Preface (1) Severus to Desiderius, his most beloved brother. For my part, brother of one mind with me, I had resolved to keep under wraps in its draft the little book I had written about the life of holy Martin, and to confine it within the walls of home; for, being by nature most timid, I shrank from human judgements, lest — as I think will happen — my rather unpolished speech should displease my readers, and I should be judged most deserving of everyone's censure for having shamelessly seized upon a subject rightly to be reserved for eloquent writers. But I could not refuse you, who asked again and again. For what is there that I would not spend upon my love for you, even at the cost of my own modesty? (2) Yet I have published the little book to you with this confidence: that it will be made known by you to no one, because you have so promised.
But I fear that you may become its doorway, and that once let out it cannot be called back. (3) If this should happen, and you should see it read by some, you will ask of the readers this kindly indulgence: that they weigh the matter rather than the words, and bear it with an even mind if perhaps faulty speech has struck their ears; for the kingdom of God consists not in eloquence but in faith. (4) Let them also remember that salvation was preached to the world not by orators — although, had it been useful, the Lord could surely have provided that too — but by fishermen. (5) For when I first set my mind to writing, since I deemed it a sacrilege that the virtues of so great a man should lie hidden, I resolved within myself not to blush at solecisms:
for I had never attained any great knowledge of such matters, and if perhaps I once tasted something from these studies, I had lost it all through the disuse of so long a time. (6) But still, that so troublesome a defence may not await us, let the little book be published — if it seems good to you — with the name suppressed. And that this may be done, scrape the title from its face, so that the page may be mute, and may speak (which is enough) the subject, not speak the author. 1 (1) Most mortals, vainly given over to the zeal for worldly glory, have thereby sought, as they supposed, a perennial memory of their name, if they had illumined with their pen the lives of famous men.
(2) This pursuit assuredly brought not, indeed, a perennial fruit, yet some little fruit of the hope they had conceived, since they both propagated their own memory, though in vain, and by setting forth the examples of great men no small emulation was kindled in their readers. But still, this care of theirs had no bearing on that blessed and eternal life. (3) For what did the glory of their writings, doomed to perish with the world, profit them themselves? Or what advantage has posterity gained by reading of Hector fighting or Socrates philosophizing? For not only is it folly to imitate them, but it is madness not to assail them most fiercely — those who, reckoning human life only by present deeds, gave their hopes to fables and their souls to the grave:
(4) inasmuch as they believed they would be perpetuated only in the memory of men, whereas it is a man's duty to seek perennial life rather than perennial memory — not by writing or fighting or philosophizing, but by living piously, holily, and religiously. (5) This human error, handed down in letters, prevailed so far that it found many open imitators either of empty philosophy or of that foolish valour. (6) Hence I think I shall do something worth the effort, if I write out in full the life of a most holy man, soon to be an example to others; whereby the readers will surely be stirred up to true wisdom, to the heavenly warfare, and to divine virtue.
In this matter I also count our own profit thus: that we look for no empty memory from men, but an eternal reward from God; for even though we ourselves have not so lived as to be able to be an example to others, we have nevertheless taken pains that he should not lie hidden who is to be imitated. (7) Therefore I shall begin to write the life of holy Martin — how he conducted himself both before his episcopate and during it — although I have by no means been able to attain to all that pertains to him; so much so that the things in which he alone was conscious to himself are unknown, because, seeking no praise from men, he would, so far as in him lay, have had all his virtues lie hidden.
(8) Indeed, even of those things which were ascertained by us, we have passed over many, because we believed it enough if only the outstanding ones were noted; and at the same time the readers had to be considered, lest a mass of these things heaped together should breed weariness. (9) But I beseech those who shall read, that they put faith in what is said, and not suppose that I have written anything except what is ascertained and proven; otherwise I should have preferred to be silent rather than to tell falsehoods. 2 (1) So then, Martin was a native of Sabaria, a town of the Pannonias, but was reared within Italy at Ticinum, of parents who, according to worldly rank, were not of the lowest, yet were pagans. (2) His father was first a soldier, afterwards a military tribune.
He himself, in his youth, followed the profession of arms among the scholarian squadrons under King Constantius, and afterwards served under Julian Caesar — not, however, of his own will, for almost from his earliest years the sacred infancy of the illustrious boy breathed after the service of God rather. (3) For when he was ten years old, against the will of his parents he fled to the church and asked to be made a catechumen. (4) Soon, wonderfully turned wholly to the work of God, when he was twelve years old he longed for the desert, and he would have fulfilled his vows had not the weakness of his age stood in the way. Yet his mind, ever intent upon the monasteries or upon the church, meditated even in his boyhood that which he afterwards devoutly fulfilled.
