Christianity in Gaul

Gaul was an important early center of Latin Christianity during late antiquity and the Merovingian period. By the middle of the 3rd century, there were several churches organized in Roman Gaul, and soon after the cessation of persecution, the bishops of the Latin world assembled at Arles in AD 314. The Church of Gaul passed through three crises in the late Roman period, Arianism, Priscillianism and Pelagianism. Under Merovingian rule, a number of "Frankish synods" were held, marking a particularly Germanic development in the Western Church. A model for the following Frankish synods was set by Clovis I, who organized the First Council of Orléans (511).

Establishment of Christianity in Gaul

See also: Persecution in Lyon

No records survive of how Christianity first reached Gaul. The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia speculates that early missionaries may have arrived at Marseilles by sea, and continued up the river Rhône to the central metropolis at Lyon. Missionaries from Asia, such as Pothinus and his successor Irenaeus (both disciples of Polycarp), established the faith more firmly. As a result, the Christians of the community in Lyon and Vienne were "predominantly of eastern background" and maintained close ties with the community in Rome.

The first mention of Christianity in the context of Roman Gaul dates to AD 177 and the persecution in Lyon, the religious center of Roman Gaul, where the Sanctuary of the Three Gauls was located. The sole account of this persecution is a letter preserved by Eusebius from the Christians of Lyon and Vienne, the latter still known then as Vienna Allobrogum and the capital of the continental Celtic Allobroges. The letter implies that the Church of Lyons was the only organized church in Gaul at the time. That of Vienne appears to have been dependent on it and, to judge from similar cases, was probably administered by a deacon.

The forty-eight martyrs of Lyon (ancient Lugdunum, "citadel of Lugus" the Gallic equivalent of Mercury) represented every rank of Gallo-Roman society. Among them were Vettius Epagathus, an aristocrat; the physician Attalus of Pergamus, from the professional class; from the Church, Saint Pothinus Bishop of Lyon, with the neophyte Maturus and the deacon Sanctus; and the young slaves Blandina and Ponticus.

Eusebius speaks of letters written by the Churches of Gaul, of which Irenaeus is bishop. These letters were written on the occasion of the second event, which brought the Church of Gaul into prominence. Easter was not celebrated on the same day in all Christian communities; towards the end of the 2nd century, Pope Victor wished to universalize the Roman usage and excommunicated the Churches of Asia Minor which were Quartodeciman. Irenaeus intervened to restore peace. About the same time, in an inscription found at Autun (ancient Augustodunum, the capital of the Celtic Aedui), a certain Pectorius celebrated in Greek verse the Ichthys or fish, symbol of the Eucharist. A third event in which the bishops of Gaul appear is the Novatian controversy. Bishop Faustinus of Lyon and other colleagues in Gaul are mentioned in 254 by St. Cyprian as opposed to Novatian, whereas Marcianus of Arles was favourable to him.

Local legends

Local legends attribute the founding of principal sees in Gaul to the Apostles or their immediate successors. In the 6th century, Caesarius of Arles claimed that Daphnus, the first Bishop of Vaison, was a disciple of the Apostles, despite Daphnus attending the Council of Arles in 314. A hundred years earlier, his predecessor Patrocles made the same claim about Trophimus, founder of the Diocese of Arles.

Such claims were flattering to local vanity. During the Middle Ages and over the centuries many legends grew up in support of them. The evangelization of Gaul has often been attributed to missionaries sent from Rome by St. Clement. This theory inspired a whole series of fallacious narratives and forgeries that complicate and obscure the historical record.

Gregory of Tours

Frontispiece of the Historia Francorum, in which Gregory of Tours gives an account of the evangelisation of Gaul

In the Historia Francorum, Gregory of Tours gives another narrative of the evangelisation of Gaul. According to him, in the year 250, Rome sent seven bishops, who founded as many churches in Gaul:

• Gatianus founded the Diocese of Tours
• Trophimus founded the Diocese of Arles
• Paul founded the Diocese of Narbonne
• Saturninus founded the Diocese of Toulouse
• Denis founded the Diocese of Paris
• Austromoine founded the Diocese of Clermont
• Martialis founded the Diocese of Limoges

The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia considers Gregory's account more credible than the local legends, but maintains some reservations, assessing the narrative overall as tradition rather than fact. The encyclopedia notes that Gregory was writing three hundred years after the purported events, and highlights chronological issues with his account.

Spread of Christianity

Cyprian describes several churches organized in Gaul by the middle of the third century. These churches were largely unaffected by the Diocletianic Persecution, due to the influence of Constantius Chlorus, who was not hostile to Christianity.

