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Martin of Braga, Paschasius of Dumium, Leander of Seville

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Martin of Braga, Paschasius of Dumium, Leander of Seville THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH IBERIAN FATHERS VOLUME 1 MARTIN OF BRAGA PASCHASIUS OF DUMIUM LEANDER OF SEVILLE Translated by Claude W. Barlow THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH A NEW TRANSLATION VOLUME 62 THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH A NEW TRANSLATION Roy JOSEPH DEFERRARI Editorial Director Emeritus EDITORIAL BOARD BERNARD M. PEEBLES PAUL J. MORIN The Catholic University of America The Catholic University of America Editorial Director Managing Editor ROBERT P. RUSSELL, O.S.A. THOMAS P. HALTON Villanova University The Catholic University of America tMARTIN R. P. MCGUIRE WILLIAM R. TONGUE The Catholic University of America The Catholic University of America HERMIGILD DRESSLER, O.F.M. SR. M. JOSEPHINE BRENNAN, I.H.M. The Catholic University of America Marywood College MSGR. JAMES A. MAGNER REDMOND A. BURKE, C.S.V. The Catholic University of Amenca The Catholic University of America IBERIAN FATHERS VOLUME I MARTIN OF BRAGA PASCHASIUS OF DUMIUM LEANDER OF SEVILLE Translated by CLAUDE W. BARLOW Clark University Worcester, Massachusetts THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA PRESS Washington. D. C. 20017 NIHIL OBSTAT: JOHN C. SELNER, S.S., S.T.D. Censor Librorum IMPRIMATUR: ~PATRICK CARDINAL A. O'BOYLE, D.O. Archbishop of Washington January 22, 1969 The nihil obstat and imprimatur are official declarations that a book or pamphlet is free of doctrinal or moral error. No implication is contained therein that those who have granted the nihil obstat and imprimatur agree with the contents, opinions, or statements expressed. Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 70-80270 © Copyright 1969 by THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA PRESS, INC. A II rights reserved FOREWORD Up to now, the only considerable contributions to this series made by writers native to the Iberian peninsula have been the works of Orosius and Prudentius contained in three volumes (43, 50, 52). For possible later translation there re­ main, among writers prior to the middle of the fifth century, Hosius (Ossius) of Cordova, Potamius and Epiphanius of Seville, Gregory of Elvira, Pacianus of Barcelona, Pope Da­ masus with his verse inscriptions for the tombs of martyrs, and the metrical Gospel harmony of Juvencus. This volume and the sequel that is immediately to follow it (the latter to offer Braulio of Saragossa and Fructuosus of Braga) bring us a portion of the writings listed in the Dekkers Clavis patrum latinorum as coming from "Scriptores His­ paniae" of two periods, that from the council of Chalcedon to Gregory the Great and that from Isidore to Bede. While Professor Barlow's translations embrace a considerable portion of the writing of these two periods, they leave a great deal un­ touched; apart from a dozen or more minor writers, they do not include Eugene and Julian of Toledo, Taio of Saragossa, Valerius of Bierzo-and especially the great Isidore himself. Some provision for this the most influential of Hispano-Latin writers must be made, especially after the enlightening aperpt provided by Professor Jacques Fontaine of the Sorbonne in his edition of Isidore's De natura rerum (Bordeaux 1960) and the companion work, Isidore de Seville et la culture classique dans I'Espagne wisigothique (2 vols., Paris 1959). A note of national and local pride may perhaps be per­ mitted here. Among the authors that Professor Barlow trans­ lates for us, the most outstanding is the oldest, St. Martin of v vi IBERIAN FATHERS Braga. It was Barlow's own critical edition of Martin's works, published in 1950 for the American Academy in Rome by the Yale University Press, that motivated his collaboration with this series. On another of his authors, Bishop Braulio, the leading monograph comes from the Right Reverend Mon­ signor Charles H. Lynch, a doctoral dissertation from The Catholic University of America (1938) written under the direc­ tion of the Right Reverend Monsignor Aloysius K. Ziegler, Professor of History. Monsignor Ziegler's direction of this and other dissertations and his own studies as well have illumi­ nated many a dark corner of the period from which our "Iberian Fathers" come. Finally, another American scholar, the Reverend Joseph M.-F. Marique, S.J., has conceived and effected an important fresh approach to Hispano-Latin writers and other Iberian viri illustres of the first six Christian cen­ turies-the prosopographical studies contained in a volume of his editing, Leaders of Iberian Christianity 50-650 A.D. (Boston 1962) and the related papers that give authority and distinction to the periodical Classical Folia. BERNARD M. PEEBLES Editorial Director CONTENTS MARTIN OF BRAGA Page Introduction ..................................... 3 Sayings of the Egyptian Fathers .................... 17 Driving Away Vanity ............................. 