(5) But when it had been decreed by the rulers that the sons of veterans should be enrolled for military service, his father betraying him — for he begrudged his son's happy course — when he was fifteen years old, he was seized and bound, and enmeshed in the military oaths, content with one servant only as his companion; yet, with the roles reversed, the master used to serve the servant, so much so that for the most part he himself would pull off his shoes and clean them, they would take their food together, yet it was Martin who more often waited at table. (6) For nearly three years before his baptism he remained in arms, yet untouched by those vices in which that class of men is wont to be entangled. (7) Great was his kindness toward his fellow soldiers, wondrous his charity, while his patience and humility were beyond human measure.
For there is no need to praise his frugality in him, which he so practised that already at that time he was thought to be not a soldier but a monk. For these things he had so bound all his fellow soldiers to himself that they venerated him with wondrous affection. (8) Not yet, however, regenerated in Christ, he was acting in some sort the part of a candidate for baptism by his good works — namely, helping those in toil, bringing aid to the wretched, feeding the needy, clothing the naked, keeping nothing for himself out of his military pay except his daily food: even then, no deaf hearer of the Gospel, he took no thought for the morrow.
3 (1) So at a certain time, when he now had nothing except his arms and a simple military cloak, in the midst of a winter that had bristled harsher than usual — so much so that the force of the cold was killing many — he met at the gate of the city of Amiens a poor man, naked: who, when he was begging the passers-by to take pity on him, and all were passing the wretch by, the man full of God understood that this man was reserved for him, since others were showing no mercy. (2) Yet what was he to do? He had nothing except the chlamys with which he was clad, for he had already spent the rest on a like work. So, seizing the sword with which he was girt, he divides it through the middle and gives one part of it to the poor man, and clothes himself again with the rest.
Meanwhile some of the bystanders began to laugh, because he seemed misshapen, mutilated in his garb; but many, whose mind was sounder, groaned more deeply that they had done nothing of the kind, when assuredly, having more, they could have clothed the poor man without their own nakedness. (3) On the night that followed, therefore, when he had given himself to sleep, he saw Christ clothed with the part of his cloak with which he had covered the poor man. He is bidden to gaze most carefully upon the Lord, and to recognize the garment which he had given. Soon, to the multitude of angels standing round, he hears Jesus saying with a clear voice: 'Martin, still a catechumen, has covered me with this garment.' (4) Truly mindful of his own words, the Lord, who had foretold beforehand:
'Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me' — he professed that he himself had been clothed in the person of the poor man; and to confirm the testimony of so good a work, he deigned to show himself in the very garb which the poor man had received. (5) When he had seen this, the most blessed man was not lifted up into human glory, but, recognizing the goodness of God in his own work, when he was eighteen years old he hastened to baptism. Nor yet did he at once renounce the army, won over by the entreaties of his tribune, to whom he rendered the intimacy of a comrade; for he promised that, when the time of his tribunate was finished, he would renounce the world. Held in suspense by this expectation, Martin, for nearly two years after he had received baptism, served — though in name only.
4 (1) Meanwhile, as the barbarians were bursting into Gaul, Julian Caesar, gathering his army into one place, at the city of the Vangiones began to distribute a donative to the soldiers; and, as is the custom, they were summoned one by one, until it came to Martin. (2) Then indeed, thinking it an opportune time at which to seek his discharge — for he did not think it would be upright in him to accept the donative if he was not going to serve — he said to Caesar: 'Hitherto I have served you as a soldier: (3) suffer me now to be a soldier of God. Let him who is going to fight receive your donative; I am a soldier of Christ; I am not permitted to fight.' (4) Then indeed at this utterance the tyrant raged, saying that it was from fear of the battle which was to take place the next day, not for the sake of religion, that he was shirking military service.
(5) But Martin, undaunted — nay, all the more steadfast for the terror brought against him — said: 'If this is ascribed to cowardice and not to faith, tomorrow I will stand unarmed before the battle-line, and in the name of the Lord Jesus, protected by the sign of the cross, not by shield or helmet, I will safely pierce the wedges of the enemy.' (6) He is therefore ordered to be thrust back into custody, intending to make good his words by being exposed unarmed to the barbarians. (7) On the next day the enemy sent envoys to sue for peace, surrendering all their possessions and themselves. Hence who could doubt that this was truly the victory of the blessed man, to whom it was granted that he should not be sent unarmed into battle?
