medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Maximinus (d. 346?) was bishop of Trier when it was still one of the imperial residences of the Roman Empire. He is known from late antique sources primarily as a committed defender of Nicene orthodoxy against the theological positions advanced by Arius and his successors. Maximinus provided hospitality in Trier to the exiled St. Athanasius of Alexandria in 336 and 337 and again in 343. Though he did not attend, he was one of the organizers of the council of Serdica in 343 and was one of the western prelates to be anathematized by name in the Arian reaction organized by eastern bishops. St. Gregory of Tours, who in his Vita of bishop St. Nicetius of Trier informs us indirectly that Maximinus was buried in that city's northern cemetery, attests to his important cult there in a church of St. John and to miracles occurring at his tomb. In time that church of St. John came to be called after Maximinus as did also the major monastery that grew up around it in the early Middle Ages and that of course promoted his cult.
Maximinus has a series of late eighth- and ninth-century Vitae (BHL 5822-5824; 5824 was written by Servatus Lupus of Ferrières) that are lightly regarded by modern historians. These texts present him as being of noble birth, a native of Aquitania, and the brother of the bishop of Poitiers; it is further related that he died near Poitiers while visiting relatives and that he was interred at a place since identified as Silly in today's Mouterre-Silly (Vienne) with his body later returned to Trier. In an instance of fairly familiar hagiographic topos, Maximinus is said to have used as a pack animal on one of his journeys a bear that had slain his ass. Today is his day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology.
Excavation between 1978 and 1995 at the site of Trier's former Abtei St. Maximin revealed a fourth-century Christian cemetery with an impressively large structure that may once have been the resting place of Trier's early bishops. Some views of it are here:
http://www.roscheiderhof.de/kulturdb/client/einObjekt.php?id=33
Maximinus as depicted (below: embracing St. Athanasius of Alexandria; above, the episode of the bear) in a later fifteenth-century copy of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (1463; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 51, fol. 132r):
http://tinyurl.com/zzp7v5r
Best,
John Dillon
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