Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/723

 Florez or by Nicolas Antonio (Bibl. Vat. Bayer's ed. Haase, l.c. xx. 458).

Martin's Translations.—Besides his adaptations of Latin Stoical literature, Martin produced or superintended many translations from the Greek. The chief are (a) the Capitula Martini, a collection of 84 canons, which had great vogue and influence in the middle ages. These "capitula sive canones orientalium antiquorum patrum synodis a venerabili Martino episcopo, vel ab omni Bracarensi synodo excerpti," were incorporated in the earliest form of the Spanish Codex Canonum. With it they passed into the pseudo-Isidorian collection, and so obtained widespread influence. The sources of the collection cannot be all ascertained, they are not exclusively from Greek sources. They are, with some corrections, in Brun's Canones Apostolorum, (Berlin, 1839), ii. 43. (b) Interrogationes et Reponsiones Plurimae, sct. Aegyptiorum Patr., trans. from an unknown Greek source by a deacon Paschasius in the monastery of Dumium, with a preface by Martin, at whose command the work had been undertaken (Rosweyd, Vitae Patrum, lib. vii. p. 505, and Prolegomenon, xiv.; Florez, Esp. Sagr. xv. 433).

Was Martin a Benedictine?—The great Benedictine writers unhesitatingly answer in the affirmative. (So Mabillon, Annales O. S. B. and Bibliothèque générale de l’Ordre de Saint Benoit, ii. 203.) But it is on the whole most probable that Martin adopted one of the various older rules still current in the contemporary monasteries of S. Gaul, with some of which we know him to have had relations. About 100 years later his illustrious successor in the sees of Dumium and Braga, St. Fructuosus, drew up a monastic rule for his monastery of Compludo, which was mainly an abbreviation of the Benedictine rule, but contained also provisions not found in that rule. This is the only piece of historical evidence connecting the Benedictine rule with Visigothic Catholicism. (Migne, Pat. Lat. lxxxvii. 1096; Yepés, Chron. del Ord. de S. Benito, i. for the ultra-Benedictine view. On the general subject of monasticism in Gothic Spain cf. Dahn, Könige der Germanen, vi.)

Martin's Personality.—That Martin played an important and commanding part in his generation all that remains of him suggests. His life appears to have been greatly influenced by the parallel so often drawn by his contemporaries between him and the greater Martin of Tours. We may also regard him to some extent as a piece in a political game. If Martin the missionary, ex Orientis partibus, effected the Suevian conversion, his career is one element in a scheme of European politics which can be traced through the greater part of 6th cent., and in which the destruction of the Suevian kingdom by Leovigild 5 years after Martin's death, and the West Gothic conversion to Catholicism under Reccared, are important incidents. (Gams, Kirchengesch. von Spanien ii. (1) 471.)

[M.A.W.]

Martyrius (3), bp. of Jerusalem, 478–486, a Cappadocian by birth, who had embraced a solitary life in the Nitrian desert. The violent proceedings of Timothy Aelurus drove him and other orthodox monks from Egypt, and he took refuge, 457, together with his fellow-solitary Elias, also subsequently bp. of Jerusalem, in the house of St. Euthymius, who received them with great favour (Cyrill. Scythop. Vit. S. Euthym. cc. 94, 95). After a time Martyrius retired to a cave 2 miles W. of the laura, which became the site of a considerable monastery (ib.). Martyrius and Elias were present at the death and burial of St. Euthymius, A.D. 473, after which Anastasius bp. of Jerusalem ordained them presbyters, attaching them to the church of the Resurrection (ib. cc. 105, 110, 112). Anastasius dying 478, Martyrius succeeded him as bp. of Jerusalem (ib. 113). His church was then rent asunder by the Eutychian Aposchistae, of whom Gerontius was the head. He succeeded in bringing back these schismatic monks to the unity of the church (ib. 123, 124.). Cyrillus Scythopolitanus tells us that he died in the 8th year of his patriarchate, A.D. 486 (Vit. S. Sab. c. 19; Eutych. t. ii. p. 103). Le Quien, ''Or. Christ.'' iii. 171; Tillem. ''Mém. eccl.'' xvi. 332 seq.

[E.V.]

Masona (Massona, Mausona, Mansi, ix. 1000; x. 478), bp. of Merida from c. 571 to c. 606. Except for the de Vita et Miraculis Patrum Emeritensium, a series of Lives attributed to Paulus Diaconus, a supposed writer of the 7th cent. (printed by Florez, Esp. Sagr. xiii., by Aguirre, Coll. Max. Conc. Hisp. ii. 639, and elsewhere), our information concerning Masona is extremely scanty.

Joannes Biclarensis says under A.D. 573, the 5th year of Leovigild, "Masona Emeritensis Ecclesiae Episcopus in nostro dogmate clarus habetur"; and at the third council of Toledo, the famous conversion council of 589, Masona presided, his signature "Ecclesiae Catholicae Emeritensis Metropolitanus Episcopus Provinciae Lusitaniae" being at the head of all the episcopal signatures, and immediately following that of Reccared. Between these two dates 16 years of great importance to the Gothic state had elapsed, comprising the rebellion of Hermenigild and the submission of Reccared to Catholicism. From the notice by Joannes Biclarensis 9 years earlier, it is evident that at the outbreak of the rebellion Masona was one of the most prominent Catholic bishops in S. Spain, and therefore would have considerable influence upon the position assumed by Merida in the contest. In 589 the great aim of the Catholic party was achieved, and the Visigothic state became, at least officially, Catholic. Eight years later a gathering of bishops at Toledo, under the presidency of Masona, passed two canons, one insisting upon the celibacy of bishops, priests, and deacons, the other reserving the endowments of a church for the benefit of its priests and other clerks, as against possible exactions from the bishop. This assembly was perhaps a chance gathering of a number of bishops in the capital, who took the opportunity to formulate rules on two important disciplinary points. If it was a duly summoned national council, the Acts were purposely or accidentally omitted from the original redaction of the Spanish Codex Canonum made within the first 40 years of 7th cent. Our last notice of Masona occurs in a letter, dated Feb. 28, 606, to him from Isidore in answer to an inquiry on a matter of discipline. In 610 his succes-