Life of St Martin 1 part 6/7

Amid the void the accused hangs, and in the air the tormentor, with feet stretched upward, the fleeces of his stiffening garment drawn tight, clinging to his covered limbs, lest, curved in a bent fold or slipped backward, they should bare the shameful members of the suspended body. So, Martin, is your merit, so the holy power, and the glory of Christ's God—to be made known through his servants—surpassing the earth in its titles, reigns also in the air.

It is certain too that, at your supplication, the clouds were dried up, and the hovering ruin of dread hail stuck fast, with the flood of the dense storm-cloud held back deep within—that cloud which, heavy and stiff with the cold of the joined wind, hardened in the waters into stones, was so casting, with frequent whirlwind, the rocks of solidified liquid down upon the lands, that the missiles of the storm-clouds, with their frequent ruins, trampled the crops, orchards, gardens, fruit-trees, vines, and the pierced earth was shaken with a mighty lashing. This plague, ranging widely through the fields of the Senones, and accustomed to fulfill its law of punishment every year, had laid bare the plowlands, beaten down by its constant ruins.

The pale plowman bewailed his lost harvest, lamenting the utterly shattered tops of the stalks; and the digger, often groaning over the vine empty of fruit and shoot, would count his losses from the now-swelling clusters after the year's vows of labor on the slopes. The most sorrowful mother showed the broken branches to her children, accustomed to creep among the gentle apples; and around the pale withered sprouts of the parched field, the rocks resounded, echoing back with the lowing of cattle. The wasting herds ranged the empty recesses, attesting with what groaning they could their plaintive cause. Therefore, compelled by this evil, all the people, of every age, desiring to win for themselves so illustrious a patron, beseech Martin as suppliants, through an interpreting envoy, that he might strive to appease God and to pray for pardon for the wretched, and at last to drive away the grievous plague.

Enough had been given to punishment: let the clemency of Christ take away at least the excessive disaster after the scourges. Nor truly did the awaited hope deceive the wretched. For as soon as Martin, ever joined and clinging to the Lord, asked the gifts of his accustomed piety, they felt the holy intercession: the tempest, driven off, grew calm, and the day shone clear with pure serenity, or the sprouts were moistened with the longed-for showers. Nor was the grace confined within a brief span, but, commending its gifts at extended bounds for a long time, the more pleasing, it remained through four full lustres; nor did they feel the losses of the mad storm before the Lord, at the closing of the present life's span, took up his blessed friend to true repose. So in piety he passed the times of each life: salvation before to the lands, but now lofty among the stars.

But now the too-long page of a flagging book weakens the titles and deeds of the illustrious patron. While I, a small man, speak of great things, and sluggish of lofty ones, I, a trembling reporter, corrupt the splendor of his praise. But what shall I do? In verse I have vowed to run through the history: things narrated fear judgment, things suppressed bring guilt. More rightly perhaps the reader will leave these things despised, than the devout hearer will seek out things wholly withdrawn. And before, my earlier discourse touched upon the merciless Avitianus: now the order of the work is recalled to him. This man, surpassing savage tyrants in dread ferocity, thirsting for the grim torments of the mournful accused, spared a little, more gentle, the city of the Turones.

This man, betraying only the traces of human sense, submitted his rebellious mouth, albeit, to holy reins, restraining his inborn fury at Martin's commands. And indeed clear proofs of this healing thus came to light on a certain day. The venerable Martin was approaching the dread seat under such a judge, that ferocity might be able to grow gentler toward such great offices, bound by obedience to the holy patron. He chanced to be sitting on a most lofty seat, excelling on a conspicuous throne and swelling with all-too-haughty ambition, when suddenly the holy man, looking toward him, sees the bloody form of a bristling and foul, insane demon, leaning on the neck reclined, fastened upon it, pressing down face-forward with its whole effort.

When the holy man, with the breath of his blessed mouth, touched it from afar and, applying the terror of the word, put it to flight, Avitianus, unaware of his companion, believed that he had received a grievous punishment of a curse in image. He replies: 'Do not believe that you have by chance been marked by my judgment, or that this is a sign of a sudden impulse. This was piety, not anger, which rages against the enemy; it pities and grieves for the wretched man. This breath of ours bursts forth against that one from the whole depth of my breast—the one whom I saw pressing these lofty benches down with horrid effort and weighing down upon your neck, face-forward. Cease now to bear the fellowship of such a brigand; trust more in pious counsels. Let detected cunning be put to flight; let wariness, experienced in deceits, repel them.

