(7) The monks grew pale at a distance, and, terrified by the danger now drawing nearer, had lost all hope and confidence, awaiting nothing but Martin's death. (8) But he, trusting in the Lord, waited fearlessly; and when the falling pine had already given out the crash of its fall, when it was already toppling, already rushing down upon him, he raised his hand against it and set the sign of salvation in its path. Then indeed - you would have thought it driven back as if by a whirlwind - it crashed down in the opposite direction, so that it almost flattened the rustics who had taken their stand all about the place. (9) Then truly, with a shout raised to heaven, the heathen were astounded at the miracle, the monks wept for joy, and the name of Christ was proclaimed together by all; and it was plainly established that on that day salvation had come to that region.
For there was scarcely anyone out of that vast multitude of heathen who, when the laying on of hands was desired, did not abandon the error of his impiety and believe in the Lord Jesus. And truly, before Martin's coming, very few - indeed almost none - in those regions had received the name of Christ; but it so prevailed there through his miracles and example that there is now no place there which is not filled either with very crowded churches or with monasteries. For wherever he had destroyed the pagan shrines, he at once built either churches or monasteries on the spot. 14 (1) Nor did he display lesser power in the same work at about the same time. For when he had set fire to a certain very ancient and renowned shrine, the wind drove balls of flame toward the nearest house, indeed one adjoining it.
(2) When Martin perceived this, he climbed the roof of the house at a swift run, setting himself in the way of the oncoming flames. Then indeed you might have seen, in a marvellous manner, the fire turned back against the force of the wind, so that there seemed to be a kind of contest of the elements struggling with one another. Thus, by Martin's power, the fire worked there only where it was bidden. (3) But in a village called Leprosum, when he likewise wished to overthrow a most opulent temple of superstitious religion, a multitude of heathen withstood him, so that he was driven off not without injury.
(4) And so he withdrew to a nearby place, and there for three days, clothed in sackcloth and ashes, always fasting and praying, he besought the Lord that, since human hands had not been able to overthrow that temple, the divine power might raze it. (5) Then suddenly two angels, with spears and shields, after the manner of the heavenly host, presented themselves to him, saying that they had been sent by the Lord to put the rustic multitude to flight and to bring protection to Martin, lest anyone should resist while the temple was being demolished; he should therefore return and devoutly carry out the work he had begun. (6) So, having gone back to the village, while the crowds of heathen looked on in silence, he razed the profane shrine to its foundations and reduced all the altars and idols to dust.
(7) When the rustics saw this, understanding that they had been stupefied and terrified by a divine nod so as not to resist the bishop, almost all of them believed in the Lord Jesus, openly crying out and confessing that the God of Martin was to be worshipped, while the idols were to be despised, since they could help neither themselves nor others. 15 (1) I shall also relate what was done in the district of the Aedui. There, while he was likewise overthrowing a temple, a maddened multitude of heathen rustics rushed upon him. And when one bolder than the rest attacked him with drawn sword, Martin threw back his cloak and offered his bare neck to the one about to strike. (2) The heathen did not hesitate to strike; but when he had raised his right hand high, he fell flat on his back, and, dismayed with divine fear, begged for pardon. (3) And not unlike this was the following.
When a certain man wished to strike him with a knife as he was destroying idols, in the very act of the blow the iron was knocked from his hands and vanished from sight. (4) But for the most part, when the rustics contradicted him, urging that he not destroy their shrines, he so softened the heathen minds by his holy preaching that, once the light of truth had been shown to them, they overthrew their own temples with their own hands. 16 (1) Indeed, the grace of healings was so powerful in him that scarcely any sick person came to him who did not immediately recover health; as will be clear even from the following example. (2) At Treves a certain girl was held by a dread sickness of paralysis, so that for a long time already she performed no bodily function for human use; dead in every part, she was scarcely quivering with a faint breath.
(3) Her sorrowing kinsfolk stood by, awaiting only her funeral, when suddenly it was announced that Martin had come to that city. When the girl's father learned of this, he ran, breathless, to plead on his daughter's behalf. (4) And it happened that Martin had already entered the church. There, while the people looked on and many other bishops were present, the old man, wailing, embraced his knees, saying: 'My daughter is dying of a wretched kind of sickness, and - what is crueller than death itself - she lives by breath alone, her flesh already dead before her. I beg you to go to her and bless her; for I am confident that through you she is to be restored to health.' (5) Confounded by these words, he was struck dumb and shrank back, saying that this was not within his own power:
that the old man was mistaken in his judgement; that he himself was not worthy that through him the Lord should show a sign of his power. The father, weeping more vehemently, persisted, and begged that he would visit the dying girl. (6) At last, compelled by the surrounding bishops to go, he went down to the girl's house. A huge crowd was waiting before the doors to see what the servant of God would do. (7) And first, prostrating himself on the ground, he prayed with those weapons that were his own in matters of this kind. Then, looking upon the sick girl, he asked that oil be given to him; and when he had blessed it, he poured the force of the holy liquid into the girl's mouth, and at once her voice was restored. (8) Then little by little, at his touch, her several limbs began to come to life, until, her steps now made firm, she rose up before the witnessing people.
