Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus, Saint Avitus, was bishop of Vienne in Gaul (ca 494 - February 5, 523 ?). A bishop is an ordained member of the Christian clergy who, in certain Christian churches, holds a position of authority. ... Vienne is a commune of France, located 30 km south of Lyon, on the Rhône River. ... Map of Gaul circa 58 BC Gaul (from Latin Gallia, c. ...

Avitus was born of a prominent Gallo-Roman family closely related to the Emperor Avitus and other illustrious persons, and in which episcopal honors were hereditary (his father Isychius preceded him as bishop of Vienne). In difficult times for the Catholic faith and Roman culture in southern Gaul, Avitus pursued with earnestness and success the extinction of Arianism among the Burgundians. He won the confidence of King Gundobad, and converted his son, King Sigismund (516-523). This article covers the culture of Romanized areas of Gaul. ... Avitus on a tremissis. ... Map of Gaul circa 58 BC Gaul (from Latin Gallia, c. ... Arianism was a Christological view held by followers of Arius in the early Christian Church, claiming that Jesus Christ and God the Father were not always contemporary, seeing the Son as a divine being, created by the Father (and consequently inferior to Him) at some point in time, before which... The Burgundians or Burgundes were an East Germanic tribe which may have emigrated from Scandinavia to the island of Bornholm, whose old form in Old Norse still was Burgundarholmr (the Island of the Burgundians), and from here to mainland Europe. ... Gundobad, Patrician of Rome (472-473) also became King of the Burgundians (473-516), after his father, though he had to fight off three brothers to seize his title. ... Sigismund (died 523) was king of the Burgundians from 516 to his death. ... Events Council of Tarragona Sigismund becomes king of Burgundy. ... { ...

The literary fame of Avitus rests on his many surviving letters (his recent editors make them ninety-six in all) and on a long poem, De spiritualis historiae gestis, in classical hexameters, in five books, dealing with the Scriptural narrative of Original Sin, Expulsion from Paradise, the Deluge, the Crossing of the Red Sea. The first three books offer a certain dramatic unity; in them are told the preliminaries of the great disaster, the catastrophe itself, and the consequences. The fourth and fifth books deal with the Deluge and the Crossing of the Red Sea as symbols of baptism. Avitus deals freely and familiarly with the Scriptural events, and exhibits well their beauty, sequence, and significance. He is one of the last masters of the art of rhetoric as taught in the schools of Gaul in the 4th and 5th centuries. His poetic diction, though abounding in archaisms and rhythmic redundancy, is pure and select, and the laws of metre are well observed. It is said that Milton made use of his paraphrase of Scripture in writing Paradise Lost. Avitus also wrote a poem for his sister Fuscina, a nun, praising virginity. Hexameter is a literary and poetic form, consisting of six metrical feet per line as in the Iliad. ... Original sin is the religious doctrine, shared in one form or another by most Christian denominations, which holds that human nature is morally and ethically disordered due to the disobedience of mankinds earliest parents to the revealed will of God. ... The Deluge by Gustave Doré The story of a Great Flood sent by God or gods to destroy civilization is a widespread but not universal theme in myth. ... The Passage of Red Sea - the account of the march of Moses and the Israelites through yam suph, commonly translated as the Red Sea, is given in Exodus 14:22-31. ... Baptism is a water purification ritual practiced in certain religions such as Christianity, Mandaeanism, Sikhism, and some historic sects of Judaism. ... (3rd century - 4th century - 5th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 4th century was that century which lasted from 301 to 400. ... // Events Romulus Augustus, Last Western Roman Emperor Rome sacked by Visigoths in 410. ... John Milton John Milton (December 9, 1608 – November 8, 1674) was an English poet, most famous for his blank verse epic Paradise Lost. ... Cover to the first edition Paradise Lost (1667) is an epic poem by the 17th century English poet John Milton. ... A virgin is most commonly seen as a person who has not engaged in sexual intercourse. ...

The letters of Avitus are of considerable importance for the ecclesiastical and political history of the years between 499 and 518, as primary sources of early Merovingian political, ecclesiastical, and social history. Among them is a famous letter to Clovis on the occasion of his baptism. The letters document the close relations between the Catholic Bishop of Vienne and the Arian king of the Burgundians, the great Gundobad, and his son, the Catholic convert Sigismund. Events March 1 - Pope Symmachus makes Antipope Laurentius bishop of Nocera in Campania. ... Events July 9 - Justin becomes Roman emperor September 29 - Severus, Patriarch of Antioch is deposed by a synod for his Monophysitism. ... For other uses of the term Merovingian, see Merovingian (disambiguation). ... Non-contemporary coin with obverse legend Clovis Roy de France Clovis I (or Chlodowech or Chlodwig, modern French Louis, modern German Ludwig) (c. ...

There was once extant a collection of his homilies and sermons, but they have all perished except for two, and some fragments and excerpts from others. A sermon is an oration by a prophet or member of the clergy. ...

Avitus is not the author of the so-called Dialogues with King Gundobad, written to defend the Catholic faith against the Arians, which purports to represent the famous Colloquy of Lyon in 449. It is a forgery of the Oratorian, Jérome Viguier, who also forged a letter purporting to be from Pope Symmachus to Avitus. Events August 3 - The Second Council of Ephesus opens, chaired by Dioscorus, Patriarch of Alexandria. ... The Oratory of Saint Philip Neri is a congregation of Roman Catholic priests and lay-brothers who live together in community bound together by no formal vows but only with the bond of charity. ... Symmachus was pope from 498 to 514. ...

References

• The letters and other prose works have been edited and translated by Danuta R. Shanzer and Ian Wood, 2002, the first complete translation in English: Avitus of Vienne: Letters and Selected Prose ISBN 0853235880

External links

• Catholic Encyclopedia: St. Avitus
• Christian Classics Ethereal Library: Brief biography of Avitus