Martyrs of the Theban Legion

ON THE HOLY MARTYRS OF THE THEBAN LEGION: MAURICE THE PRIMICERIUS AND EXUPERIUS THE SENATOR AND CANDIDUS THE CAMPIDUCTOR AND VICTOR THE VETERAN SOLDIER AND INNOCENT AND VITALIS, AND THE REST OF THE SOLDIERS OF THE THEBAN LEGION, MARTYRS AT AGAUNUM IN VALAIS,

AT AGAUNUM IN VALAIS

Under Maximian Herculius, between the years 285 and 305.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Maurice the primicerius, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

Exuperius the campiductor, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

Candidus, senator of the soldiers, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

Victor the veteran soldier, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

Innocent, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

Vitalis, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

The other soldiers of the Theban Legion, martyrs, at Agaunum in Valais.

BHL Number: 5748

BY J. C.

§ I. A description of the arena: the martyrdom of the holy Theban Martyrs attacked by Dubourdieu, an Anglo-Savoyard minister: how and from what sources he is to be refuted.

[ ] Vallesia, or Valinsa, as certain ancient documents call it — in French le Vallais, in Italian la Vallesia, in German Wallisserlandt — obtained its name from a Valley, and is that vast tract enclosed on every side by very high mountains stiff with almost perpetual snows, A description of Valais, which extends from the source of the river Rhone as far as Lake Leman toward the West, a journey of 30 Helvetic miles. Nearly at the middle of its length it receives in its bosom the Rhone, a most fertile river of Gaul. On the East it has as neighbors the Lepontii, on the South the Milanese and the people of Aosta, on the West the Savoyards, on the North the Helvetians: from all it is divided by a chain of very high and very steep mountains, and according to the varying bends of that chain its breadth is unequal. In the place where Octodurum was, the most ancient see of the bishops, there is today Martigny, a not inelegant town. From here Valais runs eastward with a breadth of nearly 9 miles for a space of sixteen leagues; then, as the mountains converge in an arc, it is narrowed as far as the mouths of the Rhone.

[2] But where Valais inclines northward from Martigny, in which is Agaunum, the arena of the holy Theban Martyrs, it has the narrowest gorges, a plain of nearly eight miles, but one which, pressed on the one side by the Rhone and on the other by the mountains, scarcely extends to the breadth of one league, and which finally is closed at Lake Leman. Valais was formerly inhabited by the peoples of the Veragri, the Viberi, and the Seduni, known to the Romans in Cæsar, book 3 of the Commentaries. From the Seduni the name has clung to the city of Sion to this day. Where the river Morsia or Morgia is merged in the Rhone at Sion, Valais is divided into Upper and Lower: the former looks to the East, the latter to the West, where Martigny is, in French Martiniac and Martigny, distant six miles from Sion. Between this and Lake Leman, on the river Rhone, which is spanned there by a stone bridge, lies midway Agaunum, or Acaunum, which some contend was also called Ternata in ancient times; and that is the place where St. Maurice, prefect of the Theban Legion, is reported to have been crowned with the laurel of martyrdom together with the Commanders and Soldiers subject to him.

[3] throughout the whole West, and especially in Italy, Gaul, and Germany Further, as the town of St. Maurice received its name from the glorious arena and from the most celebrated sacred relics of the holy Martyrs there, so also the blessed Legion obtained from the place the title of the Martyrs of Agaunum. Of them the Roman Martyrology speaks thus at this day: "At Sion in Gaul, in the place called Agaunum, the birthday of the holy Theban martyrs Maurice, Exuperius, Candidus, Victor, Innocent, and Vitalis, with the Companions of the same Legion, who, put to death for Christ under Maximian, illumined the world by their glorious passion." Deservedly indeed are they said to have illumined the world by their glorious contest, whose memory has been so celebrated throughout the whole West for thirteen centuries now, whose cult has been so widely diffused and celebrated by the pens of very many writers, and to whom so many and such great monuments of ancient piety and veneration have been raised, that I shall say without scruple that there is scarcely any veneration of any Saints more celebrated and more universal throughout Western Italy, the Gauls, and Germany.

[4] There you will traverse no diocese, no city, almost no village, where you will not find churches built to their name, altars erected, monasteries consecrated, most celebrated for many centuries. How we shall treat where you will not see their sacred remains honored, and where you will not hear countless benefits obtained from heaven by their patronage sung in the public voices of the peoples. And all these things, while they supply an ample store of material to one who is to illustrate by writing the Deeds of the holy Theban Martyrs, likewise warn that two things are to be guarded against: confusion, lest annoyance be created for the reader, and excessive prolixity, lest our Work grow into an immense mass. Various holy Martyrs on various days, because they were said in the sacred Calendars of particular churches to have been of the Company of St. Maurice and of the Theban Legion, have been referred to this day in our Work. Not a few are venerated on this very day, besides those enumerated by Baronius, and several more on the following days of the year in certain places, under the same title of Theban Martyrs. Of these again some have particular deeds proper to themselves, while concerning others nothing is set forth beyond the general Passion of the whole Legion.

[5] Concerning all these things I have determined as follows. We shall in the first place discuss and illustrate that Martyrdom of St. Maurice and Companions the ample material which here presents itself. which in some manner pertains to all our holy Theban Martyrs. To this we shall subjoin the Posthumous Glory of St. Maurice and of his anonymous Companions, whose sacred remains we shall enumerate as occasion offers. To these we shall attach what concerns the holy Fellow-soldiers named in the principal Passion and in the Roman Martyrology; and finally we shall review those Martyrs who are held to be Thebans of that legion, we shall indicate their sacred remains, and, if anything particular occurs concerning them, we shall treat it fully, referring to the day assigned in the Roman Martyrology those of whom special mention is made in it. The Martyrdom of St. Maurice and Companions was published by Surius at this day, the twenty-second of September, with a dedicatory letter to Bishop Silvius prefixed under the name of St. Eucherius, bishop of Lyons. Baronius illustrated his Annals with the same at the year of Christ 297. Mombritius brought similar matter to light in tome 2, which, if you should wish to call it the same as Surius's, you will recognize as more correct in its wording. These lack the title of Eucherius as author and the prefixed letter.

[6] Surius's Acts we have in our museum in several manuscript codices and copies, Various Acts, in manuscript and published. which I forbear to enumerate; of one exemplar of them, from St. Maximin of Trier, we shall treat below. The most illustrious Bosquet, bishop of the church of Montpellier, mentions the same Acts in tome 1 of his Histories of the Gallican Church, book 4. Very like Surius's also are those which Stewart published at Ingolstadt at the beginning of the last century with very ample observations. Our very ancient Fulda codex and two copies come closest to Mombritius's Passion of the holy Theban Martyrs, yet they depart from it, and from one another, in a few things. There Acaunum or Agaunum is nowhere expressed, and the place which the copies explain by "that," the Fulda codex sets forth everywhere by the demonstrative pronoun "this"; whence one may suspect that it is the work of some monk of Agaunum, who wrote in that place. One of the copies is that of Marchiennes, the other that of St. Salvator of Utrecht. The latter lacks what in the others is reported about St. Sigismund, king of the Burgundians; the former is silent about the finding of the body of St. Innocent and its translation.

[7] The Martyrdom of St. Maurice and Companions published by Surius and Mombritius was long held in the Church as genuine and authentic, Surius's Acts, long held genuine, began in the seventeenth century to be suspect inasmuch as it was ascribed to St. Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, who was believed to have narrated nothing other than what he had heard from those who testified that they had received the same from Isaac, bishop of Geneva, who in turn had drawn the sequence of the event from Theodore, bishop of Octodurum, with whom had lived several men who had either been able to behold the glorious contest with their own eyes, or had received it by the most recent report. And these things indeed are asserted more or less thus in the letter prefixed to the Martyrdom of the Thebans, which led even learned men into error, since they were at that time accustomed to be guided too liberally by the titles of little works alone, and not to examine the little works themselves with sufficient caution. In the last century, at which time criticism at length came forth with an open brow, Surius's and Mombritius's Acts began to trouble prudent men. They had noticed that mention is made there of the monastery of Agaunum, established or restored by King Sigismund.

[8] and to be denied to St. Eucherius, They knew that the donations of Sigismund, and the Rule of Agaunum established through a council, are bound by Marius of Avenches in his Chronicle to the year 515; but they had seen Eucherius of Lyons subscribed to the First Council of Orange, which was celebrated in the year 441, between which and the said foundation of the monastery of Agaunum there intervene 73 years. That St. Eucherius did not survive so long a time they held as acknowledged, as also that he did not by a prophetic spirit foretell and write things which had happened many years after his death. A greater suspicion of falsehood was then stirred

by the narrative of the monastery of the same Agaunum enlarged by the abbot Ambrose, and by the reported translation of the relics of St. Innocent, carried out by Domitian of Geneva and by the bishops Gratus or Protasius. For they contended that none of the prelates here named lived before Sigismund, and that some lived more than a full century later. Certainly the Sainte-Marthe brothers hold that Gratus of Aosta and Domitian of Geneva sat about the year 880. Therefore they believed that the writer or interpolator of the published Acts was later than these bishops, and that indeed by not a few years, as, within that opinion, the doubt about Gratus or Protasius and the rest of the wavering narrative of that translation makes one suspect.

[9] when Pierre Chifflet, S.J., brought other Acts to light from a manuscript, Finally, the mention of Sigismund, king and martyr, found in the Passion of the holy Theban Martyrs, so rendered the Acts suspect to the learned that some sought a second Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, later than the first and than Sigismund, to whom they attributed the Mauritian Acts. Others, seeing that even so much of their authority was lost, and that perhaps even so the history of the translation could not be saved, candidly confessed either that the genuine Acts of SS. Maurice and Companions written by Eucherius of Lyons had perished, or that they had been so depraved and corrupted by a later interpolator that they merit little credit and are to be held as spurious. While all sensible men were lamenting the loss, Pierre-François Chifflet, a priest of our Society and a diligent searcher of ancient documents, found in a very old manuscript codex of the most celebrated Jura monastery of Saint-Claude the Passion of SS. Maurice and his fellow martyrs written out without those marks which manifestly demonstrate the spuriousness of the previously published ones. Judging that he had found the genuine and authentic narrative of St. Eucherius of Lyons, that religious man applauded himself and made all men sharers in his joy and happy discovery, inserting into his Paulinus illustratus, part 1, chapter 20, the Passion of the holy martyrs of Agaunum, which afterwards obtained a place in Ruinart's Genuine Acts of the Martyrs, and was received with applause by lovers of antiquity, and even by the most rigid critics, Tillemont, Baillet, and others.

[10] which were received by the critics as genuine. These Dubourdieu attacked, The cult of SS. Maurice and his Theban Companions, most celebrated throughout the whole Church for twelve centuries now, had received splendor and firmness from that old document; nor was there among Catholics anyone with whom the historical narrative of their martyrdom, discovered as being by Eucherius of Lyons, was not held in the highest veneration — a narrative which, moreover, the heterodox themselves held to be so beyond doubt that they illustrated their own little works with it as a most beautiful example of ancient Christian fortitude: Grotius, On the Law of Peace and War, book 1, chapters 2 and 4; Ussher, On the Power of Kings; Johann Ludwig Fabricius, in his Dissertation on the just limits of human obedience; Cave, in Primitive Christianity, part 3, chapter 4; Edward Fowler, bishop of Gloucester. The Passion of the holy Thebans was, I say, in the highest credit and authority with all, when, as the last century was drawing to its close, the Anglo-Savoyard minister Jean Du Bourdieu came to Turin in the retinue of the duke of Schomberg. There, when Cuneo had been freed from siege and the enemy forces of the French, which threatened Turin, had been turned elsewhere, public thanks were rendered to the holy Solutor, Adventor, and Octavius, patrons of that city, and believed to be companions of St. Maurice from the Theban Legion.

[11] To their sacred remains, exposed in the church of our old college, which is consecrated in the name of those Saints, an Anglo-Savoyard minister, the whole city poured out together with the archbishop, the court, the magistracy, and the religious of all Orders, and burned incense to its holy Preservers, and paid with great pomp the vow long before made for the safety of the city. This matter stirred the stomach and the bile of the minister who beheld it. He had heard a priest of our Society speaking in a sermon and crying out a hundred times in Italian: "Bless, ye peoples of Turin, bless your liberators; bless the holy Martyrs who watch over your safety, by whose merits and prayers you owe the preservation of your city, your children, and your fortunes." He had read the Account of the procession published in print by our Father Carlo Giacinto Ferrero, and had noticed that it was there said among other things in Italian: "Then the court came up, and the urn of the holy bodies was exposed to public ADORATION." "O crime, O wickedness!" he groaned. "To profane upon creatures the worship owed to God alone, to burn incense to the rotten corpses of certain soldiers, to make supplication to deaf bones? O the unbearable madness of the peoples!" Grief therefore and indignation put into Dubourdieu's mind — as he himself indeed confesses at pages 5 and 7 — the notion of examining the Martyrdom of the Theban Legion, and of tearing out from the Catholics, if he could, an ancient superstition.

[12] Returned to England, and furnished with the books he needed for his purpose, by a Dissertation published in English and French, much praised by the heretics. he set his hand to the work and composed a French Historical and Critical Dissertation on the Martyrdom of the Theban Legion, published in print in the year 1705. There had already emerged before this, and had appeared at London, an English version made from the French manuscript, which, as Jacques Bernard, Dubourdieu's encomiast and author of the Nouvelles de la République des Lettres for the month of July of the year 1705, pages 85 and following, informs me, earned a congratulatory letter from Dr. Edward Fowler, bishop of Gloucester, confessing that he owed his own conversion regarding the Martyrdom of the Thebans to Dubourdieu's Work. In the French Opuscule, which I have before my eyes, he examines in 18 chapters the Passion of the holy Martyrs of Agaunum in such a way as to contend that he shows, more clearly than the midday light, not only that the Acts, whatever have hitherto been published, are wrongly attributed to St. Eucherius of Lyons, but also that the Theban Martyrs never existed in the nature of things, and consequently that the Roman Church for so many centuries past has expended cult, prayers, and incense upon fabulous heroes. And this indeed he believes he has so certainly proved that, after very many calumnies and blasphemies, he boasts of having snatched 6666 Saints away from the Roman Church.

[13] The boasting minister was soon censured, in the month of June of the year 1706, at pages 1028 and following, These things were soon censured by the writers of Trévoux, with a brief animadversion, according to their custom, by the authors of the Journal de Trévoux. A fuller refutation of Dubourdieu's sophisms at this day had been promised by our Sollier and afterwards refuted at greater length by Joseph de L'Isle in his Observations on Usuard. But we were anticipated by the most reverend and most distinguished Dom Joseph de L'Isle, abbot of the monastery of St. Leopold at Nancy, of the Order of St. Benedict, who published in the year 1737 a French booklet, to which he gave the title: A Defense of the truth of the Martyrdom of the Theban Legion, that is, of SS. Maurice and Companions, in answer to the critical Dissertation of the minister Dubourdieu, with an ample history of the Theban Legion. That most learned man had read the promises of our Sollier, and, having recited them, prefaces thus at page 6: "But, besides the fact that they (we) have a great space to traverse before they reach that day (the twenty-second of September), they will have need of documents suited to the purpose, which it will be a pleasure to me to have supplied. Moreover, since those fathers (we) write in Latin, whereas Dubourdieu published his Dissertation in French, it will be useful to have answered him in the same tongue."

[14] abbot of St. Leopold of Nancy, whose most learned work Nothing more welcome can happen to us than to receive documents from men so learned, who distinguish what is useful to us according to the plan of our Work from what is extraneous, and who, treading the same road that we traverse, overturn by solid arguments the things which are twisted rather invidiously against the cult and Acts of the Saints, and thus lighten our labors. This the most learned abbot has performed in such a way that he nowhere abandons his adversary, but chapter by chapter dissolves each of Dubourdieu's sophisms and refutes his calumnies, and that by arguments so solid that, if the trifles of the Anglo-Savoyard minister have converted certain men of his own nation and sect concerning the martyrdom of the holy Theban Legion, and have perhaps cast a doubt into the minds of some Catholics, they may have the most evident reasons whereby the latter may root out any such doubt, and the former may be drawn back, almost against their will, to their earlier opinion. And so, in refuting Dubourdieu, I shall make much use of the praised Defense of the most reverend abbot of Nancy — which it may suffice to have noted here, lest I be compelled to fill my pages with accumulated citations.

[15] we shall here make much use. It has not seemed good to follow the order kept by him, nor to report whatever he treats in close pursuit of Dubourdieu. To vomit forth blasphemies against the Saints and against the Roman Church, the spouse of Christ; to fling calumnies against the visible head of the Church, the Roman Pontiff, and against the bishops his vicars; to assail religious men with revilings; to charge all Catholics with blind simplicity and madness — these are the accustomed weapons of gnashing heretics, so often blunted, so often broken, that those who come into the field against Catholics equipped with such things move laughter. Such things we are accustomed to despise and to disregard; sometimes we blunt them with a word, or refer the reader to the Theologians who have refuted the heretics. Here, whoever shall have read in Dubourdieu that the Roman Church sacrilegiously Adores the Saints, that forging monks, by fabricated instruments, procured titles to immense possessions, that by a detestable traffic in counterfeit relics they deluded the simple and drained away their riches, and many such things, let him go to the Defense of the most learned de L'Isle, and there he will find Dubourdieu ground down under the same number and chapter in which he had seen the heretic raving against Catholics. From it I excerpt almost only those things which pertain to establishing the historical truth of the Martyrdom of the holy Theban Legion.

§ II. The truth of the martyrdom of SS. Maurice and Companions is proved from their most ancient cult in the Church and from their celebrated memory in the fifth century.

[ ] From the Life of St. Severinus, abbot of Agaunum, The most ancient cult of the holy Martyrs of Agaunum, and the early and celebrated veneration of the peoples toward their holy Preservers, is proved above all by the Life of St. Severinus, abbot of Agaunum, which Mabillon printed at the end of tome 1 of the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, page 568. There the biographer closes his work thus: "Published by Faustus the priest, a disciple of St. Severinus the abbot himself, composed in simple language, at the command of the glorious Prince King Childebert, our Lord granting it," etc. If any caviller should assert that these words were not written by Faustus himself, but added by some later hand, let him remember that he must bring proof of his assertion. Certainly the anonymous writer who in the ninth century revised the Life of St. Severinus published by Bolland at the eleventh day of February, in tome 2 of that month, page 547, begins thus: "Transcribing the sacred series of the little book which Faustus the priest, a disciple of St. Severinus the abbot, had published concerning his Life or Acts after his death … we have thought it convenient, according to the capacity of our small talent, to set forth the text of the same history in clearer language," etc. And that anonymous writer performed this in such a way that anyone who reads the Life of St. Severinus published by Mabillon must judge that it lay before the later biographer, since he is found to have corrected almost only, as he professes, grammatical faults, and to have amplified some things merely in wording.

[17] Mabillon indeed, in the Benedictine Annals, tome 1, at the year of Christ 515, number 70, written by Faustus calls into doubt on two grounds the Life of St. Severinus, which he had placed without scruple as genuine in the Appendix to the First Century of the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict. First, because it is read in the Acts of St. Severinus that Clovis, king of the Franks, began to be sick in the twenty-fifth year of his reign, and was troubled with fevers into the following year; whereas in the meantime his military expeditions after the Vouillé defeat of the Goths, which in the same year of his reign

occurred, in the twenty-fifth year by the reckoning of Gregory of Tours, abundantly prove his vigorous health. Secondly, because St. Severinus is related, on his journey to heal Clovis, to have met Eulalius, or Euladius, bishop of Nevers, whereas at that time no Eulalius presided over that church, but only, long afterwards, Æoladius, whom Mabillon supposes to be designated here under a corrupted name. There is no need to refute this delusion of his here, after what we discussed at the twenty-sixth day of August about these bishops of nearly the same name being wrongly confused. Let the reader who desires more about these matters go to tome V of August, page 821, and he will find the fuller observations of our Pien, and by them the two holy bishops of Nevers, Eulalius and Æoladius, distinguished.

[18] But neither does Mabillon's first argument against the genuineness of the Life of St. Severinus stand. a disciple of the Saint himself For Clovis I, king of the Franks, succeeded his dead father Childeric in the year of Christ 481; therefore the twenty-fifth year of his reign coincides with the year 505 of the common era. Let Clovis have begun to be ill in this year, and let the fever have wasted him as he languished until the beginning of the year 507 or the end of the preceding year, and let him then have been healed by St. Severinus, and the biographer's assertion will be true. There was fighting between the Franks and the Goths in the year of Christ 507, as may be seen in Pagi at that year, and Clovis died in the fifth year after the war of Vouillé, as Gregory of Tours testifies in book 2, chapter 42, namely in the year of Christ 511. That Clovis rested from arms for some years before he declared war on Alaric is attested by the silence of all writers, which accordingly, like the rest of the chronology, favors our biographer. For the rest, Tillemont, in Monuments of the Church, tome 14, in the Notes to the Life of St. Romanus, of which we treat below, page 744, judges that the dates of biographers contemporary with the Saints whose deeds they describe are to be preferred to the chronological notes adduced from St. Gregory of Tours, a writer much later and in such matters not sufficiently accurate: which ought to hold good here, unless his chronology could be reconciled with the assertions of our Faustus.

[19] it is proved that the cult of St. Maurice and Companions was long established The first biographer of St. Severinus, therefore, who wrote at the beginning of the sixth century, speaks thus in Mabillon at number 1: "At the same time, when Clovis, king of the Franks, was reigning in his twenty-fifth year in the city of Paris, a grave infirmity then came upon his body … for two years, so that he could find no medicine for his body either from the priests of that place or from any physician… Now there was in that same place, in the king's household, a man named Tranquilinus, a learned man and full of all wisdom, who held honors by the art of medicine. He spoke to the king, saying: 'My lord king, since none of us can find a medicine for your body, I say to you, hear my counsel, and go in haste to the holy monastery of Agaunum, where the holy and most blessed martyr Maurice lies in the body — or at any rate send your embassy. There is there a holy man of God, named Severinus, appointed abbot by ordination, the great guardian of that place.'" There is narrated after this the sending of the embassy.

[20] at the beginning of the sixth century at Agaunum, St. Severinus, about to set out to the king, ordered all the brethren to come into his presence, indicating to them the king's petition, and foretelling that his own death would come upon him on the journey. To whom all the brethren said with great weeping: "Abbot, father, never leave us while we live." But he, answering, said: "The Lord has done all things that he willed." And from these things it is manifest that in the twenty-seventh year of King Clovis, which is the year of Christ 507, there existed an abbot, Brethren, and a monastery at Agaunum, where already at that time the holy and most blessed Maurice was celebrated, whose sacred bones rested there. Dubourdieu, who seems to have read only the interpolated Life of St. Severinus in Bolland, in chapter 5 of his Dissertation, near the end, charges Usuard and Aimoin with having, by a shameful anachronism, presented an abbot of the monastery of Agaunum praying for the health of Clovis several years before it had first been founded by King Sigismund; and he thus concludes: "It is true that Bolland (tome 2 of February, page 546) wishes to persuade us that the monastery of Agaunum was only rebuilt, enlarged, and adorned by Sigismund. But this can in no way be defended, since all writers, both ancient and more recent, who treat of the first institution of the monastery of Agaunum, ascribe it to Sigismund, king of the Burgundians."

[21] where a monastery already then existed, How rashly these things are asserted by the minister, the often-praised Life of St. Severinus abundantly proves. It has as its author a disciple of the same Saint, who lived with him and served him for 30 years, and who accordingly, as a nursling of the same monastery, must have known excellently the state of the monastery of Agaunum before the Rule was instituted there under Sigismund. He indeed has not left us each detail explained. Whether the Brethren there at that time lived together as monks under some fixed Rule and under the governance of an abbot, or whether they lived dispersed in separate dwellings, priests mingled with seculars, under the discipline of St. Severinus the presbyter, he has left to be divined. But this is certain from his account: that there already existed at that time a monastery — a basilica, or if you please interpret it as a chapel — and that the cult of St. Maurice the martyr was celebrated there on account of his sacred remains preserved in that place; which alone suffices for my purpose and for refuting Dubourdieu. And yet Faustus is not the only one among the ancient and eyewitness testimonies who mentions the monastery of Agaunum before the times of Sigismund.

[22] Manifest is the testimony of St. Avitus, bishop of Vienne. That great prelate, no less illustrious by birth than by virtues and learning, as is also clear from a fragment of a homily which came to the see of Vienne about the year of Christ 490, as our Henschen shows at the fifth day of February, page 661, number 6, and occupied it still after the death of St. Sigismund, which, as Ado of Vienne testifies, he mourned most bitterly, and thus until the year 524. Now there is extant a fragment of a homily of this great man, published by our Jacques Sirmond from very ancient sheets of the de Thou library. The title of the fragment is this: "Spoken in the basilica of the Saints of Agaunum, at the renewal of that monastery, or on the Passion of the Martyrs." To the title corresponds the beginning of the homily in these words: "The proclamation of the blessed Army, in whose most blessed assembly no one perished since none escaped — when, as though the justice of the lot were judging the unjust death of the holy Martyrs, whereby, twice scattered over the gentle Line, a hundredfold fruit accrued to the decimated, and with hatred abetting them unto prosperity, individuals were chosen until the chosen should be gathered together — the series of the read Passion has unfolded, according to the debt of custom."

[23] From these things we learn that already in the time of Avitus of Vienne there existed, he spoke after the monastery had been renewed by Sigismund, and was customarily read, some Passion of the holy Martyrs of Agaunum, of whom some were carried off to death by lot, through a twofold decimation soon after, and finally all the rest as well. We learn besides that about the year 517, at which time Avitus must have delivered the praised homily, it was customary to celebrate not the first foundation of the monastery of Agaunum but its Renewal; and thus that the monastery of Agaunum was not then for the first time, nor a few years before Avitus delivered the homily, erected by Sigismund, but had been built long before, and was only enlarged, repaired, and renewed by that king. Rightly therefore did our Bolland assert this very thing, and the minister's cavils are inept, as will appear still more from what follows. Meanwhile, if anyone here should contend that the title of the homily was prefixed by some later hand and cannot be attributed to St. Avitus himself, we shall reply that this is asserted gratuitously and wrongly, since the sheets of the de Thou library, from which it was transcribed, seemed to Sirmond and others — men most skilled, as Ruinart testifies, who saw them — to have been written while Avitus was still living, or at least a little after his death.

[24] And yet, if we should grant that the title was added by some other person, St. Avitus, bishop of Vienne. nothing would thereby be lost to our argument; for no one in whom prejudice and the itch for cavilling have left a sound brain will deny that the fragment of the homily is rightly ascribed to St. Avitus: so great is the conformity of its style with the remaining works of the holy bishop, so certain the consensus of all the learned. Further, it is from this clearer than the midday light that the memory of the holy Martyrs of Agaunum at the beginning of the sixth century was celebrated and not new, and that some Passion was customarily read out "according to the debt of custom" — which alone suffices to prove their most ancient cult in the Church. That the Passion which Avitus mentions as having been read there is moreover the same as that which is ascribed to St. Eucherius of Lyons as its author, one may with reason suspect; for what he mentions in the fragment of the homily about the twofold decimation seems without doubt to have proceeded from it. A third argument, which most invincibly proves the ancient veneration of the Theban Martyrs and the existence of the monastery of Agaunum before the age of Sigismund, is drawn from the Life of St. Romanus, first abbot of the Jura.

[25] The same is established This was furnished to my Predecessors from a very ancient codex by Pierre Chifflet, a priest of our Society, who has deserved excellently of our Work; and Henschen published it and illustrated it with Annotations at the twenty-eighth day of February, in tome 3 of the same month, pages 737 and following. Quesnel had raised very many objections against its genuineness, which the above-praised Tillemont blunted. Henschen in §2 proves that St. Romanus was born at the beginning of the fifth century, was ordained priest in the year 444 by St. Hilary, bishop of Arles, and holds that he died about the year 460. In §1, number 5, he had shown that the same monk of Condat is the author of the Life of St. Romanus, who wrote the deeds of SS. Lupicinus and Eugendus, of whom in more than one place he professes himself a contemporary and disciple. In what year St. Eugendus passed to the world above cannot be certainly determined. Mabillon, in his Notes to the Acts of St. Eugendus, First Century, page 536, from the Observations of our Henschen on the Life of St. Romanus, so begins his reckoning as to hold that St. Eugendus, while still a boy of seven, as the anonymous author testifies, was offered to SS. Romanus and Lupicinus about the year 460 — that is, after St. Romanus had been initiated into the priesthood 16 years before by St. Hilary, bishop of Arles.

[26] from the Life of St. Romanus, abbot of the Jura Then, from the words of the biographer asserting that St. Eugendus reached almost his sixty-first year of age, he concludes that he died about the year of Christ 510. But this chronology wavers, on account of the very great uncertainty of the epoch upon which the whole of it rests. For it is altogether doubtful whether St. Eugendus may not have been offered to St. Romanus before the latter was consecrated a priest, and thus before the year 444, before which SS. Romanus and Lupicinus had already long been widely renowned for their skill in monastic discipline and for the glory of their miracles. Moreover, nothing persuades us to refer St. Eugendus's coming to St. Romanus to the year 460 rather than to the intervening years. Yet it is of no consequence here to shake the conjectures of others: this can be certainly asserted, that St. Eugendus came to the discipline of St. Romanus about the middle of the fifth century. Let him therefore have died in the boyhood of the following century, even, if you please, in the year 521, as Chifflet and some others conclude

from a Chronicle of no very good quality, where it is read: "He (St. Eugendus) is found to have been in the tenth year after the death of Clovis" — which nevertheless the authors of Gallia Christiana, tome 4, column 243, refute, rightly contending that St. Eugendus died before the year 515.

[27] a Life written Yet let St. Eugendus, I say, have died in the year 521. The anonymous biographer was his contemporary, if not his equal in age, and is recognized from his Life to be the man with whom St. Eugendus shared all his secrets. He therefore must have known excellently the state of the monastery of Agaunum at the beginning of the sixth century, being the man who both dedicates his works to John and Armentarius, monks of Agaunum, in the Preface to the Life of St. Romanus, and testifies at the end of the Acts of St. Eugendus that he had set in order the institutes of the same monastery. And finally, as he himself testifies at the beginning of the Life of St. Romanus, whatever he wrote he "there (in the Jura monastery) perceived by his own observation or by the tradition of the elders." That author, moreover, of the three praised Lives, sufficiently unlearned for the lot of those times, speaks thus in the Preface: "Wherefore you, O most pious Brethren, John and Armentarius, urging your friend the more vehemently with a twofold affection, declare that if I delay to unbar the gates of my mouth and heart, I shall be branded with the marks of obstinate avarice, and that you cannot, by Apostolic tradition, take food with me. Therefore, breaking the shame of an unlearned heart, I shall set before you, as a threefold reporter, in place of the aforesaid loaves, the Life of the three abbots of the Jura, that is, of the holy fathers Romanus, Lupicinus, and Eugendus."

[28] "Since that contemplative conversation and life of yours, by a contemporary author, in which the one, following the ancient John, reclines his head above the urn of St. Maurice — that is, of the Legion of Theban Martyrs — as that surpassing apostle and fellow-initiate reclined upon the breast of the saving Author; while the other, in the manner of the ark of his birth, so long as he is content there in the monastery even with the enclosure of his own cell, laughs at the whirlwinds of the world as they beat upon him [*]: both, however, cannot in any way be practiced inviolably without spiritual nourishment. Although therefore your Agaunum, in the Gallic and ancient tongue, both from the first by nature and now also through the church, is by a truthful prefiguration of Peter recognized to be a rock, let your charity nevertheless acknowledge that, even among the pine and fir woods of the Jura, that same rock, once discovered by the Psalmist in a mystical signification 'in the fields of the wood,' is now there trodden by the holy Brethren with a following steadfastness, the riddle of the prefiguration being now removed." Thus he: which things I have thought should be brought over here entire, lest the words, cut short, should further entangle the sense of a period already involved in allegories and tropes.

[29] But now, reader, you have here a most open mention of St. Maurice and of the Theban Legion before the Acts of the council of Agaunum, at the beginning of the sixth century, and the undoubted assertion of a contemporary writer, or certainly of one nearly so, concerning the cult rendered to the holy Martyrs before those times. Let there be added another no less clear testimony of the same biographer from the praised Life of St. Romanus, chapter 4, number 15. "And because," he says, "we have made mention of the most holy man Palladius, whose faithful comfort the most blessed Romanus enjoyed both in the monastery and on the journey, as a companion of true charity, I shall also relate that at which the same brother was present, and which, once done and made known to the city and the peoples, could not be hidden. Kindled with the ardor of faith, he resolved to seek out the basilica of the Saints — or rather, so to speak, the camp of the Martyrs of Agaunum — a place which, as the ordered account of their passion testifies, could not, I will not say enclose six thousand six hundred men in its buildings, but could not (as I think) even fence them in on that field itself." He then narrates how St. Romanus, directing his journey from Geneva to Agaunum, turned aside from the road, went off to a cave, cleansed two lepers there, and, when the fame of the prodigy had been spread abroad at Geneva, was sought out by clergy and people and received with pomp.

[30] Further, from these words of the biographer it follows that the tomb of the holy Theban Martyrs was already at that time, in the fifth century, most celebrated, as also from the Acts and that holy men hastened to it for the sake of veneration; that a basilica and other buildings had been erected for them; that some Passion existed at that time, in which six thousand six hundred Martyrs were reported to have fallen for Christ in that place. Let it suffice to have noted these things here, so that no doubt may remain concerning the cult of St. Maurice and Companions already established in the fifth century. Yet to these three undoubted witnesses, older than the renewal of the monastery of Agaunum by Sigismund, a fourth may be joined to confirm the opinion: the anonymous writer of the Acts of St. Victor, martyr of Marseilles. The style of the author, who indicates his age by no chronological note, seemed to men most skilled in that kind of literature — Ruinart, Tillemont, and other critics even among the heretics — worthy of SS. Eucherius of Lyons, Hilary of Arles, and John Cassian; wherefore they conjecture that the Acts of St. Victor were written either by one of these or by another anonymous writer of the fifth century.

[31] of St. Victor, martyr of Marseilles. Nor does our Cuper disagree with these at the twenty-first day of July, where he printed the Passion of St. Victor and companions from a manuscript furnished by our Chifflet and collated with the editions of Ruinart and Bosquet, pages 143 and following. Cuper there prefixes shorter Acts from a Utrecht manuscript, written no less elegantly, and doubts whether these may not be older than the longer ones which others praise. There, at the very beginning, is read, to our purpose: "Under Maximian there suffered in the city of Marseilles the soldier Victor. For when Maximian had come thither, after the slaughter of the holy Thebans had been carried out, he decreed that all should sacrifice to the gods, or perish by chosen deaths." The longer Acts present these same things thus explained at number 2: "For Maximian, having been made all too terrible to very many of our people on account of the blood of the Saints which he had shed more cruelly than others throughout the whole world, and most of all more recently throughout all the Gauls, and especially on account of that most famous slaughter of the blessed Thebans at Agaunum, had come to Marseilles, in order that, according to Scripture, the impious man should still act impiously, being about to complete there all his crimes together with a most wicked life; and lest anything of wickednesses should be lacking to him, that tormentor insatiable against piety, as though he had done too little hitherto, declares war with all his rage, and orders the worshipers of Christ, unless they sacrifice to the idols, to perish by chosen deaths."

[32] The most ancient cult of the Saints of Agaunum And these things a writer of the fourth or fifth century, by the common judgment of nearly all the learned and of the critics, has written; at which time therefore the martyrdom of the Saints of Agaunum was most well known, and the minister is convicted of imposture in asserting that it is nothing but a mere fable, got up in the sixth or seventh century by some idle monk. Its own place is here claimed also by the Martyrology which is distinguished by the name of Eusebius or of Jerome, and to which our standard-bearer Bolland, in the Preface to tome 1 of January, §4, Florentini in the preliminary Admonitions to his Martyrology, and our Sollier in the Preface to Usuard, article 1, have vindicated a great antiquity in the Church. In nearly all its surviving copies I find the memory of the holy Theban Martyrs assigned to the tenth of the Kalends of October. Florentini's exemplars announce: "In Gaul, in the city of Sion, the birthday of the holy Maurice, Exuperius, Candidus, Victor, Innocent, Vitalis, with Companions, 5585 martyrs." In the same Florentini a very ancient Hieronymian Calendar celebrates the memory of the holy Martyrs of Agaunum in these words: "Of St. Maurice with 6666."

[33] is proved Another more abbreviated fragment mentions them in the same place thus: "Of St. Maurice with his Companions." The Blume codex teems here with several errors, for it announces: "In the city Sedunisse Voctodero Valense, the place Agaunum, the birthday of the Saints: that is, of Mauricius, Euperius, Candidus, Victor, Innocent, Vitalis, with Companions, 6585 Martyrs." In other Hieronymian copies the holy Martyrs are commemorated at the aforesaid day, the twenty-second of September. In the Gellone copy it is announced: "At Sion, at Agaunum, of Maurice, Exuperius, Candidus, Victor, Innocent, Vitalis, with five thousand five hundred and eighty-five other martyrs" (Achery notes that in the very ancient manuscript of St. Gall it is read: "with 6665 martyrs"). In our Rheinau copy, tome VII of June: "In Gaul, the birthday of the holy Maurice, Exuperius, Candidus, Victor, with 6666 other Martyrs, their companions." In the Reichenau copy in the same place: "And in Gaul, in the city of Sion, in the place Agaunum, the birthday of the holy Maurice, Exuperius, Candidus, Victor, with six thousand six hundred and sixty-six other Martyrs, their companions." With this the Augsburg Martyrology in the same place nearly agrees, except that it faultily sets out the place of the contest as "Sedun. Auguns."

[34] The Labbe Martyrology differs more from those just enumerated; from the Hieronymian Martyrologies for it has: "At Sion, at Agaunum, of Maurice, Exuperius, Candidus, Victor, Innocent, Vitalis, with five thousand five hundred and eighty-five other Martyrs"; and with one or another of these agree all the remaining copies which are traced back to the Hieronymian. The Little Roman Martyrology of Rosweyde commemorates them briefly thus: "Of Maurice with Companions, who are reported to have been Thebans, who suffered under Maximian." For the rest, I have thought that these things should be reported somewhat more fully, so that the reader might notice that the number of the Martyrs of Agaunum varies among the martyrologists; concerning which he will be warned otherwise below, where we shall show that it is most probable that those Martyrologies are the most ancient which do not mention Innocent and Vitalis: for we shall show that the names of these two Saints were unknown in the time of St. Eucherius, and perhaps indeed for many years afterwards. Meanwhile, from these things it becomes again most probable that the memory of St. Maurice and his fellow martyrs was most celebrated in the Church not only in the fifth century, but in the fourth also. I know that among the Hieronymian copies none survives which can be attributed to St. Jerome as its author: I know that all have been very greatly interpolated by the mention of the Saints of particular places, and that most of them announce Saints who are more than two centuries younger than that holy doctor.

[35] But when that genuine brevity is found, and the same mention of certain particular Saints scattered in the codices of Gaul, Hieronymian. Germany, and Italy, it is not without reason believed to have been taken from the primitive Martyrologies. And how constant the mention of the holy Martyrs of Agaunum is in the codices of various nations is abundantly clear from what I have produced; and there are not lacking there even those marks by which Gregory designated the Martyrology customarily read throughout the whole Church in his time. Accordingly he will not incur the mark of rashness who asserts that the memory of St. Maurice and Companions was inscribed in the sacred Calendars by St. Jerome himself, or by whoever else was the author of the primitive Martyrology, and thus that it is by a long time older than the sixth century.

* Perhaps "impavidus."

§ III. The cult of SS. Maurice and his Theban Companions, martyrs, at the beginning of the sixth century.

[ ] The Acts of the synod of Agaunum, Thus far I have sufficiently vindicated our Bolland against the precipitate criticism of the Anglo-Savoyard minister, who asserts that traces of any monastery of Agaunum are sought in vain before the times of Sigismund, king of the Burgundians; and I have chiefly established this against his calumnies from contemporary authors, that the memory of St. Maurice and Companions is older than the sixth century — the beginning of which memory he most stupidly defers as far as the seventh century in chapter 6 of his Dissertation, and from which he elsewhere forges an argument against the truth of the history of the Theban Legion, which

we shall refute below no less successfully. Let us pursue the veneration of the holy Theban Martyrs as it grew with the centuries. There follows in order of time the renewal of the monastery of Agaunum, carried out by King Sigismund about the year of Christ 515, as Marius of Avenches writes in his Chronicle, at the consulship of Florentius and Anthemius: "In this consulship the monastery of Acaunum was built by King Sigismund." Most hold that the synod of Agaunum was celebrated in the same year. That council Dubourdieu attacks sharply and not without bile throughout the whole of chapter 6 of his Dissertation, and there reasons in such a way that you would call the man out of his mind. I shall bring forward some specimens of his tasteless sophisms in the place where I shall vindicate the genuineness of the Acts ascribed to St. Eucherius of Lyons against his stupid cavils.

[37] or the charter of foundation of the monastery of St. Maurice, It will be useful here only to report some of the things he raises against the Acts of the council of Agaunum. The Acts of that synod our Labbe inserted into his Collection of the councils, tome 4, column [ ], having forewarned the reader of his own doubt about their genuineness, on account of the silence about St. Avitus of Vienne, who is read to have been most dearly loved by Sigismund and his counselor in all matters of graver moment. Le Cointe, in the Annals of the Franks at the year 536, number 225, had exploded this instrument of the foundation of the monastery of St. Maurice on more than one ground. Its defense Mabillon undertook in passing in book 1 of the Benedictine Annals, number 71. Behold, in addition, the "savory" observations of the minister. "Those two learned Jesuits" (he says in French, page 43, namely Labbe and Cossart) "had a sufficiently clear view of the falsity of the aforesaid Acts, but they would have had to do excessive violence to themselves in order to confess it candidly… But as the priests of the Oratory are of better faith than the Jesuits, Le Cointe openly declared in his Annals that the Acts of that council are false." Meanwhile, however false, they produced fat revenues for the monastery of Agaunum. And on that account Mabillon, as he calumniously charges near the end of the chapter, was bound to defend the charter of donation — being, in the minister's view, of still worse faith than the Jesuits themselves when it is a matter of charters useful to his own Order. While he stuffs his Dissertation with such scurrilous sarcasms, he forgets what he had undertaken to do: for he here brings forward no argument to prove the spuriousness and falsity of the Acts, except only the good faith of Le Cointe, some of whose reasons he merely runs over in passing.

[38] attacked by Le Cointe, Why did he not also weigh Mabillon's replies on the opposite side, and attempt to overturn them, if he wished to boast of that good faith which he praises in others? But such things are sought in vain among men of this bran, who, faithless to God and the Church, draw a sacrilegious pen against all things Holy. Le Cointe had objected against the genuineness of that instrument, first: the varying note of time. It is twofold: at the beginning is prefixed: "Our lord Sigismund being pious, on the day before the Kalends of May, a council having been held by 60 bishops and as many counts, in the name of God publicly at Agaunum," etc.; but the Acts are closed: "Given on the day of the Ides of May, in an assembly of men near Agaunum." Hence too he draws a mark of falsity, that in the one place it is said to have been celebrated "near Agaunum," in the other "at Agaunum." He argues, secondly, from the number of 60 bishops, which he denies to have been the number of sees in the kingdom of Burgundy in Sigismund's time. Thirdly, he observes that there are attributed to Sigismund in the same place words which suit now the year of Christ 515, now 522. Fourthly, "in that synod," he says, "Theodore, bishop of Sion, asks what is to be done about the bodies of the blessed Theban Martyrs: but Theodore was never called bishop of Sion, but of Octodurum, the see having been transferred from Octodurum to Sion at a later date."

[39] "Then the same Theodore," Le Cointe also says, "died before the year of Christ 517, attacked, and defended in which Constantius his successor strengthened the council of Epaon with his subscription; and at that time Segeric was still surviving among the living, after whose death Sigismund instituted the psalmody at Agaunum, of which Gregory of Tours and others discourse." Fifthly, Le Cointe contends against the nine companies decreed in that synod, which, succeeding one another in the Canonical Offices, should serve the Lord unceasingly day and night. For it appears incredible to him that those companies of monks were summoned from monasteries of differing Rule in order to institute an unbroken psalmody, unheard of in the West. Finally, Le Cointe supposes that the Acts of the council of Agaunum abundantly betray their own falsity, when at their head they set forth that 60 bishops and as many counts were present, while in the meantime only three bishops and eight laymen subscribe, among whom three are without title. To nearly all of these the praised Mabillon replied, and confessed that we do not possess the autograph instrument of the aforesaid council, but only a copy.

[40] The silence about St. Avitus, bishop of Vienne, whom he supposes both to have been present at the synod and to have delivered at this time the homily set forth above at number 22 and following, by Mabillon, contain nothing which takes from them all credit. as also the omission of the names of the other bishops and counts, he ascribes to the negligence of the copyist. To the same could be referred the variation of the chronological note: for from "Pridie" "Idib." could easily be formed, and thus "Kalendæ" could be omitted by a careless and yawning copyist. But if it should be preferred to believe that the Acts of different Sessions were wrongly mixed together in that charter, by this route it will be still easier to understand how at the head the Acts are said to have been drawn up at Agaunum, but at the foot to have been completed "near Agaunum"; for nothing prevents different assemblies from having been held in different places. About the number of episcopal sees in the kingdom of Burgundy in Sigismund's time the dispute is idle, for Mabillon rightly observes that it is not incredible that, for the handling of so unusual a matter, foreign bishops were summoned from provinces neighboring the kingdom. Nor is the argument drawn from Sigismund's words more effective, as though they did not suit the time at which the synod of Agaunum is reckoned to have been convoked: for nothing anywhere occurs which necessarily belongs to the last years of that same holy king. Le Cointe brought forward one in particular. Sigismund in the council speaks thus to the assembled bishops: "For this I have gathered you, that you may console me in my grief, and that you may learn what I am to do, or what I am to reject" — which he judges to pertain to the year 522, when Sigismund, worn out with the grief conceived from the slaying of his innocent son Segeric, went off to Agaunum to bewail his excessive credulity.

[41] But Le Cointe himself, unless I am mistaken, felt the weakness of the argument; For that instrument for he says: "By which words he seems to indicate the grief conceived from the death of Segeric." He knew, no doubt, that these things could be referred to earlier times, when, converted from the Arian heresy to the faith, that most pious prince could utter these and similar words from the memory of past errors. Certainly the words are ambiguous, as Le Cointe himself hints, and therefore, since nothing can be effectively deduced from them, that instrument is not left wholly stripped of all authority; and if the other copy, of which presently, were at hand, it could perhaps be defended by stronger arguments. Certainly it is not more difficult to answer the other things which Le Cointe objected. His Achilles is overthrown by the praised de L'Isle, abbot of St. Leopold of Nancy, when in chapter 6 of his Defense he testifies that he found in the monastery of Agaunum, where he stayed long and searched everything carefully, a most ancient manuscript, made exactly from the autograph itself, as it seemed to him, where Theodore is read subscribed not as of Sion but as of Octodurum. The death of this holy bishop we fixed at about the year 516, at the twenty-seventh day of August, on which mention of him is made in the sacred Calendars. He therefore could have been present at the renewal of the monastery of St. Maurice of Agaunum in the preceding year. Segeric, Sigismund's son, was indeed still living at that time, but it is asserted gratuitously that the monastery was not endowed and renewed by Sigismund before his death.

[42] is most ancient, Nay rather, since through that synod Hymnemundus, who died in the year of Christ 516, as we shall see below, was in the council itself given as abbot to the monks of Agaunum, it is beyond doubt that the often-praised monastery was built before the year 516, and thus before the slaying of Segeric, which happened six years later. What pertains to the names given to the nine companies, which were to succeed one another there in perpetual psalmody, Mabillon likewise sets forth not ineptly, asserting that the names taken from various monasteries were imposed on the individual companies only arbitrarily and for the sake of distinction, and not because the monks of the different companies had been taken from the monasteries after which the companies were named. And this opinion again is not alien to probability, nor are all his answers so discordant that they ought to obtain no credit. The Acts of the council of Agaunum, which, however much they may not be autographs, are certainly most ancient — as is proved not only by the antiquity of the various codices in which they are found inserted, but above all by the omission of Compline among the Canonical Hours prescribed for the monks, which is commonly believed to have been first instituted by St. Benedict. For hence flows a most probable conjecture, that the charter was originally drawn up before the coming of St. Maurus to the monastery of Agaunum, and before the Rule of St. Benedict was disseminated through the Gauls in the mature sixth century.

[43] where several things about the holy Martyrs Now in the praised Acts of the synod of Agaunum, Theodore, bishop of Octodurum, speaks thus: "It is the urgency of my heart that I should put forward a word for your wholesome counsels, as to what is to be done about the bodies of the blessed Theban Martyrs, that is, of St. Maurice with his Fellow-soldiers, who were slain for God by Maximian, and lie unburied; I do not know what man may prevail to build churches for each of them according to their merits." Then all the bishops said: "From their blood this place is sacred and chosen. They were exiles from their homeland, despising the life of the world, rejecting things that fall away, taking no thought of the kinship of their neighbor, not sparing their youth; for the love of Christ they died, and through Christ they were sanctified… " After counsel had been taken, they (the bishops) said to the king: "It has seemed good to us that these only, whose names are known, that is, of Maurice, Exuperius, Candidus, Victor" (behold the express memory of those alone of whom mention is made by name in the Passion attributed to St. Eucherius of Lyons) "be laid within the compass of the basilica which the king's clemency has ordered to be adorned for this work; but that the remaining bodies be gathered in a most safe and most suitable place; that they be laid in one place, and that under extraordinary guard most holy keepers be appointed, lest perchance — which God forbid — men should steal from them by fraud; and that an office of psalmody be established, day and night unceasingly."

[44] are treated. These things are confirmed Then Hymnemundus is set as abbot over the restored or renewed monastery; the matters pertaining to the psalmody are established; and finally there follow and are confirmed very many donations made to the monastery of Agaunum, perpetual monuments of the piety and veneration with which King Sigismund was borne toward our most distinguished Martyrs. However much the credit of the Acts of the council of Agaunum may waver, let it be propped by the testimony of the anonymous writer who in the sixth century wrote the Lives of the holy first abbots of Agaunum after the renewal of the monastery. Our Chifflet, in his Jura Illustrations, in manuscript prepared for the press and sent to us by Father Hardouin, contends that their author is Pragmatius, the brother of St. Achivus, third abbot of Agaunum, that same writer of the Lives of SS. Romanus, Lupicinus, and Eugendus.

Although nothing much persuades us of this conjecture of that most learned writer, who has deserved excellently of our Work, it is nevertheless not far from the truth, in so far, that is, as it extends to the Lives of the first three abbots of Agaunum, Hymnemundus, Ambrose, and Achivus. That the same man is also the author of the Deeds of St. Probus I cannot bring myself to believe, nor do I think that anyone will dissent from me who reads that work through with greater attention. For the style of the Acts of St. Probus differs so enormously from that in which the remaining Lives are written that they undoubtedly indicate an altogether different author — or else no argument for distinguishing writers will any longer be obtained from diversity of style.

[45] Further, the monk who wrote the history of Agaunum, or the Lives of the holy abbots Hymnemodus, from the Lives of the three Ambrose, and Achivus, who presided in a surpassing manner over the community of the monastery of Agaunum that was to be undertaken, everywhere professes himself their contemporary, and speaks thus of the restoration of the monastery of Agaunum by King Sigismund: "When Sigismund, son of King Gundobad, already girded with the honor of the patriciate, had cast off the perfidy of the Arian depravity and, having attained the faith of the Catholic teaching, was applying his mind most intently to the pursuits of Religion, at that time Maximus, bishop of the city of Geneva, conspicuous for all sanctity and purity and outstanding in the vigor of all diligence, with whom the preaching of the divine word was mightily powerful, stirred the heart of Sigismund to this devotion: that from that place which the Theban Martyrs had adorned by their precious death and by the shedding of their renowned blood, with blessed stains and a rosy variegation, the mingled habitation of the common crowd should be removed, and that there, where the splendor of life had been acquired through the atrocity of the passion, the brightness of the inhabitants should return, and that, the works of darkness being shut out, a perpetual day should be had."

[46] "That so it would come about that, by their patronage, he would most safely possess both his kingdom and the integrity of his kingdom, of the first abbots on this condition: if his thought should in no wise deviate from piety and from the path of justice — because the Saints protect those whom they know in no way to turn aside from good order. And this he deserved to have with all abundance and prosperity, and would have had for a longer time still, if the envy of the ancient enemy had not prevailed, the offenses of the peoples overflowing. Counsel therefore having been taken, what pleased the whole body by God's prompting, it seemed good that all women should be removed from that same place, and that, the secular households being removed, the household of God — that is, of monks — should be settled there, who, imitating heavenly things day and night, should apply themselves to the divine chants. There was therefore drawn on, as the man who should above all others of the abbots take up the sole rule of that undertaking, Hymnemodus, a man most worthy of the choice."

[47] After these things the biographer narrates how the abbots Ursolus and Justus, of Agaunum, written by an anonymous writer and Achivus and Probus, followed Hymnemundus (he is named Innemondus and Himnemodus in the ancient Catalogues) to Agaunum, and adds: "Amid these things a message was sent to Lyons to the blessed abbot Ambrose, that the devotion of the king and the promise of holy Hymnemodus might be fulfilled. And when the city of the Lyonnese learned this, it was greatly disturbed, because so great and such a servant should depart from that place. And the holy Viventiolus, bishop of that city, and the brethren whom that abbot was seen to govern, were struck with heavy grief. But that man full of God, when he heard that the eminent men Hymnemodus and Achivus with St. Probus had already gone before to the basilica of the Saints, all the nets of delay being cut away, came swiftly with the other abbots, the holy men Arcadius and Drabistio, with a great retinue to the basilica of the Saints. Thus, joined to the holy Martyrs, he heaped up wondrous joys of charity upon all the Brethren in that same community."

[48] of the sixth century. "Meanwhile a Rule of psalm-singing and of residence having been established, it is handed over to holy Hymnemodus by the assembly of bishops who had come thither to establish the monastery." Thus the Acts of the abbots of Agaunum, which the praised Chifflet brought to light from a very ancient codex of the church of Besançon. Upon these it will be useful to have observed that nearly the same things are said here in general which the Acts of the council of Agaunum pursue in particular. We are also taught here what was the state of Agaunum before the renewal made by Sigismund. "Maximus," says the writer, "stirred the heart of Sigismund, that from that place … the mingled habitation of the common crowd should be removed." To what, I ask, had the habitation of the crowd been mingled, if not to the houses of holy men, whether secular priests or monks, who were serving the basilica of the holy Theban Martyrs, or who, giving themselves to contemplation near the sacred remains, kept watch mingled with the houses of seculars? Certainly the writer mentions the ancient veneration in that place not obscurely, when he adds: "And there, where the splendor of life had been acquired through the atrocity of the passion, the brightness of the inhabitants should return."

[49] as its writer. That brightness, no doubt, had long before been established by Theodore I, bishop of Octodurum, when he had built there a basilica or chapel, over the guardianship of which it is probable that he had set someone of his own clergy. Unless perhaps he had even then joined to him several priests for the performance of the divine offices, whose number, growing with the veneration of the Saints, lived in a manner gathered together like monks under a pastor or provost, such as St. Severinus most probably was. Afterwards either the veneration of the holy Martyrs itself, or the desire of gain, drew men thither, and, houses having been built, seculars were mingled with the clerics; whence a dissolution of morals could easily arise among these, and thus the pristine brightness and holiness of the place gradually vanish. To restore these, therefore, the council labored, the women and secular households being removed from thence, and a monastery founded in which monks, living together under a most strict Rule for the guardianship of the holy pledges, free from all worldly cares and from every tumult, should give themselves perpetually to the singing of the divine praises.

§ IV. The cult of the holy Thebans in the sixth century asserted by St. Gregory of Tours and by Venantius Fortunatus.

[ ] Of the holy Martyrs Matters pertaining to the monastery of Agaunum and to the particular veneration of Sigismund the martyr toward the holy Thebans St. Gregory of Tours has in various places. In book 3 of the History of the Franks, chapter 5, he writes: "Therefore, when Gundobad had died, his son Sigismund obtained his kingdom, and with skillful care built the monastery of Agaunum with dwellings and basilicas." Then he narrates how Segeric was strangled by the wicked machinations of his stepmother Almaberga, or Amalberga, and by the order of his father, deceived by excessive credulity. Pursuing Sigismund's belated grief for the crime committed, he says: "Nevertheless he, going to the holy ones of Agaunum, continuing many days in weeping and fastings, begged pardon, establishing there an assiduous psalmody. He returned to Lyons, divine vengeance following close upon his heels. For, stirred by the exhortations of Queen Clotilda, Chlodomer, king of the Franks, and his brothers make for the Burgundies, and march against Sigismund and his brother Godomar; and, their army having been defeated, Godomar turns his back, but Sigismund, while striving to flee to the holy ones of Agaunum, is captured by Chlodomer and led away captive with his wife and sons, and is held placed in custody within the territory of the city of Orléans."

[51] Two years later, the war with Godomar, king of the Burgundians, having been renewed, St. Gregory of Tours, Chlodomer killed Sigismund, his wife, and his sons; all of which the same Gregory goes over again in book 1 of The Glory of the Martyrs, chapter 75, where after a few words he writes: "For he (Sigismund), after his son had been slain by the counsel of his wicked wife, being compunct at heart, directs his way to Agaunum, and there, prostrate before the tombs of the most blessed Martyrs of the Blessed Legion, did penance … But afterwards, being captured with his sons by King Chlodomer and killed at his command, he was carried to the same place and committed to burial." Gregory's first narrative here, where Sigismund is said, after his son Segeric had been killed — which happened in the year of Christ 522 — to have withdrawn to Agaunum to do penance, "establishing there an assiduous psalmody," could have furnished Le Cointe an occasion for supposing that the Acts of the council of Agaunum are spurious, since, although they are said to have been drawn up in the year of Christ 515 or the following, they nevertheless mention this institution.

[52] mentions them in various places. But the History of the first three abbots of Agaunum, of which we treated a little before, abundantly hints that the perpetual praises were introduced at the very beginning of the restoration of that monastery. Therefore Gregory erred here; or, as I rather suspect, with words perhaps dislocated, he wished to suggest something altogether different. Some manuscripts have: "establishing there an assiduous choir of psalm-singers," which indeed supply a sense elsewhere familiar enough to St. Gregory; but I doubt whether Gregory did not rather wish to signify that the king was always present with the monks singing psalms in choir, which the context seems to require. But whatever it may have been, all these things clearly prove the holy king's confidence in the patronage of the holy Theban Martyrs, and his utmost veneration toward them. Besides what we have recited from St. Gregory as pertaining to the history of the monastery of Agaunum, there occur in the same excellent panegyrist of our holy Martyrs testimonies of an early veneration and cult, ancient long before his own times. In book 10 of the History of the Franks, toward the end, he writes thus.

[53] "I, the nineteenth, Gregory, unworthy, found the church of the city of Tours, His whole authority in which the blessed Martin and the other priests of the Lord were consecrated to the office of the pontificate, broken down and ruined by fire; and, having rebuilt it on a broader and loftier scale, I dedicated it in the seventeenth year of my ordination; in which, as I learned from aged priests, the relics of the blessed ones of Agaunum had of old been placed there. I found also in the treasury of the basilica of St. Martin that very casket, in which the pledge had been much dissolved by decay, which had been brought on account of the power of their religion. And while Vigils were being celebrated in their honor, it pleased my mind to visit these again, a candle shining before me. And while these things were being attentively searched by us, the sacristan of the building said: 'There is here,' he said, 'a stone covered by a lid, in which what is contained I am wholly ignorant; nor have I found that the ministers who preceded me in this guardianship knew it either. I will bring it, and do you search diligently what is contained enclosed within.' Which, when it was brought, I unfastened, I confess, and I found in it a silver casket, in which were held the relics not only of the Witnesses of the blessed Legion, but also of many saints, both Martyrs and Confessors."

[54] the minister explodes in vain. Gregory here calls the athletes of our Theban Legion "Witnesses," that is, Martyrs, from the Greek Μαρτυρεῖν, to bear witness. This is therefore not a particular title attributed to our Saints, as Ruinart seems to judge in his Notes. Further, the chest in which the relics of the Saints of Agaunum were kept, dissolved by age and decay, and the other silver casket, of which no one at that time remembered what was preserved in it, abundantly prove the most ancient cult of St. Maurice and Companions in the church of Tours. Dubourdieu indeed jeers here and there in his Dissertation at St. Gregory's excessive credulity, and thence strives to take away all authority from the holy bishop: but his efforts are vain. Those who judge soberly of authors confess that Gregory erred more than once, especially in matters pertaining to chronology, and in things more remote from his times and his see, and which accordingly he had to receive from accounts handed down through the hands of very many and not sufficiently trustworthy. But at the same time they assign to the holy man, as is fitting, great authority concerning those things which happened in his own time, and which he testifies that he saw or received from men worthy of credit.

[55] A miracle, Here aged priests testify that the relics of the Martyrs of Agaunum were preserved in the first reliquary;

in the second, the silver one, Gregory without doubt found a testimony which produced belief; for how otherwise would he have distinguished the remains of our Saints among so many other sacred pledges packed together? Therefore long before Gregory the people of Tours venerated the holy Martyrs of Agaunum, about which more in the Posthumous Glory. Meanwhile let us receive from the same holy bishop of Tours, in book 1 of The Glory of the Martyrs, chapter 76, two miracles which occurred at the relics of the holy Thebans, and which he narrates thus: "Great also is the power at the tombs of the aforesaid Martyrs" (he had treated of them in the preceding chapter, whence we culled above the matters concerning Sigismund and the founding of the monastery of Agaunum), "of which, leaving very many aside, it has pleased me to touch upon a few. A certain woman, bringing her only son to this monastery, handed him over to the abbot to be instructed, namely that, having been made a cleric, he might be dedicated to the holy offices."

[56] "But when he was already instructed in the spiritual letters, which happened in the sixth century and was singing psalms with the other clerics in the choir of the singers, being struck by a slight fever, he breathed out his spirit. The bereaved mother ran wailing to the service of the funeral, and buried her son. Yet those tears which were shed at the obsequies did not suffice for her grief, but day by day she came, and over the tomb of her child, with voices sent up on high, she lamented. To whom at last the blessed Maurice, appearing in a vision of the night, said: 'Why do you, O woman, unceasingly bewailing your son's death, never cease from mourning?' To whom she said: 'The days of my life do not fill out this lament, but as long as I live I shall always weep for my only one, nor shall I ever be softened from tears, until the death that is owed closes the eyes of this body.' To whom he: 'Do not so,' he said, 'weep as for a dead man, but bear it with an even mind; for know that he dwells with us and, seated' (other codices have sede: perhaps it should be read in sede), 'enjoys in fellowship with us the seat of everlasting life. And that you may truly believe that the things I say are certain, rise tomorrow at Matins, and you will hear his voice among the choirs of the psalm-singing monks.'"

[57] "'And not only tomorrow, but on all the days of your life, in the basilica of Agaunum when you come, you will hear his voice in the psalmody: therefore do not weep, since it behooves you rather to rejoice than to weep.' The woman rises and draws long sighs, nor does she sleep on her bed until the signal for rising is sounded by the monks; and when it is sounded, she goes to the church, to test something of the vision which she had seen: for nothing was lacking from the holy promise, but the things which had been announced by divine agency are soon known to have been fulfilled. But when the Responsory had been sung by the cantor (read: 'the Responsory having been sung') and the throng of monks had taken up the Antiphon, the mother hears, recognizes the voice of her little one, and gives thanks to God. And that too which had been promised by the mouth of the Martyr was entirely fulfilled, that on all the days of her life, when the woman came to the psalmody, she heard the voice of this little child among the other modulations of the voices." Dubourdieu indeed did not touch upon these things in particular, thinking perhaps that he had so worn down St. Gregory's authority that it was not necessary to attack them by any particular reasoning.

[58] Yet here a field lay open for the exercise of his sharp tongue. For men of his sect, The relics of our Saints who not seldom peddle and follow the ravings of a drunken cobbler and the frenzies of a raving little woman as divine oracles, are accustomed to reject to the level of old wives' tales such heavenly apparitions as have been asserted by the holy Fathers. I wonder therefore that the heterodox hypercritic did not explode these as the dreams of a mother's brain disturbed by excessive grief. And yet — I am mistaken — he "traverses the pathless places of the Pierides, trodden before by the foot of none," as he warned us at the beginning of his Dissertation; and from the whole of his work it is abundantly clear that he preferred to attack some things in general rather than to examine them singly, lest he thus betray his own absurdities the more, and be less easily able to throw dust in the eyes of his readers. There is no need to wish to defend the truth of this narrative; that alone which we are so far attempting becomes certain from it: that the name of St. Maurice was celebrated in the sixth century, and that the monastery of Agaunum was much celebrated. This is still clearer from what Gregory subjoins in the same place thus.

[59] "But when King Guntram had so devoted himself to spiritual actions sought by Guntram, deliver a priest that, leaving aside the pomps of the world, he distributed his treasures to the churches and to the poor, it happened that, having sent a priest, he transmitted gifts according to his vow to the Brethren who serve the Saints of Agaunum, charging the priest that, returning to him, he should present to him relics of the Saints. Therefore, while, the king's command having been fulfilled, he was returning with these pledges, he seeks a ship on the lake of Leman, through which the Rhone flows. That lake extends in length about four hundred stadia, but in width one hundred and fifty stadia. Finally, as the priest was returning, as we have said, when he had embarked on this ship, suddenly a storm arose and lifts the waves: mountains of billows rise to the stars; now the stern, as the prow of the little ship gapes downward, is borne on high; now again, the stern being plunged down, the prow is lifted aloft: the sailors were thrown into confusion, and nothing else but death alone is looked for in this peril."

[60] from the peril of shipwreck. "Then the priest, when he saw that they were being overwhelmed by these waves and heavily covered by the foam of those billows, drawing out from his neck the casket which contained the pledges of the Saints, cast it in faith upon the swelling waves, and invokes the protection of the Saints with a clear voice, saying: 'That I may not perish in these billows I beseech your power, glorious Martyrs; but rather do you, who continually furnish aid to those who perish, deign, I pray, to stretch out to me the right hand of salvation; press down the waves, and bring us back to the wished-for shore by the help of your assistance.' And as he said these things, the wind ceasing and the waves subsiding, they were carried to the shore. These things I learned from the priest himself." A clearer testimony, I think, of the ancient and highest veneration of kings toward the holy Martyrs of Agaunum can neither be given nor demanded. For the rest, Guntram could have sought relics of St. Maurice and Companions in order to enrich with them the basilica of St. Marcellus at Chalon, built by him in the year of Christ 584. Certainly, as Fredegar writes in his Chronicle, "he ordered a synod of forty bishops to be held; and after the pattern of the institution of the monastery of the holy ones of Agaunum, which in the times of King Sigismund had been confirmed by Avitus and the other bishops at the prince's own command, Guntram took care that by the joint action of this synod the institution of the monastery of St. Marcellus should be framed."

[61] The poems of Venantius Fortunatus St. Venantius Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers, a contemporary of St. Gregory of Tours, also celebrates the holy ones of Agaunum thus, in book 2, Poem 15:

When under the world's whirlwind the wicked gave chase, and the savage tempest delivered Christ's worshipers to death; the cold being driven off, faith, kindling their hearts, waged its fervid wars upon the icy crags: whereby, holy Maurice, leader of a rich Legion, you drew brave Men to bow their necks; whom, their swords laid down, the teachings of Paul armed with this — that it is sweeter to die for the name of Christ. They who with warlike breast could conquer by the sword invite dear wounds upon their own throats. Urging one another thus to go beneath the stars by their own slaughter, each hero swam in the blood of another. A fountain of blood aided the swift waves of the Rhone, and bloody wrath dyed the Alpine snows. By such an end the blessed Army, entering the heavens, joined to the Apostolic choirs, applauds in honor. It is girt beyond the stars by a blessed angelic senate; whence death was before, thence light cherishes the Men.

lie the holy pledges of four chieftains. But in a tomb of clay lies hidden a heavenly talent, and cheap sand covers the riches of God. They who make the sacred revenue of paradise increase are heirs of the Lord, given to perpetual light. That Choir is to be placed with its flesh upon a starry throne, when the Judge, the arbiter of the world, shall come. So the holy Throng, hastening together to behold Christ, made of their death a road, that it might seek the heavens. For Fortunatus, through the shining gifts of the Thunderer, that I be not tormented in darkness, bring aid, I pray.

The same Venantius, in book 8, chapter 4, which is On Virginity, enumerating the Saints most celebrated throughout the world, mentions the Theban Martyrs about the middle thus:

Sicily brings forth Cecilia, Seleucia Thecla, and the blessed Legion of Agaunum is present;

so that it is established that in the sixth century our holy Martyrs were held and celebrated among the foremost.

§ V. The most ancient document concerning the Saints of Agaunum. Their memory in the classical Martyrologies.

[ ] A Mass of St. Maurice and Companions What could not undeservedly be referred to earlier centuries certainly demands the first place here: a remarkable document of the most ancient and most celebrated cult in the Church of our holy Theban Martyrs, from the Gothic Missal, written in square letters about 1000 years ago, on the testimony of Tommasi and of Mabillon in book 3 of the Gallican Liturgy. Nor yet is the judgment of its antiquity made from these things alone, but above all from the abrogation of the Gallican liturgy in the time of Charlemagne, before which time accordingly it is rightly reckoned to have been written. A Mass of St. Leodegar is indeed found in the same codex, and from this it follows that it is not older than the year 678, in which St. Leodegar was slain: but it is certain that not all the Masses which are read in that codex were composed then for the first time, when it was written, but were taken from elsewhere. That among these was this Mass of St. Maurice and Companions, probably recited in the monastery of Agaunum from the time of its enlargement by Sigismund, will rightly be suspected by anyone who has not clung too tenaciously to his prejudices, especially since it is evident that it was excerpted from the primitive Acts, which after the interpolation, more probably made in the seventh century, appear to have been very rare.

"THE MASS OF SAINT AND MOST BLESSED MAURICE WITH HIS COMPANIONS. Let us beseech, dearest brethren, the mercy of the omnipotent Lord on the solemnity of this day of the six thousand six hundred Martyrs, that he who conferred the glory of martyrdom upon so great a People of his, may so for us on this day, [by] the immense [ ] of sins" (here something is doubtless wanting, which perhaps could not be read, for the sense is not intelligible) "gladden us by the bounty of his mercy. Through our Lord Jesus."

There follows the Collect. "O God, who for thy saints of Agaunum didst take away the boldness of persecution for the protection of the Christian name, and didst rouse their spirit to obtain by martyrdom the grace shining forth from thy dignity: hear thy suppliants, and grant that, as they by thy gift deserved to be blessedly crowned, so by their intercessions we may, with thy help, be rendered guiltless of every defilement of sin. Through the Lord."

[65] "THE COLLECT AFTER THE NAMES. The names of our dear ones having been heard, the Gothic Missal published by Tommasi and Mabillon let us beseech the omnipotent Lord, that, receiving the vows of his people and of his ministers, he may accept in an odor of good sweetness our oblations, which we offer in commemoration of the saints of Agaunum and for the spirits of our dear ones. Wherefore let us be suppliant, that we may be aided by the pious prayers of the most blessed Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, and Martyrs, and of all the Saints. Through."

"THE COLLECT AT THE PEACE. O God, to whom the most acceptable and most delightful sacrifice is that of the Saints

thy faithful and devoted ones: be present to thy household as it makes supplication to thee, entreating thy mercy through the intercessions of thy saints of Agaunum; and grant that they who by the error of their sins have offended thee may deserve to please thee through the intercession of thy Saints. Through."

[66] "THE IMMOLATION OF THE MASS. It is meet and just that we give thee thanks, and written holy Lord, Father almighty, eternal God. For thou, O Lord, didst so recall the army of the Thebans, destined for the punishment of thy people, by the sudden grace of thy command, that they chose rather to be slain in eager devotion than to be sated with the blood of Christians. Nor, hesitating" (I believe it should be read Nec cunctantes), "with thy help they took up the burden of persecution, to bow their necks to their pursuers. And when the rage of the enemy decreed that the People of God should perish by an insistent numbering off, that tenth man was carried away who by the anticipation of martyrdom should become a first-fruits. A clamor arises in the camp, the valor of fighting is despised, an eager contention is stirred up over the taking up of martyrdom. The People of God is pierced with the sword, the blood of the innocent is poured out, faith is preserved undiminished. Thus, O Lord, dost thou protect thy Soldiers, that neither was patience lacking in the passion, nor constancy in the confession."

[67] a thousand years ago. "Among the wars of the Blessed and their blessed contests, the glorious confession feared more to be divided from the fellowship of the Fellow-soldiers than to be made a boast of by the executioner's hand. For the whole People of God burned with so great an eagerness in the ardor of faith that, if the persecution of the body were delayed, the devotion of suffering ran ahead. For so great was the constancy of the people and … [ ] of the enemy, that neither did the fury afterwards find what it might kill, nor did anything glorious remain that might perish. That holy place of Agaunum was made, through the intercessions of the Martyrs, the salvation of those present and the protection of those to come — a place which the wave of blood drenched, and which the fellowship of precious bodies consecrated. Wherefore deservedly to thee, O Lord, among the choirs of Martyrs and the voices of angels, we render the praises owed to thee, saying with exultation: Holy."

"THE COLLECT AFTER THE SANCTUS. Let us pray, most beloved brethren, that our Lord and God may sanctify by the inspiration of heavenly grace this offering, to be consecrated by his own ministry, and may heap up human blessing with the fullness of divine favor. Through our Lord Jesus."

