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martin of braga

Life

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Works

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Moral treatises

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  • Formula vitae honestae, or De differentiis quatuor virtutumvitae honestae (Rules for an Honest Life, or On the Four Cardinal Virtues): addressed to Miro, king of the Sueves. From its similarities to other works of Seneca the Younger modern scholars believe that Martin adapted his work from a lost writing of Seneca.[1][2] In the twelfth century, an accident caused the loss of the preface attributing the work to Martin, causing scribes and readers to mistakenly identify the treatise as a genuine work by Seneca. Over the next three centuries, Formula vitae honestae was mistakenly used alongside the Epistle to Seneca the Younger as proof for Seneca's adherence to Christianity.[2][3]
  • (572) De ira (On Anger): also adapted from a work of Seneca.[4]
  • Three linked treatises: the two vices, Vanity and Pride, are taken from a list of eight set out by Saint John Cassian.[2]
    • Pro repellenda jactantia (Driving Away Vanity)
    • De superbia (On Pride)
    • Exhortatio humilitatis (Exhortation to Humility)

Councils and canons

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Other works and treatises

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  • Martin of Braga #De correctione rusticorum (On the Reform of Rustics)
  • De trina mersione (On Triple Immersion): addressed to Bishop Boniface, of whom little is known other than that he resided in sixth century Visigothic Spain. In his letter, Martin denounces the Arian practice of performing baptism in the three names of the Trinity. Martin insists the correct practice is to perform triple immersion in the Trinity's single name.[2]
  • Sententiae Patrum Aegyptiorum (Saying of the Egyptian Fathers): translated by Martin from an anonymous Greek manuscript he carried with him to Spain.[2] Two translations exist: one by the monk Paschasius, who was instructed in Greek by Martin, and one by Martin himself. The version by Martin is twenty-two sections shorter than Paschasius's, as most of the anecdotes about the daily life of the Egyptian ascetic monks were removed to focus on their moral instruction.[2]
  • Poetry: only three poems by Martin are preserved from history. Two of them are inscriptions for buildings[6][2], and the third is a six-line epitaph about Martin's own life. [2]

De correctione rusticorum

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In 572, the Second Council of Braga decreed that bishops are to call the people of their church together, so they may be converted to Christianity. After the council, a bishop named Polemius of Astorga wrote to Martin of Braga asking for advice on the conversion of rural pagans. Polemius was especially concerned about their perceived idolatry and sin. Martin's reply was a treatise in the form of a sermon, enclosed in his responding letter to Polemius.

Out of all of Martin's works, De correctione rusticorum (On the Reform of Rustics) is of particular interest to modern scholars. It contains both a detailed catalogue of sixth-century Spanish pagan practices, and an unusually tolerant approach to them by Martin. Alberto Ferreiro attributes Martin's acceptance to his classical education in the East, as well asthe influence of philosophers like Seneca and Plato. [7] Interestingly, Martin himself had avoided religious suppression by traveling to Dumiam, close to the border of what is now Portugal and Spain.[8] He had sailed east around 550, during the period when Justinian I was attempting to reunite the Later Roman Empire through consolidation of the empire's faith. In 529, Justinian had placed the Neoplatonic Academy under state control, effectively signifying the end of pagan philosophical teaching. Later, in 553, Origen was also anathematized, effectively crushing Origenism.[1] The Codex Justinianus enforced Nicaean Christianity over all other rival doctrines.[9] 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. [1]

Although Martin's training as a monk was based on the ascetic Desert Fathers of the Egyptian desert, he lessened their severe monastic regulations to aid the Spaniards to adapt. When converting the Suevi, he avoided enforcing Catholicism, preferring persuasion over coercion.[5] He also wrote his sermon in a deliberately rustic style, incorporating ungrammatical Latin constructions and local vulgarisms[10][note 1].


In his instructions, Martin objects to the pagan custom of naming the days of the week after gods.[12][note 2] Due to his influence, Portuguese is the only Romance language where the names of the days come from numbers and Catholic liturgy, rather than from pagan deities.[14]


Notes

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  1. ^ From De correctione rusticorum: "Sed quia oportet ab initio mundi vel modicam illis rationis notitiam quasi pro gustu porrigere, necesse me fuit ingentem praeteritorum temporum gestorumque silvam breviato tenuis compendii sermone contingere et cibum rusticis rustico sermone condire."
    "Since it is necessary to offer them some small explanation for these idols' existence from the beginning of the world to whet the appetite, as it were, I have had to touch upon a vast forest of past times and events in a treatise of very brief compass and to offer the rustics food seasoned with rustic speech."[11]
  2. ^ 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." [13]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Follis, E. K. (1992). "St. Martin of Braga : Sources for His Tolerance toward the Rustici in Sixth Century Galicia."(Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Braga, M. & Dumium, P. & Seville, L. & Barlow, C. W.(2010). Iberian Fathers, Volume 1 (The Fathers of the Church, Volume 62). Washington: The Catholic University of America Press. Retrieved March 5, 2015.
  3. ^ Everett Ferguson (2003). Backgrounds of Early Christianity. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 365. ISBN 978-0-8028-2221-5.
  4. ^ Barlow, C. (1937). "A Sixth-Century Epitome of Seneca, De Ira." Retrieved March 5, 2015
  5. ^ a b Farmer, D.(2011). Martin of Braga. In The Oxford Dictionary of Saints. : Oxford University Press. Retrieved 5 Mar. 2015
  6. ^ Decem Libri Historiarum, V.37; translated by Lewis Thorpe, History of the Franks (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974), p. 301
  7. ^ Ferreiro, A. (1995). "Braga and tours: Some Observations on Gregory's "De virtutibus sancti martini" (1.11). Journal of Early Christian Studies, 3, 195. Retrieved March 5, 2015
  8. ^ Farmer, D.(2011). Martin of Braga. In The Oxford Dictionary of Saints. : Oxford University Press. Retrieved 5 Mar. 2015
  9. ^ Corcoran, S.(2009). Anastasius, Justinian, and the Pagans: A Tale of Two Law Codes and a Papyrus. Journal of Late Antiquity 2(2), 183-208. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Retrieved March 6, 2015, from Project MUSE database.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference braga was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ (Braga, M. & Dumium, P. & Seville, L. & Barlow, C. W.(2010). Iberian Fathers, Volume 1 (The Fathers of the Church, Volume 62). Washington: The Catholic University of America Press. Retrieved March 5, 2015.)
  12. ^ Kimminich, E. (1991). "The way of vice and virtue: A medieval psychology."Comparative Drama, 25(1), 77-86. Retrieved March 5, 2015.
  13. ^ (Braga, M. & Dumium, P. & Seville, L. & Barlow, C. W.(2010). Iberian Fathers, Volume 1 (The Fathers of the Church, Volume 62). Washington: The Catholic University of America Press. Retrieved March 5, 2015.)
  14. ^ Richard A. Fletcher (1999). The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity. University of California Press. p. 257. ISBN 978-0-520-21859-8.
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