Sulpicius Severus

Sulpicius Severus wrote the life of a living saint and in doing so invented the form that medieval Europe used to write about holiness for the next thousand years. He was a Gallo-Roman of good family from Aquitaine, trained as a lawyer at Bordeaux and successful at it, and married the daughter of a wealthy consular house. When his wife died young he gave away his property, against the loud objections of his father, and withdrew to an estate at Primuliacum to live an ascetic life, encouraged by his friend Paulinus of Nola. He attached himself to Martin, bishop of Tours, and wrote the Vita Martini before Martin was dead - an unusual thing to do, and the source of its peculiar force, since he could say that he had the stories from the man himself. The book presents Martin as a soldier turned monk whose miracles rival those of the apostles, and it circulated immediately and enormously; Paulinus reported copies selling in Rome. He followed it with three letters and two Dialogues that answer critics and add material. He also wrote a Chronicle, a summary of sacred history from the creation to his own day, which is one of the few contemporary sources for the Priscillianist controversy and for the execution of Priscillian, and which he handles with visible discomfort at the church's use of imperial power. Gennadius says he fell into Pelagian error late in life and imposed silence on himself in penance, speaking no more. His prose was admired as Ciceronian, and it is what made Martin the most venerated saint in Gaul. His Chronicle breaks off in 400 and he says he stopped rather than write about disputes among Christians while they were still raw. Bede and Gregory of Tours both used him.

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