Jonas, Bishop of Orleans

Jonas, Bishop Of Orleans, an eminent prelate in the Latin Church, flourished in the first half of the 9th century. He died in 842. Jonas took an active part in the ecclesiastical affairs of his time, and played no unimportant part in the Iconoclastic controversy, in which he assumed a mediate course. In his De cultu Imaginum (1645, 16mo) he wrote both against Claudius, bishop of Turin, and the Iconoclasts. The work was dedicated to king Charles the Bald, with whom he was in great favor. Although condemning the destroyers of images, he did not approve the worship of them, and the most eminent Catholic writers, such as Bellarmine, therefore disapprove of his work. His other principal works are, Libri tres de institutions laicali (transl. into French by De Mege, 1662, 12mo): — De institutione regia (transl. into French by Desmarets, 1661, 8vo). These two works are to be found in Latin in D'Achery's Spicileg. He is also the author of a treatise on Miracles (in Bibl. Patri.). See Milman, Latin Christ. 4, 421; Schröckh, Kirchengeschichte, 23, 294 sq., 416 sq.; Aschbach, Kirchen-Lex. 3, 573.