HISTORY 
 
THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
 
 OF 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN GAUL 
 
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO 
 ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
The Origin & Development 
 
 of the 
 
 Christian Church in Gaul 
 
 during the 
 First Six Centuries of the Christian Era 
 
 BEING 
 
 THE BIRKBECK LECTURES FOR 1907 AND 1908 
 IN TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 
 
 BY 
 
 T. SCOTT HOLMES, D.D. 
 
 SIDNEY SUSSEX COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 
 
 CHANCELLOR AND CANON RESIDENTIARY OF THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF WELLS 
 AND EXAMINING CHAPLAIN TO THE BISHOP OF BATH AND WELLS 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 
 
 1911 
 
Main Kb. 
 HISTORK I 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE present work is the result of the author's study of 
 the origin and settlement of the Church in England, 
 and of his desire to come to some reliable conclusions 
 as to the condition of the Church in Britain before the 
 English invasion. For everything, in the civilised 
 world of the Roman Empire, Gaul was the threshold of 
 Britain, and it is impossible to come to any conclusions 
 as to what may, or may not, have been in this island 
 until we know all we can know of what really had 
 occurred, and was, in Gaul. When, therefore, the 
 Master and Fellows of Trinity College in 1906 
 appointed the author Birkbeck Lecturer in Ecclesiastical 
 History the subject he chose for his courses of lectures 
 was that of the origin of the Church in Gaul, and the 
 acceptance of this subject by the Divinity Faculty at 
 Cambridge as the theses for the B.D. and D.D. degrees 
 gave him a yet further stimulus in pursuit of a strictly 
 historical inquiry as to the early settlement of the 
 Church in the great province of Gaul. 
 
 In one sense the work has some claim to originality. 
 The subject has never been taken up on such serious 
 lines of historical criticism by any English writer. The 
 German writers are often out of sympathy with Church 
 
 256968 
 
vi BIRKBECK LECTURES 
 
 organisation, and confine their attention to the founda- 
 tions of that Teutonic society on which their own 
 great Empire has been built, and some of them with the 
 majority of French writers are cramped and restrained 
 by their desire to accommodate their investigations to 
 the exigencies of modern Papal claims. To all these 
 Papal claims the author has endeavoured to give a very 
 sympathetic attention. They were all based on some 
 fact or other, and he has endeavoured to show that on 
 which they really were based. The Donation of Con- 
 stantine was something more serious and far-reaching 
 in its influence than the mere gift of estates in Italy, 
 and the patronage of the Empire, which the Church 
 accepted from her first Christian emperor, was not an 
 unmixed good. Strict historical criticism tends to be 
 destructive of many a beloved legend, but it is hoped 
 that in the present work such legends have not been 
 dealt with in an unsympathetic manner. The legend 
 has nearly always an historic origin of quite respectable 
 antiquity, and often is the Christian interpretation of 
 beliefs and superstitions of unknown antiquity, and to 
 show when first that legend arose is not to brush it 
 away, except so far as it endeavours to explain the 
 origin of that which existed long before it came into 
 existence. L'Abbe Duchesne, in his Pastes efiscopaux 
 de Vancienne Gaut, has shown in no unmistakable manner 
 that the idea of an organised Church in Gaul in the 
 early centuries of the Christian era has no historic 
 basis. The revolutions within the Empire, the in- 
 vasions of barbaric tribes, the ravages created and 
 often repeated by heathen nations, show conclusively 
 that an organised Christian hierarchy could not have 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 been existent. The Church was for long merely a 
 missionary effort. We know certain facts concerning 
 it, and 1'Abbe P. Allard has shown us that these facts 
 are not so isolated as we might at first imagine. The 
 process, however, by which we link these items of 
 historic evidence into a connected narrative is a process 
 which allows of no bias in favour of any preconceived 
 theory, if indeed that narrative is to be accepted as a 
 reliable record of the foundation of the Church in Gaul, 
 and such a process the author has endeavoured to 
 accomplish. In complete sympathy with the episcopal 
 organisation of the Catholic Church, and recognising 
 the enormous debt which Western Christendom owed to 
 the Western Apostolic See, he has endeavoured to show 
 the effect of organisation which began in the fourth 
 century, and which was renewed and carried on again 
 in the sixth century, and to bring into prominence the 
 grandeur of those apostolic labours of men like Hilary, 
 Martin, Victricius, and others, whose missionary zeal 
 and devotion to their country resulted in the conversion 
 of the whole province. Nor must the work of the 
 Church in the sixth century be passed over as adequately 
 described by Gregory of Tours in his tales of drunken- 
 ness and strife. The work of the Councils held in Gaul 
 in this century tells a different story, and to arrive at 
 the truth we must estimate at its full value this united 
 work of Gallican bishops and Prankish monarchs. 
 The ages that were to follow needed a strong founda- 
 tion if they were not to slip back into heathenism, and 
 such was the foundation which was laid. 
 
 The author is reluctant to mention other names in 
 reference to a work on which indeed he has spent very 
 
Vlll 
 
 BIRKBECK LECTURES 
 
 much labour, but which, nevertheless, comes far short 
 of his desire. To omit to mention them, however, 
 would seem to suggest a lack of gratitude. Throughout 
 his labours he has been constantly cheered by the kind 
 encouragement of his friends the Regius Professor of 
 Divinity, Dr. Swete, and Professor Burkitt, and in the 
 work of revision he is grateful for the help given him 
 by his friend and colleague in the greater chapter of 
 Wells, Prebendary Yorke Fausset. 
 
 THE LIBERTY, WELLS. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The problem of the conversion of Gaul to Christianity, complicated by 
 the existence of a strong group of legends The people of Gaul 
 Political history of Gaul Druidism Lyons and its Diet Trier and 
 Aries Effect of Council of Constance Legend of St. Joseph of 
 Arimathea Legend of St. Dionysius Legends of the family of 
 Bethany The Burgundian legends of Vezelay The Province legends 
 of St. Maximin Tarascon and Marseilles Historical evidence as to 
 the introduction of Christianity ..... Page i 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The founding of the Church in Lyons The story of the persecution of 
 the Christians of Lyons and Vienne Its outbreak and the passion 
 of the martyrs Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons Was he a martyr ? The 
 fugitives from Lyons St. Symphorian Martyrs at Valence, Dijon, 
 and Besan9on Evidence of organised missionary work . Page 34 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 The story of the mission of the seven bishops The evidence of Gregory 
 of Tours considered The corroboration of the early life of St. 
 Saturninus St. Gatian of Tours St. Martial St. Trophimus St. 
 Paul of Narbonne St. Dionysius of Paris Could these men have 
 been sent by St. Fabian of Rome ? Why was the mission lost 
 sight of ? The revolutions in Gaul in the third century Gallican 
 martyrs of the Decian, Valerian, and Aurelian persecutions Page 57 
 
 ix 
 
BIRKBECK LECTURES 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The last persecution in regard to Gaul The efforts of Maximian to reform 
 the army His severity to the Bagaudae His cruelty to the Christians 
 as men of doubtful loyalty The story of St. Maurice and the Thebaid 
 legion St. Victor of Marseilles St. Genesius of Aries Sts. Julian 
 and Ferreolus of Vienne The martyrs of Nantes The Edict for a 
 general persecution The Edict of toleration issued by Galerius The 
 Edict of toleration of Constantine and Licinius . . Page 82 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 What did the Edict of Constantine really mean ? The faith of Constan- 
 tine The Donatist schism and the Emperor's action The ist 
 
 > Council of Aries Its evidence of Church organisation in Gaul Con- 
 sideration of the extent and completeness of this work in regard to the 
 political strife in Gaul from A.D. 250 to A.D. 360 The Edicts of 
 Constantine in relief and in favour of the Christians Gaul and the 
 Arian controversy The exile of St. Athanasius to Trier The zeal of 
 Constantius for Arianism The conflict between the sons of Constan- 
 tine The revolt and defeat of Magnentius . . . Page no 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Constantius supports Arianism in Gaul and opposes St. Athanasius The 
 Emperor at Aries and Milan The Councils of Aries and Milan St. 
 Hilary of Poitiers His early life His letter to Constantius Council 
 of Beziers Exile of Hilary Phoebadius of Agen The writings of 
 Hilary, De Trinitate, De synodis, addressed to the Galilean bishops 
 Letter to his daughter Abra Hilary as a hymn-writer The 
 supporters of orthodoxy in Gaul during the absence of Hilary His 
 second appeal to Constantius The revolt of the Caesar Julian 
 Hilary's denunciation of Constantius A council at Paris Return of 
 Hilary to Poitiers His expulsion from Milan His diocesan work 
 and his death ......... Page 143 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 The early story of St. Martin of Tours His appearance at Poitiers His 
 experiences and release from the army Consideration of the chrono- 
 logy of his life His adventures in the Alps His settlement at 
 
CONTENTS xi 
 
 Gallinaria Foundation of monastery at Liguge Elected bishop of 
 Tours His work at Marmoutier Goes to see Valentinian at Trier 
 Goes again to Trier to plead for Priscillian before Maximus Return 
 to Trier to take part in the consecration of Felix as bishop His 
 missionary labours in central Gaul The stories concerning him 
 preserved by Sulpicius Severus Their evidence as to the prevalence of 
 heathenism Death of St. Martin ..... Page 1 84 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Priscillian and his connection with Gaul Literature concerning him 
 The narrative of Sulpicius The movement towards asceticism 
 Priscillian adopts and popularises the movement in Spain His 
 writings De fide Council of Zaragossa The apology of Priscillian 
 1 The events consequent on the Council Edict of Gratian against 
 Priscillian He appeals in vain to Damasus of Rome and Ambrose of 
 Milan Appeal to Gratian and reinstitution of Priscillian and his 
 colleagues His accusers flee to Gaul Revolt of Maximus Council 
 of Bordeaux Condemnation of Instantius Appeal of Priscillian to 
 Maximus and departure to Trier His execution at Trier Page 217 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 The developments of the case against the Priscillianists The Tractates 
 of Priscillian Their vague and extravagant language Are they 
 definitely heterodox ? Maximus claims to be the defender of the Faith 
 The consecration of Felix and its consequences The deposition of 
 the original accusers of Priscillian Council of Nimes and its canons 
 Efforts of St. Ambrose to bring back the followers of Priscillian to the 
 Church The reconciliation at the Council of Toledo . Page 252 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 St. Hilary and St. Martin founders of monasticism in Gaul Liguge and 
 Marmoutier Paulinus and Sulpicius, and their advocacy of asceticism 
 The cult of St. Martin at Primuliac St. Honoratus at Lerins 
 Description of the two islands of Lero and Lerins St. Eucherius 
 recluse and archbishop Monastic code of Honoratus and Caesarius 
 of Aries St. Victor's monastery at Marseilles The work of Cassian 
 His Institutes and his Conferences General spread of monasticism 
 on the recovery of the Church from the invasions of the fifth century 
 
 Page 274 
 
xii BIRKBECK LECTURES 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Gaul in the whirlpool of invasion The devastations of the Vandals and 
 Alans Evidence of the ruin they created The revolt of the tyrant 
 Constantine The arrival of the Visigoths from Italy The kingdom 
 of Gothia The establishment of Wallia in Aquitaine The invasion 
 and repulse of the Huns under Attila The Burgundians in the east 
 of Gaul The relation of the Visigoths and Burgundians to the 
 imperial authorities The struggles of the Gallo-Roman noblemen 
 and their persecution The rise of the Prankish power Chlodovech 
 defeats and makes subject the Burgundians The siege of Vienne and 
 death of Godegisel Chlodovech attacks the Visigoths Battle of 
 Vougle and end of Visigothic power in Gaul . . . Page 301 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 The Papal see The origin of the conversion of Gaul The Bishop of Rome 
 the agent of the Emperor Rome becomes appeal Court of Western 
 Christendom by edict of emperors The influence of Rome as the 
 apostolic see of Western Europe The Popes consulted and advise 
 bishops Exuperius and Victricius The position of Victricius in the 
 evangelisation of Northern Gaul The Bishops of Rome help in the 
 organisation of the Church in Gaul Their opposition to any local 
 initiative The contentions of the churches at Vienne and Aries 
 The fortunes of Aries and its bishops under the jealousy of the Roman 
 bishops The spiritual influence of Gregory the Great under the 
 Merovingian dynasty Page 339 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 The calamities suffered by Gallican Christians influence their religious 
 views The evidence of Prosper of Aquitaine and Salvian of Trier 
 Marseilles the refuge of Gallican Christianity The efforts of St. 
 Augustine Prosper and Salvian to answer the taunts of dying 
 heathenism St. Augustine's tracts against Pelagianism give trouble 
 in Gaul Prosper discovers latent Pelagianism in Church in south 
 Gaul His opposition to Cassian and activity against semi-Pelagianism 
 His appeals to St. Augustine and Coelestius, bishop of Rome The 
 later fortunes of semi-Pelagianism The orthodoxy of Faustus of 
 Riez and Caesarius of Aries Page 379 
 
CONTENTS xiii 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Sidonius Apollinaris and the churchmen in Gaul who are not monastic 
 His early life His rise in connection with the Emperor Avit^is His 
 experiences under Majorian and Anthemius His life in Auvergne 
 and his tour in Aquitaine Becomes bishop of Clermont His corre- 
 spondence with bishops in Gaul His zeal in the organisation of the 
 Church His efforts to promote education and his patronage of 
 monasticism Page 409 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 St. Hilary of Aries His zeal for monasticism in Lerins, Montmajeur, and 
 Aries Succeeds Honoratus as archbishop of Aries, and his efforts to 
 promote the organisation of the Church in Gaul under the presidency 
 of Aries His conflict with Leo of Rome, who regards him as too in- 
 dependent The Edict of Valentinian and the submission and death of 
 Hilary St. Germauus of Auxerre and his friendship with Amator 
 His consecration as bishop of Auxerre His two missions to Britain 
 His work as the founder of the province of Sens His mission on 
 behalf of the rebellious Armenians to Ravenna and death there St. 
 Lupus of Troyes His monastic fervour Bishop of Troyes His 
 experiences with and influence over Attila His labours in diocese 
 His mission to Britain His friendship with Sidonius and his death 
 St. Mamertus of Vienna His strife with Rome His difficulties 
 with Gundiok, the Burgundian king His institution of Rogations 
 His death St. Caesarius of Aries His monastic zeal His love of 
 the poor and influence as a preacher His experiences during the siege 
 of Aries and his three arrests Proves his orthodoxy against the sus- 
 picion of semi-Pelagianism His conciliar activity His writings and 
 his efforts to organise monasticism for men and women His death 
 
 Page 45 z 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 The Gallican Church to be judged by its councils in the sixth century and 
 not by the scandals mentioned by Gregory of Tours Account of 
 these councils The changed condition of their assembly due to the 
 Prankish monarchs taking the place of the Roman emperors The 
 councils in relation to Church discipline, to endowments, to public 
 worship, to monasticism, to the Jews, to the heathen, and to heretics 
 
 Page 511 
 
xiv BIRKBECK LECTURES 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 St. Columbanus and his early life in Leinster Begs a settlement of Sigibert 
 of Austrasia and goes to Anagrates His monastic foundations at 
 Anagrates, Luxeuil, and Fontaines His irregular position and inde- 
 pendence towards the Church in France His monastic rules His 
 violence and quarrel with Brunichildis His rudeness to Theodoric 
 His arrest and imprisonment at Besan9on Escape and second arrest 
 and exile His escape at Nantes and return to Neustria, and departure 
 for Bregenz and to Agilulf, the Lombard king His foundation at 
 Bobbio and death there ....... Page 540 
 
 DESCENT OF THE EARLY MEROVINGIAN KINGS . . . Page 569 
 INDEX Page 571 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 WHEN the first disciples of our Lord were driven from 
 Jerusalem by the persecution in which St. Stephen 
 suffered martyrdom, they found much in the conditions 
 of the age to help them in their missionary efforts. 
 The world as known to them consisted of one great 
 empire, and when Christians in subsequent ages looked 
 back to mark those things which had helped to forward 
 the advancement of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, the 
 fact that out of many kingdoms there had come into 
 existence, just before the time when the mission work 
 of the Church should begin, the vast and all embracing 
 Empire of Rome seemed to them a clear proof of the 
 providential ordering of God. 1 Not only was this the 
 case, but the Roman Empire was also then in the first 
 flush of its new all-welding organisation. Centralisation 
 had reached its highest state, and Rome was, in fact as 
 well as in name, the very heart of the world. 2 On all 
 sides, and now for nearly a hundred years, the Roman 
 legionaries and the races they had subjected had been 
 binding the empire together by a network of almost 
 imperishable roads, and from the remotest limits of 
 
 1 Cf. Origen, contra Cehum, ii. 30. 
 
 2 Cf. Merivale's Hist, of the Romans under the Empire, vol. iv. cap. xxxix.; and 
 Gibbon cap. ii. The Brei/iarium Imperil tended to prove the saying that Augustus 
 was "paterfamilias totius imperil," also Sir W. Ramsay's Sf. Paul, the Traveller and 
 the Roman Citizen, p. 346 " all movements of thought throughout the Empire acted 
 with marvellous rapidity on Rome, the heart of the vast and complicated organism." 
 
 B 
 
2 B1RKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 imperial rule great arterial highways led on the 
 travellers by easy stages to Rome. No great event in 
 the provinces could happen but it would soon be 
 reported at the capital, and the common talk of Rome 
 was the news in which the provincials delighted. Nor 
 could Rome be easily passed over when distant provinces 
 held intercourse with each other. So real was the 
 centralisation that Rome was the natural link between 
 East and West. All we know of those times emphasises 
 the position of Rome. Nothing of importance could 
 be decided without sanction from the capital. Every 
 one was attracted to it, and thence emanated all 
 authority both civil and military. In the present 
 chapter we propose to consider the condition of Gaul 
 during the first century of the Christian era. The task 
 is necessary in order that we may gain an adequate 
 and correct idea as to the way in which the Christian 
 Church was founded there. This enquiry, moreover, 
 is the more important because a group of legends rose 
 into general acceptance in France in the tenth and 
 eleventh centuries, which claim to give us a very 
 definite but, as we hope to show, very unhistorical 
 story of the way the Gospel was brought to Gaul. It 
 will be our duty, therefore, to place these legends before 
 the reader, and examine carefully their historic character ; 
 for when we take into consideration the condition of 
 Gaul in the first century of the Christian era, we shall 
 perceive that these legends bear their own condemnation. 
 Their historic improbability will appear to us to be in- 
 surmountable. Yet they exist, and, unfortunately, have 
 found many advocates. In mediaeval times, and until 
 the seventeenth century, 1 they were almost universally 
 accepted as affording the correct narrative of the con- 
 version of Gaul. We cannot therefore ignore them. 
 They must either form the foundation of our narrative, 
 
 1 In 1641 Jean de Launoy published in Paris his Disurtatio de comment} tio 
 Lazari et Maximini y Magdalenae et Marthae in Pro-uinciam appuhiL, in which he attacked 
 the traditions concerning St. Maximin and the family of Bethany, and, except by 
 Provencals, he was regarded as having demolished their credibility. 
 
INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 or we must consider and put them aside, and make our 
 way down to the bed-rock of historic fact. At the 
 outset of our enquiry they are a disturbing element. 
 They colour the age with an attractive halo which, we 
 shall find, does not belong to it. They do not fit into 
 those conditions which we are bound, on reliable 
 historic grounds, to regard as existent. It will be our 
 duty then to enquire carefully how these ideas as to the 
 origin of Christianity in Gaul arose, on what authority 
 these legends rest, and what weight, if any, can be 
 attached to them. When we have examined them and 
 sifted their evidence, then, but not till then, we shall be 
 able to decide whether or not we can put them aside. 
 
 This critical enquiry, however, demands as its founda- 
 tion a knowledge of the condition of the provinces of 
 Gaul during the first three centuries of the Christian 
 era, and this we must at once briefly place before the 
 reader. 
 
 From the shores of the Mediterranean there are two The trade 
 natural highways into the interior of Gaul. The valley 
 of the Rhone leads the traveller northward until he 
 meets with the valley of the Sa6ne, and then he is led 
 on yet farther north into the open country watered by 
 the Marne, the Seine, and the Meuse. Farther west, 
 and near to the city of Narbonne, the valley of the 
 Aude forms a break in the long mountain chain which 
 from Auvergne runs south-west towards the Pyrenees 
 and leads us on until we meet at Toulouse with the 
 Garonne, which carries us on to Bordeaux and the 
 Atlantic Ocean. Between these two highways all other 
 access to the interior was blocked by the range of the 
 Cevennes, a range of lofty hills which, with its north- 
 eastern extension, stretched from Lyons to the spurs of 
 the Pyrenees. Then to the east of the Rhone valley 
 rise the Higher, Lower, and Maritime Alps which cut 
 off Gaul from Italy, while to the south-west of the 
 Aube the Pyrenees form an effectual barrier between 
 Gaul and Spain. North of the Cevennes is the great 
 
4 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 central plateau of Gaul, extending from Lyons to 
 Toulouse and from Bourges to Bordeaux, a district 
 deeply graven by the valleys of the Lot, the Vzere, 
 and the Dordogne. To the north-east of this district, 
 and north of the Sa6ne, lies the mountainous district of 
 the C6te d'Or and the Morvan range, the home of the 
 Aedui and the Arverni, the stoutest foes with whom 
 Caesar had to contend. Then, yet eastward of the 
 Sa6ne, rise the Jura mountains, blocking the way to any 
 traveller who may have marched up the Rhone valley 
 towards Geneva. 
 
 A traveller, therefore, entering Gaul from the south, 
 was compelled, by several mountainous regions and a 
 high tableland, to keep to one or other of these two 
 routes we have mentioned. The wide and more open 
 districts of the north could only be reached by these 
 two valleys, and the geographical divisions which these 
 rivers and mountains created could not be ignored. 
 The people The character of the people also varied very much, 
 of Gaui. an( j jf t k e p ax Romana which Augustus proclaimed had 
 put an end to tribal strife, it had not as yet welded the 
 various races into one nation. Three distinct waves of 
 immigration, that in prehistoric times had come from 
 the distant east, were in possession of the land, and 
 Julius Caesar's division of the country into Gallia 
 Belgica, Gallia Celtica, and Aquitania represents with 
 tolerable accuracy the districts settled in by these three 
 branches of the human race. In the south-west corner, 
 called by Julius Caesar Aquitania, and which afterwards 
 was known as Novempopulania, the land bounded by 
 the Garonne, the Ocean, and the Pyrenees, and also in 
 the valleys l that run down from the Graian Alps to the 
 valley of the Durance and the Mediterranean littoral, 
 were to be found the earliest settlers in prehistoric 
 times, the Iberians, men who were not of the great 
 Aryan family, and whose language and habits were 
 
 1 Walckenaer's Geographic ancienne historique et compare'e des Gaules, 1839, i. 4. 36. 
 and 50 j and also Jubainville's Les Premiers Habitants de F Europe, 1889. 
 
i INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 distinct from those of the tribes who surrounded them. 
 In the great central plateau of Gaul, from the Garonne 
 to the upper waters of the Loire, the Seine, the Marne, 
 and the Sa6ne, was settled the earlier of the two 
 branches 1 of the Celtic family, the people who in 
 Britain were known as the Goidels, and with whom, as 
 their religion, Druidism largely prevailed. Then, to the 
 north-east of these, came the later Celtic family, the 
 Belgae, and other allied tribes ; and when the Romans 
 arrived on the scene and imposed an end to internecine 
 war, these were even then pushing the Goidels westward 
 and southward. Farther off east ward, and on both sides 
 of the Rhine, were warlike Teutonic tribes, known as the 
 Germani, who were themselves pressed on by peoples 
 yet farther east, and who were therefore watching for 
 opportunities to conquer and settle in the fertile plains 
 of Gaul. 
 
 On the shore of the Mediterranean was the great Political 
 commercial town of Marseilles, which had been occu- 
 pied by Phokeans and Greeks for at least five centuries 
 before the Christian era. This Greek colony 2 does not 
 seem to have exerted much influence on the interior. 
 Daughter settlements from Marseilles were founded 
 on the coasts of the Mediterranean and its immediate 
 neighbourhood, but it cannot be said that the Greeks 
 had made any advance over the Cevennes, or had 
 extended their influence beyond Geneva. 
 
 Spain had become a Roman province in 205 B.C., 3 
 but up to that time the Republic had made no settle- 
 ment in Gaul. In the year 126 B.C. the Massilians 4 
 were pressed hard by the Saluvians, an Iberic tribe 
 that inhabited the mountain range on the right bank 
 of the Durance, and when the Massilians appealed for 
 
 1 Cf. Rice Holmes' Caesar's Conquest of Gaul, 1899, i. I. 
 
 2 Cf. Castanier's Origines historiques de Marseille et de la Provence j and generally 
 Lentheric, La Grece et F Orient en Provence. 
 
 3 Livy, Hist, xxviii. 12. 
 
 4 Livy, Epit. Ixi. and Ixii. j Florus, iii. 2 " primi trans Alpes arma nostra sensere 
 Salyi " j Polyb. xxxiii. j. 8 j Orosius, v. 14. 
 
6 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 help to the Republic, the colony of Aix, Aquae Sextiae, 1 
 was founded in 125 B.C. by the pro-consul C. Sextius, 
 at once a defence for Massilia and a check on its 
 further influence on the interior. The policy begun at 
 this time never ceased until Gaul became part of the 
 Roman Empire. Further fighting with the adjacent 
 tribes of the Allobroges on the banks of the Isere led 
 in 121 B.C. to the creation of the Provincia, 2 the 
 district comprised between the Durance and the Medi- 
 terranean. Then, two years afterwards, the foundation 
 by Q. Marcius Rex of the Roman colony of Narbo, 
 among tribes that were probably largely Phokean in 
 origin, checked all further influence from Massilia in 
 the direction of the Aube valley ; and in 118 B.C. the 
 second Roman province of Gaul, Gallia Narbonensis, 3 
 was created, and comprised the district between the 
 sea and the Cevennes, the Rhone and the Pyrenees. 
 This province was a connecting link between Hispania 
 and Gallia Cisalpina, a mere strip of country on the 
 borders of the Mediterranean, and Gallia Narbonensis 
 remained as such until the conquests of Julius Caesar 
 allowed of its extension up the valley of the Rhone and 
 as far as the city of Geneva. 
 
 The campaigns of Julius Caesar were waged during 
 the years 58-51 B.C., and when they ceased all Gaul was 
 subject to the Republic, and had been divided into 
 Aquitaine or Gallia Comata, the district between the 
 Pyrenees and the Garonne ; Gallia Celtica, the central 
 part between the Garonne and the Marne and the Seine ; 
 and Gallia Belgica, from the Sa6ne and the Seine, north- 
 east as far as the lower Rhine. The town of Vienne 
 had been founded as an outpost from Aix, when the 
 province of Narbonensis was established in 12 1 B.C. 4 
 
 1 Diod. Siculus xxxiv. j Solini Collect, ii. 53-54. 
 
 2 Amm. Marc. xv. 12 5 Livy, Eplt. xlvii. and Ix. 
 
 3 Amm. Marc. xv. 1 1 j Pomp. Mela, ii. cap. 5 j Livy, Epit. Ixiii. j Pliny, Hist. 
 Nat. iii. 4. 
 
 4 Ptolemy, ii. cap. 5 j Strabo, iv. pp. 128, 129, edition 1587 ; Tacitus, Ann. ii. 24 ; 
 cf. Ausonius, De claris Urbibus, p. 148 (Peiper's edition) " ornatissima colonia valentissi- 
 maque Viennensium." 
 
i INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 It had been the capital of the Allobroges, and was 
 doubtless occupied by the Roman legionaries when that 
 tribe had been effectually subdued. Lyons was created 
 in 43 B.C. by Numatius Plancus, 1 and it is said with 
 soldiers driven out from Vienne by the conflicts of the 
 Caesar and Pompey factions which raged there at that 
 time. At first the city of Lyons was on the site of the 
 old Celtic stronghold on the right bank of the Sa6ne, on 
 the side of the hill known afterwards as the hill of 
 Fourviere, opposite the place of junction of the waters 
 of the Saone and Rhone. It soon, however, extended 
 across to the tongue of land between these two rivers, 
 and finally crossed the Rhone and stretched itself along 
 the left bank. This position, at the junction of these 
 two waterways, assured the growth of the city, and it soon 
 became the centre of the Roman power in Gaul " qui 
 locus est exordium Galliarum," wrote Ammianus Mar- 
 cellinus 2 in the fourth century. Augustus Octavianus 3 
 spent most of the years 15-12 B.C. in Gaul, and lived 
 chiefly at Lyons. To him was due the change in 
 the titles and also in the boundaries of the divisions 
 of Gaul. Aquitaine was now extended beyond the 
 Garonne and as far as the valley of the Loire, com- 
 prising the high tableland and mountainous district 
 north of the Cevennes, and including Auvergne. 
 Gallia Celtica was bounded by the Sa6ne, the Loire, 
 Lyons, and the Ocean; and Gallia Belgica lay between 
 the Rhone, the Sa6ne, and the Rhine. Then between 
 the years 20-12 B.C. Augustus and the indefatigable 
 Agrippa marked out and made the great roads which 
 from Lyons ran in all directions. 4 Westward across 
 the Cevennes and southern Auvergne to the Ocean and 
 Bordeaux, northward past Autun towards Paris, the 
 Somme, and the English Channel, and north-eastwards 
 
 1 Dion Cass. xlvi. 50 j Strabo, iv. 3 and 6. 
 
 2 Amm. Marc. xv. n. 17. 
 
 3 Suetonius, Oct. xxi. ; Dion Cass. liv. 36 ; cf. Walckenaer, ii. 310. 
 
 4 Strabo, iv. 6. 
 
8 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 through the future provinces of Germaniae prima and 
 secunda to the Rhine, Mainz, and Coin. 
 
 In A.D. 12 a great step was taken for the unification 
 of Gaul in the creation of a Diet for the three Gauls 
 or divisions of Gaul, the delegates to which were to 
 meet yearly at Lyons. 1 These delegates were to be 
 summoned from every town of Gaul, and were to 
 assemble on the ist of August ; and an altar was erected 
 here to Rome and the Genius of Augustus, and solemnly 
 consecrated this year by Drusus as the symbol of the 
 power of the Empire. It is said that at first sixty cities 2 
 in Gaul sent representatives. It was essentially a Diet 
 of the Gallic tribes. A priest was yearly to be chosen 
 by these delegates to perform sacred rites in the name 
 of Gaul, and this ceremony was at once indicative of 
 their subjection and destructive of their ancient religion. 
 The Diet seems to have had no executive power. It 
 was of the nature of a grand jury at our quarter 
 sessions and assizes. It could petition the emperor 
 through the legate or praefect at Lyons, and it could 
 draw attention to the cruelty or illegality of procurators 
 and other subordinate officials. The priest who acted 
 as president of this Diet was the mouthpiece of the con- 
 federate races, and the first to hold this office was C. 
 Julius Vercundar Dubius, an Aeduan. 3 
 
 As far as we have any evidence, and our evidence is 
 painfully little, the religion of Gaul was Druidism. 
 This form of worship prevailed from the Gironde to 
 the Marne and Sa6ne, and its chief centres and strong- 
 holds were at Dreux, Chartres, and Autun. Augustus 
 and Tiberius 4 had proscribed it, and Claudius 5 had 
 decreed its abolition. It existed, however, very largely 
 in this central district, and even at the end of the fourth 
 century it still prevailed in the districts which witnessed 
 
 1 Strabo, iv. 3 ; Dion Cass. liv. 32. 
 
 a Strabo j cf. also Hirschfeld, Aquitanien in der Romerxeit, p. 13. 
 
 3 Livy, Epit. cxxxvii. 
 
 4 Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxx. 4 ; Strabo, iv. 4, p. 198. 
 
 5 Suetonius, C/audius, xxv. j Pomp. Mela, iii. 2. 
 
i INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 the missionary efforts of St. Martin. 1 In the smaller 
 and earlier Aquitaine, which the emperor Trajan seems 
 again to have created into a separate and independent 
 province under the name of Novempopulania, and of 
 which Elusa became the capital, there are few, if any, 
 monuments of Druidism. 2 The traces of heathen 
 worship that have been discovered in that corner of the 
 land belong to the little-known religious rites of the 
 Iberic tribes. 
 
 Lyons was not only the place of meeting of the Lyons. 
 Gallican Diet, but was also the permanent residence of 
 the Roman governor, who was called at first the legate 
 and in later times the prefect. In A.D. 2i, 8 at the 
 time of the revolt of Florus and Sacrovir, i.e., at a time 
 when many of the cities of the central part of Gaul were 
 in the disturbed area, there were seventeen cities in 
 Aquitaine which sent delegates to the Diet, twenty-five 
 in Gallia Celtica, which was now becoming known as 
 Gallia Lugdunensis, and twenty-two in Gallia Belgica. 
 
 Under the policy of successive emperors the city of 
 Lyons had drawn to itself all the precedence which the 
 town of Vienne had formerly enjoyed, as well as all 
 the commercial prosperity, which in earlier days had 
 belonged to the city of Marseilles. Indeed Marseilles 
 had begun to suffer when the Romans founded the 
 colony of Narbo. 4 Its subject towns on the coast and in 
 the near interior were taken from it, the district over 
 which it had exercised rule was continuously being 
 reduced in size, and its commerce was deliberately 
 diverted to its rival on the west. Under Marcus 
 Aurelius the Massaliotes 5 gave up their ancient con- 
 stitution and became similar in municipal organisation 
 to the neighbouring cities. By that time, however, 
 Marseilles had lost all its former importance. The 
 
 1 Cf. Chapter VII. of this work. 
 
 2 Oihenart's Notitia utriusque Vasconiae, pp. 446, 448. 
 
 3 Tacitus, Ann. iii. 44. 
 
 4 Orosius, v. 14 j Livy, Epit. Ixiii. 
 
 6 Cf. Lavisse, Histoire de France, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 210. 
 
io BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 foundation by the Emperor Tiberius, A.D. 17 of the port 
 and town of Aries 1 for commercial purposes was, and 
 was intended to be the deathblow to the ancient 
 grandeur of Marseilles. From that time onward the 
 port for Lyons and Gaul generally was not Marseilles 
 or Narbonne, but Aries, and the road from Aries, which 
 led through Orange, Valence, and Vienne to Lyons, 
 was crowded with the traffic and the merchandise which 
 the capital of Gaul required. 
 
 For three centuries Lyons retained almost un- 
 diminished the influence and the authority which the 
 policy of Augustus had conferred on it, and it was only 
 when the needs of the legions and their commanders, 
 encamped continually as they were in the fourth century 
 on the banks of the Rhine, called for a capital nearer 
 to the seat of war that Lyons was obliged to yield to 
 a rival in the north-east. Trier * on the Mosel, 
 Augusta Trevirorum, was made a colony about A.D. 69, 
 and perhaps by the Emperor Galba. In the remodelling 
 of the organisation of the empire under Diocletian 
 Milan 3 was for a short time, from A.D. 285, the capital 
 of Gaul, and when in A.D. 293 Diocletian and 
 Maximian joined to themselves in the government of 
 the Empire the two Caesars Galerius and Constantius 
 Chlorus, Trier 4 became at once the capital of Gaul and the 
 chief residence of Constantius. This western prefecture 
 included the three dioceses of Britain, Gaul, and Spain, 
 and it is obvious that Trier, so near to the eastern 
 frontier, then continually threatened by Allemans and 
 Franks, was more convenient for the general who might 
 at any time be summoned to lead his soldiers into 
 battle, than Lyons, which could only be useful should 
 revolt or trouble occur in the south. 
 
 1 Bazin, Aries gallo-romain ; xliii. Congres Arch6ol. de France, 1876, and 
 Strabo, iv. 125. 
 
 2 Zumpt, De coloniis Romanorum militaribiK com. epig. i. 385. Cf. also Steininger, 
 Geschichte der Trevirer, p. 79. 
 
 3 Eutropius, ix. 27 ; Ausonius, Ordo urb. nob. v. 
 
 4 Cf. Steininger as above, p. 229. 
 
i INTRODUCTION 1 1 
 
 With the rise of Trier we also find that the city of Trier and 
 Aries l grew in importance. At first its influence was Arles * 
 only due to its commercial character. Now in the fourth 
 century it began to have a political r61e to play, and the 
 tyrants, which the disturbed conditions of this and the 
 following century saw rise suddenly into power were 
 eager, as soon as they had acquired possession of Trier, 
 to march south and make sure of Aries. 2 This fact of 
 its rise into political importance is the explanation of its 
 ambitions in the fifth century, and of the controversy, 
 which we shall in due course narrate, which its bishops 
 had with the See of Rome. 
 
 During the fourth century, when the Caesar Julian 
 was in command in Gaul, he selected Paris 3 as his 
 favourite residence ; and from A.D. 356 to 358 Paris 
 enjoyed the position of being the capital of Gaul. It 
 did not, however, retain that position, nor did it come 
 permanently to the front until the time of the Prankish 
 dynasty of the Merwings. 
 
 To return, however, to the first century, it was 
 through the influence of the Diet at Lyons and the 
 solemn religious rites which the Gallican subjects and 
 citizens there celebrated, as well as through the favour 
 of the Emperor Claudius, that Gaul was slowly being 
 Latinised. Roman literature and Roman culture 
 steadily advanced. Schools, colleges, and universities 
 arose at Lyons, 4 Autun, Vienne, Aries, Toulouse, and 
 Bordeaux, 5 and the zeal of the Gallic youth for Latin 
 literature was recognised by the poets at Rome. In 
 the time of Domitian, A.D. 81-96, free copies of 
 their poems were sent from Rome to their admiring 
 
 1 Amm. Marcel, xv. ii. 145 Ausonius, Or do wb. nob. x. p. 148. 
 
 2 Sulpicius Severus, Chron. ii. 49. Cf. the action of the tyrant Constantine, 
 A.D. 407 j Freeman's Western Europe in the Fifth Century, ii. 54. 
 
 3 Amm. Marcel, xv. ii. 3 and xx. 8. 2. 
 
 4 The Emperor Caius Caligula founded public literary contests in Greek and 
 Latin at Lyons. Suetonius, Ca/ig. cap. xx. 
 
 5 On the University of Bordeaux, cf. Jullian, " Les Premieres Universit6s fran9aises, 
 1'ecole de Bordeaux an IVc siecle," in Rev. internal, de Vemeignement^ 1893. 
 
12 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 friends at Toulouse and Aries, 1 and Pliny rejoiced that 
 his writings should find a sale among the noble families 
 in Lyons. 2 
 
 When, therefore, we begin to ask what the condition 
 of Gaul was at the time when first the Gospel could 
 have been proclaimed in it, we find that it was a province 
 already in the process of becoming rapidly Latinised ; 
 where Roman towns and Roman roads and Roman 
 culture had long ago supplanted the decaying influence 
 of the old Greek cities of the coast, and had even then 
 begun to destroy the tribal bonds of union which had 
 once prevailed among the inhabitants ; where the Roman 
 -t, civilian and the Roman soldier were located in more than 
 k sixty cities and communes, and where nothing could occur 
 and no new religion could be proclaimed without the 
 knowledge of the legate in Lyons or of the procurators in 
 the several divisions of the country. If the government 
 was highly centralised yet its officers and messengers 
 were to be seen in every town and village, and to be met 
 with on every road along which men could travel. No 
 great religious revolt could have occurred, no general 
 assembly to observe the ceremonies of some unlicensed 
 worship could have taken place and yet have escaped 
 the keen eyes of the Roman officials. 
 
 Christian The view we have now gained of Gaul in the early 
 missions to cen t ur ies of the Christian era will enable us to consider 
 the evidence on which the legends of Christian missions 
 in this country rest, and to come to some very definite 
 opinion as to their credibility. These legends arose in 
 an age ignorant of the conditions which had prevailed 
 in Gaul in the first century ; they are historically im- 
 
 1 Martial, Epigram, ix. 99, sends a copy of his book to M. Ant. Gallus of Tolosa, 
 and in vii. 88, he writes : 
 
 " Fertur habere meos, si vera est fama, libellos 
 
 inter delicias pulchra Vienna suas. 
 Me legit omnis ibi senior iuvenisque puerque 
 et coram tetrico casta puella viro." 
 
 2 Pliny, Ep. ix. 1 1 " bibliopolas Lugduni esse non putabam, ac tanto libentius 
 ex literis tuis cognovi venditari libellos meos, quibus peregre manere gratiam, quam 
 in urbe collegerint, delector." Cf. Ampere, Histoire litter air e, i. 201. 
 
i INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 probable and, indeed, almost impossible, and should, at 
 the outset, offer us an explanation for the silence con- 
 cerning them, and indeed ignorance of them of earlier 
 writers, before we can possibly attach any but a purely 
 sentimental value to them. A modern writer on the 
 history of the Church in Gaul has drawn our attention 
 to the influence which these legends have had in the 
 destruction of our confidence in the lists of the bishops 
 of the Gallican sees. These lists are so full of inter- 
 polations, repetitions, and corrections that they bear 
 their own condemnation on the very face of them. 
 Their disastrous influence l was very active during the 
 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and had for its pur- 
 pose the desire to present in each diocese a continuous 
 succession of bishops from the first century of the 
 Christian era. It was the influence of these legends 
 which claimed for Gaul that the Gospel was introduced 
 into it by some of the most illustrious of the disciples 
 and friends of our Lord. 
 
 Such a process of interpolation was hardly possible 
 in England, since no bishopric could be anterior to the 
 last years of the sixth century, and therefore no names 
 could be invented for the four or five centuries of 
 Christianity which had then already passed away. 
 Whatever Christian endeavour had been made here 
 before the coming of St. Augustine was only attached to 
 the English organisation after several centuries of 
 independent action on the part of the English Church, 
 and that only in districts where English missionaries 
 had never worked. 
 
 It was, however, on March 3, 1417, at the twenty- Council of 
 eighth 2 session of the Council of Constance, that the Con3tance - 
 
 1 Cf. Duchesne's Fa stes episcopaux deTancienne Gaule, vol. i. cap. I. 
 
 2 L'Enfant's Histoire du Concile de Constance, pp. 452-4, ed. 1714 "L'Angleterre ne 
 cede ni rien du Royaume de France ni pour 1'etendue ni pour la dignite, ni pour 
 1'antiquite a 1'egard de 1'antiquite de la nation Britannique en qualite de nation 
 chretienne, si ce memoir fait beaucoup d'honneur & 1'Angleterre en attribuant 
 sa conversion a Joseph d'Arimathee il n'en fait gueres moins a la nation fran9oise 
 en lui donnant Denys 1'Areopagite pour premier Apotre." Cf. also Von der Hardt 
 v. p. 91. 
 
i 4 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 French and the English bishops definitely bound their 
 nations to the legends to which we have made reference. 
 A controversy had arisen in the Council as to the right 
 of the English Church to form a Nation of itself, and 
 as an independent Nation to take part in the delibera- 
 tions and decisions of the Council. The French bishops 
 claimed that the English Church formed part of the 
 Gallican Nation. The English bishops were Robert 
 Hallam, bishop of Salisbury, and Nicholas Bubwith, 
 bishop of Bath and Wells. 1 Bubwith, and probably 
 Hallam also, must have been aware of the reputed 
 The legend remains of St. Joseph of Arimathea, which were said to 
 of Ar? ph ^ ave k een l ate ly discovered in the monks' cemetery of 
 mathea. the great abbey of Glastonbury. In that monastery, 
 and for reasons which need not be here entered upon, 
 the influence of these French legends was most strongly 
 felt. In the Lady Chapel, to the west of the great 
 monastic church, a shrine was being built and pilgrimages 
 were being organised which were intended to perpetuate, 
 as if it had been true, one of the most attractive of the 
 myths of the Holy Grail. On the following week, in 
 the thirtieth session of the Council, 2 the contention 
 between the English and French bishops was very 
 strong, the English bishops asserting that the kingdom 
 of England was in nothing inferior to the kingdom of 
 France. It was only two years after the English 
 victory of Agincourt, and even in that year, 1417, 
 many castles and towns in France had fallen into 
 the hands of the English. In extent of territory, and 
 in the dignity of its people, England did not indeed 
 seem inferior to France. The controversy, however, 
 turned on the antiquity of the national Church. Could 
 
 1 The English representatives at first were the bishops of Salisbury, Bath, and 
 Hereford, the abbot of Westminster, the prior of Worcester, and the Earl of 
 Warwick. Cf. L'Enfant, p. 42. At a later day, in 1416, the bishop of London and 
 the chancellors of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge arrived, and several 
 doctors. The bishops of Lichfield and Norwich were also present (Von der 
 Hardt iv. 952). Bishops Hallam and Mascall died during- the sessions of the 
 Council. Cf. Walsingham, His. Aug. in Chron. monast. St. Albanl. 
 
 2 Cf. L'Enfant^pp. 454, 455. Henry Beaufort, the cardinal-bishop of Winchester, 
 had arrived at Constance. 
 
i INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 the Galilean bishops claim for their Church that it was 
 founded anterior to the foundation of the Christian 
 Church in Britain? The Gallican bishops put forth 
 the statement that the Gospel had been brought to Gaul 
 by Dionysius the Areopagite. Thereupon the English 
 bishops made the astounding assertion that to Britain 
 had come, as its first Christian missionary, no other than 
 St. Joseph of Arimathea. 
 
 Up to that moment there is no evidence that such 
 a myth had ever been generally accepted in England. 
 Only the Glastonbury l monks and their chroniclers 
 William of Malmesbury and John of Glastonbury had 
 definitely asserted it. To the rest of England it seems 
 to have been a matter of no concern. Now, however, 
 it received the formal sanction of the English Church, 
 and the rivalry between the two nations endowed the 
 fiction with the halo of patriotism. 
 
 But we are only concerned at present with the The legend 
 assertion of the Gallican bishops. What was the 
 authority on which they claimed Dionysius the 
 Areopagite as the founder of Christianity in Gaul ? 
 In the fourteenth century, and indeed for some centuries 
 previously, he had been regarded as the first bishop of 
 Paris. He had for long been the patron of the kings 
 of France, and had already become the patron saint of 
 France. That he was the apostle of France was an 
 almost universally accepted doctrine, so completely had 
 the legendary taken the place of the historical. In the 
 fifteenth century men never thought of doubting its 
 veracity. 
 
 What, then, was the evidence which would connect 
 him with Paris ? The earliest extant list of the bishops 
 of Paris is not earlier than the end of the ninth 
 century. 2 The last name which it contains is that of 
 Gozlinus, who was bishop of Paris A.D. 884-886. The 
 
 1 Cf. Hearne's editions of William of Malmesbury's Antiq. of G/ast., vol. i. p. 7, 
 in Adam de Domerham, vol. i. and John of Glastonbury, vol. i. pp. 30, 48. 
 * Cf. Duchesne's Pastes episcopaux, vol. ii. p. 460. 
 
1 6 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 first name on the list is that of Dionysius, and Dionysius 
 was certainly a real person. In the life of St. Genovefa, 1 
 which comes to us in an eighth-century version, but 
 which probably was written originally in the early years 
 of the sixth, we find the initial stage of his cult. It was 
 due to St. Genovefa, that saintly heroine whose character 
 and courage had done so much for the people of Paris 
 in the anxious days of the early summer of 451, when 
 Attila and his destroying host passed so near to the 
 island city and yet spared it. She was most anxious 
 that the first bishop of Paris, whom she regarded 
 as a martyr, should have a church built to his honour 
 near to the scene of his martyrdom, and where he was 
 then buried. Venantius Fortunatus, 2 writing fifty years 
 afterwards, records that Amelius, the bishop of 
 Bordeaux built in 520 at Bordeaux a church in honour 
 of St. Dionysius. The record of Gregory of Tours is 
 very definite. He says that Dionysius was one of the 
 seven missionary bishops sent to Gaul during the reign 
 of the Emperor Decius, 249-2 5 1. 3 
 
 ThePassio of Dionysius, 4 however, which was assigned 
 to Fortunatus of Poitiers, the contemporary of Gregory, 
 but which has been rejected by Krusch and assigned 
 by Mons. Havet to a priest of Toulouse who, at the 
 instigation of Chlodovech the Pious, wrote about the 
 year A.D. 800, states that the mission of Dionysius 
 was in the days of Clement, bishop of Rome, and 
 therefore in the reign of Domitian and not that of 
 Decius. 
 
 For this earlier date there is certainly no authority, 
 
 1 Mon. rerum Merovingicarum, vol. iii. pt. i. p. 204. Cf. especially Krusch 's 
 critical introduction in which he takes a less favourable view as to the antiquity of 
 the life than Duchesne has done. He says it is " nullius auctoritatis." 
 
 a Venantius Fortunatus in Mon. Germ, hhtorica, iv. pt. i } Carmixa, iv. 1 1, p. 
 13 : 
 
 " Quam venerandus habet propriam Dionysius aedem 
 nomine sub cuius sanctificata nitet." 
 
 3 Greg. Tours, Hist. Franc, in Mon. Germ, hht., bk. i. 28 " Parisiacis Dionisius 
 episcopus . . . sub Decio et Grato consulibus," i.e. A.D. 251. 
 
 4 Cf. Havet's " Les Origines de Saint Denis " in Questions merovingiennes, Appendix 
 3, P. 3*. 
 
i INTRODUCTION 17 
 
 and Mons. Omont l has very ingeniously shown us 
 that the mistake may not have been intentional. The 
 statement of Gregory of Tours, which introduces the 
 story of the mission of the seven bishops, is drawn 
 from the ancient Acta of St. Saturn inus and begins 
 with the words "Hujus tempore." 2 Gregory's history, 
 however, went through at least two stages, and in 
 the earlier and shorter stage, Gregory's account of the 
 martyrdom of St. Pothinus and the Lyons Christians 
 was not inserted, and the sentence concerning the mission 
 of the seven bishops followed a statement concerning 
 St. Clement. It was possible, therefore, in good faith 
 to assume that " Hujus tempore," which introduces 
 the narrative of them, referred to St. Clement. 3 
 
 Fortunately there exist some three or four early 
 charters 4 belonging to the Prankish monastery of 
 St. Dionysius, which help us to see the growth of 
 the assumption that Dionysius of Lutecia was the 
 Areopagite. Two charters of Chlothachar II. of the 
 years 625 and 626 5 refer to the martyred bishop, 
 but say nothing as to his date or his companions in 
 martyrdom. In A.D. 654 Chlodovech II. confirmed by 
 charter to the monks of this monastery, which claimed 
 to keep and guard the remains of St. Dionysius, the 
 right of choosing their own abbot, and in this charter 
 we find for the first time the names of Rusticus and 
 Leutherius. Then in A.D. 724 Theodoric II. confirms to 
 these monks all their former charters, and states that 
 St. Dionysius was sent to Gaul by St. Clement of Rome. 
 The earliest writer who makes the statement that 
 Dionysius of Lutecia was the same as Dionysius the 
 
 1 Cf. Mons. Omont's edit, of Gregory's Hist. Franc., bk. i.-vi., 1886, giving us 
 the text of the Corby MSS. pp. 18, 19. 
 
 2 Cf. Greg. T. H.F. i. 28 ut supra. The fact of the interpolations becomes 
 evident on reading the narrative in capp. xxvi.-xxix. 
 
 3 Capp. xxvi., xxvii., and part of xxviii. formed these later additions, the absence 
 of which would allow " Hujus tempore " to refer to S. Clement. 
 
 4 Cf. Havet as above ; Appendix 2, pp. 42 and 45. 
 
 5 Ibid. p. 47, and Pardessus, Diplom. ii. p. 9, nos. 253 and 527. 
 
 C 
 
1 8 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Areopagite is Hilduin, 1 abbot of this monastery of St. 
 Dionysius, who died about A.D. 814, and who located 
 the scene of his death at Montmartre. The Martyr- 
 ologies, however, in no way help him in this statement. 
 In the Martyrology known as that of St. Jerome 2 we 
 find, on October 9, " Parisiis, natale sanctorum Dionisi 
 episcopi, Eleutherii diaconi et Rustici presbyteri et 
 confessoris." 
 
 The Martyrology of Ado, 3 bishop of Vienne 860-875, 
 offers us very definite information : 
 
 Oct. 3. Athenis, Dionysii Areopagitae. 
 
 Oct. 9. Parisiis Dionysii episcopi cum sociis suis a praefecto 
 Sixinnio Fescinnino gladio animadversi. 
 
 The Martyrology of Usuard, 4 abbot of the monastery 
 de Pratis, near Paris, about the same time, A.D. 875, 
 says : 
 
 Oct. 3. Natalis beati Dionysii Areopagitae, qui . . . glorioso 
 martyris coronatus est ut testatur Aristides. 
 
 Oct. 9. Apud Parisium natalis sanctorum martyrum Dionysii 
 episcopi, Rustici presbyteri et Eleutherii diaconi qui 
 beatus episcopus a pontifice Romano in Gallias praedicandi 
 gratia directus. 
 
 The growth of the legend, therefore, which would 
 make Dionysius of Lutecia the same as Dionysius the 
 Areopagite and sent by St. Clement of Rome, is fairly 
 evident. First there was the erroneous inference drawn, 
 perhaps quite honestly, but certainly in accordance 
 with popular desire to magnify the antiquity, and 
 therefore the value, of any relics of early martyrs that 
 churchmen possessed, from the earlier stage of the 
 narrative of Gregory of Tours' first book of his history 
 of the Franks ; and then came the second assumption 
 that if he belonged to so early a date in the spread of 
 
 1 Cf. Ha vet, $z j Kfihler's fctude critique sur le texte de la -vie latine de sainte 
 Genevieve de Paris, 1881, pp. xciv and xcv j Migne's Patrol. Lot. cvi. 13-50. 
 
 2 Cf. Migne, Pat. Lat. xxx. p. 475. 
 
 3 Cf. Migne, Pat. Lat. cxxiii. p. 300. 
 
 4 Cf. Molanus' edition, 1573, pp. z66 and 169 j Migne, Pat. cxxiii. and cxxtv. 
 
i INTRODUCTION 19 
 
 the Gospel he was probably Dionysius the Areopagite 
 mentioned in connection with St. Paul at Athens. 1 In 
 a subsequent chapter we will consider what is known 
 of Dionysius, the missionary bishop of the reign of the 
 emperor Decius. 2 
 
 We must now turn our attention to another group The 
 of legends, which undoubtedly has done more even than Jj^ 8 
 the legend of St. Dionysius to hide from us the true family of 
 history of the foundation of the Christian Church in B ' than y- 
 Gaul. The legends of this group are based on no 
 historical authority, and, though somewhat obscure in 
 their origin, seem to have sprung from bare and most 
 unwarrantable assumptions. They appear first of all in 
 Burgundy, and soon after, and apparently from mere 
 local jealousy, in the district already becoming known as 
 Provence, the district comprised in the Provincia of 
 early Roman Gaul. It was from Provence that the 
 Burgundian monks drew their authority for their legend 
 in Burgundy, and it seems almost certain that the 
 legends in Provence are only later offshoots of the 
 legend in Burgundy. The legends concern the family 
 of Bethany, Lazarus, Martha and Mary. 
 
 In the Cluniac monastery at Vezelay, 3 in the district 
 between Auxerre and Autun, a monastery famous in 
 the twelfth century because in 1 166 Thomas, Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, took refuge in it, the monks claimed to 
 have the tomb and the remains of St. Mary Magdalene. 
 In all this group of legends the identity of the 
 Magdalene with the sister of Lazarus and the woman 
 who was a sinner is taken for granted. 4 It was the 
 
 1 Cf. Acts xvii. 34. 2 Cf. Chapter III. 
 
 3 In 1847 M. Faillon, of the Society of St. Sulpice, published through 1'abbe 
 Migne two exhaustive volumes : Monuments inedits sur Papostolat de S. Mariae 
 M.agdalenae. Monseigneur Duche'sne has given us in his Pastes Iphcopaux, vol. i., 
 a very lucid precis of M. Faillon's labours, and I acknowledge my indebtedness to 
 him. I have, however, gone carefully through M. Faillon's work, and also the 
 monograph of Launoy (2nd ed. A.D. 1660), Dissertatio de commentitio Lazari et 
 Maximini, Magdalenae et Marthae in Provinciam appulsu, which M. Faillon in vain 
 tries to controvert and with nearly the same result as Duchesne. Faillon, i. 8zi. 
 
 4 Faillon shows us that in the West there was a large consensus of opinion in 
 favour of identifying, as one and the same, all the three Maries Mary of Bethany, 
 
20 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 view generally adopted by the Western Church. The 
 possession of such a treasure certainly demanded an 
 explanation, and the story of the acquisition comes down 
 to us in two versions which show us how keen were 
 these mediaeval relic-hunters, and how unscrupulously 
 they filled in the lacunae of an untenable story. The 
 monastery of Vezelay was founded by Gerard de 
 Roussillon in the first half of the ninth century. It was 
 dedicated to our Lord and to the blessed Virgin Mary, 
 and was perhaps at first a house of nuns. 1 This, if 
 true, may account for the foundation being placed under 
 the immediate patronage and protection of the Roman 
 pontiff. After a period of decline, during the first half- 
 century of its existence, it seems to have been restored 
 as a house of Benedictine monks, and Eudes 2 was its 
 first abbot. As late as the year A.D. 1001 3 there was 
 no trace of the cult of the Magdalene at Vezelay. In 
 1050 we find mention of her name for the first time 
 in connection with the dedication of the monastery. 
 Geoffrey succeeded Heriman as abbot in 1037,* and at 
 once began a reform of the discipline and a considerable 
 rebuilding of the abbey. There was in the monastic 
 church an ancient tomb, and fancy was free to imagine 
 the remains it enclosed. No one knew whose it was. 
 In the monastery were certain wretched captives, the 
 victims of the rough justice of the age, and these in 
 their misery began to call for help to her who had 
 known the misery of her sin and had found forgiveness. 
 At Clermont 5 a soldier in prison had invoked her aid 
 and had been released and came to Vezelay, and hung 
 up his chains close by this ancient tomb. So the idea 
 
 Mary Magdalene, and the woman who was a sinner. In 1521 the doctors of the 
 Sorbonne censured those who held to the idea that they were not the same. 
 
 1 Faillon, i. 822. Cf. Chron. Vexelmcense sub anno 838. The Privilegium of Pope 
 Nicolas makes the dedication evident. 
 
 2 Cf. Spicilegium ifAcherii^ iii. 462. 
 
 3 The early papal charters of John VIII. and XV., Benedict VI. and VII. 
 Stephen and Sylvester II., which are quoted by Faillon, show that the dedication 
 to the Magdalene had not as yet begun. Faillon, i. 824 and 828. 
 
 4 Cf. Privilegium Leo IX. in the Spicilegium, iii. 468 ; Faillon, ii. 736. 
 6 Faillon, i. 825 and ii. 737. 
 
i INTRODUCTION 21 
 
 began to grow that the St. Mary of the dedication was 
 Mary the Magdalene, and that this was her tomb, and 
 Abbot Geoffrey was compelled to place rails 1 round the 
 tomb, so great was the throng of country folk who came 
 to pray at this shrine. A timely vision which was 
 vouchsafed to Abbot Geoffrey revealed to him the fact 
 that the tomb was that of the Magdalene, and that in 
 it were her remains. 
 
 How then came the relics to Vezelay ? The ex- 
 planation appears for the first time in the second half of 
 the thirteenth century, and then it is found, as we have 
 said, in two versions. The earlier narrative declares 
 how in the reign of Carloman, A.D. 8yo, 2 Adalgar, 
 bishop of Autun, paid a visit to Vezelay accompanied by 
 a certain knight Adelelm. Eudo was abbot of Vezelay 
 at the time, and Adalgar told the monks he knew where 
 the relics of their saint were, and at the request of the 
 monks the knight Adelelm went off to search for them 
 in Provence. On his arrival at Aries he heard that the 
 place where the relics were to be found was then in the 
 hands of the Saracens, though the Saracens had departed 
 more than a hundred years before. He, however, 
 fearlessly set forth into the district indicated, and suc- 
 ceeded in carrying off the remains not only of St. Mary 
 Magdalene but also of a St. Maximin. 
 
 The second and more common form 3 of the story 
 is that, so soon as Abbot Eudo heard from Bishop Adalgar 
 of the supposed place of the Magdalene's sepulture, he 
 sent off a monk Badilo to Aix to search for these 
 remains. When he got there the place seemed to him 
 on all sides to be suggestive of death, so desolate and 
 lonely did he find it "nihil in ea visum est apparuisse 
 nisi extremae pestis et mortis imago." The narrator 
 must surely have been thinking of Les Aliscamps at Aries. 
 The monk, however, and his companion applied for 
 information to some old men whom they met there, and 
 
 1 Faillon, 827. 2 Ibid. 835. 
 
 3 Ibid. 838, and ii. 748. 
 
22 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 demanded where St. Maximin had buried St. Mary 
 Magdalene. They replied that she was buried in the 
 crypt of St. Maximin's church. So he searches 1 and 
 at last comes to a specially honourable sarcophagus, and 
 he feels confident that he has come to the object of his 
 search. The carving suggested the story of the 
 Magdalene, i.e. the washing of our Saviour's feet and 
 the anointing of His head in the house of Simon. So 
 he opens the sarcophagus and perceives the body of a 
 fair woman, and with the help of his comrade he removes 
 it and starts on the journey home. As he draws nearer 
 to Vezelay various miracles and strange occurrences 
 convince him of the genuineness of the discovery, and 
 the unknown tomb was afterwards believed to enclose 
 the remains thus gathered from the south. 
 
 St. Maximin lies about nine miles south-east of Aix, 
 and was at one time a priory belonging to the abbey of 
 St. Victor at Marseilles. The estate, on which the priory 
 had been founded, had been given to the monastery in 
 IO38 2 by Peter, archbishop of Aix, and had belonged 
 to some wealthy Gallo- Roman family. There are 
 several stone sarcophagi there which date from the fifth 
 or sixth century, and are ornamented with sculptures 
 which, however, in no way represent any of the events 
 of the Magdalene's or Lazarus' life. They belong to 
 the private burial-place of the earlier possessors of the 
 estate. How the place came to be called St. Maximin, 
 and who St. Maximin was, is not recorded. The name 
 and the designation of the place existed long before the 
 legend arose. 3 
 
 In Provence the Magdalene's name is coupled with 
 St. Maximin. At Vezelay, though the story of the 
 translation of the remains tells of St. Maximin with St. 
 
 1 If the reader has ever wandered among the sarcophagi and Roman tombs in 
 the churchyard of St. Matthias south-west of Trier he can easily realise the situation 
 of these relic-hunters. 
 
 2 Faillon, ii. 665-688. 
 
 3 Faillon, ii. 665, No. 31, Charles relatives de la restitution de fancienne abbaye de 
 5. Maximin. 
 
i INTRODUCTION 23 
 
 Mary, yet the tomb of St. Maximin is not mentioned, 
 and certainly was not an object of veneration. In 
 Burgundy the Magdalene is more especially coupled 
 with Lazarus, and the monks of Vezelay and the people 
 of Autun believed that it was Lazarus who brought his 
 sister to Gaul. The church at Autun was dedicated to 
 St. Nazaire, one of the martyrs of Milan, but when in 
 1144 it was rebuilt St. Nazaire had to give way to 
 Lazarus. 1 
 
 We must turn now to Provence and gather up the The 
 chief items of this extraordinary legend. It was 
 certainly later in its birth than that at Vezelay, and 
 seems to have been deliberately invented in self-defence. 
 If so great a treasure had ever existed there, those who 
 had possessed it could surely not have been so careless 
 as to allow of its theft. At Tarascon the church is 
 dedicated to Martha 2 of Bethany, and the legend of the 
 place declares that she taught and worked miracles 
 there, and now lies in the crypt of the church erected to 
 her honour. At St. Maximin there is a grotto 3 on the 
 side of the hilly range which looks southward towards 
 the city of Marseilles. It was originally dedicated to 
 St. Mary, and in the uncertainty as to the identity of 
 the name, and under the influence of this embryonic 
 legend, it came to be regarded as the place where St. 
 Mary Magdalene had spent many years of penance, and 
 where ultimately she had died. Originally doubtless 
 it gave birth to the legend of which in time it came to 
 be looked upon as a corroboration. 
 
 At Marseilles Lazarus was claimed as the first 
 bishop, 4 and beneath the church of the martyred 
 soldier 5 St. Victor his remains are supposed to have 
 been interred. 
 
 In the library of Magdalen College, 6 Oxford, there 
 is a fourteenth or fifteenth century life of St. Mary 
 
 1 Faillon, i. 1173. 4 DuchSsne's Pastes episcopaux, i. 265, note. 
 
 2 Ibid. i. 1222. 5 Faillon, i. 533. 
 
 3 Ibid. \. 478. 8 Faillon prints it in full, ii. 454-558. 
 
24 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Magdalene, which is ascribed to Rabanus Maurus, who 
 was abbot of Fulda, and who in 847 became archbishop 
 of Mainz. It is an uncritical composition filled with 
 glaring historical errors, and has no real claims to be 
 regarded as in any way the work of the theologian 
 Rabanus. It belongs to a much later date, and was 
 probably composed in the interest of Tarascon and the 
 cave at St. Maximin. 
 
 In this life we are told that fourteen years after the 
 Ascension of our Lord, the Apostles, who were at 
 Jerusalem, assigned to themselves various spheres of 
 work. St. Peter and St. Paul took the west of Europe, 
 and when St. Peter was about to go to Rome he chose 
 twenty-four missionary bishops to go to the twenty-four 
 provinces of Gaul and Spain, 1 knowing as he did, that he 
 would not be able to go himself. As the guide and 
 leader of these bishops he sent St. Maximin. Lazarus 
 was not one of this band. It is stated expressly that 
 he was acting as bishop in Cyprus. So St. Maximin 
 went forth from Jerusalem taking with him St. 
 Mary Magdalene, St. Martha, Parmenas, Trophimus, 
 Eutropius, and the rest of the band of twenty-four 
 pioneers of the faith. 
 
 Another version 2 of this legend runs as follows. 
 Some time after the Ascension of our Lord there was a 
 great persecution of the Christians. It began with the 
 martyrdom of St. Stephen, and was especially directed 
 against those of the companions of Christ who were 
 most obnoxious to the synagogue. In the first rank 
 of the proscribed, as particularly obnoxious to the Jews, 
 were Lazarus, Martha, Mary, and their friend Maximin, 
 who had baptized them. These four, therefore, fled from 
 Palestine, and came ultimately to the Province. Lazarus 
 laboured at Marseilles, Martha settled at Tarascon, the 
 Maries, no longer regarded as one, made their home in 
 
 1 In the first half of the first century there were certainly not more than eleven, 
 and probably not more than nine, provinces in Gaul and Spain. 
 
 2 Faillon, ii. 433. 
 
i INTRODUCTION 25 
 
 the Camargue in the village which preserves their name, 
 and Maximin went to Aix. 
 
 A third 1 and popular form of the legend told 
 how this band of disciples was placed by the Jews on a 
 vessel which they had intended to sink, and which was 
 miraculously directed to Gaul, where they landed safely 
 at Marseilles. In the old cantique of the sixteenth 
 century the Jews are described as saying : 
 
 Entrez Sara dans la nacelle, 
 Lazare, Marthe et Maximin, 
 Cleon, Trophime, Saturnine, 
 Les trois Maries et Marcelle, 
 Eutrope et Martial, Sidonie avec Joseph, 
 Vous perirez dans le nef. 
 
 Allez, sans voile et sans cordage, 
 Sans mat, sans ancre, sans timon, 
 Sans aliment, sans aviron, 
 Allez faire un triste naufrage ! 
 Retirez-vous d'ici, laissez-vous en repos, 
 Allez crever parmi les flots. 
 
 The legends of the family of Bethany did not stand 
 alone. They gave rise to others, since inquiry would 
 have been at once set up as to the fate of the other 
 numerous companions who with Lazarus and his sisters 
 sought the hospitable shores of Gaul. At Rocamadour 2 
 in the Department of Lot we have the traditional tomb 
 of St. Zacchaeus, which was discovered in 1166, and at 
 Tongres and Trier footprints of St. Maternus, who is said 
 to have been the son of the widow of Nain. At Marseilles 
 a difficulty had arisen, since the body of Lazarus had 
 been buried at Autun in 1147. The local tradition 
 claimed a crypt in the church of St. Victor as the place 
 where his remains had lain, but by the second half of 
 the twelfth century this had become only a tradition. 
 
 Yet it is certain that as these other legends received 
 their genesis from the legend of the family of Bethany, 
 so in turn they helped to support the supposed 
 
 1 Faillon, ii. 572. 
 
 2 Cf. Guide du pelt rin, Rocamadour, 1897 j Gallia Christiana^ xiii. 373 and iii. 620. 
 
26 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 historicity of it, and the group, and it is a considerable 
 group, evoked a very large amount of local interest 
 and a very powerful influence in southern France in 
 mediaeval times. They all must stand or fall together. 
 What authority thus can be adduced in their favour ? 
 Their most ardent advocate in modern times, Mons. 
 Faillon, falls back on the life of the Magdalene which 
 is claimed for Rabanus Maurus. The manuscript itself 
 belongs to the early part of the fifteenth century, and 
 is a copy of a life written in the south of France, 
 perhaps in the first half of the thirteenth century. 
 No earlier date can be assigned to it. The abbot of 
 Fulda would repudiate a work so full of anachronisms 
 and historical blunders. As an authority it has neither 
 antiquity nor weight. There was, however, in the 
 twelfth century a desire to claim for Provence what 
 in Vezelay was said to have been stolen from St. 
 Maximin. At Tarascon 1 the legend of St. Martha 
 had arisen as early as 1187, when a church was begun 
 in her honour, and was consecrated in 1197. In the 
 Otia imperialia 2 of Gervaise of Tilbury in 1212 we 
 are told of the Church of Our Lady at Camargue, 
 known as Ecclesia S. Mariae de Ratis, that it was 
 dedicated to St. Mary by the refugees from Palestine, 
 SS. Mary Magdalene, Martha, Maximin, Lazarus, 
 Eutropius, and Martial. In 1252 the church at 
 Montrieu 3 was consecrated by the archbishop of Aix, 
 and in the deed of consecration it was solemnly stated 
 that relics of St. Mary Magdalene and Lazarus, first 
 bishop of Marseilles, were deposited in it. Ptolemy 
 de Lucques 4 and Bernard Gui 5 relate in their 
 
 1 Cf. Faillon, i. 1220. 
 
 2 Cf. Leibnitz, Scriptures rerum Brunsrwicemium, p. 914 " illic ad littus mar is 
 est prima omnium ecclesiarum citramarinarum in honore beatissimae Dei genetricis 
 fundata ac a discipulis a Judaea pulsis et in rate sine remigio dimissis per mare." 
 
 3 M. Faillon, Monuments inedits, etc., ii. p. 733. 
 
 4 Ptolemy of Lucca, Ord. Praed., died 1327, wrote Annales from 1061-1303 and 
 Hist, of Church of Christ to 1312. He gives the discovery of Charles of Salerno 
 under the date 1280. 
 
 5 Bernard Gui, also of Ord. Praed., died 1331, wrote Flares chronicorum and Vitae 
 pontijicum Romanorum. He refers the discovery to 1279. 
 
i INTRODUCTION 27 
 
 chronicles under the years 1279 and 1280 that 
 Charles, king of Sicily and count of Provence, had 
 ordered a search, and that, in the middle of the oratory 
 of St. Maximin, the tomb of St. Mary Magdalene had 
 been discovered, which in A.D. 710, to guard against 
 damage from the Saracens, had been secretly hidden 
 away. The monks of Vezelay replied in 1281 with 
 a formal declaration from Pope Martin IV. " corpus 
 S. Mariae Magdalenae quiescere Vezelaici." l 
 
 It is evident that in the eleventh and twelfth centuries 
 churchmen were following only too well the evil 
 example set them by the Holy See. It was Pope 
 Zosimus in A.D. 41 7 2 who ventured to declare that 
 Trophimus of Aries was the first who sent forth 
 Christian missions into Gaul. We are not surprised, 
 therefore, to find in the authoritative Acta Sanctorum 
 for July 22, " S. Maria Magdalena apud Massiliam in 
 provinciaGalliae" ; and in the Martyrologium Romanum 
 for I589, 3 July 22, "Apud Massiliam natalis sanctae 
 Mariae Magdalenae de qua Dominus ejecit septem 
 demonia et quae ipsum Salvatorem a mortuis resur- 
 gentem prima videre meruit " ; and for December 17, 
 " Massiliae in Gallia beati Lazari episcopi quern Dominus 
 in Evangelio a mortuis suscitasse legitur." 
 
 But what had the East to say about the family of The 
 Bethany, and what traditions existed there concerning 
 its subsequent history ? In the seventh century the against the 
 tomb of St. Mary Magdalene was one of the sacred legend ' 
 sites of Ephesus. Modestus, bishop of Jerusalem 4 
 614-633, knows nothing of the flight of this family to 
 
 1 Cf. Bull of Pope Martin IV. to the archbishop of Sens " apud Viziliacum 
 monasterium ubi gloriosum requiescit corpus ipsius," i.e. Magdalenae. Faillon, 
 ii. 762. 
 
 2 Cf. Zosimus' Bull " Multa contra " given in Babut's Le Concile de Turin, p. 13, 
 and " Placuit apostolicae," sections ii. and iii. p. 58 "ad quam primum ex hac sede 
 Trophimus summus antistes, ex cujus fonte totae Galliae fidei rivulos acceperunt." 
 
 3 Cf. Acta Sanctorum sub die. 
 
 4 Modestus, bishop of Jerusalem, 614-633. " Bethania ... in quo est monasterium 
 cujus ecclesia sepulchrum monstrat Lazari . . . qui dicitur postea exstitisse episcopum 
 in Epheso XI. annis." Cf. Migne, Pat. G. Ixxxvi. pt. ii. Homily on St. Mary 
 Magdalene. 
 
28 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Gaul. He wrote a homily on St. Mary Magdalene, 
 and seems to suggest that Lazarus was buried at 
 Bethany, though he allows the tradition that he had 
 been for forty years bishop of Ephesus. The English 
 pilgrim Willibald, 1 a relative of St. Boniface, who in 
 741 became bishop of Eichstadt, visited Ephesus about 
 A.D. 750, and records that the remains of St. Mary 
 Magdalene reposed there. Bernard, 2 the Prankish 
 pilgrim monk who was at Ephesus about A.D. 870, 
 repeats the tradition, and in A.D. 899, by order of the 
 Emperor Leo VI., these remains were solemnly trans- 
 lated from Ephesus to Constantinople. 3 
 
 Of Lazarus the story is not quite so clear. He 
 is said to have been buried at Citium (Larnaca) in 
 Cyprus. 4 He is also said to have been buried at 
 Ephesus, and the pilgrim Bernard records that he saw 
 his tomb there. The continuator of Theophanes 5 says, 
 further, that the remains were translated to Constanti- 
 nople, and that a church was built there over his remains, 
 and dedicated to him. The unnamed pilgrim from 
 Bordeaux, who about the year A.D. 333 G journeyed 
 from Bordeaux to Jerusalem, and has left us a narrative 
 of his pilgrimage, says that there was a house at 
 Bethany called Lazarium, and a crypt below which was 
 regarded as the place where Lazarus was buried. A few 
 years afterwards we have the record of Etheria, or Silvia, 
 whose Peregrinatio belongs to the years A.D. 385-388. 
 
 1 Tobler's Hodoeporicon si*ut Itinerarium in descriptions Terrae Sanctae, 1874, 
 p. 288. 
 
 2 Bernard only reveals himself as " monachus Francus." He made a pilgrimage 
 to the East in 870 with a Spanish monk " ex monasterio beati Innocentii Beneventani." 
 Cf. Tobler, as above, p. 307. 
 
 3 Zonaras, iii. 143, says that the body of the Magdalene was buried by Leo the 
 Wise at Constantinople. Cedrenus, p. 599, says it was brought from Ephesus. 
 
 4 Cf. Greek Menaea, Oct. 17. Zonaras says, as above, that the body of Lazarus 
 was translated from Cyprus. Cf. Leo Gram. (Migne's) cviii. 1108. 
 
 5 Anon. Cont. of Theophanes in the time of Constantine, the son of Leo, says : 
 " imperatorem . . . ecclesiam condidisse quae Lazaro dedicata est . . . et translatum 
 ipsius beati Lazari et sororis ejus Mariae Magdalenae corpus ibidem repositum." 
 Migne's Pat. G. cix. p. 381. 
 
 6 "Itinerarium Burdigala Hierusalem usque" in Palestinae descriptiones, Tobler, 
 S. Gall, 1869, ix. "inde ad orientem passus mille quingentos est villa quae appellatur 
 Bethania. Ibi est crypta ubi Lazarus positus fuit quem suscitavit Dominus." 
 
i INTRODUCTION 29 
 
 She tells l us that there were two churches at Bethany, 
 one at the place where Martha met our Lord as He 
 came to them after Lazarus was dead, and which was 
 about five hundred paces from the village, and the other 
 at the house known as Mariae et Marthae Hospitium, 
 which Jerome regarded as Sepulchrum Lazari. 
 
 In the early Church Calendars of the East there is The 
 no trace of the story of the family of Bethany having church 6 ** 
 been driven to Gaul, and in later times the memorial Calendars. 
 of St. Mary Magdalene was observed on July 22, and 
 from the East was adopted by the West. It is not 
 earlier than the eighth century. Gregory of Tours in 
 his Liber in gloria martyr urn (i. 29) said that Mary 
 Magdalene slept at Ephesus. The ancient Western 
 Martyrologies are, however, more condemnatory of this 
 South Gallican legend than the Calendars of the East. 
 
 In the earliest, that which is ascribed to St. Jerome, 
 and which is certainly not later than the end of the 
 sixth century, we have the entry for January 1 9 : 2 
 " Hierosolumae, Marthae et Mariae sororum Lazari." 
 In the Martyrology of Beda, 3 A.D. 740, there is no 
 mention of St. Mary Magdalene in January, though 
 Florus of Lyons, A.D. 850, his continuator, records her 
 death at Jerusalem on January 19. On July 22, for the 
 first time in the West, we find in Florus the Magdalene's 
 name recorded. In the Martyrology of Ado, 4 bishop 
 
 1 Cf. Sylviae Aquitanae Peregrinatio, A.D. 385, Gamurrini's ed., 1887, and in 
 Kohler's in Bibliotheque de I'ltcole des Chartes, xlv., 1884 " Lazarium autem id est 
 Bethania est forsitan secundo miliario a civitate. Euntibus autem de Hierosoluma 
 in Lazarium forsitan ad quingentos passus de eodem loco ecclesia est in strata in eo 
 loco in quo occurrit Domino Maria soror Lazari." Gamurrini found the Peregrinatio 
 in the Arezzo MS., which contained Hilary's treatise deAfysteriUjtnd assigned the name 
 Silvia on the authority of Palladius' Lausiac History (Text and Studies, vol. vi. pt. 2, 
 p. 148). Pomialowsky, in his ed. of the Peregrinatio, 1889, deliberately omits the 
 title Sihiae, and Dom Butler, in his ed. of Palladius (cited above), says in note 99, 
 " St. Silvia is a purely mythical person." The sister-in-law of the praetor Rufinus 
 has nothing to do with this lady. Abbot Ferotin of Farnborough in Revue des 
 questions historiques, 1903, on the authority of the Spanish monastic writer Valerius, 
 claims the Peregrinatio for the Spanish lady pilgrim Etheria ; but see Meister's 
 tractate de Itinerario Aether iae (Bonn, 1909), who considers that, from the Latin 
 style of the writer, she must have come from the neighbourhood of the Rhone 
 and perhaps Aquitaine. 
 
 2 Migne, P. xxx. p. 440. 3 Cf. Giles' Beda, 1843, vol. iv. p. 25. 
 4 Cf. Launoy in Faillon, i., 1361, cap. ii. 
 
3 o BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 of Vienne, A.D. 875, on October 17 we have the entry 
 " Marthae sororis Lazari," and in the small Roman 
 Martyrology which Ado found in Italy, and therefore 
 entitled Roman, we have for December 17, with the 
 rubric, " In Bethania eodem die beati Lazari quern 
 dominus Jesus in Evangelic legitur resuscitasse a 
 mortuis : item beatae Marthae sororis ejus. Quorum 
 venerabilem memoriam extructa ecclesia non longe a 
 Bethania ubi e vicino domus eorum fuit, conservat." 
 In his account of the Holy Places, Beda 1 states that 
 the monument of Lazarus was indicated by a church 
 built on the spot, and by a large monastery at Bethany. 
 Usuard 2 in A.D. 875 has no mention of St. Mary in 
 January, but gives her mere name on July 22, and 
 mentions December 17 as the fte day of Lazarus. 
 Flodoard in the next century, A.D. 920, seems to suggest 
 not only that Lazarus was buried at Bethany, but that 
 the body of St. Mary Magdalene also lay in Palestine. 
 
 These entries, however, must not be regarded as 
 evidence that there were fete days with special services, 
 or that as yet any cult of the members of the family of 
 Bethany had arisen in the West. There is no mention 
 of them either in the Gelasian or Gregorian Sacra- 
 mentaria, 3 and we must wait to the twelfth and 
 thirteenth centuries before we find this legend and its 
 cult enshrined in the offices of the Western Church. 
 Conclusion , It seems possible now to come to some conclusion 
 concerning the historicity of this important group of 
 legends. That the Western Church, the Church of 
 Gaul, could be connected with a family on terms of 
 such intimacy with our Lord Himself as were Lazarus, 
 Martha, and Mary, was a most important fact, if fact it 
 could be proved. The devotion of the faithful for the 
 
 1 Cf. Giles' Beda, iv. 419. 
 
 2 Molanus' ed. of Usuard's Martyrologium, 1573, pp. 121 and 211 j cf. also Dom 
 Quentin's Les Martyrologes hhtoriques du moyen age, Paris, 1908. 
 
 3 Cf. Wilson's Gelasian Sacramentary, p. 321. The entry " Mariae et Marthae" 
 on Jan. 19, refers to the Persian Marius and Martha his wife, who were martyred 
 with their two sons in the Via Cornelia in the time of the Emperor Claudius j cf. 
 also Gregory of Tours, bk. iv. p. 295, in Migne, P.L. Ixxviii. 
 
i INTRODUCTION 31 
 
 relics of martyrs would have assigned inestimable value 
 to such treasures as these, and if there had been any, 
 the slightest tradition that the resting-places of Lazarus, 
 St. Mary Magdalene, or St. Martha were in Gaul, not a 
 century would have passed away without many a reference 
 to that fact from Christian writers in the West. When 
 the legend began to gain ground its influence was most 
 powerful, and as the churchmen of each diocese realised 
 what such seemed to connote, that there was a Christian 
 Church in Gaul in the first century of the Christian era, 
 they were not slow to perceive that the list they had of 
 the bishops of the diocese in which they lived was far 
 too short to allow of the Church thus reaching back to 
 that early period. There must be many lacunae they 
 had not been aware of, and so additional names were 
 inserted, and those lists have come down to our times 
 no longer of any great historical value. 
 
 What then is known definitely as to the introduction 
 of Christianity into Gaul ? The historic evidence is 
 quite plain and conclusive. Christianity was not 
 permanently introduced into Gaul until a somewhat 
 late period. The missionary work at Lyons and Vienne, 
 with which we will deal in our next chapter, gives us a 
 brilliant picture of Christian zeal and constancy in the 
 third quarter of the second century, and it may have 
 left traces which were never wiped out, either in those 
 or in other neighbouring cities. Yet the story of 
 the martyrdom of St. Saturninus l of Toulouse and the 
 story of the martyrdom of St. Symphorian 2 of Autun, 
 as we will soon perceive, show us that paganism 
 largely prevailed in Gaul in the middle of the third 
 century, and that the name of a Christian was rarely 
 heard, and indeed hardly known. Sulpicius Severus 3 
 at the end of the fourth century says definitely 
 
 1 Gregory refers to this life of St. Saturninus, Hist. Franc, i. 30 j cf. also Ruinart, 
 p. 177 "postquam sensim et gradatim in omnem terram Evangeliorum sonus exivit 
 tardoque progressu in regionibus nostris apostolorum praedicatio coruscavit." 
 
 2 Ruinart's Acta sincera martyrum,cd. 1859, Ratisbon, p. 125. 
 
 3 Sulpicius Severus, Chron. ii. 22 "serius trans Alpes Dei religione suscepta." 
 
32 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 that the Gospel was late in crossing the Alps, and 
 in being proclaimed in Gaul. The labours of St. 
 Martin, a contemporary and a teacher of Sulpicius, 
 show that 1 in his lifetime heathenism was everywhere 
 met with in the districts of the upper waters of the 
 Loire, Saone, and Seine. A hundred and fifty years 
 afterwards Gregory of Tours is equally plain in reassert- 
 ing this. 2 The bishops who met and welcomed St. 
 Rhadegund to the monastery which she had founded at 
 Poitiers in the second half of the sixth century refer 
 to Aquitaine 3 as even then only lately converted to 
 Christianity. These are distinctly historical statements. 
 They tell us of what existed at the time when these 
 men wrote. They agree with one another. When we 
 turn away from them we enter into an area of specula- 
 tion. Freculphus 4 in the ninth century introduced 
 a new element. It was St. Philip who came to Gaul as 
 the apostle of Christianity. To give further instances 
 would be only further proof that men were writing 
 without authority and in entire ignorance of the history 
 of Gaul. The Faith of the Gospel was a light which 
 could not be hidden under a bushel. The early 
 Christians waxed valiant in their antagonism to 
 idolatry. Records of the conflict between the old 
 religion and the new would have survived. The 
 cautious historians of the fifth and seventh centuries 
 could not have failed to have heard of them. The 
 Church of Southern Gaul would have been enriched 
 with the blood of a noble army of martyrs, and those 
 who laboured to build and organise in the fifth century 
 would have referred to the example of the past to 
 
 1 Cf. Chapter vii. 
 
 2 Greg. T. Hist. Franc, i. 29 j Gregory has no missionary work in Gaul to 
 record before the Lyons martyrdom, A.D. 177. 
 
 3 Greg. T. Hist. Franc, ix. 39 " itaque cum ipso catholicae religionis exortu 
 coepissent Gallicanis in finibus venerandae fidei primordia respirare et adhuc ad 
 paucorum notitiam tune ineffabilia Trinitatis Dominicae sacramenta . . . beatus 
 Martinus, etc." i.e. A.D. 372. 
 
 4 Freculphi Chronicon in Migne, P.L. cvi. p. 1149, torn. ii. lib. ii. cap. iv. 
 ** singuli tamen certis locis in mundo ad praedicandum partes proprias acceperunt. 
 Quod ut breviter repetam Philippus Gallias." 
 
i INTRODUCTION 33 
 
 encourage their hearers to persevere. But it was not 
 so. Silence prevails, and a silence we cannot ignore. 
 It is impossible, therefore, to accept these legends of 
 the early introduction of the Gospel into Gaul. We 
 must fall back upon a narrative which is strictly 
 historical. The incidents it records are certainly few 
 and isolated, and yet perhaps we will find that they 
 reveal to us more than was at first perceived. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE PERSECUTION AT LYONS 
 
 THE first historical event connected with the Church 
 in Gaul of which we have any reliable evidence is that 
 of the martyrdom of St. Pothinus and many of his flock 
 at Lyons. 1 This occurred in the summer of A.D. 177 
 during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161-180). In a 
 province of the Roman Empire so well organised, so 
 remarkable for the intelligence of the native population, 
 and where schools for law and rhetoric had already in 
 several cities been established, and had threatened to 
 rival the fame of those in Rome ; in a province which 
 was itself the high road to Spain, to the Britains, and to 
 Germany, it is certainly a matter of surprise that we 
 have no reliable 2 information which even hints to us 
 of the introduction of a Christian Church here at an 
 earlier date than the last quarter of the second century. 
 Certainly the events of the year 177 were not evidence 
 
 1 The letter " from the servants of Christ dwelling at Lyons and Vienne in 
 Gaul to those brethren in Asia and Phrygia having the same faith, etc." is given by 
 Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. v. i. Gregory of Tours, Hist. Franc, i. 29, gives us some useful 
 details concerning the persecution which seem quite independent of Eusebius, and it 
 is clear that he must have seen some documents preserved at Lyons and which are 
 now lost. He tells us in language of pious exaggeration that in the persecutions 
 " ut per plateas flumina currerent de sanguine christiano." In the Liber de glor. 
 martyrum he gives us a list of the names of the forty-eight martyrs which was 
 probably derived from local information. Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, A.D. 434-449, 
 wrote a homily on Blandina (Migne, P.L. 50) which, though very rhetorical, shows 
 how greatly she was revered at Lyons in the fifth century. M. Paul Allard gives 
 us a very able and lucid study of the scene at Lyons in vol. i. Hist, des persecutions 
 pendant les deux premiers siecles, 1903. 
 
 2 This may also be said of the Church in Roman Africa, but Africa never 
 recovered from the Vandal invasion. The Saracen completed what the Vandal 
 had begun, and we know not what records perished. 
 
 34 
 
CH. ii THE PERSECUTION AT LYONS 35 
 
 of the beginning of a movement. They formed a crisis 
 in that movement, a crisis which had been brought about 
 by years of patient labour, and a crisis which would not 
 have occurred had not that work been conspicuously 
 successful. Pothinus, the bishop of Lyons (and our 
 historian, Gregory of Tours, 1 says definitely that he 
 was the first bishop there), was ninety years of age when 
 he suffered, and we cannot imagine that he was sent 
 there except as a man in full possession of his physical 
 powers. If we reject the idea of his going there as 
 a young man, though there is no reason why we should, 
 at any rate we cannot be very wrong in allowing him a 
 ministry there of at least thirty years. Time was certainly 
 necessary for the work which he had accomplished. 
 There is evidence of organisation. The missionary 
 work was not confined to Lyons, Lyons was only the 
 centre. Vienne 2 is expressly mentioned as one of the 
 cities of the newly organised Church, in subordination 
 to Lyons, and apparently the first-fruits of the mission 
 work from Lyons. As we proceed in our narrative of 
 these events we shall discover evidence, not indeed as 
 definite as we could wish, but yet very suggestive, that 
 there were other towns in addition to Vienne that were 
 linked with Lyons in the ministry of the Gospel, where 
 missionaries had already sown good seed, and where 
 small, humble, and obscure congregations had been 
 created, and over them all Pothinus as the bishop 
 exercised a faithful and effective spiritual supervision. 
 It is certainly clear in any case that the work of the 
 Church in Gaul must have been going on for some 
 considerable time before the year A.D. I77, 3 and that 
 the outbreak in that year was due to the resentment of 
 
 1 Greg. Tour. Hist. Franc, i. 29 "ille primus Lugdunensis ecclesiae Pothinus 
 episcopus fuit." 
 
 2 Euseb. H.E. v. i. Sanctus is described as rbv didKOVov dirk BI^VTJS. 
 Vienne is joined with Lyons in the heading of the letter, and the record tells how 
 the Christians of Vienne and Lyons were collected by the authorities during 
 the persecution. 
 
 3 Pothinus was ninety years of age and the letter refers to his faithful per- 
 formance of his work. Euseb. H.E. v. i. 
 
36 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 the pagan Gauls at a religious propaganda which was, as 
 it seemed to them, advancing at an alarming rate. 
 
 We have seen in our introductory chapter that 
 Aries was now the port of Lyons. 1 To that prosperous 
 commercial town rather than to Marseilles, whose de- 
 cadence had begun many years before, ships brought 
 from every city of the Mediterranean the merchandise 
 which was to be displayed and sold in the market of 
 the Gallic capital. With these various wares would 
 come men of every nationality, owners, slaves, clerks, 
 and salesmen, all anxious to make a profit out of the 
 wares they had brought, and men such as these would 
 be found thronging the wharves and narrow streets 
 of Lyons. The narrative of the martyrdom brings 
 this fact most vividly before us. Pothinus, Irenaeus, 
 Attalus, Alexander and many others bore Greek names. 
 The three last were certainly from Asia Minor. 2 Irenaeus 
 had lived in Smyrna, Attalus came from Pergamum, 
 and Alexander from the uplands of Phrygia. Our 
 information concerning this crisis is derived from a 
 letter which, as preserved for us by Eusebius, was 
 written by the surviving Christians at Lyons to their 
 brethren in Asia and Phrygia, to tell them of their 
 sufferings, and of the constancy and courage which the 
 martyrs had displayed. Was then the mission to 
 Lyons a special effort on the part of the Church in 
 Asia Minor ? The letter would suggest it, but it does 
 not really say so. It is more of the nature of a circular 
 letter to other Christian churches, though the copy 
 
 1 As early as the time of Julius Caesar, Aries began to be used by the Romans. 
 In his De hello ci-vili y i. 36, we read that he fitted out twelve war vessels there, and 
 the vessels captured from the Massilians were brought there also, ii. 5 j cf. Ausonius, 
 Or do urb. nob. x. p. 148 : 
 
 " pande, duplex Arelate, tuos blanda hospita portus 
 Gallula Roma Arelas." 
 
 2 Irenaeus apparently from Smyrna, Attalus of Pergamum, and Alexander from 
 Phrygia. Cf. Le Blant's Ins. chret. de la Gaule, Diss. Nos. 225, 557, and 613. 
 Salvian in 440 remarks on the Syrians that were to be found in Gaul, De gub. 
 Dei, iv. 69. At Trier there are four inscriptions in Greek of Christians from 
 Asia Minor. Cf. Dr. Klinkenberg, Die rSmisch-christlichen Grabschriften, K6ln, 
 1890. 
 
ii THE PERSECUTION AT LYONS 37 
 
 which Eusebius saw was definitely addressed to religious 
 communities in Asia Minor. 1 Twenty years before 
 (A.D. 156) the Church of Smyrna had written a circular 
 letter of this kind nominally addressed to the Church 
 of Philomelium, 2 recording the martyrdom of St. Poly- 
 carp. The devotion of Irenaeus, one of the survivors of 
 Lyons, for St. Polycarp offers us an ample reason for 
 the letter without the assumption of a mission from 
 Asia Minor. Both letters suggest that such mutual 
 intercourse in trouble was not rare, and the little we 
 know of this intercourse does not allow us to deny 
 such a custom. We must refrain, however, from all 
 inferences until all the information has been placed 
 before us. Nor does the letter record in strict 
 historical sequence the details of this cruel and bitter 
 visitation. In every line it indicates the intense grief 
 of the writers. As each incident occurs to their mind 
 they note it down in their letter. They were more 
 anxious to tell of the bitterness of the suffering, and 
 of the calm courage of the martyrs, than of the exact 
 sequence of the details of this popular outbreak. 
 
 We must endeavour then to recall these events as The story 
 in all probability they followed one another in that 
 memorable summer of A.D. 177. The Gallic Diet, 3 which 
 Augustus had created, and which met yearly at Lyons 
 on the first day of August to engage in solemn religious 
 rites performed by their specially chosen priest before 
 the altar of the genius of Rome and of Augustus, and to 
 discuss with the imperial legate matters that concerned 
 the welfare of the province, had grown into a power 
 in Gaul, a power which made for loyalty to the 
 
 1 Euseb. H.E. v. i. 
 
 2 Cf. Lightfoot's Apostolic Fathers, vol. iii. p. 353. 
 
 8 Suetonius, Claudius ii. i 5 cf. Marquardt, R'dmische Sfadtsv erivaltung, i. 270 j 
 A. Bernard, Le Temple d'Auguste et la national te gauloise, p. 30 ; cf. also A. de 
 Barthelemy, " Les Assemblies nationales dans les Gaules" in R. desQ.H., July 1868. 
 Guiraud, Les Assemblies provinciates dans I' Empire r^maine, 1887, and Carette's 
 Les Assemblies provinciates de la Gaule romaine, 189^. Cf. the references to Jews 
 and Syrians in Gregory of Tours and the story of the Syrian woman ;>t Orleans 
 who was so kind to S. Columbanus. Jonas, Vit. Columb. i. 21. M.G.H. Vltae 
 SS. aevi Mero-u. vol. i. 
 
38 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Empire and for the peace of the country. In Lyons it 
 was an occasion for social gatherings where national 
 aspirations, revived by the meeting of friends from 
 distant Gallic towns, were wisely allowed under the 
 restraint of the Roman garrison. Men from far 
 distant cities came not merely as the representatives 
 of their locality to attend the Diet, 1 but also to transact 
 business for themselves. Merchants prepared for this 
 gathering by a renewal and an increase of the wares 
 they kept for sale. The sailors that plied their vessels 
 down the Rhone and the slaves that carried the 
 merchandise to the market would catch the spirit of 
 the delegates in their desire for employment and 
 for gain. As we read the story it seems to suggest 
 that the persecutions had lasted over some time, and 
 this seems to be corroborated by other evidence to 
 hand. The great and solemn Diet was undoubtedly 
 on August i, but the martyrologists 2 mention June 
 2 as the day of martyrdom. Later generations of 
 Christians at Lyons thought nothing of the Diet as 
 compared to the outbreak of the persecutions, and the 
 commencement of the fiery trial was remembered re- 
 gardless of the time during which it lasted. The 
 minds of the citizens were filled with the thought of the 
 Fair and of all that it was to them. But what of these 
 devotees of the new religion, who had doubtless de- 
 nounced the coming solemnities, and were therefore 
 regarded with anxiety by the tradesmen as well as by 
 the authorities of the city ? They were to be met 
 with in every street in the city, and the success of 
 their creed meant the downfall of the Roman official 
 religion. Surely men like these could not be loyal 
 citizens of the Empire ! Surely they should be opposed 
 and, if possible, swept away! They were winning con- 
 verts on all sides. The city had been disturbed but 
 
 1 Eusebius calls it -jrav/iyvpis, but Ruinart follows Valesius, and describes it as 
 "solemnis mercatus." 
 
 2 Cf. Migne's P.L. No. xxx. ; Jerome vol. xi. p. 462 "Lugduno Galliae quadraginta 
 et sex martyrum " 5 cf. also Sulpicius Severus, Chron. ii. 32. 
 
ii THE PERSECUTION AT LYONS 39 
 
 a short time previously by the conversion of Maturus, 
 a man of rank and local influence, to the new religion. 1 
 So, as the narrative relates, the persecution began with 
 various acts of unfriendliness shown by the people in 
 Lyons to those who were suspected to be Christians. 
 They refused them admission to their houses. They 
 drove them from the public baths. They shouted 
 at them in the streets. As opportunities occurred 
 they inflicted blows upon them. They insulted them 
 publicly. They would not traffic with them. Stones 
 were thrown at them, and their goods were stolen from 
 them. 2 Then the pagan fury waxed stronger. A 
 group of these Christians was seized and led by the 
 soldiers and some of the officers of the garrison to the 
 Forum, and afterwards before the duumvirs of the city, 
 and there in the presence of the multitude they were 
 publicly questioned. 
 
 The legate was absent from the city, 3 a proof that 
 the first outbreak must have occurred some time before 
 the session of the Diet was to begin. The tribunes of 
 the XHIth Cohors Urbana 4 and the duumvirs of the 
 city were in charge of public order. Those who con- 
 fessed that they were Christians were imprisoned to 
 await the arrival of the governor, and daily during the 
 interval others were seized and committed to the gaol. 
 So the persecution went on until the legate arrived. 
 Forms of justice were ignored. Slaves were captured 
 and tortured to obtain evidence against the accused. 
 Nor did the legate, after he had arrived in the city, 
 
 1 Euseb. H.E. v. i ^Trep/Se/SX^/u^vws d fr<rKrjif/ev 77 6/3777 ira<ra Kal 
 . . . els Mdrou/aoj' veofi&rio'TOi' fAfr, dXXcl yevvaiov dyuviffT'/jv. 
 
 2 Ibid. . . , ^7rt/3or)(reis Kal TrX^ds Kal (rvp/j,oijs Kal Siapirayas Kal \lduv /SoXds. 
 
 3 Ibid, . . . e'us TT}S TOU Tjye/j.6vos irapov<rias. The governor of Gaul held the 
 title of legate. 
 
 4 The garrison of Lyons consisted of the Xlllth Cohors Urbana, and its com 
 mander was a tribune. Neither the tribune nor the duumvirs had power ove 
 criminal cases, though probably, as the city was filled with strangers, the usual con- 
 ditions of jurisdiction were not very carefully observed. The terms used by Eusebius 
 are 6 xiXtapx * an ^ 6 ijye^v, which Valesius translates by "tribunus " and "praeses." 
 This latter he regards as equivalent to Procurator, Procurator Legate ; cf. however, 
 Marquardt as above, R.S. n, p. 466, and La Cite antique by Fustel de Coulanges, 
 1885. 
 
40 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 interfere in this outburst of popular injustice. One 
 whose name suggests missions far off in Aquitaine, and 
 who had great influence among the Celtic population 
 of Lyons, Vettius Epagathus, 1 boldly protested before 
 the governor against this disorderly persecution, and 
 since, at the governor's enquiry, 2 he had confessed 
 himself a Christian, he was himself placed among the 
 accused. The record tells of two distinct spectacles 
 in which the Christians endured the tortures which 
 ended in martyrdom. There were the gladiatorial 
 contests, and afterwards the shows when the wild beasts 
 were introduced on to the arena. But each day the 
 prisoners seem to have been interrogated and tortured 
 to break their constancy. Gregory of Tours tells us of 
 forty-eight martyrs. 3 It is unlikely that these were all 
 arrested at the same time. Search was made at Vienne 
 as well as at Lyons, and all the prominent members of 
 the two churches were collected 4 for examination. As 
 the great Fair drew near fresh arrests were made, and 
 the crowd spread charges of Thyestean banquets and 
 other abominations, and these base stories were accepted 
 The as true in spite of the characters and protests of those 
 rf'the 1 against whom they were made. The first attack fell 
 martyrs, heavily on Lyons. Some were ready for the fiery trial 
 and some were not. 5 Ten fell away while in prison, 
 and in fear of torture abjured their faith. They were, 
 however, not released but kept in custody, and since 
 they were able to witness the constancy under torture 
 of those who were true it would seem as if all were kept 
 together in one common prison house. The evidence 
 
 1 Vettius Epagathus seems to have come from the country between the Cher and 
 the Loire, in the territory of the Bituriges. A descendant of his, Leucadius, gave his 
 house at Bourges to Bishop Ursinus for the first Christian church there j cf. Greg. 
 Tours, H.F. i. 31. 
 
 2 Are we to suppose that the legate had now returned to Lyons, and that an 
 interval of some days had elapsed between the first charge in the Forum and this 
 protest of Vettius ? 
 
 3 Gregory T. Lib. de glor. mart. cap. 48. 
 
 4 Euseb. H.E. v. i &<rre <rv\\yTjvai e/c TWV 5tfo 4KK\^(nuv irdvras roij 
 ffirovdalovs. 
 
 5 Eusebius terms them avfroifAoi Kal 
 
ii THE PERSECUTION AT LYONS 4 i 
 
 of the slaves also enlarged the scope of the enquiry. 
 They were accused on this evidence as guilty of abomin- 
 able vices as well as being members of unlicensed 
 religious associations. The four who are first men- 
 tioned, and to whom some importance seemed to be 
 attached, were Sanctus of Vienne, the deacon ; Maturus, 
 the recent convert ; Attalus, the influential Roman 
 citizen ; and Blandina, a servant-maid, whose mistress 
 also was among the imprisoned. To obtain evidence of 
 guilt these were tortured by the application of red-hot 
 metal plates, and to appease the people and to produce 
 effect this torture seems to have been inflicted in public. 
 Blandina's constancy was the marvel of her torturers 
 and the consolation of her mistress. As a Roman 
 citizen Attalus was set back, and the legate wrote to the 
 emperor for instructions concerning him. His un- 
 authorised tortures form a later portion of the tragedy. 
 It is interesting to notice also that Sanctus and Attalus 
 are both recorded as speaking in Latin, 1 evidence of 
 the jargon of Latin, Greek, and Celtic, which was spoken 
 at Lyons at the time of the Fair. First, then, Sanctus, 
 the deacon, was tortured, and in answer to every 
 question he continued to give the same answer, that he 
 was a Christian. After the ordeal of the hot plates, 
 which had scarred all the tenderest parts of his body, 
 they produced one Biblias, who had denied her Chris- 
 tianity, and who they hoped would openly accuse 
 him of some forbidden vice. The sight, however, of 
 his fortitude under suffering brought repentance to her, 
 and she vehemently denied the charge of eating chil- 
 dren which had been brought against him. So further 
 torture was administered to Sanctus, and then he was 
 taken back into his prison house. The next to be 
 brought forward was the venerable bishop, Pothinus. 
 He was ninety years of age, feeble and infirm. He 
 was partly dragged and partly carried by the soldiers 
 to the tribunal, and the city magistrates, as his 
 
 1 direKpivaro rg 'Pw/xeu/CT? <f><>)vfj. 
 
42 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 accusers, 1 accompanied him. He does not seem to 
 have been brought into the amphitheatre, but from his 
 prison to the tribunal he was the mark and the 
 victim of the spite and cruelty of the citizens. As 
 he stood before the tribunal the legate asked him 
 who the God of the Christians might be, and in reply 
 he boldly answered, 2 " If thou art worthy thou shalt 
 know." What happened afterwards we are not told, 
 but he was taken back to his prison and was again the 
 victim of the people's fury. Some lashed at him with 
 scourges, some kicked him, and others struck him with 
 their hands. The treatment was too severe. Two 
 days afterwards he sank away to his rest. Then came 
 the great days of the Fair, 3 and it was announced that 
 the Christians would fill the place of the gladiators. 
 Maturus, Sanctus, Blandina, and Attalus were brought 
 out, still wounded and suffering from their former 
 tortures. As they passed to the centre of the arena 
 they had to run the gauntlet of the executioner's lash. 
 Maturus and Sanctus were, however, too weak for 
 further tortures and were forthwith beheaded. Blandina 4 
 was tied to a stake for the wild bulls 5 to gore, but they 
 would not touch her. Concerning Attalus the emperor's 
 wishes had now been received, and with a label, " This 
 is Attalus the Christian," attached to him, he was led 
 before the concourse of people who were calling out for 
 
 1 Euseb. . . . TrapcnrefjiTrdvTUv avrbv r&v TroXirt/cwj' QOVGL&V. 
 
 2 . . . ris et-rj JLpi<TTiav<2v 6 9e6s ; tyrj, '~Eav fjs &ios, yvAff-g. 
 
 3 They seem to have suffered on the island between the Sa&ne and the Rhone, 
 now forming part of the narrow strip of the city between the two rivers ; cf. Vachez, 
 U Amphitheatre de Lugdunum et les martyrs d'Ainay, pp. 24-30. 
 
 4 On Blandina cf. Eucherius' homily, Migne, P.L. 50, p. 859 " digne inquam 
 tecum, O Bethleem, Lugdunus noster certaret chorus meus in pueris innocentes tuos 
 habere potuit, chorus tuus Blandinam meam habere non potuit." The homily is 
 short and very fervid, but dwells rather on the richness of Lyons in the blood of its 
 martyrs than in any important details of Blandina's life. I cannot help adding to 
 this note the eloquent words of Renan, Marc-Aurele, p. 312 : " Je suis chrdtienne, 
 il ne se fait rien de mal parmi nous. La servante Blandine, dont j'aime a citer ici 
 les paroles, montra qu'une revolution 6tait accomplie. La vraie Emancipation de 
 1'esclavage, 1'emancipation par I'h6roi'sme fut en grande partie son ouvrage." 
 
 6 Allard (op. cit. i. 427) suggests with great probability that the wild beasts must 
 have been bulls. They would gore and trample on their victims, but would not eat 
 them. 
 
ii THE PERSECUTION AT LYONS 43 
 
 him. There were others with him whose names are not 
 mentioned. When the legate had questioned them, he 
 ordered those who were citizens to be beheaded. But 
 Blandina was sent back to prison and Attalus was 
 ordered to be exposed to the bulls, and with him were 
 other members of the Church at Lyons. Then it was 
 noticed that Alexander, a Phrygian who had long 
 practised in Lyons as a physician, was encouraging the 
 sufferers, and especially those who had at first apostasised 
 and were again confessing their faith in Christ, So the 
 mob denounced him to the legate, and since he con- 
 fessed he was a Christian, he was made to take his stand 
 by Attalus. His torture seems to have been brief, and 
 soon after he was despatched with others whom he had 
 urged to endure. The heated iron chair was then 
 brought out and Attalus was placed in it, and as the 
 fumes of his burning flesh spread around he exclaimed : l 
 " Lo, this is to devour men that which you are now 
 doing to me. But as to us we neither devour men nor 
 commit any such evil." The silence of the narrative 
 allows us to believe that he died soon after. 
 
 But Blandina was still in prison, and with her was a 
 boy of fifteen, Ponticus by name. It was the last day 
 of the shows and now once more her constancy was to 
 be tested. They brought her out again, and with her 
 this boy Ponticus, endeavouring, by a renewal of the 
 tortures now on her and now on the boy, to break 
 down her constancy. Before her eyes, and while she 
 encouraged him to endure, they tortured Ponticus to 
 death, and yet she continued true to her faith. Then 
 in their fury they turned the wild bulls upon her, and 
 on this occasion these tossed her livid and half-conscious 
 frame. But all feeling was departing and u in hope 
 and in communion with Christ " she yielded up her 
 soul under the blow of the executioner. 2 The cruel 
 
 1 Euseb. . . . 0?; Trpbs r& TrX^^oj TT) 'Pw/tcu/qJ ^wv?/, *I5oi) TOVT& 
 dv0p(t)irov$ tffdleiv 6 Trotetre y/iets. 
 
 2 In Beda's Martyrology Blandina's day is June 4. Usuard gives it as June 2. 
 " Passa est quoque sancta Blandina ex eorum collegis quae primo secundo et tertio die 
 
44 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 audience had seen enough, and the down-turned thumb 
 showed that Christ had conquered. 
 
 The text of this letter only mentions the names of 
 seven of the martyrs. Eusebius tells us that attached 
 to the letter was a full list of those who had suffered, 
 arranged under the heads of those who were beheaded, 
 those who were exposed to the wild beasts, those who 
 died in prison, and those who survived up to the date 
 of the writing of the letter. Gregory of Tours, in his 
 book, De gloria martyrum, gives us a list which seems 
 to be derived from some genuine record then preserved 
 at Lyons. Eusebius gave in his ^vvaywyrj TWV ap^aicov 
 fjLapTvpi&v the original list appended to the letter. This 
 work has now disappeared, but the martyrologists have 
 preserved most of the names. The date of the martyr- 
 dom in the Martyrology known as that of Jerome, and 
 in those of Ado and Usuard, is June 2 a date, as we 
 have already stated, which seems to suggest the beginning 
 of the outbreak. As it is certain that the leaders of the 
 Church at Lyons must have died early in August, it 
 can be regarded as more than probable that others fell 
 as victims of the popular fury many weeks before. 
 
 The resentment of the people of Lyons did not, how- 
 ever, end with the death of their victims ; their bodies 
 were cast to the dogs, and the citizens watched carefully 
 lest any portion might be seized by secret friends and 
 given a decent burial. Then the bones were burnt and 
 the ashes were thrown into the Rhone, in order that the 
 Christians might not preserve any as objects of 
 veneration. 
 
 The subsequent story is not very easy to make out. 
 Confessors seem mingled with martyrs, and certainly 
 some of those who had faced this fiery persecution 
 survived to dictate or to commend this letter, which was 
 written to describe all that they had endured, and which 
 
 pulsata cruciatibus, cum non superaretur quarto verberibus acta, cratulis exusta et 
 multa alia perpessa ad ultimum gladio jugulatur " j cf. Molanus' edition, Usuard, 
 *573> P- 93- 
 
ii THE PERSECUTION AT LYONS 
 
 45 
 
 was sent as a message of encouragement to other 
 churches. Irenaeus is supposed to have been the writer 
 of this letter, and was certainly the bearer of one copy 
 sent to Eleutherus bishop of Rome. 1 Among the 
 survivors was Irenaeus also among those who were 
 styled the confessors ? Not a word is said as to any 
 harm coming to him and yet he must have been well 
 known. Though Sanctus was only a deacon Irenaeus 
 had been ordained priest by Pothinus. Perhaps the 
 fury died down quickly after the days of the Diet, 
 and when the delegates had gone off to their distant 
 homes. Perhaps the legate feared the wrath of the 
 emperor should he continue to allow executions and 
 cruelties, which savoured of proscription. The martyrs 
 themselves ere they died had urged that kindness should 
 be shown towards 2 those who had displayed any weakness, 
 and this wise treatment of the weak by the strong, 
 which seems to have been carried out, may have resulted 
 in their quick recovery. The survivors also commended 
 Irenaeus the priest of Lyons to Bishop Eleutherus, 3 
 which act in itself seems as if Irenaeus had been 
 purposely sent by the surviving Christians at Lyons, 
 that at the hands of the bishop of Rome he might 
 receive consecration as the successor of Pothinus. 
 
 In going to Rome Irenaeus did not go to a city 
 which to him was before unknown. His knowledge of 
 it seems intimate and his influence not small. He 
 intercedes with Eleutherus for the Montanists, and his 
 later writings 4 " on Schism " addressed to Blastus, and 
 " on Sovereignty " addressed to Rufinus, if for the 
 general welfare of the Church were certainly also in- 
 tended for the special welfare of the Church in Rome. 
 
 In later years, when he was bishop of Lyons, Irenaeus 
 wrote to Victor, bishop of Rome 192-202, the successor 
 
 1 Eusebius, H.E. v. 4. 
 
 2 Ibid. v. 2. 
 
 3 Ibid. v. 4 Kal irapaicaXov/jiev 2x lv ffe O-^TOV tv irapa0t<ret. 
 
 4 Ibid. v. 20. Blastus was of the party of Florinus which had adopted 
 Valentinian views. 
 
46 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 of Eleutherus, not only giving him his advice concern- 
 ing the Easter Question and the Quartodeciman 
 controversy, 1 but also: condemning very plainly Bishop 
 Victor's high-handed and uncharitable conduct towards 
 those who still clung to the Quartodeciman computa- 
 tion. 
 
 What then is the history of Irenaeus ? Gregory of 
 Tours writes of him as " a beato Policarpo ad hanc 
 urbem directus." 2 Now Irenaeus as a boy iral? eri 
 wv 3 was at Smyrna, and had already formed a great 
 admiration for St. Polycarp. He was wont then to listen 
 to his conversation, and could record thirty years after- 
 wards how St. Polycarp would sit and discourse, and 
 describe to the Christians at Smyrna, his intercourse with 
 St. John and the others who had seen the Lord. When 
 in A.D. 154 St. Polycarp came to Rome to discuss with 
 Anicetus the Easter controversy Irenaeus was certainly 
 at Rome, and Eusebius has related to us 4 the friendly 
 terms that existed between the two bishops. Moreover, 
 in the following year, the year of Polycarp's martyrdom, 
 Irenaeus was established at Rome as a recognised 
 teacher, 5 and may have had the famous Hippolytus 
 as his pupil. He is said to have heard a voice as of 
 a trumpet telling him in Rome that Polycarp had 
 been martyred. Our next notice of him comes 
 to us from Lyons. He was there at the time of the 
 persecution and had been ordained priest by Pothinus, 6 
 and he is commended by the martyrs to the notice of 
 Eleutherus. Was he then " directus " to the city of 
 Lyons by St. Polycarp ? Gregory of Tours knew little of 
 him, though he had some documents which were of the 
 highest value. He regards, however, Irenaeus as having 
 
 1 Eusebius, v. 24 T$ ye firjv RlKropi irpoarr]K6vT(i)S ws fj^i diroKbirroi SXas e/c- 
 KX^a-ias QeoVj dpxo-lov Zdovs Trapddo<riv eTTiTypofoas 7r\et<rra Zrepa irapatvet, 
 
 2 Greg. Tour. H.F. i. 29. 
 
 3 Eusebius, H.E. v. 20 j Iren. contra Haeres. iii. 3. 4. 
 
 4 Eusebius, H.E. v. 24. 
 
 5 Letter of the Smyrnaeans, 20. 2, as read in the Moscow MSS. ; cf. Lightfoot's 
 Apostolic Fathers, iii. 402. 
 
 8 Euseb. H.E. v. 4. Photius' Syntagma, Bibl. cod. 121. 
 
ii THE PERSECUTION AT LYONS 47 
 
 fallen in the persecution of A.D. 177,* a mistake which 
 proves that he cannot be implicitly followed. Irenaeus 
 was at Rome and not at Smyrna or Lyons when Poly- 
 carp suffered. Moreover, Irenaeus was not a follower 
 of Poly carp 2 in the Paschal Question, but observed the 
 rule which Anicetus and others had adopted. Not a 
 word is said by Irenaeus as to the mission at Lyons 
 being due to the initiation of Polycarp, nor is there any 
 reliable evidence that the Churches of Asia Minor 
 ever attempted missions to Gaul. That Attalus and 
 Alexander, Christians from Asia Minor, were found in 
 Lyons only proves the prosperity of the capital of Gaul 
 which had attracted to it men from every part of the 
 empire. We know nothing of the origin of Pothinus. 
 He probably, as Irenaeus certainly, came from Rome. 
 That he bore a Greek name does not prove that he 
 came from Asia Minor. Of the names of the forty- 
 eight 3 martyrs and confessors which Gregory preserves 
 for us, almost one-third of them bore Greek names. 
 The Gaulish converts, except those of noble birth like 
 Vettius Epagathus, would probably have Latin names. 
 
 Like Rome itself Lyons was full of foreigners, and 
 the appeal of the Christians in Lyons to Eleutherus, and 
 the fact that Irenaeus, when bishop of Lyons, regarded 
 the permanence of orthodox tradition in the Church as 
 depending 4 on the continuity of the Roman episcopate, 
 seem to prove that the mission to Lyons came at least 
 through Rome, if indeed it did not emanate from Rome. 
 
 The persecution at Lyons ended with this holocaust 
 of Christian martyrs in August A.D. 177. Then 
 followed the mission to Rome of Irenaeus, sent by the 
 surviving members of the Church there, and his return, 
 consecrated by Eleutherus, as the successor of Pothinus. 
 
 1 Greg. Tour. H.F. \. 29. Gregory had clearly certain traditional stories con- 
 cerning the persecution, and these he has incorporated in his text. He does not 
 seem, however, to have had very definite information. 
 
 2 Euseb. H.E. v. 24. 
 
 3 Greg. Tour. Lib. de glor. mart. cap. 48. 
 
 4 Euseb. H.E. v. 24. 
 
48 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 His subsequent work belongs in part to the Church in 
 Gaul, and in part to the whole of the Catholic Church. 
 His great treatise on the Heresies probably embodied 
 the subject-matter of his lectures delivered in Rome 
 before he started to join Pothinus at Lyons. Gnosticism 
 in its various forms and also Montanism were troubling 
 the Church ; and the great work on the Refutation of 
 Gnosticism by Irenaeus soon became a text-book for all 
 Christendom. Everybody read it. It is constantly 
 and almost from the very first quoted as the great 
 authority by which error could be discovered, and the 
 true faith recognised. It was written l in Lyons in 
 Greek and was translated into Latin by a Gaulish priest. 
 It is this Latin version which has come down to us. 
 Of the original Greek, only fragments have survived. 
 To the language spoken in Lyons we have already 
 referred. Irenaeus suggests that it was trilingual. 
 Greek and Latin were certainly used, and Irenaeus 
 apologises for the decadence of his Greek style, by the 
 fact that he had so constantly to converse in a barbarous 
 tongue. 2 Certainly the Gauls who lived at Lyons and 
 the Gauls who, as we believe, came from other parts of 
 the provinces to consult him would desire to speak to 
 him in some Celtic dialect. 
 
 About ten years after Irenaeus had been bishop of 
 Lyons, Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, made a last 
 attempt to uphold the Quartodeciman method of reckon- 
 ing the Easter festival. He wrote to Victor of Rome 
 in defence of his custom, and the violence of Victor's 
 opposition threatened a serious breach of Christian 
 communion. In the year A.D. i89, 3 or perhaps a few 
 years earlier, Irenaeus, on behalf of the Church in 
 general as well as of the Church at Lyons, wrote 
 
 1 A fragment of Book iii. was discovered at Oxyrhynchus by Messrs. Grenfell and 
 Hunt which on paleographical grounds is actually assigned to the middle of the third 
 century. 
 
 2 Iren. contra Haeres. I. Preface -trap' THJL&V rwv & KeXrotj 8iaTpif36vT(av. 
 
 3 Cf. above j Euseb. H.E. v. 24. Irenaeus calls Eleutherus the Xllth bishop of 
 Rome and his episcopate lasted 174-189. Irenaeus quoted the Version of Theodotion 
 and so must have written after A.D. 181. 
 
ii THE PERSECUTION AT LYONS 49 
 
 strongly to Victor condemning his severity and urging 
 him not to cut off whole churches of God, who 
 observed the tradition of an ancient custom. This 
 letter, though especially addressed to the bishop of Rome, 
 was also sent as a circular letter to other churches. 
 Irenaeus, in the last decade of the second century, was the 
 one important link with that band of bishops who had 
 been disciples of St. John. He could speak, indeed, 
 with authority, and he did not hesitate to write in all 
 plainness to Victor. His subsequent history and his 
 end are both obscure. 
 
 As we look over our evidence of this time we dis- 
 cover traces of missionary organisation which, reaching 
 out from Lyons, extended to Germania, 1 Aquitania, 
 and the Celtic lands beyond the Loire, and these traces 
 we shall have to follow up as far as they seem to offer 
 us any historic evidence in their support. They prob- 
 ably tell us of the organising efforts of the great 
 bishop of Lyons, and perhaps also of the dispersive in- 
 fluences of a prolonged persecution. But was Irenaeus 
 himself a martyr ? Septimius Severus spent some time 
 in Lyons and in Gaul during the years A.D. 202 and 
 203. 2 He passed through Lyons on his way to Britain 
 in A.D. 208. He had persecuted the Church in Egypt, 
 and his presence in Gaul may have been the occasion of 
 attacks on the Christian Church there. We do not, 
 however, know definitely of any. Eusebius does not 
 refer to Irenaeus as a martyr. Jerome, in his De vtris 
 illustribuS) written in A.D. 392,** does not call him a 
 martyr, but in his Commentary on Isaiah* written in 
 A.D. 410, he describes him as " vir apostolicus, episcopus 
 et martyr." Gregory of Tours 5 states the fact of his 
 martyrdom, but evidently thought that it occurred 
 
 1 Contra haer. \. 10. 2. 
 
 2 Dion Cass. Severus^ lib. Ixxvi. cap. n. 12 j Aelius Spartianus, x. 3. 8. 
 
 3 Cf. Richardson's edition, in Texte und Untenuchungen, xiv. i. p. 25. 
 
 4 Cf. Jerome, Comment, j Migne, P.L. xxiv. ; Isaiah cap. Ixiv. 
 
 5 G. T. Lib. de glor. mart. 49 " Hereneus successit episcopus per martyrium et 
 ipse finitus." 
 
 E 
 
50 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 A.D. 177. The Martyrologies of Ado and Usuard 
 repeat the statement and give us June 28 as the day 
 when his martyrdom occurred. 1 
 
 The fugi- In the letter which the Church of Lyons sent to the 
 f m Churches O f Asia Minor mention is only made of the 
 Christians in Lyons and in Vienne. This statement 
 suggests an organisation, and though it mentions only 
 these two towns, it does not profess to limit the 
 organisation. The words of Irenaeus in his book on 
 Heresies suggest that there were churches or small 
 communities of Christians in the other three divisions 
 of Gaul as well as in Narbonensis. 2 On the supposi- 
 tion that such existed, it is natural to imagine that the 
 survivors, or at least some of them, would, after the 
 terrors they had experienced, try to leave the city 
 for districts and religious communities less prominent 
 than that of Lyons, and therefore safer. Now, we do 
 not know of these communities, but we do know of 
 martyrdoms which occurred at a very early date, and 
 which seem probably to have been due to isolated 
 attacks on Christians within the organisation which 
 Pothinus had created and which Irenaeus had fostered. 
 The martyrdom of St. Epipodius and St. Alexander 8 
 is certainly one of those instances, and the authority for 
 it is too early and too definite to be ignored. Epipodius 
 was a citizen of Lyons, and Alexander, a Greek, was his 
 
 1 Cf. Usuard, June 28, "apud Lugdunum Galliae, sancti Irenaei episcopi et 
 martyris." 
 
 2 Cf. above ; Iren. Contra haer. i. 10. 2. 
 
 3 Ruinart, Acta martyrum, ed. 1859, p. 119. The earliest mention of these 
 saints is in a homily of Eucherius of Lyons, circa 440. Cf. Migne, P.L. vol. i. 
 p. 86 1 " indigenarum martyrum cultus et honor specialium patronorum sicut 
 peculiare dat gaudium, ita proprium requirit affectum." He does not give us any 
 historic facts except that in the fifth century these two were regarded as martyrs at 
 Lyons. Their days are for Epipodius April 22 and for Alexander April 24. Greg. 
 of Tours, Lib. de glor. mart. 49, says that they were buried on either side of 
 Irenaeus in the crypt of the Basilica of St. John. In this book he also refers to the 
 widow who preserved as a relic the sandal that Epipodius in his flight lost. The 
 Passio printed by Ruinart is not earlier than the fifth century. The reference to the 
 Catholic faith, " occulte operam dare Catholico fidei cultui," and Epipodius' remark, 
 "non ita me Christi ac fidei Catholicae armavit affectus ut sensum meum tuae 
 misericordiae figmenta promoveant," shows that the narrative was not drawn up until 
 late in the fourth or early in the fifth century. 
 
ii THE PERSECUTION AT LYONS 51 
 
 friend. They are said to have suffered in the year in 
 which Pothinus was martyred. They were young men 
 who had been friends and colleagues from their school- 
 days. A domestic slave betrayed them, and this fact 
 shows that in the autumn of A.D. 177 there were still 
 men who were searching for Christians in the city. 
 Knowing that they were betrayed, they endeavoured to 
 hide themselves until such time as they could escape 
 from Lyons and get away to the mountains of Auvergne. 
 Their hiding-place was the cottage of a widow, in the 
 street now called Pierre Incise, north-west of the hill of 
 Fourvie're. A spy had, however, marked them down, 
 and when they tried to escape, endeavoured to seize 
 them. Epipodius in the hurry lost a sandal, and this 
 the widow afterwards kept as a relic. When captured 
 they were brought before the magistrate, the multitude 
 demanding at the same time their death. In answer 
 to his enquiries they told the magistrates that they were 
 Christians. Alexander, the Greek, was then put on one 
 side, and Epipodius was examined. The magistrate ex- 
 postulated with him, saying that he was young and a 
 citizen, and that it was wrong to die in a bad cause. 
 The heathen revered and worshipped the immortal gods, 
 and why will he not do likewise ? But Epipodius re- 
 mained firm and declared that he was a Christian, and 
 the magistrate ordered him the lash. Meanwhile the 
 people grew clamorous, so he was taken from the 
 tribunal and immediately executed. Two days after- 
 wards Alexander was brought out of prison and 
 in like manner examined. He also remained firm 
 and unmoved by the appeals of the magistrate, and 
 died rather under the ill-treatment and blows of the 
 gaolers than from any deliberate act of judgment. 
 It was the aftermath of the fiery trial of that terrible 
 summer. 
 
 Should any fugitive wish to make his way from Lyons St. s ym - 
 along the great north road, he would soon come to P honan - 
 Autun, and the historic evidences for the martyrdom of 
 
52 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 St. Symphorian l under the emperor Marcus Aurelius is 
 so strong that it is probable that in St. Symphorian we 
 see, if not a fugitive from the persecution of Lyons yet 
 one who as a Christian convert formed one of the small 
 Christian community at Autun which Pothinus had 
 organised. The municipal life of the towns of the 
 Roman Empire was saturated with heathen religious 
 ceremonies, and every detail of the narrative of the 
 martyrdom suggests veracity and an early date. 
 Symphorianus was the son of Faustus, a senator of 
 Autun, an Aeduan living in the very centre of the 
 ancient Gallic cult of gods whose names the Romans 
 had changed into Berecynthia, Apollo, and Diana. At 
 the time of his arrest the town was filled with people 
 from the neighbouring hills and valleys, who had come 
 to keep a festival in honour of Berecynthia, the mother 
 of the gods. Heraclius, a man of consular rank, and 
 the magistrate residing in the town, was anxious to 
 obtain some information concerning those Christians, so 
 many of whom had lately been executed at Lyons. So 
 Symphorian went to talk with Heraclius. In the mean- 
 while the crowds passed along carrying in procession 
 the statue of Berecynthia. All knelt in reverence as 
 the image was borne before them, but Symphorian, 
 who met the procession, was conspicuous by his refusal 
 to show any respect for the image. So the mob in their 
 sudden vexation charged him with being a Christian. 
 His irreverence towards the image of Berecynthia 
 was proof of the charge. Symphorian, therefore, 
 was taken and accused as a Christian before the 
 
 1 The story of St. Symphorian is very early. Greg. Tur. Lib. de glor. mart. 
 quotes from it, 76, and mentions the image of Berecynthia. In his Liber de virtutibus 
 S. Juliani, 30, he calls Symphorian an Aeduan, and in his book on the glory of the 
 martyrs he tells how a certain religious man received the martyr's blood in a 
 vessel and kept it as a relic, and placed it under the altar of the church at Thiers 
 apud Tigernum. Duchesne, Fasfes ej>. i. p. 50, says " La passion primitive de S. 
 Symphorian est une piece du V e siecle notablement antrieure a tout le cycle que 
 nous considrons," i.e. the group of legends concerning St. Benignus, Ferreolus, etc., 
 of whom the Passiones apart from the fact are of very little historical value. 
 Allard, i. p. 436, considers the incident concerning the processions and cult of 
 Berecynthia distinctly historical. In the Martyrology of Beda, St. Symphorian's day 
 is August 22. 
 
ii THE PERSECUTION AT LYONS 53 
 
 magistrate Heraclius. Then we are told of the inter- 
 rogation. What was his name ? He must declare 
 it in open court. He replied, "I am a Christian, 
 and I am called Symphorian." Then Heraclius said, 
 " Art thou a Christian ? It is clear that for some 
 time you have escaped our notice. With us there is 
 not a great profession of this name. Why wilt thou 
 not adore the image of the goddess ? " "I have already 
 told you," Symphorian answered, " I am a Christian." 
 The judge then told him that he was not only 
 sacrilegious but also disobedient to the laws, and in the 
 Passio which Ruinart gives us it is recorded that the 
 magistrate ordered the clerk of the court to read the 
 rescript of the emperor. 1 It ran as follows : Aurelius 
 imperator, to all administrators and rulers : we have 
 learnt that the precepts of the laws are broken by those 
 who in our time are called Christians. These seize, and 
 unless they sacrifice to our gods punish with various 
 kinds of torture. 
 
 After the imperial letter had been read the magistrate 
 asked Symphorian what reply he had to make to it. 
 He merely repeated his confession, and the judge ordered 
 him to be scourged and imprisoned. Then after a 
 specified period for reflection had been allowed him he 
 was again brought out, and while he showed on his 
 body the results of the scourging he remained firm and 
 unconquered in the profession of his faith. " How 
 much better would you act," said Heraclius, " if serving 
 the immortal gods, the illustrious dignity of military 
 service could claim you, rewarded for your devotion 
 from the public treasury." But Symphorian remained 
 unchanged in mind, and so Heraclius ordered him to 
 be led to the place of execution. Meanwhile, from the 
 walls of the city his mother looked down on the sad 
 procession, and as her son passed along she cried in 
 
 1 No rescript such as this is known u un pretendu edit de Marc-Aurele qui n'a 
 jamais 6t6 promulgue " j cf. Allard as above. But may not this be a somewhat 
 popular version of the instructions sent by the emperor to the legate at Lyons 
 referred to in the letter of the Church of Lyons ? Euseb. II.E. v. i. 
 
54 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 language which the people could not easily forget : 
 " Nate, nate, 1 Symphoriane, in mente habe Deum 
 vivum. Resume constantiam, fill . . ., hodie, nate, ad 
 supernam vitam felici commutatione migrabis." " Oh 
 my son, my son Symphorian, remember the living God. 
 Be of good courage, my son ; to-day, child, by a happy 
 exchange you will pass away unto eternal life/* So 
 beyond the walls of the city they led him and with the 
 blows of a club he was put to death. The words of his 
 mother seem to have made a great impression. They 
 were long remembered and often repeated, and were 
 afterwards referred to in the " Immolatio of the Mass 
 De Symphoriano " in the Gothic Missal. 2 
 
 There is another group of martyrs of an early 
 date, which seems to have been connected with Lyons 
 if it has not reference to the converts and disciples 
 of Pothinus and Irenaeus. These martyrs are earlier 
 than the Decian persecution, A.D. 250-251, and are 
 generally assigned to the time of Caracalla, A.D. 211- 
 217. The scenes of their martyrdom are suggestive 
 of the communities which may have formed a part 
 of the organisation which was centred in Lyons. At 
 Besanson suffered St. Ferreolus, 3 a priest, and St. 
 Ferrutio, a deacon. The former must not be con- 
 founded with his namesake, a soldier of Vienne who 
 suffered under Maximian. Gregory of Tours mentions 
 him in his book on the glory of the martyrs, but only 
 to record miracles stated to have been wrought at his 
 tomb. He has a Mass in the Gothic Missal, and there is 
 an early Passio which records his sufferings and which 
 Gregory had seen. The story of their martyrdom may 
 not be strictly historical, but there is no reason to doubt 
 that some one of the name of Ferreolus took part with 
 
 1 On the antiquity of this sentence cf. De Rossi, Roma softer ranea, ii. p. 1 8. 
 
 2 Cf. Mabillon's edition of the Gothic Missal, p. 281 "et materno conloquio 
 pietate transfertur ad praemium ; quia Martyribus vita non tollitur sed mutatur." 
 
 3 Cf. Ruinart, p. 489. Duchesne, Pastes ep. i. 48, regards this Passio as 
 historically worthless, and considers that the group of names which it includes spring 
 out of a legend concerning Irenaeus and St. Ferreolus 
 
H THE PERSECUTION AT LYONS 55 
 
 St. Benign us in a movement from Lyons for the con- 
 version of Germania Prima, and suffered in the early 
 years of the third century. 
 
 At Valence to the south we find at the same time 
 the names of SS. Felix, 1 Fortunatus, and Achilles. 
 We cannot reject them as legendary, but no historic 
 incidents of their lives have been preserved. 
 
 At Dijon there is perhaps clearer evidence of this 
 early missionary work from Lyons. About the same 
 time, and in connexion with St. Ferreolus, St. Benignus 2 
 is said to have suffered with St. Andochius, at Viviers, 
 and three others at Saulieu. They are said to have 
 been sent to Gaul by St. Polycarp, a statement which 
 can only be interpreted as meaning that they were in 
 charge of mission stations, which had been founded 
 from Lyons. In 590 the name of St. Benignus occurs 
 in the so-called Hieronymian Martyrology as the martyr 
 of Dijon. Gregory of Tours records the same, and 
 has a story concerning a supposed miracle wrought 
 at his tomb ; and Gregory, bishop of Langres about 
 A.D. 500, is said to have brought back to Dijon a life of 
 St. Benignus. In a Passio of the sixth century, which 
 Gregory of Tours had probably seen, the names of all 
 five martyrs are grouped together. Thus at a very 
 early date these other names were coupled with that of 
 St. Benignus, and the fact of St. Benignus' undoubted 
 historicity gives them the juster claim for our accept- 
 ance. 3 
 
 We must, however, sum up at the close of this Evidence of 
 chapter, the evidence, such as it is, which we have been ^f s a s n e a d ry 
 able to gather concerning the earliest organisation of the work. 
 Christian Church in Gaul. It had its origin at Lyons, 
 where had been planted in the first half of the second 
 
 1 Cf. Duchesne, Pastes ep. i. pp. 50-54. 
 
 2 Cf. Lightfoot's Apostolic Fathers, i. 447. He considers that there was no 
 improbability in the story, a statement with which, so far as it would connect 
 St. Benignus directly with Polycarp, I cannot agree ; cf. Tillemont, vol. iii. pp. 38 
 and 603 $ Greg. Tur. Lib. de ghr. mart. 50. 
 
 3 Cf. Duchesne as above. 
 
56 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP, n 
 
 century the first mission for the conversion of Gaul. 
 Then in the process of intercourse between the capital 
 and the towns of the province converts were won in 
 other cities, and for their benefit Sanctus was sent to 
 Vienne, Fortunatus and Achilles to Valence, andBenignus 
 to Besanson, while at Autun, Viviers, Saulieu, and other 
 places, were to be found members of the flock over 
 which Pothinus and Irenaeus presided. Individual 
 Christians may thus naturally have been in many other 
 cities of Gaul, and the labours of St. Maternus 1 at 
 Trier belong probably to these early years of the third 
 century. That there should be bishops in these towns 
 was unlikely, since the numbers of the faithful was 
 as yet very small. That no bishops are recorded 
 except in the extravagant legends of the twelfth and 
 thirteenth centuries, is evidence that the work was only 
 beginning. Every effort had its origin from Lyons, 
 and to Lyons and to its bishop 2 every priest, deacon, and 
 lay convert looked for guidance and support. Of course 
 the details of these Jives are not strictly historical. They 
 were composed in some cases long after the times when 
 the saints they commemorated had lived. They offer 
 many anachronisms and often they borrow one from 
 another. But the men about whom the lives were 
 written were often strictly historical, and their exist- 
 ence and probable relation to men and to organisa- 
 tions which are familiar to us help to define, perhaps 
 somewhat dimly, yet with some probability, the growth 
 of the Church whose history we are following. 
 
 1 Haupt's Trier, p. 10, and Glocker's Sanct Maternus oder Ursprung des Chrhtentums 
 in Elsass, 1884, cap. iv. p. 59. 
 
 2 Duchesne, i. 39 "tous les chretiens 6pars depuis le Rhin jusqu'aux Pyrenees 
 ne formaient pas qu'une seule communaute, ils reconnaissaient un chef unique, 
 I'ive'que de Lyon." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE MISSION OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS 
 
 A COMPARATIVE examination of the lists of the bishops 
 of the older dioceses of the Church in Gaul shows us 
 fairly clearly that there were two influences at work 
 which tended to deprive them of their historical value. 
 There was, firstly, the desire to make the list of bishops 
 conform to the idea developed by the legends of the 
 family of Bethany of which we have told the story in 
 our first chapter, an idea which assumed a very large 
 amount of organised Church work in Gaul in the first 
 century of the Christian era. The influence of this 
 idea is not difficult to discern. It so entirely ignores 
 the history of Gaul that we can detect it without much 
 trouble. Then there was also another influence which 
 is much more difficult to trace, and which would extend 
 the lists of bishops to some indefinite date about the 
 middle of the third century. There are some real 
 historical facts behind this latter influence, and where it 
 can be detected there are probabilities that the diocese 
 which is concerned had some sort of origin, either as the 
 field of some missionary work, or as the actual sphere of 
 labour of some bishop, at some time before the end of 
 the third century. The middle of the third century 
 certainly witnessed a very definite attempt to spread 
 Christianity in Gaul and to organise the result into 
 dioceses. It is more than a tradition. Gregory of Tours 1 
 
 1 Gregory, Hist. Franc, i. 30 "hujus tempore septem viri episcopi ordinal! ad 
 praedicancium in Galliis missi sunt sicut historia passionis sancti martyris Saturnini 
 
 57 
 
58 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 refers to it as an undoubted fact, and the study of 
 the lists of the bishops of the older dioceses in Gaul 
 tends in every way to corroborate what he says. We 
 are on the track of general church organisation even if 
 at first it is only revealed by the graves of its martyrs. 
 This effort is known as the mission of the seven 
 bishops, and the narration of it declares that they were 
 sent from Rome to work in Gaul, and the date which 
 is generally assigned to it is the time of the emperor 
 Decius. There is much in the story which is obscure, 
 and there are accretions to it which will have to be put 
 aside, but a careful and unprejudiced study of all the 
 facts which can be gathered from its tangled woof shows 
 that it is clearly founded on facts. Gregory of Tours 
 gives us the story in its earliest form. At least we do 
 not know of any earlier tradition which materially differs 
 from his version of the story. He has just mentioned 
 the persecution which took place under the emperor 
 Decius, A.D. 249-251 and he goes on to say " In the 
 time of this man seven bishops were consecrated and sent 
 into Gaul to preach, as the story of the passion of the 
 holy martyr Saturninus informs us." Then he quotes 
 this Passio : " when Decius and Gratus were consuls 
 (A.D. 250), as we have preserved for us on reliable 
 tradition, first and foremost the city of Toulouse had as 
 its bishop Saint Saturninus." After this he returns to 
 his narrative, and says : " These, therefore, were sent : 
 to Tours, Bishop Gatianus ; to Aries, Bishop Trophimus ; 
 to Narbonne, Bishop Paul ; to Toulouse, Bishop Satur- 
 ninus ; to Auvergne (i.e. Clement Ferrand), Bishop 
 Austremonius ; to Limoges, Bishop Martial ; and to 
 Paris, Bishop Dionysius." Again in his book, De gtor. 
 martyrum, 1 Gregory again refers to this story : 
 
 denarrat. Ait enim . . . ' sub Decio et Grato consulibua sicut fideli recordatione[m] 
 retenitur primum ac summum Tholosana civitas sanctum Saturninum habere ceperat 
 sacerdotem.' Hi ergo missi sunt : Turonicis Gatianus episcopus, Arelatensibus 
 Trophimus episcopus, Narbonae Paulus episcopus, Tolosae Saturninus episcopus, 
 Parisiacis Dionysius episcopus, Avernis Stremonius episcopus, Lemovicinis Martialis 
 est destinatus episcopus." 
 
 1 Gregory, Lib. de gloria mart. "Saturninus vcro martyr, ut fertur, ab 
 
in MISSION OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS 59 
 
 " Saturninus, the martyr, as the legend goes, was 
 ordained by the disciples of the Apostles, and was 
 sent to the city of Toulouse." The legend or tradition 
 was well known in Gaul in the sixth century, and 
 Venantius Fortunatus, 1 the poet and contemporary of 
 Gregory, tells the same tale, and twice refers to St. 
 Saturninus and the details of his martyrdom. 
 
 Now the statement of Gregory is clearly founded on 
 two established traditions. There is the general one 
 concerning the mission of the seven bishops which he 
 mentions as generally accepted, and does not regard as 
 in need of corroboration ; and there is something more 
 than a mere tradition of the fact in the ancient story 
 preserved and written down concerning the details in the 
 martyrdom of St. Saturninus. 
 
 A hundred years earlier, in the second half of the 
 fifth century, Toulouse was not in close contact with 
 Tours or with the rest of Gaul. 2 For nearly a 
 century, i.e. A.D. 419-507, it was in the hands of the 
 Visigoths, who as Arians regarded with suspicion any 
 very intimate relationship between the Catholic Chris- 
 tians at Toulouse, the capital, and their fellow Catholics 
 in other parts of the province. 3 But Sidonius of Cler- 
 mont 4 is aware of this legend of St. Saturninus, and 
 
 apostolorum discipulis ordinatus in urbe Tolosiaca est directus." Duchesne explains 
 " apostolorum discipuli " as meaning the successors of St. Peter. It is probable that 
 the phrase was misunderstood as early as the sixth century. 
 
 1 Venant. Fort. ii. 8 : 
 
 " Saturninus enim martyr venerabilis orbi 
 nee latet egregii palma beati viri, 
 qui cum Romana properasset ab urbe Tolosam 
 et pia Christicoli semina ferret agri." 
 
 2 Cf. Chron. Idatli sub anno 418, " Gothi . . sedes in Aquitanica a Tolosa usque ad 
 Oceanum acceperunt." Cf. Freeman, Western Europe in the Vth Century, cap. vi. 
 and below cap. xi. 
 
 3 About 495 Volusianus, bishop of Tours, was exiled to Toulouse by the Visigoths, 
 owing to their suspicion of his loyalty to the Arian Alaric II. Cf. Greg. T. H.F. 
 ii. 26 j Sid. Apoll. Ep. to Basil of Aix^ vii. 6. 
 
 4 Sid. Apoll. ix. 16. 65 : 
 
 "e quibus primum mihi psallat hymnus 
 qui Tolosatem tenuit cathedram 
 de gradu summo capitoliorum 
 praecipitatum 
 
60 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 writes some verses on it about the year A.D. 476 or 
 perhaps a little earlier. It is clear that the story of 
 Saturninus is long anterior to the time of Gregory 
 of Tours and Venantius Fortunatus, nor could it have 
 been recently composed when Sidonius wrote his verses. 
 Yet the Passio agrees with the traditions of Tours, 
 and in his Lives of the Bishops of Tours, for which 
 Gregory certainly possessed local documents of distinct 
 historical value, he explains the extent of the episcopate 
 of St. Gatianus, who was one of these missionary 
 bishops, and its relationship in point of time with that 
 of St. Martin, 1 and his story of the first bishop of 
 Tours falls into agreement with this tradition of the 
 mission of the seven bishops. Gregory clearly gives 
 us the story in its simplest form as it was known and 
 referred to at Tours, but what he says is corroborated 
 by the definite legend at Toulouse, inserted quite early 
 in the history of the church there, concerning the 
 martyrdom of St. Saturninus. 
 
 We must, however, examine in detail the traditions 
 concerning the origin of these seven dioceses before we 
 can come to any decision concerning the historic value 
 of the legend of this mission in the middle of the third 
 century. 
 
 St At Toulouse the story 2 ran that Christianity had come 
 
 but slowly and late to these parts, i.e. Narbonensis i. and 
 Novempopulania. In the cities few places of worship 
 had been erected to mark the zeal of the early converts, 
 and Saturninus as he laboured, and preached, grieved 
 
 quern negatorem Jovis ac Minervae 
 et crucis Christ! bona confitentem 
 vinxit ad tauri latus injugati 
 plebs furibunda 
 
 post Saturninum volo plectra cantent," etc. 
 
 1 Greg. T. Hist. Franc, x. 31. 
 
 2 Cf. Ruinart, Acta sincera, p. 177, edition 1859. 
 
 The legend begins : " Ante annos L sicut actis publicis id est Decio et Grato," etc. 
 For the interpretation of the " L " cf. Allard's note, ii. p. 328, and a further note on 
 p. 329 as to the meaning to be assigned to "actis publicis." 
 
 Cf.Kuhfeld, De capitoliis imperil Romani, 1883 j and Castan's Les Capitoles provinfaux 
 du monde remain, 1886, p. 390. 
 
in MISSION OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS 61 
 
 over the idolatry of the people. He was a man well 
 known to the citizens, and it was by his earnestness 
 and faith that the false predictions of daemons had begun 
 to fail. The wiles of the heathen teachers had been 
 laid bare, and through the growing faith of the Christians 
 the influence of these heathen propagandists was on the 
 wane. On the occasion of a great fete in Toulouse large 
 crowds had gathered in the streets that led to the Capitol, 
 and the zeal and enthusiasm of the people took a religious 
 turn from the heathen ceremonies that were observed at 
 this fete. As they were leading a bull to the Capitol for 
 sacrifice they met Saturninus and his two colleagues, a 
 priest and a deacon, who were passing through the streets 
 on their way to perform in their church their usual 
 religious services. One of the most zealous of the 
 heathen recognised the bishop, and in his hate denounced 
 him as the man who spoke against their religion and 
 would demolish, if he had the power, the temples of 
 their gods. So the excited crowd surged around him, 
 and in the confusion the bishop was separated from 
 his companions, who, alarmed at the situation, turned 
 and fled. The people then seized the bishop and bade 
 him come and offer sacrifice to the gods. Saturninus 
 refused, and in language which may have given a 
 model to later hagiologists, but which at the time seems 
 evidently authentic : " Unum et verum Deum novi. 
 Huic laudis hostias immolabo. Deos vestros daemones 
 scio." Then the citizens again laid hands on him. The 
 bull had been led up to the Capitol by a rope which now 
 hung down behind it. To this they tied the feet of the 
 bishop, and then, having aroused the fury of the bull to 
 toss and perhaps gore him, they drove it down the incline 
 that led from the Capitol, and the bishop seems to have 
 died from his injuries received by being dragged down 
 the uneven street. The tradition in Toulouse was 
 that the story of the martyrdom was written down 
 for posterity by Hilary, who succeeded the martyred 
 Saturninus. At Toulouse during the struggle for 
 
62 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 the orthodox faith which St. Hilary of Poitiers so 
 courageously carried on against the Arian party which 
 the emperor Constantine favoured, there was a bishop 
 Rhodanius, a fellow-worker with St. Hilary in the middle 
 of the fourth century. He was sent into exile by decree 
 of the Council of Beziers A.D. 356. Duchesne, 1 in his 
 critical examination of the list of the bishops of Toulouse, 
 places the above-mentioned Hilary immediately after 
 Rhodanius, and thus we may regard this story as dating 
 from the second half of the fourth century, and probably 
 from the earlier part of it. The story, as given by 
 Ruinart, is not indeed earlier than the ninth century. 
 The original narrative had been embellished, and to this 
 process we may assign the mention of the two com- 
 panions, a priest and a deacon. 2 The interval between 
 the martyrdom and the writing of the story is not what 
 we would have expected. In later times the interval 
 would have disappeared. It is, therefore, a legend 
 which tends to corroborate the legend. In succession 
 Rhodanius probably succeeded Saturninus, for we must 
 not confound the mission of these seven bishops with 
 the permanent foundation of sees in the towns where 
 they laboured. 
 
 st. Gatian. Next in importance historically is St. Gatian, 3 the 
 bishop who was sent to Tours. Now the history of 
 Tours as the see of a bishop is better known than that 
 
 1 Duchesne, Pastes episcopaux, vol. i. p. 295. 
 
 2 In the Mass of St. Saturninus in the Gothic Missal no mention is made of the 
 two companions, but there is a reference to the East. In the Contestatio " ipse 
 pontifex tuus ab orientibus partibus in urbem Tolosatium destinatus, Roma Garonnae 
 in vicem Petri tui tarn cathedram quam martyrium consummavit." Mabillon, De 
 liturgia Gallicana. 
 
 3 Greg. T. Hist. Franc, i. 31 as above and i. 43 "quod si quis requiret cur post 
 transitum Gatiani episcopi unus tantum, id est Litorius usque ad sanctum Martinum 
 fuisset episcopus, noverit quia obsistentibus paganis diu civitas Turonica sine 
 benedictione sacerdotali fait." 
 
 Ibid. x. 31 (Liber de episcopis Turonicii) " primus Gatianus episcopus anno 
 imperii Decii primo a Romanae sedis papa transmissus est. In qua urbe multitudo 
 paganorum in idolatriis dedita commorabatur de quibus nonnullos praedicatione sua 
 convert! fecit ad Dominum. Sed interdum occulebat se ob inpugnationem potentum 
 . . . ac per cryptas et latibula cum paucis Xtianis ut diximus per eodem conversis 
 mysterium solempnitatis die dominica clanculo celebrabat." 
 
 A similar testimony concerning Gatian, Gregory gives us in his Liber de gloria 
 confessorum, 4. 
 
in MISSION OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS 63 
 
 of any other town, except, perhaps Lyons. Gregory in 
 the lives of his predecessors gives us the first imitation 
 of that which had already been begun in Rome in the 
 Liber pontificalis^ and there can be no doubt that the 
 information he gathered was very largely historical. In 
 his story of St. Gatian he is dealing with a period in 
 the history of Tours when the inhabitants were mostly 
 heathen. He is writing of times long anterior to those 
 of St. Martin, and we must remember that at first 
 St. Martin did not venture to live in the city, and only 
 entered and settled in it, when the success of his apostolic 
 labours had won for him the friendship and protection 
 of powerful citizens. Gregory tells us how St. Gatian 
 often concealed himself from the fury of the pagans, 
 and was wont to go into the city only when opportunities 
 of preaching offered themselves to him. The mysterious 
 and most interesting caverns cut out in the hillside of 
 Marmoutier, which to-day claim the affection and 
 veneration of pilgrims, tell of his life, its dangers, and 
 its simplicity, and reveal to us the very chamber where 
 he lived, and the rude and solemn sanctuary where he 
 worshipped. Gregory states also, that St. Gatian was 
 sent by the Bishop of Rome, and in his calculations as 
 to the length of the episcopate of the first three bishops 
 of Tours assigns to St. Gatian a period of fifty years. 
 He says that between St. Gatian and St. Martin there 
 was only one, Bishop Litorius, and there was an interval 
 of thirty-seven years between the death of St. Gatian and 
 the accession of Litorius, because through the resistance 
 of the pagan citizens, the city of Tours was for long 
 without the blessing of a bishop. If then we accept 
 these numbers, the traditional statistics of the church 
 of Tours in the sixth century, and allow, as Gregory 
 does, fifty years to St. Gatian, and thirty-three years to 
 Litorius, and a period of thirty-seven years when there 
 was no bishop in the city, we get a period of one hundred 
 and twenty years between the accession of St. Martin in 
 A.D. 371 and the coming of St. Gatian. The period 
 
64 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 carries us back into the reign of the emperor Decius, 
 and the legend at Tours is certainly in agreement with 
 the tradition at Toulouse. There is in both towns a 
 period between the arrival of these missionary bishops 
 and the establishment in them of a permanent episcopate, 
 and the interval carries us back to the troublous times 
 when Decius was emperor. 
 
 st. Martial. At Limoges the story of St. Martial 1 cannot be 
 traced out to its original form with equal clearness and 
 certainty. He was one of the seven bishops of the 
 celebrated mission, and Gregory, in his Liber de glor. 
 confessorum, says that St. Martial was sent by the Roman 
 pontiff to preach in the city of Limoges. Then when 
 he had destroyed the superstitious rites connected with 
 the worship of their images, and having filled the town 
 with believers in the true God, he departed this life. 
 
 The first addition to this legend was the usual one 
 that he was not alone, but had two companions to help 
 him. This addition is, however, coupled with the 
 unexpected statement that St. Martial had brought these 
 companions with him from the East. For Gregory of 
 Tours, 2 certainly St. Martial had a real historic existence. 
 Men who had spoken disrespectfully of him were 
 punished by loss of speech and hearing. He was classed 
 among the great saints of Gaul, with Saturninus of 
 
 1 Cf. Arbellot's Dissertation sur I'apostolat de Saint Martial, Limoges, 1855. 
 His zeal for St. Martial is disfigured by his disregard of historical criticism. Canon 
 Arbellot, however, has here brought before us all that is known concerning the 
 apostle to Limoges. 
 
 Cf. Gregory, Hist. Franc, as above. Ruinart has no life of Martial, but Venantius 
 Fort, thus refers to him : 
 
 " non tua, sancte pater, poterunt depromere gesta, 
 tellus te Romana, quibus te Gallica tellus 
 post Petrum recolunt juniorem parte secunda, 
 cum Petro recolunt equalem sorte priori 
 Benjamita tribus te gessit sanguine claro, 
 iirbs te nunc retinet Lemovica corpore sancto." 
 
 Cf. Arbellot, Appendix p. 44, who gives this quotation j but I fear it is of doubtful 
 authenticity, see Migne's Pat. Ixxxviii. 115, 116, and Amaduzzi's Anecdota litteraria y 
 Rome, 1783, vol. iv. p. 433. 
 
 2 Cf. Greg. Lib. in glor. confess. 27. The idea that Martial had come from the 
 East, bringing with him to Gaul two priests as his companions, was already known 
 in the time of Gregory. 
 
in MISSION OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS 65 
 
 Toulouse, Dionysius of Paris, Julian of Brioude, and 
 Martin of Tours. His tomb was supposed to exist, 
 and his two companions were buried by his side, and 
 miracles were declared to have been wrought at his 
 grave, an evident proof of identity and sanctity. 
 Venantius Fortunatus does not add much to our 
 information, but his verses on St. Martial make it 
 quite clear that he was accepted as one of the seven 
 bishops who came on a mission to Gaul. In the 
 Martyrology of Jerome, 1 which is probably coeval with 
 Gregory of Tours, St. Martial's day is given on June 30, 
 and Usuard 2 in A.D. 875, who from Paris had made 
 a pilgrimage in Aquitaine, gives us the names of the 
 two companions of St. Martial as Alpinianus and 
 Austroclinianus. There are no early lists of the bishops 
 of Limoges, 3 but in all the lists that have been preserved 
 St. Martial is at the head. The oldest carries us down 
 to Bishop Jordanus, whose episcopate began A.D. 1021. 
 It is the work of a priest named Ademar. There is a 
 life of St. Martial by Aurelian, 4 who is supposed to 
 have been St. Martial's immediate successor in the 
 bishopric, but Aurelian as a bishop is certainly a 
 fictitious person, and it is probable that the writer of the 
 life is Ademar himself. The whole early history of 
 the Church at Limoges and the succession of its bishops 
 is completely obscured by the influences of the Proven9al 
 legend of the family of Bethany. Martial was of the 
 company that, driven from Palestine, found a refuge at 
 Marseilles, and so that which was historical at Limoges 
 was altered to conformity with this extravagant twelfth- 
 century legend. The lists of its bishops are full of 
 interpolations of names of men in no way connected 
 with the town, and to enable the succession to reach 
 back continuously to the first century, repetitions and 
 
 1 Cf. Migne's Pat. xxx. p. 464 " pridie Kal. Jul. Depositio St. Martialis episcopi." 
 
 3 Usuard, Molanus' ed. 1573, p. 108 " Lemovicas civitate, sancti Martialis 
 episcopi cum duobus presbyteris Alpiniano et Austricliniano." 
 
 s Duchesne, Pastes tphcopaux, ii. 47. 
 
 4 Given in Arbellot's Dissertation, Appendix, p. 26. 
 
 F 
 
66 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 additions have long ago taken away all historical value 
 from them. After St. Martial the next bishop concern- 
 ing whom we have any reliable information was 
 Ruricius, 1 who was bishop during the Visigothic 
 occupation, and who lived in the second half of the fifth 
 century. In the eleventh century, 2 at the Council of 
 Limoges, A.D. 1028, there was a controversy between 
 a Lombard monk, Benedict of Turin, and Ademar of 
 Chabannes, which seems to show us evidence of the 
 survival up to that date of some reliable history. 
 Benedict asserted that St. Martial was an apostolic man, 
 a statement which meant he had been sent from the 
 Apostolic See of Rome. Ademar, on the contrary, gives 
 us evidence of the beginning of the Proven9al legend 
 since he asserted that St. Martial was one of the seventy- 
 two disciples of our Lord, but Benedicts claim also that 
 he had silenced his adversary is probable. The true 
 history of the local saint had not as yet been pushed 
 aside by the legend which would not merely place in 
 the first century an unreal Martial at Limoges, but also 
 an unreal companion Zacchaeus at Rocomadour. 
 St In the narrative of Gregory of Tours he tells us 
 
 Trophimus. that Bishop Trophimus was sent to Aries. 3 Now Aries, 
 the creation of Tiberius, 4 had, as a rival to Marseilles 
 for commercial purposes, steadily risen in importance 
 during the first three centuries of the Christian era. In 
 the second half of the fourth century it began to enjoy 
 political importance, and during the opening decades 
 of the fifth century its influence was very considerable, 
 and this influence increased as the extent of the imperial 
 authority in Gaul steadily shrank. In A.D. 411, Bishop 
 Heros, 5 a saintly and ascetic disciple of St. Martin, was 
 for political reasons driven from his see of Aries, and 
 
 1 Cf. Venant. Fort. iv. 5 j and Sidonius Apollin. iv. 16, v. 15, and viii. 10. 
 
 2 Cf. Duchesne as above, ii. p. 104 j and Arbellot's Dissertation, pp. 40, 41. 
 
 3 Greg, as above, i. 31. 4 Cf. above, cap. i. 
 
 5 Cf. Prosper's Chronicle, A.D. 412, "Heros, vir sanctus et beati Martini 
 discipulus." Cf. also Freeman's Western Europe in the Fifth Century, p. 282. The 
 date of Heros' expulsion is uncertain, and possibly he may have been driven from 
 Aries by the Visigoths in 413. 
 
in MISSION OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS 67 
 
 Patroclus, 1 a worldly and ambitious man, the friend of 
 the patrician Constantius, and who was afterwards 
 assassinated, succeeded him. The organisation of the 
 Church of Gaul was as yet of a very simple character, 
 the personal influence of the bishop giving more or less 
 authority to the see which he held. After the days of 
 persecution, however, that organisation was likely to 
 develop on more permanent lines. Narbonne and 
 Vienne, on account of their historic and political r61e, 
 seem to have given their bishops the rank, or something 
 like the rank of an archbishop, and since in the mean- 
 while Aries also had risen into political importance, 
 Patroclus was ambitious that his own see should enjoy 
 the same rank. In A.D. 417, therefore, he prevailed on 
 Pope Zosimus 2 to recognise this increased authority 
 of his city by raising it to metropolitical rank. Zosimus 
 acceded to his petition, and in his Bull, Placuitapostolicae^ 
 gave his reasons for the step he had taken. These 
 reasons were doubtless largely supplied by Patroclus, 
 and assumed the great antiquity of the see in that 
 St. Trophimus was its first bishop, the inference being 
 that St. Trophimus, the first bishop of Aries, was the 
 same as St. Trophimus of Ephesus, the fellow-worker 
 of St. Paul. At a later time, in a letter written A.D. 449 
 by the bishops of the province which Zosimus had thus 
 created, and sent on behalf of Hilary of Aries to Pope Leo 
 the Great, it was definitely stated that Trophimus had 
 been consecrated by St. Peter himself. The neighbour- 
 ing church of Vienne 3 also enjoyed the honour, which 
 seems naturally to have accrued to it as the chief town 
 of Narbonensis Secunda, of being the see of an arch- 
 bishop, and claimed Crescens as its first bishop. Thus 
 in the rivalry between the two sees there seemed 
 ground for assuming that Crescens and Trophimus were 
 both of them fellow-workers of St. Paul. In the 
 
 1 Cf. Prosper Tiro, A.D. 414, "infami mercatu sacerdotia venditare ausus." 
 
 2 Cf. Babut's Le Concile de Turin, 1904, p. 56. 
 
 3 Cf. Babut as above, p. 107 ; and Gundlach's Der Streit der Btsthttmer Aries und 
 Vitnne, p. 10. 
 
68 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Martyrology of Ado, who was archbishop of Vienne 
 A.D. 859-875, this is regarded as an established fact. 
 
 Now there is a difficulty concerning the Church of 
 Aries, which is quite apart from this interested falsifica- 
 tion of its ancient history. In A.D. 253 St. Cyprian 1 
 wrote to Stephen, bishop of Rome, to draw his 
 attention to a certain Marcianus, bishop of Aries, 
 who had joined the Novatian schism. He says that 
 Faustinus, bishop of Lyons, had written to tell him of 
 this trouble in the south of Gaul, and St. Cyprian 
 called upon the bishop of Rome to send a letter to our 
 " co-bishops in Gaul," requesting them to take steps to 
 arrest the evil, and asked him also to write to the 
 Church of Aries to assemble and depose Marcianus 
 and select another bishop in his place. Clearly, then, 
 Marcianus was an historical person and was bishop of 
 Aries A.D. 253-254, and, therefore, if Trophimus was 
 the first bishop sent to that city, it must have been at 
 some date earlier than the accession of Decius. The 
 mission of the seven missionary bishops must therefore 
 not be tied too definitely to the year A.D. 251. The 
 fact that Marcianus had adopted the austere views of 
 Novatian concerning the restoration of the lapsed 
 seems to show that the Decian persecution fell heavily 
 on the Christians at Aries, and that he was branded as 
 a Novatian through his exercise of a somewhat stern 
 and unsympathetic discretion towards those who had 
 shown weakness in the hour of trial. Trophimus in all 
 probability laboured for only a short time and was a 
 martyr. He is not styled such in the Martyrology of 
 Ado or of Usuard, though his natal day is given by 
 both as December 28. In the earlier Martyrology of 
 Jerome there is a Trophimus mentioned on November 
 28 who is regarded as of Syria. Nothing is known in it 
 of Trophimus of Aries, and it seems clear that even to 
 
 1 Cyprian's Letter Ixvii. "Faustinus collega noster Lugduni consistens, frater 
 carissime, semel et iterum mihi scripsit significans ea quae nobis suo utique nuntiatu 
 tarn ab eo quam a caeteris coepiscopis nostris in eadem provincia constitutis quod 
 Marcianus Arelate consistens Novatiano sese conjunxerit." 
 
in MISSION OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS 69 
 
 Aries Trophimus soon became only a name. His 
 work was cut short by the persecution, and the trouble 
 of the schism, 1 however Jong it may have continued, 
 made it less likely that his labours should have been 
 remembered. 2 
 
 The Church of Narbonne 3 claims as its first bishop st. Paul of 
 Paulus, who, according to this tradition, was sent there Narbonne - 
 from Rome. Gregory of Tours mentions him only 
 by name, and that only in the statement concerning 
 the mission of the seven bishops. Narbonne was 
 almost entirely cut off from Tours at the time when 
 Gregory wrote, and evidently he knew nothing about 
 him. Prudentius, the Spanish poet, two hundred years 
 earlier than Gregory, has some lines concerning him and 
 regarded him as a martyr. In the story of his Passiof 
 which is late and of little historic value, mention is 
 made of a Synod of Narbonne which assembled at some 
 date between A.D. 255-260, and at which Paulus was 
 charged by two of his deacons with certain immoral 
 acts, and the narrative relates that he was acquitted of 
 the charge by miraculous testimony of his innocence. 
 No trace, however, of this Synod can be found else- 
 where, though the incident does not seem exactly such 
 as would have been invented. In Ado's and in the 
 small Roman Martyrology Paulus is called discipulus 
 apostolorum, and of course Ado identifies Paulus with 
 Sergius Paulus. 
 
