The following anecdote is reported by Sulpitius, concerning St. Martin of Tours. The Emperor Maximus, a man of a haughty temper, and elated by victories over his rivals, had received the unworthy adulation of a crowd of fawning bishops; while Martin alone maintained the apostolic authority. For when suits were to be urged, he rather commanded than entreated the royal compliance, and refused many solicitations to take a place with others of his order at the imperial table, saying, that he would not eat bread with a man who had deprived one emperor of his throne, and another of life. But at length, when Maximus excused his assumption of the purple by pleading the force that had been put upon him by the legions, the use he had made of power, and the apparent sanction of heaven in the successes with which he had been favored, and stated also that he had never destroyed an enemy except in open fight, Martin, overcome by reason, or by entreaties, repaired to the royal banquet, to the great joy of the emperor. The tables were crowded by persons of quality; among them, the brother and uncle of Maximus; between these reclined one of Martin's presbyters; he himself occupied a seat near the emperor. During supper, according to custom, the waiter presented a goblet of wine to the emperor, who commanded it rather to be offered to so holy a bishop, from whose hand he expected and desired to receive it again. But Martin, when he had drank of the cup, handed it to his presbyter, not deeming any one present more worthy to drink after himself; nor would he have thought it becoming to his character had he preferred even the emperor, or those next to him in dignity, to his own presbyter. It is added, that Maximus and his officers took this contempt in exceeding good part!—Sulp. Sev. de Vita B. Martin, cap. xx.

The same writer reports a not less characteristic incident in honor of the holy bishop, in his dialogue concerning the miraculous powers of St. Martin. This personage, it seems, was in the habit of frequenting the palace, where he was always honorably entertained by the empress, who not only hung upon his lips for instruction, but in imitation of the penitent mentioned in the gospels, actually bathed his feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair; and he, who never before had sustained the touch of woman, could not avoid her assiduities. She, unmindful of the state and dignity and splendors of her royal rank, lay prostrate at the feet of Martin, whence she could not be removed until she had obtained permission, first from her husband, and then by his aid from the bishop, to wait upon him at table as his servant, without the assistance of any menial. The blessed man could no longer resist her importunities; and the empress herself made the requisite preparations of the couch, and table, and cookery (in temperate style), and water for the hands; and, as he sat, stood aloof, and motionless, in the manner proper to a slave; with due modesty and humility, mixing and presenting the wine. And when the meal was ended, reverently collected the crumbs, which she deemed of higher worth than the delicacies of a royal banquet.—Cap. 6.

In how short a time may prodigious revolutions take place in the sentiments of men! This monkish bishop was removed by not more than three or four lives from the Apostle John! And this humble empress occupied the honors which, within the memory of the existing generation, had been sustained by the mother of Galerius! It should be added, that the auditor of the story above related, shocked at the inconsistency of St. Martin in thus admitting the offices of a woman so near his devoted person, requires from the narrator an explanation; who, in reply, reminds his friend, that the compliance of the bishop with the solicitations of the emperor and empress was the price by which he obtained, from the former, release and grace for the persecuted Priscillianists. The best thing, by far, related of the bishop of Tours, is his firmness in opposing persecution. There is great reason to believe that, in common with several of the most noted characters of church history, his true reputation has been immensely injured by the ill-judging zeal of his biographer.

The life of St. Anthony, by the pious and respectable Athanasius, would alone afford ample proof of the assertion, that, even in the third century, the spirit of fanaticism, and the practices of religious knavery, had reached a height scarcely surpassed at any later period.

The first Christian monks followed the Essenes in this particular also, that they despised human science; and it was not until learning had been driven from among secular persons, that it took refuge in monasteries. If the monks had avoided the infection of the philosophy, "falsely so called," which the Platonists brought into the church, and instead, had given their leisure to the toils of biblical learning, they would not so soon and so completely have spoiled Christianity. Sulpitius affords abundant illustration of the topics adverted to in this section. Perhaps, within so small a compass, the principles and practices of the ancient monachism are nowhere else so fully brought into view, as in his Dialogues and Epistles. He may properly be quoted in the present instance. Postumianus, lately returned from the east, that is to say, from Egypt, Arabia, and Palestine, describes to his astonished brethren of a monastery in Gaul, the abstemiousness the oriental monks, as well as their piety and marvellous exploits. (On his outward voyage Postumianus had gone ashore at Carthage to visit the spots dedicated to the saints; especially—ad sepulchrum Cypriani Martyris adorare.) His first specimen of a monkish dinner, in the oriental style, was the being invited to partake, with four others, of half a barley cake; to which was added a handful of a certain sweet herb, altogether deemed to be—prandium locupletissimum. Sulpitius hence takes occasion to joke a brother, who was present, upon their own comparative appetites; but he replies that it was extremely unkind to urge upon Gauls a manner of living proper only to angels. Hearty eating, says he, in a Greek, is gluttony; but in a Gaul—nature.