The life of Saint Martin - S. Severus

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It’s a libricino you can read it in less than one hour, so here are some quick notes. I got curious about Saint Martin’s life after hearing of the Saint Martin festivities in November, and I was happy to discover somebody had written his biography while he was still living - I find this kind of books a good snapshot of the time; come in un gioco di prestigio, you need to look everywhere except where the person conducting it wants you to look, and then there’s usually something interesting to discover.

The book is divided in 27 small chapters (plus a preface by the author), the core part being devoted to St. Martin’s miracles. The titles of these chapters look like this:

The description of the revival of the catechumen is quite peculiar:

[…] he [Martin] orders the others to quit the cell in which the body was lying; and bolting the door, he stretches himself at full length on the dead limbs of the departed brother […] perceiving by means of the Spirit of God that power was present, he then rose up for a little […] and scarcely had the space of two hours elapsed, when he saw the dead man begin to move a little in all his members, and to tremble with his eyes opened for the practice of sight. Then indeed, turning to the Lord with a loud voice and giving thanks, he filled the cell with his ejaculations.

On a second read, “peculiar” is not the only adjective that comes to mind. I suspect the translation to be a bit dated, since also the content of chapter “Intercourse of Sulpitius with Martin” is not quite what the title suggests.

A large part of Martin’s life was devoted to fighting paganism. The “Falling Pine-Tree” is a sacred pagan tree that is about to fall on Martin before bolting away in the opposite direction, the Bearers of a Dead Body are paralyzed into place by Martin when he suspects they’re conducting pagan rites, a general tendency to arsonism against pagan temples is described in several chapters.

I suspect some descriptions do not really have the desired effect after all the centuries that have transpired, take Arborius’s pious reaction to Martin’s (indirect) miracle:

Further, Arborius, an ex-prefect, and a man of a very holy and faithful character, while his daughter was in agony from the burning fever of a quartan ague, inserted in the bosom of the girl […] a letter of Martin […] and immediately the fever was dispelled. This event had such an influence upon Arborius, that he at once consecrated the girl to God, and devoted her to perpetual virginity. […] he would not suffer her to be consecrated by any other than Martin, through his placing upon her the dress characteristic of virginity.

The story stops here, I wonder if the girl would have been better off stricken by the fever. A second read of the highlighted sentence is better than any remark:

This event had such an influence upon Arborius, that he at once consecrated the girl to God, and devoted her to perpetual virginity.

Description of life in Martin’s monastery:

No one there had anything which was called his own; all things were possessed in common. It was not allowed either to buy or sell anything, as is the custom among most monks. No art was practiced there, except that of transcribers, and even this was assigned to the brethen of younger years, while the elders spent their time in prayer. Rarely did any one of them go beyond the cell, unless when they assembled at the place of prayer. They all took their food together, after the hour of fasting was past. No one used wine, except when illness compelled them to do so. Most of them were clothed in garments of camels’ hair. Any dress approaching to softness was there deemed criminal. […] what city of church would there be that would not desire to have its priests from among those in the monastery of Martin?

Again impressive on so many levels.

I gather that St. Martin today is mostly known for giving out half of his coat to a poor man; the event is described in Chapter 3, “Christ appears to St. Martin”, but does not really seem to be the focus of the book, and there are no other episodes of this kind. If dear Sulpicius had to pick out a single episode from Martin’s life, would it have been this one?