Baring-Gould’s sources: Usuardus. Gallican and Roman Martyrologies. Authority: — A Life by Venantius Fortunatus, d. 600, in Surius, Vit. Sancb Nov. 1.] The parents of S. Marcellus of Paris were persons of the middle class. They placed him at school, and Prudentius, Bishop of Paris, ordained him reader. Fortunatus tells a story of him, as handed down with all the exaggerations of detail a story acquires in passing from one to another through more than a century. One day he went into a locksmith's shop, and the man in rude jest gave him a red-hot bar of iron, and bade him guess its weight. Marcellus took the glowing bar in his palm, and said that it weighed nine pounds. Probably some day he gave a rough guess at the weight of an iron bar, which proved to be near enough to be thought marvellous, and when the story came to be told, its marvellousness was enhanced by the iron being said to be red-hot. Prudentius after a while ordained him subdeacon. A miracle is related of him at this stage of his career. On the feast of the Epiphany Marcellus poured water over the hands of the bishop during the celebration of the Mysteries, when it was found that the water was changed into wine. Prudentius used some of this wine for the Eucharist, and afterwards distributed some from the cruet among the sick, who believed themselves to be greatly benefited by this miraculous wine. In this case it is quite possible that a mistake, made unintentionally, may have given rise to the idea of a miracle having been wrought It was the duty of the sacristan to fill the cruets before Mass, one with water, the other with wine. He probably took up the empty one, and, without looking too curiously which it was — the water vessel, or that for wine — [Nov. x.

…filled it with the juice of the grape. And as the vessels were not of glass, the mistake was not discovered till Marcellus poured the contents over the fingers of the bichop at the “ Lotio manuum.”

On another occasion he poured chrism over the bishop’s hands, so that he or the sacristan must have been given to making blunders.

There was in the cathedral a chorister boy named Minutius, aged ten, who had a sweet voice like a bird. The archdeacon gave him the antiphon to sing one day, not knowing that the bishop had ordered another boy to sing it. Minutius chanted the antiphon, and the bishop was furious. He sent for the boy, and had him whipped. The child began to scream. Prudentius shortly after lost his voice, the east wind 7/as probably blowing; and S. Marcellus took occasion to lecture the prelate on his injustice to the little choir-boy. Prudentius was penitent, and found his voice to acknowledge that he had acted out of temper, and had dealt unmercifully by the poor child. Prudentius died about the year 400, and was buried in the chapel of SS. Peter and Paul, where afterwards rose the church of S. Genevieve. The clergy and people of Paris elected Marcellus in his room. He applied himself at once with fervour to discharge all the functions of his office: to the conversion of sinners, the instruction of the ignorant, the reconciliation of enemies, to the visiting of the sick, the relief of the necessitous, the succour of prisoners, and the ministration of the sacraments. He laboured to bring about a good understanding between himself and his people; so that they came not only to speak of him as a pastor, but to love him as a father. Venantius Fortunatus tells us another story, which makes us hesitate to accept his other accounts of miracles without qualification.

A lady of rank and wealth, who had led a disorderly life, Nov. i.] S. Vigor. died, and was buried in the cemetery outside the town. Her character was pretty well known, but as she had not been excommunicated, she was not denied Christian burial. But no sooner was she in her grave than a great black serpent was seen to glide out of the wood, approach her tomb and burrow into it, throw out the earth, expose her mouldering corpse, and pasture on the ghastly remains.

This created a sensation in Paris, and the news reached the ears of the bishop. Marcellus went in full pontificals against the serpent, and coming to the grave, the hideous creature stood up and threatened him; he hit it thrice on the head with his pastoral staff, knocked it over, and then looping his stole round the dead beast, trailed it after him through Paris.

He died on November 1st, 436; but as this day is the Feast of All Saints, S. Marcellus is commemorated in the diocese of Paris on November 3rd.

His relics [the bodily remains of a saint, or objects they used, kept with honor] were dispersed at the Revolution, but some particles of bone are said to be preserved at Longpont, a parish formerly in the diocese of Paris, but now in that of Versailles.

S. Marcellus is represented in art with a dragon, the neck surrounded by his stole.