295 St.
Menuas Egyptian army of Rome officer martyr
noted for healing various illnesses, delivering people from possession by
demons, and as a protector, especially during times of war. We also ask his
help in finding lost objects.
Cotyǽi, in Phrygia, insígnis
pássio sancti Mennæ, Ægyptii mílitis, qui in persecutióne
Diocletiáni, postquam, abjécto milítiæ cíngulo,
méruit cælésti Regi secréta conversatióne
in erémo militáre, procéssit in públicum, et,
se Christiánum líbera voce declárans, primo diris cruciátibus
examinátur; novíssime, fixis in oratióne génibus,
Dómino Jesu Christo grátias agens, gládio cæsus
est, ac multis post mortem miráculis cláruit.
At Cotyaeum in Phrygia, during the persecution of Diocletian, the celebrated
martyrdom of St. Mennas, an Egyptian soldier, who cast off the military belt
and obtained the grace of serving the King of heaven secretly in the desert.
Afterwards, coming out publicly and freely declaring himself a Christian,
he was first subjected to severe torments; and finally kneeling in prayer,
giving thanks to our Lord Jesus Christ, he was slain with the sword.
After his death he became renowned for many miracles.
The Holy Great Martyr Menas of Egypt, an Egyptian by birth, was a military
officer and served in the Kotyaeion region of Phrygia under the centurion
Firmilian during the reign of the emperors Diocletian (284-305) and Maximian
(305-311). When the emperors began the fiercest persecution against Christians
in history, the saint refused to serve these persecutors. He removed his soldier's
belt (a sign of military rank) and withdrew to a mountain, where he lived
an ascetic life of fasting and prayer.
Once he happened to arrive in the city during a pagan festival. At the
climax of the games the saint's accusing voice rang out, preaching faith
in Christ, the Savior of the world. At his trial before the prefect Pyrrhus,
the saint bravely confessed his faith, saying that he had come to denounce
the impious. The prefect was angered, and had Menas arrested.
Pyrrhus offered to restore the saint's former rank if he would offer sacrifice
to the pagan gods. When he refused, he was put to cruel tortures, then he
was beheaded. This occurred in the year 304. Christians gathered up the martyr's
relics by night and hid them until the end of the persecution. Later, they
were brought to Egypt and placed in a church dedicated to St Menas southwest
of Alexandria.
The saint received grace from God to work miracles, and to help those in
need. St Menas is noted for healing various illnesses, delivering people from
possession by demons, and as a protector, especially during times of war.
We also ask his help in finding lost objects.
Possibly slain at Karm Aba Mina, near Alexandria. An officer in the imperial
army of Rome, he resigned when the persecutions of Christians was started.
Mennas lived as a recluse in the mountains of Phrygia, but he then proclaimed
his Christianity, suffering beheading as a resuIt. His remains were enshrined,
and his cult as a warrior saint became popular in the Middle Ages. He is always
depicted with a camel. His cult is now confined to local calendars.
ST MENNAS, MARTYR
THE outline of the legend of
St Mennas (Menas) is that he was an Egyptian by birth and a soldier in the
Roman army. He was at Cotyaeum in Phrygia when the persecution of Diocletian
began, wheitupon he deserted and hid himself in the mountains, where he led
a life of prayer and austerity. On the occasion of some games
at Cotyaeum he left his hiding-place and displayed himself in the amphitheatre,
announcing that he also was a Christian. He was arrested and brought before
the president who, after having him beaten and tortured, ordered him to be
beheaded. His remains were recovered and brought back to Egypt, where
the miracles reported at his tomb soon made it a great centre of devotion.
The cultus of St Mennas spread far and wide in the East, his true history
was overlaid and distorted by fictions and embellishments which brought
him into the ranks of the “warrior saints”, and he
was credited with absurd wonders) one of them (which, however, he shares
with SS. Cosmas and Damian) being, in the words of Tillemont, “in
the highest degree scandalous”.
Father Delehaye
is of the opinion that all that can be fairly certainly known about St Mennas
is that he was an Egyptian who was martyred and buried in his native place.
Churches were built in his honour at, among other places, Cotyaeum, and these
gave rise to mythical duplicates of the martyr connected with those cities.
The great shrine of St Mennas, built over his tomb, was at flumma (Karm
Abu-Mina), south-west from Alexandria, which was a principal pilgrimage sanctuary
until the Arab invasion in the seventh century. Its ruins, basilica,
monastery, baths, secular buildings, were excavated by Mgr K. M. Kaufmann
in 1905-08, who found innumerable traces of the former popular cult us of
the martyr. Among them were numerous phials bearing such inscriptions
as “Souvenir of St Mennas”, which
were shown to have been made to contain water from a well near the shrine.
Such phials had been long previously found elsewhere in Africa
and in Europe, and had hitherto been
supposed to have contained “oil of St Mennas”
taken from the lamps in the church. In 1943 the Orthodox patriarch of
Alexandria, Christopher II, issued an encyclical letter in which he attributed
the saving of Egypt from invasion at the battle of Alamein to “the
prayers to God of the holy and glorious great martyr Mennas, the wonder-worker
of Egypt”; and he put forward a project for restoring
the saint's ruined sanctuary near Alamein as a memorial tothe fallen.
The Roman Martyrology mentions to-day another ST MENNAS,
who was a solitary in the Abruzzi. He was a Greek from Asia Minor whose
holiness and zeal are spoken of by Pope St Gregory in his Dialogues.
As in the came
of the great St George, we have here to do with a martyr of whose historical
existence, owing to his localized, wide-spread and early cult, we can hardly
entertain a doubt, but whose story has been lost and supplied at a later date
by deliberate fabrication. Starting from this primitive fiction
it has been transmitted to subsequent generations with endless varieties of
detail, and translated into many languages, oriental and western.
The Greek passio is known to us
in three distinct families, but the kernel recognizable in all of them has
been obtained by the simple process of borrowing the story of another martyr
and giving him a new name. The martyr in this case was St Gordius,
whose conflict is described to us in a panegyric preached by St Basil.
An immense amount of research has been lavished upon St Mennas by such scholars
as Krumbacher, Delehaye, P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, K. M. Kaufmann and others.
What is of main interest is that the cradle of the cultus of this Egyptian
martyr was brought to light in the present century through the excavations
of Mgr Kaufmann. It has been described in his folio volume, Die Menas-stadt und das Nationalheiligtum der
altchristlichen Aegypter (1910).
Father Delehaye in particular has written very fully on the subject. See
the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xxix
(1910), pp. 117-150; and vol. xliii, pp. 46-49; Origines du culte des martyrs (1933),
pp. 222-223 and passim; Les passions des
martyrs et les genres litteraires,
pp. 388-389 ; and CMH., pp. 595-596. See also Budge, Texts relating
to St Mena of Egypt (1909) ; P. Franchi de' Cavalieri in Studi e Testi, vol. xix (1908), pp. 42-108
; and H. Leclercq in DAC., vol. xi, cc. 324-397, where also is
a full bibliography.
St. Menna of Egypt public profession
of his faith in the arena at Cotyaeum in Phrygia M (RM)
(also known as Menas, Mennas)
Died c. 295 or 303? Mennas was probably born in Egypt and martyred there.
All the earliest representations of him agree in showing him accompanied by
two camels, so he may well have been a camel- driver before he enlisted in
the Roman army. He was also a Christian. When his legion reached Phrygia the
persecutions under Diocletian began. Mennas deserted his post in order to
escape death and hid in a mountain cave.
