries and in our days.

[48] or is inscribed on other days. But the sacred Fasti do not celebrate the memory of St. Maximilian only on the twelfth day of October. The manuscript Florarium announces on the 12th of March the dedication of some basilica sacred to St. Maximilian; or, as Bolland writes at the 7th day of January, illustrating the Acts of St. Valentine: The Roman Martyrology has this on the 29th of October: "On the same day, of the holy bishops Maximilian, martyr, and Valentine, confessor." Molanus in the additions to Usuard, on the same day: "In the city of Passau, the Triumph of the holy bishops Maximilian, martyr, and Valentine, confessor": again in smaller type, but in a somewhat different way: "In the city of Passau, the Triumph of the holy bishops Maximilian, martyr, and Valentine, confessor." But what that triumph is he does not express. The German Martyrology has the same, and adds that they are the chief patrons of that church and diocese. In the Life of St. Maximilian, presently to be published, num. 9, mention is made of the city saved in 1265, on the 29th of October, by his and St. Valentine's patronage. The Gallo-Belgic Martyrology is to be corrected, in which both are assigned to Padua in Italy. In the Chronicle of Dexter, at the year 424, num. 5, there is this: "Near Tuy in Galicia, in the town of Viana, the holy pontiffs Maximilian and Valentine are renowned." Bivar does not doubt that these are SS. Maximilian and Valentine of whom the Roman Martyrology speaks on the 29th of October, and confidently corrects Molanus, who wrongly joined the place Vienne with Theodore. He judges it should be read thus: "On the same day, of the holy bishops Maximilian, martyr, and Valentine, confessor. At Vienne likewise the deposition of Bl. Theodore the abbot." These things, since they contribute not a little to asserting the cult of St. Maximilian, have seemed to me to be subjoined to this Commentary; nor do the things I presently subjoin do less to confirm it.

[49] and to whom various In the time of St. Rupert, who is written by Baronius, Pagi, Mabillon and Hansiz to have lived in the time of Childebert III, king of Austrasia, the cult of our Saint was already then celebrated among the Norici. Hear what his biographer has in num. 15 of the Life to be published. These are his words: Blessed Rupert, archbishop and patron of the people of Juvavum, seeing that most clear and singular lamp of this land shining in a dark place, and the most precious gem, namely the body of the blessed man Maximilian, scattering innumerable sparks of virtues and miracles, understanding that the prerogative of his merits before God was great and magnificent, dedicated several churches, as today plainly appears, under his patronage. What those churches were that were dedicated under the patronage of St. Maximilian, the writer of his Life does not declare: the chronologer of the city of Celeia, cited by the writer of the Annals of Styria, asserts on page 8 that St. Rupert came to Celeia and dedicated a simple church there, with some others, in honour of the same St. Maximilian. If any credit is to be given to Johannes Aventinus, writing the history of the monastery of Ötting, St. Rupert built a chapel in honour of St. Maximilian; but I subjoin the words of Aventinus narrating the fact. Two churches, he says, chap. 5, built speedily by the princes (namely Theodo and Otto, sons of Theodo the Second, prince of the Bavarians) next to the palaces, he dedicated to Christ the Lord and our God and to his Mother, the Virgin Mother of God. One at Regensburg, the other at Ötting; both they are wont to call the Old. The same man also consecrated, not far from Ötting, a church to St. Maximilian; it is called Burgiochiricha and lies on the bank of the river Matiche.

[50] But since the Acts of St. Maximilian, the manuscript Chronicle of Celeia and the History of Aventinus just cited as from the charters may seem to many learned men also to be of slight credit, I shall here subjoin two monuments of the Norici of venerable antiquity; two charters, I say, of which information has been supplied to us by Arno, who presided over the church of Salzburg from about the year 785 to 821, and by that anonymous author who, contemporary or nearly contemporary with Arno, brought the same charters into his brief notices: which notices or annotations Canisius first published, Antiquae Lectiones, tome 2, page 484, and again tome 6, page 1147; Basnage, who saw to the new edition of the same Lectiones; and finally Hansiz, Germania Sacra, tome 2, page 19 and following. But let us hear this last writer writing about both little books, who has thus on page 12: I now subjoin what I had long since received, two very ancient monuments of the things given to this church of Salzburg by its first founders… The first is the little book or annotation of the gifts by Theodo, duke of Bavaria, the founder… It was composed in the year 788 by order of Bishop Arno, in a rude style indeed and little according to the rule of Grammar, but otherwise venerable for its antiquity; to which there is a twin, another of the same argument, except that it is a little fuller and more explicit than the former, and besides the donations made before Arno, it also reviews those which were made under Arno already archbishop. The style also is more correct, and the whole work is arranged in XXIII chapters, by an author likewise ancient, certainly not very far removed from the age of Arno, who relates what he relates chiefly from the original charters, of which also he makes mention in chap. XV, writing about the Exchange of a certain Hadebert with Arno; which Exchange, he says, is not contained among the other charters.

[51] These things premised, I subjoin the words of the first of the said charters, taken from chap. XVI of the Annotations of Arno, here which are these: Now concerning the cell of St. Maximilian, it happened thus, that it was built from the beginning. Two brothers went into the place which is called Pongau, the name of the one Tonazanus and the name of the other Urso, for hunting and for making gold, and they saw there many lights on several nights and many other signs, and coming to the lord Bishop Hrodbert they told what they had seen there, and he, going with them, saw likewise there. Then also the lord Hrodbert went to Duke Theodo (this was Theodo, the Second by name) and told those miracles, and asked him to give him licence to build a cell there, and so Duke Theodo gave him licence. And the lord Hrodbert came again to the same place with his men and with the brothers written above, and began there to root out and clear the place and make an oratory. And the oratory having been made, he came again to Duke Theodo and asked him to come with him to the same place. And when they had come there, the lord Hrodbert consecrated that oratory, and Duke Theodo handed over that place to St. Peter at the monastery of Salzburg, etc.

[52] it is clear from what is here transcribed, The same is narrated, and in almost the same words, by that anonymous author, whoever he was, who copied the same notices of the monuments, chap. 11, to which the following title is read prefixed: Of the Vision of light in the place where St. Maximilian is known to be buried: and of the church built there. The rest of the words of this notice I shall here copy only in summary. They run thus: It happened that two men went up along the Salzach into the wilderness for hunting and for making gold, and coming into that place which is now called Pongau, they saw for three nights together as it were two candles burning, and perceived with their nostrils a great odour of wonderful sweetness breathing forth. At which, greatly wondering, they came and announced it to the lord Bishop Rudbert. Which having been heard by him, *he presently sent his priest and gave him a small wooden cross which he himself consecrated, and commanded him to inquire diligently into this matter, whether it was true as the aforesaid men had said. Who came with

Domingus and other men, and the same priest that same night saw there lamps burning and perceived there a great odour, and found it so there for three nights together. Then also, according to the command of St. Rudbert, he set up there that holy cross and made a small hut over it. Blessed Rudbert also, having received power from Theodo and Theodebert his son, dukes of Bavaria, built a church there, and dwellings for the servants of God, and consecrated that church in honour of St. Maximilian, and named that place Pongau.

[53] churches were dedicated. Hence, learned reader, you have the origin of the cell and church of Pongau made clear from undoubted monuments, from which it is certainly established that, on the occasion of a certain light appearing for three nights and of an odour wonderfully sweet, St. Rupert at the beginning of the eighth century consecrated to the honour of St. Maximilian the cell and church built there with the permission of the dukes of Bavaria. Wherefore before the year 718, which, as is believed, was the year of St. Rupert's death, the cult of St. Maximilian was celebrated among the Norici; and since, from what has been said, a church inscribed with his name already existed among them, I think it is not to be doubted that some cult had been shown to him even before.

[54] with the ecclesiastical Office here mentioned Further, the people of Passau held him in special veneration, where, as is believed, his relics were carried to their city, that is, from about the year 985, as I shall show below. In the Breviary of the same church, says Pez, Scriptores Rerum Austriacarum, tome 1, page 21, published at Venice in the year 1517, in whose Calendar it is prescribed that on the feast day of St. Maximilian a highest feast is to be kept, two prayers are found, in one of which he is named Confessor and Pontiff, in the other Martyr and Pontiff. Another Passau Breviary, published also at Venice in the year 1505, has exactly the same. Nor perhaps will it irk the reader to go through the order prescribed in celebrating his Office. I therefore exhibit it here. At Vespers, over the Psalms, the Antiphon: "Saint Maximilian, precious confessor of the Lord, be present to our prayers," as in the Common of Pontiffs. Psalms "Laudate." Chapter: "Behold a priest." Responsory: "Blessed Maximilian," as in the Common, during which they go down to the monastery: the Responsory finished, the cantors sing ℣ That we may be helped with Christ by his patronage, etc. Hymn: "Iste Confessor," sung to the tune "Ut queant laxis." Versicle: "With glory and honour." At the Magnificat, Antiphon: "From generation to generation the Lord has shown mercy, who brought Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees and called St. Maximilian from the ends of the earth, that in this our land he might be a pilgrim and a stranger: in the true heavenly fatherland a Citizen with the Saints and of the Household of God; that, given to us by God as Patron, he may continually intercede for this holy people and all the faithful. Alleluia." Collect: "Be propitious, we beseech thee, O Lord, through the glorious merits of blessed Maximilian, thy confessor and pontiff, who rests in the present church: that by his loving intercession we may be protected from all adversities. Through. Let us bless the Lord." At Compline, Chapter: "Peace and truth." Over the Nunc dimittis, Antiphon: "Watch over us." ℣ The Lord loved him. Collect: "O God, who dividest the day from the night." At Matins, Invitatory: The King of Confessors. All the rest from the History. Well done, good servant. Lesson I. In the city of Celeia. Lesson II. This comely little infant. Lesson III. But when he was thirteen years old. Lesson IV. The years of infancy and boyhood therefore having run their course. Lesson V. St. Quirinus therefore. Lesson VI. St. Maximilian therefore having returned. At the Hours, at Lauds, Chapter: "Behold a priest." Hymns solemnly. After Sext let there be a procession to the monastery with the Responsory "Blessed Maximilian." Which being finished, let the cantors begin the Office or Mass: "The Lord established for him," and it is done throughout as on the day of St. Valentine. At second Vespers, Antiphon: "Behold a priest." Hymn: "Iste Confessor." ℣ With glory and honour. At the Magnificat, Antiphon: "He despises the glory of the world with its delights," as in the Common of Confessor Pontiffs. On page 244 proper Antiphons for Lauds are published, and moreover this Antiphon is added at the Magnificat at II Vespers: Let us magnify the Lord, the Saviour of all. The second Collect, customarily read, as is likely, outside Passau, is this: Almighty everlasting God, who art wonderful in the works of all thy Saints, grant us to rejoice in the yearly solemnity of blessed Maximilian, thy martyr and pontiff, who stood forth as a martyr of thy Son, and confirmed by testimony what he performed by ministry, and confirmed by example what he preached by mouth. Through. If anyone asks why on the feast of St. Maximilian the Office is celebrated of a Confessor Pontiff, the Rubrics, pages 124, 131, 132, 283, etc., offer the reason ready to hand in the words which I subjoin: Concerning the Saints who are pontiffs and martyrs, Pope Gregory the Seventh instituted that the feast of all the holy Roman Pontiffs and Martyrs be celebrated solemnly everywhere with full Office … When therefore the feast of a Pope and Martyr is kept, all things are to be said of a Pontiff. What Gregory VII, then, is said to have instituted in celebrating the festivals of the Roman Pontiffs and Martyrs, the people of Passau retained on the feast of St. Maximilian, who still celebrate the feast of our Saint with an Octave, but in the city only, under the rite which they call of the first Order, says Hansiz, Germania Sacra, tome 1, Corollary X, page 35.

[55] venerate him Concerning the rite with which the feast of St. Maximilian is to be celebrated, Hansiz took some things from the Breviary published at Vienna in the year 1522 and from the Missal of the church of Passau, which it will help to have noted here also. Of St. Maximilian the Prayer is now said as in the Common of Martyrs: "O God, who us." The Prayer likewise, the Secret and the other after Communion were formerly different from those of today. And indeed different ones are exhibited by the Munich copy, the anciently printed codex of which in num. 2, and the old manuscript of the Library of St. Vaast, cited by Father Jean Courvoisier, Life of St. Maximilian, page 283. The Secret has thus: As the gifts of Abel. Post-Communion: Of heavenly things, almighty God. The Gospel, Hansiz continues, whereas formerly it was "Let your loins be girded," is today "If any man come to me." There was formerly a Mass of SS. Valentine and Maximilian, patrons of the church, customarily said jointly, which began: "Priests." Prayer: "Be propitious, we beseech thee." Epistle: "The tongue of the wise." Gospel: "Take heed, watch and pray." Likewise a special Hymn or, as they call it, Sequence, which contains nothing but pious prayers. Today, among the customary commemorations or suffrages of the Saints, after the suffrages of SS. Peter and Paul, and likewise of Stephen the protomartyr, there is a commemoration of SS. Maximilian and Valentine jointly with the prayer: "Be propitious, we beseech thee," and there is added in the cathedral, "who rest in the present church."

