The Bishops Turn Maximus Against Martin

“Meanwhile, the bishops with whom Martin would not hold communion went in terror to the king. They complained that they had been condemned in advance. It was all over, they said, with the standing of every one of them, if Martin’s authority was now going to support the stubbornness of Theognitus, who alone so far had condemned them by a sentence publicly pronounced. The man ought never to have been let inside the walls. He was now not merely the defender of heretics but their champion, and nothing had really been accomplished by Priscillian’s death if Martin were going to act as his avenger. Finally, throwing themselves down with weeping and lamentation, they begged the emperor to use his royal power against this one man. And the emperor was not far from being forced to assign Martin, too, the fate of the heretics. But for all that, although he was inclined to look on the bishops with too much favor, he was well aware that Martin surpassed all other mortals in faith, holiness and excellence. So he tried another way of getting the better of the holy man. [a]

First he sent for him privately and spoke to him in the kindest way. He assured him that the heretics had been condemned in the regular course of public trials, rather than by the persecution of the priests, and that there was no reason for him to think that communion with Ithacius and the rest of that party was something to be condemned. Theognitus, he added, had caused the division more out of personal hatred than for the cause he stood for; in fact, he was the only one who had so far separated himself from communion, while the rest had made no change. He remarked further that a synod held a few days before had declared that Ithacius was not guilty of any fault. When Martin was little moved by all this, the king flew into a rage and hurried out of his presence. And without delay, executioners were appointed for the men on whose behalf Martin had pleaded.