Christianity's Quiet Success

£lisa kaaren bailey Christianity’s Quiet Success The Eusebius Gallicanus Sermon Collection and the Power of the Church in Late Antique Gaul University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana © 2010 University of Notre Dame Press Copyright © 2010 by the University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 www.undpress.nd.edu All Rights Reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bailey, Lisa Kaaren, 1974– Christianity’s quiet success : the Eusebius Gallicanus sermon collection and the power of the church in late antique Gaul / Lisa Kaaren Bailey. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-268-02224-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-268-02224-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Eusebius Gallicanus collectio homiliarum. 2. Preaching— Gaul—History—Early church, ca. 30–600. 3. Sermons, Early Christian—Gaul—History and criticism. 4. Pastoral care— Gaul—History. 5. Gaul—Church history. I. Title. BV4208.G26B35 2010 251.00944'09021—dc22 2010033410 ∞ The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. © 2010 University of Notre Dame Press Introduction The sermons of the Eusebius Gallicanus collection were popular and important from late antiquity right through to the high Middle Ages. There are 447 manuscripts which contain copies of the sermons and their influence can be traced throughout Western Europe, yet today they are largely unknown. They are unknown because they are quiet, unassuming, and anonymous, and we have always pre- ferred the noisy, charismatic, and knowable. Yet the Eusebius Galli- canus collection gives a picture of late antiquity both fascinating and revealing. These sermons, from fifth- and sixth-century Gaul, pro- vide a glimpse of one of the most important developments in Euro- pean history: the process by which the Christian Church came to a position of true power in the West—no longer a small sect, but a force and a presence in the lives of all Western Europeans, even those who were not part of it. This process was long and slow. It did not begin in the fifth and sixth centuries and it certainly did not end with them. These centuries were, however, a crucial time of transi- tion, and one which would shape much of what was to follow. The 1 © 2010 University of Notre Dame Press 2 Christianity’s Quiet Success Eusebius Gallicanus collection lets us inside the workings of this process. It deserves our attention. The Eusebius Gallicanus is a source surrounded by confusion and dissensus. Scholars who have worked on it cannot agree on who wrote the sermons it contains, who put it together, what it was for, or even what it should be called. As a result it has been relatively ne- glected and its evidence seldom cited in studies of early medieval preaching or late antique Gaul. This is unfortunate for two reasons. First, it excludes a source which was clearly important and influen- tial from the moment of its inception right through the high Middle Ages. The Eusebius Gallicanus collection was used by clergy as a preaching guide, and by monks and pious lay people as devotional reading. The large number of surviving manuscripts containing sermons from the collection is testament to its popularity, influence, and ongoing relevance.1 Second, the Eusebius Gallicanus serves as a useful counterpoint to the evidence which dominates scholarly analy- sis. It is one of the anonymous, multiauthored “handbook” collections which became increasingly important from the fifth century on, and which mark a significant shift not only in styles of Christian preaching, but also in the development of the late antique Church. The Eusebian sermons therefore both enlarge a meagre source base and challenge and complicate the current picture. They give us a fresh view of how pastors sought to balance the needs of community against individual responsibility and they illustrate how some Chris- tian leaders exerted indirect but effective power over their communities. They demonstrate the Gallic adoption and adaption of the pastoral strategies of Augustine of Hippo and they form a fascinating contrast with the contemporary but much more familiar preaching of Caesarius of Arles. The Eusebius Gallicanus collection has not been ignored com- pletely. Paul-Laurent Carle and L. A. van Buchem have produced studies of sermons seventeen and twenty-nine, examining their con- tributions to the development of the theology of the Eucharist and the confirmation rite.2 Achille M. Triacca has surveyed the use of the term cultus in the collection and the imagery comparing the Church to the Virgin Mary.3 Clemens M. Kasper and Rosemarie Nürnberg © 2010 University of Notre Dame Press Introduction 3 have studied the Eusebian sermons to monks as part of their work on the monastery of Lérins, and the sermons on saints have attracted the attention of scholars working