trinitarian theology marius victorinus

THE TRINITARIAN THEOLOGY OF MARIUS VICTORINUS: POLEMIC AND EXEGESIS

By

John T. Voelker, B.A., M.Div.

A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School,

Marquette University, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

August 2006

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Voelker, John T.

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ABSTRACT

The Trinitarian Theology of Marius Victorinus: Polemic and Exegesis

In this thesis I will show that Marius Victorinus was a Nicene Christian theologian engaged with the theology and events of the fourth century’s Trinitarian Controversy. I will challenge the traditional notion of Marius Victorinus as a brilliant but isolated scholarly figure in the Latin West of the late 350s and early 360s who, following his conversion, spent his last years writing incomprehensible trinitarian-Neoplatonist theological treatises, read by virtually no one. On the contrary, I will show that Marius Victorinus was very familiar with the original Arianism of Arius, and that he understood later-stage Anti-Nicene theology of the last decade of his life, from his conversion circa 355 to the approximate date of his death in 365. Victorinus wrote treatises and Pauline commentaries that engaged Anti-Nicene theology with a Latin Neo-Nicene polemic, using a tradition of Latin exegesis of Scripture that he had quickly integrated after his conversion. This exegetical-polemical style has close parallels with Victorinus’ Latin Neo- Nicene contemporaries. Victorinus fully engages Anti-Nicene opponents, coming up with some of the most original Nicene polemic of the controversy to speak about themes of divine substance, visibility and unity of the Father and the Son. I will examine these themes in Victorinus’ trinitarian treatises that are integral to undertanding the Arian-Nicene conflicts of the Trinitarian controversy, involving Victorinus’ interpretation of Scripture and Latin theology to speak of divine substance, divine visibility, and divine unity on behalf of the Neo-Nicenes. I will show how Victorinus best speaks of the case for divine substance, and how he is the earliest witness to a 381-era trinitarian formula; how Victorinus uses essential visibility texts of Scripture to argue for the Son’s consubstantiality; and Victorinus’ best efforts on behalf on Neo-Nicene orthodoxy, making statements about shared nature, substance and power of the Father and the Son to prove their unity. Finally, I will point out and discuss the One Substance/One Power statements in Victorinus’ treatises, along with his sophisticated arguments that the Spirit proceeds from the Son as well as from the Father as evidence of the unity of between the Father, Son and Spirit.


Table of Contents

Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1The Context o f Marius V ictorinus’ Exegetical T h eo logy ..........................................................................1

The Trinitarian Controversy Up U ntil the W riting o f V ictorinus’ Against Arius............................. 2

The Order and Them es o f V ictorinus’ W orks................................................................................................9

Marius V ictorinus the N icene Exegetical T h eo log ian ..............................................................................12

1 Caius Marius Victorinus......................................................................................... 14Introduction: Remembrance o f the M ost Learned and Distinguished C on vert...............................14

Scholarly Traditions and Treatments o f V ictorinus.................................................................................. 25

The Q uestion o f T heology V ersus P h ilosop h y ...........................................................................................41

2 The Ante-Nicene and Nicene Latin West............................................................... 45Latin Christianity: A Lesser Know n W orld.................................................................................................45

Early Latin Scriptural E xegesis........................................................................................................................ 47

Tertullian: The Latin L o c u s C o m m u n is .................................................................................................. 49

Tertullian’s Latin Classic A g a in s tP r a x e a s ..........................................................................................51

Tertullian and the Enduring Role of Exegesis in Latin Trinitarian theology..................... 63

3 Divine Substance in Victorinus..............................................................................68Introduction............................................................................................................................................................. 68

D ivine Substance L oci In V ictorinus............................................................................................................. 68

Primary Texts for Substance............................................................................................................................. 72

Owria In Matthew 6:11 And Titus 2 :14 .....................................................................................................72

*'Yjtoaraoi^ IN JEREMIAH 23:18,22 AND Titus 2:14.....................................................................................76

'Yjioaraoi^ in Hebrews 1:3........................................................................................................................... 87

Phtlippians 2 :5 -8 ............................................................................................................................................... 92

An A nom alous Trinitarian Formula................................................................................................................98

4 Divine Visibility in Victorinus.............................................................................. I l lSeeing G od The Son And God The Father................................................................................................ I l l

Prim aiy Texts for V isib ility ............................................................................................................................ 112

The divine Image: Genesis 1:26...................................................................................................................112

Knowing God: John 1:18...............................................................................................................................124

Rendering Visible the Invisible: Exodus 33:20................................................................................. 136

“The Image of the Invisible God”: Colossians 1:15........................................................................... 145

The Form of God: Pmlippians’ Christ Hy m n .........................................................................................154


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5 Divine Unity in Victorinus....................................................................................161Full Knowledge And Unity.............................................................................................. 161Uses of Matthew 11:27 by Early Latins.............................................................................165Ontological Unity............................................................................................................171Power within the Divine Being (Luke 1:35)...................................................................... 183Father And Son Are One Power.......................................................................................193“One Substance, One Power” Statements In Victorinus..................................................... 206

Conclusions.....................................................................................................................222

Select Bibliography .......... --------- .................. 229

Primary Sources............................................................................................................. 229Secondary Sources..........................................................................................................231

Appendix A: The Spirit’s Procession As Evidence Of Unity.. ...............____ .................. 235

Appendix B: Recalling the Nicene Council..— .............. 242


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Introduction

The Context of Marius Victorinus’ Exegetical Theology

“In short, there is no satisfactory evidence that Marius Victorinus had any genuine

knowledge of Arianism as it was in his day.”1 In this thesis I will challenge this notion of

Marius Victorinus as a brilliant but isolated scholarly figure in the Latin West of the late

350s and early 360s who spent his last years writing incomprehensible trinitarian-

Neoplatonist theological treatises, read by virtually no one (as Jerome famously said of

him). On the contrary, I will show that Marius Victorinus was very familiar with the

original Arianism of Arius, as he demonstrates in producing Latin versions of two early

Arian documents. I will also show that he understood later-stage Anti-Nicene theology of

the last decade of his life, from his conversion circa 355 to the approximate date of his

death in 365. Victorinus wrote treatises and Pauline commentaries that engaged Anti-

Nicene theology with a Latin Neo-Nicene polemic, using a tradition of Latin exegesis of

Scripture that he had quickly integrated after his conversion. This exegetical-polemical

style has close parallels with Victorinus’ Latin Neo-Nicene contemporaries, such as

Phoebadius of Agen and Gregory of Elvira. Besides engaging Anti-Nicene opponents

1. R. P. C. Hanson, The Search fo r the Christian Doctrine o f God: The Arian Controversy 318—381 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), 534. (Hereafter: Hanson, Search.) See chapter 1 below for more comments on R. P.C. Hanson devoting an entire chapter to Marius Victorinus in his comprehensive 1988 work. And yet if the above comment is truly what Hanson thinks o f Victorinus, why bother with a chapter on him and his trinitarian treatises. Hanson is unsure o f what to do with Victorinus, and after carefUlly considering his Nicene treatises and exegesis, he seems to conclude something that is a restatement o f Jerome’s idea that Victorinus was too difficult to understand and read by no one.


(many of whom he names in Against Arius), Victorinus also shows familiarity with other

Trinitarian Controversy matters, such as the Sirmian 351 council, the Sirmian 358 dossier

of conciliar documents, the unique trinitarian formula of one ousia in three hypostases,

and the Origenian Tractate homilies which summarized Origen’s thought in the Latin

speaking West. Though the post-conversion Victorinus had only about one decade to take

part in producing Nicene theology against Anti-Nicene forces in his time, he spent that

time fruitfully, writing the four books of Against Arius, four other trinitarian polemical

treatises, three trinitarian hymns, and six Pauline commentaries. His legacy was enduring

enough for Ambrosiaster and Augustine to make use of his writings a generation later,

and his works were consulted into the medieval period in Europe.

I will look at and discuss Victorinus’ mature Neo-Nicene theology with a close

examination of Against Arius, especially the way in which he uses key scriptural loci and

groups of them as testimonia. He uses these testimonia in ways similar to other Neo-

Nicenes, with a surprising familiarity of the issues at stake in the late 350s stage of the

controversy. I will show that Victorinus understands well what texts can be used and

explicated for the sake of deploying a polemic against Anti-Nicenes, and retrieving and

defending the Neo-Nicene cause of God the Son’s consubstantiality with God the Father.

The Trinitarian Controversy Up Until the Writing of Victorinus’ Against Arius

The traditional reading of the works of Marius Victorinus has been within a context of

fourth-century Neoplatonism, not the fourth-century Arian-Nicene conflicts (especially in

the 350s) that we now call the Trinitarian Controversy. During the fourth century, Early

Christianity experienced a period of doctrinal controversy and development which


traditionally has been called the Arian Controversy, generally understood to be within the

era of roughly 318 to 381 A.D. In the last several decades there has been scholarly

reassessment of what is now termed the Trinitarian Controversy, acknowledging that this

was not simply a controversy between the subordinationist Arius and his original Arian

followers versus Orthodox Nicenes. The Trinitarian Controversy included various doctrinal

stages and trajectories of subordinationist and Monarchian theologies that gradually

produced creedal documents and theologies that were identifiably Nicene, Anti-Nicene, or

even Non-Nicene. These scholarly reconsiderations have created a latest generation of

scholarship on the Trinitarian Controversy: single monographs (such as Maurice Wiles’

grounbreaking reevaluation, “In Defence of Arius”); larger, comprehensive commentaries

on all the aspects of the controversy (Manlio Simonetti’s early 1975 work La crisi ariana

nel IVsecolo, Rowan Williams’ 1987 work, Arius: Heresy and Tradition, and R. P. C.

Hanson’s lengthy tome from 1988, The Search for the Christian Doctrine o f God: The

Arian Controversy 318-381); and collections {Arianism: Historical and Theological

Reassessments, Arianism after Arius). The titles of these works speak for the reality of

new views and work being done on fourth-century controversy and doctrinal development.2

The subtitle of Hanson’s 900-page work gives a supposed periodization of the Trinitarian

Controversy for which he gives a rationale, though we could argue for proto-Nicene or

proto-Arian theologies beginning long before 318, or Nicene development even after the

381 Council of Constantinople.

2. A work such as Hanson’s especially is useful as both a very detailed and general work to read and consult as a sort o f atlas o f the course o f the fourth century, including the way he sums up the long work with a last chapter on “The Development o f Doctrine.” Cf. also his The Continuity o f Christian Doctrine (New York: Seabury Press, 1981).


The decade of the 350s was preceded by a beginning stage of the Trinitarian

Controversy concerning Arius himself and the “Eusebians,” in the decade after the 325

council, and Arius’ disagreements with his bishop, Alexander of Alexandria. The

theological issues before the council had to do with doctrines that described what kind

of existence God the Son has versus God the Father, the origin the Son takes from the

Father, and the eternity of the Son versus his creatureliness. After the adoption of

homoousios in the creed of the 325 council (this creed often referred to simply as N)

and the condemnation of Arius, a controversy was starting, rather than ending. It would

not even possess the name of its supposed founder until two decades later, with the

creation of “Arianism” by Athanasius as a polemical form. With Arius’ cause continued

after his death by the party of the Eusebians—that is, Eusebius of Nicomedia and

Eusebius of Caesarea—there was an Anti-Nicene party that could be the focus of those

who came to support N as a universal, normative creed in the 350s.

The adoption of N was not without its problems. It had strong modalist connotations

(for example, where it said that the Son was not just “of the ousia of the Father,” or

“one in ousia” with the Father, but also the same hypostasis as the Father). One of the

creed’s strongest promoters, Marcellus of Ancyra, would become the focus of

condemnation because of his modalist theology, overshadowing Arius and the

identification of Arius with subordinationism. Marcellus, or what came to be identified

as Marcellan theology, would come to represent the other side of the controversy, the


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modalism of Marcellus and other supporters of N.3 In the decade following Nicaea,

Marcellus, with his radical modalism, would become a greater problem than Arius.4

In the 330s, the “Arian” problem did not go away with the death of Arius in 336, right

before his pending reinstatement. Athanasius suffered his first exile in 335 at the Synod

of Tyre, deposed along with Marcellus (though Athanasius’ first deposition was not for

theological reasons). Whether Athanasius and Marcellus had met at Tyre in 335, they did

meet up at Rome in 339, and in the next two years formed a common cause against their

Eastern opponents. Partly because of his close engagement with Marcellus in Rome,

Athanasius was beginning to develop a polemical form after his first exile. Condemning

the heresy of Arius and his co-conspirators (the same cabal that had worked behind the

scenes at Tyre to depose him for his theology, Athanasius asserted) Athanasius writes his

Orations against the Arians. He identified this group as begotten from the heresy of the

Alexandrian presbyter Arius, and presented himself, Athanasius, as a figure of orthodoxy,

and the Nicene council as an “ecumenical” council and a standard of orthodoxy.

This new narrative about the conspiracy of his “Arian” opponents worked well for

Athanasius. Around 339—40 he appealed to Julius of Rome with it as a way of slipping

out of the charges he faced back in Alexandria for his conduct. Julius held a small council

in Rome, clearing Athanasius and Marcellus of charges that caused their depositions.

3. For the best in-depth treatment o f Marcellus and a theology identified with Marcellus, see Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J., Contra Marcellum: Marcellus o f Ancyra and Fourth-Century Theology (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University o f America Press, 1999).

4. The traditional way o f speaking about the Trinitarian Controversy, when it was formerly called “the Arian Controversy,” was to call anything Eastern and subordinationist by the term Arian, though the only truly Arian theology has to do with Arius himself; otherwise various forms o f subordinationist theology that exist at other times later in the fourth century can only be called ‘Arian,’ or more accurately, Anti-Nicene, in its various trajectories. Similarly, the term Nicene just by itself can unfortunately refer to the original modalist theology o f Nicaea 325, rather than the trajectories o f Neo- Nicene and Pro-Nicene doctrinal definition that retrieved the theology o f Nicaea as a standard for orthodoxy, producing the 381 Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed.


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More important for the next years of the controversy was Julius’ letter in 341 to Eastern

bishops. Having accepting Athanasius’ version of events, he charged the Eastern bishops

with falling into Arius’ and the Eusebians’ heresy, despite the condemnations of Nicaea.

The Eastern bishops would give their response to this Western attack upon them at their

council held in Antioch in the same year of 341, with synodal documents that included

what came to be known as the Dedication Creed. The synodal letter rejected the

accusation of Julius that they, bishops, were followers of Arius, a mere presbyter. The

341 creed spoke about the trinitarian identity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in a

particular order as “three hypostases that are one in agreement (symphonia),” with the

primary intention of being anti-modalist.

This period of the 340s was one of “attempts at reconciliation” (Hanson) and

“confusion and rapprochement” (Lewis Ayres). The failed attempt at reconciliation

between Western and Eastern bishops at the council at Serdica in 343 deepened the rift

between what Joseph Lienhard has categorized as a Western miahypostatic tradition

versus Eastern dyohypostatic theological trajectories. The Western bishops condemned

what they had come to categorize as Arianism (especially manifest in their statement’s

reference to “twin adders begotten from the Arian asp”) and the Eastern bishops Valens

and Ursacius. In the Westerners’ condemnatory statement about the Eastern bishops, they

reaffirmed that there is one hypostasis in the Godhead. A creed produced in the East in

345 (the Macrostich creed) and sent West as an attempt at reconciliation was rebuffed.

The 350s would be a decade of clearer distinction of Anti-Nicene parties because of

councils throughout that decade, especially between 357 and 360, right when Marius

Victorinus had familiarized himself with theology and the Western Neo-Nicene cause.


Another council was held at Sirxnium in 351. It was convened mostly for the purpose of

deposing Photinus and as one action in a series of councils in the 350s where Constantius

could impose his policies, which included key Eastern councils’ decisions from the

previous few years.5 The creed issued by the council was the same as the Dedication Creed

of 341 (the Fourth Antiochene creed), but also issued with twenty-six more anathemas,

besides the original one anathema from 341. Two of the anathemas condemn a Stoic to v o q

model of speaking about ousia of the Father and/or the Son as extending or retracting.

(Victorinus shows a working knowledge of the first Sirmian creed of 351 in Against Arius,

because this creed was one of the documents in Basil of Ancyra’s Ancyran dossier of 358.)

Victorinus’ conversion probably took place in 355, the same year in which Constantius

called a council in Milan. In these councils called in the West, Valens and Ursacius were

playing a major role in imposing a new Anti-Nicene theology upon a resistant gathering

of bishops. Lucifer of Cagliari, Eusebius of Vercelli and Dionysius of Milan were exiled,

having been condemned at the council in the condemnation of Athanasius. (Hilary of

Poitiers would be condemned and exiled the next year in a council held at Beziers.) The

major turning point would come the next year at the council convened in Sirmium in 357,

engineered by Valens and Urscacius, Eudoxius of Constantinople, and Eunomius of

Cyzicus. This infamous council would issue the radically subordinationist creed that

Hilary would memorably tag “the Blasphemy.” This creed, probably written by Valens

and Ursacius, forbade use of language of ousia or hypostasis and discussion about the

generation of the Son, and stated that it is certain that the Father is greater than the Son in

“honor, dignity, glory and majesty.”

5. Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitiarian Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 135. Councils held at Arles in 353, Milan in 355, and Beziers in 356.


Sirmium 357 would energize the Nicene cause and force the West to confront Anti-

Nicene trajectories. In direct response, Phoebadius of Agen would write his Liber

Contra Arrianos, and Hilary his De synodis, Liber adversus Valentem et Ursacius, De

Fide, and De Trinitate. Gregory of Elvira would write his De Fide Orthodoxa Contra

Arianos. Lucifer of Calaris and Eusebius of Vercelli would also pen polemical works.

Probably in the next year of 358 Victorinus began writing his Nicene polemic against

Homoians and Homoiousians. Also in 358 Basil of Ancyra held a small council in his

see as as response to the theology from the Sirmium 357 council that defined the Son as

radically subordinate to the Father. Sirmium 357 was a point of origin for incipient

Homoianism; the twin councils of Rimini and Seleucia in 359, where the Dated Creed

was adopted, defined the Homoians as a definite theological party. Basil’s

Homoiousian party would define their position more clearly, but important for

Victorinus, Basil’s small council would produce of dossier of creeds and other texts

that would circulate in the West. Victorinus’ conversion and period of theological

learning would happen just in time for the Anti-Nicene conciliar events of the late

350s which would bring about a Homoian supremacy for the next several years. Like

Phoebadius and Hilary, Victorinus entered the fray and began producing trinitarian

treatises in his Latin milieu, spending his last years and energies to serve the Neo-

Nicene cause.

The challenge for these Latin-speaking Westerners was considerable. As Mark

Weedman put it, framing this question in order to speak of Hilary’s engagement with

Anti-Nicenes in his De Trinitate and other works, the Westerners were trying to come to

terms with Anti-Nicene theology with the resources of their Latin theological tradition:


9

Like their Eastern counterparts, these Westerners focused a great deal of attention on the Sirmium 357 creed, recognizing in it the hidden theological agenda of that earlier series of councils [of the earlier 350s]. And they all found this agenda to be incompatible with the Trinitarian theology of their Latin heritage. Although the Trinitarian theology of Tertullian and Novatian did contain subordinationist elements, especially by fourth-century, Pro-Nicene standards, it was intended to affirm the “communion of substance” between the Father and the Son. Any doctrine that tried to deny this “substantial” relationship denied something fundamental to classical Latin Trinitarian theology. Unfortunately, however, their Latin heritage did not necessarily provide the fourth- centuiy Westerners with the tools to meet this new challenge, and we find all the Latin authors, even a sophisticated thinker like Marius Victorinus, struggling to find adequate language to explain why the Homoians are so wrong.6

Although Hilary was the best theological engagement with Anti-Nicenes the Latin West

would produce (making him “the Athanasius of the West” as Jean Doignon famously

said), Weedman acknowledges that even Hilary at first engaged Anti-Nicenes naively,

only slowly coming to understanding the particularities involved in the controversy.71

will show that Victorinus accomplished a great deal with his Nicene polemic, in spite of

his difficulty addressing Anti-Nicenes with his tradition of Latin theology and exegesis.

But despite his inability to completely leave a Latin “miahypostatic milieu” in his

speaking of divine substance, that same Latin tradition also enables him to expound on

the important Scripture texts needed to establish arguments for the shared nature,

substance and power of the Son with the Father.

The Order and Themes of Victorinus’ Works

Pierre Hadot has done the most exhaustive study of Victorinus’ works. In chapter 1 as I

describe the last century of Victorine scholarship, I will turn to his work, which includes

6. Mark Weedman, The Polemical Context and Background o f H ilary’s Trinitarian Theology, PhD diss., Marquette University, 2004.

7. Weedman, 22.


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the dating of Victorinus’ post-conversion works. No other scholar has ever offered a better

explanation of the probable dating (though some claim his dating needs to be redone).

1. “Candidus” I de generatione divina 358-3592. Ad Candidum3. Candidus II4. Against Arius I LA.: De Trinitate

IB: Quodtrinitas dfioovcriogsit 360

AA II, III, IV and De opoovmw recipiendo 361-3635. Against Arius II De opoovmcp contra haereticos6. Against Arius HI De dpoovmq)7. Against Arius TV De opoovmco9. The Necessity of Accepting the Homoousios (De opoovam recipiendo)

10. Hymnus I, II, III

11. (Ad Rom, Ad Cor. I, II) Ad Gal., Ad Eph., Ad Phil. after 362-363

Victorinus is known most either for his four-book treatise, Against Arius, or for his

Pauline commentaries. His first post-conversion work was written circa 358, Candidus I,

or the first letter of Candidus the Arian to Rhetor Marius Victorinus On the Divine

Generation. Hadot and all other Victorine scholars have always understood Candidus to

be a fictional, cut-out figure of a traditional Eusebian Arian, whom Victorinus created as

a foil in order to set up his polemic, especially since Victorinus did answer this epistle

with his Ad Candidum or Marius Victorinus Rhetor o f the City o f Rome to Candidus theo

Arian. Candidus’ reply, Candidus II, or Candidus the Arian to Illustrious Gentleman (vir

clarrissimus) Marius Victorinus, was not a reply, but the Latin translation of two early

8. I still wonder about the possibly overlooked meaning o f Victorinus’ “Candidus”: In Adversus Praxean Tertullian engages an opponent parodically named “Praxeas,” or “Player” (or “Busybody”). Maybe Victorinus is slyly implying right up front that his interlocutor is a shining intellect with which to contend, and thus the eponymous name— something perhaps obvious to his readers. Candidus may also be a reference to a real person o f Victorinus’ acquaintance; his nickname could be a reference to Candidus’ being another vir clarissimus o f the Patrician class.


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Arian documents: Arius’ Letter to Eusebius ofNicomedia and Eusebius’ Letter to

Paulinus o f Tyre (with a paragraph preface Candidus supposedly writes to Victorinus to

introduce these two letters, which will enlighten Victorinus). If Candidus was a creation

of Victorinus, he may have begun with these three short treatises as a way of introducing

his subject of addressing Anti-Nicenes, by showing his familiarity with Arius and the

original theological starting points of the controversy.

Against Arius is a work of some two hundred pages, written in four books. (It seems

likely that the first book of Against Arius was the intended original work, but was then

considered by Victorinus to be insufficient for the task of responding to Latin Homoians

and the Homoiousian party of the 350s.) Book I is divided into Book IA and Book IB in

Mary Clark’s translation, because of Hadot’s belief that it was after the forty-seventh

chapter of Book I that Victorinus had a copy of Basil’s 358 Sirmian dossier at hand and

addressed the Anti-Nicene theology he sees in the dossier. In the manuscript traditions,

Book “LA” sometimes has a subtitle of De Trinitate and “IB” a subtitle of Quod trinitas

oyoovoiog sit. Hadot puts a date of 360 for all of Book I of Against Arius. Book II was

begun in 361, with its subtitle as De opoovmqo contra haereticos. Books III and IV Hadot

places in 362-63, each of them having a subtitle of De opoovaicp, and Hadot also places

in 362-63 the short summary treatise The Necessity o f Accepting the Homoousios (De

dfioovmq) recipiendo). The subtitles of these works show that there is no mistaking that

Victorinus belonged to the Latin Neo-Nicenes, who were defined by retrieving and

defending the homoousios. The Necessity o f Accepting the Homoousios is a very brief,

six-page summary of the argument of the four books of Against Arius.


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Hadot believes Victorinus wrote his three rather long trinitarian hymns, Hymnus I, II

and III, after finishing Against Arius and his short summary treatise The Necessity o f

Accepting the Homoousios. The hymns are extravagant praises of the Trinity, but also

possess Nicene theological content. They almost function as summaries of Victorinus’

theology, in the way as The Necessity o f Accepting the Homoousios. The Pauline

commentaries come last in the dating of the works of Victorinus, belonging to the period

after emperor Julian’s 362 edict over Christians holding public teaching posts in the

empire, after which Victorinus resigned. Only three of the six commentaries survive: the

commentaries on Galatians, Ephesians, and Philippians (the Philippians commentary is

incomplete). The commentaries on Romans, and I and II Corinthians, referred to in the

succeeding commentaries, have never been found.

Marius Victorinus the Nicene Exegetical Theologian

The conversion and theological education of Marius Victorinus took place at an epochal

moment in the Trinitarian Controversy, when his classical learning and skill with words

could be used to great effect as one of the instruments of the Nicene cause. Nicene and

Anti-Nicene trajectories of the controversy were coalescing because of the councils of the

350s (especially because of the Sirmian 357 council) and the Homoian supremacy gained

at Rimini and Seleucia in 359 and at Constantinople in 360. Victorinus, teaching in Rome,

probably had extensive contacts because of his renown in his post as Rhetor of the city, his

rhetorical-Neoplatonist scholarship, and his fluency in Greek. He was uniquely situated to

become a theological voice in the Latin Neo-Nicene forces responding to Anti-Nicenes.


I propose to look at the exegetical-theological content of Victorinus’ Nicene-trinitarian

treatises. Pierre Hadot’s vast work on Victorinus was unequalled for two reasons: it

produced SC and CSEL critical editions of Victorinus’ post-conversion works and

established critical lists of all of the Neoplatonist-Iamblichan-Porphyrian quotations within

Victorinus. Further, Hadot’s work is what made Mary Clark’s 1981 translation possible.

That notwithstanding, there exists a lack of theological consideration in the work o f Hadot,

and gaps in Victorine scholarship in general. The trinitarian treatises of Victorinus need to

be taken seriously as Nicene theological works, and not dismissed as incomprehensible and

unread by all.

I will examine three themes in Victorinus’ trinitarian treatises that are integral to

undertanding the Arian-Nicene conflicts of the Trinitarian controversy. They involve

Victorinus’ interpretation of Scripture and Latin theology to speak of divine substance,

divine visibility, and divine unity on behalf of the Neo-Nicenes. These three themes are

arranged in the order thatVictorinus most convincingly and effectively uses them. I will

show how Victorinus best speaks of the case for divine substance, and how he is the

earliest witness to a 381-era trinitarian formula; how Victorinus uses essential visibility

texts of Scripture to argue for the Son’s consubstantiality; and Victorinus’ best efforts on

behalf on Neo-Nicene orthodoxy, making statements about shared nature, substance and

power of the Father and the Son to prove their unity. Finally, I will point out and discuss

the One Substance/One Power statements in Victorinus’ treatises, along with his

sophisticated arguments that the Spirit proceeds from the Son as well as from the Father

as evidence of the unity of between the Father, Son and Spirit.


14

1 Caius Marius Victorinus

Introduction: Remembrance of the Most Learned and Distinguished Convert

There are several discrete sources from the ancient record that tell us some specific, if

limited, facts for the life and career of Marius Victorinus. Highly learned and skilled,

Victorinus had been the instructor of many of Rome’s senators. He had carried out his

office as rhetor to such a level of excellence that he had been rewarded with a statue in

his honor in the Forum of Trajan in 354, some ten years before his death—a reward

normally bestowed only posthumously upon a distinguished person. But this rhetor-

philosopher scholar was also a worshiper of the idols of the Roman pantheon, a fervent

partaker in the pagan theurgic rites (including even the syncretism of foreign deities such

as the Egyptian Anubis9), and a brilliant apologist who, prior to his conversion, used his

gifts of eloquence on behalf of the pagan religion.

Those who remember this figure of the ancient world probably learned of him from

Book VIII of Augustine’s Confessions. Augustine uses Victorinus’ conversion to

Christianity as a tool to retell the story of his own conversion, but it is clear that the

conversion had an effect on the young Augustine:

9. Cf. below Augustine’s later remembrance o f Victorinus in D e doctrina Christiana. The irony o fVictorinus’ having been a proponent o f even Egyptian idols is that after his conversion he would excel in “spoiling the Egyptians’ gold,” as Augustine praises him for in De doctrina Christiana 2.40.60-1.


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8.2.3So I visited Simplicianus, father to the then bishop Ambrose in the receiving of grace. Ambrose truly loved him as one loves a father. I told him the story of my wanderings in error. But when I mentioned that I had read some books of the Platonists, which had been translated into Latin by Victorinus, at one time rhetor in the city of Rome who had, I had heard, died a Christian, he congratulated me that I had not fallen in with the writings of other philosophers full of fallacies and deceptions “according to the elements of this world” (Col. 2:8), whereas in all the Platonic books God and his Word keep slipping in. Then, to exhort me to the humility of Christ hidden from the wise and revealed to babes (Matt. 11:25) he recalled his memory of Victorinus himself whom he had known intimately when he was at Rome. He told me a story about him which I will not pass over in silence. For the story gives occasion for me to confess to you in great praise for your grace.Victorinus was extremely learned and most expert in all the liberal disciplines. He had read and assessed many philosophers’ ideas, and was tutor to numerous noble senators. To mark the distinguished quality of his teaching he was offered and accepted a statue in the Roman forum, an honour which the citizens of this world think supreme. Until he was of advanced years, he was a worshipper of idols and took part in sacrilegious rites. At that time almost all the Roman nobility was enthusiastic for the cult of Osiris and “Monstrous gods of every kind and Anubis the barking dog, Monsters who once bore arms against Neptune and Venus and against Minerva” (Virgil, Aeneid 8.698f.), gods that Rome once conquered but then implored for aid. The old Victorinus had defended these cults for many years with a voice terrifying to opponents. Yet he was not ashamed to become the servant of your Christ, and an infant bom at your font, to bow his head to the yoke of humility and to submit his forehead to the reproach of the cross.

8.2.4Lord God, “you have inclined the heavens and come down, you have touched the mountains and

8.2.3perrexi ergo ad Simplicianum, pattern in accipienda gratia tunc episcopi Ambrosii et quern vere ut pattern diligebat. narravi ei circuitus erroris mei. ubi autem commemoravi legisse me quosdam libros platonicorum, quos Victorinus, quondam rhetor urbis Romae, quern christianum defunctum esse audieram, in latinam linguam transtulisset, gratulatus est mihi quod non in aliorum philosophorum scripta incidissem plena fallaciarum et deceptionum secundum elementa huius mundi, in istis autem omnibus modis insinuari deum et eius verbum. deinde, ut me exhortaretur ad humilitatem Christi sapientibus absconditam et revelatamparvulis, Victorinum ipsum recordatus est, quern Romae cum esset familiarissime noverat, deque illo mihi narravit quod non silebo. habet enim magnam laudem gratiae tuae confitendam tibi, quemadmodum ille doctissimus senex et omnium liberalium doctrinarum peritissimus quiquephilosophorum tarn multa legerat et diiudicaverat, doctor tot nobiliumsenatorum, qui etiam ob insigne praeclari magisterii, quod cives huius mundi eximium putant, statuam Romano foro meruerat et acceperat, usque ad illam aetatem venerator idolorum sacrorumque sacrilegorum parti ceps, quibus tunc tota fere Romana nobilitas inflata spirabat, popiliosiam et omnigenum deum monstra et Anubem latratorem, quae aliquando contra Neptunum et Venerem contraque Minervam tela tenuerant et a se victis iam Roma supplicabat, quae iste senex Victorinus tot annos ore terricrepo defensitaverat, non embuerit esse puer Christi tui et infans fontis tui, subiecto collo ad humilitatis iugum et edomita ffonte ad cmcis opprobrium.

8.2.4o domine, domine, qui inclinasti caelos et descendisti, tetigisti montes et


16

they have smoked” (Ps. 143:5). By what ways did you make an opening into that heart? Simplicianus said Victorinus read holy scripture, and all the Christian books he investigated with special care. After examining them he said to Simplicianus, not openly but in the privacy of friendship, “Did you know that I am already a Christian?” Simplicianus replied: “I shall not believe that or count you among the Christians unless I see you in the Church of Christ.” Victorinus laughed and said: “Then do walls make Christians?” He used frequently to say “I am a Christian already”, and Simplicianus would give the same answer, to which he equally often repeated his joke about walls. He was afraid to offend his friends, proud devil-worshippers. He thought that from the height of Babylonish dignity, as if from the cedars of Lebanon which the Lord had not yet broken (Ps. 28:5), the full weight of their hostility would land on him. But after his reading, he began to feel a longing and drank in courage. He was afraid he would be “denied” by Christ “before the holy angels” (Luke 12:9). He would have felt guilty of a grave crime if he were ashamed of the mysteries of the humility of your Word and were not ashamed of the sacrilegious rites of proud demons, whose pride he imitated when he accepted their ceremonies. He became ashamed of the emptiness of those rites and felt respect for the truth. Suddenly and unexpectedly he said to Simplicianus (as he told me): “Let us go to the Church; I want to become a Christian.” Simplicianus was unable to contain himself for joy and went with him. Not long after he had received his instructions in the first mysteries, he gave in his name for baptism that he might be reborn, to the amazement of Rome and the joy of the Church. The proud “saw and were angry. They gnashed with their teeth and were sick at heart” (Ps. 111:10). But the Lord God was the hope of his servant; “he paid no regard to vanities and lying follies” (Ps. 39:5).

8.2.5Finally the hour came for him to make the profession of faith which is expressed in set form. At Rome these words are memorized and then by custom recited from an elevated place before the baptized believers by those who want to come to your grace. Simplicianus used to say

fumigaverunt, quibus modis te insinuasti illi pectori? legebat, sicut ait Simplicianus, sanctam scripturam omnesque Christianas litteras investigabat studiosissime et perscrutabatur, et dicebat Simpliciano, non palam sed secretius et familiarius, “noveris me iam esse christianum.” et respondebat ille, “non credam nec deputabo te inter christianos, nisi in ecclesia Christi videro.” ille autem inridebat dicens, “ergo parietes faciunt christianos?” et hoc saepe dicebat, iam se esse christianum, et Simplicianus illud saepe respondebat, et saepe ab illo parietum inrisio repetebatur. amicos enim suos reverebatur offendere, superbos daemonicolas, quorum ex culmine Babylonicae dignitatis quasi ex cedris Libani, quas nondum contriverat dominus, graviter ruituras in se inimicitias arbitrabatur. sed posteaquam legendo et inhiando hausit firmitatem timuitque negari a Christo coram angelis sanctis, si eum timeret coram hominibus confiteri, reusque sibi magni criminis apparuit erubescendo de sacramentis humilitatis verbi tui et non erubescendo de sacris sacrilegis superborum daemoniorum, quae imitator superbus acceperat, depuduit vanitati et erubuit veritati subitoque et inopinatus ait Simpliciano, ut ipse narrabat, “eamus in ecclesiam: christianus volo fieri.” at ille non se capiens laetitia perrexit cum eo. ubi autem imbutus est primis instructionis sacramentis, non multo post etiam nomen dedit ut per baptismum regeneraretur, mirante Roma, gaudente ecclesia. superbi videbant et irascebantur, dentibus suis stridebant et tabescebant. servo autem tuo dominus deus erat spes eius, et non respiciebat in vanitates et insanias mendaces.

8.2.5denique ut ventum est ad horam profitendae fidei, quae verbis certis conceptis retentisque memoriter de loco eminentiore in conspectu populi fidelis Romae reddi solet ab eis qui accessuri sunt ad gratiam tuam, oblatum esse dicebat


17

that the presbyters offered him the opportunity of affirming the creed in private, as was their custom to offer to people who felt embarrassed and afraid. But he preferred to make profession of his salvation before the holy congregation. For there was no salvation in die rhetoric which he taught; yet his profession of that had been public. How much less should he be afraid in proclaiming your word, when he used to feel no fear in using his own words before crowds of frenzied pagans. When he mounted the steps to affirm the confession of faith, there was a murmur of delighted talk as all the people who knew him spoke his name to one another. And who there did not know him? A suppressed sound came from the lips of all as they rejoiced, “Victorinus, Victorinus!” As soon as they saw him, they suddenly murmured in exaltation and equally suddenly were silent in concentration to hear him. All of them wanted to clasp him to their hearts, and the hands with which they embraced him were their love and their joy.

8.4.9Come Lord, stir us up and call us back, kindle and seize us, be our fire and our sweetness. Let us love, let us run. Surely many return to you from a deeper hell of blindness than Victorinus. They approach and are illuminated as they receive light. Those who receive it obtain from you “power to become your sons” (Jn. 1:9,12)....The enemy suffers a severer defeat when he is overcome in a man upon whom he has a greater hold and by whose influence he dominates many. Pride in aristocratic nobility enables him to hold sway especially over the upper class, and by their title and authority he dominates many more. Special pleasure, therefore, was felt at the conversion of Victorinus’ heart in which the devil had an impregnable fortress, and of Victorinus’ tongue which he had used as a mighty and sharp dart to destroy many. Your children had good reason to rejoice the more jubilantly because our king had bound the strong man (Matt. 12:29), and they saw his vessels being snatched away to be cleaned and made fit for your honour to be “useful to die Lord for eveiy good work” (2 Tim. 2:21).

Victorino a presbyteris ut secretius redderet, sicut nonnullis qui verecundia trepidaturi videbantur offeni mos erat; ilium autem maluisse salutem suam in conspectu sanctae multitudinis profited, non enim erat salus quam docebat in rhetorica, et tamen earn publice professus erat. quanto minus ergo vereri debuit mansuetum gregem tuum pronuntians verbum tuum, qui non verebatur in verbis suis turbas insanorum? itaque ubi ascendit ut redderet, omnes sibimet invicem, quisque ut eum noverat, instrepuerunt nomen eius strepitu gratulationis (quis autem ibi non eum noverat?) et sonuit presso sonitu per ora cunctorum conlaetantium, “Victorinus, Victorinus.” cito sonuerunt exultatione, quia videbant eum, et cito siluerunt intentione, ut audirent eum. pronuntiavit ille fidem veracem praeclara fiducia, et volebant eum omnes rapere intro in cor suum. et rapiebant amando et gaudendo: hae rapientium manus erant

8.4.9age, domine, fac, excita et revoca nos, accende et rape, fiagra, dulcesce: amemus, curramus. nonne multi ex profundiore tartaro caecitatis quam Victorinus redeunt ad te et accedunt et inluminantur recipientes lumen? quod si qui recipiunt, accipiunt a te potestatem ut filii tui fiant... plus enim hostis vincitur in eo quern plus tenet et de quo plures tenet. plus autem superbos tenet nomine nobilitatis et de his plures nomine auctoritatis. quanto igitur gratius cogitabatur Victorini pectus, quod tamquam inexpugnabile receptaculum diabolus obtinuerat, Victorini lingua, quo telo grandi et acuto multos peremerat, abundantius exultare oportuit filios tuos, quia rex noster alligavit fortem, et videbant vasa eius erepta mundari et aptari in honorem tuum et fieri utilia domino ad omne opus bonum.


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8.5.10As soon as your servant Simplicianus told me this story about Victorinus, I was ardent to follow his example. He had indeed told it to me with this object in view. Later on, he added, in the time of the emperor Julian when a law was promulgated forbidding Christians to teach literature and rhetoric, Victorinus welcomed the law and preferred to abandon the school of loquacious chattering rather than your word...

8.5.10sed ubi mihi homo tuus Simplicianus de

Victorino ista narravit, exarsi ad imitandum: ad hoc enim et ille narraverat. posteaquam vero et illud addidit, quod imperatoris Iuliani temporibus lege data prohibiti sunt christiani docere litteraturam et oratoriam. quam legem ille amplexus, loquacem scholam deserere maluit quam verbum tuum.”

From this—Augustine’s retelling of Simplicianus’ account of Victorinus’

conversion—we learn of “the decisive intellectual event that reoriented his ways of

thinking as nothing before or after would do”11; namely, that Victorinus had been the

translator of “certain books of the Platonists.” As Augustine reminds us, Simplicianus

said Victorinus was not only learned in philosophy, but that his thorough reading even

included the Holy Scripture “and all the Christian writings.”12 Though this sheds no light

on when Victorinus became a Christian, it does hint at how.

10. Augustine, Confessions/Saint Augustine, trans. Henry Chadwick (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 134-40. Confessions 8.2.3—8.2.5, 8.4.9, 8.5.10; James J. O’Donnell, The Confessions o f Augustine: An Electronic Edition, based on O’Donnell’s Augustine: Confessions, a Text and Commentary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992); henceforth O’Donnell, Commentary.

11. O’Donnell, Augustine: Confessions, vol. 2 ,413. In the commentary on C onf 8.2.3, O’Donnell succinctly says, “The example o f Marius Victorinus was undoubtedly set before Augustine by Simplicianus with some witting sense o f its possibilities as a model: a rhetorician with philosophical interests (Augustine, like Victorinus, had even written philosophy—the de pulchro et apto) and prospects o f a worldly career, brought by the Platonic philosophy to the door o f the church, but hestitating to enter until goaded to the requisite humility. But the presentation here is deliberately constructed to underline those parallels farther and to prepare us for the conversion to come. The episode is so useful for those purposes that we must be careful not to assume that we have anything like a fall account o f any conversation Augustine actually had with Simplicianus.”

12. Cf. Pierre Hadot, Marius Victorinus: Recherches sur sa vie et ses ceuvres (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1971), 24—25; henceforth Hadot, Marius Victorinus. The approximate date o f Victorinus’ birth is more difficult to ascertain than the probable year o f his death. Hadot considers the reference to the time o f life o f Victorinus’ conversion, referred to by Jerome in his De viris illustribus with the simple phrase o f “in extrema senectute,” meaning somewhere at least seventy years o f age, maybe as old as ninety. Comparing what this phrase meant in authors such as Cicero, Tacitus, Jerome, and Cornelius Nepos, Hadot believes it to mean between seventy and eighty, so he concludes that


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In Confessions 8.2.4 the timeline is unclear, from when Victorinus first attended

worship publicly, to becoming a catechumen, to the later date (or hour?) at which

Victorinus confessed the Creed and underwent baptism. The notion of Victorinus simply

reading Early Christian writings and undergoing conversion, without other extensive

contacts or conversations with figures like Simplicianus, seems untenable.13

Nevertheless, there came the day when Victorinus related privately to his friend

Simplicianus that he was now a Christian. When challenged on this private profession of

faith, Victorinus apparently confessed to being afraid of offending his many friends who

were still pagan. However, plagued by guilt over feeling that he was denying Christ, he

suddenly told Simplicianus one day that he wished to make public profession of his new

faith.14 His public profession of faith thereafter, and the wild acclamation of the gathered

crowd, would leave the still mostly pagan aristocracy dumbfounded.15

Victorinus was bom between 281-291. F. F. Brace, in his article in honor o f Alexander Souter, puts the date o f Victorinus’ birth at rather a late date o f ca. 300. F. F. Bruce, “Marius Victorinus and His Works: In Memory o f Alexander Souter (1872-1948),” A Mind fo r What Matters (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 214.

13. Victorinus “simply reading” his way to conversion, as the bare reference in Conf. VIII suggests, sounds like an obvious precursor to Augustine’s sudden reading o f Romans 13 in the Milan garden.The case for Simplicianus being a presbyter and the baptizer o f Victorinus is compelling but not conclusive. When Simplicianus refers to the time when he “sees Victorinus in church,” it does sound like an authoritative guidance from a cleric, but there is no documentary evidence proving Simplicianus was a cleric in orders. Cf. D. H. Williams, Ambrose ofMilan and the End o f the Arian- Nicene Conflicts (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 117-19, in which he argues not only that Simplicianus was a presbyter, but also that he also was the baptizer o f Ambrose much later in 374. Despite making an elaborate description o f Simplicianus presiding over the Baptism, Williams admits that “The evidence for this choice is meagre but provocative.” (117). Even John Rist, writing in his masterpiece Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1994), remarks in passing about “the priest Simplicianus who had baptized Ambrose himself and was to succeed him as bishop” (3). In Commentary on Conf 8.2.4 (“By what ways did you make an opening into that heart?”), O’Donnell reasons “How did God insinuate himself into the heart o f Victorinus? By apostolic preaching and by the moral purification that results in confession o f sin. This confirms the scheme o f presentation here: Victorinus is being adduced not simply as a parallel for Platonic intellectual difficulties on the threshold o f the church, but as parallel as well for the moral choice that Augustine thought must accompany entry.”

14. O’Donnell, Commentary, 8.2.4: “It was a late antique invention that cult could be brought under the influence o f texts and the ideas they contain, that one could not have the cult without the doctrine or


20

The last mention of Victorinus in Augustine’s Confessions is in 8.5.10, which

describes how, in response to Julian the Apostate’s edict, Victorinus resigned his

rhetor post ca. 362. What happened to Victorinus following the year 362 is up for

conjecture, though it is generally believed that he died not too long after, a

reasonable terminus ad quem being 365. After the mid-360s, Victorinus is heard

of only in passing in a few ancient sources.

Before looking at two other salient references to Victorinus by Augustine in

other works, it is important to look at Jerome, removed from Victorinus by one

generation. In centuries following Jerome’s passing, his comments on Victorinus

took on a life of their own.

In the Chronicle of Jerome, which we have by way of Eusebius, we learn of

Victorinus’ renown through Jerome’s description of the statue of Victorinus in the Forum

of Trajan.16 (As previously noted, that Victorinus received this honor during his lifetime

is remarkable, though it gives no testimony to Victorinus’ conversion or Christian

writings after his conversion.) Jerome’s work De viris illustribus, written in Bethlehem

around 392/93, gives the most influential opinion (apart from the panegyric of Augustine

in his Confessions) on Victorinus. On Illustrious Men is a series of short biographical

sketches on Christian figures up until the time of Jerome, along with sketches Jerome

the doctrine without the cult V[ictorinus] did not quite see this. He wanted to have the Christian doctrine without taking the cult that went with it.”

15. As Augustine relates in 8.2.4, the public reaction was joy (from the Church); amazement and anger from the rest o f Rome. O’Donnell says the same in Commentary on 8.2.4, where Augustine has said that Victorinus feared offending his proud, daemon-worshipping friends: “At the period o f which S[implicanus] relates (not long before or after 354), entry to the Christian community at Rome would have been for a distinguished rhetor a social move drastic enough to give pause.”

16. “Victorinus rhetor et Donatus grammaticus, praeceptor meus, Romae insignes habentur. E quibus Victorinus etiam statuam in foro Traiani meruit...” The ancient and early mediaeval testimonia on Victorinus are listed by Hadot in the first chapter o f his Marius Victorinus: Recherches sur sa vie et ses oeuvres, 13—22.


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gives of himself and other contemporaries. Jerome’s aim is apologetic: he wishes to

“demonstrate that the achievements of Christian scholarship and literature are in no way

inferior to those of the pagans.”17 In chapter 101 of the work, he gets to Victorinus:

Victorinus, of African nationality, taught rhetoric in Rome under the Emperor Constantius. And at an advanced age embraced the Christian faith; he wrote extremely obscure books against Arius in the manner of the dialecticians which are not understood except by the educated, (and he wrote) commentaries on the epistles of St. Paul.18

This passing comment of Jerome is without doubt the most lasting, if churlish, evaluation

ever given of Victorinus, tending to eclipse even that of Augustine in his Confessions.

This barb of Jerome’s is often found where there is comment on Victorinus in secondary

scholarship. Most scholars who reproduce it have not actually read Victorinus—even as

Jerome may well have not. The ostensible difficulty of reading Victorinus’ Latin

notwithstanding, Jerome’s comment should be considered suspect: it is widely

understood about Jerome’s historiography that he tended to think meanly of others, and

quite generously of himself.19 No other comment about Victorinus has so effectively

discouraged people in later times from reading the Nicene writings of the retired rhetor-

tumed-theologian. It is time, in a new generation of Victorine studies, that Jerome’s

invidious assessment of Victorinus be put to rest.

Besides the abundant praise of Victorinus’ example in his Confessions, Augustine

leaves us one other intriguing reference to Victorinus. The statement comes directly after

17. T. D. Barnes, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 4.18. De viris illustribus, c. 101 “Victorinus, natione Afer, Romae sub Constantio principe rhetoricam docuit

et in extrema senectute Christi se tradens fidei scripsit adversus Arium libros more dialectico valde obscuros, qui nisi ab eruditis non intelleguntur et commentaries in Apostolum.” The second-to-last clause here is often translated too freely with a tendentious intent, as “which are not even understood by the educated...”

19. To borrow a phrasing from Jane Austen.


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chapter 40 of De doctrina, a well-known locus in Augustine’s writings, because it

describes his idea of what constitutes the “Spoils of Egypt.”

For what else have many of our good faithful done? May we not see with how much gold and silver and clothing bundled up the most sweet teacher and most blessed martyr Cyprian fled from Egypt? Or how much Lactantius took with him? Or how much Victorinus, Optatus, Hilary carried with them, not to speak of those still living?20

The content of the statement brings us back to Confessions VIII, in which the lasting

influence of Victorinus’ conversion upon Augustine, even some thirty years after the

event, was evident; Augustine compares it to his own and remembers its force for him as

a moral exemplar. The most compelling interest here, though, is that Augustine numbers

Victorinus among a list of paragons of Latin theology who seized the Egyptians’ gold,

posing an “antecedent probability” of literary influence.21 And, as he already had done in

his Confessions, Augustine sees in Victorinus “a model for the abandonment of secular

ambition and the dedication of pagan learning to the service of the heavenly Word of

God.”22

20. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, trans. D. W. Robertson, Jr. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1958), 75—76. De doctrina Christiana II.XL.61. “Nam quid aliud fecerunt multi boni fideles nostri? Nonne aspicimus quanto auro et argento et veste suffarcinatus exierit de Aegypto Cyprianus et doctor suavissimus et martyr beatissimus? Quanto Lactantius? Quanto Victorinus, Optatus, Hilarius, ut de vivis taceam?”

21. In Souter’s chapter on Augustine’s Pauline commentaries: “So far as I have observed, there does not appear in the commentary on Galatians any clear evidence that Augustine had made use o f Ambrosiaster’s commentary on the same Epistle. It would perhaps be hazardous to argue from the frequent use o f liberator in the sense o f ‘saviour’ that Augustine had used Victorinus Afer for the commentary on Galatians, yet nothing is more antecedently probable than that Augustine, who knew and esteemed the works o f his fellow-countryman, consulted his commentaries on the Pauline Epistles in the course o f his own work.” Alexander Souter, The Earliest Latin Commentaries on the Epistles o f St. Paul (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927), 199.

22. Eric Plumer, “The Influence o f Marius Victorinus on Augustine’s Commentary on Galatians,” Studia Patristica 33 (1997), 223. Plumer argues that the crucial detail o f this list in D e doctrina is the linking o f Victorinus with Cyprian. If Augustine was well read o f Jerome’s commentary on Galatians, he would have encountered Jerome’s damning remarks o f Victorinus’ ability as an exegete, and would not have wanted to offend Jerome by citing Victorinus as an authority in his own commentary on Galatians. Aligning himself with Cyprian was important for Augustine in his struggle with Donatists, but citing Cyprian along with Victorinus, Plumer believes, means that Augustine made use o f Victorinus’ Pauline commentaries early in his work as an exegete; he just did not want to admit o f Victorinus as a strong influence o f his own exegetical work.


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There is little evidence of Victorinus surviving very long beyond his resignation in 362,

except for the assumption that it was in his last few years of life that he wrote commentaries

on the Pauline epistles of Roman, I & II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians and Philippians.23

Apart from Augustine’s idyllic remembrance of Victorinus thirty years later, there are

two vestigial remarks about Victorinus which seem to point to his enduring fame and

legend. The first comes from Orosius’ Memorandum to Augustine on the Error o f the

Priscillianists and Origenists. In this epistle, written ca. 415, Orosius reports to

Augustine about two of his cohorts and their engagement with the works of Origen, in the

midst of which one of them had encountered Victorinus:

Then two fellow citizens of mine, Avitus and another Avitus, looked for ideas from abroad, although the truth alone had by itself already exposed such shameful confusion. One set off for Jerusalem, the other for Rome. On their return the one brought back Origen, the other Victorinus. Of these two one yielded to the other. Both, nonetheless, condemned Priscillian. We hardly know anything of Victorinus, because the follower of Victorinus turned to Origen almost before he had written anything.24

The Victorinus mentioned here could possibly be the Victorinus of Pettau, martyred ca.

304; the scholarly consensus, however, is in favor of this being a reference to Marius

Victorinus. This is plausible, given the record of Victorinus’ enduring influence and

legacy in Rome, evident even in the gravestone inscription of his granddaughter.25 This

stone’s poignant inscription was discovered on June 20,1626, in the course of an

excavation for the enlargement of one of the pontifical gardens in a section named the

23. The commentaries on Romans and I and II Corinthians are lost, but Victorinus makes reference to them in his later commentaries. Discovery especially o f the Romans commentary would yield a fantastic bounty to Victorine research.

24. Augustine, The Works o f Saint Augustine: Arianism and Other Heresies, 1/18, trans. Roland J. Teske,S.J. (New York: New City Press, 1995), 98-99. Teske, 101-02, n.22. Hadot, Marius Victorinus, 19- 20, gives this reference o f Orosius much praise for forceful, precise witness o f Victorinus’ “school” o f disciples, and the generation following Victorinus in Rome, ca. 380-415, which fondly recalled Victorinus’ brilliance.

25. Hadot, Marius Victorinus, 16-17.


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Quirinal.26 The inscription conies from a book detailing the projects of the Vatican

gardens, Le Sacre Grotte Vaticane (1639).

A cc ia v e l M arla, e st n o m e n m ihi Tulllana

V icto rinus a v u s q u o t a n t u m rhetore Ro m a

En it u it q u a n t u m n o st e r s u b origine sa n g u is

B is n o n a m c a r pt u r a r o sa m m ihi decbdit a e t a s

He u d o lo r , et v e r n u m m a c u l a v it f u n u s aprilem

N u l l u s in o ffen so v ita e m ihi tram ite l a b su s

Me n s m o r u m m a t u r a b o n o n il d e b u it a n n is

CONIUGII SCIT CARA FIDES HERESQUE MARITUS

R ite q u o d a eter n o m ig r arim d e d it a Christo

Em eritam q u e fer a t m elio r mihi v it a co ro nam

Ha ec o m n ia f a c t a pie c u r a n te m arito

ARTORIOIULIANOMEGETHIOV.C. D IIII I D APR.

H aec pa ter in so n ti filiae su pr em a peregit

D TULLIANAE lUN. KAL. SEPT.27

26. Hadot, Marins Victorinus, 16 n. 8; something foimd which amazingly turned up after so many centuries, similar to the 1945 event in Ostia. Cf. Russell Meiggs’ work, Roman Ostia: “A manuscript copy survived o f a verse epitaph that was said to have been added to Monica’s tomb by the consular Anicius Bassus. In the summer o f 1945 two boys, playing in a small courtyard beside the church o f S. Aurea in Ostia, began to dig a hole to plant a post for their game. They disturbed a fragment o f marble; it contained part o f the original inscription. Perhaps Anicius Bassus may be identified with the only senatorial Christian securely attested in Ostia on a late dedication: ‘Anicius Auchenius Bassus v(ir) c(larissimus) et Turrenia Honorata c(larissima) f(emina) eius cum filiis Deo sanctisque devoti.”’ Russell Meiggs, Roman Ostia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), 400.

27. “My name is Accia Maria Tulliana. Victorinus was my grandfather. Rome has shown brightly, and our family also, as he strove as Rhetor of the city. Only eighteen, my life cut short as a plucked rose. Alas! My burial stained the vernal time o f April. But there is no fell into oblivion for my life. It is to virtue, not any age, that my soul owes its maturity. My husband now receives the deposit o f our marital love and feith; he knew well that it is according to the rite o f the Church, entirely fulfilled in piety to Christ, that I have now found my new residence unto eternity. I receive the crown o f which I am worthy. A ll this accomplished by the devout cares o f my husband, Artorius Julianus Megethius, Esquire. Here observed on the fourth day of the Ides o f April. My father has also rendered his supreme duties to his daughter in her young age: The obsequy o f young Tulliana has taken place this day o f the September calends.”


Scholarly Traditions and Treatments of Victorinus

Despite the common assumption that little modem work has been done on Marius

Victorinus, there is a surprising number of treatments of him and his writings (though I

qualify this by saying that these scholarly treatments have been conditioned by the

particular interests developed over Victorinus by generations of scholars). After leaving

the fourth-century stage of the Trinitarian Controversy in the early 360s, Victorinus drops

into relative obscurity because of Jerome’s dismissal of his works. Thereafter, into

medieval times, and even into post-Renaissance Enlightenment Europe, Victorinus’

influence remains in his Neoplatonist, preconversion works. His immortalization in

Book VIII of Augustine’s Confessions is not forgotten, but Jerome’s acerbic comment

remains the commonplace attitude on Victorinus, ensuring that he is remembered

primarily for his Neoplatonist-Porphyrian philosophy, rather than Nicene-trinitarian

theology specifically located within a 350s/360s Western Latin context. In spite of this

dismissive treatment by Jerome, there remained for centuries following Victorinus’ life

a continued interest in his works for scholars and an operating manuscript tradition of

his writings. In the modem period of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there is

a measured resurgence of interest in Victorinus, though that interest is still often

colored by tendentious attitudes of certain scholars.

There is a useful comparison in the plot of the novel Das Scholarium. Set in the

medieval university at Cologne in the year 1413, Das Scholarium serves as a critique of

the thought of the medieval world, and possibly that of some modems. A professor of the

liberal arts faculty, Friedrich Casall, is found murdered. On his body lies a book with a

parchment message from his killer: “You separate everything that belongs together, yet


26

you do not recognize what does not belong together. Solve this riddle and you will have*ya

come a little closer to him who has brought Casall a little closer to Hell.” The same

criticism could be leveled at many modem scholars for how so many have sought to

dissect the prodigy of Victorinus, keeping only parts of his work for particular reasons.

There are basically three areas of interest in Victorinus for modem scholars, best

categorized as philosophical, exegetical, and trinitarian. These categories sometimes

overlap; there does not always exist a neat separation when looking at the work o f certain

scholars. The most conspicuous area of interest is Victorinus the Neoplatonist

philosopher: erudite rhetor-philosopher with perfect knowledge of Plotinus and Porphyry;

teacher to senators, so highly esteemed as to be honored with a statue in Trajan’s Forum;

probable translator of Augustine’s providential libri platonicorurrr, and scholar highly

valued by Medieval and Renaissance scholars as they continued study of Plato’s

philosophical progeny, even as he used sophisticated Neoplatonism as a conceptual

matrix for articulating his new-found trinitarian Christian faith. The area of exegetical

interest is clear and certain, given the much-known factum of Victorinus being the first

Western Christian to write commentaries on St. Paul’s epistles in the Latin language.

Whether the commentaries are read and mined for their theological worth is another

question, but there is a definite tradition of interest in Victorinus as a Pauline

commentator. Some of this interest takes his theological commentary on Paul seriously,

instead of just categorizing it as an interesting footnote.

Victorinus as a serious, Nicene-trinitarian Christian author is a far different matter, one

that has been received little attention in the past fifty years or so. Reconsiderations of

28. Claudia Gross, Das Scholarium (Munich: Deutscher Taschebuch Verlag, 2002), 30.


27

Victorinus as the source of anything worth reading have occurred within the context of

scholarly reconsiderations of what was formerly called the Arian Controversy. Was

Jerome on point when he made his memorable comment that Victorinus’ trinitarian

treatises written in the few years left before his death, were hardly read by anyone, and

hardly readable? Locating Victorinus within the context of the Latin end of the fourth-

century Trinitarian Controversy, aware of events developing in the struggle between

coalescing Nicene orthodoxy and various trajectories of Anti-Nicene theology, and

producing real polemical theology as a tool of response, is something not entirely agreed

upon in current work done on the controversy.

