Reticius

Reticius, whose name also appears as Rheticius or Rheticus in Latin sources, served as bishop of Autun (the Roman city of Augustodunum) in central Gaul in the early fourth century. Autun was the chief city of the Aedui, and Jerome explicitly locates him among that people. He flourished in the reign of Constantine the Great and was regarded as one of the most distinguished prelates of Gaul. No contemporary document records his parentage, the date or place of his birth, or the circumstances of his elevation to the episcopate. All that can be said with confidence is that he already occupied the see of Autun by 313.

The Donatist schism, which had divided the church in Roman Africa after the Great Persecution, prompted Constantine to seek a judicial settlement in the West. In 313 the emperor convened a council at Rome under Pope Miltiades. Three bishops from Gaul were summoned to sit with their Italian colleagues: Reticius of Autun, Marinus of Arles, and Maternus of Cologne. Their presence indicates the standing Reticius already enjoyed beyond his own province. The Roman synod decided against the Donatists. The following year a larger assembly met at Arles; Reticius again attended. The Council of Arles of 314 reaffirmed the Roman decision, issued canons on discipline and liturgy, and addressed the dating of Easter. These two gatherings are the only securely dated events in his career.

Jerome devoted a brief chapter of De viris illustribus to Reticius, noting that he had written a commentary on the Song of Songs and a lengthy treatise Against Novatian, as well as other works. None of these texts survives. Jerome, who had read the commentary on the Song of Songs, later expressed dissatisfaction with it, complaining that Reticius expounded his own thoughts rather than the words of Scripture. The anti-Novatianist work shows that the third-century Roman schism of Novatian still required refutation in fourth-century Gaul. Saint Augustine of Hippo also mentioned Reticius with esteem, which contributed to the bishop’s later reputation as a teacher of the Western church.

Jerome records that Reticius died during the reign of the emperor Constantius. Later tradition in Gaul preserved his memory as a saint of Autun. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on 15 May. Medieval and early modern hagiographers sometimes assigned the year 334 for his death, but that date sits uneasily with Jerome’s statement and cannot be confirmed from any early source. The place of his death and burial is likewise unrecorded. Reticius remains an important if poorly documented figure for the history of the Gallic church in the Constantinian age, known above all for his participation in the councils that first confronted Donatism and for the lost writings that earned him a place among Jerome’s illustrious men.