Dialogues

When Gallus and I had met in one place (a man very dear to me both for the memory of Martin, for he was one of his disciples, and for his own merits), my friend Postumianus came upon us, having returned for our sake from the East, where he had gone three years before, leaving his homeland. We embraced that most loving man and kissed his knees and feet, and after we had walked up and down once or twice as though dazed, weeping in turn for joy, we spread hair cloths on the ground and sat down. Then Postumianus, looking at me, spoke first: “When I was in the remote parts of Egypt, I took a fancy to go on as far as the sea. There I found a merchant ship, loaded with goods and bound for Narbonne, which was getting ready to sail. That same night you seemed to me in my sleep to stand by me, lay hold of me, and draw me to board that ship. Soon, as dawn broke the darkness, when I had risen from the place where I had rested, thinking over my dream, I was suddenly seized with so great a longing for you that I boarded the ship without any delay. On the thirtieth day I landed at Marseilles, and from there I came here on the tenth: so prosperous a voyage attended a devout wish. Only now, you for whose sake I have sailed across so many seas and run across so much land, put everything else aside and give yourself to me to be embraced and enjoyed.” “For my part,” I said, “even while you were staying in Egypt, I was always wholly with you in mind and thought, and love of you possessed me wholly as I thought of you day and night; much less should you suppose that I will now be absent from you for a moment, so as not to hang on your lips, look at you, listen to you, talk with you, with no one at all admitted to our privacy, which this rather remote little cell affords us. For I think you will not mind the presence of our Gallus here, who, as you see, exults with joy at your arrival just as I do.” “Quite right,” said Postumianus. “Gallus shall be kept in our company; though I know him little, yet because he is very dear to you he cannot but be dear to me, especially since he is of Martin’s school. Nor will I mind talking with you as intimately as you wish, as you ask; for I came for this very purpose, that, out of longing for my Sulpicius here” (and he embraced me with both hands) “I might spend myself even in many words.”

“Indeed,” I said, “you have proved well enough what devout love can do, you who for our sake have measured so many seas and so much land, and have come, so to speak, from the very rising of the sun to its setting. Come, then, since we are by ourselves and not busy, and ought to give our time to your talk, I would like you to tell us the whole story of your travels: how faith in Christ flourishes in the East, what the quiet of the saints is like, what the practices of the monks are, and with how many signs and mighty works Christ works in his servants. For certainly, since in these regions, amid the things among which we live, life itself is a weariness to us, we shall gladly hear from you whether Christians may at least live in the desert.” To this Postumianus said: “I will do as I see you wish. But I beg first to hear from you whether all those priests whom I had left here are such as we knew them to be before I set out.” Then I said: “Stop asking about these things, which you either know as well as I do, or, if you do not, it is better not to hear. This I cannot keep silent: not only have those you ask about become no better than you knew them, but that one man who once loved us, in whom we used to find breathing space from their attacks, has been harsher to us than he should have been. I will not say anything too severe against him, since I cultivated him as a friend and loved him even when he was thought an enemy. But as I turned these things over in silent thought, this grief stung me sharply, that we had almost been deprived of the friendship of a wise and religious man. But let us leave these things, which are full of sadness; let us rather hear you, as you promised a while ago.” “So be it,” said Postumianus. When he had said this we were all silent for a little; then he moved the hair cloth he was sitting on nearer to me and began as follows.

“Three years ago, at the time when I said farewell to you, Sulpicius, on leaving here, when we set sail from Narbonne we entered a port of Africa on the fifth day: so prosperous, by God’s will, was the voyage. I wished to go to Carthage, to visit the places of the saints, and above all to pray at the tomb of the martyr Cyprian. On the fifteenth day we returned to port and put out to sea, making for Alexandria, but with the south wind against us we were almost driven onto the Syrtis; the experienced sailors guarded against this and stopped the ship by casting anchors. The mainland was before our eyes, and when we had gone ashore in boats and saw that everything was empty of human cultivation, I went on farther, eager to explore the place. About three miles from the shore I saw a small hut among the sands, whose roof, as Sallust says, was like the keel of a ship, touching the ground and covered with fairly strong planks; not that any force of rain is feared there (that it has ever rained there has never even been heard of), but because the force of the winds is such that, if ever even under a milder sky a little breeze begins to blow, there is a greater shipwreck on that land than on any sea. No shoots, no crops grow there, since the place is unstable and the dry sands give way at every movement of the winds. But where certain headlands turned away from the sea resist the winds, the somewhat firmer ground produces sparse and bristly grass, which is useful enough as pasture for sheep. The inhabitants live on milk; those who are more skillful, or, so to speak, richer, use barley bread. That is the only harvest there, which by the speed of its growth, owing to the nature of the soil, usually escapes the ravages of the raging winds; for it is said to ripen on the thirtieth day after the seed is sown. And the only reason that makes men stay there is that all are free from tribute. For it is the farthest edge of Cyrenaica, next to that desert which lies between Egypt and Africa, through which Cato once led his army when fleeing from Caesar.”

“So I made for that hut which I had seen from a distance. There I find an old man in a garment of skins, turning a hand mill. He greeted us and received us kindly. We explain that we had been cast up on that shore and were held back by the calm of the sea from resuming our course at once; that, having come ashore, as is the way of the human mind, we had wished to learn the nature of the place and the way of life of its inhabitants; that we were Christians, and were asking above all whether there were any Christians in those wildernesses. Then indeed he fell at our knees weeping for joy; kissing us again and again, he invited us to prayer; then he spread sheepskins on the ground and made us recline. He set before us a truly sumptuous lunch: half a barley loaf. We were four, and he was the fifth. He also brought in a bundle of an herb whose name has slipped my memory, which was like mint, rich in leaves, and tasted of honey; we were delighted and filled by its very sweet taste.” At this I smiled and said to my Gallus: “Well, Gallus, how do you like a lunch of a bundle of herbs and half a loaf for five men?” Then he, being very modest, blushing a little as he took my teasing, said: “You are doing as you always do, Sulpicius: you never miss an opportunity, if one is offered, to tease us about our appetite. But it is inhuman of you to compel us Gauls to live by the example of angels; although, such is my zeal for eating, I would believe that even the angels eat. For I am afraid to touch that half barley loaf even by myself. But let that Cyrenian be content with it, for whom hunger is either a necessity or his nature, or lastly these travelers, whose tossing at sea, I suppose, had taken away their appetite. We are far from the sea and, as I have often told you, we are Gauls. But let him rather go on to tell the story of his Cyrenian.”

“Indeed,” said Postumianus, “I will take care from now on not to praise anyone’s abstinence, lest so hard an example utterly offend our Gauls. I had meant to tell also of that Cyrenian’s dinner, and the meals that followed (for we were with him seven days); but I must refrain, lest Gallus think he is being teased. Well, the next day, when some of the inhabitants began to flock to us, we learn that our host was a presbyter, which he had hidden from us with the greatest reserve. Then we went with him to the church, which was about two miles away, hidden from our sight by a hill in between. It was woven of cheap brushwood, not much more pretentious than our host’s tent, in which one could not stand except bent over. When we inquired into the people’s ways, we noticed this admirable thing: they neither buy nor sell anything. What fraud or theft is they do not know. Gold and silver, which mortals think to be the chief things, they neither have nor wish to have. For when I offered that presbyter ten gold coins, he refused them, declaring with deeper wisdom that a church is not built up by gold but rather torn down. We gave him a few garments.”

“When he had kindly accepted these, the sailors called us back to the sea and we left, and after a prosperous voyage reached Alexandria on the seventh day. There shameful conflicts were being waged between the bishops and the monks, on this occasion or for this reason: the priests, gathering together frequently, appeared to have decreed in repeated synods that no one should read or keep the books of Origen, who was held to be a most skilled interpreter of the sacred Scriptures. But the bishops pointed to certain rather mad things written in his books, which his defenders did not dare to defend, but said had rather been fraudulently inserted by heretics; and that therefore, because of the things that were deservedly called into question, the rest should not also be condemned, since the faith of readers could easily make the distinction, so as not to follow what was falsified and yet to keep what was argued in a catholic way. Nor was it any wonder, they said, if heretical fraud had been at work in modern and recently written books, since in certain places it had not been afraid to attack the truth of the Gospel. Against this the bishops resisted the more obstinately and used their power to compel the condemnation of everything, the right along with the wrong, and the author himself with them, because the books which the church had received were more than enough: a reading should be utterly rejected that would do more harm to the foolish than good to the wise. For my part, examining certain things in those books with some care, I liked a great many, but I found some in which there is no doubt that he held wrong views, which his defenders contend are falsified. I wonder that one and the same man could be so different from himself that, in the part in which he is approved, he has no equal since the apostles, but in that in which he is rightly blamed, no one is shown to have erred more shamefully.”

“For when many passages were read out, excerpted by the bishops from his books, which were plainly written against the catholic faith, that passage especially stirred up ill will in which it was read that the Lord Jesus, as he had come in the flesh for the redemption of man, had endured the cross for man’s salvation and tasted death for man’s eternity, so by the same order of passion he would also redeem the devil; because this was in keeping with his goodness and mercy, that he who had restored lost man should also set free the fallen angel. When these and other things of the kind were brought forward by the bishops, a riot arose from party zeal; and since it could not be put down by the authority of the priests, by a perverse precedent the prefect was called in to govern the discipline of the church, and through fear of him the brothers were scattered and the monks driven through various regions, so that by published edicts they were not allowed to settle in any place. What disturbed me greatly was that Jerome, a thoroughly catholic man and most skilled in the sacred law, was thought at first to have followed Origen, and now he especially condemned all his writings. I would not dare to judge anyone; yet very eminent and very learned men were said to differ in this conflict. But whether it is an error, as I think, or a heresy, as is supposed, not only could it not be put down by the many rebukes of the priests, but it could never have spread so widely had it not grown by contention. With such disturbance, then, Alexandria was in turmoil when I arrived. The bishop of that city, indeed, received me very kindly, better than I expected, and tried to keep me with him; but I had no mind to stay where the ill will of the recent disaster to the brothers was still seething. For although they may perhaps seem to have been bound to obey the bishops, that was no reason why so great a multitude living in the confession of Christ should have been afflicted, especially by bishops.”

“So I left there and made for the town of Bethlehem, which is six miles from Jerusalem and sixteen stages from Alexandria. The presbyter Jerome governs the church of that place; for it is a parish of the bishop who holds Jerusalem. Jerome, whom I had already come to know on that earlier pilgrimage of mine, had easily brought me to think that there was no one I should rather seek out. For the man, besides the merit of his faith and the endowment of his virtues, is so trained not only in Latin and Greek but also in Hebrew letters that no one would dare compare himself with him in any branch of knowledge. I would be surprised if he is not known to you too through the many works he has written, since he is read throughout the world.” “To us,” said Gallus, “he is all too well known. For five years ago I read a certain little book of his in which our whole nation of monks is most fiercely attacked and torn to pieces by him. That is why our friend Belgicus sometimes gets very angry, because he said that we are in the habit of eating till we vomit. But I forgive the man, and I think he was speaking of the Eastern monks rather than the Western. For gluttony in the Greeks is greed, in the Gauls it is nature.” Then I said: “You defend your people like a rhetorician, Gallus. But tell me, does that book condemn only this vice in monks?” “Not at all,” he said; “he left out nothing at all that he did not carp at, tear apart, and expose. He attacked especially avarice, and vanity no less. He said much about pride, and not a little about superstition; truly, I will confess, he seems to me to have painted the vices of many.

