Life of St Martin 1 part 3/7

For, to pass over those things which, done toward humble men, lay hidden not so obscurely — will it, I ask, lie hidden, that Arborius, who had discharged the choice honor of the world, illustrious, who at the summit of an exalted prefecture ruled the reins of Roman governance by the powers granted him, and no less excelling in the uprightness of pious character — his limbs now utterly wasted away, his only daughter had thrown her drooping limbs upon the bed, whom a fever, with the perpetual law of recurrence, returning to its fourth day, had so stripped of the garment of flesh by ever renewing its frequent ruins, that her afflicted body could feel nothing of remedy even in the middle days near the fever, while the past tossing claimed one day for itself, and the other suffered, trembling, the ruin to come.

Therefore, while the father, with sorrowful piety, fondles such a daughter, and runs over her icy limbs with warming breath, while the frequent panting of his fatherly mouth lingers, a proffered letter reached his trembling right hand, which the holy bishop was sending to his sorrowful friend. When he, rejoicing in the gift of the read letter, pressed kisses on the absent one, rejoicing with him, he closed the venerable scroll with a swift movement and, hurrying in haste, applied it to his panting stomach. O truly precious faith! The fever is driven off and put to flight, and the flame of fiery heat is removed. The present blessing penetrates the parched veins and waters the exhausted marrow with the dew of words, restoring swift health by the mercy of the Lord: to whose praise we, rejoicing, will rightly refer those things which we now marvel that faithful servants could do.

Nor did this medicine grant healing to her limbs alone, but faith increased added true salvation to her heart. For forthwith the sacred virgin is offered to God through him, devoted to the Lord through whom she has power, rescued from disease. Thus the grace of this gift was bestowed three times at once: the bishop consecrates, the father offers, the virgin is sanctified. Indeed, a like medicine restored health to Paulinus also, whom the glory of distinguished faith exalted far and wide. His sight then lay hidden, covered with a drawn-over cloud, and a darkness, stretched out with infused gloom, kept out all light with a covering of spots. This a spongy thing, light and suspended with slight touch, put to flight, scarcely brought to the eye by the neighboring gift of a blessed right hand. The sight, now restored, learned to bear the light, and marveling received the new radiance.

And would that the medicine of our holy patron might be willing to touch the darkness of our heart with such a light, that it might give back again the mysteries of the ancient deed — the same name, the same physician, a like cause of healing. We marvel indeed, seeing so many and great fomentations of the pious chief physician. Let us marvel also at that healing which the physician earned, with Christ healing, through whom the bountiful and at once grateful man, the good one, rejoices both in gifts expended and in gifts retained from the gift. For, striving to climb to the upper part, where the house hung supported on lofty columns, while he sets his slipping steps on the stairs, falling forward he crashed down, and renewing his frequent ruin on the steps, fallen, he pressed the ground with his bruised body.

But behold, while his weary, fractured limbs groan with savage pain, an angel, venerable with holy countenance, stands by the afflicted saint, bringing sudden solace, hastening to wash the wounds with poured-on waters, gradually touching them with the anointing of an unknown juice, drawing the thin liquid with a gentler touch. Whereby his limbs, watered, soon felt the swift healing, his body softened together with the moistened veins, and at once his limbs grew firm and strong, and on every side the pains, driven off by the Lord's command, gave way. Swift were his steps, his mind lively, the joys of heart and mouth, his countenance concordant with a thankful breast. While he praises the Lord, he arrogates nothing to himself thereby, and he made known his merit, because he denied that he had deserved it. To what end again, O barren reed and hissing voice sent forth from broken stalks, do you call?

This glory of the great men is surely worthy to be augmented by the voices of trumpets, nor will so great a voice be able to burst forth through small stalks, as it would avail to fill even lofty clarions. But if so narrow a pipe be aided even by a slight breath, which the blessing of a holy mouth has sent, if it cannot utter great things, it will at least speak sweet ones. Therefore the conquered ambition will hold the first part of the book. This door will unlock the remaining praises, by which, after degenerate dreads through many ages, the lost liberty shone forth upon a corrupted world.