The 314 Council of Arles was convened shortly after the end of the persecutions. Signatures on surviving documents show that bishops from the following dioceses were in attendance:

• Vienne
• Marseilles
• Arles
• Orange
• Vaison
• Apt
• Nice
• Lyon
• Autun
• Cologne
• Trier
• Reims
• Rouen
• Bordeaux
• Gabali
• Eauze
• Toulouse
• Narbonne
• Clermont
• Bourges
• Paris

Among the educated

Paulinus, an early Christian intellectual in Gaul

During the 4th and 5th centuries, Christianity slowly began to spread among the educated classes in Gaul. The poet Ausonius may have been a convert to Christianity; his pupil Paulinus entered a monastery, sparking controversy among his peers. Non-Christian intellectuals, such as those in the schools of Autun, sometimes praised the virtues of the Christian emperors.

By the close of the 5th century, the majority of scholars in Gaul were Christians. These included:

• Salvian
• Hilary of Poitiers
• Sulpicius Severus
• Paulinus of Nola
• Sidonius Apollinaris

In rural areas

Martin of Tours, depicted felling a sacred tree

Rural areas in Gaul remained strongholds of traditional Gallic and ancient Roman religions, and syncretic fusions of the two. Missionaries such as Martin of Tours, Victricius of Rouen, and Martin of Brives worked to stamp out these practices, especially in central Gaul. A famous legend tells of Martin of Tours felling a sacred tree near Autun and being attacked by a peasant. The efforts of these missionaries were largely unsuccessful, and a quote from 395 refers to the Christian deity as "that God Who alone is worshipped in the large cities".

At the beginning of the 5th century, there took place in the neighbourhood of Autun the procession of Cybele's chariot to bless the harvest. In the 6th century, in the city of Arles, one of the regions where Christianity had gained its earliest and strongest foothold, Bishop Caesarius was still attempting to suppress traditional beliefs, and some of his sermons are important sources of information on folk-lore.

Gallic monasticism

The Christianization of the lower classes of the people was greatly aided by the newly established monasteries. In Gaul as elsewhere the first Christian ascetics lived in the world and kept their personal freedom. The practice of religious life in common was introduced by Saint Martin (died c. 397) and Cassian (died c. 435). Martin established Marmoutier Abbey near Tours, where in the beginning the monks lived in separate grottoes or wooden huts. A little later Cassian founded two monasteries at Marseilles (415). He had previously visited the monks of the East, and especially Egypt, and had brought back their methods, which he adapted to the circumstances of Gallo-Roman life. Through two of his works, De institutis coenobiorum and the Collationes XXIV, he became the doctor of Gallic asceticism.

Lérins Abbey

About the same time, Honoratus founded a monastery on the Lérins Islands near Marseilles. Lérins Abbey became a centre of Christian life and ecclesiastical influence. Episcopal sees of Gaul were often objects of competition and greed, and were rapidly becoming the property of certain aristocratic families. Lérins took up the work of reforming the episcopate, and placed many of its own sons at the head of dioceses:

• Honoratus, Hilary, and Caesarius at Arles
• Eucherius at Lyons
• Salonius at Geneva
• Veranius at Vence
• Lupus at Troyes
• Maximus and Faustus at Riez

Lérins too became a school of mysticism and theology and spread its religious ideas far and wide by useful works on dogma, polemics, and hagiography.

Other monasteries founded in Gaul included:

• Grigny near Vienne
• Île Barbe at Lyon
• Réomé
• Morvan
• Saint-Claude in the Jura Mountains
• Collégiale Saint-Mexme de Chinon
• Loches

It is possible, however, that some of these foundations belong to the succeeding period. The monks had not yet begun to live according to any fixed and codified rule. For such written constitutions we must await the time of Caesarius of Arles. Monasticism was not established without opposition. Rutilius Namatianus, a pagan, denounced the monks of Lérins as a brood of night-owls; even the effort to make chastity the central virtue of Christianity met with much resistance, and the adversaries of Priscillian in particular were imbued with this hostility to a certain degree. It was also one of the objections raised by Vigilantius of Calagurris. The law of ecclesiastical celibacy was less stringent, less generally enforced than in Italy, especially Rome. The series of Gallic councils before the Merovingian epoch bear witness at once to the undecided state of discipline at the time, and also to the continual striving after some fixed disciplinary code.

Theological strife

The Church of Gaul passed through three dogmatic crises.

Arianism

Its bishops seem to have been greatly preoccupied with Arianism; as a rule they clung to the teaching of the Council of Nicaea, in spite of a few temporary or partial defections. Athanasius, who had been exiled to Trier (336-38), exerted a powerful influence on the episcopate of Gaul; one of the great champions of orthodoxy in the West was Hilary of Poitiers, who also suffered exile for his constancy.