Let it now shame you to obey the accused, to serve the one put to flight.' To such a demon, cast out, the door of the heart was barred, and the power of its own seat was snatched away. Hence the judge, at last gentler, his own judge without a judge, and the grievous burden was cast back from his shaken-off neck. So he put to flight all the enemies, thrust out from their seat, absolving the hearts of men, nor leaving the temples to the fugitives. For whatever the vain error of the shrines had built up, he was eager to lay waste far and wide in headlong ruins. At no great distance, removed from the aforesaid city, there was a village, once the traces of an old fort, now inhabited by the servants of God and the ministers of Christ. Ambatia the earlier inhabitant called its ancient name. Here the senseless madness of a sacrilegious assembly had once built a lofty temple of immense work.

Rising into a cone, it stretched its wondrous work upward into the height of a towered mass, thus indeed to perfection, with its stones ever joined in a frequent and ordered course, so that the lofty burden might not totter, nor a crack lie open, but a fair joining might bind together the stones set close. The more for this, those lacking the reason of art stood amazed with astonished minds. So a foolish religion, to be ashamed of, grew strong, venerating in place of a deity the mere ingenuity, and the genius of a god from the name of the craftsman. This temple, therefore, the holy Martin had ordered to be overthrown. He reproaches the faithful presbyter for the commands long neglected. Yet that man says these orders could not have been carried out with moderation. Too arduous, he teaches, are these things for weary and few ministers of God—things which scarcely the gathered companies of an emptied countryside, or sweating cohorts, could accomplish.

By these words a just excuse lay wholly open. Yet his hope is not broken. He does not prepare vows of peoples to be summoned, nor does he hasten to lead down to the village of Ambatia the throngs gathered from the whole world. He calls upon heavenly aid. All his hope is in him who rules heaven and earth, for whom the air does soldier-service and the elements keep an abiding awe. Again, therefore, his customary garb of bristling hair and goads accustomed to pierce his reclined skin, the fleeces joined to rebellious hardness with stiff threads into wounds; again the sleepless groans, the fasts renewed once more with meals deferred, and the night's labor joining itself again to the soil that would soon take its place. Nor did long delay put off this vow.

Behold, on the returning day a violent tempest roars around the temple, with the whirlwind of winds bursting into floods of rain. The divided clouds are split with a shaken-out light, and the mass of waters, gathered above the heights, dashes against the smitten lattice with a hoarse-sounding whirlwind, and the battle of the storm-clouds renders back a wrung-out crash. The earth trembled and, shaken from its deepest depth, spat back the hanging foundations of the imposed mass, scattering the ruin spread far from the structure, and rolling down the steep slopes the fragments of the burst mass. O too-beloved of God, at your supplication Christ has now dried up the falling storm-clouds in the lofty air.

At your vows again the swift storms returned, the blackening clouds girt with heavy winds, bidden to spare enough, breaking the strong masses, gentle to the grasses but pitiless to the hard rocks. Nor would this merit be less, nor with a different cause the glory be alike, imitating like triumphs. The loftiest props of a column raised an idolatrous image, with joined stones, far up to the heights, so that the higher and more elevated figure might look down from that throne upon the wretched people with its feigned deity. This mass too, when Martin wished to overthrow it, all the preparations for such vows were wanting; but the hope toward the Lord remained ever ready.

Therefore, when with swift sense he flew back to the upper air and sought speedy aid from the King of heaven, a fiery column, like in appearance but unlike in light, gliding down, shattered the fragile ruin, rolling about sulphurous flame with crackling embers, lifting up a smoking cloud from the burnt dust and the vapor overflowing from the consumed mass. So, Martin, with ruddy heaven, so with the whirlwind of wind, you join twin triumphs, either by cloud or by fire. Nor is it a wonder that the Lord should fulfill his promises to a faithful servant—to so holy a servant—who had once said to his servants, too astonished at such great miracles, that he would give these proofs of true faith, so that, believing, they might approve greater signs than these. What wonder is it that the favoring Lord fulfilled the same things

