JONAS of Orléans. — Bishop and theologian, born in Aquitaine, probably before 780, died at Orléans between 841 and 843. He succeeded TEODULF in the see of Orléans in 818 and soon became one of the most influential prelates at the court of Louis the Pious, to whom he was bound by devoted friendship, which not even the critical period of the Emperor’s disastrous struggle against his sons could weaken. A zealous pastor, he cared for the interests of his diocese, promoted monastic reform in the spirit of St BENEDICT of Aniane (q.v.) and took an active part in the councils of his time (Paris 825, 829; Aachen 837: he drew up the acts of the last two).
He wrote:
Vita s. Huberti (in Acta SS. Novembris, I, Paris 1887, pp. 806-16) followed by a brief Historia translationis s. Huberti episcopi Tungrensis (PL 106, 389-394);
De institutione laicali (ibid., 121-78), a kind of treatise on Christian morality with special reference to married life and valuable information on the penitential discipline of the age and on the use, even extra-sacramentally, of Holy Oil;
De institutione regia ad Pippinium regem (ibid., 279-306), a manual for kings, interesting for the understanding of the politico-religious ideas of the time;
De cultu imaginum (ibid., 307-88), begun under Louis and completed at the request of Charles the Bald, to whom it is dedicated: a refutation of Claudius of Turin (q.v.), in which J. advocates a middle way between Byzantine iconoclasm and Roman doctrine; it is no more than an echo of the ideas expressed in the Libri Carolini.
In these works, composed in a careful style not devoid of elegance, the author displays great bibliopatriarchal erudition, though without originality of thought. Lost are a Liber contra perfidos (probably against the iconoclasts), the Sermones and an Hymnarius Ionae episcopi.