17 (1) At the same time, a slave of a certain Taetradius, a man of proconsular rank, was seized by a demon and tormented with a grievous death. Martin therefore being asked to lay his hand upon him, ordered him to be brought to him; but the wicked spirit could in no way be brought out of the cell in which it was, so fiercely did it rage with rabid teeth against those who approached. (2) Then Taetradius cast himself at the feet of the blessed man, begging that he himself would go down to the house in which the demoniac was kept. But then Martin said that he could not enter the house of a profane and heathen man; (3) for Taetradius was at that time still entangled in the error of heathenism. He therefore pledged that, if the demon were driven out of the boy, he would become a Christian.
(4) So Martin, laying his hand on the boy, cast the unclean spirit out of him. Seeing this, Taetradius believed in the Lord Jesus; at once he became a catechumen, and not long after was baptized, and ever afterward he honoured Martin, the author of his salvation, with wondrous affection. (5) About the same time, having entered the house of a certain head of a household in the same town, he stopped on the very threshold, saying that he saw a horrible demon in the hall of the house. When he commanded it to depart and had seized the head of the household, who was lingering in the inner part of the dwelling, the wretched man began to rage with his teeth and to tear at whomever met him. The house was thrown into turmoil, the household alarmed, the people put to flight; Martin set himself before the raging man, and first commanded him to stand still.
(6) But when he gnashed with his teeth and, with gaping mouth, threatened to bite, Martin thrust his fingers into his mouth: 'If you have,' he said, 'any power, devour these.' (7) Then indeed, as if he had received red-hot iron into his throat, he drew his teeth far back and avoided touching the fingers of the blessed man; and when he was forced by pains and torments to flee from the body he possessed, yet was not permitted to come out through the mouth, he was cast out by a flux of the bowels, leaving foul traces behind. 18 (1) Meanwhile, when a sudden rumour of the movement and onset of the barbarians had thrown the city into turmoil, he ordered a demoniac to be brought before him and commanded him to declare whether this report was true.
(2) Then it confessed that ten demons had been with it, who had spread this rumour among the people, so that by this fear at least Martin might be driven out of that town; the barbarians were thinking of anything but an invasion. So when the unclean spirit confessed these things in the midst of the church, the city was freed from its present fear and disturbance. (3) But at Paris, while he was entering the gate of that city with great crowds going along with him, he kissed and blessed a leper of pitiable aspect, while all shuddered, and at once the man was cleansed of every evil. (4) The next day, coming to the church with gleaming skin, he gave thanks for the health he had received.
Nor should it be passed over that the fringes drawn from his garment and his sackcloth wrought frequent miracles upon the sick. (5) For, tied to the fingers or placed about the neck, they often put diseases to flight in the ailing. 19 (1) Now Arborius, a man of prefectorial rank and of a very holy and faithful disposition, when his daughter was being burned up with the gravest quartan fevers, inserted a letter of Martin's, which had by chance been delivered to him, into the girl's bosom at the very onset of the fever's heat, and at once the fever was put to flight. (2) This thing had such force with Arborius that he immediately vowed the girl to God and dedicated her to perpetual virginity;
and, having set out to Martin, he offered the girl to him as a present testimony of his powers - she who had been healed though he was absent - and he would not suffer her to be consecrated by anyone other than Martin, who imposed upon her the habit of virginity. (3) Paulinus, a man destined afterward to be of great example, when his eye had begun to ache grievously and a thickish cloud, drawn over it, had already covered the pupil, Martin touched the eye with a brush and restored to it its former health, all pain being removed.
(4) But he himself, when by some chance he had been thrown down from an upper room and, falling through the rough steps of a staircase, had been afflicted with many wounds, when he lay half-dead in his cell and was tortured with excessive pains, in the night an angel appeared to him to wash his wounds and to anoint with a healing salve the bruises of his battered body; and so the next day he was restored to health, so that he was thought never to have suffered any injury at all. (5) But it would take long to go through them one by one: let these few suffice out of very many, and let it be enough that we both do not withhold the truth in matters of excellence and avoid tedium in matters that are many.
