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Peter and Paul, there to be baptized and forever snatched from the gaping maw of everlasting fire and death. Because November 11 was St. Martin’s Day—the feast day of Saint Martin of Tours—the child was given the saint’s name, a common enough practice at that time. But unbeknownst to Luther’s parents, there was a detail of this saint’s life that would one day form an eerie and seemingly prophetic parallel with the career of the newborn that day named for him. Saint Martin lived in the fourth century. He was born in what is today Hungary; grew up in what is today Pavia, Italy; and spent most of his adult life in what is today France, all three of which at that time were within the borders of the Roman Empire. He became a Christian at an early age, despite his father’s disapproval, and was enlisted in the Roman army. One day while in the Gallic provinces—it was in the town of Borbetomagus, in what is today central Germany—the future saint was ordered to participate in a battle. But in the belief that shedding blood was not consonant with his deep Christian convictions, Martin bravely declared, “I am a soldier of Christ. I cannot fight.”1 For this shocking refusal to submit to this duty assigned him, he was imprisoned and charged with cowardice, but he turned this charge on its head by then volunteering to go to the front lines unarmed, because he did not fear for his life, only that he might take the life of another. In the end, the battle did not take place, and he was released from duty, shortly thereafter becoming a monk. The Roman city called Borbetomagus where this Martin took the death-defying stand for his faith that set him on his path of sainthood would in the future become known as the German city of Worms. Thus, eleven centuries from when this first Martin took his Christian stand against the Roman Empire, the second Martin would take his Christian stand against the Holy Roman Empire—in precisely the same place.
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