Ancient Christian Writers Volume Brings Gallic Church History to Life

To my mind, Merovingian Gaul constitutes one of the most fascinating times and places in Western history (I won’t distinguish between church and secular history since the two were inextricably intertwined at the time).  Sinners and saints together strode across the stage of the Gallic theater that was left in the wake of the collapsing Roman Empire. The much-maligned (by today’s feminist ideologues) Pope Gregory the Great, convinced that the end-times were near, strove to maintain a voice of pastoral care and sanity while having to deal with such characters as the redoubtable Queen Brunechildis, who eventually met her grisly end by being (here I quote from Gregory of Tours’ History of the Franks) “tied to the feet of wild horses and torn apart limb from limb. Finally she died. Her final grave was the fire. Her bones were burnt.”  Power struggles were chronically the order of the day, as the Mayors of the Palace gradually wrested the real power from an increasingly effete line of kings.

If this sounds like something out of a Wagnerian opera, it actually is. Brunechildis, Sigebert, and others from that wild and wooly era found their way, filtered through the lenses of poetic oral tradition and legend, into Twilight of the Gods, the fourth opera in Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

If there were sinners, there were also saints. The most notable of these was St. Martin of Tours (d. 397), the former soldier who left the Roman army when he could no longer reconcile it with his Christian faith. His great desire was to gather like-minded people around him and form a hermitage, but that was not to be. By popular acclaim he was made Bishop of Tours. This was an honor he didn’t want. Legend has it that Martin, on hearing that people were coming to make him bishop, hid in a barn full of geese, but the geese cackled and gave him away. Whether or not this was true, the story is given as the reason the people of southern Sweden, specifically in the province of Skåne, celebrate Martinmas every November 11 with a dinner in which roast goose is the main feature – Martinsgås.

This was the era of fascination with miracles, and stories of Martin’s sanctity as demonstrated through the many miracles he worked abound. Many of these found their way into the Life of St. Martin by Martin’s contemporary biographer (hagiographer, one could say) Sulpicius Severus (ca. 355–420), whose writings are collected in this new volume in the Ancient Christian Writers series, Sulpicius Severus: The Complete Works.

Born into an upper-class family in Aquitaine, Sulpicius was educated in the literary arts and appears to have been an excellent student. He later married. His wife apparently died fairly young of unknown causes, but his mother-in-law provided for him an estate that enabled him to pursue his literary endeavors. After his wife’s death he decided to live an ascetic life. It was at this time that Sulpicius began to produce the works included in this book. In 396 he made his literary debut with the Life of Martin.

Sulpicius was a prolific letter-writer, but only three of his letters are extant, all of which appear in this volume.  He maintained a regular correspondence with his friend the bishop Paulinus of Nola, but only letters from Paulinus to Sulpicius survive.

Around 402 Sulpicius published his Chronicles, two books that relate the history of the world from Creation to his own time. The Chronicles differ markedly from the Life of Martin in that, whereas the Life assumes a hagiographical tone by recounting Martin’s many miracles, the Chronicles are straightforward historical narrative in which Sulpicius seems to have gone out of his way to avoid mentioning the biblical miracles.

In his final work, however, Sulpicius boldly resumed his defense of Martin. Probably published around 406, the Dialogues are the most sophisticated of his literary works. Sulpicius contrasts Martin, a truly apostolic shepherd of his flock, with the other clergy of Gaul, careerists bent on acquiring wealth and power. (Does this sound familiar?)

Sulpicius’ writings in this Ancient Christian Writers volume are masterfully introduced and translated by Richard J. Goodrich, lecturer in later Roman and early church history at Gonzaga University, who also gave us St. Jerome:Commentary on Ecclesiastes in the same series. In my experience editing this type of book, it’s a praiseworthy achievement when the translator/commentator produces a volume that breaks down the time barriers by offering not only a translation that reads smoothly and accessibly for a twenty-first-century audience but also an introduction that entices you to keep on going.

The Fathers of the Church: Two Very Different but Equally Indispensable Books

Anyone interested in patristics (the era of the Church Fathers) will be glad to learn that Boniface Ramsey’s classic Beginning to Read the Fathers has recently been reissued in a revised, updated edition as a sort of belated celebration of the 25th anniversary of the book’s original publication. Much has happened in the intervening twenty-five years that would affect the content of this indispensable reference—not least the heightened interest in “alternative” forms of Christianity popular in those early centuries (think, for example of Elaine Pagels’ work on the Gnostics) and the rise of feminism, and the author has endeavored, where possible, to take these developments into account. Most importantly, the bibliography has been considerably lengthened and updated.
How does one pack nearly 900 years of information about some of the most amazing people in Christianity into one manageable book intended for casual, interested reader and serious student alike? Fr. Ramsey uses a thematic approach. Thus, under (for example) Prayer, Martyrdom, Christ, Poverty and Wealth, he discusses how the various Fathers agreed, how they differed, how thought on the topic developed over the years. It has obviously been a successful methodology, since those of us (some of us now professors) who first used this book not long after it first appeared still keep it on our shelves as a ready reference and reliable resource—and now updated and with an attractive new cover.

A recent arrival on the patristics scene is Reading the Early Church Fathers by James L. Papandrea. As the title suggests and the subtitle—From the Didache to Nicaea—makes clear, Dr. Papandrea covers the time period up to about mid-fourth century. Dividing his chapters into “The Church in the Roman Empire,” “The Apostolic Fathers,” “The Apologists,” "The Church in the Subapostolic Age,” “The Theologians,” “The New Testament Canon,” “The Church in the Third Century,” “The Church and the Empire,” and “Ongoing Themes,” he introduces the reader to individual Church Fathers and comments on their writings. Most importantly, and unique to this book, is his focus on history: a trained historian, Dr. Papandrea sets his discussion against the social and cultural backdrop of the Roman Empire and its relationship to the church. These were centuries in which new interpretations of the meaning and teaching of Christ were constantly appearing. Discussion was permitted and encouraged (after all, one of the first church “crises” occurred when Paul dared to confront Peter—and won his point), for only in such an atmosphere could true orthodoxy be discerned. This was a very different atmosphere from what the church experiences today, and undoubtedly the early Fathers, and those they eventually deemed to be heretics, would be surprised at the change.
Of his own book Dr. Papandrea notes, “This is the book I wish I had when I was first studying the early church and the development of doctrine.” A great part of the book’s strength is that it was born out of years of teaching, out of extensive experience of knowing what works and what does not, what questions are raised in the classroom year after year. His Introduction, in which he lists and unpacks various potential misconceptions (e.g., “Don’t assume that something is new the first time it is mentioned”) is applicable to many contexts and is thus alone worth the price of the book. Because of their different approaches, Beginning to Read the Fathers and Reading the Early Church Fathers complement each other very effectively. Both belong on the bookshelf of all who want to learn more about the Church Fathers and the times in which they lived and wrote.
An important note: Instead of reproducing primary source texts—which would have made for bulkier and thus more expensive books—each book directs the reader to a source on the publisher’s website that gives links to online versions of the primary sources discussed in the books. This kind of information can change, of course, and will, I understand, be updated regularly as needed.
Boniface Ramsey, Beginning to Read the Fathers. Paulist Press, 2012.
James L. Papandrea, Reading the Early Church Fathers. Paulist Press, 2012.