But as more and more Christians were put to death under Diocletian's
edicts, Mennas decided he too ought to make a public profession of his faith.
He carefully chose his time. During the annual games in the arena at Cotyaeum
in Phrygia, Mennas suddenly appeared before the spectators and announced that
he was a Christian. He was tortured and beaten, but would not recant, and
so he was put to death by beheading. After his death Saint Mennas's body was
taken back to Egypt for burial.
This basic story has been expanded and embellished with preposterous
marvels and the fame of the hero as one of the so- called soldier-saints
grew in proportion: the little terracotta bottles (ampullae) for water from
his shrine, brought away by pilgrims, have been found in all countries bordering
the Mediterranean.
That shrine was at Karm Abu Mina, southwest of Alexandria and
Lake Mareotis, on the edge of the Libyan desert, where the ruins of the church
and ancillary buildings have been laid bare, and many tokens of the cultus
of Saint Mennas found. He has been popularly looked on as one of the great
saints of Egypt down to today (Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley, Encyclopedia).
Saint Mennas is portrayed as a young knight with a halberd.
A 6th century ivory includes two camels in the piece. Sometimes he is shown
with his hands cut off and eyes plucked out. He was greatly venerated in
the Middle Ages. Patron of wandering peddlers and those falsely accused (Roeder).
|
400 Saint Martin of Tours
man came back to life
bishop tree fell freeing of prisoners Patron of Soldiers bolt of lightning
Turónis, in Gállia, natális beáti Martíni
Epíscopi et Confessóris; cujus vita tantis éxstitit miráculis
gloriósa, ut trium mortuórum suscitátor esse merúerit.
At Tours in France, the birthday of blessed Martin,
bishop and confessor, whose life was so renowned for miracles that he received
the power to raise three persons from the dead.
When Sulpicius Severus first
met Martin of Tours he was stunned. Not only did the bishop offer him hospitality
at his residence -- a monk's cell in the wilderness instead of a palace --
but Martin washed Sulpicius' hands before dinner and his feet in the evening.
But Sulpicius was just the kind of person Martin showed the greatest honor
to -- a humble man without any rank or privilege. People of nobility and
position were turned away from his abbey by chalk cliffs, out of fear of the
temptation to pride. From that visit, Sulpicius became Martin's disciple,
friend, and biographer. Little is known of many of the saints who died in
the early years of Christianity but thanks to Sulpicius, who wrote his first
biography of Martin before the saint died and who talked to most of the people
involved in his life, we have a priceless record of Martin's life.
Born in 315 or 316 in Pannonia,
a Roman province that includes modern Hungary, Martin came into a world in transition.
Christians were no longer persecuted by the Roman empire but Christianity
was still not accepted by all. Martin's father, an Roman army officer who
had risen through the ranks, remained faithful to the old religion and suspicious
of this new sect, as did Martin's mother.
Therefore it was Martin's own spiritual yearning and hunger
that led him to secretly knock on the door of the local Christian church
and beg to be made a catechumen -- when he was ten years old. In contemplative
prayer, he found the time to be alone with God that he ached for. In the
discussion of the mysteries, he found the truth he hoped for.
He was still an unbaptized catechumen when he was forced to
join the army at 15. The Roman army apparently had a law that required sons
of veterans to serve in the military. Still, Martin found this so far removed
from his desire to be a Christian monk that he had to be held in chains before
taking the military oath. Once the oath was administered he felt bound to
obey. He was assigned to a ceremonial cavalry unit that protected the emperor
and rarely saw combat. Like his father, he became an officer and eventually
was assigned to garrison duty in Gaul (present-day France).
Even in the military Martin attempted
to live the life of a monk. Though he was entitled to a servant because he
was an officer, he insisted on switching roles with his servant, cleaning
the servant's boots instead of the other way around!
It was on this garrison duty at Amiens that the event took place
that has been portrayed in art throughout the ages. On a bitterly cold winter
day, the young tribune Martin rode through the gates, probably dressed in
the regalia of his unit -- gleaming, flexible armor, ridged helmet, and a
beautiful white cloak whose upper section was lined with lambswool. As he
approached the gates he saw a beggar, with clothes so ragged that he was practically
naked. The beggar must have been shaking and blue from the cold but no one
reached out to help him. Martin, overcome with compassion, took off his mantle.
In one quick stroke he slashed the lovely mantle in two with his sword, handed
half to the freezing man and wrapped the remainder on his own shoulders.
Many in the crowd thought this was so ridiculous a sight that they laughed
and jeered but some realized that they were seeing Christian goodness. That
night Martin dreamed that he saw Jesus wearing the half mantle he had given
the beggar. Jesus said to the angels and saints that surrounded him, "See!
this is the mantle that Martin, yet a catechumen, gave me." When he woke,
it was the "yet a catechumen" that spurred Martin on and he went immediately
to be baptized. He was eighteen years old.
We don't know much about the two years that followed but his
baptism must have fed his growing desire to make a total commitment to Christ,
a commitment that was in conflict with his military role. This conflict came
to a crisis when the nomad Franks and Allemanni invaded the empire.
It was the practice at the time to give money to soldiers before
battle, in order to infuse the soldiers with a greater love of their country
and desire to fight. When Julian lined up the soldiers in Gaul to give them
their bounty, Martin refused to accept the money -- and to fight -- saying,
"Put me in the front of the army, without weapons or armor; but I will not
draw sword again. I am become the soldier of Christ." There seems to be no
evidence that Martin had been in combat before so perhaps he never had to
reconcile his Christian beliefs with war. In any case, it does seem an unfortunate
time to make such a decision. Julian, furious at what he saw as cowardice,
told Martin he would grant him his wish and put him right in the middle of
battle the next day. Until that happened, he had Martin imprisoned. However,
against all predictions and all explanation, the nomads sent word that they
wanted to negotiate for peace and the battle was postponed. Martin was released
from his prison and from the army.
Searching for direction in his new life, Martin wound up in
Poitiers, seeking the guidance and example of Saint Hilary. Hilary wished to make this promising
young man a priest but Martin, out of humility, refused even to be ordained
a deacon. He finally agreed to be ordained an exorcist (someone who performed
rituals for those who were sick or possessed) when Hilary told him his refusal
meant that he thought he was too good for such a lowly job.
On a trip over the Alps to visit his parents, he was attacked
by robbers who not only wanted to steal what he owned but threatened to take
his life. Calm and unperturbed, Martin spoke to the robbers about God. One
was so impressed he converted and became a law-abiding citizen who told his
own story to Sulpicius years later.
But Martin was to find even more
trouble in his own home town. Though his mother converted, his father stubbornly
refused. When Martin began to denounce publicly the Arian heretics that were
then in power throughout the empire -- even within the Church -- Martin was
whipped and driven out of his own hometown!
He could not escape trouble by leaving. When he discovered that
Hilary had been exiled from Poitiers as well for the same reason, Martin went
to an island near Milan to live as a hermit. The Arians soon discovered that
Hilary was even more trouble in exile, because of the writing he did, and
let him come back. When Hilary returned to Poitiers, Martin was there to
meet him and renew their old friendship. In order to fulfill Martin's call
to solitude, Hilary gave Martin a wilderness retreat. As disciples came to
Martin for direction, he founded a monastery for them called Ligug‚. It was
there he performed the first of many miracles. When a catechumen died before
baptism, Martin laid himself over the body and after several hours the man
came back to life. Sulpicius also had talked to this man who was baptized
immediately but lived many years after that. Martin remained in this monastery
near his teacher and friend until after Hilary died.
