Gregory of Tours, Glory of the Martyrs

Just finished Gregory of Tours’ Glory of the Martyrs, which I purchased because of its Marian sections. I’ll try to give Gregory his due here. He did write The History of the Franks, an important resource, but basically this bishop of Tours makes 6th century Christianity look pretty bad.

The "glory" goes like this. God sees to it that lots of miracles occur when his martyrs are invoked, not invoked when they should be, or in any way insulted or neglected. That is, even when a 3rd-class relic is invoked or abused, you can expect some real action.

Most dismaying is Gregory’s delight in what I would call the petulance of these martyrs. They are continually visiting disaster on people who steal from their shrines or swear falsely by them or simply refuse to honor them. Priests, too, are said to have rejoiced when their favored saints lay enemies low.

Now, in the broad outline and standing way back, I can see a certain sense in this: The martyr is rewarded for his perseverance by being made a cynosure and given that place at the head of the table that Jesus promised the humble. But don’t stand any closer, because Gregory’s superstition is most distressing. For example, he often will ascribe miraculous curative powers to water that has simply washed over a 2nd-class relic such as a piece of cloth that touched the martyr (or in one case even just enwrapped the Cross). The cures are always physical, or at best psychiatric, never spiritual. No relic in this book turns anyone into a good person.

There is very little of the vita in these accounts, and hardly any passio. I guess the idea is that we are seeing the saint at work, so that’s like telling his life. But one does get some insights into the society of the time:

· Heresy – i.e., Arianism – was still a formidable force in Gaul/France, notwithstanding the 5th-century conversion of the Franks to catholic Christianity.

· Bishops were from the upper class, and apparently what they say goes.

· Miracles are so pervasive that it becomes hard to tell whether Gregory is a liar or just hugely deluded. He often tells of miracles and evidence of miracles that he saw with his own eyes, and they are so far-fetched that it has to be one or the other.

· Clergy are married.

· The sacrament of the altar is revered. I notice Gregory does not bring it into his orbit of weird stories. Either he has some decency or perhaps he excluded eucharistic miracles because the book is about those or martyrs.

· Some of the martyrs are from Italy, with which there seems to be a lot of communication – even spurious communication: Pope Clement I is said, improbably, to have sent missionaries into Gaul.

· All but two or three of the saints in the book are men. Exceptions are St. Eulalia, a nun, and the Blessed Virgin Mary. (This book is the first in Latin to mention the Assumption. Its most lyrical paragraph is the one about Eulalia and the doves and the snow.) He says that greed is a vice of the female mind: at least in the translation one cannot tell whether he means only women are greedy or that greed is effeminate; he does include stories of greedy men.

It did me good to read this and see what things were like at that point, but it was an unpleasant experience. It makes a good case for unmarried clergy, at least in that historical period: Gregory’s family were practically hereditary bishops, and at least one member of the family was a long way from being up to the job.

It also shows the real problem with superstition. When you convince yourself that piety consists in collecting relics that will wring favors from the Almighty, real piety withers away. All Gregory has left is an effete default state in which greed is bad, the opposite sex cannot be trusted, and revenge is sweet as long as its object is someone who has offended God or his saints.

The translator is Raymond Van Dam. Liverpool UP, 1988. 0-85323-236-9