ABSTRACT
Gallic ecclesiastical writers of the fifth and sixth centuries participated enthusiastically in debates over topics ranging from grace and free will to the nature of the soul. Along the way, they evaluated and used the writings of the major patristic authors such as Augustine and Jerome. The Gauls felt free to agree or disagree with other Christian intellectuals of their day, and no writers were accepted solely on the basis of their authority. This can be seen in their treatment of Augustine.1 In many cases, such as in the condemnation of Pelagianism, the Gauls and Augustine got along just fine. Where they parted company with him, however, was on predestination. The Gallic Chronicle of 452 noted under the year 418: “The heresy of the predestinarians, which is said to have received its impetus from Augustine, once having arisen, creeps along.”2 Around 426, Augustine’s Gallic theological partisan Prosper of Aquitaine wrote to him: “Many of the servants of Christ who live in Marseille think that in your writings…whatever you said in them about the choice of the elect according to the fixed purpose of God is contrary to the opinion of the fathers.”3 And in a letter to his friend Rufinus, Prosper revealed what the main Gallic cause for complaint was: “They say that [Augustine] has eliminated free will and that in the guise of grace he preaches fatal necessity.”4 The definitive Gallic response came in 434, when Vincentius of Lérins published his Commonitorium, stating: “The fraudulence of new heretics
1 R. Mathisen, “For Specialists Only: The Reception of Augustine and His Theology in Fifth-Century Gaul,” in J.T. Lienhard et al. eds, Augustine. Presbyter factus sum (Peter Lang, 1994) 29-41.
