The Life of Saint Martin · Chapter XXII
The disguises of Jupiter, Mercury and Venus — and the promise of forgiveness to the Devil himself
On many other occasions, trying to catch the saint out with a thousand ruses, the Devil appeared before his eyes in the most diverse guises: now he took the form of Jupiter, far more often that of Mercury, and not infrequently he also turned up with the features of Venus or Minerva. Never losing his serenity, Martin always defended himself with the sign of the cross and with prayer.
Bands of demons were also frequently heard shouting insolent insults at him; but since he knew that all this was nothing but lies without rhyme or reason, Martin paid no attention to the accusations. Some monks even told of having once heard a demon confront Martin in an arrogant tone, asking him why he had accepted into the monastery some brothers who, in the past, had stained the grace of baptism with grave errors and sins before repenting — and he set about reeling off, one by one, the old sins of each of them.
Those monks said that Martin answered him flatly that the mistakes of the past are wiped clean when someone sincerely changes his life and that, by the mercy of God, whoever stops sinning has a right to forgiveness. When the Devil countered that great sinners do not deserve clemency and that God does not forgive again those who fall after baptism, Martin is said to have given him this extraordinary answer:
“If you yourself, wretched one, were to stop persecuting humanity and repent of the evil you have done, even now, when the day of the Last Judgement is so near, I have such trust in the Lord Jesus Christ that I would promise you the forgiveness of God!”
What admirable boldness of trust in the goodness of God! Even without having the authority to guarantee such a promise, Martin showed in those words the immensity of his heart. And since we are speaking of the Devil and his snares, it is worth telling here an episode that took place very close by: even though it did not happen directly to Martin, it clearly reveals his spiritual strength and deserves to be recorded, so that everyone may be on their guard if a similar case should ever arise.
This chapter holds two striking moments of fourth-century spirituality:
1. Jupiter, Mercury, Venus and Minerva: For the Christians of Antiquity, the gods of the Roman pantheon were not merely poetic figures of mythology; they were seen as deceiving spiritual forces that used those masks to tempt people — Jupiter through the ambition for power, Mercury through cunning and money, Venus through seduction and Minerva through intellectual vanity.
2. Promising forgiveness to Satan himself: In Martin’s time there were very rigid circles within the Church which held that anyone who committed a grave sin after being baptised could never again be forgiven. Martin not only welcomes men with a difficult past into the monastery with open arms, but goes so far as to tell the Devil himself that even he would be forgiven by Christ if he repented! It was so bold an affirmation of the infinite mercy of God (close to the thought of the theologian Origen) that Sulpicius Severus feels the need to add a prudent caveat at once for his more orthodox readers: “Even without having the authority to guarantee such a promise, Martin showed in those words the immensity of his heart.”