Once, exalted by wars successfully waged, Maximus, now proud by the death of one master, by the exile of another, his crime cleaving evilly to his character, had increased it by the outcome, and the unhappy man, the more by his proud heart, had often torn open the wounds of his depraved nature — prosperity, more grievously about to fall in favorable affairs. This king, therefore, the frequent shepherds of God approached from a different side, whose perpetual care it was either to preserve or to feed the Lord's pious flock, striving to release the accused, to loose the bound, to give rest to the weary, solace to the mournful, to entreat their homeland for exiles and to beg pardon, to earn for the proscribed wretches their substance and their life.

And while these men strove to hasten this with kindly zeal, gradually the holy gravity of the fathers, subjected with timid assent to the swelling man, began to grow exceedingly cheap, given over to flatteries — not such as the ancient gravity of priests was wont to pay, but the foul ambition of clients, cast down at the nod of the puffed-up patron. Among whom Martin alone, with steadfast heart and mouth, stained his pious inward parts with no dye, nor did trembling cowardice with its deforming blemish oppress his mind, humble to Christ, lofty toward the heights of the world. Indeed, persevering steadfastly in his very prayers, if there was any cause for asking the proud king, he obtained the wish of the one desiring as though by the right of one commanding.

Often too the entreaty assailed the holy man with frequent supplication, that he might come, though late, when so often asked, to the banquets of the king, which he had scorned. For he, scorning pomp and revolving his deeds, utterly refused to join the table of one to whose crimes he thought it a sin to bind his holy mind even by slight assent, casting in his teeth the slaughter of his masters and an empire gained by blood, the death of a king and the reign of a tyrant. But when, wearying his pious heart with continual entreaties, the king sought to wash away his faults, and, purging the crimes laid against him, said that the rule of empire had been imposed upon him by the terror of those commanding, that it was no sin that a power, wrung out by sword and arms, should be weighed down by the mass of envy, being free of ambition:

and that the Lord had sent no small signs of His favor by so great a triumph, nor was anyone, however lukewarm or small in faith, ignorant that the issues of waging war for a man hang upon the nod of God: but more manifestly, if one inferior in number, in power, and in men should conquer the more confident, that he had conquered with Christ as judge: nor indeed had he done anything bloody, even after the wars, with a savage mind, nor had the fury of the sword availed anything after the battle-line, but after arms and trumpets the innocent swords had ceased from the crime of slaughter, and a peace stained by no blood at all — repeating such things often, and praying more insistently with entreaties, he softened the holy man's harshness by frequent reasoning, so that, forgiving the fault and won over by zeal, he came to the dishes of the royal table, before despised.

Hope, now nearer, exults over so great a gift. The festal day rejoices to shine forth with a glad assembly. Chosen nobles are added, whom the splendor of neighboring honor links close to the royal heights, distinguished by robes of state, holding the arbitration of laws and arms, the rights of the forum or the trumpets of war. Among these, in the middle, where the curve of the couch is bent, the presbyter reclined. On the right and left the rank of mighty leaders, their limbs placed upon the golden couch-frames, pressed down the purple of precious fleece spread beneath. At the king's right hand the elder, venerable with holy countenance, sat, such as Moses, bringing back the pious laws, descended from the sacred summit of the mountain, gleaming with the excessive brightness of his changed countenance, when the splendor of his face revealed the brightness of his heart, nor could the veils restrain the new light.

The crowd of servants marvels in silence, rejoicing together, and the devoted court vies with modest services to serve so holy a man. All have one care, that of the longed-for office; less is the reverence for the king. The king himself, present, prefers that Martin should excel. The royal dishes throng the tables set beneath, the purple gleams richly on the lofty couch-frames, soft silks are stirred with crimson dye, and the wool-less skein, skillfully drawn out, glows red, and the metal, softened into threads, is mingled with purple. The hangings, stretched over the proud thresholds, tremble, and the movable curtain of veils nods in the doorways. All things shine with varied adornment, above and below, raised up with pigments, paved with marble, roofed with metals.

Capacious crystals support the glassy waters, and since the very form both of the shell and of the wave is seen, you would not think the enclosing vessel held the liquid it had received. The cups are poured out with gems and drunk from gems, the tawny gold of an electrum mass marks them off. The art was in high price, the material more precious than the art. These shine with gems, these vessels stand out with figures, some are rough to the sight but smooth to the touch, and they are present with gleaming platters and open dishes. The fruits of air and grove, of land and sea. After hunger was removed by the feast, then the only wish was to relieve the parched thirst. The servants snatched up ice enclosed in gold and snowy waters: others to offer dripping bowls. The care and vigor of the servants anticipate the wish of those who would ask.

