Would anyone think that this man spoke from his own understanding, who utters what is not known to him? From the cavern of the breast the possession bellows and bends the subdued tongue, just as the strings resound that motion which the plectra wander over, and the strings of the sinews speak at the command of the hand. O how often, with God urging, they confess the things to come, and they whose lies ever delight in deceit are compelled, wrung out by the Lord, to speak the truth! What a punishment it is to speak openly! The command draws out the voice, and the suppressed will yields to the mandate.
A man illustrious in virtue, but in his kindly character more renowned, and great in faith, by which he stands the loftier — Aegidius — a hostile siege had hemmed in with a great host, which had walled in the ramparts with weapons set against them, shutting out reinforcements and pressing the besieged with its forces, so that the division might make the besieged's strength less, nor might the allied camps be allowed to join for battle. But by the Lord's protection the thousands were cast down and routed, and the host, going out through the wide-open gates, restores the solid forces with the prince untroubled. Meanwhile the sad neighbourhood grew pale with trembling fear at the peril of so great a leader, and all the anxious care of the fearful peoples hung in suspense, while each thinks he endures a like storm, and in one man wavers whatever rests in one man.
Therefore some one perhaps of those whom a fouler wrath had drawn to the wish of gulping down blood in slaughter, snatched as it were by a whirlwind at the headlong nod of the Lord, and outstripping the swift winds across the blasts and clouds, brought forth from the captive body the series of deeds, proclaiming at that very moment, at the same time, that the city had been freed from so great a siege by Martin's prayer, and that God had given it both to the people and to the leader. Soon manifest faith was made plain and proved the series. The day itself, the same hour it was, with nothing in the order changed, and the punishment compelled the unwilling enemy not to deceive.
As Balaam, desiring to curse the Lord's people, by God's wresting it from him blessed the exulting assembly, not by a wholly different and selfsame order of things came the messenger, declaring that city freed from so great a siege, the city which subdued the headlong Rhone with a soft bridge and joined the twin banks with a connected path, so as to offer a dry road which presses upon the ships from above and, wavering, hangs as a way over the pent-up river. This city too, joined to the present patron, O holy one, you snatch away, and you compel the trembling enemy to confess your vows, which, granted, he would not wish to be yours. The accused stands by and, swifter than the East wind, does not keep silent about the mirror-prophecies of the longed-for slaughter that was lost, and becomes the herald of a salvation hateful to himself. This too the reckoning of the noted hours made plain, completed and disclosed, as the event taught, to the very point of time.
Now indeed toward all, how great the cure with its remedies — not by a healing hand, not brought by a health-giving juice, nor enduring the edge of iron, nor a draught of herb, nor snatching the fire of melted sulphur for the ulcer, but flowing by a healing word and rightly proved by headlong power of faith, which, standing close at hand, invites the trembling to all things, while it heals those who have attained it. Here the blind marvelled at the gifts of an unknown light, here the lame at the brisk running of an enlivened body, here the deaf at the new distinctions of a conferred voice: as many as the causes had brought calamity, so many gifts restore health. Help is ever present, more numerous than the punishments, and present protection puts peril to flight. A paralytic maiden experienced so great a remedy, who afflicted her wretched parents with long grief.
For the violence of disease had taken away all use of her limbs, and, dead beforehand in all her nerves at once, had cast down her lifeless members utterly upon her bed, and, living by groan alone, with weary breathing and scant gasp she shook her panting stomach. She, borne to the merit of the saint by her parents' hands, lay pitiable beside the neighbouring tomb. Now they wet their faces in turn with dewy weeping, and in turn strive with a poured-out river of tears. Mercy moved the saint. Scarcely had the light touch of the blessed olive-oil touched her wretched limbs, when the feet sprang up, the nerves took on vigour, and the strong arms felt the longed-for movements, and the raised hands sported with loosened fingers. At once the wretched ones eagerly seize their votive joys, and, scarcely so trembling, believe what they would rather believe.