[56] the people of Passau, In Corollary XI, where the same Hansiz treats of the ceremonial distributions customarily made in the church of Passau in memory of a feast occurring, the following, which I subjoin, are read: On the 12th day of October, the feast of St. Maximilian, to each, individually, is given a larger cake of white bread. In an ancient Missal written in a hand of the 12th century, which Pez cites, tome 1, page 21 of the Scriptores Rerum Austriacarum, on the day sacred to St. Maximilian, the Mass from the Common, as they say, of several Martyrs is set forth. Introit: But the Salvation of the Just. Gradual: Avenge. Offertory: Wonderful. Communion: I you. In the Proper of the Saints for the use of the church of Passau, published in the year 1608, on the day sacred to St. Maximilian, all things as in the Common of one Martyr. Three Lessons from his history, from which the editor rejected the things which were found in the Breviary published in the year 1505 about St. Quirinus, bishop of Lorch and afterwards of Aquileia. But enough and more than enough has now been said about the order in which the feast of St. Maximilian is customarily celebrated among the people of Passau. Now a few things occur to be added about the cult with which various churches in Germany venerate him.

[57] the people of Vienna, Regensburg, Freising The church of Vienna celebrates his feast day under the double rite and with nine Lessons, as becomes clear from the Proper of the Saints of that church published in the year 1632. His Office has only three Lessons in the Proper of the Saints of the diocese of Regensburg published at Ingolstadt in the year 1611. Under the same rite they recall the memory of our Saint in the Proper of the Saints of Salzburg, printed in the same place in the year 1647, and the church of Freising in a book adapted to the use of this church and committed to print by the authority of the most illustrious Lord Veit Adam, bishop: which various Propers of the Saints are preserved in the Bollandian Museum.

[58] But the church of Tournai also recalls the feast of St. Maximilian with the same double rite and above all the people of Tournai, with which the lords of Passau are wont to celebrate it, ever since in the century just past the lords dean and canons of Passau granted something of the relics of this holy Bishop to the most illustrious bishop of Tournai, which the Most Reverend left as a gift to his cathedral church of Tournai, as I shall show in § VII. Father Jean Courvoisier, of the sacred family of the Minims, has much about this in the book which he published at Brussels in the year 1638 on the Life of St. Maximilian, page 275 and following. I transcribe here the Instrument, drawn from the Tables of the church of Tournai, by which the lords of Passau send to the lords of Tournai the Office of St. Maximilian customarily said in the church of Passau, that they may celebrate it according to their norm.

[59] We, the dean and chapter of the cathedral church of Passau, make known by these presents who received their Office of the Saint from the people of Passau. *in what manner the Most Reverend and Most Illustrious Prince and Lord, the Lord Maximilian, bishop of Tournai, has indicated to us by letters that, moved by singular devotion towards St. Maximilian, formerly prelate of the church of Passau and its perpetual patron, after receiving two particles of relics, he not only is having a silver statue wrought at the cost of four thousand florins, but also intends, for the greater glory of God and the honour of the said St. Maximilian, to found an Office under the double rite and to have it celebrated annually, wholly after that manner in which it is customarily performed with us at Passau: therefore, in order the more easily to obtain licence from his Pontifical Holiness, he needs our authentic credit and attestation that his prayers with the ceremonies of the Office agree in every way with how it is celebrated with us. Since therefore we, the dean and chapter of the aforesaid cathedral church of Passau, rejoice in the patronage and merits of St. Maximilian, and not wishing our part to be at all wanting to this zeal of the most praiseworthy bishop of Tournai, we attest by virtue of these presents that the feast of the above-said St. Maximilian is celebrated by the bishop or suffragan of the cathedral church of Passau in no other way than the Most Reverend Lord Bishop of Tournai intends. And that solemnity is contained in the following and, for the sake of fuller information, is here specially inserted. For the whole Office of St. Maximilian is said under the double rite of the first class with an Octave, on the twelfth of the month of October, from the Common of one Martyr. Prayer: "O God, who us, blessed Maximilian thy martyr, etc." In the first Nocturn the Lessons

are read from chap. 2 of the Acts: "From Miletus Paul sending to Ephesus." The Lessons of the second Nocturn are proper. Lesson IV: "Maximilian," as in the Proper of the Saints of this church published in the year 1608. In the third Nocturn is read the Gospel of Luke 14: "If any man come to me," with the Lessons of the Homily of St. Gregory the Pope which follow there. At Lauds and through all the Hours, from the Common. The Mass is said of one Martyr, which begins: "Priests of God, bless the Lord." The Gospel the same as was in the 3rd Nocturn: "If any man come to me." All which things being so, we have given this testimony fortified with our capitular seal at Passau on the 26th of the month of May in the year of Christ 1634. It agrees; signed P. Mafurech. But now the people of Tournai celebrate the feast of the Saint under the simple rite, but in the cathedral church under the rite of a greater triple, as becomes clear from the Proper of the Saints of this diocese published in the year 1712.

ille* (that one)

§ VI. The relics of the Saint and their various translations to different places.

The relics of the Saint buried near Celeia, The sentence of the governor Eulasius having been passed, Maximilian, presently led to the shrine of Mars, constantly refusing to sacrifice to it, was diminished by a head. Then the Christians coming, says his biographer, num. 14 of the Life to be published, took his body by night and buried it near the city with a humble burial indeed, for fear of the pagans, where the Lord deigned to show very many signs and miracles through his merits, as in life so also after death. From these words the tradition of the Norici does not disagree, asserted by Hansiz, Germania Sacra, tome 1, page 30, and by the writer of the Annals of Styria, page 228. For at Celeia, he says, they show the place in which he was beheaded, in which he was buried. And therefore that he was first buried at Celeia seems to the learned an undoubted matter. But some controversies have arisen about his various translations, to be briefly touched on here by us.

[61] neither into Italy in the year 488; The Saint's biographer himself raises the first, num. 22 of the Life to be published, writing thus: The whole church of Lorch, with all its suffragans and the people of both sexes … wishing to keep their life, from fear of the same kings Odoacer and Theodoric, with all their substance and clerics, books and privileges, and the relics and bodies of the Saints of the same, migrated to Naples and the whole Samnite Italy, leaving nothing of memory to the Pannonians and Moesians: with whom also the greater part of the body of blessed Maximilian and the little book containing his life and miracles was likewise carried away. Of this migration blessed Severinus, monk of Noricum, makes full mention in his life, where he asked of his compatriots that they should also carry his bones with them into Italy. But, says Hansiz, page 33, whom the author of the Annals of Styria also supports, the same biographer nevertheless indicates that some part of the relics was in his age deposited at Passau and held in honour, in that he relates that the sick, the blind and the lame were restored to health at his tomb. Moreover, as the same writer adds, there is nowhere any record that relics of St. Maximilian are kept in Italy. Besides, that migration, which was made by order of Odoacer in the year 488, concerned only the Norici Ripenses and the towns placed on the bank of the Danube, as Eugippius, who was present at the same migration, expertly writes. That the inner Norici or those of Celeia, as far removed from the bank of the Danube, were comprehended in that command to migrate is not established.

[62] nor were they afterwards brought to Lauriacum by St. Rupert, Molanus asserts that another translation of the Saint's relics, to Lauriacum, was made by St. Rupert, in today's announcement of St. Maximilian, which has thus: At Celena in Pannonia, of Maximilian, bishop and confessor, whose body St. Rupert, apostle of the Bavarians, who dedicated very many churches in his honour, translated to Lauriacum; and finally the emperor Henry the Second translated the relics to Passau. But, says Hansiz, the difficulty is how St. Rupert could have accomplished this, the city of Celeia at the time when Rupert came into Bavaria being occupied by pagan Slavs, unless it happened that, Rupert preaching the Gospel among the Carantanians, this perhaps proved worth while, that the body of the holy Martyr should be bought from the tamed barbarians. So Hansiz himself, who had just called the opinion of Molanus, admitting this, the more common, calls into doubt by these words the translation of St. Maximilian from the city of Celeia to that of Lorch said to have been made by Rupert. But the writer of the Annals of Styria, page 296, regards the same translation as little like the truth, citing the chronologer of Celeia, who only asserts that Blessed Rupert dedicated a church at Celeia to St. Maximilian, and is entirely silent about this translation made by him to Lauriacum. Hence perhaps the same judgment is to be passed on that carrying away of the sacred pledges, and on the other, of which Molanus makes mention in the same announcement, who asserts that these sacred remains were carried to Passau by the emperor Henry II. For truly, since the Henry of whom the martyrologist speaks was acclaimed emperor, or king of the Romans, only on the 6th of June of the year 1002, how could it happen that he should have seen to this translation, or that the translation of the sacred pledges should have been made in his reign, which I shall show by certain arguments were already preserved in the church of Passau from the year 985? Therefore, since that second translation of St. Maximilian collapses, I scarcely doubt that Molanus, speaking of the first, likewise fell into error.

[63] Hence perhaps it is that Baronius, for whom Molanus had lit the way in his announcement for today, but laid up in the cell of Pongau as becomes clear from the notes subjoined to it, judged that both translations of St. Maximilian inserted in the Martyrology of Molanus were to be cut out of his own. However that may be, I judge that neither is to be admitted. But whether these sacred pledges of Maximilian lay buried at Celeia until they were translated into the cell of Pongau I would not dare to define. Here we must only inquire whether they were in fact deposited in that cell. That the body of this Saint was in this church of Pongau built by St. Rupert and dedicated to St. Maximilian Hansiz does not doubt, rightly induced to think so by the words of the title prefixed to the second chapter of the brief notices of the church of Salzburg, which I again subjoin here. Of the Vision of light in the place where St. Maximilian is known to be buried, and of the church built there. For although in the whole context of this chapter no mention is made of relics of the Saint buried there, either because the words pertaining to them, worn away by the injuries of time, were deleted from this chapter, or because, as I more probably think, at the time when the author was writing, he did not wish to weave into this chapter again in express words a matter known to all, as these words sound, where St. Maximilian is known to be buried.

[64] But by whom, or at what time, that sacred pledge was brought to that place of Pongau, they lay, and how long it remained there, neither the tables of the church of Salzburg nor the other monuments which survive in the Noricums teach. If you listen to Hansiz, more than once already cited, since the place of Pongau was formerly uncultivated and waste, it does not sufficiently appear that those relics already existed there before. It is more likely that they were first translated from Celeia by Rupert, and carried, on the occasion of the prodigy, to the newly built church, and then afterwards, on account of danger from the neighbouring Slavs, removed to a safer place. But of this or of any other translation of these holy pledges, made by Blessed Rupert from Celeia to the place Pongau or into any other, it is in no way established for me: nay, the chronologer of Celeia, cited by the writer of the Annals of Styria, as I hinted in num. 62, attributes neither this nor any other to the holy Bishop. But since, the monuments being everywhere silent, a wide field lies open to conjectures, why should I not say that these sacred relics, on account of fear of the pagans and the frequent plunderings of the barbarians, were carried from the city of Celeia to this place, afterwards called Pongau, full of woods and thickets, afterwards discovered by heavenly light, and placed there in the church which St. Rupert had erected on the occasion of that light and of the treasure most recently found? The very title recited in the preceding number, says Hansiz, Germania Sacra, page 34, tome 1, prefixed by the ancient author of the brief Notices of the church of Salzburg to chap. 2, which declares the Saint buried there as a known thing, is not from nothing, and argues the cause for which that cell was dedicated by Rupert to the honours of St. Maximilian.

[65] until However that may be, that at least before the year 788, in which, as Hansiz teaches in the words recited in num. 50, the brief Notices of the church of Salzburg, more than once already mentioned, were written, the relics of Blessed Maximilian were laid up in the church of Pongau, is certain from the title, just cited again, which these show at chap. 2. Nay indeed, that these sacred pledges were preserved there already from the time of Virgil, who administered the church of Salzburg up to the year 784 or about, by the witness of Hansiz, page 95, tome 2, and who spent so much effort in restoring to their former state the church and cell of Pongau, which had been overthrown, as becomes clear from both little books of donations, chaps. 16, 7 and 8, is also certain. Further, that they still lay buried there in the time of Arno, who took the place of Virgil and sat as bishop at Salzburg until the year 821, no one, as I think, will raise a doubt. For truly Arno, in his Annotations of the charters of Salzburg, chap. 16, first taught us the origin of the church and cell of Pongau in which the sacred remains were deposited: under his episcopate, or a little after, the other little book of the Salzburg donations was put together by an anonymous author contemporary or nearly contemporary with Arno, whose chap. 11 bears this title, which I again transcribe here: Of the Vision of light where St. Maximilian is known to be buried. Would, I ask, that ancient author have prefixed this title to chap. 11, or asserted in these words a thing known to all, if at the time when he was putting together his Work, that is, about the year 821 or not much after, the body of St. Maximilian had in fact no longer lain buried in the church of Pongau? Nay, I would think it more probable that the body of our Saint remained deposited here until, the cell and church of Pongau having been overthrown, I know not in what year or by what destruction, but before the year 878, it was carried to Ötting, as I am presently going to say.

