Martin Destroys Pagan Temples

Nor did he show less excellence, at much the same time, in other deeds of the same kind. In a certain village he had set fire to a very ancient and famous temple, and the wind carried the ring of flames onto a house that stood very close to the temple, in fact was joined to it. When Martin saw this, he climbed quickly onto the roof of the house and put himself in front of the advancing flames. Then you could have seen the fire driven back in a wonderful way against the force of the wind, so that there seemed to be a kind of battle of the two elements fighting each other. So, by Martin’s influence, the fire acted only where it was ordered to. [a]

But in a village called Leprosum, he also wanted to pull down a temple that had grown very rich through the superstitious ideas people held of its holiness. A crowd of pagans resisted him so fiercely that he was driven back, and not without bodily injury. So he withdrew to a place nearby, and there for three days, dressed in sackcloth and ashes, fasting and praying the whole time, he begged the Lord that, since he had not been able to overthrow that temple by human effort, divine power might be put forth to destroy it. Then two angels, with spears and shields like heavenly soldiers, suddenly appeared to him. They said they had been sent by the Lord to put the country crowd to flight and to give Martin protection, so that no one would offer resistance while the temple was being destroyed. They told him, therefore, to go back and finish the blessed work he had begun.

So Martin went back to the village. While the crowds of pagans looked on in perfect quiet, he razed the pagan temple to its foundations, and he also reduced all its altars and images to dust. At this sight the country people realized that they had been stunned and terrified by an act of God’s will, so that they would not be found fighting against the bishop; and almost all of them believed in the Lord Jesus. Then they began to cry out openly and confess that the God of Martin ought to be worshiped, and that the idols, which were not able to help them, should be despised.