(8) And although the merciful Lord could have preserved his soldier even amid the swords and weapons of the enemy, nevertheless, lest the eyes of his saint be defiled even by the deaths of others, he exempted him from the necessity of battle. (9) For Christ owed to his own soldier no other victory than that, the enemy being subdued without bloodshed, no one should die. 5 (1) Thereupon, having left the army, he sought out holy Hilary, bishop of the city of Poitiers, whose faith in the things of God was then held to be approved and well known, and he stayed with him for some while. (2) But this same Hilary attempted, by imposing on him the office of the diaconate, to bind him more closely to himself and to fetter him with divine ministry.
But when Martin had most repeatedly resisted, crying out that he was unworthy, the man of loftier discernment understood that he could be constrained in one way only: if he were to lay upon him such an office in which there should seem to be some place of indignity. He therefore commanded him to be an exorcist. This ordination Martin did not refuse, lest he should seem to have despised it as too lowly. (3) And not long after, admonished in his sleep to visit, with religious solicitude, his homeland and his parents, whom paganism still held fast, he set out with the consent of holy Hilary, bound by him with many entreaties and tears to return. He entered upon that pilgrimage in sorrow, so they say, attesting to the brethren that he would suffer many adversities — which the outcome afterwards proved.
(4) And first, following byways amid the Alps, he fell among robbers. And when one of them, with axe raised, had aimed a blow at his head, another held back the right hand of the striker; nevertheless, with his hands bound behind his back, he is handed over to one to be guarded and despoiled. When this man had led him to a more remote spot, he began to inquire of him who he might be. (5) He answered that he was a Christian. The robber also asked him whether he was afraid. Then indeed most steadfastly he declares that he had never been so free of care, because he knew that the mercy of the Lord would be present chiefly in temptations; that he rather grieved for that man, who, as one carrying on brigandage, was unworthy of the mercy of Christ. (6) And entering upon an evangelic discourse, he preached the word of God to the robber. Why should I delay longer?
The robber believed, and escorting Martin restored him to his road, begging that he would pray to the Lord on his behalf. And that same man was afterwards seen leading a religious life, so much so that these things which we have related above are said to have been heard from his very self. 6 (1) So then Martin, having gone forward from there, when he had passed by Milan, the devil on the way, having assumed a human shape, presented himself to meet him, asking whither he was bound. And when he had received from Martin this answer, that he was making for wherever the Lord called, the devil said to him: (2) 'Wherever you go, or whatever you attempt, the devil will oppose you.' Then, answering him with a prophetic voice, he said: 'The Lord is my helper; I will not fear what man may do to me.' And at once the enemy vanished from his sight.
(3) And so, as he had conceived in heart and mind, he freed his mother from the error of paganism, his father persevering in his evils; yet by his example he saved many. (4) Thereafter, when the Arian heresy had sprouted throughout the whole world and chiefly within Illyricum, since he alone fought back almost most fiercely against the faithlessness of the priests and was afflicted with many punishments — for he was publicly beaten with rods and at the last compelled to leave the city — he made again for Italy; and when he found that within Gaul too the church had been thrown into disorder by the departure of holy Hilary, whom the violence of the heretics had driven into exile, he established for himself a monastery at Milan.
There too Auxentius, the author and chief of the Arians, most grievously persecuted him, and, having afflicted him with many injuries, drove him out of the city. (5) Judging therefore that he must yield to the time, he withdrew to the island which is called Gallinaria, with a certain presbyter as his companion, a man of great virtues. Here for some while he lived on the roots of herbs; at which time he took for food hellebore, a poisonous plant, so they say. (6) But when he had felt the force of the poison raging within him, with death now near at hand, he repelled the impending peril by prayer, and at once all the pain was put to flight. (7) And not long after, when he had learned that the power of returning had been granted to holy Hilary through the king's repentance, he attempted to meet him at Rome and set out for the city.
7 (1) Since Hilary had already passed by, he so followed in his tracks; and when he had been most graciously received by him, he placed for himself a monastery not far from the town. At which time a certain catechumen joined himself to him, desiring to be instructed in the disciplines of the most holy man; and after a few days had intervened, seized with sickness, he was labouring under the violence of fevers. (2) And then Martin had by chance departed; and when he had been absent for three days, on his return he found a lifeless body: so sudden had been the death that the man had passed out of human affairs without baptism. The body, laid out in the midst, was being attended by the sorrowful office of the mourning brethren, when Martin, weeping and wailing, came running up.
