Martinus (2), bp. of Dumium in Gallicia, and afterwards
metropolitan bp. of Braga, died c. 580; a person of importance, about whom our information is scanty.
Our chief sources are: (1) Isidore, (a) his Life in de Vir. Ill. c. 35, (b) a reference in Hist. Suevorum, Esp. Sagr. vi. 505; (2) Gregory of Tours—(a) de Mirac. Scti. Martini Tur. i. 11; (b) Hist. Franc. v. 38; (3) some Acts of councils of Braga; (4) a letter and poem addressed to him by Venantius Fortunatus (Migne, Patr. Lat. lxxxviii.).
Life.—According to
Gregory of Tours and Venantius Fortunatus, Martin was a native of
Pannonia ("Pannonia Quiritis," Venantius). He had travelled to
the Holy Land, and had in the East acquired such a knowledge of letters
that he was held second to no scholar of his day. Thence (ex Orientis partibus) he came to Galicia, arriving "ad portum Galliciae" (? Portucale) on the same day as the relics of St. Martin of Tours, for which Arianus or Theodoric I., king of the Suevi, had shortly before petitioned the guardians of the saint's shrine. In 561, about eleven years after his arrival in the country, he attended the first council of Braga, presided over by Lucretius, metropolitan bp. of Braga. The Acts of the council, which are in an unusual and highly artificial shape, were probably compiled by Martin, the person of the greatest literary pretensions then in Gallicia.
This council evidently
marks an era of revival and reformation in Galicia, probably under
the auspices of the orthodox and energetic Martin. The only mention of
Arianism in it throughout occurs in a letter of pope Vigilius which
was read. Probably this indirect handling, and the penalties decreed
generally against intercourse with heretics, were all that the bishops
felt themselves strong enough to venture against a creed which had been
shortly before the religious confession of the Suevian nation, and had
no doubt still many friends in high places. Eleven years later another
council was held at Braga, and Martin now occupied the metropolitan
see as successor to Lucretius, the bishops addressing him in unusually
submissive terms. Eleven bishops were present from the two synods of
Lugo and Braga, which here appear as two distinct metropolitan dioceses
for the first and only time in authentic history.
We may probably
place the correspondence of Martin with Venantius Fortunatus between 572
and 580. In 580 Martin died, greatly mourned by the people of Gallicia. His memory is celebrated on Mar. 30.
Works.—(1) Formula Vitae Honestae, as he himself calls it in the preface, otherwise de Differentiis Quatuor Virtutum (so Isid. l.c.), or de Quatuor Virtutibus Cardinalibus — a little tract extremely popular in the middle ages, and frequently printed during the 15th and 16th cents. The best ed. is by Hasse in Sen. Op. iii. 468, where he describes the Formula as more frequently read and quoted in the middle ages than any of the genuine works of Seneca, to whom it was ascribed in early editions. There is an ed. by A. Weidner (Magdeburg, 1871). Cf. Fabricius, Bibl. Med. Ae. Inf. Lat. iii., Bibl. Latina, ed. 1773, ii. 119.
(2) De Moribus, a tract consisting of maxims from various sources. (Haase, xx.)