Maximus of Turin

The first bishop of Turin whose voice survives, Maximus preached to a frontier congregation in the anxious decades when Alaric's Goths were loose in Italy. More than a hundred of his sermons remain — short, vivid, pastoral pieces on the feasts of the year, the martyrs, almsgiving, and the lingering paganism of the countryside, which he attacked with brisk humor. He steadied citizens tempted to flee before the barbarians and scolded landlords who tolerated the idolatry of their peasants. Almost nothing is known of his life beyond the sermons themselves; even his death can only be placed between 408 and 423.

More than a hundred of his sermons survive, yet almost nothing of his life is known — even his death date is only inferred.