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Caesarius of Arles, a Precursor of Medieval Christendom∗

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

William M. Daly
William M. Daly*
Affiliation:
Boston College
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Extract

Some great men receive their due from historians late. Caesarius of Arles is one of these, in good part perhaps because the established mold for writing and teaching about the tradition of spirituality and intellectuality which Roman culture contributed to early medieval Europe had its heroes defined for it early. The patterns thus set up have tended to resist the admission of intruders brought to the fore by more recent historical investigations.

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Articles
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Traditio , Volume 26 , 1970 , pp. 1 - 28
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Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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References

1 ‘quelque chose comme le prophète des Gaules’: Kurth, Godefroid, Clovis (2d rev. ed., 2 vols., Paris 1901) II 137.Google Scholar

2 ‘… L'activité doctrinale et disciplinaire de saint Césaire d'Arles, couronnée en 529 par les canons du concile d'Orange, avait donné à l'Église des Gaules sa physionomie bien à elle’: Aigrain, René, ‘L'Église franque sous les mérovingiens,’ in Histoire de l'église (ed. Martin, Augustin Fliche-Victor, Paris, 1934) V (1938) 329.Google Scholar

3 Morin, Dom Germain, Sancti Caesarii episcopi Arelatensis opera omnia nunc primum in unum collecta (2 vols. in 3; Maredsous 1937–42); his edition of the sermons is reprinted in CCL 103, 104.Google Scholar

4 The best survey of the medieval development of the notion of Christendom and its metamorphosis into the notion of Europe is Hay, Denys, Europe, the Emergence of an Idea (2d rev. ed.; Edinburgh 1968). The dominance of political pluralism and the relatively restricted acceptance of universalist imperialism in the medieval West is well established, among others, by Folz, Robert, L'Idée d'empire en occident du Ve au XIVe siècle (Paris 1953).Google Scholar

5 Hay, , Europe, chs. II–V; Rousset, Paul, ‘La notion de Chrétienté aux xie et xiie siècles,’ Le moyen âge 69 (1963) 194–203; van Laarhoven, Jan, “‘Christianitas” et réforme grégorienne,’ Studi Gregoriani 6 (1959–61) 1–98, esp. 64–98.Google Scholar

6 A notable example of the early medieval identification of the wayfarer with Christ is to be found in Charlemagne's programmatic capitulary of a.d. 802. Capitulary 33, c. 27 ( Capitularia Regum Francorum in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Legum Sectio II), I (ed. Boretius, Alfred 1883) 96. The fraternal obligations of Christians and several of their implications in practice are discussed in my ‘Christian Fraternity, the Crusaders, and the Security of Constantinople, 1097–1204: the Precarious Survival of an Ideal,’ Mediaeval Studies 22 (1960) 43–91.Google Scholar

7 Rupp, Jean, L'Idée de Chrétienté dans la pensée pontificale des origines à Innocent III (Paris 1939) 5, 20–21, 27–29, 32. It is interesting to note that Charlemagne's legislation sometimes defined serious offenses such as dealing with the enemy or murder as offenses against the Christian People. See capitularies 26, c. 10, and 33, c. 32 (Capitularia I 69, 97). For the development of the notion of imperium christianum in Carolingian times, see Ganshof, F. L., The Imperial Coronation of Charlemagne: Theories and Facts (Glasgow 1949), and Folz, Robert, Le couronnement impérial de Charlemagne (Paris 1964) 92–208.Google Scholar

8 Written long before most of Caesarius's writings were identified and edited, the biography by Malnory, A., St. Césaire, évêque d'Arles, 503–543 (Paris 1894) remains, despite some understandable shortcomings, an excellent study, the point of departure for anyone wishing to go further. It can be usefully supplemented by reference to the contemporary but independent work of Arnold, Carl F., Caesarius von Arelate und die gallische Kirche seiner Zeit (Leipzig 1894). de Plinval, G., ‘Césaire d'Arles (Saint),’ DHGE 12 (1953) 186–196, is an original, brief synthesis, suggestive of the directions which more recent research has been taking. For further bibliography, see Altaner, Berthold, Patrology, (trans. Graef, H. C.; New York 1960) 569–71. The work of Malnory will need some revision and considerable extension into new areas. To be fully useful for such a project, the monographs which have appeared since Malnory wrote need a thorough, critical review. Some of them leave room for deeper or more exact examination of the questions which they have discussed. In particular, the whole subject of Caesarius' rapport with the theology of Augustine, including the ways in which he developed contact with it, stages in his reaction to it, and the generally underestimated scope and nature of his originality in dealing with some of its ideas, requires thorough, sophisticated analysis. His immediate and long-term influences need further attention. Extensive content analysis, combined with a close study of the chronology of his scriptural exegesis, as well as extensive collation of his more derivative works with their sources, will probably lead not only to better dating of his works, but a clearer idea of his intellectual evolution. Such methods will probably lead to some surprising conclusions of the sort that appear to result below. See pp. 13 ff., 19 ff., 22 ff. Much of this demanding research should be considerably lightened now that computers are available for certain aspects of it which hitherto would have been forbidding.Google Scholar