The face is changed again with a better serenity, and new miracles seize the features of the clear-eyed countenance. Yet a not long honesty preserved this merit. Those who now burdened the thresholds with constant vows, promising a swift return after such rewards, and that the expense for the poor should soon be relieved by their liberality — whom the saint, as a bountiful priest, nourishes and clothes, while, devout, he bestows accustomed help on the needy, and the ready will grows rich though spent — as the ancient serpent snatched away its dread poison, and the same serpent, who once had persuaded Eve, drove these also, by the envy of like counsel, to trample on neglected faith; then the depraved will, addicted to evil counsels, willing diverse things, unhappy, foul, obeyed their words to lies, forgetful of the inspected favour and utterly oblivious of it.
With a frenzied breast he sought idolatrous rites, changed the appointed journey, and snatched the lively, healed maiden from the Author of life and gave her over to the dread robber, ungrateful to faith, but subject to the enemy. But when the error of the deceived virgin from afar beheld the deadly graves of the hellish tyrant, she fell, and, despoiled of the gift of so great a patron, was given over to her own diseases, her body crushed, until death, doubled by evils and owed to penalties, snatched away the maiden who had been healed by the former gift. How much better had even the present life called her, recollecting the gifts of so great a remedy, to eternal life, so that, believing, she might rightly remember the Gospel word, by which the servant, healed by the Lord's gift, was bidden to avoid his sin, lest he should go on again into the same and expiate his fault with a heavier punishment.
Sometimes He compelled the unjust by a just terror to feel the power of God. For often the rebellious, if precepts do not yet govern them, even stripes compel. When suddenly Gaul, terrified with graver fear at the more dangerous peril, was enduring the Huns as helpers (for you could scarcely bear an ally who stands harder than the foe and repels the bound treaty with savagery), one of these, driven by the goads of a furious demon, an impious robber burst into the Lord's holy house. Then, daring to defile the altar of God with profane step, and gazing about, following his frenzied desires, he snatched away the holy crown with wrenching hand, which, set near, taught the saint's merit, fashioning that crown which, with Christ as Judge, he received, shining in the star-bearing citadel of lofty heaven.
But his eyes felt the guilt, because the lights that are messengers to the heart wished to hide the prey they had perceived. Exulting, he sinned in his gaze and could not behold what he had snatched, and the withdrawn pleasure forsook his eyes. He bewailed his besieged sight as though by a daytime night, and, seeking the comforts of the encompassing light, he grieved that the neighbouring sun thickened into darkness for him. Why does he marvel that his sight is shut by a sudden gloom? Even then he was blind, when wickedly he saw the things to be snatched. But when to a questioning friend he revealed his crime, and to an inquiring companion laid bare his deeds, following his guide as it were preceding by night, by compulsion, he sought the blessed altars with a vow now unlike his former one, subdued now by his own calamity and nearer to salvation. Confessing his crimes, the accused, himself by a healthful judgment...
...wishing to condemn himself by judgment, seems hence to have merited pardon, in that he confesses he had merited punishment. Grief makes up for what must be punished: he restores what he had usurped, that he may receive what was lost; he takes up his own, which he had borne away, he offers. The perverse mind had its punishment, the converted mind its remedy. But another, thirsting for slaughter, more violent in wrath, more fervid than a demon, who, shut up in the captured body, furious, oppressed the wretch by hellish right, struck the besieged body with the deadly demon, a crueller foe than so dread a guest, and plunged the bloody sword into the pierced breast.
But the persisting madness, or the same fury, turned the foaming sword and the right hand dripping with blood against the author of the crime, scarcely the slaughter accomplished, and with the blade unlocked the hiding-places of so great a crime, and seeks through the vitals the wickedly conceived deed. How swiftly the swift judgment proved the vengeance, and a hasty retribution joined itself to such a deed admitted! Nor let anyone think these things harsh, since a few signs sharpen fear; punishment terrifies, dread is the remedy. The people, rejoicing to add adornment to the holy altars, eagerly hastened with the zeal of exulting men.