[68] Other ancient documents about them, In the Notes and Observations of Ménard on the Sacramentary of Gregory, page 181, the codex of Ratold, written in the tenth century of Christ, presents at the tenth of the Kalends of October two Masses of St. Maurice and Companions, which it is of no importance to bring over here entire. I only observe that they differ much from one another, having probably been transcribed from different codices. The Prayer of the first is this: "Grant, we beseech thee, almighty God, that the festive solemnity of thy saints Maurice, Exuperius, Candidus, Victor, Innocent, and Vitalis and their Companions may gladden us," etc. The same names of the Saints recur in the Prayer over the Offerings; but in the second Mass no mention is made of SS. Innocent — or rather Innocentius — and Vitalis, and this Prayer is recited: "Almighty and merciful God, who didst bestow the crown of martyrdom upon thy holy martyrs Maurice, Exuperius, Candidus, and Victor," etc.; whence I suspect that it is older than the former.

[69] all of which sufficiently prove that the Saints More documents of the most ancient veneration of the peoples toward the holy Maurice and his fellow martyrs, scattered through the succession of times over the whole West, could be gathered: but since these look chiefly to their Posthumous Glory, we refer them thither. Meanwhile what we have reported thus far suffices to repress that part of Dubourdieu's hypercriticism in which he contends that the holy Martyrs of Agaunum are fictitious heroes, who never existed in the nature of things. For if a coin half eaten away by age when found, if a sepulchral stone when uncovered, if an inscription whose sense is scarcely set forth even by divining, produce belief among prudent men in some person or fact of which mention is made nowhere else, who, I ask, in his sober senses will suspect that those Saints are fabulous whose most ancient cult so many monuments prove — even if no account of their Martyrdom had been written elsewhere, even if whatever later writers handed down about them were feigned and fabulous?

[70] There are two other sophisms by which the minister attacks the existence of the holy Martyrs, are not fictitious heroes. Their memory among the martyrologists of the seventh which I shall refute in the following §; here I subjoin the class of martyrologists which may prove the more and more widely disseminated cult of the Saints of Agaunum. These are indeed witnesses of later centuries, but they make it clear to us that the Passion which was brought to light by Chifflet and vindicated to St. Eucherius of Lyons existed in the Church in those centuries, and thus was not forged by the same Chifflet out of Surius's Acts — which is another intemperate suspicion of the hypercritical minister. The Bede of Achery therefore sings at the tenth of the Kalends of October:

Maurice the martyr, a tenth man, together with his thousands.

Our own copy has at the same day: "Of the holy Theban martyrs Maurice, Candidus, Exuperius, Victor." The copy of the Queen of Sweden adds: "With 6085 other Martyrs"; and Florus: "With Companions, of all of whom the number is said to have been six thousand six hundred and sixty-six, who were all alike put to death by the sword for the name of Christ at the command of Maximian Cæsar."

[71] Fuller announcements of the holy Martyrs may be seen in the same place in the supplements. and eighth centuries. Rabanus Maurus mentions them today most sparingly, in these words: "Of the holy Theban martyrs Maurice, Candidus, Euperius." Their eulogy in Ado is very long, which it is worth while to bring over here, inasmuch as it is certainly taken from the primitive Acts, though it has been enlarged in some particulars. Thus therefore Ado writes at this day: "In the Gauls, in the city of Sion, in the place Agaunum, the birthday of the holy Theban martyrs Maurice, Exuperius, Candidus, Victor, Innocent, Vitalis with their Companions, who, suffering under Maximian for Christ, were most gloriously crowned. That we may therefore speak briefly of the cause of their most blessed passion: under Maximian, who held the empire of the Roman commonwealth with Diocletian as colleague, throughout nearly all the provinces peoples of Martyrs were torn to pieces and put to death. For that same Maximian, profane toward the Lord of heaven, had armed his impiety to extinguish the name of Christianity."

[72] "If any then dared to profess the worship of the true God, troops of soldiers being scattered everywhere, they were dragged either to punishments or to death. Their lengthy There was at that same time in the army a legion of soldiers who were called Thebans: now that was called a legion which then had six thousand and six hundred men under arms. These had come, summoned to Maximian's aid from the Eastern parts; Men vigorous in warlike affairs, noble in valor, but nobler in faith: toward the emperor they contended in fortitude, toward Christ in devotion. And so, when these, like the other soldiers, were assigned to tear in pieces the multitude of the Christians, they alone dared to decline the service of cruelty, and declare that they will not obey commands of this kind. Maximian was not far off, for he was staying near Octodurum, wearied with the journey. Therefore, when the answer of the Thebans was known, hot with headlong anger, he orders every tenth man from that same Legion to be struck with the sword on account of the commands neglected, so that the rest, terrified by certain facts, might the more easily yield through fear. The orders being renewed, he decrees that the rest be compelled to the persecution of the Christians."

[73] "But when the repeated announcement reached the Thebans, and it was known by them that profane executions were again being enjoined upon them, in Ado an outcry and tumult arises everywhere in the camp of men affirming that they would never yield to anyone in such sacrilegious services. When these things were then learned, Maximian, more bloody than any beast, returns again to the savagery of his nature, and commands that a tenth of them be a second time given to death, and that the rest be nonetheless compelled to those things which they scorned. When these orders had been brought again into the camp, he who had fallen tenth by lot was set apart and struck down. But the remaining multitude of Soldiers urged one another in mutual discourse to persist in so illustrious a course. Yet the greatest incitement of faith lay with St. Maurice, the primicerius of that Legion, who together with Exuperius (as they call him in the army) the campiductor, and with Candidus, senator of the soldiers, went about exhorting and admonishing each man, setting before them the examples of faithful Fellow-soldiers, and of Martyrs too."

[74] "Encouraged therefore by these their Chiefs and instigators, the most blessed Men send to Maximian, still seething with madness, a message as brave as it was pious. eulogy 'We are your soldiers, emperor,' they say, 'but yet the servants — which we freely confess — of God. To you we owe military service, to him innocence: from you we receive the wage of our labor, from him we took the beginning of life. In this we can by no means follow the emperor: that we should deny God as our author — our author, assuredly, and, whether you will or not, your Lord and author. If we are not compelled to such deadly deeds as to offend him, we shall still obey you, as we have done hitherto; but if otherwise, we shall obey him rather than you. We offer our hands against any enemy whatever, which we hold it a crime to stain with the blood of the innocent: those right hands know how to fight against the impious and the enemy; they do not know how to tear in pieces the pious and our fellow citizens.'"

[75] "'We remember that we took up arms for fellow citizens rather than against fellow citizens. taken from the Acts We have always fought for justice, for piety, for the safety of the innocent: these have hitherto been the rewards of our perils. We have fought for faith — which by what means shall we preserve for you, if we do not render it to our God? We swore first in the divine oaths, we swore thereafter in the royal oaths: you need believe nothing of us as to the second, if we break through the first. You order Christians to be sought out by us for punishment; from now on you need seek no others. You have us here confessing God the Father, the author of all, and we believe his Son Jesus Christ to be the Lord: we see the Companions of our labors and perils, we ourselves also sprinkled with their blood, butchered by the sword; and the deaths of our most holy Fellow-soldiers and the funerals of our Brothers we have not wept over, we have not grieved, but rather we have praised and attended with joy, because they were held worthy to suffer for the Lord their God.'"

[76] "'Nor does even this last necessity of life compel us to rebellion: primitive nor has that very despair, which is the strongest thing in perils, armed us against you, emperor. Behold, we hold arms, and we do not resist, because we much prefer to die rather than to kill, and we choose rather to perish innocent than to live guilty. If you shall determine anything further against us, if you shall command anything more, if you shall bring anything to bear — fire, torments, the sword — we are prepared to undergo it. We confess ourselves Christians; we cannot persecute Christians.' When Maximian had heard such things as these, and perceived that the minds of the Men were obstinate in the faith of Christ, despairing that he could recall their glorious constancy, he decreed by a single sentence that all be put to death, and orders the thing to be accomplished by columns of soldiers poured round about them. And when these, sent to the most blessed Legion, had come, they draw the impious sword against the Saints, who did not refuse to die out of love of life. And so they were cut down everywhere with swords, not even crying out or resisting, but, their arms laid down, offering their necks to their persecutors and their throats to the strikers, or presenting their unprotected bodies."

[77] "But Victor the martyr was neither of that same Legion is taken. Their nor a soldier, but a veteran of a service already completed. When, as he was making his journey, he suddenly fell in with these men who were feasting everywhere, joyful over the spoils of the Martyrs, and

was invited by them to eat with them, learning in order the cause that was set forth by them as they exulted, he detests the guests, and, detesting the banquet, was fleeing from it; and when they asked whether he too were perhaps a Christian, he answered that he was a Christian and always would be: and, being at once killed by those who rushed upon him, he was joined to the other Martyrs in honor as also in death. What thereafter befell the tyrant Maximian it has pleased us to gather briefly. When, having laid an ambush, he was contriving death for his son-in-law Constantine, the deceit being detected, he was seized at Marseilles, and not long after was strangled and, afflicted with a most foul punishment, ended an impious life by a fitting death. But the bodies of the most blessed Martyrs, many years after the passion, are revealed to the holy bishop Theodore, and a basilica is fittingly built in their honor."

[78] "But after a long stretch of time the Rhone also revealed the limbs of the blessed martyr Innocent; in Usuard and others. which it brought forth from the bosom of the earth not to plunge them in the storm of its own flood, but that he might be venerably joined in burial to the other Martyrs." So lengthy a eulogy of the Saints of Agaunum I report entire from Ado, because when we come to discuss the Passion and its antiquity, some things worth noting will arise from it. Usuard, briefer as is his custom, announces thus today: "In the Gauls, in the city of Sion, in the place Acaunum, the birthday of the holy Theban martyrs Maurice, Exuperius, Candidus, Victor, Innocent, Vitalis, with six thousand five hundred Companions, who, suffering under Maximian for Christ, were most gloriously crowned." Sollier notes in the Supplements that the number of Martyrs varies in the copies, and that in place of 6500 some have 6666, others 6660, as may be seen in the same place.

[79] Wandalbert does not express the number, singing:

Maurice a tenth man crowns, with his Legion for companion, Which by blood poured out alike overcame death.

Galesini, Greven, Molanus, and the other more recent Martyrologies I pass over, all of which weave a eulogy of the holy Thebans. The Greeks have not mentioned the Martyrs of Agaunum in their Calendars; they have at the twenty-first day of February their own Maurice with his fellow martyrs of Apamea, whose Acts are given in our Work at that place. Some formerly confused these with the Theban Martyrs. "To which opinion," says Baronius in his Notes on his own Martyrology, "I too once not unwillingly adhered, blaming Metaphrastes" (who wrote the deeds of Maurice of Apamea) "as though he had failed to grasp the affairs of the Western Martyrs." Then he narrates at greater length how, taught by Theodoret that they are entirely different Saints, he changed his opinion. Dubourdieu forges from Baronius's aforesaid confession an argument against the truth of the martyrdom of the Saints of Agaunum, which it is not permissible to neglect here, so that we may have a specimen of the strange logic which he follows.

[80] Having recited Baronius's words, therefore, he proceeds thus in chapter 18 of the Dissertation: "It is not necessary to examine the passage of Theodoret, or the reasons which Baronius had for changing his opinion; this one thing suffices, that, as the Cardinal himself confesses, he once believed that Maurice and his Companions suffered at Apamea in Syria — that is, that the account attributed to St. Eucherius is fabulous, and that Latin writers transferred the scene of that tragedy from Syria to the Alps in order to honor the churches of the West." In vain, reader, will you seek where Baronius asserted this even in shadow; but the minister had to reason thus in order to infer his own assertions from the Cardinal's words. Baronius says that he had censured Metaphrastes and had suspected that he, laboring under an ignorance of Western affairs, had carried off the Martyrs of Agaunum into Syria to the Greeks; therefore he supposed that, Metaphrastes speaking the truth, Western writers wished to snatch the holy Martyrs from the Easterners and had transferred Agaunum to Apamea. Whether this reasoning of Dubourdieu's is that of a sufficiently sober man, I do not know. Yet most of his other arguments, which we now approach, are of this kind.

* Perhaps "Excipere, &."

* Should not "Crudelitas" be supplied?

* Elsewhere "Quo."

§ VI. The hypercriticism of Dubourdieu is refuted, who attacks the truth of the martyrdom of the holy Thebans from the doubt about the time in which they were crowned. His negative argument is set forth and some of his calumnies are refuted.

[ ] Dubourdieu contends Thus far we have so defended the martyrdom of St. Maurice and his Companions that, although no Acts existed, what we have brought forward would abundantly prove its truth. We shall proceed still along the same track, taking nothing from their written Passion in support of the case; and therefore we here pass over, and reject to another examination, the first several chapters of Dubourdieu's Dissertation, because they either attack the Acts themselves directly, or cannot be duly refuted unless the authority of the primitive Acts has first been vindicated from his sophisms. Two things Dubourdieu raises in two whole chapters against the passion of the Saints of Agaunum, considered apart from the Acts, by which he contends that the Thebans did not suffer for Christ, but are fictitious heroes and martyrs. To chapter 13 he gives this title: "That, if the history of that Legion were true, there would not be so great uncertainty about the time in which it happened"; and then he proceeds more or less thus: "The martyrdom of an entire legion is a thing so memorable that, if it had truly occurred, it would without doubt have been inscribed in the Annals of the Church with its circumstances and dates. And if the ecclesiastical writers had neglected to report it, Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, Jordanes, or some other writer would have repaired the oversight."

[82] "Livy reported the tragic end of the legion which had rebelled and had occupied Rhegium, when the Romans were waging war against Pyrrhus. that the holy Martyrs were not crowned, because the date of the martyrdom And will anyone hold that 6600 Soldiers with their Commanders were butchered at the emperor's command, because they refused to sacrifice to false gods or to join the other forces in shedding the blood of Christians, and that not one writer, ecclesiastical or profane, mentioned with a single word a matter which so many circumstances make rare and astonishing?" If I understand Dubourdieu rightly here, little or nothing would accrue to our martyrdom from the accumulated testimonies of all ancient writers, unless those very writers had left us by chronological notes a sure and undoubted date of the event. For unless he contends this here, he thrusts upon his readers a paralogism familiar enough to him, looking to chapter 18 of his Dissertation, which we shall discuss afterwards. "The most sagacious of the writers of the Roman Church" (the Anglo-Savoyard minister continues in French) "do not agree about the year, about the Pontiff then sitting, about the consuls. Baronius fixes the martyrdom of the Saints of Agaunum under the Pontificate of Marcellinus, in which two learned fathers of the Oratory followed him: Le Cointe at the year of Christ 538, and Morin, On the Deeds of Constantine, part 2, chapter 3."

[83] "On the contrary, Antoine Pagi binds the same martyrdom to the years of Caius's sitting. is neither certainly determined nor seems able to be determined. Baronius asserts that the Legion suffered under the fourteenth consulship of Diocletian: Pagi believes it was crowned in the first years of the same emperor. The Jesuit Labbe, in his Chronological History, at the year of Christ 286, deserts his own Baronius, and Pagi perhaps followed him. Take his words: 'Sebastian … Maurice and several others with the Theban Legion are SAID (in French, On dit) to have undergone death for the faith of Christ about the year 286 at Agaunum in the gorges of the Pennine Alps.'" From here Dubourdieu turns aside to Duchesne, who in his History of the Pontiffs draws an argument from the Sacrament of Confirmation conferred at Rome, as he supposed, upon the Theban Soldiers, against the idolatry — that is, the offering of incense to images — imputed to Pope Marcellinus; and then he praises the good faith (who would believe it!) of the Jesuit Labbe, who does not allege the martyrdom of the Theban Martyrs as an undoubted matter about which he had found certain testimonies in approved documents, but escapes by "ARE SAID" (On dit), so as not to make himself a certain surety for an account which he judged somewhat fabulous.

[84] As regards Marcellinus, his sanctity and innocence do not need Duchesne's argument; This stupid criticism nor does it pertain to the truth of the martyrdom, as we have hitherto defended it, whether the Thebans were confirmed at Rome by Marcellinus or not. Let us hear in passing the words of Labbe which the minister praises, so that it may be plain to readers how much good faith he has at heart. Thus then Labbe writes at the aforesaid year: "SS. Sebastian, Tiburtius, Tranquillinus, Marcellinus, Zoë, etc., and Maurice also with the Theban Legion at Agaunum in the gorges of the Pennine Alps, and several others, are reported to have been put to death about these times for the faith of Christ." I ought not, unless I am mistaken, to warn the reader that Dubourdieu plays ineptly upon the word "are reported," which among the Latins is assuredly no less that of one affirming than of one doubting. In a few words I meet the man concerning that in which he judges the whole force of his argument to lie. He does not deny (for I do not depict him as impious to that degree) that Christ our redeemer was born, adored by the Magi, carried off into Egypt; he will not gainsay that the Son of God was baptized and died, and that the infants at Bethlehem were butchered by Herod.

[85] About the time at which these things occurred there is dispute of the minister is attacked. not only among the writers of the Roman Church, but among all the most learned of the heterodox; let the hypercritic therefore teach us a certain date of these deeds, so fixed and established by an author, whether Christian or other, as to leave no doubt. When he shall have produced it — which nevertheless he will never do — we shall bring forward for him a thousand other matters, both profane and sacred, of which we shall require from him the time circumscribed by certain chronological notes; and he will be compelled to reject things which are most certain to the whole world, and those very things which are established by divine authority, unless he departs from this rule of his insolent criticism. The minister had foreseen that such answers as I have already brought forward could be made; and so he warns that a distinction must be drawn between one fact and another. He confesses that there are very many facts in Ecclesiastical history about which this reasoning would be weak; "but," he says, "the martyrdom of a whole Legion is a thing so rare, so singular, so illustrious, that the uncertainty in which we stand about the time suffices to bring in a suspicion of the falsity of the fact." Let him apply this, if he will, to the facts which I have brought forward, which assuredly are not less rare or less illustrious, and accordingly worthy that their dates should be recorded by writers, especially sacred ones.

[86] [His] And yet the martyrdom of the holy Innocents, the almost continual prodigies wrought publicly by Christ with all Judæa looking on, the miraculous failure of the sun at his death, and not a few things like these, deserved their dates among profane writers no less than the martyrdom of the Theban Legion. As Dubourdieu believes that these happened, persuaded by certain authority from elsewhere, although they are not circumscribed by undoubted chronological notes, so let him confess that the passion of our holy Martyrs, confirmed by so many ancient documents, is not to be relegated to little fables merely because no determined date of it is found among ancient writers, and more recent ones do not agree about it. The second argument, for which he had paved the way in the chapter cited, Dubourdieu pursues in chapter 18 of his Dissertation under this title: "That for two whole centuries after Maximian no writer mentioned the martyrdom of the Theban Legion."

[87] negative argument, It is a negative one, to which the minister attributes such force that, as though the matter were settled, he exclaims petulantly in triumph: "We snatch from the Roman Church in this Dissertation six thousand six hundred and sixty-six Saints" — as many, that is, as the Church never

claimed for herself — she who has venerated the Theban Martyrs, who suffered at Agaunum, or the Blessed Legion, from the earliest centuries indeed, but has never defined a certain number of these Martyrs. But of these matters the discussion will return; let us hear Dubourdieu coming forward with his Achilles. Soon at the beginning of the chapter he sets before us the stupid observation about Baronius's words which I exploded above. He then suspects that the Cardinal doubted about the martyrdom of the Theban Legion (which the minister falsely imputes to him) on account of the silence of ecclesiastical writers for more than two hundred years after the time at which it is supposed to have suffered at Agaunum. "For indeed," he says, "the martyrdom of an entire legion is a matter so great and so unusual that it would be found inserted in a hundred places in the Annals of the Church, if it had truly happened. Can any solid reason for this silence be brought forward?"

[88] drawn After this he alleges the little tale of Pope Joan, and adorns it with various sarcasms and calumnies against the Roman Church. That Roman writers were silent about her, Dubourdieu easily understands; for he knows how solicitous the Roman curia was in suppressing books which would have left us her memory. It is irksome to report inventions and calumnies so often ground down that they cannot be read by men of sound brain without disgust. "But," he says, "for the silence of ecclesiastical authors nearly down to the times of Gregory of Tours — that is, over an interval of almost three hundred years — about the martyrdom of the Theban Legion, no plausible reason can be brought forward." In §2 of this Commentary I brought forward three writers who lived almost a hundred years before Gregory; on this side, therefore, the assertion of the precipitate minister is false. Further, according to Dubourdieu there are two classes of writers who ought to have mentioned that martyrdom. The one of sacred orators, who praised the Martyrs in sermons; the other of those who wove chronicles and ecclesiastical histories.

[89] "Now there survive to us very many homilies of the Fathers who lived in the two centuries after Maximian, from the silence of authors and in them either particular Martyrs or all in general are praised. Not a few other similar works have perished. Among those which are extant there is none in which mention is made of the Theban Martyrs by even a single word, although the history of their Passion is, if any other is, most suited to the ecclesiastical pulpit and to eloquence. Ephrem the Syrian wove a eulogy" (I continue to play Dubourdieu) "of all the Martyrs about the year 360; Gregory Nazianzen treated the same matter at about the same time; we have homilies of St. John Chrysostom about the Martyrs who suffered throughout the world; Asterius, bishop of Amasea in Pontus, who flourished at the beginning of the fifth century, likewise composed a panegyric of all the Martyrs; but in these there is no word about ours. If anyone ought to have praised the holy Martyrs of Agaunum, it was Maximus, bishop of Turin, who died under Honorius and Theodosius the younger."

[90] "Maximus wrote in the place where the martyrdom is supposed to have occurred; who lived at a time when the memory of so illustrious a deed must have been fresh; but neither does he anywhere mention the Thebans. Nor was there any mention of the martyrdom of the Theban Legion in the Works which have perished. For if those writers had treated of our holy Martyrs, we should find some traces in contemporary authors who survive and who had used the Works of others. Methodius, whose eulogy of the Martyrs has perished, wrote about the year 290. Phileas, a bishop in Egypt, composed a panegyric of the holy Martyrs, which Jerome mentions in On Ecclesiastical Writers, chapter 78. If Phileas, beheaded under Maximian, had treated of the martyrdom of our Saints, Lactantius, who flourished at the beginning of the fourth century, must have known it. Besides, since Lactantius was born in Italy, it is not probable that a deed so recent and so celebrated would not have come to him."

[91] "But if the martyrdom of the holy Legion had become known to him, it would doubtless have claimed its place in the fourth or in the book On the Deaths of the Persecutors, and would have been so suited to the matter which he was treating that it is not credible that he would have passed it over, narrating as he does the cruelty and fury of Maximian and the punishment inflicted on him from heaven on that account. Whoever," says Dubourdieu in so many words in French, "shall reflect without prejudice upon the silence of Lactantius will remain convinced that the martyrdom of the Theban Legion is a fabrication." As regards the second class of writers, he wishes Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, Evagrius, Jerome, Orosius, and Sulpicius Severus to be questioned about the martyrdom of the Thebans. "If the martyrdom is true," he says at page 216, "it cannot be that all were ignorant of it; but it is not credible, if they were not ignorant of it, that they should have so agreed among themselves that none of them should have told us anything about it."

[92] He next at length vindicates Eusebius's diligence in searching out the Acts of the Martyrs, the fifth century. and his good faith in reporting them; but since in that author, living at the time and everywhere treating the contests of the Martyrs, he has found nothing about the Theban Legion, he concludes: "His silence is a historical demonstration that the martyrdom of the Saints of Agaunum is a fable." He notes the same silence in the rest, and especially in Sulpicius Severus and Orosius, those most credulous asserters of miracles, of whom the latter writes about the Bagaudae, about Amandus and Ælianus. He assigns as the cause of this that in the time of Arcadius the fable of the Theban Legion had not yet been forged; and, as though the matter were settled, "nothing therefore remains," he says, "except that we examine whether this negative argument is conclusive on the principles of the doctors of the Roman Church." He follows the principles of Launoy. There is no leisure to report whatever he heaps up in addition. Launoy's cavils and errors in this matter are known to the learned; it is equally known how much a negative argument is worth, and with what conditions it must be fortified in order to have force. Whether Dubourdieu's argument enjoys all the requisites we shall now examine.

[93] [SS. Gregory of Tours and Fortunatus are wrongly traduced by the heretic as the authors] For the rest, when he has said that the fable of the Martyrs of Agaunum was forged at the end of the sixth century, he inveighs against Gregory of Tours and Venantius Fortunatus as its first authors. He depicts Gregory as a most simple and most credulous man, and cites Dupin's judgment about him in his own support. Evidently, Dupin having pronounced, the suit is decided, Gregory's reputation lies in the dust, his writings are relegated to the moths and bookworms! Nor does he treat Fortunatus more gently. "He was a poet," he says, "and therefore capable of adulterating the truth. 'To painters and poets,' etc. He embraced in verse the Legend of St. George, which Baronius confesses was written by an Arian. And since he made a Saint out of an Arian and a scoundrel, he could easily err about another deed far more remote from his own age." Is not this, reader, a solid observation of the minister? Of Gregory of Tours I said some things in §4, number 54, by which his authority concerning the cult of the Saints of Agaunum is abundantly vindicated; a few things about Fortunatus I cannot here pass over.

[94] of the asserted martyrdom. That Fortunatus could err as a man, and could adulterate the truth as a Poet, no one can deny: but that he did err and did adulterate the truth Dubourdieu ought further to have established, in order to shake for us the clear testimony of Fortunatus for the most ancient cult of St. Maurice and Companions in the church. Fortunatus was a poet, but a sacred one. Now sacred poets choose for themselves a true subject and true heroes, whose deeds they adorn with poetic flowerets sought here and there from invention; and they may be said to adulterate the truth in this sense, that they intermingle some probable things with those which truly occurred — yet in such a way that a reader who is not a novice can everywhere easily distinguish these very things from the true. Whoever has read Fortunatus will confess that he is among the most sparing of others in such adornment. But if the minister imputes nothing else to him — although the poem about our Saints is of the barest — I shall nevertheless cease to dispute about it, provided he leaves the subject true and the heroes of Agaunum true; for that alone suffices for my purpose.

[95] His calumny In Fortunatus I find only one poem about St. George, which is the thirteenth of book 2. There was once a basilica at Mainz built by Sidonius, about which Venantius sings there thus:

The powerful hall of the excellent martyr George shines forth, whose kindly honor is spread abroad into this world. By prison, slaughter, hunger, chains, thirst, cold, flames confessing Christ, he led his head to the stars. He who, mighty in valor, lies buried in the vault of the East, behold, beneath the Western pole affords his aid. Therefore, traveler, remember to render prayers and vows; here kindly faith obtains by his merits what it seeks. Bishop Sidonius fittingly founded these things: may the new temple profit his own soul.

[96] about Fortunatus is refuted In book 10, poem 10, which is about the Oratory of Artonne, enumerating the sacred pledges which were preserved there, he again mentions the same Saint thus:

Here too that George shines with kindly relics, who, upright, returns from the fire, nor dies plunged in pitch.

Here Fortunatus may be thought to have taken from some Legend or Martyrdom of St. George only this, that he emerged unharmed from pitch and fire; and he said much the same above at verse 2, where he briefly enumerates some of the torments which the Saint endured. These things alone, I say — for the rest pertain to a cult of the Saint far later — he may be thought to have drawn from thence. Baronius, in his Notes at the twenty-third day of April, on which the Great-martyr George is venerated among the Greeks and Latins, observes that certain Acts of St. George are reckoned among the apocryphal books by Pope Gelasius, because they seemed to have been interpolated by heretics and turned to another purpose. He then inquires at greater length what those Acts were, and believes that he found them in an ancient codex of his own Library. He suspects that the Legend disapproved by Gelasius was composed by Arians, and gives the reason for this judgment of his. There lived in the time of St. Athanasius a George, a most flagitious man, who was intruded into the see of the exile, and afterwards, on account of his horrible crimes, was killed by the pagans.

[97] This man of their own sect the Arians held for a martyr, and his blasphemy against as St. Epiphanius testifies in Heresy 76; and since they had no good to report of him any more than of any utterly abandoned man, he judges that some things pertaining to his death were stitched onto the Acts of the St. George of the same name, so that from them they might receive some splendor, and thus the two might gradually be confounded, and the simple be craftily deluded. Certainly there are in that Legend some things which can be referred only to that heretic. Besides, Baronius holds the Passion of St. George suspect because too great an accumulation of torments is narrated — which indeed brings in a suspicion of interpolation and of invention, but by no means pertains to the first reason on account of which he judges the Acts, as they stand entire, not to be admitted. Then Baronius adds: "These things having been narrated, now receive what is found written from certain and approved authors about the excellent martyr" (George, who suffered in Palestine); and soon in the first place he brings forward the same epigram of Fortunatus which I have printed. Is this, reader, to confess that the Legend which Fortunatus condensed was composed by Arians?

[98] But Dubourdieu does not assert that Baronius said what he himself deduces from the poems of Fortunatus. and his blasphemy against Although the obvious sense of the words in some way suggests the contrary, let it stand nevertheless: where, I ask, did he learn

— who will prove it? — that that very Legend which Baronius believes to have been interpolated by Arians lay before Fortunatus? There is nothing in him which certainly persuades of any such thing: for multiplied torments were probably reported in that Passion of St. George also, before it was corrupted by the Arians. The heretics doubtless did not interpolate all the copies of it which were scattered throughout the whole world: Fortunatus therefore could have had one of these before his eyes. Certainly the minister will not establish the contrary; and here again let us marvel at his logic. Venantius borrowed some things from a Passion which is suspect on account of the accumulated torments, and which was corrupted by the Arians; therefore he made a saint out of a scoundrel — which is another blasphemy of the heretic. Does he then make a Saint out of a scoundrel who, from the history of a Saint most approved on other grounds, to which some deeds of a certain rascal have been added, plucks out such things as can suit not that impious man but the true Saint? If it is so, I confess that I am a complete stranger in logic.

[99] Nor, if Dubourdieu read his own Pontanus blaspheming against the Roman Church. that the George venerated by the Roman Church is no other than George the pseudo-patriarch of Alexandria, can he be judged to have found from thence any support for his cause. For if the immense mass of our volumes, under which, as he says at page 61, libraries give way, had been at his hand, he could have read what Papebroch had written at the twenty-third day of April about St. George. There in § V he would have found his Pontanus confounded and ground down; and if any forehead had been left him, he would not so confidently have blasphemed that a heretical and criminal man had been enrolled among the Saints by Fortunatus, whereas Fortunatus praised an altogether different man, the Martyr of Diospolis, whom the Roman Church holds in a particular place among the Saints. This therefore is the gross ignorance, or the most open imposture, of the heretical minister, that hater of the Saints, both against Fortunatus and against the spouse of Christ, the universal Church. Let us now attack his Achilles, that is, his negative argument, fetched from the silence of writers.

§ VII. Dubourdieu's negative argument, hurled in the preceding paragraph against the truth of the martyrdom of St. Maurice and Companions, is overthrown.

[ ] The negative argument of Dubourdieu is overturned, Whatever Dubourdieu raises in the preceding §, and from which he forges his negative argument, the most learned abbot de L'Isle so refuted in chapter 18 of his Defense that I have not much to add. It is chiefly with his weapons that I here display the minister laid low. First, then, it is false that no writer in the two whole centuries after Maximian mentioned the martyrdom of the Saints of Agaunum; for their Passion, written by St. Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, who died about the year of Christ 441, I shall in the following § extricate from Dubourdieu's sophisms, and I shall show that he by no means demonstrated by his sophisms what he nevertheless relies upon as an undoubted matter. I say nothing of St. Maximus, bishop of Turin, who flourished in the middle of the fifth century and composed a homily which still survives and has in very ancient manuscripts the title: "On the birthday of the holy Turinese martyrs Octavius, Adventor, and Solutor." A most ancient tradition asserts that these were of our Theban Martyrs. But the matter can be examined at greater length at the twentieth day of November, on which they have been inscribed in the Roman Martyrology. Let us grant meanwhile that neither Eucherius nor Maximus mentioned the holy Martyrs; the minister will by no means have won. For a negative argument drawn from the silence of two centuries is not duly conclusive unless it is strong in certain conditions, and those not few, about which Honoré de Sainte-Marie may be consulted, tome 1, Dissertation 3, article 2.

[101] being destitute of the conditions Out of several I take three, without which it will not easily obtain force with any man of sense. And first it is required that the probability — for they will not elicit from this negative argument a moral certitude, however low — that the probability, I say, that the thing did not happen, arising from the silence of authors, be not struck down by any contrary probability. Secondly, that all the Works of the authors whose silence the deniers allege in their own favor survive, and so survive that it is established for us that none have perished. Thirdly and finally, that it be proved that the matter, if it happened, ought at least to have come to the knowledge of the authors whose silence anyone alleges in his own favor, and that, if it did come, it ought to have been inserted into their works. Thiers, Mabillon, and Basnage require more conditions: these three of ours the often-praised Honoré de Sainte-Marie commends; whom consult if you please, for there is neither leisure to prove them here at length, nor did it seem worth the trouble to attempt it, since they are commonly admitted by all critics.

[102] The minister's argument is destitute of the first condition, necessary for its validity. as I have already hinted above; for a weighty author, such as St. Eucherius of Lyons was, who alleges the tradition and testimonies of several earlier men likewise weighty and holy, carried back almost to the time at which the martyrdom occurred, abundantly compensates for the silence of others. I pass over the Passion customarily read in the Church at the beginning of the sixth century, and the other ancient documents of which I treated above at length. That one or the other of the two remaining conditions is lacking to Dubourdieu for his attack will become plain to anyone who runs through the writers from whom he demands testimony of the martyrdom, according to the order arranged by the minister. As regards the class of writers who ought to have praised our Saints from the pulpit, the minister himself confesses that not a few of their homilies and panegyrics of the Martyrs have perished; who then knows that there was no mention of the Saints of Agaunum in the lost works?

[103] But that is most probable, you will say: for if the Fathers had mentioned them, The Fathers in their homilies were not bound to mention the Thebans. we should find traces in other writers who could have seen their little works. Trifles. As though historians and chronologists were accustomed to seek their materials from panegyrists, or as though other contemporary fathers so anxiously sought out and could obtain the homilies and sermons of others. But neither in those of their Works which survive to this day were they bound to treat of our Saints; it is indeed ridiculous (as Dubourdieu does) to require in homilies which proclaim the praises of the holy Martyrs in general the special memory of certain particular Martyrs — especially if the Fathers did not live in the place, or in the neighborhood, where they suffered, being accustomed to set before the eyes of their hearers above all the examples of those Saints whose relics were present, or whose particular cause could stir the minds of their peoples to piety. But most of those whom the minister accuses of having been silent about the martyrdom of the Thebans are foreigners and Easterners.

[104] It is true that SS. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, and Maximus, bishop of Turin, had sees near the celebrated arena of Agaunum. That each of them had a clear knowledge of the history of the passion of our holy Martyrs I do not doubt; but on no occasion were they bound to treat of them in particular: at that time, at least a century after their contest, the matter was not very recent, and neither of them undertook anywhere to narrate the history of all the neighboring Saints; it is therefore no wonder if they nowhere make special mention of the Thebans. I pass therefore to the other class of writers, namely chronographers and historians. Of these the minister proclaims Eusebius with all his breath, at page 216 of his Dissertation. I do not wish the praises reported above, which he attributes to Eusebius, to be taken away, and I acknowledge that he was among the living at the time when our holy Martyrs were slain near Octodurum.

[105] But Eusebius's book Ἀρχαίων Μαρτύρων Συναγωγὴ, where above all he ought to have mentioned them, if anywhere, Some works of other writers have perished, was already hidden from Gregory's time, and to this day is held as lost. Eusebius wrote another book about the Martyrs of Palestine, and that still survives. But among the Martyrs whose contests the bishop of Cæsarea beheld in person in Palestine, and afterwards committed to writing, our Saints will be sought stupidly. But if you will admit no Martyrs whom Eusebius has not mentioned in his History, then erase from the roll of the Saints the Ignatiuses of Antioch, the Justins, the Symphorosas, the Symphorians, the Lawrences, the Sebastians, and countless others. And these things indeed do not sting Dubourdieu, who would easily allow all Saints to be driven out of paradise. But if the hypercritic should wish to deny outright countless other facts which Eusebius passes over and which are most certain from other sources, I have no business with him, nor will he detain me, since he is not to be taught by reasonings. Let us see meanwhile how, in that very same place at page 220, forgetting himself, he destroys what he builds.

[106] and of those which survive, "If this reason drawn from the silence of Eusebius needed confirmation," he says, "we should add that the same silence is observed in Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Evagrius, who sometimes reported facts omitted by Eusebius. We should add that St. Jerome, who followed the footsteps of Eusebius in his Chronology and carefully scraped together what had escaped him, reported nothing to us about the Theban Legion." Behold: he who a few lines before had contended that no fact had been passed over by the most diligent Eusebius, here hires helpers for him to supply his omissions. Let the minister stick fast entangled in his own sophisms, and let him look in a very brief Chronicle, which is not even attributed with certainty to Jerome, for the history of particular Western Martyrs and of our Thebans; since the Chronicle inscribed with Jerome's name takes its beginning where Eusebius ends, he will lose his oil and his labor, for in Chronicles of this kind there are not usually found things which preceded the epoch from which they begin.

[107] the subject matter Nor ought the silence of Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Evagrius to trouble anyone: for here the sophist's negative argument limps, lacking the third condition. Socrates continued Ecclesiastical History from the limits of Eusebius's narrative down to the year of Christ 440. Sozomen and Theodoret did nearly the same, yet in such a way that different men report certain other facts which were neglected by others according to their design. Evagrius Scholasticus began writing only from the point where Socrates and the others already praised had ended. None of these therefore was bound to report the martyrdom of the Saints of Agaunum, which had occurred before the times from which they took the beginning of their Annals. Why Dubourdieu demands testimony from Orosius I do not know. He certainly ought not to have done so in the little work against Pelagius; therefore the minister's discourse concerns the books of Histories against the Pagans.

[108] Orosius, a Spanish priest, explains in the first chapter the design of his Work, writing thus to Augustine: "You had charged me that, against the empty-talking depravity of those … who are called Pagans, or Gentiles … who, since they do not seek out things to come, and either forget or do not know things past, defame only the present times as being beyond custom most infested with evils, for this reason alone, that Christ is believed in and worshiped as God, while the idols are less worshiped — you had charged me, then, that out of all the records of histories and annals which can be had at present, I should set out in a briefly ordered text of a volume whatever I had found through past ages that was grievous with wars, or corrupted by diseases, or sorrowful with famine, or terrible with earthquakes, or unusual with floods of waters, or fearful with eruptions of fires, or savage with strokes of lightning and blows of hail, or even wretched with parricides and outrages."

[109] did not require that they should treat These things then Augustine had demanded of Orosius; these things Orosius undertook to do. But through what chink does our minister wish the martyrdom of the Saints of Agaunum to be thrust into a Work of such a plan? In book seven, chapter 25, Orosius mentions Amandus, Ælianus, and the Bagaudae, enumerating the wars waged under Diocletian; but neither there, nor in the following chapter where he makes mention of the most bitter persecution against the Christians, does he touch upon the particular passion of any Martyr, as neither anywhere else generally. It is therefore no wonder if we do not find in him the memory of the holy Theban Legion. Whoever shall have run over, even with a light eye, the book On the Deaths of the Persecutors — whether it be Lactantius's or another Lucius Cæcilius's, an author of the fourth century after the birth of Christ — will wonder no less that mention of the Martyrs of Agaunum was sought there with so great an effort. The author of that very brief little work so runs over the vast persecution and the countless evils inflicted upon Christians, hastening to narrate the punishments inflicted from heaven upon the persecutors, that he not only names no Martyrs who were slain by those tyrants, but scarcely — nay, not even scarcely — mentions in particular the places where their cruelty raged most fiercely.

[110] There remains only Sulpicius Severus, whose silence about the Saints of Agaunum in his Sacred History Dubourdieu judges to be of the greatest weight for his negative argument; about the holy Maurice and Companions. but here too he most of all betrays his rashness and ignorance, if he has not read or has not understood what he alleges, or, if he has read and understood it, betrays his bad faith by dissembling. Sulpicius Severus touches thus, after his manner, in book 2, chapter 32, upon what the Church suffered under Diocletian and Maximian: "After him (Valerian), some fifty years having intervened, under the rule of Diocletian and Maximian, a most bitter persecution arose, which for ten continuous years laid waste the people of God; at which time almost the whole world was stained with the sacred blood of the Martyrs: for men rushed in rivalry into glorious contests, and martyrdoms were then sought by glorious deaths far more eagerly than bishoprics are now sought by depraved ambitions. Never was the world drained by any wars more; nor did we ever conquer with a greater triumph than when we could not be conquered by ten years of slaughters. There are extant also, committed to writing, the illustrious passions of the Martyrs of that time, which I have not thought should be joined on, lest I exceed the measure of my work."

[111] If Dubourdieu has read these things, I cannot sufficiently wonder at the man's audacity, that they should treat of them. who demands from us a reason for the silence which the authors themselves allege in terms clearer than the midday light. Sulpicius says: "the Passions of the Martyrs … I have not thought should be joined on, lest I exceed the measure of my work"; yet Dubourdieu desires to wrest from him against his will a Passion of the Saints of Agaunum, and unless he obtains it, the whole matter is done for and will be exploded as a fabrication. Upon such foundations, forsooth, rests our minister's negative argument; with such weapons does he snatch her Saints from the Roman Church. He himself acknowledges that a negative argument has no force if a reason can be assigned for the silence which he takes for his own side. This he either believes, or feigns to believe, cannot be produced. Hence in a thousand places he confidently proclaims it like a man triumphing. Upon this base he insultingly builds his trophies snatched from the Roman Church. We have given a reason for that silence which is not doubtful nor obscure, but manifest, drawn from the very plan of the Works and from the words of the authors themselves: all the triumphs, therefore, so loudly sung by the men of his sect, go off into smoke and winds.

§ VIII. It is examined whether the Acts of the Saints of Agaunum, published first by Pierre-François Chifflet, S.J., and afterwards by Ruinart, were written by St. Eucherius, bishop of Lyons. Dubourdieu's sophisms are dissolved.

[ ] The Passion published by Chifflet differs in many things Thus far we have so repelled Dubourdieu as he attacks the Passion of our holy Martyrs that, even if no Acts of them had been written, one could nevertheless doubt the martyrdom only stupidly. Now we approach that part of his Dissertation in which he contends that the Passion which we ascribe to St. Eucherius is not only not his offspring, but the fabrication of another, a far later and inept fabulist, which even destroys itself and betrays its own falsity in more than one place. I gave notice of that Passion at the beginning of this Commentary at numbers 8 and 9, and shall reprint it below in the first place; to which I refer the reader, lest by excerpting passages I prolong the Commentary. Let it suffice to have noted here that in it no mention is made of the then recent coming of the Martyrs from the East, of a baptism received at Jerusalem or a sacrament of Confirmation received at Rome, of Amandus, Ælianus, the Bagaudae, or Ceraunius, of the finding of the body of St. Innocent, or of the translation of the holy relics.

[113] from the one which Surius published. Concerning Sigismund and the monastery of Agaunum enlarged or built by him, and finally concerning the abbot Ambrose and the bishops Domitian, Gratus, and Protasius, there is likewise there a most profound silence. They differ moreover from the Acts of Surius and from other copies like these in that they do not define a certain number of the holy Martyrs, but from the round number of a Legion they suggest a conjecture about the number of the Martyrs. "Now that was called a legion," they say, "which then had six thousand and six hundred men under arms"; in place of which the number varies in other copies. Finally, neither here are any of the holy Martyrs enumerated by express name, apart from Maurice, Candidus, Exuperius, Victor, Ursus, and a second Victor. These things I wish to be observed here to this end: that no one may believe the minister when he asserts at page 55 that, apart from the marks of certain falsity concerning Marcellinus, Sigismund, Ælianus, Amandus, and the Bagaudae, the rest is found in Chifflet's Passion the same as what is narrated in Baronius and Surius; and thus also that I may not have to refute at length Dubourdieu's absurdities in arguing against the truth of this Passion of ours from words and facts which are absent from ours, and which he stupidly or craftily — in order to throw dust in his readers' eyes — draws out of other Acts and hurls at this Passion with a vain stroke.

[114] Both carry the name of St. Eucherius And so nearly all the interpolated Acts in the most ancient codices bear the name of St. Eucherius; and there are added even purer ones which have Eucherius at their head as author. To most of the interpolated ones also, as to some of the purer ones, there is prefixed Eucherius's letter to Salvius or Silvius, which sets out the reason for writing in such a way that it is beyond doubt that it belongs to the Passion of the holy Maurice and Companions which is subjoined. Therefore, since those codices are most ancient — nay, some among them exceed 900 years — it is evident that anciently in the Church there was spread, not in some particular place but throughout the whole West, the opinion that St. Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, wrote the Martyrdom of the Saints of Agaunum. That what was then commonly ascribed to him was a supposititious offspring is clearly proved by various things which I both produced at the beginning of this Commentary and shall note below, where we shall discuss Tillemont's criticism.

[115] The other Passion, which our Chifflet published from a most ancient codex of the Jura monastery, in various codices. and with which the manuscript codices of Ruinart agree — among which, as he himself testifies, that of Fossés in his time approached 900 years — bears the same name of Eucherius; and in a codex of the royal library of the best quality the same letter to Salvius is prefixed to it. Wherefore the often-praised Passion of St. Maurice and Companions has been believed by the most learned men and the most rigid critics to have been written by St. Eucherius. Against these things Dubourdieu, in chapter 7 of his Dissertation, undertakes to prove: "That the Passion of the Martyrs which Pierre-François Chifflet inserted into his edition of Paulinus is as false as that which Surius and Baronius followed." Whether he has established this, and has snatched from Catholics so ancient a testimony of the martyrdom of the Thebans, we here inquire. "The cause of the martyrdom of the Saints of Agaunum was held as desperate on account of the indications of certain falsity," says the Anglo-Savoyard minister by way of introduction, "when behold, just in time, Chifflet finds genuine Acts in a manuscript of the monastery of Saint-Claude in the Jura."

[116] "Not yet, therefore," Dubourdieu continues, "was the case desperate for the Catholics: Dubourdieu's imposture against Chifflet the Jesuits are admirable men; for any knot whatever they have a wedge ready to hand. More suspicious men would believe that it is not without mystery that the certain indications of falsity which are found everywhere in the others have disappeared from the manuscript published by the Jesuit Chifflet." Thus, forsooth, he maliciously insinuates to his readers the suspicion which he scatters throughout his whole little work and manifests more openly: that Chifflet perhaps forged his Acts, or cut away from them at pleasure what seemed inconvenient. Such calumnies and impostures ought not to be refuted at length: the libraries from which Chifflet and Ruinart, men who have deserved excellently of antiquity, drew their materials lay open then and lie open to this day. The minister could have examined the codices and applied his own eyes as witnesses; a man who sets himself up as judge with so lofty an eyebrow could at least easily have distinguished whether the codices praised by Chifflet and Ruinart did not in age surpass the last century, or whether they did not by erasures betray a recent correction in those places from which he complains that the marks of falsity have disappeared. Either of these he could have detected at a single glance of the eye, and if he had found either, he could have made Chifflet's imposture plain to the whole world.

[117] But he preferred, I think, to be blind and to conduct the matter by impudent conjectures is blunted. We do not judge from the antiquity of a manuscript copy rather than to find his own disgrace in most ancient manuscripts. Let us proceed. "In vain," says the hypercritic, "does Chifflet boast of the antiquity of his Manuscript: Marsham and Papebroch have warned us that Manuscripts which appear most ancient are not to be trusted." And rightly indeed do both those authors warn us, in this sense: that credit ought not to be given at once, without any examination, to one who asserts the antiquity of some codex or document, since it is established by experience how ready certain smatterers are in determining the age of codices, from which, by the judgment of other learned men who examine them more closely, they sometimes stray by six centuries and more. But Chifflet and Ruinart were men who, unless I am mistaken, can be safely trusted in that kind of learning; nor are there lacking celebrated critics who examined them afterwards, and who have hitherto subscribed unanimously to their judgment.

[118] that the Acts published by Chifflet are genuine, but from other grounds. But if therefore the minister, as he signifies in words that he wished to do, had collated Chifflet's manuscript with the one which Surius used, and had judged, without giving any reason for his verdict, that this excelled that, the learned would deservedly have exploded the man, attributing more weight, as is fitting, to the verdicts of so many learned men than to the judgment of one new in this arena. Then, the many things which he heaps up here are inept and plainly useless for proving what he undertook: for no one argues thus for the genuineness of our Passion from the antiquity of the codices, as to contend that Chifflet's Acts are primitive, genuine, and written by St. Eucherius because the codices of Saint-Claude in the Jura and of Fossés, praised by Ruinart and Chifflet, are older than the Manuscripts from which Surius drew his own. The hypercritic would therefore have accomplished nothing, even had he demonstrated that the Manuscripts of Surius or Mombritius were of all

the most ancient. For to a man boasting of his discovery we should have replied that we hold none of our Manuscripts for an autograph, and thus that from the age of Manuscripts one argues in vain to the age or person of the writer; that we believe our manuscript copies to have been taken from others more ancient, which were already customarily read in the Church in the time of St. Avitus of Vienne, and which proceeded in succession from St. Eucherius as their first author.

[119] It is not probable No better is what he proposes at page 57, in these words: "Who told Chifflet that his Manuscript had not been corrected by some monk who was learned enough in history to be struck by the anachronisms and contradictions which he observed in the Acts of the Theban Legion" (as published by Surius and Mombritius)? "The thing is not without example: several could be produced." Note, reader, that the minister ought to prove by examples that monks of a later time cut away anachronisms and contradictions from primitive Acts; and he performs it thus: "Faustus," he says, "had composed the Life of St. Severinus, abbot of Agaunum, of whom we have already treated. An anonymous writer, several centuries later, added certain things to it, cut away others, and arranged it according to his own pleasure, of which Le Cointe complains in his Annals (at the year 606). He teaches us besides that another Faustus worked up a Life of St. Maurus; but that this, since it did not please a certain abbot Odo, was altered by him in so unusual a manner that it is to be lamented that he ever set his hand to it."

[120] that the Passion attributed to St. Eucherius Let Le Cointe have said what the minister asserts him to have said: but by these examples it is certainly not proved that monks, having got wind that Lives were sprinkled with anachronisms and contradictions, corrected those very Lives. We lament that the Acts of St. Severinus (whose genuine Acts we by good fortune received from Mabillon, so that we might judge more safely) and of St. Maurus were sprinkled with anachronisms and contradictions by a later interpolator; therefore the monks corrected the faults and indications of falsity found in the documents. Fine! Let the minister learn to confess that Catholic writers who have examined the Lives of the Saints and discussed them by the rules of sound criticism acknowledge that very many of them have been interpolated and corrupted by monks who, living in those barbarous centuries in which nearly all knowledge and learning were in exile, while they wished to amplify and adorn the ancient Lives, inserted into them very many falsehoods, anachronisms, and faults like these, out of ignorance and error. This assuredly Baronius, Le Cointe, Mabillon, and all the critics there are have deservedly lamented, and we above the rest complain of it daily.

[121] But it has very rarely hitherto been found that anyone, at least before the fifteenth century, corrected the Lives and Acts of the Saints. Yet the minister ought to have produced examples of this thing to establish his assertion. was formerly corrected and extracted from Surius's Acts. But it is enough for the man to throw dust in his readers' eyes with his sophisms and to fill his pages with digressions, which hereafter I shall neglect to chastise. Further, to return to where I left off, I answer Dubourdieu's question: that perhaps no one told Chifflet that his Acts were not corrected from those of Surius by a later monk, but that the most learned man easily judged this by himself; for they are conformable to the most ancient documents. Ado took from them the whole eulogy of the holy Theban Martyrs at this day: the Preface of the Gothic Mass, written a thousand years ago, was taken from them, as will be clear to anyone who compares them; a passage of the Life of St. Romanus, written at the beginning of the sixth century and reported above at number 27, again manifestly agrees with those Acts.

[122] Rightly, therefore, did Chifflet judge that the Passion which had been found — of whose century Ado, and before perhaps the eighth century the Gothic Mass, and two hundred years earlier the Life of St. Romanus contain manifest indications — is older than Surius's Acts, which certainly were not written before the middle of the sixth century. Rightly also did he judge that it is the very one which St. Avitus of Vienne, already in Sigismund's time, asserts was customarily read "according to the debt of custom," and finally that it is the primitive work of St. Eucherius, to whom all ancient documents attribute some Martyrdom of the holy Martyrs of Agaunum. A little more soundly does Dubourdieu attack the often-praised Acts of Chifflet in chapter 8 of his Dissertation, contending that St. Eucherius's style is different from that in which the Martyrdom of the Theban Legion published by Chifflet is written. Soon at the beginning he confidently asserts that the style of Surius's Acts is the same as that of Chifflet's; that the same expressions, thoughts, and plainly the same sentences are observed; and finally that it is the same work, from which only those things have been cut away which pertain to King Sigismund, who is later in age than Eucherius by several years.

[123] I have already observed above that Dubourdieu everywhere speaks as though the Eucherian Acts were free only of that anachronism which arises from the age of Sigismund. The same man unskilfully You would say that the man had not read Surius's Acts, where there occur Ambrose, abbot of Agaunum, and the bishops Domitian, Gratus, and Protasius — surer indications of a far later interpolator. But these are lighter matters and may somehow be pardoned to a minister hastening toward his triumphs. I wonder more at his ignorance and rashness, who, though a little later he plays the judge in distinguishing writers by style, here so confidently asserts that the author of both sets of Acts is the same. I call upon all who have eyes: I shall exhibit in the second place the Passion like that which Surius published; let them compare the two and judge whether their style is the same as that of ours. They will find sure indications that they proceeded from Chifflet's; but they are going to find a later interpolator and an inept reformer of periods and senses here and there so openly and certainly that I do not doubt that to them, as hereafter to me, Dubourdieu will in this matter stand for a Midas.

[124] Let us go on hearing the man. "It is certain" (if it please the gods above) "that, wishes it established from whatever diversity of style if St. Eucherius is the author of the Hortatory letter to his kinsman Valerian, On Contempt of the World and of Secular Philosophy, which is extant in the Library of the Fathers, tome 6, page 857 of the Lyons edition, he did not write the Martyrdom of the Saints of Agaunum." How is this proved? Erasmus says, and Andreas Schott subscribes to his opinion, of the author of that letter, that there was no one of the Catholic writers who is to be compared with him for purity of style and merit of eloquence. Be it so. Such exquisite praises, given by men so learned in that kind, do not fall upon the Martyrdom of the Saints of Agaunum, for that has only to be compared with the letter for a diversity of sentences and of words to be found. "This savors of the middle age and the time of Cassiodorus; that, of the age of Augustus." Let me be allowed here to ask the minister whether the praises of Erasmus and Schott fall upon the books of Spiritual Formulæ, On Questions of the Old Testament, and the Interpretations of Hebrew Names.

[125] from that in which the letter to Valerian was written, He will not assert it, I think, although he is accustomed to be bold and to lay down the law from the tripod against the judgment of all the learned; for the style of those little works, however pure enough, differs more from the phrasing of the letter so often praised than does Chifflet's Passion. And yet those books are undoubtedly attributed to Eucherius by our Andreas Schott, whom he just now acknowledged as a most learned judge in that kind; why then may not the Martyrdom of the Theban Legion be ascribed to him as well? Homer's Iliad differs more from the Odyssey, Xenophon's Cyropædia more from his other Historical works, than does the style of our Passion from the phrasing of the letter to Valerian: and yet these Works, however most different in style, are deservedly ascribed to the same authors; but the Passion of the Martyrs of Agaunum not likewise to Eucherius, because, in the minister's judgment, the phrasing of a certain other little work proceeding from the same Eucherius is purer.

[126] nor his other arguments. The hypercritic indeed confesses that both these and other authors not seldom changed their style according to the subject matter, their age, and other dispositions of mind and circumstances: but in this variety, whatever it be, in different little works, the same author cannot so cover himself from Dubourdieu but that he detects him. "There is," he says, "an internal equality of style, an order, a method, and a disposition of phrasing proper and singular to that writer, and finally a certain I know not what, which everywhere reigns as singular in his Works, so that he everywhere betrays himself." But far be it that anything similar should be detected in the two works of which we are treating. If Dubourdieu had proved from other quarters his skill and learning in distinguishing style, and if the judgments of men most learned in that kind of literature were lacking, he could perhaps here play Thraso with impunity, since the discussion concerns a very obscure matter which can scarcely be explained in words, and which is derived from the inner sense and taste of the reader.

[127] that the Passion published by Chifflet is wrongly ascribed to St. Eucherius; But he who detects an identity of style and phrasing in Chifflet's and Surius's Acts must suffer it if he is not believed when he here asserts that radical diversity between the two works — especially since Chifflet, Ruinart, Tillemont, and all the other learned men hitherto who have attributed our Acts to Eucherius have not found a greater variety of style between the praised letter and the Martyrdom of the Saints of Agaunum than there is between it and the other little works of St. Eucherius. For the rest, to assert that the style of the Passion of the Theban Legion savors of the age of Cassiodorus is not effectively to deny it to St. Eucherius, who lived in the same century, scarcely thirty years before the birth of Cassiodorus. The holy bishop of Lyons could have written our Martyrdom toward the end of his life, when his style had already aged somewhat. And yet, where the subject requires it, one may perceive in that Passion the author's ardor roused and his phrasing growing green again. Indeed that whole reply which the holy Martyrs send back to the tyrant is most worthy of Eucherius, the Christian Cicero, and of the age of Augustus, for the weight of its sentences, the brilliance of its phrasing, and the purity of its language.

[128] The minister therefore has thus far accomplished nothing. He then argues several things from the letter prefixed to the Acts, but equally unsuccessfully. For granted that this was prefixed by an unskilled editor to other little works, the subject matter itself sufficiently shows that it belongs here: that some Theodore, bishop of Octodurum, who first built the basilica of Agaunum, lived before St. Eucherius, we have already demonstrated above, and thus he argues nothing from it in vain. In chapter 9 of the Dissertation he brings up two other engines. In Chifflet's Passion it is said: "Yet the greatest incitement of faith at that time lay with St. Maurice, then the primicerius, as is handed down, of the Legion," etc. That the tribune of the legion is here named its Primicerius is for him a sure indication that the Passion was not written by St. Eucherius, since the word Primicerius has been ineptly transferred to signify the dignity of a prefect. Let us grant for the moment that what he asserts is true, and that nowhere is the prefect of a Legion found called by the name of Primicerius; it is not incredible that Eucherius, however well he otherwise wrote Latin, misused some word, and transferred the title of those first in other orders of dignities to the man first in dignity, that is, the Prefect of the Legion.

[129] And yet Vegetius, an author of the fourth century, who inscribed to the emperor Valentinian his Work on the Roman Militia, praised by all the learned, in book 2, chapter

21, speaks thus: "Therefore the centurion of the first spear … in the first cohort attains to this palm, in which he obtains unbounded advantages out of the whole legion, just as the Primicerius in the office of the prætorian prefects attains to an honorable and profitable grade of military service." Then St. Jerome, to whom Dubourdieu will not deny purity of style, in his letter to Pammachius twice names the Primicerius among military dignities; the minister therefore is here playing at trifles, as also at the end of the preceding chapter, where from the appellation "Senator," which is used by the same Jerome, as I shall show in the Annotations, he suspects that the author of this Passion was an Englishman. He attacks it further from the number of soldiers assigned in the same place: "Now that was called a legion which then had six thousand and six hundred men under arms." He soon seems to contend that Roman Legions never had more than five thousand foot and three hundred horse.

[130] But Vegetius, in book 2 On Military Affairs, chapter 2, writes: confirms it. "The Romans have legions in which six thousand, sometimes more, are accustomed to serve." That testimony of a most diligent author, most versed in the Roman militia, he perhaps afterwards met with; he therefore takes in sail: "But," he says, "it will be difficult to prove that there were times in which the Roman legions had that determinate number of soldiers which the Acts define." Why does he not also attack Vegetius thus, and demand from another source the proof of his assertion? We have an author who lived about a century before Eucherius, asserting that the Roman legions numbered more than six thousand soldiers: this is admitted on his testimony; another, a century later, adds definitely six hundred to the thousands — but falsely, unless he proves his assertion by the testimonies of others. This is assuredly a fine method of arguing: at this rate scarcely anything will at last be safe against the criticism of a raving man. Let us nevertheless grant something supererogatory, as they say. Plutarch writes in the Romulus: "The City being doubled" (the Sabines, that is, having been received), "a hundred senators were chosen from the Sabines, and legions were established of six thousand foot and six hundred horse" — words which at least suggest that Roman Legions once had this determinate number. But if you will not have this, and accuse Plutarch too of error, grant that Eucherius read this passage, and from it reckoned the Theban Legion; you will convict him of error, but you will stupidly deny him the work on account of this error.

§ IX. Dubourdieu's arguments are refuted, by which he contends that our Passion is wrongly attributed to St. Eucherius of Lyons.

[ ] The minister wrongly asserts In chapters 10 and 11 of his Dissertation the minister attacks two things; in the first of these he strives to prove that a miracle is recorded in Chifflet's Acts which is unworthy both of our holy Martyrs and of St. Eucherius as author. It is as follows. Among the Christians who were busily engaged in building the basilica under St. Theodore, bishop of Octodurum, there was a pagan smith. On a certain Sunday, the rest having gone off to celebrate the feast, he alone had remained in the basilica; when the holy Martyrs appear, rebuke the man, and chastise him with blows, "because he alone was absent from the church even on the Lord's day, and because as a pagan he dared to undertake that holy work of building." Terrified by these things, he is said soon to have become a Christian. Two things Dubourdieu here censures, and he seasons his verdict with petulant and blasphemous witticisms. "It is incredible," he says at page 89, "that a weighty author, such as Eucherius was, should have presented Saints speaking so stupidly: for from their words it is easily concluded that pagans, in so far as they were pagans, were bound to the observance of the Jewish Sabbath."

[132] that in the primitive Passion "And this principle cannot be allowed to the Saints: for if the fourth commandment, like the other precepts of the Decalogue, had bound the heathen as well as the Jews, it would be an undoubted sign that the debt imposed by the fourth precept, as regards the sanctification of the seventh day, was a debt essentially moral and of natural and inviolable rectitude." The many things which he then heaps up there tend to prove that pagans were not bound by this precept — which we readily concede to him, in that part which regards the determination of a certain day to be spent in divine worship, or, as the Theologians speak, that which in the observance of a feast is legal and ceremonial: for it is certain that by the law of nature all men whatsoever owe worship to God their author. But we deny that from those words it follows that that smith, in so far as he was a pagan, was bound by the law of the church, of which he was not yet a subject through baptism. With us these and similar consequences do not hold: "Dubourdieu the Anglo-Savoyard minister is learned; therefore in so far as he is a minister he is learned"; because, as the philosophers say, from a term not reduplicated in affirmative propositions to the same term reduplicated the argument is not valid. For the same reason it does not follow: "The pagan smith is punished because he does not do that to which he is bound; therefore the smith is punished because he omits that to which, in so far as he is a pagan, he is bound" — which is Dubourdieu's reasoning.

[133] such things were set forth And so the smith is understood to have been chastised because, enticed by so many examples of others, he alone had not yet embraced the true faith, had not received baptism, and thus was not now present with the Christians in the church; perhaps also because by his absence, or by working on sacred days, he was a scandal to others. Whatever it be, histories are filled with similar examples; and a master is not ineptly said to chastise his servant because he is not in Gaul, for instance, because he did not previously take pains, as he was bound by his master's command, to get there. The minister also censures the holy Martyrs and charges them with cruelty, because they beat a man who did not deserve it, such as he supposes that smith to have been from the sophism above. But that man, living among Christians, was doubtless not in invincible ignorance; he was therefore in fault, which God willed to chastise through the holy Martyrs, in order to move him mercifully and effectually, by temporal punishments prodigiously inflicted, to embrace the true faith: in which there is nothing more unusual than in the history of St. Paul, who, hastening to Damascus, struck with blindness and terrified from heaven, was formed out of a Saul into a vessel of election.

[134] And from these things the remaining learning heaped up here by Dubourdieu is easily exploded: which clash with sound Theology, for what the writer of the Acts suggests, that the Saints took it ill that a pagan workman had been hired to build their basilica, ought to be taken in no other sense than what we have already said; namely, that they might lead to the faith a heathen man, and one certainly so far unworthy to labor at a holy work: all of which is unworthy neither of the holy Martyrs nor of St. Eucherius as author. In the following chapter, the eleventh of his Dissertation, Dubourdieu again plays the theologian, but still more remarkably than above. He contends that the ardor of martyrdom with which the Saints burned is rather a kind of frenzy, carried away by which they did not flee, did not defend their life by taking up arms, but offered their throats to the executioners like sheep. This magnanimity, I say, which the Acts relate, this ardor for shedding blood for Christ, are, in the minister's judgment, diametrically opposed to the principles of the Christian religion and to the doctrine of Christ.

[135] "If the author of these Acts," he says at page 98, and are alike unworthy "believed that the Saints would have offended God by attempting to withdraw themselves by flight from the emperor's commands and cruelty, nothing further is needed for us to conclude that St. Eucherius is not the author of that Passion." Let it be granted gratuitously that Eucherius could not have thought so: certainly nowhere does the author of the praised Passion hint by even a word that he judged any such thing. He praises indeed that the Martyrs, steadfast in their confession, awaited death undaunted: but can it be that men may now be praised only for those things which cannot be omitted without sin, or whose contraries cannot be done without offending God? Some such principle the minister must have held, for any appearance of such a doubt to arise from the praises with which the writer follows the Christian magnanimity of the Saints; for nowhere else does a single word occur from which one might even suspect that the author held the opinion which the minister rubs off upon him. And yet the minister, accustomed to paralogisms and used to throwing dust craftily in his readers' eyes, needed that doubt here in order to seem at least to have said something, and to fill some pages with matters known to anyone who has greeted Theology even from the threshold, and upon which accordingly it is not pleasing to linger.

[136] "Ignatiuses and Albinas," he says, "must be the examples of Christian fortitude to Christians, not Catos and Lucretias": we confess it. We know that St. Cyprian and other ancient Fathers exhorted Christians very greatly not to offer themselves spontaneously to tyrants to be tortured and butchered; we know that SS. Paul, Cyprian, and Athanasius fled the furies of persecutors and their pressing threats, according to what Christ taught in Matthew 10, verse 23: "But when they persecute you in this city, flee into another"; we know finally that our Redeemer himself even prodigiously turned aside the wraths of the Jews: but we deny that our holy Martyrs offended against any of these things. Our Savior fled, for the hour fixed by the Father and the power of darkness had not yet come. Christ's counsel expressed in Matthew's words is directed chiefly to the Apostles, by whose mouth the Gospel was to be disseminated through the whole world, and to whom accordingly life was to be held of the highest value. The same counsel some Saints most prudently followed, of whose labor the Church had the greatest need, and to whom accordingly more loss would have accrued from death than glory from a martyrdom most bravely endured.

[137] to the holy Martyrs and to St. Eucherius. But nothing of the kind persuaded the Theban Martyrs to preserve their life more zealously. The Fathers were distrustful of the headlong ardor of some Catholics, lest it should be greater than their strength, and thus, when it subsided amid the torments, they should succumb. This same most present peril makes it held as unlawful among all the Theologians I know, without a particular impulse of the Holy Spirit, to thrust oneself spontaneously upon torments and to rush of one's own accord into the most bitter deaths. It is also an altogether different thing not to turn aside a death threatened by tyrants, and to summon it of one's own accord. The former, not the latter, can fall upon the Saints of Agaunum: for they are not read to have offered themselves of their own accord to Maximian, but, refusing — as innocent men they assuredly could not do it — to drag Christians to punishment, they professed themselves Christians and alleged the reason why they would not obey the emperor's command. Held as Christians, and perceiving imminent death and Maximian's wrath raging against their Companions, they did not indeed flee; but thereby they showed not their frenzy, but the magnanimity and glorious ardor of martyrdom.

[138] His stupid sophisms are exploded, Dubourdieu, in attacking the magnanimity of the Thebans, would have Ignatius be for us the exemplar of a Christian hero: but he was so far from turning aside imminent death in any way whatever that he addresses the Christians in these words: "I beseech you, do not show me an untimely benevolence. Suffer me to be the food of beasts, through which it is possible to attain God… Would that I might enjoy the beasts prepared for me, which I both desire to find ready for me, and which I will coax to devour me quickly; not as, being afraid, they did not touch certain others. But if, resisting, they shall be unwilling, I will compel them by force." Behold Ignatius, the exemplar of Christian fortitude: he beseeches the Christians not to pray to God for his deliverance,

or to intercede with the emperor and the judges; he asserts that he will coax the beasts, not that they should spare him, but that he will goad them to fury: and, by Dubourdieu's determination, our holy Martyrs, in order to follow his example, ought not to have awaited calmly and magnanimously the death threatened against them, but to have consulted their own safety by flight.

[139] [by which he contends that the Saints ought to have consulted their own safety by flight] Who would not again laugh at the minister, forgetful of himself and entangled in his own sophisms, when, to prove what he intends, he brings forward examples which persuade of the altogether contrary? Let us leave him here again no chink for escape. Let us grant that nearly all the Martyrs there ever were, who did not avoid the torments and death which they could have avoided, were deceived by some error; let us grant that the Theban Legion, if it could, ought to have fled: it remains for Dubourdieu to show that they could have slipped from Maximian's hands. The very narrow valley, girt on every side by steep mountains or by the waters of the Rhone, which the Martyrs occupied at Agaunum, shut off rather than opened every way of escape. Finally, let us take up the matter from the Acts themselves; there Maurice "kindled them, exhorting and admonishing each one to faith, setting before them the examples also of fellow-soldiers who were Martyrs, and persuading them that all must die for the oath of Christ, for the divine laws, if necessity should so bear."

[140] or to have repelled force by force. There the holy Martyrs address Maximian in these words: "And now not even this last necessity of life has forced us into rebellion; not even that despair which is the strongest thing in perils has armed us against you, emperor." From which no one will readily suspect that they could conveniently have fled, since they profess that they are in the last necessity of life and that, when necessity should bear it, they would die. But it would have befitted most valiant Men to take up arms, to rush upon the tyrant's army, and, if they could not overcome the executioners, to sell their life dearly, overwhelmed by numbers, by the slaughter of many, and thus to die not unavenged. Let this be the minister's doctrine; Christ's is another, according to which the Theban Martyrs reply to the emperor: "Behold, we hold arms, and we do not resist: because we much prefer to die rather than to kill, and we choose rather to perish innocent than to live guilty."

[141] For the rest, I do not know what Christian heroine Albina — rather than Lucretia, who is the heroine celebrated by the pagans — he proposes at page 99 as one to be followed by the Martyrs. Two Albinas have so far occurred in our Work, both Martyrs, of whom one is venerated as having suffered at Lyons on the second of June, the other is numbered on the seventeenth of February among 30 Martyrs of an uncertain place, and of her we have found Acts nowhere. Of the Albina of Lyons there are likewise no particular deeds. Of another Albina, martyr of Cæsarea, of whose relics Gaeta boasts, Baronius makes mention at the sixteenth day of December in the Roman Martyrology, and Ferrari in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, where you will find a summary of the Acts which we have more fully. In these the fortitude and constancy of a twelve-year-old girl are to be admired, with which she answers Decius and despises his blandishments and threats. If he wishes her to be an exemplar for Victor — by whom, as the minister falsely says, the soldiers feasting and exulting over the spoils were assailed with reproaches and revilings — as Ignatius for the other holy Martyrs, I do not oppose it, for in him too I shall equally admire Christian magnanimity and the ardor of martyrdom.

§ X. Other sophisms of the minister forged against the Eucherian Passion are dissolved.

[ ] It is not alien to probability Among the things which do not seem probable to Dubourdieu, and which accordingly betray to him an inept fabulist, there is also this: "These (our holy Martyrs) had come, summoned to Maximian's aid from the parts of the East." He certainly contends in chapter 12 of his Dissertation that it is not probable that a Legion was summoned from the East to quell disturbances which had arisen in the Gauls. It will be useful to have observed that in Chifflet's Acts no word at all is anywhere said about disturbances of the Gauls. The minister has fetched this from Surius's interpolated Passion, from which he here craftily attacks our genuine Acts, as commonly elsewhere, and thus deludes his readers. Let us hear the rest. "We do not deny," he says at page 107, "that there were Theban legions in the East. The book On the Dignities of the Empire mentions four Theban legions." Rightly so far: for they are thus enumerated by Pancirolo on the Notitia of the Eastern empire, chapter 46, page 33 in my copy: "Under the disposition of the illustrious Master of the soldiers throughout the East, among the nine comitatenses Legions — so called because they were accustomed to accompany the emperors on expeditions: the Second Flavia Constantia of the Thebans; the Second Felix Valentis of the Thebans."

[143] Then at page 36: "Under the disposition of the illustrious Master of the soldiers throughout the Thraces, among the twenty-one comitatenses Legions: the First Maximiana of the Thebans; the Third Diocletiana of the Thebans." Pancirolo in his Commentary writes about the Second Flavia Constantia of the Thebans: that the Theban Legion, "This succeeded the Second of the Christian Thebans, which was crowned with martyrdom at Trier by Rictiovarus, Maximian's prefect"; but about the Second Felix Valentis of the Thebans: "This succeeded another, which itself also was butchered for Christ by Maximian in the subalpine parts of Italy among the Albingauni." Pancirolo therefore believed that the two first Theban legions, namely the Maximiana and the Diocletiana, were put to death for the faith of Christ. But Dubourdieu judges not undeservedly that he must be corrected, since he made an entire legion out of the cohort mentioned in the Acts of SS. Thyrsus and Boniface, which we shall examine afterwards. Another slip of Pancirolo's could have been noticed here by a critic with eyes and less precipitate. He himself testifies in his Preface that the Notitia of the Dignities of the Empire was written toward the end of the principate of Theodosius the younger and after the times of Arcadius and Honorius — that is, that it enumerates the dignities and forces of the Roman empire after the year 425, not as they had been before under the preceding emperors, but as they were at the time when he was writing.

