Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman, Gallican, and Benedictine Martyrologies. Authority: — A life by a contemporary.] S. Maxentius, also called S. Adjutor, and in France, S. Maixent, was born at Agde, in Gallia Narbonensis, of a noble family, and was committed by his parents to the holy abbot Severus, to be brought up by him in the way of perfection.
His advance inspired some with admiration, and others with jealousy; and finding that his actions and conduct were misconstrued, he left the monastery, and retired into a solitary place for two years. After that he returned, and he seemed to restore abundance to a land which for two years had suffered from drought; the plentiful showers which accompanied his return, convinced the most prejudiced that he was favoured by God, and obliged them to stifle their jealousy.
When the renown of his sanctity spread, he again left his country, this time to avoid the honour given to him, and took refuge in Poitou. After having visited the tomb of S. Hilary, he sought the venerable priest Agapitus, on the banks of the S£ve, and asked to be admitted among his disciples. In order the more effectually to conceal himself, he changed his name of Adjutor into Maxentius [rival emperor at Rome 306–312, defeated by Constantine]. But his light could not be hid. His master Agapitus, and all the brethren under that holy man, saw the brilliancy of his virtues, and chose him to be their abbot Lives of the Saitits.
(June a5. He ate only barley bread, and drank water, and prayed so incessantly that his back became bent, and his knees callous. During the war waged by Clovis, king of the Franks [the Germanic people who ruled Gaul and gave France its name], against Alahc, king of the Visigoths, a troop of soldiers approached his monastery. The monks, in their alarm, implored the holy abbot to fly from their swords, and not expose his life to danger.
Maxentius, undeterred, advanced to meet the soldiers. His mildness, and the angelic sweetness of his face, arrested the sword of a barbarian, when it was already raised to hew him down, and the man flinging himself at the feet of the abbot, implored his pardon. Maxentius received many benefits from King Clovis, and died at the age of seventy, in the monastery that bears his name.
He is called in France S. Maixent, or S. Maissent In art he is represented with birds perched on his shoulders, or caressing with one hand a bird resting on the other; as his gentleness is said to have attracted the forest songsters about him when he walked, and when he sat in his celL