 With St. Dionysius of Paris 5 we have already dealt st. 
 
 Dionysius. 
 
 1 St. Cyprian, in his letter, cited above, suggests the calling together of a Synod of 
 Gallican bishops "coepiscopos nostros in Galliis constitutes." He refers also to 
 other bishops in the province of Lugdunensis. His remarks suggest an organisation 
 such as we cannot discover in any Gallican documents of the time. There were 
 doubtless a good many missionary bishops in Gaul at the time, but councils of 
 Gallican bishops seem then to be an event of the future. 
 
 2 St. Trophimus is only mentioned once by Gregory of Tours, Hist. Franc, i. 30, 
 and it is evident that he knew nothing about him. 
 
 3 That Paulus was martyred at Narbonne was known in the fourth century. 
 Prudentius refers to the incident, Peristeph. iv. 35 : 
 
 " Barchinon claro Cucufate freta 
 surget et Paulo speciosa Narbo." 
 
 4 Acta S. Mart. iii. 371. 
 * Cf. Chapter I. 
 
70 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 in an earlier chapter. As early as in the fifth century 
 his cult had begun, and he was regarded as the founder 
 of the Church in Paris. It is needless to relate again 
 how he came to be regarded as the same as Dionysius 
 the Areopagite. 
 
 St. Stremonius or Austremonius of Auvergne or 
 
 stremonius. Qermont is also to Gregory only a name. 1 This is 
 the more difficult to account for, since Gregory was 
 especially interested in Auvergne, and wrote a whole 
 book on the miracles of St. Julian of Brioude. A 
 hundred years earlier Sidonius Apollinaris was bishop 
 of Clermont, and refers to the labours of one whom he 
 describes as a monk named Abraham, 2 who came and 
 carried on mission work among the mountains and 
 valleys of Auvergne. Sidonius has nothing to say 
 concerning Austremonius, nor does he refer to any of 
 his predecessors. There is a life of Austremonius * by 
 Praejectus, who became bishop of Clermont in the 
 eighth century and wrote a life of Austremonius, but 
 it cannot be regarded as giving us anything more than 
 a mere legendary narrative. The tomb of Austremonius 
 was at Issoire. 
 
 From what we have already stated, it will now be 
 acknowledged that the legend of the mission of seven 
 bishops from Rome about the time of the emperor 
 Decius, which Gregory gives us in brief, demands our 
 careful attention. It cannot lightly be put aside. He 
 knew the bare fact such as it was wont to be related 
 at Tours, and from the Passio of Saturninus is derived 
 a date which has clung afterwards to the legend. But 
 in the Passio the date A.D. 250, when Decius and 
 Gratus were consuls, only refers to the fact that at such 
 
 1 Greg. Tour. Hist. Franc, i. 31, Lib. in glor. confess. 29 "per sanctum 
 enim Stremonium qui et ipse a Romanis episcopis cum Catiano beatissimo vel reliquis 
 quos memoravimus est directus." To Gregory it seems evident that Stremonius 
 was only known from the tradition of the mission of the seven bishops. Subsequent 
 events in Auvergne had destroyed all traces of his work, and apparently all traditions 
 concerning his personality. 
 
 2 Sid. Apoll. vii. 17 j Greg. Hist. Franc, ii. 21 ; Vitae Patrum, 3. 
 
 3 Duchesne, Fastes ep. ii. p. 117. 
 
in MISSION OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS 71 
 
 a time Saturn inus was at Toulouse and was labouring 
 there as bishop. It does not give that date as the date 
 when the mission began, nor yet is it given as the date 
 of the martyrdom. 
 
 Ruinart, in his prefatory note, says that Saturninus 
 went to Toulouse, it was believed, in the year A.D. 245. 
 Certainly, according to the narrative which is supposed 
 to have been compiled by Exuperius, who was bishop 
 there A.D. 405, Saturninus must have laboured for some 
 time at Toulouse. He was already well known to the 
 people, and had noted and grieved over their idolatrous 
 habits. The narrative certainly suggests that the 
 missionary efforts at Toulouse had been in progress 
 for some years, and the martyrdom was not the result 
 of an imperial decree, as we would expect, but merely 
 of an outburst of heathen zeal on the occasion of some 
 local fete. 
 
 It is clear that the story as it is given us by Gregory 
 of Tours cannot be set aside because in later years it had 
 received accretions which were unhistorical and evidently 
 incorrect. Gregory gives us the story as it was known 
 at Tours in the sixth century. It was then old and 
 was regarded as undoubtedly accurate. All that is 
 attached to it, which would suggest its rejection, has 
 come to it since the time when Gregory wrote. 
 Gregory was not conversant with the lives of all the 
 seven bishops. He knew nothing of Paulus of 
 Narbonne or of Austremonius of Auvergne. Even 
 the name of the latter was uncertain. He appears 
 as Stremonius and Austremonius. The web of untruth 
 which has been spun around this legend arose from one 
 of three causes, of which the first two may certainly be 
 due to ignorance. There was the natural assumption, 
 in the absence of any known evidence to the contrary, 
 that bishops who lived at the same time, and who held 
 the names of Paulus, Trophimus, and Dionysius, were 
 the three who belonged to the age of the Apostles. 
 They imagined that to be true which they regarded as 
 
72 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 due to the rank of the city or see, i.e. that men so 
 closely connected with the apostles would be the first 
 bishops there, and so statements made in ignorance but 
 in good faith came to be repeated as undoubted historic 
 facts. There was also the natural desire to believe in 
 the antiquity of the Church of Gaul. Men could not 
 understand why the Gospel had not made more rapid 
 progress, for they knew not the difficulties against which 
 it had to contend. So these two ideas supported each 
 other. The Church in Gaul must have been founded 
 in the first century, and therefore the three names of 
 the bishops of Aries, Narbonne, and Paris must belong 
 to the three fellow-workers or disciples of St. Paul. 
 
 An element in the story which offers us internal 
 evidence of its veracity is the choice of the cities to 
 which these missionary bishops were sent. Why 
 should Limoges, Clermont, and obscure Paris be 
 chosen in place of Autun, Trier, and Bordeaux ? The 
 fact that these towns are mentioned and not others 
 makes it all the more probable that the mission itself 
 was an historic fact. 
 
 st. Fabian One further question demands an answer before we 
 of Rome. can p ass on to t k e ev id ence o f the work of the Church 
 
 in Gaul in the second half of the third century. If 
 the mission to Gaul emanated from Rome, which of 
 the popes can have sent it forth ? Some of the 
 missionary band must have fallen in the first or second 
 year of Decius. Trophimus had passed away before 
 A.D. 253, since Marcianus was then bishop of Aries. 
 Saturninus perished perhaps in A.D. 251. The latter, 
 however, had laboured for some time at Toulouse, and 
 we must go back some years in our search for the date 
 when it started forth. Now Pope Fabian 1 began his 
 episcopate in Rome A.D. 236 and fell a victim to the 
 Decian persecution in A.D. 250. His episcopate extended 
 over the five years of the reign of the emperor Philip, 
 
 1 Duchesne, Liber font. i. p. 148 j cf. also Migne, Pat. G.x. p. 183 " divinis prse- 
 ceptis." 
 
in MISSION OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS 73 
 
 whose favour to the Christians gave rise to the belief 
 that he was a Christian himself. 1 It was a time when 
 the prospects of the Church were brighter than they had 
 ever been before, and the converts scattered through 
 the empire were emboldened to erect churches for 
 worship, and assemble there openly for the observance 
 of the rites of their faith. Nor was Fabian a man to 
 lose this opportunity. His correspondence shows him 
 anxious, not merely for the orthodoxy of the Church, 
 but also for its development and organisation, and that 
 which he is said to have promoted for the Christians in 
 Northern Italy 2 we can well believe he desired also 
 for the Christians in Gaul. The time for the founding 
 of bishops' sees had perhaps not yet arrived, but the 
 bishops were sent forth, and laboured where they could 
 best obtain a settlement. Trophimus, Saturninus, and 
 Paulus settled in Narbonensis at Aries, Toulouse, and 
 Narbonne. Dionysius pushed up northward into that 
 district already becoming known as Lugdunensis, and 
 found his home at Paris ; while Martial, Gatian, and 
 Stremonius crossed over into Aquitaine and towards 
 the Loire, to labour and to die at Clermont, Tours, 
 and Limoges. They were not all martyrs. Gatian 
 certainly lived on for many years in the neighbour- 
 hood of Tours. If Paulus and Trophimus were victims 
 of the Decian persecution, Saturninus seems to have 
 perished in an unpremeditated outburst of local heathen 
 savagery. Of Dionysius it is only an assumption that 
 he fell a martyr to the faith. The work, however, 
 had now begun in earnest, and if here and there a leader 
 perished, yet the conversion of Gaul was becoming 
 more and more a fact. 
 
 An incident such as this, the subject of the present 
 chapter, in which a definite and comprehensive effort 
 
 1 Orosius, vii. 20 " Philippus ... hie primus Imperatorum omnium Christianas 
 fuit." 
 
 3 Cf. Duchesne, Liber pontificalis, i. 148 "hie fecit ordinationes v. per mens. 
 Decemb. presbyteros xxii., diaconos vii., cpiscopos per diversa loca numero xi." Cf. 
 also the same author, Origines du culte chretlen^ p. 331. 
 
74 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 why the is made for spreading the gospel in the richest of the 
 was'iMt provinces of the empire, certainly would claim that 
 sight of? it should be well known to posterity. How, then, 
 does it happen that we only know of this effort from 
 the simple statement of Gregory of Tours, and two or 
 three casual sentences in the most ancient narratives 
 of the lives of early Gallican saints ? The years that 
 followed the persecution of Decius were for Gaul years 
 that explain how the mission of the seven bishops was 
 nearly lost sight of. They were years of anarchy 
 for the Empire, and of misery for the province. The 
 revolt which in A.D. 249 had proclaimed Decius as 
 emperor 1 was a heathen reaction against the gentler 
 and more humane measures which Philip had favoured. 
 It demanded and obtained from Decius a bitter persecu- 
 tion of the Christians, 2 a persecution which in ignorance 
 had imagined it possible entirely to suppress them. Yet 
 if Decius led the way, in Gaul, as in Italy, there were 
 many who would carry out the proscription with zeal 
 and without mercy. Two years afterwards Decius was 
 killed in battle, and Trebonianus Gallus was proclaimed 
 as his successor (A.D. 251-253). To establish his 
 position Trebonianus sent his lieutenant Valerianus into 
 Gaul 3 to enlist Germans and Alamans from the borders 
 of the Rhine, but before their arrival Trebonianus 
 fell at Terni A.D. 253, and Aemilianus for the moment 
 triumphed. Valerianus, however, could rely on the 
 fidelity of his recruits, and the soldiers of Aemilianus 
 made their peace with Valerianus by sending to him 
 the head of the man who had overthrown the emperor 
 Trebonianus. 4 Valerianus was a man of acknowledged 
 probity, 5 an able general, and during the first four 
 
 1 Oros. vii. 20. 
 
 2 Orosius vii. 21 "Decius ... ad persequendos interficiendosque Christianos vii. 
 post Neronem feralia dispersit edicta, plurimosque sanctorum ad coronas Xti de 
 suis crucibus misit." The actual wording of the edict is unknown, but it seems to 
 have called on all Christians to sacrifice before a certain day j cf. Schoenaich, Die 
 CAristenverfoIgung des Kaisers Decius. 
 
 3 Zosimus, i. 21. 4 Zonaras, p. 233. 
 5 He suffers from the disgrace of his capture by the Persians. 
 
in MISSION OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS 75 
 
 years of his reign distinguished himself by his defence 
 of Gaul from the invasions of the Germanic tribes beyond 
 the Rhine and afterwards for his persecution in the province 
 of all who should acknowledge themselves Christians. 1 
 Called away to the East by the needs of the Empire, 
 harassed by invasions of the Persians, he left his son 
 Gallienus in command of the armies assigned for the 
 protection of Gaul, and in A.D. 257 Gallienus himself 
 was compelled to hurry to Pannonia to defend Italy 
 from an invasion of the Goths. On leaving Gaul, 
 Gallienus left his son Publius Cornelius Valerianus 2 
 in charge of Sylvanus, the commander of the legion 
 at Coin. Valerianus, however, had left Posthumus as 
 lieutenant to assist Gallienus, and the slight which thus 
 was thrown on the fidelity of Posthumus by entrust- 
 ing his child to Sylvanus, roused the indignation of the 
 soldiers who had served under Posthumus. In rebellion 
 they slew Sylvanus and the youthful Caesar Publius, 
 and Posthumus found himself declared Emperor by 
 the legions that guarded the frontiers of Gaul. 3 The 
 anarchy that prevailed was the opportunity for the 
 Germanic tribes beyond the Rhine. In 257-258 they 
 poured into Gaul, crossing the Rhine in tipper and 
 Lower Germany. 4 Down the valley of the Sa6ne they 
 advanced, and then seem to have divided into two 
 hordes, of which the one moved west, and, having sacked 
 Tours, passed through Aquitaine into Spain ; and the 
 other, having devastated Avenches, 5 advanced south into 
 
 1 Orosius, vii. 22 " Valerianus . . . mox ut arripuit imperium octavus post 
 Neronem adigi per tormenta Xtianos ad idolatriam, abnegantesque interfici jussit " ; 
 Lactantius, De morte persec. v., says " impias manus in Deum tentavit et multum, 
 quamvis brevi tempore, justi sanguinis fudit." Von Schubert describes the persecution 
 of Decius as the work of Valerianus, Mb'ller, K.G. ii. 286. 
 
 2 Aurelius Victor, Epit. cap. xxxii.; Trebellius Pollio, XXX. Tyr. No. 2. For his 
 connection with the murder of Cornelius cf. Allard, iii. App. H., and Diintzer, 
 1867, Postumus, Victorinus, und Tetricus, and Zevort, 1880, De Gallicanh impera- 
 toribus. 
 
 3 Trebell. Pollio, XXX. Tyrants, No. 3. Whatever may be the value of the 
 histories of Trebellius, Pollio, and Vopiscus, at any rate we have little else to fall 
 back on, and I think they were actual writers of the time of Diocletian. 
 
 4 Eutropius, Brev. ix. 8. 
 
 5 Aurelius V. De Caesar, xxxiii. 3. 
 
76 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Narbonensis. Here at Aries, 1 under their king Chrocus, 
 they were said to have been defeated by Posthumus and 
 turned eastward into Italy. Amid the misery and suffer- 
 ing that prevailed Posthumus established his power, and 
 was acknowledged as emperor in the three provinces 
 of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, which he now united into 
 one prefecture. Of Posthumus' action towards the 
 Christians we know nothing. His rule as an emperor 
 is, however, well spoken of, 2 and under his protection 
 Gaul began to recover from the ruin caused by the 
 Germanic invasion. In A.D. 262 Gallienus returned 
 to Gaul to revenge himself on the emperor of the 
 West for the murder of his son, but his attack on 
 Posthumus was unsuccessful and, wounded 8 at a battle 
 of which the locality is not known, he retired into 
 Italy. Three years afterwards, in A.D. 265, he again 
 advanced against Posthumus, and was again repulsed ; 
 and the rule of Posthumus continued until A.D. 267, 
 when he and his son fell at Mainz, murdered by the 
 soldiers 4 whom he had offended by his impartial justice. 
 The next year Gallienus fell at Milan, 5 and Marcus 
 Aurelius Claudius was proclaimed emperor. Gaul, 
 however, had its own aspirants to the imperial throne. 
 The memory of Albinus and Classicus was revived, 
 and the time seemed to have come when Gaul should 
 
 1 Eutropius, Bre'v, ix. 9 j cf. Orosius, vii. 22 " Alemanni Gallias pervagantes etiam 
 in Italiam transeunt." Under the year 264 the Jerome Eusebius Chronicle says, 
 "Alamanni vastatis Galliis in Italiam transiere." Cf. also Zonaras, xii. 24, Zosimus, 
 i. 38, and Greg. T. H.F. i. 30. 
 
 2 Trebell. Poll. XXX. Tyrants^ cap. 3 " . . . ab omnibus Gallis Postumus gratanter 
 acceptus talem se praebuit per annos septem ut Gallias instauraverit . . . quod 
 fummotis omnibus Germanicis gentibus Romanum in pristinam securitatem recrcasset 
 imperium." 
 
 The Edict of Gallienus, revoking his father's edict and making Christianity 
 a religio licita y belongs to the year A.D. 261, Euseb. H.E. vii. 13, and it is possible 
 that Posthumus acted on it in Gaul. There is no evidence against him as a 
 persecutor. 
 
 3 Ibid. "... cum sagitta Gallienus est vulneratus." Also Treb. Poll. GaUicni duo, 
 cap. 4 " Gallienus muros circumiens sagitta ictus est." The name of the town 
 is not given. 
 
 4 Eutrop. Brtv. ix. 9 "qui seditione militum interfectus est quod Moguntiacam 
 civitatem . . . diripiendam militibus tradi noluisset." 
 
 5 Gallienus does not appear to have been a persecutor, but, on the contrary, 
 revoked the Edict of Valerian, Euseb. vii. 13. 
 
in MISSION OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS 77 
 
 unite and enjoy an emperor of her own. Two generals, 
 Laelianus and Aurelius Marius, had arisen on the frontier 
 and had as rapidly fallen ; and then Marcus Piavonius 
 Victorinus, who was probably a native of Gaul, was 
 proclaimed as emperor. With him, and soon to take 
 his place, was his mother Victoria or Vitruvia, by whose 
 strategy, when her son had perished, Caius Aesuvius 
 Tetricus, a Gaul of Auvergne, was raised to the purple. 1 
 His accession as emperor of the West is evidence of 
 the widespread nature of the national movement. He 
 was not proclaimed from their midst, by the legionaries 
 at Mainz, Trier, or Cain, but at Bordeaux, in the midst 
 of that Aquitaine which as civil governor he had 
 administered. But the time had not as yet arrived when 
 the people, apart from the legionaries that kept them 
 in subjection and protected them from invasion, could 
 decide on their emperor. Autun, which had supported 
 Tetricus, and was itself the centre of the national 
 movement, had become the object of the soldiers' 
 wrath, and in A.D. 269, after a siege of seven months, 
 it fell and was sacked by the soldiers whose duty it 
 had been to protect it. The fall of such a city as 
 Autun with all its traditions of nationalism was a 
 great blow to the influence of Tetricus ; and in disorder, 
 alarm, and misery Gaul awaited the arrival of an 
 emperor who could ensure the loyalty of the army and 
 the obedience of the people. In A.D. 270 the emperor 
 Claudius died at Sirmium and Valerius Aurelianus 
 succeeded him. A bitter persecutor of the Christians, 
 he won for himself also the character of being blood- 
 thirsty and cruel. 2 Lyons had resented alike the rise 
 of Bordeaux and the military influence of Trier. In 
 A.D. 273 Aurelianus arrived in Gaul, and Lyons was 
 
 1 Eutrop. Bre-v. ix. 10 "Tetricus senator, qui Aquitaniam honore praesidis 
 administrans absens a militibus imperator electus est et apud Burdigalam purpuram 
 sumpsit." His name Aesuvius reveals his Celtic origin. 
 
 2 Ibid. ix. 14 "saevus et sanguinarius ac necessarius magis in quibusdam quam in 
 ullo amabilis imperator" ; Vopiscus, xxvi. 36 "Aurelianus quod negari non potest, 
 severus, truculentus, sanguinarius fuit princeps." 
 
78 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 the first place to feel the wrath of the cruel and 
 vindictive emperor. Then he advanced northward, 
 and a double task lay before him. He had to 
 compel the allegiance of the soldiers on the frontier, 
 who had proclaimed Faustinus 1 as their emperor, and 
 he had effectually to subdue all the local forces which 
 had upheld the emperor Tetricus. Advancing beyond 
 Autun he sent on eastwards his lieutenant Probus to 
 deal with Faustinus and the legionaries at Trier and 
 Mainz. Tetricus was near Chalons, 2 and towards the 
 force that protected him Aurelianus himself now marched. 
 For such a conflict Tetricus was not prepared, and by the 
 betrayal of his own soldiers and a voluntary surrender 
 of himself he won the disapproval of posterity and 
 the disgrace of a leading part in Aurelianus' triumph 
 at Rome. Then Aurelianus marched on to Genatum, 
 to which he gave his own name Orleans, and afterwards 
 he made his way into the territory of the Carnutes, 3 
 to suppress with relentless cruelty the influence of 
 the Druids among the woods and glens which covered 
 the high ground of La Beauce. Soon after the emperor 
 was called to join his lieutenant in the east, and help 
 him to check the invasion of the Alamans. The task 
 was of increasing difficulty, and the cruelty of Aurelianus 
 alienated the affections of the soldiers. He would not 
 or could not estimate aright the difficulty of the task 
 that was before him, and in January 275 the emperor 
 was assassinated by the officers of his staff. 4 Then 
 
 1 Aurelius Victor, De Caesaribus, xxxv. 4. 
 
 2 Trebell. Poll. XXX. Tyrants, No. 24. 5 ; Eutrop. Brev. ix. 13 "superavit in 
 Gallia Tetricum apud Catalaunos ipso Tetrico prodente exercitum suum, cujus adsiduas 
 seditiones ferre non poterat." 
 
 Vopiscus' Aurelian, 44. 4 " dicebat enim quodam tempore, Aurelianum 
 Gallicanas consulisse Dryadas sciscitantem utrum apud ejus posteros imperium 
 permaneret." 
 
 3 Eutrop. Bre-v. ix. 15 ; Aurelius Victor, xxxv. 8. 
 
 4 Eutrop. 5r<?<z/.ix. i6"Gallias a barbaris occupatas" ; Aurelius Victor,D<? Caesaribus, 
 xxxv. " Germanis Gallia demotis." Probus, the successor of Aurelian, strove to free 
 Gaul from this German invasion j cf. Vopiscus, Prcbus "his gestis cum ingenti 
 exercitu Gallias petit, quae omnes occiso Posthumo turbatae fuerant, interfecto 
 Aureliano a Germanis possessae. Tanta autem illic praelia et tarn feliciter gessit 
 ut a barbaris sexaginta per Gallias nobilissimas reciperet civitates," etc. j cf. also 
 Zonaras, xii. 27. 
 
in MISSION OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS 79 
 
 the Alamans poured into Gaul and found no force 
 to check them. Sixty cities 1 of the province were 
 permanently occupied by them. Over the deeds of 
 the emperors Tacitus and Probus we need not delay. 
 Events were preparing the way for Diocletian, and 
 with the persecution which occurred in his reign we 
 are not concerned. Its relation to Gaul will be dealt 
 with in the following chapter. 
 
 Valerian, the successor of Decius, and Aurelianus, 2 the 
 restorer of the Empire in Gaul, were both persecutors 
 of the Christians, and the events which we have already 
 recorded tend to show how impossible it was during 
 the last quarter of a century to found here any per- 
 manent organisation of the Church, and how natural it 
 is that what was done should come down to us only as 
 sporadic efforts of the faith and isolated martyrdoms of 
 venturesome converts. The pagan reaction of A.D. 
 249, which continued throughout the reign of Valerian 
 and burst forth afresh under Aurelian, and the ruin and 
 misery that followed on the invasions of Alamans in 
 A.D. 257 and 275 left little room for progress, much 
 less for the successful propaganda of a new faith. 
 
 At CimieZj 3 near Nice, St. Pontius suffered, a mere 
 name perhaps, and yet a name which should be recorded. 
 The Edict of Valerian, if it was not issued soon after 
 he had been hailed as emperor and while he was still in 
 Gaul, was a declaration on his part of a continuous 
 policy against the Christians. It belongs to the year 
 A.D. 257 and 258, and in Patroclus, 4 who was beheaded 
 at Troyes on January 22, 259, we cannot but recognise 
 a victim from Gaul. Aurelian's Edict belongs to the 
 year A.D. 274, when he crossed into Gaul and advanced 
 northwards up the Sa6ne. Did he regard the disturb- 
 
 1 Vopiscus, ut supra. 
 
 2 Orosius, xxiii. " Valerius Aurelianus . . novissime cum persecutionem adversus 
 Christianos agi, nonus a Nerone decerneret." Under Tacitus, his successor, the per- 
 secution ceased apparently as a reaction against Aurelian's cruelties. 
 
 3 For St. Pontius cf. Acta SS. May, vol. ii. p. 274. 
 
 4 Cf. Acta S$. January zi ; Allard, iii. p. 102, considers that he suffered in 
 259, and not, as his Passio would have it, under Aurelian. 
 
8o BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 ances in Gaul as caused by the converts to the new 
 faith? Did he imagine the discontent to have been 
 fostered through the denunciation of the gods of the 
 Empire by the advocates of the new religion ? At least 
 it seems as if his journey through Gaul was indelibly 
 stained by the Christian blood which he shed. Autun, 
 Auxerre, Sens, and Troyes were all in the line of march 
 of a general who was moving north up the Sa6ne and 
 through the country watered by the Seine, and who, 
 while himself making for the valley of the Loire, desired 
 to keep in touch with his army which was marching 
 eastward. At Autun l a bishop, Reverianus, with 
 Paulus, a priest, and others, are said by Usuard to have 
 suffered under Aurelian. The name is not mentioned 
 by earlier writers, and the first bishop of Autun seems 
 to have been Reticius, 2 who was present at the Synod of 
 Rome A.D. 313, and at Aries in the following year. 
 At Auxerre 3 St. Priscus and St. Cottus are regarded as 
 martyrs under Aurelian ; at Troyes 4 St. Julia, St. 
 Sabina, St. Venerandus, and St. Savinian are also 
 remembered as martyrs of this persecution, and at Sens 5 
 we have in the same period St. Sanctianus, St. Columba, 
 and St. Sabinian. The name of this Sabinian heads the 
 lists of the bishops of Sens, and he is said by Usuard to 
 have been sent by the Roman pontiff. He may have 
 been the last missionary sent by Pope Felix, who died 
 in 274. Of St. Columba 6 there was a very early cult, 
 and a monastery was erected in his honour, which, in 
 A.D. 1087, was said to have completed an existence of 
 eight hundred years. 
 
 Of course it cannot be said that there is strict 
 historical evidence for each one of these martyrs of Gaul. 
 
 1 Cf. Acta SS. June, i. p. 39. Autun was probably for a time the headquarters 
 of Aurelian. 
 
 2 Duchesne, Pastes ep. ii. p. 174. 
 
 3 Cf. Acta SS. May 16, and Tillemont's note, vol. iv. 3. 
 
 4 Cf. Acta 55. July 21, vol. v. p. 132. 
 
 5 Cf. Acta SS. September 7, vol. ii. p. 668. 
 
 6 Acta 55. December 315 cf. Vincent de Beauvais' Speculum historiale, xii. 104, 
 Molanus' Usuard, p. 217, and Pertz, Mm. Germ. i. p. 102. 
 
in MISSION OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS 81 
 
 Yet Usuard was well informed of the events of the 
 history of Central Gaul, and if some mistakes have been 
 made in the names they were such as would be made in 
 the repetition of the story of the martyrdom by people 
 who clung affectionately to the fact and had not leisure 
 or freedom to record it in writing. The Church still 
 existed in spite of the persecution of Decius, Valerian, 
 and Aurelian, and was steadily taking root not merely 
 in the chief cities of Gaul, but also, as these martyrdoms 
 show us, in the remoter towns and villages of the country 
 around. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE LAST PERSECUTION 
 
 THE persecution of the Christians which had been 
 carried out under the orders of Aurelian came to an 
 end with the murder of that emperor in 275. His 
 successor, Tacitus, though emperor for less than a year 
 revoked l his predecessor's policy and probably his 
 edicts, and his successors, Probus, Carus, and Carinus, 
 followed the example of Tacitus, so that for ten years 
 the Christians in Gaul enjoyed a peace and a liberty 
 which for long had been unknown to them. On all 
 sides places of worship began to be erected giving 
 evidence of the prevalence of the new faith ; and 
 the freedom that was accorded to the Christians en- 
 couraged them to acknowledge their belief in Christ, 
 and to prove by their numbers how futile the attempts 
 of earlier emperors to suppress the Christian religion 
 had certainly been. But on September 17, 284, 2 
 Diocletian was proclaimed Augustus by his soldiers, 
 and Carinus was deserted and soon murdered. At 
 first the new emperor seems to have accepted the 
 policy of his immediate predecessors, and his conduct 
 would almost suggest that he was really in favour 
 of toleration. He is, however, among the emperors 
 
 1 Cf. Vopiscus, Tacitus, 2 "quanta populo quies." There is no actual edict 
 of Tacitus to this effect, but, as Allard argues, the Acta of S. Chariton at Iconium 
 are evidence that peace began and the persecution ceased. Optatian's life of 
 Tacitus has not survived. Cf. Tillemont, Memoir es iv. 4. 
 
 2 Cf. Tillemont, Hist, des emf. iv. 594 j and Vopiscus, Carinus, 18. 2 ; Eutrop. 
 Brev. ix. 19. 
 
 82 
 
CH. iv THE LAST PERSECUTION 83 
 
 who are known as persecutors, and the bitter persecution 
 that broke out in 303 has always been connected 
 with his name. He was certainly a man averse 
 to changes, firm, unfeeling, and inclined to regard 
 the ancient prosperity of the empire as due to the 
 favour of those gods whom the Christians were in- 
 tent on destroying. For a year he ruled alone, and 
 on April i, 286, he associated with himself, in joint 
 authority, a Pannonian general, M. Aurelius Valerius 
 Maximianus, whom he surnamed Herculeus, as he 
 himself had assumed the surname of Jovius, and to 
 Maximianus was assigned the sovereign power in the 
 west. This subdivision of authority was not, however, 
 sufficient for the needs of the Empire, where, as now, on 
 all its borders, barbarian tribes were threatening in- 
 vasion. In 292 l two more coadjutors of their sovereign 
 rule were adopted, Constantius and Galerius. They 
 were subordinate to Diocletian and Maximian, and held 
 the title of Caesar. To Constantius was given the 
 surname Chlorus, and to Galerius Armentarius, and 
 while Galerius assisted Diocletian in the East Constantius 
 was the colleague of Maximian, ruling from Trier as his 
 headquarters while Maximian stayed at Milan. Now 
 all we know about Constantius Chlorus tends to show 2 
 that he was opposed to any persecution of the Christians. 
 So great was his clemency that it was even said that in 
 secret he was a Christian. His rule extended through- 
 out the prefecture of Gaul, i.e. the three dioceses of 
 Britain, Gaul, and Spain, while Maximian had charge of 
 Italy and Africa. It is certain, however, that persecu- 
 tion did break out in Gaul, notwithstanding the efforts 
 for toleration which Constantius undoubtedly made, 
 and later ages, looking back over several centuries of 
 confusion and change, considered that the martyrs, 
 whose memory they revered, suffered under the emperor 
 
 1 Lact. de Mort. persecutorum, 7 j Eutropius, ix. 22. 
 
 2 Euseb., Vit. Constantint, i. 17. Constantius is said to have dedicated to God all 
 his children, his wife, and household, so that the crowd that filled the palace 
 differed in nothing from that which thronged the church. 
 
84 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Diocletian, whose name was the last to be connected 
 with a persecution of the Christians. Some may have 
 suffered, indeed, under Aurelian, and some may have 
 fallen victims to popular outbreaks when the occasion of 
 great heathen festivities roused the pagans to excesses of 
 Martyrs religious zeal. Certainly in some cases their martyrdom 
 peroration cannot ^ e assigned to any time but that when Diocletian 
 reigned. Now when we examine into these cases it 
 will be found that nearly all of them are instances of the 
 s. martyrdom of soldiers, or of those who lived in garrison 
 towns and were associated more or less closely with the 
 army. This fact enables us to explain how and when 
 they happened. They belong to the six years when 
 Maximian reigned alone in the West 1 and before the 
 year A.D. 292, when Constantius was raised to power. 
 That Maximian was a foe of the Christians there can 
 be no doubt. 2 That he was a good general and zealous 
 to uphold the discipline and effectiveness of his soldiers 
 is also certain. The years of anarchy, of military revolt, 
 and martial misrule had weakened the discipline of the 
 legions. Generals could no longer rely absolutely on 
 the loyalty of their subordinates. Soldiers were re- 
 cruited from subject races 3 and even from barbarian 
 tribes, and were moved to distant parts of the empire 
 to ensure their devotion to their leaders. It was 
 Maximian 's desire to effect reform in the imperial 
 army, and it is apparently in connection with this 
 reform that persecutions took place in Gaul. Now 
 during the third century many Christians had been 
 found enrolled within the army, and while these recruits 
 brought their faith to enforce their loyalty they also 
 brought a conscience which set a limit to their obedience, 
 and of this fact the emperor seems to have been well 
 aware. He desired to make the soldiers absolutely 
 subservient to his will, and he found that among the 
 
 1 Orosius, vii. 25. 
 
 3 Orosius, vii. 25 *' Maximianus Herculeus in Occidente vastari ecclesias, 
 affligi interfici Xtianos . . . cepit." 
 
 8 Mommsen, "Das romische Militarwesen seit Diocletian," Hermes, 1889. 
 
iv THE LAST PERSECUTION 85 
 
 Christians alone were his efforts hopeless. Of men like 
 these the army must therefore be purged. In 286, 1 
 under the orders of Diocletian, Maximian set out from 
 Milan to pacify Gaul. 2 It was suffering from the 
 poverty and misery that the political strife had created. 
 Bands of marauders 3 perhaps barbarians under some 
 able leader, perhaps the poor downtrodden Celtic 
 peasantry who had gathered together for mutual pro- 
 tection, and whom hunger had driven into crime, 
 wandered through the valleys and table lands of 
 Auvergne, Gevaudan, and Bourgogne, under the title 
 of Bagaudae. The meaning of this word is uncertain, 
 but it is supposed to be connected with a Celtic word, 
 bagat, 4 a multitude. It was necessary in the opinion of 
 the emperor to put them down, and Maximian was 
 intent on nothing less than a thorough suppression. 
 Among the soldiers he took with him was a vexillatio or The 
 cohort of a legion 5 raised in Egypt 6 and chiefly from 
 Syene, Elephantis, and Philae. As this army was march- 
 ing down the Rhone valley at the head of the lake of 
 Geneva, these Thebaid soldiers learned for the first time 
 the duty on which they were bound. 7 They were 
 Christians and they were being taken to Gaul largely 
 
 1 Aurelius Victor, de Catsaribus, 39. It is uncertain whether Maximian, who 
 had been clothed in the purple the year before, started on the expedition as Caesar or 
 Augustus j cf. Otto Seek in Comment, Woelfimanae, Leipzig, 1897. 
 
 2 Lactantius, de Mortibus pers. xxix. "redit in Galliam plenus malae con- 
 tagionis ac sceleris." 
 
 3 Allard points out, La Persecution de DiocUtien, i. p. 21, that the peace which 
 the Christians had enjoyed for ten years would have ensured their loyalty. Eutropius, 
 Brew. ix. 28, calls the Bagaudae " agrestes " j and Jerome follows in his continuation 
 of Eusebius' Chronicon^ and calls them "rustici." See also Salvian's sympathy for 
 them, de Guber Dei, v. n. 5 and 6. 
 
 4 Holder, Altcelt'ucker Sprachschatz, explains baga as " a struggle " or " a 
 foe," one with whom you have to contend. Eumenius, in his speech, 4, at the 
 restoration of the schools at Autun speaks of " latrocinio Bagaudicae rebellionis " j 
 and Eutropius, ix. 20 "tumultum rusticani in Gallia concitassent et faction! suae 
 Bacaudarum nomen inponerent." 
 
 5 Cf. Dion Cassius, Iv. 24. The II. Trajana cohors. See also Marquardt ii. 452. 
 
 6 " Hi in auxilium Maximiano ab Orientibus partibus acciti venerant " ; cf. 
 Marquardt, Romische Staatsverivaltung, ii. pp. 449-452. Agaune is about fourteen 
 miles east of the lake of Geneva. 
 
 7 For the massacre of the Thebaid vexillatio cf. Eucherius' Passio Agaunensium 
 martyrum in the Vienna Corpus, vol. xxxi. part i. p. 165 j and in Migne, Patrol. 
 Lat. vol. 1. p. 827. 
 
86 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 to subdue Christians. So they thought and so they 
 argued. Their officers were Mauricius l the primo- 
 cerius, Exsuperius the campiductor, and Candidus the 
 senator militum. Officers and men alike 2 protested 
 against this task of putting down a peasantry whose 
 misery and want alone had caused them to rise. When 
 first the murmurs of these Christian soldiers began 
 Maximian was not in the camp, and news was sent on 
 to him of their suspicious, if not rebellious, conduct. 
 He was a severe commander and seems to have regarded 
 their protest as in itself an act of treason. 3 The cohort 
 was surrounded and the execution of every tenth man 
 was ordered. 4 The three officers tried to reason with 
 their general, but the fact that the trouble was caused 
 largely because the men were Christians, and had re- 
 ligious scruples, made him the more resolute to suppress 
 this disobedience. After the first slaughter he found 
 that the survivors were still firm in their resolve not to 
 act as the murderers of the poor depressed peasantry. A 
 second tenth 5 was then ordered for execution, and still 
 those who survived persevered in their determination, 
 encouraging one another to endure patiently this per- 
 secution which God had allowed to come as a trial of 
 their faith. So at last Maximian ordered the entire 6 
 cohort to be destroyed, and in the massacre of his 
 Christian soldiers gave evidence of what he would do 
 when he stayed in Gaul. 
 
 The evidence for the massacre cannot be denied. 
 The tragedy is strictly historical. Eucherius, bishop of 
 Lyons (434-449), has given us a simple but graphic 
 
 1 For the titles of St. Maurice and his companions, primicerius, campiductor^ 
 senator militum, cf. Marquardt, ii. 548. The first and last of these titles do 
 not belong to the legions, and probably indicate a mixed cohort of men, some on foot 
 and some on horseback. Campiductor, instructor, is a common term. 
 
 2 " Et hi sicut ceteri militum ad pertrahendam Christianorum multitudinem 
 destinarentur, soli crudelitatis ministerium detrectare ausi sunt." 
 
 8 " In furorem instinctu indignationis exarsit." 
 
 4 " Decimum quemque ex eadem legione gladio feriri jubet." 
 
 5 " Imperat ut iterum decimus eorum morti detur." 
 
 6 " Una sententia interfici omnes decrevit et rem confici circumfusis militum 
 agminibus jubet." 
 
iv THE LAST PERSECUTION 87 
 
 account of this persecution in the Agaunensian valley. 
 The story was told him by Christians who had heard of 
 it from Bishop Isaac of Geneva, and he had received it 
 from Theodore who was bishop of Octodure (Martigny) 
 before 349. One other victim was claimed ere the 
 legion left the scene of its cruel and fratricidal act. 
 While the soldiers were feasting on that very evening 
 a veteran soldier named Victor, 1 expressed his horror at 
 their joy, and refused either to share with them the 
 spoils from their slaughtered comrades, or join in the 
 feast of which they were partaking. Turning 2 in 
 surprise to him they asked if he too were a Christian. 
 He replied that he was and always would be. So there 
 and then they rushed on him and killed him. For 
 two hundred miles the road of march runs down past the 
 shore of the lake and along the banks of the Rhone, and 
 the Christians of the capital of Gaul, as they would be 
 the first to hear of the tragedy would also be the most 
 zealous to bear it in mind, and to revere the constancy 
 of their slaughtered brethren. The words of Gregory 
 of Tours 3 and the narrative itself of Eucherius * help 
 to correct the exaggerations of later ages. Gregory 
 does not say that a legion was massacred, and the three 
 officers whom Eucherius names as the officers of that 
 section of the army shows that only a detachment 
 suffered. Among the treasures which they placed 
 under the altar of the new church of St. Martin at 
 Tours 5 were relics of these Christian soldiers and 6 
 in 522 when Sigismund mourned for the loss of his son 
 Sigeric, whose murder he had ordered, he went to 
 Agaune to do penance near the relics, " beatissimorum 
 martyrum legionis felicis," and gave largely to the en- 
 
 1 " Victor autem martyr nee legionis ejusdem fuit neque miles sed emeritae jam 
 militiae veteranus." 
 
 2 " Detestatus convivas detestatusque convivium refugiebat requirentibusque ne 
 et ipse forsitan Christianus esset, Christianum se et semper futurum esse respondit." 
 
 3 Greg. Lib. de glor. mart. 75. 
 
 4 Corpus script, eccles. xxxi. pt. i. 
 
 5 Greg, of Tours, Lib. de epp. T. in Hist. Franc, x. on himself as bishop. 
 
 6 Greg, of Tours, Lib. de glor. mart. 74. 
 
88 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 dowment of the monastery there. Venantius Fortunatus l 
 records the courage of St. Maurice as the leader of the 
 band, and in the Immolatio of the office for the day, 
 September 22, in the Gothic Missal the number of the 
 martyrs is first of all reckoned as six hundred, and 
 afterwards an additional six thousand seems to have 
 been added, so that an event strictly historical, and one 
 that helps us largely to realise the condition of the 
 Christian Church in Gaul at that time has thus been 
 so exaggerated that it has at last come to be regarded 
 as fabulous and worthless. 
 
 During the years 287 and 288 Maximian seems to 
 have been engaged not merely in the pacification of 
 Gaul and in a journey to Britain, but also seems resolutely 
 to have taken in hand the purging of his army. As 
 he advanced northward from Lyons, the Bagaudae 
 fled before him and took refuge between the Marne 
 and Seine, endeavouring to protect themselves by a 
 canal across a bend in the latter river. Their leaders, 
 Aelianus and Amandus, had proclaimed themselves 
 Augustus and Caesar, and had endeavoured to collect 
 a force capable of meeting him. But Maximian made 
 short work of their resistance, and the cruelty with 
 which he crushed this rebellion gave rise in after days 
 to the belief that the leaders of the Bagaudae had been 
 Christians. 2 It would, however, be best if we follow 
 Maximian in his march from the south to the north of 
 St. victor Gaul. In Marseilles, in the martyrdom of St. Victor and 
 seiiies"" ^is companions, we again meet with the emperor, and 
 it is more probable that this incident took place soon 
 after the massacre of the Thebaid legion, than in the 
 more hurried time after his return from Britain and 
 while on his way to Italy. The incident is coupled by 
 
 1 Venant. Fort. ii. 18 : 
 
 " quo pie Maurici ductor legionis opimae 
 traxisti fortes subdere colla viros." 
 
 2 Cf. Life of Saint Babolin in Dom Bouquet, iii. 568-569. 
 
iv THE LAST PERSECUTION 89 
 
 Venantius Fortunatus 1 with the martyrdom of St. 
 Alban in Britain, and the two narratives help to 
 support each other, and our view, that they belong to 
 the times when Maximian was persecuting the Christians 
 who happened also to be soldiers in his army. The 
 Passio of St. Victor 2 connects his martyrdom with that 
 of St. Maurice and the Thebaid legion. Maximian had 
 given out an order in Marseilles that every worshipper 
 of Christ was to be put to death, unless he was willing 
 to sacrifice to the gods. To this 3 Victor, a Christian 
 officer, opposed himself, anxiously going round the 
 camp each night, to encourage his fellow Christians to 
 show their fortitude and to prepare when it might be 
 necessary to resist. His action, however, could not 
 escape notice, and he was soon seized and brought 
 before the court of the military prefects, 4 who urged 
 upon him very kindly not to despise the gods of 
 the country, or the accustomed duties of military 
 service, or the friendship of Caesar, and all for the 
 worship of a man who was dead. Victor's answer was 
 such that the prefects saw he was not to be influenced 
 by them. The soldiers who stood around, and who 
 heard him denounce their gods, raised a shout of protest, 
 and began to ill-treat him, but since he was an officer 
 and a distinguished soldier the prefects decided that he 
 was to be sent for trial to Caesar himself. Victor was 
 therefore taken before Maximian " furens imperator " 
 the Passio calls him and while plied with the craftiest 
 arguments to bring him to submission everything was 
 done to compel obedience either by an account of 
 
 1 Cf. Venant. Fortunat. viii. 4 : 
 
 " egregium Albanum foecunda Britannia profert, 
 Massilia Victor Martyr ab urbe venit." 
 
 2 Ruinart, p. 333, suggests that the Passio which he prints may have been written 
 by Cassian. The monastery of Marseilles possessed several monks in the first half 
 of the fifth century who could have written it. 
 
 3 "... perturbatisque nostrorum animis invincibilis sese in medium Victor 
 opposuit, singulis noctibus sanctorum castra sollicite circumiens." 
 
 4 " Praefecti primum suadent clementius viro, ne deorum culturam sperneret, nee 
 consueta militiae stipendia et Caesaris amicitias pro cultu cujusdam olim mortui 
 recusaret." 
 
90 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 the terrors of what would otherwise happen, or the 
 reasonableness of the demand itself that he should 
 consent to sacrifice to the gods. His obstinacy made 
 Maximian all the fiercer, and he ordered him to be 
 dragged through the town by a rope so that in the 
 disgrace of such a punishment he might avenge the 
 insults heaped upon the ancient gods, and terrorise the 
 Christians who witnessed it. To see this spectacle and 
 to show their approval of the decision of the emperor, 
 the people crowded the streets, and with hands and feet 
 tied as if he were some degraded felon Victor was dragged 
 through the town and the mob assaulted him as he 
 went. When this parade of a Christian officer and all 
 its cruelty was over, Victor was again brought, bruised, 
 wounded, and blood-stained as he was, into the presence 
 of the prefects who were obliged to carry out the 
 commands of the emperor. Once more they exhorted 
 him to deny Christ and to sacrifice to the gods of the 
 empire. They hoped that the punishment which had 
 been already inflicted, and the contemptuous treatment 
 he had received from the people would have induced 
 him to yield. But he still remained strong in his 
 allegiance to Christ, unmoved either by the threats of 
 further torture, or the promise of the special friendship 
 of the emperor. On the contrary, he asserted his 
 loyalty to Caesar and to the Republic, and endeavoured 
 on his part to bring them round to believe in the true 
 God. " When will you cease, Victor," * they exclaimed, 
 " thus to philosophise ? Choose one of these alternatives, 
 either appease the gods or else miserably perish." " Deos 
 sperno, Christum fateor " he is said to have replied, and so 
 he was handed to the lictors for yet further torture. It 
 is said that in the midst of the pain which they inflicted 
 upon him he became conscious that Jesus was with 
 him to encourage and to sympathise. 2 At last having 
 
 1 " Impiissimi Praesides rationum pondere oppressi Adhuc, inquiunt, Victor, 
 philosophari non desinis ? Unum tibi elige, aut placare Deos aut cum summa 
 infelicitate deperire." 
 
 2 An experience which he must have confided to some Christian bystander. 
 
iv THE LAST PERSECUTION 91 
 
 exercised all their ingenuity in devising fresh cruelties 
 for him, they cast him into the darkest dungeon of the 
 military prison, and left him for the night to await his 
 execution on the morrow. During the quiet of the 
 night, however, his example l and his teaching brought 
 three soldiers, Alexander, Longinus, and Felicianus to 
 confess Christ, and a priest who had in secret ministered 
 unto him having been summoned, since the prison was 
 near to the sea, the three converts were baptized the 
 following morning. Of course, when Maximian heard 
 of this, for the news of this fresh conversion was told 
 him without delay, he was the more enraged against 
 Victor, and determined to make his punishment the 
 more severe. With his three comrades he was hurried 
 by the lictors to the Forum. The people as usual ran 
 together to see the end, and the lictors again, but again 
 in vain, endeavoured to induce his companions to recant 
 their profession of faith. They recognised that this was 
 the work of Victor, and so they determined that he must 
 see how it would end. All four, however, were unyield- 
 ing and ready to die, and so before his eyes his comrades 
 were beheaded with a sword. Then Victor was led 
 once more before the emperor, and Maximian ordered 
 an altar to be brought and Victor was placed before it. 2 
 " Pone, inquit, thura, placa Jovem, et noster amicus esto." 
 Instead of obeying this order Victor goes to the altar, 
 and hurls it to the ground, so the lictors take him 
 away and crush his limbs under millstones, which 
 seemed to grind him as the chosen seed-corn of God, 
 
 1 " Milites ergo claritatem tanti cernentes fulgoris, ad pedes sancti cernui 
 procedunt, veniam flagitant, baptismum petunt, quos pro tempore diligenter instructos, 
 adscitissacerciotibus, ipsa nocte ad mare duxit ibique baptizatos propriis manibus de fonte 
 levavit." Cf. Acts xvi. 13 " praefectorum tribunalibus praesentatur," i.e. military pre- 
 fects. Marseilles was autonomous and therefore the proconsul of Narbonne had no 
 jurisdiction there, nor would the duumviri of the city have such authority over an 
 officer of Maximian. 
 
 2 Cf. Prudentius, Peristephanon x. 916-618, on the martyrdom of St. Romanus : 
 
 " reponit aras ad tribunal denuo 
 et thus et ignem vividum in carbonibus 
 taurina et exta, vel suilla abdomina : " 
 
 Oresius was probably the first bishop of Marseilles. He was present at the Synod of 
 Aries 314 ; cf. Duchesne, Pastes ep. i. p. 265. 
 
92 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 and with a sword they sever his head from his mangled 
 body. Those who stood near, Christians doubtless 
 whose real faith was not as yet known, but men who 
 remembered and related what they had seen and heard, 
 thought that as the soul of St. Victor passed away to 
 Him whose martyr he was, they heard a voice from 
 heaven : " vicisti, Victor beate, vicisti." 
 
 Gregory of Tours 1 does not relate to us the 
 incidents in the passion of St. Victor, but tells us how 
 that, nearly two hundred years after the martyrdom 
 when a pestilence prevailed at Marseilles, the bishop 
 and his clergy, perhaps it was Honoratus, the namesake 
 of the abbot of Lerins, went into the crypt of the 
 basilica which had been built in honour of the martyr 
 St. Victor, and over his remains, and all the night 
 through implored, with marked success, for the plague 
 was stopped, the aid of the martyr. Nor was this the 
 only evidence which Gregory knew of, and which told 
 of the sanctity and influence of the soldier martyr. 
 
 st. In Genesius of Aries we meet with another soldier 
 
 sa ^ nt w h se martyrdom gives evidence of the bitter 
 fury of Maximian against the Christians in his army. 
 Seventy years afterwards the Spanish poet Prudentius, 2 
 sings of him as casting a lustre on the city to which he 
 belonged : 
 
 teque praepollens Arelas habebit, 
 sancte Genesi. 
 
 Gregory is always concerned with the miracles 
 worked at the martyrs' tombs, or the benefits which can be 
 derived by invoking their assistance. He tells us 3 of one 
 who was in danger of drowning, and invoked the aid of 
 Genesius under conditions which were rather exacting, 
 
 1 Greg. Tours, Lib. de glor. mart. i. 77. 
 
 2 Cf. Prudent. Peristephanon iv. on the martyrs of Zaragossa. St. Genesius 
 and St. Paul of Narbonne are the only two Galilean saints mentioned by Prudentius. 
 Cf. Greg. Lib. de glor. mart. 68. 
 
 3 Cf. Greg. Lib. de glor. mart. 66, 67, 68. 
 
iv THE LAST PERSECUTION 93 
 
 and did not call in vain. In the middle of the sixth 
 century the cult of Genesius had taken root at Aries. 
 His story briefly is that as a youth he had enlisted in 
 the local militia, and his duty was to carry out the orders 
 of the judge Exceptor. 1 He had not yet been baptized, 
 but as a catechumen had been instructed in the Catholic 
 faith. He soon found, therefore, that it was impossible 
 to remain a Christian and yet perform all the orders 
 given him for execution. On his refusal to obey some 
 instructions which had been given him, the judge handed 
 him over to the lictors as one disobedient to the orders 
 of the court. When, however, Genesius realised that 
 he was a prisoner, 2 he watched his opportunity and 
 jumped into the Rhone to swim to the other side, and 
 would have escaped had not an executioner followed 
 him and on the other side put him to death with a 
 sword. 
 
 From Aries we follow Maximian to Vienne, though, 
 of course, the incident may have occurred as the 
 emperor went from Lyons to Marseilles and not on the 
 way back. We find here the record 3 of the martyrdom 
 of two, the circumstances of whose death seem to point 
 to the activity against the Christians which the com- 
 mander showed to the soldiers of his army. These 
 men, St. Ferreolus and St. Julian, were both connected ss. Julian 
 with the army and knew 4 that serious difficulties would p"J reolu8 
 soon arise for them. St. Ferreolus held tribunitial 
 authority 5 in the city " in supradicta urbe tribunitiam 
 gerebat potentiam " and in the early Passio of St. 
 Julian, it is recorded of St. Ferreolus that " militiae 
 officium gerebat." Ferreolus urged Julian to escape, 
 
 1 "Ante tribunal judicis Exceptoris "j cf. Ruinart, sub nomine, p. 559. 
 
 2 Ruinart, " atque is, ubi se perspicit deprehensum, instinctu Domini Rhodanum 
 petiit et sancta fluento membra committit." 
 
 3 Ruinart, Act a sincera, sub nomine, p. 489. 
 
 4 Ruinart, Passio, 2 " sanctissimus autem Ferreolus et ipse a Deo martyr 
 probatus tune in supradicta urbe tribuniciam gerebat potestatem." 
 
 5 '* . . ait ad sanctum Julianum : Cognovi persecutionem Xtianorum ad hanc 
 urbem esse venturam et ideo obsecro ab isto loco amoveas." 
 
94 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 and while the younger man made his way towards the 
 valleys of Auvergne, Ferreolus prepared himself for 
 the inevitable trial. Then at last the time came and he 
 was ordered as a soldier to sacrifice to the gods " pro 
 militiae stipendiis fidem debes et pro majestatis reve- 
 rentiam." To this Ferreolus could only say, 1 " I am a 
 Christian, I ought not to sacrifice to the gods." The 
 president then said, "Whence comes, O Ferreolus, to 
 you this so great confidence in dying ? Perhaps your 
 neglect of the laws and your insult to your prince leads 
 you on to despair ? " Ferreolus denied this suggestion, 
 and the president, seeing that he had no influence over 
 him, orders him to be handed over for various kinds of 
 torture, and then to be heavily manacled and cast into 
 prison. " He who despises good counsel must show 
 that he is also superior to pain." So Ferreolus was cast 
 into prison. On the early morning of the third day, 
 while the guardians were sound asleep, Ferreolus realised 
 that his chains were loosed from hands and feet, and 
 that the way was open for his escape. So he passed 
 through the streets, now silent and empty, and through 
 the northern gate of the road which led to Lyons, and 2 
 coming to the Rhone cast himself in and got safely to 
 the other side. Then he made his way northward as 
 far as the river Gier, and here his pursuers overtook 
 him, and, with hands bound behind his back, conducted 
 him once more towards the city. Was it fatigue or 
 was it an attempt at rescue ? We do not know, but 
 soon they turned upon him and killed him on the road. 
 The zeal of the Christians at Vienne secured for him a 
 Christian burial, and soon after a church was built to 
 mark the site of his martyrdom. 
 
 Meanwhile St. Julian was making his way to 
 Auvergne. When he got near to Brioate (Brioude) 
 
 1 " Christianus sum, sacrificare diis non clebeo." 
 
 2 Ruinart, p. 490 " egressus foras portam Lugdunensem." 
 Ruinart, p. 490 
 
 ingressus aggerem 
 
 L^U t~glt,9OU3 llllAO l\JL lain Arf ItKU UUCUVdU. 
 
 90 " et in ulteriorem ripam securus exit. Dehinc concito gradu 
 publicum usque ad Jarem fluvium percucurrit." 
 
iv THE LAST PERSECUTION 95 
 
 he begged a shelter and a hiding-place in the cottage of 
 a veteran soldier. The spies from Vienne were, how- 
 ever, on his track also, and having marked whither he 
 went came to the cottage and demanded whether he was 
 still within. The soldier's wife betrayed him, and then 
 and there they put him to death. 
 
 Gregory of Tours, 1 whose interest in all religious 
 matters in Auvergne is very remarkable, wrote a whole 
 book on the miracles worked at his tomb or in his name, 
 but he gives us very little of the details of his life, and 
 probably knew little of them. To this day Julian is 
 the Saint of Brioude. Venantius Fortunatus 2 mentions 
 him in connection with St. Privat and St. Ferreolus : 
 
 Privatum Gabalus Julianum Arvernus abundans 
 Ferreolum pariter pulcra Vienna gerit. 
 
 A hundred years earlier than Gregory, Sidonius Apolli- 
 narius, 3 bishop of Clermont Ferrand (472-488), wrote 
 to Mamertus, bishop of Vienne, who was about to 
 translate the remains of St. Ferreolus and a relic of 
 St. Julian to a new church which had been built in his 
 city to receive them, and compared him with St. Ambrose 
 in being the guardian of two martyr tombs, and asked 
 to be included among those remembered by the Church 
 in Vienne. 
 
 Far away, near the mouth of the Loire and not far ss. 
 from the borders of Armorica, the action of Maximian in f n d gatianus 
 the south seems to have roused the heathen Celts to Donatianus 
 persecute the Christians, and to urge on the officials 
 to carry out the laws of the empire. It is not certain 
 whether Maximian, after his failure in Britain, may 
 have gone as far west as Nantes, but St. Rogatianus 
 
 1 Greg. T. Lib. de <virt. St. Juliani, i. " sic et inclitus martyr Julianus qui 
 Viennensi ortus urbe Arvernus datus est martyr . . . quia cum esset apud beatissi- 
 mum Ferreolum." 
 
 Ibid. 30 " advenit Ferreolus collega tuus ex Viennensibus." 
 
 2 Ef>. viii. 4. 
 
 3 Sid. Apoll. Ep. vii. i. 
 
96 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 and St. Donatianus l certainly suffered at Nantes for 
 their faith at sometime between the years 286 and 292. 
 The story of the martyrdom was well known at Tours, 
 and again we find Gregory 2 recording, not those leading 
 details of their lives which to-day we so much desire to 
 know, but a certain miraculous appearance as of a pro- 
 cession of men clad in white which came forth from 
 the church that had been built over their remains and 
 made its way to the church of Similianus. Donatianus, 
 as the story goes, was a young citizen of Nantes, of 
 good position and remarkable thoughtfulness. He 
 knew that Christianity was forbidden, but this fact in 
 no way deterred him from urging on all his friends to 
 forsake their idols and put their faith in Christ, and 
 he became the more active as men began to insist 
 that the orders of the president of that part of Gaul 
 should be obeyed, and that all should sacrifice to the 
 gods. He himself had been baptized and was educated 
 in the Christian faith. Among the heathen was his 
 younger brother Rogatian, whom 3 at last he was the 
 means of converting to the Christian faith, and had it 
 not been that the priest had fled from Nantes in fear 
 of the persecution, Rogatian would gladly have been 
 baptized. Seeing an executioner with the instruments 
 of torture going on his way, one of the heathen crowd 
 accosted him, and said that he had come most opportunely 
 to bring back to the worship of the gods those who were 
 seen to stray away from the Jews, and to put their faith 
 in the Crucified One. " You know," said he, " that 
 Donatian is a follower of this doctrine, and you ought 
 first of all to carry out your stern instructions on him. 
 For not only has he ceased, contrary to the orders of 
 
 1 Tillemont considers the Passio S. Donatiani to be of the fifth century. 
 
 2 Cf. Greg. T. Lib. de glor. mart. 59. 
 
 3 Ruinart p. 321 "Quod ad praesens ne susciperet baptisma, audita persecu- 
 tione, fecit sacerdotis absentia fugitiva, sed quod de fonte defuit martyrii, cruor fusus 
 impendit." The first bishop of Nantes is said to have been S. Clair, but sacerdos can 
 here only mean a priest, since Nantes cannot have been organised as a diocese so early 
 as the time of Diocletian. Duchesne is inclined to assign the martyrdom perhaps to 
 the persecution of Decius. Pastes ep. ii. p. 360. The officer is called persecutor, 
 praeses, praefectus, and judex. 
 
iv THE LAST PERSECUTION 97 
 
 the emperor, to observe the worship of the gods and to 
 venerate Jove and Apollo, but he has also led away his 
 brother into the same persuasion." So the president, 
 before whom he was brought, ordered Donatian to stand 
 forth in the presence of all, and then began at once to 
 question him as to his faith. Donatian endeavoured to 
 enter upon an argument, but the prefect, annoyed at 
 his obstinacy, cut him short and ordered him to be 
 bound and put into prison. Then Rogatian was brought 
 forward, and every means was taken to induce him to 
 change his opinions. He is young, they argue, he has 
 not yet been baptized, and if only he will yield, a 
 desirable post in the palace of the emperor will be 
 offered to him. But Rogatian, too, was firm, and 
 when the prefect saw that he had failed in his purpose, 
 he ordered Rogatian also into prison. The next 
 day they were brought out and made to stand before 
 the public gaze, and since he could do nothing to 
 bend their resolves, the president ordered them to 
 be stretched on a torture frame, 1 so that those whose 
 minds could not be moved by argument might have the 
 muscles of their limbs broken by the punishment. 
 Then the lictors, after further tortures, pierced their 
 necks with a soldier's lance and beheaded them with a 
 sword. 
 
 The simple story of the sufferings of these martyrs Edict for 
 is, of course, the work of a somewhat later age. With a e 
 the exception of Eucherius' account of the massacre tion. 
 of the Thebaid legion there is an interval of two or 
 three centuries between the event and the record 
 of it. We cannot, therefore, rely on all the incidents, 
 though most of them are natural and extremely likely, 
 and we certainly can give little weight to the arguments 
 between judge and accused, and the prolonged speech 
 which some are said to have delivered. They all, 
 however, form one especial group, they concern the 
 
 1 " Jussit eos in equulei catasta suspendi." 
 
 H 
 
98 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Christians that were in the army, and they all were 
 victims of Maximian's zeal for purging his army. 
 They take place at centres where detachments of the 
 army may have been located, and while they belong in 
 one sense to the Diocletian persecution since they 
 occurred when Diocletian reigned, they took place not 
 as the result of his edict for a general persecution, but 
 on account of the determination of Maximian to have 
 an army free from those who were of the Christian 
 religion. 
 
 Maximian returned from Britain in 289, and after 
 making terms with Carausius and also the barbarians on 
 the Rhine, he seems to have retired to Italy. Then, as 
 we have mentioned before, in 292 Diocletian created 
 Constantius Chlorus and Galerius Armentarius Caesars, 
 and to Constantius fell the three dioceses of Spain, 
 Gaul, and Britain, with Maximian at Milan as the 
 Augustus whose orders he had to obey. Galerius 
 seems to have been always averse to the Christians, and 
 to him rather than to Diocletian was the edict against 
 them due. Going to Nicomedia in the autumn of 302 1 
 he did what he could with Maximian 2 to strengthen the 
 heathen influence at the palace, and long were the dis- 
 cussions that took place between the two emperors as 
 to whether or not a persecution was to be allowed. 
 There can be no doubt that the Christians were very 
 numerous, even at the palace, and they had for their 
 friends no other than Prisca and Valeria, the wife and 
 daughter of Diocletian. The emperor was, however, 
 not easy to move. It seemed a wicked thing to dis- 
 quiet the empire, to shed the blood of many, and of 
 those men who they knew well were quite ready to die. 
 A private consultation, therefore, took place at the 
 palace of some of the judges and military commanders, 
 and they agreed with Galerius and encouraged Diocletian 
 
 1 Lactantius, de Mart, persecut. 14. 
 
 a Ibid. 10 "turn Maximianus quoque Caesar inflammatus scelere advcnit." 
 Seealo 18. 
 
iv THE LAST PERSECUTION 99 
 
 to act. Messengers were therefore sent to consult the 
 oracle of Apollo, and an answer was returned that 
 was hostile to the new religion. Galerius would have 
 ordered all Christians to be burnt, but Diocletian would 
 only sanction a proclamation which stopped short of 
 blood-shedding. Meanwhile Galerius had taken steps 
 to force the hands and take away all hesitation from 
 his colleague. The heathen festival of the Terminalia, 
 February 23, 303,* was drawing near. A fire burst out 
 in the palace, and he tried to persuade Diocletian that 
 it had been lit by the Christians. On the day of 
 the festival during the rejoicing an attack was made 
 on the church at Nicomedia. The doors were burst 
 open and a pretended search took place for the statue 
 of the Christians' God. None was, of course, found, 
 but the Holy Scriptures were discovered and these 
 were promptly burnt. Then since the emperor would 
 not sanction the lighting of a fire, the soldiers of 
 Galerius in a short time demolished the church. Mean- 
 while another mysterious fire broke out in the palace, 
 and now Diocletian's resolve gave way, and the edict 
 for persecution was signed. 
 
 When once he had yielded to his junior colleagues, 
 Diocletian showed himself ready to continue the attack 
 with cruelty and with energy. His own 2 wife and 
 daughter he compelled to sacrifice. The edict was put 
 up on the Palace gates in March 303. A Christian 
 of 3 good birth and high position tore it down. The 
 poor man was degraded and butchered. The edicts of 
 Valerian A.D. 257 and 258 ordered that bishops, priests, 
 and deacons were to be punished and exiled, that 
 senators and men of position were to lose their dignity, 
 and that if they persisted in declaring themselves to be 
 
 1 Lactantius, de Mcrt. ptrsccut. 12. 
 
 2 Ibid. 15 "furebat ergo Imperator, jam non in domesticos tantum sed in 
 omnes j et primam omnium filiam Valeriam, conjugemque Priscam sacrificio pollui 
 coegit." 
 
 3 Ibid, "quod edictum quidam etsi non recte, majus tamen animo diripuit et 
 conscidit . . . statimque productus, non modo extortus sed etiam legitime coctus, 
 cum admirabili patientia postremo coctus est " j cf. Eusebius, H.E. viii. 2. 
 
ioo BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Christians, they were to be beheaded. The edict of 
 Diocletian ordered that the churches were to be pulled 
 down and levelled to the ground, the sacred Scriptures 
 were to be burnt, and those in positions of honour, who 
 were found to be Christians, were to be degraded. 
 Freedmen as Christians were to lose their liberty. 
 
 Galerius then left Nicomedia for the East, and 
 Diocletian continued to enforce the edict. This, his 
 first edict, was soon followed by others, enlarging and 
 making more cruel the terms of the first. Bishops were 
 to be cast into prison and compelled by every means to 
 sacrifice to the gods. The prisons were full, and un- 
 heard-of forms of tortures were invented and made use 
 of. Altars were erected in every court-house that the 
 accused might immediately be tested, and their refusal 
 to sacrifice was at once taken as a proof of their guilt. 
 To go before the judges was also to go before the 
 heathen gods. 
 
 From Nicomedia copies of the edict l were sent to 
 Maximian and to Constantius. The former readily 
 acted upon it. The latter found himself in a position 
 of great difficulty. Lactantius 2 tells us that he dare not 
 disobey, and yet he was unwilling to carry it out. He 
 threw down the walls of the churches, knowing that they 
 could be easily rebuilt, but the true temple of God 
 which is in man he preserved unharmed. So Gaul 
 was protected through the clemency 3 of Constantius, and 
 after the departure of Maximian there was no perse- 
 cution there. Of course the edict had to be published, 
 perhaps in Trier, perhaps in Lyons, but it may be 
 safely said that there was no organised attack on the 
 Christians in Gaul while Constantius, Caesar and 
 afterwards Augustus, was alive. 
 
 1 Lactantius, ibid. 15 " et jam literae ad Maximianum atque Constantium com- 
 meaverunt ut eadem facerent. Eorum sententia in tantis rebus expectata non erat. 
 Et quidem senex Maximianus libens paruit per Italiam, homo non adeo clemens. 
 Nam Constantius ne dissentire a majorum praeceptis videretur, conventicula id est 
 parietes qui restitui poterant, dirui passus est ; verum autem Dei templum quod 
 est in hominibus incolume servavit." 
 
 2 Ibid. 15. 3 Euseb. H.E. viii. 13. 
 
iv THE LAST PERSECUTION 101 
 
 For two years the persecution raged, 1 but happily 
 not in Gaul, and then in 305 Diocletian abdicated and 
 compelled his earlier colleague Maximian, much against 
 his will, to do the same. 
 
 The sovereign power now fell to Galerius and 
 Constantius, who became Augusti, while Severus and 
 Maximinus 2 became Caesars. Diocletian was averse 
 to the succession of sons, and Constantine the son of 
 Constantius and Maxentius the son of Maximianus were 
 passed over. The next year, however, Constantius, the 
 newly made emperor, died, and Constantine his son, 
 who had returned to Gaul, assumed the rank of 
 Caesar. Then the soldiers at Rome chose Maxentius 
 as Imperator, and Maximian, who had regretted his 
 abdication, again assumed the title of Imperator, 3 and 
 the confusion in the empire was but the prelude to a 
 lengthy and serious struggle. In 307 Severus, who on 
 the death of Constantius had taken the title of Augustus, 
 marched against Maxentius, but his soldiers deserted 
 him and he was put to death at Ravenna. Galerius 
 then appointed Licinius Augustus, and Constantine, who 
 in the meantime had been in Gaul, assumed for himself 
 the same rank. The interests of Gaul were wrapt up 
 with those of Constantine, and it is unnecessary to follow 
 the various developments of this tetrarchy beyond the 
 struggle which soon took place between Constantine 
 and his father-in-law Maximian. The edict of 303 
 had only been formally obeyed by Constantius in Gaul. 
 On his death in 305 Constantine, who assumed the 
 position his father had vacated, does not even seem to 
 have made a pretence of obedience to it, and as the 
 years went on the secret hatred between him and 
 Maximian developed into open hostility. In 308, after 
 he had resumed the reins of power and in reliance on his 
 son, who had lately been hailed as Imperator at Rome, 
 
 1 Eutrop. Bre-v. ix. 27 ; Lact. ibid. 16 vexabatur ergo univcrsa terra et praeter 
 Gallias aboriente usque ad occasum tres acerbissimae bestiae saeviebant." 
 
 2 Eutrop. x. 2. 3 Ibid. 
 
102 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Maximian went to Lyons, seized the treasury, and 
 endeavoured to bribe the soldiers to take part against 
 his son-in-law. Constantine was then on the banks 
 of the Rhine, and Maximian imagined that he could 
 not return. But Constantine returned sooner than 
 was expected, and in assumed friendship placed his 
 father-in-law at Aries in an honourable but limited 
 authority. Shortly after, it was discovered that 
 Maximian was trying to rouse the province of Narbon- 
 ensis II. to rebel, and on the approach of Constantine 
 the aged emperor fled to Marseilles and there shut 
 himself up. His soldiers, however, could not be 
 trusted. Though Marseilles 1 had been prepared for 
 a siege, on the arrival of Constantine they opened the 
 gates, Maximian was stript of his imperial robes, and 
 in 310 Constantine ordered his execution. 
 
 The death of Maximian seems to have coincided 
 with the recognition by Galerius of the futility of his 
 opposition to the spread of that religion he had been 
 so anxious to suppress. During the autumn of 309 he 
 had been slowly dying of a disease so horrible that even 
 his attendants found it impossible to come and help him 
 in his sufferings. 2 The doctors could do nothing for 
 him, and Galerius sent to consult the priests of Apollo 
 and Aesculapius, but no hope of recovery was held 
 out to him. It is said 3 that a doctor who had been 
 condemned to death because he was unable to cure him, 
 ventured to suggest that as the disease was sent by the 
 gods it was impossible to expect human skill to cure it. 
 " Think of the cruelties," he exclaimed, "you have shown 
 to the servants of God and your impiety towards their 
 religion. You should know where one ought to look for 
 the remedy. Kill me of course you can, but no doctor 
 will be able for all that to cure you." Then it was, as 
 
 1 For the death of Maximian at Marseilles cf. Eucherius, Passio Agaunemium 
 martyrum, 7 " deprehenso dolo ejus apud Massiliam captus nee multo post 
 strangulatus teterrimoque hoc supplicio adfectus impiam vitam digna morte finivit." 
 See also Lactantius, de Mortibus persecutorum, 30 j Eutrop. x. 3. 
 
 * Lact. ibid. 33. 3 Orosius, vii. 28. 
 
iv THE LAST PERSECUTION 103 
 
 in the spring of 310 he lay slowly dying at Nicomedia, 
 that Galerius turned to the Christians and asked them 
 to pray for him. The document is at once an anxious Edict of 
 request and an edict. It is perhaps the most remarkable Tolcratlon - 
 public document in the history of the Empire. He 
 orders toleration that the Christians may set on prayer. 
 Lactantius gives us probably the original Latin of the 
 edict, and the document runs as follows l Among all 
 the measures we have adopted for the convenience and 
 welfare of the republic, we have always desired to draw 
 men to observe the ancient laws and accustomed 
 discipline of the Romans, and to see that even the 
 Christians who have forsaken the religion of their 
 ancestors should be brought to a good state of mind. 
 But for some cause 2 or other so great a desire had 
 seized on them, and such madness had affected them, 
 that they could not be induced to follow those institu- 
 tions of the ancients which it may be their parents had 
 established, but according to their own caprice, and 
 as they will, they make laws for themselves, and in 
 diverse places have established their houses of assembly 
 (" conventicula sua"). Then when our own will was 
 made known, some submitted through fear and some were 
 punished, and when many persevered in their opinions 
 and we observed 3 that on the one hand they did not 
 give to the gods the worship and the service that was 
 their due, and on the other side they did not seem to 
 us to recognise the God of the Christians, yet having 
 regard to our extreme clemency and to our habit of 
 dealing very kindly with all our subjects, we have 
 felt it our duty to extend even to them our clemency 
 and to allow that Christians 4 as such may exist and 
 
 1 Lact. ibid. 34 j Euseb. H.E. viii. 17. 
 
 2 Cf. Lactantius, ibid. 34 " tanta eosdem Xtianos voluntas invasissct et tanta 
 stultitia occupasset ut non ilia veterum instituta sequerentur quae forsitan primi 
 parentes eorundem constituerant." 
 
 3 "Nee diis eosdem cultum ac religionem debitam exhibere, nee Xtianorum 
 Deum observare." 
 
 4 " Ut denuo sint Xtiani et conventicula sua componant, ita ut ne quid contra 
 disciplinary! agant." 
 
io 4 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 may erect their places of worship so long as they do 
 nothing contrary to public morality. By another letter 
 we have signified to our judges our will and what they 
 are to do in regard to it. In return 1 for this our 
 kindness they ought to pray to their God for the 
 return of our health, for the welfare of the State, and for 
 their own good, so that the republic may on all sides 
 prosper, and they may be able to live freed from anxiety 
 in their homes. 
 
 This strange and misleading document was issued 
 by Galerius in the name of the Emperors Galerius, 
 Constantine, and Licinius, and was dated as from 
 Nicomedia on April 30, 310. It does not seem, 
 however, to have been published until the next year. 
 Galerius died very soon afterwards, and the execution 
 of the law rested with Constantine and Licinianus. In 
 the West there had been practically no persecution 
 since 305, but in the East the Christians had suffered 
 severely. Maximinus in the far East was bound to 
 accept the edict, but interpreted it only as forbidding 
 an active search for, and persecution of, the Christians, 
 and as soon as he felt able he carried on the persecu- 
 tion with most intense bitterness, which only ended 
 with his defeat by Licinius and his death at Tarsus 
 
 The result of the edict was of course more con- 
 spicuous in Italy and eastward than it was in Gaul. 
 Lactantius describes it in reference to Dalmatia and 
 Illyria in writing to one who had suffered for his faith 
 then, 2 O dearest Donatus, the prison gates were 
 thrown open, and you with a large company of other 
 confessors were freed from custody, and left that prison 
 which had been to you for six long years your home. 
 
 Meanwhile Constantine was in Gaul and was pre- 
 paring for that conflict with Maxentius, victory in 
 
 1 " Debebunt Deum suum orare pro salute nostra et reipublicae ac sua." 
 
 2 Lact. ibid. 35 " tune apertis careen bus Donate carissime cum caeteris confessori- 
 bus e custoclia liberatus es, cum tibi career sex annis pro domicilio fuerit." 
 
iv THE LAST PERSECUTION 105 
 
 which would alone assure him of sovereign power in 
 the West. In 312, therefore, Constantine assembled 
 his army at Trier and began his march to Italy. It 
 was known that Maxentius was using all the arts of the 
 old religion to make sure of success, and was consulting 
 soothsayers and magicians that he might cast such a spell 
 on Constantine as would bring about his destruction. 
 He entered into an understanding with Maximinus, if 
 not into a secret treaty, and gathered new troops in 
 Italy, and even summoned them from Africa. Then he 
 began the quarrel by demanding from Constantine some 
 explanations concerning the violent death at Nicomedia 
 of the Emperor Galerius, and ordered the statues of 
 his rival to be thrown down. Constantine, on his part, 
 was certainly aware of the difficulties which lay before 
 him. He could not entirely denude the banks of the 
 Rhine of the soldiers that protected the boundaries of 
 the Empire, and the force which he took with him was 
 inferior to that of Maxentius, and was also somewhat 
 reluctant to face the serried ranks of the Pretorian 
 guards. He entered into an alliance with Licinius, and 
 agreed that Licinius should marry his sister Constantia. 
 As he was approaching Italy, and was going on 
 horseback 1 either through Gaul or northern Italy, he 
 reflected on the weakness of his force and the religious 
 efforts which Maxentius was making to ensure victory. 
 For himself there seemed no help to be gained by an 
 appeal to the gods of the country, and so he decided to 
 call for assistance from that God of the Christians whom 
 his father Constantius had recognised if not revered. 
 In after years, when he was living at Constantinople, he 
 reviewed all the details in this crisis of his life, and told 
 to Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, who was as it were his 
 private chaplain, the steps which led him on to become 
 a Christian. As he was 2 praying, he said, God sent to 
 him a miraculous sign. It was after noon, and the sun 
 
 1 On Constantine cf. Eusebius, Vita Comtantini, i. 27 ; Burckhardt, Die Zeit 
 Const antins der Grossen, 1880. 2 Euseb. Vita Cons tan t in /', i. 28. 
 
106 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 was sinking in the horizon, when he saw in the heavens 
 above the sun a luminous cross with this inscription 
 attached, TOUTCD vUa. The sight alarmed him. It was 
 seen also by the soldiers, who bore witness of the 
 miracle. He asked himself therefore what the sign 
 meant, and for long he thought of it, and during the 
 night, and while he dreamt of the event of the day 
 just past, Christ appeared to him carrying the sign which 
 he had witnessed in the heavens, and bade him make 
 a military standard after the model of this mysterious 
 symbol, which should be for him a safe protection in 
 all the conflict which lay before him. 
 
 The dream was naturally his own, but the sign in 
 the heavens was known to the whole army, and there 
 were various interpretations as to its meaning. The 
 haruspices regarded it as a monition of coming disaster, 
 the Christians among the soldiers were more hopeful. 
 The emperor strictly enjoined silence on those of his 
 soldiers who were heathen, and slowly the army began 
 to hope for success. 
 
 As he advanced, victory after victory came to him at 
 Turin, Milan, Brescia, Verona, and Aquileia, and only 
 once did a slight check seem to delay him. Then he 
 marched rapidly towards Rome and found himself face 
 to face with his rival Maxentius. His foe, however, Was 
 confident of victory, and Maxentius pushed forward his 
 troops across the Tiber, so that behind them lay the river 
 which could only be crossed by the Milvian Bridge. 
 During the battle Maxentius was in the city, but 
 growing impatient of delay he crossed and made for 
 the front of the army, desirous of leading his soldiers 
 against his rival Constantine. It was October 28, A.D. 
 312. Constantine is said also to have had another pre- 
 monition of success which yet further encouraged him 
 in the conflict. Slowly the Pretorian guards were 
 pushed back on the river and the bridge, and in his 
 efforts to recross with the crowd of his soldiers Maxentius 
 fell into the Tiber and was drowned before the eyes of 
 
iv THE LAST PERSECUTION 107 
 
 his retreating and defeated army. Constantine was now 
 master of Rome, his rival was dead, and he was lord 
 of the western portion of the army and of the Empire. 
 His entry into the capital was as if he had delivered it 
 from some scourge. The new standards of the army, 
 carrying aloft the sacred Labarum, showed that Christi- 
 anity was in the ascendant, and while those who were 
 attached to the old religion were not repelled, the 
 Christians in the city were filled with hope for the 
 future. That which Tertullian 1 had imagined to be 
 impossible seemed now to have come to pass. Every- 
 thing indicated that Constantine was on the side of the 
 Christians. That same autumn, or in the winter, the 
 emperor wrote a threatening letter 2 to Maximinus, calling 
 upon him to recognise the edict of Galerius and cease 
 from the bitter cruelties he was inflicting on the Chris- 
 tians in the East. The reply of Maximinus is contained 
 in a rescript, which Eusebius gives us, 3 sent to Sabinus, 
 stating the mere fact that if any wish to follow their 
 own worship they may have liberty to do so, without 
 giving any instructions concerning the return of their 
 buildings to the Christians, or granting to them 
 permission to assemble for public worship. 
 
 Early in 313, after he had entered on the consulship 
 for the third time, Constantine went to Milan, not 
 merely to be present at the marriage of Licinius with 
 his sister Constantia, but also to discuss with Licinius 
 some measure of further toleration. So important was 
 the meeting that the aged Diocletian was summoned 
 from Salona to attend it, but ill health and old age 
 prevented him, and he died on the 4 first of May of that 
 year, the very day on which Maximinus himself passed 
 away after his defeat and flight from Licinius. 
 
 The Edict of Toleration, 5 issued by Constantine and . Edict of 
 
 Toleration. 
 
 1 Apology, 21 "aut si et Christiani potuissent esse Caesares." 
 
 2 "Constantini litteris detcrretur," Lact. de Mart. pen. 37. 
 
 3 Euseb. H.E. ix. 9. 
 
 4 Lact. ibid. 47. 
 
 5 Lact. ibid. 48 " cum feliciter tarn ego Constantinus Augustus quam etiam ego 
 
io8 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Licinius, was an advance on that of Galerius. Much 
 had been done by Maximinus and by local authorities 
 in the interests of the ancient religion without in- 
 struction from the emperor and which had now to be 
 definitely prohibited, and Constantine himself was more 
 than ever pledged to do something for Christianity. 
 The princes had come together, the edict said, to 
 consult for the common welfare of the republic, and 
 among the first matters to regulate were those by 
 which reverence for God was to be upheld. We grant, 
 therefore, to Christians and to every one full liberty to 
 follow that religion which they please, so that God may 
 be appeased by us and all who are under our authority. 
 With correct intention and desire for the welfare of all, 
 we decree then that liberty is not to be denied to any 
 one to follow or to carry out the observances of the 
 Christian religion as they may feel most suitable, so 
 that God may continue to us His accustomed favour 
 and protection. All exceptions and restrictions, there- 
 fore, which have been laid down in our former letters 
 are to be removed, and any that seemed harsh and 
 contrary to our accustomed clemency annulled. You 
 shall know, therefore, that each individual Christian 
 may freely and without hindrance pursue that observ- 
 ance of his religion which seems to his will. We 
 would have you know also that to them we grant this 
 freedom of religious observance. We also decree that 
 the places where the Christians were wont formerly to 
 assemble, which others may have purchased, are to be re- 
 stored to the Christians without any money or other com- 
 pensation. If these buildings or sites have been bestowed 
 on any as grants from the State, they are to be given back 
 to the Christians as soon as possible, and compensation 
 is to be made to the grantees out of our treasury. 
 The Christians also had not only places of worship and 
 
 Licinius Augustus apud Mediolanum convenissemus," etc. This, as being probably 
 the original Latin document, is more reliable than Eusebius's Greek version, 
 H.E. x. 5. Lactantius gives us the rescript of Licinius, issued in order to carry out 
 the edict in the East, the 5tdrats of Eusebius. 
 
iv THE LAST PERSECUTION 109 
 
 private houses, but also other property in their corporate 
 capacity. Such property we desire to be at once restored 
 to them, and those who do so promptly and gratuitously 
 may look for indemnity to us. It is your duty also to 
 look personally into this matter, that our wishes con- 
 cerning the Christians and their goods may be fully 
 and effectually carried out. 
 
 To this rescript, says Lactantius, he added verbal 
 instructions that the churches of the Christians should 
 be restored to their former condition, and thus from 
 the overturning of the Church to its recovery were ten 
 years and nearly four months. The edict, therefore, 
 was issued in June 313. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 WHAT then did the Edict of Milan really mean ? Was 
 Constantine a Christian ? 1 The eagles had been lowered 
 before the Labarum, but was the new emperor prepared 
 to submit to the restraints on his conduct demanded 
 by the new Faith ? The document is very remarkable, 
 and its special character seems to be due to the emperor 
 himself. His thrice -repeated statement 2 that liberty 
 was granted to the Christians, that they should be free 
 to choose their form of religion and their observance 
 of it, and his thrice -repeated insistence that their 
 churches and corporate possessions were to be restored 
 to them undamaged, clearly point to an author who 
 was well informed and of great influence, and such 
 could not have been a mere Secretary of State. There 
 is too much personal character in the document. 
 Whoever had inspired it, had heard the tale of many 
 an act of cruel injustice and undeserved suffering. 
 The imprisonment of unoffending Christians and the 
 confiscation of their property was well known to him. 
 In Italy that story would certainly have been confirmed 
 
 1 Cf. the excellent remarks of Mons. Boissier, La Fin du paganisme^ i. cap. 2. 
 The reader should also consult Prof. Schultze's Geschichte des Unter gangs des griech'uc h- 
 romischen Heidentum^ vol. i. i. He has some good remarks on Constantine and the 
 idea of a state religion. Sozomen iii. 17. 
 
 2 Lactantius, de M.ort. persecut. 48 "ut daremus et Christianis et omnibus 
 liberam potestatem sequendi religionem quam quisque voluisset . . . ut nulli omnino 
 facultatem abnegandam putaremus qui vel observation! Christianorum vel ei religioni 
 mentem suam dederet . . . ac simpliciter unusquisque eorum qui eandum observandae 
 religionis Christianorum gerunt voluntatem citra ullam inquietudinem ac molestiam 
 sui id ipsum observare contendant." 
 
 HO 
 
CH. v THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH in 
 
 which Constantine had often heard in Gaul. He was 
 now determined to make reparation. Christianity was 
 now a religio licita. It was tolerated. 
 
 The document, however, seems to show a yet 
 further advance towards Christianity. It was more 
 than tolerated. Churches and property formerly held 
 by Christians 1 were to be given back to them. If 
 necessary, reparation was to be provided from the 
 imperial chest. It was a far-reaching bid for the loyal 
 support of the Christians, and the men who had been 
 accused as the cause of the dying influence of paganism 
 were now encouraged to uphold an emperor who 
 promised more than toleration for their Faith. The 
 Church 2 could now lift up its head and rejoice. The 
 dread, inspired by those who were wont to persecute, 
 vanished. With joy and gladness the Christians kept 
 their festivals, and, as Eusebius says, everything was 
 full of light, and all who had been weighed down with 
 sorrow now looked on one another with smiling and 
 cheerful faces. In cities and in villages the congrega- 
 tions sang hymns in praise and honour of God, the 
 King of all the universe, and then extolled the emperor, 
 ^who had given them such peace and liberty. 
 
 Certainly the edict was regarded as due to 
 Constantine. Whatever approval Licinius may have 
 given was soon forgotten. Writing twenty years after 
 the publication of the edict, Eusebius virtually ignores 
 him, in reference to it. The influence and the will of 
 Constantine was alone recognised. The edict was 
 clearly due to him and was part of his far-seeing policy, 
 under which he acquired absolute sway over the 
 Empire. In numbers certainly the Christians were not 
 to be despised. It has been said 3 that at the time of 
 the declaration of toleration issued by Galerius on his 
 death-bed nineteen out of every twenty of the popula- 
 
 1 Lactantius, ibid. " . . . et conventiculis eorum reddi jubebis." 
 
 2 Eusebius, H.E. x. i. 
 
 * Beugnot's Hhtoire du paganismc en Occident, quoted by Boissier i. cap. I, sec. 3. 
 
H2 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 tion of the Empire were heathen. The persecution had 
 for the Christians tested the sincerity of their faith, 
 and such an estimate, if true, can indicate only men who, 
 as opportunity occurred, would become open and active 
 propagators of the Christian religion. The two years' 
 interval from the order of Galerius to the edict of Con- 
 stantine and Licinius in 3 1 3 must have seen an enormous 
 increase of Christians, and it is possible that Constantine 
 anticipated, and for his own purpose, that demand for 
 liberty, which, had it been made, and it certainly would 
 soon have been made, could not safely have been 
 refused. 
 
 The faith It is not easy to gauge the real feelings of Constantine 
 stantbe. m regard to Christianity. Because he more than 
 tolerated it, it was assumed that he was convinced of 
 its truth, and the subsequent adulation of Churchmen, 
 who hoped for promotion at his hands, makes it difficult 
 for us to test his character. He was certainly not a 
 Christian. A quarter of a century was to pass away 
 before he was baptized, and his approach towards the 
 Faith was slow and very doubtful. He was a super- 
 stitious man 1 and believed in a watching and protecting 
 divinity, and this he desired to propitiate whether it 
 was the God of the Christians or the ancient gods of 
 the Empire. The decision was forced on him when 
 he was marching into Italy against Maxentius. The 
 haruspices in Gaul warned him 2 that all the signs were 
 against him. Maxentius was the favoured of the 
 ancient gods, and so Constantine turned to Him who 
 was the God of the Christians. His victory he 
 regarded as evidence of the help of this God. A 
 year afterwards he wrote 3 to Anulinus, the governor of 
 Africa God punishes those who disobey, and grants 
 prosperity to those who serve Him. The words he 
 ordered to be placed on his triumphal arch near the 
 Colosseum instinctu divinitatis seem an accurate 
 
 1 Euseb. Vita Const, i. 47, and Baehren's ed. Paneg. ix. 2 and x. 14. 
 
 2 Paneg. ix. 2. 3 Euseb. H.E. x. 7. 
 
v THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH 113 
 
 index of his mind. It was evidence of what might be 
 as time went on. 
 
 We cannot, however, ignore the criticism of 
 Eutropius. 1 His judgment must be set against the 
 flatteries of the nominal Christians who crowded the 
 emperor's palace. His early success seems to have 
 influenced him to his harm, and the leniency which he 
 had once displayed gave place to a cruelty which was 
 incompatible with the profession of a Christian. At 
 first, wrote Eutropius, he might be regarded as the 
 equal of the best of emperors, but at the end of his life 
 he could only be classed with those who were mediocre. 
 The friend of Lactantius had become the persecutor of 
 Athanasius. 
 
 It is possible that the change which we cannot but 
 notice in Constantine as his reign was prolonged was due 
 to an error of judgment. Christianity was tolerated, but 
 toleration alone would never satisfy Christianity. The 
 new faith could not rest until it had become itself the 
 religion of the State and had destroyed the old religion 
 it had supplanted. Moreover, the edict was revolu- 
 tionary. 2 Up to that moment there had been no 
 religion for individuals. All religion was a matter of 
 associations. The individual had not been thought of, 
 and now the edict had given him full individual liberty. 
 It recognised a definite relationship between the man 
 and his God. The emperor had acted as one who was 
 able to speak and to give orders concerning religious 
 matters to his subjects. What was his own relationship 
 towards the new religion ? Would he assume towards 
 it the position he had held towards the old faith ? As 
 sovereign pontiff would he interfere and regulate in 
 
 1 Eutropius, Epit. x. 5 "verum insolentia rerum secundarum aliquantum 
 Constantinum ex ilia favorabili animi docilitate mutavit. Primum necessitudines 
 persecutus, egregium virum et sororis filium, commodae indolis juvenem, inter- 
 fecit, mox uxorem, post numerosos amicos. Vir primo imperii tempore optimis 
 principibus, ultimo mediis comparandus." 
 
 2 Cicero, de Leg. ii. 8 "separatim nemo habessit decs neve novos neve advenas 
 nisi publice adscitos, privatim colunto," 
 
 I 
 
1 1 4 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 the Christian Church ? l All was as yet unknown. 2 It 
 was undoubtedly possible that he would do so, and as 
 we advance into the century we will see the imperial 
 policy taking shape. Eusebius recorded in later times 
 how Constantine had said to the bishops assembled at 
 Nicomedia 3 you are the bishops within the Church, 
 and as for myself God has made me the bishop of 
 external affairs. Nothing, however, as yet had indicated 
 that such was to be his policy. 
 
 The It was in the year A.D. 313, the year of the edict, 
 
 t ^ iat Constantine as emperor showed the extent to 
 which he felt he was responsible for the welfare of the 
 Church. He had not merely granted it liberty. He 
 had taken it under his protection, and now he must 
 endeavour to save it from schism. He had evidently 
 received definite news from Africa and had been in 
 communication with some of the African and Italian 
 bishops. In the edict the emancipated religion was that 
 of the Catholic Church. A few months afterwards he 
 wrote to Anulinus, 4 the governor of Africa, concerning 
 the Catholic Church of the Christians in that province. 
 He was aware of the religious dissensions among the 
 Christians there, and desired to support the Catholics 
 against the Schismatics. The benefits of the edict are 
 being narrowed down. They are for the catholics and 
 not for the sectaries, for the recognised society and 
 not for the individual. 
 
 The persecution under Diocletian and Maximian, 5 
 A.D. 303-311, had raged with special bitterness and 
 cruelty in North Africa, and the feuds created by the 
 Decian persecution, 6 A.D. 249-252, intensified the suffer- 
 ing, and when on the cessation of persecution the 
 Church began to recover, there was a harvest of trouble 
 
 1 Cf. Beulier, Le Culte imperial, pt. ii. cap. ii., on the Christian Church and 
 the imperial cult from the time of Constantine. 
 
 2 Cf. Schultze's Geschichte des Unter gangs der Heidenthums, i. cap. i, p. 39. 
 
 3 Euseb. Vita Const, iv. 24 e-yw 5e rCov e/rros vwb 0eov KadeffTa.fj.tvos eirlcrKOTros 
 &v ettjv. 
 
 4 Euseb. H.E. x. 5. Euseb. H.E. viii. 10 and 14. 6 Ibid. vi. 43. 
 
v THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH 115 
 
 which painfully checked the progress of peace and 
 order. What was to be done to those Christians who 
 in a moment of weakness, and in fear of torture and 
 death, had surrendered the Holy Scriptures to be burnt, 
 had offered incense at some heathen altar, had given 
 in a list, correct or not, of the names of brethren, or 
 had by an act of duplicity purchased certificates which 
 delivered them from trial ? The question was not new. 
 It had troubled the African Church since the age of 
 Cyprian, and now it still divided the Christians there. 
 
 Mensurius, 1 bishop of Carthage, had striven to 
 bring back these fallen converts by a policy of kindness, 
 and so from his sterner and stricter colleagues, the 
 neighbouring bishops, had incurred the charge of weak- 
 ness and unfaithfulness. A deacon, Felix, had been 
 accused as a traditor, and had taken refuge in the 
 bishop's house, and Mensurius refused to give him up. 
 So the neighbouring bishops appealed to Anulinus, the 
 proconsul, as to him 2 whose function now it was to 
 decide who were those Christians sanctioned by the 
 edict of Galerius, and perhaps also to suppress those 
 who were not. Anulinus then referred the matter 
 to Rome to be decided by Maxentius himself, and 
 Mensurius and his accusers were sent to Italy. Here 
 at Rome the controversy was examined and Mensurius 
 was acquitted, and especially of the later charge that 
 he himself was a traditor ; but on his way back to 
 Africa Mensurius died. 3 In his place the Christians 
 of Carthage chose as their bishop the archdeacon 
 Caecilianus, and he was consecrated by Felix, bishop of 
 Aptunga. 4 This procedure was perhaps irregular, since 
 Secundus of Tigisis 5 as the neighbouring metropolitan 
 of Numidia should probably have performed the act 
 
 1 Optatus i. cap. 17, Ziwsa's edition in the Vienna Corpus. 
 
 2 Ibid. iii. 8 $ Euseb. x. 7. 
 
 3 Optatus i. 7 " profectus causam dixit : jusaus reverti, ad Carthaginem 
 pervenire non potuit." 
 
 4 Opt. i. 1 8. 
 
 5 Ibid. i. 19 " . . . tune suffragio totius populi Caecilianus eligitur et manum 
 imponente Felice Autumnitano episcopus ordinatur." 
 
n6 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 of consecration, and in his vexation Secundus led an 
 opposition to Caecilian, and was strongly supported by 
 Donatus, bishop of Casae Nigrae. In A.D. 3 1 2 Secundus 
 and Donatus and their friends came to Carthage and 
 held a meeting, 1 a conciliabulum it was afterwards 
 called, of their adherents in the house of a rich lady 
 of Carthage, Lucilla, who was specially hostile to 
 Caecilian on account of some strictures he had made 
 on her life. To this meeting they summoned Caecilian 
 as one accused of some crime, and since, under such 
 conditions, he refused to meet them, the bishops wrote 
 to Constantine, who was then in Gaul, and told him the 
 charges they had against Caecilian, and asked him 2 
 through Anulinus, the proconsul, to try the charge 
 himself. Constantine, however, now began to show 
 that he was a bishop of external matters. He did not 
 try the case himself, but chose three Gallican bishops, 
 probably friends, and possibly men who had lately 
 taught him somewhat of the new faith he had favoured 
 with his protection Maternus, bishop of Coin, 
 Reticius, bishop of Autun, and Marinus, bishop of Aries 
 and bade them go to Rome and with Melchiades, 
 bishop of Rome, hear the charges against Caecilian. 
 Eusebius gives us a Greek version of Constantine's 
 rescript to Melchiades 3 in which he tells him what he 
 had heard from Anulinus and how he had ordered the 
 proconsul to send over the bishop of Carthage and ten 
 of the bishops, his accusers, and ten others whom 
 Caecilian might consider as necessary, and that he 
 desired Melchiades and the three whom he had sent 
 him as his colleagues to decide on his behalf, because 
 he had such regard for the Catholic Church that he 
 wished to leave no room for schism or dissension. The 
 Council was held on October 5, A.D. 313, at the house 
 
 1 Optatus i. 1 6. 
 
 2 Ibid. i. 22 gives us the words of this appeal : "rogamus te Constantine optime 
 imperator quoniam de genere Justus es petimus ut de Gallia nobis judices dari 
 praecipiat pietas tua." 
 
 3 Euseb. H.E. x. <; ; Optatus i. 23 " Maternus ex Agrippina civitate, Reticius 
 ab Augustoduno civitate, Marinus Arelatensis." 
 
v THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH 117 
 
 of the Empress Fausta 1 on the Lateran. Caecilian 
 appeared, and his case was carefully considered, and 
 he was completely acquitted and Constantine not only 
 recognised him 2 as the Catholic bishop of Carthage 
 but transmitted to him considerable sums for the 
 rebuilding and refurnishing of the churches which had 
 been despoiled and ruined. The letter is important 
 because it is the first of its kind, and because it shows 
 us the idea Constantine was forming of his responsibility 
 towards Christianity. The edict created equality, but 
 it must soon have become evident in which direction 
 lay the emperor's fancy. "We have determined," 
 wrote Constantine 3 to Caecilian, " that in all the 
 provinces of Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania, grants 
 should be made to all the clergy of the most holy 
 Catholic religion to defray their expenses, and I have 
 ordered Ursus, the vicar of Africa, to pay to you three 
 thousand folles, and you are to distribute this money 
 among these clergy. Should this sum be not sufficient 
 you are to make a demand on Heraclides, the procurator, 
 and he will supply what is needed. I hear that some 
 men wish to turn away from the Catholic Church and 
 I have given instruction to Anulinus the proconsul and 
 to Patricius the vice-prefect that they are specially to 
 watch this matter. If then you see any men so acting 
 you are to report it to these judges that they may pay 
 attention to it." 
 
 Another letter to Anulinus 4 expresses the desire of 
 the emperor that in the restitution of the property of 
 the Church care should be taken not to harass those by 
 whom this property has been rightly acquired. If any 
 of the decurions or others have in their possession the 
 things belonging to the Catholic Church of the Christians 
 they are at once to give them up, for he had determined 
 that what these churches had before they should have 
 
 1 Opt. ut supra, "convenerunt in domum Faustae in Laterano." 
 
 2 Euseb. H.E. x. 6 j Opt. i. 25. * Ibid. 
 
 4 Euseb. H.E. x. 7. 
 
n8 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 again now, and Anulinus is to see that the restoration 
 of houses, lands, and gardens should take place with as 
 little delay as possible. 
 
 When the Donatists in Africa heard the result of 
 the judicial enquiry at Rome, that Caecilian had been 
 acquitted, and that the emperor had recognised him in a 
 very marked way, they complained that the trial was 
 irregular and, therefore, the judgment was invalid, and 
 through Anulinus l they again appealed to Constantine 
 and asked him to hear the case himself. 
 
 The emperor was naturally angry, because their 
 opposition seems to have struck at the very foundation 
 of his new self-constituted position as the protector of 
 the Catholic Church. He decided to take steps to assert 
 his authority, and to act with severity if they did not 
 submit to the decision arrived at. His first thought 
 was to summon a general council of the bishops of the 
 Catholic Church, but with the East he had as yet little 
 acquaintance, and with the West he was more likely to 
 gain the end he desired. He decided, therefore, to 
 council of summon an assembly or council of representative bishops 
 from the western part of the Empire, and this was to 
 meet at Aries 2 on August i , 3 1 4, in the house of Marinus 
 the bishop there. So the Donatist controversy through 
 the Council of Aries finds an entrance into the history 
 of the Gallican Church. 
 
 The Council was summoned jussu Const an tini 
 Magni in Caeciliani et Donatistarum causa. The 
 imperial authorities were ordered to provide con- 
 veyances and to pay the travelling expenses of the 
 bishops going to Aries who on account of poverty were 
 unable to defray them themselves, and who were journey- 
 ing in obedience to this order ; and among those who 
 travelled through Gaul 3 from the provincia Britanniarum 
 were three bishops Eborius de civitate Eboracensi, 
 Restitutus de civitate Londinensi, and Adelfius de 
 
 1 Optatus i. 25. 2 Optatus, Appendix iii. " Constantinus Augustus Aelafio." 
 3 Mansi, Condi, ii. 469. 
 
v THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH 119 
 
 civitate colonia Londinensium. 1 During the interval 
 between the enquiry at Rome and the Council of Aries 
 Melchiades had died and Sylvester had succeeded him. 
 He did not go to Aries, but was represented by four of 
 his clergy. About four hundred were said to have been 
 present, or rather, perhaps, were summoned. Marinus 
 seems to have taken the lead, though it is probable that 
 Constantine himself was present. 2 Caecilian's case was 
 again considered, and he was again acquitted, and though 
 this judgment and even Constantine's threats of harsh 
 treatment did not silence them the Donatist, controversy 
 does not again enter into the history of the Church in Gaul. 
 
 There were other matters, however, in addition to 
 this African controversy concerning which this first 
 Council of the Church in Gaul was called upon to 
 deliberate, and the bishops drew up twenty-two canons 
 for the regulation of the affairs of the Church, the first 
 indication of the Church's need, and the fullest evidence 
 we as yet have had of the extent to which the Church 
 in Gaul was then in process of organisation. Attached 
 to the Canons of the Council is a letter sent by Marinus, 3 
 the presiding bishop, to Pope Sylvester, and to this letter 
 is, yet further, attached the names of thirty-three bishops. 
 The names of their sees 4 are not mentioned, but Aries, 
 Trier, Autun, Rheims, Coin, Rouen, Bordeaux, Lyons, 
 Vienne, and perhaps Metz are represented, with Adelfius 
 from Britain, and Caecilian, the bishop of Carthage. 
 
 At the end of the Canons of the Council there is a 
 list of those said to have been present during the session 
 which differs somewhat from the list of bishops whose 
 names are appended to the letter to Pope Sylvester. 
 These lists of bishops, however, are not so reliable, as 
 historica 1 documents, as the canons, many of them are 
 
 1 Haddan and Stubbs suggest that we should read Legionensivm in place of 
 Londinensium. 
 
 2 Euseb. Vita Const, i. 44. The fact is not quite certain. 
 
 3 Mansi, Condi, ii. 465. 
 
 4 We cannot conclude from these identifications that the Sees were actually 
 formed. The bishops were rather labouring in these cities as missionary bishops. 
 
120 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 later insertions, and often on authority which is purely 
 traditional. Certainly if we judge by the number of the 
 names, the Council was a much smaller one than had at 
 first been intended and may have consisted, to a great 
 extent, of priests representing their bishops than of the 
 bishops who were originally summoned. 
 
 In the case of Caecilian very little is said. His 
 accusers were aut damnati aut repulsi a phrase which 
 suggests disturbances and expulsions. Then follow the 
 twenty-two 1 canons of which perhaps two or three may 
 refer to the Donatists. 
 
 1. Easter is to be kept on one and the same day throughout 
 the world, and the bishop of Rome is to decide the day. 
 
 2. Where a person receives ordination there he is to remain. 2 
 
 3. Men who take part in gladiatorial combats are to be 
 excommunicated. 
 
 4. Christians acting as charioteers are to be excom- 
 municated. 
 
 5. Christians taking part in theatrical displays are to be 
 excommunicated. 
 
 6. Catechumens 3 waiting for baptism and falling ill may 
 receive the laying on of hands. 
 
 7. Christians appointed to offices in the State are not 
 necessarily to be excluded from Church ordinances but are to 
 receive the fatherly advice of their bishops. 4 
 
 8. Heretics, who have been rightly baptized, are to be 
 examined, and if they are now orthodox they are only to 
 receive the laying on of hands. 
 
 9. Letters dimissory 5 are to be from the hands of the bishop 
 and not from confessors. 
 
 1 Cf. " Collectio Conciliorum Galliae " in Bruns' Bibliotheca ecclesiatica, vol. i. 
 part ii. p. 107. Mansi, ii. 460. 
 
 2 This and the zist Canon deal with the same subject. It was a necessary 
 step in the permanent organisation of the Church. 
 
 3 The word used is " conversi." It seems doubtful whether this refers to confirma- 
 tion or to some ceremony with which converts were recognised as catechumens. 
 Had " manus impositio " come to be used in a technical sense ? 
 
 4 There is a similar canon among those of the Council of Elvira. Public officials 
 would naturally be called upon to take part in ceremonies more or less heathen, and 
 at Elvira (Can. Ivi.) it was decreed that they should abstain from attendance at church 
 during their period of office. The difficulty was only temporary, and the edicts of 
 Constantius soon made it superfluous. 
 
 5 Cf. Canon of Elvira No. 25. There had been a great increase of these due to 
 the exaggerated view of the sanctity and courage of confessors, and it was subversive 
 of the rightful authority of the bishops. 
 
v THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH 121 
 
 10. A man may not marry again on the ground that his 
 wife has been unfaithful. 
 
 11. Christian maidens married to heathen husbands must 
 refrain for a time from church privileges. 
 
 12. Priests are not to lend money upon usury. 
 
 13. If any 1 are found who have delivered up the Holy 
 Scriptures or the sacred vessels of the Church, or handed in lists 
 of the names of their fellow Christians, they are to be degraded, 
 but the ordinations performed by them are valid. 
 
 14. Those who accuse their brethren falsely are to be 
 excommunicated for the rest of their lives. 
 
 15. Deacons are not to celebrate the Holy Eucharist. 
 
 1 6. In whatever diocese a man has been excommunicated, 
 there, if at all, he is to be received into communion again. 
 
 17. Bishops are not to hinder one another in the performance 
 of their episcopal duties. 
 
 1 8. Urban deacons 2 are to do nothing without the knowledge 
 of the priests who are set over them. 
 
 19. Bishops from other dioceses are to be allowed to celebrate 
 the Holy Eucharist. 
 
 20. No bishop is to be consecrated unless there be three 
 bishops to take part in the ceremony. 
 
 21. Priests and deacons wandering from their own spheres 
 of work into other districts are to be deposed. 
 
 22. Apostates who in sickness seek communion are not to 
 be received back into Christian fellowship unless they show by 
 their conduct that they are contrite and striving to amend their 
 lives. 
 
 The first council of the church in the West under 
 the changed conditions not only of toleration but also 
 of the favour of the emperor was followed in the same 
 year by a council in the East at Ancyra. 3 It was 
 necessary that the Church should at once make arrange- 
 ments for the future. The kingdom of heaven was 
 being taken by storm. Crowds of men for political 
 and worldly reasons were coming into the Church, 
 passing from the altars of the heathen gods to the 
 
 1 This deals with one of the causes of the Donatist schism. 
 
 2 May this be taken as indicative of the missionary character of the Gallican 
 Church at this time ? Deacons in charge of small villages, and priests alone in 
 towns might be induced to forget the limits of their spiritual functions. 
 
 3 Cf. Mansi, ii. 534. 
 
122 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 sanctuary of the Christians with little or no thought 
 of the change in life that such a step demanded. The 
 example which Constantine had set was indeed a real 
 danger to the Church. To have worked its own way 
 to freedom would have been much safer for the Church. 
 Growth was so rapid that organisation was almost 
 impossible. Councils of the Church could only lay 
 down general principles. Another century had to pass 
 away before we find in the West the permanent organisa- 
 tion which has come down to our own times. 
 
 With the Council of Aries the Donatists were much 
 disappointed. Its decision they refused to accept, and 
 the emperor realised in their resistance a limit to his 
 power. In A.D. 315 1 he summoned Caecilian to meet 
 him in Rome in the month of August. At the time 
 appointed Caecilian was too ill to undertake the journey, 
 and by permission of the emperor he was allowed to 
 meet him at Milan in November 3i6. 2 There he 
 was received by Constantine and his case was again 
 thoroughly examined and now his acquittal was final. 
 The emperor treated him with every respect as un- 
 doubtedly an orthodox bishop of the Catholic church, 
 and sent word to Eumalius the vicar of Africa to act 
 with severity towards the Donatists who still persisted 
 in their opposition, and if necessary to send them to 
 Italy for punishment. 
 
 The Council of Aries gives us our first view of 
 the organisation of the Church in Gaul. In the Corbey 
 MS. of the Canons of the Council we have appended 
 a list of the bishops said to have been present. We 
 have the names 3 of twelve bishops of the province of 
 Gaul with that of a deacon representing the isolated 
 town of Javols in the Cevennes and a priest represent- 
 ing the ancient city of Orange. The bishops' sees are 
 those of Aries, Trier, Autun, Rouen, Rheims, Coin, 
 
 1 Optatus, Appendix vi. 
 
 2 Aug. Epp. No. 162 [No. xliii. in ed. 1797] " dixit quidem apostolus Paulus." 
 3 Mansi, Condi, ii. 463. 
 
v THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH 123 
 
 Lyons, Marseilles, Vienne, Vaison, Bordeaux, and the 
 distant town of Eauze, the capital of the older 
 Aquitaine and now the capital of the later Novem- 
 populania. 
 
 During the ages of the persecutions the church had church 
 been slowly developing its organisation, and the dis- 
 tinction between the clergy and the laity and the need 
 of a duly ordained ministry had been definitely recog- 
 nised. Dioceses, however, in the sense of territorial 
 spheres of supervision and work for the bishops were 
 yet to come, though, of course, all in one city would 
 regard him as the head of their community. It was 
 not till A.D. 34 1, 1 after the Council of Antioch, that 
 the Church adopted the civil arrangements for her own 
 spiritual administrative districts. The influence had 
 been relative and personal, now because of his peculiar 
 sanctity and now because of the importance of the 
 city where the bishop laboured. Slowly the city and 
 its commune was becoming the see and diocese of the 
 bishop. 
 
 This approximation of the organisation of the 
 Church to the geographical arrangements of the state 
 seems to have gone on steadily during the fourth century. 
 The order of development in England is exactly re- 
 versed, and for this English readers are not prepared. 
 In Gaul, as part of the Roman Empire, the State was 
 organised before the Church took root in its midst. 
 In England the Church anticipated the State. In Gaul 
 what was new was that which the Church had brought 
 in. In England it was the Church which had intro- 
 duced and preserved the older traditions of the Empire, 
 its laws and its organisation, and what was new came 
 from the Teutonic traditions which the English monarchs 
 cherished and often against the influence of the Church. 
 It is certain that in the second half or perhaps rather 
 in the last quarter of the third century there had been 
 a considerable increase of the number of Christians 
 
 1 Cf. Mansi, Canal, ii. p. 1340. 
 
1 24 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 in Gaul. The list of bishops' sees which is attached 
 to the Canons of the Council of Aries is probably not 
 a complete list of the dioceses of the bishops of Gaul. 
 Neither Tours, Toulouse, nor Narbonne are mentioned. 
 It offers us, however, evidence of the general spread 
 of Christianity throughout the country, and we may 
 well believe that there were in many other towns small 
 groups of Christian citizens under the care of some 
 priest or deacon which were preparing the way for a 
 yet larger development of the Church's episcopal 
 organisation. The Gaul of Julius Caesar was a country 
 of Celtic tribes, and the settlements of these tribes were 
 cantons, the home of each particular tribe. The Roman 
 principle was municipal, the planting of colonies and 
 cities which should become energising foci of Roman 
 rule and civilisation, and the records of the yearly 
 gatherings of Lyons gives us evidence of the way the 
 Roman authorities were turning these cantons or tribal 
 centres into Roman towns. 1 In the year A. D. 2I, 1 the 
 year of the revolt of Florus and Sacrovir, a list is given 
 of the cities of Gaul. In Aquitaine there were seven- 
 teen, in Lugdunensis twenty-five, and in Belgica twenty- 
 two. At that date many of these cities could not have 
 been cities at all but merely camping-grounds of Celtic 
 tribes. But the usual camping-ground slowly became 
 the territory of the tribe with its city where the members 
 of the tribe dwelt. The territory of the tribe was 
 becoming the land of the city, and this transformation 
 went on steadily and was all but complete when in the 
 time of Caracalla 2 (A.D. 212-217) the title of Roman 
 citizens was conferred on all the subjects of the Empire. 
 The varying size of these city territories is to be traced 
 to the fact that since Julius Caesar's time some of these 
 tribes had been absorbed into others so that what we see 
 to-day is the result of a slow amalgamation. Perhaps 
 
 1 Tacitus, Annah, Hi. 44. 
 
 2 Dion Cassius, Ixxvii. 9, Digest, i. 5. 17 ; cf. Aug. DC civ. Dei, v. 17 
 "factum est ut omnes ad Romanum imperium pertinentes societatem acciperent 
 civitatis et Romani cives essent." 
 
v THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH 125 
 
 also in some cases one of a group of communes may 
 have acquired a kind of pre-eminence and with that 
 pre-eminence may have gone a certain corresponding 
 increase of territory. So it was that when the Church 
 began to organise the episcopate on a territorial basis, 
 in order that the whole province should be mapped out 
 into bishops' sees, the country was ready for the organisa- 
 tion. Districts had not to be created, they already 
 existed and were used for civil purposes. Moreover, 
 the State had, in its great political division of the 
 province, prepared the way for the Church. Under 
 Diocletian the allocation of the provinces to the emperor 
 and the senate ceased to be of any importance, and the 
 division of the Empire in A.D. 286, which resulted in 
 the permanent settlement in Gaul of a Caesar under 
 the Western Augustus, gave rise to very important 
 subdivisions of the province. From the time of Julius 
 Caesar to the age of Diocletian the same divisions 
 had continued practically unchanged, Narbonensis, 
 Aquitania, Gallia Celtica, Belgica, Sequania, and 
 Germania. Early in the fourth century l these districts 
 were subdivided. Narbonensis became first of all 
 Viennensis and Narbonensis, and later on still, in 
 A.D. 381, Narbonensis was divided into two and 
 the chief towns of these three sub-provinces were 
 Vienne, Narbonne, and Aix. Aquitaine had already 
 at some time previously witnessed a partial division 
 when local government was assigned to the original 
 Aquitaine, i.e. the portion of Gaul between the 
 Garonne and the Pyrenees, the district which after- 
 wards became known as Novempopulania. Now 
 under Diocletian Aquitaine was again divided into 
 two sub-districts and also later on in A.D. 369 we have 
 the three towns of Auch, Bordeaux, and Bourges re- 
 
 1 Cf. Breruiariun Ruf. Festi, " sunt Galliae cum Aquitania et Britanniis provinciae 
 decem et octo : Alpes Maritimae, Provincia Viennensis, Narbonensis, Novem- 
 populania, Aquitaniae duae, Alpes Graiae, Maxima Sequanorum, Germaniae duae r 
 Belgicae duae, Lugdunensis duae," and four provinces in Britain. See also Block in 
 Lavisse, Hist, de France, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 276. 
 
126 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 presenting the three divisions of Novempopulania, 
 Aquitaine I. and Aquitaine II. Then the province 
 of Gallia Lugdunensis, that portion of Gallia Celtica, 
 which was north and east of the river Loire, was 
 divided into Lugdunensis Prima and Secunda, and in 
 A.D. 385 yet further sub-divided into Lugdunensis I., II., 
 III., and IV., with the towns of Lyons, Rouen, Tours, 
 and Sens as their capitals. In like manner Gallia 
 Belgica became Belgica i. and ii. with Trier and Rheims 
 as the capitals, Sequania with Besanson, and Germania 
 became Prima and Secunda with Mainz and Koln as 
 the capitals. The two districts known as the Alpes 
 Maritimae and Alpes Graiae, with their chief towns 
 of Embrun and Moutiers in Tarentaise, made up the 
 seventeen provinces of Gaul which were grouped into 
 the two civil dioceses of Vienne and Gaul, Vienne 
 being the head of the seven provinces of Vienne, 
 Narbonensis I. and II., Novempopulania, Alpes Mari- 
 timae and Alpes Graiae, and perhaps Aquitaine II., and 
 the other ten forming the diocese of Gaul, and Vienne 
 and Trier were the two capitals. 
 
 Before the end of the sixth century 1 we find that 
 more than half of these seventeen civil provinces had 
 already become the provinces of archbishops, i.e. Trier, 
 Rheims, Sens, Rouen, Lyons, Bourges, Bordeaux, 
 Vienne, Narbonne, and Aries, and the process was still 
 going on under which the church was accepting the 
 geographical divisions of the State as the basis of its 
 own organisation. 2 
 
 1 Cf. Longnon, Geog. de la Gaule au V e siecle, chap. ii. 
 
 2 In the Notitia Galliarum (Seeck's ed., Berlin, 1876) one hundred and eighteen 
 cities of Gaul are recorded, and Monseigneur Duchesne, Pastes episcopaux, i. 29, has 
 some important remarks on them and on the question of the establishment in Gaul 
 at that time of episcopal sees. Only twenty-four dioceses possess well-kept and 
 historically valuable catalogues of their bishops, and in all cases there are omissions 
 at the beginning, i.e. just where we need information as to the origin of the see. 
 These sees are Angers, Auxerre, Beauvais, Bourges, Chartres, Chalon-sur-Saone, 
 Grenoble, Langres, Lyons, Metz, Nantes, Orleans, Paris, Rheims, Rouen, Sens, 
 Senlis, Toul, Tours, Trier, Troyes, Verdun, Vienne, and Viviers. We know from 
 other sources of the existence, as at Aries, of bishops' sees in other places than 
 those mentioned here. The Bull of Zosimus Placuit apostolicae j cf. Babut, Le 
 Concile de Turin, p. 56 testifies to Aries at any rate early in the fourth century. 
 
v THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH 127 
 
 To what extent, however, had the Church established 
 itself in Gaul when the first Council of the West met 
 at Aries ? During this fourth century there is very little 
 evidence as a whole. The two Councils of Aries II nd ., 1 
 A.D. 353 and Beziers 2 A. D. 356, were dominated by 
 Arian bishops, and the Council of Paris, 3 A.D. 361, was 
 a protest of the orthodox Church against the Arian 
 persecution which Constantius had carried on. There 
 are no lists of bishops present at these, nor would the 
 lists be likely to give us any reliable evidence. There 
 were said to have been thirty-four Gallican bishops 
 who joined in the decree of acquittal of St. Athanasius 
 at the Council of Sardica, A.D. 343-344,* but only the 
 names are recorded and not the sees, and it is impossible 
 to say whether " Gallican " may not have included the 
 bishops who belonged to the great Western dioceses of 
 Britain, Gaul, and Spain. As far as the names can be 
 identified in the lists of bishops of the dioceses of Gaul 
 it is possible that the sees of Trier, Rheims, Rouen, 
 Tongres, Metz, Auxerre, Soissons, Paris, Orleans, 
 Chalon-sur-Saone, Lyons, St. Paul Trois Chateau, 
 and Aries had bishops at that date. But clearly 
 there are omissions which cannot be explained, except 
 that the traditions of the see were not continuous, and 
 there are entries which suggest that the increase of the 
 episcopate had been very considerable since the days 
 when liberty and favour were first granted to the 
 Church. In 314, however, seven out of the seventeen 
 chief towns of the province of Gaul seem to have had 
 by that time bishops of their own, Coin, Trier, Bor- 
 deaux, Tours, Lyons, Aries, and Vienne, and perhaps, 
 as of the nature of missionary bishops, at Rouen and 
 
 But the existence of a bishop at a city early in this century does not prove a 
 ' continuous episcopate there, and many years were to pass away before that came to 
 be possible. We have already in Chapters I. and III. dealt with influences which were 
 at work to claim an episcopate in many cities long before such was actually 
 established, and that influence in many cases has resulted in the destruction of the 
 historical value of the episcopal catalogue. 
 
 1 Mansi, iii. 20 ; cf. Hilary, ad Comtantlum Aug. i. p. 1222. 
 
 2 Cf. Hilary as above, p. 1218. 3 Mansi, iii. 358. 
 4 Mansi, iii. 42 ; Athan. Apol. contra Arianos. 
 
128 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Rheims. Nor is it probable that many more bishoprics 
 had been by then permanently founded. 
 
 The During the second half of the third century Gaul 
 
 n^Tm 1 kad not on ly Deen invaded and devastated by the 
 Gaul, A.D. Alemans, but had also been the scene of many local 
 250-360. U p r i sm g S a nd military campaigns. In A.D. 254! the 
 Alemans and Franks had passed in two bands through 
 the land. One had laid siege to Tours, and through 
 western Aquitaine had passed on into Spain. The 
 other had sacked Avenches, passed through Sequania, 
 and after a defeat at Aries, had turned eastward into 
 Italy. Again in A.D. 275, 2 the year after the death of 
 the emperor Aurelian, the country was once more 
 invaded and the eastern portion devastated by the same 
 barbarians. The plains of Chalons and the valleys of 
 the Sa6ne, the Marne, and the Seine were the scenes of 
 innumerable conflicts. Among the deeds for which 
 the emperor Probus (A.D. 276-2 8 3), 3 was remembered 
 was the fact that he had restored Gaul after its occupa- 
 tion by the barbarians. Nor was this in a single 
 campaign. The whole of Gaul 4 had been occupied 
 by the barbarians, and Probus had won it back only 
 after many and serious battles. The Alemans had 
 been in possession of sixty cities, and these he had 
 delivered only by indiscriminate slaughter. Diocletian 
 in the earlier part of his reign (284-305) had spent 
 much of his time in Gaul, protecting the frontier from 
 the Germanic invasion and suppressing the local 
 outrages of the unfortunate Bagaudae. It was for this 
 object that he sent his colleague, 5 Herculius Maximian, 
 
 1 Eutropius, ix. 8 "Alamanni vastatis Galliis in Italiam penetraverunt." 
 " Vastatum Aventicum," Chron. Fredegarji, pt. ii. p. 55, in Monod, Etudes Ecritiques, 
 1885. 
 
 2 Eutrop. ix. 13. 
 
 3 Ibid. ix. 17 " Gallias a barbaris occupatas ingente proeliorum felicitate 
 restituit." 
 
 4 Vopiscus, Probus, cap. 13 "tanta autem illic proelia et tarn feliciter gessit ut 
 a barbaris sexaginta per Gallias nobilissimas reciperet civitates." Cf. also Orosius 
 vi. 24. 
 
 5 Eutrop. ix. 20 " Diocletianus . . . cum tumultum rusticani in Gallia concitassent 
 et faction! suae Bacaudorum nomen inponerent, duces autem haberent Amandum et 
 
v THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH 129 
 
 to subdue the Bagaudae, who were led by two recognised 
 chiefs, Amandus and Aelianus, and who are recorded 
 not only as having laid waste the country in every 
 direction, but also as having laid siege to and taken 
 by assault many of the cities. Nor had Maximian an 
 easy task. His whole time was taken up with cam- 
 paigns against the invaders. The panegyrist speaks 
 of innumerable battles and victories. 1 The whole of 
 Gaul was threatened with destruction by the barbarous 
 nations that roamed throughout its length and breadth. 
 They were not only Burgundians 2 and Alemans, but 
 also among the most valiant the Chaibons and the Eruli. 
 In A.D. 293 Constantius Chlorus was adopted by the 
 emperors as Caesar, and his whole life in Gaul formed 
 one long campaign. He is said to have slaughtered 
 sixty thousand Alemans at Langres. 3 Everywhere 
 was ruin and devastation, and he had to fill up the 
 empty cities and cultivate the wasted lands by the 
 employment of those barbarians whom he had captured 
 in war. Amiens, Beauvais, and Troyes are mentioned 
 as the scenes of these labours, 4 and under his careful 
 government the city of Autun witnessed again the 
 rise of its walls and the rebuilding of its temples. 5 
 Apparently it had lain waste since the march of Aurelian 
 to subdue the local tyrant Tetricus. The skill of 
 Constantine, in his warfare against these Alemans, won 
 for him the loyalty of his soldiers, and when Maximian 
 reappeared in Gaul, they marched with their leader in 
 all haste from the Rhine 6 to the Sa6ne and down the 
 
 Aelianum. ad subigendos eos Maximianum Herculium Caesarem misit qui levibus 
 proeliis agrestes domuit et pacem Galliae reformavit." 
 
 1 Claudius Mamert. Paneg. on Maximian Aug. vi. " transeo innumerabiles tuas 
 tota Gallia pugnas atque victorias." 
 
 2 Ibid. v. " cum omnes barbariae nationes excidium universae Galliae minarentur, 
 neque solum Burgundioncs et Alamanni sed etiam Chaibones Erulique, viribus 
 primis barbarorum." 3 Eutropius, ix. 23. 
 
 4 Paneg. Constant. Caesar, xxi. " quicquid infrequens Ambiano et Belovaco et Tricas- 
 sino solo Lingonicoque restabat barbaro cultore revirescit . . . civitas Aeduorum . . . 
 accepit artifices et nunc extructione veterum domorum et refectione operum publi- 
 corum et templorum instauratione consurgit." 
 
 5 i.e. Autun, Augustodunum, Bibracte or Beuvray had been already abandoned. 
 
 6 Pan. Constantino Augusta, No. viii. 18. 
 
 K 
 
130 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Rhone to drive Maximian from Aries and to capture 
 him at Marseilles. Certainly the policy of Constantius 
 was also the policy of his son. Civil war, barbaric 
 invasion, and the evils of a perpetual camp had depleted 
 eastern Gaul of its inhabitants. The panegyrist of 
 the emperor l tells of his skill in transporting barbarians 
 from their distant homes to fill up the empty and 
 desolate cities of Gaul. He was as famous in peace as 
 he had been in war. Franks and Alemans in countless 
 numbers had been slain and their kings had been 
 captured. At Windisch 2 the fields had been enriched 
 by the blood of the invaders, and their bones still 
 whitened the scene of the battle. At Langres 3 they 
 had been met with signal defeat though the emperor 
 himself had been wounded in the conflict. And so the 
 record of the historian, brief and yet significant, 
 continues. Constantius II. had the same tremendous 
 task to face as had occupied all his grandfather's public 
 life, and all the early days of his father. In 353 
 Constantius 4 arrived at Aries to avenge himself on the 
 partizans of Magnentius, and in the next year, 5 on 
 account of the frequent incursions of the Alemans, led 
 by Gundomadus and Vadomorius, he marched to 
 Valence and afterwards to Chalon, waiting there to 
 collect his forces, and to obtain supplies from far distant 
 Aquitaine before he ventured on an attack. Four years 
 afterwards Mamertinus 6 returned thanks to the Caesar 
 
 1 Pan* Constantino Augusta, No. vii. 6 "quid loquar rursus Franciae nationes 
 jam non ab his locis quae olim Romani invaserant sed a propriis ex origine sui 
 sedibus atque ab ultimis barbariae litoribus avulsas ut in desertis Galliae regionibus 
 collocatae et pacem Romani imperii cultu juvarent et arma dilectu ? " 
 
 2 Ibid, "quid Vindonissae campos hostium strage completes et adhuc ossibus 
 o pert os ? " 
 
 3 Ibid. " quid commemorem Lingonicam victoriam etiam imperatoris ipsius vulnere 
 gloriosam ? " 
 
 4 Ammian. Marcell. xiv. 5 " Arelate hiemem agens Constantius." 
 
 5 Ibid. xiv. 10 " haec dum oriens diu perferret, caeli reserato tepore Con- 
 stantius . . . egressus Arelate Valentiam petit in Gundomadum et Vadomarium 
 fratres Alemannorum reges arma moturus quorum crebris excursibus vastabantur 
 confines limitibus terrae Gallorum." 
 
 6 Mamertin. Grat. act. Juliano, No. xi. 21 "in omnibus conventiculis quasi per 
 benevolentiam ilia jactantes, Julianus Alemanniam domuit, Julianus urbes Galliae 
 ex favillis et cineribus excitavit. Illae provinciae obsessae, expugnatae, ferro igneque 
 vastatae beatiores sunt his oppidis quae ha bet sine hoste Constantius." 
 
v THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH 131 
 
 Julian, whose energy and warlike skill seems to have 
 given some slight respite to the suffering land. In 
 every pothouse, he says, men were boasting, Julian 
 has tamed Alemannia, Julian has raised again from 
 their ashes the cities of Gaul, and those provinces which 
 had been attacked, captured, and devastated by fire 
 and the sword are now happier than those towns which 
 Constantius occupies undisturbed by a foe. 
 l If such, then, had been the condition of the greater 
 part of Gaul during the second half of the third 
 century and the greater part of the fourth, it is clearly 
 impossible to believe, except there exists very strong 
 historical evidence in its favour, any large extension 
 of the episcopate or any permanent organisation there 
 before the time of the edict of Milan. It was indeed 
 to this fourth century, and not much before the end of ' 
 it, that the general foundation of the Christian Church 
 in Gaul can be assigned. In the capitals of the sub- 
 provinces there were to be found, and perhaps also in a 
 few other cities, bishops ministering to communities of 
 Christians, or priests or deacons in outlying villages, 
 engaged, in the same beneficent work, to communities 
 of yet smaller numbers. But the work was only in its 
 initial stage. Even at the end of the century heathenism 
 largely prevailed among the country people. 1 Gaul 
 had not as yet been won for Christ. 
 
 We must turn once more to the work of Constantine 
 as the liberator and protector of the Church, and the 
 promoter of orthodox as against heretical Christians. 
 His zeal was certainly not shared by his colleague 
 Licinius, who from neutrality slowly changed into a 
 persecutor. This Eastern emperor began his hostile 
 policy by placing restrictions 2 on the liberty granted 
 by the edict, compelling Christian soldiers to offer 
 sacrifice to the heathen gods, or else expelling them 
 with disgrace from the legion. Then he ordered 
 
 1 Cf. Chapter VII. 
 2 Lactantius, De mart, persecut. xlviii. j Euseb. H.E. x. 8. 
 
132 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 bishops into exile and despatched Christians to work 
 as felons in the mines, and in 321 1 it became evident 
 that Licinius and Constantine were rivals and not 
 colleagues. As Constantine became more and more 
 the protector of the Christians, Licinius showed him- 
 self the defender of the heathens, and war was inevitable. 
 On the 3rd of July, A.D. 323, Licinius was overthrown 2 
 by Constantine at Adrianople and again at Chrysopolis 
 on the 8th of September, and after a second defeat he was 
 captured and put to death. In A.D. 324 Constantine 
 was sole emperor, and the way was open to him to 
 befriend the new religion. Until his final conflict with 
 Licinius the work of Constantine had been chiefly in 
 Gaul and Italy. Afterwards he is chiefly in the East. 
 From the time of the Council of Aries, he visited Gaul 
 twice. During the year 3 1 6 3 he spent a considerable 
 time at Trier, Vienne, and Aries, and at Aries the 
 empress Fausta gave birth to the prince, who in time 
 became Constantius II. Again and for the last time 
 he visited Gaul in A.D. 328.* 
 
 Decrees The circumstances which brought victory to the 
 
 of th7 ur emperor a t the Milvian Bridge had certainly cut him 
 Christians, off from the heathenism of his ancestors. He not 
 only granted the Christians liberty, but showed by his 
 rescripts that heathenism was doomed. As far as he 
 was able he would not only help his subjects to become 
 Christians, but would also take from their midst all 
 that might tempt them to return. In A.D. 3I3, 5 
 immediately after the edict, he exempted the Catholic 
 priest from the onerous duty of acting as a Decurio 
 in the municipalities. This edict was reissued in 
 A.D. 320, and since men were said to have sought 
 ordination in order to escape the performance of these 
 civil duties, he ordered 6 that no one who had the 
 
 1 Euseb. H.E. x. 9 ; Vita Const, i. 51, ii. I. 
 
 2 Eutrop. Brev. x. 6 ; Zosimus, ii. 22 j Euseb. Vita Const, ii. 26. 
 
 3 Codex. Theod. i. 10. I. 4 Ibid. i. 16. 4. 
 
 5 Euseb. x. 7 5 Cod. Theod. xvi. 2. i. 
 
 6 Cod. Theod. xvi. 2. 3, reissued in A.D. 320 and 326. 
 
v THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH 133 
 
 means and the position which qualified him to act as 
 a Decurio was to be ordained. The clergy should all 
 be poor men and one with wealth was not to be 
 ordained. 
 
 In the following year he omitted the performance 
 of the secular games l because they were always opened 
 with heathen rites, and to the indignation of the people 
 of Rome, he refused to take any part in the usual 
 religious ceremonies in honour of Jupiter Capitolinus. 
 
 In A. D. 315 2 he granted to the lands of ecclesiastics 
 and to the corporate lands of the Church communities 
 exemption from the ordinary public taxes, and the fact 
 that this law was repealed on financial grounds soon 
 afterwards, showed the extent to which the Christians 
 had increased in numbers and their possessions had 
 grown. Probably 3 at this time crucifixion, as a form 
 of the death penalty, was abolished. 
 
 Hitherto if a man gave his slave his liberty it must 
 be done in the presence of the magistrate 4 but now it 
 was lawful if done openly in the church. 
 
 In A.D. 319 5 private sacrifice and divination, and the 
 resort to soothsayers, with their secret incantations, 
 were forbidden, though public sacrifice might still go 
 on, and it was further enacted that the clergy 6 were 
 no longer to be harassed by being compelled to hold 
 public offices to which certain heathen practices were 
 usually attached. 
 
 Two years later, in 32i, 7 the practice of magic was 
 forbidden, Sunday labour 8 was restricted, certain laws 
 and taxes 9 on bachelors and unmarried men were re- 
 pealed on account of the custom of a celibate clergy 
 coming into vogue, and the Church in its corporate 
 capacity was now allowed to receive the legacies and 
 
 1 Zosimus, ii. 29. 
 
 2 Cod. Theod. xi. i. i. Haenel gives the date as A.D. 313. 
 
 3 Aurelius Victor, 41 "eo pius ut etiam vetus veterrimumque supplicium 
 patibulorum et cruribus suffringendis primus removerit." 
 
 4 Cod. Theod. iv. 7. i. 5 Cod. Theod. ix. 16. 12. 
 8 Const, et Licin., Oct. 31, 319. 7 Cod. Theod. ix. 16. 9. 
 
 8 Codex Just. iii. 12. 3. 9 Cod. Theod, viii. 16. i, and xvi. 2. 4. 
 
134 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 gifts of the faithful. Yet, at the same time, this year 
 saw an edict ordering that if any public building 1 was 
 struck by lightning the haruspices were to be consulted 
 according to ancient custom, and their report was to be 
 sent to the emperor. 
 
 In the year in which Constantine overthrew Licinius 
 we find three or four new laws which certainly helped 
 the propagation of Christianity. To put a stop to 
 idolatry, the erection 2 of images was forbidden and the 
 emperor refused to have his own statue erected any- 
 where. Official public sacrifices 3 and state sacrifices 
 were forbidden, and all provincial governors were for- 
 bidden to sacrifice, and should any one compel a 
 Christian to take part in a heathen ceremony he was to 
 be scourged 4 and severely punished. 
 
 It was natural, therefore, after ten years of liberty 
 and favour towards the Christians and of continued 
 efforts to overthrow the ancient religion of the Empire, 
 that the demand for Christian churches increased, and 
 that many of the heathen temples ceased to be used. 
 Some of these temples Constantine turned into churches, 5 
 and some that they might not again be used for the 
 old religion, he was content to unroof, and leave as 
 a sign of a faith that had passed away. In the erection 
 of new churches he ordered that they should be built 
 of such a size that they could take in the whole popula- 
 tion, and such was his zeal and his generosity that the 
 heathen chronicler Zosimus 6 lamented the impoverish- 
 ment of the treasury for the building of these places 
 of Christian worship, and looked upon these new 
 churches ol/coSo/jblai TrXelcrrai, as avwfa\el<s. It was no 
 wonder then that those who desired to win his favour 
 should be active in pulling down the temples, for he 
 spoke openly with all against the old heathen religion, 
 
 1 Cod. Theod. xvi. 10. i. 2 Euseb. Vita Const, ii. 45. 
 
 3 Ibid. i. 44, 45. 4 Edict of Const., 8 Kal. June A.D. 323. 
 
 5 Euseb. Vita Const, iii. 54-58 ; cf. Prosper, Chron., A.D. 332, " edicto Constantini 
 Gentilium templa subversa sunt." 
 
 6 Zosimus, H.E. ii. 32. 
 
v THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH 135 
 
 and announced without any hesitation that he desired 
 all his subjects to become Christians. 
 
 Constantine certainly had realised, and that soon 
 after he had granted liberty to the Christians, that he 
 himself could not remain neutral. He must take a 
 definite step. As a Christian he must range himself 
 against heathenism. The story of his conversion, how- 
 ever, is not clear, nor, indeed, can it be said on a 
 survey of his whole life, that there were any indications 
 of a serious conversion to Christianity. Zosimus, the 
 heathen historian, 1 relates how that an Egyptian who 
 had lived in Spain went to Rome and there gained the 
 favour of the ladies of the Court. Through them he 
 gained access to the emperor and won for himself his 
 favour by assuring him that there was no sin which the 
 Christian religion could not wipe out. The story 
 seems to be, however, only a garbled version of the 
 narrative of the relation of Hosius, the bishop of 
 Corduba, with Constantine. It was Hosius who pre- 
 sided at the Council of Nicaea, and his influence with 
 the emperor, while he lived, was paramount and his 
 friendship most intimate. Eusebius, 2 his private chap- 
 lain, and Lactantius, 3 the tutor of his son, both enjoyed 
 the Emperor's society, and they were impressed by the 
 way in which the vision of the Labarum, whatever 
 that may really have been, had fixed itself on his 
 mind. Yet he was not baptized. He deferred that 
 sacrament until the year before his death. He could 
 not, therefore, have entered into the real feelings of 
 the devout Christians of the time, and it is clear that 
 the superficial way in which he dealt with the sacred 
 affairs of the Church had its influence on his own 
 private life and on his own character. It filled his 
 court first of all with men like himself. Worldly- 
 minded bishops, who spoke about the mysteries of the 
 faith, if not in an irreverent manner, yet certainly 
 
 1 Zosimus, H.E. ii. 29 j cf. Tillemont, Hist, des Empereurs, iv. p. 129. 
 
 2 Euseb. Vita Consf. i. 28-29. 3 Lactantius, De mart, persecut. 44. 
 
136 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP 
 
 without that restraint which their sacredness demanded, 
 were always in attendance, and from them he judged 
 of the Church in general. The puritan principle which 
 was at the bottom of the Donatist opposition, was to 
 him unintelligible. He was naturally exasperated at 
 the way the Donatists refused obedience. The Council 
 of Nicaea was an event of high political importance. 
 Ecclesiastics discussed the words of the Catholic creed, 
 but the emperor saw in that assembly, in its relation to 
 himself, the acknowledgment of a supremacy such as the 
 priests of the ancient imperial faith had been wont to 
 grant to his predecessors. It was the establishment of 
 the Church by the State, and for more than thirty 
 years all who were true to the Faith of the Gospel, 
 the holiest of Christians, and the most devout and 
 learned of the bishops had to mourn and suffer and 
 struggle for the Christian Faith which the bishops in 
 their obsequiousness at Nicaea had endangered. The 
 emperor had been recognised as the bishop of things 
 external. It was for him to place upon that recognition 
 what interpretation he pleased. He took it to mean 
 not only that he should uphold the Catholic Faith, but 
 also take some share in deciding what it was. Then in 
 a very short time Constantine is found swayed by the 
 shallow-minded worldly bishops of his court, and per- 
 secuting the great champion of orthodoxy, Athanasius, 
 bishop of Alexandria. 
 
 Gaui and The Council of Nicaea which assembled l in the year 
 
 contra" A.D. 325, the year after Constantine had become sole 
 
 versy. emperor, only indirectly affects the history of the 
 
 spread of Christianity in Gaul. Not a single Gallican 
 
 bishop is known to have attended, but it is hardly 
 
 likely that among the 3 1 8 2 bishops, which included the 
 
 Spanish bishop of Corduba, some from the capital towns 
 
 of Gaul were not to be found. We can scarcely doubt 
 
 that at least Agraecius of Trier, Marinus of Aries, and 
 
 1 SSzomen, H.E. i. 17 and 19 j Euseb. Vita Const, iii. 6. 
 2 Socrates, H.E. i. 8. 
 
v THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH 137 
 
 Reticius of Autun were present. The ecclesiastical 
 cause for which the bishops assembled arose out of the 
 teaching of Arius 1 which had been condemned by 
 Alexander, bishop of Alexandria. Arius had taught 
 that there was an essential difference between God our 
 Heavenly Father, and His Son Jesus Christ. Arianism 
 emphasised the reality of the divine Sonship as against 
 Sabellianism and had no desire to lower the Person of 
 the Lord. But God was One and absolutely isolated 
 from the world of finite beings, alone eternal, unalter- 
 able and ingenerate, and therefore the higher view of 
 the Lord's Divine Sonship must be rejected. So the 
 Son was inferior in rank to the Father and was not 
 strictly eternal. There was, though as yet time was 
 not, when the Father was not yet Father, and the Son 
 existed only potentially in His counsel in a sense in 
 which all things are eternal. Hence fjv irore ore ov/c fy, 
 where the word ^01/05 was implied, but, as Athanasius 
 noted, was omitted. The Father alone is God and the 
 Son is so called only in a lower and improper sense. This 
 doctrine was emphatically condemned by the Council, 
 and the clear teaching of Athanasius, 2 who soon after, on 
 the death of Alexander, succeeded him as bishop of 
 Alexandria, found general approval. The controversy, 
 however, broke out again soon after the dispersion of 
 the Council, and raged with almost unintelligible bitter- 
 ness in the East, and Athanasius, as the most lucid 
 teacher of the Catholic Truth, and the most inflexible 
 upholder of the conciliar decree, became the object of 
 the Arians' bitter hatred. It is unlikely that Con- 
 stantine ever thoroughly understood the theological 
 controversy, and in his desire to suppress it 3 he was 
 prepared to side with whichever party seemed to 
 promise most a prospect of peace. The Arian party 
 was chiefly in evidence at the court, and its desire to 
 make the dogmas of the Christian Faith appear simple 
 
 1 Euseb. Vita Const, iii. 4, and Prof. Gwatkin's Studies of Arianhm, chap. 2. 
 2 Socrates, ut supra. 3 Euseb. Vita Const, iii. 12. 
 
138 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 and reasonable to the mind of a man of the world 
 won from Constantine his approval and his support. 
 Why should Athanasius insist on this technical point ? 
 Men were willing to work with him at Alexandria, and 
 it was unreasonable that he should stir up strife by 
 scrutinising their belief. So in A.D. 330, Constantine 1 
 wrote to Athanasius to admit to communion at 
 Alexandria all who desired to receive it. Athanasius, 
 in his Easter Letter A.D. 331 to his faithful in the city, 
 showed 2 how impossible it was for him to obey the 
 imperial rescript. Four years afterwards his enemies 
 accused Athanasius 3 to the emperor of a desire to 
 create a famine at Constantinople, by preventing the 
 ships laden with wheat for the capital from sailing 
 from Alexandria. So Athanasius was summoned to 
 appear and answer this charge, and since his enemies 
 the Arians had not been idle, the emperor, on his 
 arrival at Constantinople, refused to hear him, and 
 exiled him at once to Trier. Thus it was that Athan- 
 asius became connected with the Gallican Church and 
 arrived at Trier 4 6th November A.D. 336. There he 
 found in command the youthful Caesar, Constantine II. 
 and he, with Maximin, bishop of Trier, welcomed the 
 great theologian. On the 22nd of May of the following 
 year Constantine died, 5 and in September the three 
 brothers Constantius, Constans, and Constantine met 
 together to arrange for the division of the empire 
 among them. Constantius took the East, Constans 
 Italy and Africa, and Constantine II. the diocese of 
 Gaul, which included Spain and Britain. It is said 
 that at the meeting of the three emperors, they decided 
 to recall Athanasius, and in the spring of A.D. 338 the 
 bishop wrote 6 from Trier to his flock at Alexandria 
 saying, that while he would not be with them bodily 
 they would be spiritually united in the Easter Festival. 
 
 1 Soc. H.E. i. 27. 2 Athan. Apol. 87. 
 
 3 Athan. Apol. 71. 4 Athan. Hist. Arian. 33 ; Socrates, H.E. i. 28. 
 
 5 Euseb. Vita Const, iv. 64. 6 Athan. Fest. epp. 10. 
 
v THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH 139 
 
 On the i yth of June, 338, certainly, Constantius wrote 
 to the Alexandrians * and told them that Athanasius was 
 now free to return, and on the 23rd of November he 
 reached home again. Constantius, as emperor of the 
 East, was brought most into contact with the violent 
 partizans of Arianism, and as the doctrines they pro- 
 pounded seemed the simplest, he soon came to accept 
 their views, and remained not only an Arian but a bitter 
 persecutor of the orthodox Christians. At a Council at 
 Antioch 2 held in A.D. 339, when a new church there 
 was to be dedicated, various charges were made against 
 Athanasius, and though he was unheard and absent, he 
 was condemned. This decision of the Council was sent 3 
 to Pope Julian of Rome, and Constantius decided to 
 impose a new bishop on the Alexandrians, and sent one, 
 a bishop named Gregory, 4 to them. Gregory arrived 
 at Alexandria during Lent 340, and immediately after 
 Easter Athanasius withdrew to Rome. 5 That year saw 
 also a great political change in the balance of power in 
 the Empire. Constantine II. ventured to advance into 
 Italy to attack his brother Constans 6 and was killed at 
 Aquileia, and Constans now for ten years was emperor 
 over the Gallican prefecture as well as those of Italy 
 and Africa. The emperor while friendly, was not so 
 interested in Athanasius as his brother had been, and a 
 Council at Rome in the following year, held 7 by Pope 
 Julian for the purpose of considering the grounds for 
 the condemnation of Athanasius by the Council of 
 Antioch, ended in an emphatic 8 acquittal for the bishop 
 of Alexandria, and the result seems to have induced 
 Constans to act with his brother Constantius, and 
 
 1 Athan. Apol. 67. 2 Socrates, ii. 16 5 Sozomen, iii. 5 ; Rufinus, i. 9. 
 
 3 Mansi, Cone. ii. 1279 j cf. also Athan. Apol. c. Arian. c. 24. 
 
 4 Athan. Encycl 2, Apol. 30. 
 
 5 Athanasius wrote a Festal Letter from Rome for Easter to his flock at 
 Alexandria and must have gone to Rome in A.D. 340 ; cf. Socrates, H.E. ii. 1 1 and 
 14 ; Athan. Apol. ad Const. 5. 
 
 K Orosius, vii. 29 ; Eutrop. Brev. x. 9 ; Socrates, H.E. ii. 5. 
 
 7 Athan. Apol. c. Arian. 20 and 21. 
 
 8 Julius, Ep. ad Eusebianos ; and Athan. Apol. c. Arian. 34. 
 
140 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 summon a Council representative of both East and 
 West to bring the controversy to an end. So in A.D. 
 343 the Council of Sardica * was held. It consisted of 
 one hundred and seventy bishops of whom ninety-four 
 were from the West. The Western bishops acquitted 2 
 Athanasius, but Constantius was induced to delay action 
 on this decision, and meanwhile moved on to Adrianople. 
 There a wicked plot was devised against Euphrates, 3 
 bishop of Coin, but was happily found out, and Con- 
 stantius, who seems to have been offended at it, and 
 knew that Gregory was now dead, invited 4 Athanasius 
 to return to Alexandria. So Athanasius went to Aries 
 to take leave of Constans 5 and then went back to 
 Alexandria, and Gaul saw him no more. There is 
 extant a list of thirty-four bishops, described as Gallican, 
 who joined in acquitting Athanasius at the Council of 
 i Sardica. 6 The names of their sees are not, however, 
 given, but if we may judge from the similarity of the 
 names in the lists of the bishops of the Gallican 
 dioceses, it seems probable that the bishops of Trier, 
 Lyons, Tongres, Orleans, Sens, Metz, Auxerre, Paris, 
 Aries, and Chalons were present at Sardica. The 
 name of Euphrates of Cain is not on the list, 
 though he is known to have been present, and we 
 can only account for the omission through the fact 
 that he was the victim of the disgraceful plot at 
 Adrianople. 
 
 During this whole of the Arian controversy Western 
 Christendom seems to have sided definitely with the 
 party of Athanasius, the party that upheld the Creed of 
 Nicaea. The two emperors Constantine II. and Constans 
 had hitherto not taken an active part, and the Church 
 thus left to itself had clung to the orthodox faith. 
 It is probably due to this fact, and to the efforts made 
 by Christians in Gaul against heathenism, that a serious 
 
 1 Athan. Apol. c. Arian. 37 ; Socrates, H.E. ii. 20 ; Theodoret, ii. 7. 
 
 2 Athan. as above, 38. 3 Athan. Hist. Arian. zo. 
 4 Ibid. 21 j Apol. c. Arian. 50. 6 Ibid. 31. 
 
 6 Athan. Apol. contra Arian. 33 j Mansi, iii. 66. 
 
v THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH 141 
 
 uprising of the heathen party took place in A.D. 35O. 1 
 Flavius Popilius Magnentius was an Aeduan, and in 
 command of two legions stationed at Autun, and his 
 associate in command was Count Marcellinus. In 
 January 350 Magnentius suddenly appeared at a feast 
 clothed in the imperial purple, and the soldiers wel- 
 comed him and proclaimed him emperor. His revolt 
 seemed popular, and Constans fled before him and was 
 murdered at Elva 2 in the Western Pyrenees as he tried 
 to escape into Spain. Magnentius made Marcellinus 
 his magister offidorum who, at Rome, put down with 
 ease a similar rebellion of Nepotianus. 3 His enemies 
 in the East charged Athanasius with being friendly to 
 Magnentius, 4 a charge utterly false and also unreason- 
 able, since Magnentius was certainly the leader of the 
 heathen party, and had killed Constans, the sole friend 
 that Athanasius seems still to have had. Magnentius 
 from Autun advanced to Italy and on towards Thrace, 
 and on the 26th of September A.D. 351 was defeated 
 by Constantius at the battle of Mursa. 5 He himself 
 escaped, however, and though his cause was ruined 
 he made another stand at Pavia, and for two years 
 defied the efforts of Constantius in the Julian 
 and Cottian Alps. At last, seeing at Lyons 6 that 
 success was hopeless, he murdered his wife and left 
 for dead his son Desiderius, and then committed 
 suicide. A brother of Magnentius, Decentius, 7 who 
 had risen in revolt on the banks of the Rhine and 
 assumed there the imperial purple, perceiving that in 
 the death of his brother all was lost, hung himself 
 at Sens. 
 
 Thus it came about that Constantius the Arian became / 
 sole emperor, and from his father he had learnt all that was 
 meant by the phrase " a bishop of things external." He 
 
 1 Orosius, vii. 29 ; Eutrop. x. 10. 
 
 2 Aurelius Victor, Epit. 41 ; Eutrop. x. 9. 
 
 3 Aurel. Viet. 42. 4 Apol. ad Const. 6. 5 Aurel. Viet. 42. 4. 
 
 6 Aurel. Viet. Ep. 42. 6 ; Socrates, H.E. 25 and 32. 
 
 7 Aurel. Viet. Ep. 42- 8. 
 
142 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP, v 
 
 was now in Gaul, which hitherto had been conspicuous 
 for its orthodoxy, and had warmly espoused the cause 
 of Athanasius ; and soon the emperor was to find in 
 Gaul an opponent to his Arianism as zealous and as 
 courageous as Athanasius in the East. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE TRIALS OF HILARY OF POITIERS 1 
 
 MAGNENTIUS and his brother were now dead and in 
 September A.D. 353 Constantius reigned supreme over 
 the whole of the Roman Empire. Early in the 
 theological controversies of the age he had shown his 
 wish for compromise and also a strong personal prefer- 
 ence for Arianism. 2 His influence now was for the 
 suppression of the orthodox Catholics who adhered to 
 the Creed of Nicaea, and for the advancement of the 
 Arian or Semiarian party. He was, however, no friend 
 of the old religion. His first act as sole emperor was 
 to prohibit all access to the ancient temples, 3 which were 
 now to be permanently closed ; and he further forbade 
 all kinds of heathen sacrifices. To the ancient worship 
 
 1 There is no complete critical edition of the works of Hilary. Migne has 
 collected them in two volumes, ix. and x., of the Patrolog. Lat., and I have used 
 exclusively this edition. The editors of the Vienna Corpus have announced an 
 edition by A. Zingerle, but as yet only the Tractates on the Psalms have appeared 
 (1891), vol. xxii of the Corpus. The chief authorities concerning him are Sulpicius 
 Severus in his Chronicle, Bk. ii., Gregory of Tours, Jerome Lib. de <vir. illust. No. c., 
 and a metrical life by Venantius Fortunatus which, however, is not of great value. 
 Reinkens published an excellent life of him, at Schaffhausen, Hilarius -von Poitiers, 
 1868 ; and the charming but not very critical Vie de Saint Hilaire by the Abbe P. 
 Barbier, Tours, 1887, has a good estimate of his religious work and is very readable. 
 Professor Watson, in Parker's Library of Nicene and post-Nicene Fathers, Oxford, 
 1899, has given us an excellent life and summary of his writings, as well as a 
 valuable essay on the Theology of St. Hilary. I am much indebted to him for 
 many hints, though my lecture was given and written out before I had read his 
 important contribution. 
 
 J Cf. his action after the Council of Milan towards Liberius of Rome ; and 
 Hilary's letters to Constantius j Migne, P.L. x. 557 5 Theodoret, HJB. ii. 15 ; 
 Sozomen, iv. 9 ; and Socrates, ii. 36 and 376 /3a<rt\ei)s 5l e/c TrpoXi^ews T# ' 
 TTpoaKeifievos ; Amm. Marc. xxi. 16. 
 Cod. Theod. xvi. 10. 4. 
 
 143 
 
i 4 4 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 of the Empire his "little finger was thicker than his 
 father's loins." 1 The controversies, however, on 
 Christian doctrine which prevailed through his reign he 
 could not, as emperor, ignore. Whether interested in 
 them or not, he desired to suppress the factions in the 
 Church, and his own personal feelings and the advice of 
 his many Arian friends made him regard the Catholics as 
 the heretics the men who were disturbing the Church 
 and resisting his authority. His entry into Aries took 
 place on October 10, 353, 2 and was of a triumphal 
 nature, and he issued an amnesty 3 so cautious and 
 uncertain that men soon began to distrust his 
 clemency and impartiality. During the winter 4 he 
 kept court at Aries and in the spring of A.D. 354 
 marched to the Rhine and warded off a threatened 
 incursion of the Alemans into Gaul. The winter of 
 that year he spent at Milan. His two great friends 
 and counsellors on religious matters were Ursacius, 
 bishop of Singidunum (Belgrade) and Valens, bishop of 
 Mursa. Both these men were comparatively young, 5 
 active, skilled in all the arts of a courtier, and deter- 
 mined Arians. Incessant in their plottings against the 
 Catholics, they were present during the next few years 
 at nearly every Council of the Church, and filled the 
 mind of the emperor with scandalous tales against the 
 orthodox, while they showed extreme subtlety and 
 resourcefulness in those Councils to gain decisions in 
 favour of their party. It is said that Valens secured 
 his position with Constantius at the crisis of Mursa. 6 
 Having arranged that he should be the first to obtain 
 news of, and to announce to the emperor the result of the 
 conflict, he represented to Constantius the victory which 
 
 1 I Kings, xii. 1 1 j cf. Boissier, La Fin du paganhme^ i. 80 " aussi les voyons- 
 nous des les premieres annees de leur regne, ecouter les conseils des gens qui les 
 entouraient et partir en guerre centre 1'ancien culte," and again p. 82 " aussi fit-il 
 au paganisme une guerre plus vive." 
 
 - Amm. Marcel, xiv. 5. 
 
 3 Ibid, "qui imperii ejus annum tricensimum terminabat, insolentiae pondera 
 gravius librans siquid dubium deferebatur aut falsum " etc. 
 
 4 Ibid. xiv. 10. i. 5 Socrates, H.E. ii. 37 j Sozomen, iv. n. 
 6 Sulp. Sev. ii. 38. 
 
vi TRIALS OF HILARY OF POITIERS 145 
 
 had been gained as largely the result of the prayers he 
 had offered while it was waged. He ventured also to 
 assert that Athanasius was the friend of his defeated 
 opponent Magnentius, 1 and certainly much of the 
 dislike which the emperor showed to the Catholic 
 party arose from his personal mistrust and dislike of 
 Athanasius, 2 and to this theological questions were at 
 first largely subordinate. For several years Saturninus 
 had been bishop of Aries and his name, without, how- 
 ever, the mention of his see, appears on the list of 
 Gallican bishops who, in A.D. 343-344 adhered to the 
 decree of the Council of Sardica 3 which acquitted 
 St. Athanasius. When Constantius and his court spent 
 the late autumn and winter of A.D. 353-354 at Aries, 
 Saturninus had definitely allied himself with the Arian 
 party, 4 and from this time until his deposition in A.D. 
 361 he becomes the leader of the Arians and the great 
 disturber of the orthodox bishops of the Gallican Church. 
 Soon after the victory at Mursa was known at Rome, 
 Bishop Liberius had sent 5 to Constantius a request that 
 he would allow a Council to assemble at Aquileia to 
 consider the many changes that were made against 
 Athanasius. Constantius, however, wished to throw 
 his influence in the scale against the bishop of 
 Alexandria, and so decided that the Council should 
 meet where he was himself and thus, probably in the c " e ncil of 
 month of November 353, the bishops of the Empire 
 were summoned to the Council of Aries. Liberius of 
 Rome did not attend, but sent as his representative 
 Vincentius 6 the aged bishop of Capua, and there at 
 Aries Vincentius found himself in conflict with 
 Saturninus, Valens, and Ursacius. Peace was proposed 
 by the court party on the basis of a general repudiation 
 
 1 Athan. Apol. ad Const. 6. He writes of Magnentius as rbv 8idpo\ov MayvtvTiov. 
 
 * Cf. Gwatkin's Studies in Arianism, p. 157 note, Watson's Introd. p. x. 
 
 * Mansi, Condi, iii. 130. 
 
 4 Sulp. Sev. ii. 40 and 45 " Saturninus . . . . vir sane pessimus .... multia 
 atque infandis criminibus convictus ecclesia ejectus est." 
 
 5 Mansi, iii. 200 ; Hilary, Fragment ii. no. 4 in Migne, P.L. x. p. 686. 
 
 6 Hil. contra Const. Imp. 2, ibid. p. 579. 
 
146 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 of Athanasius without any discussion on doctrinal 
 questions, and to this proposal Vincentius in his 
 innocence agreed. ' Paulinus, bishop of Trier, on 
 the contrary, who must have known Athanasius 
 when as an exile he spent two years in that city, per- 
 ceived that the condemnation of Athanasius would 
 be regarded as a condemnation of the Catholic doctrine 
 for which he so valiantly struggled, and therefore re- 
 fused to agree to this course. But the proposal 
 was carried and Athanasius was condemned, and at 
 the instigation of Saturninus, Paulinus was sent into 
 exile 1 and so with him as its first victim the storm 
 of persecution fell upon the orthodox bishops of 
 Gaul. 
 
 When Vincentius returned to Rome great was the 
 sorrow of Liber ius. In his representative he had 
 been committed to a course of which he utterly 
 disapproved, and writing to Hosius 2 bishop of Cordova 
 he said that he had hoped much from Vincentius but 
 instead of a gain he had himself been led into error. 
 So during the year 354 Liberius summoned to his 
 counsel Eusebius, bishop of Vercelli, and Lucifer, bishop 
 of Cagliari, and it was decided 3 to ask the emperor 
 to permit the assembly of yet another Council, and 
 with the consent of Constantius in May 355 a Council 
 Council of was held at Milan. 4 The emperor himself was in 
 Mjlan 355- the city, 5 and his influence was against any impartial 
 enquiry into the case of Athanasius. At the opening 
 of the Council Eusebius of Vercelli was not present. 
 He was, however, sent for 6 and came, saying that 
 he would do his duty. On his arrival he was kept 
 for ten days, 7 waiting outside the church where the 
 Council was in session. The Arian party was anxious 
 to repeat at Milan the tactics which had been so 
 successful at Aries, and anticipate and so obviate 
 
 1 Hil. Ep. ii. ad Const. 8, p. 562. 
 
 2 Mansi, iii. 200 j and Hilary, Frag. vi. 3 Ibid. p. 204. 
 
 4 Ibid. p. 2045 Theodoret, H.E. ii. p. 15. 5 Amm. Marcel, xv. 4. 13. 
 
 6 Mansi, iii. 207. 7 Hil. Ep. ad Const, i. 8. 
 
vi TRIALS OF HILARY OF POITIERS 147 
 
 the necessity for any theological discussion by a 
 general agreement to condemn Athanasius which at 
 the same time should avoid the statement of any 
 special charge against him. Eusebius on the contrary 
 proposed that all should act together, 1 and subscribe 
 first of all the Nicene Confession of Faith, and then 
 proceed to consider the condemnation of Athanasius. 
 This suggestion seems to have been acceptable to 
 many, but while Dionysius, bishop of Milan, who had 
 advanced to sign the Confession, was standing at the 
 table Valens rushed forward and snatched the pen 
 and the parchment from his hand, and his followers 
 created such an uproar that the session came to an 
 end. When the emperor heard of this he intervened, 2 
 and through Valens and his friends sent word to the 
 bishops that he desired a condemnation of Athanasius 
 without reference to specific charges. The emperor, 
 said the Arian bishops who acted as his inter- 
 mediaries, was desirous of peace and all should wish, 
 not only for peace, but to do as the emperor desired. 
 Meanwhile the emperor seems to have come to the 
 Council, and was annoyed at the freedom with which, 
 in his presence, Lucifer, the bishop of Cagliari, spoke, 
 and when the Catholic bishops protested that it was 
 a canon of the Church that no one should be condemned 
 in his absence, Constantius uttered the memorable 
 remark, 3 " My will shall be to you a canon." Then 
 he took the matter up himself, and by threats of 
 exile and other terrors coerced most of the bishops 
 into signing the condemnation of Athanasius and 
 accepting the communion of the Arians. It is even 
 said that Constantius drew his sword 4 before the 
 bishops the better to enforce his will. Dionysius of 
 Milan was exiled to Cappadocia, Eusebius to Scythopolis, 
 
 1 Hil. Ep. ad Const, i. 8. 
 
 2 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 39 " epistolam sub imperatoris nomine emittunt." 
 
 3 Athan. Hist. Arian. ad monachos, c. 33 dXV Sirep eyu /Soi/Xo^ai, TOVTO KOLVUV 
 
 4 Ibid. c. 34. 
 
148 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 and Lucifer to Germanicia. 1 Rufinianus, another bishop, 
 died from the cruel treatment he had received from 
 an Arian bishop, Patrophilus was bruised and wounded 
 by being dragged many times down stone steps, and 
 Liberius of Rome was summoned to sign the document 
 of condemnation. On his arrival he boldly withstood 
 the emperor, and spoke so plainly to Constantius of 
 his injustice that he was exiled to Beraea in Thrace. 2 
 The emperor and his friends had got their way, and 
 the Catholic party in the Church seemed definitely 
 suppressed. 
 