Twentieth-century scholarship on Marius Victorinus began primarily because of

interest generated among German scholars in the late nineteenth century. An examination

of the titles of the published works show that their interest in Victorinus was a product of

Pauline-exegeticai work, as well as philosophical research in Platonism. Werner Karig’s

1924 work published in Marburg, Des Caius Marius Victorinus Kommentare zu den

paulinischen Briefen, was a pioneer effort at providing a comprehensive study on

Victorinus’ Pauline commentaries; Gustavus Koffinane’s 1880 work, De Mario Victorino

philosopho christiano, reflected continuing interest in Victorinus the Platonist.29 Karig’s

work was the first monograph ever devoted to Victorinus’ Pauline commentaries,

concentrating at length on Victorinus’ treatment of two major Pauline themes:

justification and Christology. Paul’s treatment of Christ’s death on the Cross and his

29. As well an 1895 work by Reinhold Schmid, Marius Victorinus Rhetor und seine Beziehungen zu Augustin (Kiel: Druck von E. Uebermuth: 1895). Karig’s work is significant because it was the only major study o f Victorinus’ commentaries prior to Hadot’s work. Part of the motivation to look seriously at the commentaries in the late twentieth century certainly is because o f the Leipzig German edition, Marius Victorinus: Commentarii inApostolum, ed. Albrecht Locher, (Leipzig: Teubner Verlag, 1972).


28

classic “Christus Victor” Atonement are, Karig holds, an essential moment of influence

on Victorinus’ high Christology.

Exegetical work on Victorinus’ Pauline commentaries was given special impetus with

Alexander Souter’s seminal 1927 work, The Earliest Latin Commentaries on the Epistles

o f St. Paul, with a lengthy chapter treating Victorinus. Despite its age, Souter’s work is a

wealth of details he found in Victorinus’ use of Latin language, which is why a new

edition was issued in 1999, directly lithotyped from the 1927 edition.30 Scholars wishing

to do work on Victorinus’ commentaries need to include Souter’s finding in their initial

look at Victorinus. Souter expatiates on the rather recondite manuscript tradition of

Victorinus’ commentaries, the biblical text he employed, and especially his distinctive

method of commenting on a text of Paul, as compared with commentaries of

Ambrosiaster or Pelagius.31 Despite being possibly too quick to dismiss the austere Latin

style of Victorinus’ commentary, Souter recognizes in a “Character and Method”

subsection that there is significant theology to be found in his Pauline exegesis; for

example, the way in which Victorinus expounds on the Philippians 2 Christ Hymn, or in

how Victorinus uses the Pauline theology of the Christi mysterium. Of special interest for

Souter is Victorinus’ use of Latin, and there follows an eight-page list of Latin words that

30. That is, from the reprint program done through Sandpiper Books Ltd o f London. Souter’s chapters involve and are titled: Victorinus, Ambrosiaster, Jerome, Augustine, and Pelagius.

31. “The strange thing, o f course, is that one o f the first rhetoricians o f his age should write obscurely at all, but such is the feet. The style he here employs is what fee rhetoricians themselves called fee toxvov, fee plain, unvarnished, unadorned style. He himself speaks o f his work in one place as commentatio simplex.” Souter, Earliest Latin Commentaries, 2 8 .1 recognize that there is a tradition o f looking at Victorinus as either obscure (Jerome), or dry (Jean-Jacques Sirmond, “obscuritatem hanc Victorinus... stylus planior et apertior”), but I find his commentaries very readable, wife substantive, but not prolix, detail.


29

Victorinus uses in a pioneering manner. Even a cursory glance at this list of preferred

Victorine vocabulary gives one an understanding of the need for a special monograph of

Victorinus’ Latin, after similar treatments of the Latin of such figures as Tertullian,

Cyprian, Hilary, and Jerome.

The watershed treatment of Marius Victorinus in the twentieth century came in the

unparalleled work of French scholar Pierre Hadot, who serves as one of the best

examples of the fruits of the Catholic Ressourcement scholarship. Along with fellow

scholar Paul Henry, Hadot produced a critical edition of Victorinus’ trinitarian treatises

for the Sources Chretiennes series in 1960, as well as a companion second volume as a

commentary on the treatises.34 Their rich and painstaking details are invaluable, though

almost forgotten outside the confines of Victorine scholars’ research. The Sources

Chretiennes volumes preceded an improved critical edition produced by Henry and Hadot

for the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum series published in 1971.35 It was

also in 1971 that Hadot’s book on Victorinus came out: Marius Victorinus: Recherches

sur sa vie etses oeuvres, an extension of his 1968 work Porphyre et Victorinus. In line

32. “It is an interesting situation to find a highly trained pagan rhetorician face to face with the necessity for expressing Christian ideas. For this task o f course, he had been prepared by his parallel study o f philosophy.” Souter, Earliest Latin Commentaries, 29.

33. Souter made this observation in 1927; since then this wish has been fulfilled in the work o f such scholars as Gori, Raspanti, and Cooper. Cf. below: No one writing in the medium o f English-speaking scholarship on Victorinus’ Pauline commentaries has done as thorough a job as Stephen Cooper.

34. Marius Victorinus, Traites Theologiques sur la Trinite, Vol. II Commentaire, ed. Paul Henry; trans. Pierre Hadot (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1960), 1044-45. (Henceforth Hadot, Traites Theologiques.) Henry largely was the editor and translator into French o f Volume I, while Volume II is entirely the work o f Hadot, though Henry’s contribution should not be overlooked even i f Hadot produced so much work following. The earliest twentieth century renewal o f interest in Victorinus in Catholic Ressourcement can be traced to the thorough consideration Henry gave to Victorinus in a 1950 JTS article: Paul Henry, “The Adversus Arium o f Marius Victorinus, The First Systematic Exposition o f the Doctrine o f the Trinity,” Journal o f Theological Studies, ns 1, (1950): 42-55.

35. Marius Victorinus, Opera, ed. Pierre Hadot and Paul Henry, Corpus Scriptourm Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum vol. 83, pars. 1 (Vienna: Hoelder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1971). (Full Latin title M arii Victorini Opera. Pars Prior: Opera Theologica; henceforth CSEL 83/1. The second part o f Vol. 83, Opera Exegetica, was produced and edited by Franco Gori.)


30

with that earlier work, Hadot devotes more than half of Marius Victorinus to the rhetor’s

preconversion philosophical works, including fragments of Victorinus’ commentary of

Cicero’s Topics, retrieved from Capella and Cassiodorus, the entire text of Victorinus’

work De definitionibus, and extensive evidence of Victorinus’ lost works. Out o f

seventeen chapters of Hadot’s book, only three deal with the Christian Victorinus:

chapter XV comments at length on his conversion; chapter XVI on his “controversial

theological works”; and chapter XVII on his Pauline commentaries. This is not to say,

however, that Hadot’s interest in Victorinus is less than theological. Hadot’s Sources

Chretiennes commentary on Victorinus’ trinitarian treatises is surprising in its depth of

detail; for example, in the thorough way he compares items in Victorinus to other

Western Latin writers, similarities largely overlooked by people who do not wish to

recognize Victorinus as a serious Nicene.

The exhaustive work of Hadot in Porphyre et Victorinus provided a thorough

reference work which carefully traced and categorized quotations of Porphyry in

• • “X(\ •Victorinus’ works. With his CSEL edition and extensive work on Victorinus’ pre- and

post-conversion life and works, it was established that anyone doing work on Victorinus

from then on would be working with Hadot’s material and responding to it. The readiest

example of this is the 1981 Fathers of the Church translation by Mary Clark, Marius

36. Thus reasserting Porphyry’s autonomous role in the history o f post-Plotinian philosophy. Mary Clark, in her translation FOC edition o f Victorinus, includes the Group I, Group II, etc. attributions that Hadot lists in his work on Porphyry and Victorinus. Marius Victorinus, Theological Treatises on the Trinity/Marius Victorinus, trans. Mary Clark, vol. 69, Fathers o f the Church (Washington: Catholic University o f America Press, 1981). Italian Victorinus scholar at University o f Pisa Chiara O.Tommasi Moreschini, whose own work was begun at the behest o f Hadot’s guidance, refers to Hadot’s 1968 book as “epoch-making.” It cannot be overstressed that everyone doing work on Victorinus in late twentieth/early twenty-first century is to some extent dependent on Hadot. Claudio Moreschini at Pisa is currently working on an Italian translation o f Victorinus’ trinitarian treatises. It’s surprising that this hasn’t been done heretofore by any other Italian scholar, though that gives a good indication about where the interest o f Italian scholars has been with Victorinus’ Pauline commentaries.


31

Victorinus: Theological Treatises on the Trinity. A credible translation with some

commentary, this edition is not without its shortcomings. Clark is a scholar of Classics

and Ancient Philosophy, so her interest in Victorinus reflects that: philosophy is primary,

and in her footnotes she conveys a large portion of Hadot’s philosophical tracing of

Porphyry in Victorinus. She also uncritically accepts Hadot’s dated categories o f the

Trinitarian Controversy, referring to all the trajectories of Anti-Nicene theology as

Arians, including references identifying parties as Semi-Aiian/Homoiousian and

Anomoean.37 It is not the case that Clark does not recognize Victorinus as doing

theological reflection, she is just far more interested in his brilliant philosophy, done in

the context of the Latin West.38

An indication of Clark’s insufficient understanding of the content and progression of

the Trinitarian Controversy is found in section eight of her Introduction, in which she

mentions the obvious influences on Victorinus for his theology. Within this lengthy list of

Stoics and Platonists, Nicenes and Anti-Nicenes, Clark lists Ambrose of Milan as a figure

of intellectual influence—even though Ambrose was not even baptized until the year 374,

37. Though the real evidence that Victorinus was actually engaging Heterousians in Against Arius is nonexistent. “Arianism held that the Son o f God was not eternal but created by the Father from nothing as an instrument for die creation o f the world; although a changeable creature, the Son was dignified with the title o f Son because o f his righteousness. The Arians divided into three groups: the Anomoeans (dissimilar) spoke o f the Son as unlike the Father; the Homoeans (similar) spoke o f the Son as like the Father in all filings according to the Scriptures; the semi-Arians or Homoiousians (o f similar substance [with the Father]) thought that similarity rather than consubstantiality left more room for distinction in the Godhead.” Clark, Introduction, 11. Homoians hardly saw themselves as those entrusted with a legacy from someone o f the likes as Arius; the Dedication Creed o f 341 served as a good example o f the Greek East disavowing everything that Arius had been perceived to represent.

38. It is unclear whether Clark, during this stage o f her scholarship, believed that theology really mattered to the post-conversion Victorinus: she gives theology a passing nod for the sake o f Victorinus, nothing more. During the 1980s her work in Augustine showed the same predeliction, focusing on Augustine’s Cassiciacum philosophical dialogues. Yet another example, though from a different source, is the dissertation written on Gregory o f Nyssa by Harold Chemiss. Chemiss concluded that Nyssa was nothing more than a brilliant Platonist wearing a very thin pallium o f Christian theology, and thereafter Chemiss never did anything more in Christian theology.


32

■5Q

and Victorinus most probably had died by 365. The explanation for this lies in her

uncritical acceptance of the whole of Hadot’s commentary, without understanding

nuances of the controversy. Later in the Introduction (54, n.10), she mentions Eunomius

along with Homoians and Homoiousians as if they are all akin to one another in thought.

In a footnote comment (99, n.70) of Against Arius (AA) IA 8, she speaks of Victorinus

directing his remarks against “the Anomoeans of Sirmium (357)...” Anomoeans such as

Aetius and Eunomius are not named with Victorinus’ treatises, as opposed to his normal

habit of naming opponents (such as Marcellus, Photinus, Arius, and others).40 The only

locus with Against Arius that one could possibly see as a reference to Anomoeans is in

the later work De homoousio recipiendo IV, which briefly summarized the case for

homoousios. In it, Victorinus concludes the short treatise with a rationale for “God from

God, Light from Light,” criticizing anyone who would affirm “a similar substance,” as

well as “those who affirm a dissimilar substance” (“qui dissimilem dicunt.. .”).41

In spite of some minor translation errors and a demonstrably incomplete understanding

of the theological controversy of the fourth century, Clark has produced a good edition

which makes Victorinus accessible to those who want to read this trinitarian theology.42

39. “In addition to the obvious influences from Aristotle, Cicero, Plotinus, Porphyry, St. John’s Gospel, St. Paul’s Epistles, we are made aware o f the extent to which Victorinus is indebted to Basil o f Ancyra, and o f the influence o f Marcellus o f Ancyra, o f Athanasius, o f Phoebadius and o f Gregory o f Elvira, as well as that o f Origen’s exegesis as found in Hilary o f Poitiers and Ambrose.” Clark, 9-10. Mistakes o f detail can simply be the result o f missing something in a list; for example, in die Encyclopedia o f Early Christianity, Clark’s entry on Hilary says that “the text o f John 14:4 is vital for Hilary”: she cites “I in Thee and Thou in me,” though that text (important for Victorinus also) is actually John 17:21.

40. E.g., in AA 1 28 there is a polemical periodization o f the fourth-century doctrinal controversy.Victorinus speaks o f “the Arian faction” being dealt with at Nicaea “forty years ago.” The faith that was reaffirmed there was in opposition to heresies propagated, Victorinus names, by Paul o f Samosata, Marcellus, Photinus, Valens & Ursacius, and Arius.

41. Clark, 310-11. De. hom. rec. 4 ,1 -3 6 . CSEL 83/1,282-84.42. Without her FOC volume the interest that generated this dissertation on a Nicene Victorinus would not

have happened.


33

In the late twentieth century, the work of German scholars on Victorinus turned from

exegetical interest to philosophical.43 The two works commonly considered fundamental

to this study of Victorinus are the 1972 work of Anton Ziegenaus and the 1990 work of

Werner Steinmann.44 Ziegenaus’ work can be seen as a product of Hadot’s works of the

1960s, which acted as a catalyst. Ziegenaus and Steinmann were intellectually succeeded

by Matthias Baltes, a brilliant scholar who was the most thorough in his understanding of

and commentary on Victorinus’ philosophy. A year before his death in 2003, Baltes

produced a last work that contains an immense amount of detail about Victorinus’

osmotic relationship between philosophy and theology, dealing with the main tenets of

Victorinus’ speculation according to a sort of Platonising hierarchy of beings.45

43. Though another milepost work that must be mentioned is Werner Erdt’s massive exegetical work, Marius Victorinus Afer, der erste lateinische Pauluskommentator: Studien zu seinen Pauluskommentaren im Zusammenhang der Wiederentdeckung des Paulus in der abendlandischen Theologie des 4. Jahrhunderts (Pieterlen, Switz.: Peter Lang, 1979). Erdt’s work continues to be foundational for American (Cooper) and Italian scholars (Raspanti, Cipriani, et al.), producing ever- increasing new finds in Victorinus’ Pauline commentaries. Erdt’s instincts on Victorinus’ interest in Paul cannot be fully trusted, however, in light o f his belief that Victorinus’ commentaries had little if any anti-Arian intent and content. Scholars such as Cooper, Raspanti, and Cipriani are correcting this weakness o f Erdt, acknowledging key portions o f Victorinus’ Pauline commentaries as having fairly clear reference to Anti-Nicene exegesis o f Paul.

44. Anton Ziegenaus, Die trinitarische Ausprdgung der gottlichen Seinsfiille nach Marius Victorinus (Mflnchen: Max Hueber Verlag, 1972). Werner Steinmann, Die Sedenmetaphysik des Marius Victorinus (Hamburg: Steinmann & Steinmann, 1990). Steinmann serves as a stronger example o f a portrayal o f Victorinus the philosopher, commenting on Paul only because o f philosophical issues arising from his Neoplatonist metaphysics o f the soul; according to Steinmann, any perceived anti- Arian polemics in the commentaries are o f no significance.

45. Matthias Baltes, Marius Victorinus. Zur Philosophic in seinen theologischen Schriften. (MQnchen- Leipzig: K.G. Saur, 2002). Baltes intended this last work as a presentation and further development of a seminar held in year 2000 in the Academia Platonica, a cultural institution devoted to the study o f the Platonic tradition, directed by Baltes himself. He divides his work into six topical sections: the Father; the Son; the Holy Spirit; the Trinity; the consubstantiality o f die divine hypostases; and the created realms, with two final sections that outline and sum up such doctrines and a conclusion. There is a wealth o f texts included with the original Latin, including loci paralleli in the footnotes, most o f all from Plotinus, Porphyry and Proclus. Baltes’ argument especially concentrates on the influence o f the controversial anonymous Parmenides commentary on the formation o f Victorinus’ theological reasoning in the Trinitarian Controversy. Apart from a tradition o f German scholarly work in Victorinus’ Pauline commentaries, it is quite apparent that their interest now is largely what I cited above with the example o f Chemiss’ take on Gregory o f Nyssa: Germans, while valuing Victorinus as a brilliant philosopher worthy o f unending amounts o f prolix attention, fail to acknowledge him as a


34

With everything produced in scholarship of various languages in the late twentieth

century, nothing equals the breadth of the work of R. P. C. Hanson in his 1988 opus The

Search for the Christian Doctrine o f God, a new relocating of Marius Victorinus in the

Trinitarian Controversy. Published the same year that he died, Hanson’s highly detailed

work functions as a kind of comprehensive atlas of the entire fourth-century Trinitarian

Controversy; a good example of this can be seen in the subtitle to the work: The Arian

Controversy 318-381.46 Anyone doing work on the Trinitarian Controversy must have a

familiarity with Hanson’s work because of its completeness and recent production

(though one must also include as essential in this up-to-date overview of the controversy

Rowan Williams’ 1987 book on Arius).47 Though no one has produced a work so

complete as Hanson’s, his work is not without minor problems, especially concerning the

figure of Marius Victorinus. Moreover, it is all the harder to respond to Hanson because

of his death in the year of publication, the wide use of his work, and the near

unquestioned status his work now has in some circles.

serious Nicene Christian, as i f Victorinus’ Porphyrian profundities forever obscure a genuine consideration o f his mature belief.

46. Hanson, Search. Hanson is an invaluable tool for navigating within the recondite detail o f the controversy.

47. Rowan Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1987). Williams has chapters devoted to “Arius and Theology” as well as “Arius and Philosophy,” which even include Opitz’ fragments o f Arius’ Thalia. Williams’ book has recently been revised and reissued (Eerdmans, 2001), but only with a new bibliography and new appendix titled “Arius since 1987.” In the preface to Search (p. vii), Hanson mentions that he had not had time to include consideration o f Williams’ book in his work, so there is no interaction with the portrait and analysis o f Arius done by Williams (right after which Hanson died). Manlio Simonetti’s comprehensive overview, La Crisi Ariana nel Quarto Secolo has never been translated into English, possibly because it came out in 1975, two years before the fourth volume o f Quasten’s Patrology, ed. Angelo Di Berardino (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1986). Its translation into English a few years later gave enough o f Simonetti’s take on the controversy to staunch any interest beyond Hanson’s lengthy volume (the body o f which is 875 pages, not counting the bibliography). In the early stages o f scholarly reconsiderations o f Arius and all Anti- Nicene theology in the fourth century, Simonetti functioned for a while as a sorely needed update o f Newman’s 1854 work, The Arians o f the Fourth Century.


35

There are four major parts to Hanson’s Search: “I. The Origins” (of the controversy);

“II. Period of Confusion,” which handles the Marcellan, miahyspostatic theology of the

West during the period of councils going right up to 359; “III. The Rival Answers

Emerge,” dealing with Athanasius as well as the Western Latin Neo-Nicenes;48 and

finally “IV. The Controversy Resolved,” beginning at the Council of Alexandria 362 and

going through Ambrose in the West and the Cappadocians in the East, to the Council of

Constantinople. Part III of Hanson is of main interest here, because he devotes an entire

chapter to Victorinus in a succession of three chapters on “The Western Pro-Nicenes.”

Hanson’s including an entire chapter devoted to Victorinus signals a reconsideration and

reappreciation of Victorinus’ theology in the late 350s and early 360s. However, his

treatment of Victorinus, while a reappreciation, is also flawed, as I will make clear.

In including a chapter on Marius Victorinus in his vast survey work on the

Trinitarian Controversy, Hanson seems to be selecting Victorinus for a reappraisal as

to whether he had a real role in the theology of the Latin West of the fourth century.

That is why his chapter seems to have an opposite theme and conclusion from other

re-presentations of Victorinus. Hanson presents Victorinus’ works with the

chronology of Hadot, and the long-held assumption that the Arian named Candidus

was a fictional character made up by Victorinus to afford the appearance of

correspondence in Candida Epistola I and in Ad Candidum.49 Hanson then poses the

48. Hanson refers to these theologians as “Pro-Nicenes,” using the term in the same sense as does D. H. Williams (e.g., in Ambrose o f Milan and the End ofArian-Nicene Conflicts): meaning those advocating Nicaea and Nicene orthodoxy, as opposed to Michel Barnes’ categories o f “Neo-Nicene” (a category o f only Western Latins such as Hilary, Phoebadius, Gregory o f Elvira, Victorinus, and others) and “Pro-Nicene,” the category o f trihypostatic, One Nature/One Power figures such as Ambrose, Cappadocians, and uniquely also including Victorinus.

49. Candidi Epistola I begins, “My dear Victorinus, every kind o f begetting is some sort o f change. But whatever is divine, namely God, in unchangeable,” pointing to the nature o f the early theology o f Arius.


36

question: “If we ask how much Marius knew of the Arianism which he attacked in his

works, we must answer that he knew more than all and also less than all about

Arianism.”50 The language Victorinus uses, Hanson argues, was not only beyond that

of any known Western Arian writer, but also “virtually incomprehensible” to the likes

of Hilary, Lucifer of Calaris, Phoebadius of Agen, and Gregory of Elvira. Thus

Victorinus was simply giving an exhibition of his erudition as a set-up to speak about

the subject of Arianism:

In short, there is no satisfactory evidence that Marius Victorinus had any genuine knowledge of Arianism as it was in his day. He could exercise his intellect more rhetorico in producing arguments which he was later to refute, and he could reproduce some old Arian documents which had long become the stock texts for controversy, but that was all. He occasionally refers to Marcellus and Photinus, but show no close acquaintance with their doctrines.51

This statement by Hanson, when he has hardly even begun his chapter on Victorinus,

seems not only to negate any reasonable rationale for doing a chapter on Victorinus as

part of a Arian-Nicene survey work, but is also fraught with problems. Further, it simply

is not true, especially when compared with the rest of what Hanson will say about

Victorinus. It is correct that the third work of Victorinus, concerning the character of

“Candidus,” Candidi Epistola II, is nothing more than a brief salutation from Candidus to

Victorinus, with the major part of the text being two other epistles included: the Letter o f

Arius to Eusebius ofNicomedia, and Eusebius ’ Letter to Paulinus o f Tyre. This proves

only that documents of the earliest part of the Trinitarian Controversy, the phase that

50. Hanson, Search, 533.51. Hanson, Search, 534. This is not true. A closer reading o f relevant sections o f Against Arius shows that

Victorinus is one o f the very first Western Latins who names these as actual opponents o f the (Neo) Nicene cause, and appears to have a close familiarity with doctrines associated with them. Cf. D. H. Williams’ cleverly-titled paper, “Monarchianism and Photinus as the Persistent Heretical Face o f the Fourth Century,” soon to be published in the Harvard Theological Review.


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truly can be called Arian rather than “Arian,” traveled in the Latin West. It does not

disprove that “Victorinus had any genuine knowledge of Arianism as it was in his day.”

Another troublesome feature of Hanson’s chapter on Victorinus, as well as other

chapters of Search, is his constant use of the terms “Arianism” and “Western Arianism”

without distinguishing between the various parties of Anti-Nicene theology. Basil and his

Homoiousians are mentioned as if they were not an Anti-Nicene party, and there is no

mention at all of Victorinus engaging Western Latin Homoians. Hanson’s claim that

Victorinus had access to earliest documents of the controversy directly related to Arius

would seem to be in direct contradiction to his claim that Victorinus had no contact with

Arianism as it existed in his own day, especially if there is the working acknowledgment

of Victorinus having access the documents of the Sirmian dossier of 358. As dependent

as Hanson is on Hadot and Clark for this chapter on Victorinus, it seems odd that he

cannot admit to Victorinus clearly engaging Homoians and Homoiousians in his

trinitarian treatises and having a “genuine knowledge of Arianism as it was in his day.”52

In Hanson’s valuation, Victorinus makes his best contribution in his arguments for

homoousios, describing “the relation of the Father to the Son in detail... ingenious and

original beyond any Western theologian before him.”53 But after the twenty-five page

chapter, Hanson has a peculiar, and derivative, final analysis: Victorinus, he essentially

concludes, gets an “A” for effort:

52. My only conjecture on Hanson’s initial statement on Victorinus, as comments following that simply refer to Anti-Nicene theology o f the late 350s as Arianism, is that this chapter reads like an early draft stage. As this entire work on the controversy was brought to press in the year that Hanson died, with failing health for several years before that as he battled cancer, this seems a reasonable supposition.

53. Hanson, Search, 539. Another point on which Hanson remarks comes on 544: “One remarkable feature o f his vocabulary here, which has not been sufficiently noticed, even by Hadot, is the persistent and explicit refusal o f Marius Victorinus to use the word persona in a Trinitarian context.” This is quite true o f Victorinus; one would expect to find him using persona far more in the milieu o f Western Latin miahypostatic influence, but Victorinus understands this use o f persona as deficient.


38

It is customary to point out that the work of Marius Victorinus had virtually no influence upon his contemporaries, and nobody could deny this fact. It is also customary to deplore this lack of influence. We must certainly admire the competence, the erudition of the originality of this writer. He deliberately turns his back on Tertullian. He works out his own theology using his own resources, which are indeed much greater than those of his contemporaries in the West. But, in the first place it is highly doubtful if any of his Latin-speaking contemporaries could have understood him, even had they read his works, and Jerome more than hints at this. And in the second place Marius Victorinus was completely unacquainted with the work of any contemporary Eastern theologian (except Basil of Ancyra), skilled in Greek though he undoubtedly was. His theology might have been rather better balanced if he had had this acquaintance, rather less rarefied, rather more aware of its weaknesses. One could of course prefer the theory that Marius knew of the work of Athanasius but that he chose to ignore it. But it comes to much the same thing. It was for understandable reasons that Marius Victorinus was not read. He was, however, appreciated. Thirty years after his death Augustine heard the story of his conversion recounted in Milan with pride. He may not have been understood. He was remembered and honoured, and his theological works were preserved.54

This assessment of the meaning and importance of Victorinus’ rich last years sounds

rather like that of Jerome; it has merely been repackaged to sound like a modem review

that still finds Victorinus falling far short of the mark of relevance within the events of

fourth century theology. As I will demonstrate in following chapters, it is untrue to say that

Victorinus “deliberately turns his back on Tertullian.” There are themes and testimonia of

Scripture within Against Arius that are the product of Victorinus reading Tertullian’s

works, especially Against Praxeas. The sheer number of Western Latin commonplaces in

Victorinus’ theological writings actually argues against the idea that everything he

produced was worked out from his own Neoplatonist resources, and nothing else. Further,

it is not “highly doubtful that any of his Latin-speaking contemporaries could have

understood” Victorinus, had they read him. Despite Hanson’s claim/assertion that Jerome

hinted at this same idea, Victorinus is not so very difficult to read. Certainly a figure such

as Hilary could have understood and appreciated Victorinus, if he could have had access to

Against Arius in the early 360s, which is not all that implausible. I argue that Jerome’s

54. Hanson, Search, 555-56.


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rather rebarbative personality gives his estimate of Victorinus a questionable status at best,

and to hang too much upon it would amount to an overreaching of scholarly extrapolation.

If Victorinus had been completely unacquainted with the work of any contemporary

Eastern theologian except for Basil of Ancyra, it raises the question of how he became so

familiar with the Origenian Tractates,55 and how he knew about the Meletian-sourced

trinitarian formula “£x piag ouaiag xpelg elvai ujioordoeig” in such a timely manner,

around 362. Victorinus is conversant with far more than just Neoplatonist schools, and

there is no reason to believe that his fluent Greek was inoperable during his last, very

productive years. It is vital to remember that Augustine had said Victorinus, after his

conversion, had read everything of Christian sources. Current Victorine scholarship clearly

continues to bear this out: the evidence of contemporary scholars is always showing new

evidence of sources, heretofore unnoticed, to which Victorinus had access.56

Ever since Jerome, even in the modem day, the reflexive response to Victorinus is to

follow Jerome’s example and see Victorinus as brilliant but isolated and unintelligible.

Hanson attempts to reconsider Victorinus, but still too easily reintroduces Jerome into the

modem view of Victorinus. What is missing in contemporary Nicene scholarship on

Victorinus is a reappreciation of Victorinus as a serious Christian theologian, who

accomplished some extraordinary work in the last decade of his life following his

55. GyOrgy Heidi has done a complex, complete work on the use o f the Origenian Tractates in the Latin West: O rigen’s Influence on the Young Augustine: A Chapter in the History o f Origenism (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2003). He has also produced a Hungarian translation o f Victorinus’ trinitarian treatises. Heidi was a co-chair o f the Origen conference, held each decade. Colloquium Origenianum Nonum: Origen and the Religious Practice o f His Time, was held at the University o f Pecs in Hungary in September 2005.

56. Stephen Cooper’s Pauline exegetical work, for example, or Matthias Baltes’ extensive examinations of Victorinus’ access to Middle Platonist, Neoplatonist, and even Sethian Gnostic sources.


conversion.57 Victorinus, for someone supposedly so isolated from what is happening in

the Trinitarian Controversy in the Latin West of the 350s and 360s, sees the Neo-Nicene

task quite clearly. The trinitarian treatises show that, within only a few years of his

conversion, he has thrown himself into using his scholarship to deploy an exegetical

polemic that defends the Nicene cause in the Latin West. He does so especially through

his relentless defense and redefinition of the meaning of the homoousios and the rich

trinitarian reflection he produces. This coalescing polemical form is similar to that of

other Neo-Nicenes such as Athanasius, Hilary of Poitiers, Phoebadius of Agen, and

Gregory of Elvira, and it engages Anti-Nicenes such as the Homoiousians, Homoians,

and Monarchians. Victorinus’ work has clear exegetical and conceptual parallels with

other Neo-Nicenes, but also reflects his retention of his sophisticated Neoplatonism as af o

conceptual matrix for his Nicene theology. In Victorinus’ very recognizable Neo-

Nicene theology are features that somewhat transcend the Neo-Nicene category: his

eloquent commentary of the unity of trinitarian being and identity; his “One Substance,

One Power” statements; his trihypostatic formula (which he maddeningly does not

develop beyond passing commentary and vague attribution); and in general the way in

which he deploys scriptural texts. Current scholarship in Victorinus and other Nicene-

trinitarian authors is limited to people who specialize in elements such as Pauline exegesis

or Plotinian-Porphyrian philosophy, but Victorinus as a relevant figure of the Trinitarian

Controversy requires a close rereading of Against Arius, in comparison to other Neo-

57. If even a recent translation and commentary on Nicene anti-Arian treatises summarizes Marius Victorinus in a footnote reference as someone who “was also the author o f several theological works,” it is clear that the time is overdue to consider the Nicene theology within Victorinus’ post-conversion works.

58. A “conceptual matrix” which thirty years later will have a significant influence upon the young Augustine.


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Nicenes.59 Despite its many problems, Hanson’s Search remains in force as the major

comprehensive text about the fourth century Arian-Nicene conflicts. Besides recounting the

contributions of certain Victorinus specialists, a reconsideration of Victorinus must include

an answer to Hanson’s oversights, as well as many of Clark’s, since their works are the two

most likely sources for anyone interested in looking at Victorinus.60

The Question of Theology Versus Philosophy

The distinction between philosophy and theology is not always as clean and clear as may

be assumed, and this question of one versus the other in the works of Victorinus is not

understandable even to some scholars reading Victorinus. However, this does pose a

problem if modem readers of Victorinus wish to mine every brilliant thought he ever had

within the area of Neoplatonism, yet have no serious interest in his post-conversion

theological work, or somehow think that theological writings do not represent the real

Victorinus. Part of the problem, admittedly, is the complex way in which Victorinus used

Neoplatonism in his theological writings after his conversion. Added to that is the fact

that we have some of his preconversion works, such as his commentary on Cicero’s De

definitionibus: of Augustine, for example, we have his massive body of works only from

after his conversion, with nothing surviving from before.

59. The 1998 second edition o f the Encyclopedia o f Early Christianity is yet another typical example o f how overlooked Victorinus is as a Nicene. The entry for Ambrose (41-44) speaks in detail o f Ambrose’s engagement with anti-Nicenes throughout his episcopal career; Victorinus’ one-paragraph entry (1159) does not even mention the terms “Nicaea” or “Nicene” (or “Arian”). The most prominent assessment o f Victorinus’ importance comes in the terse sentence, “He presented the doctrine o f the Trinity in Neoplatonic terms, with dependence on Porphyry.”

60. That is, Hanson’s Search, with its chapter on Victorinus, and Clark’s FOC volume, Marius Victorinus: Theological Treatises on the Trinity.


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The Classics and Philosophy scholar John Rist begins his work, Augustine: Ancient

Thought Baptized, with Gerald Bonner’s observation that Augustine has been the subject

of unjustified denunciation by innumerable people who have never read Augustine.61

Rist’s first chapter, “Approaching Augustine,” gives his book’s subject as “the

Christianization of ancient philosophy in [Augustine’s] version which was to be the most

powerful and the most comprehensive,” and lists many caveats about basic assumptions

in beginning to understand anything about Augustine. Augustine was in a providentially

kairotic time and place, in which he could “sit in judgement on ancient philosophy and

ancient culture.” Rist’s comments about modems’ attempts to isolate Augustine’s

philosophy from his theology sound quite familiar, for the commonplace treatments of

Victorinus are the same. To begin with, there are modem authors who wish to speak of

philosophy in Augustine as it would be dealt with by the typical philosophy department

of any Anglo-American college or university, as if there would be nothing in such

discourse that we would style as “theology.” The opposite treatment of Augustine—for

example, of published works that intend to summarize his theology—would apparently

invite the interests only of clerics or para-clerics, rather than any serious scholar of

ancient philosophy. The problem here, especially with citing only a philosophical

consideration, is a common one:

To call Augustine a philosopher rather than a theologian is not merely to admit a distinction which he would not have accepted; it is to propose a distinction which he did not know. For while in antiquity a “philosopher” is usually someone who tries to live a life governed by reason, a regular sense of the word “theologian” (theologos) is someone who talks about “the divine”, and “the divine” is whatever is eternal and unchanging, or, at a cruder level, more long-lasting or just plain stronger than we are.. .62

61. Rist, Augustine, 1-2. Rist’s career was spent teaching at Toronto; probably his most noted title was Plotinus: The Road to Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967).

62. Rist, Augustine, 5.


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This very notion is also imposed upon Victorinus. Rist notes that what is done to

Augustine is not original: Plato is the first in the ancient world to use the term theologian,

and yet Plato’s writings and his portrayal of his master Socrates would always be

understood, artificially, as a philosophical canon.

Victorinus, like Augustine, found himself in the position of holding his post as rhetor

post-conversion. His Neoplatonism had served him well in his vocation, and would

continue to serve him well now as a conceptual matrix for continued “theological”

reflection. He saw his newfound Christian belief as not “so much as a replacement but as

an expansion and an enrichment of his earlier views.”64 The natural addition to this new

world in which he found himself was the rich repository of Christian Scripture, and

Victorinus immediately pursued scriptural exegesis for responding to current anti-Nicene

forces.65 It is little wonder that Augustine, thirty years later, would see both Victorinus’

conversion and the course of his work following his conversion as examples to emulate.

He would pursue the same models as Victorinus:

Augustine’s “philosophical models” were, increasingly, theological hypotheses, teased out of the Scriptures and the belief and practice of the Church. They were like any modem model in that their purpose was to make sense of what lies around us. It is their continuing success in doing that, which makes them not only interesting possibilities, but worthy of close and detailed inspection. To attempt to make sense of Augustine’s thought without taking such theological

63. Plato, Republic 2.379d5.64. Rist, 12, in his characterization o f Augustine’s conversion. Rist continues with, “In 386 Christianity

had completed his intellectual post, or so he believed, optimistically, at the time. It had also— and most significantly—made the good life something to be realized, not just something to be thought about and known about. In this respect Augustine resembles other intellectual converts to Christianity, or to a more serious and committed form o f Christianity.” Rist sees other clear parallels in the spiritual careers of figures such as Origen, Gregory o f Nyssa, and Ambrose.

65. Cf. Rist’s description o f this same reality in Augustine: “After Augustine had been pressed into the priesthood in Hippo in 391, he requested time o ff from his new duties to study the Scriptures, since from now on he was to make scriptural evidence the touchstone o f truth. Scripture was to be a check on the unauthorized reflections o f secular philosophy; yet, he was convinced, it would never lead to indefensible and irrational theories in philosophy itself.” Rist, Augustine, 299.


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models at least as seriously as one takes a modem philosopher’s models is to emasculate the thought itself, and to deprive Augustine of his philosophical integrity.66

Despite the inherent dangers of which Rist warns in bifurcated treatments of Augustine,

there are innumerable examples produced, and for the same is true of the rare work done

on Victorinus in modem scholarship.

66. Rist, Augustine, 7.


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2 The Ante-Nicene and Nicene Latin West

Latin Christianity: A Lesser Known World

In order to understand Victorinus and his works, it is necessary to know the context of the

Latin exegetical-theological tradition to which he would have been exposed prior to and

directly after his conversion. Very little is known, however, about Ante-Nicene Latin

Christianity Latin theology prior to the fourth century. The sheer paucity of secondary

scholarship on Latin Christianity is striking; yet in patristic scholarship there seems to be

an assumption that this area is well-researched and documented. I will give examples of

this as I speak about the Latin theological tradition Victorinus would have discovered

upon his conversion. This scarcity of Latin Christianity scholarship may not have been

obvious because current patristic scholarship concentrates on Syriac and Greek conceptual

worlds of interest. Latin Christianity, no longer very popular, holds a distant third place.

This is not to say that there has been no modem work done on Latin Christianity. One of

the best known secondary survey texts for Latin Christianity is Danielou’s work, The

Origins o f Latin Christianity (most useful for his chapters on Tertullian’s idiosyncratic

materialist terminology, but otherwise an almost forgotten work).67 Far more useful is

Ernest Evans’ exhaustive critical edition text, translation, and commentary of Tertullian’s

67. Jean Dani61ou, A History o f Early Christian Doctrine before the Council ofNicaea, Volume III: The Origins o f Latin Christianity (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1977).


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Against Praxeas; however, despite its unequalled eighty-five-page introduction on Latin

theology up to and including Tertullian, it has been out of print for decades.

Latin theology in the Ante-Nicene period is an odd problem of finding points of

reference that define this conceptual world. Lewis Ayres, in his recent work Nicaea and

its Legacy, speaks of a trajectory of the Trinitarian Controversy he calls “Western Anti-

Adoptionism: A Son bom without Division,” involving the idea that “the Son is truly

bom from the Father and that this birth does not involve a destruction of the divine unity

or monarchy.”69 Ayres precedes a description of this Western trajectory by cautioning the

reader about apparent sources for Latin theology:

In actual fact our knowledge of Latin Christology and Trinitarian theology between 250 and 360 is extremely limited and certainly not such that we can make any certain judgements about its overall character. It is noticeable that attempts to describe the character of western theology in the early decades of this crucial century have been few and far between during the recent decades of scholarly activity on the fourth century; the standard summary accounts frequently ignore the question.70

Ayres concludes that, of the main Latin theologians writing in that period, only Tertullian

and Novatian can be usefully compared to Latin theology of the 350s.71

Another qualifier in speaking about the world of Latin theology concerns the division

between the Latin West, or “Western Latin theology,” versus the Greek East. Ayres gives

an example of the artificiality of this idea in speaking about fourth-century Trinitarianism.

Traditional accounts of the 340s describe the disastrous council held at Serdica in 343: the

68. Tertullian. Q. Septimii Florentis Tertulliani Adversus Praxean liber (Tertullian’s Treatise Against Praxeas): The Text edited, with an Introduction, Translation, and Commentary, ed. Ernest Evans (London: S.P.C.K., 1948). (Henceforth, Evans, Against Praxeas.) Evans’ work is the most important title for any scholar who wants to do work in Against Praxeas, but copies are hard to come by. Bertrand de Margerie’s short second volume (only 144 pages) in his An Introduction to the History o f Exegesis, Volume II: The Latin Fathers, is o f some interest but only focuses on four figures, Tertullian, Hilary, Ambrose and Jerome, and has far less commentary and analysis o f their works than the title would suggest

69. Ayres, Nicaea, 75.70. Ayres, Nicaea, 70.71. And to a lesser extent, Lactantius (74-5). Ayres excludes Cyprian from consideration because o f the

details o f his Trinitarianism remaining unclear (70, n. 22). And the best work from the 350s for elements o f Latin theology would be Hilary’s pre-exile commentary on Matthew, written ca. 350.


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party of Western Latin bishops versus the party of Eastern Greek bishops refusing to meet,

each side issuing condemnations of the other. But the “Western” party was not made up of

exclusively Latin-speaking-only bishops. Of those ninety-five Western bishops, thirty-three

came from Greece, around ten came from Balkan provinces of Moesia, Pannonia and

Dacia, and five others were from provinces further east and south of those provinces:

the largest single block of attendees were the Greek and Balkan bishops. The “western” council was as localized as most during this century. The demographics of the council demonstrate the errors of assuming that Greek-speaking areas of the east divided clearly in theology from the Latin-speaking west. Just as northern Italy and the area of the former Yugoslavia sustained a strong anti-Nicene presence through the second half of the century, the are of modern-day Greece sustained a strong tradition of support for anti-Eusebian theologies. “East” vs. “West” is far too clumsy a tool of analysis for almost anything in the fourth century.72

If we keep our attentions to the specifically Latin-authored theology that preceded

Victorinus’ conversion in the mid-350s, this is indeed a rather circumscribed body of

theological writings, especially if we wish to see how Latins used scriptural exegesis to

speak of trinitarian relations and identity.

Early Latin Scriptural Exegesis

In considering the theological tradition and context prior to Victorinus, we must look at

what preceded him in the Latin West: not just theologians who wrote to a Latin-speaking

world, but also the earliest attempts at translating Scripture into readable Latin versions,

and the first cohesive Latin scriptural exegesis. The earliest documents of Latin-speaking

72. Ayres, Nicaea, 123. Michel Bames makes the same sort o f case in speaking about the Westerntrinitarian trajectory that included Marcellus and Athanasius: “If we talk about an East-West division in fourth-century trinitarian theology we must include Alexandria with Rome and the West (so that ‘West’ cannot equal ‘Latin’)”; “We have then at least two models or genres o f pro-Nicene polemic, namely, the Western Rome-Alexandria genre, and the Eastern, typically Cappadocian, genre. I would expect that the Cappadocian model o f polemic will be found to be basically characteristic o f Eastern pro- Nicene polemics, especially wherever Athanasius’ writings have limited (or no) circulation.” Michel R. Bames, “The Fourth Century as Trinitarian Canon.” In Christian Origins: Theology, Rhetoric and Community, edited by Lewis Ayres and Gareth Jones (New York: Routledge, 1998), 56,61.


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Christianity show a reality of at least certain parts of the Old and New Testaments

existing in various translations.

The Septuagint was the Scripture for the earliest Christians because it was Israel’s

Bible. In the Latin West the earliest Christians were Greek-speaking, as evidenced by the

vestigial remains of Greek in the Latin liturgy.73 In the late second century in the West,

when knowledge of Greek was in clear decline, any work in understanding the Bible

necessitated having at least portions of the Septuagint translated into Latin; the same was

true of New Testament writings. The Acts o f the Scillitan Martyrs (ca. 180) mentions the

witness Speratus carrying libri et epistulae Pauli viri iusti. And “a Latin translation of at

least parts of the Bible can be discerned behind the earliest texts which could reasonably

be supposed to show knowledge of one.”74 The Muratorian Fragment of the late second

century (ca. 170) gives an authoritative canon of New Testament writings that includes

four gospels and epistles; it also mentions a number of apocryphal writings that were read

in churches of the time, very likely with popular Latin translations of them in existence.75

We can assume that an entire Latin translation of the New Testament existed in Rome

dating from the same time as the Muratorian Fragment.

73. The clearest example is the Kyrie section o f the liturgy. George Dragas characterizes the ubiquity of Greek language in the Roman empire as Christian Hellenism that replaced the ancient traditions o f Greece. “Even in Rome, the church used the Greek language, as attested by the letter o f Clement o f Rome (7 Clem.) and its earliest great theologian, Hippolytus (ca. 170-235), who wrote in Greek.” George D. Dragas, “Greece, Greek.” In Encyclopedia o f Early Christianity: Second Edition, edited by Everett Ferguson, 486-87. New York & London: Garland Publishing, 1998.

74. T. D. Bames, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study, 277—78, in his appendix on African Christians and their Latin Bible.

75. The reference to the Shepherd ofHermas in lines 73—'76 o f the fragment, saying “But Hermas wrotethe Shepherd very recently, in our times, in the city o f Rome, while bishop Pius, his brother, was occupying the chair o f the church o f the city o f Rome...” makes the terminus a quo fairly obvious, since Pius died in 157. “pastorem vero nuperrim e temporibus nostris in urbe roma herma conscripsit sedente cathetra urbis romae aecclesiae pio eps fratre eius” The Latin text o f the fragment is commonly believed by scholars to be a translation from the original Greek, the Latin being a rather rough rendering. Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon o f the New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 191-201,305-07.


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It was probably not Western, Latin-speaking Christians who wrote the first Latin

translations of Old Testament writings, but Latin-speaking Jews in the West, as Danielou

observed.76 Even if the official language of Greek lasted at Rome into the early second

century, “there were Christians both in Rome and Carthage who spoke nothing but Latin.

Alongside the official language, Greek, which persisted for a long time, there was also a

77popular form of Christianity using Latin.” By the time of the Vulgate of Jerome, there

was a family tree of Latin texts of Old and New Testament (collectively known as the

Old Latin), originating not in the Greek-speaking church at Rome, but in other Christian

fellowships in the rest of Italy, as well as North Africa.78

T e r t u l l i a n : T h e L a t in L o c u s C o m m u n is

In a chapter of his monograph on Tertullian, Timothy Bames gives a thorough treatment

of the North African theologian’s scholarly background of late antiquity, comparing it to

the level of learning of his contemporaries throughout the Latin West.79 The late years of

the Roman Republic had been the Golden Age of Latin letters, and Augustus’ first-

century Silver Age had produced the last great literary figures such as Pliny and Tacitus,

76. “Early Christianity in Rome and Africa first developed in a Jewish environment and it is very likely that these Latin-speaking Jews were able to make use o f Latin translations o f the Old Testament that had been in existence for a long time. It is well known that the Bible was read in the synagogues first in Hebrew and then in the language o f die people, that is, Aramaic, Greek and Latin. These translations were, o f course, at the same time interpretations and often quite free interpretations. We are therefore justified in asking whether Jewish Latin did not exist before Christian Latin.” Chapter 1, “The Translations: 1. The Latin Bible,” in Jean Danidlou, History o f Early Christian Doctrine before the Council o f Nicaea, 3-8.

77. Danidlou, The Origins o f Latin Christianity, 3.78. O f those Old Latin versions felling into African and European types, the latter category comprised

Italian and Gallic sub-categories, but all o f these translations prior to Jerome lacked polish, were sometimes painfully literal, and often posed a problem for rendering certain words and concepts in Latin. Bruce M. Metzger, “Old Latin Versions,” In Encyclopedia o f Early Christianity: Second Edition, edited by Everett Ferguson, 829-30. New York & London: Garland Publishing, 1998.Metzger is pointed in calling some o f these early versions o f “dubious Latinity.”

79. Chapter XIII, “A Pagan Education,” in T. D. Bames, Tertullian, 187-210.


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Suetonius and Juvenal.80 After this age, the pride of classical achievement was passed to

the Greeks, whom Romans emulated. By the end of the second century, Latin literature

had become unfashionable, and was replaced by Marcus Aurelius’ Hellenophilism. The

Greek East flourished in the Second Sophistic period and that of Middle Platonism. In

contrast, the Latin West was a paltry competitor.81 The exception to this was North

Africa, particularly in the person and writings of Tertullian.

Tertullian might be too easily dismissed as a crucial foundation for the Latin West for

a variety of reasons—his Montanist period, for example, or his early ante-Nicene context,

or that he wrote in Latin rather than sophisticated Greek—but there is no doubt that he

was “the luminary of his age” and that he “inaugurated the new and living form of

Christian Latin Literature.”82 The sheer number of significant Latin authors of Christian

North Africa who wrote after Tertullian weighs as heavy evidence: Minucius Felix,

Cyprian, Pontius, Commodianus, Amobius, and Lactantius either wrote in Africa or were

educated there. Nearly two hundred years later, the academic brilliance of Carthage plays

a key factor for Augustine’s formation and career. The acknowledged master of all of

these North African figures, however, was Tertullian—Cyprian acknowledged him thus,

and never let a day go by without consulting his writings. Tertullian showed that a

80. Ovid hardly qualifies as part o f this category because o f his infamous adultery manual and the harsh exile imposed on him.

81. As Bames observes, “The historian Tacitus perceived that only an intellectually barren age w ill produce no historical writing. He himself found no followers before Ammianus Marcellinus in the late fourth century. The reading public found the present too dull, the recent past too offensive.” T. D. Bames, Tertullian, 191.

82. T. D. Bames, Tertullian, 192.83. “The role o f Africa is clear, and within Africa the role o f Tertullian. It was his powerful example that

inspired Minucius Felix, Cyprian, Amobius and Lactantius. Though his name is studiously avoided (except once by Lactantius), the debt o f all four writers to him is undeniable. Tertullian had shown that a Christian could write elegant Latin. Cyprian (the story is revealing) read him every day.” T. D. Bames, Tertullian, 194.


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Christian could write in elegant Latin, and the list of Latin classics found in his writings

is long and impressive. The number of classic Greek and Latin writers is several times

larger than what the average scholar of Rome would have known. He knew a forgotten

period of Latin literature, and his knowledge of Greek literature and philosophy was just

as extensive.84 By using the fruits of his erudition, Tertullian, in his life and work,

reconciled Christianity and classical culture. He gave a full first expression of the

Western mind: “In Western Christianity everything seems to commence with Tertullian:

the technical language of Christians, theology, interpretation of scripture and other

manifestations of a religion which is in part already settled and in part still on the move.”85

T e r t u l l i a n ’s L a t i n C l a s s i c A g a in s t P r a x e a s

Tertullian’s elegant Latin and preeminent intellect applied to producing a mature

Christian theology in the Latin West, but also to contending with opponents within and

outside the Christian Church. One treatise in particular stands out among all of

Tertullian’s works: Against Praxeas. This polemical treatise, written circa 210 A .D ., was

84. T. D. Bames gives this quite a complex treatment in his chapter “A Pagan Education,” about how well anyone in Tertullian’s day would have known the classics. Bames, Tertullian, 196-210.

85. Eric Osborn, Tertullian: First Theologian o f the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 255, citing Claudio Moreschini. In his chapter on Tertullian’s thorough learning, “A Pagan Education,” Timothy Bames makes this strong statement: ‘“ What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?’ he once exclaimed ‘or what has the Academy in common with the church?’ Almost every word he wrote gave the lie to the answer he implies. Tertullian would have deplored the attempts o f Justin, Clement and Origen to reconcile Christianity and pagan philosophy. He explicitly rejected a Stoic, Platonic or dialectical Christianity. But in the wider sense, he had himself reconciled Christianity and classical culture. For he used the benefits o f a traditional education and the fruits o f his pagan erudition to defend and to propagate what he considered to be the truth.” Bames, Tertullian, 210.


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an angry reaction to an intra-church debate on the Holy Spirit as well as the theology of a

figure named Praxeas.86

Tertullian’s reaction against Praxeas’ Monarchian-trinitarian heresy of Modalism

produced the first extended reflection on the Christian doctrine of the Triune God.

Praxeas’ heresy arose from attempts to insure the unity of God apart from an

acknowledgement of the economy of what is three within God. Tertullian begins the

offensive in Against Praxeas by heralding the double sin of Praxeas, accusing Praxeas of

having brought out of Asia this wrongheaded teaching that it was the Father himself who

R7came down in the Incarnation, himself suffering in the life and death of Jesus Christ. It

was thus at Rome that Praxeas had, as Tertullian phrased it, brought about two

achievements on behalf of the Devil when “he drove out prophecy and introduced heresy:oo

he put to flight the Paraclete and crucified the Father.” The classic argument that

follows this statement warrants a close look at the entire treatise’s content, especially at

the way Scripture texts are used in Against Praxeas—how and where they appear

together, and for what purpose, along with other original themes.

Ernest Evans’ critical edition of Tertullian’s Treatise Against Praxeas (1948) is a

masterpiece that has never been equaled. It includes a Latin critical text with a scrupulous

86. The name “Praxeas” has always been imagined to have been a nickname for someone, as in Greek this name would mean “Player” or “Busybody.” There are no contemporaries o f Tertullian who mention a figure by this name; the silence o f Hippolytus is especially noteworthy. Allen Brent makes a detailed and convincing case for Praxeas’ real identity being Callistus, bishop o f Rome ca. 217-ca. 222. Allen Brent, Hippolytus & the Roman Church in the Third Century (Leiden: EJ.Brill, 1995), 525—29.

87. Moreover, Tertullian says that the bishop o f Rome was on the verge o f recognizing the prophecies o f Montanus, Prisca and Maximilla, when he was persuaded not to do so by Praxeas’ false assertions concerning them, and by Praxeas’ insistence on the prior decisions o f the bishop’s predecessors.The predecessor was most probably Eleutherus (bishop o f Rome 177-192), who condemned the prophets: “Victor, ignorant o f his predecessor’s policy, or preferring to disregard it, was inclined to approve o f the movement, until Praxeas arrived in Rome and (a) gave him information discreditable to the prophets, and (b) reminded him o f his predecessor’s ruling.” Ernest Evans, Against Praxeas, 185.

88. Adversus Praxean I, 31-33. “ita duo negotia diaboli Praxeas Romae procuravit, prophetiam expulit et haeresim intulit, paracletum fogavit et patrem crucifixit.” Evans, 89.


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translation, a commentary, and a thorough, eighty-five-page introduction, even down to

very careful work done on the Latin morphology of Tertullian’s favored theological

terms.89 As outlined by Evans in his introduction, we can summarize Against Praxeas

with five major themes:90

1) Tertullian defends the traditional faith in the Holy Trinity, arguing that the monarchy of God is not imperiled by the existence of the Son and the Holy Spirit consubstantial with him.

2) “Tertullian adduces scriptural testimony to the existence of the Son, who is also the word and the Wisdom of God, proceeding by generation from the Father, as a second Person beside the Father.”

3) “A third line of argument arises from the pronouncement that no man can see God’s face and live, brought into comparison with those many places in which it is written that God can been seen, by the patriarchs and others.” This theme of divine visibility is the most obvious portion of Tertullian that makes its way into Victorinus’ fourth-century Nicene- trinitarian polemic and exegesis 150 years later after Against Praxeas.

4) Tertullian responds to Praxeas’ Monarchianism, claiming that it rests on a very shortsighted exegesis of only three texts: Isaiah 45:5 (“I am God, and beside me there is none else”); John 10:30 (“I and the Father are one”); and John 14:9 (“He who has seen me has seen the Father”). As a response, “Tertullian extracts from St. John’s Gospel all the passages in which our Lord speaks of the Father as other than himself, adding also summary references to the same teaching in St. Matthew and St. Luke.”91

5) Tertullian attacks the Monarchians’ positions on the Father and/or the Son being passible, for Praxeas’ claim that the Father became the Son. Even if the Son became passible in the flesh, Tertullian states, he was impassible in his divine nature, and Praxeas’ holding to the divine unity to such a degree as to deny the Son and the Holy Spirit means denying the Father also.

89. This edition by Evans, a life-long C.O.E. parish rector, is the paragon which all critical editions should emulate, even beginning with the most self-effacing, explanatory sentence, “This book was not written for publication, but as a relaxation from the more exacting duties o f my profession.” The thorough scholarly detail o f this critical edition is typical o f the several other critical editions in Western Latin Patristics he produced dining his career. Cf. T.D. Bames’ comments in his 1971 monograph on editions, commentaries and translations o f Tertullian (Tertullian, 286-91): Normally the 1954 CCSL edition would be accepted as the most important critical edition, but Bames points out what is well known among Tertullian scholars, that the CCSL was “much amended to accord with the text o f E. Evans” (287). Evans’ edition is used throughout for this widely acknowledged reason.

90. These five points: Evans, 21-22.91. Evans, 22.


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Points two and four above hardly begin to describe the rich use of Scripture texts in

Against Praxeas. To be sure, as Evans notes, texts from the Gospel of John are foremost,

buttressed by much appeal to Matthew and Luke. As Hanson observed of the fourth-

century Trinitarian Controversy in his Search for the Christian Doctrine o f God., the Fourth

Gospel was “the major exegetical battleground.” I would add not only of the fourth-century

Trinitarian Controversy, but also in all manner of controversy surrounding trinitarian

definition before that, in the second and third centuries; as it was with Tertullian.92

The controversy with Praxeas and his Monarchian errors defines the opening chapters

of Against Praxeas. Tertullian takes pains to explain the catholic doctrine and rule of the

faith, lecturing on Trinity and Unity, the Divine Economy of Persons within the Godhead,

and the Monarchy of God rightly understood, as opposed to nothing more than a

singularity of the divine mode. After making these ideas clear, Tertullian moves on to

specific commentary on the Son: his identity and the divine names that speak of that

identity, especially “Word” and “Wisdom.” Having dealt with these matters over the first

ten chapters (of a total of thirty-one), Tertullian’s treatise turns into intensive exegesis to

prove his point about the persons of the Son and the Spirit being distinct from the Father.

Two specific sections serve as clear examples of Tertullian’s method. The first has to do

with a discourse of divine visibility in chapters 14 and 15; the second with the disciple

Philip’s conversation with Christ and Christ’s pronouncements on divine visibility and unity.

92. Hanson, Search, 834. In the closing chapter o f Search, titled “The Development o f Doctrine,” Hanson includes an excursus on the key scriptural loci o f the controversy, including a summary o f why each particular text posed certain problems or provided certain doctrinal definition: “These passages, and others like them, were the outer fortifications round which each side skirmished. But there were other texts which were more crucial than these, the key-points or inner citadels o f the battle.” Hanson, Search, 832. This list, at least in this final chapter, considers: Prov. 8:22; Am. 4:12,13; Is. 53:8; Ps. 45:7; Ps. 110:1; Jn. 1:1; Jn. 10:30; Jn. 14:9,10; Jn. 14:28; Jn. 17:3; Jn. 20:17; and I Cor. 15:28(832-38).


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The Face of God is the dominant theme in chapters 14 and 15 of Against Praxeas. The

invisibility of God as expressed in Exodus 33:20 (“No one may see my face, and live”)

must be explained if God the Son was and is truly visible, for some people in the

Covenant history—such as Abraham or Jacob, Isaiah or Ezekiel—saw God and yet lived.

Tertullian argues, however, that did not see the full glory of the Godhead. They did see

something particular, but it was not the Father they saw. The Father being invisible, what

was visible to them was the Son “because of the enumeration of his derivation.” The

Scripture makes this distinction between the Visible and the Invisible; this is why Exodus

can speak of Moses who spoke with God face to face, as with a Mend, or Jacob can say

after his wrestling with God, “I have seen God face to face.” 94 In archaic time there was

this very qualified vision of God:

It is clear that always aforetime God—that is, the Son of God—was seen in a mirror and an enigma and a vision and a dream, both by prophets and patriarchs and Moses himself till that time: and if perchance the Lord did speak in visual presence, yet a man would not see his face as he really is, but only perchance in a mirror and in an enigma.95

There are thus two “faces” for God: one that is lethal, the Father; and one that is not,

the Son. Appearing in the “theophanies,” there ought to be, Tertullian says, a face for

God that is lethal, but there is also the natural idea of the Father assigning the Son as his

face, and this points to the unity of the two persons. The face of the Father, Tertullian

reminds us, has the fulness of the Father’s majesty. To see this face would be as

93. Or as Holmes translates it: “by reason o f the dispensation o f His derived existence.” ANF 3,609. Adversus Praxean XIV, 6. “pro modulo derivationis” Evans, 105. “So then it will be another who was seen, for it is impossible for the same one who was seen, to be characterized as invisible: and it will follow that we must understand the Father as invisible because o f the fullness o f his majesty, but must acknowledge the Son as visible because o f the enumeration o f his derivation...” Evans, 149.

