The Third Letter, to Bassula: How Saint Martin Passed from This Life

Sulpitius Severus sends greetings to Bassula, his revered parent. [a]

If children were allowed to summon their parents to court, I could certainly drag you with a well-deserved whip before the praetor’s bench on a charge of robbery and plunder. For why should I not complain of the wrong I have suffered at your hands? You have left me not a scrap of writing at home, no book, not even a letter. That is how thoroughly you steal everything of the kind and publish it to the world. If I write something in a familiar way to a friend, if I amuse myself by dictating something and want it kept private at the same time, it all seems to reach you almost before it has been written or spoken. Surely you have my secretaries in your debt, since through them every trifle I compose becomes known to you. And yet I cannot be angry with them if they really obey you, and have invaded my rights under the special influence of your generosity to them, and always remember that they belong to you rather than to me. Yes, you alone are the culprit, you alone are to blame, since you both lay your traps for me and coax them with your tricks, so that, without any choosing, pieces written casually or let out of my hands without care are sent to you quite unfinished and unpolished. [b]

To say nothing of other writings, let me ask how that letter I recently wrote to Aurelius the deacon could have reached you so quickly. I was at Toulouse, and you were living at Trier, far from your native land because of your anxiety over your son. What chance, I would like to know, did you seize to get hold of that private letter? For I have received your letter, in which you write that in the same letter where I mentioned the death of our master Martin, I ought to have described how that holy man left this world. As if I had sent that letter out to be read by anyone except the one to whom it was addressed! Or as if I were fated to undertake so great a work that everything that ought to be known about Martin must be made public through me in particular as its writer! So if you want to learn anything about the end of the holy bishop, you should rather ask those who were present when he died. For my part, I have decided to write you nothing, so that you will not publish me everywhere. Still, if you give me your word that you will read what I send you to no one, I will satisfy your wish in a few words. So I will share with you the following details, which are within my own knowledge.

I have to tell you, then, that Martin knew the time of his death long before it came, and told the brothers that his departure from the body was near. Meanwhile a reason arose that led him to visit the church at Condate. The clergy of that church were quarreling among themselves, and Martin wanted to restore peace. Although he knew well that the end of his days was at hand, he did not shrink from making the journey for such a purpose. In fact, he thought it would be a fine crown to set on his virtues if he left behind him a church restored to peace. [f]

So he set out with that very large and holy crowd of disciples who usually went with him. On a river he noticed a number of water birds busy catching fish, and saw that a greedy appetite drove them to seize their prey again and again. “This,” he exclaimed, “is a picture of how the demons act. They lie in wait for the unwary and catch them before they know it; they devour those they have caught, and they can never have enough of what they have devoured.” Then Martin, with a miraculous power in his words, commanded the birds to leave the water where they were swimming and to take themselves off to dry and empty country, using toward those birds the very same authority with which he had been used to putting demons to flight. So all those birds gathered together into a single flock, left the river and made for the mountains and woods, to the great wonder of many, who saw such power in Martin that he could command even the birds.

He stayed some time in that village, or church, to which he had gone, and peace was restored among the clergy. Then, when he was already thinking of returning to his monastery, his bodily strength suddenly began to fail. He called the brothers together and told them that he was about to die. Then sorrow and grief took hold of everyone, and all lamented with one voice, saying: “Why, dear father, will you leave us? To whom will you entrust us in our loneliness? Fierce wolves will soon attack your flock, and when the shepherd has been struck down, who will save us from their bites? We know that you long to be with Christ; but your reward above is safe, and it will not be made smaller by being delayed. Rather, have pity on us, whom you are leaving alone.”