This was still the era when bishops were chosen by the people
and when the bishop of Tours died, the people decided they wanted an example
of holiness as their new bishop. After that their choice was simple -- Martin.
But as well as they knew his holiness, they also knew he would never agree
to be a bishop so they conceived a trick. A citizen of Tours came to Martin
and begged him to come visit his sick wife. When the kindhearted Martin got
to Tours crowds of people came out of hiding and surrounded him. Unable to
escape, he was swept into the city. The people may have been enthusiastic
about their choice but the bishops there to consecrate the new bishop declared
they were repelled by this dirty, ragged, disheveled choice. The people's
reply was that they didn't choose Martin for his haircut, which could be fixed
by any barber, but for his holiness and poverty, that only charity and grace
could bring. Overwhelmed by the will of the crowds the bishops had no choice
but to consecrate Martin.
Instead of living in a palace, Martin made his first home as
bishop in a cell attached to a church in hopes of being able to maintain
his lifestyle as a monk. But at that time bishops were more than spiritual
pastors. With the Empire's administration disintegrating under outside invasion
and internal conflict, often the only authority in a town like Tours was
the bishop. People came to Martin constantly with questions and concerns
that involved all the affairs of the area.
To regain some of his solitude Martin fled outside the city
to live in a cabin made of branches. There he attracted as many as eighty
disciples who wanted to follow him and founded the monastery of Marmoutiers.
He kept in touch with Tours through priest representatives who reported to
him and carried out his instructions and duties with the people.
It may seem from this that Martin
did not get involved with what was going on but Martin was deeply committed
to his responsibilities.
One of those responsibilities was, he felt, the missionary conversion
of those who still held to various non-Christian beliefs. In those early
days of Christianity such old beliefs survived in abundance. He did not attempt
to convert these people from a high pulpit or from far away. His method was
to travel from house to house and speak to people about God. Then he would
organize the converts into a community under the direction of a priest of
monk. In order to let them know of his continued love and to keep them following
the faith, he would then visit these new communities regularly.
Of course he ran into resistance. In one rather ridiculous scene,
locals decided to get back at him by dressing up as the gods. So in the
middle of the night, he was visited by a waggish talkative Mercury, a doltish
Jupiter, and an enthusiastically naked Venus, as well as various "wood spirits."
Needless to say, he was unconvinced by this show.
In one town, when he tried to convince the locals to cut down
a pine tree they venerated, they agreed -- but only if Martin would sit where
the tree was going to fall! Martin seated himself directly under the path
of the leaning tree and the townspeople began to cut from the other side.
However, just as the tree began to topple, Martin made the sign of the cross
and the tree fell in the opposite direction -- slowly enough to miss the fleeing
townspeople. Martin won many converts that day.
Martin tore down many non-Christian temples and always built
a Christian church in their place to make a point about true worship and
give people a genuine replacement for their false idols. In once case when
a huge tower was not torn down under his orders, a bolt of lightning came
to destroy it after his prayers.
Martin was also dedicated to freeing of prisoners, so much so
that when authorities, even the emperors, heard he was coming, they refused
to see him because they knew he would request mercy for someone and they would
be unable to refuse. Martin was so dedicated that few escaped his entreaties.
One who didn't was a general named Avitianus who arrived at Tours with ranks
of prisoners he intended to torture and execute the next day. As soon as Martin
heard of this cruel plan, he left his monastery for the city. Although he
arrived there after midnight, he went straight to the house where Avitianus
was staying and threw himself on the threshold crying out in a loud voice.
Sulpicius tells us that it was an angel who awakened Avitianus to tell him
Martin was outside. The servants, certain Avitianus was dreaming, reassured
him there was no one out there (without looking themselves). But after the
angel woke him up the second time, Avitianus went outside himself and told
Martin, "Don't even say a word. I know what your request is. Every prisoner
shall be spared."
Remarkably enough Sulpicius had this story from Avitianus himself,
who loved to tell it.
Martin was human and made mistakes.
In spite of what we may think of people in earlier times, many were skeptical
of his visions of demons, believing them to come from too much fasting. He
also announced eight years before he died that the Antichrist had been born.
But his visions, whatever the source, are still instructive.
At one point the devil appeared to him dressed in magnificent
robes, encrusted with gold and gems, and announced he was Jesus and that
Martin was to adore him. Martin immediately saw the mistake the devil had
made (and had to make) and asked, "Where are the marks of the nails? Where
the piercing of the spear? Where the crown of thorns? When I see the marks
of the Passion I shall adore my Lord." Jesus would not come in riches but
with the signs of his suffering and poverty.
Martin's compassion was as well-known as his miracles. In just
one case out of many a father came to him griefstricken that his daughter
had never spoken. Martin healed her by asking her to say her father's name
-- which she did.
However it was this compassion and mercy that led to what he
considered his greatest mistake. Bishops from Spain including a bishop named
Ithacius had gone to the emperor soliciting his help in destroying a new
heresy taught by a man named Priscillian. Martin agreed completely that Priscillian
was teaching heresy (among other things, he rejected marriage, and said that
the world was created by the devil) and that he should be excommunicated.
But he was horrified that Ithacius had appealed to a secular authority for
help and even more upset that Ithacius was demanding the execution of Priscillian
and his followers. Martin hurried to intervene with emperor Maximus, as did
Ambrose of Milan. Martin stated his case that this was a church matter and
that secular authority had no power to intervene and that excommunication
of the heretics was punishment enough. He left believing he had won the argument
and saved the heretics but after he left Ithacius began his manipulation again
and Priscillian and the other prisoners were tortured and executed. This
was the first time a death sentence had been given for heresy -- a horrible
precedent.
Martin's mistake was yet to come. He hurried back in order to
forestall a massacre of the Priscillianists. Once there he absolutely refused
communion with the bishops who had murdered the people. This was a strong
statement that rejected the persecuting bishops as part of the communion of
the Church.
Unfortunately, the emperor Maximus knew the key to Martin's
heart. He had prisoners that supported the former emperor Gratian in captivity
and knew Martin wanted mercy for them. Maximus said that he would free these
prisoners if Martin would share communion with Ithacius. Martin agreed to
do so, but afterwards was so overcome with shame and guilt for giving in to
such evil that he never went to any more assemblies of bishops.
On his way home, still weighed down with a feeling that he had
sinned by communicating with Ithacius, he had a vision of angel who told him
that although he was right to regret what he did, he was wrong to brood over
his faults. "You saw no other way out," the angel said. "Take courage again:
recover your ordinary firmness; otherwise you will be imperilling not your
glory but your salvation." This advice we all should remember if we dwell
too much on our mistakes.
Martin died when he was over
80 years old on November 8. Historians disagree on the year and place it anywhere
from 395 to 402. His feast is November 11, the day he was buried, at his
request, in the Cemetery of the Poor.
316?-397)
If saints, like stars, vary in greatness,
St. Martin of Tours is a saint of great magnitude. Although he flourished
in ancient times, we know a good deal about him--a further proof of his
wide popularity.
Martin was the son of an Italian officer
of the Roman army. He was born in what is now Szombathely, Hungary, when
his father was on a military tour of duty; but before long his parents returned
to Pavia, Italy, and it was there that the son grew up. Although the parents
were pagans, Martin became a Christian catechumen at age 10. Roman law required
that the sons of soldiers also be soldiers, so Martin took the military oath
at 15, and was discharged only in 356. But his life was more Christian than
soldierly, especially after his baptism at 18. From his earliest military
years dates the story, legendary but characteristic, of his encounter with
the poor man of Amiens, France.
