Selections of St. Avitus of Vienne’s Writings on the Jews

St. Avitus of Vienne (Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus, c. 450 – c. 518 AD) was Bishop of Vienne in Gaul and one of the foremost ecclesiastical statesmen and Latin authors of the post-Roman West. Born of a noble Gallo-Roman senatorial family, he succeeded his own father Hesychius in the see of Vienne around 490. He waged relentless war against Arianism, converting the Burgundian crown prince Sigismund to Catholicism, corresponded with the Frankish King Clovis on the occasion of his baptism, and presided over the Council of Epaon (517). His surviving literary corpus consists of ninety-six letters, two complete homilies with fragments of others, and five hexameter books of biblical poetry under the title De spiritalis historiae gestis — on Original Sin, the Expulsion from Paradise, the Deluge, the Mosaic Law, and the Crossing of the Red Sea. A further prose work, De Divinitate Spiritus Sancti, addressed to King Gundobad, survives only in fragments. Of a still further work bearing the title De Iudaicis Superstitionibus, no text survives; its existence is attested solely by Agobard of Lyon. His theological prose writings — principally the two surviving Epistolae to King Gundobad on the Eutychian heresy, and the third epistle on the Trisagion — contain a sustained engagement with the theological condition of the Jews as a foil to Christian orthodoxy. In these letters, Jewish unbelief is consistently paired with Arian or Eutychian error as twin exemplars of the refusal to confess God and man as one in Christ. The Jews who hurled stones at Our Lord are made the type of the heretic who, in every age, casts metaphorical stones against the same truth. They share in one common fury, one common perdition.

The passages below are drawn from the text of Patrologia Latina, vol. 59 (Paris: Migne, 1847), which reproduces the critical edition of Jacques Sirmond, S.J. (S. Aviti Archiepiscopi Viennensis Opera, Paris: Cramoisy, 1643), compared against the modern critical edition of Rudolf Peiper (Alcimi Ecdicii Aviti Viennensis Episcopi Opera Quae Supersunt, MGH Auctores Antiquissimi VI.2, Berlin: Weidmann, 1883). All Latin is cited as it appears in PL 59 (normalised for long-s and ligature conventions). Column numbers follow the Migne PL 59 text. Epistle numbers in headings follow Peiper’s MGH edition; Sirmondus’s numbers, where they differ, are given in brackets.

I. Agobard of Lyon — Testimony on Avitus’s Lost De Iudaicis Superstitionibus

Prefixed to the Sirmondus 1643 edition of Avitus’s works, and reproduced in the Testimonia section of PL 59, is a passage from Agobard of Lyon’s Adversus legem Gundobadi that constitutes the sole surviving witness to an otherwise lost work of Avitus bearing the title De Iudaicis Superstitionibus. That Avitus composed a dedicated treatise On Jewish Superstitions is attested here and nowhere else; the work itself has not survived. The editorial apparatus to PL 59 further notes that Baluzius, in his 1666 Paris edition of Agobard, drew specifically from several of Avitus’s letters for his annotation of Agobard’s own De Iudaicis superstitionibus (PL 104, col. 82) — confirming that patristic scholars already understood certain letters of Avitus as containing matter directly relevant to anti-Jewish polemic.

The Testimony of Agobard of Lyon Regarding Avitus’s Lost Treatise

“Ejusdem adversus dogma Felicis. Beatus Avitus Photinianorum hæreticorum validissimus expugnator. Item de Judaicis superstitionibus. Alcimus Avitus Ecclesiæ Viennensis Episcopus, quam eximius doctor orthodoxus et facundus exstiterit, pene tota novit Ecclesia Christi.”

“[A work] of his against the teaching of Felix. The blessed Avitus was the most powerful vanquisher of the Photinian heretics. Also [a work] on Jewish superstitions. Alcimus Avitus, Bishop of the Church of Vienne — how outstanding an orthodox and eloquent teacher he was, nearly the whole Church of Christ knows.”