Then the king, yielding his office, commanded the hesitating attendant to offer the cup to Martin, and at the same time, with the order thus reversed, ardently desiring to come after so holy a right hand, so that the bowl, made more precious by the touch of so great a mouth, might steep the poured-in liquid with heavenly dew. But the merest drop of the wine wetted no one; scarcely was it found, by a moistening touch, upon his lips. When the king reached out his right hand to receive the cup, Martin handed it instead to his own presbyter, measuring out the honor by faith. Merit of heart, not the purple of the king, prevailed; the diadem yielded to faith set above it. With astonished spirits the hearts of the onlookers stood amazed at the man, and his constancy, in even slighting the king, pleased more than it was wondered at; nor did the canker of envy scorch the man who weighed the import of so great a deed.

What priest, however great, would dare so much for sacred right even before a lowly judge? Terror did not conquer the steadfast man, nor favor the just one, nor the zeal of the feasting host, nor the wrath of the powerful. O virtue near to God: thus, with the heart withdrawn, you stand as if you yourself were far away, conquering the world that is present. Nor did he fear to disclose firmly to the king himself, beyond all doubt, whatever the kindly Spirit had revealed to him, filling his devout heart with the poured-in gift: the varied outcomes of war—first victorious battles, then in another contest a grievous defeat. All of these his fiery mind saw with pure perception, and so swift outcome proved his words, as if foreseen. For first he routed the king, crushed in the opening fight; then, when the foe returned, he subjected the captive necks to the leader.

Nor is it a wonder that so keen a mind beheld such things, leaving all cares behind with a sublime breast, and flying utterly above the stars with ethereal sense. For often the faithful monks, standing before the doors, marveled at him mingling words with angelic speech. Thus his body felt nothing bodily, nor did his limbs feel anything that perishes; and to his soul, now enjoying liberty, the weights of the by-no-means-subdued flesh did no harm. Even the demon himself, by whatever guise he tried to deceive with his countenance, lay revealed in his vain striving, transparent; nor was he permitted to play by changing his shapes.

At last, when in his trembling there lay open no avenue of flight, the demon breathed out his savage venom through raging words, longing to inflame with his sayings the man unharmed by his snares, and, having slipped away, to tear him with the poison of his tongue, pouring forth empty rages now with broken motions. Nay more, shaking a right hand dripping with pitiable blood and displaying with bloody horn the crimes of slaughter, gleeful at evils and laughing at sorrowful things, he burst into the holy cell with a deadly murmur, pouring out a hellish voice through impudent words: 'Behold,' he says, 'the proofs of a fury at last fulfilled. Chance handed me these arms; this weapon I, the violent one, drove home, conquering by the submission of a beast—but by our own crime.

Whereby the fruit of the crime is the greater, that man of yours and of your flock has fallen as a solace to our wrath, renewing our exhausted strength with the longed-for blood.' At once Martin commands all the summoned nobles to go swiftly with eager affection and visit the cells of the monks, lest perchance the lying brigand's deceitful words should at least have told some truth about their own offense—as the voice of mournful defendants is wont to be, when, under the savage torturer, they confess deeds deserving punishment. Then they report that none whatsoever among the brothers was marked by that token. He had himself at once counted before them the whole flock of saints, who, enclosed in the fold, despised the rage of the gnashing wolves at the gates—the flock that the watchful Martin nourished for the eternal King. Yet they say that one had set out, hired for a wage, to keep off the cold with wood brought by cart.

Martin orders that this man be sought out in haste, believing that the man, now made a companion to the monks, even through his dealings with them, lay exposed to the snares of the confessed brigand. Nor was there delay before the present conjecture was proved. Going out, not far from the threshold, they perceive the wretched man half-dead, breathing out the last breaths of life. He, however, loosing his eyes that languished in death, scarcely drew a thin voice from his icy breast, with the broken murmur of a sobbing, severed tongue, setting forth the causes of his wound.