“But on the familiarities of virgins with monks and even clerics, how true, how strong were his arguments! That is why he is said not to be loved by certain people whom I will not name. For as our Belgicus is angry that we were charged with excessive appetite, so they are said to fume when they read written in that little work: ‘The virgin scorns her unmarried brother and seeks a stranger for a brother.’” At this I said: “You are going too far, Gallus. Take care that someone who recognizes himself in this does not hear you and begin, together with Jerome, not to love you. Since you are a rhetorician, I will not unfittingly warn you with that comic poet’s line: ‘Compliance makes friends, truth breeds hatred.’ Let us rather have your Eastern account again, Postumianus, as you had begun.” “I was,” he said, “as I had begun to say, with Jerome for six months; his continual fight and unending struggle against the wicked has stirred up the hatred of the depraved against him. The heretics hate him, because he does not cease attacking them; the clergy hate him, because he assails their life and crimes; but clearly all good people admire and love him; for those who think him a heretic are mad. I would say truly that the man’s learning is catholic and his doctrine sound: he is always wholly given to reading, wholly to books; he does not rest day or night; he is always either reading or writing something. Had I not fixed it in my mind and promised God first to go into the desert I had set before me, I would not have wished to leave so great a man even for the smallest moment. So, having handed over and entrusted to him everything of mine and all my household, which had followed me against my wish and kept me entangled, I was somehow relieved of a heavy burden and wholly free; I returned to Alexandria, visited the brothers there, and from there pressed on to the Upper Thebaid, that is, to the farthest parts of Egypt. For the wide-open solitudes of the desert there were said to hold a great many monks. It would take long if I wished to tell all that I saw; I will touch on a few things.

“Not far from the desert, next to the Nile, there are many monasteries. For the most part a hundred live in one place; their supreme law is to live under the abbot’s command, to do nothing by their own choice, and to depend in all things on his nod and authority. If any of them conceive in their minds a higher virtue, so as to go off into the desert to lead a solitary life, they leave only with the abbot’s permission. This is their first virtue, to obey another’s command. To those who have gone over to the desert, bread or any other food is supplied by that abbot’s arrangement. As it happened, in the days when I had come there, the abbot had sent bread by two boys to a man who had lately withdrawn to the desert and had set up his tent no more than six miles from the monastery; the elder of the boys was fifteen years old, the younger twelve. As they were returning from there, an asp of extraordinary size met them; they were not at all frightened at meeting it, and when it came before their feet it laid down its dark-blue neck as though charmed by spells. The younger boy took hold of it with his hand, wrapped it in his cloak, and began to carry it. Then, entering the monastery like a conqueror, he went to meet the brothers and, as everyone looked on, opened his cloak and set down the captive beast, not without a swelling of boastfulness. But while the others were praising the children’s faith and power, that abbot, with deeper wisdom, lest their tender age should grow insolent, punished both with rods, rebuking them severely for having themselves made known what the Lord had worked through them. That deed, he said, had been the work not of their faith but of divine power; they should rather learn to serve God in humility and not glory in signs and mighty works, because the consciousness of weakness was better than vanity about powers.

“When that monk heard this, that the little children had been endangered by meeting the serpent and had moreover earned many strokes for overcoming it, he begged the abbot that after this no bread or any food should be sent to him. And now the eighth day had passed since the man of Christ had shut himself in danger of starvation. His limbs were withering with fasting, but his mind, intent on heaven, could not fail; his body was wasting with hunger, but his faith endured firm. Meanwhile that abbot, warned by the Spirit to visit his disciple, and wishing in his devout concern to learn by what means of life the faithful man was being fed, who had refused to have bread supplied him by man, set out himself to seek him. When the monk saw the old man coming from afar, he ran to meet him, gave thanks, and led him to his little cell. When the two had gone in together, they saw a basket of palm leaves, filled with warm bread, fastened to the door and hanging before the doorpost. First the smell of warm bread was noticed, and to the touch it seemed as if it had been taken from the hearth a little before; yet the shape of Egyptian bread was not to be seen. Both were astonished and recognized a heavenly gift. While the monk declared that this had been granted for the abbot’s coming, and the abbot ascribed it rather to the monk’s faith and virtue, the two broke the heavenly bread with great rejoicing. When the old man, after returning to the monastery, had told this to the brothers, so great an ardor seized them all that they hastened in rivalry to go to the desert and the holy solitudes, declaring themselves wretched if they stayed any longer in the community of many, where human company had to be endured.

“In this monastery I saw two old men who were said to have lived there forty years without ever leaving it. I do not think I should pass over a mention of them, since I heard it said in praise of their virtues, both by the testimony of the abbot himself and in the talk of all the brothers, that the sun had never seen one of them eating, nor the other angry.” At this Gallus, looking at me, said: “Oh, if that man of yours (I will not name him) were here now, I would very much like him to hear this example; we have too often found him to be very angry with many people. Yet since, as I hear, he has lately forgiven his enemies, if he heard this he would be more and more confirmed in his purpose by the example, that it is a splendid virtue not to be moved by anger. Nor will I deny that he had just causes for anger; but where the fight is harder, there the crown is more glorious. So I think a certain person, if you recognize him, deserves praise, because when an ungrateful freedman deserted him he pitied rather than pursued the departing man; and he is not angry either with the man by whom the freedman seems to have been drawn away.” And I said: “If Postumianus had not brought forward this example of overcoming anger, I would be very angry at the runaway’s departure; but since it is not permitted to be angry, all mention of these men, which stings us, must be wiped out. Let us rather hear you, Postumianus.” “I will do as you bid, Sulpicius,” he said, “since I see you so eager to listen. But remember that I am not depositing this talk with you without interest: I gladly give what you ask, provided that a little later you do not refuse what I ask.” “We have nothing,” I said, “with which we could repay you a loan, even without interest. But give whatever command you think fit, provided you satisfy our desires as you had begun; for your discourse delights us greatly.” “I will not cheat your eagerness at all,” said Postumianus; “and since you have learned the virtue of one hermit, I will tell you a few more things out of very many.

“So when I had entered the first part of the desert, about twelve miles from the Nile (I had one of the brothers who knew the places as a guide), we came to an old monk living at the foot of a mountain. There, what is very rare in those parts, was a well. He had one ox, whose whole labor was to draw up water by turning a wheel; for the well was said to be about a thousand feet deep or more. There was a garden there, abundant in vegetables, contrary to the nature of the desert, where everything is dry, burned by the heat of the sun, and never bears even a small root of any seed. But for that holy man the labor he shared with his beast and his own industry provided this; for frequent watering gave such richness to the sand that we saw the vegetables of his garden flourishing and bearing wonderfully. On these the ox lived together with its master; and the holy man gave us supper from that plenty too. There I saw, what you Gauls perhaps do not believe, a pot with the vegetables being prepared for our supper boiling without fire: such is the strength of the sun that it would serve any cooks, even for the stews of the Gauls. After supper, as evening was already coming on, he invited us to a palm tree, whose fruit he sometimes used, about two miles away. For these are the only trees in the desert, rare though they are. Whether a skillful antiquity provided them or the nature of the soil produces them I do not know, unless God, foreknowing that the desert would one day be inhabited by saints, prepared them for his servants. For most of those who live within those retreats are fed on the fruit of these trees, since no other plants grow there. So when we came to the tree to which our host’s kindness was taking us, we came upon a lion there. At the sight of it my guide and I trembled, but the holy man went up without hesitation; we followed, though trembling. The beast (you could see it was under God’s command) modestly withdrew a little and stood still while he picked the fruit from the lower branches. And when he held out a hand full of dates, the beast ran up and took them as freely as any tame animal, and when it had eaten, went away. Watching this, and still trembling, we could easily weigh how great was the power of faith in him and how great the weakness in us.

“We saw another equally remarkable man, living in a small hut in which only one person could be received. It was said of him that a she-wolf used to stand by him at supper, and the beast hardly ever failed to come to him at the regular hour of his meal and wait outside the door until he offered the bread left over from his little supper; she used to lick his hand and then, as though her duty were done and her greeting paid, go away. But it happened that the holy man, while seeing off a brother who had come to him, was away rather long and did not return until nightfall. Meanwhile the beast came at her usual suppertime. Sensing that her familiar patron was away, she entered the empty cell, searching inquisitively for where its inhabitant might be. As it happened, a palm-leaf basket with five loaves was hanging close by. Taking one of these, she devoured it, and then, having committed the crime, went away. The hermit, on returning, sees the basket undone and the number of loaves not right: he realizes the loss to his household, and near the threshold recognizes the crumbs of the loaf that had been eaten. And there was no doubt in his suspicion as to who had committed the theft. So when on the following days the beast did not come as usual (doubtless conscious of her bold deed, and avoiding coming to the one she had wronged), the hermit was sorry to be deprived of the comfort of his foster-child. At last, recalled by his prayer, she was there on the seventh day, as before, at his supper. But, so that you could easily see the shame of a penitent, she did not dare to come nearer; with her eyes cast down to the ground in deep shame, she was plainly to be understood as begging for some pardon. The hermit, pitying her confusion, bade her come nearer and stroked her sad head with a gentle hand; then he refreshed his culprit with a double ration of bread. So, having obtained pardon, she put aside her sorrow and resumed her customary duty. See, I beg you, the power of Christ in this too, to whom everything brute is wise, to whom everything savage is gentle. A she-wolf performs a duty, a she-wolf acknowledges the crime of theft, a she-wolf is confounded by a guilty sense of shame; when called she comes, offers her head, and has a sense of the pardon granted her, as she showed shame for her fault. This is your power, Christ; these, Christ, are your miracles. For what your servants work in your name is yours; and in this we groan, that wild beasts sense your majesty while men do not revere it.

“Lest this perhaps seem incredible to anyone, I will mention greater things. The faith of Christ is my witness that I invent nothing, nor will I tell things spread abroad on uncertain authority; I will set out what I have learned through trustworthy men. Many live in the desert without any tents; they call them anchorites. They live on the roots of plants; they never stay in any fixed place, so as not to be often visited by people; they have whatever lodging night forces on them. To one who lived by this custom and rule, two monks from Nitria made their way, though from a very distant region, because he had once been dear and familiar to them in the life of the monastery, and they had heard of his virtues. After searching for him long and hard, in the seventh month they at last found him living in the farthest desert, the one next to Memphis; he was said to have lived in those solitudes for twelve years already. Though he avoided meeting anyone, he did not flee from those he recognized, and did not deny himself to his dearest friends for three days. On the fourth day, when he had gone a little way to escort them as they left, they saw a lioness of extraordinary size coming toward them. Though the beast found three of them, she was in no doubt whom she was seeking; she rolled at the anchorite’s feet, and, lying there with a kind of weeping and lamentation, showed the feeling of one both grieving and pleading. It moved them all, and especially him who understood that he was being sought; they followed her as she went ahead. For by stopping now and then and looking back now and then, she made it easy to understand that she wished the anchorite to follow where she led. In short, they come to the beast’s cave, where the unhappy mother was nursing five cubs, already grown, which, having come out of the mother’s womb with their eyes closed, were held in perpetual blindness. The mother brought them out of the rock one by one and laid them before the anchorite’s feet. Then at last the holy man saw what the beast was asking; and, calling on the name of God, he touched the closed eyes of the cubs with his hand: and at once the blindness was driven away, their eyes opened, and the light so long denied lay open to the beasts. So those brothers, having visited the anchorite they longed for, returned with a very rich reward for their labor, admitted as witnesses of so great a power, having seen the faith of the saint and the glory of Christ, to which they were to testify. I am going to tell a marvel: that after five days the lioness returned to the author of so great a kindness and brought him, as a gift, the skin of an unusual wild animal. The holy man often wore it like a cloak, not disdaining to receive a gift through a beast, of which he understood another to be the real author.

