The Life of Saint Martin · Chapter XXVI
The inner portrait: The blacksmith’s anvil and his patience with his own priests
This book is nearing its end and it is time to conclude — not because there is nothing more to tell about Martin, but because I myself, like those bad poets who run out of breath on the final stretch of their work, feel crushed by the greatness of the subject.
For if the visible episodes of his life can still be put into words, well or badly, when it comes to his inner life, his silent daily routine and that heart permanently joined to God, I say it in all frankness: there are no human words that suffice to describe them. That calm, balanced constancy in his fasts, that endurance in the nights spent awake praying as though it were day, never wasting a single minute away from the service of God, never falling into idleness or losing himself in worldly matters, eating and sleeping only the bare minimum for the body to stay on its feet — I confess without exaggeration that not even Homer himself, as the saying goes, were he to return from the world of the dead, could portray all this as it deserves, so far does Martin’s life exceed what a book can hold.
Not a single hour, not a brief moment went by without his being at prayer or immersed in reading; indeed, even when he was reading or had some other task in hand, he never disconnected his heart from prayer. He brought to mind the habitual gesture of blacksmiths who, while shaping the red-hot iron, now and then give a light blow on the empty anvil to rest the arm without losing the rhythm: so too Martin, even when he seemed busy dealing with other matters, went on praying inwardly all the time.
What an extraordinary, luminous man, incapable of pretence or malice! He never condemned anyone, never paid back in kind those who did him harm. He had acquired such great patience in the face of insults that, although he was the bishop of the diocese, even the lowest-ranking clerics often treated him with disrespect and nothing happened to them: never on that account did he remove any of them from his post or cease to treat them with all affection.
This chapter leaves us one of the most beautiful images in ancient literature: the blacksmith’s anvil (incus fabrorum). In the old forges (and still in traditional workshops until very recently!), while the smith turned the piece of iron in the fire with his tongs, he let the hammer give a loose, rhythmic tap directly on the iron of the anvil so as not to break the cadence of his arm. For Sulpicius, praying was not, in Martin, a separate task: it was the constant beat of the heart in the midst of the whole of life.
And who were these “lowest-ranking clerics” (infimi clerici) who insulted Martin within the diocese of Tours itself without his punishing them? The most famous case (told later by Sulpicius in his Dialogues) was that of a young priest called Brictius (Brice), who mocked Martin’s visions and poor clothing out loud. When the indignant monks asked the bishop to throw him out, Martin answered only: “If Christ put up with Judas, why should I not put up with Brictius?” — and added that one day Brictius would repent and would succeed him as bishop of Tours, which did indeed happen in 397!