For by chance a young bullock, while the loosened bonds of its harness were being tightened with the reins, with neck free to roam and rebellious against its master, had pierced through his soft groin with its hellish horn; and after he had laid this open and fell silent with closed mouth, then weary he laid down his head in death, and a saffron pallor flooded his face and limbs from his icy body. By this end he perished. Yet to us this end too displayed Martin's merit, to whom it was thus granted to know the future, so that the veils of the flesh in no way slowed his swift mind with earthly weight.

In vain did the all-too-lying and cunning enemy try either to cloak his frauds with snares or to deceive with shapes, fruitlessly squandering these contrivances so many times: daring to counterfeit the forms of the fictitious gods, and to fashion the image of those whose worship he himself fashioned—now Jove's incestuous face and Mars's frenzy, Mercury bound about the heels with false wings, Vulcan with his tongs, Phoebus with the plectrum of his heart or lyre, depicting Minerva mad with shield and crest, wanton Venus, Diana shaking the wild-haunts, the incestuous sister bound by the unlawful law of the bridal chamber, and one who, by her brother's crime, loses the name of sister.

Displaying in such shapes deeds worthy of his own kind, and betraying his own crimes by a counterfeit face, he could in no way slip away; but, his fraud uncovered, the demon, mocked, lost his cunning contrivances, breathing out his last venom through impudent words and harassing the unharmed man with insults and with his voice. Bearing all these with patience, his countenance unmoved, scorning flatteries, laughing at reproaches and revilings, and recognizing the enemy as deceitful in either disguise and crime, the man could neither be wounded nor be moved by praise, opposing to the javelins of words the standards of salvation, and shattering the brigand's weapons by the barrier of the cross. He who, often assailing the devout heart with harsh complaints, impiously dared—oh grief!—to cast in a devout man's teeth his love of devotion, thus echoing aloud before witnesses, so that his deadly sayings might lie open to many.

'Why,' he says, 'if you condemn crimes, do you take up those hateful to the Lord; and, while blaming vice, do you seek the company of sinners? Perhaps the deeds of your own people lie hidden from you—deeds done at my urging, which I, for the most part, counseled, and of which I was a great share. Who, I ask, will approve a man hostile to deeds while fair to those who do them?' He replied: 'Serpent swollen with ancient venom, this is not the sentence of the Lord Christ concerning the wretched—He who, if He sees the fault brought to an end, casts away His wrath, setting no time for punishment except in the time of harm, warning that sins should not remain, remitting those that are ended, gentle to past things if there be present correction, recalling the wandering, granting pardon to the recalled, patient toward the perverse, clement and gentle toward those who return:

He, the life of men, the death of sins, the pitier in both, commands the destruction of wickedness to be the cause of salvation. Nor should I despair, trusting in His proven goodness, since, although your crimes outstrip all guilts—you, without whom no one commits any wickedness, mingled with all sins . . . deservedly to be joined to punishments—if at last, even late, you would but grieve over your long-committed deeds, by which His clemency might snatch you from the midst of the flames.' O blessed devotion, that anyone should so trust in the goodness of God the Lord that he benignly dares to promise even those things which he confesses are not promised, while he tries to recall the very author of crime from his accustomed sin, lifting sin from its kindling and cutting back the hateful stock from its first root!

But since our murmurings, striving to sing of frequent triumphs, have touched upon the hellish tyrant, and, wishing to recount the sequence of his wars among the titles of praise, we have made the enemy's name resound—this story too we shall tell in the discourse that Christ shall grant, a thing done in that age which we greatly admire. Once a young man, joined to the companions of the saints and the ministers of Christ, Clarus by deed and by name, had set his cell not far from the holy teacher, gathering many brothers into a just fellowship, so that a measured harmony might chant with devout hymns, and concordant glory might resound through joined tongues.

A certain crafty young man, bearing feigned pretenses composed with cunning wiles, counterfeiting the whole appearance of an innocent, deceiving under the name of a monk, sought him out in sheep's clothing but with the mind of wolves, breathing the ancient venom from his corrupted breast. And at first, mingled with the saints only in body, the dissembler put on the appearance of the common life. Afterward, accustomed to boast of angelic speech, he had lifted his deceitful mind to vain heights, doomed to fall the more loftily from the summit of his elated heart. Nay more, persuading by portents, he compelled incautious hearts, as though by proofs his merits were already approved, to put more trust in his swollen words than in his trifling signs.