“There was also the famous name of another anchorite in those regions, who lived in the part of the desert that belongs to Syene. When he had first gone to the desert, intending to live on the roots of plants, which the sand sometimes produces very sweet and of excellent flavor, not knowing how to choose the plants he often picked harmful ones. Nor was it easy to tell the strength of the roots by taste, for all were equally sweet, but many, by a more hidden nature, contained a deadly poison. So when the force within tormented him as he ate, and all his vital organs were shaken with immense pains, and frequent vomiting with unbearable agonies was dissolving the very seat of life, his stomach already failing, he was so afraid of everything edible that he was spending the seventh day fasting, his breath failing, when a wild animal called an ibex came up to him. As it stood close by, he threw to it a bundle of plants which he had gathered the day before and did not dare to touch; and the beast, pushing aside with its mouth those that were poisonous, picked out those it knew to be harmless. So the holy man, taught by its example what he ought to eat and what reject, both escaped the danger of starvation and avoided the poisons of the plants. But it would take long to tell what we learned or heard about all who inhabit the desert. I spent a whole year and about seven months living in the solitude, more an admirer of others’ virtue than able myself to attempt so arduous and difficult a way of life; yet I lived most often with that old man who had the well and the ox.

“I went to the two monasteries of the blessed Antony, which are inhabited by his disciples to this day. I also went to the place where the most blessed Paul, the first hermit, lived. I saw the Red Sea and the ridge of Mount Sinai, whose summit almost touches heaven and cannot be reached at all. Among its recesses a certain anchorite was said to live, whom, after long and hard searching, I could not see. Withdrawn from human society for nearly fifty years already, wearing no clothing, covered with the hair of his body, he did not know his nakedness, by the gift of God. Whenever devout men wished to approach him, he would run off to pathless places and avoid meeting people. He was said to have shown himself to only one person, five years before, who, I believe, deserved to obtain this by his strong faith; and when that man, among many conversations, asked him why he avoided people so much, he is said to have answered that one who is visited by men cannot be visited by angels. Hence, not without reason, report had spread abroad, accepted by many, that that holy man was visited by angels. For my part, leaving Mount Sinai, I returned to the river Nile, whose banks, crowded with monasteries, I traveled along on both sides. For the most part I saw, as I said before, a hundred living in one place; but it was well known that two and three thousand lived in the same villages. And do not suppose that there is less virtue there among the monks living in a multitude than you have learned there is among those who have withdrawn from human company. The chief and first virtue there, as I have said, is obedience; nor is a newcomer received by the abbot of a monastery in any other way than after he has first been tested and proved, as one who will never refuse any command of the abbot, however arduous and difficult and hard to bear.

“I will tell you two very great miracles of incredible obedience, though more come to mind as I recall them; but for stirring up emulation of virtues, those for whom a few are not enough will not be helped by many. So when a certain man, having renounced the affairs of the world, came to a monastery of great discipline and asked to be received, the abbot began to set many things before him: the labors of that discipline were heavy, and his own commands harsh, such as no one’s patience could easily fulfill; he should rather seek another monastery, where people lived under easier rules, and not attempt to undertake what he could not carry out. But he was not at all moved by these threats; rather he promised complete obedience, so that if the abbot ordered him to go into the fire, he would not refuse to enter. When the master heard this profession, he did not hesitate to test the one who made it. As it happened, an oven was burning nearby, heated with a great fire and being made ready for baking bread: the flame was pouring out of the open furnace, and within the hollow of that oven the fire reigned with full rein. The master orders the newcomer to go in there, and he did not delay to obey the command: without hesitation he walked into the midst of the flames, which, overcome at once by so bold a faith, gave way to him as he came, as once to the Hebrew youths. Nature was overcome, the fire fled; and he who was expected to burn was himself amazed to be as though bathed in cool dew. But what wonder, Christ, if that fire did not touch your recruit? So that neither did the abbot regret having given hard orders, nor the disciple repent of having obeyed the command; on the very day he had come, while he was being tested as weak, he was found perfect; deservedly happy, deservedly glorious, proved by obedience, he was glorified by suffering.

“In the same monastery, what I am going to tell was reported as a recent memory. Another man had likewise come to the same abbot to be received. When the first law of obedience was laid on him, and he promised unending patience in all things, even the most extreme, the abbot happened to be holding in his hand a staff of storax wood, long since dried up. He fixed it in the ground and laid this task on the newcomer: to keep the stick watered until, against all nature, the dry wood should grow green in the dry ground. The newcomer, submitting to the command of this hard law, carried water every day on his own shoulders, fetched from the river Nile about two miles away. And now a year had passed, and the worker’s labor did not cease, though there could be no hope of fruit from the work; yet the virtue of obedience held out in the labor. The following year too mocked the vain labor of the now exhausted brother. At last, as the third course of the seasons was passing, while that water-carrier did not cease working night or day, the stick blossomed. I saw the little tree itself that grew from that stick, which to this day stands in the courtyard of the monastery with green branches, as though remaining as a witness, and shows how much obedience has merited and how much faith can do. But the day will fail me before I finish the various miracles I have learned of the virtues of the saints.

“I will tell you two more remarkable things: one will be an excellent example against the swelling of wretched vanity, the other no small lesson against false righteousness. A certain holy man, endowed with an incredible power of putting demons to flight from possessed bodies, worked unheard-of signs every day. For he healed possessed bodies not only when present, and not only by a word, but sometimes also when absent, by the fringes of his hair shirt or by sending letters. So he was visited in a wonderful way by peoples coming to him from the whole world. I say nothing of lesser people: prefects and counts and judges of various ranks often lay before his doors. Most holy bishops too, laying aside their priestly authority, humbly begged to be touched and blessed by him, and believed, not without reason, that they were sanctified and enlightened by a divine gift whenever they had touched his hand or garment. He was said to abstain entirely from all drink forever, and for food (I will whisper it in your ear, Sulpicius, so that Gallus does not hear) to live on only six dried figs. Meanwhile, as honor came to the holy man from his power, so from honor vanity began to creep in. When he first could feel this evil spreading in him, he tried long and hard to shake it off; but it could not be wholly driven out, even by silently acknowledging the vanity, while his power persisted. Everywhere the demons confessed his name; he could not shut out the crowds flocking to him. Meanwhile the hidden poison was creeping in his breast, and he at whose nod demons were driven from the bodies of others could not cleanse himself of the secret thoughts of vanity. So, turning to God with all his prayers, he is said to have asked that power over him be given to the devil for five months, and that he might become like those whom he himself had healed. Why should I delay with many words? That man of great power, famous throughout the East for signs and mighty works, to whose threshold crowds had flocked, at whose doors the highest powers of this world had prostrated themselves, was seized by a demon and held in chains; and having suffered all those things that the possessed usually endure, in the fifth month he was cleansed, not only of the demon, but, what was more useful and more desired for him, of vanity.

“But as I go over these things, our unhappiness, our weakness comes to mind. For which of us is there who, if one humble little man greets him or one woman praises him with silly and flattering words, is not at once lifted up with pride, at once puffed up with vanity? So that even if he has no consciousness of holiness, yet because he is called holy, through the flattery or perhaps the mistake of fools, he will think himself most holy! And if gifts are frequently sent him, he will declare that he is honored by the magnificence of God, since necessities are supplied to him while he sleeps and takes his ease. And if any signs of any power, even a little, came to him, he would think himself an angel. Moreover, though he is conspicuous neither for work nor for virtue, if someone has been made a cleric, he at once enlarges his fringes, rejoices in greetings, is puffed up by people coming to meet him, runs about everywhere himself; and he who used to go on foot or on a donkey is carried proudly by foaming horses; formerly content to live in a small and cheap cell, he raises lofty ceilings, builds many rooms, carves doors, paints cupboards, rejects coarser clothing, desires soft garments, and lays these as tributes on dear widows and familiar virgins, one to weave him a stiff cloak, another a flowing mantle. But let us leave these things to be described more sharply by the blessed Jerome; let us return to our purpose.” “You,” said my Gallus, “I do not know what you have left to Jerome: you have summed up all the practices of our people so briefly that I think these few words of yours, if they take them calmly and weigh them patiently, will do them much good, so that they will not need to be restrained by Jerome’s books hereafter. But do you rather unfold what you had begun, and bring out that lesson which you promised to tell against false righteousness; for, to confess the truth to you, we in Gaul suffer from no more pernicious evil.” “I will do so,” said Postumianus, “and will not keep you in suspense any longer.

“A certain young man from Asia, very rich, of famous family, with a wife and a little son, was a tribune in Egypt; in frequent expeditions against the Blemmyes he had reached certain parts of the desert and had seen many dwellings of the saints, and he received the word of salvation from the blessed John. Without delay he despised his useless military service along with its empty honor, entered the desert steadfastly, and in a short time shone out perfect in every kind of virtue. Strong in fasting, conspicuous in humility, firm in faith, he had easily equaled the old monks in zeal for virtue, when meanwhile a thought, cast in by the devil, came over him: that it would be more right to return to his homeland and save his only son and his whole household together with his wife; that this would surely be more acceptable to God than if, content to snatch himself alone from the world, he neglected the salvation of his family, not without impiety. Overcome by such a show of false righteousness, after about four years the hermit deserted his cell and his purpose. But when he came to the nearest monastery, which was inhabited by many brothers, he confessed to those who asked the reason and plan of his departure. Though all opposed him, and especially the abbot of that place tried to hold him back, the decision wrongly fixed in his mind could not be torn away. So, rushing off in unhappy obstinacy, he left the brothers, to the sorrow of all. He had scarcely gone out of sight when he was filled by a demon, and, foaming blood at the mouth, tore himself with his own teeth. Then he was carried back on the brothers’ shoulders to the same monastery, and since the unclean spirit could not be restrained in him, of necessity he was bound with iron chains, his feet and hands fettered: no undeserved punishment for a runaway, that a chain should restrain the man whom faith had not restrained. At last, after two years, freed from the unclean spirit by the prayer of the saints, he soon returned to the desert from which he had departed, himself corrected and an example to others, that no one should be deceived by the shadow of false righteousness or be driven by uncertain fickleness and useless levity to abandon what he has once begun. Let it be enough for you to know these things about the mighty works of the Lord, which he has worked in his servants, either for imitation or for fear. But since I have satisfied your ears, indeed have perhaps been more talkative than I should, you now” (he was speaking to me) “pay the interest you owe, so that we may hear you telling more about your Martin, as you usually do; my desires have long been burning for this.”

“What?” I said. “Is that book not enough for you about my Martin, which you yourself know I published about his life and miracles?” “I know it, indeed,” said Postumianus, “and that book never leaves my right hand. For if you recognize it, look” (and he opened the book, which was hidden in his clothing) “here it is. This,” he said, “has been my companion on land and sea; this has been my comrade and comforter on my whole journey. But I will tell you how far this book has penetrated, and how there is hardly any place in the world where the subject of so happy a story is not widely known. The first to bring it to the city of Rome was Paulinus, a man most devoted to you; then, when it was being snatched up eagerly by the whole city, I saw the booksellers rejoicing, because nothing brought them more profit, since nothing sold more readily or more dearly. Running far ahead of my voyage, when I came to Africa, it was already being read throughout Carthage. Only that Cyrenian presbyter did not have it, but he copied it from my gift. And what shall I say of Alexandria? There it is known to almost everyone, better than to you. It has passed through Egypt, Nitria, the Thebaid, and all the regions of Memphis. I saw it being read in the desert by a certain old man; and when I told him that I was a friend of yours, he and many brothers laid on me this commission: that if ever I reached these lands and found you safe, I should compel you to supply what you said in that book of yours you had passed over of the blessed man’s miracles. Come then: since I do not want to hear from you the things that are adequately written, let those things which you passed over then, I believe for fear of wearying readers, be set out, as many ask of you along with me.”

