ON ST. MAURILIUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR,
AT ANGERS IN GAUL.
Fifth century.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Maurilius or Maurilio, bishop and confessor, at Angers in Gaul (St.)
BY J. T.
§ I. The saint's memory: his cultus: the translations of his sacred body.
[ ] Angers, a most famous city of the Gauls and metropolis of the most fertile province of Anjou, The saint's memory in the sacred calendars. which, bordering on Tours and on the duchy of Berry and near the Ocean, the Loire, the noble river of the Celts, washes, reckons among the many holy bishops of its city St. Maurilius, born at Milan of most splendid parents, as the History of his life testifies, and venerates him yearly on the 13th day of September under a double rite with an octave. I have said St. Maurilius, because today he is more commonly so called, although it is clear from the more ancient writers that he was formerly named Maurilio. At the mentioned day, martyrologies ancient enough have mentioned the saint whose deeds we undertake to illustrate: the Hieronymian ones, Rabanus, the Gellone, the Reichenau, the Labbean, the Fulda, and the Ottobonian, and they most briefly announce the saint at Angers as bishop and confessor. The codices of the Vatican library, on the testimony of Domenico Giorgi in his notes, add St. Maurilio to Ado's Martyrology as Adonian, recognized as such by Mosander and cast into the Appendix by Rosweyde; relying on which, Giorgi judges the saint purely Adonian. But the authority of Mosander or of Giorgi alone will not bring it about that I should judge all those things genuine works of Ado which he himself added from his codices after the text of Rosweyde's edition among the various readings. Whatever be the case, certainly Usuard pure and simple has our saint on the aforesaid day thus: At Angers, of St. Maurilio, bishop and confessor. The Antwerp Maximus, the Utrecht, Leyden, and Danish add: Who was both conspicuous for the sanctity of his life and flourished with many virtues. The Florarium has the same. The Centula adds: A man of great virtues. The Roman testifies that he shone with countless miracles. Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology, Ghini, and several others, both martyrologists and writers, have put together a long eulogy for the saint, which, because it embraces almost the whole life of the saint, I have not judged should be transferred hither.
[2] His cultus ancient That our prelate has been venerated with sacred honors in the church of Angers from time immemorial can be established from what has been said, and will be established more fully from what is to be said; but at what precise time his sanctity began to be acknowledged and venerated is not equally established. If you consider the benefits obtained by various persons at the saint's burial place — namely the marvelous enlightening of two twin blind brothers, the sudden cure of a man fixed to his bed for 28 years with a most grievous infirmity, and other favors obtained by the saint's merits immediately after his death — you will say that the citizens of Angers began to venerate and invoke their holy prelate soon after his death. Nevertheless that cultus was not so quickly decreed to the saint, at least by the common consent of the people, is clear from the lessons of the second Nocturn of the Office on the translation of the sacred body of Maurilius, wont to be recited on the 19th day of October in the church of Angers. The first lesson has thus: The body of blessed Maurilius lay buried in that twofold crypt which a little before his death he had ordered to be built for him outside the city, so long until, by the divine loving-kindness decreeing through the Church that it should be venerated by the people, it was taken up from the sepulcher and placed in a worthier place in the basilica of his own name, for the reverence of public cultus. For although from those words it cannot be determined how long the sacred body lay in that twofold crypt, and consequently how long the saint lacked a cultus decreed by the common consent of the people, yet it is clear that it can certainly be deduced from them that for some time at least he lacked it.
[3] If we are to stand by the lessons of the same Nocturn, The sacred body is translated to the basilica of his name, the sacred body rested and had cultus in the aforesaid basilica of his name until the times of Charles the Bald, king of the Franks, by whose authorship it was translated from that place into the church of Angers. Further, which basilica was called by the name of Maurilius, and where it was, I do not find in the praised lessons; that it was outside the city of Angers is certain from this, that from the aforesaid basilica the sacred remains were afterward translated to Angers by the order of Charles the Bald. If, however, there is place for conjectures, it seems to me not improbable that this basilica stood on the hill called Prisciacus, not far from the village of Chalonnes, about four miles distant from Angers. The foundation of the conjecture is that in the Life of our saint written by St. Magnobodus it is read that on the aforesaid hill a monastery was founded by St. Maurilius, after he had driven the demons from it, which was called by his name; and it is confirmed from this, that from the words of the praised lesson it is clear enough that the mentioned basilica, before the holy prelate's body was translated into it, was already called by the name of Maurilius.
[4] With what solemnity the above-said translation of this most precious treasure was carried out from the basilica of St. Maurilius to the church of St. Mauritius M. at Angers, then to Angers. That the body was found incorrupt the lessons of the praised Office do not express, nor have I been able to find elsewhere. This one thing is read in them: that the sacred remains remained untouched there until the times of Chrysogonellus; in whose time (these are the words of the first lesson) when he held the county of Angers, Nefingus, bishop of Angers, transferred it from an old and unadorned case into another built with more elegant workmanship, with a solemn rite; in which translation God illustrated the sanctity of his confessor with new miracles. This translation from the old to a more elegant case, made by Nefingus, is narrated also by Harmerus in the transcript of a manuscript codex of Reims sent to us by our Chifflet, in which he recounts certain miracles done by the saint in modern times, as he says, which we shall publish after the saint's Life. But in what year of the episcopate of Nefingus the thing happened I do not find handed down in writing. From the old Gallia Christiana we have it that Nefingus ruled the church of Angers in the year 966, and died in the year 973. In some one of those years, therefore, the aforesaid translation certainly was made. But in this place it must by no means be passed over that, although it is not read in the praised Office of the translation of the sacred relics, nevertheless
Harmerus hands it down; especially since it conduces not a little to the manifesting of the saint's glory. I set forth the matter in the words of the praised writer. These things therefore being thus performed, those who carried the inner parts of the bier and beheld the very old bits of cloth in which the most blessed limbs of Maurilius had been wrapped, found the limbs so uncorrupted as though they had been assigned to this ministry on that very day. From which it becomes manifest that the saint's body was preserved uncorrupted for four centuries by the divine omnipotence. A vast prodigy indeed; but the author does not allow us to doubt of it, when, having narrated the miraculous healing of a paralytic girl made at that very translation, he subjoins the following concerning that girl: Who afterward, for the proving of his (the saint's) admirable power, and for the increase of declaring the secrets of his loving-kindness, according to her birth and after the manner of ancient time, being joined in marriage and united in the nuptial bed, is known to govern to this day her own house granted to her by hereditary right, adorned with a lineage of sons and an offspring of children, telling and testifying to the increases of virtues granted her from heaven. That these things are so, as we have already tasted, the woman herself, of whom the account treats, still whole and surviving in life, and the joint agreement of many testimonies, affirms.
[5] Harmerus hands down from the testimonies of a contemporary woman. At the time therefore when Harmerus was writing, that woman had not yet departed from among the living who at the translation made by Nefingus had miraculously recovered the vigor of all her limbs by the saint's merits. And that then the body of St. Maurilius was found so uncorrupted as if it had been committed to the earth only on that same day, the same author hands down. Harmerus therefore could have learned this prodigy from the woman herself, could have had it from others who had lived at the same time; and he signifies not obscurely, in the words already exhibited, that he learned it from them. And if this is so, its credit cannot prudently be doubted.
[6] The case is opened again and the body seen. About the year of Christ 1239, however, there were some who doubted whether the body of St. Maurilius rested in the aforesaid case, as the praised Office of the translations testifies. For it is there handed down that, to convict their incredulity, William, bishop of Angers, in the year mentioned again opened the case and brought the sacred relics into the open; on which occasion there was added, for the memorial of the thing, an inscription which has not come to my hands; and the head — above which, when the saint was consecrated bishop, the Holy Spirit is written in his Life to have settled in the likeness of a dove — was separated from the rest of the body and placed in a separate silver case. If these things were done as they are read in the praised lessons, they seem to me to prove that in the year 1239, in which they would have happened, the saint's body was not found uncorrupted; for I am with difficulty led to believe that bishop William, by whom this is written to have been done, and whom the praised old Gallia Christiana testifies to have been bishop of Angers in this year, would have separated the saint's head from the rest of the body if he had found the body whole and uncorrupted; which can be established even from this, that in the same place bishop William is said to have surveyed all the relics attentively and diligently in order — which attention and diligence certainly would not have been needed if the body had lain whole and uncorrupted in the case.
[7] Afterward it is enclosed in a more precious case. Finally, about the year of Christ 1477, the sacred remains of the prelate were again translated from the old case into another far more precious, as is written in the same Office, John, dean of the chapter of Angers, procuring it — whom I judge to be surnamed de la Vignole; for I find that he obtained the dignity of the deanery in the aforesaid year. On what occasion, and with what solemnity, it was performed, receive in the words of the lesson itself. At length, when that second chest was falling to pieces from age, and another, of excellent workmanship, notable in silver, gold, and gems, had been made for the greater veneration of the holy confessor, chiefly by the agency of John the dean, in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 1477, on the eighteenth of the Kalends of October, which day was a Sunday, the holy pledges were unwrapped by John, bishop of Angers; and when all had been found whole and unharmed, the evening Office being duly sung, they were translated into that new chest. It is subjoined that the memory of the aforesaid translations was kept on various days through the year, and is now recalled with one solemnity on account of the number of feasts.
§ II. The writers who are reported to have written the saint's Life: it is inquired whether Fortunatus of Poitiers wrote the Life of St. Maurilius, which was afterward corrected by Gregory of Tours.
[ ] Writers concerning our saint, Those matters being finished which we believed pertained to the sacred calendars in which we have seen our saint inserted, and to his most ancient cultus, we proceed to the writers of the saint's deeds. We have four manuscript Lives of St. Maurilius. One from the notable manuscript parchment Passional of the convent of Böddeken of the Order of Regulars of St. Augustine, of the diocese of Paderborn, communicated to us by the Reverend Father Gamans of our Society in the year 1641, which begins: In the times of the emperor Theodosius the elder, St. Maurilius etc. The second, transmitted to my predecessors by our Chifflet from a manuscript of the monastery of Acey, begins: Maurilius therefore was a native of the town of Milan etc. The third is written in verse, and bears as author Marbod, bishop of Rennes, and begins in this manner: What my Clio attempts to tell of Maurilius etc. The fourth, finally, has St. Magnobodus as author, and was written — the author himself testifying in the preface — in the tenth year of his episcopate at Angers, and the 36th year of king Clothar, son of Chilperic, which is noted in the margin to have been the year of Christ 620. The author says that he followed what he found left to posterity by a certain priest Justus. It begins: Blessed Maurilius therefore etc. Of the same Life we have a copy published in print.
[9] That the credit of the praised Lives is already controverted among the learned, about whose credit there is controversy, Launoy, a doctor of Paris, leading the way, says our Sollier in his observations on the Martyrology of Usuard at the 13th day of September. And certainly the praised author calls into doubt everything that is handed down concerning St. Maurilius, so much so that he would seem about to deny that he ever ruled the church of Angers and is to be numbered among the saints of Angers, did not the most ancient martyrologies, in which he is found inserted, and his most ancient cultus, with which it is established that he was honored by the Church, forbid it. Receive the words drawn from his Dissertation on St. Renatus, bishop of Angers, p. 81. But since all these things are so, he says, it is not this Life of Maurilius, but the martyrologies of the Roman Church, of Usuard, of Ado, and of others, and the old basilicas, to which Theodulf gives credit eight hundred years ago, that keep Maurilius in the order of the pontiffs and saints of Angers, and will keep him always.