9 Arnold, , Caesarius 8–24; Malnory, , Césaire xix–xx, 3–5; Beck, Henry G. J., The Pastoral Care of Souls in South-East France during the Sixth Century (Rome 1950) 13–14; Bardy, Gustave, 'L'attitude politique de saint Césaire d'Arles,‘ Revue d'histoire de l’église de France 33 (1947) 241–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Arnold, , Caesarius 24–66; Malnory, , Césaire 5–13. For the ‘semi-Pelagian’ component of his theology, see below pp. 22 ff.Google Scholar

11 Sancti Caesarii Vita ab eius familiaribus scripta (ed. Morin, , Opera II) 323.Google Scholar

12 Ibid. 303–04, 308–09, 311–14, 327–28; Malnory, , Césaire 10–11, 95–97, 103, 211ff.; Arnold, , Caesarius 269, 395–401; Beck, , Care 29–30, 277, 334.Google Scholar

13 The assessment of his liturgical influence made by de Plinval makes it more restricted than do some earlier writers; Césaire 189. See also Beck, , Care 95–116 seriatim. Google Scholar

14 Lambot, C., ‘Césaire d'Arles, (Règles de Saint),’ Dictionnaire de droit canonique 3 (1942) 260–78; Jacquin, A. M., Histoire de l'église (3 vols.; Paris 1928–1948) II 591–92, 604.Google Scholar

15 There is a detailed, but somewhat incomplete and unsympathetic, survey of his theology in Lejay, Paul, ‘Le rôle théologique de Césaire d'Arles,’ Revue d'histoire et de littérature religieuse 10 (1905) 135–88, 217–66, 444-87, 579–616. Since Lejay wrote, some aspects of his theology have been restudied. They include: Dorenkemper, Mark, Trinitarian Doctrine ; Beck, , Care 216–20 (on his theology of sin and his approach to a new form of penance); similarly Vogel, Cyrille, ‘Un problème pastoral au vie siècle: La paenitentia in extremis au temps de Césaire d'Arles, 502–542,’ in Parole de Dieu et sacerdoce (Paris-Tournai 1962) 125–37, as well as Voog, Albert, ‘Le péché et la distinction des péchés dans l'oeuvre de Césaire d'Arles,’ Nouvelle revue théologique 84 (1962) 1062–80. The often repeated view that Caesarius originated the concept of Purgatory has been convincingly disputed by Jay, Pierre, ‘Le purgatoire dans la prédication de saint Césaire d'Arles,’ Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 24 (1957) 5–14.Google Scholar

16 Malnory, , Césaire, 50, 63 ff., 105, 114–54, 162–66; de Clercq, Carlo, La législation religieuse franque de Clovis à Charlemagne (Paris 1936) v, 14; de Plinval, , ‘Césaire’ 189–91.Google Scholar

17 Lejay stressed his agreement with Augustine's theology: ‘Rôle théologique’ 136, 187–88, 220ff. 242–43. This approach is also taken by Fritz, G., ‘Orange (Deuxième Concile d'),’ DTC 11.1 (1931) 1087–1103. Jean Rivière has gone so far as to present Caesarius as a ‘personality of the second rank … the humble Augustine of the Gallic region’ in his ‘Rédemption chez saint Césaire d'Arles,’ Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique 44 (1943) 3, 20. With somewhat more appreciation of his pastoral activities, this view is echoed in Gustave Weigel's relatively recent article, ‘Caesarius, Saint,’ in Encyclopaedia Brittanica 4 (1966) 578, written toward 1960. Yet Malnory early observed that Caesarius was a discriminating eclectic who drew extensively on the writings of the ‘semi-Pelagian’ Faustus of Riez; he remarked that Caesarius referred to him as ‘the holy Faustus’ even after the Council of Orange: Césaire 143–54, 178. De Plinval has presented him as a qualified Augustinian, particularly with reference to his influence at Orange, in ‘L'activité doctrinale dans l'église gallo-romaine,’ ch. VI of Histoire de l'église (Fliche-Martin) IV (1937), 397, 399, 403, 418–19; and ‘Césaire’ 191. Dorenkemper has remarked on his ‘never-waning admiration of Faustus’ in his Trinitarian writings: Trinitarian Doctrine 4; see also 169, 215–16, 223.Google Scholar