[144] There survived therefore after the year 425 the Maximiana and Diocletiana Legions of the Thebans, whose particular title we do not know, and thus they had not two centuries before been so destroyed that the Constantiana and the Felix Valentis were substituted for them. If one had wished to conjecture, the more probable suspicion was that one or the other, named from Diocletian or from Maximian, was substituted in the place of ours which was crowned with martyrdom, and whose particular military title we do not know. By Pancirolo's error thus corrected, the single seemingly specious and futile argument produced here by our hypercritic in proof of his assertion is utterly overthrown. "The exemplars of Surius and Chifflet," he says at page 108, "agree that Maximian summoned the Legion from the East, so that in the sense of the Pseudo-Eucherius it can be neither the First Maximiana nor the Third Diocletiana of the Thebans, since these were stationed in Thrace" — in the time of Theodosius the younger, that is, nearly two centuries after the beginnings of Maximian. Whence his reasoning is equivalent to this: the Legions which are called the Maximiana and Diocletiana of the Thebans were in Thrace about the year of Christ 430; therefore two hundred years earlier they could not have been summoned from the East — a consequence which assuredly no one whose brain is sound will admit.

[145] was summoned from the East, But if Dubourdieu should urge that in the Notitia of the empire not only its state under Theodosius is described, but also that which was usual, according to the order of dignities and the number and stations of the forces, under the preceding emperors, I shall appeal to Pancirolo, who in his Preface so establishes the contrary that he notes that of the provinces snatched from the Roman empire by the barbarians about the times of Theodosius no mention is made in the Notitia. And yet, if I should even freely grant the minister that in Maximian's time those two Theban legions were under the disposition of the Master of the soldiers throughout the Thraces, he would wrongly deduce from that that they could not at that time have been summoned from the East: for they were among the Comitatenses, so called because they were accustomed to accompany the emperors. They could therefore, having accompanied Diocletian in the East, have been transmitted by him to Maximian to quell the disturbances that had arisen in Gaul.

[146] to be a support to Maximian. Nay, even if I should further admit that those Legions were sent as a support to Maximian from Thrace itself, I shall have conceded nothing contrary to the words of Eucherius, nor to those of the interpolator of Surius himself. The latter writes that our Theban Legion came to Maximian's army out of Eastern soldiers, the former that it came from the parts of the East. Soldiers serving in Thrace, and subject to the master of that province, belonged to the empire of the East, as did Thrace itself, though it was only contiguous to it. Rightly therefore are they called Eastern Soldiers — besides the fact that they were Thebans, and that Thebes without doubt looked to the empire of the East, so that from their homeland they could be called Eastern soldiers. Thrace moreover is Eastern to the Gauls, among whom St. Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, was writing: and thus he could say, in a manner most usual with writers, that forces summoned from thence had come from the parts of the East.

[147] Dubourdieu had perhaps perceived this; but in a desperate cause he had to cavil: is refuted. and so, reporting the words of both writers unfaithfully, he crudely substitutes for them "From the East," so that, the particles which bring in a milder sense being cut away, he might play more freely and impose upon less cautious readers. Further, from what I have inserted here and there in refuting the minister, it seems to me to become clear that our blessed Legion is neither the Maximiana nor the Diocletiana of the Thebans — unless, the same name of the legion being retained, other soldiers were afterwards substituted for ours who were crowned at Agaunum, and a whole new legion was enrolled; which, as it is altogether uncertain, so it makes nothing against the genuineness of our Passion. I have said nothing in particular about the fact that some, from finding our holy Legion called by St. Avitus in the Homily praised above "the Blessed Army," and by Gregory of Tours and Fortunatus "the Blessed Legion," have believed that the surname "Felix" was proper to it, and that ours was the Second Felix Valentis of the Thebans: for this opinion is sufficiently refuted by the fact that the emperor Valens, from whom it obtained its title, was later than the holy Theban Martyrs by not a few years.

[148] From the occasion arising out of the reckoning of the Legions and Maximian's expedition against the Bagaudae, Another difficulty is refuted, Dubourdieu raises another difficulty at page 110. Having set forth the necessity and difficulty of that war, "It is by no means probable," he says, that Maximian — hastening with his army into the Gauls for that expedition of such great moment — "would of his own good pleasure have deprived himself of a Legion which he had summoned from the farthest bounds of the empire." I am weary of continually recalling the man to what he undertook to prove, and from which he continually slips away. Our question concerns the Passion inscribed with the name of St. Eucherius and published by Chifflet; there is nothing there about a holy Legion summoned from the farthest bounds of the empire to crush the Bagaudae. Nothing therefore is drawn from these circumstances against its genuineness. Whether the Theban Heroes suffered martyrdom about that time when Maximian was setting out to make war in the Gauls we shall discuss in the following §: let us meanwhile go on hearing the hypercritic.

[149] "Let it be believed," he says, "so far as it can be, that Maximian was addicted to the frenzy of the worship of false gods, against the genuineness of the Eucherian Passion. an implacable enemy and persecutor of Jesus Christ and of his disciples: but without proofs of the utmost evidence he cannot be depicted as so mad, so bad a politician, as to have ordered one of the best legions to be destroyed by wholesale slaughter, and that, so to speak, in the sight of the enemy, and when he was already entering upon a war whose success was to prove to the whole world the rightness of the choice made by Diocletian."

These things again, as I have already noted above, attack Surius's Acts, where the Bagaudae and the war undertaken against them are treated — not ours, where about all these matters there is a most profound silence. Yet I here accept the condition offered by Dubourdieu, so that I may not afterwards be forced to return to this point. I represent Maximian to myself as Lactantius asserts him to have been: "in all things most like Diocletian, except that he had more spirit than he — not for doing good, but for doing ill"; such as Eutropius presents him to me in book 9 of the Summary of Roman History: "Openly savage and of an uncivil disposition, signifying his harshness even by the grimness of his countenance; indulgent to his own nature, compliant with Diocletian in all the sterner counsels." Finally, I depict Maximian to myself such as Aurelius Victor in the Epitome, page 640, asserts him to have been: "Savage by nature, burning with lust, stupid in counsel."

[150] the genuineness To wish to bind by the rules of politics a man stupid in counsel is, I know not, perhaps to prove oneself stupid. There could have been very many reasons which, even amid these circumstances of war, could have driven Maximian to exercise the ferocity to which he was of his own nature greatly inclined. A thousand times has superstition kindled the furies of pagan emperors — superstition, which prevailed most of all when great affairs were at hand, and answers were sought from the oracles, auspices from the entrails of victims, and the ravings of dreams were peddled as undoubted pledges of future events. No one, I think, has warned Dubourdieu that nothing of the kind was set in motion by the sacrificing priests, who were intent upon every occasion of harming Christians. They could lie that an unlucky outcome of the war was imminent, that everything portended disaster, that the gods were angry because there were men in the army who despised their divinities, and things like these, which superstition and hatred against Christians have suggested a hundred times, and which the cruelty of emperors has a hundred times heard and believed, whence a thousand deaths have followed.

[151] raised by Dubourdieu. We have Mamertinus, above all things, praising Herculius's superstition under the name of piety in the Genethliacus, page 102. Let Maximian therefore have felt that the war he was entering upon was of the highest moment and of no less difficulty and danger; the more he believed that his reputation and fortunes and the safety of the Roman empire depended upon that expedition, the more could the enemies of the Christian name, exasperated by Diocletian's leniency, calumniate and inflame Maximian's fury, suggesting that the idols demanded, for the happy success of the expedition, sacrifices from the whole army, and oaths for the removal from the midst of the Christians whom they had either heard or suspected to be very many among the enemies whom they were setting out to subdue. As neither of these was lawful for the Theban Soldiers by reason of the Christian religion which they professed, so either could have furnished the occasion of their glorious contest. In vain therefore does the minister here argue from a lack of probability.

§ XI. Dubourdieu's assertion is blunted, that the martyrdom of the Theban Legion cannot be reconciled with the history and the years of Maximian.

[ ] The minister's digressions, who This fifteenth chapter of his Dissertation the minister stuffs more than all the rest with inept digressions. Soon he reviews the three journeys into the Gauls undertaken by Maximian, as enumerated by Lactantius. "On the first," he says, "he joined his daughter Fausta in marriage to Constantine, and created him Augustus. The second he was compelled to undertake as he fled the fury of the soldiers, indignant that he had attempted to strip of his empire his own son Maxentius, from whom he had received back the purple he had earlier laid down. On the third, finally, he came into the Gauls, returning from Pannonia, where he had in vain urged Diocletian to resume the empire. At that time Constantine, having learned that he was plotting against his life, judged that the crime must be forestalled, and ordered him to be strangled. But the martyrdom of the Theban Legion can be reconciled with none of these journeys, since all were later than the year of Christ 306, and all writers agree that from that time the persecution ceased throughout the West."

[153] No Catholic who holds as genuine the Passion of the Saints of Agaunum written by St. Eucherius had contended that the holy Martyrs were crowned after that year; therefore the minister here beats the air, and defends with much effort what is denied by no one. "But where then shall we find," he cries at page 133, "a fourth journey of Maximian into the Gauls, in which that emperor could have destroyed the Theban Legion? None remains except that which Eutropius and Aurelius Victor mention, made when he led his army against the Bagaudae." Let us stop Dubourdieu here a little, as he runs safely through matters called into doubt by no one, but either does not know or dissembles the things upon which he could have stumbled. Let us grant for the moment that our martyrdom can be reconciled with none of these four journeys into the Gauls; he will still be far from having demonstrated his assertion, which is negative and therefore rash and worth nothing, unless he shall have shown that Maximian could not at another time have been in the Gauls with an army — which he neither did nor could do.

[154] For it is beyond doubt that Herculius, after the Bagaudae had been subdued near Paris in the year of Christ 286, for various years are assigned, was in the Gauls for several years, crossed more than once into Italy, and returned thence again. In the year of Christ 287 he routed there the Franks, Burgundians, and other barbarians; and in the year 288, having crossed the Rhine, he led his army over into Germany and wore down the Alemanni with various disasters. What he did in the following year, and where he chiefly was, is almost unascertained. If at this time, as most conjecture, Mamertinus delivered his first panegyric before Maximian, it may be believed that he was at Trier in the month of April, when the ships which he had prepared against Carausius had already been conveyed down the rivers into the Ocean. That expedition of the Romans lacked effect, and Carausius went on wearing with impunity in Britain the purple which he had assumed, and retained the rule of the island for six or seven years more. The remaining deeds of Herculius are obscure, down to the journey into Italy which he undertook in 290 or 291, in the midst of a most savage winter, as Mamertinus testifies, to meet Diocletian, who had hastened thither from the East. The Augusti, who had met at Milan toward the end of the year 290 or the beginning of the following, spent some months there, and thence returned to their armies.

[155] How long they conferred there, and when they departed, by which he does not prove that Maximian no author clearly indicates; but since Mamertinus in the Genethliacus, page 107, ascribes it to the great felicity of the emperors that at the time when they had withdrawn into the interior of the empire, that is into Italy, and were passing their days at leisure, the barbarians did not dare to lift up their spirits or to stir anything, it is probable that the summer months were spent there. Further, Mamertinus in the Genethliacus, page 101, writes that Maximian, hastening from the Gauls into Italy, passed by the citadel of Monoecus Hercules, and in the same place at page 104 says that he made his journey through the Cottian Alps. The promontory of Monoecus Hercules, which is the modern Monaco on the shore of the Ligurian sea, between Intemelium (today they call it Ventimiglia) and Nice, is rather far from the Cottian Alps; nor is it probable that an emperor in haste, in the midst of a savage winter, made so great a circuit. And yet this does not concern us; he certainly does not declare by what road he returned into the Gauls. For one about to set out from Milan to Trier, the shortest road, and the one most usual with the Romans, lay through the Graian Alps and Valais, where Octodurum is. What then if the butchery at Agaunum had occurred on this very return of Maximian?

[156] was in Valais It would certainly be difficult for Dubourdieu to establish the contrary and to prove a discord with history: for Maximian, who had hastened into Italy with a few men, could on his return have led fresh forces over from Italy into the Gauls, and indeed could have obtained from Diocletian an augmentation of his army — perhaps against Carausius, whose peaceful possession of Britain that proud prince could not behold with a calm eye, exasperated by the memory of the unhappy war undertaken against him. We do not indeed read that he afterwards attempted anything against Carausius; but the plan conceived with Diocletian could afterwards have been hindered both by the slaughter of most valiant forces and by the excessive difficulty of the affair. There is one thing from which the minister may seem able to draw weapons against this conjecture. Mamertinus delivered the Genethliacus on Maximian's birthday, in the same year in which he had been at Milan with Diocletian in the midst of a savage winter. The birthday of Herculius is thought to have been the twenty-first of July; in that month therefore he had returned to Trier, and accordingly he could not, on his return into the Gauls, have crowned the Theban Legion with martyrdom at Agaunum in the month of September. But of the things which Tillemont asserts, some in his chronology are very uncertain. Mamertinus in that Panegyric twice asserts that he is speaking on the solemnity of a twin birthday — by which what is to be understood no one has hitherto taught clearly enough.

[157] with his forces I pass over the fact that it is no more certain that Herculius was born on that day rather than on any other day of the year, in order to show that Mamertinus delivered his second Oration not in the year of Christ 291, in which he was with Diocletian at Milan, but probably later. At its beginning the encomiast speaks thus: "I feel, however, that this duty of a dutiful voice is required of me … by a certain right of a most sacred obligation, that I should make up for the expectation of that discourse which I had prepared for your Quinquennalia by this proclamation of a twin birthday." And after some words: "I rejoice therefore (if it is right to confess it) that that desire of mine has been deferred; for I shall not throw away that Oration which I had composed, but I reserve it, that, when another five years have run out, I may deliver it at your Decennalia." From these it becomes clear that Mamertinus could not deliver the Oration which he had composed at the time at which he had determined and ought to have done. Maximian, the fifth year of his rule being completed, ought to have celebrated the Quinquennalia on the Kalends of April of the year of Christ 291. He was then without doubt still in Italy, and this, unless I am much mistaken, was the reason why Mamertinus could not deliver his speech in his presence. That Herculius was at Milan up to that time, namely the month of April of the year 291, is made almost certain to me by what I noted above at number 155, since it also seems more probable that the Augusti met at Milan not at the expiring of the year 290, but rather at the beginning of the following.

[158] in the month of September However it be, that whole panegyric assuredly hints not obscurely that it was delivered after the enemies of the Roman empire were wearing themselves out with mutual wars and disasters. Among the various matters which Mamertinus enumerates there comes the rebellion of Hormisdas the Persian against his brother Varanes; which, if it arose in the year 291, as Tillemont judges, Mamertinus could not have reported in the month of July, being separated from it by so great a space of lands. Finally, Mamertinus himself perhaps shakes Tillemont's opinion about the date of the said Panegyric, speaking thus in the conclusion: "Twin birthdays therefore bestowed upon you dutiful minds and imperial fortunes, and from thence flows the beginning of your sanctity and of all your successes, because at your birth good and friendly stars beheld you unto the help of the human race: which stars procure for you an everlasting concord, and an affection for your sons-in-law, and zeal for cherishing the commonwealth." These words, I say, may perhaps be bound to bring in a suspicion that this oration was not delivered before the year of Christ 292.

[159] For Aurelius Victor and Eutropius, to whom, as he ought, was acting and that he crowned the Theban Legion Tillemont subscribed, assert that Diocletian and Maximian, in order to bind more closely to themselves the newly created cæsars, brought it about that, their wives

being repudiated, they should take their daughters. And Valeria, Diocletian's daughter, was joined to Maximian Galerius, while Constantius took Theodora, Herculius's stepdaughter. It is certain, as Tillemont proves at length in Note XI on Diocletian, that Constantius and Galerius were not created cæsars before the Kalends of March 292. But now it may be doubted whether Mamertinus is not treating of these very sons-in-law of the Augusti when he says "an affection for your genera," contracted, that is, for generorum, "sons-in-law." Certainly whoever weighs the whole period more attentively will confess, unless I am mistaken, that if generum be taken for "stocks," the sense wavers; whereas, since the discourse is solely about concord among the princes for establishing the felicity of the empire, it is most perfect when we read "sons-in-law." And in that case that oration of Mamertinus will have to be postponed to after the creation of the cæsars — which, for the same reason I suppose, Bucher did in Belgium Romanum, book 7, chapter 6, number 3. And these things indeed, as is clear, are not certain, but are at least so probable that they not only assert nothing incredible, but can even found a not inept conjecture.

[160] For the rest, as it is clear from the history itself that Maximian was in the neighborhood of Octodurum, to have crowned it with martyrdom there. so likewise, even were history silent, nothing prevents his having been there at some earlier time free from his expeditions, and having raged against the Theban Legion. Thus far, therefore, Dubourdieu's assertion is false: let us go on to run through the years of Maximian, since we shall find yet another time suited to the fixing of our martyrdom. Constantius, being named cæsar, soon ordered a fleet to be prepared against Carausius; but he was killed in the year of Christ 293 by Allectus, who seized the tyranny in Britain in his place. Against him Constantius, having discharged various earlier wars in Belgica, at last in the year of Christ 296 led out the prepared fleet, and, landing in Britain, and Allectus having been slain in battle, recovered the island. At this time Maximian Herculius came again into the Gauls and was active about the Rhine, taking care that, in Constantius's absence, the barbarians should attempt nothing there, as Eumenius testifies in his Panegyric, page 214 in my copy. What Maximian did there in particular, and how long he stayed, history does not sufficiently explain. He seems in the following year to have subdued the Moors in Africa.

[161] This meanwhile is certain, that a time again lies open for placing the martyrdom of the Saints of Agaunum, that Maximian could not to which history by no means offers opposition. Eumenius says indeed, in the place cited, that Maximian protected the frontier of the Rhine "not by mounted nor by foot forces, but by the terror of his own presence"; but these words must be understood of a huge army; for Tillemont rightly notes that the emperor had some forces with him — and these things again cohere excellently if you suppose that the Theban Legion, with which he could have wished to hasten into the Gauls, was cut down at the very entry. It would be useless to review one by one the remaining years of Herculius down to the beginning of the great persecution; those assigned thus far ought to suffice for Dubourdieu, to which the passion of the Saints of Agaunum can be so bound that I do not believe anyone will show that the man who asserts it contradicts history. I return to the first expedition of Maximian against the Bagaudae, at whose beginning the martyrdom of the Thebans is commonly fixed, and which opinion the minister attacks with such arguments as, if they are worth anything, must nearly all be worth the same against the times which I have assigned.

[162] Futile are And so, after he has reviewed the various opinions of authors disagreeing about the year in which Maximian was created Augustus, and has fouled very many pages with other digressions, "First," he says at page 140, "no one who is not entirely a novice in Roman history will believe that Maximian, recently taken into the fellowship of the empire, ordered on his own authority an entire Legion to be destroyed. Although Diocletian had created him Augustus, they had an undivided right over the empire, over the provinces, over the armies, over the legions." Be it that these things are true, which assuredly are not certain. Whoever shall read the historians and other contemporary authors, Mamertinus and Eumenius, will find the highest concord asserted everywhere between those emperors, and a likeness of character; yet in such a way that timidity distinguished Diocletian, and audacity Maximian. Lactantius in the book On the Deaths of the Persecutors, chapter 7, writes: "He (Diocletian) overturned the world at once by avarice and by timidity." And in the following chapter he again accuses the same man of timidity, but Maximian of ferocity and cruelty. Although therefore the emperors both had an empire undivided between them, and Diocletian would perhaps not have consented to so great a ruin and disaster of the army, this assuredly does not establish that it was not perpetrated by Maximian.

[163] the arguments His stupidity, asserted by Eutropius, his superstition by Mamertinus, his cruelty by all writers, make it not to be wondered at that he dared to contrive some such thing even without consulting Diocletian, whom he had little reason to fear, and whose unjust mind toward the Christians he could perhaps also have clearly perceived. Whatever cruel counsels there were, Diocletian knew how to cover them in such a way that they should be ascribed to others and not to himself, as the praised Lactantius testifies in chapter 11. Let Maximian have noticed this, and let a man savage by nature have judged that he would do nothing ungrateful to his colleague, and nothing will be imagined so alien to Herculius's disposition — a man who could even judge, by the rules of a perverse politics, that he had less to fear from the sluggish anger of Diocletian, if he should perhaps disapprove of his deed, than from that Legion which held sacred rites in common with the enemies whom he was hastening to subdue. Indeed, however much I would not contend that all the Bagaudae had embraced the true faith, it is nevertheless probable that there were not a few Christians among them, just as it is altogether certain that the Gauls were already at that time illumined by the light of the holy faith; which things alone suffice for so perverse a suspicion to have been thrown into Maximian's mind by the priests of the idols, or to have arisen in him.

[164] by which he wishes it established This argument of the minister's, therefore, is not such as he had promised. Let us nevertheless hear him flattering himself at page 140. "We have shown," he says, "that the author of that fabrication" (the Passion of St. Maurice and Companions) "did not observe probability. Yet, since certain facts are certain, although they appear alien to probability, we subjoin something stronger than conjectures." For indeed, if we should grant to Dubourdieu that whatever is narrated about the martyrdom of the Thebans appears contrary to Maximian's character and to the circumstances of the time in which they are placed as having occurred, his reasoning would found only a conjecture, and that a sufficiently light one, unless he should show us that by emperors carried away by anger, fury, or some other perturbation of mind nothing unusual was ever done, that nothing was ever offended against the rules of politics — nay, that it could not even be offended against. We have shown, on the contrary, that what is asserted is alien neither to Herculius's disposition nor to the circumstances of the time: nothing therefore remains which the minister can demand. At page 143 he forges another argument, which, as he has just now announced, is stronger than conjectures. I abridge his words. Mamertinus in the Genethliacus of Maximian says toward the end: "But since you have raised up light for the nations, from thenceforth wholesome breezes flow continually."

[165] Eusebius agrees, writing in book 8, chapter 13: "Therefore, before war was declared upon us, that the martyrdom so long as the emperors were of a favorable and kindly mind toward us, who will suffice to set out with how great an abundance of all good things, and with how great a felicity, the Roman empire abounded?" To the same sense he speaks thus in chapter 1 of the cited book: "What and how great a glory, together with liberty, the teaching of true piety toward the supreme God, first announced to men by Christ, obtained among all Greeks and barbarians alike before the persecution stirred up in our memory, we certainly cannot set forth as it deserves. It may serve as an argument, the kindness of the emperors toward our people, to whom they even committed provinces to be governed, freeing them from all fear of sacrificing, on account of the singular benevolence with which they were affected toward our religion. What need is there to speak of those who were engaged in the palaces of the emperors? What of the emperors themselves, who gave to their own households and to their wives, children, and servants the power of freely carrying out, both by word and by deed, in their very presence, what belonged to their religion; permitting them to glory in this liberty of their faith and in a manner to display themselves, and embracing them before all their other ministers with a certain particular love?"

[166] And after a few words: "Likewise you would have seen the highest honor, reverence, and benevolence rendered to the individual prelates of the churches by all, both private men and rulers of provinces. of the Saints of Agaunum But now who could adequately describe the innumerable crowd of men daily taking refuge in the faith of Christ, who the number of churches in each city, who the illustrious concourses of peoples in the sacred buildings?" These things and others of the kind Eusebius has in the same place; and having recited them in French, Dubourdieu asks: "Who would believe that the Theban Legion was destroyed at the time which Mamertinus and Eusebius describe to us? Can that be called a time of peace, benevolence, and felicity, in which six thousand six hundred men were most cruelly put to death? Maximian is said to have condemned them to death because they refused to sacrifice to the idols, and Eusebius has just now taught us that Maximian and Diocletian gave provinces to be governed by Christians in such a way that they even exempted them from the necessity of sacrifices."

[167] I answer: whoever shall read Mamertinus and Eusebius more attentively cannot be bound will easily judge that the latter is treating of those parts of the East where he lived and of Diocletian alone, and that the former ought not to be heard here. Mamertinus, delivering a panegyric in Maximian's presence, is silent, after the manner of flatterers, about what even paganism itself could not praise in his prince; other things which turned to Maximian's disgrace he most mendaciously converts into contrary eulogies. I call to witness, among other things, his silence about the unhappy outcome of the expedition against Carausius, which he craftily covers; I call to witness these very things which he falsely says about the felicity of the empire under Maximian, contrary to the testimonies of all other writers. Let us hear Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors, chapter 8: "For although he held Italy, the very seat of the empire, and the most opulent provinces, whether Africa or Spain, lay beneath him, he was not so diligent in guarding wealth, of which he had an abundance at hand. And when there was need, there were not lacking most wealthy senators who, by suborned informations, were said to have aimed at the empire, so that the lights of the senate were continually dug out. His most bloody treasury overflowed with ill-gotten wealth."

[168] to the expedition against the Bagaudae. "Then lust in that pestilent man was directed not only to the corrupting of males, which is hateful and detestable, but even to the violation of the daughters of the leading men. For wherever he had made a journey, virgins torn from the sight of their parents were at once at hand. By these things he judged himself blessed, in these he thought the felicity of his rule to consist: that he should deny nothing to lust and to evil desire." Let there be added to these the testimonies of Victor about his unheard-of and most filthy lust and cruelty; and we shall seek in vain the great felicity of the empire asserted by Mamertinus. I know that not a few writers, because mention is made of Africa and Spain but none of the Gauls, suspect that Maximian is depicted here as raging after the empire had been divided among four; but others no fewer in number conjecture that "whether Africa or Spain" crept into the text from the margin; and certainly, with those words rejected, the sense is clearer and the phrasing purer. Yet whatever it be, since no one becomes utterly wicked all at once, the character here described

deservedly convicts Mamertinus of flattery; and even if he could not be convicted by certain reasons, the office of orator which he exercised in Maximian's presence deservedly renders him suspect.

[168] nor can it be placed As regards Eusebius, he too, if we believe other writers, exaggerates somewhat too liberally the felicity of the first times under Diocletian — unless perhaps he transferred to the whole empire what he had seen happen in Palestine and neighboring Egypt. Certainly he betrays in several places that the affairs of the West were little known to him, and he professes also in the same chapter 13 that he wishes to treat only of what had occurred in the East, and indeed in those provinces to which he was nearest. Finally, this momentary fury of Maximian's he could most easily have been ignorant of; and if, which seems less probable, he had heard of it, it could have seemed to him of little account compared with the quiet of all the rest of the world, and for that reason he perhaps refrained from reporting it. To the same point falls, and by nearly the same answer is refuted, the third difficulty raised by the minister. "Eusebius openly declares," he says: "Then the divine vengeance, with a light arm, as is its wont, while the state of the Church was still whole and the crowds of the faithful were assembling freely, began gradually and moderately to visit us, the persecution beginning first from those who were in military service" — where he treats of the beginning of the great persecution, which occurred in the year 301, and thus long after Maximian's expedition into the Gauls.

[170] before And that indeed is true; but he who asserts that then for the first time an edict was issued against Christian soldiers, according to which, unless they obeyed, they should all be discharged from military service, does not exclude some particular punishment of a few Soldiers, of which he could also easily have been ignorant. Certainly by what rules of dialectic the minister deduced this reasoning of his at page 150 — "Soldiers were the first to experience the general persecution; the Martyrs of Agaunum were serving in the army; therefore they did not suffer before the beginning of the great persecution" — I do not grasp; for by the same I shall establish that before the beginning of the fourth century no soldiers anywhere suffered for Christ, which, however blasphemous a hater of the Saints he is, I think he will not admit. For the rest, in this chapter of his Dissertation Dubourdieu, entangled again in his own paralogisms, vindicates Father Pierre-François Chifflet. His unjust suspicion about the Acts produced by Chifflet we exploded above. Here at page 131 and following he acknowledges that the time most suited for placing the martyrdom of our Saints is Maximian's expedition against the Bagaudae; he notes that that date is expressed in Surius's interpolated Acts, but is by no means found in Father Chifflet's Jura manuscript.

[171] He therefore judges that Chifflet would have applauded himself over his discovery only stupidly, the beginning of the great persecution. had not the mention of King Sigismund occurred in Surius's Acts; and thus at the same time he proves Chifflet's good faith in publishing such Acts as he had found, and in not deleting, without doubt, what could have commended his Acts, if he had corrected Surius's Acts, as the minister ridiculously suspects. In the same chapter, at page 137, he wonders that Baronius, who used Surius's Acts where that date is expressed, bound the martyrdom of the Theban Legion to the year of Christ 297, that is, the twelfth year after Maximian had led out forces against Amandus and Ælianus. I should wonder at the wondering minister, had I not, in refuting him, become altogether persuaded that the things which he adduces and attacks he has either not read or has run over with a hasty eye. In Surius's Acts, besides the mention of the Bagaudae, which is set down as the date of the martyrdom, there occurs another which can scarcely — nay, not even scarcely — be reconciled with it.

[172] Near the beginning we read: "These soldiers therefore had received the rite of the Christian religion by Eastern tradition from the bishop of the city of Jerusalem, His other errors and set the sacred faith before valor and all arms. For, coming to the city of Rome on their journey, they confirmed the same faith of Christianity which they had received, before the blessed Marcellinus, Pontiff of the aforesaid Roman city." Marcellinus was created Pontiff in the year of Christ 296; therefore the holy Martyrs did not come to Rome while he was sitting, if they suffered eleven years before; and thus these two dates conflict. Our Papebroch, in the Propylæum of May, at the Acts of St. Caius the Pope, predecessor of St. Marcellinus, attempts to combine them, and suspects that the title of Pontiff is attributed to Marcellinus by anticipation in Surius's Acts, and that our Martyrs were indeed confirmed in the faith by him, but by order of the Pontiff St. Caius, who sat twelve years — Marcellinus at that time being still only a presbyter of the Roman Church in some Title of the City. Thus both dates are in some fashion saved. Baronius was unwilling to do any violence to the words adduced from Surius's Passion; and so, since he judged that one or the other date had to be rejected, he retained that which comes from Marcellinus's Pontificate, to which accordingly he bound the passion of the Martyrs of Agaunum. The minister would not have wondered so much if he had known Pontifical chronology as well as he knew the ridiculous fable of Pope Joan.

[173] In chapter 16 of his Dissertation he strives to show that the Bagaudae were not Christians, and digressions. where he so beats the air that, after what I have briefly touched upon above, I judge it superfluous to refute his hypercriticism at greater length. That the Catholic faith was widely spread through the Gauls at the end of the third century, no one can deny except one who gives credit to no documents. That there were some Christians among the Bagaudae, a simple sort of country people, is altogether probable. The Christian faith teaches us to bear vexations patiently, and forbids rebellion. But not all men always follow so difficult a doctrine, nor do all become saints at the very moment in which they receive the holy faith. Christian Bagaudae could therefore have been in error. And yet from Salvian we learn that they did not take up arms because they were harassed for the cause of the Christian faith, but because they were being devoured by judges and prefects with "proscriptions, robberies, exactions, and tributary levies," as Salvian says, and their complaints were not heard, but the evils grew heavier day by day — things which assuredly could easily have furnished a pretext for their rebellion. Yet whatever it may be, there could have been Christians among them; and if there were not, Maximian could have suspected it; and thus the minister's whole criticism here is blown away.

§ XII. The criticism of Tillemont and Baillet concerning the Eucherian Acts is examined, and it is inquired whether the martyrdom of the Saints of Agaunum cannot be bound to the great persecution. Dubourdieu's errors about these matters.

[ ] The principal Passion Tillemont, and Baillet, who is accustomed to follow him closely, seem to waver about the Acts of our Saints which Chifflet and afterwards Ruinart published, or at least are not everywhere consistent with themselves. They admit that they were written by St. Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, about the middle of the fifth century — nay, they hold this as beyond doubt. Hence they so acknowledge the highest authority of this Passion that nevertheless elsewhere they do not attribute enough to it, especially concerning the date of the martyrdom. For each holds that the Theban Martyrs suffered in the first year in which Maximian Herculius wore the purple, and set out to quell the tumults stirred up in the Gauls by the Bagaudae — which nevertheless does not seem able to be reconciled with St. Eucherius's words. They drew the foundation of their opinion from Surius's interpolated Passion, whose criticism we shall discuss in the following §. Since they hold as genuine whatever else Eucherius narrates, and since the holy writer must be judged to have learned the time of the martyrdom from the same sources from which he understood the martyrdom with its circumstances, and since they could no more have been ignorant of this than of the rest, I believe that the same credit is to be given to St. Eucherius here as we do not deny him elsewhere, unless something absolutely persuades us to abandon him — which I now inquire.

[175] It will be useful, however, to have given warning beforehand, as I shall show below at length, which is attributed to St. Eucherius openly persuades that Surius's Acts are of no weight with me at least on this point, because it is so read as added by the interpolator to the Eucherian Acts that it seems clearly enough to be at variance with St. Eucherius's assertions. He certainly has nowhere a single word which hints that the passion of the holy Martyrs of Agaunum is to be referred to Maximian's first expedition into the Gauls. The Acts published by Chifflet do indeed have, "These (our holy Martyrs) had come, summoned to Maximian's aid from the parts of the East"; but nowhere is it asserted that they had arrived then for the first time, when they suffered; nowhere that they were sent as an aid to Herculius as he moved against the Bagaudae; nowhere finally — what nevertheless Dubourdieu reports with his usual good faith at page 131 — that they were slain at that time. St. Eucherius writes: "Maximian was not far off, for he was staying near Octodurum, wearied with the journey"; but neither from this nor from what follows is it made out that the emperor had come thither from Italy rather than from the Gauls at the time when he crowned the Theban Legion with martyrdom; so that for one who thus far adheres to Chifflet's Acts alone, the date of the martyrdom may be any time whatever at which Maximian could have been among the Veragri with his forces.

[176] Elsewhere the holy writer assigns the date more distinctly; that the martyrdom of the Saints is to be bound to the great persecution. let us see whether it cannot be admitted. St. Eucherius therefore begins the Passion thus: "Under Maximian, who held the empire of the Roman commonwealth with Diocletian as colleague, peoples of Martyrs were torn to pieces or put to death throughout nearly all the provinces. For that same Maximian, as he raged beset by avarice, lust, cruelty, and the other vices, so also, given over to the rites of the pagans and profane toward the God of heaven, had armed his impiety to extinguish the name of Christianity. If any then dared to profess the worship of the true God, troops of soldiers being scattered everywhere, they were dragged either to punishments or to death; and, as though a furlough had been granted to the barbarian nations, he had turned his arms entirely against religion. There was at that same time in the army a Legion of soldiers who were called Thebans." I forbear to excerpt not a few other passages from the praised Acts, which, if they do not lead more manifestly to the same conclusion, are certainly most like those already reported; and I call upon the learned reader who has not seen Surius's Acts, or any other man free of the prejudices which he has drawn from them, and I ask whether he does not perceive that the writer of this Passion is treating of some universal and atrocious persecution, since soldiers were being employed to search out Christians on every side and drag them to punishment. I am mistaken if any such reader will dare to deny it: the words appear to me all too clear.

[177] Nor does Tillemont even deny this, but on the contrary openly confesses The same is urged that the martyrdom of the Saints of Agaunum is referred by Eucherius to the great tenth persecution. But he contends that in this he erred, as did some other writers who likewise dragged into this period things which had happened earlier under Maximian. But I do not know whether this censure of his is not somewhat too unjust. For if we look more deeply into his opinion, and inquire why he contends that the slaughter of the Thebans must necessarily be referred to the expedition against the Bagaudae, we shall find that nearly his only foundation is that it is asserted in Surius's Acts. Certainly the probabilities which he scrapes together elsewhere for his opinion do not seem so great as wholly to remove the difficulties that occur, as will appear in the course of the discussion. Meanwhile no one will deny that wrongly

the authority of an unknown man, writing (as Tillemont judges) in the seventh century and asserting that the Theban Martyrs suffered when Maximian was preparing war against the Bagaudae, is set before the authority of St. Eucherius, a most weighty author, who lived in the middle of the fifth century — unless the testimonies of others from elsewhere convict him of error. Before I discuss those which I find hitherto brought forward, let us see what favors St. Eucherius's assertion not a little.

[178] In what place the Acts of St. Victor of Marseilles stand with me, from the Acts of St. Victor, martyr of Marseilles. I indicated in §2 of this Commentary at number 30 and following. There we read thus: "For Maximian, having been made all too terrible to very many of our people on account of the blood of the Saints which he had shed more cruelly than others throughout the whole world, and most cruelly of all throughout all the Gauls, and especially on account of that most famous slaughter of the Thebans at Agaunum, had come to Marseilles … and declares war with all his rage, and orders the worshipers of Christ, unless they sacrifice to the idols, to perish by chosen deaths." And these things are reported in nearly the same words in the various Passions of that holy Martyr which I have seen; in which their author speaks of a general persecution no less obscurely than Eucherius. Further, the martyrdom of St. Victor and the slaughter of our Saints occurred at about the same time, since in his Acts the butchery of the Thebans at Agaunum is narrated among the recent and most famous crimes of Maximian. Ruinart binds the contest of the Thebans to the year 286, and, having confessed that it can be deferred to later years, assigns to the martyrdom of St. Victor of Marseilles the years 290 or 303, because at that time, he says, Maximian was staying at Marseilles. I, on account of the writer's plain words, believe that both martyrdoms are to be connected within the closest possible interval of time, and therefore within the period of a single full year.

[179] Wrongly are authors so weighty That St. Victor suffered in the month of July is urged by the constant memory of him inscribed in that month in the Ecclesiastical Calendars. For the same reason we suspect, not undeservedly, that the Saints of Agaunum were crowned on the twenty-second of September. Therefore the martyrdom of St. Victor is to be bound to the month of July of the year following the September in which the Thebans suffered; and both are to be bound to the great tenth persecution, if we give credit to Eucherius and to the author of the Passion of St. Victor, whom Tillemont, Ecclesiastical Monuments, tome 4, page 549, asserts to be Cassian, or certainly some other weighty man of the same time or even earlier. The same Tillemont indeed, in Note 2 on the Martyrdom of St. Victor, page 757, accuses this writer too of the same error, observing thus at the very beginning: "The most learned men of the fifth century sometimes knew too little of the circumstances of matters which had occurred in preceding centuries, as we have observed of St. Eucherius in the History of St. Maurice." No one therefore ought to wonder if the date of St. Victor's martyrdom is confusedly marked, and in such a way as to make trouble; namely because, as he signifies a little later, those Acts suppose — nay, not obscurely assert — that the Passion of St. Maurice occurred at the time of the great persecution.

[180] accused of error by Tillemont, And thus two most weighty writers are accused of ignorance and error in matters from which they were distant by only one or two centuries, and in the thorough learning of which they testify that they had spent labor and diligence. Nor indeed are the reasons produced of such weight as to make this error certain to us. Certainly Tillemont, in Note 12 on the Acts of St. Maurice, tome 4 of the Monuments, page 698, where he examines our date expressly, adduces only two, and those altogether very slight. One of these is that the tumults of the Bagaudae were quelled before the year 288, so that nothing further is found recorded about them under Diocletian, and thus Maximian did not move against them after the year 303, that is, the beginning of the great persecution. And these things are plainly certain; but Tillemont in reasoning thus betrays the prejudices preconceived from Surius's Passion, for he learned from no other source, as I have already noted more than once, that the Thebans were crowned with martyrdom during the expedition against the Bagaudae, than from those interpolated Acts; and since these are of no authority in this matter, they can establish nothing against Eucherius's plain words.

[181] who by no means proves that error, The other reason he alleges in the same place is this. "Besides," he says, "it is not proved — nay, it is by no means probable — that Maximian had forces to lead into the Gauls in the year 303 or 304." It is true that no one perhaps has undertaken to prove what by no means ought to be proved: for St. Eucherius does not assert, nor is it necessary to believe from any other source, that the contest of the holy Thebans occurred at the time when Maximian was leading an army into the Gauls for some military expedition. Nay, Eucherius's words are such that he seems to have had forces destined only for dragging Christians to death; and why this should be so alien to probability I have not so far sufficiently seen. Indeed these things, which alone Tillemont adduces in that place, do not suffice to make St. Eucherius's error certain to us. Stronger against Eucherius is the argument which he briefly hurls in Note 2 on St. Victor of Marseilles, in the place cited. "Maximian could," he says, "have been at Marseilles in the month of July of the year 303 or 304, at the time of the great persecution. But the strongest reasons would be needed to persuade us that this happened, since the Gauls were not of his jurisdiction."

[182] This argument Dubourdieu could have borrowed from Tillemont, nor does Dubourdieu: who, in order to prove that the martyrdom of the Saints of Agaunum cannot be fixed in the time of the great persecution, writes more or less thus in chapter 14 of his Dissertation, page 125: "Even if a time for Maximian to exercise his ferocity were found in the years of the great persecution, not all the difficulty would yet be removed, since the persecution perhaps did not extend as far as the region in which they place the arena of the Theban Soldiers. All agree that Valais and the neighborhood of Agaunum were ennobled by their martyrdom: but it must be inquired whether it did not belong to the Gauls and to Constantius's jurisdiction. Aurelius Victor decides the question, writing: 'The Gauls which are beyond the Alps were entrusted to Constantius.' For it strikes the eye of anyone inspecting a geographical map that Agaunum lies beyond the mountains from the Romans." He then strives to show at greater length that the Graian and Pennine Alps, which the Veragri inhabited, where Agaunum was, mostly belonged to the Gauls, once the partition of the provinces had been made by the Romans.

[183] Then he concludes: "Since therefore Valais, where Agaunum was, belonged to the Gauls at that time in which Constantius held their rule, for what they raise against it this observation suffices to demonstrate that the passion of the Theban Legion cannot be attached to the great persecution: for Bosquet, bishop of Montpellier, in Ecclesiastical History, book 4, chapter 11, and Dodwell, in his eleventh Dissertation on Cyprian, have proved that of the four emperors Constantius Chlorus alone never raged against the Christians." Thus he. That Constantius Chlorus had a very small part in that most atrocious persecution is urged, besides other things, by the clear testimony of Lactantius. He writes in On the Deaths of the Persecutors, chapter 15: "Letters also (of Diocletian) had gone to Maximian and Constantius, that they should do the same" (in persecuting the Christians). "And indeed the elder Maximian obeyed willingly throughout Italy, being a man not very clement; for Constantius, lest he should seem to dissent from the precepts of his elders, suffered the conventicles, that is, the walls, which could be restored, to be pulled down: but the true temple of God, which is in men, he preserved unharmed."

[184] Nor are his words on this matter in the following chapter less plain. are at least uncertain. For it can be doubted "The whole earth therefore was harassed," he says, "and, except for the Gauls, from the East to the West three most bitter beasts were raging." Which words, if you assert that Lactantius is exempt from all suspicion of flattery, plainly establish that the slaying of the holy Theban Martyrs was not perpetrated in provinces subject to Constantius; or, if it occurred there, that it must be ascribed by no means to Constantius but to Maximian Augustus. But whether our Martyrs could have been slain in Valais at the time of the great persecution unless one or the other follows, I now investigate. Narbonese Gaul, separated from Italy by the river Var, extended among the ancients to the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean sea on the South, on the West to the province of Novempopulana, on the North as far as the Cévennes and the Jura mountains, or certainly as far as the Rhone before it has received the Saône, and to Lake Leman, on the testimony of Pliny, Dio, and others in Cellarius, Ancient Geography, tome 1, pages 103 and 140. It therefore comprehended the Viennese province, and in it Marseilles, and the Graian Alps, in which is Agaunum, the arena of the holy Thebans.

[185] Ammianus Marcellinus, who flourished in the middle of the fourth century, writes thus on this matter in book 15, chapter 11, toward the end: whether Valais "The Rhone … grazes the Viennese province on its left side, the Lyonnese on its right; and, having traversed winding spaces, it takes into its own name the Arar (which others call the Saône), flowing through Germania Prima: which place" (where the Saône is mingled with the Rhone at Lyons) "is the beginning of the Gauls." In the Peutinger Itinerary Lyons is likewise called the head of the Gauls, because to Romans traveling through the Narbonese province it is the first city of Gaul that they meet. From these things it is made out that all the region on this side of the Rhone, and therefore nearer to Italy, was originally included in the Narbonese province. In Pagi's Critica at the year of Christ 374, number 7 and following, in the subscriptions of the councils celebrated at Arles in the year 314 and at Aquileia in the year 381, the prelates of the old Narbonese province distinguish themselves from the bishops of the Gauls.

[186] in the partition of the empire In the first, after the bishops of Italy and of the Viennese province, which was a part of Narbonensis, various prelates of the Gauls are enumerated under the separate heading "Concerning the Gauls"; but in the second Theodore of Octodurum, Proculus of Marseilles, and others subscribe in order, while Constantius, bishop of Siscia, and Justus — who alone perhaps were present from the Gauls beyond the Rhone — are called Legates of the Gauls. It is clear therefore that even in the fourth century the Narbonese province was not seldom not reckoned among the Gauls, but rather with Italy, because indeed it had long since been a Roman colony, the first after Carthage, as Valois notes in the Notitia of the Gauls; wherefore it was excluded from the Gauls also by Julius Cæsar, by Agrippa in Pliny, and by Suetonius in his Julius. And from these things it can somehow seem doubtful whether Narbonese Gaul, in which are Agaunum and Marseilles, fell to Maximian or to Constantius in the partition of the empire. That Herculius reserved it to himself appears to me at least probable.

[187] fell to Constantius Chlorus, This opinion is supported rather than opposed by the writers of the third and fourth centuries who write that the Gauls fell to Constantius; for it is probable that they speak according to the common division of that time, which excludes the Narbonese province from the Gauls. Indeed Aurelius Victor, in the words cited above by Dubourdieu — that all "the Gauls which are beyond the Alps" were entrusted to Constantius — is not contrary to it: for I am much mistaken unless he designates for us here Alps other than those which bound Italy most nearly, when he calls them the Alps of Gaul. Certainly by this unusual name of the Alps Victor seems to signify either the Alps which are in Gaul, or at least those which are nearest to the Gauls. Among these without doubt are to be reckoned those Pennine

Alps which gird Valais on the North, and on the East divide Rhætia from Helvetia. Nay, even Mount Jura itself is sometimes reckoned among the Alps by the ancients, as Cluverius testifies; whence Ptolemy writes that the river Doubs, which draws its origin from Mount Jura, flows from the Alps; and thus Victor would leave to Maximian not only Valais, but Helvetia besides.

[188] or to Maximian Herculius. However it be, he does not so certainly exclude Valais from his rule; for let us even grant that Victor here calls them the Alps of Gaul lest anyone should believe that Pannonia and Illyricum, which lie beyond the Alps from the Romans, had also been entrusted to Constantius: even so the phrase is still ambiguous as to whether it includes Valais and the other territories enclosed by the Alps themselves within the Gauls, that is, within Constantius's rule, or rather excludes them. Certainly if Maximian retained Spain for himself, as some suppose from Lactantius's words in the book On the Deaths of the Persecutors, chapter 8, it is also most probable that he held Narbonese Gaul, so that a land route into Spain might lie open for his forces in any event. Then, as often as we see Maximian having left Italy, so often do we find him in Narbonese Gaul acting in the neighborhood of Marseilles — all of which seems to favor this conjecture of ours.

[189] Further, the praised Tillemont himself confesses, in his Notes on the Acts of St. Victor, Other difficulties in that opinion are not conclusive. that Maximian could have been at Marseilles in the months of July in the two years of the persecution before he laid aside the purple. Nor does anything stand in the way of his having been able to be in Valais in the month of September in the year 303; for that standing, he could have been at Rome about the end of the same year and at Milan at the beginning of 305, which are the only two of his journeys that we find expressed by authors. For the rest, I know that against the conjecture proposed thus far more than one difficulty can be framed, and above all from the Companions of our Saints, who are said to have been crowned in great numbers in Germany. But it will be possible to examine afterwards whether those holy Martyrs were of this Theban Legion, as tradition and common opinion assert; certainly I have not so far found this sufficiently proved. And yet, if we should assert it, the difficulty arising from it could also somehow be removed; for I do not believe that all the circumstances asserted in their Acts will be admitted, nor is it necessary to maintain that they were crowned with martyrdom at the same time as the rest of the Legion.

[190] Meanwhile I cannot here again pass over Dubourdieu's precipitancy, Dubourdieu's most inept sophisms or his bad faith. At page 126, about to prove that Valais obeyed Constantius, he says: "Pagi proves in his Critica, page 218 (of the first edition), that the Graian Alps did not belong to the five provinces which composed old Narbonensis; nay, that they were reckoned among the provinces of the Gauls at the time when they separated the Narbonese province to be joined to Italy." Pagi in the place cited, number 19, enumerates the authors who believed that the Five provinces, from the division made between the years 370 and 373, were the two Narbonensises, the Viennese, the Maritime Alps, and the Pennine Alps together with the adjoining Graian. He then attacks this opinion. "But," he says, "although it is certain that old Narbonensis once comprehended the five mentioned, and that this part was not held to be of the Gauls, nevertheless," etc. Here therefore Pagi confesses that the Graian Alps with the Pennine, although they did not belong to the so-called Five provinces, nevertheless belonged to old Narbonensis, which was not reckoned among the Gauls. Which things assuredly confound Dubourdieu; for this last point alone suffices for us here, since we care little whether, nearly a whole century later, when the division into Five provinces was made, the Graian and Pennine Alps were among them, provided we have it that they were once included in old Narbonensis and separated from the Gauls properly so called.

[191] It will be useful here to have observed further the singular manner of arguing of the minister, are exploded. Another conjecture, according to which who elicits contradictories from contradictories. Pagi asserts that the Graian Alps were in the Narbonese province and outside the Gauls; but the sophist deduces from this that they were in the Gauls and did not belong to Narbonensis in Maximian's times, because sixty years later the Graian Alps, a part of the undivided Narbonese province, were not received among the five parts into which that province was then cut, but were rejected elsewhere. To what straits and what an itch for cavilling do men not drive! For the rest, as what I have said thus far I have brought forward only by way of conjecture, let it be allowed to add here yet another conjecture, in which Narbonese Gaul remains subject to Constantius, and yet St. Eucherius's narrative is saved, while we attach the martyrdom of the holy Thebans to the great persecution by another route. Down to the year of Christ 305, in which Maximian laid down the empire and transferred it to Constantius, the latter was only a Cæsar; for he was not called Augustus so long as Herculius held the reins of empire with Diocletian. Maximian had adopted Constantius, and having named him cæsar had clothed him with the purple, and had given him his stepdaughter Theodora to wife. Constantius owed very much to Maximian on these accounts, and without doubt deferred very much to him, being a man neither unmindful of benefits nor an idle debtor. It ought not therefore to seem so very wonderful if Maximian perhaps contrived something against the Christians in provinces subject to Constantius.

[192] St. Eucherius's narrative is saved, even if it be supposed Besides, it is altogether most probable that the Augusti at that time had some jurisdiction over that part of the Roman empire subject to the cæsars. Tillemont himself, in his treatment of Diocletian, page 23, observes that the partition of the empire did not prevent the Augusti from frequently being active, and not idle, in the dominions of the Cæsars. An occasion for exercising some jurisdiction could have been furnished to Maximian by Diocletian's famous edict against the Christians, which Maximian gladly took up, and which was most negligently observed by Constantius. Its execution Herculius Augustus could have wished to urge more effectually out of the inborn ferocity of his mind and the hatred long since conceived against the Christians. Certainly, if Maximian had attempted this without any right from elsewhere, it could not without reason be doubted whether Constantius, bound to Maximian by so many titles, would have dared to oppose both him and the judgment of the two other wearers of the purple, being compelled to yield to necessity. These things, which are not alien to probability, if they be admitted, will mean that Eucherius and other weighty authors ought not to be accused of error, as though they had wrongly referred to the great persecution things which had occurred earlier — which indeed, by what reasoning those do who know Eucherius and certainly ascribe to him the Acts of our Saints, I again confess I do not conceive. They would assuredly defend more safely the assertions of a most sagacious and most diligent man, if those assertions can in any way be admitted and cannot be undoubtedly convicted of falsehood from certain indications elsewhere. I know that against these things a difficulty can be raised further, from the silence of Lactantius, who in his description of the persecution would not have passed over those extraordinary machinations of Maximian.

[193] that Valais fell to Constantius. He has here more than one place where the subject he treats might seem to require the narration of this matter, if it had occurred. But Tillemont cannot deny that very often even in Lactantius's narrative an occasion occurs for speaking of Maximian's cruelty toward the Christians, if he had already long before the issuing of the edict proved it by horrible examples and by the slaughter of so many thousands of Martyrs. Lactantius, however, is silent about these things, in such a way that at least it can nowhere be hammered out with sufficient certainty from his words. Let silence therefore be opposed to silence, and the force of each negative argument will be about equal. Further, to what Lactantius and Eusebius seem to assert, that there was no persecution at all in the Gauls, or a most mild one, while Constantius presided over them, some things can also be replied which, if they do not render those authors suspect of flattery, certainly hint that matters were not conducted there so peacefully with the Christians as those authors seem to wish to persuade us. Eusebius himself, toward the end of the book On the Martyrs of Palestine, writes thus: "For the regions situated further off, namely the whole of Italy and Sicily, Gaul too and whatever lands stretch toward the setting of the sun, Spain, Mauretania, and Africa, having experienced the fury of the war for scarcely two whole years of the persecution, soon obtained the most present help of the divine Godhead, and peace."

[194] He who asserts without any exception that the Gauls experienced the fury of the war — that is, of the war stirred up by the tyrants against the Christians — in the first two years of the persecution, the years of Christ 303 and 304, certainly cannot seem to be reconciled with himself more conveniently than if you say that the evils inflicted upon Christians in the Gauls before Constantius was called Augustus proceeded not from him but from Maximian; for so the praises attributed to Constantius for his leniency both by Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book 8, chapter 13, and by other writers will fit, and it will be understood that the persecution raged in the Gauls also. For the rest, by thus conjecturing I have at least achieved this: that it becomes clear that Dubourdieu rashly boasts that the martyrdom of the holy Thebans can be attached neither to the great persecution nor to certain other years of Maximian, since he has brought forward no reasons whose ineptitude I have not shown. I have not myself assigned a certain time to that martyrdom; for although I should prefer that St. Eucherius's narrative be saved, from which the holy Martyrs ought to be believed to have suffered in the year of Christ 303, nevertheless, since I have been able to establish it only by conjectures, I leave the choice to the judgment of the readers. They will not find, I think, a surer foundation by which it may be certainly attached to some one of the years assigned. Thus far I have so vindicated the Acts ascribed to St. Eucherius from Dubourdieu's sophisms that I think I have passed over nothing which could seem of any moment: now a few things must be said about the interpolated Acts.

§ XIII. The interpolated Acts and Tillemont's and Baillet's judgment upon them are examined. The age of the writer who added to the Acts the mention of Sigismund, Ambrose, and St. Innocent is uncertain.

[ ] The writer of Surius's Acts, I wonder here, if anywhere, at the indulgence of these critics. Each confesses that these Acts of ours were written after the middle of the seventh century, that is, nearly four hundred years after the martyrdom of the Saints of Agaunum, and yet not all authority is denied them in those very things which they have added concerning the circumstances of the martyrdom. "We see," says Tillemont, Ecclesiastical Monuments, tome 4, page 421, "that the Passion published by Surius proceeded from Chifflet's Acts, yet with some alteration and interpolation. It is probable that that later one was written by some monk of Agaunum after the year 650 and composed from the traditions of his monastery, or from more ancient documents: for the style is most beautiful in those very matters which he did not borrow from Eucherius. We have therefore judged that we can use it in certain places." With these Baillet has entirely the same in his Critical Table at this day. And each stands by his promises; for the time and cause or occasion of the martyrdom — namely Maximian's expedition against the Bagaudae, and the oath exacted by him from the Legion about persecuting the Christians — he drew from Surius's interpolated Passion, and upon what he drew from thence he relies as upon a thing almost certain.

[196] I should be doing over what has been done if I were to shake out so insolent a criticism, who in Tillemont's opinion and demonstrate that men rely ineptly upon such conjectures or probability who elsewhere commonly reject and explode whatever

was written only in the second century after the events, although it may also often seem probable — by that probability, namely, which has no reason for its foundation — that those later writers hand down what they narrate only from tradition or from earlier documents. Honoré de Sainte-Marie may be consulted, Observations on the rules of criticism, tome 1, Dissertation 3, article 3, where he learnedly plucks at those critics and refutes them by their own words and by rules established elsewhere. And indeed who would believe that a monk of Agaunum, later than Eucherius by more than two centuries in their own opinion, found aids which so escaped Eucherius, a most learned and diligent man, who without doubt had carefully searched out everything, that he was compelled to confess that he had undertaken to write the Passion "lest through carelessness time should abolish from the memory of men the deeds of so glorious a martyrdom"; and that he added that he had sought the truth of the matter itself from suitable authors, and had at last received it, brought down to him through at least four channels?

[197] interpolated the principal Passion only in the seventh century, I do not believe that St. Eucherius, a learned and perspicacious man, would have drawn the order of the Passion from a tradition carried down through four generations, not without danger of alteration, if in his time other accounts of the Martyrdom had already existed; nor that he would have written Acts lest the memory of them should be blotted out by oblivion, when that memory was preserved with others more surely and more purely by tradition or documents. Tillemont and Baillet will reply, unless I am mistaken, that it does not seem incredible that some things were unknown to the bishop of Lyons which could have been clearly known to the men of the very place where the holy Martyrs suffered. They will not easily persuade me of this; for Eucherius was not so distant from Agaunum in space of lands that he could not easily inquire into it himself, or through others. That Silvius or Salvius, to whom he directs his Passion, was bishop of Octodurum, these same men hold as certain. Neighboring Agaunum was therefore subject to his see. Shall we believe that Eucherius thrust upon him, as a new thing, a matter drawn from traditions, and did not first inquire whether other accounts were to be found in the very dominion of the bishop of Octodurum, where, if there were any, they most of all ought to have been preserved?

[198] must be of small authority in those things which St. Eucherius could know. He who knows Eucherius of Lyons from his writings and deeds will not imagine him to himself as so careless and imprudent. Besides, since Tillemont and Baillet seem to be of the opinion that no monastery existed at Agaunum before Sigismund's restoration, it will be difficult for them to draw back the beginning of the traditions which a monk of the seventh century could have from his own monastery to times before Sigismund, that is, beyond the year 515. And thus traditions born more than two centuries after the martyrdom of the holy Thebans will add little weight and no authority to the narrative. I pass over very many other things which utterly overthrow their conjecture, or their liberally asserted probability, out of their own principles: to me, as I have already hinted more than once above, whatever circumstances of the martyrdom were added by the later interpolator are of altogether small authority. A different judgment must be made about the narratives of things which happened after Eucherius's age. Concerning these a few things come to be said, for the rest have been examined in our Work, tome [ ], page 72 and following.

[199] Some things which happened after his death, And so, besides the two miracles — one of which is about the pagan smith, the other about the wife of Quintius — which are believed to have been written by St. Eucherius, there are some things which must be so attributed to the later interpolator that they can in no way be believed to have been written by St. Eucherius. And these are inserted so variously in the various Manuscripts into the principal Passion that from that alone you might easily suspect an inept interpolator. Stewart, who published the Acts of St. Maurice and Companions at Ingolstadt in the year 17 of the last century, together with Surius, after narrating the death of Maximian, proceeds thus: "Nor must this be omitted, that after a long stretch of time the Rhone revealed the limbs of the blessed martyr Innocent. For, turning the neighboring turf into itself by continual washing, by a certain religious wasting of the soil the attendant wave came to the burial place of the Martyr; for, gently licking the relics it brought forth, it did not bring them from the bosom of the earth in order to plunge them in the storm of its own flood, but on account of a glorious devotion, as though it were commanding him to be joined in burial with the other Martyrs within the compass of the basilica."

[200] "Whose translation, celebrated by Domitian of Geneva, of holy memory, and by Gratus of the city of Aosta, are narrated in the interpolated Passion or by Protasius, at that time bishop of that place, recalling it, we frequent with daily devotion and praises." After these, words from the principal Passion are resumed: "But the bodies of the most blessed Martyrs of Agaunum, many years after their passion, are handed down as having been revealed to St. Theodore, bishop of that place. In whose honor, when a basilica was being built which, joined then to a vast rock, lay sloping on one side only" (Chifflet's and Ruinart's Acts, omitting "then," have in the present tense "lies." Further, here the interpolation begins again) "— but now, at the command of Ambrose, illustrious in merits, the abbot of that place, having been built anew, it is recognized to slope on two sides — what miracle then appeared I have by no means thought should be passed over in silence." There follows after these a twofold miracle, one of which happened to the smith, the other to the wife of Quintius, narrated in almost the same words in which it is reported in the purer Manuscripts of Chifflet and Ruinart; and at last, after these, the Passion is closed with a new interpolation thus.

[201] "For the rest, many enough are the things which the power of the Lord daily works through his Servants, whether in the expulsion of demons, or in the restoration of the lame, or in health from fevers and in the other sick: which are many to be narrated, if they should be written one by one. Yet they are known to be recognized in the hearts of the faithful without a reading — what and how many and what sort of miracles the Lord does not cease to work through his Servants unto the honor and glory of his name. For that very reason the singing of psalms and hymns does not cease day and night: which, established at the command of the holy and illustrious martyr of Christ, King Sigismund, has from that time to this day been preserved, God protecting it. Therefore the servants of God, singing praises, pay them with their mouth to him to whom is honor and glory, dominion and power, through all ages of ages, amen." You see, unless I am mistaken, reader, how far this involved discourse differs from the purity of the Eucherian style: wonder therefore at Tillemont, who praises the interpolator's style; and let us proceed.

[202] Our Acts, which I called above "purer" because in the rest they generally agree with the Manuscripts of Chifflet and Ruinart, and inserted in different exemplars. have the same interpolations (except for one copy from Marchiennes, where the narrative of the finding of St. Innocent is not found), but most ineptly inserted into the Acts. For our Fulda codex, and another yielding nothing to it in antiquity, marked Q Ms. 7, and all the rest generally which have Acts similar to these, after those words taken from the principal Passion, "are handed down as having been revealed to Theodore, bishop of that place," go on thus: "In whose honor, when a basilica was being built which, joined then to a vast rock, lay sloping on one side only — but now, at the command of Ambrose, illustrious in merits, the abbot of this place, having been built anew, it is recognized to slope on two sides. Nor must this be omitted, that through a long stretch of time the Rhone revealed the limbs of the blessed martyr Innocent." After which the finding of the body of St. Innocent is reported again in the same words; but, the sense being broken by that narrative, after the clause "we frequent with daily devotion and praises," it is resumed with these words: "What miracle then appeared I have by no means thought should be passed over in silence."

[203] It is doubtful whether the same man The rest then flows on as I recited above, except that in a single Manuscript exemplar of St. Salvator of Utrecht all those things are wanting at the end which contain the mention of Sigismund and which were stitched onto Chifflet's Passion. Of the other Manuscripts, which in the preceding parts come nearer to what Surius published, very many also have the finding of the body of St. Innocent interjected, to the dislocation of the sense, in the same place as those just mentioned; but the copy to be published in the second place, and with it a manuscript Lectionary of Saint-Omer, have in the last place the narrative of the finding of the body of St. Innocent, which others have ineptly inserted elsewhere. From these it is clear that no argument can be drawn from the order in which this or that is arranged in any exemplar of the interpolated Acts. It would be difficult, if indeed it could be done at all, to circumscribe the age of the interpolator within sufficiently certain limits by undoubted arguments. In the treatment of St. Gratus, tome 3 of September, in the place cited above, a conjecture was given that he wrote about the middle of the sixth century. But that date is there so fixed as not to be maintained as certain; rather, there is only rejected and overthrown Tillemont's opinion, who contends that the Acts were interpolated at the end of the seventh century, and believes that St. Gratus lived, together with the other bishops cited in the narrative of the translation of St. Innocent, about the middle of that same seventh century.

[204] is the interpolator everywhere. To refute that ill-founded opinion it is abundantly enough that the aforesaid translation was added to the Acts before the time in which he holds that St. Gratus sat. I labor no more to fix a more certain date for the interpolated Acts. At the time indeed when I wrote my Commentary I always persevered in the opinion that the anonymous writer had inserted his own material into the Eucherian Acts about the beginning of the seventh century; but since I can maintain this only by conjectures, and nothing is lost to my arguments whether he wrote after the middle of the sixth century or at the beginning of the following, it will be of no use to have investigated it more laboriously. The doubt about the interpolator's age is certainly increased because it appears doubtful to me whether he is the same everywhere; for besides the fact that the style of the narrative about the finding of St. Innocent's body appears to me much purer than that in which the other interpolations are written, some exemplars also have no mention of Sigismund and Ambrose, although the aforesaid account of the finding of the relics of St. Innocent is annexed to them at the end, as I have already noted above. Such a copy, which in the rest does not depart much from what Surius published, I shall publish in the second place, collated with these and with other Manuscripts; but first I present the primitive Acts, attributed to St. Eucherius, bishop of Lyons.

PASSION,

By St. Eucherius, bishop of Lyons,

Published by Pierre-François Chifflet, S.J., and collated by Ruinart with other Manuscripts.

Maurice the primicerius, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

Exuperius the campiductor, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

Candidus, senator of the soldiers, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

Victor the veteran soldier, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

Innocent, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

Vitalis, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

The other soldiers of the Theban Legion, martyrs, at Agaunum in Valais.

BHL Number: 5740

By St. Eucherius the bishop.

LETTER OF BISHOP EUCHERIUS TO SALVIUS.

From what source the account of the martyrdom was received. To the holy lord and most blessed Salvius ^a, bishop in Christ, Eucherius. I send to your beatitude the Passion of our Martyrs. For I feared lest through carelessness time should abolish from the memory of men the deeds of so glorious a martyrdom. Further, I sought the truth of the matter itself from suitable authors; from these

assuredly, who affirmed that they had learned from the bishop of Geneva, St. ^b Isaac, this order of the passion which I have related; and he in turn, I believe, had received these things back from the most blessed bishop Theodore ^c, a man of an earlier time. And so, while others from various places and provinces offer gifts of gold and silver and of divers things in honor and service of the Saints, we offer these our writings (if, with your support, they be thought worthy ^d), asking in return for them the intercession for all our offenses, and hereafter the continual protection of those who are always my Patrons. Do you also remember us in the sight of the Lord, ever cleaving to the services of the Saints, holy Lord and deservedly most blessed brother ^e.

[2] We set forth with the pen, for the honor of their deeds, the passion of the holy Martyrs who make Agaunum illustrious by their glorious blood, In the time of the most savage persecution under Maximian and this with that same fidelity with which the order of the martyrdom has reached us. For through the report of those who came after, forgetfulness has not yet cut off the memory of the deed. And if for individual martyrs individual places which possess them, or individual cities, are held to be distinguished — and not undeservedly, since for the most high God they poured out their precious souls — with how great reverence is that sacred place of the men of Agaunum to be honored, in which so many thousands of Martyrs are reported to have been cut down by the sword for Christ? Now let us speak of the very cause of that most blessed passion. Under Maximian, who together with his colleague Diocletian held the rule of the Roman commonwealth ^f, throughout nearly all the several provinces peoples of Martyrs were torn in pieces or slain. For that same Maximian, as he raged beset by avarice, lust, cruelty, and the rest of the vices ^g, so also, given over to the accursed rites of the heathen and profane toward the God of heaven, had armed his impiety to extinguish the name of Christianity.

[3] If any then dared to profess the worship of the true God, they were dragged off either to torments or to death by troops of soldiers scattered everywhere, The Theban Legion refuses to drag Christians off to punishment; and as though a furlough had been granted to the barbarian nations, he had turned his arms wholly against religion. There was at that same time in the army a Legion of soldiers who were called Thebans. Now that was called a Legion which at that time had six thousand six hundred men ^h under arms. These had been summoned from the parts of the East ⁱ and had come to the aid of Maximian: men vigorous in warfare and noble in valor, but nobler still in faith; they vied in fortitude toward the emperor and in devotion toward Christ. Not unmindful of the Gospel precept even under arms, they rendered to God the things that were God's, and restored to Cæsar the things that were Cæsar's. And so, when these, like the rest of the soldiers, were appointed to drag off ^k the multitude of Christians, they alone dared to refuse the ministry of cruelty, and declared that they would not obey commands of this kind. Maximian was not far off, for he was staying near Octodurum ^l, weary with the journey; and there, when it was reported to him by messengers that this Legion, rebellious against the royal mandates, had halted in the narrows of Agaunum ^m, he blazed into fury at the goading of his indignation.

[4] wherefore at Agaunum by Maximian's order they are once But before I recount the rest, it seems to me that a description of the situation of that place should be inserted into the account. Agaunum is distant almost sixty miles from the city of Geneva ⁿ, and fourteen miles from the head of Lake Leman, into which the Rhone flows. The place itself lies already among the Alpine ridges in a valley, and to those making their way to it a rough and narrow road opens with difficult passage. For the hostile Rhone leaves to travelers, at the roots of a rocky mountain, a bank scarcely passable. When the jaws of the narrows have been overcome and crossed, of a sudden a plain, and no small one, opens out among the crags of the mountains. In this the holy Legion had encamped. Therefore, as we said above, when Maximian learned the answer of the Thebans, hot with headlong anger at the neglect of his commands, he ordered every tenth man from that Legion to be struck with the sword ^o, so that the rest, terrified by the royal precepts, might the more easily yield through fear; and renewing his mandates he decreed that the remainder be compelled into the persecution of the Christians. But when the repeated denunciation reached the Thebans, and it was understood by them that profane executions were again being enjoined upon them, a shouting and a tumult arose everywhere in the camp, as they affirmed that they would never yield to any man in ministries so sacrilegious, that they would always detest the profanities of idols and would set themselves to the worship of sacred and divine religion; that they worshiped one God of eternity; that it was better to undergo the uttermost than to go against the Christian faith.

[5] and a second time decimated. Then, on learning these things, Maximian, bloodier than any beast, returned again to the savagery of his nature, and commanded that a tenth of them be a second time given over to death, and that the rest be nonetheless compelled to those things which they had spurned. When these orders had once more been carried into the camp, he who fell tenth by lot was set apart and struck down; but the remaining multitude of the Soldiers urged one another on in mutual discourse, that they should persist in so illustrious a work. Yet the greatest incitement of faith at that time lay with holy Maurice, then, as tradition has it, primicerius [p] of that Legion, who together with Exuperius, campidoctor [q] as they call him in the army, and Candidus, senator of the soldiers [r], kindled each man by exhorting and admonishing him to faith, setting before them also the examples of their fellow-soldiers the Martyrs, and persuading them that all must die for the sacrament of Christ and for the divine laws, if necessity so required, and urging that they should follow those Companions and tent-mates of theirs who had already gone before them into heaven. For even then the glorious ardor of martyrdom was blazing in those most blessed Men.

[6] The surviving holy Soldiers, animated by Maurice's exhortations, Animated therefore by these their Chief men and instigators, they send to Maximian, still seething with madness, a message as brave as it was pious, which is reported to have been in this manner [s]. "We are your soldiers, emperor, but nevertheless — as we freely confess — the servants of God. To you we owe military service, to Him innocence; from you we have received the wage of our labor, from Him we took the beginning of our life. In this we can by no means follow you as emperor, that we should deny God our Author — our Author assuredly, our Lord, and, whether you will or no, your Author also. If we are not compelled to things so deadly as to offend Him, we shall obey you still, as we have done hitherto; but if otherwise, we shall obey Him rather than you. We offer our hands against any enemy whatsoever, hands which we count it wickedness to stain with the blood of the innocent. These right hands know how to fight against the impious and against enemies; they do not know how to butcher the pious and our fellow citizens. We remember that we took up arms for our fellow citizens rather than against them.

[7] "We have always fought for justice, for piety, for the safety of the innocent; they send back most valiant answers to the tyrant, these have hitherto been for us the price of our dangers. We have fought for faith — and in what way shall we keep it toward you, if we do not show it to our God? We swore first to the divine sacraments, we swore afterwards to the royal oaths; you need believe nothing of us concerning the second, if we break through the first. You order that Christians be sought out for punishment by us: henceforth you need seek no others; you have us here confessing God the Father, the Author of all things, and we believe His Son Jesus Christ to be God. We have seen the Companions of our labors and dangers butchered by the sword, while we too were sprinkled with their blood; and yet we did not weep for the deaths of our most holy Fellow-soldiers and the funerals of our Brothers, we did not grieve, but rather praised them and followed them with joy, because they had been held worthy to suffer for the Lord their God.

[8] "And now not even this last necessity of life has driven us into rebellion; who orders them all to be butchered, not even despair, which is the strongest thing in dangers, has armed us against you, emperor. Behold, we hold arms, and we do not resist, because we far prefer to die than to kill, and we choose rather to perish innocent than to live guilty [t]. If you decree anything further against us, if you command anything more, if you bring anything to bear, we are prepared to undergo fire, torments, the sword. We confess ourselves Christians; we cannot persecute Christians." When Maximian had heard such things as these, and saw their minds obstinate in the faith of Christ, despairing that their glorious constancy could be recalled, he decreed by a single sentence that they all be slain, and ordered the thing to be accomplished by columns of soldiers drawn about them. And when these had been sent and had come to the most blessed Legion, the impious men draw the sword against the Saints, who did not refuse to die out of love of life.