 Hilary of It was in the same year, in the autumn of 355, that 
 Poitiers. Constantius learnt that a champion of the orthodox 
 party had arisen in Gaul. He had received a letter 
 from Hilary, 3 bishop of Poitiers, and from this year the 
 bishop of Poitiers becomes the leader of the Gallican 
 bishops, and the strong bulwark of orthodoxy in the 
 West. 
 
 Hilary is very reticent about his early life. Full of 
 strong common sense, and intensely conscious of the need 
 for firm resistance to the worldly Arianism that prevailed 
 in the Church, he saw no cause to tell us much of the 
 days of his youth. He was of noble rank and a native 
 of Aquitaine, born probably in the first decade of the 
 fourth century, and of heathen parents. His biographer 
 Fortunatus 4 says that he sucked in Christian doctrine 
 and true religion with his mother's milk, but this does 
 not agree with what Hilary himself tells us of his early 
 life. 5 St. Augustine seems to refer 6 to the sacrifice he 
 made when he became, if not a Christian, yet a priest 
 of the Catholic Church. His own account of his con- 
 
 1 Athan. as above and Apol. defuga, 4 j Apol. ad Const. 27. 
 
 2 Theodoret, ii. 16 j Sozomen, iv. n. 
 
 3 Hil. Liber i. ad Const. Aug., Migne, P.L. x. p. 557. 
 
 4 Fortunatus, i. 3 "cujus a cunabulis tanta sapientia primitiva lactabatur 
 infantia ut jam tune potuisset intelligi Christum in suis causis pro obtinenda victoria 
 necessarium sibi jussisse militem propagari." 
 
 5 Hil. De Trinitate, i. 2 "ac mihi plerique mortalium . . . ." (the whole 
 section). 
 
 6 Aug. De doct. Christiana, ii. 40 " nonne respicimus quanto auro et argento et 
 veste suffarcinatus exierit de Aegypto . . . Hilarius ? " 
 
vi TRIALS OF HILARY OF POITIERS 149 
 
 version is that as a young man a sudden disquiet fell 
 on him in the midst of his wealth and leisured ease, 
 and the problem rose up and demanded from him 
 an answer why was I placed here below and what is 
 the purpose of my life ? * He is said to have studied 
 in Rome and in Greece, but this is certainly doubtful. 2 
 The schools in Bordeaux were in their most flourishing 
 state 3 and a wealthy student would have been as able 
 to learn Greek in Aquitaine 4 as in Rome. He was a 
 man of action rather than of words, and yet he shows a 
 clearness of thought and a power of rugged expression 
 which places him among .the foremost theologians of 
 the West. Of his early life very little is known though 
 it is probable that he had been married. 5 His con- 
 secration must have been about A.D. 350 for he tells us 
 us that it took place a few years before his exile. 6 Of 
 his conversion to Christianity and of his ordination as 
 priest we know nothing. He seems to have been the 
 first bishop of Poitiers, and may have chosen his see 
 from the place where his estates had been, though another 
 account records that he succeeded, as bishop, Maxentius 
 the brother of St. Maximin, bishop of Trier. 7 At 
 Perigueux there was a contemporary bishop Paternus 8 
 who as an Arian often strove to thwart him. His 
 
 1 Hil. De Trin. \. i " circumspicienti mihi proprium humanac vitae ac 
 religiosum officium." 
 
 2 Fortunatus gives us no information as to any journey to Greece or Rome, and 
 Hilary in no way refers to it. Jerome, Ep, ad Rust. i. 4, takes it as natural that 
 the student in Gaul would complete his education in Rome " ac post studia 
 Galliarum . . . misit Roman . . . ut ubertatem Gallici nitoremque sermonis 
 gravitas Romana condiret." 
 
 3 Jerome, Pref. in Galat. ii., refers to Hilary as " Latinae eloquentiae Rhodanus " 
 and Ep. ad Rust. i. 4 "studia Galliarum quae vel florentissima sunt." 
 
 4 Cf. Watson's Introd. Hil. p. ii. "Greek was taught habitually as well as 
 Latin. In fact never since the days of Hadrian had educated society throughout the 
 Empire been so nearly bilingual." But see for another view Zingerle in Comment. 
 Wolfflin. p. 2 1 8. 
 
 *Cf. Vie de S. Hilaire, by 1'Abbe Barbier. 
 
 6 Hil. De synodis 91 "et in episcopatu aliquantisper manens . . . exsulaturus." 
 
 7 Cf. Vita S. Maximini by Lupus of Ferrara (Man. script, rer. Merwing. iii. 
 p. 74), who tells us that Maximin and Maxentius were brothers, the sons of rich and 
 noble parents of Poitiers, but this authority for the existence of the see of Poitiers 
 before Hilary is of no value. Duchesne, Pastes ep. ii. 77, places jMaxentius as fifth 
 after Hilary. 
 
 8 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 45 " Paternus .... a Petrocoriis." 
 
150 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 extraordinary influence over the Gallican Church in the 
 later years of his life seemed to have been based not 
 merely on his bold act in writing to Constantine but 
 also on his work in Aquitaine, where he is said to have 
 laboured diligently in preaching and in expounding 
 the Scriptures to the people. 1 Hilary, however, was 
 not trained as a theologian. He seems to have been 
 largely self-taught. His style is his own, and while 
 a student of and greatly influenced by the writings of 
 Origen 2 his independence and self-confidence is very 
 conspicuous. 
 
 In a work of his written in 358, the De synodis^ he 
 said that though he had been baptized and consecrated 
 as bishop it was not until he had gone into exile 3 to the 
 East that he first heard the Nicene Creed, and that it 
 was a careful study of the Gospels 4 and the Apostles 
 which had taught him the meaning of and the distinc- 
 tion between the terms Homoousios and Homoiousios. 
 Of his stand for the Catholic Faith which he made in 
 Gaul during the early years of his episcopate we know 
 unfortunately nothing. Toulouse was full of Arians, 5 
 and it is a proof of his great influence that he was able 
 to preserve in the orthodox faith Rhodanius the bishop 
 of Toulouse, a man naturally weak and inclined to lean 
 on others, and the influence of Hilary gave him courage 
 to accept exile rather than be disloyal to the faith. It 
 was apparently after the Council of Aries, in November 
 353, under the patronage of Constantius and the active 
 influence of Saturninus that Arianism spread like a 
 
 1 His Tractates on the Psalms were addresses, delivered to the people assembled 
 in the church, by way of comments on a psalm which had been read j cf. Comment 
 on Ps. xiv. ". . . psalmus qui lectus est " Paulinus of Perigueux, lib. I, Carm. de 
 <vit. S. Martini, refers to his influence as a teacher : 
 
 " dum Pictavorum doctor floreret in oris 
 indomitis tradens populis praecepta salutis." 
 
 2 Jer. De -viris /'/. c. ". . . in psalmos commentarios ... in quo opere imitatus 
 Origenem nonnulla ..." and again " commentarii in Matthaeum quos de Graeco 
 Origenis ad sensum transtulit." 
 
 3 Hil. Lib. de synodis, 91. 
 
 4 Ibid. 
 
 5 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 39 " Rhodanium quoque Tolosanum antistitem qui 
 natura lenior non tarn suis viribus quam Hilarii societate non cesserat Arianis." 
 
vi TRIALS OF HILARY OF POITIERS 151 
 
 flood over 1 Gaul. The West was no match for the 
 East in theological subtleties, and Hilary stood almost 
 alone the one champion of Gaul for that which was the 
 true faith as declared by the Council of Nicaea. It is 
 hardly conceivable that Hilary was present at the 
 Council of Milan, 2 for a man of such determined 
 courage and zeal for orthodoxy would surely, if present, 
 have been found by the side of Dionysius, Lucifer and 
 Eusebius. But the news of the condemnation of 
 Athanasius would have soon reached him in Gaul, and 
 he was not such as could keep silence on hearing of the 
 persecution and exile of the orthodox bishops. His 
 duty was to him quite clear. Whatever the con- 
 sequence to himself he would lift up his voice against 
 this injustice and from far-off Aquitaine he wrote his Appeal to 
 first letter 3 to Constantius. In the introduction he t c r s nstan ' 
 shows all reverence for authority, and a dignified respect 
 for the character of the emperor. " Your kindly 
 nature, most blessed lord Augustus, agrees with your 
 kind disposition for the Church, and since from the 
 source of your paternal piety mercy largely flows forth 
 we are confident that what we ask you can and will 
 readily grant to us." Then he plunges at once into the 
 troubles that pressed upon him. " Not only by our 
 letters but also by our tears we implore thee 4 that the 
 Catholic Churches may no longer be tormented by these 
 gravest of injuries and have to endure unbearable perse- 
 cutions and dishonours, and what is also an additional 
 evil, to bear them at the hands of our brethren. May 
 your clemency provide and arrange that all the judges 
 to whom the ordering of the provinces has been 
 entrusted, and to whom alone the care and anxiety for 
 public order ought to belong, may refrain from interfer- 
 ing 5 in religious matters, and that henceforth they may 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 39 " ab hoc initio illecti principis extulere animos Ariani." 
 
 2 Cf. Watson's Introd. ut supra, p. xii. 
 
 3 Migne, Pat. Lat. x. p. 558. 
 
 4 Ibid, "etiam lacrymis deprecamur ne diutius Catholicae Ecclesiae gravissimis 
 injuriis afficiantur." 
 
 5 "A religiosa se observantia abstineant." 
 
152 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 neither presume nor take to themselves, nor think that 
 to them appertains the cognisance of the affairs of the 
 clergy nor by their threats harass innocent men under 
 pain of various persecutions and violent punishments. 
 Let it be your task, therefore, to rule the republic by 
 wise and wholesome counsels. The voice of him who 
 cries to you for help should be, ' I am a Catholic, 1 and 
 do not wish to be a heretic, I am a Christian and not 
 an Arian.' Those who fear God should not be defiled 
 with wicked blasphemies but be allowed to follow and 
 obey those bishops who keep the unbroken rule of 
 charity and desire to promote perpetual and sincere 
 peace. The promoters of Arianism are busy in their 
 desire to injure the orthodox rule of the Apostles. 
 This we implore of your clemency that those well- 
 known and prominent bishops and priests who are still 
 in exile in lonely desert places thou wouldst allow to 
 return to their own sees, that everywhere there may be 
 pleasing liberty and abounding joy. 2 Arianism is a 
 novel heresy and these theological phrases have been 
 invented by the two Eusebii, 3 Narcissus from Cilicia, 
 Stephen from Antioch, Theodore, Acacius, Menophantes, 
 and the two inexperienced and wicked young men 
 Ursacius and Valens. 4 I come now to what has 
 happened just lately. Eusebius of Vercelli is a man who 
 serves God with all his power. After the Synod of 
 Aries, where Paulinus exposed their innocuous plotting, 
 Eusebius was summoned to come to Milan. By the 
 synagogue of malignants 5 assembled there he was for- 
 bidden to approach the church for some ten days after 
 his arrival. He presented himself accompanied by the 
 Roman clergy and Lucifer of Sardinia. He was called 
 
 1 " Catholicus sum, nolo esse haereticus, Christianus sum, non Arianus." 
 
 2 " Ut ubique grata libertas sit et jucunda laetitia." 
 
 3 Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, and Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea 
 in Cappadocia, Menophantus, Arian bishop of Ephesus, Acacius, bishop of Caesarea 
 in Palestine. 
 
 4 Hil. Lib. i. ad C. "et imperitis atque improbis duobus adolescentibus Ursacio 
 et Valente." 
 
 5 "... malignantium synagoga." 
 
vi TRIALS OF HILARY OF POITIERS 153 
 
 upon to subscribe forthwith to the condemnation of 
 Athanasius." 
 
 Then Hilary relates the demand of Eusebius that 
 the Creed of Nicaea should be subscribed by all before 
 they passed on to condemn Athanasius, and how the 
 action of Valens was followed by disturbance and 
 uproar, and then he ends the letter, if indeed, which 
 does not seem to be the case, we possess the end of it, 
 somewhat abruptly relating how the Arian faction, 
 fearing to be worsted in the Council, passed over to 
 the Palace. 
 
 This letter of Hilary, which in no detail betrays the 
 hand of an eyewitness, must have been written soon 
 after he had heard the various phases of the work of 
 the Arian faction at the Council, and Constantius must 
 have received it in the autumn of the year 355. The 
 emperor at the time was engaged on serious matters of 
 state. He had as yet chosen no colleague to share 
 with him the burden of empire, or named a successor 
 for the imperial throne. He had looked for some 
 time with envy and suspicion on his two nephews, 
 Gallus and Julian, whom by force of circumstances he 
 had at last been compelled to adopt. 1 In 354 he had 
 sent for Gallus from the East, 2 and as he approached 
 Milan ordered his execution at Pola, and with a 
 reluctance that he could not conceal had in 355 made 
 Julian 3 Caesar, and on 6th November formally invested 
 him with the purple of that rank. On December i 4 
 of that same year Julian, glad to escape the personal 
 danger at Milan, set out for Gaul to take over the 
 Western prefecture, and early in January 356 entered 
 Vienne with a welcome from the people which could 
 not but have embittered the jealous mind of the 
 emperor. 5 The state of Gaul was at that juncture 
 most gloomy. Like the Church, it was rent asunder 
 
 1 Eutrop. Brev, x. 12. 
 
 2 Aurelius Victor, Epit. xlii. 9 ; Amm. Marcel, xiv. n. 
 
 3 Ibid. 12 ; Amm. Marcel xv. 8. 4 Eutrop. Brev . x. 14. 
 5 Amm. Marcel, xv. 8. 21, and xvi. i. 
 
154 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 by internal dangers. To accomplish the defeat of 
 Magnentius and his brother Constantius, in order that he 
 might keep the legions he could rely on safe in Italy, had 
 enrolled large forces of barbarians l into the army, and 
 when the civil war was over and he retired to Milan, he 
 left behind bands of Franks, Alemans, and Burgundians 
 practically masters of the country. It was the difficult 
 task assigned to Julian to suppress these foreign troops 
 and to bring peace to Gaul. Coin, 2 Mainz, Worms, 
 Strasburg, Brumath, Saverne, Seltz, and Besanson were 
 in the hands of these marauding soldiers, and the 
 Roman army lay between the Sa6ne and the Marne, 
 and Julian, though nominally in command of the 
 situation, had faint hopes 3 of effecting any great 
 change. He began the year, however, with a vigorous 
 siege of Autun 4 and speedily captured it. Then he 
 hurried to Rheims, and crossing afterwards the range 
 of the Vosges, recaptured one by one the Roman 
 settlements on the left bank of the Rhine. 5 
 
 It is probable that when in January 356 Julian 
 entered Vienne he brought with him instructions from 
 Constantius in reference to Hilary. It was certain 
 that the Arian party in Gaul would endeavour to 
 stimulate him to action, and whatever may have been 
 his own personal inclination he could not but carry out 
 the instructions of the emperor. 
 
 Council of Certainly in the summer of 356** a Council was 
 ^ Q \^ a t Beziers, a town near the sea-coast and not far 
 from Narbonne, to consider the conduct and action of 
 the bishop of Poitiers. The enquiry seems to have 
 been solely in reference to the conduct of Hilary and 
 not in reference to theological questions. Saturninus 
 of Aries was the most active of the Arian bishops, 
 and seems to have presided at the Council. Perhaps 
 
 1 Amm. Marcel, xvi. z and 3. 2 Ibid. xvi. 2. 12. 
 
 3 Ibid. xvi. i. 2 "colligere provinciae fragmenta jam parans si adfuisset flatu 
 tandem secundo." 
 
 4 Ibid. xvi. 2. 5 Ibid. xvi. 3 ; Eutrop. Bre-v. x. 14. 
 * Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 39 ; Hil. Lib. ii. ad Const. Aug. 
 
vi TRIALS OF HILARY OF POITIERS 155 
 
 he did so as bishop of Aries, which as a town of im- 
 portance had long cast Narbonne into the background. 
 As yet, however, Aries had no metropolitical power, 1 
 and Narbonne had the higher civil dignity. Nor is it 
 clear why Beziers should have been chosen as the 
 place for the commission of enquiry to meet except for 
 its beauty, 2 and because it was on the way from 
 Aries to the west and from Toulouse and Aquitaine to 
 the south-east. To Beziers, however, Hilary and 
 Rhodanius were summoned, 3 and after their condemna- 
 tion Saturninus was not long before he had obtained 
 from Julian confirmation of this decision and an order 
 for their exile. So in September 356 these two 
 orthodox bishops started off for far distant Phrygia, 
 Rhodanius to die in exile, and Hilary to suffer, to Exile of 
 struggle, and to return, and in less than ten years to Hllary * 
 witness in Gaul the final triumph of the orthodox faith. 
 About Rhodanius we know little except that his 
 orthodoxy was largely due to the help 4 which Hilary 
 had afforded him. . 
 
 At Poitiers Hilary had been the life of the religious 
 community, as, perhaps, in earlier days he had been 
 the centre of the local society. He had been very rich, 
 and perhaps had even then a wife and one child, a 
 daughter, and his departure must have been alike heart- 
 rending to himself and to the community, on account 
 of the church order which was interrupted, and on 
 account of the home life which was now broken up. 
 
 The exile of Hilary might have been much worse. 
 He had not been deprived of the bishopric of Poitiers, 
 nor had he been refused permission to communicate 
 with the clergy of his diocese. He was regarded 
 officially as a bishop, and within certain limits he 
 
 1 Cf. Babul's Le Concile de Turin p. 56, and Gundlach's exhaustive Der Streit 
 der Bist/iiimer Aries und Vienne, 1890. 
 
 2 Cf. the popular boast "si vellet Deus in terris habitare, Biterris." One thinks 
 also of the siege of Bezier, 1209, and the terrible slaughter of the Albigensians, and 
 the legate Arnold's words : "Slay them all, God will know His own." Vaissetti's 
 Hist, de Languedoc iii. 163. 
 
 3 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 39. 7. 4 Ibid. 
 
156 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 seems to have had liberty to visit his friends in Asia 
 Minor. In his exile he learnt to understand the 
 complicated threads of Eastern theological controversy, 
 a knowledge which was of the greatest advantage to 
 the West, and which he could not have gained had he 
 not been condemned to an enforced and prolonged 
 sojourn in the East. 
 
 But the Gallican church, as the events of the follow- 
 ing year clearly showed, was not entirely bereft of 
 this champion of orthodoxy. The Arian party had 
 endeavoured to capture the whole of the West. 
 Saturninus of Aries put pressure l on the Gallican 
 bishops, and a similar influence was exerted in Spain. 
 Hosius of Cordova was violently ill-treated and was 
 practically imprisoned for a whole year. Then in 
 the summer of 357 the time seems to have arrived for 
 a formal assertion of Arianism by the Western episcopate. 
 Valens and Ursacius were at Sirmium, 2 and with the 
 permission of the emperor, 'who was apparently also 
 there, the Western bishops were summoned to attend. 
 Hosius was brought to the assembly and with him 
 Potamius, bishop of Lisbon. The latter is said to 
 have been bribed by the gift of an estate, and his 
 name, with that of Ursacius and Valens, is attached 
 to a Manifesto which denounces the two terms, opoovaiov 
 and ofjioiovo-iov as unscriptural and unintelligible, and 
 asserts that the Father is greater than the Son, a state- 
 ment which in the language of Hilary was known in 
 the West as " the blasphemy of Sirmium." Certainly 
 both Hosius, the venerable president at Nicaea, and 
 hitherto the leader of the Catholics in Spain, and 
 Potamius of Lisbon, of whom we have no previous 
 information, signed this Manifesto, and orthodoxy in 
 the West was in the direst peril. What must have 
 been the feelings of Hilary when he heard of the 
 fall of Hosius, and the general acceptance of this 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 40. 4. 
 2 Liber de synodis, 3, Migne, x. p. 482. 
 
vi TRIALS OF HILARY OF POITIERS 157 
 
 document by the Western bishops ! That messages 
 and enquiries were made as frequently as his position 
 allowed we may be sure, and in the late autumn of 
 357 he received information which filled his heart 
 with joy. The Manifesto of Sirmium had not found 
 anything like universal acceptance in Gaul. His 
 former neighbour, the Aquitanian bishop Phoebadius * Phoebadius 
 of Agen, during his exile had come forward as the ofAgen * 
 champion of the orthodox faith. He had written a 
 short treatise against the Arians, the outcome of his 
 sermons to the faithful of Agen, 2 and had exposed 
 the errors of the men who were blinded with worldly 
 ambitions. The treatise is interesting as showing the 
 purely Western aspect of the Arians. He revolts at 
 their subtlety and duplicity. The confession of faith 
 of men like Ursacius, Valens, and Potamius is a 
 fraudulent use of orthodox terms. 3 There is nothing 
 simple in their profession. It is an attempt to capture 
 the incautious, credulous, and unskilled with empty 
 blandishments. At one and the same time they urge 
 upon the orthodox the honey of catholic doctrine 
 and the poison of heresy. 4 In some ways the treatise 
 is more definite than that of Hilary " On the Faith," 
 of which we will speak presently. There is no trace 
 of any Semi-Arianism. It is very logical and dialectic. 
 He has reached his impregnable orthodox position by 
 a very careful study of Holy Scripture and a close 
 adherence to logic. He notices the use which the 
 Arians are making of the subscription of Hosius, 
 and Phoebadius will not accept him as an authority. 
 He has either made a mistake now, or he has always 
 before lived in error. 5 If for ninety years he has 
 
 1 Phoebadius' Treatise is in the Bibltotheca vet. Pat., A.D. 1644, iv. pt. i. p. 169 j 
 and Migne, Pat. Lat. vol. xx. 
 
 2 The treatise is addressed to his clergy as the result of some debate : " super 
 his quae nuper ad nos scripta venerunt sermonem haberem, fratres charissimi." 
 
 3 " . . . sed respiciendum ad Ursatium et Valentem et Potamium quia saepenumero 
 iisdem verbis unum Deum subdola fraude confessi aunt." 
 
 4 ". . . pari modo quo veneni poculum mella commendant." 
 
 5 "... non potest ejus authoritate praescribi quia aut nunc errat aut semper 
 
158 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP 
 
 cherished a false faith, he will not now accept him 
 as a reliable guide. His method is evidently that 
 which a preacher would choose in his delivery of 
 doctrinal homilies. He exposes the subtleties and argu- 
 ments of the Arians that his hearers may be on their 
 guard and not easily led away by specious arguments. 
 Towards the end he appeals to the bishops 1 who 
 were at the Council of Nicaea and explains " sub- 
 stantia " 2 as that which God is, simple, onefold, pure 
 without any mixture, limpid, good, perfect, blessed, 
 complete, and entirely holy, in other words the term 
 denotes that which God alone is. 
 
 Looking back on this critical period and writing 
 nearly fifty years afterwards it is clear from Sulpicius 
 that the church in Gaul had not been captured by 
 the party of Saturninus. Many there were who 
 remembered with reverence the confessors in their 
 exile, and the efforts also of two at least who still 
 in Gaul did what they could for the Nicene cause. 
 Two of these Sulpicius mentions by name, Phoebadius, 
 " our Phoebadius " 3 is his phrase, and Servatio of 
 Tongres, 4 whose name appears in the list of the 
 Western bishops who were present at Sardica. The 
 defence also of the orthodox faith seems to have 
 been the united effort of a considerable body of 
 Gallican bishops. Apparently the shock of the 
 Sirmium Manifesto had brought them together for 
 counsel, and the assembled bishops, towards the end 
 of A.D. 357, 5 sent formal messages of friendship and 
 devotion to the faith, to gladden therewith the heart 
 
 erravit . . . nam si nonaginta fere annis male credidit post nonaginta ilium recte 
 sentire non credam." 
 
 1 "... quid egistis, o beatae memoriae viri qui ex omnibus orbis partibus Nicaeam 
 congregati ? " 
 
 2 "... nihil ergo in hoc vocabulo novum, nihil extraneum dicimus, nihil 
 incongruens divinitati ..." and "quae est enim substantia Dei? Ipsum quod 
 Deus est, simplex, singulare, purum, nulla concretione permixtum, limpidum, bonum, 
 perfectum, beatum, integrum, sanctum-totum." 
 
 3 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 44 " noster Foegadius " or Phoebadius. 
 
 4 Ibid. " Servatio Tungrorum episcopus " j cf. Hefele, Cone. i. 64. 
 
 5 We gather this from the introductory remarks of Hilary, De synod'u. 
 
vi TRIALS OF HILARY OF POITIERS 159 
 
 of Hilary in his exile. The enforced leisure which 
 he now possessed gave him meanwhile an opportunity 
 to take in hand an Exposition of the Faith. He gave writings 
 his book the title De fide? but at a later time and of Hilar y- 
 not from Hilary the work received the title of De 
 Trimtate. It was a remarkable effort and one 
 which was greatly influenced by passing events as he 
 proceeded to carry it out. > He had speedily perceived 
 the pressing need especially in the West of some 
 clear exposition of the Nicene Creed. A keen worker, 
 a bold and clear thinker, and deeply versed in Holy 
 Scripture, his work on the Faith comes to us now 
 in twelve books. Purely theological and apologetic, 
 this effort of Hilary anticipates much that St. Augustine 
 wrote about sixty years afterwards. It is the earliest 
 attempt after Tertullian, Cyprian, and Novatian to 
 discuss Christian doctrine in the Latin tongue, and 
 is as much in advance of his predecessors as it is 
 surpassed by the later work of St. Augustine. It 
 is evident, however, that the project had been simmer- 
 ing in his mind, and that the work before us is of 
 a composite character. The earliest portion 2 which 
 forms the original nucleus of the book, comprises the 
 fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh books. The method 
 is negative and is designed as an answer to Arian 
 arguments. The second and third books stand by 
 themselves, and in them he discusses and points out 
 the errors of various heresies without entering into 
 a controversial style. The eighth to the twelfth 
 books were undertaken as a completion of those 
 which had already been written, while the first book, 
 which was clearly written last, gives us a survey of the 
 accomplished task, and seems also to offer us an account 
 of the writer's own spiritual birth and development. 
 
 1 Migne, Pat. Lot. ix. p. 26. 
 
 2 The anteriores libelli of which he speaks in the first section of book iv. cannot 
 refer to books i.-iii. as they now stand. Dr. Watson writes : " In these four books, 
 the fourth to the seventh, we may see the nucleus of the De Trinitate." Introd. 
 p. xxxii. 
 
160 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Hilary's This account of Hilary's work, De Trinitate^ is 
 
 De synodis necessary in order that we may understand the purport 
 
 to the r i i T-\ ] T i i it 
 
 Gaiiican of his short treatise De synodis. It has been regarded 
 Bishops. as f orm i n g t ne thirteenth of the books of the work 
 De Trinitate, and if we consider the method of treat- 
 ment and the phases in the development of the larger 
 work there is every reason to regard it as such. It 
 offers us the purely historical narrative which acts as 
 the complement of the theological argument. Its 
 immediate object, however, was the answer Hilary 
 desired to send to the orthodox bishops of Gaul. The 
 East was very suspicious of the West, and regarded the 
 Western theologians as deeply tainted with Sabellianism. 
 The West found it difficult to comprehend the subtle 
 arguments of the East. Hilary, therefore, a Western 
 bishop, now an exile in the East, endeavoured to break 
 down this suspicion and to explain to the Gaiiican 
 bishops 1 the labyrinth of controversy which had torn 
 the Eastern church asunder, and at the same time to 
 show to the Eastern bishops the sound catholicity of the 
 West. It is not the work of an irreconcilable, but the 
 effort of a man who would have dealt kindly with the 
 Semi-Arians in order that he might through an alliance 
 with them bring about the triumph of the Nicene 
 Confession. The tract De synodis is therefore tinged 2 
 with Semi-Arianism though the writer is one whose 
 theological learning and unwavering orthodoxy gave 
 him courage to ignore the catchwords of the theological 
 fray, and draw near to any party that seemed to promise 
 the advancement of Catholic Truth. For the bishops 
 in Gaul it must have been simply impossible to follow 
 the thread of the controversy that was raging, and it 
 
 1 Lib. de syncdis j Migne, x. p. 479. 
 
 2 Cf. Gwatkin's Studies of Arianism, " the Semi-Arian influence so visible in 
 the De synodis of Hilary." But Hilary's orthodoxy is evident from his De 
 Trinitate and other writings. The De synodis was written for a purpose, that he 
 might if possible bring about an understanding between East and West, and he 
 hoped that the Semi-Arians were approaching the orthodoxy of the West. We must 
 remember also that Semi-Arian was a party epithet which was meant to irritate and 
 which Hilary would have resented, as much as to-day we would shrink from giving 
 it to him. 
 
vi TRIALS OF HILARY OF POITIERS 161 
 
 is hard to say whether we admire most the simple 
 confidence of Hilary as he took upon himself this 
 great and difficult task, or the generous and loving effort 
 of the exile for the sake of his comrades in far distant 
 Gaul. Hilary was fully conscious of the responsibility. 
 On him lay all the care of the Gallican church, for it 
 he must pray, and for it he must write ; and the De 
 Trinitate and the De synodis are the fruit of this 
 deep conviction. 
 
 In the De synodis Hilary endeavours to explain 
 what was taking place in the East, the Councils that 
 were being held, the Creeds that were proposed at 
 those Councils, and the extent to which these Creeds 
 were either positively erroneous or only defective of 
 Catholic Truth. It is addressed to the most beloved and 
 blessed brethren and fellow bishops of the Provinces of 
 Germaniai. and ii., Belgica i. and ii., Lugdunensis i. and 
 ii., Aquitania, Novempopulania, and in Narbonensis to 
 the clergy and laity of Toulouse, together with the 
 bishops of the Province of Britain. He would fain, 
 he says, keep silence, but he is anxious concerning the 
 faith of the bishops of Gaul, and so he must do all 
 he can to warn and help them. 1 He rejoices and 
 congratulates them that they have denied communion 
 to Saturninus 2 and condemned his Creed, and have not 
 yielded to his threatenings but have remained up to now 
 with Hilary faithful in Christ. The report of their 
 calm and unshaken faith has had its effects in the East, 
 and has moved certain bishops 3 to a sense of shame 
 for the heresy which they had cherished, and when 
 they heard of the wicked things done at Sirmium 
 they opposed that effort by certain manifestoes of their 
 own, and begin now to avoid the communion of those 
 who by their blasphemies had brought about the exile 
 
 1 " Necessarium mihi ac religiosum intellexi ut nunc quasi episcopus episcopis 
 mecum in Christo communicantibus salutaris ac fidelis sermonis colloquia trans- 
 mitterem." 
 
 a 3 " non cedendo Saturnini minis, potestatibus, bellis," and section 4. 
 
 3 i.e. Bishops George of Laodicea, Basil of Ancyra, Macedonius of Constantinople, 
 and Eugcnius of Nicaea. Sozom. iv. 13. 
 
 M 
 
1 62 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 of so many bishops. "And while in all you have done 
 and do, you witness to the constant freedom and 
 liberty of your faith you show also the % warmth of 
 your fervent spirit, in that some of you whose letters 
 have succeeded in reaching me, desired my humble 
 opinion to be sent by letter as to what the Eastern 
 Christians were doing and had done, adding from a 
 feeling of love, this burden on my lack of skill and my 
 unlearnedness that my opinion on all that was said and 
 done I should indicate and would explain carefully the 
 meaning of my words since often by a few sentences 
 an explanation may enable others to describe what has 
 been told to them." 
 
 " So," proceeds Hilary, " I obey, and all the various 
 summaries of faith which have been put forth at various 
 times and places since the Synod of Nicaea I have 
 put down, adding the opinions and even the very 
 words that were used, and if any are offended by 
 what I say they must remember that I am only the 
 messenger of what others have said and not the 
 originator of the words myself." 1 
 
 The Manifesto at Sirmium had not only offended 
 the bishops of Gaul, but had also caused alarm among 
 the Semi-Arians of the East ; and at a small Synod of 
 bishops which met at Ancyra 2 in the spring of 358 at 
 the summons of George of Laodicea and Basil of 
 Ancyra not only was the opinion of the East stated 
 in a synodal letter in reference to the Arianism of 
 Sirmium, but a desire was expressed and forwarded to 
 Constantius that another Council should be summoned 
 to give a definite peace to the Church. The emperor 
 was at Sirmium, where Valens and Ursacius, conscious 
 of the shock which the Manifesto of the previous year 
 had created, had also gone to encourage Constantius 
 in his desire to enforce compromise and simplicity 
 
 1 " Ego tamen, quae gesta sunt, fideliter transmisi ; vos an catholica an heretica 
 sint fidei vestrae judicio comprobate." 
 . 2 S6z. iv. 13 ; Hefele, Cone. i. 80. 
 
vi TRIALS OF HILARY OF POITIERS 163 
 
 on the Church through a creed which should be 
 distinctly Arian. \ The request from Ancyra was 
 sanctioned^ and after a few months it was decided by 
 the emperor to hold two Councils, one in the East and 
 the other in the West, Seleucia and Ariminum being 
 the places ultimately chosen. Hilary, as a bishop 
 living in the East, was summoned to Seleucia ; and the 
 expenses of the bishops on their way were ordered to 
 be defrayed by the prefects. In the De synodis Hilary 
 alludes to their possible summons to a Council, and he 
 urges the Gallican bishops, if they come to it, to keep 
 themselves firm and constant in the Catholic Faith, and 
 when they are out of Gaul to avoid strangers as much 
 as possible. 1 It is incumbent, he says, on the episcopal 
 office in such a fury of heresy to offer to you through 
 a letter some words of counsel concerning our pious 
 faith. Though in the body he was in exile yet the 
 Word of God could not be bound or restrained, and 
 when I found that Synods were to be gathered at 
 Ancyra and Ariminum, 2 and that from each province 
 of Gaul one or two representatives were to be summoned, 
 then it seemed that I should explain to you those 
 matters which now create suspicion between us and 
 the Eastern bishops, so that, having condemned the 
 blasphemy of Sirmium as anathema, when you come 
 to meet the Eastern bishops in future synods there 
 may be no coldness but that you may all join in one 
 united and sincere expression of loyalty to the Catholic 
 " Faith." 
 
 ' He then tells them of the informal gathering 3 at 
 Ancyra of the Eastern bishops against the heresy of 
 Sirmium, and, translating from Greek into Latin, 
 explains the Manifesto. The Father is One and Alone 
 God of all. The Son is denied to be God. The 
 terms homoousios and homoiousios are ignored, and it 
 was decreed that the Son was born out of nothing, as 
 
 1 De synodis, 8 "... a caeteris extra Gallias abstinerent." 
 
 2 Ibid, "cum comperissem synodos in Ancyra atque Arimino congregandas." 
 
 3 De synodis, 12. 
 
164 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 a creature, nor out of other essence than that of the 
 creatures whom God afterwards made and not out of 
 God the Father. This error he explains carefully and 
 illustrates from Holy Scripture, and then discusses 
 the terms essentia and substantia and mentions what 
 the Semi-Arian Synod at Ancyra had declared that 
 year. He is favourable to this movement not because 
 it is sufficient but because he seems to see in it a basis 
 of agreement which might lead on to something better. 
 Some, he says, of the Eastern bishops went to an 
 opposite extreme, and said that the Son is like unto the 
 Father not merely in power but in essence also. He 
 then runs through all the chief definitions of the Faith 
 put forth by the Easterns, the Dedication Creed at 
 Antioch 34 1, 1 the Creed of Sardica 343, 2 the Creed at 
 Sirmium against Photinus 35i, 3 explaining the heresy 
 of Photinus and the errors in the various creeds. 
 They must not, he says, be surprised that the Faith is 
 so often explained. The storm of heresy has made 
 it necessary. He only tells them what he actually 
 knows, and then he makes this serious statement that 
 with the exception of Eleusius 4 and a few with him the 
 greater part of the " inhabitants of the ten provinces of 
 Asia among whom I dwell are ignorant of the true 
 God." 
 
 Then he proceeds to explain to the Gallican bishops 
 his own faith ; and since his faith, which is also theirs, 
 though they are far removed from each other, is not 
 endangered, yet in the East it is held by but few bishops, 
 and he would state in detail this faith by which he 
 would be judged. He holds strongly to the term 
 homoousios. Like Phoebadius he is impressed by, and 
 must speak of the deceitfulness of the bishops, some of 
 whom deceive the emperor himself, and drive into exile 
 those who contradicted them. The authors of the 
 
 1 Sozomen, H.E. iii. 5 ; Socrates, ii. 8 ; Ath. De synod. 25. 
 
 2 S&z. iii. 12. 
 
 3 S&z. iv. 6 ; Soc. ii. 29 ; Ath. De synod. 27 5 Mansi, iii. 257. 
 
 4 Socrates, H.E. ii. 40 ; De synod. 63. 
 
vi TRIALS OF HILARY OF POITIERS 165 
 
 Sirmium Creed were always deceitful, and the subscrip- 
 tion of Valens and Ursacius he regards as very insincere. 
 At last -he comes to the Nicene Creed and repeats it, 
 and says that it alone must be upheld. True, eighty 
 bishops opposed it but the Creed was adopted by 3 1 8 
 bishops. 1 He is conscious, however, of an objection. 
 What of those who voted for the term homoousios 
 like Hosius, and are now silent about it ? Why is 
 Hosius silent ? 2 It is because of his age and his desire 
 for peace before he dies, and no one else is silent. 
 
 He earnestly, therefore, appeals to them to put away 
 all suspicion, and to exclude from their midst all occasion 
 of strife. 3 They might, perhaps, accept the term 
 homoiousios as far as it will go, but not to the exclusion 
 of the stronger and orthodox term. He would have 
 them think of the many holy priests who have accepted 
 it, and how God will judge them if by their acts they 
 anathematise them. But for himself he cannot accept 
 the term homoiousios because he does not know what 
 it means. 4 He holds to the orthodox faith but words 
 fail him to explain it. He would not have them cling 
 to catchwords, which may have different meanings to 
 different minds, but rather cultivate a catholic heart, and 
 then he adds the remarkable statement that he had 
 been baptized 5 and a bishop for some time and had not 
 heard the Nicene Creed until he went into exile, but 
 the Gospels and Apostles had taught him the meaning 
 of the truth involved in the term homoousios as 
 compared with the term homoiousios. 
 
 i " Do not,'* he continues, " let us condemn our fathers 
 in God. Do not let us rouse the heretics to anger lest 
 while we charge others with heresy we ourselves en- 
 
 1 Hil. De synod. 84. 
 
 2 ... 87 " oro vos, ne quisquam alius ex his practer senem Osium et ipsum 
 ilium nimium sepulchri sui amantem reperiatur, qui tacendum esse existimet de 
 utroque." 
 
 3 91 "oro vos, fratres, adimite suspicionem, excludite occasionem." 
 
 4 Ibid. " homoiousion nescio nee intelligo nisi tantum ab similis essentiae 
 confessione." 
 
 5 " Regenerates quidem et in episcopatu aliquantisper manens fidem Nicaenam 
 nunquam nisi exsulaturus audivi." 
 
1 66 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 courage it. Your part," he says, " is clear, to act in 
 common, and to take counsel together so that as hitherto 
 you have remained firm in the faith you may preserve 
 it with a good conscience and that you may ever keep 
 that to which you now hold. Remember me in my 
 exile in your holy prayers. I know not whether 1 it 
 shall be my joy to return to you, or whether I am 
 destined to die here. My wish is, dearest brethren, 
 that God and our Lord would keep you safe and 
 unstained unto the day of His appearing." 
 
 His great work on the Faith of which we have 
 already spoken, and on which he was now engaged, and 
 this separate treatise "on the Synods" were not the 
 only works which Hilary produced. His influence at 
 last over his diocese had been won through his constant 
 preaching and teaching. His commentary on the 
 psalms 2 of which the greater part have come down to 
 us, consists of comments given in church in a simple 
 and concise way to the people assembled, and after the 
 reading of some psalm. His commentary on St. 
 Matthew 3 consists of thirty-three chapters on selected 
 passages from the Gospel. It is probably the result of 
 the earlier years of his episcopate and is of a more 
 literary character. It is valuable not merely as afford- 
 ing us revelations of his mind but also because of the 
 indication it gives of the conditions under which he 
 lived, and of the extracts he offers us of the vetus Itala 
 text of the Bible, the text in general use in the West 
 before Jerome's editio vulgata had appeared. 
 Letter It was while in exile that the mind and heart of 
 
 to Abra. Hilary were disturbed by another anxiety, and this of a 
 domestic character. 4 It is not improbable that he had 
 
 1 92. There is some uncertainty as to his meaning. 
 
 2 The Tractates or Sermons on the Psalms comprise Psalms i., ii.,'li.-lxii., cxviii.- 
 cl. and also xiii., xiv., Ixiii.-lxix. The Homilies on Psalms ix. and xci. are probably 
 spurious. Cf. Zingerle's edition, Vienna Corpus, Preface, p. xiv. The notation of 
 the psalms is that of the old Latin. 
 
 3 Migne, Pat. Lot. vol. ix. p. 918. 
 
 4 Migne gives us the letter to Abra in P.L. vol. x. p. 49. Fechtrup, in Wetzer- 
 welte's Encyclopaedia, has rejected this letter, and refuses to accept the existence of this 
 
vi TRIALS OF HILARY OF POITIERS 167 
 
 been married, and when he went forth from Gaul he 
 is said to have left behind his only child, a daughter 
 whose opening womanhood demanded a father's care 
 and advice. Whether he left behind also a wife or 
 whether she was dead before his exile is uncertain. 
 The existence of Abra * his daughter seems to rest on 
 evidence too strong to be rejected. 
 
 While he was in Phrygia he had received a letter 
 from his daughter telling him of an affair of love, and 
 how that the young suitor for her hand was good and 
 rich and well able to provide for her. His reply is one 
 of the most touching pieces of early Christian literature, 
 so natural and so possible that one cannot reject it. 
 He could not reprove his child. There was no ground 
 for condemning the union. And yet he had in his 
 exile formed other thoughts concerning her future, and 
 one feels as one reads the letter that he cannot but have 
 formed these plans concerning his child and talked of 
 them with her when in earlier years there was no 
 thought of marriage. Now in reply to her letter he 
 must tell her once more about them, and of the dream 
 he had dreamed concerning her. He tells her how in 
 his dream he had been told of a young man who 
 possessed a pearl of great price and a robe of inestimable 
 value, which, if any should be worthy of it, would 
 make them sound and safe in life and endow them with 
 
 daughter Abra. The letter, however, seems to me to be so characteristic of Hilary 
 that I cannot put it aside. If Hilary had been ordained after middle age there is 
 every probability of his marriage, and his complete devotion to the Nicene cause in 
 later life accounts for his silence on his private life. Cf. l'Abb6 Barbier's Vie de 
 St Hilaire and compare it with the beautiful mediaeval poem " The Pearl," edited 
 by Gollancz, 1891. The mystic garment and the pearl appear a good deal in 
 Gnostic literature. Cf. the " Hymn of the Soul " in the Acta Judas Thomas. A. A. 
 Bevan, Texts and Studies. 
 
 1 Venantius Fortunatus who, two centuries afterwards, was the successor of 
 Hilary in the See of Poitiers, and who wrote a life of his predecessor, the earliest we 
 possess, mentions her not only in reference to this letter but also in reference to her 
 dedication as a religious by her father on his return home. Cf. 6 and 13 j Mai 
 (Nova Bibl. Patrum, i. p. 475) writes the name Apra. Erasmus was the first to 
 reject it, A.D. 1523, but obviously the style in which a man would write to his 
 daughter would differ somewhat to that in which he expressed himself in theological 
 treatises. Gregory of Tours mentions a certain Apra quaedam religiosa whom St. 
 Martin cured of a fever. Greg. Tours, De miraculis S. Martini, ii. 31. 
 
1 68 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 riches beyond all ken. When then he heard of him 
 he determined in his dream to go and see him, and 
 after a long and dangerous journey at last he reached 
 his home, and when he saw him he fell on his face in 
 awe and reverence. He was indeed fairest of the fair 
 and in his sight none could stand. " And as," he 
 continues, " I knelt before him he asked me what I 
 wanted and what petition I desired to make. I told 
 him I had heard of the pearl he possessed and of his 
 robe of special kind, and I would have him grant them 
 to me. I had indeed a daughter whom I dearly loved, 
 and it was for her that I desired the pearl and mystic 
 garment. Then after a time he replied and said : ' I 
 know you desire this robe and pearl for your child and 
 I will show you what are the properties of them. 
 Whoever possesses this pearl is never ill, or grows old, 
 or dies, and the robe never wears out, and the moth 
 does not injure it nor dirt soil it but it ever is such as 
 it is.' So I begged these gifts from him, and he pro- 
 mised to give me them, but he said : ' Whosoever wears 
 this robe can wear no other, and the pearl which I will 
 give you is such that none can wear it who wears any 
 other jewel/ And then before he gave them to me he 
 asked if my child would accept these conditions, and so 
 I write to you, my child, and would ask you to keep 
 yourself for this robe and jewel, and should any offer 
 you other garments and ornaments x you should say : * I 
 am waiting for another garment on account of which 
 my father stays so long in exile for he is seeking for 
 it and I cannot have that if I have ought else/ ' 
 Hilary as So meanwhile he sends to his child Abra a morning 
 a Hymn an( j an evenm qr hymn, perhaps the earliest in the Latin 
 
 Writer. 111 -111 
 
 tongue, but the hymns have not survived, and what 
 have been substituted for them are clearly of a later 
 date. 2 
 
 1 How characteristic this is of Hilary's contempt for jewels ! Cf. Comment. 
 Psalm, cxviii. Ain 1 6. 
 
 2 It is impossible, as Dr. Watson hns shown, pp. xlvi, xlvii, to accept the two 
 hymns printed by Migne, " Lucis largitor splendide " and " Ad coeli clara non sum 
 
vi TRIALS OF HILARY OF POITIERS 169 
 
 Each age has indeed its own ideals, but human 
 affections link all generations in one common experience, 
 and the self-sacrifice of the converted wealthy Aquitanian 
 is conspicuous through all his life. 
 
 We have already stated how Basil of Ancyra and 
 his fellow Semi-Arians had drawn up a confession of 
 faith in protest against the "blasphemy of Sirmium," 
 and had presented it to the emperor. The Creed 
 would probably have been accepted by Constantius, 
 and perhaps would have been proposed for general 
 acceptance had not later intrigues prevailed. The 
 proposal was first of all met by the suggestion of one 
 general council for the whole empire, and that was to 
 have been held at Nicomedia. An earthquake, how- 
 ever, on August 24, 358, 1 nearly destroyed the town, 
 and it was no longer capable of receiving so large a 
 number of bishops. Then the emperor accepted the 
 suggestion of two simultaneous councils, the one in the 
 East and the other in the West, and the two places 
 mentioned were Ancyra and Ariminum. 2 The Council 
 
 dignus sidera," as composed by Hilary. His love of hymns is shown in his Tractates 
 on the Psalms Ixiv. 12 and Ixv. i and 4 " progressus ecclesiae in matutinorum et 
 vespertinorum hymnorum delectationes maximum misericordiae Dei signum est 
 canticum enim vocis officium est." Jerome in preface ii. to Com. on Ep. to Galat. 
 refers to Hilary's efforts : " Hilarius in hymnorum carmine Gallos indociles vocat " ; 
 and Isidore of Seville (De off. Eccl. i. 6) refers to Hilary as the first of Latin hymn- 
 writers : " carmine floruit primus." In his Liber de viris inlustribus, c., Jerome also 
 mentions a Liber hymnorum as among Hilary's works. In Spain his hymns were 
 wont to be sung in church in the seventh century (cf. Cone. Tolet. iv., Mans, ix. 
 622), and in the eighth century hymns ascribed to him were known and used in 
 Ireland. The Bangor Antiphonary (H.B.S. 1893, Part i), fol. 3, gives us a 
 " Hymnum Sancti Hilari de Christo hymnum dicat turba fratrum," and this also is 
 found in the Irish Liber Hymnorum (H.B.S. 1898) and attached to it a preface 
 which contains some traditional matter not altogether to be rejected. Beda 
 mentions the hymn, " Hymnum dicat," but not the author. Kayser, in 
 Beitr'dge xur Geschichte und Erkl'drung der Sltesten Kirchenhymnen, regards this 
 hymn as that to Christ as God sung before daybreak by the early Christians of 
 Bithynia. In 1884 Signor Gamurini discovered at Arezzo in an eleventh-century 
 MS. a portion of the lost treatise of Hilary De mysteriis, and at the end of these 
 fragments some further portions of these hymns under the title " Incipiunt hymni 
 ejusdem." Cf. Gamurini, S. Hilarii tractatus de mystfriis et hymnis, Rome, 1887. 
 A critical edition of these three with some valuable emendations of the text has been 
 given us by Dr. A. J. Mason (J.T.S. vol. v. p. 413), and he is disposed, and I think 
 on very good grounds, to accept them as genuine. Dr. Bernard also in his edition 
 of the L.H. (H.B.S. vol. xiv.) accepts the hymn " Hymnum dicat " as Hilary's. 
 Cf. also Dr. Walpole's article, J.T.S. vi. 599. 
 
 1 S&z. iv. 1 6. 2 Athan. De syn. i. 7 ; Philostorg. iv. 10. 
 
BIRKBECK LECTURES 
 net in May 359,* and there 
 
 ~ 
 
 of the bishops, 2 
 
 _, i i _ ^ 
 
 . ^ ~ 
 
 Faith. There 
 
 ~_~_~ ~ ~~ . ~_ T ~ ~ r L ". i. i -". c 
 
 and a cruii was produced, 
 
 rf r -.. -. ._ 
 fli^Bfl^nK ^JH -T~- 
 
 * A * * ^X .^ 
 
 eHH^j^nan, anu it ^vas asreGQ. 
 this to the Council for adoption. It is 
 
 of the finttigi for the 
 year are placed at the head of k. Valens and Ursacius 
 
 Creed and tried to force its 
 
 "and 
 on the side 
 
 f^f jut lu M!< ijjBj-l ^rw^9Wv1 fv\ 'J r a~^t^ llt^ ^^LI ifiif {*rf&A 
 
 This third Sbunuaa or Dated Creed omitted the word 
 
 r- tl -*-* - TT-t g, -_^ _ 
 
 FauKr in ail tnmgs as tne rioty Dciipcures say anu 
 ~. i z'-~.~ '- When some rdnctance was shown towards its 
 
 to 
 
 _.-- * ** - - 
 
 , nKHOp Of UbIUUge, IS 
 
 - j _ j 
 
 ^.r:i_c_. 
 
 rf. !. i. I^M . -c^j- _^ < * f-_ *_ . 
 me onnouox vvcstBrn nsnops Dy agreeing ID a 
 
 ' J *^*" of varioos points of Ariamsm.* Since, 
 
 -^ -^ 
 
 ^U "m^t *ui t't A^^* tl^ ^Mar^r^M 
 
 to 
 
 of the resnk of the d 
 tea of 
 
vi TRIALS OF HILARY OF POITIERS 171 
 
 The other bishops were kept at Ariminum to await the 
 pleasure of Constantius. The emperor was about to 
 start * for the Persian War when the delegates reached 
 Sirmium, 2 and Constantius did not hide from them his 
 displeasure at the result of the Council. He bade the 
 delegates remain at Nice in Thrace until he should 
 return. Against them, as against their comrades at 
 Ariminum, there at once arose a persecution in order 
 to compel them to accept the Dated Creed. The 
 winter was coming on, and the bishops were anxious to 
 return to their dioceses, and Taurus was instructed to 
 use his influence to compel acceptance, until only 
 fifteen should remain obdurate. When the number of 
 irreconcilables was reduced to that figure, they were all 
 to be sent into exile. 3 Two Gallican bishops, Phoebadius 
 of Agen and Servatio of Tongres, 4 were among the 
 most strenuous of those who resisted. Yet why should 
 they not sign it ? Were they not making an idol 5 of 
 the term Homoousios ? Everything was done to make 
 them doubt their own judgment, and at last in despair 
 they signed the third or Dated Creed of Sirmium, 
 accepting for themselves as a mere approximation to 
 the truth that which others regarded as a full declara- 
 tion of it. Well might St. Jerome say, 6 " The world 
 groaned and was astonished to find itself Arian," and 
 Sulpicius Severus, 7 in his Chronicle^ records the foul 
 ending of a synod which began so bright with promise 
 " concilium bono initio foedo exitu consummatum." 
 
 In this same year, but rather later, the Eastern 
 Council which was to have assembled at Ancyra came 
 together at Seleucia. 8 Among the bishops was the 
 exiled Hilary of Poitiers. Many among the Easterns 
 
 1 Amm. Marcel, xix. a. 17. 
 
 8 Socrates, ii. 41 j S6zom. iv. 9. * Sulp. Sev. CVtre*. ii. 44. 
 
 4 Ibid. " constantissimus inter cos habebatur noster Focgadius et Servatius 
 Tungrorum episcopus." 
 
 5 Rufinus, i. (x.) 21. 
 
 6 Jerome's Orthodox} et Lucijcriani dialogs " ingcmuit totus orbis et Arianum 
 sr esse miratus est." 
 
 7 Sulp. Sev. Cfiron. ii. 44 " bono initio foedo exitu consummatum." 
 * Cf. Hil. Contra Const, j Socrates, ii. 39 ; S6. iv. ^;. 
 
i;2 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 had imagined that the Western bishops were Arian, 
 and Saturninus of Aries had done his best to make 
 them think so. Hilary * now was able to show the 
 real state of affairs, and what he said produced a great 
 effect. As at Ariminum, an attempt was made to 
 obtain general acceptance for some creed which fell 
 short of the Confession of Nicaea. The Creed which 
 was proposed at Seleucia was that known as the 
 Dedication Creed of Antioch of A.D. 34 i, 2 a creed 
 which had the appearance of orthodoxy, but fell far 
 short of that of Nicaea. The majority of the bishops 
 signed it, and it was evident that the Semi-Arians, the 
 party which Hilary regarded as hopeful and as on the 
 road to orthodoxy, were in the ascendant. But the 
 Acacians perceived this, and induced the praetor 
 Leonas, who had acted as the imperial commissioner, to 
 dissolve the Council. Then they sent off delegates 
 to Constantius as did the Semi-Arians, but the Acacians 
 had got the emperor's ear, and the Semi-Arians found 
 him by no means friendly. 3 Meanwhile at Nice the 
 persecution had gone on, and on October 10, 359,* the 
 delegates were informed of what had occurred at 
 Ariminum, and at last, watched and isolated from aJl 
 who could give them advice, the delegates at Nice 
 accepted the Dated Creed of Sirmium even with the 
 words " in all things " left out. 5 
 
 In January of the next year, 360, Constantius, who 
 was now at Constantinople, had a conference with the 
 Acacians, and agreed to depose Aetius, 6 the patriarch 
 of Constantinople ; and he ordered that the Creed of 
 Ariminum should be imposed on all, and severe 
 treatment should be dealt out to any who would not 
 accept it. 
 
 It has been necessary to state in brief the events of 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 42 " et primum quaesitum ab eo quae esset Galliarum fides." 
 
 3 Hil. De synod. 3 ; Soz. H.E. iii. 5. 
 
 3 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 45. 4 Soz. iv. 33. 
 
 5 Ibid, j and S. Basil, Ep. 244 ; and Hil. Contra Const. 12. 
 
 6 Theodoret, ii. 27 ; S6z. iv. 24. 
 
vi TRIALS OF HILARY OF POITIERS 173 
 
 the last two years, in order that we may the better 
 understand the action of Hilary. 
 
 After he had been asked at Seleucia the views of 
 the bishops of Gaul we lose sight of him, and not a 
 word is said as to his signature of the Creed of 
 Ariminum or of that generally accepted at Seleucia. 
 We cannot imagine his name as lost among the many 
 bishops who were induced to sign it. Probably as a 
 spectator, and not having a see in the East, he was 
 not called upon to sign. It would appear, however, 
 that he was present at the Conference at Constantinople 
 in January 1 360, and that he was given the opportunity 
 of presenting to Constantius his second appeal for the 
 kinder treatment of the orthodox bishops. He even Hilary 
 applied for permission to discuss theological matters 
 with the emperor, and this, to his sorrow, was not 
 allowed. There are two letters of Hilary to the 
 emperor which belong to the year 360 ; the one, Ad 
 Constantium Augustum^ belongs to the very beginning 
 of the year, and the other, Contra Constantium 
 imperatorem, to the very end. The first is an earnest 
 appeal, the second is a violent invective. In the first 
 he writes as one who hopes that good may come from 
 this appeal ; in the second he writes as one in despair, 
 and who is prepared to give his life for the cause he 
 has at heart. It would seem, then, that the two letters 
 belong to the time before and after the Conference : 
 that the appeal was written after the Council at Seleucia 
 was dissolved, and before the Conference had taken 
 place ; and that the latter, the Invective, was composed 
 when he learned of the condemnation of the Semi- 
 Arians through the intrigues of the Acacians at 
 Constantinople. After the Conference there was to 
 Hilary no hope except through violent measures. He 
 may have perceived that the Caesar Julian 2 was already 
 a power capable of checking the action of Constantius, 
 but it is not certain that the Invective was ever 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 45 ; Hil. Contra Const. 2 Cf. Dr. Watson's Introd. p. xxi. 
 
174 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 delivered to the emperor. 1 The future may have 
 made it impossible to present it. But early in 360 
 events occurred which allowed of Hilary's return. 
 The sentence of exile was not repealed but kept in 
 abeyance. We do not know the actual terms of the 
 permission, nor as events turned out is it likely that they 
 were carefully considered. Hilary's exile 2 was over, 
 and now he could return to his beloved Poitiers. 
 
 The former of these two letters, 3 his appeal to 
 Constantius, began with that evidence of sincerity 
 which took away the appearance of flattery : " I am 
 aware, O most pious emperor, that the things which by 
 many concerning certain affairs are brought before the 
 bar of the public conscience are wont to be regarded 
 either as weighty or trivial, according to the authority 
 of those who discuss them, and in these matters, such 
 opinion, the despising or the magnifying of the man, 
 arouses an uncertain feeling towards the intelligent 
 study of the matter. But as I am to speak to you 
 concerning things divine, there is no fear with me, 
 such as generally prevails, for I know that you are 
 good and religious, and since God has given me this 
 opportunity of appearing before you, my duty and my 
 conscience does not so move me that I should say 
 before you that which would be undignified. I am a 
 bishop, and in full communion with the bishops of 
 Gaul although I am in exile, and I have to administer 
 my diocese by means of my priests. I am an exile, 
 not because I have committed any crime, but because 
 I am the victim of a faction, and I was removed by 
 wicked men who sent lying messages from the Synod 
 to you, pious Emperor, and not because I had been 
 convicted of any crime. Nor have I an unimportant 
 witness of my complaint in my lord Caesar, thy Julian. 4 
 
 1 Jerome in his Cat. scrip, ecc/., writing of Hilary, says of the Invective, 
 "quern post mortem ejus scripsit." Hilary, however, was not a man to have 
 written thus after he had heard of the emperor's death. 
 
 2 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 45. 3 Migne, Pat. Lot. x. p. 563. 
 
 4 Ep. ii. ad Const, "neclevem habeo querelae meae testem, dominum mcum 
 religiosum Caesarem tuum Julianum." 
 
vi TRIALS OF HILARY OF POITIERS 175 
 
 It is no unknown fact that all the charges by which 
 they procured my banishment were false. He, the 
 author of all these deeds, Saturn inus, is now in the 
 city. 1 Trusting to you, O deluded Augustus and 
 deceived Caesar, I open my conscience to you, that if 
 anything be unworthy of the sanctity of a bishop, or if it 
 is shown to me that I have done anything against the 
 uprightness of a layman, I will not ask pardon for my 
 sacerdotal rank, but retirement, and as a layman I will 
 grow old 2 in penitence. We decide a form of faith 
 concerning God yearly 3 or even monthly, we regret 
 the decrees we drew up, we defend those we regret, 
 we anathematise those who defend them, either in our 
 own forms we condemn others, or in others we 
 condemn our own. 
 
 " The Faith of the Gospel," he continues, " is cor- 
 rupted. It is surely best and safest for us to go back to 
 that first and only evangelic faith confessed at our 
 baptism." He then asks the emperor to listen to him 
 and he will speak to him the words of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, whose exile and priest he is. " You seek the faith, 
 O Emperor. Hear it then, not from new documents 
 but from the books of God. Heretics tear these scrip- 
 tures to pieces. Realise that this is not a question of 
 philosophy but the very teaching of the Gospel. 
 
 " Listen, I beg of you, to the things which are written 
 concerning Christ lest by the heretics there should be 
 preached to you things which are not written. Hearken 
 to those truths of which from those books I will tell you. 
 Put your trust in God. I am about to tell you, with a 
 due respect for your realm and your faith, the things 
 which promote peace in the East and the West, openly 
 and in public, in face of a Council which may dissent 
 from what I say, and notwithstanding a controversy 
 which is now notorious. 1 * 
 
 But Constantius would not hear him, however careful 
 
 1 Ef. K. ad Const. " iste Saturninus . . . intra hanc urbem est." 
 
 2 " Sed intra penitentiam laici consenescam." 
 
 3 "Annuas atque menstruas de Deo fides decernimus." 
 
176 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 he was to explain beforehand the lines of his argument, 
 and the appeal ends somewhat abruptly. ' The idea had 
 filled him with zeal but something had probably shown 
 him the fruitless character of his quest. 1 So he con- 
 cludes: " those things I in the Holy Spirit so believed 
 that I cannot be taught anything beyond this faith con- 
 cerning Jesus Christ. I do not wish for a moment to 
 show any disrespect to the faith of the other bishops 
 but I must cling to my baptismal creed and my know- 
 ledge of evangelic truth in that and so far disagree with 
 them." 
 
 Hilary *~~ The final letter to Constantius is written in a very 
 agamst different style. In the earlier of these two letters the 
 bishop was pleading for the peace of the Church to the 
 conscience of the emperor. Now the officer of the 
 Church falls back upon his spiritual authority and 
 denounces in no uncertain terms. Then he tried to 
 stand by the emperor and realise his difficulties. Now 
 he steps aside. It is no longer an appeal to Augustus. 
 He writes now against the man whose very title of 
 emperor was a claim of sovereign power. It is Hilary 2 
 against Constantius the emperor. " It is now," he 
 begins, " time to speak. The time for keeping silence 
 has passed by. 3 Christ is expected because Antichrist 
 prevails. The people cry for their shepherds because 
 their hirelings have fled. Let us offer our lives for the 
 flock for robbers have entered in and a raging lion 
 wanders about. By these summonses let us go to 
 martyrdom because the angel of evil has changed 
 himself into an angel of light. 4 Let us enter by the 
 Door for no one goeth to the Father except through the 
 Son. Let us stand before the judges and powers of 
 this world in the Name of Christ for blessed is he who 
 
 1 All through Hilary's writings he reveals himself as a man constantly writing 
 and making use of what he has written for the time being. The letter was the 
 inspiration of the moment, and later events had made him despair. 
 
 2 Migne, P.L. x. p. 577. 
 
 3 "Jam praeteriit tempus tacendi. Christus exspectatur quia obtinuit anti- 
 christus." 
 
 4 " Angelus satanae tramfiguravit se in angelum lucis." 
 
vi TRIALS OF HILARY OF POITIERS 177 
 
 shall endure unto the end. All who hear me or have 
 personally known me are my witnesses that long ago, 
 foreseeing how great the danger for the Faith was, 
 after those excellent men Paulinus, 1 Eusebius, Lucifer 
 and Dionysius were sent into exile, I with the bishops 
 of Gaul separated ourselves from communion with 
 Saturninus, Ursacius, and Valens. 
 
 " Nor will I speak now rashly or inconsiderately 
 though I have for so long kept silence. Would that the 
 Almighty God and Creator of all and the Father of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ would grant to my age and leisure 
 that I might by this declaration of my faith fulfil the 
 ministry He has conferred on me, He and His only 
 begotten Son, in these Neronian and Decian times. 2 
 We might fight then openly and with confidence against 
 those who deny our doctrines, who torture us, and would 
 cut our throats. 
 
 " What then is the character of the persecution of 
 Constantius ? We fight against a persecutor who tries 
 to receive us, against a foe who ever offers us blandish- 
 ments, against Constantius 3 the Antichrist. He does 
 not proscribe us that we should be deprived of our 
 lives but he endows us that we may gain spiritual death. 
 He does not crush out our life by imprisonment and so 
 give us liberty, but he gives us posts of honour in the 
 palace which bring us into bondage. He does not 
 flagellate our backs but he compresses our heart. He 
 does not behead us with a sword but he kills our souls 
 with gold. He does not threaten us publicly with the 
 stake and fire but he sets alight privately for us the 
 furnace of Gehenna. 
 
 " Perhaps," he proceeds, " some may think him rash 
 for thus calling Constantius Antichrist. Whoever will 
 regard that as mere petulance and not the duty imposed 
 by faith let him read the words which John said to 
 
 1 Paulinus, bishop of Trier, Eusebius of Vercelli, Lucifer of Cagliari, and 
 Dionysius of Milan. 
 
 2 " Tuum ministerium Neronianis Decianisque temporibus explessem." 
 
 3 " Contra hostem blandientem, contra Constantium antichristum." 
 
 N 
 
178 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Herod : ' It is not lawful for thee to do this,' and 
 ' Thou, miscreant, dost release us out of this present 
 life but the King of the world shall raise us up/ 
 * u I say to thee, Constantius, what I would have said 
 to Nero, what Decius and Maximianus would have heard 
 from me. 1 It is against God you fight, against his 
 Church you rage, you persecute His saints, you hate 
 those who preach Christ, you take away true religion." 
 
 Then he goes on to notice what the Churches of 
 Alexandria, Trier, Rome, and Toulouse have suffered in 
 the loss of their bishops and the wicked transference of 
 prefects, the election of officers, the corruption of the 
 people, and the moving of the soldiers so that Christ 
 should not be preached by Athanasius or any others. 
 
 " Then," he continues, " you turned your arms 
 against the Faith of the Church in the West. 2 ' In the 
 time of Nero it would have been allowed to one to flee. 
 With blandishments you removed Paulinus of blessed 
 passion, and you spoiled the Church of Trier of such a 
 bishop. \ You silenced him and wearied him by exile 
 even unto death. At Milan you disturbed by your 
 terrors that most religious flock. Your officers entered 
 their very church and dragged the bishops from the 
 altar. The clergy were killed with blows and the deacons 
 wounded with leaden thongs. Then concerning the 
 Synod of Seleucia 2yth September 359. 1 found there 
 such blasphemies as pleased you," and he goes on to 
 refer to the Homoiousion and Anomoean heresies. 
 
 " This only I ask. Why do you condemn those 
 proposals which are your own ? So it comes to this. 
 All that was formerly approved you order to be con- 
 demned, and what has ever been regarded as wicked 
 that you now call on all to approve." 
 
 The epilogue ends as follows : " Hear the sacred 
 meaning of the words of Scripture, hear the unshaken 
 constitution of the Church, hear the faith professed by 
 
 1 "Quod ex me Decius et Maximianus audirent." 
 2 " Postquam omnia contulisti arma adversum fidem occidentis." 
 
vi TRIALS OF HILARY OF POITIERS 179 
 
 your father, hear the general feeling which condemns 
 heresy, and realise that you are the enemy of divine 
 religion, the enemy of the memory of the saints, and the 
 rebellious heir of your paternal piety." l 
 
 We must turn now to Gaul and see what it was that Gaui 
 had justified Hilary in this his so strong invective, a HHM 
 denunciation which would have brought immense harm exile. 
 on the Catholics had it not served to indicate to the 
 Caesar Julian the feelings with which he must soon 
 reckon, i Shame and repentance had possessed the 
 Gallican bishops who in the late autumn of 359 had 
 been forced to sign the Dated Creed at Ariminum, and 
 in the summer of 360 they assembled at Paris 2 and 
 formally acknowledged their errors and repudiated their 
 action. 'They may or may not have received Hilary's 
 Tractate De synodis, but as the authors of all the 
 trouble they excommunicate Auxentius the bishop of 
 Milan, Ursacius, Valens, Gaius, 3 Megasius, and Justinus. 
 They denounce as apostates those who occupied the sees 
 of the exiled bishops, and they execrate and depose 
 Saturninus 4 of Aries. Hilary's invective against 
 Constantius, which was probably circulated in the West 
 in the winter of 360-361, may have been a move on his 
 part to procure from Julian 5 his sanction for these 
 resolutions of the Paris Synod. 
 
 Political events of great moment were also occurring 
 in Gaul. Julian by his fair and effective government 
 had won the respect of all. Paris had been his head- 
 quarters, and it is probable that he was in Paris at the 
 time of this assembly of bishops, and gave his sanction 
 to all that was done at it. In April 360 6 he received 
 
 1 " Et intellige te divinae religionis hostem et inimicum memoriis sanctorum et 
 patcrnae pietatis haeredem rebellem." 
 
 2 Hil. Hist. Frag, xi., Migne, P.L. x. p. 970 ; Mansi, iii. 358. 
 
 3 These were the legates from Ariminum ; cf. Frag. x. p. 705. 
 
 4 " Saturninum . . . excommunicatum ab omnibus Gallicanis episcopis charitas 
 vestra cognoscat," Frag. xi. ut supra. 
 
 5 Cf. Dr. Watson's Introd. pp. xxxix. xl. 
 8 Zosimus, iii. 8. 
 
i8o BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 orders from Constantius to send to him for his Eastern 
 War certain picked legions that were with him in 
 Gaul. * The thought of such a campaign was, however, 
 too much for the soldiers. They surrounded his 
 palace at Paris and proclaimed Julian as Augustus. 1 
 
 The object of his deep suspicion, Julian, whom he 
 had so cruelly and unjustly treated, was now the open 
 rival of Constantius. He sent his uncle word of what 
 had occurred, and as the year passed he moved south- 
 ward on his way to Italy and the decisive struggle. 
 The winter of A.D. 360-361 2 he spent at Vienne, and as 
 a Christian observed there the festival of the Epiphany. 
 Gaul has henceforth nothing to do with Julian or his 
 apostacy. She knew him as an honest administrator, 
 a man of well-disciplined life and of philosophic mind, 
 and one who had scrupulously avoided any interference 
 in the internal affairs of the Church. 3 During the five 
 years of his rule 4 the frontier was protected, peace and 
 safety were promoted in the country, and Gaul had 
 enjoyed the prosperity to which she had for long been 
 a stranger. As the rival forces drew near there was 
 no time for Constantius to trouble himself concerning 
 the bitter words of Hilary. If he ever heard them 
 read he had not now the power to avenge them. The 
 great bishop of Poitiers had passed out of his dominions, 
 and during the autumn and winter of A.D. 360-361 
 Hilary was passing through Italy on his journey to his 
 beloved Aquitaine. 5 On his road he fell in with 
 Eusebius, bishop of Vercelli, 6 who was also returning 
 from exile, and it is recorded that their journey seemed 
 as a triumphal procession, so successful were they in 
 
 1 Amm. Marcel, xx. 4. 14 ; Eutrop. Brev. x. 15. i. 
 
 2 Ibid. xx. 6 and 10. 3. 
 
 3 For a good estimate of Julian cf. Boissier, La Fin du paganisme , i. p. 85. 
 
 The heathen Ammianus was devoted to him. See also the Gratiarum actio of 
 Claudius Mamertinus, 4, p. 247 ; Baehrens, *//. Panegyrici ; Orosius, vii. 29. 
 
 4 Aurel. Victor, 42 ; Eutropius, x. 14, 15. 
 
 6 " Cum de exsilio regressus intravit Pictavis, summo favore plaudebant omnes 
 per iter," Fort. Vit. Hil. ii. 
 
 Prosper, Ctiron., A.D. 361, " Hilarius episcopus ... ad Gallias rediit." 
 6 Rufinus, Eccl. hist. i. 30, 31 ; Soz. v. 13. 
 
vi TRIALS OF HILARY OF POITIERS 181 
 
 Illyricum and Italy in re-establishing the Faith of Nicaea. 
 At Rome, for there seems evidence that Hilary went 
 there, he must have met with the inglorious but 
 penitent Liberius. It is said also, that during their 
 journey through Italy, Hilary made public his work 
 De fide, or as it was afterwards called De Trinitate} 
 
 The Church of Gaul would welcome home its great Return 
 confessor of the Faith. At Poitiers, perhaps, there was of Hilary * 
 a wife as certainly there was a daughter to greet him. 
 Phoebadius of Agen, and Servatio of Tongres, would 
 rejoice at his return, for he had come back to help 
 them in their great struggle. Rhodanius of Toulouse 
 had died in exile, but the Church there would be glad 
 that their neighbours in Aquitaine could support them 
 in their bereavement. Saturninus had ceased to be 
 feared, and in the next year had ceased to be bishop of 
 Aries. Strangely enough, in Aquitaine itself Saturninus 
 had the support of Paternus of Perigueux, who was 
 likewise deposed in 362. 2 It is probable that Hilary 
 reached Poitiers in the summer of 361. There was 
 naturally much to be done, and the work of teaching 
 the orthodox faith and the re-establishment of the lapsed 
 dioceses had to be undertaken. Hilary's name stood 
 for Gaul. He was the guide and leader of the Church 
 there for nigh another decade. ' It was the boast of 
 Sulpicius 3 that Hilary had cleansed Gaul from the 
 defilement of heresy. 
 
 Hilary, however, soon felt that he must go v to the 
 assistance of the Church in Northern Italy. Auxentius, 
 the Arian, had been placed over the See of Milan 
 by Constantius when Dionysius was sent into exile, 
 and the feverish zeal of Hilary longed for the deposi- 
 tion of this advocate of Arianism. It is probably in 
 the autumn of 363 4 that he left Poitiers and came to 
 
 1 Rufinus connects the issue of the De Trinltate with this work of reconciliation 
 in Italy. 2 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 45. 7. 
 
 3 Ibid. " illud apud omnes constitit unius Hilarii beneficio Gallias nostras 
 piaculo haeresis liberatas." 
 
 4 Liber contra Auxentium. Hilary in his letter against Auxentius tells us 
 
1 82 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Italy, and his opposition to Auxentius became dangerous 
 to the peace of the city. In the early summer of 364 
 Valentinian had been proclaimed emperor 1 on the 
 death of Jovian, and it is said that when Valentinian 
 went to Milan in the summer of that year, Auxentius 
 assured him of his orthodoxy. 2 It was obviously 
 impolitic for Valentinian to allow at such a time a 
 theological controversy to disturb the peace of Milan. 
 Thus, in the autumn of A.D. 364, Hilary was by 
 order of the emperor sent back to Aquitaine, 3 and the 
 re-establishment of the orthodox in Milan was left to 
 slower and less heroic measures than those congenial to 
 the enthusiastic bishop of Poitiers. 'He was no longer 
 allowed to take part in the expulsion of Auxentius, but 
 he was still able to write, and perhaps before he left, 
 or perhaps soon after his return to Gaul, he wrote a 
 letter "Against the Arians and against Auxentius of 
 Milan." In this he refers to the "grievous edict" 4 
 of the emperor which ordered his deportation to Gaul, 
 and relates the efforts he had made to drive out 
 Auxentius from Milan, the story of his appeal to 
 Valentinian, his audience with the quaestor and the 
 bishops who advised him, and of his ultimate failure. 
 The story was probably well known, but he would 
 have his efforts understood by all, so that they might 
 recognise and beware of the blasphemies of Auxentius. 
 
 So Hilary returned to Poitiers, and for seven years 
 laboured on, the Apostle of Aquitaine, the teacher and 
 guide of St. Martin and the great bulwark of the 
 orthodox Faith in the West. Of those years we have 
 no record. They were doubtless spent in quiet work 
 in Gaul, where order and organisation were especially 
 needed. 
 
 nearly all we know of his movements this year. His letter is addressed to 
 " dilectissimis fratribus in fide paterna manentibus." 
 
 1 Philostorgius, viii. 9 ; Amm. Mar. xxvi. i. 4. 
 
 2 Lib. contra Aux. 9. 
 
 3 Ibid, "jubeor de Mediolano proficisci, cum consistendi mihi in ea invito 
 rege nulla est libertas." 
 
 4 "Cum edicto gravi." 
 
vi TRIALS OF HILARY OF POITIERS 183 
 
 1 We cannot overestimate his work for Gaul and for 
 the orthodox faith. He saved the West from Arianism 
 as Athanasius had saved the East. As a writer he 
 was a forerunner of Augustine, and the first book of 
 his work entitled De Trinitate proves his skill as 
 a writer and his clearness as a thinker. The brilliancy 
 of Augustine as a theologian and religious writer drew 
 away the attention of mediaeval Christendom from the 
 splendid work of the first of Western theologians, 
 though as a hymn-writer he seems to have been 
 remembered for several centuries. Gaul was fated 
 to pass through the trials of barbaric invasion, and the 
 long period of Visigothic Arianism accounts for the 
 absence of those traditions at Poitiers which would have 
 told of his private life and his personal influence. Yet 
 Sulpicius Severus, who in his youth may have seen 
 him, and who must often have heard of him from the 
 lips of St. Martin, could say with deliberate judgment 
 in his Chronicle that it had been by the help of Hilary 
 alone that Gaul was freed from the stain of heresy. 1 
 He died on the I3th of January A.D. 368,* and his death 
 was indeed a loss to the Church in the West. The 
 ancient office of the diocese of Poitiers faithfully de- 
 scribed the feeling of Gaul when it records that at the 
 death of Hilary " Gaul shed tears." 3 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 45. 7. 
 
 a Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 45 " Hilarius sexto anno postquam redierat in patria obiit." 
 But Prosper, Chron. gives it "Lupicio et Jovino coss. (i.e. 369) Hilarius episcopus 
 moritur." 
 
 3 Brev. Pictav. ad laudes, January 13, " Gallia lachrymas fundat." In the 
 Besan9on Missal of the seventh century, St. Hilary is linked with St. Martin in the 
 clause " Communicantes " of the Canon, Mabillon, Mus. Ital. i. p. 207. Our 
 own Sarum Breviary, Temporale, p. ccclv. in Bradshaw and Wordsworth's edition 
 for the 6th Lectio at Matins, January 13, says, "ubi saepius factis synodis 
 mundum jam paene totum errore confusum per eum ad viam veritatis fuisse 
 adductum, confitetur lingua multorum." Fortunatus, in his life of Hilary, tells us 
 of a heathen maiden Florentia who was converted by Hilary in Seleucia, and who, 
 following him to Poitiers, lived and died there. The story rests on the authority 
 of Fortunatus alone, and is extremely unlikely, though Hilary is very reticent 
 concerning his private affairs. From Fortunatus the story got into the Breviary, 
 Lectio vi. ut supra, " Florentia puella gentilis, servum Dei advenisse vociferando 
 teatabatur, etc." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 ST. MARTIN OF TOURS 1 
 
 Martin of IN the spring or early summer of A.D. 356 there arrived 
 a ^. p o iti ers a young religious enthusiast whose fame in 
 after years was to rival and even to surpass that of St. 
 Hilary. Serious-minded, and burning in his zeal for 
 the cause of Christ, he had with some difficulty obtained 
 his discharge from the army of the Caesar Julian, and 
 from the borders of the Rhine had crossed Gaul to 
 place himself in the hands of the great bulwark of 
 orthodoxy of the Western Church. He was Martin 
 
 1 The chief authority for the life and labours of St. Martin is Sulpicius Severus, 
 who was a devoted disciple, often going about with him on his missionary journeys. 
 He must have written very soon after the saint's death and perhaps in 404. The 
 best edition of his works is that of Halm in the Vienna Corpus. In addition to 
 his Vita S. Martini he wrote also three epistles on monasticism and three dialogues 
 comparing eastern and western monasticism, and in all St. Martin, his labours and 
 his miracles, is the chief topic. Fifty years later Paulinus of Perigueux wrote a 
 metrical life of St. Martin and dedicated it to Bishop Perpetuus of Tours (461). It 
 consists of six books and is almost entirely a versification of Sulpicius' life. 
 Towards the end of the sixth century Fortunatus, who became Bishop of Poitiers 
 599, wrote a metrical life in four books and dedicated it to Gregory of Tours 
 575595. He adds very little to our knowledge, and by his time every addition 
 only went to prove the extravagance of the cult. Gregory of Tours not only gives 
 us a work in four books, De miraculh S. Martini, but gives us numerous incidental 
 notices in his Historia Francorum, and yet further statements in the lives of his 
 predecessors at Tours. Sulpicius and Gregory are the two really important sources 
 of our knowledge of the saint. 
 
 The student should also consult Tillemont's Memoires pour servir, vol. x., and 
 also a very useful though uncritical work La Vie de S. Martirt by Prior Nicholas 
 Gervaise of Tours (1699). The Vie de 8. Martin by the thirteenth-century poet 
 Peau Gatineau has been edited by Bourasse (1860), and is of interest though not of 
 value. A very useful work by Bulliot and Thiollier (1892), La Mission et le culte de 
 S. Martin d'aprh les legendes et les monuments populaires dans le pays eduen, gives us 
 much information as to St. Martin's work between the Loire and the Saone, and 
 is of distinct value. Reinken's Martin <von Tours (1866) is thorough and useful, and 
 Lecoy de la Marche's S. Martin (1881) is interesting and helpful though uncritical. 
 Adolphe Regnier's S. Martin (1907) is a useful popular narrative. 
 
 184 
 
CH.VII ST. MARTIN OF TOURS 185 
 
 the Pannonian, in time to become one of the most 
 popular saints of France. He was born in Sabaria 1 
 (Sarvdr), a town of upper Pannonia, and now in the 
 kingdom of Hungary, and was the son of a private 
 soldier who had attained the rank of a military tribune. 
 His parents were pagans, and it was not till they 
 had been removed to Pavia that he seems to have 
 come into contact with Christians and had become 2 a 
 catechumen. Sulpicius tells us 3 that when he was 
 twelve years of age his zeal for religion was so great 
 that he desired to retire into a desert, i.e. to go off to 
 some country district and there live a life of strict 
 asceticism. Some one had probably been telling him 
 the story of St. Antony of Egypt, who was still alive, 
 and whose strange life-story (when told him) was 
 destined to produce a similar desire in St. Augustine. 
 It can hardly be said, however, that the monastic move- 
 ment, which was only now beginning in Egypt, and had 
 still to gain the proportions and the influence which 
 it acquired half a century later, had as yet produced 
 any effect in Western Europe. St. Athanasius had re- 
 mained in exile in Trier (336-338) and had possibly told 
 there of this work of St. Antony, but the times were 
 not such as would allow of the story being easily and 
 rapidly spread. His parents, being pagans, were averse 
 to this desire to become a Christian, and it was against 
 their will and probably without their knowledge that 
 he fled to a church in Pavia and was accepted as a 
 postulant under instruction for baptism. Looking 
 back over his active life of more than fifty years of 
 work in Gaul, and with the profound reverence of an 
 admiring and loving disciple, Sulpicius says that 4 his 
 mind was ever occupied with the thought of churches 
 
 1 Sulpicius Severus, Vita S. Mart. ii. i " Sabaria Pannoniarum oppido oriundus 
 fuit." 
 
 2 Ibid, "cum esset annorum decem ... ad ecclesiam confugit sequc cate- 
 chumenum fieri postulavit." 
 
 3 Ibid, "mirum in modum totus in Dei opere conversus, cum eseet annorum 
 duodecim eremum concupivit." 
 
 4 Ibid, "animus tamen aut circa monasteria aut circa ecclesiam semper intentus." 
 
1 86 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 and monasteries, a statement which is hard to reconcile 
 with the fact that he postponed his baptism until he 
 was eighteen years of age. But, 1 in obedience to the 
 law, as the son of a veteran he had to be enrolled in 
 the army, and his father gladly brought him forward 
 for that purpose when he was fifteen years old. He 
 entered, therefore, a cohort 2 of the guards and served 
 as a soldier under Constantius and Julian. Now 3 
 
 1 Cf. Codex Theod. vii. Tit. xxii. " De filiis veteranorum," a law of Constantino, 
 319. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, cap. xvi. and xvii. vol. ii. Henry's edition. The 
 grant of lands to the father seems to have been made with the condition that his 
 son, if he had one, should join the army. Cf. the case of the veteran Victor 
 and his martyred son Maximilianus. 
 
 2 Snip. Sev. ut supra "inter scolares alas sub rege Constantio deinde sub Juliano 
 Caesare militavit." 
 
 8 The chronology of the life of St. Martin seems to depend on one statement of 
 Sulpicius, which, if accepted, not only contradicts his other dates but has also pro- 
 duced confusion in the chronological statements of Gregory of Tours. We will 
 first of all give the statements of the two historians and reserve our comment and 
 conclusion to the end. 
 
 Sulp. Sev. Vita Mart. cap. z "sub rege Constantio deinde sub Juliano Caesare 
 militavit " j cap. 3 " cum esset annorum duoviginti ad baptismum convolavit . . . qua 
 Martinus expectatione suspensus per biennium fere posteaquam est baptismum 
 consecutus solo licet nomine militavit." 
 
 Dial. ii. 7 "quia Martino semel tantum in vita jam septuagenario non vidua 
 libera, non virgo lasciviens, sed sub viro vivens regina servivit et ministravit edenti 
 non cum epulante discubuit." 
 
 Greg. Tours, Hist. Franc, i. 36 "hujus imperii anno undecimo cum post 
 excessum Diocletiani pax reddita fuisset ecclesiis, beatissimus praesul Martinus apud 
 Sabaria Pannonia civitatem nascitur." 
 
 Ibid. i. 48 " Arcadi vero et Honori secundo imperii anno sanctus Martinus 
 Turonorum episcopus . . . octagesimo et primo aetatis suae episcopatus autem 
 vicesimo sexto . . . migravit ad Christum . . . Attico Caesario consulibus." 
 
 Ibid. ii. 43 "a transitu ergo sancti Martini usque ad transitum Chlodovechi 
 regis . . . supputantur anni 112." 
 
 Ibid. v. 37 "hoc tempore et beatus Martinus Galliciensis episcopus obiit . . . 
 in quo sacerdotio impletis annis plus unum triginta miris plenus virtutibus migravit 
 ad Dominum." 
 
 Ibid. x. 30 " tertius Sanctus Martinus anno octavo Valentis et Valentiniani 
 episcopus ordinatus . . . obiit apud Condatensem vicum urbis suae anno octagesimo 
 primo aetatis." 
 
 Our first date is that which Sulpicius gives us concerning Martin's military 
 career under Constantius and the Caesar Julian. Now Constantius was not in 
 Italy and Gaul until 353 and Julian was raised to the rank of Caesar in 355. 
 Moreover, Martin, who has a difficulty in leaving the army, as soon as he obtains 
 permission goes to Poitiers and finds St. Hilary there. But the Bishop of Poitiers 
 was sent an exile to Phrygia in the autumn of 356. Therefore Martin's military 
 service in Gaul must have been during the years 353356. Sulpicius tells us he 
 was twenty years old when he got his discharge (cxauctoratui), and therefore he 
 must have been born between 333 and 336. 
 
 Now all the confusion arises from the remark of Sulpicius that Martin was a 
 septuagenarian when he was entertained at supper by the wife of Maximus, i.e. 386. 
 Clearly Sulpicius desired to screen Martin from any suspicion of impropriety. The 
 monastic spirit was stronger in the disciple than in the master, and he shrank 
 
vn ST. MARTIN OF TOURS 187 
 
 Constantius did not go to Gaul before the summer of 
 
 from the idea of a man under fifty supping alone with a woman. He knew Martin 
 was apparently old, and perhaps he was older in appearance than in years. If, 
 however, we drop out this idea that in 386 he was seventy years of age all our 
 difficulties disappear. 
 
 When we turn to Gregory we find that he makes this his starting-point. Martin 
 was seventy in 386, and therefore he was born in 316. The Edict of Galerius was 
 in 310, but peace had come to Gaul in 305 when Constantius Chiorus became 
 Augustus, and Gregory's eleven years bring us to 316. The date of his death he 
 gives us as the second year of Arcadius and Honorius when Caesarius and Atticus 
 were consuls, i.e. the year 399. His second calculation is that Martin died 112 
 years before Chlodowig. The Merwing king died in 511 and therefore this date 399 
 is confirmed. The next date is an approximate one, he was consecrated in 372 
 and thirty years more or less would give us approximately 399, especially as Gregory 
 seems rather to be reckoning from the death of Litorius to the accession of St. 
 Bricius. 
 
 Now if Martin was born in 316 and was enrolled in the army at fifteen his 
 military life must have begun in A.D. 331 and in A.D. 356 he had been serving for 
 twenty-five years. But the service in the cavalry and the guards varied from ten to 
 sixteen years, and Martin could have claimed his discharge legally j cf. Cod. Theod. 
 vii. Tit. xx. 4 and Tit. xxii. on the enrolment of the sons of veterans. Martin 
 was already emeritus, and as he did not wish for any commoda militiae he could 
 easily have retired ; cf. Lucan, i. 344. The difficulty he found arose from his youth 
 and his short service. He had only served half his time, and it was the favour ot 
 Julian and no just claim of Martin's which made it possible for him to go off to 
 Poitiers in 356 j cf. Gibbon, Dec. and Fall, Bury's ed. vol. ii. p. 180, and also the 
 attempt of Augustus to keep veterans nominally under the colours as vexil/arii t 
 Tacit. Ann. i. 17. 
 
 Gregory had two reliable dates, i.e. of Martin's consecration 372 and his death 
 399, and all his other calculations are wrong because they are all based on the idea 
 that he was seventy in the year 386. Even this does not fall in with the idea that 
 he was eighty-one at his death in 399. We must consider then once more the 
 statements of Sulpicius. That Martin had served under the clement Caesar Julian 
 was a fact which he must have learnt from Martin himself, and about which it 
 seems to me no doubt can be entertained. That Martin was seventy years old in 
 386 is an opinion of Sulpicius about which great doubt exists. He was most anxious 
 to screen Martin from all scandal. For a man like his hero, who had lived a very 
 hard and strenuous life, his appearance probably suggested an age greater than his 
 own. Of this very time and of a contemporary of St. Martin, and perhaps even a 
 colleague in military service in Gaul, the historian Ammianus Marcellinus who 
 calls himself " adolescens," Mr. Glover, in Life and Letters in the Fourteenth Century, 
 p. 21, says : " Men vary so much in their ideas of what is young and what is old that 
 it would be hard to guess his exact age in 357." If then he was twenty years old 
 in 356 he was thirty-six when he became Bishop of Tours, was fifty when he met 
 the empress at Trier, and died in his sixty-fourth year. His dates then according 
 to this calculation are as follows : birth 336, consecration 372, and death 399. 
 Sulpicius' statement, Dialogue, iii. 13. 6, that Martin lived sixteen years after the 
 consecration of Felix and his communion with Ithacius would give us 402 as the 
 date of his death, which contradicts Gregory's doubly vouched 399, and hardly 
 allows time for Sulpicius' retirement to his retreat near Narbonne when in 404 he 
 wrote his Dialogues. 
 
 Gregory had before him definite historic documents belonging to the See of 
 Tours, and though he goes wrong when he follows Sulpicius as to Martin's age he 
 seems very definite as to his consecration and death. The party of Bricius must 
 soon have made it impossible for Sulpicius to remain at Tours or Marmoutier, and 
 at Narbonne he had only to rely on his devotion and his memory of a master he 
 dearly loved. 
 
i88 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 353, and he was succeeded in the command of the 
 Roman forces by his nephew Julian, whom he had 
 made Caesar in the late autumn of 355. As a recruit 
 Martin was conspicuous among his fellow-soldiers for 
 his simplicity of life, his patience, humility and frugality. 1 
 He had one slave as his companion servant and he 
 seemed to his comrades to be more like a monk than 
 a soldier. The first years 2 of his career were probably 
 spent at Milan and then at Lyons, being moved north- 
 ward into Belgica and towards the Rhine as he developed 
 in physical strength and increased in military experience. 
 In the pages of his biography we meet with him first 
 of all at Amiens 3 in garrison and in the depth of 
 Amiens, winter. He had been a soldier for three years. His 
 possessions consisted of his arms and the clothes he 
 wore. One day he noticed at the entrance of the town 
 a poor ill-clad beggar who pleaded for help and pity 
 from those who passed by. So intense was, however, 
 the cold and the consequent suffering that, absorbed as 
 they were in the thought of their own comfort, no one 
 had taken any notice of the man. Martin felt that 
 as no one acted as he should towards the beggar God 
 had perhaps reserved the duty for him to perform, and 
 yet he knew not how he could help him. The man 
 needed clothes, and he had only his military cloak. 
 But he did not hesitate. Drawing his sword 4 he cut 
 his cloak in two and shared it with the beggar and 
 returned to the camp with only half his outer garment. 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. ibid. 2 " multa illius circa commilitones benignitas, mira caritas, 
 patientia vero atcjue humilitas ultra humanum modum." 
 
 2 For the movements of Constantius and Julian 354-356 cf. Ammian. Marcell. 
 bks. xv. and xvi. 
 
 3 Sulp. Sev. ibid. iii. i " obvium habet in porta Ambianensium civitatis pauperem 
 nudum " j cf. also Venant. Fort. i. 56 : 
 
 " occurrenti igitur portae Ambiancnsis egeno 
 qui sibi restiterat chlamydis partitur amictum 
 et fervente fide membris algentibus offert." 
 
 4 Cf. Paulinus Petricord, De vlt. Mart. i. 85 : 
 
 <l stringitur invictus sine crimine vulneris ensis 
 et mediam resecat miseratio prodiga partem, 
 pejorem sibi credo legens." 
 Sulpicius says the same in simpler prose. 
 
vii ST. MARTIN OF TOURS 189 
 
 When his comrades saw him some were inclined to 
 laugh, but others had recognised Martin's sincerity 
 and secretly approved of his conduct. That night 
 as he slept Martin dreamt, and it seemed as if Christ 
 came to him clad in the half of the cloak which he 
 had given to the beggar, and to the company of angels 
 which stood by he heard Him say : l " Martin, still a cate- 
 chumen, covered me with this robe." " Truly," remarks 
 Sulpicius, " was the Lord mindful of His own words 
 which He before had said ' In that ye did this to one 
 of the least of them ye did it unto Me.' ' The occur- 
 rence and the dream impressed themselves on Martin's 
 mind as evidence of the goodness of God, and they 
 caused him to decide without delay to prepare himself 
 for that baptism which he had for so long put off. So 
 at the age of eighteen he was baptized, 2 and then it 
 was he determined to leave the army. For two years 
 he served at the earnest entreaty of his tribune, whose 
 mess-fellow he was, and because the tribune promised 
 that when his tribuneship was over he, too, would forsake 
 the world, but his service during this period was only 
 nominal. It was not, however, easy for him to retire 
 from the army and especially at this time. Julian had 
 just taken up the command and an irruption from 
 Germany was considered imminent. In the spring of 
 356 Julian 3 had gathered together all his available 
 forces in the territory of the Vangiones near their town 
 of Worms, and as he was expecting an attack from the 
 Alemanni he proceeded, as was customary on the eve 
 of an engagement, to distribute doles of money to the 
 soldiers. So one by one they were summoned into the 
 presence of the commander, and at last Martin was 
 called to come and receive his donation. Martin, 
 however, told 4 the commander that he was the soldier 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. ibid. iii. 3 " Martinus adhuc catechumenus hac me veste contexit." 
 
 2 Ibid. iii. 5 " cum esset annorum duodeviginti ad baptismum convolavit." 
 
 3 Ibid. iv. i " Julianus Caesar coacto in unum exercitu apud Vangionum civitatem." 
 This campaign is probably referred to in Ammian. Marcell. xvi. 3. 3. 
 
 * " Hactenus, inquit ad Caesarem, militavi tibi : patere ut nunc militem Deo : 
 donativum tuum pugnaturus accipiat, Xti ego miles sum : pugnare mihi non licet." 
 
1 9 o BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 of Christ and must fight in His battles, and he could 
 not therefore accept a gift which pledged him to fight 
 in the conflict then imminent. Naturally Julian was 
 angry at this refusal and taunted him on his cowardice, 
 saying that it was out of fear of the coming battle 
 that he wished to escape the performance of his duty. 
 Thereupon Martin, to give proof of his courage and to 
 show that he was influenced by other motives than 
 those of which Julian had thought, offered to march 
 next day unarmed 1 at the head of the troops, and he 
 said he would make a path for himself by the sign of 
 the cross, penetrating through its influence the ranks 
 of the enemy. His offer was immediately accepted by 
 the commander, whose sense of duty was not affected 
 by this pretence of bravery, and so Martin had to 
 prepare himself for the test he had himself suggested. 
 On the morrow, however, ere an opportunity to carry 
 out his offer had arrived, the enemy sued for peace 
 and the battle did not take place. Then Martin got 
 his discharge, and at the age of twenty left the army 
 of Julian to begin his great warfare as a soldier of 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 Martin When Martin reached Poitiers he found Hilary 
 
 at Poitiers. en g a g e j \ n that great controversy for the faith to 
 which he had devoted his life. The letter to Con- 
 stantius in protest at the persecution which took place 
 at and after the Council of Milan had been written, 
 and probably Hilary had already received his summons 
 to attend at the Council of Beziers. So at present 
 Hilary could do little for Martin, and who could say 
 what might happen to the courageous bishop of Poitiers ? 
 Perhaps it was the circumstances of the time that 
 induced Hilary to desire 2 to confer the diaconate on 
 his new disciple. He would fain leave behind him to 
 minister in his church and in the town one so earnest 
 
 1 " Crastina die ante aciem inermis adstabo et in nomine Domini Jesu, signo 
 crucis, non clipeo protectus aut galea, hostium cuneos penetrabo securus." 
 
 2 "Temptavit autem idem Hilarius imposito diaconatus officio sibi eum artius 
 implicare et ministerio vincire divino." 
 
vii ST. MARTIN OF TOURS 191 
 
 and single-hearted. But the humility of Martin pre- 
 vailed, and he was merely admitted into the ranks of 
 the exorcists. 
 
 The two men could not have spent more than three 
 or four months together when Martin was seized with 
 a desire to visit and if possible to bring about the 
 conversion of his parents. Perhaps Hilary had already 
 received the notice of his exile, and the thought of his 
 journey eastward had suggested to Martin to accompany 
 him at least as far as Pannonia. But Martin was the 
 first to start off, and he told Hilary that in a dream l 
 he had received a call to go off to Sabaria and preach 
 the Christian Faith to his pagan relatives. Fifty years 
 afterwards Sulpicius writes of this proposal of Martin 
 as giving grief to Hilary, and says that in tears 2 
 Hilary pledged him to return, and warned him of the 
 dangers and trials that lay before him. But if Martin 
 was the first to leave Poitiers he certainly did not 
 return until the exile of Hilary was over. So in the 
 late autumn of 356 Martin set forth to cross the Alps 
 and almost immediately his troubles began. On the 
 road he fell among thieves, and while one would have 
 killed him with a swordstroke the other stayed his 
 comrade's hands, and having tied Martin's hands behind 
 his back took him aside, 3 and having robbed him of 
 all he had, proceeded to enquire who he was. The 
 conversation seems as if it was genuine, and probably 
 had been told to his younger brethren by Martin 
 himself. The prisoner, while bound and helpless, 
 preached Christ to his captor, and with such power 
 as to convince the man of the truth, and so the robber 
 
 1 "Nee multo post admonitus per soporem ut patriam parentesque quos adhuc 
 gentilitas detinebat religiosa sollicitudine visitaret ex voluntate sancti Hilarii profectus 
 cst." 
 
 3 '* Multis ab eo obstrictus precibus et lacrimis ut rediret." 
 
 3 " Qui cum eum ad remotiora duxisset percontari ab eo coepit, quisnam esset " } 
 Cf. Fortunat. Vita Mart. i. 8 1 : 
 
 "credit latro Deum dum praedicat iste colendum. " 
 and Paulinus, i. 21 : 
 
 " sed tamen ambo viam scite docuere sequendam 
 aggeris hie monstravit iter didicitque salutis." 
 
192 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 soon released him with a request that he would 
 remember him in his prayers. 
 
 From the passes of the Alps Martin made his way 
 to Milan, and there the devil * met him and enquired 
 whither he was going and on what quest, and told him 
 that whatever he did and wherever he went he, the 
 devil, would be present to hinder him. So St. Martin 
 exclaimed, " The Lord is my helper, I will not fear what 
 man can do unto me," and then the devil vanished, and 
 Martin had learnt a lesson which he never forgot, and 
 which made him see in all his warfare for Christ the 
 real author of all the opposition he had to overcome. 
 Illyricum and Pannonia, the country of Ursacius and 
 Valens, were centres of Arianism, and there was some 
 danger to Martin should he be found there, orthodox 
 and active and one who had come from Poitiers. But 
 while his father remained and died uninfluenced by 
 the preaching of his son, his mother was brought to 
 confess Christ, 2 and others, too, he brought round 
 Martin a to Christianity and to Catholicism. His labours, how- 
 reciuse. ever, were soon bruited abroad and he was shortly after 
 driven from Illyricum, and on his return westward took 
 refuge in Milan. But Auxentius was now the bishop of 
 Milan, a pronounced Arian, and when he heard that 
 Martin from Poitiers had set up a monastery in the 
 suburbs 3 he drove him promptly away, and so he re- 
 tired and formed in the islet of Gallinaria 4 near Alassio 
 a refuge such as he desired. 
 
 For two years Martin the exorcist lived a hermit's 
 life in this little and lonely island, and here he acquired 
 those monastic habits which in their austerity gave 
 him that remarkable influence which he afterwards 
 exerted. 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. Vita Mart. 6 " progressus cum Mediolanum praeteriisset, diabolus in 
 itinere . . . se ei obvium tulit." 
 
 2 Ibid. vi. 3 "matrem a gentilitatis absolvit errore, patre in mails perseverante." 
 s Ibid. " Mediolani sibi monasterium statuit, ibi quoque eum Auxentius . . . 
 
 gravissime insectatus est." 
 
 4 Ibid. "... Cedendum itaque tempori arbitratus ad insulam cui Gallinaria 
 nomen est, secessit comite quodam presbytero magnarum virtutum viro." 
 
vii ST. MARTIN OF TOURS 193 
 
 What then was this monasticism 1 of which in Gaul 
 Martin was regarded as the founder ? It was of a 
 very elementary character, the beginnings of asceticism 
 and of a disciplined life, but there is no mention of 
 a code of rules, and St. Martin's code, as far as 
 he had one, seems not merely to have been of his 
 own creation but also for himself only. It is very 
 doubtful whether he ever put in writing any set 
 of rules for daily observance, his work was too varied 
 and his life too active for any guidance but that 
 of simple Christian principles. Sulpicius, his disciple 
 and biographer, was a great admirer of Egyptian 
 monasticism, and in his Dialogues it is clear that he and 
 his two companions wished to find in St. Martin in the 
 West a greater wonder-worker than any of those in the 
 Thebaid. The real Martin must therefore be sought 
 for as it were between the lines of his admirer's record. 
 The lack of chronological order and the absence of 
 sufficient indication of place and time make it impossible, 
 for the most part, to say whether an event occurred 
 before or after he had been made a bishop. Ascetic 
 he certainly was, but he was also a great missionary, 2 
 and as a bishop he did not confine himself even to the 
 territory of Tours, and as an abbot he seems to have 
 moved about on missionary effort in Aquitaine. It was 
 the stern simplicity of his life, the austerity as com- 
 pared with the prevailing gluttony 3 and drunkenness, 
 which impressed itself on the people and, with his 
 personal courage and commanding character, gave him 
 his wonderful influence over all with whom he came 
 in contact. Among Christians, and specially among the 
 clergy, the sense of a need of greater strictness of life 
 was growing. This austerity had not yet been recognised 
 
 1 Cf. Bright's Age of the Fathers, vol. i. p. 131. 
 
 2 " Martin ne borna pas la croisade centre 1'idolatrie au territoire de Tours, il passa 
 dans les dioceses voisins et de proche en proche arriva dans Test a Autun, dans 
 le nord jusqu'a Chartres et Paris." Amedee Thierry, Hist, de la Gaule, 1847, iii. 
 463. 
 
 3 Cf. Salvian, De gubernatione Dei, vi. 73 " lugubre est referre quae vidimus 
 . . . decrepitos Xtianos . . . gulae ac lasciviae servientes." 
 
 O 
 
1 94 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 as commendable. Men admired his holiness, sincerity, 
 and zeal, without knowing exactly what it was that 
 produced this moral influence. The spirit of asceticism, 
 as necessary for the age, we see in its early development 
 in the last half of the fourth century, and in the first 
 half of the century that followed we find it permanently 
 rooted in the minds of Western Christendom. In a 
 subsequent chapter it will be necessary to consider 
 this subject at greater length. Martin was a pioneer, 
 but Martin was not like Honoratus or John Cassian ; 
 he certainly was not the organiser like Benedict of 
 Monte Cassino. 
 
 The sojourn at Gallinaria is but an episode in the 
 life of Martin. We know nothing about it. That 
 the three years' spiritual conflict ended in self-conquest 
 his after -story sufficiently assures us. He had one 
 companion, a priest of most virtuous life, and their 
 food consisted almost entirely of roots and vegetables. 1 
 Having taken some hellebore, his life was saved by 
 prayer and moral courage. Yet Martin knew what 
 was going on in the outside world, and when he heard 
 that Constantius had given permission to Hilary to 
 return to Gaul, and that already he was on his way to 
 Italy and would pass through Rome, he left Gallinaria, 
 hoping 2 to meet Hilary in Rome. It was probably 
 the late autumn of the year 360. Hilary, however, 
 had already been at Rome and had gone on towards 
 Poitiers when Martin reached the capital. So Martin 
 the exorcist, the ascetic, the incipient monk, disappointed 
 of his hope, followed his bishop to Poitiers, and must 
 have joined Hilary there very early in the year 361. 
 Martin at The meeting of the two friends after all their ex- 
 periences during these critical years was one of great 
 joy, and Hilary seems soon to have recognised the 
 
 1 "Hie aliquamdiu radicibus vixit herbarum." For a description of the two 
 islets opposite Cannes and three miles distant cf. Lentheric, The Riviera^ Eng. 
 ed. of Dr. West, pp. 352-368, and Alliez, Histoire du monastere du Lerin^ 1862. 
 
 2 Sulp. Sev. 6 " Romae ei temptavit occurrere, profectusque ad urbem est, 
 cum jam Hilarius praeteriisset 5 ita cum est vestigiis prosecutus." 
 
vii ST. MARTIN OF TOURS 195 
 
 change those years had produced on Martin. He 
 was still of great use to him for the evangelising of 
 Aquitaine, but not as yet along the lines of the 
 incipient diocesan organisation. For him, if he was to 
 stay and help him, some home must be found, not in 
 busy Poitiers, but in some more secluded retreat. Not 
 far from the city Hilary seems to have had a small 
 farm, about six miles to the south-west of Poitiers, and 
 this he gave to Martin as his new home and as a site 
 for his monastery. 1 Sulpicius gives the place no name, 
 but Gregory of Tours and the versifier Fortunatus 
 show us that it had already received a descriptive place- 
 name, Locociacum or Locotegiacum, afterwards known 
 as Liguge, the place of the little cells, a name which 
 clearly draws its origin from the beehive cells of the 
 monks. It was the first monastery in Gaul, the pattern, 
 probably, of many later groups of little cells, a place 
 which St. Patrick must have seen, the forerunner of 
 Bangor, Clonmacnois, lona, Inysvitryn, and Lindisfarne. 
 Here then at Liguge, with the necessary solitude 2 
 and yet in touch with Hilary, Martin settled down to 
 develop for Gaul that monasticism to which it owes so 
 much. Among his companions, of which the number 
 is not told us but which was probably small, was a cate- 
 chumen filled with an earnest desire to adapt himself to 
 the discipline of his master. Soon the young man fell ill, 
 and as it happened Martin was away. For three days 
 they thought he was dead, and the return of the saint 
 and his earnest attention to the apparently lifeless 
 patient, who subsequently recovered from the fever, was 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. 7 "haut longe sibi ab oppido monasterium conlocavit." Sulpicius 
 tells us very little about Liguge, and clearly it had not a name when Martin settled 
 there. Cf. Paulinus of Perigueux i. 296 : 
 
 " construit hie cellam fessis solacia membris, 
 nam mens plena deo caelesti in sede manebat." 
 
 Venant. Fort, seems to suggest that Hilary had founded the monastery before Martin 
 arrived to occupy it, i. 161. 
 
 2 Cf. Venant. Fort. i. 165 : 
 
 " concipiensque fidem cella omnes jussit abire 
 exclusitque foris foribus, sine teste relictus." 
 
196 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 soon related as if St. Martin had raised the catechumen 
 from the dead. 1 It was the beginning of the miracles 
 ascribed to him, and for two hundred years the list 
 of them increased during an age of credulity and 
 among people extraordinarily superstitious. The life 
 of Martin henceforth divides itself into two unequal 
 parts. There is the ten or eleven years of the 
 monastic home when he was chiefly at Liguge, 
 and then followed a quarter of a century or more 
 during which as bishop of Tours he persevered 
 in his marvellous evangelistic efforts, repeating at 
 Marmoutier the chief features of his life at Liguge. 
 His biographer tells us singularly little of the details 
 of his life, the places where he went, and the order 
 in which he visited them. To Sulpicius the most 
 important duty seemed to have been that of recording 
 his miracles in order to prove his great sanctity. We 
 are told of Amboise, Chartres, Paris, Trier, and Condes, 
 but as a rule he is content to describe the occurrence 
 as in vico quodam> in pago Aeduorum, or when he was 
 on a journey. In his Epistles and his Dialogues, three 
 each in number, he adds to our knowledge of the 
 miracles which were ascribed to him and incidentally 
 to the personal character of St. Martin himself, but he 
 rarely gives us a clear indication of time and place. 
 While he was at Liguge another miracle of restoring a 
 dead person to life was ascribed to him. As he was 
 passing through the lands of a certain nobleman 
 Lupicinus 2 he hears a great wail and is told that a 
 servant of the nobleman had hung himself and that his 
 body lay in a certain cell. Thither, therefore, St. Martin 
 went, and was with the man for some time alone and 
 finally brought him out alive and well to his astonished 
 comrades. We must, however, defer the consideration 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. 7 " . . . videt defunctum paulatim membris omnibus commoveri et 
 laxatis in usum videndi palpitare luminibus .... mirum spectaculum, quod videbant 
 vivere quern mortuum reliquissent." 
 
 2 Sulp. Sev. 8 "dum agrum Lupicini cujusdam honorati secundum saeculum 
 viri praeteriret." 
 
vii ST. MARTIN OF TOURS 197 
 
 of his labours as an evangelist, and treat of them 
 together, since it is impossible to assign them all to 
 their right place in his life's history. 
 
 His fame was certainly not confined to Liguge or to Martin, 
 Poitiers. In 37 1 the city of Tours lost its second *j* of 
 bishop. 1 Litorius or Ledorius, according to Gregory, 
 had been bishop there for thirty-three years, and his 
 work as an evangelist had resulted not only in a large 
 increase of converts but also, through the generosity of 
 " a certain senator," who gave his house for that 
 purpose, in the erection within the city of the first 
 Christian church. Evidently during his episcopate the 
 Cross seems to have been permanently established in 
 Tours, and the hostility of the heathen, which at first 
 had kept St. Gatian out of the town, was now restrained 
 by the increasing influence and numbers of Christian 
 citizens. A successor, therefore, had to be found, and 
 in time the neighbouring bishops assembled at Tours 
 to assist with the Christians in the city in the election 
 of a new bishop. The people had one wish and that 
 was to secure St. Martin. The abbot of Liguge had 
 doubtless often been seen in their streets, and the fame 
 of his sanctity was well known to them. But how 
 could they induce him to come to Tours? Their 
 invitations and their entreaties were in vain. 2 He 
 would not leave his monastery. Then they had resort 
 to stratagem, as years afterwards Hugh of Chester 
 did in order to bring Anselm from Bee to England. 
 The wife of a certain Rusticius 3 feigned to be ill, and 
 Rusticius in his alarm went to Liguge, and on his 
 knees besought St. Martin to come to her assistance. 
 So they brought him on the road from Poitiers to 
 Tours, and as he drew near to the city the crowds 
 increased, and it seemed as if he was being brought as 
 
 1 Greg. Tours, Hist. Franc, x. 31. 2 and 3 and 48 ; Snip. Sev. Vita Mart. 9. 
 
 ' 2 Sulp. Sev. 9 " erui monasterio suo non facile posset." 
 
 3 Ibid. " Rusticius quidam . . . uxoris languore simulato ad genua illius 
 provolutus ut egrederetur obtinuit." Cf. Freeman's William Rufus, vol. i. cap. iv. 
 P- 3*3- 
 
198 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 a prisoner to the tribunal. Martin was the worthiest 
 they knew of to be their bishop and the city would 
 be happy under such an episcopate. A few, and they 
 apparently some of the bishops who had assembled for 
 the election, were not quite satisfied. They remarked 
 on his undignified person, his mean garments, and his 
 unkempt hair ; and the multitude in their enthusiasm 
 regarded these bishops as impious in their criticism. 
 Among the chief opponents of this popular choice was 
 Defensor, 1 bishop of Angers, and the minds of the 
 people were troubled with the thought of the objections 
 which he voiced. Then they gathered in the little 
 church for the solemn act of election, and for the 
 service which would naturally precede it. But the 
 crowds were so great that the appointed lector was 
 unable to gain admission, and as they waited inside, 
 ignorant of the cause of the lector's absence, one of 
 them took up the psalter and opened it at random. 
 The verse on which his eyes first fell seemed pro- 
 phetic : 2 " Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings 
 hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, 
 that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger " 
 ut destruas inimicum et defensorem^ as the older Latin 
 version has it. Could anything be more convincing ? 
 It was the wish of the Almighty. Defensor of Angers 
 was certainly put to silence, and Martin was chosen 
 as the new bishop. So the exorcist of Poitiers, the 
 abbot of Liguge, became bishop of Tours and was 
 consecrated on the 3rd of July 372. Sulpicius, writing 
 the biography thirty years after this event, recognised 
 how great the change in the conditions of his life 
 must have been ; and tells us that St. Martin 3 re- 
 
 1 Defensor, bishop of Angers, appears as the first bishop of the see on all the lists 
 of bishops but nothing more of him is known than what Sulpicius here tells us. 
 
 2 Psalm viii. 2 "ex ore infantium et lactantium perfecisti laudem propter 
 inimicos tuos ut destruas inimicum et defensorem." The Vulgate reads "ultorem" 
 instead of " defensorem," a reading of the Vet. ItaL version ; cf. Commentary of S. 
 Bruno the Carthusian on meaning of the word Defensor. 
 
 3 Sulp. Sev. Vita Mart. x. " idem enim constantissime perseverabat qui prius fuerat ; 
 eadem in corde ejus humilitas, eadem in vestitu ejus vilitas erat : atque ita plentis 
 
vii ST. MARTIN OF TOURS 199 
 
 mained unaltered in character, the same in humility, 
 in constancy, and in zeal, and that he filled the office 
 of a bishop with dignity while he did not forsake his 
 calling as a monk. 
 
 On the right bank of the Loire about two miles Mar- 
 north-east of Tours the land rises somewhat precipitously moutier - 
 from the valley which the river has worn for itself. 
 The rock is a soft yellow sandstone and in many 
 places it has been pierced and hollowed into dwelling 
 places by the prehistoric cave-dwellers of the region. 
 Lying back from the river bank about half a mile 
 these caves must have afforded a retreat from the 
 dangers which from time to time beset the inhabitants 
 of a later period, and the tradition which regards these 
 caves as the refuge of St. Gatian, the first missionary 
 bishop of the district, is of too early a date to 
 allow of any doubt. Here it was that St. Martin 
 founded the second monastery in Gaul. 1 Marmoutier, 
 magnum monasterium, rapidly rose into celebrity and 
 vied with its later neighbour St. Martin's in Tours 
 for the protection and devotions of the Gallo-Romans 
 and the Franks. In later times the monastery stretched 
 out toward the river, 2 but for St. Martin it probably 
 consisted of the caves on the slope of the hills and a 
 few beehive huts at their foot. Here also we seem 
 to notice for the first time the beginnings of a monastic 
 system. At some time during St. Martin's episcopate 
 he had eighty monks living with him, men who seldom 
 left the monastery, whose occupation was prayer and 
 the copying of Holy Scripture, 3 who were content with 
 one meal a day and, in contrast to the drunkenness of 
 the age, abstained entirely from wine, and whose clothing 
 
 auctoritatis et gratiae, implebat episcopi dignitatem, ut non tamen proposition 
 monachi virtutemque desereret." 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. Vita Mart. x. ; Greg. Tours, Hist. Franc, x. 31. 3 5 cf. Chevallier, 
 Les Origines de Veglise de Tours, 1871 ; Longnon, Geographic de la Gaule, p. 276. 
 
 2 With the exception of a mediaeval gateway and the rock-hewn caves, the 
 entire monastery of Marmoutier was destroyed by the Revolutionists at the end of 
 the xviiith century. 
 
 3 Sulp. Sev. Vita Mart. x. " ars ibi exceptis scriptoribus nulla habebatur, cui tamen 
 operi minor aetas deputabatur : majores orationi vacabant." 
 
200 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 is described as of camel hair. Among the community 
 were not a few of noble birth, and far and wide men 
 were drawn to surrender themselves to this saintly 
 humility and patience, and Sulpicius is careful to tell us, 
 writing some thirty years after the monastery had been 
 founded, that many of the monks ultimately became 
 bishops, and hardly a canton existed which did not 
 desire to have a priest or a bishop from Marmoutier. 1 
 
 As bishop of Tours St. Martin seems to have 
 taken a prominent part in demanding from the 
 emperor that the principles of the Christian faith 
 should be recognised in the affairs of state. Four 
 times he made his way from the Loire to the Mosel 
 to demand from the emperor while he was staying at 
 Trier some clemency which otherwise would not have 
 been displayed. Within a year of his consecration 
 372-373, he travelled to the Court there, to demand 
 from Valentinian 2 some favour, the life perhaps of an 
 officer whom his cruelty had mercilessly condemned, or 
 the freedom of some who had been unjustly imprisoned. 
 Martin Whatever the object of his mission, his arrival at Trier 
 Trier*. was unwelcome news to Valentinian. The story is told 
 by Sulpicius in his second Dialogue. Valentinian had 
 married Justina, the widow of the usurper Magnentius, 
 and she was a bitter Arian, 3 and her influence on 
 Valentinian was a matter of alarm to the orthodox 
 bishops of Gaul. On arrival at the palace Martin 
 found the gates closed to him, and though he demanded 
 an entry he was refused admission. In his anxiety the 
 bishop took himself to prayer and for seven days 
 implored the help of God for the mission he had 
 undertaken. Then an angel bids him go again, and he 
 now finds the gates open and that permission was given 
 him to see the emperor. He pleaded then with him 
 
 1 Vita Mart. x. " pluresque ex eis postea episcopos vidimus, quae enim esset 
 civitas aut ecclesia, quae non sibi de Martini monasterio cuperet sacerdotem ? " 
 
 2 Dialogue, ii. 5. 
 
 3 " Une femme arienne Justine qui lui inspirait de mauvais sentiments et qui en 
 particulier travaillait a entretenir son aversion pour Martin." Regnier, S. Martin, 
 p. 148. 
 
vii ST. MARTIN OF TOURS 201 
 
 for protection and for greater care of the Church, and 
 suddenly, while the emperor was sitting in sullen 
 disregard, his chair caught fire, and the prayer and 
 courage of St. Martin alone preserved Valentinian from 
 a serious accident. 
 
 Two years afterwards we find St. Martin going once 
 more to Trier. It was in the year 37 5 * when Valen- 
 tinian was gathering his troops for that advance into 
 Illyria against the Sarmatae where he met with so 
 sudden and unexpected a death. It is probable that 
 his stay at Trier was connected also with the accession 
 of the youthful Gratian, whose interests Martin had 
 very much at heart and whose death eight years after- 
 wards he so deeply deplored. Two miracles are ascribed 
 to him during his sojourn at Trier and probably on this 
 occasion. A poor paralytic girl was on the point of 
 death. Her friends and relations were awaiting her 
 departure when the approach of Martin was announced. 
 The father then ran out and induced the bishop to 
 come to his aid. St. Martin had just entered the 
 church and at first was unwilling, but yielded to the 
 entreaty of others and went to the scarcely animate 
 child, and having blessed some oil, poured a portion 
 into her mouth. Soon the child began to speak again, 
 her limbs recovered their natural powers, and she was 
 restored to complete health. Apparently also at the 
 same time Taetradius, 2 of proconsular rank, had a 
 slave possessed of an evil spirit by which he was cruelly 
 tortured. When St. Martin was asked to help he bade 
 them bring the patient to him, but with terrible gnash- 
 ings the frenzied servant refused to leave his chamber, 
 and threatened all who came near him. So Taetradius 
 implored St. Martin to go to his house and see the 
 patient in these paroxysms of rage. But the master 
 was still a pagan and the bishop refused to go into 
 the house of one who was still defiled with heathen 
 
 1 Vita Mart. xvi. 
 
 2 Vita Mart. xvii. "semperque Martinum salutis suae aoctorem miro coluit 
 aftectu " j cf. George Fox at Mansfield-Woodhouse, 1649. 
 
202 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 practices. Then Taetradius promised to become a 
 Christian, and so St. Martin went to his house and his 
 influence on the slave resulted in a complete cure. As 
 for the master, he kept his promise, became a cate- 
 chumen, and was soon afterwards baptized, and ever 
 afterwards he recognised in St. Martin the author of 
 his soul's welfare. A second miracle 1 of a similar 
 kind, wrought " at the same time in the same town," 
 a miracle over the powers of evil that held possession 
 of the heathen mind, tends to show the extraordinary 
 moral influence which St. Martin possessed, and which 
 he did not refuse to make use of to the moral and 
 spiritual welfare of the people. That St. Martin should 
 venture to put his fingers into the open mouth of a 
 raging lunatic and dare him, if he had power, to bite 
 them is a proof of an influence not often given to men, 
 and at a time when such influence could greatly advance 
 the pure and wholesome doctrine of the Christian faith. 
 The third visit of the bishop to Trier occurred ten 
 years afterwards and under circumstances of some 
 danger. The rebellion of Maximus in 383 was 
 followed by the murder of Gratian at Lyons on the 
 25th of August of the same year. 2 St. Martin was 
 known as a friend of the youthful emperor who had 
 fallen, and while the usurping emperor might be 
 desirous to gain his allegiance, the inflexible character 
 of the bishop might make demands which would en- 
 danger his life. But a serious crisis had arisen, and 
 St. Martin felt that all must be ventured to prevent, if 
 possible, the affair ending in a tragedy. He had to 
 
 Martin plead for forbearance and he had to denounce injustice. 
 
 pleads for The s t or y o f PHscilliaii, his followers and his religious 
 
 Pnscilhan. . / ' 
 
 views, will form the subject or the next chapter. At 
 present we can only consider the action of St. Martin 
 in reference to it. The controversy had arisen in 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. Vita Mart. xvii. 5-7. 
 
 2 Ibid. xx. "qui imperatores unum regno alterum vita expulisset " j cf. Sozomen, 
 Eccl. hist. vii. 135 and Richter, Das ivestrom'ncher Reich besonders unter den Kaisern 
 Gratian, Valentinian II. und Maximus, 1865. 
 
vii ST. MARTIN OF TOURS 203 
 
 Spain, and Maximus had taken up the case which had 
 dropped from the dead hands of Gratian. In 385 
 Priscillian had been sent under imperial escort to Trier 
 on a double charge of heresy and immorality, and the 
 wealth he possessed created an interest in his execution. 
 The man, however, had never as yet received a fair 
 trial, and St. Martin felt that this was the case, and was 
 also strongly opposed to any prosecution for heresy. 
 The chief opponent of Priscillian was a Spanish bishop, 
 Ithacius, who had received some encouragement from 
 Gratian and hoped to win to his views the emperor 
 Maximus. Ithacius was a vain and bitter fanatic, and 
 when St. Martin urged him strongly to desist from 
 that unchristian persecution he did not hesitate to 
 denounce him as also a partisan of Priscillian. 1 With 
 Maximus, however, Martin had some success. The 
 emperor admired his courage and his consistency, though 
 to us it would seem as if his conduct was really an 
 instance of bad manners. Maximus was anxious to 
 gain his moral support. He could claim in his favour 
 that there had been no proscription, and if any had 
 fallen as the result of his usurpation they had fallen in 
 open battle. Would the bishop of Tours show his 
 friendship by partaking of a meal with him ? The day 
 was settled and Maximus invited his brother, his uncle, 
 the consul Evodius, and all the highest nobles of the 
 court. At last St. Martin consented to be present and 
 took with him as his companion one of his attendant 
 priests. In due time the wine was offered as usual to 
 the emperor, and he without tasting it handed the 
 goblet to St. Martin who was sitting by his side. St. 
 Martin drank, and should have returned it to the king, 
 but instead he gave it first of all to his priest and then 
 handed it back to Maximus. 2 Courage, if not good 
 manners', such conduct undoubtedly showed and the 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 50 " ausus etiam miser est ea tempestate Martino episcopo, 
 viro plane Apostolis conferendo, palam objectare haeresis infamiam." 
 
 2 Sulp. Sev. Vita Mart. xx. " sed Martinus ubi ebibit pateram presbytero suo 
 tradidit." 
 
204 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 emperor allowed the rudeness to pass. He had gained 
 at least the outward friendship of the great bishop of 
 Tours. But Martin had come to plead for Priscillian, 
 and after persistent pleading he obtained from the 
 emperor a promise l that whatever the issue of the trial 
 no blood should be shed. So St. Martin gained his 
 end and went back to Tours only to learn that the 
 emperor had very soon after broken his promise, and 
 that Priscillian and some of his disciples had been 
 executed in their prison. 
 
 The grief of St. Martin could not, however, hinder 
 
 him in the furtherance of his duty. The lives of two 
 
 of Gratian's officers, Counts Narses and Leucadius, 2 
 
 were threatened, and rumour told at Tours that a 
 
 commission was about to be sent to Spain to suppress 
 
 by the sword all the faction of Priscillian. The bishop 
 
 must go once more to Trier and see what could be 
 
 done to stop yet further cruelty and injustice, and in 
 
 386 St. Martin was again in the capital of Gaul. And 
 
 now he found Maximus sullen and almost unfriendly. 
 
 He was surrounded by Ithacius and the persecutors of 
 
 Martin Priscillian, who all were morally guilty of their brother's 
 
 joins the death. With them at least St. Martin could not hold 
 
 in the communion. Yet that gathering of bishops could not 
 
 consecra- disperse until they had given to Trier a bishop in 
 
 tion of r n i i j j i i i 
 
 Felix. succession to Brito who had died in that or the previous 
 year. Certainly also St. Martin could not be excluded 
 from that gathering, and yet would he even consent to 
 take part in a solemn act of consecration with bishops 
 who had so seriously offended Christian charity ? 
 Maximus was inclined at first to exclude him from 
 Trier and the guilty bishops desired that he would. 
 But the empress was on the side of St. Martin and 
 prevailed on the emperor to allow his admission into 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 50 " et mox discessurus egregia auctoritate a Maximo elicuit 
 sponsionem." 
 
 2 Sulp. Sev. Dialogue, iii. 11. 8 "pro Narsete comite et Leucadio praeside quorum 
 ambo Gratiani partium fuerant." For the whole of the incidents of this visit cf. 
 Dial. iii. n, 12, and 13. 
 
vii ST. MARTIN OF TOURS 
 
 205 
 
 Trier, and seems to have had many interviews with 
 him and to have listened with joy to all that the great 
 and saintly bishop told her. But the questions of 
 communion with the guilty bishops and the consecra- 
 tion of a bishop for Trier were pressing, and how was 
 it possible to induce St. Martin to join with his brethren 
 in so solemn an act ? Many of the bishops ceased not 
 to declare that he was the avenger of Priscillian and 
 should be classed with him. Maximus, while not 
 friendly, was yet conscious of St. Martin's integrity, and 
 would allow no attack on him, and meanwhile, through 
 the empress, a way was found for the emperor to be 
 reconciled to the saint. She induced Maximus to 
 invite St. Martin to the palace, that alone she might 
 serve him at a meal and talk with him in private. The 
 fate of the two Counts and the commission to Spain 
 was in the balance. St. Martin must do all he could 
 to stop further evil, and through the empress he saw 
 his way to gain the emperor. He went to this private 
 meal and the empress waited on him as his servant, and 
 Maximus consented to stop the commission, only he, 
 St. Martin, must consent to join in communion with 
 the bishops who were then so hostile to him. To yield 
 to this condition was certainly not wrong though it was 
 most painful. How could the soul of the righteous 
 bishop enter into their counsel ? l So St. Martin gave 
 his promise to Maximus, and Maximus pledged himself 
 to St. Martin, and then St. Martin went forth to seek 
 the followers of Ithacius. A priest named Felix had 
 been chosen for the vacant bishopric and preparations 
 were being made for the solemn function of consecra- 
 tion. St. Martin's admission to Trier had already been 
 conditioned that he came in peace with his brethren, 
 and he had answered that he came with the peace of 
 Christ. 2 And now he showed it towards them, though 
 
 1 Cf. Gen. xlix. 6 " in consilium eorum non veniat anima mea et in coetu 
 illorum non sit gloria mea." 
 
 2 Dial. iii. 1 1 " nisi se cum pace episcoporum ibi consistentium adfore fateretur,. 
 quos ille callide frustratus profitetur se cum pace Christi esse venturum." 
 
206 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 they never showed it towards him. He took part in 
 the consecration, he joined in a solemn act of com- 
 munion with them, he had gained the promise of the 
 emperor, and his work at Trier was accomplished. 
 Weighed down with grief and uncertainty as to 
 whether he had wrongly yielded to their demands he 
 made his way back to Tours. Yet he had made no 
 compact with them. It was indeed an act of Christian 
 charity, and not before him, for he was not their judge, 
 but before Him Whom he served they would stand or 
 fall. Yet sorrow greater than ever filled his heart as 
 alone and wrapt in thought he went on his journey 
 with his attendants following some little distance behind. 
 They were approaching the forests on the northern 
 slopes of the Cote d'Or and the high plateau of 
 Langres, 1 and separated from his companions by some 
 trees he sat down to meditate on the events which 
 had occurred. As he turned over in his mind his 
 own actions, to lay them before the tribunal of his 
 conscience, he realised that an angel was by his side, 
 and he heard him say, " You rightly blame yourself, 2 
 O Martin, but unless you had done so you would not 
 have been allowed to depart. Regain your uprightness, 
 recover your constancy, and henceforth do not in any way 
 mix yourself up with the party of Ithacius." With tears 
 he told his followers afterwards all the motives which 
 had influenced him, and the reasons why he had yielded 
 to the emperor's demands. As for himself he decided 
 to abstain from all gatherings, and for the nearly thirteen 3 
 years that remained of his episcopate he refused to 
 attend any councils of the Church in Gaul. Eight 
 years afterwards, when in 394 the synod of Nimes sat 
 
 1 Sulpicius, Dial. iii. n, calls the place Andethanna, but the readings vary 
 very much and it seems likely that the place was Andemantunum=: Langres, on 
 the high road from Trier to Autun j and so he would cross the Loire to Tours near 
 Nevers, having passed once more through the Aeduan country which so abounds in 
 relics of St. Martin. 
 
 2 Ibid. " merito, inquit, Martine conpungeris sed aliter exire nequisti j repara 
 virtutem, resume constantiam." 
 
 3 Ibid, "sedecim postea vixit annos : nullam synodum adiit, ab omnibus con- 
 ventibus se removit." 
 
vii ST. MARTIN OF TOURS 207 
 
 to decide much concerning the two parties of Felicians 
 and Anti-Felicians which had arisen out of the conse- 
 cration at Trier, he was anxious to know what had 
 occurred, and yet he had refused to attend the Council. 
 It happened that Sulpicius was with him in a boat on 
 the Loire 1 in the work of some missionary journey. 
 St. Martin sat silent and apart in the boat. Afterwards 
 when they enquired he told them all that had occurred 
 at the Synod, and so surprised were they at his know- 
 ledge that they were convinced an angel had come and 
 visited him. 
 
 The story of a remarkable vision belongs perhaps to 
 this later period of his life. He was often tempted of 
 the devil, and perhaps more since he had stood and 
 prevailed before emperors. He was in his little chamber 
 at Tours or Marmoutier, and he realised the presence 
 before him of one robed in royal garments, 2 with a 
 gemmed and golden diadem on his head, and with 
 golden sandals on his feet. At first there was silence 
 and then the visitor said, " Recognise whom you look 
 upon, O Martin. I am Christ and I have come down 
 to earth to reveal myself to you." But Martin kept 
 silence, and again the visitor said, " Why do you hesitate 
 to believe what you see ? I am Christ." Then Martin 
 replied, " The Lord Jesus did not say he would come 
 clad in purple and with a golden diadem on his head. 
 I will not believe that Christ has come unless he shows 
 me that garb and form in which he suffered, and displays 
 before me all the marks of his passion." Then the devil 
 left him, and St. Martin realised that of a truth not 
 the Lord but the devil himself had been to tempt 
 him. And this his biographer had heard from his 
 own lips. 
 
 For some years before his death St. Martin seems to 
 have had premonitions of his approaching end, and had 
 
 1 Sulpicius, Dial. ii. 13. 8. 
 
 2 Id., Vita Mart. xxiv. " hoc ita gestum ut supra rettuli, ex ipsius Martini ore 
 cognovi." 
 
208 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 told his companions about it. At the juncture of the 
 Vienne with the Loire was the town of Condate, or 
 Condes, which seems to have been a centre for missionary 
 effort in the neighbourhood and which Sulpicius calls a 
 diocese. 1 There had been some discord among the 
 clergy in the neighbourhood, and St. Martin, though 
 ill at the time, determined to go and make peace 
 among them. The grief of the brethren when he in- 
 formed them that he was not only ill, but that he felt 
 his end was approaching, was very great. Their appeal 
 to him is incorporated in the responds for the Office 
 for the day : November 1 1 then said the disciples 
 to the blessed Martin, "Why dost thou leave us, O 
 father, and to whom wilt thou hand us over in our 
 desolation. For grievous wolves will attack thy flock." 
 His colloquy with his Master as he lay a-dying is 
 probably correctly recorded by Sulpicius. It has every 
 sign of being genuine. The short sentences uttered 
 slowly by the dying man could be easily written down : 
 " Thy will, O Lord, is good to me, and as for those 
 for whom I fear thou wilt guard them." And so the 
 hours of the night passed away and he and they were 
 instant in prayers and watchings. They asked him 
 to allow them to place some clothes under him, for 
 he lay in ashes on the floor. " It is not becoming for 
 a Christian to die except on ashes," he replied, " if 
 I left to you any other example it would be a sin." 
 With hands and eyes gazing heavenward he continued 
 to pray, and then the clergy who had gathered to him 
 wished to turn him a little on his side and he said, " Allow 
 me, brothers, allow me to look heavenwards rather than 
 towards the earth, since I am about to go to the Lord." 
 Suddenly it seemed as if he saw once more the devil 2 
 standing near him, for he cried out, " Why standest thou 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. Ep. iii. 6 "interea causa exstitit, qua Condacensem diocesim 
 visitant " ; cf. Longnon, Geog. p. 270. Gregory writes of the vicus and of the 
 cellula of St. Martin. The whole of this Epistle tells us of the death of the saint. 
 
 2 These conflicts with the devil which St. Martin often had form the grounds for 
 the black angel being known as Estafier de St Martin. 
 
vii ST. MARTIN OF TOURS 209 
 
 here, oh cruel beast, thou wilt find no stain in me. 
 Abraham's bosom receives me." 
 
 These were his last words, and as he breathed his 
 last they who stood by thought that of a truth his face 
 was the face of an angel. 
 
 The grief of Sulpicius probably accounts for his 
 silence as to the burial of St. Martin, and Gregory l 
 supplies those incidents which Sulpicius had left un- 
 recorded. The Christians of Poitiers assembled at 
 Condes and claimed his body for Liguge. He was our 
 monk, they said. He was our abbot. Let it suffice 
 you that during his life he was your bishop. The 
 Christians of Tours argued that his miracles at Poitiers 
 were greater than any he had as yet wrought at Tours, 
 and that he should be buried at Tours so that at his 
 sepulchre he might fill up for the one city the measure 
 he had given to the other. So from Condes they 
 brought him, 2 borne on the waters of the Loire, to the 
 city of Tours and buried him close to where his 
 predecessors, St. Gatianus and Litorius, had been laid. 
 When Gregory was bishop of Tours, one hundred and 
 eighty years afterwards, they had already built in his 
 honour a basilica in the city of Tours, and the monks 
 of Marmoutier were to be met with the clergy of the 
 cathedral church united in their desire to proclaim his 
 sanctity and his power. The death of St. Martin was 
 indeed a great epoch in the history of the ancient 
 city of Caesarodunum, and Gregory rightly includes in 
 the first book of his history the world's records until 
 the death of the great evangelist. From his time the 
 Turonici were mostly Christian, and the records of the 
 town were the doings of Christian citizens. In his 
 desire for precision as to his death Gregory gives us 
 
 1 Greg. Tours, Hist. Franc, i. 43 " Pictavi populi ad ejus transitum sicut Turonici 
 convenerunt . . . dicebant Pictavi : Noster est monachus, nobis abba exstitit j nos 
 requirimus commendatum." 
 
 2 Ibid, "positum in navi cum omni populo per Vingennam fluvium descen- 
 dunt. Ingressique Ligeris alveum ad urbem Turonicam cum magnis laudibus 
 psallentioque dirigunt copioso." Condes was at the junction of the Vienne with 
 the Loire. 
 
210 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 a date which neither agrees with what he 'has said 
 elsewhere, nor in any way corresponds to the state- 
 ments of Sulpicius. His episcopate lasted for nearly 
 twenty -seven years and it seems most in agreement 
 with the various statements of the two historians 
 to record the death of St. Martin as an event of the 
 year 399. 
 
 Martin's The wonderful influence which St. Martin 1 acquired 
 
 anc ^ ki s widespread fame seem to have been due to his 
 marvellous courage and his ceaseless activity. From 
 Saintes to Trier and from Paris to Brioude the whole 
 central district of Gaul was the scene of his labours 
 as an evangelist. It was probably as abbot of Liguge 
 that he evangelised the future dioceses of Angoulme and 
 Saintes. It was certainly when he was a bishop that he 
 preached the gospel over the districts which afterwards 
 became the dioceses, of Blois, Orleans, Ma9on, halon- 
 sur-Sa6ne and in the dioceses then without their bishops 
 of Langres and Autun. There is no evidence of his 
 invading another bishop's diocese, though at Chartres 
 and at Paris he did not refrain from giving his assistance 
 when an appeal was made for his help as he passed 
 on from Trier to Tours in 375. Gregory 2 records 
 that he built churches at Langeais near Tours, Sonnay 
 also near Tours, Amboise, Tournon, Candes, and Ciran 
 la Latte ; and mentions also traces of his activity or of 
 his cult at Martigny 3 near Tours, Amboise, Bourges, 
 Brives-la-Gaillarde in Correze, Brevat, Bordeaux, 
 Cavaillon, Marsas in Gironde, Neris in Allier, Paris, 
 Trois Chateaux, Casignan in Deux Sevres, and Mareuil 
 on the Cher. Nor does this list complete the number 
 of places where even to-day there are traces in sacred 
 stones or fountains of the journeys he made and the 
 
 1 Cf. Boissier, Le Fin du paganisms, ii. p. 56. 
 
 2 Hist. Franc, x. 31 "in vicis quoque, id est Alingariensi, Solonacensi, Amba- 
 ciensi, Cisomagensi, Tornomagensi, Condatensi, destructis delubris, baptizatisque 
 gentilibus, ecclesias edificavit." Longtion, Geographic de la Gaule, p. 269. 
 
 3 Cf. seriatim in Gregory's History, Lives and books De gloria confess, and De 
 mirac. S. M. 
 
vii ST. MARTIN OF TOURS 211 
 
 victories of the faith he accomplished. There are 
 numerous monuments in Burgundy, Nivernais, not yet 
 formed into a bishopric, and Forez. The weird and 
 densely-wooded districts 1 between the ranges of the 
 Morvan and the C6te d'Or, between Avallon and Dijon, 
 Dijon and Beaune as far as Autun and westward also 
 to the Loire, claim to be the scene of his labours, and, 
 while we can base no argument on a wayside stone, yet 
 it is significant that traces such as are found in Burgundy 
 are not to be met with in other districts of France. 
 Unfortunately the labours and wonderful deeds of 
 St. Martin are not recorded by Sulpicius in any chrono- 
 logical order. We must select from his history in order 
 to give examples of his power and courage. On one 
 occasion Avitian, 2 the imperial governor of Tours, had 
 returned from an expedition, bringing with him various 
 prisoners for execution. As usual St. Martin was 
 desirous to save them, and going to the castle found the 
 doors shut. He knocks but no one opened, for all were 
 asleep. Avitian, however, in his sleep dreamt that some 
 one was knocking, and an angel tells him that God's 
 servant stood without. He roused the servants, who 
 went and looked and seeing no one came and told the 
 governor. Again the angel came to Avitian and this 
 time he went himself to the door and found St. Martin 
 there and agreed to his request to spare the lives of his 
 captives. 
 
 Amboise 3 was near to Tours and often visited by 
 St. Martin and his clergy. Here was an ancient column 
 and idolatrous trophy held in great repute by the local 
 people, and though St. Martin had ordered Marcellus, 
 the priest he had stationed there, to destroy it, fear of the 
 
 1 Cf. a very useful work by Bulliot et Thiollier, La Mission et le culte de 5. 
 Martin d'apres les legendes et les monuments populaires dans le pays eduen, 1892. 
 
 2 Sulp. Sev. Dial. iii. 4 " post discessum autem sancti advocat officiates suos, 
 jubet omnes custodias relaxari et mox ipse proficiscitur." 
 
 3 Sulp. Sev. Dial. iii. 8 ** in vico Ambatiensi, id est castello veteri quod nunc 
 frequens habitatur a fratribus " etc. The readers will see in the Museum at Mainz 
 the wonderful Jupitersaule which stood in heathen Moguntiacum, a specimen of 
 the idolatrous monuments which hindered the early missionaries in their evangelistic 
 work. 
 
212 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 people and the anger it would rouse in them had hitherto 
 prevented him. So St. Martin went to Amboise and 
 spent the night in prayer, and ere the morning dawned a 
 tempest rose and threw down the column. 
 
 At Chartres, 1 on one occasion, which was then en- 
 tirely pagan, although perhaps missionary work had 
 already begun and a bishop was at work, St. Martin 
 preached, perhaps as being an outlying district of 
 Vendomois, or perhaps when on his way back from 
 Trier through Paris and by the old road over La 
 Beauce, and a huge crowd surrounded the small group 
 of evangelists. Very soon a woman approached bring- 
 ing with her the dead body of her son and accosted 
 St. Martin : " We know that thou art a friend of God," 
 she cried. " Give me then back my son, for he was my 
 only child. " All the crowd urged him to grant what 
 the woman had pleaded for and St. Martin was unable 
 to refuse. So at last and reluctantly St. Martin took 
 the corpse, if such it was, in his arms and engaged in 
 prayer, and soon restored to the woman the boy now 
 brought back to life. Then the crowd agreed to 
 forsake their idols and become Christians, and the work 
 of the evangelists began in earnest. 
 
 Once when he was on a diocesan tour he met on the 
 road a party of huntsmen with dogs in chase of a hare. 2 
 St. Martin had pity on the poor animal and commanded 
 the dogs to stop their pursuit, and the dogs seemed as 
 if they were bound with chains so obedient were they to 
 his command. When the hare had escaped then he 
 released them from the spell. 
 
 Outside Paris, 3 as he was approaching the gates with 
 a great crowd around him, he met a poor leper and did 
 not hesitate to kiss him and bless him, and the kiss of 
 the saint healed the flesh of the poor victim. 
 
 In the country of the Aedui, 4 probably in the northern 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. Dial. ii. 4 "fuerat causa nescio qua Carnotum oppidum petebamus." 
 
 2 Dial, ii. 9 " quodam tempore, cum dioeceses circuiret." 
 
 3 Sulp. Sev. Vita Mart. 18. 
 
 4 Sulp. Sev. Vita Mart. 15 " in pago Aeduorum gestum sit." Are the remains of 
 
vii ST. MARTIN OF TOURS 213 
 
 part of the kingdom of Burgundy, he was engaged in 
 the destruction of a temple, and there gathered around 
 him a furious crowd of angry countrymen. One 
 bolder than his neighbours drew a sword and went 
 towards him, and St. Martin without any hesitation 
 bared his neck for the sword stroke. The man raised 
 his right hand for the blow but fell back prostrate, 
 and in penitence and alarm besought the pardon of 
 the saint. There were other miracles of this kind, but 
 Sulpicius tells us that at times when the people gathered 
 to prevent the destruction of the idols or temples he 
 often preached to them with such power and influence 
 that they at once pulled down and destroyed that 
 which they had desired to spare. 
 
 In a certain village l he set fire to a very ancient and 
 celebrated heathen shrine and the flames because of the 
 wind began to catch hold of the adjacent houses. Then 
 St. Martin ascended on to the roof of the house and 
 placed himself in the path of the fire, and slowly the 
 fire sank down and the conflagration was averted. 
 
 In a village called Leprosum 2 there was a heathen 
 temple very richly endowed and the people refused him 
 permission to destroy it. So for three days in sack- 
 cloth and ashes St. Martin sat close by and fasted and 
 prayed that since human influence could not avail for 
 its destruction God would undertake the task. Then 
 two angels appeared before him with spears and shields, 
 and said they had been sent to put the rustics to flight 
 and to protect St. Martin. So the bishop was able 
 to complete his work, and when the people saw their 
 
 what looks like a temple south of Autun and near the ruined Roman sepulchre 
 known as La pierre de Conhard, those of this temple ? The remains of Bibracte 
 on Mount Beuvray were doubtless then very complete and the local pagans would 
 gather in the deserted temples there. It is certainly interesting to think of St. 
 Martin preaching the gospel in the ancient citadel of Gallic patriotism. Cf. work 
 of Simplicius against worship of Cybele as told by Gregory of Tours, Lib. de glor. 
 confess. 76, 77. We meet with worship of Berecynthian idol in Acts of Martyrdom 
 of S. Symphorian. Cf. Lecoy de la Marche, St Martin, p. 289. 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. Vita Mart. 14. 
 
 2 Ibid. 14 "in vico autem cui Leprosum nomen est." Longnon gives us no 
 help in locating this village. 
 
2i 4 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 temple and sacred shrines and idols destroyed they 
 recognised the divine power which had enabled St. 
 Martin to accomplish it, and were converted to the 
 Christian faith, because it was evident to them that 
 the God of St. Martin was to be worshipped and their 
 idols to be forsaken. In Burgundy 1 in a certain 
 village there was a very ancient temple and a sacred 
 tree close by it. The villagers had allowed the bishop 
 to destroy the temple, but when he began to attack the 
 tree they stopped him saying the tree was dedicated 
 to a devil. Then one of the bolder of the country 
 people came and said, " If you have any confidence 
 in your God whom you say you worship, let us cut 
 down the tree ourselves and you place yourself to 
 catch it when it would fall. If your God is with you 
 as you say you will surely escape." This proposal was 
 at once accepted by the people and to the alarm of his 
 comrades St. Martin also accepted the proposal. The 
 pagans at once began to cut down the tree and the 
 saint stood exactly where it should fall. At last the 
 tree fell and to the consternation of the people almost 
 on them, while St. Martin remained unhurt. The 
 district was entirely heathen and the coming of St. 
 Martin was the first coming of the Gospel to them, 
 and where he destroyed a temple there he was wont to 
 build 2 either churches or monastic houses for the clergy. 
 It would be impossible, however, to mention all the 
 miracles which Sulpicius relates. In his Dialogues it is 
 clear that he has a purpose, which was to prove that 
 St. Martin in the West is the equal of any saint in the 
 East, and he accepts with unwavering faith and records 
 as so many proofs of saintliness all the miracles he can 
 remember. He is often careful to say that he witnessed 
 
 1 Vita Mart. 13. Sulpicius only says "in vico quodam," but it clearly was in 
 the district of the Upper Yonne, Saone, and Loire. " Si habes, inquit, aliquam de Deo 
 tuo quern dicis te colere fiduciam, nosmet ipsi succidemus hanc arborem, tu ruentem 
 excipe." One should compare with this the boldness of Bonifacius at Geismar. 
 Bishop Browne's Boniface of Crediton, p. 63. 
 
 2 "Statim ibi aut ecclesias aut monasteria construebat." 
 
vii ST. MARTIN OF TOURS 215 
 
 the event, or that he was told of it by the people who 
 were there, or perhaps by the person on whom the 
 miracle was wrought, and while to an incredulous age 
 the whole narrative may seem of no historic value, it 
 is certain that the Life of St. Martin by Sulpicius and 
 his three books of the Dialogues tell us more of the 
 daily life, the tone of thought, and the religious practices 
 of the Christians in the fourth century than any other 
 literary work of that century. It is indeed our only 
 picture from life, and the contrast between it and the 
 Letters of Sidonius Apollinaris fifty years later is so 
 great that we will have in due time to consider the 
 cause that brought that change and contrast about. 
 
 The character of St. Martin, as given us by Sulpicius, is 
 too graphic to be passed over. "No one," 1 his biographer 
 sums up, "ever saw him angry, or annoyed, or mournful, 
 or filled with unseemly laughter. He was always the 
 same, and presented to every one a joy of countenance 
 and manner which seemed to those who noted it to be 
 more than human. Christ was ever on his lips. His 
 heart was always full of devotion, peace, and pity. At 
 times he would weep for the sins of those who opposed 
 him and of those whose venomous aspersions were flung 
 at him in his quiet and retiring life. Some we knew 
 who were envious of his virtuous life, and to whom 
 he was hateful only because they knew they could not 
 imitate him. It was a grievous and a mournful sin 
 that among his opponents and detractors were those 
 who should not have hindered him, and even bishops 
 too ; but it is not necessary to mention their names, and 
 if they read what has been written it suffices if they 
 blush for their former conduct. For if they are angry 
 it is an acknowledgment that what has been said is 
 against them, while very probably we were thinking 
 altogether of some one else. But we do not shirk our 
 responsibility. I am confident that all good men will 
 
 1 Vita Mart. 27 "nemo unquam ilium vidit iratum, nemo commotum, 
 nemo moerentem " etc. 
 
216 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP, vn 
 
 be grateful for this little book, and I am conscious that 
 my motive for writing was my faith in this work, and 
 my love of Christ, and I have only pointed out things 
 that were manifest, and said things that were true, and 
 as I hope, not he, who has read, but he, who has believed 
 them, will have from God a reward prepared for him." 
 It is impossible to close this chapter without a re- 
 mark on the evidence which these dialogues of Sulpicius 
 and his life of St. Martin give us as to the organisation 
 of the Church in Gaul in the second half of the fourth 
 century. Evidently there were gaps in the episcopate 
 and the episcopate in some dioceses was not yet con- 
 tinuous. But it is strange that in the life-work of so 
 great a character we should meet with so few bishops. 
 They are referred to as gathering at Trier, but those 
 who are mentioned are nearly all Spanish bishops. 
 Only once do we hear of his meeting with bishops who 
 are witnesses of one of his miracles. On his way 
 back from Trier he is accompanied l by Valentinus of 
 Chartres and Victricius of Rouen, and they are with 
 him at Chartres when he gives speech to the twelve- 
 year-old dumb child in the presence of Evagrius and 
 others. Of course the regard of Sulpicius is entirely 
 focussed on his hero, but his book clearly reveals that 
 as yet the Church in Gaul had not advanced much 
 beyond its primitive missionary organisation. If the 
 country had been mapped out into dioceses, and certainly 
 the councils at Aries, Bordeaux, and Nimes seem to 
 suggest this, yet the sees were only partially filled 
 up, and the work of the bishops was almost purely 
 evangelistic and missionary. 
 
 1 Dial. Hi. 2 " ille cedens episcopis, qui turn forte latus illius ambiebant, 
 Valentino atque Victricio " etc. 
 
 Cf. Preface i. from Mass of St. Martin : " Aeterne Deus cujus munere beatus 
 Martinus confessor pariter et sacerdos ct bonorum operum incrementis excrevit et 
 variis virtutum donis exuberavit et miraculis coruscavit " etc. 
 
 It is in the Gregorian and also in the Gothic Missals. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 
 
 THE Chronicle of Sulpicius Severus 1 ends with the 
 narrative of the execution of the Spanish bishop 
 Priscillian. This narrative was written nearly twenty 
 
 1 The authorities on the life of Priscillian fall naturally into two classes. In the 
 former we must place all who had written concerning him previous to the discovery 
 and publication by G. Schepps in 1889 of the Wiirzburg MS. ; in the latter those 
 who have attempted to reconsider his case in the light of his own lately discovered 
 tractates. Among the earlier writers, omitting Tillemont, Simon von Vries, and 
 Girves, it seems necessary to mention only Liibhert, De haeresi Priscillianistarum 
 (Copenhagen, 1840), and Bernay's valuable essay Uber die Chronik des Sulpicius 
 Severus (Berlin, 1861). In 1886 Dr. Schepps published at Wiirzburg a short tractate 
 entitled Priscillian, eln neuaufgefundcner lat. Schriftstelii." des 4. Jahrhunderts, 
 in which he gives us a brief account of the contents of the Wiirzburg MS. and 
 in 1889 published the XL Tractates of Priscillian in the xviiith volume of the 
 Vienna Corpus. The appearance of this work at once demanded a reconsideration 
 of Priscillian's guilt. In 1891 Professor F. Paret of Tubingen published at 
 Wiirzburg his Priscillianus, ein Reformator des vierten Jahrhunderts. He acquits him of 
 Manichaeism, and declares him to have been a conscious and natural enemy of that 
 heresy, and he thinks that the writings of Priscillian are definitely anti-Manichaeistic. 
 In the same year appeared Aime Puech's article in the Journal des savants, who 
 takes a middle course and considers Priscillian heterodox but not definitely a 
 Manichaean. In the next year, 1892, E. Hilgenfeld, in the Zeitschrift fur 
 ivissenschaftliche Theologie, discusses the guilt of Priscillian and sees in his Canons 
 from St. Paul's Epistles and in his other writings a very decided Manichaeism. 
 E. Herzog, in the Internationale theologische Zeitschrift (lix.), 1894, writes in favour 
 of "the outlaw's " orthodoxy, and in 1897 Paul Dierich published a preliminary 
 dissertation, Die Quellen zur Geschichte Priscillians, as an introduction to his pro- 
 jected work Priscillian, Bischof von Abila : sein Leben und seine Lehre, in which 
 he discusses the sources of Sulpicius Severus ' narrative. Unfortunately the larger 
 work has not appeared. He regards Priscillian as orthodox, and it is a matter 
 of regret that he has not given us at length the grounds for his decision. Professor 
 Karl Kiinstle of Freiburg-im-Breisgau, in his Antipriscilliana, deals largely with the sub- 
 sequent Synodal decisions against the Priscillianists. He strongly upholds the decision 
 of Zaragossa and Bordeaux, and sees nothing but subtle error in Priscillian's writings. 
 A work on Priscillian and the Priscillianists is announced by Mons. E. Ch. Babut, 
 our greatest living writer on the Church of Gaul in the fifth century, but I have 
 not yet had the good fortune to read it. For the details of his persecution, the 
 action of St. Martin in his favour, and the account of his execution, our chief 
 authority is, of course, the Chronicle of Sulpicius Severus and his life of St. Martin. 
 
 217 
 
218 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 years after the event by one who had the fullest 
 opportunity of discovering the details of the tragedy, 
 and was certainly aware of the shock which the 
 execution had given to the moral conscience of 
 Western Christendom. The interval which had 
 intervened does not seem to have diminished in 
 any way the horror which Sulpicius had felt at the 
 execution, or the loathing which he entertained for 
 the two bishops who had taken so prominent a part 
 in the persecution. His impartiality is evident. Not 
 a word can he write but of reprobation for the 
 heresy of which Priscillian was regarded as the leader. 
 He traces carefully the prospect which the brilliant 
 gifts that Priscillian possessed had opened out for 
 him, and the downfall of the Spanish bishop is the 
 more conspicuous because of them. Yet for the two 
 who had brought it all about, for Ithacius and Ydacius, 
 he has not one word of commendation. 1 Their 
 conduct was an indication of their character. Men 
 of no 2 judgment or yet sanctity, given to the delights 
 of the table, bold, talkative, full of outward show, 
 their only zeal was for the persecution of unfortunate 
 heretics. 
 
 The charge against Priscillian we will describe in 
 narrative, ^g CO urse of this narrative. Sulpicius tells us of 
 it, and yet as one reads his narrative there is not a 
 word which would indicate that he believed Priscillian 
 
 Prosper in his Chronicle gives the date of the execution as A.D. 385, the consulship 
 of Arcadius and Bauto. (Since I wrote this Prof. Babut's book Priscillien et la 
 Priscillienisme, 1909, has appeared, and I rejoice to find myself in almost entire agree- 
 ment with him.) 
 
 1 Dierich, in his Die Quellen xur Geschichte PriscHlians (1897), contends that 
 Sulpicius was entirely under the influence of Ithacius and Ydacius, and Kunstle 
 regards this as inconceivable. Kilnstle, however, seems to me to brush away 
 Dierich's contention too hastily. There seems strong ground for believing that 
 the two Spanish bishops who persecuted Priscillian provided Sulpicius with this 
 information. It is minute and accurate and must have been provided by those 
 closely connected with the development of the controversy. We cannot with Dierich 
 overthrow Sulpicius' authority, but there seems no reason why the biographer of 
 St. Martin may not have learnt his facts from men he afterwards came to loathe. 
 
 2 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 50 "Ithacium nihil pensi, nihil sancti habuisse definio i 
 fuit autem audax, loquax, impudens, sumptuosus, ventri et gulae plurimum 
 impertiens." 
 
vin THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 219 
 
 to be guilty. His sympathy goes out for the un- 
 fortunate bishop, and in our endeavour to ascertain 
 the extent of his guilt we must certainly take into 
 account that attitude of Sulpicius. He is our principal 
 and almost our only first-class authority, and his calm 
 and lucid story must be our chief guide through this 
 painful drama. Was Priscillian guilty of all the foul 
 deeds of which his enemies charged him, or was he 
 sacrificed to the bitter animosity of those Spanish 
 bishops, his colleagues, whom his contemptuous 
 mannerism had offended ? The story is most 
 obscure. -That he was rejected alike by Pope 
 Damasus and St. Ambrose, condemned as an heresiarch 
 in the writings of St. Augustine, 1 and gave his name 
 to a heresy denounced by many Spanish synods in 
 the century which followed his execution, are facts 
 which make it impossible even to approach a contrary 
 view except with the greatest caution and even diffidence. 
 Posterity has almost unanimously condemned him, nor 
 was it possible to take up an opposite view, for the 
 only writings of Priscillian which were known to 
 students, until less than thirty years ago, were of 
 the most meagre character : a short quotation given 
 by the Spanish chronicler Orosius 2 in his appeal to 
 St. Augustine, and certain canons (a series of doctrinal 
 and ethical statements purporting to give the teaching 
 of St. Paul) with references in proof of them to passages 
 in St. Paul's Epistles. These canons, however, do 
 not come down to us as Priscillian drew them up. 
 We know them only in the version 3 of Bishop 
 Peregrinus, who professedly altered them that they 
 might be in conformity with the Catholic faith. 4 
 
 1 Augustine, Liber de haeresibus Ixx. <l Priscillianistae quos in Hispania 
 Priscillianus instituit maxime Gnosticorum et Manichaeorum dogmata permixta 
 sectantur." His information seems largely to have been derived from the diatribe 
 of Orosius. 
 
 2 Cf. Schepps' ed. of Priscillian's Tractates, p. 153 " sicut ipse Priscillianus 
 in quadam epistula sua dicit . . . Haec prima sapientia," etc. 
 
 3 Cf. ibid. p. 107 '* Priscilliani in Pauli Apostoli Epistulas Canones a Peregrino 
 episcopo emendati." 
 
 4 For the theory that Priscillian was the author of the Monarchian Prologues of 
 
220 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 The discovery of Dr. Schepps in 1885 at the 
 University Library at Wttrzburg has materially 
 affected the question of Priscillian's guilt. In 1 a 
 fifth- or sixth-century MS. in that library he discovered, 
 hidden in the catalogue under the title of Incerti 
 auihoris opuscula patristica, a copy of eleven tractates of 
 Priscillian which he had written together with his canons 
 derived from St. Paul's Epistles corrected by Peregrinus. 
 These tractates, some of which are complete, contain 
 his Apology, written probably immediately after the 
 Synod of Saragossa, his appeal to Pope Damasus, and 
 an imperfect copy of his Liber de fide et de apocryphis. 
 
 This valuable discovery, of course, opened the way 
 for a reconsideration of his case, and in Dr. Schepps, 
 who regards Priscillian as an opponent of Manichaeism 
 and an ardent Catholic, and in Dr. Paret, who writes of 
 him as a conscious and natural adversary of Manichaeism 
 and a reformer, Priscillian has found two modern scholars 
 who would reverse the judgment of the Church and 
 declare the Spanish bishop a martyr to local fanaticism. 
 On the other hand, Professor Ktlnstle of Freiburg-im- 
 Breisgau, who is the latest writer on Priscillian, draws 
 our attention to the extraordinary contrarieties in these 
 tractates of Priscillian. They seem to be the writings of 
 a man who by earnest words would draw away our atten- 
 tion from the testimony of morals to sundry other matters, 
 and whose passionate language suggests esoteric mean- 
 ings which tend to destroy our confidence in him. 
 To Dr. Kttnstle the judgment of the Church is amply 
 upheld by these tractates which Dr. Schepps discovered. 
 
 The Gnostic heresy which troubled the Church in 
 the second century had not even then been rooted out. 
 To the fantastic cosmogonies of these false teachers 
 
 the Gospels in the early Latin versions, cf. Dom Chapman Notes on the Early 
 History of the Vulgate Gospels, Oxford, 1908, p. 238. 
 
 1 Cf. the interesting story in Schepps' Vortrag (Wiirzburg, 1886), Priscillian, 
 ein neuaufgefundener lat. Schriftsteller des 4. Jahrhunderts. I had the pleasure this 
 summer of examining this treasure through the courtesy of Professor Meikle. It is 
 in beautiful condition, a small quarto MS. written in a very clear hand and quite 
 easy to read. 
 
vin THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 221 
 
 there had been added the false ethical principles of 
 Manes ; and that this double influence was destructive 
 of morality is shown by the edict of Diocletian l for 
 the suppression of Manichaeism. In the second half 
 of the fourth century these theories, which at first had 
 mainly prevailed in the East, began to spread westward. 
 The asceticism 2 which had been the feature of Eastern 
 Gnosticism had also been adopted by Egyptian monks, 
 and with the spread of monastic ideas there followed 
 the extravagances of Manichaean asceticism and other 
 theories invented to support it. St. Athanasius, 
 when in Trier A.D. 336 and in Rome A.D. 340, must 
 certainly have told of the lives of the Christian 
 hermits and coenobites who inhabited the Egyptian 
 Thebaid. In Rome also monasticism had begun to 
 take root, and in Gaul the influence of St. Martin 
 had given the movement an established position. 
 Monasteries had been created with the sanction of 
 St. Hilary at Liguge near Poitiers and by St. Martin 
 also at Marmoutier 3 in the neighbourhood of Tours. 
 The Dialogues of Sulpicius, written in the neighbour- 
 hood of Toulouse not later than the first decade of 
 the fifth century, 4 show that men were already thinking 
 about this asceticism which monasticism would intro- 
 duce, and were wondering whether the difference in 
 the climates of Egypt and Aquitaine would not allow 
 of some relaxation of those severities which were 
 popular in the Thebaid. Nor was this tendency to 
 impose asceticism as the one and only test of sanctity 
 accepted without hesitation. The isolation in which 
 St. Martin so often seemed when in assembly with 
 his fellow bishops, 5 the lines of division in the Synods 
 
 1 Edict of Diocletian to Julian, proconsul of Africa, Prid. Kal. April. 287 j cf. 
 Neander, ii. 195. 2 Cf. Chapter X. 
 
 3 Sulp. Sev. Vita Martini, 7 and 10. 4 /</., Dialog, p. 152. 
 
 5 Cf. Vita Mart. 27, also the language of St. Jerome, Ef. xxxix. 5, as to the 
 treatment of monks by the mob in Rome. It is probably exaggerated, but it 
 shows clearly that monasticism was not established without a protest. Siricius 
 also, the successor of Damasus, was not inclined to welcome the ascetics. Cf. Ep. 
 \. 6 j Migne, P.L. xiii. 1137. 
 