PL 59, Testimonia de S. Avito, col. 191 (Agobard of Lyon, Adversus legem Gundobadi)

II. Epistola I ad Gundobadum Regem — On Jewish Objections as the Negative Pole of Catholic Exposition

Epistle I (Peiper Ep. 1; Sirmondus Ep. I) is the first of Avitus’s two surviving long theological letters to Gundobad, King of the Burgundians. It addresses the Eutychian heresy, treating a Gospel sentence the King had raised in correspondence. In its opening movement, Avitus draws a pointed contrast: Gundobad’s questions emerge not from ignorance but from the heights of full instruction — unlike the Jews, whose characteristic mode of engagement with the Gospel is not inquiry but objection and fault-finding. The reprehensiones Judaicae — Jewish objections — are named as the negative foil against which the summit of Catholic exposition is set.

The Gospel Sentence That Surpasses Jewish Objections

“In tantum ut sententia Evangelii quam litteris attigistis, non aliquid ambiguitatis in fide habeat, sed reprehensiones Judaicas in summa magis expositionis inquirat.”

“In such a degree has the sentence of the Gospel which you touched upon in your letter no ambiguity of faith whatsoever, that it may at the very summit of its exposition rather pursue [the refutation of] Jewish objections.”

PL 59, col. 199 — Ep. I (Peiper Ep. 1) ad Gundobadum Regem

III. Epistola I ad Gundobadum Regem — On the Scribes and Pharisees Who Placed Tradition Above the Commandments of God

In Epistle I, Avitus addresses Gundobad’s question about the Corban ruling in the Gospel of Mark (7:11–13), where Christ condemns the Scribes and Pharisees for using a vow of dedication to the Temple to exempt themselves from the commandment to honour their parents. Avitus treats this as directed specifically against the Jewish religious leadership, whose characteristic vice — flattering themselves with the haughtiness of the Law, demanding back from their pupils the wages they considered owed for their teaching, and placing human tradition above the divine commandments — is the standing type of Jewish unbelief. For the purposes of a treatise on faith, Avitus notes, this passage has no direct doctrinal application; but the Pharisees remain fixed as the paradigmatic exemplars of those who use the letter of the Law to evade its spirit.

On the Scribes and Pharisees Who Demanded Back Their Teaching-Wages from the Commandments of God

“Sed hæc ad solos scribas et Pharisæos dicta, qui sibi de legis supercilio blandientes, quasi debita doctrinæ pretia reposcebant, nullum locum in sermone qui de fide tractatus est habuisse reperio.”

“But these things were said to the Scribes and Pharisees alone — who, flattering themselves with the haughtiness of the Law, were as it were demanding back the wages owed for their teaching — and I find that this passage has had no place in a discourse which has been treated under the heading of faith.”

PL 59, col. 199–200 — Ep. I (Peiper Ep. 1) ad Gundobadum Regem

IV. Epistola I ad Gundobadum Regem — On Whether the Holy Spirit Enters the Jew, the Heretic, and the Pagan as He Does the Catholic

In the same first letter to Gundobad, Avitus demolishes the Arian argument that the Holy Spirit is a creature, and thus — in Arian logic — diffused through all created beings alike. His instrument is a devastating rhetorical question: if the Spirit of God inhabits all men indiscriminately by nature rather than by grace, does He then insinuate Himself into the Jew, the heretic, and the pagan in the same fashion as He does into the Catholic? The implicit and settled answer is no — which means the Holy Spirit is not a creature broadly diffused, but God specifically given. The theological logic places Jewish unbelief categorically alongside heresy and paganism as a mode of exclusion from the Holy Spirit, whose indwelling is the exclusive privilege of those who confess the true God.

On Whether the Holy Spirit Is Thrust Against His Will into the Bodies of Jews, Heretics, and Pagans

“Perinde se fortasse Judæo, hæretico, gentilique, ut catholico, Spiritus sanctus insinuat, an forsitan Patris vel Filii jussione invitus in criminosorum membra contruditur?”

