A 12th-century sermon contrasting the two cities of God and the devil, exploring the fundamental spiritual division between divine and diabolic realms. This homiletical work exemplifies the sophisticated allegorical preaching of the French reform movement and provides insight into popular theological instruction during the ecclesiastical renewal period.

A later illuminated witness to Augustine’s <em>City of God</em>, the principal theological background to Babion’s two-cities sermon.
A later illuminated witness to Augustine’s City of God, the principal theological background to Babion’s two-cities sermon. — New York Public Library, Spencer Collection MS 30, 15th century. Relationship: thematic context.
Image rights: public domain. Attribution: none required; credit to the New York Public Library recommended. Source.
This figure is third-party material under its own terms; the CC0 dedication of this page covers only the Bibliothecarius translation, essay and metadata.
An Apocalypse illumination depicting the fall of Babylon, the biblical event invoked by the sermon’s opening verse.
An Apocalypse illumination depicting the fall of Babylon, the biblical event invoked by the sermon’s opening verse. — New York Public Library, c. 1425. Relationship: thematic context.
Image rights: public domain. Attribution: none required; credit to the New York Public Library recommended. Source.
This figure is third-party material under its own terms; the CC0 dedication of this page covers only the Bibliothecarius translation, essay and metadata.

Historical Context

The attribution has two distinct layers. First, the sermon’s removal from Hildebert’s corpus is highly secure. Antoine Beaugendre printed it in 1708 among Hildebert’s works; Migne reprinted that edition as Sermo CXIII, with the note E Victorino, indicating Beaugendre’s Saint-Victor manuscript source rather than the sermon’s place of composition. André Wilmart’s reassessment of the Hildebertine sermons included no. 113 among those reassigned to Geoffroy Babion. Modern repertories and catalogues concur: Schneyer catalogued it as Babion no. 53; BnF Latin 3830 calls it Sermo ad populum by Gaufridus Babio; and the Yale catalogue independently identifies the same thema, incipit and explicit as Babion no. 53. ([15]; [8])). [1]

Second, Babion’s identification with Geoffroy du Loroux/de Laureolo, archbishop of Bordeaux from 1136 to 1158, was argued by Jean-Paul Bonnes. Guy-Marie Oury observed in 1979 that Bonnes had assembled strong arguments but had lacked a “decisive proof”; Oury then supplied additional Aquitanian evidence. Jean-Hervé Foulon subsequently treated the identification as established and “completed” by Oury. No recent dissent from this identification—or from the attribution of this particular sermon to Babion—was located. Older references to “Geoffroy de Bath” and residual catalogue attributions to Hildebert represent earlier scholarship or metadata inertia, not an active alternative consensus. ([2]; [4]). [2]

A precise date and place cannot be extracted from the sermon. Its language contains no identifiable allusion to Babion’s Bordeaux pontificate. It belongs to the mature collection conventionally beginning Dicite pusillanimes, whose “final canon” contained 76 sermons, although Schneyer attributed 100 sermons to Babion on broader manuscript evidence. A manuscript of the 76-sermon collection at the Huntington is dated 1125–1150, while direct witnesses of this sermon include twelfth-century codices. These facts favour composition in the first half of the twelfth century, possibly during Babion’s Angers or eremitical career, but this remains an inference rather than a demonstrated provenance. Saint-Victor is merely the provenance of Beaugendre’s exemplar. [3]

The setting is the western French reform church: clerical education, synodal preaching, eremitical experimentation, regular canons and Cistercian expansion. Babion had been scholasticus at Angers, later entered an eremitical-reform milieu, intervened in Aquitaine during the schism of 1130, and became archbishop in 1136. Foulon characterizes his preaching as joining patristic forms to active clerical reform. The rubric ad populum, repeated in independent witnesses, makes a general Christian congregation—probably mixed lay and clerical—more likely than a purely monastic or cathedral-school audience. Its practical emphasis on confession, complete penance and almsgiving strongly supports that conclusion. [4]

Theological Significance

The sermon converts the Augustinian doctrine of the two cities into a vivid pastoral map. Jerusalem has guardian angels for a wall, apostles for twelve gates, God for its tower, bishops and priests for watchmen, and preachers for heralds. Babylon is protected by evil spirits; its five gates are the five senses; its lowest pit is despair. The imagery is not abstract political theology. It asks each hearer where he or she presently lives and how one can migrate from Babylon to Jerusalem.

