Milles was pushy. He was a Persian bishop who wanted everything to be “just so” and everyone to act “just right.” Amazingly enough (!), everyone acting just right coincided with everyone acting the way he (Milles) believed that they should. Our saint carried no doubts about his own righteousness and had nothing but doubts regarding other church leaders whom he considered to be schismatic. To be considered “schismatic” means that people start listening to that you more than they do the established hierarchy. Schisms must be crushed, lest they become more than a minority.

So along came a fellow bishop (but Butler takes care to refer to him as a “prelate”–a synonym that doesn’t grant an “official” title to someone who actually had one) named Papas. Details are very light about what was wrong with Papas (other than being popular). At most, Butler can only refer to “very irregular conduct” by Papas and the introduction of “abuses” into the discipline (rules) of the churches that Papas was over.

What is striking is the following interchange, as reported by Butler, that purports to show that Milles, the Saint, was in the Right–and that Papas, the Schismatic, was in the Wrong:

St. Milles spoke to him (Papas) with great liberty and gravity. “Whence comes it,” said he, “that you despise your colleagues [the ones telling Papas he was wrong and whom Papas resisted]? Do you forget the precept of Christ: He that is greatest among you, let him be as a servant ?”

I’ll break into Milles’s diatribe here to editorialize. Milles is telling Papas that if Papas wants to be “great,” then Papas should abase himself and serve these others. But of course Milles isn’t suggesting the same course of action for himself. Just in case that wasn’t clear. So we continue:

Papas replied in a fit of brutish anger: “Foolish man, would you pretent [sic] to teach me, as if I knew not my duty?” St. Milles taking the book of the gospels out of his pocket, laid it on the table, and addressing himself to Papas, said, “If you are ashamed to learn your duty of me, who am a base mortal man, learn it at least from the holy gospel.”

These are of course inflammatory words–because both were duly ordained bishops. Meanwhile:

Papas no longer possessing himself, in his rage, striking the book with his hands, said: “Speak then, gospel, speak.”

Of course, we readers are supposed to be appalled by Papas’s sacrilege. What we might want to consider is that bibles really do NOT speak: people speak. People reading from books speak. People choose what to read aloud and what to say about what they read aloud and speak. But books are inanimate and are mute, though there be words in them. Anyhow, back to the building drama:

St. Milles shocked at these impious words, took up this sacred book, respectfully applied it to his mouth and eyes [WTH?], and then raising his voice, said to Papas: “The angel of the Lord will punish the insult you have offered to the word of life. Half your body shall this moment become without motion; neither shall you soon die. God will prolong your life some years, that you may be to others a living example of his justice.” That instant Papas was struck with a palsy, which seized one side of his body, and he fell to the ground.

Mind you, it wasn’t Papas who recounted the story of how he ended up having a stroke (or else its equivalent). Needless to say, Papas ceased being a political factor, and Milles consolidated his power as a bishop in Persia, later becoming a saint.

So if telling someone to submit to you doesn’t work, and if shoving the bible at them doesn’t work, and especially if they show continued resistance, then the only answer is to curse them–to severe lifelong disability that will cause others to see how evil you must be (otherwise, you wouldn’t be disabled, right?) and how righteous God-working-through-the-one-proclaiming-the-curse must be. [See AIDS crisis of the latter 20th century.]

Though memorable, the power-amassing and rival-cursing Milles is not someone that I can admire. Why did he not instead say to Papas, “The angel of the Lord will soften your heart and mine to find common ground and love, and reveal to us a way forward in truth and light!!”?!