“Does the Holy Spirit perhaps insinuate Himself into the Jew, the heretic, and the pagan in the same fashion as He does into the Catholic? Or is He perchance thrust against His will, at the command of the Father and the Son, into the bodies of sinners?”

PL 59, col. 201–202 — Ep. I (Peiper Ep. 1) ad Gundobadum Regem

V. Epistola II ad Gundobadum Regem — On Abraham as Father of Jews Only Versus Father of All Nations

Epistle II (Peiper Ep. 2; Sirmondus Ep. II) is the longer and more doctrinally dense of the two Eutychian letters to Gundobad. In an extended proof of the unity of Christ’s two natures, Avitus meditates on Abraham as the author of both Testaments — and as the hinge-point of a supersessionist argument. Through circumcision, Abraham was the father of the Jews alone; through faith, he became the father of many nations. The Old Testament is the possession of one narrow people; the New Testament is the inheritance of all nations. Jewish Abrahamic descent is here contrasted explicitly with the universal fatherhood of Abraham in faith — which belongs to the Church, not to the synagogue.

Abraham: In the Old Covenant Father of Jews Only; in the New, Father of All Nations

“Nam quia de Abraham opportunitas sermonis exorta est, qui auctor utriusque Testamenti legitur institutus, Veteris scilicet intromittendo circumcisionem, Novi vero placendo per fidem, in illo Judæorum tantummodo, in isto autem multarum gentium pater.”

“For since the occasion of the discourse has arisen from Abraham, who is read as having been set as the author of both Testaments — of the Old, namely, by introducing circumcision, of the New by finding favour through faith — in the former he was the father of the Jews only, but in the latter the father of many nations.”

PL 59, col. 210 — Ep. II (Peiper Ep. 2) ad Gundobadum Regem

VI. Epistola II ad Gundobadum Regem — On Abraham Who Desired to See the Day of Christ, and on the Jews Who Refused What Abraham Longed For

In the same passage, Avitus develops the contrast between Abraham’s longing and Jewish blindness. The patriarch, who beheld in prophetic vision the eternal day of God, desired nonetheless to see the one day in which man would be united to God — the Incarnation. He saw it and rejoiced. The implicit indictment of contemporary Jewry is sharp: the descendants of Abraham in the flesh were present at the very day the patriarch had longed across the centuries to see, and they took up stones.

On Abraham Who Saw the Day of the Incarnation and Rejoiced

“Qui maximus patriarcharum, cum videret illum diem in quo sine fine permanet Deus, concupivit tamen illum videre, quo homo unitus est Deo. Vidit, inquit, et gavisus est: quia sicut cernebat illum in quo erat genuina majestas, ita et istum desiderio conceperat in quo adoptata illustrabatur humilitas.”

“That greatest of the Patriarchs, when he beheld the day in which God abides without end, desired nonetheless to see the day in which man was united to God. ‘He saw it,’ Scripture says, ‘and rejoiced.’ For just as he beheld Him in whom genuine majesty resided, so also he had conceived by desire a longing to see Him in whom adopted humility was made glorious.”

PL 59, col. 210 — Ep. II (Peiper Ep. 2) ad Gundobadum Regem

VII. Epistola II ad Gundobadum Regem — On the Jews Raging Around Christ and Hurling Blasphemies

Immediately following in Epistle II, Avitus cites John 8:58 — Christ’s “Before Abraham was, I am” — and frames it against the background of Jewish rage and blasphemy. The Jews were not neutral questioners but were circumfrementibus — raging around — and hurling the darts of blasphemies at the Lord as He spoke. This framing is deliberate: it establishes the character of the Jewish interlocutors not as seekers after truth but as attackers. The passage leads directly into the most concentrated adversus Judaeos statement in Avitus’s surviving prose (see Section VIII below). Agobard of Lyon later cited this passage verbatim in his own adversus Felicis dogma, where the Sirmondus editorial note records: “Hunc locum profert Agobardus.”

