St. Martin of Tours

The Episode of the Cloak

The Charity of St. Martin, by Jean Fouquet

While Martin was still a soldier at Samarobriva (modern Amiens) he experienced the vision that became the most-repeated story about his life. He was at the gates of the city of Samarobriva with his soldiers when he met a scantily dressed beggar. He impulsively cut his own military cloak in half and shared it with the beggar. That night Martin dreamed of Jesus wearing the half-cloak he had given away. He heard Jesus say to the angels: "Here is Martin, the Roman soldier who is not baptised; he has clad me." (Sulpicius, ch 2). In another story, when Martin woke his cloak was restored, and the miraculous cloak was preserved among the relic collection of the Merovingian kings of the Franks.

St Martin and the Beggar, by El Greco, ca. 1597-99 (National Gallery of Art, Washington)

The dream confirmed Martin in his piety and he was baptized at the age of 18.^[3] He served in the military for another two years until, just before a battle with the Gauls at Borbetomagus (nowWorms, Germany) in 336, Martin determined that his faith prohibited him from fighting, saying, "I am a soldier of Christ. I cannot fight." He was charged with cowardice and jailed, but in response to the charge, he volunteered to go unarmed to the front of the troops. His superiors planned to take him up on the offer, but before they could, the invaders sued for peace, the battle never occurred, and Martin was released from military service.^[4]

Martin declared his vocation and made his way to the city of Caesarodunum (now Tours), where he became a disciple of Hilary of Poitiers, a chief proponent of Trinitarian Christianity, opposing theArianism of the Imperial Court. When Hilary was forced into exile from Pictavium (now Poitiers), Martin returned to Italy, converting an Alpine brigand on the way, according to his biographerSulpicius Severus, and confronting the Devil himself. Returning from Illyria, he was confronted by the Arian archbishop of Milan Auxentius, who expelled him from the city. According to the early sources, he decided to seek shelter on the island then called Gallinaria, now Isola d'Albenga, in the Ligurian Sea, where he lived the solitary life of a hermit.