[9] And so they were cut down everywhere by the swords, not so much as crying out or fighting back, and works a horrifying slaughter. but laying down their arms, offering their necks to their persecutors, and presenting to their persecutors their throats or their unprotected bodies. They were not lifted up either by their own very multitude or by the defense of their arms, so as to attempt to assert with the sword the cause of justice; but remembering this alone, that they confessed Him who without crying out was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb opened not His mouth, they too, like a flock of the Lord's sheep, suffered themselves to be torn as though by rushing wolves. The ground there was covered with the bodies of the Pious falling down in death, and rivers of precious blood flowed. What frenzy ever, apart from war, gave so great a slaughter of human bodies? What ferocity ever ordered by its own sentence so many to perish at once, even were they guilty? That the just might not be punished, their multitude did not avail — although what a multitude does wrong is wont to go unavenged. By this cruelty, therefore, of a most monstrous tyrant, that People of Saints was destroyed, who despised the things of the present for the hope of things to come. Thus was slain that plainly angelic Legion, which, as we believe, together with those legions of angels now praises forever in heaven the Lord God of Sabaoth.

[10] But Victor [v] the martyr was neither of that same Legion nor a soldier, but a veteran of a service already completed. He, while making a journey, had suddenly fallen in with those who were feasting merrily here and there upon the spoils of the Martyrs; and being invited by them to eat with them, Coming upon the holy Martyrs, Victor is joined to them. when he had learned in order the cause set forth by those who were exulting, he detested both the guests and the banquet and drew back. And when they asked whether perhaps he too were a Christian, he answered that he was a Christian and always would be; and at once he was slain by those who rushed upon him, and was joined to the other Martyrs in the same place, in honor as in death. These names only out of that number of Martyrs have come to our knowledge, that is, those of the most blessed Maurice, Exuperius, Candidus, and Victor [u]; the rest indeed are unknown to us, but are written in the book of life. From this same Legion are said to have been also those martyrs Ursus and Victor [w], whom report affirms to have suffered at Solothurn. Now Solothurn is a fortress above the river Aare, and situated not far from the Rhine.

[11] The death of the tyrant Maximian. A heathen is converted to the faith It is worth while to indicate also what end thereafter overtook Maximian, the savage tyrant. When, having laid an ambush, he was contriving the death of his son-in-law Constantine, who then held the kingdom [x], his treachery was detected, and he was seized at Marseilles, and not long after strangled; and being visited with this most foul punishment, he ended his impious life by a fitting death. But the bodies of the most blessed Martyrs of Agaunum are said to have been revealed, many years after the passion, to St. Theodore [y], bishop of that same place; and when a basilica was being built in their honor,

which, joined to a vast crag, lies leaning [z] on one side only, I have thought that the miracle which then appeared must by no means be passed over in silence. It happened that among the rest of the craftsmen who were seen to have gathered by invitation to that work there was present a certain smith, who was known to be still a heathen. When on the Lord's day, on which the others had gone away to keep the festivals of that day, he alone had remained behind in the workshop, in that solitude the Saints suddenly manifested themselves to him in a bright light, and this same smith is seized and stretched out for punishment or for torments [aa]; and he beheld visibly the throng of Martyrs, and was even beaten and rebuked, because he alone was absent from the church on the Lord's day, and because, a heathen, he dared to undertake that holy work of building.

[12] laboring at the building of their basilica, where a paralytic woman is healed. Which was seen to have been done by the Saints so mercifully that that smith, dismayed and terrified, begged for the saving name, and at once was made a Christian. Nor shall I pass over, among the miracles of the Saints, that which is likewise famous and known to all. The mistress of the household of Quincius, an eminent and honored man [bb], when she had been so bound by palsy that even the use of her feet was denied her, begged of her husband that she might be carried to Agaunum [cc] over a great space of journey. And when she had arrived there, and had been brought into the basilica of the holy Martyrs by the hands of those who attended her, she returned on her own feet to her lodging, and being restored to health in limbs that had been as dead, she now carries her own miracle about with her. These two marvels only have I thought fit to insert into the Passion of the Saints; for the rest, there are quite enough which the power of the Lord works there through His Saints, whether in the cleansing of demoniacs or in the other cures.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Dubordé, from this word, which he believed to have been unused among the Latins for a tribune or prefect of a legion, judged that the Passion must be denied to St. Eucherius. St. Jerome in letter 38 to Pammachius, which in the Benedictine edition is 38, tom. 4, col. 316, writes: I wish what I say to be made plainer. Imagine someone of tribunician power degraded by his own fault, brought down through the several offices of the equestrian service to the title of recruit. Does he become a recruit straightway from a tribune? No: but first primicerius, then senator, ducenarius, biarchus, circitor, horseman, and then recruit. Eucherius therefore had an author who wrote good Latin, whom he could follow here.

q. Ruinart has campiductore with most of the copies. The campidoctores were those who imparted to the soldiers the science of arms. See, if you please, Du Cange in his Glossary. Concerning these named holy Companions of St. Maurice, more after the Posthumous Glory.

r. St. Jerome above reckons the military office of senator as next to the dignity of primicerius. To Jerome's words as quoted Ruinart appends this note: Of these dignities there is mention everywhere among authors; but the appellation "senator of the soldiers" is certainly not much met with elsewhere.

s. This whole reply must without doubt be left to the invention of the author — which must go ill for Tillemont and Baillet, who make the greatest account of these Acts, while meanwhile they frequently reject others because of certain colloquies inserted by the biographers.

t. Chifflet reads præoptamus, and better, and more in conformity with Ado.

v. Concerning St. Victor we shall treat more fully below, after the Posthumous Glory, where we shall examine in particular the things that pertain to him.

u. More, however, are named today, concerning whom see what is said at the end of the Posthumous Glory.

w. These holy Martyrs are inscribed in the Roman Martyrology on the 30th day of September, on which day they will be treated in our Work. They are most celebrated Saints, but few things have hitherto been sent to us concerning them, and only such as seem defiled with many fables. For the rest, Salodorum or Solodorum is well known, called by the natives Solothurn, by the French Soleurre, from which the Swiss canton, whose capital it is, has its name.

x. Concerning Maximian's machinations and treachery against the emperor Constantine, and concerning his punishment, see more in Eusebius, bk. 8 of the Ecclesiastical History, ch. 13; Paulus Orosius, bk. 7, ch. 24; and especially Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors, num. 29 and 30. Maximian was strangled in the year 311.

y. Concerning St. Theodore I see what is said and cited at letter c. The other circumstances of the Finding lie hidden.

z. In place of these words the Acts published by Ruinart have: which now, joined to a vast crag, lies leaning not only on one side. For adclinis some read adclivis. I do not know which reading is to be preferred. This at least the writer wished here to signify: that the church, either wholly or in part, was not built on level ground, but hung from the foot of the mountain with an uneven pavement and flooring.

aa. See, if you please, reader, the sound Theology of Dubordé on these matters, preceding Commentary, §9, num. 131 and following.

bb. Since it is uncertain whence the paralytic woman was brought to Agaunum, we should seek her husband Quincius in vain.

cc. There is at Agaunum even today a stone, upon which St. Maurice is said to have been crowned with martyrdom, which unclean spirits in the possessed hold in the utmost horror. Consult the Posthumous Glory, §3, num. 37.

THE INTERPOLATED PASSION

From a Manuscript of St. Maximinus of Trier, collated with the editions of Surius and with the Manuscripts of Fulda, of St. Saviour's at Utrecht, and of Marchiennes.

Maurice the primicerius, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

Exuperius the campiductor, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

Candidus, senator of the soldiers, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

Victor the veteran soldier, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

Innocent, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

Vitalis, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

The other soldiers of the Theban Legion, martyrs, at Agaunum in Valais.

BHL Number: 5742

From a Manuscript.

CHAPTER I.

The Theban Soldiers, sent from the East as a reinforcement to Maximian, refusing to offer sacrilegious sacrifices to idols, are twice decimated at Agaunum.

[ ] Maximian Herculius, about to set out against the Bagaudæ, Diocletian ^a, once prince of the Roman commonwealth, when he had been elected to the rule of the whole world, and perceived that all the provinces were being thrown into confusion by the presumption of certain men, made Herculius Maximian, formerly his fellow-soldier, Cæsar, for a partnership of the empire and of its labor, and appointed him to the Gauls against Amandus and Ælianus, who with servile presumption had stirred up arms under the name of the Bagaudæ ^b; and to him, as a supplement of his army, the Theban Legion of Eastern soldiers

he gave. Which Legion, after the example of the ancient Romans, had six thousand six hundred and sixty men ^c, strong in spirit and equipped with arms. These Soldiers therefore had received the observance of the Christian religion by Eastern tradition, and set the sacred faith before valor and all arms ^d. Maximian Cæsar, by his practice in the service fitted indeed for wars, but a particular worshiper of idols, fierce of mind, and one who defiled the imperial severity with excessive cruelty, hastening into Gaul, came to the approach of the Pennine Alps.

[2] To those crossing over by the road of the Alps through a steep and horrid way there suddenly meets a pleasing level plain of even, open ground. orders the army to sacrifice to idols, which the Theban Legion refuses, In which place a town was made, which received the name of Octodurum; around which stretch meadows watered by rivers, or the fertile tillage of fields. Then above all there presents itself the course of the river Rhone, which, flowing gently in its own mass, commends the charm of that region by its proper pleasantness. Having therefore crossed the Alps, Maximian Cæsar came to Octodurum, and there, being about to sacrifice to his idols, ordered the army to assemble, adding an atrocious command that they should swear by the altars consecrated to the demons that with minds all alike they must fight against the hordes of the Bagaudæ, and that Christians, as enemies to their gods, must be persecuted by all. As soon as this came to the notice of the Theban Legion, it passed by the town of Octodurum and hastened swiftly to the place whose name is Agaunum, so that, separated by a space of twelve ^f miles from Octodurum, it might escape the necessity of committing sacrilege.

[3] and withdraws to Agaunum from the rest of the forces, Agaunum the inhabitants, by the rendering of the Gallic tongue, call Rock: in which place the course of the river Rhone is so narrowed by vast crags that, the means of passage being taken away, the necessity of the journey compelled a road to be made by bridges laid across. Yet, with rocks overhanging on every side, a plain is enclosed, small indeed, but pleasant with watering springs; where the weary soldiers of the Theban Legion settled after the labor of so great a march. Maximian Cæsar, while he was compelling all in his army to the oaths mentioned above, learned that the Legion had passed by, as we have said. Filled at once with the fury of anger, he sends attendants to recall the Legion to the sacrileges of his oaths. There was in that same Legion Maurice the primicerius, and Exuperius the standard-bearer ^g, and Candidus the senator. These so presided over their Fellow-soldiers that they enjoined obedience rather by love, as equals, than by military terror. They ask, therefore, what Maximian, at anger's dictation, was commanding.

[4] [and renders the reason of its withdrawal to the soldiers sent to it by the tyrant.] It was said by those whom Cæsar had sent that all the soldiers had immolated victims, poured libations of sacrifice, and given the oaths of the fanatic order; that Cæsar commanded the Legion to return in haste and obey the example of their fellow-soldiers. Then those who presided over the Legion gave answer with mild address: that they had passed by Octodurum, because report had already brought to them the order concerning the sacrifices; that it had seemed right to them that the gaze of Christians should not look upon the altars of demons ^h; that it was in their mind to worship the living God, and to keep perpetually, to the last day of life, the religion handed down after the Eastern manner; that the valor of the Legion was ready for the use of wars, but that for committing sacrileges, as Cæsar had commanded, it would not return to Octodurum. And so the attendants, having returned, announced that the minds of the Legion were obstinate, and that it was unwilling to obey the emperor's precepts. Then Maximian Cæsar, inflamed with an excess of anger, leaped forth at this word into sudden fury.

[5] Exasperated by these things, Maximian orders the Thebans to be decimated. "Do my soldiers, then, spurn the imperial precepts and the order of my sacrifices? It would have had to be visited with public vengeance, even if they had wished only to despise the royal majesty. To the contempt of me is joined an injury to heaven, and along with me the Roman religion is despised. Let the contumacious soldier feel that I can give vengeance not only for myself but also for my divinities. Let the throng of my most faithful men now make haste: let the deadly lot deliver every tenth man to death. Let them learn by the slaughter of their equals, whom the order has sent before them to die, in what manner Maximian by this severity has given requital either to himself or to his divinities." After this word the ill-omened order is held out to those who would obey it ⁱ. There is a swift hastening to the Legion; the cruel precepts are disclosed. Those whom the order of counting finds are handed over to death. The chosen offer their necks to the executioners, and the only strife among them is over the seizing of a glorious death.

[6] The exhortation of St. Maurice, prefect of the Legion, The crime accomplished, the Legion is ordered to return to Octodurum. Then Maurice the primicerius, having withdrawn a little from the king's attendants, calls the Legion together, and addresses it with this speech of a holy mouth ^k: "I rejoice at your valor, best of Fellow-soldiers, that through love of religion Cæsar's precepts have brought you no dread. With minds in a manner rejoicing you have seen your Fellow-soldiers given over to a glorious death. How I feared lest anyone should attempt — an easy thing for armed men — under the appearance of defense, to lay opposing hands upon those most blessed deaths! Already the example of our Christ was being prepared by me for the prohibition of that thing: He who by the command of His own voice sheathed again the sword drawn from the scabbard by the Apostle, teaching that the valor of Christian confidence is greater than all arms. Christ, this our God, plainly restrained your minds and your hands, lest anyone should oppose the divine work with mortal right hands. Nay rather, fulfill with unfailing religion the fidelity of the work you have begun.

[7] "Hitherto we used to read examples inserted in the sacred books; now we have beheld through our very selves those whom we ought to follow. to the rest, that they should bravely Behold, I am walled about with the bodies of my Fellow-soldiers, whom the deadly attendant snatched from my side. I am sprinkled with the blood of the Saints, and I carry the remnants of the sacred blood on my garments; and do I hesitate to follow the death of those whose example I admire with gladness? And is there leisure to consider what an emperor commands, who by the lot of mortality is my equal? If the imperial precepts could have had any strength, and if the fire of the king of the Persians had availed anything against the bodies of the most blessed youths, neither could the prophet shut in the pit have despised the roaring of the lions. I remember that we once gave our oaths that with contempt of this light and with despair of life we would defend the commonwealth. Even then I promised the worthlessness of my body, and pledged this fidelity to the emperors; and yet no one then promised me the heavenly kingdoms. What must be done, when Christ makes the promise, if we were able to promise this out of devotion to military service?

[8] "Nay rather, most valiant Fellow-soldiers, let us submit our long-devoted souls to a most precious passion, die for the faith: animated by which and let a manly spirit and an inviolate faith remain in us. Already I discern standing before the tribunal of Christ those whom a little while ago the royal attendant assigned to death. That indeed is glory, which by the brevity of this life earns a blessed eternity. Let us all with equal spirit and with one voice give an answer to the attendants: 'We are indeed your soldiers, emperor ^l, but nevertheless — as we freely confess — the servants of God. To you we owe military service, to Him innocence. From you we receive the wage of our labor, from Him we took the beginning of life. We can by no means follow the emperor in this, that we should deny God our Author. Would that you were willing that our Author and Lord should be your Author also ^m. If we are not compelled to do things so deadly as to offend Him, we shall obey you still, as we have done hitherto; but if otherwise, we shall obey Him rather than you. We offer our hands against any enemy whatsoever, hands which we count it wickedness to stain with the blood of the innocent.

[9] "'These right hands know how to fight against the impious and against enemies; they send back a reply to Maximian by common sentence, they do not know how to butcher the pious and our fellow citizens. We remember that we took up arms for our fellow citizens rather than against them. We have always fought for justice, for piety, for the safety of the innocent. These have hitherto been for us the price of our dangers. We have fought for faith — and in what way shall we keep it for you, if we do not hold it toward our God? We swore first to the divine sacraments, we swore thereafter to the royal oaths. You need believe nothing of us concerning the second, if we break through the first. You order that Christians be sought out for punishment by us; henceforth you need seek no others. You have us here confessing God the Father, Author of all things, and His Son Jesus Christ, in whom we believe ⁿ. We have seen the Companions of our labors and dangers butchered by the sword, while we too were sprinkled with their blood; and yet we did not weep for the deaths of our most holy Fellow-soldiers and the funerals of our brothers, we did not grieve, but rather praised them and followed them with joy, because they had been held worthy to suffer for the Lord their God.

[10] and are decimated a second time: Exuperius' "'Neither has this last necessity of life driven us into rebellion, nor has despair itself, which is the strongest thing in dangers, armed us against you, emperor. Behold, we hold arms, and we do not resist, because we have far preferred to die than to kill, and we choose rather to perish innocent than to live guilty. If you decree anything further against us, if you command anything more, if you bring anything to bear, we are prepared to undergo fire, torments, the sword. We confess that we are Christians; we cannot persecute Christians.'" These things ^o, as the holy Man had spoken them, are approved by the assent of the Legion, and are announced to Cæsar by the attendants. He commanded by an unmerciful order that the reckoning of a renewed cruelty should again consume every tenth man. After this word there is a swift hastening to the Legion; the cruel precepts are carried out; the rest are ordered to return to Octodurum. Then Exuperius, whom I mentioned above as chief man or campidoctor, having seized the standards of his Legion, strengthens those standing about with this speech: "You perceive, best of Fellow-soldiers, that I hold indeed the standards of worldly wars; but it is not to these arms that I summon you, not to these wars that I urge your spirits and your valor.

[11] address to the holy Martyrs. "Another kind of battles must be chosen by us. Not by these swords can one hasten to the heavenly kingdoms. We have need of strength of soul; an unconquerable defense it is [p], to keep to the uttermost the faith which you have promised to God. Already concerning the glory of our Fellow-soldiers Maurice has spoken those things which he discerned with divine gaze; I promise you a full victory, if you have believed in Christ. Let our right hands cast away these arms together with the military standards. Christ will grant this, that soon in that heavenly kingdom itself, as is promised, you may see your Exuperius display other standards to you. Nay rather, let the deadly attendant go and announce these things to the savage king: 'Know, Cæsar, the unconquerable — the inexuperable — spirits of this Legion. We cast away our weapons: your attendants will find right hands indeed disarmed [q], but a breast armed with the Catholic faith. Slay, lay low; undaunted we offer our necks to the executioners to be cut through by the swords. These things are delightful to us, so long as we despise you together with your sacrileges, hastening even now to the heavenly kingdoms.'"

ANNOTATIONS.

things like these are in Eutropius in his Breviary. Various men conjecture various things about the origin of the name of the Bagaudæ, and, as usual, bring forward very many uncertain things. Salvian, priest of Marseilles and a writer of the fifth century, in bk. 5 On Providence, throws back the causes of the tumult upon their governors, who exasperated them with harshnesses and tyrannical exactions. The Life of St. Babolenus in Duchesne, tom. 1, p. 662, asserts that the Bagaudæ were all Christians. How that is of no weight we have demonstrated in our Work at the 26th day of June, p. 179; yet it is credible that some, indeed not a few, among them were Christians. See what has been said in the preceding Commentary, § XI, num. 170 and following. For the rest, most refer the rebellion of the Bagaudæ to the year of Christ 286; concerning which, if you desire more, go to Tillemont, History of the Emperors, tom. 4, p. 599.

p. Surius printed: We have need of strength of souls, and an unconquerable defense: to keep to the uttermost the faith which we promised to God. Already concerning the glory of our Fellow-soldiers, which beholds the divine gaze, the glorious man Maurice, etc.; which things are no more correct than ours.

q. Here the Surian interpolator inserts a great part of the reply already praised, namely down to these words, your Author, whether you will or no; and, omitting the rest, he leaps forward to neither has this ... against you, emperor, etc., down to the end, to which he then appends this our exhortation of Exuperius, so different from the preceding that it at once strikes ears accustomed to the other. There are lacking in ours these Surian words: For even then the glorious ardor of martyrdom was blazing in those most blessed Men — which are there indeed plainly useless and superfluous.

CHAPTER II.

The holy Martyrs, in no way terrified by the slaughter of their Companions, are all put to death. Victor joins them for the little laurel of martyrdom. The prodigious Finding of the body of St. Innocent, and its translation.

[ ] The holy Legion destroyed, Victor, a veteran soldier, coming upon them, The attendant, returning to Maximian Cæsar, announces these commands of the Legion. But he ^a, as though nothing had been perpetrated by the crime twice repeated, orders the army to go with speed, and commands the Legion to be surrounded, and gave order that none out of so great an army of Saints be left. And so they came. A throng of executioners stands about the blessed Legion. Every age without distinction is destroyed, and the blessed bodies are torn in pieces, and they commend to God their devoted souls with a faithful profession of death ^b. The slaughter at last accomplished, the plunder is divided among all the slayers of the Saints; for Maximian had granted the license that whoever had cut the throat of a soldier of that Legion should have the use of the spoils of the slain ^c. The plunder of all being therefore divided, the victorious throng sat down to eat and to feast. When meanwhile a certain veteran, wearied with the old age of the last stage of life, by name Victor, was brought by the necessity of his journey to the place defiled with slaughter.

[13] While, out of reverence for his age, he was being invited by all to the feast, and professing himself a Christian, he began to ask what the cause of the merriment might be, that among so many bodies of the slain the soldiers could feast, rejoicing and exulting. It was said by someone that the Legion, out of zeal for the Christian law, had wished to despise the Roman ceremonies and the worship of the divinities together with the commands, and had been given over to death, so that the transmitted order of military discipline might be more severely maintained. Then Victor, drawing a deep groan and sighing heavily ^d, cries out: "Alas for me, who through so many years of service have come to this age, and have not deserved to serve in this Legion! How well might I have found the end of life among such men, endowed with the honor of a glorious death! At least, if I was unworthy to be their fellow-soldier, would that the necessity of traveling had brought me here some hours before ^e, that the blood of an aged breast might be mingled with the victims of such men! I had offered this body to death, if only I might not lack fellowship in so great a praise." As he was saying such things, the throng of the profane straightway hemmed him in, and threateningly orders him to answer whether he were a Christian.

[14] But he, raising his eyes a little to heaven, answered his questioners with such words as these: he is crowned with martyrdom. "A long practice of living has brought me to this age which you see. Whatsoever things are done in this world, either study discovers them, or the mutability of things drives them, or ever-varying chance assails them. Whatever we will, we desire; we know, or we long for. The whole world, sunk in mist, with darkness flowing about it, lies hidden, unless either Christ shall have shown us the way, or Christ shall have shone forth as our light ^f. Which I, weighing with a faithful mind, oh that I might attest with a final act! But if the necessity of my journey had brought me at the time a little before the butchering of the Legion, your banquets and feasts the fellowship of these dead

I would have preferred. But even now Christ will grant that, since I am a Christian, you shall not suffer me to pass further past these blessed dead after my profession." As he was saying these things, the sudden madness of an executioner cut him down. Thus the holy Man earned the fellowship of the Saints by a swift profession ^g.

[15] The death of Maximian and the revelation of the holy bodies These names only, out of the number of those Martyrs, have come to our knowledge: that is, those of the most blessed Maurice, Exuperius, Candidus, Innocent ^h, Victor, and Vitalis. But the other names, unknown indeed to us, are written in the book of life. Of this same Legion are said to have been also those martyrs Ursus and Victor, whom report affirms to have suffered at Solothurn. Now Solothurn is a fortress upon the river Ara ⁱ, and situated not far from the Rhine. It is worth while ^k to indicate this also, what end thereafter overtook Maximian, the savage tyrant. When, having laid an ambush, he was contriving the death of his son-in-law Constantine ^l, who then held the kingdom, his treachery was detected, and he was seized at Marseilles, and not long after strangled; and being visited with this most foul punishment, he ended his impious life by a fitting death. But ^m the bodies of the most blessed Martyrs are said to have been revealed, many years after the passion, to St. Theodore, bishop of this place. And when a basilica was being built in their honor, which is now joined to a vast crag ⁿ, I have thought that the miracle which appeared must by no means be passed over in silence.

[16] to which God conferred various benefits It happened that among the rest of the craftsmen who were seen to have gathered by invitation to this work there was present a certain smith, who was known to be still a heathen. When on the Lord's day, on which the others had gone away to keep the feast day, he alone had remained behind in the workshop, in that solitude the Saints suddenly manifested themselves to him in a bright light, and this same smith is seized and stretched out for punishment or for torments; and beholding visibly the throng of Martyrs, he is beaten and harshly rebuked, because he alone was absent from the church on the Lord's day, and because, a heathen, he dared to undertake that holy work of building. Which was seen to have been done by the Saints mercifully to this end, that the smith, dismayed and terrified, should ask for the saving name; and at once he was made a Christian. Nor shall I pass over, among the miracles of the Saints, that which is likewise famous and known to all. The mistress of the household of Quintius, an eminent and honored man, when she had been so bound with palsy that even the use of her feet was denied her, begged of her husband that she might be carried thither over a great space of journey ^o. And when she had arrived there, and had been brought into the basilica of the holy Martyrs by the hands of those who attended her, she returned on her own feet to her lodging, and, her health being restored in limbs that had been as dead, she herself carried her own miracle about. These two miracles only have I thought fit to insert into the Passion of the Saints.

[17] upon those who called on the Martyrs' help. For the rest, there are quite enough which the power of the Lord works there daily through the holy Martyrs, whether in the cleansing of demons or in the other cures. Nor [p] indeed must this be omitted, that after a long stretch of time the Rhone revealed the limbs of the blessed martyr Innocent. For by continual overflow, bearing the neighboring turf into itself, the handmaid wave came, by a certain religious destruction of the soil, to the burial place of the Martyr. For gently lapping the relics it brought forth, it did not bring them out of the bosom of the earth in order to plunge them in the storm of the flood, but on account of a glorious devotion appointed that they be joined for burial with the other Martyrs within the compass of the basilica; whose translation, celebrated by Domitian [q] of holy memory, of Geneva, and by Gratus of the city of Aosta, or by Protasius, at that time bishop of this place [r], we recall and frequent with daily devotion and praises, with the help of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns, God, unto the ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. I noted above at letter n that this narrative is inserted elsewhere in other transcripts. One may also see the preceding Commentary, §13, num. 199, where these things are set forth more distinctly.

q. Concerning the bishops here enumerated and the disputed time of the translation of St. Innocent, see, if you please, in our Work at the 7th day of September.

r. In most of the other exemplars it is read of that place, and in one or two of this place, which they commonly conjecture must be referred to Octodurum, in whose diocese Agaunum lies.

POSTHUMOUS GLORY

Maurice the primicerius, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

Exuperius the campiductor, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

Candidus, senator of the soldiers, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

Victor the veteran soldier, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

Innocent, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

Vitalis, martyr, at Agaunum in Valais. (S.)

The other soldiers of the Theban Legion, martyrs, at Agaunum in Valais.

BHL Number: 5649

BY THE AUTHOR J. C.

§ I. When and where the finding of the body of St. Maurice took place. The traditions of the people of Vienne in Gaul are discussed.

[ ] The body of St. Maurice and of some of his Companions The tokens of the most ancient and most celebrated cult of St. Maurice, the most famous leader of the Theban Legion, propagated most widely, are the innumerable altars anciently erected to the holy Martyr, the basilicas consecrated, and the very many monasteries dedicated to his name throughout Italy, Gaul, and Germany. It would be exceedingly difficult, indeed almost impossible, to review the several monuments, which, scattered through nearly the whole West, are almost innumerable; nor even does any diligence applied in the search make me persuade myself that all things which deserved to be recorded have been so gathered that I have omitted nothing. Indeed I do not doubt at all that in certain particular churches the cult of St. Maurice and his Companions is perhaps more celebrated, and the relics more notable, than in the other places of which I have made mention; but this, I trust, the reader will ascribe not to negligence but to the excessive abundance of materials. For the rest, I shall so treat this material that, after a few things premised concerning the first finding of St. Maurice's body, I shall run through the various regions and set before the eyes whatever I have found in each concerning the cult of the holy Leader and of his Fellow-soldiers, especially the anonymous ones. But wherever mention shall fall of Exuperius, Candidus, and Victor by name, I shall treat of them briefly indeed; yet I put off the chief matters that regard them to be handled after this Posthumous Glory, or, if the narrowness of time shall not permit, in the Addenda at the end of the volume; where also certain things will come to be examined singly concerning the holy Thebans who seem to have received their names after their sacred pledges were found. Order indeed would perhaps require that I should treat first of the holy Leader in particular; but experience has taught me that thence would come both tedium for the reader and a doubled trouble for me, while I should be compelled to select those things separately, and the reader, after the narrative had been interrupted by other matters, would have to be recalled to the point from which he had long since departed; and thus either his memory would have to be renewed by many repetitions, or the same road would have to be traveled over again — both of which I desire to avoid.

[2] And so the body of St. Maurice was first found by Theodore, bishop of Octodurum, together with the sacred remains of some of his holy Companions. was found by St. Theodore I, bishop of Octodurum St. Eucherius attests this, writing toward the end of the Passion: But indeed the bodies of the most blessed Martyrs of Agaunum

are said to have been revealed, many years after the passion, to St. Theodore, bishop of that same place. Of what Theodore Eucherius here speaks we have declared both in the preceding Commentary and in the Annotations. Of the same holy prelate there has been particular treatment in our Work at the 26th day of August, where it is also shown that he is distinct from the like-named Theodore and Theodulus, bishops of the same see. St. Theodore, the first bishop of Octodurum of that name, was present with St. Ambrose at the council of Aquileia, which was celebrated in the year 381, and there acted against Palladius the Arian. Concerning him, from approved monuments, apart from those things which have just been recited, scarcely anything is established. Our Elders received from an ancient Breviary of the church of Sion an Office of the holy prelate, from which the proper Lessons of the 2nd Nocturn were printed at the place cited.

[3] In the second Lesson there are read the following things, which may pertain here: In the fourth century. Certain errors about these matters Sent back to his own see of Octodurum (after the synod of Aquileia had ended), acting as a watchful shepherd over the flock entrusted to him, he presided fruitfully by word and example. For as he was most fervent in the preaching of God, … so was he mighty in convicting the vain and superstitious worshipers of idols by the living force of his reasonings. … He transmitted the Passion of the holy Theban martyrs of Agaunum, Maurice and his Companions, to the bishop of Geneva (this word was substituted by us from conjecture, because it could not be read in the copy) to be communicated to all the bishops of Gaul; which Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, on account of the fragrance of his style, made common to all. In the third Lesson these things also are found: He overthrew such shrines of the idols as remained, and in their place erected altars to St. Maurice and his Companions, and temples dedicated to God. He notably assisted Ambrose, abbot of Agaunum, in building the sloping church to the holy Martyrs, out of the collections of the province, and gathered the bones of the aforesaid Saints along with abbot Ambrose.

[4] On these matters it was noted at the place cited, p. 815, by my Elders, of the Breviary of Sion, that a shameful anachronism is committed, while Ambrose, abbot of Agaunum, who began to rule in the year 516, is made contemporary with St. Theodore, who 135 years earlier was present at the council of Aquileia. For there is another St. Theodore, also bishop of Octodurum, who together with king Sigismund was present at the foundation of the monastery of Agaunum. His Acts, which are here confused with the deeds of St. Theodore I, you have illustrated in a few words in tom. VI of August, p. 43. The things also which are said in that Office about the Passion of the holy Theban Martyrs being sent to a bishop, whoever he may have been, to be communicated with all the bishops of Gaul, which St. Eucherius is said to have made common — these I do not understand. St. Eucherius died about the middle of the fifth century, and certainly did not occupy the chair of Lyons at the time when St. Theodore sat at Octodurum. Then St. Eucherius testifies in the Passion that he wrote it lest the memory of so great a martyrdom should perish, and that he had received the order of it from tradition; he had not, therefore, received it in writing from St. Theodore. If you say that Theodore II sent the Passion written by Eucherius to the bishops, you again confuse the Deeds of the two men, and betray the ineptitudes of those Lessons.

[5] some of which men have attempted to defend. These same Lessons, however, as also the Breviaries printed in the year 1497 and very many other documents of that kind, which he found either in the monastery of Agaunum or in the archives of the church of Sion, in the Castle of Majoria and of Valeria, were of such authority with Sebastian Briguet, canon of Sion and author of the Vallesia Christiana, published in the 44th year of this century, that both these things and others of the same bran, drawn from the confused deeds of the like-named bishops of Octodurum, he judged here and there to be retained and defended. My Elders, as I began to say above, inserted into our Work two holy Theodores and two Theoduli — these latter, however, somewhat timidly — as distinct bishops of Octodurum, or, after the see was transferred, of Sion. Cuper, who illustrated the Acts of St. Theodulus at the 16th day of August, seeing not a few intricate matters in the same place, had said that he was awaiting their solution from the continuators of the Gallia Christiana, as they had promised, or from the learned inhabitants of Valais. Briguet answered the expectation as best he could, and from p. 105 of the pamphlet mentioned learnedly shows that two Theodores and at least one Theodulus must be admitted among the holy prelates of Octodurum, as had already been proved before in our Work at the 26th and 27th days of the same month. Further, although it follows without doubt from the documents pieced together which Briguet alleges that Theodulus must be distinguished from the two Theodores, yet those things were not to be admitted which are asserted there of those three bishops in almost the same terms.

[6] More recent writers. That the relics of the holy Thebans were revealed to St. Theodore I, Eucherius testifies. Of Theodore II Briguet admits, p. 69, that like things are related, and cites the ancient Breviaries of the churches of Sion, Geneva, and Lausanne. In the copy which was printed in our Work at the 27th day of August concerning St. Theodore II from the Breviary of Sion, I find no word about that finding; but in the Acts of St. Theodulus, who lived in the times of Charlemagne, almost the same things are again to be read about the finding of the bodies of the holy Martyrs of Agaunum. I do not deny that it could have happened that in succeeding times other and yet other sacred remains of so many thousands of Martyrs should be uncovered in the valley which they had sprinkled with their blood, and where it seems beyond doubt that most of them were buried; but that the same thing concerning three different Saints, almost of the same name, should be asserted and repeated in Breviaries and like documents in just so many words — no critic will easily admit, but will at least suspect that their deeds were confused, and that things were gradually ascribed to three which had happened only to one; which of this translation I scarcely hesitate to affirm.

[7] The sacred remains seem to have been first found For the rest, from the testimony of St. Eucherius we hold it indubitable that the bodies of the holy Martyrs were revealed to St. Theodore I, and it is permissible to think that this was done as the fourth century grew old. The place where they were found, and the manner, we are equally ignorant of. It is credible that they were first hidden away not far from the place of the contest and in Valais, and afterwards found. How many remains of Saints were then discovered St. Eucherius does not explain, and we have it only by conjecture that the bodies of SS. Maurice, Exuperius, Candidus, and Victor were revealed among the first, and were so distinguished by some sign that they could be discerned from the holy bones of so many other Martyrs buried in the same place. Perhaps some divine revelation intervened; or the bodies of the Leader and of the other Officers of the holy Legion were entombed together in some more seemly place. However that may be, from the Charter of the foundation of the monastery of Agaunum, of which see the preceding Commentary, num. 36 and following, we know that the bodies of these named Saints were first brought into the restored basilica of Agaunum, while the remains of the other Companions still rested outside the compass of the church.

[8] That the same St. Theodore I, prelate of Octodurum, soon built a basilica for the holy Martyrs, near Agaunum; certain things appear fabulous, is made most probable from the words of St. Eucherius, as I showed in the preceding Commentary, §2 and following. It is certainly indubitable that a church at Agaunum sacred to the holy Martyrs existed in the middle of the fifth century, since the same holy author narrates the miracle which had happened in its building. Jean le Lièvre, in his book on the Antiquity of Vienne, ch. 15, reports a wholly different narrative of the finding of the body of St. Maurice. I pluck some of his words thence and render them into Latin. On the page which in my copy is 101, after he has abridged the history of the martyrdom from the Passion in Surius, he continues: The butchery accomplished, a great part of the bodies of the Saints, mutilated of their heads and streaming with blood, was cast into the river Rhone, which rises in that place, and then bore waves of blood rather than of water. Among these the body of St. Maurice, the most valiant leader, floating upon the waves, was carried downstream to Vienne. His head, cut from the rest of the body and resting upon a shield, likewise came to land there. And as it had been revealed to St. Paschasius by an angel, the bishop went down with his clergy to receive the treasure divinely destined for him, which should adorn his church and has been preserved in part even to this day, as the tradition of our elders has left to us, written by St. Eucherius of Lyons and by St. Ado of Vienne in the Legends of that same church, which was also anciently depicted in the chapel dedicated to his name.

[9] Andrew Saussay, as Bolland noted at the 22nd day of February, which certain writers hand down treating of St. Paschasius, reports almost the same things in his Gallican Martyrology at the aforesaid day, and adds that the relics of the holy Martyrs, when gathered, were laid by the holy bishop in the sacristy of the crypt of St. Peter. Whence, he says, that city obtained the patronage of so great an Athlete (St. Maurice), in which it glories and rejoices today. These men Maupertuy timidly followed, who at the beginning of this century published a History of the Church of Vienne, written in French, and prefixed to it, against Dubordé, in a Premonition, a catalogue of authors whom he asserts to make mention of the martyrdom of the holy Thebans. I marveled there at a man attacking the matter so confidently, and citing ancient authors so wrongly that in them there is neither palm nor footprint of the things he indicates. I would rather that the histories of the Saints were not thus defended against heretics; for they — although others, more indulgent perhaps, will be ready to believe that it was done through a fault of the eyes, or through excessive credulity, when things heard from others are asserted as certain without examination — they, I say, could cry out that simple folk are thus imposed upon by lying citations.

[10] Further, that writer, on p. 19, after likewise narrating the history of the martyrdom, adds: The Rhone, which flows out of Lake Leman, and has its origin not far thence, received the bodies of the holy Martyrs that were cast in, most of which were mutilated of the head. concerning the bodies of the Saints after the passion A spectacle as horrifying as it was sad was afforded by the vast number of heads and headless corpses floating upon the bloody waves. For the Rhone was in that place nothing but a sewer of gore, which its channel scarcely held. These things probably passed over from le Lièvre into more elegant words; certainly the later author, as neither the others who preceded him, brought forward the testimony of no ancient by which so unusual a thing might be asserted. What traditions le Lièvre thrusts upon us as composed by Ado of Vienne, or as anciently painted on the walls of a chapel, I do not know; it is certain that he falsely affirmed St. Eucherius to be the asserter of the tradition, since neither in the original Passion nor even in the interpolated one is any word found which supports the vaunted tradition; nay, on the contrary, in both there occurs the assertion brought forward above, that the bodies of the Saints were revealed to St. Theodore many years after the passion.

[11] as carried to Vienne by the waves of the Rhone, If le Lièvre is speaking of those Legends which are inserted in the Martyrology of Ado, he ought to have cited them with the same fidelity with which he cited the Passion written by St. Eucherius; for in both places like things are asserted about the finding of the bodies. Paintings, which if perchance they reach back two hundred years, in place of a remote

antiquity, are not rarely wont to be alleged by those who indulge too much in zeal for their fatherland, yet they can none the less prove the antiquity of the tradition. Someone will not, I think, seek help from freer and unwarlike conjectures, and say that the sacred bodies which were prodigiously carried thither and soon laid up in the church by St. Paschasius were afterwards, amid the tumults of war and the inroads of the barbarians, carried elsewhere or cautiously hidden; that the memory of that matter perished, and that afterwards they were revealed to St. Theodore. For although I willingly confess that examples of like cases are not lacking, yet whoever should bring forward such things will be required by me to render some reason why St. Eucherius ought to have been ignorant of it, or to have suppressed it in silence in the Acts which he wrote. Lastly I shall ask the same man to bring us forward an author, a witness of the asserted prodigy, older than the tenth century — nay, than the fourteenth. If perchance he shall have found anyone, then at last we shall discern whether his testimony ought to find credit among the prudent. Meanwhile I do not doubt at all that the whole little fable was coined long after the metropolitan church of Vienne obtained the name of St. Maurice in place of the title of the holy Maccabees, which it formerly bore.

[12] and seem to have been invented long after the eighth century, St. Eoaldus, bishop of Vienne, by the reckoning of our Sollier at the 7th day of July, on which his name is inscribed in the sacred Calendars, passed to those above in the year of Christ 715 or the following. Concerning him Ado in the Martyrology at the aforesaid day: At Vienne, of bishop Euoldus, by whose industry the relics of the holy Theban Martyrs were brought to the city of Vienne. More at length he speaks thus of the same man in his Chronicle, p. 208: Then the holy bishop Euoldus enriched the church of Vienne with possessions … who also within the city built a little house in the manner of a crypt in honor of the blessed Theban Martyrs Maurice and his Companions, and there placed no small part of the relics, whether from these Martyrs or from others. And from that time the goods of the church are entitled under the name of St. Maurice; whereas from of old both the greater house was in honor of the seven Maccabee martyrs, and the resources of the same church were offered by the faithful under their name and remained consecrated to them. And these things, somewhat more at length, I have thought fit to transfer hither, so that the error of the writers of whom we treated above may become more open.

[13] Saussay probably took the crypt of St. Peter from Ado's Chronicle, in which St. Eoaldus brought thither certain relics of St. Maurice, or from someone else who had long since drawn it thence, and brought into it the body of St. Maurice under Paschasius, four centuries before it was built by St. Eoaldus. From the same Ado he could have learned that the relics of St. Maurice were brought to Vienne by Eoaldus, and were not found there. But these things were opposed to the popular tradition; he therefore preferred to concede more to it than to Ado's testimony; and for that reason, unless I am mistaken, he who elsewhere weaves lengthy eulogies of the Saints, and, where he is destitute of documents, not rarely weaves them out of conjectures alone, in the Supplement praises St. Eoaldus thus sparingly: At Vienne, of St. Evoldus, fortieth restorer of the metropolitan church under the name of St. Maurice. Here of course deep silence is kept about the relics of St. Maurice brought by him to Vienne, which he had learned from Ado; and another fable is covertly asserted, namely that the metropolis of Vienne was sacred to St. Maurice already from the time of St. Paschasius — which the praised Ado most openly refutes.

[14] And let these things suffice thus far; concerning the church of Vienne the discourse will recur again below. and his church began to be marked with his name. Meanwhile it seems it may be held for indubitable that in the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries it was the common opinion that the body of the holy Leader rested nowhere else than in the basilica of Agaunum. For the fifth we have St. Eucherius of Lyons, the author of the Passion; for the sixth, St. Avitus, bishop of Vienne, both intimating it not obscurely. Clearer for both centuries are the testimonies in the Lives of SS. Severinus and Romanus, abbots, each of which may be seen in the preceding Commentary, §2 and following. There follow the Lives of the holy first abbots of Agaunum, the Charter of the foundation of that same monastery by king Sigismund, and the words of the holy bishops Gregory of Tours and Venantius Fortunatus of Poitiers, which attest the same most clearly in the following § of the preceding Commentary for the sixth century and the beginning of the following one. For asserting the same thing the Acts of Surius are also of value, which were enlarged by an anonymous writer not before the middle of the sixth century, as I intimated above; for there the interpolator not only makes no mention of any translation, but also so speaks that you perceive he was of that opinion, that the sacred treasures of Maurice the martyr were still in his own time venerated at Agaunum. Thence indeed at intervals some portions of the sacred body were carried elsewhere, yet in such a way that even today no small part of it is believed to be kept there, as we shall see.

§ II. Documents sent to us concerning the monastery of Agaunum: the charter of its restoration, more correct than that which the Sainte-Marthes published.

[ ] [The autograph Manuscript of the History of the monastery of Agaunum, composed in French by him,] While we run through Europe made illustrious by the sacred remains of the holy leader Maurice and his Companions, it is right that we make the beginning of our survey from the place of the contest, where, striving bravely for Christ, they obtained the palm of martyrdom. In Valais is situated the most celebrated monastery of Agaunum, so often mentioned hitherto, and that most ancient sanctuary surrounded by the precious blood of so many thousands of Martyrs, enriched with so many of their sacred relics. Concerning its situation I said something at the beginning of the preceding Commentary; many other things pertaining to it could be said here, did not the press urge me. For after the preceding Commentary was completed and the greatest part of this Posthumous Glory was made ready for the press, there was brought to me the manuscript autograph of a History of the abbey of Agaunum, composed in the French tongue by the most ample and most reverend Lord Joseph de L'Isle, abbot of St. Leopold of Nancy of the Order of St. Benedict, from which very many things could be plucked that would not be foreign to our design. Yet both this place and a grateful memory of the benefit received demand of me that I render some particular account of the History just praised. Its most learned author had announced it beforehand in the Defense of the martyrdom of the holy Theban Martyrs, so very often praised, which he published against Dubordé in the year 1737.

[16] the most reverend de L'Isle, abbot of St. Leopold of Nancy, sent to us From the earlier lucubration I could not but promise myself very much from the History. Therefore, thinking it had been published in print, I inquired after it with great zeal and care; but for a long time my efforts were vain, and every search deceived me, until at last I took refuge, by letter, with the Rev. Fr. Smackers, rector of the college of Nancy of our Society, asking that, if the desired work could not be obtained, he would at least supply me with some light concerning it from the alumni of that most celebrated abbey (for I supposed that the most worthy and most learned abbot, whom may those above continue to preserve safe for his own and for the learned world, had yielded to fate). A letter given to me on the 27th of February of this year 1756 by the father rector far surpassed my hope; for besides testifying to his benevolent mind toward us, it brought enclosed two letters of the most reverend abbot Joseph de L'Isle, one addressed to him, the other inscribed to me. The former signifies to the Rev. Fr. Smackers that he is sending the autograph of his History to be destined for us, and that he had seen to it — such is his singular munificence — that even the costs of carriage should be paid. In the latter, among very many testimonies of benevolence, he most courteously repeats almost the same things, and adds the reasons why the promised History has not hitherto seen the public light.

[17] abbot of St. Leopold of Nancy, These, without consulting my benefactor, I should not dare to divulge; let it be permitted to assert this one thing, that lovers of antiquity and of erudition will perhaps, and not undeservedly, complain if the most learned author, for the reasons which he alleges, should continue always to defer to the judgment of some other man. The most ample and most reverend abbot adds in the letter given to me that it would be most pleasing to him if anything out of the History destined for us could be of use. I have attentively read through the whole manuscript. It exhibits a continuous historical series of the abbots of Agaunum and the bishops of Sion from the end of the fifth century down to these our times, interspersed with memorable deeds, which are proved by ancient documents to be appended at the end. Hence the reader, to whom the author's erudition is known from elsewhere, will be able to gather whether the praised work supplies nothing useful to our design, since throughout our whole Work both occasion and necessity so frequently occur of treating of the abbots of Agaunum and the bishops of Sion, of whom hitherto we have nothing but the gaping and faulty Catalogues published by the Sainte-Marthes.

[18] [from which extracts are made. The Charter of the foundation of that same monastery] Indeed it would be worth while to bring them forward here out of the History of the monastery of Agaunum; but I candidly confess that it would be no one day's labor to abridge what is there set out at length. Then I do not have at hand the documents to be annexed at the end, without which readers could not rarely desire something for proof. The courtesy and benevolence of the most ample and most reverend abbot toward us gives confidence indeed that they would easily be obtained from him; but the press does not suffer delay, and their great mass would perhaps carry me too far afield. Relying therefore on the hope that the History will at length see the light, I take from it for the present only a few things, namely such as seem to make more closely for my purpose. Among these let the first place be occupied by the Charter of the foundation of the monastery of Agaunum, which, although it is not free of every blemish, and has something which makes one augur ill of its original antiquity, is nevertheless taken from a Manuscript much more ancient — the most reverend de L'Isle being witness — than was that which was published by the Sainte-Marthes.

[19] The reader will be able to gather the emendations from the variant readings [more correct than that published by the Sainte-Marthes. Sigismund's various address to the bishops] which I shall note in the margin from the catalogue of the Sainte-Marthes. The copy which I have before my eyes was most courteously sent by the often-praised abbot of Nancy, and is fortified with the seal of the most reverend lord Claret, present abbot, as it happens, of the monastery of Agaunum, who attests that the copy agrees to the letter with the Manuscript from which it was extracted. Now it is as follows. In the fear of our Lord Jesus Christ, with felicity, our lord Sigismund the pious reigning \, on the day before the Kalends of May, a council having been held in the name of God publicly at Agaunum by 60 bishops and as many counts, the same king began to say: "I have heard the Lord saying in the Gospel: Where two or three shall have been gathered in my name, I am in the midst of them. For I am certain \ of your holiness, fathers of the Lord, that in this assembly almighty God will be our helper." Then holy Maximus, bishop of the city of Geneva, said: "Since there is nothing which is not done by Him, we must ask that, aided by His support, we may walk the way of truth, so that we may deserve to attain to the eternal joys." Then the king said: "For this indeed have I gathered you together, that you may console me in my sorrow,

and that you may teach me what I should do or reject." The bishops answered: "It is your honor, O king, to love judgment and to do mercy, and to walk solicitously with your God." To whom the king said: "I have now cast away all ambiguity, and God has wiped from me all the perfidy of the Arians; I have attained the Catholic faith, I am the servant of Jesus Christ. Instruct me how I may please Him whose friend I profess myself to be."

[20] Then the aforesaid vigorous preacher Maximus said: and their answers and exhortations. "Hear, O most pious king, the most holy king saying: Come unto Him and be enlightened, and your faces shall not blush. And elsewhere: Cast your thought upon the Lord, and He Himself will nourish you. And the Lord in the Gospel: Come unto me all you that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you." At this reasoning therefore the king, moved with compunction, said: "Speak then, kindly father; I am greatly delighted in your discourses." Then that most holy man said: "Though we are unworthy, it is our office to announce, but yours to fulfill. Let our speech therefore be seasoned with salt, that the meek may hear and be glad, and that our ministry be not blamed; let our words, with God's help and by divine authority, bring forth your salvation \. Love those who are of right heart and who walk \ in simplicity before the Lord in all goodness, justice, and truth. Keep yourself chaste, and do not \ share in the sins of others, that with blessed David you may securely say: I have hated the malignant assembly, and the innocent \ and upright have cleaved to me; for doing this you will save yourself and those who \ hear you. It is fitting for us that you live justly, because of that which the prophet says: As the ruler \ of the city is, such also are the inhabitants of the cities."

[21] While blessed Maximus was saying these things and things like them, the king and all the people who were with him, sighing and giving thanks to God, because they had such an instructor, who took away all hesitation from their hearts. Then holy Theodore, bishop of Octodurum \, said: The statutes of the council concerning the relics "It is the urgency of my heart that I bring forth a word for your salutary counsels: what is to be done concerning the bodies of the blessed Theban Martyrs, that is, of Maurice with his Fellow-soldiers, who for the most high God were destroyed by Maximian, and lie unburied? I do not know who is the man who could avail to build churches for them singly according to their merits." Then all the bishops said: "By their gore that place is holy and elect. They were exiles from their fatherland, despising the life of the world, rejecting things that pass, not reflecting on the kinship of the neighbor, not sparing their youth; for the love of Christ they died, and through Christ they have been sanctified." Then the king, out of a most full devotion, broke forth with a tearful voice: "Would that my impiety had not made a hindrance for me, so that I might have been with them and fallen with them, and become a companion of their joy! But now, with God's help, see that they receive an honorable burial."*

[22] of the Theban Martyrs. Having taken counsel, they said to the king: "It has seemed good to us that these only, whose names are known — that is, of Maurice, Exuperius, Candidus, Victor — should be buried within the compass of the basilica, which \ the clemency of the king has ordered to be adorned for this work; but that the remaining bodies be gathered in a most safe place, and be laid in one most suitable place, and that most holy guardians be appointed under exceptional custody, lest perchance (which be far from us) they be stolen from them by fraud; and let an office of psalmody be established, unceasingly by day and by night." Together with the king it pleased all that \ they should appoint in that same place, as abbot, Ynemundus, a most holy man, approved in all good works; who was himself also summoned by the venerable bishops, together with the most holy men St. Acivus \, and St. Ambrose, St. Protus, and the holy men who had come from the monastery of Grigny \ to undertake this work. The bishops debating these matters among themselves with the illustrious king Sigismund, what institution of a Rule they ought to impose upon the monks; because on account of that institution of psalmody, which there, God protecting, is to be preserved from now on and forever, it cannot perform works as the other monasteries do.

[23] and the institution Holy Victorius, bishop of the city of Grenoble, said: "Solomon said, where there are many counsels, there is the greatest safety. To this we have come, that by sentences brought forth from divine Scripture the king's devotion may be fulfilled and his strength \ be reinforced. What at last more useful can we find? To favor is not to be silent, so that subjects may be able to bear it, and lest we seem crafty judges, of whom the Lord says in the Gospel: For they bind heavy and unbearable burdens, and lay them on men's shoulders, but with their own finger they will not move them. For behold, our aforesaid lord king Sigismund has enriched the monastery of Agaunum with the wealth of his bounty \. It is fitting therefore that, according as the aforesaid \ kindly father abbot Ynemundus leads a most perfect life, his successors should imitate him, and should meditate in their heart on the example of his sanctity, and practice it in work. It seems to me right that, according to the most full devotion of the lord king, there be made of the institutions of psalmody nine norms, that is, the Grigny, the Isian, the Jura, and the Melvan, and the rest; so that, succeeding one another in the canonical Offices — that is, Nocturns, Matins, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers — they may serve the Lord in peace \ unceasingly by day and by night."

[24] of the monastery of Agaunum, These things being said, all the bishops consented; to whom the king said: "Now indeed my desire concerning the office of psalmody has been satisfied. What seems to you concerning the endowment of the monastery and the exhortation of doctrine, or in what manner the monks themselves ought to live? For it has already been said above that, since, like the other monasteries, they cannot perform works on account of the institution of psalmody, what institution of a Rule they ought to handle and diligently examine \, so that it may be fortified by our authority, and reinforced by the firmness of our hand, and bound under the chain of anathema." To this question the venerable man Viventiolus, bishop of the city of Lyons, together with the other bishops, said: "It seems to us best that they have their endowment from the king, and their exhortation and doctrine from the Apostolic See. Now since we know that holy Ynemundus, whom we have appointed to preside over this monastery, has an approved discipline and a holy manner of life, let his successors also follow him in fulfilling every work; yet in brief we institute that all obey him, and that nothing be done without his precepts, and that whatever shall have been ordained by the elders the younger shall fulfill without murmuring, and that through the several norms worthy deans be appointed one by one, so that the abbot, the burden being divided, may be secure concerning their provision.*

[25] "But concerning clothing, we know that this place is intemperate through the intemperance of the air; for which various rules are prescribed, therefore let it be at the abbot's discretion, both as to what they put on and as to their beds. Likewise concerning food and drink. Let them have one dormitory, one refectory, one place for warming. But concerning discipline, let them be judged for graver faults according to the canons, but for lesser ones as the abbot shall have judged and the Brothers shall have consented; for it is better to be scourged with a friend than to be cast headlong into destruction with an adversary. Let them keep the fast as the other monasteries do, and let them be free for prayers by day and by night, and always meditate, that they may please God \; and let no one presume to go out of the monastery without the permission of the prior. It has pleased us also that both the abbot who now is and those who shall be, be of necessity instructed both in the Old Testament and in the New, so that others may be edified, and that these things be written down by chapters \, so that posterity may keep them. These things are instituted for His sake who loved us and delivered Himself for us as an odor of sweetness. Let him see to it, that there be no one who dares to violate these things and incur the wrath of almighty God. And if a time shall come (which God avert) when by upheaval \ or by dispute anyone shall attempt to act against these things, then let the abbot of the aforesaid monastery, as to a fountain \, have recourse to the Apostolic See, as one seeking an enlightening light \, and thence let him return to his own cell \, and let him prove that wisdom is more powerful than all things, and that there is a distinction between the salted and the unsalted \."*

[26] And therefore, with God's help, let the monks, strengthened by the holy exhortation, and Hymnemundus is set over it. King Sigismund's remain in unshaken stability, in undivided charity. And as now the devotion of the most glorious king has been fulfilled, so let the consent of all be preserved and reinforced in perpetuity. Wherefore I, Sigismund, by the grace of God king of the Burgundians, under Christ's auspices, have taken counsel, together with the aforesaid 60 bishops and as many counts, concerning the aforesaid monastery which is called Agaunum, which now, with the Lord's help, we have built within our kingdom of the Burgundians, and have appointed there (as we have said before) as abbot the venerable man Ynemundus, where are so many and such sacred bodies of the Theban Martyrs, who for Christ did not hesitate to pour out their blood. Concerning the lights and \ the maintenance of the monks, what ought I to do, save as our Lord Jesus Christ speaks, saying: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy; and: Give alms, and all things are clean unto you; and: Whosoever shall have left houses or fields for my name's sake shall receive a hundredfold, and shall possess eternal life.*

[27] veneration toward the Saints, and munificence toward Therefore I, weighing the words of our Redeemer, give to that same monastery, for the salvation of my soul, of my own goods, and will that it be given in perpetuity; that is, in the districts or territories of Lyons, Vienne, Grenoble, and Aosta, and in the district of Geneva, of Vaud, and in the territory of Avenches, and of Lausanne, and of Besançon, the estates thus named: Briogia, Olona, Cacusa, [Staties \, Olgana; and in the district of Geneva, other estates, thus named: Communiacum, Mariniacum; and in the district of Besançon, Saliumno with the castle of Bracon, Wallemo of Mièges; and in the district of Vaud, in the territory of Avenches or of the Jura, other estates thus named: Muratum, Auronum, Wadingium, Bedelofei, Luliacum, Lustriacum; and in the district of Valais, other estates, thus named: Contextrix, Sidrium, Leuca, Bramosium, Duodecimum, Paternum, Bernona, Aulonum, Villiacum, Wubregium, Actania, Octunellum, Silvanum, and all the Alps from the head of the lake as far as Martigny.*

[28] the monks of Agaunum. And in the valley of Aosta, which is on the borders of Italy, one Tower, which looks toward the West; and other estates thus named: Cleuva, Lagona, Levira], Gizocolis and Morga, with all their integrity and appurtenances, or adjacencies — that is, in lands, houses, buildings, bondservants, freemen, freedmen, commoners, tenants, vineyards, woods, olive groves, fields, meadows, pastures, waters and the outflowings and inflowings of waters, movables and immovables, and tithes — the whole sought out entire, whatever is seen to look to those villages,

to the place of the aforesaid monastery of St. Maurice we give, hand over, and grant; and this on the condition that from this day the aforesaid house of God, or its rectors, shall have and possess and hold those things intimated above, for the lights of that church or for the maintenance of the monks contending there, or shall enjoy free discretion to do whatever they shall choose therewith. Wherefore we have ordered this our donation to be made, through which we altogether command that no one whatsoever of our faithful, nor of the judiciary power, presume to disquiet the aforesaid house of God, or of the blessed Martyrs, or its rectors, nor likewise the monks residing there, nor to raise a calumny; but that under the care of our confirmation, God being favorable, in our times and in those to come, as we have said, for the increase of our reward, it may advance in increase for the lights of that same church or for the maintenance of those monks, so that it may the better delight that congregation of the blessed Martyrs to entreat the more attentively the mercy of the Lord for us.

[29] The subscriptions of the document, and a suspicion And that this donation or authority may be held the firmer and be preserved through the ages, and by the seal of our hand obtain firmness for all time: Maximus, bishop of the city of Geneva, has subscribed. Theodore, bishop of the city of Octodurum, has subscribed \. Victor, bishop of the city of Grenoble, has subscribed. Viventiolus, bishop of the city of Lyons, has subscribed. Vindemarus the count has signed. Fredemundus the count has signed. Gondeulfus the count has signed. Benedictus the count has signed. Agano the count has subscribed. Bonifacius the count has subscribed. Theudemundus the count has subscribed. Fredeboldus the count has subscribed. Given on the day of the Ides of May, in an assembly of men near the monastery of Agaunum, happily. You see here, reader, the fault removed from which Le Cointe and others drew weapons against the Charter of the Sainte-Marthes, since everywhere Theodore is called bishop not of Sion but of Octodurum. I, in the preceding Commentary, §3, num. 37, have rather blunted the weapons hitherto brandished than defended or asserted the sincerity of the document itself. Nor would I dare undertake anything else here, although I hold it for very probable that that copy was once taken from a charter of Sigismund. Certainly the most pious king could have transferred into his charter certain words of the bishops who some days before had been gathered concerning the foundation of the monastery of Agaunum; but it is no less certain that all these things have been greatly disfigured by a later writer, who perhaps could not read the characters. Further, I nowhere find the age of the primary copy, which I have printed, determined; but there is one thing which casts a fear into me, that it may be older at least than the seventh century. Sigismund gives — of which the Sainte-Marthes have nothing in their Charter — all the Alps from the head of the lake (that is, Leman) as far as Martigny.*

[30] This word I have not hitherto found in authors who wrote before the episcopal see was transferred to Sion, about its antiquity. after Octodurum was cut off or ruined by the tumults of wars; which not a few geographers contend was situated in the same place where Martigny is today. The see is believed to have been transferred from Octodurum to Sion, by some about the middle of the sixth century, by others toward its end, at which time the Lombards wretchedly devastated Valais. Whether Martigny arose at once thereafter, perhaps from the ruins of demolished Octodurum, I do not know; certainly those who extend its origin and name back to the early times of the Romans bring forward no witnesses of the assertion, nor do they thereby pluck out that doubt of mine, which perhaps could stand more against the sincerity and antiquity of the charter, if there were leisure to inquire more accurately into the beginning of the word Martiniacum. But let these things said here suffice: let us hasten to contemplate the cult of the holy Martyrs in the monastery of Agaunum, and their sacred remains.

\* In the Sainte-Marthes, omitted. \ ego* (I) \ præferant* (let them bring forth) \ ambula* (walk) \ nulli* (to none) \ invocantes* (invoking) \ quiete audient* (they will hear quietly) \ doctor* (teacher) \ Sedunensis* (of Sion) \ quam* (than) \ &* (and) \ constituerunt* (they appointed) \ Acino* \ Granensi* \ seriusque* (and more seriously) \ operibus* (by works) \ dictus* (said) \ hanc* (this) \ More correctly, debeaut fortiri, diligenter examinetur.* \* omitted \ capitalia* (capital matters) \ divulsione* (by tearing apart) \* omitted \ potens* (powerful) \ causam* (the cause) \* omitted \ ad* (to) \* all these following words differ much. \* These are lacking in the Sainte-Marthes.

§ III. The sacred Treasury of the monastery of Agaunum, and the various relics of the holy Theban Martyrs preserved there. Concerning the prodigious stone upon which St. Maurice is said to have been butchered, and concerning the cult and relics of the Saints in the city of Sion.

[31] A list of the sacred relics The other document, which the most reverend and most learned abbot so often praised sent to me joined to his History, is a list of the relics which are heaped up in the Treasury of the abbey of Agaunum, which I turn from French into Latin.

I. A thorn of the crown of our Savior, sent by St. Louis, king of the Gauls, to whom several bodies of the holy Theban Martyrs were granted.

II. Of the true Cross of our Savior.

III. A great silver reliquary, adorned with gems, which contains relics of St. Maurice, prefect of the Theban Legion.

IV. Two vessels, filled with the blood of the holy Theban Martyrs.

V. The head of St. Candidus, enclosed in a silver statue reaching to the navel, adorned with various gems.

VI. The head of St. Victor. It is a gift of the most serene house of Savoy.

VII. A most rich reliquary, in which are relics of St. Peter and of others. It is a gift of Pope Eugenius III, who consecrated the old basilica when about to set out for the council of Rheims. His effigy is to be seen at the top.

VIII. A silver chest, in which are kept some bones of St. Sigismund, restorer of the monastery of Agaunum, and of his sons Gistaldus and Gundobald.

[32] which are preserved at Agaunum. IX. Another chest, likewise of silver, containing some bones of the Theban Martyrs. They are preserved besides in three other gilded wooden chests, apart from those with which the two larger coffers are filled.

X. Two silver arms, adorned with some gems, in which are bones of some Martyrs.

XI. Another arm, more precious than the aforesaid, containing a rib, the chin, and the extreme part of the stole of St. Bernard.

XII. The ring of St. Maurice.

XIII. A vermiculated bowl of Charlemagne.

XIV. Another chalice of simpler work.

XV. Two reliquaries adorned with various gems, in which various relics are kept.

XVI. A silver chest, in which are parts of the garments of the most holy Virgin, and of the head of St. Felix.

XVII. A reliquary which exhibits, to be viewed through crystal, two teeth of St. Apollonia.

XVIII. Another, in which is also seen a portion of the thumb of St. Anthony.

XIX. Part of the cross of St. Andrew the apostle, enclosed in a silver cross.

XX. Some fragments of the garments of St. Maurice, in a most beautiful silver equestrian statue of St. Maurice, given as a gift by the most serene house of Savoy.

Besides these, there are four silver reliquaries less notable, and in them are kept some relics of St. Amatus, bishop of Sion and abbot of St. Maurice, of SS. Florentinus, likewise prelate of Sion, and of his deacon Hilarius, martyrs.

[33] The chief remains of St. Maurice Further, how some of the sacred relics here enumerated came to the abbey of Agaunum, certain documents will be able to teach, which the most learned abbot cites as to be appended to his History; our discourse here is only of the remains of the holy Martyrs, which had not to be fetched from elsewhere. But although a vast treasure of them is found in the aforesaid catalogue, yet someone could not undeservedly wonder that more out of the remains of so many Athletes are not heaped up there, did he not learn that a vast number of them was granted through so many revolving centuries to the pious desires of peoples seeking them from every quarter, and did he not believe that God has perhaps reserved very many to be discovered even in times to come. But what is wont to happen with all the most celebrated Saints, that various cities ascribe their sacred bodies to themselves, could scarcely fail to happen concerning the most glorious Leader of the Thebans and his renowned Companions, where the sacred bones of so many thousands of Martyrs offer a handle for error; which bones, since it was not known whose they were by name, must easily have received the names of the chief ones, and so have been confused.

[34] were preserved at Agaunum down to the end of the sixteenth century; That the men of Agaunum have always believed, down to these our times, that they possess a portion of the body of St. Maurice, will become clear from the parts which their abbots granted through almost every century to certain particular churches, or to persons preeminent in ecclesiastical or secular dignity; so that this possession of theirs seems able to be disputed only wrongly, especially since they do not boast that they have the whole body, but a vast part, how great it is we shall see clearly from the documents of Turin in §9. Concerning the ring and the vessels full of the blood of the holy Thebans, the testimonies are less certain for the men of Agaunum. Most celebrated is the ring of St. Maurice, which the most serene dukes of Savoy were wont, through several centuries, to send back to their posterity as a testimony of the inheritance to be entered upon; by the touch of which also benefits are reported to have been obtained, as we shall show when we traverse Savoy.

[35] A similar ring likewise, distinguished with the name of St. Maurice, where, however, some also is said to be kept in the church of Maurienne; concerning all of which let the same judgment hold which I began to intimate a little before concerning the relics of the holy Leader; for neither does it appear likely that St. Maurice wore three rings, that all his Companions lacked rings, or at least that no others were found besides those of Maurice. As regards the vessels full of the holy blood, I fear that it was drawn out by St. Martin from the neighboring field long after their martyrdom; concerning which matter I shall say something when we survey the cult and relics of the holy Thebans at Tours. Meanwhile I confess that the aforesaid flasks could have been filled with blood still fresh by the Christians who buried the bodies of the Martyrs, and could afterwards have come from these to the men of Agaunum; and if this is true, I should grieve that so precious a thing were disfigured by little fables. Fr. Ernest Biverman, a priest of our Society, wrote a letter to my Elders, dated at Fribourg in Switzerland on the 4th of June of the year 1668, in which he signifies that, being asked by Henschen, he had made an excursion into Valais to inquire into the sacred monuments of antiquity and the cult of St. Theodulus, and had surveyed the abbey of Agaunum.

[36] From his letter, laid aside for this day, I transfer hither the following things. are at the least very uncertain. Further, I beheld at Agaunum the notable relics and monuments preserved in the church of the monastery of St. Maurice. Among the rest, a flask of agate stone, full of the blood of the holy Martyrs, which flowed from grass mown by St. Martin of Tours, and was transmitted to him by an angel, and even today is fortified on top with the seal of St. Martin in white wax. The sculpture round about the vessel is of incredible artifice, exhibiting a certain Egyptian sacrifice, so that it seems to be a spoil of Egypt, whence the Theban Legion had its origin. This, unless I am mistaken, is one of the vessels of which there was mention in the catalogue set out above, where I find that similar things, at first added, have been deleted with the pen — whence I confirm my suspicion of ineptitudes. The most reverend de L'Isle, in the often-praised manuscript History, ch. 16, asserts that that flask is believed to be a gift of Charlemagne, who made very many donations to the monastery of Agaunum, and took care also that its privileges and immunities should be confirmed by Adrian I. I suspect that long afterwards the seal of St. Martin and

an inept tradition were added to the precious vessel.

[37] Biverman, praised above, writes thus in the same letter: [The stone which demons hold in horror, and upon which St. Maurice is believed to have been beheaded.] I came first to Agaunum, and there visited the place in which the holy Martyrs suffered. I beheld a great stone, hung from iron chains, upon which St. Maurice, resting on his knees, was beheaded. Bloody marks are still discerned, and sick infants are placed by their parents beneath that stone for whole days and nights, until by the help of the holy Martyr they recover. The malignant spirits, too, in possessed persons brought thither, hold that stone in horror beyond measure. These things I beheld, being present, a thousand paces from Agaunum. In Merian's Topography of Valais I find, some paces distant from Agaunum, a chapel which is named from St. Maurice, and where perhaps that prodigious stone is kept, of which Baldesano writes still more in his enlarged History of the Theban Legion, p. 527, where also on p. 408 and following he alleges a tradition asserting that St. Maurice was separated from the rest of the Legion and beheaded in that place — which tradition seems neither very ancient, nor will it easily find credit with critics. And these are the only things which I have found about the relics of the holy Martyrs at Agaunum.

[38] The rest of the ancient and celebrated cult Concerning their cult in that place some things must now be said, besides those which we have set forth more amply in the Commentary. I have at hand a copy, not written very recently, if one may judge from the characters and the paper, where under this title, On the solemnity of St. Maurice and his Companions, there follows an Office in which the Antiphons, Versicles, Hymns, and Responsories are proper, as are also the Lessons subjoined there, to which is prefixed the Rubric: Lessons of the first and of the eighth day. These are taken from the interpolated Surian Acts, as are the rest; wherefore I forbear to report them. Whence the aforesaid Office was taken I do not find noted; but the things which are immediately subjoined to the Lessons make me suspect that it is proper to the monastery of Agaunum, and they are these: Masses formerly wont to be sung, which even now are held in use at the ancestral and celebrated monastery of Agaunum on the feast of St. Maurice and his Companions, and in their Octave outside of Paschal time.

[39] of the holy Thebans at Agaunum, But if anyone should prefer to think that they are the Masses of some other church, which have now ceased to be recited there, he has my leave: certainly in the church of Agaunum, if faith is to be given to the copy, they were still read at that time. It is noted there, moreover, that on the 22nd of September there is a Mass of St. Maurice and his Companions wholly proper; and then these things are subjoined: A Mass of St. Maurice is also wont to be said among them on the first day of every week, if it is not impeded by a double, semidouble, or simple feast, both in Paschal time and outside it, excepting the seasons of Lent, of Advent, and the days of the Four Seasons and of fasts. Then a note is added: The Revelation of St. Maurice and his Companions falls on the 26th of October, which day too is held among them in the highest veneration. But neither do I find anything of these elsewhere; and so I pass to the men of Sion, having reminded the reader in passing that the Canons Regular of the abbey of Agaunum wear a red humeral or little mantle, in memory of the blood of the Thebans shed in that place; which prerogative Pope Eugenius III first granted them, as the often-praised de L'Isle attests in his manuscript History, where also he cites a document by which in the year 1210 William, count of Montereau, bequeaths to the abbey of Agaunum 13 pounds of Parisian money yearly, the price of 20 ells of red cloth, from which cowls or humerals should be made for the canons.

[40] and in the city and The things which illustrate the cult of the Saints of Agaunum among the men of Sion. Sebastian Briguet, praised above, relates some things; on p. 80 he speaks thus: This narrative (concerning St. Theodulus, whom he judges to have been present at the beginning of the ninth century, with St. Gratus of Aosta, at the finding of the body of St. Innocent and at the translation of the other holy Theban Martyrs; concerning whom consult what is disputed on the Acts of St. Gratus, tom. III of September, p. 72 and following) agrees with the tradition, with the written and painted tablets and the sacred Annals of the church of Sion, by which we are taught that St. Theodulus gathered the remaining sacred bones of the Theban Martyrs, revealed by the prompting of the Deity, and laid them up in an honorable place; such as I judge those to be which in no small number are preserved from time immemorial in the chapel of St. Catharine of the collegiate church of the castle of Valeria of the canons of Sion; for it is not established on what other occasion they should have been brought to Sion. Now the castle of Valeria is set upon a high hill in the very city of Sion.

[41] Father Maurice Chardon, priest of our Society and rector of our college of Constance, and often elsewhere, in the Diocese of Sion and an untiring helper of our Work, often praised and still more often to be recalled with grateful memory, labored strenuously above all in seeking out those things which could illustrate the glory of his Patron, and transmitted to us not a few collections sought out through Switzerland and Saxony, which I shall use very much here. Under the title Valais, he writes thus: At Sion, where the see of the bishop is, in the cathedral church dedicated to the honors of the most blessed Virgin and of St. Theodulus, an elegant altar is seen which exhibits St. Maurice, the chosen Patron of all Valais. In the same place, in the castle of Valeria, where there is a collegiate church which is frequented daily by half of the canons of the cathedral church, there are preserved in two very large coffers very many bones of the said Legion of St. Maurice. Bones of St. Maurice also, enclosed in a silver statue, are exposed for public veneration. They are wont to carry that statue in suppliant rite, with the venerable clergy and the senate accompanying, into the cathedral church on the feast day of St. Maurice. Now it is celebrated in the whole diocese of Sion under the rite of the 1st Class with an Octave. For the rest, so great is the carelessness of the people here that they hardly transcribe anything for posterity, content to have received benefits; to which I have nothing to add.