(3) Then indeed, conceiving the Holy Spirit with his whole mind, he bids the others go out of the little cell in which the body lay, and, the doors being bolted, he stretches himself out over the lifeless limbs of the dead brother. And when he had bent over prayer for some while and had felt, through the Spirit of the Lord, that power was present, raised up a little and fixed upon the face of the dead man, he undauntedly awaited the outcome of his prayer and of the Lord's mercy; and scarcely had the space of about two hours intervened when he sees the dead man little by little stirred in all his limbs, and, his eyes loosened to the use of seeing, twitch. (4) Then indeed, turning with a great voice to the Lord and giving thanks, he had filled the little cell with his cry; on hearing which, those who had stood before the doors at once rush in.
A wondrous spectacle, that they saw living him whom they had left dead! (5) Thus restored to life, he immediately obtained baptism and afterwards lived many years, and was the first among us to be either the matter or the testimony of Martin's powers. (6) The same man, however, was wont to relate that, stripped of his body, he had been led to the tribunal of the Judge and assigned to dark places and to the common throngs, and had received a gloomy sentence; that then it was suggested to the Judge by two angels that this was the man for whom Martin was praying; and so by the same angels he was ordered to be led back, and restored to Martin and to his former life. (7) From this time first the name of the blessed man shone forth, so that he who was already held holy by all might be held also powerful and truly apostolic.
8 (1) And not long after, while he was passing by the field of a certain Lupicinus, a man honoured according to the world, he is met with the outcry and lamentation of a crowd in mourning. (2) When he had anxiously stood by it and inquired what this weeping was, it is shown to him that one of the household, a little servant, had wrenched his life from himself with a noose. On learning this, he enters the little cell in which the body lay, and, all the crowds being shut out, lying upon the body he prayed for a while. (3) Soon, the countenance coming to life, with the eyes fixed upon his face the dead man is raised up; and striving with slow effort to rise, having grasped the right hand of the blessed man, he stood upon his feet; and thus he proceeded with him as far as the entrance hall of the house, the whole crowd looking on.
9 (1) About the same time he was being sought for the episcopate of the church of Tours; but since he could not easily be drawn out of his monastery, a certain Rusticius, one of the citizens, feigning the sickness of his wife, fell down at Martin's knees and obtained that he should come out. (2) So, with the throngs of citizens already arranged along the way, under a kind of guard he is led all the way to the city. In a wondrous manner an incredible multitude had gathered, not only from that town but also from the neighbouring cities, to cast their votes. (3) The will of all was one, the same their wishes and the same their judgement: that Martin was most worthy of the episcopate, that the church would be blessed with such a bishop.
Yet a few — and some among the bishops who had been summoned to appoint the prelate — impiously opposed it, saying, of course, that he was a contemptible person, that a man of despicable countenance, sordid in dress, deformed in his hair, was unworthy of the episcopate. (4) Thus this madness of theirs was mocked by the people of sounder judgement, who, while they desired to disparage the illustrious man, were proclaiming him. Nor indeed were they allowed to do otherwise than what the people, the Lord so willing, were resolving. Among the bishops who had been present, however, one Defensor in particular is said to have resisted; whence it was observed that he was then gravely noted by a reading from the prophets.
(5) For when by chance the lector, whose office it was to read on that day, had been kept out by the crowd and was absent, and the ministers were in confusion while the man who was not present was awaited, one of the bystanders, taking up the psalter, seized upon the first verse he found. (6) Now this was the psalm: 'Out of the mouth of infants and sucklings you have perfected praise because of your enemies, that you may destroy the enemy and the defender.' On this being read, a shout of the people is raised, the opposing party is confounded. (7) And thus it was held that by divine prompting this psalm had been read, so that the Defensor [the 'defender'] should hear the testimony of his own deed — he who, out of the mouth of infants and sucklings, when the Lord's praise was perfected in Martin, was alike shown forth and destroyed as the enemy.
10 (1) But now, having taken up the episcopate, what manner of man and how great he showed himself, it is not within our power to unfold. For he most steadfastly persevered the same that he had been before. (2) The same humility was in his heart, the same lowliness in his dress; and thus, full of authority and grace, he fulfilled the dignity of a bishop in such a way that he nevertheless did not forsake the purpose and virtue of a monk. (3) For some while, therefore, he used a cell adjoining the church; then, when he could not bear the disquiet of those frequenting him, he established for himself a monastery about two miles outside the city. (4) Which place was so secluded and remote that he did not long for the solitude of the desert.
For on one side it was hedged in by the sheer cliff of a high mountain, while the river Loire had closed off the remaining level ground with a slightly withdrawn bend; it could be approached by one only and that a very narrow path. He himself had a cell woven of timbers, and many of the brethren in the same manner; (5) most of them had made for themselves shelters in the hollowed rock of the overhanging mountain. There were about eighty disciples, who were being trained after the example of their blessed master. (6) No one there had anything of his own; all things were brought into the common stock. It was not permitted to buy or sell anything, as is the custom with most monks; no craft was practised there except that of the copyists, and even to that work the younger were assigned, while the elder were free for prayer.
