Martin Deals with Angels and with the Devil

It is also well known that angels were very often seen by him, so that they even talked with him, taking turns in conversation. As for the devil, Martin held him so plainly in view, always under the power of his eyes, that whether the devil kept his own form or changed himself into the various shapes of spiritual wickedness, Martin recognized him in whatever guise he appeared. The devil knew well that he could not escape being found out, and so, being unable to deceive Martin by trickery, he often heaped insults on him. [a]

Once the devil rushed into Martin’s cell with a great noise, holding in his hand the bloody horn of an ox. He held out his bloody right hand to Martin and, gloating over the crime he had committed, said: “Where is your power, Martin? I have just killed one of your people.” Then Martin called the brothers together and told them what the devil had revealed, and he ordered them to search all the cells carefully to find out who had been struck by this disaster. They reported that none of the monks was missing, but that one peasant, whom they had hired, had gone to the forest to bring home wood in his wagon. When he heard this, Martin told some of them to go and meet him. They did so, and found the man almost dead not far from the monastery. Yet even as he was drawing his last breath, he told the brothers the cause of his wound and death. While he was tightening the straps that had come loose on the yoked oxen, he said, one of the oxen had tossed its head free and gored him in the groin with its horn. Not long afterward the man died.

You see by what judgment of the Lord this power was given to the devil. And this was a marvelous thing about Martin: not only on this occasion, which I have described in particular, but on many others of the same kind, in fact whenever such things happened, he knew of them long beforehand and told the brothers what had been revealed to him.