—through his servants, who, having deigned to promise more to his pious ministers, called their lofty hearts upward? For just as the heavenly page of the book sets forth, attesting a woman's faith, that after the floods of much blood and the grim wasting of a consumed body, swift salvation returned at the touch of his garment: so to Martin was given the glory of the same deed, but with God healing, who even now, lofty in the citadel of the starry throne, is proven to be touched through the members which cleave to the eternal Head by a holy joining. What was not gentle to the pious man, what monsters were not subject to the faithful one? More often the bidden serpents obeyed, nor was their inborn ferocity present in their conquered venoms. A dread serpent swam past near the neighboring shallows and furrowed the glassy waters. Its head stood out from the waves with its neck.

In haste it cleft the surface of the river with its breast. The remaining length trailing through the blue bent its slippery windings with varied motion, twisting the light, curved coils of its tail, and darting its quivering tongue, intent upon wounds. When Martin scarcely saw it in the middle of the water, swift and now at any moment drawing near the neighboring land, he compelled it with these words to return swiftly backward, bound fast by the power of God and the name of Christ: 'By no means do I bid you strive any further toward the forbidden bank.' The evil beast stood still in the midst of the flood, and a stiff torpor knit together its broken limbs, and its members little by little stuck fast in their captive swimming, until, with the tide of the structured channel barred off, its languid neck floated upon the deep that let it pass, and the sluggish riverbed bore the half-dead snake backward.

And would that the faithful compassion of the holy patron might, with like power, convert our venom—which has corrupted the slippery ways of a life ill spent, ever plunging my sins into the rapid age—and compel us to remember again our forgotten salvation, lest our members, prone, be sunk in the muddy deep, and the body be drenched, infected in the flood of vices; but that our steps, stable, may stand firm above on the margin of virtues, on the side of faith, and trample earthly joys, and desire, with swift effort, to escape the things that flow away. With this one and brief vow let me halt a little at the river, while, recalling the titles of the illustrious patron, I run through them—to whose merit the flood of the bidden waters, rejoicing, obeyed in submitting itself to the holy commands.

Throughout the year continuous fasts were observed; only the solemn feast of holy Easter relaxed them a little. On those days alone he tormented his limbs more gently; then alone he would take a small fish for food. But while the times were being kept for the coming festal seasons, the customary catch failed the vow of duty. When he learned that the labour of the fishermen had been in vain, and that the nets, stretched out, had drifted through the empty deep, with the plaintive words of the mourners' murmuring — for the deacon present was a faithful confirmer of these things by his trustworthy lips, whom a more pressing care of this service had made watchful through the early hours of the past night, and weary through the spent part of the present day, a witness present to the common toil:

When this anxiety stirred the holy man's compassionate heart, moved with godly grief he said: 'Go, and quickly search the river with skill, crossing its swift currents. Even now the nets will enclose for you a captive prey.' Without delay, trusting in the words of so great a master, the deacon hastened. To his trembling vow hope was restored, nor, though delayed, did the swift catch deceive him. For as soon as he hedged in the nearby shallows with a slender net, the struck line trembled as the cork bobbed, betraying entangled prey above the trackless dark-blue waters. He quickly drew the snared pike to the neighbouring shore, rejoicing. Then, leaning forward with his whole chest, he wrapped his moist arms around the slipping fish.

The slippery prey scarcely clung to his bare forearms, and, shaken, almost slipped from his wet arms, until little by little, leaving its kindred element, the dying fish breathed out its frail life into the air, and trembling opened its mouth in a faint, languid gasp, flapping with the sluggish motion of its rejected tail. The monks' joys marvelled at their fulfilled vow, who had come out from neighbouring cells to such spectacles, trusting that the word spoken from the saint's holy breast would be fulfilled by such a sponsor. O truly the mirror of eternal power!

From Him these gifts flow to you, who once bade the disciples, weary with toiling in vain through the night's labour, to cast their nets, sending a numerous catch into the nets, enclosing chosen fish for the holy banquets, fish which, snatched from the very midst of the world's whirlwind, the teaching of holy faith might draw to the Lord. Often God has willed to set forth the lofty merit of the blessed and to bring illustrious men to light, so that, more clearly to them whom the world's glory had utterly raised on high as witnesses, the signs of His powers brought forth among the peoples might shine.