94. Gen. 32:30.95. Evans, 150. Adversus Praxean XIV, 1-5. “apparet retro semper in speculo et aenigmate et visione et

somnio deum (id est filium dei) visum tarn prophetis et patriarchis quam et ipsi adhuc Moysi: et ipse quidem dominus si forte coram ad faciem loquebatur, non tamen ut est homo faciem eius videret, nisi forte in speculo et in aenigmate.” Evans, 106.


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overwhelming as the rays of the sun: to see the face of the Father would destroy the

human observer as surely as an encounter with the sun in the full amount of its substance

in the heavens.96 That is why Jacob expresses surprise and relief that he had seen God

face-to-face, and had lived to tell of it. Anything visible of God seen by these Old

Testament figures, Tertullian says, was seen “through a glass darkly” (I Corinthians 13),

in enigmas, visions or dreams. Had God not displayed his visibility in the person of the

07Son, none would have survived the experience. Tertullian argues near the end o f chapter

14 that, besides the Father assigning the Son as his face or vicarius, the unity between

Father and Son is also the reason the Son speaks of the Father as his (the Son’s) face:

Or is it that the Son indeed was seen—albeit in face, yet even this in a vision and a dream and a mirror and an enigma, because Word and Spirit cannot be seen except in imaginary aspect—yet by his face he means the invisible Father? For who is the Father? Shall he be the Son’s face, on account of the authority which he obtains as begotten of the Father? For is it not of some greater personage that it befits one to say, “That man is my face”, or “He gives me face”? The Father, he says, is greater than I: therefore the Father will be the Son’s face. For also what says the scripture? The spirit of his countenance, Christ the Lord. Therefore if Christ is the spirit of the Father’s countenance, rightly has the Spirit pronounced him whose the countenance is, namely his Father, to be his face—evidently because of their unity. Can you be surprised if the Father can be understood to be the Son’s face, when he is his head? For the head of Christ is God.9*

96. “For we find that God was seen, even by many, yet that none o f those who had seen him died—that God was seen, o f course, according to men’s capacity, not according to the fulness o f his divinity.” Evans, 149. Adversus Praxean XTV, 30-32. “invenimus enim et a multis deum visum et neminem tamen eorum qui eum viderant mortuum: visum quidem deum secundum hominum capacitates, non secundum plenitudinem divinitatis.” Evans, 104.

97. A clever feature o f his reasoning for this in chapter 14 is a reconciliation o f Moses’ having seen God only after his Glory had passed, having been told “No man may see my face and live,” with how Exodus says otherwise that the intimacy between Moses and God was face-to-face: It was a reference, Tertullian asserts, to a future time o f “face-to-face,” when Moses stood on Tabor face-to-face, talking with Jesus.

98. Evans, 150-51. Adversus Praxean XIV,13-25. “aut numquid filius quidem videbatur— etsi facie, sed ipsum hoc in visione et somnio et speculo et aenigmate, quia sermo et spiritus nisi imaginaria forma videri non potest— faciem autem suam dicit invisibilem patrem? quis enim pater? num facies erit filii, nomine auctoritatis quam genitus a patre consequitur? non enim et de aliqua maiore persona congruit dicere, Facies mea est ille homo, et, Faciem mihi praestat? Pater, inquit, maior me est: ergo facies erit filii pater, nam et scriptura quid dicit? Spiritus personae eius Christus dominus. ergo si Christus personae patemae spiritus est, merito spiritus cuius persona erat, id est patris eius, faciem suam ex unitate scilicet pronuntiavit. mira res plane an facies filii pater accipi possit qui est caput eius: caput Christi deus.” Evans, 106.


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If the Father begets the Son and is greater than the Son (quoting John 14:28), the Son is

assigning the Father as his face. Tertullian closes his argument by admitting that the

(invisible) Father being the (visible) Son’s face is a wondrous thing.

Tertullian further explains God’s visibility in chapter 15, tying Exodus 33:20 to two

key New Testament visibility texts, John 1:18 and I Timothy 6:16." The New Testament

passages, he avers, will provide the clarification for certain Old Testament passages

whose meaning are in question. In the New Testament, both the Gospels and the writings

of the other apostles speak of an invisible and a visible God, with an evident personal

distinction between the two. John 1:18 tells us that no one has ever seen God, “at any

time”; Timothy 6:16 also says that no one has seen God, or can see God. But it is also

true that the same apostles who say these words also “handled” Christ; they held

discourse with him visibly. Therefore there are (at least) two persons of God: one

invisible, the other invisible. In order to understand this, Tertullian appeals to John 1:1-2:

that the Word of God was God. This enables the Father to be invisible, unseen by any mere

human creature but seen by the Son, who is the visible God. The Son being “from within

the Father’s bosom” enables the Son to reveal or declare the Father, whether in temporary

Old Testament theophanies or the full visibility of the New Testament Incarnation:

Our case stands, that from the beginning he always was seen who was seen at the end, and that he was not seen at the end who from the beginning had not been seen, and that thus there are two, one seen and one unseen. Therefore it was the Son always who was seen and the Son always who conversed and the Son always who wrought, by the authority and will of the Father, because The Son cm do nothing of himself, unless he have seen the Father doing it—doing it, of course, in his consciousness. For the Father acts by consciousness, whereas the Son sees and accomplishes that which is in the Father’s consciousness.100

99. Jn. 1:18, “No one has ever seen God; the only-begotten, who is in the bosom o f the Father, has made him known”; I Tim. 6:16, (God) “who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see.”

100. Evans, 152—53. Adversus Praxean XV, 7—14. “constat eum semper visum ab initio qui visus fuerit in fine, et eum nec in fine visum qui nec ab initio fait visus, et ita duos esse, visum et invisum. filius


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This is a strong argument by Tertullian, especially striking in that as he sums up chapter 15,

he also connects the texts he has been working on—most importantly Matthew 11:27,

John 1:18, Exodus 33:20, and I Timothy 6:16, among others—with John 5:19: The Son does

what the Father does, as part of the unity he shares with the Father, of shared nature and

operations, giving effect and form to the Father’s sensus. Tertullian uses a chain of Scripture

texts as a way of making a constructive and polemical statement about the distinction of

persons between the Father and the Son, while maintaining their trinitarian unity.

We can see this methodical building of such a chain of texts elsewhere in Against

Praxeas. A good example is found in chapter 24, where, in an explication of the meaning

of Christ’s exchange with the disciple Philip in John 14, Tertullian uses a complex chain

of texts to support this distinction between Father and Son. 101

The disciple Philip, Tertullian explains, had laid up a great expectation of seeing the

Father. When he asks to be shown the unseeable Father, however, Christ explains himself

as the vehicle of divine visibility.

ergo visus est semper et filius conversatus est semper et filius operatus est semper, ex auctoritate patris et voluntate, quia Filius nihil a semetipso potest facere nisi viderit patrem facientem— in sensu scilicet facientem. pater enim sensu agit, filius vero quod in patris sensu est videns perficit.” Evans, 108.

101. By speaking o f a chain o f texts I mean the texts themselves, called testimonial not, technically speaking, a florilegium o f patristic comments on Scripture that we call by the term catena. I would compare this idea to what I have said about the paucity o f detailed scholarship on Latin theology. Many assume that there is much scholarship on the topic o f Latin theology, but that hardly proves true. The same can be said for work done in the use o f Scripture texts in early Christian writings. The earliest Christian use o f texts had to do with Christians recognizing in Jesus the Messiah foretold by Old Testament prophets, applying to Jesus those texts from the Septuagint that were thought o f as messianic, though the majority o f Jews did not accept these applications: “We can locate the first Christian anthologies or Testimonia within this polemical context. The Dead Sea manuscripts have shown us that the Jews had already been accustomed to making anthologies o f Old Testament excerpts. The Christians quickly adopted this method to gather together passages which helped to underline the distinctive character o f their creed, as opposed to the common faith o f the Jews: messianic texts, passages on the interpretation o f the Law, and so on. Extant anthologies o f this type, e.g. Cyprian’s Testimonia ad Quirinum, are very late, but the recurrence o f the same passages, sometimes in identical combinations, in the books o f the New Testament proves that such collections had been in use for some time in the early Church.” Manlio Simonetti, Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church: An Historical Introduction to Patristic Exegesis (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), 9—10.


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If that is so, it was not the Father who they did not know had companied so long time with them, but the Son: and the Lord, upbraiding them for not knowing himself as him whom they had not known, clearly wished to be recognized as he whom he had upbraided them for not recognizing in so long a time, namely the Son. And now it can appear in what sense it was said, He that seeth me seeth the Father also: of course in the same sense as above, I and the Father are one. Why? Because, I came forth and am come from God', and, I am the way, no one cometh unto the Father but by me\ and, No one cometh unto me except the Father have drawn him', and, All things hath the Father delivered to me; and, As the Father quickeneth, so also the Son; and, I f ye know me ye know the Father also. For according to these [texts] he had revealed himself as the deputy of the Father, by means of whom the Father was both seen in acts and heard in words and known in the Son ministering the Father’s acts and words: because the Father is invisible, a fact which Philip also had learned in the Law and ought to have remembered—No one shall see God and live. And consequently he is chidden for desiring to see the Father as though he were visible, and is informed that he becomes visible in the Son, in consequence of acts of power, not in consequence of actual manifestation of his Person.102

The chain of Scripture texts used here is exemplary of Tertullian’s exegesis: John 14:9;

John 10:30; John 16:28; John 14:6; John 6:44; Matthew 11:27; John 5:21; John 14:7;

Exodus 33:20; and, directly after the above passage, Tertullian returns to using John

14:10,11. He marshals all this evidence to speak of the visibility and unity of the Father

and the Son, contrary to Praxeas’ claim that Father and Son from ancient times have been

the same reality. The Son is the one whom the Father has declared as his “beloved Son,”

who has been glorified by the Father, and who is the Father’s Vicarius, the visible

103Repraesentator of the invisible Father. The unity of the Father and the Son means a

unity of works; Tertullian quotes and explains John 14:10:

102. Evans, 167-68. Adversus Praxean XXIV, 4-21. “si ita est, ergo non patrem tanto tempore secum conversatum ignoraverant sed filium: et dominus, eum se ignorari exprobans quern ignoraverant, eum utique agnosci volebat quem tanto non agnosci tempore exprobraverat, id est filium. et apparere iam potest quomodo dictum sit, Qui me videt videt et patrem: scilicet quo et supra, Ego et pater unum sumus. quare? quia, Ego ex deo exivi et veni; et, Ego sum via, nemo ad patrem venit nisi per me; et, Nemo ad me venit nisi pater eum adduxerit; et, Omnia mihi pater tradidit; et, Sicut pater vivificate, ita et filius; et, Si me cognovistis et patrem cognovistis. secundum haec enim vicarium se patris ostenderat, per quem pater et videretur in foctis et audiretur in verbis et cognosceretur in filio facta et verba patris administrante: quia invisibilis pater, quod et Philippus didicerat in lege et meminisse debuerat—Deum nemo videbit et vivet. et ideo suggillatur patrem videre desiderans quasi visibilem, et instruitur visibilem eum in filio fieri ex virtutibus non ex personae repraesentatione.” Evans, 120.

103. Vicarius above in XXIV,14. Repraesentator in XXIV,32: “Therefore he also made manifest the conjunction o f the two Persons, so that the Father separately might not, as though visible, be asked for in open view, and that the Son might be accepted as he who makes the Father present.” Adversus


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The words, he says, that I speak unto you are not mine—evidently because they are the Father’s—but the Father abiding in me doeth the works. Therefore the Father, abiding in the Son through works of power and words of doctrine, is seen through those things through which he abides, and through him in whom he abides: and from this very fact it is apparent that each Person is himself and none other, while he says, I am in the Father and the Father in me. And so he says, Believe. What? That I am the Father? I think it is not so written, but, That I am in the Father and the Father in me, or if not, believe for the very works ’ sake—those works in fact through which the Father was seen in the Son, not with the eyes but with the mind.104

The unity statements we see here in Tertullian’s treatise are momentous, in part because

we might not expect such statements in a treatise arguing for distinction of persons, but

also because they come from an early ante-Nicene such as Tertullian.

Besides these two specific sections of Against Praxeas as examples of Latin polemical

exegesis, Tertullian’s treatise also contains key statements in his argument for the unity

of substance of the Persons of the Trinity. It is even more interesting, then, that,

addressing modalist forms of Monarchianism in Against Praxeas, he makes arguments

that could just as effectively be used against third-century forms of subordinationism.

One of the best known quotes from all of Tertullian’s works comes in Against Praxeas

XXV, when he refers to the distinction between the Father and the Son and the Spirit and

the properties of each: “So the close series of the Father in the Son and the Son in the

Paraclete makes three who cohere, the one attached to the other. And these three are one

[thing], not one [person], in the sense in which it was said, I and the Father are one, in

Praxean XXIV, 29-32. “igitur et manifestam fecit duarum personarum coniunctionem, ne pater seorsum quasi visibilis in conspectus desideraretur et ut filius repraesentator patris haberetur.” Evans, 120.

104. Evans, 168-69. Adversus Praxean XXIV, 34—2. “Verba, inquit, quae ego loquor vobis non sunt mea— utique quia patris—pater autem manens in me fecit opera, per opera ergo virtutum et verba doctrinae manens in filio pater, per ea videtur per quae manet et per eum in quo manet, ex hoc ipso apparente proprietale utriusque personae dum dicit, Ego sum in patre et pater in me. atque adeo Credite ait quid? me patrem esse? non puto scriptum esse, sed, Quia ego in patre et pater in me, si quo minus vel propter opera credite, ea utique opera per quae pater in filio non visu sed sensu videbatur.” Evans, 120-21.


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respect of unity of substance, not of singularity of number.” 105 In chapter 26 Tertullian

brings forth additional arguments for the distinctions of Father and Son; he argues, e.g.,

for their shared power, using Luke 1:3 5 as his proof (“The Spirit of God shall come upon

thee and the Power of the Highest shall overshadow thee...”). He points out their separate

realities, especially by Father, Son and Spirit having their separate names, but their

realities refer to each other:

As therefore the Word of God is not [God] himself whose [Word] he is, so the Spirit also, though he is called God, is yet not [God] himself whose [Spirit] he is called. Nothing in genitive dependence is that on which it is dependent. Clearly when a thing is “from him,” and is “his” in the sense that it is from him, it can be a thing which is like him from whom it is and whose it is: and consequently the Spirit is God and the Word is God, because he is from God, yet is not [God] himself from whom he is. But if the Spirit of God, as being a substantive thing, will not [be found to] be God himself, but in that sense God as being from the substance of God himself, in that it is a substantive thing and a certain assignment of the whole.106

Two statements of divine unity in Against Praxeas are possibly the most significant

Tertullian makes on the subject, because in these statements he speaks of unity of nature

1 fi7and/or power (and/or substance). In chapter 2 Tertullian rails against Praxeas’ heresy,

which supposes to say that Father, Son, and Spirit can be nothing other than one single person:

105. Evans, 169. Adversus Praxean XXV, 9-12. “ita connexus patris in filio et filii in paracleto tres efficit cohaerentes alterum ex altero. qui tres unum sunt, non unus, quomodo dictum est, Ego et pater unum sumus, ad substantiae unitatem non ad numeri singularitatem.” Evans, 121.

106. Evans, 171 (emphasis added). Adversus Praxean XXVI, 20-28. “sicut ergo sermo dei non est ipse cuius est, ita nec spiritus, etsi deus dictus est, non tamen ipse est cuius est dictus. nulla res alicuius ipsa est cuius est. plane cum quid ex ipso est, et sic eius est dum ex ipso sit, potest tale quid esse quale et ipse ex quo est et cuius est: et ideo spiritus deus et sermo deus, quia ex deo, non tamen ipse ex quo est. quods/ spiritus dei, tamquam substantiva res, non erit ipse deus sed hactenus deus qua ex ipsius dei substantia, qua et substantiva res est et ut portio aliqua totius” Evans, 122.

107. This can mean that Tertullian is a very early example for Nicenes who will later argue that, because the Father and the Son have the same power as one another, they have the same nature. Cf. chapter 5 “One Substance, One Power Statements in Victorinus”; also Michel R. Bames, “One Nature, One Power: Consensus Doctrine in Pro-Nicene Polemic,” Studia Patristica 29 (1997): 205-223. This awareness o f the technical sense o f power is what Bames proposes as a characteristic o f “Pro-Nicene” theology, where a sophisticated understanding o f power language means understanding that a connatural union exists between nature (or substance) and power. Thus such statements can be found in “Pro-Nicene” polemic and exegesis among such figures as Victorinus, Phoebadius o f Agen, Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose o f Milan, Augustine and Gregory o f Nyssa.


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as though the one [God] were not all [these things] in this way also, that they are all of the one, namely by unity of substance, while none the less is guarded the mystery of that economy which disposes the unity into trinity, setting forth Father and Son and Spirit as three, three however not in quality but in sequence, not in substance but in aspect, not in power but in [its] manifestation, yet of one substance and one quality and one power. . . 108

This thought is reprised near the end of Against Praxeas in chapter 22, in which

Tertullian says that Praxeas’ favorite text, John 10:30, does not mean what he says it

does, a divine unity without distinction of persons:

Yet when he says that two, on the masculine gender, are one [thing], in the neuter—which is not concerned with singularity but with unity, with similitude, with conjunction, with the love of the Father who loveth the Son, and with the obedience of the Son who obeys the Father’s will—when he says One [thing] are I and the Father, he shows that those that those whom he equates and conjoins are two... By means of the works, then, the Father will be in the Son and the Son in the Father, and thus by means of the works we understand that the Father and the Son are one. With such insistence did he bring all this to light, to the intent that we should believe there are two, albeit in one act of power, because it would be impossible to believe there is a Son otherwise than if we believe there were two.109

Common work/works and power define the unity of the Father and Son in Tertullian’s

theology, placing his work squarely in a tradition of divine unity.110 With regard to power

as a conceptual idiom of the early Common Era, Michel Bames discusses “Tertullian’s

108. Evans, 132 (emphasis added). Adversus Praxean II, 38-5. “quasi non sic quoque unus sit omnia dum ex uno omnia, per substantiae scilicet unitatem, et nihilo minus custodiatur otxovopiag sacramentum quae unitatem in trinitatem disponit, tres dirigens patrem et filium et spiritum, tres autem non statu sed gradu, nec substantia sed forma, nec potestate sed specie, unius autem substantiae et unius status et unius potestatis” Evans, 90-91

109. Evans, 164-65 (emphasis added). Adversus Praxean XXII, 11-16,26-30. “adhuc cum duo masculini generic unum dicit neutrali verbo— quod non pertinet ad singularitatem, sed ad unitatem, ad similitudinem, ad coniunctionem, ad dilectionem patris qui filium diligit, et ad obsequium filii qui voluntati patris obsequitur—Unum sumus, dicens, ego et pater, ostendit duos esse quos aequat et iungit... per opera ergo erit pater in filio et filius in patre, et ita per opera intellegimus unum esse patrem [et filium]. adeo totum hoc perseverabat inducere, ut duo tamen crederentur in una virtute, quia aliter filius credi non posset nisi duo crederentur. ” Evans, 122.

110. “At the turn from the second to the third centuries Christians are also using ‘power’ to describe God, particularly in a trinitarian or christological context, given the authority o f scriptural passages such as Luke 1:35, Romans 1:20, 1 Cor. 1:24, and Hebrews 1:3... Among authors like Clement o f Alexandria, Tertullian, Hippolytus and Origen we find commonly articulated two kinds o f ‘power’ based trinitarian theologies. These two doctrines o f divine power will play fundamental roles in the trinitarian controversies o f the fourth century.” Michel Bames, “One Nature, One Power,” 209-10. One o f the best examples o f this trinitarian power idiom comes from Athenagoras’ A Plea Regarding Christians, ca. 176, chapter 10: “And since the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son by the unity and power o f the Spirit, the Son o f God is the mind and Word o f the Father.” Cyril Richardson, ed. and trans, Early Christian Fathers (New York: Collier Books, 1970), 309.


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Doctrine of ‘One Power, One Substance’” and concludes, “Those reading Tertullian in

the fourth century who were sympathetic to Nicaea would have found in him a strong

identification of power with nature, so strong in fact that a not quite so sophisticated

reader as Phoebadius might have failed to be able to distinguish power from substance

with any real clarity.” 111

Te r t u l l ia n a n d t h e E n d u r in g R o l e o f E x e g e s is in L a t in T r in it a r ia n T h e o l o g y

I have mentioned the depth and length of Tertullian’s classical education and the number

of authors he had read and knew quite well. Mirroring this is the extensive list of Western

Latins who show evidence of having read Tertullian and knowing his works well. 112 One

generation after Tertullian produced the trinitarian reflection of Against Praxeas, the

Latin church father Novatian would reprise the content of that work in his own De

Trinitate, removing the anti-Monarchian polemic for the sake of addressing different

opponents. In the next century, all Latin-speaking patristic writers read Tertullian, “the

Master.” The idea that Victorinus, who, as Augustine famously said “read everything

111. Michel R. Bames, The Power o f God: Avvaftig in Gregory ofN yssa’s Trinitarian Theology (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University o f America Press, 2001), 106. Entire section titled “Tertullian’s Doctrine o f ‘One Power, One Substance,”’ 103-06.

112. The question o f who read Tertullian in antiquity is addressed in the Corpus Christianorum Series Latina Volume I, edited by Dom Eligius Dekkers (Tumhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1953), which contains a massive listing in tables that cross reference ancient authors and works quoting from the works o f Tertullian. Though even these three tables are probably not complete, they are the best done up until now. Most important in this lengthy list are the Latin Neo-Nicene contemporaries o f Victorinus: Hilary, Phoebaedius o f Agen, Gregory o f Elvira, Lucifer o f Cagliari, Filastrius o f Brixia, and Zeno o f Verona. The only Neo-Nicene name missing from that list other than Victorinus would be Eusebius o f Vercelli. Cf. “Testimonia,” The Tertullian Project, http://www.tertullian.org/witnesses/witnesses.htm.

113. “Now finally Tertullian the presbyter is ranked first o f the Latin writers after Victor and Apollonius.He was from the province o f Africa, from the city o f Carthage where his father was a proconsular centurion. A man o f impetuous temperament, he was in his prime in the reign o f the emperor Severus and Antoninus Caracalla, and he wrote many works which I need not name since they are very widely known. At Concordia, a town in Italy, I saw an old man named Paul, who said that, when he was still a very young man, he had seen in Rome a very old man who had been secretary o f blessed Cyprian


http://www.tertullian.org/witnesses/witnesses.htm

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by Christians” 114 directly following his conversion, did not read Tertullian is

untenable. 115 Marius Victorinus used the resources of third century Latin theology,

particularly Tertullian’s scriptural exegesis, to produce his own contribution to the

trinitarian-theological challenges of the mid-fourth century. 116 Tertullian’s works created

Latin exegetical commonplaces, particular texts of Scripture constellated together, that

can be recognized in Latin Nicenes 150 years later.

Lewis Ayres, in his recent work Nicaea and its Legacy, offers a new summary of the

full course and nature of what was formerly called the Arian Controversy. As a central

part of his argument he includes a major theme of Nicenes’ particular reading of

Scripture. When he describes how Nicenes read Scripture and why that resolved the

controversy, it sounds as if Ayres has Marius Victorinus in mind, because a mention of

Victorinus in the work’s introduction seems to indicate that Ayres does see Victorinus as

an important example. 117

and had reported to him that Cyprian was accustomed never to pass a day without reading Tertullian and would frequently say to him, ‘Hand me the master,’ meaning, o f course, Tertullian.” Jerome, On Illustrious Men/Saint Jerome, trans. Thomas P. Halton, vol. 100, Fathers o f the Church (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University o f America Press, 1999), 74—5.

114. Confessions VIII.2.4. Cf. in chapter one where I treat the sections o f Confessions Book VIII that deal with what Augustine specifically tells us o f Victorinus and his conversion.

115. R.P.C. Hanson’s chapter on Victorinus in his The Search fo r the Christian Doctrine o f G od acknowledges that Victorinus’ description o f the relation between the Father and the Son was “ingenious and original beyond any Western theologian before him” (539), and yet also concludes that Victorinus should be “regarded as positively anti-Tertullianic in both thought and vocabulary” (545), and that Victorinus “deliberately turns his back on Tertullian” (555).

116. Cf. D.H. Williams, “Defining Orthodoxy in Hilary o f Poitiers’ Commentarium in Matthaeum,” Journal o f Early Christian Studies 9 (2001): 151—71. Written circa 350, Hilary’s In Matthaeum has no apparent understanding o f contemporary anti-Nicene theology, but the subordinationist theology that Hilary is addressing in the commentary is third and fourth century “logos-sarx” forms o f subordinationism in the Latin West. Williams argues that Hilary was addressing this sort o f heresy in chapter thirty-one o f his commentary, rather than an “Arian” category o f subordinationism that had yet to crystallize in the Latin West. Similar to what Hilary inherited from third century Western Latin theology, Victorinus had a certain Western theology that was crystallizing around the re-definition o f the homoousios and deployment o f key scriptural exegeses o f the Son’s identity, nature and power.

117. “Theology and the Reading o f Scripture” section in chapter 1, 31-40. In his book’s introduction Ayres mentions extended narrative chapters o f the Trinitarian Controversy that the does not mean as


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Ayres is responding to Hanson’s assessment in Search for the Christian Doctrine o f God

that dismissively concludes that “the expounders of the text of the Bible [in the fourth

118century] are incompetent and ill-prepared to expound it,” and he speaks of two

categories of hermeneutical strategies in his book’s first chapter, “Points of Departure.” To

speak of the obvious first, early Christians used “grammatical” techniques of reading

Scripture that were learned as a commonplace method of the rhetorical schools. 119

Alongside these grammatical techniques, early Christians employed the practice of

“figural” reading, which “seeks figures within the text both to understand the incarnate

Word and to participate in the divine speech and action in creation.” 120 For “figural

readers” there is a fundamental relationship between the particularities of one text and

event or other texts with which it is conjoined, and good exegesis is done only when

attention is paid to these two poles. Moreover, early Christians’ theological practice did not

distinguish between “exegesis” and “theology” in the way modem scholars do.

The language of Scripture is taken as the primary and most trustworthy language for Christians developing their account of the world and the importation of philosophical themes and technical language is conceived not as a necessary transposition of ideas, but as an elucidation of the text of Scripture.121

replacements for the standard large survey histories o f the Trinitarian Controvery by such scholars as R. P. C. Hanson (The Search fo r the Christian Doctrine o f God), and Manlio Simonetti (La Crisi Ariana nel IV secolo); rather, his intention is o f offering “a narrative framework for the controversies that in some measure advances on their texts, and which can form the basis for the consideration o f pro-Nicene theology.” Because o f the close reading o f certain texts, Ayres mentions a list o f figures “who most certainly deserve treatment,” but have not been accorded individual treatment in the interests o f space: “I have in mind Marius Victorinus, Eusebius o f Emesa, Epiphanius o f Salamis, and Didymus the Blind...” The first mention o f Victorinus is telling, pointing to scholars’ reconsideration of Victorinus as a serious Nicene figure in the Trinitarian Controversy. Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, 5.

118. Hanson, Search, 848.119. Ayres is taking his cue from a lucid essay by Francis Young that provides a good overview o f patristic

exegesis. Francis Young, “The Rhetorical Schools and their Influence on Patristic Exegesis.” In The Making o f Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour o f Henry Chadwick, edited by Rowan D. Williams, 182—99. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). “Figural” reading he gets from David Dawson, “Figural Reading and the Fashioning o f Christian Identity in Boyarin, Auerbach and Frei,” Modem Theology 14 (1998): 181-96.

120. Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, 37.121. Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, 277.


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As Ayres points out, Victorinus’ particular reading of Scripture following his conversion,

and his use of that reading for the sake of Nicene polemic, is best understood within a

context such as the one described by Ayres in Nicaea and its Legacy.

All this could easily apply to anti-Nicene Homoians and their ingenuous efforts at

exegesis of Scripture, but Ayres argues for a distinctive pro-Nicene122 reading of

Scripture, which

is to be found in subtle twists given to common reading practices, and in links drawn between these reading practices and the principles of pro-Nicene Trinitarianism... Like almost all early Christian writers, pro-Nicenes read Scripture as a providentially ordained resource for the Christian imagination. It is an intrinsic part of Scripture’s purpose to enable description of the God who acts and of the structure of the cosmos within which God acts: the reshaping of the cosmological imagination is a central aspect of the Incarnate Word’s mission. Scripture shapes the description of the journey in the Church and in Christ toward full sight of the divine glory. Within this context pro-Nicenes continue to make use of the range of grammatical and figural techniques. . . 123

Ayres qualifies that there are two further ways in which pro-Nicenes “subtly adapt

previous tradition”:

1. “Interpretation of Scripture is governed by a pro-Nicene rule of faith. Creeds, pre-existing rules of faith, and passages of Scripture traditionally used as hermeneutical keys are all given a pro-Nicene cast.” 124

2. “Pro-Nicenes offer accounts of Scripture’s revelatory ability in which understanding is incremental and deferment of comprehension endless.” 125

122. When Ayres used the term “pro-Nicene” he is close to Bames’ “Pro-Nicene,” but not quite as determined in meaning (versus also Williams’ use o f “pro-Nicene,” meaning any fourth-century theology sympathetic to an apparent Nicene trajectory): “First, I use the term primarily to describe the full flowering o f this theology in the 380s. Second, I also use the term to refer to the precursors o f that theology which emerged during the late 350s and 360s and developed during the 370s. Third, I take this theology to be in continuity with many previous emphases, but not to be simply the continuation of a one original Nicene theology surviving unchanged since 325. In some cases pro-Nicene theologies emerge from older Nicene theologies, in other cases these theologies emerge from traditions originally opposed to those older Nicene theologies.” Ayres, 167-68.

123. Ayres, 335-36.124. Ayres, 336.125. Ayres, 339.


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In the four books of Against Arius, Victorinus not only makes impassioned arguments on

behalf of homoousios, he also recalls the wisdom and pronouncements of Nicaea (in

Books I and II) as the standard to which Western Latins must now appeal in their

responses to anti-Nicenes. 126 In the next three chapters I will demonstrate the intricacy of

Victorinus’ arguments on behalf of homoousios, divine substance, visibility and unity,

using Pro-Nicene understandings and worldviews of the meaning of Scripture far beyond

what might be expected of him. He is not the obscure, incomprehensible Neoplatonist

amateur at theology depicted by Jerome. Victorinus is a newly-arrived, but mature, Neo-

Nicene exegete and theologian.

126. AA 1 28 (Clark, 133-34), AA 145 (Clark, 163), A A I I9 (Clark, 212), AA I I 12 (Clark, 216).


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3 Divine Substance in Victorinus

Introduction

The use of texts for divine substance during the Trinitarian Controversy suffered for want

of an extended, sophisticated exegesis. There was a dearth of available Scripture texts to

refute the Homoian insistence against using anything not found in the text of the Bible.

Western Neo-Nicenes also suffered from the aforementioned lack of a common,

understood distinction between ousia and hypostasis. There was the added problem of

rendering these into Latin without falling into modalist connotations, as both Victorinus

and Gregory of Elvira did at times. Victorinus’ attempts at exegesis of divine substance

texts were not his best contribution to the discussion of divine substance. His contribution

lies in the peculiar feature of his familiarity with and passing use of a trinitarian formula

which sounds quite advanced for his time and in his manner of speaking about terms for

divine substance.

Divine Substance Loci In Victorinus

Texts for justifying the contested issue of divine substance are not easily found in the

Old and New Testaments. There are certain apparent, plausible texts to which

Victorinus was drawn, but he used them with limited success: his arguments for divine

substance are not as cogent or complex as those for divine unity and divine visibility.

However, he clearly recognizes their importance as a polemical platform, and makes up


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for his simple consideration of substance texts with his limited but impressive

discussions of trinitarian formulae, especially the anomalous use of a formula whichI * \ n

he quotes in Greek: “From one ousia there are three hypostases.” (Admittedly, even

this sophisticated use of such an advanced trinitarian formula—and its Latin

equivalents, substituting subsistentia for hypostasis—does not keep Victorinus from

lapsing into some modalist tendencies, very similar to the errors of contemporary

Gregory of Elvira.128) In this chapter I will consider the unexpected placing o f this

formula in Victorinus’ work. Given the twin assumptions that Victorinus was not in

contact with what was going on in his day within Nicene theological circles, and that

no one read his theological works, how this formula could have ended up in his work

• • 190is quite a compelling question.

Illustrative of Victorinus’ rudimentary understanding of divine substance is a section

in Book II 7—8 of Against Arius. In this section, as he often does throughout all four

books of his work, he is trying to justify homoousios.™ Even if the name of

homoousios is not found in Scripture, the truths which prove it are present there; i.e., it

127. At, for example, AA III 4,38-39. Clark, 228128. Cf. Hanson: “As we shall see, Marius’ chief theological weakness is a tendency to fall into

Sabellianism...” Search, 546. A common theological weakness o f Neo-Nicenes o f the late 350s; Victorinus especially deserves some understanding within this context, since he was extremely new, and far less experienced, in the theological task o f the Nicenes. Until he wrote the Tome to the Antiochenes in 362, Athanasius was still treating hypostasis as a simple synonym for ousia.

129. The typical overall understanding at work about Victorinus’ place in fourth-century trinitarian debates, antithetical to my own consideration o f Victorinus, is summed up in R. P. C. Hanson’s statement (as cited in chapter 1 section, “Scholarly Traditions and Treatments o f Victorinus”): “In short, there is no satisfactory evidence that Marius Victorinus had any genuine knowledge o f Arianism as it was in his day. He could exercise his intellect more rhetorico in producing arguments which he was later to refute, and he could reproduce some old Arian documents which had long become the stock texts for controversy, but that was all...” Hanson, Search, 534.

130. Clark, 207-10. AA I I 7-8, a post-360 part o f the whole work o f Against Arius.


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is deduced from Scripture. 131 There are certainly other terms, he points out, that are not

read directly in Scripture but are nevertheless drawn or derived from Scripture, such as

“God from God, light from light.” Victorinus’ reasoning here is the same as that used

by Nicenes rallying to a near-forgotten creed (325) as a polemical form, while also

arriving at an imperfect understanding of its technical terms, especially homoousios.

With a reference to this name not being found in Scripture, Victorinus is referring to an

anti-Nicene statement all Nicenes would have recognized: specifically, the memorable

statement of “the Blasphemy” (the creed of Sirmium 357), which forbade substantive

1 ^ 7 1 7 7terms not derived from Scripture. The “Dated Creed” of 359 elaborated even more

adamantly on the unscriptural uselessness of these terms, so that Nicenes would have

remembered the phrasing of these terms “not being found in Scripture” as much as they

remembered the characterization of Homoian bishops Valens and Ursacius as the “twin

vipers begotten of one Arian asp.” 134

This response to Homoian anathemas against unscriptural terms in Book I I 7 is a

perfect example of the most common Neo-Nicene argument of the time:

131. This is the common Neo-Nicene attitude: Athanasius speaks the same in De Decretis (21.2[18]): even if you cannot find such terms in the Scripture, they contain the intention o f Scripture.

132. “But inasmuch as some or many were troubled about substance (substantia), which in Greek is called usia, that is, to make it more explicit, homoousion or the term homoeusion, there ought to be no mention o f these at all and no one should preach them, for the reason and ground that they are not contained in inspired Scripture...” Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 285-86.

133. “But whereas the term ‘substance’ has been adopted by the fathers in simplicity (8 ia t o

ajikouoTEpov), but being unknown by the people gives offence, because neither do the Scriptures contain it, it has seemed good to remove it, and that there should be no further mention o f substance in regard to God, because the divine Scriptures nowhere refer to the substance o f the Father or the Son. But we say the Son is like the Father in all things, as the holy Scriptures themselves declare and teach.” Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 290. For all their criticism o f those who infer that substance is derived from Scripture, anti-Nicenes were just as ready to derive how the Scriptures taught that the Son was like the Father, in whatever respects.

134. That is, Valens and Ursacius, as they were condemned and parodied by Western bishops in the Serdica Creed o f 343.


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But indeed this word itself, homoousion is not read in Scripture. But all truths which we affirm are found there. I speak to you, because you already confess of God either that he is light or that he is Spirit; therefore you say: “God from God, Spirit from invisible Spirit, and true light from true light,” all of which are the hupostaseis of God. When indeed you affirm that Christ is “God from God, light from light,” and such names, where have you so read them in Scripture? Or is it permitted to you to speak thus, whence the homoousion is better proved, while it is not permitted to us to say homoousion? Indeed, if for this reason you say “light from light5'’ because God is also called light and Christ is called light, and likewise also the Father is called God and Christ is called God, this certainly is evident; but indeed, “God from God” is not read in Scripture, nor is “light from light” But it was legitimate to draw these expressions from Scripture. Therefore it is legitimate to compose from Scripture terms not read there. You deny that homoousion is read in scripture. But if similar terms or those derived in a similar way are read in Scripture, we ought to have an equal right to this derivative.135

This argument’s form is nearly ad hominem, since those who approve a “God from God,

etc.” terminology not found in Scripture but deduced from Scripture are the ones who try

to forbid homoousios (and one could argue that “X from X ' statements are less easily

found in the text of Scripture). Gregory of Elvira makes the same argument in his De fide,

speaking against anti-Nicene claims that “it is not proper to mention by name 6|xooi3atO£,

which is not contained in the divine Scripture” :136

Although it is not entirely different from what is written, you would still confess it somewhat, that is, “God from God, and light from light”: How does one respond to this? Either totally agree with this or totally omit its use. But if you thereafter fear to say the term “one in substance,” which is not written, you have to continually fear also confessing “God from God and light from light.” 137

135. Clark, 207-08. A A II 7,1-15. “At enim hoc ipsum opootioLov lectum non est. Omnia enim quae dicimus lecta sunt. Vobis dico, quia iam fatemini de deo vel quod lumen sit vel quod spiritus; dicitis ergo: de deo deum, de invisibili spiritu spiritum, et verum lumen de vero lumine, quae sunt vjioordoeiq dei. Verum cum dicitis Christum, deum de deo, lumen de lumine, et talia, ubi sic legistis? An vobis licet sic dicere, unde magis ogoouoiov probatur, nobis dicere 6poouoiov non licebit? Verum si ideo dicitis lumen de lumine, quia et deus lumen dictus et Christus lumen, et item et pater deus et Christus deus dictus, id quidem manifestum; verum deum de deo non lectum, nec lumen de lumine. At licuit sumere. Liceat ergo de lectis non lecta conponere. 'Opoouoiov lectum negates. Sed si aliqua similia vel similiter denominata lecta sunt, iure pari et istud denomination accipere debemus.” CSEL 83/1,180-81. Hadot, believing that Victorinus is a perfect example o f what can be found in Neo-Nicenes such as Athanasius, Phoebadius o f Agen and Gregory o f Elvira, believes AA I I7,1-21 the best example o f this. Hadot, Marius Victorinus, 282. II 7,15-21 reads: “Light is the ousia o f God. This light is life, and this life is knowledge. That God is this, that Christ is this has been sufficiently shown: ‘The Father lives and I live.’ ‘The Father has life in himself and he has given to the Son also to have life in himself ’ ‘All things that the Father has, he has given to me.’ By these testimonies and others we often prove that the same things are in the Father and in the Son, and that this is always and from eternity; and on that account this was called homoousion.” Clark, 208

136. De fide III, 33 ,283-84. “dpoouoiov nominari non oportere, quia in scripturis diuinis non contineatur...” CCSL 69,228.

137 .D e fide III, 38, 319—325. “quamquam (quid quod) et aliud quod scriptum non est, partier profitearis (- eris), id est deum ex deo {et} lumen ex lumine: quid ad haec dicis? Aut totum mecum tene aut totum


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This argument, used by Neo-Nicenes such as Victorinus and Gregory of Elvira, may

have had its inspiration in Cicero and rhetorical interpretation, as noted by Hadot in his

commentary on Victorinus’ treatises. 138 Cicero, in his De inventione II 50,152, speaks of

taking what is read in a text and arriving at what is not written in the text. Victorinus

1echoes this sentiment in his commentary on Cicero’s rhetoric. The “letter of the law”

can be carefully, intensively read to reveal things consequently not in the letter o f the

law. This same theological reasoning can be applied in finding Scriptural expressions

which are not in the letter of Scripture.

Primary Texts for Substance

Oi)CTia In M att h e w 6:11 A n d T itu s 2:14

There exist in Victorinus two conceptual tracks for locating substance texts in Scripture.

The first involves proofs of the use of the word ouaia, or rather derivatives of that

word;140 the second employs scriptural instances of ujtootaatg. Epiousios, or

“supersubstantial,” appears in Books I and II of Against Arius, coming from Matthew

6:11; whileperiousios, “around [God’s] substance,” is taken from Titus 2:14, as well as

omitte. Si enim unius substantiae uocabulum inde (ideo) times dicere, quia scriptum non est, timere identidem debes deum ex deo et lumen ex lumine profited.” CCSL 69, 229.

138. Hadot, Traites Theologiques, 913—14.139. in Cicer. Rhet. I l l : “Quod etiam iuris periti faciunt qui, si forte id quo de agitur, iure non cautum est,

per interpretationem statuti iuris id etiam quod in eodem iure nominatim non continetur, adfirmant.” Hadot, Traites Theologiques, 913.

140. Meaning Jiepiouoioq and emouoiog.


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from the eucharistic Oblation Prayer. Texts using hypostasis are (in order of importance)

Jeremiah 23:18,22, Hebrews 1:3, Luke 15:12, and Psalm 139:15.141

This term of homoousios has, in Victorinus’ view, three sources: the Gospel; the

Apostle Paul; and the “Oblation Prayer” of the fourth century eucharistic liturgy—

something familiar to Victorinus, so recently a catechumen. 142 For explanation, he alludes

to Matthew 6:11, the prayer for “daily bread” in the Lord’s Prayer, qualifying this with

the statement of Christ in John 6:58 that “this is the bread which descends from heaven.”

The divine realities of bread, eternal life, and substance all intersect in Victorinus’ view:

the meaning of (Matthew 6:11) “epiousion arton,” is

bread from the same substance,143 that is, consubstantial life coming from the life of God. For whence would we be sons of God except by participation of eternal life which Christ gave to us, bringing it to us from the Father? This, therefore, is our petition: boq f||jTv craouoiov apxov, that is, life from the same substance. Indeed, if what we receive is the body of Christ, and if Christ is life, we ask for Smouoiov apxov. For the divinity dwells in Christ corporeally. The Greek Gospel, therefore, has £mouaiov, a word derived from substance and clearly referring to the substance of God. This term, either because they had not understood it or because they could not render it in their own language, the Latins have not been able to express and they used only cotidianum, not also emouaiov. Therefore this term is also read in Scripture, and substance is used in reference to God; the term can be said in Greek, and even if it is not translated into Latin, it is nevertheless said in Greek because it is understood.144

141. These are the same scriptural loci employed by Athanasius in his Ad Afros 4, and in Gregory o f Elvira’s De fide 4.

142. “Thus the prayer o f oblation, understood in that way, is addressed to God: save a people around your substance, a pursuer o f good works.” Clark, 210. AA II 8,34-35. Cf. also AA 1 30,46-48: “as it is said in the oblation prayer: ‘Purify for yourself this people, standing fast in life, zealous for good works, assembling around your substance.’” Clark, 139.

143. Interestingly, Victorinus is very specific here, and homoousios is not precise enough: he renders “o f the same substance” as “ex eadem oiiouy.”

144. Clark, 208-09. AA II 8,9-23. “ex eadem ouoigt panem, id est de vita dei consubstantialem vitam. Unde enim filii dei erimus, nisi participatione vitae aetemae, quam nobis Christus a patre adferens dedit? Hoc ergo est: 6 6 g f|glv e ju o u c j io v apxov, id est vitam ex eadem substantia. Etenim si quod accipimus corpus Christi est, ipse autem Christus vita est, quaerimus £monoiov fipxov. Divinitas enim in Christo corporaliter habitat. Graecum igitur evangelium habet £mot>oiov quod denominatum est a substantia et utique dei substantia. Hoc Latini, vel non intellegentes vel non valentes exprimere, non potuerunt dicere, et tantummodo cotidianum posuerunt, non et e j u o u o i o v . Est ergo et nomen lectum et in deo substantia et did potest graece, quod etiam si latine non exprimitur, dicitur tamen graece, quia intellegitur.” CSEL 83/1,181-82


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Victorinus, calling to mind the Greek text of the New Testament Scripture to bolster his

belief about substance, also quotes Titus 2:14 in Greek as well as Latin: “that he might

redeem us from all iniquity and might cleanse to himself a people around his substance

(jiepiouoiov).” He mixes this with his favorite conceptual idiom for Christ: Christ as a

viand of divine life. 145 If we are the people who gather around Christ, Victorinus asserts,

and Christ is the life and eternal life of God, then we are associated closely with “the

cause and necessity for salvation.” 146 This is reflected in the words of the Oblation

Prayer, which quotes Titus 2:14: “a people around your substance.” 147 These terms being

found in Scripture, such as fmouaioc; from Matthew, or Jtepiouaioc; from Titus, justifies

the use of homoousios

to refer to God and Christ; and this term is not inconsistent with reason. It contains ousian, that is, substance, as do the terms mentioned above, and it is derived in the same way. And this term condemns all heretics. It was necessary, therefore, that it be used by the Fathers. It must therefore be expressed and always used.148

This is much the same as what Victorinus had already done with a justification for using

the homoousios in Book IA, against people who say that the term for substantia is not used

145. Which is why, for example, Victorinus favors Jn. 5:26 so much as a prooftext—“For as the Father has life f t himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.” Life as an idiom is not so important for the Neo-Nicene task o f theological definition, but it remains as a strong m otif in Victorinus because o f his articulate Neoplatonism.

146. Clark, 209. AA II 8,33-34.147. Cf. K. Gamber, “Em kleines Fragment aus der Liturgie des 4. Jahrhunderts,” Revue Benedictine 77

(1967): 148-55. As for why a Greek fragment o f a fourth-century liturgy appears as a text which Victorinus calls to mind as he argues, Gamber believes that Victorinus, after his conversion, attached himself to an Egyptian Christian parish in Rome. Hadot believes otherwise: Victorinus, who knew Greek, was part o f a Christian community still conversant in Greek; this is not proof that Victorinus acquired aspects o f Athanasius’ theology through these Greek-speaking Christians in Rome. Hadot, Marius Victorinus, 251—52.

148. Clark, 210. AA n 8,37-41. CSEL 83/1, 183. Victorinus, writing Against Arius ca. 361-63, appeals to “the Fathers,” without qualifying who these would be. In 12 8 ,15ff., Victorinus recalls how “forty years ago... when, in the city o f Nicaea, the formula o f faith which excommunicated the Arian faction was approved by more than three hundred bishops. In this synod o f illustrious men there were present all the luminaries o f the Church and o f the entire world...” Clark, 133-34.


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in Scripture. 149 In a possible reference to the Sirmium 357 and 359 creeds, Victorinus uses

the same argument and nearly the same chain of testimonia as in AA II 7-8 (the exception

here being his inclusion of Jeremiah 23:18,22). Citing Matthew 6:11, Titus 2:14 and the

related liturgical Oblation Prayer, and Jeremiah 23:18,22, Victorinus argues that it matters

little that the terms for substance are not clearly found in Scripture, for its derivatives are.

Understanding the meaning of these texts effect an understanding of the Being of God, and

therefore an ability to see the Logos, who is consubstantial with the Father.

The locus of Matthew 6:11, and Victorinus’ treatment of it, are strikingly similar to

Tertullian’s summation of the meaning of this petition of the Lord’s Prayer in his treatise

De Oratione, the earliest surviving exposition of the Lord’s Prayer in any language. 150

The common belief that Victorinus has never read any work by Tertullian is belied by

this agreement with Tertullian on the full meaning of the petition for daily bread.

Tertullian believes that the Lord’s Prayer is a tool Christ gives his disciples for instilling

a new meaning into everything in the Old Covenant Scriptures, renewing all things from

carnal realities into new-found spiritual realities (in chapter one of De Oratione).

Included in this superadded sense is the fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer:

We may understand, “Give us this day our daily bread,” spiritually. For Christ is our Bread; because Christ is Life, and bread is life. “I am,” saith He, “the Bread of Life”; and, a little above, “The Bread is the Word of the living God, who came down from the heavens.” Then we find, too, that His body is reckoned in bread: “This is my body.” And so, in petitioning for “daily bread,” we ask for perpetuity in Christ, and indivisibility from His body.151

149. Clark, 138-39. AA 1 30,36-59. CSEL 83/1, 108-09.150. Ca. 198-99 A.D. The best Latin critical edition is by Ernest Evans, De Oratione Liber. Tract on the Prayer.

The Latin text with critical notes, an English translation, an introduction, and explanatory observations by Ernest Evans (London: S.P.C.K.,1953). (Henceforth Evans, Tertullian’s Tract on the Prayer)

151. Translation o f Rev. S. Thelwall, ANF, Vol. 3 ,683. De Oratione 6:5-12 “quanquam PANEM NOSTRUM QUOTIDIANUM DA NOBIS HODIE spiritaliter potius intellegamus. Christus enim panis noster est, quia vita Christus et vita panis: Ego sum, inquit, panis vitae: et paulo supra, Panis est sermo dei vivi qui descendit de caelis: turn quod et corpus eius in pane censetur, Hoc est corpus meum. Itaque petendo panem quotidianum perpetuitatem postulamus in Christo et individuitatem a corpore eius.” Ernest Evans, Tertullian’s Tract on the Prayer, 10.


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Tertullian does not delve into the substantive possibilities in 6 0 5 rjpTv eatiouaiov apxov in

Matthew 6:11, but Victorinus understands it to include the same signified realities of bread,

bread of life, life from God, and participation in eternal life brought by Christ from the Father.

'Yjtooxaotg in Je r e m ia h 23:18,22 a n d T it u s 2:14

Besides Matthew 6:11 and Titus 2:14, already noted for of their use of the word ouoia,

there are two other scriptural loci worth considering in Victorinus’ coalescing

understanding of divine substance. Victorinus employs these two texts for their use of the

substantial word ujrooraaig. First and foremost is Jeremiah 23:18,22: “Who is he who

stands in the substance of the Lord.. .And if they had stood in my substance...” Flebrews

1:3 also offers fmocrraaic; for consideration, especially because it stands as the only

reference to Wisdom 7:25 in the text of the New Testament.152

Jeremiah 23:18,22 sees repeated use throughout Against Arius (especially verse 18).153

With it, Victorinus appeals to the idea that God has a substance, so that he can argue that

Father and Son share the same divine substance. At first glance, these unique verses in

Jeremiah would seem the logical choice to argue on behalf of divine substance. Upon

looking at the verses in the original Septuagint text, however, one sees the semantic

152. The complete RSV text o f these two verses o f Jer. 23:18,22 is “For who among them has stood in the council o f the LORD to perceive and to hear his word, or who has given heed to his word and listened?; But if they had stood in my council, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil o f their doings.” What concerns us here is the LXX use o f the word vnooraoig, used in 23:18 and 22 for “substance” (Masoretic text: “llO, meaning “sitting, session, consultation, talk, counsel.”), which the RSV translates as “council” and the Latin translations rendered as “substantia.” See below on Wisdom 7:25(and 26), but it is commonly understood as a commonplace during all o f the Nicene-trinitarian stages o f the Trinitarian Controversy, especially having been inspired by Origen’s intensive use o f it in De Principiis.

153. Jer. 23:18,22 is the most consistently used locus, appearing once in each book o f Against Arius, as well as in The Necessity o f Accepting the Homoousios, as Hadot points out in a small chart in his volume II commentary o f Traites Theologiques, 794.


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problems that make it a poor proof-text for what Victorinus wants to say. In many ways

23:18,22 serves as an illustration of the semantic confusion over divine substance, ousia

and hypostasis, during the fourth century Trinitarian Controversy. Victorinus looks for places

in Scripture, whether Old Testament or New, where “substance” is spoken of, because he is

speaking of divine substance in his firm Neo-Nicene defense of the consubstantiality of the

Father and Son. The anti-Nicene theology of the 350s had specifically rejected the use of

the terms ousia, hypostasis, and homoousios for the sake of doctrinal definition and

confession, on the basis that those terms were not found in Scripture. 154 In AA IA 30

Victorinus responds to adversaries, especially Homoiousians, of substance.

Looking at the instances of Jeremiah 23:18,22 we can say that Victorinus does prove

his point about substance in Scripture, but he does so in a rather roughshod way which

creates more problems than it solves. After his first several uses of the proof-text in

Against Arius, he seems to come to a new awareness of the import of the text for his

argument. In Book IA 30,36-59 Victorinus rails against “those who say that the term

‘substance’ is not found in Scripture: perhaps in fact the term substance is not found

there, but derivatives (‘denominata’) from substance are there.” 155 Against these

opponents he forges a chain of Scripture texts that do not necessarily prove his argument.

For example, Victorinus quotes Matthew 6:11, “Give us this day the epiousion

(supersubstantial) bread,” and Titus 2:14, “the people periousion (the people close

154. The Creed o f Sirmium 357 states the typical 350s anti-Nicene attitude, for example, “But inasmuch as some or many were troubled about substance (substantia), which in Greek is called usia, that is, to make it more explicit, homousion or the term homoeusion, there ought to be no mention o f these at all and no one should preach them, for the reason and ground that they are not contained in inspired Scripture...” Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 285—86. The Latin text o f Sirmium 357 comes from Hilaiy’s De synodis 11; the Greek text from Athanasius’ De synodis 28.

155. Clark, 138. AA 1 30,36-38. “Adversus autem eos qui dicunt nomen substantiae non esse positum in sanctis scripturis, nomen quidem substantiae forte non est, denominata autem a substantia sunt.”CSEL 83/1, 108.


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to/around the ousia)” both of which seemingly prove that ousia is used in Scripture. 156

(We could qualify these two texts as having prefixes before the word ousia, but they still

employ ousia in some sense of divine substance.) Victorinus then continues the chain by

quoting Jeremiah, as he will later on: “it seems to me that the same thing is signified” (by

23:18 and 22). The obvious problem is that, while the linking of these texts does prove

that substance is used in Scripture, it fails to do so in the clean sense that Victorinus

seems to understand, or clearly wish. The Matthean use of epiousion and Pauline use of

periousion do indeed show the use of substance in Scripture, but quoting the Jeremiah 23

Latin text only reveals the indeterminate use of substantia as the common Latin

translation for both ousia and hypostasis in Victorinus’ day. The Latin translation to

which Victorinus referred for Jeremiah 23 translated the Septuagint word ujiooraoiq as

substantia, but Victorinus sees this as no different than rendering ousia as substantia. 157

There are places in Against Arius where Victorinus baldly states that ousia and hypostasis

are one and the same realities, contrary to the case to which he has committed his efforts. 158

156. The RSV translates Xadv jrepiouaiov as “a people o f his own,” rather than trying to explain the difficult idea o f the people who share in God’s substance. With his appeal to Tit. 2:14 Victorinus also includes why it is so familiar to him: because it was used as a phrase o f the fourth-century eucharistic liturgy: “as it is said in the oblation prayer: ‘Purify for yourself this people, standing fast in life, zealous for good works, assembling around your substance.’” Clark, 139. AA 1 30,46-48.

157. As noted above, Victorinus uses the early Itala text mostly when it suits him, though he sometimes translates the New Testament Greek text for himself. Alexander Souter characterized this as “the generation preceding the Vulgate, a text in character closely related to the Vulgate.” Souter, Earliest Latin Commentaries, 16. Souter’s work is still essential reading for placing Victorinus within other early Latin commentators on the Pauline Corpus. Simonetti, in Patrology, describes how Victorinus would make use o f more than one Latin copy, with occasional references to the Greek original. Patrology, vol. IV, 74.

158. See modalist-sounding example in 4 4 II 6,12-18 (Clark, 206): “it matters not at all whether we understand hypostasis as riches or as ousia, provided that there is signified by that God himself.” In II 6,22-23 (Clark, 207), in commenting on the reality o f the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father, Victorinus says “if is the same hypostasis, they are, therefore, homoousion. But it is the same.” In III 14 (Clark, 242-43) Victorinus speaks rather strangely o f the likeness between Jesus and the Holy Spirit—“the likeness o f their work and the identity o f their action in some manner” (III 14,9-10)— something that is certainly in line with Johannine pneumatology, except that in III 14,10-12 he says “Therefore, he is also Spirit Paraclete, and the Holy Spirit is another Paraclete, and he is sent by the


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Another and more important understanding of Jeremiah 23 is suggested in this same

passage: “But if someone understands the meaning exactly, he finds nothing other than

this: if someone stood in that which is the ‘to be’ of God, that is ‘in substance,’

immediately he sees his Logos because the Son is homoousios with him.” 159 The

consubstantiality of the Son with the Father will be seen, Victorinus reasons, from

“standing in the hypostasis,” whence one will see the Word of the Lord. That is,

understanding the substantia of God will reveal the Logos. (We will see Victorinus

further develop this exegesis of Jeremiah 23:18,22 in Book II.)

In Book IB 59,13-29 Victorinus, concluding a section on the consubstantiality of the

Three Persons (beginning several pages back in IB 54), marshals another chain o f texts:

Romans 11:34,1 Corinthians 1:24, Hebrews 1:3, Jeremiah 23:18,22, Matthew 6:11, Luke

15:12-13, and Genesis 1:26.160 This chain is for the sake of explaining divine substance,

albeit in a rather modalist fashion, leading up to Victorinus’ assertion that “from this it is

evident that the Logos itself and the Holy Spirit and Nous and Wisdom are the same

thing.” 161 It may be that we do not understand how Victorinus means this. Besides this

apparent collapsing of the Second and Third persons into single, titled realities, it is striking

Father. The Holy Spirit is therefore Jesus.” Maybe this reflects Victorinus’ knowledge o f the Greek use, using the terms synonymously. He wants to say that God is una substantia, as Father and Son are thus eadem substantia. “Substantia” is the Latin term pointing to the one reality that God is.

159. Clark, \2 9 . A A l 30,53-56. “Sed si quis intellectum certe intellegit, nihil aliud invenit nisi istud: si quis in eo quod dei est esse steterit, hoc est in substantia, quod in ipsa opoouoiog filius, statim X6yov eius vidit.” CSEL 83/1, 109.

160. Clark, 186-87. As quoted: Rom. 11:34, “Who has known the Nous o f the Lord?”; I Cor. 1:24, “the Power and Wisdom o f God”; Heb. 1:3, “Image o f his substance”; Jer. 23:18,22, “Because the one who has stood in my substance and has seen my word.. .If they had stood in my substance and had heard my words”; Matt. 6:11, “Give us this day our supersubstantial bread”; Lk. 15:12-13, “The younger one said to the Father: give me the part o f the ‘substance’ which belongs to m e... There he wasted his substance”; Gen. 1:26, “according to his image and likeness.”

161. Clark, 186. AA IB 59,13-14. “Ex his apparet quod XdyoQ ipse et spiritus sanctus et voug et sapientia id ipsum.” CSEL 83/1, 159. The movement/procession is a “twofold power,” but perhaps it makes more sense if we translate id ipsum here as “the same Reality,” or “the self-same Reality.”


