A Letter from Martin Heals, and Other Miracles

Then there was Arborius, a former prefect and a man of very holy and faithful character. His daughter was in agony from the burning heat of a quartan fever, and at the very height of the fever he placed in the girl’s bosom a letter from Martin that happened to have been brought to him. At once the fever left her. This had such an effect on Arborius that he immediately consecrated the girl to God and devoted her to lifelong virginity. Then he went to Martin and presented the girl to him as plain living proof of his power to work miracles, since she had been cured by him while he was absent. And he would not allow anyone but Martin to consecrate her, by putting on her the dress that marks a consecrated virgin. [a]

Paulinus too, a man who would later become a striking example to his age, began to suffer badly in one of his eyes. A fairly thick film had grown over it and had already covered the pupil. Martin touched his eye with a painter’s brush, all the pain was taken away, and the eye was restored to its former soundness. Martin himself, too, once fell by some accident from an upper room and, tumbling down a broken, uneven stairway, received many wounds. As he lay in his cell close to death, tortured by severe pain, he saw an angel appear to him in the night, who washed his wounds and put healing ointment on the bruised parts of his body. Because of this he found himself restored to full health the next day, so that no one would have thought he had suffered any harm. But since it would be tedious to go through everything of this kind, let these few examples out of a multitude be enough. It is enough that in the striking cases of miracles we take nothing away from the truth, while, having so many to choose from, we avoid wearying the reader. [b]