222 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 of the Galilean Church at the end of this century * and 
 in the next, the whole tone of Sulpicius' Life of St. 
 Martin, and of his Dialogues and Epistles, show that 
 monastic principles were not yet generally or without 
 opposition accepted. Those who held them formed 
 as yet a little company by themselves, and the asceticism 
 which these principles involved was regarded by many 
 with doubt if not with disapproval. 
 
 The rise of the Priscillian trouble in Spain coincided 
 with the introduction westward of this monastic 
 asceticism, and we must take this fact into consideration 
 as well as the counter charge against Ithacius as gulosus 
 and sumptuosus when we read the statements made 
 against Priscillian and his followers. 
 
 f Sulpicius assumes that the heresy of which Priscillian 
 was regarded as the leader was a new one. It was, 
 however, a recrudescence of Gnosticism, and the deadly 
 character of the superstition was shrouded from the out- 
 side view by secret rites. 2 It had its origin in the East 
 and in Egypt, though he did not know how it arose 
 It was brought to Spain by one Mark 3 of Memphis in 
 Egypt, who soon won to his opinions Agape, a lady of 
 ood position, and also the rhetor Helpidius. . Agape and 
 "elpidius formed the link between Mark and Priscillian. 
 In the historical fragments ascribed to St. Hilary there 
 is a reference made to the condemnation by the Arians 
 at Sardica of Hosius of Cordova, and one of the charges 
 brought against him was his action in punishing in 
 his diocese " Mark of most blessed memory." 4 We 
 know nothing about this Mark referred to by St. Hilary, 
 and it is only a conjecture of Gams 5 that he may have 
 
 1 The cleavage at the Synod of Nimes, of which Sulpicius hints in his second 
 Dialogue, seems to have been caused by this movement towards asceticism. St. 
 Martin would not attend the Synod j cf. Sulp. Sev. p. 196 ; Dial. ii. 13. 
 
 2 St. Augustine, De haeresibus, Ixx., quotes, as one of the maxims of the Pris- 
 cillianists, the words "Jura, perjura, secretum prodere noli." 
 
 3 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 46 " primus earn intra Hispanias Marcus intulit, Aegypto 
 profectus, Memphi ortus." 
 
 4 Hil. Frag. hist. vol. ii. p. 674 " sed Ossium propter supradictam causam et 
 propter beatissimae memoriae Marcum cui graves semper injurias inrogavit." 
 
 5 Gams, Die Kirchengeschichte -von Spaniea, vol. ii. pp. 362-363. 
 
vni THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 223 
 
 been the leader of this Gnostic sect in Spain, of whom 
 Sulpicius makes mention. That Manichaeism prevailed 
 in Spain in A.D. 379 Philastrius of Brescia * clearly 
 shows, and if the Mark who suffered under Hosius was 
 the author of this heresy, then as early as A.D. 343 2 
 Manichaeism had taken root. Jerome, 8 who refers to 
 it on three occasions, seems to identify Mark with an 
 heresiarch of that name mentioned by Irenaeus, and 
 informs us that having spread Gnosticism in the valley 
 of the Rhone he passed over to Spain, and in Lusitania 
 made many converts among women. The language 
 of Sulpicius, however, suggests that Mark was active in 
 Spain towards the middle of the fourth century, and 
 would not therefore have been one with the false teachers 
 mentioned by Irenaeus. 
 
 ' Agape and Helpidius, the disciples of Mark, 4 were 
 the means of the conversion to these errors of the gifted 
 Spaniard Priscillian. He is described as of noble 
 family, very rich, keen, restless, eloquent, and learned. 
 Sulpicius 5 says he would have been happy had he not 
 corrupted his good intellect by this depraved study. 
 
 1 Philastrius, Haereses, 84. He wrote about A.D. 379 ; cf. Kiinstle, Antlprhcilliana^ 
 pp. 14-15 "Philastrius . . nennt zwar diesen Namen nicht, aber es ist auch bei den 
 neuesten Autoren kein Zweifel aufgetaucht, dass er die Priscillianisten meint." 
 
 2 Cf. Gams, ut supra, p. 363 " aus obigen Worten erhellt ferner, dass Marcus 
 im J. 343 nicht mehr lebte." 
 
 * Cf. Jerome, Isaiah Ixiv. 4-5 "et per hanc occasionem multaque hujuscemodi 
 Hispaniarum et Lusitaniae deceptae sunt mulierculae oneratae peccatis . . . de quibus 
 . . . Irenaeus scribit multarum origines explicans hereseOn et maxime Gnosticorum 
 qui per Marcum Aegypteum Galliarum primum circa Rhodanum, deinde 
 Hispaniarum nobiles feminas deceperunt miscentes fabulis voluptatem et imperitiae 
 suae nomen scientiae suae vindicantes." In his De -uiris inlustribus, written some 
 time before his Commentary, Jerome writes in less unfavourable terms of Priscillian : 
 " Priscillianus, Abilae episcopus qui factione Hydatii et Ithacii Treviris a Maximo 
 tyranno caesus est, edidit multa opuscula, de quibus ad nos aliqua pervenerunt. 
 Hie usque hodie a nonnullis Gnosticae, id est Basilidis vel Marci, de quibus Irenaeus 
 scripsit, haereseos accusatur, defendentibus aliis non ita eum sensisse ut arguitur." 
 Cf. Richardson's Ed. De uir. ;'/. j Texte und Untcrsuchungen, xiv. i. 
 
 In his letter also to Theodora, the widow of Lucinius of Baetica, Ep. xxix. or 75, 
 he writes as if Irenaeus had said that Marcus had come to Gaul and denied with this 
 doctrine the regions between the Rhone and the Garonne, and then gone on to 
 Spain : " Marcus de Basilidis gnostici stirpe." 
 
 So again Ep. ad CtesipAontem, " in Hispania Agape Elpidium mulier virum caecum 
 caeca duxit in foveam, successoremque habuit sui Priscillianum." 
 
 4 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 46 " hujus auditores fuere Agape quaedam non ignobilis 
 mulier et rhetor Helpidius." 
 
 5 Ibid. " felix profecto si non pravo studio corrupisset optimum ingenium." 
 
224 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 There was much good of mind and body in him, he 
 could do without sleep for long, and was able without 
 injury to suffer hunger and thirst. He was not 
 avaricious, and he spent his money readily but care- 
 fully. On the other hand, he was very vain, and more 
 elated with his knowledge of profane literature than was 
 good for him. He was said l to have practised in his 
 youth magical arts. When he accepted the theories of 
 Mark he soon gathered converts to his newly adopted 
 views. Women who were eager for change, of uncertain 
 faith, and of ill-balanced intellect, inquisitive of every- 
 thing, flocked to him in crowds. His persuasive powers 
 and his attractive manner won over many noble men to 
 his views. The appearance of humility in speech and 
 conduct infused others with respect and almost rever- 
 ence for him, and so gradually, though slowly, many 
 parts of Spain 2 became filled with this perfidy. Even 
 the church was influenced by his teaching, and certain 
 bishops, of whom two only are named, Instantius and 
 Salvianus, not only received Priscillian into their con- 
 fidence, but linked themselves to him under a bond 
 of fellowship. 8 Then others took offence. Whatever 
 the movement was it had made itself felt, and Bishop 
 Hyginus 4 of Cordova drew the attention of his comrade, 
 Ydacius of Emerita, to the character of this religious 
 guild or society ; and the rash haste and folly of Ydacius, 
 and especially his attack on Instantius, acted as a torch 
 to the slumbering fire, and embittered the minds of the 
 followers of Priscillian rather than induced them to give 
 up their errors. 
 
 The steps that follow in the progress of these efforts 
 on behalf of orthodoxy with Priscillian and his party 
 are not easy to trace. After many controversies which 
 Sulpicius regarded as unworthy of record 5 a Council was 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 46 " quin et magicas artes ab adolescentia eum exercuisse 
 creditum est." 
 
 2 Ibid. " jamque paulatim perfidiae istius tabes pleraque Hispaniae pervaserat." 
 8 Ibid, "sub quadam etiam conjuratione susceperant." 
 
 4 "... Hyginus episcopus Cordubensis . . . comperta ad Ydacium Emeritae 
 sacerdotem referret/' 5 ". . . nee digna memoratu certamina." 
 
vin THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 225 
 
 summoned to meet at Zaragossa in Spain, and such was 
 its importance that bishops from Aquitaine were 
 summoned to it and even attended. 1 It seems from 
 the language of Priscillian in his appeal to Pope Damasus 
 that Ydacius had written to the pope, and that the 
 Council was summoned as the result of his advice. 2 
 The Commonitorium of Ydacius we do not possess. 
 We can only judge of it from the reference made to it 
 by Priscillian. It is clear that the controversies about 
 which Sulpicius wrote were the preliminary steps for the 
 summoning of this council. Ydacius and his friends 
 wished to treat Priscillian as one accused of various 
 wrong doctrines and immoral acts, and since Priscillian 
 was aware of their feelings he and his colleagues refused 
 to attend the Council. 3 The policy of Ydacius was 
 certainly subtle, and so carefully had he described the 
 objects of the Council that Priscillian 4 could say that 
 neither he nor his fellow bishops, Instantius and 
 Salvianus, knew that their doctrines were to be con- 
 sidered at this Council to which they had been sum- 
 moned. - It is probable that we must assign the tractate 
 of Priscillian, De fide et apocryphis 5 to this period 
 of negotiation before the Synod or Council of Zaragossa. 
 It is an apology for his use of extra canonical scriptures, 
 He points out that often in the canonical Scriptures 
 references are made and quotations are given from 
 apocryphal books, and if he is wont to quote such 
 scriptures he has, at least, the example and the authority 
 of the inspired writers. The tract, however, vibrates 
 with intense feeling. The hard things 6 that were 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 47 " . . . cui turn etiam Aquitani episcopi interfuere." 
 
 2 Cf. Tractate ii. ad Damasum p. 41 "... de scripturis quibusdam quas 
 Hydatius de armario suo preferens in calumniosas fabulas misit." 
 
 3 Ibid. p. 35 "nos autem, etsi absentes ibi fuimus " ; and Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 
 47 " in absentes tamen lata sententia damnatique Instantius et Salvianus episcopi, 
 Helpidius et Priscillianus laici." 
 
 4 Tractate ii. p. 35 "nemo a nostris reus factus tenetur, nemo accusatus, nemo 
 convictus." 
 
 5 Cf. Tractate iii. p. 44. The first part of the Tractate is missing. 
 
 8 Ibid. p. 44. He appropriates to his own case the words of St. Jude " . . . de 
 omnibus duns quae locuti sunt contra eum." 
 
 Q 
 
226 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 being said, the mendacity, the perfidy that prevailed, 
 had appalled Priscillian. What chance was there of any 
 calm reasoning in a gathering where tumult was certain 
 to prevail ? His reasoning is hard to follow, for he 
 evidently writes under a very strong feeling of resent- 
 ment, and from a lofty conception of the liberty that 
 should be allowed him. In intellect and learning was 
 he a giant among men ? There is everywhere a proud 
 reserve and a flinging out of mystic references which 
 seem to suggest that Priscillian knew his superiority 
 and would not condescend to explain himself. Was it 
 after all the defence of one who knew he had no 
 defence, and tried to mystify his accusers ? As we 
 proceed in this enquiry we must certainly keep this 
 idea in our mind. The Commonitorium of Ydacius 
 had procured from Damasus 1 a letter of advice in 
 which he was counselled to summon the Council and 
 deliberate on Christian morals. So in the autumn 
 of A.D. 380 the Council assembled at Zaragossa. 
 Phoebadius 2 of Agen seems to have presided, and 
 with him there were present Delphinus of Bordeaux, 
 Audentius of Toledo, Ithacius of Ossonoba, Valerius 
 of Zaragossa, Symphosius of Astorga, and Ydacius of 
 Emerita, and bishops Eutychius, Ampelius, Lucius, 
 Splendonius, and Katherius, whose sees cannot be 
 identified. 
 
 Council of The subsequent Priscillianist controversy in Spain 
 an( j t k e Councils that were summoned in that country in 
 the fifth and sixth centuries for the purpose of sup- 
 pressing the Manichaeistic or Priscillianistic heresy add 
 importance to this Council of Zaragossa. ' It was the 
 first of the series, and certainly casts a lurid light on the 
 action of bishops Ydacius and Ithacius in their perse- 
 cution of Priscillian. Neither the introduction to the 
 
 1 Tractate ii., the appeal to Damasus, p. 35, "tua epistula contra improbos 
 praevalente." 
 
 2 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 47, who gives no names. Gams gives us (Kirchengeschichte 
 von Spanien, ii. p. 369) the list attached to the Acts which are accepted as of 
 Zaragossa. Cf. Mansi, Cone. iii. 635. 
 
vni THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 227 
 
 acts of the Council nor yet the names of the bishops 
 present are strictly historical, but the importance of the 
 Council and the seriousness of the controversy make it 
 likely that the traditional list of bishops present and the 
 time of its assembly would soon have taken definite and 
 probably accurate form. 
 
 Internal evidence demands our acceptance also of 
 the canons that were passed. They give weight to the 
 statement of Priscillian, and prove that in Spain at that 
 time Gnostic and Manichaean opinion seriously in- 
 fluenced the lives of Christians. These canons were 
 eight in number : l 
 
 1. Faithful women are to absent themselves from the 
 assemblies of strange men. 
 
 2. No one should fast on a Sunday, 2 nor on Fast days 
 should people keep away from the Services in the Church. 
 
 3. They are excommunicate who receive the Eucharist in 
 the Church and do not eat it. 
 
 4. No one should withdraw himself from the Services of the 
 Church during the three weeks before Epiphany. 
 
 5. Those who are excluded from communion by their own 
 bishops cannot be received back into communion by other 
 bishops. 
 
 6. Clerics who, because of the prevailing looseness of morals, 
 desire to become monks are to be excluded from communion. 
 
 7. No one, to whom it is not formally allowed, shall assume 
 the title of teacher. 
 
 8. Consecrated maidens are not to take the veil before they 
 are forty years of age. 
 
 Did these canons then strike at practices which were 
 common among the followers of Priscillian ? Priscillian 
 says they did not, 8 and that he did not consider himself 
 or his colleagues either aimed at or condemned by 
 them. To Ydacius and Ithacius it was equally clear 
 that they were directed against the Priscillianists ; and 
 Sulpicius tells us that at the Council of Zaragossa 
 
 1 Gams gives them in ii. 370-371, and Mansi ; cf. Hefele, Eng. ed. vol. ii. 290. 
 
 2 This is stated against Priscillianists in Canon iv. of Council of Braga, 563 ; 
 cf. Kiinstle, Antipriscilliana, p. 36. 
 
 8 Tractate ii. 39 " a Caesaraugustana synhodo Hydatius redit, nihil contra nos 
 rcferens." 
 
228 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 bishops Instantius and Salvianus were condemned, and 
 with them the two laymen Helpidius and Priscillian. 
 Sulpicius, however, must include under the term " the 
 Zaragossa synod " negotiations and developments which 
 demand several months of time for their completion, 
 and Ithacius of Ossonoba 1 was commissioned to 
 announce and carry out the decision, whatever it may 
 have been, of the assembled bishops. A further 
 trouble had also arisen, for Hyginus of Cordova, 2 
 who had first aroused the suspicions of Ydacius, 
 and had apparently subscribed to the canons, was 
 now unable to follow in the persecution which had 
 begun. The extravagances of his comrades drove him 
 to take the part of Priscillian, and so his former 
 colleagues pronounced sentence of excommunication 
 against him. The Church in Spain was certainly face 
 to face with a very serious schism. The number of 
 bishops in that province was not very great, and three 
 of them not only sided with Priscillian but now took a 
 further step and consecrated him bishop of Avila, 3 a 
 small town of the province of Tarragona and on the 
 borders of Gallicia. It is clear that the task which 
 Ydacius and Ithacius of Lusitania had undertaken was 
 one of serious import and probably one greater than 
 they could accomplish. The following of Priscillian 
 increased, and the ecclesiastic authority was insufficient 
 to grapple with it. So recourse was had to the civil 
 authority, doubtless on the strength of the letter of 
 Pope Damasus and under the plea of the Manichaeistic 
 tendency of these ascetic rules of the Priscillianists, and 
 so the emperor Gratian 4 came to the help of Ydacius, 
 and granted a decree which expelled the accused from 
 the towns and for a time seemed to have suppressed the 
 movement. 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 47 " atqui id Ithacio Ossonobensi episcopo negotium datum 
 ut decretum episcoporum in omnium notitiam deferret." 
 
 2 Ibid, "Hyginus qui . . depravatus in communionem eos recepisset." 
 
 3 Ibid. " Priscillianum ... ad confirmandas vires suas episcopum in Abilensi 
 oppido constituunt." 
 
 4 Ibid. " elicitur a Gratiano turn imperatore rescriptum." 
 
vin THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 229 
 
 It was probable during the interval before the appeal 
 to Gratian and perhaps immediately after he had been 
 raised to the episcopate that Priscillian wrote his remark- 
 able Apology 1 which appears as the first of the tractates 
 of the Warzburg MS. 
 
 It is addressed to the beatissimi sacer dotes ^ and is a 
 passionate recoil from heresy and unclean living. Once 
 in it he refers to Ithacius and a suggestion which had 
 clearly been made against him of sacrilegious practices, 
 and he is indignant at the very thought, and expresses 
 an opinion that men guilty of such crimes 2 should be 
 proceeded against with the sword. 
 
 In attempting to give a summary of this Apology The 
 one is met again by the singularly erratic style of 
 writing as well as by the temperament of Priscillian. 
 He is deeply versed in Holy Scriptures, and flings 
 out quotations which, while apparently in support of 
 his argument, are also suggestive of much else, and 
 often tend to mystify. He has also read carefully 
 many writings avowedly Gnostic, and introduces names 
 and phrases which are common to such. He refers to 
 similar tractates in defence of their opinions, written by 
 his colleagues Tiber ianus and Asarbus, 3 and he asserts 
 that with them he is ready to condemn all things which 
 seem to be against Christ 4 and to approve all things 
 which are for His glory. They had been asked to 
 explain their faith, and because the apostle had said 
 that we should ever be ready to give a reason for our 
 faith and hope to those who demand it of us, he is no 
 longer prepared to remain silent. Yet all he and his 
 friends have done has been done openly, and they 
 
 1 Schepps' edition, Tractate i. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 24 "... quod qui legit, protulit, credidit, fecit, habuit, induxit non 
 solum anathema maranatha sed etiam gladio persequendus est." 
 
 3 Ibid. p. 3 " libello fratrum nostrorum Tiberiani, Asarbi et ceterorum." On 
 Tiberianus cf. Jerome, De viris. ml. cap. cxxiii. " T. Baeticus scripsit pro suspicione 
 qua cum Priscilliano accusabatur haereseos Apologeticum tumenti conpositoque 
 sermone." 
 
 4 Ibid. " cuncta dogmata quae contra Christum videantur esse damnata sint et 
 probata quae pro Christo." 
 
230 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 have never been guilty of the secret things of a hidden 
 life. 
 
 His language suggests a position of reserve and 
 indignant silence towards the calumnies that had been 
 spread abroad, and perhaps it was this contemptuous 
 refusal to give information which had exasperated his 
 opponents and created this bitter hostility. We may 
 hope, therefore, that he will be at last explicit, and 
 reply in plain and simple terms. 'Was it for heretical 
 views that he was prosecuted, or was it for hidden 
 and immoral practices performed at secret assemblies of 
 his followers ? It is only with the greatest difficulty 
 that we can gain any definite information, and what we 
 gain is barely enough to convince. Throughout the 
 whole Apology there is a tone of confidence which 
 irritates because he will not recognise the situation, and 
 because he is so disdainful of the charges that are made 
 against him. There is clearly no dogmatic foundation 
 for his asceticism, and if he was influenced by 
 Manichaean ideas he does not bring them into pro- 
 minence nor can they be easily discovered. He is 
 conscious that he is a bishop and has a flock, and 
 though he is careless about himself he must protect his 
 flock. He sees himself in every line of his Apology 
 opposite a row of bishops, his beatissimi sacerdotes, to 
 whom he is not a stranger. They come from his 
 immediate neighbourhood, and he knows they have 
 authority, and are able to control his life and actions. 
 They have expressed a desire to receive from him a 
 definition of his belief and general view of life, and he 
 perceives that their actions tend to interfere with his 
 free movement, and hints ironically that the bishops 
 had better teach him on matters of faith rather than 
 that they should hear him as to his own belief. He 
 refuses to consider that his faith and theirs in any 
 way differ, and he feels irritated that they should wish 
 him to approve to them that which they approve them- 
 selves. 
 
vin THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 231 
 
 But we will endeavour to place before the reader 
 some of Priscillian's statements under the two heads of 
 Catholic Faith and Christian Morals. It was clearly 
 under one of these two points that he was attacked, 
 and the reader will be anxious to know what he has to 
 say in reply. Did he hold the Catholic Faith ? In the 
 Apology * he says : cc Since we are not ignorant that no 
 one unless he is born anew of water and the Spirit shall 
 ascend into the kingdom of heaven, we chasten our 
 souls into obedience of the faith through the Spirit, we 
 renounce the lusts of the former life in which we were 
 ashamed, we received the symbol of the Catholic 
 profession for the way of renewed grace, which we 
 adhere to, in order that, entering the laver, the redemp- 
 tion of our body, and baptized in Christ, and clothed in 
 Christ, and rejecting the vain glory of the age, we 
 daily strive to surrender our life as once in the past we 
 surrendered it to One Who suffered for the remission 
 which He offered us of our sins, as He also offered to 
 our souls salvation and safety." 
 
 And again : " For who is there who, reading the 
 Scriptures and believing in One Faith, One Baptism, 
 One God, would not condemn the foolish doctrines of 
 the heretics who, while they wish to compare divine 
 things with human, divide the substances united in the 
 virtue of God, and by the crime of the Binionites divide 
 the venerable greatness of Christ through the triple font 
 of the Church." 2 
 
 He then becomes a little more explicit and con- 
 tinues : 3 " Anathema is he who, believing in the evil 
 of the Patripassian heresy, vexes the Catholic Faith." 
 Next to this folly approaches, he says, the heresy of 
 Novatian, 4 imagining that as sinful acts are ever being 
 
 1 Tractate i. p. 4. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 5 " dividant unitam in Dei virtute substantiam et magnitudinem 
 Christi tripartite ecclesiae fonte venerabilem Binionitarum scelerc partiuntur." 
 
 3 Ibid. p. 6 " qui Patripassianae heresis malum credens Catholicam fidem 
 vexat." 
 
 4 Ibid. p. 7 " anathema autem sit doctrina Nicholaitarum et ad quorum 
 stultitiam Novatiana heresia accedit." 
 
232 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 repeated by men, so men can be cleansed from them 
 by repeated baptisms. 
 
 So far the whole tone seems orthodox, and if what 
 he has said fails to convince, it cannot be assumed that 
 he is in any way heretical. What follows tends to 
 answer the enquiry which the reader cannot but make 
 as to the morality of the Priscillianists, and the extent 
 to which Manichaean principles prevailed amongst 
 them. 
 
 Soon after his remark about the heresy of the 
 Novatians he utters anathema against the Nicolaitae : 
 " And against every one who has his part with Sodom and 
 Gomorrah, and sets up and persists in sacrilegious deeds 
 hateful to God. Anathema too is he who, reading of 
 griffins, eagles, elephants, serpents, and useless beasts, 
 led captive by the vanity of unintelligible and mislead- 
 ing ceremonies, constructs as it were out of them a 
 mystery of a divine religion whose works and hateful 
 position are of the nature of devils, and not the truth of 
 divine glories. These are they whose God is their 
 belly, and who glory in those acts of theirs of which 
 they should be ashamed. These are they who overturn 
 men of doubtful minds and bring about disasters which 
 are to their own ruin ; and call that an oath which, 
 according to the Scriptures of God, though they seem 
 to be unaware of it, is a mystery of perdition, and going 
 headlong, as the prophet says, they are made as spirits 
 on the wings of things that fly, and are ashamed because 
 of their so-called sacred rites, and become as horses 
 and mules which have no understanding, and are worthy 
 of those to whom the sun is the god." 
 
 Once he clearly refers to the charge of Gnostic and 
 Manichaean doctrines, and he proceeds in his usual con- 
 fusing way to answer it. " But," he says, 2 " O beatissimi 
 sacerdotes, there is that charge which is preferred 
 concerning idol forms, Saturn, Venus, Mercury, Jove 
 
 1 ;'.*., who imitate the rites of Mithra. 
 2 Tractate i. p. 14. 
 
vin THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 233 
 
 Mars, and other gods of the Gentiles, which although 
 they are so hateful to God, and founded on no authority 
 from Holy Scriptures, we live in union with and in our 
 daily habits of mundane folly we delight in. Yet if 
 also in these things an expression of our faith is 
 desired, anathema be to it, and may their table become 
 to them a snare and an offence, who should call the sun 
 and the moon, Jove, Mars, Mercury, Venus, and 
 Saturn, and the whole array of heaven their gods, 
 whose cult is to them in the nature of sacred rites, 
 and who, though they are detestable idols worthy of 
 Gehenna, yet worship them." 
 
 To this we may add another passage : * " But we, 
 having Christ, Who reveals God to our mind, through 
 Whom also if we should think otherwise, even these 
 things would be revealed to us, decided to observe the 
 justice of the Lord unto sanctification." 
 
 " Let them," he says, " who love gold imagine for 
 themselves a golden age of Saturn, 2 but for us the 
 divine wisdom is more than all gold and silver and 
 precious stones ; " and in detail he condemns the 
 heathen gods which he had mentioned, and adds 
 another anathema against Saclam, Nebrod, Samael, 
 Belzebuth, Nasbodeus, and Belia, and all who 
 venerate them or say that they are to be venerated. 
 
 Also he anathematises all who deny that Jesus 
 Christ has come in the flesh, and all who will not 
 condemn Manes, 3 his works, his teaching, and his 
 principles, whose especially foul deeds they would 
 suppress even with the sword, and if it were possible 
 would commit to hell those who were guilty of 
 practising them. 
 
 Yet here and there in the midst of his protest 
 Priscillian allows that 4 which would seem to prove 
 
 1 Tractate i. p. 9. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 16 "fingant autem sibi Saturni aureum saeculum qui diligunt aurum." 
 
 3 Ibid. p. 20 " anathema sit qui Manetem et opera ejus, doctrinas atque instituta 
 non damnat." 
 
 * Ibid, p. 26 " si enim scismaticis non facimus scandalum quod nomen Deus in 
 
234 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 that he and his followers were united in some secret 
 bond over and above the common link of the Christian 
 faith. He hopes it is not an offence to schismatics 
 that the name God is inscribed on a new stone, Who 
 in every letter, whether Hebrew or Latin or Greek, in 
 all that is seen or said, is king of kings and lord of 
 lords. 
 
 But we cannot go further through this inextricable 
 mass of inconsequential declamation. It must suffice 
 to offer two further extracts which help to give some 
 idea of the extraordinary character of this Afology. 
 
 "All which things," 1 he says, " O beatissimi sacer- 
 dotes^ searching the Scriptures we know, because for us 
 they are written that he who understands the natures, 
 described in parables, of beasts, rejecting those things 
 which are of the ways of the world, chastens the vices 
 in him, as it is written in the Apocalypse, * lo ! the 
 waters which thou seest and where the whore sits are 
 peoples and crowds of men and nations and tongues.' ' 
 
 " Lastly, 2 as initiated into Christ, we keep the first 
 rudiment of the faith which we accepted, we know 
 that we have believed as believing God, and have 
 renounced as having renounced the devil, and that 
 [sc. the devil] is what is called " the wild beast " (Job 
 id. 10) but God is what Christ Jesus is (i.e. the 
 Priscillianists observe strict continence). What we 
 believe we confess, and, searching the Scriptures and 
 rejecting the appearance of devils, we understand, as it 
 is written, the depth of Satan, knowing, as the apostle 
 says, that no one hath delivered us from the body of 
 this death but the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 And further on he reiterates his profession of orthodoxy : 
 " And so 3 repeating ever the declaration anathema be 
 to him who denies Jesus Christ to have come in the 
 flesh, because he is Antichrist. Anathema is he who 
 denies Jesus Christ, God, the Son of God, crucified 
 
 calculo novo legimus inscriptum qui in omni littera sive Hebrea sive Latina sive 
 Graeca in omni quod videtur aut dicitur rex regum," etc. 
 
 1 P. 12. 2 P. 13. 3 P. 21. 
 
vni THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 235 
 
 for us, as the prophet says, who bore our sins and 
 knew grief for us ; and again St. Paul witnesses that 
 he himself knew no other thing than Jesus Christ and 
 Him crucified. Anathema is he who denies that 
 Christ was fixed to the cross by nails, drank the 
 vinegar and the gall, since He has said to those who 
 are His disciples, c Place thy hands into the marks of 
 My wounded hands,' and we read it written in the 
 Gospel : * They took a sponge filled with vinegar and 
 gall and gave Him to drink, and He said, It is finished/ 
 All which things, according to His own institution, the 
 schismatics and heretics inserting into divine discourses 
 writings and meanings of their own wretchedness mix 
 false with true and lies with catholic teaching." 
 
 And so he concludes with the hope that this his 
 Apology may produce peace and good- will : " And so, 
 beatissimi sacerdotes? if you are of opinion that we 
 have condemned these heretical dogmas, and that we 
 have revealed to you clearly our faith and approved 
 ourselves to you and to God, bear witness to the 
 truth and release us from this suspicion of an evil 
 scandal, and, telling your brethren those things which 
 have given trouble by what evil speakers have declared, 
 heal this sad controversy, since the fruit of life is to be 
 tested by those who labour for a true faith, not by 
 those who in the name of religion carry on their own 
 domestic strife." 
 
 So Priscillian endeavoured, and apparently quite 
 sincerely, to end the controversy that troubled the 
 Church in Spain. One could wish he had been much 
 more explicit, and his constant use of language and 
 terms which are known to have been current among 
 Gnostics and Manichaeans seems, at least, to have given 
 ground for suspicion that some of his followers were 
 guilty of beliefs and practices regarded as heretical and 
 
 1 P. 33 "et ideo, beatissimi sacerdotes, si satisfactum, damnatis heresibus, . . . 
 dantes testimonium veritati invidia nos malivolae obtrectationis absolvite." 
 
236 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 condemned by the Church and the State. The action 
 of Ydacius, however, in his endeavour to suppress 
 Priscillian only aggravated the evil. Priscillian was not 
 a man to be humbled, and by such men as Ydacius and 
 Ithacius. The edict of Gratian had gone forth. The 
 followers of Priscillian fell off, and exile and perhaps 
 imprisonment was imminent for the leader himself. 
 There was only one step for him to take. ' He must 
 appeal to Damasus, and from him obtain an acknow- 
 ledgment of his innocence and orthodoxy, and so 
 Instantius, 1 Salvianus, and Priscillian start for Rome. 
 Their journey by land led them through Aquitaine, and 
 they seem to have lingered at Eauze, because the people 
 listened and were attracted by the teaching of Priscillian. 
 From Eauze they endeavoured to enter Bordeaux, 2 but 
 now Delphinus, the bishop, who had been present at 
 Zaragossa, and had joined in their condemnation, and 
 also on the strength of the edict of Gratian, refused 
 them permission, and they found a refuge in the country 
 estate of Euchrotia, a lady of great wealth, and widow 
 of the rhetorician Delphidius. Here they stayed for 
 some time, and made many converts, and Euchrotia 3 and 
 her daughter Procula definitely attached themselves to 
 Priscillian. Scandal said that Procula had been seduced 
 by Priscillian, and the zeal of Ydacius, if it had not 
 invented, certainly kept this scandal in the forefront. 
 
 Priscillian could hardly, however, have expected a 
 friendly reception in Rome. The Commonitorium of 
 Ydacius had procured from Pope Damasus the advice 
 which resulted in the Synod of Zaragossa in which 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 48 " ac turn Instantius, Salvianus et Priscillianus Romam 
 profecti ut apud Damasum . . . objecta purgarent." 
 
 2 Ibid. " a Burdigala per Delfinum repulsi." 
 
 3 Ibid. " in quis erat Euchrotia ac filia ejus Procula." Euchrotia was the widow 
 of the rhetor Delphidius of Bordeaux of whom Ausonius writes, Ode v. on the 
 professors of Bordeaux, p. 54. 37 : 
 
 "errore quod non deviantis filiae 
 poenaque laesus conjugis." 
 
 I cannot accept Monsignor Duchesne's note concerning Sulpicius' Hist, ancienne de 
 I'liglise, ii. 536. Sulpicius is not only our chief authority, but compels our accept- 
 ance by his evident desire for truth. 
 
vin THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 237 
 
 Priscillian inferentially had been condemned. There 
 was certainly ground for anxiety because of the progress 
 of Gnostic and Manichaean opinions, and the real facts 
 of the case were more likely to be known in Lusitania 
 than in Rome, and the Spanish bishops were certainly 
 opposed to Priscillian. Damasus, therefore, refused him 
 an audience, 1 and as the three lingered in Rome making 
 their plans for the future Salvianus died. Now the 
 Appeal of Priscillian to Damasus corrects in certain Appeal to 
 details the narrative of Sulpicius, and reveals to us the Damasms - 
 character of the correspondence between Ydacius and 
 the pope. Ydacius had suggested to Damasus that a 
 movement should be made against immorality, and 
 Damasus had naturally agreed to it. Priscillian 2 says 
 that they had always urged correctness of morals and 
 denounced indecency and false ethical principles. Then 
 followed the assembly at Zaragossa, where nobody was 
 accused, and nobody was condemned, and no specific 
 crime was even mentioned, so much so that no one had 
 any necessity to reply or any anxiety that they were 
 hinted at. 
 
 " Although," he begins, in his Appeal to Damasus, 3 
 " the Catholic Faith prompts rather to the praise of belief 
 than of speech, yet when we consider the injury which 
 has been done to us by Bishop Ydacius, though we are 
 always of the party of patience, yet we are glad that 
 events have so turned out that to you, who are the 
 senior of us all, and are come in the experience of life 
 to the glory of the apostolic seat, we come to make our 
 confession. 
 
 " For indeed, for some years after our conversion 
 and baptism, turning from the world and rejecting the 
 deeds of darkness, we have given ourselves to God, and 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 48 " hi ubi Romam pervenere Damaso se purgare cupientes 
 ne in conspectum quidem ejus admissi sunt." On Damasus cf. Wittig's Pafst 
 Damasus I. (Rom, 1902). 
 
 2 Tractate ii. p. 3 5 " nos tamen . . . semper hoc in ecclesiis et admonuimus et 
 admonemus ut improbi mores et indecentia instituta vivendi vel quae contra Christi 
 dei fidem pugnant probabilis et Christianae vitae amore damnentur. 
 
 3 Schepps, Tractate ii. p. 34. 
 
238 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 some of us already are chosen by God in the Church, 
 and others are toiling in life that we may be so chosen, 
 and we follow the quietness of the Catholic peace. 
 
 " But when lately, either through unavoidable dis- 
 cussion, or by the rivalry of life, or the influence of 
 novelty, controversies have arisen, we in our desire for 
 the love of the Christ of God and of His peace, although 
 we put our trust in our conscience, yet feared lest 
 intellectual disputation should make for that which the 
 Church does not approve. But thanks be to God, Who 
 in these things is One and True in the midst of these 
 actions, because that none of us who delivered a book of 
 defence up to this time could have a judge or accuser 
 of a reprehensible life, although to make charges may 
 not always be the part of hostile people, but also may 
 be the work of those who desire to remain quiet. At 
 last, 1 in the gathering of bishops at Zaragossa, no one of 
 us was esteemed criminal, no one was accused, no one 
 was convicted, no one had any charge brought against 
 him as to his life or his religious opinions, and no one 
 had any solicitude that he should be called upon to 
 answer on any charge. There was a certain Commoni- 
 torium handed up by Ydacius which would impose 
 some checks on the life we lead. None of us thus felt 
 reproved by what you said in your powerful letter con- 
 cerning and against wicked men. We, nevertheless, 
 although we were not present, ever have urged this in 
 the Church, and shall urge it, that loose morals and 
 indecent rules of living, and the things which are 
 against the Faith of the Christ of God, are condemned 
 even by our love of an approved and Christian life 
 nor would we hinder any who, forsaking 2 parents, 
 children, gifts, rank, and even their own lives, prefer to 
 love God rather than the world, or take away the hope 
 
 1 This statement of Priscillian, ii. p. 35, seems capable of being reconciled with the 
 words of Sulpicius, who says they were condemned, if we allow that the Catholics 
 who opposed him carefully avoided the mention of any names. 
 
 2 Clearly Priscillian had been advocating asceticism and so disturbing Spanish 
 society. 
 
vni THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 239 
 
 of pardon from those who, if they are unable to per- 
 form these things which are first in the order of sanctity, 
 yet may stand in the second or the third rank. As we 
 have always received the Faith so we hold it and teach 
 it : l ' credentes unum Deum Patrem Omnipotentem 
 et Unum Dominum Jesum Christum natum ex Maria 
 Virgine ex Spiritu Sancto, passum sub Pontio Pilato, 
 crucifixum, sepultum, tertia die resurrexisse, ascendisse 
 in caelos, sedere ad dexteram Dei Patris Omnipotentis 
 inde venturum et judicaturum de vivis et mortuis, 
 credentes in sanctam ecclesiam, sanctum Spiritum, 
 baptismum salutare, remissionem peccatorum, in re- 
 surrectionem carnis/ 
 
 " Holding this faith, all the heresies, doctrines, rules, 
 and dogmas which are not sincere, but on the contrary 
 are subtle and engender strife, with true Catholic lips 
 we condemn, baptizing in the name, as it is written, 
 of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not in names as if 
 of many names, but in one because one God, to be 
 venerated in His triune power, Christ, is all things and 
 in all." And then Priscillian proceeds : " Although it 
 would be a long task to go through each item, and 
 might be objectionable to Christian feelings to repeat 
 the wretched doctrines on such matters, yet we say this 
 to your venerable authority that if in. that which we 
 condemn we incur blame we may be condemned by 
 this profession of our appeal. For who 2 is able with 
 Catholic ears to believe the wickedness of the Arian 
 heresy." Then he condemns Photinus in that he who 
 puts his trust in man, as it is written, is accursed. The 
 Patripassians also come under his censure and the 
 Ophitae, " for he is devoid of sense who imagines that 
 God can be a serpent or that we can have a serpent for 
 a god." " Who would wish with the Novatians to 
 repeat baptism ? And among them all we condemn the 
 Manichaeans 3 not as heretics but as idolaters and wicked 
 
 1 P. 36. 
 
 2 P. 38 "quis enim potest catholicis auribus Arianae heresis nefas credere? " 
 
 3 P. 39 " inter quae tamen omnia Manicaeos jam non hereticos sed idolatras 
 
2 4 o BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 slaves of the sun and moon, cursed demons with their 
 professors, sects, morals, rules, books, teachers, and 
 disciples. While then we were living in this true faith 
 and in this simplicity Ydacius returned from the Synod 
 of Zaragossa assigning nothing wrong to us, whom 
 indeed he had dismissed in his communion, and whom 
 those who had not been present had not condemned 
 even by the suspicion of a charge. 
 
 " But that your authority may know when this sad 
 fire burst into flame, and whence this maddening fury 
 began to rage in the world [Ydacius], having returned 
 from the synod and sitting 1 in the midst of the church, 
 was accused as one guilty of an ecclesiastical offence. 
 A definite charge was afterwards made in our churches, 
 and charges were subsequently brought forward by 
 persons, worse than those which had before been 
 brought forward by the presbyterate. Many separated 
 themselves from his clergy, declaring that they would 
 not communicate except with a bishop who had cleared 
 himself of such accusations. So we, when assembled, 
 gave to bishops Hyginus and Symposius 2 letters to this 
 effect, and then all came into a state of excitement. 
 One had to take measures so that the peace of the 
 church might be preserved. The details were com- 
 mitted to writing so that we might speak in the very 
 written words. As far as it concerns the laity, it 
 Ydacius were suspected by them of wrong belief it 
 would suffice us merely if a profession of the Catholic 
 Faith were made, for other things a council of the 
 church should be granted for the purpose of promoting 
 peace, since in the Synod of Zaragossa no one was 
 definitely condemned. Who would not give evidence 
 to one's fellow bishops especially as in that synod the 
 
 et maleficos servos Solis et Lunae invidiosos daemones cum omnibus auctoribus 
 sectis moribus institutis libris doctoribus discipulisque damnamus." 
 
 1 Tractate ii. p. 39. Sulpicius tells us nothing of this, which probably accounts 
 for the bitterness of Ydacius against Priscillian. If Ydacius was the source 
 from whom Sulpicius obtained his information, as Dierich conjectures, this will 
 account for Sulpicius' silence concerning it. 
 
 2 Symphosius was bishop of Astorga. 
 
vin THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 241 
 
 religious man Symposius, who writes these things, was 
 present ? 
 
 " We decided, therefore, among other steps to go to 
 Emerita and ourselves to see Ydacius, and God is 
 witness that our desire was for peace and not for strife. 
 
 " If it is regarded as a wrong and not as in our 
 favour that we went to consult face to face with a 
 brother bishop rather than to summon him to answer 
 as a criminal, then we ourselves are guilty. Going into 
 the church, the crowds being assembled and highly 
 excited, not only were we not admitted into the 
 sanctuary but we were smitten with blows, and we felt 
 we had received harm ourselves and had certainly not 
 inflicted any on him. Then he in unreasonable alarm 
 murmurs appeals, weaving false with true and not 
 mentioning our names, and demands an accusation 
 against false bishops and Manichaeans, and demands it as 
 of necessity, because no one of us would not hate those 
 who should have been false bishops and Manichaeans." 
 
 He then reveals another fact. Ydacius had not 
 only written to Pope Damasus, but had also informed 
 Archbishop Ambrose : l " An entirely false report was 
 given to your illustrious brother Ambrose, and Ydacius 
 inveighs against Hyginus, calling him a heretic with 
 ourselves, as his own encyclical letter sent to all the 
 churches declares, in which he wished to anticipate lest 
 he himself should be condemned. We on our part 
 commended our churches to God, and sent information 
 to you, a circular letter subscribed by all the clergy and 
 the people, and those of us who are able have come to 
 you ; and we wish to supplicate for those who are absent 
 that if Ydacius has any charge to bring against us we 
 may be allowed to demand an audience from the 
 bishops or, if he should wish it, a public trial. He 
 fears no charge or report whose only desire is to be 
 cleared from slander." 
 
 1 Tractate ii. p. 41 " viro tamen spectabili fratri tuo Ambrosio episcopo tola 
 mentitur." 
 
 R 
 
242 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 > So through the whole Appeal it is evident that 
 Ydacius had been busy writing letters to Rome, Milan, 
 and to the Spanish bishops, and endeavouring, if we 
 may give absolute credence to what Priscillian writes, 
 to ward off a slanderous attack on himself by decrying 
 Priscillian and his followers. Incidentally we perceive 
 from what Priscillian had told Damasus that at Zara- 
 gossa there had been serious discussions concerning 
 Priscillian's use of apocryphal writings, and he had been 
 asked to condemn and to give up this practice in 
 terms which neither his intelligence nor his consciousness 
 of right doing would allow. The maxim * damnanda 
 damnentur^ superflua non legantur was not such a one 
 as a bishop so punctilious as Priscillian could adopt, 
 even though it might have been a rough and ready way 
 of settling a controversy. 
 
 It is to Pope Damasus' loss that he would not bring 
 himself to listen to these Spanish appellants. The 
 partiality of his correspondents was harmful to his as 
 to St. Ambrose's memory. 
 
 The Appeal closes with an earnest profession of 
 orthodoxy and loyalty which we cannot omit and 
 with which we will conclude our story of his effort 
 with Damasus : " We, however, not failing to prefer 
 in the cause of faith the decision of the saints rather 
 than that of the world, have come to Rome with 
 no other purport but this, that first of all we should 
 approach you lest our silence and reserve should 
 suggest a conscientious alarm, and that, delivering to 
 you our report, which gives the due sequence of the 
 events of this controversy, we may above all show 
 forth as a body as well as individually the Catholic 
 Faith in which we live. And we also appeal that if 
 Ydacius out of his own hidden treasures brings out any 
 charges which are malicious fables, our opinion on 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 42 " de quibus et ipse Hydatius qui se minus purgans infamari per 
 haec mavult quos metuit audiri in concilio Caesaraugustano sic ait ' damnanda 
 damnentur, superflua non legantur.' " 
 
vin THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 243 
 
 these should be asked so that we be not condemned 
 unheard on any writing, or on the authority of any 
 apostle, prophet, or bishop, but the things which men 
 may feel and say against the canon and the Catholic 
 Faith should be condemned by all who teach or who 
 hear them. 
 
 "Let Ydacius be called before you, and if he has 
 anything he can prove against us, let him pursue his 
 charge to the very end. 
 
 " We beg of you that letters be sent to all your 
 brethren the Spanish bishops. We all seek, lest wrong 
 be done to any, that a council may be summoned and 
 Ydacius may be called, so that those who are charged 
 may hear the case against them, and not find that they 
 are condemned unheard. 
 
 "Yet with our faith declared and evident and 
 approved and our daily life blameless, we would 
 repudiate what has been said against us as to our being 
 Manichaeans, those bishops who were present at the 
 Council (of Zaragossa) bearing us witness lest in your 
 days, which ye know is wrong, the Church should seem 
 to the Catholic bishops, or the bishops to the Church as 
 a harmful influence." Thus did Priscillian plead for a 
 hearing to him, the bishop of the Apostolic See, who 
 had already by imperial decree come to be recognized 
 as the highest court of appeal l in ecclesiastical affairs. 
 But Damasus would not receive him, and on his return 
 to Milan Priscillian saw in his repulse by St. Ambrose 
 that the Church had condemned him. 
 
 What was he to do ? Had he been guilty of the 
 charges which the Commonitormm of Ydacius had 
 mentioned to Damasus, it seems strange that he should 
 have persevered in his yearning to be acquitted. It 
 was a dangerous policy for him to resist the authority 
 of the Church, and he must have been well aware of the 
 
 1 Valentinian and Gratian had made the bishop of Rome a court of appeal for 
 Western Christendom A.D. 369. This decree is not preserved except in Letter xxi. 
 of St. Ambrose. The Rescript of Gratian A.D. 379 or 380 confirms this. 
 Ordinariorum Sententiae. 
 
244 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 peril that faced him. The verdict of the Church seems 
 to show that men regarded him as obstinate, but his 
 Apology and his Appeal scarcely endorse that decision. 
 He was either conscious of his rectitude or he was a 
 most consummate hypocrite, and the more we read 
 these tracts which have been preserved in the 
 Wurzburg MS. the more we feel convinced that his 
 case demands a rehearing. 
 
 There was one and only one remedy at hand, and 
 * n ^ s desperate position he cannot be condemned for 
 taking it. He could appeal to the emperor if not for 
 support yet at least for protection, and to Gratian he 
 who had been condemned by the Church now turned for 
 protection. In the summer of 382 the emperor was at 
 Verona 1 and therefore near at hand. So to the court 
 of Gratian went the two Spanish bishops, Prisciiiian 
 and Instantius, condemned by a Spanish Council and 
 rejected by Ambrose and Damasus, to plead for some 
 consideration against injustice. His success, for he 
 was successful, was naturally assigned to bribery, and 
 the wealth of Prisciiiian always laid him exposed to 
 such a course of action. His appeal to the high court 
 official Macedonius, 2 the master of the offices, won for 
 him a friend, and though no mention is made of the 
 emperor it is difficult to imagine that Macedonius on 
 his own authority could have procured for the perse- 
 cuted a restitution of their sees. Not only was a 
 decree issued for their restoration, but Volventius, 3 the 
 proconsul of Galicia, who resided at Astorga not far 
 from Abila, was also won to their side, and Instantius 
 and Prisciiiian once more returned to Spain and settled 
 down among their friends in the province of Tarragona. 
 * These facts are briefly recorded by Sulpicius, who 
 certainly charges both the imperial officers with the 
 
 1 Cf. Tillemont, vol. v. Hist, des emp. p. 721, note on the law De poenis. Gratian 
 was at Pavia June 20, Verona August 18, and Milan November 22. Cod. Theod. ix. 
 40. 13 ; Mommsen and Mayer, Cod. Theod. i. i. p. cclix. 
 
 2 Cf. Bernays, Vber die Chronik des S. S. p. 9 and note. 
 
 3 Volventius was proconsul of Galicia ; cf. Cod. Theod. ix. 1.14. 
 
vin THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 
 
 245 
 
 receipt of bribes, 1 but the popularity of Priscillian when 
 once again established in his diocese seems to suggest 
 that his followers had not been so completely suppressed 
 as Sulpicius imagined, and that they may themselves 
 have influenced Volventius. The appellant at Verona 
 clearly, and perhaps because he was himself one of his 
 followers, received support from the proconsul at Astorga. 
 The Priscillianists, however, in the autumn of 382 were 
 again in the ascendant, and felt so safe that they took 
 up the case against Ithacius, who with Ydacius had 
 led the proceedings against Priscillian, charging him 
 with a vexatious prosecution and false assertions against 
 the Priscillianists. The oscillation of public opinion 
 was neither so sudden nor so violent in the West as the 
 complicated history of Arianism shows it to have been 
 in the East. \ Procedure was regular and the govern- 
 ment of the Gallic diocese was undisturbed. The civil 
 authority was conscious of an injustice and Ithacius, 
 knowing his danger, fled to Gregory, 2 the prefect in 
 Gaul. Whether he had been condemned by Volventius 
 we do not know, though the action of Ithacius suggests 
 an appeal. Gregory, thereupon demanded that those 
 chiefly concerned in the controversy should be sent to 
 him in order that on enquiry he might draw up a 
 report for the emperor. It was the spring of the year 
 A.D. 383, a cloud had risen in the north and already 
 the success of Maximus must have been well known 
 to the prefect of Gaul. The emperor Gratian was 
 probably at Lyons or Aries and again the friends of 
 Priscillian found in Macedonius 3 the help they needed. 
 Gratian's hands were full of the preparations necessary 
 for the coming struggle, and it could not have been a 
 difficult task to induce him to take the controversy out 
 of the hands of the prefect of Gaul, whose time was 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 48 " corrupto Macedonio . . . corrupto Volventio 
 proconsule." 
 
 2 Ibid. " jussusque per atrocem executionem deduci trepidus profugit ad Gallias j 
 ibi Gregorium praefectum adiit." 
 
 3 Ibid. " igitur haeretici suis artibus grand! pecunia Macedonio data optinent ut 
 imperiali auctoritate erepta praefecto cognitio Hispaniarum vicario deferretur." 
 
246 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 fully occupied in preparations for war, and refer it to 
 Marinianus l the Vicar of Spain. An order was also 
 issued by the emperor, that Ithacius, who was the chief 
 prosecutor, should also be sent to the vicar, and 
 messengers were dispatched to Trier to conduct him 
 back to Spain. Then we hear how a Bishop Britannius, 2 
 about whom we know nothing, though he may have 
 been acting as bishop in Trier during the vacancy of 
 the see, interfered on behalf of Ithacius and under his 
 shelter the latter eluded those who had been sent in 
 search of him. j The advance of Maximus made further 
 action impossible. On August 25 A.D. 383, Gratian 
 was murdered at Lyons 3 and Maximus became at once 
 supreme in Britain, Gaul, and Spain, and nothing there- 
 fore could now be done without his sanction and under 
 his direction. The murdered emperor had certainly 
 not been opposed to Priscillian. He may indeed have 
 listened to his persuasive eloquence at Verona when 
 the rejected of Damasus and Ambrose pleaded for a 
 rehearing of his case, and as long as Gratian lived 
 the Priscillianists had been fairly treated by the civil 
 power. 
 
 The usurpation of Maximus introduces us to a new 
 and the last stage in the process against Priscillian. 
 The emperor had settled at Trier, and Ithacius, the 
 fugitive from Gratian, could as such rely on a favour- 
 able audience. To Maximus he told all the scandalous 
 story concerning Priscillian 4 and his followers, nor 
 would, we may well believe, the tale lose aught of its 
 rancour and partiality from his lips. The theological 
 controversy seemed to the emperor most important. 
 . To sustain the authority of Damasus would ensure him 
 
 1 Marinianus comes before us in a Rescript of Valentinian II. of 383. 
 
 2 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 49. The name may be Britoniumas, Hontheim suggests, 
 and if so he was the bishop of Trier at that time. 
 
 3 Cf. Tillemont as above, p. 724, on the date of the death of Gratian ; Sozomen, 
 ix. n. 2. 
 
 4 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 49 " ubi Maximus oppidum Treverorum victor ingressus est, 
 ingerit (Ithacius) precea plenas in Priscillianum ac socios ejus invidiae atque 
 criminum." 
 
vin THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 247 
 
 the loyalty of the Church in the West ; - and to gain this, 
 therefore, Maximus decided that a Council of Bishops 
 should assemble at Bordeaux, and once more consider 
 the charges made against Instantius and Priscillian. 
 The Council probably assembled in the summer or 
 autumn of 384 and Martin, the bishop of Tours, was 
 present there. 1 The case of Instantius was taken first. 
 The names of the bishops who heard his defence are 
 not mentioned. That he was condemned as unworthy 
 of the episcopal office seems to suggest that the question 
 of morality took the foremost place, and the story of 
 midnight assemblies and gross immorality was one 
 difficult to repudiate, since the testimony of those 
 present would be entirely rejected. - Then came the 
 case of Priscillian, which would undoubtedly have been 
 treated in a similar manner, and ended in a like con- 
 demnation, had he not then and there appealed to be 
 heard by the emperor himself. 2 Clearly the theological 
 controversy had been dropped. The bishops themselves 
 had treated on the question of morality, and such was 
 really a question for the State. For better or, as it 
 turned out, for worse, Priscillian must now face a trial 
 before the new emperor at Trier. In the tangled thread 
 of this dark and difficult narrative the action of Martin 
 of Tours must be carefully followed. As bishops charged 
 with immoral acts Instantius and Priscillian were taken 
 as prisoners to Trier, and in course of time Martin 
 followed them there. His purpose in going to Trier 
 perhaps was twofold, but it seems evident that he was 
 convinced that fair treatment had not as yet been meted 
 out to the Spanish bishops. 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. " deduci ad synodum Burdigalensem jubet." Sulpicius does not tell us 
 of the presence of St. Martin at this Synod, but the chronicler Idatius records that 
 " Priscillianus . . . redit ad Gallias. Inibi similiter a sancto Martino episcopo et ab 
 aliis episcopis haereticus judicatus appellat ad Caesarem . . .," clearly in reference to 
 the Synod of Bordeaux. It seems hardly possible for events subsequent to this Synod 
 and before the execution of Priscillian to have occurred if we place this Synod in the 
 year 385. I have, therefore, placed it in the autumn of 384, a more likely date, and 
 one which Sulpicius does not exclude. 
 
 2 Circumstances clearly forced Priscillian to take this step as against Canon 
 xlvi. of his teaching from St. Paul's epistles j cf. 0/>. Pris. 129. 10. 
 
248 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 There was a gathering of bishops in the summer of 
 385 at Trier, 1 for the see of Trier was vacant, and a 
 successor to Brito had to be appointed. Ydacius and 
 Ithacius were present as the promoters of the action 
 against their Spanish brethren. Their vehemence against 
 the accused carried away the other bishops, and Martin 
 in vain urged upon unwilling hearers that it was a 
 Christian duty to drop this charge. His fame was well 
 known, and not only had he been favourably received 
 by Maximus, but he had been welcomed in private 
 audience by the empress. 2 Unable, however, to turn 
 his brother bishops from their persecution of Pris- 
 cillian, he used his influence to obtain from Maximus 
 a promise 3 that at any rate the life of Priscillian 
 should be spared, and having gained this he departed 
 for Tours. 
 
 The withdrawal of Martin seems now to have effected 
 more than his presence. The matter of the ordination 
 of a successor to Brito was temporarily postponed. At 
 last the other bishops began to realise that their action 
 was unseemly, and perhaps they began to fear that they 
 might implicate themselves in a judicial murder. Ydacius 
 and Ithacius were also impressed with the turn things had 
 taken and gave up the prosecution, but the task which 
 they gave up was now taken by two other unknown 
 bishops, Magnus and Rufus, 4 who won over to their side 
 the stern and cruel prefect Evodius, 5 whom Maximus had 
 
 1 Brito, bishop of Trier, seems to have died in this year, but the actual election of 
 his successor was deferred to the following year. Martin's presence at Trier may 
 therefore have been due solely to his desire to befriend Priscillian. Such certainly 
 was his action there : " Martinus apud Treveros constitutus non desinebat increpare 
 Ithacium ut ab accusatione desisteret, Maximum orare ut sanguine infelicium 
 abstineret." 
 
 2 The story of the empress and her admiration for St. Martin is told by Sulpicius 
 in Dialogue ii. 6. 3. 
 
 3 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 50 " et mox discessurus egregia auctoritate a Maximo elicuit 
 sponsionem, nihil cruentum in reos constituendum." 
 
 4 In the Vita Martini, 24, there is mention of a Bishop Rufus whose conduct 
 suggests he now desired to persecute the party towards one of which he had formerly 
 acted so foolishly. But cf. Gams, K. Gesch. ii. 377. 
 
 5 In the Vita Martini, 20, Sulpicius records of Evodius : " praefectus, idemque 
 consul Evodius, vir quo nihil unquam justius fuit." Cf. Bernays, Vber die Chronikdes 
 Sulpicius Severus, p. 15. 
 
vin THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 249 
 
 just lately placed in authority over Gaul. All question of 
 theology was now dropped, and Priscillian was definitely 
 charged with gross breaches of morality. 1 Maleficium 
 was a secular offence, and the filthy scandal that was 
 repeated induced Evodius to report to the emperor 
 that the accused were, in his sight, guilty of this charge. 
 Priscillian and his companions, in other words, were 
 worthy of capital punishment. 2 Then Ithacius, who 
 still haunted the basilica, openly withdrew from the 
 prosecution, and Patricius, 3 the guardian of the imperial 
 treasury, was appointed by Maximus as accuser of 
 Priscillian. The Spanish bishop was wealthy, and the 
 treasury of Maximus needed filling. -Again the case 
 was considered. Patricius was the prosecutor, and 
 Maximus himself the judge. What did it matter to 
 Patricius so long as he helped to replenish the emperor's 
 coffers ? So Priscillian was condemned on a charge of 
 maleficium^ a charge which apparently he had no power 
 to refute, and a charge which seems impossible, if we 
 read his own passionate insistence on purity and strict- 
 ness of morals. He had appealed to the needy usurper 
 and so 4 had dug his own grave. Priscillian 5 and two 
 priests, Felicissimus and Armenius, who had thrown in 
 their lot with him, were beheaded ; Latronianius and 
 Euchrotia, the widow of the Bordeaux professor, were 
 killed with the sword, and Instantius, who had been 
 condemned at the Council of Bordeaux, was exiled to 
 the Scilly Isles. These apparently were those named in 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 50 "is (Evodius) Priscillianum . . . auditum convictum- 
 que maleficii nee diffitentem obscenis se studuisse doctrinis . . . nocentem pro- 
 mmtiavit redegitque in custodiam." 
 
 2 Ibid. "Priscillianum sociosque ejus capite damnari oportere." Babut, Priscilllen 
 et le Prhcilliimsme (1909), p. 179, considers that Priscillian suffered torture under 
 which he may have made statements which led to his condemnation. He thinks 
 also that Pacatus' ( xxix.) reference to this act of Maximus allows of such an 
 interpretation, cf. p. 266 ; Cod. Theod. ix. 16. 7 j Law of Valentinian, Zosimus iv. 3. 
 
 3 The appointment of this imperial officer as the prosecutor shows that the charge 
 was clearly one of malefidum j cf. Bernays, p. 16, and Sulp. Sev. Dialogue iii. 12. 3. 
 The question of heresy was dropped. Priscillian was condemned on account of 
 " nocturni conventus " under the law of Valentinian. 
 
 4 Cf. Gams, ii. pt. 5. 375 "und grub sich so selbst die Grube " j cf. Lubkert, De 
 haereu Priuilltanistarum, p. 68. 
 
 5 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 51. 
 
250 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP 
 
 the accusation. There were others whose trial seems 
 to have been very short. Asarinus and the deacon 
 Aurelius were killed with the sword, Tiber ianus was 
 deprived of all his possessions, and exiled to the Scilly 
 Isles, while Tertullus, Potamius and John, men of lower 
 rank and therefore regarded as less guilty, were interned 
 in Gaul. 
 
 ' Then, and apparently immediately after this execu- 
 tion, there came the reaction. Christendom stood 
 aghast. The emperor, in his bid for the assistance of 
 the Church, had stained his hands in the blood of 
 bishops. The friends and followers of Priscillian 
 naturally regarded him as a martyr and, as Sulpicius 
 tells us, carried the bodies of those who had been slain 
 to far-distant Spain, and there buried them in solemn 
 grief and profound reverence. Soon it followed that 
 to swear by the name of Priscillian 1 was regarded as an 
 oath of peculiar sanctity, and bitter animosities now 
 broke out among the favourers and opponents of the 
 party, so that fifteen years afterwards, when Sulpicius 
 wrote his Chronicle, the Church was still miserably 
 harassed by the discord which the cruelties on Priscillian 
 had created. Against Ithacius and Ydacius a bitter cry 
 naturally soon arose, and Ithacius, who tried to shelter 
 himself under the excuse that he had only done what 
 his brother bishops had advised, was deprived of his 
 bishopric of Ossonoba, while Ydacius of his own accord 
 resigned the see of Emerita, and retired into private 
 life. Priscillian, the brilliant leader of this strange 
 party of asceticism, was dead, but Priscillianism had not 
 perished with him. The story of its declension and 
 final extinction lies beyond our limits. For years after- 
 wards there were in Spain many who spoke with reverence 
 and affection of the memory of the leader, and the 
 synods which subsequently denounced Priscillianism 
 never proved that Priscillian had taught it. The guilt 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. "... peremptorum corpora ad Hispanias relata magnisque obsequiis 
 celebrata eorum funera quin et jurare per Priscillianum summa religio putabatur." 
 
vin THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 251 
 
 of a cruel persecution and a grave error in judgment, 
 with all its baneful and dispersive influence, hung, like a 
 dark and heavy cloud, upon the Church in Spain, and 
 made itself felt on the life of the Christian communities 
 there, for more than two centuries of its history. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN CONCLUSION 
 
 THE story of Priscillian needs a conclusion. The 
 movement which had arisen and of which he was so 
 prominent a leader did not die with him, and the horror 
 caused by his execution created a reaction greatly in 
 his favour. Before, however, we relate those events 
 which concern this movement, and carry the reader down 
 to the close of the century, we must consider more in 
 detail these writings of Priscillian which in later years 
 his followers were called upon to condemn. In the 
 previous chapter we have considered the three tracts 
 known as the Liber de fide et de apo cry phis, which 
 was probably written during the earlier stages of the 
 controversy, when he was charged with the use of 
 apocryphal writings and books not recognised as Holy 
 Scriptures ; the Apology, which was apparently the result 
 of the council, when he knew that he had been aimed at 
 though he had not been condemned by name ; and the 
 Appeal to Pope Damasus, when he pleaded with the pope 
 for a rehearing of his case, and assured the bishop of 
 Rome of his orthodoxy and right conduct. 
 
 We must now consider the other seven tractates, 
 excluding his work on the Canons of St. Paul's Epistles, 
 and see whether in them or in any of them we can find 
 any teaching which suggests heresy, either Gnostic or 
 Manichaean. The fourth tractate, in the MS. which Dr. 
 Schepps * has published, bears the title Tractates Paschae, 
 
 1 Schepps' edition in the Vienna Corpus, vol. xviii. p. 57. 
 252 
 
CH. ix THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 253 
 
 an appeal to his followers to spend the forty days before 
 Easter in a penitential preparation for that festival. It 
 is a tract on asceticism, 1 and should therefore, if any false 
 teaching existed, put us on the traces of Manichaeanism. 
 We propose to give a translation of portions of the 
 tract as far as is possible, in order to show Priscillian's 
 style, and, if possible, to prove the absence of heresy : 
 "Though Nature herself teaches us that among the un- 
 explored affairs of human life and the petty controversies, 
 all unworthy of God, of the world, nothing is more useful 
 to man than that he should reject the things which are 
 dear to the world, and observe the precepts which God 
 has established, for, as the apostle says, ' all the friendship 
 of the world is enmity toward God/ 2 and again, as the 
 prophet says, * delay not to turn to the Lord and put 
 it not off from day to day/ 3 yet the sensuous nature of 
 mortal men is enslaved in the error of human weakness, 
 while in the meantime divine pity comes as a harbour 
 and longed-for port, amid so much that is unexpected, 
 to the shipwrecked, or as a terminus to those who are in 
 danger. Making use of the one method of revealing 
 divine truth by the mouths of the prophets, God has 
 established the glorious day of Easter, 4 that, though God 
 wishes his creatures every day to serve Him, yet, because 
 all the world lies in darkness 5 and whilst there is no 
 limit to things which are infinite, if our steps are fixed 
 in slippery places we cannot provide a definite plan to 
 those who are uncertain, He may urge us to the observ- 
 ance of the Passion which was experienced for us, and by 
 a yearly commemoration He would constrain us unto 
 the obedience of the faith, us, namely, whom all things 
 should remind that we owe it to ourselves to realise 
 
 1 Cf. St. Ambrose, Letter on the Sunday Fast : " Dominica autem jejunare non 
 possumus quia Manichaeos etiam propter istius diei jejunia jure damnamus." Epp. 
 Class, i. No. 23, Edn. Ballerini, Milan, 1881. 
 
 2 St. James iv. 4. 3 Ecclus. v. 8. 
 
 4 The word Pascha is used throughout. 
 
 5 Manes personified the realm of darkness though he did not give to that person 
 the name of God. The realm of light was infinite. The Manichaeans had one 
 festival called the Bema to commemorate the crucifixion of Manes ; cf. Kessler's 
 Article in Herzog's Realencyklopadie, ix. 233. 
 
254 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 that we live, as the apostle says, 4 either death or life or 
 things present, or things future, all are yours, and ye 
 are Christ's, and Christ is God's.' * 
 
 " And so, dearest in God, because we are placed in 
 this position in order that we may release and direct 
 your minds, environed by the narrow bands of human 
 weakness, as in a new light, by the religious exercise of 
 teaching, preparation is necessary during the commencing 
 forty days for the due observance of Easter, as it is 
 written, 'as good stewards 2 of the manifold grace of God,' 
 lest it should happen that we order that as a matter 
 of authority, or beseech that as a matter of pardon, 
 since at this time both he who abstains from evil, 
 accustoming himself to good practices, ought to wish for 
 yet better things, and he who yet is a slave to the 
 wanton errors of the world may be called off from 
 things that are strange by their observance of these 
 solemn days, so that as the Easter of the Lord draws 
 nigh he who is faithful may rejoice in that he has kept 
 the faith which was enjoined on him, and he who is 
 penitent may seek salvation, and he who is a catechumen 
 may not lose his confidence in future forgiveness, and 
 there may be fulfilled as it is written, ' behold the day of 
 the Lord's salvation, 8 open the gates that a people may 
 enter, who keep justice and truth, since girding up their 
 minds and hoping in the Lord they have attained peace.' 
 
 " Wherefore, most dearly beloved, partakers of the 
 heavenly calling, chasten your souls to God, 4 and, as it is 
 written, 'abstaining from fleshly desires which war against 
 you in your members, fasting unto God, ye may not 
 fast for filthy lucre or in the uncertainty of avarice, nor 
 in strifes or in quarrellings,' since although one pursues 
 as a divine work in these days abstinence from delights 
 and the hardening of the body, yet God does not 
 demand such a fast, but, as it is written, * chastened in 
 body and spirit show forth love and charity, sincere and 
 
 1 i Cor. iii. 22. 2 i Peter iv. 10. 
 
 3 Isaiah xxvi. 2. 4 i Peter i. 22, ii. n. 
 
ix THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 255 
 
 from a true heart, and yourself rich in good works to 
 the glory of God/ and, as the prophet l says, ' loose every 
 bond of injustice and destroy the ties of habit which 
 weaken, go to the relief of him who is injured, consider 
 the child, grant justice to the widow, give freedom to 
 those in prison, and break through every evil yoke, break 
 your bread to those who are hungry, those in want and 
 who have no shelter lead into your houses, if ye see the 
 naked, work for them, and be careful not to despise any. 
 For so it is written if ye give your bread willingly to 
 him who is hungry and satisfy the humbled soul, then 
 shall your light shine in the darkness and your God will 
 be with you, and in all which your soul desires you will 
 be satisfied in every good thing. 1 2 
 
 " For consider what the Pascha of the Lord is. The 
 apostle says, Christ our Pascha is sacrificed for us, 8 
 showing the taking away of things present and the 
 reward that is offered of blessed immortality, in which 
 the offspring of the Virgin and Almighty God, through 
 the assumption of our flesh, not refusing the shame of a 
 human origin, while He kept the manifold proofs of 
 truth in Himself, chastens the vices of a human birth, 
 and by this conception and birth experienced all the 
 humiliation of our nature, so that coming into the flesh 
 He might overturn the earlier law that had been estab- 
 lished, and fixing on the torture of the glorious cross the 
 curses of the power of the world He Himself, the 
 immortal One, and unconquered by death, should die 
 for the eternal life of mortal beings. With whom, on 
 the one hand, we are buried unto death in baptism, and 
 on the other, we long that we may die and be buried 
 with Him, so that we may attain to come to the day of 
 Pascha, so that since His humiliation is our honour, 
 having imitated our Lord, Who, according to the Gospel, 
 for forty days fasted in the desert, walking in the flesh 
 
 1 Isaiah Iviii. 6, etc. 
 
 a The quotation is taken from some early Latin version which follows more 
 closely the LXX. than the Vulgate StdXue <rTpayya\ifa /Stafwv <rvva\\ayfJLdT(av. 
 9 i Cor. v. 7. 
 
256 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 but not after the flesh, we may be somewhat subdued, 
 yet in the framework of the body of Christ we may be 
 restored by the divine light of His commandments. 
 As I your counsellor and your witness seek for God's 
 mercy, so I declare that we cannot be freed from our 
 sins unless we gain salvation by their remission in 
 baptism and our freedom through the Cross of God. 
 
 " These indeed are the days, forty in number, when 
 Moses, having fasted that he might receive the law, was 
 deemed worthy to hear the divine voice. For when the 
 Pascha of the Lord was announced to him he feared 
 the sea, the most powerful element of the world, and 
 for him Nature itself, aroused by a tempest and the 
 waters having been divided, prepared a dry pathway for 
 the people, and against all custom the sterile desert, 
 presenting to them a miracle, produced herbage and 
 pasture for the age. 
 
 " These are the days when Joshua, the son of Nun, 
 in like manner observing his fast, entered the land of 
 promise, when the people were clad in the arms of faith 
 and the ark of the Lord stood in the middle of the 
 water, and Joshua, firm on the bed of the Jordan, 
 afforded a dry pathway for his people, and looking out 
 into the future and redeeming the things that had passed 
 he feared lest nature should go against the divine 
 command. 
 
 " These are the days when God, coming in the flesh, 
 having established the font of baptism for our enrich- 
 ment, fasting in the wilderness days and nights, won, 
 tempted as He was, now by the devil, and now by the 
 needs of the fast, and now by the ambition of mortal 
 men, and now by the very horror of it ; in which, 
 although God could not be tempted, yet preparing for 
 His passion, which was for our salvation, and fulfilling in 
 Himself all that had been decreed concerning the Pass- 
 over, not relaxing in that in which He willed to be 
 tempted, He showed to us the things which ought to be 
 repudiated by us in these days, and that which in faith 
 
ix THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 257 
 
 we read of, how He replied to the devil who tempted 
 Him, we should use for the vanquishing of the Satanic 
 influence around us." 
 
 We have then in this tractate Priscillian's pronounce- 
 ment in favour of Christian asceticism. There is 
 nothing in it which suggests the dualism of Manes, 1 and 
 while there is little argument, the main idea which runs 
 through it is that fasting and chastening of our flesh, 
 i.e. Christian asceticism, is incumbent upon us because of 
 our relationship to Christ. 2 Nor indeed can it be said 
 that there lies within it and, as it were, between the 
 lines any indication of any other principle of asceticism. 
 Priscillian has certainly read deeply in Manichaean and 
 Gnostic literature. 3 He uses ideas and phrases which 
 mark that particular class of literature, but he nowhere 
 gives us evidence that with the phrases he has adopted 
 or would advocate also the doctrines of those sects. 
 Religious novels 4 of a mystical, imaginative, and highly 
 fantastic character were very popular, and were much 
 read at the time, and his phraseology was doubtless that 
 which was current. ' Yet, however involved is his style, 
 and however far-fetched his similes and his arguments, 
 we must not condemn him on that account. His 
 popularity among the lay folk in Galicia and in 
 Aquitaine proves that he had caught the popular ear. 
 There is no hint of any inner or secret society within 
 the Church. 5 The divisions are those common to 
 
 1 Cf. Paret's excellent remarks, Priscillianus, p. 115-116: " der Grundsatz der 
 christlichen Askese 1st hiermit freilich nicht motiviert, nur die Ansicht vom Werk 
 Christi selbst darnach gestimmt," and again further down : " dann ist aber auch 
 nichts verfehlter als bei P. gnostische und dualistische Neigungen zu finden." 
 
 2 Priscillian, Tract, iv. p. 60. 14 "in compaginationem corporis Christi divina 
 praeceptorum luce reparemur." 
 
 3 Cf. Kiinstle p. 8 " denn die neugefundenen Schriften zeigen deutlich, dass 
 Priscillian in der Tat eine Reihe gnostischer und manichaischer Irrtiimer gelehrt 
 hat." I am more inclined to agree with Aime Puech : " er findet es zwar nicht 
 wahrscheinlich, dass Priscillian ein eigentlicher Manichaer war aber seine 
 Orthodoxie kann er nicht glauben." 
 
 4 Cf. Glover's Life and Letters in the Fourth Century, p. 357. Gwatkin also, in 
 his Studies of Arianhm, p. 102, shows in his criticism of the Life of Antony how 
 fiction prevailed and was devoured in the fourth century. The novels of the 
 Monumenta vetera are Arian works of fiction. 
 
 5 Hilgenfeld, pp. 53-54, seems to note in various phrases evidence that these 
 
 S 
 
258 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 everyday life : he who is faithful, 1 he who is penitent, 
 and the catechumen. He receives his faith in the 
 sacrament of baptism once administered. The bishop 
 exhorts his flock in a perfectly natural way, as one who 
 is so placed over them that he is bound by teaching 
 them to lead them, as it were, into a new light. They 
 are his dearest in God. His exhortation is that of a 
 hypersensitive and mystic yet affectionate father in 
 God. 
 
 Following the tract on Pascha there are six others, 
 which bear the titles Tractatus Genesis, Tractatus Exodi, 
 Tractatus primi psalmi, psalmi tertii, and Tractatus ad 
 populum i. and it. 
 
 These tractates seem to have been discourses follow- 
 ing on some passage of Scripture which had been read 
 aloud, and probably to an assembly of Christians in 
 Church. They do not seem to be complete, nor can 
 they be regarded as definite and carefully planned out 
 addresses on Holy Scriptures. Portions are so involved 
 as to suggest that the scribe 2 had not been able to 
 follow the argument, and had contented himself by 
 taking down some few of the exact words which the 
 speaker had used without a thought as to the context. 
 The term tractate 3 is that generally applied to a bishop's 
 
 addresses were delivered to an inner society, some guild of followers initiated into all 
 his teaching. To prove this he cites the terms in which they are addressed : 
 dilectissimi in deo iv. p. 58, charissimi viii. p. 88, dilectissimi fratres v. p. 67 j 
 the phrases agere ergo nos oportet excubias viii. p. 87, post evasionem eorum 
 quae sunt in mundo x. p. 92, and absoluta testamenti area, quod nos sumus x. p. 
 1 02 ; and his words in Tractate iv. p. 57 dum nullus infinitis est finis fixo in 
 lubricis gressu modum non constituimus incertis. I confess that all these expressions 
 seem to me to be such as a bishop might and would use towards his flock, and I am 
 not prepared on such grounds to bias my judgment on Priscillian. 
 
 1 Cf. iv. p. 58 "Qui fidelis est, paenitens salutem repetat, et catecuminus, in 
 hoc positi sumus ut sensus vestros religiosa docendi exhortatione laxemus." Oral 
 teaching largely prevailed in the West. 
 
 2 These tractates bear a certain likeness to the Homilies of St. Hilary on the 
 Psalms, which were oral instructions after a psalm had been read publicly in the 
 church ; cf. Homily on Psalm xiv. (Migne ix. 299) " psalmus qui lectus est 
 inscribitur psalmus David." 
 
 3 "Tractates" was certainly the word used in the fourth century for the Allocution 
 or Pastoral of the bishops ; so Ruricius writes to St. Ambrose " quas nobis et sermone 
 vivo et patrum tractatibus ministratis," Rur. Ep. ii. 44 (Vienna Corpus, xxi. p. 427) j 
 and so Optatus, De schism. Donat. vii. 6 ; but on the contrary Cassian uses the 
 word generally, sermo exhortatorius. In the Collationes, x. 9. 3 and 1 1. 6 it 
 
ix THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 259 
 
 sermon or allocution, but such a use of the word was 
 not strictly adhered to and might fairly be applied by 
 a follower to Priscillian's addresses, when as a doctor 
 and a bishop he exhorted his flock in the diocese of 
 Abila. There is no trace of dualism in them, nor can 
 they be said to teach anything contrary to Holy 
 Scriptures. His similes, his interpretations, and his 
 quotations are all exaggerated. They show the man 
 himself, one who has thought out Gnostic cosmogonies 
 and Manichaean principles, and sees how some items from 
 these heresies are capable of an orthodox interpretation, 
 and who weaves these phrases into his discourse while 
 he keeps clearly on the lines of orthodox doctrine. We 
 give a quotation from tractate vi. It is the conclusion 
 of his remarks on the passage from Exodus which had 
 been read : l " Among all which things, though the 
 Scripture of God is openly read and spoken to you, 
 yet since I also am esteemed your witness in Christ 
 Jesus, I give you advice as one who has obtained mercy 
 from the Lord, that putting off the old man with all 
 his deeds and lusts ye keep the Pascha and in the seven 
 days, in which either the world was begun or formed or 
 completed, free from that disturbing influence, that is, 
 without that fault, sincere, and as it were unleavened, 
 and owing nothing to the days of the world, ye may 
 perceive God's nature in you and the law, which 
 is that we may live by the flesh and blood of God so 
 that when God shall come in judgment as ye read in 
 the Apocalypse you may not be of the number of the 
 beast or of the measure of the world, but in which also 
 ye read that John wept concerning the sealing of the 
 seven seals 2 as if we may be reckoned as a book of 
 heavenly doctrine, and among the twelve thousand of 
 
 denotes an instruction or discourse, and in the Institutes i. n. 16 it is clearly the 
 ordinary sermon delivered at the time of the Holy Eucharist : " cumque subsistens 
 senex audisset eum fuisse tractatum et mutato rursus officio celebrare velut diaconum 
 catechumenis missam." Prof. Watson translates the word as "homily "5 cf. 
 Introd. Hilary, Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. ix. 
 
 1 Tractate vi. p. 80. 25. 
 
 2 Apoc. v. 4. 
 
260 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 the patriarchs that were sealed, 1 we may not be accounted 
 of the number of the beast, but of the measure of a man, 
 that is, of an angel, and that may be fulfilled which our 
 Lord in the Gospel says, * the children of this world 
 marry and are given in marriage, beget and are begotten, 
 but the sons of God neither marry nor are given in 
 marriage, neither beget or are begotten, but are as the 
 angels of God.' ' The Tractate ad populum No. i , is 
 very fragmentary, and it begins with a quotation from 
 Hosea, 2 which does not help us as to the text on 
 which the discourse is based. The second tractate to 
 the people is, however, apparently based on Psalm lx. 3 
 It is much longer and abounds in quotations from Holy 
 Scripture. He urges his flock to preserve its conscience 
 free from all blame, and says that they who turn to the 
 faith of Christ shall recognise the future from the past, 
 transient from eternal, and false from true, and further 
 on he says that all things which were done or were 
 written were so written that the mind of God revealing 
 invisible things by those that are visible might speak in 
 the aptest manner to human intelligence. 
 
 The eleventh tractate bears the title Benedktio super 
 fideles. It is imperfect, about one-third of it at the end 
 having been destroyed or become illegible. It is in the 
 form of a prayer and suggests much of the thought 
 brought out in the tractate on Genesis. 4 It is addressed 
 to Almighty God, the Holy Father, who has prepared 
 a way of holiness in Jesus Christ. Possibly it was a 
 prayer said at baptisms, but this is only conjectural. 
 
 The Canons drawn up on Faith and Morals, with 
 passages from St. Paul's Epistles in support of them, are 
 ninety in number. The first eleven concern God and the 
 
 1 Cf. Orosius' remarks to St. Augustine. The Manichaeans enjoined on those 
 who were perfect various prohibitions under the heads of the Tria Signacula, i.e. of 
 orw, manus, and sinus. There is no reference, however, to such here, and this is the 
 only place in these tractates where that word is used. 
 
 2 Hos. xiv. 10. 
 
 3 Cf. Tractate x. p. 95 "et ideo David sanctus titulum psalmi " etc. 
 
 4 Cf. Paret p. 83 " sie ist ebenfalls von dem Gegensatz zum ManichSismus 
 bewegt." 
 
ix THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 261 
 
 universe, Canons xii.-xxi. inclusive, deal with our Lord 
 and His work on earth, xxii.-xxxii. are anthropological, 
 while most of the others deal with questions of 
 asceticism and Christian ethics. It is impossible to 
 find out the extent to which Bishop Peregrinus has 
 altered these Canons, but the fact of it makes them 
 unreliable as evidence of the teaching of Priscillian. 
 The work was popular and needed, and its use by 
 churchmen of the age compelled a revision at a very 
 early period. It is questionable, however, whether that 
 revision did more than provide them with an orthodox 
 and acceptable recommendation. 
 
 The Tractates which Dr. Schepps discovered at 
 Wttrzburg, and the Canons which he published with 
 them, enable us to understand Priscillian the better, but 
 certainly cannot be said to prove the false teaching 1 of 
 Priscillian. > They do not suggest such teaching or such 
 a man as Orosius 2 described to St. Augustine. Earnest, 
 excitable, imaginative, he seems to be rather a mediaeval 
 mystic 3 or later pietist than a Manichaean. Not a 
 word but suggests the highest morality, though, on the 
 contrary, not a word that suggests that Christian 
 marriage is lawful. There are no secrets. There is no 
 esoteric teaching. If they are really expressive of 
 Priscillian's doctrine he cannot be said to be either a 
 Manichaean or a Gnostic. The Canons confirm the 
 teaching of the tractates, and the collection of tractates 
 bears internal evidence of the same mind and the same 
 method of education. We are not justified merely by 
 our study of these in saying that Priscillian was any- 
 thing but orthodox. 
 
 1 In his prologue to the Canons Priscillian states definitely his view : " ilia vero 
 vitari debere quae sunt spiritali et innocuae fidei Christianae contraria atque inimica." 
 
 2 Schepps, Priscillian, p. 151 : Orosius tells St. Augustine of Priscillian " docens 
 animam quae a deo nata sit de quodam promptuario procedere," and that "membra 
 patriarcharum membra esse animae." 
 
 * Cf. E. Ch. Babut, Le Concile de Turin (Paris 1904), p. 42 note : " Priscillien ne 
 fut nullement 1'inventeur ou le propagateur d'une heresie dogmatique ; les pri- 
 scillienistes n'ont forme qu'un parti ascetique et pietiste, toute la tradition heresi- 
 ologique relative a leur pretendu systeme ne repose que sur une imposture d'ltacius, 
 eveque d'Ossonoba." 
 
262 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 In the execution of Priscillian and his followers the 
 emperor Maximus had hoped to have gained the 
 execution support of the Catholic party of the West. He desired 
 for h supporT to be regarded as the protector of the orthodox and the 
 of the f oe O f a il heretics. The emperor Theodosius was in 
 the East and the young Valentinian in Italy. His 
 mother was known to be an Arian, and personally 
 unfriendly to St. Ambrose, 1 nor could she be regarded 
 as a friend of Pope Siricius. There was much there- 
 fore to lead Maximus to hope that he would gain the 
 support of the Church. In the autumn of 385 or in 
 the following spring he received a letter from Siricius 2 
 concerning a certain deacon Agricius, 3 who had been 
 irregularly ordained. In this letter Siricius seems to 
 have made some enquiries as to the religious views of 
 the emperor. There is no sign, however, of any 
 reproof or regret on the part of the pope at the whole- 
 sale executions at Trier, and it does not appear as if any 
 was ever made by him. Maximus, in his reply, assures 
 Siricius of his orthodoxy and of his zeal for the 
 Catholic Faith. He will order a Council 4 of the bishops 
 of the five southern provinces of Gaul, and see that the 
 case of Agricius is thoroughly considered. His desire 
 and intention is that 5 the Catholic Faith, far removed 
 from all dissensions, with a united Catholic episcopate, 
 serving God with one heart and mind, unhurt and 
 inviolate, may long be preserved. As for the Mani- 
 chaeans he shuddered at the thought of their vices, and 
 what he had done concerning them he preferred that 
 Siricius should hear rather from the report of his deeds 
 
 1 Cf. Paul the Deacon's Life of St. Ambrose-, and Tillemont, x. 186. 
 
 a Mansi, iii. 671. The letter no longer exists, but the reply of Maximus reveals 
 its contents. Nothing in the emperor's reply seems to justify Gams in calling the 
 letter of the pope a Klagebrief. There must have been a good deal of flattery in it. 
 
 3 " De Agricio quern indebite ad presbyterii gradum conscendisse memoras." 
 
 4 " Catholici judicent sacerdotes. Quorum conventum ex opportunitate omnium 
 vel qui intra Gallias vel qui intra quinque provincias commorantur . . . constituam." 
 The five provinces were Vienne, Narbonnensis i. and ii. and Aquitania i. and ii. 
 Novempopulania was probably included in Aquitania i. 
 
 5 " Ut fides catholica procul omni dissensione submota, concordantibus universis 
 sacerdotibus et unanimiter Deo servientibus, illaesa et inviolabilis perseveret." 
 
ix THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 263 
 
 than from his own narrative of them. To Theodosius 
 himself Maximus also wrote, as well as to the younger 
 Valentinian urging the latter to keep to the faith of his 
 father, 1 and calling upon Theodosius 2 not to allow any 
 changes or innovations to take place in the Catholic 
 Faith. 
 
 Meanwhile at Trier Maximus became the protector The m- 
 of Ithacius and Ydacius, and the stern foe of all who 
 sympathised with the fate of the Priscillians. A 
 Commission was ordered to proceed 3 to Spain to put 
 down all adherents of this movement, and power was 
 given to it to put to death all who would not abjure. 
 
 The see of Trier was vacant and a successor to 
 Brito had to be found. For this, and if possible that 
 he might plead once more with Maximus to spare the 
 poor deluded Priscillianists of Galicia and for others 
 whose lives were in danger, St. Martin of Tours again 
 made his way to Trier. 4 But in A.D. 386 he was not 
 welcomed by the emperor as he had been in A.D. 385. 
 There was an influence behind the throne which was 
 hostile, and Maximus, now that he had broken the 
 pledge which he had made to St. Martin, was no longer 
 desirous to meet him. The dramatic incidents which 
 concerned St. Martin personally we have related in a 
 previous chapter. 5 We are only now concerned with 
 the conclusion of the story of Priscillian and his 
 followers. At Trier St. Martin found a colleague in 
 Bishop Theognistus, 6 who could not be induced to hold 
 intercourse with those who were morally responsible 
 
 1 Cf. Mansi, iii. as above : " venerabilis memoriae D. Valentinianus pater 
 clementiae tuae hanc fidem fideliter imperavit. Nihil ille attingere voluit quod bene 
 constitutum videbat." In the earlier part of the letter he had written "audivi 
 enim novis clementiae tuae edictis ecclesiis catholicis vim illatam fuisse." 
 
 2 Sozomen, vii. 13 ... Trp6<pafftv jj.v u>s O&K a.ve%6[Jievos\veiaTep6v TI yv<r6ai 
 irepi rrjv trdrpLOv irlffnv Kal TTJV KK\r]<ria<rTiKT]v rdj-iv. 
 
 3 Sulp. Sev. Dialogue ii. 13. i " tribuni jam ad excidium ecciesiarum ad Hispanias 
 missi." 
 
 4 Ibid. 1 1 " Martinus multis gravibusque laborantium causis ad comitatum ire 
 compulsus." 
 
 5 Cf. Chapter VI. 
 
 6 Sulp. Sev. Dial. iii. iz. i "si Theognisti pertinaciam qui eos solus palam lata 
 sententia condemnaverat." 
 
264 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 for Priscillian's death. Martin and Theognistus stood 
 apart. The others denied their guilt, and asserted 
 that the execution had taken place in- due process of 
 law. A synod of enquiry had, somewhat informally, 
 taken place at Trier which had acquitted Ithacius. 1 If 
 Ithacius was guilty, as Martin and Theognistus 
 believed, the emperor himself was not innocent, and 
 Maximus determined that Ithacius should not only be 
 acquitted but be treated also as innocent. So Maximus 
 placed before St. Martin the two alternatives. 2 Either 
 he was to join with the persecutors of Priscillian and 
 in a solemn act of communion consecrate with them 
 a bishop for Trier, or he might abstain, and the tribunes 
 would be sent to Spain with power of life and death 
 over all who professed themselves followers of the 
 tenets of Priscillian. St. Martin at first held out, but 
 the king was angry 3 and demanded a promise of 
 obedience. The night came on and still the matter 
 hung in the balance, and St. Martin began to realise the 
 seriousness of the situation. 
 
 Moreover, St. Martin himself was in the utmost 
 danger. It was not probable that he would ever be 
 allowed to leave Trier if he refused the emperor's 
 demand. So St. Martin, and apparently the other 
 bishops who felt as he felt, joined with Ithacius, 
 Ydacius and those who had done to death the bishop 
 of Avila and consecrated Felix* as bishop of Trier. 
 Beyond the compulsion and the ill-will, it does not 
 appear as if there had been anything irregular, but the 
 consecration of Felix was always looked upon as stained 
 by the participation in it of the bloodguilty hands of 
 Ithacius. 
 
 Meanwhile the fortunes of the Priscillianists varied 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. "quin etiam ante paucos dies habita synodus Ithacium pronuntiaverat 
 culpa non teneri." 
 
 2 Ibid, "spondet se communicaturum si parceretur," etc. 
 
 3 "... rex ira accenditur ac se de conspectu ejus abripuit." 
 
 4 "... Maximus indulget omnia ; postridie Felicis episcopi ordinatio parabatur, 
 sanctissimi sane viri et vere digni, qui meliore tempore sacerdos fieret, hujus diei 
 communionem Martinus iniit." 
 
ix THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 265 
 
 greatly. In Aquitaine they were persecuted, and a 
 young woman, Urbica, 1 who is identified by Gams 
 with the daughter of Euchrotia, was stoned to death at 
 Bordeaux, because she would not cease to be a disciple 
 of Priscillian. In the far north-west of Spain, on the 
 contrary, the region where, at Avila and at Astorga, 
 Priscillian had laboured, the number of adherents 
 greatly increased, 2 and many of the bishops were 
 openly in favour of the principles which he had taught. 
 ^ In the following year, A.D. 387, St. Ambrose was 
 called upon to undertake a mission to Trier. 3 It was 
 his second embassy to Maximus, and he was sent by the 
 younger Valentinian and his mother to plead for the 
 life of certain court officials who had fallen into the 
 hands of Maximus. 
 
 At Trier he endorsed the action of St. Martin, and 
 would not hold communion with Ithacius, and two 
 years afterwards, when Maximus was dead and 
 Valentinian II. reigned, a synod of bishops assembled 
 at Trier and deposed Ithacius, 4 while Ydacius, 5 who had 
 realised the feeling which was against him, of his own 
 accord retired from his bishopric. Felix, against whom 
 there seems to have been no charge, continued to act as 
 bishop of Trier for some years longer, and in A.D. 398 6 
 resigned his bishopric and entered into a monastery. 
 
 The death of Maximus in A.D. 388 materially 
 altered the condition of the Priscillianists. Theodosius 
 was prepared to make full use of the obloquy which 
 the executions at Trier had cast upon Maximus, 7 and in 
 
 1 Prosper, Chron., A.D. 386, " Burdegalae quaedam Priscilliani discipula nomine 
 Urbica ob impietatis pertinaciam per seditionem vulgi lapidibus extincta est." I do 
 not understand why Gams, K. G. <von Spanien, ii. i. 383, calls her "die Tochter der 
 Euchrotia." Sulpicius calls the daughter of Euchrotia, Procula. 
 
 2 Idatii Chron. " exin in Gallaeciam Priscillianistarum haeresis invasit." 
 
 3 Cf. Paulus, Vita Amb. 60 ; Ep. Amb. No. 56. 
 
 4 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 51 "quod initio jure judiciorum et egregio publico 
 defensum postea Ithacius ... ad postremum convictus . . . episcopatu detrusus." 
 Ambrose, Ep. No. 56. 
 
 5 Ibid. " Ydacius, licet minus nocens sponte se episcopatu abdicaverat." 
 
 6 Cf. Binterim, Deutsche Concilien, i. p. 282 ; Tillemont, viii. 514. 
 
 7 Gams, K. G. von Spanien, ii. i. 386 "denn Theodosianer seyn und Priscillianist 
 seyn . . war ihnen dasselbe." 
 
266 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 A.D. 389 Pacatus Drepanius, a Galilean orator, in the 
 panegyric he delivered at Rome 1 before the emperor 
 Theodosius, makes use of these executions to heighten 
 the obloquy and hatred that was felt for the memory of 
 Maximus. His native Gaul, he says, demands 2 that 
 he should speak, first of all, of the evils which it had 
 suffered under the usurper. They had satisfied the 
 tyrant in his cruelty by the innocent blood which had 
 been shed. He will speak of the death of men, nay, 
 he must descend and record how the tyrant shed the 
 blood of women, and spared not the sex which, even 
 in times of war, is exempt. He must tell, indeed, how 
 a matron, the wife of an illustrious rhetor, should be 
 hurried off in custody for punishment, whose only 
 offence was that as a widow 3 she was too much given 
 to religious observances and was too devoted a 
 worshipper of God ; how a bishop, too, should have 
 acted as her persecutor ; and how the tyrant should 
 have been surrounded by a crowd of bishops who 
 acted as spies on others. In his avarice he had gathered 
 to him the goods of those who were rich. In his cruelty 
 he had punished innocent people. In his impiety he 
 had inflicted harm on religion. 
 
 So at first Theodosius was prepared to take under 
 his protection the poor deluded Priscillianists in far-off 
 Spain. The executions at Trier, the riot at Bordeaux 
 were avenged. The foes of Maximus were now objects 
 of pity on the part of Theodosius. Priscillianism was 
 certainly not dead. As an ascetic movement it was 
 being distinguished from Manichaeanism and receiving 
 
 Council of tne imperial protection. 
 
 Nimes. I n A.D. 3^4 there assembled at Nlmes 4 a Synod of 
 
 1 Baehren's Latinl panegyrici xii. Pacati Drepanii Panegyricus Theodosio 
 Augusto dictus, p. 271. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 293 "unde igitur ordiar nisi de tuis mea Gallia malis . . . nos saevitiam 
 ejus innocentium sanguine . . . satiavimus." 
 
 3 i.e. Euchrotia, the widow of the rhetor Delphidius of Bordeaux, whom, doubt- 
 less, Pacatus Drepanius had known. 
 
 4 This Council was only known to us through Sulpicius until in 1743 Ignatius 
 Roderique discovered and published at C8ln the Acts of the Council. Again in 
 
ix THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 267 
 
 the Galilean Church to remove the scandals that existed 
 and to heal its divisions. 1 The movement towards 
 Christian asceticism had made great progress in the 
 south of Gaul, and the Dialogues of Sulpicius 2 show 
 clearly that monasticism was already beginning to 
 capture the minds of devout Christians. The cleavage 
 among the bishops of Gaul which gave rise to these 
 dissensions was probably caused by it, and the terms 
 applied to the two parties, of Felicians and Anti- 
 Felicians, though, of course, they arose from the 
 consecration of the unhappy Felix to the see of Trier, 
 came to denote the two parties who favoured, and did 
 not favour, this ascetic movement. Felix of Trier, 
 though he is said to have afterwards retired to a 
 monastery, with the Ithacians who joined in his 
 election, gave his name to the an ti- ascetic party in 
 the Church. There were many who had come from 
 the East, and who claimed to be priests and deacons, and 
 these unknown visitors, insisting on their sacred 
 position, overturned the organization of the Gallican 
 dioceses. 
 
 There were seven Canons enacted at this Synod : 3 
 
 1. Because many coming from the uttermost parts of the East 
 describe themselves as presbyters and deacons, and presenting to 
 those who are ignorant unknown letters of peace, obtain board 
 and lodging, and relying on the communion of the saints, impose 
 upon others a form of counterfeit religion, we decree that if there 
 are such, unless the common interest of the Church demand, they 
 are not to be allowed to exercise the ministry of the altar. 
 
 2. The second Canon seems, though it does not expressly say so, 
 to be directed at some customs of the Priscillianists. A new thing 
 had happened, and women had begun to minister in the Church as 
 
 1839 Dr. Kunst published them in the Bulletin of the Societ de 1'Histoire de la 
 France from a sixth-century MS. Cf. Abbe Leveque's Le Concile de Nimcs (Nimes, 
 1870). 
 
 1 In the preamble of the Acts, "ad tollenda Ecclesiarum scandala discessionemque 
 sanandam pacis studio venissemus," a statement which makes for authenticity and 
 would not have been written two hundred years after. 
 
 2 Cf. Sulp. Sev. Dial. i. p. 152. He was writing from some retreat near 
 Toulouse. Cf. Letter iii. " ego enim Tolosae positus." 
 
 3 Cf. Hefele's Councils, Eng. ed., vol. ii. p. 403. On the law of Theodosius, 
 A.D. 390, regulating the matter of deaconesses cf. Cod. Theod. vi. z. 27. 
 
268 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 it were as deaconesses. Such a custom was indecent and ecclesi- 
 astical discipline would not allow of it. No woman henceforth 
 was to presume to take such office upon her. 
 
 3. The third Canon decreed that no priest or layman under 
 censure from his own bishop was to be received again into com- 
 munion by another than his own bishop. 
 
 4. The fourth forbids a bishop to pass judgment on the 
 presbyter of another bishop. 
 
 5. The fifth lays down that since many on the pretext of a 
 journey grow rich 1 from the bounty of the faithful, it is to be 
 understood that the faithful are not called upon to give to all, and 
 that their offerings are strictly voluntary and cannot be demanded 
 as of right. 
 
 6. The sixth establishes that when any ministers of the Church 
 seek letters for their journeys, such letters of peace and recom- 
 mendation can only be signed by the bishop. 
 
 7. The last is very confused and refers to the loss sustained by 
 the Church in the manumission of slaves, such apparently being at 
 first a charge on the funds of the diocese. 
 
 These canons are signed by nineteen bishops, 
 Aprunculus of Auch, Ursus, Genialis of Cavaillon, 
 Alitius, Felix, Solinus, Adelfus, Remigius, Epetemius, 
 Modestus, Eusebius, Octavius, Nicesius, Evantius, 
 Ingenuus, Aratus, Urbanus, Melanius, and Trefesius. 
 
 It was to this Council at Nimes that St. Martin 2 
 was summoned. His grief, however, over the events 
 at Trier in A.D. 386, had made him resolve to attend 
 no more such synods, and Sulpicius tells us how the 
 saint desired to know what had happened, and how he 
 seemed to know intuitively 3 as they were sailing down 
 the Loire at the very moment when the bishops were 
 actually in session at Nimes. The Council had acted 
 with caution. < Asceticism was not condemned and the 
 Priscillianists were only hinted at in reference to the 
 ministry of women. The decisions only concerned 
 obvious offences in the organisation of the Church. 
 
 1 Cf. Hilary's comment on these luxurious clergy, Homily on Ps. lii. 13. 
 
 2 Sulp. Sev. Dialogue ii. 13. 8 "apud Nemausum episcoporum synodus 
 habebaturad quam quidem ire noluerat sed quid gestum esset scire cupiebat" ; Venant. 
 Fort. Vita Martini, iv. 384 : 
 
 " ulterius synodo neque se promiscuit insons 
 virtutisque suae damnis nova lucra paravit." 
 
 3 Ibid, "ibi angelus quid gestum esset in synodo ei nuntiavit." 
 
ix THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 269 
 
 Nearly ten years had passed away since the tragedy 
 at Trier, and it was no longer possible, under Theodosius 
 and Valentinian II., to persecute these deluded Spaniards. 
 Their friends especially in Galicia had increased in a 
 marked degree. 1 Most of the bishoprics in Spain were 
 held by men who venerated the memory of their leader. 
 / But a cleavage seems to have appeared. Asceticism 
 was winning its way, and the orthodox creed of those 
 who favoured it showed that a means must be adopted 
 for bringing about their reconciliation with the party 
 who had persecuted them. While a large section of 
 those Priscillianists in Galicia was moving on towards 
 reunion there were others less influential and less 
 educated who were probably taking a distinctly 
 heterodox and schismatic course. These certainly 
 clung to the name of Priscillian though they do not 
 seem to have followed his instruction. The strong 
 hand and the commanding intellect of their leader had 
 been withdrawn by death, and his more ignorant followers, 
 surrounded as they must have been by many who were 
 practically heathen, soon came to deserve the epithets 
 of Manichaeans and Gnostics. 
 
 The exact sequence of events we do not know. 
 Negotiations had been going on and the influence of 
 St. Ambrose of Milan had been invoked in the interest 
 of peace. 2 Symphosius, bishop of Astorga, was friendly 
 to the followers of Priscillian and lived in the midst of 
 them. 3 For one day he had been present at the Council 
 of Zaragossa, 4 and is said to have retired when he per- 
 ceived that it was the purpose of many to accomplish 
 
 1 Gams, K. G. von Spanien, ii. i. p. 384, endeavours to explain the popularity of 
 this movement : " der Grund scheint mir ein patriotischer oder ein politischer zu 
 seyn. Durfte ganz Spanien mit Recht darauf stolz seyn dem rBmischen Reiche 
 einen Kaiser Theodosius geschenkt zu haben, so vor allem die Provinz Galizien, 
 aus der er stammte." Surely the conviction that a grave injustice had been inflicted 
 on a popular bishop would have more weight with the people ! 
 
 2 Cf. Exemplar definitivum Cone. Toledo, Mansi, iii. 1005. 
 
 3 Ibid. 
 
 4 Cf. Mansi, iii. 1005. We learn from the sentences at Toledo that Symphosius 
 was at Zaragossa "post Caesaraugustanum concilium, in quo sententia in certos 
 quosque dicta fuerat, sola tamen una die praesente Symphosio, qui postmodum 
 declinando sententiam praesens audire contempserat." 
 
270 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 the condemnation of Priscillian. St. Ambrose had 
 strongly urged that gentler methods should be adopted, 
 and that the Priscillianists should be received into the 
 church on their recanting any heretical opinions they 
 might have held. The case of Symphosius and his son 
 Dictinius had been mentioned to him. They were 
 reckoned as Priscillianists and their conversion was 
 desired. St. Ambrose was willing to receive them, and 
 in course of time both these men went to Milan. 1 
 Symphosius promised to give up honouring the memory 
 of Priscillian as of a martyr of the Church. His son 
 Dictinius 2 was recognised as a priest, but some con- 
 ditions were laid down which would prevent his 
 advancement. When, however, Symphosius and his 
 son returned to Galicia 3 the people demanded, and 
 Symphosius consented to consecrate, his son as bishop, 
 and appointed him as his successor. He also filled up 
 several vacant sees in the provinces with men who were 
 acknowledged Priscillianists. 4 But the Church in Spain 
 was wearied of these dissensions. The schism had 
 been personal in its inception. All were ready to 
 deliberate for peace. 
 
 A series of informal gatherings at Toledo prepared 
 the way for something more lasting, and probably 
 because of their indefinite character Symphosius refused 
 to attend them. They were followed, however, by the 
 Council of Toledo A.D. 399-400. The Acts of the 
 Council 5 consist of twenty Canons, a creed 6 directed 
 
 1 Cf. Gams, ii. i. p. 392 "Symphosius und Dictinius waren selbst bei 
 Ambrosius in Mailand gewesen und batten sich mit ihm fiber diese Bedingungen 
 verstandigt, wie ich vermuthe, in der Zeit zwischen 388 und 395." Cf. also in 
 Mansi the exemplar definitivum of the Council of Toledo. 
 
 2 Cf. Leo's letter to Turribius of Astorga, Ep. xv. 16. 
 
 3 Exemplar definitivum of Toledo attached to the Acts of the Council. There 
 seem to have been drawn up minutes concerning each case of submission, in which 
 certain details of the lives of those who were received back into the Church were 
 entered. The language is formal and suggests later revision. For Dictinius we 
 have the letter of Leo, Migne, liv. 688. 
 
 4 Ortigius, bishop of Celene, was driven out of his diocese by the people, who were 
 Priscillianists, and was not restored until A.D. 400 ; cf. Idat. Chron. ut supra. 
 
 5 Cf. Mansi, iii. 1003 j Hefele, ii. 419. 
 
 6 The Creed is generally allowed to be of the later Council of Toledo, A.D. 447. 
 
ix THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 271 
 
 against the Priscillianists, and two long minutes, which 
 record the reception l into communion with the Catholic 
 Church, of Symphosius, Dictinius, Paternus of Bracara, 
 Isonius, Vegetinus, and others. The case of Herenas 
 is interesting. 2 He was present with many of his 
 clergy, and when questioned declared that he preferred 
 to follow his clergy. These then, even before they 
 were interrogated, began to say openly that Priscillian 
 was Catholic. They exclaimed that he was a holy 
 martyr, and that he had claimed the term catholic 
 for himself, and had suffered persecution from the 
 bishops. 
 
 Of the twenty Canons the first, which insists 
 that the clergy must daily attend divine service, the 
 thirteenth, which excommunicates non-communicants, 
 and the fourteenth, which brands as sacrilegious those 
 who, after they have received the Holy Eucharist from 
 a priest do not consume it, are the only canons which 
 in any way seem to refer to the conduct of the 
 Priscillianists. The others refer to diocesan organisa- 
 tion and social evils, natural, even in the Church, in 
 the early stage of its existence. Nineteen bishops 3 are 
 said to have been present, among whom were Patrunias 
 of Emerita, Asturius of Toledo, Lampius of Barcelona, 
 Exuperantius of Celene, Marcellus of Hispalis, and 
 Hilary of Carthage. Symphosius before his reception 
 was induced to renounce, and denounce, the 'doctrines 
 and writings of Priscillian, and to condemn him as a 
 heretic. The formal act which was appended to the 
 record of the Council was probably made more definite 
 than were the actual words of the bishop of Astorga. 
 The process of return had been made easy, and doubt- 
 
 Cf. Kunstle, Antipriscilliana, p. 40. Dierich, in his Inaugural Dissertation, holds 
 the same view. 
 
 1 Idat. CAron.j A.D. 399, "in civitate Toleto synodus episcoporum contrahitur in 
 qua quod gestis continetur Symphosius et Dictinius et alii cum his Galleciae provinciae 
 episcopi Priscilliani sectatores haeresem ejus blasphemissimam cum assertore eodem 
 professionis suae subscriptione condemnant." 
 
 2 Cf. Exemp. definit. of Toledo, Mansi, iii. 1005. 
 
 3 The repetition of the number nineteen at Zaragossa, Nimes, and Toledo 
 suggests some later re-editing of the lists of bishops present. 
 
272 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 less much was assumed by mutual understanding. 
 Indeed so easy was the return made that the more 
 strenuous of the Catholic party were offended and stood 
 aside for a time in schismatic isolation, a sure proof that 
 Symphosius and the bishops of Galicia, always orthodox 
 in their hearts as in their teaching, were accepted almost 
 on their own terms. The Council of Toledo, however, 
 brings the first stage of the Priscillianist movement to 
 an end. That which remained, and on which several 
 Spanish Synods in after years deliberated, belongs to 
 the history of the Church in Spain, and was no real 
 sequel of the tragedy at Trier. 1 
 
 1 The memory of Priscillian has certainly suffered from the fact that he was 
 condemned by St. Augustine, and it may be well to consider the value of this judgment 
 passed on him by the great African bishop. As far as one can discover, his informa- 
 tion concerning Priscillian is derived entirely from the Commonitorium of Orosius. 
 An appeal for help on behalf of the Spanish Church had been made to Augustine by 
 two bishops, Eutropius and Paulus, as the British Church a few years after appealed 
 to the church in Gaul. Orosius, the presbyter of Tarragona, was not content with 
 this. He took upon himself to write to Augustine, as about the same time Prosper 
 had written from Marseilles, and the language of his Commonitorium is also that 
 of St. Augustine on the Priscillianists. His appeal is given by Schepps (Vienna 
 Corpus, vol. xviii.) at the end of the Tractates of Priscillian. In introducing himself 
 to St. Augustine he says that Bishops Eutropius and Paulus had already sent 
 him a Commonitorium of prevailing heresies, but since they had not mentioned all, 
 he hastened to forward his appeal, gathering together into heaps all the trees of 
 perdition, roots, branches and all, to cast them on the fire of St. Augustine's orthodox 
 zeal. They had suffered much from the Alans and Vandals in Spain, and yet 
 he says " we are more severely wounded by depraved teachers than by our most 
 cruel foes." 
 
 Priscillian first of all is more wretched, he continues, than the Manichaeans, in 
 that he confirms his heresy from the teaching of the Old Testament, and states 
 that the soul, which is born of God, proceeds from a certain storehouse (promptuarium\ 
 saying that, before it opposed itself to God, it was taught by the worship of angels, 
 and then descending through certain circles was taken by evil spirits, and according 
 to the wish of the princely victor, was placed in different bodies, and a handwriting 
 was granted to them, and this handwriting Christ took away and fixed it to the 
 cross by His Passion. Orosius then quotes portions of an epistle of Priscillian, 
 which is clearly not one of the tractates of the Wurzburg MS., and affirms that 
 Priscillian taught that the names of the patriarchs are the members of the animal 
 life so that Reuben is in the head, Judah in the breast, Levi in the heart, Benjamin 
 in the loins, and the like. 
 
 He also refers to a book assigned to Priscillian called M.emoria Apostolorum, and 
 quotes from it how that the Lord, explaining the parable of the sower, had said 
 that the sower was not good, else he would not have scattered his seed in stony or 
 thorny parts. 
 
 But Orosius was a panic-monger. Two priests and citizens of Tarragona, both 
 named Avitus, had gone to Palestine and Rome, and the one had returned with a 
 work of Origen and the other with the writings of Victorinus, and Orosius perceives 
 in these errors which could not be overlooked. Origen's Ilepi apx&v, to which 
 Orosius referred, had lately been translated by St. Jerome and this work of Origen 
 
ix THE TRAGEDY OF PRISCILLIAN 273 
 
 was too much for the Spaniard. So about A.D. 415, after thirty years of development 
 of ignorance and error and thirty years after the death of Priscillian, Orosius went 
 himself to Augustine, and the information he gave him seemed to have formed 
 the basis of St. Augustine's judgment. Heretical this teaching which he placed 
 before Augustine certainly was. It is Gnostic and Manichaean ; but our knowledge 
 of what Priscillian taught, as derived from his tractates, does not permit us to accept 
 the heated language of Orosius as at all a fair description of Priscillian's doctrine. We 
 must still distinguish between the gifted bishop of Avila and the wild speculation* 
 of his ignorant and deluded flock. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 EARLY GALLICAN MONASTICISM 
 
 st. Hilary IT can hardly be a matter of doubt that St. Martin of 
 st d Martin Tours was the founder of monasticism in Gaul. 1 As 
 early as in the year A.D. 358, while he was waiting in 
 northern Italy in hope of the return from exile of his 
 friend the Bishop of Poitiers, he retired to the small 
 islet of Gallinaria 2 near to Alassio, and there with 
 one companion, a priest, began the practice of those 
 austerities of life which afterwards he advocated and 
 organised on the banks of the Loire. Two years 
 afterwards, when Hilary returned, St. Martin followed 
 him to Poitiers, and with the consent of Hilary, and 
 on a small estate which he had received from him, 
 began again at Liguge, 3 near to Poitiers, in 362 the 
 life discipline he had observed at Gallinaria. Then, 
 ten years later, on his election as bishop of Tours, he 
 transferred his monks to Marmoutier, 4 the settlement 
 of St. Gatian, under the cliffs on the right bank of the 
 Loire, nearly opposite the city of Tours, and by his en- 
 thusiasm and personal influence permanently established 
 monasticism in Gaul. His convert and admiring disciple 
 Sulpicius, writing in the opening years of the next 
 
 1 On early monasticism cf. Weingarten's Der Ursprung des Monchtums in nach- 
 constantinischen Zeitalter, 1877 ; Harnack's Das M'dnchtum, seine Idealc und seine 
 Geschichte, 1907 j Holstenius, Codex rtgularum monasticarum, vol. i., 1759 > Plenker's 
 Untersuchungen ar Uberliejerungsgeschichte der dltesten lateinhchen Monchregeln, 
 1906 ; and Montalembcrt's Monks of the West, Eng. ed. vol. i. 
 
 2 Sulp. Sev. y.M. 6, p. 116 (V.C.E.L. Halm's edition). 
 
 3 Ibid. 7 } Greg. Tours, lib. iv. De <virt. St. Martini, 30. 
 
 4 Ibid. 10 " duobus fere extra civitatem milibus monasterium sibi statuit." 
 
 274 
 
CH. x EARLY GALLICAN MONASTICISM 275 
 
 century, tells us of the earnest community at Mar- 
 moutier and how for the new dioceses 1 that were being 
 created in Gaul, bishops were eagerly demanded and 
 obtained from among the monks who had been trained 
 by St. Martin. Marmoutier certainly stands out in 
 Gaul as the home of early monasticism, the earliest of 
 all such institutions in the West. As we recognise, 
 however, the work of St. Martin we must not ignore 
 the assistance he received from Hilary, and the evidence 2 
 which assigns to Hilary a desire to promote that ascetic 
 system, which is chiefly associated in our minds with 
 monasticism, is too strong for us to neglect. Traditions 
 concerning the work of Hilary at Poitiers must be 
 sought for elsewhere. 3 The occupation of Aquitaine 
 by the Arian Visigoths must have destroyed locally the 
 tradition of much that he had done, but the assistance, 
 in the gift of the farm at Liguge, which he gave to St. 
 Martin proves his interest in the movement. 
 
 This ascetic movement was, however, independent of 
 St. Martin. He was captured by it and did not create it. 
 In Gaul it had given rise to considerable controversy 4 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. y.M. " pluresque ex eis postea episcopos vidimus." 
 
 a The Bangor Antiphonary, H.B.S. edition, vol. x. p. 3, gives us a hymn of 
 
 Hilary's " Hymnum dicat turba fratrum " which I cannot but accept as genuine. 
 
 Cf. Dr. Mason's article, J.T.S., vol. v., on St. "Hilary and his hymns." Stanza xxxiii. 
 
 begins, "Ante lucem turba fratrum, Concinemus gloriam" a statement which clearly 
 
 refers to some early monastic establishment at Poitiers or Liguge. 
 
 3 There is an interesting confirmation of this suggestion of an early monastic 
 foundation at Poitiers in the preface to the hymn " Hymnum dicat ut supra " in the 
 Liber hymnorum of the Irish Church. Cf. Dr. Bernard's edition, H.B.S. vol. xiv. 
 The preface states that St. Hilary composed the hymn "in Monte Gargani," a site 
 which has yet to be identified, and adds, " angelus postulavit quando venit ad 
 Susannam urbem cum trecentis viris," of whom two hundred were clerics and one 
 laity. Susanna or Sauna is probably St. Martin de Saintonge, i.e. " monasterium 
 Saliginense," or Saujon, SW. of Saintes. A Roman road from Tours through 
 Poitiers passed through Saintes to Saujon Tamnum, and so by the right bank of 
 the estuary of the Garonne to Bordeaux. Cf. Ann. eccles. Franc, v. 387 and 
 Grasilier, Cart, inedits de la Saintonge, i. p. xxviii. Ausonius' villa lay close by, 
 but in his time there was no church nearer than Poitiers or Bordeaux. I cannot 
 but regard this reference as indicating a tradition of an early monastery at Poitiers 
 in which St. Hilary was interested. The story of the dedication to religion of 
 Apra and her mother by Hilary seems to confirm this tradition, and can be illustrated 
 by the case of Ethne in the Life of St. Patrick, cf. Venan. Fortunat. Vita Hil. i. 13 
 and Bury's Life of St. Patrick, 140 and 307. 
 
 4 In A.D. 392 St. Ambrose wrote De obitu Valentimani consolatio, and gave as 
 his reason for not going to Gaul, " Gallorum episcoporum, propter quorum frequentes 
 
276 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 and those who tried to suppress it branded its ad- 
 vocates as Gnostics and Manichaeans. The sect of 
 the Abstinentes l of whom Philastrius of Brescia writes 
 in A.D. 383> seem to have had no real existence as a 
 sect. They were the individual advocates of asceticism, 
 and they were to be found not only in Aquitaine, but 
 in other parts also of Gaul. Nor was the example of 
 St. Martin unopposed. One of his own clergy 2 who 
 was afterwards his successor in the See, Britius, resented 
 the attempt of his bishop to impose his method of life 
 as a necessary condition and test of holiness and moral 
 rectitude on the clergy, and the fact that Britius himself 
 was elected as St. Martin's successor in the See of Tours 
 proves the strength of the reaction. Sulpicius Severus, 
 also, in his life of St. Martin refers 3 to the suspicion 
 which others displayed towards those who were pro- 
 moting this asceticism. Even bishops, he is grieved to 
 write, were among those who censured, if they did not 
 also persecute his master. And this is as we would 
 expect. The ascetic movement was spreading, but was 
 not unopposed, and St. Martin, as the great organiser 
 of it in a community life, was at once the idol of those 
 who adopted it and the front of offence to those who 
 disapproved of it. 
 
 Anicius i 1 The example of St. Martin seems to have attracted 
 
 FauUnus not i ce among the scholars of Bordeaux, and two of 
 
 noble family, highly gifted and of considerable wealth, 
 
 helped the cause of monasticism by their influence and 
 
 by their writings. Anicius Pontius Paulinus, 4 a native 
 
 dissensiones crebro me excusaveram." Jerome, writing against Vigilantius, Ef>. lx., 
 A.D. 406, refers to the opposition in Gaul to asceticism, and ventured to say, " proh 
 nefas ! episcopos sui sceleris dicitur habere consortes : si tamen Episcopi nominandi 
 sunt, qui non ordinant diaconos nisi prius uxores duxerint, nulli coelibi credentes 
 pudicitiam." 
 
 1 Philast. Liber diversarum hereseon, edition Marx, "alii sunt in Gallis et 
 Hispanis et Aquitania veluti abstinentes qui et Gnosticorum et Manichaeorum 
 particulam perniciosissimam aeque secuntur," etc. 
 
 2 Sulp. Sev. Dial. iii. 15. 7 j Greg. Tur. Hist. Franc, ii. i. 
 
 3 Sulp. Sev. V.M.. 27. 4 *' non alii fere insectatores ejus, licet pauci admodum 
 non alii tamen quam episcopi ferebantur, nee vero quemquam nominari necesse est 
 licet nosmet ipsos plerique circumlatrent." 
 
 4 Auson. Epp. xxi., xxiv., xxvii. j Ambrose, Ep. 30 ; Gennad. De vir. inl. xlix. 
 
x EARLY GALLICAN MONASTICISM 277 
 
 of Bordeaux, and Sulpicius Severus, a native of Toulouse l 
 or its immediate neighbourhood, were powerful advo- 
 cates of Christian asceticism. Paulinus had an estate at 
 Bourg 2 on the Gironde, where his tutor Ausonius ? was 
 wont to stop when on his way from Nouliers to Bordeaux. 
 Of a consular family and himself consul elect, 4 he had 
 married a wealthy lady Therasia and from her had an 
 only son. This son, to his unutterable grief, died about 
 A.D. 392, and probably owing to this loss, Paulinus, 
 who hitherto had been only nominally a Christian, was 
 baptized by Bishop Delphinius of Bordeaux. 5 His 
 estates were not only in Aquitaine, but also near Barce- 
 lona, and to Spain he then withdrew 6 to mourn in retire- 
 ment the loss of his son. At the end of the year 393, 
 however, he was demanded by the people for the 
 priesthood, 7 and though he was not yet in deacon's 
 orders Lampius, the bishop of Barcelona, ordained 
 him priest, Paulinus only stipulating that he should 
 not be called upon to undertake the cares of a parish. 8 
 In his earlier youth, and afterwards when in Italy, he 
 had formed a deep veneration for the memory of the 
 martyr St. Felix, and the sorrow which had now fallen 
 upon him led him to decide to withdraw from the 
 world and live in monastic austerity near the remains 
 of St. Felix at Nola in Campania. 9 So in the following 
 year 394 10 he retired to Italy, and in 410 was consecrated 
 as Bishop of Nola. 11 His literary gifts, however, were 
 not neglected, and from his frequent and lengthy letters 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. Dial. i. i j Gennadius, De vir. in/, xix. j Paulinus, Epp. xi. and xii. 
 
 2 Auson. Ep, xxiv. 123-132. 3 Ibid, xxvii. 95. 
 
 4 Ibid. xxiv. 3. 5 Paulin. Ep. x. i and xx. 6. 6 Id., Ep. i. 10. 
 
 7 Ibid, "sed credo ipsius ordinatione correptus ct presbyteratu initiatus sum, fateor, 
 invitus." 
 
 8 Ibid, "nam ea conditione in Barcinonensi Ecclesia consecrari adductus sum ut ipsi 
 ecclesiae non alligarer, in sacerdotium tantum Domini non ctiam locum ecclesiae 
 dedicatus." 9 Paulin. Poema xxiii. De S. Felice Natal, vii. 
 
 10 Paulin. Po'e'ma xiii. 145 cf. Baron. Ann., A.D. 394. 
 
 31 Aug. De civ. Dei, i. 10, describes Paulinus as "cpiscopus." His letter at the end 
 of A.D. 408, to Paulinus and Therasia refers to him as a priest. Cf. Migne, P.L. torn. 
 Ixi. chapter 50 of the Prolegomena ; Idat. Chron., A.D. 423, "Paulinus nobilissimus 
 ct eloquentissimus dudum conversione ad Deum nobilior factus, vir apostolicus, 
 Nola Campaniae episcopus habitur insignis." 
 
278 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 to his friends in Aquitaine, 1 Amandus and Ausonius in 
 Bordeaux, and Sulpicius at Toulouse, we gain most of 
 our knowledge of the private life of the biographer of 
 St. Martin. His retirement naturally was a matter of 
 some notoriety, and his example certainly gave a great 
 impulse to the ascetic movement in South Gaul. It is 
 probable that at least on one occasion Paulinus met 
 St. Martin of Tours, 2 and his great friend and fellow- 
 worker in the same cause, Sulpicius Severus, was the 
 saint's disciple and biographer. ^ Sulpicius was a married 
 man and owned large estates near Toulouse, 3 and dur- 
 ing the last decade of the century resided either at 
 Primuliac or Elusa where he also built churches. 4 His 
 principal and favourite abode was on his estate at 
 Sulpicius Primuliac. It was about A.D. 392 that Sulpicius was 
 Severus. baptized, and having placed himself under the direction 
 of St. Martin, began to carry out with a small circle of 
 friends, now at Elusa and now at Primuliac, the severe 
 discipline of a monastic life. Monasticism as yet was 
 in a transition state, and, with the exception of the 
 monastery at Marmoutier, seems in Gaul to have corre- 
 sponded to that third class of monks which St. Jerome 5 
 says the Egyptians call under the title Remnuoth, two, 
 three, or at most only a few living under rules which 
 they themselves had drawn up. Sulpicius was frequently 
 
 1 Amandus was the successor of Delphinius in the See of Bordeaux. Ausonius 
 the poet was a professor at Bordeaux. 
 
 2 Paulinus, Ep. to Victricius of Rouen, Ep. xviii. "meminisse enim credo 
 dignaris quia sanctitatem tuam olim Viennae apud beatum patrem nostrum Martinum 
 viderim." 
 
 * Paul. Ep. i. ad Se<v. and appendix j Migne, Ixi. 869. 
 
 4 Paul. Ep. xxi. ad Se-v., " basilicam quam modo apud Primuliacum nostram 
 majorem priore condideris." 
 
 5 Ep. Jerom. ad Emtochium xxii. De custodia virginitatis, "tertium genus est 
 quod Remnuoth dicunt deterrimum atque neglectum et quod in nostra provincia aut 
 solum aut primum est. Hi bini vel terni nee multo plures simul habitant suo arbitratu 
 ac ditione viventes." In the Vienna Corpus, E. L. Ep. xxii. which is to be found 
 on p. 143. Professor Burkitt kindly draws my attention to the reading Remnuoth 
 in preference to the older reading Remoboth, and tells me that the word is Coptic, 
 possibly pfivoyre a rendering of flecxrqSifc, and equivalent to the title " man of God " 
 e.g. 2 Kings i. 9 ''Homo Dei, rex praecepit ut descendas." St. Benedict, cap. i. 
 describes a similar class of men under the name Sarabaitae and regards them as 
 "monachorum teterrimum genus." Cf. Spiegelberg's Kopthche Mhcellen., 1906, 
 xxxiii. p. 51. 
 
x EARLY GALLICAN MONASTICISM 279 
 
 with St. Martin, and his biography, which he wrote prob- 
 ably in A.D. 400, was in the greatest demand in the book- 
 shops at Rome l and was eagerly read both in Italy and 
 Gaul. His Life of St. Martin was followed almost 
 immediately by three letters 2 to Eusebius, a priest who 
 afterwards became a bishop, perhaps of Cahors, to 
 Aurelius, a subdeacon, and to Bassula his mother-in-law 
 at Trier, giving further details concerning St. Martin, and 
 showing clearly that already in Gaul, as in Egypt and 
 the East, monks were to be met with on their way to 
 visit now this recluse and now that. The Dialogues of 
 Sulpicius 3 appeared in A.D. 404, and in them he 
 described certain gatherings of his friends who had 
 come to discuss with him the fame of St. Martin. 
 The scene is laid at Primuliac, where a perhaps 
 fictitious Postumianus arrives from the East and 
 via Narbonne y has come directly to visit his friends 
 Sulpicius and Gallus. Postumianus describes the life of 
 the Egyptian monks and the fame of St. Antony, and 
 the three friends then consider the relative merits of St. 
 Antony and St. Martin, and the possibility of the rigid 
 system of the Nitrian Desert being introduced into 
 Southern Gaul. They recognise, 4 however, a difference 
 of climate, and allow that what was necessary for exist- 
 ence in Gaul would be regarded as gluttony in Egypt. 
 In the first dialogue St. Antony is clearly introduced in 
 order to show the pre-eminent sanctity of St. Martin, 
 and the other two dialogues are devoted to reminiscences 
 of miraculous incidents in the life of St. Martin. At 
 Primuliac, or at Elusa, it is not certain which, Sulpicius 
 had begun to establish that community life which he 
 had seen and admired at Marmoutier. We read of 
 a crowd of monks 5 there, and they are evidently 
 
 1 Sulp. Sev. Dial. i. 23. He introduces Postumianus as stating this bit of 
 flattery : " primus eum Romanae urbi vir studiosissimus tui Paulinus invexit, deindc 
 cum tola certatim urbe raperetur, exultantes libraries vidi, quod nihil ab his 
 quaestiosius haberetur, nihil carius venderetur." 
 
 2 Cf. Halm's edition, r.C.S.E.L. p. 138. 3 Ibid. p. 152. 
 
 4 Dial. i. 8 "edacitas in Graecis gula est, in Gallis natura." 
 
 5 Dial. iii. I "inruit turba monachorum." 
 
280 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 organised as the members of the household. There were 
 at least four priests, Refrigerius, Evagrius, Atherius, 
 and Aurelius, Calupio a deacon, and Amator a sub- 
 deacon, and we hear of three others (Aper, Sabbatius, 
 and Agricola), whose exact status is not mentioned. 
 Nor was the symposium, if so it may be called, con- 
 fined to this religious household.? Eucherius the praetor's 
 deputy, and Celsus a man of consular rank, are allowed 
 to attend, and the whole scene, while it shows a 
 certain freedom of action permitted to the members 
 of the household, indicates the increasing admiration 
 for monastic austerities. The age of persecution and 
 of moral strength and holy life had been followed by 
 laxity and luxuriousness of life and the vices and self- 
 indulgence which Salvian 1 enumerates at this time as 
 calling for vengeance from Heaven, created, as a natural 
 reaction, among serious and thoughtful Christians, as- 
 pirations which could but admire the stern self- 
 discipline of monk and recluse. 
 
 * The life at Primuliac was, however, of short dura- 
 tion. Sulpicius and his religious household disappear 
 before the invasion of Vandal and Visigoth, who in 
 406 2 devastated Aquitaine, and in 41 1 3 settled down in 
 it. We must look for evidence, therefore, of the 
 growth of monasticism in the south-east of Gaul. 
 Westward and northward all had been ravaged by 
 these barbarian invasions, and while we read here and 
 there of a Christian hero who had remained at his post 
 and dared the fury of the heathens, we cannot imagine 
 much, if any, ecclesiastical organisation to have sur- 
 st. Honor- vived. Honoratus, the founder of the celebrated 
 monastery at Lerins, sprang from a family of consular 
 rank in Gallia Belgica. 3 His early life is obscure, and 
 
 1 Salvian. De gub. Dei (M. G. H. edition, Halm.), vi. 12 and vii. i. 
 
 2 Prosper, CAron., A.D. 406, " Vandali et Alani Gallias trajecto Rheno pridie Kal. 
 Januarias ingressi." 
 
 8 Idat. CAron., sub anno, "Gothi Narbonam ingressi vindemiae tempore." The 
 famous marriage of Atawulf with Placidia, the daughter of Theodosius, took place 
 at Nar bonne A.D. 414, when Attalus the mock emperor acted as witness. 
 
x EARLY GALLICAN MONASTICISM 281 
 
 our knowledge of it is chiefly derived from the sermon 
 of St. Hilary, who succeeded him as bishop of Aries. 
 He had several brothers, and soon after his baptism he 
 began to express a desire to retire from the world, and 
 had his hair cut short to show his contempt for worldly 
 rank. His father had noticed his conduct and had 
 expostulated with him, bidding him to act as a boy 
 with his younger brothers, but to these remarks of his 
 parent he was ever wont to say delectat haec vita sed 
 decipit. The grief, however, which this desire caused to 
 his father induced him to delay to carry it out, and in 
 the meanwhile his father urged his brother Germanus 
 or Venantius to try and draw him away from this wish 
 to forsake a worldly career. Venantius, however, not 
 only failed in his endeavour, but was himself induced 
 by the arguments of Honoratus to throw in his lot 
 with him, and soon afterwards the two brothers, accom- 
 panied by an aged Christian, Caprais, 1 set out to visit the 
 holy places of Italy and Greece. They arrived at 
 Marseilles about the year A.D. 390, and Proculus the 
 bishop was so impressed by the earnest saintliness of 
 Honoratus, that he wished to detain him and ordain 
 him as one of his priests. 2 But the brothers would not 
 stay. They sailed for Greece, and at Methone in 
 Achaia Venantius 3 was overcome by fatigue and died. 
 Then Honoratus returned by way of Italy, and is said 
 as he passed through Campania to have visited Paulinus 
 in his retreat at Nola. When he arrived in Gaul, the 
 influence of Leontius, bishop of Frejus, and his brother 
 Castor, bishop of Apt, induced him to settle in the 
 neighbourhood of Leontius. We have seen that nearly 
 half a century before St. Martin had retired to the island 
 of Gallinaria, to live there the life of a recluse, waiting 
 for the time when Hilary of Poitiers should return 
 
 j The presbyter Capraisius is said to have, been a hermit, and to have settled at 
 Lerins with Honoratus. Hilary refers to him in his sermon on Honoratus and 
 Eucherius, De laude heremi, 43 "haec (Lirinensis insula) nunc possidet vencra- 
 bilem gravitate Capraisium veteribus sanctis parem." 
 
 2 Hil. Scrmo dt vita S. Honor, ii. 13. 3 Ibid. 14. 
 
282 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 from exile. During the last quarter of this century, 
 and in the first quarter of the fifth century other 1 of 
 these islands that fringe the coast line of western Italy 
 and southern Gaul were occupied by men who fled 
 from the dangers of barbarian invasion, and desired to 
 adopt a life of retirement. The poet Rutilius, 2 who 
 tells us of his journey from Rome to his native 
 Aquitaine, flings scorn at the monks who hate the 
 light, and desired to live alone that none might witness 
 their conduct. He passed their settlements at Capraria, 
 off the north-east coast of Corsica, and on Gorgon island, 
 about twenty miles south-west of Leghorn. 
 
 In the Bay of Cannes there are two islands, 3 the 
 larger about two miies from the shore, and the smaller 
 about a mile farther south. They were known as the 
 islands of Lero and Lerina, and are mentioned by 
 Ptolemy 4 and Strabo 5 as well as by Pliny. 6 They had 
 been consecrated to heathen worship, and at a later 
 time were official stations of the Roman fleet. 7 The 
 larger island of Lero in mediaeval times acquired the 
 name of St. Marguerite, 8 from a church built there 
 
 1 Ambrose gives us as island monasteries Gallinaria, Gorgon, Capraria, and 
 Palmaria, Hexaem. iii. c. 5 ; Jerome speaks of" insulas velut monilia," Ep. 73, 6. 
 
 2 Rutilius Namat. De reditu suo : 
 
 439. Processu pelagi jam se Capraria tollit, 
 squalet lucifugis insula plena viris j 
 ipsi se monachos Graio cognomine dicunt, 
 
 quod soli nullo vivere teste volunt. 
 515. Adsurgit ponti medio circumflua Gorgon 
 
 inter Pisanum Cyrnaicumque latus, 
 aversor scopulos damni monumenta recentis, 
 
 perditus hie vivo funere civis erat. 
 Gorgon Isle, 22 m. SW. Leghorn. 
 Capraria or Capraia, 23 m. NW. of Elba and 42 SW. Leghorn. 
 
 3 Lentheric's The Riviera Ancient and Modern ; for the Monastery of Lerins, 
 Barrali, Chronologia sanctorum et aliorum virorum illustrium ac abbatum sacrae insulac 
 LerincnsiS) Lyons 1613. A useful modern book is Alliez' Histoire du monastere de 
 Lerins, Paris, 1862. 
 
 4 Ptolemy, ii. 9. 21 Afjp^vrj or Aypuvis. 3 Strabo, Geog. iv. i. 10. 
 
 9 Pliny, iii. 2 " Lero et Lerina adversus Antipolim in qua Vergoani oppidi 
 memoria." 
 
 7 Maritime Itin. of Antoninus : "ab Antipoli Lero et Lerina insulae, M.P. m. xi. 
 A Lero et Lerino, Foro Julii, portus, M.P. m. xxiv." 
 
 3 St. Marguerite is well known as the site of the fortress of the legend of the 
 man with the iron mask in the reign of Louis XIV. Cf. Collection de documents 
 inedits sur Vhhtoirt de France, vol. ii. 
 
x EARLY GALLICAN MONASTICISM 283 
 
 in honour of that saint, while the smaller island of 
 Lerins has since the fifth century been coupled with the 
 name of Honoratus. 
 
 When Honoratus returned to Gaul many bishops 
 were desirous to ordain and retain him, but he was 
 attracted by the bareness of Lerins, 1 and determined to 
 settle there and live the life of a recluse. He was near 
 to Leontius of Frejus, from whom he received ordina- 
 tion as priest, 2 and who, as the bishop of the diocese 
 where the settlement existed, always asserted his authority 
 over the community of monks. The fame of 
 Honoratus soon began to attract others, and for them 
 he had to provide cells where they could live, while 
 under his direction they cultivated the ascetic life. On 
 the island to-day there are the remains of the twelfth 
 century 3 monastery which was built on the site of 
 that of the fifth century. There were seven chapels 
 in the monastery, and the site of five can still be dis- 
 cerned. To Honoratus 4 Leontius conceded the right 
 to choose whom he would as his monks, and to say the 
 office at their formal reception as neophytes, but he 
 kept to himself the right to administer confirmation 
 and to ordain whom he would of them as priests, and 
 also reserved the question of the reception of one 
 already a priest into the monastery, and the right to 
 licence him to exercise there his office as a priest. 
 
 It is probable that the establishment at Lerins may 
 best be studied from the daughter establishments at 
 Glendalough, Lindisfarne, and Clonmacnois. 5 Irish 
 monasticism had its origin at Lerins, and in that 
 monastery St. Patrick 6 for several years found the 
 
 1 Hil. Sermo de vita Honorat. iii. 15 " vacantem itaque insulam ob nimietatem 
 squaloris et inaccessam venatorum anitnalia tnetu . . . petit." 
 
 2 Ibid. iii. 16. 
 
 3 Cf. Alliez' Histoire de Lerins^ ut supra. 
 
 4 Hilary's sermon as above, iv. 18 j Mabillon, Annal. O.S.B. 1. 31. 
 
 5 Cf. Fowler's Introduction to his edition of Adamnan's 5. Columba^ p. xxxvii.j 
 Beda, Eccles. hist. iv. 27; Arnold's Caesarius von Arelate, appendix, p. 521, Die 
 Lerinenser Regel. 
 
 1 Bury's Life of St. Patrick, pp. 39 and 294; the statement in Tirechan, " erat 
 autem in una ex insolis quae dicitur Aralanensis annis xxx.," has been interpreted 
 
284 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 refreshment of solitude and acquired the stimulating 
 habits of an ascetic life. It is impossible to say with 
 any exactitude the length of time included in Honoratus' 
 rule over Lerins. He was probably abbot for thirty 
 years, 1 and perhaps for a yet longer period. If, how- 
 ever, he visited Paulinus at Nola when he was returning 
 to Gaul, then the settlement at Lerins could hardly 
 have begun before A.D. 397, 2 and that would give him 
 a rule of thirty years. His influence grew rapidly, and 
 during the first half of the fifth century most of the 
 great bishops of southern Gaul had received their early 
 instruction under Honoratus at Lerins. To him came 
 Hilary, 3 another nobleman from Gallia Belgica, having 
 been invited by Honoratus, whom he had written to 
 consult, to pay him a visit, and having first shown him- 
 self an earnest monk he afterwards succeeded his master 
 as Bishop of Aries. In his sermon on the example 
 of Honoratus, Hilary sums up the influence which his 
 predecessor had exercised over him " educit me secum 
 suam praedam, gaudet, triumphat, exsultat." Thither 
 during those thirty years 4 went Eucherius, bringing 
 with him his two sons Salonius and Veranius, all thus 
 destined to become bishops in Gaul. To him came also 
 Faustus, 6 the Briton, following the example of St. 
 Patrick, to become in due course the third abbot of 
 Lerins and ultimately Bishop of Riez. To Lerins came 
 also Lupus of Toul, brother-in-law of Hilary of Aries, 
 the future heroic Bishop of Troyes and the succourer 
 
 by the Bollandists and Todd as meaning Lerinensis, and with this view Prof. Bury 
 agrees. 
 
 1 Tillemont shows weighty reason for not accepting Baronius' and Barrali's 
 opinion that Honoratus began his work at Lerins in or about A.D. 375, and was 
 inclined to date the foundation of the monastery about A.D. 400. Cf. Note vi. to 
 Vie de S. Honorat, Memoires t vol. xii. p. 675. 
 
 2 Paulinus left Barcelona and settled at Nola A.D. 393-4? and the visit of 
 Honoratus may have been in the summer of A.D. 394. 
 
 3 Eucherius, De laude heremi, addressed to Hilary, and recording much of what 
 we know about his early life. 
 
 4 Cf. ibid. 42. On Salonius cf. Tillemont's note vi. to his Life of Eucherius, 
 MemoireSy vol. xv. 
 
 8 Cf. Gennadius* De vir. inl. Ixxxvi. His writings are published in vol. xxi. of 
 the Vienna Corpus. 
 
 ' Eucher. De laudt her em. 42 j Sid. Apoll. Ep. vi. I. 4, 9. 
 
x EARLY GALLICAN MONASTICISM 285 
 
 of the British Church, and there in that island, a 
 disciple and admirer of Honoratus, lived Vincentius, 1 
 who, under the pseudonym of Peregrinus, wrote the 
 celebrated Commonitorium adversus profanas omnium 
 haereticorum novitates. Lerins was clearly no house of 
 a recluse. It was a busy hive of monks, the successor 
 of Marmoutier, a community well organised and with 
 definite rules of life. 
 
 In A.D.426 Patroclus, 2 bishop of Aries, was murdered, 
 at the secret bidding, it is said, of Felix, the magister 
 militum of the Roman army of occupation, and after some 
 delay Honoratus of Lerins was chosen as his successor. 
 On departing for Aries the new bishop was accompanied 
 by Hilary, 3 who, however, as soon as he had seen him 
 established at Aries, left him and returned to the 
 monastery, and being again summoned could not be 
 induced to leave until Honoratus came to Lerins himself 
 and took him off. In his place at Lerins Honoratus 
 left as abbot Maximus, 4 an early disciple, who six years 
 later in A.D. 433 became Bishop of Riez, and Faustus 
 the Briton was chosen as the third abbot. The 
 succession of abbots makes it clear that the monastic 
 life was definitely established at Lerins. Authority and 
 discipline prevailed, and the settlement was no longer 
 dependent on the personal influence of the founder. 
 At Aries the work of Honoratus only lasted for the 
 brief period of two years. In contrast to his pre- 
 decessor he upheld his authority through his personal 
 influence "studebat praeterea amore potius regere 
 quam terrore dominari." 5 In 429 he died, and Hilary 
 his disciple was at once chosen as his successor. 
 
 It has been already stated that in the bay of Cannes 
 the larger island was known as that of Lero, and it was 
 
 1 Eucherius ut supra, Gennadius* Vitae, Ixiv. 
 
 2 Prosper Aquit. Chron., sub anno 426, " Patroclus Arelatensis episcopus a tribuno 
 quodam barbaro . . . occiditur." 
 
 3 Eucher. De laudeheremi, i j Sid. Apoll. Carmen, xvi. 115. 
 
 4 Eucher. ut supra, 412 ; Sid. Ap. Ep. viii. 14, and eulogy on him by Faustus, 
 his successsor, in Barrali, Hist, of the Monastery of Lerins, ii. 115-126. 
 
 5 Hil. Aries, Sermo de Vita Honor at i, vi. 28. 
 
286 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP 
 
 between the mainland and the settlement of Honoratus. 
 Soon after the Arvernian nobleman Eucherius 1 had 
 
 of Lero. j e f t j^g sons at L erms> he retired to Lero, and with 
 his wife Galla for some years lived in solitude and 
 abstinence as Paulinus and Therasia were living at 
 Nola. The communication between the two islands 
 was frequent, and Honoratus directed the discipline 
 which Eucherius imposed upon himself. In A.D. 434 2 
 Eucherius was called to fill the see of Lyons, and when 
 in 449 he died, Veranus, his son, succeeded him, 3 while 
 Salonius, his other son, became Bishop of Geneva. The 
 settlement on the larger island cannot be regarded 
 as monastic, nor was it permanent. It is indicative, 
 however, of the time. Theodorus * who became Bishop 
 of Frejus in 432, and had been a disciple of Honoratus, 
 founded a similar monastic retreat on the Hyeres Isles, 
 and in many places in southern Gaul monasteries were 
 arising during the first half of the fifth century, the 
 
 Aries. direct result of the influence at Lerins. At Aries 
 it can hardly be doubted that tradition was correct 
 which asserted that the monastery on the island in 
 the Rhone over which Caesarius 5 presided in A.D. 503 
 had been founded by Honoratus, and certainly St. 
 Castor of Apt (A.D. 419-426) the friend of Honoratus 
 and the brother of Leontius, founded a monastery at 
 
 1 Gennad. De vir. ;"/. (EccL script. Ixiii.) j Cassian, Conf., Pref. to lib. xi.-xvii. j 
 Paulinus of Nola, Ep. n, addressed to Eucherius and Galla. 
 
 2 Gall. Christ, iv. 180. He was at Lero in 427 when Cassian dedicated his 
 Conferences to him, and he presided at the Council of Agde, A.D. 441, as Bishop of 
 Lyons. 
 
 * It is more probable that Veranus became bishop of Vence. His name does 
 not appear on the lists of bishops of Lyons. But cf. Duchesne, Pastes, ep. ii. 161, on 
 the interpolation of the two names Salonius and Veranus into the list, which was 
 certainly made at an early date. 
 
 4 Cassian dedicates books xviii.-xxiv. of his Conferences to his " sancti fratres " 
 Jovinian, Minervus, Leontius and Theodorus. Cf. Annales O.S.B., Ma billon, 
 vol. i. cap. xxxix. and xlvi. As successor to Leontius bishop of Frejus, he had asserted 
 authority over the monks of Lerins and abbot Faustus, and the quarrel was not 
 settled till the Council of Aries, A.D. 441 (Mansi, xii. 907). Leo addresses Ep. 108 
 to him. 
 
 5 Arnold's Caesarius von Ar elate, p. 92. Malnory considers (St Chair e^ p. 24) 
 that the abbey over which he ruled was Montmajour, and considers that a branch 
 of the Rhone ran to the east of the rocky eminence of Montmajour as well as to 
 the west, thus making it an island. 
 
x EARLY GALLICAN MONASTICISM 287 
 
 Minerva, 1 where Leontius and Helladius were living, Minerva. 
 to whom Cassian refers in the preface to his Confer- 
 ences? As we leave the coast and go up the Rhone 
 it is certain that at Vienne a monastery had been 
 founded early in the fifth century. 3 When Mamertus 
 the bishop 4 in A.D. 455 translated the remains of the 
 martyr Ferreolus he is said to have been assisted by a 
 large gathering of monks and nuns. The monasteries 
 of Ternay and Grigny were probably founded early 
 in the sixth century. 5 At Lyons, 6 there is little 
 evidence of monastic foundations until the beginning 
 of the sixth century. A little earlier the monasteries 
 of the Jura 7 mountains, Condat, known afterwards as 
 St. Claude, Lauconon, and Remain Moutier, were 
 founded by the Patres Jurenses, of whom St. Avitus 8 
 and Sidonius speak in high praise, Romanus, Lupicinus, 
 and Oyandus, and when at a still later time the 
 Burgundians embraced Catholicism they became also 
 the protectors of these establishments, Sigismund their 
 king becoming in A.D. 515 the founder of the monastery 
 of St. Maurice. 9 
 
 The progress of monasticism was, however, soon 
 checked by the barbarian invasions and by the occupa- 
 
 1 Gallia Christiana, i. 376 j Acta 5.5. Boll. Sept. vi. 249. 
 
 2 Cassian, Conf., Preface xi.-xvii. and i.-x. 
 
 3 Cf. Mabillon, Ann. O.S.B. i. 76. Prosper Tiro, xxviii. Arcad.' et Honor., c. 
 A.D. 420, says " Honoratus, Minervius, Castor, Jovianus singulorum monasteriorum 
 patres in Galliis florent." 
 
 4 Cf. Greg. Tours, Lib. de virtutibus 5. Julian: (M. G. H. p. 565) "ad hoc opus 
 abbatum atque monachorum magnus numerus." 
 
 5 Cf. Longnon, Geogr. p. 425 j Sid. Apoll. Ep. vii. 17. 3 j Holstenius, Cod. 
 regularum, i. 155 ; also Avitus, Ep. Ixxiv. to St. Maximus (M. G. H. p. 91). 
 
 6 Mabillon, ut supra, i. 26, 27 ; Arnold, Caesarius, p. 429 5 cf. Dom Besse, 
 " Lcs premiers monasteres de la Gaule meridionale," p. 400, in Revue des questions 
 historiques, 1902 j Greg. Tours, Lib. de gloria conf. 22 refers to the " monasterium 
 apud Insulam Barbaram," where Maximus, a disciple of Martin, had lived. This 
 brings the foundation of it into the first half of the fifth century. 
 
 ' Sid. Apoll. Ep. iv. 25. 5 j Greg. Tours, Lib. <vit. Patrum (M. G. H. pp. 663-4), 
 Lives of SS. Romanus and Lupicinus ; Mabillon, ut supra, i. 56. 
 
 8 Avitus, Ep. xix. p. 53 (M. G. H.]. Cf. " Vitae Romani, Lupicini et Eugendi " 
 in vol. i. of Vitae Sanctorum (M..R. Merov. ed. Krusch). 
 
 9 Avitus (M. G. H., appendix iv. 5, p. 180) : "hunc Sigismundum regem beatus 
 Avitus post exilium in fide pietatis erudivit, qui illo agente monasterium sanctorum 
 martyrum Agaunensium Mauricii sociorumque ejus construxit." Cf. also Greg. 
 Tours, Hist. Franc, iii. 5, p. ill. 
 
288 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 tion of so much of southern Gaul by the Arian 
 Burgundians and Visigoths. At Aries, which was with 
 occasional intermission held by the forces of the 
 Empire, the tradition and the practice of monasticism 
 lingered on. Gregory of Tours towards the end of 
 the sixth century gives us the names of forty places l 
 which he designates under the title of monasterium^ 
 but it is doubtful whether they all as such had any 
 lengthy existence, or whether they ever amounted to 
 more than the houses of well-known recluses, such as St. 
 Portianus 2 in Auvergne, and St. Ursus at Sennaparia. 3 
 In the north of Gaul there is as yet little evidence of 
 any monastic establishment, and the Church had to 
 wait for more settled times before the foundations of 
 monasteries could begin there. Early instances of 
 monastic austerity on the part of individuals such as 
 St. Hospitius at Nice, 4 St. Leobinus 5 at Chartres, 
 St. Avitus 6 at Micy near Orleans, and St. Carilefus 1 in 
 the department of Sarthe in the north-west, tend to 
 show how rare such habits were. When we meet 
 with the monasteries again, the Order of St. Benedict 
 had already begun. 
 
 Before we pass on from the Family of Lerins it is 
 natural that we should inquire as to what manner of 
 life prevailed among the monks there, and what was 
 the system of discipline which had been adopted as 
 gradually the disciples of the founder increased in 
 number. Did Honoratus draw up a code or regula 
 monachorum as Benedict did about sixty years after- 
 wards ? That such a rule existed seems tolerably 
 
 Cf. Longnon, p. 21. 
 
 Greg. Vitae Patrum, c. v., and Longnon, p. 511. 
 
 Greg. Vitae Pat. c. xviii. } Longnon, p. 291. 
 
 Arnold's Caesarius *v on Arelate, p. 428 ; Venant. Fort. Vita Leobini j Migne, P.L. 
 vol Ixxxviii. p. 549. 
 
 Greg. Tours, Hist. Franc, vi. 6, and Lib. in glor. conf. 95. 
 
 Acta SS. Qrdinis 5. Bened. l ; Longnon, p. 347 ; cf. Havet, Questions 
 merovingiennes, iv. p. 64. 
 
 7 Cf. vol. i. Vitae Sanctorum (M.on. Rerun M.erw. p. 386) ; Vita Carileff. 
 abbatis Anholemis. He came from Aquitaine, and had visited Avitus at Micy. 
 Mabillon identifies " Tarnatense monasterium " with Ternay on the banks of the 
 Rhone, and not far from Grigny, Mab. Ann. O.S.B. Appendix v. p. 678. 
 
x EARLY GALL1CAN MONASTICISM 289 
 
 certain, though perhaps at first it was not written but 
 merely traditional. 1 Hilary, the successor of Honoratus 
 at Aries, tells us of the watchings and fastings at Lerins 2 
 which Honoratus had encouraged his monks to observe, 
 but he says nothing of a written rule. Cassian of 
 Marseilles, 3 who in A.D. 426 addressed to Honoratus 
 and Eucherius his eleventh and six following books of 
 his conferences, says of them : " a quibus prima ana- 
 choreseos instituta suscepimus." Eucherius, the friend 
 and almost the contemporary of Honoratus, mentions 
 the heavenly discipline of which Honoratus v/as the 
 author. A little later the third Council of Aries, 4 held 
 under Bishop Ravennius A.D. 449-461, laid down the 
 relationship which should exist between a monastery 
 and the bishop of the diocese where it was situated, 
 and in reference to Lerins for it was a case from 
 Lerins which was in dispute decided that all the family 
 of the monastery should be under the care of the abbot, 
 and adds that the rule should be observed " regula 
 quae a fundatore ipsius monasterii dudum constituta est, 
 in omnibus custodita." 5 A little later still, Sidonius, 
 writing to his brother Volusianus in reference to a 
 monastic family of Auvergne which the abbot 
 Auxanius was unable to rule successfully, recommends 
 the adoption there of the Rules of the fathers of Lerins, 
 or those of Grigny, a monastery near to Vienne. 6 
 
 It was impossible that the great influence and the 
 good order which the foundation at Lerins had acquired 
 could have been established without some very definite 
 and careful system of discipline. The system clearly 
 was also some adaptation of those in vogue in Egypt, 
 and in the life of St. Eugendus it has been suggested 
 
 1 On the rule of Lerins, cf. Arnold, Caesarius von Arelate, Appendix vi. Die 
 Lerinenser Regel. 
 
 2 S. Hil. AreL sermo de vifai, S. Honorat 4 " fortissimos quosque et recenti 
 adhuc conversadone praevalidos in jejuniis vigiliisque impar viribus, pari lege 
 comitatus est." 
 
 3 Cf. Petschenig's ed. of Cassian in the Vienna Corpus, vol. ii. p. 311. 
 
 4 Mansi, vii. p. 876. 
 
 s Loning, Geschichte des deutschen Kirchenrechts, 1878, vol. ii. p. 380. 
 6 Sid. Apoll. Ep. vii. 173. 
 
 U 
 
290 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 that it was the rule of St. Pachomius. 1 In the first 
 half of the fifth century monastic literature sprang up 
 on all sides. Putting aside the celebrated Institutes 
 and Conferences of Cassian, which we will consider 
 presently, the dialogues of Sulpicius, 2 the letters of 
 Paulinus of Nola, 3 and many letters and tractates of 
 St. Jerome emphasised the principal details of monastic 
 life. 4 Eucherius, when he became Bishop of Lyons A.D. 
 434, wrote an Exhortatio 5 and Sententiae for monks, and 
 another for nuns, and Faustus, who was the third abbot 
 of Lerins, and afterwards Bishop of Riez, addressed 
 several sermons on discipline to monks. 6 St. Augustine 
 about A.D. 423 wrote to his sister, 7 drawing up for her 
 a series of rules which women could adopt who were 
 vowed to religion. It is clear then that in the fifth 
 century, and before the general acceptance of Benedicts 
 Rule by the Gallican Church, not only was monasticism 
 prevalent in the south, but there were also definite rules 
 which the monks observed which were so well known 
 as not to require to be written down. On all sides 
 there was a common understanding as to what monas- 
 ticism meant, and every house of monks looked to 
 Lerins if not as its founder, yet as the source whence 
 it had obtained its Rule. The earliest written rules for 
 monks are those composed at Aries by Caesarius, 8 who 
 was bishop there A.D. 502-541. Caesarius had been a 
 monk at Lerins, and it is nowhere claimed that he 
 was the author of the system he established. In his 
 case also his Rule was not written by himself, but has 
 come down to us through the diligence of Tetradius, 9 
 
 1 Vita S. Eugendi (A.S.O.B. vol. i. p. 559). Cf. Arnold's comments, Caesarius 
 von Arelate, p. 512. 
 
 2 In vol. i. Corp. Script. Eccles. Lot. Vindobon. 
 Ibid. vols. xxvi. and xxx., edited by W. de Hartel. 
 
 Ibid. vol. xxxi., edited by C. Wotke j Migne, P.L. vol. 1. p. 863. 
 Migne, P.L. vols. xxiii.-xxx. j Ep. xxii. De cuttodia virginitatis. 
 Cf. C. S. E. Vindobon. vol. xxi. Sermones ad monachos^ p. 314. 
 Aug. Op. Ep. ci. 
 
 Cf. Malnory, St Cesaire, and Arnold as above. 
 
 Cf. Holstenii Codex regularum, edn. 1759, vol. i. p. 145, Regula a S. 
 Tetradio preabytero . . . transmissa. 
 
x EARLY GALLICAN MONASTICISM 291 
 
 the grandson of Caesarius, who wrote out the principal 
 details of the system observed, and sent copies of the 
 Rule to different monasteries in Gaul. It is important 
 to observe what these principles were, since they show 
 us not only the independent origin of monasticism in 
 Gaul, but also the wisdom of the early founders in 
 organising the system according to the needs of the 
 West. 
 
 Tetradius gives us this rule under twenty-six heads, 
 which are as follows : 
 
 1 . The vow was for life usque ad mortem suam. 
 
 2. There was community of goods. 
 
 3. All dwell together. None had private cells or cupboards. 
 
 4. There was to be no swearing. 
 
 5. Any detected in a falsehood was to receive punishment. 
 
 6. No one was to speak evil of his neighbour. 
 
 7. None could choose his own work. Each must do the 
 work assigned to him. 
 
 8. There was to be no private conversation while the psalms 
 were being sung. 
 
 9. At meals silence was to be observed, and a reader was to 
 be appointed who should then read aloud. 
 
 10. Monks were not to become sponsors for children at 
 their baptism. 
 
 11. The entry of women into the monastery was forbidden. 
 
 12. There was to be no quarrelling. 
 
 13. The words of an angry man were not to be remembered, 
 but had any wronged his neighbour he was to seek his pardon. 
 
 14. Monks were to spend their time in reading to the third 
 hour of the day, and then they were to begin their assigned 
 work. 
 
 15. No monk could receive private letters. 
 
 1 6. The abbot alone could settle all questions of food and 
 raiment. 
 
 17. The sick are to be the object of care that they may the 
 sooner get well. 
 
 1 8. All work to be undertaken with a good will that it 
 may be accomplished, for there is a greater reward to him 
 who works with a good will than to him who only does because 
 he is ordered to do it. 
 
 19. There must be religious zeal, and especially in the 
 matter of spiritual temptation. 
 
292 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 20. From the month of October to Easter vigils are to be 
 observed by three Nocturns and three Masses l with intervals of 
 reading between each. 
 
 21. All are to say the Antiphons and Responses, the 
 Antiphons according to the order of the psalms. On Sunday 
 six masses are to be said, and at the first mass, which is the 
 Eucharist of the Resurrection, none may sit. Then Matins is 
 to follow, and on every Sunday they are to say Cantemus 
 Domino, psalms 145, 118, 146, and 148 together with the 
 Gloria in Excelsis and the Te Deum. 
 
 22. From Easter to September Wednesdays and Fridays 
 are to be fast days. From September to the Feast of the 
 Nativity every day is to be a fast day. Sundays are not to be 
 fast days because they are the festivals of the Resurrection. 
 He who fasts on a Sunday sins. No one is to take any food 
 or drink to bed with him. 
 
 23. If for any fault a monk has been excommunicated he 
 is to be placed in a cell by himself, and then is to read with a 
 senior until he is ordered to come out for pardon. 
 
 24. No meat or chickens are to be allowed those who are 
 in good health, but only to the sick when it is necessary. 
 
 25. Every Saturday, Sunday, and on all festivals, twelve 
 psalms are to be sung, three antiphons, and three lections from 
 the Prophets, Epistles, and Gospels. 
 
 26. In this way monks provide for themselves spiritual 
 weapons against the attacks of the devil. 
 
 The system here laid down is the system generally 
 adopted in South Gaul during the fifth century. All 
 references made by contemporary writers to the Rule of 
 Lerins seems to find an illustration in the above, and 
 suggests that Caesarius at Aries had adopted and 
 enforced in the monasteries there the rules and system 
 which had prevailed in Lerins. In the Rule of Caesarius 
 with its prayers, eucharists, psalm- and hymn-singing, 
 its private reading, and its daily labour we have the 
 Rule of the great founder Honoratus. 
 
 St. victor's During the fifth century the ancient city of Marseilles 
 Monastery comes for a time into prominence in the history of the 
 
 at Mar- ^ 1f . ~. . L ~ r 
 
 sciiies. Cjalhcan Church, not only on account or the monastery 
 
 1 The word Mhsa is used occasionally at this time for any office, and is not 
 confined to the eucharistic office. 
 
x EARLY GALLICAN MONASTICISM 293 
 
 of St. Victor, but also because of the eminent men who 
 lived in it. Clearly it was a city of refuge. We need 
 not assume that all who were described as priests of 
 Marseilles were also natives of the place. Men fled to 
 it because it was safe. The Visigoths held Toulouse l 
 and Bordeaux, 2 and the Burgundians were around 
 Lyons, 3 and both peoples threatened Aries ; 4 but Mar- 
 seilles 5 had resisted the attempts on it of Atawulf, the 
 Visigothic king, and still held out against the bar- 
 barians. There died in Marseilles in A.D. 445 6 
 Claudius Marius Victor, to be identified with the 
 Victorinus of Gennadius, a priest who had written in 
 verse a commentary on the earlier portion of the Old 
 Testament. Then in Marseilles lived, too, Musaeus, 7 
 a priest of the town, who at the request of Bishop 
 Venerius had compiled a lectionary from Holy Scrip- 
 ture for use in the services of the Church. There lived 
 and died the priest Gennadius, 8 the author of the hun- 
 dred short biographies in imitation of the work of St. 
 Jerome; and there too lived Salvian, 9 the most learned of 
 them all, who died in A.D. 450, and who about A.D. 428 
 wrote his celebrated work, De gubernatione Dei, perhaps 
 in imitation of St. Augustine's De civitate Dei y in which 
 
 1 A.D. 412, Prosper, Chron. " Gothi rege Athaulfo Gallias ingressi " ; Rutilius 
 Namatianus, De reditu suo, 495 : 
 
 " errantem Tuscis considere compulit agris, 
 et colere externos capta Tolosa lares." 
 
 And see also Dahn, K'Cnige des Germanen, v. 59. Cf. Fredegarius in Monod's Etudes 
 critiques, part ii. p. 68. 
 
 2 Cf. Paulinus of Pella's Eucharhticos, 1. 312 " nostra ex urbe Gothi fuerant qui 
 in pace recepti." " Non aliter nobis quam belli jure subactis aspera quaeque omni 
 urbe inrogavere cremata." 
 
 3 Cf. Jerome's Chron. under the year 373 j Binding, Das burgundisch-romanischc 
 Kdnigreich, vol. i. pp. 9 and 73 "so mtissen wir nach Gundiok's Tode Hilperik in 
 Lyon . . . suchen." 
 
 * A.D. 425. Prosper, Chron. "Arelas nobile oppidum Galliarum a Gothis multa 
 vi oppugnatum est donee imminente Aetio non impuniti discederent." 
 
 5 Olympiodoros, p. 456. 
 
 6 Gennadius, De viris inlustribus, cap. Ixi. Schenkl has edited his Alethias in the 
 Vienna Poetae Chrhtlani minores, part i. 
 
 7 Ibid. cap. Ixxx. died about 460 : " composuit Sacramentorum egregium et non 
 parvum volumen." 
 
 8 Ibid. cap. ci. " ego Gennadius Massiliae presbyter." 
 
 9 Ibid. cap. Ixviii. '* apud Massiliam presbyter." His Opera have been published by 
 Halm in M.G.H. A.A. i. part i. 
 
294 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 he contemplates the disasters in Gaul as the natural 
 retribution from God for the sins of the unfaithful 
 Christians of Gaul. He tells us incidentally that the 
 monks, " the saints of God," were jeered at, hated, and 
 persecuted by the outside world. He wrote also a work 
 in four books, De Ecc/esia, dealing with the evils of the 
 times as a cause for reformation, Christian zeal, self- 
 denial, and earnest perseverance. The love of the 
 world cannot abide side by side with a real love for 
 Christ. There are nine letters also of his which are 
 extant, of which two are addressed to Eucherius, bishop 
 of Lyons, and one to his son Salonius. To Marseilles 
 also fled Paulinus of Pella 1 as he is known, the grand- 
 son of the poet Ausonius, who had been so cruelly 
 deprived of his estates at Bordeaux by the Visigoth, 
 and who at Marseilles wrote the EucAaristicos, when 
 he received from the usurper such payment for the 
 estates as at least kept the aged man from want. 
 