§ IV. The cult and relics of St. Maurice and his Companions in the diocese of Lausanne, in the districts or Cantons of Fribourg, Solothurn, Basel, and Lucerne in Switzerland.

[ ] In the Diocese of Lausanne there is a double Office of the Saints; various Let us make the beginning of our survey of the cult of the holy Martyrs, most celebrated among the Catholic Swiss, from the city of Lausanne, near to the northern shore of Lake Leman. Here indeed nothing special occurs concerning their relics or churches sacred to their name; but an Office of them is made through the whole diocese as a double, by order of the most illustrious Peter à Montenach, bishop, who published it in the year 1703 with proper Lessons of the 2nd Nocturn, as Fr. Francis le Jeune, present procurator of the Brussels college of our Society, has taught me. More celebrated is the memory of the Saints in the district of Fribourg. Fribourg is the capital of a Catholic assembly, or Canton, as they call it, in Switzerland, a celebrated city on the river Sarine, distant four miles from Lausanne, and something over a mile and a half farther from the northern shore of Lake Leman. Thence Fr. Xavier Fegeli, priest of our Society, at that time residing at Fribourg, wrote to father Chardon on the 3rd of March 1745 a letter which I have before my eyes, and from which I pluck some things. In the city of Fribourg one church is dedicated to St. Maurice, which is that of the Augustinian Hermit fathers; but in the Canton of Fribourg, the churches of the following parishes: Barberêche, Billens, Morlens, Masconens, Ottigny, Puntau, Grangetter. Chapels have been erected to the same Saint at Gruyères (it is a town and prefecture and county of the Canton of Fribourg), Sant-Ursen, Pierra-Forceat, Willer, Romarance.

[43] Of these, if the names have been rightly written — for the character of the letter is somewhat difficult to read — sacred monuments through the district of Fribourg I do not find some of the villages on the geographical maps of Guillaume de L'Isle and Ottens; yet in the Catalogue of persons and places of the diocese of Constance, published in print in that place six years ago, several appear. Let us hear the remainder of the letter. Altars of St. Maurice are at Fribourg among the Conventual fathers; outside Fribourg, but within the Canton, at Rue (it is a town and prefecture) and at Granges. Our church of St. Michael has some larger fragments of the Theban Legion, with other holy relics in a great reliquary skillfully adorned of painted black ebony and silver. Here some things are inserted which pertain to St. Ursus, and our own material is resumed: In the collegiate church of St. Nicholas here at Fribourg there is a silver reliquary of St. Maurice, with several bones of the same Saint and of his Companions. Among the Conventual fathers there is a confraternity of workmen who make hats, weave cloths and dye them; and these every year hear a solemn Office wont to be sung at the altar of St. Maurice, and sometimes lead out a legion furnished with images and crosses of St. Maurice, to render more celebrated the solemnity which here every year … is wont to be instituted in honor of the three holy kings…

[44] and relics, In the village of Ottigny (this name I have not found on the praised geographical maps; perhaps it is Otis, a village distant a mile and a half north of Fribourg) there is a small bone of St. Maurice enclosed in silver, and given by me when I was in Valais, and the parish priest carries it about in processions. For the rest, in the whole Canton the feast of St. Maurice is celebrated both in choir and in the forum, at least in the morning. But where he is Patron, I believe it is celebrated the whole day. It is certainly celebrated in the whole territory and observed under a double rite. Besides, churches are dedicated to St. Maurice in the diocese of Lausanne, and at Landeron, in the county of Neuchâtel, on the lake. Among the documents sent to us by the praised father Maurice Chardon there are some from Solothurn, where the holy Theban martyrs, and the Companions of St. Maurice, Ursus and Victor, are held in especial honor; concerning whom, along with the Roman Martyrology, there will have to be particular treatment at the 30th day of this month. The Prefect of the holy Legion has his own special cult in that same place, as the following things sent from Solothurn to Chardon by a certain canon teach.

[45] as also at Solothurn, which are There exists at Solothurn, in the collegiate church of St. Ursus, an altar dedicated to St. Maurice. There exists also in the same place a chaplain of St. Maurice, with the obligation of certain Masses to be applied weekly for the collator, and that chaplaincy is a well-endowed benefice. There is also in the same church a notable part of the relics from the Company of St. Maurice: namely, the whole sacred bone of the hip, now enclosed in gold and silver, which in the year 1637, on the 20th day of June, was granted from the venerable monastery of St. Maurice of Agaunum in Valais by the illustrious and venerable lord abbot and convent of the aforesaid monastery, and transmitted hither, with the authentications written upon parchment. Of this document I have an authentic copy thus appended.

[46] proved by documents, That sacred bone of the hip was brought hither from the foot in the year 1637, on the 20th day of the month of June, by lord William Gothard, canon and custodian of this collegiate church, from the venerable monastery of St. Maurice of Agaunum in Valais. When, being sent by Apostolic commission to visit that same monastery,

the said lord commissary then obtained the aforesaid bone from the illustrious and venerable lord abbot and convent of the aforesaid monastery, on this hope and condition, that a bone of like quantity should in turn be granted to that same monastery from the company of St. Ursus, since this one was taken from the relics of the Company of St. Maurice. I testify that this is a copy taken from the original concerning the hip of St. Maurice. George Francis Sury, provost and commissary of the bishop. You have noticed, unless I am mistaken, reader, that in the document it is asserted that that hip is from the Company of St. Maurice, whereas in the subscription it is liberally said to be his own. Let us go on. Besides, in the treasury of this church (of Solothurn) there stands a precious statue of St. Maurice wrought of gold and silver, representing with the whole body erect the vigorous Leader of the war, with relics of the Saints from the Company enclosed in it.

[47] Now the feast of St. Maurice is celebrated on the 22nd day of September under the rite of a double of the 2nd class, with a notable cult of the Saints: with solemn pomp, with the exposition of the holy relics and of the silver statue of St. Maurice. On the same day also, for the greater veneration of that Saint, the sacred relics are exhibited to be kissed by the renowned and most serene magistracy, by the citizens, and by the people, with a great concourse. After these things Fr. Chardon notes that in the territory of Solothurn parish churches are dedicated to St. Maurice in the village of Kriegstetten, near Solothurn, in the diocese of Constance, and another in the diocese of Basel, in the village of Lesser Lucelle, which they commonly call Lützel. I have another document sent by the same man, to which he gave the title From Rauracia. Now Rauracia is a part of the bishopric of Basel, how far it extends I nowhere find sufficiently determined. The Rauraci or Raurici, peoples neighboring on the Swiss, and their city Augusta Rauricorum, are known in the ancient Itineraries of the Romans, and in Cæsar, bk. 1, ch. 5. The village of Augst, distant two miles east of Basel, has kept the first name of the city to this day, where very many huge ruins of the former city are to be seen.

[48] Thus, moreover, it is written in the praised document: It has been possible to know nothing, who is also most celebrated in Rauracia, except that in the village of Chevenez, a full league distant from the town of Porrentruy, there is a parish church dedicated to St. Maurice, and that his feast day is celebrated under the rite of a double of the 1st Class; and that on the same day and the two following there is a prayer of the Forty Hours with plenary indulgences, as also on the third Sunday of every month in his honor. Porrentruy is, unless I am mistaken, a town ten miles distant from Basel toward the West, which I have found written on geographical maps as Porenthrut; for I find the village of Chevenez distant thence by the said space. For the rest, the often-mentioned Fr. Maurice Chardon closes thus: In the diocese of Besançon and of Basel his feast is celebrated under a semidouble; thus it is written from Porrentruy, the 30th of March 1741. Hence we pass to the assembly or Canton of Lucerne. Concerning the cult of St. Maurice and his Companions there we have again received some things, written by I know not whose hand, from Chardon, the excellent helper of our Work. Thence I take some things.

[49] The principal church of the city of Lucerne, Wighard the priest founded in the honors of St. Leodegar, bishop and martyr, and in the city and district of St. Maurice and his Companions. Concerning that foundation and the church there follow then very many things which, because less necessary here, I pass over. The basilica, reduced to ashes by fire, was rebuilt in the past century, and in the year 1644, on the 21st of April, was consecrated under the patronage of St. Leodegar, of St. Maurice, and his Companions, of whose sacred relics an arm and other bones are preserved. Another parish church, in honor of the Holy Trinity and of the holy Martyrs Maurice and his Companions, was erected at Ruswil, the chief village of the county of Ruswil. (It is distant nearly four miles from Lucerne toward the summer West.) … Relics indeed are held there in plenty, but of St. Maurice or of that holy Theban Legion nothing but a single bone — a large one, however, being a whole shinbone; but there is present no other authentic testimony of the truth than that a little slip affixed to this bone is marked with these words: Of St. Maurice, M. In the village of Emmen on the Reuss, in the county of Rothenburg, is a third church built in the honors of St. Maurice and his Companions in the year of the Lord 1595.

[50] of Lucerne and neighboring places. Chardon notes that in the deanery of the four Cantons of Catholic Switzerland the parish church at Morschach is dedicated to St. Maurice. For the rest, in the Catalogue of ecclesiastical persons and places of the diocese of Constance, of which mention was made above, a double Rothenburg occurs, of which one is said to be near Lucerne and comes under the deanery of Hochdorf; the other is itself a deanery, and has huge villages under it. Of this, I think, is the speech here. The river Reuss rises on the eastern border of Valais, and running thence to the North issues from the lake at Lucerne, and about a mile higher up receives the Lesser Emme. From it perhaps that village received its name; certainly the remaining places lie round about, subject to the deanery of Hochdorf. Rothenburg, however, I do not find on the geographical maps; perhaps it is the village at the second mile above Lucerne, which they call Root and Rott. It is certainly known in Merian's Topography of Switzerland, p. 22. In the knightly house of Hohenscin (the anonymous letter continues), of the same county of Rothenburg, a certain notable relic is exposed to the cult of the Faithful, namely a sacred bone of St. Maurice the martyr, whose feast day is celebrated with procession, sermon, and Office. This relic, however, lacks authentic letters, although there are in the archive letters given by the vicar general of the bishop of Constance on the 23rd of August in the year 1660, by virtue of which it is granted that the sacred bone of St. Maurice may again be exposed to the cult of the Faithful, after it had been withdrawn from veneration by the injury of the times.

§ V. Two hundred bodies found in the village of Schötz, in the assembly of Lucerne, in the year 1489, which were held to be those of Martyrs from the Company of St. Maurice. Some benefits obtained there.

[ ] In the assembly of Lucerne From the same anonymous letter we have drawn what we treat here; for its writer, after the things which close the preceding §, continues thus: Finally, at Schötz, a village of the county of Willisau, there is a Filial church sacred to St. Maurice and his Companions, belonging to the parish of Ettiswil. In the same village three chapels were successively erected, at no great distances from one another. To one of them Innocent VI granted great indulgences already in the year of the Lord 1356, to which in the year 1366 Henry, bishop of Constance, added new ones. About two hundred bodies were marvelously found in the year 1489 in that place where the first chapel was built, either near the chapel or in the adjacent houses; and there a larger chapel was built in honor of St. Maurice and his Companions, enriched by the holy See with great indulgences for the chief feasts of the Lord and of the blessed Virgin and of the other Saints throughout the year. How it came about that the bodies of so many holy Martyrs were buried in this place is not established. That they were of the companions of SS. Ursus and Victor, who near Solothurn underwent a glorious martyrdom for the faith, can be gathered from this, that, as the Legend of Solothurn records, some of the holy Martyrs carried their heads pressed to the body, others laid upon the breast, while others laid them down at their feet. Now in this posture the bodies of the holy Martyrs buried in the said place of Schötz were found, each turning its face toward the church, or toward the rising of the sun.

[52] Willisau is a town and prefecture of the assembly of Lucerne, 200 bodies found and held to be the remains six Swiss miles from the chief city toward the summer West, and as many distant from Solothurn. The village of Schötz is about one mile removed to the North of Willisau. But the things which are intimated by the anonymous writer as pertaining to the holy Martyrs, the Companions of Ursus and Victor, will have to be examined at the 30th day of this month of September, where, I fear, they will not find credit. Meanwhile the anonymous writer's conjecture is light enough, even granting freely the narrative of the Legend of Solothurn — unless perhaps he wishes that innumerable bodies which could be and have been found, when their skulls had been torn off, or had rolled down to the bones of the feet and the ribs, and lay turned toward the East, are the sacred relics of the Companions of St. Ursus. Nor will anyone, I think, wish to persuade us that those holy Martyrs, mutilated of the head, having come out of the river into which they are said to have been cast, carried their severed necks as far as Schötz, and there chose a place of burial; for an assertion so unusual would need firmer testimonies than the tradition itself which asseverates that the bones found are those of the holy Theban Martyrs.

[53] Murer in his Sacred Switzerland, p. 30, holds the same bodies to be the remains of the Companions of St. Maurice, of Theban Martyrs, over whom a certain Nicasius was said to be prefect, and believes that these were slain there together with their leader Nicasius; whence he likewise drew this I do not know, for he alleges no witness of his assertion. Concerning the popular tradition, whose beginnings are scarcely carried back beyond the sixteenth century, let it be permitted to conjecture some things. The chapel, or rather the chapels, erected there to St. Maurice and his Companions, and perhaps enriched with their sacred remains, existed long before those bodies were found. Certainly the cult of the holy Patrons was already then celebrated there, as is clear from the indulgences granted by Innocent VI more than a full century before. So many bones piled together there were found with some testimony certainly, some prodigy or revelation, as has not rarely happened; for how else could it have been believed that they were of holy Martyrs rather than the entombed corpses of soldiers slain there in the battles of which not a few were fought about those places? But when the inhabitants had obtained the heaped-up bones, which by this or by another way they knew to be of certain holy Martyrs, being most devoted to St. Maurice, of whom they had heard that he was crowned with martyrdom in their neighborhood along with many thousands, they could most easily be led to believe that these were the sacred pledges of his holy Companions. To these afterwards, no less easily, some leader and standard-bearer Nicasius could likewise be found out of a thousand occasions; and thus a tradition arose and was gradually propagated, which certainly rests on no firm foundations from elsewhere.

[54] Yet there is something else too which, I know not why, yet without sufficient foundation. would make one augur worse of that tradition. The anonymous writer of the praised letter, a few things being interposed which do not pertain here, speaks thus: Whither so many bodies of Saints found there have come, is not added. It is credible that they were distributed thence through various churches. Are none, then, of the bodies found kept there, are none exposed to public veneration? This indeed is not openly declared here, but seems obscurely to be intimated. And if it is so, not a few, at least the more rigid critics, will suspect that a cult, begun perhaps somewhat too liberally, was afterwards interrupted and abolished. Certainly I have hitherto found no church which glories in relics received thence. However that may be — for I would not dare to define anything, being destitute of the due testimonies on either side — very many benefits happened in the aforesaid chapel of Schötz, most of them upon the invocation of St. Maurice and his Companions'

patronage, to which accordingly they ought to be ascribed. But let us hear the anonymous writer in the often-mentioned letter. Miracles have happened in this place and very many still occur. For that earth (let this be his own observation), consecrated of old by the touch of the sacred bodies, has wiped away the pains of the stone, restored to the languishing the use of their limbs, hearing to the deaf, sight to the blind, and speech to the dumb, and even life to an infant drowned in the waters. Besides, inveterate evils of hernia have been healed, broken legs, the evil of frenzy, and very many others, all of which are found noted in a book destined for that purpose, from which the things read here have been excerpted.

[55] Various benefits conferred there upon those invoking the patronage There was added to this letter an extract of the benefits obtained there, written in German, which the often-praised father Maurice Chardon rendered into Latin, and which I transfer hither in just so many words, because they demonstrate the great veneration of the peoples toward St. Maurice and his fellow Martyrs, and their confidence in their patronage. The title is: Examples and prodigies wrought from the year 1489, the following are manifest, apart from those which are known to the Lord, and to Mary His Mother blessed above all women, and to St. Maurice the martyr and Patron here at Schötz and to his holy Company. 1. A certain woman here at Schötz, having fallen to the ground with a great blow, became deaf. As soon as she vowed a vow at this holy chapel that she would provide a light for the lamp, a small bone fell from her ear, and presently she began to hear. Another woman from Küsnacht labored many years under the same deafness. In this sacred building the faculty of hearing returned. 2. A boy from the village of Langenthal was so wretchedly disabled in the feet that he dragged them behind him leaning on crutches, not without a suspicion that this penalty had been sent by the Saints on account of certain offenses.

[56] of St. Maurice and his Companions. Here he devoted himself, and the rigidity of the sinews ceased. 3. A woman in the village of Frienge, for 15 years weak in her whole body, and a boy from the village of Entlebuch in like manner destitute of vigor of the limbs for 6 years, after a vow made at that sacred chapel, were able to go and return along the roads. 4. An infant from the village of Zofingen was rigid below the loins. Various vows having been undertaken, no remedy of the evil was effected. But being brought hither he recovered his health. 5. A woman from Unterwalden was tortured with vast pains of the stone; she devoted herself to the holy Martyrs in this sacred chapel, and marvelously brought forth six stones. 6. A certain man of Ettiswil could enjoy no rest from continual pains on account of a swelling in the knee. To another in the same place a fierce horse dealt a kick, so that his leg was believed broken. Another from the same place, when he was busy at labor rather vehemently in the wood, was suddenly deprived of speech. All three became suppliants by a pious vow to St. Maurice and his Company; and the first was freed from his pains, the second felt his foot whole, and to the third speech was restored. 7. Henry Nägelli from the village of Melchnau lost the light and nearly all the use of his eyes, and obtained in this chapel that he should see again.

[57] The dumb and the blind That these benefits and many others have happened, the Rev. lord Casper, at that time parish priest of Ettiswil, attests, along with many other honorable men. Others follow. 8. A daughter from the city of Winterthur, tongueless for seven years, began to speak; another child of seven years, disabled in eyes, tongue, and hands, at the same time felt himself free of all evils, after pious vows for them had been offered at this pious chapel. 9. John Stacsell from the village of Bretteln was deprived of the use of his ears; he promised that he would go by vow to these holy Martyrs, and was condemned by his vow; for when he passed by the chapel and did not fulfill the vow, out of some contempt, he suddenly began to be troubled in the head, so that at every moment he seemed about to fall. Detesting his negligence and contempt, he entered the sacred chapel, and, a pound of wax being promised, returned home wholly unharmed. 10. John Mullimatter from the village of Eriswil was riding to Sursee, a city situated in the Canton of Lucerne, to the fair on the feast of St. George the martyr; and when he too was passing by the sacred building to which he had vowed that he would come, in a moment he was so overwhelmed with the pains of a certain bone that he was compelled to be carried home.

[58] He renews his vow, and the holy Martyrs come again with their help; hernia, but he, a little after, having set out again to Sursee (this is, if Corneille rightly notes in his Geographical Lexicon, Sursee; but one does not go thither by the direct road through Schötz from Ettiswil, a village near Willisau, if the geographical maps note well) without venerating the holy Martyrs on the way, endured heavier pains for the fault committed; wherefore, repenting of the obstinacy and error he had committed, he discharged his pledged faith to his own great good. XI. A man from the village of Buttisholz (it is next to Ettiswil) suffered for several years a defect of the eyes amid continual pains, so that he feared blindness. But James Straby from the village of Kuntwill (situated at the second mile beyond Schötz) could no longer apply himself to his accustomed labor on account of a noxious humor. Both, having conceived a vow to the holy Martyrs, carried back the desired fruit of restored light. 12. Margaret Glaser, an Augsburg offspring, after the cutting of a hernia fell back into the same evil; Nicholas Wifig had a son laboring dangerously under a like hernia; for the child of Nicholas Schmid of Bysigg, badly affected on both sides, they augured certain death. St. Maurice, called into their vows with his Company, granted health in this sacred chapel to all and to each; which Peter Felinger also attests concerning his own son with a hernia, whom he had before piously devoted to others in vain. 13. Fridolin Stäbler from the village of Büron (in the Catalogue of places of the diocese of Constance it is placed under the deanery of Ruswil or Sursee) disabled in all his limbs, could move himself no more; set upon a horse by his brother, he went on to the sacred chapel, and got down from the horse sound and unharmed.

[59] Itta Küng from the village of Neuenkirch (in the cited Catalogue it occurs under the same deanery), a bone being drawn apart, lay fixed to her bed for 15 weeks. A vow being sent forth to those holy Benefactors, she rose up vigorous. A certain woman from the village of Bleyenbach (it comes in the Catalogue under the Collegiate church of St. Margaret in the district of the rural chapter of Fribourg as Bleybach, of which perhaps is the speech here) was through her whole life vehemently afflicted by a protuberance of a bone in her face; and being grateful she ascribes to these holy Martyrs that the swelling departed along with the pain. 15. In the village of Greppen (it is distant three miles east of Lucerne, situated on the opposite shore of the lake) an infant was swallowed up in the waters. The parents made vows to the holy Martyrs, and the infant returned to life. Pains harassed John Kestenholf from the village of Egolfwil (which I nowhere find) in the leg, so that he was believed to be going out of his mind. Becoming a suppliant here in the sacred chapel to the Patrons, he was restored both to himself and to health.

[60] His five-year-old son, out of his mind, tried to climb the walls. laboring under other diseases The father, mindful of the benefit received, took refuge with the same confidence in these Saints, and obtains a sound mind for his son. 16. Anna Brodbeckin from the village of Kohm (this too I nowhere find) was for many years tortured by a palpitation of the heart to the straits of death. When she heard the marvelous finding of the bodies of the holy martyrs from the Company of St. Maurice related, she conceives hope, and promises a votive offering of a wax heart of two pounds, and presently felt herself free of all anxiety of the heart. A like release came to Margaret Amrhein from the holy Martyrs, whom intense pains of the head had vexed for a whole year. Henry Vischer from the parish of Lotzdorf (unknown to me) had a son of eleven years who could pass water only with great pain and difficulty amid tearful cries. The origin of the evil was unknown to all; some and others suspected strangury, gravel, or the stone. The parent is advised to make vows at Schötz to the holy Martyrs found from the Company of St. Maurice; he did so, and straightway all the pains ceased. This happened in the Pentecost holidays, and the parents could not discharge the vow until about the feast of St. Gall, from which time onward they gratefully recorded that their son had suffered not the least trouble.

[61] recover their health. Of a like benefit in the driving away of a difficulty of urine, when no medicine availed, the wife of John Schonauer from the village of Lotzwil acknowledged herself a debtor to the same holy Martyrs. The village of Lotzwil again escapes me. Further, the document is closed with this subscription: I, Mark Nüwgalles, parish priest in Geiswil, sworn public notary, matriculated at Rome, by the authority and mandate of my gracious lord abbot of St. Urban attest the benefits written above, together with Peter Muller, warden of the church, John Smider, innkeeper, Bütsche, sacristan in the same place, and very many other honorable men. There are among these some things which seem to have happened on account of confidence in those whose remains were found in the year 1489; but perhaps those are the observations of the men who noted down the benefits. Certainly all of them at least are referred to St. Maurice and his fellow Martyrs, and on that account have deserved a place here.

§ VI. The veneration of the arm of St. Maurice, and of him and his Companions, in the monastery of the Hermits of the district of Schwyz, and in the abbey and Territory of St. Gall in Switzerland.

[ ] In the Hermitage of St. Mary in Switzerland a part of the arm of St. Maurice In the Canton or assembly of Schwyz, which lies between that of Glarus and that of Lucerne, near the little river Sihl, is a most celebrated monastery of the Order of St. Benedict, which is called the Hermitage of St. Mary, the Cell of the Hermits, the Black Wood, the Cell of the Solitaries, the cell of Meginrad, and by the natives Einsiedeln, whence some derive the Latin name Einsidlense. The Annals of this monastery were written by Christopher Hartmann, a monk there. He writes thus at the year of Christ 952 concerning the emperor Otto I: Thence (from Pavia) in early spring, having left his son-in-law Conrad, with the greatest part of the forces, to pursue Berengar and the remnants of the war in Italy, he crossed into Burgundy by the Pennine (they now call it the Great St. Bernard mountain), at the request of Adelheid, who desired to visit her mother Bertha and her brother Conrad in Burgundy. The Pennine being surmounted, when they had come to Agaunum, Ulrich, bishop of Augsburg, who was in the emperor's company, obtained from the provost of the monastery of St. Maurice, by the authority and license of Manfred, bishop of Sion, the arm of St. Maurice and other relics of that sacred Legion, which he might offer to the new basilica of that same Saint among the Hermits, whom he singularly cherished, and might place as a perpetual monument of his observance. That arm, enclosed in silver and adorned with precious stones, of almost rude workmanship, but exceedingly venerable, by the cult of the most holy Martyr and by the gift of so great a bishop, and by its antiquity too, is even now shown with admiration and reverence.

[63] In the Life of St. Ulrich, written by a contemporary author and printed in our Work, tom. 2 of July, p. 97 and following, granted by St. Ulrich, bishop of Augsburg. ch. 8, num. 55, several things are related concerning the relics of St. Maurice and his Companions that were sought out; but of these, since they are said to have been translated by him to Augsburg, we shall treat below. I have in hand

a document sent to us, by the care of that same notable helper of ours Fr. Maurice Chardon, from the abbey of Einsiedeln, fortified with the seal and subscription of the most ample lord Fr. Meinrad Brenzer, capitulary (unless I am mistaken, for the name of the office is contracted and so entangled with lines that it can scarcely be read) of Einsiedeln, Apostolic protonotary. From it — for it is too long to be transferred hither entire — I select some things making for my purpose. After there have been recited there the things which I plucked from Hartmann, and some others concerning the first beginnings of the basilica consecrated there in honor of St. Maurice and his Companions, it goes on thus: The testimony of this matter is drawn from an ancient parchment book of the custody of Einsiedeln, of red all-silk binding overlaid with mosaic silver, p. 2, side 2, setting forth: "St. Ulrich, count of Kyburg and Dillingen, bishop of Augsburg, coming to Einsiedeln from Valais, brought the arm of St. Maurice."

[64] Concerning the other relics of St. Maurice and his Companions preserved in that most celebrated abbey, Other relics of the martyr Companions there the following things are read in the document: For the rest, lord Elias Heymann of Sennheim, priest of the diocese of Trier, once decorated with the titles of dignities and of a prelacy and with chief public offices, three times rector of the kindly university, at length, the cares of the world being left behind, made a pilgrim guest in the celebrated monastery of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Einsiedeln … when he had visited Rome, afterwards Loreto, and other pious places, and was pressing with a singular affection to acquire sacred relics for the illustrious monastery of Einsiedeln, in the year of the Lord 1595 obtained from the most reverend bishop of Sion and the abbot of Agaunum, besides others, also the holy relics of St. Maurice, and handed them over to the most reverend prince and lord Ulrich, at that time prelate of Einsiedeln, into the special treasury of his monastery; as the designatory, familiar, and testimonial letters from the aforesaid places, but especially from Valais and Agaunum, written and transmitted for that purpose by the aforesaid bishop and at the same time by the cathedral chapter and the abbot, more fully declare, demonstrate, and attest. See the authentic document of the archive of Einsiedeln on parchment paper under the signature K M: n. 7.

[65] A more accurate inspection and restoration of this very same holy reliquary was made in the year of Christ 1597 by the aforesaid P. M., the most reverend and most illustrious prince and lord, lord Ulrich, and of St. Maurice himself abbot of the principal immediate monastery of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Einsiedeln; the testimony of which matter, written on virgin membrane, runs thus. In the year one thousand five hundred and ninety-seven of God made man, this silver coffer of St. Maurice, together with the most holy relics contained in it, etc., the most illustrious and most reverend prince and lord Ulrich, by far the most vigilant abbot of this far and wide most celebrated monastery, wholly reviewed, restored, and gave back to its pristine dignity. In faith of which matter the same man had this slip also placed upon it: "Pray for me, you Saints and you monks." See the authentic document in the archive of Einsiedeln under the sign K M: n. 161. I marvel indeed that a document so lengthy as that which I have in hand should have been drawn up with great care, and yet that copies of the two charters cited from the archive should not be joined to it — which certainly could have been much more of use to us here than what follows in the same place about the various relics brought from Cologne and Trier, to which their own testimonies are not lacking.

[66] sacred remains. A Valentine, I know not who, However that may be, at the end of the praised document it is said that, besides the arm of St. Maurice, several other remains of the same Saint are preserved there, and an inventory of them all is appended under this title: Of St. Maurice M. himself.

I. In the silver arm of St. Maurice.

II. In the base of his silver image.

III. In the base of the silver image of St. Peter.

IV. In sarcophagus num. II.

V. In sarcophagus num. IV.

VI. In the base of the image of St. Valentine, Theban martyr, letter O.

VII. In the greater Spanish Cross.

VIII. In the greater silver image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, from the banner of St. Maurice M.

Who that Valentine may be, and whence they have what is here asserted, that he is a Theban martyr, I have not hitherto ascertained.

[67] [is reckoned among the Thebans, of whom there were once relics in the district of Zurich] Martyrs named Valentine have occurred many times hitherto in our Work, and not a few will occur in its course, but nowhere do I find anything about this Theban; and accordingly I suspect either that another of the same name has been confused with him, or that this name was applied at will to the body of an anonymous man, perhaps a Companion of St. Maurice, as has happened with several others, as we shall see at the end. For the rest, the abbey of Einsiedeln will easily grant us, I trust, that we say it possesses some part of the arm of St. Maurice rather than the whole arm, lest again multiplied parts of the holy body be heaped upon us. The district of Zurich too had its relics of St. Maurice, which whether they escaped the rage of the iconoclast heretics and survive to this day, I do not know. Certainly Simler in his Description of Valais, bk. 2, p. 50, asserts that William, abbot of the abbey of Agaunum and bishop of Sion, toward the close of the twelfth century gave certain bones of the Martyrs to the college of canons of Embrach in the district of Zurich, and that letters indicating that matter attest it. Nearest to the district of Zurich on the summer East is Thurgau or Turgea, which some cosmographers so extend that it comprehends not only the territory of St. Gall, but also the district of Appenzell.

[68] relics. Their most celebrated cult Concerning the cult shown there to our holy Martyrs I have a document fortified with a seal and the due subscription, which we owe again to Fr. Maurice Chardon, laboring for the glory of his Patron. It was given from the monastery of St. Gall on the 1st of August in the year of the Lord 1745, and Fr. Giles Hertman, official general in spiritual matters, subscribed it. The most celebrated monastery of St. Gall, whose abbot has a place among the princes of the empire, took its beginning with the veneration of St. Maurice. For Walafrid Strabo writes in the Life of St. Gall, the founder of that abbey, in the 2nd Century of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, p. 236, that the holy man, when he had come to the wilderness and had found there a place fit for the solitary life, formed a cross out of a hazel rod and fixed it in the earth in that place where he afterwards built the cell, the beginnings of so great a monastery. Now he had, he says, a little casket hanging from his neck, in which were contained relics of the blessed Mother of God Mary and of the holy martyrs Maurice and Desiderius; and when he had hung it upon that very cross, he called the deacon, and they prostrated themselves together in prayer. Then the venerable man sent forth prayers of this kind: "Lord Jesus Christ … do not despise this desire on account of my sins, but in honor of Thy holy Mother and of Thy Martyrs and Confessors prepare in this place a habitation fit for Thy services." These things are narrated a little differently in the praised document, from the Lessons of the 2nd Nocturn of the Dedication of the basilica of St. Gall.

[69] Further, the cult of St. Maurice and his Companions has persevered there to this day; and sacred remains for there exists (these are the document's words) even today a chapel, and in it an altar, erected by Burchard I, count of Montfort, Linzgau, and Buchhorn, abbot of St. Gall (who from the Catalogue of the Sainte-Marthes is known to have presided a little after the middle of the tenth century), by the counsel of St. Conrad, bishop of Constance, above the turf of the hazel beneath which the Blessed Gall, once caught in the briars and falling to the ground, had sung that prophetic word, "This is my rest for ever and ever"; and consecrated by the same lord Conrad in the year of the Lord 968. Which altar, profaned by the iconoclasts of St. Gall in 1529, was restored anew and consecrated in honor of the most blessed Virgin Mary, of SS. Maurice and Desiderius, of St. Gall and St. Conrad. As witnesses of this matter are alleged Fr. Jodocus Metzler, Fr. Magnus Bruliswer, and Fr. Hermann Schenck in the Chronicle of St. Gall. In the same abbey some relics of St. Maurice and his Companions are also preserved, among which some were brought thither from Germany, whence it is permissible to believe that they are of the Companions of SS. Thyrsus, Boniface, or Gereon; for it is said in the mentioned testimony that authentic documents received from Agaunum, Cologne, Milan, and Hersfeld are preserved.

[70] Further, the sacred remains are thus enumerated: 1. Of St. Maurice, leader of the Thebans, there are had a knuckle-bone, in the abbey and territory of St. Gall. a small bone, and other notable particles. 2. Of the Company, an arm-bone; likewise another bone of the arm, a shoulder blade, besides notable parts and very many particles. These holy relics, beautifully adorned with gold and silver, together with other holy relics, the most illustrious prince Joseph in the year of the Lord 1738 enclosed in a new silver altar. Then there are appended the things which illustrate the cult of St. Maurice through the territory of St. Gall, in these words: Through the territory of St. Gall there exist under the patronage of St. Maurice and his fellow martyrs three parish churches, namely at Lengwil, Goldach, and Sommeri, where there is a small bone of the Companions of St. Maurice. To these ought deservedly to be reckoned, under the same patronage of St. Maurice, the parish church in the territory and district of Appenzell (in the vernacular Appenzell), once the primeval patrimony of St. Gall, which Norbert, baron of Stafile or Stofflen, abbot of St. Gall, established and endowed in the year of the Lord 1061, a public document being drawn up for that purpose, which begins thus: "Since from the variety of mortal things," etc. Fr. Jodocus Metzler and Fr. Magnus Bruliswer in the Chronicle of St. Gall at the year 1061. The feast of St. Maurice and his fellow martyrs on the 22nd of September is celebrated within the enclosure of the monastery of St. Gall under the rite of the 2nd Class, but through the territory under the rite of a Lesser double, as may be seen in the proper of St. Gall approved by Paul V. And these are the things which I have hitherto had at hand concerning the cult of St. Maurice and his Companions through Switzerland; below, under the diocese of Constance, some further things will recur from the list of churches sacred to their name which Chardon sent; but first let us hasten into Italy, whither the more excellent relics of the holy Leader, and other things pertaining hereto, call us.

§ VII. The occasion on which the relics of St. Maurice were sought from the men of Valais by the duke of Savoy. The men of Agaunum resisting, the men of Turin obtain only half of them.

[ ] The men of Turin Most celebrated among those which are exhibited in various places, if perhaps you except those of Agaunum, are the venerable relics of St. Maurice which are preserved at Turin, the royal city of Piedmont, with the highest veneration of the peoples. Some writers, especially Italians, by a custom solemn enough, ascribe the body of St. Maurice to the men of Turin. The French, on the contrary, who probably have not seen the documents of the translation, speak carelessly enough of that sacred treasure. Both sides will have to yield something, if without prejudices they attend to the testimonies to be produced; for these, as they assert for the Savoyards an almost indubitable possession of a great portion of the sacred remains of the Leader of the Thebans, so at the same time also prove that they obtained not the body but only parts of the body, since, at the time when the duke of Savoy sought them from the men of Valais, the men of Agaunum themselves did not have all the Saint's relics

and the legates sent thither by Charles Emmanuel could obtain no more than half of those which they did have. And all these things will become clear from what is to be said, which I shall treat somewhat more fully, so that a judgment may be made first about the relics of Agaunum, and then about those of Magdeburg, which German writers again dignify with the name of the body.

[72] glory a little too liberally in the sacred body. Whatever pertains to the sacred treasures of St. Maurice which were translated to Turin as the sixteenth century was expiring, Fr. Bernardino Rossignol, priest of our Society, an eyewitness of most of what he narrates, has pursued at length in a special work. He, having borrowed the name of William Baldesano, canon and theologian of the metropolitan church of Turin, published toward the end of the sixteenth century, in the Italian tongue, a sacred History of St. Maurice, leader of the Theban Legion, and of his Companions; and reprinted it, enlarged with much matter, at the beginning of the following century. Of this last work is my speech in the citations. And so on p. 309 he begins a very lengthy account of the solemn translation of the relics of St. Maurice from Valais to Turin. I hesitated whether I should render his every word into Latin; but when I weighed each thing more attentively and saw that not a few things are there intermingled which the reader could easily do without, I resolved to reduce his account to a compendium, and to exhibit only those things which look to the elucidation of the history, and the documents which give credit to the words. Therefore he narrates in this fashion.

[73] Among the territories snatched from the Savoyard, Agaunum, cut off with the other neighboring provinces from the kingdom of Burgundy, had come under the power of the most serene house of Savoy, while there was still living Adelaide, countess of Piedmont and last marchioness of Susa, mother of Amadeus I, who died about the end of the eleventh century, by Baldesano's reckoning. From this same woman Anno, archbishop of Cologne, received the power of transferring to his diocese the body of St. Innocent and the head of St. Vitalis, Theban martyrs. Not from this time, however, was St. Maurice chosen as protector of the house of Savoy, but afterwards, when Valais was recovered by Peter, brother of Amadeus, under the patronage of that same Saint; who either introduced or greatly increased the veneration toward the holy Protector, which thereafter remained hereditary in the family of Savoy. Francis I, king of the Gauls, had snatched away by arms from Charles, duke of Savoy, the father of Emmanuel Philibert, almost all that he had possessed in Savoy and Italy. Emmanuel then took to wife Margaret, sister of Henry II, who succeeded his father Francis in the kingdom. By the gift of the marriage most of the lost possessions had been restored to Emmanuel Philibert.

[74] The men of Valais, however, retained no small part of the provinces once taken from the Savoyard, [Agaunum was ceded to the men of Valais on this condition, that they should give up the body of St. Maurice.] and among them was Agaunum, and in it the monastery distinguished by the name and relics of St. Maurice. But in order to secure to themselves the possession of those places which they had wrested by arms from the Savoyard, when Charles Emmanuel, son of Margaret of France and of Philibert, in the year 1589 moved war against the men of Geneva, they took up arms and defended the party of the latter. And so the duke of Savoy, seeing that the French also favored the party of the men of Geneva, began to make terms with the Swiss; but it seemed that it could not be done without loss of his honor that the venerable remains of the most celebrated Leader of the Thebans, Maurice, should remain under the power of these men, who were for the most part heterodox. He therefore made a concession as to the temporal jurisdiction, and granted to them that they should continue to possess both Agaunum and the other places, yet on this condition, that they should cede the mentioned relics to the duke. On these conditions the business was concluded by president Rochetta and by Lambert, legates of the duke of Savoy, who at that time was staying in Provence; and they wrote to Catharine of Austria, daughter of Philip II, king of the Spains, and wife of duke Charles, setting forth the compact agreed and the conditions upon which it had been settled. Catharine, having received the news, presently sent the rector of our college of Turin, with another priest of our Society and two knights of the Order of St. Maurice, to the bishop of Aosta, so that with him they might be present at the elevation of the holy relics.

[75] Meanwhile the citizens of Agaunum, thoroughly Catholic and most tenderly affected toward St. Maurice, [the threats of the men of Agaunum on account of the compact entered into on both sides] understanding the whole matter, began first to murmur and to protest that they would by no means allow a precious treasure to be snatched from them. And already a plan was being spread among them that another body should be substituted for the relics of St. Maurice, or that it should be hindered by any means whatever, lest they be taken from them by force — they being ready to drive off or even to kill those who should attempt it, rather than suffer that they should be deprived of their Protector. And so there was a danger either that they might substitute another body, or that, if the matter were carried through by force and no testimonies obtained, they might afterwards boast that the body of St. Maurice remained at Agaunum. The legates meanwhile, fearing that the men of Valais would not stand by the conditions accepted if the execution were further protracted, gave letters to the bishop of Aosta urging him to undertake as soon as possible the business which he had received from the court. The bishop, having taken into his company three canons and some others, in the harshest season of the year, in the month of December, flew across mountains covered with the deepest snows; and when he came to Agaunum, he found the minds of the inhabitants ill affected toward himself and exasperated against their chief men, who had accepted such a condition.

[76] And indeed the men of Agaunum contrived everything, both with the duke of Savoy, and made tumults, so that only half the relics by the offer of money and of soldiers, and with God, by public fasts and prayers, that Maurice their protector should not be snatched from them; which they had protested, with a pledge uttered even at the altars, that they would not suffer. Therefore the bishop, and the legates who were present with him, seeing that the matter could not be attempted without the greatest danger, pressed the chief men of Valais to fulfill the condition. And these, in the name of the bishop of Sion, of the prefect of the commonwealth and of the other governors, sent a herald to carry such commands as these to the citizens of Agaunum: that they should be quiet, and should allow the conditions confirmed by oath in favor of peace to be committed to execution; but that if they made further tumult, ten legions would be sent the next day, which would teach them to obey in a lawful and due matter the orders of the chief men. At these threats fear indeed compressed the tongues of the men of Agaunum, but grief and rage took possession of their faces; so that the legates of the duke and the bishop of Aosta did not dare to execute the whole business and carry off the entire body of St. Maurice, judging it better to obtain half of it, the citizens not being wholly unwilling, than with evident peril of life — which a muffled rumor had foretold to them on their return — to claim all the Saint's relics.

[77] together with the sword of St. Maurice, was obtained by the bishop of Aosta. And so on the 29th of December (these are Baldesano's words, p. 315) of the year 1590, these things being settled, when the bishop of Aosta had solemnly performed the sacred rites in the chapel of St. Maurice, and had piously poured forth prayers, and had then received from the abbot and the sacristan of the mentioned church an oath concerning the identity of the relics, the greater chest was opened, within which, enclosed in another smaller silver casket, picked out here and there with ancient gold, the Saint's remains were preserved. Further, the sacristan made the division of the sacred bones, and thence took away the part granted by agreement to the bishop of Aosta, together with the sword of the most unconquered Martyr. That sword, with its scabbard, was enclosed in another sheath or casket which bore the form of a cross, the gift of a certain prince of Savoy. The middle was occupied by an equestrian statue of St. Maurice, and with letters carried along the length, in raised work, there were read the two following verses:

O good Maurice, defend the heart of your friend, That it may never be overcome by the snares of the enemy.

[78] The sacred remains divided, with authentic testimonies Baldesano then alludes to these verses, and extols the veneration of the most serene house of Savoy toward the Saints, and goes on: And so the Legates, that they might so far as they could carry out the mind of their duke and the conditions agreed, obtained in the partition the chief parts of all the members of the sacred body, besides very many fragments which could scarcely be distinguished. The other part of the holy body of the leader Maurice was left in the same coffer and in the same monastery of Agaunum. All these things, moreover, were carried through secretly, the same writer being witness, for fear of a tumult of the populace. But that the sacred treasure might not on any side be called into doubt, the bishop of Aosta wished the matter to be fortified and confirmed on every side by unconquerable testimonies. And so he obtained from the bishop of Sion such a testimony, which, as produced by Baldesano, I here reprint. We, Hildebrand à Rietmatten, by the favor of divine clemency bishop of Sion, prefect and count of the land of Valais, attest to all and singular whom it concerns that it will be true — as we have received by testimony worthy of belief — that the sacred relics, the body of the divine Maurice the martyr, who many centuries ago presided over the Theban Legion, and with that same Legion in that same place and town of St. Maurice of our diocese underwent martyrdom for the Christian faith under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, most severe persecutors of the Christians; and likewise the sword of that same blessed Martyr, which together with the half of those same relics we, the aforesaid bishop, our bailiff, and the spokesmen of all seven tithings, in the name of the whole commonwealth of Valais, have conferred as a gift upon the most illustrious and most serene lord, lord Charles Emmanuel, duke of Savoy, our confederate and most observant friend, on account of his zeal for the aforesaid sacred things and his affection of piety — since he is the patron of that most ample and most flourishing family — in view of the treaties renewed at this time and of our mutual friendship and neighborhood: we attest that they have been held and reputed by our ancestors continuously down to these times as the certain and indubitable relics of the same, and have been notably venerated with great devotion by spiritual and secular persons both of our diocese and also by foreigners of both sexes, and have been made illustrious by the most evident miracles; so that in this matter no suspicion whatever remains, nor does any Christian imbued with the Catholic religion feel otherwise, even though on account of antiquity no certain written documents concerning these things exist.

[79] In faith of which and in testimony of the truth we have granted letters of this kind under the affixing of our seal and the manual subscription of our undersigned secretary. of the bishop of Sion Given at Sion on the 26th day of the month of December, new style, in the year 1590 from the birth of Christ. Fortified with the seal and subscribed, Giles. The bishop of Aosta and the other spokesmen of the duke of Savoy, whom, as we noted above, the scattered designs of the men of Agaunum had made circumspect, demanded besides from the canons of Agaunum, lest there be any place for fraud, another document, and obtained it; which Baldesano exhibits thus from the autograph, p. 345. Adrian à Rietmatten, by divine permission humble and unworthy abbot elect, and commendatory elect of St. Maurice of Agaunum, and likewise the sacristan, the monks or Canons Regular under the title of our most blessed father St. Augustine, and all who are matriculated of our ancestral monastery. We wish it to be known to all, that whereas by the authority and order of our most reverend lord bishop of Sion, and likewise of the general and ordinary assemblies of the whole commonwealth of Valais, by force of a peremptory mandate we have been immediately ordered, to the most reverend and most pious lord John Godfrey Ginod, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See bishop of Aosta, and likewise to the most illustrious

and eminent men and lords, the spokesmen appointed for and in the name of the ducal highness of Savoy, to impart and bestow the half of the relics, together with the Spata (as they call it) or sword of the archduke and martyr of the Lord, Maurice our supreme patron, which are to be preserved in the truthful coffer and shrine of his body in the building of the sacred treasury of Agaunum.

[80] Wherefore by virtue of the present letters, with our accustomed oaths, we attest and profess and of the abbot of the monastery of Agaunum, that we have conferred and made over those very same sacred relics, drawn forth and taken out faithfully and candidly, all guile and fraud being set aside and the things to be observed being observed, from the most true custody and repository of such bones of the Saints (as has been ratified and held from of old) hitherto capable of being laid up. In memory and testimony of which matter we have wished to impress our accustomed seals. Given from our monastery of Agaunum on the twenty-ninth day of December of the year 1590 of the Word incarnate. And below: Adrian, elect, has subscribed with his own hand. John Francis de Plastro, sacristan of the said monastery (L. S.)

After which, again at the end: The same man, elect and appointed as above, wished to adorn the most illustrious and most serene highnesses from the church of Sion and from the sacred metal and treasury of the blessed Theodulus. Further, on these things a few points are to be observed. And first indeed, that the discourse is everywhere in the documents about the relics of St. Maurice at Agaunum in such a way that it in no wise appears thence that the whole body of the holy Martyr rested there down to that time — which I have found asserted by the men of Agaunum nowhere else, nor could it in any way be asserted.

[81] what they are. Baldesano indeed everywhere liberally names as the Body not only the sacred bones heaped together before the division, which had been found at Agaunum, but even those parts alone which were translated thence to Turin; but let it suffice to have noted that. It can also be observed here that from the words of the prelate of Sion the relics of St. Maurice which were preserved in the church of Agaunum appear to have been fortified with no authentic testimony, although by tradition they were held to be such; which seems remarkable enough to me, since so great a treasure was without doubt very often opened and inspected through the course of so many centuries, and since so many parts of it are found to have been granted and carried off by the abbots to other churches. Although perhaps the discourse is only of those documents which could give credit to the body when first found and brought into the basilica of Agaunum, and which no longer survive.

§ VIII. The solemn translation of the relics of St. Maurice to Turin: some benefits which are related to have happened at that time.

[ ] The bishop of Aosta, the relics obtained with difficulty After what we have hitherto related, Baldesano goes on to narrate the solemn translation of the relics obtained, which we follow with him from p. 317, contracting his periods, as we did above, into a narrower compass. Having gained the sacred relics, the bishop of Aosta soon made ready his return, carrying with him the sacred treasure. But the partition of the relics could not be made so secretly that the citizens of Agaunum did not get wind of what was being done; nay, as fear is suspicious, it was easy for some to conjecture from that rumor that they were being imposed upon by their chief men and lulled with a false hope, while by agreement the whole sacred treasure was being carried off secretly to Turin. Certainly the men of Turin, fearing that violence might be offered them by the populace, traversed the mountain of St. Bernard with all the diligence and speed they could, until they had reached St. Rhémy, a town which was subject to the Savoyard. Thence they announced their arrival to the governor and the archdeacon of Aosta, that they might come out to meet the sacred relics — the most serene princess Catharine, however, being forewarned first, as they had in their instructions.

[83] in the harshest weather of winter, through mountains At the time when they were crossing the greater mountain of St. Bernard, three things happened worthy of note. The first is, that they crossed the mountains at that season of the year which there is wont to be so harsh from winds, heaped-up snows, and immoderate cold, that no one can travel there in winter without evident peril of life. Now it had been observed, when the bishop of Aosta was hastening to Agaunum, that scarcely had he crossed the harshest mountain when suddenly the road was blocked on every side by the snow which had fallen most copiously on the night of the Lord's Nativity. Likewise on the bishop's return with the sacred treasure, the footholds, hardened by frost and open sun with somewhat of snow — the silence of the winds also seconding them, and the industry of the litter-bearers — allowed a firm foot after a fashion; but as soon as the sacred relics had been carried across, fresh snow closed them up. The second is: they had to pass a very narrow path, over which the deepest snow hung; and this, if it had fallen, would have crushed the holy relics and all who were carrying them. First to enter the path had to be the litter-bearers, countrymen who inhabit the mountains and are hired by travelers to point out and open the ways, or even to carry travelers across.

[84] These, therefore, on account of the wetness of the path spread over weak and soft snow, warned of the danger, were urging a return. covered with the deepest snow, not without singular But presently the bishop, who was carrying the sacred treasure, feeling himself full of an unwonted confidence in St. Maurice, in order to give courage to those who followed, went ahead with the holy relics, saying that they could not perish then, when so great a Protector was present; to which all responded with equal confidence that they committed their life and safety to the Saint. And thus they safely escaped an evident danger, and the snow was hardened beneath their feet by the merits and patronage of St. Maurice. To him also another benefit was ascribed. At the season when the Alps are covered with snows, some mass of them is wont to be torn away here and there from the mountains by winds and rains; this, rolling down over the lower snows, sometimes swells into so great a bulk that you would say it had put on a mountain, and it rushes down with such force that it not only crushes men and cattle, but also overturns trees, the huts of countrymen, and whole woods and lands.

[85] It happened, therefore, as the bishop of Aosta and those who accompanied him on the return were advancing, the help of the Saints, carries them to Aosta; that such a mass of snows fell, which without doubt could have crushed and buried them all. To judge from its fall and headlong rush, it had to roll down upon that place where the bishop was walking with St. Maurice's remains; but when it was already very near and hung over him not without evident danger, it opened itself and slid down on either side, bringing harm to no one. Thus far, in substance, Baldesano. These last things, if they are true, can certainly not undeservedly be ascribed to the powerful patronage of the holy Martyr. Baldesano goes on to relate the translation on p. 320. On the Kalends of January of the year 1591 after the birth of Christ, news was brought to Aosta that the bishop was coming with the relics of St. Maurice, which the canons, proceeding in order and on foot, were carrying. The governor ordered the military forces subject to him to go forth to meet them. He had advised that the fathers and the knights whom Catharine, the most serene wife of the duke, had sent to be present at the translation, should stay with him, since on their coming the way through the mountains had been blocked by snows as soon as the bishop of Aosta had passed that way.

[86] After the soldiers, therefore, had gone forth to meet the holy treasure, where they are received with the highest applause, the governor set out on the road with the fathers, the knights, and other noble men; and all these were followed by the clergy of the cathedral church clad in their more solemn vestments. The soldiers marched under the governor's banner, which opportunely displayed the cross of St. Maurice, surrounded with fiery flames and the sun's rays, with the motto, expressed in the French tongue, Plus ultra. When the sacred remains came into view, the soldiers made a beginning of rejoicing by discharging the lesser engines of war; the clergy, with a band of musicians accompanying and sweetly making melody, led the bishop with the sacred treasure to a sacred little building near the city. There the holy relics were exposed to the gaze of an innumerable people who had run together; the bishop, who had arrived in the garb of a pilgrim, took his pontifical ornament, the knights of St. Maurice the mantle, the badge of their order, and all took burning tapers, and thus they proceeded in order to the cathedral church. Ancient among the men of Aosta was the veneration of the holy Martyr, which St. Gratus, once bishop of that same see, had introduced by bringing thither some relics of St. Maurice. And so with triumphal pomp and festive applause they received their holy Protector; and the remains brought thither were enclosed in the chapel where SS. Gratus and Jocundus rest, after Vespers had been sung with solemn music.

[87] Presently orders were brought from the most serene princess Catharine. She ordered that the sacred relics be carried to Turin with as much splendor, order, and pomp as could be; and are enclosed in new reliquaries. she signified that she wished to be informed of the day and manner in which the translation should take place. The measurement of the coffer and of the sword was to be sent to her, and she pledged that all the expenses to be laid out for the pomp of the translation would be refunded by her. And so the bishop of Aosta, having consulted the knights and the fathers of our Society who were present, satisfied the will of the most serene princess by letters. Two chests were made, one smaller, in which the sacred treasure should be laid, adorned within with precious all-silk. The larger, which should receive and keep the first, was of a rosy color on the outside, which is the habit of the Mauritian knights. Crosses of the same Order also adorned it on every side. The bishop of Aosta besides gave a mandate to all the parish priests of his diocese that they should be ready to go out solemnly with their flock to meet the holy Martyr when he should have reached the boundaries of the parishes subject to them. A like mandate was sent by the governor to the soldiers. Notice was besides given to the bishop of Ivrea that he should keep the same order on the journey toward Turin.

[88] [When they had set out with the sacred treasure, the parish priests with their people come out from the parishes,] All things being thus arranged, on the eighth day of January the holy bones were placed in the newly prepared coffer; on the following day one of them was given to the men of Aosta to be kissed, and then was again shut up in the casket. Mass being solemnly celebrated, they began to proceed after the manner of suppliants in almost the same order in which they had entered Aosta. All the noble men of the same city with lighted tapers accompanied the sacred treasure as far as a church some distance off. There the bishop took shorter vestments, and proceeded in this order. The column was led by the cross borne before, and some priests, and musicians chanting hymns. There followed a canon, carrying the sword of St. Maurice. There followed the other remains of the Saint, borne by two canons. Next walked on foot the bishop and very many who were of his company. On this side and on that, four lantern-bearers surrounded the sacred remains, carrying aloft huge lanterns adorned for this end; and at last a vast multitude of men and women closed the religious column. The rectors of the parishes through which the passage lay came out with their vicars, clad in surplices and copes, with the holy relics, if their church had any; and first they burned incense to the holy Protector as he approached, and then with chanting escorted the sacred pledges to the boundary of their parish, where they were received again by another, the same order being kept, while the inhabitants ran together from every side and venerated the holy Martyr with the utmost tenderness of soul and reverence.

[89] and soldiers come out from the neighboring garrisons. At Ivrea The soldiers also, coming forth from the various garrisons, promptly and eagerly carried out what they had in their instructions. At the end of each day,

when they had come to the appointed station, the sacred remains were placed in a most safe place under the guard of watching soldiers. On the next day, after our fathers had celebrated at the altars, they were led forth thence, and all proceeded in the accustomed order. So great everywhere was the concourse of peoples and so great the devotion, that from afar you would have said a whole army was hastening through deep snows and the discomforts of the roads to a military expedition of the highest moment. Each rejoiced to apply his prayer-beads to the holy chest, and to gaze on the sword of the holy Leader, which in the village of Ciambava was given to be kissed. When they had reached the confines of Ivrea, the bishop went out with all the clergy, the religious Orders, the pious sodalities, and the chief men of the city, as far as the church built on a hill and named from St. Anthony. There the sacred pledges were laid upon the altar.

[90] The most serene princess Catharine had sent to Ivrea a canon of Turin to venerate St. Maurice and to inspect his holy relics in her name, [are adorned with precious cloths sent by the most serene Catharine, wife of the Savoyard] toward which she panted with her whole heart. Together with him she had destined a most precious cloth of one-sided nap, beautifully figured also in woven work, to cover and decorate the sacred reliquary; and she had besides added an all-silk veil picked out with alternate lines of gold, in which the sacred sword should be wrapped. With these the holy relics were thenceforward covered on the journey, and were there again taken upon their shoulders by the canons of Aosta and carried to the city. All the streets by which the passage lay were splendidly adorned, with altars and choirs of musicians set here and there, congratulating the city on the arrival of so great a Guest. After a long circuit they came to the cathedral church. Above its greatest door were seen the painted and adorned effigies of the holy Thebans Bessus and Tegulus, whose bodies are asserted to be preserved in that church, and in the middle between them the image of St. Maurice, their leader. At the door of the church the bishop of Ivrea and the archpriest of the chapter received the holy relics, and the chief men carried them to the altar, and after a musical concert offered them to the people to behold; after which they were carried back to the sacristy.

[91] On the evening of the same day the prelate of Vercelli came to Ivrea, and are received with pomp. so that both he and the bishop of Ivrea, as companions of the bishop of Aosta, might be present at the solemn translation. On the next day in the morning the religious column again set out upon the road, the canons of Ivrea all taking up the sacred burden street by street, along a long road, until they had a parish priest with his people meeting them according to custom; and thus at last they came to Chivasso (a small town midway between Ivrea and Turin). The bishops of Vercelli and Ivrea had already arrived there by a shorter route, and had gathered the clergy and the pious confraternities, with whom, going out of the town, they again came to meet the sacred remains. These were carried with pomp and the applause of the citizens to the chief church. There was a stay at Chivasso until new orders were brought from the Infanta Catharine. By her order they went on toward the monastery of the Capuchin fathers, which is distant one mile from Turin and has its name from Our Lady of Campania. Those fathers received the holy Leader of the Thebans in solemn manner, and the precious remains were brought into their church and laid down under the guard of soldiers.

§ IX. The inspection of the sacred relics and their bringing into the city of Turin with solemn pomp.

[ ] Before the reception a fast was proclaimed at Turin. When it had been announced at Turin (I go on to abridge the narrative of Bernardino Rossignol, writing in Italian) that the relics of St. Maurice, desired with such ardent prayers, were approaching the city, and had already come to the church of the Capuchin fathers, the most illustrious man Melchior Peletta, bishop of Chrysopolis and suffragan of the most eminent archbishop of Turin, Jerome della Rovere, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, proclaimed a fast and Vigils, and a solemn supplication for the following day, on which the new guest, leader, and protector Maurice should be brought into the city. On that day, which was a Tuesday and the 15th of January, there set out in the morning to the monastery of Our Lady of the Fields the most illustrious Apostolic nuncio Julius Ottinelli, with the most illustrious suffragan, the grand chancellor, the referendary, and the secretary of the most serene duke of Savoy, to inspect the sacred relics in the name and by the order of the most serene Infanta; and a public and authentic document of this recognition was drawn up. Further, the visitation was made in the presence of the bishop of Ivrea, and Baldesano exhibits the authentic testimony written in Italian on p. 340.

[93] The relics inspected near the city, There is no need to turn it here entire into Latin, since almost the same things are related there at the beginning about the journey which we have already brought forward, and which will afterwards recur again in the testimony of the most illustrious bishop of Aosta. The latter part, which is about the inspection and recognition of the relics, I transfer hither from the same Baldesano, p. 343. The greater chest being opened in the presence of the most illustrious Nuncio and the suffragan of Turin, there was drawn out another little chest of wood painted a sky-blue color, and wrapped in an all-silk cloth of a red (crimson) color, locked with a key and likewise fortified with seals (as the greater coffer had been, as is related before in the document). The two seals were recognized as above, and then the reliquary was opened in the presence of the most reverend lords, the Nuncio, the suffragan, and the bishop of Aosta, and was found within lined with a red half-silk cloth (in the Italian it is Cendale, which I do not find in the Lexicons. Perhaps it is a barbarous word, from the French and Spanish Cendal, and the Latin Cendalum used by writers of the middle age, of which Du Cange has various significations; I have preferred this one by conjecture); and there appeared in it at first view, on top, white cotton wool; which being lifted, there was uncovered a red all-silk cloth, laid immediately over the holy relics. There were uncovered and found twenty-two large parts and twenty small ones of bones, with dust and minute fragments gathered and wrapped up with papers bearing witness that they were of that St. Maurice, signed and delivered by the aforesaid abbot and the chapter of the aforesaid abbey of St. Maurice to the said most reverend bishop and to the other lords sent by the aforesaid most serene duke.

[94] in what state they were found. Now they were reverently drawn out one by one by the proper hand of the most reverend Nuncio and of the bishop, in the presence of the aforesaid lords as witnesses, and were placed upon a paper under which a white cloth had been spread; and when, being placed there, they had been diligently inspected, considered, and recognized, they found that some were of the skull, the arm, the thigh-bones, the shinbones, the ribs, the spine of the back, and other diverse parts of the sacred and venerable body of the aforesaid St. Maurice; which the aforesaid most reverend lord bishop of Aosta there affirmed on oath, with his hand laid to his breast after the manner of Religious, to be those very bones and relics drawn out from the aforesaid church and monastery or abbey of St. Maurice of Agaunum, and delivered and handed over to him and to the other aforesaid lords by the most reverend abbot and the canons of the aforesaid abbey; all of which were then one by one replaced and restored by the aforesaid most reverend lords into the same little chest, and wrapped, as they had been before, in the silk cloth, and the cotton wool laid over them.

[95] and again laid away. Afterwards the reliquary was closed with the key and placed in the larger coffer, with two seals of the most serene princess Catharine. The key was left to the same bishop of Aosta to be kept and sent back to the most serene lady. This being done, he presently offered and handed over to the aforesaid lords a wooden case made in the form of a cross, and covered with stamped leather, and with an ancient equestrian effigy of St. Maurice on one side. Below it were three armorial shields of Savoy with a white cross in a red field, and five rings, in which gems seem once to have been set. On the cross were three like rings, and in the middle, in most ancient contracted letters, was read, "Saint Maurice"; while along the length of the case was read: "O good Maurice, defend the heart of your friend, that it may never be able to be subjected to the snares of the enemy." Here the inscription differs from the same one related at num. 77; but let us go on. And on the other side there were seen, on the same leather, four roses of a red color, and written in the middle, "Peter Fornerius."

[96] Then were untied the two red all-silk ribbons The inspection of the sword. with which the case was bound; which, being opened by the most reverend lords, was found lined within with red cloth, and in it a blade with a scabbard of fish skin, the pommel of the hilt beaten flat, and a small iron guard of two plates crossed transversely, and the extreme part of the scabbard also of iron, and a scrap of a belt of thin buffalo hide with the hilt of the same leather bound about with a white cord. That blade, drawn out by the most reverend Nuncio, appeared covered with rust, and seemed to have been gilded, three fingers broad and about five palms long; and then it was laid back in its scabbard and case and bound again with the same fastenings. That that blade was the same which the aforesaid abbot and canons of St. Maurice of Agaunum had laid down and delivered together with the aforesaid relics, the most reverend bishop of Aosta asserted in the manner aforesaid. Of all these things the aforesaid lords granted testimonial letters for the eternal memory of the matter, which were taken down by me, Augustine Ripa, citizen of Turin, notary and secretary of the more privy council and treasury of the most serene dukes of Savoy, and of the Annunciation and of the military Order of SS. Maurice and Lazarus. In faith of which I have subscribed with the accustomed signs of my office, etc.

[97] Some things concerning these matters will come to be observed below; let us resume the order of Baldesano's narrative. After the sacred remains had been recognized and inspected in the manner said above, The adornment and pomp the canons of Turin took the duly closed reliquary upon their shoulders, and a solemn supplication proceeded to Turin, toward the gate which is called the gate of Susa. Outside that gate had been erected, in light work, a small building adorned in the manner of an oratory, and in it an altar richly decorated and encircled with many lights, to which one ascended by several steps. Upon it the holy relics rested a long time, until the things prepared for the reception and the rest were set in order. Now there stood by, among the innumerable multitude of peoples flowing together from every quarter, the bishop of Aosta with some canons and noble men. Meanwhile there appeared a great array of boys from the school of Christian doctrine, representing in their dress the heavenly spirits and singing praises, with their leader and standard-bearer carrying before them a banner with the cross of St. Maurice; and by them a poem was recited in which they commended to the holy Martyr that doctrine for which he had once shed his glorious blood. A little after there arrived the most illustrious Apostolic nuncio and the Venetian ambassador, with some other prelates invited by the most serene duchess, and those deputed to carry the holy relics: the archbishops of Vienne and of Tarentaise, and four bishops, of Vercelli, of Asti, of Ivrea, and of Mondovì, all clad in pontifical ornament with the mitre. There was present likewise the most illustrious suffragan of Turin, Peletta, with the chapter of the metropolitan church and the knights of St. Maurice, wearing the habit of their Order. All things therefore being arranged, the supplication was begun, and the sacred remains of St. Maurice were placed upon a new festal bier, gracefully adorned, and thus were taken up and carried by the four most illustrious bishops.

[98] The beginning was made by the long array of boys whom we have already mentioned; there followed the sodality of noble women, clad in sackcloth and holding in their hands crosses, the badges of that sodality which has its name from humility; with which the sacred treasure was received within the city, there followed all the confraternities of the flagellants; behind them proceeded the mendicant Religious, whom innumerable citizens followed, carrying burning tapers in their hands. In this order the rest of the solemn pomp

followed: the arquebusiers of Turin, the courtiers of the most serene duke, the knights of St. Maurice, the secular clergy, the canons of the cathedral church all clad in surplices, with capes of purple color over them, to which the skins of Alpine ermine were sewn within, after the manner of the Roman canons of St. Peter's; the governor of the city carrying the sword of St. Maurice; then the archbishops of Vienne and of Tarentaise, and in the midst between them the prelate of Aosta, guardian of the holy relics, which were carried behind by the bishops of Vercelli, of Asti, of Mondovì, and of Ivrea. There followed the Spanish and Venetian ambassadors, the grand chancellor of Savoy with the referendaries, the presidents of the senate with the senators, the ducal chamber, the magistrates and officials of the city, the vicar and the praetor, the syndics and consuls with the other nobles.

[99] and was carried through the chief squares, beautifully decorated, All these were hedged in on either side by the praetorian guards, the halberdiers, and the duke's other attendants, bareheaded and carrying lighted torches, which the most serene Infanta had munificently supplied to those who had none. Finally an innumerable multitude of citizens, all furnished with burning tapers, closed the religious column, which in this order entered the city amid the festive din of the engines of war and the applause of the bells from every tower, and moved through the chief streets. All the walls and fronts of the houses were covered and adorned with all-silk hangings and with tapestries. The fathers of the Society of Jesus, among whom are preserved the sacred bodies of the three tutelary saints Solutor, Adventor, and Octavius, in honor of the Leader of the holy Theban Legion, whose soldiers those men are believed to have been, had splendidly adorned their whole college on the side which looks toward the greatest square, and had shut it in on both sides with two triumphal arches. Precious cloths of every kind, and poems affixed to them suited to the pomp, clothed the walls. Opposite the front of the church, on either side of the doors, they had erected two altars upon a platform. Upon one of these was exposed the precious reliquary of the three praised Thebans, with their images skillfully painted in military dress; to this there corresponded on the other side, on the second altar, the sacred remains of St. Juliana, once hostess of the aforesaid Martyrs, and the prodigious relics of St. Goselinus, once abbot of the monastery of St. Solutor.

[100] to the metropolitan church. The piety toward St. Maurice In the upper part of the front, among various ornaments, were seen four beautiful statues, of the three tutelary Martyrs and of the blessed Juliana. Between the two aforesaid altars, in a more eminent place, they had built a third altar, upon which, while the supplication halted, were laid the venerable remains of the new guest St. Maurice. After a musical concert and a discourse on the holy Leader delivered by the suffragan bishop, four young men sang the praises of St. Maurice and congratulated the city in verse on so great a treasure. Meanwhile the most serene duchess Catharine stood at the steps of the metropolitan church with two of her sons — for the other was ill — awaiting the new Guest and ancient Protector of the most serene house of Savoy; and seeing the holy relics approaching, she fell upon her knees and bade her sons kiss the bier and embrace the holy reliquary in sign of the admission of the long-desired Guest and Protector. While these things were being done at the doors of the church, by four knights of the Order of St. Secundus, leader and lieutenant of St. Maurice, the suffragan with all the people three times implored the protection of him who had come to meet his Leader; then there was a procession to the chief altar with the holy relics.

[101] Both that altar and the whole church, within and without, were then splendidly adorned for the triumphal entry of so great a Leader. of the most serene Infanta Catharine, who at the altar Upon the altar where the arm of St. Maurice had once already been placed and preserved, the remaining bones of the Saint now brought thither were laid down, while the concert of musicians resounded. The most serene princess withdrew to the canopy prepared for her, and the ambassadors to the place appointed, and Vespers were sung in solemn rite. During these the most serene duchess came forward to the steps of the altar to venerate St. Maurice, and the bishop of Aosta came forward and returned to her the keys with which the sacred remains had been shut up, and at the same time presented the testimonial letters of the bishop of Sion and of the abbot and canons of Agaunum, which we exhibited above. What was then done is narrated in the authentic testimony of Augustine Ripa, which Baldesano printed on p. 350. What pertains here I transfer thence. The aforesaid most serene Infanta, having received the aforesaid letters and keys, ordered the aforesaid reliquaries to be opened by the aforesaid most reverend Nuncio and bishop. The seals being loosed and the said greater case and the other smaller one contained in the former being opened, brought forward, and placed as above, in the presence and with the assistance of the aforesaid Nuncio, archbishops, bishops, and legates, there were inspected and found all the aforesaid bones and relics of the venerable body of St. Maurice, described and recognized as above.

[102] This being done, the aforesaid chest was again shut with the keys; [receives the keys of the reliquary, and orders the sacred relics to be transferred] and the deposition of the aforesaid relics being received, and the delivery being made as above by the most reverend bishop of Aosta, thanks were given to God, to the most glorious Virgin Mary, and to St. Maurice, and testimonial letters were given, which I, Augustine Ripa, notary and secretary, etc., etc., took down. At Turin in the basilica of St. John, the 15th of January 1591. Further, whether that inspection was made in the church itself at the time of Vespers, I could not deduce from the narrative interrupted by the documents; but the solemnity of the translation was of three days, during which, the most serene Catharine, wife of the duke of Savoy, being always present, the ecclesiastical offices were performed with notable pomp, and the holy relics were given to be kissed. There had drawn to Turin a very great multitude of people, not only the splendid adornments, but most of all the veneration toward the holy Martyr, and the perpetual indulgences granted by the Apostolic See, to be gained not only on the day of the translation, which was the 15th of January, but also on the 22nd of September, on which, with a great concourse of the men of Turin, is celebrated the martyrdom of St. Maurice and of the Theban Legion, of which he was himself the prefect.

[103] Afterwards the most serene princess transferred the venerable pledges of St. Maurice into a silver reliquary skillfully made, into a silver chest. The authentic document and duke Charles Emmanuel wished his fourth-born son to be called by the name of St. Maurice in baptism; and with the years the veneration toward the holy Martyr grew in the most serene house of Savoy and among the men of Turin, as we shall touch on afterwards in a few words. Here I append the authentic document of the bishop of Aosta, in which the history of the translation is briefly related, from Baldesano, p. 346. John Godfrey Ginod, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See bishop of Aosta, etc., etc. We make known to all that from the city of Aosta, in the name of the most serene duke of Savoy, we set out for the monastery of St. Maurice of Agaunum, in the country of Valais, of the diocese of Sion, for the obtaining of the precious relics and arms of St. Maurice the martyr, Archduke of the sacred Theban Legion; there assisting and accompanying us the lords John Christopher Guicciard, John Rudolph of Champvillair, and Anthony Puincter, canons of our cathedral church of Aosta, and the noble Laurence Avisedi and the captains of the militia of Aosta, and, on the return, the noble Peter Roncas:

[104] of the bishop of Aosta, and there, on Saturday the twenty-ninth of December of the year 1590, clad in the sacred vestments, Mass having been celebrated by us at the altar of St. Maurice, the lights being kindled and devout prayers poured out to God, and the other things to be observed being observed, in the name aforesaid we received from the reverend lord Adrian à Rietmatten, abbot elect, and lord John Francis de Plastro, sacristan, and the other Religious of the said monastery, the half of the relics existing in the greater silver chest of that church of St. Maurice, and the sword of that saint; by the authority and mandate of the most illustrious and most reverend lord bishop of Sion, count, prefect of the country of Valais, and of his eminent council, and of the whole receivership of Valais, publicly read out by the excellent Peter Quarterii, castellan and captain, in the presence of ourselves and of the most illustrious lords Jerome Lambert, councillor, and Charles Rochetta, likewise councillor and president in the supreme senate of Savoy, delegates of his highness; and of the noble lords Matthew Cyneus, otherwise Bailiff of the country of Valais, Bartholomew de Supersaxo, consul of the city of Sion, Francis de Platea, ensign of Sierre, John Rosten, ensign of Raron and castellan of Martigny, Anthony Vualdinus, fiscal procurator of the said most illustrious and most reverend lord bishop of Sion from Morge downwards, George Michael de Supersaxo, governor of St. Maurice, William Odet, syndic of the same place, and Gaspard Brenlen, governor of Montiolo, and very many others.

