Martin of Braga

Martin of Braga (in Latin Martinus Bracarensis, in Portuguese, known as Martinho de Dume 520–580 AD), also known as Martin of Dumio, was an archbishop of Bracara Augusta in Gallaecia (now Braga in Portugal), a missionary, a monastic founder, and an ecclesiastical author. According to his contemporary, the historian Gregory of Tours, Martin was plenus virtutibus ("full of virtue") and in tantum se litteris imbuit ut nulli secundus sui temporis haberetur ("he so instructed himself in learning that he was considered second to none in his lifetime"). He was later canonized by the Catholic Church for his work in converting the inhabitants of Gallaecia to Chalcedonian Christianity, being granted the cognomen of "Apostle to the Suevi". His feast day is 20 March.

Life

Born in Pannonia, in Central Europe, Martin made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he became a monk. Around 550, he travelled by sea to Hispania and settled in Gallaecia. "His intentions in going to a place so remote by the standards of his own day are unknown," writes Roger Collins. Though some scholars have suggested that he was an agent of Byzantine diplomacy (owing to the coincidence between his date of travel and the beginnings of the Byzantine reconquest of parts of Visigothic south-eastern Hispania), and others have suggested he was sent to the Suevic court as a missionary, neither hypothesis is certain.

Nonetheless, his arrival in Gallaecia was historically significant, for he played an important role in converting the Suevi from their current Arian beliefs to the Chalcedonian Christianity. While there he founded several monasteries, the best known of which was at Dumium (modern-day Dume), established close to the Suevic capital at Braga. Martin also produced a large collection of church canons, mostly translated from Greek. These were presented to the Suevic church at the Second Council of Braga.

In the final decade of his life he composed two short treatises, De ira and Formula vitae honestae, which drew heavily on the work of Seneca the Younger. "Martin's tract are valuable evidence that some at least of Seneca's writings were still available in the land of his birth in the sixth century," writes Laistner. Three other short essays on ethics demonstrate his clear familiarity with the works of John Cassian.

Another important work is his model sermon, written in the form of a letter to his fellow bishop Polemius of Asturica, De correctione rusticorum, which discusses the issue of rural paganism. Noting that this sermon has often been seen as evidence of Martin's missionary work against rural paganism, Collins asserts that a closer look does not support this thesis, for "there are no points of contact [in this work] with what is known of the indigenous pre-Christian cults of rural Galicia." The influences present in this work have been debated: Laistner sees evidence of the sermons of the Gallic bishop Caesarius of Arles, who lived a generation ago; Collins believes it is modelled on a treatise of Augustine of Hippo on the same topic.

Martin also composed poetry; Gregory of Tours notes that he authored the verses over the southern portal of the church of Saint Martins of Tours in that city. By the twelfth century the work circulated widely without Martin's dedicatory preface, causing scribes and readers mistakenly to identify the treatise as a genuine work by Seneca. As such, over the next three centuries, Formula vitae honestae was used alongside the pseudo-epigraphic correspondence of Paul and Seneca as proof for Seneca's adherence to Christianity. (572) De ira (On Anger): adapted from a work of the same name by Seneca. Three linked treatises: the two vices, vanity and pride, are taken from a list of eight set out by John Cassian. (570?) De Pascha (On Easter): part of the Canons of St. Martin and the Second Council of Braga De Pascha is Martin's explanation on how to calculate the date of Easter. According to Martin, Easter may be observed no earlier than March 22, and no later than April 21, and the date may be announced during Advent so the people may know when Lent begins. and the third is a six-line epitaph about Martin's own life. Martin himself had avoided religious suppression by traveling to Dumium, in what is now Portugal. Martin may have chosen to flee east to avoid Rome's anti-intellectual policies, which possible explains his relatively gentle approach to the Suevi in Gallaecia.

In his instructions, Martin objects to the astrological custom of naming the days of the week after gods (planets). From De correctione rusticorum: "for the infidels have angered God and do not believe wholeheartedly in the faith of Christ, but are such disbelievers that they place the very names of the demons on each day of the week, and speak of the day of Mars and of Mercury and of Jupiter and of Venus and of Saturn, who never created a day, but were evil and wicked men among the race of the Greeks." Galician has largely returned to the earlier nomenclature.