“Indeed, Postumianus,” I said, “while I was listening intently to you for so long about the miracles of the saints, I kept returning in silent thought to my Martin, rightly perceiving that all those different things which individuals had done were easily accomplished by this one man. For though you told of lofty things, I heard nothing at all from you (I may say it with the leave of the saints) in which Martin was inferior. But just as I declare that no one’s power is ever to be compared with that man’s merits, so it should be noted that he is compared on unequal terms with the hermits or even the anchorites. For they, free from every hindrance, with only heaven and the angels as witnesses, are taught to do plainly wonderful things; but he, in the midst of the crowds and dealings of the peoples, among quarreling clergy, among raging bishops, pressed on this side and that by almost daily offenses, nevertheless stood grounded in a virtue unconquerable against everything, and did such things as not even those did whom we have heard to be or to have been in the desert. And even if they had done equal things, what judge would be so unjust as not to judge that he deserved to be ranked higher? For suppose he was a soldier who fought on unfavorable ground and yet came off victor, and compare them likewise to soldiers, but ones who fought on equal or even higher ground. What then? Even if all have one victory, not all can have equal glory. Moreover, though you told of splendid things, you told of no one raising the dead; in this one thing at least it must be confessed that no one is to be compared with Martin.

“For if it is admirable that the flame did not touch that Egyptian, Martin too often commanded fires. If you recall that the ferocity of beasts was overcome and gave way to the anchorites, Martin, as a matter of course, checked both the rage of beasts and the venom of serpents. And if you compare him with the man who healed those possessed by unclean spirits by the command of his word or even by the power of his fringes, there is much evidence that Martin was not inferior even in this respect. If you go back to the one who, covered by his hair instead of clothing, was thought to be visited by angels, angels talked with Martin every day. Moreover, he kept a spirit so unconquered against vanity and boasting that no one has despised those vices more bravely, although he very often healed people seized by unclean spirits while absent, and gave orders not only to counts and prefects but even to kings themselves. That is the least among his virtues; but I would have you believe that no one resisted more bravely not only vanity but even the causes and occasions of vanity. I am going to tell a small thing, but one not to be passed over, because he too is to be praised who, endowed with the highest power, showed so devout a wish to honor the blessed man. I remember that the prefect Vincentius, an excellent man, than whom no one in Gaul is more eminent in every kind of virtue, when passing through Tours, often asked Martin to give him a meal in his monastery (in this he put forward the example of the blessed bishop Ambrose, who at that time was said often to entertain consuls and prefects); but Martin, a man of loftier mind, refused, lest some vanity and pride should creep in from it. So you must confess that in Martin were the virtues of all those you have listed, but Martin’s were not in all of them.”

“Why do you speak to me so,” said Postumianus, “as though I did not think the same as you, and always have? As long as I live and have my senses, I shall always proclaim the monks of Egypt, praise the anchorites, admire the hermits: Martin I shall always except; I dare not compare any monk, and certainly not any bishop, with him. Egypt confesses this, Syria has learned it, the Ethiopian has found it out, the Indian has heard it, the Parthian and the Persian know it, Armenia is not ignorant of it, the remote Bosporus has learned it, and lastly anyone who visits the Fortunate Isles or the icy ocean. All the more wretched is this region of ours, which, though it had so great a man close at hand, did not deserve to know him. Yet I will not involve the common people in this charge: only the clergy, only the priests do not know him; and not without reason did they in their envy refuse to know him, because if they had known his virtues, they would have recognized their own vices. I shudder to say what I heard lately, that some unhappy man said that you lied a great deal in that book of yours. That is not the voice of a man but of the devil; nor is Martin disparaged in this, but faith in the Gospels is detracted from. For since the Lord himself testified that works of this kind, which Martin accomplished, are to be done by all the faithful, he who does not believe that Martin did them does not believe that Christ said them. But the unhappy, degenerate, sleepy men are ashamed that he did what they themselves cannot do, and prefer to deny his miracles rather than confess their own sloth. But as we are hurrying on to other things, let all memory of them be left behind; you rather, as I have long desired, put together the rest of Martin’s works.” “But I,” I said, “think this should more rightly be asked of Gallus, since he knows more (for the disciple could not be ignorant of his master’s deeds), and not without reason he owes this turn not only to Martin but also to us; for I have already published a book, and you have so far recounted the deeds of the Easterners; let Gallus at last unfold this story that must be told, because, as I said, he owes us his turn to speak, and will, I believe, do Martin the service of recounting his deeds without reluctance.”

“For my part,” said Gallus, “though I am unequal to so great a burden, yet I am compelled by the examples of obedience related above by Postumianus not to refuse this task you lay on me. But when I reflect that I, a Gaul, am going to speak among Aquitanians, I fear that my rather rustic speech may offend your too refined ears. Yet you will hear me as a man of Gurdo, speaking nothing with paint or buskin. For if you have granted that I am Martin’s disciple, grant this too: that I may, after his example, despise the empty trappings of speech and ornaments of words.” “Speak,” said Postumianus, “in Celtic, or, if you prefer, in Gallic, so long as you speak of Martin. I believe that even if you were mute, words would not fail you to speak of Martin with an eloquent mouth, just as Zechariah’s tongue was loosed at the name of John. But since you are a rhetorician, you do this very thing artfully like a rhetorician, excusing your lack of skill because you overflow with eloquence. But it is not fitting for a monk to be so crafty, nor for a Gaul to be so cunning. But rather set to, and unfold what remains for you; for we have been spending time too long on other matters, and already the lengthening shadow of the setting sun warns us that not much of the day is left, with night near.” Then, when we had all been silent for a little, Gallus began thus: “I think I must take care above all not to repeat those things about Martin’s miracles which Sulpicius here recorded in his book. So I pass over his first deeds while he was a soldier, nor will I touch on what he did as a layman and as a monk; and I will tell not what I heard from others but what I saw myself.”

“At the very beginning, then, when I had left the schools and joined the blessed man, a few days later we were following him as he went to the church. Meanwhile a poor man, half naked in the winter months, met him, begging to be given clothing. Then Martin called the archdeacon and ordered him to clothe the shivering man without delay. Then he went into the sacristy and sat there alone, as was his custom (for he secured this solitude for himself even in the church, giving the clergy their freedom, while the presbyters sat in another sacristy, either free for receiving visitors or busy hearing business; but Martin kept to his solitude until the hour at which custom required the solemn rites to be performed for the people). I will not pass over this, that when sitting in the sacristy he never used a chair; indeed in church no one ever saw him sit, as I lately saw someone, God is my witness, not without shame, sitting on a lofty throne and a high seat like a royal tribunal. Martin, by contrast, sat on a rustic little stool, such as servants use, which we rustic Gauls call tripeccia, and you rhetoricians, or at any rate you who come from Greece, call tripods. Into this privacy of the blessed man that poor man burst, since the archdeacon had put off giving him a tunic, complaining that he had been ignored by the cleric and lamenting that he was cold. Without delay the holy man, without the poor man seeing, secretly drew the tunic off himself from under his outer cloak, covered the poor man with it, and told him to go away. Then a little later the archdeacon came in and reminded him, as was the custom, that the people were waiting in the church and that he ought to go out to perform the solemn rites. Martin answered that the poor man must first be clothed (he meant himself); he could not go to the church unless the poor man received a garment. The deacon, understanding nothing, since he did not see that Martin, covered outwardly by his cloak, was naked underneath, finally pleaded that the poor man was not to be found. ‘Let the garment that has been prepared be brought to me,’ said Martin; ‘a poor man to be clothed will not be lacking.’ Then at last the cleric, forced by necessity, his bile already stirred, snatched from the nearest shops a Bigerrian garment, short and shaggy, bought for five pieces of silver, and laid it angrily at Martin’s feet. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘is the garment, but the poor man is not here.’ Martin, not at all moved, told him to stand outside the doors for a little, contriving privacy while he, naked, put on the garment, striving with all his strength to keep hidden what he had done. But when are such things in holy men hidden from those who seek them? Willing or not, everything comes out. So he went out in this garment to offer the sacrifice to God.

“On that day (I am going to tell a marvel), when he was already blessing the altar, as is the rite, we saw a globe of fire shoot out from his head, so that, rising on high, the flame drew out a very long trail. And although we saw this happen on a most crowded day in a great multitude of people, only one of the virgins, one of the presbyters, and only three of the monks saw it; why the rest did not see it is not ours to judge. At about the same time, when my uncle Evanthius, a man very Christian although occupied with the business of the world, had begun to be pressed by a very grave illness to the last danger of death, he summoned Martin. Martin hurried without delay; but before the blessed man had covered half the journey, the sick man felt the power of his coming, and, recovering his health at once, came out himself to meet us as we arrived. The next day he kept Martin, who wished to return, with great entreaty; meanwhile a serpent struck one of the household slaves, a boy, with a deadly bite. Evanthius himself carried him on his shoulders, already lifeless from the force of the venom, and laid him at the holy man’s feet, trusting that nothing was impossible for him. And by now the serpent’s poison had spread through all his limbs: you could see the skin swollen in every vein and the vital organs stretched like a wineskin. Martin stretched out his hand, felt all the boy’s limbs, and placed his finger close to the little wound itself through which the creature had injected the venom. Then indeed (I am going to tell a marvel) we saw the poison, drawn out from every part, run to Martin’s finger; then through that small opening of the wound the venom was pressed out with the blood, just as a long stream of abundant milk usually flows from the udders of goats or sheep pressed by the shepherds’ hands. The boy rose up unharmed. We, astonished at the miracle of so great a thing, confessed what the truth itself compelled us to: there is no one under heaven who can imitate Martin.

“Likewise at a later time we were traveling with him while he was visiting his parishes. We had fallen behind for some reason or other, and he had gone on a little ahead. Meanwhile along the public highway came a state wagon full of soldiers. But when the animals harnessed alongside saw Martin in his shaggy garment, wrapped in a black, hanging cloak, they shied a little to the other side in fright. Then, their traces getting tangled, they threw into confusion those long lines by which, as you have often seen, the poor animals themselves are bunched together; and while they were being disentangled with difficulty, they caused delay to men in a hurry. Provoked by this hindrance, the soldiers leaped headlong to the ground. Then they began to lay into Martin with whips and clubs; and he, silent, offering his back to those beating him with incredible patience, roused the unhappy men to greater madness, and they raged the more because he scorned the blows as though he did not feel them. We, following at once, found him foully bloodied and torn in every part of his body, where he had fallen half dead to the ground; we immediately put him on his donkey and hurried away from the place of that beating, cursing it. Meanwhile the soldiers, going back to their wagon with their fury sated, ordered the animals to be driven on where they had begun to go. But they all stood fixed to the ground as stiff as bronze statues; and though the drivers raised their voices louder and the whips cracked on this side and that, they did not move at all. Then all rise together to the beating: the punishment of the mules uses up the Gallic whips; a whole wood nearby is torn up; the animals are pounded with beams. But the savage hands achieved nothing at all: the animals stood fixed in one and the same place like statues. The unhappy men did not know what to do, nor could they any longer pretend not to recognize, brutish as their hearts were, that they were held by divine power. So at last, coming to themselves, they began to ask who he was whom they had beaten a little before in that same place, and on inquiry they learned from travelers that it was Martin whom they had beaten so cruelly. Then indeed the cause was plain to all, and they could no longer be ignorant that they were held because of the wrong done to that man. So they all follow us with rapid steps. Conscious of their deed and of their deserts, overcome with shame, weeping, their heads and faces sprinkled with the dust with which they had defiled themselves, they throw themselves at Martin’s knees, begging pardon and asking him to let them go: they had paid penalty enough even by their consciences alone, and understood well enough how the earth could have swallowed them alive on that spot, or rather they themselves ought to have lost their senses and stiffened into the immovable nature of stone, as they had seen the animals fixed to the places where they had stood; they prayed and implored him to grant pardon for the crime and give them leave to go. The blessed man had perceived even before they came up that they were held, and had told us so beforehand; yet he graciously granted pardon and let them go, the animals being restored.

