Bachiarius
A Christian monk and writer from the Iberian peninsula who defended his orthodoxy in a written profession of faith, De Fide, submitted to the bishop of Rome while he lay under suspicion of Priscillianism.
Biography
Bachiarius (active around 400 AD) was a Christian monk and writer from the Iberian peninsula, probably from Galicia in the northwest, who is remembered chiefly for two surviving Latin works and for the suspicion under which he wrote them. Almost everything known about his life comes from a single notice by Gennadius of Marseilles, who included him among the ecclesiastical writers he catalogued in the later fifth century.
Gennadius describes Bachiarius as a monk who took up a life of travel, choosing pilgrimage for God's sake so as to keep himself clear of suspicion and to preserve the integrity of his purpose. The suspicion in question was Priscillianism, the ascetic movement associated with Priscillian of Avila that spread through the Spanish provinces in the late fourth century and drew repeated condemnation. Because Bachiarius came from the region where the movement was strongest, his own asceticism placed him under suspicion he had to answer for.
His response is the work usually called De Fide, a profession of faith addressed to the bishop of Rome. In it Bachiarius sets out his beliefs point by point and distances himself from the errors charged against the Priscillianists, presenting himself as an orthodox monk rather than a partisan of the condemned party. The document belongs to a recognizable genre of the period, in which a writer under suspicion submits a personal creed to Rome for judgment.
His second surviving work, addressed to a man named Januarius and known as De reparatione lapsi (On the Restoration of the Lapsed), argues the case of a monk who had fallen into sin with a consecrated woman. Bachiarius pleads that the offender, having done penance, should be received back rather than cast off permanently, drawing on scripture to press the argument for readmission. Beyond these two writings and the brief testimony of Gennadius, the details of his life remain unknown.
Why Bachiarius Matters
Bachiarius is a witness to the religious tensions of the Iberian provinces around 400 AD, when the Priscillianist controversy divided the Spanish church and made ascetic life itself a mark of suspicion. His career shows how a monk from the affected region could be pressed to prove his orthodoxy in writing, and how the bishop of Rome served as the authority to whom such a defense was directed.
De Fide is a compact example of the personal profession of faith as a legal and doctrinal instrument. Rather than a treatise for general instruction, it is a document composed to clear its author's name, and it preserves the kind of self-defense that individuals accused of heterodoxy were expected to produce in this period.
De reparatione lapsi contributes to the long early Christian debate over penance and the readmission of those who had fallen after baptism or monastic vows. Bachiarius argues on the side of restoration, and his handling of the case of the fallen monk and the consecrated woman sets his position within the wider fourth- and fifth-century discussion of how the church should treat serious sin among its own.
Because so little else survives from the ordinary monastic writers of the Spanish provinces, the two works of Bachiarius carry weight beyond their length. They give a first-person voice to a figure caught between the ascetic enthusiasm of his homeland and the demand for demonstrable orthodoxy, and they preserve his own words at a moment when many similar writings were lost.
Complete Works in English
Free to readEvery surviving work, translated in full and free to read, from our Patrologia Latina project.