For then Arborius, illustrious at the summit of the prefecture he had held, saw, while he was bringing the holy rites to God, Martin's hand glowing, shining with the light of flashing gems, and a quivering radiance clothing his fiery right hand with precious purple, and he heard the crash of jostling stones resound. Not such jewels have painted the standards of generals, nor do such diadems crown the brows of kings, but such as the Lord's sentence sets, as merited gems, in the bright crowns of the saints at the end. Nor is there any doubt that he who, beyond man's measure, shone in the manifold flower of virtues by the surpassing uprightness of his faith, is the one whose merit the comfort of the angelic word in his presence — the blessed page of the historic book attests.

For when he was returning deeply grieved from the city of Trier — where, while the king was wroth, he feared the death of the wretched whose lives he sought from him, and, compelled to relax his own customary strictness, he had looked more mildly upon the Ithacian guilt, urged mercifully to spare the condemned cause and again to restore the new covenants of holy peace — as an angel revisited him, sorely afflicted with grief, manifest in speech and face before him, he brought, gentle, comfort to his sad friend, soothing his anxious heart with conferred words, teaching that the decision must be changed, absolving the matters entrusted. Even so, marking the heralding of a chief prophet, the heavenly messenger with holy lips made Zacharias foreknow the rising of the holy son, promising the voice to come after the ordained silence.

In short, a not unequal merit produced an equal order; and as to the one came offspring, so to the other came grace, gleaming the more brightly with virtue's added light. For often the blessed nearness of the holy cell terrified the demons driven from a captive breast, not yet compelled by the words or voice of one present, and the blessed virtue, departing afar from its consecrated dwelling. Thus the signs, stretching far and wide, gleamed exceedingly, attesting the Lord's present favour, not content with the soil alone, but ever more frequently bursting forth afar against the very waves by Martin's titles. The sailors, tossed by an immense whirlwind, saw — while the fiercer wave of the mad storm raged — how much the saint availed even by his name alone. A ship was cleaving the midst of the Tyrrhenian sea over its marble surface, hastening through the blue with its sails spread wide.

The swift prow was cleaving the deep beneath it, breaking the whitening waves with its opposing breast, leaving long traces of foaming wakes — when suddenly the clouds spread a covered sky, moist fleeces curtained the darkening dome, and the light, hidden away, perished in the pitch-black storm-cloud. Strong winds set themselves to overturn the sea, and the wet red sands were mingled with the waves. The lofty masses were broken by the violent whirlwind. The hanging billows, raised by an upheaved wave, lifting up too-unsteady hills aloft, when they fell back, were dissolved, shattered in repeated ruins, and, collapsing, sent forth countless crashes afar. The sails fell; the ropes rang with a trembling creak.

Now it lay hidden close to the clouds, with its mountain-ridge cut off; again it tottered, dangling perilously on the high crest, fearing a doubtful fall in either deep; but others smote the sides resisting the waves, and, broken, rebounded from the dashed framework of the planks, filling the torn vessel with such frequent spray. The sea's violence shook loose the wrenched-off tiller, the helmsman flung far away. Dread shook the hearts of the terrified, wrenching their inward parts with a trembling tremor and wetting their pallid cheeks with no mere spray. Confused groans and the murmurs of a tearful voice, and sighs broken by ceaseless sobbing, of the weeping, bewailed a like lament in the face of near death. Meanwhile, a certain man, compelled by utmost terror, but not yet instructed in the reason of true faith, sought heavenly aid with such a cry:

'Unknown to me, but rightly known by the merit of His servant whom I revere, through whom Thy glory shines forth — O God, have mercy for Martin's sake, drive away the peril, snatch us out. For the saint, as I remember, proved all things easy for Thee by his frequent power, that bishop.' Without delay the seas fell, the wave laid low, and the level plain of calm waters lay flat, and gently, with a moderated breeze, the west wind, driving the battered ship, set it in the longed-for harbour. Thus Christ proved the merit of His servant through all the elements, and stretched abroad the titles of His saintly friend, glorifying the illustrious name above the trackless deep-blue waters.