The command of Revelation 18:4—Exite, popule meus, de Babylonia—therefore becomes a summons to conversion. Departure is achieved through penance for all serious sins, not selective amendment. The sermon’s chains, leaking ship and embedded arrows make the same point: one remains imprisoned if even one chain is left unbroken; a ship still sinks if only some leaks are stopped; a body remains endangered if an arrow is knowingly left in the wound. Almsgiving is presented as the social fruit and remedial companion of repentance. Mary Magdalene and Peter demonstrate that even grave sin can be overcome by penitence, tears and renewed fidelity. The argument is rigorous but not despairing: Babylon’s deepest pit is precisely the belief that forgiveness is impossible.

The governing patristic framework is Augustine’s. In De catechizandis rudibus, Augustine describes two cities—one of the unjust and one of the saints—running through history, now intermingled bodily but divided in will, and finally separated at judgment. De civitate Dei XIV.28 famously traces them to two opposed loves. Babion preserves this moral and eschatological opposition, but translates it into the architecture of a popular sermon: walls, gates, guards, citizens, captivity and escape. [5]. [5]

The familiar etymologies Babylon = confusio and Jerusalem = visio pacis derive from the Latin biblical-name tradition associated especially with Jerome’s Liber interpretationis hebraicorum nominum. They allow physical geography to become moral psychology: sin disintegrates the person into confusion, while grace restores ordered vision and peace. Augustinian exegesis of Psalms 61 and 64 had already developed Babylon and Jerusalem as the two communities and two loves among which Christians live during the present age.

The principal biblical foundation is Revelation 18:4, supplemented by the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21:12–25: its twelve gates readily signify the apostles, and the absence of night implies uninterrupted vigilance. The watchmen evoke Song of Songs 3:3 and the prophetic watchman tradition; Psalm 126:1 supplies the warning that human guards labour in vain unless God guards the city. The final prayer echoes Psalm 19:3, asking that help be sent from the sanctuary and protection from Zion. The conversion exempla draw on the Gospel narratives of Magdalene and Peter. See PL 171, 864A–867C.

There is no heterodox dualism here. “Two princes” does not make God and the devil equal metaphysical principles: the devil is a defeated creature whose “city” is a parasitic community of disordered wills. The sermon is doctrinally conventional, but pastorally forceful. Comparable moralized cities and fortified souls occur in Bernard’s parables and in Victorine and Honorian teaching, although direct literary dependence has not been demonstrated. Jean Longère accordingly cautioned against opposing Babion’s “patristic” preaching too absolutely to contemporary school methods. Foulon sees him as a transitional figure: patristic in idiom, yet already oriented toward systematic clerical service and reform. [4]

The sermon’s wide circulation shows its usefulness, but there is no evidence that it originated the two-cities tradition or decisively altered later theology. Its significance is representative: it shows how Augustine’s universal history became a practical sermon about confession, despair, the senses, preaching and episcopal responsibility.

Manuscript Tradition and Editions

The following direct witnesses can be identified securely:

  • Paris, BnF, Latin 3830, ff. 125–127v, within a twelfth-century collection catalogued as Gaufridus Babio, Sermones. The BnF explicitly equates it with PL 171, 864–867 and Schneyer no. 53. [1]
  • Paris, BnF, Latin 3832, pp. 56–60, within another twelfth-century Babion collection; the manuscript is digitized on Gallica. [6]
  • Engelberg, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 44, ff. 77v–78v, first half of the thirteenth century. The current catalogue retains the Hildebert/PL identification, although its transcription matches Babion no. 53 exactly. [7]. [7]
  • New Haven, Beinecke Library, Marston MS 135, ff. 57r–59v, explicitly catalogued as “Geoffroi Babion, Sermo; Schneyer … 53.” [8]
  • Angers, Bibliothèque municipale, Rés. Ms. 247, ff. 94–109, twelfth century, beginning with the same thema and incipit. [9]
  • Rouen, Bibliothèque municipale, Ms. 233, f. 140v, where the catalogue calls it Ad populum and assigns it to G. Babion. [10]

Beaugendre’s 1708 text, reprinted almost mechanically by Migne, is usable for orientation but is not a critical edition. Its punctuation, biblical normalization and readings need checking against the manuscripts. Variants already visible in catalogues include Sunt / Sunt ergo, in mundo / in omni mundo, and corrupted forms of Revelation 18:4 in Engelberg. No modern critical edition in CSEL, CCSL, CCCM or Sources Chrétiennes was located as of September 20, 2026. No published English, French or German translation was located; that negative finding should be treated cautiously because dissertations and local publications may remain unindexed.