At times he was wont to boast that the Lord conversed with him, as though a frequent messenger constantly brought him word from the heavenly throne, displaying great favor in his shared speech. Nor did he fear to compare himself to the holy prophets, breathing the lying words of a deceitful brigand. And now indeed he had driven many to believe his fabricated words. Clarus alone, with steadfast breast, repelled the deceitful murmurs from his holy sense; and although the frenzied man feigned the Lord's wrath, he could neither terrify the grave man nor deceive the cautious one, promising a power to be proved through many signs. For, that miracles might capture the deceived minds, he wished to confound the astonished with such words as these:

'This night,' I say, 'God, lest the grace He has willed to decree to my merits be thought empty, will bestow on me, clad in the fleece of a snow-white garment. When these gifts lie manifest before your eyes, then at least—if you hesitate to believe my words—believe what you see, and readily praise the favor at the sight.' Then indeed a wakeful expectation was bent on so great a marvel, to see where the order of the foretold novelty would lead. But behold, now almost at the time of midnight, when night, divided, looks upon neither day far off, near to the coming day and not much removed from the departed—the earth, shaken, trembled; a vast crash thundered horribly on every side; and a fire fouler than darkness flickered with a terrible torch, counterfeiting light. The trembling hearts are terrified by the sudden sight.

At once, therefore, eager and made keener by the very success with which the order of the foretold fraud had thus advanced, he gave a fleece to one to touch and to see. He swiftly summoned the rest, lest the strange form of the composed deceit should deceive but one. Those called marveled, close at hand, at the garment glittering with whiteness and purple, and at the woven fabric softly yielding to anxious right hands, while their fingers ran over the slender threads of the fine web. Yet it could not be recognized from what fleece the cloak, though brought near, shone, having been drawn; but the garment, seen by sight or believed by touch, held the assumed figure—false in either case.

Then Clarus urged all on with wholesome exhortation, that in matters so confused by mighty portents they should return to the Lord with prayers, since He alone could betray the hidden deceits and bring forth from their darkness the brigand's fraud. Wakeful, the whole crowd more swiftly flies to the accustomed sweet measures of the psalms and seeks solace from the holy in hymns, that they might drive off sluggish sleep with quickened body, and conquer the nocturnal silences with sacred songs. Tears succeed the psalms, sighs the voice: the heart cries out though the tongue be silent; every hour is woven into the praise of the Lord by the alternation of mind and mouth.

Meanwhile, as soon as they see the darkness of the night growing thin with the dawn now near, when the forerunning Dawn announces the welcome sun, scattering its blush and veiling the straggling stars with saffron tint, they vie to lead the man, seized, to the cell of holy Martin, that at last, with the cloud broken up, the put-to-flight demon might lose the fabrications of his crafty wit, betraying his fraud detected before so great a judge. But he, struggling, now with the peril already nearer, strove to refuse and to escape the holy right hands of those gripping him, halting his step and resisting with his voice, crying out that he was forbidden to approach the cell of holy Martin and to bring forth that garment from the threshold. Then indeed they press on: his trepidation betrays the fraud, and his pale cowardice lays bare the composed deceits.

The image of the garment vanished in the hands of those gripping it, and the apparition, dissolved, left their attentive eyes—just as the fleeces of mists with airy threads, which weave the hollow valleys with a counterfeit flood, when the shining sun lifts its pure orb higher, lay bare the plains revealed, their shadows dispersed. This trophy too, holy Martin, affix to the cross, by which you despoil the savage tyrant of his feigned garment, rending the airy lies of the woven web and scattering the floating fleeces of the hollow cloud. O fury never to cease, do you rise again, struck down so many times? So many times, losing your attempts, you rush on and fall; nor does your audacity set an end, nor does success bring its vow to pass.

Do you, impious one, counterfeit the face of the Lord, and try to deceive the light with darkness, so that with such a guise your senseless madness, with composed shapes, might mock the holy man, breathing out your last venom though without a wound, and exhaling your spent rabidness with jaws now empty?