“I have often noticed, Sulpicius, that Martin used to tell you that he by no means had the same grace of miracles as bishop that he remembered having had before. If this is true, or rather since it is true, we can guess how great were the things he did as a monk and did alone with no witness, since we have seen him work such great signs as bishop before the eyes of all. Many of his earlier deeds indeed became known to the world and could not be hidden; but innumerable are said to be the things which, avoiding boasting, he concealed and did not allow to come to people’s knowledge, since, having risen above human nature, trampling the world’s glory in the consciousness of his power, he was content with heaven as his witness. That this is true we can estimate even from the things we have learned and that could not be hidden: before his episcopate he restored two dead men to life, as your book has told more fully; but as bishop, which I am surprised you omitted, he raised only one. Of this I am a witness, if indeed you have no doubt of a suitable witness. How it happened I will explain to you. For some reason or other we were making for the town of Chartres. Meanwhile, as we were passing a village very crowded with inhabitants, a huge crowd came out to meet us, all of them pagans; for no one in that village knew a Christian. But at the fame of so great a man the multitude flocking together had covered all the widely spreading fields. Martin sensed that there was work to be done, and, as the Spirit announced it to him, he was wholly stirred, and, with no mortal sound, preached the word of God to the pagans, groaning often that so great a crowd did not know the Lord the Savior. Meanwhile, as the incredible multitude surrounded us, a certain woman, whose son had died shortly before, began to offer the lifeless body to the blessed man with outstretched hands, saying: ‘We know that you are a friend of God: restore my son to me, for he is my only one.’ The rest of the multitude joined her and added their cries to the mother’s prayers. Then Martin, seeing, as he himself afterward told us, that he could obtain the miracle for the salvation of those who were waiting, took the dead body in his own hands; and when he had knelt in the sight of all and had finished his prayer and risen, he gave the little one back to his mother alive. Then indeed the whole multitude, raising a shout to heaven, confessed Christ as God, and at last all began to rush in throngs to the blessed man’s knees, faithfully asking him to make them Christians. Without hesitation, in the middle of the field as they were, he laid his hand on them all and made them all catechumens, saying, as he turned to us, that it was not unreasonable for catechumens to be made in a field, where martyrs used to be consecrated.

“You have conquered, Gallus,” said Postumianus, “you have conquered: not me, indeed, who am rather a champion of Martin and have always known and believed all these things about that man, but you have conquered all the hermits and anchorites. For none of them, like this Martin of yours, or rather of ours, has commanded death. And rightly does Sulpicius here compare him with the apostles and prophets, since the power of his faith and the works of his miracles testify that he is like them in all things. But go on, I beg you; though we could hear nothing more magnificent, yet go on, Gallus, to unfold what still remains to be told of Martin. For my mind is eager to learn even his least and everyday deeds, because there is no doubt that his least deeds are greater than the greatest of others.” “I will do so,” said Gallus; “but what I am going to tell I did not see myself, for it happened before I joined that man; but the deed is famous, spread abroad by the account of faithful brothers who were present. At about the time when he was first made bishop, he had need to go to the court. Valentinian the elder was then in power. When he learned that Martin was seeking things he did not wish to grant, he ordered him to be kept from the doors of the palace; for to his harsh and proud mind had been added an Arian wife, who had turned him wholly against the holy man, so that he would not pay him due reverence. So Martin, having tried once and again to approach the proud emperor, had recourse to his familiar defenses: he wrapped himself in sackcloth, sprinkled himself with ashes, abstained from food and drink, and prayed continuously night and day. On the seventh day an angel stood by him and told him to go to the palace without fear: the royal doors, however closed, would be opened of their own accord, and the emperor’s proud spirit would be softened. Strengthened, then, by the words of the angel present with him and relying on his help, he made for the palace. The thresholds stand open; no one resists him; at last he comes right up to the king with no one stopping him. When the emperor saw him coming from afar, gnashing his teeth that he had been let in, he did not deign to rise for him as he stood there, until fire covered the royal seat and the flames scorched the king himself in that part of his body on which he was sitting. So the proud man was shaken from his throne and rose for Martin against his will; and embracing warmly the man he had earlier resolved to despise, he confessed, now reformed, that he had felt divine power; and without waiting for Martin’s requests he granted everything before he was asked. He often invited him to conversation and to his table; finally, when he was leaving, he offered him many gifts, all of which the blessed man, guardian of his poverty as always, refused.

“And since we have once entered the palace, I will join together things done in the palace at different times; for the example of a faithful queen in her admiration for Martin should by no means be passed over. The emperor Maximus was ruling the state, a man deserving praise for his whole life, if he had been allowed either to refuse the diadem placed on him illegally by a rebellious army or to abstain from civil war; but a great empire could not be refused without danger nor kept without arms. He often summoned Martin, received him in the palace, and honored him with reverence; all his talk with him was of things present and to come, of the glory of the faithful, of the eternity of the saints; meanwhile, day and night, the queen hung on Martin’s lips: not inferior to that gospel example, she watered the saint’s feet with tears and wiped them with her hair. Martin, whom no woman had ever touched, could not escape her constant attendance, or rather her servitude. She thought not of the riches of the kingdom, not of the dignity of the empire, not of the diadem, not of the purple: lying on the ground, she could not be torn from Martin’s feet. At last she asked her husband that they should both press Martin to let her alone, all servants removed, give him a meal. And the blessed man could not resist any longer. A chaste meal is prepared by the queen’s hands: she herself spreads his stool, brings up the table, gives him water for his hands, sets before him food she had cooked herself. While he ate, she stood at a distance, fixed motionless to the ground after the manner of servants, showing in everything the modesty of one who serves and the humility of a servant; she herself mixed his drink and handed it to him. When the little meal was over, she gathered the fragments and crumbs of the bread he had eaten, faithfully preferring those leftovers to imperial banquets. Blessed woman, who for the devotion of such piety may rightly be compared with her who came from the ends of the earth to hear Solomon, if we follow the simple history. But the faith of the two queens is to be compared (I may say this setting aside the majesty of the mystery): that one sought to hear a wise man; this one, not content only to have heard, was found worthy to serve a wise man.

At this Postumianus said: “For a long time now, Gallus, as I listen to you, I have greatly admired the queen’s faith; but what of the report that no woman ever came near Martin? Look, this queen not only came near him but even served him. And I am afraid that those who are glad to insinuate themselves among women may shelter themselves somewhat behind this example.” Then Gallus said: “Why, do you not see what the grammarians usually teach: place, time, and person? Picture to yourself a man held captive in the emperor’s palace, besieged by prayers, compelled by the queen’s faith, constrained by the necessity of the times, so that he might free those shut up in prison, restore those sent into exile, recover goods taken away: how much do you think these things ought to have been worth to a bishop, that for all of them he should not relax a little of the strictness of his rule? Still, since you think some will misuse the occasion of this example, they will indeed be happy if they do not depart from the discipline of this example. Let them see that once only in his life, when he was already seventy, not a free widow, not a wanton virgin, but a queen living under her husband, with her husband himself joining in the entreaty, served Martin and waited on him as he ate, did not recline with him at table, nor dared to share the meal, but offered service. Learn the discipline, then: let a matron serve you, not command you; and serve, not recline with you; as that Martha served the Lord and yet was not invited to the meal; indeed the one who rather listened to the word was preferred to her who served. But in Martin’s case this queen did both: she served like Martha and listened like Mary. If anyone wishes to use this example, let him keep it in every point: let the cause be such, the person such, the service such, the meal such, and only once in all his life.”

“Splendidly,” said Postumianus, “your speech binds these people of ours not to go beyond Martin’s example; but I tell you that these things will be heard by deaf ears. For if we followed Martin’s ways, we would never be pleading cases about a kiss, and we would be free of all the reproaches of a scandalous reputation. But as you are accustomed to say, when you are accused of gluttony, ‘We are Gauls’: so in this respect we shall never be corrected either by Martin’s example or by your arguments. But while we have been dealing with these things so long, why are you so obstinately silent, Sulpicius?” “I,” I said, “not only keep silent now, but long ago resolved to keep silent about these things. For because I rebuked a certain widow, gadding about, smartly dressed, extravagant, living rather wantonly, and likewise a virgin who clung too unbecomingly to a young man dear to me (though I had often heard her rebuking others too who did such things), I stirred up against myself such hatred of all the women and all the monks that both legions have taken up sworn war against me. So please be silent, lest what you say too be laid to my account. Let all mention of these people be dropped: let us return rather to Martin. You, Gallus, carry on the work you began, as you set out to do.” Then he said: “I have already told you so much that my talk ought to have satisfied your eagerness; but since I may not fail to comply with your wish, I will speak as long as daylight remains. For indeed, as I look at that straw which is being got ready for our beds, it comes to my memory that a miracle was done even with the straw on which Martin had lain. It happened thus. Claudiomagus is a village on the border of the Bituriges and the Turoni. There is a church there, celebrated for the devotion of its saints and no less glorious for its multitude of consecrated virgins. Martin, passing through, lodged in the sacristy of the church. After his departure all the virgins rushed into that sacristy: they kissed every place where the blessed man had sat or stood, and divided even the straw on which he had lain. A few days later one of them hung part of the straw, which she had gathered for herself as a blessing, around the neck of a possessed man whom a spirit of error was tormenting. Without delay, quicker than words, the demon was cast out and the person was healed.

“At about the same time, as Martin was returning from Trier, a cow tormented by a demon met him: leaving its herd, it was charging at people and had already gored many, dangerous in its butting. But when it began to come near us, those who were following it at a distance began to shout loudly to warn us to take care. But after it came closer to us, raging with fierce eyes, Martin raised his hand and ordered the beast to stand still; and at his word it at once stood motionless. Meanwhile Martin saw a demon sitting on its back; rebuking it, he said: ‘Go away, deadly one, from the beast, and stop tormenting a harmless animal.’ The wicked spirit obeyed and withdrew. Nor did the heifer lack the sense to understand that she had been freed: her calm recovered, she lay down at the saint’s feet; then, at Martin’s bidding, she made for her herd and joined the rest of the cattle, gentler than a sheep. That was the time when, set in the midst of flames, he did not feel the fire. I do not think I need tell that, because Sulpicius here, though he passed it over in his book, set it out more fully afterwards in the letter he wrote to Eusebius, then a presbyter, now a bishop; you, Postumianus, have either read it, I believe, or, if you do not know it, you have it ready to hand in that cupboard whenever you like. We will tell what he left out. Once, while he was going around his parishes, we came upon a band of huntsmen. The dogs were chasing a hare; and the little creature, already worn out over a long distance, since there was no escape anywhere in the wide-open fields, kept putting off the death that threatened it, about to be caught at any moment, by frequent doubling back. The blessed man, pitying its danger with a devout heart, commanded the dogs to stop chasing and let the fugitive go. At once, at the first word of his command, they stood still: you would have thought them bound, or rather fixed, sticking in their tracks. So the little hare escaped unharmed, its pursuers tied fast.

“It is worth while also to recall his familiar sayings, spiritually seasoned. When he happened to see a sheep newly shorn, he said: ‘She has fulfilled the gospel command: she had two tunics, and gave one of them to one who had none; so you too ought to do.’ Likewise, when he had seen a swineherd shivering and almost naked in a garment of skins, he said: ‘Look, Adam in a garment of skins is feeding pigs; but let us rather put off that old Adam, who still remains in this man, and put on the new Adam.’ Oxen had grazed part of a meadow, and pigs had rooted up some of it; the remaining part, which was left untouched, was blooming with various flowers as though painted. ‘That part,’ he said, ‘which has been grazed by the cattle, bears the likeness of marriage: though it has not wholly lost the grace of its grass, it keeps none of the glory of flowers. That which the pigs, unclean beasts, have rooted up shows the foul image of fornication. But that portion which has suffered no harm shows the glory of virginity: it is luxuriant with rich grass, the crop of hay abounds in it, and, adorned with flowers beyond all beauty, it shines as if decked with sparkling gems. Blessed beauty, and worthy of God: for nothing is to be compared with virginity. So those who compare marriage with fornication greatly err, and those who think marriage equal to virginity are utterly wretched and foolish. But this distinction is to be held by the wise: marriage belongs to pardon, virginity looks to glory, fornication is assigned to punishment, unless it is cleansed by satisfaction.’