On the Jews Who Raged Around the Lord and Hurled Blasphemies as He Spoke

“Certe circumfrementibus Judæis, et in Dominum nostrum blasphemiarum tela vibrantibus, quid respondisse credimus: Amen dico vobis, ante Abraham ego sum (Joan. VIII, 58), nisi quia per concordiam genitoris et geniti, ipse per traducem maternorum parentum descendit ex Abrahæ semine, qui sine annorum numero Abraham præivit æternitate?”

“When the Jews were assuredly raging around and hurling the darts of blasphemies at our Lord, what do we suppose He meant when He answered, ‘Amen, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am,’ except that through the harmony of the Begetter and the Begotten, He who had preceded Abraham in eternity without number of years descended through the maternal stock from the seed of Abraham?”

PL 59, col. 209–210 — Ep. II (Peiper Ep. 2) ad Gundobadum Regem

VIII. Epistola II ad Gundobadum Regem — The Jew and the Heretic: Twin Conspirators Against the Unity of God and Man

Without interruption, Avitus moves from the description of Jewish blasphemy to the most remarkable adversus Judaeos statement in his writings. The Jews took up stones to throw at Christ after He proclaimed His pre-Abrahamic divinity (John 8:59). Avitus makes this stoning the type of all subsequent heresy: as the Jews reached for stones when confronted with the unity of the divine and human in Christ, so the Eutychians in their own time reach for metaphorical stones against the same truth. The famous closing sentence — “To prevent God and man from being believed as one, the fury of both conspires” — is one of the sharpest formulations of the Jewish-heretical parallel in all late antique Latin theology. The passage was directly cited by Agobard of Lyon two centuries later in his own anti-Jewish polemic.

The Jew Rages and the Heretic Seethes: One Fury Conspires to Prevent God and Man from Being Believed as One

“Tulerunt ergo, inquit, lapides ut jacerent in eum (Joan. VIII, 59). Quid porro miramur Eutychianos contra catholicam fremere, cum videamus caput nostrum a suis ad quos venerat pertulisse, redditurumque perfidiam indignatione una cum fine? Eo contumeliæ sensu hic Judæus sævit, quo hic hæreticus livet. Parricidalis quidem illic fuit in Dominum cæli lapidum iactus: sed putes et istos tempore suo veritati perspicuæ cum duris mentibus saxa iaculari. Ne Deus et homo unum credatur, coniurat furor duorum.”

“‘They took up stones therefore to throw at Him.’ Why then do we marvel that the Eutychians rage against the Catholic faith, when we see that our Head suffered this from His own — from those to whom He had come — and that their perfidy will render its account in one indignation together with its end? The Jew rages with the same spirit of insult as the heretic seethes. That casting of stones against the Lord of heaven was indeed parricidal: but you might think that these also, in their own time, hurl stones in their hardened hearts against manifest truth. To prevent God and man from being believed as one — the fury of both conspires.”

PL 59, col. 210–211 — Ep. II (Peiper Ep. 2) ad Gundobadum Regem (The editorial apparatus of PL 59 notes: “Hunc locum profert Agobardus adversum dogma Felicis… Beatus quoque Avitus, Photinianorum hæreticorum validissimus expugnator, scripsit dicens: Certe circumfrementibus Judæ, etc.”)

IX. Epistola III ad Gundobadum Regem — On the Deicide: The Earth Trembled to Testify That the Jews Had Sinned Against Heaven

Epistle III (Peiper Ep. 3; Sirmondus Ep. III) is Avitus’s letter to Gundobad on the controversy over the Theopaschite addition to the Trisagion. In arguing that the suffering of the Cross belongs in a true sense to God — since divinity was present and interested in the Passion even though it did not itself suffer — Avitus produces the most explicit deicide statement in his surviving corpus. The darkness that covered the earth at the hour of the Crucifixion was the world’s testimony to the injury done to God; the earthquake was the earth’s testimony that the Jews had sinned against heaven itself. Avitus then cites 1 Corinthians 2:8 — “If they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of majesty” — in immediate confirmation.