Priscillianism

Priscillianism had a greater hold on the masses of the faithful. It was above all a method, an ideal of Christian life, which appealed to all, even to women. It was condemned in 380 at the Synod of Saragossa where the Bishops of Bordeaux and Agen were present; nonetheless it spread rapidly in Central Gaul, Eauze in particular being a stronghold. When in 385 Magnus Maximus put Priscillian and his friends to death, Saint Martin was in doubt how to act, but repudiated with horror communion with the bishops who had condemned the unfortunates. Priscillianism, indeed, was more or less bound up with the cause of asceticism in general.

Pelagianism

Finally the bishops and monks of Gaul were long divided over Pelagianism. Proculus, Bishop of Marseille, had obliged Leporius, a disciple of Pelagius, to leave Gaul, but it was not long before Marseille and Lérins, led by Cassian, Vincent and Faustus, became hotbeds of a teaching opposed to St. Augustine's and known as Semipelagianism. Prosper of Aquitaine wrote against it, and was obliged to take refuge at Rome. It was not until the beginning of the 6th century that the teaching of Augustine triumphed, when a monk of Lérins, Caesarius of Arles, a follower of Augustine, caused it to be adopted by the 529 Council of Orange.

In the final struggle Rome intervened. We do not know much concerning the earlier relations between the bishops of Gaul and the pope. The position of Irenaeus in the Easter Controversy shows a considerable degree of independence; yet Irenaeus proclaimed the primacy of the See of Rome, which he based on the Apostolic Succession and, equally importantly, right teaching, orthodoxy (whereas the Gnostics whom he opposed were mere itinerant preachers without authority). About the middle of the 3rd century the pope was appealed to for the purpose of settling difficulties in the Church of Gaul and to remove an erring bishop (Cyprian, Epist. lxviii). At the Council of Arles (314) the bishops of Gaul were present with those of Brittany, Spain, Africa, even Italy; Pope Sylvester sent delegates to represent him. It was in a way a Council of the West. During all that century, however, the episcopate of Gaul had no head, and the bishops grouped themselves according to the ties of friendship or locality. Metropolitans did not exist as yet, and when advice was needed Milan was consulted. "The traditional authority", says Duchesne, "in all matters of discipline remained always the ancient Church of Rome; in practice, however, the Council of Milan decided in case of conflict." The popes then took the situation in hand, and in 417 Pope Zosimus made Patrocles, Bishop of Arles, his vicar or delegate in Gaul, and provided that all disputes should be referred to him. Moreover, no Gallic ecclesiastic could have access to the pope without testimonial letters from the Bishop of Aries. This primacy of Aries waxed and waned under the succeeding popes. It enjoyed a final period of brilliancy, under Caesarius, but after his time it conferred on the occupant merely an honorary title. In consequence, however, of the extensive authority of Arles in the 5th and 6th centuries, canonical discipline was more rapidly developed there, and the "Libri canonum" that were soon in vogue in Southern Gaul were modelled on those of the Church of Aries. Towards the end of this period Caesarius assisted at a series of councils, thus obtaining a certain recognition as legislator for the Merovingian Church.

The invasions

The barbarians, however, were on the march. The great invasion of 407 across the Rhine disrupted Gaul for almost 3 years until they passed over into Spain in September or October 409. Gaul was free of invaders but subjected to civil wars between imperial contenders until 413, when the imperial government of Emperor Honorius restored order. The Visigoths left Italy in 411 and settled in southwest Gaul and northeast Spain until finally being settled in a swatch of territory from Toulouse to the Atlantic coast north of Bordeaux in 416. The Visigoths were Arians and hostile to Catholicism.

Gradually the necessities of life imposed a policy of moderation. The Council of Agde, really a national council of Visigothic Gaul (506), and in which Caesarius was dominant, is an evidence of the new temper on both sides. The Acts of this council follow very closely the principles laid down in the Breviarium Alarici—a summary of the Theodocian Code drawn up by Alaric II, the Visigothic king, for his Gallo-Roman subjects—and met with the approval of the Catholic bishops of his kingdom.

Between 410 and 413 the Burgundians had settled near Mains and were settled in Savoy in 443. In 475 they moved farther south along the Rhône, and about this time became Arian Christians. The Franks, soon to be masters of all Gaul, left the neighbourhood of Tournai, defeated Syagrius, the last representative of Roman authority in central north Gaul, in 486, and extended their power to the Loire. In 507 they defeated the Visigoth Kingdom in the Battle of Vouillé, confining their domain to Spain, except for a strip of territory along the Mediterranean coast. In 534 the Burgundians were defeated; in 536 by the conquest of Arles they succeeded to the remnants of the great state created by King Theodoric the Great.