Nor is it wonderful that Martin's faith, with God favouring, could prove so many things — if at any time, watchful in his blessed vigils, with all the power of prayer he had borne happy vows to the Lord present; if, by his name alone, the grace deserved to shine forth even among the wholly ignorant and far removed. Although the page, striving toward chief praise, draws back its foot, struck with awe, and shudders to climb with worthless words to so great a mass of virtues — who is proven, not to have healed one man, but forthwith a whole household, by his intervening cure. A witness is at hand: lofty Lycontius, in place of the illustrious prefecture, assigning these gifts with a thankful mouth, whose house a single plague, spreading far and wide in manifold ruin, had overwhelmed.

Everywhere the wasting bodies of the half-dead, flung down through every part, crowded the bristling thresholds with their exhausted limbs. Sad grief was everywhere, and frequent sighs, continual weeping, and groans wrenched utterly from the cavern of the breast, the breath rending the flanks, and constant vomiting, the skin parched, a flame implanted in the marrow kindling the stomach, a heavy wave of vapour. Those bodies of the half-dead grew sadly pale before the neighbouring corpse, and the crowd, sadder at such an example, dreaded the kindred deaths of the dying. But others, wretched, feared even to touch their lifeless dear ones with too-trembling duty, lest scattered contagions should sow grievous diseases. Fear had withdrawn these from their duty, but grief had heaped up the others' anxious vitals with manifold mourning.

But those who would bury the limbs of the dead in their final tombs, postponed to a like death not long after, carried similar diseases to the sad thresholds. The healing hands availed nothing, nothing the herbs which often by their own juices had worked great remedies for the sick. Confounded therefore by such a calamity of his own people, and distrusting his own prayers, the man labours to appease the Lord by the intervention of the saint and the merit of so great a patron, pleading the plaintive calamity with Martin as intercessor. He, although he felt the burden of a hard cause exceedingly heavy, the Judge being now offended, nevertheless, merciful, received with anxious affection the vows of the petitioner.

Nor did he cease before, tormented by continual labour, he wore away his parched limbs with exhausted marrow, and beat the hard earth with prostrate effort, doubling his accustomed fastings with added penalties, nor closing his eyes even with slight sleep, goading his wasted flesh with a bristly garment — until the Lord, moved by zeal for so great a friend, at last grew wholly mild, His anger ended, restoring the happy gifts of the longed-for healing; and the crowd of his people, embracing the giving Lord with thanks, received him with all their vows, attesting their joys, as he recounted the titles and deeds of his illustrious patron.

He, after the ruin had been driven away by Martin's prayer, thus hastening to repay the saint according to his merit, brought a hundred pounds of the aforesaid silver to his thresholds, recompensing the rewards with offered gifts, that even a small reward might prove the physician's merit, and the vows of a thankful, bountiful man might be made plain by his zeal. The saint, rejoicing in the duty of his dear friend, did not retain those rewards that attested the devotion of a devoted heart, while, cautious, he pondered the expense of the giver, that the gifts sent before might bring back the fruit of faith; nor again did he take them into his own use, lest the wish of possessing should stain the saint's mind, but, committing them to God, he stored them up in high heaven, that, set apart from the holy thresholds and given to the redeemed, they might now serve numbered faith, releasing captives from harsh penalties — riches scorned, that they might keep their strictness.

Go therefore, O bishop, following what was sent before, demanding back what was promised, to the bright citadel of lofty heaven, having obtained a star-bearing home and a glowing crown, you who were able to bind the whole rage and all the fury of the dread demon into a tiny fly. But we shall ever venerate your present limbs, until you return to eternal life with your body, joined to the tombs of the saints, to be united to their crowns. Scarcely could you hide your face from us, remaining with us in love. Crowded peoples often visit you, the cure lives in your presence, the gifts of longed-for healing are at once at hand. The words are silent, but the signs shine bright. If in body you are drawn a little from sight, you are seen present by your power.

This I pray, that you may be willing manifestly to be present always in the heart of the wretched poet, so that, when meditation has finished the song, the transcribed prayer may hold its praise. You renew our care for renewed murmurs, while you prove your life by power — not a priest shut in by the law of death, and the survivor of your own flesh without flesh, you are discerned, sought after, touched, and held. While you bestow present help, you display honour, standing by the seeker and never hidden from the one who prays. How well the neighbouring spirit embraces the nearby limbs, and grace bathes the holy stone! Nothing is far off to knocking faith. Crying hearts plead their own causes without voice or murmur. He reads the words of the mind who looks into the meaning and visits the heart and surveys the hidden cavern of the breast.

