The Devil is in the Details

I just wanted to respond to the previous post on the Devil appearing as the old gods to Martin.  In addition to what we have already seen by Prudentius in the battle between Christianity and the Roman religion, perhaps the appearance and choice of each individual old god for the Devil was Sulpicius' way of showing how Martin could not be swayed by any form (i.e. the Power of Jupiter, the Seduction of Aphrodite, the (false) wisdom of Minerva).  It would be interesting, though perhaps a bit far-fetched to connect each of these gods with the sort of vices mentioned in Prudentius.  In my opinion, though, the purpose of Devil in including these old gods is the same as what he does later with his depiction of the false Christ: namely, to tempt Martin into following a false religion.  At this point, as Sulpicius had already mentioned, Christianity was being challenged by a number of heresies, most notably the Arrians.   Both Sulpicius and Martin must have viewed these false beliefs perhaps with even more hatred than the Roman religion of old as they functioned as a perversion and distortion of the true Christian belief they held so dear.  Therefore, after exhausting all of his earlier machinations (artibus), the devil plays his trump care, depicting a false (but ideally pleasing) manifestation of Jesus.  Naturally, Martin is undaunted by this and previous appearances and wins out in the end, signifying Orthodox Christianity's victory over first the pagan religions of old and finally, and perhaps more importantly, the blasphemous heretical sects