But when so great an undertaking attempted to transfer beautiful columns to the thresholds of the saint's temple, a certain man, rebelling with blinded heart against such swift endeavours, prepares to go against them or to delay such beginnings, and, driven by the prompting of a furious demon, he dares, moreover threatening his wife that the completed work would be paid for with her weeping, when by chance, dwelling in a nearby field, he had given the implements sought for the work. Without delay, in the shining shallows of a small stream, flung down by his headlong horse, he found no waters that could sink his prostrate body. Doomed to drown, he sought waters and lay down on a thin streamlet: dying, he drank the sands which he had pressed. Shipwreck without a ship snatches him, a gulf without a river. The elements acknowledge God.
Nothing in the circumstances was permitted to lie from then on, since the command alone accomplished it. Certainly those threats sent before did not move you, weeping at your own death, but, as before, the prophet of a hateful omen, you bewailed; you used to sing of things to come. You go before our columns, now no longer hindering, nor do you snatch the temple's adornment, you who are to be snatched by the tomb. But the people, devout with greater faith and pressing on, hastened the chief work. Virtue proved, judgment shone forth; present devotion grew. Now with terror laid aside you shall read the laws, corrected by perils. You shall count the soothing gifts of your chief patron, and, after the poison was struck through with the serpent conquered, you shall first rejoice in the juice of the nectared olive.
As often as the joined nearness of the saint's tomb received this close at hand, true grace changed the liquid and brought swift remedies in haste. The happy bishop had offered the brought olive-oil with unhesitating faith, that the Spirit might bedew it and a new breeze of neighbouring favour might pour over it — Perpetuus, a worshipper of the Lord not in name only, and following the foregoing examples of his godly master. When, revering, he wished to bring this help to salvation and to apply the proven good to all remedies, dust scraped quickly from the blessed marble, mingled with the holy oil, doubled its strength, so that thus, with the liquid sprinkled, the twofold virtue, by contact, might increase faith, and, joined, might increase health.
But when the nearness perceived even a small grain, swift grace suspended the touched olive-oil, and the welling tumour boiled over. The abounding supply increased, which grew at the gift brought into the open. Higher than its own brim, the overflow bathed the enclosure. And yet the overflowing grace caused no loss, both flowing as set beneath and ever full though the vessels were refilled. This glory never stains the moistened garments: these, when inspected, retain a greater brightness than Siloam, which attest so great a work. Let no one wash away what virtue has inscribed and noted by so great a token. Nor is this praise shut up in a place: pursuing the faithful, grace has sent its lofty titles even into the air.
The very storms too felt the saint's merit, and the terror of hail, with the clouds thickened, halted, and a milder wrath spared the places that were to be devastated. A certain man, confident that he bore true salvation if he were permitted to carry anything from the threshold of the saint's holy temple to his own home, a servant, rejoicing together, received the blessed, healthful rewards of the wax. The glad faith experienced what it had felt with its whole heart: hope, awaited, brought back the help. The protected field escaped those stony darts of the liquid and the icy lashes of the pent-up water, enjoying this with the sowing it covered, which, hidden in the earth, stretched out its broad branches, votively, toward the spreading coverings. The whole neighbourhood marvelled at the granted favour, and the virtue, now known by true signs, was made plain.
Not with a hundred tongues could I speak all these praises, or unfold such great palms of mighty deeds. Nor must I knock at the oracles of lying Phoebus, nor await the lyres of the feigned sisters. Let another Spirit fill me for the heralding of so great a praise, and grant words to my heart and joys. That I may sing the truth, let my Patron be my Muse; let his grace cherish me and quicken my mind, lest I be vanquished by the splendor of the work, or, overwhelmed by so great a light, turn my unsteady eyes away from the radiance, and may I sing things lofty and heavenly with clear understanding. Believe in the loving God, O reader, those things you hesitate to believe of us, and you will find all these to be easy for Christ, who granted them and bade them increase to the glory of His saint.
