Juan Antonio Jiménez Sánchez: Body and spirit's health within Caesarius of Arles and Gregory of Tours thought

During Late Antiquity, and as it had happened in previous times, ill people from the humblest social classes went to healers who applied natural remedies based on popular knowledge, since it was sometimes difficult to go to professional doctors, either because of geographical distance or due to economic problems. However, ecclesiastical authorities always condemned these treatments because they considered them to be related to magic, whose practice was forbidden by the Church.In this paper, we study the writings of two authors in Late Antique Gaul regarding this topic: Caesarius of Arles (c. 470-542) and Gregory of Tours (538-594). We analyze their common religious convictions, such as the condemnation of every kind of popular healing practice or the idea that to deposit the faith of healing in it meant losing the salvation of the soul; health could only be recovered through prayer. And above all we address the differences in the discourse of these two authors, which show the evolution of ecclesiastical thought during the sixth century. Thus, whereas Caesarius believed in the effectiveness of such remedies (although he thought that the demon was after such cures), Gregory considered that popular remedies did not grant the cure in any case; moreover, for Caesarius the prayer for the health of the body had to be directly addressed to God, while Gregory believed that it should be addressed to saints inasmuch as they were divine intermediaries, which evidences the rise of the cult of the saints and the popularity of their miracles.

Dennis Quinn: Defeating the Devil: Demonology and Soteriology in the Libri Miraculorum of Gregory of Tours

This paper examines the ways in which Gregory bishop of Tours (ca. 538-94) uses tales of threats from demonic forces and their ultimate defeat in his Libri Miraculorumto reinforce his overall Catholic soteriological message.In Gregory’s narrative accounts of demonic encounters, the devil and his demons arrive on the scene to demonstrate how the demonic are conquered with the sign of the cross, the Catholic symbol of Christ's conquest of the devil through crucifixion. These encounters are presented in Gregory’s miracle stories to emphasize the promise of the final victory of good against evil, thus retelling the apocalyptic narrative.Drawing from the work of such scholars as Martin Heinzelmann, Peter Brown, and Isabel Moreira, I explore the ways in which Gregory may be understood, not only a sophisticated propagandist of his own social and religious authority through drawing associations between himself and particular saints and their cults, but also a noteworthy theologian using hagiography to develop Patristic Christological, ecclesiological, and soteriological concepts. Also, through an analysis of the common structures of his narrative of demonic encounters, I suggest where Gregory draws from biblical, apocryphal, patristic, and monastic imagery to merge demonology and soteriology in an intricately woven retelling of Christ’s salvific sacrifice on the cross to explore Gregory’s overall apocalyptic vision of the world.

DENNIS QUINN: The Patristic Background of Gregory of Tours’ Demonic-Encounter Narratives

In the introduction to The World of Gregory of Tours, edited by Kathleen Mitchell and Ian Wood, Peter Brown remarked that the scholarship on Gregory of Tours was “something of an academic industry.” Although works on his histories have certainly topped the list, studies on his hagiographical works are not far behind. I will attempt to add capital to this industry by examining an often-overlooked aspect of the bishop of Tours’ hagiographical works: the possible source materials that underlie some of his narrative accounts. This paper examines Gregory’s descriptions of demonic encounters in light of the written source materials he most likely had at his disposal and from which he drew inspiration. Certainly utilizing local folk and oral tradition as well, Gregory frames his narrative accounts within the rich patristic, especially monastic literature in which he was so immersed.  I propose that, along with such sources as Sulpicius Severus, John Cassian, Caesarius of Arles, and Paulinus of Nola, Gregory may also have drawn directly from the Latin version of Athanasius’ Life of St. Anthony. Although his demonic-encounter narratives are certainly uniquely his own, I will show that Gregory transmits important aspects of this rich patristic demonological tradition, such as certain animal and fantastical forms, typical colors, and overall narrative characteristics, within his hagiographical works; a tradition which was to become part and parcel of the western medieval demonological industry to follow.