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to see Victorinus make use of Hebrews 1:3 in the (possibly) mistranslated, indeterminate

way as he does with Jeremiah 23:18,22: “And Paul, writing to the Hebrews, also calls him

substance: ‘Image of his substance’; and he spoke likewise of the ‘consubstantial people.’”162

The train of thought in this chain of texts is this: God is substantia, and Christ is the

image of the divine substance. Within the context of discussing divine being, the image

of a substance is that substance. Therefore, Scripture uses substantia for both God and

Christ (and we are “with that substance” by adoption). Throughout Book I I3 Victorinus

will discuss whether or not substance is used in Scripture, including a quotation of this

portion of Hebrews 1:3, but this time quoting it as “Qui est character substantiae eius”

and linking it with Jeremiah 23:18,22 and Psalm 138(139):15.163

In a lengthy discussion in Book II 3,48-6,26164 Victorinus once again considers the

use of substance in Scripture. In this section he will acknowledge the common substance

of persons in the Trinity while also defining their separate real existences.165 Yet this

discussion, including its use of Jeremiah 23:18,22, is not without its problems. Victorinus

has the semantic problem to address between considering substantia to be the equivalent

of hypostasis (even if among Greeks hypostasis is considered a real separate existence as

Victorinus also acknowledges), and calling it by the—i.e., his—Latin equivalent,

subsistentia. The “to be” of God, he reasons, can be called existence, and substance, and

162. Clark, 186. AA 1 59,17-19. “Et ipsum et substantiam dicit et Paulus ad Hebraeos: imago substantiae eius; et item consubstantialem populum dixit.” CSEL 83/1, 159.

163. The Latin text Victorinus cites o f Ps. 138:15 reads “Et substantia mea in inferioribus terrae,” which corresponds to the LXX reading o f that verse, “f| ujidoxaoig gou t v xoig xaxcoxaxoig xfjg yrjg.” This combination o f Jer. 23:18 with Ps. 138(139): 15 andHeb. 1:3 is the same scriptural chain Victorinus cites in The Necessity o f Accepting Homoousios (Clark, 306-07, DeHomoousio 2 ,2 -1 4 , CSEL 83/1, 279-80), the only other place Jer. 23:18 is cited in his works.

164. Clark, 202-06. CSEL 83/1, 175-180.165. Victorinus restates the anti-Nicene objections to using certain words: I I3 begins with “Here some

questions arise: first, in the Holy Scriptures no mention is made o f substance and, above all, homoousion is not read there.” Clark, 200. AA II 3,1-3. CSEL 83/1, 173.


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subsistence. “Form” is applied to Christ because it is through the Son that the Father is

known (citing for this John 14:9, “Whoever has seen me, has seen the Father also”), and

form is a subsistence. In the midst of this somewhat aimless discussion of differing terms,

Victorinus quotes a creedal trinitarian formula: “And that is why it was said: ‘From one

substance there are three subsistences,’ so that that itself which is ‘to be’ subsists in a

triple manner: God himself, and Christ, that is, Logos and Holy Spirit.”166 Victorinus

does not explain whence he gets this trinitarian formula, nor does he make much further

use of it. Though the formula “one substance, three subsistences” would seem a likely

one for him to incorporate further into his argument, it instead appears to be something he

just mentions in passing.167

Far more important to Victorinus is nailing down the exact meaning of hypostasis,

especially whether it has a meaning different from ousia, or from riches and fortune. He

appeals again to Jeremiah 23:18, making it clear that the “hypostasis of the Lord” of thisI v 'O

verse means God. Standing within something means to know that particular thing, and

knowing that thing means being able to see it:

This one who “stands” also knows: but he who knows does not go astray; therefore, he “stands.” But, knowing God, he knows and “sees” the Logos, Son of God. Therefore it is evident that this is the hypostasis of God, which, when it is known, the Word also is known... For one who “stands” in the substance of the thing, knows a thing, that is, in the first source of the thing, so as to know all that is proper to it.169

166. Clark, 204—05. AA II 4,51-53. “Et ideo dictum est: de una substantia, tres subsistentias esse, ut id ipsum quod est esse subsistat tripliciter: ipse deus et Christus, id est Xoyoc, et spiritus sanctus.” CSEL 83/1,178.

167. Victorinus is the first witness o f this formula in the Latin West; Hadot believes he encountered it in Homoiousian documents. Hadot, Traites Theologiques, 911. Victorinus gives no satisfactory explanation o f source, however: in III 4,38-39 he mentions that “the Greeks” use the definition “£x [nag otiaCaq rpeTg elvai ujtoor&oeig” as part o f discussion o f trinitarian persons, but provides no further explanation or identification. See “An Anomalous Trinitarian Formula” in this chapter.

168. It is interesting that here he translates Jer. 23:18 as “the hypostasis o f the Lord” rather than “the substantia o f the Lord.”

169. Clark, 205. AA II 5,7-11,14-16. “His qui stat, et intellegit: non autem errat qui intellegit; stat ergo. Intellegens autem deum, intellegit et videt X6yov, dei filium. Manifestum ergo hanc dei esse


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Nous, eternally the self-contemplation of the One, is perfect form and activity. Psyche,

turning back to contemplate Nous, receives its form. The Son alone knows the Father,

whose very substance he images, and thus imparts knowledge to believers. This is the

best interpretation Victorinus renders of Jeremiah 23:18,22; anything beyond this he does

not seem to understand (because of the vague, insufficiently determined meanings for

ousia and hypostasis in both East or West, but especially the Latin West). Psalm 139:15

is quoted (“My hypostasis is in the lower regions of the earth”) to prove that the

substance of God is everywhere. Luke 15:12-13 is quoted (“A father of a family divided

his hypostasis between his two sons...”) to prove that hypostasis means fortune and

patrimony, which are depleted as a result of the Prodigal Son’s excesses.170 But

Victorinus’ observation that “standing in the divine substance” of God will enable one to

see the Logos remains his best exegesis of Jeremiah 23:18,22. He will restate this in Book

I I 12 in considering the formula “God in God, Light in Light”:

“For in you is the source of life; in your light we shall see the light.” Do we think that this is addressed to God, or to Christ, or to both? Because to both, it is rightly addressed: for in the Father is the Son and in the Son is the Father. But if it is addressed to God the Father, it will be this: “If they had stood in my substance, they would have also seen my Word.” But if it is addressed to the Son, it will be this: “Whoever has seen me, has seen the Father also.” Therefore, “in your light we shall see the light.” “Light in light” is therefore scriptural; therefore also “God in God.”171

ujtooraoiv, qua intellecta et verbum intellegitur... Is enim rem intellegit qui in rei substantia stat, id est in primo fonte rei, ut omnia quae sunt eius intellegat.” CSEL 83/1, 178.

170. Dividing up the hypostasis, or substance, o f the Father in this parable gives an uncomfortable modalist connotation. Hadot says that some Homoians especially wanted to disclaim the ontological implication o f substantia, so they reduced the word substantia down to the equivalent o f “divitiae” (riches), the juridical meaning o f substantia in Latin, and the obvious use o f die word in Luke 15,12- 13. Victorinus wants to conclude that wherever one can find ousia or hypostasis in Scripture, one can use that to speak o f God or of Christ. Hadot, Traites Theologiques, 911-12.

171. Clark, 215-16. AA II 12,5-12. “quoniam apud te est fans vitae, in lumine tuo videbimus lumen. Deo dictum aestimamus an Christo an utrique? Quia cuicumque, recte: in patre enim filius et in filio pater. Sed si patri deo, hoc erit illud: si in substantia mea stetisse[n]t, et verbum meum audisse[n]t. Si autem filio, hoc erit illud: qui me vidit, vidit etpatrem. Ergo in lumine tuo videbimus lumen. Est igitur lumen in lumine-, ergo et deus in d eo ” CSEL 83/1,189. Victorinus’ only other use o f Jer. 23:18,22 is in


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This is a brilliant creedal observation of the truth of divine identity, demonstrated in

one brief chain of texts, with an equivalent that can be easily located elsewhere in Latin

Neo-Nicene apologetic. Victorinus here comments by quoting Psalm 35(36):10, John

14:10, Jeremiah 23:22, John 14:9, and again Psalm 35(36): 10. These texts prove the

creedal assertions that the Father and the Son are such realities as “light in light” and

therefore “God in God.” A similar chain is used by Gregory of Elvira in his

contemporaneous work De fide orthodoxa contra Arianos when he also argues for divine

substance and the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son.172

Therefore he is that which is,173 this is the substance of his matter, which is to be defended; of which it is now nevertheless said, the extent and likes of which would neither able to be conceived by mind nor judged by sense nor defined by passions, provided it is constant, which is to be believed, while of him himself, which is two (parts), from there he is Son, as he is true Son and the true Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father. This will be opoovatog, that is of the substance with the Father,174 just as the same Lord has said: “I in the Father and the Father in me,” and “I have gone forth from God the Father,” and “He who sees me, sees the Father.” It is not undeserving, that the Son of God is bom of God the Father, and therefore they are of the unity of the substance and majesty of the Deity, and just as Jeremiah prophesied (the prophet said) “Who has stood in the substance of the Lord (and has seen the Word of the Lord)?” And again by the same: “If they had stood in my substance and listened to my words, they would have turned from their worst desires,” and from Solomon: “My substance is my sweetness.” Therefore with this unity of substance in the Father and the Son, recognized not only by the authority of die Prophets, but also by the Evangelists, in what way is opoouaiOQ not found in the Divine Scriptures? Other witnesses will be almost 6p.ooncn.og by what is said: “I have gone forth from God the Father” and: “I and the Father are one” which is even what the prophets openly intimate about the substance of God.”175

passing: in Book IV 4,14-17 he argues for the consubstantiality o f the Spirit with the Father and the Son; standing in the substance o f God means seeing the Word, but die substance also includes the Spirit.

172. The De fide was written in two versions, the first in 360 and the later revision three or four years later, according to Simonetti’s dating. Oddly, Jer. 23:18,22 make no appearance in either Novatian or Tertullian.

173. Or “He Who Is”—possibly a reference to Ex. 3:14. This opening sentence o f De fide 53 sounds much like language typical o f Victorinus.

174. In the later recension o f D e//tie,“that is one o f substance with the Father,” was replaced by the corrected line o f “this is one in essence with the Father.”

175. De fide 53,446-69. “Ergo ipsum quod est, hoc est (erit) substantia eius (huius) rei, quae esse defenditur; quod tamen {ut} iam dictum est, quantum et quale sit, nec mente concipi nec sensu aestimari nec animo definiri potest, dummodo constet esse, quod [esse] creditor, ut de eo ipso, quod deus est, inde sit filius, ut uerus sit filius et uerus sit pater in filio et filius in patre. Hoc erit 6 [monoiog (-ov), id est substantiae (hoc est unius essentiael cum patre, sicut ipse dominus ait: Ego in patre et pater in me, et: Ego de {deo} patre exiui, et: Que me uidet, uidet et patrem. Non immerito, quia filius dei de deo patre natus est; et ideo de imitate substantiae et de maiestate deitatis (diuinitatis) unum


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Gregory quotes a lengthy chain of texts, including John 14:10, John 10:30, John 14:9,

John 16:27, Jeremiah 23:18,22, and Wisdom 16:21, and, finally coming to an argument

about “light from light,” Psalm 35(36): 10.176 It is possible that this chain was a Latin

commonplace in the late 350s/early 360s among those sympathetic to Nicaea. If so, it

would seem to indicate that Victorinus was not as isolated from Nicene and anti-Nicene

theology as many have contended.177 The witness of Jeremiah 23:18, 22 gives scriptural

testimony of divine substance, along with other texts typically used to prove the

vocabulary of substance.

In late 357 or early 358, Phoebadius of Agen, a Latin deeply indebted to Tertullian,

discusses the unity of divine substance in his work Liber contra Arrianos, written as a

brief, systematic refutation of the Homoian creed of Sirmium 357. He uses texts such as

Psalm 138(139):15, Wisdom 16:21, and Jeremiah 23:22:

I can imagine to ignore these specific names which the Divine Books do not deny as truly customary and common. For instance, David says of the person of Christ: I am driven to the edge of the depths and there is no substance. And again: My substance is in the depths o f the earth. And: My substance is always before you. And: My substance is as nothing before you. And: May the creditor seize his substance. But also in Solomon’s opinion: He says Your substance and your sweetness. And Jeremiah: I f they stood in my substance. And in Proverbs: The substance of the rich is the strength of the city. And the same: Fathers leave the home and substance to the sons.

sunt, sicuti et Ieremias prophetauit (propheta ait): Quis stabit in substantia domini [e t uidebit uerbum dominij? et iterum {apud eundem}: Si stetissent in substantia mea [et si audissent uerba mea], auertissem eos ab studiis eorum pessimis, et apud Salomon (-em): Substantia mea dulcedo mea est. Cum ergo hanc unitatem substantiae in patre et filio non solum prophetica, sed et euangelica auctoritate cognoscas, quomodo dicis in scripturis diuinis (d. scr.) opoouoiov non inueniri? quasi aliud sit dgoouoiov quam quod dicit: “Ego de deo patre exiui” et: Ego et pater unum sumus uel quod prophetae ex aperto substantiam dei intimabant (-arunt).” CCSL LXEX, 232-33.

176. Jn. 16:27, “I came from God the Father”; Wis. 16:21, “My substance is my sweetness...” In De fide 59, Gregory in his first writing linked Ps. 36:5 (“In Thy light we see light...”), this light o f the Son revealing the light o f the Father, with Wis. 7:26; in his later recension he linked it with Col. 1:15. CCSL LXIX, 234.

177. Cf., for example, Hanson’s Search, 534: Hanson introduces a chapter on Victorinus as a Nicene with the declaration, “there is no satisfactory evidence that Marius Victorinus had any genuine knowledge of Arianism as it was in his day.” And yet o f Gregory o f Elvira, Hanson will state (520-21) “It is obvious that Gregory is not simply, like Lucifer, bringing out old and threadbare versions o f Arianism as an Aunt Sally to aim at, but knows what contemporary Arians were saying.”


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But also in Tobit: He says I f it would be for you the substance of abundance. And the same: Son, give alms from your substance. But also in John: Who, having the substance of the world. And in the Gospel: He says Behold, I give half o f my substance.Therefore in this one example we bring together indeed the discourse that seizes the ignorant,

which functions, on that account, as a witness that nowhere to be found is “substance not being mentioned nowhere in the Divine Scripture.”178 Therefore if neither the very term of substance is new to the sacred text, neither should its interpretation deserve reproach, when we perceive how this name is justified with certain pretexts. And where we do not perceive that name (of substance), we still find right cause with the influence of the name. If that influence is seen, we understand the name by its condition. That will function as the active sense: which, provided that those of ordinary/impious minds can seek new meanings, when comparing against the Gospels for correct definitions.179

If Jeremiah 23:18, 22 gives scriptural testimony of divine substance, it seems to have

been less useful than New Testament texts such as Matthew 6:11, Titus 2:14, and

Hebrews 1:3. Hilary of Poitiers perceived this quite clearly, employing Jeremiah 23 only

1 ftflonce in his De Trinitate, and that in the beginning.

178. An allusion to Sirmium 357— almost a direct quotation o f this creed which forbids the use o f a technical term for substance: “there ought to be no mention o f these at all and no one should preach them, for the reason and ground that they are not contained in inspired Scripture...” Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 285-86.

179. Contra Arrianos VII,3 ,7 -19 . “Vsitatum uero et familiare diuinis uoluminibus hos nomen nec ipsos puto ignorare qui negant Dauid enim ex persona Christi: Infhcus sum in limo profimdis et non est substantia. Et rursum: Substantia mea in inferioribus terrae. Et: Substantia mea ante te est semper. Et: Substantia mea tamquam nihilum ante te. Et: Scrutetur fenerator substantiam eius. Sed et Salomonis sententia: Substantiam, inquit, tuam et dulcedinem tuam. Et Hieremias: Si stetissent in substantia mea. Et in Prouerbiis: Substantia diuitis ciuitas munita. Et is eodem: Domum et substantiam diuiduntpatres filiis. Sed in Tobias: Sifuerit, inquit, tibi copiosa substantia. Et idem: Fili, ex substantia tua fac elymosynam. Sed et Iohannes: Qui habuerit substantiam mundi. Et in euangelio: Ecce, inquit, dimidium do ex substantia mea. CCSL 64, 30.

Ideo haec in unum exempla congessimus ne sermo ille caperet indoctos, quod testate sunt idcirco substantiam non praedicandam quia [in] diuinis Scripturis nusquam inueniretur. Ergo si neque ipsum uocabulum substantiae sacris litteris nouum est, neque interpretatio eius habet crimen, superest ut dispiciamus qua ex causa repudietur hoc nomen. Dispicientes autem inueniemus illos non nomen, sed nominis repudiare uirtutem. Quod si relucebit, erit apud nos intuitus nominis status. Erit et illorum sensus in uitio: qui, dum nouellas profanae intellegentiae uias quaerunt, a recto euangeliorum limite recesserunt.” CCSL 64, 30. The chain o f texts in VII, 3, 7-19 consists o f Ps. 68:3 (69:2), Ps. 138(139):15, Ps. 38:8(39:7), Ps. 38:6(39:5), Ps. 108(109):11, Wis. 16:21, Jer. 23:22, Prov. 10:15, Prov. 13:22, Tobit 4:9, Tobit 4 :7 ,1 Jn. 3:17 andLk. 19:8. The term substantia in Phoebadius’ Latin OT text is used very loosely: as a battery o f proofs they make a less-than-convincing argument.

180. Hilary o f Poitiers uses Jer. 23:22 only once in his De trinitate I, 18, 8, when he exhorts the reader to “take up his stand by faith in the substantia o f God, so that when he shall hear about the substantia o f God, he may direct his mind to the things that are worthy o f God.” CCSL 62, 18. At first glance Jer. 23:18,22 may seem a useful text; but, as Hadot has observed, Western Nicenes all used this proof- text, but each only used it at most once or twice: Phoebadius o f Agen, Gregory o f Elvira and Hilary,


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Unfortunately, in considering the significance of standing in the substance of God—

more specifically, whether “hypostasis signifies something other than ousia(n)”—

Victorinus has concluded in Book I I 6 that, ultimately, there is no difference between

hypostasis and ousia:

If then the “riches of God” are “wisdom and knowledge,” and if “wisdom and knowledge” are “the power of God,” itself, but the “power of God” is Christ, but Christ is Logos, and Logos indeed is Son, if the Son is himself in the Father, therefore this Son is the riches of the Father, he himself is his hypostasis. Henceforth it matters not at all whether we understand hypostasis as riches or as ousia, provided that there is signified by that God himself.”181

In order to consider whether hypostasis really signifies something different than ousia,

Victorinus again appeals to Jeremiah 23, where standing in the substance of a thing

enables one to see and know its reality. Likewise, he says that David’s reference to the

hypostasis of God in the lower regions of the earth is no differently understood as ousia.

Also, he refers to the father of the Prodigal Son dividing his hypostasis between his two

sons, though a check of the Greek text of Luke 15 shows that the father gave his sons

their share of his ousia. Most frustrating of all is Victorinus’ ending this passage with the

puzzling statement, “Henceforth it matters not at all whether we understand hypostasis as

riches or as ousia, provided that there is signified by that God himself. Therefore we read

in Scripture in reference to God either hypostasis or ousia. But this is also understood of

Christ.”182 This statement does not remain the final understanding of Victorinus on divine

substance, as I will discuss more below. It is clear that Victorinus uses Jeremiah 23:18,22

already noted; Eusebius o f Vercelli, in his De Trin 5, Ambrose, in his De Fide HI 14 and 15. Hadot, Traites Theologiques, 912.

181. Clark, 206. II 6,12-18. “Si igitur divitiae dei, sapientia et scientia sunt, et si sapientia etscientia ipsa virtus dei est, virtus autem dei Christus est, Christus autem X6yog est, Xoyog vero filius, filius autem in patre ipse est, ipse ergo divitiae patris, ipse tmdoraau; est. Iam igitur nihil interest, utrum im ooraoiv divitias intellegamus an ouolav, dummodo id significetur quod ipse deus est.” CSEL 83/1, 179-80. This explication o f what riches mean far exceeds what the Homoians wanted substantia to mean in the Latin text o f Scripture; Victorinus turns their weak exegesis back upon them.

182. AA II 6,16-19. CSEL 83/1, 180.


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for the sake of a Nicene definition of the Son being the Logos, homoousios with the

Father. In spite of an inability to understand hypostasis as being distinctly different from

ousia or substantia, Victorinus will use his own Latin vocabulary to distinguish

hypostases within the Godhead.183

'Yjtooraaig in H e b r e w s 1:3

The other important text for discussing substance for Victorinus is the New Testament

locus of Hebrews 1:3a: “He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp o f his

nature.. .”184 Hebrews 1:3 was important to earliest Nicenes right from the beginning,

because of its legacy of use by Origen. It saw infrequent use in the early part of

Trinitarian Controversy because it was a text about the Son’s reality at a time when there

was no consensus on a distinction in meaning between hypostasis versus ousia.] 85

However, Hebrews 1:3 had the value of a radiant gem in the trinitarian debates because it

contained the Greek word hypostasis', also, it stands as the only reference in the New

Testament to the proof-text of Wisdom 7:25,26. Besides the allusion to Wisdom

7:25,26 there is the word hypostasis, which occurs in the New Testament text a total of

only five times. Only in Hebrews 1:3 does it convey a theological meaning of God’s

183. For want o f a better term, “Godhead” is used for unity purposes to mean f| Qeioxng, or God as the One God.184. “qui, cum sit splendor gloriae et figura substantiae eius”/“5g <ftv djtauyaopa xfjq 86£qg x a i

Xapaxxrip xijg ujiooxdoecog auxou” Novum Testamenium Graece etLatine, ed. Eberhard Nestle, Kurt Aland (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1984), 563.

185. Only a nebulous distinction existed for several decades, which, even after the 362 Synod o f Alexandria, was not resolved overnight.

186. Wis. 7:25,26 (RSV): “^For she is a breath o f the power o f God, and a pure emanation o f the glory o f the Almighty; therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her. 26For she is a reflection o f eternal light, a spotless mirror o f the working o f God, and an image o f his goodness.” LXX text: “25dxp.ig yap fecrriv xfjg xoC Qeou Suvapetflg x a l drcoppoia xfjg xoB jiavxoxpaxopog 86|rig £lXtxpivf|g • 8 ia xoBxo oi)8 ev pepiappivov etg auxf|v jiapepjrujrxei. 26djiadyaapa yap eoxiv qxoxog di6Cou x a i eaonxpov dxt|VSooxov xfjg xofi 0£oB ivepydag x a l elxcbv xfjg dya06xrixog adxou”


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being or nature.187 Alexander of Alexandria, in his Letter to all Bishops, uses Hebrews

1:3 with a chain of John 1:1,3,18, Psalm 44:2,109:3, Wisdom 7:26, Colossians 1:15, and

Malachi 3:6 to relate the ousia of the Son to the Father, as well as to speak of their

common knowledge and the Son’s immutability. The Statement o f Faith (’'ExOeoig

jtloTECflg) ostensibly issued by the 325 Council of Antioch, alluded to Hebrews 1:3 in its

crucial definition of the Son:

Because he transcends all thought and conception and argument, we confess that he has been begotten from the unbegotten Father, God the Word, true Light, righteousness, Jesus Christ, Lord of all and Saviour. For he is the image not of the will nor of anything except the actual hypostasis of the Father.188

In spite of the seeming usefulness of Hebrews 1:3, Victorinus makes use of it in a

neophyte manner, further confusing the matter of divine substance by making it a subject

of resolution between the thought-worlds of Greek and Latin philosophical definition. In

Book IB 59 he produces a chain of texts after arguing for consubstantiality of the Father,

Son, and Spirit, but these texts are, strangely, used for the purpose of his claim that “it is

evident that the Logos itself and the Holy Spirit and Nous and Wisdom are the same

1RQthing.” In referring to the “many names” used for the Son, Victorinus brings up

Hebrews 1:3 as a proof-text: “And Paul, writing to the Hebrews, also calls him substance:

‘Image of his substance;’ and he spoke likewise of the ‘consubstantial people.’”190

187. At II Cor. 9:4, 11:17 and Heb. 3:14, hypostasis has the meaning o f confidence/psychological support; at Heb. 11:1 the meaning o f assurance. O f the twenty occurrences of hypostasis in the Septuagint, it is only at Wis. 16:21 that hypostasis has the meaning o f God’s nature: “For thy sustenance (hypostasis) manifested thy sweetness toward thy children...” Hanson, Search, 182.

188. Hanson (Search, 149) points this out in his section on the Antiochene council as part o f the theology and events leading to Nicaea.

189. Clark, 186. AA 1 59,13-14. “Ex his apparet quod Xoyog ipse et spiritus sanctus et vouq et sapientia id ipsum.” CSEL 83/1,159. The entire section is IB 59,13—29, and is treated fully in the section on Jer. 23:18,22.

190. Clark, 186. AA 1 59,17-19. “Et ipsum et substantiam dicit et Paulus ad Hebraeos: imago substantiae eius; et item consubstantialem populum dixit.” CSEL 83/1, 159. The “consubstantial people” is a reference to Tit. 2:14.


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(Victorinus’ Latin text translates Hebrews 1:3 as “imago substantiae eius” versus the

Greek original which said “xapaxxrip Trjq ujtoardoetoc; auxou,” again showing the

contemporary semantic inadequacy in the Latin West over ousia and hypostasis.191)

He ties Hebrew 1:3 to Jeremiah 23:18,22, which mentions substantia in his Latin text,

and had used hypostasis in the LXX text. Far clearer is his association of these texts with

texts that do employ the word ousia: Matthew 6:11 (“Give us this day our supersubstantial

bread”) and Luke 15:12-13 (“The younger one said to the Father: give me the part of thet Q0

“substance” which belongs to me... and there he wasted his substance”).

The name of divine substance recurs in Book II. The section begins clearly, with

Victorinus’ claim that “the word substance is used in Scripture of God and of Christ,” but

becomes convoluted when he cannot seem to distinguish between hypostasis and ousia,

in spite of defining in II 4,51-52 that “from one substance there are three subsistences.”

Jeremiah 23:18,22 and Psalm 139:15 (“And my substance is in the lower parts o f the

earth”) are cited; then, before trying to discuss the relation between hypostasis and ousia,

Victorinus again cites Hebrew 1:3: “We read of Christ in Paul to the Hebrews: ‘He who

is the character of his substance.’”193 Here the Latin text reads “character of his

substance,” somewhat closer to the Greek text than IB 59 where Victorinus had said

191. The Vulgate text o f Heb. 1:3 renders this phrase as the “figura substantiae eius.”192. Clark’s translation o f Matt. 6:11 says “supersubstantial bread”; there are some precedents for this

translation, but Victorinus’ Latin text says “panem nostrum consubstantialem da nobis hodie” (with the Greek text using the term fcjuoi3cnov).

193. Clark, 202-03. AA n 3,59-61. “Lectum apud Paulum ad Hebraeos de Christo: Qui est character substantiae eius.” CSEL 83/1, 175. AA II4 -6 is an important extended section that stands as a perfect example o f the semantic confusion in Victorinus, when he discusses whether there is a significant difference in meaning between hypostasis and ousia. One would assume that, writing when he does, he could realize the meaningful difference between the two terms, but Victorinus understands the real existence o f Father and Son (and Spirit) in terms o f the Western Latin subsistence, including giving a definition formula o f “from one substance there are three subsistences” (Clark, 205; AA n 4 ,51-52). He finally (predictably) concludes at the end o f I I 6 that Jn. 14:10, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me” means the Father and Son are not only consubstantial but also o f the same hypostasis.


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“image of his substance.” Victorinus will repeat this same proof of substance, with the

same proof-texts, in his work The Necessity o f Accepting Homoousios (here also his Latin

text says “character of substance”). What matters for Victorinus, as he himself admits, is

“that the word substance is in Scripture and is used of the substance of God.”194 But

precisely what he means by “substance” remains unclear. There was a miahypostatic

tradition in the Latin West which resisted the confession of three hypostases, including

followers of Marcellus of Ancyra, who held out and refused to use the phrase of three

hypostases in God well up to the time of Constantinople 381. Even writing in this work,

in which he reprises the key arguments from Against Arius, Victorinus has ended up with

the lack of resolution common to the Latin miahypostatic tradition: “The Greeks call ‘to

be’ ousian or hupostasin; we call it in Latin by one term: substance; and a few Greeks use

ousian and rarely; all use hupostasin. Certainly one differs from the other, but for the

moment let us omit this.”195 We have here one of the strangest comments Victorinus has

made in his trinitarian treatises, especially in light of his sophistication in stating

trinitarian formulae, whether Latin or Eastern Greek.

If the use of Hebrews 1:3 among Victorinus’ Latin contemporaries had involved a

more determined meaning it could be argued that the semantic confusion between

substantia and the real individual existence of hypostasis was a distinctive problem only

for Victorinus. Upon examination, however, it is clear that other Latins either saw no

need to use the text of Hebrews 1:3, or, like Victorinus, used it with a collapsed sense of

substantia meaning either ousia or hypostasis. The text does not appear among early

194. Clark, 307. De Homoousio 2,14. “Lectum est quod sit et dicatur dei substantia.” CSEL 83/1,280.195. Clark, 306. De Homoousio 1,26—2,1. “Esse Graeci oiioiav vel ■ujiocrraaiv dicunt, nos uno nomine

latine substantiam dicimus; et ouoiav Graeci pauci et raro, ujtdoxaoiv omnes. Distat quidem, verum nunc omittamus.” CSEL 83/1,279.


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Latins such as Tertullian or Novatian. Gregory of Elvira does not appeal to it; Phoebadius

of Agen and Hilary of Poitiers each use it only once.196 In Liber Contra Arrianos XV,2ff

Phoebadius considers the separate existence of Father and Son, listing John 10:30,14:9,10,

Psalm 2:7,109:3, and Proverbs 8:22. Hebrews 1:3 is included in his conclusion: “Now, the

Son seems to be the true image of the Father and the distinct form of his substance, that is,

the Word of God. He is not (merely) the sound of his voice, substantive reality, even a

1Q7bodily reality throughout his substance.” Hilary of Poitiers’ single use of Hebrews 1:3

comes in Book III of his De Trinitate when he argues for the unity of the Father and the

10RSon, including their same nature and same power. He poses the text of John 10:30 (“I

and the Father are one”) and the text John 14:10 (“the Father in me and I in the Father”) to

claim that the two divine persons should not be separated as to their divine attributes:

But we acknowledge the same similarity of power and the fullness of die divinity in each of them. The Son received everything from the Father, and He is the form of God and the image of His substance. The “image of His substance” merely distinguishes Him from the one who is, in order that we may believe in His existence and not that we may also assume that there is a dissimilarity of nature. For the Father to be in the Son and the Son in the Father means that there is a perfect fullness of the Godhead in each of them. The Son is not a diminution of the Father nor is He an imperfect Son from the Father. And image is not alone and the likeness is not to itself. Nothing can be like God unless it is from Him. That which is similar in everything does not originate from somewhere else, and the similarity of the one to the other does not allow them to be joined together by anything contradictory.”199

196. Gregory o f Elvira had his own distinctive problems, with his originally overlooked modalist theology necessitating corrections o f his work D e fide orthodoxa contra Arianos.

197. “Videtur enim Patris Filius imago uera et figura expressa substantiae eius, hoc est Dei Sermo, non sonus uocis, sed res substantiua ac per substantiam corpulentiua.” Liber Contra Arrianos X V ,4,14- 16. CCSL 64,48 .

198. It seems both unusual and unexpected that Hilary would use this proof-text only once in his entire work; though this single use may make sense, since Hilary never uses Wis. 7:25,26 in his De Trinitate.

199. Hilary o f Poitiers, The Trinity, trans. Stephen McKenna, vol. 25, Fathers o f the Church (New York: Catholic University o f America, 1954), 85. (Henceforth McKenna, Hilary o f Poitiers: The Trinity.) De trinitate 111,23,10-23. “sed eandem in utroque et uirtutis similitudinem et deitatis plenitudinem confitemur. Omnia enim Filius accepit a Patre, et est Dei forma et imago substantiae eius. Eum enim qui est ab eo qui est substantiae imago tantum ad subsistendi fidem, non etiam ad aliqnam naturae dissimilitudinem intellegendam discemit. Patrem autem in Filio et Filium in Patre esse, plenitudo in utroque diuinitatis perfecta est. Non enim deminutio Patris est Filius, nec Filius inperfectus a Patre est. Imago sola non est, et similitudo non sibi est. Deo autem simile aliquid esse nisi quod ex se erit


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To prove the Scripture texts’ revelation concerning the Son’s divine origin and nature,

Hilary appeals not so much to the divine substance as to the image of that substance.200

This section concentrates on the unity of the Father and Son’s nature (Hilary cites John

10:30 right before this passage) and their complete power and divinity, but still

distinguishes their separate realities of Father and Son.

P h il ip p ia n s 2 : 5 - 8

Philippians 2:5-8 would seem an unlikely locus for discussing divine substance; it is the

New Testament passage most likely to be appealed to for arguments in favor of the divine

identity and qualities of the Son 201 Victorinus knew the pericope of Philippians 2:5-8

intimately. It it is evident from its play and appearances in Against Arius that he also

understood the importance of this text in Christian self-definition. Victorinus’ two major

uses of the “Christ-hymn”202 of Philippians 2:5-8 are proving a combined idea o f the

form and image of God, using it as a visibility text almost on a par of importance with the

Gospel of John, and as a divine substance proof-text in order to prove homoousios with

the Father. Though the text appears throughout Against Arius, there are two main

extended sections of exegesis and deployment: at the beginning, in IA 21-23; and at the

non potest. Non enim aliunde est quod in omnibus simile est, neque diuersitatem duobus admisceri alterius ad alterum similitudo permittit.” CCSL 62, 95-6.

200. See next chapter, “Divine Visibility in Victorinus,” on Victorinus’ use o f Gen. 1:26 in connection with Heb. 1:3 to discuss divine visibility.

201. Phil. 2:5-8: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form o f God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form o f a servant, being bom in the likeness o f men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.”

202. The shorthand term for this passage commonly used by present-day New Testament exegetes.


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end, in IV 29,39-31,53, as a reprise and crescendo of all the points he has been

hammering home in the course of the four books.203

On the surface, the Philippians passage may seem like one Arius and all succeeding

anti-Nicenes would have been attracted to because of the ostensible way in which it

speaks of the Son as “rejecting equality” with God. (The anti-Nicene mentality was often

drawn to any passage of Scripture that seemed to say “God” and “the Son” were two

different things, over passages identifying “the Father” and “the Son.”)204 But there is

within the Christ hymn content rather inconvenient for anti-Nicenes, which may have

steered them away from the passage. First, it affirms that the Son was in the “form of

God.” Second, and even worse to the anti-Nicene way of thinking, is that Philippians

2:7b-8a (“ .. .being bom in the likeness of men. And being found in human form...”)

could be used as a proof-text against the frilly human identity of the Son, rather than for

his frill divinity. In 5:7b Paul describes the Son “being bom in the likeness of men” (“£v

6p.ouhp.aTi avGpcojuov vevopevog”), using a dative variant of homoios. Homoians would

hardly have favored a proof-text that worked against their idea of the scriptural testimony

of the Son’s quasi-divine nature. Meslin’s comparative tables of Latin anti-Nicene proof-

texts attest to this: None of them ever used Philippians 2:5-8.205

203. Clark, 121-126 and 295-301, respectively.204. The perfect example o f this is the most beloved locus o f Homoians, Mk. 10:18, when Christ speaks to

the Rich Young Man who wants to inherit eternal life: “Why do you call me good? There is one alone who is good, and that is God.”

205. During the rather eristic discussion during the 381 Council o f Aquileia between Ambrose and Palladius (with the other bishops present joining in) the question arises as to the Son’s equality. Ambrose cites Phil. 2:6-8, which Palladius clearly does not want to hear. Ambrose understands that Palladius sees that the Son is the “second deity,” inferior to die Father. When Ambrose and Eusebius point the necessity o f the Son’s equality by citing Phil. 2:6-8, Palladius simply responds with that “the Father is greater” (i.e., Jn. 14:28). Scolies ariennes sur le Concile d ’Aquilee, trans. Roger Gryson (Paris: Cerf, 1980), 354-56 (the only instance o f Phil. 2:5-8 appearing in the Arian scholia).


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But as noted, the Christ-hymn for Victorinus is “that sacred passage full of

mysteries”206 which reveals the arcana not only of the Incarnation, but also of his

technical, Pauline term, “the Mystery,” meaning the divine Economy.207

In contemplating Philippians 2:5-8 Victorinus is sometimes inexact in his argument,

perhaps because the truths revealed by this passage about the necessity of accepting

consubstantiality seem obvious. In Book IA Victorinus comes to considering Philippians

after dealing with the preceding Pauline epistles, extracting what he can from them for

908 • • •his christological arguments. But at least initially, the epistle to the Philippians and its

key passage proves that the Son is “Christ,” a germane title for the Son; the Son is

homoousios with the Father; and the Son, together with the Father, is “powerful.”209 After

quoting Philippians 2:5-7, Victorinus will consider what this equality with the Father

means: “being equal” to the Father means that the Son is of the same power and sameI r\ >

substance as the Father. “He emptied himself’ also relates to substance: the self

emptying of the Son had to do with substance itself, and if the Son is equal to the Father,

then the self-emptying has to do with divine substance.211

206. Clark, 300. AA IV 32,28-29. “in sacro isto ac mysteriis pleno loco” CSEL 83/1,274.207. The Pauline, technical term “Mystery,” versus merely speaking o f “mysteries” as appears at 1 10,22; I

22,14-16; 1 26,14—16ff; IV 31,47-49; TV 32,14.208. Clark, 121—26. AA 121,27—23,47. Book I functions as a commentary on the pre-passion chapters o f

the Gospel o f John, followed by his brief glosses on the Synoptic Gospels, then die Pauline epistles (in this order) o f Romans, I and n Corinthians, Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians and I Timothy. Whatever Victorinus can glean from this survey use o f the New Testament writings he uses. There is a commonplace o f Victorine scholarship that Victorinus, at this point o f his newly-held belief, did not yet know the Old Testament very well.

209. Clark, 121.210. As I have noted, Power is a key trinitarian theme for Victorinus’ trinitarian theology, which

distinguishes him sharply from most other Neo-Nicenes o f the decade o f the 350s, almost placing him within the camp o f the Pro-Nicenes such as Ambrose. See Chapter 5 section, One Substance, One Power’ Statements in Victorinus.”

211. Clark, 122: “But that the image is both substance and together with the substance which is called homoousion, is clear from this: for the Apostle said: ‘He emptied himself, taking the form o f a servant.’”


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Up to this point, Victorinus’ arguments are not compelling, but the remainder of this

Book IA gloss on Philippians 2:5—8 contain two particular and worthwhile comments.

The first comes as a definition of substance and form together:

Therefore the form is substance along w ith the substance in w hich it is form. The substance o f the form is therefore hom oousios with the principal substance and prior in pow er because the latter gives to the form “to be,” to be substance, to be in substance, to be alw ays together with substance; for without one, the other is not.212

Victorinus understands power sometimes as a single sense within God, and sometimes in

a multiple sense. What is significant here is his identification of substance with the form

of God, and that substance within God is unified. Substance is a reality attested to by

Philippians, because Victorinus is commenting upon the notion of “he emptied himself.”

It is not until the end of Against Arius that Victorinus uses 2:5-7 for a clear purpose

of demonstrating divine substance and consubstantiality. In AA IV, 29 and 30 he will

end his long polemical and positive treatise by proving once again that the form of God

is the Son of God, through an intriguing connection of a long string of Scripture proof-

texts. Victorinus’ treatment of Philippians in this passage of Against Arius can be

understood to be used for two thematic purposes: divine substance, when he connects

Philippians with other texts for the purpose of homoousios, and divine visibility, when

there is extended commentary on the combined conceptual idiom of form and image.

For arguing homoousios Victorinus begins with an initial text of John 16:15: “All

that the Father has, he has given to me, and all that the Father has, I also have.”214 If the

212. Clark, 123. AA 122,28-33. “Est igitur forma substantia cum substantia in qua est forma. 'O goouoiog igitur formae substantia substantiae principali et potentialiter priori, quod ista praestat formae esse et substantiam esse et in substantia esse et semper simul esse; sine enim altero alterum non est.” CSEL 83/1, 91-2.

213. Gen. 1:26,Matt. 11:27,ICor. 1:24, Jn. 1:1,Phil. 2 :6 ,Ex. 33:20, and Col. 1:15, among others.214. Clark, 295. AA IV 29,39-41.


Father has given all, Victorinus argues, that means the Son is consubstantial with the

Father; and not only consubstantial, but identical; and if identical, equal.215 One

paragraph after this “identical” claim there is a qualification: that the Father and the

Son are “identical, that is, having the same realities, but each one through his own

existence. That is why they are both the same and different.”216 That equality is proven

by a reference to Paul’s assertion in Philippians 2:6, that though the Son was in the

form of God, he did not count his equality with the Father. As Victorinus argues that

the Form of God is the Son, divine visibility is more at issue than arguing for divine

substance.

From the importance Victorinus placed on the Christ-hymn passage of Philippians 2,

one could assume that this passage saw just as extensive ante-Nicene use. Surprisingly,

this is not so. Of the few, brief mentions of Philippians 2 in his works, Tertullian

employs it only once to speak of divine substance. In chapter 7 of Against Praxeas,

when he speaks of the real distinction of the Son, Tertullian begins the chapter with

“the Word himself assumes his own form and glorious garb, namely his own sound and

917voice...” To prove his point about the Son’s being begotten of the Father, he

expounds on a long chain of texts, including Psalm 45:1 (“My heart hath emitted my

most excellent Word.”), Colossians 1:15, John 1:3, John 1:1 and Philippians 2:6. In

215. Victorinus says they are “the same” (“idem ergo”), AA IV 29,42. This brief slip toward Modalism is made by Victorinus at other times; for example, in Book IV 33, when he makes a confusing statement about the identity o f the Second and Third Persons: “As to the Holy Spirit, we have already set forth in many books that he is Jesus Christ himself but in another mode (‘alio quodam modo’).”

216. Clark, 296. AA IV 30,14-15. “idem autem, hoc est eadem habens, exsistentia sua propria. Unde et idem et alter.” CSEL 83/1,270.

217. Evans, Against Praxeas. Adversus Praxean 7,33—34. “Tunc igitur etiam ipse sermo speciem et omatum suum sumit, sonum et vocem ...” Evans, 94.


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linking Philippians 2:6 to John 1:1, Tertullian concludes that the Son has been sent

forth from the substance of God, and that he is a distinct “person”:

And the Word was with God and the Word was God. It is written, Thou shalt not take the name of God for an empty thing. Certainly this is he who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. In what form of God? Evidently in some form, not in none: for who will deny that God is body, although God is a spirit? For spirit is body, of its own kind, in its own form. Moreover if those invisible things, whatever they are, have in God’s presence both their own body and their own shape by which they are visible to God alone, how much more will that which has been sent forth from his substance not be devoid of substance. Whatever therefore the substance of the Word was, that I call a Person, and for it I claim the name of Son: and while I acknowledge him as Son I maintain he is another beside the Father.218

Granted, Tertullian means something sui generis when he speaks of the Son having the

substance of God. What he particularly tries to prove is the prolation of the Son219 from

the Father, the Son’s reality, and his name.

No Neo-Nicene uses the Philippians passage in arguments for substance except

Phoebadius of Agen, who uses the passage only in one paragraph of his work Contra

Arrianos. In it he gives a partial quotation twice in the same paragraph, making the

passing—though important—observation of the Father and Son having “a singularity of

dual substance”: “Therefore if someone wishes thus to know the rank of the Lord from

the Apostle, explained briefly, it is a single duality of substance, which is conjoined

through the nature of its authorities...” In this chapter XXVI of his Against the Arians,

Phoebadius continues his discussion of the identity of the Word of God, having human

218. Evans, Against Praxeas, 138. Adversus Praxean 7,4—15. “Et sermo erat apud deum et deus erat sermo? scriptum est, Non sumes nomen dei in vanum. hie certe est qui in effigie dei constitutus non rapinam existimavit esse se aequalem deo. in qua effigie dei? utique in aliqua, non tamen in nulla: quis enim negabit deum corpus esse, etsi deus spiritus est? spiritus enim corpus sui generis in sua effigie. sed et si invisibilia ilia, quaecunque sunt, habent apud deum et suum corpus et suam formam per quae soli de visibilia sunt, quanto magis quod ex ipsius substantia sermonis fuit, illam dico personam et illi nomen filii vindico, et dum filium agnosco secundum a patre defendo.” Evans, 96.

219. Prolation, meaning the bringing forth o f words, an utterance, a production.220. “Si quis igitur adhuc et de apostolo requirit dominicum statum, id est singularis substantiae

dualitatem, quae per naturam auctori suo iungitur, audiat ad compendium...” Liber Contra Arrianos XXVI, 3, 6-10. CCSL 64,49.


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flesh and human nature.221 It is the Word which was in the form o f God (appealing to

Philippians 2:6), and thus this Word constitutes Wisdom, Reason, Spirit of Reason and

Spirit of Power, possessing the total Power (vis) of God. However, Phoebadius asserts,

“he did not count equality with God, but taking the form of a servant he humiliated himself

unto death.” This taking a form of a servant involved being possessed by death, certainly

human death which was prominently displayed to heaven, in order to reinstate a “second

Adam,” which the “first transgression” had lost. But, as mentioned above, the rank of the

Son is still something that involves unity with the Father “in a single duality of substance”—

another way of saying homoousios. The Apostle Paul speaking in this way of the Son with

God the Father is a further matter of the divine “inscrutable ways” (Romans 11:33) and the

“mysteries formerly concealed” (Ephesians 3:9). Phoebadius’ focus on the Philippians

passage is as an argument for consubstantiality. Despite the Son assuming the form of a

servant, he possesses the total Power of God, and the same substance as the Father.

As mentioned above, the Philippians passage is not easy to categorize as simply a

locus for divine substance or divine visibility or divine unity. This may explain why

Nicenes and ante-Nicenes saw such a scriptural locus as vitally significant proof of the

Incarnation of the Son or his kenosis as part of the Atonement, while not recognizing its

value as proof of Nicene consubstantial identity of the Son and the Father.

An Anomalous Trinitarian Formula

In the midst of the books of Against Arius, within Victorinus’ deployment of

philosophical illustration and scriptural exegesis for the sake of doctrinal definition and

221. Contra Arrianos XXVI, 1-6. CCSL 64,49-50 .


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polemic, there is an unusual appearance of a trinitarian formula. In Book III 4, Victorinus

mentions in passing that “these three are one in substance, three in subsistence.”222 It is

essential to discuss this trinitarian formula; in light of its later importance, I also want to

consider its significance to Victorinus, as well as his possible sources for it. This

trinitarian formula, extraordinarily defined and determined for circa 360, might sound

familiar to the reader of Against Arius. In Book II 4, during a discussion about divine

substance, Victorinus states, “that is why it was said: ‘From one substance there are three

subsistences’...” In Book III 4, Victorinus says, “one substance, three subsistences.”

Only one sentence later, he repeats his formula, telling the reader he got it elsewhere:

“This is expressed by the Greeks in this way: ex piag ouoiac; tpeTg elvai tmoordoEic;”224

This is the only appearance of this Greek trinitarian formula in Against Arius. Though he

restates in Book III 9 that die trinitarian persons “are one sole substance, while being three

subsistences,”225 he never explains who, specifically, “the Greeks” are, nor will he ever

again use such a trinitarian formula, in Latin or Greek, in either the remaining sections of

Against Arius or in his other extant treatises and commentaries.

The trinitarian formula of “ex piag ouotag xprlg elvai tmoordaeu;” has often been

referred to as “the Cappadocian Settlement” of 381 (even though it comes from

somewhere around 360). Its unusual and anachronistic appearance in AA III 4 has been

noticed by innumerable patristic scholars, many of whom remember Victorinus only for

this early Latin attestation of the so-called 381 formula. The importance of this formula

222. AA III 4,34—35. “substantia unum, subsistentia tria sunt ista” Clark, 227. Victorinus also uses the Greek equivalent o f “subsistentia” in Against Arius, when he says “u Jiap|iq.”

223. AA II 4,51-52. “de una substantia, tres subsistentias esse” Clark, 205.224. “there are three hypostases from one substance” AA in 4,38-39 “Idque a Graecis ita dicitur: ex piag

oucriag xpeTg elvai •ujtoardoeiq.” Clark, 228.225. AA III 9, 3-4 . “unam esse substantiam, subsistentias tres” Clark, 234.


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for Victorinus cannot be overstated. Before a discussion of its significance, however, I

want to consider the context of its use in Against Arius II and III.

In Book II of Against Arius, the formula of “one substance, three subsistences”

appears within a discussion of divine substance, the point of which is to maintain that

substance is used in Scripture, in such proof-texts as Jeremiah 23:18,22 and Hebrews

1:3 226 “Qne substance and three subsistences” is merely mentioned in passing within

Victorinus’ larger argument, concerned with proving the triple manner of divine being:

But “to be” which has a form is God, because God is also Father, likewise the Son, since he is Logos and Son. Therefore, subsistence is more properly said of these two than is substance, since that which is original “to be” with a form is called substance. But this is also called substance. And that is why it was said: “From one substance there are three subsistences,” so that that itself which

997is “to be” subsists in a triple manner: God himself, and Christ, that is, Logos and Holy Spirit.

Victorinus unfortunately concludes, echoing the theology of Nicaea 325 and Serdica 343,

not only that the Father and Son are consubstantial, but that they are also of the same

hypostasis?2* It does not matter, Victorinus avers, as long as one acknowledges that

hypostasis and/or ousia (and hyparxis) signify divine being and substance.229

The formula occurs again in Book III 4 and III 9. In III 4 we hear this formula in

Victorinus’ Latin transposition—“one in substance, three in subsistence”—and also in the

Greek original—“£x ptag oucriag xpetg elvai ujtocrrdaeig”:

226. Jer. 23:18,22: “Who has stood in the substance o f the Lord and has seen his Word?... And if they had stood in my substance, they would have heard my words.. Heb. 1:3, “. . .He who is the character o f his substance”; and other proof-texts for substance such as Ps. 138(139):15, Luke 15:12-13. Clark, 202-06.

227. Clark, 204-05. AA II 4,46-53. “formatum autem (esse) est deus, quod deus est et pater; sic et filius, quod et koyog et filius. Subsistentia ergo proprie dicitur de ambobus, quod est substantia, quoniam quod est esse principale cum forma subsistentia dicitur. Haec autem et substantia dicitur. Et ideo dictum est: de una substantia, tres subsistentias esse, ut id ipsum quod est esse subsistat tripliciter: ipse deus et Christus, id est koyoq et spiritus sanctus.” CSEL 83/1,177-78.

228. Cf., for example, Clark, 207 (AA I I 6), in which Victorinus cites Jn. 14:10 and says “so that we may understand that the fullness o f the two and the self-sameness o f each is in each one. But i f i t is the same hypostasis, they are therefore, homoousiori'

229. Cf. Clark, 206-07.


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I f to live and to understand are one, and since “to be” which is to live and to understand is one, these three are one in substance, three in subsistence. For since they have their own power and signification and they also are as they are named, necessarily they are both three and nevertheless one, since the three constitute together each unity that each one is singly. This is expressed by the Greeks in this way: i x p iag ou a ia g xpeu; d v a i ujiooxdoeig (there are three hypostases from one substance).230

But again, the occurrences of this formula also are only in passing, within a larger,

repetitive discussion of the reality of unity versus the concomitant reality of distinct

singularity. Almost all this discussion takes place within the intellectual matrix o f

Victorinus’ “noetic triad,” or psychological analogy, of the Trinity: esse , v ivere ,

in te llig e re . This triad dominates the discussion of divine identity in A g a in s t A r iu s , as

Victorinus relates Being itself to the Father, life to the Son, and understanding to the

Spirit. Even the way Victorinus concludes the discussion of the contemplation of God

in Book III reemphasizes this triad. It also includes the fourth and last mention o f the

trinitarian formula—but again, only in passing:

This w ill then make it clear enough that “to be” w hich is the Father, that life which is the Son, that knowledge w hich is the H oly Spirit, are one so le substance, while being three subsistences, because, com ing from “to be” which is substance, and being itself substance, as w e have taught, movement is effective as a tw ofold power, that both o f vitality and o f w isdom and understanding so that evidently in each one are the three. Therefore, the H oly Spirit is knowledge and w isdom .232

230. Clark, 227-28. AA III 4,32-39 “Quod si ita est, ut unum sit vivere et intellegere, et, cum unum sit esse quod est vivere atque intellegere, substantia unum, subsistentia tria sunt ista. Cum enim vim ac significantiam suam habeant atque ut dicuntur et sint, necessario et sunt tria et tamen unum, cum omne, quod singulum est unum, tria sint. Idque a Graecis ita dicitur: ex giaq ouoCaq xpeu; elvai {iJCOcrrdoEiq.” CSEL 83/1, 198.

231. Besides texts proffered to prove divine visibility in the Son, and divine unity with the Father, Victorinus heavily favored text for the Son— corresponding to the image o f the Son as Life— is Jn. 5:26: “The Father, inasmuch as he has life from himself, so has he given to the Son to have life from himself.”

232. Clark, 234-35AA III 9,1-8. “Hoc igitur satis clarum faciet esse quod pater est et vitam quod est filius et cognoscentiam quod est spiritus sanctus unum esse et unam esse substantiam, subsistentias tres, quia ab eo quod est esse quae substantia est, motus, quia et ipse, ut docuimus, ipsa substantia est, gemina potentia valet et vitalitatis et sapientiae atque intellegentiae, ita scilicet, ut in omnibus singulis tema sint. Ergo spiritus sanctus scientia est et sapientia.” CSEL 83/1, 206. This one passage could serve as the briefest, most precise summary o f everything that Victorinus is about in his treatises, except that missing from it is any argument on behalf o f consubstantiality.


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After this mention in III 9, Victorinus leaves this formula behind, evidently with no

further need of it.

Though the formula is used in four instances, Victorinus puts it to no use beyond

adding to the triadic theme of the discussion of triune identity and relations—raising the

question of why he quoted it at all. Perhaps he did so to show how current he was with

Eastern dyohypostatic theological circles; perhaps to prove that his trinitarian theology

fits accepted formulae.

In considering the instances of Victorinus’ use of a trinitarian formula (whether in the

Greek he quotes or in his Latin rendering), it is necessary to remember that the terms

“trinitarian formula” and particularly “381 Cappadocian Settlement” are pieces of modem

theological shorthand, as Joseph Lienhard pointed out in his article on the “Cappadocian

Settlement.”233 There are surprisingly few instances of any sort of the “one ousia three

hypostases” formula in the writings of the Cappadocians, nor did this formula appear in the

381 Creed. More typical of Cappadocian thought was a letter from the Synod of

Constantinople to Western bishops in 382, which used three terms for what was one in God

(divinity, power, and essence) and two terms for what was three (hypostases and persons):

[The 318 Fathers of Nicaea] teach us to believe in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: clearly, to believe in one divinity and power and essence [ouota] of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; in their dignity of equal honour and in their coetemal reign, in three most perfect hypostases [tmooxaaetg] or three perfect persons [jipdacoiia].234

233. Joseph T. Lienhard, “Ousia and Hypostasis'. The Cappadocian Settlement and the Theology o f ‘One Hypostasis, In The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity, ed. Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 99-121.

234. Lienhard, “The Cappadocian Settlement,” 100


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The Cappadocians used a range of three or four terms to speak of what is one in God,

and what is three,235 but Lienhard reminds us that the acceptance of a trinitarian formula

specifically including “three hypostases” was not swift. The hammering out of a

trinitarian formula was especially difficult because of the dispute regarding whether the

term hypostasis applied to what was singular or plural within God. There was a persistent

difficulty with how each word—ousia or hypostasis—could mean something that subsists.

To discover when the final determination of the exact meaning of the word hypostasis

came about in the late fourth century is a complex problem.

Even now, it remains a problem to portray the origins of this “Cappadocian

settlement” trinitarian formula coming about even earlier, in the decades of the 350s and

360s. The earliest approximation of a formula of multiple hypostases would be the

statement from the Dedication Creed of 341, that each person of the Trinity is named “so

that they are three in hypostasis, and one in agreement.”236 But even the Synod of

Alexandria in the year 362 should not have this formula imposed upon it. We do not

know whether the result of the synod, according to Athanasius’ Tome to the Antiochenes,

was to produce such a formula, even if some Meletians (we think), when questioned,

confessed a belief in “Father, Son and Spirit, each subsisting (uraoTtoxa) distinctly, but

recognizing a single ultimate principle and a Son consubstantial with the Father.. .and a

Holy Spirit belonging to and inseparable from the ousia of the Son and of the Father.”237

That statement almost, but not quite, reaches the level of the “trinitarian formula.”

235. Cf. Lienhard, 120: “More commonly, several terms, usually physis (‘nature’) and theotes ( ‘deity’), as well as ousia, designate what is one in God; and idiotetes ( ‘properties’) and prosopa ( ‘persons’), along with hypostasis, are common designations for what is three in God.”

236. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 269. “(bg elvai rfj ptv im oordaei xpia, tt} 61 crupqwovig £v”237. Hanson, Search, 640—41.


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However, the Tome to the Antiochenes, when it was circulated, did convey the indication

that ousia and hypostasis could be used in different senses, and that it was possible to speak

of three hypostases in an orthodox sense. What possibly came out of the Tome, most

importantly, is what R.P.C. Hanson described as a way opened “for a younger generation

of theologians to establish a clear distinction in the use of these terms.”

None of this answers the question, however, of the source or sources from which

Victorinus quotes this formula in AA III 4. There have been various conclusions among

scholars who have noticed this anomalous trinitarian formula in AA III 4. For example,

with little evidence—but considerable conjecture—some scholars have located this

trinitarian formula from vague, nascent “Nicene circles” as a watchword against extreme

Marcellan teachings.239 Others have located this formula within Homoiousian circles. Chief

among this second group is Pierre Hadot, in his Sources Chretiennes commentary on

Victorinus’ trinitarian treatises.240 Neither he nor others, however, can give any evidence

for their belief, in spite of the fact that Victorinus shows in his writings that he has access

not only to early Arian documents, but also the Sirmian dossier of 358.

A recent scholar who takes Victorinus seriously is Jorg Ulrich, in his 1994 work, The

Beginnings o f the Western Reception ofNicaea?41 Ulrich devotes an entire chapter of his

238. Hanson, Search, 644-45.239. Franke Dinsen, Homoousios: die Geschichte des Begriffs bis zum Konzil von Konstantinopel (381)

(Ph.D. diss, University o f Kiel, 1976), 347.240. Hadot, SC 69, 91 If. Cf. also Luise Abramowski, “Trinitarische und christologische

Hypostasenformeln,” Theologie und Philosophic 54 (1979):38—49.241. Jorg Ulrich, Die Anfdnge der abendlandischen Rezeption des Nizanums (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter,

1994). Ulrich presented a summary o f his work in an article published, in English: “Nicaea and the West,” Vigiliae Christianae 51 (1997): 10-24. He argues that the Latin West remained isolated from Nicaea for forty-plus years— employing Marcellan interpretations ofNicaea and Serdica 343, until the time o f Hilary, Victorinus, Gregory o f Elvira and Ambrose. A worthwhile case to argue, but far overstated E.g., the last paragraph o f his article, on 21: “It took almost forty years until Latin theologians such as Gregory o f Elvira began to receive the text o f the Nicene creed and to use it as the guiding principle o f orthodoxy in matters o f the Trinity. And it was well into the sixties o f the fourth


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work to Victorinus, in line with his argument that the West was slow and reluctant to leave

behind a Serdican miahypostatic theology, even up until approximately 370. In considering

Victorinus’ trinitarian formula in a chapter subsection,242 he concludes confidently that the

Greek trinitarian formula in AA III 4, and its Latin translation in II4, come from neither

theological nor ecclesial circles, but from a Neoplatonist-philosophical source.243 Ulrich is

taking his cue from a brief article published by Manlio Simonetti in 1974,244 in which

Simonetti noted a reference to a triune statement of Porphyry quoted in Didymus the

Blind’s De Trinitate: ““Axpt yap xpuov tjiooraoECOV etpq nXdxtov xf|V xou Geiou

jipoeXOeTv ouoiav” (“For Plato said that the ousia of the Divine Reality proceeds as far

as three hypostases. . .”). Oddly, Ulrich does not mention the dating of Didymus’ De

Trinitate—it is commonly agreed upon by scholars as being from the 380s—but he

believes that Victorinus, himself obviously much indebted to Porphyrian influence, could

well have known this same reference. He further claims that Eastern theologians, in

taking this formula of three hypostases from Neoplatonist sources, arrived at what he

terms “a fruitful misunderstanding” which provided the basis for the Christian language

of hypostasis and ousia. Even with the blatant problem of the wildly inaccurate dating,

this quote from Didymus quoting Porphyry is not much of an explanation for Victorinus’

century, almost half a century after the first ecumenical council in A.D. 325, when Latin speaking theologians entered into the debates about the theology ofN icaea and then started to become more independent and more constructive partners in the search for the Christian doctrine o f God, such as Marius Victorinus, Ambrose o f M ilan...” Victorinus was most probably dead by the time o f “well into the sixties o f the fourth century,” and Victorinus was just one example o f vigorous Western Latin Neo-Nicene retrieval ofNicaea in the 350s. Contemporary German scholarship o f the fourth century sees some dire need to push Western Latin isolation from the current trinitarian debates up to the decade o f the late 360s/early 370s, for no apparent or convincing reasons.

