Wikipedia

Christianity in Gaul: Difference between revisions

Browse history interactively
← Previous edit
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
→In rural areas: neutral summary
→Gallic monasticism: Removed speculatory info
 
(14 intermediate revisions by 2 users not shown)
Line 1:
{{Copy edit|for=style and neutrality|date=October 2023}}
{{Original research|date=July 2024}}
'''[[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]].
Line 19:
 
===Local legends===
 
A series of localLocal legends trace backattribute the foundationfounding of the principal [[Episcopal see|sees]] in Gaul to the [[Apostles in the New Testament|Apostles]]. Earlyor intheir immediate successors. In the 6th century, [[Caesarius of Arles]] disregardedclaimed anachronismthat in making[[Daphnus]], the first [[Bishop of Vaison]], [[Daphnus]],was a disciple of the Apostles, evendespite though his signature appearsDaphnus atattending the [[Council of Arles (314)|Council of Arles in 314]].<ref>Lejay, Paul. ''Le rôle théologique de Césaire d'Arles'', p. 5.</ref> OneA hundred years earlier, one of his predecessors,predecessor [[Patrocles (bishop)|Patrocles]], basedmade variousthe claimssame claim about his Church on the fact that [[Trophimus of Arles|St. Trophimus]], founder of the [[Ancient Diocese of Arles|ChurchDiocese of Arles]], was a disciple of the Apostles.
 
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 [[Pope Clement I|St. Clement]]. This theory inspired a whole series of fallacious narratives and forgeries that complicate and obscure the historical record.<ref name=Lejay/>
 
===Gregory of Tours===
[[File:Grégoire de Tours, Histoire des Francs, livres 1 à 6, page de frontispice.jpg|thumb|left|Frontispiece of the {{lang|la|Historia Francorum}}, in which Gregory of Tours gives an account of the evangelisation of Gaul]]
MoreIn faith can be placed in a statement of [[Gregory of Tours]] in histhe ''[[Historia Francorum]]'' (I, xxviii),[[Gregory onof whichTours]] was based thegives secondanother groupnarrative of narratives concerning 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]]
Line 34 ⟶ 36:
* [[Saint Martial|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.
Gregory's statement has been accepted with some reservations by historians. Nevertheless, even though Gregory, a late successor of Gatianus, may have had access to information on the beginnings of his church, an interval of three hundred years separates him from the events he chronicles; moreover, this statement of his involves some serious chronological difficulties, of which he was himself aware, e. g., in the case of the bishops of Paris. The most we can say for him is that he echoes a contemporary tradition, which represents the general point of view of the 6th century rather than the facts. It is impossible to say how much legend is mixed with the reality.
 
==Spread of Christianity==
Line 79 ⟶ 81:
 
=== In rural areas ===
[[File:Högling Deckenfresko.JPG|thumb|left|Martin of Tours, depicted felling a sacred tree]]
 
Rural areas in Gaul remained strongholds of [[Ancient Celtic religion|traditional Gallic]] and [[Religion in ancient Rome|ancient Roman]] religions, and [[Gallo-Roman religion|syncretic fusions]] of the two.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://history-world.org/celts%20religious_beliefs_and_practices_.htm |title=The religious beliefs and practices of the ancient Celts |access-date=2015-12-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151030061853/http://history-world.org/celts%20religious_beliefs_and_practices_.htm |archive-date=2015-10-30 |url-status=usurped }}</ref> Missionaries such as [[Martin of Tours]], [[Victricius of Rouen]], and {{ill|Martin of Brives|fr|Martin de Brive}} 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".<ref>[[Alexander Riese]], {{lang|la|[[Anthologia Latina]]}}, no. 893, v. 105</ref>
 
[[Martin of Tours|Saint Martin]], a native of [[Pannonia]], [[Bishop of Tours]], and founder of monasteries, undertook especially in Central Gaul a crusade against this rural idolatry. On one occasion, when he was felling a sacred tree in the neighbourhood of Autun, a peasant attacked him, and he had an almost miraculous escape. Besides Saint Martin other popular preachers traversed the rural districts, e.g. [[Victricius]], [[Bishop of Rouen]], another converted soldier, also Martin's disciples, especially Saint [[Martin of Brives]]. But their scattered and intermittent efforts made no lasting effect on the minds of the peasants. About 395 a Gallic rhetorician depicts a scene in which peasants discuss the mortality among their flocks. One of them boasts the virtue of the sign of the cross, "the sign of that God Who alone is worshipped in the large cities" (Riese, Anthologia Latina, no. 893, v. 105). This expression, however, is too strong, for at that very period a single church sufficed for the Christian population of Trier. Nevertheless, the rural parts continued the more refractory. 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, Tours|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, "{{lang|la|De institutis coenobiorum"}} and the "{{lang|la|Collationes XXIV"}}, he became the doctor of Gallic asceticism.
 
[[File:Abbaye st honorat de lerins - 003.jpg|thumb|right|Lérins Abbey]]
Line 101 ⟶ 104:
* [[Monastery of Grigny|Grigny]] near [[Vienne, Isère|Vienne]]
* [[Île Barbe]] at [[Lyon]]
* [[Moutiers-Saint-Jean Abbey|Réomé]]
* Morvan
* [[Condat Abbey|Saint-Claude]] in the [[Jura Mountains]]
* {{ill|Collégiale Saint-Mexme de Chinon|fr}}
* [[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 Spanish priest whom St. Jerome denounced so vigorously. Vigilantius had spent much time in Gaul and seems to have died there]]. 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==
Line 116 ⟶ 119:
 
===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 the usurper[[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 (529)|Council of Orange]].
 
===Relationship with Rome===
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.
 
Line 140 ⟶ 145:
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.<ref>Rahner, Karl (1975). Encyclopedia of theology: a concise Sacramentum mundi, 301f.</ref> 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.<ref>Halfond, Gregory I. (2009). ''Archaeology of Frankish Church Councils, AD 511-768'', pp. 4-6.</ref>
 
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 ([[Pelagianism|Pelagian]]) practices of the Gallic church anathematized, and at the ensuing [[Council of Vaison|council in Vaison]] liturgical conformity with other Churches (Italy, Africa, the East) was established.<ref name=markus155>Markus 155-56.{{Full citation needed|date=August 2016}}</ref>
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").<ref>Halfond, Gregory I. (2009). ''Archaeology of Frankish Church Councils, AD 511-768'', pp. 8f.</ref> 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".<ref name=markus155/>
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.<ref>Hartmann 59.</ref><ref>Schuler, Matthias (1947). "Zum 1200jähr. Jubiläum des fränkischen Generalkonzils vom Jahre 747. Der Höhepunkt der Reformtätigkeit des hl. Bonifatius". ''Trierer Theologische Zeitschrift'' 56: 362–70.</ref>
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Gaul"