[105] which of the relics obtained and translated to Turin Which lords, the abbot and the sacristan, attested on oath that these were the relics of the said St. Maurice the martyr, and had been held for such, and had always been held for such by all (as they had heard from their ancestors), as is more fully contained in the testimonial letters of the said lord abbot of the said twenty-ninth day of December, fortified with the seals both of the aforesaid said lord abbot and of his chapter, and subscribed by those same lords the abbot and the sacristan. Which half of the relics, and the sword, we have translated from the said monastery of Agaunum, with the greatest observance that could be had, and always processionally from the entrance into our diocese of Aosta, each parish devoutly accompanying through the confines of its territory, and two of the said canons bearing them, or other priests assisting, into our said cathedral church of Aosta, on the first day of January of the present year, with a famous procession of the whole clergy of the city coming out to meet us; and there we laid them up in the sacristy until the ninth day of the same month, the key of the said sacristy being kept by the sacristan, faithful to us, who swore in our hands that he would keep it faithfully and diligently.

[106] relics Then the said relics being translated on the aforesaid ninth day, in the presence of the reverend lords Louis Mansoni of Palermo and John Baptist Rosetti of the college of the Society of Jesus at Turin, and of the reverend lords Ferdinand Scalia and Fabricius Ceva, knights of the religion of SS. Maurice and Lazarus, and of many others, into two other more seemly chests, one within the other fastened with a key, and both locked with their keys and fortified with our seal, from the said city of Aosta processionally, and in the manner and order as before — there accompanying besides the reverend Jesuit fathers, the canons and the knights above named, the reverend lord Mark Anthony de Alabardo, archdeacon of our cathedral church, and also the very illustrious lord George de Chialant, governor of Aosta and Ivrea, the illustrious lord Prosper de Chialant, Gaspard de Balbis, lord of Quart, Michael de Bœza, lord of Bœza, the reverend lord Gaspard Vaudan, knight of the said religion, and the noble Ammon Salvardi, of the captains of the militia of Aosta — into the cathedral church of the city of Turin on the fifteenth day of this month, a description having first been made of those relics and of the state of the chests in the church of the blessed Mary of the Capuchin brothers of Campania, by the most illustrious and most reverend Apostolic Nuncio and the most reverend lord suffragan of Turin, in the presence of the most illustrious lord Louis Miliet, grand chancellor of Savoy, and of very many others, and, as is more fully established in the testimonial letters received by the noble Ripa, we translated them.

[107] In which metropolitan church, before the great altar of that church, we returned the keys of the said chests into the hands of the most serene Infanta, may make the credit indubitable. our duchess, in the presence of the said most illustrious lord Apostolic Nuncio and the most reverend lord suffragan, as in other testimonial letters, by

the said noble Ripa received, appears. Wherefore by virtue of the present letters and by our accustomed oath we testify and profess that we have faithfully returned all those sacred relics received by us in the name of the said most serene duke, and that we have applied all care and diligence concerning the premises, both in the keeping of the keys of those chests and of the sacristies and of the places in which they were laid up, and by the affixing of our seal, and by guard. In testimony of which matter we have strengthened the present letters with our subscription and the affixing of our seal, on the sixteenth day of January, in the year ninety-first above one thousand five hundred from the salvation brought forth for the world. Which letters, together with the said testimonial letters of the aforesaid lord abbot of Agaunum, signed also by our secretary, we left in the hands of the said most serene Infanta, our duchess. For the rest, Adrian à Riedmatten, who both here and in the preceding documents is called abbot elect of the monastery of Agaunum, had been taken up to that dignity, all the men of Agaunum who could have aspired to that dignity having been carried off by plague, with the consent of the chief men of Valais, when he was dean of the cathedral of Sion; but he could not obtain confirmation from Rome. In the year 1604, however, he obtained the mitre of Sion, as the most learned de L'Isle teaches me in his manuscript History.

§ X. The benefits which are related to have been obtained at the translation and afterwards. Some things asserted above by Baldesano are discussed. Concerning the arm of St. Maurice, which the men of Turin boast that they had long before.

[ ] Baldesano relates on p. 333 that a prodigy happened at the time of the solemn translation itself. The divine clemency responded, he says in Italian, to the devotion of the city toward the holy leader Maurice, presently bestowing a pledge of his new patronage in the little son of Master Benedict Valle, whose name was John Ambrose Franco A boy weak in the shins, commended to St. Maurice, is healed (which in Latin is "Free" or "Exempt"), because, being the twelfth offspring of the same marriage, he had brought his father immunity and exemption from public burdens. The child was three years old, with legs so weak that he could not govern himself with them or walk, but crept along the ground, to the great bitterness of his parents, who had in vain applied every effort of surgeons and physicians. When therefore the sacred relics of St. Maurice were being carried from the church of the college of the Society of Jesus to the cathedral church, they were carried past the house of Benedict. His wife Margaret was then standing before the doors of her house, and with a mother's affection pitying her weak little son, she offered him to the new Guest and commended him to the Saint with most fervent prayers.

[109] when his relics were received. On what has been said, it must be observed This being done, when she was compelled to go elsewhere for some cause, she handed over her commended little son to the girl of her neighbor Stephen Savuglio, keeper of the warehouses (in the Italian it is Fondicaro), and she, believing that he was still weak as before, set the boy down so that he might sit on the ground. And lo, the child, so weak before, after his humble commendation to St. Maurice was so strengthened by his patronage that when he had raised himself on his feet he began to walk, to the utmost astonishment of all who had known his former infirmity. Besides this, Baldesano relates other benefits here and there, especially from p. 367, which, because they may seem less manifest, I knowingly pass over, lest I be compelled to draw out this material immeasurably. Now let us observe some things upon what I have brought forward above from the same man. I have already noted that the body of St. Maurice is ascribed by writers to the men of Turin. Ferrari in the General Catalogue at the 18th of the Kalends of February, as was noted among the Things Passed Over at that day, notes at the Translation of St. Maurice the martyr: From the Tables of the church of Turin, by which this translation is observed with the greatest celebrity and with an Octave. The body of this holy Martyr was translated from Agaunum.

[110] [that some men of Turin ascribe the body of the holy Martyr too liberally to their own city.] But in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy at this day, the 22nd of September, he again observes: Charles Emmanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy and prince of Piedmont, took care in these times that the body of St. Maurice should be translated from Agaunum to Turin, and should be venerated especially in this whole dominion, and on the 15th day of January (on which it was translated). Ferrari had read, unless I am mistaken, Baldesano's History of the holy Thebans; from it he could easily have been taught that not the body but some parts of the body were translated to Turin; but he preferred to speak in the manner common among the men of Turin, and thus to afford to posterity that occasion whence a thousand errors and grave contentions have not rarely arisen. The parts of the body of St. Maurice which the men of Turin possess you have enumerated at num. 94 above, yet in such a way that they leave some doubt also; for, as we shall see below, of the remains of St. Maurice which were then translated from Agaunum to Turin, a rib was afterwards sent to the queen of Spain; whereas in the document of recognition which I exhibited at the place just cited, parts or fragments of the ribs are enumerated somewhat doubtfully. Perhaps under the greater parts some whole ribs ought to be comprehended, or else what was granted to the Spaniards was only a great part of a rib and is called a rib; but one may certainly wonder that in neither document the matter is set forth more distinctly.

[111] Whence the men of Agaunum learned that the sword which the Savoyards obtained along with the other relics was St. Maurice's, I do not know; by tradition, I suppose, they received it thus from their ancestors. Swords, or rather blades, which are believed to have been the holy Martyr's, will occur in several places in the course of this work. [Concerning the sword it might in any case be doubted whether it be St. Maurice's own] Any arms of his holy Companions I have hitherto found nowhere held in honor or preserved; it is permissible to conjecture that they were not all unarmed, however, nor that the swords of all were carried off by the lictors and soldiers, the other ministers of the tyrant. Certainly it is more credible that some of the arms of so many thousands of Soldiers escaped the greed of the executioners, than that the arms of the Leader alone were snatched from their hands. Those arms, then neglected, could either have been taken up by Christians perhaps a little afterwards, or, buried with the Saints, could afterwards have been found, and not with difficulty have been held to be the arms of St. Maurice. To this indeed we shall have to have recourse, lest we believe the holy Leader to have been armed too heavily. When we shall have shown that other relics and parts of the bodies of his holy Companions are held to be the relics and sacred bones of Maurice himself, no one, I think, will much wonder if the arms of his Fellow-soldiers are asserted to have been the Leader's.

[112] Concerning the sword of Turin, meanwhile, I pronounce nothing certain here. or belong to his fellow Martyrs. The men of Agaunum were destitute of ancient monuments by which they might prove that this determinately is the sword of St. Maurice, nor does the description of the inspection much persuade us to believe it; yet neither does anything on the opposite side prove the contrary. We shall therefore leave their tradition untouched; and, that we may in some way even support it, we shall suspect that that blade was revealed together with the Saint's body, or was withdrawn or bought from the hands of some one of the soldiers who despoiled the corpses of the slain, and preserved, or finally was afterwards found with some testimony. Baldesano writes that before this our solemn translation the arm of St. Maurice had already long been preserved at Turin in the cathedral church of St. John. The same man relates on p. 205 that a few years before he wrote, it was obtained from the church of the most blessed Virgin of Osek in Bohemia, whither it had been brought by Ottokar V, king of Bohemia, toward the end of the year 1250.

[113] Now Osek is a monastery of Cistercian men in the district and diocese of Leitmeritz, Whence the men of Turin received the arm of the same holy Leader. in Bohemia, distant one German mile from the city of Brüx, and situated at the foot of the mountains which divide Meissen from Bohemia. Sartorius, author of the Cistercium Bis-tertium, p. 749, writes that the monks of Osek were given the sacred forefinger of St. John the Baptist by Ottokar about the year of Christ 1260, when he had overcome Bela and Stephen, kings of Hungary. The same man relates on pp. 751 and 1013 that he saw three heads of Theban Martyrs in the praised monastery, to which testimonial slips still adhered; and he judges that another notable collection of anonymous relics is from the same purple-clad host of St. Maurice; but that an arm of the same holy Leader was received from the same king I nowhere find. Whencesoever it came to Osek, credit cannot here be denied to Bernardino Rossignol, writing under Charles Emmanuel duke of Savoy, to whom the archives both of the churches and of the court itself lay open by the prince's kindness — at least in this, that the most serene prince received the praised relics as the arm of St. Maurice. Certainly if, as Sartorius judges, the testimonies were torn away from the anonymous relics in the time of the troubles stirred up by the followers of Luther and Calvin, this could have happened in the seventeenth century, in which that monastery, and also the neighboring church of the Wonder-working Lady of Sorrows at Ratschitz, over which the monks of Osek preside, suffered much from the heretics; and thus the duke of Savoy could have received the arm of St. Maurice fortified even with testimonies, and rescued by special care from the earlier tumults.

[114] The ring of St. Maurice Besides the sacred relics hitherto enumerated, Turin numbers among its sacred treasures the ring of St. Maurice as well. How this came to the most serene house of Savoy, Baldesano relates in substance thus on p. 201. Peter, brother of Amadeus III, count of Savoy, a prince famous for warlike valor and commonly called a second Charlemagne on account of his vigorous and brave achievements, in order to avenge the injuries received by his brother from the emperor's governor — who affirmed that the provinces, left vacant by the removal of Amadeus their prince, had accrued to the empire — led an army into Valais; and the enemy being routed, he claimed and subjected the Sedunians and the Veragri to the rule of the counts of Savoy. Peter, no less famous for Christian virtues than powerful in arms, the matter being so prosperously and swiftly accomplished, set out for Agaunum to render due thanks to God and to St. Maurice, to whose patronage he attributed the happy outcome of the war. The abbot of the monastery of Agaunum came to meet him with a company of monks, by whom he was received with the utmost pleasure and gladness. Then all the sacred relics in which that basilica is rich were exhibited to him. And when among these Peter had seen the ring of St. Maurice, religiously preserved down to that day, he was seized with so great a desire of obtaining it that he most insistently ordered the abbot to be begged for that gift.

[115] received from Agaunum, in the most serene house of Savoy To the petition of the prince, to which most religious promises had been added, the abbot could not but assent, especially since the men of Agaunum owed very much to the house of Savoy, the basilica having been rebuilt by Amadeus III, Peter's brother. He therefore granted the desired ring, Peter's promise being interposed that it should pass to none others than the counts of Savoy, and thus be a hereditary gift of the most serene house and a perpetual token of that stock. Peter wished the compact entered into with the abbot to be confirmed by a public document, and thereafter conferred very many benefits upon the monastery of Agaunum. That document, if Baldesano saw it, I wonder that it was not inserted in his History. From that time, meanwhile, veneration toward St. Maurice grew in the most serene house of Savoy, and the ring, which Peter kept among his most precious treasures with him as long as he lived, began to be for the counts of Savoy, and thereafter down to this day for the dukes, a sign and testimony of legitimate succession in their dominions and inheritance, not only for the sons who succeed their fathers, but also for others, when, the line failing,

they come to the rule. And they, ever mindful of the obligation undertaken when the sacred ring was obtained (namely, of spending their life in the service and defense of the holy faith, which Peter had pledged), have always protected the Church, and have more than once fought for her with arms. Baldesano then appends a benefit obtained at the touch of the sacred ring.

[116] precious and hereditary Crajevicius, prince of Bulgaria, had fraudulently seized John Palæologus, emperor of Constantinople, and cast him into chains. Amadeus VI, count of Savoy, resolved to avenge by arms the injury done to his kinsman; and leading an army across into Greece, he compelled Crajevicius to restore John to his empire. While the Savoyard was finishing that war, Barnabas Visconti of Milan and his brother Galeazzo had burst into the territory of Piedmont with a hostile column. But the first news of Amadeus' arrival in Savoy compelled the Visconti to return into Lombardy. That war scarcely ended, Amadeus happily bore help to the marquis of Montferrat against the Visconti besieging Asti; hence there grew in them more and more envy and hatred of the Savoyard. And when at length they had come to such a pitch of rashness and insolence that they turned their arms against the Pontiff, Amadeus, set in command over the allied forces of the Pope, of the emperor Charles IV, and of Joanna, queen of Naples, having presently recovered the cities and citadels which they had invaded, carried soldiery and devastation into the territory of Pavia and Milan. Terrified by matters going backward so swiftly, Galeazzo begged peace of the Savoyard, on this condition interposed, that he should not aid his brother or the allied princes in anything; and thus the whole war was transferred against Barnabò. He, since he greatly feared the strength of the victorious Amadeus, and did not dare to engage him in open battle, with a most unworthy daring contrived a most wicked ambush for the allied army.

[117] At Vimercate, a town of the dominion of Milan, preserves the soldiers, who had drunk poison, from immediate death. to which he had foreseen that the Savoyard would come with his forces, he corrupted all the bread and wine with poison. The wickedness fell out as he had hoped: the soldiers, using the food and drink infected with poison, were seized with a sudden sickness and were brought to extremity. The Savoyard shuddered at the calamities and deaths of his men; and when the crime had been detected, the pious prince took refuge in the patronage and help of his protector Maurice, dipped his sacred ring in vinegar with the utmost confidence, and ordered the soldiery to drink from it. A marvelous thing: a power being communicated from heaven by the merits of St. Maurice, not only were those whom the poison had not yet harmed preserved, but all those also whom the present evil had brought to the threshold of death recovered. And this benefit is related in almost the same way by the Annals of Savoy abridged from Paradin's History, and by Vanderburch, dean of Utrecht, who toward the end of the sixteenth century wrote in the Latin tongue two books on the family history of the dukes and princes of Savoy. That writer praised in the last place himself observes that Amadeus, being near to death from poison drunk, as some think, at the shrine of St. Stephen in the kingdom of Naples, where he was then staying with his victorious forces, sent with the utmost care the ring of St. Maurice to his son Amadeus by Gaspard Montmeur, a man of the first nobility; and that same ring is the one which to this day is held in the highest veneration in the most serene and royal house of Savoy.

[118] For the rest, almost the same things can be observed about it which I indicated above about the blade sacred to the name of St. Maurice. [Rings elsewhere celebrated under the name of St. Maurice, who is chosen protector of Savoy and Piedmont.] The church of Maurienne likewise glories in a similar ring; for in the little Appendix to the Life of St. Tigris, taken from its archives and printed in our Work, tom. V of June, p. 76, after other relics have been enumerated, there is added: a ring, which drives the white film from the eyes of infants, is said to be St. Maurice's. How it came thither, and from what time it has been held precious there, I have not been able to discover. Further, what some particular cities had done before, all of them did after the relics of St. Maurice were translated to Turin: Savoy and Piedmont and the other dominions subject to the Savoyard beyond and on this side of the Alps imitated them, and chose the holy Martyr as their special patron and protector. The men of Turin, after obtaining the sacred treasure, besides the feast wont to be celebrated on this day already before in several neighboring places, began to hold also as marked with the name of St. Maurice that day on which they gained the sacred remains of so great a Martyr; and the metropolitan church, in which they were laid, celebrates it with an Octave. But since the Piedmontese were in doubt on which of the two days, or rather on both, the solemn memory of their Protector should be recalled, the most serene prince Charles Emmanuel published an edict, which, because it most manifestly shows the singular piety and veneration of that greatest prince toward the holy Leader of the Thebans, and the propagation of his solemn cult through Italy, I transfer hither in Latin from Baldesano, p. 386. Charles Emmanuel, by the grace of God Duke of Savoy, prince of Piedmont, etc., etc. The greater are the benefits and graces obtained from the Divine goodness through the patronage of the Saints, the more amply ought devotion toward them to grow in us, publicly and privately.

[119] [The edict of Charles Emmanuel, in which, enumerating the benefits obtained from St. Maurice,] We cannot, nor can our subjects, ever show ourselves sufficiently mindful of the special favor and singular help which, in all the most arduous expeditions and undertakings of the past war, of the highest moment and full of danger, and in the afflictions of our dominions, the Most High has deigned to grant at the prayers of the most glorious leader of the unconquered Theban Legion, St. Maurice, the ancient Patron and perpetual Protector of our most serene house of Savoy from its first imperial origin; to whose greater glory, and to the preservation and quiet of our provinces, it pleased divine providence to show itself more manifestly in the victory, so memorable, won over the men of Bern and of Geneva, the usurpers of them, heretics and despisers of the veneration of the Saints, on that very day which is festal for the memory of that triumphant Martyr. That thereafter kindled far more amply in our breast the most ardent desire which we have always had of recovering his precious and prodigious relics; which, before the renewal of the treaty and peace sought from us should be granted to the men of Valais, we willed — every worldly advantage being set aside — to be sent back to us; and we laid them up in the chief church of this metropolis of Turin, beside the most holy shroud of our Redeemer; and every year, on the day sacred to him, exposed in the solemn sight of all and carried in procession by us and by the knights instituted in his honor, they have been honored together by all the clergy and people with no less frequency than devotion.

[120] he commands his solemn cult through his dominions. Wherefore we will that, after the example and imitation of this chief city of our dominions on this side of the mountains, where the feast of that unconquered and glorious Saint is celebrated and observed, and where so many other glorious Athletes of that Legion, their protectors, moreover rest, there conform themselves all and singular the cities of our said dominions, the lands and places which stretch from the ridges of the Alps to the shores of the sea. Wherefore of our certain knowledge, full power, and supreme authority, by the present perpetual and irrevocable edict we command and enjoin all our subjects on this side of the mountains, of whatsoever diocese, sex, quality, and condition they be, that henceforth and from the first promulgation of these our letters they inviolably observe, and hold as a holiday and solemn, the feast of that glorious martyr St. Maurice, on that day on which it is celebrated by the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church, namely the twenty-second of the month of September, ceasing from all servile work and from everything which is forbidden on the more solemn days, under penalty for anyone contravening of one hundred crowns, or two strokes of the rope, according to the exigency of the case, at the discretion of our senate. That pecuniary fine is to be applied to the hospital of the soldiers of St. Maurice of this city. We declare that as much credit ought to be given to printed copies of the present letters as to the Original itself. Which so pleases us, and the Divine service and our own requires it. Given at Turin the 23rd day of August in the year 1603. C. Emmanuel.

[121] A like mandate of the duke of Mantua, There had gone before already in the preceding year a no less religious worshiper of St. Maurice, the most serene Vincent, duke of Mantua and of Montferrat, and he had published on the 18th day of September of the year 1602 a like edict, in which he commands the 22nd of September to be held festal and solemn through all his dominions; and thus the cult of the holy Martyr was increased and propagated through Western Italy. It would be worth while likewise to render here in Latin that edict of the most serene duke Vincent; but such things would carry me too far. Baldesano inserted it in his History, p. 377, where it can be seen by those curious about matters of this kind. I cannot, however, omit to relate that which, out of a certain debt of gratitude, gave occasion for the amplifying of the holy Martyr's cult: the benefit rendered by St. Maurice to the most serene duke of Mantua. Baldesano reports it thus on p. 391, as though he had received it from Fr. Bernardino Rossignol, and adds that the aforesaid father received the whole matter from the mouth of the most serene prince and of his sister, whom, though with the name concealed, he indicates plainly enough. The whole narrative therefore belongs to the author of the Theban History himself, which I abridge.

[122] Being about to set out in the year 1601, Vincent, duke of Mantua, with a band of nobles and soldiers into Croatia to the Turkish war, who besought the holy Martyr's help and mindful that he was born on the 22nd of September, which day is sacred to St. Maurice, devoutly commended himself to him, and chose him as his patron and singular protector. To her husband's vows there was added his most serene wife Eleonora de' Medici, daughter of Francis, grand duke of Tuscany, offering her spouse with most fervent prayers to be protected by the Saint. The prince reached the army mustered against the enemies of the Christian name, and gave proofs of his accustomed fortitude. Meanwhile his sister Margaret, unless I am mistaken, who was administering part of the dominions for her brother, was on a certain day admonished by a seventy-year-old nun, who had obtained the name of sanctity, that it was time to proclaim public prayer and supplication, and to offer the unbloody Host at the altars for her brother's safety, that God might avert from him the danger which at that very hour hung over his head. Presently the most religious princess ordered to be done what the nun had advised, and afterwards met with her, to learn the occasion and cause of counsel so unusual. That nun, sprung from the most illustrious house of the Rovere, had the name of Angela Maria, and either at Casale or in its confines — unless again my opinion deceives me — was shining with virtues in some convent.

[123] Being questioned, therefore, she related to the princess that, when after the singing of the hours of Matins she had withdrawn to her chamber to pray to God according to custom, in the expedition against the Turks she had fallen asleep and dreamed (so indeed she reported; but those who knew her and her humility easily understood that it was a manifest vision shown to her in the fervor of prayer); and that she had seen the appearance of a mist in a splendid and glowing globe; that the globe straightway opened itself and gave to be seen a most valiant Warrior in white armor, with some Companions armed in the same manner; that that Warrior had addressed her and had charged her to pour forth prayers for the safety of the prince, and to signify the same to his sister, who in his absence was governing part of the dominions; that she had asked the Leader who he was, and that he had kindly replied that he was Maurice, leader

of the Theban Legion, with his Companions, sent at that time by God and by His great Mother to succor the prince and to free him from the most present danger which he was then undergoing; and that then the Saint, after giving his pious admonitions, had disappeared. This thing happened on a certain Sunday among the last of the month of October of the year 1601, about the feast of SS. Simon and Jude, and so on the 29th of that month, which was then a Sunday.

[124] When the prince had returned from Hungary, his sister at their first meeting related to him what had befallen her, had experienced, and he at once recalled that on that same day in the morning he had advanced within sight of the Turks and had occupied a certain place, meaning to finish a winding trench necessary for himself and his men. He added that, while he was intent on this matter, the Turks came upon him and at one charge discharged their firearms in great number, and that he had received no fewer than six or seven leaden balls shot thence upon his garments and armor, yet in such a way that he suffered not the least harm thereby in his body; and that, although the trench was very narrow where he was with his men, who exceeded thirty in number, both they and he had prodigiously escaped the peril. And this benefit the most religious duke deservedly ascribed to the patronage of St. Maurice, and so increased his veneration toward the holy Martyr that he wished it publicly attested, by proclaiming, as we related above, a perpetual feast on the 22nd of September through all his dominions.

§ XI. A military Order instituted in Savoy under the name and patronage of St. Maurice. Its beginnings, confirmation, and the prerogatives obtained from Pontiffs and princes.

[ ] The disputes of writers about the beginnings of the Order of St. Maurice. Most celebrated through Italy is the military Order of St. Maurice, about whose beginnings, as not rarely happens in matters of this kind, writers do not agree. The Italians fetch for it the greatest antiquity they can, while other authors complain that, carried away by an immoderate love of their fatherland, they beg a fictitious antiquity for the Mauritian knighthood from popular traditions and fables, which they contend have been so far exploded by certain documents that they cannot sufficiently wonder at the obstinacy of the others in asserting and defending them. Baldesano, often mentioned, in bk. 2 of the Theban History, p. 204, writes thus: Amadeus the seventh (for others he is the eighth, and the first duke of Savoy, most well known in the ecclesiastical history of the fifteenth century under the name of the antipope Felix V), when he had laid down the rule of his dominions and had withdrawn with some nobles, willed that seven of them should be called Knights of St. Maurice; from which time there began to be adumbrated in those seven that generous knighthood which, afterwards erected under the name of St. Maurice, was established by the most prudent and most pious Pontiff Gregory XIII at the instance of Emmanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy. In these most cautious words of Baldesano you have, reader, the occasion and foundation of the controversy that has arisen among other writers. Concerning Amadeus, or Felix V the antipope, Augustine Patrizi, a contemporary author, writes thus in his History of the council of Basel, printed in Labbe's Collection, tom. 13, cols. 1488 and following.

[126] Amadeus, known under the name of the antipope Felix V, He (Amadeus, when the legates of the pseudo-synod of Basel came to him) was at Ripaille, where in a peaceful grove he had built a monastery, and there together with ten other noble men he wore the eremitic habit, and was called dean of the Knights of St. Maurice. Peter Monod, of our Society, in his Amadeus the Peaceful, which he published in Latin at the beginning of the seventeenth century, reviews two documents, the parts of which that make for the present matter must be transferred hither. The first is a charter concerning the power granted by Amadeus to his firstborn son Louis, to whom he had ceded his place in the administration of Piedmont. There, on p. 40 (I have before my eyes the Cramoisy edition of the year 1626), the father speaks thus to his son, after enumerating his own labors: Looking upon your flourishing age, the comeliness of your character, and the other first fruits of the virtues with which the clemency of the Omnipotent has deigned to endow your person, and unwilling moreover to leave it idle amid worldly sorrows, but rather, since it has proceeded from our loins and continues to be ours and represents our very self in figure — after long and heaped-up siftings of premeditation, and the persuasions of orthodox men, not by a lapse or on the spur of the moment, but freely and with deliberate mind, we have lately resolved to enter the salutary military dwellings of that Victor illustrious in holiness by suffering, our patron Maurice, leader of the Thebans, which we caused to be built in our convent of Ripaille.

[127] Those letters are dated at Ripaille, on Sunday, the seventh of November, the gathering at Ripaille in the year of the Lord one thousand four hundred and thirty-four, in the 13th Indiction, and were read in a public assembly, if Monod writes truly. Now, before I bring forward the second document, it will be useful to insert from the same author what John Gobelinus — or, as others will have it, Æneas Silvius, who was afterwards the Pontiff Pius II, masked under the name of his own amanuensis — a contemporary author and eyewitness, related in the Commentaries of his life. He writes thus. He, then (Amadeus), the ducal eminence being left behind and all the pomp of the world cast far away, and the governance of his subjects committed to his firstborn, retired to a hermitage. On the shore of Lake Leman, over against Lausanne, there were very lofty groves, and beneath them meadows watered by running waters. A great part of these he girded with a wall, and enclosed stags and does and such beasts as are not savage toward men. Near by, on the shore of the lake, he built a church, brought in priests, erected prebends and some dignities, and constructed dwellings in which the canons might live conveniently. And not far from here he constructed a palace of great workmanship, opportunely fortified with a ditch and bulwarks. In it there were seven dwellings, six of them equal, worthy to receive Cardinals. To none was its own hall lacking, to none a chamber and an antechamber and certain private closets, or receptacles for precious things. The seventh, dedicated to the prince, no one would have judged unworthy of a king or a supreme Pontiff.

[128] Here dwelt Amadeus, whom six nobles followed, of seven veteran noble knights aged and equal in years, whose wives had already died long since. Not one of them had failed to reach his sixtieth year. And since they had been knights of the equestrian order, and had often led ranks in wars, and had served not without glory, at the very change of their secular habit they made profession under Amadeus as their dean and master, and wished to be called Knights of St. Maurice; for not far from that place St. Maurice with the Theban Legion endured martyrdom for the name of Christ. All took up the cloak and mantle and girdle and crooked staff which we see hermits use, and let their beards grow long. … As hermits they wore a golden cross on the breast. This alone they retained as a sign of nobility; the rest of their dress displayed contempt of the world. From these things Amadeus' purpose, and the form of his institute, are manifest enough, and will become still clearer from his testament. The praised Monod exhibits this fragment of it, authentic, as he asserts, on p. 53. Item, since our aforenamed lord duke the testator has already, God being the author, erected and founded beside his said monastery of Ripaille, on the side of the wind, a convent of seven secular knights, and for their estate and dwelling seven contiguous houses in that same place, with the opportune members, under the enclosures, endowment, and ordinances written below — namely, in the whole circuit, and outside all the buildings of the said monastery and of the military houses, one good and sufficient enclosure of walls or of groves; and outside those walls, on the outer side, good and deep ditches, in the compass only of the groves serving the aforesaid houses and military buildings, for the defense and security of the said monastery and of the aforesaid military houses — the same testator wills, orders, and ordains that within two years after his own decease there be completed and perfected as vowed, by his said heir written below, those things of the premises which after the death of the same lord testator should remain to be perfected.

[129] he instituted under certain Rules. Item, the same lord testator has decreed, as he says, that both on this occasion and in the future, after the decease or the departure of any one of those seven knights — by the lord testator himself, while he lives among men, and after his decease by his successors, the dukes of Savoy living for the time, to whom the same lord testator wills and disposes that the election of those knights to be newly taken up, as often as there shall be need, shall perpetually and by full right pertain, with the counsel of the other knights then residing there — there be elected and taken into the bosom of the said convent men of distinction, established in the military order, advanced in age, long and commendably exercised in honorable military acts and in distant voyages and pilgrimages, in the counsel of princes and in embassies, and in other virtuous and arduous affairs; approved in prudence and probity, and unstained by any reproachful crime; and disposed to renounce willingly the worldly knighthood and pomp for the happy conclusion and salvation of their life, and thenceforward to live continently and virtuously; who as nobles and counselors of our aforesaid lord duke the testator and of his successors the dukes of Savoy, and of their country, in those things especially which concern military and other arduous political affairs, in occurring cases and in those on which it shall be lawful for them to give counsel, may be able, and also be bound, faithfully to counsel those lords and the country — even as the same lord testator singularly trusts; and for this cause, after the honor of God, he asserts that he was specially moved to a foundation of this kind for the utility of the commonwealth of his whole country.

[130] That institute was called the Knighthood of St. Maurice, Item, the same lord testator has decreed, as he says, that those seven knights shall have perpetually from their aforesaid houses full and free access to the church of the said monastery of Ripaille, while the divine offices are celebrated there, by day and by night, for hearing Masses and the other canonical hours, and for saying their prayers and performing their devotions: so that the Abbot and canons of that monastery shall be in spiritual things the ministers and servants of the aforesaid knights. Item, the same lord testator has decreed, as he says, that one of the aforesaid seven knights — to be elected by the lord testator himself while he lives, and after his decease by his aforesaid successors the dukes of Savoy, with the counsel of the other knights of the said convent — be constituted and be dean of the other six knights, and preside over them, and command in and about an honorable manner of living, whom the rest shall be bound to obey in all lawful and honorable things. And for the endowment of that military convent and the fitting sustenance of those knights, the aforesaid lord testator asserts that he has decreed, and wills to give and assign perpetually and securely to the aforesaid convent, one thousand eight hundred florins of gold, of small weight, each of those florins being worth or reckoned at twelve groats of the common money, of the yearly revenue of the same lord testator, in and upon suitable goods and places; the same lord testator willing and disposing that the dean who shall be there for the time shall receive thence, and ought to receive, each

year six hundred florins, and each of the other six knights two hundred florins of the aforesaid weight and value, for the food and clothing of themselves and of their particular servants; yet in such a way that the same dean, existing for the time, shall at his own proper expense be bound to maintain the roofing of all the houses and buildings, and likewise to bear the charge of the food and clothing and wages of the common servants of that convent, with the other things to be done upon this matter, as ordained by the lord testator himself. Therefore the aforesaid lord testator, led by a singular devotion, for the completion of the aforesaid foundation, as has been said, wills and disposes and orders, etc.

[131] Upon these and like monuments those rely who carry back the beginnings of the Mauritian Order to the fifteenth century and the times of Amadeus or Felix V. and can in some fashion be referred to it Among these, so far as I understand from Hélyot in his History of the Orders, tom. 6, p. 80, and from the most reverend de L'Isle in the last chapter of his History of the Theban Legion, is Giustiniani, author of a History of the Military Orders and writer of the Theater of Piedmont and Savoy. Against him and his followers the writers praised earlier inveigh, contending that such things cannot be asserted and defended save stupidly by those who have read the Bull of Gregory XIII, of which below. Unless I am much mistaken, the dispute is about goat's wool, and could easily be settled, provided something be yielded on both sides — if indeed the authors who defend so great an antiquity for the military Order at the same time contend that the Order was begun by Amadeus under the same norm under which it was established by Gregory; which certainly, as will become clear from what is to be said, cannot be maintained with any likelihood. For the institute of Amadeus seems to look solely to this, that there commanders of a completed military service, freed from secular affairs — yet so as still to help the dukes of Savoy with their counsels — might pass a tranquil last age, giving themselves to God and to the salvation of their souls, and this under some rule which should make them not monks, but secular knights of an Order.

[132] Hence on the opposite side those are mistaken who contend that nothing but a priory of Canons Regular was instituted by Amadeus at Ripaille; the beginnings of the most celebrated Order, for that is manifestly distinguished in the documents brought forward from the other assembly of seven noble men, whence the Savoyard writers derive the beginnings of the military Order of St. Maurice — and not altogether ineptly, so far as appears. For it cannot be denied that the veteran nobles gathered at Ripaille were from that time called Knights of St. Maurice, and that their assembly was called the Order of the knights of St. Maurice, and was secular, and that Amadeus, duke of Savoy, taking the name of Dean, had presided over it — a title which perhaps some later dukes did not refuse. From all which, why it cannot be asserted that the Mauritian Order was afterwards born or sprouted, as from first beginnings, though under another institute, or rather reformation, I plainly do not see. Certainly the words of the Pontiffs to be reported below, speaking of the reformed knighthood as of a new and recent thing, do not evidently prove the contrary; unless one should choose to exclude from the first beginnings of all Orders whatever conduced to them and was done before they were founded and confirmed by legitimate power under some determined Rule — which would be both to think and to speak with few. Let us go on to Emmanuel Philibert, under whom the most illustrious Order obtained that form and that splendor with which it shines to this day. The Pontifical Bulls set forth the occasion, the form, and the end of the institute in such a way that for our purpose it may nearly suffice to excerpt some fragments from them.

[133] which, however, received from Gregory XIII The first which pertains here was given by Gregory XIII in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand five hundred and seventy-two, on the sixteenth of the Kalends of October. There, after enumerating the dangers which hung over the Church from the heretics, and which by their nearness had cast into the mind of Emmanuel Philibert the thought of instituting an Order of this kind, the Pontiff speaks thus: And so, since our beloved son the noble man Emmanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy, diligently considering these things out of his outstanding piety and prudence, has resolved to add, to the other remedies which he is wont to apply in the places subject to his dominion for the protection and increase of the Catholic religion, this also — that out of chosen soldiers of every sort of the Christian people he should form, by the authority of the holy See, one knighthood, to be named after the blessed Maurice the martyr, whom the same duke Emmanuel Philibert and his predecessors have followed with an exceptional and perpetual zeal and veneration as their chief Protector and the Protector of their affairs — and has caused this to be set forth to us, and at the same time petition to be made that we should deign to impart this to him: We, commending in the Lord with deserved praises his excellent counsel and a mind worthy of himself and of his most illustrious and most eminent forefathers the princes; and foreseeing that a knighthood so to be constituted will be of the greatest use and protection, not only to those provinces of Savoy and Piedmont, but to all Italy also, for sustaining and repelling any assaults whatever of heretics and infidels; and that we, and the Roman Church, and the whole Christian commonwealth will have there a most opportune bulwark, defense, and help, in the strength of that knighthood and in the very great valor of such a leader and his supreme and often-proved skill in warlike matters: we have thought that we should assent to him in this matter with a prompt and willing mind, and should follow his pious endeavors with special favor and grace.

[134] the form under which it exists today. Wherefore … inclining to his supplications, we from now, and after the said duke Emmanuel Philibert shall have constituted for it a dowry of an annual revenue of fifteen thousand crowns out of his own and patrimonial goods — and conversely — by Apostolic authority and by the tenor of the present letters perpetually erect and institute one knighthood, to be named throughout the whole Christian world, to the praise and glory of God almighty … and to the defense of the Catholic faith in the said regions of Savoy and Piedmont, and to the salvation and advantage of all Italy and of the whole Christian commonwealth, under the invocation of St. Maurice the martyr and under the Cistercian Rule; whose supreme seat and convent of knights shall be perpetually in a place to be determined and assigned by the same duke Emmanuel Philibert in Savoy; and in that knighthood one master, to be called Grand, the supreme dignity of that same knighthood, for one master who shall be its head, with such number of knights and ministers as shall seem expedient to him; which knights, being married only to a single woman and to a virgin, may be admitted to the habit and Regular profession, or, having been admitted for the time, may contract matrimony with a like virgin and with one only; but otherwise let them expressly profess conjugal chastity and obedience — with a magistral table, offices, rights, jurisdictions, and the customary insignia after the fashion of other knighthoods of this kind.

[135] Whose conjunction with the knighthood of St. Lazarus There follow then various prerogatives granted to the Grand master (which office is assigned in perpetuity to duke Emmanuel and his successors) and to the Order, which are for the most part enumerated in the Bull on the union of the Order of St. Lazarus; and here the Pontiff appends the profession of faith to be recited and sworn by those who should be admitted into the Order. The several points against which the heresies then rampant offended are there distinctly set forth according to Catholic truth. Further, it is abundantly clear from these things that the norm of this knighthood is wholly other than that under which the congregation at Ripaille had been instituted under Amadeus, which accordingly can only in a sound sense be called the beginning, or rather the occasion, of this one. But at the time when Emmanuel Philibert obtained the aforesaid privileges from the Apostolic See, the court of Savoy was most frequented and most flourishing with the resort even of foreign princes and noble men. Among these were some knights of the Order of the hospital of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem, at that time greatly afflicted, both because that most celebrated Order, after the death at Vercelli of Giannotto Castiglione, a Milanese noble and master of the knighthood, had been ever since without a head, and most of all because Pius V, by a Bull published in the year 1567, had taken away from the aforesaid Order very many privileges conferred upon it by his predecessor Pontiffs and by himself before. These men therefore, judging that their knighthood could not better be restored to its pristine splendor and defended against the machinations of certain magnates than if it were subjected to the protection and governance of the duke of Savoy, took care that their mind and their hope, conceived from the knighthood of St. Maurice recently endowed with so many privileges by the holy See, should be intimated to Emmanuel Philibert.

[136] And when the Savoyard judged that the matter should be referred to the Pontiff, was approved and established by the same Pontiff. there was sent to Rome Charles Cicogna, a knight of St. Lazarus of chief renown, to handle the business; and he judged that both knighthoods should be united, as the Bull published on the Ides of November of the same year signifies. Thence I take some things. After Gregory has repeated what he had decreed in the earlier constitution, and has again said that the perpetual mastership of the Order of St. Maurice shall pass into the inheritance of the dukes of Savoy, he adds: We afterwards, considering with diligent meditation that this newly erected knighthood, to be formed, would without doubt bring great fruits to the Catholic faith, especially with such a leader and master, but yet much greater if it were propped and fortified by other supports and aids; and perceiving besides that the knighthood of the Hospital of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem, under the Rule of St. Augustine, long since destitute of the governance of a master — noble indeed and ancient, but by that very age and by the injury of the times greatly cast down and fallen — it has seemed to us best that we should join this old one to that new and now nascent one, so that what this could not perfectly do by itself at its very beginning, it may, aided by the help of the other and with doubled strength, be stronger to do; and that these two joined together may more quickly and more easily bring to the Church of God and to the Christian people the fruits desired.

[137] This indeed we have determined to do with this proviso, that Emmanuel Philibert, approved and established. and the duke and master aforesaid existing for the time, by reason of this annexation shall continually maintain at his own charge two galleys equipped for the said knights, for the defense of the Apostolic See against heretics, infidels, pirates, and any other enemies of it whatsoever. Wherefore … of our own motion, not at the instance of a petition offered to us upon this matter by the said duke Emmanuel Philibert or by another on his behalf, but of our mere liberality and certain knowledge and of the plenitude of Apostolic power, we by Apostolic authority and by the tenor of the present letters so perpetually unite, annex, and incorporate the aforesaid knighthood of St. Lazarus, with its magistracy and with all and whatsoever of its priories, preceptories, hospitals … to the same knighthood of St. Maurice — which hereafter shall be named the knighthood of SS. Maurice and Lazarus — that henceforth in perpetuity the aforesaid Emmanuel Philibert, and the duke of Savoy existing for the time, shall be and be called master of the knighthood of SS. Maurice and Lazarus. I forbear to report more, in which the things here recited are explained rather more distinctly, so that I may observe a few things about the military order of St. Lazarus. There are those who remove its origin as far back as the fourth century and the age of St. Basil.

[138] The vicissitudes of the Order of St. Lazarus before the conjunction Certainly in the twelfth century and those following it was most celebrated, and was endowed with the amplest privileges by the Pontiffs Innocent IV, Alexander IV, Clement IV likewise, and others. Its first institute was to serve lepers, which office of charity was afterwards reserved to some only, while the other knights waged war for the enlargement and safety of the faith. In the fifteenth century, when very few lepers survived in Europe, and the knights of St. Lazarus had greatly fallen away from their primitive institute through dissoluteness of morals, Innocent VIII suppressed the Order throughout Italy by a Bull published in the year 1490, and united all its possessions to the knighthood of St. John of Jerusalem; after which, however, the Order of St. Lazarus still subsisted in France, and thence again gradually sprouted anew in Italy, so that the Order of St. Lazarus not rarely had two men, of whom one in France and the other beyond the mountains named themselves its grand masters; and that the Pontiffs Leo X and Pius IV recognized the one who presided over the Hospital of Capua is clear from their Bulls. Certainly each of them again granted various prerogatives to the Order, which the same Pius at last revoked, as we noted above. After Gregory XIII united it with the Knighthood of St. Maurice and assigned its perpetual mastership to the dukes of Savoy, the French protested again, and the Order continued among them until it was joined to the knighthood of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Further, very many of the privileges and immunities taken away by Pius V before the union were restored again by Clement VIII in a most ample Bull, given on the 9th of September of the year 1603, by which the conjunction of both knighthoods is confirmed, and its perpetual mastership is asserted for Charles Emmanuel and his successors.

[139] Some statutes of the united Order For the rest, Emmanuel Philibert, as Bonanni attests, a little after the beginnings of the Order summoned an assembly at Nice, and there framed laws, which were afterwards confirmed by the Pontiff. From these, unless I am mistaken, are the things which, besides those mentioned above, are required of those who give their names to the Mauritian knighthood. They promise, namely, fidelity to the duke of Savoy and his successors; that they will wear the habit and cross of the Order; that they will come to the chapter, if it be convoked; that they will daily recite an abridged psalter in honor of Jesus Christ, the most holy Virgin, and SS. Maurice and Lazarus; that they will fast on Fridays or Saturdays; that they will keep conjugal chastity, and charity and hospitality toward lepers; that they will observe the statutes of the Order; that they will not alienate goods depending on the commanderies, nor let them out for a long time nor give them in emphyteusis, without the counsel and consent of the duke of Savoy. The hieroglyph of the shields of the Theban legion, which Panciroli exhibits in his Notitia of both empires, chs. 46 and 49, seems at first to have been the badge of the Mauritian knights. Today, by the mandate of Charles Emmanuel, they wear a cross of white color, terminated (if we believe Hélyot — for Bonanni exhibits a wholly different form) with three small globes at the triangular ends of the rays, in such a way that green bands join the middle angles, by which is signified the Religion of St. Lazarus joined to the Mauritian knighthood. The more solemn garments of the knights are long silken robes, red on the outside but of white color within. The sacred knighthood has today several commanderies, and two chief ones, one at Turin, the other at Nice, where the knights live in common. And these are the things which it has pleased me to insert here about the most celebrated Order, which no less makes illustrious the name of our holy Martyr than it shows the untiring zeal of the dukes of Savoy for enlarging the cult of their holy Protector. Now let us come down to other sodalities of lesser name, but of no inferior piety and veneration toward St. Maurice.

§ XII. Pious sodalities instituted under the patronage of St. Maurice in Italy; concerning the saints named Maurice who are venerated at Pavia, at Pinerolo, and in the village of Serre, and their relics.

[ ] John Baptist Beltramino, having invoked the help of St. Maurice, was healed The beginnings and occasion of a religious and pious congregation instituted at Turin Baldesano describes in Italian, in substance thus, on p. 379. On the feast day of St. Maurice, to increase the pomp of the solemnity in the year 1601, duke Charles Emmanuel had presented the knights of St. Maurice with mantles of a new color, in which they were to be present with like adornment and with the badge of their Order at the public supplications; and he had created his firstborn son Philip a knight of St. Maurice. Both these things and others of the kind had cast into some men a desire of imitating their prince so far as they might, and of instituting a congregation under the title and patronage of the holy Martyr. In the year 1601 there came to Turin from Alexandria of the Statellii (it is an episcopal city in the duchy of Milan) a printer, John Baptist Beltramino; and when he was making his journey through the city of Asti, he was there seized with a troublesome fever, from which, that he might be freed, he invoked the help of the Mother of God, visiting a church sacred to her name; but the evil grew so strong that he was compelled to return to Alexandria, where he continued long sick, divine providence reserving that grace for St. Maurice. When at last the sick man, much oppressed by his evil, and remembering the benefits which the Saint was wont to obtain for the brothers of the Mauritian congregation of Alexandria, of which a little later, he had recourse to him with a firm purpose of promoting his cult and of increasing the number of those devoted to him, if by his intercession he should recover and regain his former health.

[141] On the following night, wrapped in a light sleep, he saw a column of flagellants with the badge of St. Maurice; after two apparitions makes the beginnings of a sodality, and on the following day in the morning he found himself sound and unharmed, and gave thanks to his Preserver, and understood that this service was required of him, that he should take care that there be extended the spiritual knighthood which had been shown to him the past night. To this end he resolved to return to his own city of Turin and to fix his dwelling there, judging that occasion would not be lacking for carrying out his purpose. He was present there when in the year 1602 the solemn supplication was held according to custom on the feast day of the holy Martyr; and seeing the sacred remains, he had besought St. Maurice with the most tender affection to show him the manner of fulfilling his promise; whereupon on the following night the same apparition of a troop of flagellants under the badge of the holy Protector was shown to him again. And so on the next day he communicated his purpose to some of his intimates, and all together they had recourse to the chapter of the metropolitan church, to ask that it might be permitted them to assemble in some church subject to its jurisdiction. The canons showed themselves no less desirous of promoting the cult of the holy Martyr, and willingly assented. But since very many gave little credit to what had happened to Beltramino, and the testimony of one particular person is wont to avail little with men's minds, divine providence permitted, for the attracting of the men of Turin into the new knighthood, that another marvelous thing should happen in the same city which should commend the Saint's patronage in the highest degree.

[142] to which, when another benefit obtained from the Saint had been heard of, Baldesano had related it on p. 371, whence I transfer it hither. There was a citizen of Turin, Francis Ridale, a kinsman of the often-named printer Beltramino. To him a son was born on the 4th day of October, on which the memory of St. Francis is kept, and the father wished the name of that Saint to be given to the newly born little boy. But it happened that on that very day he came into the company of the aforesaid Beltramino, where there was discussion of the new congregation to be begun under the patronage of St. Maurice. He urged him to name his son Maurice from the glorious Leader of the Thebans; and he acquiesced in his words, yet rather to gratify his kinsman than from his own inclination. Divine providence willed to use that occasion, so that it might become plain to the world how powerful was the patronage of St. Maurice, and how present his help to those who piously and with great confidence invoked it: sending upon the aforesaid Ridale first a great affliction, from a swelling and protrusion of his little son's eyes, so monstrous that it was a wonder and a horror to those who beheld it. The afflicted father told the matter to his kinsman Beltramino, who advised him to have recourse to the help of St. Maurice, and to vow that the child, when his age permitted, should be enrolled in the sodality of the Saint to be instituted, if he should obtain health for his eyes. He did so, and presently obtained the grace, and the portentous swelling and every other infirmity vanished from the boy's eyes.

[143] very many of the men of Turin come over. These things, spread about through the city, induced very many to wish to join the pious fraternity, which a little after — both those who had laid its beginnings and others who, having heard of the prodigy, had come to the deliberation, urging it — was happily begun and so promoted that innumerable men gave their names to it. Not, however, before the following year, when it had been agreed about the habit and the amplest indulgences had been obtained from the Apostolic See, was the aforesaid fraternity solemnly instituted. Now those who gave their names to it wear a habit suited to the profession of flagellants, with the hieroglyphs of their Protector and his images. A sodality of this kind under the name and patronage of St. Maurice had been instituted many years before at Alexandria of the Statellii, which afforded Beltramino occasion of first thinking about erecting another, as we noted above. Alexandria of the Statellii, in Italian Alessandria della Paglia, is a fortified city in the duchy of Milan on the river Tanaro, which cuts through it. It was made episcopal by Pope Alexander III in the year 1175, from whom it also obtained its name, being thus either enlarged or adorned, so that some writers refer its origin to him. It is nearly midway between Genoa to the South and Turin to the winter West, as Ferrari teaches us. Further, Baldesano relates on p. 365 that, when he was about to put an end to his History, there was sent to him by a bookseller of Alexandria an account of the congregation erected there anciently — nay, from the very beginnings of the city — under the patronage of the great Leader of the Thebans.

[144] A like confraternity at Alexandria of the Statellii. Concerning its primitive institution and progress no more is supplied; but concerning the statue of St. Maurice which the sodality of Alexandria possesses, and concerning its fervor and veneration after the relics of the holy Martyr were received at Turin, these things are related. The effigy of the holy Protector which they have (whether it be of wood, of marble, or of metal, I do not know) is most ancient, and wrought with such art that, when that city together with the rest of the duchy of Milan came some years before into the power of the French, it was carried off into France by their nobles, captivated by its beauty. When the men of Alexandria had tried every way in vain to recover it, they had recourse to the Pontiff, by whose intervention the praised statue was at last restored, with such joy and increase of veneration toward the holy Leader — from the benefits which were then conferred on mortals by his patronage — that, since the place was not capacious enough to hold all the sodalists, new congregations arose thence. Further, the sodality of Alexandria came with its notable equestrian statue of St. Maurice to Turin in the year 1602, and there solemnly venerated its Protector. Now, before we proceed to the cult of the holy Leader of the Theban Legion scattered through the rest of Italy, a few things must be said about other men named Maurice who are celebrated beyond the mountains and are asserted to have been Martyrs of the same Legion, lest a confusion of these with the great Leader of the Thebans and his sacred remains arise, or one long since arisen be increased. Pavia, an episcopal city of Lombardy on the river Ticino in the duchy of Milan, glories above all in the bodies of SS. Maurice and Exuperius.

[145] In the Sanctuary of that city, bk. 6, ch. 3, after

the eulogy of our Saints, There are men named Maurice distinct from the Leader of the Thebans, it is read thus on p. 117: Now that same city is made illustrious by the same St. Maurice, who was appointed by the Theban people — among whom, on account of his vigor in that same military service and his constancy in the Catholic faith and his other excellent virtues, he was held in great esteem — leader of one legion; and Exuperius standard-bearer: both eminent in great nobility and valor, but far more eminent in faith. For these are sent to Maximinus Augustus as an aid to him. But when, by Maximinus' order, they were appointed to butcher Christians for the overturning and destroying of the faith of Christ, they refused to obey. Whereupon Maximinus, indignant, caused them to be cut down with various torments. But they, most constant in the faith, exhorted many others also with great spirit to the palm of martyrdom for the faith. At the last those vigorous and illustrious and most Christian Thebans by the glorious martyrdom of fire earned a perpetual triumph in the citadel of heaven. Whose bodies, buried in a seemly place together with one of the holy Innocents in the basilica of the kindly building of piety of the divine St. Matthew, are venerated with especial veneration. Whence these things proceed, and by what testimonies of the ancients they are established, I do not know. Certainly neither there nor elsewhere among the writers on the affairs of Pavia have I found anything which could add weight to the narrative, or confirm to the men of Pavia their possession of SS. Maurice and Exuperius, of which we shall treat more fully below. It leaps to the eye that the history of the martyrdom has proceeded from the Passion of the holy Thebans, which we have given in two forms; but Maximian has passed into Maximinus, and the holy Martyrs are said to have been slain by fire whom Eucherius reports to have fallen by the sword — things which could perhaps have been drawn from some account of the martyrdom, stuffed with many little fables and written in Italian, which one is almost ashamed to have mentioned.

[146] To settle the matter in brief: let the men of Pavia produce for us ancient monuments, who are venerated at Pinerolo and in the village of Serre. if they demand credit from us for this narrative. Meanwhile we shall not concede to them the whole body of St. Maurice the leader, on account of the things which have been brought forward and shall be brought forward further. If they claim a part of the same for themselves, let them produce testimonies, lest we suspect that it is so small that it is rashly called a body — nay rather, lest we conjecture that they are perhaps the bodies of other unknown Martyrs, to which they have munificently fitted these names. About the St. Maurice wont to be venerated at Pinerolo in Piedmont on the 24th day of April, and believed to have been, with his two companions George and Tiberius, a soldier of the holy Theban Legion, there is less need to labor, since the men of Pinerolo confess that they possess the sacred treasures not of Maurice the leader, but of another who with his Companions had at first avoided martyrdom by flight, and had there been seized by the attendants of Maximian and cut down. Concerning these holy martyrs there has been treatment in our Work at the aforesaid day, where may be seen the few things brought forward about them, which pertain almost solely to the translations and cult of the holy bodies. Baldesano in the often-praised Theban History mentions another Maurice also, a martyr of the Theban Legion, whose finding he relates thus in Italian on p. 253: Another Saint is called Maurice, most lately found, namely in the year 1601, near the village of Serre or Serradio, in the church of St. Justina, which formerly belonged to monks, and today pertains to the most reverend lord John Paul Chierici, provost general of the congregation of the Oblates.

[147] [What has hitherto been brought forward about those relics is altogether uncertain,] That church was built by the aforesaid most religious king Liutprand, and afterwards restored and adorned by a certain marquis of the same Lombard nation, Ottobert, the occasion being taken from the multitude of miracles which were wrought there, of which I could not obtain special knowledge, but only of those things which are beheld by those present. The chief of these is a head of gilded metal, in which are the ashes and bones of the skull of that Martyr, whose painted effigy also is on the panel of the chief altar of the church, at the left of the Mother of God, with a cloak sprinkled with crosses. He is also seen in the cloister of that place, painted in military dress, holding a banner in his hand with a palm, the token of martyrdom. But because the inhabitants of the place believe that that head is the Tribune's of the holy Legion, the aforesaid most reverend lord asked my opinion; and I answered him: that it is not the head of the Leader of the Theban Legion, although he has the same name, as the St. Maurice of Pavia and the one of Pinerolo, also a Theban, are of the same name; since the solemn translation of that Leader is held to be asserted beyond doubt, from the place where he suffered martyrdom with the greater part of the Legion — namely from the monastery and village of Agaunum, commonly called St. Maurice — to the city of Turin. … The banner which the Maurice discovered holds in his hand is a more probable sign that he was a lower officer, or rather a standard-bearer of some cohort of the Theban Legion, crowned with martyrdom in those places along with many of his Soldiers who had followed him. Which very many other relics confirm, namely bones from the legs, arms, heads, and other members of Saints whom the people hold to be Thebans, as happened with St. Constantius, likewise a standard-bearer of that Legion, buried with many others in the marquisate of Saluzzo.

[148] as far as it has been brought forward. The place Serre or Sarradio, which the same author on p. 28 asserts to be in the diocese of Milan, I have been unable to find on any maps or in any geographical Lexicons; and about that finding some other questions could be asked which he has not sufficiently set forth. Whence, for example, did those who found the head, or that metal bust, learn that it represents some St. Maurice, and that his sacred remains are enclosed in it? Was some testimony found at the same time, and of what age? Assuredly it is not rightly argued, from an effigy of a leader or of some soldier martyr painted on an altar or elsewhere, that sacred pledges discovered without a name in the same place are those of the same man who is painted, and indeed of Maurice of the Theban Legion. And if we grant that the popular tradition has been supported by some monuments and testimonies which prove it, Baldesano's reasoning will not be everywhere firm enough, unless they contend that the whole body of their St. Maurice is contained in the metal head found; for the men of Turin did not obtain from Agaunum so many relics of the holy Leader that other cities cannot rejoice in a notable part of them — as is plain both from the document of recognition which we produced, and as will become clearer from the review of the sacred treasures of other churches. Meanwhile I suspect that this name was once given to the relics either of an anonymous man of the Theban Legion or of some other unknown holy martyr, just as to several Companions of St. Maurice other names were given, which are all Latin and have no savor of the East. The men of Ávila too have their St. Maurice, of whom more when we shall have to do with Tamayo. Let us pursue the cult of the holy Leader and his Companions scattered through Italy.

§ XIII. The cult and relics of St. Maurice at Aosta, Vercelli, Asti, Milan, Mantua, Rome, and in other cities of Italy.

[ ] The relics and cult of the holy Thebans among the men of Aosta, After we have narrated at length what pertains to the glory and cult of St. Maurice in the metropolis of Turin, we run out to the neighboring cities. Among these Aosta, nearly midway between Turin and Agaunum, the place of the holy Martyrs' contest, a most ancient city, glories in the cult of St. Maurice anciently introduced by St. Gratus. Of these things the Sainte-Marthes speak thus in the Catalogue of the bishops of Aosta, under Gratus: The relics of the holy martyrs Maurice and his Companions, lying in a foul place on the banks of the river Rhone, he by divine admonition laid up, together with St. Theodulus, bishop of Sion, in the monastery of Agaunum; some part he carried to Sion and to Aosta, and honorably laid up in the Cathedral at an altar erected in their name, a perpetual rent being assigned for four priests, that they might daily perform the Sacred rite at it. Ughelli has almost the same things. What errors are in this narrative the reader will find noted at the 7th day of September, in the 3rd volume of this month, p. 72 and following, where St. Gratus was treated in our Work. Whether in fact some relics of St. Maurice and his Companions were brought by that same holy bishop to Aosta cannot be settled with certainty from documents whose credit totters on so many other sides. But that there are in that church some sacred remains of the holy Thebans, and that their cult there is not recent, the nearness of the place, the altar erected to them not lately, and the ancient prebends persuade. But whether the men of Aosta claim for themselves any relics of St. Maurice by name, I do not know. For the rest, this 22nd day of September is festal there, as through the rest of Savoy and Piedmont.

[150] Asti is an episcopal city of Liguria under the metropolitan of Milan, the men of Asti, of Vercelli, but subject in temporal things to the duke of Savoy. It lies nearly midway between Alexandria of the Statellii and Turin, distant 20 Italian miles from the one and 16 from the other. This city, besides the cult of the holy Protector common and solemn through all the dominions of the duke of Savoy, venerates St. Maurice especially on account of the notable relics of that Saint which it possesses. Of these Ughelli writes among the bishops of Asti, tom. 4 of the new edition, col. 399, under Gaspard Caprio: He gave to the church of St. Secundus an arm of St. Maurice, enclosed in a silver case. Gaspard had been, before obtaining the mitre, grand almoner of Emmanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy, from whom he may have obtained part of the holy arm which the men of Turin assert that they possessed long before the solemn translation of the relics of the holy Protector from Agaunum in the year 1591. The city of Vercelli, on the river Sesia, twenty miles north of Asti, and situated on the very border of the duchy of Milan, but today obeying the Savoyard, also possesses some precious relics of St. Maurice, as Baldesano attests in the often-praised sacred Theban History, bk. 2, p. 205. Milan, a most ample and most noble city and the head of the duchy of the same name, reckons also in its most rich sacred treasury several remains of the holy Thebans. I forbear to review those which are known to have been brought thither from Germany from the companions of the holy Gereon, Boniface, or Thyrsus; for these can be treated where those Saints will be specially treated in our Work.

[151] the men of Milan, The Milanese Diary of John Baptist Carisio has thus at this day, in Italian: A feast at St. Maurice's, which is called the Greater monastery of nuns. In St. Francis' is honored the head of St. Candidus, one of the Theban Soldiers. Morigia in the Sanctuary of the same city, p. 129, asserts that among the sacred treasures of the Greater monastery, which has its name from St. Maurice, there is had of the Blood of St. Maurice. He says that each has been duly recognized and fortified with testimonies. Nowhere do I find whence the holy Martyr's blood was brought thither. If it was taken from the famous flasks of which we shall treat below, it may be seen in the same place what is to be judged of it. The same writer on p. 7, among the sacred bones of Martyrs which are preserved in the chief church, numbers relics of SS. Maximus, Alexander, Sisinnius, Sebastian, Ursus, Maurice — the Leader, unless I am mistaken, of the holy Thebans, some of whose names he here reviews. Again on p. 24, among the sacred remains at St. Praxedis'

he reviews two bones of St. Maurice. In the church of St. Barnabas there is had, he says on p. 27, the head of a holy Theban Soldier enclosed in a wooden head, which is overlaid partly with silver, partly with gold. He commemorates other sacred remains of the holy Thebans and of their leader Maurice in other churches and monasteries also, which I forbear to enumerate. In the notable Milanese Missal which was printed in the year 1522 and is kept in our Museum, at the 22nd of September there is an entire Mass in the Ambrosian rite proper to SS. Maurice and his Companions, excerpted — so far as one may gather from the number of the holy Martyrs reviewed by name — from the original Acts, or from Ado's eulogy for today.

[152] the men of Mantua, Cremona, Parma, Of the solemn cult of St. Maurice instituted through the dominions of the duke of Mantua we treated above, §10, num. 121. Relics of that Saint I find none there indeed; but in the church of St. Barnabas two heads of his Companions are preserved, enclosed in precious reliquaries of silver and crystal, as Hippolytus Dunesmund writes in the Ecclesiastical History of Mantua, part 2, bk. 9, p. 354. The men of Cremona also possess some part of the relics of the holy Thebans; for in their sacred Diary, which Joseph Bresciano wrote, I read on this day in Italian, after the mention of St. Maurice: A feast in the cathedral on account of notable relics — whether of his Companions or of the holy Leader himself, I do not know. In the city of Parma, although I do not find this specially expressed, the cult of St. Maurice and his Companions is probably also celebrated; for in the Theater of the Saints of Parma of Ranuccio Pico, at the 22nd day of September, there is a most ample account of their martyrdom, on account of the head of one of the holy Fellow-soldiers brought to the cathedral church, where it is held in the highest honor, out of our Belgium by the most celebrated Alexander of Parma, whose grateful memory will never be effaced among the Catholic Belgians. For the rest, the author of the Theater conjectures that that head is of one of the companions of SS. Gereon, Boniface, and the others who obtained the palm at Cologne and Trier, and are by tradition reckoned among the Thebans; which conjecture appears to me also very probable.

[153] The men of Bologna too ascribe not a few relics of the holy Thebans to their city. the men of Bologna, whose relics, however, seem somewhat Anthony Masini in his Bologna Surveyed, third edition, reviews them thus at this day, in Italian. At St. James the Greater's are two heads of those Saints, and at St. Gabriel's of the Ravenna gate other relics of them. In the church of St. Francis are a whole body and a head, with a rib of those Martyrs, granted by Gregory XV in the year 1622. In the church of St. Catharine of Saragossa is the body of one of those Saints, drawn from the sacred places of Rome by license of the Pontiff Gregory XV in the year 1622, recognized and approved at Bologna by lord Evangelista Carbonesi, vicar general of the archbishop, according to the testimony of the notary Paul Monari of the 29th of August of the year 1624, and of others, of whom mention is made at the 19th of January. At St. Paul's on the Mount of the reformed Franciscans, outside the gate of St. Mamolo, is preserved the head of one of those Saints. At St. Mary's (in the Italian it is di Pizzocalvi) outside the gate, in the street of Stephen, is the head of a Companion of St. Maurice the martyr, obtained from Anthony Albergatti, bishop of Vigilia, in the year 1616. Then, in the fourth place, comes St. Gaudentius the martyr, whose body is said to be preserved in the church of All Saints, and to have been drawn from the Roman cemetery of St. Priscilla, with a sepulchral inscription; but that one at least, I think, is not reckoned among the sacred remains of our Saints. There follows at the same day this announcement: At St. John's on the Mount is St. Vitalis the martyr, on account of the translation of a notable relic of that Saint, obtained under the Pontificate of Innocent X, the 10th of May of the year 1652. Masini then subjoins: It is one of those of which I wrote at the 21st of January.

[154] But there, at the cult of St. Fructuosus the martyr, uncertain, he has what alone could pertain here: that the relics of that martyr and of very many other Saints were obtained at Rome under the Pontificate of Innocent X by Fr. Honoratus Montecalvi of Bologna, at that time abbot general of the Lateran Canons Regular; and that the vicar general of the archbishop, Anthony Ridolfi, recognized them, as the notary Julius Cæsar Cavazza attests on the 7th of August in the year 1652. Very many Saints named Vitalis are venerated in the Church; whether those sacred remains be of that Martyr who is reckoned among the Thebans, as Masini seems to have judged, may perhaps be conjectured from what we shall say about St. Vitalis in particular. Meanwhile almost all the things which we have related above from the same man are uncertain. Most of the relics reviewed are without testimony whence they were received; hence a suspicion can arise — if indeed they did not recently begin to be held for remains of the Thebans — that they are of the Companions of Martyrs crowned elsewhere than in Valais, and by tradition held to be Soldiers of that same holy Legion. Certainly the testimonies which are alleged for some of them cast a suspicion no milder. Are not the sacred places from which the body preserved at St. Catharine of Saragossa's is said to have been drawn the Roman cemeteries? But I have hitherto nowhere read, nor, as I think, will anyone easily prove, that any of our Theban Martyrs were buried there. Some of their sacred bodies may afterwards have been translated to Rome from Valais, about which, however, I have likewise found nothing; but they were probably not brought into the cemeteries, nor were they so many that Gregory should have granted two whole ones to the men of Bologna. Let the men of Bologna therefore consider what ought to be judged about all these things; if the documents which we lack are at their hand, it will be easier for them to pass and prove a verdict, and we shall gladly be instructed.

[155] at Porto Maurizio There is, near Oneglia, a town on the shore of the Ligurian sea, 25 miles distant from Intimelium (today they call it Ventimiglia) toward the North, a port which has its name from St. Maurice, to whom the collegiate church also is sacred. That place is most ancient, and Baldesano, often praised, conjectures some things about the name given to it on p. 402, but things no more credible than certain. The same man relates on p. 400 a prodigious apparition of the holy Thebans, by which enemy forces threatening the port were terrified and driven off from the place. I compress the narrative into a few words, leaving the credit, however, to the author, who alleges as surety the provost of that place, from whom he writes that he received the account. At the time when the enemy army of Bourbon, after the sack of Rome, was returning, having wretchedly ravaged Italy, a legion of soldiers came to Porto Maurizio. The inhabitants, the gates being shut, offered the enemy that they would supply provisions at a just price paid; but they, not acquiescing in what was offered, wished everything to be at their own discretion, and were planning to break in by force, threatening that they would wipe out the injury done to them with the blood of the inhabitants. Very few were they who could have repelled the assaults of those bursting in; and so they had recourse to the patronage and help of St. Maurice. The hour appointed by the besiegers for the assault was at hand, when lo, the natives perceived the enemy line turned away and themselves free from fear. Only a few soldiers had remained to procure provisions; and these, when they had been admitted into the Port, confessed that, when they were pressing upon the walls, a vast clash of arms had been heard within, and that a great number of warriors clad in white armor, with their leader, had appeared above the walls and had struck terror into their men.

[156] at Venice, From these things the inhabitants easily understood that St. Maurice, being invoked, had been present with his holy Theban Fellow-soldiers as a defense; wherefore public thanks were rendered to them. Thus far Baldesano in substance, adding that in that same place the holy relics of the Thebans, enclosed in a gilded silver reliquary, are in the highest veneration, and are wont to be exposed on their feast day, on which also the same Office is celebrated in the church as at Agaunum. Our Saints are venerated with a singular cult by the Venetians also. A man no less to be admired for erudition than distinguished by ancestral nobility, Flaminio Corner, in tom. 3 of his excellent Work which he entitled The Churches of Venice, p. 379, informs me that there is there a parochial and quite ancient church sacred to the name of St. Maurice and his Companions; that it was involved in the vast fire of the year 1105, then raised again out of the ruins, and again weakened by the injuries of time, and at last for the greater part restored by new work in the year of the Lord 1590. The solemnities of which consecration, says that most noble author, are celebrated with an annual Office on the 17th of the Kalends of July; and on that day, when both clergies and the Greater sodalities go to the church of the holy Vitus and his Companions for a thanksgiving on account of the liberty of the city preserved, they first turn aside to the church of the divine Maurice by reason of the annual solemnity. With fitting veneration there is preserved in this church a bone of the divine Maurice, the titular martyr, which on his annual solemnity is publicly exhibited to the piety of the faithful. In the Index of the whole Work I am referred to tom. 14, to find some additions; but that volume has hitherto been lacking to us. Nor is the cult of St. Maurice and his Theban Companions small in the city of Rome, where, as in a most rich treasury of sacred pledges, not a few of their sacred remains are preserved.

[157] According to Piazza in the Sacred Hemerology, the 22nd day of September is solemn with plenary indulgences in the church of the holy Shroud of the Piedmontese, at Rome in conformity with the most serene house of Savoy, which has St. Maurice as protector. At St. Mary Major's is exposed an arm of the holy Leader and another of one of his Fellow-soldiers, and in the Pauline chapel the head of an anonymous man of the Theban Legion. The Martyrs are venerated also in the church of the professed house of our Society, where there is a head of them under the name of Zeno; in our Roman college, where there is the head of another anonymous man; at Our Lady who has her name from Victory, and at the other who has her name from the People, where there are various relics; and finally at St. John of the Florentines, where likewise various remains of our Saints are exposed to the veneration of the peoples. In the basilica of St. Peter there is a chapel sacred to the venerable Sacrament, and there on the right an altar dedicated to St. Maurice. At the aforesaid altar the emperors are wont to be crowned, when they come to Rome to receive the golden crown. Thus far, in substance, the praised Piazza. How celebrated the cult of that same holy Martyr is in the empire we shall see a little later. Now of old the emperors took the insignia of empire at the altar of him whose insignia they were wont to carry in wars and whose singular protection they were wont to experience.

[158] The kingdom of Sicily too has sacred remains of our Saints; and in Sicily for Baldesano relates on p. 359 that the head and arm of an anonymous Theban Martyr, fortified with the due testimonies, were sent from Rome to Marsala (it is a city of Sicily in the valley of Mazara), to adorn the basilica lately built there for our Society, by Fr. James Dominichi, at that time provost of the Milanese province of our Society. The pomp with which the holy relics were received there the same man describes at length. It pleases me to note one thing out of it: namely, that the bishop of Marsala imposed names on the anonymous Saints whose the remains were, and called the one whose head they had obtained Lucian, while to the other he gave the name of Stephen.

For the rest, I do not doubt at all that the sacred pledges of our holy Martyrs are honored in several places through Italy and Sicily; but to enumerate each would perhaps be no less tedious than difficult to do; and so I have reviewed only those which I had in some way at hand, without denying innumerable others to various churches; and I pass into Spain.

§ XIV. The relics and veneration of St. Maurice and of his anonymous fellow Martyrs in Spain, Portugal, and Brazil.

[ ] Some relics of St. Maurice and his Companions, transmitted by Charles Emmanuel That some remains of Maurice, tribune of the holy Theban Legion, were translated into Spain is beyond all doubt. For Charles Emmanuel, duke of Savoy, having obtained the precious relics of the holy Martyr from the monastery of Agaunum, willed to gratify with some part of them Margaret of Austria, wife of Philip III, king of the Spains, whose sister Eleonora he himself had to wife, and thus to promote the cult of St. Maurice and extend it even into Spain itself. The document drawn up on that matter the often-praised Baldesano exhibits thus from the authentic copy. We, Charles Broglia, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See archbishop of Turin, give faith to all who shall read these letters, that we on this present day, by the order of the most serene Charles Emmanuel, duke of Savoy and prince of Piedmont, from his chapel erected in our greater church of Turin of the divine John the Baptist, in which the most sacred shroud of our Lord Jesus Christ and the holy body of the divine Maurice, supreme leader of the Theban Legion (behold, reader, what we have so often noted and note again, how usual it is that certain sacred relics, especially if they are a little more notable, are called a Body) are piously and religiously preserved, have with our own hands drawn out from the silver case one rib of that same divine Maurice (the document of Recognition produced at num. 94 casts some doubt whether this too was whole); and then, with the consent of the canons of that same greater church, have taken out one joint from the great toe of the foot from the silver statue where, at the side of the greater altar, the body of St. Secundus, an officer of that same Theban Legion, is set.