20 (1) And, to insert lesser matters among such great ones - although, given the age of our times, in which all things are now depraved and corrupt, it is perhaps a chief distinction that priestly constancy did not yield to royal flattery - when several bishops from various parts of the world had assembled before the emperor Maximus, a man of fierce temper and elated by victory in civil wars, and a foul flattery toward the prince was noted in them all, and the priestly dignity had subjected itself with degenerate inconstancy to royal clientage, in Martin alone apostolic authority remained.
(2) For even if he had to petition the king on behalf of some, he commanded rather than asked; and though frequently invited, he abstained from the king's banquet, saying that he could not be a partaker of the table of one who had driven one emperor out of his realm and another out of his life. (3) At last, when Maximus declared that he had not taken the empire of his own will, but had defended by arms the necessity of rule imposed upon him by the soldiers at a divine nod, and that the will of God did not seem foreign to him, in whose possession victory had fallen by so incredible an outcome, none of his adversaries having perished except in battle - then at last, overcome whether by reason or by entreaties, Martin came to the banquet, the king rejoicing wondrously that he had obtained this.
(4) Now there were guests present, summoned as if to a festal day, the highest and most illustrious of men: the prefect, who was also consul, Euodius, than whom no one was ever more just; two counts endowed with the highest power, the brother and the uncle of the king; between these reclined Martin's presbyter, while Martin himself had taken his seat on a little stool placed beside the king. (5) About the middle of the banquet, as is the custom, an attendant offered the cup to the king. He ordered it rather to be given to the most holy bishop, expecting and earnestly desiring to receive the cup from his right hand.
(6) But when Martin had drunk, he handed the cup to his own presbyter, judging of course that no one was worthier to drink next after himself, and that it would not be right for him if he had preferred either the king himself or those who were nearest the king to his presbyter. (7) The emperor and all who were then present so admired this deed that the very thing in which they had been slighted pleased them. And it was bruited throughout the whole palace that Martin had done at the king's banquet what no bishop had done even at the banquets of the lowliest officials.
(8) And to this same Maximus he foretold, long beforehand, that if he should proceed to Italy, where he desired to go, making war on the emperor Valentinian, he should know that at the first onset he would indeed be victor, but a little while after would perish. (9) And this we saw come to pass exactly so. For at his first coming Valentinian was put to flight; then, after about a year, having regained his forces, he captured Maximus within the walls of Aquileia and slew him. 21 (1) Moreover, it is established that angels were very often seen by him, so that they conversed with him, exchanging words with one another:
but the devil he held so visible and subject to his eyes that, whether he kept himself in his proper substance or had transformed himself into the various shapes of spiritual wickedness, under whatever image he was seen by him. (2) And since the devil knew that he could not escape him, he frequently assailed him with abuse, because he could not deceive him by his snares. At a certain time, holding in his hand a bloody ox's horn, he burst into his cell with a great roar, and, showing his bloody right hand and rejoicing in a crime just committed, he said: 'Where, Martin, is your power? I have just now killed one of yours.' (3) Then Martin, calling the brethren together, reported what the devil had revealed:
he bade them go anxiously through the cells of each one, to find out who had been afflicted by this disaster. They reported that indeed none of the monks was missing, but that one hired rustic labourer had gone to the wood to bring back wood in a cart. He therefore ordered some to go to meet him; (4) and so, not far from the monastery, he was found already almost lifeless. Yet, drawing his last breath, he disclosed to the brethren the cause of his death and wound: namely, that while, having yoked his oxen, he was tightening the loosened straps too closely, an ox had tossed its head and driven its horn into his groin. And not long after he gave up his life. You see by what judgement of the Lord this power had been given to the devil.
(5) This was the marvellous thing in Martin: that not only this which we have related above, but many things of this kind, however often they happened, he foresaw long beforehand, or, when they were announced to him, he disclosed them to the brethren. 22 (1) But the devil frequently, while he tried by a thousand arts of harming to delude the holy man, thrust himself visibly upon him in the most various forms. For sometimes he presented himself transformed into the person of Jove, often of Mercury, often too into the countenances of Venus and Minerva; against whom Martin, ever undaunted, protected himself with the sign of the cross and the aid of prayer. (2) For the most part there were heard abusive cries, with which the throng of demons railed at him in insolent voices; but recognizing all to be false and empty, he was not moved by their reproaches.