35 Pride 43 Exhortation to Humility .......................... 51 Anger ........................................... 59 Reforming the Rustics ............................ 71 Rules for an Honest Life ... .. 87 Triple Immersion ................................ 99 Easter ........................................... 103 PASCHASIUS OF DUMIUM Introduction ..................................... 113 Questions and Answers of the Greek Fathers .. .. 117 LEANDER OF SEVILLE Introduction ..................................... 175 The Training of Nuns and the Contempt of the 'Vorld. 183 Sermon of the Triumph of the Church for the Conversion of the Goths ..................... 229 INDICES 239 Vll WRITINGS OF MARTIN OF BRAGA INTRODUCTION BOUT THE YEAR 550, a ship from the Holy Land ar­ IJ~ . rived at a harbor on the western coast of what is now Portugal, carrying among its passengers a young mis­ sionary named Martin who was destined to play an important role in the history of the Catholic Church among the people called Sueves. Of Martin's earlier life, we know only that he was born in Pannonia, part of which is now Hungary, and that he was educated in the East, where Greek was the common language. His training as a monk was based on the model of the ascetics in the Egyptian desert, but he realized that such a strict life could not be followed by the religious-minded Spaniards, and he lessened the severity of monastic regulations, just as Cassian had adapted oriental living for the Gauls.1 The Sueves in northwestern Spain had long been politically independent of the Visigoths, but Catholicism in their terri­ tory was mostly dominated by the Priscillianist heresy. It is reported that a king received Christian baptism in 448, but Full details of the ancient sources for the life of St. Martin of Braga are found in the first chapter and the appendices of Martini Episcopi Bmcm'ensis opera omnia (ed, C. W, Barlow, New Haven 1950). All the texts here translated are based on the editions in that volume, with a few small corrections from notes by reviewers. The projected new edition of Martin of Braga by A, Moreira de Sa of the University of Lisbon and Arnaldo Miranda Barbosa of the University of Coimbra will undoubtedly add much of importance from manuscripts now preserved in Spain and Portugal. Contemporary sources, in addition to Martin's own works and a metrical epitaph, include a dedication by Paschasius, monk of Martin's monastery at Dumium, a letter and a poem from Venantius Fortunatus, two references in works of Gregory of Tours, and the important chapter 35 in Isidore of Seville's De viris illustribllS. The exact dates of the elevation and the death of Martin have been preserved in a breviary in use at the Cathedral of Braga. All of these are printed in full in the Appendices of the edition just mentioned. 3 4 MARTIN OF BRAGA this had little effect on the religious affairs of his realm. Profuturus was Bishop of Braga in 538, and we have a letter to him from Pope Vigilius, from which we know that, shortly before Martin's arrival, the way was being prepared for the tremendous strides which he achieved. Martin settled first at Dumium, a short distance from the capital at Braga, where he founded a monastery, and where he was created bishop on April 5, 556. Just two years later, a new basilica was dedicated there in honor of Martin's namesake, St. Martin of Tours. Martin of Dumium signed his name third among the eight bishops who attended the First Council of Braga in May, 561. Priscillianism was vigorously attacked in the minutes of this Council. When the Second Council of Braga met in June, 572, Martin had become, during this period of eleven years, the metropoli­ tan bishop of the church provinces of Braga and Lugo and was probably in charge of both Braga and Dumium. The Council was attended by six bishops from Braga and six from Lugo. Martin's direct influence on this Council is shown by several of the canons, which are adapted from those of Eastern churches, and by a special collection of canons made on this occasion, mostly translated from Greek. Martin still had nine more years of work, for his death is recorded in the Braga breviary on March 20, 579.2 There is no hint in any of Martin's surviving works of im­ pending political disaster; yet by 583, the Sueves had com­ pletely lost their independence to the Visigoths, and for a brief 2 Many literary histories give the year of his death as 580, because the references in Gregory of Tours are inexact. The date in the breviary seems to have been based on a contemporary record made locally and is probably precise. It is of interest that a funerary sculpture in the Braga Museum has been published by G. Gaillard in the Bulletin de la Societe nationale des antiquaires de France 1950-51 (Paris 1954) 191- 195 and pI. V. The figures represent Christ in a halo of glory, sup· ported and surrounded by winged angels. Gaillard believes, in con­ sideration of the date of this sarcophagus, that it may have belonged to St. Martin's own tomb.
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