[66] And indeed a diploma of King Carloman exhibits it to us resting in the monastery of Ötting about the year 878, Into the church of Ötting about the year 878 which Aventinus, composing its history, subjoined to his Work; from which I transcribe here the things that serve my purpose: In the name of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, Carloman, by the favour of divine Grace, king… Let the diligence of all our faithful, namely present and future, know

that for the redemption of our soul and of our consort and of our parents we have handed over certain things of our property, situated in the parts of Carinthia and of the Sclavinian region, to St. Maximilian, confessor of Christ, and also to St. Felicity, mother of the seven Martyr sons; whose bodies we have taken care in every way, in the fear and love of God, to place in the new basilica of our building at Ötting … Given on the fifth day before the Ides of September, in the third year, Christ being propitious, of the reign of the lord Carloman, most pious king in Bavaria, and the first in Italy, in the 11th Indiction. Done at Ranshofen, the royal court, in the name of God happily, amen. 878.*

[67] But that these sacred pledges had already been placed in the same monastery from the year 876 or had already been translated by Carloman from the year 876. it is not difficult to argue from the words of another diploma, made by the same king and published by Aventinus at the end of the same history, which are these: It has pleased us, says Carloman, to hand over, for the increase of eternal reward, a certain abbey which is called Mattsee to the monastery newly built by us from the foundations in the place which is called Ötting, which also is seen to be adorned in honour of the holy Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, and of St. Philip, apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of very many other Saints whose relics, God being propitious, we have been able to gather together. Given on the sixth day before the Kalends of March, in the first year, Christ being propitious, of the reign of the lord Carloman, most serene king of the Bavarians. In the ninth Indiction. Done at Mattighofen, the royal court, in the name of God happily, amen. In the year of Christ 876. For truly, although in these words the name of Maximilian does not appear, who would not believe it very likely that among these relics of very many Saints, which Carloman had sought out from every side and gathered at Ötting, are to be numbered the bodies of SS. Felicity, Maximilian and others, of which mention is made in the diploma given in the year 878? But why Hansiz, the writer of Germania Sacra, tome 1, page 34, asserts that the relics of our Saint were first deposited in the church which St. Rupert, not far from Ötting on the bank of the river Matiche, called Burgiochirica, named for St. Maximilian, and translated from this church to the new basilica of Ötting built by Carloman, I do not see. Nor indeed is that clear from the words of the diplomas made in the year 876 or 878 recited above. But neither is it elicited from chap. V of the History of Ötting composed by Aventinus; for here mention is made only of a church dedicated to his name; but of the relics Aventinus is entirely silent in this chapter as also in other places of the same History.

[68] They remained there until Let this, then, remain as asserted, namely that the relics of St. Maximilian rested buried in the church of Pongau until, that church having been overthrown by an unknown chance in an uncertain year, they were placed by the king himself in the church of Ötting erected by Carloman. But how long they remained at Ötting is not established: Aventinus, Annals of the Bavarians, book 4, at the year 907, has this: The Hungarians make for Ötting; there they reduce the city, the royal palace and the house of the monks to cinders and ashes. The citizens, monks and priests with the sacred things, the arm of St. Philip, the envoy of Christ, of St. Maximilian and other pledges of the Saints, flee to Passau, and lay them up in a wall between two pinnacles. Which, under the reign of Frederick the Second, the wall having collapsed from age and been rebuilt, were first revealed and found. From which words of Aventinus it is clearly given to be understood that the body of St. Maximilian was translated from here to Passau from the year 907, in which, the Hungarians raging and laying waste everything, Ötting was destroyed; but I shall presently show that this happened later. For truly, the matter having been weighed more maturely, the same author writes this in chap. 9 of the History of the monastery of Ötting: The Hungarians plunder Ötting (which he also calls Oetinga) with the community of consecrated men; only the little church of the Virgin Mother of God, by I know not what fate, did not feel the violence of the enemy… The sacred things which had been laid up in the monastery and in old Ötting were either buried somewhere or translated elsewhere… This battle took place in the year of Christ 907. And therefore, as Aventinus hangs in doubt as to what then happened to the sacred relics of Maximilian, I too must hang in doubt. Whether, then, the bodies of our Saint and of the others, which had been placed at Ötting from about the year 876, were buried or translated elsewhere, it is at least certain that the body of St. Maximilian rested in the church of Passau at the end of the 10th century, as will become clear from the diploma of the emperor Otto III. I subjoin here the words of this diploma, published by Hansiz, Germania Sacra, tome 1, page 225, which serve my purpose.

[69] finally about the year 985 they were deposited in the church of Passau, In the Name of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Otto, by the favour of divine Clemency, king … We have granted that free men of whatever condition, who are destined as colonists in the places belonging to the prelacy of the holy church of Passau, built and dedicated in honour of blessed Stephen, protomartyr of Christ, "where SS. Valentine and Maximilian, confessors of Christ, rest in body," situated in the march hitherto of Count Luitwald, be henceforth freed from the jurisdiction of our ministerials. Given on the day before the Kalends of October in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 985. In the 14th Indiction. And in the 2nd year of the reign of Otto the Third. Done at Bamberg in the name of God happily, amen. This is the first mention, says Hansiz, page 229, of the body of St. Maximilian resting at Passau; for in the preceding diplomas, issued in the year 976 and published by the same Hansiz on page 219 and following, discourse is held of the sacred remains of Valentine alone. Which is an argument that the relics of St. Maximilian had not yet been brought to Passau in the said year, namely 976; yet that they came to that city a little after (in what year is uncertain), certainly under Pilgrim (who presided over the church of Passau from the year 946, by the witness of the same writer, to 991); whence at last it becomes known that they were transported to Passau from the monastery of Ötting not under the emperor Henry the Second, as Hund writes, but under his father, likewise Henry, duke of Bavaria, the Second of this name, namely that one who, deposed by Otto the Second, was restored by Otto the Third: thus some light has been uncovered in that darkness in which we long groped without issue. Thus Hansiz, with whom I willingly agree: hence today's announcement of Molanus is to be corrected, which has thus: The emperor Henry the Second translated the relics of St. Maximilian to Passau. Greven wrote more exactly, at least as far as concerns the translation of the Saint's relics, announcing St. Maximilian in his Martyrology in the words which I subjoin here: On the 4th day before the Ides of October, of Maximilian, bishop of Lorch and martyr, who, having obtained the crown of martyrdom in the time of the emperors Carus and Numerian, afterwards translated by a duke of the Bavarians to Passau, upon the shore of the Enns, is held in great veneration.

[70] In a humble place, says the Salzburg chronologer, whose Work Pez published, Scriptores Rerum Austriacarum, tome 1, [where, kept in a humble place, finally in the year 1289 by Bishop Bernard, as is established from his] col. 386 and following, at the year 1285, had been laid up at Passau the bodies of the blessed Valentine and Maximilian; in an honourable tomb newly erected in the middle of the church of Passau he placed them more becomingly, and began to rebuild anew and with good work the church of Passau — Bernhard, or rather Bernard, called von Prambach, who had succeeded to the place of Bishop Gottfried: the same is hinted by Hund and by various chronologers published by Oefele, Rerum Boicarum Scriptores, tome 1, who, ascribing this translation to Bernard as an outstanding work, have all placed it as if by anticipation at the year 1285, namely that in which he was taken up to the see of Passau. The same translation of the sacred bodies is attributed to Gottfried, who in dying had yielded his see to Bernard in the same year, by him who composed the Lessons customarily read at Passau for the feast of the Translation of St. Valentine on the 4th day of August. But Hansiz with full right supposes that it happened later, who judged, led by I know not what reason, that it was to be fixed to the year 1291: that it was celebrated in the year 1289 is shown by the letter of Bishop Bernard by which he admonished the faithful of his diocese to be present at this ceremony on the 3rd day of August, sacred to St. Stephen. This letter, as also two others, of which he gave the one likewise to the parish priests of his diocese, the other to Henry, duke of Bavaria, together with the latter's and the former's answers to them, taken from Pez's Anecdota, tome 6, part 11, page 150 and following, I have thought fit to publish here in new type, in the same order in which Pez published them.

[71] Letters of Bernard, bishop of Passau. The first: to the faithful of the diocese of Passau Encyclical to his own, whom he invites to the translation of the bodies of SS. Maximilian and Valentine: "The Lord so glorifies his Elect in the fatherland that the souls of the just are cherished in the hand of God, living there where eternal life is drunk at its source, rejoicing there where joy is not sprinkled with bitterness, resting there where peace is not troubled by the obstacle of opposition; there their desire is filled with good things; the divine Majesty inebriates them with the torrent of his pleasure, and, to conclude briefly, there they will always and in all things be best off in the Best. He also crowns with glory and honour in the world the venerable relics of the Elect, while, placed among earthly things, their bones flourish out of their place for anyone, so that, reduced to ashes, they live through the matter of the flesh and give life, through the power of each, to limbs withered in themselves, pour the vigour of strength into the sick, and the Saints themselves, loosed from the flesh, very often raise again those already dead to the life of the flesh and of the spirit. Thus the divine Clemency builds the heavenly city with the number and merit of the Blessed, by this visitation illumines the faith of the Church still on pilgrimage, raises up hope , inflames charity, while it shows her so plainly the testimonies of immortality, while we keep laid up in our bosom pledges so dear to God of the promised inheritance. And although the loving Lord makes fruitful his Church spread through the world generally with this consolation, by giving individual patrons to individual places, yet he has distinguished happy and ever-to-be-blessed Passau with the titles of a surpassing prerogative, when the first rose of heaven, the first and chief witness of God, the first and strenuous standard-bearer of martyrdom, namely blessed Stephen the protomartyr, is constituted King and Patron for her by God.*

[72] by letter, And to this rosy flower, for the increase of beauty and comeliness, the entire bodies of the blessed Valentine and Maximilian are joined, like lilies of snowy whiteness. Which the memorable and deservedly venerable city of Passau bears in its cathedral church as in its inmost bosom, as in the saving womb of a mother's intercourse, hoping that these most kindly fathers and pastors also may lift up that sacred place with assiduous prayer as the receptacle of their pilgrimage, as the chamber of their own repose, seal it with the blessed benediction of their right hands, and defend it in the present from every hostile assault: and in the future, rising again, with themselves their fellow citizens

may they bring forth in faithful company, presenting them with confidence to the face of the Judge. But since that same lovable treasure has hitherto been hidden in a humble place and tomb, we, judging it incongruous that those who are glorious in the kingdom of glory should be held inglorious in the place of their habitation, since it is more fitting that, as when living in the flesh they were lights of the world set upon a candlestick to give light to those about to enter the house of the Lord, so those still entering the church should see in them, through a becoming placing, the light of holiness, by the counsel of our brethren shall, the Lord favouring, translate the aforenamed Saints on the day of blessed Stephen to a tomb more congruous to their veneration, so that he may be exalted in the Church of his people and praised henceforth in the chair of the elders. And therefore we exhort and admonish your fraternity in the Lord that, since the divine Authority says: He who honours his Father shall be gladdened, you offer your presence on the aforesaid day of solemnity and gladness to so joyful a translation, eagerly playing your part in the visitation. And since the whole body of clergy and people of the city and diocese of Passau is deservedly reckoned one body and one fold, it is expedient that you go reverently to meet the elevation of such great Pontiffs, so that they may guard, feed and cherish you among their little sheep, if they see themselves humbly recognized by you as pastors. Induce also the peoples committed to you by effective admonitions to this, that on the day of the same translation they visit our cathedral church with banners, to receive the blessing of the Prelates to be translated and our own, with the large indulgence of many bishops, so acting that you cannot be charged with negligence, but may deserve to be commended for diligence. Given in the year of the Lord 1289."

[73] The second: To the parish priests of his diocese, on the same argument: and of the same to the parish priests likewise of his diocese, "It is meet and just, right and salutary, that the Church militant conform itself, as far as it can, to the triumphant. Whence on earth they are worthily held worthy of glory and honour whom the Most High has glorified in heaven. Wherefore we, desiring to place in a more fitting place the bodies of our most blessed Patrons, which were formerly laid up in a humble place, intending to celebrate subsequently the reconciliation of penitents out of reverence for this translation to be newly made, exhort and admonish your fraternity in the Lord that for this twofold cause you induce your peoples to come to Passau on such a day, and that you yourselves nevertheless be there then, because we intend to continue our synod with the same translation."

[74] The third: Answer to the preceding letter: "In your happy breast a happy intention dwells, who answer their prelate by the letter here set down, a letter namely that in the Church of the faithful the bodies of the Patrons of the holy church of Passau, nay of the whole country, should be more loftily exalted, so that they may obtain an ampleness of honour on earth who, as true friends of God, are exceedingly honoured in heavenly things. Whence we have skilfully induced, and shall more skilfully induce, our peoples to so festive a translation and also to the reconciliation of penitents, fearing only that their coming may be hindered by the imminent gathering of the harvests, which will profit the conveniences of the whole year. For the rest, we clerics, who with Peter, having left all things, must follow the commands of prelates, shall reverently attend the chapter proclaimed by you, as is becoming."

[75] The fourth: To Henry, duke of Bavaria, on the same: and another to the duke of Bavaria "Since it is not consonant with Catholic devotion that the Saints should be held inglorious among men who are glorious in the kingdom of glory, and for this reason we wish to place on high, as is becoming, the bodies of the blessed prelates Valentine and Maximilian, translated from a humble place: we ask that on such a day your serenity deign to be present at the joyfulness of the same translation."

[76] The fifth: Answer of Henry to the former letter of Bernard: together with his answer to it is here added, "There is nothing that shines with clearer light than right faith in a prince, as the law testifies, and we, believing that the honour of the Saints is the firm support of right faith, devoutly propose to be present at the translation of the blessed Pontiffs of which you have written to us, hoping that those eyes are blessed which shall see with bodily vision those bodies of whose future glorification there is no doubt, and whose spirits are known already to live in glory."

[77] That the solemn translation of SS. Maximilian and Valentine, on the third day of August, with solemn pomp, in a more becoming to which Bishop Bernard had invited the faithful of the diocese, the parish priests and the duke of Bavaria by the letters just transcribed here, was made in the year 1289, everyone will determine from the first of all these; but, you will say, since in this it is only said to be going to be on the day of blessed Stephen, and several Saints of this name are found, venerated by the Church on different days, it may be doubted on the feast of which of these that translation was performed. It is entirely so, if the first alone of the said letters is regarded; but that the translation took place when the harvest was imminent, and therefore about the end of July or the beginning of August, is understood from the third, that is, the reply of the parish priests to Bernard. Wherefore, since the feasts of two Saints then occur, namely of Stephen the Pope and of Stephen the Protomartyr, of whom the Birthday of the former is celebrated on the 2nd of August, the Finding of the latter on the 3rd day of the same month, I bring myself to think that by the Stephen on whose day or feast Bernard, in the first of the said letters, proclaimed that the translation of which we are speaking here would be, Stephen the Protomartyr is designated, because the church of Passau was consecrated to him, as Hansiz teaches, Germania Sacra, tome 1, coroll. IX, and therefore that that translation took place on the third day of August, on which his Finding is celebrated.