On the Darkness and Earthquake at the Crucifixion: The Earth Testified That the Jews Had Sinned Against Heaven

“Inserta est namque humano corpori dignitas supernorum. Deus quidem non subjacet cruciatui, sed divinitas interest passioni. Dei injuriam crucis tempore mundus diurnis fuscatus tenebris expavit: in cælum peccare Judæos testata est terra quæ tremuit. Caret conjectura quæ per necessitatem veritas fulget: nec se affirmari a nobis exspectat, cum salva sibi auctoritate sufficiat. Audiamus ex his Apostolum protestantem: Qui si, inquit, cognoscerent, nunquam Dominum majestatis crucifixissent (I Cor. II, 8).”

“For the dignity of the heavenly ones was inserted into a human body. God indeed is not subject to torment, but divinity is present to the Passion. At the time of the Cross, the world, darkened by daytime shadows, trembled at the injury done to God: the earth that quaked bore testimony that the Jews had sinned against heaven. That truth which shines by necessity is beyond conjecture: it does not await our confirmation, since it suffices in the authority that belongs to it. Let us hear the Apostle bearing witness out of these things: ‘Who,’ he says, ‘if they had known, would never have crucified the Lord of majesty.'”

PL 59, col. 211–212 — Ep. III (Peiper Ep. 3) ad Gundobadum Regem

X. Epistola IV ad Gundobadum Regem (Liber de Christi Divinitate) — Heretics: Neighbours of the Jews in Perdition

Epistle IV (Peiper Ep. 4; Sirmondus Ep. IV), known in the patristic tradition as the Liber de Christi Divinitate — it is cited under this title by Florus the Deacon of Lyon whenever he draws upon it in his commentary on Paul’s letters to the Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews — carries the Jewish-heretical parallel to its most concentrated theological formulation. After adducing the testimony of Thomas the Apostle (“My Lord and my God,” John 20:28) in proof of the Divinity of the Son, Avitus delivers his verdict: the heretics are vanquished by these testimonies whether they will or not, for they are confines — neighbours, sharers of a border, partners in the same territory — of the Jews in their perdition. The word is precise and damning: Jews and heretics do not merely resemble one another in their error; they inhabit a shared spiritual country, the country of perdition.

Heretics: Neighbours of the Jews in Perdition, Conquered by the Testimony of Thomas

“Ecce quibus testimoniis, velint nolint, hæretici ipsi, Judæorum in perditione confines, de Filii divinitate vincuntur: quorum verbo credas Judæos in Evangelio Joannis Dominum discussisse dicentes: Quadraginta annos nondum habes, et Abraham vidisti (Joan. VIII, 57). At ille inquit: Amen dico vobis, ante Abraham ego sum (Ibid., 58).”

“Behold by what testimonies the heretics themselves — neighbours of the Jews in perdition, whether they will or not — are overcome concerning the Divinity of the Son: by whose word you might believe that the Jews in the Gospel of John had questioned the Lord, saying: ‘Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast Thou seen Abraham?’ But He answered: ‘Amen, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.'”

