The Second Day’s Gathering

“It is daylight, my Gallic friend, and you must get up. For, as you see, Postumianus is pressing us, and this presbyter, who was admitted yesterday to hear what was going on, expects you now to keep your promise and tell what you put off telling until today about our beloved Martin. He is not, of course, ignorant of all the things that are to be told. But knowledge is sweet and pleasant even to someone going over again what he already knows, since nature has arranged things so that a person rejoices with an easier mind in knowing things that he is sure, through the witness of many, are not in the least uncertain. For this man too has been a follower of Martin from his early youth and knows all his deeds, yet he gladly hears again things he already knows. And I will confess to you, Gaul, that I have often heard of Martin’s virtues, since in fact I have written down many things about him. Yet because of the admiration I feel for his deeds, the things repeated about him over and over are always new to me, even though I have heard them before. So we congratulate you that Refrigerius has joined us as a listener, all the more because Postumianus is so eager. He is in a hurry, as it were, to carry the knowledge of these things to the East, and now he is to hear the truth from you, confirmed, so to speak, by witnesses.” [a]

As I was saying this, and the Gaul was now ready to take up his story again, a crowd of monks rushed in on us: Evagrius the presbyter, Aper, Sabbatius, and Agricola. A little later the presbyter Aetherius came in, with Calupio the deacon and Amator the subdeacon. Last of all Aurelius the presbyter, a very dear friend of mine, who had come from farther away, rushed up out of breath. I asked: “Why have you all come running to us so suddenly and unexpectedly, from so many different places, and so early in the morning?” They replied: “We heard yesterday that your friend the Gaul spent the whole day telling about Martin’s virtues, and that when night overtook him he put off the rest until today. So we hurried to give him a crowded audience as he speaks about such interesting things.” [b]

Meanwhile we were told that a crowd of lay people was standing at the door. They did not dare to come in, but they were begging to be let in all the same. Then Aper declared: “It is not at all right for these people to be mixed in with us, for they have come to listen out of curiosity rather than devotion.” I was grieved for those who, in his opinion, ought not to be admitted. But all I could get, and that with difficulty, was that they would admit Eucherius, one of the deputy governors, and Celsus, a man of consular rank, while the rest were kept back. Then we put the Gaul in the middle seat. After keeping silent for a long time, as befitted his well-known modesty, he at last began as follows.