November 11

ST MARTIN, BISHOP OF TOURS (A.D. 397)

The great St Martin, the glory of Gaul and a light to the Western church in the fourth century, was a native of Sabaria, a town of Pannonia [now Szombathely of Hungary]. From thence his parents, who were pagans, had to remove to Pavia in Italy, for his father was an officer in the army, who had risen from the ranks. Martin himself has, rather curiously, come to be looked on as a "soldier saint". At the age of fifteen he was, as the son of a veteran, forced into the army against his will and for some years, though not yet formally a Christian, he lived more like a monk than a soldier. It was while stationed at Amiens that is said to have occurred the incident which tradition and image have made famous. One day in a very hard winter, during a severe frost, he met at the gate of the city a poor man, almost naked, trembling and shaking with cold, and begging alms of those that passed by. Martin, seeing those that went before take no notice of this miserable creature, thought he was reserved for himself, but he had nothing with him but his arms and clothes. So, drawing his sword, he cut his cloak into two pieces, gave one to the beggar and wrapped himself in the other half. Some of the bystanders laughed at the figure he cut, but others were ashamed not to have relieved the poor man. That night Martin in his sleep saw Jesus Christ, dressed in that half of the garment which he had given away, and heard Jesus say, "Martin, yet a catechumen, has covered me with this garment". [1] His disciple and biographer Sulpicius Severus states that he had become a catechumen on his own initiative at the age of ten, and that as a consequence of this vision he "flew to be baptized".

Martin did not at once leave the army, and when he was about twenty there was a barbarian invasion of Gaul. With his comrades he appeared before Julian Caesar to receive a war-bounty, and Martin refused to accept it. "Hitherto" he said to Julian, "I have served you as a soldier; let me now serve Christ. Give the bounty to these others who are going to fight, but I am a soldier of Christ and it is not lawful for me to fight." Julian stormed and accused Martin of cowardice who retorted that he was prepared to stand in the battle-line unarmed the next day and to advance alone against the enemy in the name of Christ. He was thrust into prison, but the conclusion of an armistice stopped further developments and Martin was soon after discharged. He went to Poitiers, where St Hilary was bishop, and this doctor of the Church gladly received the young "conscientious objector" among his disciples. [2]

Martin had in a dream a call to visit his home and, crossing the Alps where he had a remarkable escape from robbers, he went into Pannonia, and converted his mother and others; but his father remained in his infidelity. In Illyricum he opposed the triumphant Arians with so much zeal that he was publicly scourged and had to leave the country. In Italy he heard that the church of Gaul also was oppressed by those heretics and St Hilary banished, so he remained quietly at Milan. But Auxentius, the Arian bishop, soon drove him away. He then retired with a priest to the island of Gallinaria in the gulf of Genoa, and remained there till St Hilary was allowed to return to Poitiers in 360. It being Martin's earnest desire to pursue his vocation in solitude, St Hilary gave him a piece of land, now called Ligugé, where he was soon joined by a number of other hermits. This community -- traditionally the first monastic community founded in Gaul -- grew into a great monastery which continued till the year 1607, and was revived by the Solesmes Benedictines in 1852. St Martin lived here for ten years, directing his disciples and preaching throughout the countryside, where many miracles were attributed to him. About 371 the people of Tours demanded Martin for their bishop. He was unwilling to accept the office, so a stratagem was made use of to call him to the city to visit a sick person, where he was conveyed to the church. Some of the neighbouring bishops, called to assist at the election, urged that the meanness of his appearance and his unkempt air showed him to be unfit for such a dignity. But such objections were overcome by the acclamations of the local clergy and people.