“A certain soldier had thrown off his military belt in the church, professing himself a monk, and had built himself a cell some distance off in a remote place, intending to live as a hermit. Meanwhile the cunning enemy stirred up his dull breast with various thoughts, so that, changing his mind, he wished that his wife, whom Martin had directed to be in a monastery of women, should rather live with him. So the brave hermit went to Martin and confessed what was on his mind. Martin vehemently refused: it was unfitting that a woman should again be joined with a man who was now a monk and not a husband. Finally, when the soldier insisted, declaring that this would do his purpose no harm: he wished only for the comfort of his wife, and there was no fear that they would fall back into their old ways; he was a soldier of Christ, and she too had sworn the oath of the same military service; let the bishop allow saints, who by the merit of faith knew nothing of their sex, to serve together; then Martin (I will tell you his very words) said: ‘Tell me, have you ever been in a war? Have you stood in the battle line?’ He answered: ‘I have often stood in the battle line and often been in war.’ To this Martin said: ‘Tell me, then: in that line which was being drawn up armed for battle, or was already fighting at close quarters with drawn sword against the enemy army, did you ever see any woman standing or fighting?’ Then at last the soldier was confounded and blushed, thanking him that he had not been allowed to follow his error, and that he had been corrected not by harsh rebuke but by a true and reasonable comparison suited to a soldier. And Martin, turning to us, as a large crowd of brothers had surrounded him, said: ‘Let a woman not enter the camp of men; let the battle line of soldiers stand apart; let the woman be removed far off, living in her own tent. For an army is made contemptible if a crowd of women is mixed with the cohorts of men. Let the soldier fight in the line, the soldier in the field; let the woman keep herself within the defenses of the walls. She too has her glory, if she keeps her chastity while her husband is away; and her first virtue and complete victory is not to be seen.’

“I believe you remember, Sulpicius, with what feeling, when you too were present, he praised to us that virgin who had so wholly withdrawn herself from the eyes of all men that she did not admit even Martin himself when he wished to visit her as a courtesy. For when he was passing by her little property, in which she had kept herself chastely shut away for a good many years, having heard of her faith and virtue, he turned aside so that he, as bishop, might honor with a devout courtesy a girl of such distinguished merit. We, following, thought that the virgin would be delighted, since she would have it as a testimony to her virtue that a priest of so great a name had come to her, setting aside the strictness of his rule. But she did not loosen the bonds of her very firm resolve even out of regard for Martin. So the blessed man, having received a praiseworthy excuse through another woman, went away gladly from the doors of her who had not let herself be seen or greeted. O glorious virgin, who would not let herself be seen even by Martin! O blessed Martin, who did not take that refusal as an insult to himself, but, magnifying her virtue with exultation, rejoiced in an example unusual, at least in these regions! So when the approaching night had forced us to stay not far from that little farm, the same virgin sent the blessed man a gift; and Martin did what he had never done before (for he never accepted anyone’s gift or present): he refused nothing of what the venerable virgin had sent, saying that her blessing was by no means to be rejected by a priest, since she was to be preferred to many priests. Let virgins hear this example, I beg, so that, if they wish to bar their doors to the wicked, they may close them even to the good, and, lest the wicked have free access to them, may not fear to shut out even priests. Let the whole world hear this: a virgin did not let herself be seen by Martin. She did not, surely, repel just any priest, but the girl did not come into the sight of that man whom to see was salvation for those who saw him. But what priest other than Martin would not have taken this as an insult to himself? What emotions, how great anger, would he have conceived against the holy virgin! He would have judged her a heretic and decreed that she be anathematized. And how he would have preferred to that blessed soul those virgins who everywhere put themselves in the priest’s way with frequent meetings, who arrange sumptuous banquets, who recline at table with him! But where is my speech taking me? This rather free talk must be checked a little, lest perhaps it give offense to some; for words of rebuke will not help the unfaithful, and the example will suffice for the faithful. But I will praise the virtue of this virgin in such a way that I think nothing should be taken from those who often came from distant regions to see Martin, since angels too, in their love, often visited this blessed man.

“But this, which I am about to tell, Sulpicius, I declare with you as witness” (and he looked at me). “One day Sulpicius here and I, keeping watch before his doors, had been sitting in silence for some hours, with great awe and trembling, as though we were keeping an appointed watch before an angel’s tent, though he, with the door of his cell shut, did not know we were there. Meanwhile we hear the murmur of people talking, and soon we are filled with a kind of awe and amazement, and could not be unaware that something divine was there. After about two hours Martin comes out to us; and then Sulpicius here, since no one talked with him more familiarly, began to beg him to tell us, who asked devoutly, what that divine awe was which we both confessed we had felt, or with whom he had been talking in his cell; for we had heard before the doors a faint and barely intelligible sound of people conversing. Then he, after long and much hesitation (but there was nothing Sulpicius could not wring from him against his will; I am going to tell something perhaps very hard to believe, but with Christ as witness I do not lie, unless anyone is so sacrilegious as to think that Martin lied), said: ‘I will tell you, but please tell no one: Agnes, Thecla, and Mary were with me.’ And he described to us the face and appearance of each. And not only on that day, but he confessed that he was often visited by them; nor did he deny that he quite often saw the apostles Peter and Paul. Moreover, as each of the demons came to him, he rebuked them by their own names. Mercury he found especially hostile; Jupiter, he said, was brutish and dull. These things seemed incredible even to many who lived in the same monastery; much less can I be confident that all who hear them will believe. For unless Martin had led a life and shown a virtue beyond all estimate, he would by no means be held among us in such glory. Yet it is no wonder if human weakness has doubted about Martin’s works, since we see many even today who have not believed the Gospels. But we both perceived and experienced that angels were often seen by Martin and spoke familiarly with him. I am going to tell a very small thing, but I will tell it. A synod of bishops was being held at Nîmes, to which he had refused to go, but he wanted to know what had been done. As it happened, Sulpicius here was sailing with him, but Martin sat, as always, far from the others in a remote part of the ship. There an angel told him what had been done at the synod. Afterwards, inquiring carefully about the time when the council had been held, we found well established that it was the very day of the meeting, and that the same things had been decreed there which the angel had told Martin.

“When we asked him about the end of the world, he told us that Nero and Antichrist would come first. Nero would rule in the western region, having subdued ten kings, and his persecution would go so far as to compel the worship of the idols of the Gentiles. Antichrist, on the other hand, would first seize the empire of the East, and would have Jerusalem as the seat and capital of his kingdom; the city and the temple would be rebuilt by him. His persecution would be such as to compel people to deny that Christ is God, he himself rather affirming that he is the Christ, and he would order all to be circumcised according to the law; finally Nero himself would be slain by Antichrist, and so the whole world and all nations would be brought under his power, until the impious one is overthrown by the coming of Christ. And there was no doubt, he said, that Antichrist, conceived by an evil spirit, was already born and already in his boyhood, and would take power when he came of age. It is now the eighth year since we heard this from him: judge, then, how close at hand are the things that are feared to come.” While Gallus was saying this, before he had finished what he meant to tell, a servant of the household came in, announcing that the presbyter Refrigerius was standing at the door. We began to hesitate whether it was better to go on listening to Gallus or to go to meet a man most dear to us, who was coming to us out of courtesy. Then Gallus said: “Even if we did not have to break off this talk because of the arrival of that most holy priest, night itself would compel us to end the conversation drawn out so far. But since by no means everything about Martin’s miracles could be set out, let it be enough that you have heard these things today; tomorrow we will tell the rest.” So, having all accepted Gallus’s promise, we rose.

“It is getting light, Gallus: we must get up. For, as you see, Postumianus is pressing, and this presbyter, who missed his audience yesterday, is waiting for you to pay your promised debt and unfold what you had put off until today about our Martin. He is not, indeed, ignorant of anything worth recording, but knowledge is sweet and welcome even to one who goes over what he knows, since nature is so made that one rejoices, with a better conscience, to know things that one learns are not uncertain from the testimony of many. For he, having followed Martin from his early youth, knows everything indeed, but gladly recognizes what he knows. For I will confess to you, Gallus, that I have often heard of Martin’s miracles, since I have committed many things about him to writing; but through admiration of his deeds the things told about him are always new to me, though I have often heard them. So we are the more glad that Refrigerius has been added to our audience, because Postumianus here, who is hastening to carry these things to the East, will be the readier to receive the truth from you sealed, as it were, before witnesses.” While I was saying this, and Gallus was already prepared to narrate, a crowd of monks burst in: the presbyter Evagrius, Aper, Sabbatius, Agricola; and after a little the presbyter Aetherius came in with the deacon Calupio and the subdeacon Amator; last of all the presbyter Aurelius, my dearest friend, coming from farther away, hurried in out of breath. “Why,” I said, “do you come together so suddenly and unexpectedly, from such different places, so early?” “We learned yesterday,” they said, “that Gallus here spent the whole day telling of Martin’s miracles and put off the rest until today, since night had overtaken him; so we hurried to make a full audience for one who is going to speak on so great a subject.” Meanwhile it was announced that many people of the world were standing at the doors, not daring to come in, but asking to be admitted. Then Aper said: “It is by no means fitting that they should be mixed with us, because they have come to listen from curiosity rather than devotion.” I, embarrassed on behalf of those he thought should not be admitted, at last with difficulty obtained that they admit Eucherius, one of the vicars, and Celsus, a former consular; the rest were turned away. Then we set Gallus in a seat in the middle; and when, with his noble modesty, he had kept silent for a long time, he at last began thus.

“You have come together to hear me,” he said, “holy and eloquent men; but you have brought, I think, devout rather than learned ears, to hear me speak as a witness to the faith, not with an orator’s fluency. What was said yesterday I will not repeat; those who did not hear it will learn it from the written account. Postumianus expects new things to report to the East, so that it may not prefer itself to the West in comparison with Martin. And first my mind is eager to set out what Refrigerius is whispering in my ear. The event took place in the city of the Carnutes. A certain father of a family began to bring to Martin his twelve-year-old daughter, mute from birth, asking that the blessed man might loose her bound tongue by his holy merits. Martin, deferring to the bishops who happened to be at his side, Valentinus and Victricius, declared that he was unequal to so great a task, but that nothing was impossible for them, as holier men. But they joined their devout prayers with the father’s suppliant voice and begged Martin to grant what was hoped for. Without further hesitation (both admirable things: showing humility and not delaying mercy) he ordered the crowd of people standing around to be moved away; with only the bishops and the girl’s father present, he prostrated himself in prayer in his usual way. Then he blessed a little oil, with the preliminary words of exorcism, and so poured the sanctified liquid into the girl’s mouth, while holding her tongue with his fingers. Nor did the result of power disappoint the saint. He asks her father’s name: at once she answered. The father cried out with joy and tears together, embracing Martin’s knees, and declared to the amazement of all that this was the first word he had heard from his daughter. And lest this perhaps seem incredible to anyone, let Evagrius, who is present, bear witness to the truth for you; for the thing was done then in his presence.”

