James of Lérins

James of Lérins, known above all as James of Tarentaise or James of Assyria, died at Arles on 16 January 429. According to tradition he was born in Assyria, of a noble family, and served as an officer in the Persian army in the wars against the Romans. Struck by the Christians' readiness to die for their faith, he became a Christian, left his wealth and went to Asia Minor to join a monastic community. At the beginning of the 5th century he met, in Greece or at Nicomedia, Honoratus of Lérins, who baptized him and persuaded him to follow him to found the community of Lérins; for this reason some call him James of Lérins.

About 420 he accompanied Honoratus, with Maximus of Riez, in evangelizing the Ceutrones, threatened by the Burgundian invasion. After Honoratus became bishop of Arles, at the end of 426 or the beginning of 427, he consecrated James a bishop to continue the mission in Tarentaise, in Savoy. He is regarded as the apostle of the Ceutrones and their first bishop. Feeling death near, he appointed Marcellus as his successor and left for Arles, where he died together with his friend and teacher Honoratus.

His life is not documented: it rests on two lives of the saint, one of them known through summaries of a manuscript of the 12th or 13th century, and there is no mention of him from the 5th century. The lives tell of miracles: he is said to have healed the islands of Lérins of a dragon, healed the son of a Burgundian king of fever, and, while building a castle, to have ordered a bear that had eaten an ox to take its place. He is commemorated on 16 January, in the Western calendar (new style). A saint of the undivided Church, venerated in the West.