[78] were laid up, and are not rightly said to have been removed in the year 1300. Further, the same Bernard gave yet another letter about the said translation, then imminent, to Wolfgang, monk of Altaich, published in Pez, page 153, whose words I transcribe here. Not without much solicitude are you absent from our side for a moment, when, in season and out of season, difficult cases and questions of law occupy us. And since you know that the translation of the Saints and the reconciliation of penitents are imminent for us, both of which it is fitting to provide for with diligent counsel, it displeases us that you did not come down to Passau immediately upon learning of our arrival. And thus indeed it becomes clear from what has just been alleged that the relics of St. Maximilian were laid up again in a more becoming place of the cathedral church of Passau with solemn pomp by Bishop Bernard on the 3rd day of August in the year 1289. But there will perhaps be someone who will suspect from the Chronicle which Bernard of Noricum composed that they were removed from that cathedral in the year 1300: for it has thus in Pez, Scriptores Rerum Austriacarum, tome 1, col. 1299: This holy martyr Maximilian, under King Rudolf and Wernhard, bishop of Passau, namely in the year of the Lord 1300, was shown to a certain widow and translated into the house of the Friars Minor, where now he is renowned for many miracles. But in marking this year 1300 a manifest error lies. For in that year Rudolf, who had closed his last day in the year 1291, was not governing the empire. Moreover, since the authentic monuments related by us prove that the body of St. Maximilian was preserved in the cathedral church of Passau in the year 1289, and no monument distinct from the cited Chronicle reveals that it was removed from there about eleven years afterwards, nothing remains but that it be said with Hansiz of that translation to the house of the Minors: Perhaps it was that the Minors either possessed some particle or claimed it for themselves.

perhaps read quoniam* (since)

spem* (hope)

§ VII. Of the relics of the Saint granted to the church of Tournai and preserved there.

From these relics, to the bishop of Tournai, by the lords canons of Passau In the century just past the most illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Maximilian Villain of Ghent, of the counts of Isenghien, bishop, granted to the church of Tournai as a solemn gift two of the bones of St. Maximilian which he had received from the very reverend lords dean and canons of the church of Passau, that the feast of his holy Patron and illustrious Protector of the whole august house of Austria might be celebrated in the church of Tournai with due cult and Office. The instrument of both grants, made by the lords of Passau and by the most illustrious bishop, as the most illustrious and most reverend Lord Cornelius Franciscus de Nelis, bishop of Antwerp, formerly canon of the church of Tournai, sent it with his accustomed kindness and benevolence towards me, I here subjoin in type.

[80] We, Marquard, Baron von Schwendi, by the grace of God plenary administrator of the bishopric of Passau, by the instrument here published the dean, senior and the whole chapter of the aforesaid cathedral church of Passau, attest by virtue of these presents and make credible to all and each who shall inspect these letters, that at the request made to us by letters by the most reverend and most illustrious lord, the lord Maximilian, by the grace of God bishop of Tournai, for communicating some particle of the relics of St. Maximilian, bishop and martyr, hitherto preserved in our cathedral church and held and known as worthy of credit, we, willingly assenting to his petition, have wished this particle, found with the other relics of St. Maximilian, to be supplied from our ecclesiastical treasury to the above-named reverend bishop of Tournai, who has promised to venerate it most highly and devoutly. In testimony of which thing we have delivered these letters fortified with our capitular privy seal. Given at Passau, 25th of August 1631. And there was impressed the capitular seal of the aforesaid lords. It agrees. Signed P. Masureel.

[81] But what the bones of St. Maximilian were which were granted by the lords canons of Passau to the lord bishop of Tournai two bones of the arm were granted in the year 1631, is set forth by a letter written by Father Florentius de Montmorency, priest of the Society of Jesus, to the same lord of Tournai at Vienna on the 3rd day of September of the year 1631, in which it is also hinted that some, but slight, particles of the same relics were granted to the august Mother of the Emperor. I transcribe this letter here, translated from the French language into Latin: Most illustrious lord. To obtain from the lords of Passau some not slight part of the relics of St. Maximilian, I gladly did whatever was in me. I went to the chief canons of the chapter and wrote to the most illustrious administrator of the bishopric, then by chance absent. The Fathers of our Society did the same with me. At last I received two small particles from his arm, which I transmit to your most illustrious lordship with the instrument of their grant, annexed to this. That I did not receive a larger part of these grieves me not a little. But the lord administrator, who governs the bishopric during the minority of the younger archduke Leopold, ordered the father Rector to write to me that the august mother of the Emperor of the Romans could not receive a larger part of these sacred remains than your most illustrious lordship has had. To this letter I add a copy of a letter given by St. Charles Borromeo to Cardinal Báthory, nephew of Stephen Báthory, king of Poland, which I judge will be most welcome. I most humbly commend myself to the favours of your most reverend lordship, earnestly praying God that he may grant it long years of health and happiness, who am your most reverend lordship's most humble servant in our Lord J. C., Florentius de Montmorency. The superscription was: To the lord, the lord Most Reverend bishop

of Tournai. It agrees. Signed P. Masureel.

[82] which to his cathedral church by a solemn instrument These sacred remains, received from the lords of Passau, the most illustrious Lord bishop granted to his cathedral church as a solemn gift only in the year 1636. I subjoin here the instrument of that grant, taken from the manuscript History of the Church of Tournai composed by Nicolas du Fief, afterwards bishop of Arras, words not pertaining to the matter being cut out: Maximilian Villain of Ghent, of the counts of Isenghien and barons of Rassenghem, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See bishop of Tournai, to all who shall inspect and hear these letters patent, everlasting greeting in the Lord… For the adornment of the high altar of our cathedral church we have had a certain antependium for the same finely and preciously embroidered with the needle, which contains in the middle the Assumption of the B. V. M., in the side parts the figure of the holy pontiffs Piatus, Eleutherius, Eligius and Maximilian our patron…

[83] placed here And since it is exceedingly notorious to all how for many years, and also in the present times, Satan, the ancient enemy of the Catholic faith, the sower of discord and stirrer of wars, has applied every endeavour to ruin and utterly abolish the empire, and in it the most august house of Austria, the most firm and only defence, safeguard and prop of the Catholic and orthodox faith and religion, by stirring up against the same the most powerful arms of several most mighty kings and also (alas!) of other Christian princes, which by the special providence of almighty God and the intercession of the holy Guardians we see and experience with joy to have attacked the said Germany and house of Austria in vain: certainly the particular tutelary patron of the same Germany and house of Austria always was and is St. Maximilian, martyr, archbishop of Lorch, from whom several emperors bore their name by a miraculous prompting; and because not only we, but also several of our family of Isenghien, were distinguished with the same, bearing a special devotion towards the same St. Maximilian, our patron, we have for many years past used the services of most weighty men, that we might procure and obtain some relics of the body of the same Saint, which is supremely venerated in the cathedral church of the city of Passau; which, after we had obtained them with the greatest labour and trouble, giving thanks to God the Best and Greatest for this special benefit, we set our mind to bestow on them what was due: to which end, at great expense, with equal art and labour, we have had made a silver statue of the same St. Maximilian, in the breast of which statue, under a crystal fitted there, on the very feast of the Assumption of the B. V. M. of the year 1636, we enclosed two small bones of the same St. Maximilian, which we declare by the tenor of these presents to be true and legitimate relics of the same, as can more fully be established from their donation and other letters joined to these, in which are contained some particulars concerning his life and miracles.

[84] And beneath the same relics we enclosed a particle of the veil of the B. V. M., the same most illustrious bishop of Tournai which we received as a gift when, on the journey to Cologne which we made in the year 1605, we visited the upper chapel of the collegiate church of the greater town of Aachen: likewise one bone of St. Bartholomew the apostle, approved by us on another occasion: likewise one bone of the skull of St. Apollinaris, martyr, bishop of Ravenna, disciple of St. Peter, received as a gift and approved by the most illustrious and Most Reverend Lord archbishop of Cambrai, Franciscus vander Burcht: likewise a bone of St. Augustine, bishop and doctor of the Church, approved by us. All which relics, enclosed, as is set forth, under the said crystal in the breast of the aforesaid statue, we, as far as is needful, approve anew by the tenor of these presents by our authority, and decree that they are to be held and venerated as true relics of the Saints. On the upper and lower part of its foot we have had the expression of our donation placed and engraved in a square circumference in this tenor: "The Most Reverend Lord, Lord Maximilian Villain of Ghent, of the counts of Isenghien, barons of Rassenghem, son of Maximilian of Isenghien, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See bishop of Tournai, had this effigy made in his lifetime in honour of St. Maximilian, pontiff of Lorch, martyr, his patron; in memory of himself and of his parents he gives and dedicates it to the cathedral church of Tournai, adorned with true relics of the same Saint, which he had received from the cathedral church of Passau in Bavaria (where his holy body lies) with authentic letters; praise be to God, to the B. Virgin Mary and to all the Saints, amen. 1636." And in the middle of the foot is contained an inscription of this kind in small letters or Roman character: "St. Maximilian, martyr of Lorch, fell by the sword for the faith of Christ in the Decian persecution of the Christians under Evilagius the governor, in the year 280."

[85] Which silver statue of St. Maximilian, he brought it in with other gifts. made as best I could, desiring that it be carried about for the first time on the next feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, on which the solemn and annual procession of Tournai is celebrated, together with the other ornaments and works mentioned above, made by our order, we freely give and assign in perpetuity to our aforesaid spiritual spouse, the cathedral church of Tournai, for the greater glory and honour of God the Best and Greatest, of his Mother the Virgin Mary, of SS. Piatus, Eleutherius, Eligius and Maximilian, and for the beauty and adornment of our said church, earnestly praying God the Best and Greatest that, through the merits and intercession of the most glorious Virgin Mary and of the other Saints, and especially of St. Maximilian, he may deign to take into his protection and defend against all assaults of enemies the most august house of Austria, which is known to preserve the Catholic and orthodox faith and religion whole and intact, and also the Roman emperor, the Catholic king and our princes with the whole of Belgium, and to assist us in the hour of our death and receive us into the company of the same Saints. In faith and perpetual strength of which we have signed the present with our own hand and have had them fortified by the appending of the seal of our chamber. Given at Tournai in our episcopal palace on the 17th of September in the year of the Lord 1636. It was signed: Maximilian, Bishop of Tournai, and below: Masureel, secretary, with some letters joined to establish the truth of the said relics. To the instrument hangs the seal of the said Most Reverend lord donor. These things, which I had already taken from the manuscript History of the Church of Tournai, I found to agree when collated with a copy of the same which, by the efforts of the most illustrious lord bishop of Antwerp, I had received from the lords of Tournai.

§ VIII. Some miracles wrought by St. Maximilian.

By the intercession of St. Maximilian the emperor Frederick III Since I am going to say a few things about the prodigies wrought by the help of St. Maximilian, it is not my intention to annex to this Commentary those which the biographer, an eyewitness of many, narrates to have been wrought at his tomb: only two, although knowledge of them has not been brought to us by any authentic judgment or instrument, have seemed fit to be given the public light here, since they may conduce to some extent to the posthumous glory of our Saint. The first is narrated by Pontus Heuterus, an elegant writer and historian of the 16th century, in the eulogy of the emperor Maximilian I at the end of book 13 of the Res Austriacae, page 364, Louvain edition of the year 1661. I transcribe his words here. Frederick, count of Cilli, … mindful of the kinship and of the benefits received from the Austrians in time of war and other necessities, provided at length in his testament that, if he should depart from the living leaving no children, the duke of Austria should succeed him in the whole, provided the emperor of that time (for Cilli is a fief of the empire) should ratify it. Count Frederick is slain a little after, leaving no children. Wherefore the emperor Frederick, archduke of Austria, father of Maximilian the First, having enrolled a few cohorts of foot, by the right of the empire and the testament of Count Frederick, hastened to Celeia, to bind the inhabitants by oath to himself and his successors by the claim of old and new right… The widow of Count Frederick, a Croatian by nation, a fierce and savage woman, grudged the inheritance of her husband to the emperor Frederick and the Austrians. She prepares forces in Illyricum with which to snatch the county of Cilli from the emperor Frederick. For she had been informed that the emperor had come to Celeia with a small band, and therefore could be intercepted by sending a proper force. She at once sends to execute the deed, with a proper band, Vitovec, a noble and military man, so secretly that the imperialists learned nothing of his coming before Celeia was taken.

[87] As Vitovec was secretly approaching with his forces, the emperor Frederick on the preceding night seemed in his sleep to be warned by St. Maximilian at Celeia from the enemy to depart as soon as possible, that enemies were at hand nearby, lying in wait for his life, dignity and liberty, the Martyr bidding him, in return for this forewarning, to give the name of Maximilian to the son whom his wife had conceived that night (this is not read in the Passau manuscripts). The emperor, moved by the dream, or rather the oracle, all his men dissuading him, betakes himself with a few from the palace of the town of Celeia to the citadel, which is situated on a lofty hill. Vitovec flies up with his forces in the first night and occupies Celeia. He captures Ulrich, provost of Freising, the emperor's seal-bearer (they call him chancellor), John Ungnad, prefect of the emperor's court, with all the councillors and the greatest part of the garrison; who, when they had afterwards ransomed themselves with a great sum of money, all proclaimed, celebrated and admired the emperor Frederick as a prophet. Vitovec, the emperor not having been found, and seeing that the citadel could not be taken by storm with his forces, not daring to stay longer, returned to his mistress with the captives. The emperor, not unmindful of so great a benefit conferred on him by the Martyr, when afterwards a second son had been born to him by his wife, wished him to be called Maximilian, a name new to his race, family and the series of emperors, but of happy and auspicious omen for himself and his successors.