[10] Launoy deals chiefly with that Life of the saint which begins: Maurilius therefore was a native of the town of Milan. From this the metrical Life of Marbod scarcely differs, and that which is taken from the manuscript of the convent of Böddeken; whence, the credit of that one falling, the other two share the same lot. [but the question is raised chiefly concerning the Life attributed to Gregory of Tours, arising from the prologue,] This, however, was attributed by some to Gregory of Tours, and perhaps is still ascribed to him by certain persons — on account, I believe, of the prologue, which is a letter of Gregory of Tours to St. Germanus, supposititious, as Launoy contends. From this very letter he proves by many arguments that the praised Life is wrongly ascribed to Gregory of Tours — which arguments I shall exhibit to the reader when I have transferred hither this prologue, as furnishing the foundation for this whole controversy, as we have it from a most ancient manuscript of St.-Germain-des-Prés. To the most holy lord Germanus, of the prelates of the holy mother church of Paris, Gregory, humble bishop of the metropolis of Tours, greeting. You have indeed asked that the Lives and miracles which the Lord deigned to work through blessed Maurilius and Albinus, prelates of Angers — which Fortunatus the priest had described in brilliant speech, and which are now almost depraved by the faults of copyists — we should correct with the skill of our authority and send to your devotion, who desire to profit by the examples of those before us. But we, considering that, if we do this, we shall be torn by the barkings and bitings of the faithless, who know not how to seek doctrine, but to envy, are shaken with the grief of a twofold weariness, while we both desire to obey your commands and fear to displease them. Trusting, however, in the promises of the Almighty, who, speaking through his prophet, made known that they who sow in tears shall reap in joy, I shall satisfy your will; for we know that, if there be things worthy to be imitated and able to profit another age, whoever shall have set forth and corrected the Lives and mighty works of the most holy confessors of Christ, even with a rustic pen, shall confer both a reward on himself and salvation on those who wish to imitate them. Therefore, reckoning it a crime not to speak of or to correct the very great mighty works of the most precious confessors of Christ, Maurilius and Albinus, because they are worthy of memory, with a plebeian pen, as you asked, whereby they may rather profit the common folk, we shall correct out of many things a few, but nevertheless, God being witness, most true ones, omitting very many things published by Fortunatus, which perhaps would seem incredible. But what has been corrected by us we have thought should be more worthily offered to the petition of your Holiness, that you, who rejoice to imitate them, may profit, being formed by their virtues. Here ends the prologue.
[11] From this prologue it is clear, first, that Gregory of Tours, on which the whole controversy depends. if he ever wrote of the deeds of St. Maurilius, did not so much compose the saint's Life anew as purge of copyists' faults the one composed by Fortunatus; from which it follows that, if the praised prologue is truly Gregory's, the Life attributed to him by some is Fortunatus'. Trithemius affirms without hesitation that the Life of St. Maurilius of Angers was written by Fortunatus of Poitiers; hence Surius at the 13th of September, before the Life of him published by himself, says that his two manuscript codices do not indeed have the author of the Life of St. Maurilius, bishop of Angers, but that since it is established with Trithemius that Fortunatus wrote that blessed man's Life, and the style agrees, it cannot easily be denied that Fortunatus is the author. I could wish that either Surius or Trithemius himself had declared whence this was established for Trithemius. Indeed, since the praised writers are silent about it, I strongly suspect that it was established for Trithemius from nothing else than the prologue mentioned. But even granting gratuitously what Trithemius affirms, I do not yet see on what foundation Surius so unhesitatingly judges that the Life published by him is the one which Fortunatus wrote. Certainly Tillemont in his Notes on the saint's Life, and Baillet in his Critical Table, hold it for certain that the Life of which we treat is neither Fortunatus' nor Gregory's; although they judge that it is not to be denied so certainly that the deeds of St. Maurilius, as of several other saints, were committed to writing by Fortunatus — of which there would be no doubt at all if it were established that the alleged letter of Gregory to St. Germanus was written by him. Wherefore I subjoin, contracted as briefly as I could, the reasons by which Launoy contends that neither the letter nor the praised Life is his work.
[12] First, he contends that this superscription — To the most holy lord Germanus, of the prelates of the holy mother church of Paris, Gregory, humble bishop of the metropolis of Tours, greeting — Launoy's reasons, by which the prologue and the Life is foreign to the time of Gregory of Tours. For not yet, he says, had the custom grown up that any church whatever should be called holy
mother church. His second argument he draws from this, that Germanus asks Gregory to correct the Life of St. Maurilius written by Fortunatus, which was already almost depraved by the faults of copyists; which he asserts to be destitute of any appearance of truth, because Fortunatus was a contemporary of Gregory — nay, Germanus departed from among the living before Fortunatus, whose Acts the latter wrote. It would therefore have been strange if in so short a time the Life of St. Maurilius had felt the changes and damages of passing times; and even if this were supposed true, he says, there would nevertheless have been no need of Gregory's correction: for what was easier than, while Fortunatus was alive, to obtain more correct copies? Besides, since Gregory nowhere testifies that the Life of St. Maurilius was written by him, although an occasion for testifying offered itself, nor is it found in the book which he published on the Lives of the Fathers, from this too he suspects that the saint's deeds were never written by him. Then he draws an argument from Gregory's very letter to Germanus, in which he asserts that he omits very many things published by Fortunatus which would perhaps seem incredible; and yet, he says, in the Life attributed to him is read the marvelous raising of St. Renatus after seven years, omitted by Fortunatus on Gregory's testimony, which must appear the most incredible of all. Thus the writer of the Life has it: But how great a miracle the Lord deigned to work upon that same boy (St. Renatus) after the seventh year of his burial, through his most precious prelate Maurilius — although, as we have already said, Fortunatus omitted it — we nevertheless shall by no means pass over in silence, since we know it to be true, because for the glory of Christ and the praise of his prelate the thing is worthy to be described. Finally, he contends that the Life of which we treat is falsely reckoned among the works of Gregory of Tours from this, that in that Life Pope Gregory is quoted, saying: Faith has no merit where human reason furnishes proof. For, since Gregory dedicates the Life of St. Maurilius to Germanus, who died in the year of Christ 579, how can it be, he says, that in it Pope Gregory should be quoted, who is handed down to have taken up the government of the Roman Church only in the year of Christ 590?
[13] he takes away from Gregory of Tours. These are the chief heads from which Launoy adjudges the Life of St. Maurilius away from Gregory of Tours, and relegates it to the tenth century, namely to the times of Raino, bishop of Angers. That the saint's Life was found and enlarged by these men is drawn out from the Chronicle of Vendôme and from most ancient manuscript parchments, where the following is read: Raino, once a daily disciple of St. Martin and always a canon, and afterward the thirty-third humble bishop of the holy church of Angers from the beginning of Christianity, for the honor of almighty God and of the same St. Maurilius, and for the remission of the sins of his soul, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation still 905, and in the 25th of the ordination of his episcopate, ordered this Life to be written and sought out. Archanaldus, disciple and deacon of St. Martin, wrote and sought it out by the order of the aforesaid lord Raino. Tillemont does not disagree with Launoy, but asserts that it is difficult — since it is certain that the Life of St. Maurilius is not the work of Gregory of Tours — to find any conjecture more probable than Launoy's opinion, which makes Raino and Archanaldus the authors of this Life.
[14] Other reasons persuade the same; However that be, although I do not judge that Launoy's reasonings are to be admitted in everything, yet so many arguments, and those of the gravest weight, show that the often-praised Life does not have Gregory of Tours as its author, that they have carried into assent most of the writers whom I have read. For besides the reasons already recounted, if we judge Gregory its author, it will be necessary to say that it existed before the year 579, in which St. Germanus died, at whose prayers it would have been written, and consequently before St. Magnobodus wrote the saint's Life. This being granted, what cause shall we think there was that no mention is made by him of a Life written by Gregory? Why did he not use it? Why does not St. Magnobodus rather confess, if this Life existed in his time, that he was helped by the writings of Gregory of Tours, than by the monuments which he had found left by the priest Justus? But to say that St. Magnobodus was ignorant of the Life written by Gregory, or that it had already then perished, is in my judgment, even from this head alone, foreign to all likelihood: that St. Magnobodus testifies he wrote the Life of St. Maurilius in the year of Christ 620, only about 25 years after Gregory's death, whom by age he could have seen.
[15] nor does the Apology of the chapter of Angers prove the contrary; There came out indeed a certain Apology of the chapter of the church of Angers for St. Renatus their bishop against Jean de Launoy, published in print at Angers in the year 1650, in which the author also tries to dissolve the arguments of the writer mentioned, by which he had contended it was proved that the aforesaid Life is not the work of Gregory of Tours; but as we cannot deny that in the praised Apology some of Launoy's many objections are found dissolved, so we ought not to conceal that satisfaction has not been given to all. To the argument which is drawn from this, that Fortunatus was still alive at the time at which Germanus would have asked Gregory to correct the Life of St. Maurilius written by Fortunatus, the apologist indeed answers, and by various examples adduced demonstrates that it not rarely happens that, while the authors live, their works are depraved and corrupted with faults through the negligence, rashness, or even carelessness of copyists. But what cause will he say there was why Germanus did not rather ask purer copies from Fortunatus, or why Gregory himself did not consult Fortunatus in the work which he was undertaking at Germanus' prayers? — especially since between Fortunatus, Gregory, and Germanus, on Ruinart's testimony, there was no ordinary familiarity. Besides, the difficulty which Launoy raised on account of the 26th Homily of Pope Gregory quoted in that Life, either the author of the Apology did not understand, or at any rate dissembled; for it is not from the quoted text of this Homily, looked at barely and without regard to other things, that Launoy infers that the aforesaid Life was not written by Gregory, but rather from the time at which Pope Gregory attained the supreme pontificate of the Church, which is written to have happened about the year of Christ 590, together with this, that the Life about which the question is raised is dedicated to Germanus, who is read to have ended his life in the 79th year of the same century.
[16] I omit the rest, lest I be too long; for the very silence of Magnobodus concerning the praised Life begets a suspicion well enough founded that it was never written by Fortunatus or by Gregory. Receive, however, whence it is laid down as more probable that it is not Gregory of Tours', reader, the words of Ruinart which he has in his preface to Gregory's works published by him, from which you will understand what he himself judges of it, and will see Tillemont's opinion confirmed. Even if it were established, he says, that the Life of blessed Maurilius was at some time emended by Gregory of Tours, we nevertheless contend that this is not the very one which is commonly circulated in the published books and in some manuscripts, although Gregory's letter is read prefixed to it. This his assertion, after he has proved it by reasons sought from Launoy, he subjoins: The same we prove from two manuscript codices, one namely of the monastery of Vendôme, written about six hundred years ago, and the other of our library of St.-Germain-des-Prés, of five hundred years; where, after Gregory's letter set before it and the index of the chapters of the Life written out, we read that this was written by the order of Raino — who in the Catalogue of the bishops of Angers, written in the time of bishop Eusebius, is reckoned the 35th — in these words. The words you have at no. 13. He then continues: But what that Life was, the lord Harmerus indicates in the book subjoined to the Life itself concerning the miracles which, he says, had happened in modern times — namely at the translation made under bishop Nefingus — where he expressly professes that this Life, which he had given under the name of the first book, was polished with wit enough and urbanity by the successors of St. Maurilius. Add that not a few things occur in this Life which cannot suit the age and genius of Gregory or of Fortunatus, as Launoy proves at length. Launoy's arguments we have given; that it may nevertheless be more certainly established what ought to be judged of this Life, I have thought it worth the labor to compare it in its chief heads with that which I have said I possess as written by St. Magnobodus.
§ III. The Life attributed to Gregory of Tours is compared with the other written by St. Magnobodus: the Acts to be published.
[ ] Errors in the Life ascribed to Gregory of Tours, Whoever was the author of the Life of St. Maurilius ascribed to Fortunatus and corrected, as they say, by Gregory of Tours, he hands down that the saint was born at Milan of most splendid parents — nay, that his father governed almost the whole of Hesperia; but St. Magnobodus writes indeed that he was noble by birth, but makes no mention of so great a power and dominion. None of the biographers expressed the name of the saint's parents; hence it is clear that nothing certain can be established about it. In the former, St. Maurilius is handed over from his tender years to the discipline of blessed Martin, and is instructed by him in sacred letters and liberal studies so long, until St. Martin was driven out of the city of Milan by the perfidy of the Arians. In the latter it is not read that the saint was under St. Martin's discipline before his episcopate at Tours. In the former, St. Maurilius is said to have been ordained lector by Ambrose, bishop of the city of Milan, and then, his father being dead, to have left his mother and to have gone to Martin, at that time bishop of Tours, under Julian Caesar; how far these things are foreign to the truth any learned man will easily see. For it is certain that St. Martin, who was not bishop of the city of Tours before the year 371 or 372, did not rule the church of Tours under Julian Caesar, who is everywhere handed down not to have been alive in the year 364. Then Ambrose is written to have obtained the see of Milan only about the year 374; how therefore, before he set out into Gaul to St. Martin under Julian Caesar, could St. Maurilius have been ordained lector by Ambrose, bishop of that city?
