Page 149 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

The saint as envoy: bishops’ Lives

scene is isolated; its links with preceding or following scenes are anagogi-
31
cal, notcausal or chronological. There are no verbal echoes or uses of
motifs from the scene of Martin and Magnus Maximus in Vita Germani,
though Constantius had read Sulpicius’ work and drew heavily from other
sections of it, and later Latin hagiographers would combine motifs from
this scene with elements of Germanus’ Vita when composing their own
narratives. 32 More significantly, the imagery and purpose of Sulpicius’
accountdiffer radically from embassy scenes in Vita Germani. Sulpicius
presents Martin as an Old Testament prophet. His meetings with the
emperor are ‘affrontements publics’, during which the bishop berates the
emperor for his sins in taking the throne by violence, and denounces
the ‘adulation’ of other bishops attending the emperor’s court: ‘if it was
necessary for [Martin] to appeal to the emperor on others’ behalf, he com-
manded rather than requested, and, though frequently asked, he abstained
from [Maximus’] feasts, saying that he could not be a fellow of the table
of one who had expelled one emperor from his realm, the other from his
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life’. The following narrative, in which Martin ultimately agrees to at-
tend Maximus’ convivium, focuses on Martin’s charged gesture in passing a
goblet, given to him at the command of the emperor, not to Maximus but
to his own priest, ‘judging that no-one was more worthy to drink after
himself, and that it would compromise his integrity were he to prefer over
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his priest either the emperor himself or those near him’. This ‘t´ em´ erit´ e
spectaculaire...gratuit et...pittoresque’ is far from Constantius’ portrait
of the winning eloquence of Germanus’ gracious supplications and his
consensual successes. 35 So too are the scenes of Martin’s meetings with
emperors in Sulpicius’ Dialogi, a later companion to Vita Martini: Martin

31 Fontaine, Introduction to Sulpicius Severus, Vie de saint Martin i, 59–96, 244–5; Stancliffe,
St Martin and his Hagiographer, 86–7.
32 Constantius’ use of Sulpicius: Levison, ‘Bischof Germanus von Auxerre’, 114–17; Levison, In-
troduction to Constantius, Vita Germani, 231 and nn. at 248 n. 1; 249 n. 4; 253 n. 2; 254 n. 2;
255 nn. 3, 5; 256 n. 2; 257 n. 2; 258 n. 1; 264 n. 1; 267 n. 2; 268 n. 2; 273 n. 1 (bis); 279 n. 1; 282
n. 2; Borius, Introduction to Vie de Germain, 31–8, 42, 65 n. 4. The majority of uses of Sulpicius
concern imagery or details of Martin as thaumaturge.
Later uses: see below, on Vita Viviani and Vita Orientii.
33
Sulpicius, Vita Martini xx, 2: Nam et si pro aliquibus regi supplicandum fuit,imperauit potius quam
rogauit,et a convivio eius freqenter rogatus abstinuit,dicens se mensae eius participem esse non posse,qui
imperatores unum regno,alterum vita expulisset.
On this scene: J. Fontaine, ‘Une cl´ e litt´ eraire de la Vita Martini de Sulpice S´ ev` ere: la ty-
pologie proph´ etique’, M´ elanges offerts ` a Mademoiselle Christine Mohrmann (Utrecht, 1963), 84–95,
esp. 89–90; Fontaine, ‘Hagiographie et politique, de Sulpice S´ ev` ere ` a Venance Fortunat’, Revue
d’Histoire de l’Eglise de France 62 (1976), 118–19 (‘affrontements publics’); Fontaine, Introduction
to Sulpicius, Vita Martini i, 92–5; iii, 907–46; Berschin, Biographie und Epochenstil i, 204–6.
34
Sulpicius, Vita Martini xx, 6: Sed Martinum,ubi ebibit,pateram presbytero suo tradidit,nullum scilicet
existimans digniorem qui post se prior biberet,nec integrum sibi fore si aut regem ipsum aut eos,qui a rege
erant proximi,presbytero praetulisset.
35
Quotation from Fontaine, ‘Une cl´ e litt´ eraire’, 90.
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