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Caesarius of Arles, Julianus Pomerius’ star pupil, has the reputation of a popular preacher of great fervour and enduring influence. In one sense, Caesarius’ mission as a preacher had been to secure the assimilation by his hearers of an inherited language — the words of Scripture and the texts of the Fathers. In devoting his prodigious energies to the fulfilment of this vocation, however, Caesarius had left his successors with an indelible sense of his own voice. His claim simply to represent an established tradition jarred with the palpable force of his intervention. Caesarius’ very rhetorical charisma undermined his own attempts to routinize the spiritual purification of his flock. This tension between the language of tradition and the voice of the individual speaker was inherent in the asceticism of ‘pure speech’ as promulgated by John Cassian. Caesarius’ prowess as a popular preacher is understood to follow from his close attention to the example of Augustine of Hippo.

This chapter examines writers on purgatory in the sixth and seventh centuries, including Julianus Pomerius, Caesarius of Arles, and Gregory the Great. It also examines ideas about postmortem purgation as expressed in minor works of the seventh century including De ordine creaturarum and in visions of the afterlife and in hagiography. It concludes by looking at rituals of sacramental purification, especially baptism and penance, and discusses purgation in funeral liturgies, burial practices, and prayers for the dead.

This chapter addresses the reception of Augustine’s theology in the context of Gallic anti-Arian positions. It argues that the theologians who were formed at the monastery of Lérins were Augustinian theologians, though they had a limited understanding of Augustine’s Trinitarian theology. While other modern scholars have argued that Faustus of Riez and Caesarius of Arles are bad Augustinians, this chapter argues that the Lérinians never knew certain facets of Augustine’s theology. They are not “bad” Augustinians because they rejected anything, but rather, they were ignorant of Augustine’s second exegetical rule. Just as Prosper’s Augustinianism was focused in a particular (Pelagian) controversy, the Lérinian theologians demonstrate another kind of Augustinianism which was focused on Gallic Arian controversies. This chapter argues that Caesarius’ theology is not directly responsible for canons adopted at Orange because they rely on a different pneumatological focus than Caesarius demonstrates in his texts.

This chapter examines the varieties and methods of Christian conversion in early medieval Europe. Christians made repeated attempts to adjust Christian convictions to the realities of people who practiced a variety of nature religions. Two cultural worlds interacted in a reciprocal process of adding and subtracting, creating and destroying. One way to understand the perspective of missionaries and the conundrum they faced is to think in terms of a sliding scale, varying in time and place; some aspects of pre-Christian beliefs were deemed incompatible whereas other pre-Christian rituals were accepted by absorption and adoption. At the bare minimum, conversion meant a transfer of loyalty or allegiance, confirmed by baptism. If there was rudimentary instruction, conversion meant familiarity with the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer and the acceptance of church authority. Methods of conversion varied, from “words” (proclamation of the word) to “deeds” (conversion through miracles and profaning paganism).

Western countries witnessed a sharp decline in their literary output, including the kinds of ecclesiastical writing that provide evidence about the state of contemporary liturgy and chant, in the later fourth century. The notable exception is monastic rules, such as from Gaul, Caesarius of Arles, and Aurelian of Arles, and, from contemporary Italy, the Rule of the Master and the incomparable Rule of St. Benedict. The sermons of Caesarius of Arles and the historical works of Gregory of Tours furnish many scattered remarks about ecclesiastical song in Gaul, and while the majority of these are more relevant to the Office, there are a number of valuable references to the Mass. Later-fourth-century Mass psalmody, certainly, is lector chant, whereas the Roman Mass Proper of the seventh and eighth centuries is schola chant. The lector declaims a psalm and the congregation responds, in some pattern or another, with the response verse. Schola chant involves the creation of a large body of chant and its maintenance from year to year, related tasks that can be accomplished only by an established group of quasi-professional musicians.

This chapter studies the texts that served as guidelines for monastic life at Karlburg and Kitzingen during the eighth century, before the rise of prescriptive rules (such as the Rule of Benedict) in the ninth century and after. These included Isidore of Seville’s Synonyms (in the case of Karlburg, combined with narratives concerning the transvestite saint Eugenia and the boy martyr Potitus), the florilegium known as the Liber Scintillarum, a handful of sermons (primarily by Caesarius of Arles), and an abbreviated cento of Jerome’s Commentary on Ecclesiastes. For the most part, these texts were universalizing in terms of gender, and thus equally appropriate for (and ultimately equally popular with) male, female or mixed monastic communities who could, for instance, engage in devotional penance as an unmediated experience with God, using the script provided by Isidore’s Synonyms, or follow Isidore’s strategies for avoiding fornication through vanquishing libido. However, the chapter also uncovers some gender-specific aspects to the texts, including feminist re-writings of particular passages and anxiety over lesbian desire at Karlburg. The chapter also discusses the illuminations in the Kitzingen Isidore, a series of meaning-enhancing images produced by the theologian-artist who created the Kitzingen crucifixion miniature.