By Fr. George Dorbarakis
This Venerable one was from Caesarea of Palestine. He began his ascetic life at the age of eighteen, living in deserts and mountains. After he had spent twenty-five years in withdrawal together with many others, he received the following temptation from the evil one.
A certain harlot, appearing as a poor woman, arrived at the mountain where the Saint lived. When night fell, she wept with sobs, claiming that she had supposedly lost her way and would become food for wild beasts. Therefore she begged the Venerable one to receive her into his cell so that she might not be devoured by their teeth.
Since it was impossible to leave her outside, he told her to enter, while he himself withdrew into the inner part of the cell. In the morning, seeing the change in her appearance (for she had dressed herself during the night in garments with which she adorned herself), the Venerable one asked who she was and why she had come there.
She answered him shamelessly, “Because of you.” And after maliciously criticizing his ascetic conduct and adding that all the Righteous of the Old Testament had been with women, she invited him to lie with her.
He, slightly disturbed but already having himself under control and obedience, and considering how, if he committed this sin, he could possibly hide from divine grace, rose up before falling into sin.
What then did he do?
He set fire to a large quantity of dry branches and entered into the midst of the flames, admonishing himself and saying: “If you can endure the fire of Gehenna, since you long for shameful pleasure, obey the woman and go with her.”
Thus he burned himself and humbled the uprising of his flesh. The woman, chastened by what she had seen, he sent to a monastery. And he himself, healed by the grace of God from the wounds of the fire, went with the guidance of a ship captain to a small barren island one day’s journey from the mainland. There he remained for ten years, receiving food from the captain.
But again he arose and departed from there, when a young girl who had survived a shipwreck upon a plank arrived near him. The Venerable one pulled the girl ashore, but he himself left from there also, saying that grass and fire cannot exist in harmony.
He was even brought to land upon dolphins.
Afterward he passed through countries and cities, having as his watchword: “Flee, Martinian, lest temptation overtake you” — for thus he resolved to spend the remainder of his life — and he arrived in Athens. As soon as he reached there, he departed to the Lord and was deemed worthy of a glorious burial by the bishop and all the people.
It is also said of the women that the first, who went from the mountain to a monastery and lived there, was deemed worthy to work miracles; while the other remained patiently on the barren island until the end of her life, clothed in men’s garments brought to her by the ship captain.
Venerable Martinian is a classic case of a young man who decided to dedicate himself to the Lord out of love for Him. He too, like a multitude of similar examples, constitutes the vanguard of the Church and sets the mark of the pure course toward Him.
However, it is not possible for one to follow Christ without striving to transcend one’s passions — “the passions are a bronze wall that separates me from God,” according to the well-known saying of the abba of the Gerontikon — that is, without continually exercising force upon the human existence that is susceptible to demonic influences.
The Lord Himself revealed this in an absolute and definitive manner: “The Kingdom of God suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.”
For this reason, from that time the true Christian — the type of whom is the monk dedicated to God — has been defined as a “perpetual violence of nature,” that is, an unceasing exercise of force against the sinful dispositions of man.
A different kind of course — that is, a manner of life without ascetic discipline, whether in the world or outside it — constitutes, according to the Apostle Paul, a disqualified course: it does not lead to Christ: “I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, having preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.”
It is precisely this that Saint Theophanes the Hymnographer emphasizes in the present case of the Venerable Martinian:
“Having become a monk and taken up your cross, O venerable one, you longed to follow Him who for your sake endured willingly the cross and burial, after mortifying the passions of the body” (Ode 1).
Upon the blameworthy human passions — love of pleasure, love of money, and love of glory — which spring from the root of sin, self-love or egoism, the devil also works. The devil does not know precisely, but he suspects, on account of his long experience, which passions particularly afflict us. And these he correspondingly feeds. He casts his bait and catches whatever he can.
Those whom he especially attacks are those dedicated to God — the monks. These he seeks to overthrow (though certainly he does not leave those in the world alone), without realizing, wretched one, that in this way he procures for them crowns of victory. For it is chiefly through temptations and trials that the faithful ascend the ladder of virtues.
“Who taught you to pray?” they once asked a certain holy man.
And he answered quite simply:
“The devil. Through his attacks I was compelled to remain constantly turned toward God and to cry out for His help.”
Through the devil’s assaults — his continual provocations, and especially through the passion of sensual pleasure — the Venerable Martinian was pre-eminently sanctified.