One wintry day, says the tale, Martin
encountered at the city gate a man who stood begging alms, shaking with
cold but spurned by passersby. Touched by the sight, the young soldier wanted
to help. Since he had no coins on his person, he took off his military cloak,
cut it in two with his sword, gave the beggar one part, and donned the other
part himself. Some bystanders laughed at this soldier dressed in a ragged
half-cape. But that night in a dream, Private Martin saw Jesus himself dressed
in the beggar's half. Jesus said, "Martin, yet a catechumen, covered me with
this garment."
Eventually the military man decided
that as a soldier of Christ he could no longer serve in the ranks. Emperor
Julian ("the Apostate") thereupon jailed him for "cowardice", but shortly
afterward gave him a discharge. Then he returned home and converted his mother
and others to Christianity (but not his father).
For a while he campaigned against the
local Arian heretics. (They denied the divinity of Christ.) Then, fascinated
by the monastic life that was becoming popular among devout Christians, he
took up the life of a hermit on an island near Genoa. After a while he contacted
St. Hilary, bishop of Poitiers in western France, and received from him an
invitation to move his hermitage to the present Ligugé near Poitiers.
When a number of other men came to Ligugé and asked to join him, Martin
the hermit established what seems to have been the pioneer monastery in France.
This was around 360. During the next decade he not only helped form his
disciples in the religious life but preached throughout the countryside of
Gaul, which was still largely pagan.
Gifted with the power of miracles,
he was a very successful missionary.
In 371, the people of Tours insisted
that Martin be their bishop. He refused. But after they had tricked him into
being consecrated, he finally accepted the task. Unwilling to abandon his
monastic life, he set up a new monastery at Marmoutier, near Tours. In a short
time the community grew to 80 monks. In this district, too, Bishop Martin
became an effective missionary; indeed, he moved out from Touraine into northern
Gaul (including Paris) and into the southeast of France.
The
longer Martin lived, the more his influence increased, in matters of state
as well as church. Thus he intervened successfully with a tyrannical army
officer to prevent him from torturing and executing a number of prisoners.
He was less successful, however, in his effort to prevent the government from
executing some Priscillianists. Not that he approved the errors of these Christian
heretics. He simply believed that the Church, not the civil government, should
handle the case, and that death was not an appropriate penalty.
Martin was still engaged in his tireless labors when it was
revealed to him that his death was approaching. He told his disciples of
this coming event, but they begged him not to "desert" them. Torn between
their will and God's will, he prayed in anguish, "Lord, if your people still
need me, I will keep working." But whatever delay he was granted was not
long. He died in the harness on November 8, 397. Burial was at Tours on November
11, which became his feastday.
St. Martin's tomb quickly became one
of the most beloved shrines in Europe, and Martin one of the most popular
saints, not only in France, where his name is interwoven with many folk
traditions (e.g. the name "St. Martin's Summer" for "Indian Summer"), but
especially in England. There the oldest existing church in the country, near
Canterbury, is dedicated to him. And to this day, the feast of St. Martin
of Tours, "this glory of France and light of the western Church", is listed
in the calendar of the Anglican Church. --Father Robert F. McNamara
Martin of Tours B (RM) Born in Sabaria in Upper Pannonia
(Hungary), c. 316; died November 8, 397.
Most mortals only have to deal with a collective devil (or so
they think)--the devil of communities and families, the occult force which
appeals to the lowest parts of our nature, the dark god of the city at night.
To have a personal devil seems to be a "privilege" reserved for saints. The
greatness of a saint is measured by the greatness of the temptation he has
to overcome because the life of the saint stands out in contrast with the
work of the devil.
Martin was the son of a pagan army officer who moved with his
family to his father's new post in Pavia, Italy. Martin had placed himself
in the catechumenate at the age of 10 against his parents' will. He took lessons
at the local church and, by the time he was 12, his love of God was so ardent
that he wanted to retire to become a hermit. At 15, as the son of an army
veteran, he was compelled to join the army against his will. Although Martin
had not formally become a Christian, he had lived more the life of a monk
than a soldier for several years.
While stationed at Amiens in France in 337, a semi-naked beggar
approached him in bitterly cold weather. Martin's name became immortal at
that moment, for he sliced his military cloak in two and gave half of it to
the starving man. That night in a dream he saw Jesus wrapped in the half of
the cloak that he had given away. Jesus said to him, "Martin, yet a catechumen,
has covered me with this garment." Following this dream, he "flew to be baptized,"
according to his biographer.
When he was about 20, barbarians
invaded Gaul. He was presented to Julian Caesar with his companions to receive
a donative, but Martin refused it saying, "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."
Irritated by this stance, Julian accused him of cowardice. Martin
replied that he was willing to go into battle unarmed and stand between
the opposing parties in the name of Christ. He was thrown into prison, but
that night the barbarians demanded and obtained an armistice. Martin sought
and received his discharge c. 339.
Thereafter he lived for some time in Italy and Dalmatia before
he went to Poitiers, and Bishop Saint Hilary took him as a disciple. Martin
sought him out knowing that in serving this holy man he would be serving
God. Hilary recognized Martin's extraordinary merit and would have ordained
Martin a deacon, but he could not overcome Martin's humility.
To keep Martin in his diocese, Hilary assigned him the duties
of exorcism--so it was in that official capacity that Martin first made the
acquaintance of the devil. It was still only the general devil, for he did
not yet have his own private one. Martin, however, learned how to ward off
evil spells and parry thrusts from the devil's horns, a lesson that would
always be useful.
Martin had a dream that called him home, and he returned to
Pannonia, converting his mother and others, including a group of bandits
who would have killed him, during the visit. Shortly thereafter the devil
appeared to him in human form and told him that no matter where he went or
what he did, the devil would oppose him.
In Illyricum his vocal opposition
to the Arians led to his being publicly scourged and exiled by Auxentius,
the Arian bishop. Returning to Italy, Martin found that Hilary had been exiled.
He retreated to a place near the walls of Milan, where he entered the monastic
life. Auxentius, when he seized the see of Milan, caught up with Martin and
drove him from the diocese. Martin then joined company with a virtuous priest.
The duo retired to the deserted island of Gallinaria in the gulf of Genoa
where he lived as a recluse until 360, when the banished Saint Hilary was
allowed to return to Poitiers.
It was true for Martin as for most saints that the more Martin
grew in holiness, the more his private devil became differentiated from the
collective devil. More and more the devil clung on to his soul, forcing
him to be ceaselessly on his guard. It was like the scientific principle
of communicating vessels: as Martin rose like mercury towards saintliness,
the devil hastened to fill the empty space behind him.
One day while he was still living in seclusion on the island,
Martin ate a poisonous plant that almost killed him. The chronicles call this
plant 'hellebore' which is doubtless a mistake, since hellebore is no more
fatal than it is a cure for madness, and, according to herbalists, contains
nothing worse than a drastic purgative.
Perhaps the plant wasn't there by chance? There is a variety
of hellebore called 'Christmas rose' that is a mandrake. A saint could easily
confuse the two. Nevertheless, when Martin felt the poison at work, he began
to pray--which proves that he realized that there was nothing natural about
his sickness--and God cured him.