 The chief name in connection with Marseilles, how- 
 of ever, in this century is that of John Cassianus, the 
 founder of the monastery of St. Victor 2 and perhaps of 
 another, St. Salvator, for nuns. As a writer and as an 
 organiser he takes a prominent part in the history of 
 early Gallican monasticism, and more especially in the 
 semi-Pelagian Controversy which troubled Gaul during 
 this period. Neither the name nor the birthplace of 
 Cassian can be definitely stated. Gennadi us 3 calls him 
 " natione Scytha," an error which probably arose from 
 his long sojourn with the monks of the Egyptian 
 deserts. Photius, 4 the Patriarch of Constantinople, 
 A.D. 800, describes him as 'Potato?, i.e. that he was 
 born in the Roman Empire. He was most probably 
 born in Gaul, and apparently in Narbonensis secunda. 
 
 1 Cf. his Eucharhticos, 520 " Massiliae demum pauper consistere legi, urbe 
 quidem in qua plures sancti essent mihi cari." 
 
 2 Gennadius, cap. Ixii. Cf. Petschenig's introductory essay on his life in the 
 Vienna C.E.L. vol. xvii. 
 
 3 Ibid. Dr. Gibson argues in favour of the desert of Scete where Cassian spent 
 some years of his life. Cf. Introduction to Translation of Cassian in Post-Nicenc 
 Fathers, vol. xi. 4 Phctius, Bibliotheca, cod. cxcvii. 
 
x EARLY GALLICAN MONASTICISM 295 
 
 He described his early home as a place which would 
 delight the heart of a monk, 1 and in his preface to the 
 Institutes stated that the diocese of Apt was still without 
 monasteries. 2 His parents seem to have been in good 
 position, and he had a sister and many friends in Gaul. 
 He lived to be an old man and died about A.D. 43 2. 3 
 
 If the details as to his origin and early life are 
 obscure, the facts concerning his later career are very 
 definite and well known. 'About the year A.D. 375 he 
 decided to forsake the world, and, with a companion 
 Germanus, started forth on a journey to Bethlehem. 4 
 There he remained for a few years, and in the Syrian 
 monasteries learnt much of Eastern monasticism. 
 Palestine, however, did not satisfy him, and after he 
 had pledged himself to return, he with some difficulty 
 obtained permission to go and make himself acquainted 
 with the life of the Egyptian monks. His visits and 
 experiences there he describes to us in the twenty-four 
 books of the Conferences? When he arrived at 
 Thennesus, a town on the Tannitic branch of the Nile 
 near lake Menzaleh, he met the anchorite Archebius, 
 who had spent thirty -seven years in the desert of 
 Panephyris, and had afterwards become the bishop of it. 
 Archebius undertook to introduce him to the anchor- 
 ites of the neighbourhood : Chaeremon, Nesteros, and 
 Joseph. This was followed by a visit to Pinufius, who 
 presided as abbot over a large monastery, and who had 
 
 1 Conference xxiv. i (vol. ii. p. 675 in Petschenig's edition) " praeterea ipsorum 
 locorum situs in quibus erat majoribus nostris avita possessio . . . delectare 
 monachum possent secreta silvarum." 
 
 2 Cf. vol. xvii. Vienna Corpus, p. 4 " eas congregation! fratrum in novello 
 tantum monasterio commorantium deputares." The foundation which St. Castor 
 was meditating was clearly the first in the diocese of Frejus. 
 
 3 He wrote his book Against Nestorius at the request of Leo in A.D. 430, and he 
 was still living in A.D. 432, when Prosper appealed to Pope Sixtus to condemn 
 Cassian's teaching in the xiiith Conference. He seems to have died soon after. 
 Cf. Gibson ut supra. Theodosius Junior and Valentinian III. reigned together till 
 A.D. 449, and Gennadius says that he died after writing his book against Nestorius 
 and while these emperors were reigning. 
 
 4 Institutes, iii. 4 " in nostro monasterio, ubi dominus noster Jesus Christus natus 
 ex virgine . . ." and iv. 19. 
 
 5 His Conferences are based on real conversations with the Egyptian abbots, and 
 he tells us of much of his life in the Institutes. 
 
296 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 once visited Bethlehem. Pinufius recognised Cassian 
 since he had once lodged in his cell at Bethlehem, and 
 indeed had desired to settle in Bethlehem but had 
 been brought back to Egypt. 
 
 Then Cassian 1 went to Diolchos, near the Sebennytic 
 mouth of the Nile, and met abbot Piamun, who told 
 him of the three kinds of monks : the Coenobites, the 
 Anchorites, and the Sarabaites. Later on he met an 
 abbot named John, whose humility was such that he 
 had ceased to be an anchorite, and had joined the 
 Coenobites that in their society he might have 
 opportunities to show his humility. 
 
 Soon after there came upon the travellers a desire to 
 return to Gaul and not to return to Bethlehem, and 
 Abbot Abraham, 2 whom they consulted, persuaded them 
 not to return, and so for several years they remained in 
 Egypt with Archebius, who gave up to them his own 
 cell and built another for himself. It is probable, how- 
 ever, that after some time they did return to Bethlehem 
 and obtained permission to go again to Egypt, and now 
 we find them at Scete in the Nitrian desert, the home 
 of Eastern monasticism, where Rufinus 3 tells us there 
 were fifty monasteries and many cells of anchorites. It 
 was while the pilgrims were in the Nitrian desert that 
 the Festal letter of Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, 4 
 in which he denounced the heresy of the Anthropomor- 
 phites, arrived. The letter caused intense excitement 
 and indignation, and it required all the influence and 
 authority of Paphnutius to allay it. This occurred in 
 the year A.D. 399. In the following year Cassian and 
 Germanus went to Constantinople, and there S. Chrys- 
 ostom ordained Cassian deacon, and assigned to him and 
 Germanus the charge of the Church treasury. 5 They 
 
 1 Institutes, v. 36 " cum de Palaestinae monasteriis ad oppidum Aegypti quod 
 Diolchos appellatur venissemus." 
 
 2 Conference xxiii. 3 Ruf. Hist, monach. c. xxi. 
 
 4 Conference x. 2 " agitata conlatio Theophili praedictae urbis episcopi sollennes 
 epistulae." 
 
 5 Cf. Gennadius, cap. Ixii., and De incarnatlone, vii. 31 " adoptatus enim a 
 beatissimae memoriae Johanne episcopo in ministerium sacrum atque oblatus Deo." 
 
x EARLY GALLICAN MONASTICISM 297 
 
 stayed in Constantinople for three years and drew up 
 an official record of the troubles at Constantinople, and 
 took it as a letter from the clergy of that city to 
 Innocent I. at Rome. 1 -Here Cassian met with Leo 
 the archdeacon, whose estimate of the wanderer's 
 ability is shown in his request in A.D. 430 2 that he 
 should write a book against the heresy of Nestorius, a 
 request which resulted in Cassian's work on the Incar- 
 nation. It was an anxious time in Italy, and certainly 
 in Rome. The country was threatened with an inva- 
 sion by Alaric the Visigoth, and the Court of Honorius 
 had retired to Ravenna. 3 So Cassian and Germanus 
 left Rome and, A.D. 410, settled down at Marseilles. 
 
 It was between the years A.D. 410 and 432 that 
 Cassian founded the two monasteries of St. Victor for 
 monks and St. Salvator for nuns in the city of Mar- 
 seilles. His fame as a writer has eclipsed that of his 
 work as an organiser of monastic life, and we are left 
 to judge of it as described in his Institutes and Con- 
 ferences. Bishop Castor of Apt had requested Cassian 4 
 to write a book concerning Monasticism, because he 
 was desirous of founding a monastery in his own 
 diocese. The work on the Institutes was written and 
 dedicated before A.D. 426, when Bishop Castor died. 
 Cassian then decided to write his work on the Conferences ', 
 i.e. the interviews he had with the Egyptian abbots, and 
 the remarks they made on questions of morality and 
 monastic discipline. The first part of this second work, 
 i.e. Conferences, i.-x., was not completed until after 
 A.D. 426, and was, therefore, dedicated to Leontius, 
 bishop of Frejus, and frater Helladius, since Bishop 
 Castor was now dead. 5 The second part was dedicated 
 
 1 Cf. S&zomen, viii. 26, where we have Pope Innocent's reply to this letter of the 
 clergy of Constantinople which Cassian had brought him. 
 
 2 Cf. Gennadius ut supra : " et ad extremum rogatus a Leone archidiacono postea 
 urbis Romae episcopo scripsit adversum Nestorem De Incarnatione Domini libros 
 septem." 
 
 3 S&zomen, ix. 9. Orosius tells us, vii. 39, that Innocent had also taken refuge at 
 Ravenna. 
 
 4 Cf. preface to the Institutes. 
 
 5 Cf. preface to Conferences, part i. books i.-x. 
 
298 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 to Honoratus as bishop of Aries, and Eucherius, bishop 
 of Lyons, and must therefore have been completed 
 between the years A.D. 426-429, since Honoratus died 
 in that year. 1 The third part, which contains the Con- 
 ferences in books xviii.-xxiv., is dedicated to brothers 
 Jovinian, Minervus, Leontius, and Theodore. The 
 earlier work, the Institutes, deals first with the ordering 
 of Coenobites, and then with the eight principal faults 
 against which a monk had to contend. The Institutes 
 of Coenobites comprises four books, and deals with the 
 dress of monks, the canonical system of nocturnal and 
 diurnal prayers and psalm-saying, and with the question 
 of the trial and training of postulants, and the case of 
 those who would renounce their vows. In the eight re- 
 maining books Cassian deals with the temptations which 
 especially assail a monk in his solitude the spirit of 
 gluttony, the spirit of fornication, the spirit of covetous- 
 ness, the spirit of anger, the spirit of dejection, the 
 spirit of accedie or weariness of heart, the spirit of vain- 
 glory, and the spirit of pride. In his preface he relates 
 how he had written the work at the request of Bishop 
 Castor, who was then planning to build 2 " a true and 
 reasonable Temple of God," and wished to know of the 
 Institutions in the East, and especially of the monasteries 
 in Egypt, and he had written the accounts of holy men 
 in simple language, so that they might be read^to the 
 monks in the new monastery. St. Basil and S. Jerome had 
 already put forth books of this sort, and that encouraged 
 him in his task. When, however, he found anything 
 in the rules of the Egyptian monks which could not be 
 transferred to Gaul because of the severity of the 
 climate or the difference of habits of the people, he has 
 put in its place some of the customs of the monks of 
 Pontus or of Mesopotamia. 
 
 The Conferences, as we have said, came as an after- 
 
 1 Cf. Hilary of Aries' Sermon on Honoratus, Migne, P.L. vol. 1. col. 1265. 
 
 2 Cf. preface to Institutes : " verum ac rationabile Deo templum non lapidibus in- 
 sensibilibus sed sanctorum virorum congregatione." 
 
x EARLY GALLICAN MONASTICISM 299 
 
 thought. Cassian seems to have mentioned the idea to 
 Bishop Castor, but he was dead before the idea was 
 carried out. The work consists of a series, in twenty- 
 four books, of conversations or conferences with the most 
 influential of the abbots of Egypt, and the arrangement 
 of the books is according to a purpose that as one read 
 them he might rise from that which is visible and con- 
 cerns the external mode of life, to that which is invisible 
 and concerns the life of the inner man, and also from the 
 thought of the system of canonical prayers and psalm- 
 saying to a life of unceasing prayer and praise. He 
 held conferences with fourteen abbots, and he gives us 
 the substance of three interviews he had with each of 
 three of these. The abbots are Moses, Daniel, Abraham, 
 Paphnutius, Piamum, Pinifius, Nesteros, Joseph, Isaac, 
 John, Thomas, Serapion, Serenius, and Choeremon. 
 
 The work of Cassian 1 immediately won approval, 
 and the demand for copies made it all the more neces- 
 sary that it should be strictly orthodox. There were, 
 however, in the Church of Gaul men who perceived in 
 this work a tendency towards Pelagianism, and Prosper 
 of Aquitaine 2 appealed to Pope Coelestine against it, 
 and obtained from him a letter in A.D. 431 to the 
 bishops of South Gaul, Venerius, Marinus, Leontius, 
 Auxonius, and Arcadius, ordering them to prohibit 
 priests in their diocese from discussing undecided 
 articles of doctrine, and from preaching against the 
 truth. The Institutes and Conferences, however, had 
 already become so popular that they could not be 
 suppressed. Bishop Eucherius, the friend of Cassian, 
 issued an Epitome of the Institutes? softening down 
 the statements which seemed to tend towards Pela- 
 gianism. Expurgated editions were also put forth by 
 an African bishop named Victor, 4 and by Cassiodorus, 5 
 
 1 As is proved by the three parts of the Collations, arising as they did from 
 renewed demands for more. 
 
 2 Cf. St. Augustine, Epp. ccxxv., ccxxvi. 
 
 3 Cf. Migne, P.L. vol. 1. 867. 
 
 4 This no longer exists, but we owe our knowledge of it to Cassiodorus. 
 
 5 Cassiod. De imt. Script, or De divinh lectionibus, c. xxix. 
 
300 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP, x 
 
 the founder of the monastery at Squillace, and 
 Dionysius, the famous Carthusian, a thousand years 
 afterwards issued another edition for the use of the 
 members of his order. 1 In the 42nd of the Rules 
 of St. Benedict, written about fifty years afterwards, the 
 great abbot of Monte Cassino 2 ordered that after supper 
 the brethren were to assemble together, and one of 
 them should read to the others the Conferences or 
 The Lives of the Fathers et legat unus Collationes vel 
 Vitas Patrum. 
 
 Thus was monasticism rooted in Gaul, and the 
 teaching and influence of St. Martin, St. Honoratus, 
 and John Cassian bore fruit in later times, and St. 
 Benedict of Aniane, 3 more than three hundred years 
 after, testified to the wisdom of the Gallican abbots who 
 had gone before him. 
 
 1 Cf. Gazet's ed. of Cassian, A.D. 1616, who gives the Catholic doctrine sub- 
 stituted by Dionysius for Cassian 's 2 2nd Conference. 
 
 - Rule of St. Benedict, Migne, P.L. vol. Ixvi. col. 674, Rule 42. 
 
 3 Cf. Benedict of Aniane, Concordia regularum, Migne, P.L. vol. ciii., who quotes 
 from the Institutes, ii. iii. and iv., as from a Regula Cassiani. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 GAUL IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 
 
 THE Emperor Honorius had been on the throne for 
 nearly six years when the fifth century of the Christian 
 era began. In Italy, the Vandal Stilicho, prime minister, 
 generalissimo, and father-in-law to the emperor, was 
 enjoying the honours of his first consulship. But 
 events were occurring that must have filled him with 
 anxiety. In the north of Italy alarm was felt on account 
 of the approach of the Visigoths. Alaric and his 
 warriors had already passed through Illyricum and were 
 about to enter Italy, and the presence in his camp of 
 the wives and children of his soldiers was a clear indica- 
 tion of his intention to settle there. In A.D. 399 the 
 emperor had been much at Ravenna, 1 but the winter he 
 spent at Milan, and was still there when the century 
 began. In Gaul, on the contrary, there was peace and 
 comparative prosperity. Literature flourished at Bor- 
 deaux 2 and Aries, and the organisation of the Church 
 was in process of steady development. The country was 
 rich, and the size and luxury of the houses of the 
 nobles showed what resources it possessed if only peace 
 was assured. But the wealth of the country was in the 
 hands of the few, and the peasantry was burdened with 
 
 1 The laws issued on Feb. 16, 399, and during the greater part of the summer 
 are dated from Milan and from Verona and Padua. The emperor returned to Milan 
 for the winter. Haenel's Cod. Theod. vol ii., and Tillemont, Hist, des emp. v. 509. 
 
 2 It was the age which Ausonius celebrates in his Commemoratio projf. Burdigal. 
 p. 48 in Peiper's edition. Cf. also the letters of Paulinus of Nola to Delphinus and 
 Amandus of Bordeaux, Migne, P.L. vol. Ixi. Paulinus was educated at Bordeaux. 
 
 301 
 
302 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 taxation from which the richer classes had largely 
 obtained exemption. To remedy this acknowledged 
 evil, Honorius, on I9th June 400, issued a law 1 to 
 abolish many of these privileges of exemption, and 
 ordained that all alike should contribute to the imperial 
 taxes in proportion to the lands which they possessed. 
 On the banks of the Rhine the Germanic tribes had 
 been fairly quiet, and in A.D. 402, and doubtless 
 because the peril which threatened Italy demanded a 
 greater concentration of the Imperial forces, the seat of 
 the prefect of Gaul was removed from Trier and 
 placed at Aries. 2 Vincentius, who had been consul in 
 A.D. 401, and whose uprightness and friendship with 
 St. Martin Sulpicius Severus 3 applauds, had succeeded 
 Theodorus 4 as prefect, and remained in that post for the 
 five following years. 
 
 Barbarian On New Year's Eve A.D. 4o6, 5 the brief interval of 
 of Ga'uT P eace which Gaul had enjoyed suddenly came to an 
 end. An enormous army of Vandals, Alans, and 
 Sueves, including among their hosts various bands of 
 Heruli, Gepidae, Sarmatae, and Quadi, 6 crossed the 
 Rhine and began the invasion of Gaul. A new era had 
 
 1 Rescript of Honorius, A.D. 400, to Vincentius, prefect of Gaul on the cities 
 which were bereft of decuriones who were deserting the towns and fleeing for safety 
 into the woods. Cod. Theod. etc. " De his qui propr. condit. reliquerint." 
 
 2 It was either at the very end of the fourth or the very beginning of the fifth 
 century that Aries took the place of Trier as the official residence of the prefect of 
 Gaul. The edict of Honorius is given us in Cassiod. Var. viii. 10. The pre- 
 fecture comprised the three vicariates of Spain, Gaul, and Britain. In Gaul the 
 vicariate had been for some time divided into two, north and south, and in these 
 two vicariates there were seventeen provinces which ranked as consular or non- 
 consular. The consular provinces were ruled by a <vir comularis j the non- 
 consular provinces by an officer who held the title of praeses, rector, or judex. The 
 head military officer in each vicariate held the title of comes, he was the maghter 
 rerum militarium. There were six consular provinces and eleven non-consular. 
 
 3 Sulpicius Severus, Dial. i. 25. 6 " memini Vincentium praefectum, virum 
 egregium." 
 
 4 For Theodorus cf. Claudian's poem De consulatu M. Theodori, and see also 
 Tillemont's note, Hist, des emp. v. 796. 
 
 6 Prosper, Chron. 406 " Vandali et Alani Gallias trajecto Rheno prid. Kal. Jan. 
 ingressi." 
 
 6 Cf. Jerome's letter to Ageruchia, No. cxxiii. Migne, P.L. " praesentium 
 miserarum pauca percurram . . . quicquid inter Alpes et Pyrenaeum est quod Oceano 
 et Rheno includitur, Quadus, Wandalus, Sarmata, Halani, Gipedes, Heruli, Saxona, 
 Burgundiones, Alemani." 
 
tine. 
 
 xi GAUL IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 303 
 
 commenced. The Gaul of previous centuries rapidly 
 passed away, and the foundations of new institutions 
 were laid on which a fresh and altered national life was 
 afterwards to be established. But the new era had to 
 pass through bitter throes of intense misery and suffer- 
 ing. The invaders were barbarians, and the devastation 
 which these hordes created was greater than any that 
 had yet fallen on Italy. Mainz, Worms, Speyer, and 
 Strasburg, on the left bank of the Rhine, were the first 
 to fall, and soon after Terouanne, Trier, Rheims, 
 Arras, and Amiens were in like manner burnt to the 
 ground. 1 The two Germaniae and the two Belgicae 
 were occupied in the earlier part of the year 407, and 
 in a very short time the invaders reached the Loire. 
 
 In the spring of that same year 2 yet another storm Revolt of 
 burst upon the country. The soldiers in Britain were C 
 in apparent agreement with the soldiers on the north- 
 east of Gaul in resenting the withdrawal of the head- 
 quarters of the army from Trier to Aries. They 
 seemed to have been left to their fate, and were 
 determined to make a stand in self-defence. Having 
 murdered two rival emperors, Marcus and Gratian, 3 
 whom they had first of all proclaimed as Augusti, the 
 soldiers in Britain elected as their emperor one of their 
 number whose chief qualification seems to have been 
 that his name was Constantine. 4 But no revolution in 
 Britain alone could ever be successful over the western 
 empire, and Constantine at once took steps to assert his 
 new authority over Gaul also. Taking with him the 
 remaining legions that were in the island he landed near 
 Boulogne, and seems to have met almost at once with 
 the Vandal and Alan invaders, for his progress was 
 
 1 Jerome's letter to Ageruchia, No. cxxiii. " Moguntiacum, Vangiones, longa 
 obsidione deleti, Remorum urbs praepotens, Ambiani, Attrebates, extremique hominum 
 Morini, Tornacum, Nemetae, Agentoratus." Cf. Salvian, De gub. Dei, vi. 15. 
 
 2 Olympiodoros, p. 451 j Prosper, Chron., A.D. 407, " Constantinus ex infima 
 militia ... in Brittannia tyrannus exoritur " ; Zosimus, v. 27 j Orosius, vii. 40. 
 
 3 Zosimus, vi. 3 ; Orosius, vii. 40 " apud Britannias Gratianus municeps ejusdem 
 insulae tyrannus creatur et occiditur." He does not mention Marcus. But cf. 
 Olympiodoros, p. 451. 4 Olymp. as above. 
 
304 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 marked as he advanced towards Trier and towards 
 Lyons with severe fighting. 1 Trier offered no resist- 
 ance 2 and was largely desolate and in ruins, and towards 
 the end of the year, with the capture of Aries, he found 
 himself the master of Gaul. 3 The generals who com- 
 manded his forces were Justinian and Nebiogast, 4 and 
 his army was probably increased by those isolated 
 garrisons which had escaped the fury of the Vandals 
 and their allies. The result of his revolt and his capture 
 of all the eastern portion of Gaul was practically to leave 
 the western province a prey to the barbarians, and the 
 fact that Constantine's battles in Gaul had hitherto been 
 only with the Vandals and Alans seems to show that Gaul 
 had already been denuded of its protectors for the sake 
 of Italy. At Aries, however, he had to turn his attention 
 to the movements of Honorius and of those whom he 
 should send to vindicate his authority. Under the 
 direction of Stilicho, Honorius sent an army from 
 Italy, of which Sarus, a Goth, was in command. 5 Con- 
 stantine was at Valence 6 when the imperial troops 
 entered Gaul, and Sarus immediately laid siege to that 
 town, and owing to the defection of Nebiogast 7 the 
 fortunes of Constantine were for a time very critical. 
 He had dismissed his generals Justinian and Nebiogast 
 and replaced them with Edobich and Gerontius, 8 an act 
 which suggests a check as well as treachery. Under 
 these new commanders, however, his fortune revived. 
 Sarus was not only driven off from Valence, but was 
 compelled to retreat to Italy, and was harassed on his 
 way by the forces of Constantine. During the year 
 A.D. 408 all went well with the usurper. To protect 
 
 1 Zosimus, vi. 3. 
 
 2 Salvian as above, and Jahn, Geschichte der Burgundionen, i. 288. 
 
 3 Olympiodorus as above : o\ov rbv T?a.\\ov /cat 'A.Ktira.vov CTpari<4}Tt]v idio- 
 
 4 Zosimus, vi. 2. 
 
 5 Ibid. v. 30 and vi. 2. 
 
 6 Ibid. 
 
 7 This narrative all comes from Zosimus, vi. 2. 
 
 8 Ibid. ''Edbfiiyxov <&pdyKOi> fora. r6 7^05, Tepdvnov 5e diro rys 
 
xi GAUL IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 305 
 
 himself he fortified the passes of the Alps 1 which led 
 into Italy, and Spain at once submitted to the army 
 of Gerontius. With the latter he had sent his son 
 Constans, 2 and Apollinaris, the grandfather of the more 
 famous Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius, accompanied him as 
 chief civil officer. ' Orosius 3 refers to Constans as having 
 been a monk before he became Caesar, but this is 
 difficult to realise if, at least, Constans had come with 
 his father from Britain. 
 
 Towards the end of this year Constans returned to 
 Aries, having left Gerontius in chief command at 
 Zaragossa, 4 and in the spring of 409 it certainly looked 
 as if the revolt of Constantine would be successful. He 
 had applied to Honorius for his recognition of that 
 which had already taken place in the west, and 
 Honorius not only acknowledged him as Augustus, but 
 sent for his acceptance an imperial purple robe. 5 Then 
 when Constantine heard how Honorius was being 
 pressed by the Visigoths he began a march towards 
 Ravenna 6 for his protection, but hearing of the murder 
 of Allobich, 7 one of Honorius's generals, he turned back, 
 and from that moment his fortunes seemed to wane. In 
 the late autumn he sent Constans again to Spain, and 
 with him a general Justus 8 to replace the hitherto 
 faithful Gerontius, and the indignity thus put upon him 
 drove Gerontius naturally into rebellion. 9 He made a 
 treaty of peace with the Vandals in Spain, and set up 
 there a new emperor in the person of a soldier, Maxi- 
 mus, 10 and soon after marched into Gaul to attack 
 
 1 Olympiodoros as above j Sozomen, ix. n. 
 
 2 Zosimus, vi. 5 j Orosius, vii. 40 ; Sid. Apol. v. 9. 
 
 3 Orosius as above: "adversus hos Constantinus Constantem filium suum pro 
 dolor ! ex monacho Caesarem factum ... in Hispaniam misit." How did this 
 story arise ? Monasticism can hardly have reached Britain as early as A.D. 407. 
 
 4 Cf. Frigeridus, quoted by Gregory of Tours, H. F. ii. 9. 
 
 5 Olympiodoros, p. 450 ; Zosimus, v. 43 &c7re/u,7ret 5 awry /ecu 
 
 6 S&zomen, ix. 12. 
 
 7 Olympiodoros, p. 452. 
 
 8 Zosimus, vi. 5 'lovvrov eirayo/jievos 
 9 
 
 Ibid. 
 10 Olympiodoros, p. 453 
 
3o6 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Constantine, driving his son Constans before him. 
 Constantine during the year A.D. 410 seems to have 
 been at Aries, and for a time Constans remained at 
 Narbonne. 1 To procure troops to withstand the attack 
 of Gerontius, Constantine sent off Edobich to the 
 Franks and Alemans 2 on the banks of the Rhine, and 
 Constans moved to Vienne to await their arrival. 3 
 Gerontius during the second half of this year was 
 certainly master of the situation, and Constantine and 
 Constans were practically shut up in Vienne and Aries. 
 Then in the early days of A.D. 411, or perhaps at the 
 end of 410, Constans fell into the hands of Gerontius 
 and was put to death. 4 Meanwhile the imperial forces, 
 led by Constantius, the future patrician, and Wulfilas, 
 again set out for Gaul 5 and found Gerontius besieging 
 Constantine in Aries. His troops, however, proved 
 unfaithful. As Constantius drew near they went over 
 to him, 6 and Gerontius had to flee for safety to Spain. 
 Then the siege of Aries continued, carried on no longer 
 under the direction of Gerontius, but now in the name 
 and by the soldiers of Honorius. 7 In the fourth month 
 of the siege, A.D. 411, Edobich drew near to Aries, 8 
 bringing with him the Prankish warriors he had gone 
 to collect for Constantine. In the neighbourhood of 
 Aries they were attacked and utterly defeated 9 by 
 Wulfilas, the general of Honorius, and the overthrow 
 of Edobich was followed almost immediately by the 
 surrender of Aries. Constantine took refuge in a 
 
 1 Greg. T. ii. 9, and Sozomen, ix. 13. Constans seems to have gone on to 
 Vienne from Narbonne almost immediately. 
 
 2 S&zomen, ix. 13 3>pdyKuv re ical 'AXa/tavwc ffvfji.fjiaxiav irporpeif/ofJifvov. Cf. 
 Fauriel, Hist, de la Gaule merid. i. 101 and Freeman, Western Europe in the Vth Cen- 
 tury, note on p. 104, to whom and to Fauriel I am indebted for most of this story 
 of Constantine. 
 
 Sfizomen as above. 
 
 Orosius, vii. 42 *' Constantem filium Constantini Gerontius conies suus apud 
 Viennam interfecit." 
 Olymp. p. 453. 
 Sozomen as above. 
 Ibid. 
 
 Sozomen, ix, 14 dyycXOfvros 'Edofllxw ^erct T\cl<rTi]S <ri;/t/*axtas 
 Ibid. 
 
xi GAUL IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 307 
 
 church, and sought to escape death by ordination. 1 
 He was, however, sent as a prisoner to Ravenna and 
 beheaded shortly before he reached it. 2 Thus a revolu- 
 tion which for three years had severed the prefecture of 
 Gaul, the then dioceses of Britain, Gaul, and Spain from 
 the Western Empire, was at last put down, and the 
 authority of Honorius was recognised once more in the 
 provinces of Narbonne. What in the meantime had 
 been the fate of the rest of Gaul ? When in 407 
 Constantine marched south through the Belgic pro- 
 vinces he met and had to contend with the invading 
 Vandals, Alans, and Sueves. They were apparently 
 moving south-west, and though they may have been 
 driven off by the soldiers which Constantine had brought 
 from Britain, they were only for a brief interval dis- 
 turbed in their terrible work of plunder and devastation. 
 We have already seen in the destruction of so many 
 important cities what ruin they had spread in the N.E. 
 of Gaul. The cities which the usurper Constantine 
 entered in the spring of that year could have only con- 
 sisted of the ruins of a former splendour now blackened 
 by the fires of the Vandals. 
 
 As these barbarians advanced westward the same st. Patrick 
 terrible work was continued, and the absence of all [heraln^f 
 records of that period for these years proves the Gaui. 
 thoroughness of the destruction which the invaders 
 accomplished. During the months of September and 
 October A.D. 409, the invaders passed on into Spain, 3 
 and central Gaul was left, after two and a half years of 
 plunder, waste and desolate, and wellnigh ruined. In 
 A.D. 411 a fugitive from Ireland 4 landed at the mouth 
 of the Loire, and endeavoured to make his way through 
 
 1 S&zomen, cap. 15. 2 Olympiodoros, p. 454. 
 
 3 Prosper, Chron. sub anno 409 " Vandali Hispanias occupaverunt." Idatius, 
 Chron. adds Alans and Sueves. Orosius indefinitely says (vii. 40) " Gallias invadunt, 
 directoque impetu Pyrenaeum usque perveniunt." 
 
 4 Cf. Dr. White's Latin Writings of St. Patrick, Confessio, p. 240 " et post triduum 
 terram caepimus et xxviii. dies per desertum iter fecimus et cibus defuit illis et fames 
 invaluit super eos " 5 also Prof. Bury's Life of St. Patrick, p. 35, and Appendix 6, 
 P- 338. 
 
3 o8 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Aquitaine towards Italy. It was the future apostle of 
 Ireland, St. Patrick, and in that strange piece of auto- 
 biography known as his Confession he described the 
 land he traversed as completely desolate. For nine 
 days they wandered across the country unable to obtain 
 any means of subsistence, 1 and before they came to 
 human dwellings, and during his four weeks of travel, 
 he seems only once to have met 2 with any remnant of 
 civilisation. In a fragment of a letter of St. Paulinus 
 of Nola 3 written about the same time, i.e. A.D. 411, he 
 bemoans the evils which had fallen on Gaul, and admires 
 the patience and fortitude of the bishops who had faced 
 the invasion. The bishops he refers to were those of the 
 cities of Toulouse, Vienna, Bordeaux, Albi, Angoule'me, 
 Clermont, Cahors and Perigueux. Exuperius of Tou- 
 louse 4 seems to have done more than show his Chris- 
 tian fortitude. He is said to have forewarned his fellow- 
 citizens and urged upon them measures of self-defence, 
 and the fact that the city seems to have been spared, or 
 at any rate treated less cruelly than others, was due either 
 to the courage to resist with which he had imbued the 
 citizens, or to the proximity of Toulouse to Narbonne 
 and the soldiers of the army of Gerontius. Jerome in 
 his letter to Ageruchia 5 briefly refers to the misery 
 which prevailed in Gaul, and regards the ruin as extend- 
 ing from the Pyrenees to the Alps, and from the ocean 
 to the Rhine. His words are useful as evidence how 
 the appalling calamity in Gaul had become the talk 
 of the world. In Aquitaine, 6 he says, in the four 
 
 1 Cf. Dr. White as above, 19, p. 240 "nos a fame periclitamur," and 22. 
 a Ibid, "difficile est enim unquam ut aliquem hominem videamus." 
 
 3 Migne, P. L. vol. Ixi. Ep. 48, p. 398 "utcumque se habent saeculi mala videbis 
 profecto dignissimos totius fidei religionisque custodes." This letter is referred to by 
 Gregory, H. F. ii. 13. The reference in this letter is to the evils that had happened 
 in Aquitaine previous to the Visigothic invasion. 
 
 4 Ibid, and Jerome's letter to Furia, the daughter-in-law of Probus, who was 
 consul, A.D. 406 : "habes sanctum Exuperium." 
 
 5 Jerome's letter to Ageruchia : "Aquitania, Novemque populorum, Lugdinensis et 
 Narbonensis provinciae, praeter paucas urbes populata sunt cuncta . . non possum 
 absque lachrymis Tolosae facere mentionem quae ut hucusque non rueret sancti 
 Exuperii merita praestiterunt." 
 
 6 Ibid. 
 
xi GAUL IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 309 
 
 Lugdunensian provinces and in the two of Narbonne 
 there were but a few cities left with inhabitants. As 
 for Toulouse, he cannot mention it without weeping. 
 The virtues of Exuperius had been conspicuous, 1 and 
 whether or not the city had fallen, Jerome regarded the 
 bishop as dwelling in the vale of tears. Two poems, 
 which were evidently written but a few years afterwards, 
 and which are assigned to Prosper of Aquitaine, tell us 
 of the suffering and the severity of the calamity 2 which 
 had fallen on Gaul. If all the ocean 3 should pour itself 
 upon the fields of Gaul, yet the destructive waves would 
 spare more than had the barbarian invaders. A little 
 later the Bishop of Auch, Orientius, 4 writing of this 
 period and of the terror which the invasion had created, 
 remarked that all Gaul smoked like a funeral pyre, nor 
 
 1 Jerome addressed his commentary on Zechariah to Exuperius, and in the preface 
 says, u gavisus sum esse te sospitem . . audio te in valle lachrymarum in loco quern 
 Deus posuit ad certamen." 
 
 2 Prosper of Aquitaine, Migne, P. L. vol. li. p. 612 Poe'ma conjugis ad uxorem : 
 
 " non metuo exsilium ; mundus domus omnibus una est. 
 Sperno famem ; Domini fit mihi sermo cibus." 
 
 3 Ibid. p. 616 : 
 
 " si totus Gallos sese effudisset in agros 
 Oceanus, vastis plus superesset aquis 
 quod sane desunt pecudes, quod semina frugum j " 
 
 and further on : 
 
 " caede decenni 
 Vandaliciis gladiis sternimur et Geticis." 
 
 4 Orientius is edited by Prof. R. Ellis in vol. xvi. of the Vienna Corpus among 
 " Poe'tae Christiani minores." Cf. Commomtorium, ii. line 169 : 
 
 " non castella locis, non tutae moenibus urbes, 
 
 invia non pelago tristia non heremo, 
 non cava, non etiam nudis sub rupibus antra 
 ludere barbaricas praevaluere manus." 
 
 I have accepted Prof. Bury's suggestion, and read nudh for tetrich. Cf. also line 
 
 183 = 
 
 " incendia luctus 
 uno fumavit Gallia tota rogo." 
 
 The reader should also compare Salvian, De gub. Dei. He wrote his book at 
 Marseilles some few years later, and when it had become possible to sum up the awful- 
 ness of the desolation and suffering created by the invasion : vii. 12 " gens ignavissima 
 de loco ad locum pergens, de urbe in urbem transiens " (he is referring to the Vandals) 
 "universa vastaret . . arsit regio Belgarum, deinde opes Aquitanorum luxuriantium et 
 post haec corpus omnium Galliarum." Orosius (vii. 38 and 40) refers to the Vandals 
 as " per Gallias debacchantibus." 
 
310 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 were the castles by their lofty sites or the cities by their 
 strong walls able to protect the inhabitants from the 
 swords of the Vandal foe. 
 
 The storm, however, as we have already shown, 
 ceased in the autumn of 409, when the Vandals and 
 their allies passed into Spain and Aquitaine, and the 
 Lyons provinces had a brief respite from suffering 
 and invasion. But now it was to be the fate of the 
 Narbonne and Vienne provinces to experience some of 
 the horror which their neighbours had endured. The 
 Visigoths, who in A.D. 410 had captured Rome, were 
 now under the leadership of Atawulf, the successor of 
 Alaric. He was desirous to find a settlement for his 
 followers, and he had set his heart on a marriage with 
 Galla Placidia, the sister of the emperor, and was there- 
 fore anxious to win the consent of Honorius. She had 
 fallen into his hands amid the spoils of war, and was 
 now in honourable captivity in his camp. The Visigoth, 
 therefore, determined to spare Italy and to move on 
 into southern Gaul. 1 So in A.D. 412 the Visigoths 
 entered Gaul and captured Valence in 4I3, 2 and in it a 
 new usurper Jovinus, and having failed in an attempt on 
 Marseilles, 3 settled down the. same year at Narbonne. 4 
 There in January 414 Atawulf married his captive 
 princess Placidia, 5 and in consequence incurred the 
 implacable hostility of the patrician Constantius to 
 whom Honorius had promised her. The Visigoths 
 realised the situation, and since there could be no stable 
 peace between them and the emperor, began to treat 
 Narbonne as a conquered province. Toulouse was 
 captured by force of arms and Bordeaux 6 was occupied 
 
 1 Prosper, Ckron. " Gothi rege Athaulpho Gallias ingressi." 
 
 2 Prosper Tiro (Migne, P. L. vol. li. p. 859) " Valentia nobilissima Galliarum 
 civitas a Gothis effringitur ad quam se fugiens Jovinus contulerat. " 
 
 3 Olympiodoros, p. 457. The attempt was defeated by Count Boniface. 
 
 4 Idatius, Chron. "Gothi Narbonam ingressi vindemiae tempore." 
 
 5 Ibid. " Ataulfus apud Narbonam Placidiam duxit uxorem," and Olympiodoros, 
 p. 459. 
 
 tt Rutilius Namatianus, De reditu suo, 1. 495, and the capture of Bordeaux come* 
 from Paulinus of Pella' Eucharisticos, I. 311 : 
 
xi GAUL IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 311 
 
 under threat of it, and some of the suffering which the 
 inhabitants had to endure was probably due to the 
 resentment of the Visigoths at the treatment they had 
 received from the emperor. Meanwhile Constantius 
 was preparing his plans, and in A.D. 415, during the 
 siege of Bazas by the Visigoths, he captured Narbonne, 1 
 and compelled them to withdraw from Bazas and 
 retreat into Spain, and in revenge the Visigoths burnt 
 Bordeaux. 2 
 
 We cannot, however, leave the story of the Visi- 
 goths, because they had so much influence on the history 
 of the Church in this century in Gaul. Soon after their 
 entry into Barcelona, Atawulf was murdered, 3 and his 
 ultimate successor, Wallia, began negotiations for peace 
 with Honorius by the offer to surrender Placidia to the 
 emperor, 4 and in A.D. 418 Constantius and Honorius 
 made peace with Wallia, and formally handed over to 
 them the earlier Aquitaine and Novempopulania, i.e. 
 the land between the Garonne and the Pyrenees. 5 So 
 in 418 the Visigoths under Wallia returned to Gaul, The 
 and the kingdoms which Wallia founded lasted for i >r ", of 
 
 i i i j R Gothi. 
 
 nearly a hundred years. 
 
 The capital of this new kingdom was the city of 
 Toulouse, 7 though Bordeaux seems also to have enjoyed 
 almost equal rank. At first there was peace between 
 the Visigoths and the empire, but very soon, either 
 
 " namque profecturi regis precepto Atiulfi 
 nostra ex urbe Gothi fuerant qui in pace recepti 
 non aliter nobis quam belli jure subactis 
 aspera quaeque omni urbe inrogavere cremata." 
 
 1 Orosius, vii. 43 " Gothos Narbona expulit (Constantius) atque abire in Hispaniam 
 coegit." 
 
 2 Paulinus as above. 
 
 3 Idatius, Chron. " Ataulfus . . . per quemdam Gothum apud Barcinonam inter 
 familiares fabulas jugulatur." 
 
 4 Prosper, "Wallia pacem Honorii expetens reddit (Placidiam) ejusque nuptial 
 Constantius promeretur." 
 
 5 Prosper, Chron. A.D. 419 " Constantius patricius pacem firmat cum Wallia data 
 ei ad habitandum secunda Aquitania et quibusdam civitatibus confinium provincia- 
 rum." Cf. Tiro, "Aquitania Gothis tradita." 
 
 8 Idatius, Chron. " Gothi . . . sedes in Aquitanica a Tolosa usque ad Oceanum 
 acceperunt." Alaric II. 's defeat at Vougl6 was in the summer of A.D. 507. 
 7 Paulinus, Eucharist, line 44, and Jordanis, Getica, c. 33. 
 
3i2 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 through need of room or from national ambition, we 
 find the Visigoths pushing southward, 1 desirous of the 
 province between the Cevennes and the Mediterranean 
 with its capital Nar bonne. In A.D. 426 they endeav- 
 oured to capture Aries, when the patrician Aetius 
 inflicted a severe defeat on them, 2 and in A.D. 436 they 
 besieged Narbonne and were again defeated by Aetius. 3 
 A little later, in 438, the Roman general Litorius, the 
 Comes of Narbonensis II., 4 made an attempt to capture 
 Toulouse, but was signally defeated by Theodoric, 
 and in A.D. 440 peace was made on terms which seem 
 to have given official recognition to all which the 
 Visigoths had hitherto won on the southern side of the 
 Cevennes. 5 For eleven years this peace was maintained, 
 and we hear little about the Visigoths, who seem to 
 have been occupied in the settlement of their new home. 
 The Then occurred the celebrated invasion of Gaul by Attila 
 
 the H'UHS.^ the Hun. With an immense army, made more for- 
 midable by the instinctive horror the Gallo- Roman 
 seems to have felt for them, Attila crossed the Rhine 
 near Worms, and pushing across to the Mosel, captured 
 Metz on April 6, 45i. 6 Here he massacred all the 
 inhabitants and burnt the city, St. Stephen's Chapel 
 alone escaping from the flames. 7 Then he marched on 
 Paris and the Seine, and for some reason, which the 
 piety of after generations assigned to the prayers of St. 
 Genevieve, he turned aside and moved towards Orleans, 
 and early in June began an attack on it. It is uncertain 
 
 1 Idatius, "Narbona obsideri coepta per Gothos." 
 
 2 Prosper, Chron., A.D. 426, " Arelas ... a Gothis multa vi oppugnatum est donee 
 imminente Aetio non impuniti discederent." 
 
 3 Idatius, "Narbona obsidione liberator Aetio duce et magistro militum." 
 
 4 Idem, " Litorius dux inconsultius cum auxiliari Hunnorum manu irruens, 
 caesis his, . . . vulneratus . . . et post dies paucos occiditur." 
 
 5 Idem, "Inter Romanes et Gothos pax efficitur." Prosper adds, "humilius 
 quam unquam antea poposcissent." Narbonne, however, did not become a Gothic 
 town again until A.D. 470, when Agrippinus Gallus betrayed the city to the Goths. 
 He was, as Comes, the rival of Aegidius, and hoped by this treachery to gain support 
 from Theodoric. 
 
 6 Prosper, Chron. " Hunni cum transito Rhino saevissimos ejus impetus multae 
 Gallicanae urbes experirentur." Greg. Tur. H. F. ii. 5 " Chuni ... in ipsa sancti 
 Paschae vigilia ad Mettensem urbem . . . perveniunt." 
 
 7 Ibid, " nee remansit in ea locus inustus praeter oratorium beati Stephani." 
 
xi GAUL IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 313 
 
 whether any part of the town was captured. 1 The city 
 marks the limits of his advance, and the news he then 
 heard made him retire on Chalons and the Mauriac 
 plains. St. Aignan, the bishop of Orleans, 2 had gone on 
 the approach of Attila to demand immediate help from 
 Aetius, and the diplomacy of the patrician made a 
 united resistance possible. Taking with him from Aries 
 all the forces of the empire, he summoned to his assist- 
 ance Theodoric and the Visigoths, and Gundiok and 
 Hilperik, with their Burgundians. 3 It was the combined 
 force of Roman legionaries and Visigoth and Burgun- 
 dian warriors which prompted Attila to retire. The allies 
 came up with Attila on the Campus Mauriacus 4 between 
 Troyes and Chalons, and here for three days he fought 
 desperately. 5 The battle certainly went against him, 
 but the loss on all sides was very great and neither army 
 
 1 Prosper, Chron. cap. 7 " Aurelianis aggreclitur, eamque maximo arietum impulsu 
 nititur expugnare." 
 
 2 Cf. Vita Aniani in Krusch, Vitae sanctorum (Script, rer. Mero<u. iii. p. 108). 
 There are some interesting details in the life of St. Lupus of Troyes, and of St. 
 Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris, of whom there is an uncritical but attractive 
 life by L. Roger, Une Heroine franf aise, 1890, and another in Lecoffre's Les Saints. 
 Compare also Paulus Diac. De gestis episcop. M.ettensium. An Alan king, Sangiban, 
 had promised to deliver Orleans to Attila ( Jordanes, De orig. Getarum, cap. xii.). 
 Sidonius promised, but unfortunately had not leisure, to write the story of the siege 
 of Orleans, Ep. viii. 15. Cf. also Thierry's Hhtoire eT Attila, i. 162. 
 
 3 There seems to have been some grudge felt by the Visigoths against the Huns. 
 Rotherius and Jordanes ascribe two expeditions of Attila, one which ended in the 
 Plain of Chalons, and the other, when the Huns were said to have pushed the 
 Visigoths to the Spanish border and destroyed Agde : cf. Fauriel, i. p. 535 ; Greg. 
 Tur. H. F. ii. 7 " igitur Aetius cum Gothis Francisque conjunctus adversus 
 Attilanem confligit." Sokrates (vii. 30) and Orosius (vii. 32) record a slaughter of 
 the Huns by the Burgundians at a time when the Huns had lost Optar their leader 
 and were at a disadvantage. 
 
 4 The Campus Mauriacus of Gregory of Tours, H. F. ii. 7, has been identified 
 with Mery-sur-Seine and by M. d'Arbois de Jubainville (Biblio. de I'Ecole des Chartes, 
 xxi. 370-373), with Moirey in Dept. Aub., arrondissement de Nogent. Mr. 
 Hodgkins, Italy and her Invaders, vol. ii. p. 160, discusses these sites, and gives us as 
 usual much valuable information on the geographical character of the district between 
 Troyes and Chalons-sur-Marne. He considers that the battle was fought at Me'ry-sur- 
 Seine, but Longnon, Geog. de la Gaule au VI e siecle, pp. 334-40, gives us at length the 
 difficulties which arise in reference to either identification. The Continuator of 
 Prosper creates a difficulty by saying that it was at the fifth milestone from Troyes, 
 in quinto milliario de Trecate ; Mery-sur-Seine is twenty miles from Troyes. Jornandes' 
 description of the Catalaunian Plains would cover the whole space of the ancient 
 province of Champagne. Cf. also M. A. de Barthelemy's " La Campagne d' Attila " 
 in Revue des ^. H. viii. p. 337. 
 
 5 Prosper, Chron. "in quo conflictu quamvis neutris cedentibus inaestimabiles 
 strages commorientium factae sint." 
 
3H BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 could claim a signal victory. Attila, however, retired 
 across the Rhine to try his fortune at a later time in 
 Italy, and the peril which had threatened Gaul was 
 happily averted. Among the slain was Theodoric, the 
 Visigothic king, and in his place the Visigoths elected 
 Thorismund, who two years after was slain by his brother 
 Theodoric. 1 The alliance with the empire tended for 
 peace, and the condition of affairs within was such as 
 made it impossible to check him. In A.D. 456 we find 
 that Theodoric II. had advanced to the valley of the 
 Rhone 2 and threatened Lyons, while other portions of 
 the Visigothic army had crossed the Loire and attempted 
 the capture of Orleans. 3 But local resistance, aided by 
 the imperial forces in Gaul, was able to thwart him, and 
 immediately after, in alliance with the Burgundians, he 
 invaded Spain * and brought the Sueves of the north- 
 west into subjection. 
 
 On the death of Valentinian III., who was murdered 
 by 5 Maximus on March 16, 445, Avitus, a wealthy 
 Gallo - Roman who had been chief civil officer to the 
 usurper Constantine, was, on July 10, 45 5, proclaimed as 
 emperor at Toulouse and at Aries. The act was that 
 of the Roman soldiers in Gaul, but it was certainly done 
 with the connivance of Theodoric, who doubtless hoped 
 to gain from an emperor whom he had placed under 
 such an obligation. Unfortunately for the Visigoth, 
 Avitus was deposed and murdered in the autumn of the 
 following year, 7 and though Theodoric began to act 
 
 1 G. T. H. F. ii. 7 Prosper in anno 453. 
 
 2 Jordanis, De r. G. cap. 47 " Euricus . . . Romani regni vacillationem cernens 
 . . ." Cf. Victor Tunnensis, Chron., sub anno 471. 
 
 3 Sid. Apollin. Ep. iii. 9 j Jordanes, De rebus Get. cap. 45. 
 
 4 Idat. Chron. The expedition was "cum voluntate et ordinatione Aviti 
 imperatoris." Cf. Binding, Das burgundhch-romanhche KSnigreich, p. 54. 
 
 5 Prosper, Chron.) sub anno 455. 
 
 6 Idatius, Chron. iv. of Marcian, "Avitus Gallus ab exercitu Gallicano et ab 
 honoratis primum Tolosae dehinc apud Arelatum Augustus appellatus." The 
 event at Toulouse could hardly have occurred without the knowledge and conniv- 
 ance of Theodoric. 
 
 7 Ibid. "Avitus tertio anno postea quam a Gallis et a Gothis factus fuerat 
 imperator caret imperio, Gothorum promisso destitutus auxilio, caret et vita." Cf. 
 Marius of Avenches, Chron. " dejectus est Avitus imperator a Majoriano." 
 
xi GAUL IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 315 
 
 independently, advancing the boundaries of his king- 
 doms into the Roman provinces of Gaul, 1 he found him- 
 self at once engaged in hostilities with the soldiers 
 who acknowledged the Emperor Majorian. Peace was 
 declared in 459, 2 but it was a hollow one, for Theodoric 
 continued to advance southward, and soon after his 
 occupation of the province of Narbonensis II. was 
 formally recognised by the empire. 3 
 
 Theodoric died in A.D. 466, and was succeeded by 
 his still more ambitious son Euric, and during the years 
 468 and 46 9, 4 and largely through the treachery of 
 Arvandus, the Comes of Aquitaine II., Euric made 
 himself master of Berry 5 and the north-eastern corner 
 of Aquitaine, the portion bounded by the river Loire. 
 The next year he made an unsuccessful attack on 
 Angers, 6 and began an advance into Auvergne. In 
 A.D. 471 there was continual fighting between the 
 Visigoths and the Arvernians, and within twelve months, 
 not only had Euric captured all Auvergne, 7 with the 
 exception of Bourges and Clermont, but in the far 
 south had made himself master of Nimes. 8 In this 
 year he received, too, an addition to his fighting force in 
 the arrival of Vidomir the Ostrogoth, 9 who, on the 
 advice of the Burgundian-nominated Emperor Glycerius, 
 had gone with his warriors to settle in Gaul. In A.D. 
 474 all Auvergne 10 had been conquered, and Ecdicius, 
 the patriot who had represented the power of Rome, 
 and Sidonius, the Gallo-Roman bishop of Clermont, 
 paid for the resistance they had organised by a period 
 of exile, 7 and peace was soon after proclaimed on the 
 basis of the recognition by the Emperor Julius Nepos 
 
 1 Anonymus Cuspiniani, sub anno 456. 
 
 2 Idatius, Chron. " nuntiantes Majorianum Augustum et Theudoricum regeip 
 firmissimae inter se pacis jura sanxisse." 
 
 3 Ibid, sub anno 470. There had been continuous war from the date of Count 
 Agrippinus' treachery at Narbonne to the attack on Aries which Algidius had so 
 strenuously resisted, cf. Prisci Excerpta, p. 230. 
 
 4 Sid. Apoll. Ep. i. 7 } cf. Fauriel, i. p. 308. 
 
 5 Greg. Tur. H. F. ii. 18. 6 Ibid. ii. 20. 
 
 7 Sid. Apoll. Ep. ii. 9. 8 Jordanes, De orig. Get. xviii. 
 
 * Ibid. xv. 10 Sid. Apoll. Ep. viii. 3 and 6. 
 
316 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 of the whole of Auvergne as forming part of the 
 Visigothic kingdom of Euric. 1 Four years afterwards, 
 Odovaker the Patrician yet further recognised the 
 might of the Visigoth in the surrender to him of all his 
 authority west of the Alps, 2 an action, however, which 
 merely amounted to a promise that Odovaker would 
 not attempt to disturb him in his possession of it. 
 Acting on this new power, in A.D. 480 Euric advanced 
 into Narbonensis prima, and the capture of Aries 
 and Marseilles 3 completed the loss of Gaul to the 
 Roman power. Euric had carried on the work of both 
 the Theodorics, of Wallia, and of Atawulf, and Gaul at 
 heart had ceased to be Romania and was nearly become 
 Gothia. That the work would have been completed by 
 the conquest of the north-east we may well believe, had 
 not Euric died at Aries in A.D. 483. 4 
 
 His successor, Alaric II., in alliance with Gundobad, 
 king of the Burgundians, in A.D. 490 marched into 
 Italy to assist the Ostrogoths, and defeated near Milan 
 the patrician Odovaker ; 5 but now another power had 
 arisen in the north-east, and the downfall of the 
 Visigoths must be told as part of the narrative of 
 the rise of the Prankish kingdom. Alaric was not a 
 warrior, and was suspicious of the influence in his 
 kingdom of the Franks. A strong Arian, he was much 
 disliked by the Catholic bishops who lived in his 
 kingdom, and we find several instances of persecu- 
 tion as much the result of the rival creeds as of jealousy 
 of foreign interference. Volusianus, 6 bishop of Tours, 
 was exiled to Toulouse and died there, and his successor 
 Verus was also transferred for safer keeping to the 
 capital. 7 At Rodez, 8 Bishop Quintianus escaped im- 
 
 1 Sid. Apoll. Ep. vii. 7. ' 2 Jordanes ut supra. 
 
 3 Jordanes, De orig. Get. xv. 4 Isidor, Chron. Goth., sub anno 483. 
 
 6 Hist. Miscella and Anon. Valesii, 53. 6 Greg. T. H. F. ii. 26. 
 
 7 Ibid. x. 31 "Verus . . . apud urbem Tolosam exsilio condemnatus, in eo 
 obiit." Gregory says of Euric (ii. 25) "gravem in Galliis super Christianos intulit 
 persecutionem. Truncabat passim perversitati suae non consentientes, clericos 
 carceribus subigebat j sacerdotee vero alios dabat exsilio, alios gladio trucidabat." 
 
 8 Ibid. ii. 36. 
 
xi GAUL IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 317 
 
 prisonment by flight, and at Beam the bishop Galactorius 1 
 openly espoused the cause of the Franks in the inva- 
 sion of A.D. 507 and was killed on the battle-field. 
 
 We must now turn to the east of Gaul and trace 
 the fortunes of another barbarian tribe which had won 
 a settlement there. Our first notice of these people 
 comes from Ammianus, who tells us of the anxiety 
 which was felt by Valentinian about A.D. 370 2 because 
 of the approach of the Burgundians across the plains 
 of upper Germany. Seven years later they had reached 
 the right bank of the Rhine, and the terror they had 
 inspired in the minds of the imperial authorities had 
 estimated their number as eighty thousand men. 3 
 
 It is probable that in the great invasion of New The 
 Year's Eve 406, at least one section of the Burgundian Ki 
 nation had crossed the Rhine with the Vandals, Alans, 
 and Sueves who were so intent on the plunder of Gaul. 
 They seem to have settled down at once in Germania 
 prima, keeping in touch with their brethren on the 
 other side of the river, and in A.D. 411 joining with 
 the Ripuarian Franks, and perhaps some remnants 
 of imperial garrisons located on the border, in the 
 election of the Gallo- Roman nobleman Jovinus as 
 emperor of the West. The usurpation of the tyrant 
 Constantine and his occupation of the provinces of 
 Lyons, Vienne, and Narbonne had cut off the Roman 
 settlers in the Germanic and Belgic provinces from 
 all connection with Honorius and the authorities in 
 Italy, and the act of the Franks and Burgundians which 
 must have been in co-operation with the colonists in 
 these provinces, is evidence of the peculiar relationship 
 that was arising between the empire and the barbarian 
 tribes, under which they seem to desire to be regarded 
 as allies if not actual members of the Roman Empire. 
 Jovinus is declared to have been raised to the purple 
 
 1 Marca, Hist, du Beam, and Fauriel, ii. 54. 
 
 2 Amm. Marcel, xxviii. 5, 9, A.D. 370. 
 
 3 Jerom. Chron., sub anno 377, " Burgundiorum Ixxx. ferme millia quot nunquam 
 an tea ad Rhenum descenderunt." 
 
3i 8 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 by Goar, king of the Alemans, and Gundakar, king 
 of the Burgundians. 1 Two years afterwards Jovinus 
 met his death a captive of the Visigoth Atawulf 
 at Narbonne, and by this time the Burgundians were 
 definitely settled in Gaul, and the town of Worms 
 was the centre of their national life. 2 It was at this 
 time that the Burgundian Gunther reigned over them, 
 the time which formed the basis of the mediaeval 
 Nibelungenlied. 3 Then follows a period of twenty 
 years during which we hear very little about the 
 Burgundians, but they seem to have extended their 
 influence and perhaps their settlements into the province 
 of Sequania, the district which included the north- 
 western slopes of the Jura range and the valley of 
 the Doubs. 
 
 During the year A.D. 431, and perhaps the two 
 following years, Aetius, 4 the commander-in-chief under 
 Valentinian of the imperial forces, seems to have 
 had considerable fighting with the Ripuarian Franks, 5 
 and the Burgundians seem to have taken part with 
 the latter, since in A.D. 435 they suffered severely 
 at the hands of Aetius. 6 There had been a rising of 
 the peasantry of N. -Eastern Gaul, and the marauding 
 bands of the Bagaudae, 7 as we have already seen 
 those called who withstood the efforts of the collectors 
 to gather in the imperial taxes, seemed to threaten the 
 very existence of the empire in Gaul. Aetius was 
 in 434 engaged in the suppression of these Bagaudae, 
 and had clearly noted the sympathy if not the assist- 
 ance which the Burgundians had given them. There 
 
 1 S6zomen, Ix. 15. 3 j Sid. Apoll. v. 9 j cf. Idat. Chron. 
 
 2 Cf. Kurth's Clows, vol. ii. p. 2 j Fragmenta Fredegarii, Migne, P. L. Ixxi. 
 p. 700. 
 
 3 Petigny, Etudts sur Vhhtoire de I'epoque mero'uingienne. 
 
 4 Prosper, Chron. " pars Galliarum propinqua Rheno quam Franci possidendam 
 occupaverunt, Aetii comitis armis recepta." 
 
 6 Cassiod. Chron., sub anno 428, " Aetius, multis Francis caesis, quam occupaverunt 
 propinquam Rheno partem recepit Galliarum." 
 
 6 Prosper, A.D. 435, and Idatius, Chron., A.D. 436. Binding, in his Das burgundhch- 
 romanhche K'tinigreich, calls these defeats " zwei furchtbare Niederlagen." 
 
 17 Prosper Tiro, A.D. 434, " omnia pene Galliarum servitia in Bagaudam 
 conspiravere." 
 
xi GAUL IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 319 
 
 had been for some time a bitter enmity between the 
 Burgundians and certain sections of the Hunnist race 
 settled near the confines of the empire. 1 The Huns 
 had long wished for an opportunity to avenge on 
 the Burgundians the death of their king. Aetius had 
 largely recruited his army with Hunnish auxiliaries, 
 and under him the Huns now saw their chance, and 
 between the years A.D. 435 and 437 the Burgundians 
 were so severely punished by Aetius and these Huns, 
 that their national existence was almost destroyed. 2 It 
 is said that twenty thousand Burgundians were killed in 
 battle, and with them their king Gundakar. Germania 
 prima was almost cleared of inhabitants, and arrange- 
 ments were necessary to fill up the vacant and ruined 
 cities with settlers from other subject peoples. Mean- 
 while we find in A.D. 443 that the remnant of the 
 Burgundian nation was transferred by the imperial 
 command to the district of Savoy, 3 a district which 
 probably included the western part of modern 
 Switzerland from Neufchatel to Martigny, with the 
 Pennine and Graian Alps, and the road from Milan 
 to Vienne as its southern limit. It does not appear, 
 however, that the whole of the nation was thus trans- 
 ferred, for after the death of Gundakar, we find two 
 kings, Gundiok and Hilperik, ruling jointly over the 
 Burgundians. The latter, Hilperik, seems to have ruled 
 over the section which, previous to the great disaster, 
 had settled in the valley of the Doubs, while Gundiok 
 ruled over those of his nation who had been removed 
 to Savoy and had Geneva as the capital of his 
 kingdom. 4 
 
 As settlers within the empire and by the consent of 
 the Roman authorities, they seem to have been regarded 
 
 1 Orosius, vii. 32 ; Sokrates, vii. 30. 
 
 2 Prosper Tiro, A.D. 436, "bellum contra Burgundionum gentem memorabile 
 exarsit quo universa pene gens cum rege Peretio [per Aetium] deleta." Binding, 
 Gesch. det burgundhch-romanhchen Konigreichs, p. 3. 
 
 3 Ibid. " Sabaudia Burgundiorum reliquiis datur." 
 
 4 Continuator Prosperi, sub anno. Cf. Binding, p. 38 " die beiden Herrscher des 
 Volks zur Zeit tier Ansiedelung waren Gundiok und Hilperik." 
 
320 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 as auxiliaries who could be summoned for war when- 
 ever their help was needed. We have already seen how 
 in A.D. 45 1 they rallied to Aetius, 1 when with Theodoric 
 the Visigoth he marched to contend with Attila on the 
 Mauriac plains near Troyes. Whether or not it was this 
 united effort which brought them into close relation- 
 ship with the Visigoths, we certainly find that in 
 A.D. 456 the Burgundians, under Gundiok and Hilperik, 
 joined the Visigoths 2 under Theodoric in their 
 expedition into Spain against the Sueves. Gundiok had 
 as wife a Suevic princess, 3 granddaughter of that Wallia 
 who had brought back the Visigoths from Spain and 
 founded his kingdom in Aquitaine. Her brother 
 Ricimer was now all-powerful in Italy, deposing the 
 Emperor Avitus in September 45 6, 4 and raising to the 
 purple in his stead in April 45 7 5 the simple soldier 
 Majorian, and it was through Ricimer that we find 
 his sister's son, Gundobad, with the Burgundians taking 
 part soon after this in the political intrigues which 
 brought about the fall of the Western Empire. During 
 the brief reign of Avitus there seems to have been a 
 move of the Visigoths which would have occupied the 
 country on the right bank of the Rhone, and either in 
 collusion with them or relying on the forbearance of 
 Ricimer, the Burgundians in A.D. 457 6 advanced west- 
 ward towards the Rhone, and the capital of their new 
 settlement was probably Amberieux. The Emperor 
 Majorian regarded Gundiok as in the service of the 
 empire, and when he came to Lyons in A.D. 459 the 
 Burgundians were induced to withdraw from the 
 neighbourhood, and the boundaries of their kingdom 
 
 1 Prosper, Chron., sub anno 451 j Jordanes, cap. 36 ; Sid. Apoll. viii. 15. 
 
 2 Idat. Chron., sub anno 456, "mox Hispanias rex Gotthorum Theudoricus cum 
 ingenti exercitu suo . . ingreditur " ; cf. Jordanes as above. 
 
 3 Idatius, Chron., A.D. 456. 
 
 4 Joannes Antiochenus, Chron., sub anno, and Idat. Chron. j Greg. Tur. H. F. ii. 
 n. 
 
 5 Anon. Cuspiniani, sub anno 456. 
 
 6 Cf. Binding, p. 57 ; Cont. Prosperi, sub anno 457 j Mar. Avent. Chron. 
 A.D. 456. Binding mentions Amberieux on the authority of a Burgundian edict, 
 T. 42 of " Lex Burg, j Data Ambariaco in concilio." 
 
xi GAUL IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 321 
 
 were temporarily reorganised as of old. 1 Majorian's 
 reign ended in 461, and his successor, Libius Severus, 
 in appointing Gundiok in 463 as Magister militum? 
 showed his recognition of the Burgundian power as 
 well as his wish to keep them in his obedience. In 
 A.D. 470, on the death of Hilperik, the two portions of 
 the Burgundian kingdom were apparently united under 
 the rule of Gundiok. 3 The kingdom now extended from 
 Langres and Belfort down the valley of the Doubs as 
 far west as the upper waters of the Loire, and bounded 
 by the Rhone stretched southward as far as the right 
 bank of the Durance, while eastward it extended as far 
 as Martigny. Gundiok survived his brother for about 
 three years, and on his death, 5th March 473, there 
 seems to have been some sort of partition of the 
 kingdom 4 between the four sons of Gundiok 
 Gundobad, Godegisel, Hilperik, and Godomar. Gundo- 
 bad at first appears to have reigned at Vienne, Godegisel 
 at Geneva, Hilperik at Lyons, and Gondomar at 
 Besanson. This arrangement did not last long, nor 
 is it certain whether it ever existed more than formally. 
 Gundobad and Godegisel, the former at Lyons and 
 Vienne, and the latter at Geneva, soon seized to them- 
 selves the power, and Godomar disappears, while 
 Hilperik 5 is said to have been put to death by his 
 brother Gundobad, and perhaps at the same time his 
 two sons, while his daughters, Soedeleuba and 
 Hrothilde, 6 were in constant fear of what their uncle 
 might do to them. The former seems to have taken 
 the veil, and the marriage of the latter with the Salian 
 
 1 The fighting which Majorian had near Lyons seems connected with the 
 pushing back of the Burgundians, cf. Binding, pp. 62-3. 
 
 2 Chron. Cuspiniani, 28th February 457 ; Cont. Prosperi, A.D. 456. 
 
 3 Binding as above j cf. Pallman, ii. p. 286 j Sid. Apol. Ep. v. 7. 
 
 4 Ibid. p. 73 "so miissen wir nach Gundioks Tode Hilperik in Lyon, 
 Gundobad aber in Vienne und Godegisel in Genf suchen." G. Monod, however, 
 in his commentary to his translation of Junghan's Chlodavech, says, p. 25 (note), 
 " Hen ne prouve que la Burgundie ait 6te partage entre les quatre fils de Gundo- 
 vech." 
 
 5 Greg. T. H. F. ii. 28 j Binding, p. 114. 
 
 6 Gregory, ut supra, calls them Chrona and Chrotechildis, but Fredegarius in 
 Epit. xvii. gives their names as Soedeleuba and Chrotechildis. 
 
 Y 
 
322 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Frank Chlodovech, which we shall presently relate, had 
 not a little to do with the action of Chlodovech towards 
 Gundobad and the downfall of the Burgundian 
 kingdom. 
 
 Soon after the accession of Gundobad, events within 
 the empire and the policy of expansion shown by 
 Euric, king of the Visigoths, brought the Burgundians 
 into yet closer relationship with the Western Court. 
 The Visigoths had been the patrons of Avitus, and had 
 assisted in raising him to the throne, and the example 
 which Theodoric had set was not lost on Gundobad. 
 For some time the Burgundian king had worked in 
 close alliance with his cousin Ricimer, and when in 
 August 472 1 the latter died, Gundobad succeeded to 
 his post and to the influence he had wielded over the 
 Western Empire. He had taken part with Ricimer 
 in the deposition and execution of Anthemius, and in 
 March 473 he raised Glycerius, 2 the former Comes 
 Domesticorum, to the throne, and was himself im- 
 mediately afterwards honoured with the coveted title 
 of Patrician. The ambition of Euric the Visigoth 
 was at once a danger to the empire and a check to 
 the westward development of the Burgundian nation, 
 and during the intermittent hostilities between the 
 empire and the Visigoths the Burgundians not only 
 advanced again to the Rhone, but also crossed it and 
 occupied the western region as far as the mountains of 
 Auvergne. 3 In A.D. 473 4 Gundobad had occupied 
 Clermont in the name of the empire and to protect it 
 from Euric, but when the dishonourable peace between 
 the Visigoths and the emperor Julius Nepos assigned 
 Auvergne to the Visigoths the Burgundians naturally 
 were obliged to retire. What the boundaries between 
 these two nations were is not quite certain, but it is 
 probable that southward the Rhone divided them, and 
 
 1 Joannes Antiochenus, 209 2. 
 
 2 /</., Hist, miscella, 1. xv. 
 
 3 Sid. Apol. Ep. iii. 4, and Carmen xii. 
 
 4 Binding, p. 85 " dass eine burgundische Besatzung in C16rmont lag." 
 
xi GAUL IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 323 
 
 north of Lyons the Saone and a line formed by the 
 line of hills between Roanne and Villefranche. But 
 whatever those boundaries were, Rome had ceased to be 
 interested in them since the year 476 witnessed the 
 downfall of the empire, and left Visigoth and 
 Burgundian in undisputed authority over Central 
 Gaul. 
 
 In the earlier days of their settlement in Gaul the 
 Burgundians had embraced Catholic Christianity, 1 but 
 subsequently, and probably owing to their close 
 connection with the Visigoths, who were Arians, that 
 portion of the nation over which Gundobad ruled, if 
 not the whole nation, had inclined to Arianism, and at 
 the downfall of the empire the Burgundians were 
 definitely Arians. 2 In alliance with Rome, however, 
 they were unable openly to prohibit the labours of 
 those Catholic bishops placed in the Roman cities which 
 they now inhabited. When the authority of the 
 empire had disappeared the power of the Arian 
 organisation among the Burgundians seems to have 
 been a real danger to the Catholics. In the northern 
 border the Catholic party seems not only to have been 
 on the ascendency, but also to have been felt as a 
 danger to the state, and especially when the Franks 
 under Chlodovech had become orthodox Christians. 
 Among the bishops settled in the kingdom of Gundobad 
 was Aprunculus, 3 brother of Sollius Apollinaris 
 Sidonius, bishop of Clermont, and closely related to the 
 former emperor Avitus. Aprunculus belonged to one 
 of the noblest of the Gallo- Roman families of Lyons and 
 Auvergne and had been for some years Bishop of 
 Langres. On the downfall of Syagrius and the absorp- 
 tion of his kingdom into that of the Salian Franks 
 under Chlodovech the Burgundians had become the 
 
 1 On the religion of the Burgundians cf. Jahn, Geschichte der Burgundionen, etc., 
 i. pp. 122 and 385. Orosius, vii. 32. 
 
 2 Cf. Sidonius' letter to Bishop Patiens of Lyons, Ep. vi. 12, and Binding, pp. 
 122-5. 
 
 3 Greg. T. H. F. ii. 23 ; Sid. Apol. ix. 10. 
 
324 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 immediate neighbours of the Franks, and Chlodovech's 
 capture of Verdun and the district of the upper waters 
 of the Mosel made Langres almost a frontier town. 
 What friendship however could exist between the 
 orthodox Bishop of Langres and the Arian Burgundians 
 around him ? The mission there was one of consider- 
 able antiquity, 1 and the Catholic Church of Langres 
 doubtless included the larger portion of the population 
 of the city. The very fact, if indeed we are to rely 
 on the testimony of Orosius, that the Burgundians had 
 once been orthodox, yet further embittered the feeling 
 between the two sections of professing Christians there. 
 Certainly Gundobad suspected Aprunculus of an 
 intention to deliver Langres into the hands of 
 Chlodovech. The Franks in their heathenism were 
 to be preferred to the Burgundians in their Arianism, 
 and there was also a hope of their conversion to the 
 orthodox faith. So in A.D. 489 Gundobad decided to 
 arrest Aprunculus, but the bishop anticipated him by a 
 hasty flight from Langres, and took refuge with his 
 brother at Clermont, and on his brother's death succeeded 
 him as bishop of that city. The incident is important 
 because of subsequent events, and shows the position of 
 the orthodox Church in the kingdom of Gundobad ; it 
 was suspected and harassed, but in the last quarter of 
 the century it was certainly too powerful to be openly 
 persecuted. A few years later this opposition of creeds 
 had not a little to do with the downfall of the Burgundian 
 kingdom. Meanwhile north of the Loire and of the 
 Saone there had survived, regardless of the change of 
 emperors and the political ferment in the south, that 
 Roman administration which in former days had done 
 so much for the inhabitants of Gaul. The rise of the 
 Visigothic and Burgundian kingdoms had cut it off 
 from the empire, and as its isolation became more real 
 
 1 Bishop Urban is said to have been bishop of Langres and present at the Council 
 of Valence in 374, and Desiderius was bishop probably in 407, when he is said to 
 have been martyred by the Vandals, cf. Warnachar's Vita S. Desiderii, Migne, P. L. 
 vol. Ixxx. 195. 
 
xi GAUL IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 325 
 
 its practical independence became more prominent. 
 There had been settlements of Saxons north of the 
 Loire and of Franks beyond the Seine, and perhaps as 
 far west as the Sarthe. But after the invasion of the 
 Vandals in 407 the country seems to have slowly 
 developed under the Roman officials sent to administer 
 it. No portion had been assigned by the emperor as 
 the settlement of a distinctly foreign race. 
 
 There had been incursions into it, as we have already The 
 seen, from across the Loire by the armies of Theodoric 
 II. and of Euric, and a Roman officer Paulus, 1 who held 
 perhaps the post of Conies of Lugdunensis III., the 
 district which included Armorica and the country north 
 of the Loire as far as Le Mans, had asserted the authority 
 of the empire, and with the help of some Prankish allies 
 had to some extent checked the advance northward of 
 the Visigoths. Another officer Aegidius 2 a little later 
 in date had done the same farther east, and with the 
 help of similar allies had preserved the declining power 
 of the Roman Empire. The Franks, who had found 
 him useful, hailed him as king, though Chlodomir 
 had killed Count Paulus, and with the title of king 
 of Soissons he seems to have ruled the remnants 
 of Roman Gaul. The kingdom of Aegidius had its 
 capital at Soissons, and seems to have extended from 
 the Vosges to the Sarthe. Its very existence, however, 
 depended on the Salian Franks, and it was with the 
 help of them that Aegidius defeated the Visigoths at 
 Orleans in 463, and drove back the Saxon invaders 
 from Angers in 4.64..* In that year Syagrius, the son, 
 succeeded his father Aegidius 4 as king of Soissons, 
 destined, as the last of the Romans, to witness in his 
 own downfall the final triumph of the Frankish nation. 
 
 Northward and eastward beyond the kingdom of 
 
 1 Greg. T. H. F. ii. 18} Fredegar. Hist. epit. cap. xi ; Jordanes, c. 44. 
 
 2 G. T. ii. ii "Aegidius ex Romanis magister militum datus est," and cap. 12 
 " Franci, hoc ejecto (i.e. Childeric) unanimiter regem asciscunt." 
 
 3 Fredegarius, Epit. cap. xii. j Marius Avent., sub anno 463 j and Idat. C/iron. t 
 sub anno. 
 
 4 Ibid, cap xv. "... nomine Syagrius Romanorum patricius." 
 
326 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Aegidius and Syagrius were the settlements of the 
 Franks who occupied the whole of Belgica secunda 
 and Germania secunda. 1 The valiant Teutonic nation, 
 which was destined soon to conquer the whole of Gaul, 
 appears before us in the earlier decades of the fifth 
 century, as divided into the two branches of the 
 Salian and Ripuarian Franks. The Salian Franks 
 held the province of Belgica secunda, 2 while the 
 Ripuarian branch was settled on the left bank of 
 the Mosel across the Eifel district, and their settlements 
 extended to the vicinity of the city of Cain. 3 As early 
 as A.D. 393 we hear of the Ripuarian Franks attacking 
 and plundering Trier. 4 Settled in the highlands in close 
 proximity to it they were able to attack and ravage it 
 whenever opportunity occurred, and five sacks of Trier 
 are recorded in the fifth century as due to the maraud- 
 ing habits of this branch of the Frankish nation. 5 
 
 The Salian Franks appear as divided into four or 
 five small kingdoms in Belgica secunda. 6 One portion 
 under their king Kararic was settled near St. Omer 
 in the north-east of the Pas de Calais, another under 
 Regnakair occupied the district round Cambrai, a third 
 under Sigebert stretched eastward to the Rhine, and had 
 Coin as their capital, and a fourth at some unknown 
 but earlier period, with the consent or perhaps without 
 it, of the Comes Paulus or of Aegidius, had settled 
 down near Le Mans. 7 
 
 In A.D. 481 there died at Tournai Childeric, the 
 king of another branch of these Salian Franks, 8 who is 
 said to have been descended from a half-legendary hero 
 Meroveus, and who seems on that account to have 
 
 1 Monod's Junghans' Chlodovech in Biblio. des hautes etudes, vol. xxxvii. cap. i 5 
 Leo's Vorlesungen, i. 335 j Kurth's Clovis, vol. i. cap. 3 j Fauriel, ii. cap. 12. 
 
 2 Greg. T. H. F. ii. 9 j Fauriel, i. v. 
 
 3 Faurie!, ut supra, p. 209. 
 
 4 Gregory, ut supra. The sieges of Trier are collected together in Haupt's 
 Trier sches Zeitbuch, 1822. 
 
 8 i.e. A.D. 399, 411, 420, 440, and 456. 
 
 6 Greg. T. H. F. ii. 41 and 42. 
 
 7 Procopius, De hello Gothico, 1. xii. p. 63. 
 
 8 Gesta reg. Franc. 9 "eo tempore mortuus est Childericus, rex Francorum." 
 
xi GAUL IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 327 
 
 had some precedence among the Franks. The king- 
 dom of Childeric was the nearest of the Frankish 
 kingdoms to the kingdom of Syagrius, and Childeric 
 had at times, and for his own purpose, taken part with 
 Syagrius in upholding the status quo of the Roman 
 Empire. Childeric was succeeded by his son Chlodo- 
 vech, whose ability and ambition were to do so much 
 for his fellow Franks. In 48 6 l he seems to have 
 considered that the time had come when he should be 
 not only in reality, but also in name king, not only 
 of his own kingdom, but of all that remnant of the 
 Roman Empire over which, by his assistance, Syagrius 
 for twenty-one years had ruled. With the help of 
 Regnakair of Cambrai, therefore, Chlodovech attacked 
 and drove Syagrius from his throne and occupied 
 Soissons, and soon after Paris and Verdun and other 
 cities of this district fell into his hands. So the king- 
 dom of the Franks now suddenly rose into importance. 
 It extended indefinitely over Belgica secunda, and as 
 far east as the limits of Belgica prima, and as far west 
 as the Loire and to the boundaries of Armorica. In 
 extent it was the largest of the three kingdoms of the 
 Franks, the Burgundians, and the Visigoths, which now 
 composed the ancient Roman province of Gaul, and 
 it was soon to show that it was the most powerful. 
 
 Chlodovech, the great founder of the Frankish 
 kingdom, was a heathen, but he seems, as his father 
 Childeric seemed before him, to have lived on terms of 
 peace and toleration with the Christian bishops who 
 had been placed in his cities when those cities were 
 still portions of the empire. 2 Christianity seemed so 
 integral a part of the idea of the Imperium Roman um 
 that to oppose it was to oppose the might and grandeur 
 of the empire, and not until they had been established 
 in Gaul for some years, and had realised the hollowness 
 
 1 G. T. ut supra, ii. 27 j Fredegar. Epit. xv. 
 
 2 Cf. Jonas, Vita 5. Vedast. cap. 3 Krusch's edition. The story of the vase at 
 Soissons, G. F. ii. 27, represents Chlodovech as friendly to the bishop, nor would the 
 bishop have made such a request, say, to Euric the Visigoth. 
 
328 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 of the imperial rule of this century, did the Arian Visi- 
 goths and Burgundians attempt in any serious way to 
 hinder and to harass the Catholic Church. That state 
 was never reached by the Prankish nation. While yet 
 there was among them an indefinite admiration for the 
 mighty power which had checked the progress of the 
 barbarians westward, this nation was won over by the 
 Catholic Church, and the Franks, cruel and destructive 
 as they may have been in the act of conquest, do not 
 appear as persecutors of the Catholic bishops. 
 
 In A.D. 491 Chlodovech was occupied in a war with 
 the Thuringians * or people of Tongres, whose lands lay 
 on the left bank of the Meuse, between that river and the 
 Escaut, and the success of his arms helped to unite under 
 his authority the various branches of Salian and Ripuarian 
 Franks. As yet he was unmarried, but his sister Augo- 
 fleda, A.D. 495, was married to Theodoric the Ostrogothic 
 king in Italy. 2 Under the protection of her uncle 
 Godegisel there was living at Geneva Hrothilde, the 
 daughter of that Burgundian king Hilperik whom her 
 brother Gundobad had murdered. 3 Inquiries had been 
 made probably at various courts, and the messengers of 
 Chlodovech had reported to their master of the beauty 
 and the royal descent of the princess Hrothilde, which 
 would make her a worthy helpmate for the rising and 
 ambitious young Frank. Later biographers would 
 have us believe that Hrothilde, as an orthodox Christian, 
 had been the victim of much persecution from the Arians 
 of Burgundy, and if they had in any way harassed her, 
 this and the fear of her uncle Gundobad's cruelty would 
 doubtless have confirmed her in her allegiance to the 
 
 1 Fredegar. H. F. Epit. cap. 1 1 j Greg. T. H. F. ii. 27 " decimo regni sui anno 
 Thoringis bellum intulit, eosdemque suis ditionibus subiugat." The Thuringians 
 were Franks and seem to have disputed the ascendency of Chlodovech. Gregory 
 knows nothing of the Thuringians east of the Rhine. 
 
 2 Jordanes calls her Audofleda, c. 57 j cf. Anon. Valesii, Eyssenhart's ed. p. 540 
 " postea vero accepit uxorem de Francis nomine Augofleda," and G. T. iii. 31. 
 
 3 Fredegarius, Epit. xviii., gives us the mission of" Aurelianus quidam ex Romanis " 
 to Geneva to negotiate with Godegisel the marriage of Hrothilde ; Greg. T. H. F. 
 ii. 28. Kurth, Clovis, 5. p. 283, denies the murder of Hilperik's widow and the exile 
 of his two daughters on the authority of Avitus' letter to Gundobad, No. 5. 
 
xi GAUL IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 329 
 
 Catholic form of the Christian faith. That she welcomed 
 the idea of a marriage with Chlodovech, even though he 
 was a heathen, and also that she was a Catholic Christian, 
 seems quite clear. It would deliver her from any 
 possible danger from her father's murderer. In A.D. 
 493 l Chlodovech, therefore, demanded from Gundobad 
 the hand of his niece the princess Hrothilde of Geneva, 
 and whatever the Burgundian king may have desired or 
 feared he could hardly refuse the request of so powerful 
 a neighbour. So Hrothilde was taken to Soissons 
 and there became the wife of Chlodovech. In quick 
 succession two children were born as the fruit of this 
 marriage. 2 The first died soon after baptism, and the 
 father suspected that the child's death was due to it. 
 The second, Chlodomir, born in 495, was only baptized 
 at the earnest entreaty of Hrothilde, for Chlodovech 
 feared to lose a second child a victim of the anger of 
 his ancestral gods, and was for a time therefore unwilling 
 to allow it. He had been married for three years, and 
 the influence of his wife, though it had not brought him 
 to renounce his idolatry, had been more powerful than 
 he possibly realised. In A.D. 496 his authority was 
 menaced by a rising of the Alamans, 3 who had crossed 
 the Rhine and threatened his kingdom. Chlodovech, 
 therefore, was compelled to collect his force for a 
 struggle which certainly proved severe. In the fierce 
 conflict at Tolbiac the Alamans were pressing him hard, 
 and Chlodovech realised that he was in great danger. 
 Hitherto he had invoked the gods of his ancestors and 
 they did not help him. So now he called upon the 
 God of Hrothilde, and seems afterwards to have confessed 
 that at the time he had also made some pledge of faith 
 and obedience. Whatever the true story was the 
 danger of the moment was averted. The Alamans for 
 
 1 Cf. Binding, p. 114. The place of meeting of Chlodovech with his bride was 
 Vilariacum, i.e. Villery (Aube), Fredeg. iii. 19. 
 
 2 Greg. T. ii. 29. 
 
 3 Ibid. cap. 30, cf. Vita Remigii (vol. ii. p. 239, Script. Rer. Meroving. (Vitae 
 Sanctorum)). 
 
330 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 some cause or other began to retire, and from the 
 verge of retreat he suddenly found himself leading his 
 warriors to victory. On his return from the war his 
 feelings towards Christianity were certainly changed, 
 and his acknowledgment of what had occurred en- 
 couraged his wife in her efforts to bring about his 
 conversion. 1 But it was not to happen without 
 deliberation, and the various accounts of his baptism 
 show that there was some difficulty to be feared from 
 his own Prankish warriors, and also that the Arian 
 clergy 2 were not idle or unnoticed by him. 3 If he 
 
 1 Greg. T. ii. 31. 
 
 2 It is not easy to account for this statement of the activity of the Arian clergy. 
 Its unexpectedness gives it authority and comes to us from the Epitomata and Gesta 
 Francorum, and shows us that the work of evangelisation was not confined to the 
 Catholic priests of Burgundy. 
 
 3 It is with much regret that I find myself unable to follow Dr. B. Krusch, 
 (Introd. Vita S. Vedast. (Script, rer. Merov. iii. 399)), A. Hauck (Theol. Quartahchrift, 
 1895, p. 351) and Prof. Bury, who on the authority of Nicetius of Trier would have 
 us regard the baptism of Chlodovech as taking place at Tours after the Visigothic 
 war of 507 and not at Rheims in 496 after the victory over the Alamans. Gregory 
 of Tours, who wrote his Historia Francorum between A.D. 578 and 593, tells us 
 (ii. 30 and 31) of the Alamanic war and of the baptism, but he certainly does not 
 actually say that Chlodovech was baptized at Rheims or immediately after his 
 campaign in Germania secunda. The queen doubtless learnt from Chlodovech of 
 what had occurred in that campaign, and sent for Remigius, and there were secret 
 conferences between the bishop and the king. The graphic accounts which Gregory 
 gives of the baptism is preceded by some rather confused and ill-connected paragraphs 
 which suggest adaptation of earlier documents, and which also offer us an opportunity 
 for doubt both as to the place of the baptism and the date of it. Gregory certainly 
 derived some of his inforrnation from a life of St. Remigius which is no longer extant, 
 and Mons. G. Monod (Etudes critiques sur les sources de I'histoire merwingienne, p. 99), 
 considers from the phraseology of Gregory that there must have been a Latin poem 
 on the baptism of Chlodovech, and von Schubert (Die Unteriuerfung der Alamannen, 
 p. 135) also thinks that there must have been a Latin poem on Hrothilde. Gregory 
 undoubtedly was a diligent collector of evidence for his splendid Historia Francorum, 
 and the so-called Fredegarius (A.D. 660), who epitomized this history (Historia 
 epitomata), definitely interprets Gregory's history as saying that Chlodovech was 
 baptized at Rheims j so also does Abbot Jonas in his life of St. Vedast (Script, rer. 
 Mero-v. iii. 410), which was written about the same time as the Epitomata. St. 
 Vedast meets Chlodovech on his return from the Alamanic war somewhere near 
 Toul, and conducts him to S. Remigius at Rheims where he is baptized. 
 
 Dr. B. Krusch, however, relies on the letter of Nicetius to Chlodoswinde, the wife 
 of Alboin, which he wrote to urge her to try and win her husband to Catholicism. 
 Nicetius was bishop of Trier, A.D. 527-566, and his evidence is therefore earlier by a 
 quarter of a century than that of Gregory of Tours. The bishop tells Chlodoswinde 
 of the efforts made by her grandmother Hrothilde to bring about the conversion of 
 Chlodovech, and of the hesitation of the king, and of his desire for some proof that 
 the faith of the Catholics who surrounded his wife was the orthodox faith. This latter 
 problem had been solved by a miracle, and Nicetius continues : " noluit adquiescere 
 antequam vera agnosceret. Cum ista quae supra dixi probata cognovit, humilis ad 
 domni Martini limina oraturus cecidit et baptizare se sine mora promisit (or " permisit") 
 
xi GAUL IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 331 
 
 was to become a Christian, was it to be a Catholic or 
 an Arian ? An interview with St. Vedast, bishop of 
 Cambrai, 1 seems to have helped him in his decision. It 
 is possible that this bishop had been with him in his camp. 
 He was with him at Toul on his return, and apparently 
 accompanied him to Rheims. His conversion and baptism 
 was now only a matter of time. The Frankish warriors 2 
 seem to have followed their leader, or at any rate he 
 realised that they would not oppose the act he con- 
 templated. On Christmas Day A.D. 496, 3 therefore, 
 Chlodovech received Christian baptism at the hands of 
 Remigius of Rheims in the church which was hard by 
 the ancient palace of the Roman Emperor. Gregory 
 of Tours, in his history of the Franks, has collected and 
 arranged in his narrative details of the scene which 
 seem too striking to have been invented. It is pos- 
 sible that he had seen and talked with men who had 
 been present at the baptism. 4 He tells us that when 
 
 (M. G. H. Epp. Merov. i. p. 122). It is clear that " ad Hmina domni Martini " must 
 refer to the tomb at Tours, and I cannot accept F. W. Rettberg's (Kirchengeschichte 
 Deutsch. i. 276) suggestion that D(pmini) M(artini} is a mistake for D(i<vae) M(ariae). 
 Hauck and Krusch do not think that the baptism followed immediately after the 
 Alamanic war, nor does Gregory say so. His narrative would allow of an interval, 
 and perhaps we ought to assign it to the Christmas of 497 and not to that of 496. 
 Lecoy de la Marche (S. Martin, p. 362) invents a pilgrimage of Chlodovech of Tours, 
 but certainly the Frankish king dare not go there till Alaric II. had been defeated 
 in battle. 
 
 Now Gregory is always so indefatigable in collecting information concerning the 
 See of Tours, and is at such pains to tell us of all that occurred in the episcopates of 
 his predecessors, that I cannot bring myself to believe that an event of such very 
 great importance as the baptism of Chlodovech the Frank at Tours could possibly 
 have escaped his notice, or that if he had known it he would have written as he did 
 when he told us of Chlodovech and Remigius. I feel, therefore, that Junghans and 
 Monod, who translated into French his life of Chlodovech (Bibhotheque de I'ecole des 
 hautes etudes, vol. xxxvii. p. 66), are right, and that Nicetius, writing loosely and in 
 reference rather to Hrothilde's zeal than Chlodovech 's baptism, refers (p. 31) to the 
 king's devotions at the tomb of St. Martin on his return from the Visigothic campaign 
 in 507 as if it had preceded his baptism. It is the slip of the pen of a man who 
 had another object in view than that of the order of events in the conversion of 
 Hrothilde's great husband. Cf. an excellent account in G. Kurth's Clovis, 1901, 
 vol. i. p. 294, and Appendix 2, vol. ii. p. 277, and L. Demaison's note on the actual 
 place in Rheims where the baptism took place, vol. ii. pp. 287-314. 
 
 1 3. The Life of St. Vedast by Abbot Jonas has been reprinted from Krusch's 
 larger editions in the series of Serif (ores R. G, in usum scholarum, 1905, p. 309. 
 
 2 G. T. ii. 31. 
 
 8 Fredegarius, Epit. iii. 21 ; Vita Remig. Hincmar (M.on. R. Merov. iii. p. 295). 
 4 Gregory was Bishop of Tours A.D. 573-596, and was born in A.D. 544 5 cp. 
 Loebell, Greg, von Tours, p. 8. 
 
332 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Chlodovech advanced for the administration of the 
 sacrament, Remigius accosted him in words which were 
 long remembered, and so unexpected as surely to be 
 authentic, " Bow thy neck in humility, O Sicambrian ; 
 accept as an object of worship that which thou wast 
 wont to destroy, and burn that which once thou 
 worshipped " [" mitis depone colla, Sicamber ; adora 
 quod incendisti, incende quod adorasti."] 
 
 In the person of their warrior king the Franks had 
 now recognised Christianity, and Chlodovech was not un- 
 conscious of the advantage which this would bring him. 
 His subject Franks might hesitate or remain in their 
 heathenism, but now, of all the monarchs of Gaul, he 
 alone was the champion of the orthodox faith. Through 
 Burgundy and Gothia l there were in every city groups 
 of orthodox citizens, Gallo-Romans, painfully enduring 
 the domination of the barbarians, and waiting for some 
 one to deliver them, and in the larger cities there were 
 Catholic bishops to encourage them. All eyes were 
 naturally turned on Rheims, and men wondered what 
 the orthodox Chlodovech would do to Arian Gundobad 
 and to Arian Alaric. In far off Vienne Avitus the 
 bishop had heard of what was probable, and wrote to 
 Chlodovech to encourage him in his conversion and to 
 express his regret that he could not attend his baptism. 2 
 Certainly Gundobad, who had chased Aprunculus from 
 Langres, would not have sanctioned such a journey as 
 Avitus had desired to make. 
 
 But Chlodovech, if he had professed his faith in the 
 crucified Redeemer, never became mitis. He had not 
 put aside his ambition when he forsook his heathen 
 
 1 Vita Eptadii (Script, rer. Merov. i. 191). 
 
 2 Avitus, Ep. xlvi. in Peiper's ed., M. G. H. His letter suggests that the bishops 
 in Gaul had been invited to the baptism, but Fredegar, Epit., says it took place " clam," 
 and Gregory refers to the interviews between Chlodovech and Remigius as in secret. 
 This letter tells us that the baptism was on Christmas Day " igitur qui celeber est 
 natalis Domini, sit et vestri : quo vos scilicet Christo, quo Christus ortus est mundo." 
 
 The letter of Anastasius ii. to Chlodovech, Achery, Spicilegium, v. 597, is a forgery 
 of Jerome Vignier, priest of the Oratory^ 1 606 -1661. Cf. J. H avet, " Les Dcouvertes 
 de Jerome Vignier," Bibliotheque de I'Ecole des Charles, vol. xlvi. 233-250. 
 
xi GAUL IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 333 
 
 gods, and he soon showed his determination to use the 
 advantage which his new faith had conferred on him for 
 the further advancement of his kingdom. In the king- 
 dom of Alaric II., as well as in that of Gundobad, the 
 Arian hierarchy seem to have been in the ascendant. 
 At least the victories which Chlodovech soon won over 
 both monarchs prove that there existed a party in each 
 kingdom which was heartily for him, a party which had 
 become his through the persecution it had experienced. 
 The Catholics certainly welcomed the Frankish conqueror 
 as their deliverer from the Arian cruelties. As early as 
 in the days of Euric we find Sidonius 1 warning Bishop 
 Basil of Aix of the danger to be apprehended from the 
 proselytism of the Arians. He is grieved to notice 
 how many bishops refused to realise this danger. Euric 
 might be regarded almost as the head of a religious sect 
 as well as the leader of his people, so bitter was he 
 against them. The very name of Catholic gave him a 
 shudder. There had been indeed a controversy going 
 on between Bishop Basil and an Arian bishop Modahar, 2 
 and Sidonius rejoices at the way Basil had silenced him. 
 Generally the Catholics were languishing for lack of 
 bishops, since Euric had either done to death or refused 
 to allow successors to those who had died naturally in 
 the cities of Bordeaux, Perigueux, Rhodez, Limoges, 
 Gabale, Eauze, Bazas, Comminges, Auch, and in many 
 other towns which he does not mention. In another 
 letter 3 written to Patiens, bishop of Lyons, he rejoices 
 at the way Patiens had come to the help of suffering 
 Catholics who had lost their all in the devastations of 
 Euric and his Goths. 
 
 Such persecution had continued, and all the more 
 openly now that the name of Rome no longer availed 
 for the protection of the Catholics, and the existence of 
 this strife and division was for Chlodovech an occasion 
 
 1 Sid. Apoll. Ep. vii. 6. 
 
 2 Cf. also the case of Sigifunsus the Arian, Vita Eptadii (Script, rer. Merov. 
 i. 192). 
 
 3 Sid. Apoll. Ep. vi. 12. 
 
334 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 The for his ambition. His relationship with Godegisel seems 
 
 to ^ ave k een more intimate and friendly than that with 
 Gundobad, and perhaps it was due to the way Godegisel 
 had befriended Hrothilde, his niece, at the time 
 when her father, Hilperik, perished. There is much 
 that is wanting to make the narrative complete, but 
 clearly, when Chlodovech marched southward in A.D. 
 500 into the territory of the Burgundians there seems 
 to have existed an understanding between him and 
 Godegisel. 1 Gundobad, however, was unaware of his 
 danger, and with Godegisel marched north with the 
 Burgundian forces, and met with Chlodovech at Dijon. 
 In the conflict Godegisel deliberately went over to the 
 side 2 of the Frank, and Gundobad, seeing that all was 
 now lost, fled from the battlefield and took refuge in 
 the far south of his kingdom behind the walls of the 
 city of Avignon. 3 The movements of Chlodovech are 
 somewhat uncertain. It is said that he marched south 
 as far as Avignon, and finding the defences too strong 
 for him to take the city by storm returned home, having 
 left Godegisel at Vienne with a Prankish garrison 
 for his defence. Then Gundobad marched out from 
 Avignon and laid siege to Vienne 4 and took it by 
 strategy. Godegisel, his brother, he put to death, and 
 the Prankish garrison he handed over for safe keeping 
 to Alaric, 5 who however soon after sent them back 
 safely to Chlodovech. 
 
 But Gundobad and the Burgundians were humbled, 
 and the ambition of Chlodovech was so far satisfied in 
 that he had made subject to him the whole of south- 
 eastern Gaul. 6 Henceforth Gundobad was not likely 
 
 1 Fred. Hist. Epit. xxii. 
 
 2 Marius Avent., under the year 501, "pugna facta est Divione inter Francos et 
 Burgundiones," etc. j Binding, p. 143. 
 
 3 Ibid. } Fred. Epit. xxiv. 
 
 4 Ibid.', Greg. H. F. ii. 33. 
 
 5 Greg, ut supra, " (Francos) apprehensos eos Tolosae in exsilium ad Alaricum 
 regem transmisit." The garrison is said to have been originally four thousand 
 Franks. 
 
 6 The Burgundian kingdom extended from Dijon and the upper waters of the 
 Yonne as far as the Mediterranean, G. T. ii. 32. 
 
xi GAUL IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 335 
 
 to attack the Franks except under conditions which The 
 Chlodovech took care should never occur. For sixteen *? GothL 
 years longer he was destined to remain king of all the 
 Burgundians, but the Arian power was broken, the 
 Catholics were no longer persecuted, and when in 516 
 he died, he left his kingdom to his son Sigismund, who 
 was an ardent Catholic. 1 But beyond the Loire south- 
 ward and westward was the fairest part of Gaul. It 
 was the kingdom of the Visigoths, and Alaric II. and 
 his subjects were all Arians. It is perhaps unnecessary 
 to regard these wars between Frank and Burgundian 
 and Frank and Visigoth as religious wars. The differ- 
 ences of religious creed and power afforded an excuse, 
 but the invasion which used it was certainly due to the 
 natural ambition of the Prankish monarch. 
 
 It was not long after the humiliation of the Burgun- 
 dians that Chlodovech made it quite clear that he 
 intended to invade the kingdom of the Visigoths. 
 Negotiations had taken place between him and Gundo- 
 bad which led not only to peace, but also to an alliance 
 between the Franks and the Burgundians. 2 Some time 
 before the campaign of A.D. 507 an interview took 
 place between Chlodovech and Gundobad. The place 
 of meeting was an islet on the river Cure, a tributary of 
 the Yonne, 3 and which flows into it some few miles 
 south of the city of Auxerre. What took place there 
 was made evident when the war against Alaric broke 
 out. The Burgundian had felt the power of Chlodovech, 
 and was not again prepared to risk his wrath. But the 
 Burgundians were not alone in realising what was inevit- 
 able. Theodoric, the Ostrogothic king in Italy, was 
 alarmed on behalf of his comrades in Aquitaine and 
 endeavoured to prevent a war. During the year A.D. 
 504 Chlodovech was engaged in another war with the 
 
 1 G. T. iii. 5. He built the monastery of Agaune in expiation for the murder, 
 in a rage, of his son Sigeric. Cf. Vita Sigismundi (A. 5. S. i May, i. p. 87). 
 
 2 This alliance or understanding between the two monarchs comes out in the 
 Life of Eptadius (M. R. Merov. iii. 187), cf. Binding, p. 188. 
 
 3 Ibid. 5 Vita Eptad. (S. R. M. iii. p. 189) j Kurth's Clevis, ii. 22. 
 
336 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Alamans, and such was their defeat that Theodoric felt 
 alarmed lest the Franks should attack him on the north- 
 east, and not only wrote l to Chlodovech to congratulate 
 him on his victory, but in his letter made it quite plain 
 that for Chlodovech to advance farther in the direction 
 of Rhaetia, whither the Alamans had fled, would be 
 regarded by him as an unfriendly act. Soon after he 
 wrote to Gundobad and the Burgundians, urging them 
 to peace, and making it quite clear what might happen 
 should they help the Franks against the Visigoths ; to 
 Alaric II. he also wrote to recommend caution, and to 
 Chlodovech yet again to urge him not to break the 
 peace of Gaul, but to be content with his present 
 dominating position. 2 On the other hand the Eastern 
 Emperor Anastasius, in his desire for vengeance on 
 Theodoric, wrote to encourage Chlodovech to attack 
 the Visigoths, promising a flank movement against the 
 Ostrogoths in Italy should they venture to march to 
 the help of their kinsmen in Gaul. 3 
 
 Meanwhile Chlodovech had met his rival Alaric II. 
 in conference on an island in the Loire, close by the 
 town of Amboise. 4 The interview took place at the 
 request of Alaric, and Gregory states that its result 
 gave prospect of peace. Chlodovech, however, had 
 gone too far, and whatever his promise to Alaric may 
 have been, in the spring of A.D. 507, when his warriors 
 and the Frankish nobles met for their yearly March- 
 field, he told them he could no longer submit to the 
 occupation by the Arian Goths of the fertile lands of 
 Aquitaine. Let us go, 5 and having by the aid of God 
 brought them into subjection, let us make their lands 
 our own. So immediately afterwards the storm, which 
 had been feared, burst on Aquitaine. Neither Alaric 
 nor Theodoric seems to have expected it so soon, but 
 the action of Gundobad proves that the whole was a 
 
 1 Cassiod. Var. ii. 41. 2 Cassiod. Var.\\\. 1-4. 
 
 3 Chron. Marcel!., s.a. 508. 4 G. T. H. F. ii. 35. 
 
 5 G. T. ii. 37 "eamus cum Dei adjutorio et superatis redigamus terram in 
 ditionem nostram." 
 
xi GAUL IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 337 
 
 well-arranged plan of which Chlodovech had carefully 
 thought out the details. 
 
 The Prankish army led by Chlodovech, 1 his son 
 Theodoric, and Chloderich, the son of Sigibert, king of 
 the Ripuarian Franks, seems to have crossed the Loire 
 near Amboise. 2 The line of march was directed 
 towards Poitiers and Tours ; the territory of St. Martin 
 was carefully respected, and was passed by on the right. 
 Chlodovech had issued a proclamation, in which he 
 gave orders that the persons of the Catholic bishops 
 and clergy were to be protected against all harm, and 
 declared that he took the religious of both sexes under 
 his own protection. 3 Plunder was absolutely forbidden, 
 and he himself struck down a soldier who had robbed a 
 poor woman of her hay. 4 Alaric and his Visigoths were 
 encamped at Vougle, about twelve miles north-west of 
 Poitiers, and the two armies approached each other 
 towards sunset. The next day it was in the early 
 summer soon after Whitsuntide 5 the fateful battle was 
 waged. Chlodovech, venturesome as ever, was for a 
 time in great danger, but ultimately he overcame his 
 opponents, and the death of Alaric gave the note for 
 retreat and dispersion to his defeated army. 6 
 
 Meanwhile Gundobad and his son Sigismund had 
 led out the Burgundians through Auvergne to meet 
 with Chlodovech somewhere beyond Limoges, 7 captur- 
 ing on their march a castle where many Catholics were 
 found imprisoned. 
 
 The allied forces then marched on Bordeaux, and 
 there spent the winter, 8 and in the early spring marched 
 
 1 G. T. ii. 37. a Petigny, ii. 503. 
 
 3 G. T. "... pro reverentia beati Martini dedit edictum ut nullus de regione ilia 
 aliud quam herbarum alimenta aquamque praesumeret." 
 
 4 Ibid. ; cf. G. Kaufmann, Die Schlacht von Vougle, A-D.^oj, ,14-23. 
 
 5 Binding 195 j and Avitus, Ep. xlv. and Ixxxii. Pdtigny, Etudes, ii. p. 504, 
 considers the festival referred to was in the spring, since the waters of the Vienne 
 were swollen. 
 
 ' G. T. ii. 37 "cum fugatis Gothis Alaricum regem interfecisset." 
 
 7 Vita Eptad. (Script, rer. Merov. i. p. 190). The captives were certainly 
 
 Christians, and perhaps the spoil of Italy sent for safe keeping by Theodoric to 
 
 Alaric. 
 
 9 G. T. ii. 37 " Chlodovechus vero apud Burdigalensem urbem hyemem agens." 
 
 Z 
 
338 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP.XI 
 
 on Toulouse, which was captured and sacked. 1 Then 
 after the chief resistance had been overcome a division 
 of the army was made. Chlodovech confined himself 
 to Novempopulania and the road towards Spain, and 
 apparently in fear of an attack from that quarter. 2 
 His son Theodoric, with another portion of the Prankish 
 host, was sent towards southern Auvergne, capturing 
 Albi and the district of the Tarn and Lot, 3 and 
 Gundobad and the Burgundians moved into the 
 province of Narbonne, and through the flight of 
 Gesalic, a natural son of Alaric II., had the good fortune 
 to capture Narbonne. 4 
 
 So within a year the kingdom of the Visigoths 
 had ceased to exist. All except a small section of 
 Narbonensis, the region near the mouth of the Rhone, 
 had been occupied by the Franks and Burgundians, 
 and the city of Aries alone remained to check for a 
 time the victorious march of Chlodovech. The siege 
 of Aries 5 began that same year, but the city was not 
 captured until 510. The story, however, of the siege, 
 of the intervention of Theodoric, and of the trials of 
 the bishop Caesarius 6 belong to another century, and 
 the downfall of Gothia must conclude this sketch of 
 the history of Gaul in the fifth century. 
 
 1 G. T. ii. 37 "cunctos thesauros Alarici a Tolosa auferens Encolismam venit." 
 Fredegarius tells us (cap. xxv.) that he took the treasure to Paris. 
 " G. T. ii. 37. 
 
 3 Ibid. " Chloclovechus vero filium suum Theudericum per Albigensem ac 
 Ruthenarn civitatem ad Arvernos dirigit." 
 
 4 Isidore, Hist. Goth. c. 37 ; Victor Tunnensis, M. G. H. 68, 940. 
 
 5 Cassiodorus, Var. iii. 32 ; Vita Caesarii (Scriff. rerum Merov. iii. p. 467). 
 
 6 Vita Caesarii, p. 470 ; Malnory, St Chaire, 91-101 j Arnold's Caesarius i>on 
 Arclate, p. 245. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE GALLICAN CHURCH AND THE PAPAL SEE 
 
 WESTERN Christendom has ever regarded the See of 
 Rome with that special reverence which is due to it 
 because of its apostolic origin. Whatever relationship 
 might have existed which linked the nascent Church in 
 Gaul, the Britains and Spain to the bishops of Rome, as 
 to those who had organised those missionary efforts 
 which created it, yet through the early centuries there 
 is to be seen in these infant branches of the Church a 
 special respect for, and obedience to, the bishops of Rome 
 because they were regarded as the successors of St. Peter. 
 In Gaul, as we have seen in Chapters II. and III., there 
 can be no doubt that the existence of the Church was 
 due to the missionary zeal of the early bishops of 
 Rome, and it is the object of this chapter to consider 
 this connection in reference to the development of 
 local Church order, and to the growth of the claim of 
 Rome to exercise unrestrained authority over it. A 
 missionary Church, unorganised and ill equipped, would 
 naturally turn to the source whence it derived its 
 origin, for help and for advice, as slowly it began to 
 take root. We may believe that such intercourse and 
 reference to the bishops of Rome went on from the 
 second to the fourth centuries, and it is certain that 
 the Church in Lyons during the persecution under 
 Marcus Aurelius looked to Rome for help and for the 
 consecration of a successor to St. Pothinus. 1 
 
 1 Euseb. H. E. v. 4 j cf. also Irenaeus, Adv. haeres, Hi. 32. On the meaning of the 
 
 339 
 
340 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 But our inquiry falls into three very definite lines of 
 research which, while they are more or less intertwined 
 and react on one another, are certainly distinct and 
 important. It is obvious also that such an inquiry 
 is only a portion of a much larger one, narrowed down 
 to the history and the affairs of the Church in Gaul, and 
 to such an extent is partial and incomplete. It is 
 necessary, however, if we would understand the early 
 history of the Gallican Church, and that is our im- 
 mediate object. Others, however, have written books * 
 which tell us of the ever-increasing papal claims and of 
 the growth of the idea of the primacy of Rome, and we 
 may be allowed, therefore, to narrow our inquiry to the 
 affairs of Gaul. Along whichever one of these three 
 lines of inquiry we travel we find that each one tends 
 to converge upon the other two and to create that 
 predominating influence, the papacy of the middle 
 ages. 
 
 We must consider then, first of all, and in reference 
 the Church in Gaul, the policy of the bishops of Rome 
 as the agents of the emperor. Secondly, we must 
 consider the bishops of Rome as the spiritual advisers 
 and guides of the bishops of Gaul in matters of faith 
 and discipline, advice spontaneously requested and 
 generously and affectionately given ; and then, in the 
 third place, we must inquire into the claims which the 
 bishops of Rome made to guide and to direct the 
 internal organisation of the Gallican Church, the 
 creation of dioceses, and the creation and arrangement of 
 ecclesiastical provinces. 
 
 That the importance of the city of Rome gave 
 the occupant of the See a position which he would 
 not otherwise have held can hardly be a question of 
 doubt. The ecclesiastical provinces followed generally 
 
 potentior principalitas cf. Harnack, " Das Zeugnis des Irenaeus " in Berliner Akad* 
 der Whsenschaften, 1893, p. 939. 
 
 1 Langen, Geschichte der rQmhchen Kirche, p. 170 ; Batiffol, L'Eglise naissante, 
 p. Z50j Lightfoot, Apost. Fathers, vol. ii. pt. i, p. 501; F. W. Puller, The 
 Primitive Saints and the See of Rome. 
 
xii THE GALLICAN CHURCH 341 
 
 the great divisions of the empire, and the capitals The Bishop 
 of these civil provinces became the seats of the ^ e R a Tnt 
 archbishops. The privileges and precedent afforded of the 
 by the city became the basis for an extension of juris- Em P eror - 
 diction, and the bishop of that city gained an influence 
 over his fellow-bishops in that district which slowly 
 developed into the rights and authority of an arch- 
 bishopric. But another factor in this growth was the 
 influence of the emperor. Constantine must have had 
 some conversation with Maternus or Agraecius, bishop of 
 Trier, 1 before he started forth on that perilous venture 
 which ended in his victory at the Milvian Bridge. 
 But he was not bound in any way by that fact. The 
 civil power had come into friendly relationship with 
 the officers of the Church, but as yet the liberty of the 
 emperor was not compromised. These interviews, how- 
 ever important after-events show them to have been, were 
 as yet quite informal. The emperor had not pledged 
 himself to any definite policy. But when the Edict of 
 Toleration and Liberty had gone forth the situation 
 was changed. The emperor was brought by it into a 
 recognised relationship to the Church, and when he was 
 at Rome these interviews, such as the emperor must 
 have had at Trier, would be repeated, and the bishop of 
 the capital of the empire had not only an opportunity, 
 but probably often was invited, to discuss with the 
 emperor matters concerning that religion which he the 
 emperor had officially sanctioned. Between Constantine 
 and Melchiades there must have been much deep speech. 
 Paganism was in process of decay, and the newly 
 licensed Christianity was essentially aggressive. What 
 was the emperor's intention now that Christianity had 
 been recognised ? The process of exchange had begun. 
 The fact may not have been acknowledged, and perhaps at 
 
 1 Euseb. Vita Constantini, i. 27-28. Agraecius was present at the Council of 
 Aries, 314. Maternus, whom Constantine summoned to Rome to assist Melchiades 
 in the council of 313 (Euseb. H. E. x. 5), is generally described as Bishop of C5ln. 
 The diocese, as far as there was any such, was of a missionary character, and 
 Maternus may be described as of C8ln or of Trier. The growth of Church 
 organisation was naturally very rapid during those two years. 
 
342 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 the time was not fully recognised, but the Edict of Milan 
 was the charter of the liberties of the Christian Church, 
 and Constantine, at least, must have perceived that at 
 no distant future the Christian Church would take 
 the place of the old religion in the affairs of the State. 
 But the emperor was not prepared to give absolute 
 authority to a power which might some day rival his 
 own. Christianity was established. The State took the 
 Church under its protection, and slowly we begin to 
 perceive that which the State understood by the edict 
 which had been issued. The Church was now to be 
 the agent of the State to produce civil order and to 
 uphold the authority of the emperors. It was not 
 indeed so stated in the edict, but as we mark the action 
 of Constantine and his sons that appears to be clearly 
 laid down as the policy of the State. 
 
 The persecution that had raged during the reign of 
 Diocletian and his colleagues had produced dissensions 
 in the Church so violent that they attracted the notice 
 of the imperial authorities, and Constantine must soon 
 have been aware that in addition to those who agreed 
 with his two friends, the bishops of Rome and Trier, 
 there were others within the Church who claimed for 
 themselves that they alone were the orthodox members 
 of the community. These facts he must also have 
 learnt from the Bishop of Rome, and the action he took 
 in reference to this controversy proves that he had 
 already begun to regard himself as the Patron of the 
 Christian Church, the universal bishop, as he afterwards 
 described himself, of things external. The bishops of 
 the Christian Church were now to him, because of his 
 relationship to Christianity, of the nature of state 
 officials, and, as we have already seen, we find him 
 giving orders to Bishop Melchiades to hold a council, 1 
 and from Gaul he summoned the bishops of Coin and 
 Autun and Aries to go to the capital and take part 
 in these deliberations. These four bishops were clearly 
 
 1 Euseb. H. E. x. 5. 
 
xii THE GALLICAN CHURCH 343 
 
 acting in obedience to the imperial order, and were 
 acting for him as a sort of final court of appeal to 
 settle for the emperor the Donatist controversy. The 
 Donatists had appealed to the emperor, on the authority 
 of the edict, 1 through the proconsul, and the formal reply 
 to that appeal was the council in the palace of Fausta 
 in October A.D. 313. Whatever the Bishop of Rome 
 may privately have advised, the council was not due to 
 the initiative of Melchiades. It was the deliberate act 
 of the head of the State. Nor was the Council of Aries 
 held in that city in August A.D. 314 other than the 
 creation of the emperor. 2 The Donatists had not 
 been satisfied with the decision at Rome, and hoped to 
 induce Constantine to consider their case personally 
 so that they might gain from him some recognition 
 of their claims. At Aries the new Bishop of Rome, 
 Sylvester, was represented by four of his clergy, but 
 over the Synod Marinus, the bishop of Aries, presided 
 and apparently under the direction of the emperor. 3 
 Yet it was natural that Constantine should first of 
 all ask the advice of the bishop of his capital. It was 
 at Rome that he had made the final decision as to his 
 recognition of Christianity, and the bishop of that city 
 inherited the benefit of those private interviews with 
 Melchiades. The emperor would desire the other 
 bishops, and especially those of the West, to consult 
 with the Bishop of Rome as one most likely to give 
 them good advice and directions, and to inform them 
 of the will of the emperor. 
 
 The moral influence, therefore, which the bishops of 
 Rome had formerly exercised was now officially recog- 
 nised, not indeed to limit the action of the emperor, but 
 to form the normal organisation of the Church in 
 the West. The State had given its sanction to that 
 which had existed under the law of growth and expansion, 
 
 1 Euseb. H. E. x. 5. 
 
 2 Optatus, App. in. " Constantinus Augustus Aelafio." 
 
 3 Ibid, "jussu Constantini Magni in Caeciliani et Donatistarum causa." 
 
344 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 and the Bishop of Rome was regarded as he who was 
 more or less responsible to the State that Christians 
 in the western prefectures should continue in the true 
 faith. 
 
 Under the earlier edicts of the Christian emperors 
 this is certainly not formally enacted. The position of 
 Rome had been seriously compromised by the creation 
 of New Rome on the Bosphorus, and until the visit 
 which the Emperor Constantius paid to the ancient 
 capital in the spring of A.D. 357, there had been no 
 emperor in Rome since A.D. 326. 1 Liberius, the bishop 
 of Rome, had been conducted by order of the emperor 
 in A.D. 355 to Milan, 2 and had been exiled to Thrace 
 on account of his refusal to sign the Edict of Milan, an 
 Arian document which would condemn Athanasius and 
 the creed of Nicaea. In the place of Liberius the im- 
 perial authorities had established Felix as bishop, and 
 there is a rescript addressed to him by the emperor 
 from Milan, Dec. 6, 357, 3 which enjoined on him his 
 duty to keep order and which recognised him as the 
 Bishop of Rome. A month earlier, November 10, 357, 
 the emperor had issued also from Milan an Edict 4 
 addressed to Leontius, the prefect of the city, command- 
 ing him to preserve intact the privileges granted to the 
 Church of the city of Rome and to its clergy. 
 
 While in Rome, however, the emperor had perceived 
 that the Christians there were not prepared to accept 
 Bishop Felix, and the submission of Liberius, humiliating 
 and dishonourable as it was, gave to Constantius the 
 opportunity he desired. Liberius 5 was re-established 
 at Rome, Felix was driven out, and the will of the 
 emperor prevailed. 
 
 The edict to Leontius could now be used by the 
 party of Liberius, and it was for Rome now to sub- 
 stantiate its claim if any were inclined to doubt its 
 
 
 
 1 Sozomen, iv. 8. 2 S&zomen, iv. 9 and n. 
 
 * Cod. Theod. xvi. 2. 14. 4 Ibid. xvi. 2. 13. 
 
 5 Sozomen, iv. 35 j Theod. ii. 17 j Sulpic. Sev. ii. 39. 
 
xii THE GALLICAN CHURCH 345 
 
 privileges. Whatever favour the emperor may have 
 shown was now confirmed and could not be taken away. 
 It was the foundation-stone on which interpretations 
 favourable to the expansion of the Bishop of Rome's 
 power and jurisdiction could be easily based. It had 
 been granted to assist the party of the unorthodox Felix, 
 and was used in succession by the unfaithful Liberius. 
 Meanwhile, for the Arian strife had left the Church 
 much disorganised, the Bishop of Rome continued to 
 receive on all sides applications for advice, applications 
 which could be interpreted as appeals for his final 
 decision, and in A.D. 369, if we are to accept the state- 
 ment of St. Ambrose, 1 Valentinian and Gratian formally 
 created the Bishop of Rome as the final court of appeal 
 for western Christendom. The decree no longer exists 
 except as far as we can understand it in the letter of 
 the Bishop of Milan. Damasus became Bishop of Rome 
 in A.D. 366, and in A.D. 382 held a council at Rome, 
 at which ninety- three bishops were present, and in 
 which this subject was discussed. 2 The council was 
 held under letters of business from the emperor, and 
 in the letter addressed by it to Gratian he was asked to 
 sanction more formally the creation of this final court 
 of appeal. 3 Gratian's decision was not exactly that 
 which Damasus had desired. The emperor was not 
 prepared to give to the Bishop of Rome sole authority 
 
 1 Ambrose, Ep. 21, cf. Wittig, Papst Damasus, i. 5, p. 35. 
 
 2 Mansi, iii. 624. 
 
 3 " Quaesumus clementiam vestram ne rursus in plurimis causis videamur onerosi 
 ut jubere pietas vestra dignetur quicumque vel ejus (Damasi) vel nostro judicio qui 
 Catholici sumus fuerit condemnatus atque injuste voluerit ecclesiam retinere vel 
 vocatus a sacerdotal! judicio per contumaciam non adesse seu ab illustribus viris 
 praefectis praetorio Italiae vestrae sive a vicario accitus ad urbem Romam veniat aut 
 si in longinquioribus partibus hujusmodi emerserit quaestio ad metropolitani per 
 locorum judicia deducatur examen vel si ipse metropolitanus est Romam necessario vel 
 ad eos quos Romanus episcopus judices dederit contendere sine dilatione jubeatur, ita 
 ut qui depositi fuerint ab ejus tantum civitatis finibus segregentur in qua gesserint 
 sacerdotium ne rursus impudenter usurpent quod jure sublatum est. Certe si vel 
 metropolitani vel cujusve alterius sacerdotis suspecta gratia vel iniquitas fuerit vel ad 
 Romanum episcopum vel ad concilium certe quindecim episcoporum nnitimorum ei 
 liceat provocare," Migne, P. L. xiii. 576. The demand was made, not for some new 
 decree, but for the confirmation of an earlier one " Idcirco statuti imperialis non 
 novitatem sed firmitudinem postulamus," ibid. 4, p. 579. 
 
346 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 over western Christendom in such a way that the 
 imperial authorities were bound to execute his decrees. 
 He recognised the edict of A.D. 369, and re-enacted it 
 under certain conditions. 1 The bishops in the provinces 
 were not to be subject to the secular authorities. In 
 case of wrongdoing they were to be judged by a local 
 council of fifteen bishops, and the imperial authorities 
 were ordered to carry out the decrees of these local 
 councils, and to compel the attendance before them of 
 the accused and recalcitrant bishop. From that pro- 
 vincial court, however, he now created a final court of 
 appeal at Rome. To it might appeal a metropolitan 
 if the local organisation had created such, or the bishop 
 who had been condemned by a local council. The 
 Bishop of Rome, however, was to act in council. Before 
 he heard the case 2 he was to summon to his assistance 
 five or seven bishops to act with him, and not until 
 such joint action had taken place were the imperial 
 authorities to carry out the decision. A year or two 
 previously a further step had been reached in this official 
 recognition of the authority of the bishops of Rome, 
 for Gratian, Valentinian II., and Theodosius decreed 
 in an edict to the people of the city of Constantinople 3 
 that the religion of the people of Constantinople was 
 to be that which St. Peter had delivered to the Romans, 
 and which Damasus, bishop of Rome, and Peter, bishop 
 of Alexandria, now preached. 
 
 The Edict of Gratian, creating an appeal court at 
 Rome, was again referred to in the law of Honorius 
 A.D. 4OO, 4 in which he enacts that any bishop deprived 
 
 1 Cf. Gratian 's Rescript to Aquilinus : " Ordinariorum sententiae," Gunther's 
 edition of Collect io Avellana, Vienna Corpus S. E. L. xxxv. I. 57, 58. 
 
 2 Ibid. " volumus autem ut quicumque judicio Damasi quod ille cum concilio 
 quinque vel septem habuerit episcoporum vel eorum qui Catholici sint judicio atque 
 concilio condemnatus erit." 
 
 3 Cod. Theod. xvi. i, 27 Feb. 380 "... in tali volumus religione versari quam 
 divinum Petrum apostolum tradidisse Romanis religio usque ad nunc ab ipso 
 insinuata declarat quamque pontificem Damasum sequi daret et Petrum Alexandriae 
 episcopum virum apostolicae sanctitatis," Mommsen and Meyer, 1. ii. p. 833. Peter 
 of Alexandria had been banished and was probably at Rome at this time ; Theodoret, 
 v. 1 6. 4 Cod. Theod. xvi. z. 35. 
 
xii THE GALL1CAN CHURCH 347 
 
 of his See by the judgment of a provincial synod, and 
 attempting to exercise his authority in disregard of that 
 judgment, and trying to recover his See, is to be removed 
 by the civil power to a place of exile at least a hundred 
 miles distant from his city. 
 
 But it was not the intention of the emperors to 
 create at Rome such an authority which should restrain 
 their liberty in after years. Rome was not to be the 
 sole agent in carrying out the laws of the empire in 
 matters of religion. During the interregnum, when 
 Galla Placidia, the daughter of Valentinian II., the 
 wife of the Patrician Constantius, was guardian for her 
 son the young emperor Valentinian III., Constantius, 
 at Aries, had procured the election of his creature 
 Patroclus as bishop in the place of the exiled bishop 
 Heros, and Patroclus, to increase his authority as bishop, 
 claimed that he should receive as bishop the influence 
 due to his See as that of the seat of the Gallican pre- 
 fecture. The negotiation of Patroclus with Zosimus, 
 bishop of Rome, we shall presently consider. His 
 influence with the imperial authorities is, however, shown 
 by the edict of A.D. 425, issued by Theodosius and 
 Valentinian III., 1 and directed to the prefect Amatius. 
 All that the tyrant Constantine had ordered was to be 
 annulled, and to Patroclus, as bishop of Aries, was to be 
 assigned the duty of hearing actions brought against any 
 bishop of Gaul on a charge of holding Pelagian opinions 
 and deciding thereon. If any bishop was found guilty 
 of this heresy he was to be removed from his See, and 
 Patroclus had authority to appoint another bishop in 
 his place. It is clear, therefore, that hitherto the 
 emperor did not consider either that they had con- 
 ferred on the bishops of Rome any exclusive right in 
 this final court of appeal for bishops of the West, or 
 that they were aware that the Bishop of Rome claimed 
 such right, and the action of Pope Zosimus must be 
 interpreted in the light of these decrees. 
 
 1 Sirmondianae, 6, 9 July 425, Mommsen edition, vol. i. p. 911. 
 
348 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 But the process of aggrandisement went on, and each 
 victory that was won made it the easier for the bishops 
 of Rome to obtain from the waning power of the 
 emperor official recognition of their claim to sole and 
 unquestioned authority. We are not surprised, there- 
 fore, at the edict of A.D. 445, won by the great Leo 
 from the hesitating and impulsive Valentinian. 1 By 
 it the Roman See was definitely placed in a position of 
 supreme authority, and obedience to the orders of the 
 Bishop of Rome was to be enforced by the secular arm. 
 Bishop Hilary, as the successor of Patroclus, had 
 claimed for the See of Aries an influence in the south 
 of Gaul which was naturally due to it as the process of 
 development and organisation of the Church thus 
 steadily continued. But the action of Hilary was not 
 in accordance with the wishes of the papal See. The 
 spirit of independence which he showed was such as 
 the strong will of Leo the Great could not sanction. 
 When, therefore, Valentinian III. was in Rome A.D. 445, 
 Leo 2 obtained a rescript from him addressed to the 
 patrician Aetius, who was then in Gaul, which laid 
 down that nothing must be done without the sanc- 
 tion of the Roman See. That See enjoyed supreme 
 
 1 The Rescript to Aetius was issued from Rome July 8, 445, and appears in the 
 Novellae of Valentinian. Cf. Mommsen, Cod. Theod. vol. ii. p. 101 ; Valent. xvii. 
 " De episcoporum ordinatione." The edict is too long for quotation in a note, but 
 the following passages show its character : 
 
 " Cum igitur sedis apostolicae primatum sancti Petri meritum, qui princeps est 
 episcopalis coronae et Romanae dignitas civitatis, sacrae etiam synodi firmasset 
 auctoritas, ne quid praeter auctoritatem sedis istius inlicita praesumptio adtemptare 
 nitatur . . ., Hilarius enim qui episcopus Arelatensis vocatur ecclesiae, Romanae 
 urbis inconsulto pontifice indebitas sibi ordinationes episcoporum sola temeritate 
 usurpantis invasit . . . sed nostram quoque praeceptionem haec ratio provocavit, ne 
 ulterius nee Hilario quern adhuc episcopum nuncupari sola mansueti praesulis per- 
 mittit humanitas nee cuiquam alteri liceat ecclesiasticis rebus arma miscere aut 
 praeceptis Romani antistitis obviare. Ausibus enim talibus fides et reverentia nostri 
 violatur imperii. Nee hoc solum, quod est maximi criminis, submovemus, verum 
 ne levis saltern inter ecclesias turba nascatur vel in aliquo minui religionis disciplina 
 videatur, hac perenni sanctione censemus ne quid tam episcopis Gallicanis quam 
 aliarum provinciarum contra consuetudinem veterem liceat sine viri venerabilis 
 papae urbis aeternae auctoritate temptare. Sed hoc illis omnibus pro lege sit quid- 
 quid sanxit vel sanxerit apostolicae sedis auctoritas, ita ut, quisquis episcoporum ad 
 judicium Romani antistitis evocatus venire neglexerit per moderatorem ejusdem 
 provinciae adesse cogatur. . . ." 
 
 2 Cf. />. Leon, xi., Migne, P. L. liv. p. 638. 
 
xii THE GALLICAN CHURCH 349 
 
 authority, and Hilary of Aries was presumptuous in 
 disobeying the order of Leo. Not even to the saintly 
 and learned Hilary could independent action be allowed. 
 He must not disobey the commands of the Roman 
 pontiff. What the Bishop of Rome may decide had 
 the authority of law, and any bishop called to appear 
 at Rome to answer to charges made against him, and 
 failing to obey the summons, was to be arrested and 
 sent to Rome by the prefect. 
 
 The times, indeed, were changed, and Leo and 
 Valentinian III. were the exact opposite of Constantine 
 and Melchiades. It was the Church now which could 
 prop up the tottering empire, and the price that was 
 paid for that assistance was destined for her harm. All 
 the evils of the mediaeval papacy, however much the 
 bishops of Rome may have appealed to divine authority, 
 had their origin in this imperial recognition. The 
 edict might almost have been issued by the episcopal 
 secretaries themselves. It is the first that refers to the 
 primacy of St. Peter in reference to the authority which 
 his successor might exercise over their brother bishops. 
 The imperial chancery could surely not have invented 
 the theory " that the dignity of the city of Rome was 
 due to the primacy of St. Peter, who was the chief of 
 those who wore the episcopal mitre." Language such 
 as this shows the predominating mind of Bishop Leo. 
 
 The second portion of our inquiry is conditioned Rome, the 
 by the fact that for the west of Europe Rome was the 
 only See that claimed to have been founded by an West, 
 apostle. It is certainly conditioned also by the re- 
 lationship between these western churches and Rome as 
 the source from whence they received their origin. At 
 any rate, during the second and third centuries it was to 
 the bishops of Rome that the missionaries of the West 
 turned for instruction and guidance as to the policy 
 which they should adopt. Our inquiry, however, can 
 only be taken up in the fourth century, and it was then 
 and by the favour of the Emperor that Rome had 
 
350 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 peculiar honours accorded to it. There is no evidence 
 that Melchiades ever claimed more than a moral 
 influence, nor was the action of Sylvester in sending 
 delegates to the Synod of Aries evidence of anything 
 than a desire to protect himself, seeing that it was his 
 predecessor's decision, in concert with his three col- 
 leagues at Rome in the previous year, that was being 
 appealed against. The action of Sylvester, however, 
 was a precedent which was repeated at Nicaea in A.D. 
 325, 1 though it is evident that neither at Nicaea nor at 
 Aries did his delegates in any way preside. 
 
 The Council of Sardica, A.D. 343, 2 was called upon 
 to consider, among other controversies of the day, its 
 relationship to bishops who had been accused of various 
 faults, and had apparently defied local opinion. In its 
 third canon 3 it decided that when a bishop, who had 
 been tried and condemned by a local synod, felt that he 
 had good cause to demand a new trial, the bishops who 
 tried him, or the bishops in the neighbourhood where 
 he lived, should appeal to the Bishop of Rome, and if 
 he thought the matter should be reopened he should 
 say so and appoint judges. If, on the contrary, he 
 should consider it unnecessary, then the decision should 
 be confirmed and the appeal refused. 
 
 The fourth canon of this council decided on the 
 motion of Gaudentius, bishop of Marathon, that in 
 the event of an appeal the bishopric should not be filled 
 up, even though the local decree may have amounted 
 to deposition, until the decision from Rome was known. 
 The fifth canon decreed that if a bishop, accused and 
 locally condemned to degradation, should appeal after- 
 wards to Rome, and desire to be retried at Rome, the 
 Bishop of Rome should write to the local bishops in 
 the immediate neighbourhood of the accused's diocese, 
 
 1 Julius, bishop of Rome, was excused attendance at Nicaea on account of age, 
 and was allowed to send in his place two priests, Vito and Vincentius. Sozom. i. 17. 
 
 2 Cf. Mansi, iii. 30. The Canons are also given in Ballerini's ed. of Leo III. 
 p. xxviii, n.'v. 
 
 3 Cf. Hefele, Cone. vol. ii. p. 1 12, who gives the Greek and the Latin versions. 
 
xii THE GALLICAN CHURCH 351 
 
 and request a careful record of the facts of the case " et 
 juxta fidem veritatis definiant." If the accused should 
 demand a new trial he might request from Rome that 
 priests be sent who shall, with the bishops in that 
 neighbourhood, retry the case, and such presbyters shall 
 have the authority of him who sent them. If the 
 comprovincial bishops consider the case should be 
 terminated the Bishop of Rome shall decide according 
 as he thinks wisest. 
 
 We have here the first definite recognition of the 
 Roman episcopate as the court of supreme advice. The 
 Church in the West was longing for peace and unity, and 
 saw in the See of Rome a,centre round which to rally, 
 and which was believed to be thoroughly orthodox, 
 because it had systematically defended St. Athanasius. 
 But there is no question of jurisdiction, and the opinion 
 and even decision of the Bishop of Rome is clearly for 
 the cause of unity and uniformity of action. No 
 coercive authority was recognised. It was an appeal 
 for help and advice. It was, however, a step which 
 could and did lead on to a vast increase of the power 
 of the bishops of Rome, and it will be our duty to 
 consider it in due course. 
 
 When Priscillian went to Rome in A.D. 382, it was 
 for the purpose of appealing to Damasus against the 
 decision of the Council of Saragossa, 1 and the appeal 
 was probably made in accordance with the Edict of 
 Valentinian I., but we must at the same time notice that 
 Priscillian did not appeal to Damasus alone. He went 
 to St. Ambrose at Milan 2 as well as to Damasus at 
 Rome, and his journey to . St. Ambrose after ^his re- 
 jection at Rome may 'be interpreted as implying a 
 regard for Milan equal to that he had for Rome. 
 Nor did he consider his case as settled by the con- 
 demnation of the Spanish Council and the rejection by 
 the Roman bishop. The usurper Maximus 3 seems to 
 
 1 Sulpicius Severus, Chron. ii. 48. 
 
 2 Ibid. " regressi Mediolanum aeque adversantem sibi Ambrosium reppererunt." 
 
 3 Ibid. 49 " deduci ad synodum Burdigalensem jubet." 
 
352 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 have had no idea of ignoring the Bishop of Rome when 
 he relegated the appeal to the Council of Bordeaux. 
 It was thus that Priscillian was finally condemned by 
 his fellow-bishops of western Christendom. 
 
 Siricius succeeded Damasus in December 384, and 
 it is evident that he was determined to make the most 
 of the Edict of Valentinianus. He had been consulted 
 by Himerius, 1 bishop of Tarragona, and by a Spanish 
 synod which had been held in A.D. 385. The local 
 bishops were in need of advice on matters of Church 
 order. Information was desired on the question of the 
 rebaptism of Arians, on the times for administering 
 holy baptism, on the expulsion of unchaste monks and 
 nuns from their monasteries, on the marriage of bishops, 
 and several other points of such like nature. Siricius' 
 reply presents us also with the first claim on behalf of 
 a papal decretal. He declares that it is the duty of all 
 churches " ad servandos canones [i.e. of Church councils] 
 et tenenda decretalia constituta . . . et quamquam 
 statuta sedis apostolicae vel canonum venerabilia definita 
 nulli sacerdotum domini sit liberum," etc. The advice 
 given has now become something more than advice. 
 It is a papal decree, and no bishop is at liberty to 
 reject it. 
 
 On the other hand, the letter of Siricius to the 
 Church of Milan on, the Jovinian heresy has quite a 
 different tone. 2 He is anxious that Christian orthodoxy 
 should prevail, and he desires, therefore, to let them 
 know the decision of the Roman Church, and St. 
 Ambrose in his reply assures Siricius that the Church at 
 Milan is at one in reference to this heresy with the 
 Church at Rome. 
 
 The troubles in northern Gaul which the character 
 of those bishops, who had joined in A.D. 386 in the con- 
 secration of Felix for the See of Trier, had created were 
 brought for settlement in A.D. 390 to St. Ambrose and 
 
 1 Mansi, iii. 655 ; Migne, P. L. xiii. p. 1131. 
 2 Mansi, iii. 663 } Ambrossi opera, ii. i. 963 j Migne, P. L. xvi. 1121. 
 
xii THE GALLICAN CHURCH 353 
 
 the Church of Milan, and St. Ambrose, regarding him- 
 self as holding supreme authority to decide the matter, 
 did not hesitate to condemn the Ithacians. 1 Siricius, 
 however, himself took up the matter in the same year, 
 and held a Council at Rome, and condemned in a 
 similar manner these followers of Ithacius, and forwarded 
 the decision of his council to St. Ambrose as apparently 
 on equal terms. 2 The story is not^as clear as one 
 could wish it to be, for we have to depend on our 
 information concerning the Council of Turin A.D. 417* 
 for our knowledge of that which happened at the 
 Council of Milan. Rome, however, was feeling her 
 way and could do to distant Tarragona that which she 
 dare not attempt towards Milan. 
 
 Innocent I. began his episcopate on 2Oth December 
 401, and the two letters which he wrote to Exuperius, 
 bishop of Toulouse, and Victricius, bishop of Rouen, 
 show him as earnestly desirous to advise the provincial 
 bishops. Both letters were pVobably written in A.D. 
 405, and in answer to letters previously received. Both 
 bishops had asked advice, and the letters are not decretal, 
 but letters of counsel from him who held the Apostolic 
 See in the West. Exuperius had been much troubled 
 by the action of Vigilantius, 4 a native of Calagorris or 
 Houra in the department of Haute-Garonne, who, once 
 enthusiastic for the ascetic movement within the Church 
 and the friend of St. Jerome, St. Paulinus of Nola, and 
 Sulpicius Severus, had now changed his opinions, and had 
 fallen back into the ranks of those who were violently 
 opposed to monasticism. The reply of Innocent is 
 dated loth February 405^ and in it there is no attempt 
 to magnify the See of Rome or to claim any authority 
 over him. He states his own view, and informs him 
 
 1 Mansi, iii. 664 j on the Ithacian trouble j cf. Hefele, Cone. ii. p. 385. 
 8 Ibid. p. 663, and Ep. Ambros. ad Sir. ii. i. 1165. 
 
 3 On the Council of Turin, cf. Mons. Babul's essay, 1904, to whom I am 
 largely indebted for much valuable information. Cf. also Mgr. Duchesne, Pastes 
 tpiscopattXi vol. i. p. 90. 
 
 4 Cf. Gennadius, De -vir. inlustr. No. xxxvi. j Paulini Nol. Ep. v. ii. 
 
 5 Mansi, iii. 1038 j Migne, P. L. Ivi. 500. 
 
 2 A 
 
354 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 of the custom which had prevailed at Rome during the 
 pontificate of his predecessor Siricius. 
 
 The letter to Victricius of Rouen was of a similar 
 nature, and perhaps was written just a year (ifth 
 February 404) before that to Exuperius. Far off in 
 the north of Gaul, Victricius * was anxious to keep in 
 
 1 Mansi, iii. 1032 j Constant, p. 746. The life of Victricius calls, I think, for further 
 consideration. The story, as given by Tillemont, Leboeuf, and Lebrun, assumes a con- 
 dition of Church organisation which we have already shown to be improbable, and the 
 labours of Victricius have therefore sunk down to the level of those of an ordinary bishop 
 of the age of Pope Innocent. On the contrary, he seems to deserve to be classed 
 with St. Martin and St. Patrick as one of the apostles of north-western Europe. In 
 the list of the bishops of Rouen he appears as seventh, but the list has no historical 
 value in the names it gives us anterior to the sixth century. (Cf. Mgr. Duchesne, 
 Pastes If. ii. p. 205.) He was a missionary bishop as far as any evidence we possess 
 makes it clear. All our information concerning him comes from two letters addressed 
 to him by Paulinus of Nola, and this letter of Pope Innocent in reply to questions he 
 had put to him. He was perhaps a younger contemporary of St. Martin, born 
 somewhere in North Gaul, and probably in Belgica secunda, and, like St. Martin, had 
 been in the army. His retirement from it brought upon him very cruel treatment 
 from the military tribune. The two epistles of Paulinus, Ep. xix. and xxxvii., 
 Migne, P. L. vol. Ixi., are full of eloquent adulation, and cannot be relied on as strictly 
 historical. He writes of the north of Gaul, where he had never been, as if there 
 was a well - organised Church there, and refers to the daily assemblies in many 
 churches and monasteries for worship and the recitation of the Psalter. He refers to 
 Rouen as a city where Victricius was well known, but does not say he was bishop 
 there, and he tells us that he had met Victricius and Martin at Vienne, an event 
 which must have occurred before A.D. 394., when Paulinus retired to Nola. About 
 the year A.D. 399 Victricius had sent a deacon Paschasius from northern Gaul to 
 Rome, and Paulinus had met him there, and had carried him off to Nola with him, 
 and his first letter to Victricius was to excuse himself for this liberty. About the 
 year A.D. 404 Victricius himself went to Rome, and Paulinus wrote his second letter 
 to him to tell him of his grief that Victricius had not gone farther and paid him a 
 visit at Nola. Beyond these two facts of the mission of Paschasius and the visit of 
 Victricius to Rome Paulinus tells us nothing definite. Later writers have assumed 
 that Victricius fell under suspicion of heresy, and that this intercourse with Rome 
 was connected with his purgation. Are there adequate grounds for this assumption ? 
 Nowhere in his letters does Paulinus ever hint of any such suspicion. He refers, 
 Ef>. xxxvii. 5, to the faith and confession of Victricius in terms of approval, and in 
 describing the Catholic faith mentions the errors of Apollinaris. This, however, 
 cannot be made the grounds for assuming that Victricius was of doubtful orthodoxy. 
 Far away in the north of Gaul he knew little of the teaching of Apollinaris, and the 
 condemnation of the latter at Constantinople in 381 would justify Paulinus in this 
 reference. Nor does the letter of Innocent allow of such an idea. The apostle of 
 Belgica secunda and Lugdunensis tertia was to him frater carissime who desired to 
 know the rule of the Roman Church. Neither Victricius nor Martin were trained 
 theologians, and orthodox formulae would be welcome under the conditions of his 
 episcopate. Innocent does not call him episcopus Rotomagensis, nor does he give us 
 any hint of theological uncertainty on the part of Victricius. The questions he 
 desired to be answered were for the well ordering of the faithful to whom he 
 ministered. 
 
 Sulpicius Severus, in his Third Dialogue on the Labours of St. Martin (Halm's 
 edition, p. 200), states that St. Martin met a bishop Victricius at Chartres. This 
 would be about A.D. 385, and we have here probably our earliest notice of Victricius. 
 A short tractate De laude sanctorum, Migne, P. L. xx. p. 443, is ascribed to 
 
xii THE GALLICAN CHURCH 355 
 
 close touch with the Apostolic See, and Innocent 
 applauds this desire, and writes at length to him in 
 order, he says, " that the churches in your region may 
 know what is the discipline of the Roman Church. He 
 considers that it is right that in those parts a rule 
 similar to that which the Church in Rome was wont to 
 hold should be observed. So he tells Victricius (i) 
 that no bishop should dare to consecrate another bishop 
 without the knowledge of his metropolitan, nor should 
 one bishop presume to consecrate another contrary to 
 that which the Nicene Synod had laid down. In the 
 third canon or rule he says that contentions among the 
 clergy are to be settled by the bishops of the province 
 summoned to assemble for that purpose, nor should 
 any one be allowed, without prejudice to the Roman 
 Church, to which all deference is due " sine praejudicio 
 tamen Romanae ecclesiae, cui in omnibus causis debet 
 reverentia custodiri " to leave his own bishop and 
 those who in God's Name govern the Church there and 
 go away to other provinces. If greater cases cannot be 
 settled on the spot, then, after the decision of the local 
 episcopate, such are to be referred to the Apostolic See 
 as the Synod has decided "si autem majores causae 
 in medium fuerint devolutae ad sedem apostolicam sicut 
 sy nodus statuit post episcopale judicium referantur." 
 
 There are in all thirteen points on which Innocent 
 sent to Victricius the advice he desired. These points 
 are such as a bishop, acting alone and situated far away 
 
 Victricius, and Lebceuf accepts it, because the style seems to resemble somewhat that 
 of Paulinus, whom Victricius may have imitated. It seems to have been written in 
 the first flush of that extravagant estimation of the relics of the saints when they 
 were eagerly sought for to give a special sanctity to a church, and was probably 
 written about A.D. 395. In section iv. we have a short confession of faith, 
 orthodox and simple, and apparently one used in the instruction of catechumens. 
 The work, if indeed it is that of Victricius, was probably taken down from 
 addresses given by Victricius, and should be compared with the Liber contra Arianot 
 of Phoebadius, which has come down to us under like conditions. Three years 
 after the return of Victricius from Rome occurred that terrible invasion of North 
 Gaul by the Vandals and Alans. Was Victricius a martyr or not ? We cannot 
 tell, nor is there any tradition of such a fate. But Victricius disappears, and 
 probably died early in the fifth century, and the ruin created by Vandal, Saxon, 
 and heathen Frank account for our ignorance of the fate of this valiant apostle of 
 northern Gaul. 
 
356 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 from any great centre of the empire, would especially 
 desire to know the mind and the practice of the Apostolic 
 Church in reference to them. There were rules concern- 
 ing second marriages, which were at least to be forbidden 
 to the clergy, and concerning the ordination of men 
 who wandered from diocese to diocese, and concerning 
 monks who, after they had been for some time in their 
 monastery, expressed a desire to leave it and to seek 
 ordination. These ought not to be encouraged, says 
 Innocent, to forsake their profession. If they are 
 ordained they are at any rate to remain unmarried. 
 Some other rules are also laid down concerning the 
 treatment of unchaste nuns or monks and the penance 
 to be imposed upon them. One wonders, however, to 
 what extent some of these rules were necessary for the 
 missionary diocese of Rouen with a population constantly 
 menaced by heathen invaders, and living side by side 
 with heathen Saxon and Prankish settlers. The rules 
 indicate clearly the condition of the Church in Italy, and 
 within two years the opportunity to adopt them had 
 unfortunately passed away. 
 
 The claim of the Roman pontificate, however, comes 
 out very clearly in the controversy which arose between 
 Pope Zosimus, A.D. 417-418, and the African Church. 
 A certain Apiarius, 1 a priest of Sicca, had been deposed 
 by Urban, his bishop, himself a disciple and friend of 
 St. Augustine. Apiarius, however, went to Rome and 
 appealed to Zosimus against this decision, a privilege 
 which was allowed by the canons of Sardica to bishops 
 condemned by their comprovincial bishops, but not to 
 priests against their superior officers. The act of 
 Apiarius, and especially the way in which he was received 
 by Zosimus, annoyed the bishops of North Africa, and 
 in a council which they held, ist May 418, they forbade 
 any priest, deacon, or inferior cleric to appeal to any 
 court on the other side of the sea. 
 
 Zosimus, however, not only presumed to hear 
 
 1 Mansi, iii. 831 ; Zosimus, Ep. x. 
 
xii THE GALLICAN CHURCH 357 
 
 Apiarius' case and adjudicate on it regardless of the 
 absence of his accusers, but demanded from Urban, 
 bishop of Sicca, that Apiarius should be reinstated in 
 his office, and sent over Bishop Faustinus l and ten 
 priests to meet the African bishops in Synod. 
 
 Archbishop Aurelius of Carthage thereupon held a 
 Synod, i6th November 418, of African bishops at 
 Carthage, 2 and in this Synod the messenger of Zosimus, 
 Bishop Faustinus, and the priests Asellus and Philip, 
 demanded that they should treat first, of appeals to 
 Rome ; secondly, on the matter of so many bishops 
 travelling to Rome and frequenting the imperial court, 
 a practice which they desired to see forbidden ; thirdly, 
 that priests and deacons unjustly dealt with should be 
 heard and tried by the neighbouring bishops ; and, 
 fourthly, that Bishop Urban was to reconsider and 
 retract his judgment against Apiarius under threat 
 of excommunication. Pope Zosimus was not only 
 ambitious, he was also ill advised. He had based his 
 action on what he described as a canon of the Council 
 of Nicaea, a mistake which caused great perplexity and 
 confusion. 3 The African Church could not find any 
 such canon in their copies of the Nicene Canons, and 
 were not willing to accept Zosimus' word for it. They 
 therefore sent messengers to Cyril of Jerusalem and 
 also jto the Church at Constantinople for copies of 
 these decrees. As a matter of fact the canons were 
 those of Sardica, which at the same time did not 
 decide as of a priest against his own bishop, but only 
 in reference to delinquent bishops. The question was 
 ultimately settled under Pope Boniface by the Council 
 of Carthage, 25th May 419. They had received copies 
 in Latin of the Nicene Canons, and these they forwarded 
 to Boniface at the request of St. Augustine, pointing 
 out at the same time that hitherto the Council of Sardica 
 
 1 Constant. Condi, p. 981 j Mansi, iv. 403. 
 
 2 Mansi, iii. 827, where we have the letter of the Council to Pope Boniface 
 relating what had occurred. Cf. Boniface to Bishop Faustinus, Mansi, iv. 451. 
 
 Cf. below. 
 
358 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 had not decided concerning appeals of those who were 
 in inferior orders. It was the wish of the Council of 
 Carthage that peace should prevail, and that the custom 
 of the Western Church should be similar to that in the 
 East. Zosimus, however, in his letter had claimed that 
 the traditions of the fathers gave this authority to the 
 apostolic See, and that no one was allowed to question it. 
 That tradition had been preserved through recognised 
 canons and rules, and he was not prepared to change 
 his mind. But Zosimus was at bay. The Council of 
 Turin, A.D. 417, backed as it was by all the authority 
 of the See of Milan, was testing his claims very 
 severely. The Ithacian controversy had been settled 
 by comprovincial bishops, and they had acted in com- 
 plete independence of Rome. If such was allowed to 
 pass unnoticed the authority or rather the ambition of 
 the Roman bishops would be seriously compromised. 
 So Zosimus, who could not rule in Italy, endeavoured 
 to act the tyrant in Africa. 
 
 That the See of Rome had a recognised precedence 
 on historical grounds cannot be doubted. But what 
 had been the reason for this precedence ? St. Cyprian 
 had looked upon Rome as the ecclesia principals. It 
 was doubtless the mother Church of the West of 
 Africa. 1 St. Augustine 2 also was prepared to recognise 
 the precedence, because, in the West, Rome was distinctly 
 the apostolic See. The question of its position took 
 acute form during the deliberations of the fathers at 
 Chalcedon, 3 October 451. The twenty-eighth canon of 
 that Council, which was passed in the fifteenth session, 
 decided as follows : Rightly have the fathers conceded 
 to the See of old Rome its privileges on account of its 
 character as the imperial city, and moved by the same 
 considerations the 1 50 bishops have awarded the like 
 
 1 Cf. Optatus of Milevis, Migne, P. L. vol. xi. 999 " non enim respublica est in 
 ecclesia ed ecclesia in republica, id est, in imperio Romano cum super imperatorem 
 non sit nisi Deus solus." 
 
 2 Aug. Ep. 43, 7 ; Migne, P. L. lx. p. 300. 
 
 3 Mansi, vi. 155 j Hefele, iii. 411 ; Evagrius, H. E. ii. c. 2, 4., 18. 
 
xii THE GALLICAN CHURCH 359 
 
 privileges to the most holy See of new Rome, judging 
 with good reason that the city which is honoured by 
 the imperial power and the Senate, and which enjoys the 
 same privileges as the ancient imperial city, should also 
 in its ecclesiastical relations be exalted to hold the 
 second place. 
 
 The custom of the Eastern Church had been in 
 accordance with this view, and the action of the Synod 
 of Antioch, 1 A.D. 341, which in its ninth canon had 
 decided that the ecclesiastical rank of the bishop should 
 be regulated in accordance with the civil rank of the 
 city, shows the basis on which this development of 
 Church organisation had proceeded. This view, how- 
 ever, was not at all welcome to Pope Leo I. 2 If such 
 had indeed been in the minds of the emperors, yet he 
 himself was not prepared to allow it, and he laid down 
 that it was the apostolic origin of the Church of Rome 
 which gave it a higher rank and authority in the 
 organisation of the Church. This then was the line on 
 which in the fifth century the claim for the authority 
 by the bishops of Rome was extended. To Gaul Rome 
 was especially the apostolic See, and it was also the 
 mother Church. It had therefore a double claim on 
 the obedience of the Gallican bishops. But behind all 
 this there were the edicts of the emperors, and other 
 edicts yet to come, and when moral influences could 
 not prevail the bishops of Rome fell back on the 
 secular arm. They were not content to act as the 
 guide of the provincial Church in matters of faith, nor 
 did they consider that for them it might be enough 
 that they were the official channel through which the 
 bishops of Gaul came to know the decisions of general 
 and local Synods. They came to claim, and with a 
 persistence that at last gained for them recognition, 
 that the Church in Gaul could not take the initiative in 
 any project without their consent. They asserted now, 
 
 1 Cf. Hefele, ii. 69 ; Mansi, ii. 1307 } Maasen, Primat des Bisckofvon Rom, p. 3. 
 * Leo, Ef>. 104 ; cf. also Leo's Sermon on Feat. SS. Peter and Paul. Migne, 
 P. L. vol. liv. p. 336. 
 
360 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 and there was no single bishop strong enough to deny 
 the statement, that the division of the dioceses and 
 the creation of metropolitan provinces was a matter 
 for their sole decision. 
 
 Rome and The organisation of the Church in Gaul brought it 
 the organ- j nto ver y c } ose relationship with the papal See. 
 
 isation or , , . / T i i i / * i 
 
 the church Anterior to the action or ratroclus, bishop of Aries, 
 m Gaui. anc j Zosimus, bishop of Rome, which we will presently 
 describe, there is no evidence of any defined organisation. 
 What had hitherto existed was due to local circum- 
 stances, and one is tempted to conclude that this in 
 itself is a sign that the territorial organisation of the 
 Gallican Church was remarkably late. Certainly there 
 was no archbishop in Gaul before the fifth century. 
 In A.D. 314 we find the Bishop of Aries presiding at 
 the Council there because, apparently, the Council 
 assembled in his city, and it is possible he may have 
 acted under instruction from the emperor. During the 
 latter years of Constantius, Saturninus, the Arian bishop 
 of Aries, presided at the Council of Aries A.D. 353, 1 
 and of Beziers A.D. 356, 2 and possibly in this case it 
 was as the trusted servant of the Arian emperor. At 
 Valence in A.D. 374 3 Phoebadius of Agen, who must 
 undoubtedly have been the most influential of the 
 Gallican bishops of the time, presided. The Council of 
 Bordeaux, 4 A.D. 384, was rather a court of appeal to 
 consider the case of Priscillian and his followers, and the 
 presidency of Delphinus, the bishop of Bordeaux, offers 
 us no evidence of metropolitan organisation. At Nfmes, 
 in A.D. 396, 5 the senior bishop presided, and during the 
 antifelician troubles which originated at Trier, and 
 which affected the whole of Gaul, the influence of 
 St. Ambrose at Milan was felt, and it was at Milan in 
 A.D. 390 that the controversy was settled. There had, 
 
 1 Hilary, Ad Constant. Aug^ Migne, P. L. vol. ix. p. 1222. 
 
 2 Ibid, p. 1218. a Mansi, iii. 491. 
 
 4 Sulpic. Sever. Chron. ii. 49. 
 
 5 /</., Dialogue ii. 155 Kunst, Freiburger Zeitschrift fiir Thcologie, xi. 4655 
 Hefele, ii. p. 403. 
 
xii THE GALLICAN CHURCH 361 
 
 however, apparently been some movement during the 
 fourth century which would have organised the 
 Church on the civil divisions of South Gaul, the plan 
 which had already been adopted in the East. During 
 the great conflict between Vienne and Aries 1 for 
 precedence, there is clearly evidence that to Vienne, the 
 capital of the seven provinces, there had been allowed 
 a certain pre-eminence, and its bishops had exerted 
 some sort of influence over at any rate the bishops of 
 the province of Vienne. The letter of the Council of 
 Valence is perhaps of more historical value than the list 
 of names attached to the four canons then adopted. 
 Clearly Phoebadius of Agen presided at it, and his name 
 comes first in the list of signatures, and in a special way 
 as the leading bishop of the assembly. He subscribes 
 as if he did so in the name of the other bishops present. 
 Now Valence is in the province of Vienne, and Agen in 
 the civil province of Aquitaine II., of which Bordeaux 
 was in somewhat later times the archbishopric. It is 
 evident, therefore, that as late as A.D. 374 there was no 
 definite organisation, and that the Bishop of Agen 
 presided because he was Phoebadius, the fellow-opponent 
 with Hilary of the Arianism which Constantius desired 
 to impose on the Church of Gaul, the veteran bishop 
 who had the unwavering confidence of his fellow- 
 bishops. 
 
 The letter of the Council of Valence is addressed to 
 the bishops of the five provinces of Gaul. The similar 
 ascription to the decisions of the Council of Nlmes was 
 addressed to the bishops of the seven provinces, i.e. 
 
 1 Gundlach, Dtr Strtit der Bistumer Aries und Vienne, Hanover, 1 890, has gone 
 carefully into this rivalry between the earlier and the later metropolis. In 1605 
 Jean du Boys, in his book Floriacensts -vetus bibliotheca, published thirty pretended 
 papal letters, and claimed that from the middle of the second century the bishops of 
 Vienne down to the twelfth century held the first place among the bishops of Gaul 
 and the primacy of the seven provinces. This was answered in 1629 by Pierre 
 Saxy, a canon of Aries, in hi$ work Pontificium Arelatense, who claimed, on the 
 authority of sixty papal and imperial edicts and decrees, that the Bishop of Aries from 
 the beginning of the fifth to the tenth century had the metropolitan dignity in the 
 old province of Vienne except over four dioceses which were subordinate to Vienne, 
 and that from the first half of the sixth century he was enfeoffed of the apostolic 
 vicariate. 
 
362 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Vienna, Narbonensis I. and II., Aquitania I. and II., 
 Novempopulania, and Alpes Maritimae. The civil 
 capital of those provinces was the ancient city of 
 Vienne. 
 
 In the early years of the fifth century we begin to 
 find traces of organisation. There is a tendency on the 
 part of the bishops of Vienne and Narbonne to exercise 
 a certain authority in the two provinces of Vienne and 
 Narbonensis over the bishops of the dioceses included 
 in them. We find also that Proculus the bishop of 
 Marseilles, either by reason of the commercial import- 
 ance of his See, or for personal reasons because of his 
 age and experience, had begun to exercise a similar 
 overseership in the province of Narbonensis II. These 
 local efforts at organisation appear by way of protest 
 made a little later against the action of the popes in 
 ignoring what had been done, or was in process of 
 accomplishment, and in creating the archbishopric of 
 Aries for the personal advantage of Patroclus. The 
 province of Vienne stretched in a sort of pear shape 
 form from Vienne and Geneva to Aries, cutting off 
 Narbonensis I. from Narbonensis II. The province 
 of Narbonensis I. extended from Toulouse through 
 Lodeve to Nimes, and the ancient capital of Narbonne 
 represented generally the most important bishopric in 
 that province. Narbonensis II. comprised the district 
 south of the Durance, though indeed Apt and Gap, 
 two episcopal sees in it, are north of that river, and 
 over this province Proculus of Marseilles exercised an 
 undefined episcopal supervision. 
 
 In A.D. 408 Proculus, as senior bishop, had conse- 
 crated Lazarus as Bishop of Aix, and about the same 
 time Heros had been elected Bishop of Aries. 1 In A.D. 
 400, however, Aries had become the official capital of 
 Gaul and the residence of the prefect. As the centre 
 of government for the whole of the Gallican prefecture 
 it would naturally confer on the bishop of that See 
 
 1 Cf. Babut, Le Conctle de Turin, pp. 39 and 241. 
 
xii THE GALLICAN CHURCH 363 
 
 a precedence which could not brook any earlier and 
 opposing organisation. For three years or more Aries 
 had been the capital of the usurper Constantine, and 
 with the death of Constantine Heros disappears, and 
 the patrician Constantius, who had won back Aries for 
 the empire, appears to have placed in the vacant See 
 a friend of his own, a somewhat worldly and ambitious 
 man Patroclus. The new Bishop of Aries was anxious 
 to assert his influence over his fellow-bishops, and seems 
 to have claimed metropolitan right as due to him from 
 the position of his See. Aries for him should become 
 an archbishopric. It was probably in the year A.D. 416 
 that Patroclus l went to Rome to discuss with the bishop 
 the elevation of Aries to metropolitan rank. Such a 
 recognition of his position naturally made Patroclus 
 welcome to Zosimus, who had become Bishop of Rome 
 in March 417, and an ear was given to his petition. But 
 the theory that an episcopal See derived its importance 
 from the civil position of the town was no longer 
 popular in Rome. The primacy of St. Peter was now 
 the favourite text. So Patroclus apparently invented 
 an antiquity for his See which would connect it with 
 the apostles, and possibly with St. Peter. The pioneer 
 of Christianity at Aries was a Roman missionary 
 Trophimus, and Patroclus now and for his own purpose 
 identified this saintly man with Trophimus the Ephesian, 
 the companion of St. Paul. Certainly we do not hear 
 of this identification before, and the strong motives which 
 Patroclus undoubtedly had justifies our assumption that 
 he was the first to invent the idea. 2 
 
 So the ground for action having been discovered, on 
 March 22, 417, Zosimus wrote to the bishops in Gaul 
 and in the Seven Provinces " Placuit apostolicae," 3 
 
 1 Duchesne's Pastes ep. i. 96, and Babut as above, p. 32 "la presence de Patrocle 
 a Rome est indispensable pour qu'on s'explique le rapprochement de ces deux dates : 
 1 8 mars, Election de Zosime, 22 mars, decretal Placuit apostolicae." 
 
 2 Decree Placuit apostolicae : " sane quoniam metropolitanae Arelatensium urbi 
 vetus privilegium minime derogandum est, ad quam primum ex hac sede Trophimus 
 jummus antistes, ex cujus fonte totae Galliae fidei rivulos acceperunt, directus est." 
 
 * Cf. Constant. 935 ; Mansi, iv. 359. No one is to come from Gaul to Rome 
 
364 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 declaring that he had made Aries the seat of an arch- 
 bishopric, and that Patroclus as archbishop should pre- 
 side over the three provinces of Narbonensis I. and 
 II. and Viennensis. In the meanwhile, but subsequent 
 to this decree, Proculus of Marseilles had been called 
 upon by a custom already some years old to provide 
 bishops for two small Sees in the neighbourhood of 
 Marseilles, and he consecrated Ursus to the bishopric 
 of Ceyreste and Tuentius to that of S. Jean de 
 Garguier. 1 
 
 It happened also that a council had been summoned 
 by Marolus, bishop of Milan, to meet in Turin 2 in the 
 autumn of this year to consider an appeal from Britius, 
 bishop of Tours, who had been charged by members of 
 his diocese 3 of various crimes. Its assembly, therefore, 
 coincided with the attempt on the part of Zosimus 
 and Patroclus to organise the Church in South Gaul. 
 The independence of Marolus and the Church in 
 Milan naturally roused the jealousy and anxiety of 
 Zosimus, since his own action had made possible a 
 coalition against him of which Milan might be the 
 centre. Zosimus was aware that the council was to 
 assemble in the autumn of 417, and on the very day it 
 began its sessions wrote an encyclical to the Church in 
 Africa and in Gaul, and the Seven Provinces " Cum 
 ad versus statuta," 4 placing Ursus and Tuentius out of 
 
 " nisi metropolitani Arelatensis episcopi formatas acceperit." The " metropolitanus 
 episcopus in ordinances sacerdotibus teneat auctoritatem." He Zosimus " Viennensem, 
 Narbonensem primam et N. secundam provincias ad pontiff cium suum revocet." 
 
 1 On the relationship of Ceyreste and S. Jean de Garguier to Marseilles cf. 
 Babut, ut supra, p. 62. Ceyreste or Ciotat is close to Marseilles on the south-west, 
 and was once on the sea-coast. 
 