on saints’ cults in late antique Gaul.4 Jean-Pierre Weiss has studied the collection for evidence of whether priests preached in the fifth century.5 Antonella Bruzzone used it as a case study in her work on the use of simile and metaphor in preaching.6 As yet no one has written on the nature of the collection as a whole, its function, or how it was used. No one has studied the pastoral care it provides, or compared it to other examples of preaching from the period. In large part this has been because of the ongoing debates over the sermons’ authorship, which have proved a paralysing distrac- tion.7 It is not necessary, however, to resolve this question before using the Eusebius Gallicanus as evidence. Most scholars now agree that the sermons date from the mid-late fifth century in their original form, that Faustus of Riez wrote at least one of them, and that most of the sermons to monks can be linked to the monastery at Lérins. My reconstruction, which I defend at greater length in chapter 2, is that the collection as we currently have it was put together in the sixth century and circulated as a series of useful models. In the process of editing and compilation, many of the original details and specificities in the sermons were undoubtedly stripped out, which is why they have been so difficult to situate. It was precisely this uni- versality and genericness, however, which accounted for their appeal. Studying these sermons can therefore tell us much about what pastoral strategies were seen to “work” in late antique Gaul, and also show us how some quite simple texts could have had an extraordinarily broad impact. The Eusebius Gallicanus as it stands in the CCSL edition con- sists of seventy-six sermons.8 Glorie, the editor, presents them in the order found in two of the more extensive manuscripts, the first half of which follows the liturgical year.9 Sermons for Christmas, Epiph- any, Lent, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost are interspersed with those for the feast days of saints Stephen and Blandina; two sermons on the creed, placed before the Easter series; a sermon on the litany; and one on the penance of the Ninevites. This arrangement takes us © 2010 University of Notre Dame Press 4 Christianity’s Quiet Success up to sermon twenty-nine. Sermons thirty to seventy-six include nine more on saints and martyrs, a series of ten homilies directed to monks, sermons on theological issues, exhortations on proper Chris- tian behaviour, and sermons to be spoken on specific ecclesiastical occasions, such as the founding or anniversary of a church, the ordi- nation or burial of a priest, and the address of a priest to an audience which includes bishops. The sermons are not exegetical in focus.10 That is to say, although they are dense with scriptural reference, they do not take exegesis and explanation of scripture as their primary role, nor are they organised around a sequence of readings, thus dif- ferentiating the collection from some contemporary homiliaries and preachers.11 Like some other contemporary collections, however, the Euse- bius Gallicanus includes a selection of sermons directed to monks.12 These have a different rhetorical style and employ some distinctive pastoral strategies, although they are connected to the rest of the collection in important respects.13 Indeed, the integration of these sermons to monks with the rest of the collection is one of its most interesting features, as it demonstrates the congruity of monastic and lay communities in this period and the overlap of pastoral anxieties and strategies in both contexts. Most of the other sermons were directed to the laity. They are simple and straightforward in style. Though they do not embrace the Christian sermo humilis with as much enthusiasm as Caesarius of Arles was later to do, there is nothing in them which would not have been comprehensible to a broad urban audience in fifth-century Gaul.14 The sermons are well constructed, so that they flow clearly. They often end with a summary of the main points. Sentences are usually short and repetition is used to create rhythm and focus attention. The authors use rhetorical devices, especially metaphor and simile, to draw interest and facilitate understanding.15 The few learned references to Cicero, Pliny, and Virgil are commonplaces, and if audiences missed their origins this would not have impeded their understanding of the arguments offered.16 Their discussions of theology are clear and assume no prior knowledge. They deal with © 2010 University of Notre Dame Press Introduction 5 common anxiety-creating enigmas such as the virgin birth, the exact workings of the Trinity, and why the good continue to suffer.17 The questions which the preachers put into the mouths of their audiences are those which they might imagine a lay congregation to have.

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