Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus, bishop of Vienne and a vigorous defender of Christian orthodoxy, was born into the senatorial aristocracy in southern Gaul in the mid-fifth century and lived until 518. The verse in Biblical and Pastoral Poetry was written in the late fifth or early sixth century. Avitus's most famous work, the Spiritual History, narrates the biblical stories of creation, the Fall and expulsion from paradise, the Flood, and the...