(3) Some of the brethren even testified that they had heard a demon railing at Martin with insolent voices, demanding why he had received within the monastery, after their conversion, some of the brethren who had once lost their baptism through various errors, and setting forth the crimes of each one: (4) and that Martin, resisting the devil, had answered steadfastly that old offences are purged by the conversion of a better way of life, and that through the mercy of the Lord those who have ceased to sin are to be absolved of their sins. When the devil contended that there was no pardon for the guilty, and that no clemency could be granted by the Lord to those who had once fallen, then Martin is said to have cried out in these words:
(5) 'If you yourself, wretched one, would cease from your persecution of men, and would repent of your deeds even at this present time, when the day of judgement is at hand, I, truly trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, would promise you mercy.' O how holy a presumption concerning the loving-kindness of the Lord, in which, even though he could not grant authority, he showed his affection! (6) And since a discourse has arisen about the devil and his arts, it does not seem out of place, although it lies somewhat outside, to relate what was done, both because there is in it a certain portion of Martin's powers, and because the matter, worthy of a miracle, will rightly be committed to memory, as an example of caution, should anything of the sort happen anywhere hereafter.
23 (1) A certain Clarus, a most noble young man, soon a presbyter, and now blessed in a happy departure, when, having left all things, he had betaken himself to Martin, shone forth in a short time to the highest summit of faith and of all virtues. (2) And so, when he had set up a dwelling for himself not far from the bishop's monastery, and many brethren were staying with him, a certain young man named Anatolius came to him, feigning, under the profession of a monk, all humility and innocence, and lived for some time in common with the rest. (3) Then, as time went on, he used to say that angels were wont to speak with him. When no one would give credence, he tried to constrain most to belief by certain signs.
At last he went so far as to proclaim that messengers ran to and fro between himself and God, and now he wished to be regarded as one of the prophets. (4) Clarus, however, could by no means be compelled to belief. The other began to threaten him with the wrath of the Lord and with present plagues, because he would not believe the holy one. (5) At last he is said to have burst out into these words: 'Behold, this night the Lord will give me from heaven a white robe, clothed in which I shall move among you; and that shall be a sign to you that the power of God is in me, who have been gifted with God's garment.' (6) Then indeed there was great expectation among all at this declaration. And so, about the middle of the night, by the noise of those stamping on the ground the whole monastery seemed to be shaken from its place:
and you might have seen the cell in which the same young man was shut up gleaming with frequent lights, and a noise of people running about in it and a murmur of many voices was heard. (7) Then, silence having fallen, he came out and called to himself one of the brethren (named Sabatius) and showed him the tunic in which he was clad. The other, astonished, called the rest together; Clarus himself also hastened up, and, a light being brought, they all carefully inspected the garment. Now it was of the utmost softness, of exceeding whiteness, of gleaming purple; yet of what kind or fleece it was could not be recognized: when handled with curious eyes or fingers, however, it seemed nothing other than a garment.
Meanwhile Clarus admonished the brethren to persist in prayer, that the Lord might show them more clearly what it was. (9) And so the rest of the night was spent in hymns and psalms. When day dawned, he wished to seize him by the right hand and drag him to Martin, well aware that he could not be deluded by the art of the devil. (10) Then indeed the wretched man began to struggle and to cry out, saying that it had been forbidden him to show himself to Martin. And when they compelled him to go against his will, the garment vanished between the hands of those dragging him. Hence who could doubt that this too was a power of Martin's: that the devil could not, when his phantasm was to be thrust before Martin's eyes, conceal or cover it any longer.
24 (1) It was observed, however, that at about the same time there was in Spain a young man who, when he had procured for himself authority by many signs, was so far carried away that he professed himself to be Elijah. (2) When most had rashly believed this, he added that he might say he was Christ; in which too he so deceived that a certain bishop named Rufus worshipped him as God - on account of which we afterward saw him cast down from his bishopric. (3) Several of the brethren also reported to us that at the same time there had arisen in the East a certain man who boasted that he was John; from which we may conjecture, since pseudo-prophets of this kind exist, that the coming of Antichrist is imminent, who already in these men works the mystery of iniquity.
(4) But it seems it should not be passed over with how great an art the devil tempted Martin in those same days. For on a certain day, prayer having been sent up beforehand, and himself surrounded with a purple light - that he might more easily delude by the brightness of the radiance he had assumed - clothed too in royal garb, crowned with a diadem of gems and gold, with shoes gilded with gold, with a serene countenance and a joyful face, so that he might be thought anything rather than the devil, he stood beside Martin as he was praying in his cell. (5) And when Martin had been dazed at the first sight of him, both for a long while kept a deep silence. Then the devil first: 'Acknowledge,' he said, 'Martin, whom you behold: I am Christ; about to descend to earth, I wished first to manifest myself to you.'
