MARTINIANUS was born at Caesarea in Palestine, during the reign of
Constantius. At eighteen years of age he retired to a mountain near that
city, called, The place of the Ark, where he lived for twenty-five years
among many holy solitaries in the practice of all virtues, and was
endowed with the gift of miracles. A wicked strumpet of Caesarea, called
Zoe, hearing his sanctity much extolled, at the instigation of the devil
undertook to pervert him. She feigned herself a poor woman, wandering in
the desert late at night, and ready to perish. By this pretext she
prevailed on Martinianus to let her remain that night in his cell.
Towards morning she threw aside her rags, put on her best attire, and
going in to Martinianus, told him she was a lady of the city, possessed
of a large estate and plentiful fortune, all which she came to offer him
with herself. She also instanced, in the examples of the saints of the
Old Testament, who were rich and engaged in the conjugal state, to
induce him to abandon his purpose. The hermit, who should have imitated
the chaste Joseph in his flight, was permitted, in punishment perhaps of
some secret presumption, to listen to her enchanting tongue, and to
consent in his heart to her proposal. But as it was near the time that
he expected certain persons to call on him to receive his blessing and
instructions, he told her he would go and meet them on the road and
dismiss them. He went out with this intent, but being touched with
remorse, he returned speedily to his cell, where, making a great fire,
he thrust his feet into it. The pain this occasioned was so great, that
he could not forbear crying out aloud. The woman at the noise ran in and
found him lying on the ground, bathed in tears, and his feet half
burned. On seeing her he said: "Ah! if I cannot bear this weak fire, how
can I endure that of hell?" This example excited Zoe to sentiments of
grief and repentance; and she conjured him to put her in a way of
securing her salvation. He sent her to Bethlehem, to the monastery of
St. Paula, to which she lived in continual penance, and lying on the
bare floor, with no other sustenance than bread and water. Martinianus,
as soon as his legs were healed, which was not till seven months after,
not being able all that time to rise from the ground, retired to a rock
surrounded with water on every side, to be secure from the approach of
danger and all occasions of sin. He lived here exposed always to the
open air, and without ever seeing any human creature, except a boatman,
who brought him twice a year biscuit and fresh water, and twigs
wherewith to make baskets. Six years after this, he saw a vessel split
and wrecked at the bottom of his rock. All on board perished, except one
girl, who, floating on a plank, cried out for succor. Martinianus could
not refuse to go down and save her life: but fearing the danger of
living on the same mountain with her till the boatman should come, as
was expected in two months, resolved to leave her there to subsist on
his provisions till that time, and she chose to end her days on this
rock in imitation of his penitential life. He, trusting himself to the
waves and Providence, to shun all danger of sin, swam to the main land,
and travelled through many deserts to Athens, where he made a happy end
towards the year 400, being about fifty years old. His name, though not
mentioned in the Roman Martyrology, occurs in the Greek Menaea, and was
in great veneration in the East, particularly at Constantinople, in the
famous church near Sancta Sophia. See his acts in the Bollandists, and
in most compilers of the lives of the saints. Also Jos. Assemani in Cal.
Univ. ad 13 Feb. t. 6, p. 145.
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