242. “Die neunizanische Losung bei Marius Victorinus,” 254-261.243. Ulrich, Anfdnge, 257.244. Manlio Simonetti, “A ll’origine della formula teologica una essenza/tre ipostasi,” Augustinianum 14

(1974): 173—75.


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formula. Victorinus, Ulrich concludes, somehow got this formula, but did not exert any

influence upon anyone else; besides, his chief interest was the defense of the homoousios.

Yet Ulrich’s dating even of Victorinus is mistaken. Ulrich depends heavily on Hadot’s

works on Victorinus, but is certain that Books II and III of Against Arius come from the

years 359/360, even though Hadot, in his complete 1971 work on Marius Victorinus,

gives Books II and III a dating of 361/362.245

Not to be overlooked is the scholarly explanation of Hanns Christof Brennecke.

Brenneke opts for a derivation of Victorinus’ formula from the Homoian circles of the

exiled Meletius of Antioch, who took a sharp turn against the miahypostatic tradition.246

The chief difficulty with this is Meletius having been an ex-Homoian from early on;

rather, his theology is mostly “a Homoiousian one couched in cautious Homoian

terms”247 (his inaugural homily of late 361 in Antioch proved that he was not very good

at being an Homoian248). Also, there is very little that we have of Meletius. Further, we

know that we cannot easily equate Meletius with his Meletian followers, who seem to be

represented in Athanasius’ Tome to the Antiochenes. But we do know that Meletius

represents a trajectory of Nicene and Pro-Nicene theology which eventually traveled

closely with Basil of Caesarea, even to the point of Meletius presiding at the 381 Council,

and dying there, with Gregory of Nyssa to do his funeral oration.

245. Hadot, Marius Victorinus, 280.246. Hanns Christof Brennecke, “Erw&gungen zu den Anfingen des NeunizSnismus,” from Oecumenica et

patristica: Festschrift fur Wilhelm Schneemelcher zum 75. Geburtstag, ed. Damaskinos Papandreaou, Wolfgang A. Bienert, Knut Schaferdiek (Chambdsy-Genf: Metropolie der Schweiz, 1989), 241-257.

247. Kelley McCarthy Spoerl, “The Schism at Antioch since Cavallera,” from Arianism After Arius: Essays on the Development o f the Fourth Century Trinitarian Conflicts, ed. Michel R. Barnes and Daniel H. Williams (Edinburg: T&T Clark, 1993), 125.

248. McCarthy Spoerl argues that it was Meletius’ basically Homoiousian, not Homoousian, theology that prompted his exile after he delivered his inaugural sermon.


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The defined, post-381 nature of the Greek trinitarian formula Marius Victorinus

tells of in AA III 4 is striking, making it understandable why so many would wish to

find a source beyond Victorinus’ own frustratingly terse statement, “as the Greeks

say...” However, no scholar has ever produced a document for quotation that could

prove conclusively the source of the formula. It is useful to remind ourselves that this

formula cannot be so easily labeled as was the somewhat inaccurate “Cappadocian

Settlement”; additionally, the notion of a “trinitarian formula” is a piece modem

theological shorthand used mostly in apologetic and polemical works. As Lienhard

has cautioned:

Creeds, for example, contain a confession of the one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but generally do not include the word “Trinity,” or dwell on abstract terms like ousia or hypostasis. The Church prays to almighty God through Jesus Christ his Son in the Holy Spirit. The formula “one ousia in three hypostases” was crafted on the workbench of theologians; and even for them, it is more of a convenient abbreviation than the last word that might be uttered.249

It is also true that a trinitarian formula may add clarity, but diminish theological

reflection on some names for the Second Person, such as Power and Wisdom.

In spite of Victorinus knowing this trinitarian formula, the fact that he was still

within—or in the process of leaving—a Latin Neo-Nicene miahypostatic milieu is clear

in his semantic confusion over terms such as ousia and hypostasis. (This confusion

appears even in a work dated after Against Arius, The Necessity o f Accepting the

Homoousion.250) Further, in arguing for the homoousios of the Father and the Son and for

the homoousios of the Son and the Spirit, Victorinus often has a hard time distinguishing

249. Lienhard, “The Cappadocian Settlement,” 103.250. If there is no clear philosophical distinction between these words—the lack o f which Origen’s

synonymous use o f them testifies to— one wonders how Victorinus displays “semantic confusion.” It is as if he thus says “The One Reality o f God could be signified by either ousia or hypostasis, but as Greek Christians are adopting a formula o f ‘one ousia/ihree hypostases,’ we Latins can talk about ‘one substantia/three subsistentiae.’”


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between the Son and the Spirit, sometimes even equating them. My own conjecture as to

his source for the nascent trinitarian formula of Books I I 4 and III 4 favors Meletius

and/or Antiochene-Meletian circles post-360, especially since Victorinus was fluent in

Greek, and some contact with Meletian trihypostatic theology was certainly possible.

Victorinus might have done far more work and reflection on this trinitarian formula had

he not had his own formula within which to work in his trinitarian treatises: the formula

of “to be, to live, to understand” as corresponding to Father, Son and Holy Spirit.251

Conclusion

Victorinus never fully left the conceptual world of Neo-Nicenes in speaking of divine

substance; however, he managed to produce a “Cappadocian Settlement”/381-sounding

formula distinguishing substantive divine being from real separate, hypostatic

existence—something no other Neo-Nicene was quite able to do. This is obviously not

to his credit: he got it from somewhere else and he did not know what to do with it, even

though he compared this one ousia in three hypostases formula (probably from Meletian

sources ) to his rendering of it into a Latin formula of one substantia in three

subsistences. Unfortunately, substantia had long been for Latins the common translation

not only of ousia but also hypostasis, so Victorinus was unable to escape entirely the

semantic problems that were a handicap to Latins, including his falling at times into

251. The reason for Victorinus’ idiosyncratic Neo-Platonic formulation is that it expresses the real distinctions o f the persons o f the Trinity.

252. See Chapter Five, ‘Divine Unity in Victorinus,’ where Victorinus’ understanding and use o f connatural unity in his ‘one substance, one power’ statements put him unexpectedly in the very advanced ‘Pro-Nicene’ cam253. Again, this contact, probably because o f his skill with Greek, refutes the notion o f Victorinus isolated from theological currents o f his specific time in the late 350s/early 360s.


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modalist presentations of trinitarian persons. One could argue that even this semi-

modalist tendency shows a close similarity to other Neo-Nicenes, who were seeking to

redefine what Nicaea 325 had achieved, settling on the meaning of key texts in “Nicene-

Arian” debates, and groping with their own polemical form.

Few scholars have clearly identified the Scripture texts which easily defined all stages

of the Trinitarian Controversy and its groups, both Nicene and various anti-Nicene. I

have shown how Victorinus’ treatment of substance texts is often no different than that of

other Neo-Nicenes such as Phoebadius of Agen and Gregory of Elvira. In addition to

knowing about Homoian and Homoiousian exegeses of his day from a dossier o f Anti-

Nicene creedal documents, Victorinus understood, and used, commonplace Nicene

responses.

Victorinus put forth great effort with the most immediate tool at hand in the years right

after his conversion, the text of the Scriptures. The issue of divine substance is something

he had to address, if he is going to argue on behalf of the Nicene ideal of homoousios.

But Victorinus is taking up this case for substance at a nascent stage of Nicene

development, and his attempts to locate words for divine substance in the text of

Scripture produce mixed results. Contrary to Anti-Nicenes at the time reflexively

claiming that the words for substance are not to be found in Scripture (such as in the

Sirmium 357 creed and in subsequent Homoian creeds), there are words to work with in

the text of Scripture, including the words ousia and hypostasis, but Victorinus shows that

even he remains rather unconvinced to the clear meaning of either word. The weak

frequency with which the words appear in either Old or New Testament provides a

meagre resource for Victorinus’ task. What he ends up producing for a defense o f divine


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substance reflects the indeterminate status of the question in the Latin West of the 350s. It

is only when he has contact with Greek sources that define one ousia against three

hypostases that he seems to be able to make sense of the Latin one substantia versus three

subsistentiae; but even then he does not appear to grasp its importance for speaking about

the identity of trinitarian persons. Victorinus’ theological reflection depends upon

revealed titles of the Father, Son and Spirit, and what scriptural sources can tell him of

the nature, identity and operations of these persons. In order to defend the homoousios,

Victorinus will have more success in arguing divine visibility and especially divine unity,

as I will show in succeeding chapters.


I l l

4 Divine Visibility in Victorinus

Seeing God The Son And God The Father

To see the Image and Form of God is to have the substance—the same substance—of God

the Father. Following on the heels of his conversion, Marius Victorinus threw himself into

the study of the Scriptures and the two centuries or so of Latin theology that had preceded

his joining of the Church. One of the most significant Latin theology commonplaces he

would inherit was that of the visibility of the Son; this included an articulated invisibility

for the Father, used prior to Victorinus’ day in Latin, anti-modalist polemic by such figures

as Tertullian and Novatian. This Latin exegetical tradition for speaking of the Son’s

visibility included a certain understood subordination of the Son.254 Victorinus, however,

uses these key exegetical visibility loci to argue, oppositely, for the homoousios: for the full

divinity and equality of the Son with the Father, the Son being the Form and Image of God,

one with God the Father. These visibility texts, so useful for Tertullian and Novatian, will

also be of vital importance for Victorinus, in his Nicene/anti-Nicene milieu of the late 350s,

254. It was a received Latin trinitarian commonplace and tradition that taught that the distinction between the Father and the Son was understood in the Father’s invisible nature, with such a vital text as I Tim. 6:16a—“who alone has immortality and dwells in un approachable light, whom no man has ever seen or can see”— and in the Son’s visible nature, with texts such as Col. 1:15— “He is the image o f the invisible God”— giving the Son a subordinate status, for the sake of combating modalism. Michel R. Barnes, “The Visible Christ and the Invisible Trinity: Mt. 5:8 in Augustine’s Trinitarian Theology o f 400,” Modern n e o lo g y 19 (2003):329-355.


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arguing on behalf of the homoousios as part of the Latin Neo-Nicene theological trajectory.

Victorinus will use a battery of these testimonia texts because he knows of this Latin

tradition of speaking of the Son’s visibility, and he applies it to his own specific needs in

debates of his stage of the Trinitarian Controversy.

Primary Texts for Visibility

T h e D iv in e Im age: G e n e s is 1:26

Genesis 1:26, which speaks of the creation of humanity after the divine image (“Let us

make man in our image, after our likeness...”), makes it possible to consider the reality

of the divine image. Genesis 1:26 is remarkable in its absence from use by anti-

Nicenes during the Trinitarian Controversy, making an appearance only in such

diminutive works as the Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum and the Anonymous in Job

commentaries.256 Nicenes, however, could see in Genesis 1:26 an obvious appeal to a

discussion of the Son as the image of God (the cosmology of Genesis 1:26, and an

assumed filial meaning,257 could, for example, lead to a consideration of another

Scripture text, Colossians 1:15).

Victorinus does not. ignore Genesis 1:26 in his consideration of divine visibility. In

Against Arius, he uses it for two purposes: arguing on behalf of Christ’s identity as

255. Complete text o f Gen. 1:26 (RSV): “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish o f the sea, and over the birds o f the air, and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” Usually the text o f 1:26 quoted in patristic writings is only 1:26a.

256. Michel Meslin, LesAriens d ’Occident 335—430, Patristica Sorbonensia, 8 (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1967), 231. Meslin holds the outdated notion that these two works were penned by the late Homoian Maximinus.

257. That is, “let u s.. . meaning a conversation o f the Father with the Son; not the one creator God holding court and speaking only with demi-gods and celestial intermediaries.

258. Col. 1:15: “He is the image o f the invisible God, the first-born o f all creation.”


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homoousios with the Father (the use which concerns us most); and expressing an

anthropology. (The latter use is not necessarily Nicene in its theology but is nonetheless

quite important for reasons which will be made clear). The first Nicene use of Genesis

1:26 is in Book IA. In it, Victorinus addresses the notion of “image” within the context

of II Corinthians, in order to convey the vital truth that if Christ is the image o f God,

then Christ is from God.259 Within this discussion Victorinus appeals to Genesis 1:26:

“Let us make,” he says, is God the Father speaking to Christ, “a cooperator.”

“According to the image” means according to the only one, Christ, who is the Image of

God—making man an image of the Image. From “according to our image,” Victorinus

concludes that “therefore both Father and Son are one image. If the image of the Father

is the Son and if the image itself is the Father, they are therefore homoousioi in respect

to image. For the image itself is substance.”260 Genesis 1:26 possesses a simple

meaning for Victorinus in speaking of christological identity: if Father and Son are one

image, they are also the same substance.

Substance is also at issue when Victorinus comes to an in-depth explication of divine

substance in Book II. If God truly is, Victorinus reasons, then God truly has a

substance. If God is truly Being itself, and the first, universal substance (“substance

before substance,” as he also describes), then he is hyperousios (or, as he further explains,

some have thus reasoned then that God is anousios, or without substance). Victorinus

concludes this line of reasoning with a quasi-creedal statement that employs Genesis 1:26:

259. The Gen. 1:26 discussion within the I Cor. section is 1 2 0 ,1 -6 7 .120,1-23 employs Gen. 1:26 for christological purposes; the rest o f the section uses Gen. 1:26 for anthropology, in discussing the creation o f the human soul.

260. Clark, 117-18. AA 120,7-10. “Ergo et pater et filius imago una. Si imago patris filius est et ipsa imago pater, imagine ergo 6pooi3oioi. Ipsa enim imago substantia est.” CSEL 83/1,85-86.

261. Clark, 196-97.


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“Let us adore God, therefore, and affirm that he is, that is, that he is enousion, who has

created all things, heaven and earth, world, spirit (sic), angels, souls, animals, and man

“according to the image and likeness” of the image of those on high.” The following

section asserts the truth of the Son being begotten from the substance of God, who is

“Father,” Victorinus says, because he is enousios. Genesis 1:26 does not appear

again in the rest of this section in AA I I 1, though it is a text that would serve as an

apologetic for the Son being from the substance of the Father. Instead, Victorinus

employs John 1:1-3, and ends the section with a statement condemning the early Arian

views of the Son being created from nothing and the Son being merely chief among the

creatures created by God the Father.264

The most thoughtful use of Genesis 1:26 comes in Book IV of Against Arius, in

which Victorinus argues for consubstantiality of Father and Son in two passages that

tie 1:26 to other important proof-texts:

262. Clark, 197. Clark follows the word enousion with her translation, “substance,” in parentheses; I have omitted this as it is an inaccurate translation o f that word. AA II 1,34-37. “Veneremur ergo deum et esse dicamus, id est Ivovoiov, qui constituit omnia, caelum et terram, mundum, spiritus, angelos, animas, animalia ethominem ad imaginem et similitudinem imaginis eorum.” CSEL 83/1,169. The progressive comparison here between God and the created order sounds similar to Victorinus’ description in 1 33 (Clark, 145): “For we believe in a God who acts, as for example: ‘In the beginning God made heaven and earth,’ and he made the angels, man, and all things in the heavens and on earth.”

263. Another quasi-creedal statement opens this short section: “Thus we confess him to be also Father o f the only begotten Son; this is the feith o f a ll...” Clark, 197.

264. Clark, 197. “For i f God is the Father o f all things through creation, in what way is he the Father o f the only begotten i f not be another way than he is Father o f creatures, begetting from substance, not from nothing. But there was no other substance before all things than the substance o f the Father.Therefore, Christ is from the substance o f the Father.” AA II 1,48-52.

265. Hadot points out that in Book IV 29,39-33,25. Victorinus is using a collection o f texts correspondent with the ideas he articulates about the Son: the identity o f the form o f God as the Son, the identity o f the Son as Logos and the identity o f the Logos as Jesus. This is especially important for Victorinus because o f the general problem o f addressing what exactly is the “form o f God”: “La form e primitivement confondue avec Dieu s ’engendre, done devient Fils et, dans son mouvement d’exteriorisation, done Logos qui tend k s’abaisser vers les inferieurs, a s’incamer; elle devient done Jesus et VEsprit Saint. C’est la manifestation visible de la former cachee en Dieu. Et tout ceci est le commentaire de Phil. 2,6.” Hadot, Traites Theologiques, 1044-45.


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They are therefore homoousion in all things, in “to be,” and “to live,” and “to understand”; likewise, insofar as both are khorema (receptacle)266 and pleromcr, likewise, insofar as they are image and image; for it was said: “According to our image”; and insofar as “light” and “light”; and insofar as “true light” and “true light”; and insofar as “Spirit” and “Spirit”; and insofar as movement and movement, but the Father is movement in repose, that is, interior movement and nothing other than movement, not movement in movement; but the Son is movement in movement; both are, nevertheless, movement; likewise, both are action and operation; both are life and both having life from themselves; will and the same will; virtue, wisdom, word; God and God; living God and living God; eternal and eternal; invisible and invisible; for it was said by Matthew: “No one has known the Son except the Father, nor the Father, except the Son.” They are both together; for this is what homoousion signifies, beyond the same ousian 267

Within this dense passage Victorinus makes a statement about the consubstantiality of

the Father and the Son, using a chain of proof-texts, creedal language, and

philosophical terms. Both Father and Son, he states, are “receptacle” (xcoptuia) and

“fullness” (jtA.rjpa>pa, or “pleroma”), having explained at length in the previous

paragraph that the Father is the “pleroma,” who has begotten his infinite, and identical,

“receptacle.” In IV 29,24-38 Victorinus continues the pleroma/receptacle idea, linking

it with “X from X ’ statements to describe Father and Son: the pleroma/receptacle is the

“all from all,” “light from light,” “true light from true light,” and “God from God.”268

There is distinction between them, Victorinus notes; for example, the Father is

“movement in repose” and the Son is “movement in movement.” But same produces same:

266. Another instance o f Clark translating a technical term in parentheses, just as each o f Victorinus’ uses o f homoousios is followed by “(consubstantial).” Unless a term is rare I leave out these parenthetical additions.

267. Clark, 294-95. AA IV 29,24—38. “'Ogoouoiov ergo in omnibus, in eo quod est esse et vivere et intellegere; item in eo quod uterque x®pr||ia et JiX.1)p©p.a est; item in eo quod imago et imago; dictum est enim: ad imaginem nostram; et in eo quod lumen et lumen; et in eo quod verum lumen et verum lumen; et in eo quod spiritus et spiritus; et in eo quod motus et motus; sed pater motus quiescens, id est interior et nihil aliud quam motus, non motione motus, filius autem motione motus est, uterque tamen motus; item uterque actio et opera; uterque vita et uterque a se habens vitam; voluntas et voluntas eadem; virtus; sapientia; verbum; deus et deus; deus vivus et deus vivus; ex aetemo et ex aetemo; invisibilis et invisibilis; nam dictum a Mattheo: nemo novit filium nisi pater, neque patrem nisi filius. Simul ambo; et hoc enim significat opoouoiov, praeter eandem ouoiav.” CSEL 83/1,268-69. The quotation from Matthew, “for it was said by Matthew,” is Matt. 11:27: “All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

268. Clark, 294-95.


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not only will and the same will, but also same power (virtus), wisdom, and word269; same

God and God, living God and living God; same eternal and eternal; same invisible and

invisible. These “X from A” statements can be made because Father and Son are image

and image, for which Victorinus quotes Genesis 1:26—“according to our image”—as his

proof. He then follows this up with a quotation from Matthew 11:27: “No one has known

the Son except the Father, nor the Father, except the Son.” I will comment more on

Matthew 11:27 below; what is important here is that Genesis 1:26 appears as part of a

chain of texts that includes as proof-texts I Corinthians 1:24 (the Son is the Power and

Wisdom of the Father) and Matthew 11:27 (that only the Father and the Son truly

know/have full knowledge of each other).270

The last appearance of Genesis 1:26 in Against Arius is in the next paragraph, where

Victorinus uses it to speak of Christ as the Form of God, placing it at the end of another

chain to texts 271 (Wherever Genesis 1:26 appears in Against Arius as part of Victorinus’

argument for the Son being homoousios, it will be constellated with other significant

Victorine loci for speaking of divine visibility.) The chain begins with the remainder of

Matthew 11:27272: “All that the Father has, he has given to me, and all that the Father has, I

also have.” Victorinus restates that the Father and Son are identical and equal and appeals

to the precise Forma Dei text, Philippians 2:6: “.. .and if equal, Paul rightly said o f the Son,

of Jesus Christ: ‘Who, although he was in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to

269. Probably a conflated allusion to I Cor. 1:24 and Jn. 1:1270. Christ’s statement o f divine unity and identity in Matt. 11:27 also articulates the Son as the medium o f

the revelation o f the Father, and the Son being given “all things” by his Father.271. Clark, 295-96.272. Not a clean division o f Matt 11:27. As is common with patristic writers, Victorinus quotes the verse from

memory; they are sometimes imperfectly remembered. The way he quotes it also sounds like Jn. 16:15.


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be equal to God.’ Many divine and magnificent mysteries are contained here.” To say

that Christ is the “Form of God” means, for Victorinus, that Christ is the Form of God “in

whom one sees that ‘he has all that God has.’”274 This Form of God is the Image of God,

who is the same as God. To make his point, Victorinus begins this passage with Matthew

11:27, then connects it to Philippians 2:6, Exodus 33:20ff (“No one has ever seen my

face...), and finally Genesis 1:26.

As noted already, other appearances of Genesis 1:26 in Against Arius are for the sake

of Victorinus’ anthropology, to speak of the creation of man and the origin of the human

soul. It is significant, however, that two sections dealing with Genesis 1:26 in Against

Arius are not merely anthropological considerations. Victorinus discusses the creation of

man according the image and likeness of God, but as part of proving the Son as

homoousios with the Father. We get a brief hint of this in Book IA 20 when Victorinus

concedes that “let us make man according to our image” refers to the soul of man.275 The

human soul is according to the image and likeness of God, and the human soul is rational,

just as Christ is the Image of God and is the Logos. The soul is not the equivalent of the

Logos, he says, but is rational; and as the soul lives, and Christ is life, it proves itself to

be according to the image of God. But Christ is the Image of God, to which the soul

corresponds “accordingly,” as the handiwork of a creation shows its creator.

Victorinus’ most extended discussion of the human soul, and Christ as homoousios,

comes in a section of AA IB. He begins by introducing again the question of what the

273. Clark, 295. AA IV 29,42-30,2. “et si par, recte Paulus de filio, de Iesu Christo dixit: qui, cum esset in dei forma, non rapinam arbitratus est, ut esset aequalis deo. Multa hie divina et magnifies mysteria continentur.” CSEL 83/1,269.

274. Clark, 295. AA IV 30,2—4. “Primum quod Christas form a dei est in quo ostenditur omnia habere quae deus habetP CSEL 83/1,269. This is the first paragraph o f the section o f extended comment on Phil. 2:5-7 in AA TV 30.

275. The entire discussion is in Clark, 118-19. AA 120,24-67. CSEL 83/1, 86-88.


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soul is, if Scripture says “let us make man according to our image and likeness.”276

The human soul is an “image of the Image” and lives because the Image, Christ, is Life.

The human soul also has a nous that comes from the Nous. This soul is capable o f union

with the Nous if it looks toward that Nous, rather than looking downward and becoming

mere intellect. As one reads this passage about the soul’s creation, fall, and possible

redemption, it is hard not to hear echoes of Origen. This becomes even more striking

when Victorinus mentions different theories about the composition of the human soul,

based on an interpretation of Genesis 1:26. He admits that his understanding is o f a

twofold soul and a twofold nous, based on the mystical interpretation of Matthew 24:39-

277 •41 and Luke’s addition in Luke 17:34—39. Reading this section strongly suggests that

Victorinus did not just glean some of Origen’s exegetical ideas from someone like Hilary

of Poitiers, but read Origen’s commentaries himself.278 That would explain why this

section of Against Arius reads like a passage from commentary on Genesis by Origen.

276. The entire discussion isA A lB 61,1-64,30, which ends Book I. Clark, 188-93.277. Clark, 190-91. “As for the twofold nous and the twofold soul, the Gospel according to Matthew and

the Gospel according to Luke explain this. Indeed they express it thus: ‘It will be thus also at the coming o f the Son o f Man; then two men will be in the field; one will be taken, and one w ill be left; two women will be at the mill, one will be take and one will be left.’ Luke, however, added something about the twofold body: ‘That night there will be two in one bed, one will be taken, the other left.’ But there are others, similarly expressed. Therefore the ‘two in the field’ are the two logoi or the two nouses: the heavenly logos and the other, material; the two women occupied in grinding are the two souls, the heavenly soul and the material soul. Therefore, the heavenly nous or logos and the heavenly soul will be taken. But the material logos and the soul ‘will be left.”’AA 162,11-25. CSEL 83/1, 163-64

278. Others have noticed this, with not enough investigation done. See the brief discussion in Hadot, Marius Victorinus, 282-83; also the exhaustive, masterful article o f GyOrgy Heidi, “Some Traces o f an Ancient Latin Compilation o f Origen’s Commentary on Genesis,” Appendix 3 in O rigen’s influence on the young Augustine: A chapter in the history o f Origenism, Eastern Christian Studies (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press LLC, 2003), 237—73. This article argues that the so-called Tractatus Origenis, a collection o f twenty Latin homilies attributed to Gregory o f Elvira, owes its Qrigenian interpretations to Novatian’s translation o f various sections o f Origen’s works for his own personal use, which thereafter made its way into the hands o f other Latins who could not read Origen’s works in the original Greek. (“Origenian” here means an ostensible influence from and familiarity with Origen, as opposed to the other fourth-century Evagrian category o f ’’Origenist.”) Far more common is the supposition that Victorinus’ lack o f reading Origen is just another feature o f “Victorinus the isolated, unread Latin.” Those who think so should be reminded o f how fluent Victorinus was in


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In his commentary on Genesis 1:26 Victorinus has already said that our soul is created

after the image of the heavenly nous and logos; i.e., according to the image of God and of

Christ. Christ, he says further, is life and Logos and image of God, the “image in which

God the Father is seen,”279 and living equivalent of God the Father who is “to be” and the

Holy Spirit who is “to understand.” The human soul, then, bears witness to the true nature

of God and to Christ being homoousios with the Father. All of this Victorinus extracts

from Genesis 1:26:

If then the soul as soul is at once “to be” of soul, “to live” and “to understand,” if it is therefore three, the soul is as the image of the image of the Triad on High. For the soul as soul in its “to be,” giving both life and knowledge, possessing these three together, homoousia in unity, before understanding and yet these three are individuated as in their own substances, without being separated by sectioning, by division, by overflow, by extension or reproduction, but they are always three, each one existing really in the other which really exists also, and this substantially. Therefore the soul is “according to the image.”280

The use and doctrinal exegesis of Genesis 1:26 among other, earlier Latins is not so

extensive as one might imagine. Tertullian employs it only for a few times—though one

of these instances is in a significant section of Against Praxeas in which he is pondering

the need of Scripture citations to prove a plurality of persons within the Godhead. If the

number of persons within the Trinity is found to be scandalous, Tertullian opines, then

Greek. Cf. also Simonetti’s assumption that Victorinus could not have consulted Origen's Pauline commentaries when composing his own. Manlio Simonetti, Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church, 91-5. Because o f scholarly consensus it suffices here to assume that the author o f the Origenian tractates was Gregory o f Elvira.

279. Clark, 191-92. As already noted, in AA IV 30,5-11 Victorinus ties Phil.2:6 to Gen. 1:26 and Ex. 33:20,23: “Therefore, God also has his image, and the Son is the ‘image’ o f God. And indeed, i f it was said: ‘No one has ever seen my face,’ and it was said: ‘You will see me from behind,’ there is without doubt a face fo r God, there is through the Son an image o f God, or rather the Son is also the ‘image o f God,’ as was said: ‘Who was in the form o f God.’ Whence it was rightly said: ‘Let us make man according to our image and likeness.’”

280. Clark, 192. AA IB 63,16-24. “Si igitur anima, secundum quod anima est, et animae esse est et vivere et intellegere, tria ergo, superioris triados anima est, ut imago imaginis. Est enim, iuxta quod anima est, in eo quod est esse, et vitam dans et intellegentiam, ante intellegere simul habens ista opoouoia in uno, et sunt singula ut sua substantia, non scissione, non divisione, non effusione, nec protentione, neque partu praecisa, sed sempitema tria, aliud exsistens in alio exsistente et ista substantialiter. Iuxta imaginem ergo.” CSEL 83/1, 165.


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why do verses such as Genesis 1:26 and 3:22 (“Behold the man is become as one of

us.. speak in the first-person plural? It was not, he explains, merely the angels who

were being addressed, as Jews had intrepreted; rather, the Son was being addressed:

Nay rather, because there already was attached to him the Son, a second Person, his Word, and a third Person, the Spirit in the Word, for that reason he spoke in the plural, Let its make, and Our, and Of us. For in whose company was he making man, and like whom was he making him? He was speaking with the Son who was to assume manhood, and the Spirit who was to sanctify man, as with ministers and mediators in consequence of the unity of the Trinity.... But there was one in whose image he was making him, the Son’s in fact, who because he was to be the surer and truer man caused that man to be called his image who at that time had to be formed of clay, as the image and similitude of the true.281

Tertullian, in his argument for Genesis 1:26 speaking of the Son, is on the cusp of

sounding like Victorinus. At the end of this chapter in Against Praxeas he reemphasizes

the distinction of persons: “Yet although I always maintain one substance in three who

cohere, I must still, as a necessary consequence of the meaning (of the passage), say that

he who commands is other than he who makes.

Another germane use of Genesis 1:26 comes from Novatian in his work De trinitate,

written sometime in the 240s. It appears in chapter 1 as a text to confirm the reality and

order of God creating human beings, but in chapter 17 we suddenly see that Genesis 1:26,

for Novatian, is obviously and intimately connected with the Son of God and his presence

with the Father at the creation. He rallies texts such as John 1:3,14 and Psalm 44(45):2.283

281. Evans, Against Praxeas, 145. Adverstts Praxean 12,29-35,1-4. “immo quia iam adhaerebat illi filius secunda persona, sermo ipsius, et tertia, spiritus in sermone, ideo pluraliter pronuntiavit Faciamus et Nostram et Nobis, cum quibus enim faciebat hominem, et quibus faciebat similem? filio quidem qui erat induturus hominem, spiritu vero qui erat sanctificaturus hominem, quasi cum ministris et arbitris ex unitate trinitatis loquebatur.... erat autem ad cuius imaginem faciebat, ad filii scilicet, qui homo futurus certior et verior imaginem suam fecerat dici hominem qui tunc de limo formari habebat, imago veri et similitudo.” Evans, 101-02.

282. Evans, Against Praxeas, 146. Adversus Praxean 12,17—20. “ceterum (etsi) ubique teneo unam substantiam in tribus cohaerentibus, tamen alium dicam oportet ex necessitate sensus eum qui iubet et eum qui facit.” Evans, 102.

283. “My heart has uttered a good word.” Specifically, the part o f Jn. 1:14 that says “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.”


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No one else was present with God at creation, and it was through the Son and upon the

Son that the works of creation were brought about. This argument stands alongside

Novatian’s other crucial point about Genesis 1:26: that “Let us make man to our image

and likeness” means “man was made through Christ, through the Son of God. If God

made man to the image of God, then he who made man to the image of God must be

OStAGod. Therefore Christ is God.” Yet another appearance of this text is in chapter 22, in

which Novatian sets forth an extended consideration of the meaning of the Christ-hymn

of Philippians 2:5-7. As he does so, he carefully distinguishes between the two concepts

of “form of God” and “image of God.” It is not important here, as in chapter 17, to state

that Christ is present with the Father at creation and that Christ was the generative agent

of creation. What matters is the difference between man and Christ: man is made

according to the image of God (Genesis 1:26) but not according to the form of God.

Christ is in the form of God the Father, and, as Novatian mentions further, is “the

Imitator of all His Father’s works. Inasmuch as He also works as His Father does...”

(John 5:17 and 5:19).285

It is clear to Novatian that Genesis 1:26 is a text that speaks both of the distinct

existence of the Son and the relationship between the Father and the Son. At the

beginning of chapter 26 he begins a long list of texts meant to counter patripassian

284. Novatian, The Trinity, The spectacles, Jewish foods, In praise ofpurity, Letters, [by] Novatian, trans. Russell J. DeSimone, O.S.A., Fathers o f the Church, vol. 67, (Washington, D.C.: CUA Press, 1974), 66. (Henceforth DeSimone, The Trinity.) Novatian, De trinitate, Chap. XVH.5.33-37 “Per Christum igitur homo factus est, ut per Dei Filium. Sed Deus hominem ad imaginem Dei fecit. Deus est ergo qui fecit hominem ad imaginem Dei. Deus ergo Christus est,” CCSL, Vol. IV, 4 2 -3 .1 have mentioned above that Victorinus’ treatment o f Gen. 1:26 in Against Arius involves the creation o f man according die image and likeness o f God as part o f proving the Son as homoousios with the Father.

285. DeSimone, The Trinity, 81. The theme o f the grand summary o f Against Arius IV 30 is that Christ is the Form and Image o f God, with the chain o f texts Matthew 11:27, Philippians 2:6, Col. 1:15, Ex. 33:20 and Gen. 1:26. It seems rather compelling to believe that Victorinus, when writing AA IV 30, was thinking o f Novatian’s De Trinitate 22.


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modalist claims that the Son is the Father by first mentioning the meaning and

importance of Genesis 1:26:

For they want Him not to be the Second Person after the Father, but the Father Himself. Since we can readily refute them, we shall say just a few words. For who does not acknowledge that the Second Person after the Father is the Son, when he reads what was said by the Father to the Son in view of this relationship: “Let us make men to Our image and likeness.. .”286

Contemporaries of Victorinus, such as Phoebadius of Agen and Gregory of Elvira,

hardly used Genesis 1:26, and did not use it for creating arguments on behalf of

consubstantiality. Genesis 1:26 appears in two of Gregory’s Origenian tractates, but onlyn o n

for the purpose of discussing the creation of man. Hilary of Poitiers, however, like

Victorinus, appears to understand the need for using Genesis 1:26 in arguments on behalf

of the Son’s divine identity and nature. Most of Hilary’s uses of Genesis 1:26 in his De

Trinitate are to prove that God the Father was not the only one present at creation.288 The

presence of the Son with the Father is an easy entree into discussing the nature and the

identity of the Son; this Hilary does in Book III, his first use of Genesis 1:26 in the work.

In Book III, 23 Hilary argues for the unity of Father and Son, and the full divinity of

each, using John 10:30 and 14:10 and Hebrews 1:3. There must be, Hilary argues,

referring to Hebrews 1:3 and the “image of his substance,” a perfect fullness of divinity

286. DeSimone, The Trinity, 90. De Trinitate XXVI,2,10-3,15. “noluntenim ilium secundam esse personam post Patrem, sed ipsum Patrem. Quibus quia facile respondetur, pauca dicentur. Quis enim non secundam Filii post Patrem agnoscat esse personam, cum legat dictum a Patre consequenter ad Filium: Faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram...” CCSL Vol. 4 ,62 .

287. Cf. above, GyOrgy Heidi’s opinion on the authorship o f the tractates. For purposes o f Victorine contemporaries I refer to the author o f the tractates as Gregory o f Elvira, partly because not enough work has been done on the question o f their authorship, plus the CCSL editor assumes no other author than Gregory. Gen. 1:26 appear in tractates 1 ,45/46,161/163; XIV,185/186. Gregory ofElvira, Gregorii Iliberritani Episcopi, ed. Vincenius Bulhart, CCSL Vol. 64 (Tumholt: Brepols, 1967).

288. The use o f Gen. 1:26 in Hilary’s De Trinitate occurs in Books III,IV and V. The most significant uses are at 111,23 and IV, 18; o f secondary importance are the instances in IV, 17, IV,19 and V ,7-9 .

289. Before moving on to the mention o f Heb. 1:3 Hilary makes the confession, “we acknowledge the same similarity o f power and the fullness o f the divinity in each o f them.” McKenna, H ilary o f Poitiers. The Trinity, 85. D e trinitate 111,23,11-12. “sed eandem in utroque et uirtutis similtudinem et deitatis plenitudinem confitemur.” CCSL, Vol. 62,95.


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in each of the Father and the Son, so that the Son is neither a diminution of the Father nor

an imperfect Son from the Father:

An image is not alone and the likeness is not to itself. Nothing can be like God unless it is from Him. That which is similar in everything does not originate from somewhere else, and the similarity of the one to the other does not allow them to be joined together by anything contradictory. Do not change similar things and do not separate things that are not distinct from each other! He who said: “Let us make mankind in our image and likeness” reveals the mutual similarity between them from the fact that He uses the phrase “our likeness.”290

With each use of Genesis 1:26, Hilary stresses that God is not solitary, because the text of

the verse reads “owr image and likeness” (emphasis added). When he uses 1:26 in IV, 18,

he refers again to a common nature and common operations:

Therefore, when we read the words: “Let us make mankind in our image and likeness,” because both expressions signify that He does not live only by Himself and that one is not different from the other, we must also profess our belief in the teaching that He does not live by Himself and that one is not different from the other, while we know that both of them possess the property of the one nature, because He says “our image” and not “our images.” It is not enough merely to explain the meaning of the words if the understanding of them is not also followed by the performance of the actions.291

Hilary, finishing his De Trinitate in the early 360s, uses Genesis 1:26 for the same

purposes as Victorinus: to establish the common and fully divine nature between the Son

and the Father. Though a few other contemporary Latins use Genesis 1:26 as a cogent

proof-text for arguing on behalf of the renewed cause of homoousios, it is Victorinus and

Hilary who have this text in common as an important witness.

290. McKenna, Hilary o f Poitiers: The Trinity, 85. De trinitate 111,23,19-27. “Imago sola non est, et similitudo non sibi est. Deo autem simile aliquid esse nisi quod ex se erit non potest. Non enim aliunde est quod in omnibus simile est, neque diuersitatem duobus admisceri alterius ad alterum similitudo permittit. Ne similia permutes, neque sibi ex ueritate indiscreta disiungas: quia qui dixit: Faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram, inuicem esse sui similes in eo quod similitudinem nostram dicat ostendit.” CCSL, Vol. 62 ,95-6 .

291. McKenna, Hilary o f Poitiers: The Trinity, 108. De trinitate IV,18,1-9. “Cum itaque legimus: Faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram, quia sermo uterque ut non solitarium tantum ita neque differentem esse significat, nobis quoque nec solitarius tantum nec diuersus est confitendus, cognita per id quod nostram imaginem dicit, non etiam ‘imagines nostras’, unius in utroque proprietate naturae. Non sufficit autem solam uerborum adtulisse rationem, nisi dictorum intellegentiam etiam rerum operatio consequatur.” CCSL, Vol. 62,121.


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Kn o w in g Go d : Jo h n 1:18

Seeing God is a primary means of knowing him, so John 1:18 (“No one has ever seen

God; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he had made him

known...”) has obvious importance in the consideration of divine visibility and

invisibility.292 The testimony of John 1:18 received attention during the Trinitarian

Controversy because it is a “visibility text” about the revelation of God, the ontological

unity the Son has with the Father, and the Son’s role in revealing the Father—much akin

to a proof-text such as Matthew 11:27. But for early Arians, the text was key also because

it gave them a unique title for the Son: the “only-begotten (unigenitus) Son” or “only-

begotten God,” therefore God the Father is the God of God the Son, who can be

effectively treated as a “second God.” From God the Son as the only-begotten “second

God” it is only a short step to an inferior, reduced God who even himself attests that “the

Father is greater” than he (John 14:28).

Victorinus makes frequent use John 1:18 in his writings, most often connecting it with

other texts. He appeals to it shortly after the beginning of Book I of Against Arius, and

then near the end of Book IV. This text remains close to the surface of his conscious

reflection in writing against anti-Nicene claims about Christ. In his Letter to Candidas,

292. The Greek text o f Jn. 1:18 introduces intriguing problems for both Nicenes and anti-Nicenes. The most ancient witnesses such as Papyrus 66, Original Sinaiticus, Vaticanus and Ephraemi read “ 0 e o v oubeig ccopaxev h c o j i o t e • povoyevfis Qzdq 6 <bv eig t o v x o X j io v t o o narpog e|TiYh°aTo.” But the Majority text readings, including Alexandrinus and Third Corrector Ephraemi read “6 povoyevfig ul6g” The earlier non-majority reading o f what was taken as a title for the Son was rendered in Latin translations as “unigenitus Deus,” and otherwise as “unigentius Filius.” Kenneth Steinhauser’s unconvincing theory is that the use o f this title o f John 1:18, “only-begotten God,” in the Dedication Creed o f 341 proves what he calls an unbroken Latin “Lucianic tradition,” from the Arianism o f Lucian o f Antioch (who, he claims, wrote the 341 creed), straight to the Latin Homoians o f the 350s and beyond. The rather long reach o f his theory depends heavily on Gustave Bardy’s 1936 monograph on Lucian, though Steinhauser never mentions that. It is untenable that Latin Homoians, as Steinhauser claimed, saw themselves as the direct theological descendents o f Lucian’s theology. Kenneth B. Steinhauser, “Unigenitus deus in western Arian literature” (paper presented at the Thirteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies, Oxford, UK, August, 1999).


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written shortly before his treatise Against Arius, Victorinus presents scriptural arguments

for the Son’s consubstantiality, along with long, complex philosophical arguments. In

spite of the labyrinthine philosophical discourse on the place of the Father and the Son in the

existents and nonexistents of the universe, the Letter to Ccmdidus has a theme about the Son’s

essential identity and proximity to the Father, and an obvious scriptural locus: John 1:18.

The Letter to Candidus appeals to the authority of Scripture to prove the sonship of

Jesus. Victorinus also provides a refutation of classic Arian arguments, such as the Son

coming from nothingness or being created. But what especially concerns Victorinus in

this lengthy holding-forth with his interlocutor is the issue of God, “existents,” and “non

existents,” in order to show that the Son, who is both Being and Logos, cannot come from

nothing. The scriptural capstone of this argument, Victorinus argues, comes from the

qualities and conditions of the Son found in Colossians 1:15-18 and John 1:1. The Son is

“before all things,” “through whom” and “in whom” are all things, and was “with

God. ..in the beginning.” Most of all, the Son “is in the bosom of the Father” (John 1:18),

proving the unity of the Son and the Father.

The importance of John 1:18 is readily apparent in the opening address to “Candidus”

—the probably fictitious character of anti-Nicene opposition—in Book IA of Against

Arius, in which Victorinus briefly summarizes early Arian and orthodox positions on the

Son. John 1:18 already has been placed on the staging area for the opening arguments of

the treatise, since in the Second Letter o f Candidus Victorinus has reproduced the text of

Arius’ letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, wherein Eusebius quotes the title for the Son

293. The essential loci o f Scripture for this argument are Jn. 10:30, 14:9 and 14:10.


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taken from John 1:18, “only-begotten.”294 After his brief, pro-forma address to Candidus

near the beginning of Book IA, Victorinus explains that, contra Eusebius, he will prove

that the Son is bom, and substantially Son, “by the use of all of Scripture.. .if the Spirit of

God permits and according to our power.”295 He proposes that it is possible to know God

and the Son of God, and that one is the Father and the other the Son.

Victorinus proceeds to cite John 1:18 as proof for knowing God, and this justifies

speaking about God as well as the Son of God. From John 1:18 Victorinus retrieves a rich

amount of evidence:

It is therefore possible to speak of God and consequently of the Son also. For who has declared the Father? “The Son.” Who is he? “He who is in the bosom.” Therefore not only did he come forth, but the Son is always in the bosom, as the capable teacher about the Father. What did he tell? There there is a God? But Jews and pagans had previously said this. What therefore did he say? That God is Father, but that he is Son, and he is of the same substance and that he has come forth from the Father.296

The Son reveals the Father, being always in the Father in spite of also having gone forth

from the Father. The Son is identified as the “sufficiens doctor,” or “capable teacher” of

the Father. The Son has not only told people about God, but about himself as Son of God,

that he has come from God his Father and is of the same substance.297 To prove this,

Victorinus cites John 8:19: ‘“If you had known me, you would have known my Father.’

This he would never have said if he were not the Son and the Son substantially.” It is

intriguing that this passage connects John 1:18, a visibility text, with a knowledge text,

294. The second half o f the Second Letter to Candidus is part o f the text o f the Letter o f Eusebius to Paulinus.295. Clark, 91.296. Clark, 92. AA 1 2,23-30. “Possibile igitur dicere de deo et idcirco et de filio. Quis enim de patre

exposuit? Filius. Quis iste? Qui est in gremio. Non solum igitur processit, sed et in gremio semper est filius, sufficiens doctor de patre. Quid enarravit? Quoniam deus? Et Iudaei ante hoc et ethnici enarrarunt. Quid ergo enarravit? Patrem deum, se autem filium, et quod ex eadem substantia et quod a patre exierit.” CSEL 83/1, 57.

297. In the exordium o f Against Arius, Book 1 2,6-42, the two sources o f the knowledge o f God are the Son and the Holy Spirit, sometimes cast somewhat differently by Victorinus, as Scripture and inspiration of the Spirit.


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John 8:19. One might have expected Victorinus to tie John 1:18 in with another visibility

text such as John 14:9: “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.” But here John

8:19 functions as a surrogate text for one like John 14:9, because Victorinus is equating

seeing with knowing: they are almost the same, because one leads to the other. This is

why he proceeds to the third link in his chain of texts, Romans 1:20: “For if he were a

creation, the Father would not be known through him, but the power of God and the Divinity,

as Paul said: ‘For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world, are clearly seen,

being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity.’”298

Instead of looking at the Son and discerning only attributes (such the power and divinity

of God) that could be found any part of creation, in the only-begotten Son we see the

Father. That is, the creation reveals a creator; thus, in looking at the Son we must be able

to discern the reality of a Father.299 Beyond the Son revealing the Father, Victorinus

concludes, the Holy Spirit reveals the Son, for which he cites John 14:26.300

Book IA has one more use of the concept of John 1:18 in the form of a companion,

surrogate verse, John 6:46: “Not that any one has seen the Father except him who is from

God; he has seen the Father.” This text restates what has already been heard in John 1.

Victorinus uses it in IA 6, where he dwells on the titles of the Son and the realities those

298. Clark, 92. A A 1 2,33-37. “Figmentum enim si esset, non ex ipso pater nosceretur, sed potentia dei et divinitas, ut Paulus dixit: invisibilia enim eius a creatura mundi per ea quae facta sunt, intellecta noscuntur, aeterna quoque eius virtus ac divinitas.” CSEL 83/1, 57.

299. Hadot sees this as a “primary refutation o f Arianism,” though this seems hardly at odds with anti- Nicene theology’s easy but qualified acknowledging o f the Son and Father. Still it is an interesting distinction between the order o f nature and the order o f persons which Victorinus did not exploit as being between the willing creature and the divine substance. Hadot says that “Ici est en germe la distinction entre les operations divines ad extra et la vie intime de Dieu, qui apparaitra clairement chez saint Augustin.” Hadot, Traites Theologiques, 736.

300. “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”


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titles reveal to us.301 In IA 6, Victorinus uses a Johannine proof-text in nearly every

sentence, and makes claims for titles such as Logos and life. He also asserts—but in

passing, as if it is already implicitly understood—that the Son is from God.302

But it is the ability to see God for which Victorinus will use John 1:18 again and again

in his arguments for the revelation given in the Son, and the Son’s consubstantiality,

which alone are what allow for a true knowledge of God. In Book IB 53, Victorinus

argues for the Father and Son being in each other, and the divine life being a reality that

is both interior (Father) and exterior (Son). He again equates knowing and seeing:

Since the Father is in the Son, when you will see and know the Son, you will see and know the Father. “If anyone sees me, he also sees the Father.” Indeed for that reason it was said that the Son is “form” of the Father. But here the form is not understood as outside the substance, nor as with us, as an appearance added to substance; but this form is a certain subsisting substance in which there appears and is shown that which is hidden and veiled in another. But God is as something veiled. For “No one sees God.” Therefore the Son is the form in which God is seen.303

In addition to that passing reference to John 1:18 (the mostly likely attribution of the

statement that “no one sees God”), there is the quotation of John 14:9. The mention of

“form of God” is a possible allusion to Philippians 2:6. We will see the inclusion of

Philippians 2:6 as part of the chain used to prove the consubstantial Son revealing the

Father later, in other books of Against Arius. For example, in Book III 6 there is an

invocation prayer, which Clark, using Hadot’s outline-analysis subheading from the

301. This extended discussion o f titles begins in A A 1 5 and goes into chapter 7, with titles introduced constantly with the same formula to continue the reflection: “that the Son is G od...life...light... Savior... Son o f God” and so on.

302. Clark, 97. “That he is from God: ‘No one has seen the Father except him who is from the Father.” AA I 6,12-13. “Quod ex deo: non vidit patrem aliquis, nisi qui est a patre.” CSEL 83/1,62.

303. Clark, 177-78. AA IB 53,6-15. “quoniam in filio pater, cum videritis filium et intellexeritis, videbitis et intellegetis patrem. Si quis me vidit, vidit et patrem. Propter hoc enim dictum est, quoniam filius forma est patris. Non autem nunc forma foris extra substantiam intellegitur, neque ut in nobis adiacens substantiae facies, sed substantia quaedam subsistens, in qua apparet et demonstratur, quod occultatum et velatum est in alio. Deus autem ut velatum quiddam est. Nemo enim videt deum. Forma igitur filius, in qua videtur deus.” CSEL 83/1, 150.


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Sources Chretiennes edition, calls “Elevation towards the Contemplation of God.”304 In

the beginning portion of the invocation there appears to be a use of Romans 1:20,305

Colossians 1:15 (“image”), and Philippians 2:6 (“form”), all cogent visibility texts.

From the image of knowing and understanding God the prayer proceeds to the idea of

seeing God:

Certainly, after the coming of the Savior, since in the Savior we see God himself, since by him we are taught and instructed, since we have received from him the Holy Spirit, master of understanding, what else will such a master of understanding give us except to know, to understand, to confess God? Our ancestors also asked what God is or who he is. And this is the answer given them by the one who is “always in the bosom of the Father.” “You see me and you seek my Father? I have been with you a long time. Whoever has seen me, has seen the Father. I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”3

The reality here of the Son’s identity, attested to by John 1:18, gives credence to the

Son’s other claim (in John 14:9,10) to reveal the Father; the true knowledge of God is

given in the faith of the consubstantial Son and Holy Spirit, together with the Father,

the consubstantiality which alone permits of true knowledge of God.

The linking of the two visibility texts, John 1:18 and 14:9, is even more explicit at

the beginning of Book III, when Victorinus connects the notion of seeing God to his

favorite Old Testament visibility text, Exodus 33:20:

And because by radiance light is revealed, or by action power is revealed, for this reason: “Whoever has seen me, has seen the Father.” And because no one sees the power itself alone: “No one has ever seen God.” And since power is life in repose and knowledge in repose, but life and knowledge are actions, if someone were to see God he must die, because the life and

304. The entire prayer is in Clark, 229-30 /AA III 6,1-23.305. Clark, 229. “To understand God is difficult but not a hopeless effort. For he has willed that w e should

know him and therefore by his divine work he has created the world, so that we should discern him through all these things. Certainly it is the Logos, who is his Son, his ‘image’ and his ‘form,’ who has opened to us a way o f understanding, from himself to the Father.”

306. Clark, 229-30. AA in 6,14-23. “Certe post salvatoris adventum, cum in salvatore ipsum deum vidimus, cum ab eo docti atque instructi sumus, cum ab eo sanctum spiritual intellegentiae magistrum accepimus, quid aliud tantus intellegentiae magister dabit, nisi deum nosse, deum cognoscere, deum fateri? Et maiores nostri quaesierunt quid esset aut quis esset deus. Et his, ab eo qui in eius gremio semper est, responsum est ita: me videtis et patrem meum quaeritis. Olim vobiscum sum. Qui me vidit, patrem vidit. Ego in patre et pater in me.” CSEL 83/1,201.


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knowledge of God remain in themselves and are not in act, but every act is exterior: indeed, for us to live is to live externally; to see God is therefore a death. “No one,” says the Scripture, “has ever seen God and lived.” Indeed, like is seen by like. External life therefore must be forgotten, knowledge must be forgotten, if we wish to see God, and this for us is death.307

This is explained even more explicitly in the next paragraph with another reference to

John 14:9:

We therefore, if we are in Christ, see God through Christ, that is, through the true life, that is, through the true Image. And through an image which, because it is true, is therefore of the same substance, because the power is also in the action. There we see God, therefore, and hence this: “Whoever has seen me, has seen God.”308

The arguments for consubstantiality of Father and Son are repeated at the beginning of

Book III before Victorinus moves on to arguing the main concept of Book III, the

consubstantiality of all three hypostases of the Trinity.

So we know the importance Victorinus attaches to John 1:18as a visibility text, and

what text he will use to explain it (John 14:9, along with other ancillary visibility texts).

The best example of a passage rich with these proofs comes in Book IV when Victorinus

again asserts that the Son is the Life and the Form of the Father:

“Whoever has seen me, has also seen the Father.” Indeed, the Son of God is the form of God, that is, life which is the form of living. For it was said by Paul to the Philippians: “Who although he was in the form of God, did not think it robbery to be equal to God.” Likewise to the Colossians: “He who is the image of the invisible God.” Therefore, Jesus Christ is both the image and the form of God. But we have said that in the form one sees that of which it is form; and, in the same way, through the image also, one sees the one of which it is the image, above all if the one whose image it is, invisible, as it was said here: “Image of the invisible God”; and in the same way it was said in the Gospel according to John: “No one has at any time seen God, except the only begotten Son who went forth from his bosom.” And likewise the following was said to Moses: “You will not see my face. For who has seen my face and has lived?” Nevertheless, he promised

307. Clark, 221. AA III 1,36-48. “Et quia effulgentia declaratur lumen vel actio(ne) declaratur potentia, idcirco: qui me vidit, vidit patrem. Et quia potentiam ipsam solam nemo videt: deum nemo vid it umquam. Et quoniam potentia cessans vita est et cessans intellegentia, haec autem vita et intellegentia actio est, si quis deum viderit, moriatur necesse est, quia dei vita et intellegentia in semet ipsa est, non in actu, omnis autem actus foris est, hoc vero est nostrum vivere quod foris est vivere, ergo est mors deum videre. Nemo, inquit, umquam deum vidit et vixit. Simili enim simile videtur. Omittenda igitur vita foris, omittenda intellegentia, si deum videre volumus, et hoc nobis mors est” CSEL 83/1,192-93.

308. Clark, 221.AA III 2,4-8. “Nos ergo, si sumus in Christo, deum per Christum videmus, id est per vitam veram, hoc est per imaginem veram. Et quia veram, ergo eiusdem substantiae, quia et in actione potentia est. Ibi ergo deum videmus, et hinc illud: qui me vidit, vidit deum.” CSEL 83/1, 193.


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to let himself be seen from the rear, that is, the back and the rest of the body with the exception of the face. How many mysteries there are here, how many kinds of questions, how many signs to declare that God and Jesus Christ are substance, and that they are both one substance, and that they are both together one substance, and that substance is from the Father to the Son.309

Victorinus even ends his work in Book IV with the elements of this same chain, when he

gives a final commentary on the Incarnation as the Form of God and on the

consubstantial Trinity. Texts such as Philippians 2:5-7, John 1:18, and John 14:9 prove to

us that Jesus Christ is the Form, the Logos and the Son of God.310

The use of visibility texts in Victorinus leads one to consider the prior use of such

texts in Latin theology. Tertullian, in his work Against Praxeas, understands the

importance of visibility texts in arguing for the Son’s real and separate existence versus

the Father. In chapter 8 of his work he makes a passing comment that links Matthew

11:27 and John 1:18: “But with us the Son alone knows the Father, and himself has

309. Clark, 264-65. AA IV 8,43-9,5. “qui me vidit, vidit et patrem. Filius enim dei forma dei est, id est vita quae est forma viventis. Dictum enim a Paulo ad Philippenses: qui, cum in form a dei constitutus esset, non rapinam arbitratus est ut esset aequalis deo. Item ad Colossenses: qui est imago invisibilis dei. Ergo Iesus Christos et imago et forma dei. Diximus autem quod in forma videtur id cuius forma; et eodem pacto et imagine videtur is cuius imago est, maxime si is, cuius imago est, invisibilis, sicut hie dictum: imago dei invisibilis; eodem modo dictum in evangelio cata Iohannem: deum nemo umquam vidit, nisi unigenitus filius qui de sinu eius exivit. Et item sic Moysi dictum: faciem meam non videbis. Quis enim faciem meam vidit et vixit? Promisit tamen posterganea sua videri, id est dorsum ceteraque praeter faciem. 9....Quot hie mysteria, quot genera quaestionum, quot signa ad declarandum et deum et Iesum Christum et substantiam esse et unam ambo esse substantiam et simul utrumque unam esse substantiam et a patre filio esse substantiam!” CSEL 83/1,236-37.

310. AA IV 32,14-33,25. Other important texts used at the ending include Jn 1:1, 1:3,1:9 and 1:14. Jn 1:18 and Phil. 2:6 seem to be the texts behind two stanzas o f Victorinus’ trinitarian Hymn III, where the Logos is the manifest form and substance o f the otherwise hidden God; here seeing the Incarnate Form is also equated with knowing God the Father:

“O God, you are substance secret and hidden; O God, you are form secret and hidden; O God, you are knowledge secret and hidden; Therefore the Proon (Preexistent) o f the onta (Existents), you are, O God O Blessed Trinity.

O Logos, you are the already public and manifest substance; and because public and manifest, you are form, and because form o f the Father, for yourself you are substance; Therefore the Father is in you because toe Father is substance; but you are o f identical substance, for there is not any other substance; If therefore toe Logos is manifest form, and form is substance itself if toe manifest form and toe manifest substance are knowledge, you are also, O Logos, both God and Holy Spirit; O Blessed Trinity.” Clark 331-32. Hymnus HI,200-213. CSEL 83/1,302.


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declared the bosom of the Father.” In chapter 15 of Against Praxeas, Tertullian

contrasts the Son’s visibility with the Father’s invisibility, making use of John 1:18 along

with a foundational visibility text that will take on increasing importance with Latin

Homoians and Nicenes, I Timothy 6:16:

Evidently the Father, in whose presence the Word, the only-begotten Son, who himself hath declared the bosom of the Father, was God... He also presents as visible the Son of God, that is, the Word of God, because he who was made flesh is called Christ. But of the Father (he says) to Timothy, Whom no man hath seen nor can see: and he piles it up even more, Who alone hath immortality and dwelleth in light unapproachable: and of him he had previously said, To the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, so that to the Son we might ourselves also ascribe the contrary, mortality and approachability.312

Novatian, writing only some thirty years later than Tertullian, in his work De trinitate,

uses the same chain Victorinus will later use, for nearly the same argument:

Please note that the same Moses says in another passage that God appeared to Abraham. Yet the same Moses hears from God that no man can see God and live. If God cannot be seen, how did God appear? If He appeared, how is it that He cannot be seen? For John says in like manner: “No one has ever seen God.” And the apostle Paul says: “Whom no man has seen or can see.” But certainly, Scripture does not lie; therefore, God was really seen. Accordingly, this can only mean that it was not the Father, who never has been seen, that was seen, but the Son, who is wont both to descend and to be seen, for the simple reason that He has descended. In fact, He is “the image of the invisible God...”313

311. Evans, Against Praxeas, 139. Adv. Prax. 8 ,28-29 . “apud nos autem solus filius patrem novit, et sinum patris ipse exposuit.” Evans, 96.

