Salvian of Marseille

Salvian of Marseille (c. 400-c. 480 AD) was a Gallo-Roman Christian priest, monk, and moralist active during the fifth-century crisis of the Western Roman Empire. Trained in the influential monastic community of Lerins and later attached to the church of Marseille, he is best known for his major treatise De gubernatione Dei (On the Governance of God), a fierce indictment of Roman moral decadence that argued the empire's collapse before the Goths, Vandals, and other 'barbarians' was divine judgment on Roman injustice, oppression of the poor, and corruption. Gennadius of Marseille, who knew his reputation, called him the 'master of bishops' (magister episcoporum). His surviving works, including nine letters and the polemic Ad ecclesiam (Against Avarice), make him one of the sharpest contemporary witnesses to the social and spiritual upheaval of the late antique West.