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| Letter I. To Eusebius. Against Some Envious Assailants of Martin.
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Letter I. To Eusebius.
Against Some Envious Assailants of Martin.
Yesterday a number of
monks having come to me, it happened that amid endless fables, and much
tiresome discourse, mention was made of the little work which I
published concerning the life of that saintly man Martin, and I was
most happy to hear that it was being eagerly and carefully read by
multitudes. In the meantime, however, I was told that a certain person,
under the influence of an evil spirit, had asked why Martin, who was
said to have raised the dead and to have rescued houses from the
flames, had himself recently become subject to the power of fire, and
thus been exposed to suffering of a dangerous character. Wretched man,
whoever he is, that expressed himself thus! We recognize his perfidious
talk in the words of the Jews of old, who reviled the Lord, when
hanging upon the cross, in the following terms: “He saved others;
himself he cannot save.”44
Truly it is clear
that, whoever be the person referred to, if he had lived in those
times, he would have been quite prepared to speak against the Lord in
these terms, inasmuch as he blasphemes a saint of the Lord, after a
like fashion. How then, I ask thee, whosoever thou art, how does the
case stand? Was Martin really not possessed of power, and not a
partaker of holiness, because he became exposed to danger from fire? O
thou blessed man, and in all things like to the Apostles, even in the
reproaches which are thus heaped upon thee! Assuredly those Gentiles
are reported to have entertained the same sort of thought respecting
Paul also, when the viper had bitten him, for they said, “This
man must be a murderer, whom, although saved from the sea, the fates do
not permit to live.”45
But he, shaking off
the viper into the fire, suffered no harm. They, however, imagined that
he would suddenly fall down, and speedily die; but when they saw that
no harm befell him, changing their minds, they said that he was a God.
But, O thou most miserable of men, you ought, even from that example to
have yourself been convinced of your falsity; so that, if it had proved
a stumbling-block to thee that Martin appeared touched by the flame of
fire, you should, on the other hand, have ascribed his being merely
touched to his merits and power, because, though surrounded by flames,
he did not perish. For acknowledge, thou miserable man, acknowledge
what you seem ignorant of, that almost all the saints have been more
remarkable for46
| 46 “magis insignes
periculorum suorum”: such is the construction of insignis
with later writers. | the dangers they
encountered, than even for the virtues they displayed. I see, indeed,
Peter strong in faith, walking over the waves of the sea, in opposition
to the nature of things, and that he pressed the unstable waters with
his footprints. But not on that account does the preacher of the
Gentiles47
seem to me a smaller man, whom the waves
swallowed up; and, after three days48
| 48 The writer here
supposes that St. Paul was sunk for three days and three nights in the
sea—a mistaken inference from 2 Cor. xi. 25. The construction of the very long
sentence which soon follows is very confused, and has not been rigidly
followed in our translation. | and three
nights, the water restored him emerging from the deep. Nay, I am almost
inclined to think that it was a greater thing to have lived in the
deep, than to have walked along the depths of the sea. But, thou
foolish man, you had not, as I suppose, read these things; or, having
read them, had not understood them. For the blessed Evangelist would
not have recorded in holy writ an incident of that kind—under
divine guidance—(except that, from such cases, the human mind
might be instructed as to the dangers connected with shipwrecks and
serpents!) and, as the Apostle relates, who gloried in his nakedness,
and hunger, and perils from robbers, all these things are indeed to be
endured in common by holy men, but that it has always been the chief
excellence of the righteous in enduring and conquering such things,
while amid all their trials, being patient and ever unconquerable, they
overcame them all the more courageously, the heavier was the burden
which they had to bear. Hence this event which is ascribed to the
infirmity of Martin is, in reality, full of dignity and glory, since
indeed, being tried
by a
most dangerous calamity, he came forth a conqueror. But let no one
wonder that the incident referred to was omitted by me in that treatise
which I wrote concerning his life, since in that very work I openly
acknowledged that I had not embraced all his acts; and that for the
good reason that, if I had been minded to narrate them all, I must have
presented an enormous volume to my readers. And indeed, his
achievements were not of so limited a number that they could all be
comprehended in a book. Nevertheless, I shall not leave this incident,
about which a question has arisen, to remain in obscurity, but shall
relate the whole affair as it occurred, lest I should appear perchance
to have intentionally passed over that which might be put forward in
calumniation of the saintly man.
Martin having, about the middle of winter, come to
a certain parish,49
| 49 “ad diœcesim
quandam”: it seems certain that diocesis has here the
meaning of “parish.” | according to the
usual custom for the bishops to visit the churches in the diocese, the
clerics had prepared an abode for him in the private50
| 50 “in secretario
ecclesiæ”: it is very difficult to say what is here meant by
“secretarium.” It appears from Dial. II. 1,
that there might be two or more secretaria in one
church. | part
of the church, and had kindled a large fire beneath the floor which was
decayed and very thin.51
| 51 “pavimento”:
this word usually means “a floor,” or
“pavement,” but some take it here to be the same as
fornax. This, however, can hardly be the case; and the meaning
probably is that the church was heated, as the baths were, by means of
a hypocaustum, or flue running below the pavement. | They also erected for
him a couch consisting of a large amount of straw. Then, when Martin
betook himself to rest, he was annoyed with the softness of the too
luxurious bed, inasmuch as he had been accustomed to lie on the bare
ground with only a piece of sackcloth stretched over him. Accordingly,
influenced by the injury which had, as it were, been done him, he threw
aside the whole of the straw. Now, it so happened that part of the
straw which he had thus removed fell upon the stove. He himself, in the
meantime, rested, as was his wont, upon the bare ground, tired out by
his long journey. About midnight, the fire bursting up through the
stove which, as I have said, was far from sound, laid hold of the dry
straw. Martin, being wakened out of sleep by this unexpected
occurrence, and being prevented by the pressing danger, but chiefly, as
he afterwards related, by the snares and urgency of the devil, was
longer than he ought to have been in having recourse to the aid of
prayer. For, desiring to get outside, he struggled long and laboriously
with the bolt by which he had secured the door. Ere long he perceived
that he was surrounded by a fearful conflagration; and the fire had
even laid hold of the garment with which he was clothed. At length
recovering his habitual conviction that his safety lay not in flight,
but in the Lord, and seizing the shield of faith and prayer, committing
himself entirely to the Lord, he lay down in the midst of the flames.
Then truly, the fire having been removed by divine interposition, he
continued to pray amid a circle of flames that did him no harm. But the
monks, who were before the door, hearing the sound of the crackling and
struggling fire, broke open the barred door; and, the fire being
extinguished, they brought forth Martin from the midst of the flames,
all the time supposing that he must ere then have been burnt to ashes
by a fire of so long continuance. Now, as the Lord is my witness, he
himself related to me, and not without groans, confessed that he was in
this matter beguiled by the arts of the devil; in that, when roused
from sleep, he did not take the wise course of repelling the danger by
means of faith and prayer. He also added that the flames raged around
him all the time that, with a distempered mind, he strove to throw open
the door. But he declared that as soon as he again sought assistance
from the cross, and tried the weapons of prayer, the central flames
gave way, and that he then felt them shedding a dewy refreshment over
him, after having just experienced how cruelly they burned him.
Considering all which, let every one who reads this letter understand
that Martin was indeed tried by that danger, but passed through it with
true acceptance.52
| 52 Halm here inserts
“vere.” | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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