[18] are not read in St. Magnobodus. All this indeed, but more correctly, is read in St. Magnobodus. For in this, although St. Maurilius is said to have been ordained lector before his coming into the Gauls under Julian Caesar, yet it is nowhere found that St. Ambrose performed this; nor does he write that St. Maurilius set out to St. Martin, then bishop, immediately upon his coming into Gaul. Whence, although some confess that an error was committed in this part by St. Magnobodus also, and think that for Julian, Valentinian should be read, yet I do not judge that this must necessarily be admitted; for I do not see why it cannot be said that St. Maurilius, having set out into the Gauls under Julian, served God in solitude so long until the report of St. Martin's episcopate at Tours reached him, and, having learned this, left the solitude and went to the prelate most famous for the report of his sanctity. This can be confirmed from our saint's love toward solitude, with which he burned so much that, having received the greater orders, he left St. Martin for its sake. Nor is it altogether repugnant to St.
Magnobodus himself, who records that the saint under Julian Caesar despised his native land for the love of Christ, and came as an exile into the Gauls following the way of holy poverty.
[19] Launoy is refuted. What is read in this place in St. Magnobodus, and which we have shown can be reconciled in the aforesaid manner, is false, says Launoy in his Dissertation on the History of St. Renatus, Observation 17, p. 79, as is also what is read on the same matter in Raino. (We said in the preceding § that for Launoy Raino is the author of the Life attributed to Gregory of Tours.) He gives the reason on p. 80: Because Maurilius could not, under Julian as emperor, much less as Caesar, receive the office of lector from Ambrose, who was not yet bishop. That in Raino — if he must be called the author of this Life — false things, nay things repugnant to themselves, are said in this place, we have already shown; but by this reasoning I do not understand that what is read in St. Magnobodus at the praised place is false. For it is not found in Magnobodus that our saint was ordained lector by Ambrose; it is only asserted that under Julian Caesar, being already of the order of lector, he set out into the Gauls. What therefore forbids us to say that our saint was ordained lector by Dionysius, who about the year of Christ 354 certainly ruled the church of Milan, and departed into the Gauls under Julian? Certainly Launoy could see that this is no valid conclusion: under Julian St. Maurilius was a lector; therefore under Julian he was ordained lector by St. Ambrose. But let us finish the rest.
[20] The difference between the two Lives is shown Whether Raino, or whoever else is the author of the often-praised Life, proceeds to certain prodigies wrought by our saint in the place which is called Chalonnes, where he is believed to have dwelt from his departure from St. Martin until his episcopate; of all which St. Magnobodus makes indeed some mention, but narrates them more briefly and in a far more likely manner. I trust it will not be unwelcome to the reader if I show this more clearly by some example taken from each biographer. In both the praised Lives there is narrated the freedom of a slave, obtained by the saint. In St. Magnobodus the thing is said to have happened in this manner: When on a certain day merchants were passing through that same estate of Chalonnes, who are wont among other traffic to sell captive men also, one of those same captives, who were being led like any merchandise for sale, took refuge in the church. Blessed Maurilius approaches the masters as a suppliant intercessor, that he might redeem the wretched man. Then they, proudly spurning his humble prayer, with rash daring began to snatch the fugitive from the church. But he, then much more trembling and crying out, said: "Servant of God, succor the captive." Straightway so great a fever girded one master, who was more obstinate than the rest, that he almost gave up his spirit. But, as blessed Maurilius was merciful, he prays the Lord for the impious man; health was restored to him, and the captive is at once released from service, made free from a slave.
[21] Observe now, reader, how the same matter is amplified by the other biographer, from the same story which is read in both Lives. and set forth scarcely like itself. On the days immediately following, he says, while merchants … had for sale young people of both sexes, and were making for Spain with them, either from the necessity of passage or from a desire of seeing the priest, they were journeying through the estate of Chalonnes. And as they were passing beside the house of the blessed confessor, one of those who were being led to be sold \, springing forth with great force, entered the church, and prostrate with tears at the feet of the confessor, besought him very earnestly that by his prayers or his money he would redeem him for the love of God and keep him with himself, since, having been secretly taken captive from his own country, he was being led to be sold into a foreign one. Recognizing from his words and weeping a fellow countryman, the priest, moved with loving mind, without delay goes out to entreat the man's master on behalf of the captive, and humbly besought that he might be sold to him, so that, being released by him from service, he might return free to his native land. But when his master with the utmost obstinacy denied \ that this could by any means be done, he gave a nod to his men to drag him quickly out of the church. And while the servants were pressing on and using force and carrying out their master's command, the captive began to cry out with immense outcries: "Have mercy and succor, servant of God, whom I have devoutly sought that I might be set free." But the priest, bending his knees a little to the ground and again lifting his hands to heaven, said: "Lord God almighty, who with swift loving-kindness succorest those who are set in straits and truly trust in thy mercy, come to the help of this captive, for whom I entreat thee as a suppliant." At this word of the priest, so great a force of fevers seized his master that, before repentance came to his aid, he breathed out his spirit. Then the rest are struck with such great terror, fearing that the earth might swallow them alive, that with one accord they sought the priest, tearfully asking that he would obtain both pardon for themselves and life for the dead man by his merits. But the blessed man, greatly fearing lest that very occasion should be to them a cause of perdition, prostrate on the earth with immense lamentations and frequent sobs calls upon Christ to restore his soul to the dead man. Nor did he rise from the ground before he had obtained both life for the dead man and liberty for the captive. The merchants at last, that their past presumption might be pardoned them, honored him with many gifts, and with a place — nearly all of which the blessed man assigned to the uses of the poor.
[22] The difference between the two versions of the story narrated The same is shown more plainly is clear even though I say nothing. Nothing in St. Magnobodus about the journey to Spain, nothing about the slave's native land; he is not said to be a fellow countryman with the saint, nothing about a price offered for his freedom. The master of the slave for sale, who in the Life written by St. Magnobodus almost gives up his spirit from the violence of the fevers, is in the other Life read to be punished with death; and he who in the former is restored to his mind and health, in the latter is raised again by a notable prodigy. Finally, St. Magnobodus recounts no gifts, of which the other biographer makes mention, offered and destined by the saint for relieving the need of the poor. From this you will easily be able to judge of the rest, reader; for all the saint's deeds are read there amplified, or rather corrupted, in nearly the same way. Wherefore I shall forbear recounting several other and like examples which I could draw from the same Life, when I have given the marvelous story of St. Renatus, our saint's successor in the bishopric of Angers, as it is reported in the Life ascribed to Gregory of Tours, and at the same time have exhibited what St. Magnobodus wrote of it.
[23] from the marvelous story of St. Renatus, bishop of Angers, The author narrates that a certain noble matron, bound by the conjugal bond, implored our saint's help in her barrenness; for whom the saint by his prayers obtained a son from God. But when he, being still a boy, was in danger of his life, he was brought dying by his mother to St. Maurilius, that by the imposition of his hands he might give him the Holy Spirit before he died; and while the holy man, detained by the offering of the unbloody Victim, was deferring this, the boy departed from among the living. But the bishop, attributing this spiritual loss of the boy to his own negligence, for the sake of washing it away forsook his episcopal see for seven years as a fugitive, carrying with him the keys of the relics; which, while he was crossing the sea — having first noted on a stone the day of his crossing — fell from his hands into the waters. By which mishap the holy prelate is handed down to have been so worn with grief that he resolved never to seek again the forsaken see of his bishopric unless he should recover the aforesaid keys. Meanwhile the people of Angers, bereft of their pastor, are admonished by frequent visions of the destruction of their city unless they should find St. Maurilius and restore him to his see. They send therefore in every direction men to seek him. These, after most grievous labors of a long journey endured in vain, at length light upon the stone on which we have said St. Maurilius noted the day of his crossing; they find the keys of the relics by a new prodigy in a fish; and, admonished divinely in sleep, they come to the place where the saint lay hid in the habit of a gardener, from whom, after the keys of the relics have been shown, they obtain that he should return with them to Angers. But to St. Maurilius, passing the following night in prayer and seized with sleep from weariness, an angel appears, and foretells that the boy, now seven years dead, is to be raised by his prayers. Encouraged by the angel's admonitions, St. Maurilius girds himself for the journey, sets out for the boy's tomb, and, the crowds looking on, calls him back to life, imposes on him the name Renatus on account of this event; and Renatus becomes the successor of St. Maurilius, when dead, in the bishopric of Angers.
[24] of which St. Magnobodus scarcely makes mention. Of this truly marvelous story of St. Renatus, afterward bishop of the church of Angers and most famous for the cultus which he enjoys among them, nothing else is read in the Life of our saint written by St. Magnobodus than that the saint obtained by his prayers from God a son for a barren woman, who afterward was his successor in the bishopric of Angers. I confess that, for so prodigious a deed of St. Maurilius to be admitted, other testimonies and more ancient monuments are not unreasonably required than the praised Life, which we have already shown is more probably not Gregory of Tours', and of which both the author and the antiquity are uncertain. Yet I am unwilling to assent to Launoy, who not only judges the whole mentioned Life a fable, but does not even fear to deny that St. Renatus ever existed. Certainly his arguments must be more solid, for me to believe that a bishop honored for so many centuries with public cultus in some church never existed.
[25] For, even if it were granted to Launoy that the marvelous story of St. Renatus raised from the dead, as it is read in the often-mentioned Life, is fabulous, Launoy, denying that St. Renatus ever existed, is briefly refuted. on what foundation will he infer from that that the aforesaid saint was not bishop of the church of Angers and never lived? Indeed, if it had to be denied that all the saints whose written deeds are befouled with errors and fables ever existed, how many would have to be thrust out of heaven whom holy Church venerates as saints, and of whose glory the benefits obtained through their patronage do not allow us to doubt. I know indeed that Launoy is of this opinion, so as to admit no mention of St. Renatus before the times of Raino, in which he contends the mentioned Life was written; relying chiefly on which, he defends his opinion. But, besides that we have seen St. Magnobodus mention a certain boy obtained by St. Maurilius' prayers, who succeeded him in the bishopric of Angers and could have been called Renatus, the author of the Apology of the chapter of Angers against Launoy tries to prove the contrary. By what reasoning he proves it will be able to be investigated at the 12th of November, on which day he is venerated in the church of Angers, and on which he will have to be treated in our work, as also the above-mentioned marvelous story examined. If meanwhile the curious reader desires more about it, let him consult the praised Apology of the chapter of Angers for St. Renatus. The Life written by St. Magnobodus calls me.
[26] We said at no. 10 that all the Lives of St. Maurilius which we have communicated to us, except the one written by St. Magnobodus, agree at least as to substance in narrating his deeds; The Life written by St. Magnobodus is determined to be published and therefore
there is in all of them the same uncertainty of the credit which they deserve, and nearly the same errors in all. St. Magnobodus alone is free from them. Le Cointe testifies at the year of Christ 616 that he read this Life in a manuscript codex of the library of St. Victor with the greater pleasure of mind, the purer and simpler it seemed to him. He adds that in it are not read the fables and errors with which the other Lives of the saint are sprinkled. It pleases me too beyond the rest, and not only on account of the errors which we have seen read in the others, but also because St. Magnobodus, being likewise bishop of Angers, could easily see whatever had been committed to writing about the saint by other writers; for although he wrote two hundred and perhaps more years after the saint's death, yet he testifies in the preface that he followed most faithfully what a certain priest Justus had left. And that Justus the priest, whose date we do not know, could have been contemporary with the saint, or have come near to his age. However that be, although I would not contend that such authority is to be attributed to this Life as would be due to it if it were established that it was written by a contemporary, yet I am persuaded that there is nothing in it which can rightly be called foreign to the truth, or justly convicted of falsehood. As such, therefore, leaving the others, I shall publish it and illustrate it with my own annotations, when I shall first have shown, against Launoy, that St. Maurilius could have been consecrated priest and then bishop by St. Martin, bishop of Tours — both of which St. Magnobodus too, besides other writers, hands down to have been so done. After the Life is published I shall subjoin certain miracles wrought through the saint after his death, which dom Harmerus or Hermericus, a monk, handed down to posterity, and which have been transmitted to us from a manuscript codex of Reims; and if anything worthy of note occurs about them, we shall annotate it.