The transition from one regime to another was eased by the bishops of Gaul. The bishops had frequently played a role as intermediaries with the Roman authorities. It was long believed that they had been invested with special powers and the official title of defensores civitatum (defenders of the states). While this title was never officially borne by them, the popular error was only formal and superficial. Bishops like Sidonius Apollinaris, Avitus, Germanus of Auxerre, Caesarius of Arles, upheld the social fabric. The bishops were guardians of the classical traditions of Latin literature and Roman culture, and long before the appearance of monasticism had been the mainstay of learning.

Christianity in Merovingian Gaul

Further information: Christianity in the 6th century

Throughout the 6th and 7th centuries manuscripts of the Bible and the Church were copied to meet the needs of public worship, ecclesiastical teaching, and Catholic life. The only contemporary buildings that exhibit traces of classical or Byzantine styles are religious edifices.

Regional synods had been held regularly in the Church of Gaul, more than thirty of them between 314 and 506. Under Merovingian rule, a number of "Frankish synods" were held, marking a particularly Germanic development in the Western Church: to the usual regional or provincial councils, Germanic peoples added a traditional element from their systems of government, the idea of a national council, which was influenced by the Christian East. They also indicate a growing congruence between church and state. While Arian rulers kept their distance from the general councils, Visigoth rulers began influencing the councils only after the conversion of Reccared I. As soon as they had established themselves, Merovingian kings (and the Carolingians after them) exerted their influence on the councils. According to Gregory Halfond, such congruence was a particular quality of the Gallo-Roman church, in which the Roman aristocracy made up an important part of the leadership of the Gallo-Roman (and later the Frankish) church; continuity in this power nexus is indicated also by the continued use of Roman procedures in the councils.

An early important churchman is Caesarius of Arles, who organized regional synods, which were mostly concerned with conforming the canons and practices of the Church of Gaul to those of other Churches. At Orange, for instance, he had earlier (Pelagian) practices of the Gallic church anathematized, and at the ensuing council in Vaison liturgical conformity with other Churches (Italy, Africa, the East) was established. A model for the following Frankish synods was set by Clovis I, who organized the First Council of Orléans (511); though he did not himself attend it, he set the agenda and followed the proceedings closely (at stake was "the unification of the Roman church under Frankish rule"). After the waning of Caesarius's influence and the establishment of Merovingian rule, the focus of the soon-to-be Frankish Church shifted north, to deal with the growing problem of adjusting to "deeply embedded Germanic practices"; rather than Pelagianism or Predestinatarianism, bishops now had to deal with problems involving "marriage, the relations between a warrior aristocracy and clergy, or monks and nuns, the conflicts born of royal influence and control, or of property rights". By the eighth century, the regular organization of synods had largely disappeared, and when Boniface complained to Pope Zacharias in 742 that there hadn't been a synod in the Frankish church in at least eighty years, he was not exaggerating by much.

See also

• Diocese of Gaul
• Praetorian prefecture of Gaul

References

Sources

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Christian Gaul". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. The entry states:
  • "After the writings of EUSEBIUS OF CAESARIA, SULPICIUS SEVERUS, PAULINUS OF NOLA, SALVIANUS, GREGORY OF TOURS, etc., our principal source of information is the epigraphic material published by LE BLANT, Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule antérieures au VIIIe siècle (Paris, 1858–85), with a supplement (1897);
    • ____, Les sarcophages chrétiens de la Gaule (Paris, 1896). SIRMOND AND LALANDE, Concilia Antigua Galliae (4 vols., fol., 1629–66);
    • "also the catalogues or lists of bishops preserved in many dioceses and edited by DELISLE in Histoire littéraire de la France, XXIX."
  • "General works devoted to the history and study of Christianity have chapters on the Church in Gaul. Special reference works:"
    • DUCHESNE, Fastes épiscopaux de l'ancienne Gaule, I (1894; 2nd ed., 1907), II (1900);
  • HOUTIN, La controverse de l'apostolicité des églises de France au XIXe siècle (Paris, 1901);
    • Analecta Bollandiana, XIX, 354;
    • MORIN, Saint Lazare et saint Maximin in Mémoires de la société des antiquaires de France, LIX (Paris, 1898);
    • AUBÉ in Revue historique, VII (1878) 152-64;
    • DUCHESNE, Origines du culte chrétien (Paris, 1889), 32, 84;
    • ____, La première collection romaine des décrétales in Atti del secondo congresso d'archeologia cristiana (Rome, 1902), 159;