ON ST. MAGINUS OR MAXIMUS, MARTYR AMONG THE TARRACONESE IN CATALONIA,
Under Maximinus, as is reported.
A collection concerning his worship, miracles, and Acts.
Maginus or Maximus, M. among the Tarraconese in Catalonia (St.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. P.
Tarragona is a city of Spain in Catalonia, in whose territory St. Maginus fought and conquered, or, as others name him, Maximus, His memory in the Roman Martyrology, adorned with the laurel of martyrdom and with public worship. He is recorded in the Roman Martyrology on this day: At Tarragona, of holy Maginus the martyr. Juan Mariana, On the Affairs of Spain, book 4, chapter 9, at the year 236: Maximus, he says, and his companions are recorded to have poured out their blood for religion at this time, at the cave of the Brufaganya mountain, twenty-four thousand paces from Tarragona. Whence he was dragged out to death, he is honored in that place, a temple being dedicated there; and perhaps this is that Maximus whom the citizens of Tarragona have been wont commonly to call Saint Magi. Ambrosio de Morales in the Chronicle of Spain, book 9, chapter 43, writes that no mention of St. Maximus is had in the Martyrologies, nor in the bishop of Equilio, nor in the breviaries, of which he affirms that he saw many in Spain. But he judges that that Saint is the same whom at Tarragona they commonly call St. Magi, the same name having also been transferred to many men from the pious affection of their fathers.
[2] Domenech in the History of the Saints of Catalonia gathered various things about St. Maginus from folio 78 verso, a sacred house: and among other things will have it that he was canonized, and that Sagarra, who was secretary to Alexander VI, found this testification about the matter — Of Maginus the martyr, who suffered for Christ in the mountains of Brufaganya — written in the Catalogue of the Saints, and sent the same to the place of St. Coloma, his own native place. The said testification or writing in Padilla, part 1 of the Ecclesiastical History of Spain, century 3, chapter 4, fol. 103, thus begins: The canonization of Maginus the martyr; which has no show of truth. Domenech records that his body was buried in the same place in which he was beheaded, namely in a chapel of the church beneath the altar: likewise that it does not please God that that body should be beheld and exposed to public veneration, the hands of those to whom the care of digging it up had been committed being seized with paralysis when the earth had been dug out down to the sepulchral stone, and afterwards restored to their former state by the prayers of the bystanders, as the same Domenech relates. It remains that we narrate what is reported about the Saint's other prodigies.
[3] certain miracles Morales, from Lluís Icart's book On the Greatness and memorable Affairs of the city of Tarragona, affirms that in the Saint's cave (for he is said to have led a solitary life in it, as will afterwards be seen) and in his church many miracles happened, sufficiently approved. But since that author is not at hand for us, we shall gather from elsewhere certain miracles, whether they be the same or different. Domenech, after he had said in general that the blind, the deaf, the fevered, those laboring under a contagious disease and other infirmities, are healed in his chapel, and that God had put into his fountain a power of curing various infirmities, subjoins these things one by one.
[4] are related. Pau Ferrer, from the place of St. Coloma de Queralt, as Domenech calls it, being utterly deprived of sight by a great infirmity, and blind for two months, seeks a remedy at the cave and burial-place of the holy Martyr, and obtained the perfect use of his eyes.
Miquel Mercer, from the place Benicarló, had been taken by the Moors, and, because he was ill treated by them, fell sick and was deprived of hearing. But, returning from captivity, St. Maginus being invoked, he recovered the use of that sense.
Bernat Folgar, born at St. Clair in the kingdom of France, was most miserably afflicted with the French disease. He appointed a novena in the Martyr's chapel, washed himself with the water of his fountain, and obtained perfect health.
The wife of the lord Lord, from the place which is called Burriana, in the kingdom of Valencia, had contracted a pestilent plague and a very grievous fever: and while she was already struggling with death, her husband offered her water from the Martyr's fountain to drink, and bound himself by a certain vow: and at the same hour in which she had drunk the said water the fever left her, and within four days she recovered.
A certain woman, contracted and paralytic, a vow being made both by herself and by her husband, was made whole on the fifth day.
The wife of Joan Morat, from the place Olot in the bishopric of Girona, was barren for seventeen years: she applies to herself the Saint's measure (perhaps a girdle is here indicated) with great devotion, and at the end of nine months bears a son. In fine, this Saint works so many miracles, as Domenech adds, that they are as it were infinite. These things we give upon the credit of Domenech, who relates the foregoing about him.
[5] What Marieta, Domenech, and Morales record about the Martyr's Acts The Acts, is of no authority for us, or of very little, because no ancient monument is shown from which they were transmitted to posterity from the third century of Christ, in which Maximinus lived, and in whose reign this holy Champion is reported to have obtained the crown of martyrdom. Yet we render into Latin what is had in Morales in Spanish from Icart to this effect: The Saint, he says, dwelling in the mountains which have the name of Brufaganya, six leagues distant from the city (the discourse is about Tarragona), and hidden in a cave, that he might serve God, because he was a Christian, a certain governor of the emperors ordered to be brought to the city; and when he could not remove him from the Christian faith, he consigned him to harsh custody. Where he healed the governor's daughter, possessed by a demon: and afterwards, being loosed from prison by a miracle, he returned to his cave in the mountain: whom the governor ordered to be sought there; and after torments at length his head was cut off, many miracles having been wrought in that cave and in the Saint's church which is there, as he will find, he says, with sufficient approbation, who shall be willing to see it in the said author.
[6] and certain apocryphal things stitched on to them. Domenech narrates from popular report that in the places where drops of the blood fell there spring up roses having one or another spot of a blood-red color on their leaves, in testimony of that blood which the Martyr there shed; but that today, as he adds, few of these roses are found, for reasons which he subjoins. But that report displeases us, both because it is popular and because it seems to have much of fancy. Tamayo, treating on this day of our holy Martyr, opens after his accustomed manner his workshop of falsehoods, infamous for the wagon-loads which have come forth from it. For besides the counterfeit Flavius Dexter and Luitprand, whom he alleges, he brings forward metrical Acts which he affirms were written by St. Orentius, bishop of Elvira. In Hardouin indeed, tom. 2 of the Councils, column 1044, Orontius, bishop of the city of Elvira, subscribes the council of Tarragona held in the year of Christ 516; but there is added in the margin perhaps of Lérida, of the province of Tarragona; but another prelate of either see we do not know; much less a saint and biographer such as is obtruded by Tamayo, accustomed as he is to masked authors, and about whom he treats at greater length at the day VII of July: where the fictitious Maximus with his commentators comes forth upon the stage. What is had at that day among our Passed-over may be consulted.