312. Evans, Against Praxeas, 152. Adv. Prax. 15,26-27; 32—1. “scilicet patrem, apud quem deus erat sermo unigenitus filius, qui sinum patris ipse disseruit... ostendit et ipse visibilem dei filium, id est sermonem dei, quia qui caro factus est Christus dictus est. de patre autem ad Timotheum: Quem nemo vidit hominum, sed nec videre potest; exaggerans amplius: Qui solus habet immortalitatem et lucem habitat inaccessibilem; de quo et supra dixerat: Regi autem saeculorum immortali invisibili soli deo; ut et contraria ipsi filio adscriberemus, mortalitatem accessibilitatem.” Evans, 107-08.

313. DeSimone, The Trinity, FoC 67. De Trinitate. XVIII. 1.1-3.11. “Ecce idem Moyses refert alio in loco quod Abrahae uisus sit Deus. Atquin idem Moyses audit a Deo quod nemo hominum Deum uideat et uiuat. Si uideri non potest Deus, quomodo uisus est Deus? Aut si uisus est, quomodo uideri non potest? Nam et Ioannes Deum nemo, inquit, uidit umquam, et apostolus Paulus: Quem uidit hominum nemo nec uidere potest. Sed non utique scriptura mentitur. Ergo uere uisus est Deus. Ex quo intellegi potest quod non Pater uisus sit, qui numquam uisus est, sed Filius, qui et descendere solitus est et uideri, quia descenderit. Imago est enim inuisibilis Dei.” CCSL, Vol. IV, 44. For Novatian the Son’s visibility is not for something such as his eventual crucifixion and atonement for human sin, a theme absent from his work. Instead through the Incarnation the Son leads fallen humanity back to God. The above passage continues, thus, with that thought: “For He is the image o f the invisible God, as the imperfection and frailty o f the human condition was accustomed sometimes even then to see God the Father in the image o f God, that is, in the Son o f God. For gradually and by progression human frailty was to be strengthened by the image to that glory o f being able one day to see God the Father.”


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Novatian uses the chain here of Genesis 12:7, Exodus 33:20, John 1:18,1 Timothy 6:16,

and Colossians 1:15.

Phoebadius of Agen, writing at the same time as Victorinus, also associates John 1:18

with other visibility texts. In his Liber contra Arrianos X,3, he associates it with Matthew

11 :27.314 Just as intriguing is his use of John 1:18 in another section of his same work,

XII,2-5, specifically addressed to the Blasphemy of Sirmium 357:

Those wanting, then, to separate the Son from the Father and to place him below God, as the Gospel has taught: “The Father,” he says, “is greater than I.” And in what way greater? Right away they define it with the presumption of heretics: “in honor, in distinction, in dignity, in majesty.” But if it is thus, why is it prescribed “that all may honor the Son even as they honor the Father”? But if it is thus, we consequently blaspheme daily by services of deeds and sacrifices of offerings, confessing this relation of Father to the Son, because certainly the Son is not able not to have all that the Father has, with himself being whole in relation to the Father. John says this precisely: “No one has ever seen God except the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father.” And therefore he says: “All that are mine are yours and yours are mine.” And: “The Son can do nothing of himself.” And: “I have not come to do my will but rather that of the one who sent me.” But the confession is especially not a weak one, but a declaration of unity. For it had spoken not only against unsurety but also in favor of unity: “He who sent me is with me.” And: “The Father, who dwells in me does his works.” And: “The words which I speak are not mine but the Father’s.”315

The radically subordinationist Homoian creed of 357 quoted John 14:28 (“the Father is

greater than I”) in order to make its statement, “There is no question that the Father is

greater. For it can be doubtful to none that the Father is greater than the Son in honour,

314. See above in section on Matt. 11:27.315. Phoebadius o f Agen, Liber Contra Arrianos, XII,2-5. “Volentes igitur a Patre Filium scindere et infra

Deum ponere, de euangelio praeceperunt: PATER, inquit, MAIOR ME EST. Et quomodo maior? Statim haeretica praesumptione definiunt: HONORE, CLARITATE, DIGNITATE, MAIESTATE. Quod si ita est, cur iubetur ut omnes honorificent Filium sicut honorificant Patrem. Quod si ita est, ergo cottidie blasphemamus in gratiarum actionibus et oblationibus sacrificiorum, communia haec Patri et Filio confitentes, quia scilicet non potest Filius non totum habere quod Patris est, cum ipse totus in Patre sit Denique Iohannes ait: Deum nemo uidit umquam nisi unigenitus Filius qui est in sirtu Patris. Et ideo inquit: Omnia tua mea sunt et mea tua. Et: Nihil potest Filius facere a semetipso. Et: Non ueni uoluntatem meam facere, sed eius qui me misit. Quod utique non infirmitatis confessio est, sed unitatis adsertio. Dixerat enim et contra infirmitatem et pro imitate: Qui me misit, mecum est. Et: Pater in me martens facit opera sua. Et: Verba quae loquor non sunt mea sed P a t r i s CCSL, Vol. LX3V, 36-7.


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dignity, splendour, majesty, and in the very name of Father.. Phoebadius responds to

the Homoians—whom he calls “teachers of evil”—who want to separate the Son from

the Father and set him beneath the level of divinity, quoting the superior attributes of the

Father that Homoians had blasphemously confessed at Sirmium in 357: honor, dignity,

glory, and majesty. They blaspheme daily, Phoebadius asserts, because they refuse to

“honor the Son even as they honor the Father” (John 5:23); the Son, if he truly is entirely

in the Father, is not able not to have all that the Father has.317 The evidence that

Phoebadius arranges against the Homoians is a series of proof-texts from John the

Evangelist:318 “No one has ever seen God except the only-begotten Son who is in the

bosom of the Father” (John 1:18); “all that are mine are yours, and yours are mine” (John

17:10); “the Son can do nothing of himself’ (John 5:19); and “I have not come to do my

will, but the will of him who sent me” (Jn 6:38). These do not reveal a feeble relationship

between the Father and the Son, but proves their solid unity: “He who sent me is with

me” (John 8:29); “the Father who dwells in me does his works” (John 14:10); and “the

words which I speak are not mine but the Father’s” (John 14:10).

The citation of John 1:18 here in Phoebadius is significant because it is treated as a

unity text rather a visibility text, as Phoebadius himself says. In X,3 he explains John

1:18 with another text, Matthew 11:27, but in this instance these texts are used together to

speak of the knowledge the Son has of the Father, and the divine generation of the Son.

316. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 286. Hilary, De synodis 11 (PL 10 ,489a): “Patrem honore, dignitate, claritate, maiestate et ipso nomine Patris maiorem esse filio”; Athanasius, De synodis 28,7 (PG 26, 741c): “xov TcaT^pa xipfj xal a|Cg xai 0£i6xrixi xai auxtp xcp 6vogcm xcp Jtaxpcxcp pe££ova etvai.”

317. An allusion to Jn. 16:15, which also happens to be a favorite text for Victorinus.318. Another typical example o f how the Fourth Gospel was the exegetical platform for Nicene definition

and polemics. Hanson, in Search, 834, gives the succinct observation: “The Gospel according to St. John was the major battlefield in the New Testament during the Arian controversy. It was the chief resource o f the (Nicenes) but was by no means free o f difficulties and pitfalls even for them. It is generally true that the Arians scored heavily in using the the Synoptic gospels.”


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The author of the Origenian Tractates uses John 1:18 twice in his homilies. In Tractate

IX, a homily based on Exodus 12:2, he cites John 1:18 in passing to state that “the Father

is the head of Christ, who is [the Father’s] true interior Word,” because Christ is in the

Father’s bosom.319 But in Tractate XVI, a homily on Isaiah 1:1, Gregory explains God’s

pronouncement to Moses in Exodus 33:20 (“It is not possible to see my face—no one

sees my face and lives”) with John 1:18: the visibility of God is not the result of Israel’s

merit, but of the unique identity of Christ. Victorinus, we have already seen, also

explains Exodus 33:20 with John 1:18. Hilary of Poitiers uses John 1:18 in Books II-VI

of his De Trinitate, but we do not generally see him constellating John 1:18 with the texts

typical of Victorinus. Hilary puts John 1:18 to the obvious use of arguing for the full

divinity of the Son, with the name “only-begotten God” taking on extreme importance:

No other one, therefore, shall be compared to this one. For these things are proper to the only- begotten God alone, and this one alone has been bom from Him in the peculiar beatitude of His own powers. No other God will be likened to Him, for He does not come from a different substance, but is God from God. Accordingly, in Him there is nothing new, nothing strange, nothing of recent origin. For, when Israel hears that its God is one, and no other God will made equal to God, the Son of God, so that He is truly God, it is revealed that God the Father and God the Son are clearly one, not by a union of person, but by the unity of nature. The Prophet does not permit God the Son of God to be likened to a second God, because he is God.321

319. Tractatus Origenis IX, 164—66. CCSL 69, 74.320. Tractatus Origenis XVI, 194—203. “et quis homo est qui deum uidet, cum scriptum sit ad Moysen:

Nonpoteris faciem meam uidere, nemo enim uidit deum et uixit? Saluator quoque in euangelio:Deum, inquid, nemo uidit umquam nisi unicus filius, qui est in sinum patris. Ergo quia deum nemo uidit nisi unicus filios, merito ipse est Israel, que et homo secundum camem naturae (natus) est et deum patrem solus ipsi, qui filius dei est, uidit et uidet. Hoc est Israel homo uidens deum, quem ad iracundia non ei credendo prouocauerunt.” CCSL, Vol. 69, 122.

321. McKenna, Hilary o f Poitiers: The Trinity, 130-31. De trinitate IV,42,34-44. “Ad hunc ergo non deputabitur alius. Soli enim haec unigenito Deo propria sunt, et unus hie in hac peculiari uirtutum suarum beatitudine natus ex Deo est. Non alter ad eum Deus deputatur: non enim ex alia substantia sed ex Deo Deus est. Nihil in eo itaque nouum, nihil extraneum, nihil recens est. cum enim audit Istrahel, quod sibi Deus unus sit, et Filio Dei Deo non alter Deus deputetur, ut Deus sit, absolute Pater Deus et Filius Deus unum sunt, non unione personae sed substantiae unitate, quia Filio Dei Deo deputari ad alteram Deum non sinit profeta, quod Deus est.” CCSL, Vol. 62, 148-49. In 6.40 o f the work there is a passage inspired by further reflection on Jn. 1:18, to which Hilary concludes with a statement distinctive o f his own particular claims about the Son: “God who loves the world has not given an adopted son but His own Son, His only-begotten Son. Here is the real nature, here is the birth, here is the truth. He is not a creation, He is not an adoption, He is not a falsehood. From this


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In De Trinitate IV,8,49-55 Hilary conceptually links John 4:24,1 Timothy 6:16, John

1:18, and Exodus 3:14 as he argues for the attributes of the Father: they prove that the

Father is incorporeal, immortal and invisible, and unborn.322

As already noted, Hilary is not alone in seeing the prefabricated argument built into a

text such as John 1:18 on behalf of the divine generation of the Son. It would be listed,

for example, later in the Trinitarian Controversy, in the list of proof-texts in Gregory of

Nazianzus’ Third Theological Oration for proving Nicene claims of the Son’s identity.323

R en d er in g V isib le the In v isib l e : E x o d u s 33:20

Within the entire Old Testament Scripture the most memorable of visibility texts, recalled

continually in Israel’s history in an almost creedal fashion, was the statement of Yahweh

to Moses in Exodus 33:20: “The Lo r d said, ‘You cannot see my face; for no one shall

not see me and live.’” In the time of the Old Covenant, the problem was not that one

could not see God; it was that the glory of God’s presence and divine visage was of such

might that it was lethal.324

arises our faith in His love and benevolence, that He has offered His Son, His own Son, His only- begotten God for the salvation o f the world.” McKenna, Hilary o f Poitiers :The Trinity, 210—11.

322. McKenna, Hilary o f Poitiers: The Trinity, 98. CCSL, Vol. 62, 109.323. The Scripture loci o f the Third Oration read like an arsenal o f the best Nicene texts you would want

for the real identity and existence o f the Son, texts such as Ex. 3:14, Jn. 1:1,1:18, 5:19, 6:27, 10:18 (“... I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again...”), 10:30,14:6, Phil. 2 :5 -8 ,1 Cor. 1:24, Heb. 1:3, besides numerous others that Nazianzus uses to speak o f the titles for the Son.

324. Divine visibility in Exodus is set against the infidelity o f the Israelites as they wait for Moses as the foot o f Mount Sinai (Ex. 32). Wishing to have visible objects o f worship, they appeal to Aaron, who makes out o f their gold jewelry a golden calf (a common Near Eastern fertility symbol), to which all the people offer sacrifices and ecstatic worship, while they proclaim “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out o f the land o f Egypt!” (Ex. 32:4). Ex. 33:11 describes the closeness o f Moses’ relationship with God, when it says that “the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to a friend.” But otherwise Moses was only allowed to see the posterior end o f God’s fleeting glory in Ex. 33:23, not God’s face. It was a very unusual claim, then, in Isaiah’s call narrative (Is. 6) that Isaiah clearly sees Yahweh; naturally, he believes that he is about to perish.


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Victorinus has this visibility- versus-lethality idiom in mind in Book III 1 when he

argues for the Logos being light and life, the consubstantial revelation of the Father:

A nd becau se b y radiance light is revealed , or b y action pow er is revealed , for th is reason: “W hoever has seen m e, has seen the Father.” A nd becau se no on e sees the p o w er its e lf alone: “N o on e has ever seen G od .” A nd sin ce pow er is life in rep ose and k n o w led g e in repose, but life and k n ow led ge are action s, i f som eon e w ere to see G od he m u st d ie , because the life and k n ow led ge o f G od rem ain in th em selves and are not in act, but every act is exterior; indeed, for us to liv e is to liv e externally; to see G od is therefore a death. “N o o n e ,” says the Scripture, “has ever seen G od and lived .” Indeed, lik e is se e n b y like. External life therefore m ust b e forgotten , k n ow led ge m ust be forgotten , i f w e w is h to see G od, and th is for us is death.325

This philosophical language used to explain the visibility of God here is typical of

Victorinus, though the reasoning may be rather obscure. He is trying to come up with

an explanation for why we cannot see God, apart from Moses simply being told he

could not. Light is revealed by its radiance, Victorinus says, and power by its action.

The radiance and the action are made intelligible by statements of Christ (such as those

in John 1:18 and 14:9), but without such an external manifestation there remains the

promised—threatened—lethality of seeing God, as proved by Exodus 33:20. If seeing

God is a death—i.e., the death of our perceivable, external life—then this present life

and knowledge must be renounced if we wish to see God, for to see him will for us be

death, or a certain kind of death. The only reality that can see the deadly glory of the

internal life of God will be a “like that can see like,” a reality that can be external, and

eternal life for us; by this Victorinus means Christ:

325. Clark, 221. AA III 1,36-48. “Et quia effulgentia declaratur lumen vel actio(ne) declaratur potentia, idcirco: qui me vidit, vidit patrem. Et quia potentiam ipsam solam nemo videt: deum nemo vidit umquam. Et quoniam potentia cessans vita est et cessans intellegentia, haec autem vita et intellegentia actio est, si quis deum viderit, moriatur necesse est, quia dei vita et intellegentia in semet ipsa est, non in actu, omnis autem actus foris est, hoc vero est nostrum vivere quod foris est vivere, ergo est mors deum videre. Nemo, inquit, umquam deum vidit et vixit. Simili enim simile videtur. Omittenda igitur vita foris, omittenda intellegentia, si deum videre volumus, et hoc nobis mors est.” CSEL 83/1,192-93.


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We therefore, if we are in Christ, see God through Christ, that is, through the true life, that is, through the true Image. And through an image which, because it is true, is therefore of the same substance, because the power is also in the action. There we see God, therefore, and hence this: “Whoever has seen me, has seen God.”326

Christ is understood here in titular fashion as the “true life” and the “true Image” which is

of the same substance as the Father.327 His conclusion is that God actually is visible;

therefore, Christ can claim that whoever sees him, sees God.

For Victorinus, the divine invisibility of Exodus 33:20 is rendered visible through

Christ, and through Christ’s assertions in John 1:18 and 14:9. As noted above,328

Victorinus sees the New Testament divine visibility texts (John 1:18,14:9, Philippians

2:6, and Colossians 1:15) as explaining Old Testament divine invisibility statements in

Exodus 33:20,23. He will do this one last time in Book IV of Against Arius: in possibly

the richest section in the work he reprises his arguments for the consubstantiality of the

Father and the Son, repeating his most meaningful Scripture loci329 and recalling the

“divine and magnificent mysteries” contained within a text such as Philippians 2:6, which

above all tells us that Christ is the “Form of God.”

In Book IV 30, then, Victorinus uses Exodus 33:20 in making a unique argument for

the Son being the manifest and visible of divine realities:

...Christ is the “form of God,” in whom one sees that he “has all that God has.” For this is the “form” which is also called “image,” as it was said of him “who is the image” of God. Therefore, God also has his image, and the Son is the “image” of God. And indeed, if it was said: “No one has ever seen my face,” and it was said: “You will see me from behind,” there is without doubt a

326. Clark, 221. AA III 2,4-8. “Nos ergo, si sumus in Christo, deum per Christum videmus, id est per vitam veram, hoc est per imaginem veram. Et quia veram, ergo eiusdem substantiae, quia et in actione potentia est. Ibi ergo deum videmus, et hinc illud: qui me vidit, vidit deum ” CSEL 83/1,193.

327. With Victorinus possibly implying with his phrase “because the power is also in the action” that Christ is o f the same power also.

328. See above in section on Victorinus’ treatment o f John 1:18 in AA IV 8,43-9,5. The interesting aspect of Jn. 1:18, when one considers its full import, is that it can easily function as a conflation o f Ex.33:20 and Jn. 14:9, explaining divine invisibility with divine visibility.

329. This runs for most o f AA IV 29—31, and does seem to be a summary o f most o f what he argues throughout all four books o f the work.


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face for God, there is through the Son an image of God, or rather the Son is also the “image of God,” as was said: “Who was in the form of God.” Whence it was rightly said: “Let us make man according to our image and likeness.” Therefore the Son is, and if he is, he is different. For Father is not the same as Son, Son is not the same as Father; yet through those realities that I treated above,330 they are identical; identical, that is, having the same realities, but each one through his own existence. That is why they are both the same and different... And certainly God also has a form, but the Son of God is the manifested form, while the form of God is a hidden form. Such is the case for all the rest: existence, life, knowledge, insofar as they are God’s, they are hidden within, but insofar as they are the Son’s, they are manifested; so for the rest: khorema (receptacle) and pleroma, “image,” “true light,” “truth,” “Spirit,” “movement,” “action,” “operation,” “life,” and life from himself, “will,” “power,” “wisdom,” “word,” “God,” “living God,” and all the other names. But these latter realities are, as it were, external and manifested, while the former realities are within the Father and included in the veiy existence or rather they are that same reality which is existence, whereas in the Son they are in the act, acting in the open.331

Christ is the form of God because it has been said in Scripture that he has all that the

Father has. Victorinus provides a running commentary of texts that motivate his

reasoning—Philippians 2:6, Matthew 11:27, John 16:15, Colossians 1:15. He includes

Exodus 33:20, because in spite of what God had said to Moses, the form of God is visible

and involves manifested realities of God. There is a relation between the “all things” of

Matthew 11:27 and John 16:15 and the “form” of Philippians 2:6: everything that the

Father has given the Son is hidden in the Father and manifested in the Son. The Son of

God, he states, is the “manifested form,” while there is also a “hidden form” of God. Both

330. Near the very end o f Book IV 29 Victorinus conflates Mt. 11:27 with Jn. 16:15— “ All that the Father has, he has given to me, and all that the Father has, I also have”— concluding that “all” means consubstantial, and that they are therefore identical, and i f identical, they are equal. Clark, 295.

331. Clark, 295—97. AA IV 30,2—15;28—37 “quod Christus form a dei est in quo ostenditur omnia habere quae deus habet. Hoc enim est form a quae et imago dicitur, sicuti de ipso dictum, qui est imago dei. Habet igitur et deus imaginem suam et filius imago dei est. Etenim si dictum: faciem dei nemo umquam vidit, et dictum: posterganea mea videbis, est sine dubio facies deo, est filio, vel potius est et filius imago dei, ut dictum est: qui, cum in forma dei fiiisset. Unde iure dictum: faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram. Est ergo filius et, si est, alter est. Non enim idem pater, idem filius, illis rebus omnibus supra a me positis idem; idem autem, hoc est eadem habens, exsistentia sua propria. Unde et idem et alter... Et est quidem deo forma, sed filius dei forma in manifesto, dei vero in occulto. Sic enim omnia et exsistentia et vita et cognoscentia, dei intus in occulto, filio in manifesto; sic cetera: x<hpT|(j.a, JtX,fiptopa, imago, lumen verum, veritas, spiritus, motus, actio, operatio, vita, et a semet ipso vita, voluntas, virtus, sapientia, verbum, deus, deus vivus et cetera alia omnia. Sed haec veluti foris et in manifesto, ilia in se atque circa exsistentiam vel ipsa(m) potius quod est exsistentia, haec autem in actu agente quod est in manifesto.” CSEL 83/1,269-71.


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forms involve the triad Victorinus constantly speaks of:332 when “existence, life and

knowledge” are spoken of as belonging to God, they are hidden realities, but whenever

they are used to speak of the Son, they are manifest realities. (It would serve as a more

exact presentation here if Victorinus were to take care to define “Father” versus “Son” in

speaking of hidden versus manifest realities of God—especially since to conceptually set

“God” against “Son” in an argument is, ironically, a characteristic element of Homoian

exegesis.333) These two realities, one hidden and the other manifest, are the defining way

in which Victorinus interprets Exodus 33:20: there is a hidden form of God, the Father;

and a manifested form of God, the Son of God.

This Victorine understanding is impossible to consider without also considering the

strikingly similar understanding in Tertullian’s Against Praxeas and other sources of

earlier Latin theology. In chapters 14 and 15 of Tertullian’s Against Praxeas we find the

same preoccupation with the visibility and the invisibility of God, with considerations of

some of the same texts Victorinus will use. In AA IV 30 Victorinus makes the memorable

statement that “there is without doubt a face for God, there is through the Son an image

of God, or rather the Son is also the ‘image of God.’” This is much akin to the Tertullian’s

preoccupation with what Victorinus terms the “face of God”: “For we find that God was

seen, even by many, yet that none of those who had seen him died—that God was seen, of

332. The Divine Triad o f Esse, Vivere, Intellegere. Hadot calls this triad the ensemble o f the Divine Names which constitute the Form o f God. Hadot, Traites Theologiques, 1045-46.

333. Examples o f this view can be seen in Mk. 10:18 (“And Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone’”) and I Cor. 8:6 (“Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist”). Homoians favored texts such as these for their clear implication o f a definite subordination, believing themselves to be faithful to the witness o f Scripture.


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course, according to men’s capacity, not according to the fulness of his divinity.”334 It is

true that many had seen God: Tertullian points out patriarchs Abraham and Jacob, and

prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel, none of whom had perished because of what they saw. And

yet the Scripture says that if a human being sees God’s face, that person will surely die.

Tertullian concludes,

So then it will be another who was seen, for it is impossible for the same one who was seen, to be characterised as invisible: and it will follow that we must understand the Father as invisible because of the fulness of his majesty, but must acknowledge the Son as visible because of the enumeration of his derivation...33

This difference is advocated by Scripture by the distinction it makes between visible

and invisible.

Tertullian considers two categories of God having a face. The first has to do with

invisibility, especially focused on understanding “If a man see my face, he shall not live”:

This face of God is the person of the Father, and is lethal. The second category is the

visible face of God, seen in the Old Testament theophanies such as Jacob’s declaration, “I

have seen God face to face”: This face is the person of the Son, and is non-lethal. Both

exist and are divine realities: “For both in the gospels and in the apostles I discover God

visible and invisible, with an evident personal distinction between these two qualities.”336

334. Evans, Against Praxeas, 149. Adversus Praxean 14,30-32. “invenimus enim et a multis deum visum et neminem tamen eorum qui eum viderant mortuum: visum quidem deum secundum hominum capacitates, non secundum plenitudinem divinitatis.” Evans, 104.

335. Evans, Against Praxeas, 149. Adversus Praxean 14,3-6. “iam ergo alius erit qui videbatur, quia non potest idem invisibilis definiri qui videbatur: et consequens erit ut invisibilem patrem intellegamus pro plenitudine maiestatis, visibilem vero filium agnoscamus pro modulo derivationis...” Evans, 105.

336. Evans, Against Praxeas, 151. Adversus Praxean 15,29—31. “ecce enim et in evangeliis et in apostolis visibilem et invisibilem deum deprehendo sub manifesta et personali distinctione condicionis utriusque.” Evans, 106.


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Most of the texts that Tertullian looks to in chapters 14 and 15 relate to divine

invisibility: primarily Exodus 33:20, John 1:18, and I Timothy 6:16.337 But there will be a

reprise of the themes of invisibility and visibility later in chapter 24 of Against Praxeas,

where Tertullian dwells on Christ’s conversation with Philip in the first part of John 14.

In this lengthy anti-modalist explanation of Christ’s statement to Philip, Tertullian argues

for the real, defined existence of each of the Father and the Son. He also speaks o f divine

invisibility, citing Exodus 33:20 and, like Victorinus, explaining it with John 14:9.

It was not the Father who they did not know had companied so long time with them, but the Son: and the Lord, upbraiding them for not knowing himself as him whom they had not known, clearly wished to be recognised as he whom he had upbraided them for not recognising in so long a time, namely the Son. And now it can appear in what sense it was said, He that seeth me seeth the Father also... For according to these [texts] he had revealed himself as the deputy of the Father, by means of whom the Father was both seen in acts and heard in words and known in the Son ministering the Father’s acts and words: because the Father is invisible, a fact which Philip also had learned in the law and ought to have remembered—No one shall see God and live. And consequently he is chidden for desiring to see the Father as though he were visible, and is informed that he becomes visible in the Son, in consequence of acts of power, not in consequence of actual manifestation of his Person.338

A few decades after Tertullian, Novatian employs similar texts to explain divine

invisibility with the revealed visibility of the Son. In his De Trinitate, Novatian offers the

explanation that Abraham was able to see God because he actually saw Christ, who was

acting as an angel of the Father:

337. I Timothy 6:16a—“who alone has immortality and dwells in un approachable light, whom no man has ever seen or can see”— is a divine invisibility text that will take on importance for fourth-century Nicenes such as Phoebadius o f Agen and Hilary o f Poitiers. See below Phoebadius’ understanding o f divine invisibility and visibility, in the same terms as Tertullian.

338. Evans, Against Praxeas, 167-68, emphasis original. Adv. Prax. 24 ,5 —9,14-21. “ergo non patrem tanto tempore secum conversatum ignoraverant sed filium: et dominus, eum se ignorari exprobans quem ignoraverant, eum utique agnosci volebat quem tanto non agnosci tempore exprobraverat, id est filium. Et apparere iam potest quomodo dictum sit, Qui me videt videt et patrem... secundum haec enim vicarium se patris ostenderat, per quem pater et videretur in factis et audiretur in verbis et cognosceretur in filio facta et verba patris administrante: quia invisibilis pater, quod et Philippus didicerat in lege et meminisse debuerat— Deum nemo videbit et vivet. et ideo suggillatur patrem videre desiderans quasi visibilem, et instruitur visibilem eum in filio fieri ex virtutibus non ex personae repraesentatione.” Evans, 120.


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Please note that the same Moses says in another passage that God appeared to Abraham. Yet the same Moses hears from God that no man can see God and live. If God cannot be seen, how did God appear? If He appeared, how is it that He cannot be seen? For John says in like manner: “No one has ever seen God.” And the apostle Paul says: “Whom no man has seen or can see.” But certainly, Scripture does not lie; therefore, God was really seen. Accordingly, this can only mean that it was not the Father, who never has been seen, that was seen, but the Son, who is wont both to descend and to be seen, for the simple reason that He has descended. In fact, He is “the image of the invisible God,” that our limited human nature and frailty might in time grow accustomed to see God the Father in Him who is the Image of God, that is, in die Son of God. Gradually and by degrees human frailty had to be strengthened by means of the Image for the glory of being able one day to see God the Father.339

Novatian uses Exodus 33:20, combined with John 1:18 and I Timothy 6:16, similar to the

chain of texts used by Tertullian in chapters 14 and 15 of Against Praxeas.

These texts remained standard loci even one hundred years later, for Phoebadius of

Agen. In his work Liber Contra Arrianos Phoebadius understands that God was invisible

in the Old Covenant, yet visible in his Word, the Son:

“The Father,” it says, “is invisible.”340 We find it almost true almost anywhere for the Son to have been visible even without transfiguration, for he existed bodily from eternity before being obedient to the Father. No matter how, for instance, the vision not only of Abraham would be but also Jacob and of Moses, Isaiah and Ezekiel, nevertheless the quality of that vision was interpreted. No doubt the vision is related in a dream and in a mirror and in an enigma. Of course Moses was demanding how to recognize him he would see: “No one is able,” he says, “to see my face, for no one who sees it, lives.” Therefore they hold either the Father to have been speaking in this place who he says himself to be invisible, or if they do not deny the Son as the one speaking, they even know that invisible One by his name to have been as the Word, as the Spirit. How precisely the Invisible God would be seen, is attested by the same Scripture. It represents God speaking to him just as if to a friend, face to face. Moreover, after that he accedes to Moses’ requesting that he see his face, whom if he had absolutely seen, instantly would not be expected to be living. Indeed Jacob says: “I have seen the Lord face to face and my soul is preserved.”341

339. DeSimon, The Trinity, FoC 67. De Trinitate XVIII 1,1-3,15. “Ecce idem Moyses refert alio in loco quod Abrahae uisus sit Deus. Atquin idem Moyses audit a Deo quod nemo hominum Deum uideat et uiuat. Si uideri non potest Deus, quomodo uisus est Deus? Aut si uisus est, quomodo uideri non potest? Nam et Ioannes Deum nemo, inquit, uidit umquam, et apostolus Paulus: Quem uidit hominum nemo nec uidere potest. Sed non utique scriptura mentitur. Ergo uere uisus est Deus. Ex quo intellegi potest quod non Pater uisus sit, qui numquam uisus est, sed Filius, qui et descendere solitus est et uideri, quia descenderit. Imago est enim irmisibilis Dei, ut mediocritas et fragilitas condicionis humanae Deum Patrem uidere aliquando iam tunc assuesceret in imagine Dei, hoc est in Filio Dei. Gradatim enim et per incrementa fragilitas humana nutriri debuit per imaginem ad istam gloriam, ut Deum Patrem uidere posset aliquando.” CCSL 4,44.

340. A quotation from the Blasphemy o f Sirmium 357 creed: “And no one is ignorant that it is Catholic doctrine that... the Father has no beginning and in invisible, immortal and impassible...” Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 286.

341. Phoebadius o f Agen, Liber Contra Arrianos, XX, 1 ,1 -XXI,2,6. “INTVISIBILEM, inquit, PATREM ESSE. Quasi uero usquam inueniamus uel Filium sine transfiguratione fuisse uisibilem, antequam


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The ideas behind this statement are the same as Tertullian’s, demonstrating Phoebadius’

indebtedness to Tertullian. The various figures in the Old Covenant who, at least in some

way, saw God—Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Isaiah and Ezekiel—are also mentioned as

examples of this in Tertullian’s Against Praxeas. But these people saw God in their sleep,

or saw God’s reflection, or saw some sort of visible riddle. Phoebadius, like Tertullian,

discusses the invisibility of God with an obvious text such as Exodus 33:20, but the

visibility of God with one such as Genesis 32:30. Gregory of Elvira does the same thing

in his sixteenth Origenian tractate (an exposition on the prophet Isaiah). In a section in

Tractatus XVI dealing with the burden of Israel’s sins and their lack of merit for being

allowed to see God, Gregory considers how God can been seen:

As a matter of fact, the man Israel seeing God is interpreted from the Hebrew language into Latin discourse; and what man is it who sees God, as it would be written to Moses: “It is not allowed to see my face, for no one sees God and lives”? Also the Savior says it in the Gospel: “No one sees God ever except the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father.” Therefore because no one sees God except the only Son, rightly it is the Son himself Israel sees, who is not only man according to the natural flesh but also is one himself with God the Father, who is the Son of God, and Israel lives. This is the man that Israel sees as God, whom they have stirred to anger for not believing him.342

Patri oboediens fieret ex aetemitate corporeus. Quamuis enim et Abrahae uisus sit et Iacob et Moysi et Esaiae et Ezechieli, tamen uisionis illius qualitas explicatur. In somno enim et in speculo et in enigmate uisus refertur. Denique Moysi postulanti ut cognoscenter eum uideret: Nemo potest, inquit, faciem meam uidere, quia nemo qui earn uiderit, uiuet.” Eigo hoc loco aut Patrem locutum fiiisse contendant qui inuisibilem esse se dicit, aut si Filium non negant tunc locutum, sciant et ilium suo nomine inuisibilem fuisse ut Sermonem, ut Spiritum. Inuisibilis Deus denique quomodo uisus sit, eadem Scriptura testatur. Refert enim locutum cum eo Deum tamquam ad amicum, facie ad faciem.Ac deinceps subiungit postulasse Moysen ut faciem eius uideret, quam utique si uiderat, non statim postulasset uidendam. Ait quidem Iacob: Vidi Dominum facie ad faciem et salua facta est anima mea.” CCSL, Vol. 64 ,44.

342. Gregory o f Elvira, Tractatus Origenis XVI, 25,193-26,204. “Israhel etenim homo uidens deum ex Ebrea lingua in Latino sermone interpretatur; et quis homo est qui deum uidet (-it), cum scriptum sit ad Moysen: Non poteris faciem meam uidere, nemo enim uidit deum et uixif! Saluator quoque in euangelio: Deum, inquid, nemo uidit umquam nisi unicus filius, qui est in sinum (-u) patris. Ergo quia deum nemo uidit nisi unicus filios (-us), merito ipse est Israel, que (qui) et homo secundum camem naturae (natus) est et deum patrem solus ipsi (-e), qui filius dei est, uidit et uidet. Hoc est Israel homo uidens deum, quem ad iracundia (-am) non ei credendo prouocauerunt.” CCSL Vol. 69, 121-22.


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Gregory explains the invisibility of God in Exodus 33:20 with the same visibility text,

John 1:18, used by Victorinus whenever discussing the visibility of the Son.

“Th e Im a g e o f t h e In v isib l e G o d ” : C o lo ssia n s 1:15

The Pauline text of Colossians 1:15, “He is the image of the invisible God, the first-bom

of all creation,” easily took the stage as a commonplace in the Trinitarian Controversy for

both Nicenes and non-Nicenes.343 Alexander of Alexandria introduced its use early in the

Trinitarian Controversy in his Letter to all Bishops, in which he denounces the views of

Arius while setting forth his own arguments that the Son is like in ousia to the Father, is

unchanging in his nature, and knows the Father perfectly.344 In Colossians 1:15 all

Nicenes could see that the Son was “the image of the invisible God.” Non- and anti-

Nicenes could use the statement that the Son was “the first-bom of all creation” to argue for

the Son being a superior creature but only quasi-divine.345 For Victorinus the realities of the

Son being the “form” and “image” of God are presuppositions to which he will make

frequent reference throughout Against Arius. Though he employs Colossians 1:15 as a clear

343. Nestle-Aland XXVII reads “ b q tcrriv ebtd>v t o o Q c o v dopaxov, Jtpcoroxoxog Jiaarqq x t l c t e ( D £ . . . ”

344. Hanson, Search, 140. With Col. 1:15 Alexander quotes texts such as John 1:1, John 1:3, John 1:18, Ps. 45(44):2, 110(109):3, Wisdom 7:26, Heb. 1:3 and Mai. 3:6. He uses the Colossians text again in his Letter to Alexander ofThessalonica.

345. Anti-Nicenes as removed from each other as Asterius and Aetius/Eunomius could find in Col. 1:15 a text for their purposes. Meslin, Les Ariens, 234. Another example was the eloquent and eristic Homoian bishop Maximinus: in his lengthy and carefully recorded debate with Augustine. He cites Col. 1:15 in one o f his statements as a way o f justifying the Son as the “only-begotten”/demi-god: “Paul cries out firstborn, saying, He is the image o f the invisible God, the firstborn o f all creation. And I profess in accord with the statement o f the divine scriptures that the Son is firstborn, not unborn... This Son o f God is the only-begotten God...” Later in the debate Maximinus w ill cite the “firstborn” o f Col. 1:15 again to argue for the partial divinity o f the Spirit. Augustine, “Debate with Maximinus,” in Arianism and Other Heresies, trans. Roland J. Teske, 197,209. Using Col. 1:15(16— 17) for these purposes may have been inspired by a common Homoian exegetical tradition o f Colossians, since Palladius, at the Council o f Aquileia in 381, uses Col. 1:15 for the same purposes. Cf. Gryson, Scolies Ariennes, 288-89.


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quotation in only a few key passages, these passages are well worth a brief overview,

especially in light of their use of Colossians 1:15 as a visibility and divine generation text.

In AA IA, Victorinus is concerned with proving the divine, consubstantial identity of

the Son through a consideration of the Son’s names and titles and their corresponding

proof-texts in the New Testament. From this he turns to considering divine substance and

the Logos as the image of God, with consubstantiality of the Son and Father remaining

the overarching concern. As Victorinus provides his running commentary of the Gospel

of John and Pauline epistles, he turns lastly to a brief exposition of the epistle to the

Colossians (and I Timothy).346 If, as Paul explains to the Colossians, Jesus is the image of

God, then Jesus is consubstantial with the Father:

If Jesus is the image of God, he is homoousios. For the image is substance with the substance from which and in which it is image. And because the image is substance begotten by the substance of which it is image, in which it is or subsists, to reveal the power within, hence the Father is within, the Son is exterior.347

Colossians 1:15, to Victorinus’ thinking, is not simply a divine visibility text: divine

visibility is connected to divine substance, and proves consubstantiality.

The whole mystery is expressed in this exposition. That he is homoousios he says according to this: “He is the image of the invisible God.” That he is the Son: “the first-bom.” That he is not created: “before all creatures,” he said. For if he himself had been created, he would not have said “before all creatures.” And he properly said: “first-bom,” which is said of a son. Let us therefore put together the meaning: “The first-born before all creatures.” Therefore this one is begotten as a Son, the creation as that which is created. Not that there was begotten another after him, but because he was “the first-bom before all creatures.” Moreover, it says “all creatures, both of heaven and earth, visible and invisible.” Without a creation therefore, the Son is. Therefore by nature and by begetting, he is Son.348

346. Book I after this final exegetical section contains further doctrinal discussion, especially against Homoiousians.

347. Clark, 126-27. AA 124,9-13. “Si imago dei Iesus, opxxnxnoq est. Imago enim substantia cum substantia cuius est et in qua est imago. Et quod imago substantia a substantia eius in qua est vel substitit genitia in declarationem intus potentiae, hinc pater qui intus, hinc filius qui foris.” CSEL 83/1,95.

348. Clark, 128. AA 124,29-41. “Totum mysterium in ista expositione dictum est Quod oqoobcrux;, dicit ex isto: qui est imago invisibilis dei. Quod filius: primigenitus. Quod non creams: ante omnem creaturam dixit. Si enim et ipse creatus esset, non diceret ante omnem creaturam. Et proprie dixit: primigenitus, quod est de filio. lungamus ergo sensum: primigenitus ante omnem creaturam. Ergo hie genitus ut filius, ilia


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The “image of the invisible God” means homoousios. Victorinus sneaks away from the

obvious and incovenient interpretation of Christ as “the first-born of creation” by quickly

claiming that “first-bom” means that the Son is begotten, and not simply the first Creature

among all later creatures. We know that the generation of the Son was a crucial issue within

anti-Nicene and Nicene theologies throughout most of the Trinitarian Controversy, and

Victorinus understands the importance of defining the Son as begotten.349

At Book IA 3 5, begottenness in Colossians 1:15 plays a key role for Victorinus’

articulation that “the Son who as from Mary was also the Son who was before he came from

Mary.”350 This means, Victorinus asserts, the image of God; specifically, “he who is the

image of God.”351 But not only the image of God: the text Victorinus dwells on tells of the

image of God being “the firstborn of all creation,” who is also, he says, the Logos. He

concludes of this text that the Son is that same Logos, and is also the Son of Maiy:

It is necessary therefore that this be he same one: the Son, and the image, and he who is from Mary. For how would the Son be the “image of God” if he were not the “firstborn of the whole creation”? And how would he be the “image of God,” he who was the Son of Mary, if he were bom after all things were created? Therefore it is evident that he himself is the “firstborn.” What hen? Is he one bom of Mary not a creature? But if he Son of God, he “image of God,” was bom before every creature, he was also bom before hat one who was bom of Mary. Therefore, he who was bom before all creation, he is in he one who was bom of Mary. Therefore, it is evident that he is he only begotten Son.352

creatura ut quae creata sit. Non autem quod et alium postea genuit, sed quod ante omnem creaturam primigenitus. Est autem omnis creatura et eorum quae in caelis et eorum quae in terris, visibilium et invisibilium. Sine creatura ergo filius. Natura igitur et generatione filius.” CSEL 83/1,96-7.

349. Strangely, the text most employed by Homoians to try to forbid discussion o f h e Son’s begottenness, Is. 53:8, does not make any appearance in Against Arius, hough Victorinus responds to anti-Nicene use o f it in his summary work The Necessity o f Accepting Homoousios (Clark, 309-10. De Homoousio 4,1-14. CSEL 83/1, 282-83.)

350. Clark, 147. AA 135,10.351. This commentary on h e image o f God can be compared with Victorinus’ handling o f Gen. 1:26. In I

20, in discussing Gen. 1:26, Victorinus must be mentally comparing h at text to Col. 1:15, because he concludes h a t “For Jesus alone is image o f God, but man ‘according to h e image,’ h a t is, image o f h e image. But he says: ‘according to our image.’ Therefore both Father and Son are one image. I f the image o f the Father is the Son and i f the image itself is the Father, they are therefore consubstantial in respect to image. ’’ Clark, 117.

352. Clark, 148. AA 1 35,29-39. “Necesse est ergo eundem ipsum esse filium et imaginem et eum qui de Maria. Quomodo enim imago dei filius, si non primigenitus totius creaturael Et quomodo imago dei,


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We have already seen how important titles are for Victorinus. In the earlier portion of

Book I A, there is an extended discourse about all the titles of the Son and Victorinus’

proofs for these realities; here he distinguishes the eternal image of God from the “Son of

Mary.” Victorinus explicates Colossians 1:15, explaining the importance of the concepts

of the firstborn of all creation and the image of God and relating this text only to John

1:1-3 and not to other texts. But it is unusual that he uses a title for the Son—“Son of

Mary”—which does not come from a quotation of Scripture. He even claims, with

somewhat odd phrasing, that the texts he cites show “how the Logos is image and how

the Son is Logos, the Son who is Son of Mary, but especially the Son who is in the Son ofISO

Mary...” Victorinus does not wish to say that the “Son of Mary” is not the Son of God;

rather, he wishes to prove the opposite: He wants to emphasize that the “Son of Mary” is

not the Son of God solely at the moment he is conceived within Mary; he is the eternal

Son of God formed with the Son of Mary, united in one indissoluble union.354 It is

enough for Victorinus that the Son is the firstborn of all creation and that he is the Logos,

and these twin realities of the Son are confirmed when “the first Apostle and the

preeminent Evangelist agree in what they have said.”355

qui filius de Maria post omnia facta natus est? Manifestum ergo quod ipse primigenitus. Quid vero? Quod natum est de Maria non creatura est? Sed si filius dei, imago dei, ante omnium creaturam natus est, et ante istum, qui ex Maria, natus est. Qui igitur ante omnem creaturam natus est, ipse est in eo qui de Maria natus est. Manifestum igitur quod ipse unigenitus.” CSEL 83/1, 119-20.

353. Clark, 148. AA 1 35,24—25. “Quomodo imago X6yoq est et 'koyoq filius et ipse qui de Maria, magis autem qui in eo qui de Maria...” CSEL 83/1,119.

354. The First Sirmian Creed o f 351, from which Victorinus takes so much as a theological model, included Anathema 27, condemning the view “i f anyone denies that Christ God, Son o f God, is before the age (jtpoairimov) and ministers to the Father for the creation o f the world, but (declares) that he was bom o f Mary and thenceforward is called Christ and Son and took his beginnings from God... ” Hanson, Search, 328.

355. I.e., the Apostle Paul and the Evangelist John. Clark, 149. AA 1 36,16-17. CSEL 83/1, 121.


Colossians 1:15, the “image of the invisible God,” figures prominently as part of a

chain in Book IV 8,42-9,5, where Victorinus returns to the definition of the Son as both

the image and the form of God.356 The Son, according to Victorinus’ favorite theological

image, is the divine life that is revealed for humanity to look upon, recognize, and

understand. This is what is meant, he avers, by seeing the Son and thus seeing the Father

(John 14:9). Additionally, the Son is the living form of God, as Victorinus shows with the

texts of Philippians 2:6, Colossians 1:15, John 1:18 and Exodus 33:20, and of which he

finally concludes, “How many mysteries there are here, how many kinds of questions,

how many signs to declare that God and Jesus Christ are substance, and that they are both

one substance, and that they are both together one substance, and that substance is from

the Father to the Son.”357 Victorinus uses the chain of visibility texts, which includes

Colossians 1:15, to answer the claim of the Homoians who try to forbid language about

divine substance (“substance and at the same time one substance”), as well as the

Homoiousians who try to claim the Father and the Son come from a substance which

preexists God (“that substance is from the Father to the Son”).358 The invisibility of the

Father is remedied by the visibility of the consubstantial Son.

Victorinus will do this again at the end of Book IV. In a section that is part of IV 29-

33, he will for one last time in the entire work of Against Arius sum up his major

arguments about the divinity and consubstantiality of the Son. At the end of IV 29,

Victorinus uses a chain of Scripture texts to prove the consubstantiality of the Son,

356. See section on John 1:18 above for full quotation o f this section.357. Clark, 265. AA IV 9,1-5. “Quot hie mysteria, quot genera quaestionum, quot signa ad declarandum et

deum et Iesum Christum et substantiam esse et unam ambo esse substantiam et simul utrumque unam esse substantiam et a patre filio esse substantiam!” CSEL 83/1,237.

358. The same argument Victorinus makes in 1 29,7-33.


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employing Genesis 1:26, Matthew 11:27,1 Corinthians 1:24, and John 1:1, to which he

also adds John 16:15 and Philippians 2:6.359 From there he jumps into a summary of the

“divine and magnificent mysteries” that are contained within such a passage as

Philippians 2:6; the first of which, he claims, is that

Christ is the “form of God,” in whom one sees that he “has all that God has,” For this is the “form” which is also called “image,” as it was said of him “who is the image” of God. Therefore, God also has his image, and the Son is the “image” of God. And indeed, if it was said: “No one has ever seen my face,” and it was said: “You will see me from behind,” there is without doubt a face for God, there is through the Son an image of God, or rather the Son is also the “image of God,” as was said: “Who was in the form of God.”360

It is no surprise that Victorinus has combined the visibility texts of Philippians 2:6 (die

“form of God”) and Colossians 1:15 (the “image of God”) with Exodus 33:20(23); he has

typically done this throughout Against Arius when looking to Scripture for proof of his

arguments on the Son.

An image text upon which one would expect more comment from Victorinus is II

Corinthians 4:4, “That they should not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ

who is the image of God (dxtov 0eou).” In AA I, when Victorinus is giving his glosses

on the first half of the books of the New Testament canon, he cites this text from II

Corinthians as indicating that “that Christ is from God, not from nonexistents.” He adds

to this an extended discussion along the lines that the Father entails hidden realities, the

Son the manifest realities.

359. See chapter 5 section, “Uses o f Matthew 11:27 by Early Latins” for a flail quotation o f this section. Jn. 16:15 reads “All that the Father has, he has given to me, and all that the Father has, I also have,” a pronouncement text that is the same as Matt. 11:27.

360. Clark, 295. AA IV 30,2—10. “quod Cbristus form a dei est in quo ostenditur omnia habere quae deus habet. Hoc enim est form a quae et imago dicitur, sicuti de ipso dictum, qui est imago dei. Habet igitur et deus imaginem suam et filius imago dei est. Etenim si dictum: faciem dei nemo umquam vidit, et dictum: posterganea mea videbis, est sine dubio facies deo, est filio, vel potius est et filius imago dei, ut dictum est: qui, cum in form a dei fuisset.” CSEL 83/1,269—70.


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If Christ is the “image of God” Christ is from God. For an image is an image of what is manifested; but God is manifested; Christ is therefore the image. But an image is an image of what is manifested, and what is manifested is the original; but the image is second and different in substance from that which is manifested. But we do not conceive the image up there as it is in sensible things. For here we do not conceive the image to be a substance. For it is a sort of shadow in air or in water through a sort of corporeal emanation. By itself it is nothing nor has it movement of its own—only what is manifested by it is a substance; and it has neither body, nor senses, nor understaning. And when that in which it is reflected is removed or disturbed, it is no longer anything or anywhere. Therefore in a different way we say that Chrsit is the “image of God.” We say that the image is, first, through itself and so that it is knowing, that it is both living and life-giving and the seed of all existents. For it is the Logos through whom are “all things” and without this, “nothing.” But all these things are also attributed to God. Therefore God and the Logos are homoousion.m

The comment on this continues through all of AA 1 19; in 20, Victorinus links his

discussion of image with comment on Genesis 1:26. If the Father and the Son are the

same substance, that means that they have to be the same image: “If the image o f the

Father is the Son and if the image itself is the Father, they are therefore homoousioi in'ifsy

respect to image.” Image is not tied to form in this comment, because Victorinus

comes to the Form of God shortly in Book 121, when he takes up Philippians 2.

The use of Colossians 1:15 is not so extensive among Latins as one might assume

from such an explicit statement of divine invisibility versus visibility. Tertullian, in

chapter 19 of Book V of his work Against Marcion, uses Colossians 1:15 in passing to

speak about the image of God, combining it with Exodus 33:20, John 1:3 and other

texts. In chapter 20 of that same work, in his attack against the Marcionite denial of

361. Clark, 115-16. AA 1 19,5-22. “Si imago dei Christos, de deo Christos. Imago enim imaginalis imago; imaginalis autem deus, imago ergo Christas. Sed imago imaginalis imago est, et quod imaginale est principale; imago autem secunda, et aliud secundum substantiam ab eo quod imaginale est. Sed non sic intellegimus ibi imaginem, sicuti in sensibilibus. Hie enim nec substantiam intellegimus imaginem. Umbra enim quaedam est in aere aut in aqua per quoddam corporate lumen, corporalis effluentiae per reflexionem figurata, ipsa per semet nihil, nec proprii motas— imaginalis solum substantia—neque corpus neque sensum neque intellegentiam habens et ablato aut turbato in quo figuratum est omnino nihil et nusquam est. Alio igitur modo dicimus Christum imaginem dei esse: primum esse et per semet esse et quae sit intellegens esse et viventum dicimus imaginem et vivefacientem et semen omnium quae sunt; koyoq enim p er quem omnia et sine isto nihil. Sed ista omnia etiam deo adtributa sunt. Ergo 6|iooi3oiov deus et koYog.” CSEL 83/1, 83-84.

362. Clark, U l . A A l 20,8-10.


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Christ’s true bodily flesh, Tertullian uses Colossians 1:15 in tandem with Philippians

2:6-8 in much the same way that Victorinus does, most of all in his preoccupation with

the categories of “image” and “form”:

Evidently here too the Marcionites suppose that in respect of Christ’s substance the apostle expresses agreement with them, (suggesting) that there was in Christ a phantasm of flesh, when he says that being estab lish ed in the fo rm o f G o d he thought it not robbery to be m ade eq u a l w ith God, but em p tied h im se lf by taking up the fo rm o f a servant—not “the truth”—a n d (w as) in the likeness o f man—not “in a man”—a n d w as fo u n d in fash ion a s a man—not “in substance”, that is, not in flesh: as though fashion and likeness and form were not attributes of substance as well. But it is well that in another place also he calls Christ the im age o f the invisible G od. So then here too where he says he is in the form of God, Christ will have to be not really and truly God, if he was not really man when established in the form of man. For that “really and truly” must of necessity be ruled out on both sides if form and likeness and fashion are to be claimed as meaning phantasm. 63

Apart from the polemical anti-Marcionite context of this passage, we see Tertullian using

the exegetical idiom of combining the image of God with the form of God. Even if this is

a hapax legomenon within Tertullian’s work, Victorinus will employ the same idiom in

Against Arius in speaking about the visibility of God. Though the combination of

Colossians 1:15 and Philippians 2:6 seems a natural one, this chain (with other visibility

texts) does not see use among other contemporary Latins except for Hilary of Poitiers.

Throughout the books of De trinitate Hilary uses quotations from, and often allusions

to, Colossians 1:15 to identify the Son’s origin, true identity, and ontological unity with

the Father. In De trinitate II, 8, for example, the definition of the Son from Colossians

1:15 is included in Hilary’s pronouncement of the Son’s reality: “He is the offspring of

363. Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, trans. Ernest Evans (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 637, 639. (Henceforth Evans, Adversus Marcionem.) Adversus Marcionem V,20,3, 1-4,7. “Plane de substantia Christi putant et hie Marcionitae suffragari apostolum sibi, quod phantasma camis fuerit in Christo, cum dicit quod in effigie dei constitutus non rapinam existimavit pariari deo, sed exhausit semetipsum accepta effigie servi, non veritate, et in similitudine hominis, non in homine, et figura inventus homo, non substantia, id est non came; quasi non et figura et similitudo et effigies substantiae quoque accedant. Bene autem quod et alibi Christum imaginem dei invisibilis appellat. Numquid ergo et hie, qua in effigie eum dei collocat, aeque non erit deus Christus vere, si nec homo vere fuit in effigie hominis constitutus? Utrobique enim veritas necesse habebit excludi, si effigies et similitudo et figura phantasmati vindicabitur.” Evans, 636, 638.


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the unbegotten, the one from the one, the true from the true, the living from the living, the

perfect from the perfect, the power of power, the wisdom of wisdom, the glory o f glory,

the image of the invisible God, the form of the unbegotten Father.”364 This is immediately

followed by another quotation of Colossians 1:15 that is combined with John 14:9, 14:10,

5:26 (“As the Father has life in himself, even so he has given to the Son to have life in

himself’),365 and 16:15 (“All things that the Father has are mine”). It is not unusual for

Hilary to group texts such as these with Colossians 1:15 throughout the twelve books of

his work. In Book VIII he discusses how Christian belief has multiple, sometimes

apparently contradictory things to which one gives assent. For example, the evangelist

John records Christ as saying “He who has seen me has seen the Father”(John 14:9),

while Paul “the teacher of the Gentiles” pronounces that Christ is “the image of the

invisible God”(Colossians 1:15):

I ask whether there is a visible image of the invisible God, and whether the infinite God can be brought together in an image so that He is visible through the image of a limited form? An image must express the form of Him whose image it is. Let those who wish the Son to have a different kind of nature decide upon what kind of an image they wish the Son to be of the invisible Father.366

364. McKenna, Hilary o f Poitiers: The Trinity, 42. De trinitate 11,8,6—9. “Est enim progenies ingeniti, unus ex uno, uerus a uero, uiuus a uiuo, perfectus a perfecto, uirtutis uirtus, sapientiae sapientia, gloria gloriae, imago inuisibilis Dei, forma Patris ingeniti.” CCSL 62,45.

365. Jn. 5:26 is, as already noted, without doubt the most important Johannine text for Victorinus’ way o f thinking, because the Son as the christological category o f “life” neatly fits into Victorinus’ divine triad o f esse, vivere, intelligere.

366. McKenna, Hilary o f Poitiers: The Trinity, 313. De trinitate VIII,48, 5—10. “Et interrogo, utrum uisibilis imago est inuisibilis Dei, et utrum infinitus Deus per formae imaginem coimaginari possit ad speciem? Imago enim formam necesse est eius reddat, cuius et imago est. Qui uolunt autem alterius generis in Filio esse naturam, constituant cuiusmodi Filium imaginem esse inuisibilis Dei uelint.” CCSL 62A, 360. Hilary must qualify his assertion about Christ as image and form o f God according to divine power and nature in the next chapter o f Book VIII, when he says “Certainly, the creator o f invisible things is not compelled by any necessity o f nature to be the visible image o f the invisible God. And in order that we might not regard Him as the image o f the form rather than o f the nature, He is therefore the image o f the invisible God, because by the power o f His nature we are to understand that in Him there is not an invisible attribute but the nature o f God.” McKenna, Hilary o f Poitiers .The Trinity, 314.


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Like Victorinus, in Hilary we see the exegetical idiom of combining the image o f God

with the form of God, of combining a common visibility text such as Colossians 1:15

with other convincing visibility texts. Hilary clearly understands the importance of a text

such as Colossians 1:15, and as he sums up everything he has argued for in De trinitate in

Book XII, he makes one last form-and-image statement of the Son: “Since the only-

begotten God contains in Himself the form and the image of the invisible God, He is

made equal to Him in all these attributes that are proper to God the Father, through the■j/rn

fullness of the Godhead in Himself.” In addition to his use of Colossians 1:15, Hilary

values the text of the first three chapters of Colossians enough to use it throughout his

work, especially Colossians 2:9 (“For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily”).

Curiously, Victorinus uses this only twice in all of Against Arms?™

Th e Fo rm o f G o d : P h il ippia n s’ Ch r ist H y m n

The grandest, most elaborate use of Philippians 2:5-8369 in Against Arius is as a visibility

proof-text. Victorinus uses it especially to prove the combined idea of “form” and

“image” of God while linking it to other key texts and ideas, foreshadowing what

Augustine will do to speak of divine visibility one generation later.370 In Book IA 21

367. McKenna, Hilary ofPoitiers.The Trinity, 517. D e trinitate XII,2 4 ,1—3. “Formam itaque adque imaginem inuisibilis Dei unigenitus in se Deus continens, in omnibus his quae propria Deo Patri sunt per plenitudinem uerae in se diuinitatis aequatur.” CCSL 62A, 597.

368. In Book 1 25,27-28 and Book II 3,32-34, though each involves how Jesus must be homoousios with the Father if the fullness o f Deity dwells within him. One would expect Victorinus to make much more mention o f this text.

369. ll5Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7but emptied him self taking the form of a servant, being bom in the likeness o f m en.8 And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” (RSV)

370. Victorinus also uses Phil. 2 as divine unity text, combining form and image o f God with substance and power. Cf. chapter 5, ‘“One Substance, One Power’ Statements in Victorinus.” Barnes writes o f Augustine using Matt. 5:8 (“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God”) as a visibility text


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Victorinus turns to the idea of Christ the “Form of God,” taking his cue from the

Philippians passage, and immediately naming Photinus and Photinians after him as his

targets.371 The famous passage, in Victorinus’ consideration, proves that the Son is

Christ, consubstantial with the Father, and, “together with the Father, ‘powerful.’” He

reiterates then that they are of the same power and same substance, and beyond this lies

the reality that the form of God is not only substantial, but identical to the image: “If

therefore Christ is the ‘form of God’ but the form is substance—for form and image are

identical—but the form and image of God is the Logos and the Logos is always ‘with

God,’ the Logos is homoousion with God, “with” whom both ‘in the principle’ and

always he is Logos.”372 This proves to be a good, if simple, argument: If Christ is the

Form of God, then he must be the substance of God. The other nature of Christ is

apparent from his taking the form of a slave, being bom in human likeness, and found in

the human schema. The full human nature is also absolutely proven from the Philippians

passage.374 Even though Victorinus sees so much meaning within Philippians 2:5-7, he

that combats subordationist understandings o f the Son, used with other visibility texts such as Phil. 2 and Jn. 14:9: “Augustine thinks o f this vision o f the Form o f God as a Trinitarian event. The testimony o f Christ’s words to Philip in John 14 about the sight o f the Son being the sight o f the Father, and vice versa, as well as the creedal-type testimony regarding the common substance and unity o f operations shared by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit provide the basis for Augustine to assert that the vision o f the Son as Form o f God will itself become a vision o f the Father and o f the Trinity.” Michel Barnes, “Visible Christ,” 335.