The Evil One supposed that by means of his ancient weapon — the deceitful words of a woman — he would cast down the Saint of God. In other words, what befell the forefather Adam — to disobey God because he was led astray by the words of Eve — the same would also befall Martinian.
But in the case of the Venerable one he was grievously mistaken. The Saint, in a wise manner, avoided the temptation and advanced in holiness.
“With deceitful words of a woman the hostile serpent attacked you, as once he did the Forefather; but by your wise discernment his sophistries were brought to nothing” (Ode 6).
The Venerable one, by the grace of God, indeed overcame temptation. Yet this victory was painful. He threw himself into the visible fire to escape the invisible one — the revulsion of God’s face. And so, our Hymnographer tells us, he became both a judge of himself and a martyr. Without being judged by others, as the other martyrs of our Church were, without anyone casting him into fire, he alone judged himself and condemned himself to the flames. And he emerged victorious and crowned.
“By your own will, you became both a voluntary martyr, a judge, and an accuser of yourself. For because you were inflamed by inappropriate pleasure, you kindled for yourself, Father, a very strong fire and threw yourself into its midst, burning” (Vesperal sticheron).
What was it that enabled him, even under temptation, to prevail? Saint Theophanes explains:
“You eagerly entered the created fire, which is also from God, because you had within your heart the divine fire” (doxastikon of the Vesperal stichera).
However, Venerable Martinian rises before us and before all generations as a model of a prudent and grounded human being. That is to say, the Venerable one did not “gain confidence” from this victory. He did not think that because he triumphed now, he would always triumph later. On the contrary: he “trembled” at the devil’s cunning and wished to leave even the mountain. His retreat to a deserted islet, far from the mainland, was what he believed would bring him deliverance: no woman, no one, could come to tempt him. And he lived there in a manner reminiscent of the thousand days and thousand nights spent on a rock by the modern and beloved Russian saint, Seraphim of Sarov: wholly devoted to God, whether in cold or in heat.
“Your mind was not dulled by the cold, nor was your soul burned by the heat, so as to yield even for a moment, burdening your body. Rather, you endured, keeping in mind the blessedness of the righteous” (Ode 8).
Yet he learned that the evil of the Evil One has no limits. The devil invents everything, always, though of course with the Lord’s permission — let us not forget that the devil is not uncontrolled but also subject to God’s will: he is allowed to act insofar as it serves the pedagogy of man, to tempt the servant of God. And when confronted “out of nowhere” with a new temptation in the form of a shipwrecked maiden, he rises and flees, deciding henceforth to live as a wanderer. How truly grounded he is! How can one trust oneself when still in this world? As the Elder of Athens, the blessed Father Epiphanios Theodoropoulos, said: “The matter of the flesh ends with the matter of the tombstone” — that is, as long as the tombstone has not closed over us, no one can trust their flesh. We see the same in Venerable Martinian and indeed in every other saint. And our Hymnographer emphasizes not only his struggle with the first woman but also with the second.
And how beautifully he is compared to the Prophet Jonah: just as Jonah threw himself into the sea to calm it and a sea creature brought him to shore, so too did Venerable Martinian throw himself into the sea to escape a new temptation, only to reach the shore on sea creatures: the backs of dolphins.
“Guided, Father, by the divine hand, like Jonah you cast yourself into the depths of the sea, O venerable one, using the beasts as your vessel and emerging radiant on the shore” (Ode 7).
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
However, it is not possible for one to follow Christ without striving to transcend one’s passions — “the passions are a bronze wall that separates me from God,” according to the well-known saying of the abba of the Gerontikon — that is, without continually exercising force upon the human existence that is susceptible to demonic influences.
The Lord Himself revealed this in an absolute and definitive manner: “The Kingdom of God suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.”
For this reason, from that time the true Christian — the type of whom is the monk dedicated to God — has been defined as a “perpetual violence of nature,” that is, an unceasing exercise of force against the sinful dispositions of man.
A different kind of course — that is, a manner of life without ascetic discipline, whether in the world or outside it — constitutes, according to the Apostle Paul, a disqualified course: it does not lead to Christ: “I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, having preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.”
It is precisely this that Saint Theophanes the Hymnographer emphasizes in the present case of the Venerable Martinian:
“Having become a monk and taken up your cross, O venerable one, you longed to follow Him who for your sake endured willingly the cross and burial, after mortifying the passions of the body” (Ode 1).
