Christianity's Quiet Success

The wartime and post‐war reception of Caesarius of Arles

“…170 Caesarius's distinctive approach to pastoral care has also drawn attention in recent years, notably in Lisa Bailey's study of the Eusebius Gallicanus sermon collection, which circulated at the same time and in the same region as his sermons. 171 In contrast with Caesarius's farreaching moral aims and 'patriarchal' and 'stern pastoral approach', 172 Bailey identifies the Eusebius Gallicanus preachers with more limited goals and more collaborative and accommodating attitudes. Both Caesarius and the anonymous preachers were concerned with the instruction and correction of their audiences, but they went about explaining and arguing for this in markedly different ways.…”

Caesarius of Arles and the campaign against popular culture in late antiquity

“…112 However the manuscript evidence simply does not suggest that collections of his homilies were used in the sixth and seventh centuries to anything like the same extent as the Eusebius Gallicanus collection. 113 It is when it comes to the Carolingian period that we can see most clearly the influence of Caesarius, or rather we see that he has been absorbed into ecclesiastical tradition: a process that must have relied on the copying of his works in previous years, difficult to trace as this is. 114 His influence is definitely discernible in the inclusion of canons from 'his' councils in Merovingian collections, and the Vetus Gallica.…”