SALVIAN, a Christian writer of the 5th century, was born probably at Cologne (De gub. Dei, vi. 8, 13), some time between 400 and 405. He was educated at the school of Treves and seems to have been brought up as a Christian. His writings show legal knowledge. He married Palladia, the daughter of heathen par ents, Hypatius and Quieta, whose displeasure he incurred by per suading his wife to retire with him to a distant monastery, which is almost certainly that founded by St. Honoratus at Lerins.
It was presumably at Lerins that Salvian made the acquaintance of Honoratus (d. 429), Hilary of Arles (d. 449) and Eucherius of Lyons (d. 449). That he was a friend of the former and wrote an account of his life we learn from Hilary (Vita Hon., ap. Migne, 1. 1260). To Eucherius's two sons, Salonius and Veranus, he acted as tutor in consort with Vincent of Lerins. Salvian continued his friendly intercourse with both father and sons long after the latter had left his care; it was to Salonius (then a bishop) that he wrote his explanatory letter just after the publication of his treatise Ad ecclesiam; and to the same prelate a few years later he dedicated his great work, the De gubernatione Dei. Salvian spent the last years of his life at Marseilles (Gennadius, ap. Migne, lviii. 1o99). It has been conjectured that Salvian paid a visit to Carthage; but this is a mere inference based on the minute details he gives of the state of this city just before its fall (De gub. vii., viii.). He seems to have been still living at Marseilles when Gen nadius wrote under the papacy of Gelasius (492-496).
work, was written between 439 and 450; it furnishes a valuable if prejudiced description of life in 5th-century Gaul. Salvian deals with the same problem that had moved the eloquence of Augustine and Orosius. Why were these miseries falling on the empire? Could it be, as the pagans said, because the age had forsaken its old gods? or as the semi-pagan creed of some Christians taught, that God did not constantly overrule the world he had created (i. I)? He concludes that the misery of the Roman world is all due to the neglect of God's commandments and the terrible sins of every class of society. It is difficult to credit the universal wickedness adduced by Salvian, especially in face of the contemporary testi mony of Symmachus, Ausonius and Sidonius. Salvian was a 5th century socialist of the most extreme type, and a zealous ascetic who exaggerated, albeit unconsciously, the faults that he desired to eradicate.