Martin's devil was capable of transforming himself into many
different shapes. He was particularly fond of taking the form of the gods
and goddesses of mythology, appearing sometimes as Jupiter, sometimes as
Mercury. But though Martin was always alarmed by Mercury, he dismissed Jupiter
as 'a stupid animal' and 'a fool.'
The devil also liked to disguise himself in the form of women.
One day he appeared as Venus, the next as Minerva, always exuding a strong
smell of sulphur and always being put to flight by the sign of the cross.
As you can see, he wasn't a bad devil, in spite of some corny tricks. He was
probably more stupid than wicked. He was a nonentity.
After learning that Hilary was returning to Poitiers, Martin
travelled to Rome to meet him en route and accompany him back to his see.
As Martin wished to live as a solitary, Hilary gave him some land, now called
Ligugé, where he was joined by other hermits--and thus the first monastic
community in Gaul was founded. It was a famous monastery until 1607, and
was revived in 1852 by the Solesmes Benedictines. He lived there for 10 years,
preaching and reputedly performing miracles in the area, including raising
a catechumen and a hanged slave back to life.
Soon matters with the devil began
to get worse. One day while the saint was at prayer in his cell the devil
came in without knocking, holding in his hand a horn covered with blood. "I've
just killed one of your people," he told the saint, and in fact the monastery's
carrier had just been gored by a bull. Thereupon Martin resolved to fight
the surrounding devils by destroying all the pagan temples in the district.
He was soon seeing devils everywhere, and this enabled him to keep out of
the way of his own devil. Around 371, Tours chose him as its third bishop.
He was unwilling to take the office; the people tricked him into visiting
a sick person in the city and then took him to the church. His poor appearance
did not impress the bishops who had come to assist at the election, but the
people overruled their objections and Martin was consecrated on July 3, 371.
He lived in a cell by the church but soon retreated from the
city and its distractions to a place that would become an abbey at Marmoûtier,
which became another great monastic center. It was a desert, with a steep
cliff on one side and a river on the other. Before long, eighty monks had
joined him. The hermit monks engaged in no art or business. The older ones
were engaged solely in prayer, while the younger ones were deputed to write.
Many bishops were chosen out of this monastery because every city wanted a
pastor who had been bred under the discipline of Saint Martin.
Here Martin lived privately as a monk, while publicly he devoted
himself with burning zeal to the discharge of his episcopal duties. Every
year he visited each of his parishes in rural regions, travelling by foot,
by donkey, or by boat. He was an innovator in that he worked to convert rural
regions, to which he introduced a crude parochial system. Previously, Christians
had been confined primarily to urban areas.
His biographer and friend, Sulpicius Severus--reported that
he extended his apostolate from Touraine to Chartres, Paris, Autun, Sens,
and Vienne. Although he is said to have ruthlessly destroyed pagan temples,
his reputed miracles did much to aid his progress: he is said to have cured
Saint Paulinus of Nola of an eye disease (this is disputed; Paulinus attributed
it to the prayers of Saint Felix of Nola), healed lepers, and raised a dead
man to life. Martin is reputed to have experienced visions and revelations
and was gifted with the ability to prophesy. As an exorcist, Martin did not
threatened demons, rather he would prostrate himself on the ground and subdue
them by prayer.
He was one of the greatest pioneers of Western monasticism before
Benedict--who had a particular veneration for him. During this time, Priscillian,
the leader of a Gnostic-Manichean sect, was attacked by Ithacius, the bishop
of Ossanova, who accused him of sorcery and urged the emperor to put him to
death.
Martin, together with Pope Saint
Siricius and Saint Ambrose, stood against the capital punishment of Priscillian
and other heterodox Spaniards by the civil authorities including Ithacius
and Emperor Maximus. He believed that the state should not intervene in an
ecclesiastical matter. Martin pleaded with Maximus not to execute the heretics
but to simply allow them to be excommunicated.
Ithacius then accused Martin of heresy. Maximus told Martin
that he would execute no one, but after Martin left him in Trier, Maximus
was prevailed upon to remand the case of the sect to the Prefect Evodius.
The sect was found guilty and the members were beheaded, marking this as
the first judicial death sentence for heresy. Both Maximus and Itacius were
censured by Pope Siricius for their roles in the affair.
Martin returned to Trier, Germany, to arbitrate for the Spanish
Priscillianists--in danger of persecution--and for two followers of the
late emperor Gratian. Maximus agreed to spare their lives provided Martin
reconcile himself to Ithacius. His delicate position led Martin to maintain
an alliance with Ithacius, which troubled him greatly afterward.
Martin encountered a good deal of opposition in his later years,
one of his chief critics being the firebrand Saint Brice, who succeeded him
as bishop. But his awe-inspiring spiritual power was too much for the 'unspeakably
bloody ferocity' of Count Avitian, who refrained from intended barbarities
in Tours.
He became ill at rural Candes in Touraine. As he lay dying as
a Christian, stretched out on his bed of ashes, ready to draw his last painful
breath, while the bells were already tolling to mark his passing, he asked
his disciples, "Leave me, my brothers, so that I may fix my eyes on heaven
rather than on earth and set my soul on the path which leads to the Lord."
But the devil was waiting at the bedside of his old enemy. He
knew only too well the subtle workings of the death agony. He knew just where
to put his hand at that last moment when the soul, white-hot with the heat
and effort to tear itself away from the body, has become as soft and malleable
as molten glass; and the devil was waiting to seize the soul at that moment
and carry it off to the fires of hell. He was much too busy to talk, and besides
he had long ago used up his stock of wiles. And so, heavy, black, and watchful,
he worked in silence on the body of the dying man.
Then Saint Martin, rousing himself from his death throes, confronted
the monster with these words: "What are you doing here, savage beast? You'll
find nothing in me that belongs to you, accursed one, for I shall soon be
in the bosom of Abraham!"
And having exorcised the demon from his body, Martin turned
his face to the wall and gave up his soul to God. Such, since the beginnings
of the world, have been the relations between the saint and the devil.
Martin is buried at Tours. His
successor Brice built a chapel over his grave, and it was later replaced with
a basilica. He was one of the most popular saints of the Middle Ages, and
his shrine was a great site of pilgrimage where many miracles are wrought.
As an evangelizer of rural Gaul and the father of monasticism
in France, Saint Martin of Tours was a figure of great importance. His fame
spread from Ireland to Africa and east. In England, Saint Martin's Summer
is a spell of fine weather that sometimes occurs around the time of the feast.
Many churches in England were dedicated in his honor, including Saint Martin's
at Canterbury and Saint Martin-in-the-Fields in London.
Although the saint longed to be a hermit, the church forced
him to lead the life of a loving, energetic Bishop of Tours (Attwater, Benedictines,
Bentley, Delaney, Encyclopedia, Husenbeth, Monceaux, Severus, Walsh, Watkin,
White).
Saint Martin is most generally portrayed as a young soldier
on horseback dividing his cloak with a beggar, but sometimes he is shown
as a bishop with a beggar at his feet or near him, or in armor, with episcopal
symbols. His emblems are a globe of fire over his head as he says Mass, or
a goose, whose migration often coincides with his feast (Roeder).
Other portrayals of Saint Martin by Simone Martini include:
St. Martin Dividing His Cloak St. Martin Knighted
St. Martin Renouncing the Sword The Dream of St. Martin
The Death of St. Martin
Saint Martin is venerated at Tours. He serves as patron of armorers,
beggars, cavalry, coopers, domestic animals, France, geese, girdlers, glovers,
horses and horsemen, infantrymen, millers, innkeepers, soldiers, tailors,
wine growers and wine merchants (because his feast falls just after the vendange),
and wool-weavers (because he divided his cloak) (Roeder). He is invoked against
drunkenness, storms, and ulcers (Roeder).