[88] Thus Pontus Heuterus: with whom Aeneas Sylvius does not disagree, is delivered setting forth the danger which threatened the emperor's head or liberty at Celeia, in the book On the State of Europe under Frederick III, chap. XV: The divine Goodness, he says, the name of the Saint however being passed over, was present to Frederick, which, contrary to his custom, had persuaded him to sleep that night in the upper citadel, most strongly fortified both by nature and by human work; the nobles who had remained in the town were all captured, etc.; by which words the writer, contemporary with Frederick himself and who committed his deeds to writing, hints that Frederick escaped this peril only helped by some divine aid. Lazius uses almost the words of Aeneas Sylvius in narrating this peril, Commentaries on the Roman Republic, book 12, chap. VI, and says: Very ancient Annals add that Maximilian, the martyr of the place, Celeia, then protected the emperor Frederick. And for that reason a vision appeared through sleep to him sleeping in the citadel, that he should give the same name of the Martyr to the son who had been conceived in the empress Leonora. Which Frederick, freed from custody, afterwards faithfully performed when the son was born: and this is the true origin of the proper name of the most renowned and most invincible emperor Maximilian. But Courvoisier, in his Life of the same published at Brussels, page 230 and following, Hansiz, tome 1, page 35, and the author of the Annals of Styria, page 228, also regard this very fact as a prodigy wrought by the help of St. Maximilian.

[89] Another prodigy, in the copy of the Life of St.

Maximilian drawn from the Library of Passau, [and in the year 1662, in the fire of the church of Passau, the sacred remains are preserved unharmed.] copied, if I am not mistaken, by the hand of John Bolland, I find, and expressed in these words: In the lamentable fire of the city of Passau, which happened on the 27th of April 1662, in the middle of the burnt cathedral, the altar before the choir, sacred to SS. Maximilian and Valentine, with their sarcophagi and holy remains adhering at the back, remained intact. Then is read added: This, from Aschaffenburg, Father John Gamans to Cologne: from there to us Father Jacob Kritzrald. Which I wish only to be inserted here, that the pious love and devotion of the citizens of Passau towards their holy Patron may be more and more increased.

§ IX. Of the relics of another Saint of the same name; who he was?

Concerning this namesake two Letters are here given, in the first of which The body of another Saint of the same name is preserved in the collegiate church of Pirano, which is mentioned by Candido, Commentaries on the Affairs of Aquileia, book 2, by Manzuoli in his Description of Istria, published at Venice in the year 1611, page 33, and by Valvasor, cited by the author of the Annals of Styria; and whose memory the church of Capodistria celebrates under the double rite. There exist also in the Bollandian Museum one or two Letters about this Maximilian, in which many and various things are learnedly set forth pertaining both to his sacred remains, the veneration shown to them, and their genuineness, that is, their present state, and to the Saint of the same name himself. The first was written by the most illustrious Francesco Zeno, bishop of Capodistria, to Johann Ludwig Schönleben, archdeacon of Ljubljana, very celebrated for the various works he published, cited in this Work more than once by Henschen at the 19th day of June, sacred to St. Nazarius, bishop of Capodistria, and by Papebroch in the Commentary prefixed to the translation of St. Maximus on the 29th day of May. The other Schönleben himself gave to Father Papebroch. And since nothing more certain about this Saint of the same name than what is contained in these two Letters has come to my hands, I have judged that they should be put to the press here, divided into various numbers and illustrated, according to custom, with some Annotations subjoined. But I wish the reader to be warned of this, namely that the Letter of Schönleben presently to be published is in some places so worn by the injury of time that some words, as being entirely effaced or scraped away, can scarcely be read; yet in such a way that what survives, or what is read mixed with the effaced or much-worn words, renders the author's sense sufficiently: and finally that I have occasionally substituted a very few things, enclosed in little brackets, for the sake of clarity. I now subjoin the aforesaid Letters here.

[91] the Bishop of Capodistria, some things Letter of the most illustrious Lord Francesco Zeno, bishop of Capodistria ^a, to the Most Reverend Johann Ludwig Schönleben, given at Capodistria on the 10th of September 1677.

Most reverend lord. Of the Saints of our province I know no more than what Manzuoli left in writing, because I have found no occasion of seeing, as I desired, the province of Istria. But that your most reverend lordship may be relieved of the burden of copying a copy and sending it to Father Papebroch, you will take in good part this heap of mine, which I have gathered with great zeal from the Venetian writings and those of this very ancient city, which will serve as a testimony of my respect towards your lordship.

[92] Of St. Nazarius ^b the memory perished with the death of Cardinal Baronius, to whom particulars of his and St. Elius's life and death had been transmitted. of St. Nazarius Yet besides the things which Manzuoli brings forward, some things may be added about his finding in the year 601 from the testimony of Noricus, from whose conjecture it could be that he was the first bishop of this city, since there is no memory of other predecessors; and that, according to the said Manzuoli, he was created by Pope John the First at the instance of Justin the Elder in the year 528, and was named for that time bishop of Istria up to the times of Justin the Younger, who, from the restored city, wished the same to be called Justinopolis ^c. The glorious body of this Saint, then, together with the relics of St. Alexander, Pope and Martyr, had been carried off on occasion of wars by the Genoese, and had been restored by Pileo de' Marini, archbishop of Genoa, in the year 1422, after nine lustres had elapsed; for which reason his Translation was celebrated on the 26th day of July with an Office, as is established from the authentic documents of the archive of the cathedral church, and moreover the festival of the day of death of the aforesaid Saint, which is celebrated on the 19th of June. Ferrari further errs, who thinks that that day is the day of the Finding.

[93] St. Elius is said to have been the deacon of St. Nazarius and his diocesan, from the Castle of Costabona, and St. Elius premised, situated not far from the city, of whom also the house exists in which he died, and there are there kinsmen of his lineage, called Portulana ^d. His sacred deposit is exposed yearly to public veneration on the 18th day of July, on which day the festival of this Saint is kept at his own altar under the choir, on account of many prodigies, especially in pains of the head.

[94] I come now to St. Maximilian, bishop and M., that the relics of this Saint for many whose body is preserved at Pirano ^e, a town subject to my jurisdiction, of whose martyrdom, episcopate and time we know nothing beyond what Candido left written in his Commentaries. This we know, however, that from the year 1303, by successive attestation of manuscripts of that church, he has always been held and venerated as a Saint, and the relics of the same Saint have through a long series of centuries been held as true by the bishops our predecessors and very often used as such in the consecrations of altars.

[95] In the consecration of the very ancient collegiate and parish church of Pirano, centuries were laid up in the consecrations of altars which took place on the 24th day of April of the year 1344, nine bishops assisting, among the altars consecrated that day is named also the altar of St. Maximilian, consecrated by the bishop of Parenzo, and in the high altar of St. George, the tutelary of that church, relics of St. Maximilian were laid up, as is found from an ancient manuscript Breviary on parchment: "On the 4th day before the Ides of Oct., of Maximilian, bishop and M. His relics are in the altar of St. George." And behold the inscription in marble of the consecration of the same church, in which is inscribed: "In the year of the Lord 1344, Indict. XII, on Saturday of the month of April, on the feast of St. George M., in the aforesaid church of Pirano, in the time of the Podestàship and Government of the Distinguished and Most Powerful Man, Lord Marco Contarini, honourable Podestà of the Land of Pirano, to the honour of God and of the Glorious Virgin Mother, and under the title of the aforesaid Blessed George, precious M., the Church of Pirano was consecrated by the aforesaid Reverend Father in Christ and Lord, Lord Marco, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See Bishop of Capodistria, by whose authority on the aforesaid day were consecrated in the aforesaid Church the Altars written below, by the Reverend Fathers, Lords Bishops written above and below; namely the altar of St. George by Lord Brother Gratian, Bishop of Pola. The altar of St. Mary by Lord Brother Andrew, Bishop of Caorle. The altar of St. Maximilian by Lord Brother John, Bishop of Parenzo. The altar of St. Mark by Lord Brother James, Bishop of Scarpanto. The altar of St. Lucy by Lord Brother James, Bishop of Evelenensis. The altar of St. Catherine by Lord Brother Mark, Bishop of Domacensis. The altar of St. Antony by Lord Natalis, Bishop of Cittanova. Which lord Bishop of Capodistria, and the aforesaid Lords Bishops together with Lord Ladislaus, Bishop of Petenensis, who was present at the said consecration, and each of them, by the aforesaid authority, relax in the Lord to all and each who shall devoutly come to the dedication and consecration of that church an indulgence of one year, and to those who shall devoutly come annually on the anniversary of the above-said church and on the other festivals, as has been premised, for perpetual times an indulgence of 40 days."

[96] laid up in consecrations, Likewise in the consecration of the altar of St. Quiricus of the church of St. Thomas the apostle of the same land were placed the following relics, as appears from ancient manuscript Breviaries. "On the day before the Nones of May 1443, the Consecration of the altar of SS. Quiricus, Julitta and Lawrence, in which are relics of SS. Stephen the Protomartyr, St. Maximilian M., St. Lawrence M. and others. On the Kalends of May, of Philip and James, 1471. Consecration of the church of the Holy Apostles Thomas, Philip and James, in which altar are relics of the Protomartyr St. Stephen and of St. Leo, Pope, and of St. Maximilian M." Nor had only an altar been erected in honour of St. Maximilian, as was said above; but there was also a confraternity of the same title. This is established from 13 Bulls, entire and undamaged, together with the hanging seals of various Bishops, Archbishops and Patriarchs of the Venetian dominion and others, which for brevity's sake are omitted, and this one, which we subjoin, will suffice.

[97] a sodality instituted under his name, "We, Marco, by divine mercy bishop of Capodistria, Br. John, bishop of Parenzo, Natalis, bishop of Cittanova, Br. Gratian, bishop of Pola, Br. James, bishop of Evelonensis, Br. Mark, bishop of Domacensis, Br. James, bishop of Scarpanto, Ladislaus, bishop of Petenensis, Andrew, bishop of Caorle, to all the faithful of Christ who shall inspect the present letters, everlasting greeting in the Lord. Since, as the apostle says, we shall all stand before the tribunal of Christ, to receive according as we have done in the body, whether we work good or evil. We, holding with firm hope and confidence that we should forestall the Father of eternal mission by works of mercy, and with regard to the Saints sow that on earth which, the Lord rendering it, we may be able to gather with multiplied fruit in heaven, since he who sows sparingly reaps sparingly, and he who sows in blessings shall reap unto life eternal. Desiring therefore that the confraternity of St. Maximilian, bishop, of Pirano, of the diocese of Capodistria, be frequented with worthy and fitting honours, and that those frequenting the masses of the aforesaid confraternity may rejoice for their works in the gift of everlasting rest for their labour. To all truly penitent and confessed who shall visit the said confraternity at masses and whenever any Office shall be celebrated in the said confraternity, or at the altar of the aforesaid St. Maximilian, and who shall stretch out helping hands to the fabric, lights, ornaments and other things of the said confraternity, or to the altar mentioned, we and each of us, trusting in the grace of almighty God and the mercy, the Glory of the B. Virgin Mary, and the merits and intercession of the BB. Peter and Paul, his apostles, and of the holy Martyrs Hermagoras and Fortunatus, and of all the Saints, mercifully relax 40 days of the penances enjoined on them. In testimony of which thing we have ordered the present letters to be fortified by the appending of our seals. Given at Pirano on the 24th day of the month of April in the year of the Lord 1344. Ind. XII. In the second year of the Pontificate of the supreme Pontiff Clement the Sixth."*

[98] There was moreover celebrated an Office of him under the double rite on the 12th of October, teaches that an Office was finally celebrated. as is read in the ancient manuscript Missals and Breviaries, as was said above. "On the fourth day before the Ides of October, of St. Maximilian, Bishop and M." From all which it is clearly evident that of St. Maximilian

the holiness was proved, resting on the authority of so many prelates of holy Church, and for 300 years and more, in which his memory had been more recent, and fuller arguments of true and undoubted holiness were known about him; which, if they had not been clearly subsisting, so many prelates of that time would not have presumed to make them attested by public Acts and their own seals, and to sing the praises of the said St. Maximilian as bishop and martyr.

[99] Whence it may be concluded that he is not that one But who he was the most illustrious man, who his whom Pope Pelagius names a Schismatic, since it is not established whether he was a bishop in Istria, as Baronius says, and from the time of his martyrdom he is reckoned older than the schism, which had arisen in the year 556, at which time the persecution of the tyrants against the Church had ceased. Nor would I dare to affirm that he was that Maximilian of Ravenna who flourished in those times, himself also an Istrian by country, of Pola; in which kind of matter I refer myself to the judgment of others who say that that schismatic was a bishop in Istria, as Ughelli asserts, who ought to have woven the series of the bishoprics of Istria; Palladio, however, asserts most clearly that he was the one who was at Ravenna. For it cannot be said of our St. Maximilian that he is the same as he of Emona, since one of them sustained martyrdom under Decius in a city of Asia and the other at Ema; further, the festival of the one is celebrated on the 2nd day of May, and of the other on the 12th of October. Nor, after diligence had been used, could there ever be found any castle or town or village of the diocese or of the whole province of Istria whose name is Postema ^f.