St Martin continued the same manner of life. He lived at first in a cell near the church, but not being able to endure the interruptions of the many visitors he retired from the city to where was soon the famous abbey of Marmoutier. The place was then a desert, enclosed by a steep cliff on one side and by a tributary of the river Loire on the other; but he had here in a short time eighty monks, with many persons of rank amongst them. A very great decrease of paganism in the district of Tours and all that part of Gaul was the fruit of the piety, miracles and zealous instruction of St Martin. He destroyed many temples of idols and felled trees and other objects that were held sacred by the pagans. Having demolished a certain temple, he would also have cut down a pine that stood near it. The chief priest and others agreed that they themselves would fell it, upon condition that he who trusted so strongly in the God whom he preached would stand under it where they should place him. Martin consented, and let himself be tied on that side of the tree to which it leaned. When it seemed about to fall on him he made a sign of the cross and it fell to one side. Another time, as he was pulling down a temple in the territory of Autun, a man attacked him sword in hand. The saint bared his breast to him; but the pagan lost his balance, fell backwards, and was so terrified that he begged for forgiveness. These and many other marvels are narrated by Sulpicius Severus; some are so extraordinary that, he tells us himself, there were not wanting "wretched, degenerate and slothful men" in his own day who denied their truth. He also recounts several instances of revelations, visions and the spirit of prophecy with which the saint was favoured by God. Every year St Martin visited each of his outlying "parishes", travelling on foot, on a donkey, or by boat. According to his biographer he extended his apostolate from Touraine to Chartres, Paris, Autun, Sens and Vienne, where he cured St Paulinus of Nola of an eye trouble. When a tyrannical imperial officer, Avitian, had come to Tours with a batch of prisoners and was going to put them to death with torture on the following day, St Martin hurried from Marmoutier to intercede for them. He did not arrive till nearly midnight, but went straight to Avitian and would not go away until mercy was extended to the captives.

Whilst St Martin was employed in making spiritual conquests, and in peaceably spreading the kingdom of Jesus Christ, the churches in Spain and Gaul were disturbed by the Priscillianists, a gnostic-manichean sect named after their leader. Priscillian appealed to the Emperor Maximus from a synod held at Bordeaux in 384, but Ithacius, Bishop of Ossanova, attacked him furiously and urged the emperor to put him to death. Neither St Ambrose at Milan nor St Martin would countenance Ithacius or those who supported him, because they sought to put heretics to death and allowed the emperor's jurisdiction in an ecclesiastical matter. Martin besought Maximus not to spill the blood of the guilty, saying it was sufficient that they be declared heretics and excommunicated by the bishops. Ithacius, far from listening to his advice, presumed to accuse him of the heresy involved, as he generally did those whose lives were too ascetic for his taste, says Sulpicius Severus. Maximus, out of regard to St Martin's remonstrances, promised that the blood of the accused should not be spilt. But after the saint had left Trier, the emperor was prevailed upon, and committed the case of the Priscillianists to the prefect Evodius. He found Priscillian and others guilty of certain charges, and they were beheaded. St Martin came back to Trier to intercede both for the Spanish Priscillianists, who were threatened with a bloody persecution, and for two adherents of the late emperor, Gratian; he found himself in a very difficult position, in which he seemed to be justified in maintaining communion with the party of Ithacius, which he did: but he was afterwards greatly troubled in conscience as to whether he had been too complaisant in this matter. [3]

St Martin had a knowledge of his approaching death, which he foretold to his disciples, and with tears they besought him not to leave them. "Lord", he prayed, "if thy people still need me I will not draw back from the work. Thy will be done." He was at a remote part of his diocese when his last sickness came on him. He died on November 8, 397, today being the day of his burial at Tours, where his successor St Britius built a chapel over his grave, which was later replaced by a magnificent basilica. Its successor was swept away at the Revolution, but a modern church now stands over the site of the shrine, which was rifled by the Huguenots in 1562. Till that date the pilgrimage to Tours was one of the most popular in Europe, and a very large number of French churches are dedicated in St Martin's honour. And not only in France. The oldest existing church in England bears his name, that one outside the eastern walls of Canterbury which St Bede says was first built during the Roman occupation. If this be so, it doubtless at first had another dedication, but was called St Martin's by the time St Augustine and his monke came to use it. By the end of the eighth century there were at least five other Martin dedications in Great Britain, including of course St Ninian's church at Whithorn. St Martin was named in the canon of the Mass in the Bobbio Missal.

