MARTIN OF BRAGA, St. — Lived c. 515–580, originally from Pannonia and a monk in Palestine. He moved to Galicia, founded a monastery at Dumio, and later became the first bishop of that city, which became a diocesan see in 557 and later a metropolitan see of Braga before 572.
Through his literary activity, MARTIN serves as a link between East and West. The result of his Hellenistic formation—now rare in that era and acquired by him in Palestine—is the translation of 109 (110) sayings of the Fathers of Egypt (*Aegyptiorum Patrum sententiae*). Similarly, a monk of Dumio, Pascasius, under MARTIN’s direction translated another more systematic anthology in 44 chapters under the title *Verba seniorum* or *Interrogationes et responsiones Aegyptiorum Patrum*.
MARTIN may be considered the first Spanish scholar of Seneca. Almost all of his works are largely mosaics of the philosopher’s sayings, though Seneca is never named. At times the names of Seneca and MARTIN have been confused in the manuscript tradition.
The three principal works of MARTIN are: *Formula vitae honestae*, written at the request of King Miro (570–83), which is a compendium of natural ethics based on the four cardinal virtues of Plato: prudence, magnanimity (fortitude), continence (temperance), and justice, and dedicated to laypeople. According to the thesis of Bickel, followed by all, this work preserves the substance of Seneca’s now lost treatise *De officiis*. *De ira*, dedicated to Witimirus, bishop of Orense, is an excerpt from Seneca’s work of the same name. Its content is expressed thus: “I have discussed how to avoid anger, or at least, if that cannot be, how to mitigate it.” The three writings—*Pro repellenda iactantia*, *De superbia*, and *Exhortatio humilitatis*—form a collection of distinctly Christian content inspired by the sayings of Scripture and under the influence of Cassian’s *Institution of Coenobites*. Of a liturgical and canonical nature are: *Capitula Martini*, an anthology of canons from African, Eastern, and Spanish councils; *Epistula ad Bonifacium episcopum de trina mersione*, of interest for the history of baptismal liturgy in Spain; and perhaps also the revised version of the treatise *De pascha*, of uncertain origin, on the method of determining the date of Easter. Another very characteristic opuscule, written at the request of Polemius, bishop of Astorga, as a sermon for the pastoral visits of bishops according to the prescriptions of the Second Council of Braga (572), is *De correctione rusticorum*, in which superstitions and remnants of paganism in the countryside are combated and the pagan names of the days of the week are condemned—corrections still maintained today in the Portuguese language. MARTIN also composed, though belatedly and not very excellently, some poetic writings: *In refectorio*, *In basilica*, and an *Epitaphium* for his own tomb.