Notes\ vendendi* (to be sold)
\ affirmaret* (affirmed)
§ IV. It is inquired whether St. Maurilius could have been consecrated priest and then bishop by St. Martin. The time of his death uncertain.
[ ] [That St. Maurilius was consecrated priest and bishop by St. Martin is read in all.] That St. Maurilius, having left his earthly country and a most rich inheritance for the love of Christ, came into the Gauls upon his father's death, went to St. Martin, who at that time was bishop of Tours, and was by him initiated into the greater orders, and afterward consecrated bishop of the people of Angers, all who have committed his deeds to writing attest in express words. The Life written by St. Magnobodus, which in § III we said should be published because it is purer and more correct, has thus at no. 1: And so he sought out blessed Martin, most famous for his virtues, already then bishop of the city of Tours; who, receiving him gladly, ordained him subdeacon and deacon, and afterward handed over to him the burden of the presbyterate. And at no. 13 he is present at the disagreement of the clergy and people of Angers in the election of a new bishop, indicates St. Maurilius as divinely chosen, and, the clergy and people consenting, consecrates him bishop.
[28] It suffers a difficulty. Tillemont in his notes on the Life of our saint, note 20, p. 786, asserts that a difficulty can be raised about this, and at the same time touches the head of the difficulty; but he leaves the matter undecided. His words I turn from French into Latin. A particular difficulty can be raised, he says, about what is said (in the saint's Life), that it was St. Martin who consecrated St. Maurilius bishop of Angers. For we have said in the text that after Defensor, who in the year 371 or 372 was present at the consecration of St. Martin, there were at least two more bishops before St. Maurilius. It is necessary therefore that those three bishops died within the space of twenty-six years, during which the episcopate of St. Martin lasted. And on the contrary only one bishop is placed between St. Maurilius and Thalassius, who was ordained in the year 453. The difficulty increases from the uncertainty of the year of our saint's death; for we have nothing else from his Life than that the saint departed from among the living at ninety, having passed 40 years in priestly and 30 in episcopal dignity. Hence various writers determine various years, and in my judgment at their own good pleasure. But let us approach the matter.
[29] Launoy's argument, by which he strives to prove the contrary Launoy, doctor of sacred Theology of Paris, whom we have seen either call into doubt or reckon a little fable whatever is anywhere read concerning our saint, in the second edition of his twofold Dissertation — of which the one contains a judgment on the author of the Life of St. Maurilius, the other touches the History of Renatus, bishop of Angers — asserts at observation 16, p. 74, that Maurilius was made bishop of Angers rather by St. Martin's successors than by him. The two chief arguments by which he strives to establish his assertion, both in the praised observation and in the following one, p. 80, I exhibit to the reader, contracted into a summary, that he may be able to pass judgment on them. First he recounts six authors who published the series of the bishops of Angers: Jean Bourdigné in the Annals of Angers; Jean Salmon in Demochares, book 2, On the Sacrifice of the Mass; Jean Chenu in the Chronological History of the Archbishops and Bishops of Gaul; Jacques Sévert in the Chronology of the Bishops of Lyons and Others; Jean Hiret in his book of the Antiquities of Angers; Claude Robert in the Gallia Christiana — of whom the first two so weave the series of the aforesaid bishops as to number two between Defensor and St. Maurilius, namely the bishops Apothemius and Prosper; but the remaining four so as to have four bishops, Auxilius, Apothemius, Funerius, and Prosper, come between the two reckoned. From this proposed series of the bishops of Angers he concludes that St. Maurilius could not have been consecrated bishop by St. Martin, unless, according to some, Defensor, Apothemius, and Prosper, or, according to others, Defensor, Auxilius, Apothemius, Funerius, and Prosper, had departed before St. Martin.
[30] But he affirms that this can scarcely be believed, and undertakes to demonstrate the truth of his assertion and conclusion together, first from the bishops who were present at St. Martin's consecration, is set forth, among whom Severus hands down that Defensor was, in his book On the Life of St. Martin, chapter 7, and the rest of the writers on the saint everywhere; then from the number of years which Gregory of Tours writes that Martin passed in the episcopate, in three places. Receive the words. In book 1 On the Miracles of St. Martin, chapter 3, he has: In which (episcopate), leading a glorious and almost inimitable life, through five times five years and moreover two months with ten days, in the eighty-first year of his age, in the consulship of Caesarius and Atticus, at midnight he rested in peace. Again, book 1 of the History of the Franks, chapter 43: But in the second year of the reign of Arcadius and Honorius, St. Martin, bishop of Tours, full of virtues and sanctity, affording many benefits to the sick, in the eighty-first year of his age, and the twenty-sixth of his episcopate, departing from the world at Candes, a village of his diocese, happily passed over to Christ. And in book 10 of the History, chapter 31, of Martin of Tours: he sat twenty-six years, four months, twenty-seven days. Behold Launoy's first argument, by which he desires to persuade the reader that our saint could not have been made bishop by St. Martin; whose whole force is clearly placed in this, that it seems destitute of likelihood and probability that, according to some three bishops, according to others five, died within the space of twenty-six years, in which we have shown St. Martin's episcopate was defined by St. Gregory of Tours.
[31] Yet he suspects that this will perhaps be denied by someone; wherefore in the same observation, p. 76, he strives to confirm the incredibility of the thing by negative arguments, which he strives to establish further. which he contends in a special Dissertation have much force in questions depending on fact, usage, and tradition. Hear the subtle writer discoursing in the place just praised: But since these two things are most certain (that Defensor was present at St. Martin's consecration, and that the saint died when twenty-six years of his episcopate had passed), it remains to be judged whether, in places where no persecution of princes against Christians was raging, three bishops according to some, five according to others, died or did not die while Martin was still alive, that is, within the space of twenty-six years. If they did not all die — which can be believed with the highest reason — Maurilius could not have been consecrated bishop of Angers by Martin; but if they all died, he could indeed have been consecrated, but it would surely be strange and incredible to say that two, according to some, or four, according to others, successors of Defensor were consecrated bishops by Martin by the right of a metropolitan, and that no mention of so great a matter is made by Severus, who wrote so accurately the deeds of St. Martin known to him. What he did and said as a boy at Ticinum, what as a soldier in the army of the emperor Constantius and of Julian Caesar, what as a catechumen at Amiens, what when baptized at Poitiers, what when returned from Gaul into Italy at Milan, what on the island of Gallinaria, what when made bishop at Tours in the city and in the country, what at Trier with Maximus, what everywhere else — Severus diligently follows out; but he does not record the consecration of even one bishop of Angers made by Martin: so far is it from being likely that a man not undiligent and most loving of his master would have forgotten the inaugurations of two or four prelates succeeding one another.
[32] An answer is made to his first argument, The argument now set forth appears to Launoy such that straightway at the beginning of observation 17, p. 77, he judges he has demonstrated that our saint was made bishop not by Martin but by his successors. To me, however, it does not seem of such weight that on that account I should believe an error was committed on this point in the Life of our saint written by St. Magnobodus, and should dissent from the rest who have handed down his deeds in writing. For I do not know what difficulties he feigns for himself when he recounts the series of the bishops of Angers. The more correct and learned catalogues everywhere place between Defensor and St. Maurilius only Apothemius and Prosper, but are silent concerning Auxilius and Funerius. The old Gallia Christiana of the Sainte-Marthes, in the series of the bishops of Angers, p. 112, writes thus: But in some Lists Auxilius is faultily inserted as the successor of Defensor, of whom there exists no mention in the Tables of St. Mauritius, St. Albinus, and St. Sergius, nor in the indexes of better note. For more correctly in some copies, instead of Auxilius, which was unskillfully written, Maurilius should be read. Therefore within the space of 26 years, during which the common opinion of the learned hands down that St. Martin's episcopate lasted, only the departure from this life of Defensor, Apothemius, and Prosper had to have happened, in order that our saint might have been inaugurated bishop by St. Martin. But in this it is not possible to find so great a difficulty or incredibility as Launoy imagines for himself. For Defensor could, when he was present at St. Martin's consecration, have been already advanced in years, and have departed from among the living a little after; and that the episcopates of Apothemius and Prosper were not long is rendered most probable from the very few things which we find handed down to memory concerning the aforesaid bishops. Of Prosper only the name is read inserted in the ecclesiastical tables; but Apothemius is handed down to have been famous only for the report of his sanctity. I do not see therefore what forbids that the years of the aforesaid bishops, in which they
ruled the church of Angers, should be shut up not within 26 years, I say, but even within the space of fewer.
[33] as also to his confirmation. But Sulpicius Severus, who as a most loving disciple most accurately wrote the deeds of St. Martin, even the smallest, does not record the consecration of even one bishop of Angers made by Martin. It is a negative argument, from which, if Launoy has anything whereby to deny that St. Maurilius was ordained bishop by Martin, it follows by the same reasoning that no bishop at all was inaugurated by the saint. Yet I believe the opposite of this most probable from what our Stilting wrote in the Life of St. Victor or Victurus, bishop of Le Mans, given at the 25th day of August, in which he shows by no light testimonies that this saint was ordained bishop by St. Martin. His words, so far as they pertain to our purpose, it will be well to insert in this place. At no. 9 in the Commentary prefixed to the praised Life he has thus: First, then, that St. Victor was ordained bishop by St. Martin is proved by so many witnesses that we cannot doubt of the matter, unless the gravest reasons stood in the way. The reader will find four Lives of St. Liborius, published in tom. V of July from p. 407; in all of these Liborius is said to have been buried by St. Martin, and in the fourth the matter is thus narrated from no. 16. Here he subjoins the words of the praised Life, the transcribing of which I forbear, because they are rather long and can be read in the place praised. In these most express words the episcopal consecration of St. Victor made by St. Martin is asserted. After which he says of this fourth Life of St. Liborius: That this Life, which is fuller than the other three, was written weightily and in good faith toward the end of the ninth century, you will easily gather from Bolland's Commentary on it. At § II no. 11 he adduces for the truth of the matter asserted the Acts of St. Victor himself in the deeds of the bishops of Le Mans, tom. 3 of the Analecta, from p. 68, in which the same is read. At no. 13 he praises the Life of St. Victor to be published by himself, in which his ordination by St. Martin is narrated in the same manner, but somewhat more fully; he adds finally Rabanus, and the testimony of the Martyrology long circulated under the name of Bede at the 1st of September; from which at the end of the cited number he concludes in these words: We have therefore the ordination of St. Victor made by St. Martin proved by so many witnesses that we can deservedly acquiesce in them, since no reason of any weight has been brought forward to the contrary. Although therefore Sulpicius Severus in the Life of St. Martin records no bishop consecrated by him, yet it is clear that from this silence of the praised writer it in no way follows that this was never performed by the saint; concerning St. Victor we have shown it most probable; which being granted, concerning St. Maurilius it cannot be denied, at least on this head. But let us proceed to Launoy's second argument.