 * On the Council of Turin and our evidence concerning it, cf. Babut, Le Concile de 
 Turin, "le date du concile de Turin peut etre determinee d'une maniere precise et 
 certaine : il s'est ouvert le 22 septembre 417." It is referred to by the letters of 
 Zosimus " Multa contra " et " Relatum nobis," and in the acts of the Council of Riez 
 A.D. 439, Mansi, v. 1191, and of Orange A.D. 441, Mansi, vi. 434. 
 
 3 Cf. Greg. Hist. Franc, x. 21 "Briccius . . crimen adulterii est impactum a civibus 
 Turonicis " j Mansi, iii. 859. Hefele, ii. 426, wrongly places this council in the year 
 401. 
 
 * This decree was issued the day on which the Synod of Turin assembled, 
 September 22, 417, Constant. 955. The consecration was said to be void, because 
 (l) it was done without the metropolitan Patroclus of Aries ; (2) there wa< no 
 
xii THE GALLICAN CHURCH 365 
 
 the communion of the Church, and summoning Proculus 
 to Rome. On receipt of this news Proculus appealed 
 to Turin, and so did Simplicius of Vienne and Hilarius 
 of Narbonne, whose rights had been equally invaded 
 by the creation of the new archbishopric. The Church 
 in Gaul was in revolt against the autocratic action of 
 the Bishop of Rome. That Zosimus was right in 
 principle can hardly be questioned, for the older arrange- 
 ments had been made under conditions which had passed 
 away and before Aries had risen into political import- 
 ance. The capital of Gaul could not really be ignored, 
 and if it was not ignored then the traditional influence 
 of Marseilles, Vienne, and Narbonne could not but be 
 curtailed. The story, though somewhat complicated, 
 is of importance as illustrative at once of a valuable 
 chapter in the history of the organisation of the Church 
 in Gaul and of the growth of that papal authority, which 
 was the more unwelcome because of that evident coercive 
 tendency which was due to the secular power conferred 
 on the bishops of Rome by the civil authority. Four 
 days after Zosimus had issued this summons to Pro- 
 culus he wrote to Hilarius of Narbonne 1 (September 
 26, 417) "Mirati admodum" and informed him that 
 he was no longer to consecrate bishops for the province, 
 since this privilege had now been assigned to Patroclus, 
 and on the same day wrote to Patroclus " Quid de 
 Proculi," 2 confirming him in his authority, now that 
 Proculus had been condemned. It is possible that he 
 may have heard of Proculus' appeal to Milan, and de- 
 sired therefore to show that the matter had been settled 
 by him, and could not therefore be considered at Milan. 
 Then on September 29 he wrote to the bishop of 
 the provinces of Vienne and Narbonensis II. 3 to say 
 that Patroclus was their archbishop and not Proculus 
 or Simplicius " Multa contra veterum," and on the 
 
 assembly of bishops to assist ; (3) the day was not a Sunday or holy day j (4) the 
 two towns belonged to Aries and not to Marseilles. 
 
 1 Mansi, iv. 364 ; Constant. 960. 
 
 2 Mansi, iv. 364. * Constant. 959 j Mansi, iv. 363. 
 
366 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 next day in a similar manner to Simplicius himself 
 " Relatum est nobis." 1 But the Council of Milan had 
 not been idle, and the bishops assembled there were 
 prepared to recognise the claims of Aries, and provide 
 for it by dividing Viennensis into two, with an arch- 
 bishop at Vienne and another at Aries, leaving 
 Narbonensis II. to Proculus of Marseilles. 2 
 
 Patroclus could not have been blind to this deter- 
 mination on the part of the Church in South Gaul to 
 be consulted in such diocesan partitions as concerned 
 them so intimately, and in the late autumn of 417 
 went to Rome again, and attended a council there, at 
 which Proculus was once more condemned. Early in 
 418 Zosimus heard that the clergy of Narbonensis II. 
 were unwilling to be separated from Proculus, and 
 March 5 wrote to Patroclus " Cum et in praesenti " 3 
 to say that no one was on any account to recognise 
 those whom Proculus had consecrated, and on the 
 same day he wrote also to the clergy of Marseilles 4 
 " Non miror Proculum" to say that now that Proculus 
 had been deprived, they were to arrange to elect a new 
 bishop in his place. 
 
 After the first shock, however, both parties became 
 more reasonable. Zosimus had already hinted to 
 Simplicius that he would not deprive him of his 
 metropolitan rank, and in Narbonensis II. the clergy 
 and bishops began to submit and look to Aries rather 
 than to Marseilles for direction, and the reform, un- 
 pleasantly as it had been introduced, was certainly 
 bearing fruit. 
 
 But the year A.D. 418 produced considerable 
 changes in the leaders of the movement. Constantius, 
 the patrician, the friend and supporter of Patroclus, 
 
 1 Constant. Appendix, p. iii. j Theiner, Dhqu. critic. 201. 
 
 2 Hardouin, i. 958 ; Remi Ccllier, H. A. S. x. 756. Peter de Marca, De primatu, 
 Lugdun., says of this second canon of Turin : " ex eodem canone colligitur hanc 
 praerogativam illi episcopo deberi in unaquaque provincia qui earn civitatem 
 obtinebat quae in laterculo imperil metropolis dignitate fruebatur." Cf. Mansi, 
 Hi. 859. 
 
 3 Constant. 972 ; Mansi, iv. 367. 4 Constant. 973 j Mansi, iv. 368. 
 
xii THE GALLICAN CHURCH 367 
 
 died on September 21, and Zosimus himself died on 
 December 26. l His successor Boniface was not so 
 friendly to Patroclus, especially seeing that his great 
 patron was dead, and the Archbishop of Aries was 
 compelled to act more in accordance with the feelings 
 of his suffragan bishops. A vacancy had occurred 
 in the See of Lodeve, which was in the province of 
 Narbonensis L, and so, according to the constitution of 
 Zosimus " Placuit apostolicae," it was the duty of 
 Patroclus to provide for that See. This he promptly 
 did, and so ignored the later decree of ist October 417 2 
 "Relatum est nobis," which had endeavoured to 
 accept part of the proposal of Milan, and had assigned 
 to Aries half of Viennensis and Narbonensis II. For 
 this conduct Patroclus was severely reproved in a letter 
 addressed to Hilarius of Narbonne " Difficile quidem" s 
 February 9, and in which Hilarius was called upon 
 to provide for the See of Lodeve, seeing that Patroclus 
 had no right to invade another man's province. 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding the thunders of Zosimus, 
 Proculus 4 remained to his death the presiding bishop 
 of Narbonensis II., and his successor, Venerius, in A.D. 
 430, had five suffragans, and the dominating influence 
 of Marseilles continued until the death of Venerius 
 in A.D. 452. 
 
 Patroclus of Aries was murdered 5 in A.D. 426 by 
 a certain military tribune, and it was believed by the 
 secret orders of Felix, the Magister militum ; and his 
 successor Honoratus, the saintly and ascetic founder of 
 the monastery of Lerins, was not welcome to Coelestine 
 of Rome. His previous life had not fitted him for 
 the difficult position of an archbishop of Aries. But 
 
 1 Jaffe, Reg. pont. Rom. i. 5 1 . 
 
 2 Constant, ut supra. Appendix iii. 
 
 3 Leonis Opp. iii. 369 j Mansi, iv. 395. 
 
 4 Proculus was the friend of Jerome, Cassian, Honoratus, and Augustine. St. 
 Augustine mentions him, Ep. 219. 
 
 6 Prosper, Chron. sub anno, " Patroclus Arelatensis episcopus a tribuno quodam 
 barbaro multis vulneribus laniatus occiditur j quod facinus ad occultam jussionem 
 Felicis magistri militum referebatur." 
 
368 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 more spirituality was needed among the bishops of 
 southern Gaul, and it was Honoratus' endeavour to 
 promote this. He found much in need of reform, 
 and his efforts in that direction were not only opposed 
 by the friends of his predecessor, but brought down 
 on him a letter full of bitterness and contempt from 
 Coelestine himself. 1 It was certainly questionable 
 whether men with no knowledge of the world were 
 best fitted to be made bishops, and Honoratus had 
 promoted monks to the vacant episcopal Sees, and had 
 preserved the simple austerity of his monastic life as 
 well as his monastic garb while he was Archbishop of 
 Aries. His episcopate, however, was very brief, and 
 in A.D. 429 he was succeeded by a man of his own 
 choice, a disciple of his in the monastery of Lerins, 
 Hilary surnamed of Aries, and the disciple persevered 
 in the methods which his master had laid down before 
 him. 
 
 It would not be correct to assign the hostility of 
 Coelestine to monasticism only. He had been appealed 
 to by Prosper of Marseilles for help against the 
 Pelagian tendencies of the Gallican Church. 2 The 
 spirit of resistance to the influence of St. Augustine 
 was strongest in the monasteries, and it is clear that 
 Coelestine saw in the monastic party, in the family of 
 bishops who had been trained at Lerins or Marseilles, 
 Hilary of Aries, Eucherius of Lyons, and Castor of 
 Apt, the centre of opposition to his claim for absolute 
 rule. The controversy lingered on for a few years, 
 and then broke out again as between Hilary and 
 Leo I. of Rome. It was after fourteen years of his 
 episcopate that Hilary found himself in direct opposition 
 to the Bishop of Rome. He had been on a visit to 
 German us, bishop of Auxerre, and while there he was 
 
 1 " Cuperemus quidem," z6th July 428. The letter was addressed to the bishops 
 of the provinces of Vienne and Narbonne. He bids them not to choose a bishop 
 who has not been through all the lower grades of the ministry. He refers to 
 Proculus " Maisiliensis ecclesiae aacerdotem qui dicitur, quod dictu nefas est " as if 
 he was somewhat implicated in the death of Patroclus. 
 
 a Cf. Chapter xi. 
 
xii THE GALLICAN CHURCH 369 
 
 appealed to by the Church in Sequania in reference 
 to Chelidonius, bishop of Besan9on. Hilary therefore 
 summoned a council of local bishops, and having 
 heard the charges against Chelidonius, condemned and 
 deprived him of his bishopric. But Chelidonius at once 
 appealed to Leo l and went to Rome the better to state 
 his case before him. So Hilary also went to Rome, and 
 Leo desired that Hilary should appear as prosecutor, 
 but Hilary adhered strictly to the Canons of Sardica, 
 and said that the case had been carefully heard by the 
 comprovincial bishops, and had been decided on, and 
 it was the duty of Rome to revise the judgment, but 
 not to try the case as if for the first time. In Rome 
 itself and before the great Bishop Leo, he boldly upheld 
 the independence of the Church in Gaul, and is said on 
 that account to have run considerable risk of his life. 
 
 Meanwhile another complaint was made against 
 Hilary, and this time in reference to his own province. 
 Two bishops of Narbonensis II., Projectus and Leontius, 
 complained to Leo that Hilary was only promoting 
 monastic bishops. Projectus, it appears, was suffering 
 from an illness which made it impossible for him to 
 act any longer as bishop, and Hilary had summoned 
 other bishops to his aid, and had consecrated a successor 
 to Projectus. 2 Hilary was clearly acting on the papal 
 letter of Zosimus " Placuit apostolicae." Leo, how- 
 ever, was determined to humble Hilary, and through his 
 discomfiture to gain increased power in Gaul. He 
 took the extraordinary line of policy, that as Zosimus 
 had created the province so his successor could dissolve 
 it, and as Hilary had shown such independence, he 
 decided to deprive him of metropolitan rank, and 
 leave him to administer the diocese of Aries only. So 
 in July 445 he wrote to the bishops of the province 
 of Vienne to say, that since Hilary of Aries would not 
 
 1 " Divinae cultum," A.D. 445 j Mansi, v. 1244. Chelidonius, as bishop of 
 Besan9on, must have been a metropolitan of Sequania. But Leo was acting on the 
 edict of Valentinian III. to Aetius. 
 
 a Leo, />/>., Migne, P. L. vol. liv. 628. 
 
 2 B 
 
370 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 submit himself to the authority of the Roman See, 
 claiming as he did the right to ordain for all Gaul, 
 and ignoring the dignity of other metropolitans, he 
 is deprived of all metropolitan rank, and the Sees he 
 had superintended as archbishop are to be returned 
 to their former metropolitans, and Chelidonius and 
 Projectus are to be reinstated in their Sees. The edict 
 of Valentinian III. which we have mentioned above 
 made it impossible for Hilary to resist this decision 
 of Leo, but Hilary made serious efforts to preserve 
 for Aries the position which had been granted to it 
 by Zosimus, and to win back, if it were possible, by 
 deferential conduct the good-will of Leo. 1 He made 
 use of Auxiliaris, who had been praetorian prefect, and 
 at Aries had known him well, and who was now living 
 in Rome, and he sent to Rome one of the chief priests 
 of his diocese, Ravennius, who afterwards succeeded 
 him as bishop, and he commissioned Nestorius, bishop of 
 Avignon, and Constantinus, bishop of Carpentras, to 
 carry his profession of obedience. The bishops also 
 of the province of Aries joined in their appeal to Leo, 
 and expressed their regret at this proposed rearrange- 
 ment. But Leo was slow to relent, and Hilary died 
 5th May A.D. 449, and thus the greatest of the then 
 bishops of the western prefecture passed to his rest 
 unreconciled to Leo, the greatest of any of the hitherto 
 bishops of Rome. 
 
 The death of Hilary was known in Rome as early as 
 the month of August, and Leo promptly wrote 2 to 
 twelve bishops of the Church of south Gaul, including 
 the bishops of Narbonne and Vienne, Rusticus and 
 Nicetus, calling upon them to consecrate Ravennius of 
 Aries as bishop in place of Hilary, and two letters from 
 Leo 3 to Ravennius follow soon after, in which he is 
 
 1 Leo, Epp. 36 and 37. 
 
 2 " Virum sibi probatum, fratrem Ravennium, secundum desideria cleri." Cf. 
 Mansi, v. 1428, " justa et rationabilis." 
 
 3 "Circumspectum te" (Mansi, v. 1430 " Ravennio episcopo Arelatensi ") and in 
 the same month another letter, " Provectionem dilectionis." 
 
xii THE GALLICAN CHURCH 371 
 
 recognised as Bishop of Aries, and requested to write 
 and report how he fared. Yet the dissolution of the 
 archbishopric was to be regarded as an accomplished 
 fact. On 6th January 450 Leo wrote to the bishops 
 of Gaul and of the province of Vienne, repeating his 
 decree of deposition on Hilary, and stating that the 
 privilege of Aries was now transferred to Vienne, which 
 was now to resume its ancient dignity. 1 
 
 Meanwhile Ravennius had been elected and con- 
 secrated as bishop of Aries by the bishops of Vienne 
 and Narbonne and others, and Ravennius had entered 
 upon his work conscious that 'he had the approval of 
 the Bishop of Rome. Leo had given some hope to 
 Ravennius that he would restore to him at least some 
 portion of the privilege that had been attached to his 
 See, and writing to him to tell him of the Eutychian 
 heresy and the Council of Chalcedon, he gave evidence 
 that it was his intention to treat him 2 as his agent in 
 Gaul, or, in other words, as the representative of the 
 Church in Gaul. The knowledge of this gave courage 
 to the bishops of the two Narbonne provinces to write 
 again to Leo in reference to the restoration of the 
 metropolitan See of Aries. The letter 3 was signed 
 by nineteen bishops of Carpentras, Die, Avignon, 
 Cavaillon, Orange, Toulon, and Vardon of the province 
 of Vienne, Antibes, Frejus, and Riez of the province of 
 Narbonensis II., and Terouanne, Cimiez, and Embrun of 
 the province of Alpes Maritimae, and by six others 
 whose Sees cannot be identified. They urge the 
 antiquity of Aries and repeat the legend of St. 
 Trophimus, the companion of St. Paul, and they hope 
 that the authority of Aries may be extended over the 
 
 1 "Quali pertinacia," Migne, P. L. vol. liv. 1237. He announces to the bishops 
 through Gaul and Vienne " Hilarium, episcopum Arelatensem ... a privilegio 
 civitatis ejus submotum esse, et redintegratum Viennensi archiepiscopo privilegium 
 et jus antiquum quod apostolica benignitas ad Arelatensem ex parte transtulisset 
 civitatem." 
 
 2 " Optassemus quidem," Mansi, vi. 181. 
 
 3 Leo replied to this letter in "Lectis dilectionis vestrae," Mansi vi. 76 5 and see 
 also Babut, p. 278 ; Duchesne, Pastes ep vol. i. 349 ; Migne, P. L. vol. liv. 379, 
 *' Memores quantum." 
 
372 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 whole of the provinces of Vienne, Narbonensis I. and 
 II., and Alpes Maritimae, i.e. over probably forty 
 dioceses. 
 
 To this letter Leo replied, 5th May A.D. 451, that 
 he would assign to Vienne the dioceses of Tarentaise, 
 Valence, Geneva, and Grenoble, and to Aries the re- 
 maining dioceses of that province, and says as yet 
 nothing about the two provinces of Narbonne. The 
 same summer he wrote l to Raven nius to keep Easter 
 on March 23, A.D. 452, and trusts that there will be no 
 diversity of observance, but that the festival may be 
 kept everywhere on the same day. He uses Ravennius, 
 without calling him such, as his vicar, and through Aries 
 desired to address the whole of Gaul. The reply which 
 Ravennius made to this letter pleased Leo, and on 
 2yth January 452 he wrote again 2 to Ravennius and 
 his co-bishops, expressing the pleasure which he had 
 received from their letter, which he said was full of 
 sound doctrine, and he tells them again of the Eutychian 
 and Nestorian heresies of which the former had just 
 been condemned by the Council of Chalcedon. The 
 ecclesiastical province of Vienne, however, is not 
 mentioned, and Narbonne takes precedence of Aries, 
 and the rank of Marseilles is regarded as due to 
 Venerius. On June n, 452, Leo blames 3 Bishop 
 Theodore of Frejus because he had appealed to him 
 for advice, and had not first of all consulted his own 
 metropolitan ; and once more in 458 we find Lea 
 interesting himself in the Church of Gaul, allowing 
 to Rusticus, bishop of Narbonne, 4 the decision as to 
 two criminous clerks who had been brought before 
 him. Rusticus had written to him about .them, but it 
 is not easy to understand why Rusticus had not acted 
 
 1 "Ad praecipuum," Mansi, vi. 140. 
 
 2 "Impletis per," Migne, P. L. vol. liv. 988 ; Mansi, vi. 185. 
 
 3 " Sollicitudinis quidem tuae," Mansi, vi. 208 u . . . objurgans eum quod metro* 
 politanum ante non consuluerit." 
 
 4 " Epistolas fraternitatis." Leo urges him not to retire from his episcopal 
 office, and gives him much advice concerning moral discipline, Mansi, vi. 397. 
 
xii THE GALLICAN CHURCH 373 
 
 on his own authority. Had the emperor given such 
 power to Rome, and was this power wielded with such 
 far-reaching strength that the bishops were afraid of 
 acting before they had received formal sanction from 
 the Bishop of Rome ? 
 
 Leo's successor, Hilarus, while he does not seem to 
 have acted in the same autocratic manner, yet was care- 
 ful to keep up the rights of the See of Rome. He 
 wrote at once to Leontius, who had succeeded 
 Ravennius before 461, to announce his succession, and 
 desired Leontius to communicate that fact to the 
 bishops of Gaul. 1 Aries was clearly taking the fore- 
 most place among the dioceses of the province of 
 Gaul, and the Archbishop of Aries was becoming more 
 and more the vicar of the bishops of Rome. Leontius 
 in his reply assured him of his loyalty, and Hilarus 
 wrote again expressing the desire that there should be a 
 regular correspondence between them, and promising 
 on his part to do all he could to promote peace. 
 
 Soon after an event happened in the province of 
 Narbonensis I. which legitimately seemed to need his 
 advice. Rusticus, of Narbonne, had consecrated 
 Hermes as bishop of Beziers, 2 but at Beziers he was 
 not accepted, and so Hermes returned to Narbonne, 
 and during the rest of Rusticus' life assisted him in his 
 episcopal duties. When, however, the See of Narbonne 
 became vacant in A.D. 461 through the death of 
 Rusticus, Hermes, either through intrigue or by the 
 popular wish, was elected as his successor. But such 
 election really amounted to a translation, for Hermes 
 was still canonically bishop of Beziers, and so Hilarus 
 wrote to Leontius for full particulars concerning this 
 intrusion at Narbonne in order that he might decide 
 what should best be done. Then in December 462 he 
 
 1 "Quantum reverentiae," Mansi, vii. 931, and " Dilectioni mei." 
 
 2 Hilarus in November 462 expresses to Leontius his astonishment that he had 
 not reported to him the affair of Hermes at Narbonne. The details of the story 
 are related in his letter to the bishops of the five provinces, "Quamquam notitiam," 
 in which he gives his decision concerning Hermes, Migne, P. L. vol. Iviii. 24. 
 
374 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 wrote again to Leontius and the bishops of Vienne, 
 Lyons, Narbonensis I. and II., and Alpes Maritimae to 
 say that there had been on the anniversary of his own 
 appointment a numerously attended synod at Rome at 
 which the case of Narbonne had been carefully con- 
 sidered. The bishops, he said, had decreed that since 
 Hermes had been formally consecrated a bishop of a 
 diocese, and against the decrees of the Fathers had been 
 translated to Narbonne, the metropolitan rights of that 
 See should be transferred for the time to Constantine, 
 bishop of Uzes, but should again return to the bishop 
 who should succeed Hermes at Narbonne. 
 
 He also bids Leontius of Aries 1 to summon the 
 bishops of his province to meet him yearly in council, 
 and to report to Rome any irregularities that had been 
 noticed. They were to endeavour to settle in council 
 any local difficulties, and to see that the canons of the 
 Church were scrupulously observed. Grave matters 
 were, without fail, to be reported to Rome. Clergy 
 were not to leave the provinces where they had been 
 ordained without the permission of the metropolitan, 
 and bishops were not to receive any of those strange 
 and wandering clergy who then troubled ; the Church, 
 unless they were provided with a permit to travel from 
 their own metropolitan. 
 
 In October of the next year A.D. 463, we find 
 Hilarus concerned about Mamertus, bishop of Vienne, 
 and writing to Leontius and telling him to summon a 
 synod at Aries, or to consider in the yearly local synod 
 and report to Rome why Mamertus, without permission 
 from Rome and against the decrees of the papal See, 
 had consecrated a bishop for the See of Die. This city 
 was in that part of the province of Vienne which had 
 been handed over to the metropolitan of Aries, and it 
 is possible that Leontius himself had made the com- 
 plaint which Hilarus desired to 'settle. In A.D. 463, 
 
 1 The assembly of the bishops at Aries was becoming more and more difficult 
 owing to the advance over the Cevennes of the Visigoths and the constant revolu- 
 tions in Italy. Cf. Mansi, vii. 936, "Qualiter contra sedis." 
 
xii THE GALLICAN CHURCH 375 
 
 however, the Burgundians had extended their boundaries 
 as far as the river Durance, and it is certain that they 
 would never allow the Archbishop of 'Aries to take any 
 part in the affairs of the bishopric of Die. 
 
 The bishops whom the fortunes of war and the 
 susceptibilities alike of Visigoth and Burgundian allowed 
 to assemble at Aries in the spring of 464, had evidently 
 sent to Hilarus a satisfactory explanation of the action 
 of Mamertus, for on 25th February 464 Hilarus 1 wrote 
 again to Leontius and the nineteen bishops who had 
 assisted at the council, to impress them that he 
 would not punish Mamertus, but that if he, Mamertus, 
 did not cease to inflict injury on the archbishopric of 
 Aries, he would deprive him of those four dioceses 
 which Leo had assigned to Vienne to raise it to the rank 
 of an archbishopric, and give them back to Aries, and 
 he orders that Veranus shall take care to announce this 
 decision to Mamertus. Hilarus was either ignorant or 
 refused to consider the local political difficulties. The 
 See of Die, he said, rightly belonged to the arch- 
 bishopric of Aries, and the occupant of the See of Aries 
 should be called upon to provide for it. So he urges 
 the bishops of Vienne, Lyons, Narbonne I. and II., and 
 Alpes Maritimes to assemble yearly under Leontius at 
 Aries, and discuss the welfare of the Church in south 
 Gaul lest any bishop should injure his neighbour by 
 crossing the boundaries of his diocese, and in this his 
 insistence of strict orderly procedure shows his ignor- 
 ance of affairs, for already those provinces were divided 
 out between these most suspicious and jealous powers, 
 the kingdoms of the Visigoths and the Burgundians, 
 and the last representatives of the remnants of the 
 imperial power. 
 
 Two other letters of Hilarus, which no longer have 
 
 dates attached to them, bid Leontius, Veranus, and 
 
 v 
 
 1 Hilarus had the same year added to the suffragans of Aries at the expense of 
 Vienne, and announced this fact, " Sollicitis admodum," to twenty bishops, in reply 
 to a letter from them, and in this as in another letter to the same bishops, " Etsi 
 meminerimus," relates his anger at the action of Mamertus. 
 
376 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Victurus to make themselves acquainted with the con- 
 troversy between Ingenuus, bishop of Embrun 1 and 
 Auxanius, and also orders the union of the two Sees 
 of Cimiez and Nice. 
 
 It is significant that there are no letters to the 
 Church of Gaul from Simplieius, bishop of Rome, 
 468-483, or from Felix, 483-492, but the series begins 
 again with Gelasius, A.D. 492-496, who seems inclined 
 to favour Vienne at the expense of Aries. But the 
 political troubles of the time, as we have before 
 remarked, had created difficulties which Gelasius hardly 
 knew and could not easily settle. With the Burgun- 
 dians as far south as the Durance and Avignon, and the 
 Visigoths actually at Aries, it was impossible for the 
 Archbishop of Aries to administer the affairs of his 
 province. Nor was Rome any longer the force it had 
 been. The empire was no more, and Italy was in the 
 hands of the mighty Ostrogoth Theodoric, and the 
 Christians in Rome were in real want. Gelasius, there- 
 fore, thanks 2 Rusticius, bishop of Lyons, and Aeonius, 
 the successor of Leontius at Aries, for the contributions 
 they had sent for the poor of Rome, and he begs them 
 to assist Epiphanius, bishop of Pavia, who had gone to 
 Gaul to redeem the Italians whom the Burgundians 
 and Visigoths had taken back with them as captives 
 of war. 
 
 With the action of Symmachus, A.D. 498-514, we 
 must conclude this summary of the relation of the 
 bishops of Rome to the Gallican Church. In A.D. 499 
 Symmachus seems to have been afraid lest the bishops 
 of Vienne and Aries should arrange the affairs of the 
 Church in Gaul between themselves, and he writes to 
 Aeonius of Aries 3 to say that he and the Bishop of 
 Vienne should send messengers to Rome, lest it should 
 happen that in their controversies any rash decisions 
 
 1 Cf. Babut, ut supra, p. 286. 
 
 2 "Inter ingruentium," January 25, 494 ; Mansi, viii. 121. 
 
 3 " Movit quidem," Mansi, viii. 208 j Condi. Gall. i. 682. See also his letter to 
 Avitus, "Non debuit caritatem," Migne, P. L. vol. Ixii. 51. 
 
xii THE GALLICAN CHURCH 377 
 
 should be made, and he restores to Aeonius the right 
 of ordaining bishops in those neighbouring cities which 
 had been withdrawn from Aries by Anastasius in favour 
 of Vienne. Two years afterwards he wrote also to Avitus 
 of Vienne telling him not to take it amiss that he had 
 again injured Vienne for the sake of Aries, and saying 
 that it was impossible to pass judgment without full 
 information and without hearing both sides. In A.D. 
 503 Aeonius was succeeded at Aries by Caesarius, and 
 ten years after, ten years in which Caesarius had laboured 
 with apostolic fidelity for the affairs of his See, we 
 find Symmachus writing to him in a way which seems 
 inexplicable. 1 He bids him not to alienate the goods 
 of the Church, not to confer the priesthood for money, 
 and not to create untrained and unqualified laymen 
 priests. Then soon after, at the request of Caesarius, 
 he confirms the boundaries between Vienne and Aries 
 which Leo had created, and tells Caesarius that he is to 
 take the oversight of the Church in Spain as well as of 
 that in Gaul, and that should matters of religion call 
 for consideration he was to summon to him the Bishop 
 of Aix and others of the neighbouring bishops, and 
 adjudicate on them, while at the same time he was to 
 inform the papal See of that which he had done. 
 
 As we look back on the policy of the bishops of 
 Rome, we cannot but allow the wisdom of much which 
 they insisted on. Only a strong outside power could 
 have created the archbishopric of Aries against the 
 opposition of Narbonne and Vienne, and so long as 
 Gaul was linked with Italy as provinces of the empire, 
 the Church of Rome not only gave good advice, but 
 the Church of Gaul seemed ready to act upon it. But 
 a moral influence was not such as would satisfy the 
 ancient spirit of Rome. She must have the power 
 to command, and her recourse to the emperors for 
 secular power undoubtedly deprived her of much of 
 that moral influence which she had formerly exercised. 
 
 1 " Hortatur nos," Mansi, viii. 212, and "Qui veneranda patrum," p. 227. 
 
378 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP, xn 
 
 If she did not threaten, yet the bishops of Gaul knew 
 that they dare not disobey, and the humiliation of wise 
 and saintly men like Hilary of Aries and Mamertus of 
 Vienne may have satisfied the pride of Rome, but it 
 certainly lost her much of the reverence which formerly 
 had been shown. The love created by the tender care 
 of the mother for the daughter Church, the respect ever 
 held for the apostolic See by these Churches of the 
 West, how could these feelings exist when the decrees 
 of the bishops of Rome had now become rescripts of 
 the empire, when bishops were not allowed to settle local 
 disputes unless they immediately reported every detail 
 to Rome, and when no liberty was permitted for the 
 exercise of episcopal discretion ? Gaul gained by the 
 help which Rome afforded, but her devotion towards 
 the successors of St. Peter was no longer the same, and 
 if she had been saved from heresy, yet it was at the cost 
 of that spirit of reasonable independence which ever 
 brings into play the highest qualities of a Christian 
 community. 1 
 
 1 Cf. Dr. Schnitzer's Hat Jesus das Papsttum gestiftet? Munich, 1910. He 
 concludes by quoting and endorsing the words of Hugo Koch : "das Dogma, dass 
 Jesus Christus das Papsttum eingesetzt und dass es darum von Einfang an einen 
 Rechtprimat und Universalepiskopat in der Kirche gegeben habe, der von Petrus 
 auf den Bischop von Rom iibergegangen sei dieses Dogma steht mit der Geschichte 
 in unvers5hnlichen Widerspruch." 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 PROSPER OF AQUITAINE AND THE SEMI-PELAGIAN 
 CONTROVERSY 
 
 THE calamities that fell upon the Roman Empire in the 
 first quarter of the fifth century the horrors of barbaric 
 invasion which, as far as the west of Europe was con- 
 cerned, had long threatened, and had only been kept 
 off by large standing armies and constant conflicts in 
 the Rhine valley horrors and calamities which then at 
 last poured down upon the citizens, and of which no 
 one in the first half of that century could foresee when 
 they would end the settlement of strange and uncivilised 
 tribes, not merely on the distant frontiers, but in the 
 very heart of the empire, the fair fields of Italy, and the 
 fertile plains of Gaul, the disaster, the ruin, the famine, 
 and the despair which these calamities had produced 
 tested to the utmost the faith of the Christians and the 
 resources for comfort which the Christian Faith could 
 provide. It was the widespread and, we may almost 
 say, natural complaint of expiring heathenism, that the 
 evils under which the empire then groaned and suffered 
 were but the inevitable nemesis for the neglect of the 
 ancient religion of the Republic. The advocates of the 
 old faith pointed with indignation to the proselytising 
 activities of Valentinian and Honorius, and the 
 Christians, who on all sides heard these complaints, 
 in their inexperience of their new faith found it no easy 
 task to refute these charges. The shock also which 
 
 379 
 
380 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 was felt by the proud Roman official when, in the 
 autumn of A.D. 410, he heard that Alaric the Visigoth 
 had captured and sacked the capital the effect yet 
 further of the return to Gaul as fugitives from Rome 
 of so many of her children who had long been absent 
 from her the surprise and wonderment of the provincial, 
 who probably had believed in the Eternal City more 
 than those who had lived in it and seen the rottenness 
 of its life, tended to intensify the alarm, to deepen the 
 despair, and to foster the elements which made for 
 political disintegration. And for Gaul, for we must 
 confine ourselves to Gaul, these calamities, as a previous 
 chapter has shown, were neither momentary nor light. 
 The three years during which the Vandals and their 
 allies had roamed in unrestrained wanton cruelty 
 throughout the province, leaving behind them nothing 
 but black ruin and deadly famine, had no sooner passed 
 away than Gaul found herself in the midst of political 
 revolt and internecine strife. Then and before peace 
 could be made on the suppression of Constantine, there 
 rolled westward from Italy, sweeping up all that was 
 worth the taking, the mighty, all-conquering armies of 
 the Visigoths, with their camp enriched by the spoils 
 of the capital. Atawulf, their leader, as we found, was 
 no ordinary hero. He had come intent on settlement, 
 despising the emperor who had sanctioned his plan, and 
 filled with an ambition to blot out the very name of 
 Rome and to establish in its place the name of the 
 Goth. 1 He had made his way to Gaul through fire 
 and sword, and for nearly three years held Narbonne, 
 Toulouse, and Bordeaux, cities that were the very 
 pride of the provincials, in his hostile grasp, and then 
 when before the army of Constantius he retired to 
 Spain he treated Aquitaine with vindictive cruelty. 
 
 1 Orosius, Hist. vii. 43. Orosius met at Bethlehem, when on a visit to St. 
 Jerome, one of the Theodosian veterans who was a native of Narbonne, and who 
 told him he had heard Atawulf declare " ut obliterato Romano nomine, Romanum 
 omne solum, Gothorum imperium et faceret et vocaret essetque ut vulgariter loquar 
 Gothia quod Romana fuisset." 
 
xin SEMI-PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY 381 
 
 Four short years and again the Visigoths are in Gaul, 
 and under Wallia their leader, and with the consent of 
 the emperor, settle down in Aquitaine, an immigration 
 the more unwelcome and harmful for the Catholic 
 Church, or the little that was left of the Catholic 
 Church, because the immigrants all professed the creed 
 of Arius. 1 It is natural to ask, therefore, what had 
 been the effect on the Church of Gaul and its organisa- 
 tion, of this succession of calamities which had so 
 devastated the land and ruined the inhabitants. The 
 object of the present chapter is to consider one of the 
 products of this terrible visitation. 
 
 The times of the primitive Church had returned. 
 The words of our Lord and His apostles had become again 
 applicable in all their natural meaning. The Church, 
 and by that, of course, we mean the individual members 
 of it, had to think of social life and temporal things as 
 in process of dissolution. The Christian's only joy, 
 and that solely because he was a Christian, was that he 
 could set his affection on things above. The chaos 
 of human life was surely indicative of the approaching 
 return of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 There could, of course, be little or no ecclesiastical 
 organisation where cities had been taken and plundered, 
 and the country roads were filled by armed soldiers 
 who roamed everywhere in search of spoil and booty. 
 It is difficult to say exactly what organisation had 
 existed in the Gallican Church in the fourth century. 
 But, whatever it had been, that development was now 
 arrested, if that organisation had not been destroyed. 
 Marseilles seems to have been a refuge for churchmen, 
 though it does not appear that at first churchmen were 
 ill treated by the Visigothic king, except it may have 
 been in the tumult of mere assault or in revenge for 
 some defeat. We can only judge, however, from the 
 instances we know of, and they, such as they are, allow 
 us to judge of what went on in other districts, concern- 
 
 1 Greg. T. Lib. de glor. conf. cap. 48 j Fredegar. Chron. cap. viii. 
 
382 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 ing which, unfortunately, no records remain. Two 
 bishops of the south of Gaul, Heros of Aries and 
 Lazarus of Aix, left their cities and took refuge in 
 Marseilles. 1 Then shortly after they crossed over to 
 Hippo, as if in despair of their country, and in A.D. 
 415 we find them taking part in the Council of Dios- 
 polis. Conjecture makes Constantius the Patrician 
 unfriendly towards Heros, and there certainly may 
 have been a reaction in Aries against the monastic 
 movement which Heros undoubtedly desired to pro- 
 mote. But nowhere else do we hear of a bishop of so 
 important a city forsaking his flock merely because he 
 was unfriendly with the citizens or with the leader 
 of the imperial forces. It is more likely that he fled 
 before Atawulf and his Visigoths, when, after the 
 capture of Valence, he crossed the Rhone and appeared 
 outside the walls of Aries. The flight of Heros may 
 therefore be placed in the year A.D. 412, first to Mar- 
 seilles, then to Hippo, and afterwards to Palestine. 
 At first it may have been only a temporary withdrawal, 
 and that he intended to return had not Constantius' 
 anti-monastic fervour prevented it. Meanwhile church- 
 men, through the very complaints of the heathen, were 
 called upon to account for these calamities. What 
 explanations could they offer, and how could they re- 
 fute the statements of the old heathen party? Already, 
 in A.D. 413, St. Augustine had taken up the chal- 
 lenge, and had begun his apologetic and historic 
 work, the De civitate Dei, 2 which he wrote in order 
 to show God's providential care and guidance of the 
 affairs of the world. " God," wrote St. Augustine, 
 " is One and a God to be dreaded, who from all 
 time has governed and guided the affairs of the 
 world according to His own will and for His own 
 
 1 Prosper, Chron. A.D. 412. Prosper says Heros was driven out by the inhabitants 
 and that Constantius filled the vacancy by one of his creatures, Patroclus. It may 
 have been a protest of the locality against monasticism. 
 
 2 Cf. Aug. De civit. Dei t 1. i and Ep. Tillemont, vol. xiii. p. 609. The work 
 was not finished until A.D. 426. 
 
xin SEMI-PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY 383 
 
 purpose, and if at times He hides from us the motive 
 for His action, it is only for a season, and who will 
 dare to say that He is unjust?" Calamities affect people 
 in very different ways. We have only to trace the 
 results of the great pestilence in western Europe in 
 A.D. 1347 and 1348 to find a proof of this. 1 At times 
 these calamities seem to destroy the religious spirit in a 
 man and drive him into reckless worldliness, and at 
 other times the very force with which the calamity has 
 fallen upon him seems to act as a hammer to beat yet 
 harder the moral fibre of which he was made, and 
 to intensify the religious convictions which he had 
 treasured. In the fifth century two men in Gaul 
 became prominent as religious writers and moralists, 
 welded into such, as far as we can judge, solely by the 
 evils that had fallen upon them and the trials they had 
 experienced. 
 
 Prosper of Aquitaine 2 and Salvian 8 of Cftln and 
 Trier owe their earnest zeal and their fame as religious 
 writers to the terrible calamities through which they 
 had come. The sadness and the seriousness which 
 mark their writings are the natural products of the 
 sorrows which these calamities inflicted. Both of these 
 writers found refuge in Marseilles, the fugitive from 
 Aquitaine about A.D. 416, and the fugitive from Trier 
 perhaps ten years later. 
 
 We know, unfortunately, very little concerning 
 Prospers private life beyond his zeal in behalf of 
 St. Augustine's rigid doctrines of Predestination and 
 Indefectible Grace, and the reflection of the man in his 
 writings against the semi-Pelagians. There can be no 
 doubt in our minds, however, as we read what he wrote, 
 that his character and his mode of thought were the 
 direct result of the troubles of his times. They mould 
 
 1 Milman's Lat. Christianity, vii. 497, viii. 381 j Gasquet's The Pestilence, ch. iv. 
 
 2 The writings of Prosper of Aquitaine, his chronicle and the De vocations -omnium 
 
 fmt'mm, which used to be ascribed to Prosper, are to be found in Migne, P. L. vol. li. 
 or a life of Prosper cf. Tillemont, vol. xvi. 
 
 3 Salvian's works are edited by C. Halm in M.G.H.A.A. \, pt. i. 
 
384 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 his ideas. They colour all he wrote and did. Two 
 poems, written probably soon after he had reached 
 Marseilles and realised that he was in a place of safety, 
 give us all we know of what he had experienced and 
 suffered in Aquitaine. He looks back on the bitter 
 trials he had endured, and in a poem full of absolute 
 faith in God, which is entitled " On the Divine Pro- 
 vidence," * he gives us some few hints of what that 
 experience had been. The poem was probably written 
 at Marseilles A.D. 417. "If all the waters," 2 he says, 
 " of the ocean had been spread over the fields of Aqui- 
 taine, they could not have wrought such injury as that 
 which the ten years' devastation by the Vandals and 
 Goths had effected. The farms were cleared of their 
 cattle and of the seed corn stored in the barns, the 
 farmsteads had been burnt with fire, vineyards and olive- 
 yards had everywhere been destroyed, and behind the 
 chariots and serried ranks of warriors he (the poet) had 
 been compelled to march, 3 the captive of war, covered 
 with the dust of the road, driven out from the city 
 which the Goths had burnt. Virgins vowed to God 
 had been defiled, and the churches had been burnt with 
 fire, 4 and Christian priests, regardless of their sacred 
 office, had to suffer with the common people all the 
 miseries of the invasion. Yet," writes Prosper, " God 
 exists and is good, 5 and never fails to notice all that 
 occurs, and He sends His judgments on the sins of 
 men." So it has ever been from time of old, and from 
 the Old Testament the writer draws incidents which 
 tend to prove that the calamities which had fallen on 
 Gaul were punishments for the sins of Gaul, and that, 
 therefore, man's highest good was to place himself 
 unreservedly and gladly in the hands of the Almighty, 
 
 1 Migne, P. L. vol. li. p. 618. 
 
 a Ibid. " si totus Gallos sese effudisset in agros Oceanus," etc. 
 
 s Ibid. " tu quoque pulvereus plaustra inter et arma Getarum 
 
 carpebas duram, non sine fasce, viam." 
 4 Ibid. " quare templa Dei licuit popularier igni." 
 
 8 Ibid, "est igitur Deus et bonus est et quidquid ab illo effectum est, culpa 
 penitus vacat, atque querela." 
 
xin SEMI-PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY 385 
 
 content to accept whatever He might be pleased to mete 
 out to him. As far as the writer was concerned such 
 resignation was evidently sincere, and the faith he advo- 
 cates was that which he himself embraced. And yet 
 the poem shows clearly that the sufferings which Prosper 
 had endured had permanently saddened him. 
 
 There was also a personal sorrow which Prosper had 
 to bear alone. He was a married man, though we do 
 not hear of any children or of the loss of them. It was, 
 however, a special grief to him to think of his wife. 
 Self was lost in sympathy for the partner of his life, and 
 in a short poem addressed to her and entitled " Of a 
 Husband to his Wife," l he urges her to dedicate herself 
 to God. He who once was wont to plough the rich 
 lands of his extensive farm has now all he can do to 
 keep for his own use but two of his oxen. " I do not 
 fear exile," he tells his wife, " for the world is a home for 
 all." Hunger has no terror for him because God's word 
 is now his food. " I fear not poverty if only Christ is 
 rich in me. Only do thou, oh trusted comrade of my 
 life, cling to me in this warfare against sin, and let us 
 both set forth before others an example of a blameless 
 life. Be thou the guardian of him who is thy protector, 
 return to him the help he offers to you, steady his 
 faltering steps, make him rise by the assistance you 
 give him as you lift him up, and let one mind be in us 
 who are two souls." 
 
 So Prosper of Aquitaine and his wife found them- 
 selves in Marseilles, poor, indeed, but undismayed, to 
 spend the rest of their lives in the service of God. 
 
 We will return to Prosper and his efforts for the 
 
 1 Migne, p. 611, Poema coniugis ad uxorem : 
 
 " qui centum quondam terram vertebat aratris, 
 
 aestuat ut geminos possit habere boves." 
 
 A certain Confessio is printed by Migne among the works of Prosper, and there is 
 much in it that suggests his type of mind, but the language is allegorical, and cannot 
 be taken as strictly historical of his actual experiences ; " quia in medio gentis alienae 
 sum et regni sui limites barbarus dispositis servat excubiis " is historically suggestive, 
 were these words not preceded by " revertar ad eum qui me emit ad vitam." Yet 
 the language seems derived from incidents of the time, and seems to tell us of 
 captivity and redemption by friends in imperial cities. 
 
 2 C 
 
386 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 good of the Church, but it is well to couple Salvian 
 with Prosper as another instance of the effect of the 
 barbaric invasions on the Christians of that age. In 
 both men the justice of God is recognised, and by both 
 it is proclaimed. With Prosper, perhaps, we may per- 
 ceive rather more of the spirit of Christian resignation. 
 With Salvian there is righteous indignation at the sins 
 of Roman Christians which had brought these evils on 
 the country. The latter, as a writer, belongs to a some- 
 what later date. They were the Ripuarian Franks who 
 had sacked and burnt his native city Coin and Trier 
 the city of his youth. 1 He had probably come to 
 Marseilles during the fourth decade of this century, 
 and soon after Aetius the Patrician with a strong arm 
 had put down the Bagaudae and checked the incur- 
 sions of these Franks. But the theme of his work De 
 gubernatione Dei is much the same as that of the De 
 civitate Dei of St. Augustine, the De divina providentia 
 of Prosper, and the Libri historiarum, adversus Paganos 
 of the Spaniard Orosius. It consists of seven books, 2 
 of which in the first he brings forward in support of 
 his theme, of God's governance of the world, the opinions 
 of ancient philosophers who had long ago proclaimed 
 the same, and he does this to convince those Christians 
 who have not yet entirely shaken themselves free from 
 heathen ideas. Then in the second book he brings 
 forward examples and incidents in Holy Scripture in 
 order that he may establish on a yet stronger basis the 
 doctrine of God's perpetual care for the destiny of man 
 and especially for the Jewish nation. Then for the rest 
 of the work he seems to cast off the desire for any 
 method, and his invective against the sin which was so 
 
 1 Salvian, De gub. vi. 239, and 72 and Ep. I. 
 
 ' 2 Salvian's De gubernatione Dei is addressed to his friend Salonius, the son of 
 Eucherius, bishop of Lyons. Salonius was trained with his father on the Isle Ste. 
 Marguerite, and is said to have been a bishop, though his see is not known. A 
 Salvian or Salonius appears in the list of bishops of Geneva, but there seems very 
 little authority for the name there. This man died soon after A.D. 411, and may 
 have been the Salonius whose name appears among the signatures of the bishops 
 present at the first Council of Orange, cf. Mansi, Condi, vi. 434. 
 
xni SEMI-PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY 387 
 
 prevalent gathers up incident after incident from the 
 events that had lately occurred in Gaul. The morals of 
 the Gallo-Romans he paints in very dark colours. The 
 information he gives us as to the characteristic features 
 of the invading tribes is valuable, and he records it that 
 he may throw into prominence the careless, sinful life of 
 the Romans. The Goths are treacherous, but they are 
 chaste. 1 The Alans are not chaste, but they are less 
 treacherous. The Franks are untruthful, but they are 
 hospitable ; the Saxons are carried to extremes by their 
 cruelties, but they are wonderfully chaste. The taxa- 
 tion of the poor and the exemption of the rich, an evil 
 which had so much to do with the Revolution centuries 
 afterwards, creates in him supreme indignation. 2 
 "Where," he exclaims, "or among whom is such an evil 
 to be found but among the Romans in Gaul ? The 
 Franks know not such. The Huns are innocent of 
 such evil deeds. You cannot find such among the 
 Vandals or the Goths." 
 
 The passion for amusement has destroyed the spirit 
 of religion. The shrines of God 3 are forsaken while the 
 circuses are crammed with sight-seers. Men love the 
 gibes of the actor more than the Word of God. The 
 temple of God is despised that men may run off to 
 the theatre. 
 
 His countrymen seem deaf to the cries and blind to 
 the evils around them and are only intent on pleasure. 
 Without the walls 4 is the cry of battle, and within 
 the shout of those who contend in the games. The 
 groans of those who die in battle are mingled with the 
 laughter of those who revel, and one can hardly dis- 
 tinguish between the wail of those who have fallen in 
 the conflict and the echo of the people's plaudits in 
 the circus. 
 
 Then he shows us of the ruin that prevailed. "This," 5 
 he continues, " does not go on in Mainz because it is 
 
 1 Salvian, vii. 15. 2 Ibid. v. 36. 3 Ibid. vi. 37. 
 
 4 Ibid. vi. 71. 5 Ibid. vi. 39. 
 
3 88 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 ruined and destroyed, it does not go on in Coin be- 
 cause it is full of the foe, it does not occur in that most 
 excellent city of Trier because it has been laid low by 
 a fourfold destruction. Yet the few nobles that survive 
 demand of the emperor the restoration of the public 
 games as if that was the most pressing remedy for the 
 ruined town. The Roman world laughs as it dies. 
 
 In A.D. 439 the R man general Litorius 1 made an 
 attempt to capture the Visigothic capital Toulouse, and 
 suffered defeat at the hands of Theodoric. Salvian 
 gives us quite incidentally an unexpected insight into 
 the religious opinions that were then prevalent. He 
 tells us that Theodoric, though an Arian, spent the 
 whole night before the battle in earnest prayer to God, 
 while Litorius, if ever he had accepted Christianity, had 
 recourse openly to heathen rites, and performed sacri- 
 fices to gain for his army the favour and assistance of* 
 the ancient and discarded gods of the empire. 
 
 In another work, to which Salvian gave the title 2 
 Ad Ecclesiam, and in which he addresses the churchmen 
 of his time under the name of Timothy, he denounces 
 the greed of the age. It was true that the Church had 
 suffered greatly, but he insists on the treasure which 
 all Christians have in the heavens and with which they 
 should try and console themselves. He would have 
 Christians regard this their loss with Christian re- 
 signation, endeavouring to pay it as a duty which they 
 owed to God, and not as a sacrifice offered by them to 
 God, a view which shows how he was influenced by 
 Prosper and the little circle of serious Puritans that 
 lived with him in Marseilles. He especially exhorts 
 the clergy, who should be an example to the flock, to 
 give up levity ; 8 and because their position brings them 
 into such close contact with sacred things, God wishes 
 them to be an example to others, so that they may bind 
 
 1 Salvian, vii. 44. 
 
 2 The title given in Timothei ad Ecc/esiam, libri iii. 
 3 Ad Eccles. ii. 38. 
 
xin SEMI-PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY 389 
 
 them, not only to the one rule of life of the new law, 
 but also by the severity of the old law. 
 
 These were the minds and temperaments of Prosper 
 and Salvian, the refugees from conquered and half- 
 ruined Gaul, made and moulded by the very evils of 
 the time in which they lived. Fatalists they certainly 
 were not. The spirit of resignation in them was born 
 of the deepest and strongest faith in God's love for 
 man. But so deeply had the iron entered into their 
 souls that they naturally took an unusually serious 
 view of life. The world was in a state of chaos if not 
 of dissolution. Events had brought that home to 
 them. Of what avail was aught else but the grace and 
 protection which God alone could afford them ? Their 
 lives were in the hollow of God's hands, and they were 
 safe even while they suffered. 
 
 Four letters of Salvian survive which show his 
 affection and his humanity. He writes to a friend on 
 behalf of a lady at Coin l who was in great want, and 
 her son had been captured by the Franks and she was left 
 without any means of livelihood. To his wife's parents 
 he writes in warm and amiable banter. To Eucherius, 
 bishop of Lyons (435-450) he writes as a friend 
 indignant that he had sent him a message through 
 another and not a single line of writing. His letter to 
 Agraecius is only a fragment. He was probably the 
 bishop whom Sidonius 2 twice addresses, and may have 
 been the Bishop of Sens of that name (A.D. 455-487). 
 
 But Salvian now passes out of sight. We know no 
 more of him, and his writings are chiefly valuable 
 because they help us to understand Prosper the better, 
 and to realise more vividly the condition of Gaul when 
 he lived there. 
 
 When Prosper went to Marseilles he found there a 
 considerable amount of religious activity. John Cassian 
 had established his monastery, 3 and soon after Prosper's 
 
 Ep. i. p. 158. 2 Sid. Apol. Ep. vii. 5 and 9. 
 
 8 Cf. chapter x. 
 
390 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 arrival had created a deal of religious interest by the 
 publication of his work on the Institutes of Monastic 
 Life which he had written at the request of Castor, 
 bishop of Apt, 1 and for the use of the monks, not only 
 in his monastery at Marseilles, but for those who were 
 under the direction of Bishop Castor. There was also 
 much unrest and anxiety among the clergy of Mar- 
 seilles on account of some of the recent tractates of St. 
 Augustine. The great Bishop of Hippo had found 
 himself the protagonist of Pelagius and his companion 
 Caelestius. The heresy which goes by the name of 
 Pelagianism, and which purported to be the teaching of 
 these two men, had been condemned in A.D. 412 by 
 the Council of Carthage, 2 and St. Augustine felt com- 
 pelled to write much on the Catholic doctrine of Grace, 
 Free Will, and Original Sin. 
 
 In a sermon which he preached at Carthage 3 on 2yth 
 June 413, he stated plainly that infants were competent 
 to receive through baptism the remission of that sin 
 which they had contracted through their birth, and he 
 was equally clear that in consequence of his sin Adam 
 transmitted to all his descendants that fault and corrup- 
 tion of nature which would result in physical death. 
 
 Men's ideas were still crude on these subjects in the 
 early decades of the fifth century, and much was said in 
 conversation which on maturer thought would have 
 remained unsaid. 
 
 There was living at Marseilles at the time a layman 
 Hilary, whose interest in this controversy was very 
 great, as was also, because of what he had already 
 done and written, his interest and admiration for St. 
 Augustine. On his way from Marseilles to Hippo, 
 whither he was going to see St. Augustine, Hilary 
 happened to stay at Syracuse, in Sicily, and there he 
 heard some monks declaring that entire sinlessness was 
 possible for man, and denying absolutely the doctrine 
 
 1 Cf. Cass. Opp. vol. xiii. Vienna Corpus, Petschening's edition, part ii. p. 3. 
 a Labbe and Cossart, Cone. ii. 1510. 3 Aug. De gestis Pelagit, 25. 
 
xiii SEMI-PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY 391 
 
 of Original Sin. Hilary, therefore, felt it necessary to 
 report these remarks to St. Augustine, 1 and he asked 
 from him some further arguments by which he might 
 refute assertions such as these. 
 
 As the controversy developed, and it is unnecessary 
 here to go into the varied phases of the Pelagian contro- 
 versy, St. Augustine's views concerning Grace had been 
 growing more definite and perhaps harder. He began 
 to look on Grace as irresistible, and therefore indefectible, 
 with the natural sequence that he began to favour the 
 opinion of God's absolute predestination of man irre- 
 spective of his foreseen character, and as a natural 
 sequence the irresistible character of Grace, and these 
 later views he announced about A.D. 418 in a letter 2 
 he wrote to a Roman priest Sixtus. 
 
 A letter from such a theologian was naturally not kept 
 secret, and in Rome and in other parts of Italy much 
 discussion took place, for men felt that the teaching of 
 St. Augustine seemed to destroy the reality of Free 
 Will. Valentinus, the abbot of a monastery at 
 Adrumetum, wrote on this account to St. Augustine 3 
 for some further explanation, and in reply the bishop 
 begged him to read his letter which he had written to 
 Sixtus over again, and to remember that it was written 
 to controvert the teaching of Pelagius that Grace was 
 the reward of merit. St. Augustine, however, soon 
 after wrote as a sequel to his letter to Sixtus his 
 tractates De gratia and De libero arbitrio, in which he 
 said that we must not doubt the reality of Free Will or 
 the need of Grace, and these were soon followed by his 
 tractate De correptione et gratia. 
 
 The Church in Gaul, like the Church in Italy, was 
 also troubled by these controversies. Cassian at 
 
 1 Aug. Ep. 156, De gesf. Pelagii, 23. 
 
 2 Aug. Ep. 194. As it is not my aim to trace the history of the Pelagian con- 
 troversy, I must acknowledge my indebtedness to the masterly summary of it by the 
 late Dr. Bright in the preface to his edition of the Anti-Pelagian Treatises of St. 
 Augustine (Oxford, 1880), and to the earlier and much fuller narrative of Tillemont 
 in vol. xvii. of Me'moires pour servir, &c. 
 
 3 Cf. Aug. Epp. 22$ and 226. 
 
392 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Marseilles, and Hilary, bishop of Aries, could not 
 accept the views of St. Augustine on Predestination. 
 It seemed to them a novel doctrine and one so far unsup- 
 ported by the voice of the Church. They believed in the 
 doctrine of the Fall of Man, and certainly believed in 
 and acknowledged the necessity of real Grace as essential 
 to man's recovery, and they also allowed that this 
 grace must be praevenient for such acts of will as 
 resulted in Christian good works. There was, however, 
 a general uncertainty as to whether nature unaided 
 could take the first step towards its own recovery by 
 desiring to be healed through faith in Christ. The 
 first of the tractates of St. Augustine which had troubled 
 them was that De dono perseverantiae^ addressed to 
 Paulinus, and the hesitation and distrust which this had 
 created was yet further increased by the tractate De 
 correptione et gratia. 
 
 There was, however, at Marseilles another earnest 
 and anxious Christian, Prosper, who, like Hilary, not 
 only heartily welcomed the teaching of St. Augustine, 
 but felt it his duty to come forward as the champion 
 of his views and the defender of the great theologian 
 against the leading bishops and theologians of southern 
 Gaul. It is from these two and especially through 
 the writings of Prosper that we are made aware of 
 this theological ferment in Gaul. We have already 
 seen how Hilary had conveyed to St. Augustine the 
 sayings of the monks of Syracuse. In Gaul Prosper 
 of Aquitaine now takes up that position of defence of 
 the doctrine of Grace which has ever since made him 
 famous in the history of religion. The Church in S. 
 Gaul was remarkably vigorous and disinclined to accept 
 dictation from outside, 1 and it is possible that the 
 enthusiastic efforts of Prosper may have done some- 
 what to strengthen this spirit of independence. 
 
 Hilary, who had now returned to Marseilles, had 
 
 1 Cf. chapter xii. and the struggle of Hilary of Aries against the papal claims. 
 
xin SEMI-PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY 393 
 
 informed St. Augustine of the view of the Gallican clergy, 
 and to enforce his complaint he induced Prosper, who 
 did not know St. Augustine, and who never met him, 
 to write to him to explain the view of these south 
 Gallican clergy. In reply St. Augustine said that he 
 had found that similar views were held by some clergy 
 in Africa, and he was at that very time discussing the 
 question with Vitalis, bishop of Carthage, 1 and soon 
 after he wrote his two tractates De praedestinatione 
 sanctorum and De dono perseverantiae. The opinions 
 of the Gallican clergy differed from the teaching of 
 Pelagius, in that they were thoroughly orthodox con- 
 cerning the necessity of grace for all ordinary efforts, 
 and were only doubtful in regard to that one point 
 that they did not clearly assert that the beginnings of 
 faith cannot arise from man's unaided free will. 
 
 Meanwhile Cassian in his monastery at Marseilles 
 had been engaged on his second great work in support 
 of monastic life, his Conferences or alleged instructions 
 supposed to have been given him by the Egyptian abbots 
 whom he had visited in the earlier days of his life. His 
 XHIth Conference described the discourse alleged to 
 have been given by Abbot Chaeremon on the Protec- 
 tion of God. 2 This Conference was certainly written 
 for a purpose that he might guard his monks and the 
 Church at Marseilles generally against a serious possible 
 error, viz., the implicit denial by the followers of St. 
 Augustine of the need of effort on the part of man. 
 
 In the previous Conference No. XII. Abbot 
 Chaeremon 3 had been described as considering the 
 question of moral chastity, and some of those who 
 had heard him were supposed to be much disturbed, 
 because, while he had aroused in them a longing for 
 holiness and purity, he had also confessed that man, 
 however earnestly he may strive after purity, cannot 
 
 1 Aug. Ep. 217. 
 
 2 Petschening edn. vol. ii. p. 361, " De Protectione Dei." 
 3 Cf. as above Conf. xii. p. 334. 
 
394 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 attain unto it unless he had acquired it by the gift 
 of God's grace, and not by the efforts of his own 
 unaided will. 
 
 In his XHIth Conference, therefore, Cassian had 
 returned to this subject, and described another Confer- 
 ence with Chaeremon, in which he answered all the 
 questions and an objection that had been put to him, 
 and then took up again the question of man's efforts 
 and God's grace, and this question he considered 
 under thirteen heads. 
 
 The first of the questions which were put to him 
 had reference to the merits of a man's good deeds. 1 
 May they not be ascribed to the industrious efforts 
 of him who performed them ? The answer was, that 
 without the help of God not only was perfect chastity 
 unattainable, but every other good deed was equally 
 beyond man's power. To this the objection was 
 raised that the Gentiles are said to have practised 
 chastity, and that without having previously received 
 God's grace. 
 
 Cassian answered this by saying that the chastity 
 of the philosophers was not real, but only imaginary, 
 and that without the grace of God we are powerless 
 to accomplish any sustained effort towards moral 
 perfection. 
 
 He then considered God's purpose concerning us 
 and His daily providence, and here he had to face 
 the problem of God's grace in reference to man's 
 free will, and he said that God's providence not only 
 accompanies His kindness towards His creatures, but 
 actually and constantly precedes it my God will 
 prevent me with His mercy and when He sees in 
 us some beginnings of a good will He at once 
 enlightens and strengthens it. 2 
 
 Then in the eighth section 3 of his discourse he 
 considered the power of our own good will in relation 
 
 1 Conf. xiii. % z. 2 Ibid. viii. 4. 
 
 3 Ibid. Conf. xiii. 8. 4 p. 371. 
 
xin SEMI-PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY 395 
 
 to the grace of God, and pointed out that in Holy 
 Scriptures we are aware of two facts, the grace of God 
 and the freedom of man's will, because even, said 
 Cassian, of his own motive a man can be led to the 
 quest of virtue, but always stands in need of the help 
 of God to attain unto it. 
 
 So, however free the will of man may be, yet it 
 is weak and needs help, and the question at once 
 arises, Does God's grace precede or does it follow a 
 man's good will ? 
 
 It was on this point that Cassian and many of the 
 churchmen of southern Gaul parted from the rigid 
 teaching of St. Augustine, and in such departure came 
 under the stricture of Prosper. Cassian advocated a 
 middle course. The problem resolved itself into two 
 questions Does God have compassion on us because 
 we have shown the beginning of a good will, or does 
 the beginning of a good will follow because God has 
 already had compassion on us ? l 
 
 There were many ready to advocate both of these 
 theories, and as the controversy increased in bitterness, 
 so men fell into error through the excess of their zeal 
 and the extravagance of their language. If we say 
 that the beginning of free will is in our power, what 
 about St. Paul and St. Matthew ? 2 If we say that the 
 beginning of good will is always due to the inspiration 
 of the grace of God, what about the faith of Zacchaeus ? 
 Yet it was accepted as a fact that God's grace and 
 man's free will were not in opposition, but in harmony, 
 and we ought to be able to show this to be true. 
 Perhaps good will should not be always attributed to 
 grace, nor yet should it be always attributed to man 
 himself. 
 
 So it was that with such questions in every church- 
 man's mouth Prosper found delight in the rigid 
 
 1 Conf. xi. 
 
 2 Ibid. " si enim dixerimus nostrum esse bonae principium voluntatis, quod fuit 
 in persecutore Paulo, quod in publicano Matthaeo quorum unus cruori ac suppliciis 
 innocentum alius violentiis ac rapinis publicis incubans adtrahitur ad salutem ? " 
 
396 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 definitions of St. Augustine's tractates, De dono perseve- 
 rantiae and De praedestinatione sanctorum. He welcomed 
 them because in them he found rest and peace. 
 
 In A.D. 428, however, Prosper again wrote to St. 
 Augustine, for he felt that while Pelagianism could 
 not be laid to the charge of the clergy of Marseilles, 
 yet from this Conference of Cassian might very easily 
 be deduced such error as would probably lead men into 
 Pelagianism. He was afraid also lest such controversy 
 should cause schism, and that the clergy of southern 
 Gaul should be cut off from the Catholic Church. 
 
 In his letter to Augustine 1 he mentions St. Hilary 
 of Aries, and so his letter cannot have been written 
 before the end of the year 428, when Hilary succeeded 
 Honoratus as bishop there, and he refers to Hilary 
 in terms of the highest praise, 2 and begs of St. 
 Augustine that he will make quite clear the danger that 
 lurks in the error that Cassian 3 and his friends upheld, 
 and show how that praevenient and co-operating grace 
 do not make void man's free will. He also would 
 have him point out that whether God's foreknowledge 
 so abides according to what is decreed that the things 
 which are decreed may be regarded as foreknown, or 
 whether these vary according to man's temperament, 
 and for various other causes, yet while there are different 
 vocations for those who are saved without any effort 
 of their own, yet the fact may seem to exist as the 
 sole decree of God. 4 
 
 Prosper had, for some years, been recognised as 
 the exponent in Gaul of the views of St. Augustine, 
 and in the following year, A.D. 429, in reply to a 
 certain Rufinus whom he seems to regard as a friend, 
 he ventured on a short tractate of his own on Grace 
 and Free Will? 
 
 1 Migne, P. L. vol. li. p. 67. 
 
 2 Ibid, "unum eorum praecipuae auctoritatis et spiritualium studiorum virum 
 sanctum Hilarium Arelatensem episcopum." 
 
 3 Ibid. 7. * Ibid. 8. 
 5 Ibid. p. 77, Ep. ad Rufinum " de gratia et libero arbitrio." 
 
xiii SEMI-PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY 397 
 
 This was followed in the next year and while St. 
 Augustine was still alive, and therefore before August 
 431, by his long poem " De ingratis," l in which he re- 
 capitulates the story of the Pelagian heresy, and the 
 error of those who will not accept the teaching of St. 
 Augustine. The poem consists of four parts, and 
 Prosper will allow no hesitation or half-way position. 
 There is little fresh history in the poem, but there is 
 much strong invective and some very dogmatic theology. 
 It is clear that Prosper resents the independence of the 
 clergy of south Gaul. He wishes to silence them by 
 authority. If he cannot obtain their condemnation by 
 St. Augustine, whom he calls beatissimus papa, he will 
 have recourse to the Bishop of Rome. So Prosper in 
 his zeal against Pelagian tendencies becomes the first 
 papalist. He certainly shows a deference to Rome far 
 beyond that which his great teacher, the Bishop of 
 Hippo, had shown. If the temporal power 2 of Rome 
 was waning, yet he consoles himself that the Rome 
 of St. Peter with its pastoral care can effect more 
 than ever the forces of the empire had accomplished. 
 Rome pronounces on this or that doctrine as the 
 guide of Christendom, and the Church should every- 
 where acknowledge that direction. 
 
 From the question of authority Prosper then goes, 
 on to consider the history and the doctrines of Pelagius, 
 and the decisions of the Church in condemnation of 
 him. For Pelagius he has no respect. He is coluber 
 Britannus 3 who proclaims again the venomous dogmas 
 which the serpent had instilled into our first parents. 
 
 1 Migne, P. L. vol. li. pp. 91-152. 
 
 2 Ibid. pp. 39-42 : 
 
 " pestem subeuntem prima recidit 
 sedes Roma Petri 5 quae pastoralis honoris 
 facta caput mundo, quidquid non possidet armis 
 relligione tenet." 
 
 3 Ibid, part ii. /. 271 : 
 
 " die unde probes quod gratia Christi 
 nullum omnino hominem de cunctis qui generantur 
 praetereat, cui non regnum vitamque beatam 
 impertire velit," etc. 
 
398 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Then he refers, not indeed by name, but clearly to the 
 teaching of Cassian, Hilary, and other leaders of the 
 Church in south Gaul. This teaching is for Prosper 
 heresy, the heresy of the half-way, the heresy which 
 declares that man is by nature morally sick, and rejects 
 alike the doctrines that he is morally dead or morally 
 in perfect health. It is a heresy which practically rose 
 and fell in Gaul, and which the extreme zeal of Prosper 
 brought into prominence. It goes by the name of 
 semi-Pelagianism, 1 and may be defined as that doctrine 
 which would assert that grace ordinarily depends on 
 the working of man's free will and may be lost which 
 rejects the doctrine of absolute predestination, but 
 acknowledges a predestination based on foreseen merits 
 and perseverance which asserts strongly man's need of 
 grace, and regards election as conditional and which 
 holds firmly man's freedom of will, but ascribes! man's 
 salvation entirely to God, because without God's grace 
 man's efforts would be unavailing. 
 
 Such moderation Prosper could not allow. If men 
 could not accept the teaching of Pelagius, they should, 
 he thinks, reject also their own errors, and confess that 
 human nature has been wounded by sin, and that man 
 could never of his own free-will rise to do good works, 
 and whenever he thus strove on his own initiative he 
 found himself invariably involved in new errors. 
 
 So to Prosper the semi-Pelagianism that prevailed in 
 Marseilles and the south of Gaul was equally to be con- 
 demned and withstood with Pelagianism, and all who 
 were true to the Catholic faith should labour to drive 
 it away. St. Augustine died in the late summer of 
 A.D. 430, and in the winter of A.D. 430-431 some 
 Gallican priests of Marseilles and its neighbourhood 
 drew up from the writings of the great African theo- 
 logian a list of fifteen statements or deductions which 
 
 1 Migne, P. L. vol. li. p. 94. The opening lines of part i. : 
 " dogma quod antiqui satiatum felle draconis 
 pestifero vomuit coluber sermone Britannus." 
 
xin SEMI-PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY 399 
 
 brought into prominence the rigid and extravagant 
 views of St. Augustine concerning predestination. This 
 effort on their part was done in order that others might 
 be deterred from accepting St. Augustine's teaching. 
 These deductions are preserved to us in Prosper's 
 answers to them, 1 appearing at the head of each para- 
 graph of his reply, and generally in his replies Prosper 
 attempts to tone down the hard language of his great 
 teacher by distinguishing between predestination in 
 regard to good and simple prescience in regard to 
 evil. But if Prosper felt it incumbent on himself to 
 assert these extreme views of St. Augustine, and to 
 brand as heretics all who could not accept them, he 
 could hardly expect that those who were thus accused 
 by him would not attempt to defend themselves. 
 
 From out of the more distant monastery of Lerins, 
 where Honoratus, Hilary, and Eucherius had been 
 trained, there came forth another series of objections 2 
 to St. Augustine's teaching, written in the year A.D. 
 431, and by one Vincentius, who can hardly be other 
 than the author of the Commonitorium. Nor was 
 Prosper daunted by the storm he was raising. He 
 hastened at once to answer Vincentius, and his task was 
 no easy one. Vincentius had drawn up sixteen state- 
 ments of St. Augustine which he considered erroneous, 
 and which were largely the result of the logical extrava- 
 gance of theological thought in some of St. Augustine's 
 tractates. From among these statements we will only 
 mention three, enough to show how justified the 
 Church in Gaul was in its protest against the extreme 
 Augustinian doctrine. 3 He asserted that Augustine had 
 taught, first, that our Lord Jesus Christ did not die for 
 the salvation and redemption of all ; secondly, 4 that 
 
 1 Migne, ut supra, p. 155, St. Augustine is referred to as of "sanctae memoriae." 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 177, Vincentius, the author of the Commonitorium, was at Lerins at the 
 time j cf. Gennadius, cap. 64. 
 
 3 Ibid. chap. i. " quod Dominus noster Jesus Christus non pro omnium hominum 
 salute et redemptione sit passus." 
 
 4 Ibid. viii. "quod nolit Deus ut omnes Catholici in fide perseverent sed velit 
 ut magna exinde pars apostatet." 
 
400 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 God does not wish that all Catholics should persevere 
 in the Catholic faith, but that a large portion of them 
 should apostatise ; and, thirdly, 1 that it was God's will 
 that a large portion of the saints should fall away from 
 the holiness which had been placed before them. 
 
 Prosper, indeed, wins our admiration not only by the 
 courage he displayed in thus, almost single handed, 
 exposing and combating the certainly defective teaching 
 of the Church in the south of Gaul but also by his 
 indefatigable industry in the pursuit of his great object 
 to free the Church of his native country from the stain 
 of heresy. He had lost the help of St. Augustine, but 
 he was not dismayed. From Hippo he turns his eyes 
 to Rome. There were bishops of Rome for whose 
 judgment the increasing influence of the name of Rome 
 gave greater and yet greater weight. If no one of 
 those bishops appealed to Christendom with the splendid 
 personality of St. Augustine, yet they were the mouth- 
 piece of the See which alone in the west of Europe 
 could be called apostolic, and to which the emperor 
 had granted special authority and privileges. He had, 
 indeed, before he had entered on his controversy with 
 Vincentius, drawn up a catena 2 of dogmatic statements 
 of former bishops of Rome to use in the progress of 
 this controversy, and early in A.D. 431 he and his 
 companion Hilary went to Rome 3 to solicit from 
 Coelestine his aid in the suppression of this evil. 
 Coelestine had already shown much interest in the 
 evangelization of the far West, and in the orthodoxy 
 of the far distant Church in now isolated Britain. He 
 had sanctioned or at least approved of the missions of 
 Germanus, 4 bishop of Auxerre, to assist the Church in 
 Britain to resist the teaching of Pelagian advocates 
 
 1 Migne, ix. " quod velit Deus ut magna pars sanctorum a sanctitatis proposito 
 ruat." 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 205. Arnold (Caesarius von A relate, p. 536) thinks these opinions were 
 put together by Prosper when he was in Rome. 
 
 3 Cf. Caelestine, Ep. i. 
 
 4 Prosper, CAron., A.D. 429 ; Beda, Eccles. hist, i. 17 5 Prosper, Contra Collatorem 
 58, p. 271. 
 
xin SEMI-PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY 401 
 
 there, and he had sent forth Palladius l to preach the 
 gospel in far-off Ireland. Now he came to the help 
 of Prosper, and on May 15, 431, addressed a letter 
 " Apostolici verba " 2 to certain bishops of the Church 
 in Gaul. He mentions six by name : Venerius of 
 Marseilles, Leontius of Frejus, Auxonius of Viviers, 
 together with Marinus, Arcadius, and Fillucius, and 
 exhorts them and other Gallican bishops to forbid 
 presbyters from discussing undecided points of doctrine 
 and preaching against the truth. Augustine of holy 
 memory, he says, was a man in full communion 
 with the Apostolic See, and that which he taught was 
 not to be indiscriminately denounced by men far his 
 inferiors. The presbyters who were referred to and 
 condemned without being named, were clearly Cassian, 
 Vincentius, and perhaps Sulpicius Severus. It is signi- 
 ficant that no mention is made of Hilary, bishop of 
 Aries, and Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, two of the most 
 influential and learned of the- bishops of southern Gaul, 
 and friends of Cassian. The views, however, of the 
 clergy of Marseilles still prevailed. They were not 
 going to accept the extreme views which Prosper 
 regarded as alone orthodox. So in A.D. 432 Prosper 
 wrote another tractate, Contra Collatorem? an open 
 attack on Cassian himself. He takes up on this occasion 
 the XHIth Conference of Cassian, and singles out from 
 it twelve propositions, of which he says the first i.e. that 
 from God alone comes the motive and origin, not only 
 of all good works, but also of all good thoughts alone 
 was orthodox and all the others erroneous. He states 
 honestly that his tractate was in defence of St. Augustine, 
 and towards the end he repeats this statement and 
 expresses a wish that Cassian will not continue obstinately 
 in his error, but will definitely range himself on the side 
 of the orthodox writers of the Church. His writings 
 are contrary to those of St. Augustine and popes 
 
 1 Beda, ut supra, i. 13 j Bury's St. Patrick, p. 54. 
 2 Cael. Ep. i. Mansi, iv. 454. 3 Prosper, ut supra, p. 214. 
 
 2 D 
 
402 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Innocent, Zosimus, Boniface, and Caelestine, 1 and they 
 condemn him, and he trusts that the good work which 
 Caelestine had begun by those letters to the bishops of 
 South Gaul will be continued and brought to a success- 
 ful issue by his successor Pope Sixtus. The tractate 
 Contra Collatorem was thus not written until after 
 May 432, when Sixtus succeeded Caelestine. To it 
 Cassian made no reply. He was certainly not young, 
 and he had been worn out by his early monastic 
 austerities of life which he had practised in the Egyptian 
 monasteries, and which he had endeavoured to introduce 
 at Marseilles, and it is possible that he felt that his end 
 was drawing nigh. In the following year Cassian passed 
 to his rest. 2 
 
 One more tractate and Prosper himself withdraws 
 from our notice and dies apparently soon after. Two 
 priests of Genoa, Camillus and Theodorus, 3 had in- 
 formed him that the clergy of Genoa had followed the 
 example set by the clergy of Marseilles, and had drawn 
 up a series of extracts from the writings of St. Augustine 
 which they had found difficult to accept. During the 
 autumn of A.D. 432, or perhaps in the following year, 
 Prosper replied to this appeal and, as was his wont, 
 explained their difficulties by reference to the general 
 teaching of St. Augustine. The tone of his reply is 
 much gentler than that in some of his earlier letters, and 
 he incidentally states that Simplicius, 4 bishop of Milan, 
 had himself been troubled by these abstruse and difficult 
 statements, and had indeed written to St. Augustine for 
 advice as to how best he could explain the question of 
 predestination as instanced by the election of Jacob and 
 the rejection of Esau. 
 
 1 Prosper "ut quod operatus est in Innocentio, Zosimo, Bonifacio, Caelestino, 
 operetur in Xysto." 
 
 2 The date of his death is uncertain. Gennadius says : " vivendi finem fecit 
 Theodosio et Valentiniano regnantibus," i.e. not later than A.D. 435. 
 
 3 Prosper, p. 187. 
 
 4 Ibid. Reply to 3rd question : " sed in ipso episcopatus sui exordio a sanctae 
 memoriae Simpliciano Mediolanensi antistite de Jacob electione et de Esau rejectione 
 consultum." 
 
xiii SEMI-PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY 403 
 
 Important as were the labours of Prosper in his 
 insistence on the definite acceptance of the doctrines of 
 praevenient, as well as co-operating grace as essential to 
 all good works and purity of life, yet the question of 
 man's responsibility was too serious and difficult to be 
 lightly put on one side. The independent minds of 
 the Gallican bishops were not prepared to surrender to 
 the mere dogma of St. Augustine or the order of 
 Caelestine. The controversy was not closed with 
 Prosper's death. 1 It slumbered, indeed, but was not 
 extinguished. The Gallican Church never specifically 
 accepted the teaching of St. Augustine, and yet the 
 labours of Prosper were not in vain. The position 
 Cassian and his followers had taken up was not defensible. 
 It was unsound and may be regarded as heretical, and 
 the efforts of the refugee from Aquitaine were so far 
 successful, that from this time onward such a position 
 has been regarded, as Prosper desired that it should be, 
 as dangerous, if not erroneous. 
 
 But Cassian of Marseilles and Hilary of Aries had 
 many followers. Eucherius of Lyons, Valerian of 
 Cimiez, and Salvian of Marseilles were all sympathetic 
 if not definitely semi-Pelagian. They taught the Church 
 of southern Gaul at least to be cautious in accepting on 
 this subject the dogmatic statements of St. Augustine. 
 
 In the year of Cassian's death, A.D. 433, Maximus, 
 the Abbot of Lerins, was chosen to be Bishop of Riez, 
 and in his place as abbot his pupil Faustus, 2 a monk of 
 Lerins and a Briton, was chosen. Of his early work 
 as abbot we know practically nothing, though we find 
 in A.D. 449 *- nat ne joined with his monks in resisting 
 the demands of Theodore, bishop of Frjus, in regard 
 to the discipline of the monastery, a controversy not 
 settled until the Synod of Aries had called upon 
 Ravennius, the archbishop, to settle the dispute. 
 
 1 The date of his death is uncertain. He carried his Chronicle down to the year 
 A.D. 455 ; Marcellinus, Chron., A.D. 463, refers to Prosper as though he were still alive. 
 
 2 Cf. Sid. Apoll. ix. 9 j Gennadius, cap. 86 j Coll. Condi. Gall. i. 579. 
 
4 o 4 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Faustus, About the year A.D. 452 Faustus succeeded Maximus 
 
 Ri P ' as Bishop of Riez, and from that time until his death 
 he took a leading part in the affairs of the southern 
 Gallican Church. His early training had made him 
 favourable to those views which are known as semi- 
 Pelagian, and though he never gave up the modified 
 form in which he held them, he was generally recognised 
 as a successful administrator of his diocese. He is 
 praised and honoured by Sidonius Apollinaris, and in 
 A.D. 464 l his name appears among those of the Gallican 
 bishops who wrote to Pope Hilary in favour of Mamer- 
 tus, bishop of Vienne, and his right to consecrate a 
 bishop of Die. 2 In A.D. 474, also, his name appears 
 with Graecus, bishop of Marseilles, Basil of Aix, and 
 Leontius, archbishop of Aries, as ambassadors appointed 
 by the Emperor Nepos 3 to treat with Euric the Visi- 
 gothic king concerning the cession of Auvergne and 
 the conditions under which he would accept peace. 
 
 About the year A.D. 473 a priest, Lucidus, 4 who 
 had become suspect of various errors concerning the 
 problem of predestination, wrote to Bishop Faustus for 
 his advice. He was afraid that he would be summoned 
 before a synod of the Church to answer for his views, 
 and felt that possibly he might be excommunicated by 
 it. Faustus, in reply, told him the course he should 
 take, and requested from him an immediate acceptance 
 of the teaching and advice which he had given him, 
 threatening that if he did not he would show the letter 
 he had written to the Council before which he was to 
 be summoned. This Council or Synod of Aries was 
 held in A.D. 474, 5 and since Lucidus hesitated to reply, 
 Faustus produced the letter, and the signatures of the 
 bishops who read it and endorsed Faustus' advice show 
 that they acknowledged the orthodoxy of Faustus' 
 
 1 Sid. Apoll. Carmen, xvi. 72. 
 
 2 Hilary, Ep. xi. j Mansi, vii. 938. 
 
 3 Sid. Apoll. vii. 7. 
 
 4 Faustus, Op., Engelbrecht's edn. Vienna Corpus, vol. xxi. j Ep. i. Ad Lucidum 
 presbyterum, p. 161. 
 
 5 Cf. Hefele, Hist. Councils, iv. p. 20 ; Mansi, vii. 1007. 
 
xiii SEMI-PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY 405 
 
 teaching. After a short delay Lucidus himself signed 
 this letter. The articles which Faustus had bidden 
 Lucidus condemn were six in number, 1 and were the 
 following : 
 
 1. That man was born without sin, and by his own effort 
 alone could be saved, and could free himself from sinful ways 
 without the grace of God. 
 
 2. That a man who, with sincere faith, had received the 
 grace of baptism and had professed the Christian life, and after- 
 wards through temptation had fallen away, perished in the 
 original sin of Adam. 
 
 3. That a man through God's foreknowledge might be 
 destined to death. 
 
 4. That a man who perished had not received of grace 
 that he might be in the way of salvation. 
 
 5. That man made as a vessel unto dishonour can never 
 arise to become a vessel unto honour. 
 
 6. That Christ did not die for all, and does not will that all 
 should be saved. 
 
 It is clear from this action of the bishops at Aries that 
 Pelagianism had again in some form risen up in the 
 south of Gaul, and not only was the reference to Faustus 
 a proof that he was recognised as orthodox, but 
 also the application to him of Lucidus shows that 
 he was known to sympathise with those who held 
 semi-Pelagian views. Immediately after this Council 
 Leontius of Aries wrote to Faustus, and asked him, on 
 account of the errors produced by the bold statement 
 of predestination by some of the extreme adherents of 
 St. Augustine, to write at greater length on this subject, 
 and in obedience to this request Faustus produced 
 about A.D. 476 his work De gratia. 2 
 
 The errors, however, still prevailed, and soon after, 
 at the Synod of Lyons, Faustus was appealed to to 
 reissue his book on Grace, and to insist in it on the 
 fact that the exertion that we display in resisting evil is 
 
 1 Cf. above, Faustus, Of. p. 162. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 3, preface "quod pro sollicitudine pastoral!, beate papa Leonti, in 
 condemnando praedestinationis errore," etc. 
 
406 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 in itself a proof that we are already responding to the 
 grace which we have received. 1 
 
 The story of Faustus' life we know very imperfectly, 
 and it is difficult to understand why and by whom 
 he should have been exiled from Riez. Yet about 
 A.D. 477, 2 and probably by Euric the Visigoth, he was 
 removed to some very distant part of Gaul, and seems 
 to have remained there until Euric's death in A.D. 485. 
 Riez was a town in Narbonensis secunda, south 
 of the river Durance, and belonged rather to the 
 Burgundian Gundobad than the Visigoth Euric. But 
 the fact remains and cannot be explained. 
 
 In the year A.D. 501 3 Caesarius, who had been Abbot 
 of Lerins, became Archbishop of Aries, and under him 
 steps were taken which definitely freed the Church of 
 Gaul from the stain of semi-Pelagianism. In the early 
 part of the sixth century some Scythian monks who had 
 been reading Faustus' book on Grace considered that 
 there were traces in it of a modified Pelagianism. 4 
 They appealed, therefore, to Pope Hormisdas (A.D. 
 514-523), and through their unruly conduct brought 
 about their imprisonment. Hormisdas definitely stated 
 concerning their appeal, that while the book had not 
 the authority of the Church it might certainly be read, 
 a decree which testifies to the orthodoxy of the late 
 Bishop of Riez. 
 
 Yet there was a certain stain on the Church of 
 southern Gaul. Its opposition to St. Augustine had 
 exposed the bishops there to the charge of real sympathy 
 with some of the views of Pelagius, and Caesarius 
 himself found that he was among those whose views 
 were regarded with suspicion. In A.D. 529 Avitus, 
 archbishop of Vienne, 5 summoned a synod of bishops 
 
 1 Faustus, " in quo quidem opuscule post Arelatensis concilii subscriptionem novis 
 erroribus deprehensis adici aliqua synodus Lugdunensis exegit." 
 
 2 Cf. Ep. ix. to Ruricius, " inter haec positi bona praesenti insultamus exilio et 
 patriam nos non amisisse sed commutasse cognoscimus." 
 
 3 Arnold, Caesarius von Arelate, p. 115. 
 
 4 Migne, P. L. Ixiii. 489 ; P. G. Ixxxvi. i. 92 j Mansi, viii. 493, Justum est, 
 ut qui. 5 Mansi, viii. 712. 
 
xiii SEMI-PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY 407 
 
 to Valence. Caesarius had lately written a book, De 
 gratia et libero arbitrio^ which Pope Felix IV. had 
 commended, but which is now lost, and this book and 
 its subject were set down for discussion at Valence. 
 Caesarius was at the time in correspondence with 
 Felix IV. (526-530), and in A.D. 530 he called together 
 a synod of the bishops of his province to take part in 
 the consecration of a church of Orange which Liberius 
 the Patrician had built. 1 Fourteen bishops came to 
 assist him in the act, and afterward Caesarius produced 
 the reply he had received from Pope Felix. The letter 
 contained twenty -five clauses, of which eight had 
 reference to the doctrine of the fall of man and the 
 need of grace. These clauses were largely adapta- 
 tions from the writings of St. Augustine, but Felix 
 followed the example of his predecessors, Coelestine 
 and Leo, and omitted all reference to the question of 
 predestination. 2 All who were baptized were able, by 
 Christ's aid and co-operation, if they choose to work 
 faithfully, to fulfil the conditions under which man can 
 attain to eternal salvation. 
 
 The first two articles have reference to the fall of 
 man 
 
 1. The sin of Adam has injured not only his body, but 
 also his soul. 
 
 2. The sin of Adam has not only ruined his own body 
 and soul, but has also brought ruin to his posterity. 
 
 The remaining six articles concern the doctrine of 
 grace. 
 
 3. Grace is granted to us not only when we pray for it, 
 but has already energised us to pray for it. 
 
 4. God does not wait for us to desire to be cleansed from 
 sin, but He through His Holy Spirit has already influenced 
 us to desire sanctifi cation. 
 
 5. The seeds of faith, just as much as their growth in us, 
 are implanted in us by grace, and are not natural. 
 
 1 Hefele, vol. iv. p. 152. 
 
 2 Cf. Arnold, ut supra, p. 533, Das Ztveite Konzil der Orange. See. Mansi ut 
 supra. 
 
4 o8 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP, xm 
 
 6. The grace of God is not granted to us because we 
 seek and knock, but has anticipated that action to induce 
 us to seek and knock. 
 
 7. We can do nothing that makes for our eternal salvation 
 without the grace of God. 
 
 8. It is wrong for us to say that while some attain to the 
 grace of baptism by the mercy of God, others attain to it 
 of their own free will, though that has been weakened by 
 Adam's sin. 
 
 It is probable that the letter and the dogmatic state- 
 ments sent to Caesarius by Felix were revised by 
 Caesarius before he placed them before the bishops 
 assembled at Orange. The doctrinal statements, how- 
 ever, were endorsed by these bishops, an act which 
 proclaimed definitely the orthodoxy of the Church 
 of South Gaul and an end of the semi-Pelagian con- 
 troversy. This formal acceptance of Caesarius' adapta- 
 tion of the proposals of Felix was sent back to Rome 
 and received, 25th January 53I, 1 the sanction of 
 Boniface II., who had in the meanwhile succeeded 
 Felix as bishop of the capital. The canons were 
 declared to be agreeable to the Catholic rule of the 
 Fathers, and thus the suspicion of heterodoxy which 
 for a century had hung over Gaul was removed through 
 the efforts of Caesarius. The signatures of the bishops 
 were followed by those of Liberius, and several of 
 the civil officers of the Prankish kingdom which had 
 replaced the rule of the Visigoths, and the bishops of 
 the province of Vienne joined in the effort which 
 ended with the disappearance of semi-Pelagianism. 
 
 1 Mansi, viii. 721. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS 
 
 IT has been remarked by a learned French historian l 
 that the bishops in Gaul in the fifth century were 
 either monks or noblemen. As an emphasis on the 
 large proportion of bishops who were men of high 
 social position this statement is certainly true, and 
 the subject of this present chapter is an instance of 
 this fact. The ascetic spirit which, under the name of 
 monasticism, came into prominence at the end of the 
 fourth century, made war on the easy-going Christians 
 of Gaul, and as we know created serious disturbances 
 in Tours, 2 Aries, and other places. The Church had 
 to defend herself against the criticism of the ascetic 
 lay movement, and at first the two sections of Christians 
 were opposed to each other. The subject of the 
 present biographical sketch offers us evidence of the 
 union of these two elements in the Church, writing 
 as he does of monasticism from the outside, and 
 yet in terms of respectful sympathy. 3 Caius Sollius 
 Apollinaris Sidonius 4 the brilliant letter-writer, the 
 skilful panegyrist of those who, in rapid succession, 
 
 1 Flauriel, Histoire de la Gaule meridionale, i. 403 " de ces eve"ques les uns 
 sortirent de la vie monastique, les autres furent pris dans la haute societe." 
 
 2 For Bricius of Tours cf. Greg. T. H. F. x. 31 j Sulp. Sev. D. iii. 15. For 
 Heros of Aries cf. Prosper, Chron., A.D. 412. 
 
 3 Sid. Ep. vii. 16 and 17. 
 
 4 Such was the position of Sidonius in the history of Gaul in the fifth century 
 that the literature concerning him is naturally considerable. For practical use, 
 because of its convenient size, Teubner's edition of his works, edited by P. Mohr, 
 will be found excellent j but the best edition is that of Luetjohann, vol. viii. of 
 Mon. Ger. Hist. Baret's edition, (Euvres de Sidonius Apollinaire, Paris, 1879, offers us 
 the letters in chronological order, and will be found suggestive j and L. A. Chaix, 
 
 409 
 
4 io BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 became emperors of the West, the friend and acquaint- 
 ance apparently of every one in Gaul who was worth 
 knowing, the courageous and patriotic Bishop of 
 Clermont, the faithful husband and the devoted father 
 has been so great an attraction to writers on this 
 period of European history, and has been so often 
 described, that it is unnecessary in this chapter to deal 
 with him except in relation to the Church in Gaul. 
 We propose, therefore, to consider the story of his life 
 chiefly as illustrative of the social state of the Church 
 in the fifth century the Christian at the imperial 
 court and the bishop in the diocese of Clermont. 
 
 Sidonius Apollinaris, to use the name generally 
 given to him, was what his age had made him, and 
 it is impossible to understand him except in relation 
 to the revolutions, the wars, and all the anxiety and 
 suffering which that age produced. Heathenism had 
 not yet been exterminated, though the emperors were 
 doing all they could to abolish it. The invasion of 
 barbarians had brought in a fresh wave of heathen 
 thought, and the Christian faith had to struggle hard 
 against the charge that the evils of the age were all 
 due to it. Nor had the schools in Gaul been as yet 
 captured by the Christians. At Bordeaux, 1 Aries, Lyons, 
 and Autun there were seminaries and universities for 
 the Gallic nobles that were still heathen in sentiment, 
 and their influence far outweighed the simple Christian 
 instruction which a bishop would give to his flock or 
 provide for his younger clergy at his own house. 
 
 Saint Sidoine Apollinaire et son siecle, Clermont Ferrand, 1867 is useful. In 1836, J. F. 
 Gregoire and F. Z. Collombet published at Lyons (Euvres de C. Sollius Apollinaris 
 Sidonius, with a translation and notes a helpful edition, but the translation cannot 
 always be relied on. Ampere, Hist, litteraire de France avant Charlemagne, vol. ii., 
 Paris, 1870, is interesting and excellent j and the student should certainly read 
 Mr. T. Hodgkin's chapter on the " Poems and Letters of Apollinaris Sidonius " in 
 vol. ii. p. 291 of his Italy and her Invaders, and the chapter on Sidonius in Dill's 
 Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire, 1898. A very thorough 
 little work has lately been published by Paul Allard, St. Sidoine Apollinaire, in 
 Lecoffre's Les Saints, 1910. 
 
 1 Cf. Jullian, Les Premieres Universites Jranfaises : L'ecole de Bordeaux au IV e 
 siecle, 1893 j Boissier, La Fin du paganisme, 1907, vol. i. lib. xii. p. 143 ; Ausonius, 
 Ord. N.U. viii. 
 
xiv SIDONIUS APOLL1NARIS 411 
 
 Sidonius Apollinaris was born at Lyons, 5th November 
 A.D. 431. His ancestors had been connected with 
 Lyons and Aries and held large estates near Nimes. 
 His grandfather 1 Apollinaris was the first of the family 
 to become a Christian, and had been civil lieutenant in 
 the suite of Constans, whom his father the usurper Con- 
 stantine sent in A.D. 409 into Spain. His father seems 
 to have assisted the patrician Constantius 2 in the re- 
 storation of order after the Visigothic invasion, and was 
 tribune and secretary of state to the Emperor Honorius, 
 and in A.D. 448 3 became prefect of Gaul under the 
 Emperor Valentinian III. Sidonius was taught poetry 
 by Hoenius, 4 philosophy by a teacher named Eusebius, 
 and law by Probus, the son of the Consul Magnus. His 
 mother was a member of the wealthy and noble family 
 of Avitus whose estates were largely in Auvergne. 
 The year after his father had been made prefect the 
 family had naturally to go and take part in the festivities 
 connected with the entry on his office, in January 449, 
 of the Consul Asterius. These festivities took place 
 at Aries, where at the same time was held the yearly 
 diet of the seven provinces of southern Gaul. In a 
 letter he wrote to a friend, Namatius, at a somewhat later 
 date, Sidonius tells him how the ivory tablets 5 with 
 portraits of the new consul which were wont to be 
 distributed among the crowd had run short, and that 
 the people were clamouring loudly for amusement. 
 To please them Nicetius was put forward, a man of 
 some rank and education, to pronounce a panegyric in 
 honour of the consul. Instead, however, of giving the 
 panegyric, Nicetius delivered an address on a new law 
 which had not as yet been promulgated in Gaul. The 
 incident was not lost on the young Sidonius, and his 
 ready oratory in later years was doubtless due to the 
 admiration for it which this incident had produced. 
 
 1 Sid. Ep. iii. 12. 3 Ep. vii. 6. 
 
 52 Zosimus, vi. 4, and Sid. Ep. v. 9. 4 Sid. Carm. ix. 309, Ep. iv. I. 
 
 5 Ep. viii. 6. 
 
4 i2 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 In A.D. 452 he married Papianilla, 1 a lady of the 
 family of Avitus, and therefore some connection of his 
 own mother, and she brought him as her dowry the 
 estate of Avitacum 2 near Clermont, a home which 
 Sidonius grew to love more and more, and especially, 
 he says, because it was his wife's property. His family 
 consisted of a son Apollinaris, and two daughters, 
 Severiana and Roscia. 
 
 The Gallo-Romans must have for long perceived 
 that they had little to expect from Italy and her 
 emperor, and that in the formal dealings of the 
 emperor with the barbarian invaders the interest of 
 the provincials would readily be sacrificed in order that 
 peace might be obtained in Rome. As early as A.D. 
 418 a large portion of Aquitaine had been assigned 
 to the Visigoths, 3 and the Burgundians had been 
 settled in the neighbourhood of Geneva. 4 And ever 
 since these provincial Romans had been compelled to 
 witness continual encroachments on their estates on 
 the part of both these races, encroachments which 
 were seldom checked by the imperial forces. So 
 their lives were spent in close relationship to these 
 barbarians. At times, when they went to ancient 
 Roman cities like Bordeaux, Toulouse, and Narbonne, 
 they realised that these centres of Roman culture had 
 become entirely Visigothic, and at times they met 
 in the streets of Vienne and Lyons the giant Bur- 
 gundian 5 who treated them with proud disdain. Why 
 then should not the Gallo-Romans make friends with 
 the Visigoths and arrange with them in defence of their 
 local interests ? The opportunity came in the year 455. 
 In the early summer the Emperor Valentinian III. 
 
 1 Sid. Ep. v. 1 6 ; Greg. T. H. F. ii. 21. 
 
 2 Ep. xi. 2, 3 j Carm. xviii. 
 
 3 Prosper, Chron., A.D. 419, " Constantius patricius pacem firmat cum Wallia, data 
 ei ad habitandum secunda Aquitania et quibusdam civitatibus confinium pro- 
 vinciarum." 4 Prosper, A.D. 435. 
 
 5 Sid. Carm. -x.il. He tells Catullinus that his eyes and nose are happy not to be 
 there where the seven-foot Burgundian patron, who saturates his hair with rancid 
 butter, proudly monopolises the pathway. 
 
xiv SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS 413 
 
 had been assassinated as an act of revenge for his 
 murder of Aetius, and after the two months' reign of 
 Maximus, Visigoths and Gallo-Romans and the Roman 
 garrison at Aries proclaimed, 1 on July 10, 455, at 
 Beaucaire near Aries, Avitus, a Gallo-Roman nobleman, 
 and father-in-law to Sidonius, as Emperor of the West. 
 It is probable that there had been some understanding 
 between Theodoric the Visigothic king and Avitus, 
 but that ended with the latter's death and certainly 
 did not affect the resistance which Sidonius afterwards 
 offered to the advance of the Visigoths into Auvergne. 
 
 The new emperor was naturally obliged to move 
 on towards Rome, and at once started on his journey 
 taking with him his son-in-law Sidonius. His victory 
 in Pannonia gained for Avitus general acceptance in 
 Italy where hitherto he was quite unknown, and on 
 January i, 456, 2 Sidonius was called upon to pronounce 
 a panegyric in honour of the new emperor in the 
 presence of the Roman Senate. It was the begin- 
 ning of his political life, for he was only twenty-four 
 years of age, and it was a severe test of his literary 
 studies. His success not only gained for him the 
 applause of the Senate, but also obtained a vote from 
 that body of a statue in bronze 3 to be placed in the 
 Forum near to the monument of the Emperor Trajan. 
 It is certainly clear that the oratory of the young poet 
 had satisfied the critical ears of the citizens. Avitus, 
 however, had calculated without Ricimer, and his under- 
 standing with the Visigoths must have assured him of 
 the latter's hostility. The victory also which Ricimer 
 had just gained over the Vandal fleet, a victory which 
 won for him the applause of the Roman citizens, because 
 it had reduced for them the price of wheat, enabled him 
 to plot for an emperor who should be entirely his own. 
 
 1 Idatius, Chron., A.D. 455, "... Avitus Gallus civis ab exercitu Gallicano et ab 
 honoratis primum Tolosae, dehinc apud Arelatum Augustus appellatus." His 
 declaration at Toulouse must have been with the approval of Theodoric II. 
 
 2 Sid. Carm. vi. and vii. 
 
 3 Sid. Carm. viii. 8-10, addressed to Priscus Valerius, and Ep. ix. 16. 
 
4 i4 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Avitus, therefore, apparently without a struggle, was 
 deposed and was allowed to retire homewards. As 
 he approached Placentia he was captured by the agents 
 of Ricimer and forcibly consecrated a bishop, and as he 
 journeyed towards Clermont he died or was murdered 
 near Brioude, in South Auvergne, and was buried near 
 the tomb of St. Julian of Eclana. 1 Meanwhile Majorian 
 had been proclaimed as emperor by Ricimer, and had 
 followed Avitus towards Gaul in order to secure the 
 allegiance of the West. But Lyons had received a 
 barbarian garrison, perhaps Burgundian, and was not 
 prepared to acknowledge Majorian. 2 The resistance 
 to Majorian had probably begun before the death of 
 Avitus was known, and Sidonius, who had followed his 
 father-in-law back to Gaul, took an active part in the 
 negotiations before Lyons. But the Gallic city could 
 not resist the army of Majorian, and was soon obliged 
 to surrender, 3 and its attempt at resistance resulted in 
 the loss of its privileges, the maintenance by it of a large 
 hostile garrison, and a great increase of taxation. It was 
 now the opportunity for Sidonius to plead on behalf of his 
 native city. 4 He had taken part in the capitulation and 
 had appealed to the clemency of Majorian, and through 
 the mediation of the imperial secretary, Peter, who was 
 in charge of the forces destined for the reduction of 
 Gaul, was received into favour. Then Sidonius for 
 the sake of Lyons set himself to win Majorian. In 
 January 457, at Lyons, he delivered a panegyric 5 on 
 Majorian in which he had much to say in praise of 
 Ricimer, and such was the success he gained by this 
 
 1 Joannes Antiochenus, Frag. 202 j Greg. T. H. F. ii. n. 
 
 2 Idatius suggests that war had really broken out between Majorian and the 
 Visigoths j "... nuntiantes Majorianum Augustum et Theudoricum regem 
 firmissima inter se pacis jura sanxisse." Cf. Sid. Carm. iv. n, 12. 
 
 3 Aegidius had been sent by Ricimer in 456 to Gaul as Maghter militum and in 
 457 was chosen leader by the Franks. He declared for Majorian and was in 
 command of the imperial troops at the capture of Lyons. Greg. T. H. F. ii. n j 
 Fredegar. Epit. ii. 
 
 4 Sid. Carm. v. 572-586, and xiii. 23, 24 " ut reddas patriam simulque vitam 
 Lugdunum exonerans suis minis." 
 
 5 Sid. Carm. iv. and v. 
 
xiv SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS 415 
 
 poem that Majorian granted all that he had asked for, 
 restored their privileges to the citizens of Lyons, relaxed 
 the heavy taxation he had laid upon them, and raised 
 Sidonius to the rank of a comes of the empire. 1 
 
 During the year A.D. 458 Sidonius seems to have 
 remained in Lyons with perhaps occasional visits into 
 Auvergne, while Majorian early in the year returned 
 to Italy. In the spring of the next year the emperor 
 again came to Gaul, and Sidonius was apparently 
 summoned to attend on him at Aries. His fame as a 
 poet and letter-writer had now made him prominent, 
 and the envy he had created by his popularity made 
 men regard him with aversion, as being not only a 
 panegyrist but also a satirist. Some time later on 
 in the year 459 he wrote to his friend Montius an 
 account of his experience at the court of Majorian. 2 
 In a light and humorous mood, and with a certain 
 tinge of personal vanity, he told him how men avoided 
 him or offered him a hollow friendship, and how 
 among those who seemed to be annoyed at him was 
 the praetorian prefect Paeonius, a man of low 
 origin and of great conceit, and who was firmly con- 
 vinced that Sidonius was the writer of certain lampoons 
 which had been written concerning him. The senti- 
 ment of his court concerning Sidonius was known to 
 the emperor, and an -incident occurred during this 
 sojourn at Aries which Sidonius evidently delighted 
 in. The emperor had invited him and others to a 
 banquet, towards the end of which the emperor went 
 round and said a word or two to his guests. Paeonius 
 he seemed to have ignored, and addressed a remark to 
 Athenius. Perhaps the oversight was intentional, but 
 Paeonius was piqued at the slight, and took upon 
 himself to answer for Athenius. The emperor, in the 
 same happy mood which had distinguished him all 
 through the banquet, smiled at the act of Paeonius, and 
 
 1 Sid. Ep. i. ii " audio, ait imperator, comes Sidoni, quod satiram scribas." 
 
 2 Ep. i. ii. 
 
4 i 6 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 this was for Athenius a revenge greater than the 
 insult. The shy old man was, however, not in the 
 least disconcerted, and since he had seen with secret 
 vexation that Paeonius was placed before him, he 
 replied, " ' I am not astonished, Lord Augustus, that 
 Paeonius has taken the trouble to displace me at 
 your table since he does not hesitate to answer for me/ 
 Then the emperor turned towards Sidonius and said, ' I 
 understand, Count Sidonius, that you are a satirist/ and 
 
 * I too/ I replied, ' understand it also.' He then laughed 
 and said, ' Yet at least spare us.' c When I cease to 
 do things that are forbidden I spare myself/ was my 
 answer. ' And what shall we do then/ said the emperor, 
 
 * to those who accuse you ? ' * Whoever they may be 
 who attack me publicly, if they are able to convict me I 
 ought to suffer the penalty I deserve, but if I succeed 
 in proving my innocence I ask your clemency that I 
 may be permitted without breaking the law to write 
 that which I like concerning my accuser/ Then the 
 emperor turned to Paeonius, who seemed to be in 
 doubt, and asked him by a sign if he agreed to that. 
 Paeonius, however, was silent, and the emperor, pitying 
 his embarrassment, said to me, ' I grant your request on 
 condition that you put it to me promptly in verse.' ' I 
 accept the terms/ I replied, and turned round as if to ask 
 the waiter for some water, and before the emperor had 
 time to go the length of the table I placed myself again 
 on the couch. Thereupon the emperor said, * Have 
 you composed in verse your request to be allowed to 
 write satires without being punished ? ' and I replied, 1 
 'O mighty prince, decree, I beg, that he who accuses 
 me of writing satires be compelled to prove the charge 
 or to pay the penalty for a false charge.' ' It is 
 evident that Sidonius delighted to record his victory, 
 for he had certainly gained from the incident. 
 
 For the next ten years Sidonius seems to have 
 
 1 " Scribere me satiram qui culpat, maxime princeps, 
 hanc rogo decernas aut probet aut timeat." 
 
xiv SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS 417 
 
 remained in Gaul, a private citizen, interested in his 
 country and in his private estate in Auvergne. 
 Majorian, on the contrary, returned that year to Italy, 
 and within two years was deposed, and on August 2, 
 461, was murdered at Tortona, 1 and Severus elected 
 in his place. 
 
 It is from his letters to his many friends that we 
 can trace the movements of Sidonius during this 
 period. He had gone to his estate at Avitacum near 
 Clermont 2 and to his friend Domitius gives a description 
 of it 3 : " You wish to know what sort of a place it 
 is to which I invite you. We are at Avitacum, 4 the 
 name of the estate which came to me through my 
 wife, and is therefore more precious to me than that 
 which my father left me. Here we live, I and mine, 
 in direct concord and under the protection of Heaven, 
 unless you are prepared to assign our happiness to any 
 other cause. To the west of us rises a mountain which 
 is on all sides fairly precipitous, and which rears itself 
 as from a double foundation of low hills separated from 
 each other by the space of four furlongs. But while 
 a fairly large lawn stretches out from our entrance 
 hall, the line of hills follows on either side this valley of 
 grass right up to our house, which offers to them its two 
 sides to the north and the south. At the south-west 
 
 1 Idatius, sub anno 460 j Procop. De hello Vandalico, i. 7 j Fasti Vindob. p. 305 ; 
 M.. G. H. vol. ix. Chronica minora, part i. 
 
 2 It was on one of these excursions from Lyons to Auvergne that Sidonius 
 saw from the high ground near to Lyons some labourers desecrating one of the 
 ancient burial-places of the city, and one where the tomb of his grandfather had 
 been erected. The cemetery was no longer used and the labourers were digging a 
 trench through it to carry off the surface water. Sidonius (Ep. iii. 12) relates the 
 incident to his paternal cousin Secundus, and tells him how he rode on quickly, 
 got off his horse and gave the men a sound whipping. He then went to the bishop 
 Patiens and reported his act and demanded pardon, and seemed surprised that the 
 bishop praised his act as one due to the memory of his ancestors. The act of the 
 labourers was certainly illegal, cf. Cicero, De legibus, ii. 23, and was forbidden by the 
 Law of the XII. Tables. Lex Ripuaria xcvii. and Lex Salica Ivii. " signis corpus 
 jam sepultum exfodierit et expoliaverit, Wargus sit, hoc est, expulsus de eodem pago." 
 Cf. Ep. vi. 4. Could this have occurred after Sidonius had become bishop of 
 Clermont, " confiteor errorem . . . cum nil amplius ego venia postularem " ? 
 
 3 Ep. ii. 2. 
 
 4 On Avitacum cf. Cregut, Avitacum : Essai de critique, Clermont, 1890, and 
 his Nouveax eclaircissements sur Avitacum, 1902. 
 
 2 E 
 
4 i 8 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 there is a bathing-place at the foot of wood-covered 
 rocks, so that as one cuts the trees that shade it, there 
 is wood at hand for the furnace which heats the water. 
 This bathing chamber is of equal size with the toilet 
 chamber which adjoins it, except that there is the 
 semicircular basin into which the warm water falls from 
 leaden pipes carried in the thickness of the wall. In 
 the bathing chamber there is abundant light which 
 increases still more the modesty of those who bathe. 
 Close by is the cooling chamber, a huge place, and one 
 could easily regard it as a public reservoir. The roof 
 that covers it is conical in shape, and the four walls are 
 covered with well-fitting grooved tiles. This chamber 
 is square and of convenient expanse, and of such pro- 
 portion that the domestics are not inconvenienced in 
 their work, and it can hold as many chairs as the pool 
 can receive of bathers. Where the vaulting begins 
 the architect has placed two windows, so that one can 
 see clearly the good taste with which the ceiling has 
 been built. The interior face of the wall presents a 
 surface of extreme whiteness. There is no obscene 
 painting, no disgraceful nakedness which all who 
 pretend to admire as art dishonour the artist. You 
 do not see there any actor in stage dress and with a 
 ridiculous mask, pretending to imitate Philistio . . . 
 one finds there in a word nothing which can alarm 
 one's sense of modesty. Certain verses, nevertheless, 
 may arrest the attention of those who enter, but they are 
 of that harmless nature that no one wants to read 
 them again, and no one feels any disgust in having read 
 them once. 
 
 " If you enquire also about the marble of which the 
 house is partly constructed, it is not foreign from Paros, 
 Carystos, Proconnesos, Phrygia, Numidia, or Sparta, or 
 such that would take away the natural freshness of the 
 country material. Outside and to the east of the house 
 is a pool, or if you like the Greek term better, a 
 baptistery which contains about twenty thousand hogs- 
 
xiv SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS 419 
 
 heads of water. It is hither one betakes oneself from 
 the hot baths through vaulted passages made in the 
 wall. In the middle of the reservoir there rise up, not 
 pilasters, but little columns which architects regard as 
 the ornaments of the house. Six pipes arranged around 
 the pool bring the water from the top of the mountain, 
 and their ends are shaped into the head of a lion with 
 such skill that people who enter without forethought 
 might really believe that they saw their jaws ready to 
 devour them, their eyes flashing with anger, and their 
 manes actually bristling. Beyond this one comes to 
 the apartments of the ladies, and the larder is close by, 
 which is separated by a partition only from the place 
 where they spin the linen. Below the portico, which is 
 supported rather by simple circular poles than by 
 pompous columns, one comes upon a lake on the 
 eastern side of the house. Near the vestibule there 
 opens out a long covered alley, not interrupted by any 
 partition wall. It offers you no point of view, and 
 looks as if it might be called a hippodrome or at least 
 a closed gallery. It expands somewhat at the end and 
 forms a salon of delightful freshness. The chattering 
 troop of clients and attendants hurry along it when I 
 and mine have gained our bedchamber, to throw them- 
 selves on the couches placed purposely there. From 
 this gallery one goes into the winter apartment, where a 
 fire sometimes quite large covers the arch of the chimney 
 with soot. But for what purpose do I go into these 
 details since I do not invite you to come and warm 
 yourself here. It will be much better to tell you of 
 things seasonable to your summer visit." 
 
 And so Sidonius continues, always dilating on the 
 views, the beautiful green of the fields, and the charm 
 of the situation in the heat of the summer. He gives 
 us, however, no plan of his house, and merely refers to 
 the interior as he carries one on to enjoy this object of 
 beauty or gaze on that delectable retreat. Nor is it 
 certain where Avitacum was. It has been identified 
 
420 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 with St. Amant on the Veyre, and also with Chambon 
 under the Puy de Sancy, both a few miles south-west of 
 Clermont. 
 
 During these years of freedom from public affairs 
 he seems to have made a tour in the south and west 
 of Aquitaine, of which we must judge the route 
 from the description of the places which he gave his 
 friends. From Avitacum he went to see Pontius 
 Leontius at his castle of Burgus at the junction of the 
 Dordogne with the Garonne, and at Narbonne he sent 
 him back, by way of thanks, a poem describing the 
 gardens and the situation of his friend's country seat. 1 
 At Narbonne, 2 or possibly at Toulouse, he saw the 
 Visigothic king Theodoric II., and, of course, must 
 write off a description of him to his cousin Agricola. 3 
 " More than once/' he writes, " you have asked me to tell 
 you of the appearance and manners of Theodoric, king 
 of the Goths, whose culture popular report estimates 
 highly. I gladly obey your command, eager as I am to 
 satisfy your curiosity so reasonable and commendable, 
 and especially since it gives me an opportunity of 
 writing to you. Theodoric is a prince indeed quite 
 worth knowing, even by those who have not the privi- 
 lege of his intimacy, for God and nature have combined 
 to endow him with many happy gifts. His manners 
 are such that the envy which ever surrounds the throne 
 cannot refuse its meed of praise. In size he is well 
 proportioned, above the average in height, but not one 
 you would call especially tall. His head is round and 
 covered with curly hair, which is thrown off a little from 
 his forehead. His veins are prominent, but do not 
 detract from the beauty of his neck. A heavy arc of 
 eyebrows crowns his two eyes. When he closes his 
 eyelids the length of his eyelashes brings them nearly to 
 the middle of his cheeks. His ears, according to the 
 
 1 Carm. xxii. 
 
 2 This visit must have been after A.D. 462, when Theodoric took Narbonne, and 
 before 466, when he died. 
 
 Ep. i. 2. 
 
xiv SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS 421 
 
 custom of his nation, are covered with hair which hangs 
 down in long tresses. His nose is agreeably arched. 
 His lips are thin and delicate, well proportioned to his 
 mouth, and somewhat dilated at the corners. If by 
 chance his teeth show themselves in their graceful 
 alignment they offer a whiteness which rivals the snow. 
 He daily shaves his upper lip. His chin, throat, and 
 neck are not thick and fat, but of a delicate colour, and 
 offers the sight of a skin which rivals milk for white- 
 ness, and which seen close at hand shows the warm hues 
 of youth, for the blush which often suffuses his cheeks 
 is the result of modesty and not of pride. 
 
 " You ask me also what his public and daily occupa- 
 tions are ? With a fair number of his court he 
 goes ere break of day to the assembly of his priests 
 and prays with considerable attention, but since he 
 speaks in a low voice one can notice that this is rather 
 a formal matter than the habit of religion. The rest of 
 the morning is occupied with the administration of his 
 kingdoms. On festive occasions, for his ordinary meals 
 do not differ from those of others, one never sees a 
 breathless slave placing on the groaning tables a large 
 mass of silver plate. He is sparing of speech, for when 
 one keeps silence one can meditate on more serious 
 things. The coverings of the couches and the table 
 consist of purple and fine linen. The value of the 
 dishes consist rather in the skill of the cooking than in 
 the cost of the article cooked. The table utensils are 
 valued rather for their cleanness than their weight of 
 metal. The guests have often to complain of the few 
 toasts which are offered to them rather than that they 
 are obliged to refuse the courses and entrees because 
 they have drunk enough. In a word, one notices here 
 the refinement of the Greeks, the abundance of the 
 Gauls, the smartness of the Italians, all the ceremony of 
 a public feast, and all the comfort of a private dinner, 
 and the order and regularity which marks the palace of 
 a king." 
 
422 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 At Narbonne he stayed with his friend Consentius in 
 his house, which Sidonius designates as Octavianus Ager 
 and then he went to his friend Tonantius Ferreolus, the 
 prefect, who had a chateau near Nimes, and where his 
 cousin Apollinaris had also in the immediate neighbour- 
 hood a country seat. Here he composed a poem in 
 praise of Consentius, 1 and in 500 lines describes 
 with a wealth of classical illustration, but without a hint 
 of any Christian sentiment, the deeds and travels of his 
 host. 2 In a letter, however, written probably soon after, 
 and in which he refers to Consentius 1 skill at poetic 
 composition, which afforded delight to his friends at 
 Narbonne and Beziers, he records the boisterous hilarity 
 that prevails, which, however, he says, had a limit, since 
 by the grace of Christ he lived already in secret a holy 
 life, nor did he hesitate in public to submit to this 
 salutary joyousness a head that was religious and a heart 
 that was pious. 
 
 But he is also struck with the literary tastes of his 
 friend Tonnantius Ferreolus, 3 and in a letter to Donidius 
 he describes the library at Prusianum on the Garden, 
 near Nimes. There were books always to hand. There 
 were the inclined tables as at the schools of the gram- 
 marians, and the rows of benches and the cupboards, as 
 at the Athenaeum at Lyons, filled with books from the 
 circulating libraries. There were the tables arranged 
 with books of piety for the ladies and the seats for men 
 placed before the latest works on Latin eloquence. 
 There are works of Augustine and Varro, Horace and 
 Prudentius, and that which most interested men of our 
 faith, Adamantius Qrigen, in the excellent translation 
 made by Turranius Rufinus. It is probably at this 
 period of his life that there occurred the scene at 
 Vienne which Sidonius relates to his friend Eriphius, 4 
 and which gives us an insight into the Church life of 
 the century. He had been invited to join in the 
 
 1 Cartn. xxiii. 2 Ep. viii. 4. 
 
 s Ep. ii. 9. 4 p t ji. , 7> 
 
xiv SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS 423 
 
 festivities in commemoration of St. Just, held at his 
 tomb in Vienne, 2nd September. Eriphius, who was 
 a vir illmtris, was unable to attend on account of sick- 
 ness, and Sidonius had promised to give him an account 
 of all that had taken place. The solemn anniversary 
 began with a procession which started forth before the 
 day had begun to dawn. It was a holiday for the 
 town, a dies bona, as Sidonius calls it. The procession 
 of Christians was immense, and consisted of both sexes, 
 and the basilica, large as it was, could not contain the 
 crowd, nor yet the verandahs, though furnished with 
 numerous portals. When the preparatory matin offices 
 had been said and the monks and clergy had sung 
 alternately and with remarkable sweetness the psalms, 
 all the worshippers went their way in different directions, 
 and yet they took care to be not far off, so that they 
 might be ready for Tierce when the bishop celebrated 
 the Divine Office. " The narrowness of the locality 
 and the size of the crowd, and the great quantity of 
 torches that had been lighted, impressed us with a sense 
 of stuffiness, and the heavy atmosphere of the night, since 
 it was still but little past the summer, weighed upon 
 us in spite of the temporary refreshment of the morning 
 coolness. So while the different sections of the society 
 withdrew in every direction, the chief citizens began to 
 assemble near the tomb of the consul Syagrius, which 
 was but a stone's throw from the church. Some of us 
 settled down under the shade of the creepers which had 
 covered over the vine trellises ; we with others lay on 
 the green grass surrounded with the fragrant perfume 
 of the flowers. The conversation was pleasant and 
 animated, and, what was more agreeable, it was not 
 concerning politics or taxation. There was not a word 
 which would compromise any one. Whoever was able 
 told in his best style some interesting story, and was 
 certainly listened to with attention. Occasionally the 
 narrative was interrupted by the sudden ebullition of 
 mere good spirits. Then, wearied by the length of our 
 
4 2 4 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 waiting, we wished to do something, and soon we found 
 ourselves divided off into two companies according to 
 our ages, and while others asked for dice we demanded 
 the game of ball. I was the first to start the game, 
 for, as you know, I am as fond of football as I am of 
 books. On the other hand, my brother Domnicius, 
 a man full of good and kind spirits, took the dice table 
 and began shaking and tossing the dice, as if he would 
 by the noise call the players to his side. As for myself, 
 I enjoyed myself immensely with the crowd of young 
 scholarSj endeavouring as I did in this way to give new 
 life to my limbs so long grown stiff through lack of 
 exercise. The illustrious Philimatius joined us and 
 took part in numerous games of ball. He was very 
 skilful at this when he was young, but now, as he was 
 often pushed by the rush of the young players from 
 the centre of the ground where he should stand firm and 
 erect, and as he could not avoid trying to catch the 
 ball when it passed him or fell near him, he was often 
 thrown headlong and found it difficult to pick himself 
 up. He therefore was the first to show signs of fatigue, 
 and a desire to move away from the scene of the game, 
 breathing hard as he did and very hot. This exercise 
 also had brought out a profuse perspiration, and he was 
 painfully exhausted. I gave up also in order that I 
 might avoid suffering as he did, and at the same time 
 show him some sympathy. We sat down together, 
 and soon the perspiration made him ask for water to 
 wash his face with. They gave him at the same time 
 a thick towel which, after having been washed from 
 previous dirt, hung from a cord from the knocker of 
 the swing door of the small house of the church door- 
 keeper. While he leisurely dried his face he said, 
 * I wish you would dictate a stanza on the heat which 
 this game threw me into/ ' Certainly/ I replied. 
 ' But/ he added, ' you must put my name into your 
 lines/ ' Very well/ I said, 4 take it down from my 
 dictation : The other day, when coming from the bath, 
 
xiv SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS 425 
 
 or heated by the chase, his face was wet with sweat. 
 Philimatius found this towel to dry his face, and 
 the moisture was sucked up by it as liquor by the 
 throat of a drunkard/ Scarcely, however, had our 
 Epiphanius copied down my words when the hour was 
 announced, and the bishop l came out of his private 
 house, and we arose to follow him to the church." 
 
 In A.D. 465 Ricimer caused Severus to be poisoned, 
 and for a time there was no emperor, but ultimately 
 Anthemius, the son-in-law of the late Eastern emperor 
 Marcian, was chosen by Ricimer, and formally nominated 
 by the Eastern emperor Leo, 2 and on April 12, 467, 
 Anthemius was welcomed as emperor by the people of 
 Rome. Sidonius seems to have been at Lyons, but such 
 was his literary fame that he received that autumn an 
 imperial sanction 3 to go to Rome in the service of the 
 new emperor. The condition of the empire in the 
 provinces of Gaul had been materially changed by the 
 accession in A.D. 466, of Euric to the throne of Theo- 
 doric II., and his ambition to expand towards Auvergne 
 had begun to fill the mind of Sidonius and other Gallo- 
 Roman nobles with alarm. It was becoming clear to 
 them that the Burgundians on the east and the Visi- 
 goths on the west were determined on a policy of 
 aggrandisement, and the imperial authorities were less 
 and less inclined to assist the provincials in a resistance 
 which they knew they could not themselves successfully 
 accomplish. It is probable, therefore, that Sidonius was 
 not unwilling to go to Rome. He could, at any rate, 
 remind the empire of the fair provinces that were 
 threatened with extinction. As soon as he got to Rome 
 he was called upon to witness the marriage of Ricimer 
 with Alypia, the daughter of Anthemius, and on 
 January i, 468, twelve years after he had won the 
 
 1 Mamertus became bishop of Vienne in A.D. 463. 
 
 2 Sidonius went to Rome as one of the commission to report the treason of 
 Arvandus, but he clearly had the thought of a panegyric in his mind, and so probably 
 had the authorities at Rome. He refers to Anthemius as " Graecus imperator," i. 7. 
 
 3 Sid. Ep. i. 5 and 9. 
 
426 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 applause of the Senate by his panegyric on his father- 
 in-law the Emperor Avitus, he again showed his skill in 
 a panegyric he pronounced in favour of Anthemius. 1 
 On this occasion, and through the influence of Caecina 
 Basilius, he was appointed prefect 2 of Rome and chief 
 of the Senate. In Gaul at least two officers, Arvandus 3 
 the prefect, and Seronatus 4 the chief of the revenue 
 department in Auvergne, had been dealing with the 
 Visigoths and Burgundians, and their treason and exac- 
 tions were the cause of an embassy of complaint, which 
 probably went to Rome with Sidonius, and from him 
 received much assistance. Both these men were arrested 
 and taken to Rome, and in 469 5 were probably executed 
 there. But Sidonius was tired of political life, and the 
 extended period of retirement he had enjoyed made him 
 the more anxious to withdraw again to his beloved 
 Auvergne. Friendly as he was with all classes of 
 educated people, his friends among the Gallican bishops 
 seem to have increased in number. So, after his year 
 of office as prefect of the city, Sidonius once more, 
 in A.D. 469, returned to Lyons and soon after went 
 back to Avitacum. 
 
 In A.D. 471 the See of Clermont became vacant 
 through the death of Eparchus, and Sidonius was chosen 
 to succeed him. 6 We know nothing of the election or 
 even of the exact date when it occurred. But we find 
 him in his letters to neighbouring bishops in A.D. 472 
 asking for their prayers for him in the great work he 
 had now taken up. He had already entered upon his 
 episcopate, and we may fairly assume that he was 
 consecrated by his friend Patiens of Lyons and Lupus 
 of Troyes. 
 
 1 Sid. Carm. i. and ii. 2 Ep. i. 9 ; ix. 16. 
 
 3 Cf. Claud. Mamertinus, lib. i. and Ep. i. 7. 4 Ep. ii. i, v. 14, vii. 7. 
 
 5 Cassiodorus, A.D. 469, says that Arvandus was exiled by Anthemius, and this 
 has been interpreted as evidence of the success of Sidonius' appeal against the death 
 sentence. Cf. Ep. i. 7. 
 
 6 Cf. Ep. vii. 9, 14. All we know of this comes to us from Sidonius' sermon at 
 Bourges t " Sidonius ad clericatum quia de saeculari professione translatus est, 
 ideo sibi assumere metropolitanum de religiosa congregatione dissimulat." Cf. also 
 Ep. iii. i. 
 
xrv SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS 427 
 
 Auvergne was at this time in immediate danger of 
 invasion. Euric was clearly determined to occupy the 
 whole of it and had already attacked the settlement of 
 Bretons near Bourges. 1 In A.D. 473 Riocat, 2 a Breton 
 bishop, was on his way from Riez, where he had been 
 staying with Faustus, 3 and wished to proceed to 
 Armorica, taking with him various writings of Faustus. 
 But the Visigoths were in the field between Clermont 
 and Bourges, and Riocat was forced for the sake of 
 safety to retire to Clermont, where he stayed for several 
 months until the road was once more open to him. 
 Meanwhile the people of Clermont were called upon to 
 resist the attacks of the Visigoths on Clermont itself, 
 and they found in their new bishop one who inspired 
 them with courage and with patience. During the winter 
 of A.D. 474, Clermont was so beset with Visigoths that 
 it was practically besieged. The Visigoths were outside, 
 and communication with the rest of Gaul was more 
 and more difficult. Sidonius was anxious for some sign 
 of a movement from Lyons to their assistance, and 
 
 1 In Ep. iii. 9 we find Sidonius as an Arvernian senator writing to Riothamus, 
 the leader of this British settlement in Berry on behalf of an Arvernian, whose 
 slaves the Bretons had enticed away. This must have been before A.D. 469 when 
 the Bretons were defeated at Deol by Euric. In A.D. 472 the Visigoths were masters 
 of all Berry. 
 
 2 Ep. ix. 9. Riochat he describes as a bishop and a monk: "... igitur hie ipse 
 venerabilis apud oppidum nostrum cum moraretur donee gentium concitatarum 
 procella defremeret." 
 
 3 Of Faustus we have already in a previous chapter given an account. Avitus in a 
 letter to Gundobad (Peiper's ed. p. 30) calls him a Breton, "ortu Britannicus." He 
 was born about 410, and after some years' training at Lerins became in 433 abbot of 
 that monastery. Engelbrecht (V. C. E. S. vol. xxi. p. vi.) considers that he came 
 from the island of Britain and not from Armorica, since Avitus, bishop of Vienne, 
 seems to wish to mark him off from Gaul by that designation Britannus. About 
 A.D. 452 he became bishop of Riez in succession to his friend Maximus, and was 
 regarded as among the most learned bishops of Gaul of that period. In A.D. 477, 
 and perhaps on account of his strenuous opposition to Arianism, he was exiled by 
 Euric to some distant part of Gaul and was certainly dead before A.D. 500. Sidonius 
 held him in great esteem, and refers (ix. 3) to his preaching and (ix. 9) to his work 
 De gratia. Sidonius' brother was educated by Faustus (Carm. xvi. 72). During 
 the retirement which preceded his ordination Sidonius went to visit him at Riez 
 (vii. 6), and in the Carmen Euchariston (xvi.) connects Faustus with Hilary, Eucherius, 
 Honoratus, Lupus, and Maximus. In Ep. ix. 3 he refers to the correspondence 
 between himself and Faustus, and considers it safer that it should temporarily cease 
 because of the suspicion of the civil powers, i.e. Visigoths and Burgundians, since 
 the roads are filled with sentinels who might capture the messengers and question 
 them closely. 
 
428 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 urged his brother-in-law Ecdicius, 1 to come to the relief 
 of Clermont. The advent of such an Arvernian 
 patriot and nobleman, who had great hopes of being 
 raised to the rank of patrician, would show the people 
 of Clermont that the Empire had not forsaken them. 
 At last, Ecdicius with a handful of warriors came and 
 with such courage and boldness, that the Visigoths 
 retired before him, and Sidonius, the better to encourage 
 the citizens of the town, boasts of his feat of arms. 2 
 
 There was, however, a party in Clermont that was in 
 favour of an understanding with Euric as the only way 
 of saving the city from a sack, and against this party 
 Sidonius strenuously opposed himself. To combat it 
 the better he invited Constantius, 3 a priest of Lyons, 
 with whom he had been for long on intimate terms, to 
 come and conduct a sort of religious revival, and the 
 preaching of Constantius certainly, for a time, allayed 
 the anxiety. In the spring of A.D. 475, Sidonius wrote 
 to Mamertus, 4 bishop of Vienne, to tell him that he 
 was introducing into Clermont the system of Rogation 
 processions, which the latter had a few years before 
 established at Vienne. He had introduced it that God 
 might be implored on behalf of Clermont, and that the 
 danger which daily became more threatening might be 
 averted. But in the midst of these courageous efforts 
 for self defence Sidonius heard of other measures which 
 gave him greater cause of alarm. The then emperor, 
 Nepos, had sent Licinianus to negotiate terms of peace 
 with Euric, and Sidonius knew too well the conditions 
 
 1 Ecdicius, the brother of Papianilla, was an Arvernian nobleman who had con- 
 siderable influence with the Burgundian leaders (iii. 3). He was made patrician 
 by Nepos (Ep. v. 16). In Ep. ii. i, Sidonius couples his absence from Auvergne 
 with the extortions of Seronatus and longs for his return. His letter iii. 3 brought 
 him to the relief of Clermont in the earlier stage of the siege, cf. also Carm. xx. 
 
 2 It was on this occasion, since Ecdicius had opened up communication between 
 Lyons and Clermont, that Patiens, bishop of Lyons, collected food and supplies from 
 the SaSne and Rhone valleys and sent them for the famishing Arvernians at 
 Clermont. 
 
 3 Constantius, a priest of Lyons, was a very trusted friend of Sidonius, cf. i. I, 
 iii. 2, vii. 1 8, viii. 16, ix. 16. His first collection of letters, i.e. the first eight books, 
 he drew up at the request of Constantius. 
 
 4 Cf. Ep. v. 14, vii. i. 
 
xiv SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS 429 
 
 on which Euric would insist. He made therefore a 
 hurried visit to Lyons and Vienne, and though he 
 could write to his wife to tell her that her brother, 
 Ecdicius, 1 had at last been made patrician, he could 
 gain no information as to the progress of the negotia- 
 tions with Euric. Twice he wrote to his friend Magnus 
 Felix, the patrician, 2 to ask for news, and his silence 
 filled him with the worst fears. Then he heard that 
 Leontius of Aries, Faustus of Riez, Graecus of Marseilles, 
 and Basil, bishop of Aix, had been chosen as special 
 commissioners. But these bishops were all of the 
 province of Narbonensis secunda, and he knew well 
 that they would naturally think first of their own 
 province. Much as they would sympathise with Sidonius 
 and the Church in Clermont, they could hardly but think 
 of themselves first. He wrote, therefore, earnest and 
 beseeching letters to each 3 of them, imploring them to 
 think of Auvergne, and what a loss it would be to the 
 Church in Gaul, but even with them he could effect 
 nothing. Euric was not to be denied the province he 
 had coveted. There was no power, as he knew well, 
 that could resist him, and in the autumn of 475 4 the 
 treaty was signed which handed over the most patriotic 
 portion of Gaul, the portion which had always been 
 distinguished for its valour and public spirit, to the 
 Arian Visigoth. 
 
 Euric at first dealt lightly with Clermont. He placed 
 his officer Victorius over it as administrator, and 
 Victorius 5 was friendly to the Catholics. But soon 
 afterwards Euric decided to send Sidonius into exile. 
 Already he had exiled and interned in other towns many 
 
 1 Ep. v. 1 6. 2 Ep. iii. 4, iv. 5. 
 
 3 Basil, bishop of Aix, vii. 6, Graecus of Marseilles, vii. 7. In his letter to Basil 
 he refers to all four bishops, Leontius, Faustus, Graecus, and Basil. 
 
 4 Cf. Ep. vii. 7. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, ii. 504, points out that there 
 were probably three embassies to Euric. First that of the quaestor Licinianus, Sid. 
 Ep. iii. 7, in which Ecdicius gained the patriciate, v. 16 j then the embassy of 
 Epiphanius which was fruitless, cf. Ennodius, Life of Epiphanius, Opp. Ennodii, 
 Vogel's ed., M. G. H. vii. pp. 94, 95, and, thirdly, the missions of the four bishops 
 who drew up the conditions of the surrender. 
 
 5 Ep. vii. 17, Greg. Tur. H. F. ii. 20. 
 
430 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 of the Catholic bishops of the chief cities of his kingdom, 
 and now Sidonius was to receive from him the same drastic 
 treatment. So in the summer of A.D. 476 Sidonius 
 was exiled to the fortress of Livia, 1 a lofty stronghold 
 somewhat to the north of Narbonne, and about a dozen 
 miles from Carcassonne, and which has been identified 
 with the modern Capendu on the northern slopes of 
 Mount d'Alaric. But Sidonius had friends at the 
 court of Euric. The quaestor, Leon, 2 had been for 
 long his correspondent, and Evodius, 3 whose friendship 
 he had won by his verses for the mirror he gave to 
 queen Ragnahild, was not prepared to desert him, nor 
 did Victricius fail to remember him in his adversity. 
 While at Livia Leon asked him to write a life of 
 Apollonius of Tyana, and he composed apparently a 
 translation of his life by Philostratus. But his stay at 
 Livia was not long. His friends had pleaded for him, 
 and Euric was persuaded to order his removal to 
 Bordeaux, 4 where his court then was, and at Bordeaux 
 he remained for two months. But up to this date he 
 had never met with the monarch he had so courageously 
 opposed. Now after two or three applications he got 
 his wish, and Sidonius and Euric had their interview. 
 He had written some lines on the Gothic king which 
 had pleased Euric, and having accepted the situation, 
 Euric was prepared to grant him his freedom, and now 
 he was allowed to return to Clermont, and at Clermont 
 he remained until his death. 
 
 Gregory of Tours 5 has preserved for us two incidents 
 which belong to this later period of his life, when 
 his literary activity had ceased. Two priests of his 
 diocese conspired against him and attempted to drive 
 him from his See. The temporal affairs of the diocese 
 were taken out of his hands, and he suffered much 
 humiliation from the treatment of this hostile section 
 
 1 Ep. viii. 3 "nam dum me tenuit inclusum mora moenium Livianorum." 
 
 2 Cf. ibid, and Ennodius, Life of Epiphanius, ut supra, p. 85, and Ep. ix. 22. 
 
 3 Ep. iv. 8. The verses for the mirror of Ragnahild he gives in this letter. 
 
 4 Ep. viii. 9. 6 Hist. Franc, ii. 23. 
 
xiv SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS 43 i 
 
 of his Church, but the sudden death of one of the 
 leaders on the very morning when, during the saying of 
 the morning Office, Sidonius was to be seized and 
 driven out from the church, created a reaction in his 
 favour. 
 
 Gregory also tells us of the deathbed scene of 
 Sidonius. 1 He was not an old man, but he had lived so 
 busy a life that he was probably aged above his years. 
 As he lay a dying the people stood around weeping and 
 asking why he was leaving them. Then they saw a 
 brightness come over him as if it was the supernatural 
 illumination of some heavenly vision, and he turned and 
 said, " Fear not, my people, my brother Aprunculus is 
 with you and he will be your bishop." As they listened 
 they failed to understand his reference, and pre- 
 sumed he was speaking in an ecstasy. The survivor of 
 the two former opponents, however, after his death 
 seized the possessions of the See, and endeavoured to 
 procure the succession for himself. At the assembly of 
 the citizens, however, when an election to supply the 
 vacancy would have been made, one of them present 
 related a dream he had had, in which he had seen 
 Sidonius among the blessed ones of heaven, and the 
 wretched priest who had died suddenly acknowledging 
 his error even while by the King's orders he was cast in 
 the nethermost prison. So Aprunculus was chosen, 
 and the rival candidate induced to acknowledge his error 
 in having ill-treated and opposed the saintly Sidonius. 
 
 The exact date of his death is not easily decided. 
 It was certainly anterior to A.D. 491, and probably 
 occurred in 488 or 489. Sidonius was buried in the 
 church of St. Saturninus in Clermont. 2 
 
 It is, however, as a bishop of the Church in Gaul that 
 Sidonius demands our notice. With the man of affairs 
 and of belles lettres we have little or nothing to do, and 
 yet it is through his correspondence alone that we can 
 come to know him. In it he holds up to us a mirror in 
 
 1 Hist. Franc, ii. 23. 2 Cf. Greg. T. H. F. ii. 23, note 6. 
 
432 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 which we perceive a reflection of the Church in Gaul 
 in the middle of the fifth century. Many a bishop 
 would be to us but a name did he not live in the 
 correspondence of Sidonius. 1 The bishop of Clermont 
 is indeed for the Catholic Church in Gaul the central 
 figure of the century. Charming as are the letters of 
 Paulinus of Nola and Avitus of Vienne, yet they would 
 give us a very one-sided view of Church life were they 
 not balanced by the letters of Sidonius. These give 
 reality to the dry narrative of the chronicles, and show 
 up to our gaze the Roman world as it came more and 
 more under the influence of Christianity. Church life 
 was not confined to the asceticism of the monks, nor did 
 it consist of abject submission to the See of St. Peter. 
 There was a more human side to it. Apart, however, 
 from this homely and vivacious correspondence, there are 
 the three panegyrics which Sidonius delivered at Rome 
 and Lyons, and the marriage verses which he composed 
 for the marriage of Ruricius and Hiberia stand by them- 
 selves. These surprise us in that they are saturated 
 with pagan ideas. Sidonius shows himself deeply 
 versed in classical literature. His panegyric on Avitus, 
 delivered January A.D. 456, consists of 603 lines, and 
 begins with an address to Phoebus, in which he says 
 that Phoebus, as he traverses the universe, can now 
 behold a rival power, and can therefore keep his light 
 for heaven since the sun which the empire now possessed, 
 i.e. Avitus, is sufficient for the earth. Avitus was a 
 Gallo-Roman Christian and so was his son-in-law, and 
 yet there is not one single line which would tell us of 
 
 1 The following list of bishops to whom Sidonius writes gives us some idea of 
 the extent of his correspondence and the remarkable influence he exercised : 
 Euphronius of Autun, Faustus of Riez, Graecus of Marseilles, Remigius of Rheims, 
 Aprunculus of Langres, Basil of Aix, Lupus of Troyes, Leontius of Aries, Censorius 
 of Auxerre, Agroecius of Sens, Patiens of Lyons, Maximus of Toulouse, Mamertus of 
 Vienne, Fonteius of Vaison, Principius of Soissons, Perpetuus of Tours, Auspicius 
 of Toul and Prosper of Orleans, and in addition he wrote letters to the following 
 bishops whose Sees are unknown or at least merely conjectural: Julianus, 
 Ambrosius, Megethius, Eleutherius, Theoplastus, Eutropius, and Pragmatius. He 
 wrote also to Abbot Chariobaud of Brioude, and took a leading part in the election 
 of John to the See of Chalon-sur-Saone, and Simplicius to that of Bourges. 
 
xiv SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS 433 
 
 any Christian sentiment common to them. So also the 
 panegyric on Majorian delivered at Lyons in A.D. 458, 
 and which consists also of more than 600 lines, is steeped 
 in paganism. " Remember, O republic," he says, <c the 
 ancient triumphs. The empire is now in the hands of a 
 consul who is as great now that he wears the purple as 
 when he was armed for the battlefield." And so Sidonius 
 tells the story of the empire and the glorious part which 
 Majorian had taken in its affairs, and he wonders what 
 is in store for it now that it had a warrior for an emperor. 
 
 Ten years later he delivered the panegyric on 
 Anthemius, a poem of 548 lines, and the tone is still 
 pagan. " When destiny," he says, " had placed the young 
 Jupiter above the stars, and the new god took possession 
 of his ancient empire, the gods were eager to offer their 
 congratulations to the immortal sovereign of the 
 universe and to sing an ode worthy of the occasion." 
 And so with excessive flattery he brings before us Mars, 
 Areas, Sagittarius, the choir of the Muses, the Dryads, 
 the Fauns, the god Pan, all to offer their meed of 
 praise to Anthemius, who, he tells the conscript fathers, 
 was born for the throne. 
 
 There is, indeed, throughout these odes a healthy 
 tone, but though Sidonius was speaking before Christian 
 emperors, and had an audience nominally Christian, he 
 parades the heathen gods before them as suggestive 
 of thoughts quite natural, and is remarkably reticent 
 concerning the Christian faith. Yet his family had been 
 Christians for two generations, and there can be no 
 doubt of his own Christianity. From time to time in 
 his letters he acknowledges that his acts 1 have been 
 accomplished by the help of God. He thanks Christ 
 that he has started from Ravenna and is now on his 
 way to Rome. 2 He hopes that God may enable 
 Projectus to accomplish the union he desired. 3 He 
 tells his friend Herenius 4 that it was with Christ's 
 help he had attained the prefecture of the city. When 
 
 1 Ep. ii. 2. * Ep. i. 6. s Ep. ii. 4. 4 Ep. i. 9. 
 
 2 F 
 
434 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 he was grieved at the sickness of his child Severiana, 
 he writes to Agricola, a brother of his wife Papianilla, 
 that he cannot help a joke, and tells him that the 
 doctor Justus 1 was better versed in the art of Chiron 
 than in that of Machaon, and then he goes on to say 
 that the danger, in which the child was, created a 
 motive for prayer to Christ, and that he should 
 beseech Him the more earnestly to re-establish the 
 health of his child. 
 
 Yet when he went to Rome with Avitus, or again for 
 the service of Anthemius, he has not a word to say about 
 the popes, and merely records that a prayer at the tomb of 
 the apostles 2 had given him strength and driven away his 
 weariness, a proof, he says, that Heaven is assisting him. 
 There is, however, as we have already stated, through- 
 out his letters a tone so pure, healthy, and optimistic 
 that it is clear he was much more than a nominal 
 Christian. He was a man of affairs in high position 
 in the State, and had to deal with men, many of whom 
 at any rate were only outwardly Christian, and he dealt 
 with them in the way in which his influence and friend- 
 ship with them could best be preserved. As we have 
 already seen in A.D. 469, Sidonius was anxious to 
 retire from politics, and though we do not know how 
 he was elected Bishop of Clermont, his later letters show 
 distinctly the result of this great change. 3 Writing 
 to thank his cousin Avitus for the grant he had made 
 to enrich the church of Clermont, of which he was 
 bishop, he confesses his lack of merit for the high 
 office which he held " cui praepositus etsi immerito 
 videor." His admiration for and his intimacy with 
 Lupus were very great, 4 and in the humblest tone he 
 writes and begs him to intercede with Jesus Christ 
 our Master on his behalf, because of the multitude of 
 his sins, and he says he will no longer offer strange 
 fire on the altar of the Lord, but will rejoice to feel 
 that he is aided by his prayers. Fortunately we have 
 
 1 Ep. ii. 12. 2 Ep. i. 5. * Ep. m. i. Ep. vi. i. 
 
xiv SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS 435 
 
 a letter of Lupus to Sidonius 1 on the subject of his 
 elevation to the episcopate, which shows how that fact 
 was generally approved of by the Church in Gaul. 
 Lupus writes to him soon after his consecration : " I 
 thank our Lord Jesus Christ, very dear brother, that 
 through the influence of the Holy Spirit in this general 
 upturning of human affairs, and in the affliction which 
 His spouse the Church has had to endure, you are 
 called to the rank of the episcopate, to sustain it and to 
 console it, that you may bear the torch in Israel . . . 
 in the presence of Christ I honour and embrace you no 
 longer as a prefect of the republic, but as a bishop of 
 the Church who art my son from your age, my brother 
 in your rank, and my father in your personal merit." 
 
 To Sulpicius, 2 Sidonius writes and says that Himerius 
 had come from Troyes, and he cannot but tell him 
 how he reminded him of Lupus and the wisdom and 
 humility which he displays. 
 
 To Basil, bishop of Aix, 3 he shows his knowledge 
 of the political events of the time, and pours out his 
 anxiety for the fate of Auvergne. He does not mention 
 his See, but addresses him as a bishop of the province 
 of Aries : " There exist between us, thanks be to God, 
 and it is a rare example in our days, ancient bonds 
 of friendship. For long we have loved each other 
 with equal tenderness. But if I consider our respective 
 positions you are my patron also, though indeed this 
 would be to speak presumptuously, and in pride, for 
 my faults are so great that you will be able, at least 
 by the efficacy of your prayers, to aid me in my constant 
 falls. But you are doubly my master by the protection 
 which you afford to me and by the friendship with 
 which you honour me. How I appreciate the warmth 
 of your zeal and the power of your words, who have 
 witnessed your destruction, by the sword of spiritual 
 
 1 Ep. vi. i. For the letter of Lupus cf. Migne, P. L. Iviii. It is given in 
 d' Achery's Spicilegium, but I now regard it as one more of the forgeries of J. Vignier. 
 Cf. Havet, B. E. Jes C. xlvi. p. 205. 
 
 2 Ep. vii. 13. s Ef. vii. 6. 
 
436 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 testimony, of the Goth Modaharius, scattering as he was 
 on all sides the seeds of Arianism. I can thus very 
 well, without failing in my respect for other bishops, 
 deplore with you the way in which the cruel wolf 
 gorges itself with the sins of souls that perish, and 
 secretly lays waste in its rage, which is not as yet fully 
 realised, the fold of the Church. For the ancient foe, 
 that it may the more easily attack the bleating sheep 
 that have been forsaken, begins to threaten the sleeping 
 pastors." 
 
 He then urges that the time calls for repentance, 
 constant prayer, and fervent zeal for the faith. 1 "Euric," 
 he says, " the king of the Goths, has broken the ancient 
 alliance, and is protected by the might of his soldiers. 
 The boundaries of his kingdom roll on, and it is not 
 allowed to us sinners to complain or even, holy pontiff, 
 to speak of it to you. But I must confess, though 
 the king of the Goths is terrible by reason of his 
 armies, I fear less his blows on the Roman cities than 
 for the laws which protect the Christian. The very 
 name of Catholic is to him so horrible, that one would 
 imagine him the chief of a sect as well as the leader 
 of his people. Add to this the power of his forces, 
 his courageous zeal, his youthful vigour, and his unique 
 character, all of which make him attribute to his 
 religion the success he has gained in war and by his 
 consummate policy, a success which after all is really 
 temporal. Realise then promptly the secret evil of 
 the Catholic state that you may quickly provide for 
 it efficacious remedies. Bordeaux, Perigueux, Rodez, 
 Limoges, Gabala, Eauze, Bazas, Comminges, Auch, and 
 many other towns, whose bishops have been cut off 
 by death, have not been allowed to appoint succes- 
 sors who could confer the ministry of minor orders, 
 and offer to you a whole realm of spiritual ruin. 
 The evil also increases day by day by the vacancies 
 
 1 Ep. vii. 6. This letter must have been written in A.D. 473, when negotiation* 
 had begun for the surrender of Auvergne to Euric. 
 
xiv SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS 437 
 
 which death is always creating, and the heretics of 
 to-day, as did those of an earlier time, await these events, 
 and it is sad to see the people deprived of their 
 bishops and in despair at the loss of the faith. In 
 the diocese and in the parish all is neglected. We 
 see on all sides churches falling into ruin. Their 
 doors are torn off their hinges, the entrances to the 
 basilicas are choked with brambles and thorns, and 
 the very cattle themselves, oh the sadness of it, come 
 and lie down in the half-open vestibules, and crop 
 the grass that sprouts up around the very altars them- 
 selves. I say nothing of your colleagues Crocus and 
 Simplicius torn from their Sees, and both in exile 
 sharing unequal sorrows, for the one is sad in that he 
 sees no more the place to which he desires to return, 
 and the other to see the place from which he cannot 
 return. You are in the midst of holy pontiffs Leontius, 
 Faustus, Graecus, placed there by the citizens of your 
 town, your rank, and your charity. It is your duty to 
 realise and make known the evils of these alliances and 
 the treaties of peace between the two states. Unite for 
 this purpose. Concord reigns among princes. See 
 that we may be free to consecrate bishops, and that 
 the people of Gaul who are included in the empire 
 of the Goths may belong to our faith if they can no 
 longer remain citizens of our state. Condescend, lord 
 pope, to remember us." 
 
 Naturally Sidonius, as an honest man, and all he 
 has written shows him eminently as such, was unwilling 
 to appear more than he really was. A rhetorician 
 of acknowledged fame, and deeply conversant with 
 Roman history and Latin literature, yet he never 
 pretended to be a theologian, and he nowhere appears 
 as a great Biblical student. Soon after he had become 
 Bishop of Clermont l he received a letter from Arbogast, 
 a count of the empire and Roman governor of Trier. 
 Whatever was the real desire of the writer, the tone 
 
 1 Ep. iv. 17. 
 
438 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 of flattery adopted put Sidonius to shame. Arbogast 
 had asked his opinion on certain passages of Holy 
 Scripture. "Your friend," writes Sidonius, " Eminentius, 
 my most illustrious master, has given me a learned 
 letter which you have dictated, and which glistens 
 with the brightness of a threefold virtue : first, the 
 charity which you deign to show towards the feeble 
 talents of a stranger such as myself; secondly, the 
 modesty which makes you shun your just title ; and 
 thirdly, the delicacy which makes you say that you 
 write stupidly." He recognises that the Latin tongue 
 is fast disappearing from the Belgic and the Rhine 
 districts, but he at least perceives from this letter that 
 on the banks of the Mosel they speak the same tongue 
 as on the banks of the Tiber. He cannot, however, 
 claim to be able to expound the difficulties of Holy 
 Scripture. Questions such as these should be asked 
 of bishops who live nearer to the questioner, and he 
 recommends application to Modestus, the bishop of 
 Trier, and failing him, there were Lupus of Troyes and 
 Auspicius of Toul, whose wealth of learning he could 
 not exhaust. 
 
 About the same time, i.e. within a year or two 
 after his consecration as Bishop of Clermont, 1 he 
 received a letter from Euphronius, bishop of Autun, 
 in which he asked him an explanation of some difficult 
 book he had been reading. Sidonius regarded the 
 request as being as difficult for his mediocrity to 
 answer as it would be rash for him to attempt an 
 answer. He reminded Euphronius that he had Jerome, 
 Augustine, and Origen whom he could consult, and he 
 hoped he would not expect any help from the dry 
 straw of his arid spirit. It would be arrogant rashness 
 on his part to attempt to answer such questions, he 
 who though a new bishop was an old sinner, novus 
 clericus peccator antiquus^ with a heavy conscience 
 and a small amount of learning, and so he begs 
 
 1 Ef. JX. 2. 
 
xiv SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS 439 
 
 Euphronius not to press him too much, but to recognise 
 the wisdom of his reserve. At the same time he asks 
 of him his prayers on his behalf. 
 
 Probably in the year A.D. 474, or perhaps in the 
 autumn of the previous year, and during the campaign 
 of Euric in the north of Aquitaine, Sidonius received 
 a request from the people of Bourges to come and 
 help them in the election of a bishop. The vacancy 
 had occurred some little time ago, and the people were 
 torn into factions and could not apparently agree. 
 There was no organisation of the Church in Aquitaine 
 at the time, and Sidonius must have felt some reluctance 
 in accepting the invitation, knowing, as he must have 
 known, what had occurred to Hilary of Aries and 
 Mamertus of Vienne acting on invitations such as these 
 without having first consulted the Roman See. He wrote, 
 however, to Agraecius of Sens, 1 whom he regarded as 
 chief of the bishops nearest to Bourges, if indeed there 
 were any bishops beside him in that province, and 
 apparently because Sens was the chief town of 
 Lugdunensis IV., and he urged him also to come to 
 Bourges, and he told him incidentally that with the 
 exception of Clermont every bishopric in the two 
 Aquitaines was in the hands of the Visigoths, and 
 Sidonius acknowledges that the only privilege he him- 
 self possessed was that of sending this invitation to 
 him. It would be for Agraecius to decide on every 
 detail of the election. 
 
 The choice of a successor to Euladius was made 
 largely by Sidonius, and instead of the candidate most 
 in favour with the people of Bourges, a certain Simplicius, 
 a man who was well known and who had been of 
 great use to the city, was elected. In his humility he 
 had neither put himself forward nor had he got himself 
 talked about, but Sidonius had perceived his fitness 
 for the post. At some stage in the proceedings an 
 address had to be given to the people of Bourges, and 
 
 1 Ep. vii. 5. 
 
440 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Sidonius as the bishop most responsible for the 
 selection was naturally called upon to give it. The 
 address was popular and much talked about, and 
 displays at once Sidonius in the new position of a 
 bishop. It is the sermon of an accomplished orator 
 who has given up all the popular illustrations from 
 heathen mythology, and, basing his remarks on Holy 
 Scripture, writes with simplicity and directness, stating 
 plainly his reasons for the choice he had made. Soon 
 after it was delivered he had a request from Perpetuus, 
 bishop of Tours, 1 for a copy of it, and Sidonius, in a 
 letter he writes to him, sends him also a copy of his 
 sermon, and tells him how he had dictated it during 
 two watches of a summer night. 2 He wrote also to 
 Euphronius of Autun 3 to inform him of what he had 
 done at Bourges and the reason for his action. 
 
 On the main road between Clermont and Bourges 
 were two large country houses of which both the 
 owners were friends of Sidonius. 4 One of them, 
 Germanicus, had built a church near his house at 
 Chantelle le Chateau, and had asked Sidonius to come 
 and consecrate it. He was a man of the highest rank 
 among the people and was now over sixty years of age. 
 What happened when he was there Sidonius does not 
 tell us, but on his return he wrote to Vectius, the 
 owner of the other chateau in the neighbourhood, and 
 asked his kind offices for the good of Germanicus. The 
 latter was a fop notwithstanding his mature age, and he 
 always desired to appear young, and Sidonius was grieved 
 to notice the attention he gave to his personal appear- 
 ance, his fastidiousness about his dress, and the care he 
 took to keep his limbs supple and to appear youthful 
 " praeditus sanitate juvenili solam sibi vindicat de senec- 
 tute reverentiam." Sidonius wishes Vectius to use his 
 influence and try and break Germanicus off these 
 
 1 Ep. vii. 9. 
 
 2 At the request of Perpetuus he wrote an inscription for the basilica which 
 he had just built in honour of St. Martin, Ef. iv. 18. 
 
 3 Ep. vii. 8. * Ej>. iv. 13. 
 
xiv SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS 441 
 
 nauseous vanities. " Urge him to think more of 
 religion, for then he will acquire extra vigour in an 
 innocence which is new to him. Though he is old in 
 years yet he will become young by his virtues, and 
 since there is scarcely any one who has not some secret 
 fault to bewail, by this satisfaction to public feeling he 
 will in a way expiate the sins while he recalls to him- 
 self the commission of them. The father of a priest, 
 the son of a bishop, if he is not himself a saint, then 
 he is like a rose tree which, born of a rose and pro- 
 ducing roses, and holding the middle place between the 
 flowers which it has produced and which produced it, 
 is covered with thorns of which one can compare the 
 wound they make to the injury made to the soul by the 
 sin which has been committed." 
 
 The next year or two were years of great anxiety, 
 in which we have few letters and those chiefly in 
 reference to the threatened invasion of Auvergne. 1 
 Writing to Ecdicius of the guerilla war which already 
 was going on all round, he tells him also how he had 
 been engaged in teaching the Arvernians oratory and 
 poetry in Latin, and in trying to induce them to give 
 up the rudeness of their Celtic speech. To Magnus 
 Felix, 2 however, he writes in the old style. " You 
 remain a long time," he says, c< without writing to 
 me, and in this we each follow our old habit. I go on 
 chattering and you keep a wise silence. Your carefulness 
 to fulfil your duties in regard to others makes me 
 recognise in you as a kind of virtue that you do not 
 allow yourself such sort of recreation as correspondence 
 provides. What is the matter ? Will you not allow 
 your ancient friendship to break through this obstinate 
 silence of yours, or will you not realise that it is a cruel 
 thing not to reply to an old chatterer ? There you are 
 in the depths of your library or your office, and you 
 expect my feeble letters, and as you always must perceive, 
 I have a greater propensity for writing than any talent 
 
 1 Ep. Hi. 3. 2 Ep. Hi. 7. 
 
442 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 for it," and then he proceeds to enquire as to Licinianus' 
 progress in the peace negotiations. 
 
 At some time after his return from exile and his 
 visit to Euric at Bordeaux, Sidonius had urgent need to 
 go to Toulouse. He could travel now in Aquitaine 
 since he had made his peace with the king. Maximus, 
 one of the officers of the palace of Euric at Toulouse, 
 had apparently lent to Turpion, the father of Turnus, 
 a sum of money of which the interest had now reached 
 a sum equal to the capital. Turpion had been greatly 
 inconvenienced by this debt, and had asked Sidonius to 
 enquire of Maximus as to repayment, and as Turpion 
 was now dead * Sidonius writes to tell the son the details 
 of this visit. Maximus had formerly kept great state, 
 and had been wont to show to and to receive from the 
 family of Sidonius every hospitality. When Sidonius 
 arrived at Toulouse there was Maximus ready to receive 
 him. Sidonius at once, however, noticed a complete 
 change in him. " His whole environment, his modesty, 
 his candour, and his language all betokened a religious 
 change. His hair was cut short, his beard was worn 
 long. There were no feathers on his bed, no purple 
 on his table. He received me with sincerity but with 
 frugality, and he had nothing on his table but vegetables. 
 If there were any delicacies they were for his guests, and 
 not for him. When we rose from the table I asked 
 him, in a whisper which the servants could not over- 
 hear, which of the three orders he had adopted. Was 
 he a monk, or a priest, or a penitent ? He replied that 
 he had lately, and in spite of his own protests, but at 
 the urgent request of the people, been made Bishop of 
 Toulouse." 
 
 The next group of letters shows us the extraordinary 
 influence which Sidonius was able to exert on behalf 
 of the Catholic Christians in the kingdom of Euric. 
 Ruricius, bishop of Limoges, had been exiled by the 
 Visigothic king, and on Sidonius fell the burden to 
 
 1 Ep. \v. 24. 
 
xiv SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS 443 
 
 provide for his flock. Between Ruricius and Sidonius 
 there had been a most sincere intimacy, and the former 
 panegyrist of the emperor comes before us in a new light 
 in the letter which Ruricius wrote to him and he wrote 
 to Ruricius. 1 " I desire," says Ruricius " I desire, my 
 teacher, to be fed with your food, to drink at your 
 fountains, to be filled at your feast. . . . Nor does 
 food fail him whose pasture is the Word. Pray, I 
 beseech you, pray for a wandering sheep and bring him 
 back from the pastures of this world to the fold of the 
 Lord, for I trust that he who has obtained the merit of 
 being your disciple may by your prayers become a sheep 
 of Christ's fold." To Ruricius, Sidonius is the seer 
 or bishop, " fratri Sidonio videnti Ruricius," and he says, 
 " I recall how often as I heard you preach you told us 
 how we could not be cleansed from our sins unless we 
 should confess our faults and so purge our consciences. 
 For who, I do not say can attain to, but even seek for, 
 forgiveness unless he adds to his petition an acknow- 
 ledgment of the offence, since sin demands forgiveness 
 and not forgiveness sin," and then he goes on to 
 declare the nature of his offence. 2 Sidonius had lent 
 a book to Leontius, and Ruricius had obtained the book 
 from Leontius and had read and copied it. He hopes, 
 therefore, he will forgive him, for as he reads, he says 
 he seems to hear the words of Sidonius, and he is 
 sure that Sidonius would not desire such instruction 
 to cease. But an event had occurred which demanded 
 Sidonius's attention. Elaphius of Rodez had built a 
 baptistery, and Ruricius was not there to consecrate it, 
 and Sidonius was asked to fulfil the place of the absent 
 bishop, and responds with alacrity. 3 " Get ready a 
 great feast," he writes to Elaphius, " and arrange lots 
 of seats for the tables. By every road a huge crowd 
 should come to you. All people of quality have made 
 up their minds to make the journey as soon as they 
 
 1 Rur. Ep. i. 9 j Vienna Corpus S. E. xxi. p. 362. 
 2 Rur. Ep. i. 8. 3 Ep. iv. 15. 
 
444 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 know the day for the dedication. For the baptistery 
 which you have built, you tell me, is ready for con- 
 secration. You invite us to the solemn festival you 
 by your wish, and us by reason of our spiritual office. 
 Many you invite officially, all by reason of their faith. 
 It is indeed an admirable thing that you should build a 
 new church at a time when others dare not even repair 
 the old ones. It remains for us to wish that as you 
 accomplish your desire so you may also fulfil the 
 promises which they make to God that you will do the 
 like for others in happier days, and that not in secret, 
 but openly and in public. I trust that better times are 
 coming, and that Christ will grant me my prayer and 
 that of the people of Rodez, that we may be able also 
 to offer for them our eucharistic sacrifices as to-day 
 they erect for us their altar. Lastly, though the 
 autumn drawing to a close shortens the days, though 
 the leaves as they fall in the forest strike a warning 
 note on the ears of the traveller, though the castle to 
 which you invite me is difficult of access, surrounded by 
 rocks and cliffs which remind us of the Alps and is nigh 
 unto the region of snow, yet God being our Guide, 
 we will cross the steep sides of your mountains, we will 
 not fear either the rocks at our feet or the snow lying 
 above us, . . . For even if there was no solemn duty 
 to call us, you deserve, as Cicero says, that for your sake 
 alone we should visit Thespae." 
 
 Pharetrius, a priest of Rodez, had sent a letter to the 
 exiled Ruricius by Ulfilas, a Goth, to tell him what 
 Elaphius had done, 1 and Sidonius had apparently received 
 from Ruricius a letter of thanks, for he writes to him 
 and tells him how he forgives entirely his larceny in 
 copying the book he had borrowed from Leontius, and 
 says it is to his advantage because the copy belongs to 
 him, and all who learn from the copy will thank Sidonius 
 for the gain. As for Ruricius, he must take care not 
 to judge his friend wrongly and imagine that he would 
 
 1 Ep. \\. 1 6. 
 
xiv SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS 445 
 
 in any way be annoyed at the fact of his copy. 1 There 
 are two other letters of Sidonius to Ruricius, in one of 
 which he commends to Ruricius his own bookseller, 2 
 whom he had found thoroughly trustworthy, and who 
 takes to Ruricius a copy of the Heptateuch and another 
 of the Prophets ; and in the other letter he encourages 
 him in his reading, 3 and in a friendly way reproves 
 him for the excessive way in which he had praised 
 his learning. 
 