[160] with testimonies In addition, with the consent of the fathers of the Society of Jesus, in whose church the three chief soldiers of the Theban Legion and patrons of this city of Turin, Solutor, Adventor, and Octavius, are venerated with singular piety, we took three joints of fingers from the brazen and gilded coffer in which their bodies are preserved. Lastly, from the sacred chapel built in the palace of the same most serene duke, we drew out the head of one of those virgins who were crowned with martyrdom together with the divine Ursula, whose name has been effaced by antiquity, and likewise a leg of one of the fellow-soldiers of St. Gereon, tribune of the Theban Legion, who obtained the palm of martyrdom at Cologne. Here it is related how these relics came to Turin; after which the document continues thus: All which relics of the Saints, taken by our hand from the aforesaid sacred places, since our most serene duke (as he has signified to us) has resolved to give to the Catholic majesty Maria Margaret of Austria, queen of the Spains, we, all those things having been discussed by which the aforesaid relics are asserted to be true and certain, affirm that they are to be venerated by all with pious cult, and that it is lawful for no one to call in doubt whether they be true.

[161] into Spain. But since they are to be carried into Spain by the most illustrious lord Peter Leonard Roncas, lord of Castel d'Argente and first secretary to our most serene duke, and to be offered to the Catholic queen as a most precious gift, we with our own proper hand have enclosed them in a crystal casket, constructed of gold and gems, and adorned with diamonds, carbuncles, emeralds, and other precious stones; which casket we have again enclosed in another covered with red all-silk and fortified with our seal, and this at last in another of wood, likewise sealed with the seal of our most serene duke. All which, that they may be most firm, we have caused these letters to be written, sealed with our hand and with that of our secretary, and stamped with our archiepiscopal seal. At Turin on the first day of the Kalends of October, in the year one thousand six hundred and three from the birth of Christ. Charles, archbishop of Turin. These holy relics, enclosed in a most precious chest which the same Baldesano describes at length, were carried into Spain; whether they were laid up among the sacred treasure of the court, or rather passed as a gift of the most serene queen to some church, I have not read. Tamayo in his Martyrology, not content, according to custom, to claim for the churches of the Spains some parts of the sacred body of the great Leader of the Thebans, preferred to adopt other accounts, suspect and futile, rather than those fortified with the due testimonies.

[162] I wonder, however, that he has not here transferred the place of the martyrdom and the whole holy Theban Legion into Spain. Notker could here have favored Tamayo after a fashion. Tamayo in the Spanish Martyrology wrongly cites For Notker begins today's eulogy thus: In the Spains, in the city of Sion, at the place Agaunum, of the holy martyrs Maurice and his Companions. All indeed acknowledge a corruption here; but he who, immoderately zealous for his fatherland, has not rarely, against the assertions of all the ancients and moderns, devised new cities, regions, and provinces there, could at least here more safely have followed the faulty testimony of Notker, which I do not know whether it is corrected from any ancient exemplars of that same Martyrology. Although, I suppose, he did not see Notker, or did not find a place of the contest assigned in the Spains by Lucius Dexter, and he had himself perhaps brought so many new colonies into it that land and space were lacking for fixing this one. And so he preferred to append to an abridged narrative of the Martyrdom such an Annotation as this: I come to the proof of the existence of the sacred pledges of St. Maurice at Athanasia or Manresa, in the principality of Catalonia, which have been supplied to us by Antonio Vicente Domenech, History of the Saints of Catalonia, bk. 1, fol. 85, col. 3; and Fr. John Bolland in the Acts of the Saints, tom. 2, fol. 360, where the Acts of the translation of this holy Martyr with St. Fructuosus and his Companions are reviewed exactly.

[163] Thus far you would say that Tamayo asserts for the church of Manresa only some parts of the body of the Leader of the Thebans; Bolland for asserting the body of St. Maurice but how great a portion he claims for it he abundantly intimates by continuing thus: It is not hidden from me what is said in the perpetual Calendars of the holy Church of Toledo, namely that in the sacristy of that metropolitan church the head of St. Maurice is preserved, and that in the convent of St. Joseph of the Discalced Carmelite nuns of Ávila his body is kept, as I have several times seen, and I have with me the authentic testimony of the translation; because I believe that some relics are there, but the rest of the body at Manresa. And so Tamayo contends that so vast a part of the body of St. Maurice is preserved there that he leaves to the other churches of the Spains only some relics from it. First let us hear our Bolland, whom he cites so speciously. He at the place cited abridges the narratives of the translations of St. Agnes from Domenech, as he professes at the outset. After he has related how the body of the Saint was brought from the East to Vienne by William, son of William, count of that city, he continues thus: The third (translation of the relics of St. Agnes) was made at the request of the king of Castile and of his brother the prelate of Toledo, through legates, by the very great liberality of count William.

[164] For when they had come to beg a notable part of the bones, to the church of Manresa, where there are only very small most of them were given, only a very small part being retained there, and the relics of the divine Maurice, chief of the Theban Martyrs, were added. The legates, having crossed the Pyrenees and being worn out by long marches, when they had settled at the village of St. Fructuosus, half a league from the town of Manresa, in a monastery of the Benedictine institute, and desired to be refreshed from the labor of the journey, most of them were seized with sickness and died there. The rest, having laid up in that building these relics and those of the holy Fructuosus, Eulogius, and Augurius, which they had obtained from the men of Tarragona while they were setting out for Gaul, led by the hope that they would afterwards more easily be brought back from that place, both despised and bound to the Roman Church, than if they had placed them at Manresa, set out for home. In the year of Christ 1372 the senate of Manresa, after great contention and effort had first been spent, and power having at last been obtained from Guido, bishop of Porto and legate a latere of the supreme Pontiff in Aragon, on the 30th of August, with great apparatus and a most numerous escort, carried the bones of SS. Fructuosus, Eulogius, Augurius, Maurice, and Agnes to Manresa. Then some miracles and benefits are related which happened at that translation; and our standard-bearer says not a word further about the body and relics of St. Maurice, nor does he put forth his own judgment on this whole narrative.

[165] relics of the holy Leader, and those quite And these are the things which, in Tamayo's judgment, clearly assert to the city of Manresa the possession of the body of St. Maurice; and yet they would be altogether most true even if only a single hair, or at least the smallest fragment of a bone, had been brought thither. I confess that Domenech, praised by him, on page 85 relates in Spanish, in these words, how the legates obtained the relics of St. Maurice: And that other Saints might accompany the sacred body of the holy virgin (Agnes), not knowing (William, count of Vienne) that they (the legates) had obtained the bones or ashes of St. Fructuosus and his deacons, he gave them that of the glorious St. Maurice, who died in Gaul with the Theban Legion for the confession of the faith, eight miles from the river which is called the Rose; whence, after many translations, it was carried to Vienne and laid up there with the remains of SS. Agnes and Anthony the confessor. But such ineptitudes the sharp-eyed Bolland without doubt noticed, and preferred silently to correct and pass them over rather than explode them with a critical observation. Wrongly, then, does Tamayo allege Bolland's support for confirming a fable. From what we have observed, both about the sacred treasures of Vienne and about the remains of St. Maurice scattered through various churches, it is abundantly clear that the Spaniards could not receive from the count of Vienne a body which he did not have, and therefore cannot possess it either.

[166] [uncertain. The men of Toledo have the head not of him, but of one of his Companions] Some part, though perhaps not great and destitute of the due testimony, we do not deny to the men of Manresa; nor yet do we assert it to them either, since their case seems to rest on the words of Domenech alone, whose not few errors in the few words brought forward I forbear to correct, that I may proceed to the men of Toledo. They, as Tamayo says above, glory in the head of St. Maurice preserved in the sacristy of the metropolitan church. Concerning these things it will suffice to have brought forward the monuments of that church, with the testimony of one or another Spanish writer. Among the proper Offices of the Saints of the church of Toledo, which were printed at Madrid in the year 1607 and published by order of the most illustrious Cardinal de Quiroga y Rojas, archbishop of Toledo, this is the rubric at the 22nd of September: In the mother church a double Office is made of SS. Maurice and his Companions. Like things are repeated in the same place in the Offices of the same church reprinted there in the year 1638 by order of the most eminent Cardinal Zapata, archbishop of Toledo. Antonio de Quintanadueñas, an author of our Society, attests the same in his Saints of Toledo, p. 505, writing these things in Spanish, which I render into Latin: The relics of those Saints (the Thebans) have been dispersed to different kingdoms and various churches of the Christian world, as historians attest. The head of one of them fell to the holy church of Toledo. It is preserved also with

veneration in its sacristy, and is kept with becoming honor and in a seemly silver bust.

[167] [obtained his head. Uncertain also are the things which they bring forward about his body at Ávila.] By title of that possession the feast of St. Maurice and of all the Martyrs of his Legion is celebrated as proper, with a double rite, by the faculty granted to the churches of Spain by the Pontiff Gregory XIII. He indicates in the same place, in the margin, among the authors who have treated of those relics, Blas Ortiz, On the Temple of Toledo, ch. 25, where he has thus, on the page which in my copy is 63: There are also preserved in the said sacristy (of the church of Toledo) four heads: two from the number of the eleven thousand virgins; the third of St. Maurice, wrought in a half-length statue of him in silver. But these things ought not to detain us against the authority of the proper Offices and of Quintanadueñas, who consulted these very sources, nor can they add weight to Tamayo's assertion. For the rest, the praised Domenech mentions the translation of these sacred relics at the 30th of August, as was said in our Work among the Things Passed Over at the aforesaid day. Concerning the sacred remains of St. Maurice which are asserted to be preserved at Ávila, William Gonzáles Dávila writes thus in Spanish in the Ecclesiastical Theater of the churches of Spain, tom. 2, p. 211, under the church of Ávila: In the convent of St. Joseph of the Discalced Carmelites, the body of St. Maurice the martyr. I could wish that Tamayo had exhibited to us the authentic document of this translation, which he attests that he had before his eyes in his Martyrology at this day, so that it might be permitted to judge more safely about the sacred relics.

[168] I have found nothing about them elsewhere at hand; wherefore I only indicate [The men of the Escorial glory in the same, which seems to have been received from Wimpfen,] that either a very small part of the body of the holy Leader of the Thebans is preserved there, or the body of another holy Martyr, perhaps a Soldier of the Theban Legion, is believed to be that of St. Maurice. Among the documents which our Pien in Spain in the year 1722 transcribed from the manuscript Reliquary-list of the royal monastery of the Escorial, I find not a few things which pertain here. The first is a testimony as follows: I, brother Conrad Oberich, Prior of the convent of Wimpfen, make known to all who shall inspect these letters, that these relics, which I have given as a gift to the most illustrious lady Maria Manriquez, are the true body of St. Maurice. That this is certain, I profess that I have heard from our predecessors, most holy men. Wherefore, lest this should bring doubt to anyone, I have wished to confirm it with two seals, namely of the monastery and of the Prior. Done at Wimpfen on the 21st day of July in the year 1570. Pien notes that these things are had at Entrega I, fol. 8, where Entrega, I suppose, signifies a Donation or a document of Donation. Now Wimpfen, called by the inhabitants Wimpfen, is a city of Germany in the province of Swabia, on the river Neckar, where it receives the rivers Kocher and Jagst, imperial and free, which already in the declining sixteenth century, after various troubles, fell to the heretics and is governed by a Lutheran magistracy.

[169] In Francis Petrus' Ecclesiastical Swabia I find and are perhaps the bones of one or even of several that at Wimpfen there is a celebrated and ancient monastery of the Order of St. Dominic, of which, unless I am mistaken, that Conrad Oberich was Prior. How that holy body passed from Maria Manriquez to the royal monastery of the Escorial I have not ascertained; yet I scarcely doubt that it is the same one of which, in the description of that monastery, Francisco de los Santos writes these things in Spanish on p. 37, which I turn into Latin: The third body (among those which are seen there entire) is that of St. Maurice, the most valiant leader of the Thebans. It is honored in a coffer of gilded metal, silver, and crystal, very precious, and is among the first treasures with which that church was enriched; and it has also a special chapel in that church. José de Sigüenza reports exactly the same things in his History of the Order of St. Jerome, bk. 4, on the page which in my copy is 822. Neither of these authors, however, anywhere, so far as I know, teaches us whence that body was first received; and I wonder that Tamayo, who frequently cites the one praised last, makes no mention of this matter. In the documents transcribed by Pien from the manuscript Reliquary-list praised above, whence perhaps some light will shine in these shadows, I read thus in Spanish: Entrega I, marked fol. 51. Hernando de Virviesca (prefect of the royal treasury, as is said in the same Manuscript, fol. 42) sent back the holy relics which the lady Anne our queen gave and offered to this church when her majesty came to it on the 24th of the month of May of the year 1572: one body of St. Maurice, leader and prefect of the Theban Martyrs; and there are of the aforesaid body three hundred and eighty-five parts of bones of various sizes.

[170] of his Companions Pien adds that in the same Manuscript it is thus noted in the margin: Out of nine skull-pieces (for in the Spanish it is nueve cascos) which are among those bones, a head is composed, adorned with red one-sided-nap cloth (commonly "crimson") and with golden fringes; and all the remaining bones are adorned and wrapped in thicker paper with golden, silver, and silken fringes, as they are seen today in the same chest. From these things it is seen at the very first glance what sort of body that is which is believed to be St. Maurice's: namely, a heap of sacred bones, not of him, but of divers Saints, perhaps Martyrs, and Theban ones too, some of whose sacred remains the monastery of Wimpfen of the Order of St. Dominic could easily have obtained from neighboring Switzerland. What its Prior alleges in the testimony produced above for asserting a tradition of the body of St. Maurice in no way suffices for us to subscribe to it safely; for to a tradition of this kind — which, since that monastery arose not before the year 1269, could only be a new one, and rests on no testimony — little, nay nothing, can be attributed, since from other sources it seems most certain that very many parts of the body were preserved and honored elsewhere. The praised prior, then, will have had some bones of divers Theban Martyrs pieced together (though whether even this be true I cannot declare with certainty), which both began to be believed one body and put on the name of St. Maurice the leader. The sacrilegious rage of the heretics against sacred relics was raging about the time at which the donation is dated.

[171] pieced together. An arm-bone and other relics of the Thebans The praised Prior perhaps wished this sacred treasure to be snatched from their furies, and therefore the more willingly granted it to Maria Manriquez to be carried away into Spain, whence it could afterwards come to the sacred treasures of the royal court, or pass to the prefect Hernando de Verviesca himself. For the rest, in the same transcripts of Pien two further relics of St. Maurice are mentioned from the Reliquary-list of the Escorial. I again render the Spanish words into Latin: Fol. 45. Item, an arm-bone of St. Maurice … enclosed in a reliquary of the shape of that same bone, with four feet in the shape of animals. The whole case is of gilded silver, and on the silver clasp there is seen an inscription which says: "This arm of St. Maurice Wenceslaus III caused to be made in the year 1 [ ]." Pien observes after this that that arm-bone of St. Maurice was sent among other relics by the emperor Maximilian II, through the baron of Dietrichstein, major-domo of the most serene princes Rudolph and Ernest, his sons. Then again he continues from the praised documents in Spanish: They were delivered to the Prior brother Hernando of Ciudad Real and to the deputies of the same convent by the hands of Hernando de Virviesca, prefect of his majesty's treasury, on the 8th day of April of the year 1572. Whether the speech here is of the relics mentioned above, or only of the arm-bone, I do not know; but this at least can safely occupy the first place among all the sacred treasures which are said to be St. Maurice's there. That very many other sacred relics of anonymous holy Theban martyrs are preserved in the same sacristy, Francisco de los Santos, praised above, asserts from Sigüenza, p. 39.

[172] in the royal monastery of the Escorial, Both these writers again, in almost the same words, speak thus, in substance, about a certain head preserved among the sacred remains: Among the treasure of the royal monastery of the Escorial there is a silver head, adorned with a diadem, on which is read in gilded letters, "The head of St. Lawrence." The antiquity of the workmanship and the inscribed testimony make a great proof that it is really St. Lawrence's; although Philip II, founder of the same monastery, who with such solicitude sought out the relics of St. Lawrence, judged that it was not so certain as it would appear, unless perhaps it were of one of the Theban Legion, a Companion of St. Maurice, who had that name. The most prudent king judged rightly indeed that it was at least doubtful whether that head were St. Lawrence's, his own patron and the patron of the monastery of the Escorial, though perhaps some testimony asserted it; but I do not know why from this doubt another had to arise, namely whether it were of a Theban Martyr rather than of some other Saint. Among Pien's papers there is another transcribed from the Reliquary-list already often praised, where in the third place among the treasure of the royal monastery there is reviewed: The head of another Martyr from the Legion of St. Maurice, placed in a case which represents a church with capitals. Whence that head was obtained, Otto Truchsess, bishop of Albano and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, called of Augsburg, teaches in a testimony reported in the same Reliquary-list, from which I pluck what looks hither: Besides, the reverend and illustrious countess of Reichenstein, abbess of the venerable monastery of St. Cecilia of the same city of Cologne, also sent one holy head from the company of St. Maurice the martyr, and one holy head from the company of St. Gereon. These letters are dated at Rome in the year of the Lord 1570, on the 1st day of the month of January; from which again it can deservedly be doubted whether they be not of some one of the Martyrs who suffered in Germany.

[173] Portugal too glories in the sacred remains of the great Leader of the Thebans, at Lisbon but more sparingly, and not undeservedly; for among the rich treasure of holy bones which John Borgia obtained from the emperor Rudolph II and from Mary his mother, and afterwards gave, duly recognized and confirmed by archbishop Michael de Castro, to the church of the professed house of our Society at Lisbon, there are mentioned in the list which Bolland exhibits in tom. 2 of January, p. 611 and following, relics of St. Maurice carried on the 10th bier in the solemn translation, with the head of one of the holy martyr Companions, and relics of St. Candidus the martyr and of St. Acacius, companion of St. Victor, who are held to be Thebans. Of SS. Candidus and Victor we treat particularly in separate sections, which the reader may consult if he please. Whether these sacred remains be truly of those named Theban Saints, or rather of other Martyrs of the same names, I cannot say distinctly; certainly I nowhere else find St. Acacius named among the Thebans. Its own place here is also demanded by the cult of the holy Theban Martyrs carried over to the new world and to the dominions of the Portuguese. There is in Brazil a town situated in the twentieth degree of southern latitude on the sea coast, which has its name from the Holy Spirit. There toward the end of the sixteenth century seven or eight fathers of our Society

were devoting Apostolic labor to leading the barbarians to the true faith.

[174] In six villages of the Brazilians lying about the town, ten thousand Christians were already numbered from that time, and in Brazil. whose piety and confidence in God were so great that it deserved to be requited with miracles. Fr. Pierre du Jarric in the Treasury of the Indies, tom. 1, ch. 30, on the page which in my copy is 403, reviews several, and among them those which were obtained at the sacred relics of St. Maurice upon the invocation of his patronage, and which I transfer hither from him. He writes thus: In the church of the Fathers is a part of the relics of St. Maurice, leader of the Legion of the Thebans; these the Brazilians follow with great honor, and often experience their help (or rather the help of the Saint whom they venerate in them) in their necessities. For they are never carried in procession to obtain rain (and they are carried rather often) but that copious rain comes down from heaven. Nor does the Martyr succor a common necessity only, but a private one also, as will appear from what follows. There was in the villages of the Brazilians a certain man of the chief men: he, being sick, asked to be carried to the church dedicated to his name; and when he had kissed his relics with great piety of soul, he returned home sound and with his health restored. In the year 1589, when the Martyr's feast was being kept with a great concourse and throng of people, a boy who had climbed to a certain lofty place to watch the celebration suddenly fell down upon a heap of stones; all thought his body crushed; he appeared safe and whole, and that not without the singular help of the holy Martyr; for as he fell he had invoked his help and aid. But as a sign of the benefit received he retained, God so permitting, a certain reddish line, like a girdle, clinging to his body all round. To these Baldesano adds that St. Maurice was chosen as protector by the Brazilians. Let us return to Europe and examine the cult of the holy Martyrs through the Gauls.

§ XV. The ancient veneration of the men of Vienne and of Tours toward the holy Thebans. The assertions about the flasks of Tours, of Angers, and of Condat are discussed.

[ ] [The metropolitan churches of Tours and of Vienne were once sacred to St. Maurice.] These metropolitan churches were anciently marked with the name of St. Maurice and consecrated to him. That of Tours indeed lost the name of St. Maurice, but retained a singular veneration toward the holy Martyrs. The metropolitan of Vienne holds the name of the holy Leader to this day, nor is his cult there less celebrated. Both churches glory in relics of the Theban Martyrs, of which some things must presently be said. In §1 of this Posthumous Glory we have already observed certain things pertaining to the traditions of the men of Vienne, and have noted that the remains of St. Maurice were more probably first brought thither by St. Eoaldus about the beginning of the eighth century, at which time also the basilica of Vienne began to be called St. Maurice's and lost the name of the holy Maccabees. Whoever shall desire more of these things, let him go to our Work, tom. 2 of July, p. 484 and following, where Sollier examined what pertains to St. Eoaldus. In the Breviary of the church of Vienne, printed in the year of the Lord 1522, at the 26th day of October there is an Office of nine Lessons under this title: The Revelation of SS. Maurice, Exuperius, and Candidus. In it, although the whole is proper with Antiphons, Verses, and Responsories, nothing occurs about the tradition of the men of Vienne which le Lièvre adopted and which we sifted in §1; only the Responsory after the ninth Lesson makes mention of the relics of St. Maurice in these words: Happy the place of Agaunum, full of the relics of so many Saints; which shines with their many and immense signs, and rejoices in their suffrages. And the famous city of Gaul, called Vienne, endowed with the sacred head of the Leader of the host — which things are assuredly sounder than those which le Lièvre, and afterwards Saussay also, record about the sacred treasures of the Martyrs floating up and received by St. Paschasius from the waves of the Rhone.

[176] The 26th day of October, specially designated for the celebration, A part of the holy Leader's head is preserved at Vienne with other at what time it was so, I do not find, nor why it was marked with the title of the Revelation. Is this to be referred to the bodies of the holy Martyrs revealed to St. Theodore, or to their remains carried floating on the waters of the Rhone, or to something else? However that may be, the men of Vienne possess to this day a notable part of the relics of St. Maurice. Le Lièvre on p. 104, after he had contended that the whole body of the holy Leader was preserved at Vienne for a very long time, confesses that in his own time nothing of it survived but the head alone — which he himself asserts liberally enough, since not a few writers of Vienne, and among them Maupertuy on p. 19, candidly confess that only a portion of the holy head is honored there. All agree that the aforesaid sacred relics were adorned by Boso, king of Arles, who died about the year of Christ 890, and was buried in the church of Vienne sacred to St. Maurice. How diligent that most pious prince was in adorning the treasures of the holy Theban Leader, his epitaph attests, whose initial verses in the Antiquities of Vienne are as follows:

In this tomb rest the limbs of king Boso. He was pious and bountiful, bold, kindly with his wealth. But the head of St. Maurice he encircled with gold, Adorned it with bright gems, and above set A crown, all shining with gems and gold. While life was his, while good health remained, He gave many gifts to his Patron, worthy of a song.

[177] Further, that precious reliquary is to this day held in the highest veneration and esteem among the men of Vienne, less notable and certain relics. and the cited le Lièvre asserts that other relics of the same Saint were in his own time enclosed with a testimony in the chief altar by the archbishop who consecrated that altar after the fire by which almost the whole church had been consumed in the year 1567. He relates also in the same place that the shield of St. Maurice, redeemed at the time of the burning from a certain soldier by a pious citizen, was afterwards brought back to him as sacristan, and was recognized by the older men as that which had before been held in veneration by the men of Vienne under that name. What became of it afterwards I do not ascertain: if it is the very same which, placed under the head of St. Maurice, floated to Vienne, it will not find much confidence among the prudent. Although it could have been brought thither long after by St. Eoaldus among the other relics of the holy Thebans, and a fabulous tradition have afterwards accrued to it — which perhaps brought it about among the men of Vienne that the shield was neglected, whose bringing thither is exhibited to them adorned with so great a fiction. Certainly I find no mention of the shield among the more recent writers.

[178] At Tours the most celebrated and most ancient cult of our Martyrs has also been disfigured by some little fables. The tradition of the men of Tours That relics of the Saints of Agaunum were found in the church of St. Martin at Tours by St. Gregory, bishop of that same city, we showed in the preceding Commentary, §4, num. 53, from his writings; but there he does not set forth distinctly what the sacred pledges were, which he calls only by the name of Relics. Whether those sacred remains which Gregory found are even today preserved in the sacred treasury of the church of Tours I have not ascertained. In the Breviary of Tours, printed in the year of Christ 1612, at the 12th day of May there is a double Office under this title: The Reception of the relics of St. Maurice. A commemoration of St. Martin is also prescribed, of whom likewise is the 9th Lesson. It pleases me to transfer hither the three proper Lessons of the 2nd Nocturn. They run thus: They have handed down that the bodies of Ursus and Victor of the Theban Legion, buried at Solothurn, situated near the bank of the river Aare not far from the Rhine, were revealed to Theodore, bishop of the said place. So too, after many years, the Rhone laid open the limbs of Innocent. For with continual flow gently lapping the coffin, it did so not that it might draw them out of their (perhaps it should be read: out of the bosom) of the earth into the abyss, but that the faithful might carry them off honorably when uncovered. Whose translation, made by Domitian of Geneva and Gratus, bishop of the city of Aosta, we celebrate on this day.

[179] about the blood of the holy Thebans, Then the 5th Lesson begins: When St. Martin was returning from Rome, having crossed the Alps, he came into the plain where the holy Legion of the Theban martyrs Maurice and his Companions was slain for Christ by Maximian. And so, on bended knees, the blessed man prayed God that He would reveal to him some relics of the holy Martyrs. Upon the grasses, therefore, of that meadow where the blood of the holy Martyrs had been shed for Christ, there appeared a bloody dew, from which the blessed pontiff filled three flasks. Here the 5th Lesson ends, and the 6th begins: One of them he laid up today in the church of Tours, and dedicated it in memory of the blessed Maurice and his Companions. And of the said flasks he assigned the second to the church of Angers, which afterwards was built in honor of the same Martyrs and consecrated under their name. And the third flask was transmitted by him to the church of Condat, where afterwards he passed to those above. In another Breviary of Tours, of the church of St. Martin, published in print there in the year of the Lord 1635, at the aforesaid day there is proclaimed the feast of the Succor of the most blessed Martin, bishop and confessor, as a double. Almost the whole office is proper to that Succor; but the Lessons of the 2nd Nocturn are Of the Reception of the relics of St. Maurice and his Companions, and almost the same things are related which I recited above from the other Office. The 1st or 4th Lesson there devises I know not what about the bodies of SS. Ursus and Victor being revealed, and that to Theodore, bishop of Solothurn. Theodore's see is certainly transferred liberally from Octodurum to Solothurn, and in place of the finding of the bodies of St. Maurice and his Companions the revelation of SS. Ursus and Victor has been wrongly substituted. How much firmer the rest may be, let us explore.

[180] which St. Martin is said Surius at this day, after the Acts of our Saints, published a Fragment of a letter of the dean and canons of Châteauneuf in Gaul to the most reverend Philip, archbishop of Cologne, from which I conjecture that all the rest proceeded; wherefore I likewise present it here, some things being omitted, however, which do not make for the matter. While the blessed Martin, returning from Rome with very few companions in the garb of a pilgrim, had it in mind to pray in the place to be honored with so great reverence, in which so many thousands of Martyrs had shed their precious blood for Christ, he came to Agaunum; and, his prayer completed, he asked the monks (for monks at that time possessed the place) that something of the relics of those same Martyrs be devoutly given him. They, not recognizing the person shadowed by his garb, and repelling him, utterly refused to give. The priest, therefore, being cast off by men … betook himself after his manner to the divine help, and obtained from the inhabitants that at least the place, once made purple by rosy gore, should be shown him; where, on bended knees, with heart, face, and hands directed to heaven, he prayed the Ruler of earth and of death … that He who on the last day is to restore the whole substance of man in the twinkling of an eye, would deign to pour back from the depths of the earth, to the praise of His majesty and the honor of the Martyrs, something of the blood of His Soldiers shed and swallowed up there for the glory of His name.

[181] Then, a knife being drawn from its sheath, and with the other hand grasping a tuft of the green grass, prodigiously from the earth

as soon as with the other he lifted the turf cut around in a circle, that is, in the manner of a crown — marvelous to say, and a miracle unheard of hitherto! — a thick shower of copious blood began to drip from that very turf; which Martin, joyfully receiving with the utmost veneration and thanksgiving as much as the Divine bounty granted, distributed among little vessels made on purpose for this, and hastening his return with exultation, set out on the road with his companions. But that Martin, cast off, might appear Martin the chosen pontiff of God, he was able indeed to begin the journey, but, hindered by a certain hidden force, could not go forward; until, understanding by a secret inspiration the will of the Giver, he returned to Agaunum, to disclose what had been done, and, rebuking those greedy monks whom abundance was making poor, and revealing who he was, to make them partakers of so great a blessing by giving them a part of the blood obtained from heaven, and by leaving them the knife with which he had cut the turf. And when at this they were struck with trembling and confessed the fault of their hardness, he clemently granted them pardon as they laid all their goods and themselves before him. He, judging that what God had bestowed on him sufficed, having bidden them farewell and received from God the power to go forward, returned to Tours; where, being received with the greatest dancing and applause of the clergy and of all the citizens, as their shepherd and lord and the light of their country, in a solemn procession, he seemly disposed the blood which he brought — more comely than any rose or refined gold — divided among as many vessels as he willed, in the places which he judged fitting; and ennobling the chief church of that same metropolis, and also the church of Angers subject to it, with some part of such great pledges, he consecrated it in honor of the same martyrs Maurice and his Companions.

[182] The memory of which reception is solemnly kept in our city every year on the fourth of the Ides of May, etc. to have drawn out, resting on recent monuments Surius notes that a few things are then inserted, perhaps not pertaining here, and continues thus from the document: Now Martin so venerated the blood of the aforesaid Theban Martyrs that he kept a flask filled with it to be had with him perpetually, and ordered it to be placed in the place of his rest when he should have put off the man. These things the canons of Châteauneuf wrote to Philip, archbishop of Cologne, who obtained that chair, by the reckoning of the writers of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, in the year of Christ 1168, and who had asked the praised canons of Châteauneuf for an account of the things which rumor had brought to him. Further, the things here narrated are such that by their very unusualness they ought at once to cast a suspicion of fabrication upon more prudent readers, and would without doubt do so even if those who report them were much nearer in age to St. Martin. Copious gore of the holy Martyrs flowing from the cut turf; vessels prepared by a prophetic spirit for receiving it; the holy pontiff held back by a certain hidden force until he had made the men of Agaunum partakers of the unwonted prodigy and of the miraculous blood obtained — these and like things heaped together are miracles which, unless they be asserted on the surety of the best credit, will not easily be admitted. There is added, from the negative argument — namely the silence of Sulpicius Severus, of Venantius Fortunatus, of Gregory of Tours, and of the other more ancient panegyrists of St. Martin — a presumption of the falsity of the whole matter not easily to be overcome, which no one will easily pluck out; and those have hitherto increased it who have wrapped that flask in new darkness, as we shall presently see. Meanwhile it seems beyond doubt that from this account of the canons of Châteauneuf a thing so little credible passed into the Breviaries of the church of Tours. He, however, who inserted into them the Lessons recited seems to have wished to soften the matter; for he relates that the prodigious gore did not flow from the turf cut by St. Martin, but that, while the Saint prayed, it appeared like dew upon the meadow and was gathered.

[183] and wrapped in various little fables, Some other writers besides have liberally received what was drawn from it. Among them John Maan in the Metropolis of Tours, under St. Martin, num. 15, citing a Martyrology of Tours which I have not seen, adopts almost everything without scruple, and adds: And such was the care and zeal, from of old down almost to our own times (they had already ceased before then), for preserving this blood in the church of Tours, that unless men had most solemnly sworn that they would not permit the flask to be removed from the church, they were by no means enrolled in the college of its canons. To these was added Peter Francis Chifflet of our Society in his manuscript Jura Illustrations, as we shall see a little later. Our Henschen, among the Things Passed Over at the 12th day of May, where the things hitherto related occur in the sacred Calendars of Tours, referred the matter hither to be discussed. Whoever is not altogether a novice in the critical art can easily perceive that such things ought not to have created great difficulty; for whatever documents those writers brought forward for asserting facts so unusual do not exceed the age of six centuries — Gervase, provost of the church of St. Martin at Tours, being witness, in the Life of that holy prelate, bk. 3, p. 220 — and so were born in that time in which writers seem to have striven with great emulation to insert fables into sacred monuments. From another side too the aforesaid flask has been wrapped in new darkness, which sufficiently shows the inconstancy and ineptitude of the tradition.

[184] does not appear; I have seen no one, namely, setting forth distinctly enough whether that flask survives at Tours to this day and is believed to be full of the blood of our holy Martyrs, obtained from the earth with so great a prodigy; or rather whether it was carried elsewhere, and when, or finally what became of it. Peter Francis Chifflet, the often-praised helper of our Work, in his Jura Illustrations written by his own hand, which are kept among us, judges that it is that same phial which the Greater monastery at Tours has today in great veneration; and if this is true, new prodigies are substituted for and added to so many prodigies. Andrew Duchesne relates, bk. 2 of the Frankish Antiquities, p. 507, from Sulpicius Severus (as indeed he says), that St. Martin, gravely bruised and almost battered to death in a fall down the steps of a stairway, was anointed with oil and healed by an angel; and that the angel left St. Martin a phial full of the same oil, with which the holy prelate afterwards worked very many wonderful things. And he adds that this flask, with the oil remaining, was preserved and honored down to his own times in the Greater monastery. He asserts, after Scipion Dupleix and president de Thou, that Henry IV, king of Gaul, was anointed with the same oil. These men allege as witnesses of their assertions, for the origin of the prodigious flask, Sulpicius Severus, Paulinus of Périgueux, Venantius Fortunatus, and Alcuin. By these writers mention is indeed made of very many healings which were wrought by the oil of St. Martin; but by the same writers it is said in the clearest words that that oil was not brought to the holy prelate by an angel, but was consecrated or blessed by him for anointing the sick — which things assuredly differ by the whole heaven.

[185] which will not easily Although these are lighter matters, if Chifflet truly asserts that it is the same flask which is said to be now full of the blood of the Theban Martyrs so miraculously obtained, now filled with oil brought down from heaven to St. Martin — which, unless I am mistaken, there is no need to belabor further. That, according to the differing exigencies of the times and the pleasure of writers, the Martyrs' blood was turned into prodigious oil, and again turned back into gore, I shall not believe until I am convinced by testimonies wholly beyond doubt. By an eyewitness inspector it could easily be discovered whether congealed blood or oil is contained in the famous phial of Tours. If he shall stand for the second, and shall adhere in the rest to the little traditions of the men of Tours, let him remember to prove by ancient testimonies that it has been preserved from St. Martin to these times, and to establish by wholly solid arguments its bringing by an angel; otherwise he will either nowhere have me consenting, or at least not free from the suspicion that it is rather of that oil which St. Martin blessed for healing the sick, or which welled up at the tomb of that same holy bishop, or finally which fed the lamps burning before his effigy; concerning which see more in Gregory of Tours, On the Miracles of St. Martin, bk. 1, ch. 15; bk. 2, chs. 32 and 51; and bk. 4, ch. 24.

[186] But if he who shall have examined the flask asserts that it is full of blood, and indeed of the blood of the holy Theban Martyrs, find credit we shall first offer a most mild conjecture: that it was perhaps gathered by the Christians who buried the bodies of the Saints, and preserved down to these our times. And further, if he wishes to have me adhering to this conjecture beyond doubt, he will not pluck out my suspicion unless he produces witnesses of the matter older than those who lived in the twelfth century. Hitherto I have seen no one who mentioned the famous flask before the canons of Châteauneuf; and that it may become clearer how light is the weight of their authority, I append another fragment of the letter, part of which we recited above. It begins where that one ends, and was sent to us by the same Fr. Peter Francis Chifflet. The copy runs thus: This (prodigious flask) almost all of us have seen, found in our own times in a hidden repository which is beneath his (St. Martin's) coffer, and brought out from a silver chest, which was encompassed by two others, one likewise of silver, the other of wood; and we have for a long time exhibited it to the peoples to be greeted and kissed, and afterwards we have seemly raised it aloft, with other relics, in a more eminent place of the church, together with that same chest fortified with silver straps, a golden key, and a fastening.

[187] But the knife of the holy man, and that part of the blood among the prudent; nor will those things which about the flasks which he had left at Agaunum, as has often been heard, are still shown, as a testimony of so great a power, to devout men passing through that place, if they ask for it; and many of us saw both a few years ago in our church, when some of the canons of that same place (who have been substituted for the monks) had gone out to collect the alms of the Faithful for the repair of their church lately burnt, and had turned aside to us, showing us both, and confirming those things which we have faithfully related above. The prodigious knife appears no longer in the sacred treasury of the abbey of Agaunum; of the precious flask of Egyptian work the speech is, unless I am mistaken, in the rest; but if the men of Agaunum assert that the gore of their Martyrs is contained in it, I suspect that they prefer to believe that it was received by Christians at their passion rather than so prodigiously obtained by St. Martin. Whatever it may have been, however, we have here the beginnings of the prodigious flask of Tours; which if anyone shall wish to refer to earlier times, let him teach us whence the canons learned not only that St. Martin filled a flask with the miraculous blood of the Martyrs in the manner which they relate, but moreover that this very same one is that which they found beneath his coffin. Probably this was not established for them from any ancient monument found beside that phial; for they would not have omitted to relate that to Philip, who wished to be informed of every particular, since it ought above all to commend the treasure they had found — whereas they allege no other testimony, nay, not even a tradition. And these things, unless I am mistaken, suffice for us not to adopt here a matter so unusual. What is asserted in the fragment of the letter in Surius about the like flasks of Angers and of Condat is a fable no less

savoring of the same. Certainly what is alleged in the Breviary of that church, published in print in the year 1624, at the 2nd day of December, has proceeded in almost so many words from the letter. The flask of Condat had this prodigy besides in common with that of Tours, that in it the blood of the Theban Martyrs was born of the oil of St. Martin.

[188] about the flasks of Angers and of Condat are brought forward The anonymous writer of the Lives of the three first abbots of the Jura, about whom see more in the preceding Commentary, §3, num. 44 and following, relates in the Life of St. Eugendus that a phial of the oil of St. Martin hanging at the pillow of the monk Antidiolus, when the whole monastery had been almost reduced to ashes in one night, was found on the next day among the vast burnings and the flames of the still-burning upper rooms, full, closed, and unharmed, and was thereafter held in great honor. That flask, in which the oil had passed into blood, according to the often-praised Chifflet, lasted down to the middle of the past century, at which time, being handled too incautiously by a monk, it slipped from his hands and, dashed against the floor, flew apart — easily affording an examination whether oil or blood was contained in it. For the rest, that we may make an end of harrying fables, the men of Vienne and of Tours had, besides the day already assigned, this day also sacred to St. Maurice and his Companions with a special cult; for in the cited Breviary of Vienne, at the 21st day of September, on which St. Matthew is venerated, the Office from the Chapter onward is proper to the holy Theban Martyrs, and taken from their Passion. Among the men of Tours St. Matthew yields from Vespers, and the whole Office is proper to our holy Martyrs, with an Octave, where also the Lessons of the 2nd Nocturn, on days not impeded, are proper with their Responsories. According to Baillet, in most of the dioceses of Gaul the Office of our Martyrs has today been reduced to a semidouble rite, which perhaps extends also to the praised churches. I suspect, moreover, that at Tours, besides the flask and the sacred remains at St. Martin's, some relics of our holy Martyrs are preserved, or at least were preserved, in the metropolitan church, which for a long time bore the name of St. Maurice.

§ XVI. The relics and veneration of the holy Thebans at Angers, at Rheims, and through the rest of Gaul.

[ ] The arm which the men of Angers have is perhaps Besides the two metropolitan churches enumerated in the preceding §, Gaul has two cathedrals sacred to the name of St. Maurice, namely that of Angers and that of Mirepoix. The men of Angers refer the beginnings of the cult of the holy Leader of the Thebans to St. Martin, by whom they assert that their church was consecrated under that name and enriched with the precious flask. What is to be judged of the flask I have already said; what pertains to St. Martin and to the church of Angers consecrated by him will be able to be examined at his Acts. It is certain meanwhile that in the times of Charlemagne it was sacred under this title, as is clear from the precept which he grants to Mauriolus, in the Sainte-Marthes in the Catalogue of the prelates of Angers. In the Breviary of that same church, printed at Paris in the year of Christ 1624, this 22nd day of September is announced as festal, and a wholly proper Office of St. Maurice and his Companions is prescribed, with an Octave. In the same Breviary on the 2nd day of December there is again a semidouble Office of our holy Martyrs, on the feast of the Reception of the arm of St. Maurice the martyr. In the 1st Lesson of the second Nocturn, after those things which I have said were excerpted about the flask from the letter of the canons of Châteauneuf, there follows: It has also (the church of Angers) the head of St. Innocent, brought from Agaunum by bishop Eusebius. It has besides the arm of St. Maurice; on what occasion it was received is related thus (in the 2nd Lesson): In the year of salvation 1203, when the Franks, a treaty having been joined with the Venetians, were setting out with a great fleet to the holy war, the Roman Pontiff Innocent III urging through his legates that on the occasion of the Expedition to Jerusalem the Greeks, who had long since fallen away from the Roman church, should be recalled to their duty; the fleet being led thither, Alexius Angelus, son of Isaac, is restored to the empire together with his father on this condition, that the Greek church should thenceforward remain in obedience to the Roman See.

[190] But when he had been removed within the sixth month by the treachery of Alexius Ducas, surnamed Murzuphlus, of St. Maurice the martyr of Apamea: and the whole city refused the condition of the treaty, Constantinople, taken by a fierce siege, came into the power of the Latins, and Baldwin was set over it as emperor, who, the schism being removed, subjected the Eastern church to the authority of the holy Roman See. When the city was taken, since it had been granted to the piety of the archbishop of Philippi, who was a native of Rouen, that he should receive very many relics of the Saints laid up there, he held the arm of the most glorious martyr Maurice, found among them, in great honor above the rest, and gave it as a gift to the church of Angers. The sacred pledge was received into the church with a great concourse and veneration of all orders, and was brought into its sacristy on the 4th of the Nones of December; and from that time there began to be celebrated every year on that day with solemn rite the memory of the Reception of this most sacred arm, in which thanks are rendered to Christ the king of Martyrs for so great a benefit. Concerning these things a certain suspicion is at once cast upon readers by that is related thus, which seems to intimate that the matter rests rather on tradition than on indubitable monuments, which I have not found anywhere else either. It seems hard to believe that the arm of St. Maurice, martyr of Agaunum, was carried off to Constantinople. The Greeks too have their own Maurice with companions, the celebrated martyr of Apamea, as I noted in the preceding Commentary, §3, num. 79 and following. The same is inscribed in the sacred Calendars on the 21st of February, and his sacred remains were without doubt scattered through the East. Was it not the arm of this Maurice that the men of Angers received from Constantinople? I shall continue to doubt very much, until someone shall have taught me more certain things — if indeed they agree that they received it by that way which the praised Breviary assigns.

[191] Let us pass to the church of Mirepoix. This was erected into a cathedral only in the year 1318, [The church of Mirepoix sacred to the Saint. The men of Rheims obtained his relics with a document,] as the Sainte-Marthes note in the Catalogue of the bishops of that church; but whether, while it was still parochial, it bore the name of St. Maurice, and was enriched with relics, I have not ascertained, being destitute of any monuments whatever of that church. Marlot, in the History of the Metropolis of Rheims, tom. 2, bk. 2, ch. 21, reports a document which gives credit that the canons of St. Symphorian obtained remains of our Saint and of his Theban Companions; which deserves to be transferred hither, and is as follows. To the venerable and discreet men, the dean and chapter of St. Symphorian of Rheims. N. …, called abbot of the holy church of Agaunum, and the whole convent of that same place, greeting in the Author of salvation. At the prayers and instance of our beloved fellow countryman William, our canon, we transmit to you by him no small portion of the relics of the blessed Maurice and his Companions, a sworn assurance having been received through him that these same relics shall be laid up with the relics of St. Symphorian, or shall be hidden away in an altar consecrated properly in honor of St. Maurice. Given in the year of grace 1225, in the first year of the revelation of St. Maurice, which was on the 7th of the Kalends of November. The Sainte-Marthes in their Catalogue of the abbots of Agaunum from the year 1170 to 1282 set down only five, and these, if you except the first and the fifth, with no further distinction of time. Of these the middle ones are Hugh II, Walter, and Nantelmus.

[192] in which there is treatment of a certain revelation whose circumstances The often-praised abbot of St. Leopold in his manuscript History, ch. 22, sets after Hugh II, in the year of Christ 1217, Aimo, brother of Gaucher count of the Burgundians, under whom, he says, Honorius III confirmed the donation of the count of Montereau for 20 ells of red cloth, of which donation and use of the cloth I made mention above at num. 39. The same most learned author notes that in the year 1224 there was substituted for Aimo Nantelmus, who without doubt is the same whose name was omitted in the document of Rheims — I know not why, unless perhaps it could not be read — or at any rate was designated only by the initial letter. That Nantelmus was abbot in the year 1225 is clear from this old inscription, which is found on the bust, or half-length silver statue of St. Maurice, whence his relics were afterwards extracted, and there were substituted some sacred bones of SS. Innocent, Candidus, and Vitalis. I render the inscription into Latin: In the year of grace 1225, on the 24th of October, the body of St. Maurice was revealed, and placed in this bust in the time of Nantelmus, abbot of this place. Here the time of the revelation differs by two days, since the 7th of the Kalends of November agrees with the 26th day, and not with the 24th; but if the inscription has Roman numerals, an error could easily have occurred. Further, what that revelation of the body of St. Maurice is, of which there is speech in both documents, I do not find distinctly set forth. Of the same there is probably treatment in the manuscript Office of the monastery of Agaunum, of which above at num. 39; but neither from thence has any light shone.

[193] are obscure. The cult of St. Maurice at Paris, De L'Isle assigns, among the documents to be appended to his History, a bull of Gregory IX, given on the 20th of October in the year 1228, by which the Pontiff exhorts the men of Sion, of Geneva, and of Lausanne to help abbot Nantelmus with alms for rebuilding the monastery of Agaunum, which had fallen down. The basilica also had suffered very much from the injuries of the times, if it had not been almost demolished and ruined, under the same man's rule. For Nantelmus is read to have given the ring of St. Maurice in the year 1250 to Peter in thanksgiving, because his brother Amadeus III, count of Savoy, was rebuilding it. Whether the relics of the holy Leader, involved in those calamities, lay for a time lost beneath the ruins, or were laid away by someone in an unknown place and afterwards found, I do not know, nor do I find any trace on which even a conjecture could rest. I return whence, an occasion being offered, I turned aside, in order to note that in the convent of the Poor Clares of Rheims there is preserved a rib of St. Maurice, as the same Marlot reports in bk. 3, ch. 27, toward the end. The city of Paris too is adorned with various relics of our holy Martyrs. At St. Benedict's and at St. Martin's in the Fields, among the Celestines, in the Val-de-Grâce, and in the church of the college of our Society, they are exposed; and St. Maurice is venerated as second Patron in the greater archiepiscopal chapel. There are besides two villages in the neighborhood of Paris, Nanterre, famous for the birth of St. Genevieve, and Charenton, of whose churches he is Patron and gives the title.

[194] Most celebrated once was the cult of the holy Leader in the city of Orleans. at Orleans, at Chinon, and in very many Francis le Maire attests it in the Antiquities of the church and diocese of Orleans, p. 36, where in the Inventory of the relics of the church of the Holy Cross, brought into the new tower on the 2nd of May in the year 1562, he observes thus in French: One arm and relics of St. Maurice, enclosed in a silver chest supported by two silver lions; whose Saint's feast is celebrated in this diocese. In this city there is a church named from St. Maurice, which is also called St. Eligius', and to which anciently a general procession was made on the Sunday preceding the feast of St. Maurice, which is the 22nd of September. The same things, abridged,

Charles Saussay has in the Annals of Orleans, p. 641; but these holy relics, with almost all the rest of the sacred treasure, were in that same year sacrilegiously plundered and profaned by the iconoclast Calvinists. More solemn still is the veneration of our Saints at Chinon, or, as they otherwise call it, Chinonium. Chinon was once a village, and is now a not inelegant town in the province of Touraine on the river Vienne toward the territory of Poitiers. We have the proper Offices of the church of St. Maximus of Chinon printed in the year 1619 at Saumur, from which it is distant 7 miles to the East. In the Calendar prefixed to the Offices, at the 22nd of September it is noted thus: Of Maurice and his Companions, MM., double. At the first Vespers a procession is made to his parish church, and on the day the choir celebrates a solemn Mass there. But at the day itself, where the order of the Office is prescribed, this is the title: Of Maurice and his Companions, MM., double: kept as a holiday. Doubtless because either St. Maurice is Patron of the church, or particular relics of his are preserved there.

[195] In very many other churches of Gaul besides, the holy Theban Martyrs have had an Office, places of Gaul; which I doubt, however, whether they have retained everywhere to this day. Among other tokens of that cult are the Breviaries and proper Offices of the following churches. Those of Béziers, printed in the year 1631, direct that the 22nd day of September be celebrated with a double rite; those of Chalon of the year 1620 prescribe it for the cathedral church; the church of Die prescribes at the same day a double and wholly proper Office of St. Maurice and his Companions with an Octave, in which, on days not impeded, there are again other proper Lessons. At the first Vespers of the day St. Matthew has only a commemoration. That proper of Die, moreover, was printed in the year 1669. So singular a cult of our Saints at Die probably took its occasion from some sacred relics. Certainly Columbi, as Henschen observed in the Annotations to the Acts of St. Marcellus, tom. 1 of April, p. 829, asserts that there was once there a monastery of monks of St. Maurice. Besides, the printed Breviaries and Offices — that of Limoges of the year 1625, of Maurienne of 1512, of Thérouanne of 1542, of Nantes of 1623 (for the cathedral only) — have a double and proper Office of the holy Martyrs. In the Missal of Rouen printed in the year of Christ 1585 a Mass is prescribed with a double rite; but in the Breviaries which were published in the years 1527 and 1736 the Office is only semidouble — with which rite it is commonly celebrated, with proper Lessons, in the older like monuments of most of the other churches of Gaul. I forbear to survey the cities of the Gauls neighboring on Germany, meaning to run out thither when we shall examine the cult of St. Maurice and his Companions in Germany, that I may inform the reader of some still more notable relics.

[196] There is, one French mile below Noyon on the eastern bank of the river Oise, a most celebrated and most opulent abbey of the Order of St. Augustine, in the abbey of Ourscamp, at Clermont, in the monastery of Beaulieu, which has the name of Ursi-campus, in the native tongue Orcamp or Ours-camp. The often-mentioned le Lièvre, in the Antiquity of Vienne, ch. 15, p. 104, relates that the chin and nose of St. Maurice were translated thither; Baillet has the same in his History of the cult of our holy Martyr, but neither of them alleges a surety for his assertion. St. Bonitus, bishop of Clermont, toward the beginning of the eighth century went to the most celebrated basilica of Agaunum to implore the patronage of the Martyrs, as his biographer, a contemporary author, attests in our Work, tom. 1 of January, p. 1073. In his time there was a notable church of St. Maurice at Clermont, as the same anonymous writer attests on pp. 1075 and 1076, which I believe the holy man enriched with some relics received from Agaunum. Two French miles south of Clermont is a celebrated monastery which is called Bellus locus, and in the vernacular Beaulieu, and thither there was once translated a vast part of the arm of St. Maurice. Richard, abbot of Saint-Vanne, relates the matter in the Life of St. Roding or Chrauding, founder of that monastery, illustrated in our Work at the 17th day of September, where these things may be seen in ch. 2, p. 516. The monk Heiric, in the Miracles of St. Germanus, printed in our Work, tom. VII of July, p. 255 and following, describes in ch. 3 how in his time the relics of St. Maurice were obtained and translated into the crypts of St. Germanus of Auxerre. It will be useful to transfer some things hither.

[197] at Auxerre, The Alps being traversed, he says, they turned aside to the holy Martyrs of Agaunum (the monks who were returning from Rome with sacred relics obtained from Nicholas I in the year 862 or the following). There, received by Hubert, a most famous abbot, most familiarly, they relieved the weariness of so great a journey by the man's full benevolence, by the vast affection of the Religious, and finally by the ample indulgence of all liberality. Thereupon, judging that it would not be right for them to leave unattempted the opportunity of business offered them, they resolved that relics of the Saints of Agaunum should be asked of the aforenamed chief. He, God so willing, received most kindly what was asked, both because he was on most familiar terms with the men, and because, as one who thought only of secular things, he was not sufficiently niggardly in bestowing the patronages of the Saints. Wherefore, the custodian of the sacred bodies being summoned, he ordered without delay a part of the relics of the precious martyr Maurice to be bestowed, to be embraced together with the venerable head of St. Innocent, once a legionary of his. Although all bore this most ill, yet the chief's command obtained that what he wished should be done without distinction. He then relates how the sacred treasure, gathered in various places, was received and laid up at Auxerre. Hubert, abbot of Agaunum, of whom is the speech here, was the brother of queen Theutberga, wife of king Lothar, most well known in the history of that time. Hubert is no less famous for the shameful crimes with which he stained himself, after shaking off the clerical state to which he had been initiated as a youth, leading a life not only secular but most dissolute — a most rapacious invader of abbeys and ecclesiastical goods, and a most base squanderer. What afterwards became of these sacred treasures I do not ascertain. In the Breviaries of the church of Auxerre, both the ancient and the more recent, the Office of St. Maurice and his Companions is only semidouble. Of the head of St. Innocent the discourse will recur below.

[198] at Senlis, whither there were translated by St. Louis A most rich treasure of the remains of the holy Theban Martyrs, obtained by St. Louis, was translated to Senlis and laid up in the church of the priory of St. Maurice which the holy king founded. Of this matter we have indubitable testimonies in the Bull of Clement IV, in which are inserted the letters of Robert, at that time bishop of Senlis, as may be seen in the continuators of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, tom. 10, col. 235, among the Documents. In that Bull it is said: The aforesaid religious (of Agaunum), assenting to his (St. Louis') request, took care to exhibit to the royal devotion several bodies of the holy Martyrs from the treasure of their monastery, and that the same abbot with certain of his Brothers should personally carry them to the king himself, together with solemn envoys. Yet it pleases me to pluck from the Life of the same holy king, written by the queen's confessor and printed in the second place in our Work, tom. V of August, p. 571 and following, the things which prove St. Louis' veneration toward the holy Theban Martyrs and which look to the sacred treasure of Senlis; thus, then, it is there read, ch. 4, p. 583: Since the venerable St. Louis had resolved to take care that a building should be constructed at Senlis near his palace in honor of St. Maurice and his Companions, he so acted and effected that he received twenty-four bodies, or thereabouts, of the Companions of St. Maurice of that same Legion from the abbot and monks of that abbey where the said bodies rested, which is situated in Burgundy. The abbot, with certain of his Brothers and with the envoys sent thither by the venerable king, carried them to Senlis.

[199] But when they had come so near to Senlis that they could be carried into the city, some bodies of the Saints of Agaunum, the venerable king ordered them to be laid down in a certain house of the bishop, which is named Mont, and is distant about half a league from Senlis. Then he ordered many bishops and abbots to be assembled; and, with many nobles present and a numerous throng of people, he ordered a column of suppliants to be formed out of all the clergy of the city of Senlis. The said holy bodies were placed in various cases, splendidly covered with silken cloth, and he ordered them to be carried, with a vast column of suppliants going before, into the city to the chief church, in this manner. The blessed king himself carried on his own shoulders the last case, together with the man of famous memory Theobald, king of Navarre, from the bishop's house as far as the aforesaid church; and he ordered the other cases also to be carried before him by other magnates and knights. For the blessed king thought, as is believed, that it was fitting and honorable that the said Saints, who had been knights of Jesus Christ, should be carried by knights. The same priory obtained also sacred remains of St. Maurice himself, leader of the Thebans. The continuators of the Gallia Christiana attest this in the series of the priors of St. Maurice, under Adam, writing thus somewhat obscurely: In the year 1376, on the last day of November, Amadeus count of Savoy gave to this church part of an arm-bone of St. Maurice, formerly, he says, received from the abbot of Agaunum of the illustrious family de Barthelem, in the presence of the emperor Charles and of the abbey's secretary Girard de Beve or de Veue, now abbot.

[200] Where Amadeus says this, I do not know, for no document is assigned. of which one passed to the abbey of St. Denis and to that of Chaalis, He who is here called Girard de Beve or Veue is Girard Bernard, whose procuration, dated in the year 1377, is extant, as the most reverend de L'Isle attests in his manuscript History, ch. 22. The same man observes in the preceding chapter that John Bartholomew governed the abbey of Agaunum from the year 1356 to 1376, and that in his time Amadeus, count of Savoy, surnamed the Green, came to Agaunum with the emperor Charles, returning from Avignon, in the year 1365; of this abbot, then, is the speech here. For the rest, as the church of the priory of Senlis was afterwards enriched with other relics of St. Maurice, so it also lost part of the sacred treasure earlier brought thither. An anonymous monk of the abbey of St. Denis, in Duchesne, tom. 5 of the Writers, p. 401, attests that the body of one of those Martyrs was translated to his own monastery. These are his words: In sign of love also the holy king Louis conferred upon St. Denis the body of one Martyr of that precious Company of the Thebans. Since indeed at that time he obtained that several bodies of the aforesaid Saints be given him, which he honorably translated into the church which he caused to be built at Senlis. Sartorius in the Cistercium bis Tertium, tit. 26, pp. 742 and following, reviews among the sacred treasures of the churches of his Order: At Chaalis … two bodies of holy Martyrs from the cohort of St. Maurice, which the holy king of the Gauls, Louis, brought thither barefoot with notable reverence. The continuators of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, tom. 10, in the List of the abbots of Chaalis, under Peter II, write: While Peter sat, St. Louis carried on his own shoulders, with a great retinue, to the monastery of Chaalis two holy bodies, namely one of the Companions of St. Maurice and another of the bodies of the eleven thousand

virgins, which are said to rest in the greater altar.

[201] at Chartres and at Centula These things, as is clear, differ very much from what was brought forward before from Sartorius. But which of them are to be preferred I cannot say; for the older monuments, so far as I have ascertained, are silent about the aforesaid translation, although in the Deeds of St. Louis the king mention is more than once made of the monastery of Chaalis being adorned and endowed by the same man with other things. Father Emard Le Caron of our Society wrote from Amiens in the year 1678 to my Elders, who had asked for documents about St. Emanus or Emard, a letter which is laid aside for this day, because it teaches that some remains of St. Maurice are preserved at Chartres also. I add, says Fr. Le Caron, that I have in hand an ancient Martyrology, where at the 16th of May it is read: The Passion of St. Emard, whose body rests both in the church and in the chest of St. Maurice. Now he is treating of the collegiate church of Chartres, as what precedes in the same place shows. For the rest, from the writing of St. Angilbert, printed in our Work at the 18th day of February, p. 103, it is established that he brought relics of SS. Maurice, Candidus, Exuperius, Victor, and Innocent into the treasury of Centula. Into the same Picardy, among the Vermandois, sacred treasures of SS. Maurice, Candidus, and Exuperius were once translated from Rheims also, and placed at the head of St. Rigobert, as the History of the translations of this holy bishop of Rheims, given by our Bolland in tom. 1 of January, p. 178 and following, teaches us. And these are, in substance, the things which have occurred concerning the cult and relics of our holy Thebans through Gaul; I forbear to review the monasteries sacred to their name and the other churches dedicated to them, since these are met with everywhere in Le Cointe and Mabillon.

§ XVII. The relics of SS. Maurice and his Theban fellow Martyrs through Belgium, a great part of which were brought from Cologne and Trier.

The relics and cult of the Saints in the professed house of our Society A most rich treasure of the remains of the holy Theban Martyrs is scattered through our Belgium also; of which, however, most were translated hither from Cologne or from Trier, as either express testimonies, or a suspicion on account of the nearness of the place, persuades; and so they probably pertain to the martyr companions of SS. Gereon, Boniface, or Thyrsus. Yet because very many cannot with certainty be distinguished, and were perhaps brought thither earlier from Agaunum as well, I shall here enumerate each of the more celebrated ones which I have found under the name of the Theban Martyrs. In the church of this Professed house of Antwerp we have very many sacred treasures of this kind fortified with their authentic testimonies. I have before my eyes the letters of Lothar, archbishop of Trier, dated the 21st day of August in the year 1617, in which he attests that he grants to our church, at the request of the Rev. Fr. James Tirinus, at that time provost of this house, two almost entire heads, four parts of skulls, two jawbones, six long bones from the holy Legion of the Theban Martyrs of Trier. Two sacred bones of Martyrs besides, from the legion of the Thebans of Maurice and his Companions, and some other smaller ones, were given with the due testimony to this church by Fr. Louis Thouard, rector of our college of Cologne, as the Rev. Fr. Oliver Manare, provincial of the Belgian province, gives faith in letters dated the 20th of June in the year 1594.

[203] For the rest, these sacred remains are enclosed in two larger sarcophagi skillfully covered with silver, at Antwerp, Mechlin, Louvain, Anderlecht, and on the 22nd of September are exposed at the chief altar to the veneration of the peoples. Now there are contained in those reliquaries 6 heads, 6 jawbones, 12 shinbones, 3 arms, and 20 larger bones; some of which, sent once by the same Lothar, archbishop of Trier, to the city of 's-Hertogenbosch, and this being afterwards occupied by the heretics, were brought to us with their testimonies. Some of them besides were obtained from the abbot of St. Maximinus with documents, but they likewise look to the martyrs of Trier, the Companions of St. Boniface. The church of the college of our Society at Mechlin, at the request of the same Fr. James Tirinus, obtained from Trier, of the same Martyrs, a nearly entire head, 4 parts of skulls, a jawbone, a long bone with two others; besides two bones by the gift of the Lord Nicholas, abbot of the imperial monastery of St. Maximinus, another head by the gift of the prioress of the convent of the Valley of the Angels, and three long bones from the college of Luxembourg. At Louvain, in the monastery of St. Gertrude of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, there is seen the head of a Martyr of the Theban Legion, as Raissius attests in the Hierogazophylacium Belgicum, p. 232; and according to the same man, p. 403, the men of Park, canons of the Premonstratensian Order near Louvain, have relics of the companions of St. Gereon and of St. Maurice. Among the fathers of the Order of St. Francis of Paola, whom they call Minims, at Brussels two whole arms of the renowned Martyrs of the Theban Legion, with St. Maurice as their leader, are shown, and another great bone of the same at Anderlecht, which is a village near Brussels.

[204] In our college of the same city, among various sacred pledges received from Trier and Cologne, at Brussels and in neighboring places, at Ghent, Bruges, there are also preserved little bones of the Companions of St. Maurice … and of the head of St. Maurice; which relics had first been fortified with the testimony of Gisbert Masius, bishop of 's-Hertogenbosch, and were afterwards approved by Ernest, archbishop of Cologne, in letters given at Liège in 1599, on the 30th day of August, as the praised Fr. Francis le Jeune, procurator of the college, has taught me from our archive at Brussels. Raissius, often praised, on p. 222 reckons besides a head of the holy Thebans in the convent of Forest of the Order of St. Benedict, a mile and a half distant from Brussels; bones of St. Maurice himself, leader of the Theban Legion, in the monastery of Cistercian virgins of Zwijveke near Dendermonde, p. 500; 4 heads of the same in our college of Ghent, p. 490; and of the body of St. Maurice among the Poor Clares there, p. 159. In the same man, p. 463, there are exhibited the letters of Anthony Triest, bishop of Bruges, in which he attests that in the church of St. Saviour of the same city there is found, among very many other sacred treasures, the greater part of the jaw of St. Maurice the martyr, fortified with the due testimony by his predecessors; which he too recognized, and, fortified with new seals, placed in the reliquary in which the body of St. Eligius is kept.

[205] at Lille, at Douai, At Lille also relics of the holy Thebans are exposed for veneration in three different churches: namely in the church of our college, among the Minorite fathers, and in the convent of the Poor Clare virgins. Of the first Raissius adds nothing in particular, p. 492; of the second he says on p. 391: A huge bone of one of the Theban Legion, received from the fathers of the Society of Jesus of Lille as a token of mutual benevolence; which accordingly, as most of our treasures sacred under the name of the Thebans are, I suspect was received from Trier. Of the third the praised Raissius leaves no doubt, writing on p. 159: They possess one body, and that entire, of the company of the Theban Martyrs, with a most ample testimony of the archbishop of Trier. The men of Douai in the same author glory in several relics of the holy Thebans. In the sacred treasury of the church of St. Amatus there is numbered a tooth of St. Maurice, leader of the Theban cohort and martyr, p. 39. The collegiate church of St. Peter possesses the head of one of the Companions of St. Maurice, leader of the Theban Legion, adorned with an image in silver down to the breast, industriously wrought, p. 406. In the church of our college are some heads of Companions of the Theban Legion, with Maurice as leader and standard-bearer, p. 479. In the church of the Trinitarian fathers there is preserved one head of a Martyr from the Theban Legion, with Maurice as leader, p. 511. Finally, in the treasury of the seminary of the Scots, over which our fathers preside, various bones are shown, pp. 487 and 488, and others in the church of St. Amatus, p. 41; but some of the latter are certainly, and others probably, of the holy Martyrs of Trier; while whether among those enumerated a little before there be any pledges of the Saints of Agaunum seems uncertain.

[206] at Cambron, at Liessies, Nor can more be affirmed of those which are reviewed among the remains of the Holy Sepulcher of Cambrai, p. 470, and of the Canonesses of Maubeuge. More distinct mention is made of the relics of St. Maurice and his Companions kept in the abbey of Cambron of the Cistercian Order; for Raissius writes thus on p. 130: The men of Cambron preserve … an arm-bone of St. Maurice, chief of the Legion of the Theban Soldiers, who, slain for Christ at Sion in Gaul with his Companions in the place Agaunum under Maximian, made the world illustrious by his glorious passion — which, I suppose, he excerpted from some document. He adds to these: Item, the head of one of the said Companions of St. Maurice. In the abbey of Liessies, which is of the Order of St. Benedict, and is distant nearly one mile from Avesnes, a town of Hainaut, on the river Helpe, they have, on the same man's testimony, p. 281, an entire arm of one Martyr of the Theban Legion, received as a gift from Francis Bonomi, bishop of Vercelli. Here there is treatment of that notable man who in Ughelli is called John Francis Bonomi, and who, after excellent service rendered to St. Charles Borromeo and thereafter to several Pontiffs, was sent as legate into Belgium in the year 1584 by Gregory XIII; where he also acted with vast good to the Catholics in the first years of Sixtus V, and at last died at Liège in the year 1587.

[207] At Saint-Omer also celebrated remains of our Saints are seen. [at Saint-Omer, at Maastricht, in the monasteries of Clairefontaine and Echternach,] For besides the very many bones of the Theban and Trier Martyrs which our men possess in the church of the college, according to the same author in the Hierogazophylacium, p. 160, the college of the English keeps with veneration a small bone of St. Maurice the martyr, and another bone of one Martyr of the holy Thebans, clothed in a silvered arm. In the most celebrated abbey of St. Bertin there is shown one joint of the fingers of St. Maurice, standard-bearer of the sacred Legion of the Thebans, as the same Raissius attests, p. 502. The men of Maastricht, in the same author, p. 474, assert that they have in the sacred treasury of the illustrious church of St. Servatius an arm of St. Maurice the martyr and chief of the Legion of the Thebans. Raissius' assertions our Papebroch confirms in his manuscript Excursion to the Moselle, writing: On the 8th day (on which they were at Maastricht) the lord dean William Lipren opened to us the whole treasure of St. Servatius, in which, besides many other things, there are … two silver arms, furnished with the arm-bones of St. Thomas the apostle and of St. Maurice. But whether they are also fortified with indubitable testimonies I do not find. In the county of Luxembourg there is an abbey of Cistercian nuns which has the name of Clairefontaine, and in it, according to Raissius, p. 155, is seen one bone of a holy Soldier of the Legion of St. Maurice the martyr. The nuns of Differdange of the same institute, near Longwy, show a joint of the foot of St. Maurice the martyr, p. 188; while in the most celebrated monastery of Echternach of the Order of St. Benedict there is preserved a finger of St. Maurice, leader of the Theban Legion, as the same man asserts, p. 212.

[208] Now, however, we are called to Cologne, where very many sacred remains of the Companions of St. Maurice and of himself are celebrated, at Cologne, out of which to wish to select those which are of the Martyrs of Agaunum would be to lose both oil and labor. I shall here enumerate only some out of Gelenius, which I shall not find distinctly

to be of the Companions of St. Gereon, of whom, together with the sacred Calendars, there will have to be treatment on the 10th day of October. And so Gelenius in the Sanctuary of Cologne and in the treasury at St. Gereon's, reliquary 14, says that there are preserved two particles, one of St. Maurice, the other from his Company. Item, particles from the Theban Martyrs. In the fifteenth crystal reliquary relics of St. Maurice are also reckoned. In the treasury at St. Cunibert's, under number 7, there are reviewed treasures of St. Candidus the martyr from the Company of the Theban Martyrs. Item, of the same Theban Martyrs, … of St. Maurice. The church of the Blessed Virgin Mary ad Gradus in the 13th reliquary possesses of St. Maurice; and the basilica of the Blessed Mary in the Capitol, num. 14, a bone of St. Maurice, leader of the Soldiers. In the canonical house in Weidenbach there is shown, in the third place, a bust containing part of the cloak and bones of St. Maurice. Among the Carmelites, num. 13, there come relics of St. Victor and St. Maurice, etc., in a lesser silver-gilt monstrance. In the monastery of virgins of the Cistercian Order which is called the Garden of the Blessed Virgin Mary, num. 14, there is exhibited for veneration a great bone of St. Maurice, m., with other remains of the holy Thebans. In the monastery of St. Vincent there are preserved very many relics from the Companies of St. Maurice and of Gereon. In the sanctuary of the Carmelite nuns there is numbered in the third place a bust enclosing part of an arm of St. Maurice, whose relics also come in the treasury of the chapel of SS. Willibrord and Boniface.

[209] where there is a church sacred to his name. There is at Cologne also a parish church marked with the name of St. Maurice, built in the time of Arnold I, archbishop of Cologne, as Gelenius reports in bk. 3, Syntagma 30. In the treasury of this church there are exposed for veneration, in the 2nd place, the cup of St. Maurice, his arm, and part of his purple cloak; and the day sacred to the holy Patron is kept there as a festival. Bucelinus in the Germania Sacra, on the page which in my copy is 134, among the sacred remains of the monastery of Benedictine virgins of Cologne which has its name from St. Agatha, reviews at num. 17: A bone of St. Maurice the martyr, with several bones from his most glorious Company; to which there is added there, at num. 39, a jawbone of St. Maurice. And in the Sanctuary of Cologne, p. 173, it is said that the entire head of one of the Companions of St. Maurice was translated to the church of the Dominican fathers. But concerning all these sacred treasures which are exposed for veneration under the name of St. Maurice and of his Theban fellow Martyrs, would that it were permitted to say something more certain and more distinct from ancient and approved testimonies! For among those who possess them, the witness of almost all is a bare tradition, or some slip affixed to the sacred remains. For the rest, since we have entered Germany, Magdeburg, once most celebrated for the name and cult of St. Maurice, at once invites us — which once gloried in the bodies of two notable holy Theban Martyrs, one of St. Maurice, the other of St. Innocent.

§ XVIII. The monastery of Magdeburg built by the emperor Otto I for St. Maurice, which is afterwards raised into an archbishopric. The relics of St. Maurice brought thither, of which no small part was also at Halle in Saxony.

[ ] The beginnings of the monastery of Magdeburg, Magdeburg, or Parthenopolis — of which the latter sounds "city," the former "village" or "castle of the Virgins" — is a city in Saxony on the river Elbe. Its origin some authors, as usual, carry back to the times of the Romans, while other writers contend that its founder was the emperor Otto I, surnamed the Great. Whatever be the case as to its antiquity, Otto I, if he did not erect it, certainly enlarged and adorned it, and to him Magdeburg owes those prerogatives by which it could thereafter be compared with the first cities of Germany. The emperor founded there an archiepiscopal see, and took care that Adalbert should be set over the church of Magdeburg; who was consecrated at Rome by the Pontiff John XIII in the year of Christ 968, as our Janning proved in the Appendix to the 6th day of June, in tom. 6 of the same month, p. 38 and following. But Otto had already before that founded a monastery there under the name of SS. Peter and Maurice, which, the monks being translated elsewhere, passed into an archbishopric. The beginnings of this monastery are commonly joined to the year 937, in which there began to run the second year from Otto's consecration as king of Germany and Lorraine, made at Aachen in the year 936. That the occasion for building a monastery under the name of St. Maurice was for Otto a vow, Dresser, a heretical writer, reports in part 5 of his work on the Chief Cities of Germany, in Sagittarius' Antiquities of Magdeburg, §61, in these words: In the year 950, before the conflict with the Hungarians at the Lech, Otto bound himself to God by a pledge that, victory being won, he would build at Magdeburg a most splendid church to St. Maurice. And having obtained his vow, he at once turned his mind to erecting a cathedral church in the city of Magdeburg.