[34] In observation 17, to which he prefixes this title: Certain things concerning Martin and concerning Maurilius are noted as adventitious in the Life of Maurilius, [Launoy's second argument, drawn from the saint's coming to the episcopate and the year of his death] he draws an argument from the time at which St. Martin obtained the see of Tours, and from the year of his death, compared with the time of St. Maurilius' promotion to the miter of Angers and the year of his departure from this life. The whole I report hither in his own words. On p. 80 he writes: Maurilius could not have received the other ecclesiastical grades and the grace of the priesthood from blessed Martin, since he was made priest in the year of Christ three hundred and sixty-six, and bishop in the year four hundred and six. For Martin in the year of Christ three hundred and sixty-six was not yet bishop, and in the year four hundred and six had ceased to be bishop. Which has already been demonstrated elsewhere. You see, I suppose, reader, that his argument is legitimate, and that it is rightly deduced thence that our saint could not have been inaugurated either priest or bishop by Martin — if only it be as easily admitted as it is confidently said that St. Maurilius was made presbyter in the year of Christ 366, and bishop in the year 406. But who does not see that in this the whole head of the difficulty lies? He therefore proves the epoch which he has asserted for St. Maurilius' episcopate and priesthood. It remains, he says at the praised place, that a certain date be asserted for Maurilius. And this he undertakes to assert, continuing thus: Jean Hiret, doctor of Theology at Angers, writes in his book of the Antiquities of Angers that it is read in the Martyrology of Angers that Maurilius held the presbyterate for 40 years and the episcopate for 30 years, and departed in his ninetieth year. The same, as to the years of his episcopate and of his life, is had in the Life of Maurilius published by Raino, toward the end. Then in the feast of the translation of Maurilius he hands down that his death happened in the year four hundred and thirty-six. Relying on this testimony of the one Martyrology of Angers praised by Hiret, he sets forth the whole chronology of our saint in the following words: This being so established, Maurilius is born in the year of Christ three hundred and forty-six, becomes priest in the year three hundred and sixty-six, is made bishop in the year four hundred and six, and in the year four hundred and thirty-six dies at ninety. He subjoins: Either there is an error in the Life of Maurilius or in the Martyrology of Angers, which in this part cannot be reconciled. I should believe that in the Martyrology, especially as to the epoch of the episcopate, there is no error underlying — both from other reasons and from this also, that Severus did not mention Maurilius being consecrated bishop by Martin in the Life of Martin, whereas the matter itself would seem to require that he should mention it.
[35] is refuted. It can be replied to Launoy: Either there is an error in the Martyrology of Angers praised by Hiret, or in the Life of Maurilius most faithfully written by St. Magnobodus, which in this part cannot be reconciled. I should believe that in the Martyrology of Angers there is especially an error underlying — both on account of the utmost uncertainty of the year in which the saint was taken from among the living, from which, without sufficient foundation, the year four hundred and thirty-six can seem to have been determined in the praised Martyrology as the year of his death; and because we have already shown that from the other things praised by Launoy and from the silence of Severus nothing can be concluded against the episcopal consecration of our saint made by St. Martin. Nor do I see for what reason the matter itself should seem to Launoy to require that Sulpicius, recording the deeds of St. Martin, should make mention of the aforesaid consecration; certainly it is clear that the matter does not require that he mention that ordination any more than any other performed by the saint. It is true indeed that, if we must stand by the Martyrology of Angers praised by Hiret, which ties our saint's year of death to four hundred and thirty-six, it must absolutely be said that the saint was ordained bishop of Angers not by St. Martin but by his successor; but who would judge that Martyrology of such authority that from it, when all the writers concerning the saint vary, he should think the certain day of his death is to be gathered?
[36] From the uncertain time of the saint's death The old Gallia Christiana writes that the saint flew away to the heavens in the year 431, and praises others fixing the saint's departure in the year 427. Claude Robert in the series of the bishops of Angers testifies that the saint departed from this life in the year 410. The same is read in the Breviary of Rouen cited by Claude. The most eminent Cardinal Baronius at the year 394 writes that to the saints who at that time shone in Gaul St. Mauritius (Maurilius), bishop of Angers, should be added. Baillet in the saint's Life fixes his death in the year 437; Antonio Summonte in the History of Naples in the year 420. Which variation of writers concerning our saint's year of death, if it be considered more attentively, makes us certain indeed that St. Maurilius flourished at the beginning of the fifth century, but leaves it so uncertain in what year of this century he exchanged mortal life for the happier eternal one, that whoever should wish to determine a certain year from them must be said rather to divine than to determine.
[37] Launoy accomplishes nothing for his opinion. This being so, who would judge that from so uncertain a year of St. Maurilius' death it can be concluded that he could not have been inaugurated priest and bishop by St. Martin? — especially since, if we should be willing to follow, with a certain latitude, Baronius, or Claude Robert, or the Breviary of Rouen, or the writers praised in the old Gallia Christiana for the year 427, or Summonte in the History of Naples, it is clear that our saint could have been endowed both with the priestly dignity and with the miter of Angers in the time of St. Martin's episcopate. Launoy indeed is not delayed at all by Summonte, Rhomaeus, and other more recent writers, who, he asserts on p. 81, have no choice of matters or of writers when they narrate ancient things, but whatever, wherever, in whatever manner and on whatever ground they find handed down, they at once consign to their own monuments; but neither does Launoy delay me, concluding certain things from uncertain, and most greedily snatching at whatever he judges conduces to lowering the History of St. Maurilius.
[38] I said that, if we follow the writers praised in the preceding number, Another difficulty objected by Launoy concerning the same matter is set forth. St. Maurilius' priesthood and episcopate fell within the time of St. Martin's episcopate. Here Launoy will doubtless set himself against me and will argue: How can it be that one who held the presbyterate for forty years and the episcopate for thirty — which is read of Maurilius in the Martyrology of Angers and is asserted by the biographers — was ordained priest and bishop by St. Martin, who according to the common opinion of the learned drawn from Gregory of Tours administered the church of Tours as bishop for only twenty-six years? I confess that, if we must stand by the opinion of this writer, who separates all the years of the presbyterate from the episcopal ones, this could not have happened. But I could wish that he had proved what he so unhesitatingly supposes, or at least had demonstrated that it follows from the words of the Martyrology of Angers; for I judge that this is no valid inference: Maurilius held the presbyterate for 40 years, the episcopate for 30; therefore he had already passed 40 years in the presbyterate when he was made bishop — unless someone should wish to assert that a bishop is not a presbyter. That the years of our saint in which he is read to have held the presbyterate are not to be separated from the years of his episcopate must be held for certain, if we judge that anything from the whole history of the saint's Life is to be admitted; nay, Launoy could and ought to have seen this even from this very fact, that he is said by all his biographers to have been consecrated priest and bishop by holy Martin.
[39] I do not know, however, what amazement seized me as I read what Magnobodus writes in the saint's Life on the matter of which we treat. [The difficulty grows from what St. Magnobodus has on the same matter in the saint's Life;] For in that same place I noticed that the opinion of the praised writer, separating the years of our saint passed in the priestly dignity from the episcopal ones, is not a little confirmed by the following words near the end of the Life: In the second order of the priesthood therefore, ruling the church for 40 years, (St. Maurilius) but presiding over the see in the dignity of the pontifical summit for 30 years, the loving pastor rendered his soul … to Christ. For who would not straightway infer from the praised words that St. Maurilius, after 40 years of the church of God in the priesthood
governing, and 30 in the episcopate, flew away from this life to the heavens? I confess therefore that the praised words, if they are to be taken barely and as they stand, bear this appearance; but there are many things which persuade that they are not so to be taken. In the first place, it is expressly asserted in that same narrative of the Life that our saint was inaugurated in both dignities by St. Martin; and how much this conflicts with the aforesaid opinion of Launoy is most evident to anyone. But that so great and so shameful a contradiction, and such ignorance of the time within which St. Martin's episcopate is defined, should have befallen Magnobodus — who most certainly followed most faithfully what he found committed to writing by the priest Justus — I shall not easily believe.
[40] Besides, supposing the truth of this opinion, St. Maurilius was consecrated priest in the 20th year of his age; but it is dissolved but Magnobodus, and all his biographers, write that the saint was initiated into the greater orders after he came as an exile into the Gauls, his father being dead and the inheritance which he had possessed in his native land being left behind. If therefore Launoy is believed, in the 15th or 16th year of his age, or perhaps earlier, St. Maurilius left his native land and the inheritance he possessed, and dwelt in the Gauls before St. Martin himself — which I judge to be destitute not only of all probability, but even of likelihood. Then, all the copies of our saint's Life which have come into our hands testify that St. Maurilius, having obtained the greater orders, straightway left St. Martin, and departed to the place called Chalonnes, whose pastoral care he took up, and remained there until his episcopate. The forty years which the saint is written to have passed in this place certainly do not require this. The transcript of the Life sent to my predecessors by the Reverend Father Gamans of our Society from the notable manuscript parchment Passional of the convent of Böddeken of the Order of Regulars of St. Augustine hands down that St. Maurilius passed only twelve years in the above-said village. The same the transcript has which we received from our Chifflet from a manuscript of the monastery of Acey.
[41] by arguments drawn from the biographers. The time of the saint's death. Wherefore it appears more conformable to the biographers and more agreeable to the truth to take the 40 years which St. Maurilius is handed down to have fulfilled in the priesthood in such a way that the 30 years in which he governed the church of Angers in the episcopal dignity be reckoned as included in them. Certainly I embrace this opinion as far more probable, until more certain monuments be brought forward from which it may be clear that in the saint's Life his ordination was wrongly attributed to St. Martin — especially since, on Launoy's opinion standing, it is so evident that St. Maurilius could not have been consecrated priest and bishop by St. Martin, that it is strange that the other writers on the saint, if they had been of his opinion, did not notice it. There is added that Launoy's arguments are not of such strength that they must be said to overthrow the Life written by St. Magnobodus. Until therefore something more certain and more ancient be brought forward, I judge that the saint's birth can not improbably be placed about the year of Christ 327, his priesthood about the year 377, his episcopate about the year 387, and his death, which happened in the 90th year of his age, about the year of Christ 417. This being so established, it is most evident that his priesthood and episcopate fall within the time defined for St. Martin's episcopate. All these things, however, I wish to be so taken that they determine the year in which the aforesaid things happened only with a certain latitude; wherefore, if anyone should contend that all these things happened some years earlier or later, I shall not oppose him, provided he agree with me in this, that they were accomplished about these times in such a way that they could have happened under St. Martin's episcopate.
THE LIFE
By St. Magnobodus
FROM PRINTED SOURCES.
Maurilius or Maurilio, bishop and confessor, at Angers in Gaul (St.)
BHL Number: 5730
By St. Magnobodus.
PREFACE.
The time at which he wrote the Life, and the monuments he used. In the name of Christ, I Magnobodus, bishop, though a sinner, of the church of Angers, according to the notes of Justus the priest a, have set forth the Life of St. Maurilius, bishop and confessor, as far as my rusticity was capable, simply and plainly, so far as I could, in the tenth year of my ordination, and in the thirty-sixth year of our prince the lord king Clothar b, son of king Chilperic, with fatherly fidelity and brotherly love c.
[2] Whatever the grace of the Lord works in his religious saints The necessity and usefulness of writing. cannot be altogether kept silent; for because, being made poor in spirit, they despise for Christ the fleeting things in the world, they gain eternal profits in the heavens, and on earth stir up the proclamations of faithful peoples to the praise of God: they sow therefore in tears, they reap in joys.
NOTES.
THE LIFE.
[St. Maurilius, having left his native land, goes to St. Martin, by whom, being consecrated priest, he departs.] Blessed Maurilius therefore, under Julian Caesar a, despising his earthly country for the love of Christ, came as a humble exile into the Gauls, being already of the order of lector, following the way of holy poverty. For coming of a noble family b, his father being dead, he left his mother surviving, with all the goods which he had possessed in the city of Milan, whence he had sprung of famous birth. And so he sought out blessed Martin, most famous for his virtues, already then bishop of the city of Tours; who, receiving him gladly, ordained him subdeacon and deacon, and afterward handed over to him the burden of the presbyterate; and he wished also to keep him continually with himself for managing the affairs of the church together; but he could not then obtain it. And so, kissing one another and being much saddened, they parted from each other; and he, greatly desiring the dwelling of solitude, went his way.
[2] [The shrine of the idols being reduced to ashes by fire obtained from heaven by his prayers, he builds a church in the same place.] Maurilius the man of God, hearing that there was a most ancient shrine in the territory of the city of Angers, in the place which is named Chalonnes c, upon the bank of the Loire d, came thither steadfastly to assail vigorously that tinder of unbelief. There, after much perseverance in preaching and abstinence, his great-souled prayer so far obtained from the Lord that fire manifestly falling from heaven suddenly devoured that temple with its shrines — after the likeness, namely, of the ancient power of blessed Elias the prophet, whose holy prayer, for the exercising of God's zeal against the impious, obtained that divine fire should be sent down from heaven. Therefore, the place being divinely cleansed, the faithful servant built there a church of Christ, and established a village, where he also dwelt until he received the burden of the episcopate e. But how great mighty works the Lord wrought there through him from that time, it is not in our power to unfold, for the poverty of our speech. Yet let us try at least to recount a few out of very many, according as the strength of our littleness supplies, to the praise of the Lord and the veneration of the most blessed confessor.
