Merovingian Moseses

Among Old Testament figures, Moses enjoyed a unique status from the perspective of late antique Christian writers. He was recognized as a lawgiver, prophet, leader, priest, and miracle-working holy man whose guidance of the Israelites toward an earthly salvation prefigured the mission of Christ. Yet, while patristic theologians defined for Moses a common stock of characteristics and themes, a considerable degree of fluidity in defining the prophet’s significance for contemporary Christians remained. This is particularly apparent in the depictions of Moses authored in post-Roman Gaul between the sixth and mid-eighth centuries. These “Merovingian Moseses” were united by a common store of biblical stories, symbols, and themes, as well as by their collective debt to patristic tradition, but also were distinct in their embodiment and representation of a selective choice of these tropes. While characterizations of Moses by Bishops Avitus of Vienne and Caesarius of Arles offered two possible models for understanding the Israelite prophet—hero and imperfect embodiment of the Old Law, respectively—neither model dominated contemporary discourse, and depictions of Moses continued to be shaped by differences in genre, authorial program, and in a number of cases a specific concern with contemporary Jews. Collectively, these Merovingian Moseses thus signify a socioreligious milieu that was confident in its Christian identity but also still somewhat ill at ease with both a biblical Jewish heritage and, even more so, the continued presence of living Jews within a professed Christian regnum.