Abstract

The article considers three episcopal assemblies held in Gaul, which the manuscript tradition has not preserved, all involved in doctrinal debates on grace and free will. The first two, the council of Arles and the synod of Lyon, took place in the second half of the fifth century and concerned the affair of the presbyter Lucidus. The third is the Council of Valence that met just before the Second Council of Orange (529), that is, the council that marks the “resolution” of the conflict and also the only documented. With the idea that the history of the councils occupies important points in the reconstruction of the debate on grace and free will, even in the case of councils whose acts have not been transmitted, the article seeks to enhance these three events by reconsidering indirect sources. The episcopal meetings of Arles, Lyon, and Valence are, indeed, an integral part of the doctrinal work on grace and free will, which for about a century interested monastic and ecclesiastical circles in Gaul. Moreover, the recovery of their history restores well the complexity of the cultural, religious and political climate in which they took place.