The Life
Martin was born around 316 in Pannonia (modern Hungary) to pagan parents. The family moved to Pavia in northern Italy when he was small. He showed interest in Christianity from his earliest years and asked to be enrolled as a catechumen at age ten. At fifteen he was conscripted into the Roman cavalry. At eighteen, on a freezing night at the gates of Amiens, he cut his military cloak in half and gave half to a shivering beggar. That night he saw Christ in a dream wearing the half-cloak, saying to the angels: “Martin, who is still only a catechumen, has clothed me with this garment.” Martin sought baptism, eventually left the army, became a disciple of Saint Hilary of Poitiers, founded the first monastery in Gaul at Liguge, and was consecrated bishop of Tours by popular acclamation in 371. He served as bishop for twenty-six years while continuing to live as a monk in cliff-side caves at Marmoutier. He reposed November 8, 397.
On a bitter winter night around 337, Martin was riding into the city of Amiens in northern Gaul, wrapped in his Roman military cloak. At the city gate he saw a beggar dressed in rags, shivering violently in the freezing cold. The other soldiers rode past without stopping. Martin took out his sword, cut his cloak in half, and gave half to the beggar to wrap around himself. That night he had a dream. He saw the Lord Jesus Christ standing in heaven wearing the half-cloak, surrounded by angels. He heard the Lord say: “Martin, who is still only a catechumen, has clothed me with this garment.” Martin awoke deeply moved and sought baptism shortly afterward. He had recognized in his act of charity the principle the Lord taught: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40).
Martin remained in the army two more years after his baptism out of obligation. When the time came he could honorably resign, he was on the eve of a battle against Germanic tribes. As bonuses were being distributed, Martin presented himself to his commander and the Emperor Julian and said: “I have been your soldier until now. Let me serve God henceforth. Give your bonus to someone who will fight for you. I am Christ’s soldier, and it is not right for me to engage in battle.” The commander accused him of cowardice. Martin demonstrated his courage by offering to stand unarmed in the front line of battle the next day, trusting in the power of the Cross. He was imprisoned overnight. The next morning the barbarians sued for peace without a fight. Martin was released and free to follow his Christian vocation.
After his release from the army, Martin traveled to Poitiers in Gaul to place himself under the spiritual direction of Bishop Saint Hilary of Poitiers, the great defender of Nicene Orthodoxy in the Latin West. Hilary recognized in Martin a monastic vocation and ordained him to a minor ecclesiastical office. When Hilary was exiled to Phrygia by the Arian Emperor Constantius II in 356, Martin returned briefly to Pannonia (where he converted his mother to Christianity), then lived for some years as a hermit on the island of Gallinaria off the Italian coast. When Hilary returned from exile in 360, Martin rejoined his teacher at Poitiers. Hilary granted him a small piece of land at Liguge, a few miles from Poitiers, where Martin founded what was probably the first Christian monastic community in Roman Gaul. The Liguge community grew quickly and would become the great Benedictine Abbey of Liguge.
In 371 the Christian community of Tours sought a new bishop and wanted Martin. He had no desire for the episcopate. They tricked him into coming to the city by sending word that a sick woman needed his prayers; when he arrived they led him to the cathedral where his ordination awaited. He resisted but was overborne by popular acclamation. He served as bishop of Tours for twenty-six years. He preserved the monastic pattern of his earlier life. He refused to live in the bishop’s palace. He refused to sit on the bishop’s throne. He sat instead on a simple three-legged stool. He withdrew from the city to a series of caves in the cliffs across the Loire River, where he founded a second monastic community at Marmoutier. The community grew quickly to some eighty monks; many were later elected bishops of other cities across Gaul.
Throughout his episcopate Martin traveled extensively across central Gaul confronting the lingering Celtic Gallic pagan religion that still dominated much of the rural countryside. He destroyed pagan temples, cut down sacred trees that the country people venerated, and threw down the altars where pagan sacrifices were still being offered. The pagan country people often resisted violently. On one famous occasion, when Martin had ordered the cutting down of a sacred pine tree, the local pagans agreed to fell it themselves but on the condition that Martin stand directly in the path where it would fall. He stood there praying. As the tree fell toward him it suddenly twisted and fell in the opposite direction. Many witnesses were converted on the spot. He converted many thousands of country pagans across his twenty-six years as bishop, slowly transforming the religious life of central Gaul.
Saint Martin’s biographer Sulpicius Severus records many wonders performed by him throughout his ministry. He raised three people from the dead by his prayers — an unbaptized catechumen who had died before baptism, a slave who had hung himself, and a third (some sources say a young man overcome by sudden death). He healed many sick. He cast out demons by the sign of the Cross. He had visions of angels. He communicated with animals. Once when the imperial court at Trier received him with ceremony but the emperor refused to rise to greet him, Saint Martin’s chair burst into flames, forcing the emperor to leap up; the miracle established Saint Martin’s authority before the imperial court. The witness of his wonders, attested by the contemporary biography, established him as one of the great early Western miracle-workers.
The Lord himself taught in his parable of the Last Judgment that the King will separate the sheep from the goats according to whether they fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, visited the sick, and came to those in prison. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Saint Martin’s cloak at Amiens was the perfect early Western enactment of this apostolic principle. He clothed the naked beggar with half his military cloak; that night he saw that he had clothed the Lord himself. The apostolic insight is that every act of natural human charity to the suffering neighbor is, in some real sense, a direct service to the Lord who has hidden himself in the suffering. The lesson is that we should approach every encounter with the suffering as an encounter with Christ.
Saint Martin reposed in peace on November 8, 397, at the small village of Candes (modern Candes-Saint-Martin), where he had been called to settle a dispute among his clergy. He was about eighty years old. He had been bishop of Tours for twenty-six years. The Christians of both Poitiers (where he had been formed by Saint Hilary and had founded Liguge) and Tours (where he had served as bishop) contended over his body. The Tours party prevailed and brought his body back to their city by boat down the Loire. He was buried at Tours on November 11, which has remained his liturgical feast day in both East and West. The synaxarion records that Saint Ambrose of Milan, who was at that time celebrating the Divine Liturgy in Milan, fell silent during the prayers, was seen to be in ecstasy, and afterward declared that he had been mystically present at Saint Martin’s funeral.
Martin gives the Christian Church a particular gift: the early Western dramatization of the apostolic principle that the Lord himself is hidden in every suffering neighbor. He cut his military cloak for a beggar at the gates of Amiens, not knowing that he had clothed the Lord himself. The Lord appeared to him in a dream that night to reveal what had happened. Martin spent the rest of his life building on the recognition. He left the army to follow Christ. He became disciple of Hilary of Poitiers. He founded the first monastery in Gaul. He served twenty-six years as bishop of Tours while living as a monk. He pastored his city, evangelized the countryside, raised the dead by his prayers, and never tired of recognizing the Lord in the suffering of every neighbor. We may not be Roman soldiers. But we will all face encounters with the suffering. Martin reminds us that Christ is in them.