Christianity's Quiet Success: The Eusebius Gallicanus Sermon Collection and the Power of the Church in Late Antique Gaul

Introduction

1 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 preferred the noisy, charismatic, and knowable. Yet the Eusebius Gallicanus collection gives a picture of late antiquity both fascinating and revealing. These sermons, from fifth- and sixth-century Gaul, provide a glimpse of one of the most important developments in European 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 transition , and one which would shape much of what was to follow. The 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 neglected 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 influential 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 Christian leaders exerted indirect but effective power over their commu­ nities. 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 completely . Paul-Laurent Carle and L. A. van Buchem have produced studies of sermons seventeen and twenty-nine, examining their contributions 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 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 distraction .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...