TAIONE, bishop of SARAGOZZA. - Immediate successor of St. Braulio (d. 651). His life unfolded during the 7th century. He took part in the Councils of Toledo, the 8th (c. 623) and the 9th (655).
The name of T. figures in the history of theology as that of the initiator, following St. Isidore, of the literature of the *Sententiae*, which preceded the medieval *Summae*. Indeed, devoted to the writings of the Fathers, 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, to transcribe certain works of St. Gregory the Great that were still unknown in Spain. Bearing this prize, delighted like a bibliophile who has captured his spoils (sicut exsultant victores capta praeda, he himself says to Eugenius), he returned to Spain to begin the great compilation of the *Sententiae* (652); *Libri Sententiarum* in five books, with a prologue-letter to Quiricus, bishop of Barcelona: «Tatius indignus Caesaraugustae urbis episcopus, cognomento Samuel, ad Quiricum, Barcinonensem episcopum», and a dedication to the reader in twelve well-constructed hexameters. Around this journey of T. to Rome, medieval legends wove a fanciful version, which modern criticism rejects. It is not known exactly which of Gregory the Great’s *Sententiae* T. brought to Spain. The Pope’s work was already known in Spain since the time of St. Isidore. Perhaps the *Commentary on Ezekiel* constitutes a large part of that booty. There exists another letter of T. to Eugenius of Toledo, as a prologue to another work, excerpted in six manuscripts from Gregorian writings. It was a commentary on Scripture, which complemented, from another angle, the deeply dogmatic character of the *Sententiae*. However, it has not been identified with certainty, although A. C. Vega suggests it is probably contained in a manuscript from the cathedral of Lérida.
The work of the *Sententiae*, as T. himself explains in the letter to Quiricus, is an extensive florilegium in five books, the fruit of long vigils, composed during the incursion of the Huns with the Basques through the lands of Saragossa. Almost entirely it summarizes St. Gregory the Great; only exceptionally does it draw upon St. Augustine and St. Isidore. The stated aim, to offer a synthesis to readers unable to engage with the great works in their entirety, was fully achieved, as evidenced by numerous medieval manuscripts. Of the five books, the first, the fifth, and part of the second deal with dogmatic theology; the others with moral, ascetic, and pastoral applications. T. deserves credit, following St. Isidore in his work of the same title, for having introduced an order and systematization of material that was lacking in his predecessors, such as St. Prosper of Aquitaine. Though lacking in other personal qualities and originality, one must not deny T. a broad vision of the theological-moral sphere, a discreet skill in the selection of sources, and a warm, persuasive tone. As for the rest, his style tends toward a certain artificial conceit; his prose betrays the growing defects of the age; it gradually departs from the general simplicity of Braulio, his master, and sometimes becomes affected and bombastic.
Taine, Hippolyte – Portrait.
In the epistolary of Braulio of Saragossa (Ep. 42) there remains a *Fragmentum* of a letter from T. to his former teacher on various problems concerning the relics of the Passion, existing in Rome.