ll, he showed to the brothers (of
the convent) the tunic with which he was clothed: it was made of a
stuff of admirable whiteness, shining as purple, and so
extraordinarily fine in texture that they had never seen anything like
it, and could not tell from what substance it was woven.

They passed the rest of the night in singing psalms of thanksgiving,
and in the morning they wished to conduct him to St. Martin. He
resisted as much as he could, saying that he had been expressly
forbidden to appear in his presence. As they were pressing him to
come, the tunic vanished, which led every one present to suppose that
the whole thing was an illusion of the demon.

Another solitary suffered himself to be persuaded that he was Eli;
another that he was St. John the Evangelist. One day, the demon wished
to mislead St. Martin himself, appearing to him, having on a royal
robe, wearing on his head a rich diadem, ornamented with gold and
precious stones, golden sandals, and all the apparel of a great
prince. Addressing himself to Martin, he said to him, "Acknowledge me,
Martin; I am Jesus Christ, who, wishing to descend to earth, have
resolved to manifest myself to thee first of all." St. Martin remained
silent at first, fearing some snare; and the phantom having repeated
to him that he was the Christ, Martin replied: "My Lord Jesus Christ
did not say that he should come clothed in purple and decked with
diamonds. I shall not acknowledge him unless he appears in that same
form in which he suffered death, and unless I see the marks of his
cross and passion."

At these words the demon disappeared; and Sulpicius Severus affirms
that he relates this as he heard it from the mouth of St. Martin
himself. A little before this, he says that Satan showed himself to
him sometimes under the form of Jupiter, or Mercury, or Venus, or
Minerva; and sometimes he was to reproach Martin greatly because, by
baptism, he had converted and regenerated so many great sinners. But
the saint despised him, drove him away by the sign of the cross, and
answered him that baptism and repentance effaced all sins in those who
were sincere converts.

All this proves the malice, envy, and fraud of the devil against the
saints, on the one side; and on the other, the weakness and
uselessness of his efforts against the true servants of God, and that
it is but too true he often appears in a visible form.

In the histories of the saints we sometimes see that he hides h