18 Although Malnory had at his disposal only a fraction of the total number of sermons later made available by Morin's edition, his discussion of their content and influence remains a point of departure. See Césaire xii–xiv, 139–41, 167–244. See also Arnold, , Caesarius 120ff. Among several more recent discussions of the sermons, two are particularly useful: Bardy, Gustave, ‘La prédication de saint Césaire d'Arles,’ Revue d'histoire de l'église de France 29 (1943) 200–36, and Beck, , Pastoral Care 259–69. Beck's subsequent discussion of the sermon tradition of Gaul relies heavily on Caesarius' sermons.Google Scholar

19 To the lists given by Malnory, Bardy, and others, the following influences may be added: upon the writer of the important early medieval treatise De duodecim abusivis saeculi, see Laistner, M. L. W., Thought and Letters in Western Europe, A. D. 500 to 900 (2d rev. ed.; Ithaca 1957) 145; upon the Anglo-Saxon poem, The Last Judgment, of which lines 1379–1518 are taken almost word-for-word from Caesarius, see Kennedy, Charles W., Early English Christian Poetry (London 1952) 255, 257; upon early medieval Scripture commentary, see Fransen, Irenée, ‘Les commentaires de Bède et de Florus sur l'apôtre et saint Césaire d'Arles,’ Revue bénédictine 65 (1955) 262–66; upon the old English homilies, see Gatch, Milton McC., ‘Eschatology in the Anonymous Old English Homilies,’ Traditio 21 (1965), 120, 125, 127, 128, 139–43; and upon an important text on giving of one's superfluity to the poor in Gratian, Thomas Aquinas and others, see Lio, E., ‘Le obbligazioni verso i poveri in un testo di S. Cesario riportato da Graziano (can. 66, C. XVI, q. 1) con falso attribuzione a S. Agostino,’ Studia Gratiana 3 (1955) 51–81.Google Scholar

20 Bardy, Gustave, ‘L'attitude politique …’ (cf. n. 9 supra) esp. 244–45, 249–50, 255–56; de Plinval, , ‘Césaire’ 192–93.Google Scholar

21 Malnory, , Césaire 167–68; Arnold, , Caesarius 20; Beck, , Pastoral Care 11–14; Caesarii Vita (cited n. 11 supra) 309.Google Scholar

22 Morin, Germain, ‘Quelques raretés philologiques dans les écrits de Césaire d'Arles,’ Archivum latinitatis medii aevi [Bulletin du Cange] 11 (1937), 5, 7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Sermons 13.1 (63); this sermon has been translated from the Morgan MS unavailable to Morin by Beck, H. J. G. in American Ecclesiastical Review 133 (1955) (6–15); 157.6 (609); see also 16.2 (75); 42.4 (179); 175.5 (672); 192.3 (740). (In all citations to his sermons in the notes that follow, S. (or Ss.) will be used for Sermon(s); all references are by sermon number, paragraph, and page of the first edition in Morin, ed., Opera I. While the pagination for the reprinted edition in Corpus Christianorum is different, the page references to the first edition appear in bold face type within the text.) Concern about merely nominal Christians who relied on ‘the name’ was not new; see van der Meer, F., Augustine the Bishop, (trans. Battershaw, Brian and Lamb, G. R.; London 1961) 190–91, 466. Malnory observes that in southern Gaul, reliance on the Christian name had taken on by Caesarius' time the quality of wearing an amulet (Césaire 183).Google Scholar

24 Ss 63.3 (634); 86.3 (339–40); 104.1 (412–13); 122.1 (488); 125.1 (497); 127.2–3 (503); 129.3 (509); 163.3 (634).Google Scholar

25 S. 163.1, 8 (631, 633).Google Scholar

26 Blumenkranz, Bernhard, Les auteurs chrétiens latins da moyen âge sur les juifs et le judaisme (Paris 1963) 49–52; and the same author's Juifs et chrétiens dans le monde occidental, 430–1096 (Paris 1960) xvii–xviii, 42–45.Google Scholar

27 Infelix is one of many terms which are hallmarks of his style; see Morin's introduction to S. 195 (747). Examples which illustrate his use of it may be found in Ss. 13.3 (64); 73.4 (295) 83.1 (326); 102.3 (405); others are listed in Morin's index, p. 1017. Almost without exception, he uses the term in his own sermons; where it occurs in a re-edited sermon, he has introduced it. Examples of his more benign views may be found in Ss. 13.3 (64); 73.4 (295–96); 86.3 (339–40); 88.4–5 (348–49); 106.2 (422); 180.1 (690); 183.6 (707).Google Scholar