[3] Various miracles. He cures withered hands, a possessed and blind woman, There was in the village of Pouancé a man f, by name Saturnus, who for a long stretch of time had both his hands withered; who, having set out to the blessed man of God Maurilius to ask for health, when he had passed one night at his vigils, at daybreak prostrates himself at his feet, beseeching — nay, compelling him by the earnest display of his belief — that he would make the sign of the Cross over his hands; which being done, they were straightway restored to health and fitted for the uses of working long denied them. And no long time after, behold also a woman who had been vexed by a demon now for many years, from which tyrannical infestation she had also been made blind, is brought to the saint of the Lord by faithful men. And when the blessed man saw her made present to him, presently the devil left her. Likewise both a sound mind returned, and her eyes, which the enemy's force had taken away, received the light, affording the woman her own guidance, who a little before had come by another's.
[4] He cures a venomous bite. When certain shepherds, feeding their flocks in the watches of the night, were carefully guarding them, one of them is secretly bitten by a viper g; and when, the force of the poison now raging in him, he had been made half alive, he is brought as one despaired of to St. Maurilius, now a physician of famed power in those places; who, when he saw him, put of his own saliva into the mouth of the boy, swollen through all his limbs, and straightway, the plague being put to flight, health was restored. For as of old a viper biting blessed Paul the apostle did not harm him unto destruction, so neither did it this boy, by the marvelous healing power of the apostolic man Maurilius.
[5] He obtains by his prayers a son for a barren woman. There was a woman in those parts remaining long barren; who, having hesitated much before out of matronly shame, at last compelled by necessity, asked of St. Maurilius that he would pray the Lord for her, that he might give her a son who should serve the Lord devoutly at that same church. The Lord heard the prayers of his servant Maurilius: the woman conceived and bore a son, who, being handed over to the divine offices according to his parents' vows, served that same church of Chalonnes a long time. Truly the parallel is fitting: as by the grace of the Lord Samuel was born of Anna, who as priest and prophet of God served in the temple, so also this boy. For the same, being made pontiff after blessed Maurilius, presided over the church of Angers h.
[6] There had long remained beside the town of that village of Chalonnes a hill He destroys idols, builds a monastery, which is called Prisciacus, still filled with various titles of idols; where, the Holy Spirit revealing it, the blessed man knew that a time had been granted him by the Lord for destroying that fraud of souls also; and he directed his journey to that place. And when he had come thither, straightway the demons began to cry out in the air: "Why do you persecute us here also, Maurilius? There is no place where we can escape you." But he, hastening, and not at all moved at the full complaint of their venomous malignity, burned with fire whatever had been gathered there of various idols, and established a monastery close by, which remains to the present day, to the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ and the memory of the renowned confessor Maurilius.
[7] A monk by name Clement was continually vexed with quartan fevers for three years. He heals a man sick of a fever. And when at last he had asked blessed bread i of the most holy man, and he had granted it to him with a willing mind, straightway, like smoke,
that long weakness vanished, and the desired soundness followed.
[8] When on a certain day merchants were passing through that same estate of Chalonnes, He frees a slave from servitude, who are wont among other traffic to sell captive men also, one of those same captives, who were being led like any merchandise for sale, took refuge in the church. Blessed Maurilius approaches the masters as a suppliant intercessor, that he might redeem the wretched man. Then they, proudly spurning his humble prayer, with rash daring began to snatch the fugitive from the church. But he, then much more trembling and crying out, said: "Servant of God, succor the captive." Straightway so great a fever girded one master, who was more obstinate than the rest, that he almost gave up his spirit k. But, as blessed Maurilius was merciful, he prays the Lord for the impious man; health was restored to him, and the captive is at once released from service, made free from a slave.
[9] Since, by Christ's favor, ships carrying merchandise necessary for human uses ply by day and night along the Loire, he snatches others from shipwreck. at one time certain of them, laden with a great weight of wares, in a sudden disturbance, the south wind blowing, began to sink, right beneath the convent where the saint dwelt. And so the sailors cried out with one accord, worn with the fear and sorrow of death. Then blessed Maurilius, moved at first by their cries, but presently made fearless through the constancy of faith, goes out against the storm to save the shipwrecked. And as soon as he prayed to God, a calm was suddenly made for those in danger by divine power, and the sailors, unharmed, went on with the journey they had begun.
[10] Since the man of God had a little ass for the support of human weakness, A theft is divinely punished. on which he himself was accustomed to sit as a humble rider, on a certain evening, when night had closed the day, it was stolen from him by an impious robber. But what happened to the unhappy man who dared to perpetrate this sacrilege? Seized by a demon, hastening his flight the whole night through, and yet making no progress, with his labor frustrated he is mocked as a wanderer. But at first light, compelled by divine power, he presents his ass to the holy man; and as soon as the saint of God beheld him, the demon quickly left him. The robber being put to flight, the most clement judge, reckoning his guilty man not a thief but a keeper, gave him three gold pieces; and thus he both received back his animal and permitted the man to go home without the penalty of his fault.
[11] He restores a sick woman to health. A matron by name Amelia, coming of a noble senatorial family, had fallen into a long sickness, and for twelve years was held by a daily worsening disease. Then her kinsfolk come praying to blessed Maurilius that he ought to be present to visit her, for the sake of a heavenly reward. The priest, fearing the future word of the Lord judging the unmerciful — I was sick, and you visited me not — went with them to her. And having entered the house, when with his own hand and with prayer he poured the oil of unction on the sick woman, straightway the woman stood upon her feet, and, being whole, gave thanks to God that through holy Maurilius she had received the swiftest health — she who before had for the greater part lost her substance upon physicians, whence she had received no remedies, but it had always gone worse with her in the contagion of the disease.
[12] The church of Angers being widowed of its pastor, While the man of the Lord Maurilius was thus growing famous in the village of Chalonnes for the marks of his conversation and of his miracles, it happened that the episcopal see of the city of Angers was stripped of its pastor l. Therefore, as is the custom, the priests being gathered into one, and the whole people massed together to substitute a prelate, they began, as one man, to murmur among themselves as to which of them might have been able to receive the pontificate. But, their counsel varying and being divided in different directions through the rifts of harmful partiality, that could not stand which was not from God, as the Prophet says: The thoughts of men are vain. For there were being chosen not true pastors, but such as in that very office would seek their own gains, not those of Jesus Christ, and who could not make firm in the Lord's flock what had perished.
[13] and the people disagreeing in the election of a new bishop, While therefore they were revolving disagreeing counsels among themselves in silence, behold, for this very cause of the election, hastening anxiously, blessed Martin, pontiff of the church of Tours, a most holy priest in Christ, was present m — to whom, that is, both by the merit of his sanctity and by the privilege of the metropolitan see, belonged the power of choosing a pontiff. He said therefore to them: "Brethren, hear me: what has been chosen by God, this shall be; let it not seem hard to you. Maurilius, priest of the church of Chalonnes, by God's bidding, he himself shall be your pontiff." By the authority of so great a censor, straightway, the eagerness of the parties being repressed and all delay set aside, messengers are directed to the man, receiving the command that, willing or unwilling, he should be compelled to come to the city. But he, as he was most gentle, and as full of the gift of holy obedience as of the other virtues, did not despise the command, but fulfilled the injunction. And when he had entered the church, before the whole throng of the beholding people, to manifest the grace of the Lord, a dove descended upon his head. And seeing this, the whole multitude prostrated themselves at the knees of blessed Martin, crying out that none other than Maurilius was worthy of the episcopate — not chosen by men, but shown to them by God as their prelate. But when Martin the man of God laid his hand upon his head to deliver the sacred blessing, then the dove, flying round again, gave entry to that consecration. Afterward blessed Martin more frequently recalled with joy to memory that most certainly the Holy Spirit and a choir of angels had been present at that blessing.
[14] Maurilius, by St. Martin's counsel, is chosen. He shines with virtues, This man therefore, being made pastor of the sheep and chosen as one of the apostolic priests of the Lord, was endowed with so great a grace of virtues that signs were done through him no less than of old through the apostles of the Lord. For he put demons to flight by a word only, healed the sick by prayer alone; but he also restored sight to the blind, and called back paralytics to steadiness of body; and there are many other miracles of his which, though they are not written, are even now celebrated by the mouths of men. Such then did he shine in the church of the Lord, with the simplicity of an apostolic life and purity of heart; and wholly in the service of Christ, day and night without ceasing, being set in vigils and almsgiving for the flock of Christ which had been assigned to him, he had turned to the heavenly arms, that the ancient enemy might not be able, so far as lay in him, to harm with a deadly bite any of the sheep committed to him.
[15] When, according to his custom, he was passing a certain night in vigil at the basilica of blessed Peter the apostle, He opens the eyes of one blind from his mother's womb, a man blind from his mother's womb, beseeching with weeping, asked that the light unknown to him be granted him by the servant of God. When blessed Maurilius made the little sign of the life-giving cross over his eyes, blood bursting forth, a sudden light entered. That man, giving himself to the same basilica, served faithfully all the days of his life, and was an admirable testimony of the mighty works of Maurilius the servant of God.
[16] Nor is that to be passed over which happened in public. As human greed shows itself in many things: he frees from a divinely inflicted penalty a violator of the Lord's day. a certain husbandman on the Lord's day, taking an axe, began in presumptuous fashion to do rural work with his hands. Straightway the divine vengeance condemned him, his hands being fastened to that very iron tool. After five months, hastening to holy Maurilius, he both showed his penalty and confessed the order of his fault. As soon as the holy man, pitying the anxious wretch, took the handle of the axe into his own hand, the hands of the condemned man are loosed, and, as they had been before, return to the uses of soundness. The man goes back, chastened by God and cleansed by his priest.
[17] Nor can we or ought we to put in oblivion, through the negligence of our silence, To another struck with blindness he restores the light of his eyes. that holy miracle which happened again elsewhere in a like matter. A certain Belgicus by name … seduced by cruelty and avarice, ordered his slaves on the first day of Easter to clean his crops. When the servants, forced by the untimely command, began to pluck out the harmful weeds, straightway their master, already before blind in mind through greed, was struck also with blindness of the eyes. At last, late repenting of his impiety and irreverence, he asks that they go out and no longer clean the crops with unseasonable labor. Not knowing what to do, unhappy man, ignorant whither to turn himself, at length by groping he began to seek a guide, how he might return home. After this, continuing three years in the same blindness, when at last holy Maurilius was going round the diocese for the blessing of the people, Belgicus, amended by long satisfaction and now at last kindled with the fire of faith, asks that he might be worthy to touch the priest's garment; which being done, he received through the priest of God the light of his eyes, which he had lost through his own negligence.
[18] Nor must it be forgotten among the peoples that from the bodily presence of the most holy prelate there was a general profit of the whole people of Angers. [The greatest abundance of crops throughout the whole time of St. Maurilius' episcopate.] From the day of the ordination of holy Maurilius until his passing, so great an abundance of plenty filled the city of Angers that in the public market the price of foodstuffs was neither lessened nor increased. The barns of all the people were filled with abundance of wheat and wine; for wars had ceased, and a good peace had multiplied the land; charity too had filled the whole people, with the following of the other virtues and of good morals, as the good pastor had taught them by apostolic admonitions and examples alike.
[19] He cleanses a rock inhabited by demons, and builds a church there. There was in the district of Commonicum a lofty rock, having many kinds of various trees; to which grove, by a custom still retained from pagan rite, so great a crowd of foolish men gathered every year that for seven days they performed sacrilegious solemnities there, reveling and leading heathen dances; but also frequently, rising against one another after the wine and feasting, they shed blood in the mutual slaughter of many. Grieving at which, the pontiff Maurilius, coming on a certain day with his brethren to that place, continues the whole night in prayer. At cockcrow so great a stench went out from the place that the man of God with his companions could scarcely at last dwell there; and by this sign the banishing of the heathen and demoniac filth being given openly to all, and by this the crowds of country folk being also encouraged to the destruction of their superstition, at first light the holy prelate ordered the trees to be cut down and burned with fire; and, a church of the glorious Mary, Mother of the Lord, being built there, that place, the name also being abolished which it had before usurped from the observance of superstitions, received a name from the natural position of its site: Castrum Petrae (the Fortress of the Rock).