In the BHL. no less than fifty-six medieval Latin texts are indicated as in some sense sources for the life of St Martin, and the literature arising out of these is of course immense. But the fundamental narrative comes to us from Sulpicius Severus, who had visited the saint at Tours and whose successive contributions to the subject are immensely more important than any later materials. At the time of St Martin's death Sulpicius had already compiled his biography. A little later he revised it, supplementing the text with three long letters he had written in the interval, the last of these describing the saint's death and funeral. Sulpicius meanwhile had been busy in writing a general chronicle, and in this Book II, ch. 50 is devoted to St Martin's share in the Priscillianist controversy. Finally in 404 Sulpicius threw into dialogue form some further materials, comparing Martin with earlier ascetics, and gathering up a number of new anecdotes. The text edited by C. Halm in the Vienna Corpus (vol. i, pp. 107-216) has not yet been superseded. Cf. however, the Sulpicius section of the Book of Armagh, edited by Professor John Gwynn (1913). More than a century and a half elapsed before St Gregory at Tours itself made another notable contribution to the history of his venerated predecessor. Unfortunately the chronology of Sulpicius and Gregory is often at variance, and these inconsistencies formed the basis of an essay in destructive criticism by E. Babut (St Martin de Tours, 1912) which created a considerable sensation when it appeared. A detailed reply by Fr Delehaye in the Analecta Bollandiana (vol. xxxviii, 1920, pp. 1-136) may count as perhaps the most up-to-date contribution to the subject, and another high authority C. Jullian, in the Revue des Études anciennes (vols. xxiv and xxv) and in his Histoire de la Gaule (vol. viii) has written in general agreement with Delehaye. Biographies and studies of the different aspects of St Martin's history are numerous. See especially the books of A. Lecoy de la Marche, C. H. van Rhijn, P. Ladoué and, most useful of all, the little volume of Paul Monceaux (Eng. trans., 1928). On St Martin in art consult Künstle, Ikonographie, vol. ii, pp. 438-444; and the volume by H. Martin, in the series L'art et les sants. St Martin has also played a great part in the traditions of the people; many popular phrases in French recall his name. Much of this folk-lore has been gathered up by Lecoy de la Marche, and for Germany see Bächtold-Stäubli, Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, vol. v, cc. 1708-1725. For Martin's influence in Ireland, see J. Ryan, Irish Monasticism (1931); and Fr Grosjean in Analecta Bollandiana, vol. lv (1942), pp. 300-348; for the early English dedications, W. Levison, England and the Continent... (1946) p. 259. The great veneration for St Martin in medieval England is witnessed by the fact that the calendar of the Book of Common Prayer not only retains his dies natalis but also the fesat of the translation of his relics on July 4. The life by Sulpicius Severus is translated in the Fathers of the Church series, vol. vii (1949), and again in F. R. Hoare, The Western Fathers (1954), together with his three letters on St Martin and the dialogues with Postumianus and Gallus.


[1] Our familiar word "chapel" is said to be derived from this incident. The oratory in which the alleged cloak of St Martin was preserved was called in Latin the cappella (diminutive of cappa, a cloak), in Old French chapele.
[2] The narrative of Sulpicius Severus here presents considerable chronological difficulties.
[3] For their parts in the affair of Priscillian both the emperor and Ithacius were censured by Pope St Siricius. It was the first judicial death-sentence for heresy, and it was followed by a spread of Priscillianism in Spain. Sulpicius Severus says that two of Priscillian's followers were exiled "to the Scilly island that lies beyond Britain".

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(Butler's Lives of the Saints, Christian Classics, 1995) wmaster@hcbc.hu