 We must venture to give one more letter of Sidonius, 
 because it links Sidonius with a leader in a movement 
 that was to change the face of Gaul Remigius of 
 Rheims, who had been for some years bishop in Belgica 
 II., and was, with Aegidius and Syagrius, the emblem 
 of Roman authority in the north-east of Gaul. The 
 letter again refers to the habit 4 which men had of 
 copying the books which they had borrowed. 
 
 " One of our citizens," he writes to Remigius, " went 
 to Belgica. I know the man, but I do not know the 
 object of his journey. That, however, does not matter. 
 Arrived at Rheims he quickly got the better of your 
 copyist or your librarian. Either by money or by 
 friendships he obtained, in spite of them, a copy of 
 your declamations. On his return, all proud of his 
 rich collection of manuscripts, although I was disposed 
 to buy them, he made me a present of them, which 
 was all the better for us, seeing that there was nothing 
 wrong in the transaction. From the very beginning 
 I have been anxious, and those with me who cultivate 
 letters, to acquaint ourselves with your lectures, to 
 learn the greater part by heart, and to copy out the 
 whole of them. We are openly and unanimously or 
 opinion that few people to-day could write after this 
 fashion. In fact there are few orators and perhaps no 
 one who knows so well to take up a subject and 
 
 1 Cf. the story of the Psalter copied by St. Columba from a Codex lent him by 
 St. Finnian, which is given as the reason for his departure from Ireland to lona. 
 Fowler's Adamnani *vita 5. Columbae, p. Ixii. 
 
 8 Ef. v. 15. 9 Ep. viii. 10. 4 Ep. ix. 7 j Greg. T. H. F. ii. 31. 
 
446 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 arrange it and describe it with such art as yourself. 
 One notices what justice there is in the examples you 
 address, what accuracy in your quotations, what fitness 
 in your epithets, what elegance in your metaphors, 
 what weight in your evidence, what richness of language. 
 The stream of your elegance rolls on. There is passion 
 in your peroration. It is as if a thunderbolt struck us. 
 The framework of the discourse is strong, and the 
 argument is severely logical, while the alterations on 
 the point of view are happily arranged without causing 
 the stream of the narrative to flow less steadily, or 
 be less harmonious in arrangement. Your words add 
 such grace to the narrative that one is never checked 
 by inelegant expressions, and your courtly language 
 never seems to falter. Your sentences, softened and 
 well rounded off, resemble the surface of a crystal 
 or an onyx which allows the finger to glide over it, 
 unless the nail is arrested by any the smallest scratch or 
 the tiniest crack. One more remark. There is not 
 an orator of to-day whom in ability you do not surpass 
 and easily vanquish. Therefore, I almost fear, lord 
 pope, lest this priceless gift of so rare an eloquence 
 pardon me the remark should fill you with pride. 
 But as your conscience is as pure as your language 
 you ought not to blame us. We know how to praise 
 that which is well written if we have not ourselves 
 written anything that is worthy of praise. Cease then 
 in the future to disdain our judgment, for there is 
 nothing in it of malice or satire. But if you postpone 
 to enrich our sterility by your eloquent dissertations, 
 we will waylay the steps of the robbers, at our instiga- 
 tion the hands of burglars will openly ransack your 
 portfolios, and there, though all to no purpose, you 
 will realise you have been robbed, if to-day you do 
 not listen to and grant our prayer and accept our 
 compliments. Condescend, lord pope, to remember us 
 in your prayers/' 
 
 It is difficult to estimate Sidonius's relationship to 
 
xiv SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS 447 
 
 monasticism. It does not seem to attract him, and 
 yet he writes of it whenever he happens to refer to 
 it in a most sympathetic manner. There was no great 
 monastery in his diocese, if indeed we can tell the 
 extent of that diocese. Monasteries of some kind or 
 other are said to have existed at Clermont, Riom, 
 Issoire (St. Cyrque), Brioude, Theclade, Cambiodoloc, 
 Randan, and Mirandere. Once Sidonius writes to an 
 Abbot Chariobaud, 1 of whom we know nothing but 
 that he had written to Sidonius about some servants 
 of his who had been captured, and says the servants 
 would be sent back to him, and he asks him to 
 remember him in his prayers, and sends him a hood 
 to wear at night and in cold weather when he is 
 saying his Offices. 
 
 On another occasion he writes concerning a monas- 
 tery which Abraham, a monk from the banks 2 of 
 the Euphrates, had established. Probably it was the 
 monastery of Cyrque at Issoire. Abraham the founder 
 had lately died, and his successor Auxanius was, on 
 account of bodily health, unfit to govern the monastery 
 successfully, nor had he courage to correct the inmates 
 even when he saw wrong being done. Auxanius had 
 written to Sidonius for advice, and the bishop wrote 
 to Volusianus to act as overseer of the monastery, to 
 assist by his advice the delicate abbot, and he also 
 says that in his opinion the oriental discipline which 
 Abraham had introduced was not suitable for the place, 
 and recommended Volusianus to put it aside and 
 introduce the statutes of the monastery of Lerins or 
 those of Grigny near Vienne. Earlier in his life, and 
 perhaps before he had become a bishop, he wrote to 
 Domnulus, 3 the friend of St. Hilary of Aries, and one 
 whom Majorian had regarded among the four greatest 
 
 1 Ep. vii. 16. 
 
 2 Ef. vii. 17 ; cf. also Greg. T. H. F. ii. 21. 
 
 3 Ep. iv. 25. Domnulus was an African who retired to Aries in the time of 
 St. Hilary, and became quaestor of the empire. Honoratus of Marseilles refers to 
 Domnulus with Eusebius and Silvius as renowned for learning and eloquence. 
 
448 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 poets of the age, and told him of the elevation and 
 consecration of a certain John as bishop of Chalon, 
 and he hopes that if he has concluded his visit to the 
 monasteries of the Jura, he will rejoice at the success 
 of the settlement at Chalon. Yet it will be found that 
 Sidonius, if he has not much to say about monasteries, 
 is respectful in what he says. His greatest friends 
 among the bishops had been monks, and some were 
 still living a monastic life while they performed the 
 office of a bishop. But monasticism was outside the 
 life of Sidonius. It is a lay movement which he is 
 ready to help, and for which he has every respect. 
 He is content to patronise it. 
 
 The friends of Sidonius were right in their estimate 
 of the value of the letters of Sidonius. They were 
 too good to be allowed to perish, and it is due to 
 them that we now possess them. At the request of 
 Constantius of Lyons, 1 Sidonius drew up about A.D. 477 
 his first collection, which consists of ten letters and a 
 prefatory letter to his friend Constantius, in which 
 Sidonius tells him that he had taken Pliny and 
 Symmachus as his models, and had endeavoured to copy 
 them. He considered it to be beyond his powers to 
 imitate Cicero. This first collection was so welcome 
 that his friends desired yet more, and probably in A.D. 478 
 he published an enlarged edition containing six other 
 books of letters, and ending in another letter 2 to 
 Constantius. Then came a request from Petronius, 3 
 a lawyer of Aries, which drew from Sidonius another, 
 the eighth book, consisting of fifteen letters with an 
 introductory note to Petronius, at whose wish he had 
 collected them. 4 Finally, Firminus of Aries asked him 
 to imitate Pliny and complete his collection in nine 
 books, and so we possess another book of fifteen letters 
 
 Majorian gathered to his court in Gaul the four celebrated poets Domnulus, Sidonius, 
 Lampridius, and Severianus. Domnulus was wont to visit the monks of Condate, 
 and John had been a monk there before he was chosen bishop of Chalon. 
 
 1 Ep. i. i. a Ep. vii. 1 8. 
 
 3 Ep. viii. i. 4 Ep. ix. 16. 
 
xiv SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS 449 
 
 with a letter of explanation to the friend at whose 
 instance he had issued it. 
 
 It was unlikely, however, that a talent for easy 
 composition, such as Sidonius possessed, would be con- 
 fined merely to letter writing. He was known to 
 his contemporaries in two other characters as a hymn 
 writer and as the composer, if not of a liturgy, yet of 
 special prefaces for use in the eucharistic Office. 
 
 At the end of his letter to Firminus 1 he sent his 
 friend a poem or hymn in honour of St. Saturninus 
 written in the style and on the model of the Periste- 
 phanon of Prudentius. His contemporary as a hymn 
 writer was his great friend Claudianus Mamertus, the 
 brother of the Bishop of Vienne, 2 whose hymns he told 
 him he was in the habit of singing. Beyond the hymn 
 to St. Saturninus, however, we have no knowledge of 
 his skill in this direction. 
 
 In a letter which he wrote to Megethius, a bishop 
 of some unknown See, and who is claimed as Bishop of 
 Belley, 8 Sidonius remarks that he had often considered 
 whether he should send him what he had more than 
 once asked for, the Contestations 4 or Prefaces which he 
 had drawn up for use in the service of the Church, and 
 now he sent them to him asking his opinion on them 
 while he apologises for his presumption. 
 
 The Office or Liturgical Form, whatever it was r 
 which he drew up soon became popular in Auvergne, 
 and Gregory of Tours is said to have brought out what 
 seems very like a new edition. 5 The latter tells us how 
 that once when Sidonius was about to celebrate the 
 divine Office in the chapel of the monastery of St. 
 Cyrque, some one unknown to him removed the Missal 
 
 1 Ep. x. 1 6. 2 Ep. iv. 3. 
 
 3 There is a Megetius in the lists of the bishops of Belley whom P. Sirmond 
 identifies with this Megethius ; but it is more than doubtful whether any such See 
 existed in the fifth century. In the Notitia (M. G. H. ix. part i. p. 598), we have 
 mention of Castrum Argentariense in the province of Maxima Sequanorum, and Belley 
 is said to occupy this site. No bishop of Belley appears among the signatories of the 
 Council of Epaon 517, nor is the town mentioned by Gregory of Tours. But cf. 
 Longnon, Ge'og. de la Gaule, p. 230, and Gallia Christiana, xv. p. 60 1. 
 
 4 Ep. vii. 3. 5 H. F. ii. 22. 
 
 2 G 
 
450 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 from the altar, and yet Sidonius was able to continue 
 the service so readily and correctly that the worshippers 
 imagined that an angel and not a man was officiating. 
 The Office or Missae, however, are unfortunately lost, 
 and the memory only remains of the deep devotion and 
 the excellent singing of the Bishop of Clermont when 
 he celebrated in Auvergne the solemn mystery of our 
 faith. 
 
 It is through Sidonius that we are able to place in 
 their right perspective many events in connection with 
 the Church in Gaul in the fifth century. If he en- 
 riches our knowledge by what he has told us he puzzles 
 us by what he fails to tell us. Not a word about the 
 great controversy between Vienne and the Papal See, 
 not a word about those Gallican councils which Leo 
 and his predecessors had ordered and which we certainly 
 know were held. His silence concerning the Council of 
 Aries A.D. 475 may possibly be accounted for, since 
 Auvergne had just been annexed by Euric, and Sidonius 
 may have been under guard at Clermont, or have 
 already been on his way to exile in the fortress of 
 Livia. One would have thought that in his letters, in 
 which he seems to mention every possible event of 
 his age, he could not have avoided those incidents in 
 the lives of his contemporary bishops which fill so 
 many pages of the history of the Church. That he 
 is silent concerning them surely proves that they have 
 occupied too important a place in our judgment. It 
 is not always that the significance of a controversy is 
 recognised by those who take part in it. We see 
 in it the origin of a great development, and therefore 
 perhaps overestimate the details of it. But what if, as 
 he once promised, Sidonius had told us of the labours of 
 St. Anianus at the siege of Orleans l and of the great 
 overthrow of Attila ! What if he had told us of that 
 gathering of Gallican bishops when Germanus 2 was 
 
 1 Ef>. viii. 15. 
 2 Cf. Beda, H. E. i. 17, and Constantius, Vita Germani, i. 19. 
 
xiv SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS 451 
 
 sent to aid the Church in Britain against the efforts of 
 the Pelagians ! What if he had told us of the decrees 
 of the Council of Chalcedon, and those efforts to teach 
 the younger clergy the dogmas of the Catholic faith 
 in which we may believe the Symbol of St. Athanasius 
 had its origin ! Yet in Sidonius we see a side of 
 Christian life rarely depicted in the chronicles of the 
 age. All his life he is a man of the world. Endowed 
 with rare intellectual gifts and ample riches there came 
 to him the call to serve, as a bishop, the Church in 
 which his early life had been trained in charity and 
 in purity of morals, and he served it, not by discarding 
 all that God had given him, but by using those gifts 
 to the greater glory of the Master whom he served. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 FATHERS OF THE GALLICAN CHURCH 
 
 IT would be a very imperfect narrative of the Church 
 in Gaul in the fifth century which failed to tell of the 
 lives and labours of St. Hilary and St. Caesarius of 
 Aries, St. Germanus of Auxerre, St. Lupus of Troyes, 
 and St. Mamertus of Vienne. It was an age that 
 needed great men, and certainly the independence, if not 
 the very survival, of the Church through this terrible 
 period may be said to be due to the work which these 
 great men accomplished. Their labour spans the century 
 and carries us from the heyday of the Roman power, 
 through the crisis which witnessed the downfall of the 
 empire in the West, to the time when the Prankish 
 authority was supreme through the whole of Gaul. 
 One has only to consider the events of the century, the 
 political revolution, the barbaric invasions, the power- 
 ful Visigothic and Burgundian kingdoms established in 
 Gaul, always zealous for the Arian creed, and always 
 suspicious of the orthodox bishops, the controversies in 
 the Church itself, and that struggle against the aggres- 
 sions of the Papacy which laid the foundation of Gallic- 
 anism, to realise the greatness of those men who were 
 able to accomplish so much, and who handed down to 
 subsequent ages the Christian faith unsullied by heresy, 
 and an ecclesiastical organisation that only required 
 peace to allow of rapid extension. Of the five whose 
 names we have mentioned three certainly received their 
 early training in the monastery of Lerins, and the sub- 
 
 452 
 
CH.XV FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 453 
 
 sequent admiration for monastic austerity which pre- 
 vailed in Gaul was largely due to the example which 
 these men had set. 
 
 Hilary, like his great teacher Honoratus, seems to Hilary of 
 have sprung from a noble family of Belgica prima. 1 In Arles * 
 some way he was related to Honoratus, while through 
 his sister Pimeniola he had Lupus of Toul, the future 
 bishop of Troyes, for his brother-in-law. He is said 
 to have been born about A.D. 400, and, therefore, must 
 as a little child have been carried off from his home in 
 Belgica in hurried flight before the invasion of January 
 407. His biographer, Honoratus, who afterwards be- 
 came Bishop of Marseilles (A.D. 475-492), describes 
 him as of noble birth and good circumstances, and 
 though the invasion must have deprived him of much 
 of his wealth, he certainly recovered his estates and was 
 regarded generally as wealthy. 2 Of his early life we 
 know nothing, though it is said that he had every pros- 
 pect of worldly success, and he had no idea of taking 
 holy orders much less of becoming a monk. It was 
 the work of his kinsman Honoratus which accomplished 
 this conversion. Hilary seems to have been living in 
 the south of Gaul, and Honoratus visited him on several 
 occasions, and endeavoured by many arguments 8 to in- 
 duce him to give up his worldly ambitions. Then he 
 made his desire an object of prayer, and accomplished 
 by that means what otherwise would have been beyond 
 his power. So about the year A.D. 424 Hilary sold his 
 estates to his brother, gave the money to the poor, and 
 forsaking the world, became a monk of Lerins under his 
 celebrated kinsman, Abbot Honoratus. Into this new 
 
 1 Our knowledge of Hilary comes from various autobiographical remarks con- 
 cerning himself which he gives us in his sermon on the life of Honoratus, Migne, 
 P. L. 1. p. 1250, and also from the life of Hilary written by Honoratus, afterwards 
 Bishop of Marseilles, and contained in this same volume. 
 
 2 It is clearly the wish of the biographer to magnify the sacrifice which Hilary 
 had made, but we must remember that in 407 Belgica prima had been ravaged by 
 the Vandals, Sueves, and Alans, and Hilary seems to me in the light of a refugee 
 who afterwards got back his lands and sold them to his brother for what they were 
 worth. 
 
 8 Cf. Honoratus, Vila Hil. cap. 3. 
 
454 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 life Hilary threw himself with ardour, his austerities were 
 excessive, and he soon won the admiration of his fellow- 
 monks. His abilities, however, were above the average. 
 He was a born teacher, and the recluse, Eucherius of Lero, 
 afterwards Bishop of Lyons (A.D. 435-451), committed 
 to him the education of his son Salonius, who in A.D. 
 441 became Bishop of Geneva. In A.D. 426 Honoratus 
 was chosen as Bishop of Aries, and Hilary went with 
 him as a companion, and to aid him in his educational 
 work there. But having seen him settled at Aries, the 
 desire to return to Lerins became so strong that within 
 the year he went back, 1 and not until Honoratus him- 
 self had gone to Lerins for him could Hilary be induced 
 to return to the capital and continue the work which 
 Honoratus had assigned him. He returned, however, 
 to Aries, on August 25, 427, and for a year and a half 
 devoted himself to his new tasks, and before Honoratus 
 died,*.*?. January 1 6, 429, the latter signified to the people 
 who came to see him that he wished, and recommended 
 to them, as his successor, his youthful colleague Hilary. 
 As soon as Honoratus was dead Hilary prepared to 
 return to Lerins, and withdrew himself from the con- 
 course of churchmen that had assembled for the funeral 
 and for the election of a new bishop. But it was known 
 that Hilary had left Aries, and was on his way back to 
 Lerins, and with the help of some soldiers whom Cassius, 2 
 the military commander at Aries, had ordered to assist 
 the citizens, he was followed and brought back and 
 formally chosen as bishop. 
 
 Within a year, and it was a year of great anxiety 
 and want, since the Visigoths, unable to capture the city, 
 had ravaged all the neighbourhood of Aries, 3 Hilary 
 began to display the remarkable gifts which won for him 
 the influence he soon began to exert. His life was simple 
 and austere and full of action. He founded a school 
 
 1 Cf. Honoratus, Vita Hil. cap. 4. 
 
 2 Ibid. cap. 6 " illustris Cassius qui tune praeerat militibus." 
 
 3 Aries was besieged by the Visigoths in 425, and the neighbourhood was ravaged 
 by them in 430. Cf. chapter xi. 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 455 
 
 for the training of the clergy, 1 and his eloquence as a 
 preacher and his skill as a teacher revived that spiritual 
 life which had languished under the worldly Patroclus. 
 Eucherius, whose admiration for him was very great, 
 dedicated to him his work De laude eremi* and the 
 references of Sidonius tell of the fame of his zeal and 
 oratorical power. 3 His work, however, was twofold. 
 He was the bishop of a diocese, and he had also certain 
 metropolitan duties as Archbishop of Aries, but he had 
 also descending to him from the powers conferred on 
 Patroclus by Pope Zosimus a somewhat indefinite super- 
 vision of the Church throughout the province of Gaul. 4 
 Living as a monk, he naturally provoked by his 
 austerities a section of the people of Aries, and his 
 fearless conduct, such as that which led him to reject 
 a pretorian prefect from communion 5 because he had 
 been unjust in his judgments, and his outspoken de- 
 nunciation of vice and wrongdoing, created trouble at 
 home, a bad preparation for his coming struggle with 
 Rome. He was incessant in the performance of his 
 diocesan duties, giving all he had for the relief of the 
 poor and for the redemption of slaves, going everywhere 
 on foot, and at times working as a common labourer in 
 the vineyards to make money for the sake of those in 
 need'. 6 In the great Pelagian controversy he has been 
 classed as semi-Pelagian, and probably he thought with 
 Eucherius, Faustus, 7 and his fellow-monks from Lerins, 
 and with those who came forth from the monastery of 
 Cassian at Marseilles. Prosper, 8 however, thought 
 
 1 Vita Mil. cap. 7. 
 
 2 Eucherius dedicated his work to Hilary while the latter was still a monk at 
 Lerins, and apparently in the year 427 when Hilary had retired from Aries to 
 enjoy again the solitude of the monastery ; cf. Vienna C. S. E. L. vol. xxxi. p. 177. 
 
 3 Sid. Apoll. Carm. xvi. /. 115. 
 
 4 Cf. Decree " Placuit apostolicae," March 22, 417. Caelestius also treated 
 Patroclus as the metropolitan of Gaul. The position was afterwards definitely 
 granted to the See of Aries. 
 
 5 Reference to this is made in Leo, Ep. x. and Vita Hil. c. 10. 
 
 6 Ibid. cap. 8. 
 
 7 Sidonius ut supra classes Hilary with Eucherius and Faustus. 
 
 8 Prosper, Ep. ad Aug., Migne, P. L. li. p. 74 " nam unum eorum praecipuae 
 auctoritatis et spiritualium studiorum virum sanctum Hilarium Arelatensem 
 
456 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 him orthodox and had a very high opinion of him and 
 Gennadius of Marseilles l is equally emphatic in his ad- 
 miration. Within a year of his consecration as bishop 
 he received a visit from Germanus, 2 bishop of Auxerre, 
 and a friendship was thus formed which lasted till death, 
 a friendship which had momentous consequences for 
 Hilary. Already in A.D. 428 3 Coelestine, in reply 
 to complaints from South Gaul, had written about 
 Honoratus' choice of monks, whom he designated as 
 strangers, for vacant bishoprics, and the policy of 
 Honoratus was followed by Hilary. In A.D. 432 he 
 chose the monk Theodore for the bishopric of Frejus, 4 
 and in 433 Maximus the abbot of Lerins for the 
 bishopric of Riez. In the creation of the archbishopric 
 of Aries it will be remembered that the action of Pope 
 Zosimus and Patroclus of Aries was met by the opposi- 
 tion of Proculus of Marseilles, Simplicius of Vienne, and 
 Hilary of Narbonne, who had hitherto acted in a quasi 
 metropolitan position because of the influence they had 
 obtained from the cities of their Sees. Zosimus afterwards 
 had accepted the decision of the Synod of Milan, which 
 assigned the four Sees of Vienne, Geneva, Grenoble, and 
 Valence to Simplicius, and the other Sees in the pro- 
 vince of Vienne to Patroclus. The claims of Proculus 
 of Marseilles over the dioceses of Narbonensis II. were 
 neither recognised nor denounced, and the position of 
 the Bishop of Aries was left somewhat indefinite. 
 Rome had not the power to organise the Church 
 in Gaul without the co-operation of the bishops of 
 Gaul. So Hilary found himself, as Bishop of Aries, 
 metropolitan of those dioceses in the province of Vienne 
 which did not belong to the Archbishop of Vienne, and 
 of the dioceses of Narbonensis II. whenever they could be 
 
 episcopum, sciat beatitude tua admiratorem sectatoremque in aliis omnibus tuae esse 
 doctrinae." 
 
 1 Genn. De vir. inlustr. no. 70 " vir in sanctis scripturis doctus, paupertatis amator 
 et erga inopum provisionem non solum mentis pietate sed et corporis sui labore 
 sollicitus." 
 
 2 Const. Vita Germany 7. 
 
 3 July 26, A.D. 420, "Cuperemus quidem." 4 Vita Hit. cap. ix. 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLIC AN CHURCH 457 
 
 recovered from the influence of Proculus of Marseilles. 
 But there were two other provinces as yet not provided 
 for, the provinces of Alpes Graiae and Alpes Maritimae. 1 
 For these no organisation had as yet been provided, and 
 naturally Hilary would at least regard the latter as 
 coming under his jurisdiction. In A.D. 439, therefore, 
 he summoned a Council to assemble at Riez 2 to con- 
 sider the validity of the consecration of Armentarius as 
 bishop of Embrun. Embrun was the capital of the 
 province of Alpes Maritimae, but it does not appear 
 that up to that date there were more than three 
 bishoprics in the province, i.e. those of Vence, Thorame 
 or Rigomagensium, and Cimiez. Armentarius had been 
 apparently consecrated by two of these three, an act 
 contrary to the canons of Nicaea. 3 The act, however, 
 was done in ignorance, and the submission of Armen- 
 tarius to his deposition by the council won from it 
 condolence and acquittal, and as a priest he seems to 
 have ministered for the rest of his life. Hilary, how- 
 ever, had established his position, and bishops from 
 Vienne, Narbonensis, and Alpes Maritimae had re- 
 cognised him as metropolitan. 
 
 The next step, however, is less intelligible. In A.D. 
 444 he paid a visit to his friend Germanus of 
 Auxerre. Auxerre was in the province of Lugdunensis 
 Quarta of which Sens was the capital, and therefore 
 as Bishop of Auxerre Germanus could have had no 
 metropolitan rights. In the neighbouring province 
 of Maxima Sequanorum, they found Chelidonius, 4 
 bishop of Besan9on, charged with a double taint in that 
 he had married a widow and had also as a layman 
 
 1 The Notitia Gall, assigns to the province of Alpes Maritimae, the towns of Digne, 
 Senez, Glandeve, Vence, Rigomagensium, Castellane, and Cimiez with Embrun as the 
 chief city. Of these towns there were bishops at this time at Cimiez, Vence, and 
 Rigomagensium, and Armentarius was apparently the first bishop of Embrun. Cf. 
 Duchesne, Pastes ep. i. p. 380. The province of Alpes Graiae contained the cities of 
 Maurienne, Aosta, St. Maurice, with Tarentaise as the chief town, of which towns 
 there were bishops at Aosta and Maurienne. 
 
 2 Cf. Mansi, v. 1189. Hefele, Condi. Eng. trans, iii. 157 gives us eight canons 
 of which the first five refer to the case of Armentarius. 
 
 3 Canon 8. 4 Vita Hi I. cap. 16. 
 
458 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 pronounced sentence of death in his judicial capacity. 
 Now we have no knowledge of any provincial organisa- 
 tion north of Vienne, and the Bishop of Aries had 
 been entrusted by the popes of Rome with a general 
 supervision over the whole of Gaul. But neither 
 Germanus nor Hilary could be regarded as com- 
 provincial bishops in the province of which Besan9on 
 was the capital. Hilary, however, took upon himself, 
 at a council which he held, probably at Besan9on, to 
 depose Chelidonius, since his consecration, for the 
 reasons already mentioned, had been invalid. But 
 Chelidonius resisted his authority and appealed 
 to Leo, bishop of Rome, and immediately after his 
 deposition went off to Rome. To Rome also in the 
 depth of winter and on foot went Hilary to uphold his 
 decision, and to obtain from Leo corroboration of his 
 efforts to organise and reform the Church in Gaul. 
 But the mind of Leo had been prejudiced against 
 Hilary. He had gone too far and had not consulted 
 sufficiently the Roman See. His efforts also for 
 morality and a stricter observance of ecclesiastical canons 
 had doubtless produced enemies, and complaints had been 
 sent to Rome which Leo seems too readily to have 
 believed. The exact sequence of these complaints cannot 
 easily be determined. 1 Leo, however, summoned a synod 
 at Rome to meet in 445, and was determined to treat 
 Hilary as the accused and Chelidonius as the injured 
 one. Hilary claimed that the papal See had no such 
 power. If the decision to which he and others at 
 Besangon had come to was not endorsed, it was to be 
 sent back to Gaul to be reconsidered. The papal 
 See had not the right to take up the case as from 
 the beginning, nor could Leo substantiate the reasons 
 
 1 The case of Projectus was known to Leo and therefore occurred before A.D. 
 444. Projectus was a bishop of Narbonensis II. and seems to have been so ill that 
 Hilary despaired of his life and consecrated a successor unknown to the sick bishop. 
 Projectus meanwhile recovered and appealed, if not to Rome, yet to his compro- 
 vincial bishops, and certainly the action of Hilary seems to have been very hasty. 
 No bishop of Die of this name occurs in the episcopal lists. Cf. Duch. Pastes ef>. 
 i. 227. 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 459 
 
 he gave for his action. In the synod, which Hilary, 
 with all deference, attended, he soon perceived that 
 he had already been condemned, and then his fearless 
 eloquence broke out in such a manner that the other 
 bishops were speechless, and Leo ventured to say that 
 his words were too terrible even for the ears of laymen. 
 Meanwhile Leo had treated Hilary as under arrest, and 
 when he boldly defied his watchmen and left Rome in 
 the depth of winter, Leo spoke of him as if he had fled 
 clandestinely and had acted in an underhand matter. 
 Then followed the appeal of Leo to Valentinian III. 1 
 and the rescript addressed to Aetius the Patrician, who 
 was then in Gaul, 6th June 445, which we have already 
 considered, and which treated all opposition to the 
 decision of the Bishop of Rome as an offence of which 
 the imperial officers should take cognizance, and em- 
 powered the latter to arrest and send to Rome all who 
 refused obedience to the apostolic See. Hilary had 
 reached Aries probably in March 445, and was prepared 
 to submit and make his peace now that Leo had 
 called in the secular authority. The papal decree 2 
 followed the rescript of Valentinian within a month. 
 It was addressed to the bishops of the province of 
 Vienne, and contained nine statements and judgments. 
 Whoever should resist the power of St. Peter breaks 
 the law of the Church, since the Church draws its 
 strength from the prince of the apostles. Hilary is 
 such a disturber of the peace of the Church. 
 Chelidonius is absolved of the charges made against 
 him, and is to be reinstated in his episcopal See. 
 Projectus whom, when ill, Hilary had deposed, and in 
 whose place he had appointed another, was also to be 
 reinstated. The consecration of provincial bishops was 
 the privilege of the metropolitan. No one was to be 
 consecrated except on festivals and with the consent 
 
 1 The Rescript to Aetius " Certum nobis," Haenel, Leg. nov. col. 172, is given 
 us by Babut, Le Concile de Turin, p. 178. 
 
 2 The decree of Leo comes in Ep. x. Ad episcopos per provinciam Viennensem 
 constitutes, " Divinae cultum," Opp. Leonis, Venet. 1754, vol. i. col. 633. 
 
460 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 of both clergy and laity. Hilary was deprived of all 
 metropolitan power and dignity in the province of 
 Vienne. No one was to be repelled from communion 
 except on serious grounds. Provincial councils were 
 not to be held without the consent of Leontius the 
 senior bishop. 
 
 Thus by the ablest bishop that had as yet occupied 
 the apostolic See was the ablest and most active of the 
 bishops of Gaul humiliated and insulted before the 
 eyes of those comprovincial bishops whose admiration 
 and devotion for him was of long standing and re- 
 mained yet unshaken. Rome had now shown what 
 he was to expect who ventured to question its authority. 
 
 Nor did Hilary venture to resist. On receipt of 
 this decree he sent Ravennius, one of his priests, and one 
 who afterwards succeeded him as bishop, to Leo to 
 intercede for his clemency, and to assure him of his 
 penitence, and soon after two bishops of the province 
 Nectarius and Constantius, 1 were despatched to support 
 Ravennius in his mission. But Leo was not a man to 
 relent. The very foundations of his claim to authority 
 had been challenged and he could not lightly overlook 
 such an act. To satisfy his injured honour, therefore, 
 he cast confusion on the organisation of the Gallican 
 Church. Aries was now to be reduced to a simple 
 bishopric, and Vienne was to receive a jurisdiction larger 
 than ever it had exercised before. In January 450 2 
 Leo wrote to the bishops in Gaul, and to those in the 
 province of Vienne, to say that he had revived the 
 ancient privileges of the archbishopric of Vienne, and 
 had deprived Aries of all those which his predecessors 
 had conferred on it. Ingenuus also, who had succeeded 
 Armentarius as bishop of Embrun was treated by him 
 as a metropolitan, and reproved for not acting as such. 
 
 1 Vita HiL cap. 17. Nectarius and Constantius are said to have been bishops of 
 Digne and Die, but Digne does not appear to have had bishops at this time, 
 Duchesne, Pastes If. i. 282 and 227 j and no bishop of the name of Constantius 
 appears in the list of the bishops of Die. 
 
 2 6th Jan. 450 "Quali pertinacia," Mansi, vi. 431. 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 461 
 
 But the organisation of the Church could not so easily 
 be changed. Many of the bishops hesitated, and some 
 still clung to Aries, and it is not easy to see what would 
 have occurred had Hilary lived for some few years 
 longer. For two years or more he accepted the position, 
 honoured by the civil authorities and respected by 
 the bishops of Gaul. The strain, however, had been 
 too great. He had undermined his health by his 
 asceticism and his strenuous life, and on 5th May 449, 1 
 still a young man under fifty years of age, he passed 
 away. In his last illness he realised his approaching 
 death, and exhorted his people to peace, and informed 
 them that he would die at the eleventh hour. Then, 
 surrounded by his faithful flock, glad and rejoicing, he 
 journeyed forth to the heavenly kingdom. The body 
 was laid to rest in the basilica of St. Stephen amid 
 universal signs of grief, even the Jews showing their 
 respect for the deceased by singing in the Hebrew 
 tongue 2 the psalms for the funeral office. 
 
 Immediately after the funeral twelve comprovincial 
 bishops wrote to Leo to ask confirmation and approval 
 of their election of Ravennius to the vacant bishopric. 
 Leo's reply is dated 22nd August 449, 3 and soon after 
 he wrote to Ravennius himself, congratulating him on 
 his elevation, and in a second 4 letter called upon him 
 to act in reference to a certain Petronianus very much 
 as if he was once more metropolitan as well as bishop 
 of Aries. Nor indeed did the organisation which 
 Hilary had helped to establish really break down. 
 Ravennius was not consecrated by Simplicius of Vienne, 
 but by the comprovincial bishops of the province of 
 Aries, and Ingenuus did not act as metropolitan, but 
 took his place in this act with his brother bishops. Did 
 then Leo realise that he had failed ? We cannot say, 
 
 1 Vita Hil. and Usuard, 5th May. 
 
 2 Vita Hil. cap. 22 " Hebraeam concincntium linguam in exsequiis honorandis 
 audisse me recolo." 
 
 8 " Justaet rationabilis," Mansi, v. 1428. 
 
 4 " Provectionem dilectionis " and " Circumspectum te," Mansi, v. 1430. 
 
462 BIRKBECK LECTURES ' CHAP. 
 
 but the letter he wrote in January was followed in 
 May l by another in which he again deprived Vienne 
 of the honour he had lately conferred on it, and re- 
 established the archbishopric of Aries. Vienne was to 
 have the four dioceses of Valence, Grenoble, Geneva, 
 and Tarentaise. The rest of the dioceses in the 
 province of Vienne were again to come under the 
 jurisdiction of Aries. 
 
 Germanus Our knowledge of central Gaul in the first half of 
 of Auxerre. ^ e fifth century is unfortunately very scanty. The 
 invasions of the Vandals, the revolution of Constantine, 
 the uprising of the Bagaudae, the devastation wrought 
 by the Huns, tell us only of destruction, with an 
 incidental note of the Church life in the south-east 
 of Gaul. The number of Roman citizens from the 
 districts north of the Rhone and Loire who found a 
 refuge in Marseilles 2 or in Narbonensis II. lead us 
 to imagine a country that had been terribly wasted, 
 and that had, at least until the time of Aegidius 3 and 
 Syagrius, seen little settled government and no lasting 
 prosperity. In this and in the following biographical 
 narrative we have to consider the progress of the 
 Church in the province of Lugdunensis IVth, or 
 as it came to be called from its metropolitan city, 
 Lugdunensis Senonia, a province full of towns 4 of 
 such special interest, that we regret all the more the 
 obscurity that hangs over them during this period. 
 From the time of St. Martin they seem to have been 
 almost lost to sight, and we must not be misled by 
 the fine sounding phrase of the apostolic secretary who 
 
 1 " Lectis diiectionis vestrae," Mansi, vi. 76. 
 
 2 Honoratus of Lerins, Salvian of Marseilles, Hilary of Aries, and Caesarius of 
 Aries all came from Belgica Prima or Germania Prima. 
 
 3 Aegidius as a Roman officer seems to have reigned through the influence he 
 possessed over the Franks. His orderly government lasted from A.D. 461 for 
 about four years, and his son Syagrius reigned after him until his defeat by 
 Chlodovech in 486. 
 
 4 The Notitia (M. G. H. vol. ix. part ii. p. 587) gives us eight cities in the 
 province of Lugdunensis Senonia or Lugdunensis Quarta, as it is sometimes called, 
 i.e. Sens, Chartres, Auxerre, Troyes, Orleans, Paris, Meaux, Nevers, and adds a 
 centra Nandonis which, however, may be the same as Nevers. 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 463 
 
 addressed his bishop's letters " to the bishops of Gaul," 
 and to all the bishops in Gaul and in the Seven 
 Provinces, 1 as if in addition to those to whom the 
 bishops of Rome wrote there were many others 
 labouring quietly in 'their dioceses, and leaving not 
 a single line of record even in an age so full of stirring 
 events. It is significant that, with the exception of 
 Victricius, 2 the missionary bishop of northern Gaul, 
 the bishops of Rome had not, during these years, a 
 single correspondent beyond the Seven Provinces. 
 This silence will compel us, therefore, to examine care- 
 fully our evidence, and the light which the life of St. 
 Germanus throws upon the affairs of the Church in 
 this province. We have, indeed, a life of this bishop 3 
 said to have been written at the request of Patiens, 
 bishop of Lyons, by Constantius, a priest of his diocese, 
 and a friend and correspondent of Sidonius Apollinaris. 4 
 This is quoted by Gregory of Tours, 5 but certainly 
 that which goes under his name to-day has been largely 
 interpolated, 6 and probably by the priest Stephen who, 
 at the end of the sixth century, wrote at the request 
 of Bishop Annacharius (572-605) a life of St. Amator, 
 the predecessor of Germanus. 7 We have, however, 
 
 1 There is a decree of Anastasius, Oct. 7, 398, "cunctis Germaniae et Burgundiae 
 episcopis," that is certainly a forgery j cf. Mansi, iii. 940. In Jaffe's Regesta, i. p. 43, 
 Kaltenbrunner marks it with a f. Innocent refers in his letter to Victricius A.D. 404, 
 Mansi, iii. 1032, to his consacerdotes, but gives no names, and the term is clearly 
 only official. Boniface, June 13, 419, writing to the fourteen bishops of the Seven 
 Provinces who had written to him, adds officially, "et ceteris episcopis per Gallias 
 et septem provincias constitutes," Mansi, iv. 394, and again Coelestius writing on the 
 semi-Pelagian trouble addresses certain bishops "et ceteros Galliarum episcopos," 
 Mansi, iv. 454. 
 
 2 Cf. Leonis M. Op. iii. 204 ; and Constant, p. 746. 
 
 3 The life is given us in Surius, De probatu sanctorum hhtorm, iv. p. 416, and 
 Acta 55. July 31. It has two dedications, the one to Bishop Patiens of Lyons, who 
 had urged him to write it, and the other to Bishop Censurius of Auxerre, who had 
 asked for a copy of it. The life has been, however, largely interpolated with extracts 
 from the life of St. Genovefa, and the sections 18-37 concerning Mamertinus are also 
 extracts from later writings. Cf. Duchesne, Pastes ep. ii. 437. 
 
 4 Sidonius addresses four letters to him, i.e. Ep. i. i j iii. 2 j vii. 18 j viii. 16. 
 
 5 Greg. T. lib. ii. De miraculh S. Juliani, 29. 
 
 6 Cf. Narbey, Etude critique sur la vie de S. Germain d'Auxerre, Paris, 1884, ^nd 
 Duru, Bibliographic de la vie de G. d'A. par Constance, 1850 ; and Biblioth. del'Ecole 
 des Chartesy xliii., 1882, p. 556. 
 
 7 The life of St. Amator was composed by Stephen, an African priest, at the 
 
464 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 no information concerning the diocese earlier than this 
 biography of Constantius. Of the three cities which 
 form the central portion of Lugdunensis IVth, Sens, 
 Auxerre, and Troyes, we have no historic information of 
 any of their bishops earlier than Agraecius of Sens (A.D. 
 474), Amator of Auxerre, who died in 418, and Lupus 
 of Troyes (433-479)- 1 It is true that names attached 
 to the canons of earlier councils are said to have been 
 the names of men who held these bishoprics, but the 
 statement is as speculative as the lists of names them- 
 selves are unreliable. There was a tradition at Auxerre 
 that the See was founded about A.D. 257 2 by a bishop 
 named Peregrinus, who was martyred under the persecu- 
 tion sanctioned by the Emperor Aurelian, and certainly, 
 when Aurelian marched to Orleans he probably went 
 via Auxerre. 3 Another tradition, which seems more 
 likely, tells of the martyrdom of a little boy Justus 
 by the Vandals and Alans in the invasion of A.D. 407.* 
 We come, however, to reliable history in the episcopate 
 of St. Amator. In the opening decade of the fifth 
 century he is the only bishop apparently in this 
 province, 5 and his connection with St. Patrick, the 
 
 request of Annacharius, bishop of Auxerre 573-655. There are not a few phrases 
 in it which are copied directly from Constantius' life. 
 
 1 Cf. Duchesne, Pastes ep. iii. 391, 427, and 447. The two earlier lists of the bishops 
 of Sens belong to the ninth century, and though there is some evidence in favour 
 of SS. Savinian and Potentian, nothing is known of any bishop earlier than 
 Agraecius. At Auxerre there seems to be some evidence for Valerian, yet all the 
 names are traditional until we come to Amator. In the ninth century they 
 possessed biographies of four bishops, and under Bishop Wala they set themselves 
 to compile a Liber pontificalis for the diocese. At Troyes Amator stands at the 
 head of the list which was compiled in the twelfth century, and I am inclined to 
 regard him as the bishop of Auxerre, and to say that this district was divided into 
 two dioceses by Germanus, who, about A.D. 426, obtained the election of Lupus to 
 that of Troyes. The lists attached to Sardica and other councils, and the 
 identification cf the names on them with similar names on these local traditional 
 lists, seems to be too hypothetical to be regarded and used as historical. 
 
 2 Duchesne, Pastes ep. ii. 430. Ruinart, Acta sincera, p. 1 5, ed. 1859. There seems 
 to have been an attempt at the end of the sixth century to create for Senonia a 
 group of evangelists similar to those mentioned by Gregory of Tours at the time of 
 the Decian persecution. 
 
 3 Allard's Les Demises Persecutions du troisieme siecle, pp. 242-43. 
 
 4 Acta SS., Oct. 18} cf. Tillemont, S. Germanus, xv. 5. 
 
 5 At Nevers and Meaux the episcopal lists do not go back to the early decades of 
 the fifth century. At Chartres, Paris, Troyes, Sens, and Orleans there are only 
 late catalogues with all the early names purely traditional. I am inclined to believe 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLIC AN CHURCH 465 
 
 apostle of Ireland, 1 and his influence on Germanus* 
 give him a position which we cannot ignore. There 
 are, indeed, details in his life written by the priest 
 Stephen, such as the mention of his little church near 
 the gate of the city which was called the Bathing 
 gate, in the street which led down to the Yonne, and 
 of his being buried in the ancient cemetery outside the 
 city walls, which can hardly have been invented. 3 A 
 little later in time, he probably saw St. Martin, 4 on one 
 or two occasions, when the latter journeyed from Tours 
 to Trier, and in his moral courage he certainly followed 
 the example of that apostolic bishop. 
 
 Germanus, a native of Auxerre, is said to have been 
 the son of wealthy parents, Rusticus and Germanilla, 
 whose estate of Epponiac lay close to the city. 5 He 
 was educated in the schools of Gaul and perhaps at 
 Autun and Lyons, and went afterwards to Rome to 
 study and practise in the law courts. There he met 
 and married a Roman lady of wealth and influence 
 Eustochia, and soon after he was appointed Dux* 
 Tractus Armoricani et Nervicani, and had command 
 of the forces in Lugdunensis II., III., and IV. Nomin- 
 ally he was a Christian, but a custom prevailed, a 
 survival from heathen times, of showing respect to a 
 certain pear tree in the centre of Auxerre by hanging 
 in it trophies of the chase, and Germanus was wont, 
 on his return from a hunt, to hang the head of the 
 animal on this tree. The practice was certainly pagan, 
 and one to be abolished, if Christianity was to prevail, 
 
 that after the invasion of 407 a great refounding of the Church was necessary in 
 the north of Gaul. 
 
 1 Bury's St. Patrick, p. 48 ; Muirchu's Vita, p. 2/z. The place is called 
 Ebmoria, and the bishop Amathorex. Amator seems to have ordained Patrick 
 priest, and Germanus consecrated him bishop after the death of Palladius. 
 
 a Constantius, Vita German}, in Surius, p. 358. 
 
 * Tillemont, xv. 5. 
 
 4 St. Martin probably passed through the diocese of Auxerre on his way to Trier 
 in 385 and 386. 
 
 5 Constantius, Vita, i } cf. Surius, 3ist July. 
 
 6 Tillemont, xv. 8, describes the district as I. and II. Aquitania, I. and II. 
 Lugdunensis and Senonia or Lugd. IV. There was an officer " Dux tractus 
 Armoricani et Nervicani," Not. dign. ed. 1608, p. 114, and for the district, p. 174. 
 
 2 H 
 
466 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 and Amator endeavoured to induce Germanus to give 
 up the custom. His influence, however, could not 
 prevail, and at last, when Germanus was away hunting, 
 Amator ventured to cut down the tree and burn it. 1 
 When he returned Germanus was furious with the 
 bishop, and drove him out of the city, and even ventured 
 to threaten his life. Amator, however, won respect 
 from him by his courage. He told him he recognised 
 his power, but he was not worthy of martyrdom, and 
 the bishop and the duke seem soon to have become 
 friends again. Then Amator decided on yet another 
 victory. He went to Autun, where the prefect Julius 2 
 happened to be, and asked permission to ordain the 
 military commander priest. He had felt that his own 
 death was drawing nigh, and he desired that Germanus, 
 should succeed him. At first Julius refused the request, 
 but afterwards he gave his consent, and Germanus, 
 duke of the Armorican Tract, soon after became a 
 priest of the diocese of Auxerre. His next step in 
 the selection of Germanus as his successor was 
 readily accepted by his flock. He had called all 
 to come with him into the church, and then bade all 
 who wore arms to retire, seeing that the place of 
 assembly was the house of prayer. Amator perceived, 
 however, that Germanus, instead of retiring, had put 
 aside his weapons, and then he told his people how he 
 felt sure that his life was drawing to an end, and that 
 he desired to have Germanus as his successor. 3 The 
 choice of Amator was readily accepted by the Christians 
 of Auxerre, and when Amator died, i.e. the following 
 May 4i8, 4 Germanus was regarded as bishop elect. 
 He had still, however, duties to perform as a civil 
 officer of the empire, and these he fulfilled for some 
 little time after his consecration. 
 
 1 Const. 2. 
 
 2 We have a Rescript of Valentinian, i/th April 418, addressed to Agricola, 
 prefect of Gaul. So Julius could not have been prefect unless the prefect's name 
 was Julius Agricola. 
 
 3 Surius, 3 ist July, p. 359. 4 Acta SS., ist May ; Molanus' Usuani, p. 74. 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 467 
 
 Of his early work as a bishop we know nothing, but 
 the influence he seems to have exerted, and the fame he 
 won in Gaul in after years, show that the choice of 
 Amator was well made. He comes before us first of 
 all in reference to the efforts made by the orthodox 
 Christians in Britain to extinguish the Pelagian heresy 
 in their midst. Agricola, 1 the son of a bishop, Severianus, 
 was active in teaching these doctrines, and apparently 
 the British Christians found themselves unable to answer 
 his arguments. Beda's 2 narrative, however, is largely a 
 quotation from Constantius' life of Germanus, and we 
 get no farther than the endorsement by the great English 
 historian of the eighth century of the statement of the 
 biographer of the fifth. He tells us that the Christians 
 in Britain appealed to the bishops in Gaul, and at a 
 synod which they held, 3 Germanus of Auxerre and 
 Lupus of Troyes were requested to undertake this 
 mission of help to the neighbouring provinces. Un- 
 fortunately for this narrative, we have an earlier writer, 
 Prosper, 4 who says that the mission was undertaken at 
 the request of Pope Coelestine and at the suggestion of 
 the deacon Palladius. Prosper was actually in Rome 5 
 the year after this commission had been given to 
 Germanus, and must have known what had occurred 
 there concerning it. We know nothing of a council 
 such as that which Constantius mentions, and since 
 Coelestine commissioned Palladius the following year to 
 go himself to the help of the Christians in Ireland, 6 
 
 1 Nothing is known of this Agricola or of his father, Bishop Severianus. Fastidius, 
 another " Britannorum episcopus," was also by some regarded as a Pelagian. Cf. 
 Gennadius, De vir. inlust. 56. 2 Beda, Hist, cedes, i. 17-21. 
 
 3 Ibid, 17 "quara ob causam collecta magna synodo quaerebatur in commune 
 . . . atque omnium judicio electi sunt apostolici sacerdotes Germanus Autissiodorensis 
 et Lupus Trecasenae civitatis." Cf. Const. Vita^ i. 19, who calls it " numerosa 
 ynodus." 
 
 4 Prosper, sub anno 429, " sed ad actionem Palladii diaconi papa Coelestinus 
 Germanum Autissiodorensem episcopum vice sua misit." This statement cannot be 
 ignored. It is contemporary evidence of the highest kind and undoubtedly proves 
 that Coelestine warmly approved of the proposal of the Gallican bishops. 
 
 5 Cf. Coelestine's letter to the Gallican bishops, " Apostolici verba," Mansi, iv. 
 454, and Vita Prosper'}, Migne, P. L. li. p. 30. 
 
 6 Prosper, sub anno 431, "ad Scotos in Christum credentes ordinatur a papa 
 Coelestino Palladius et primus episcopus mittitur." 
 
468 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 there is nothing unlikely in this interest he is said to 
 have taken in the affairs of the Church in Britain. It was 
 in the autumn of A.D. 429 that Germanus and Lupus 
 arrived in Britain, and then after much preaching and 
 instruction they met at Verulam the advocates of 
 Pelagianism. After these heretics had explained their 
 doctrines, 1 Germanus and Lupus spoke so effectively that 
 the Pelagians were reduced to silence, and the people 
 rejoiced in the victory which was gained for the Catholic 
 faith. Then Germanus and Lupus paid a visit to the 
 tomb of St. Alban, 2 and Constantius tells us that they 
 carried away with them some earth which was still 
 saturated with the blood of the martyr. During the 
 winter and early spring Germanus continued his work 
 of teaching and preaching, and many Britons who had 
 hitherto been heathen offered themselves for instruction 
 and expressed a desire for Christian baptism. So 
 Germanus and Lupus were occupied in the work of pre- 
 paring these converts for baptism on the eve of the 
 coming Easter festival. 3 But the British were not only 
 troubled by heresies, they were harassed also by Saxon and 
 Pictish invaders, and the help of Germanus was sought in 
 a contest very different from that in which he had been 
 engaged. Easter came with all the joy it brought to 
 the new converts, and meanwhile a battle became 
 imminent between the Christian islanders and the 
 heathen invaders. Tradition says that the scene of the 
 conflict was Maes Garmon, 4 near Mold in Flintshire, 
 Germanus had to make use of the experience he had 
 gained as duke of Armorica. He and Lupus drew up 
 
 1 Beda, ut supra, who quotes verbatim from Constantius, Fita, i. cc. 22 and 23. 
 
 2 Const, i. 25 j Beda i. 18 ". . . sacerdotes beatum Albanum martyrem, acturi 
 Deo per ipsum gratias petierunt . . de loco ipso ubi beati martyris eftusus erat sanguis, 
 massam pulveris secum portaturas abstulit." 
 
 "' Beda, i. 20 "maxima exercitus multitudo undam lavacri salutaris expetiit et 
 cclesia ad diem resurrectionis dominicae pondibus contexta componitur," etc., Const. 
 i. 28. 
 
 4 Maes-Garmon, cf. Bright's Early Eng. Ch. Hist. p. 19. This identification has 
 its difficulty, for it presumes that the Saxons had sailed round to the west of the 
 island. I am inclined to locate it in Northumberland. The British as they retired 
 into Britannia II. carried with them these traditions and would in the course of 
 time locate them in Wales. 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 469 
 
 his followers into two bands and bade them await the 
 advance of the Picts. Then from the one rose up in 
 loud tones the words of the Easter antiphon u Alleluia, 
 Alleluia, Alleluia," and as the other took up the chant 
 the Picts and Saxons began to fear an ambush. Fear 
 soon developed into a panic, and without striking a 
 single blow Germanus won this strange and effective 
 victory, since the Picts and Saxons took immediately to 
 flight, and many were drowned in their attempt to 
 cross the neighbouring stream. 1 
 
 The Alleluia victory won by Germanus of Auxerre 
 is among the few real historic events we know of in 
 reference to the Church in Roman Britain. British 
 chroniclers 2 have filled up the narrative of the work of 
 Germanus with much legendary matter, but there can be 
 no doubt concerning this double victory, not only over 
 the forces of religious error, but also over the Pictish 
 and Saxon invaders. The return of Germanus and 
 Lupus to Gaul took place immediately afterwards, and 
 Germanus seems to have gone at once to Aries to consult 
 with Auxiliaris, 3 the prefect. Was he commissioned by 
 the Roman settlers in Britain to appeal for help from 
 the prefect ? Did he go to report what he had done to 
 such a gathering of bishops as Hilary 4 could collect to 
 hear him ? Did he hope to gain somewhat from the 
 mighty Aetius for the wretched people of Senonia, who 
 were ground down by taxes and joining one by one the 
 marauding bands of the Bagaudae ? 5 Aetius was cer- 
 tainly at Aries that year, and had been engaged in driving 
 off the Visigoths whom Theodoric had brought for the 
 
 1 Beda, i. 20 " passim fugiunt, arma proiciunt . . . plures etiam timorc praecipites 
 flumen, quod transierant, devoravit." 
 
 2 Hist. Ncnnii, cap. 30, 31, 50, on the miracle Germanus wrought on the wicked 
 king Benli and how he preached to Guorthigirn. 
 
 3 Surius, 3 ist July, 34. 
 
 4 I am not inclined to reject the idea that Germanus' mission had some connexion 
 with a synod at Aries, and therefore with St. Hilary ; and their journey to Aries may 
 have been as much to report to the bishop of the capital of Gaul as to see the prefect 
 Auxiliaris. 
 
 5 Prosper Tiro, 4.34 " omnia paene Galliarum servitia in Bagaudam conspira- 
 vere . . ." and the next year in consequence of Aetius' campaign " Bagaudarum 
 commotio conquiescit." 
 
470 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 capture of the Gallic capital. 1 Whatever the object, 
 the visit brought him into close contact with Hilary, and 
 the acquaintance soon ripened into a lifelong intimate 
 friendship. Soon after Hilary was to return this visit, 
 and the affair of Besan9on we have already described. 
 
 As Bishop of Auxerre Germanus not only exercised 
 remarkable influence, but also seems to have laid the 
 foundation of a permanent diocesan organisation. He 
 is said to have founded a monastery on the other side 
 of the Yonne, opposite the city of Auxerre, 2 and Gregory 
 of Tours 3 tells of a tradition in Auvergne, how that 
 when Germanus was at Brioude the inhabitants consulted 
 him as to the day on which the festival of St. Julian 
 should be observed. He called them to join him in 
 prayer, and afterwards he told them that the festival 
 should be kept on the 28th of August. The incident 
 is at least proof of the influence exerted by Germanus 
 in districts beyond his own diocese. Thirty years 
 afterwards, when Sidonius would write in praise of St. 
 Aignan, 4 bishop of Orleans, he could say no greater 
 praise of him than that he was equal to Lupus and not 
 inferior to Germanus. 
 
 The Pelagian heresy which Germanus had en- 
 deavoured to suppress in Britain seems to have 
 broken out again in the next quarter of a century, 
 and so he was again summoned to cross over to 
 the island and repeat his former efforts. In A.D. 
 447, therefore, he set forth, 5 and with him on this 
 occasion, not Lupus of Troyes, but a disciple of his, 
 Severus, of whom we know only that he had just been 
 chosen Bishop of Trier, and that Trier had just been 
 plundered by marauding Franks and perhaps Huns. 6 
 
 1 It was the ambition of Theodoric to capture Aries, an ambition which was 
 realised by Euric. Tdat. Chron. A.D. 43 1 " per Aetium comitem haud procul <le 
 Arelate quaedam Gothorum manus extinguitur." 
 
 2 Surius, ut supra, gist July. 3 Greg. De miraculis S. Juliani, cap. 29. 
 
 4 Sid. Apoll. Ep. viii. 15 "sanctum Anianum . . . Lupo parem, Germanoque non 
 imparem." 
 
 5 Beda, H. E. i. 21 ; Const. Vita Ger. ii. 2. 
 
 6 Nothing is known of this Bishop Severus. Trier had been plundered and 
 devastated four or five times during the last fifty years and the church life must have 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 471 
 
 His second visit to Britain was equally successful, and he 
 returned to Auxerre to find yet further work for him to 
 undertake and a longer journey now demanded of him. 
 The Armoricans, over whom in former days he had 
 been the imperial officer, were in revolt on account of 
 the oppression of the Roman tax-gatherers, and Aetius 
 had commissioned Eocharich, the leader of a band of 
 Alans settled near Orleans, to undertake their punish- 
 ment. 1 So Germanus started forth, in A.D. 448, to 
 plead before Valentinian at Ravenna on behalf of the 
 Armoricans. His journey was on foot, and for com- 
 panion he had only a faithful deacon. As they journeyed 
 over the Alps they fell in with a band of labourers, 2 of 
 whom one, through age and weakness, was staggering 
 under a heavy burden. When they came to a river 
 which had to be crossed Germanus took up the burden 
 and carried it across, and then returned, and lifting the 
 aged workman on his shoulder, carried him safely across 
 the stream. At Milan 3 his biographers tell us of miracles 
 wrought by him and of an assembly of bishops which 
 gave him welcome. At Ravenna * he was received 
 with respect by Valentinian and with friendship by his 
 mother, the princess Placidia. His plea, however, could 
 hardly be entertained, since news had come of another 
 outbreak of the Armoricans, and the sense of failure 
 together with the fatigue of the journey weighed heavily 
 on him. He told the bishops who were wont to come 
 to him that he knew he was going to die, 5 and at 
 Ravenna, on 3ist July 449, he passed away. Two 
 months afterwards, as Gregory of Tours also tells us, 
 his body was brought back to Auxerre, 6 and buried in 
 the chapel of St. Maurice attached to the cathedral 
 church, and Constantius, Gregory, and Euric are careful 
 
 been very intermittent. Cf. Haupt's Triersches Zeitbuch, A.n. 447, " die Hunncn 
 plundern die Stadt Trier." 
 
 1 Mons. Bayet, Hist, de France, it. pt. i. p. 91. 2 Const. Vita Germ. ii. 9. 
 
 3 Ibid. cap. ii. 4 Ibid. cap. 12. 
 
 5 Surius, 3 1st July, 20 ; Const, ii. 19. Cf. the English Life in Lives of thz 
 English Saints. 
 
 6 Greg. Lib. de g lor. confess, cap. 41 and 73. 
 
472 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 to tell us of miracles that were wrought upon the faithful 
 who visited his tomb. Nor in Britain was his fame 
 held in less esteem. 1 In the Mass of St. Germanus 2 we 
 are told how that Germanus, sent by St. Gregory, shone 
 forth as a lantern and pillar to Cornwall and bloomed like 
 roses and lilies in the meadow of the church of Aledh. 3 
 In honour of the former duke of the Armorican Tract not 
 a few churches in Cornwall and in Wales are dedicated, 4 
 and the custom for long prevailed in Wales, when the 
 company sat at meat, for one to break off the corner 
 of the loaf for the relief of the poor, and ask a blessing 
 on it from any religious man who might be present. 5 
 Lupus of Lupus, bishop of Troyes, is known to us not only 
 from a very early biography, 6 but also from the testi- 
 mony of many contemporary writers who praised his 
 wisdom, his sanctity, and his remarkable influence. He 
 was another recruit for the monastery of Lerins from 
 the north-east of Gaul. 7 He is said to have been born 
 at the end of the fourth century, and was the son of 
 a wealthy nobleman, Epirocus of Toul, and had a 
 
 1 Cf. Borlasc, Age of the Saints, pp. 31, 32. 
 
 2 Cf. Bn. Forbes' preface to the Arbuthnott Missal, p. Hi. Haddan and Stubbs 
 i. 696 " de quorum collegio iste Germanus episcopus a sancto Gregorio Romanae 
 urbis Apostolus ad nos missus, lucerna et columna Cornubiae et praeco efulsit." 
 
 3 Aleeth or Aleth, the See which afterwards came to be called from its bishop 
 St. Malo. 
 
 4 St. German's, Cornwall. The next parish to Mold in Flintshire has the name 
 Llanarmon. Rees, Welsh Saints, p. 125. Cf. also "Life of St. German," Lives of 
 English Saints. 
 
 6 Giralci. Cambrensis, Descriptio Camb. i. 18 "unde a tempore quo Germanus . . . 
 tie quolibet pane apposito primum fractionis angulum pauperibus donant." 
 
 Secreta, Missa S. Germani : " Concede nobis omnipotens et misericors Deus ut haec 
 nobis salutifera oblatio j et intercedente beato Germano confessore tuo atque episcopo, 
 a nostris reatibus liberet et a cunctis tueatur adversitatibus j per Dominum." The 
 Martiloge, H. B. Soc. vol. iii. p. 119: " At Raven : ye deposicyon of saynt German, 
 bysshop of antissiodour, a noble man borne and more noble in vertue and myraclee, 
 31 July." 
 
 This early biography is given us by Krusch in the Vitae Sanctorum, vol. iii. p. 
 1 20 of Script, rer. M.ero'v. in M.. G. H. On this is based the biography given by 
 Surius, De probatis SS. hist. iv. 390, and that by Boschius, Acta S5. July, vol. vii. 
 p. 69. Krusch regards this life as fictitious and written in the interest of Troyes 
 rather than on behalf of the cult of St. Lupus, but Tillemont, xvi. p. 127, and 
 Boschius only regret its brevity. Duchesne, Pastes ep. ii. p. 449, relies on it and 
 remarks: " les objections de M. Krusch centre 1'antiquite de ce document sont 
 dpourvues de toute valeur." Duchesne considers this life as nearly contemporary 
 "sa vie a etd ecrite peu apres." Krusch assigns it to the eighth or ninth century. 
 
 7 Vita Lupi, i " fuit namque ex urbc Leocorum." 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLIC AN CHURCH 473 
 
 brother Vincent who also is said to have become a 
 bishop. Having lost his parents in his infancy he was 
 brought up by his uncle Alisticus, and showed great 
 industry and progress in his studies, and attained con- 
 siderable proficiency in eloquence and literature. He 
 married Pimeniola, the sister of Hilary of Aries, 1 and 
 so became not only related to him, but also to Honoratus, 
 then Abbot of Lerins. His great wealth seems to have 
 consisted of estates in Maxima Sequanorum. We do 
 not hear of any children the fruit of this marriage, and 
 after some years of married life he and his wife decided 
 to devote themselves to religion and to cease to live 
 together. Lupus thereupon went to Lerins to see 
 his relative Honoratus, and his brother-in-law Hilary, 
 and Pimeniola disappears from notice. At Lerins he 
 stayed for one year, 2 training himself and acquiring 
 habits of Christian asceticism, and preparing for that 
 life for which he clearly had a vocation. Then in 427, 
 when Honoratus became Bishop of Aries and took to 
 live with him his disciple Hilary, Lupus retired from 
 Lerins and went to Macon. 3 The decision to return 
 to the province of Maxima Sequanorum is said to have 
 been due to his wish to sell his possessions there and 
 to distribute the proceeds among the poor, but his sub- 
 sequent action does not seem to show that he had 
 severed all links with the land of his inheritance. 
 Immediately after this return, however, he came under 
 the notice of Germanus of Auxerre and was chosen 
 Bishop of Troyes, 4 an effort having been evidently 
 made by Bishop Germanus to reorganise the Church in 
 Senonia by the creation of a new bishopric with its seat 
 at Troyes. He had hardly, however, got to work in 
 this new position when there arrived the mission from 
 the Church in Britain, asking for help in their resistance 
 of the prevailing Pelagianism. He with Germanus 5 
 
 1 Vita Lupi, I " Piminiola, sancti Hilarii Arelatensis episcopi germana." 
 
 2 Ibid, "cmenso anni curriculo." 3 Ibid, "regrediens ad oppidum Matisconc." 
 4 Ibid, "ad urbis Trecassinae ilico pontificium raptus." 
 
 8 Beda, H. E. i. 17 "omnium judicio elccti sunt apostolic! sacerdotes G. ct L.'' 
 
474 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 was chosen by the Gallican bishops to go to Britain, 
 and so in the autumn of 429, after a very short period 
 of work there, he left his new diocese for this effort in 
 Britain. 
 
 The story of the mission we have already told in 
 reference to the life-work of Germanus, and with the 
 exception of the strategy which led to the Alleluia 
 Victory, which was certainly due to Germanus, little is 
 related which would distinguish the zeal and the 
 eloquence of the one from that of the other. Germanus 
 was the leader of the band and Lupus was his com- 
 panion, and when the company grew afraid at the 
 storm, during the passage from Gaul to Britain, Lupus * 
 aroused Germanus from his sleep that he might cheer 
 them in their alarm. 
 
 Soon after the festival of Easter 430 the bishops 
 returned, and Lupus again entered on the work of his 
 diocese. 
 
 Our next meeting with him is in reference to the 
 memorable invasion of Attila in 451. The cities of 
 the two Germanic and the two Belgic provinces had 
 often been attacked during the last half century by 
 tribes that had crossed the Rhine and had invaded Gaul, 
 and it is probable that later chroniclers have assigned to 
 the great Hunnish invasion some of those devastations 
 and burnings which probably belonged to earlier events. 
 The cruelty of the Huns was indeed proverbial, and 
 Gaul had already gained a painful experience of what 
 they could do when, but a few years before, as the 
 auxiliaries of Aetius, they had slaughtered the Bur- 
 gundians in South-East Gaul. 2 We must endeavour, 
 however, to realise the terror which the news of the 
 steady advance of this host must have created in those 
 cities which might lie in the course the Huns were 
 taking in Gaul. The Rhine had no sooner been crossed 
 
 1 Beda, H. E. i. 17. 
 
 2 Prosper Tiro, Chron., A.D. 436, " bellum contra Burgundionum gentcm 
 memorabile exarsit quo universa pene gens cum rege peretio (per Aetium) deleta." 
 Cf. Waitz, Der Kampf der Burgunder und Hunnen, i. pp. 3-10. 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 475 
 
 than they would have heard of the destruction of Stras- 
 burg, Speyer, Worms, and Mainz. 1 Then, apparently, 
 the force divided, and while one portion marched up 
 the Mosel and destroyed Trier, the other proceeded 
 down the Rhine, burnt the city of Coin, and made^ its 
 way through Germanica Secunda towards the second 
 Belgic province. Soon the news would reach them 
 that Tongres, 2 Arras, and Tournai had been destroyed. 
 Simultaneously at Eastertide Metz was delivered 3 to 
 the flames, priests and people being cut down in the 
 streets, and nothing left but a tiny chapel dedicated to 
 St. Stephen. One town only of the many attacked 
 had apparently been found too strong for assault, and 
 Laon 4 had been left to its unique good fortune, the one 
 city that had survived in the black track of the invaders. 
 Immediately after this the forces seem to have united, 
 and now it was the time on the one side for the 
 citizens of Troyes to tremble, and in the north-west 
 for the citizens of the little island city of Paris 
 to prepare for flight. Neither city, however, was 
 attacked. The Huns seem to have passed down the 
 valley of the Aube, and while devout Christians said 
 that Paris had been spared through the fervent prayers 
 of the Maid of Nanterre, 5 others at Troyes began to 
 praise the bishop 6 for their escape from certain death 
 at the hands of the Huns. The invaders were making 
 their way in a south-westerly direction towards the 
 Loire and advanced as far as Orleans. 7 Then came 
 
 1 Idat. Chron. sub anno xxviii. Valentin, iii j Prosper, sub anno 451, "sed cum 
 transito Rheno saevissimos ejus impetus multae Gallicanae urbes experirentur," etc. 
 
 2 Greg. T. H. F. ii. 5 ; M. G. #., Vitae SS. ae<vi Merwing. i. p. 83. 
 
 3 Greg. T. H. F. ii. 6 " in ipsa sancti Paschae vigilia ad Mettensem urbem reliqua 
 depopulando perveniunt . . . oratorium permansit illaesum." 
 
 4 Cf. Tillemont, Hist, des emp. vi. 1 50, who cites a life of S. Salaberge. 
 
 5 Cf. Vita Genovefac (Script, rer. Mero-v. iii. p. 219, 12), and Kohler's Etude 
 critique sur le texte de la <vie latine de Sainfe Genevie've, in vol. 48, Bibl. de i'Ecole des 
 Hautes-Etudes. 
 
 6 Vita Lupi, ut supra, 5 j cf. Beda's Mart., 29 July, " Depositio S. Lupi . . . 
 qui tempore Attilae qui Galliam vastabat sicut in hymno ejus canitur : 
 
 Dum bella cuncta perderent 
 orando Trecus muniit." 
 
 7 Vita Aniani (S. /?. M. iii. p. 160). 
 
476 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 their first serious check and the retreat of Attila, a re- 
 treat which seems to have been strategic and not the 
 recognition of a superior power. But the line of re- 
 treat brought Attila to Troyes, and now Lupus was, by 
 his personal influence, to his episcopal city, what Genovefa 
 had been, through her prayers, to Paris. The city lay 
 exposed to attack l without walls for its defence and 
 without arms for its citizens. A fate such as had be- 
 fallen Metz and Rheims seemed inevitable when Lupus 
 went forth to meet the mighty invader with his warriors 
 smarting 2 under the check at Orleans. The result of the 
 interview is the more remarkable, since Attila must have 
 known that behind him were the Roman legions led by 
 Aetius, the Burgundians under Gundiok, and the Visi- 
 goths under Theodoric. It is an historic instance of 
 the strange spiritual influence of a good man on a 
 savage nature and a lower civilization. Attila was at 
 once brought under the spell of his great personality, 
 and tradition says that not only did he spare the city 
 of Troyes, but he insisted that Lupus should come with 
 him and assist him with his prayers. 3 So apparently 
 Lupus was in the Hunnish camp during that three-day 
 conflict on the Mauriac plain, and certainly he ac- 
 companied Attila till just before he recrossed the 
 Rhine. Then Attila allowed Lupus to go in peace, 
 and the bishop immediately afterwards returned to 
 his flock. What actually happened at Troyes is un- 
 fortunately not recorded, and the action of Lupus is 
 very hard to understand. His biographer tells us 
 that when he reached Troyes 4 he found the people 
 much disturbed by what had happened and filled with 
 despair. They seem already to have forsaken their 
 town, for we cannot imagine the step which Lupus 
 
 1 Vita Lupi, 5 " . . . urbem patcntibus campis expositam nee armis munitam 
 nee muris." 
 
 2 Prosper Tiro sub anno, " insperata in Galliis clade accepta, furiatus Attila." 
 
 3 Vita Lupi, 5 "at ille feralis Attila et immitis fidem ejus altiori sensu suspiciens 
 pro incolumitatis suae statu et exercitus sui salute secum indicit iturum, Reni 
 etiam fluenta visurum, ibique dimittendum pariter pollicetur." 
 
 4 Ibid. "... vidit suorum desperatione turbatum.'' 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 477 
 
 took except on the theory of such a flight. Lupus 
 accepted the situation, and himself retired to the high 
 land near the ancient city of Alesia, and endeavoured 
 to rally his people around him. Mount Lassois, 1 where 
 he settled, is about forty miles south of Troyes, and is 
 in the province of Maxima Sequanorum, and in that 
 district which was now rapidly becoming Burgundian. 
 Did he despair of imperial protection in case of another 
 invasion, and put his faith in the tall, athletic Bur- 
 gundian ? Had Troyes no traditions of self-defence, 
 or had its ramparts really been laid low by the Huns, 
 while the people were spared at the intercession of 
 Lupus ? However, on Mount Lassois Lupus stayed 
 for two years, 2 and then finding that the citizens of 
 Troyes would not gather around him, he retired yet 
 farther to the south-west towards Macon, 3 where 
 certainly in former days he had considerable estates. 
 Here his biographer leaves him. We hear nothing 
 more of a return to Troyes, though at some time such 
 a return must have been made, and not a word more ot 
 the completion of his diocesan organisation. A few 
 remarkable cures which seemed miraculous, and at least 
 one more example of his strange personal influence, 
 a word or two about his three disciples Severus, who 
 afterwards became Bishop of Trier, 4 Albinus, who was 
 Bishop of Chalon, and Polychronius, bishop of Verdun 
 and the narrative ends. For another quarter of a cen- 
 tury he lived on and apparently settled in Troyes, but 
 we are left to the casual notice of a contemporary 5 or 
 
 1 Vita Lupij " ad monies perfugium Latiscone." Mons Lassois is in dept. Cote- 
 d'Or, cant. Vix-St-Marcel. Cf. Longnon, Atlas texte expl. it. 185. 
 ' 2 Ibid. " bienni temporis spatio commanens." 
 5 Ibid. " Matiscone se censuit transferendum." 
 
 4 For Severus cf. Beda, H. E. i. 21. He accompanied Germanus on his second 
 mission to Britain in 447. He can only just have been appointed Bishop of Trier 
 when he was driven out by the Huns or Franks. Cf. Haupt's Trierisckes Zeitbuch, 
 
 p. 22. 
 
 5 In A.D. 453 Talasius was elected Bishop of Angers, and that he might gain 
 information on various matters of ecclesiastical discipline wrote to Lupus of Troye* 
 and Euphronius of Autun. The questions related to the differences in the obser- 
 vance of the Christmas, Epiphany, and Easter Vigils, and the customs prevailing in 
 the dioceses of Autun and Troyes concerning the marriage of the clergy. The 
 
47 8 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 the uncritical licence of the hagiologist for a story which 
 hitherto had been so full of interest and of which we 
 can be no longer certain. Among the cures recorded 
 as worked by him was that on a poor paralytic woman 
 near Alesia, 1 another on Claudius, the son of a nobleman 
 Germanicus, and a third on the aged relative of the priest 
 Rusticus ; all these cases seem instances where a strong 
 spiritual influence brought back the power to move 
 and apparently the beginning of a revived vigour. 
 On another occasion a band of Alamans had attacked 
 the small village of Brienne le Chateau, 2 a few miles 
 north-east of Troyes, and had carried off a certain 
 number of captives. To rescue these Lupus went 
 directly to their leader Gebavrult, and induced him to 
 give back all the spoils of his late incursions. 
 
 Twenty years after the invasion of Attila, Lupus 
 was still Bishop of Troyes, and Sidonius Apollinaris had 
 been chosen Bishop of Clermont. To welcome him into 
 the ranks of the episcopate Lupus, now the aged bishop, 
 wrote, 3 and though we have not this letter, we have 
 the reply which Sidonius sent. He writes in a spirit 
 of sincere admiration 4 and respect. Lupus had been 
 a bishop for forty-five years, and is to Sidonius, the 
 father of fathers, the bishop of bishops, and another 
 St. James of his age, who as a sentinel from the high 
 places of his charity, and from a Jerusalem in no way 
 inferior to the first, surveys the members of the Church 
 of our God. He is his veteran chief, a Moses of a 
 later age, but in no way inferior to the real Moses, 
 and he begs of him to be his intercessor for him before 
 
 reply of these two bishops is given in Sirmondi, Condi. Gall. i. p. 122; cf. 
 Duchesne, Pastes ef. ii. p. 248 " commonitorium quod per diaconum Archontium 
 missum fuerat." 
 
 1 Vita Lupi, ut supra, 6 and 8. 
 
 2 Ibid. 10. Brigonenses, i.e. le Brenois ; cf. Longnon, ii. no. 
 
 3 Lupus' letter to Sidonius on his elevation to Clermont was given us in the 
 Spicilegium, v. 579, but Mons. Havet has proved that this is a forgery of J. Vigijier, 
 a priest of the oratory; cf. Havet, S^uest. me'rov. No. ii. 1890, Bibliothtque de I'Ecole 
 dts Charter 
 
 4 Sid. Apol. Ep. vi. i "cum post desudatas militiae Lirinensis excubias et in 
 apostolica sede novem jam decursa quinquennia," etc. 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 479 
 
 Jesus Christ, so that he may never offer strange fire 
 on the altar of God. 
 
 Writing to Count Arbogast of Trier, 1 who about 
 474 had consulted him on some points of Holy 
 Scripture, he bids him consult one more able than 
 himself to give advice, and nearer also to him, Lupus, 
 bishop of Troyes. To Prosper, bishop of Orleans, 2 
 he desired to say something in praise of his predecessor 
 Aignan, and he tells him he was the equal of Lupus 
 and not inferior to Germanus. About the same time 
 he writes to Sulpicius, 3 and states how Abbot Himerius, 
 who was just come to him from Troyes, and was on 
 his way to Lyons, had told him of the wisdom of 
 Lupus, that holy bishop without a doubt the first 
 of the bishops of Gaul ; and to Principius 4 he writes, 
 to introduce Bishop Antiolus, who he says had been 
 at Lerins with Lupus and Maximus. Two other 
 letters he also wrote on domestic matters. Lupus had 
 written to him concerning a priest of Troyes who had 
 left his wife and gone to Auvergne, and requested that 
 he would send him back, and Sidonius, in reply, sends 
 the man back, 5 pointing out to Lupus that the readiness 
 of the man's obedience shows his innocence of any 
 desire to do the woman an injustice. The other letter 6 
 refers to a woman captured by some highwaymen, and 
 taken and sold in the open market at Troyes. She 
 had afterwards taken refuge in Sidonius' steward's house, 
 and now the purchaser, a man named Prudens of 
 Troyes, claims to be her rightful owner. Sidonius 
 urges Lupus to reason with Prudens, and desires to 
 restore the woman to her lawful husband. In A.D. 427 
 Eucherius, 7 the hermit of Lero, and not yet Bishop of 
 Lyons, wrote to Hilary, then only a priest at Lerins, of 
 the " venerable " Lupus. Chosen while quite a young 
 man as Bishop of Troyes, he laboured on in the work 
 
 1 Sid. Ep. iv. 17. 2 Sid. Ep. viii. 15. 3 Sid. Ep. vii. 13. 
 
 4 Sid. Ep. viii. 14. 6 Sid. Ep. vi. 9. Sid. Ep. vi. 4. 
 
 7 Euchcrii De laude heremi (Vienna Corpus, vol. xxxi. pt. I. p. 192) "haec habuit 
 revercndi nominis Lupum qui nobis ilium ex tribu Benjamin lupum rettulit." 
 
480 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 of his diocese for more than fifty years ; some of the 
 letters of Sidonius were probably written in the year 
 477, and his death is said to have occurred in A.D. 
 47 9. 1 His biographer says he was bishop for fifty-two 
 years. 2 For him he was " of glorious memory," and 
 to us a character in this intricate history of the fifth 
 century, of which we know far too little. 3 
 Mamertus In the life of St. Aignan, 4 bishop of Orleans, it is 
 ^-^ t kat on his hurried journey in A.D. 451 from 
 Orleans to Aries, to implore the help of the Patrician 
 Aetius for his city then besieged by Attila, he stayed 
 by chance in Vienne, at the house of a wealthy and 
 influential citizen named Mamertus. At the time 
 Mamertus was seriously ill, nor does this early life of 
 the Bishop of Orleans suggest that he was as yet a 
 Christian. His wife, however, in despair for her 
 husband, welcomed the advent of the Christian bishop, 
 and begged his help for the restoration of her husband 's 
 health, nor would she desist from her prayers until he 
 had promised to visit the patient and implore God's 
 
 1 The day of his death is said to have been zgth July j cf. Beda's Marty 'rologium, 
 and Usuard, who copies Beda. 
 
 2 Vita Lupi, ut supra, 12 ". . . . annis quinquaginta duobus sacerdotio functus." 
 
 3 A critical study of the lists of bishops in the province of Sens as given us by 
 Duchesne, Fastes ep. ii. 389-475, makes it evident, I think, that we are only coming 
 to reliable names with Amator, who is said to have been Bishop of Auxerre in the first 
 quarter of the fifth century. Amator appears at the head of the lists of Troyes, and 
 before Germanus in those of Auxerre. It is in the later lives of St. Lupus and not 
 in that which we have quoted that he is said to have succeeded Ursus, and yet Ursus 
 was buried at Meaux, an unlikely event if he had been Bishop of Troyes. Amator 
 of Auxerre is clearly historical, and at his time there is not another bishop on the 
 lists of Sens, Troyes, Chartres, Orleans, Paris, Meaux, and Nevers, whose name is 
 other than absolutely legendary. History cannot be based on the identifications, 
 which are entirely guesswork, of the Martyrologies and the signatures of the 
 Councils. After Amator comes Germanus, and immediately after we arrive at 
 names which are historical, Lupus at Troyes, Anianus at Orleans, and Agroecius at 
 Sens. Neither Meaux nor Nevers were bishops' seats until the sixth century. The 
 earliest life of St. Genovefa brings her into supposed relationship with St. Germanus, 
 and after she has gained her influence over the citizens of Paris, then she tries to 
 arouse in them a reverence for the missionary bishop Dionysius, of the third century, 
 who had been martyred and buried near their city. There is not a word of a bishop 
 of Paris at the time, and it seems clear that in the middle of this century there was 
 no bishop. It was, I think, to Germanus of Auxerre that the province of Senonia 
 owes its ecclesiastical organisation, and the increase of that episcopate of which in 
 A.D. 418 he was the sole representative. 
 
 4 M.. G. H. vol. iii., Script, rer. Merov. p. 1 10 " ilia in parte erat quidam 
 homo nomen Mamertus adprime nobilis multum in omnibus rebus locupletus." 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 481 
 
 blessing on him. The recovery of Mamertus was a 
 proof of the efficacy of the prayers of St. Aignan, and 
 it has been assumed that this wealthy citizen of Vienne 
 was its future archbishop. His younger brother 
 Mamertus Claudianus was one of the four Latin poets 
 of the fifth century, the friend of Sidonius Apollinaris, 
 and a popular writer not only of hymns for use in 
 the service of the Church, but also of letters to his 
 friend, and of one or two theological tracts. 1 
 
 Of this elder brother's early life we really know 
 nothing. He with his brother seems to have had a 
 good education in classical history and literature, and 
 was evidently a good theological scholar. 
 
 Our first intimation of Mamertus as a bishop comes 
 to us from a letter written loth October 46 3, 2 by 
 Hilarus, bishop of Rome, to Leontius, archbishop of 
 Aries. Mamertus seems to have been for some time 
 Archbishop of Vienne, and to have acquired such an 
 influence as could not be shaken even by secular or 
 external ecclesiastical authority. It was a time of great 
 political ferment, which makes more unintelligible the 
 empty protest of the papal See. The age of Valentinian 
 the Third was over, and already three emperors had 
 fallen 3 victims of the caprice which had raised them to 
 the purple. In A.D. 458, the Emperor Majorian had 
 compelled the Burgundians to retire eastward from 
 
 1 Mamertus Claudianus is called by Gennadius, De <vir. inlust. 68 " episcopum 
 Viennensem," and in 84 "Viennensis ecclesiae presbyter." His book De stafu vel 
 substantia animae was written about A.D. 470 against the tract or letter of Faustus, 
 bishop of Riez (Vienna Corpus, xxi. p. 168), asserting the corporeality of the soul. 
 Sidonius, Ep. v. 2, calls him " peritissimus Christianorum philosophus," and praises 
 greatly his skill as a poet as well as this book De statu animae, and again in a letter 
 (Ep. iv. n) to his nephew Petreius, in which he laments his death, he says he was 
 " hominum aevi, loci, populi sui ingeniosissimum." In Ep. iv. 2 and 3 we have a 
 letter from Claudianus to Sidonius complaining of his silence and threatening to go 
 on writing until he answers him, and Sidonius' reply, in which he refers highly to his 
 books, and also his hymns, and says that his book De statu combines all that was 
 excellent of previous philosophers, heathen and Christian. He died about A.D. 474, 
 and Sidonius sent, Ep. iv. 1 1, some verses to Petreius for his tomb. He is erroneously 
 said to have been author of the hymn " Pange lingua gloriosi proelium certaminis," 
 but Sidonius merely says " De hymno tuo. " 
 
 2 "Qualiter contra sedis," Mansi, vii. 936. 
 
 * Petronius Maximus, 455 ; Avitus, 455-456 j Majorian, 457-461. 
 
 2 I 
 
482 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 the Rhone, 1 and Vienne and Lyons had again become 
 cities of the empire. But in 461 the Burgundians 
 had again advanced, and not only had Vienne become 
 the capital of Gundiok, 2 but it is clear that the 
 boundaries of his kingdom had been pushed southward 
 over the borders of the river Isere. Severus, the 
 emperor, had perceived the need he had of the two 
 Burgundian monarchs. Hilperik he had made Patrician, 8 
 and Gundiok he had appointed " magister militum," and 
 that at a time when the Visigoths under Theodoric 
 were besieging Aries, and before their defeat by the 
 general Aegidius. 4 Sidonius has described to us the 
 loathing of the well-bred Roman citizen for the 
 giant Burgundians 6 who hustled them off the pavement 
 even in Lyons itself. Between Mamertus, the cultured 
 Archbishop of Vienne, and Gundiok, the Arian monarch, 
 there could be little of the nature of friendship. Their 
 influence was naturally and mutually antagonistic. How 
 could the Archbishop of Aries with the Visigoths at 
 the city gates go forth into the district of the province 
 of Vienne now occupied by the Burgundians, and 
 arrange for the consecration of a new bishop to the 
 vacant See of Die ? What was more natural than that 
 Mamertus should have used the power which had 
 fallen to him through the advance of the Burgundians 
 to strengthen the Catholic Church on the banks of 
 the Isere by appointing to Die a man 6 whom he knew, 
 and whom future ages testified to be not only a saint, 
 but a saint of remarkable power and influence ? What 
 was more natural also than that Gundiok the Arian, 
 
 1 Binding, Das burgundhch-romanische KSnigreich^ pp. 60-62. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 73 ; Fauriel, Hist, de la Gaule mtridionale, i. 317. 
 
 3 Hilary's letter to Lcontius describes Gundiok as " Magister militum," and the 
 life of S. Lupicinus as given in Acta SS. 21 March, iii. 265 "... coram viro illustri 
 Galliae quondam patricio Hilperico " j cf. Greg. T. Vltae Patrum, cap. i. 
 
 4 Cf. Priscus, p. 156. B Sid. Apol. Carm. xii. n. 
 
 ' On Marcellus, bishop of Die, cf. Greg. T. Glor. conf. cap. 70 " Marcellus 
 Deensis urbis episcopus magnificat sanctitatis." The name of Marcellus occurs 
 among the bishops of southern Gaul to whom Lucidus wrote on the advice of Faustus 
 about A.D. 274. This may have been the bishop of Die ; cf. Fausti, Reiensis opera 
 (Vienna Corf. xxi. p. 165). 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 483 
 
 should welcome the opportunity of this excusable 
 irregularity to humble if it were possible the strong and 
 orthodox archbishop of his capital city ? 
 
 It was on loth October 463 that Hilarus allowed 
 himself to become the tool of the Arian, and the foe 
 of that Christian progress so difficult in the provinces 
 of Vienne and Narbonne on account of the inroads of 
 the barbarian Visigoths and Burgundians. The letter 
 of pope Hilarus was addressed to Leontius, Archbishop 
 of Aries, who was ordered in the yearly synod which, 
 according to the statutes laid down by the papal See, 
 he was bound to hold, to demand of Mamertus 1 his 
 reasons for having acted against the statutes of the 
 apostolic See, and when no such authority had been 
 deputed to him by the bishops of Rome, and had 
 consecrated a bishop for the See of Die in the province 
 of Aries, and had occupied the city Die in a hostile 
 manner. The information he possessed, he says, had 
 been sent him by Gundiok, the " Magister Militum." 2 
 Mamertus had gone to Die against the wishes of the 
 citizens, and in a hostile manner had consecrated a 
 bishop against their wishes. 
 
 What had actually happened is, of course, now only 
 a matter of conjecture. There had probably been rival 
 candidates at Die, and the party unsupported by 
 Mamertus had done its best to render invalid the 
 appointment he had made. Can we doubt also that 
 Gundiok, under this specious desire to fulfil the law 
 and carry out the terms of the rescript of A.D. 445, 
 was secretly pleased to deal a blow at Mamertus ? 
 
 The letter to Leontius, however, speedily received 
 its answer, and that from apparently the whole of the 
 dioceses of these provinces. Twenty bishops seem at 
 once to have written a joint letter in defence of 
 Mamertus, for, on 25th February 464^ Hilarus wrote 
 
 1 This letter does not imply that Mamertus would be present at such a synod, 
 but that such a synod should demand of the neighbouring archbishop an explanation 
 of his act. 2 " Magistri militum Gundiuci sermone est indicatum." 
 
 3 "Sollicitis admodum," Mansi, vii. 938. 
 
484 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 to these bishops to say that he would not punish 
 Mamertus himself, but if he continued to spurn the 
 rights of Leontius, the four Sees which had been 
 granted to Vienne by Leo would be handed back to 
 the province of Aries, and in order that there might 
 be no doubt in Mamertus' mind that the apostolic See 
 meant to act, Veranus was not only enjoined to inform 
 him, but a special letter was written to the Bishop of 
 Vence, 1 empowering him to act as the messenger of 
 Hilarus, and inform Mamertus of his displeasure and de- 
 termination to punish. It was for Leontius to confirm 
 or not the appointment which had been made to Die. 
 
 Another letter 2 followed, addressed to the bishop 
 of the provinces of Vienne, Lyons, Narbonne I. and II. 
 and Alpes Maritimae, bidding them to take a special 
 care not to exceed the limits of their jurisdiction, and 
 yearly to meet in synod with Leontius to discuss for 
 the good of their provinces. 
 
 There is, however, no evidence that Mamertus ever 
 acknowledged his fault, and certainly the tone of pope 
 Hilarus' letter was resented by the bishops in Gaul. 
 Sidonius, the life-long friend of Mamertus Claudianus, 
 his brother, and Avitus, ultimately his successor in the 
 See of Vienne, have nothing but praise for the work 
 Mamertus accomplished and for his personal sanctity. 
 
 The fame of Mamertus in western Christendom is 
 connected with the appointment as Rogation days, or 
 days of special intercession, of the three days before the 
 festival of the Ascension of our Lord. The incident 
 that caused the introduction of this ceremony occurred 
 at some time previous to this quarrel with the papal 
 See, and to the capture of Clermont by the Visigoths 
 under Euric. 
 
 There had occurred at Vienne, 3 just before a Christ- 
 
 1 Wattenbach doubts the authority of the letter to Veranus. It seems to have 
 been merely an expansion of " Sollicitis admodum." 
 
 2 " Etsi meminerimus," Mansi, vii. 937. 
 
 3 Cf. Avitus' Sermons, in which he tells the story. Peiper's edition of Avitus, 
 M. G. H. vi. pt. 2, pp. 108-120. 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLIC AN CHURCH 485 
 
 mas festival, various shocks of earthquake, accompanied 
 with outbreaks of fire in the city, and disturbances of 
 a similar nature preceded also the following festival of 
 Easter. Mamertus, the archbishop, had been energetic 
 in putting out the fires, and was anxious to do some- 
 thing which would bring the divine protection on the 
 city. He thought of proposing a general fast for all 
 the citizens, but was afraid to attempt such, for he 
 doubted his power to induce the senators to take part 
 in it. There were many rich people in Vienne, and 
 the archbishop had much difficulty in bringing them 
 to observe the elementary duties of a Christian life, and 
 it would have been almost impossible to expect them 
 to take part in such a fast. 
 
 To his clergy, however, he opened his mind and 
 urged them, at least, to fasting and repentance, and 
 assured them of God's forgiveness if they would 
 acknowledge their sins and truly repent. 
 
 It was the repetition of these conflagrations on 
 Easter Eve which brought Mamertus to action. He 
 determined to organise on the three days before the 
 next great festival, that of the Ascension, solemn 
 Rogations, i.e. the public and the private recitation of 
 psalms and public prayers, with compunction of heart, 
 sincere weeping, and humble prostrations. He himself 
 promised to take part in them, and said he would go 
 round and visit all the churches in the immediate 
 neighbourhood of the city, and celebrate the divine 
 mysteries in them. 
 
 As the time drew near he fell to prayer that God 
 would put it into the hearts of the people to do as 
 he had proposed to them. Then he publicly informed 
 the people of his plans, and invited them to join him, 
 and he soon perceived that his prayers had been 
 answered. The people generally approved of his plans, 
 and indeed embraced them with joy, and their zeal 
 so roused the richer citizens, that many who had 
 retired into the country returned and took part in 
 
486 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 these solemn processions and public ceremonies, and 
 the fact that the festival of the Ascension was observed 
 in peace and safety and joy, spoke to the heart of the 
 people in favour of such public appeal to the divine 
 mercy. 1 
 
 It was probably in the year A.D. 474 that Sidonius 
 and the Christians at Clermont 2 adopted the example 
 of Mamertus as a means of relief from the horrors of 
 the Visigothic siege. Writing to Mamertus, Sidonius 
 relates to him what he had done. " It is reported that 
 the Goths have entered the territory of Rome. We 
 poor unfortunate Arvernians are always experiencing 
 such a misfortune. The Visigoths are extending their 
 borders as far as the Rhone and the Loire. The one 
 obstacle they find in their way is that help which Christ 
 gives us in answer to our prayers. No amount of 
 fortifications seem of any avail, our one hope of protec- 
 tion is in the Rogations which you have instituted. 
 The people of Clermont take part in them with 
 a zeal equal to that which your people at Vienne 
 displayed. When the earthquakes shook to their 
 foundations the temples of God, when the flames 
 devoured the heap of ruins which threatened immedi- 
 ately to fall, when, amid the alarm, even the wild 
 animals came into the city to find a retreat in such 
 unwonted spots, you by your example roused the 
 citizens to imitate the men of Nineveh, and they 
 had experience of what the divine protection could 
 accomplish for them." 
 
 But a short time before Sidonius had written to 
 
 1 It must be remembered that the Litanies or Rogations of Mamertus consisted 
 rather of penitential Psalm recitations, the better to divert the minds of the people, 
 than of invocations for help such as we now understand by the word. Rogations 
 were not instituted first by Mamertus (Sid. Apoll. vii. i), but the Archbishop of 
 Vienne now for the first time turned a custom of prayer-making and psalm-singing 
 of a vague and unsatisfying kind into a solemn ceremony for a definite purpose 
 (Sid. Apoll. v. 14). Venantius Fortunatus waiting hungry for his breakfast likens 
 the situation to those litanies or prayer makings which produced but little good 
 (V. Fort. vii. 15). I am indebted for this reference to Venantius to Mr. Edmund 
 Bishop. 
 
 2 Sid. Ap. Ep. vii. i. 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 487 
 
 his friend Aper, 1 an Arvernian nobleman, telling him 
 that he would soon be summoned to Clermont to take 
 part in the Rogations the solemn observance of which 
 that venerable father and pontiff Mamertus first, by 
 his most revered example, and by his most useful 
 experience, invented, ordered, and introduced to us. 
 
 The second half of the fifth century conduced to 
 an observance such as this which gave confidence to 
 the Christians, terrified as they were and in despair by 
 the conflict of barbarians in their midst. It appealed 
 to them to put their trust in God. The ceremony 
 was continued in Vienne until its ultimate adoption 
 by the Church in Gaul and in the West ; and Avitus, 
 who was Archbishop of Vienne 491-518, and whc> 
 witnessed in the city the fratricidal strife of Gundo- 
 bad and Godegisel, and the murder of the latter, 
 was careful to preach on the three days of Roga- 
 tion. It was for the Church of Vienne a peculiar 
 pleasure that a ceremony which originated thus under 
 Mamertus had been adopted even there almost gener- 
 ally, and had been productive of so much good. 
 Four addresses of Avitus are extant, 2 one for each 
 day of the Rogations, and one of a general kind on 
 the principle which underlay them. Caesarius also, 
 who became Archbishop of Aries in 505, appears to 
 have adopted this means to impress upon his harassed 
 Christian flock the need to implore the divine protec- 
 tion. A sermon is extant which has been assigned to 
 St. Augustine, but which is generally allowed to have 
 been composed by Caesarius, 3 in which the duty to 
 observe these Rogations, and the value of the observ- 
 ance, is clearly placed before the people of Aries. 
 
 A short time before his death, 4 on 2yth November 
 511, Chlodovech had summoned a council of the 
 bishops of Gaul to assemble at Orleans. 5 There he 
 
 1 Sid. Ap. Ep. v. 14. 2 Avitus, p. 108, ut supra. 
 
 3 Cf. Arnold, Caesarius <von Arelate, p. 455. 
 
 4 Mansi, viii. 350 ; Hefele, Hist, of Councils, Eng. Ed. 2 iv. 88. 
 
 5 Kurth'3 Clevis, ii. p. 197. 
 
4 88 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 solemnly promised his protection to the Orthodox 
 Church, and in the twenty-seventh canon of this 
 Council it was ordained that all churches should 
 observe the Rogations, that is to say, the Litanies 
 before Ascension Day, so that the three days' fast 
 should end on the day of the festival. On these three 
 days all slaves male and female should be released from 
 their usual labour, in order that all people might take 
 part in these public religious ceremonies. It was also 
 enjoined that on these three days the fast should be 
 observed as it is during the period of Lent. Seventy 
 years later, Gregory of Tours, in his story of the contest 
 between Gundobad and Godegisel, refers to the work of 
 Avitus * and the sermons which he preached during the 
 fast of the Rogations, and again tells the story how 
 Mamertus had been the first to institute this ceremony 
 and this public appeal to the divine protection. In his 
 narrative also of the miracles wrought at the tomb of St. 
 Julian at Brioude, 2 or by the Arvernian martyr when 
 he was invoked, Gregory also tells us how Mamertus, 
 amid the ruin that threatened, had built a large basilica 
 in honour of another Viennese saint, Ferreolus the 
 martyr of the days of Maximian. 
 
 Nothing more is known of Mamertus, nor indeed 
 is the year of his death more than a conjecture. 
 Mamertus Claudianus, his brother, whom he had 
 ordained priest, died in A.D. 474, and the archbishop 
 is said to have followed him on nth May 475. The 
 Martyrology of Beda 3 does not mention him, though 
 Florus records his death on that day, and Florus 
 is followed by Usuard. 
 Caesanus Caesarius of Aries 4 is one more of that considerable 
 
 fArleS ' 
 
 4 Greg. T. De passione S. Juliani, 2 "providus sacerdos Mamertus nomine 
 qui tune Viennensem regebat Ecclesiam " etc. 
 
 3 Florus of Lyons, circa 760, enlarged the Martyrology of Beda very soon 
 after Beda's death, and the Bollandists have endeavoured to distinguish between 
 Beda and Florus' additions. Usuard condensed what Jerome, Beda, Florus, the 
 little Roman Martyrology, and Ado had assigned to the days of the year. 
 
 4 The life of Caesarius by the three bishops, Cyprian, Firminus, and Viventius, 
 the priest Messianus and the deacon Stephen, is printed in M. G. H., in the third 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 489 
 
 band of churchmen in the fifth century who, under 
 the influence of strong religious convictions, left their 
 home in the north-east of Gaul and settled and 
 laboured for the most part in the south. We are 
 especially fortunate in regard to his life, for we have 
 of him a biography not only written immediately after 
 his death, but written by men who knew him well 
 and who wrote with a full knowledge of the events 
 which they had to describe. Caesarius died in 543, 
 and the life was written at the request of the Abbess 
 Caesaria before the year 549. His biographers had 
 all been his pupils or disciples ; three of them became 
 bishops Cyprian of Toulon, Firminus of Uzes, and 
 Viventius. Messianus was one of his priests, and 
 accompanied him in A.D. 513 on his journey to the 
 court of Theodoric at Ravenna ; and Stephen was a 
 deacon attached to his intimate family. 
 
 Of his parents we know only that they were very 
 rich and of noble rank, and were Christians and 
 belonged to the city of Chalon-sur-Saone. Here in 
 A.D. 473 Sidonius was present at the consecration of 
 John as bishop, and here Caesarius was born about 
 A.D. 47O. 1 In his early life he displayed that tenderness 
 of heart for the sufferings of the poor, and that gener- 
 osity, for which, in manhood, he was so noted, and which 
 at times created opponents to his episcopal work and 
 censures from the bishops of Rome. At times, when 
 he met with poor children devoid of proper clothing, 
 he would take his own clothes off and give them to 
 them, returning home with an explanation which was 
 not always exactly true. This trait comes out in his 
 sermon : "I pray you, brethren, that you do all you can 
 
 volume Script, rer. Merov. p. 433, to which is added a valuable critical Introduction 
 by B. Krusch, who calls it " pretiosissimum monumentum historicum." Of modern 
 lives, that by A. Malnory, Saint Ce'saire e'veque d' Aries, Paris, 1894, is exhaustive 
 and interesting, but there is a bias which spoils it as an historical study. Caesarius 
 von Arelatt, by Dr. C. F. Arnold, Leipzig, 1894, is excellent, and invaluable not only 
 for the fulness of information but also because it is a distinctly critical, historical study. 
 Villeveille's Hhtolre de S. Chaire, 1884, is pleasant reading but not critical. 
 1 Sid. Apol. Ep. iv. 25. 
 
490 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 so that you never come to church with empty hands." 
 When he was eighteen years of age he applied to 
 Silvester, the bishop of Chalon, 1 to release him from 
 his obligations towards his parents and from the duties 
 which would naturally come to him on his inheritance 
 of his father's wealth. He described himself as a 
 young man of few ambitions, who marched without 
 reflexion on the road which led to pleasure, though 
 it was sown with danger for his soul, and who ran 
 blindly and thoughtlessly to the very edge of the 
 precipice in his desire to procure for himself some 
 worldly delight. The city of Chalon was one of the 
 five cities which appear in the Notitia as appertaining 
 to the province of Lugdunensis Prima, 2 and had been 
 occupied together with the district between the Rhone 
 and the Saone by the Burgundians as early as A.D. 457. 
 They came under the title of guests, and appropriated 
 for themselves, from a half to sometimes two-thirds, of 
 the estates of the Gallo-Romans. Caesarius would 
 therefore count for a Burgundian, though his family 
 seems to have been distinctly Gallo-Roman. Apparently 
 with his parents' consent, and perhaps to test the strength 
 of his religious opinions, Caesarius entered the house- 
 hold of Bishop Silvester and remained with him for 
 two years. He felt, however, that he was called to 
 adopt some even stricter rule of life than that which 
 prevailed in the bishop's house, and he determined to 
 become a monk. There were two monasteries 3 not 
 far off, that at Ainay close to Lyons over which one, 
 Cassian, was then abbot, and that at Condate in the 
 Jura mountains, presided over by SS. Romanus and 
 Lupicinus. But neither of these would satisfy Caesarius. 
 He had heard of Lerins, and thither he went without 
 
 1 Silvester was apparently the third bishop of Chalon. He was present at the 
 Council of Epaon 517, and also at that of Lyons 5185 cf. Duchesne, Pastes ep. ii. p. 
 192 } cf. Greg. T. " Story of his Wonderful Bed," Glor. conf. c. 85. 
 
 2 M. G. H. ix. 239, pt. 2, p. 584. 
 
 3 Sid. Apol. Ep. iv. 25 ; Greg. T. De glor. martyr, cap. 49 j Longnon, Geog. 
 p. 198. 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 491 
 
 even a farewell to his mother, 1 and accompanied only 
 by one slave who afterwards became his brother in 
 religion. Here he spent his period of probation, and 
 having gained the good esteem of Porcarius, the abbot, 
 he was made cellarer, an office which included the 
 duty of receiving the guests and administering the 
 hospitality of the monastery. 
 
 The zeal of Caesarius was, however, displeasing 
 to his brother monks, and soon they induced Porcarius 2 
 to remove him from that office, and so, as an ordinary 
 monk, he practised in his cell the utmost austerity, 
 being content with cold boiled vegetables for his food, 
 which he cooked on Sunday to provide himself for 
 the rest of the week. 
 
 The severity which he practised so unwisely had 
 soon its natural result. His health broke down, and 
 Porcarius found it necessary, in A.D. 496, to send him 
 for treatment to Aries, and Lerins did not see him 
 again until at times he went there on a visit when he 
 was Archbishop of Aries. 
 
 Aries, the centre of Roman life in Gaul and the 
 city of the prefect, had been captured by Euric the 
 Visigoth in A.D. 48o, 3 and here, three years after- 
 wards, the great Visigoth king had died. With 
 much still in the life of its most cultured citizens that 
 was Roman, it was now thoroughly Visigothic, and 
 Caesarius the Roman, from the Burgundian city of 
 Chalon, now came to make it his residence for the 
 rest of his life. Porcarius had sent him apparently 
 to the hospice of Firminus 4 and of the widow 
 Gregoria. He was in their care, and they seemed 
 to have acted in the place of his parents. They 
 sent him for instruction to Pomerius, 5 a fugitive 
 
 1 Vita Caesar. 5. The passage seems to suggest that his father was dead. 
 
 2 Ibid. 6 " supplicarent abbati ut deberet a cellario semoveri." 
 
 3 Jordanes, cap. 47 ; Viet. Tunun. anno 485 } cf. Binding, Das burg. KbnigreicA, 
 p. 92 and note j Jahn, Die Geschtchte der Burgundionen, i. p. 499. 
 
 4 Vita Caesar. 8. 
 
 5 Gennad. De vir. inlmt. 98 j Ruric. Ef. i. 17, ii. 10 j Vienna Corpus S. L. xxi. 
 pp. 369, 385 ; his De vita contemplativa is in Migne, P. L. lix. 415. 
 
492 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 from Africa settled in Aries, and in this celebrated 
 school Caesarius had as his companions Quintus, after- 
 wards bishop of Rodez, and Eugenius, bishop of Albi. 1 
 Here he went through the usual course of classical 
 literature, and, though he never became an orator, his 
 sermons and addresses were noted for their directness 
 and simplicity of language. But the profane literature 
 which he was called upon to study disgusted him. 
 The heathen legends which he read troubled him, and 
 he dreamt 2 one night that a dragon was biting his 
 arm, and on the morrow he determined for ever to 
 abjure profane literature an early instance indeed of 
 that neglect of classical literature which had so much 
 to do with the language and the tone of thought 
 of the mediaeval Church. A man such as Caesarius 
 could not long escape the notice of the archbishop, 
 and about A.D. 498 Aeonius ordained him priest, 
 and appointed him abbot of that monastery of 
 Montmajeur 3 about four miles to the NE. of Aries, 
 where the first missionaries of the Gospel had lived 
 in obscurity, and where the rock-hewn chambers, so 
 suggestive of Marmoutier, and the massive pile of 
 chapels, cloisters, and tower, attract and fascinate the 
 pilgrim student. 
 
 Two or three years afterwards Aeonius, falling 
 sick, and recognising that his end was approaching, 
 summoned to him the clergy of Aries and the most 
 influential of the laity of the city, and expressed his 
 
 1 For Quintus or Quintianus, cf. Greg. T. H. F. ii. 36 ; iii. 12, 13 ; fita, p. 4. 
 He was present at the Council of Agde and also at that of Orleans, 511. Being 
 suspected by the Goths, he fled for refuge to Auvergne. For Eugenius, cf. Greg. T. 
 H. F. ii. 3. His name does not appear in the lists of the bishops of Albi. Duchesne, 
 Pastes tp. ii. 42 j but see Malnory, p. 16. 
 
 8 Vita Caesar. 9. 
 
 3 Ibid. 12 "in suburbana insula civitatis . . . monasterium quod recentius 
 fuerat destitutum abitu rectoris." Arnold, p. 92, takes this statement literally, but 
 cannot locate the site of the monastery, and does not seem to be in favour of the 
 lie de Camargue in the Rhone delta. Cf. Villeveille, p. 61. Malnory, p. 24, 
 advocates the site of Montmajeur, and says that the group of rocks there was at one 
 time surrounded by the waters of the Rhone. Certainly much has happened since 
 the time of Caesarius to change the relative position of buildings, and I am inclined 
 to think Malnory is right. Cf. Binding, ut supra, p. 203, and Cassiodorus' 
 description of Aries, Var. viii. 10. 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 493 
 
 wish that Caesarius should be his successor. Having 
 obtained from them their consent to his choice, Aeonius 
 sent a messenger 1 to Toulouse to obtain from Alaric 
 II. his approval, an act which possibly was the more 
 necessary since Caesarius was a native of the kingdom 
 of the Burgundians. 
 
 It was probably in A.D. 501 that Aeonius died and 
 that Caesarius became archbishop, and now for more 
 than forty years he governed the Church in southern 
 Gaul. Simple and austere in his manner of life, he 
 retained the habits of a monk even as a bishop, and 
 wore that garb which was steadily winning its claim 
 from the people for respect. He had never shown any 
 powers of administration, and the temporal affairs of 
 the diocese he left to the care of his archdeacon. 2 His 
 special care were the poor and ignorant of the diocese, 
 and to these he was constantly preaching, teaching them 
 the doctrines of the Church and calling upon them to 
 regulate their lives according to their Christian pro- 
 fession. He called them neighbours and fellow-citizens, 3 
 and his zeal for their spiritual welfare must at times 
 have been embarrassing. On one occasion during 
 divine service, when the time for his sermon had arrived, 
 he turned from the altar and looked down the church. 
 To his horror he saw how some, after the reading of the 
 gospel, were already leaving the church, and so forth- 
 with he called out to the people, "What are you doing, 4 
 O sons of mine, and why under an evil influence are 
 you induced to go out ? Stay for the sake of your 
 souls and listen attentively to the words of my sermon. 
 On the day of judgment you will not desire this act 
 of yours to be brought up against you." Afterwards 
 he very often ordered that the doors of the church 
 should be locked until the service was over. He was 
 particularly anxious that the laity should learn the 
 
 1 Vita Caesar. 1 3 " et ipsos dominos rerum per internuntios rogat." 
 
 2 Vita Caesar. 15. 
 
 3 Ibid. 10 " meus es, fiii, concivis pariter et propinquus." 
 
 4 Ibid. 27 "quid agitis, o filii, quo ducimini foris mala suasione subversi ? " 
 
494 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 psalms by heart and acquire the art of singing in a 
 treble or a lower voice, some in Greek and some in 
 Latin, the proses and antiphons of the Divine Office. 1 
 
 The cathedral church was then dedicated to St. 
 Stephen, and here he ordained that the clergy should 
 say daily not only those Offices of the early morning, 
 but also the Offices for the third, sixth, and ninth 
 hours, 2 and thus give a chance to any layman or penitent 
 who was passing by to enter the church and take part 
 in the solemn office. He introduced also into the 
 services the hymns that were used in the monastic 
 Offices at Lerins. 
 
 Soon after he had become archbishop he drew up for 
 the use of his diocese, and for that of the dioceses of the 
 province, a compilation of Church Law from the ancient 
 canons of the Church under the title Statuta ecclesiae 
 antiqua? The Church of Aries had been, for nearly a 
 hundred years, of metropolitan rank, and the many 
 letters which the bishop had received from Rome would 
 in themselves form an important register ; and to them 
 he added a collection of canons from Eastern, African, 
 and earlier Councils of the West. 
 
 A reformer naturally creates enemies, and Caesarius' 
 disregard of the temporalities of the See, and his 
 readiness to give all his income to the poor and his 
 preference for those who had adopted a monastic life, 
 soon gave rise to a party in the diocese not only who 
 opposed him, but also apparently endeavoured to get rid 
 of him. Among his opponents was Licinianus, 4 one of 
 the diocesan notaries who took advantage of his Bur- 
 gundian origin and denounced him to Alaric as desirous 
 to deliver the city to the Burgundians. It is possible that 
 in his journeys through the province he had gone to 
 
 1 Vita Caesar. 19 " altaque et modulata voce instar clericorum alii Graece alii 
 Latine prosas antiphonasque cantarent." 
 
 2 Ibid. 15 "cotidie tertiae, sextaeque et nonae opus in sancti Stephani basilica 
 clerici cum hymnis cantarent." 
 
 3 Malnory, pp. 45 and 50 ; Gundlach, Der Streit der Bistumer Aries und Vienne, 
 79-92. 
 
 4 Vita Caesar. 21 " quidam de notariis beati viri Licinianus nomine . . ." 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 495 
 
 episcopal cities that were then under Burgundian rule. 
 Since A.D. 475 the Burgundians had extended their rule 
 as far south as the right bank of the Durance, and this 
 was followed soon after by the occupation of Narbo- 
 nensis II. by Euric. A border city such as Aries 
 was of great importance, and the connection between 
 the Franks and the Burgundians would have made the 
 Visigoths all the more suspicious of Arlesians having 
 friends among the Burgundians. Caesarius was there- 
 fore summoned to Toulouse and then exiled to 
 Bordeaux, which the Visigoths had again captured from 
 the Franks. 1 Ruricius, bishop of Limoges, and in 
 earlier years the friend of Sidonius Apollinaris, in- 
 terested himself in Caesarius' behalf ; and the court at 
 Toulouse 2 was soon convinced of his innocence, and 
 Alaric II. shortly after allowed him not only to 
 return to Aries, but to summon a Council of bishops 
 for the next year, A.D. 5o6, 3 at Agde, a small town near 
 the Mediterranean shore and about twelve miles south- 
 east of Beziers. The place was far removed from the 
 Burgundian boundary and was quite safe, and Alaric 
 II., in view of the danger that threatened in the north, 
 seems to have been anxious to show some deference to 
 the Catholics of his kingdom. He had been engaged 
 in a great codification 4 of the laws of the Visigoths in 
 imitation of that known as the Theodosian Code, and 
 as an enlargement of that which his predecessor Euric 
 had accomplished. It was a compilation of those laws 
 of the empire which were allowed by the Visigoths for 
 the Gallo-Romans living in the kingdom. The Council 
 met in September and there were thirty-five bishops 
 
 1 A band of Franks had captured Bordeaux in 498 and had made a prisoner of 
 the Gothic governor Suatrius, but clearly the city had been recaptured soon after. 
 Cf. Prosp. Cont. Haun., sub anno 498 (M. G. H. ix. 331). 
 
 2 M. G. H., Auct. antiq. viii. p. Ixiv. 
 
 3 Mansi, viii. 323 j Hefele, Hist, of the Councils, Eng. ed. iv. p. 76. 
 
 4 Malnory, p. 63 ; Lecrivain, " Remarques sur 1'interpretation de la Lex romana 
 Visigothorum," Annales du Midi, 18895 Savigny, Hist, du droit romain, ii. 37-67. 
 About the same time the Burgundian monarch Gundobad made a similar digest 
 known as the Lex Gondobada (M. G. H. Abth. ii. Legum sectio, ii. p. i). 
 
496 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 present. To these bishops Alaric II. submitted this 
 Code ; and after they, and such noblemen of senatorial 
 rank as he consulted, had approved of it, he published 
 this Code under the title of Lex Romana Visigothorum. 
 The actual Code had been drawn up under the superin- 
 tendence of Anianus, the referendarius of the Visigothic 
 kingdom, and so it has sometimes been entitled 
 Breviarium Alarici or Aniani. 
 
 The object of the Council was to lay down rules for 
 the ordination of the clergy and the consecration of 
 bishops, and forty-seven canons were passed on clerical 
 discipline, the foundation of monasteries, and the re- 
 lationship which should exist between Churchmen and 
 Jews in southern Gaul. One canon, the seventh, seems 
 especially to be directed against Caesarius, in that it 
 forbids a bishop to alienate the buildings, slaves, or 
 furniture of the Church under the pretext that they are 
 the property of the poor. 
 
 The Council closed on September n, and in the 
 autumn of the following year Alaric was slain at the 
 battle of Vouille, 1 near Poitiers, and the kingdom ot 
 the Visigoths fell almost entirely into the hands of 
 Chlodovech and his ally Gundobad. 
 
 In A.D. 508, before spring had given way to summer, 
 all the cities of the Visigothic kingdom, with the excep- 
 tion of Aries, had been captured by the allied forces of 
 Gundobad the Burgundian, and Theodoric the Frank, 
 and it was probably in the month of May 2 of that 
 year that the siege of Aries itself began. Within 
 the city were the Gallo-Roman citizens, all of them 
 Catholics, and their masters the Arian Visigoths. 
 Without were the conquering Franks, the latest con- 
 verts to Catholicism, and the Burgundians, who for 
 some years had begun to show respect for their 
 Catholic subjects. As the siege proceeded it was 
 
 1 Greg. T. H. F. ii. 37. 
 
 3 Binding, ut supra, p. 201 " wann seine Belagerung begann, steht nicht ganz 
 fest, doch spatestens im Juni 508 " j Vita Caesar. 28. 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 497 
 
 natural that watch would be set on any likely citizen 
 who might be prepared to betray the city to the enemy 
 without, and Caesarius, the reforming archbishop, did 
 not escape this espionage. In the first alarm of the 
 siege a young ecclesiastic, 1 terrified at the idea of an 
 assault and the sack of the town, escaped to the camp 
 of the Franks, and it was at once assumed that he was 
 an emissary of Caesarius. Could there be stronger 
 evidence of the archbishop's treason ? The Ostrogoths 
 were still far off" in Italy, and if the great Theodoric 
 had allowed the downfall of the kingdom of Alaric II., 
 was he likely to march to the relief of Aries? So 
 Caesarius was arrested and charged with the intention 
 of delivering the city to the Franks. His palace was 
 invaded by the Goths, 2 and he was treated with every 
 indignity. They proposed to send him up the river to 
 the Visigothic fortress of Ugernum, 8 near the modern 
 Beaucaire, and for that purpose a small boat was 
 prepared ; but either the stream was too strong, or the 
 danger, on either bank, of the Franks and Burgundians 
 was too great, and he was brought back to the palace 
 and confined in some unknown chamber for future 
 punishment. Among his accusers the Jews of Aries 
 were the most zealous, and it was through the action of 
 one of them that he gained his release. One of these 
 Jews was seen to hurl a lance 4 from the wall of the 
 city towards the camp of the Franks. The weapon, 
 however, was recovered, and on it was found attached 
 a letter giving the name of him who hurled it, and 
 arranging with the besiegers to open the gates to them 
 if they came to a particular place at a given time. So 
 suspicion was turned from Caesarius to the Jews, and 
 the eagerness with which they had urged his guilt 
 now aided his acquittal and seemed to prove their 
 disloyalty. 
 
 1 Vita Caesar. 29 "quidam e clericis concivis . . . captivitatis timore perterritus 
 et juvenili levitate permotus . . ." 
 
 2 Ibid. 30. 3 Ibid. 29 " in castro Ugernensi teneretur detrusus." 
 4 Ibid. 31. 
 
 2 K 
 
498 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 But Aries had not been forgotten by Theodoric the 
 Ostrogoth. On 24th June 508* he had sent an army for 
 its relief, and the army was in command of his general 
 Ibbas. The details of the siege do not concern us. It 
 lasted for nearly two years, and it was not until the 
 beginning of A.D. 510 that the Ostrogoths defeated the 
 Burgundians and Franks and so relieved the citizens of 
 Aries. The Burgundians were not only driven across 
 the Durance, but Avignon was captured in 510 and 
 Orange 2 was sacked and its citizens carried captive into 
 Italy. 
 
 Theodoric the Ostrogoth took the Catholic Church 
 under his protection and appointed a vicar-general at 
 Aries to look after its property ; and two nephews of 
 Bishop Ennodius, Lupicinus and Parthenius, both of 
 them Arlesians, 3 were summoned to Rome to teach the 
 Ostrogoths in the capital rhetoric and classical literature. 
 Conflicts such as those that had taken place outside 
 Aries brought loss of liberty and intense suffering on 
 the poor, and Caesarius did not hesitate to sell the 
 ornaments of the Church and to pledge its goods to 
 redeem them from captivity and to minister to their 
 relief. The Burgundian monarch, Gondobad, and his 
 Catholic heir, Sigismund, were anxious to second the 
 efforts on the part of Caesarius in the besieged city, and 
 the poor regarded it as a miracle that during the siege 
 three ships should have come down the Rhone sent by 
 them to Caesarius and at a time when the famine within 
 was most pressing. 4 Action such as this again brought 
 Caesarius, however, under suspicion ; and when in 512 
 Gondobad sent the archbishop for the second time relief 
 for these poor sufferers, he was once more charged with 
 treasonable practices with the Burgundians, and in 
 5 1 3 5 he was taken under escort to Italy to appear 
 
 1 Cassiod. Chron., A.D. 509, and Var. i. 24 j Jordanis, De reb. Get. Iviii. ; Avitus, 
 Ep. No. 78. 
 
 2 Cassiod. Var. viii. 10 ; Avit. Letter to Apollinaris, 87 (M. G. H. vi. i. p. 96). 
 
 3 Ennodius, Ep. 225, 226 (M. G. H. vii. 179). 
 
 4 Malnory, p. 97 j Vita Caesar, ii. 8 and 9. 5 Vita Caesar. i. 36. 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 499 
 
 before Theodoric the Ostrogoth in his court at 
 Ravenna. 
 
 The victory which the Ostrogoths won over the 
 Burgundians and Franks outside the city of Aries 
 delayed the conquest of Gaul by the Franks for twenty- 
 three years. The wave of conquest which had set so 
 strongly southward was checked, and Theodoric seems 
 to have retained all to the east of the Rhone, i.e. Narbo- 
 nensis II., Alpes Maritimae, and to have held so much 
 of Narbonensis I. as was south of the Cevennes, in trust 
 for Amalaric, the son of Alaric II. the Visigothic king. 
 The whole of the south of Gaul from the shores of the 
 Mediterranean to the Cevennes and the Durance was 
 Gothic, the eastern portion being included in the Ostro- 
 gothic kingdom of Theodoric, and the western forming 
 for Amalaric the sole remnant of his father's Visigothic 
 kingdom in Gaul. Between the years A.D. 517 and 523 
 the Ostrogoths made yet further conquests beyond the 
 Durance, and apparently as far north as the valley of 
 the Dr6me, so that at any rate by that date the whole 
 of the ecclesiastical province of Aries had come into 
 the kingdom of the Ostrogoths. 
 
 When Caesarius arrived at Ravenna, Theodoric 
 treated him with every respect. He rose to meet him, 
 and discussed in a friendly manner the welfare of the 
 citizens of Aries and the conduct of the Gothic soldiers. 
 The intense sympathy of the archbishop for the poor 
 and suffering provincials was so evident that Theodoric 
 gave him three hundred gold pieces, which at once was 
 spent for the redemption of Gallo-Romans living then 
 in captivity in Italy. When Caesarius had left his 
 presence Theodoric turned to his courtiers and said, 
 " May God spare not those who made this man of such 
 conspicuous innocence undertake so long and so trouble- 
 some a journey for no purpose ! I knew x at once what 
 kind of man he was, for as he entered the room I 
 
 1 Vita Caesar. \. 36 "video, inquit, angelicum vultum, video apostolicum virum : 
 nefas arbitror mali quippiam de tarn venerando viro censere." 
 
500 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 secretly trembled. I saw he had the face of an angel and 
 that he was of apostolic dignity, and I consider it a crime 
 to think evil of such a one as he is." 
 
 But Caesarius was appalled at the multitude of 
 captives he found in the cities of Italy. He is said to 
 have discovered nearly the entire population of Orange l 
 living in servitude, and redeemed them at a cost of eight 
 thousand gold pieces. His intense grief for their 
 position prepared him to do everything in his power to 
 relieve them, and explains the warning of the Bishop of 
 Rome which came to him indeed in the terms of a 
 censure. 
 
 When at Ravenna, Caesarius received an invitation 
 from Symmachus to go to Rome. The See of Aries 
 had recovered all its former privileges, and early in his 
 pontificate Symmachus had written to Avitus of Vienne 
 to soothe any resentment he might have felt in the 
 complete recovery by Aeonius, then archbishop of Aries, 
 of the privileges of his See. At Rome 2 Caesarius 
 was welcomed by the Senate and nobles, the Pope 
 and his clergy, and by nearly all the people of the 
 ancient city. Symmachus then confirmed him in the 
 full rights of a metropolitan, and decorated him 
 with the special privilege of the pallium, granting 
 also to his deacons the right to wear the dalmatic as did 
 the deacons of the Roman Church. 3 Between the two 
 men, however, there was a gulf which could not be 
 bridged over. Caesarius was all in favour of monasti- 
 cism, and would impose its austerities on his clergy and 
 select them from the monasteries in his province. So 
 as Caesarius returned in the autumn of 5 1 3 to Aries 
 there followed him an official letter 4 from Symmachus 
 enjoining him not to alienate the goods of the Church 
 
 1 Vita Caesar, i. 38 "maximeque Arausici oppidi qui ex toto fuerat captivitati 
 contraditus." 
 
 2 Ibid. \. 42. 
 
 3 ". . . eum metropolitani gradibus invexit sed et concesso specialiter pallii 
 pnvilegio decoravit. Diaconos quoque ipsius ad Romanae instar ecclesiae dalmati- 
 carum fecit habitu praeeminere." 
 
 4 " Hortatur nos," Mansi, viii. 212. 
 
...y 
 
 xv FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 501 
 
 nor to make bishops out of laymen, i.e.' from men 
 who were only monks and had had no training in 
 ecclesiastical duties. He also forbade him, a prohibition 
 which is somewhat inexplicable, to confer the office of 
 priesthood on candidates on payment of money. 
 
 The next year, however, Symmachus again confirmed 1 
 the privileges of the Church of Aries and ordered 
 Caesarius to watch over the Church in Spain, as in Gaul, 
 especially in those matters which concerned religion. 
 
 On one occasion only after this date do we find the 
 old suspicion still existing in Rome. In A.D. 528 2 
 Felix IV. wrote again to Caesarius ordering him to 
 abstain from making more laymen bishops, and laying 
 down the rule that no one should be raised to the 
 episcopate until he had passed through a period of pro- 
 bation. For the rest of his life the papacy seems to 
 have had no cause for complaint as to the conduct of 
 Caesarius. 
 
 When Caesarius returned to Aries, there was much 
 for him to do in organising the Church in his diocese 
 and in the province, after the ravaging which the south 
 of Gaul had suffered. Nor, indeed, did he return to 
 enjoy for long the blessing of peace. Between the years 
 517 and 523 the Ostrogothic general Tulum was 
 engaged in a campaign north of the Durance. Orange, 
 which had been sacked by Ibbas about the year 510, 
 had again become a Burgundian city in 5I7, 8 and was 
 certainly Ostrogothic in 523. 
 
 The work for Caesarius was largely one of recon- 
 struction, and that at the first within the city of Aries. 
 We know of no provincial act of his from the day he 
 closed the Council of Agde until the day he welcomed 
 at Aries the thirteen bishops who, on June 5, 524, 
 assembled to take part in the dedication of the basilica 
 of St. Mary, and to consult for mutual love and for 
 
 1 nth June 514. "qui veneranda patrum," Mansi, viii. 227. 
 
 2 Felix IV., 3rd Feb. 528 " Legi quod inter," Mansi, viii. 666. 
 
 3 Binding, ut supra, p. 226. The Bishop of Orange was present at the Burgundian 
 Council of Epaon, Sept. 517. 
 
502 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 the welfare of the province. 1 The canons of this 
 Council, which is reckoned as the fourth of Aries, are 
 four in number, and with the canons of the subsequent 
 Councils of Carpentras, 6th November 527, and Vaison, 
 5th November 529, 2 refer almost exclusively to the 
 discipline of the clergy, the age of ordination, and the 
 training which was necessary before a layman was 
 promoted to Holy Orders. 
 
 It is probably because Caesarius had insisted on 
 the moral responsibility of man to make an effort to 
 obey God's commands that he fell under suspicion of 
 Pelagian views. Certain it is that in A.D. 528 a 
 Council was held at Valence 3 of bishops whose Sees 
 were north of the Isere, i.e. of bishops who belonged 
 to the province of Vienne, and Caesarius was informed 
 that his orthodoxy would be there impugned. Avitus 
 the archbishop of Vienne was dead, and the assembly of 
 these bishops was somewhat irregular unless they had 
 gathered for the consecration of his successor. Caesarius 
 was too ill to attend, but he sent Cyprian, bishop of 
 Toulon, 4 to represent him, and to state his faith and 
 to assure the bishops of his orthodoxy. There are 
 no canons of this Council extant, and the question it 
 raised was settled at the Council of Orange, 5 which 
 Caesarius summoned for July 3, 529. The selection 
 of Orange was due to the demand of Liberius 6 the 
 Gallic prefect, whom Athalaric had allowed to remain in 
 office on the death of his grandfather, that Caesarius 
 would dedicate the Church there which he and his wife 
 Agraetia had built. There were fourteen bishops 
 
 1 Mansi, viii. 632 ; Hefele, Hist of the Councils, iv. 131. 
 
 2 Carpentras, 6th November 527 ; Mansi, viii. 708 j Vaison, November 529 j 
 Mansi, viii. 725. 
 
 3 Vita Caesar, i. 60 " ob hoc antistites Christi ultra Eseram consistentes . . . 
 in Valentina civitate conveniunt." 
 
 4 " [Caesarius] misit praestantissimos viros inter quos etiam sanctus Cyprianus 
 Thelonensis antistes." 
 
 5 For Council of Orange, cf. Mansi, viii. 720 j Arnold, Caesarius, p. 533, a most 
 exhaustive inquiry into the Council and its Canons. 
 
 6 Vita Casuzr. ii. 10 ; Cassiod. Var. ii. 15, viii. 6, xi. i. He signs the Canons 
 of Orange as Petrus Marcellus Felix Liberius. Ennodius' Letters to him, Nos. 63, 
 pp. 177, 447, etc. (M. G. H. vii.). 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLIC AN CHURCH 503 
 
 present, and, after the consecration of the Church, 
 they with Caesarius took care to show the orthodoxy 
 of the province of Aries. Some eighty years ago, 
 as we have already seen, when the Pelagian controversy 
 was at its height, Prosper of Marseilles l had drawn up a 
 series of texts or passages from the writings of St. Augus- 
 tine, which bore on the doctrine of Grace and Free Will. 
 This libellus in its original form he is thought to have 
 taken with him to Rome, where it was revised and issued 
 with some appearance of authority. It consisted of 
 three hundred and ninety-two short extracts from St. 
 Augustine's various tractates on the subject. Probably 
 it was a book as much in use in the south of Gaul as 
 it was in Rome, and as so recognised, would win for 
 those who acknowledged it the approval of the 
 Church. From this book, however, Caesarius and the 
 bishops assembled at Orange drew up twenty-five 
 statements in the form of canons, and not only did 
 he and his colleagues sign them, but Liberius the 
 prefect, and the seven other great officers of state 
 who were present with him, appended their names as 
 testifying to the orthodoxy of the province, and as 
 evidence of a wish to reassure the bishops beyond the 
 Isere. Among the letters of Felix IV. 2 there is an 
 undated one of this year which suggests that he him- 
 self had sent a copy of this libellus to Caesarius, and 
 had appended to it a condemnation of the teaching of 
 Pelagius, Caelestius, Julianus of Eclana, and especially 
 of the books of Faustus, a bishop of Gaul who was 
 brought up in the monastery of Lerins. If this letter 
 is genuine, it proves at once the caution of Caesarius 
 and his courage. He omitted in his canons the con- 
 demnations which Prosper had not written but which 
 had emanated from Rome, he proved his orthodoxy, 
 and protected from anathema the former abbot of 
 his beloved monastery of Lerins. Naturally a copy 
 
 1 Migne, P. L. li. p. 4.27 j Arnold, 536, cf. chapter xii. 
 2 Mansi, viii. 721 ; Migne, P. L. Ixii. 91. 
 
5 o 4 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 of these canons, with the subscription of Caesarius and 
 the other bishops attached to them, was forwarded to 
 Felix, and on January 25, 531, Boniface II., 1 who 
 had in the meantime succeeded to the See of Rome, 
 acknowledged and approved this confession as orthodox. 
 In the autumn of the same year, 5th November 529, 
 Caesarius seems to have been present at a Council held 
 at Vaison, where five disciplinary canons were drawn 
 up, and in 533 2 there was a Synod at Marseilles in 
 which, on account of his moral fall, Contumcliosus was 
 removed from his See of Riez, and at which Caesarius 
 was certainly president. But events had again happened 
 to disturb the peace of southern Gaul. The four sons 
 of Chlodovech, in 511, had divided his kingdom 
 amongst them, and in A.D. 523 3 Chlodomir, Childebert, 
 and Chlotachar had attacked Sigismund of Burgundy 
 and deprived him of his throne. Gondomar, however, 
 the son of Sigismund, on 25th June 524 won a signal 
 victory over the Franks at Vzerones 4 and slew 
 Chlodomir ; but in 532 he was defeated by Childebert 
 and Chlotachar, and two years afterwards the king- 
 dom of Burgundy was divided between them. The 
 Ostrogoths, like the Burgundians, had no longer 
 chieftains who could lead them to victory, and in 
 A.D. 536 Theodahad the Ostrogoth consented to hand 
 over Narbonensis II. and Alpes Maritimae to the 
 Franks, and Aries fell to the lot of Childebert. 5 
 Narbonensis I. was the last portion of Gaul held by 
 the Visigoths. It had come to be called Septimania, 
 and under Amalaric, a violent Arian, was able to resist 
 for a time the efforts of the Franks. In A.D. 532 6 
 
 1 January 25, 531 " Per filium nostrum," Mansi, viii. 725. 
 
 3 Cf. John II., Letters, jrth April, " Innotuit nobis," '* Pervenit ad nos," " Cari- 
 tatis tuae literas," Mansi, viii. 807-9. 
 
 3 Binding, p. 252 j Marius of Avenche, sub anno 523 j Greg. T. H. F. iii. 6 j 
 Fredegar. 34, 35. 
 
 4 Binding, 256 ; Marius, 524 " eo anno contra Chlodomerem regem Francorum 
 Viseroncia praeliavit, ibique interfectus est Chlodomeres." 
 
 6 Jahn, Die Geschichte der Burgundionen, ii. p. 268, 269 ; Procopius, De hello 
 Goth. i. 13. 
 
 6 Fauriel, Hist, de la Gaule merid. ii. p. 1315 Jordanis, 58. 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 505 
 
 Childebert drove Amalaric into Spain and there killed 
 him ; but in his place the Visigoths elected Theudis 
 as their king, and for the rest of the century Septimania 
 remained Visigothic and Arian. 
 
 In 541 there was a national Synod of the Frankish 
 Church at Orleans, 1 at which thirty-eight bishops and 
 the representatives of twelve others were present. 
 Caesarius was too old and infirm to attend, nor was he 
 indeed represented. 
 
 Leontius of Bordeaux seems to have presided. 
 The canons that were passed will be considered in our 
 next chapter, and the political atmosphere had little to 
 do with the province of Aries or yet its archbishop. 
 
 From the day that he first entered Lerins, Caesarius 
 never seems to have wavered in his enthusiasm for the 
 simple life and austere rules of the monastery. 2 In 
 many ways he was a predecessor of our own saintly 
 monk, Beda of Wearmouth and Jarrow. 3 The first 
 to enter the Church for the sacred offices, he was the 
 last to leave. He was conspicuous for his humility, 4 
 charity, obedience, and asceticism, and when he was 
 appointed to the suburban monastery to take the place 
 of the dead abbot, he so impressed upon others the 
 duties of the day and the importance of the sacred 
 offices, that his example was still remembered through 
 the forty years of his episcopate, and his directions 
 were still closely followed when his biographers were 
 writing his life. 
 
 As a bishop, Caesarius regarded the monastery near 
 Aries as specially his own. He gave the monks a 
 rule 5 of life adapted for the coenobitic rather than the 
 isolated system, and in many ways similar to that which 
 
 1 Mansi, ix. iii. ; Hefele, iv. 210. Leontius of Bordeaux is the first name on the 
 list. Cyprian of Toulon is the fifth name, and, coming after metropolitans, he may 
 have represented his aged friend Caesarius. 
 
 2 Vita Caesar, i. 62. 3 Cf. Plummer's Beda, Oxford, 1896, i. pp. ix-lxxx. 
 
 4 Vita Caes. i. 12. Caesarius was the first to found a hospital for the sick in Gaul, 
 cf. 155 Arnold, p. 395 ; Villerieille, p. 346 " il fonda 4 Aries le premier hopital 
 des Gaules." 
 
 5 For the Rules for Monks, cf. Arnold, p. 94, Holstenius, Paris edn., p. 56. 
 
506 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 St. Benedict had already laid down. Lerins had been 
 followed by Marseilles, and the rules of S. Honoratus 
 and Cassian were combined for the benefit of the 
 monastery which Cassian fostered at Aries. The rules 
 he had enjoined on his monks were at first oral, and 
 when late in life he instructed his nephew to commit 
 them to writing, it is probable that additional observ- 
 ances had been introduced, the result of the experience 
 which had been acquired. 
 
 Caesarius, however, was not content with his work 
 for monks. He desired also to provide a similar re- 
 treat and home of prayer for the women whose lives 
 must have been exposed to so many dangers in the 
 evil days in which he lived. His sister Caesaria l had 
 been to Marseilles, where she seems to have been im- 
 bued with the spirit of Cassian. It was probably soon 
 after his consecration as archbishop that he summoned 
 her to Aries, and appointed her the first abbess of 
 the convent of St. John on the Aliscamp road. The 
 monastery existed before the siege of Aries by the 
 Burgundians and Franks, for his biographers tell us 
 how it was injured 2 by the besieging forces, but it was 
 then so new that its destruction was all the more 
 grievous to him and to those who had laboured to 
 erect it, and the church seems hardly to have been 
 completed. The foundation was historic. It was the 
 first convent erected in Gaul for women. 3 From it 
 went forth to found other houses, women who had 
 learnt the ideals of a monastic life. Eighty years 
 afterwards it was the model on which St. Radegund 
 began her work as abbess of the convent of the 
 Holy Cross at Poitiers ; 4 and when Donatus, bishop of 
 
 1 f?',35- 
 
 2 fita, i. 28 " . . . monasterium quod sorori seu reliquis virginibus inchoaverat 
 fabricari multa ex parte destruitur." 
 
 3 For his Nuns' Rule cf. Holstenius, p. 668. Arnold, Excursus v. p. 500. ^ In 
 the life of Caesarius it is not said that Caesaria had been in a nunnery at Marseilles, 
 but that she had gone there to make trial with a few companions of the discipline 
 of a monastery. Cf. Arnold, 408. 
 
 4 Greg. T. H. F. ix. 37, Letter of the seven bishops to St. Radegund. Messengers 
 are to be sent to Aries for the rules. 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 507 
 
 , would found the convent of Jussamoutier, 1 
 it was to Aries he sent for the rules under which it 
 should be governed. 
 
 The movement does not seem to have been opposed. 
 There is a letter addressed by Pope Symmachus 2 to 
 Caesarius full of commendation for his act, and con- 
 firming all he had done for the endowment of the 
 new foundation. The letter was certainly not written 
 earlier than 514, and since the convent seems after the 
 siege to have been transferred from its original site 
 outside the city and placed within and on the city walls, 
 it is probable that the letter of the Pope was sent to 
 establish the company of devout women in their new 
 and safer abode. Caesaria his sister died in 524, and 
 in her place he appointed another Caesaria who was 
 probably his niece, and to her succeeded Liliola, the 
 abbess mentioned by Gregory of Tours 3 as receiving 
 the widow of Charibert and endeavouring to restrain 
 her from her lawless life. 
 
 The secret of Caesarius' influence on his age is 
 probably to be found in his power and industry as a 
 preacher. His love of the poor and serious effort to 
 relieve their wants and to ransom those who were 
 captives, and his zeal for the monastic life, would have 
 placed him among the great bishops of his age, but 
 his zeal as a preacher placed him above them. In 
 style his sermons 4 were not only founded on those of 
 St. Augustine, they remind us of them. St. Augustine 
 in many ways was his model, and his life-work was cast 
 on not dissimilar lines. They are direct and simple and 
 clear, and the rusticity which at times appears in them 
 added probably to their popularity. His audiences 
 were of three classes. There were those who came 
 for serious instruction in the Christian Faith, there were 
 
 1 Cf. Vita S. Salabergae (Acta 55. O.S.B. ii. 421). 
 
 2 Cf. Cone. Gall. i. 879 "exsulto in Domino." 
 
 3 Greg. T. H. F. iv. 27. 
 
 4 Forty sermons are given in Magna bibl. fit. pat., 1644, vol. ii. 265. Caesarius' 
 writings and Rules for monks and nuns, Migne, P. L. vol. Ixvii. Cf. Arnold, 
 Excursus i. p. 435. 
 
508 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 others who delighted to hear him explaining various 
 portions of Holy Scripture, and there were the warriors 
 and courtiers who came for curiosity and learnt to pray. 
 He was not only an incessant preacher, but as we will 
 see in the canons passed at the Councils over which he 
 presided, he insisted on the priests in the country 
 parishes taking this duty also upon them. Soon his 
 fame was such that from all sides men came to be in- 
 structed by him, and to learn how best they could 
 instruct their own flocks. His biographers give us a 
 remarkable illustration of this zeal as a preacher, for they 
 tell us l " he prepared suitable sermons for festivals and 
 for particular places and occasions, and against the evil 
 of drunkenness and immorality, against factiousness and 
 hatred, pride and passion, resorting to lot-drawing and 
 to soothsayers, against the pagan rites referred to in 
 the Calendar, against augury and superstitious ideas 
 concerning trees and fountains of water, and against 
 other diverse kinds of crime, and thus he was always 
 ready for any who came and sought his advice, and 
 not only did he not refuse to help them, but he was 
 wont to offer his help to them and pointed out to them 
 what they should read. To places far apart, in France, 
 in Gaul, 2 in Italy, in Spain, and in other provinces, he 
 sent priests who should preach in the churches, so that 
 casting off frivolous and degrading habits, after the 
 example of the Apostles, men might be followers of 
 good works." His sermons were certainly of a very 
 homely and useful kind. Forty of them have come 
 down to us and give us an idea of the religious needs 
 of his age. There are two sermons on Lenten duties 
 and five on the meaning of the Easter festival, two 
 on self-examination and one on preparation for Holy 
 Communion, one to monks and seven to priests in 
 which also he urges them to preach. Moral strength, 
 almsgiving, love of our enemies, love for parents, reality 
 
 1 Vita, i. 55. 
 
 2 Note how the word Francia comes up in this century for the country of the 
 Franks. Gallia is clearly the remnant of the five provinces in the south. 
 
xv FATHERS OF GALLICAN CHURCH 509 
 
 in worship, the duty of kneeling, the need of purity in 
 our thoughts, the uselessness of almsgiving for those 
 who at the same time commit adultery and rapine, 
 are among those practical subjects on which he was 
 wont to preach. A subject of great importance was 
 that of the poor and why God allowed that there 
 should be any poor in the world. Having preached 
 on this subject he followed it up by a sermon suggested 
 by what had taken place when he delivered it. " Last 
 Sunday," 1 he says, "dearest brethren, while our Eucharist 
 was being celebrated the congregation was alarmed 
 by a poor lunatic who was seized with a fit. No one, 
 who sees such an unfortunate so seized by the devil, 
 can feel anything but sorrow for him and perhaps a 
 little alarm for themselves " and so he gives them a 
 sermon on the casting out of the devil from one who 
 was possessed, and explained how sin is a real possess- 
 ing of us by the evil one which must be cast out by the 
 power of God. 
 
 We have referred to his zeal to promote a love for 
 hymn-singing. It is probable that he himself had 
 acquired this from his stay in the monastery of Lerins, 
 and perhaps we may still use and sing some of those 
 hymns which Caesarius taught to the citizens of Aries. 2 
 His rules for monks and for nuns we have already 
 referred to, and an account is given of them in an earlier 
 chapter. 
 
 The references concerning Caesarius by contemporary 
 writers are not many. Avitus, 3 his brother archbishop 
 
 1 Homily 23 " De erepto energumeno." 
 
 2 Arnold, p. 514, gives us twelve hymns which may have formed part of Caesarius' 
 Hymn-book for Aries : i. Jam surgit hora tertia ; 2. Jam sexta sensim volvitur j 
 3. Ter hora trina volvitur j 4. Hie est verus dies Dei ; 5. Christe precamur 
 annue ; 6. Christe qui lux es et dies ; 7. Rex aeterne Domine ; 8. Magna et 
 mirabilia ; 9. Mediae noctis tempus ; 10. Aeterne rerum conditor ; n. Te Deum 
 laudamus ; 12. Gloria in excelsis Deo. Cf. Clemens Blume, S.J., Der Cursus S. 
 Benedict! Nursini und die liturgischen Hymnen der 6.-Q. Jahrhunderten, Leipzig, 1908 5 
 and also Dr. Walpole's review of this book in Journal T. S. X. p. 143, which draws 
 our attention to the strange disappearance of the earlier hymns and the substitution 
 of later ones, and the details of this process, and an attempt to account for it will 
 be found in this article. 
 
 3 Avitus, Ep. to Caesarius, xi. p. 45 (M. G. H. vi. p. 12). 
 
510 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP, xv 
 
 of Vienne, wrote a letter of introduction to him for 
 a bishop Maximianus who was suffering from his eyes, 
 and desired to go to Aries and there consult a surgeon. 
 Ennodius 1 calls him the noblest pontiff in the service 
 of Christ that he knows of, and referring to his boldness 
 when in the presence of Theodoric at Ravenna, trusts 
 that his example will be imitated. And, indeed, the 
 influence of Caesarius did not cease with his death. 
 Far off in Poitiers the poet-bishop Venantius Fortunatus 2 
 sang his praise, and Leobin of Chartres followed his ex- 
 ample ; and in Albinus of Angers, Nicetius of Trier, and 
 Florianus, abbot of Roman Moutier, we have unmistak- 
 able evidence of the effect which the story of the holy 
 life of Caesarius had upon them. 3 On August 27, 542,* 
 he died, in the seventy-second year of his age and the 
 fortieth of his episcopate, and was buried in the basilica 
 of St. Mary, which he himself had built. "Who," 5 write 
 his biographers, thinking of that sad bereavement, " who 
 at his funeral service, whether religious or stranger, 
 could chant the psalm for the tears that rolled down ? 
 All, Christians and Jews alike, anticipated one another 
 in crying, Alas, alas, and daily it came more sadly, alas, 
 for the world was no longer worthy of this so great a 
 herald of Christ and so powerful an intercessor for us." 
 
 1 Ennodius, Ep. 461 (9. 33) (M. G. H. vii.). 
 
 2 Venant. Fortunatus, Carm. v. 2. 68 : 
 
 " ab urbe Genesi 
 regula Caesarii praesulis alma pii 
 qui fuit antistes Arelas de sorte Lerini 
 et mansit monachus pontificate decus." 
 
 Ibid. 3. 40, and viii. I. 60 5 Leo's Ed., M. G. H. iv. i. 
 
 3 Arnold, p. 429. 
 
 4 Vita Caes. ii. 48 j cf. Gellert, Caesarius von Arelate, i. p. 47. 
 
 5 Vita " vac, vae et cottidie amplius vae, quia non fuit dignus mundus diutius 
 talem habere praeconem seu intercessorem." 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 GALLICAN COUNCILS IN THE SIXTH CENTURY 
 
 THE sixth century of the Christian Era is, in Gaul, so 
 much a century of transition, the severance of old links 
 and the forging of new, that its importance is, at times, 
 lost sight of. Each age contributes something to, and 
 leaves its impression on, that which succeeds, and in 
 the century before us a great deal of that which gave 
 character to the Church in France in later times, had 
 its origin. At the very beginning of our enquiry we 
 become aware of this altered condition of things. The 
 men who had been trained under the Empire have now 
 passed away. Our former authorities fail us, and those 
 which come to our assistance are so different in style 
 and in tone of thought, that we cannot but notice it. 
 How wide the distance between Prosper and Salvian 
 and Sidonius Apollinaris and our new chief guide, 
 Gregory bishop of Tours ! The Respublica Romana 
 has gone, and something else is being erected in its 
 place, and it is the building of this new edifice that 
 we have to watch. We are on the threshold of the 
 Church in France, in character very different to the 
 Church in Gaul. Men trained in the atmosphere of 
 the Empire, and in the schools of the rhetors in 
 Bordeaux, Aries, and Rome, give way to men trained 
 in local monasteries or in the households of bishops. 
 There is loss and substitution, and it is for us to enquire 
 the nature and extent of that loss, and what was gained 
 by that which was put in the vacant place. And we 
 
512 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 are conscious first of all of an alteration in the political 
 centre of gravity. The life of the people no longer 
 revolves round the capital of the Empire or round 
 Aries the seat of the Pretorian Prefect. The political 
 centre has been moved northward, and though through 
 the conflict of the Franks no one definite centre has 
 as yet been found, yet it is clear that Lyons, Orleans, 
 Soissons, and Metz will soon yield to a city that shall 
 be central to all. Nor was the Church unaffected by 
 this political revolution. Rome had lost its temporal 
 power, and in Gaul the Church begins to organise itself. 
 It waits neither for permission nor instruction, but true 
 to its Catholic traditions, faces the difficult problem 
 before it with courage and remarkable wisdom. The 
 Bishop of Rome can advise, but cannot order, and the 
 reverence of the Gallican bishops for the Apostolic 
 See seems to grow in proportion as the power to 
 coerce them wanes. It would be easy to pass over 
 this early period of Prankish Church history as one 
 of lawlessness, drunkenness, and decadence, and the 
 stories which Gregory of Tours relates would justify 
 such an opinion of the age, though they would not 
 justify our neglect of it. The action of the Church in 
 the face of all this evil demands our careful study. 
 Prankish monarchs knew of no restraining power. 
 The Catholic bishops in their kingdoms had no longer 
 that support, as officials of the Empire, which had 
 once protected them. The influence of the bishops 
 of Rome over the minds of Prankish kings had yet 
 to be created. The Church was indeed once more a 
 missionary Church, though never once did she allow 
 that she had lost ground. Of course the Franks were 
 to her Christians, and she set about at once to make 
 them so, and it is this remarkable courage of the 
 Church, and the personal courage of the bishops, which 
 won the Teutonic races to the New Faith. It will be 
 our duty to trace this action of the Church, and to 
 mark how wisely she won her way. 
 
xvi GALLICAN COUNCILS 513 
 
 The seventeen provinces of which ancient Gaul had 
 been composed, had to be welded into one in the 
 Catholic Church and by the Catholic Faith. The 
 Arian Visigoth and Burgundian, the nominally Catholic 
 Frank, the Gallo- Roman, and the many other nation- 
 alities which had found a home in Gaul, had all to 
 be brought into the obedience of Christ. There would 
 naturally be many an unworthy bishop or priest, many 
 a backsliding layman, many a heathen superstition still 
 exerting an evil influence and dying hard, to check 
 the progress of the Church and to weaken her influence, 
 but to see that work growing and that influence in- 
 creasing, offers us a lesson which is worth the learning. 
 
 Certainly among the foremost signs of this great 
 change that was taking place, is the altered character 
 of the Councils of the Church. With very few excep- 
 tions, and they only in reference to Vienne and Aries, 
 they are national synods rather than councils of the 
 Church. They are concerned with the immediate 
 wants of France, and show little interest in Christendom. 
 They are summoned by Frankish monarchs, and not 
 unfrequently the canons that were passed were published 
 by order of the monarch. 1 The Church in these 
 provinces is managing its own affairs in its own way, 
 and there is no evidence either that sanction for what 
 was done had been obtained from Rome, or that the 
 apostolic See was ever asked to permit the Council, 
 or to endorse the decision. 
 
 The exception to this general fact concerns the two 
 archbishoprics which alone can be said to have been 
 created by Rome, Vienne, and Aries, though, of course, 
 we may assume also that the decisions of those Councils 
 
 1 The Council of Agde was certainly summoned with the consent of Alaric, and 
 it is probable that he was present in the city at the time. Orleans I. was summoned 
 by order of Chlodovech in 511, and Epaon, 517, by order of Sigismund of Burgundy. 
 Orleans II. assembled in obedience to the order of Childebert, Chlotachar, and 
 Theuderic in 533, and the great Synod of Orleans, 541, was summoned by Theudibert 
 and Chlotachar and Childebert. Paris IV., 573, was summoned by Gunthram, and 
 Paris V., 577, by Chilperik, and the two councils of MScon, 581 and 585, were both 
 summoned by Gunthram of Burgundy. 
 
 2 L 
 
5 14 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 over which Caesarius of Aries presided, were forwarded 
 to Rome for the information, if not the approval of the 
 Roman pontiff. 
 
 The Council of Carpentras, A.D. 527, 1 for instance, 
 seems to have been merely the ordinary yearly synod of 
 the province of Aries, and its decision, for it passed only 
 one canon, which had reference to the endowment of 
 the bishop's church, a local matter of no concern for 
 the whole of the Gallican Church. 
 
 The gathering of bishops from beyond the Isere 2 
 which took place in 529 at Valence, was caused by 
 the doubts which some of them had as to the ortho- 
 doxy of Caesarius on the questions of Divine Grace 
 and human Free Will, and, as we have already seen, 
 his ample explanation given at the Synod of Orange 3 
 in July of that year, not only satisfied the bishops of 
 the two provinces of Vienne and Aries, but was also 
 declared satisfactory by pope Boniface II. 
 
 The decisions of the Council of Vaison, 4 held in the 
 autumn of this same year, are of a different character. 
 They show a distinct desire to bring the forms of 
 worship and the organisation of the diocese into line 
 with that which prevailed in Italy. The injunction to 
 say the Kyrie Eleison 5 frequently and to repeat the Ter 
 Sanctus in the Mass, and to use the second portion of 
 the Gloria, sicut erat in principio, is explained by the 
 fact that such customs prevail in Italy. 6 Moreover, the 
 
 1 Sirmondi, C. Gal. i. pp. 212 and 604 ; cf. Hefele's Councils, Eng. ed. iv. p. 143. 
 
 2 Cf. the story of it as given by the deacon Cyprian, Mansi, viii. 723. The 
 acts of the Council are not extant, but pope Boniface, after he had heard Caesarius' 
 explanation of his views, rejected the views of the suspicious bishops. 
 
 3 Cf. Noris, Hist. Pelagiana, ii. 33, and Mansi, viii. 710. 
 
 4 Sirmondi, i. 225. 
 
 5 Cf. a most valuable article by Mr. Edmund Bishop, " Kyrie Eleison : a 
 liturgical consultation," which appeared in the Downside Review, 1899-1900. The 
 evidence seems against the belief that this Canon of Vaison was observed generally 
 in Gaul for at least a hundred years later. The Canon probably was merely obeyed 
 in Aries. " Frequentius cum grandi affectu" are the words of the Council. 
 Christians generally and for private use had repeated these words long before this 
 date. They are probably of heathen origin (Arrian, Diss. Epictet. xi. 7). Here we 
 have a definite date for their introduction into the ordered services of the Church. 
 
 6 Canon v. " Quia non solum in sede apostolica sed etiam per totum orientem et 
 totam Africam vel Italiam," etc. 
 
xvi GALLICAN COUNCILS 515 
 
 order that the name of the pope for the time being 
 should be inserted in the Canon, and read aloud at 
 Mass, indicates the desire of Caesarius to keep himself 
 in all details in close touch with the apostolic See. The 
 Synod of Marseilles, 1 rendered necessary through the 
 downfall of Contumeliosus, bishop of Riez, was of a 
 private character, and the appeal of the condemned to 
 Rome 2 is an instance of the survival of the conditions 
 which had prevailed in the former century. 
 
 The national character of these French Councils is 
 shown not only in the fact that they were summoned 
 by the consent or by the order of the French monarch, 
 in whose realm the assembly was held, but also in the 
 way the scheme which Rome had outlined for the 
 development of the Church in Gaul was ignored. In 
 A.D. 514, Caesarius of Aries had been given by pope 
 Symmachus the general oversight in religious matters 
 of the whole of Gaul and Spain. 3 He was the Vicar 
 of the apostolic See in the West, through whom the 
 bishops of Rome could announce their will to the 
 bishops of Gaul. In 545, the same honour was con- 
 ferred by Vigilius on Auxanius of Aries, 4 and this fact 
 was announced formally to all the bishops of all the 
 provinces of Gaul. It is true that Aurelian is said to 
 have been commended by Childebert, who was then in 
 possession of Aries and the province south of the Dur- 
 ance, but in 546 6 Aurelian received the pallium from 
 Rome, and Vigilius bids all bishops of Gaul to obey him. 
 So once more in the case of Sapaudus, archbishop of 
 Aries. In 557 Pelagius I. 6 made him the Vicar of the 
 apostolic See for the whole of Gaul, and wrote at the 
 same time to Childebert, to inform him that he had sent 
 
 1 Hefele, ut supra, p. 181. He copies from the Freiburg Zeitschriftfur ThcoL, 
 Jahrg. 1844, xi. 471. 
 
 2 Cf. Letter of Agapetus I. to Caesarius, " Optaveramus frater, " Sirnu 
 C. G. i. 973. 
 
 3 "Qui veneranda patrum," Mansi, via. 227. 
 
 4 Mansi, ix. 41 and 43 " Sicut nos pro " and "Quantum nos pro divina." 
 
 5 Mansi, ix. 49. 
 
 6 Mansi, ix. 725 " Majorum nostrorum." 
 
516 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 the pallium to him. The Prankish monarchs, however, 
 were not prepared to allow the Catholic Church within 
 their realms to be regulated from without. Of the ten 
 great synods of this century which may rightly be called 
 national, the Archbishop of Aries was only once the 
 president, i.e. at Agde in 506, where indeed it is not 
 improbable that Alaric II., the Visigothic monarch, was 
 himself present. Certainly the bishops assembled at 
 Agde on the petition and invitation of Caesarius, but 
 the meeting was at Agde and not at Aries, in order 
 that Alaric might exercise the greater influence over it. 
 The next 1 distinctly national synod was that at 
 
 1 The following are the Councils of the Church in France during the sixth 
 century : 
 
 506. Agde. Caesarius of Aries president. Thirty-five bishops present. Sirm. 
 
 C. G. i. 170. 
 511. Orleans. Cyprian of Bordeaux president. Thirty-two bishops present. 
 
 Mansi, viii. 350 j Sirm. i. 177. 
 517. Agaunum. Dedication of Martyrs Church. Greg. T. H. F. iii. 5 and 6 j 
 
 Gall. Christiana, xi. 4, 12. 
 517. Epaon. Avitus of Vienne. Thirty-four bishops present. M. viii. 555, 567 } 
 
 Avitus, p. 165. 
 
 517. Lyons. Viventiolus of Lyons. Ten bishops present. M. viii. 569. 
 524. Aries VII. Caesarius of Aries. Thirteen bishops and four proxies. M. 
 
 viii. 626. 
 
 527. Carpentras. Caesarius. Sixteen bishops. 
 
 529. Orange. Caesarius. Fourteen bishops. M. viii. 7125 Sirm. C. G. i. 605. 
 529. Vaison. Caesarius. Eleven bishops. M. viii. 725. 
 533. Marseilles. Caesarius. Fourteen bishops. M. viii. 807. 
 533. Orleans II. Honoratus of Bourges. Twenty-six bishops. M. viii. 836. 
 535. Clermont. Honoratus of Bourges. Fifteen bishops. M. viii. 866 j Sirm. 
 
 C. G. i. 228. 
 538. Orleans III. Lupus of Lyons. Nineteen bishops and seven proxies. M. 
 
 ix. 21. 
 541. Orleans IV. Leontius of Bordeaux. Thirty-seven bishops and twelve 
 
 proxies. M. ix. in. 
 549. Orleans V. Sacerdos of Lyons. Forty-three bishops and twenty-one 
 
 proxies. M. ix. 127. 
 
 549. Clermont II. Hesychius of Vienne. Ten bishops present. M. iv. 135. 
 
 550. Toul. Nicetius of Trier. M. ix. 147. 
 
 551. Paris II. Sapaudus of Aries and twenty-eight bishops. M. ix. 739. 
 
 551. Elusa. Aspasius of Elusa and eight others. Friedrich's Drei untdirte 
 
 Cone Hi en, 1867. 
 
 554. Aries VIII. Sapaudus of Aries and eighteen other bishops. M. ix. 702. 
 556. Paris III. Euphronius of Tours and fourteen other bishops. M. ix. 743. 
 563. Xaintes. Leontius of Bordeaux. G. T. H. F. iv. 26 j M. ix. 783. 
 567. Lyons II. Nicetius of Lyons. G. T. H. F. v. 21 ; M. ix. 786. 
 567. Tours II. Euphronius of Tours and nine other bishops. M. ix. 789. 
 573. Paris IV. Philippus of Vienne and thirty-two others. G. T. vii. 17 5 
 
 M. ix. 866. 
 577. Paris V. Forty-five bishops and perhaps Gregory of Tours presided. G. T. 
 
 H. F. v. 19. 
 
xvi GALLICAN COUNCILS 517 
 
 Orleans, summoned by Chlodovech himself in 511, just 
 a short time before his death, and for the purpose of 
 organising the Church in the whole of Gaul north of 
 the Durance and the Cevennes. Aries was in the 
 hands of the Goths, and we may be sure that Theodoric 
 the Ostrogoth would never have allowed Caesarius to 
 have gone to Orleans, even if, as does not appear, he 
 had been summoned to it. It was the first Council of 
 the French Church and over it Cyprian of Bordeaux 
 presided, and the presence of thirty-two bishops at it 
 probably indicates within a limit, the number of bishop- 
 rics then in existence in the kingdom of the Franks, 
 since few bishops would have neglected the summons of 
 Chlodovech. So again the Synod of Epaon, summoned 
 by Sigismund the catholic king of Burgundy, 517, to 
 organise the Church in his kingdom and to promote 
 the discipline and well-being of the clergy, was purely 
 national. There were thirty-four bishops present, some, 
 doubtless, from Ostrogothic lands, and some from the 
 kingdom of the Franks, and again Caesarius was passed 
 over and Viventiolus archbishop of Lyons presided, 
 though Avitus of Vienne was also present. 
 
 In the two Councils of Orleans II. and Clermont I., 
 summoned, the former in 533 by Childebert, Chlotachar, 
 and Theuderic, and the latter in 535 by Theudebert, 
 Honoratus, archbishop of Bourges, presided, though 
 Clermont was in the province of Sens ; and in the 
 great Council of Orleans IV. summoned by Childebert 
 and Chlotachar, and at which there were thirty-seven 
 bishops present and twelve others through their repre- 
 
 579. Chalons-sur-Marne. G. T. H. F. v. 28 and iv. 43 j Mansi, ix. 919. 
 581. Macon. Priscus of Lyons and twenty others. M. ix. 931. 
 583. Lyons III. Priscus of Lyons and seven others, and seven proxies. M. ix. 
 942. 
 
 585. Macon II. Priscus of Lyons and forty-three others, and twenty proxies 
 
 and twenty-six priests without sees. M. ix. 947. 
 
 586. Auxerre. Annacharius. M. ix. 911. 
 
 587. Clermont. G. T. H. F. vi. 38 and 39 ; M. ix. 973. 
 
 588. G. T. H. F. Ix. 20. 
 
 589. Narbonne. Migetius of Narbonne. M. ix. 1014.5 Gams ii. 2, p. 16. 
 589. Poitiers. G. T. H. F. ix. 41. 
 
5i8 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 sentatives, and among them bishops from the province 
 of Aries, yet Leontius of Bourges presided. Caesarius 
 was certainly ill and aged, but the whole policy of the 
 Franks was for national independence. This is also 
 shown at the fifth Council of Orleans in 549, summoned 
 by Childebert of Paris, where forty-three bishops and 
 twelve representatives took part in the deliberations, 
 and Sacerdos, archbishop of Lyons, presided, Aurelian 
 of Aries signing second on the list. The other three 
 great national synods were summoned at the orders of 
 Gunthram, who ruled over Burgundy. That at Paris, 
 the fourth, in 573, was presided over by the Arch- 
 bishop of Vienne, perhaps Philippus, though Sapaudus 
 of Aries was present, and the two at Macon in 581 
 and 585 by Priscus, archbishop of Lyons, Sapaudus 
 being present by proxy. The second of Macon saw 
 a great increase of the episcopate, for there were 
 present forty-three bishops and twenty representatives 
 of bishops, and two bishops without sees. 
 
 It is clear, therefore, that the Church in France 
 was organising itself on its own lines. There was no 
 antagonism with Rome, but there was independence, 
 and the objects which concerned the bishops, when they 
 gathered at these Councils, were such as could only be 
 effectively considered by local Councils. As we will 
 show presently, objects of vital importance were dis- 
 cussed : the question of the right of sanctuary in the 
 Church, a matter of the highest importance ; monasticism 
 in relation to the bishops of the diocese and the irre- 
 vocable nature of the vow taken by those who adopted 
 it ; the endowments of the diocese and the extent to 
 which they should be administered by the bishop or be 
 definitely assigned to particular churches ; the marriage 
 question and the restraints to be laid down concerning 
 the marriage of relations ; the Church in its relation to 
 the Jews ; the Festivals of the Church and the obligations 
 that lay on Churchmen to observe them ; such and many 
 other like matters were considered, and whatever may 
 
xvi GALLIC AN COUNCILS 519 
 
 have been the character of individual bishops and priests 
 as recorded by Gregory of Tours, it is from the decrees 
 of these National Synods that we can perceive how 
 zealously the Church in France was striving to resist 
 the heathenism and worldliness that prevailed, and how 
 courageously she spoke out even at the risk of the lives 
 of those who had to proclaim her decrees. 
 
