The storiesVI / IX
How the city of Tours kidnapped Martin to make him bishop
Martin would never have agreed, so the people of Tours tricked him out of his monastery and marched him into the city under guard.
Tours, 371
Tours wanted him as bishop. He was never going to say yes.
So a man named Ruricius knelt and begged him to come to his dying wife. There was no dying wife.
The road was lined with townspeople. They walked him in like a prisoner.
Some of the visiting bishops sneered: dirty clothes, hair a mess, not bishop material.
Then someone opened the Psalms at random and read a verse aloud. It named his loudest opponent, Bishop Defensor. The crowd roared.
Margin noteThe verse ended: “…to defeat the enemy and the defender.” In the Latin we used, the word is defensorem.
From the book
Chapter IX · The “kidnapping” to make him bishop of Tours and the humiliation of Bishop Defensor
At about that time, the people of the Church of Tours began to want Martin as their bishop. Since they knew it would be anything but easy to get him out of his monastery, an…
What Sulpicius wrote and what was added later are kept apart on this site. About this edition