Year by year the people were accustomed to render solemn homage to the holy man, when the circle of the returning year joyfully renewed the mysteries of holy Easter. Great veneration invites the eager throng to the cell which, a faithful hostess, stood open to so eminent a saint, once possessed by that angelic man. Faces bowed low grow wet with weeping, and with tears they seek out the footprints of the saint. What places he touched while chanting psalms, what spots he pressed while praying—these they wish to remember; where he took his food, relaxing his immense fasts with a tiny taste; how that cell, by heavenly aid, cherished his repose in his vigils, and, granting brief slumber to his limbs, refreshed his sublime mind with watchful vision. Here the joyful shepherd rejoices to lead the people.
The throng, taken aboard in numerous vessels, crosses over, and the waves lie hidden beneath the fleet. Here every sex and age is present; the houses sit empty of their keepers. From all the inner chambers a mutual faith stands forth. Meanwhile the instigator of death or of crime, hostile through the envy of his malice, prepares to oppose these endeavors; and, attacking a laden ship, he sank it amid the waves and in the vast whirlpool, engulfing all things at once, seized into the deep, and dragging down the entangled company in the river's torrent.
What disaster the enemy joyfully awaited! With what great triumph he counted the longed-for deaths of countless dying ones, snatching little ones torn from the breasts of their nurses, scattering far over the trackless blue waters his wandering slaughters; while seeing others, their necks weighed down by the bond, sink the sunken corpse which the arm had clasped; others now dragged along with their garments soaked, yet seeking the sky with their eyes and striving with cries to thrust off the engulfing waters. Meanwhile a harmonious cry in Martin's name summons heavenly aid. The whole crowd casts itself down and bathes the wet sands with weeping. So joyful a day owed special joys to the mourners and an exceptional gift in this solemn season. At once amid the waters a gentler Spirit was present and snatched away the wicked rights from cruel death. The water suspended the wandering limbs.
The water, made firm for their salvation, bore the limbs up upon the waters. Not struck by swimming, nor furrowed and wounded by the working hands, it carried its unmoving burden and bore it back to the shores—joys! And the rescued one rejoiced to count up the salvation that was brought home. The mother recognized her son; the infant clung to its mother, and the father cherished his offspring in his embrace. Brother, mother, master, servant, matron, kinsman, came together with united step, and the resounding voice sang back its thanks and praised God in holy hymns. Hardly does anyone at once dare to believe what he sees; he consults his trembling eyes with anxious prayer. Yet faith was not broken by terror: they hasten to the river. Swiftly the new grace renews their vigorous strength. They do not care to change their garb; in the very same clothes they exult, and faith is not chilled by the dripping cloak.
So the farther shore, rejoicing in so great a triumph, gladdened and believing said, 'Let us sing to the Lord.' The unharmed prey sings; the drowned plunderer remained behind. Behold again, the Lord, when the gulf of Jordan was cleft, opened a divided path, and bade the people join themselves to the ark that had gone before, through the river. The flood, returning to its source, turned back its streams, and, halting its course, flowed backward and hastened toward its rising. These places the people trod with sands trampled underfoot, where once the trembling sailor had run with oar and sail. What ways of land and sea has the glory of this name not penetrated, roused with swift bound, going out upon the watery ways and the backs of the vast sea passable to sailors?
A ship snatched away by mighty storms, carried far off into an unknown deep beyond the ways of men and fleets, bound fast in numbness by the whirlwind's onslaught, had rushed headlong into a sea where no one ventures. No hope of escape was given; for the sea, unmoving, resisting like the glue of the water, held its decks fast in the blockade of the deep. The sailors, longing for the help of a tempest, would rather have the gusts and the whirlwind's wrath, making vows in the midst of the waves for a storm. But no power is given the wretched to get out. So sluggish a shipwreck holds them, without any motion at all. What floats on the sea does not swim out. A detestable stillness clings amid the waves. What the sea sustains, it obstructs; it neither bears the ship onward by impulse nor swallows it in a gulf. No hope of flight lies open; for in the waves a torpid guardianship keeps its prey bound fast by the waters.