(7) Rare was anyone's going out beyond his own cell, except when they assembled at the place of prayer. They all took their food together after the hour of fasting. No one knew wine, save him whom sickness had compelled. (8) Most were clad in camel's hair; a softer garb there was counted as a crime. This must needs be the more wondrous because many among them were reckoned as nobles, who, brought up far otherwise, had forced themselves to this humility and patience; and several of them we afterwards saw as bishops. (9) For what city or church would there be that did not desire for itself a bishop from Martin's monastery? 11 (1) But that I may approach the rest of his powers which he wrought in the episcopate:
there was, not far from the town, a place near to the monastery which the false opinion of men had consecrated, as though martyrs had been buried together there; (2) for an altar too was held to have been set up there by earlier bishops. But Martin, not rashly lending faith to uncertain things, demanded of those presbyters or clerics who were of greater age that the name of the martyr, the time of his passion, be shown to him; he was moved by a great scruple, that the steadfast memory of his elders had handed down to him nothing certain. (3) So when he had for some while kept away from that place — neither derogating from religion, because he was uncertain, nor lending his own authority to the common folk, lest superstition should gather strength — on a certain day, taking with him a few of the brethren, he goes to the place.
(4) Thereupon, standing over the very tomb, he prayed to the Lord that he would show who it was, or of what merit, that was buried there. Then, turning to the left, he sees standing near a shade, sordid and savage: he commands it to speak its name and its merit. It declares its name; it confesses concerning its crime: that it had been a robber, struck down for his wickednesses, celebrated by the error of the common folk; that it had nothing in common with the martyrs, since glory held them, but punishment held it. (5) In a wondrous manner those who were present heard the voice of the one speaking, yet did not see the person. Then Martin set forth what he had seen, and ordered the altar which had been there to be removed from that place, and so freed the people from the error of that superstition.
12 (1) Now it happened in the following time, while he was making a journey, that he met the body of a certain pagan, which was being carried to the tomb with a superstitious funeral; and, catching sight from afar of the crowd of those coming, ignorant of what it might be, he stood still a little while — for there was an interval of about five hundred paces, so that it was difficult to make out what he saw. (2) Yet because he discerned a rustic band, and the linen cloths spread over the body were fluttering as the wind drove them, he believed that profane rites of sacrifices were being performed; for it was the custom of the Gallic country-folk, in their wretched madness, to carry images of demons, covered with a white veil, round about their fields. (3) Having therefore raised the sign of the cross against them, he commands the crowd not to move from the spot and to set down their burden.
Here indeed you might in a wondrous manner have seen the wretches first stiffen as it were like stones. (4) Then, when with their utmost effort they were striving to move forward, being unable to advance further, they were whirled round in a ludicrous spinning, until, overcome, they set down the burden of the body; astonished and looking at one another in turn, they pondered in silence what could have befallen them. (5) But when the blessed man had ascertained that this was a gathering of funeral rites, not of sacred rites, raising his hand again he gives them the power of going away and of taking up the body. Thus he both compelled them to stand still when he wished, and permitted them to depart when it pleased him.
13 (1) Likewise, when in a certain village he had destroyed a most ancient temple and had set about cutting down a pine tree which was next to the shrine, then indeed the priest of that place and the rest of the throng of pagans began to oppose him. (2) And although these same men, while the temple was being overthrown, had kept quiet by the Lord's command, they would not suffer the tree to be cut down. He earnestly admonished them that there was nothing of religion in a tree-trunk; that they should rather follow the God whom he himself served; that that tree ought to be cut down, because it was dedicated to a demon. (3) Then one of them who was bolder than the rest said: 'If you have any confidence in your God whom you say you worship, we ourselves will cut down this tree; do you catch it as it falls:
and if your Lord is with you, as you say, you will escape.' (4) Then he, undauntedly trusting in the Lord, promises that he will do so. Hereupon to a condition of this sort the whole throng of pagans agreed, and they held the loss of their tree a light matter, if by its fall they might crush the enemy of their sacred rites. (5) And so, since that pine was leaning to one side, so that there was no doubt to which side it would topple when cut, he is bound and set in that spot at the pleasure of the rustics, where no one doubted the tree would fall. (6) They therefore began to cut down their own pine with huge joy and gladness. There stood at a distance a crowd of those who marvelled. And now little by little the pine began to nod and to mimic its own ruin as it was about to fall.