Upon the blameworthy human passions — love of pleasure, love of money, and love of glory — which spring from the root of sin, self-love or egoism, the devil also works. The devil does not know precisely, but he suspects, on account of his long experience, which passions particularly afflict us. And these he correspondingly feeds. He casts his bait and catches whatever he can.
Those whom he especially attacks are those dedicated to God — the monks. These he seeks to overthrow (though certainly he does not leave those in the world alone), without realizing, wretched one, that in this way he procures for them crowns of victory. For it is chiefly through temptations and trials that the faithful ascend the ladder of virtues.
“Who taught you to pray?” they once asked a certain holy man.
And he answered quite simply:
“The devil. Through his attacks I was compelled to remain constantly turned toward God and to cry out for His help.”
Through the devil’s assaults — his continual provocations, and especially through the passion of sensual pleasure — the Venerable Martinian was pre-eminently sanctified.
The Evil One supposed that by means of his ancient weapon — the deceitful words of a woman — he would cast down the Saint of God. In other words, what befell the forefather Adam — to disobey God because he was led astray by the words of Eve — the same would also befall Martinian.
But in the case of the Venerable one he was grievously mistaken. The Saint, in a wise manner, avoided the temptation and advanced in holiness.
“With deceitful words of a woman the hostile serpent attacked you, as once he did the Forefather; but by your wise discernment his sophistries were brought to nothing” (Ode 6).
The Venerable one, by the grace of God, indeed overcame temptation. Yet this victory was painful. He threw himself into the visible fire to escape the invisible one — the revulsion of God’s face. And so, our Hymnographer tells us, he became both a judge of himself and a martyr. Without being judged by others, as the other martyrs of our Church were, without anyone casting him into fire, he alone judged himself and condemned himself to the flames. And he emerged victorious and crowned.
“By your own will, you became both a voluntary martyr, a judge, and an accuser of yourself. For because you were inflamed by inappropriate pleasure, you kindled for yourself, Father, a very strong fire and threw yourself into its midst, burning” (Vesperal sticheron).
What was it that enabled him, even under temptation, to prevail? Saint Theophanes explains:
“You eagerly entered the created fire, which is also from God, because you had within your heart the divine fire” (doxastikon of the Vesperal stichera).
However, Venerable Martinian rises before us and before all generations as a model of a prudent and grounded human being. That is to say, the Venerable one did not “gain confidence” from this victory. He did not think that because he triumphed now, he would always triumph later. On the contrary: he “trembled” at the devil’s cunning and wished to leave even the mountain. His retreat to a deserted islet, far from the mainland, was what he believed would bring him deliverance: no woman, no one, could come to tempt him. And he lived there in a manner reminiscent of the thousand days and thousand nights spent on a rock by the modern and beloved Russian saint, Seraphim of Sarov: wholly devoted to God, whether in cold or in heat.
“Your mind was not dulled by the cold, nor was your soul burned by the heat, so as to yield even for a moment, burdening your body. Rather, you endured, keeping in mind the blessedness of the righteous” (Ode 8).
Yet he learned that the evil of the Evil One has no limits. The devil invents everything, always, though of course with the Lord’s permission — let us not forget that the devil is not uncontrolled but also subject to God’s will: he is allowed to act insofar as it serves the pedagogy of man, to tempt the servant of God. And when confronted “out of nowhere” with a new temptation in the form of a shipwrecked maiden, he rises and flees, deciding henceforth to live as a wanderer. How truly grounded he is! How can one trust oneself when still in this world? As the Elder of Athens, the blessed Father Epiphanios Theodoropoulos, said: “The matter of the flesh ends with the matter of the tombstone” — that is, as long as the tombstone has not closed over us, no one can trust their flesh. We see the same in Venerable Martinian and indeed in every other saint. And our Hymnographer emphasizes not only his struggle with the first woman but also with the second.
And how beautifully he is compared to the Prophet Jonah: just as Jonah threw himself into the sea to calm it and a sea creature brought him to shore, so too did Venerable Martinian throw himself into the sea to escape a new temptation, only to reach the shore on sea creatures: the backs of dolphins.
“Guided, Father, by the divine hand, like Jonah you cast yourself into the depths of the sea, O venerable one, using the beasts as your vessel and emerging radiant on the shore” (Ode 7).
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