There is one hope: God alone. Whatever He created, He also rules; the elements keep the command of their Creator. At the Lord's nod they are swiftly stirred and grow still; the sluggish things quickly learn unwonted motions, and, the matters being first arranged, His command gives them their law. A certain man, following the report with a better understanding, had learned through fame spreading throughout the world of Martin's renown, and his miracles full of holy deeds. He, driven by evil and reckoning that the only salvation was to cry out to the true God, thus by chance prayed; lifting up to heaven his eyes bedewed by a fountain of tears, and joining the inmost depths of his heart to his eyes, he said, 'Look upon the wretched, O sole and true hope of salvation.
Have mercy, O God of Martin, who through him have scattered such great signs of divine favor among the peoples, and, proving his merit to surpass the earth by his power, have bidden his renown to be illustrious even beyond the seas. Let him by his intercessions loose or slacken the bonds of the ship, let him compel the divided waters to give way, and let the fluid sea at last grow thin in its abyss.' Without delay, a most mighty force of wind, gliding swiftly upon them, drove out the captured ship through the cleft abyss, and bore it with an easy breeze over the trackless blue, and soon restored those who were carried out and back at once in the longed-for haven of port, in Martin's name, while they sang the gifts won by unceasing faith. Who at last could grasp these things with his understanding? Who could portray them in song? Who could number, who could utter them? Every genius is overcome; the praises restrain the constrained tongues.
Yet, though inferior to the deeds which glory adorns—deeds I have so often learned of, or read again in writing—since I cannot speak of them as is fitting, I will at least strive to touch upon them. A certain man, returning to his own threshold from the holy temple of the saint, believing himself to be bringing a safeguard of salvation to his house, had carried away with him to his inner chambers holy wax, trusting that the blessing of so great a Patron, joined to the merits of so just a faith, would be present with mighty power. And now the time had come for proofs of his favor to be brought forth. By chance, through a fire that had slipped its bounds too carelessly, a devouring flame, increasing its strength by the fuel of wood, was now pressing the house with disaster. Smoke in great abundance everywhere rolled the surging mass into the air in a whirlwind. It greedily swallowed up dry things, snatching and licking whatever lay before it, and leaving only embers from so great a ruin.
Nor was there hope of escape, with the peril blazing nearer. A pressing terror had hedged in the inner chambers all around, and the nearby dangers had hedged in their prey so close at hand. To the saint the prayers returned; with faithful clamor he is called upon, and frequent voices repeat the holy names in devotion. The master himself swiftly snatched up with hastening right hand the glowing lights of the kindled wax—the gentle, soothing light it poured forth with blessed oil—to his inner chambers, and, setting the blazing things in the midst of the flames, with the safeguards of fire he drove back the pressing fire. The raging whirlwind stopped fast. Straightway the destroying enemy turned his back, and a spark put to flight the fury of the fire.
Not so, if the clouds had hurled down all their downpours, could the storms poured from above have availed; nor if the rivers had snatched contending gatherings of waters, nor could any springs whatever, with a river drained dry, furnish so swift a benefit as true power did. The fire, trembling, fled from its own fuel of wax, and harmonious nature dreads its own nourishing honeycombs. By a power it slays the flame which it feeds with light, fragrant with clear nectar from the richness of the liquid. These things, daring to run through swiftly in a few words, I, unlearned, have marked out for the faithful people to read again. So great joys have strengthened a humble voice. What you complain is too scantily described, you will marvel at as deeds done. It is enough that, scorning song, you may praise the renown—that nothing was permitted to death, when life is openly proven.