[100] It remains, then, only that we say whether the whole body of St. Maximilian is at Pirano, he here describes the state of the sacred remains. or only some part of the same body? A comparison having been made, then, of the body and the bones which we still find at the present time , they are the following: the greater and chief part of the skull with 3 particles of the same and one part of the lower jaw, in which are two teeth. All the vertebrae of the neck. The collar-bones and the two bones of the shoulder-blades with 14 ribs, false and true. The arm-bones of the right and left side, both upper and lower, cubital, six in number, all entire, except only the left, which is somewhat broken. Likewise the vertebrae of the loins, called spondyles, 5 in number, one being added which is connected with them. Likewise the sacrum, which is connected in sequence downward from the top, and is entire together with the tibias of the feet, which are somewhat gnawed; likewise the bone called ischium. There is likewise one bone of the left foot, which is called the astragalus, and of the right foot the navicular bone, and likewise two others of the foot; one or two of the hand. All which bones together make up a figure of this kind, annexed; and since, besides a very few bones, nothing is lacking, and it makes up entirely the nobler parts of the body, it may be affirmed to be an entire body; in which case Manzuoli erred, affirming in his writings that the whole body does not exist at present , but only some parts ^g. These few things I have been able to write, which, since they still exist after so many ruins and destructions of this country, may you deign to take in good part. To your Most Reverend lordship, most devoted, most obliged servant, signed Franc., Bishop of Capodistria.

[101] Nor did he declare it in his letter; opposed to this, Schönleben, differing Letter of Lord Johann Ludwig Schönleben to the Reverend Father Papebroch, given at Ljubljana, 25th of September 1677.

Very reverend father. After long inquiry I obtained at Venice, through the very reverend father Rector of Ljubljana, a copy of Manzuoli (Candido cannot be had, but he has little about the Saints), which I transmit to your very reverend paternity, and at the same time I add the Calendar of the church of Aquileia, that it may be seen on what days some Saints who do not exist in the Martyrology are celebrated. I add also the letters of the most illustrious bishop of Capodistria, who, asked by me, answered what he could learn about the body of St. Maximilian, bishop and martyr, which is preserved at Pirano in Istria, of his diocese, which he has very recently visited.

[102] concerning the place of his martyrdom I was asking, on occasion of the words of Manzuoli, fol. 33, where in these words, translated into Latin from the Italian idiom in which they are here recited from Manzuoli by Schönleben, he says: "The emperor Maximilian came into Italy, intending to proceed thence to Aquileia; and he came to a city of Italy, Ema by name, situated at the far edge of the plain at the foot of the Alps, not far from the land of Postema, where Maximilian the bishop suffered martyrdom; whose body is honoured with religious cult in the church of Pirano. But now not the whole body, but only a part of it, is had ^h." … Where that land of Postema is in which St. Maximilian suffered, the most illustrious man answered that in Istria there is no trace of this name: whence I judge that Manzuoli understood Assesia ⁱ … Celeia is distant from Ljubljana ^k [ ] miles, and consequently that he attributed to his Maximilian what is true of St. Maximilian of Lorch, who suffered at Celeia, especially since both are celebrated on the 12th day of October. I doubted … whether he was (or is) the one whose body, almost entire (as in the added figure), is preserved at Pirano, a city distant two German miles from Capodistria, and is celebrated under the double rite: to this he answered, as in his letters is to be seen.

[103] and from some Saints But I reason thus: since there is no doubt that there exists at Pirano the body of some St. Maximilian, bishop and martyr, on account of the tradition and veneration of some centuries, perhaps there is some error in the name, and he should rather be judged to be called Maximus or Maximian; but I do not find to whom, even under such a name, this can fit. For it cannot be St. Maximus of Emona, who suffered in the city of Assesia (which Manzuoli names Asia), namely near the river of St. Vitus, or the Tarsatica of the Ancients, where now is the town of Brebir, as Niger divines in Ortelius, because the body of this St. Maximus is had at Venice at San Canciano, as Manzuoli testifies, and recently in his letters Father Daniel Simonetti, procurator of the professed house of Venice.

[104] Nor is it St. Maximus, martyr in Illyricum, as if of the same name, he contends, of whom the Roman Martyrology at the 8th of August, because he was not a bishop: nor is it St. Maximus of Verona (where whose body rests Ughelli says is unknown), because he was not a martyr. Nor is it St. Maximilian, bishop of Ravenna, who was born at Pola in Istria, because his body is thought to survive at Ravenna, and he was not a martyr. Nor is it St. Maximilian, bishop of Lorch and martyr, because his body is preserved in a marble tomb at Passau, by the testimony of Urgellus, … Brunner in the Annales Boici, Rader in Bavaria Sancta, Father Bolland in the Life of St. Valentine, Welser, Adlzreiter and others; and I myself saw that tomb at Passau at the altar which is in the middle of the cathedral church of Passau, and was present on the 12th of Oct. at the Mass sung there by the dean of that time, in the year [1663]. Nor is it St. Maximilian, bishop, martyr, of whom the Roman Martyrology at the 29th day of October; because he is the same as the one of Lorch, and on that day only his second translation is celebrated, as Father Bolland well divines.

[105] It remains, therefore, that I suspect whether he was Maximilian, bishop of Istria, [that he was the one of whom Pelagius wrote to Narses, who first converted from schism,] of whom Pope Pelagius wrote to Narses the exarch about the year 557, and who then communicated with the schismatics on account of the three chapters. Father Bolland suggests him to me in the Life of Maximilian of Ravenna. And nothing is repugnant to his having adhered to the schism and afterwards come to his senses and been crowned with a holy end, which also happened to St. Ingenuinus, bishop of Brixen, Agnellus of Trent and others. But how could he have been a martyr, says the most illustrious man of Capodistria, since at that time there were no persecutions of the Church? I answer that this could have come about through the Lombards, of whose entry into Italy St. Gregory the Pope writes, book 3 of the Dialogues, chap. 37, that, although most were Arians, yet many were idolaters or relapsed, who compelled the Catholics to eat meats offered to idols and to adore the head of a she-goat. Further, that Maximilian, bishop of Istria (or, as I think, of Capodistria and Justinopolis), was a schismatic in the year 556. The Lombards entered Italy in the year 569. Within 13 years he could have come to his senses, and that he did come to his senses I prove, because, since he was a suffragan of the patriarch of Aquileia, he followed his metropolitan as in the schism, so also in repentance: and Paulinus the patriarch, who was then sitting and died in the year 570, before the end of his life, by the testimony of Palladio, was reconciled to the Apostolic See, in what year is uncertain, … that in the year 563, or a little before the Lombards burst into Italy, St. Maximilian was reconciled to the Apostolic See, and a little after, for the faith of Christ, because he had refused to adore the head of a she-goat, could have undergone martyrdom.

[106] slain by the Lombards I confirm this conjecture from the fact that the Lombards, before they penetrated into Italy, had passed through Istria. For, by the testimony of Paul the Deacon, book 2, chap. 6 ^l, On the Affairs of the Lombards, King Alboin led his army from Lower Pannonia through Old Iapydia ^m … of Liburnia the borders, ascended a mountain from which he could see Italy from afar. And the said mountain, as the Deacon says, afterwards kept the name Mons-Regius. I long searched where that mountain was. Lazius, in the Commentaries on the Roman Republic, XII, chap. V, thinks it is the one which they commonly call Dervogel, where is the castle of Kunigsperg; but from no mountain of Styria can Italy be seen. I then thought that it was a mountain in Istria which is called Monte Maggiore; but this is in Italy itself. I learned at last that near the river of St. Vitus and … there is a mountain which today is called by the peoples Kraleui-Verch, and the plain lying below it Kraleviza, that is, in the Slavonic idiom, King's Mountain and King's Meadow, from which they say part of Italy and the sea itself is seen. Now let the map be inspected, that whoever wishes to pass from Tersatto into Forum Julii must of necessity pass through the middle of Istria.

[107] in Istria for Christ And on this occasion it could have happened that the Lombards, coming into the island of Capraria (so called certainly because of the she-goats accustomed to be pastured there, which, restored after three years, received the name Justinopolis), set before the Christians the heads of slaughtered she-goats to be adored, and slew those who resisted, among whom could have been also Massilianus, bishop of Istria or of Capodistria. For Ughelli errs, who puts the first bishop of Justinopolis in the year 756, because long before St. Nazarius sat there, whose body was found in the year 601, as the Annals of Noricus have ⁿ. But if perhaps Maximilian

already mentioned escaped on this occasion the fury of the Lombards, he could certainly have survived to the year 598, in which likewise, by the testimony of Paul the Deacon, book 4, chap. 25, the Lombards with the Avars and Slavs (then still worshippers of idols) entered Istria and laid everything waste with fire and sword. And so an occasion of martyrdom was not wanting to Maximilian. But whether that Maximilian who had been a schismatic in fact obtained this grace, I cannot assert for certain ^o.

[108] That his feast is celebrated at Pirano on the 12th of Oct., on which also that of St. Maximilian of Lorch is celebrated, does not at all prevent their being and being called different, because many churches, when they do not know the day on which they died, have been accustomed to celebrate them on that day on which the Roman Church has been accustomed to celebrate other Saints of the same name. So in Father Bolland 5 or 6 different Valentines are celebrated on the 14th day of February. And at Ljubljana, in the church of the Society, where there are notable relics of the holy MM. Januarius and Companions, their feast was anciently celebrated on the 19th of Sept., now I hear transferred, although this St. Januarius was entirely different from him whose body is preserved at Naples, and his boiling blood.*

[109] he could have died, which But I think that that Istrian St. Maximilian lay hidden for some centuries on account of the barbarism and devastations of the province, and perhaps after the times of Charlemagne that treasure was brought out into the light and has been honoured from that time, although no documents exist older than from the year 1300, as appears from the letters of the most illustrious man of Capodistria. These things occurred to me to be suggested, which your paternity will be able better to arrange and examine, and perhaps to find that true St. Maximilian of Pirano, bishop of Istria, martyr. I have sent a copy of my Emona Vindicata to Father Ferdinand Elwanger at Vienna in parts; I suppose that he has already transmitted it to Antwerp. If I can still acquire Candido, I shall send it too. Meanwhile, to those labouring for the glory of God and of the Saints, I pray many years, healthy and hoary, and a happy progress in so holy a Work; in which, if I can serve further in anything, let them command and they will find that I am the most ready servant of your very reverend paternity and of the Companions of the labour. Signed Johann Ludwig Schönleben.

[110] From these two letters transcribed, the reader will be able to judge what is to be thought of the relics of this Saint of the same name, nor likely and what of this namesake himself. That the relics of this Maximilian are true, and that a legitimate and very ancient cult was shown to these sacred remains, is proved from the authentic monuments set down here. But who that Maximilian was whose sacred pledges are preserved at Pirano neither the most illustrious bishop teaches nor does the learned man Schönleben declare, who, adding conjectures to conjectures, suspects that he was the Maximilian of whom Pope Pelagius, the first of the name, wrote in letter 2 to Narses, patrician and general in Italy, published in Labbe's Councils, tome V, col. 791. These are the words of Pelagius: For Thracius and Maximilian, having only the names of bishops, are both said to disturb the ecclesiastical unity there and to apply all ecclesiastical things to their own uses. But whether Maximilian in fact was a bishop in Istria is by no means elicited from these Pontifical letters. This one thing is established from them, namely that Thracius and Maximilian stood opposed to ecclesiastical unity and were guilty of many excesses. So much so, says Pelagius, that against one of them, that is, Maximilian, certain persons, compelled by necessity, coming tirelessly to us by so long a journey, offered petitions.

[111] That Maximilian, then, either occupied a see very distant from the City, or, it appears to me. which is also probable, had plundered or rampaged through provinces far removed from the City; but from this it is certainly not clear that he was set as bishop over some city of Istria: but, even if he had presided, since, by the witness of Ughelli, Italia Sacra, tome V, cols. 396, 471, 475, 228, several sees had already then been erected in Istria, at Emona, Pola, Parenzo, Pedena, there is no reason why Schönleben should judge that Maximilian is to be inscribed in the tables of the church of Capodistria rather than of the other churches named above. But who this bishop was is revealed by another letter of Pelagius, published in the Councils, tome V, col. 794, inscribed to Gaudentius, Maximilian, Gerontius and Justus, in which he reproves them because they adhered to the schismatic party. For that they were bishops in Tuscany the very inscription of the letter indicates, which has thus: To Gaudentius, Maximilian, Gerontius, etc., (bishops) throughout Tuscany, Pelagius. From the words of which letter it follows that this very Maximilian, numbered among the bishops of Tuscany, was entirely the same as the one of whom the same Pontiff had complained in the letter given to Narses. This one thing therefore remains certain, namely that this Maximilian, of whom Schönleben speaks, fell away from the unity of the Roman See and carried out various rampages through Italy. But whether he came to his senses, whether, the schism also being abjured, he underwent martyrdom? on what occasion, or at what time, he met death for Christ? is entirely uncertain, and therefore Schönleben's opinion about him is not likely: but to which of the others one should subscribe I would not dare to define.

ANNOTATIONS.

500 had any bishop. And Postoina is nearer to Emona (that is, Ljubljana) than to Capodistria or Pirano; consequently it is more probable that he was a bishop of Emona than of Istria, and suffered in the first centuries not far from his cathedral, just as St. Maximus of Emona also suffered at Assesia near Tersatto, because perhaps at that time the diocese of Emona extended so far. Let these things stand as conjecture; for I can determine nothing certain. Thus Schönleben; and what wonder that I too have hesitated in doubt in defining matters so difficult!

supply indulgentiam* (indulgence)

read impræsentiarum* (at present)

read impræsentiarum* (at present)

assumunt* (they take up)

ACTS,

By an anonymous author,

From the Zell copy published by Pez, and collated with various copies of ours.

