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Well, the witnesses who were summoned came to Rome, viz., Vitellius Honoratus and Flavius Martianus.
Honoratus was charged with having bribed Priscus to the tune of three hundred thousand sesterces to exile a Roman knight and put seven of his friends to death; Martianus was accused of having given Priscus seven hundred thousand sesterces to sentence a single Roman knight to still more grievous punishment, for he was beaten with rods, condemned to the mines, and then strangled in prison.
In a letter addressed to his fellow-bishop, Honoratus, and intended to be read by all the clergy in Africa, he declares that bishops and priests should not abandon their churches and dioceses, but stay at their post till the end till death and till martyrdom to fulfil the duties of their ministry.
Honoratus himself, taken from his peaceful isle to be elevated to the metropolitan see of Arles, had for his successor, as Abbot of Lerins, and afterwards as Bishop of Arles, his pupil and kinsman S. Hilary, to whom we owe the admirable biography of his master.
In 410, a man landed and remained there; he was called Honoratus. Descended from a consular race, educated and eloquent, but devoted from his youth to great piety, he desired to be made a monk. His father charged his eldest brother, a gay and impetuous young man, to turn him from his purpose; but, on the contrary, it was he who won over his brother. Disciples gathered round them.
Maximus was just a century later than Martin; the fever for imitating the lives of the Fathers of the Deserts of Egypt was then in full heat. His master, Honoratus, had been wont to escape from his island monastery and hide in a cave in the glowing red porphyry rocks of the Esterelle.
S. Maximus, Bishop of Riez, who died in 460, was born at Chateau Redon, near Digne, and he entered the monastic life on the isle of Lerins, under S. Honoratus, and when that saint was raised in 426 to the episcopal throne of Arles, Maximus succeeded him as Abbot of Lerins.
At the time of which we are speaking it was ruled by the sons of Honoratus II, a powerful personality, who had raised his house from ruin. He died in the year 1490, leaving a widow, Catarina Orsini, and three sons Nicola the prothonotary; Giacomo, and Guglielmo. His daughter Giovanella was the wife of Pierluigi Farnese and mother of Giulia.
From this school went forth disciples, inspired with the spirit of Honoratus, to rule the churches of Arles, Avignon, Lyons, Vienne, Frejus, Valence, Nice, Metz, and many others.
The Church of S. Caesaire is modernised, and has, alas! nothing of interest remaining in it, only its historic memories to hallow it. S. Caesarius, son of a count of Chalons, born in 470, had been educated at Lerins, but thence he was drawn in 501, to succeed the first fathers of that holy isle, Honoratus and Hilary, upon the archiepiscopal throne of Arles.
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