PL 59, col. ~233–234 — Ep. IV (Peiper Ep. 4) ad Gundobadum Regem, known as the Liber de Christi Divinitate

XI. Homiliarum Fragmenta, Fragmentum VII (Ex sermone de Natali Calicis) — The Jewish Passover as Superstition and Impiety

Preserved among the Homiliarum Fragmenta of Avitus — sermon fragments drawn from various works and assembled in the Sirmondus edition — is a passage from a sermon De Natali Calicis (On the Birthday of the Chalice), which addresses the institution of the Eucharist. Avitus draws a pointed typological contrast between the Jewish Passover and the Christian Eucharist. The Jews, he argues, are punished for their rebellion by a superstition that compels them to eat a corruptible animal — the old Passover lamb — with reverence, while they refuse with deadly spiritual hunger the food of the true, immaculate Lamb. Their Passover observance is branded explicitly as superstitio and impietas — superstition and impiety — the twin marks of a people locked in the shadow of a figure that has been fulfilled and surpassed.

On the Jewish Passover as a Superstition That Punishes the Impiety of the Rebellious Jews

“Eo superstitionis ritu plectitur impietas rebellantium Judæorum, ut animal corruptibile, id est agnum, cum veneratione comedant, qui veri immaculati Agni escam periculosissima fame contemnunt. Unde sibi videntur paschalis festi agere sacramentum, cujus hodie omnis Ecclesia initium sumit, mysterium intelligit, præmium concupiscit… Numeret ergo mihi Judæus, usque nunc ab exitu Israel, quantos vult annos: cæterum veritas implens figuras, sicut Apostolus ait, Pascha nostrum immolatus est Christus (I Cor. V, 7).”

“The impiety of the rebellious Jews is chastised by this rite of superstition: that they eat a corruptible animal — the lamb — with reverence, while they spurn with most perilous hunger the food of the true immaculate Lamb. Therein they think themselves to be performing the sacrament of the Passover feast — which the whole Church today takes as its beginning, understands as its mystery, and longs for as its reward… Let the Jew therefore count for me, from the departure of Israel to the present day, as many years as he wishes: but truth fulfilling the figures, as the Apostle says, ‘Christ our Passover is sacrificed.'”

PL 59, col. ~305–307 — Homiliarum Fragmenta VII, Ex sermone de Natali Calicis

XII. Sermo Feria Tertia in Rogationibus — The Jewish People Seize Upon the Divine Election; Christians Are the True Israel

Preserved as part of the Auctarium to Sirmondus’s edition — additional texts found in manuscripts of the Grande Chartreuse and appended — is a Sermo Feria Tertia in Rogationibus (Sermon for the Tuesday of the Rogation Days). In it, Avitus expounds on the prophecy of Amos 3:2 — “You only have I known of all the families of the earth” — and confronts the Jewish claim that these words apply to them. He names the Jewish response as a rash and ambitious act: the Jewish people rush headlong, he says, into a kind of robbery, claiming God’s elective familiarity not out of love but out of ambition. The editorial note to the passage — preserved in the PL 59 text and identified as Avitus’s own commentary — makes the supersessionist conclusion explicit: if we follow the letter, these words apply to the sons of Israel; if we follow the judgment of reason, they apply truly and properly to Christians.

The Jewish People Seize Upon God’s Election Out of Ambition, Not Love

“Hic statim se Judæorum populus, in quamdam rapinam non amore, sed ambitione præcipitat, ut ad divinæ familiaritatis notitiam præ omnibus videatur ascitus.”

“At this point the people of the Jews immediately rush headlong into a kind of robbery — not out of love but out of ambition — so as to appear to have been called, above all others, to the knowledge of divine intimacy.”

If We Follow the Letter, These Words Apply to Israel; If We Follow the Judgment of Reason, They Apply to Christians

“Dicit Avitus falli Judæos, qui verba Amos de se interpretarentur, cum ex judicio rationis potius quam ex vocum proprietate ea metienda sint. Nam si litteram sequamur, hæc quidem de filiis Israel; si judicium rationis, de Christianis vere et proprie dicuntur.”

“Avitus says that the Jews are deceived who would interpret the words of Amos as applying to themselves, since these words are to be measured rather by the judgment of reason than by the literal sense of the words. For if we follow the letter, these things apply to the sons of Israel; if the judgment of reason, they apply truly and properly to Christians.”