397 ST MARTIN, Bishop OF TOURS
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. 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”.* {* 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 Preach chapele.}
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. t{t The narrative of Sulpicius Severus here
presents considerable chronological difficulties.}
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 those heretics also oppressed the church of Gaul 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 Ligugd, 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 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 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. After the saint 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.*{* For their parts
in the afair 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.}
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 monks 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 Priscillianiat 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. Hahn 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 Bolandiana (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 Etudes 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 Ia Marche, C. H.
van Rhijn, P. Ladoue and, most useful of all, the little volume of Paul Monceaux
(Eng. trans., 1928).
On St Martin in art consult Kunstle,
Ikonographie, vol. ii, pp.
438-444; and the volume by H. Martin, in the series L'art et Its saints. 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 Ia Marche, and for Germany see Bächtold-Staubli,
Handworterbuch des deutsehen Aberglaubens,
vol. v, cc, 1708-1725. For Martin's influence in Ireland, see J. Ryan,
Irish Monasticism (`931) ;
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. K. Hoare, The Western Fathers
(1954), together with his three letters on St Martin and the dialogues with
Postumianus and Gallus.
St. Martin of Tours November 11, 2010
(316?-397)
A conscientious objector who wanted to be a monk; a
monk who was maneuvered into being a bishop; a bishop who fought paganism
as well as pleaded for mercy to heretics—such was Martin of Tours, one of
the most popular of saints and one of the first not to be a martyr.
He was born of pagan parents in what is now Hungary and was raised in Italy.
The son of a veteran, he was forced to serve in the army against his will
at the age of 15. He became a Christian catechumen and was baptized at 18.
It was said that he lived more like a monk than a soldier. At 23 he refused
a war bounty from the emperor with the words, "I have served you as a soldier;
now let me serve Christ. Give the bounty to those who are going to fight.
But I am a soldier of Christ and it is not lawful for me to fight." After
great difficulties, he was discharged and went to be a disciple of Hilary
of Poitiers.
He was ordained an exorcist and worked with great zeal against the Arians.
He became a monk, living first at Milan and later on a small island. When
Hilary was restored to his see after exile, Martin returned to France and
established what may have been the first French monastery near Poitiers. He
lived there for 10 years, forming his disciples and preaching throughout the
countryside.
The people of Tours demanded that he become their bishop. He was drawn
to that city by a ruse—the need of a sick person—and was brought to the church,
where he reluctantly allowed himself to be consecrated bishop. Some of the
consecrating bishops thought his rumpled appearance and unkempt hair indicated
that he was not dignified enough for the office.
Along with St. Ambrose, Martin rejected Bishop Ithacius's principle of
putting heretics to death—as well as the intrusion of the emperor into such
matters. He prevailed upon the emperor to spare the life of the heretic Priscillian.
For his efforts, Martin was accused of the same heresy, and Priscillian was
executed after all. Martin then pleaded for a cessation of the persecution
of Priscillian's followers in Spain. He still felt he could cooperate with
Ithacius in other areas, but afterwards his conscience troubled him about
this decision.
As death approached, his followers begged him not to leave them. He prayed,
"Lord, if your people still need me, I do not refuse the work. Your will be
done."
Comment: Martin's worry about cooperation
reminds us that almost nothing is either all black or all white. The saints
are not creatures of another world: They face the same perplexing decisions
that we do. Any decision of conscience always involves some risk. If we choose
to go north, we may never know what would have happened had we gone east,
west or south. A hypercautious withdrawal from all perplexing situations
is not the virtue of prudence; it is, in fact, a bad decision, for "not to
decide is to decide."
|
826 Saint Theodore the Studite
ideals and regulations have had a far-reaching influence in Byzantine monasticism
Abbot (RM)
Constantinópoli sancti Theodóri, Abbátis Studítæ,
qui, pro fide cathólica advérsus Iconoclástas strénue
pugnans, factus est apud univérsam Ecclésiam cathólicam
célebris.
At Constantinople, St. Theodore, abbot of Studium, who
fought valiantly for the Catholic faith against the Iconoclasts, and became
famed throughout the universal Church.
Born
at Constantinople in 759; died at Akrita, 826.
826 ST THEODORE THE STUDITE, ABBOT
ST PLATO, abbot of Symboleon upon Mount Olympus in Bithynia, had a brother-in-law
who with his three sons went to their estate at Sakkoudion, also near Olympus,
and there began to lead a monastic life. Among these novices no
one was more fervent than Theodore, the eldest son, then in his twenty-second
year. St Plato was prevailed upon to resign his abbacy and to undertake
the government of this new monastery, and in due course he sent Theodore to
Constantinople to be ordained priest. He made so great progress
in virtue and learning that in 794 his uncle abdicated the government of the
house and, by the consent of the community, confided it to Theodore.
The young emperor Constantine VI having put away his wife and taken
Theodota, a relation of SS. Plato and Theodore, they protested against his
conduct. Constantine desired to gain Theodore to his side and used his
utmost endeavours, by promises and by the consideration of their kindred.
When these failed, the emperor went to take the waters at Brusa, near Sakkoudion,
expecting St Theodore to pay him a ceremonial visit but neither the
abbot nor any of his monks were there to receive him. The prince returned
to his palace in a rage, and sent officers with an order to deport Theodore
and those monks who were his most resolute adherents. They were banished
to Thessalonika, and a strict order was published forbidding anyone to receive
or entertain them, so that even the monks of that country durst not help them.
The aged Plato was confined in a solitary cell in Constantinople.
St Theodore wrote to him from Thessalonika an account of the journey and hardships
of himself and his companions, a letter full of courage and of admiration
for his old master. But the exile lasted only a few months, being
brought to an end by a characteristic example of the brutal ambitions of
the time and place. In 797 the emperor's mother, Irene, dethroned her son,
and ordered his eyes to be put out. She reigned five years and
recalled the exiles. St Theodore returned to Sakkoudion, and reassembled his
scattered flock; but finding this monastery exposed to the raids of the Arabs
they in 799 took shelter within the walls of the city. Theodore was
given charge of the famous monastery of Studius, so called from its founder,
the consul Studius who, coming from Rome to Constantinople, had built it in
the year 463. Constantine Copronymus had expelled the monks and Theodore found
the place a desert, with a bare dozen inmates; under his rule the community
and its dependants came to number a thousand. As a legislator St Theodore
takes the first place in the development of monasticism deriving from St
Basil. St Athanasius the Lauriote brought his regulations to Mount
Athos, and they spread to Russia, Bulgaria and Serbia, where and elsewhere
they still form the basis of cenobitical monastic life.{*There was a revival
of Studite monasticism among Catholic Byzantines in our own day. In
1901 Andrew Szepticky, Archbishop of Lvov founded a monastery in then Austrian
Galicia which prospered and gave off affiliations but the monks were suppressed
by the Soviet government after 1945. A group of refugee monks have
made a fresh start in Canada*}
He especially fostered learned studies and the practice of the fine
arts, and the school of calligraphy that he established was long famous.