 We propose, therefore, to show from the decrees of 
 these Councils the nature of that effort for organisation 
 and development of which we have already spoken, and 
 we will examine their evidence under the six heads of 
 I, Rules of discipline imposed on the clergy and the 
 general organisation of the bishops and clergy in their 
 dioceses ; 2, The progress of the endowment of the 
 Church ; 3, The development of worship and the ob- 
 servance of the Festivals and Fasts of the Church ; 
 4, The ordering of monasticism and its relation to the 
 diocese ; 5, The relationship of the Church and of 
 Christians to the Jews and heretics who lived in the 
 diocese ; and 6, The Church in its effort against still 
 existent heathenism. 
 
 i. The church had already accepted the rule of Discipline. 
 celibacy for the clergy. During this century the order 
 is constantly repeated for the separation from their 
 wives of those to be ordained. They are henceforth 
 to live as if they were not married. 1 If at any time 
 they should come together again they should be deposed 
 from their office 2 and both should be put outside the 
 Church. The suspicion was sometimes grave that men 
 secretly lived with their wives. In order that the officers 
 of the Church might not thus be suspected, 3 the arch-priest 
 should always travel in company with another priest. 
 If a bishop had a wife she must be regarded as a sister, 4 
 and must have a distinct establishment, and the bishop 
 who had no wife was not to have any women in his 
 household. 5 No one who had been married twice 
 
 1 Orleans III. can. z. 2 Agde, 506, can. 9. 
 
 9 Tours II. can. 19. 4 Tours II. can. 12. 6 Tours II. can. 13. 
 
520 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 could be ordained priest or even deacon, 1 nor could 
 any one be accepted for Holy Orders 2 who had 
 previously done penance. Clerics were not to wear 
 secular garments or shoes or weapons, 3 and if they did 
 not keep their hair short the arch-deacons were em- 
 powered to cut it for them. 4 An intemperate priest 
 drew on himself excommunication for thirty days. 5 
 On no account were they to receive visits from strange 
 women, 6 i.e. those not related to them, 7 and into their 
 houses they could only receive their mothers, or sisters, 
 or their wives from whom they had separated, 8 and who 
 were prepared to live as sisters with them. No one 
 could be ordained as deacon until he was twenty-five, 
 and the Council of Agde 9 gave the age of thirty for 
 those to be ordained bishops or priests. The Council 
 of Aries, 524, 10 however, states that a bishop must be 
 twenty-five, and a laymen chosen for the episcopate 
 must be at least thirty and have made the vows of 
 chastity before his consecration, and eight days were 
 to be allowed to the laity in which they could object 
 before the Ordination or Consecration took place. The 
 Council of Epaon n decreed that bishops and priests were 
 not to keep hounds, and the second Council of Macon 12 
 repeats the decree with the addition, "lest the poor 
 should be bitten by them." The second Council of 
 Orleans, 533, 13 decreed that unlearned persons and those 
 who could not perform the sacrament of Baptism 14 were 
 not to be ordained, an order which was repeated by 
 the Council of Narbonne. A priest was not to live 
 with his people in the world, but in his own house, 15 
 unless he has obtained the express permission of his 
 bishop. 
 
 There is evidence also that the clergy were not 
 altogether dependent on the bishop of the diocese 
 
 1 Agde, can. i. 2 Aries, 524, can. 3. 3 Macon I. can. 5. 
 
 4 Agde, can. 20. 5 Agde, can. 41. * Orleans III. can. 4. 
 
 7 Orleans III. can. 2. 8 Tours II. can. 10. 9 Agde, can. 17. 
 
 10 Aries, 524, can. i. n Epaon, can. 4. 12 Macon II. can. 13. 
 
 13 Can. 16. I4 Can. n. " Orleans II. can. 9. 
 
xvi GALLICAN COUNCILS 521 
 
 for their maintenance. Bishops are forbidden to take 
 fees for ordination. 1 Should any one be found to have 
 purchased his ordination he is to be deposed. 2 It 
 is at once sacrilegious and heretical to do so. In- 
 dependence such as would allow of an appeal against 
 his bishop 3 by a priest of the diocese to the diocesan 
 synod is contemplated and expressly allowed, and clergy 
 of independent means are clearly referred to in the 
 decree of Clermont 535, 4 that priests and deacons not 
 on the canon, or official list of diocesan clergy, i.e. to 
 be maintained by the diocesan fund, who live in their 
 private villas, and hold divine services in their private 
 oratories, are to come into the city and celebrate there 
 with their bishop the festival services of Christmas, 
 Easter, and Whitsunday. No one is to obtain a 
 bishopric by bribery 5 or the giving of presents, but 
 must be elected to it by the clergy of the diocese and 
 the laity and the Council of Orleans added, i.e. with the 
 assent of the king. 6 A bishop must be consecrated in 
 his own church. 7 In Armorica no Breton or Roman 
 was to be consecrated a bishop without the consent 
 of the metropolitan and the comprovincial bishops. 8 
 Bishops were not to pass over priests of their diocese 
 who had led blameless lives for junior priests, and 
 especially those who had come from other dioceses, 
 but when they had to choose an archdeacon they were 
 at liberty to select whoever they regarded as most 
 suitable for the office. Bishops were not to intrude 
 into the dioceses of other bishops 9 or to take away 
 parishes which belonged to other dioceses, nor were 
 they to receive clergy from other dioceses without the 
 consent of their diocesans. 10 Unless they are ill, 11 all 
 bishops must be careful to attend on Sundays the 
 services in the church nearest to where they may be. 12 
 
 1 Orleans II. can. 3. 2 Orleans II. can. 4. 
 
 3 Orleans III. can. 26. 4 Clermont, 535, can. 14. 
 
 5 Orleans V. can. 10. 6 Orleans IV. can. 5. 
 
 7 Tours II. can. 9. 8 Agde, can. 23.' 
 
 9 Lyons, 517, can. 4. 10 Clermont, 535, can. 10. 
 
 11 Orleans I. can. 31. 12 Orleans II. can. 5. 
 
522 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 When summoned for the burial of a colleague they are 
 not to charge more than their necessary travelling ex- 
 penses. 1 All controversies were to be settled by the 
 bishops and the comprovincial bishops, and Christians 
 were not to go before lay tribunals, and if any had a 
 charge against a priest, he was not to have him arrested, 2 
 but to accuse him before his own bishop, 8 and bishops 
 were themselves to be satisfied with the judgment of 
 the metropolitan. 4 Archdeacons were to visit prisoners, 5 
 and bishops were to have the care of lepers, and to 
 be hospitable. 6 Liberated slaves were the special care 
 of the Church. 7 
 
 Neglect of office or negligent discharge of duty was 
 also the subject of several decrees. Clergy who were 
 in charge of the private oratories of the great and fail- 
 ing to perform their duties as defined by the Church 8 
 were to be punished by the archdeacon. If generally a 
 diocesan priest was negligent and would not obey the 
 admonition of his bishop 9 his name was to be taken 
 off the canon 10 and he was no longer to be maintained 
 by the diocesan fund. 11 If he neglected his office 
 through pride he was to be deposed. 12 
 
 Endow- 2 . The endowments 13 of the Church had grown apace 
 
 from the time of the Edict of Milan, and all we 
 know of the Church in Gaul during the fifth century 
 goes to show that it was not in want of means for 
 the support of its bishops and clergy. Constantine, 
 Valentinian I., Gratian, and Theodosius were all great 
 benefactors, and the bishops who were recognised by the 
 empire seldom seem to have been in want. Gaul, 
 however, had been ravaged by barbarians, and occupied 
 by Arian Visigoths and Burgundians and by half- 
 
 1 Elusa, can. 4. 2 MScon II. can. 10. ;! Lyons II. can i. 
 
 4 Orleans V. can. 20. 5 Ibid. can. 21. 6 Ibid. can. 7. 
 
 7 Agde, can. 39. 8 Orleans IV. can. 26. 9 Agde, can. 2. 
 
 10 Orleans II. can. 14. n Orleans III. can. n. 12 Ibid. can. 19. 
 
 13 On the question of the endowments of the Church in France and the growth 
 of the rural parishes cf. Les Paromes rurales du IV* au Xl e siicle, by Imbart de la 
 Tour, Paris, 1900, and especially chapter ii. " Comment les 6glises rurales furent-elles 
 6tablies ? " 
 
xvi GALLICAN COUNCILS 523 
 
 barbarian though nominally Catholic Franks. In 
 Aquitaine certainly Catholic bishoprics had been sup- 
 pressed, and we must assume also that their endowments 
 were confiscated. The endowment of the Church, 
 therefore, in the sixth century would demand re- 
 organisation, and now that the whole of Gaul was 
 nominally Christian and Catholic the work in the country 
 districts would steadily grow. The information, there- 
 fore, which the Gallican Councils of the sixth century 
 afford us on this point, is certainly of importance. It is 
 probable that at the Council of Agde, A.D. 506, Caesarius' 
 zeal for the poor was aimed at, when, in the sixth canon, 
 it was decreed that gifts made to the bishop of the diocese 
 are made to the Church of the diocese 1 and to him in 
 his official capacity, and no bishops were at liberty to 
 alienate the goods and furniture or slaves of the Church 
 as if for the benefit of the poor, without the consent of 
 two or three of the comprovincial bishops. To take 
 back gifts once offered to the Church was to incur 
 excommunication, 2 and on the death of a bishop there 
 should be a careful discrimination between his personal 
 effects and that property which belonged to the See, 3 
 and only the former were to be handed over to his 
 relatives. With Orleans, A.D. 5 1 1 , we are introduced to 
 the new conditions of things, and while Chlodovech was 
 still the Catholic monarch of France. 4 The gifts of the 
 king to the Church, it was decreed, were to go for the 
 repair of churches, the maintenance of the clergy, the 
 support of the poor, and the redemption of slaves. 
 Should any bishop be negligent in this distribution, he 
 was to be censured by his comprovincial colleagues. 
 Offerings made by the faithful of the produce of their 
 fields, vineyards, and stock 5 were to be administered 
 by the bishop ; offerings made on the altar were for 
 the parish priest, but one-third was to be given to 
 the bishop. If the church in the bishop's city was 
 
 1 Agde, can. 6. 2 Ibid. can. 4. 3 Ibid. can. 33. 
 
 4 Orleans I. can. 5. 5 Ibid. can. 15. 
 
524 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 adequately endowed, then the offerings sent up by other 
 churches to the bishop were to be used by him for the 
 repair of his churches and the maintenance of his 
 clergy. 1 If his city church was not properly endowed, 
 it had a first claim on these offerings, only the con- 
 tributory rural parishes were not thereby to be left in 
 want. In the city the bishop has full power in the 
 administration of the residue, above maintenance of the 
 clergy, of the Church fund. 2 In the rural parishes this 
 was to be regulated by custom. Churches already 
 erected or about to be erected were only to be recog- 
 nised, i.e. as claiming a share in the diocesan main- 
 tenance fund, 3 with the consent of the bishop. Holy 
 relics were not to be placed in private oratories 4 unless 
 a priest was attached to them who could officiate in 
 them, nor could a priest be specially so attached unless 
 the founder of the oratory shall provide a maintenance 
 fund for the priest. If a bishop assigns certain funds 
 belonging to the Church to one of his priests for his 
 maintenance, he is not to take an interest out of it. 5 In 
 the early part of the sixth century it was surely wise, as 
 did the Council of Orleans, A.D. 511, to decree that a 
 claimant to property said to belong to the Church was 
 not on that account to be excommunicated. No cleric 
 had power to sell the goods of the Church, and any 
 such sale was invalid. 6 Should some great potentate 
 hand over goods of the Church to a cleric he cannot 
 possess such without the consent of his bishop ; 7 and 
 should one accept from the king as a personal gift that 
 which is the property of the Church, 8 he is excommuni- 
 cated if he does not at once surrender it. 9 However long 
 Church property may have been enjoyed by a priest, 
 and even with the consent of the king, it cannot become 
 his personal property; and those who take for themselves 
 property bequeathed in writing to the Church 10 are 
 
 1 Carpentras, can. i. 2 Orleans III. can. 5. :{ Orleans I. can. 17. 
 
 4 Ibid. can. 25. 6 Ibid. can. 23. 6 Ibid. can. 6. 
 
 7 Orleans IV. can. 25. 8 Paris III. can. i j Clermont, 535, can. 5. 
 
 8 Epaon, can. 12. 10 Clermont, can. 13. 
 
xvi GALLICAN COUNCILS 525 
 
 excommunicated unless they give it up. The faithful 
 are constantly to have the duty of paying tithes pressed 
 upon them. 1 The rich desiring a parochia on their 
 estate 2 must provide a church and a sufficient main- 
 tenance for a priest. 
 
 3. Our general ignorance as to the forms of service Public 
 and the rules that were laid down for public worship worshl P- 
 gives a special value to the reference made on the 
 subject in these sixth - century councils. It was 
 Caesarius' desire to promote uniformity in his province, 
 and at Agde 3 he laid down that the Divine Service 
 should be celebrated in the same manner everywhere. 
 After the antiphons the collects were to be said by the 
 bishop or priest. The morning and evening hymns were 
 to be sung daily. At the close of matins and vespers, 
 which are here called Missae, after the hymns, capitella ex 
 P salmis, or extended versicles and responses in the words 
 of the psalms, 4 were to be said, and the people should 
 be dismissed after the vesper prayer with the bene- 
 diction given by the bishop. Twice it is decreed that the 
 fast before Easter was to be for forty and not fifty days, 5 
 and once it is further decreed that Christians were to 
 fast on Saturdays and not on Sundays. At M&con in A.D. 
 581 it was ordered that after St. Martin's Day (Nov. 
 n), 6 and until the festival of Christmas, Monday, 
 Wednesday and Friday were to be observed as fasts, 
 and the Holy Sacrifice was to be offered as in Lent. 
 All churches were to observe the Rogation Days, 7 and 
 on these days slaves were not to be compelled to work 
 in the fields. Should any clergy fail to take part in the 
 processions he was to be punished. 8 An extension of 
 these early summer processions was decreed at Lyons in 
 A.D. 567, when it was ordered that on the first week of 
 the ninth month, before the first Sunday of the month, 
 
 1 Macon II. can. 5. 2 Orleans IV. can. 33. 3 Agde, can. 30. 
 
 4 Cf. Martene, De ritibus Ecclesiae, iv. 8 j Amalarius, De Eccl. off. iv. 3. 
 
 5 Orleans I. can. 24 ; Orleans IV. can. 2. 
 
 6 Macon I. can. 9. 7 Orleans I. can. 27. 
 8 Ibid. can. 28. 9 Lyons, can. 6. 
 
526 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 processions for intercessions were to be held as they 
 are held before the Festival of the Ascension. 
 
 Much was made of the duty of Christians to join 
 in a united Eucharist on the great festivals of the 
 Church. All were to attend the parochial festival. 
 Services might be held in the private oratories at all 
 times except on Easter, Christmas, Epiphany, Ascension, 
 Pentecost, the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, and the 
 other great festivals. 1 No one was allowed to keep 
 Easter in his own villa on the three great festivals 
 unless he was ill, 2 and laymen of noble descent must 
 request the bishop's benediction at Christmas and at 
 Easter. 3 Laymen were not to keep Easter out of the 
 city, and in his own church in the city the bishop was 
 to celebrate the Holy Eucharist on these two festivals 
 of Easter and Christmas.* This festal service also was 
 to take place at 9 a.m., so as to allow all priests in the 
 neighbourhood to assemble together for vespers in the 
 church where the bishop officiates. 5 
 
 Altars that were not of stone were not to be anointed. 6 
 Priests were not to say mass unless they were fasting, 7 and 
 after fraction the portions of the consecrated host 8 were 
 to be solemnly arranged on the altar in the form of a 
 cross, and not in any way to suit the fancy of the priest. 9 
 During the divine Office the laity were not to stand 
 with the clergy near the altar. 10 The space between the 
 railings and the altar was for the choirs and the singing 
 clerks. 11 The oblationes defunctorum might be made 
 for criminals who were executed, but not for suicides. 
 No corpses, not even that of the late bishop, were to be 
 covered with the corporal from the altar or with any 
 church furniture. 12 Neither the Eucharist nor the Kiss 
 of Peace were to be given to a corpse. 13 The observ- 
 
 1 Agde, can. 21. 2 Orleans I. can. 25. 3 Epaon, can. 35. 
 
 4 Orleans IV. can. 3. 5 Orleans III. can. 14. 6 Epaon, can. 26. 
 
 7 Ma'am II. can. 6. 
 
 8 Cf. Hammond's Liturgies Eastern and Western, 1878, p. 341, where he gives us 
 a representation of the Mozaratic arrangement. 
 
 9 Tours II. can. 3. 10 Ibid. can. 4. " Orleans II. can. 15. 
 
 12 Clermont I. can. 386. 13 Auxerre, can. 12. 
 
xvi GALLICAN COUNCILS 527 
 
 ance of Sunday is more than once emphasised, not 
 merely as a day of freedom from work, 1 but also as a 
 day to be hallowed by worship. 2 On every Sunday the 
 faithful are to make on the altars their oblations of 
 bread and wine. 3 The priest was to be fasting when 
 he celebrated the Eucharist. 4 The wine for the 
 Eucharist was to be the juice of the grape. 5 All con- 
 verts and children were to be baptized on Easter Eve, 6 
 except in case of dire necessity created by sickness. 7 
 From Maundy Thursday for six days there was to be a 
 cessation of work in the fields. At Vaison 8 and at 
 Narbonne 9 the Gloria is ordered to be said after each 
 psalm, 10 and in addition to the Ambrosian hymns others 
 might be sung at the services if they were worthy of 
 being used. 11 The parochial clergy were to receive the 
 canon from the bishop. 12 Before Epiphany they were to 
 enquire from him when Lent would begin, and in the 
 middle of Lent they were to take care to obtain from 
 him the chrism for the baptisms on Easter Eve. 13 At 
 Orleans 14 in A.D. 549 the Church in France showed its 
 orthodoxy in condemning by its first canon the Eutychian 
 and Nestorian heresies, and at Tours 15 professed its zeal 
 for St. Martin in antiphons and psalms to be sung in 
 his honour during summer and winter. 
 
 4. In a previous chapter we saw how zealous Caesarius Monas- 
 of Aries was in the cause of monasteries. Not only t! 
 did he live the life of a monk while he carried out the 
 duties of the archbishopric, but he did his best to pro- 
 mote men who had been trained as monks, and he was 
 the first to provide for women the same austere life and 
 secluded existence as more than a hundred years earlier 
 had been provided for men. Gregory of Tours as the 
 successor of St. Martin has much to tell us incidentally 
 of monasticism. During the sixth century it took root 
 
 1 Macon II. can. i. 2 Narbonne, can. 3. 3 Macon II. can. 4. 
 
 4 Ibid. can. 6. 5 Orleans IV. can. 4. 6 Macon II. can. 3. 
 
 7 Ibid. can. 2. 8 Vaison, can. 5. 9 Narbonne, can. 2. 
 
 10 Tours II. can. 23. 11 Orleans IV. can. 6. 12 Auxerre, can. 2. 
 
 13 Ibid. can. 6. u Orleans V. can. i. 15 Tours II. can. 18. 
 
528 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 again in France, and he gives us the names of thirty 1 
 monasterla in the Frankish kingdom. It is clear, there- 
 fore, that the monastic movement had recovered, and had 
 begun to grow at a more rapid rate than it did in the 
 previous century. There were also perhaps monasteries 
 in the cities, especially the bishop's cities, as those of 
 Montmajeur and the convent of St. John the Baptist 
 for women at Aries, and in addition Gregory used the 
 terms coenobium* and cellulae for those establishments 
 
 1 The following are the places described by Gregory of Tours as monasferia : 
 
 Agaunum S. Maurice en Valais. 
 
 Aninsula S. Calais. 
 
 Beat! Aredii monasterium S. Yrieix. 
 
 Aviti S. Avit au Perche. 
 
 Hospicii S. Sospis. 
 
 Maxentii S. Maixent. 
 
 Papulae 
 
 Portiani S. Pourcain. 
 
 Candidobrum 
 
 Chrono Cournon. 
 
 Columbarium Colombier. 
 
 Condatisco S. Claude. 
 
 Gurtho Gourdon. 
 
 Insula Barbara L'lle Barbe. 
 
 Latta 
 
 Laucounum S. Lupicin. 
 
 Lirinum Ldrins. 
 
 Locogiacus Liguge 1 . 
 
 Majus monasterium Marmoutiers. 
 
 Malliacus Maille, hodie Luynes. 
 
 Manatum Menat. 
 
 Melitum Meallet. 
 
 Miciacus S. Mesmin de Micy. 
 
 Onia Heugnes. 
 
 Pauliacus S. Sernin (Aude). 
 
 Pontiniacus 
 
 Randanum Randan. 
 
 Reomatis Moutiers Saint Jean. 
 
 Romani monasterium Romainmotier. 
 
 Senaparia Sennevieres. 
 
 Tausiriacus Toiselay. 
 
 Cf. Longnon, Geographic de la Gaule au VI e siecle, p. 21, etc. 
 
 To these we must add the two abbeys at Trier, St. Maximin's and St. Matthias 
 " die spSteren Benediktiner Abteien S. Maximin und S. Matthias in Trier, die 
 wahrscheinlich gegen Ende des 7ten Jahrhunderts die Benediktinerregel annahmen, 
 bestanden als KlSster schon lange vorher. Ihren Ursprung setzt man sogar ins 4ten 
 Jahrhundert. Sie bilden demnach die altesten KlSster Deutschlands " (P. J. Kreuz- 
 berg, Geschtchtsbilder aus dent Rheinlande, 1906, p. 41). Cf. also St. Aug. Conf. viii. 6. 
 2 The " coenobium sancti Aredii " was the origin of the monastery at Athanum, 
 which gave rise to the town Saint- Yrieix and the " cellulae " of S. Friardus, Seno- 
 chus, Euscius, and Patroclus, to the communes of Celle (Allier), Selles-sur-Cher 
 (Loir-et-Cher), Senoch (Indre-et-Loire), and Besn6 in the department of Loire 
 Inferieure. 
 
xvi GALLICAN COUNCILS 529 
 
 which were undoubtedly monastic. We look then with 
 special interest to the references during this century to 
 monastic institutions which we find in the decrees of the 
 Councils. Unlike the lives of the saints of this period, 
 which were written for the most part after the eighth 
 century, or which have been largely re-edited in subse- 
 quent times, they give us contemporary evidence of the 
 existence of monasteries, and show us that convents for 
 women must have increased considerably during the 
 century to allow for so many references to them in these 
 canons of the Church. The series of references begin 
 with the decrees for which Caesarius was largely respon- 
 sible. He was zealous in the cause, yet the cause must 
 be subordinate to the regular organisation of the decrees. 
 At Agde * two decrees were passed ordering that new 
 convents or monasteries were not to be built without the 
 consent of the bishop of the diocese, who was also to 
 approve of the locality, and that convents for women 
 were not to be in close proximity to the convents for 
 men. Monks were also not to be ordained without 
 the consent of the abbot of the house to which they 
 belonged, 2 nor were strange monks to be received into 
 other monasteries unless they brought with them com- 
 mendatory letters. 3 Abbots could not have charge of 
 two monasteries, 4 they were under the bishop of the 
 diocese and must assemble yearly to take council with 
 him, 5 and obedience must be the rule of the abbot as it 
 was the rule of the monk. 6 Monks were not to use shoes 
 nor to carry pocket-handkerchiefs, 7 and should a monk 
 leave his monastery and marry he could never after- 
 wards be ordained to any office in the Church. 8 Gifts 
 made to abbots or to bishops were not for themselves, 9 
 they became the property of the monastery ; nor could 
 abbots absent themselves from their monasteries for any 
 length of time without the consent of the bishop. 10 
 
 1 Agde, can. 27, 28. 2 Ibid. can. 27. 3 Ibid. can. 38. 
 
 4 Epaon, can. 9. 5 Aries V. can. 2. ' Orleans I. can. 19. 
 
 7 Ibid. can. 20. 8 Ibid. can. 21. 9 Orleans IV. can. n. 
 
 10 Aries V. can. 3. Epaon = Yenne, W. of I. du Bourget. 
 
 2 M 
 
530 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 They could not alienate any property of their house 
 without permission of the bishop. 1 Neither monks nor 
 abbots were allowed to go to marriages or to act as god- 
 parents. 2 A monk could not leave his monastery and 
 build himself a cell without the consent of his bishop. 3 
 Women were not to be allowed to take the veil until 
 they were forty years of age, 4 and only women of 
 approved character were to be received. 5 They were 
 never to enter a men's monastery, 6 and if a priest 
 entered a women's monastery to celebrate mass for 
 them or to perform any other office, he was to leave 
 immediately after, 7 and only men of mature age and 
 known probity were to be allowed to perform this 
 service. 8 If girls wished of their own free will to enter 
 a convent, or they had been offered to the convent by 
 their parents, they must remain a whole year in the 
 house wearing the dress in which they entered. Should 
 they change from house to house and not abide in the 
 same, then their probation in the dress in which they 
 entered must be for three years. If they go out and 
 marry, they and their husbands are excommunicated, 9 
 and so also are nuns who desert their convents. 10 He who 
 carries off a dedicated nun n and marries her is to be 
 excommunicated for life. 12 The bishops at the first 
 council of Macon had a serious case to consider, the 
 details of which we can only conjecture. 13 A nun, 
 Agnes, had given largely of her property to magnates, 
 in order to secure their protection in her disorderly life. 
 She and they who received her gifts are declared to be 
 excommunicated. 
 
 jews. 5. Among the legacies which the empire bequeathed 
 
 to the Prankish nation was the motley character of the 
 inhabitants of the great cities of Gaul. As formerly in 
 Marseilles, Aries, Lyons, and Bordeaux, so also in the 
 
 1 Orleans III. can. 23. 2 Auxerre, can. 24, 25. 
 
 3 Epaon, can. 10. 4 Agde, can. 19. 5 Epaon, can. 38. 
 
 6 Tours II. can. 16. 7 Epaon, can. 38. 8 Orleans V. can. 19. 
 
 9 Macon I. can. 12. 10 Lyons III. can. 3. n Orleans III. can. 16. 
 
 12 Paris III. can. 5. 13 Macon I. can. 19. 
 
xvi GALLICAN COUNCILS 531 
 
 sixth century in Orleans and Paris, Greeks, Syrians, and 
 Jews were found side by side with the Gallo-Romans, 
 Visigoths, Burgundians, and Franks. Gregory of Tours 1 
 tells us how numerous the Jews were at Orleans, and how 
 they vied with the most loyal in welcoming Gunthram 
 of Burgundy into that city in A.D. 585. They were not, 
 however, popular, and there had been outbreaks of the 
 Christians against them. Gunthram understood the 
 hollowness of their welcome to him in Orleans, and 
 told Gregory the next day that they had acclaimed his 
 arrival in the hope that he would rebuild for them the 
 synagogue which the Christians had destroyed. The 
 story of Priscus the Jew and the jeweller of Paris, 2 who 
 had a theological discussion at Nogent-sur-Marne with 
 Gregory of Tours andChilperik in A.D. 5 8 2, is well known. 
 The next year, since the force of the argument had not 
 converted the Jew, Chilperik tried the effect of im- 
 prisonment on him, and soon after he was murdered 
 in the open street. 3 Gregory tells us also of the zeal 
 of Avitus when he became Bishop of Clermont. 4 He 
 found his episcopal city full of Jews, and he gave them 
 the option of conversion or exile. He also has a 
 story concerning the transference of the remains of 
 St. Hospitius to Lerins. 5 The cleric who was in charge 
 of them placed them on a ship of Nice that traded with 
 Marseilles. The ship was owned and sailed by Jews, 
 and this fact had induced the cleric to keep secret the 
 nature of her burden until the ship by some mysterious 
 attraction had been drawn to Lerins instead of going 
 on directly to Marseilles. That there were many 
 Jews in the province is clearly shown by the letters of 
 Gregory the Great to Archbishop Virgilius of Aries 
 and Bishop Theodore of Marseilles. 6 The Jews had 
 appealed to him against the pressure put upon them to 
 give up their faith, 7 and the Bishop of Rome wrote to 
 deprecate a proselytising movement which could not be 
 
 1 H. F. viii. i. 2 H. F. vi. 5. 3 H. F. vi. 17. 
 
 4 H. F. v. ii. 5 De gloria confess. 97. 6 Greg. Magn. Eff. i. 47. 
 
 7 Migne, P. L. Ixxvii. 5 10. 
 
532 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 defended by sincere Christians. From the Councils of 
 this century we obtain yet further evidence of this con- 
 flict and rivalry of the Jews with the members of the 
 Christian Church. Christians were on no account to 
 take their meals with Jews. 1 If they did so they ran the 
 risk of excommunication. 2 Jews were not to be judges 
 over a Christian population, 3 nor were they to be the 
 farmers of the taxes which Christians had to pay. 4 If 
 a Jew succeeded in making a proselyte he was to lose 
 all his slaves, 5 and should he himself desire to become a 
 Christian he should remain at least for eight months in 
 the position of a catechumen. 6 Marriages of Jews with 
 Christians were expressly forbidden. 7 If a Jew had a 
 slave who was a Christian any Christian could buy him 
 for 12 solidi, and Christians were not to possess Jews 
 as slaves. 8 To abstain from riding on a Saturday, or to 
 refrain from all work on the decoration of one's house 
 or person, was a Jewish custom which should not be 
 imitated by Christians. 9 There was an ordinance of 
 Childebert which is twice repeated by Church Councils, 
 that from Maundy Thursday until over the Easter 
 festival 10 Jews were not to mingle with Christians or to 
 show themselves in the streets of the city, and at any 
 time should they meet a priest in the street they were 
 to show him due respect. 11 They were allowed by the 
 Council of Narbonne to bury their dead according to 
 Jewish custom, but there was to be no chanting of 
 psalms at such funerals. 12 Should a Christian who is 
 the slave of a Jew flee for refuge to a church and plead 
 to be redeemed from the hold his master has on him, 
 he is to be purchased by the Church for itself, 13 nor is 
 the Jew to receive him back from his refuge in the 
 church unless he pay also a ransom for him above the 
 1 2 solidi of the law. 14 
 
 1 Agde, can. 34. 2 Macon I. can. 15. 
 
 3 Ibid. can. 13. 4 Clermont I. can. 8. 5 Orleans IV. can. 31. 
 
 6 Agde, can. 34. 7 Orleans II. can. 19. 8 Macon I. can. 16. 
 
 9 Orleans III. can. 28. 10 Orleans III. can. 30. n Macon I. can. 14. 
 
 12 Narbonne, can. 9. 13 Orleans III. can. 1 3. u Orleans IV. can. 30. 
 
xvi GALLIC AN COUNCILS 533 
 
 6. But the Church had to face much more serious Heathen, 
 dangers than those created by the intercourse of 
 Christians with the Jews. The Burgundians and the 
 Visigoths had been Arians, and it was unlikely that 
 with the conversion of Sigismund and the death of 
 Alaric, Arianism had come to an end. What its fate 
 was we can only conjecture. The notices are too few 
 and incidental to allow of anything more, but such as 
 we have demand our attention. Nor again can we 
 suppose that the Church had as yet converted Gaul 
 from its ancient heathenism. With heathen Franks 
 occupying all the northern parts of the country, and 
 with settlements of Alans and Huns in diverse parts of 
 the south, the old superstitions would receive encourage- 
 ment, and the veneer of Christian doctrine would be 
 rubbed off. At Agde the Church threatened exclusion 
 from Christian privileges to all clergy and laity who 
 took part in that which was termed sortes sanctorum? 
 and at Narbonne, towards the end of the century, the 
 heathen feastings on Thursday were strictly forbidden. 2 
 At Orleans, both inA.D. 5 33 and in A. D. 5 41, reference was 
 made to this danger. 3 Catholics who became idolatrous, 
 or who ate food offered to idols, were to be removed 
 from their membership in the Church ; 4 and should 
 those who have been baptized, and in spite of warnings, 
 take part in the feast at an idol sacrifice, they were to 
 be excommunicated. 5 At Tours, in A.D. 567, we are told 
 that some still hold fast the old error that they should 
 honour the ist of January; others on the festival of 
 the See of St. Peter present meat-offerings to the 
 dead, and partake of meats which have been offered 
 to demons ; others reverence certain rocks, or trees, or 
 fountains. 6 The priests should root out these heathen 
 superstitions. 
 
 It is at the Council of Orleans, A.D. 511, that we have Heretics. 
 our first notice of the Arians. The loth canon runs 
 
 1 Agde, can. 42. 2 Narbonne, can. 15. 3 Orleans II. can. 20. 
 
 4 Orleans IV. can. 20. 5 Ibid. can. 15. 6 Tours, can. 22. 
 
534 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 as follows i 1 "If heretical clergy of their own free will 
 return to the Church, as, for instance, from the Arian 
 Goths, they are to receive the clerical office of which 
 the bishop shall think them worthy, and for which he 
 shall impose on them ordination by the laying on of 
 his hands. Heretical churches shall also be consecrated 
 in a similar manner to that in which Catholic churches 
 after probation are reconciled." 
 
 At the assembly at Epaon this question was again 
 discussed. The king, Sigismund, must have had a 
 difficult task to bring round the followers of his Arian 
 father, and all the influence of the Archbishops of 
 Vienne and Lyons was on this occasion thrown into the 
 scale. 2 Friendly intercourse between Catholics and 
 Arians was condemned. If a higher cleric should take 
 part in a banquet given by a heretical cleric, he should 
 be shut out from the communion of the Church for a 
 year, and a cleric of inferior rank doing the same was 
 to be beaten. Should a heretic when sick desire to be 
 admitted into the Catholic Church, he might receive 
 from a priest the chrism ; but if he recovered from his 
 sickness, he was to receive it from the bishop himself. 
 
 An important canon concerning heretical churches 
 shows that feelings ran higher in Burgundy than at 
 Orleans. In the 33rd canon 3 it was decreed that, since 
 the churches of the heretics were so greatly abhorred, 
 they were not capable of being cleansed and used as 
 Catholic churches, and so they must never be adopted 
 for sacred use. Only when such churches were 
 originally Catholic churches, and had been taken 
 forcibly from the Catholics by the Arian Burgundians, 
 might the transference be allowed and their reconcilia- 
 tion effected. 
 
 We have so far seen the Church in France organised 
 on its own lines and striving to lay down rules for the 
 welfare of the Christians in France. There is, however, 
 another aspect which must not be lost sight of, and 
 
 1 Orleans I. 10. 2 Epaon, can. 15, 16, and 33. 3 Epaon, can. 33. 
 
xvi GALLICAN COUNCILS 535 
 
 which shows that, alone and unaided by the influence of 
 the bishops of Rome, the Church in France had the 
 courage to correct itself and to face even the wrath of 
 the Prankish monarchs. 
 
 In the same year in which the Burgundian Council 
 of Epaon was held, Viventiolus, archbishop of Lyons, 
 summoned the nine bishops of his province to assemble 
 at Lyons and denounce Stephen, keeper of the king's 
 treasure in Burgundy, who had offended the Church 
 by a marriage with Palladia the sister of his late wife. 
 Stephen was definitely condemned, and the bishops 
 decided that, in the event of the king giving his protec- 
 tion to his officer, all the bishops of the province were 
 to retire to monasteries, 1 and that none were to come 
 out until the king again gave peace to the Church 
 by his acceptance of this condemnation. 2 So we find 
 Contumeliosus of Riez condemned at Marseilles, in A.D. 
 533, for moral offences, and Salonius of Embrun and 
 Sagittarius of Gap, for similar reasons, condemned at 
 Lyons, 8 and again at Chalon-sur-Marne, 4 their only sup- 
 porters being the distant bishops of Rome. 5 The bishops 
 came together at Toul in A.D. 550 to protect Nicetius, 
 bishop of Trier, 6 who was in extreme danger, owing to his 
 boldness in denouncing the sins of the great. 7 In A. D. 551 
 the bishops at Paris deposed Sassaric for moral offences 
 and sent him to a monastery, as in A.D. 577 they re- 
 fused, regardless of the wrath of Chilperik, to condemn 
 Praetextatus of Rouen for his irregular marriage of 
 Brunichildis to Merovaeus, the son of Chilperik. 8 
 Their independence, however, is perhaps most con- 
 spicuously shown in the act of Leontius of Bordeaux, 
 who, in A.D. 563, summoned a Council at Xaintes, 9 and 
 not only refused Emeritus, the bishop whom Chlotachar 
 I. had ordered to be consecrated Bishop of Xaintes with- 
 out the consent and in the absence of the metropolitan, 
 
 1 Lyons 517. All six canons refer to this matter and to joint action by the bishops. 
 
 2 Mansi, viii. 807. 3 Mansi, ix. 786. 4 Ibid. 920. 
 5 Sirm. C. G. i. 975. 6 Mansi, ix. 147. 7 Ibid. 739. 
 8 Ibid. 875. 9 Ibid. 783. 
 
536 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 but consecrated in his place Heraclius, a priest of 
 Bordeaux, and sent him to Charibert of Paris for 
 confirmation. 1 Charibert was furious at this disregard 
 of his father Chlotachar's action, and sent Heraclius 
 into exile, and ordered Emeritus to be restored, and 
 Leontius to be heavily fined ; yet the act itself proves 
 clearly the courage of the bishops in facing these 
 dangers and striving with all their power to carry 
 out the decrees of the Catholic Church. 
 
 We have already referred to the influence of Rome 
 on the Church of the new kingdom of the Franks. 
 Pelagius became Bishop of Rome in A.D. 555. His 
 orthodoxy was for long suspected, and he was at once 
 opposed by the bishops of Tuscany. Among the 
 unexpected acts of the French monarchs may be classed 
 that of Childebert of Paris, 2 who wrote to Pelagius 
 expressing doubts as to his orthodoxy, and demanding 
 from him a confession of his faith. This strange 
 demand Pelagius does not seem to have resented, 
 though he expressed his regret that Childebert should 
 have had any doubts, and he sent him such a state- 
 ment as would prove his orthodoxy, but wrote at the 
 same time to Sapaudus, informing him of his surprise 
 that the French king should have formed such an 
 opinion about him, and desired from the Archbishop 
 of Aries to learn the effect of the letter and doctrinal 
 statement he had sent to Childebert. 3 Whether the 
 Frankish king had heard of the subtleties of the 
 Three Chapters, or had been informed of the irregular 
 character of Pelagius' consecration, does not appear, 
 but to the rising nation of the Franks, it is clear that 
 the influence of the apostolic See was not great. A 
 letter in A.D. 584 to Aunar, bishop of Auxerre, con- 
 gratulating him on the increase of the number of 
 churches which were being built in France shows Pelagius 
 II. 's interest without being evidence of any authority. 4 
 
 1 Greg. T. H. F. iv. 26. 2 Sirm. C. G. i. 1099. 
 
 3 Mansi, ix. 721. 4 Ibid. 906. 
 
xvi GALLICAN COUNCILS 537 
 
 It was, however, with the episcopate of Gregory Revival of 
 the Great that the influence of the apostolic See was 
 once more impressed on the Church in France. It is See. 
 now distinctly a spiritual influence. The link which 
 afterwards bound the bishops of Rome to the Prankish 
 monarchs had not as yet been forged. Gregory wrote 
 with a full sense of the responsibility and authority 
 which attached themselves to his words as the occupant 
 of the See of St. Peter. He valued that inheritance as he 
 should, and his estimate of its weight was tacitly accepted 
 by those to whom he wrote. His letters to France fall 
 naturally into three classes those that concerned the 
 patrimony of St. Peter, chiefly in the south of Gaul, for 
 the management of which he was responsible ; those 
 written to kings and bishops in France that he might 
 prepare and facilitate the passage of St. Augustine, 
 Laurentius, and Mellitus to England ; and those which 
 bore on the Church in France, and which especially 
 show the recovery of some of that pre-eminent influence 
 which the bishops of Rome exercised in the fifth century 
 on the bishops in Gaul. We have already referred to 
 Gregory's letter to Virgilius of Aries and Theodore of 
 Marseilles on the subject of the forcible baptism of Jews 
 in the province of Aries. At the beginning of this 
 correspondence Childebert II. reigned over Austrasia 
 and Burgundy, and Chlotachar II. over Neustria. 
 Childebert died in A.D. 596 and his kingdom was divided 
 between his two sons Theuderic II. and Theodobert, 
 Theuderic being king of Burgundy and Theodobert 
 king of Austrasia. Behind these two young kings, how- 
 ever, was the powerful influence of Brunichildis, their 
 grandmother, the widow of Sigibert. In A.D. 596 
 Gregory wrote three letters concerning the passage of 
 St. Augustine into England. 1 Candidus was his steward 
 in Gaul and received orders to aid the timid band of 
 missionaries and to supply them with that which was 
 necessary for their journey. Candidus has also to 
 
 1 Greg. Mag. opp. j Migne, P. L. Ixxviii. j Regist. vi. 5, 6, 7. 
 
538 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 obtain interviews with Brunichildis and Childebert to 
 explain the reason for these Italian monks passing 
 northwards into Neustria, and so Gregory wrote to 
 both these Prankish authorities in terms of graceful 
 compliment, and Childebert he endeavours to win by the 
 gift of a key of St. Peter's. In the next year, i.e. A.D. 596, 
 Theuderic and Theodobert were reigning l and Gregory 
 writes again to them and to their grandmother com- 
 mending St. Augustine and begging for him their 
 assistance, and to Brunichildis he sends relics of St. 
 Peter and St. Paul. 2 For the same reason, and as a 
 request, he writes also to Aetherius of Lyons, Virgilius 
 of Aries, Desiderius of Vienne, Syagrius of Autun, 
 Protasius of Aix, and also to Arigius, who held the 
 proud and almost obsolete title of Patrician. 3 
 
 The way had thus been opened for direct communi- 
 cation with the bishops of France, and now his corre- 
 spondence becomes more frequent. Regardless of the 
 ancient lines on which the Church in Gaul had begun 
 to organise itself, in A.D. 597 he sends to Brunichildis 
 the pallium for Syagrius, bishop of Autun, which, he 
 said, had been requested for him by King Theuderic. 4 
 Two years afterwards he is much concerned about the 
 Church in Gaul, 5 and writes to Theuderic, Theodo- 
 bert, and Brunichildis asking them to allow a council 
 of the Frankish bishops to be called together under the 
 presidency of Syagrius. 6 Then in A.D. 60 1 he writes to 
 Virgilius of Aries bidding him to hold a synod of his 
 provincial bishops, 7 and to Aetherius of Lyons he also 
 writes on the same subject, and orders him to send to 
 Rome the ancient charters of his church in order that 
 he may confirm the privileges of the Church of Lyons, 
 telling him at the same time that transcripts of these 
 privileges could not be discovered in the muniment 
 rooms at Rome. 8 He says also that the history and 
 
 1 Reg. vi. 49. 2 Reg. vi. 55. 
 
 3 Reg. vi. 50 B. ; Beda, H. E. i. 24 ; vi. 51, 52, 53, 55. 
 
 4 Reg. viii. 4. 5 Reg. ix. 213, 215. 6 Reg. xi. 38. 
 7 Reg. xi. 40. 8 Reg. xi. 41. 
 
xvi GALLICAN COUNCILS 539 
 
 writings of Irenaeus are not to be found with him, and 
 concludes by a commendation of the monks who are 
 passing through Lyons on their way to England. For 
 the same purpose he writes also to Menna, bishop of 
 Toulon, Severus of Marseilles, Lupus of Chalon, 
 Aigulfus of Metz, Simplicius of Paris, Melantius of 
 Rouen, Licinius of Le Mans, since Laurentius and 
 Mellitus were on their way again to England. 1 
 
 In this same year he again exerts his influence for 
 the good of the Church in France. 2 To Arigius, bishop 
 of Vap, he writes bidding him do all he could for the 
 suppression of simony. To Brunichildis he sends a 
 request that he may be allowed to send a legate who 
 may have power to coerce the Frankish priests who 
 live evil lives. 3 Theuderic, too, he begs that he will 
 give orders for the assembling of a synod to stamp out 
 simony, and suggests that Syagrius should preside over 
 it, 4 and Brunichildis also is requested to consent to 
 this proposal, 5 and in the following year he writes to 
 praise Theuderic for the aid he had given his grand- 
 mother Brunichildis, in the accomplishment of that 
 which she had done out of love for God. 
 
 Thus at the end of the century that influence which 
 had been checked through the transformation of Gaul 
 into France is felt again. All thought, however, of 
 imperial edicts has now disappeared. The influence is 
 the spiritual influence of the apostolic See, and wielded 
 as it was by one of the noblest and greatest men of his 
 age, wielded by one whose one desire to use it was for 
 the welfare and peace of the nations under the sover- 
 eignty of Christ, that influence was recognised and 
 accepted, and the Church in France in a century of her 
 greatest need was guided and corrected and enormously 
 uplifted through the moral power which the Church- 
 men in France derived from it. 
 
 1 Reg. xi. 42. 2 Reg. xi. 46. 3 Reg. xi. 47. 
 
 4 Reg. xi. 49. 5 Reg. xiii. 9. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 SAINT COLUMBANUS OF LUXEUIL 
 
 THE labours of Saint Columbanus 1 in the east of 
 France form an episode in the history of the Church 
 which was quite independent and at times out of 
 harmony with the ordinary and therefore less con- 
 spicuous work of the parochial clergy and diocesan 
 bishops. At the end of the sixth century the Church 
 in Gaul was fairly organised on a territorial basis. Not 
 
 1 The life of Columbanus was written by Jonas, a monk of Bobbio, about the year 
 643. He entered Bobbio in A.D. 618 when Attala was abbot and three years after the 
 death of Columbanus. The work was undertaken at the request of Bertulf, the third 
 abbot of Bobbio and the monks of that monastery, and Jonas went to France in 640 to 
 collect materials for his effort. The work consists of two books, and in the second 
 Jonas tells of the acts of the two abbots, Attala and Bertulf, who succeeded 
 Columbanus at Bobbio, and of Eustatius, the second abbot of Luxeuil. The first 
 book was probably written at Evoriac, and in it he gives us some account of the 
 celebrated monastery of Faramoutier founded by Borgondofara, the daughter of 
 Count Agneric of Meaux. The life has been published in M.G.H., Vitae SS. ae--ui 
 Merov. vol. ii., edited by Krusch, and a very convenient edition, with critical app. 
 by W. Levison, has been published in usum scholarum at Hanover, 1905, with Jonas' 
 lives of St. Vedast and St. John of Reom. Floduard also in the tenth century has 
 written a life which, however, does not add anything to that of Jonas. Columbanus' 
 writings, letters, and monastic rule have been printed by Migne, P. L. Ixxx. ion. 
 His poem to Hunoald against avarice and his Monastichon carmen appear in the 
 Mag. Biblioth. vet. Pat. vol. viii. 845 and xv. p. 683. Of modern lives the most 
 attractive is probably that of Montalembert, Les Moines d' Occident, vol. ii. p. 453. 
 
 There is a charming account of Bobbio and a life of Columbanus in Miss M. 
 Stokes' Six Months in the Apennines, 1892, in which, however, she follows P. L. 
 della Torre's Vita di S. Columbano, 1728, and interpolates a visit to Italy in 595. In 
 her Three Months in the Forests of France, 1895, she gives an account of a visit to 
 Luxeuil. 
 
 Fredegarius in his Chronicum, c. xxxvi., tells us of the struggle between Columbanus 
 and Theodoric and Brunichildis. 
 
 Columbanus' writings are as follows : 
 
 Regula monastica j Regula coenobialh ; Sermones ; De poenitentiarum mensura 
 taxanda , Instructs de octo -vitiis principalibus ; Epp. ad Bonifacium IV., super quaes- 
 tiones Paschae, ad discipulos, ad Bonifacium lf^., ad Gregorium Papam, ad quemdam 
 discipulum ; Carmina sex ; Commentary on the Psalms. 
 
 Cf. Greith, Altirische Kirche, p. 252. 
 
 540 
 
CH. xvn SAINT COLUMBANUS 541 
 
 only was the whole country divided out into dioceses 
 but the provincial organisation of dioceses was fairly 
 established, so that the Church in every province 
 recognised definitely the territory for which it was re- 
 sponsible. Outside, therefore, of this, and independent 
 of it, comes the remarkable work of St. Columbanus. 
 
 Of noble if not royal parentage, Columbanus was born 
 in West Leinster 1 in A.D. 543, the very year in which 
 St. Benedict of Nursia had died. Irish accounts tell of 
 various events which occurred before his birth which 
 were afterwards remembered as miraculous prog- 
 nostications of the great future which was before 
 him. 2 His education is said to have been undertaken 
 by St. Sinell, 3 who kept a school in Cluan Inis or 
 Cleenish Island in Lough Erne, and who had himself 
 been a disciple of St. Finnian of Clonard. Here, 
 influenced by all he was taught, he evinced in early 
 youth a desire to adopt the life of a monk, and for that 
 purpose he consulted 4 a certain recluse or holy woman. 
 She told him how she had forsaken the world and lived 
 for fifteen years in her cell and urged him to escape 
 the ruin, which awaits so many, by taking refuge in 
 a monastic life. The young man's feelings were in 
 sympathy with the advice of this religious woman and 
 he decided at once to forsake the world. His mother, 
 however, was opposed to this step, and to her arguments 
 he merely quoted our Lord's words, " Whosoever 
 loveth his father and his mother more than Me is not 
 worthy of Me." She still, however, endeavoured to 
 keep him with her, and when he asked of her permission 
 to depart she threw herself to the ground before the 
 door, overwhelmed with grief at the thought of the 
 separation. As he stept across the threshold of his 
 home and the prostrate form of his mother, Columbanus 
 
 1 Cf. King's Ch. Hist, of Ireland, 139, 938, and 975, and Dr. Moran's An Irish 
 Missionary and hh Work, 1869. 
 
 2 Colgan, A. 55. Hib. 117, 157, and Trias thaum. 88, c. 98. 
 
 3 Cf. Martyrology of Donegal, Nov. 12. 
 
 4 Cf. Jonas, Vita, cap. 3. 
 
542 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 gave proof of that strong resolution and moral courage 
 which was characteristic of his whole life. So from 
 St. Sinell Columbanus went to the monastery of Bangor l 
 in Ireland and placed himself under the direction of St. 
 Comgall, and here he learnt to give himself to fasting and 
 prayer. The monastery of Bangor had been founded but 
 a few years before in A.D. 552 by St. Comgall, and was 
 rapidly drawing to itself the religious fervour of the north 
 of Ireland, and the excellence of its training is shown by 
 Columbanus, who was not only a good Latin, Greek, 
 and Hebrew scholar, but also shows in his writings a 
 remarkable knowledge of Holy Scripture and ancient 
 literature. In due time, and probably when he had 
 nearly reached the age of thirty, Columbanus was 
 ordained priest, and soon after began to show a desire 
 to go forth into the mission-field. So about the year 
 A.D. 573 2 Columbanus, and with him twelve brother 
 monks, his companions, left the monastery of Bangor 
 and crossed over to England. There they remained for 
 a little while and seemed uncertain as to what course 
 they should take, but ultimately they crossed over into 
 Gaul and presented themselves before Sigibert of 
 Austrasia demanding from him permission to pass 
 through his kingdom in their search for such a locality 
 as from its solitude and bareness would commend itself 
 to their fervent souls. His earnest and remarkable 
 personality won the admiration of Sigibert, who asked 
 him to settle in Gaul and promised to provide him with 
 all that he might want. Columbanus, in reply, said that 
 he did not come to beg of him any worldly endowment, 
 for, said he, it is written, " Whosoever will follow Me, 
 
 1 St. Comgall had been a pupil of St. Fintan and such was his success at Bangor 
 that it is said he had three thousand disciples gathered there. The Antiphonary of 
 Bangor, once one of the treasures of Bobbio, is now in the Ambrosian Library at 
 Milan. It has been edited for the Henry Bradshaw Society by Dr. Warren, 1893. 
 After the destruction of the Celtic foundation by the Northmen it was refounded by 
 Malachi the friend of St. Bernard in 1130. 
 
 2 Sigibert, the husband of Brunichildis, was murdered in 575. Jonas refers to 
 the welcome he gave to Columbanus (c. 6). His arrival in France, therefore, cannot 
 be placed later than 574, which would allow of his departure from Ireland in the 
 previous year. 
 
xvii SAINT COLUMBANUS 543 
 
 let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow 
 Me." Then Sigibert told him he had no desire to 
 hinder his vocation to take up his cross and follow 
 Christ ; but he thought it would be better if he settled 
 down in some desert within his dominions and could 
 aid him at the same time by his prayers than by moving 
 on to other neighbouring countries. His biographer 1 
 describes Gaul as a country where, by the frequent irrup- 
 tions of external foes or by the neglect of the bishops, 
 the virtues of religion were well-nigh abolished, a de- 
 scription clearly made in the interest of his saint and 
 for the most part inaccurate. 
 
 In our story of the Church in Gaul we have seen 
 how, from time to time, not only has the Church life 
 been destroyed, but whole districts have been rendered 
 waste through the irruption of barbarians from beyond 
 the Rhine. This had been specially the fate of the 
 south-eastern portions of Gaul, both the Germanic and 
 Belgic provinces having been devastated on many 
 occasions during the fifth century. We hear also of 
 settlements of foreign tribes, mostly barbarians, within 
 the limits of Gaul, a clear sign of districts devoid of 
 inhabitants and out of cultivation, the home of wild 
 animals and the hiding-place of freebooters. In the 
 district where the provinces of Maxima Sequanorum, 
 Belgica prima, and Germania prima meet such conditions 
 especially prevailed. It was the district inhabited 
 largely by the Burgundians 2 at the time when, by the 
 order of Aetius, they were almost entirely annihilated. 
 It was the district traversed by the hosts of Attila foiled 
 and angry by the reverse on the Mauriac plains. The 
 Roman road 8 from Lyons to the north of Gaul divides 
 into two at Chalon-sur-Sa6ne. One branch makes its 
 
 1 Jonas, c. 5 " ob frequentiam hostium externorum vel neglegentiam praesulum 
 religionis virtus pene abolita habebatur." 
 
 2 Binding, Das burgundhch-romanhche K'faigreich, p. 5 ; Jahn, Die Geschichtc der 
 Burgundionen, i. p. 437. 
 
 8 Cf. Prof. Block in Lavisse' Hhtoire, i. ii. p. 426, and the map in Steininger's 
 Geich. der Trevirer. 
 
544 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 way up the valley of the Doubs towards Mttlhausen and 
 the Rhine, the other takes a more northerly direction 
 through Langres and Toul towards Metz and Trier. 
 From Langres a road runs south-east to Besanson, 
 crossing at right angles the road up the valley of 
 the Doubs. These three roads formed the boundaries 
 of civilization in the fifth and sixth centuries. To the 
 south of the road to Mtilhausen and parallel with it 
 run the Jura Mountains, known in the sixth century 
 as the Jura desert. At almost right angles, running 
 north-west and south-east, was the range of the Vosges 
 which ended with the mountain peak known as the 
 Ballon d'Alsace, leaving a narrow valley between it and 
 the Jura, along which ran the road to northern civiliza- 
 tion. On the western side of the granite range of the 
 Vosges appears the softer sandstone and sandstone grit 
 furrowed into valleys by the streams that ran west- 
 wards from the high and waterless plateau to swell the 
 waters of the Saone and the Doubs. A wilder dis- 
 trict could hardly be found in France at that time. 
 Fierce beasts of prey abounded where man had once 
 lived under the protection of the legions, and the 
 country was covered with scrub and forest, most unin- 
 viting to the settler in search of arable land. On the 
 western slopes of the Vosges hot springs burst out 
 through the faults in the sandstone and their value 
 medicinally had been known from the earliest days of 
 the Roman occupation, and the place-names of to-day 
 tell the story of former use. Such was the district 
 which drew Columbanus to come and settle in it. Here 
 and there under the slopes of the Vosges and in the 
 waterworn valleys were remains, here of a Roman fort 
 such as Anagrates 1 and there of the deserted baths of 
 Lexovium, washed still by the waters which no settlers 
 valued. Above, across the mountains, stretched the 
 Eremus Vosacus, the desert of the Vosges. When 
 Columbanus had seen it, he recognised the district of 
 
 1 Annegray in canton de la Voivre, Haute-Sa&ne. 
 
xvii SAINT COLUMBANUS 545 
 
 his heart, and Sigibert gave him the old Roman camp 
 of Anagrates in which to found his monastery. 
 
 It was probably in the early part of 575 that 
 Columbanus and his twelve companions settled in 
 Anagrates, now the hamlet of Faucogney in Haute- 
 Sa6ne. Sigibert was assassinated in that same year, while 
 he was carrying on a war with his brother Chilperik. 
 The strife was the work of Brunichildis, who desired to 
 avenge her sister Galas win tha's death on the husband, 
 who preferred his concubine Fredegundis. Sigibert was 
 succeeded by his son Childebert. Under such condi- 
 tions, therefore, it is unlikely that Columbanus received 
 more from Sigibert than the place he occupied, and the 
 straits the little company were put to for their necessary 
 sustenance l brought often to their minds their Master's 
 words that man does not live by bread alone, but by the 
 satisfaction of the word of life, and he who partakes of 
 that bounteous feast never shall know what hunger is. 
 Often they had to feed on roots and leaves and the 
 bark of trees, so small was the sustenance which the 
 district provided. On one occasion, after they had 
 fasted thus for three days and no help had come to 
 them, resort was had to united prayer, and soon a 
 stranger stood before them, his horses laden with 
 necessary provisions. 2 He had come to beg the prayers 
 of the monks on behalf of his wife, who for a whole 
 year had been laid up with fever, and had brought 
 this supply of food, quite ignorant of the extent 
 of their great need. When Columbanus knew his 
 request he called his colleagues together again, and after 
 earnest prayer dismissed him with the assurance that 
 his wife had recovered, and his return home proved to 
 him how truly God does answer prayer. On another 
 occasion a neighbouring abbot, Carantoc 8 whose name 
 
 1 Jonas, i. c. 7 u qui tantam cgestatcm pro Christo in heremo sustinerent." 
 
 2 Ibid. " subito conspiciunt virum quendam cum panum supplimento vel pulmen- 
 torum aequos honeratos," etc. 
 
 8 Ibid. Mabillon suggested Sauley, but clearly Saulx [Haute-Sa&ne] is the 
 equivalent of Salicio. For the Welsh St. Carantoc, cf. Montalembert, iii. 80. 
 
 2 N 
 
546 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 betrays his Celtic origin, and whose settlement at Saulx 
 but a few miles off across the river Lanterne suggests a 
 mission to Gaul of other than mere 4rish monks had a 
 vision from which he realised that Columbanus and 
 his colleagues were in dire distress. He summoned, 
 therefore, his cellarer, Marculf, and bade him lade 
 the cart with food, and though Marculf did not know 
 the way, the oxen yoked to the cart drew it safely to 
 Anagrates ! 
 
 It is unnecessary to relate all the strange and, as it 
 seemed, miraculous incidents which Jonas tells us of 
 these early days. He had come to Luxeuil from Bobbio 
 with express orders to write the life of Columbanus, 
 and the emphasis, which he lays on these early trials for 
 necessary sustenance, shows how the hunger and the 
 abject want had impressed itself on the minds of the 
 early monks. The life is too hard for Autiernus. 1 
 He desires to return to Ireland. At Anagrates they 
 are worn out with the anxiety as to how they will be 
 able to provide themselves with food. So Columbanus 
 took him and another novice, Sonichar, up to a lonely 
 spot in the mountains, and for twelve days 2 they had 
 only one loaf between them. Then Columbanus 
 sent them down to the river below, and the fish, they 
 discovered, proved to them the care that God had 
 for them. 
 
 On another occasion 3 Columbanus sent Gallus to 
 fish in the Breuchin, and he, through ignorance or 
 inadvertence, went to the 1'Ognon, where he saw many 
 a fish, but for all his casting of the net he could catch 
 none. So Gallus returned to relate his failure. After- 
 wards he goes to the Breuchin, and now he is hardly 
 able to carry the fish his net brought to land. 
 
 Slowly they bring some of the land under cultiva- 
 tion and had sown, and as they were about 4 to reap the 
 
 1 Jonas, cap. 1 1 " . . . quidam frater nomine Autiernus pulsare coepit." 
 
 2 Ibid. " unius panis tantum cibo contenti." 
 
 3 Ibid. c. 1 1 " ad Bruscam." It flows into the Lanterne. 
 
 4 Ibid.c. 13. 
 
xvii SAINT COLUMBANUS 547 
 
 harvest a thunderstorm came on. At the four corners of 
 the field Columbanus placed Cominin, Ennoe, Equonan, 
 and Gurgan, three Irish and a British monk, while the 
 rest were engaged in cutting down the corn. The 
 rainstorm indeed fell, but not a drop came down on the 
 field the monks were reaping. 
 
 An early biography such as this, with simple, 
 miraculous stories, of which most are capable of a very 
 natural explanation, gives us an insight into the life of 
 these monastic foundations. There is one commanding 
 figure, well educated, of great moral power, and those 
 who live with him are unable to throw off the attraction 
 or the influence he has upon them. One by one events 
 were stored up in their minds which impressed them 
 more and more with the power and the sanctity of their 
 leader. Above the Roman fort of Anagrates were the 
 remains of a heathen temple to Diana, which the 
 fierce faith of Columbanus consecrated in memory of 
 St. Martin, and where at times he resorted for prayer. 
 Away from his fellow-monks, Columbanus was wont to 
 retire, now to some distant hill, and now to some cave, 
 the lair of the wild beasts of the forest, for meditation 
 and for prayer, and stories naturally multiplied of all 
 that had happened to him. They would tell how l he 
 had tamed the bear; how, on one occasion, when Domoal 2 
 was with him and was faint with thirst, he told him to 
 go and dig in the rock, and water at once flowed out ; 
 how the birds flocked to him at his call, and were not 
 afraid ; and how alone he held converse with his Lord 
 and Saviour, and the powers of evil were impotent to 
 harm him. 
 
 An enthusiasm such as his disciples had acquired, 
 and their unwavering faith in their leader, soon spread 
 among those who came to see the Irish monks and 
 marked the severity of their discipline, and numbers 
 flocked to Anagrates to make sure of eternal safety 
 under the guidance of Columbanus. Within a few 
 
 1 Jonas, i. c. 13. 2 Ibid. c. 9. 
 
548 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 years, then, Anagrates became too small for the increas- 
 ing community, and Columbanus had again to request 
 the site for another home. 
 
 Some eight miles from Anagrates was the ruined 
 and forsaken watering-place of Lexovium. 1 There 
 were still considerable remains of the buildings that 
 formerly existed, and amid the ruins many a sculptured 
 stone and heathen statue to tell of a former faith and 
 of the pagans who had cherished it. 
 
 This was such a place as he would welcome. Its for- 
 sakenness would attract him. So Childebert II., the 
 young child whom Sigibert had left behind, and whom 
 his uncle Gunthram, king in Burgundy, now protected, 
 gave to Columbanus the ruins of Roman Lexovium, 
 and here he settled with his now increased community. 
 It was on the borderland of Austrasia and Burgundy. 
 It was a place in which a great monastic foundation 
 could expand. It was in the district which afterwards 
 came to be known as Franche-Comte, or the county of 
 Burgundy. 
 
 Now the settlement at Anagrates had been in the 
 nature of an experiment. Who could have told 
 whether the Irish strangers could have lived there? 
 Who could have told whether they would have 
 been satisfied with it ? The removal to Luxeuil was, 
 however, deliberate. It was clear that the strangers 
 were going to stay, and to establish, as one of the 
 monastic foundations in France, their home on the 
 new site. The king had indeed given his consent, 
 but as yet the Church in France had not been con- 
 sulted. Luxeuil was in the diocese of Besan^on, and 
 Bishop Sylvester had not as yet spoken. It was one 
 of the important principles of Church organisation in 
 France that all monasteries should be subject to the 
 bishops of the dioceses where they were established. 
 At Agde, A.D. 506, it had been decreed that no one should 
 build a new monastic foundation without the permission 
 
 1 Jonas, i. c. 10 "quern Luxovium prisca tempora nuncupabant." 
 
xvn SAINT COLUMBANUS 
 
 549 
 
 of the bishop. The first great Prankish synod, that of 
 Orleans, in A.D. 511 had established the principle that as 
 monks were under their abbots, so abbots must show 
 obedience to the bishops. At Epaon the Church 
 among the Burgundians had in A.D. 517 established the 
 same rule. An abbot was not to have two monasteries, 
 nor could cells or congregations of monks be set up 
 without the sanction or the knowledge of the bishop of 
 that diocese ; and a little later it had been decreed at 
 Aries, in A.D. 559, that monasteries and the discipline of 
 monks belonged to the bishop of the diocese. Colum- 
 banus, therefore, was bound as a matter of Church order 
 to submit himself to the bishop of Besan^on, and to 
 obtain his sanction for the foundation at Luxeuil. It 
 was not, however, in the nature of Columbanus to 
 submit himself to any one. If already he had not 
 shown his contempt for the clergy in France, the 
 permanent attitude he observed in Luxeuil towards 
 the bishops was one of complete independence. His 
 biographer, who voiced the feeling in the monastery, 
 must have voiced the feeling which Columbanus had 
 established there, that the heathenism and wickedness 
 that prevailed was caused by the neglect of the bishops. 
 The very establishment, therefore, of Luxeuil was 
 schismatic. 
 
 There was, however, another cause of dissension 
 between the monks of the new Irish monastery and 
 the Church in the diocese of Besan^on. It was the 
 divergence between the Celtic Church and the Church in 
 western Christendom as to the date of Easter. For the 
 one to keep it on one day, and the monks to keep it a 
 week or, indeed, a month after, was enough to destroy 
 all that Christian intercourse and charity which should 
 exist between the monks and the outside Christian world. 
 The struggle was soon to begin in England. 1 It began 
 at first in France, and the independency and, we may 
 say, the obstinacy which Celtic bishops on this matter 
 
 1 Beda, H. E. iii. 25. The Synod of Streoneshalch was held A.D. 664. 
 
550 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 displayed in England, until the decree of the Synod of 
 Streoneshalch brought peace through their expulsion, 
 was indeed not as great as that which Columbanus 
 exhibited in France. The details of this quarrel are, 
 however, lost to us, and we can only tell what occurred , 
 by way of inference, from the writings of Columbanus, 
 and that we will consider shortly. 
 
 Luxeuil was undoubtedly a success. Its very novelty 
 seemed to have attracted disciples. The severity of the 
 rules repelled no one. Indeed they almost seem to 
 have attracted men all the more, and Luxeuil had not 
 been founded many years before a new home was 
 necessary to house the crowds that came to live under 
 this discipline. This new home, then, was found at 
 Fontaines 1 on the Roge and about eight miles off, a 
 place well watered and suitable, and over the daughter 
 monastery Columbanus placed those of whom he had 
 perfect confidence. In defiance of the bishops at Epaon, 
 Columbanus was now abbot of two monasteries, and 
 for their establishment he had neither asked, nor received, 
 the sanction of the Church in France. 
 
 It was necessary, however, that the disciples who 
 lived at Luxeuil and Fontaines should have some 
 definite rules to guide their daily actions and to train 
 them in ascetic habits. Columbanus could not be 
 always with them, and his frequent retreats to the 
 solitude of the forest, or to the almost inaccessible caves 
 on the slopes of the Vosges, made a code of monastic 
 discipline all the more necessary. The Church in 
 France had for long been accustomed to such. At 
 Tours the personal example of St. Martin had been in 
 itself a standard and a rule, but at Lerins Honoratus 
 and Hilary had established various rules, and at 
 Marseilles Cassian had drawn up in his Institutes and 
 Conferences principles of asceticism for the guidance 
 of enthusiasts. From the immediate south of Luxeuil 
 the Jura range of mountains runs south-westward 
 
 1 Jonas, i. 10 " cui Fontanas nomen indedit." Fontaine-les-Luxeuil. 
 
xvii SAINT COLUMBANUS 551 
 
 towards Lyons, and at Condate, 1 on the southern space, 
 was a house of monks of great influence and renown, 
 whose manner of life was founded on the pattern of 
 Lerins. In the year, however, in which Columbanus 
 had been born, Benedict of Nursia had passed away, 
 whose celebrated rules had already begun to influence 
 Christendom ; and one can hardly doubt that Colum- 
 banus, who always shows himself cognisant of what was 
 going on in his time, had heard of, even if he had not 
 seen, a copy of the rules which were observed by the 
 monks of Monte Cassino. 
 
 Whatever was his equipment, Columbanus now 
 drew up the rules 2 which were to govern his monks 
 at Luxeuil, Anagrates, and Fontaines. There were 
 ten in number, at once shorter, less definite, and 
 severer than the rules of St. Benedict. He says he 
 learnt them from his fathers in Ireland, and especially 
 from St. Comgall at the monastery of Bangor in 
 Ireland. 
 
 The first laid down the rule of obedience, which 
 was absolute and passive, and which placed no restraint 
 or limitation of power on the abbot. 
 
 The second was the rule of silence, which was 
 perpetual and would not permit a monk to speak 
 except for useful or necessary causes. 
 
 The third regulated the food and drink of the 
 monk, which was reduced to a minimum and was 
 only to be eaten in the evening " cibus vilis et vesper- 
 tinus cum parvo panis paximatio " 3 cabbages, beans, 
 and flour mixed with water and a little wheaten biscuit. 
 Fish was also at times allowed, and apparently light beer 
 was wont to be drunk. 
 
 The fourth rule enforced poverty and the surrender 
 by the monks of all worldly ambitions. Ambition 
 
 1 " Condatiscone monasterium." Greg. T. Vitae patrum, i " inter ilia Jorensis 
 cleserti secreta." Sid. Apoll. alludes to "Jurensia monasteria " Ep. iv. 25. 
 
 2 Migne, P.L. vol. Ixxx. ; Fleming's Collect, sacra, pp. 4-18. 
 
 : St. John of Reom orders " unum paximacio cum quinque pomorum numero " 
 to be taken to the sick man. Jonas, Vita Joh. Abbath, c. 15. 
 
552 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 was for a monk a very leprosy ; for it was a sin not 
 merely to possess things that were superfluous, but also 
 to wish for such. 
 
 The fifth rule denounced vanity. 
 
 The sixth enforced chastity. 
 
 The seventh 1 laid down the order of psalm-singing 
 and established at Luxeuil and its priories those perpetual 
 choirs which formed a feature of monastic life at 
 Caer-emrys, Inisvitryn and Llan-Iltyd-vawr. On 
 great festivals seventy-five psalms were to be sung 
 with twenty- five antiphons, and on minor festivals 
 thirty-six psalms and twelve antiphons. 
 
 The eighth rule dealt with prudence or discretion, 
 and bade the monk to pray for such " orandus est 
 igitur Deus qui lumen verae discretionis largiatur ad 
 illuminationem hujus vitae." 
 
 The ninth rule dealt with austerity, " De mortifica- 
 tione." " Magna pars," it declared, " regulae mona- 
 chorum mortificatio est quibus nimirum per sacram 
 scripturam praecipitur sine consilio nihil facias.'* 
 
 There were to be no distinctions in the monastery. 
 Every monk, were he of high or low estate, was bound 
 to work in the fields, 2 ploughing, mowing, reaping 
 or cutting wood. 3 Even the sick monk was called 
 upon to take his turn in threshing wheat. Daily was 
 the monk enjoined to fast, daily must he pray, daily 
 must he work, and daily must he give time to reading 
 and study. He was to go to bed so tired that he was 
 
 1 It is a question whether Columbanus established at Luxeuil the " laus perennis," 
 the perpetual choirs such as existed at this time in Britain. Donatus of Besan9on, 
 who had been baptized by Columbanus and became his disciple, speaks of the 
 choirs, but neither Columbanus nor Eustatius say that the psalmody was perpetual. 
 There were three arrangements for psalm-singing during the night, the " brevior 
 modulatio," the " media " and the "longior." Each consisted of arrangements of 
 three psalms with an antiphon. The long arrangement consisted of seventy-five 
 psalms and twenty-five antiphons, the other two of thirty-six or twenty-four with 
 twelve or eight antiphons. Donatus says of the Jura monastery, " Duodecim chorae 
 in hieme omni nocte cantandae sunt." Donat. Reg. c. 75. 
 
 2 A peculiarity of Luxeuil was that the monks at work wore gloves. 
 
 3 Jonas, 5. 15 " tegumenta manuum quos Galli wantos vocant, quos ad operis 
 labore solitus erat habere." In the Somerset dialect wants are moles and the mole- 
 catcher is called the want-catcher. Cf. Diez, Etym. Wtirterbuch, i. ago 2 . 
 
xvn SAINT COLUMBANUS 553 
 
 ready to fall asleep on the way, and yet he was to rise 
 for work again before he had sufficiently slept. 
 
 The tenth rule of Columbanus is of the nature of 
 a penitentiary l and consists of thirty sections in^which 
 punishments are decreed for the various faults a monk 
 might commit. True penitence, Columbanus said, was 
 to bewail the fault which has been acknowledged, and 
 not merely to allow that it was a deed to be 
 regretted. He states that his scheme of punishment 
 had been handed down from the holy fathers. It is 
 clearly the tradition of the monastery of Bangor, and 
 dealt largely in flogging and solitary confinement. 
 At the sermon on the Lord's day, with a few necessary 
 exceptions, all are to assemble so that no one 
 shall fail to form an audience, unless it is the cook and 
 the gate porter, who also, if they can possibly arrange 
 it, should be present when the sound is heard of the 
 proclamation of the Gospel. All were especially 
 enjoined to be diligent and earnest in their confessions, 
 especially as to the thoughts of their minds, before 
 they go to Mass, lest any should approach the altar 
 unworthily, that is to say, with an impure heart. A 
 comparison of this rule with that of St. Benedict shows 
 clearly that they were substantially the same, and the 
 monasteries which had been founded under this rule of 
 St. Columbanus almost within the following century 
 came to adopt the rule of St. Benedict. Donatus of 
 Besancon, a disciple of St. Columbanus, made an attempt 
 to blend the two rules into one. At Luxeuil the 
 transference was almost unnoticeable, at Faramoutier 
 it was accomplished by a definite act of the convent. 
 At the third Synod 2 of Macon, perhaps A.D. 625, the 
 church in Burgundy was called upon to consider a quarrel 
 
 1 Migne gives it in vol. Ixxx. j and Wasserschleben, in Die Bussordnungen der 
 abendl'dndhchen Kirche, 1851, p. 353, prints it from Fleming's Collectanea. 
 
 2 Cf. Mansi, x. 587. Jonas in his life of Eustatius gives us an account of the 
 controversy. Agrestin wished to abolish somewhat summarily the rule of 
 Columbanus in favour of that of St. Benedict ; cf. Greith, Die altirhche Kirche, 
 p. 296. The Synod took place in some year between 617 and 627. 
 
554 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 between a Columban monk Agrestin and abbot Eustatius 
 of Luxeuil. Agrestin, who was supported by bishop 
 Apellinus of Geneva, endeavoured to abolish the 
 Columban rule, but the bishops at Macon upheld the 
 abbot. The rule had to die a natural death. In A.D. 
 818 the Council of Aachen ordered the observance 
 of the rule of St. Benedict in all the monasteries of 
 France. 1 
 
 From the very first Columbanus regarded himself 
 as outside the organisation of the diocese in which his 
 monasteries were situated. Not so the bishops of the 
 church in France. They saw in his independence a serious 
 check to church discipline, and this increased with the 
 increase of disciples to Luxeuil. That expostulations 
 were made to Columbanus is certain, but we never 
 hear of his attendance at any Synod, or his surrender 
 either of his independence or his method by which he 
 calculated the date of the Easter Festival. It was prob- 
 ably at the second Council of Macon, 2 A.D. 585, that a 
 serious effort was made to bring him within the Frankish 
 ecclesiastical organisation. The Council was a large 
 one, and the bishops present represented the three 
 kingdoms of Gunthram of Burgundy, Childebert II. of 
 
 1 Cf. Labbe and Cossart, Condi, vii. 1505. 
 
 2 There are two other Synods which have been mentioned as those to which 
 Columbanus was invited to attend, the Council of Sens and the Council of Chalon- 
 sur-Sa&ne. In the life of Bertharius, bishop of Chartres (M.G.H., Vita 55. 
 M.er<rv. vol. i. 6 1 8), mention is made of a Synod of Sens which must have been 
 held about A.D. 60 1. For the Council of Chalon-sur-Sa&ne, at which Desiderius 
 of Vienne was deposed, A.D. 603, cf. Fredegar A.D. 603 and 605 ap. Greg. T., 
 Mansi, x. 494. For the second Council of Mlcon cf. Mansi, ix. 947, Greg. T. viii. 
 I and 7. The chronology of Columbanus's life is very difficult. Jonas, who 
 came to Luxeuil in 640 to collect details, tells us he arrived when Sigibert ruled 
 over Austrasia and Burgundy. These two kingdoms, however, were not united until 
 Chiidebert II. of Austrasia inherited Burgundy in 594 on the death of his uncle 
 Gunthram. They were united then for two years and fell apart in 596 on the death 
 of Childebert. If Jonas meant Childebert then Columbanus did not stay in France 
 for twenty years as Jonas tells us cap. 20 a. " vicesimo anno post incolatum heremi 
 iilius." Clearly Jonas was right in the name but wrong as to the union of the two 
 kingdoms. Columbanus came to Austrasia while Sigibert was king, i.e. before 575, 
 and the calculation of twelve years which he gives us in his letter to the bishops brings 
 us to 585 if we suppose he arrived at the end of 573 or early in 574. Mlcon II. 
 was a very important Synod, as is shown by the publication of the decrees by King 
 Gunthram, and it was just such a Synod to which Columbanus, whose monastery 
 was then at the extreme edge of Burgundy, would be summoned. 
 
xvn SAINT COLUMBANUS 555 
 
 Austrasia, and Chlotachar II. of Neustria. The decrees 
 of this Synod were published by Gunthram on loth 
 November A.D. 585. A letter is extant * which Colum- 
 banus wrote in excuse of his action. He addresses the 
 bishops as his holy lords, his fathers and brothers in 
 Jesus Christ, and he describes himself as Columbanus 
 peccator. He was thankful that so many holy men 
 had assembled to consider his case. He would rejoice 
 if they gathered together more frequently, and he hopes 
 that assembled in Christ they will occupy themselves 
 not only on the Easter question but on other matters 
 of church discipline which are painfully neglected. 
 He is clearly proud of his own trial, and of that which 
 he calls his persecutions, and he allows that diversities 
 of observances are hurtful to the peace of the church. 
 But he has one request to make to the bishops. He is 
 not the author of this difference in regard to Easter. 
 He came to these parts for the cause of Jesus Christ our 
 common God and Lord. He was a complete stranger, 
 and he begs that he may be allowed to live in the 
 lonely silence of these huge forests unmolested by them. 
 Already he had witnessed the death of seventeen of his 
 brethren. 2 He promises with those of his companions 
 who still remain, to pray for them as indeed he has 
 already done during the last twelve years in which he 
 has been among them. Oh, he exclaims, may Gaul 
 still keep them all together, whom the kingdom of 
 heaven will receive if as good men they deserve such a 
 reward. He and his companions will follow the 
 doctrines and precepts of the Lord and His apostles. 
 It was for the bishops to decide what was to be done 
 with such poor veterans, such old pilgrims. He dare 
 not attend the Synod lest he should enter upon some 
 contentions 3 with them, but he claims that the 
 
 1 Cf. Ep. ii. ; Gallandus, Bibl. vet. Patr. xii. 347 j Migne, P. L. vol. Ixxx. 
 " sicut usque nunc licuit nobis inter vos vixisse duodecim annis." 
 
 2 The following are said to have gone with St. Columbanus to France: St. Attalus, 
 Columban the younger, Cummaen, Dogmael, Eogain, Sigisbert, Eunan, St. Callus, 
 Gurgan, Libran, Potentino or Lua, Waldoleno ; cf. Mabillon, Ann. Bened. viii. 51, 
 Gallotta, annot. 6. 3 Ep. ii. ut supra. 
 
556 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 traditions of his country, which, he observes, are those 
 which St. Jerome had laid down. He trusts that they 
 will not allow strife among Christians, an evil which 
 would delight our enemies, the Jews, the heretics, 
 and the heathen. If God guides them to expel him 
 from his desert home, that home he had sought from 
 beyond the seas, then he would say with Jonah take 
 me up and cast me forth into the sea in order that the 
 sea may become calm. The rules of the priests and 
 the rules of monks are very different. Let each one, 
 therefore, cling faithfully to the profession he has em- 
 braced, but let all follow the Gospel and Jesus Christ 
 their Head. Above all, fathers of the church, pray 
 for us as we, though vile mortals, do for you, and do 
 not cast us out from you as aliens. We are joint 
 members of the one body whether we are Gauls, or 
 Britons, or Iberians, or of whatever nation we may be. 
 Forgive my loquacity and my firmness, as of one 
 labouring beyond his strength, for you, most holy and 
 most patient fathers, are also our brothers. It seems 
 likely, if this letter was written, as we believe, for the 
 bishops at the second Council of M&con, that 
 Columbanus was left in peace and allowed to do his 
 great work in his own way. For ten years * he seems 
 to have continued, engrossed in the discipline of his 
 abbey, and retiring at times into the woods for medita- 
 tion and prayer. Gunthram of Burgundy died April 28 
 A.D. 593, and his nephew Childebert II. added Burgundy 
 
 1 In my Birkbeck Lectures, out of which this history has grown, I adopted the 
 theory that Columbanus made two journeys to Italy, the one in 595 and the 
 other in 610. I am now convinced that such a journey in 595 cannot be sub- 
 stantiated. The theory was started by Abbot L. della Torre, Vita di S. Colombano, 
 which was accepted by Pagi and appears again in C. Troya's Storia d* Italia, iv. 2. 27. 
 It is founded on two documents (i.) the grant by Agilulf to Columbanus of the 
 site and district of Bobbio, and (ii.) a letter from Columbanus to Gregory I. placing 
 the monastery under his protection. Both these documents, however, have been 
 shown to be forgeries, (Waitz, Gutting, gelehrte Anzeigen, 1856) and there is no 
 evidence apart from them of any visit in 595. Jonas went to France to collect 
 information, and he was most careful in his work. He was a monk at Bobbio 
 within three years of the death of Columbanus there, and it seems impossible for him 
 to have gone wrong in a matter which so much concerned the foundation of his 
 monastery. We must accept his story and place the foundation of Bobbio after 
 the exile from France in 610. 
 
xvn SAINT COLUMBANUS 
 
 557 
 
 to his kingdom of Austrasia. As we have already 
 remarked, Columbanus was not only a ruler but a 
 student, and having read the work of Gregory, now 
 bishop of Rome, A.D. 590-604, on the Pastoral Care, he 
 wrote to him 1 to express his pleasure at the book, and 
 to discuss with him the great Easter question, which 
 still separated him from his Catholic brethren in France. 
 To him Gregory was the holy lord and father in 
 Christ, the Roman, the fairest ornament of the Church, 
 and he, Columbanus, was Bar- Jonah, the poor dove in 
 Christ. Columbanus argued that it was Anatolius 
 who had sanctioned the method of calculation for 
 Easter which the Irish had adopted, and the learning 
 of Anatolius had been praised by St. Jerome. To 
 condemn Anatolius, therefore, was to condemn St. 
 Jerome, and he desired to know whether such was St. 
 Gregory's opinion. Another point was that Easter 
 was the festival of light, and if it was not celebrated on 
 the fourteenth of the month, when the greater part of 
 the moon was shining, it would not be celebrated in 
 the light, since every day afterwards the light of the 
 moon declined. He had not as yet visited Rome as 
 he longed to do. There were other matters he desired 
 to discuss with the bishop of the apostolic See. He 
 would like to confer with him on the sins of the clergy 
 and bishops in France. He had heard much concern- 
 ing Gregory's lectures on the book of the prophet 
 Ezekiel, and he begged him to send him a copy. He 
 urged Gregory, who he imagines will reply to him 
 on the basis of the decisions of his predecessors, 
 not to follow blindly the decrees of former popes 
 and especially not to follow St. Leo implicitly a 
 living dog, he says, is better than a dead lion, and 
 a living saint may correct the omissions of one who 
 went before him. 
 
 This letter, however, was never answered, nor indeed 
 
 1 Migne, P. L. vol. Ixxx. j M.G.H. Abth. iv. I pt. I " speculator! egregio " ; 
 Mabillon, Ann. Bened. ix. 35, p. 257. 
 
558 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 were those others which he says he had sent. He 
 supposes that they had never reached Gregory. 
 
 Childebert II. reigned over the two districts of 
 Austrasia and Burgundy for only three years, and was 
 succeeded in 596 by his two youthful sons Theudebert 
 and Theodoric, Theodoric reigning over Burgundy 
 and Theudebert over Austrasia. The two boys were 
 under the guardianship of their grandmother Bruni- 
 childis, the widow of Sigibert, but such was the jealousy 
 of the Prankish leaders, and indeed of her grandson 
 Theudebert of Austrasia, that in 599 she was driven 
 out from Austrasia and took refuge with Theodoric 
 in the kingdom of Burgundy. Theudebert had 
 married Belichildis, 1 whose intelligence and tact 
 attracted to her and her less clever husband the leaders 
 of Austrasia, and her refusal to be ruled together with 
 Theudebert by Brunichildis was largely the cause of 
 the exile of the latter. In Burgundy Brunichildis 
 pandered to the lust of her grandson. At an early 
 age he had a son born out of wedlock, and his grand- 
 mother is said to have been the cause of Theodoric's 
 rejection of Ermenberga, the daughter of Witteric, 2 the 
 Visigothic king in Spain, in order that she might have 
 no rival to her influence in the household of Theodoric. 
 It was the immorality of this king that brought him and 
 his powerful grandmother into conflict with Columbanus. 
 Theodoric had at first been very friendly to Colum- 
 banus, and had told him how he rejoiced that the 
 monastery of Lexovium was within the kingdom of 
 Burgundy, and though Columbanus had often reproved 
 him for his loose life, the plain words of the abbot had 
 not offended the king. Columbanus had urged upon 
 Theodoric to marry 3 and Brunichildis was opposed to 
 the plan lest she should lose her hold on her grandson. 
 
 1 Fred. Chron. cap. xxxiv., A.D. 608, and cap. xxxvii. 
 
 2 Ibid. cap. xxx. and xxxi. 
 
 3 Jonas, i. 18 a "ad quern saepissime cum veniret, coepit vir Dei eum increpare 
 cur concubinarum adulteriis misceretur ut non potius legitimi conjugii solamina 
 frueretur." 
 
xvn SAINT COLUMBANUS 559 
 
 It was clear that the influence of Columbanus for his 
 good was the contrary of that of the aged grandmother. 
 After the lapse of a few years Brunichildis succeeded 
 in her plan, Ermenberga was dismissed and Theodoric 
 went back to his evil ways. On one occasion, soon 
 after A.D. 607, l Columbanus went to Bruyeres-le- 
 Chatel, where Brunichildis was, and the grandmother 
 produced 2 some of the sons of Theodoric before 
 Columbanus, with the request that he would bless them. 
 Columbanus at first asked who they were, and when he 
 was told that they were the sons of the king, with a 
 certain brutal rudeness he declared that they would 
 never come to the throne since they were the offspring 
 of a brothel. In a rage she ordered the children to go 
 away. As Columbanus was leaving the king's hall, a 
 noise arose which seemed to shake even the palace, and 
 struck terror into all, but in no way dismayed the 
 angry queen. At once she began to plot against the 
 abbot, and ordered that no help should be given to the 
 monks, and that they were not to be allowed to pass 
 beyond the boundaries of their monastery. When, 
 therefore, Columbanus saw that the court was opposed 
 to him he at once sought the king in order that by 
 some advice he might put an end to this miserable 
 opposition. The king 3 at the time was at Epoisses. 
 When Columbanus reached the town it was towards 
 evening, but the servants at once announced to the king 
 his arrival, and that he did not desire to enter the 
 palace. Theodoric was still desirous to make peace, 
 and sent out to him a supply of food. But Columbanus 
 would have none of it. He remarked that the Highest 
 disdained the gifts of the wicked, 4 and scattered the 
 
 1 In 607 Witteric, the Visigothic king, to revenge himself of the insult shown 
 to his daughter, organised a combined campaign against Theoderic, of himself, Agilulf, 
 the Lombard king, Chlotachar II., and Theudebert of Austrasia. The alliance, how- 
 ever, came to nothing. Fred. Chron. iv. 30. 
 
 2 Jonas, c. 19 "cui Brunichildis ait, Regis sunt filii : tu eos tua benedictione 
 robora." Bruyeres-le-Chatel is in the Department Seine-et-Oise. 
 
 3 Ibid, "apud Spissiam villain publicam." 
 
 4 Ibid, "his dictis vascula omnia in frustra disrupta sunt, vinaque ac sicera solo 
 diffusa." 
 
560 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 food on the ground, broke the dishes, and spilt the 
 wine. Instead, however, of showing resentment 
 Theodoric seems to have been alarmed at the action 
 of the abbot and promised amendment of life, and so 
 Columbanus returned to his monastery in peace. He 
 soon heard in his retreat that the promise of repentance 
 was not fulfilled, and now he wrote 1 to the king and 
 definitely threatened to excommunicate him if he did 
 not give up his immoral life. 
 
 It was now the turn of Brunichildis, and she did not 
 move in vain. She did all she could with the king to 
 set him against Columbanus, 2 and she took the lead 
 in the opposition of the Prankish Church to the 
 independent position of Luxeuil, finding faults with 
 the rules of discipline which Columbanus had drawn up 
 for his monks and arousing against him the animosity 
 of the nobles and bishops. 
 
 So Theodoric went 3 to Luxeuil to consult with 
 Columbanus, and asked him why he did not adopt the 
 rules and ceremonies of the bishops of the province, and 
 why 4 he allowed no Christians to enter the private parts 
 of the monastery. Columbanus replied loftily that it was 
 not his custom to take counsel with others, nor would 
 he allow any but his monks to enter into the most 
 private parts of the house. The king then reminded 
 him 5 of the subsidies he had given him, and said it would 
 be a condition in the future that all parts of the house 
 should be open to inspection. Then again Columbanus 
 displayed the reckless courage of the Irishman. He 
 would accept henceforth no gifts or maintenance on 
 such a condition, and he said : 6 " If, oh king, you have 
 
 1 Jonas, i. 19 "Columbanus litteras ad eum verberibus plenas direxit commina- 
 turque excommunicationem." 
 
 3 Ibid, "ad haec rursum permota Brunichildis regis animum Columbanum 
 excitat." 
 
 3 Ibid. " abactus itaque rex ad virum Dei Luxovium venit." 
 
 4 Ibid. " et intra septa secretiora omnibus Christianis aditus non pateret." 
 
 5 Ibid, "si, inquit, largitatis [nostrae munera et solaminis supplimentum capere 
 cupis, omnibus in locis omnium patebit introitus." 
 
 6 Ibid. *' si hanc ob causam tu hoc in loco venisti ut servorum Dei caenubia distruas 
 et regularem disciplinam macules, cito tuum regnum funditus ruiturum." 
 
xvir SAINT COLUMBANUS 561 
 
 come here with the intention of making your way into 
 our most private chambers, and to find fault with our 
 system of life, remember that your kingdom will soon 
 come to an end and your offspring be destroyed." 
 
 It is clear that Columbanus had a great moral 
 influence over Theodoric, who was really afraid of him, 
 and would willingly have acted on his advice, did not 
 evil advisers and wicked habits draw him into other 
 paths. He told 1 the abbot that he had no intention 
 of crowning him with the crown of martyrdom, but that 
 he would see what should be done in regard to the 
 independent position of the monastery. It was the 
 privacy of the monastery which excited the minds of 
 the court, and the chambers into which none but monks 
 might enter. Columbanus merely answered that he 
 would never go out from the bounds of his monastery 
 unless he was dragged out by force. So Theodoric 
 parted from Columbanus and returned to Epoisses, and 
 they were never to see one another again. 
 
 But Columbanus soon realised he was under arrest. 
 Theodoric had left behind him Baudulf 2 with orders 
 to drive him out of the monastery and conduct him 
 to Besanon and keep him there in exile. Luxeuil 
 was to be brought into line with the monasteries of 
 France. Columbanus by his rude impetuosity had 
 forfeited his privileged position, and apart from him his 
 monastery was to be reorganised. Besanson 3 is an 
 ancient hill city of the Sequani. In later Roman times 
 the city had grown down the side of the hill to the 
 borders of the river Doubs, which closely washes the 
 escarpment of the ancient city on three of its sides. 
 
 1 Jonas, " martyrii coronam a me tibi inlaturam speras ; non esse tantae dementiae 
 ut hoc tantum patraret scelus." 
 
 2 Ibid. " relinquens virum quendam procerem nomen Baudulfum." For Baudulf cf. 
 Fredeg. Chron., A.D. 609, cap. xxxvi. 
 
 3 Ibid. " poenes Vesontionensem oppidum ad exulandum pervenit." For Besar^on 
 cf. Hhtoire du diocese de Sesanfon, by 1'Abbe Richard (1847). There is a distinct 
 tradition of work done here by evangelists from Lyons. Chelidonius, bishop of 
 Besan9on, was notorious during the time of Leo the Great. Bishop Nicetius was at 
 Besancon 590-614. 
 
 2 O 
 
562 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Christians had settled there perhaps before the end of 
 the third century, and the original cathedral church of 
 St. Stephen took the place of the heathen temple on 
 the northern side of the narrow hill. Here, above the 
 later town, was the stronghold of Theodoric, and here 
 under strict supervision Columbanus was detained by 
 Baudulf. He was accompanied to Besan^on by 
 Domoal, and on arrival he found the prison full of men 
 condemned to death. At once he set to work to win 
 them for Christ, and having preached the gospel to 
 them he then ordered Domoal to break off their chains. 1 
 The iron fetters, like rotten fruit, fell at his very touch, 
 and when the military tribune in charge of the prison 
 saw the effect of Columbanus's work on his prisoners he 
 allowed him a liberty which had not been contemplated. 
 At his word the prisoners moved up to the church, 
 whose locks and door-bolts all gave way before them, 
 and in the house of God they with tears acknowledged 
 their sins for which they were then under sentence of 
 death. 
 
 The hill of Besan9on is not as high as those which 
 surround it on the north and east, but from that hill 
 the stranger can see the road, itself the remains of the 
 old Roman road which existed in the time of Columbanus, 
 which moves up the valley to join the main road to 
 Strasburg. It was this view that some days after 
 opened itself out to the gaze of Columbanus. It was 
 the road perhaps on which he had travelled the prisoner 
 of Baudulf. It was the road which would certainly 
 lead him back to Luxeuil. The sight was too much 
 for him, and, with a boldness that in itself probably was 
 an assistance, he and his companion passed down the 
 hill, made their way up the valley, and to the astonish- 
 ment of his monks arrived once more at Luxeuil. 
 
 When Brunichildis and Theodoric heard of his 
 escape they sent a military cohort 2 to lead him once 
 
 1 Jonas, "ministro Domoali . . . imperat ut manu ferrum quo compedes 
 inretiti erant atque innexi adprehendat ac trahat." 
 
 2 Ibid, "jubentque militum cohortem ut rursum virum Dei vim abstrahant." 
 
xvn SAINT COLUMBANUS 563 
 
 more to Besanson, and when the soldiers arrived at 
 Luxeuil they found Columbanus sitting in the church 
 porch reading a book. 1 At their first attempt to enter 
 the soldiers are said to have been struck with blindness. 
 Then messengers went to and fro to Theodoric to 
 inform him of all that had gone on, and Count Berte- 
 charius was sent with Baudulf to discuss his surrender. 
 At last Columbanus perceived the danger of any 
 resistance and to the grief of all gave himself up to the 
 charge of Ragamund, 2 to go forth he knew not where 
 but that it was to exile beyond the realms of France. 
 The question of his companions was settled by the 
 king. Those who were of Irish or British descent 
 might go, 3 the others were to remain in Burgundy. 
 
 Twenty years after he had been fully established at 
 Luxeuil, Columbanus was driven into exile. 4 The 
 journey taken was at first that which he had already 
 travelled, to Besangon, Autun, and the castle of Avallon. 5 
 Then they crossed the Cure and came to Domecy-sur- 
 Cure and soon after to Auxerre and so to Nevers and 
 the Loire. Here they were put into a boat for 
 Nantes and went slowly down the Loire. As they 
 passed Orleans, Potentinus came to his assistance and a 
 Syrian woman offered him food for the way. 6 The 
 officer was unwilling to stop at Tours but the vessel 
 ran on a bank, and Luparius the bishop invited Colum- 
 banus to a meal. While they were eating, 7 Columbanus, 
 regardless of the company, remarked that the dog 
 Theodoric had driven him from his brother monks. A 
 nobleman who was present, a subject of Theodoric and 
 
 1 Jonas, "residebat ille in atrio ecclesiae librumque legebat." 
 
 2 Ibid. " Ragumundus qui eum Nametis usque perduxit." 
 
 3 Ibid. " nequaquam hinc se sequi alios permissuros nisi eos quos sui ortus terra 
 dederat vel qui e Brittanica arva ipsum secuti fuerant." 
 
 4 Ibid. " vicesimo anno post incolatum heremi illius." It is difficult to explain 
 this in reference to what has gone before. It may refer to some rectification of 
 frontier which took place in 590 and brought Luxeuil into the kingdom of 
 Burgundy. 
 
 5 Ibid, "per urbem Vesontionum, Augustidunumque ad Avallonem castrum 
 pcrvenit." 
 
 6 Ibid. " mulierem in platea ex genere Sirorum." 
 
 7 Ibid. cap. zz "canis me Theudericus meis a fratribus abegit." 
 
564 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 a relation by marriage to Theudebert, in order to stop 
 any further outburst, acknowledged himself as bound 
 by oath of allegiance to Theodoric. " Go then and tell 
 him," l said Columbanus, " that within three years he and 
 all his will utterly perish." At Nantes, Soffronius the 
 bishop and Count Theobald, under orders from the 
 king, were prepared to place Columbanus on a vessel 
 for Ireland, and when they had found such and placed 
 them on board their commission was executed. So 
 Columbanus started from Nantes on his way to Ireland. 
 The ship, however, seems to have run on one of the 
 banks at the mouth of the Loire and there it remained 
 for three days. To lighten the ship 2 the captain, who 
 was not bound to guard his passengers as prisoners of 
 Theodoric, placed Columbanus and his four colleagues 
 on shore, and Columbanus again walked away and was 
 once more free. The details of his journey were not 
 known to Jonas, but after a short delay he tells us 
 Columbanus arrived in Neustria and made his way at 
 once to Chlotachar II. who, as the son of Fredegundis, 
 was not likely to hand him over to the grandson of 
 Brunichildis. But Columbanus desired to go to 
 Theudebert of Austrasia and for that purpose went to 
 Paris. 3 At Meaux 4 he was met by Chagneric, one of 
 Theudebert's counsellors, who promised to lead him to 
 Theudebert and take entire charge of him. At Ussy 
 he was met by Authar 5 and his wife Aiga, whose children 
 he solemnly blessed, the one, Ado, to become the 
 founder of the Columban monastery at Jouarre, and 
 the other, Dado, the founder of a similar monastery at 
 La Brie. 
 
 At last Columbanus arrived at Metz at the court 
 
 1 Jonas, " haec ergo ejus auribus infer et ipsum et suos liberos intra triennii circulum 
 esse delituros. . ." 
 
 2 Ibid. " nee ullo jam obstante quo velit ire." 
 
 3 Ibid. cap. 25 "ad Parisium urbem pervenit." 
 
 4 Ibid. cap. 26 "ad Meldensem . . . quidam vir nobilis Chagnericus 
 Theudeberti conviva." 
 
 6 Ibid. cap. 26 "ad villam quendam Vulciacum . . . receptus a quodam viro 
 Authario nomen." 
 
xvn SAINT COLUMBANUS 565 
 
 of Theudebert, who not only gave him welcome but 
 promised him a similar retreat to that at Luxeuil, and 
 at Metz he had the joy of meeting once more many 
 of the monks he had left behind at Luxeuil. 
 
 Columbanus had desired to settle among the heathen 
 and engage in missionary work, while at the same time 
 he lived the life of a monk, and seems to have medi- 
 tated a mission to the Alemans and Sclaves who were 
 settled in Southern Germany and Switzerland. With 
 that purpose he made his way to the Rhine and ascended 
 it to the ruined town of Bregenz, 1 a place that seemed 
 to suit Columbanus and in which he began to settle. 
 At first the little company of exiles suffered great priva- 
 tions from want of food, 2 and Chagnoald and Eustatius 
 were sent out in search of it, any success which they 
 gained being assigned to the intuition of Columbanus. 
 
 The Lake of Constance was not to be, however, the 
 scene of the labours of Columbanus. That district 
 was left to the future efforts of St. Gallus. 3 The leader 
 felt that he was drawn towards Italy, and, as the way 
 lay open to him, to Italy 4 he went, and was received at 
 Milan by Agilulf 5 the Lombard king. The Lombards 
 who now ruled in the north of Italy were Arians, and, 
 as such, worthy of the saint's missionary efforts, and 
 the presence at Milan of Theudelinda, the Catholic 
 queen of Agilulf, made such work easy for Columbanus. 
 A somewhat doubtful narrative relates that Columbanus 
 was the means of the conversion of Agilulf to Catholic 
 views. 
 
 While at Milan, Columbanus asked of Agilulf a 
 place in which he could settle. He told him of 
 
 1 Jonas, cap. 27 " oppidum olim dirutum quern Bricantias nuncupabant." 
 
 2 Ibid. cap. 27 " durae egestatis tempus obvenit." 
 
 3 For the life of St. Gallus, cf. M. G. H., Vita SS. aevi Merov. vol. ii. 251-337. 
 
 4 Ibid. cap. 27. "quievitque in loco donee aditus ad Italiam viam panderet." 
 
 5 If Agilulf ever became a Catholic it is strange that Gregory does not say so. 
 Paulus Diaconus indeed says " et catholicam fidem tenuit," and states that he rejected 
 Arianism under the influence of his Catholic wife Theudelinda. Hodgkins, Italy 
 and her Invaders, vol. vi. p. 144, is inclined to doubt his conversion to anything 
 more than toleration. He follows Weise, Italien und die Langobardenher richer, 
 p. 271. 
 
566 BIRKBECK LECTURES CHAP. 
 
 Luxeuil and the attraction it had for him, and while he 
 was speaking, a nobleman of the court, Jocundus, 1 told 
 of a similar place on the slopes of the Apennines where 
 were ruins of buildings and a half-ruined basilica. It 
 was called Bobbio from the small river that ran past 
 it into the Trebbia. So Agilulf offered Bobbio to 
 Columbanus. Would he accept it and settle down 
 there ? To restore such a place seemed to him to be 
 a work pleasing to God. He went to see the spot and 
 all before him seemed to draw him to the work. So 
 Columbanus of Luxeuil became the founder of Bobbio, 
 and from Gaul he settled in Italy, and Eustatius 2 finds 
 his way back to Luxeuil to succeed the exile as the 
 second abbot, and the church in France was no more 
 disturbed by the awe-inspiring censures of Columbanus. 
 The work at Luxeuil, however, was not wrecked by 
 Theodoric and Brunichildis, though at first it had been 
 suppressed. Columbanus had marked the inevitable 
 result of Theodoric's evil course, and had also seen 
 that the two brothers would ere long be at war with 
 one another. In 610, the year of Columbanus's exile, 
 Theudebert attacked his brother Theodoric 3 and 
 seized upon Alsace and the northern portion of Maxima 
 Sequanorum. In the following year Theodoric made 
 a treaty with Chlotachar and attacked Theudebert, and 
 in 612 defeated him at Toul and again finally the 
 same year at Tolbiac. 4 Theudebert was captured 
 and by order of Brunichildis forcibly ordained, and 
 shortly afterwards was put to death. 5 Theodoric then 
 reigned over the whole of Burgundy and Austrasia. It 
 was only, however, for a year. In 613 he prepared 
 to attack Chlotachar II. and advanced as far as 
 Metz when he was suddenly taken ill and died. 6 
 
 1 Jonas 30 "Jocundus ad regem venit qui regi indicat se in solitudine ruribus 
 Appenninis basilicam S. Petri . . . scire " etc. 2 Jonas xi. cap. 8 a. 
 
 3 Fredegar. Chron. cap. 37. 4 Jonas, i. 28 a j Fredegar. 38. 
 
 6 Fredegar. 38; Jonas, i. 28 "Brunichildis . . . furens Theudebertum fieri 
 clericum rogavit j at non post multos dies impie nimis post clericatum perimi jussit." 
 
 6 Jonas, cap. 29 "Theudericus poenes Mettensem morans oppidum divinitus 
 percussus . . . mortuus est." 
 
xvn SAINT COLUMBANUS 567 
 
 Chlotachar at once assumed the government of Austrasia 
 and Burgundy as well as of Neustria. Brunichildis 
 had claimed the two kingdoms for her grandson Sigibert, 
 but both Sigibert and Brunichildis fell into the hands 
 of Chlotachar. All the sons of Theodoric were at 
 once slain, and Brunichildis herself, after torture, was 
 dragged by horses through the roads and died from 
 the treatment she had received. 1 
 
 So at the end of A.D. 613 Chlotachar II. reigned over 
 the whole of France. He was on the whole favourable 
 to the Irish missionaries, and the more so because they 
 had opposed Theodoric ; and during the next half 
 century, under the guidance of Eustatius, Luxeuil and 
 its daughter houses once more flourished. Walaric, 2 a 
 monk of the monastery of St. Germanus at Auxerre, 
 had been attracted by the fame of Columbanus and the 
 more austere life of Luxeuil, and entered as a monk 
 there before Columbanus was driven into exile. He 
 tells us that in the three monasteries of Luxeuil, 
 Fontaines, and Anagrates there were already two 
 hundred monks. 
 
 The work of Jonas, as far as Columbanus was con- 
 cerned, comes somewhat abruptly to an end after he 
 had brought his hero to Bobbio. He is careful to 
 tell us of that fratricidal strife which Columbanus had 
 foreseen, and of the fulfilment within three years of the 
 prophecy concerning Theodoric's death. The founda- 
 tion of Bobbio was accomplished, and Jonas was a monk 
 of that monastery. Columbanus himself survived his 
 royal foes but two years, and died at Bobbio 3 November 
 23, 615. 
 
 1 Jonas, "Brunichildem postque indomitorum aeqorum caudis inretitam misera- 
 biliter vitae privavit." 
 
 2 Cf. Ma billon, Annal. Benedict, lib. r. cap. 53, p. 295. 
 
 3 Jonas, i. 30 " beatus Columbanus, expleto anni circulo, in antedicto caenubio 
 Ebobiensi vita beata functus animam membris solutam caelo reddidit 9 Kal. Dec. 
 [23 Nov.] 615." 
 
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INDEX 
 
 Aachen, Council of, A.D. 8 1 8, abolishes 
 
 the Columban rule, 554 
 Abraham, a monk from banks of 
 Euphrates, founds a monastery in 
 the diocese of Clermont, 447 
 Abstinentes, a monastic order men- 
 tioned by Philastrius, 276 
 Acacians consult with Constantius, 172 
 Adalgar, bishop of Autun, goes to 
 
 Vezelay, 21 
 Adelelm goes to search for tomb of 
 
 Magdalen, 21 
 Ademar of Chabannes, controversy with 
 
 Benedict of Turin, 65 
 list of bishops of Limoges, 65 
 Aegidius Comes, his kingdom, 325 
 supported by Franks, 325 
 defeats Visigoths at Orleans, 325 
 his capital at Soissons, 325 
 Aelianus, leader of Bagaudae, 129 
 Aetius, the Patrician, defeats Visigoths 
 
 near Aries, 312 
 leads allied host against Attila, the 
 
 Hun, 313 
 
 contends with Ripuarian Franks, 318 
 destroys army of Burgundians, 319 
 receives edict of Valentinian iii., A.D. 
 445, making all Gallican bishops 
 subject to See of Rome, 459 
 Aetius, deposed patriarch of Constanti- 
 nople, 172 
 Agape, a disciple of Mark the Gnostic, 
 
 223 
 Agen, Phoebadius of, orthodox, 157 
 
 writer against Arians, 157 
 Agilulf, the Lombard king, gives Bob- 
 bio to St. Columbanus, 566 
 Agraecius, bishop of Trier, probably 
 
 present at Nicaea, 136 
 Agraecius, bishop of Sens, meets Sidonius 
 
 at Bourges, 439 
 date of origin of the See, 464 
 Agricius, a deacon, irregularly ordained, 
 
 Siricius consults Maximus the 
 Emperor about him, 262 
 Aignan, St., has mission to Aetius for 
 
 help for Orleans, 313 
 lodges at Vienne with Mamertus, 480 
 Aix, founded by C. Sextus, 6 
 Alaric, the Visigoth, in Illyricum, 301 
 
 enters Italy, 302 
 Alaric II. succeeds Euric as king of 
 
 Visigoths, 316 
 killed at Vougle, 337 
 Alemans, Constantius I., campaign 
 
 against, 129 
 occupy sixty cities, 79 
 slaughtered at Langres, 129 
 sack Tours and Avenches, 128 
 Alexander, martyr of Lyons, 43 
 Alexandria, Gregory appointed bishop 
 
 of, 139 
 Alleluia victory gained in Britain by 
 
 strategy of Germanus, 469 
 Alpinianus, companion of St. Martial, 65 
 Amandus, leader of Bagaudae, 129 
 Amandus of Bordeaux, friend of Paul- 
 
 inus, 278 
 
 Amatius, prefect of Gaul, 347 
 Amator, bishop of Auxerre, his life 
 
 written by Stephen, a priest, 463 
 cuts down sacred tree at Auxerre, 466 
 chooses Germanus as his successor, 
 
 467 
 Amboise, idolatrous column at, 211 
 
 St. Martin at, 211 
 Ambrose, St., endeavours to reconcile 
 
 Priscillianists, 269 
 goes on embassy to Trier, 265 
 Amelius, bishop of Bordeaux, builds a 
 
 church in honour of St. Dionysius, 16 
 Amiens, rebuilt under Const. Chlorus, 
 
 129 
 
 St. Martin at, 188 
 Anagrates, Roman fort given by Sigibert 
 
 to St. Columbanus, 544 
 
572 
 
 BIRKBECK LECTURES 
 
 Ancyra, Council of, 121 
 Andochius, St., of Viviers, 55 
 Antioch, Council of, A.D. 341, adopts 
 civil divisions for bishops' Sees, 123, 
 
 359 
 
 against Athanasius, 139 
 Anthemius proclaimed emperor, 425 
 Antony, St., compared with St. Martin, 
 
 279 
 
 Anulinus, prefect of Africa, 115 
 Apiarius of Sicca, his case in reference 
 
 to appeals to Rome, 356 
 Aprunculus, bishop of Langres, suspected 
 
 by Gundobad, 323 
 driven from Langres, 324 
 succeeds his brother, Sidonius Apol- 
 linaris, as bishop of Clermont, 43 1 
 Arimathea, St. Joseph of, 16 
 Ariminum, Council of, 170 
 Arius, his heresy condemned at Nicea, 
 
 137 
 
 Aries, Councils of, ist, A.D. 314; 2nd, 
 A.D. 3535 3 rd, A.D. 452; 4 th, 
 A ' D - 455 i 5 th > A - D - 4 6 3 5 6 th, A.D. 
 475 j 7th, A.D. 524; 8th, A.D. 554 
 Aries, ist Council of, 118 
 bishops present at, 119 
 canons of, 120 
 Aries, 2nd Council at, 145 
 
 repudiates Athanasius, 145 
 Aries, 3rd Council of, rules concerning 
 
 monasticism, 289 
 Aries, schools in, 1 1 
 
 political importance of, 1 1 
 
 founded by Tiberius, 10 
 
 besieged by Franks and Burgundians, 
 
 338 
 
 development of authority of arch- 
 bishop of, 365 
 conflict with Vienne, 361 
 Majorian's banquet at, 416 
 Aries, Les Aliscamps, 21 
 Astorga, Symphosius of, 269 
 Atawulf leads Visigoths from Italy to 
 
 Gaul, 310 
 
 marries Galla Placidia, 310 
 murdered in Barcelona, 311 
 Athanasius, St., acquitted by Council of 
 
 Rome, 139 
 
 accused at Council of Antioch, 139 
 exiled to Trier, 138 
 Attalus, martyr of Lyons, 41, 42 
 Attila, leader of the Huns, passes 
 
 Troyes, 475 
 
 spares Troyes in his retreat, 476 
 Auch, capital of Novempopulania, 125 
 Augofleda, sister of Chlodovech, marries 
 
 Theodoric the Ostrogoth, 328 
 Augustine, St., on Priscillian, 272 
 
 letter on monasticism, 289 
 
 reason for his De civitate Dei, 382 
 Aurelian's life qf St. Martial, 65 
 Aurelianus suppresses Druids, 78 
 
 assassinated, 78 
 
 edict against Christians, 79 
 Ausonius' villa near Saintes, 275 
 
 friend of Paulinus, 278 
 Austremonius of Clermont, 70 
 
 life by Praejectus, 70 
 
 tomb at Issoire, 70 
 Autiernus desires to return to Ireland, 
 
 546 
 Autun, siege and fall, 77 
 
 rebuilt by Constantius Chlorus, 129 
 
 tomb of Lazarus, 25 
 
 St. Symphorian of, 52 
 
 schools in, 1 1 
 
 centre of Druidism, 8 
 
 Reticius of, 137 
 
 Magnentius proclaimed emperor, 141 
 Auxerre, origin of the bishopric, 464 
 
 Liber pontificialis, 464 
 Auxiliaris, praetorian prefect, assists 
 Hilary of Aries at Rome, 370, 469 
 Avenches sacked by Alemans, 75, 128 
 Avitacum, description of, 417 
 Avitian, governor of Tours, 211 
 Avitus, St., at Micy, 288 
 Avitus, an Arvernian senator, proclaimed 
 
 emperor, 314 
 
 Avitus, bishop of Vienne, his relation to 
 Roman See, 377 
 
 his sermons on Rogations, 487 
 
 Badilo goes to Aix to search for Mag- 
 dalen's tomb, 21 
 
 Bagaudae punished by Maximianus, 128, 
 
 129 
 put down by Aetius, 318 
 
 Baudulf, agent of Theodoric, conducts 
 St. Columbanus to Besancon, 561 
 
 Beauvais rebuilt under Constantius 
 Chlorus, 129 
 
 Benedict of Turin, his controversy with 
 Ademar, 66 
 
 Benedict, St., of Nursia, orders Cassian's 
 Conferences to be read, 300 
 
 Benedict, St., of Aniane, his testimony 
 to early Gallican abbots, 300 
 
 Benignus, St., of Dijon, 55 
 
 Bertecharius, Count, goes with Baudulf 
 to arrest St. Columbanus, 563 
 
 Besan9on, St. Ferreolus of, 54 
 description of, 561 
 
 St. Columbanus imprisoned there, 562 
 Donatus of, endeavours to combine 
 Rules of St. Benedict and St. Col- 
 umbanus, 553 
 
INDEX 
 
 573 
 
 Bethany, legends concerning family of, 
 
 *9 
 
 Beziers, Council of, condemns Hilary, 
 
 J 54 
 
 Bishops, Gallican, write to Hilary in 
 
 his exile, 158 
 Blandina, martyr maid of Lyons, 34, 41, 
 
 43 
 
 Boniface, first bishop of Rome and 
 
 Council of Carthage, A.D. 419, 357 
 
 II. of Rome recognises orthodoxy of 
 
 Caesarius of Aries, 408 
 Bordeaux Council ordered by Maximus, 
 
 247 
 
 Justantius condemned at, 247 
 schools at, ii 
 riot at, and murder of Priscillianist, 
 
 265 
 
 literature flourishes at, 301 
 captured by Visigoths, 310 
 Bourg, an estate of Paulinus at, 277 
 Bricius or Brito succeeds St. Martin at 
 
 Tours, 187, 276 
 opposes St. Martin, 276 
 Brioude, St. Julian of, 95 
 British bishops present at first Council 
 
 of Aries, 118 
 
 Brito succeeded at Trier by Felix, 265 
 dies, 248 
 
 election of successor, 248 
 Brunichildis, death of, 566 
 Burgundians, their early history, 317 
 decimated by Aetius and the Huns, 
 
 318 
 
 transferred to Savoy, 319 
 join with Visigoths in expedition to 
 
 Spain, 320 
 
 kingdom, extent of, 321 
 said to have been at first Catholic, 
 
 3*3 
 capture Nar bonne, 338 
 
 Caecilian, archdeacon, made bishop, 
 
 "5 
 
 letter of Constantine to, 117 
 of Carthage goes to Milan, 122 
 Caesaria, sister of Caesarius, abbess at 
 
 Aries, 506 
 
 niece of Caesarius, 507 
 Caesarius, St., his monastic rules, 290, 
 
 505. 
 his action and defence against charge 
 
 of semi-Pelagianism, 406 
 adopts Rogations, 487 
 his biographers and early life, 489 
 and the siege of Aries, 491, 497 
 succeeds Aeonius as archbishop, 493 
 his preaching, 443, 506 
 his arrest by Alaric II., 495 
 
 opposed by Licinianus the notary, 
 
 494 
 
 and the Council of Agde, 496 
 second arrest and imprisonment, 497 
 third arrest, and sent to Ravenna, 
 
 499 
 
 interview with Theodoric, 499 
 release and assistance from Theodoric, 
 
 499 
 
 visit to Pope Symmachus, 500 
 his labour in his diocese, 501 
 refutation of charge of semi-Pelagi- 
 anism, 502 
 consecrates church at Orange built by 
 
 prefect Liberius, 502 
 case of Contumeliosus of Riez, 504 
 love of hymns, 509 
 Caprais, early companion of St. Honor- 
 
 atus, 281 
 
 Capraria, monastery at, 282 
 Caracalla, emperor, makes subjects of 
 
 empires its citizens, 124 
 Carantoc comes to the help of St. Col- 
 
 umbanus, 546 
 
 Carthage, Council of, A.D. 418, on ap- 
 peals to Rome, 357 
 Cassian, his early history, 295 
 
 his sojourn at Bethlehem and Egypt, 
 
 295 
 
 ordained by St. Chrysostom, 296 
 his Institutes and Conferences, 299 
 his rules, 290 
 his many sympathisers in S. Gaul, 
 
 403 
 
 suspected of semi-Pelagianism, 391 
 his death, 402 
 Cassiodorus, his edition of Cassian's 
 
 Conferences, 299 
 Castor, bishop of Apt, his influence on 
 
 Honoratus, 281 
 requested Cassian to write a book on 
 
 Monasticism, 297 
 Celsus, a man of consular rank, and 
 
 friend of Sulpicius Severus, 280 
 Celtic cantons become Roman cities, 
 
 124 
 
 Chabannes, Ademar of, 66 
 Chagneric meets St. Columbanus at 
 
 Meaux, and takes him to Theude- 
 
 bert, 564 
 Chalcedon, Council of, A.D. 451 j on 
 
 authority of See of Rome, 358 
 Charles of Sicily searches for and finds 
 
 tomb of the Magdalene, 27 
 Chartres, St. Martin's work there, 212 
 
 centre of druidism, 8 
 Chelidonius, bishop of Besanjon, case 
 
 of, 369 
 Childeric, king of Salian Franks, 326 
 
574 
 
 BIRKBECK LECTURES 
 
 Chlodovech succeeds Childeric, 327 
 defeats Syagrius, 327 
 war with Thuringians, 328 
 attacks the Burgundians, 334 
 his interview with Gundobad, 335 
 captures Vienne, 334 
 meets Alaric II. near Amboise, 336 
 advances against Visigoths, 337 
 winters at Bordeaux, 337 
 captures Toulouse, 338 
 orders at Orleans observance of the 
 Rogations, 487 
 
 Chlothachar II., his charter to monas- 
 tery of Dionysius, 17 
 
 Chrocus, Aleman king, defeated at Aries, 
 76 
 
 Chrysostom, St., ordains Cassian deacon, 
 296 
 
 Citium, Lazarus buried at, 28 
 
 Clermont, Austremonius, bishop of, 70 
 
 Coelestine's action against semi-Pelagi- 
 
 anism, 401 
 sends Palladius to Ireland, 401 
 
 C5ln, Euphrates, bishop of, present at 
 Sardica, 140 
 
 Columba, St., of Sens, 80 
 
 Columbanus, St., his early life, 541 
 his interview with Sigibert, 542 
 his monastic rule, 551 
 and Gallican bishops, 549, 555 
 letters to Pope Gregory the Great, 557 
 insults Brunichildis at Bruyeres le 
 
 Chatel, 559 
 quarrels with Theodoric at Epoisses, 
 
 559 
 
 under arrest, 561 
 
 escapes from Besan9on, 562 
 
 arrested again at Luxeuil, 563 
 
 goes into exile, 563 
 
 stops at Tours, 563 
 
 escapes to Neustria, 564 
 
 goes to Paris to Theudebert, 564 
 
 meets his monks at Metz, 565 
 
 goes to Switzerland and attempts to 
 
 settle at Bregenz, 565 
 goes to Agilulf, king, of Lombardy, 
 
 565 
 
 obtains gift of Bobbio, 566 
 his death, 567 
 
 Condat in Jura, monastery at, 287, 528 
 Condes, St. Martin dies at, 209 
 Conferences, the, of Cassian regarded as 
 
 heretical, 393 
 Constance, Council of, 13 
 
 strife between English and French 
 
 bishops, 14 
 
 legends introduced at, 15, 1 6 
 Constans, son of tyrant Constantine, 
 said to have been a monk, 305 
 
 goes to Spain with Gerontius, 305 
 captured and killed at Vienna by 
 
 Gerontius, 306 
 Constans, emperor, murdered at Elva, 
 
 141 
 
 Constantine, tyrant of the west, 303 
 tyrant of Britain, 303 
 lands near Boulogne, 303 
 captures Trier, 304 
 besieged in Valence, 304 
 fortifies passes of Alps, 305 
 captured by Constantius, 307 
 sent to Ravenna and executed, 307 
 Constantine I., emperor, leaves Gaul for 
 
 Rome, 105 
 
 vision of the Labarum, 105 
 emperor, 101, 107 
 Edict of Toleration, 107 
 faith of, H2 
 
 Constantine II., emperor, attacks Con- 
 stans, and killed at Aquileia, 139 
 Constantinople, Archbishop of, granted 
 equal rights with Bishop of Rome, 
 346 
 
 Constantius Chlorus, clemency to Chris- 
 tians, 83 
 
 created Caesar, 98 
 Constantius II., emperor, Hilary's letter 
 
 No. i to, 151 
 
 Hilary's letter No. 2 to, 173 
 Hilary's letter against, 173 
 his interest in Christianity, 142 
 his preference for Arianism, 143 
 keeps court at Aries, A.D. 353, 144 
 influenced by bishops Ursacius and 
 
 Valens, 144 
 
 his hostility to St. Athanasius, 145 
 his remarks at the Council of Milan, 
 
 . I47 
 his suspicion and cruelty to his 
 
 nephews, 153 
 sanctions councils at Seleucia and 
 
 Ariminum, 163 
 
 meets Acacians at Constantinople, 172 
 Constantius, the patrician, marches 
 
 against usurper Constantine, 306 
 besieges Aries, 306 
 captures Narbonne, 311 
 drives Visigoths into Spain, 311 
 Constantius, priest of Lyons, counsels 
 
 Sidonius to collect his letters, 448 
 Controversies between Catholics and 
 
 Arian bishops, 333 
 Cordova, Hosius of, ill - treated by 
 
 Arians, 156 
 
 Cyprian, St., writes to Rome concern- 
 ing Marcianus, 68 
 
 his view on the authority of the 
 Roman See, 358 
 
INDEX 
 
 575 
 
 Cyprian, St., Bishop of Toulon, writes 
 the life of Caesarius of Aries, 489 
 
 Damasus, Pope, writes to Spanish 
 
 bishops, 226 
 
 Decentius, revolt of, 141 
 Decius, emperor, killed in battle, 74 
 Decrees, imperial, in favour of the 
 
 Christians, 132 
 Decretals, the papal, begin with Siricius, 
 
 352 
 Dictinius, consecrated bishop by his 
 
 father, 270 
 
 Die, care of bishopric of, 374 
 Dijon, St. Benignus of, 55 
 Dioceses, early organisation of Gaul into, 
 
 127 
 
 Diocletian, divisions of Gaul under, 125 
 proclaimed emperor, 82 
 associates Maximianus to himself, 83 
 Diolchos, Cassian goes to, 296 
 Dionysius, St., Council of Constance, 1 5 
 his church at Bordeaux, 16 
 legend of, 15 
 
 his cult started by St. Genovefa, 16 
 his Passio, rejected by Krusch, 16 
 Mons. Havet on, 16 j Gregory of 
 
 Tours on, 16 
 removing charters on foundation of 
 
 the abbey, 17 
 confounded with Areopagite by 
 
 Hilduin, 18 
 one of the seven missionary bishops, 
 
 69 
 Dionysius, the Carthusian, his edition of 
 
 the Conferences of Cassian, 300 
 Divisions of Gaul by Augustus Octavi- 
 
 anus, 7 
 Donatianus, St., his martyrdom at 
 
 Nantes, 96 
 
 Donatist schism, rise of, 114 
 Drepanus Pacatus, his panegyric on 
 
 Theodosius, 266 
 Dreux, centre of Druidism, 8 
 Druidism in Gaul, 8 
 
 Ecdicius, brother-in-law of Sid. Apollin- 
 
 aris, exiled by Euric, 315 
 letter from Sidonius to, 441 
 Edict of Diocletian against Christians, 99 
 of toleration, meaning of, 1 10 
 addressed to Aetius concerning the 
 
 bishopric of Aries, 348 
 of Milan in favour of privileges of See 
 
 of Rome, 344 
 
 Edicts in favour of the Christians, 132 
 Edobich, collects Prankish recruits for 
 
 Constantine, 306 
 general of tyrant Constantine, 304 
 
 Elaphius, of Rodez, builds a church which 
 Sidonius Apollinaris consecrates, 
 443 
 Eleutherus, Pope, consecrates Irenaeus, 
 
 47 
 
 Elusa, capital of Novempopulania, ro 
 church at, built by Sulpicius Severus, 
 
 278 
 Emerita, Ydacius, bishop of, 224 
 
 resigns See of, 250 
 
 Epagathus, Vettius, protest and martyr- 
 dom at Lyons, 40 
 
 Eparchus, bishop of Clermont and prede- 
 cessor of Sidonius, 426 
 Ephesus, tomb of Magdalene there, 27 
 Epipodius, martyred at Lyons, 51 
 Etheria, supposed authoress of Peregri- 
 
 natio, 28 
 
 Eucherius, the praetor's deputy, 280 
 of Lero, 284 
 settler at Lero, 286 
 epitomises Conferences of Cassian, 299 
 his writings concerning monasticism, 
 
 289 
 Euchrotia, widow of rhetorician Del- 
 
 phidius, 236 
 
 adherent of Priscillian, 236 
 executed at Trier, 249 
 Euphronius, bishop of Autun, demands 
 
 information from Sidonius, 438 
 Eudes, abbot of Vezelay, 20 
 Eugendus, St., his remarks on monastic 
 
 rules, 289 
 
 Euladius, bishop of Bourges, 439 
 Euric succeeds Theodoric II. as king of 
 
 Visigoths, 315 
 master of Berry, 315 
 master of Nimes, 315 
 captures Auvergne, 316 
 captures Clermont, 429 
 Eusebius, on private life of Constantine, 
 
 '35 
 
 Evodius, prefect, opposed to Priscillian, 
 
 248 
 
 reports to emperor, 249 
 Exuperius, supposed author of the Acta 
 
 Saturnint, 71 
 
 bishop, saves his city Toulouse, 308 
 letter from Innocent I. to, 353 
 
 Fabian, bishop of Rome, his missionary 
 
 zeal, 72 
 Fausta, empress, gives birth to Con- 
 
 stantius at Aries, 132 
 Faustus, the Briton, a monk of Lerins, 
 
 284, 427 
 
 suspected of Pelagianism, 404 
 Felix, St., of Nola, Paulinus' devotion 
 
 to his cult, 277 
 
576 
 
 BIRKBECK LECTURES 
 
 Felix succeeds Brito as bishop of Trier, 
 
 265 
 
 troubles arising out of his consecra- 
 tion, 352 
 
 Ferreolus, St., martyr at Vienne, 93 
 St., of Besan9on, 54 
 
 Firminus of Aries begs Sidonius to com- 
 plete his collection of his letters, 
 448 
 
 Firminus, a disciple of Caesarius and a 
 bishop of Uzs, writes the life of 
 his former teacher, 489 
 
 Florus, revolt of, 9 
 
 Fontaines-sur-Roge given to St. Col- 
 umbanus as his third settlement, 
 
 55 
 
 Fortunatus, of Valence, 56 
 Franks, early kingdom of Salian, 326 
 Freculphus, his chronicles and St. Philip, 
 3* 
 
 Galacterius, king of Beam, friend of the 
 Franks, 317 
 
 Galerius, Caesar, the foe of the Chris- 
 tians, 99 
 
 fatal disease of, 102 
 edict of toleration, 103 
 
 Gallic Diet, founded by Augustus, and 
 to meet at Lyons, 8 
 
 Gallican Church, its organisation in 
 reference to Rome, 360 
 
 Gallican Councils in sixth century, 
 
 5*3 
 
 list of, 516 
 
 presidents of, 517 
 
 deal with discipline of the Church, 
 
 519 
 
 deal with endowments, 522 
 
 deal with public worship, 525 
 
 deal with monasticism, 527 
 
 deal with Jews, 530 
 
 deal with heathen, 533 
 
 deal with heretics, 533 
 
 bishops of sixth century, their courage, 
 
 535 
 Gallienus goes to Pannonia, 75 
 
 returns to Gaul, 76 
 Gallinaria, St. Martin retires to, 192 
 Gallus, murdered by order of his uncle, 
 
 the Emperor Constantius, 153 
 Gatian, St., :st bishop at Tours, 62 
 one of the seven missionary bishops, 
 
 58 
 his refuge in caves at Marmoutier, 
 
 199 
 Gaudentius, bishop of Marathon, decision 
 
 in his case, 3 50 
 Gaul, cities of, in time of revolt of 
 
 Florus, 9 
 
 ruined by Vandals in fifth century, 307 
 St. Patrick testifies to ruin of, 307 
 St. Paulinus of Nola bears witness to 
 
 ruin of, 308 
 
 Genesius, St., martyred at Aries, 92 
 Geneva, capital of Burgundian kingdom, 
 
 3*9 
 
 Gennadius, refugee at Marseilles, 293 
 Genoa, the clergy of, their objection to 
 
 tractates of St. Augustine, 402 
 Genovefa, St., her cult of St. Dionysius, 
 
 16 
 
 her prayers for Paris, 475 
 Geoffrey, Abbot, his reforms at Vezelay, 
 
 20 
 
 Germanicus, the luxurious Arvernian 
 
 nobleman, 440 
 Germanus, St., of Auxerre, his early life, 
 
 463 
 
 duke of the Armorican Tract, 46 5 
 his mission to Britain, 467 
 goes to Aries to Auxiliaris, 469 
 Sid. Apoll., testimony to, 470 
 second mission to Britain, 471 
 goes to Ravenna, 471 
 dies in Italy, 471 
 travel companion with Cassian, 296 
 
 Gerontius, general of usurper Constan- 
 
 tine, 304 
 
 left in charge at Zaragossa, 305 
 rises against Constantine, 306 
 
 Gervaise of Tilbury, his chronicle, 26 
 
 Gesalic, son of Alaric II., escapes to 
 Spain, 338 
 
 Glycerius, nominated emperor, 315 
 
 Goar, king of Alemans, 318 
 
 Godigisel, Burgundian king at Geneva, 
 
 3* 1 
 
 Gorgon Isle, monastery on, 282 
 Gothia, kingdom of, founded by Wallia, 
 
 3 11 
 
 Gratian decrees suppression of Priscilli- 
 anis, 228 
 
 mock emperor in Britain, 303 
 
 refers case of Priscillian to Marini- 
 anus, vicar of Spain, 246 
 
 murdered at Lyons, 246 
 
 modifies privilege demanded by Da- 
 
 masus, 345 
 
 Gregory, Bishop, appointed to See of 
 Alexandria by Emperor Constan- 
 tine, 139 
 
 bishop of Langres, 55 
 
 prefect of Gaul, 245 
 
 Gregory the Great, his correspondence 
 with Gallican bishops and kings, 
 
 . 538 
 
 Grigny, monastery at, 287 
 Gui, Bernard, his chronicle, 26 
 
INDEX 
 
 577 
 
 Gundakar, king of Burgundians, killed 
 by Aetius, 319 
 
 Gundiok, king of Burgundians, 319 
 married Suevian princess, 320 
 his opposition to St. Mamertus, 483 
 
 Gundobad, succeeds to power of Ricimer, 
 
 322 
 
 Burgundian king, 322 
 raises Glycerius to purple, 322 
 occupies Clermont and withdraws on 
 
 request of the Visigoths, 322 
 recaptures Vienne, 335 
 puts Godegisel to death, 334 
 aids Chlodovech against Visigoths, 337 
 releases Catholics near Limoges, 337 
 sends supplies to Caesarius of Aries, 
 
 499 
 
 Gundomadus, Galilean leader defeated 
 
 by Constantius, 130 
 Gunther, Burgundian king, 318 
 
 Helpidius, the teacher of Priscillian, 
 
 223 
 
 Heraclius, magistrate at Autun, 52 
 Herenas, bishop, refuses to condemn 
 
 Priscillian, 271 
 Hermes succeeds Rusticus as bishop of 
 
 Nar bonne, 373 
 
 Hilarus, bishop of Rome, maintains claims 
 of his See, 373 
 
 his controversy with St. Mamertus, 
 
 484 
 
 Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, his early life, 
 149, 284 
 
 first letter to Constantius, 148, 151 
 
 exiled to Asia Minor, 155 
 
 treatise De fide or De Trinitate, 159 
 
 treatise De synodis, 160 
 
 letter to Abra, 167 
 
 as a hymn- writer, 168 
 
 present at Seleucia, 171 
 
 second appeal to Constantius, 173 
 
 returns to Gaul, 174 
 
 invective against Constantius, 176 
 
 passes through Italy, 181 
 
 arrives at Poitiers, 181 
 
 goes to Milan against Auxentius, 181 
 
 dismissed from Milan, 182 
 
 estimate of his work, 183 
 
 absence of traditions concerning, 183 
 
 dies at Poitiers, 183 
 
 patronises monasticism, 275 
 Hilary, bishop of Aries, story of his life, 
 
 453 
 succeeds Honoratus as bishop of Aries, 
 
 454 
 
 suspected of semi-Pelagianism, 455 
 visits Gcrmanus of Auxerre, 457 
 his action at Besanfon, 457 
 
 his controversy with Pope Leo, 458 
 goes to Rome and opposes Leo, 458 
 sends Ravennius to plead before Leo 
 
 460 
 
 death, 461 
 Hilduin, abbot, identifies St. Dionysius 
 
 of Paris with the Areopagite, 1 8 
 Hilperik, king of Burgundians, 319 
 reigns at Lyons, 321 
 murdered by Gundobad, 321 
 father of Hrothilde, 321 
 Himerius, bishop of Tarragona, consults 
 
 Siricius, bishop of Rome, 352 
 Honoratus, St., his early life, 281 
 goes to Marseilles, 28 1 
 settles at Lerins, 282 
 bishop of Aries, 285 
 question of his code of rules, 288 
 Honorius, law to enforce payment of 
 
 taxes by all, 302 
 refers to edict of Gratian concerning 
 
 Papal Appeal Court, 346 
 Hosius of Cordova, ill treated by Arians , 
 
 156 
 
 friend of Constantine, 135 
 presides at Council of Nicaea, 135 
 Hospitius, St., of Nice, 288 
 Huns invade Gaul, 312 
 before Orleans, 313 
 defeated by Aetius, 313 
 hostility to Burgundians, 319 
 Hyginus, bishop of Cordova, joins 
 Priscillian, 228 
 
 Ingenuus, bishop of Embrun. case of, 376 
 Innocent I. of Rome, his letters concern- 
 ing the rights of the See of Rome, 
 
 353 
 
 Instantius condemned at Bordeaux, 247 
 Invasion of Gaul, New Year's Eve, A.D. 
 
 406, 302 
 Irenaeus carries letter of Lyons to Rome, 
 
 45 
 
 bishop of Lyons, 45 
 his early history, 46 
 consecrated by Eleutherus, 47 
 his writings, 48 
 
 letter to Pope Victor of Rome, 49 
 was he a martyr, 49 
 Irish monasticism, its origin from Lerins, 
 
 283 
 Ithacius goes to Gregory, prefect of 
 
 Gaul, 245 
 
 appeals to Maximus, 246 
 returns from persecution of Priscillian, 
 
 248 
 deprived of See of Ossonoba, 250 
 
 Jerome, St., testifies to ruin of Gaul, 308 
 2 P 
 
578 
 
 BIRKBECK LECTURES 
 
 Jonas, of Bobbio, his life of St. Colum- 
 
 banus, 546 
 Julian, Caesar, sets out for Gaul, 153 
 
 his successful campaign in Gaul, 131 
 
 proclaimed emperor, 180 
 
 keeps festival of Epiphany at Vienna, 
 
 180 
 
 Julian, St., martyred at Brioude, 95 
 Julius, prefect of Gaul, 466 
 
 grants permission for ordination of 
 
 St. Germanus, 466 
 Justinian, general of usurper Constantine, 
 
 34 
 
 Justus, a general of the usurper Constan- 
 tine, 305 
 
 Justus, the boy martyr at Auxerre, 464 
 
 Kararic, king of Salian Franks, 326 
 
 Lampius, bishop of Barcelona, ordains 
 
 Paulinus, 277 
 Langres, Constantius Chlorus' slaughter 
 
 of Alemans at, 129 
 Latronianus executed at Trier as a 
 
 Priscillianist, 249 
 Lazarus, supposed to lie at Marseilles, 23 
 
 buried at Citium, 28 
 Leo, bishop of Rome, his appeal to 
 
 Valentinian, 348 
 his interest in S. Gaul, 372 
 Leobinus, St., bishop of Chartres, 288 
 Leontius, a monk of Minerva, 287 
 Leontius, bishop of Frejus, his influence 
 
 on St. Honoratus, 281 
 Leprosum, village of, visited by St. 
 
 Martin, 213 
 
 Lerins or Lerina, early history of, 282 
 Lero, early history of, 282 
 Lexovium, Luxeuil, given by Childebert 
 
 II. to St. Columbanus, 548 
 Liberius, bishop of Rome, asks for Council 
 
 of Aquileia, 145 
 appropriates to himself edict issued in 
 
 favour of Felix, 344 
 Libius Severus makes Gundiok maghter 
 
 militum, 321 
 
 Ligug, St. Martin's monastic founda- 
 tion at, 195 
 monastery at, 274 
 Limoges, Council of, 66 
 lists of bishops of, 65 
 Litorius, Roman general, defeated by 
 
 Theodoric, Visigothic king, 312 
 Litorius or Ledorius, successor of St. 
 
 Gatianus, bishop of Tours, 197 
 Lucidus, priest of Riez, his case on semi- 
 
 Pelagianism, 404 
 
 Lupus of Toul goes to Lerins, 289 
 his early life, 473 
 
 consecrated bishop of Troyes, 474 
 goes to Britain with Germanus, 467, 
 
 474 
 his courage and defence of Troyes, 
 
 475 
 
 accompanies Attila to the Rhine, 476 
 
 settles at Mt. Lassois, 477 
 
 his disciples, 477 
 Lyons, its early history, 7 
 
 foundation of, 7 
 
 Gallic Diet at, 8 
 
 schools at, 1 1 
 
 residences of legate and prefect at, 9 
 
 suffers under Aurelianus, 78 
 
 martyrs of, 35 
 
 St. Pothinus, bishop of, 35 
 
 Irenaeus, bishop of, 45 
 
 Gregory of Tours, account of martyr- 
 doms, 40 
 
 monastery at, 287 
 
 Macedonius, prefect, befriends Priscillian, 
 
 244 
 
 Macon, Council of, A.D. 585, St. Colum- 
 banus summoned, 554 
 ist Council of A.D. 581, 517 
 2nd Council of A.D. 585, 517 
 decrees of, published by Gunthram of 
 
 Burgundy, 555 
 Magdalene, St. Mary, her MSS. life at 
 
 Oxford, 23 
 
 Magnentius, rebellion of, 141 
 defeat at Mursa, 141 
 commits suicide at Lyons, 141 
 proclaimed emperor at Autun, 141 
 Magnus, bishop, a prosecutor of Pris- 
 cillian, 248 
 
 Majorian proclaimed emperor, 315 
 makes peace with Theodoric, ii. 315 
 goes to Lyons, 320 
 
 Mamertus Claudianus, brother of the 
 bishop, account of his life and 
 writings, 481 
 Mamertus, St., of Vienne, his early life, 
 
 480 
 
 letters of Pope Hilarus about, 48 1 
 consecrates a bishop for Die, 482 
 originates three Rogation days, 485 
 his death, 488 
 Manichacism in Spain, 223 
 Marcianus of Aries becomes a Novatian, 
 
 68 
 
 letter of St. Cyprian about, 68 
 Marcus, mock emperor in Britain, 303 
 Marinianus, vicar of Spain, 246 
 Marinus, bishop of Aries, 119 
 
 holds council at bidding of Constan- 
 tine, 343 
 Mark, a Gnostic teacher in Spam, 222 
 
INDEX 
 
 579 
 
 Marmoutier, monastery founded by St. 
 
 Martin, 199 
 
 settlement of St. Gatian, 274 
 Marseilles, its early history, 5 
 extent of its influence, 6 
 Claudius M. Victor at, 293 
 St. Victor's monastery at, 292 
 refuge from invasion, 381, 293 
 See, in relation to province of Aries, 
 
 362 
 clergy, objections of, to tractates of 
 
 St. Augustine, 402 
 
 Martial, St., missionary bishop at Lim- 
 oges, 64 
 
 said to have come from the east, 64 
 Aurelian's life of, 65 
 influence of Bethany legend on, 65 
 Martin arrives at Poitiers, 184 
 his early life, 185 
 his service in the army, 186 
 his charity at Amiens, 188 
 chided by Julian, 189 
 leaves the army, 190 
 goes to Sabaria, 191 
 attempts to found a monastery at 
 
 Milan, 192 
 
 retires to Gallinaria, 192, 274 
 returns to Poitiers, 194 
 settles at Liguge, 195 
 summoned to Tours, 197 
 chosen bishop of Tours, 198 
 work at Marmoutier, 199 
 visits Valentinian at Trier, 200 
 second visit to Trier, 201 
 pleads for Priscillian, 248, 202 
 entertained by Maximus, 203 
 assists in consecration of Felix, 204 
 vision of, 207 
 death at Condes, 209 
 extent of missionary labours, 210 
 his character, 215 
 
 present at Council of Bordeaux, 247 
 dines with the empress, 265 
 his danger at Trier, 264 
 Massaliotes surrender ancient constitu- 
 tion, 9 
 Maternus, St., bishop of Trier, 56 
 
 supposed son of widow of Nain, 25 
 Maturus, a recent convert martyred at 
 
 Lyons, 41 
 Mauriac plain, battle of, 313 
 
 site of, note, 313 
 
 Maurice, St., monastery at, 287 
 Maurus, Rabanus, supposed life of Mag- 
 dalene, 23 
 Maxentius, death of, 106 
 
 hostility to Constantino I., 105 
 Maxima Sequanorum, description of the 
 province, 543 
 
 Maximianus, emperor, reforms the army, 
 
 84 
 
 resumes the purple, 101 
 goes to Lyons, 102 
 captured at Marseilles, 102 
 Maximin, St., near Aix, 22 
 Maximus, made emperor in Spain by 
 
 Gerontius, 305 
 Maximus, tyrant, his promise to St. 
 
 Martin, 249 
 his death, 265 
 supreme in Gaul, 246 
 assures Siricius of his desire to pro- 
 mote orthodoxy, 262 
 orders a council of bishops to consider 
 
 case of Agricius, 262 
 St. Ambrose pleads before him for 
 
 servants of Valentinian, 265 
 Maximus, an officer of Euric at Toulouse , 
 
 442 
 
 becomes bishop of Toulouse, 442 
 becomes abbot of Lerins, 285 
 becomes bishop of Riez, 285 
 Melchiades, bishop of Rome, Constan- 
 
 tine's rescript to, 116 
 holds council at Rome at bidding of 
 
 Constantine, 342 
 
 Mensurius, bishop of Carthage, 115 
 Meroveus, legendary king of Salian 
 
 Franks, 326 
 
 Messianus, one of the priests of Caesarius 
 at Aries, assists to write his life, 489 
 Milan, condemnation of Athanasius, 147 
 Council of, A.D. 355, 146 
 Constantius draws his sword at, 147 
 marriage of Licinius at, 107 
 capital of Gaul under Diocletian, 10 
 St. Martin attempts to found a monas- 
 tery at, 192; 
 Marolus, bishop of, hears appeal from 
 
 Tours, 364 
 
 Milvian Bridge, battle of, 106 
 Minerva, monastery at, 287 
 Minervus, a monk to whom Cassian 
 addressed the third part of his Con- 
 ferences, 298 
 Modestus, bishop of Jerusalem, sermon 
 
 on Bethany family, 27 
 Monasteries in Gaul in the sixth century, 
 
 5 28 . 
 Monasticism, early suspicion against, 276 
 
 Montmajeur, probable home of St. 
 
 Trophimus of Aries, 286 
 monastery of St. Hilary of Aries, 287 
 monastery of Caesarius of Aries, 492, 
 
 505 
 Mursa, battle ot, and defeat of Mag- 
 
 nentius, 141 
 Musaeus, a refugee at Marseilles, 293 
 
580 
 
 BIRKBECK LECTURES 
 
 Nantes, St. Rogatian martyred at, 95 
 Soffronius, bishop of, 564 
 St. Columbanus taken there for 
 
 transportation, 564 
 Narbonne created a colony, 6 
 
 supposed synod of, 69 
 Nazaire, St., original patron of Autun, 
 
 23 
 Nebiogast, general of usurper Con- 
 
 stantine, 304 
 Nepos, Julius, recognises authority of 
 
 Euric over Auvergne, 315 
 Nicomedia, fire in palace at, 99 
 Nlmes, Council of, 266 
 
 canons of, 267 
 Novempopulania created by Diocletian, 
 
 125 
 its capital Elusa, 10 
 
 Odovaker, the Patrician, recognises ex- 
 tended kingdom of Euric, 316 
 
 Omont, Mons., explains Gregory of 
 Tours, 17 
 
 Orientius, bishop of Auch, his testimony 
 on the ruin of Gaul, 309 
 
 Orleans, Attila and the Huns besiege it, 
 
 312 
 St. Aignan goes to Aetius to ask for 
 
 help, 313 
 attempt of Theodoric II. to capture it, 
 
 3H 
 
 early history of the See, 480 
 a Syrian woman at, gives food to St. 
 
 Columbanus, 563 
 
 Councils of ist (A.D. 511), 2nd (A.D. 
 533)3 rd (A.D. 538), 4th (A.D. 541), 
 5th (A.D. 549), 5 16 " 1 ?. 
 Orosius, activities against Priscillian, 272 
 Oyandus, a monk of Condate, 287 
 
 Paris, capital of Caesar Julianus, 1 1 
 schools at, ii 
 St. Martin at, 212 
 
 Councils at ist (A.D. 361), 2nd (A.D. 
 551), 3 rd ( A .D.556), 4 th(A.D.573), 
 5th( A .D. 577), 516 
 Paternus, bishop of Perigueux, opposes 
 
 Hilary, 149 
 deposed, 181 
 
 Patricius, keeper of privy purse to the 
 Emperor Maximus, acts as pro- 
 secutor against Priscillian at Trier, 
 249 
 Patroclus martyred at Troyes, 79 
 
 bishop of Aries, murdered, 285, 367 
 Paulinus of Bordeaux loses his son, 277 
 becomes an ascetic, 277 
 becomes bishop of Nola, 277 
 meets St. Martin, 278 
 
 Paulinus of Pella at Marseilles, refugee 
 from Bordeaux, 294 
 
 Paulus, St., first missionary bishop of 
 Narbonne, 69 
 
 Pax Romana stops tribal strife, 4 
 
 Perigueux, Paternus of, becomes an 
 Arian, 149 
 
 Peter, archbishop of Aix, 22 
 
 Petronius of Aries begs Sidonius to con- 
 tinue collection of his letters, 448 
 
 Pharetrius, priest of Rodez, writes to 
 Ruricius, 444 
 
 Philip, St., said to have preached in 
 Gaul, 32 
 
 Phoebadius of Agen writes against 
 
 Arians, 156 
 presides at Valence, 360 
 
 Pliny's writings sold in shops at Lyons, 
 
 12 
 
 Poitiers, St. Hilary at, 148 
 
 St. Martin goes there, 190, 194 
 Pontius, St., suffers at Cimiez, 79 
 Portianus, St., a recluse in Auvergne, 288 
 Posthumus declared emperor, 75 
 
 falls at Mainz, 76 
 
 Potentinus, bishop of Orleans, succours 
 St. Columbanus on his way into 
 exile, 563 
 Pothinus, St., martyr bishop of Lyons, 
 
 Primuliac, church at, built by St. Severus, 
 
 278 
 Priscillian, his early life, 223 
 
 consecrated bishop of Avila, 228 
 
 writes his Apology, 229 
 
 rejected by Delphinus, bishop of Bor- 
 deaux, 236 
 
 wins sympathy of Euchrotia and 
 Procula, 236 
 
 appeals to Damasus, 237, 351 
 
 appeals to Ambrose of Milan, 243, 
 
 35 1 
 
 appeals to Gratian, 244 
 present at Council of Bordeaux, 247 
 appeals to Maximus, 247 
 taken to Trier, 247 
 execution of, 247 
 his Tractatus Paschae, 2 $2 
 his tractate on Pentateuch, 258 
 his Benedlctio super f deles, 260 
 Priscillianists' reception at Council 01 
 
 Toledo, 271 
 
 Priscus, St., martyred at Auxerre, 80 
 Probus, emperor, restores peace to Gaul, 
 
 128 
 Procula, daughter of Delphidius and 
 
 disciple of Priscillian, 236 
 Proculus, bishop of Marseilles, desires to 
 ordain St. Honoratus, 281 
 
INDEX 
 
 Projectus, his successor, consecrated 
 
 during his illness, 369 
 Prosper of Aquitaine at Marseilles, 
 
 *93 383 
 his evidence concerning ruin of Gaul, 
 
 309 
 
 his appeal to Coelestine, 368, 400 
 his early life, 384 
 his autobiography, 385 
 his writings, 386 
 estimate of character of the barbarians, 
 
 387 
 
 opposition to semi-Pelagianism, 396 
 writes against Cassian, 401 
 writes against semi-Pelagianism, 397 
 appeal to St. Augustine, 398 
 Provincia created by Romans, 6 
 Ptolemy de Lucques, chronicle of, 26 
 Publius Caesar, son of emperor Gal- 
 lienus, murdered at Coin, 75 
 
 Quintianus, bishop of Rodez, exiled, 316 
 
 Ragamund, Theodoric's officer, conducts 
 
 St. Columbanus into exile, 563 
 Ravennius, priest of Aries, carries 
 
 Hilary's submission to Rome, 370 
 archbishop of Aries, 371 
 Regnakair, king of Salian Franks, 326 
 Remnuoth, order of Egyptian monks, 
 
 278 
 Rhodanius, orthodox bishop of Toulouse, 
 
 150 
 Ricimer, the brother-in-law of Gundiok, 
 
 320 
 Roads made by Augustus Octavianus 
 
 and Agrippa, 7 
 Rocamadour, tomb of St. Zacchaeus, 
 
 25. 
 Rodez, in diocese of Limoges, Elaphius 
 
 built a church there, 443 
 Rogatian, St., martyred at Nantes, 95 
 Remain Moutier, monastery at, 287 
 Roman poets send their poems to Gaul, 
 
 ii 
 Rome, heart of the world, I 
 
 Council at, acquits Athanasius, 139 
 first Council of, condemns Donatus, 
 
 116 
 
 bishop of, agent of emperor, 341 
 bishop of, appeal court under Valen- 
 
 tinian, 345 
 See of, its influences as apostolic on 
 
 western Christendom, 349 
 revival of influence of See of, 537 
 Roussillon, Gerard de, founder of Vezelay, 
 
 20 
 
 Rufus, bishop, becomes a prosecutor of 
 Priscillian, 248 
 
 Ruricius, bishop of Limoges, exiled by 
 
 Euric, 442 
 borrows and copies a book of Sidonius 
 
 Apollinarius, 443 
 letters to Sidonius, 443 
 interests himself with Alaric II. 
 
 on behalf of Caesarius of Aries, 
 
 495 
 
 Rusticius summons St. Martin to Tours 
 to his sick wife, 197 
 
 Rusticus, bishop of Narbonne, conse- 
 crates Hermes to See of Beziers, 
 
 373 
 
 Rutilius, Namatianus, on island monas- 
 teries, 282 
 
 Sabaria, St. Martin born in, 185 
 Sacrovir, revolt of, with Florus, 9 
 Salonus, son of Eucharius of Lyons, 286 
 Salvator, St., a monastery for women, 
 
 294 
 Salvian, a refugee at Marseilles, 293 
 
 his life and writings, 389 
 Sanctus, the deacon, of Vienne, and 
 
 martyr, 35 
 Sardica, Gallican bishop at Council of, 
 
 127 
 
 Council of, 140 
 Council of, on local trials and appeals, 
 
 350 
 
 Sarus commands army of Honorius, 304 
 Saturninus, his ancient Acta, 17 
 his martyrdom at Toulouse, 61 
 his early Vita incorporated in Gregory 
 
 of Tour's History, 59 
 Saturninus, Arian bishop of Aries, 145 
 
 ceases to be bishop, 181 
 Secundus of Tigisis, metropolitan of 
 
 Numidia, 115 
 Seleucia, Council of, 171 
 Semi-Pelagianism heresy, its origin, 390 
 
 St. Augustine's writings on, 391 
 Sens, church expansion in province of, 
 
 480 
 
 bishoprics of the province of, 464 
 Septimus Severus, the emperor, stays in 
 
 Lyons, 51 
 
 Servatio, bishop of Tongres, remains 
 orthodox during persecution of 
 Constantius, 158 
 
 Seven bishops, the mission of the, 58 
 Severus, bishop of Trier, accompanies 
 Germanus on his second mission to 
 Britain, 471 
 Severus Libius makes Gundiok magister 
 
 mili turn, 321 
 Sidonius Apollinaris, his letter on 
 
 monastic rules, 289 
 exiled, 315 
 
582 
 
 BIRKBECK LECTURES 
 
 Sidonius Apollinaris, his life and writ- 
 ings, 41 1 
 
 his panegyric on Avitus, 413 
 
 his relations with Majorian, 414 
 
 adventure at the cemetery, 417 
 
 description of Theodoric II. of Tou- 
 louse, 420 
 
 account of the library at Prusianum, 
 422 
 
 keeps festival of St. Just, 423 
 
 summoned to Rome, 425 
 
 panegyric on Anthemius, 425 
 
 chosen bishop, 426 
 
 defends Clermont against Euric, 427 
 
 correspondence in defence of Au- 
 vergne, 429 
 
 introduces Rogations at Clermont, 
 428, 486 
 
 captured by Euric, 429 
 
 exiled to Livia, 430 
 
 his friends at Toulouse secure his 
 release, 431 
 
 goes to Euric at Bordeaux, 430 
 
 returns to Clermont, 430 
 
 his later life and his opponents, 43 1 
 
 his death, 431 
 
 his episcopal correspondents, 432 
 
 estimate of his panegyrics, 433 
 
 his account of persecution of Catho- 
 lics by Euric, 436 
 
 his work at Bourges, 439 
 
 consecrates church of Elaphius at 
 Rodez, 443 
 
 writes to Remigius of Rheims, 445 
 
 his action towards monasticism, 447 
 
 as a hymn writer, 449 
 
 as a liturgiolist, 449 
 
 promise to write life of St. Aignan, 
 450 
 
 his friendship with St. Lupus, 479 
 Sigibert, king of Salian Franks, 326 
 Sigibert, son of Chlotachar, assassinated, 
 
 545 
 
 Sigismund, Burgundian king, founds 
 monastery of St. Maurice, 287 
 
 Silvia, her alleged Peregrinatio, 28 
 
 Siricius, bishop of Rome, his action to- 
 wards Himerius of Tarragona, 352 
 
 Sirmium, Council of, 156 
 
 blasphemy of, meaning of phrase, 156 
 the dated creed of, 170 
 
 Soffronius, bishop of Nantes, provides 
 food for St. Columbanus, 564 
 
 Squillace, monastery at, founded by 
 Cassiodorus, 300 
 
 Stilicho, the Vandal generalissimo of 
 Honorius, 301 
 
 Sulpicius Severus, his early life, 278 
 his writings, 279 
 
 source of his information about 
 
 Priscillian, 218 
 Susanna, an early monastery in Aqui- 
 
 taine, 275 
 Syagrius succeeds his father at Soissons, 
 
 326 
 Sylvanus, guardian of Publius Valeri- 
 
 anus, murdered at C6ln, 75 
 Symphorian, St., martyred at Autun, 31, 
 
 52, 53 
 
 value of his Vita, 52 
 Symphosius of Astorga goes to Milan, 
 
 269 
 is reconciled to the Church, 269 
 
 Tacitus, the emperor, revokes edict 
 against Christians, 82 
 
 Talasius, bishop of Anger, requests in- 
 formation from St. Lupus of Troyes, 
 
 477 
 
 Tarascon, legend of St. Martha, 23, 26 
 Ternay, monastery at, 287 
 Terni, battle of, 74 
 Tetradius commits to writing rules of 
 
 St. Caesarius, 290 
 Tetricus proclaimed emperor, 77 
 
 succeeds Aurelianus, 78 
 Thebaid Legion, the massacre of, 85 
 story by Eucherius of Lyons, 86 
 story by Gregory of Tours, 87 
 Theobald, Count, puts St. Columbanus 
 
 on board a ship at Nantes, 564 
 Theodahad, the Ostrogoth, delivers the 
 
 province of Narbonensis II. to the 
 
 Franks, 504 
 Theodoric I., king of Visigoths, killed 
 
 in battle of Mauriac plains, 314 
 Theodoric II., king of Visigoths, ad- 
 vances kingdom to Rhone, 314 
 fails to capture Orleans, 314 
 Theodoric, son of Childebert, goes to St. 
 
 Columbanus at Luxeuil, 560 
 death of, 566 
 Theodoric, the Ostrogothic king in 
 
 Italy, intervenes for protection of 
 
 Aries, 498, 338 
 his interview with Caesarius at 
 
 Ravenna, 499 
 his letters to avert the invasion of 
 
 Gothia, 336 
 Theodorus, bishop of Frejus, founds 
 
 monastery on Hyeres Island, 286 
 Theodorus, prefect of Gaul, 302 
 Theodosius, emperor, uses execution of 
 
 Priscillian for his own purpose, 
 
 266 
 Theognistus, bishop, joins St. Martin 
 
 against Ithacius, 263 
 Therasia, wife of Paulinus of Nola, 277 
 
INDEX 
 
 583 
 
 Theudebert, son of Childebert, death of, 
 
 566 
 
 Theudelinda, queen of Lombard king, 
 her efforts to convert her husband 
 Agilulf, 565 
 Thorismund, Visigothic king, deposed 
 
 and slain by Theodoric II., 314 
 Tolbiac, battle of, 566 
 Toledo, Council of, A.D. 399, receives 
 
 back Priscillianists in Spain, 270 
 Tongres, Servatio of, remains orthodox, 
 
 158 
 
 Tortona, Majorian murdered at, 417 
 Toulouse, Volusianus of Tours exiled 
 
 there, 59 
 
 settlement of Visigoths, 59 
 St. Saturninus at, 59 
 schools in, 1 1 
 Sulpicius Severus at, 278 
 captured by the Visigoths, 310 
 Tours sacked by Alemans, 75 
 succession of bishops at, 63 
 St. Martin, bishop of, 197 
 Trade routes in Gaul, 3 
 Trebonianus Gallus succeeds Decius, 74 
 Trier, a colony of Galba, 10 
 
 capital of Gaul under Constantius 
 
 Chlorus, 1 6 
 
 Athanasius exiled there, 138 
 death of Bishop Brito, 248 
 consecration of Felix, 263 
 council of bishops on Ydacius, 265 
 Trophimus, St., of Aries, 68 
 
 identified with the Ephesian, 67 
 Troyes rebuilt under Constantius 
 Chlorus, 129 
 
 Urbica killed at Bordeaux in riot 
 against Priscillianists, 265 
 
 Ursachius, bishop of Singidunum, coun- 
 sellor of Emperor Constantius, 144 
 
 Ursus, St., of Sennaparia, 288 
 
 Valens, bishop of Mursa, counsellor of 
 
 Constantius, 144 
 
 Valentinian proclaimed emperor, 182 
 Valentinian III. murdered by Maximus, 
 
 3H 
 
 decree concerning Aries, 347 
 
 edict concerning Hilary, addressed to 
 
 Aetius, 348 
 Valerianus enlists Germans for imperial 
 
 army, 74 
 
 edict against Christians, 79 
 proclaimed emperor, 74 
 Venantius, brother of St. Honoratus, 
 
 281 
 
 dies at Methone, 281 
 Veranus, son of Eucherius, 286 
 
 Vercundar Dubius, priest of Gallic Diet, 
 
 8 
 
 Verus, bishop of Tours, exiled to Tou- 
 louse, 316 
 
 Vettius Epagathus, protest at Lyons, 40 
 Vezelay, its connection with Bethany 
 
 legend, 19 
 ancient tomb regarded as of St. Mary 
 
 Magdalene, 21 
 
 refuge of Thomas of Canterbury, 1 9 
 Victor, bishop of Rome, letter of 
 
 Irenaeus to, 49 
 
 Victor, St., his abbey at Marseilles, 22 
 martyrdom at Marseilles, 89 
 miracles at his tomb, 92 
 Victor, an African bishop, edits an 
 expurgated edition of Conference* 
 of Cassian, 299 
 Victorinus, son of Victoria, proclaimed 
 
 emperor, 77 
 
 Victorius, the officer of Euric in com- 
 mand at Clermont, 429 
 his friendship for the Catholics, 429 
 Victricius, of Rouen, letter to Pope 
 
 Innocent, 353 
 account of his work, 354 
 Vidomir, an Ostrogothic chief, goes to 
 
 the aid of Euric, 315 
 Vienne, foundation of, 6 
 schools at, ii 
 St. Ferreolus of, 93 
 monastery at, 287 
 
 Emperor Julian keeps feast of Epi- 
 phany there, 180 
 controversy for precedence with Aries, 
 
 361 
 
 Vigilantius of Hourra becomes opponent 
 of St. Jerome and monasticism, 
 
 353 
 Vincentius, bishop of Capua, represents 
 
 Liberius at Aries, 145 
 Vincentius of Lerins, 285 
 
 suspected of semi-Pelagianism, 399 
 prefect of Gaul, 302 
 Visigoths settle at Toulouse, 59, 310 
 invasion sweeps away tradition from 
 
 Aquitaine, 280 
 invasion of Gaul, 310 
 defeated before Aries, 312 
 Viviers, St. Andochius of, 55 
 Volusianus, bishop of Tours, exiled to 
 
 Toulouse, 316 
 
 Volventius, proconsul of Galicia, 244 
 Vougl6, battle of, 337 
 
 Wallia, Visigothic kings surrender 
 
 Galla Placidia, 311 
 makes peace with Honorius, 3 1 1 
 
 settles in Gaul, 3 1 1 
 
5 8 4 
 
 BIRKBECK LECTURES 
 
 Worms, city of, centre of early Bur- 
 
 gundian kingdom, 318 
 Wulfilas defeats Edobich near Aries, 306 
 
 Ydacius, bishop of Emerita, 226 
 writes against Priscillian, 225 
 retires from persecution of Priscillian, 
 
 248 
 resigns See of Emerita, 250 
 
 Zaragossa, Council of, summoned against 
 
 party of Priscillians, 225 
 canons of, 227 
 
 Zosimus, bishop of Rome, his false refer- 
 ence to the canons of Nicaea, 357 
 creation of province of Aries, 363 
 his erroneous history of the origin of 
 the church of Aries, 363 
 
 
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