“It is a small thing, which I learned lately from the account of the presbyter Arpagius, but it does not seem to be passed over. The wife of the count Avitianus sent Martin some oil, needed for various kinds of illness, for him to bless, as is the custom. The glass flask was of such a kind that it swelled out round in the belly, with a long neck; but the hollow of the projecting neck was not filled, because it is the custom to fill such vessels so that the top part is left free for inserting the stoppers. The presbyter testified that he saw the oil increase under Martin’s blessing until it overflowed abundantly from the top; and that the same power was at work while the vessel was being carried back to the lady: for in the hands of the boy carrying it the oil kept overflowing, so that the abundance of the spilling liquid covered all his clothing; and the lady received the vessel so full to the very brim that the presbyter declares to this day that there was no room in that glass to insert the stopper with which things to be kept with special care are usually closed. This too is wonderful, which I remember happened to him” (and he looked at me). “He put a glass vessel containing oil that Martin had blessed in a rather high window; a household servant, rather careless, not knowing the flask was there, pulled the linen cloth laid over it. The vessel fell onto the marble-paved floor. While all were terrified that God’s blessing had been lost, the flask was found unharmed, just as if it had fallen on the softest feathers. This is to be ascribed not to chance but to the power of Martin, whose blessing could not perish. What of the thing done by a certain man whose name, since he is present and has forbidden it to be revealed, will be suppressed; Saturninus here was present at the time. A dog was barking at us rather troublesomely. ‘In the name of Martin,’ he said, ‘I command you to be silent.’ The dog (the bark stuck in its throat: you would have thought its tongue cut out) fell silent. So it is a small thing that Martin himself worked miracles: believe me, others too have done many things in his name.

“You knew the exceedingly barbarous and above all bloodthirsty savagery of Avitianus, the former count. He entered the city of Tours in a rabid spirit, with lines of prisoners in chains following him in pitiable state; he ordered various kinds of punishment to be prepared for their destruction, and arranged to proceed to his grim work the next day, while the city was horror-struck. When Martin learned this, he went alone, a little before midnight, to that beast’s headquarters; but since, in the silence of the depth of night, with all asleep, there was no way in through the barred doors, he prostrated himself before the bloody threshold. Meanwhile Avitianus, buried in deep sleep, is struck by an angel bursting in: ‘The servant of God,’ he says, ‘lies at your threshold, and you sleep?’ At this voice he is shaken from his bed in alarm; calling his servants, he cries out in fear that Martin is at the door: they are to go at once and unbar the doors, lest the servant of God suffer wrong. But they, as is the nature of all servants, barely going beyond the first threshold, mocking their master for having been fooled by a dream, deny that anyone is at the door, judging from their own character that no one could keep watch at night, much less would they believe that a priest was lying in that horror of the night before another’s threshold; and Avitianus was easily persuaded of this. Again he sinks into sleep; but soon, struck more violently, he cries out that Martin is standing at the door: that was why no rest of mind or body was allowed him. As the servants delayed, he went himself as far as the outer threshold; there he found Martin, as he had sensed. Struck by so great a manifestation of power, the wretched man said: ‘Why have you done this to me, lord? There is no need for you to speak: I know what you desire, I see what you are asking. Go away as quickly as possible, lest heavenly anger consume me for the wrong done to you. I have paid penalty enough up to now. Believe me, it was no light thing that made me come out myself.’ After the saint had left, he called his officials, ordered all the prisoners to be released, and soon left himself. So, with Avitianus put to flight, the city rejoiced and was set free.

“These things were learned by many from Avitianus’s own account, and lately the presbyter Refrigerius, whom you see before you, heard them from Dagridus, a faithful man of the rank of tribune, who swore, calling on the divine majesty, that it had been told him by Avitianus himself. But I do not want you to wonder that today I am doing what I did not do yesterday, attaching to each miracle the names and persons of the witnesses, to whom anyone who is incredulous may have recourse, since they are still in the body. The unbelief of very many has required it, who are said to waver about some of the things told yesterday. Let them have, then, witnesses still safe and alive, whom they may believe more, since they doubt our good faith. But if they are so unbelieving, I declare that they will not believe them either. I wonder that anyone who has even a slight sense of religion would wish to commit so great a sin as to think that anyone could lie about Martin. Far from anyone who lives under God be that suspicion: Martin has no need to be championed by lies. But we lay the good faith of our whole discourse before you, Christ: we have said and will say nothing other than what we ourselves have seen, or have learned from clear sources or very often from Martin’s own account. Moreover, though we have adopted the form of a dialogue, so that the reading might be varied to relieve tedium, we declare that we are devoutly setting forth historical truth. The unbelief of some has compelled me, not without grief, to insert these things from outside the conversation. But let my speech return to our gathering: in which, seeing myself listened to so eagerly, I must confess that Aper acted firmly in turning away the unbelievers, judging that only those who believed ought to listen.

“I am carried away in spirit, if you can believe it, and I am quite beside myself with grief: do Christians not believe in Martin’s miracles, which the demons confessed? The blessed man’s monastery was two miles from the city; but whenever he set foot outside the threshold of his cell to come to the church, you would see the possessed roaring throughout the church and the bands of the damned trembling as though the judge were coming, so that the groaning of the demons announced the bishop’s arrival to clergy who did not know he was coming. I saw one man, as Martin approached, snatched into the air and suspended on high with his hands outstretched, so that his feet in no way touched the ground. And whenever Martin undertook the task of exorcising demons, he touched no one with his hands and rebuked no one with words, as for the most part a torrent of words is rolled out by the clergy; but when the possessed had been brought, he ordered the rest to go away, and, with the doors barred, in the middle of the church, clothed in sackcloth, sprinkled with ashes, he lay on the ground and prayed. Then indeed you would see the wretched people tormented with different results: some, their feet lifted on high, hanging as if from a cloud, and yet their clothes did not fall over their faces, lest the uncovered part of their bodies should cause shame; and in another part you would see people tormented without being questioned and confessing their crimes. They even revealed their names with no one asking: one confessed that he was Jupiter, another Mercury. In the end you would see all the ministers of the devil tormented together with their author himself, so that we must now confess that in Martin was fulfilled what is written: that the saints will judge angels.

“A certain district in the territory of Sens was ravaged by hail every year. Driven by extreme hardship, the inhabitants asked Martin for help: a quite trustworthy embassy was sent through Auspicius, a man of prefectorian rank, whose fields the storm had been accustomed to ravage more heavily than the others’. Martin prayed there, and so completely freed the whole region from the threatening plague that for the twenty years he afterwards remained in the body no one suffered hail in those parts. And lest this be thought to be chance rather than granted to Martin, in the year in which he died the storm returned and fell on them again: so much did even the world feel the departure of the faithful man, that it mourned the death of one whose life it rightly rejoiced in. Moreover, if a weaker listener demands witnesses to prove what we have said, I will produce not one man but many thousands, and will call the whole region of Sens as witness to the power it experienced. And yet you, presbyter Refrigerius, I believe, remember that we lately talked about this with Romulus, the son of that Auspicius, an honored and religious man; he told us these things as though we did not know them, and, fearing for future harvests because of constant losses, he lamented, as you yourself saw, with great grief that Martin had not been preserved for these times.

“But to go back to Avitianus: though in all places and in all cities he left unspeakable monuments of his cruelty, at Tours alone he was harmless; and that beast, which fed on human blood and the deaths of the unfortunate, showed himself gentle and peaceable when the blessed man was present. I remember that one day Martin came to him; and when he entered his office, he saw sitting behind his back a demon of extraordinary size. Martin breathed on it from a distance (to use a word that is not very good Latin, since we must) and ‘blew it out’; and Avitianus, thinking he was being blown at, said: ‘Why do you treat me so, holy man?’ Then Martin said: ‘Not you, but the one who sits foully on your neck.’ The devil gave way and left his familiar seat; and it is well established that after that day Avitianus was gentler, either because he understood that he had always been doing the will of the devil sitting by him, or because the unclean spirit, driven from his company by Martin, was deprived of the power to rage, since the servant was ashamed before his master and the master did not urge on the servant. In the village of Amboise, that is, the old fortress which is now thickly inhabited by brothers, you knew there was a pagan temple built with great labor. A towering mass had risen of highly polished stones, which, rising high into a cone, preserved the superstition of the place by the grandeur of the work. The blessed man had often ordered Marcellus, the presbyter living there, to destroy it. Returning after some time, he rebuked the presbyter for the temple building still standing. He pleaded that so great a mass could hardly be overthrown by a band of soldiers and the force of a public multitude, much less did he think it could easily be managed by weak clerics or feeble monks. Then Martin, having recourse to his familiar defenses, kept watch all night in prayer: in the morning a storm arose and threw the idol’s temple down to its foundations. Let these things be told with Marcellus as witness.

“I will tell of another miracle of his, not unlike, in a similar task, with Refrigerius confirming it. He was preparing to overthrow a column of enormous mass on which an idol stood, but there was no means of carrying this out: then he turned to prayer, as was his custom. It is certain that a column, somehow like it, was seen to rush down from heaven, which struck the idol and reduced that whole impregnable mass to dust: it was too little, it seems, that he should use the powers of heaven invisibly, unless those powers were seen by human eyes visibly serving Martin. The same Refrigerius is my witness that a woman suffering from a flow of blood, when she touched Martin’s garment after the example of that woman in the Gospel, was healed in a moment. A serpent, cutting through the river, was swimming toward the bank on which we had stopped: ‘In the name of the Lord,’ he said, ‘I command you to go back.’ At once the evil beast turned around at the saint’s word and crossed to the farther bank as we watched. When we all saw this, not without wonder, he groaned more deeply and said: ‘Serpents hear me, and men do not.’

“He was accustomed to eat fish during the days of Easter; a little before the hour of the meal he asked whether there was any at hand. Then the deacon Cato, who had charge of the management of the monastery, himself skilled at fishing, said that the whole day no catch had come his way, and the other fishermen who usually sold fish had not been able to take anything either. ‘Go,’ said Martin, ‘cast your net: a catch will come.’ We had our dwelling, as Sulpicius here has described, next to the river. We all went out, since it was a holiday, to see him fish, with everyone’s hopes intent that the attempts would not be in vain by which fish was being sought, at Martin’s word, for Martin’s use. At the first cast the deacon drew out an enormous pike in a very small net, and ran happily to the monastery, just as a poet whose name I forget says (we use a scholastic’s verse, since we are talking among scholastics): ‘and brought the captive boar to the wondering Argives.’ Truly this disciple of Christ, an imitator of the miracles done by the Savior, which he set forth as an example for his saints, showed Christ working in him; for Christ, glorifying his saint in every way, conferred on one man the gifts of various graces. Arborius, the former prefect, testifies that he saw Martin’s hand, as he offered the sacrifice, clothed as it were with the noblest gems, glittering with a purple light, and that at the movement of his right hand he heard the clash of the gems knocking together.

