The ProvenÇal Legend

Dr. M. R. James has sent me a pamphlet, "Saint Lazare et Saint Maximin," by Dom G. Morin, which, although published in Paris in 1897, he considers to be the last word on the ProvenÇe legends of St. Lazarus, etc. I summarize its conclusions shortly.

1. Dom Morin produces evidence that the cult of St. Lazarus by the Church of Marseilles, which dates at least from the eleventh century, has, for historic foundation, the burial of a bishop of that name in the crypt of the Abbey of Saint-Victor. This was not the Lazarus of the New Testament, but most probably a Bishop of Aix in the first half of the fifth century, who was dispossessed of his See for the part that he had taken in the Pelagian controversy, and came to end his days with the Bishop of Marseilles, who had ordained him.

2. For the cult of the saints of Saint-Maximin there is an ingenious and probable explanation. In the ancient town of Billom, in the Auvergne, and in the adjacent villages, the relics of several saints were venerated from a very early date. Among them were St. Maximin, a Confessor, perhaps a Bishop; St. Sidonius, who was none other than Sidonius Apollinaris, the fifth century poet and orator; St. Marcelle, a shepherdess for whom the villagers of Chauriat have had from time immemorial a deep veneration.

Now these are not names that are to be found scattered all over the martyrologies. Besides those of Billom and Saint-Maximin, there are only three or four other St. Maximins, one St. Sidonius, and two St. Marcelles; and there are not two of any of them, otherwise, who can be referred to the same locality or between whom there exists any connection whatever. Dom Morin can find no other explanation of this curious 'bilocation' than by supposing a translation of relics either from Auvergne to Provence or from Provence to Auvergne; and he gives good reasons for preferring the first supposition.

June, 1920.