[211] Otto the Great destroyed the Hungarians in battle only five years later, sacred to St. Maurice, as the praised Sagittarius shows; to that year, then, his vow will have to be drawn back, if Dresser asserts truly. Among the Analects which were sent to Fr. Maurice Chardon by Fr. Louis Ligertz, confessor of the most serene king of Poland and duke of Saxony, there are alleged from the Chronicle of Saxony, p. 149, these things: While the emperor Otto was staying in Italy in the year 950 or 951, his army plundered the church of St. Maurice. Wherefore, when he was compelled to enter upon a bloody battle at the Lech not far from Augsburg, he first vowed a vow to God and to St. Maurice that, if he obtained the victory against his enemies, he would carry out the foundations which his father had already in part begun, would ordain several more of the kind, and above all would build up from the foundations a basilica of St. Maurice far more magnificent than that which had been despoiled by his men. The version is that of Fr. Chardon, who sent us the Analects, where the words excerpted from the old, as it is called, Chronicle of Saxony are written in Saxon. Of what age the praised Chronicle may be, and how great authority it has, I do not know; but most — nay, unless I am mistaken, all — writers contemporary with Otto and near his time are silent about the vow conceived and about the basilica of Agaunum plundered by his army; concerning which likewise I have found nothing in the manuscript History of the most reverend de L'Isle, where like things from the monuments of the abbey of Agaunum occur everywhere.

[212] Brower, in bk. 9 of the Annals of Trier, num. 87, praises another notable parchment Chronicle of Saxon affairs, and of the archbishopric whence he takes the following: In the year of the Lord 948, the 2nd of Otto, the aforesaid king, at the prompting and petition of his pious wife queen Edith, founded a royal abbey within the city of Magdeburg — the founding of the city from its origin having been related before this — he wished to make there an episcopal see, but he could not obtain from Bernard, bishop of that see, as long as he lived, the part of the parish which lay under the diocese of Halberstadt; he therefore founded there, as we have said, a royal abbey, in honor of the blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, and of Maurice, the excellent leader of the Thebans, and of his worthy tent-companion Innocent the soldier, whose body Rudolph, king of the Burgundians, transmitted to him and to the queen, and gave as a royal, nay a divine, gift. The greatest part also of the body of St. Maurice and of some of his Companions … the already-mentioned glorious king Otto translated into the same city in the same year, on the 11th of the Kalends of October. And he set over the abbey Anno … which lord Anno, after he had vigorously ruled the abbey for years which we have not been able to discover, is chosen prelate of Worms. These things are there, which agree better with the assertions of Thietmar and of the other old chronicles and writers as to the occasion and cause of the monastery's founding. Although the seemingly contrary assertions of writers can somehow be reconciled, if you say that the intention was first cast into the husband's mind by Edith, that most pious queen, and that a spur to carrying it out was added by the onrushing of most ferocious enemies. Not so easily are some other things settled which are asserted in Brower's Chronicle, no account of the times being taken, and entangled with anachronisms, as will be plain below and is clear at the very beginning, since the 2nd year of Otto coincides not with the year 948 but with 937 or the following.

[213] This meanwhile is certain, that the monastery was erected already from the year of Christ 937, The relics of St. Maurice translated thither since in that year the emperor gave a diploma, which may be read in Meibom, tom. 1 of German Affairs, p. 740, dated in the 2nd year of Otto, in the month of September. From that same diploma, published a little more correctly by Sagittarius in the Antiquities of the archbishopric of Magdeburg, p. 18, as it becomes manifest that the body of St. Innocent, the Theban martyr, had already been translated thither before, so the contrary is intimated concerning the body of St. Maurice; for about this the deepest silence is kept, though mention is made of the Saint himself, whereas about the former it is asserted most expressly. Thietmar, restored by Leibniz, tom. 1 of Brunswick Affairs, p. 334, writes: In the year of the Lord's Incarnation 961, but the twenty-fifth of his (Otto's) reign, all the nobles being present, on the Vigil of the Lord's nativity the body of St. Maurice and of some of his Companions, with other portions of Saints, was brought from Regensburg; which, transmitted with the greatest honor, as was fitting, to Parthenopolis, was received there in a unanimous assembly of the natives and of the men of the province, and has hitherto been venerated for the safety of the country. Since Otto the Great was anointed king of Germany in the year 936, as Otto of Freising and others note, he began the twenty-fifth year of his reign in the year of Christ 960, to which accordingly the translation must be drawn back — unless perhaps Thietmar here takes the beginning of the year from the Vigil of the Lord's nativity and not from the day of the nativity itself.

[214] in the year 960 or the following. And that in this year indeed, or at the beginning of the following, the relics of St. Maurice were translated to Magdeburg, various diplomas of Otto also intimate, in the praised Sagittarius, p. 37 and following; where, whereas he intimates nothing of the kind in the preceding ones, the most pious king so speaks that you may easily perceive what I assert. In the diploma which is Given on the 9th of the Kalends of May, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 961, in the 4th Indiction, but in the 26th year of the most serene Lord Otto, he says that he gives to the endowment of the crypt of Magdeburg, consecrated in honor of SS. Maurice the martyr, Valentine, Agapitus, and Abundius, the tithes of the Slavs. Now this crypt seems to have been constructed for laying up the newly obtained relics of the named Saints; for in the diplomas no mention is made before of a crypt of SS. Valentine, Agapitus, and Abundius, and all things are given to the monastery built in honor of St. Peter, prince of the Apostles, and of St. Maurice; but the later ones commonly give faith of donations made to St. Maurice in Magdeburg: which, although it can be understood also of the monastery, by the common manner of speaking, yet seems here, on account of the variation of the phrase, to intimate something about the Saint's relics resting there, and thus to support Thietmar's assertion, which a little below we shall see confirmed by another document of that age. Much more obscure is how or whence the relics of St. Maurice came to Regensburg. Lupold of Bebenburg, bishop of Bamberg and an author of the fourteenth century, according to Trithemius On Ecclesiastical Writers, in his book on the Zeal of the ancient German princes, ch. 12, writes: The same also

Otto transmitted to Parthenopolis the body of St. Maurice and of some of his Companions (which in the year of the Lord 961 had been brought to him by the legates of the Roman Church and by certain bishops). On the same day also the relics of very many Saints, namely of Apostles, martyrs, and holy virgins, were brought to king Otto at Regensburg.

[215] From the name of the city thus contracted in the printing, a doubt is left The whole body was not brought thither whether they were brought to Regensburg, or rather carried thence to Magdeburg — which is more conformable to the assertions of the other writers. That legates came to Otto from John XII in the year 961, to ask his help against the nefarious machinations of Berengar in Italy, is the constant assertion of the writers. Certainly the Pontiff, who at that time uniquely needed Otto's help, and had without doubt clearly perceived his veneration toward the Saints, and most of all toward St. Maurice, could have wished to render him favorable to himself by sending their relics through the legates to adorn the basilica of Magdeburg; but where John XII received such notable remains — nay, the body — of St. Maurice, tribune of the Theban Legion, to send, has hitherto not been ascertained by me. That it was constantly believed almost to the beginning of the seventeenth century that the body of St. Maurice rested at Agaunum we have shown above; it was not, therefore, carried off to Rome earlier, nor received by the legates in passing at Agaunum, to be translated to Parthenopolis; and thus either Otto received only some parts of the holy body, or the remains of another St. Maurice were sent to him at Rome by the Pontiff, or finally some one of the martyr Companions put on the name of the holy Tribune.

[216] Certainly John XIII, erecting the church of Magdeburg into an archiepiscopal see, in a Bull published in the year 967, in Sagittarius, p. 67, of our St. Maurice, but either of another of the same name, speaks thus: But we, marveling that his (Otto's) mind is so wonderfully held in the service of God, have thought it worthy to be indulgent to him, decreeing, the holy synod and the emperor himself being present and consenting, that Magdeburg, situated beside the river Elbe, where that emperor blessed by God had placed the body of St. Maurice with many Martyrs, … be henceforth a metropolis. Which things certainly confirm abundantly that Otto obtained the body — or, if one pleases to interpret a little more mildly, notable parts of the body — of some St. Maurice, and translated it into the basilica of Magdeburg; but, as though of set purpose, both here and in almost all the other monuments, the proper titles of the holy Leader of the Thebans are omitted, by which he could have been distinguished from others of the same name. Yet I would not have anyone so take these words as if I inclined much to that opinion, that the relics brought thither were not those of our St. Maurice but of another of the same name. The matter is, I confess, entangled with some difficulties, nor does it seem that anything can be affirmed about it safely enough, especially if you take the words of John XIII strictly, and are unwilling that a not very great portion of the sacred remains should have been called by him a body. But Bebenburg could have erred, being four centuries later than the events, and Otto could have received some part of St. Maurice's body not from the Pontiff but from elsewhere. And if we grant this, the assertion of John XIII, writing from the report of others, will easily be excused. St. Ulrich, bishop of Augsburg, was probably then present with Otto at Regensburg, along with several other bishops: did not the emperor perhaps obtain some relics of the holy Leader from him? There is something which casts that suspicion into me. The Life of St. Ulrich, bishop of Augsburg, which after Welser and Mabillon we published on the 4th day of July, in tom. 2 of that month, p. 97 and following, was written by a contemporary author and an intimate of the holy prelate, who in ch. 8, num. 53, writes that St. Ulrich obtained at Rome from a certain clerk the head of St. Abundius the martyr; and at num. 55: At another time, he says, he also went to the region of the Burgundians, and with the zeal of great humility visited the basilica of Agaunum, where St. Maurice with his followers underwent martyrdom for the name of the Lord. … The holy bishop greeted those brethren and honored them with gifts, and made known for what cause he had come thither. And they, perceiving the sweetness of his cheerfulness and the religion of his sanctity, lest he should depart deprived of a delightful desire, opened the cave of the gathering of the saints in the hewn rock and gladdened him with the gift of a very great part of the holy relics.

[217] or at least some relics of that very Saint, But when he was returning thence with the desired leave of the clergy and the most loving dismissal of the people, … he came to the island of Reichenau and was charitably received by abbot Alewich. … But the benevolence of the abbot, when he heard that he had gone out for love of holy relics, satisfying his desire, gave him no small part of the body of St. Maurice and of the relics of many other Saints, and permitted him to depart glad. The Life of the same holy prelate, composed by Berno, abbot of Reichenau, at the beginning of the eleventh century, and published by Welser, narrates these things thus on p. 610. In the course of time also he went for the sake of prayer to the place of the men of Agaunum, where St. Maurice with the sacred Legion rests, and acquired no small relics of the Theban Martyrs. … In these days too … he came to the island monastery which is called Reichenau, where at that time a venerable man of the Lord's flock, by name Alewich, had the care; who … presented him with manifold pledges of holy relics. Which things I transfer hither with this end also, that no one may believe from the earlier Life that the opinion was at that time interrupted that the sacred remains of St. Maurice rested at Agaunum.

[218] perhaps given to Otto by St. Ulrich. Certainly if the men of Reichenau had obtained the body of St. Maurice, which that biographer seems to intimate, I do not know why Berno, abbot of that same place, not so remote from Ulrich's age that he could not have lived with him, should not, after the first biographer, have mentioned among the sacred remains granted by his predecessor to the prelate of Augsburg the relics of St. Maurice, which either had been carried to Augsburg or were still preserved at Reichenau. But let us return to my suspicion. Mention is found chiefly of the remains of two Saints translated to Magdeburg at that time: namely of Abundus or Abundius, and of Maurice. Of these same relics obtained by the holy prelate the biographers of St. Ulrich also make mention by name; and in the documents of Augsburg, after the first translation thither, there is a quite sober announcement of the relics of those two holy Martyrs — which two things cast at least a doubt into me whether they were not granted whole to Otto by Ulrich, or at any rate not ignoble parts of them. I should certainly rather suspect this than believe that the whole body of St. Maurice was transmitted by the Pontiff to Otto from the Roman sanctuaries, if I were to contend that the true relics of the holy Leader of the Thebans were then granted to the men of Magdeburg. However that may be, the emperor received the aforesaid relics with the highest veneration and translated them into the church, as Dresser attests, cited by Papebroch in the Annotations to ch. 1 of the Norbertine Analects, tom. 1 of June, p. 861, letter l, where these words of his are alleged: The emperor Otto I, in the greatest cold, with bare feet, brought his (St. Maurice's) relics from the monastery of Berge of St. Benedict into that church, and reverently laid them on the high altar. Which things, if they were sincerely written by a heretical man, rest without doubt on ancient testimonies. For the rest, what became of the sacred treasure after that illustrious city, God and the faith being deserted, clung to the new-fangled dreams of Luther, or whether rather it is laid up somewhere there to this day, I have not discovered.

[219] Most celebrated once also was the veneration of our holy Martyrs at Halle, at Halle in Saxony or, as others prefer to write, Halle of the Saxons. This city, distant ten German miles from Magdeburg, on the river Saale, built by Otto II, son of the Great, was long subject to the archbishop of Magdeburg; then, dissensions having arisen, and at last the tumults stirred up by the Lutherans coming on, it was entangled in various vicissitudes and at length fell to the house of Brandenburg. The Chronicles of Saxony refer the special cult of St. Maurice introduced there to the twelfth century. Certainly at the year of Christ 1151, in which Wichmann came to the chair of Magdeburg, it is read of him: He was more powerful than his predecessors, and increased the cathedral church with several revenues. He himself founded the monastery of St. Maurice at Halle, and established there Canons Regular. Busch, On the Reformation of monasteries, among Leibniz's Writers of Brunswick Affairs, tom. 2, p. 505, notes that the monastery of St. Maurice at Halle in the year 1529, the canons being translated to the Golden Fleece by Albert, archbishop of Magdeburg, fell to the Dominican fathers. Among the Collections sent by Fr. Ligertz I find it written thus at num. 4: But how great was the religious veneration of the church of Halle on account of the relics of Maurice and of the other Martyrs, gathered for the greatest part by Ernest, duke of Saxony and archbishop of Magdeburg, is best gathered from the Sanctuary of Halle, published by Albert's order in the year 1520. The work from which the glory of our holy Martyrs could be illustrated I do not have at hand. One monument the praised Fr. Louis Ligertz has preserved for us, who writes to Fr. Chardon from Dresden on the 7th of August of the year 1745 in these words: I have had in my hands a book brought to me from Leipzig, printed at Halle in Saxony in the year 1520, in which there are described, in old style and character, with figures engraved on copper, all the reliquaries with the relics enclosed in them, which, distributed into nine orders, make up the number of eight thousand one hundred and thirty-three particles, all of which under Leo X, supreme Pontiff, were preserved at Halle in Saxony with the utmost devotion and with indulgences annexed.

[220] The sixth order begins with the image and relics of St. Maurice, the Theban martyr; various also were the relics of St. Maurice wherefore I, out of a particular devotion toward this Saint, … have caused the following image to be drawn from the said book, according to the original preserved at Leipzig and brought hither to me. The book which the confessor of the happily reigning Augustus, most serene king of Poland and duke of Saxony, had received from Leipzig, was printed in the same year in which the desired Sanctuary of Halle is said to have been published a little before; whatever is brought forward in it conspires likewise to the same subject; whence I conjecture that it is one and the same work. Further, we have received a copy of the image which he says he caused to be engraved on copper from that book; this comprises two pages: on the one a bust is exhibited, on the other a banner. Round the bust are words written in German, which were excerpted from the same book, and which the often-praised Maurice Chardon rendered into Latin thus. First: A silver half-statue of St. Maurice, patron of the whole archdiocese (of Magdeburg). Within there is of the forehead of St. Maurice, a tooth, a finger. Of his arm, three particles. Of his body, 19 particles. Of his banner. Of his sepulcher. The point of his blade.

[221] All these sacred relics seem to have been enclosed in the silver bust, which, after the copy of father Ligertz, you have here, reader, reproduced by our engraver.

[222] and of his Companions. On the opposite page, as I have noted, there is exhibited an engraved ancient banner, which it does not concern

us to transfer hither likewise. It is surrounded in the same manner by German words, which were rendered into Latin by the same Chardon thus. Secondly: A fragment, an ell in length and three quarters in breadth, of the banner of St. Maurice, patron of this archdiocese. … In the silver staff of the gilded Cross there is of the head of St. Maurice. Item, 11 particles of his body. 22 particles of SS. Maurice, Candidus, Victor, and their Company. A tooth of St. Candidus; of St. Victor, 2 particles. What has been done with all these sacred remains, since this city too is in the hands of the heretics, I again do not know. For the rest, as the monastery of Agaunum, according to Du Cange in his Glossary, under the word Moneta Mauritiensis, had the right of striking coin, so Otto conferred the same privilege upon the church of Magdeburg, as may be seen in Leuckfeld, Antiquities of the Coinage of Magdeburg, p. 158. The same prerogative fell also to the city of Halle, in Ludewig, Antiquities of the Coinage of the middle age, ch. 17. Now all those coins exhibit the effigy of St. Maurice with an inscription; of one of which Olearius treats in the Introduction to Bracteate Coins, p. 36.

§ XIX. The sacred remains of St. Maurice translated to Hadamar; his cult in the city of Ehingen, and his relics in various places of Germany.

[ ] The translation of the holy Leader's relics Mainz — where in the church which archbishop Luibert once erected to St. Maurice, according to Georg, Affairs of Mainz, tom. 1, bk. 1, ch. 30, this inscription is seen:

Six hundred, twice three tens, six thousand, six, Offered to Christ, are venerated in this church —

is distant from Hadamar eight German miles toward the North, and as many from Coblenz to the West. In the partition of the county of Dillenburg made in the year 1606, John Louis of Nassau, having obtained by lot Hadamar with some other territories of his deceased father, and having embraced the Catholic faith, fixed his court there, where the Catholic house of Nassau thereafter continued to reside. The rector of our college there, which John Louis founded, gave letters to Bolland on the 9th of July of the year 1665, in which he narrates the elevation of the sacred relics accomplished on the feast of St. Michael in the year 1664, adding what had been related about these matters in the annual Letters of the same college. Thence I take some things. The most illustrious and most reverend prince Hermann Otto of happy memory (the words are the letter's), brother of our most illustrious prince and most clement lord, when he was some years ago at Rome … drew all men into love of him, and brought it about that he was almost the darling of the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church and of other prelates set in the highest dignity. These therefore, that they might leave to the prince departing from Rome some memento of themselves, at his own request … most liberally offered him some sacred relics and bones of Saints — this one notable particles of the bones of this Saint, another of that.

[224] But he … judged that he could confer on his most beloved brother, our most illustrious prince Maurice Henry, to Hadamar. and on his most beloved wife Ernestine, no more welcome little gift than if he could obtain at Rome some particles of the relics of St. Maurice and of St. Ernest, their patrons, and offer them to those most dear to him. He asked, therefore, and obtained, and found by experience that he could have offered nothing more welcome. These sacred relics were preserved for some years in the castle. … The most illustrious princes therefore, when they considered that so great and so precious a treasure hidden away was altogether useless …, brought it into the light, took care that it be enclosed in caskets skillfully made and richly clothed, and willed it to be translated with the highest solemnity from the neighboring chapel of the blessed Virgin Mary, whither it had been secretly carried the day before, to Hadamar to the court chapel; which was done on the very feast of St. Michael, 1664. The pomp of the translation I have described at length in the praised annual Letters; but these things, I trust, will suffice for the reader here. It will be useful, however, to have suggested to him a more distinct notice of the aforesaid relics from a slip annexed to those Letters, whose title is: The holy relics which are preserved in the court chapel of Hadamar. At the very beginning the following are reckoned as of St. Maurice the martyr: 1. A certain knob, or bone round on the upper part, flat on the lower, of the size of a boy's fist. 2. A certain bone of the size of a joint of the little finger. 3. A bone of the size of a larger playing ball, of marble, I suppose, such as boys play with.

[225] The translation of the relics to Ehingen The city of Ehingen, adjoining Rottenburg on the river Neckar, also venerates St. Maurice especially, and ascribes it to his benefit that it was preserved from fire. I have before my eyes a very lengthy letter, written at Ehingen on the 13th of May 1745 by the most ample lord Christopher Edelman, provost there of the collegiate church of St. Maurice. These letters seem to have been given to Fr. Maurice Chardon, in answer to certain questions of his. And to the first, indeed, the provost writes: In the Austrian city of Ehingen situated on the Neckar, adjoining Rottenburg … of the same community, there is a parish and collegiate church consecrated to St. Maurice and his Companions, on whose privileged altar, newly erected by a certain canon in 1727, for every Monday, as on two others, there are exposed for veneration relics of the holy Theban Martyrs, artificially wrought. There follows after this an extract from the book of Traditions of the aforesaid collegiate church, and from the eminent famous doctor Eck, about the first translation and adornment of the sacred relics there, which are clothed in ridiculous prodigies. Thence receive a few things, reader, rendered into Latin, and first from the book of Traditions. In the year 1320 Rudolph, count of Hohenberg, and the lady Irmengard, countess of Württemberg, his wife, founding one provost and 11 canons, made the beginning of the church of St. Maurice at Ehingen. But from Eck these things are reported: A certain distinguished lord also once visited St. Maurice at Sophey, and laid many sacred relics upon beasts of burden; and when he was conveying these through the village of Ehingen on the Neckar next to Rottenburg, the irrational animals halted their step, and could by no force be driven further.

[226] with unusual little fables When the lord saw this, he gave the sacred relics to the lords of the place, the counts of Hohenberg, who there built in the same place a church to the glorious memory of St. Maurice and his holy Companions, as those same sacred relics are still seen there; and the counts girded this village with walls and endowed it with the right of the city of Rottenburg. That famous doctor Eck is without doubt John, professor of sacred theology and doctor of the university of Ingolstadt, famous for his disputations with Luther, Karlstadt, and Melanchthon. Where Sophey may be, whence the relics of Ehingen are said first to have been obtained, has not become known to me. Certainly Eck's assertions have been embellished by tradition with other marvels — unless he himself perhaps selected from the traditions those which seemed less incredible. The provost of Ehingen adds in the praised letters that the aforesaid relics are preserved in a coffer adorned with paintings, on whose leaves is exhibited the history of the bringing of those sacred relics. And on the one, indeed, there is seen within St. Maurice, clad in military arms; but on the outside a camel carrying two beautiful reliquaries, which the driver together with the lord standing by strive to drive forward, while a genius on the opposite side blocks the way and displays this German legend: Go no further, friend.

[227] it has been embellished. The cult of St. Maurice there But the common tradition and opinion of the peoples, he says, is that the camel uttered these words; and thus, if we believe them, we have the prodigy of Balaam's speaking ass renewed, and a camel imported into Swabia — which assuredly no one will easily admit on popular opinion, or fail to cast aside as fictions. As regards Eck, if the place where he is said to assert the aforesaid things had been assigned, some light might perhaps shine from somewhere for further inquiry, which now, among the almost innumerable works which that most learned man and most vigorous vanquisher of the heretics of his time published, will easily baffle all diligence. For the rest, the often-praised author of the letters notes that of the miracles and benefits, very many of which were once obtained there by the patronage of St. Maurice, no authentic testimonies survive, and he suspects that they perished with the other ancient monuments in the Swedish war. Let one, he says, and that a most well-known miracle … be this, that while in the Swedish war of the year 1644 the whole city of Rottenburg was burnt, the fire did not touch, much less consume, a single little house belonging to the parish and collegiate church of St. Maurice, though it was most closely adjoining and as it were annexed. And if this was obtained upon the invocation of St. Maurice's patronage, the inhabitants deservedly ascribe it to a great benefit.

[228] For the rest, as there are almost innumerable churches through Germany sacred to St. Maurice and his Companions, and treasures at Amorbach, at Meissen, so very many sacred remains of the same are also venerated there. The most celebrated abbey of Amorbach of the Order of St. Benedict has in its sacred treasury, according to Ignatius Gropp in the History of that monastery, p. 132, of the blood of the holy Thebans, and a notable particle of St. Maurice. From that same monastery proceeded the monastery on the mount of St. Gothard near Hildesheim, which was sacred to the name of St. Maurice and more probably enriched with his relics, and, as is clear in various places from the Chronicle of Hildesheim, was also commonly called the Mount of St. Maurice. The monastery on the island of Minden in Saxony was also dedicated to the same Patron; and the often-praised Fr. Louis Ligertz notes that throughout the whole bishopric of Meissen (Meissen is a city of Germany in Upper Saxony on the Elbe, subject to the duke of Saxony, distant only three German miles from Dresden) the feast of St. Maurice is celebrated under the rite of a greater double by all the priests who live in Upper Saxony and Lusatia. The most serene king Augustus III, he says, among the very many sacred relics which he venerates with a singular and truly royal affection, has also parts of the bones of the aforesaid St. Maurice, M., which on the day sacred to him he orders to be exposed, enclosed in a precious case in his royal chapel, to the veneration both of himself and of his Catholic courtiers.

[229] Bohemia too possesses notable relics of the holy Theban Martyrs. at Prague The most illustrious Pessina in the Phosphorus Septicornis, Ray 4, reviews very many which are exposed for veneration in the church of St. Vitus at Prague. In the second order of sacred pledges, which are called the relics of the kingdom and those of Karlstein, p. 411, there occurs a tooth of St. Maurice; and then, under the title Relics of the Saints, there are numbered in the third place the relics of the holy Thebans Maurice, Candidus, Victor, and others, with their labels. These sacred remains, hidden for easily two centuries in the castle of Karlstein, from which they have kept their name, were on the 20th day of August in the year 1645, by order of Ferdinand III, brought out and translated to the church of St. Vitus at Prague, and laid up and reviewed in the chapel of St. Wenceslas in a coffer of most elegant workmanship. A printed Catalogue of them was sent to my Elders, where the things which pertain here are enumerated more distinctly thus. In the first Order, various parts of St. Maurice; in the third, the head of a saint from the Company of the Theban MM., and the head of St. Victor; in the fifth, particles of the Theban Martyrs

in one little bag; in the sixth order, three parts of St. Maurice, M., in yellow taffeta: one of the arm, another of the shinbone, the third slenderer. The third class of the relics of Prague in the praised Pessina is that of those which were the metropolitan church's own already before the mentioned translation. On p. 431 he asserts that the basilica of St. Vitus was enriched with the arm and sword of St. Maurice, which king Wladislaus II, returning from Milan, … as is had in the old manuscript Martyrology of the holy church of Prague at the 10th of the Kalends of October, brought.

[230] in Bohemia, That other notable relics of the holy Theban Leader were brought to Prague, Pessina notes in the same place from Jaroslav, the continuator of Cosmas, writing: In the year 1212, the bringing of the relics of St. Thomas … and of St. Maurice from Germany to Prague. The same most illustrious author asserts on p. 463 that by Charles IV, returning into Bohemia from Italy in the year 1355 or the following, the arm and sword of St. Maurice were brought back into Bohemia; and he adds that the testimonial letters of this matter still survived in his own time in the archive of the chapter. Further, the sacred pledges of the church of Prague were carried elsewhere on account of the furies of the heretics; and in the Inventories in which those brought back to Prague are reviewed, some variation occurs here and there. In that which was drawn up in the year 1476 and is found in the often-praised Pessina, p. 489 and following, there are still reviewed the arms of SS. Maurice, Victor, and Candidus, and one head of the holy Theban Martyrs, and other parts besides, and in particular the hands of SS. Maurice and Victor in other reliquaries; about all which a very few things remain to be examined. How great was the emperor Charles IV's zeal for procuring and adorning sacred relics, the writers attest who have left his Deeds to posterity. We have from the manuscript History of the most learned abbot of St. Leopold of Nancy, cited at num. 200, that Charles came to Agaunum in the year 1365. I should believe that he obtained at that same time a part of the arm of St. Maurice from the monks of Agaunum, did not Pessina's documents assert that the basilica of Prague was enriched with those relics a decade earlier.

[231] in the abbey of Osek For the rest, it is clear that Pessina there assigns to the treasury of Prague, besides the one already assigned, two other arms of St. Maurice, of which one was obtained in the year 1212, the other from king Wladislaus II; but about that little labor need be spent, as we have often noted already. Then, from what we shall discuss a little later about the sword of the same Saint, it will at least become somewhat doubtful whether the last bringing was not doubled by the writers. The Proper of Prague, on account of the relics of so many holy Martyrs, orders their feast to be celebrated on this 22nd day of September under a double rite. Of the celebrated monastery of the Cistercians at Osek in Bohemia we treated above at num. 113. Sartorius in the Cistercium bis Tertium, p. 751, observes that three heads of holy Theban Martyrs are preserved there with slips adhering; and he conjectures that another vast heap of sacred pledges there consists of bones of the holy Thebans, each of which, he says, was duly recognized and approved in the year 1342. Gruger in the Sacred Memorials of the kingdom of Bohemia at the 22nd day of September notes that in Moravia two churches are sacred to the holy Leader, and that notable relics of his were translated from Rome by Ferward, abbot of Hradisch, to the Premonstratensian church of Hradisch near Olomouc, and that others received from Magdeburg are preserved there. Cratepolius also attributes various relics of the holy Martyrs of Agaunum to the city of Vienna in Austria; but it is clearer than the noonday light that he transfers thither the sacred pledges from the city of the same name in Gaul. Marvelous are the things related about the remains of St. Maurice in the convent of Göss, in Upper Styria on the bank of the river Mur.

[232] and at Göss. I have before my eyes a slip once sent thence, which it pleases me to transfer hither. It is an answer to someone's questions, and is as follows. 1. In the convent of Göss there is neither church nor chapel nor altar dedicated or consecrated to St. Maurice, but only relics of the length of a finger, enclosed in a glass phial in a silver pyx, exposed to public veneration in the choir of the nuns on the altar in which the Most Holy is also preserved. 2. Whence those relics came is not ascertained by the nuns now existing, on account of the antiquity; as also the benefits granted by this Saint's help have not been noted down. Yet by a tradition confirmed even through several centuries, the nuns now living are persuaded — and not a few of them, worthy of credit, testify from experience — that from the relics of this Saint exposed on the altar, and also from the very minute little bones kept in the cells, they have many times perceived a stroke, as it were of a little bell, of a most subtle yet sonorous tone, a certain token of the death of a member of this community about to depart shortly. Hence not only is the private cult of this Saint among the nuns of this place most tender, but the public cult also, as of a singular Patron, is no small thing; whose feast day is every year adorned with a solemn office at the same altar. That God promotes the cult of His Saints and increases the confidence of mortals in them in various ways and by prodigies, no one who has not put off all faith will deny; yet such things as are brought forward here about the foretelling of death, since they sometimes arise from a very slight cause, and, once arisen, easily take increase among women through an imagination wont to be disturbed by fear, are not so easily admitted by prudent critics. Something similar is related about the fishpond of the abbey of Agaunum, where fish of an unusual kind are said to be kept, of which, if one dies, it foretells the impending death of a canon; which I neither wished to relate elsewhere, nor do I here attack, but leave the credit to those who assert it.

§ XX. Other analects sent by Fr. Maurice Chardon about the cult of the holy Thebans through Germany.

[232] Monuments of the cult of St. Maurice in the dioceses If I wished to enumerate one by one the basilicas built and the altars dedicated to St. Maurice and his Companions through Germany, I should exceed the measure of our Work and design. Such things occur everywhere in the very indices of the Works which pertain to the ecclesiastical history of Germany; some, however, I cannot pass over, which the often-praised father Maurice Chardon, the excellent helper of our Work, arranged in classes, as the memory of the benefit seems to demand of me. Let us take our beginning from Augsburg, abridging Chardon's words everywhere, unless we note otherwise. There is at Augsburg a notable collegiate church sacred to the name of St. Maurice, and founded by bishop Bruno, brother of the emperor St. Henry. Bruno's tomb is seen before the high altar with this epitaph:

In the year of the Lord [\*] the honored father Bruno is here buried, By whose bounty the house of this fabric shines. Let the most sacred Theban Legion render him thanks. He died in 1029 on the eve of St. George's feast.

This, as also the rest about the cult of St. Maurice at Augsburg, Chardon drew from the Hierarchy of Corbinian Khamm, part 2, ch. 2. Of sacred relics this so celebrated basilica has only a bone of about one palm. In the year 1603 the garrison soldiers of Augsburg instituted there a new fraternity under the name of St. Maurice, and chose that most valiant Leader of Soldiers and most unconquered Martyr as their special Patron. The privileges and increases of that fraternity may be seen in the praised Khamm, section 4.

[234] of Augsburg, of Brixen, In no less a treasure of holy relics of the Theban Martyrs does the college of our Society in the same city rejoice; to which in the year 1602 the most illustrious prince Henry von Knörringen, bishop of Augsburg, offered part of the skull of St. Maurice the martyr, as the domestic History of the college attests. On account of those notable relics his feast is celebrated there with a double rite; through the city and diocese, however, he is venerated only with a semidouble Office. In the neighborhood of Ellwangen there are two churches dedicated to the holy Martyr, namely at Westhausen and at Sebingen. In the diocese of Brixen there are very many monuments of the veneration of the inhabitants toward the Leader of the Thebans. At Innsbruck in the old armory there is a chapel consecrated to St. Maurice, and older than all the other churches of that place. On the altar erected to the Saint there stands a casket of relics of various Saints, among which there is seen before the rest a notable particle of St. Maurice; to whom the churches at Taufers and at Innichen are also sacred. At Hall in the valley of the Inn, in our church, there are preserved, besides a small particle of bone of the holy Leader himself, two notable arm-bones of his Company and two other smaller bones. In the church of the royal convent there is had, of St. Maurice himself, a part of a rib nearly nine inches long; while the book of relics in which the parish church there is rich has thus at the 22nd day of September. 1. Of St. Maurice, M., a great bone. 2. An ell-bone from the arm. 3. Part of the right arm. 4. A finger. 5. Several smaller little bones. 6. A particle of the banner which, as an added ancient writing attests, was sent to him from heaven. 7. From the Company of St. Maurice, two sacred heads. 8. An entire chin with one tooth. 9. A bone somewhat larger. 10. Again two notable parts. 11. A quite notable part of a skull. 12. Of a tooth and of several other smaller particles. 13. Of St. Thyrsus the captain, a leg, a rib, and other sacred bones. 14. Of St. Liborius, also a commander of the holy Company, a head and some further particles. 15. Of St. Gregory, colonel of the Moors in the Theban Legion, a bone of the back. 16. Of St. Candidus, a bone somewhat larger.

[235] especially at Hall in the valley of the Inn, Here, I think, I ought not to interrupt Chardon's Analects, in order, after what I have so often observed both in the preceding Commentary and here and there in this place, to warn the reader again what is to be judged of these relics, and most of all of those which are asserted to be of the named Theban Martyrs. Certainly, unless other Saints of the same names have been transferred hither, we have again three who seem to have obtained both name and military command long after the death of the Martyrs. Let us go on. The mentioned book of Hall continues: St. Maurice was leader, according to the ancient Legend, which was sent, together with the banner of St. Maurice and the commander's staff, from the royal chapel of the new court at Innsbruck to our founder, the most illustrious lord Florian Waldauf of Waldenstein, knight. What these things mean I do not know. Is perhaps a commander's staff also held there among the treasures of St. Maurice? Certainly something of the sort seems to be intimated; whence it could have been drawn, I do not know. The feast of St. Maurice at Hall is celebrated in those churches with a double rite; through the diocese, however, the Office is read with the rite prescribed by the Roman Breviary.

[236] of Constance, In the diocese of Constance, besides the monuments which we have enumerated among the affairs of Switzerland, there are not a few others. Among the three basilicas which St. Conrad, bishop of Constance, founded, there is the church of St. Maurice next to the cathedral, which, to attest his love toward the great Martyr, he enriched with several holy remains, and beside which the holy prelate wished to be buried. In the church of our Society at Constance there are exposed to public cult nearly 20 larger bones, with several smaller particles

of the holy Companions of St. Maurice, which the most serene and most reverend Philip, duke of both Bavarias and bishop of Regensburg, and the most reverend John James Murgel, bishop of Sebaste, chiefly gave as a gift. In the deaneries subject to the diocese of Constance there are besides various churches sacred to the Saint: namely at Morschach in the deanery of the 4 Catholic Cantons; at Stetten by Kaltenmarkt in the deanery of Ebingen on the Danube; at Bliemshofen in the deanery of Engen; in the imperial city of Pfullendorf; at Algertshofen in the deanery of Munderkingen; at Langenenslingen in the deanery of Riedlingen; at Bochingen, Fischbach, Hausach, Niedereschach in the deanery of Rottweil; at Deckingen in the deanery of Villingen; at Ortschwaben in the deanery of Wiesental; at Sunthausen in the deanery of Wumblingen; at Bercken in the deanery of Bremgarten; at Oberbergen in the deanery of Breisach; at Hunthausen in the deanery of Ebingen; at Aigeltingen and Weiterdingen in the deanery of Engen; at Wagenstadt in the deanery of Freiburg im Breisgau; at Nordstetten in the deanery of Haigerloch; at Kfestikou in the deanery of Hochdorf; at Amtzell in the deanery of Ravensburg; at Frickenweiler in the deanery of Stockach; and finally at Dürheim and Grieningen in the deanery of Villingen.

[237] There is also in the same diocese, on the very borders of Swabia where it adjoins Switzerland, in the abbey of Rheinau, the most celebrated monastery of the Order of St. Benedict of Renaugia or Rhinovia, called by the natives Rheinau, whose patron, together with St. Januarius, of whom there is treatment at the 19th of this month, is St. Maurice. I have in hand the letters of the most reverend lord abbot Bernard, written at Rheinau on the 15th of September of the year 1745, from which I take the following. The greater part of the head of St. Maurice was enclosed in a gilded statue in the year 1206 under abbot Henry of Waterbach. In the year 1606 this gilded head of St. Maurice was opened, and there was found in it this inscription on parchment: "This is the head of the great leader of the Theban battle-line." Further, under abbot Bernard I of Freiburg this head was more elegantly adorned. For the other smaller particles the authentications are lacking. Now St. Maurice is venerated from time immemorial under the rite of a double of the 1st class with an Octave, with an Office once proper, but now from the common of many Martyrs. That proper Office I have in a manuscript copy sent from the same abbey; but since nothing singular occurs there, I forbear to excerpt anything. In the same letters, about other relics also — namely those which I observed above to have been venerated in the district of Zurich — these things are asserted. Among us there stands an ancient church of SS. Felix and Regula, Theban martyrs, of ancient design, which church we may call the lesser church of our monastery. In view of this patronage also, two particles of these holy Martyrs were obtained in the year 1734 from the parish of Ursaria or Urfellen of the diocese of Chur, belonging to the Swiss Canton of Uri, whither, in the defection from the Catholic religion, they had been brought from the city of Zurich with other relics, as a document drawn up upon it asserted. These are, unless I am mistaken, the same sacred remains which Simler attests to have been preserved in the district of Zurich.

[238] In the diocese of Eichstätt I find only one church in the dioceses of Eichstätt, Freising, which was once dedicated to St. Maurice: namely at Ingolstadt, of which Hund in the Metropolis of Salzburg, part 2, p. 7 and following, where he asserts that it was consecrated to the holy Martyr in the year 1233 by Henry, bishop of Eichstätt. At Eichstätt in the church of our college very many relics of the holy Theban Martyrs are preserved. At Ebersberg, which is a city of the diocese of Freising, among our fathers who have a Residence there, an altar has been erected to St. Maurice, some bone of whom is also exposed there for veneration, with four skulls of his Companions and other more minute particles. At Munich, of which mention has already been made elsewhere, there are again in the church of our Society the following relics of the Saints of Agaunum. A bone of St. Maurice himself, some parts about an inch in size and others smaller; a larger bone of one of the martyr Companions and another somewhat smaller; and likewise some fragments of their heads — which sacred treasures are on the whole held for the more notable ones; and both at Munich and at Ebersberg their memory is venerated on their celebrated day with a double rite. At Munich, moreover, for promoting the cult of the holy Leader, there has been erected a sodality under the name of St. Mary Magdalene and St. Maurice among the Augustinian fathers, which soldiers frequent with their commanders and with the chief men of the military Order. At Freising, in the crypt of the cathedral church, there is a chapel of most elegant workmanship, where among very many sacred pledges there stands on the altar for perpetual veneration the head of one of the Theban Martyrs; wherefore in the choir of the cathedral our Martyrs obtain a double Office. In the diocese of Passau the parish basilicas at Aneroltskirchen and Niederaltaich are named from St. Maurice, as also the church of Lauterbach subject to the bishop of Regensburg. Lauterbach is situated in the lordship of the same name of the most illustrious counts of Portia, who have now been raised to the dignity of princes. In this Saint the aforesaid counts glory most of all, for they contend that their line and family descend from St. Maurice — which I fear can hardly be proved.

[239] of Passau, of Regensburg, Whatever it may have been, however, that opinion has impelled them not sluggishly to promote the cult of the holy Leader; and his feast is performed there every year with the utmost celebrity and with a concourse of the neighbors to gain the plenary indulgences. No less is the solemnity in the village of See, whither in the year 1730 the church of Willenhofen was translated, belonging to the lordship of Parsberg. On the feast of St. Maurice there proceed in suppliant column to that church not only the men of See, but also those of Parsberg, of Lupburg, of Darschotten, and others from the neighboring villages, to gain the plenary indulgences. Beside the altar are hung very many votive offerings, testimonies of benefits obtained. In the same diocese the parish church of Nüntrachingen is sacred to St. Maurice, and his sacred remains are preserved at Regensburg in the churches of the chief convent and of the college of the Society of Jesus. Of the latter nothing is added in particular, but the former are thus enumerated: The banner of St. Maurice the martyr. Of his Company, various bones, which were laid up in the altar of St. Erhard, bishop of Regensburg, in the year 1667. They were brought thither by Judith Gisela, princess of Bavaria and Saxony and most pious wife of Henry, brother of Otto the Great, and foundress of that same church. The most ancient monastery of Lower Altaich of the Order of St. Benedict was also erected in honor of St. Maurice in Lower Bavaria on the river Danube in the eighth century.

[240] of Salzburg, In the archdiocese of Salzburg there are also no common tokens of a most ancient cult of the holy Theban Martyrs. The things which we observed above at num. 232 about the monastery of Göss, I am here taught from Chardon's papers to have been sent by the confessor of that same convent. At Altötting in Lower Bavaria the collegiate church numbers in its sacred treasury these sacred pledges of the holy Leader and of his Fellow-soldiers: a bone of St. Candidus and 4 teeth; a bone of the holy bishop Cornelius from the Company of St. Maurice; of St. Maurice himself, three bones. St. Cornelius without doubt again accrues from elsewhere to the Martyrs of Agaunum, whom I have hitherto not found to have had such a bishop with them. In the church of our Society there, the following relics of our Saints are exhibited for veneration, from a document which Chardon added. 1. An entire leg from the Theban Legion of St. Maurice. 2. Some other bones from the same Company. 3. Another entire leg of the same. 4. A rib, likewise entire. 5. Two great parts of bones. 6. A shinbone. On account of these sacred remains the memory of the holy Thebans is kept in those two basilicas of Altötting with a double rite. In the town of Frohnleiten, nearly six leagues distant from Graz, there is a most ancient church once dedicated to St. Maurice, where an annual memorial is celebrated to this day with great solemnity and a running together of the people. Further, these are the things which I have thought fit to transfer hither from Chardon's papers, and I trust that they will suffice for the reader, whom it does not please me to detain longer with a further enumeration, perhaps by now tedious — after, however, I shall have added a few more things about the sacred relics which our Gretser has supplied to me in the Syntagma which he wrote on the Insignia of the Empire, p. 78.

[241] There, in chapter 15, he gives the title: and once at Wittenberg. On the showing of manifold and most precious relics at Wittenberg in Saxony before Lutheranism; and after he has taught when the sacred remains were brought to Wittenberg to the church of the castle, and when they used to be shown, he writes thus on p. 78 from a German booklet which also represents them in pictures: In the 5th Reliquary there were shown 96 particles of the Theban Legion, and two entire bones from the same Company. … Besides, an entire head and a sword from the Company of St. Maurice. In another monstrance of the same set (order) there were shown a bone of notable size from the Legion of St. Maurice: 16 particles of the bones of the Martyrs from the same Legion: a particle of the banner of St. Maurice: item, of the lance of St. Maurice: a particle of his breastplate: of his coat of arms one particle: of his hand likewise one, as also of his shoulder blade: of his jaw two particles. And all these were enclosed in a silver apple, whose circles were of gold. For the rest — a thing to be lamented — the same Gretser on p. 76 informs us that so many and so great monuments of ancient veneration toward the holy Theban Martyrs vanished after the furies of Luther.

\ perhaps A Domino* (by the Lord).

§ XXI. The Swords celebrated under the name of St. Maurice, the Banners. His Lance once held in great honor among the insignia of the empire.

[ ] Various swords of St. Maurice once at Angers, Among the sacred remains of the holy Thebans which we have reviewed from the documents of various churches, some things have already occurred which must here be taken up again. Of the blade celebrated under the name of St. Maurice, which the most serene house of Savoy obtained from Agaunum with half the portion of the sacred bones, we treated in § X, num. III, where we also said some things about the multiplied arms of the holy Leader, which ought to be applied here. Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology at this 22nd day of September says that in his own time the sword of St. Maurice, enclosed in a silver scabbard, was still preserved in the mother church of Angers; of which I have read nothing elsewhere. The men of Prague in Bohemia seem to have numbered three swords of the same Saint in their sacred treasury. In the often-praised Pessina, p. 403, in the first class of the relics which are called those of the empire, there are reviewed two swords, one of St. Maurice and another of St. Charles, in gilded scabbards. On p. 431, among the sacred treasures proper to the church of Prague, it is asserted that it was enriched with the arm and sword of St. Maurice the martyr, which king Wladislaus II, returning from Milan, … as is had in the old manuscript Martyrology of the holy church of Prague at the 10th of the Kalends of October, brought. Finally on p. 463 Pessina asserts that Charles IV brought thither the arm and sword of the holy Martyr from Italy about the year 1355. Pessina moreover seems to reckon a fourth sword of St. Maurice among the treasures of Prague on p. 407, and thus to forge a sword out of a lance. But let us hear the Martyrology,

which he alleged in the second place. It is that very one, unless I am mistaken, whose copy was once sent from Prague to my Elders by Fr. Theodore Moretus, transcribed from an old manuscript codex which since the year 1562 has been kept in the library of our college at St. Clement's.

[243] preserved at Prague and at Nuremberg There at this day it is read thus: In the Gauls, in the city of Sion, at the place Agaunum, the birthday of the holy Theban Martyrs Maurice, Tympius, Candidus, Victor, Innocent, Vitalis, with their Companions six thousand six hundred and sixty-six, who, suffering under Maximian for Christ, made the world illustrious by a glorious death. The arm and sword of this St. Maurice Wladislaus II, king of Bohemia, brought from Germany, or more truly from Milan, with other relics. He who compiled the Martyrology of Prague here abundantly shows his own doubt whence the men of Prague received the sword of St. Maurice. Pessina, p. 431 and following, produces several documents by which it is proved that Wladislaus, margrave of Moravia, in the year of the Lord 1212 brought the relics of St. Maurice, with other sacred treasures, from Germany to Prague; the annual memory of which bringing is kept in the sacred Calendars of that church at the 8th day of January. Whether the sword was among them is not indeed expressed; yet I judge that from these things a confusion of the two Wladislauses arose for the martyrologist of Prague. He had perhaps read in Æneas Sylvius or others that Wladislaus II, king of Bohemia, after excellent service rendered to Frederick I in war, brought back from Milan to Prague the candlestick which was commonly believed to be Solomon's, with perhaps some other relics; among these he reckoned, without a witness, the sword of St. Maurice, and then substituted Milan for Germany. The sword enumerated in the first place among the relics of the empire, which the emperor Charles IV had received from Louis of Brandenburg at Munich in the year 1350, Sigismund pledged to the men of Nuremberg, together with one arm of the same Saint, and afterwards ceded to them.

[244] The banner of the same St. Maurice Among the analects supplied by the often-praised father Ligertz, from the Observations of John James Mascov On the Affairs of the Germans, tom. 2, I find it noted thus: The sword of Maurice, once wont to be carried about in sacred processions, and long preserved by the Burgundian kings, stands at Nuremberg among the insignia of the empire; where I suspect the speech is of the same one. Baldesano in the so often mentioned Theban History, p. 180, writes that Charles IV obtained from the abbot of Agaunum, together with the head of St. Sigismund the king, the axe of St. Maurice, and with great joy translated it into Bohemia. What that axe was, he teaches on p. 414: namely that by which the holy Martyr was beheaded. But since whatever new circumstances he there records about the martyrdom of St. Maurice have proceeded from recent conjectures, this alone we can perhaps safely borrow from him: that not a sword but an axe was preserved among the treasures of Karlstein. Of the banner of St. Maurice among the relics of Halle in Saxony I intimated something briefly above, where it can also be seen that not the whole of it, but some portion of it, was enclosed in a silver statue or inserted into a more recent banner. In Mencke, tom. 3 of the Writers of Germany, in the Chronicle of George Torquatus, col. 386, under Henry, 24th elect bishop of Magdeburg, he relates what deserves to be transferred hither and commends the patronage of St. Maurice. It is read thus: Yet his (Henry's) memorable deed must not unworthily be reviewed, and must be recalled with long memory.

[245] At that time (about the year 1278) Otto, margrave of Brandenburg, afflicted the church of Magdeburg with a grave and unjust war; a defense to the men of Magdeburg, a numerous army being gathered from Poles, Bohemians, and Pomeranians, and the counts of Reystein, Hamersleben, Arnstein, and others having joined him, he pitched camp in the field of Frose beside the river Elbe. And he, vainly trusting in the military strength which he had gathered in the greatest measure for himself, threatened the church that on the next following day he would stable his horses in the greater basilica. He inquired through scouts what the bishop, what the city, was planning; but on receiving the answer that the whole city was shaken with fear and terror, at the next morning's dawn he sent scouts again, who on returning say that the whole city was in tumult, full of torches and lights, with the sound of trumpets and drums resounding on every side. For the archbishop, having taken up the banner of St. Maurice, as he had been taught in a night vision to do, and the vassals of the church having been convoked together with the counts of Anhalt, calling the citizens to arms, began to exhort them to follow him, under their due fealty, to engage the enemy. To which decree all with one accord obeyed with promptness of spirit. And all going out, briskly heartened in the hope of heavenly aid, with the bishop going before with the banner of St. Maurice (a bold deed assuredly!), they hasten to burst into the enemy's camp, and at once begin that battle. It was fought for some while by the archbishop and his men, not without the help of God and of St. Maurice with his Companions, their patrons, with no \ unhappy fortune of war. The margrave being taken, the victory of the war presently passes to the side of the men of Magdeburg.*

[246] That banner of St. Maurice the men of Magdeburg were wont to carry about in wars and battles; various parts of which of which matter we have another example in the same Mencke, col. 372, and in Leibniz, Brunswick Affairs, tom. 3, p. 749, expressed in these words. Besides, whereas from a certain castle of the Lord of Hildesheim, namely Wohldenberg, many robberies were committed by those residing in it upon all who passed along the roads, and the lord of Hildesheim, though requested by the princes, applied no remedy, at length that lord Theodore the archbishop (of Magdeburg), together with the lord bishop of Halberstadt and the lord Magnus of Brunswick, having taken counsel for the common peace of the land, gathered a copious army and entered the land of Hildesheim; where, after they had for two days devastated the land with burnings and plunderings, on the third day they posted themselves near the city of Hildesheim with their people — few indeed in comparison with that army. Therefore these (the men of Magdeburg) in the army, trusting in their own multitude, leapt upon the enemy in disorderly tumult; from which tumult very many footmen in the army were trampled by the hooves of horses and killed by the horsemen of their own side, and many too of the army were taken captive by the enemy and very many slain; and thus, the battle being lost, the rest who could took to flight.

[247] were translated elsewhere. This happened in the year of the Lord 1367, on the third day of September. But one benefit of divine favor God showed there, that the banner or standard of the blessed Maurice, which was held in that same army, was carefully preserved and brought back safe to its place in Magdeburg. Whence that proverb was well verified in which it is said that the banner of St. Maurice avails not for invading but for defending: in the vernacular:

Se ne wil nicht heren / Sunder si weren.

These things are there; but hitherto it has not become known to me whence that banner was brought to Magdeburg, or of what sort it was; and I much doubt whether it be not the same one, or at least some part of it, that is numbered among the relics of Halle, of which at num. 219. However that may be, in the same Chronicle of Magdeburg in Mencke, col. 400, Albert, archbishop of Magdeburg, is said, when returning by the exertion of the emperor Charles IV to the see of Luthmosthen, whence he had before been promoted, to have carried away with him into Bohemia, among other relics, part also of the banner of St. Maurice. Æneas Sylvius, On the State of Europe under Frederick II, attests that in his own time also the banner of St. Maurice used to be shown every year at Magdeburg. In the often-mentioned Analects there are cited as writing more about the same thing Pomarius in the Chronicle of Magdeburg, p. 129, and Dresser On the Cities of Germany, under Magdeburg; but neither cited work is at my hand.

[248] The Lance Another division besides of the celebrated banner was made, or else there were again several banners marked with the name of St. Maurice; for besides those which I brought forward above at num. 235 from the papers, William of Malmesbury in bk. 2 On the Deeds of the kings of the English, ch. 6, writes that Hugh — whom he there wrongly names king of the Franks, being only count of Paris, father of Hugh Capet and son of Robert, as is clear from Flodoard and from the writer of Westminster — asked for himself as wife the sister of Athelstan, a woman of most beautiful form; and that, in order to obtain his desire, he sent most precious gifts through legates, with several notable relics in which he knew that the king of Britain took very great delight. And he adds that among the sacred treasures there was the Banner of the most blessed Martyr Maurice and prince of the Theban Legion, with which that same king (Charlemagne) in the Spanish war was wont to break through and put to flight the wedges of the enemy (the Saracens), however hostile and however densely packed. Therefore, unless Malmesbury erred, Britain too had its own banner of St. Maurice. No fewer are the lances, or parts of the lance, of St. Maurice enumerated. The praised Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology affirms that not only the shield of St. Maurice, but the lance besides, was once preserved at Vienne; and that, armed with these arms as with most secure defenses, Charles Martel went forth against the Saracens bursting into Gaul, and, fortified by the help of so great a Martyr, destroyed them with a general slaughter — things assuredly said more splendidly than established by good testimonies.

[249] distinguished by the name of St. Maurice Most celebrated is the lance of St. Maurice, which for several centuries was held among the insignia of the empire. Of it our James Gretser writes in the Syntagma On the Insignia of the empire, chapter 14. He had contended in chs. 8 and following that four memorable lances were reviewed among the treasures of the empire: the first, by which the side of our dying Savior was opened; the second, that of Constantine the Great; the third, that of St. Maurice; and finally the fourth, that of Charlemagne. From those manifold lances arose more than one confusion, which the praised author strives to dispel, and which, so far as it makes for my purpose, I shall touch upon in a few words. Of the lance of St. Maurice the first, unless I am mistaken, to make mention was Godfrey of Viterbo, who lived long after Otto the Great, being chancellor of the emperor Frederick I. He in part 19 of his Chronicle treats of the Insignia of the empire, and under this title, What the imperial lance signifies, and whence it came, he sings thus:

The lance of Maurice, greatest of all the other ensigns, Has wrought very many miracles for worthy worshipers of Christ, For a nail of God is held to be joined to it.

Borne in war, it subjects the powerful to the empire; The nations cannot withstand its movements; Wherever it stirs up wars, it is wont to conquer all.

The holy lance is wont to conquer the strifes of kingdoms; It makes the Roman nobles to be Quirites; From it the emperor has it that the kingdoms favor him.

While Boso, king of Arles, held it, And fortune always favored him as he fought, He stood forth a terror to the natives, bearing bitter things.

[250] Then he inserts some things about Boso's madness, among the insignia of the empire and thus continues:

When the great Otto held the throne of empire, And the fortune of the world, strong enough to prevail, favored him, To him king Boso, speaking, reports his words with groaning.

"I hand over to you my kingdom, I lay down all its honors; Henceforth let our sacred lance bestow honors upon you; For me the life of a monk alone should be cultivated. …

The lance of Maurice, which my right hand hands over to you, Is the head of those things which I have now marked out as my kingdoms,

Now the sacred lance shall give you the headship of the empire."

Among these things there is no small anachronism; for Boso, king of Arles, of whom the man of Viterbo here treats, died about the year of Christ 887, and was buried in the church of Vienne, as I observed at num. 176. But Otto the Great was not anointed king of Germany before the year 936, nor consecrated emperor before the year 961; Boso, therefore, could not have handed over the insignia of the empire to the emperor Otto, having died at least 70 years earlier; nay, neither did the latter receive from him the celebrated lance of St. Maurice before he had obtained the kingdom, being not yet born at the time when Boso died. Bouche in the History of Provence, bk. 4, p. 768, detected the anachronism and tried to correct it, noting in the margin: It is Odo, king of France, whose name is the same as Otto's; but these assertions of the man of Viterbo do not fit together. Odo, before that count of Paris, obtained the kingdom of Neustria indeed in the year of Christ 888, Boso being already dead; but he was never emperor, such as Otto the Great certainly is in the man of Viterbo.

[251] Siffridus, priest of Meissen, a chronologist of the fourteenth century, writes thus in bk. 1 of his Epitome: it does not seem to have been brought back in the first 922. Henry, son of Otto duke of Saxony, having obtained the kingdom, reigned 17 years. He was called the Fowler, because, while he was catching little birds, he was elected against his will. He received the lance of St. Maurice from the duke of Burgundy; and, being invited by the Pope, while he was going to Rome to be consecrated, he died, and thus did not obtain the empire. This was shown to St. Ulrich in the vision of a sword without a hilt. The praised Gretser on p. 70 judges that he speaks not of the lance of St. Maurice but of that of Constantine the Great; but these words of the man of Viterbo, For a nail of God is held to be joined to it, seem to intimate that in both the speech is of the same lance. Yet these things do not lighten the difficulty; for thus it is still believed that the lance of St. Maurice was received from Boso by Otto, which can in no wise be understood if you admit that same Boso, king of Arles, from the man of Viterbo. Another Boso, son of Richard duke of Burgundy and brother of Rudolph king of the Franks, exercising enmities with Otto, occurs in Flodoard's Chronicle at the year 924; and it is affirmed both there and in the Chronicle of Verdun that the same man now favored the party of Henry, king of Germany, now opposed it, and was at last received into favor in the year 935, in which he died on the expedition of the siege of the castle of Saint-Quentin. To him what Godfrey writes about the handing over of the lance could somehow be referred without anachronism; but the other things which he sings in the same place seem to suit this count Boso no more than the king of Arles, and have no other of the ancients, so far as I know, supporting them; so that the whole matter can be held at the least for very uncertain. But if from the certain anachronism of the man of Viterbo and from the silence of other writers you hold suspect the whole rest of his narrative, and conjecture that the lance of St. Maurice came to the insignia of the empire by another way, I would not have you think that this happened before at least the last years of Otto the Great, on account of the silence about the celebrated lance in his own diplomas — where, however, most frequent mention occurs of the treasures of St. Maurice — and in other contemporary authors.

[252] years of Otto the Great, There are those who assert that Suger the abbot mentions it in the Life of Charles the Fat; but neither do they themselves cite the place, nor do I read there any word about that matter; which things together make me not adhere without scruple to the assertion of Siffridus the priest, although it is more likely from the circumstances. The Chronicle of Reichersberg is cited by Gretser. There at the year of Christ 1004 it is read thus: Otto (the third) having died without an heir, Henry II … elected by all the chief men of the kingdom, is made king, the 87th from Augustus. He waged many wars bravely and prosperously in Germany, Bohemia, Poland, Italy, and Apulia. … The victory over the Burgundians also fell to him not by human but by divine power. They, though equipped with arms and with all the forces of war, … laying down their arms, … asking the things that are of peace, gave and received right hands, and added to the royal insignia a lance distinguished with a nail of the Lord's Passion; and thus the most victorious prince took Burgundy into his dominion. To this assertion I adhere, if a choice must be made, in preference to the opinion of the two other writers. But Cromer and Krantz protest, of whom the one reports that the lance of St. Maurice which is preserved at Kraków in the chief church of the city was received from Otto II, the other from Otto III. I confess that, if they shall prove that some Otto possessed the praised treasure, it seems that I must retreat from my opinion; but they bring forward no ancient witnesses for themselves. And Krantz indeed entangles his assertion with errors. Let us hear his words from bk. 2 of the Wandalia, ch. 36: The emperor Otto II, surnamed the Red, heard the fame of the holy martyr Adalbert concerning the wonders which God worked through him, and wished to visit the holy martyr's sepulcher.

[253] nor translated into Poland, He then relates how, being magnificently received, and wishing to repay the favor, he created duke Boleslaus king, and addressed him in an assembly of the princes. And saying these things, he says, he placed a crown on his head, and the emperor gave to king Boleslaus, for royal insignia, the lance of the blessed Maurice and a nail of the Lord. And these royal insignia, namely the crown and the scepter and the lance, are preserved for many ages in the cupboard of the church of Kraków for the memory of posterity. Otto II could not visit the tomb of St. Adalbert, bishop of Prague, long before he was crowned with martyrdom. The emperor Otto II died at Rome in the year of Christ 983, and St. Adalbert obtained his laurel only in the year 997, as Henschen proves in our Work at the 23rd day of April, where his name is read inscribed in the sacred Calendars; and so the things are here wrongly attributed to Otto II which Cromer received rightly enough about the journey of Otto III to the holy Martyr's sepulcher, from Thietmar's Chronicle, bk. 4, from the Chronicle of Hildesheim, and from other writers; but what has been added about the lance given by him, neither he himself nor Długosz drew from the same sources, but seems to have added either from traditions or from conjectures. These things accordingly ought not to move us, since we do not believe from other grounds either that Otto, if so precious a treasure had been reckoned by his grandfather among the insignia of the empire, would so easily have given it to Boleslaus. Meanwhile we do not deny to the Poles their own lance of St. Maurice, although we confess that we do not know whence it came to them, nor at last by what right it obtained that title. Certainly from the Panegyric of Benzo, bishop of Alba, upon Henry IV, king of Germany, in Mencke, tom. 1 of the Writers, col. 965, it becomes clear that the lance of St. Maurice was still among the treasures of the empire after the middle of the eleventh century. Receive his words from ch. VIII: But the procession of the Roman emperor is celebrated in such wise. There is carried before him the sacred Cross laden with the wood of the Lord, and the lance of St. Maurice. Let not the Poles, then, grudge the Germans this sacred treasure.

\ nec* (nor)

§ XXII. The apparitions of St. Maurice asserted by some writers.

St. Maurice is said to have snatched the soul of the dead Dagobert Besides the two apparitions of St. Maurice and his Companions of which we treated above, §10, num. 122 and following, and §13, num. 155, there are three others more celebrated. The first is suggested by the author of the Chronicle of Saint-Denis, bk. 5, ch. 19, whence it passed to Aimoin, who inserted it in bk. 4 On the Deeds of the kings of the Franks. It is there narrated, ch. 34, how Ansoald, bishop of Poitiers, traveling in Sicily, Dagobert having lately died, fell in with John the solitary, by whom he was taught both of Dagobert's death and of what followed it. When, says the solitary, weighed down by the much weariness of vigils and fasts and at the same time of old age, I had given my limbs a little to sleep, there stood by me a certain man comely with venerable white hair, warning me to rise in haste and to entreat the clemency of the Lord for the soul of king Dagobert, which had gone out of the body in that same hour. And when I had taken care to do this in haste, there suddenly appeared not far off on the sea misshapen demons of savage countenance, driving king Dagobert bound through the spaces of the sea, and, blows being inflicted upon him besides, dragging him to the places of Vulcan. And he, racked with torments amid the drivings and the blows, was heard to ask the suffrages of certain Saints; when suddenly, heaven being opened, there were seen to descend, amid lightnings rushing with a crash into the waves, men shining with marvelous comeliness. I began to ask of them who they were; and they said that they were those whom Dagobert had called to his help, namely Dionysius and Maurice the martyrs, and also Martin the confessor. These, snatching the soul from the demons, bore it with them to the heights, singing this psalm: "Blessed is he whom Thou hast chosen," etc. Aimoin then subjoins, to give credit to his narrative and to add weight to it: These things that venerable man John related to Ansoald as having seen them, which he, returning into the Gauls, narrated to St. Audoenus, who left them written down on a single little sheet for posterity, to be arranged in the order of history.

[254] from the demons; which narrative was attacked by Le Cointe and others Le Cointe notes, at the year of Christ 638, num. 2, that for what the monk of Saint-Denis, the writer of Dagobert's Deeds, had said — that that account was found in a most ancient charter which, AS IT WAS REPORTED, the Blessed Audoenus, bishop, had written — Aimoin substituted an absolute assertion. The matter itself he attacks with two arguments, of which the one is drawn from the age of Ansoald, who survived Dagobert more than 55 years; the other from the silence of Fredegar, who, since he wrote only 20 years after the king's death, ought neither to have been ignorant of a vision then still recent, if it had happened, nor to have passed it over in his Chronicle. These two things, he says, lead us to pass the same sentence upon that vision as Besly and Valois. Besly, in the Bishops of Poitiers, p. 18, signifies his opinion somewhat timidly and by way of a question; more openly Valois in bk. 19, where intemperately enough he holds that narrative for a fiction and explodes it. Such apparitions and visions are indeed wont to be of themselves suspect to the prudent, unless they are asserted by very weighty men; but the reasons which the writers just praised allege are assuredly not such as fully to convince anyone of the falsity of the thing. Certainly if you grant that Ansoald was born, for example, in the year 615, Dagobert will have died in about the 22nd year of his age, in which he was staying in Sicily; and Ansoald will be an old man of 81 years when he subscribes the Privilege of Agerard in Mabillon, On Diplomatic, bk. 6, num. 23: in which I find nothing incredible, nay, nothing even unusual. The argument drawn from Fredegar's silence can seem more brilliant, and is perhaps a little weightier; but with me the silence of a single author, by whom for a thousand reasons unknown to us some things could have been unknown, or even, though known, omitted, will never bring it about that for

dreams, not to say impostures, I hold the assertions of others,

especially if they are not recent, and if besides they allege on

their own behalf more ancient testimonies which I cannot

absolutely convict of falsehood.

[255] it is at least of doubtful credit. Another vision, which is related by John And so that narrative which, besides,

Louis the Pious admitted in his letter to Abbot Hilduin,

Sigebert in his Chronicle, John of Bèze and others

have admitted, I so receive as of doubtful credit that, if it is admitted,

I should wish most of it to be taken mystically: the demons,

namely, rushing in as standing for the temptations by which

they assailed the dying king, and perhaps prevailed, yet

in such a way that, the patronage of the Saints being invoked,

he afterwards overcame them and thus passed victorious from life to

heaven. Assuredly, whatever examples are brought forward,

I shall not easily suffer myself to be persuaded that an enemy of God,

dead in mortal offense against Him, outside the

time of merit, when repentance is already too late, has entered upon the heavenly

inheritance which He reserved for His friends alone, by however

powerful an aid of the Saints. The second

apparition of St. Maurice we have in the vision of John,

a monk of Liège at St. Lawrence's, printed

in Bernard Pez, volume 4 of the Thesaurus novissimus

Anecdotorum, part 3, column 5 and following. Let us hear its

beginning: At that time there was a brother in this monastery

of blessed Lawrence, John by name … in whom, through

an incautious phlebotomy, the kindled blood of burning fevers

inflamed the brain. When for four days

the languor increased … by the abbot's order he was carried

into a more secluded cell. And when, as the bells were

sounding, all ran together to the Office of Vespers,

he alone was left there in his little bed,

those who had undertaken to watch him supposing

that he had fallen asleep. But he, being placed in an ecstasy,

that is, in a going-out of the mind, saw etc.

[256] To place much credit in the visions of a man whose

brain a burning fever, arising from an incautious phlebotomy (for so it must be read from

the Greek Φλεβοτομία, in the monk of St. Lawrence's at Liège, is rather extravagant, which signifies the cutting of a vein),

had disturbed, is not the part of a prudent man. Such things are related in the same place also about the state of souls

after death, as do not seem capable of persuading any but credulous

men. Take, reader, the analysis of the whole

vision. Presently he is set in a vestibule unknown to him,

where, while he is contemplating a picture displayed to him,

St. Lawrence the martyr is present to him, complaining

that he had not sought his patronage with sufficient earnestness.

Presently John reflects whether it might not perhaps be an illusion

of sleep or of a disordered brain: but being taught the contrary by the Saint,

he is caught up on high as far as the sphere of the moon.

Thence he beholds the air beneath growing dark, and

demons ascending out of it, who were pressed down by a sound

flowing from the higher globe, and he observes that Bede's

assertion is confirmed, that the devils are forbidden to ascend

beyond the circle of the moon. Presently on the Eastern side

a very long seat appears to him as he gazes, upon

which persons were sitting in monastic habit. They were sitting

silent and rather sad, and without footstools their feet

hung down. Half-shorn (may it not be half-shaven?)

and downcast were their faces. Several

there he recognizes among men formerly known to him, and understands that the place

of purgatory is there, and that the condition of the souls to be purged is

different according to the diversity of their

merits. Most grievous are the punishments of those

who are presently handed over to demons to be carried away into a place

of horror, where amid the most grievous torments they have neither

angelic visitation, nor light, nor any hope

of salvation, until, being led out thence,

a lighter penance is granted them in other places.

[257] Milder is the lot of other shades, who either

by the merit of their life, and it seems or by the commendation of the Faithful, or

by the intervention of most blessed patrons, obtain quiet places

of their purgation. Hope of salvation and angelic

visitation for a time, and light, are not lacking to them.

These are neither terrified nor tormented by demons,

but are deprived of the most blessed vision of God, and in bitterness

they call to mind the offenses of their past life not yet wholly washed away,

until, purged of these, they are admitted to the

enjoyment of the highest Good. But since that whole vision tends to this,

that confidence in some particular holy

patron may be commended, such an example is related

to John concerning two monks. One of them

was snatched away by an unforeseen death to judgment, who,

although he had been subject to frailty, yet

deserved to be delivered by the patronage of a very great

patron; and when, his sins requiring it, he ought to have been

damned, by that patron's intervention, the judge being appeased, he was handed over

to a happy penance and a peaceful purgation without the assault

of demons. But the other, on account of the impatience of his mind,

preferred another to his own, that is, to his patron,

serving God there, yet not counting it a fault to prefer

some saint to his patron. He too departed in his time,

who, being guilty among other things of an insolent tongue,

but destitute of the defense of his patron, whom he had reckoned as nothing,

was assigned to the wretched of whom we treated in the first place.

[258] He next contemplates heaven, which he describes

ridiculously, the whole of it, as great as it is, proceeding from a deranged brain after which St. Lawrence leaves him,

when presently he falls in with horsemen, whom he

recognizes as the Theban Martyrs; and as he long contemplates, among other things,

the purple cloak of St. Maurice, that saint says to him: By this

garment … the soldiers of our time were distinguished from

the common people, nor was it permitted to a Roman soldier to have a cloak

among the rest except of woolen stuff or of purple.

St. Maurice then rebukes the monk because

he had not celebrated Mass, or at least had not recited the canonical Hours,

in the chapel consecrated to him at Wasseiges, a village of the county

of Namur. John, having begged pardon for his negligence,

asks the holy Martyr why he did not succor the inhabitants

who were there imploring his aid.

At this St. Maurice leads the monk

into the chapel, and there shows that, because of their enormous

crimes, those who implored his help were unworthy of benefits,

and he disappears; but John returns

to his body, from which, if we believe him, his soul had been separated all

this time. I forbear to attack what is said about demons,

about the globe of the moon, about souls in purgatory

with monastic copes and half-shaven beards,

sitting without footstools and in bodily form,

and which savor of idle fables,

so that I may note a few other things. Those who are in the harshest

purgation have no hope of salvation:

that is, unless I am mistaken, they do not hope that out of that purgation,

before they have passed to a milder one, they will be

taken up into the heavens; otherwise, if the words are taken bare,

John was taught a new theology there.

[259] nor are the things of better credit, The things related about the two monks are again,

to say the least, very suspect to me, and I shall scarcely

be induced to believe — as I intimated again above —

that by the patronage of the Saints the soul of a man who has died in mortal guilt,

a soul that must be damned, is not only snatched from everlasting torments,

but even undergoes the mildest purgation,

unless someone shall have taught me when and in what

manner his sin is retracted and washed away by the necessary penance

and by an expiatory sorrow for the offense against God.

It also little concerned John to know what St. Mauricius

is brought in to teach about the purple and the cloak,

and things which I do not know whether they are as true as they are there asserted,

especially in the time of the emperors, who had made the purple

as it were their own alone. However that may be,

I here use the liberty which the writer of that vision offers,

when near the end he says: But it lies subject to the judgment of the readers

to bestow upon it either belief or disparagement;

and I frankly confess that his whole narrative

is to me a dream and the illusion of a brain disordered

by a burning fever. Let us come to the third apparition of St. Maurice,

which is attended with deeds still more extravagant,

and offers clearer indications of fabrication.

An abridged narrative of it Stewart inserted in his Notes

on the Martyrdom of St. Maurice, page 92, from Fregoso, book 9

of the Dicta.

[260] which are reported about the punishment of Bishop Udo. The same I have fourfold fuller from

a manuscript codex of St. Salvator at Utrecht, where it was appended

to the Passion of the Theban Saints. I call it the same,

because, even though the chronological notes vary, yet

nearly all the rest agree. Our manuscript

begins: In the year of the Lord 950, in the reign of Otto III,

at Partinopolis, that is, Magdeburg,

there happened an example etc. But Fregoso:

In the year of Christ nine hundred and forty,

in the reign of Otto III at Parthenopolis … there was

formerly a bishop Udo, sunk in the foulest lust, who,

since he would not correct himself, is said to have been slain by the sword by St. Maurice and his Companions

in the metropolitan church itself. Those who

find Otto III reigning in the year 940 or 950, and Bishop Udo

sitting at Magdeburg, may examine

the rest, which one is ashamed to mention; they will find

besides the place Lilienthal in the diocese of Magdeburg,

the Cistercian Order flourishing in the tenth century, and other things,

against which they may exercise their criticism. But

if anyone should refer these things to Udo of Trier, following Trithemius's

opinion, let him produce for us other documents

than those which teem with such enormous anachronisms.

Admonition

What I have said must be examined particularly concerning the Companions of St. Maurice,

the reader will find in the Appendix at the end

of this volume.