(6) When Martin kept silence at this and returned no reply at all, the devil dared to repeat the boldness of his profession: 'Martin, why do you hesitate to believe, when you see? I am Christ.' (7) Then he, the Spirit revealing it to him so that he understood it was the devil and not the Lord, said: 'The Lord Jesus did not foretell that he would come clad in purple and gleaming with a diadem; I will not believe that Christ has come unless in that habit and form in which he suffered, unless bearing before him the marks of the cross.' (8) At this word the other vanished at once like smoke and filled the cell with so great a stench that he left undoubted proofs that he had been the devil.
This therefore was done, as I have related above, and I learned it from Martin's own mouth, lest perhaps anyone should suppose it to be fabulous. 25 (1) For when once, having heard of his faith, life, and virtue, we burned with desire of him, we undertook a journey pleasing to us in order to see him; and at the same time, since my mind already burned to write his life, partly we inquired from himself, in so far as he could be questioned, and partly we learned from those who had been present or knew. (2) At which time it cannot be believed with what humility, with what kindness he received us, congratulating us greatly and rejoicing in the Lord that he was held in such esteem by us, who had undertaken a journey to seek him out.
(3) Wretched me - I scarcely dare to confess it - when he had deigned to admit me to his holy table, he himself offered water for our hands, and in the evening he himself washed our feet. Nor had I the firmness to resist or to go against it: so overwhelmed was I by his authority that I thought it would be a sin if I did not acquiesce. (4) But his discourse with us was of nothing other than that the enticements of the world and the burdens of the age must be left behind, that we might follow the Lord Jesus free and unencumbered; and he set before us, as the most outstanding example of our present times, that of the illustrious Paulinus, of whom we made mention above, who, having cast away the greatest wealth and followed Christ, had almost alone in these times fulfilled the precepts of the Gospel:
(5) he kept proclaiming that this man was to be followed, this man to be imitated; and that the present age was blessed by the proof of such great faith and virtue, since, according to the Lord's saying, a rich man who possessed much, by selling all and giving to the poor, had by his example made possible what was impossible in the doing. (6) Now indeed, in his words and conversation, how great was the gravity, how great the dignity! How keen, how effective he was, how ready and easy in resolving questions of the Scriptures! (7) And since I know that many are incredulous on this point - inasmuch as I have seen some not believe even when I myself related it - I call Jesus and our common hope to witness that I never heard from the mouth of anyone so much knowledge, so much goodness of genius, and such pure speech.
(8) And yet, among Martin's powers, how trifling is this praise! Except that it is marvellous that not even this grace was lacking to an unlettered man. 26 (1) But now the book demands an end, the discourse must be brought to a close - not that all the things which were to be said about Martin have failed, but because we, like sluggish poets careless at the end of their work, are overcome and sink beneath the mass of our material. (2) For although his deeds could somehow be set forth in words, his inner life and daily conversation and his soul ever intent on heaven - I truly profess - no speech will ever set forth.
That perseverance, namely, and self-control in abstinence and in fastings, that power in vigils and prayers, and the nights spent by him just like the days, no time empty of the work of God in which he indulged either in leisure or in business - nay, not even in food or in sleep, except in so far as the necessity of nature compelled - I shall truly confess: (3) not even if Homer himself, as they say, were to emerge from the lower world, could he set it forth; to such a degree are all things in Martin greater than that they can be grasped in words. Never did any hour or moment pass in which he did not either apply himself to prayer or persist in reading; although even while reading, or if perchance he was doing anything else, he never relaxed his soul from prayer.
(4) Indeed, just as it is the custom of blacksmiths, who while working strike their anvil by way of a certain relief of their labour, so Martin too, even while he seemed to be doing something else, was always praying. (5) O truly blessed man, in whom there was no guile: judging no one, condemning no one, repaying evil to no one for evil. For he had taken on so great a patience against all injuries that, although he was the highest priest, he was wronged even by the lowest clerics with impunity, nor on that account did he ever remove them from their place or, as far as in him lay, repel them from his love. 27 (1) No one ever saw him angry, no one saw him agitated, no one saw him grieving, no one saw him laughing:
he was ever one and the same, bearing on his face a certain heavenly joy, so that he seemed beyond the nature of man. (2) Never was there in his mouth anything but Christ, never in his heart anything but piety, peace, and mercy. For the most part he was even wont to weep over the sins of those who seemed to be his detractors, who carped at him - remote and quiet as he was - with venomous tongues and viperous mouths. (3) And truly we have found by experience some envious of his virtue and life, who hated in him what they did not see in themselves and what they were not able to imitate. And - O grievous and groan-worthy outrage! - his persecutors, though very few indeed, were reported to be none other than bishops.