St Theodore's own written works were chiefly instructions and sermons, liturgical
hymns, and treatises on monastic asceticism, in which, compared with many
orientals, he was notably moderate. He told a hermit, Don't cultivate
a self-satisfied austerity. Eat bread, drink wine occasionally, wear
shoes, especially in winter, and take meat when you need it." For eight years
St Theodore governed his monastery in peace amid the turmoil of imperial politics,
and then the affair of Constantine's adultery was brought up again.
To fill the vacant patriarchal throne of Constantinople the Emperor
Nicephorus I chose his namesake, afterwards St Nicephorus, who was a layman
at the time. For this reason St Theodore, St Plato, and other monks
opposed the appointment, and were imprisoned for twenty-four days in consequence.
Then, at the request of the emperor, Nicephorus and a small synod of bishops
reinstated the priest Joseph, who had been degraded for blessing the marriage
between Constantine VI and Theodota. St Theodore and others refused to hold
communion with Joseph or to accept the decision of a second synod that the
marriage had been valid, and he, his brother Joseph, Archbishop of Thessalonika,
and St Plato were relegated to Princes' Island and shut up in separate prisons.
Theodore wrote explaining matters to the pope and St Leo III replied, commending
his prudence and constancy, but the other side had spread rumours in Rome
that Theodore was heretical and was annoyed at not having been made patriarch,
and Leo made no formal judgement. The Studite monks were dispersed among other
monasteries and grievously ill-treated, and the imprisonment of the leaders
lasted nearly two years, until the death of the Emperor Nicephorus in 811.
A reconciliation was broughtabout between Theodore and Patriarch
Nicephorus, which was cemented by their unity on the vexed question of the
veneration of images. Particulars of the outbreak of the second
Iconoclast persecution, under Leo V the Armenian, have been given in the
account of St Nicephorus (March 13). St Theodore openly denied any
right of the emperor to interfere in ecclesiastical affairs, and on the Palm
Sunday after the banishment of St Nicephorus he ordered all his monks to
take images in their hands and to carry them solemnly in public procession,
singing a hymn which begins, “We reverence thy holy
image, 0 blessed one”. From this moment St Theodore
was recognized as the leader of the orthodox, and he continued to encourage
all to honour holy images, for which the emperor banished him into Mysia,
where he continued to animate the faithful by letters, of which a number
are extant. His correspondence being discovered, the emperor ordered
him to Bonita, at a greater distance in Anatolia, with instruction to his
gaoler to have the confessor scourged. This man, Nicetas, seeing the
cheerfulness with which St Theodore put off his tunic and offered his naked
body, wasted with fasting, to the blows, was moved with compassion. He therefore
contrived to send all others out of the dungeon; then, throwing a sheep-skin
over Theodore's bed, he discharged upon it a number of blows, which were
heard by those without; then, pricking his arm to stain the whip with blood,
he showed it when he came out and seemed out of breath with the pains he
had taken.
St Theodore was still able to write letters, and among them those
which he sent to all the patriarchs and to Pope St Paschal I. To him he writes,
“Give ear, apostolic bishop, shepherd appointed
by God over the flock of Jesus Christ. You have received the keys of
the kingdom of Heaven; you are the rock on which the Church is built; you
are Peter, since you fill his see. Come to our assistance.”
The pope having sent legates to Constantinople (who, however, achieved nothing),
St Theodore wrote a letter of thanks, in which he said, “You
are from the beginning the pure source of the orthodox faith. You
are the secure harbour of the universal Church, her shelter against the storms
of heretics, and the city of refuge chosen by God.”
For three more years St Theodore and his faithful attendant Nicholas
were imprisoned at Bonita with extreme rigour; enduring great cold in winter
and almost stifled in summer and tormented with hunger and thirst, for their
guards threw them in at a window only a little bread every other day.
St Theodore says that he expected they would soon perish with hunger, adding,
" God is yet but too merciful to us ", and they probably would have, had not
a court official who passed that way been shocked by their condition and
ordered them to be properly fed.
The Emperor Leo, having intercepted another letter in which
the saint encouraged the faithful to defy “the infamous
sect of image-burners”, gave order to the prefect of
the East to punish its author. This officer was not won over as Nicetas had
been, and caused Nicholas, the monk who had written the letter, to be cruelly
scourged and then a hundred stripes to be given to Theodore, who was left
lying on the ground exposed to the cold of February. He was a long time
unable to take any rest or food, and was only saved by the care of Nicholas
who, forgetting his own sufferings, fed him drop by drop with a little broth,
and after he had thus strengthened him, endeavoured to dress his wounds, from
which he had to cut away the mortified flesh. Theodore was for three
months in excessive pain, and before he was recovered an officer arrived to
conduct him and Nicholas to Smyrna. They had to walk in the day-time and at
night were put in irons. At Smyrna the archbishop, who was a bitter Iconoclast,
kept Theodore confined closely, and said he would ask the emperor to send
an officer to cut off his head, or at least to cut out his tongue.
But the persecution ended in 820, with the murder of him who had
raised it. Leo was succeeded by Michael the Stammerer, who at first affected
great moderation the exiles were restored, and St Theodore the Studite came
out after seven years of imprisonment. He wrote a letter of thanks
to Michael, exhorting him to be united with Rome, the first of the churches,
and freely to permit the veneration of images. But the new emperor refused
to allow any images in the imperial city, or restore the patriarch, ”the
abbot of the Studium” or any other orthodox prelates
to their offices unless they agreed. St Theodore, after making fruitless
remonstrances, left Constantinople-in effect an exile-and visited the monasteries
of Bithynia to encourage and strengthen his followers.
“The winter is over”,
he said, “but spring is not yet come. The sky is clearer
and there is hope of a good passage. The fire is out-but there is still smoke.”
The influence of Theodore was so great that monks in general and Studites
in particular were regarded as synonymous with orthodoxy; and some of his
monks gathered round him in a monastery on the peninsula of Akrita.
He was here taken ill in the beginning of November 8th, yet walked to church
on the fourth day and celebrated the Holy Sacrifice. His sickness increasing,
he dictated to a secretary his last instructions ; and died on the following
Sunday, November 11. His body was translated to the monastery of Studius
eighteen years after his death.
St Theodore the Studite is greatly venerated in the
East and is named in the Roman Martyrology as “famous
throughout the Church”, as indeed he well deserves
to be, as a monastic legislator, an upholder of the supreme authority of
the see of Rome, and a spirited defender of and sufferer for the veneration
of holy images.
He opposed the Iconoclasts essentially on theological grounds. He
did not regard sacred pictures as a necessary artistic adornment of a church;
he definitely discouraged the pictorial representation of the Virtues and
Vices and any other “unauthorized flights of the religious
fancy”.
Nor did he deem their veneration a necessary devotional exercise;
he seems to have used it but little himself, regarding it simply as an aid
to devotion for the "weaker brethren".
In his own instructions on prayer he sees the heart and mind
in direct communion with God without reference to any exterior helps or intermediaries.
But he saw clearly that to deny the lawfulness of the display and veneration
of holy images was to deny the validity of certain theological principles
which are essential to the Christian faith.
Many of his writings have come down to us, including numerous letters,
treatises on monastic life and the veneration of images, sermons, and a number
of hymns.
Like the life of the saint they are marked with that rigorism
and uncompromising detachment from the world, almost amounting to “puritanism”,
which was characteristic of many of his followers and in some of their successors
was so exaggerated as gravely to disturb the peace of the Church.
