ces. It is true that their lives are written, like that of St
Ovidius, St Felicissimus, and St Victor! But, O God! what lives! what
libels! lives deserving a place in the Index of the Prohibited Books,
since they are filled with falsehoods, vain conjectures, or, to say the
least, are ascribing to unknown and apocryphal saints the true acts of the
most illustrious martyrs. Such things cannot but bring about a great
confusion in the history of the church, not to say in religion itself. It
is in this manner that the actions of St Felicissimus, who is generally
believed to have been a deacon to St Sixtus, are ascribed to a new
Felicissimus; and the virtues of St Victor of Milan are now given to a new
Victor, who has been recently brought to Paris. As regards the life of St
Ovidius, is there anything in it more than words and words? and can we
find in it anything solid? This little book speaks of a leaden plate upon
which the senatorial dignity and the year of this saint's martyrdom are
inscribed. Why is not this inscription given? Why is not at least the
precise date of his martyrdom named? It is said that St Ovidius suffered
towards the end of the second century; is this the manner of fixing the
year of his death? No, no; the ancients did not mark the time in such a
manner; they did not take an uncertain century for the certain epoch of a
year. I am much afraid that this inscription is by no means so authentic
as people wish to persuade us. But there was found in his grave a little
glass vessel; a palm is engraved upon his sepulchre; and his skull has the
appearance of being pierced with a lance. Well, these marks may prove that
St Ovidius was a martyr; but are they sufficient to establish the truth of
his life, such as it has been published?"(72)

I would, however, observe, that many writers of the lives of saints,
without excepting those who are considered legitimate, have rendered
themselves guilty of something worse than the plagiarism of which the
learned Mabillon complains in the passage given above. They may be accused
of having blasphemously parodied the Scriptures, and particularly the
Gospels, by ascribing many of the miracles recorded in the Bible to the
subjects of their biographies. M. Maury, the French savant whom I have
already quoted (p. 11), has traced a great number of miracles ascribed to
various saints, which are nothing but imitations of this kind. This
sacrilegious plagiarism is not confined to the midd