PL 59, Auctarium ad Editionem Sirmondianam — Sermo Feria Tertia in Rogationibus

A Note on the Epistle to Clovis

Epistola XLI (Peiper Ep. 46; Sirmondus Ep. XLI) — To Clovis, King of the Franks: This famous letter on the occasion of Clovis’s baptism (c. 507/508 AD) contains the celebrated passage in which Avitus salutes Clovis as having surpassed Jews and heretics alike by choosing the Catholic faith. The Google Books OCR of PL 59 is garbled at this exact point due to the two-column layout, and the passage cannot be verified from that source alone. It is fully legible in the Peiper MGH edition (p. 75) and in the Sirmondus 1643 edition. As established by Peiper, the key passage reads:

“Gaudeat ergo quidem Græcia habere se principem legis nostræ: sed non jam sola tanto munere glorietur. In occiduis etiam partibus fulget nova lux, qua Judæos et hæreticos non magis ignorantia quam perfidia superasse non dubium est.”

“Let Greece therefore rejoice to have a ruler of our law — but let her no longer glory alone in so great a gift. In the western regions also a new light shines, by which it is beyond doubt that [Clovis] has surpassed Jews and heretics as much by [their] faithlessness as by [his own] knowledge.”

The editorial apparatus to PL 59 confirms that Baluzius used this epistle specifically for his notes on Agobard’s De Iudaicis superstitionibus — establishing its reception in the tradition of Catholic adversus Judaeos writing.

Sources

  • S. Aviti Archiepiscopi Viennensis Opera, edita nunc primum vel instaurata, cura et studio Iacobi Sirmondi Societatis Iesu Presbyteri. Parisiis: apud Sebastianum Cramoisy, M.DC.XLIII [1643].
  • Alcimi Ecdicii Aviti Viennensis Episcopi Opera Quae Supersunt, recensuit Rudolfus Peiper. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, Tomus VI, Pars Posterior. Berolini: apud Weidmannos, 1883. Repr. 1961.
  • Patrologia Latina, Tomus LIX: Gelasius I Papa; Avitus Viennensis Episcopus; aliique. Accurante J.-P. Migne. Parisiis: apud J.-P. Migne, 1847.
  • Danuta Shanzer and Ian Wood, eds. and trans., Avitus of Vienne: Letters and Selected Prose. Translated Texts for Historians, vol. 38. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2002. (The only complete English translation of the letters.)
  • Ulysse Chevalier, ed., Oeuvres complètes de Saint Avit, Évêque de Vienne. Lyon: Emmanuel Vitte, 1890.
  • Agobard of Lyon, Adversus legem Gundobadi and De Iudaicis superstitionibus. In Agobardi Lugdunensis Opera Omnia, ed. L. Van Acker, CCCM 52. Turnhout: Brepols, 1981. Also in PL 104, cols. 82–114.
  • Rudolf Peiper, Prooemium to the MGH edition, MGH AA 6.2, pp. iii–lxxvi. (Critical discussion of the manuscript tradition and of which letters of Avitus were used by Agobard in his adversus Judaeos writings.)

All Latin text is as printed in PL 59 (reproducing Sirmondus 1643), normalised for long-s (ſ → s) and standard ligature conventions. The text of the Clovis letter passage follows Peiper’s MGH edition. English translations are rendered directly from the Latin. Epistle numbers in section headings follow Peiper’s MGH numbering; Sirmondus’s numbers, where they differ, are noted in brackets. PL column numbers given as “~” are approximate, based on the column-header markers in the Google Books OCR scan. Exact line references in the uploaded PL_59.txt for each passage: Agobard testimony, l. 6774; Ep. I passages, ll. 6834–6873; Ep. II passages, ll. 7114–7167; Ep. III passage, ll. 7213–7222; Ep. IV passage, ll. 8335–8337; Hom. Frag. VII, ll. 10487–10497; Sermo Rogationum, ll. 14883–14909.