Author Biography

Geoffroy’s birth date is unknown. The “1103?” sometimes attached to his authority record cannot be reconciled with evidence that he was already a master at Angers around the beginning of the century; it should not be repeated as a secure birth date. He was scholasticus or écolâtre at Angers, associated with the intellectual milieu in which Marbod and Hildebert had worked. Foulon places the end of his tenure around 1107. His surviving writings reveal sustained engagement with Scripture, patristic exegesis, preaching and pastoral formation rather than speculative theology in the later scholastic sense. [11]

His subsequent career is reconstructed from sources employing several names: Geoffroy Babion, Geoffroy du Loroux/Louroux/Loriol and Geoffroy de Laureolo. He appears to have moved through monastic or semi-monastic life into an eremitical and canonical reform environment. During the schism of 1130 he supported the Innocentian cause in Aquitaine and opposed the former legate Girard. Oury dates this intervention to 1131–1132 and notes that Geoffroy’s elevation to the episcopate followed it. In 1136 he became archbishop of Bordeaux, an office he held until his death in 1158. [2]. [2]

As archbishop he belonged to the reforming network surrounding Bernard of Clairvaux, Suger and Peter the Venerable. He supported regular canonical and Cistercian institutions and attempted to reform his cathedral clergy. Foulon’s study of thirteen “synodal” sermons shows that Babion emphasized clerical example, service, active preaching and pastoral responsibility. These concerns illuminate the imagery of the present sermon: bishops and priests are not ornamental dignitaries but watchmen who will answer for a city under attack. [4]

Babion’s principal legacy is his sermon collection. Bonnes reconstructed a 76-sermon final form, while Schneyer’s broader repertory assigned him 100 sermons. The collection was copied repeatedly, enlarged and circulated under more prestigious names, especially Hildebert’s. A modern reference account describes Babion as one of the last major representatives of patristic-style preaching before the full success of scholastic sermon forms, though Longère rightly notes that patristic sources and school techniques were not mutually exclusive. [12]. [12]

Bibliography

  1. Paris. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Latin 3830 | Biblissima. portail.biblissima.fr
  2. Les sermons de Geoffroi Babion et la chrétienté bordelaise (1136-1158) - Persée. (p. 285) persee.fr [scholarly]
  3. Sermons : [manuscript]/ by Geoffroy Babion and others | Collections | The Huntington. (contents description) huntington.org
  4. Le clerc et son image dans la prédication synodale de Geoffroy Babion, archevêque de Bordeaux (1136-1158) - Persée. (p. 46, n. 5) persee.fr [scholarly]
  5. Augustinus Hipponensis - De Catechizandis Rudibus liber unus. (chapter 19/31) augustinus.it
  6. Paris. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Latin 3832 | Biblissima. portail.biblissima.fr
  7. Engelberg, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 44: Aidan Conti, University of Bergen, Norway, for e-codices, 2014. – e-codices – Virtuelle Handschriftenbibliothek der Schweiz. 2014. (contents description, ff. 77v–78v) e-codices.unifr.ch [scholarly]
  8. Marston MS 135. (Marston MS 135, ff. 57r–59v) pre1600ms.beinecke.library.yale.edu
  9. MS. Rés. Ms. 247. , XIIe siècle. ccfr.bnf.fr
  10. Fol. 140 v<sup>o</sup>. « Ad populum. Exite, popule meus, de Babylonia... Sunt, fratres karissimi, in mundo duo regna... » De G. Babion. ccfr.bnf.fr
  11. Geoffroy Babion (1103?-1158) | Biblissima. portail.biblissima.fr
  12. Beauchesne -. dictionnairedespiritualite.com
  13. portail.biblissima.fr. (ff. 125–127v; catalogue record) portail.biblissima.fr
  14. e-codices.unifr.ch. e-codices.unifr.ch [scholarly]
  15. azioneromana.com. (web page; list explicitly includes no. 113) azioneromana.com
  16. huntington.org. (Huntington catalogue record) huntington.org
  17. e-codices.unifr.ch. (manuscript overview) e-codices.unifr.ch
  18. e-codices.ch. (“Use of images”) e-codices.ch