“I come now to that which, because of the stigma of the times, he always concealed, but could not hide from us: in it there is this miracle, that an angel spoke with him face to face. The emperor Maximus, otherwise indeed a good man, corrupted by the counsels of priests, after the execution of Priscillian, protected by royal power Bishop Ithacius, Priscillian’s accuser, and his other associates, whom there is no need to name, so that no one should charge him with the crime that through his work a man, of whatever kind, had been condemned. Meanwhile Martin, compelled by many grave cases of people in trouble to go to the court, ran into the full force of the whole storm. The bishops gathered at Trier were being kept there, who, communicating daily with Ithacius, had made his cause their own. When it was announced to them, unexpectedly, that Martin was coming, they were shaken to the core and began to mutter and tremble. And already the day before, the emperor, on their advice, had decreed to send tribunes armed with supreme power to the Spains, to search out heretics and, when caught, take away their lives and property. Nor was there any doubt that this storm would also lay waste a great crowd of saints, with little distinction between kinds of people; for at that time judgment was made by the eyes alone, so that a person was thought a heretic by his pallor or his dress rather than by his faith. The bishops felt that these things would by no means please Martin, but in their guilty consciences their most troublesome care was lest on his arrival he should keep himself from their communion, since there would be no lack of people who would follow the firmness of so great a man, once his authority had led the way. They take counsel with the emperor that officials of the master of the offices be sent to meet him and forbid him to come nearer the city unless he declared that he would be there in peace with the bishops staying there. He cleverly evaded them and declared that he would come with the peace of Christ. Finally he entered by night and went to the church, only to pray. The next day he went to the palace. Besides many requests which it would take long to go through, he had these principal ones: for the count Narses and the governor Leucadius, both of whom had been of Gratian’s party and had incurred the victor’s anger by their rather obstinate zeal, which this is not the time to explain; and above all, that tribunes with the right of the sword should not be sent to the Spains. For Martin had a devout concern to free not only the Christians who were to be harassed on that pretext, but the heretics themselves. But for one day and another the crafty emperor kept the man in suspense, either to give weight to the matter, or because, being bound to the bishops, he was implacable, or because, as many then thought, avarice opposed it, since he had his eye on their property. For that man, endowed with many good deeds, is said to have taken too little care against avarice, except that, by the necessity of the state, since the treasury had been exhausted by previous emperors and he was almost always in expectation of and readiness for civil wars, he will easily be excused for having procured resources for the empire on any pretexts.

“Meanwhile the bishops, whose communion Martin did not enter, ran in alarm to the king, complaining that they had been condemned in advance and that it was all over with their standing if Martin’s authority armed the obstinacy of Theognitus, who alone had condemned them by a sentence publicly pronounced: the man should not have been received within the walls; he was now no longer a defender of heretics but their avenger; nothing had been achieved by the death of Priscillian if Martin was to exact vengeance for him. Finally, prostrating themselves with weeping and lamentation, they implored the royal power to use its force against one man. And the emperor was not far from being compelled to involve Martin in the lot of the heretics. But though he was bound to the bishops by excessive favor, he was not ignorant that Martin excelled all mortals in faith, holiness, and power: he prepared to overcome the saint by another way. First he summoned him privately and addressed him blandly: the heretics had been condemned by law, by the procedure of the public courts rather than by the attacks of priests; there was no reason why he should think the communion of Ithacius and the others of his party should be condemned; Theognitus had made the breach from hatred rather than for cause, and he was the only one who had separated himself from communion for the time being; the rest had made no change. Indeed, a synod held a few days before had declared that Ithacius was not guilty. When Martin was little moved by these things, the king was inflamed with anger and rushed from his presence. Soon executioners were sent off against those for whom Martin had pleaded.

“When Martin learned this, he burst into the palace, though it was already night. He promised that if they were spared he would communicate, provided that the tribunes too, already sent to the Spains for the destruction of the churches, were recalled. Without delay Maximus granted everything. The next day the ordination of Bishop Felix was being prepared, a most holy man indeed and truly worthy to have become a priest in a better time. On that day Martin entered into communion, thinking it better to yield for an hour than not to provide for those over whose necks the sword was hanging. Yet, though the bishops strove their utmost to have him confirm that communion by his signature, it could not be wrung from him. The next day, hurrying away from there, as he was returning on his journey, grieving and groaning that he had been mixed even for an hour in a harmful communion, not far from the village called Andethanna, where the vast solitude of the forests affords privacy, he sat down while his companions went on a little ahead, turning over the cause of his grief and his deed, his thoughts accusing and defending by turns. Suddenly an angel stood by him: ‘Rightly, Martin,’ he said, ‘are you pricked with remorse, but you could not have got out of it otherwise. Recover your power, take up your firmness again, lest you now incur danger not to your glory but to your salvation.’ So from that time he took great care not to be mixed with the communion of the Ithacian party. Moreover, when he healed some of the possessed more slowly than usual and with less grace, he would confess to us with tears that because of the evil of that communion, in which he had joined, if only for a moment, out of necessity and not in spirit, he felt a loss of power. He lived sixteen years after that: he attended no synod, he kept away from all gatherings of bishops.

“But clearly, as we experienced, he made up with manifold interest the grace that had been diminished for a time. I saw afterwards a possessed man brought to the outer gate of that monastery, and he was healed before he touched the threshold. I lately heard someone testify that, when he was sailing on the Tyrrhenian Sea on the course that leads to Rome, whirlwinds suddenly arose and all were in the utmost danger of their lives. In this, when a certain Egyptian merchant, not yet a Christian, cried out loudly, ‘God of Martin, save us,’ the storm was soon calmed, and they held their desired course in the deepest calm of a peaceful sea. Lycontius, of the vicars, a faithful man, when a terrible plague was afflicting his household and, in an instance of unheard-of calamity, sick bodies lay throughout his house, begged Martin’s help by letter. At that time the blessed man said that the thing would be hard to obtain, for he sensed in spirit that that house was being scourged by divine will; yet he did not stop, continuing seven whole days and as many nights in prayer and fasting, until he had obtained what he had undertaken to pray for. Soon Lycontius, having experienced the divine kindness, hurried to him, at once announcing and giving thanks that his house had been freed from all danger. He also offered a hundred pounds of silver, which the blessed man neither refused nor accepted; but before that weight touched the threshold of the monastery, he at once assigned it to the ransoming of captives. And when it was suggested to him by the brothers that he should keep something of it for the expenses of the monastery, since all were short of food and many lacked clothing, he said: ‘Let the church both feed and clothe us, so long as we do not seem to have sought anything for our own use.’ At this point great miracles of that man come to mind, which we can more easily admire than tell. You surely recognize what I mean: there are many of his deeds that cannot be explained. Such is this one, which I doubt can be set out by us as it happened. One of the brothers (you know his name, but the person must be hidden, lest we shame a holy man), having found a good supply of coals for his little stove, drew a stool to himself and sat over that fire with his legs apart and his groin uncovered. At once Martin sensed that a wrong had been done under the sacred roof, and cried out in a loud voice: ‘Who is defiling our dwelling by uncovering his groin?’ When the brother heard this and recognized in his conscience that he was the one rebuked, he at once ran to us half dead, confessing his shame, not without Martin’s power.

“Likewise one day, while he was sitting in the very small courtyard that surrounded his hut, on that wooden seat of his which you all know, he saw two demons standing on that lofty rock which overhangs the monastery, and from there, eager and glad, uttering a cry of encouragement of this kind: ‘Come on, Brictio! Come on, Brictio!’ I believe they saw the wretched man approaching from afar, knowing what rage they had stirred up in his spirit. Without delay Brictio burst in in a frenzy, and there, full of madness, spewed out a thousand insults against Martin. For he had been rebuked by him the day before, because, though he had never had anything before his clerical career (for he had been brought up in the monastery by Martin himself), he was keeping horses and buying slaves. For at that time he was accused by many of having bought not only barbarian boys but also girls of comely looks. Stirred by these things to mad bitterness, the most unhappy man, and, I believe, driven especially by the instigation of those demons, so attacked Martin that he barely kept his hands off him, while the saint, with calm face and tranquil mind, restrained the unhappy man’s madness with gentle words. But the wicked spirit so overflowed in him that not even his own mind, empty as it was, remained under his control: with trembling lips and uncertain face, pale with fury, he poured out words of sin, claiming that he was holier, since from his earliest years he had grown up in the monastery among the sacred disciplines of the church, educated by Martin himself; but that Martin from the beginning, as he himself could not deny, had been defiled by the activities of military service, and now, through empty superstitions and ridiculous phantoms of visions, had grown old in utter dotage. When he had spewed out these and many other things, still more bitter, which it is better to pass over in silence, he at last went out, his fury sated, as though he had fully avenged himself, and was hurrying back with rapid steps the way he had come; meanwhile, I believe through Martin’s prayers, the demons were driven from his heart, and he was brought back to repentance. Soon he returned and threw himself at Martin’s knees: he asked pardon, confessed his error, and, at last saner, admitted that he had not been without a demon. It was no hard task for Martin to forgive a suppliant. Then the saint explained to him and to all of us how he had seen him driven by demons: he was not moved by insults, which had done more harm to the one who poured them out. Afterwards, though this same Brictio was very often charged before him with many grave crimes, he could not be compelled to remove him from the presbyterate, lest he should seem to be avenging his own injury, often recalling: ‘If Christ endured Judas, why should I not endure Brictio?’

To this Postumianus said: “Let that neighbor of ours hear this example. Wise as he is, he is unmindful of the present and unmindful of the future: if he is offended, he rages beyond his own control: he is savage toward the clergy, he attacks the laity, and stirs up the whole world to avenge him; and he has continued in this struggle for three years without a break, calmed neither by time nor by reason. The man’s condition would be pitiable and lamentable even if he were afflicted only by this plague of an incurable evil. You ought, Gallus, to tell him these examples of patience and calm more often, so that he might not know how to be angry and might know how to forgive. If he should happen to learn that this brief remark of mine was aimed at him, let him know that I spoke not with an enemy’s mouth but with a friend’s heart, because, if it were possible, I would wish him to be said to resemble Bishop Martin rather than the tyrant Phalaris. But let us pass over him, whose mention is not very pleasant, and return, Gallus, to our Martin.”

Then I, sensing that evening was already at hand as the sun set, said: “The day has gone, Postumianus: we must get up; besides, supper is owed to such eager listeners. As for Martin, you must not expect that there will be any end for one telling of him: he spreads too widely to be enclosed in any discourse. Meanwhile you will carry these things about that man to the East; and as you return, and coast past various shores, places, harbors, islands, and cities, scatter Martin’s name and glory among the peoples. Above all remember not to pass by Campania: even if it is very much off your course, let no loss, even of long delays, be so great to you as to keep you from visiting there that distinguished man, praised throughout the world, Paulinus. Unroll before him first, I beg you, the volume of our conversation, both what we finished yesterday and what we have said today; tell him everything, read him everything, so that through him Rome may soon learn the holy man’s praises, as he spread that first little book of ours not only through Italy but through all Illyricum too. He, not envious of Martin’s glories and a most devout appraiser of holy virtues in Christ, will not refuse to set our bishop beside his own Felix. Then, if you happen to cross to Africa, you will tell what you have heard to Carthage; though, as you yourself said, it already knows the man, yet let it now especially learn more about him, so that it may not admire there only its martyr Cyprian, though it is consecrated by his holy blood. And if, turning a little to the left, you enter the gulf of Achaia, let Corinth know, let Athens know, that Plato was not wiser in the Academy nor Socrates braver in prison: Greece is indeed happy, which was found worthy to hear the Apostle preaching, but Gaul has by no means been abandoned by Christ, to whom he has given Martin. And when you have come as far as Egypt, though it is proud of the number and the miracles of its own saints, let it not disdain to hear how, in Martin alone, Europe has not yielded to it or to all Asia.

“But when you have again committed your sails to the winds to make for Jerusalem from there, I lay on you a task of my grief: if ever you come to the shore of that famous Ptolemais, inquire carefully where our Pomponius lies buried, and do not disdain to visit those bones in a foreign land. Pour out many tears there, as much from your own affection as from our heart, and, though it be an empty gift, strew the ground itself with purple flowers and sweet-smelling herbs. Yet you will tell him (but not harshly, not bitterly, in the words of one who suffers with him, not with the verdict of one who reproaches) that if he had been willing to listen either to you once or to me always, and had imitated Martin rather than that man whom I do not wish to name, he would never have been so cruelly separated from me and covered by the sand drifts of unknown dust, having suffered death in the middle of the sea by the lot of a shipwrecked pirate, and barely found burial on a distant shore. Let all those who wished to harm me by avenging him see this work of theirs; let them see their glory, and, now that they are avenged, at least stop attacking me.” While we were lamenting these things in a most tearful voice, and everyone’s tears were stirred by our grief, we parted, with great admiration indeed for Martin, but with no less sorrow from our weeping.