Recalling five things before, I marked the deeds in little books, choosing few out of many. How small a portion of so great things is known to us? What has one man attained? With how great a reward he weighs a scanty labour! Again with unworthy mind I attempt the praises: such great vows the bosom bears by the goodness of so good a patron. Holy grace goes before merit: the palm is held, nor is the burden felt. Not yet has the care of toil been tasted by me: what He bids me wish is already the pledge of the gift. O how many tongues could a greater eloquence adorn with this good work! It does not suffer the accustomed songs to be repelled: it trusts good things, which it knows to be its own.

For it is certain that He Himself commanded those things which the interpreter, sent by Him, thinks must be attempted — associated and clinging close, and ever reverencing the precepts of so great a master, the happy teacher destined to live in perpetual age. He does not narrate the uncertainty of report, nor, credulous, hasten to spread the breezes of rumours through attentive ears. He proves the things seen in person, a most faithful witness stands by, and as advocate brings forth the inspected miracles of faith, offered to his eyes and handed over to vows. Hither from the diverse parts of the world the throngs gather eagerly, the thousands multiply their numerous causes and repeat their prayers. Swift grace gives the aid of longed-for compassion. Rejoicing they exult that, having traversed it, they bear back the swift fruit of their labour. Now indeed the senses besieged by a raging demon call aid hither; swift cure snatches them hither.

The accused are brought and tremble. The confession, wrung out by command, cries aloud. Under the Judge a healthful punishment is discerned, and the invader is bidden to utter his own voices in another's body, from the captive mouth. The Judge is felt though not seen, the impious enemy. The exile hastens to depart from the prey snatched away, fleeing to vanish amid the threatening punishments. Airy chains bind the entangled body. Those you thought wandering, you will marvel to see their limbs bound. The things inspected will confirm faith. Whom punishment has bound, the torments betray him, more constricted with entangled arms, and he strikes the obstacles set before his fastened limbs. What of it, when sinking footsteps on the threshold path sustain an airy journey? The wavering bodies run, and the hollow breeze carries up the imposed flight.

Nay even into the well, which, enclosed within the temple itself, hollow, belches forth health-bringing waters from its spring, the bodies are flung, driven with a headlong leap, the accused demon compelling them downward — who, with head pressed down, thrusts the limbs that go before, the head, into the deep of the gulf, and crushes the brain with the mass of the limbs. But who would not see that, when the submerged bodies rise again, the open depths have lain open, and the supports of favour have softly opened their arms to the received fall? The robber weighs down the limbs, mercy preserves the life. The robber's zeal appears as more help than punishment. Whoever you are wavering and tottering with shaken faith, take heed: the bodies rise again and are drawn to life at Martin's prayer. The deep only swallows the limbs of the wretched, nor does the well crush those it has enclosed with its open mouth. But why do I speak of wells?

A nurturing river attests the work of wondrous power, which, joined to the neighbouring walls of the city, laps the rocks with its flowing. Here, in the middle, it divides the cell and the tomb, and inserts its spreading water through the divided places, ship-bearing and, in the likeness of a strait, scattering itself in a vast whirlpool, and, establishing divisions far from its banks, it wearies the eyes with a more distant view, and, although strong, it tires the arms in swimming across. This river, from the temple which holds the holy limbs and reserves the happy members for eternal praise, the mad demon sought with the wretched body, intending to drown the snatched prey in the neighbouring whirlpool. But so great compassion suffers nothing bloody and takes the most savage rights from the cruel tyrant.

The hardened path is trodden, the firmed water rebels against his steps, and does not wet his hurrying tread. Across the river the throngs marvelled at the dry garments, and the cell, rejoicing, received the man to be cleansed — the cell which long ago had been the happy host of an angelic life. Nor did the minds, troubled at the time, retain anything of what had been done within themselves, restored to their senses by recovered sense. He often utters the sounds of the Huns and the murmurs of those threatening and harsh voices through wild abbreviations. He knew not, when he had attained it, the help made plain under a witness — ignorant of the gift, yet saved by so great a gift. Very often the possessing spirit twisted the tongues to alien murmurs of the wretched man's mouth, so that the words of Gauls flowed in Greek speech, and in speaking they expressed a people not even known by name.