The Life of Saint Martin · Chapter XXIII

The story of Clarus, the false prophet Anatolius and the tunic that vanished into thin air

There was a young man from a very distinguished family called Clarus — who was later ordained priest and today rests in the peace of God after a holy death — who had left everything behind to go and live near Martin, quickly attaining a deep faith and an exemplary life. Clarus had built a small hermitage near the bishop’s monastery, where several monks were already living with him. One day a young man called Anatolius knocked at their door: he said he was a monk, passed himself off as the humblest and most innocent person in the world, and ended up staying to live there in community with the others.

After some time, he began telling his companions that he received regular visits from angels who came to talk with him. Since no one believed it, he found a way of impressing several monks with a number of strange phenomena. Before long he was openly declaring that the angels were constantly coming and going with messages between him and God, and demanding to be treated as a true prophet. Clarus, however, never let himself be taken in. Furious at not being able to convince him, Anatolius began to threaten him with the wrath of God and with imminent punishments for doubting the word of a saint.

Finally, one day he came out with this solemn announcement: “Know that tonight the Lord is going to send me a white tunic from Heaven! Tomorrow I shall walk among you wearing it, and there you will have the proof that I carry within me the power of God, dressed in a garment that comes from the hands of God Himself!”

Needless to say, the whole community was in a state of great excitement, waiting for what would happen. Now, around midnight, the entire monastery seemed to shake to its foundations, as if people were stamping hard on the ground. From Anatolius’s cell came repeated flashes of bright light, accompanied by the noise of hurried footsteps going to and fro and by a confused murmur of many voices. Suddenly there was silence; Anatolius opened the door, called over one of the monks outside, named Sabatius, and showed him the tunic he was wearing.

Open-mouthed, Sabatius ran to wake the others. Clarus himself came at once to see what was going on; they brought a lighted lamp and all set about examining the garment in detail. The fabric was extraordinarily soft, pure white and edged with bands of brilliant purple — but however hard they looked, no one could tell what fibre or what wool it was made of. Even so, both to the eye and to the touch of the fingers, it seemed beyond a shadow of doubt to be a real tunic.

Prudently, Clarus asked the brothers to spend the rest of the night praying that God would show them clearly what lay behind all this; and so they remained until dawn, singing hymns and psalms. As soon as the sun came up, Clarus took Anatolius by the right hand, determined to bring him before Martin, quite certain that no trick of the Devil’s could deceive the bishop’s eyes. At that instant the wretched man panicked: he began digging in his heels and shouting that he had express orders from Heaven not to appear before Martin! And when the other monks seized him to take him by force, the tunic vanished into thin air in the blink of an eye, right between the hands of those who were holding him.

Who can doubt that here, too, Martin’s spiritual power was seen, to the point where the Devil could not even keep up his deception once he realised he would have to face the bishop’s gaze?