Martin was an army brat – a veteran’s son – and so he was born to it: the sand and dust of the march, the clip-clop of the mules, the cackling of the camp women, and the dash of steel. By the time he was a young boy, he knew how a soldier dug a latrine and could hum along to every off-color marching tune. At the time when most civilians of his age and class were worrying about whether to study in Rome or go to Athens, Martin was enlisted in the heavy cavalry – and off to war he went.
It was a border fight – to the north with the barbarians who did not know their place. Well, they were sort of barbarians – unreformed Gauls who didn’t want to pay their tribute to Rome is perhaps a fairer description. But seven hundred years before the Gauls had sacked Rome – and they were still paying for it. And so the cavalry watched and waited and knew that soon the orders would come.
What did Martin think of this fight? What did he think about these orders that he knew would come? He was obviously a thoughtful young officer – no doubt some combination of doubt and duty struggled in his mind. Martin had grown up in the army; it was his life and his father’s life before him. Martin belonged in the military, his family was in the military, his friends where in the military. He loved the patria, his father- and homeland. And yet, he did not quite belong, did not quite fit in. He found himself asking questions that not all soldiers ask, that not all men ask – questions about right and wrong, questions about man and God, questions about time and eternity.
And who could answer these questions? Many of his comrades and friends were content with the old saws – the gods of Rome were pleased with Rome. How else to explain the divine gift of hegemony accorded to Rome from the British Isles to the shores of the Euphrates? Some of the men – especially the NCO’s and those desiring upward mobility through the ranks – went in for the cult of Mithras. There were answers there, but everyone knew that it was mainly an old boys’ club.
What really intrigued Martin were the Christians. Just a handful of years before Martin’s birth the Empire had declared them traitors and a threat to the homeland. But still they clung tenaciously to their God and to his teaching of forgiveness in the blood of a man (or was he a god? – it was confusing) who died as an enemy of the Empire on a Roman cross planted in the ground by a centurion with the Eagles on his shoulder. They said that the same centurion later saw this Jesus up from the dead and that he left everything to follow the One who had walked down into death and walked right out again.
It was all intriguing – but Martin didn’t take the plunge. How could he follow this Christ and the battle standard of the Augustus of East and West? It was all a little academic – intriguing, strangely inviting, but academic. He was in the heavy cav, and the Gauls were at the gate.
So Martin waited with the army, waited at the gate. And if he was also waiting for a sign – that came too, right at the gate. The sign was a beggar. And Martin, the half-Christian did the half-Christian thing. He remembered that Jesus said to give your tunic to him who asked – but still, those Gaulish night watches can be cold. So he gave him half his cloak.
And maybe it was the knowledge that he had done only half a duty that disturbed his sleep that night. Or maybe it was the cold, what with only half a cloak to wrap up in. Or maybe it really was a vision fair – of Christ, that God-man, wrapped up in half an officer’s cloak. He was speaking to the angels – and like in so many dreams, Martin could only catch part of what he was saying to them, but what he caught cast him into waking like a bolt of lightening: “Here is Martin, the Roman soldier who is not baptized; he has clad Me.”
No more half-measures and half cloaks! No more unbaptized, either: Martin ran for the nearest priest. And no more Roman soldier. The die was cast when the Jordan was crossed. Martin informed his superiors of his new faith, his new life, his new everything and requested a discharge: for a Christian, said Martin, could have no part in this fight of Caesar.
Of course, that did not go over well. They said he was a coward – for Martin spoke on the eve of battle. No man likes to be thought a coward – Martin volunteered to be set weaponless at the front of the battle and take his chances with the grace of God and the steel of Gauls. But the high command would have none of that – bad for morale. So Martin went off to a jail cell.
And then they let him go. What could they do? To kill him would only have made him a martyr – and Caesar was learning that the blood of martyrs was the seed of yet more. Keep him in jail? He would just preach to others – he would be the very opposite of a force multiplier.
So Martin went on to another life. The life of St. Martin of Tours, Confessor, founder of orders, preacher of the cross – a life he laid down on November 11, A+D 397 – a life that beggar Christ has promised will be restored to him when all earthly kingdoms are swept away.
November 11, St. Martin’s heavenly birthday: a fitting day for an Armistice and an end to war. A fitting day to ponder the things of God and the things of Caesar. A day to ask how far man can be obeyed – a day to ask what makes for a just war, what makes for real Christianity – to ask just when it is time to follow St. Martin’s lead and tell Caesar that you are willing to trade in your arms and commission for a jail cell.
November 11, 2010
