Section 9

Martin is cajoled into becoming a candidate for the episcopacy of Tours. He has the support of the common people, but is opposed by some prominent clerics who assembled for the election.

ad episcopatum Turonicae ecclesiae petebatur: 'he was sought (as a candidate) for the episcopacy of Tours', ancient Caesarodunum, a small Gallo-Roman town in the region occupied by the minor Gallic tribe the Turoni, south of the river Loire in France. Satellite image. It became a large city, the center of a great archdiocese, and a pilgrimage site thanks to the posthumous fame of St. Martin. In the early fourth century there were twenty-two bishops in all of Gaul, by the end of that century there were seventy. The date here is 370.

erui: 'to be uprooted' (> eruo, -ere).

ut egrederetur obtinuit: 'convinced him to leave' (his cell).

civitatem: 'the city,' i.e. Tours.

ad suffragia ferenda: 'to cast their votes'.

episcopatūs: genitive with dignissimum

fore: = futurum esse

ad constituendum antistitem: 'for the purpose of installing a bishop'

fuerant evocati: 'had been summoned', = erant evocati.

indignum esse episcopatu hominem vultu despicabilem: '(they said that) a man reprehensible in his appearance was unworthy of the episcopacy'. (indignum takes the ablative).

sententiae sanioris: 'of sounder opinion', genitive of characteristic, with populo.

haec illorum inrisa dementia est: 'this madness of theirs was ridiculed' (> inrideo).

qui: the antecedent is illorum, Martin's critics.

illustrem virum praedicabant: 'were proclaiming him (to be) an excellent person'

his: i.e. the bishops hostile to Martin.

aliud . . . quam quod: 'something other than that which'.

adfuerant: = aderant, 'were present'.

unde animadversum est graviter illum lectione prophetica tum notatum: 'from which cause (i.e. because of his name) it was observed that that man was sternly rebuked at that time in a prophetic public reading'. animadversum est is impersonal passive, > animadverto.

interclusus: 'having been shut out' (> intercludo).

ministris: 'servants' of the church, an order lower than that of the deacons. Cp. Optatus, Against the Donatists (AD 367) 1.13, 2.14 [Blaise].

quem primum versum invenit, arripuit: 'the first verse he found, he sized upon it (and read it out)' (arripuit > adripio, -ere). The antecedent of quem is versum.

ex ore . . . defensorem: a quotation from the Latin version of Psalm 8.3, "Your majesty is praised as high as the heavens, from the mouths of babes and infants at the breast. You have established a bulwark against your adversaries to restrain the enemy and the avenger" (Oxford Study Bible, from the Hebrew). The key word is the last, defensorem, which was taken as a fortuitous allusion to Martin's opponent Defensor.

lactantium: 'sucklings'.

propter: 'against' (a late and vulgar Latin meaning).

pars diversa: 'the opposing faction'.

atque ita habitum est: 'and so it was thought that'.

lectum fuisse: 'had been read' = lectum esse

et ostensus pariter et destructus esset inimicus: 'had been at the same time both revealed as the enemy and destroyed (as the enemy).'