28 S. 183.6 (707). Blumenkranz overlooks this substitution and seems not to have noticed that the passage is ironical. Therefore, Caesarius was not condoning theft from Jews so long as the motive was alleged to be pious; see Auteurs chrétiens 51 and n. 13.Google Scholar

29 Gregory of Elvira's sermon appears as Tractatus 11 in Tractatus Origenis de Libris SS. Scripturarum, ed. Batiffol, P. (Paris 1900) 117–27; reprinted PL Supplementum 1 (1958) 422–27. The diatribe which Caesarius omitted occurs on p. 121. Modifications occur in Caesarius, S. 106.2, 4 (422, 423); compare with Tract. 11 (121, 124).Google Scholar

30 S. 163.3 (634), quoting Romans 11.25, 26. St. Augustine's sermon is De duobus filiis ex evangelio (Caillau-St.-Yves II 11) in Morin, G., ed., Miscellanea Agostiniana I (Rome 1930) 256–64; reprinted PL, Supplementum 2 (1960) 427–35. Augustine's interpretation of the elder son in this light is extended (pars. 8–14, pp. 260–64). Caesarius not only digests and alters paras. 9–10; he omits par. 11, part of 12, most of 13, and all of 14. He follows the original text in Luke closely, whereas Augustine moves back and forth within it. These changes are associated with others which will be discussed below; see pp. 25f.Google Scholar

31 S. 104.1 (412).Google Scholar

32 Ibid. 5 (414–15).Google Scholar

33 S. 86.1 (338); see also S. 117.6 (468).Google Scholar

34 S. 104.6 (415).Google Scholar

35 S. 88.2, 6 (347, 349). Caesarius may owe the symbol of the kiss of peace in this connection to Augustine, who at least once in his many references to the text of the two walls compares their union to the kiss of peace. Adversus Iudaeos 8 (PL 42.60).Google Scholar

36 Ss. 4, 15, 86, 94, 98, 102, 104, 106, 109, 128, 129, 163, 188.Google Scholar

37 Ss. 69, 87, 88, 89, 122.Google Scholar

38 Ss. 86.2, 4 (338–39, 340); 128.6 (507).Google Scholar

39 S. 106.4 (423). This idea is an addition to his source, Gregory of Elvira; see Tractatus 11 (124), cited above, n. 29.Google Scholar

40 These ideas occur in sermons as follows. Covenant: Ss. 104.1, 6 (412, 416); 106.3 (422). Here, as in the instance noted in n. 56, he has added the idea of covenant to the text of Gregory of Elvira, Tractatus 11 (122). Advent of the Christian epoch: S. 69.1 (278). Old Testament prefigurements: Ss. 104 (412–16 seriatim); 139.1 (546) [which derives from Augustine]; also 83.5 (328) [Sarah and the Church]; 86.2 (338–339) [Rebecca and the two Peoples]. Conscience of the Christians as a fit altar: S. 122.1 (488). Various analogies: see n. 35 above; also Ss. 4.4 (26); 15.3 (73); 163.3, 4 (634, 635). The Christian People as community, etc.: Ss. 98.1 (384); 188.4 (728); 104.6 (416); 122.1 (488); 128.8 (507, 508); 117.6 (468).Google Scholar

41 S. 69.1 (278).Google Scholar

42 S. 142.2 (557).Google Scholar

43 Caspar, E., ed., Das Register Gregors VII. (2d. ed.; Berlin, 1955), Reg. II.75 (237–38). The ancestry of Pope Gregory's remark, which in context was a lament for the supposedly better days his predecessors had experienced with secular rulers, was a sermon of Pope Leo I in which he attributed Rome's true greatness to the worldwide prestige which Peter and Paul earned the city, with the consequence that its citizens were more numerous in the era of the Christian peace than in the era of military victories; see Leo I, S. 82 (PL 54. 422–423).Google Scholar

44 See Oepke, Albrecht, Das neue Gottesvolk in Schrifttum, Schauspiel, bildender Kunst und Weltgestaltung (Gütersloh 1950), ch. 9.Google Scholar

45 S. 94.1 (369). Origen-Rufinus, , In Exodum Homilia (PG 12.300f.).Google Scholar

46 Origen's wording: ‘Sed iste qui in spiritu et aqua baptizatus est, non possit bibere de ista aqua’ (311); Caesarius's wording: ‘Sed christianus populus, qui in spiritu et aqua baptizatus est, non possit bibere de ista aqua’: S. 102.1 (404).Google Scholar