You do not penetrate the pure sense with your foul gloom, nor do the shadowing veils of mists shut out the true sun; and although, radiant with purple and glittering with gems, you have set ruddy gold beneath your lying feet, charging the true king with a false diadem—oh grief!—crying out that you, treacherous one, are the eternal Christ, so that perhaps impiety, veiled under a devout name, might lie hidden, counterfeiting God, urging the blessed man to believe the enemy under the lying guise of a deity, and to bend his devout limbs in honor of a demon, so that—alas, the wickedness!—a misplaced religion might make the holy man a sacrilegious one, and, by believing, deprive him of the merits of faith; and so that the deceitful cups of poison, treacherously offered, might conceal the dread juice beneath the sweetness of honey.

Stretch these things out for unknowing minds; contrive these snares for raw recruits, men who, untried, attempt to rehearse the battle-trumpets with weapons they have not yet handled. But he who, accustomed to sweat under no rude arms, and to enclose his lucky standards behind a thrown-up rampart, hides his honorable gray hairs beneath a venerable helmet—he who, learned by much practice, would forestall all things, anxiously exploring which places are safe for setting snares and which, on the other hand, are suspect and to be guarded against, with what skill to wield his shield, with what whirling his spear, what titles may capture a king, what crimes may wound: he will so resist all snares with steadfast gravity, and so guard against deceits with such great reason, that the enemy, broken in open conflicts, may not accomplish by fraud what he cannot by force.

With such strength, then, did Martin the warrior flourish, when the battle-trumpets of Christ were utterly overthrowing the crimes of the corrupted world. He knew how to discern the standard of his King and to trample these pomps in the name of the Crucified. You only counterfeit Christ with a purple cloak and with gold and gems; with foreign thread of the Seres you adorn this guise, wretch—alas!—nor do you know how to deceive. Thus, frustrated, losing the contrivances of your plan so many times, dissolved again into thin air you melt away, and confess your flight by a foul stench. But you, holy one of God, triumph, standing firm in unmoved virtue, to whom you cleave with perpetual strength.

You established your character, unconquered against all crimes—gentle, patient, just, devout, upright, fair, mild, confident, humble, kindly without gall, learned, courteous, easy, placable, keen; a holy bishop, a good teacher, a guest to be loved, marvelous in signs, to be imitated likewise in conduct; humble in heart, excelling in mind, venerable in both; for while you grasp praise by fleeing it, you earn it by shunning it; leading the contiguous days into late fasts, and ever most sparing with scanty foods, you scarcely relieved your wearied stomach without burden of flesh. Thus the pleasure of food expelled, thus the pleasure of sleep cast off, lest this earthly burden should press your wakeful mind, but that your body might grow accustomed to the light rule of the soul, watching with zeal for prayer and zeal for reading.

Continuous times clung to these cares; this alone pleased him as rest—to exchange one labor by the succession of another, the unbroken, endless task of prayer. Let us all, exulting, marvel that nature herself yielded to so great a man. Though the lowest cleric, forgetful of so great an honor, had wronged him, he, when wronged, neither swelled with gall nor ever, by the right of a judge, blazed up with love of vengeance against his subjects. Anger did not stir up frenzy, nor joys laughter, nor did grief stir sadness. Holy with reverend gravity, an angelic countenance shone in his venerable body, able to bring forth the face of his holy heart and to display the light enclosed from his sacred breast. Ever God was on his lips, ever mercy. He kept peace in counsel and in desire.

For often envy was wont to arm infected throats with the gall of venom in reproaches, and to inflame the very priests with dire gall, so that they preferred to carp at the devout man with their tongues rather than to equal him by deeds. Nor even thus did anger drive the holy mind even to wishes of repaying. Nay more, with moist face, clement pity poured forth brotherly weeping over so great a crime, beseeching the Lord Christ with a river of tears that He might spare the deceitful words by granting pardon. Thus with a heart ever steadfast against all wounds, it was not anger that stirred up frenzy, but the cause that stirred up grief:

Like a martyr who followed the footsteps of the Lord, receiving the savage ruin of a cloud of stones, when he breathed out his slender life from a blessed breast, demanded that the crimes be remitted to the maddened mob, grieving more over the people's sins than over the wounds of his flesh. The undertaken translation had finished the volume it had begun, running through the pure copies of the saint's book, when suddenly the glory of a hidden history was offered to us, goading the endeavors of our vow—not that it might shine forth better from a wretched mouth what the page of so clear a heart had marked, since the living force of words, gleaming with vivid power, might, softened by meter, lose the inborn vigor.