CLAUDIUS of Turin. – Of Spanish origin, he appears to have been a follower of Felix of Urgel. He attended the school in Lyons which Archbishop Leidrad had raised to a high level of efficiency. C. devoted himself to the study of Holy Scripture, later commenting on various books: Genesis (811), St Matthew (c. 816), the Letters to the Galatians (Lent 815 or 816), to the Ephesians and Philippians (817 or 818), to the Romans (818–20), to the Corinthians (820), Exodus (821), Leviticus (823), Kings and Ruth (c. 824), Joshua and Judges (825 and 826). He lived at the court of Louis the Pious in Aquitaine, and, after his elevation to the imperial throne, in Aachen, where he had occasion to meet the scholars of the time, among them Einhard.
Around 817 or 818 the emperor entrusted him with the government of the diocese of Turin. But shortly after his entry, he violently gave vent to his iconoclastic tendencies, which were still current in some areas of the Frankish clergy of the time. His manner of acting provoked a chorus of protests not only from the diocesans but also from Paschal I, from Abbot Theodemir, his close friend, from Jonas of Orléans (PL 106, 305–88) and from the recluse of St-Denis, Dungal (ibid., 105, 465–530). The latter also took issue with his writings; the fervour of the controversy at the time and afterwards somewhat distorted and exaggerated certain of his errors, though his extravagant iconoclastic action remains clearly described in his own words in the Apologeticum: ‘In the city of Turin, I found all the basilicas filled with the abominations of idols and images, contrary to the order of truth, and since I alone began to destroy what all revered, therefore all opened their mouths to blaspheme against me, and had God not helped me, they would have swallowed me alive.’ C. defended himself in an Apologeticum, composed c. 825, of which only a few fragments remain (PL 105, 454–64). He died in the course of 827 (he was still alive on 8 May) or shortly after.
Most of his writings remain unpublished (manuscripts in Manitius); those that have been published are found in PL 104, 615–918; the letters and fragments of the Apologeticum were edited by E. Dümmler (in MGH, Epistolae Aevi Carolini, II [1895], pp. 586–613). C. was at the time the author who best knew the works of St Augustine. In his commentaries, especially those of a catena type, he cites among others Origen, Hilary, Ambrose, Jerome, Rufinus, the Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum, Fulgentius, Leo, Maximus, Gregory and Bede.