Then Martin, moved by their lamenting, for he was always truly full of compassion, is said to have burst into tears. Turning to the Lord, he answered those who were weeping around him only with these words: “Lord, if I am still needed by your people, I do not refuse the work. Your will be done.” Hovering as he was between longing and love, he almost doubted which he preferred, for he neither wished to leave us nor to be separated from Christ any longer. Yet he put no weight on his own wishes and kept nothing back for his own will, but committed himself wholly to the will and power of the Lord. Do you not seem to hear him speaking in these few words, which I repeat? “Terrible indeed, Lord, is the struggle of bodily warfare, and surely it is enough that I have kept up the fight until now. But if you command me to go on in the same toil for the defense of your flock, I do not refuse, nor do I plead my declining years against such an appointment. Wholly given to you, I will carry out whatever duties you assign me, and I will serve under your standard for as long as you direct. Yes, although release is sweet to an old man after long toil, my mind is a conqueror over my years, and I have no wish to give way to old age. But if now you are merciful to my many years, your will, Lord, is good for me; and you yourself will guard those for whose safety I fear.” O man whom no words can describe, unconquered by toil and unconquerable even by death, who leaned toward neither choice for his own sake, and who neither feared to die nor refused to live!

So, though for some days he was in the grip of a strong fever, he did not give up the work of God. He kept on in prayers and vigils through whole nights, and made his worn-out limbs serve his spirit as he lay on that glorious bed of his, on sackcloth and ashes. When his disciples begged him to let them at least put some common straw under him, he replied, “It is not fitting for a Christian to die except in ashes. If I leave you any other example, I have sinned.” With his hands and eyes fixed steadily on heaven, he never let his unconquerable spirit rest from prayer. When the presbyters who had gathered around him asked him to ease his body a little by turning onto his side, he exclaimed, “Let me, dear brother, look at heaven rather than at earth, so that my spirit, which is just about to set out on its own journey, may be directed toward the Lord.” As he said this, he saw the devil standing close by, and exclaimed, “Why are you standing here, you bloody beast? You will find nothing in me, you deadly one. Abraham’s bosom is about to receive me.”

As he spoke these words, he breathed out his spirit. Those who were present have told us that they saw his face as if it had been the face of an angel. His limbs too looked white as snow, so that people exclaimed, “Who would ever believe that this man was clothed in sackcloth, or imagine that he was wrapped in ashes?” For even then he looked as though he had already been revealed in the glory of the resurrection to come, with the nature of a body that had been changed. [i]

It is hard to believe what a multitude of people gathered for his funeral. The whole city poured out to meet his body; all the people of the countryside and the villages came, along with many from the neighboring cities as well. Oh, how great was the grief of all! How deep the lamenting, above all, of the sorrowing monks! It is said that nearly two thousand of them gathered that day, a special glory of Martin’s, since through his example so many plants had sprung up for the service of the Lord. No doubt the shepherd was then driving his own flocks before him: the pale crowds of that holy multitude, companies dressed in cloaks, old men whose life’s labor was done, or young soldiers who had just taken the oath of allegiance to Christ. Then there was the choir of virgins, holding back their tears out of modesty; and with what holy joy they hid their grief! Faith, no doubt, kept back their tears, yet love forced out groans. For there was as much holy rejoicing over the glory he had reached as there was loving sorrow at his death. You would have been ready both to forgive those who wept and to congratulate those who rejoiced, while each one would rather grieve himself and have another rejoice. So this multitude, singing hymns of heaven, followed the holy man’s body to the place of burial.

Compare this spectacle, I will not say with the worldly pomp of a funeral, but even with that of a triumph; and what can be counted equal to Martin’s funeral rites? Let your great men of the world lead captives before their chariots with their hands bound behind their backs. Martin’s body was escorted by those who, under his guidance, had overcome the world. Let madness honor those earthly warriors with the united praises of the nations. Martin is praised with the divine psalms; Martin is honored in heavenly hymns. Those men of the world, when their triumphs here are over, will be thrust down into cruel Tartarus, while Martin is joyfully received into the bosom of Abraham. Martin, poor and lowly on earth, enters heaven rich. From that blessed place, I trust, he watches over me as my guardian while I write these things, and over you while you read them.