Maximilian, bp. M., at Celeia in Noricum Mediterraneum (S.)

BHL Number: 5811

BY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR

PREFACE.

If the Christian religion venerates with devout celebration any Saints whatever whom, through writing or through report proclaiming them, it believes and hopes to have pleased God in the various parts of the world and by their merits to have possessed the glory of the heavenly kingdom; we ought nevertheless to extol with outstanding proclamations of praise the merits of our most holy father and patron Maximilian, through whose luminous teaching we first obtained the knowledge of the name of Christ and the Catholic faith, with whose precious blood our land was reddened, and finally whose bodily presence we enjoy and by whose patronage we are governed. For the Writings of Saints Hermagoras and Fortunatus ^a relate that after the glorious ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, the blessed apostles, whom the King of kings and Lord of lords himself appointed princes over all the earth, when their words had now gone out to the ends of the world and their principate had been exceedingly strengthened, themselves and through their disciples, where they had already scattered the seed of the Word of God, distinguished by fixed limits throughout the whole world the cathedral churches, both of bishoprics and of archbishoprics, in order to avoid the evil of confusion, and committed them to their own priests to be ruled ^b. Among which the holy church of Lorch, later neither in time nor in dignity, first obtained the name of metropolis and the title of archbishopric. The boundaries of whose province are said to have been: on the East the Villanum ditch ^c; on the West the river Likaos ^d, which the Germans name Lech, and through the Western Moesias, Napa, Ekara, Odrita: on the South Liburnia, through which the river Drave runs; and on the North the Wandalus, the lake Pelso ^e, the river Tizla. Within which boundaries twenty-two famous and no less opulent cities were contained, all of which the bishop of Lorch himself governed through himself and his suffragans.

[2] And Celeia, one of the number of the cities mentioned, formerly most renowned, filled with riches, thronged with inhabitants, powerful in arms, illustrious for the generosity of its nobles and distinguished citizens, notable for its buildings of towers and marble palaces, most skilled in warlike affairs from frequent exercise, was so celebrated and famous that it could deservedly be called as it were another Troy ^f. Which, since no power can be long-lasting, having afterwards been utterly overthrown by barbarians by divine permission, still shows tokens of its past opulence in the great quantity of marbles and other precious stones which are found by those who seek them, from the ruined palaces, down to the present day ^g.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER I.

The parents, birth and education of St. Maximilian; he is elected bishop, hastens to Celeia to root out certain errors: his martyrdom.

St. Maximilian, born of pious parents, In this city of Celeia ^a, then, there was a certain man, notable for nobility of race, rich in wealth, shining with uprightness of manners, Catholic in faith, excelling all in religiousness, a consoler of mourners, a kindly reliever of the unjustly oppressed, bestowing many benefits on widows and orphans, reckoning himself as it were the father of the poor, cheerfully performing all the works of mercy. Who at all hours, pouring out most abundant tears and sighs, besought the Lord never to let him be separated from his grace. He had also as consort of his bed a woman chaste, noble, sensible, sober, reserved, adorned with virtues, preeminent in modesty and differing in nothing at all from his manners, of whom he begot one only son, whom by a prophetic spirit he named Maximilian: for Maximilian is so called as it were Maxima libans (pouring out the greatest things), and because LIBARE comprises two meanings, namely to taste and to sacrifice, not without some great presage of a future mystery did he obtain such a name. For first he poured out, when he tasted and saw that the trading of the heavenly treasure is good, in comparison with which also he despised himself and all his things. Secondly he certainly poured out the greatest things when, at the exhortation of the prophet, he tasted and saw that the Lord is sweet ^b, to whom he continually sang in his heart: How sweet are thy words to my palate, O Lord ^c. He tasted, nay, with burning eagerness was given to drink the water of saving wisdom, which most truly became in him a fountain of water springing up into life everlasting ^d. Thirdly he poured out the greatest things when through the whole time of his life he offered upon the altar the sacrifice of praise and paid his vows to the Most High. Fourthly he poured out the greatest things when from the earliest infancy to the end he crucified his flesh with its vices and concupiscences according to the saying of the Apostle ^e. Fifthly, truly, he poured out the greatest things when, living in the flesh, he did not cease to immolate to God the most pleasing sacrifice, a troubled spirit, a contrite and humbled heart ^f. At the last, offering to Christ a soul full of happy merits, and of his own accord offering an innocent neck for Christ to the executioner. This little infant, then, comely in form, charming in look, pleasing to men, more pleasing to God, although he was brought up delicately by the parents to whom he was joined, was nevertheless enticed by no delights, nor did he mingle himself in childish follies, but strove with all mildness and modesty that nothing blameworthy should be noted in him.

[4] and by Oranius the priest And when he had become seven years old, he was entrusted by his parents to a certain priest named Oranius, a man of wonderful innocence and approved holiness; secretly, however, for fear of the persecutors, that he might instruct him in the sacred letters and the law of the Lord, in which the priest himself was quite perfect ^g. Whom the boy himself hearing most willingly with a benevolent and attentive ear, and as a spiritual father always accompanying him, laying up in the belly of his memory all the things which he learned from him or from other religious and wise men, never ceased diligently to ruminate them: that as a clean animal he might be fitted for the Lord's table. And when he had reached the thirteenth ^h year of his age, his father, as he had always wished, in the confession of the name of Christ ⁱ, full of good works, passed by a happy end to the Lord, his mother still surviving and persevering in holiness of conduct and in the purpose of Widowhood: who also, following her husband after six years, happily closed her last day. And after the death of both, blessed Maximilian generously manumitted all his household, distributing of his estates to each according to his condition; and the remainder he did not squander in the commerce of vile and infamous persons like that prodigal son, but hid it in the bosom of the poor and of those serving God, certain from the Lord's promise that after this life he would receive a hundredfold and possess everlasting glory.

[5] The years of infancy and boyhood having therefore run their course innocently, piously instructed, when he was now passing through that age whose ways the wise man asserts he is wholly ignorant of, namely adolescence, in which the intense natural heat inflames unbridled youths to various lusts and concupiscences, this youth, not giving himself to wantonness, but rejecting all the vanities and delights of this world, nay, cautiously avoiding the company of dissolute and lascivious youths (because evil communications corrupt good manners), as a new recruit of Christ girded his loins with strength, strengthened his arm, took the armour of God, his feet shod for the preparation of the Gospel, put on * justice for a breastplate, armed himself with the coat of mail of faith, took the helmet of salvation, laid hold of equity, the impregnable shield, girded with the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God; that thus, fortified on the right hand by the arms of justice of the power of God, he might fight the more readily against all spiritual wickednesses.

[6] When, then, Eutherius ^k, archbishop of Lorch, God calling him, had left the present world by death, Eutherius and Quirinus St. Quirinus ^l succeeded him, most serene indeed in lineage, but far nobler in uprightness of manners and holiness of life, illustrious son of Philip the Elder, who, lord of Upper and Lower Pannonia, was elected Roman emperor. Who first of the Roman emperors received the Catholic faith in the Sacrament of Baptism, at the preaching of Origen, the eminent doctor, and took his son, having only five years, but strong in the maturity of natural industry and inestimable wisdom, as partner at once of the Catholic faith and of the empire. It is related also of that boy that he was of so severe a mind that already from the age of five he could be loosed to laughter by no contrivance of anyone, and that he noted his father, sometimes guffawing at the solaces of the spectacles, as if rebuking him with a stern countenance. Having received, then, the grace of Baptism, both emperors, adorning the faith with their manners and approving their profession of justice by works, with the consent and good will of St. Quirinus, who was their co-heir, freely conferred their whole patrimony on the church of Lorch: and then, coming to Rome, they gave all their own treasures and certain treasures of the commonwealth to the Roman Church, over which Pope St. Fabian then presided; that, the temples of the idols having been destroyed, he might build churches to God and acquire possessions for himself and his clerics.

[7] to the bishops of Lorch Further, Decius the tribune, a servant of the aforesaid emperors, born of humble condition in Lower Pannonia, had been so exalted that already first in the emperor's palace

he was held. But the same man, rising now when wealth had been acquired and the summit of honour attained, become more savage against his masters than the deaf asp, vomiting from his pestilent mouth the venom of treachery and fraud which he had long collected and concealed in the tail of his poisoned mind, procured that both emperors should be slain on one day, the father at Verona, the son at Rome; and so the pestilent man, the inventor of guile, the master of evil, the artificer of crime, the persecutor of innocence, the son of Satan, stole the empire. Who, to show himself an imitator of his father, carried on against the members of Christ a most savage persecution, which was the seventh after Nero. In which, as he had begun from the secular parents already mentioned, so he slew the princes of the Church, Fabian, Cornelius, Sixtus with their clerics, then Hippolytus and other innumerable Christians, the devil instigating him, but chiefly his own avarice on account of the aforesaid treasures, which he thirsted for, though in vain; because they had already been carried through the hands of the poor, as blessed Lawrence testified, into the heavenly treasury. St. Quirinus, then, when he had ruled the church of Lorch for some years, was happily taken up to the church of Aquileia as primate: where, after many contests which he had manfully fought for Christ, at length, a persecution against the Christians having arisen, under the tyrant Diocletian, out of hatred of the emperors, namely his father and brother, he is crowned with a glorious martyrdom. After whose taking up, the votes of the whole clergy harmoniously demanding and the voices of the whole people crying out together, blessed Maximilian ^m is elected bishop of Lorch, concerning whom the general fame and truthful report testified through the whole province that they had not his equal in the merits of an irreproachable life, in the tenor of holy conduct, and also in the prerogative of sound doctrine. And he, although resisting enough, having attained the summit of the pontificate, reckoning himself by this not advanced but as it were cast down, not puffed up by the fasces of honour, but fitting the fasces of burden to his shoulders, strove to keep and guard as the apple of his eye the series of charity, humility, continence, modesty, chastity, sobriety, liberality, patience and the other virtues, as before so also afterwards.

[8] he was substituted by Blessed Sixtus II, Pope; when he had laboured much in this Having found ⁿ, then, an opportunity, taking persons suited to his intention, he sets out for Rome to visit the Princes of the Apostles: where, receiving from Blessed Sixtus, who then presided over the Roman Church, the apostolic blessing and the authority of preaching the Word of God, he returns to his own, the Lord happily directing his journey. Blessed Maximilian, then, having returned to the province, executing the office he had taken up as vigorously as skilfully, strove with all his effort to bring back by a straight road to the field of the true Joshua the Bethshemite the ark of the Lord from the region of the Philistines to the land of Israel upon a new cart, bound to his neck by the bonds of divine love, armed on the forehead with the twin horns of the law and the Gospel against the pernicious bites of the wolves, and fruitful in many offspring, which he begot to Christ through the Gospel, sending forth the great and frequent lowings of preachers, not turning aside to the right, puffed up by prosperity, or to the left, broken by adversity. Moreover, he spread the brightness of his light not as a candle which, shining for others but remaining without light for itself, is wholly consumed; but as a lamp lighted upon a candlestick. Wholly kindled by the fire of divine love he burned, not failing, shining for others, who in him as in a most clear mirror beheld the image and exemplar of living soberly, justly and piously. He shone also for others whom he, as the sun rising in the highest places of God, with the rays of glowing doctrine sent forth from himself, shook out from the darkness of ignorance and vividly illuminated. For some, sunk in the mire of dregs and sloth, without the germ of good works, he ripened to the maturity of the harvest to be gathered into the Lord's barns; others, frozen by the cold of vices, he warmed, that they might learn to burn in the love of God and of neighbour. The measure of wheat also received from the Lord's storehouse he strove so to dispense, as a faithful and prudent servant, to the household of his Lord over which he had been set, that he himself should not pine with fasting jaws while feeding others; but chastising his body with vigils, fasts and labours and bringing it into subjection, and fattening his soul now with the banquets of holy reading, now with the delights of sacred contemplation, with such moderation he gave pasture to all, that, rearing those beginning in faith, he suckled them at the breasts of most sweet consolation: to those advancing in hope he set dishes made from the fragments which remained over to those satisfied from the five loaves and two fishes, seasoned also with the spices of the virtues and examples of the holy fathers; to those perfect in charity ministering stronger foods, sprinkling with the meal of Elisha the colocynths of tribulations and sufferings to be endured for Christ, that he might sweeten them, and inviting them to the consummation of perseverance with the promise of the unfading crown ^o; but to those straying and wounded with the wounds of sins pouring in oil and wine, by reproving, entreating, rebuking, he endeavoured to call them to repentance in all patience and doctrine. The wickednesses [p] also of the unbelieving heathen, with whom the province still abounded, the way of truth having been shown to their errors by most evident reasons, he taught to acknowledge the Creator of all and to be united to the body of holy Church, outside which no one can be saved.

[9] He was eager, truly, to raise morals on high rather than walls: had laboured at his office, to Celeia he cherished the needy more than perishable wealth, he rejoiced more in benefits to the poor than in transitory buildings; embracing above all the grace of hospitality, he faithfully distributed to the members of Christ as much of the patrimony of the Crucified, of which he knew himself to be the steward, not the lord, as was over beyond need [q]. And when blessed Maximilian, in the vineyard of the Lord, rooting up, destroying, scattering, dispersing, building and planting, laboured thus vigorously until evening; he is called by the Lord to receive the daily penny [r]. As the term of his calling therefore drew near, when he had now diligently sown [s] the little plant of the Catholic faith through the whole province and had watered it with the fruitful showers of saving doctrine, at the Lord's command he went to the place of his birth, that the same earth which had begotten him to the world might send him on to paradise. For he knew that certain shrubs of errors were still sprouting there to the ruin of the new crop, which he strove with the greatest diligence to root out; while he was diligently digging that land with the hoe of the Word of God, the enemy of the salvation of the human race envying him, one lamentable and unlucky day broke off at once the business begun and his life.

