Chapter XIII.
“ this became
known to Martin, he rushed to the palace, though it was now night. He
pledges himself that, if these people were spared, he would
communicate; only let the tribunes, who had already been sent to the
Spains for the destruction of the churches, be
recalled. There is no delay: Maximus
grants all his requests. On the following day, the ordination of Felix
as bishop was being arranged, a man undoubtedly of great sanctity, and
truly worthy of being made a priest in happier times. Martin took part
in the communion of that day, judging it better to yield for the
moment, than to disregard the safety of those over whose heads a sword
was hanging. Nevertheless, although the bishops strove to the uttermost
to get him to confirm the fact of his communicating by signing his
name, he could not be induced to do so. On the following day, hurrying
away from that place, as he was on the way returning, he was filled
with mourning and lamentation that he had even for an hour been mixed
up with the evil communion, and, not far from a village named
Andethanna, where remote woods stretch
far and wide with profound solitude, he sat down while his companions
went on a little before him. There he became involved in deep thought, alternately accusing and defending the cause of his grief and conduct. Suddenly, an angel stood by him and said, ‘Justly, O Martin, do you feel compunction, but you could not otherwise get out of your difficulty. Renew your virtue, resume your courage, lest you not only now expose your fame, but your very salvation, to danger.’ Therefore, from that time forward, he carefully guarded against being mixed up in communion with the party of Ithacius. But when it happened that he cured some of the possessed more slowly and with less grace than usual, he at once confessed to us with tears that he felt a diminution of his power on account of the evil of that communion in which he had taken part for a moment through necessity, and not with a cordial spirit. He lived sixteen years after this, but never again did he attend a synod, and kept carefully aloof from all assemblies of bishops.