Preaching in Fifth-Century Gaul. Valerian of Cimiez and the Eusebius Gallicanus Collection

Preaching in Fifth-Century Gaul 253

Chapter 12 Preaching in Fifth-Century Gaul. Valerian of Cimiez and the Eusebius Gallicanus Collection

Lisa Bailey

1 Introduction

Preaching was central to the growth of the Christian Church in 5th-century Gaul. It was a standard part of the church service and of pastoral care – great preachers were praised and esteemed by their contemporaries and their efforts helped to ensure that Christianity became firmly entrenched in Gallic culture, despite the withdrawal and eventual disappearance of Roman state support.1 Only a small fraction of the words these men spoke, however, have survived to us. A few isolated sermons remain from the output of apparently prolific fig- ures such as Hilary of Arles, Faustus of Riez, Salvian and Musaeus of Marseille, or Eucherius and Patiens of Lyon.2 However, the 5th century does supply us with two substantial collections of sermons: the group of 20 attributed to Valerian of Cimiez and the collection of 76 known as the Eusebius Gallicanus. Neither have received much scholarly attention, despite their value as evi- dence for the character and content of preaching in this period. Both are examples of preaching produced and heard in south-east Gaul in the 5th century, both direct our attention to the importance of preaching, and both testify to the afterlife of sermons as texts which were subsequently collated and circu- lated, even if their fates became very different. They represent the range of uses of sermon texts in the period, and speak to the diversity of preaching forms and experiences as well. However, the collections have also some inter- esting points of connection or similarity, which speak to the common pastoral challenges these preachers faced in reaching their congregations and address- ing their situations. In the space I have here, I will focus on just a few of these: authorship and audience, their views of community and social relations, sermons on martyrs and the path to virtue.

1 For praise of Gallic preachers see Gennadius of Marseille, On Illustrious Men 21, 40, 53, 57, 67, 69, 73, 77, 79, 90, 93. 2 For accounts of their preaching see Gennadius of Marseille, On Illustrious Men 79; Vita Hilarii 14 (Patrologia Latina, 50, col. 1219C-1246B: 1234B-1235B); Amos, “Origin and Nature”, p. 21; Weiss, “Statut du prédicateur”, pp. 37-38; Grégoire, Homéliaires du Moyen Âge, pp. 44-47.

2 Valerian of Cimiez

Valerian was bishop of Cimiez in the middle of the 5th century. Although we do not know when he was born, or when he died, he was present at the Councils of Riez (439), Vaison (442) and Arles (455) and was among the bishops com- mended for their orthodoxy by Pope Leo in 452.3 The 20 sermons now attributed to him are focused on a narrow range of topics and do not appear to have been widely copied.4 They include sermons on discipline, the path to heaven, the dangers of the tongue, charity, keeping the peace and greed. Three sermons on martyrdom appear related to a local feast and one sermon is set on Easter Sunday, but otherwise they do not bear a strong relation to the liturgical year, nor do they follow a set series of readings. The origins of the collection are obscure – they were perhaps originally collated for someone’s personal use.5 Even Valerian’s authorship of the collection is not completely secure. Only one of the sermons appears in a manuscript under his name and the rest have been attributed to him on the basis of style.6 While the sermons certainly exhibit a number of shared tendencies, the practices of sermon collection in the period make it difficult to be certain without more work on the issue.7 Here I will use Valerian’s name as the author of the sermons for the sake of simplicity and because no other writers have been proposed in his place. For the purposes of this piece the authorship issue is anyway relatively unimportant: the sermons fit a context of mid-5th-century southern Gaul, and can be treated as examples of the preaching and pastoral style experienced in that time and place. In 1970, Jean-Pierre Weiss described Valerian as “un homme peu connu du public”, and it is fair to say that this has not much changed in the years since.8 In part this may be because not long after his sermons were first published in the early 17th century, their ideas about grace and free will were deemed sus- pect, and Valerian has since that time been treated as one of the group of

3 Ganss, Saint Peter Chrysologus, pp. 291-93; Weiss, “Personnalité de Valérien de Cimiez”, pp. 141-42. 4 Although Valerian’s works are generally referred to as “homilies”, there was no contemporary distinction between the terms sermon and homily, so I will not be applying one here. See Grégoire, Homéliaires du Moyen Âge, p. 6; Kienzle, “Introduction”, p. 161; Hall, “The Early Medieval Sermon”, p. 205; Longère, Prédication médiévale, p. 27. On the manuscript history of the sermons see the brief comments in Ganss, Saint Peter Chrysologus, pp. 294-95. 5 On the group of sermons as a coherent collection see Weiss, “Statut du prédicateur”, p. 39. 6 Ganss, Saint Peter Chrysologus, pp. 294-95. 7 Weiss doubts Valerian’s authorship of the Letter to Monks generally credited to him, “Valérien de Cimiez et Valère de Nice”, p. 144. 8 Weiss, “Personnalité de Valérien de Cimiez”, p. 141.