Claudius of Turin

He is most noted for teaching iconoclasm, a radical idea at that time in Latin Church, and for some teachings that prefigured those of the Protestant Reformation. He was attacked as a heretic in written works by Saint Dungal and Jonas of Orléans.

• Type — Bishop • Name — Claudius of Turin • Title — Bishop of Turin • Church — Catholic Church • See — Turin • Term — 817–827 • Born — unknown • Birthplace — possible: Spain • Died — 827 • Place of death — possible: Turin • Illustration — Louis the Pious, Holy Roman Emperor and for a time a chief patron of Claudius.

Claudius is thought to have been from Spain. This belief may have its origins in the accusations of Jonas of Orléans, who claimed Claudius was a disciple of Felix of Urgel. Felix was a bishop in the foothills of the Spanish Pyrenees whom Claudius may have known personally. The bishop had been condemned by Alcuin at the Council of Frankfurt in 794 for teaching adoptionism. It is now certain that Claudius was not a disciple of Felix. If he was from Spain, it is uncertain whether or not he received his education there or in Lyon under the archbishop Leidrad. It was probably Leidrad and, as Claudius himself tells it, his schoolmates and the future emperor Louis the Pious who convinced Claudius to study exegesis and concentrate on certain portions of Scripture. Claudius also studied the Church Fathers. When Louis the Pious was still King of Aquitaine, he called Claudius to his court at Chasseneuil sometime before 811. In 813, Emperor Charlemagne called Louis, his only surviving legitimate son, to his court. There he crowned him as his heir. The following year, Charlemagne died and Louis was made ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. He brought Claudius to Aachen, the empire's capital city. There Claudius gave exegetical lectures to the emperor and the court and was even urged to put his lectures in writing by the emperor himself. Claudius was a member of an elite circle of secular and ecclesiastic politicians and authorities and a creatura della corte di Aquisgrana ("creature of the court of Aachen"). In 817, he was sent by Louis to Turin to act as bishop. It has been suggested that the appointment of a theologian and scholar to a post such as Turin, which had attendant military duties due to the threat of Saracen raids, was largely based on the need for an imperial supporter in Italy in light of the rebellion of Bernard. Bernard was the illegitimate son of King Pepin, the third son of Charlemagne. Louis gave Italy to his eldest son Lothair when the empire was partitioned among his three sons in 817. Bernard rebelled against his uncle with the support of Bishop Theodulf of Orléans. The rebellion was put down, but the event reduced the emperor's prestige amongst the Frankish nobility and it became important that the bishop of Turin be a man who was loyal to the emperor.

As bishop of Turin, Claudius found that men were often directed to go on pilgrimage to Rome for penance and that worshippers were accustomed to venerate Christ and the saints by bowing before images and relics. Claudius, coming from an educated background, was not greatly exposed to such provincial modes of worship. He made attacks on the use of images, relics, and crosses, he opposed pilgrimages to obtain absolution, and he had little regard for the authority of the pope due to his belief that all bishops were equal. Claudius was a heretic in the view of Dungal and Jonas of Orléans, who later wrote to refute some of his teachings at the request of the emperor. The last recorded act of Claudius is in a charter of the monastery of St Peter at Novalesa in May 827. He was dead by the time Dungal finished his Responsa contra peruersas Claudii Taurinensis episcopi sententias late in 827, so it can be presumed that he died that year.

Claudius found that Italian churches were full of images and "picture worshippers", though being told that people did not venerate the images themselves, but the saints they represent, Claudius still saw it as a heathenish practice and claimed that Pagans used similar arguments for image veneration. He saw the veneration of saints and claimed images as Pelagian, he argued that people need to only worship the creator and not the creation. Claudius also opposed the veneration of the cross, Claudius claimed that we need to "bear our own cross (Matt 16:24)" instead of adoring the cross.