Martin Goes to the Court at Trier

“I will now come to something he always kept hidden because of the times, though he could not hide it from us. What is miraculous in it is that an angel talked with him face to face. The emperor Maximus, though in other ways no doubt a good man, was led astray by the advice of some priests after Priscillian had been put to death. So he used his royal power to protect Ithacius the bishop, who had been Priscillian’s accuser, and others of his allies whom there is no need to name. In this way the emperor kept anyone from charging Ithacius with having been the means by which any man, whatever kind of man he was, had been condemned to death. Now Martin, compelled to go to the court by many serious matters on behalf of people in distress, met the full force of the storm that was raging there. The bishops who had gathered at Trier were being kept in that city, and being in communion with Ithacius every day, they had made common cause with him. When the news reached them, quite unexpectedly, that Martin was coming, they lost all courage and began to mutter and tremble among themselves. [a]

It so happened that, under their influence, the emperor had already decided to send some tribunes with absolute power into the two Spanish provinces to hunt out heretics and, when they were found, to take from them their lives or their goods. There was no doubt that this storm would also cut down great numbers of true saints, since little distinction would be made between one kind of person and another. For in such times people were judged simply by appearances, so that someone was taken for a heretic because he turned pale with fear or wore a particular kind of clothing, rather than by the faith he professed. The bishops knew well that such proceedings would by no means please Martin. Guilty as they knew themselves to be, they were deeply anxious that when he came he would refuse communion with them, for they knew well that others would not be lacking who would follow the bold course of so great a man, with his example to guide them. So they made a plan with the emperor: court officials would be sent ahead to meet him, and Martin would be forbidden to come any closer to the city unless he declared that he would keep peace with the bishops who were there. But he cleverly defeated their purpose by declaring that he would come among them with the peace of Christ. At last he entered the city during the night and went to the church, only to pray. The next day he went to the palace.

He had many other petitions to present, which it would be tedious to describe, but these were the chief ones. He pleaded for the courtier Narses and the governor Leucadius. Both had belonged to Gratian’s party, and with more than ordinary zeal, which this is not the place to go into, and so they had brought on themselves the anger of the conqueror. But his chief request was that tribunes with the power of life and death should not be sent into the Spanish provinces. For Martin felt a holy concern not only to save from danger the true Christians in those regions, who were going to be persecuted in that expedition, but to protect even the heretics themselves. But on the first day and the second the cunning emperor kept the holy man waiting. Perhaps he wanted to impress on him how weighty the matter was; or he was beholden to the bishops and could not be won over against them; or, as most people thought at the time, he opposed Martin’s wishes out of greed, having cast a longing eye on the property of the people concerned. For we are told that he was in truth a man distinguished by many fine deeds, but that he did not win his fight against greed. This may, however, have been due to the needs of the empire at the time. The state treasury had been emptied by earlier rulers, and he was almost constantly expecting civil wars or preparing for them, so he may easily be excused for having looked for resources by every possible means for the defense of the empire.