§ 40. MONASTICISir IN THE WEST, AUGUSTINE. 203
lower classes.' He viewed it in its noblest aspect, as a life of undivided surrender to God, and undisturbed occupation with spiritual and eternal things. But he acknowledged also itj abuses ; he distinctly condemned the vagrant, begging monks, like the Circumcelliones and Gyrovagi, and wrote a book (De opere monachorum) against the monastic aversion to labor.
Monasticism was planted in Gaul by Maetest of Tours, whose life and miracles were described in fluent, pleasing language by his disciple, Sulpitius Severus," a few years after his death. This celebrated saint, the patron of fields, was born in Pannonia (Hungary), of pagan parents. He was educated in Italy, and served three years, against his will, as a soldier under Constantius and Julian the Apostate. Even at that time he showed an iincomraon degree of temperance, humility, and love. He often cleaned his servant's shoes, and once cut his only cloak in two with his sword, to clothe a naked beggar with half ; and the next night he saw Christ in a dream with the half cloak, and plainly heard him say to the angels : "'Behold, Martin, who is yet only a catechumen, hath clothed me." ^ He was baptized in his eighteenth year ; converted his mother ; lived as a hermit in Italy ; afterward built a monastery in the vicinity of Poictiers (the first in France) ; destroyed many idol temples, and won great renown as a saint and a worker of miracles. About the year 370 he was unanimously elected by the people, against his wish, bishop of Tours on the Loire, but in his episco])al ofiice maintained his strict monastic mode of life, and established a monastery beyond the Loire, where he was soon surrounded with eighty monks. He had little education, but a natural eloquence, much spiritual ex-
' De opera monach. c. 22. Still later, Salvian (De gubern. Dei, viiL 4) speaks of the hatred of the Africans for monasticism.
' In his Vita Martini, and also in three letters respecting him, and in three very eloquently and elegantly written dialogues, the first of which relates to the oriental monks, the two others to the miracles of Martin (translated, with some omissions, in RuflFner's Fathers of the Desert, vol. ii. p. 68-178). He tells us (Dial. i. c. 23) that the book traders of Rome sold his Vita Martini more rapidly than any other book, and piade great profit on it. The Acts of the Saints were read as rom.'mces in those days
' The biographer here refers, of course, to Matt. xxv. 40.
204 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
perience, and unwearied zeal. Sulpitius Severus places him above all the Eastern monks of whom he knew, and declares his merit to be bejond all expression. " I^ot an hour jjassed," says he/ " in which Martin did not pray. . . . No one ever 8aw him angry, or gloomy, or merry. Ever the same, with a countenance full of heavenly serenity, he seemed to be raised above the infirmities of man. There was nothing in his mouth but Christ ; nothing in his heart but piety, peace, and sympathy. He used to weep for the sins of his enemies, who reviled him with poisoned tongues when he was absent and did them no harm. . . . Yet he had very few persecutors, except among the bishops." The biographer ascribes to him wondrous conflicts with the devil, whom he imagined he saw bodily and tangibly present in all possible shapes. He tells also of visions, miraculous cures, and even, what no oriental anchoret could boast, three instances of restoration of the dead to life, two before and one after his accession to the bishopric ; " and he assures us that he has omitted the greater part of the miracles which had come to his ears, lest he shoald weary the reader ; but he several times intimates that these were by no means universally credited, even by monks of the same cloister. His piety Was characterized by a union of monastic humility with clerical an-Qgance. At a supper at the court of the tyrannical emjjeror Maximus in Trier, he handed the goblet of wine, after he himself had drunk of it, first to his presbyter, thus giving him precedence of the emperor.' The empress on this occasion showed him an idolatrous veneration, even preparing the meal, laj'ing the cloth, and standing as a servant before him, like Martha before the Lord." More to the bishop's honor was his
' Toward the close of his biography, c. 2G, 27 (Gallandi, torn. viii. 390). ' Comp. Dial. ii. 5 (in Gallandi Bibl. torn. viii. p. 412).
• Vita M. c. 20 (in Gallandi, viii. 397).
* Dial. ii. 7, which probably relates to the same banquet, since Martin declined other invitations to the imperial table. Severus gives us to understand that tliis was the only time Martin allowed a woman so near him, or received her service, he commended a nun for declining even his ollicial visit as bishop, and Severus re marks thereupon : "0 glorious virgin, who would not even sufler her.self to be eeei. by Martin ! 0 blessed Martin, who took not this refusal for an insult, but com mended its virtue, and rejoiced to find in that region so ra e an example ! " (Dial, h. c. 12, Gall. viii. 414.)