[20] Returning from Le Mans he heals a cripple. When blessed Maurilius had been summoned to the city of Le Mans n for the visitation of the brethren, and as he was returning in peace after the business was finished, there lay at Pont-de-Leugé a boy, whom his parents had placed to meet the holy prelate as he came; who, with the whole framework of his limbs wrapped together as a ball is wont to be rolled up, was held fast. His wretched parents began to wail before the blessed pontiff for their unhappy son, that he would have mercy on both.
Nor could the priest do otherwise, not without the violence of importunity, the petition of the people pressing him, which his accustomed clemency compelled and the will of the Lord suggested. He prostrates himself in prayer for a long while; nor was there long delay: while he was praying, the limbs of the cripple began little by little to be stretched out, and the veins to know their own courses. His hand being at last taken by the prelate, he is straightway raised up. The glad parents go home with their son restored whole, praising God and proclaiming the merits of the glorious pontiff.
[21] A ship being brought to him without a rower, he crosses the river. When he had come to the river Loir o, he found no ship there ready, but all were held at the farther bank of the river. There was no interval: without human guidance they are all directed together to him across the stream. The man of God gave thanks to God, who by so marvelous a service of things afforded him so swift a passage by ship. But to the sailors also, who came after a time and stood amazed beholding the deed, he paid the wage of their office, though not of their labor.
[22] he casts a demon out of a raging heifer, The saint himself had bought with money the estate of Gerciacum [p] into the possession of Mother Church, that it might furnish food to captives, widows, and orphans, and at the same time to the clerics his brethren. When he was going round it on a certain day, behold a heifer out of its senses, furiously charging with its horn all who met it, came raging at him with grim bellowing and rushing round about. The saint of God, undismayed, stretched out his right hand against it, and the devil, going out of the heifer's head in the likeness of a raven, vanished like a mist, the eyes of many who were present seeing him. Presently the young cow, made gentle as a sheep, its fury laid aside, sought again the company of the herd it had left.
[23] he calms the waves, On a certain occasion, while blessed Maurilius was going down the river Mayenne [q] by ship with the current of the water, the little boat began to sink as the wave swelled; but sleep had overcome the holy priest of God, wearied with nocturnal vigils. His companions, coming to him, roused him, saying: "What is this you do? We are perishing already." He, answering gently, said to them: "You yourselves could have done this, brethren." And taking a flask in which was the holy liquid, he poured oil upon the waves with prayer, and presently the wave ceased, calm being restored in a moment.
[24] It happened that on a certain day, holy Maurilius the pontiff being absent, He restores a dying man to soundness, one of the number of the servants of the church fell into a violent fever. He is carried into the sacristy of the church, where the eyes of his companions poured over him sighs and sobs and mingled tears. He was as yet a catechumen. Suddenly, by God's will, blessed Maurilius arriving at that very point of his coming departure, ordered that all should go outside; he alone remained with the boy, who scarcely at last was throbbing with his last breath. The servant of God tarrying the space of one hour, behold, he comes out with the boy, rejoicing in the sudden gift of entire soundness.
[25] Two lepers, defiled with wretched sores, the holy confessor of God Maurilius he cleanses lepers. healed by a word only as his medicine. For when they were asking an alms of food, the loving pastor, having compassion with a clemency much greater than they asked, the comeliness of their skin being suddenly repaired, restored them to unhoped-for health.
[26] What was done for the salvation of the soul and for an example of holy frugality, who would not gladly hear? The austerity of his life. When the holy days of Lent came, his food was dry — barley bread, which he himself ground with his hand, because the will of a good work required this also; and adding salt and water, he reckoned this for the highest delights. Yet not on that account did he grow torpid with a wasted color, nor was he pale of countenance, but always — marvelous to say! — robust in a worn body, he shone like a rose in his face, so that in a manner the integrity of his soul appeared in his vigorous body. Unwearied therefore he spread the sails of his ship, going forth in public in those days. He wore away his flesh continually with hair shirts; and yet, as has been said, with a lively body his mind was the more robust in Christ.
[27] What was done for the edification of the church of God: a miracle was made manifest throughout the whole space of the neighboring lands. He calls a dead man back to life. When St. Maurilius, God's chosen, in the time of winter was making that unceasing journey of his to the village of Savonnières [r] for the needs of his flock, so sudden a death had happened that a certain pilgrim, an exile from afar, had suddenly died there, and, laid on a bier, the grave being now prepared, was lying to be buried. While crowds of the poor were pouring out weeping and tears over him, the pontiff is present; nor can we do otherwise than tell what the divine power fulfilled through his servant with a marvelous effect. For the merciful pastor was present near the body of the dead man, while others mourned; and while the bystanders were speaking of the matter of the burial, the priest of the Lord, touched more deeply with mercy, prostrates himself in prayer, and calls long upon God, the author of life. And when he persisted in the perseverance of his prayer, the corpse, quickened from death, rose up — after the likeness, namely, of the mighty work of Elisha the holy prophet concerning the dead little boy mercifully raised.
[28] From the beginning of his episcopate to the end this holy prelate had mean furniture He lives most poorly. Excellent gifts of mind and body. and poor food, that he might in all things fulfill the canonical maxim. Which may perhaps seem impossible to man, but to believers, God granting, it is possible: he had now come to a ninetieth year, so that his stomach did not pain him, nor was he tormented by any injury of the bowels, nor had the dry ground, so often lain upon, broken his limbs; but sound in body, sounder in mind, he reckoned frugality and solitude to be delights. For even in the throng of the city this most prudent man found for himself the desert of monks. His knees, it was seen, had grown hard with a certain hardness like the knees of camels, from bending them for his people through the frequency of praying. Of his innumerable good deeds, and chiefly of those hidden by himself so far as he could, we set forth a very little of what we can know. For the rest, within himself he seized, held, began, and fulfilled what he chose. Certainly in the common outward manner of his conversation there was nothing more pleasant than his severity, nothing more severe than his pleasantness, nothing sadder than his laughter, nothing sweeter than his sadness. When he showed continence, it did not savor of ostentation, silent in speech and speaking in silence; his gait neither quick nor slow; always the same habit, a neglected neatness and an unadorned garment: his very adornment without adornment. By the mere evenness of his life he deserved that, in a city of pomp, wantonness, and delights — in which to be humble is misery — both the good should proclaim him, and the wicked not dare to disparage him, and the priests look up to him with all veneration. Let us return thither whence we took the beginning of our narration.
[29] His pious death. Blessed Maurilius, now worn with a good old age, and feeling that the desired day of his death was at hand, built a twofold crypt for his burial, after the example of our most holy patriarch Abraham. In the second order of the priesthood therefore, ruling the church for 40 years, but presiding over the see in the dignity of the pontifical summit for 30 [s] years, the loving pastor rendered his soul, such as he had received it from the laver of holy baptism, to Christ on the Ides \* of September, the holy angels rejoicing and receiving it into the joys above. But while his nurslings, whom he was leaving in the valley of earthly sojourning, mourned at being forsaken, the most loving father made it plain, by an affection of manifest love, that he had not deserted them even when he was dead, since he relieved them even at his funeral by a display of the mighty works customary to him.
[30] His miracles at his burial. Blind men enlightened. A sick man cured. When therefore the holy little body was being carried out to be handed over to its burial, two twin brothers, both bereft of the light of their eyes, meeting it, were enlightened together, and straightway followed the holy obsequies without another's guidance, with praises. A certain man too had been held in his bed for 28 years with a violent weakness; who at the very hour of the venerable funeral, as soon as he heard the voices of those singing psalms, forgetful of all his infirmity leaped up nimble as a stag, and coming as far as the bier on which the saint was carried, marveled that he had suddenly recovered his former health. And now, when he was buried, the divine power glorifies also the venerable tomb of his repose with great marks of miracles, since there too unceasing mighty works are done, and healings of souls and bodies of many kinds are divinely granted through the merits of the holy confessor of Christ, so that the name of the Lord, the living God, may be blessed with glory and praises, through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is glory with the same eternal Father and the Holy Spirit unto all ages of ages. Amen.
NOTES.
p. I do not find it. I believe, however, that some estate situated in the diocese of Angers is meant by the author, which the saint bought for his church.
q. A river of Gaul called in their own tongue la Mayenne. Rising on the border of Normandy and flowing through the territory of Le Mans, it waters the city of Mayenne and Laval. Above Angers, increased by the rivers Sarthe and Loir, it empties itself into the Loire.
r. I find that a suburb of the city of Toul in Lorraine was called Saponaria; but I do not think that it is meant in this place.
s. See the Preliminary Commentary near the end.
\ Idibus*
MIRACLES
By Harmerus.
From a manuscript codex of Reims.
Maurilius or Maurilio, bishop and confessor, at Angers in Gaul (St.)
BHL Number: 5733
By Harmerus.
It is useful to recount the mighty works of the saints: To magnify the mystery of the heavenly King is profitable; to spread abroad the works of his greatness wrought through his servants is a clear duty. For as often as we praise and recite the wonderful proclamations of his faithful and his saints, so often do we proclaim the unspeakable marks of his mighty works; because, as the branches abundantly supply the vinedressers among the people with a plenty of pure liquid, the gift of flowing fertility is deservedly referred to the root of the vine, Truth itself saying: I am the true vine, you the branches. And again: He who abides in me and I in him. Therefore we can note and see more clearly that, as an opulence of grapes without the growth of the vine cannot bring forth the accustomed abundance of wine, so neither are the prodigies of the saints recalled without the help of Christ. Whence in what follows the same says: Without me you can do nothing. And the Psalmist, considering with a wonderful impulse that the unspeakable merits of the saints are to be recited by all with truthful approval, cried out in his singing: Thy friends, O God, are exceedingly honored. And again the imitator of wisdom: Let us praise glorious men, our fathers in their generation. Setting forth such things, it is worth the labor that we should strive to declare plainly what we have long deferred by putting off, and take care to make known the sequence of our work.
[2] hence he undertakes to recount the miracles wrought by St. Maurilius. We profess indeed that the Life of the holy and most blessed Maurilius, bishop of Angers, was polished with wit enough and urbanity by his successors — both what he did while bound in the body, and what afterward, putting off the man, by the favoring clemency of Christ he deigned to do. But there remain very many things which were done in modern times, of which many have been given over to oblivion; but certain of them, so far as the smallness of our little tinder prevails, and which have been ascertained from truthful men, we undertake with lowly homeliness to declare, God granting, for the profit of many.
[3] Those about to inspect the sacred body give themselves to prayer, At the time therefore when the venerable Nefingus a, having obtained the episcopal miter of this see, under Christ's auspices was seen to rule the people entrusted to him by admonitions, examples, and kindly manners, it was decreed by him and by the chief men of the same holy church of Angers, already named after the martyr, that they should resolve to look upon the pledges of the already mentioned St. Maurilius the bishop, which for a long space of days had been kept under an unadorned and decaying case, and should inspect what had been done by men of old, and how the most holy dust was kept, and should enrich his coffer by bettering it, and should bring the limbs to light by surveying them. And when on the appointed day, as had been ordained, they came to the work, and, in the accustomed manner, the doors of the aforesaid basilica being closed, the aforesaid prelate had entered within with a few given to the mirror of holiness, they began to give themselves to prayers and the vows of supplication.
[4] after which the body, the case being opened, breathes a most sweet fragrance, These things being duly performed, coming to the place of the Most Holy One, they lifted it by carrying, and bearing it from the place where it had long seemed to lie to the altar where the solemn office was celebrated b, the burden at once was so free of weight that all who were there present, and who rejoiced to be present, were turned to amazement of mind, and, hesitating exceedingly among themselves, they suspected for certain that the limbs of the Most Holy One were not there, and that they had been taken away to their own ruin by their ancient guardians. And so, shaken with grief and with wounded minds, opening the chest of the most blessed prelate, they were straightway filled with a marvelous and unspeakable joy. For suddenly, when the tomb was laid open and the relics of the excellent confessor were seen, they were suffused with a most pleasing odor. For that pleasant odor surpassed all kinds of perfumes, and beyond what can be believed the answering sweetness breathed forth. There was present with the aforesaid prelate the treasurer Crisonphilax with other official attendants, and with ears and eyes intent they enjoyed a nectar-like and unknown odor, so that they thought themselves to have been set even in the pleasantness of paradise and among the shoots of spices.