371. Clark, 121ff.372. Clark, 122. AA 122,6-10. “Si igitur Christus forma est dei, forma autem substantia est—idipsum enim

forma et imago— est autem forma et imago dei Xoyoq et semper Xoyog ad deum, 6pooixnov Xoyog deo ad quem et in principio et semper est Xoyoq.” CSEL 83/1,90-1. Hadot describes it as “The two names o f Christ are read henceforth in a constant maimer by Victorinus.” Hadot, Traites Theologiques, 770-71.

373. The key terms in the Pauline passage, according to the Greek and Latin texts are 2:6, “in the form o f God” (ev poptpfj ©eou/in forma Dei); 2:7, “taking the form o f a slave” (poptpfiv Soukou XaPcov/formam servi accipiens); “bom in human likeness” (ev 6poubpcm dvOptimcov yevdpevog/in similitudinem hominum foetus); and 2:8, “found in human form” (oxppaxi evpeGek; (be; av9pa)Jiog/et habitu inventus ut homo).

374. As Victorinus says it in 1 22,13-16: “Did he take only the form o f man but not the substance o f man? For he has also put on flesh and was in the flesh and suffered in the flesh, and this is the mystery, and this is what saves us.” Clark, 122.


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does not link it with other texts, except for a passing reference to Genesis 1:26 and a

quotation from Porphyry’s Isagoge. It is in Book IV that he uses a combined idiom of

form and image, using Philippians, and also linking it extensively with other key texts.

In IV 8 Victorinus takes up again the theme that the Son is the Life and Form of the

Father, opening with his typical philosophical discourse, and his distinctive noetic triad

paradigm of the persons of the Godhead as Being, Life, and Understanding. This

discussion of the significance of each subsistence of the triad leads to an appraisal of the

idea that the knowledge of a thing reveals what it is the form of. Victorinus tries here to

reconcile two initial texts, John 1:18 and 14:9. That “no one has even seen God” may be

true without the life that is revealed in the Son, but with that life the Son can be a referent

to the First Person, thus “whoever has seen me, has also seen the Father.”375 Therefore,

Victorinus asserts, “the Son of God is the form of God, that is, life which is the form of

living,” after which he cites Philippians 2:6 (“who although he was in the form of God,

did not think it robbery to be equal to God”). The chain of Scripture continues right after

this with a quotation of Colossian 1:15, “He who is the image of the invisible God.”

These texts together suffice for Victorinus that the Father is invisible, but the Son is

manifestly visible, as he concludes, “Therefore, Jesus Christ is both the image and the

form of God. But we have said that in the form one sees that of which it is form; and, in

the same way, through the image also, one sees the one of which it is the image, above all

if the one whose image it is, is invisible.” 376 After this pronouncement, Victorinus

completes his thought by completing the chain, with the authorities, as he says

375. Clark, 264, discussion in first full paragraph.376. Clark, 265. AA IV 8,48-51. “Ergo Iesus Christus et imago et forma dei. Diximus autem quod in forma

videtur id cuius forma; et eodem pacto et imagine videtur is cuius imago est, maxime si is, cuius imago est, invisibilis” CSEL 83/1,237.


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-377“John.. .and Moses,” when he quotes John 1:18 and Exodus 33:20. So within this one

paragraph we see a neat Scripture chain of divine visibility, with the combined idea of

Form and Image of God, beginning with John 14:9, to Philippians 2:6, to Colossians

1:15, finally to John 1:18 and Exodus 33:20.

Combined Form and Image will appear once more in AA IV, at the end of which

Victorinus gives the most important reprise of all his apologetic for consubstantiality of

the Father and the Son. Victorinus began his work of four books with this combined

form/image idea; he will also end with it, because in his trinitarian reflection,

consubstantiality must include acknowledgement of Form and Image.378 Starting at the

end of IV 29, Victorinus takes up Form and Image again in speaking about the Son’s

equality with the Father, citing Philippians 2:6, of which there will be a running

commentary in the last seven or eight pages of Book IV.379 In IV 30, Victorinus explains

what “Form of God” means:

First, that Christ is the “form of God,” in whom one sees that he “has all that God has.” For this is the “form” which is also called “image,” as it was said of him “who is the image” of God. Therefore, God also has his image, and the Son is the “image” of God. And indeed, if it was said: “No one has ever seen my face,” and it was said: “You will see me from behind,” there is without doubt a face for God, there is through the Son an image of God, or rather the Son is also the “image of God,” as was said: “Who was in the form of God.” Whence it was rightly said: “Let us make man according to our image and likeness.

Therefore the Son is, and if he is, he is different. For Father is not the same as Son, Son is not the same as Father, yet through those realities that I treated above, they are identical; identical, that is, having the same realities, but each one through his own existence. That is why they are both the same and different.380

377. Jn. 1:18, “No one has at any time seen God except the only begotten Son who went forth from his bosom”; Ex. 33:20, “You will not see my face. For who has seen my face and lived?”

378. InAA 1 22,6-10, for example.379. It begins in IV 29,39 with a quotation o f John 16:15— “All that the Father has, he has given to me,

and all that the Father has, I also have”— then quoting Phil. 2:6 as further proof o f equality.380. Clark, 295-96. AA IV 30,2-15. “Primum quod Christus form a dei est in quo ostenditur omnia habere

quae deus habet. Hoc enim est form a quae et imago dicitur, sicuti de ipso dictum, qui est imago dei. Habet igitur et deus imaginem suam et filius imago dei est. Etenim si dictum: faciem dei nemo umquam vidit, et dictum: posterganea mea videbis, est sine dubio facies deo, est filio, vel potius est et


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The Father and Son are realities: the Father is a matter of hidden realities; the Son is a

matter of manifest realities.381 They are identical, Victorinus assures us, only insofar as

they share the same reality, but each possesses his own defined existence. Or, as

Victorinus will restate in the same paragraph (when referring again to “He did not

consider it robbery to be equal to God”): “Only someone possessing his own existence

believes himself or speaks of himself as equal to another.”

The motif of robbery is again the occasion for contemplating the visible form of God

in IV 32, when Victorinus refers to Philippians as “that sacred passage full of mysteries”

in a discussion about the verity of the Son being enfleshed.384 Christ, he asserts, was “in

the form of God.. .before he was in the flesh.” His “quality and his grandeur”385 were

being in the form of God. This form is being identical to the Father, and it is “that in

which the Father is contemplated,” with the added quotation of John 14:9. But being the

form “was not insofar as he was visible, but insofar as he is himself, God, divine

substance, Logos, life; this, therefore, he was before taking flesh.”

filius imago dei, ut dictum est: qui, cum in form a dei juisset. Unde iure dictum: faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram.Est ergo filius et, si est, alter est. Non enim idem pater, idem filius, illis rebus omnibus supra a me positis idem; idem autem, hoc est eadem habens, exsistentia sua propria. Unde et idem et alter.” CSEL 83/1, 269-70. An excellent passage to allay uneasiness about Victorinus’ occasional slips into modalism.

381. TaAA IV 30,28-31 Victorinus states his idea again: “And certainly God also has a form, but the Son of God is the manifested form, while the form o f God is a hidden form. Such is the case for all the rest: existence, life, knowledge, insofar as they are God’s, they are hidden within, but insofar as they are the Son’s they are manifested.” Clark, 296. It would be better for Victorinus to maintain the distinction between “Father” and “Son,” rather than voicing “God” versus “Son,” which sounds anti- Nicene in itself.

382. An important qualification in light o f other times when Victorinus treads the edge o f Modalism in his insistence upon identical (“idem”) statements between Father/Son and Son/Spirit.

383. AA IV 30,20-21. “In sua exsistentia positi est se cum altero credere vel dicere aequalem.” CSEL 83/1,270.384. JnAA 32,14—53.385. “qualis et quantus” AA TV 32,33


Conclusion

The issue of visibility, for Victorinus, is something far different than what it was for

Latins who preceded him, such as Tertullian and Novatian. The Latin tradition of

understanding the Father as invisible but the Son as visible, and there being an

understood problem of this meaning a certain subordination of the Son, is something

Victorinus totally ignores. Texts in Scripture which speak of the Father’s invisibility are

explained constantly by texts which speaks of the Son’s visibility, such as the words of

God to Moses in Exodus 33:20, ‘No one may see my face and live... ’ — explained by the

Son making a pronouncement about visibility, such as John 14:9, “If you have seen me

you have seen the Father.” Invisibility and visibility together mean for Victorinus that

the Father and the Son share a divine unity, with a constant theme of ‘X from X

causality,’ each feature of the Father’s nature producing that same nature for the Son.

The Son being the combined Image and Form of God, means for Victorinus that the Son

manifests hidden realities, enabling one to see and fully know all that the Father has. And

all of this is for the purpose of serving the Neo-Nicene cause: to retrieve, defend and

clearly define the homoousios in later Nicene trajectories. Victorinus’ defense o f the

homoousios is relentless; something easily noticed in reading just a few pages o f Against

Arius.

With this new Neo-Nicene cause Victorinus has used the typical scriptural testimonia

chains of his Latin forebears, for this new purpose. And beyond the work of those who

preceded him, Victorinus, like other Nicenes of his day, sees the high-end value of

holding forth on a classic locus such as Philippians chapter 2: It holds a prominent place

in Book I of Against Arius, and he will come back to it as a reprise of his whole work in


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Book IV of Against Arius, tying it with other texts such John 14:9, John 1:18, Colossians

1:15, Exodus 33:20, which are absolutely vital for arguing that the Father and the Son

share the same nature and essence.

Victorinus achieves a complex exegesis with speaking of divine visibility that he was

not quite able to accomplish with speaking of the theme of divine substance; he has far

more to work with for visibility texts than he had with those for substance. He also has a

Latin tradition for speaking of divine visibility that he understands and uses to articulate a

Nicene case for homoousios. He will take the force of Neo-Nicene argument even further

in what he accomplishes with speaking of divine unity of Father, Son and Spirit.


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5 Divine Unity in Victorinus

Full Knowledge And Unity

A Scripture text that proves the unity between the Father and the Son is one in which the

Father and the Son have perfect knowledge of each other, to the exclusion of everyone

and everything else. Thus Matthew 11:27 comes into play in Against Arius: “All things

have been given to me by the Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor

does anyone know the Father except the Son, and him to whom the Son chooses to reveal

him.”386 References to Matthew 11:27 appear in Against Arius only three times, though

this does not mean that Victorinus fails to understand the full import of this text. The

Son’s knowledge of the Father was a vital conceptual locus in the Arian-Nicene

trinitarian debates. For Victorinus, the mutual knowledge between the Father and the Son

supposes consubstantiality. Early on, in Book IA 15, Victorinus comes to the Synoptic

Gospels to prove what he said he would prove at the outset of Against Arius: that the Son

is bom, not made, and that he is substantially Son.387 In AA 3-15 Victorinus proves his

claims with an extended commentary of all the verses he deems important from John

chapters 1-17. He then returns to Matthew to find proofs as to the revealed identity of

386. The Synoptic parallel to Matt. 11:27 is Lk. 10:22, though whenever this verse appears in Ante-Nicene and Nicene writers it is usually identified as Matt. 11:27, possibly because o f theories o f Matthean authorship preceding that o f Luke.

387. AA 1 2,3-5.


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Jesus. He begins his brief, three-page consideration of Matthew with the proof o f the

testimony of Satan, who knew of Christ’s identity, followed by a tremendous

consideration of Christ’s own testimony of himself in Matthew 11:27 and John 1:18:388

That the Son has everything the Father has: “All things have been given to me by the Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and him to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” What is the reason that only the Son knows the Father and only the Father knows the Son except that no one has his substance? For all who know the Father in his glory and his divinity, in his power, in his very act, also adore him. But since to know this is to know the very “to be” of God himself, that is, his substance, for that reason no one knows God except the Son having the same substance and having it from God. For no one can see in any other way God’s “to be,” as it is said: “The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared” what is God’s “to be.” For he is in the bosom and in the metra (matrix) of substance. Each one of the two is homoousios oun (consubstantial therefore), each one being, both by substance and by divinity, in the other, and each one knowing each other.389

“That the Son has everything the Father has” means, for Victorinus, that the Son has

the same substance as the Father, because the Son knows the Father. This may seem

initially like Victorinus’ reflexive, Neoplatonist association that ontology and

epistemology flow into one another. However, Christ’s statement in Matthew 11:27 sets

up the connection between “knowing” and “being the same as” when it connects “All

things have been given to me by the Father” with “no one knows the Son except the

Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son.” No one knows the Father,

inasmuch as no one else has his substance, but there is One who knows the Father “in his

glory and his divinity, in his power, in his very act.” To know the Father in this way is to

388. “...the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom o f the Father, he has made him known”389. Clark, 110. AA 1 15,34—49. “Quod omnia patris filius habet: omnia mihi tradita sunt a p a tre et nullus

cognoscit filium nisi pater nec patrem nisi filius cognoscit et cui vult filius revelare. Quae causa solum filium scire patrem aut patrem, ut cognoscat filium, nisi quod nullus habet substantiam eius? Omnia enim quae in claritudine et in divinitate, in potentia, in ipsa actione et cognoscunt patrem et colunt.Sed quoniam cognoscere hoc est scire ipsius dei ipsum quod est ei esse, hoc est substantiam eius, idcirco nullus cognoscit deum, nisi substantiam eandem habens filius et habens ab ipso. A lio enim modo nullus potuit videre, sicuti dictum est: unigenitus filius, qui est in gremio patris, ille enarravit, quid est esse deum. In gremio enim est et in pf|Tpg substantiae. 'Opoouoiog ouv uterque, et substantia et divinitate consistens uterque in utroque, et cognoscit uterque utrumque.” CSEL 83/1,76-7.


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know God as he is in himself, in his substance; therefore, only the consubstantial Son

knows the Father.

According to Hadot, the probable background to Victorinus’ assertions and choice of

texts in IA 15,34—39 is the Homoian Creed of Sirmium 357,390 which understands there

to be a connection between “knowledge” and “being as”:

But inasmuch as some or many were troubled about substance {substantia), which in Greek is called usia, that is, to make it more explicit, homousion or the term homoeusion, there ought to be no mention of these at all and no one should preach them, for the reason and ground that they are not contained in inspired Scripture, and because the subject is beyond the knowledge of man, and no one can explain the nativity of the Son, regarding Whom it is written, “Who shall explain His generation?”391 For it is plain that only the Father knows how He begat the Son, and the Son how He was begotten by the Father.392

Hadot argues that Victorinus’ defense of substance arises from the condemnation of

substantive language at Sirmium in 357. He can reasonably suggest this because Sirmium

357 is the first, among all the synodal and conciliar documents of the 340s and 350s up to

that time, that attacked substance-based trinitarian language, including the watchword of

Nicaea, homoousios. Creeds before 357 were simply non-Nicene; Sirmium 357,• ‘2Q‘3

nicknamed “the Blasphemy” by Hilary, was anti-Nicene. It was a turning-point in

Nicene self-consciousness, inciting Neo-Nicenes to outrage with its radically

390. “15,39.— Encore une fois les bona divinitatis, cf. 7,18—24 n., vestige de la reaction contre Sirmium357. Cette fois 1’Enumeration se rapporte aux manifestations exterieures de la substance divine et doit etre rapprochEe de Rom. 1,20 citE 2,35-37: «Aetema...virtus ac divinitas.» Les creatures ne peuvent connaitre de Dieu le Pere que sa glorie, sa puissance, son action extErieure et sa divinitE. Reconnaissant cette divinitE et cette puissance du Dieu crEateur, elles l’adorent. Seul le Fils, parce qu’il est en elle, connait la substance, cf. adv. Ar. n 5,14. Cette idEe rejoint ainsi le thEme bien connu: Dieu n’est pas connu en son ousia, mais en ses oeuvres qui manifestent son existence.” Hadot, Traites Theologiques, 755.

391. Is. 53:8, die favorite proof-text o f various anti-Nicenes for forbidding any consideration o f the manner o f the Son’s generation.

392. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 285-86.393. Hilary’s memorable term for the creed, exemplum blasphemiae apudSirmium, from his D esynodis 11.


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subordinationist statements394 (“There is no question that the Father is greater. For it can

be doubtful to none that the Father is greater than the Son in honour, dignity, splendour,

majesty, and in the very name of Father.. .”).395 Victorinus responds with his own

statement of the Son’s divine origin and identity: “For all who know the Father in his

glory (claritudo) and his divinity (divinitas), in his power (potentia), in his very act

(actione), also adore him.”396 Victorinus makes another link in his argument for the

consubstantiality of the Son by selecting Matthew 11:27 as a key text to prove

consubstantiality and then connecting that text to John 1:18 (“the only begotten Son who

is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known”). Victorinus has already cited

John 1:18 twice so far in Against Arius (IA 2,21-23 and LA. 8,16) to regard the concept of

“in the bosom” as equivalent to being the “to be” of God; that is, the same substance. “In

the bosom of the Father” means not only to be “in gremio,” in the lap of the Father, but in

the inner being, in the “metra,” the womb or matrix. Victorinus’ constellating of these

texts appears to be close within the Latin context of the 350s, the confuting of the

subordinationist theology surrounding the Blasphemy of Sirmium 357.

394. Hanson observes that “In spite of, indeed because o f its extreme character, the Second Creed o f Sirmium o f 357 constituted a landmark. It is not a compromising nor reconciling creed. It makes no concessions at all to the pro-Nicenes. It is certainly not meant to take the place o f N , but it attacks N, no longer covertly, but directly and openly, as it also attacks the Dedication Creed o f 341. It is the manifesto o f a party, o f the party that stood in the tradition o f Arius though it did not precisely reproduce his doctrine. And as a manifesto it was also a catalyst. It enabled everybody to see where they stood. At last the confusion which caused Westerners to regard Easterners as Arians can be cleared up. This is an Arian creed. Those who support it are Arians. Those who are repelled by it are not.” Hanson, Search, 347. Hanson is too quick to claim that Homoians were the genetic descendants o f the anti-Nicene tradition o f Arius. We should remember that Homoians themselves vociferously denied that they had anything to do with the heritage o f Arius.

395. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 286. Hilary, De synodis 11 (PL 10 ,489a): “Patrem honore, dignitate, claritate, maiestate et ipso nomine Patris maiorem esse filio”; Athanasius, De synodis 28,7 (PG 26, 741c): “t o v ncrtepa Tigfj x a i x a i Seioxiyn. x a i auxqj -rip d vogcra -rip Jtaxpixcp pd^ova e lv a i.”

396. Clark, 110. AA 1 15,39-41. “Omnia enim quae in claritudine et in divinitate, in potentia, in ipsa actione et cognoscunt patrem et colunt.” CSEL 83/1, 76-7 .


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Within a few years, when writing Book IV of Against Arius, Victorinus again makes

use of Matthew 11:27 to argue for the consubstantiality of the Son. It appears within a

rich chain of texts (one that, surprisingly, makes no use of John 1:18) that contain creedal

language—“God and God; living God and living God; eternal and eternal; invisible and

invisible”397—including Victorinus’ typical noetic triad of “to be, to live, to understand.”

The Son’s knowledge of the Father is key here again, proving consubstantiality. If the

Son states “all that the Father has.. then that means all things', therefore the Son is

consubstantial, “the same; and if the same, equal....”398

Uses of Matthew 11:27 by Early Latins

An intentioned use of Matthew 11:27 to speak of the Son’s power, divinity, and common

nature with the Father has precedents not only in Victorinus’ contemporaries such as

Hilary of Poitiers and Phoebadius of Agen, but also in his Latin precursors. Tertullian’s

uses of Matthew 11:27 in his two most prominent works, the Prescription Against

Heretics and Against Praxeas, are elaborate. For example, with one passing citation of

Matthew 11:27 in chapter 21 of the Prescription, Tertullian argues that the true

transmission of the revelation of God only can come through the apostles, and that the

link between God the Father and the apostles is the Son, to whom God the Father gives

full knowledge. The revelation of the Father cannot be merely through human agency,

because the Father is invisible (to humans). Directly after citing Matthew 11:27,

Tertullian speaks of this invisibility by quoting Exodus 33:20.

397. This sounds like a christological revision o f I Tim. 6:16.398. AA IV 29,24-42. The passage, quoted above in the Gen. 1:26 section, employs Gen. 1:26,1 Cor. 1:24,

Jn 1:1, and Mt. 11:27.


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But it is in Against Praxeas that the most effective, recognizable uses of this locus can

be seen—a veritable gold mine of text constellations. In chapter 8 of Against Praxeas

Tertullian describes the prolation of the Son, while also arguing (against Valentinus, for

example) on behalf of the still-guaranteed unity of the Son and Spirit with the Father and

the Son’s full knowledge with the Father. Matthew 11:27 appears along with John 1:18,

attesting to the Son’s M l presence within the Godhead; he also cites John 10:30 and

14:11 for other proofs of this reality:

But with us the Son alone knows the Father, and himself has declared the bosom of the Father, and has both heard and seen all things in the Father’s presence: and whatsoever things he has been commanded by the Father, those he also speaks: and has accomplished not his own will but the Father’s, which he knew intimately, yea from the beginning. For who knows the things which be in God, except the Spirit who is in him? But the Word consists of spirit, and (so to speak) spirit is the body of the Word. Therefore the Word is always in the Father, as he says, I am in the Father: and always with God, as it is written, And the Word was with God: and never separate from the Father or other than the Father, because, I and the Father are one.399

In chapters 22 through 24 of Against Praxeas, Tertullian’s extended exposition of the

Gospel of John returns to this point, underscoring both divine unity between Father and

Son and the distinct reality of each.400 Tertullian rails against Praxeas and his fallacious

understanding of certain texts supposedly showing a conflation of, rather than distinction

between, the Father and the Son.

The dispensation between the Father and the Son is illuminated through numerous

examples in John of the Son referring to the Father, especially speaking about the mission

given the Son by the Father. In Against Praxeas chapter 24, Matthew 11:27 appears

399. Evans, Against Praxeas, 139. Adversus Praxean 8 ,2 8 -1 . “apudnos autem solus filius patrem novit, et sinum patris ipse exposuit, et omnia apud patrem audivit et vidit, et quae mandatus est a patre ea et loquitur, nec suam sed patris perfecit voluntatem, quam de proximo immo de initio noverat. quis enim scit quae sint in deo nisi spiritus qui in ipso est? sermo autem spiritu structus est, et ut ita dixerim sermonis corpus est spiritus. sermo ergo et in patre semper, sicut dicit, Ego in patre: et apud deum semper, sicut scriptum est, Et sermo erat apud deum: et nunquam separatus a patre aut alius a patre, quia Ego et pater unum sumus.” Evans, 96-97.

400. When reading this section o f Against Praxeas, it is difficult not to think o f Victorinus’ extended treatment o f Johannine proof-texts near the very beginning o f Against Arius I, chapters 3-15 .


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within the commentary on the exchange between Christ and the disciple Philip in John

14, in which Philip and the other disciples request to see (and therefore know) the Father.

The true meaning of this passage, Tertullian asserts, is the opposite of the modaiist sense

in which Praxeas would cast it; Tertullian argues that it really has to do with the

distinction of the persons of Father and Son.

It was not the Father who they did not know had companied so long time with them, but the Son: and the Lord, upbraiding them for not knowing himself as him whom they had not known, clearly wished to be recognized as he whom he had upbraided them for not recognizing in so long a time, namely the Son. And now it can appear in what sense it was said, H e that seeth me seeth the Father a lso : of course in the same sense as above, I an d the F ather are one. Why? Because, I cam e fo r th an d am com e fro m G od; and, I am the way, no one com eth unto the Father but by me; and, N o one cometh unto me except the F ather have drawn him; and, A ll things hath the Father d e livered to me; and, A s the F ather quickeneth, so a lso the Son; and, I f y e know me y e know the F ather also. For according to these <texts> he had revealed himself as the deputy of the Father, by means of whom the Father was both seen in acts and heard in words and known in the Son ministering the Father’s acts and words: because the Father is invisible, a fact which Philip also had learned in the Law and ought to have remembered—N o one sh all see G o d an d live. And consequently he is chidden for desiring to see the Father as though he were visible, and is informed that he become visible in the Son, in consequence of acts of power, not in consequence of actual manifestation of his Person.401

There is at this point a constellation of texts pointing to the distinct realities of Father and

Son: Matthew 11:27 is inserted into a testimonium of Johannine loci, quoted with John 14:9,

John 10:30, John 16:28, John 14:6, John 6:44, John 5:21, John 14:7, and finally, Exodus

33:20.402 All are texts which will be directly at hand for Victorinus in his work Against Arius.

401. Evans, Against Praxeas, 165-66. Adversus Praxean 24,5-21. “ergo non patrem tanto tempore secum conversatum ignoraverant sed filium: et dominus, eum se ignorari exprobans quern ignoraverant, eum utique agnosci volebat quern tanto non agnosci tempore exprobraverat, id est filium. et apparere iam potest quomodo dictum sit, Qui me videt videt et patrem: scilicet quo et supra, Ego et pater unum sumus. quare? quia, Ego ex deo exivi et veni; et, Ego sum via, nemo ad patrem venit nisi per me; et, Nemo ad me venit nisi pater eum adduxerit; et, Omnia mihi pater tradidit; et, Sicut pater vivificat, ita et filius; et, Si me cognovistis et patrem cognovistis. secundum haec enim vicarium se patris ostenderat, per quem pater et videretur in factis et audiretur in verbis et cognosceretur in filio facta et verba patris administrante: quia invisibilis pater, quod et Philippus didicerat in lege et m eminisse debuerat— Deum nemo videbit et vivet. et ideo suggillatur patrem videre desiderans quasi visibilem , et instruitur visibilem eum in filio fieri ex virtutibus non ex personae repraesentatione.” Evans, 120.

402. Jn. 16:28, “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world”; Jn. 6:44, “No man can come to me, except the Father draw him”; Jn. 5:21, “As the Father vivifies (the dead), so also does the Son”; Jn. 14:7, “If you had known me, you would have known the Father also.”


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Tertullian makes one more use of Matthew 11:27 in Against Praxeas. To speak further

of the distinct persons of the Father and the Son, he uses the Gospels of Matthew and

Luke for a series of examples of references to the Father and Son. And in Against

Praxeas 26, 27 Tertullian speaks at length about the procession of the Spirit and the Son,

proving that they are from the Father, while in this long statement he makes the point by

saying that they are from the very substance of the Father:

And consequently the Spirit is God and the Word is God, because he is from God, yet is not (God) himself from whom he is. But if the Spirit of God, as being a substantive thing, will not (be found to) be God himself, but in that sense God as being from the substance of God himself, in that it is a substantive thing and a certain assignment of the whole.. .403

Novatian, less than a half-century later, mentions Matthew 11:27 in his work De

Trinitate, in three rather loose quotations, as portions of other texts strung together. But

the use of a unity text such as Matthew 11:27 by Novatian is highly significant, since his

trinitarian treatise, a premier work of the Latin West until the mid-fourth century,

concentrates on the defined identities of the Father and the Son, especially their unity. In

chapter 11 of De Trinitate, the notion of all things being given to the Son by the Father

means for Novatian that the Son has the powers of divinity in addition to the qualities of

his humanity. In chapter 26 Novatian addresses the claims of patripassian modalists who

want to claim that the Son is the Father. In response he cites a battery of mostly

Johannine texts, meant to underscore the distinct separate existence of the Son as God,

the Second Person after the Father.404 In chapter 31 Novatian includes Matthew 11:27 as

403. Evans, Against Praxeas, 171. Adversus Praxean 26,24—28. “et ideo spiritus deus et sermo deus, quia ex deo, non tamen ipse ex quo est quods/ spiritus dei, tamquam substantiva res, non erit ipse deus sed hactenus deus qua ex ipsius dei substantia, qua et substantiva res est et ut portio aliqua totius” Evans, 122.

404. DeSimone, The Trinity, 90-92. Cf. especially his concluding statement in XXVI, 20-21, after a lengthy commentary on these texts: “For throughout the Divine Scripture o f the Old, as w ell as the New Testament He is shown to us as bom o f the Father, one through whom “all things were made, and without whom nothing was made,” who has ever been obedient to the Father and still obeys. He is


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a reference to why the Son acts in accordance with his Father’s will and being: the Son is

a separate person, but their divine union is still assured. The Son truly knows the Father,

and thus they are unified:

There is, then, God the Father, the Founder and Creator of all things, who alone is without origin, invisible, immense, immortal, eternal, the one God. Nothing whatever, I will not say can be preferred, but can even be compared to His greatness, His majesty, and His power. Of Him when He will, the Word, who is the Son, was bom. The Word is to be understood here not as a sound that strikes the air nor the tone of the voice forced from the lungs, but rather is discerned in the substance of a power proceeding from God. Apostle has never ascertained, prophet has not discovered, angel has not fathomed, nor has any creature known the hallowed secrets of His sacred and divine birth. They are known to the Son alone, who has known the secrets of the Father.405

In his work Contra Arrianos, Phoebadius of Agen cites Matthew 11:27 only once, but

it occurs in a passage that also employs John 1:18, in order to speak against the creed of

Sirmium 357’s disavowal of any language on the divine generation of the Son:

No one, he said, but the Father alone knows how the Son was generated. What does he wish to say. with that statement? The Lord, not wishing us to be ignorant of that, said: “I went out from the Father and from the bosom of the Father.” Such sadness! Why, he does not wish us to be ignorant, following the darkness of ignorance while the Creator is known to us! And so for this reason he does not wish that the question of his origin be set aside while the Creator is known to us. For there was no one who should seek out in what way and how he was, since we know from whence he was. But if in this passage the opinion of the Lord is set forth as confirmed, namely saying: “No one except the Son knows the Father nor does anyone know the Son except the Father.” Then they will hear from us so that they may not err regarding the divine definition.406

also revealed to us as have power over all things, power, however, that has been given, that has been granted and conferred upon Him by His own Father. What could make it more evident that He is not die Father but the Son than the fact that He is set before us as obedient to God the Father? I f we were to believe otherwise—that He is the Father—then we would have to say that Christ is subject to another God the Father.”

405. DeSimone, The Trinity, 108. De Trinitate XXXI, 1-11. “Est ergo Deus Pater omnium institutor et creator, solus originem nesciens, inuisibilis, immensus, immortalis, aetemus, unus Deus, cuius neque magnitudini neque maiestali neque uirtuti quicquam non dixerim praeferri, sed nec comparari potest. Ex quo, quando ipse uoluit, sermo Filius natus est, qui non in sono percussi aeris aut tono coactae de uisceribus uocis accipitur, sed in substantia prolatae a Deo uirtutis agnoscitur, cuius sacrae et diuinae natiuitatis arcana nec apostolus didicit nec prophetes comperit nec angelus sciuit nec creatura cognouit; Filio soli nota sunt, qui Patris secreta cognouit.” CCSL 4, 75.

406. Phoebadius o f Agen, Contra Arrianos X ,3,12-4,21 “Nemo SCIT, inquit, QUOMODO GENITUS SIT FILIUS nisi Pater solus. Quid ergo sibi uult ilia sententia? Quia hoc Dominus ignorare nos nolens: Ego, inquit, de Patre exiui et de sinu Patris. Pro dolor! cur sectantes ignorantiae tenebras ignorare nos noluit! Et utique ideo noluit, ut, auctore nobis cognito, status sui quaestio tolleretur. Non enim erat quaerendum quis, quomodo uel qualis esset, cum unde esset nosceremus. Sed si hoc loco ipsius Domini sententia id confirmatum esse proponitur, dicentis scilicet: Nemo nouit Patrem nisi Filius,


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Phoebadius’ description of the Son’s sole knowledge of the arcana of the Father sounds

like it was taken from Novatian’s treatise.

In De Trinitate 11.10, Hilary of Poitiers uses a chain of Scripture texts to prove the

unity of the Father and the Son, conceptually linking John 1:18, 10:30, 14:9, 14:28, and

Matthew 11:27: for Hilary a virtual summary of orthodox trinitarian theology.407

For this reason, pay attention to the unbegotten Father, listen to the only-begotten Son: “The Father is greater than I,” Hear: “I and the Father are one”; hear: “He who sees me sees also the Father”; hear: “The Father is in me and I in the Father.” Hear: “I came forth from the Father,” and “He who is in the bosom of the Father,” and “All things that the Father has He has delivered to the Son,” and “The Son has life in Himself, as the Father also has life in Himself.” Hear about the Son, the image, the wisdom, the power, and the glory of God, and understand the Holy Spirit who declares: “Who shall proclaim his generation? And criticize the Lord as He testifies: “No one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and him to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” Force yourself into this secret, and amid the one unbegotten God and the one only-begotten God immerse yourself in the mystery of the inconceivable birth. Begin, go forward, persevere. Even though I know that you will never reach your goal, I will congratulate you for having gone ahead. Whoever seeks after infinite things with

nec Filium quis nouit nisi Pater, audient a nobis ne fraudem faciant diuinae definitioni.” CCSL 64, 34-5.

407. A constellation o f texts similar to this appears also, for example, in Hilary’s De Trin. II, 20,15-24 (CCSL 64, 56), which reads, “He did not become aware o f His birth only later on, but recognized Himse lf as God by the very fact that He was bom from God. This, the only begotten from the unbegotten; this: ‘I and the Father are one’; this, the one God in the confession o f the Father and the Son; this, the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father. Hence: ‘He who sees me sees also the Father.’ Hence: ‘A ll things that the Father has he has given to the Son.’ Hence: ‘As the Father has life in him self, even so has he given to die Son to have life in him self.’ Hence: ‘No one knows the Son except the Father; nor the Father except the Son.’ Hence: ‘In him dwells all the fullness o f the Godhead bodily.’” McKenna, Hilary o f Poitiers: The Trinity, 51. In VI, 26 there appears a gloss on Matt. 11:27 as a way o f emphasizing the divine names o f Father and Son, their divine nature, and full knowledge o f each other: “in order that the Son’s name may not be one o f adoption, or the Father’s name one o f honor, let us see what attributes are attached to the name o f son by the Son. H e says: ‘A ll things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and him to whom the Son w ills to reveal him.’ Do not the words already cited ‘This is my Son’ and ‘My Father,’ agree with ‘No one knows the Son except the Father nor does anyone know the Father except the Son? For, it is only by a mutual attestation that the Son could be known by the Father or the Father by the Son. The voice comes from heaven and the statement comes from the Son. The Son is just as unknown as the Father. A ll things have been delivered to Him, and by all is meant that nothing is excepted. If they are equal in power and in the secret o f knowledge, if the nature is in the names, I ask in what way are they not what they are called, when in regard to the strength o f their omnipotence (ius in potestate) and to the difficulty in being known there is no distinction?” DeSimone, The Trinity, 194—95. De Trin. VI, 26,4-18. CCSL 64,226-27.


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a pious mind, although he never overtakes them, will still advance by pressing forward. Your power of comprehension comes to a standstill at this boundary line of the words.4 8

Hilary’s use of Matthew 11:27 involves what we have already seen in ante-Nicenes such

as Novatian: the Father and Son clearly united, from Christ’s pronouncement in Matthew

11:27; however, they are nonetheless real and distinct identities.

Ontological Unity

The primacy of John 10:30 as a unity text is obvious from its simple but clear statement

of unity: I and the Father are one”409—in spite of the efforts of anti-Nicene theology to

denature the text of its ontological implications by claiming that the Father and Son are

united merely in non- or quasi-divine aspects.410 Indeed, in all of the developmental

408. McKenna, Hilary o f Poitiers: The Trinity, 44-45. D e trinitate 11,10,1-17. “Audi igitur Patrem ingenitum, audi unigenitum Filium. Audi: Pater maior me est. Audi: Ego et Pater unum sumus. Audi: Qui me uid.it, uidit et Patrem. Audi: Pater in me et ego in Patre. Audi: Ego de Patre exiui. Et: Omnia quae habet tradidit. Et: Vitam Filius in semetipso habet, sicut et Pater habet in semetipso. Audi Filium imaginem sapientiam uirtutem gloriam Dei. Et intellege proclamantem Spiritum sanctum: Generationem eius quis enarrabit? Et obiurga Dominum testantem: Nemo nouit Filium nisi Pater, neque Patrem quis nouit nisi Filius et cui uoluerit Filius reuelare. Et insere te in hoc secretum, et inter unum ingenitum natiuitatis inmerge. Incipe, procurre, persiste. Etsi non peruenturum sciam, tamen gratulor profecturum. Qui enim pie infinita persequitur, etsi non contingat aliquando, tamen proficiet prodeundo. Stat in hoc intellegentia fine uerborum.” CCSL 6 2 ,4 7 -8

409. A remarkably short verse, but one that comes as the pronouncement at the end o f a statement Christ makes to Jews who had rejected him at the Feast o f die Dedication in Jerusalem. Verse 29 precedes his delcaration, when he says “My Father, who has given them (the sheep who hear his voice) to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out o f the Father’s hand.”

410. The readiest example o f anti-Nicene interpretations o f Jn. 10:30 comes from early in the Trinitarian Controversy from the learned Eusebian apologist Asterius. Among the surviving fragments o f his writings, in Fragment XIII, Asterius speaks o f the Son’s role as that which “presents identity o f doctrines and a consistent and exact correspondence with the Father’s teaching, for this reason he and the Father are one”; in Fragment XXXII Asterius said that “the Father and the Son are one and the same thing in that they agree (oupqxovovai) in eveiything. “I and the Father are one” (Jn. 10:30) refers to their exact agreement in all ideas and activities.” Hanson, The Search, 35 ,37 . A century later a similar trajectory o f anti-Nicene theology would hold to the same arrested interpretation o f Jn.10:30. In his debate with Augustine ca. 427/28, the Homoian bishop Maximinus asserts that Jn. 10:30 means that the Father and the Son are one in harmony and agreement, citing this verse four times during the debate. Augustine, “Debate with Maximinus,” in Arianism and Other Heresies, trans. Roland J. Teske,S.J., 190,194,216—17. This “Arian” reading o f the text as pointing to an agreement between the Father and the Son in various things was the best anti-Nicene theology could ever


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stages of Nicene theology in the fourth century, it is difficult to imagine any other text so

powerful in defending the homoousios, with the possible exception of John 14:9—10.

Especially in the later stages of the Trinitarian Controversy, John 10:30 would come

to take on a clear importance as a locus for the divine unity and consubstantiality of

the Father and the Son. As Hanson has pointed out, however, it should not be

assumed that John 10:30 is a straightforwardly Nicene or pro-Nicene text.411 It is

slightly a surprise that Victorinus does not use this text far more in Against Arius,

since so much of the work is devoted to arguing for consubstantiality, but that

notwithstanding it appears that Victorinus understands this unity text to be important,

especially in light of other key texts that will appear alongside John 10:30 in the

instances of its use.

InAA IA 5-15 there is the running commentary on the Gospel of John, where

Victorinus repeatedly gives his own glosses to consider the titles and realities of

Christ’s identity.412 Of particular interest in his discussion is how to explain the

equality and consubstantiality of the Father and the Son if there exist also the

traditional proof-texts such as Philippians 2:6-8 and John 14:28, which can be used to

cite the Son’s inferiority to the Father. The answer for Victorinus is obvious: The Son

is both inferior and equal. (The Philippians passage makes the same dual claim;

everyone reading this passage can see the twin tracks of the Son’s identity according

accomplish with its difficult challenge. M eslin does not even include Jn. 10:30 in his chart o f the arsenal o f Scripture used by anti-Nicenes. M eslin, Les Ariens d ’Occident, 233.

411. For example, Hanson mentions that “Alexander used it before Nicaea to show that Christ here ‘is neither calling him self the Father nor indicating that natures which are two in hypostases were one’... Marcellus... applied it to the ontological unity, indeed identity, o f the Father and his Logos (the Son not appearing till the Incarnation), and to deny the existence o f two hypostases.” Hanson, Search, 835.

412. This section is a continuous series o f propositions about Christ, most o f which begin with “Q uod.. There are a total o f four instances o f Jn. 10:30 in Against Arius; interestingly, three appear in AA I, then the fourth is in Book III.


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to his two natures.) John 10:30 makes its first appearance in all of Against Arius here,

when Victorinus makes the first of his “One Substance, One Power” declarations:413

That they are from the same substance and power: “I and the Father are one.” And again: “The Father is in me and I in Him.” Whence it is said in Paul: “Who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal to God.” These texts therefore signify both that they are one substance and one power. For how is it said: “I and the Father are one,” and “The father in me and I in the Father,” if he did not have from the Father substance and power, wholly begotten from the All. And how explain: “He did not consider it robbery to be equal to the Father.” For he did not say: he did not think that he was equal, but: “he did not think it robbery.” Therefore he willed to be inferior, not wishing his equality to be considered robbery. For among those who are equal, to be equal is considered or is not considered robbery. But we think that equality according to power is spoken of here.

First, such is not the opinion of Arius, namely, that the Father is greater in honor, power, glory, divinity, action; for Paul did say: “equal.” And if they are equal in all these things, this is impossible without their being also of the same substance. For in God there is complete identity between power, substance, divinity, and act. For in him all is unity and simple unity. In addition: if the Son was from another substance and especially if he was from nothing, what must that substance be that is capable of receiving such divine power? For equal is joined to equal and like to like. Therefore Father and Son are equal and on account of that also the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son, and both are one.414

John 10:30 here figures as a divine unity statement, traveling with another obvious divine

unity text, John 14:10 (“the Father in me and I in the Father”), as well as with a divine

visibility text, Philippians 2:6 415 The unity of the Father and Son lies in the “quod...”

413. See chapter section below on “One Substance, One Power” statements in Victorinus.414. Clark, 100-01. AA 1 8,36—9,24. “Quod ex eadem substantia et potentia: ego et pater unum sumus. Et

rursus: pater in me et ego in ipso. Unde dictum in Paulo: qui in form a dei exsistens non rapinam arbitratus est esse se aequalia deo. Ista igitur significant et unam esse substantiam et unam potentiam. Quomodo enim: ego et pater unum sumus et quomodo: pater in me et ego in patre, si non a patre substantiam habuisset et potentiam, genitus de toto totus? Et quomodo: non rapinam arbitratus est aequalia essepatrP. Non enim dixit: non arbitratus est aequalia esse, sed: non arbitratus est rapinam. Vult ergo inferior esse non volens rapinam arbitrari aequalia esse. In istis enim arbitrari est aut non arbitrari rapinam esse aequalia, qui sunt aequalia. Sed putavimus aequalia secundum potentiam dictum esse. Primum non est illud Arii dogma, quod maior est pater dignitate, potentia, claritate, divinitate, actione; aequalia enim dixit. Et si secundum istud aequalia, inpossibile secundum istud aequalia esse, si non et substantia eadem; dei enim idem ipsum est et potentia et substantia et divinitas et actio; omnia enim unum et unum simplex. Hue accedit: si ab alia substantia erat filius et si maxime ex nihilo, quae ilia substantia recipere valens istas divinitates et potentias? Aequali enim aequale conectitur et sim ile sim ili. Aequalis igitur filius et pater et propterea et filius in patre et pater in filio et ambo unum.” CSEL 83/1,66-67.

415. Prior to writing Against Arius, Victorinus has grouped unity and visibility texts in the First Letter o f Candidas and Letter to Candidas. In Candida Epistola 1 10,14—15 (Clark, 56), when arguing for the divine sonship o f Jesus, Victorinus cites John 14:10 and 10:30 together; in Ad Candidum 1,25-27 (Clark, 60-1), when arguing again for divine sonship, Victorinus groups John 10:30 with John 14:9 and 14:10.


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claim of Victorinus that they are of one substance and one power. For Victorinus, this

claim is both unusual, since he often speaks of multiple powers within God, and

remarkably prescient, in light of the role of “one nature/substance, one power” theology

later in Nicene theology in the 360s through the 380s.416

Later, in an anti-Marcellan passage of AA LA. 13, John 10:30 will be cited to argue for

the equality with the Father:

That the Logos, that is, Jesus or Christ, is both equal and inferior to the Father: “I go to the Father because the Father is greater than I.” Likewise, Paul said: “He did not consider it robbery to be equal to God,” and that which has been said: “I and the Father are one,” because both Father and Son are also act, and because he would not say: “The Father is greater than F’ unless he had been equal to him. There is also added: if he is the whole from the whole as light from light, if the Father has given to the Son all that he has—but all includes substance and power and dignity— the Son is equal to the Father. But the Father is greater because he gave all to the Son and is cause of the Son’s being and mode of being. But he is also greater because he is inactive action; such act has more happiness because it is without effort; it is unsuffering, the source of all existents, dwelling in repose, self-sufficient and with no need. But the Son receives being and advancing by action toward act, comes into perfection by achieving fullness by movement, having made all things which exist. But since “in him, for him, through him are created all things,” he is always the fullness and always the receptacle; for this reason he is both impassible and passible. Therefore he is both equal and unequal. Hence the Father is greater.417

The citation of John 14:28—“the Father is greater than I”—is set alongside the

Philippians 2 text, which speaks of both equality and inferiority with God the Father.

John 14:28 could be a problematic text because of its use in anti-Nicene theology to

prove subordinationist claims, but Philippians 2 can serve as a near synecdoche of John

416. Though at other times Victorinus speaks o f one Power: the Son is the same Power as the Father.417. Clark, 105. AA 1 13,1—20. “Maior Pater” and “aequalis Filius” seen together mean a total sharing o f

dignity and power, and more than that, substance, contrary to Sirmium 357. “Quod 'koyoq, hoc est Iesus vel Christos, et aequalis est patri et inferior: eo ad patrem, quoniam pater maior est me; item dixit Paulus: non rapinam arbitratus est aequalia esse deo; et id quod dictum est: ego et pa ter unum sumus, et quod operatio et pater et filius et quod non diceret: me maior est pater, nisi fuisset aequalis. Accedit etiam: si totus ex toto et lumen ex lumine et si omnia, quae habet pater, dedit filio— omnia autem sunt et substantia et potestas et dignitas— , aequalis patri. Sed maior pater, quod ipse dedit ipsi omnia et causa est ipsi filio, ut sit et isto modo sit. Adhuc autem maior, quod actio inactoosa; beatior enim, quod sine molestia et inpassibilis et fons omnium quae sunt, requiescens, a se perfecta et nullius egens. Filius autem, et esset, accepit et in id quod est agere ab actione procedens in perfectionem veniens, moto efficitur plenitodo, factus omnia quae sunt. Sed quoniam in ipso et in ipsum e t per ipsum gignuntur omnia, semper plenitodo et semper receptaculum est; qua ratione et inpassibilis et passibilis. Ergo et aequalis et inaequalis. Maior igitur pater.” CSEL 83/1, 71-72.


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10:30 and John 14:28. The simultaneous affirmation that “the Father is greater” and that

“the Son is equal to the Father” may be in answer to the Homoian Formula of Sirmium

357, which insisted upon the point that the Father is greater. The response is that there is

a total sharing not only of dignity or power, but of substance. The equality of the Son is a

point taken from Homoiousians, but not merely a similitude of substance, as Basil of

Ancyra had argued. In the discussion that follows the Father is cast in terms of cause and

the Son as effect, including “X fromX’ causality, as well as language borrowed from

Sirmium 351. Victorinus even adds Colossians 1:16-17 (“in him, for him, through him

are created all things”) to speak of the divine fullness which dwells in the Son. The Son,

he concludes, is both impassible and passible, both equal and unequal; nevertheless, the

Father is greater.418

The language of “the whole from the whole as light from light” echoes Nicaea 325.

The X from X genetic production receives the same sort of treatment in The Necessity o f

418. AA 1 13,18-20. “qua ratione et inpassibilis et passibilis. Ergo et aequalis et inaequalis. M aior igitur pater.” CSEL 83/1, 72. These Johannine and Pauline texts used together to explain the working o f the two natures o f Christ seemed to have continued as commonplaces. The best example o f such comes from Augutine’s dealing with the anonymous Arian Sermon and his debate with the Homoian Maximinus. In Augustine’s Answer to the Arian Sermon VUI, written ca. 419, Augustine uses Philippians 2:5-8 to explain Christ’s two natures, at the end o f which he adds the other tw o texts o f John 10:30 and 14:28 (all three o f which Victorinus uses inAA 1 13), concluding that “Thus we have the same Christ, a twin-substanced giant (“geminae gigas substantiae”), in the one obedient, in the other equal to God, in the one the Son o f Man, in the other the Son o f God. In the one he says, The Father is greater than I (Jn 14:28); in the other he says, The Father and I are one (Jn 10:30). In the one he does not do his own w ill, but the w ill o f the one who sent him; in the other, he says, A s the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to those he wants (Jn 5:21).” Teske, Arianism and Other Heresies, 146-47. Elsewhere in his “Answer to the Arian Sermon,” Augustine always explains the two natures o f Christ with John 14:28 and John 10:30. Cf. also, for example, his “Debate with Maximinus” (Arianism and Other Heresies, 198-99). Augustine carefully explains to Maximinus how Christ displays the characteristics o f both o f his natures, em ploying I Timothy 6:16, John 10:30, John 1:14, Philippians 2:6-7. Maxminus explains John 10:30 by taking a tack typical o f Homoians: “why should we not say that the Father and die Son and the H oly Spirit are one in agreement, in harmony, in charity, in unanimity?...It is clear that they are one in harmony and agreement.” (“Debate with Maximinus,” Arianism and Other Heresies, 194.) Maximinus not only assumes an honest, innocent gloss on Scripture, but also echoes the Dedication Creed o f 341, which said that Father, Son, and Spirit were three in hypostasis but one in harmony.


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Accepting the Homoousion chapter 3. For the Father and the Son, “whatever they produce

is of their own nature,”419 so Christ is God. There is a distinct difference between saying

that Christ is “by God” and Christ is “from God”:

For you say: “God from God, light from light.” Is this from nothing when you name the source? Therefore Christ is from God, he is not, therefore, from nothing, he is from light, not from nothing. For “from God” signifies from God’s substance. Indeed, “by God” signifies something different. Indeed, all is by God, but Christ alone is from God.420

The divine unity of John 10:30 is explained again with divine visibility in the third

appearance of this text in Book IA, in a section in which Victorinus argues for

homoousios against the claims of the Homoiousians.421 The Son is the same substance as

the Father, the Father’s “form” and “image” and “character”; otherwise, God could not be

known. But God is known, signified in “I and the Father are one,” “The Father is in me

and I am in the Father,” and “Whoever sees me, sees the Father.”422 We have already

seen earlier in Book LA. the importance of titles for Victorinus in arguing on behalf of the

consubstantiality of the Son. The use of the titles form, image, and character may be

Victorinus’ way of referring to the “form” of Philippians 2:6, the “image” of Colossians

1:15, and the “character” of Hebrews 1:3. He does not cite these verses, however, but

419. Clark, 309. D e homoousio recipiendo 3, 16-17. “qualia ipsa sunt, talia emittunt.” CSEL 83/1,282420. Clark, 309. De homoousio recipiendo 3 ,2 3 -2 7 . “Dicitis enim deum de deo, lumen de lumine. Hoc de

nihilo est, cum dicatis unde? Ergo de deo Christus, non ergo de nihilo, de lumine, non de nihilo. De deo enim, de ipsius substantia intellegitur. Nam aliud est quod a deo est. Nam omnia a deo, Christus autem de deo.” CSEL 83/1,282. There is the similar line o f reasoning m A A N 29,12-23, where Victorinus argues again that the Son is “begotten as ‘all from all.’ And because knowledge understands knowledge, since knowledge is true light, this understanding knowledge is ‘light from light,’ and because both are knowledge, this is ‘true light from true light.’ And likewise since the interior knowledge is God, this knowledge which is knowledge by self-understanding is ‘God from God.’” Clark, 294. CSEL 83/1,268.

421. AA 128,8-32,15. CSEL 83/1, 103-12. Victorinus is responding to the Homoiousian dossier o f Sirmium 358 with various telling comments. One is that he refers to the “ancient” orthodox doctrine handed down “forty years ago” at Nicaea, a synod o f illustrious men and luminaries o f the Church and entire world (1 28,18-20: “in qua cruv65(u istorum virorum ecclesiae totius orbis lumina fuerunt”).The Homoiousians, he writes, are as much in error as Paul o f Samosata, Marcellus, Photinus and Valens and Ursacius (“the dregs o f Arius”). AA 128,32-41.

422. AA 129,23-25. CSEL 83/1, 106.


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only uses the titles. The occasion for divine unity requires a last use of John 10:30 at the

end of Book III when Victorinus reprises the unity of Father and Son (and Holy Spirit).

“With piety,” Victorinus offers, the names of Father and Son are used to express that

without any conjoining they are one and without multiplicity they are simple, different only by their own act of existing—but by strength and power, since never is there one without the other, they are identically one; they are different only by their acts, since, while the act which exterior advances even to the experiencing of suffering, the other act remains always interior and eternal, being original and substantial, and for that reason always being Father so that, for the same reason, the other is always Son. Paul in all his letters says: “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ.” Likewise: “Not by men, nor through a man, but through Jesus Christ, and through God the Father.” Likewise in the Gospel: “I and the Father are one.” “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” We also, with piety, always use the names of the Father and Son, and rightly so, according to the reasoning expressed above.423

The names of Father and Son are justified by the common addresses Paul makes in his

letters which offer grace and peace from “God our Father and from our Lord Jesus

Christ,” the claim made by Paul in Galatians 1 that he is an apostle “through Jesus Christ

and through God the Father,” and John 10:30 and 14:10.424

Long before Victorinus, Latin theology had used divine visibility texts to explain

divine unity. Tertullian, in his work Against Praxeas, cites and uses John 10:30 in his

argument. Praxeas could view John 10:30 as a prooftext for his modalist confession of

the Trinity; Tertullian argues in his polemic response that, though the divine monarchy is

never disturbed, there is nonetheless a divine economy that is always guarded. In chapter

423. Clark, 250-51. AA III 17,17-18,3. “Eadem enim haec inter se sine coniunctione unum sunt et sine geminatione simplex, suo ut proprio exsistendi (di)versum—vi autem potentiaque, quia numquam sine altero alterum, unum atque idem—tantum actu, sed qui foris est, in passiones incedente, alio autem interiore semper manente atque aetemo, quippe originali et substantiali, et idcirco semper patre, qua ratiocinatione, et semper filio. Paulus in omnibus epistolis: gratia vobis et pax a deo pa tre nostro et domino nostro lesu Christo. Item: non ab hominibus, neque per hominem, sed per Iesum Christum et p er deum patrem. Item in evangelio: ego et pater unum sumus. Ego in patre et pater in me. Nos quoque patrem et filium religiose semper usurpamus et recte secundum rationem supra dictam.”CSEL 83/1, 222-23.

424. Victorinus’ last mention o f a reason for the titles in this passage sounds like the Rule o f Piety found in Origen’s On First Principles. After listing his proof-texts, Victorinus says, “We also, with piety, always use the names o f Father and Son, and rightly so, according to the reasoning expressed above.” Clark, 251 .AA HI 18,1-3.


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8 of Against Praxeas, Tertullian cites John 10:30, along with John 1:1 and 14:10, as a

guarantee that the Son is always in the Father and always with God.425 In chapter 20

Tertullian claims that the heresy of Praxeas and his lot lies in their idiosyncratic

interpretation of John 10:30 and other unity texts: They do not follow the rule of faith

correctly, because they only look at, consider and retain Scripture texts that safeguard the

divine unity and the impressiveness of the monarchy, such as Isaiah 45:5 (“I am God and

there is no other besides me”), John 10:30,14:9 and 14:10.426

In chapter 24 of Against Praxeas, speaking of Philip’s conversation with Christ in John

14, Tertullian explains the correct way in which to understand these passages (also explaining

the divine invisibility of Exodus 33:20 with Christ’s statement to Philip in John 14:9):

it was not the Father who they did not know had companied so long time with them, but the Son: and the Lord, upbraiding diem for not knowing himself as him whom they had not known, clearly wished to be recognised as he whom he had upbraided them for not recognising in so long a time, namely the Son. And now it can appear in what sense it was said, He that seeth me seeth the Father also... For according to these (texts) he had revealed himself as the deputy of the Father, by means of whom the Father was both seen in acts and heard in words and known in the Son ministering the Father’s acts and words: because the Father is invisible, a fact which Philip also had learned in the law and ought to have remembered—No one shall see God and live. And consequently he is chidden for desiring to see the Father as though he were visible, and is informed that he becomes visible in the Son, in consequence of acts of power, not in consequence of actual manifestation of his Person.427

425. Evans, Against Praxeas, 139. “Therefore the Word is always in the Father, as he says, I am in the Father: and always with God, as it is written, And the Word was with God: and never separate from the Father or other than the Father, because, I and the Father are one." Adv. Prax. 8,34-1. “sermo ergo et in patre semper, sicut dicit, Ego in patre: et apud deum semper, sicut scriptum est, Et sermo erat apud deum: et nunquam separatus a patre ant alius a patre, quia Ego et pater unum sumus.” Evans, 96-7 .

426. Tertullian’s assessment o f them is that “To these three citations they wish the whole appurtenance o f both testaments to yield, though the smaller number ought to be understood in accordance w ith the greater. But this is the characteristic o f all heretics.” Evans, Against Praxeas, 159.

427. Evans, Against Praxeas, 167-68. Adv. Prax. 24, 5-9 ,14-21 . “ergo non patrem tanto tempore secum conversatum ignoraverant sed filium: et dominus, eum se ignorari exprobans quern ignorverant, eum utique agnosci volebat quern tanto non agnosci tempore exprobraverat, id est filium. Et apparere iam potest quomodo dictum sit, Qui me videt videt et patrem... secundum haec enim vicarium se patris ostenderat, per quern pater et videretur in fectis et audiretur in verbis et cognosceretur in filio facta et verba patris administrante: quia invisibilis pater, quod et Philippus didicerat in lege et m eminisse debuerat—Deum nemo videbit et vivet. et ideo suggillatur patrem videre desiderans quasi visibilem , et instruitur visibilem eum in filio fieri ex virtutibus non ex personae repraesentatione.” Evans, 120.


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Tertullian poses the question of how Christ can claim that “I and my Father are one”

while Philip and the other disciples fail to understand “If you have seen me you have seen

the Father.” The answer lies in recognizing the Son as the Father’s vicarius, who speaks

the Father’s words and works the Father’s deeds.

Therefore the Father, abiding in the Son through the works of power and words of doctrine, is seen through those things through which he abides, and through him in whom he abides: and from this very fact it is apparent that each Person is himself and none other, while he says, I am in the F ather a n d the F ather in me. And so he says, B elieve. What? That I am the Father? I think it is not so written, but, That I am in the F ather an d the F ather in me, o r i f not, believe f o r the very w orks ’ sake— those works in fact through which the Father was seen in the Son, not with the eyes but with the mind.428

This idea is repeated in the well-known trinitarian passage of chapter 25, with John 10:30

appearing in the middle of the statement:

So the close series of the Father in the Son and the Son in the Paraclete makes three who cohere, the one attached to the other. And these three are one (thing), not one (person), in the sense in which it was said, I a n d the F ath er a re one, in respect of unity of substance, not of singularity of number 429

Even with all the statements of unity we find in Scripture, Tertullian maintains the Son’s

distinction from the Father by defining the properties of each. But for present purposes,

we see Tertullian explain this text with the same other texts employed by Victorinus.430

428. Evans, Against Praxeas, 168-69. Adv. Prax. 2 4 ,3 5 -2 . “per opera ergo virtutum et verba doctrinae manens in filio pater, per ea videtur per quae manet et per eum in quo manet, ex hoc ipso apparente proprietate utriusque personae dum dicit, Ego sum in patre et pater in me. atque adeo Credite a it quid? me patrem esse? non puto scriptum esse, sed, Quia ego in patre et pater in me, si quo minus vel propter opera credite, ea utique opera per quae pater in filio non visu sed sensu videbatur.” Evans, 120-21.

429. Evans, Against Praxeas, 169. Adv. Prax. 25,9-12. “ita connexus patris in filio et filii in paracleto tres efficit cohaerentes alterum ex altero. qui tres unum sunt, non unus, quomodo dictum e st Ego et pater unum sumus, ad substantiae unitatem non ad numeri singularitatem.” Evans, 121.

430. Novatian, writing his De trinitate some thirty or more years after Tertullian’s Against Praxeas, w ill use Jn. 10:30 only three times without associating it with other texts. Its chief use for him is to prove the Son’s distinct divinity against Sabellius’ Modalism, when he says “Since the heretics frequently place before us that passage which states: ‘I and the Father are one,’ we shall refute them again with equal facility also on this count. For if Christ were the Father, as the heretics think, He should have said: ‘I, the Father, am one.’ But when He says ‘I’ and then introduces the Father, by saying: ‘I and the Father,’ He thereby distinguishes and separates the individuality o f His own Person, viz. that o f the Son, from the authority o f the Father, not only as regards the mere sound o f the name but also in regard to the order o f power in the divine economy.” DeSimone, The Trinity, 92-3 .