47 S. 117.6 (468). On the Ambrosian source and the extensive and completely original termination of Caesarius' sermon, see Morin's introduction, 465).Google Scholar

48 In S. 106 Caesarius made the following additions to the text of his model: ‘id est, gentium’ 3 (422); ‘Iudaeorum’ 4 (422); and he changed Gregory's ‘postea per Christum pingues et uberes euangeliorum fructus dulcissimi saporis renouauit in nobis’ to ‘postea Christo pinguem et uberem Christianorum populum per matrem gratiam creavit’ 4 (423). For the original passages, see Tractatus Origenis (cited above n. 29) 11 (122, 123).Google Scholar

49 See Deane, Herbert A., The Political and Social Ideas of St. Augustine (New York 1963), ch. 1.Google Scholar

50 Augustine, , De duobus filiis 2–7 (256–60) cited n. 30 supra ; Caesarius, , S. 163 (631–35).Google Scholar

51 Ibid. 4 (635).Google Scholar

52 Ss. 15, 86, 94, 98, 104, 109, 129, 163, 188.Google Scholar

53 Sermons on, and references within other sermons to, Matthew 25.31–46 outnumber those relating to any other text. See Morin, , ed., Sermones , ‘Index Locorum S. Scripturae’ 950.Google Scholar

54 S. 83.3, 4 (326–28), referring to Genesis 18.19. Origen treated these incidents as preliminary to his discussion of the Last Supper and did not stress them. Caesarius inserted a didactic appeal to wash the feet of ‘holy wayfarers,’ and he reminded his hearers of the Last Judgment when they would be told, ‘I was a stranger and you took me in.’ They must beware, he warned them, ‘lest perhaps the one not welcomed should be He [i.e. Jesus].’ See Origen-Rufinus, , In Exodum Homilia 4,1–2 (PG 12.183–85).Google Scholar

55 Ss. 10.3 (53); 14.2 (68); 16.2 (75); 19.2 (85); 25.2 (108); 199.3 (762); 202.1 (772).Google Scholar

56 Caesarii Vita, pp. 309, 311, 314, 328.Google Scholar

57 Ibid. p. 309.Google Scholar

58 Lambot, , ‘Césaire (Règies)’ (cited above n. 14) 261, 263.Google Scholar

59 For example S. 13.1, 5 (62, 67), a usage typical of many sermons.Google Scholar

60 For example S. 83.3 (327); it is not in the original, Origen-Rufinus, , In Exodum Homilia 4.2 (PG 12.185).Google Scholar

61 Caesarii Vita p. 306.Google Scholar

62 S. 71.1 (287–88).Google Scholar

63 S. 219.2 (824).Google Scholar

64 S. 137.5 (543–44).Google Scholar

65 S. 180.1 (690).Google Scholar

66 S. 160B.4 (624).Google Scholar

67 Ibid. (623).Google Scholar

68 Ss. 13.2 (63); 14.2 (68); 16.2 (75); 179.6 (687). These are Caesarius' own sermons and are among those which most characteristically reflect his personality and ideas. See also Ss. 185 (712–16) and 221.1–3 (828–30), which derive extensively from sermons of St. Augustine and indicate Caesarius's debt to him for these ideas.Google Scholar

69 S. 179.6 (687). See the editor's introduction to this sermon for its influence upon medieval Latin theology (p. 683).Google Scholar

70 Ss. 22 and 23 are particularly representative of his insistence upon love as the center of the Christian's life. He returned to the theme so often that he found it necessary to explain, or even excuse, what his congregations seem to have considered unnecessary or unrealistic insistence upon it. See Ss. 23.1 (98); 37 (154–60); 219.2 (824). His stress upon it can also be gauged by his repeated use of scriptural texts which concern love; e.g. Matthew, 25.31–46; Galatians, 5.14; and 1 John, 2.11, 3.15, and 4.8. See Morin, , ‘Index Locorum S. Scripturae,’ Sermones 939ff.Google Scholar

71 In addition to the sermons cited in n. 70, see, among many others that might be cited, Ss. 25, 28, and 37 (entire); and 10.3 (53); 30.1 (123); 38.5, 6 (163–64); 90.6 (358–59); 186.2, 3 (717–18). The tendency to supplant justice with love as the constitutive principle of human society is prominent in Augustine's City of God; see Deane, , Ideas (cited above n. 49) 33, 122–23.Google Scholar