Why He Wrote the Life of Saint Martin

Most people, vainly devoted to the pursuit of worldly glory, have, as they imagined, won a memorial for their own names in this way: by devoting their pens to embellishing the lives of famous men. This course did not secure them lasting fame, but it has certainly brought them some fulfillment of the hope they cherished. It has done so both by preserving their own memory, though to no purpose, and because, by setting the examples of great men before the world, they have stirred up no small rivalry in the hearts of their readers. Yet for all that, their labors have had no bearing at all on the blessed and never-ending life we look forward to. For what good has a glory doomed to perish with the world done the very men who have written only about worldly matters? Or what benefit have later generations gained from reading about Hector as a warrior or Socrates as a teacher of philosophy? There can be no profit in such things, since it is not only folly to imitate the people in question, but sheer madness not to attack them with the utmost severity. [a]

For in truth, those who value human life only by what is done in the present have handed over their hopes to fables and their souls to the tomb. They gave themselves up to live on simply in the memory of mortals, whereas it is a man’s duty to seek eternal life rather than an eternal memorial; and that not by writing, or fighting, or philosophizing, but by living a devout, holy and religious life. This mistaken conduct of mankind, enshrined in literature, has spread so far that it has found many who have tried to rival either the empty philosophy or the foolish excellence it celebrated. For this reason I think I will accomplish something well worth the necessary labor if I write the life of a most holy man, to serve as an example to others in the future. By it, readers will be stirred to pursue true knowledge, heavenly warfare and divine virtue. In doing this we also have our own good in view: that we may look not for an empty remembrance among men but for an eternal reward from God. For although we ourselves have not lived in such a way that we can serve as an example to others, we have still made it our aim that a man worthy of imitation should not remain unknown.

I will therefore set about writing the life of Saint Martin, and I will tell both what he did before he became a bishop and what he accomplished as a bishop. Even so, I cannot hope to set out all that he was or did. The excellent qualities that only he himself knew of are completely unknown, because he did not seek honor from men, and he wanted his virtues hidden as far as he could manage it. And even of those that came to our knowledge we have left out a great many, because we judged it enough to record only the more striking and outstanding. At the same time, for my readers’ sake, I had to make sure that too many examples set before them did not weary them of the subject. But I beg those who will read what follows to put full faith in what is told, and to believe that I have written nothing of which I did not have certain knowledge and evidence. In fact, I would rather have kept silent than tell things that are false.