[5] and it is found uncorrupted. A girl deprived of the use of her limbs, These things therefore being thus performed, those who carried the inner parts of the bier and beheld the very old bits of cloth in which the most blessed limbs of Maurilius had been wrapped, found the limbs so uncorrupted as though they had been assigned to this ministry on that very day. And while they were held astonished in like manner at this miracle also, and from the depth of their hearts rendered thanks and praises to the Lord, they found rejoicing the most dear treasure, of which they had feared they were cheated, undefiled and without the hazard of loss; and surveying everything, neither the least nor the greatest of the limbs of the most loving pastor were wanting for them to find. Therefore, all things being completed after the custom, the venerable body of blessed Maurilius was laid up with diligent reverence within a case constructed with worthy workmanship. When therefore it was determined by the ministers to be carried back to the former place, where it had been placed by the men of old, as they bore it up together on their shoulders the most holy dust of the body was suddenly weighed down with so great a weight of burden that what a little before it had been possible for one bearer to carry, afterward was scarcely carried by four porters. And while in this deed too the bishop with the clergy standing there praised the clemency of the Almighty, and were filled with fear and joy, suddenly a certain girl was brought by her kinsfolk, who, born and brought up within the compass of the territory of Angers, remained crippled \, and, long dissolved in the frame of her limbs, was known to be utterly banished from every kind of function. For the soles of her feet were worn away, and the marks of her shins bruised, and the muscles of her arms attached to her shoulders, and the firmness of her hands scarcely clung to her breast. But being brought by her kinsfolk and laid \ on the threshold of the church, persisting a very long time in prayer, she besought with all the intention of her mind the Lord and the help of holy Maurilius, that he would restore health to her limbs and soundness to her body.
[6] And while she was doing this with watchful mind, by a divine nod she was raised up, The saint being invoked, she is restored to soundness. and coming quickly to the place of the most blessed man, she is said to have cried out: "St. Maurilius, excellent pastor, whose merits and relics are venerated and rest in this place, be favorable to me a sinner, that by your kindly flowing intercession I may deserve to be loosed from these bonds of infirmity, and to depart sound and whole from the presence of your holy name." Saying these things, she straightway felt the divine power to be present, and the fitting help of blessed Maurilius. For her limbs and joints, which through long courses of days had wasted with weakness and had grown stiff with long infirmity, began suddenly to resume their strength and to exercise without delay the power of their former vigor. The walking of her feet was recovered, the vigor of her legs and shins was set free, and the functions of her hands and joints were set right. What more? Being restored to the strength and health of all her limbs, and returning whole from the altar of St. Maurilius and from his church to go home (for she had needed another's help from her kinsfolk), strengthened neither by the support of a staff but by the comfort of her own body, she returned to her own hearth, walking on her own feet, praising the power of Christ declared upon her, and the clemency of holy Maurilius, by whose help she had been restored to her former health. Who afterward, for the proving of his admirable power, and for the increase of declaring the secrets of his loving-kindness, according to her birth and after the manner of ancient time, being joined in marriage and united in the nuptial bed, is known to govern to this day her own house granted to her by hereditary right, adorned with a lineage of sons and an offspring of children, telling and testifying to the increases of virtues granted her from heaven. That these things are so, as we have already tasted, the woman herself, of whom the account treats, still whole and surviving in life, and the joint agreement of many testimonies, affirms c.
[7] [He proclaims St. Maurilius, by the prodigies done at the translation of his body, like to St. Martin and others] Therefore, if we wish to inspect more diligently the unspeakable gifts of divinity conferred on him by God — this our holy father Maurilius — we can without doubt find that on the very day on which his most holy body was beheld by the aforesaid prelate and his nurslings, he wrought very many miracles. Now, to turn back to our point. At the translation of his relics, the ministers d perceived two of those marvelous prodigies already shown from heaven, which at the death \* of blessed Martin, or when his pledges were translated, and those of certain other saints, very often happened by divine impulse. For as we read in the deeds of the said St. Martin and in the Acts of the others beloved of God, when, being lifeless and stripped of bodily bonds, it was determined that they should be carried from place to place, several times their bier, weighed down with weight, remained altogether immovable, so that neither by the number of men nor by the capacity of their strength could it in any way be moved. But when, by their hidden judgment, the matter served the will of men, on the contrary the burden of the body seemed to be without the difficulty of the weight's load; and what a little before could not be moved by many was carried by one or two bearers. Which we assert was done with evident proof at the translation of St. Maurilius.
[8] as like to them. And of the most pleasing odor with which the officials say that body was suffused in a marvelous sprinkling, there was a partaker in the company of many apostles or martyrs or confessors, whose bodies, by the help of Christ and by their own aiding will, when they were removed from their sarcophagi, or were changed to another place, or, long unknown, deserved to be found by divine revelation, were wont to fill those present with a marvelous pleasantness of odor, as we read in many deeds recounting their memory with diligent inquiry. And if any sick or weak persons were present at this recognition out of regard for the divine Godhead, they were straightway freed from their own hurts \*. Which we know was fitly ascertained at this man's translation, when a pleasant odor suffused those present, and cured with marvelous swiftness a paralytic woman long bound in the knots of infirmity. Whence without ambiguity he stood a companion of the great holy Fathers, whose examples are so many that they are not even found written.
[9] And why do we linger longer in narrating these things? For his deeds and the marvels of his works surpass the mighty works of many wrought of old by the saints in this toilsome life; which, if anyone desires to search out with truthful investigation, let him take the codex which is most fully stuffed \* with his Life and miracles, and there he can find such great deeds of the holy man as no diligence has recounted anywhere in the deeds of other saints. But it remains that we turn our pen to the sequence of our work begun, and, setting forth one by one, narrate the miracles of the blessed man, so far as the divine bounty shall grant — as they have been ascertained on the authority of truthful men, which matter seems the more credible the more it is taught by more prudent men.
[10] To a blind man imploring the saint's help There was besides in the suburb of the aforesaid city of Angers a certain husbandman who, by infirmity
by the compulsion of long infirmity, had lost the light of his eyes. He, cheated of all help from his eyes, was cherished by another's guidance; but, bereft \* with so great a blindness, he by no means ceased to enter daily the basilica where the pledges of the holy and most blessed man Maurilius rested, beseeching and entreating that the power of his greatness would deign to be shown upon him, and to snatch him from the darkening shadows of his blindness, which held him possessed on every side. And while he was doing this unceasingly, and, diligent, was by no means putting an end to this practice, there came the days of the holy observance of Lent, given to prayers, fastings, and the other virtues of befitting frugality, which the catholic people keep for lessening the heap of sin and increasing the little fires of merits. And so, according to the custom of ecclesiastical sanction and the documents of the ancient Fathers, there came the day on which all the clergy, and the fellow company of monks with the people, binding themselves to a sharper abstinence, set in ashes and haircloth, and with the coverings of their feet taken off, and giving themselves to the vows of prayers, are wont to go round the city, and, diligently invoking the patronage of the saints, entering their basilicas with the highest devotion, desire to pay there the duties of prayers, so far as the grace of Christ shall grant.
[11] But as the aforesaid clergy were returning \ with the throng of the people from the basilica of St. Licinius e and entering the doors of the oratory of Christ's martyr Mauritius, the light of his eyes is restored, there was present the aforesaid blind man, led in nearer by guidance f and destitute of his own lights, beseeching the power of the Lord that he who deigned to open the eyes of the man born blind would bring to him too the healing of enlightenment; who, when from the entrance of the basilica, using another's support \, while the clerical assembly sang psalms, he began to approach the altar of the often-mentioned St. Maurilius, said to a certain cleric standing near him: "Sir, as I think I do, I see your hands." But he, hearing this with astonished ears, began to wonder whether what was said by a man once blind could be true. But he then added: "Now I behold your whole body, and I recognize by open sight everything you do." At this speech very many coming up, and being in amazement of mind g … straightway he says: "Now I freely see the altar of St. Maurilius and his case placed on it." And forthwith, his eyes being open and in a manner in the fashion of one exulting, he added: "Not only the saint's altar, but this whole basilica, with the throng of clerics and \* of laymen, and all that is done in this church, I recognize and clearly see; and the light of my eyes, which through the courses of years I had lost, by Christ's favor and by the intervening support of holy Maurilius I have not only recovered, but have received even more clearly than you see." When this was said, straightway a shout of clergy and laity is raised, praising and blessing the Lord, who does wonders and who is wonderful in his saints, and glorifying with marvelous glory the merits of holy Maurilius.
[12] The aforesaid man, once blind, his former clearness recovered [who, after thanks rendered to God and the saint, returned home without another's help.] and the lights of his eyes opened, walked freely and without anyone's guidance through the church before all the people with a lively mind, giving thanks and confessing the benefits of St. Maurilius. And when the proclamations of praise were finished and the vows of melody performed, he who had been blind, enlightened with true proof, returned to his own house without anyone's comfort, and lived many years afterward. But let us leave these things begun and hasten to narrate others, as we have set out to do.
[13] Besides, a certain other man, wholly dissolved by the swiftness of paralysis, To a paralytic the saint appearing by name Amalric, for many years now past lay in the porch of the church of St. Maurilius without the use of his limbs. He, now worn out with the old age of his whole infirmity, as has been said, lying at the door of the basilica, was known to be sustained by the alms of the bishop as well as of clerics and laymen. But, destitute of the strength of his limbs and of his whole body, daily creeping into the church he dragged himself with hands and feet after the manner of creeping things; and when through the long round of years he was thus sick and weak, wasting away in failure with all hope of repairing his health lost, there came the day to be observed with worship which, placed at the outset of the Lenten fast, is called the Lord's Day. And so the clergy, rising at the signal according to custom for the solemnities of matins in the basilica of the often-mentioned venerable martyr Mauritius, the throng of the people being gathered, were zealous to bring forth the melody of psalms and hymns in singing. Among whom was present that same sick man of whom we speak, who, as we have already said, cheated of the strength of all his joints, retained the hope of speaking only by the office of his tongue. And when, as has already been said, the melody of the psalms was being celebrated by the clerical body with urgent reverence, and the matin Offices were now for the greater part finished, suddenly the paralytic who was present began to cry out with immense cries and to resound in the ears of all with his shouts. For a certain man — as he confessed with his own mouth — most beautiful in habit, pleasant in appearance, blooming with white hair, comely in aspect, conspicuous in countenance, taking hold of him and handling the frames of all his limbs, was striving to raise him from the very ground. At whose effort, rising with headlong step and sudden haste by such motions as he could, bursting forth from the threshold to the altar of St. Maurilius, he hastened of his own accord, with what strength of mind he could, to touch his altar.
[14] restores the use of his limbs But when he came to the presence of the said saint's altar, with what strength he could he seized its form, and with the effort of both hands attempted for a long while to hold the edge of either side; and there, joining himself by the soles of his feet in standing for about the space of one hour, with such prayer as he could and with answering voice, he diligently besought the help of the Almighty and of holy Maurilius the prelate. What more? So long did he with watchful mind hold the horns of the altar, until, the divine clemency favoring and the comfort of holy Maurilius intervening, the weakness of all his limbs being put to flight and all the strength of his powers recovered, he was known, needing no one's comfort, to stand upon his own feet by his own strength. He, being thus healed by the saint's merits, went back from his altar, walking with motion of body and striking of joints, nimble in agility and steady in the vigor of his strength. At which miracle the assembly of clerics being roused, straightway a shout of praise thunders, and the church is filled with the melodies of proclamations, and the noise of the voice of the common folk of both sexes is heard afar. Amen.
NOTES.
\ lecto affixa* (fixed to her bed)
\ collocata* (placed)
\ obitum*
\ infirmitatibus* (infirmities)
\ scriptus* (written)
\ laborans* (laboring)
\ read revertente* etc.
\ auxiliis* (helps)
\ &*