The poverty embraced by Martin and Paulinus was more liable to appear to them now as a fate to be avoided at all costs than an example to be followed. What they wanted from bishops and holy men was not admonishment on the inherent evil of riches, but something very different: an assurance that wealth might indeed be a gift from God. And this, sure enough, in the various barbarian kingdoms of the West, was precisely what churchmen had come to provide.
