TAIONE, Bishop of Saragossa. - Immediate successor of St. Braulio (d. 651). His life unfolds throughout the 7th century. He took part in the Councils of Toledo, VIII (ca. 623) and IX (a. 655).
The name of T. figures in the history of theology as that of the initiator, following St. Isidore, of the literature of the Sentences, preceding the medieval Summae. In fact, attached to the patristic writings which, as St. Braulio wrote to him (Ep. 42), "were nestled in his breast," in the years 646-49 he made a journey to Rome, when he was still abbot of a monastery, in order to transcribe certain works of St. Gregory the Great "which are not yet to be found in Spain." The bearer of this conquest, happy as a satisfied bibliophile (cicut exultant victores capta praeda, he himself says to Eugenius), he returns to Spain to begin the great compilation of the Sentences (a. 652): Libri Sententiarum V., with a letter-prologue to Quiricus, bishop of Barcelona: "Taius indignus Caesaraugustae urbis episcopus, cognomento Samuel, ad Quiricum, Barcinonensem episcopum," and a dedication to the reader in 12 well-constructed hexameters. Around this journey of T. to Rome medieval legends traced a fantastic version, which criticism today rejects. It is not known exactly which books of sentences of Gregory the Great T. gave to Spain. The work of the great Pontiff was known in Spain as far back as St. Isidore. Perhaps the Commentaries on Ezekiel constitute a good part of that booty. There exists another letter of T. to Eugenius of Toledo, as prologue to another work, extracted in six codices from the Gregorian writings. It was a commentary on Scripture, with which the profoundly dogmatic character of the Sentences came to be completed under another aspect. It has not, however, been identified with certainty, although A. C. Vega indicates it as probably contained in a codex of the cathedral of Lérida.
The work of the Sentences, as T. himself explains in the letter to Quiricus, is an extensive florilegium in 5 books, the fruit of long vigils, during the incursion of Praga with the Vascones through the lands of Saragossa. In almost its entirety it compendiates St. Gregory the Great; only exceptionally does it turn to St. Augustine and St. Isidore. The aim he set himself, of offering a synthesis to readers who could not occupy themselves at length with the great works, was fully achieved in numerous medieval codices. Of the 5 books, the I, the V and a part of the II treat of dogmatic theology; the others of moral, ascetic and pastoral applications. It is a merit of T., who also follows in this St. Isidore in his work of the same title, to have introduced the order and systematization of the matters that did not exist in his predecessors, such as St. Prosper of Aquitaine. Although lacking other personal gifts and originality, one must not deny to T. a broad vision of the theological-moral domain, a fair measure of success in the selection of sources and a warm and persuasive tone. For the rest, his style tends toward a certain artificial concettismo; his prose suffers the growing defects of the age; it gradually departs from the general simplicity of Braulio, his master, and becomes at times affected and bombastic.
In the epistolary of Braulio of Saragossa (Ep. 42) there remains a Fragmentum of a letter of T. to his predecessor on various problems concerning the relics of the Passion, existing in Rome.
Bibliography12 works
Giuseppe Madoz