In volume xcix of Migne's Greek
Patrology are printed two biographies with some other documents referring
to St Theodore as well as his own writings. His life was so completely identified
with the controversies of the period that for a fuller understanding we must
turn to the exponents of general ecclesiastical history. Pargoire, L'Eglise Byantine de 527 a 847 (1923), is very valuable;
as is also Hefele-Leclercq, Histoire des
Conciles (especially bk 18 in vol. iii, Pt a); Mgr Mann's Lives of the Popes, vol. ii, pp. 795-858;
and Brehier, La Quereile des Images
(1904). Among works more directly relating to St Theodore may be mentioned
J. Hausherr, St Theodore....après
ses catéchèses (1926) in the series “Orientalia
Christiana”, no. 22 Alice Gardner, Theodore
of Studium (1905) ; H. Martin, St Theodore (1906); Dobschütz,
“Methodius und die Studiten”
in the Byzantinische Zeitschrift,
vol. xviii (1909), pp. 41-105 ; and G. A. Schneider, Der hl. Theodor von Studion (1900).
Several articles bearing on St Theodore have been published in the Analecta Boliandiana. In vol. xxxi (1952)
Fr C. Van de Vorst published for the first time Theodore's eulogy of St Theophanes,
and in vol. xxxii another Greek text describing the tranilation of Theodore's
relics, as well as a paper on his relations with Rome, and in vol xxxiii
a discussion of his “smaller catechism”.
See also in DAC. the account of St Theodore's activities in the Iconoclasm
controversy (vol. vii, 1926, cc. 272-284). There is an excellent popular
sketch by Prince Max of Saxony, Der hl.
Theodor (1929); and of. N.H. Baynes and C. L. B. Moss, Byzantium (1948).
Saint Theodore was the son of an imperial treasury
official. Theodore became a novice at a monastery established by his father
on his estate at Saccudium (Sakkoudion) near Constantinople, where he was
sent to study by his uncle Abbot Saint Plato of Symboleon.
He was ordained in 787 in Constantinople, returned to the monastery,
and in 794 succeeded his uncle as abbot of the monastery of Sakkoudion in
Bithynia. He and his monks were banished for a short time in 796 for his refusal
to countenance Emperor Constantine VI's divorce and remarriage to Theodota
but they returned when Constantine's mother, Irene, seized power, dethroned
and then blinded her son.
Theodore reopened Sakkoudion but in 799 he transferred his community
to Constantinople to escape the Saracen raids. There they occupied the monastery
founded by the Roman consul Studius in 463 and he was again named abbot. The
Studios Monastery was famous partly because of its age, but it had been neglected
and rundown. Under Theodore's direction this house developed remarkably from
12 monks to a thousand.
Saint Theodore's ideals and regulations have had a far-reaching
influence in Byzantine monasticism. He encouraged learning and the arts,
founded a school of calligraphy, and wrote a rule for the monastery that was
adopted in Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, and even on Mount Athos. He
restored liturgical prayer, community life, enclosure, poverty, and manual
labor among his monks. These reforms and developments were brought about under
great external difficulties.
When he opposed the emperor's appointment of a layman, Nicephorus,
to succeed Tarasius, who had died in 806 as patriarch of Constantinople,
Theodore was imprisoned by the emperor.
From 809 to 811 Theodore was
in exile on Prince's Island with his uncle Plato and his brother Archbishop
Joseph of Thessalonica on account of further troubles arising out of the late
emperor's adultery. At that time the emperor dispersed the monks of Studios.
Theodore returned to Constantinople on the emperor's death and was reconciled
to Patriarch Nicephorus in a common fight against Emperor Leo V the Armenian,
who revived iconoclasm as an imperial policy. When Nicephorus was banished,
Theodore organized public resistance, and he was again exiled to Mysia in
813.
For seven years he was confined at various places with extreme
rigor, even to being flogged by his jailers. But he continued by letter to
encourage his followers to keep up the struggle, and he sent an appeal to
Pope Paschal I (emphasizing the primacy of the bishop of Rome), who sent legates
to Constantinople; but they achieved nothing except Theodore's removal to
Bonita in Anatolia (now in Turkey). He endured great hardships for the three
years he was imprisoned there and was then transferred to Smyrna and placed
in the custody of an iconoclast bishop who wanted him beheaded and treated
him with great harshness.
After the violent death of Leo V in 820, Theodore was released,
but was again faced with a renewed iconoclasm under Emperor Michael the Stammerer,
and was not allowed to return permanently to the Studite monastery. Theodore
left Constantinople and visited monasteries in Bithynia, founded a monastery
on Akrita for many of his monks who had followed him, and he died there in
semi-exile on November 11. Saint Theodore stands out as a champion of the
Church's religious independence of civil power, a defender of the legitimacy
of sacred images, and a monastic reformer of genius. He has been called an
incomparable agitator: he was certainly strong-willed and intransigent,
even domineering; but there was a less rigid side to him, which can be seen
in some of the more personal of his very numerous extant letters. There have
also survived, as well as polemical writings, catechetical works, sermons,
hymns, and epigrams. Saint Theodore was also a skilled calligrapher, an art
which he fostered among his monks (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney, Gardner).
Russian icon shows Saint Theodore
with Saint Theodosius the Great.
826 St. Theodore of Studites
abbot monastic reformer champion rights of Church
Also Theodore of Studiurn and Theodore of Studios, and ardent
enemy of iconoclastic policies in the Byzantine Empire. The nephew of St.
Pluto, abbot of Saccudium (a
monastery in Bithynia, Asia Minor, nenr Mt. Olympus in modern Turkey), he
studied under his uncle and entered the community about 780. In 794, he followed
St. Pluto as abbot when his uncle abdicated in his favor. Theodore soon distinguished
himself for his opposition to the adulterous marriage of Emperor Constantine
VI (r. 780-797) and was banished until 797 when the emperor was deposed by
his mother, Irene.
Two years later, Theodore moved the community from Saccudium
to Studites in order to escape the growing influence of the Arabs. The monastery
subsequently became one of the most prominent in the whole of the Eastern
Church. In 809, Theodore was exiled once more, this time by Emperor Nicephorus
I (r. 802-811), marking the start of suffering which continued unceasingly
virtually until his death. Recalled in 811, he was forced soon after to speak
out against the iconoclastic policies of Emperor Leo V (r. 813-820). In revenge,
Leo had Theodore seized, cruelly abused, and exiled. Studites was populated
by Iconoclast monks, and Theodore lived in banishment until 820 when Emperor
Michael II (r. 820-829) brought him back to Constantinople. Theodore remained
unbending and died without ever returning to Studites. He died just outside
of Constantinople. Theodore was venerated for his personal holiness, his brilliant
abilities as a preacher, and his willingness to champion the rights of the
Church, even at the price of deep personal sacrifice. He was also the author
of five hundred letters, hymns, sermons, polemics against Iconoclasm, and
two cathechisms.
|
Mary the Mother of Jesus
Saints of this Day November
11 Tértio Idus Novémbris.
I believe, in order
to understand; and I understand, the better to believe -- St. Augustine.
Quote: Pope Paul VI’s 1969
Benedict XVI met with Aram
I Catholicos of Cilicia, the highest
authority of the Orthodox Church.
The Pope remembered
the martyrs of the Armenian Church and the Armenian
genocide, without explicitly mentioning
it, and denounced the persecution of Christians
in modern times. Benedict
XVI
As we watch the spectacle
of the world seeming to self-destruct
before our eyes, we can’t help but be
saddened and even frightened by so much
evil run rampant. Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan,
Somalia, North Korea—It is all a disaster of epic
proportions displayed in living color on our
television screens.