Sulpicius Severus

[2] Almost all that we know of Severus' life comes from a few allusions in his own writings, some passages in the letters of his friend Paulinus, bishop of Nola,[1] and a short biography by the historian Gennadius of Massilia.

[1] He studied jurisprudence in Burdigala (Modern Bordeaux) and was renowned as an eloquent lawyer;[3] his knowledge of Roman law is reflected in parts of his writings.

[1] In many respects no two men could be more unlike than Severus, the scholar and orator, well versed in the ways of the world, and Martin, the rough Pannonian bishop, champion of the monastic life, seer and worker of miracles.

Yet the spirit of the rugged saint subdued that of the polished scholar, and the works of Severus are important because they reflect the ideas, influence and aspirations of Martin, the foremost ecclesiastic of Gaul.

"Worldly historians" had been used by him, he says, to make clear the dates and the connexion of events and for supplementing the sacred sources, and with the intent at once to instruct the unlearned and to "convince" the learned.

In order that his work might fairly stand beside that of the old Latin writers, Severus ignored the allegorical approach to interpreting sacred history that had been favoured by both heretics and the orthodox of his age.

[1] As an authority on the period prior to his own, Severus offers few guarantees and rarely corrects or supplements the historical record transmitted thanks to other sources.

[1] The real interest of Severus' work lies, first, in the incidental glimpses it affords all through of the history of his own time; next and more particularly, in the information he has preserved concerning the struggle over the Priscillianist heresy, which disorganised and degraded the churches of Spain and Gaul, and particularly affected Aquitaine.

We here catch a glimpse of the circumstances which were winning over good men to monasticism in the West, though the evidence of an enthusiastic votary of the solitary life, such as Severus was, is probably not free from exaggeration.

This mysterious Western offshoot of Gnosticism had no single feature about it which could soften the hostility of a character such as Martin's, but he resisted the introduction of secular punishment for evil doctrine, and withdrew from communion with those bishops in Gaul, a large majority, who invoked the aid of Maximus against their erring brethren.

In this connection, the account given by Severus of the Council of Rimini in 359, where the question arose whether the bishops attending the assembly might lawfully receive money from the imperial treasury to recoup their travelling and other expenses, is notable.

Severus evidently approved the action of the British and Gaulish bishops, who deemed it unbecoming that they should lie under pecuniary obligation to the emperor.

In the first of his Dialogues (fair models of Cicero), Severus puts into the mouth of an interlocutor (Posthumianus) a pleasing description of the life of coenobites and solitaries in the deserts bordering on Egypt.

The chief editions of the complete works of Severus are those by De Prato (Verona, 1741) and by Halm (forming volume i. of the Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vienna, 1866).