[10] having set out, and there having arisen In the year of the Lord's Incarnation 288, and of the founding of the city 1039 [t], a certain man born at Narbonne in Gaul, Carus by name, was created the thirtieth emperor of the Romans from Augustus, having two sons, Carinus and Numerian, whom he at once made Caesars and reigned with them only two years; and so princes of corrupt intention held the summit of empire only for two years. For Carus, while waging war against the Persians, pitching camp above the river Tigris, perished by a stroke of lightning. And Numerian, when he was at Antioch, being a heathen, wished to enter the church of God and to explore the mysteries of the Christians. And when St. Cyril, bishop of the same city, forbade him, saying that it was not permitted to him to see the divine mysteries, who was polluted with the sacrifices of idols, he, indignant, slew him; and soon he himself, when, seized with pain of the eyes, he was being carried in a litter, was slain by the snares of Aper his father-in-law. And Carinus, defiling himself with crimes of iniquity, killing many on false charges and corrupting by force the matrons of nobles, hateful to all, is slaughtered by the hands of a certain tribune whose wife he is said to have defiled [u]. In their times and by them there is sent to the city of Celeia a certain tyrant, improperly called judge according to the custom of the land, Eulasius by name, that he should restrain with the forces and garrison of the Romans the assaults of the Huns or Tartars or other fierce nations frequently coming from the East with the strongest troops and fiercely laying waste that land, which at that time, paying tribute to the Roman dominion, was under Roman protection. Who, passing through many cities with a strong hand, dragged the Christians whom he found to the sacrifices of idols, and those unwilling to consent he put to death with various torments.

[11] persecution there, before the judge Eulasius, then, having entered the city of Celeia at the third hour of the night, on the morrow ordered it to be cried by the voice of the herald that all of both sexes, of whatever condition, should come together without delay to the temple of Mars and appease him with their victims and offerings: that he might grant them to triumph over the enemies with whom they were shortly to engage. Without delay all the pagans run together, and with them very many who had already professed the Catholic faith, some through fear of torments, others through lightness of mind, burning incense to the image at the tyrant's command and immolating various victims. Hearing which, blessed Maximilian prostrated himself in the dust, praying with tears and saying: Lord Jesus Christ, who, pitying the whole human race cast out from the delights of paradise into the sentence of penalties and misery on account of the disobedience of the first parent, descending from the bosom of the Father, didst deign to redeem it with thy blood, look down from the lofty throne of thy glory. For behold, a gluttonous and insatiable wolf has been sent, who strives to tear thy flock and swallow up thy lambs without mercy. Give therefore, Lord, glory to thy name, and deliver us, lest perchance they say among the nations: Where is their God! And while he lay prostrate, thus praying and groaning, a voice came to him saying: Fear not, Maximilian, but rise, going confidently, and confound the audacity of the tyrant. He rose therefore, and signing himself with the seal of the Holy Cross, fearlessly presented himself to the face of the most wicked judge, saying: Were you not sent to this land that you should defend it from enemies? But you, more pernicious than any enemy, destroy those whom you ought to have saved; those whom you ought to protect you proscribe, you drive into dangers; those whom you ought to defend from death, you do not fear to bring death upon in body and soul. For we hoped that with you and through you much salvation would come to us, and behold, you persecute him in his servants who is the true salvation of the people, who gives salvation to kings, by whom kings reign, without whom nothing is strong, nothing holy.

[12] Eulasius, hearing these things, changed countenance, and, exceedingly indignant at the audacity of the Prelate and gnashing his teeth at him, to Eulasius Christ said with a grim look: Are you that chatterer whom the Christians call their Pontiff [x]? Maximilian said constantly: I am the servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, and would that I were worthy! The impious judge said: What rash and mad presumption, then, has persuaded you so to seduce the people of this land, maddened by your deceitful discourses, that, having abandoned and despised the immortal gods, they show divine honours to a certain unknown man crucified in Judaea? Maximilian answered: I labour, not with a mad but with a truly sane mind, not to seduce but to lead back the peoples, who ignorantly worship deaf and dumb idols, to the knowledge of the one almighty God, who alone lives and reigns for ever. Well then are your idols called immortal;

because they will never die, since they are proved never to have lived. Eulasius said: Now it is clear that you are mad, since you say that our gods are deaf and dumb and do not live; when they give answers to those who inquire, and heal the sick, and bestow many benefits on those who ask. Maximilian answered: Truly they do not live. For although the craftsman formed and carved them at his pleasure, yet their primary matter was the inanimate and insensible substance of marble or metal, nor could the craftsman himself give them a quickening spirit. Which even if he could have given, assuredly such a maker would be worthier than his making, and ought rather to be adored. But apostate spirits have been accustomed to receive themselves into images of this kind, and by this art to delude foolish men who have not the true God, so that they foretell to them, as things to come, the evils which they are scheming to procure; but they predict no good things, because they always envy and resist all good things: they seem also to heal the sick, when they cease to inflict sicknesses.

[13] having confessed, Eulasius said: Do you not know that an edict has long since been issued by the most invincible emperors [y] and by the Roman senate, that all should be punished with various torments who confess that that Crucified one whom you preach is God, who without the authority of the sacred senate deified himself? Indeed very many accomplices of your sect, having with obstinate mind experienced in their own bodies that formidable sentence of the same edict, both in the Roman city and elsewhere in the world, are seen to have left to posterity a sufficiently evident example of coming to one's senses. Maximilian answered: Christ Jesus, as the Apostle testifies, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal to God the Father almighty, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, not losing the Deity, being made in the likeness of men and found in fashion as a man [z]. He did not therefore deify himself, nor was he made God from man, as you erringly assert; as Jupiter and his disciple Mercury and other magicians and sorcerers, who, deluding simple men with their poisons and incantations, ordered themselves to be adored and called gods. Moreover Solomon says of certain idols that a father, grieving with bitter mourning for a son snatched from him, made an image, and began to worship as a god him who was dead, and appointed among his servants sacred rites and sacrifices to be made to himself; and, time intervening, the wicked custom growing strong, that error was kept as law, whence by the command of tyrants figments were worshipped. In the same way also Ninus, king of the Assyrians, set up an image to his father Belus, which was the beginning of all idols. Mars also, whom you worship and order to be adored, is nothing else than death (mors), whence also he received his name; and he who rejoices in the deaths of men is believed to adore him.

[14] he is condemned to death, and is buried there. Hearing these things, the most wicked judge, seized with excessive fury and no longer able to contain himself, inveighing against him with raging mind, said: The fabulous ravings which you are eager to continue it is not lawful for me to hear or pay attention to; nor do my occupations allow it; only the idle crowd of women is delighted by hearing fables. But you, since you have blasphemously disparaged the most invincible god Mars, on whom the whole hope of our safety depends, nothing else remains but that you reconcile him to yourself by sacrificing, or you will certainly appease him with your own blood, your head being cut off. And he said to the soldiers: Lead him quickly to the temple of Mars; if he decides to sacrifice and to desist from his error, let him obtain life and the pontificate of the temple; but if not, cut off his head and offer it to the most invincible god Mars. Forthwith the wicked soldiers, seizing the holy Man, led him to the shrine of Mars: and, because he utterly refused to sacrifice, but persisted constantly in the confession of the name of Christ, they slew him, as they had been commanded. And the Christians, coming by night, took his body and buried it near the city with a humble burial indeed, for fear of the pagans, where the Lord deigned to show very many signs and miracles through his merits, as in life so also after death. Now blessed Maximilian, archbishop of Lorch, suffered for the faith of Christ near the city of Celeia, outside the walls, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 281, on the fourth day before the Ides of October [aa]: blessed Pope Caius, who afterwards suffered under Diocletian, presiding over the Roman Church; Carus, Carinus and Numerian holding the Roman empire together, under Eulasius the judge or tyrant.

ANNOTATIONS.

b. Psalm 33, verse 8.

d. John 4, verse 14.

e. Gal. 5, verse 24.

f. Psalm 50, verse 18.

p. The Passau copy has: The heathen also and unbelievers, with whom the province still abounded, of wickedness, etc.: so also the manuscripts of St. Ulrich and of Munich.

q. The Passau manuscript has superfluity.

r. The Passau manuscript and that of St. Ulrich: recepturus (about to receive).

s. The Munich and Passau manuscripts have seminasset.

t. These words are lacking in the Passau copy.

u. These are lacking in the manuscripts of Passau and of St. Ulrich, so that after those words he reigned only two years the biographer presently subjoins what follows: In their times and by them there is sent.

x. These words of Eulasius without doubt hint that Blessed Maximilian then acted as bishop of Celeia, or, as they call it, a regionary bishop or apostle: not that Celeia belonged to the diocese of Lorch, but that the holy Bishop, in those most wretched times, persecution raging in the Noricums and no fixed boundaries as yet circumscribing the dioceses, had gone out to this city to bring help to the Church, that is, to Christians even far distant.

y. The Passau manuscript: by the most invincible emperor. All the other codices as in the Zell one published by Pez.

z. Philipp. 2.

aa. See Prelim. Comment. § IV, where I have discussed at greater length these chronological notes and the time in which the Saint met death.

perhaps induit* (put on)

CHAPTER II.

Churches erected to St. Maximilian; various miracles performed by his intercession.

Blessed Rupert dedicates several churches to St. Maximilian: by his help Now therefore, lest any slanderer, tearing the present history with biting tooth, should dare, holding them of little account, to cast aside the most excellent, nay most evident merits of our most holy father and patron Maximilian, behold, there is at hand a glorious witness and one greater than every exception, Blessed Rupert, archbishop and patron of the people of Juvavum. Who, coming to this province from the bank of the Rhine, from the city of Worms ^a, 220 years having been completed after the passion of St. Maximilian, and seeing that most clear and singular lamp of this land shining in a dark place, and the most precious gem, namely the body of the blessed man Maximilian, scattering innumerable sparks of virtues and miracles, understanding that the prerogative of his merits before God was great and magnificent, dedicated several churches, as today plainly appears, under his patronage [b]. But not even today does the most bountiful grace of the Saviour cease to extend a hearing on account of the merits of the holy Man, unless the distrust of those who believe ill has hesitated to implore his protection. Who, finally, unless senseless and perverse, would presume to doubt or deny that what I am about to tell happened through the suffrages of our holy Patrons, not so much for those present, who have known it by the witness of experience, but that our posterity may know that it is most useful, nay meet and salutary, always to show with continual and sincere devotion due reverence and honour to our most holy Patrons.

[16] in the year 1265 the city of Passau is saved. For in the year of the Lord 1265, on the fourth day before the Kalends of November, about the third watch of the night, the gate of the city of Passau upon the bank of the Inn, towards the monastery of St. Nicholas, opened by the counterfeit keys of traitors, laid open a free entrance to the enemy. Who, entering stealthily, occupied the greater church and the upper court, and broke into the sacristy, and held the divine things powerfully and openly until sunrise, the citizens being prepared not with arms of defence but, out of despair, for the sole remedy of flight. Why say more? An evident and remarkable miracle happened. The enemy, though they could, with no one resisting, most quietly possess the city and all that was in it, turned their backs of their own accord and returned whence they had come, no man pursuing, but the suffrage of our blessed Patrons alone obtaining this from the divine clemency ^c.

[17] There was also in modern time a certain country woman, A woman, first healed, then blaspheming, is punished: who from a long-standing sickness of the head suffered a most violent trembling: she, in hope of recovering health, vowed that she would go with an offering to Passau to the tomb [d] of Blessed Maximilian. The vow, then, having been fulfilled, feeling that she had most fully obtained what she had asked, when she was now taking the road to return home, like one of the foolish women ungrateful for the benefit received, and impatient of her own health, she said blasphemously: I have found that even the Saints bestow their help for gifts. This said, presently the unhappy woman began to shake her head, the sickness having returned, and was not further cured of the sickness.

[18] A certain citizen, whose name we knew

and person, a certain ungrateful man is freed from pain of the eyes, suffering sharply from pain of the eyes, on a certain Friday at earliest dawn had himself led to the tomb of St. Maximilian, and there, having poured forth prayer with devotion, sitting beside the tomb, he fell asleep. And when he awoke, the pain had so departed from him that, rising at once, he went without difficulty to his business (for it was market day), needing neither a staff to feel his way nor a guide. Likewise he too was ungrateful; what thanks he rendered to Christ for so great a gift I think it better to keep silent.

[19] A certain citizen of Regensburg [e] most truly testified, with thanksgiving, a wax candle having been offered at the tomb of SS. Maximilian and Valentine, that he had been freed from a sickness as also a certain citizen of Regensburg. which had long troubled him.

[20] A certain man of Ödenburg, going blind, a guide going before him, one going blind and came to Passau to the altar of the aforesaid Saints, devoutly begging with tears the benefit of health. On the morrow we saw him, having thrown away the staff that guided him, rendering most abundant thanksgivings to God and his Saints for his recovered sight.

[21] We saw also a certain youth in the hospital of the city of Passau, another, contracted in both knees, are given health. both knees contracted from a long infirmity, bearing his heels bent back up to his buttocks, creeping on hands and knees: and presently, the joints and sinews having been healed and made firm, walking upright, proclaiming the great works of almighty God in his Saints. These and other inestimable, as also innumerable, signal miracles, both in our times and in times past, our Lord and Saviour has most certainly deigned to perform on account of the most illustrious merits of our patrons Maximilian and Valentine: although the idle negligence, or negligent idleness, of our predecessors did not take care to propagate them to posterity through the record of writing [f].

ANNOTATIONS.