MAURICE, ST, commander of the Theban legion, was a Christian, together with the officers and soldiers of that legion, amounting to 6600 men.—This legion received its name from the city Thebes in Egypt, where it was raised. It was sent by Diocletian to check the Bagaudæ, who had excited some disturbances in Gaul. Maurice having carried his troops over the Alps, the emperor Maximinian commanded him to employ his utmost exertions to extirpate Christianity. This proposal was received with horror both by the commander and by the soldiers. The emperor, enraged at their opposition, commanded the legion to be decimated; and when they still declared
Maurice. declared that they would sooner die than do any thing prejudicial to the Christian faith, every tenth man of those who remained was put to death. Their perseverance excited the emperor to still greater cruelty; for when he saw that nothing could make them relinquish their religion, he commanded his troops to surround them, and cut them to pieces. Maurice, the commander of these Christian heroes, and Exuperus and Candidus, officers of the legion, who had chiefly instigated the soldiers to this noble resistance, signalized themselves by their patience and their attachment to the doctrines of the Christian religion. They were massacred, it is believed, at A-gaune, in Chablais, the 22d of September 286.—Notwithstanding many proofs which support this transaction, Dubordier, Hottinger, Moyle, Burnet, and Molheim, are disposed to deny the fact. It is defended, on the other hand, by Hickes an English writer, and by Dom Joseph de Lille a Benedictine monk of the congregation of Saint Vannes, in a work of his, entitled Defence de la Verité du Martyre de la Légion Thebénne, 1737. In defence of the same fact, the reader may consult Histoire de S. Mauricie, by P. Rosignole a Jesuit, and the Acta Sanctorum for the month of September. The martyrdom of this legion, written by St Eucherius bishop of Lyons, was transmitted to posterity in a very imperfect manner by Surius. P. Chifflet a Jesuit, discovered, and gave to the public, an exact copy of this work. Don Ruinart maintains, that it has every mark of authenticity. St Maurice is the patron of a celebrated order in the king of Sardinia's dominions, created by Emanuel Philibert duke of Savoy, to reward military merit, and approved by Gregory XIII. in 1572. The commander of the Theban legion must not be confounded with another St Maurice, mentioned by Theodoret, who suffered martyrdom at Apamea in Syria.