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Phoebadius of Agen, writing around the same time as Victorinus was writing his

Against Arius, uses John 10:30 in chapter 15 of his work Liber Contra Arrianos to argue

for consubstantiality of the Son; for example, to tie the unity of the Father and the Son of

10:30 to John 5:19:

But what work of proof is it, which the Lord pronounces by the very definite conclusion: “All that the Father does the Son does also”? How are they the same, if it is not possible to attain the greatest degree of the Father’s glory? Rather because he is able to, John correctly says: “Without him,” he says, “nothing was made.” And the Lord himself says: “I and the Father are one.” They are one in particular by nature, because that which was in the Son of Man, remained “in the bosom of the Father.” Just so: “Neither do you know me, he says, nor do you know whence I am, and that I come not of my own accord, but he who sent me is true, him you do not know. I know him because I come from him, and he sent me.” And: “It is,” he says, “not I alone (that judges), but I and the Father who sent me.” And: “As the Father has known me and I have known the Father.”431

They are united in their nature, Phoebadius explains, while the Son took on human nature

and yet remained “in the bosom of the Father” (John 1:18). This common nature means

that the Son does the same works as the Father, and cannot do anything by himself. Later,

in chapter 17, Phoebadius will speak of the Son’s eternity while considering the formula

from Sirmium 357, “the Father has no beginning.” In response to this he implies that the

Son does have a beginning:

“THE FATHER,” it is said, “HAS NO BEGINNING.” That is to say: the Son does have a beginning. In that case it is necessary to assert whatever of the Father is known, unless you take into account the presumption of all that is created by the Son? “Th e Fa th er ,” it is said, “HAS NO b e g in n in g .” Who denies that? But, I consider, both die Image of the Invisible and Ingenerate God is not able to begin after God. Quite appropriately Moses questioned “He who would be,” who said to him: “I am who I am always.” He was therefore always, he who is and who will be always. Of him John says: “That which was from the beginning, which our eyes have seen.” And again: “We announce to you the eternal life which was with the Father,” particularly in the Father. It is certain that he was from himself, to be outside of himself was not possible. And with that it is

431. Contra Arrianos XV, 1,1-3,11 “Sed quid argumentis opus est, cum ipse Dominus pronuntiauerit definitiua sententia: Quaecumque Pater facit, eadem et Filius? Quomodo eadem, si adspirare ad summam patemae illius gloriae non potest? Immo quia potest, recte Iohannes: Sine ipso, inquit, factum est nihil. Et ipse Dominus: Ego, inquit, et Pater unum sumus. Vnum utique per naturam, quia quod erat in Filio hominis, et in Patris sinu manebat. Denique: Nec me, inquit, nostis et nescitis unde sim et non ueni a me, sed est uerus qui me misit, quern uos nescitis. Ego noui eum quia apud ilium sum, et ille me misit. Et: Solus, inquit, non sum, sed ego et qui me misit Pater. Et: Sicut nouit me Pater et ego noui Patrem .” CCSL 64, 39


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certainly said: “Time was in himself,” though he is not declared to have been in time. Indeed the Power of eternal substance is not created from God, rather it proceeds from God. Therefore: “I,” he says, “am come from the Father.” And: “I and the Father are one.” And: “Whoever sees me, sees also the Father.” And: “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” And: “He who sent me is with me.” Therefore David also says: “The beginning is with you on the day of your Power.” Certainly the Word of God, this is the Son of God, before all time with him who is from him and in him, to be the beginning.432

The Son is not created from God, but proceeds from God. For proof, Phoebadius tenders

four Johannine texts: John 10:30,14:9,14:10,16:27 (“I came from the Father”), and 8:29

(“he who sent me is with me”). He will use the chain of John 10:30,14:9 and 14:10 again in

chapter XXV when discussing the distinction between the persons of the Father and the Son.

I and the Father are one,” as two to be professed in one Power. Indeed he does not speak as from one person of the Father and the Son, almost as if the Son is confirming the Father himself: “I am my Son.” And: “The Lord created me at the beginning of his ways, before ages he created me.” And: “I and the Father are one.” But ascribing the knowledge of the distinction of sacraments and not the division of persons: “I,” he says, “am in the Father and the Father is in me.” And: “I and the Father are one.” And: “Whoever sees me sees also the Father.” Certainly the Son is to be seen as “the true image and exact figure of his substance,” this is the Word of God, not the sound of a voice, but a substantive thing, moreover through bodily substance. Indeed he does not establish without substance, that which he makes of such great substance, (substance proceeds, and beyond).”433

432. Contra Arrianos XVII,1,1-6,16. “Patrem, inquit, INITIVM NON HABERE. Hoc est dicere: Filium habere. Nam quae necessitas id de Patre adseuerare quod noctum est, nisi praeiudicium eius opinionis quae de Filio paria suscepit? Patrem, inquit, iNmvMNON habere. Quis negat? Sed, puto, et imago inuisibilis et ingeniti D ei non potest coepisse post Deum. Denique interroganti M oysi quis esset, respondit: Ego sum qui sum semper. Erat enim semper, qui est et erit semper. De quo Iohannes: Quod erat ab initio, oculis nostris uidimus. Et rursum: Adnuntiauimus uobis uitam aeternam quae erat apud Patrem, utique et in Patre. Nam quod ex ipso erat, extra ipsum esse non poterat. Et sane cum dicitur: Erat in ipso tempos, non ipse fuisse in tempore nuntiatur. Aetemae enim substantiae uis non facta est a Deo, sed egressa a Deo. Ideo: Ego, inquit, a Patre exiui. Et: Ego et Pater unum sumus. Et: Qui me uidit, uidit et Patrem. Et: Ego in Patre et Pater in me. Et: Qui me misit, mecum est. Ideo et Dauid: Tecum principium in die uirtutis tuae. D ei enim Verbum, hoc est Dei Filius, ante omne principium cum eo qui ex eo et in eo, cui nullum potest esse principium.” CCSL 64 ,41 -42 .

433. Phoebadius has an eloquent conclusion after proffering these proof-texts. Liber Contra Arrianos XXV,4,14-18. “Ego et Pater unum sumus, ut duo crederentur in una uirtute. Non enim dixit tamquam ex una persona Patris et Filii, quasi Filius Patrem se confirmans: ‘Filius meus sum’. Et: ‘Dominus condidi me initium uiarum mearum, ante saecula fundaui m e’. Et: ‘Ego et Pater unus sum’. Sed reddens notitiam sacramenti distinctione non diuisione personarum: Ego, inquit, in Patre e t Pater in me. Et: Ego et Pater unum sumus. Et: Qui me uidit, uidit et Patrem. Videtur enim Patris Filius imago uera et figura expressa substantiae eius, hoc est D ei Sermo, non sonus uocis, sed res substantia ac per substantiam corpulentiua. Non enim sine substantia constitit, quod de tanta (substantia processit, et tantas) substantias fecit.” CCSL 64 ,48 .


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By far the most elaborate and eloquent use of John 10:30 is as a key loci in Hilary of

Poitiers’ De trinitate (written between 356 and 360, and combining the best elements of

Nicene theology of the Latin West and the theological riches of the Greek East).434 In

Books I-XI of the 12 books of De trinitate there is a continual appeal to John 10:30 to

prove the ontological unity of the Father and Son: it is Hilary’s most frequently cited

Scripture proof-text, with thirty-six explicit quotes and numerous other allusions. Book

VII,25 offers a typical example of the theological import of John 10:30 for Hilary:

There is no longer any reason to doubt, I believe, that the words, “I and the Father are one,” were spoken in reference to the birth. For, since the Jews had based their accusation against Him on these words, that He Himself, who was a man, made Himself God, His reply corroborates the revelation of Himself as the Son of God from the fact that “I and the Father are one,” first by the name, then by the nature, and finally by the birth. For, “I and the Father” are the names of things, but “one” is the acknowledgment of a nature, because the two of them do not differ in that in which they are, but “are” does not permit a union. And where there is no union, because they “are one,” it is the birth that has caused them to be one. All this proceeds from the fact that He who was sanctified by the Father confesses that He is the Son of God, and this assertion of the Son of God is ratified by the words, “I and the Father are one,” because birth cannot bring any other nature with it except that from which it subsists.435

Within Hilary we see concurrent uses of similar polemically-driven Scripture texts as are

used by Victorinus in Against Arius. Hilary used many of the same texts with John 10:30

that Victorinus did: most often John 14:9 and 14:10; also Matthew 11:27 and John 1:18,

434. Specifically Hilary’s exile in the East led to the well-known transfer o f Eastern theological documents to the W est, and especially in Hilary’s case led to Hilary’s engagement with Homoiousians, and Hilary’s borrowing o f their christological name and birth language for his own Nicene-trinitarian theology. For the most current and extensive treatment o f Hilary and this aspect o f his trinitarian theology, see the work o f Mark E. Weedman, “The Polemical Context and Background o f Hilary’s Trinitarian Theology. Ph.D. diss. Marquette University, 2004.

435. McKenna, Hilary o f Poitiers:The Trinity, 253. D e trinitate VIL25,1-14. “Non est relictus, ut arbitror, ambigendi locus, quin de natura natiuitatis dictum est Ego et Pater unum sumus. Nam cum Iudaei arguissent, quod per hoc dictum homo ipse cum esset sese Deum faceret, responsio eius confirmat quod D ei se Filium per id quo Ego et Pater unum sumus ostenderit, primum nomine, deinde natura, postremo natiuitate. Nam Ego et Pater rerum nomina sunt; unum uero naturae professio est, quia in eo quod est uterque non differat; sumus autem non patitur unionem. Et ubi quod unum sumus unio non est, unum eos efficit esse natiuitatis. Hoc enim totum ex eo quod Dei se Filium sanctificatus a Patre profitetur, et profession D ei Fili hoc quod Ego et Pater unum sumus confirmat, quia natiiiitas non aliam possit, nisi earn ex qua subsistit adferre naturam.” CCSL 62,290-91. This is also a perfect example o f the importance o f the name and birth language in Hilary’s trinitarian theology.


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5:17,16:28. The only proviso is that Hilary’s use of these texts seems far more determined,

within the context of a much longer trinitarian treatise, and shows the sophistication of

intensive interaction and Nicene distillation of Eastern trinitarian theology.

Gregory of Elvira, in three instances in his De fide orthodoxa contra arianos, cites

John 10:30 to counter “Arian” claims about the Son. One of those involves a section

arguing for consubstantiality, and again travelling with 14:9,14:10 and 16:28 (“I have

gone forth from the Father...”:

So he is that Reality Which Is, namely, the substance of that reality, which reality - the divine “to be” - is [here] being defended. Because, however, it has already been stated how great and what kind of reality this is, it cannot be grasped by the intellect, or fathomed by the senses, or defined by the mind - with the proviso that the existence of this “to be” is accepted as common knowledge, because it is believed to exist to the effect that from this very reality which is God, from there exists the Son such that he would be a true son, and the true Father would be in the Son, and the Son in the Father. This will be the implication of homoousion which means “of one substance that is, of one essence with the Father, just as the Lord himself says: “I am in the Father and the Father in me,” and: “I and the Father are one,” and: “I came from (God) the Father,” and: “whoever sees me, sees also the Father.”436

Power within the Divine Being (Luke 1:35)

“Power” as a conceptual idiom for Marius Victorinus appears constantly throughout

Against Arius, evident in his constant use of I Corinthians 1:24, “Christ the Wisdom and

Power of God.”437 Indeed, power as a working model for trinitarian reflection and divine

436. Gregory o f Elvira, De fide orthodoxa contra arianos, 53,446-456. “Ergo ipsum quod est, hoc est (erit) substantia eius (huius) rei, quae esse defenditur; quod tamen (ut) iam dictum est, quantum et quale sit, nec mente concipi nec sensu aestimari nec animo definiri potest, dummodo constet esse, quod esse creditur, ut de eo ipso, quod deus est, inde sit filius, ut uerus sit filius et uerus sit pater in filio et filius in patre. Hoc erit opoobm os (-ov), id est unius substantiae hoc est unius essentiae cum patre, sicut ipse dominus ait: Ego in patre et pater in me, et: Ego et pater unum sumus, et: Ego de (deo) patre exiui, et: Qui me uidet, uidet et patrem." ‘He is the Reality Which Is,’ a reference to Ex. 3:14, which has just been quoted in the paragraph before this section, in speaking about the Father Who Is, who sends the Son, who is clearly God being begotten o f God. CCSL 69, 232-33. Spaces in quotation denote lacunae in the extant mss.

437. “[Victorinus’] enthusiasm for the term 6pooboiog is breathless if compared to Basil’s or Gregory o f Nyssa’s polem ics, yet like Hilary his contemporary, as w ell as Ambrose and Gregory, Victorinus


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unity is as important to Victorinus as his in-depth treatment of the Son as Logos

throughout Against Arius. Victorinus’ favorite image of the Son may be the philosophical

paradigm of life; for a scriptural locus for unity, however, he overwhelmingly favors

power. Because of this preference, one would expect Victorinus to be drawn to Luke 1:35

(“.. .the Power of the Most High will overshadow you”), which speaks of divine power

and connects that specific Power with the Second Person.438 Luke 1:35 is mentioned only

twice (both in Book IB of his work and close to each other)—especially strange in light

of how much play this text received among certain Latins prior to Victorinus in the mid

fourth century. Though Victorinus employs this proof only two times because of his key

Power text of I Corinthians 1:24, his understanding of Luke 1:35 is of great significance,

because he stands in a clear line with his Latin predecessors.

Both uses of Luke 1:35 are typical for Victorinus, but typical in different ways. His

first “typical” use of the text is connected with John 1:14, and occurs in Book IB 56, in a

discussion of the Logos in relation to the entire Trinity and its Incarnation:

Through itself, however, life was infinite, and this is what “And the Logos was made flesh” signifies. For by infinite movement life descended towards inferiors and vivified corruption; for that reason the universal Logos and power of life “was made flesh,” as the angel said: “The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you.” Jesus Christ is therefore bom, according to the flesh, of Mary, and from the Holy Spirit, power of the Most High. Christ our Lord is therefore all things: flesh, Holy Spirit, power of the Most High, Logos. He accomplished the mystery, so that all life with flesh, filled with eternal light, may return, away from all corruption, into the heavens. Thus, he is not only flesh, not only Holy Spirit, not only Spirit, nor only Logos, but he is simultaneously all things, our Lord Jesus.”439

argues for die essential unity o f the Father and the Son based on an exegesis o f 1 Cor. 1:24.” Michel Bames, The Power o f God, 153.

438. The common proof text from 1:35 is only the middle portion o f the verse, which in entirety reads, “And the angel said to her ‘The Holy Spirit w ill come upon you, and the power o f the M ost High w ill overshadow you; therefore the child to be bom w ill be called holy, the Son o f God.”

439. Clark, 182—83. AA IB 56,36-57,6. “Ipsa autem per semet ipsam infinita fuit et hoc significat: et Xdyoq caro factus est. Infrnito enim motu inferiora vita descendit et vivefecit corruptionem, cuius causa universalis Xoyoq et potentia vitae caro factus est, ut dixit Angelus: spiritus scmctus adveniet in te et virtus altissimi inumhrabit tibi. Natus est igitur Iesus Christus secundum camem de Maria e t ex sancto spiritu, virtute altissimi. 57. ...Om nia igitur Christus dominus noster, caro, sanctus spiritus, altissim i


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When speaking about the Holy Spirit, Victorinus often makes a common mistake of

falling into modalist statements;440 but here there is the identified distinction between the

Holy Spirit, which comes upon Mary, and the Power of the Most High which overshadows

her, i.e., the Logos which proceeds from the unity with the Father. Hadot looks on this

passage as Victorinus reprising a masculine-feminine theme, since the passage considers

the distinction between the Logos and the Holy Spirit: that is, for Victorinus, the distinction

between Life and Wisdom.441 Besides the content of this passage, the most important

aspect of it may be that it sounds strikingly like a quick summary of chapter 24 of de

Trinitate, in which Novatian, using the same texts of John 1:14 and Luke 1:35, describes

the krasis of Christ’s divine and human origins in his conception and birth.

Victorinus’ second use of Luke 1:35 comes only a couple pages later. Continuing to

speak of the Incarnation, he qualifies Luke 1:35 with a chain of texts to define the

Incarnation and the divine “overshadowing”:

Therefore, the angel replied to Mary and said to her: “The Holy Spirit shall come upon you and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you.” These two, the L ogos and the Holy Spirit, in one sole movement “came” in order that Mary might conceive so that there might be constituted flesh from flesh, the temple and the dwelling of God: the Holy Spirit is, indeed, power in movement; for the principle of begetting is movement, but the “power of the Most High” is the Logos: for the L ogos, Jesus, is the “power and wisdom of God.” And of the L ogos, that is, of the Son, he said: “He will overshadow you.” For human nature does not receive within it the divine

virtus, Xoyoq. Ipse complevit mysterium, ut omnis vita cum came, adimpleta lumine aetem o, recurrat ab omni corruptione in caelos. Neque igitur solum caro, neque solum sanctus spiritus, neque solum spiritus, nec X6yoq solum, sed simul omnia dominus noster Iesus.” CSEL 83/1, 155.

440. Cf. the bizarre statement the Victorinus makes in the final portion o f Book IV: “As to the H oly Spirit, we have already set forth in many books that he is Jesus Christ him self but in another mode, Jesus Christ hidden, interior, dialoguing with souls, teaching these filings and giving these insights.” Clark, 302. AA IV 33,20-22. “Iam vero spiritum sanctum alio quodam modo ipsum esse Iesum Christum, occultum, interiorem, cum animis fabulantem, docentem ista intellegentiasque tribuentem.” CSEL 83/1, 276.

441. Hadot sees this as an exegesis similar to Hilary’s treatment o f Lk. 1:35 in D e trin. II24, when Hilary states, “For the sake o f the human race, the Son o f God is bom o f the Virgin and the Holy Spirit, and in this work He rendered service to himself.” D e trin. II 24,3—5 “Humani enim generis causa, dei filius, natus ex virgine est et spiritu sancto, ipso sibi in hac operationefamulante." CCSL 62 , 60. Cf. Hadot, Traites Theologiques, 870-71.


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in its perfection and according to all its splendor, as is clear; “And the Logos was made flesh” signifies this. But the statement: “He emptied himself’ signifies far better the overshadowing.442

The significance of this section lies both in the unique claims represented and how, in the

chain of texts used, Victorinus reasons over the two components—divine and human—of

the Incarnation. The dual advent of the Logos and the Holy Spirit occurred in one single

movement, such a movement being the philosophical concept Victorinus often discusses

when speaking of the operations of the Father and the Son.443 It becomes apparent when

reading this statement that the Logos and the Holy Spirit are identified as two powers,

possibly two different powers (though Victorinus is most likely speaking about one

power). Victorinus describes this “one sole movement” in a creedal-type sentence (“in

order that Mary might conceive so that there might be constituted flesh from flesh, the

temple and the dwelling of God.. .444), in which Holy Spirit is “power in movement,” but

the Logos-Son is the “Power of the Most High” and, as St. Paul says, the “Power and

Wisdom of God” (I Corinthians 1:24). So the Holy Spirit is the principle of generation;

the Logos is that which “overshadows” Mary, hiding the divine glory in a kenotic event,

the Incarnation. Without explaining it clearly, Victorinus is making a claim for some sort

of direct relationship between the Holy Spirit and Mary, who acts in this event as a

“pneumatophor.”445 After briefly commenting that the Johannine text (“and the Logos

442. Clark, 185. AA IB 58,24-36. “Respondit igitur angelus Mariae et dixit ipsi: spiritus adveniet in te et virtus altissimi inumbrabit tibi. Haec duo in motu quae sunt Loyoq et sanctus spiritus, ad id ut gravida esset Maria, ut aedificaretur caro a came, dei templum et domicilium, advenerunt, sanctus quidem spiritus potentia in motu: generationis enim principium motus, virtus autem altissimi ipse \6 y o q est: virtus enim et sapientia dei 'kbyoq Iesus. Sed de Xdytn, hoc est de filio, obumbrabit tibi dixit. Perfectum enim divinum et splendide, ut est clarum, non capit humana natura, et hoc signficat: et Koyoq caro factus est. Magis autem obumbrationem significat, quod dictum est: exinanivit sem et ipsum." CSEL 83/1, 158.

443. That is, that the Father is “action in repose,” the Son is “action in movement.”444. The image sounds like a reference to Rev. 21:3.445. An observation and comparison made by Hadot, Traites Theologiques, 875. He considers that

Victorinus, in distinguishing between the Holy Spirit and the Power o f the Most High , articulates a


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was made flesh”) means that human nature does not receive the divine in all of its

fullness, he then returns to his subject, concluding that the “overshadowing” of Luke 1:35

can only be explained by the kenotic pronouncement of Philippians 2:7: “He emptied

himself.” Thus Victorinus explains Luke 1:35 by tying it to I Corinthians 1:24, John 1:14,

and Philippians 2:7. In this passage, Victorinus does distinguish between the Logos and

the Holy Spirit. The Son acts as the agent of his Incarnation, as he would typically claim

in saying the Son is “power in act,” but the Son is Logos, and “the power of the Most

High,” and the (same) power of the Father, since the Son is “the power and wisdom of

God” (I Corinthians 1:24).

The most familiar, classic locus in Latin theology with which to compare this use of

Luke 1:35 is found in Tertullian’s Against Praxeas. Throughout two chapters, Tertullian

appeals to Luke 1:35 to argue for the distinct, separate existence of the Son and the Holy

Spirit apart from the Father, the distinction of two natures without confusion in the Son,

and, the definite distinction between the Father and the Son notwithstanding, their real

unity. Tertullian quotes the Annunciation to Mary as proof that God the Word, the

Second Person, came upon Mary and was the agent of his own Incarnation. One section

that immediately stands out in this extended discussion is the text which Tertullian ties to

Luke 1:35 in order to explain the Incarnation, John 1:14:

This Spirit of God will be the same as the Word. For as, when John says The Word was made flesh, we understand also Spirit at the mention of the Word, so also here we recognise also the

masculine and feminine correspondence, which we can see again at AA IB 64,22-27: “If God made man according to the image, the Father made him ‘according to the image’ o f the Son. But if he also says this: ‘He made him male-female,’ and it was previously said: ‘He made man according to the image o f God,’ it is evident that also according to the body and the flesh, extremely mystically, he made him according to the image o f God, the Logos being him self both male and fem ale.. Clark, 193.


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Word under the name of the Spirit For spirit is the substance of the Word, and word is an operation of the Spirit, and the two are onefthing).446

Tertullian pronounces that “the Spirit is the substance of the Word, and the Word is the

operation of the Spirit and the Two are one,” while in the section ofAA IB 58,24-36

Victorinus phrases this reality as “in one sole movement... in order that Mary might

conceive....” There even seems to be an allusion to I Corinthians 1:24 by Tertullian to

explain Luke 1:35:

Much more so the power of the Most High will not be the Most High himself, because it is not even a substantive thing as the Spirit is, any more than wisdom or providence: for these are not substances, but attributes of each several substance Power is an attribute of spirit, and will not itself be spirit. Since then these, whatever they are, the Spirit of God and his Word and his power, were conferred upon the virgin, that which is bom of her is the Son of God.447

Tertullian is careful to explain that the Son, while separate from the Father, is

nevertheless from and of the Father. He says a few lines before this, “but so far God as

He is of the same substance as God Himself, and as being an actually existing thing, and

as a portion of the Whole.” In this section of Against Praxeas we can see a use of I

Corinthians 1:24 and John 1:14 to explicate Luke L35.448

Michel Barnes understands Tertullian’s use of Luke 1:35 to be most significant in its

description of the Son as the Power of God, the same Power of the Father, and therefore the

446. Ernest Evans, Against Praxeas, 170-71. Adversus Praxean 26,13-18. “hie spiritus dei idem erit sermo. sicut enim Ioanne dicente, Sermo caro factus est, spiritum quoque intellegimus in mentione sermonis, ita et hie sermonem quoque agnoscimus in nomine spiritus. nam et spiritus substantia est sermonis et sermo operatio spiritus, et duo unum sunt.” Evans, 122.

447. Evans, Against Praxeas, 171. Adv. Prax. 2 6 ,2 8 -3 4 . “multo magis virtus altissim i non erit ipse altissimus, quia nec substantiva res est quod est spiritus, sicut nec sapientia nec providentia: et haec enim substantiae non sunt sed accidentia uniuscuiusque substantiae. Virtus spiritui accidit, nec ipsa erit spiritus. His itaque rebus, quodcunque sunt, spiritu dei et sermone et virtute, conlatis in virginem, quod de ea nascitur filius dei est.” Evans, 122.

448. I have pointed out that Victorinus uses Lk. 1:35 only a couple o f times. Tertullian has only a handful o f brief references to Lk. 1:35 spread throughout his works, hardly seeming to understand its importance, but in chapters 26 and 27 o f Against Praxeas Tertullian w ill quote Lk. 1:35 six times to speak o f the Son’s real existence.


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same substance.449 Tertullian uses “power” with various words, mostly potestas and virtus,

in order to make doctrinal formulations in which the sense is “one power, one substance”:

Tertullian understands Luke 1:35 to be a description of the entrance of divinity into human nature. The Lucan passage is as much a first description of the Incarnation as John 1:14. The “Spirit of God” that comes over Mary, and the “Power of the Most High” that overshadows her, are each identified by Tertullian as the Word Himself. Luke is not here describing the impregnation of Mary by the Father (via the Holy Spirit) but the Son’s arrival into humanity. The Son is the “Spirit of God,” and the Son is the “Power of the Most High.” (The Most High is God, the Father.)”450

In insisting upon the distinction of the persons of the Trinity, Tertullian draws back to

affirm their essential unity, most famously with his classic statement in chapter 2 of

Against Praxeas:

...they are all of the one, namely by unity of substance, while none the less is guarded the mystery of that economy which disposes the unity into trinity, setting forth Father and Son and Spirit as three, three however not in quality but in sequence, not in substance but in aspect, not in power but in (its) manifestation, yet of one substance and one quality and one power, seeing it is one God from whom those sequences and aspects and manifestations are reckoned out in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.451

The same formula appears later in Against Praxeas when Tertullian speaks of one power

but two definite persons: “With such insistence did he bring all this to light, to the intent

that we should believe there are two, albeit in one act of power, because it would be

impossible to believe there is a Son otherwise than if we believe there were two.”452 This

identification of power with essence/nature would have central play two centuries after

Tertullian, as the inchoate Nicene cause in the Latin West remembered Tertullian’s

449. M ichel Bames, The Power o f God, his chapter section “Tertullian’s Doctrine o f ‘One Power, One Substance,”’ 103-06.

450. Bames, The Power o f God, 104.451. Evans, Against Praxeas, 132. Adv. Prax. 2. 38-7 . “quasi non sic quoque unus sit omnia dum ex uno

omnia, per substantiae scilicet unitatem, et nihilo minus custodiatur obcovopXaq sacramentum quae unitatem in trinitatem disponit, tres dirigens patrem et filium et spiritum, tres autem non statu sed gradu, nec substantia sed forma, nec potestate sed specie, unius autem substantiae et unius status et unius potestatis, quia unus deus ex quo et gradus isti et fonnae et species in nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti deputantur.” Evans, 90-91.

452. Evans, Against Praxeas, 164-65. Adv. Prax. 22 ,28-30 “adeo totum hoc perseverabat inducere, ut duo tamen crederentur in una virtute, quia aliter filius credi non posset nisi duo crederentur.” Evans, 117.


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strong identification of power with essence and nature. In his chapter subsection on the

importance of Luke 1:35 to Tertullian, Bames describes how part of his argument is “X

from X causality”:

Amid the Luke 1:35 inspired argument in Against Praxeas that Son, Power, Word and Spirit are all synonymous titles for the second Person, Tertullian offers a delicately phrased articulation of the X from X doctrine. The argument runs so: Any product of God that is from Himself has the same quality as He it is produced from and to whom it belongs. Therefore Spirit and Word are God because each is from God but is not exactly the same as Who each is from. Whatever is from God is God, and, although existing in itself, is not God Himself but as God because from the same substance as God Himself.... Tertullian is expressing a “genetic” understanding of an X from X causality as finely as he can: the Son is what the Father is but not as the Father is (and so, not the Father). 53

Tertullian, we should remember, explains Luke 1:35 with John 1:14 to counter the

modalist claim that it was the Father who became incarnate. Evans point out that this

conflation of Luke and John appears in On the Flesh o f Christ for somewhat different

reasons, as Tertullian argues on behalf of the human substance of Christ, against Marcionites.454

Novatian’s uses Luke 1:35 in his work De Trinitate for the purpose of speaking about

divine power, but divine power in the context of an extended diatribe about Christ’s

distinct dual natures; this is in response to those who would see the two natures as so

intermingled as to be no difference between the two. Novatian’s work is a “perfect forest

of texts” for speaking about the Son’s full divinity, all the more impressive as a third

century, ante-Nicene work. It was most probably the most important trinitarian work of

that century, reappropriating all of the valuable work of Tertullian (a fact pointed out by

453. Bames, The Power o f God, 105-06.454. Evaas, Against Praxeas, 63-65. Evans cites five instances o f Tertullian using Lk 1:35 in On the Flesh o f

Christ, though I would say that four o f these are loose allusions. The fifth is from chapter 14, when he says “For as the Spirit o f God, and the Power o f the Most High, he cannot be held to be lower than the angels, seeing he is God, and the Son o f God.” Tertullian, De came Christi liber (Tertullian ’s Treatise on the Incarnation: The Text edited iwith an Introduction, Translation, and Commentary), trans. Ernest Evans (London: S.P.C.K., 1956), 51. De came Christi XTV, 29-30. “qua autem spiritus dei et virtus altissimi, num potest infra angelos haberi, deus scilicet et dei filius?” Evans, 50.


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Jerome).455 In Novatian’s work you can see the very testimonia of proof-texts so precious

to Tertullian; for example, as Novatian expounds on the Son as the visible God in chapter

18, using Exodus 33:20, John 1:18, and I Timothy 6:16; or attesting to the Son’s visibility

in chapter 28, employing John 14:9; or asserting that the Son is God as much as God the

Father, commenting at length on Philippians 2 and John 5:19 in chapters 20 through 22.

But with regard to Luke 1:35 in De Trinitate, it is vital for Novatian to refute his

opponents’ use of this text to claim lessened divinity for the Son—as if that text could

prove only Christ as “Son of Man” and not also “Son of God.“ In chapter 24 of his work,

Novatian connects Luke 1:35 with Matthew 1:23 (“You shall call his name

Emmanuel...”) and John 1:14, in order to make a clear distinction between Christ’s two

natures. This is “a long discussion which owes much to Tertullian.”456 His opponents, he

rues, use Matthew 1:23 and John 1:14 to claim that divine and human reside in Christ

totally mixed together. To add to it, they cite Luke 1:35 to further support that argument.

But for Novatian those very texts prove the opposite. He responds strongly that Christ has

the two natures in a full and even balance (Novatian’s thematic motif of the xpacig ):

This is the genuine Son of God, who is of God Himself. Inasmuch as He assumes that holy things and joins to Himself the Son of Man, He not only seizes Him and draws Him over to Himself but also bestows upon Him and makes Him by His connection and associated permixtion the Son of God, which He was not by nature. Thus, the pre-eminence of that name, “Son of God,” resides in the Spirit of the Lord who descended and came; whereas the sequela of that name is to be found in the Son of God and Man. In consequence (of such a union) this Son of Man rightly became the Son of God, although He is not primarily the Son of God. Accordingly, the angel, aware of that arrangement and making known the providential order of the mystery, did not confuse everything so as not to leave any vestige of a distinction. He made that distinction when he announced:

455. In his critical edition o f Tertullian’s Against Praxeas, Ernest Evans states it well: “Novatian combines in one volume the results o f Tertullian’s dispersed discussions. This is substantially true. The first section o f this work, on God the Father, the Creator, undoubtedly owes something to passages in Tertullian’s Apology, while the second section, on God the Son, though largely occupied in combating an opposite heresy, shows evident acquaintance with the treatise Against Praxeas. Only in the third section, on the Holy Spirit, does Novatian strike a line o f his own, and here he is expository, almost encomiastic, rather than controversial or theological.” Evans, Against Praxeas, 25-26.

456. Evans’ observation. Evans, 67.


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“Therefore also that holy thing to be bom of thee shall be called the Son of God.” For if he had not allotted that partition (of natures) with its due balance but had left it in hazy confusion, he would have undoubtedly given the heretics an opportunity to declare that the Son of Man, as man, is the same Son both of God and Man. However, he explained things in detail and clearly made known the providential order and meaning of so great a mystery when he said: “And that holy thing to be bom of thee shall be called the Son of God”; hence he proved that the Son of God descended and took to Himself the Son of Man and made Him, in consequence (of that union), the Son of God. For the Son of God associated and joined the Son of Man to Himself so that, while the Son of Man adheres in His Nativity to the Son of God, by that very permixtion He hold that as pledged and secured which of His own nature He could not possess. And thus by the voice of an angel a distinction which the heretics reject was made between the Son of God and the Son of Man. This distinction maintains, however, the proper association (of the two) and constrains them to understand that Christ, the Man, the Son of Man, is also the Son of God and to accept as Man die Son of God—that is, the Word of God who is God, according to the Scriptures. Therefore let them acknowledge that Christ Jesus the Lord, fastened together from both, so to speak, woven and worked together from both, and associated in the same agreement of both natures in the clasp of a mutual bond, is God and Man, as the truth of Scripture itself declares.457

The frequent appearance of John 1:14 alongside any commentary mention of Luke

1:35 may well have become an exegetical commonplace among Latins. In the twentieth

homily of the Tractatus Origenis, which speaks of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the

early Apostles on the day of Pentecost, it is no coincidence that John 1:14 and Luke 1:35

appear alongside each other:

457. DeSimone, The Trinity, 87-88. D e Trinitate XXIV, 8,43-11,77 “Hie est legitimus D ei Filius qui ex ipso Deo est, qui, dum sanctum istud assumit et sibi filium hominis annectit et ilium ad se rapit atque transducit, connexione sua et permixtione sociata praestat et Filium ilium D ei facit, quod ille naturaliter non fuit, ut principalitas nominis istius ‘Filius D ei’ in spiritu sit Domini, qui descendit et uenit, ut sequela nominis istius in Filio D ei et hominis sit et merito consequenter hie Filius D ei factus sit, dum non principaliter Filius D ei est. Atque ideo dispositionem istam angelus uidens et ordinem istum sacramenti expediens, non sic cuncta confundens ut nullum uestigium distinctionis collocarit, distinctionem posuit dicendo: Propterea et quod nascetur ex te sanctum uocabitur Filius Dei, ne si distributionem istam cum libramentis suis non dispensasset, sed in confuse permixtam reliquisset, uere occasionem haereticis contulisset, ut hominis filium, qua homo est, eundem et Dei et hom inis filium pronuntiare deberent Nunc autem particulatim exponens tarn magni sacramenti ordinem atque rationem euidentur expressit, ut diceret: Et quod ex te nascetur sanctum uocabitur Filius Dei, probans quoniam Filius D ei descendit, qui dum filium hominis in se suscepit, consequenter ilium Filium D ei fecit, quoniam ilium Filius sibi D ei sociauit et iunxit, ut deum filius hominis adhaeret in natiuitatem Filio Dei, ipsa permixtione feneratum et mutuatum teneret, quod ex natura propria possidere non posset. Ac sic facta est angeli uoce, quod nolunt haeretici, inter Filium Dei hominisque cum sua tamen sociatione distinctio, urgendo illos uti Christum, hominis filium hominem, intellegant quoque D ei Filium et hominem D ei Filium, id est D ei uerbum, sicut scriptum est, Deum accipiant atque ideo Christum Iesum Dominum ex utroque connexum, ut ita dixerim, ex utroque contextum atque concretum et in eadem utriusque substantiae concordia mutui ad inuicem foederis confibulatione sociatum hominem et Deum scripturae hoc ipsum dicentis ueritate cognoscant.” CCSL 4 ,5 9 -6 0 .


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But perhaps someone may say: If the Spirit of the Lord descends upon the virgin and “the Word became flesh and dwelled among us,” just as it is written: “The Spirit of God shall come upon you and the power of the Almighty shall overshadow you,” why, on the other hand, does he arrive to the Lord in the form of a doveT58

Besides this section of the Tractatus Origenis XX, one can find a parallel passage in

Gregory of Elvira’s De fide orthodoxa contra Arianos, except that Luke 1:35 is

illuminated by a use of John 3:6:

For the virgin has clearly conceived from the Spirit of God; and what she conceived, this she gave birth to, that is, a God, who - as I already have said - has been joined to a human being, to flesh and its [accompanying] soul, i.e., [she gave birth to a God] who has been joined - as I already said - to a human being in the unity of a [single] person, just as he himself says: “That which is bom of the flesh, is flesh: and that which is bom of the Spirit, is Spirit,” because “God is Spirit” and he is bom of God, just as the angel says to the Virgin Maiy: “The Spirit of God shall come upon you and the power of the Almighty shall overshadow you. Therefore that which will be bom from you is the Holy One, to be called the Son of God.”459

This use of Luke 1:35 in this section of Gregory’s De fide not only corresponds closely to

Tractatus Origenis XX, 62-66, but also Tertullian’s Against Praxeas 27,5.

Father And Son Are One Power

458. Tractatus Origenis XX, 7 ,62-66. “Sed fortasis aliquis dicat: si spiritus domini discendit ad uirginem et uerbum caro factum est et habitauit in nobis, sicut scriptum est: Spiritus dei ueniet in te e t uirtus Altissimi obumbrabit tibi, quur rursus in similitudine columbae aduenit ad dominum?” CCSL, Vol. LXIX, 143. The CCSL editor Vincent Bulhart includes the Tractatus within the works o f Gregory o f Elvira (ca. 3 2 0 - ca. 392), which would put its dating within the last one or two decades o f the fourth century. There is nonetheless considerable difficulty with concluding that Gregory is the author o f this collection o f Latin hom ilies. Heidi, “Some Traces,” points out that Gregory applied an accurate Nicene Latin terminology in his D e fide orthodoxa contra Arianos, repeatedly using such expressions as homoousios, trinitas unius substantiae, tres personae unius substantiae, substantiae unitas, pater et filius unius substantiae, etc., but apart from some allusions to Nicene dogma, none o f these type o f expressions appear in the Tractatus.

459. De fide orthodoxa contra Arianos 91,905-915. “Nempe enim de spiritu dei uirgo concepit, et quod concepit, hoc peperit, id est, deum homini suo ut iam dixi sociatum, cami et animae suae, id est homini ut iam dbd personae unitate sociatum sicut ipse dixit: Quod nascitur de came, caro est: et quod nascitur de spiritu, spiritus est, quia deus spiritus est [et] de (ex) deo natus est, sicut et angelus ad Mariam uirginem dixit: Spiritus dei ueniet in te et uirtus Altissim i obumbrabit te. Propterea quod nascetur ex te sanctum, uocabitur filius dei.” CCSL 64 ,245.


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“It is necessary to know and to say that the power of God is within the life of the Father,

that is, the Father is in the Son.”460 Victorinus does not see I Corinthians 1:24, Christ as

“the Power and Wisdom of God,” as nothing more than an extra gloss on the meaning

and content of a text like Luke 1:35. This verse from I Corinthians 1:24 is Victorinus’

key proof-text in speaking about the Son’s consubstantial unity with the Father (and

the Spirit). As such, it is vital to see what exegesis Victorinus offers of it, especially

with which other Scripture texts of power and unity he associates it. The importance of

I Corinthians 1:24 did not seem at the forefront of Victorinus’ thinking as he began the

first book of Against Arius: it receives no mention and no treatment in his initial section

on I Corinthians. As he gets further into Book I it is clear that the locus strikes him as

important; however, if the text had occurred to him as vital from the beginning, he

would have included it in the extended discussion of titles for the Son’s reality that

spans Book I 3,1 through I 28,7, especially the section of I 18,7-18,57 in which he

discusses I Corinthians as part of his running commentary on key New Testament

texts.461 But the significance of I Corinthians, at least here, is in talking about the mode

of the Son’s begetting, singling out “the Patripassians” as opponents. Just as important,

he uses I Corinthians 12:3-6 to speak about the Father, Son, and Spirit as all spirit, the

same Spirit, and therefore consubstantial.462 The action of each Person of the Trinity in

460. AA 1 56,33-35. CSEL 83/1, 155.461. The arrangement o f books o f the New Testament for commentary are quite intriguing: First there is

lengthy comment on numerous texts from the Gospel o f John, then a section on further witness from the Gospels o f Matt, and Lk., then he continues on to commenting on Pauline epistles Romans through to I Timothy. The Gospel o f John’s importance as an exegetical platform and paragon is clearly evident here, again even as Hanson said quite rightly that “The Gospel According to St. John was the major battlefield in the New Testament during the Arian controversy.” Hanson, Search, 834.

462. I Cor. 12:3-6: “Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit o f God ever says ‘Jesus be cursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit. Now there are varieties (8iaip£aeie) o f gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties o f service, but the same


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this discussion serves Victorinus as a distinction principle; the substance of the Trinity

serves as the unity principle.

This lack is more than made up for in the rest of Book I, as Victorinus uses I

Corinthians 1:24 to full effect, just as he will in Books II, III and IV. In Book 137

Victorinus carries on his argument for why the Father and the Logos are consubstantial;

dominating this discussion of consubstantiality is divine power. As mentioned above,

Victorinus matches a thorough consideration of Johannine texts with Pauline epistles; in I

36, as he argues that the Image of God is the Son of Mary, Son of God, and also Logos,

he makes a clear statement as to why these are essential authorities:

After that, we must be attentive to how this same one, both image and Son, is the Logos. It is evident that the Son is image. For Paul said: The “Son” of God is the “image of God.” I say therefore that he is the Logos, of whom it was said: “In the principle was the Logos,” For Paul says how the Son is the “firstborn of the whole creation, because in him all things have been created, those which are in the heavens and which are on earth, which are visible and invisible, whether Thrones or Dominations or Principalities or Powers; all things have been created through him and in him, and he himself is before all, and in him all things hold together.” You see what he said of the Son: that because “all things have been created in him and through him and for him,” on that account, he is the “firstborn.” He says, therefore, three things. Among them is this one: “All through him”—to whom has this always been attributed? As it is in the confession of faith: to the Logos. If then Paul attributes “through him” to the Son, but the him which is “through him” John attributes to the Logos, the first Apostle and the preeminent Evangelist agree in what they have said. One must not doubt that the Logos is Son.463

The authorities of Paul and John are the forces enabling Victorinus to make sense of the

texts on which he offers his glosses.

Lord; and there are varieties o f working (£vepY eia), but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one.”

463. Clark, 148-49. AA 1 36,1-17. “Post istud perspciendum quomodo idem ipse et imago et filius Xoyoq est. In confesso est quod imago filius est. Dixit enim Paulus: filius dei imago est dei. D ico igitur ipsum esse Xoyov, de quo dictum est: in pricipio erat Xoyoq. D icit enim Paulus, quomodo filius primigenitus totius creaturae, quod in ipso creata sunt omnia, quae in caelis et quae in terra, quae visibilia et quae invisibilia, sive tkroni sive dominationes sive principatus sive potestates, omnia per ipsum et in ipsum creata sunt et ipse est ante omnia et omnia in ipso consistent. Vides quae dixerit de filio, quod ideo primigenitus quia omnia creata sunt in ipso et per ipsum et in ipsum. Tria ergo d icit Ex quibus, quod dictum est: omnia p er ipsum, cui datum est semper? Quod in confessione est,X6ycj>. Si igitur Paulus filio dedit per ipsum, ipsum autem quod est per ipsum dedit Iohannes tcB Xoyco, primus apostolus et evangelistes ante omnes, consonant dicta. Quid erit dubitandum, ut non sit filius Msyocfi” CSEL 83/1,120-21.


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Victorinus’ extended discussion of unity in this part of Book I contains many

noticeable points of illumination as he argues for unity between Father and Son. In I 34

the Son is the image of the Father because the Father is light and the Son is the reflection

of the light: “This is what is called the reflection of the light, having everything from the

light, but not as receiving it from without; nor has it come from the outside but is

connatural, and therefore always existing homoousios with the light.”464 What stands out

is something that could be easily overlooked in this page-long paragraph about the Logos

being the Image of God. In a sentence that is a combined allusion and gloss on the all-

important Nicene proof-text of Wisdom 7:26—“(Wisdom) is a reflection of eternal light,

a spotless mirror of the working of God.. .’’—Victorinus says the Father and the Son are

the same nature—connaturalis. For a Latin writing in late 359, this assertion, made in

passing as part of an entire argument, is nothing short of amazing. It also serves well as

an introduction to what Victorinus will say further on.

In 135 the argument for consubstantiality continues, especially informed by Colossians

1. If the Logos is the one “through whom are all things” (Colossians 1:17), then he has to

be consubstantial with the Father. Further, this Logos is the Son, and Jesus bom of Mary.465

Throughout 135 and 36 Victorinus maintains the language of power, crucial here because

he is making assertions of momentous importance. In Book 137 and 38 he will make a case

for the Father and Son being of one substance, therefore of one power 466 Surprisingly, the

text to which Victorinus turns his attentions for several paragraphs is I Corinthians 15:28, a

464. Clark, 146. A A 1 34,33-35. (emphasis added) “Et istud luminis refulgentia dicitur, omnia luminis habens, sed non accipiens, neque enata, sed connaturalis, et 6pooi3oiog semper exsistens.” CSEL 83/1,117.

465. I treat this extended commentary on Col. 1:15-17 above under the subject o f Divine V isibility.466. Victorinus’ statements o f “One Substance, One Power” are o f such import to his Nicene polem ical

form that all these instances o f these statements are handled below in a separate section.


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text most closely associated with Marcellus of Ancyra in his earliest, hardest stage of

modalist theology. The Son, Victorinus holds, subjects “all things” by the same power with

which the Father does, especially since the Son is “the Power and Wisdom of God.” He

interprets I Corinthians 15:28 through a mention of I Corinthians 1:24, repeating within this

same lengthy paragraph his point that the Son is consubstantial with the Father “both by

very substance and by very power.’ As described below, Victorinus does not finish this

argument for the Son’s consubstantiality with the Father until he reemphasizes the intent of

the Apostle Paul, so in speaking about what the Father accomplishes in the Son there is a

quotation of John 5:19 (“what the Father does, die Son does”). There is one divine power

here, Victorinus contends, so that “God may be all in all.”

But even after speaking of I Corinthians 15, the One Substance/One Power, Christ the

“Power and Wisdom” of God, and the Son doing the same as the Father, as in John 5:19,

Victorinus is still not finished with his point. In Book 141 Victorinus begins a new

argument for the Son’s consubstantiality based on his favorite uiological image: the Son

as Life. But the aforementioned section, Book 137-39, is completed by a final gloss in all

of Book 140 on I Corinthians 1:24.

Victorinus reiterates that the Son consubstantial with the Father because the “names,”

as he says, of the Gospel say that the Son is the Power and Wisdom of God.468 Set

alongside this idiom of the Power and Wisdom of God in this section is also the idiom of

the vision and its power:

467. A A 1 38,27-28.468. This is right at the beginning o f Book 1 40, in 140,1—4. Victorinus begins with a combined quotation

of Paul, when he says “Let us speak o f other names, ‘For I am not ashamed o f the Gospel: the power and wisdom o f God;’ Paul says this o f Jesus Christ; for he is ‘the Gospel.’ He says also concerning this: ‘Christ,’ therefore, is ‘both the wisdom and power o f God.’” He combines Paul’s Rom. 1:16 with I Cor. 1:24.


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What then? “The wisdom and power of God,” is that not God himself? For with God things are not as they are in bodies or in bodily things where the eye is one thing, sight another, or as they are in fire, where fire is one thing, its light another. For both eye and fire have need of something other: the eye, of a light different from itself so that from it and through it vision can take place, and the fire has need of air so that light might come from it. But the power and wisdom of God are like vision: the power of vision has vision within it. This vision is externalized when the power of vision is in action; then vision is begotten by the power of vision and is itself its only begotten, for nothing else is begotten by it.469

Victorinus’ exegesis of I Corinthians 1:24 changes over to his philosophical speculation

of his typical trinitarian analogy of Father being repose, Son movement and action. He

still closes his section with his point about power and wisdom: power and wisdom are

within the Godhead, so to say that “Christ is the power and wisdom of God” is the same

as saying that he, too, is truly God. Before he will proceed to speak at length about Christ

being life, Victorinus repeats his holy names for the Son’s reality: “In this way, whether

the Logos is Jesus, or ‘light,’ or ‘reflection,’ or ‘form,’ or ‘image,’ or ‘power and

wisdom,’ or ‘character,’ or ‘life,’ it will be clear that the Logos and God, the Father and

the Son, the Spirit and Christ are homoousion.”410 Victorinus includes his distinctive

language of Father/Son and Son/Spirit copulae; he reprises the names he has just dealt

with and echoes the statements of Sirmium 351 and the Dedication 341, using titles

specifically from vital proof-texts. This sentence above not only quotes I Corinthians

1:24 (power and wisdom), but also gives titles from John \:\(Logos), Hebrews 1:3

469. Clark, 154—55. AA 140,4—12. “Quid deinde? Sapientia et virtus dei non ipse deus? Non enim ut in coporibus aut in corporalibus, aliud est oculus, aliud visio, aut in igne, aliud ignis, aliud lumen eius. Eget enim et oculus et ignis, alterius alicuius, et oculus alterius luminis, ut sit et ex ipso et in ipso visio, et ignis aeris, ut sit ex ipso lumen. Sed sicuti visionis potentia in se habet visionem, tunc foris exsistentem, cum operator potentia visionis, et generator a potentia visionis visio unigenita ea ipsa— nihil enim aliud ab ea gignitur—” CSEL 83/1, 126-27.

470. Clark, 155. AA 140,32-35. “Isto modo, sive Xoyoq est Iesus sive lumen sive refulgentia sive form a sive imago sive virtus et sapientia sive character sive vita, opootioiov apparebit Xoyog et deus, pater et filius, spiritus et Christus.” CSEL 83/1,127-28.


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(character),Wisdom 7:26 (light, reflection), Philippians 2:6 (form), Colossians 1:15

(image), and John 14:6 (life).471

A similarly rich chain of titles and texts comes in the conclusion to Book I, when

Victorinus reiterates the consubstantiality of Father, Son and Spirit472 In speaking o f divine

substance in chapter 3—especially his treatment of Jeremiah 23:18,22—this passage is noted:

From this it is evident that the Logos itself and the Holy Spirit and Nous and Wisdom are the same thing. Indeed, Paul also said by divine inspiration: “Who has known the Nous of the Lord?” And again concerning him: “The power and wisdom of God.” Solomon also uses the word “wisdom” of him. And many names are referred to the Son. And Paul, writing to the Hebrews, also calls him substance: “Image of his substance”; and he spoke likewise of the “consubstantial people.” And Jeremiah: “Because the one who has stood in my substance and has seen my word”; and again: “If they had stood in my substance and had heard my words.” And the Gospel according to Matthew: “Give us this day our supersubstantial bread.” In the parable Luke says: “The younger one said to the Father: give me the part of the “substance” which belongs to me”; and again: “There he wasted his substance.” For in descending here below, it did not keep its powers. These things are said of the soul, but I have cited this text against those who deny that the term usia is used in the Holy Scriptures.473

Romans 11:34 (“Who has known the Nous of the Lord?”) is useful for Victorinus because

of the Greek word nous; Luke 15 because of the idiosyncratic use of substantia in the

471. We hear a similar statement o f the proper names o f the Son not too much later, 1 56, though more philosophical: “The Son is therefore both word and voice, he is life, he is Logos, he is movement, he is Nous, he is wisdom, he is existence and first substance, he is the action o f power, he is the first on (ov -Existent), the true on (Existent) from whom, through whom, in whom are all onta (existents); he is the mid-angle o f the Trinity; he reveals the preexisting Father and sends forth the Holy Spirit for the sake o f perfection. For, as blessed Paul said: ‘The Gospel is the power and wisdom o f God’ ; by ‘power’ he is designating the Son, because ‘all is through him .’ For by the ‘Word’ o f ‘power’ all things have been made, and by the ‘wisdom’ o f the Holy Spirit everything attains perfection.” Clark, 181-81. AA 1 56,15-24. CSEL 83/1,154. The Son, “qui est medius in angulo trinitatis,” is quite a distinctive yet understandable figure o f speech for Victorinus, but what is even more surprising is that the Son “sends forth the H oly Spirit o f perfection,” a type o f Filioque claim.

472. Though not a very direct and quick conclusion; it takes him quite a while, with eight rather recondite paragraphs.

473. Clark, 186-87. AA 1 59,13-28. “Ex his apparet quod Xoyog ipse et spiritus sanctus et vovg et sapientia id ipsum. Etenim et Paulus dixit divine: quis cognovit vovv domini? Et rursus de ipso: virtus et sapientia dei. Salomon etiam sapientiam de ipso dicit. Et multa nomina in filium revocantur. Et ipsum et substantiam dicit et Paulus ad Hebraeos: imago substantiae eius; et item consubstantialem populum dixit. Et Hieremias: quia qui stetit in substantia mea et vidit verbum meum; et rursus: si stetissent in substantia mea et audissent verba mea. Et evangelium secundum Matthaeum: panem nostrum consubstantialem da nobis hodie. In parabola Lucas: dixit iunior de filiis patri: da mihi congruam partem substantiae; et rursus: ibi dissipavit substantiam suam. Quo enim inde descendit, potentias suas non tenuit. Ista animae sunt, sed dixi istud adversum negantes usiae nomen positum esse in sacris scripturis.” CSEL 83/1,159-60.


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parable of the Prodigal Son, for the “life” of his father which he demands and wastes. But

the connection of I Corinthians 1:24 with Hebrews 1:3, Jeremiah 23 and Matthew 6:11

shows that I Corinthians 1:24 is at the forefront of Victorinus’ reflection for proving

Father, Son and Spirit to be consubstantial. It should not be missed that right after I

Corinthians 1:24, Victorinus reminds us that “Solomon also uses the word ‘wisdom’ of

(the Son).” We can assume this to be a reference to Wisdom 7:25,26, since after this

allusion to Solomon, the next text Victorinus cites is “Paul” writing to the Hebrews,

calling the Son the “Image of his substance.”

The usual adversaries are addressed again in Book II of Against Arius, but most of all

the Latin Homoians, when Victorinus begins this book with a creedal statement (one of

two explicit creedal statements in this book, just as Book I also has two creedal-type

statements). Hadot points out that AA Book II is the best and clearest response to Latin

Homoians in all of his work. This is possibly true, though it is at the very least the

putative creed that begins Book II on-point.474 Directly after paragraphs directed at

original Arianism, then against Marcellus and Photinus, “Power and Wisdom” from I

Corinthians 1:24 recurs fairly soon in his diatribe against Homoiousians and Homoians.

What these opponents are able to affirm is noteworthy, since they confess “an only-

474. Hadot, Marius Victorinus, 308. This creed in AA II 1,5-13 (Clark, 195) is intriguing: “We a ll confess an all-powerful God; we alone for the moment confess Christ Jesus; yet soon all w ill confess him We who have faith in Christ confess both because they are both together and individuals (“ambo et singuli”)— as certainly as God is Father, so certainly is his Son Jesus Christ, so that our w hole religion and whole hope is faith in Christ. But although we confess two individuals, nevertheless w e affirm one God and that both are one God, because both the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father.” CSEL 83/1,168.


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begotten Son.. .Son from the Father, God from God, true light from true light,”475 but

even with these creedal affirmations they refuse to speak about substance:

Some refuse to mention substance here; others mention it but wish to call it similar, not identical. It should first of all be considered by the latter what the prophet Isaiah said: “There was no God before me and after me there will be no God like unto me.” If Christ is son, Christ is certainly after God. But after God there is nothing like unto him. Christ is therefore not like unto God; or if he is not after God, certainly he is with God; for in no way can he be before God; therefore he is homoousion,476

The substance of the Father and the Son are homogeneous substance; even if it is in two

or more individuals, it would be identical substance, not “similar” (as Homoians would

term it). And if the Son has received substance from the Father, the same substance

guarantees unity and power, and that the Logos is the form of the Father

by a certain divine origin, the Son, having received substance from the Father, with him and in him the Son always is, as different and identical, of the same substance, not that the substance of the Father diminishes nor that the substance of the Son is received from an outside source, but by a consubstantial and perfect unity, the Son is God and “power” of God who has always been and always existed. This is God and the Logos, God and his form, Father and Son, God and Jesus Christ, God and his “power and wisdom”; therefore, homoousion.*11

Victorinus defines the Father and the Son in I I 2 as homoousion/consubstantialis, but

also particularly as “eiusdem substantiae.” This means he can define the case for same

substance without only using the Nicene definition, though this certainly stands out as

one of the few times Victorinus does not reflexively invoke the Nicene homoousios, one

475. That is, categories from the First Sirmian Creed o f 351. Anathema VI o f that council condemned any that taught “That the ousia o f God is extended or retracted”; Anathema VII condemned “That the Son is the ousia o f God extended, or the extension o f his ousia.” Cf. Hanson, Search, 325-29. Victorinus, in his statement about the Son in II 2,43-49, carefully avoids these dated notions: The Son is the same substance o f the Father, and the Father’s substance does not diminish, because they are in perfect unity

476. Clark, 199. AA II 2,27-34. “A lii substantiam hie nominandam negant, alii nominant, sed similem volunt, non eandem dicere. Quibus illud primum perspiciendum est quod propheta Esaias dixit: Nullus fu it ante me deus, et post me nullus erit similes deus. Si filius Christus, utique post deum Christus. Nullus autem sim iles post deum. Christus ergo non sim iles deo; aut si non post deum, certe cum deo; nam ante deum nullo modo; ergo 6poo6oiov.” CSEL 83/1, 171-72.

477. Clark, 199. AA II 2,43—49. (emphasis added) “divino quodam ortu, filius, a patre accepta substantia, semper cum eo et in eo, ut alter atque idem, eiusdem substantiae, nulla vel illius diminutione vel huius acceptione, consubstantiali et completiva unalitate, deus atque virtus eius semper qui fiierit et semper extiterit; hoc est deus et XAyoq, deus et forma eius, pater et filius, deus et Iesus Christus, deus et virtus et sapientia', opoovotov ergo.” CSEL 83/1, 172.


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of the clear standards under which he writes.478 The distinctions he makes between Father

and Son, however, seem to make rather ambiguous what power the Son is. Victorinus

posits, “God and the Logos, God and his form, Father and Son, God and Jesus Christ, God

and his ‘power and wisdom,”’ which seems to say that the Son is the power of God (the

Father) rather than the same power. Worse, using God with the title of Father only implied

makes for a somewhat inattentive argument that could easily pass for Homoian-sounding

discourse (Speaking of “God” and “Jesus Christ” is language Homoians would be perfectly

comfortable using). But Father and Son as one power, or same power, is a point Victorinus

reiterates before he goes on to consider whether the word ousia can truly be found in

Scripture. Victorinus asks, “What do we actually mean by the word homoousion?”: it

“signifies cosubstantial [sic], that which is cosubstantiated, without composition or

separation, but always together with regard to the power of being (“rerum virtutibus”) and

distinguished by actions.”479 The actions of the persons of the Trinity is classic Victorinus.

He makes a statement here at the end of II2 that the Father and Son’s being/ousia is always

united in regard to powers, seemingly sharing common power (and nature).

Victorinus takes this too far in II 6, as I have discussed above with Divine Substance

loci in Against Arius. Still writing under the vestigial Latin influence of miahypostatic

478. As I have commented above, Victorinus has an idyllic memory o f Nicaea passed on to him, to which he refers in Books I and II o f his work. The inclusion o f “eiusdem substantiae” right alongside consubstantialis can be found in Augustine in his De Trinitate I. Michel Barnes mentions this, that “Augustine understands from John 1:1-2 that the Son is not a creature, and if not a creature then he is o f the same substance with die Father—a deduction offered in language reminiscent o f N icaea but not in the exact technical language H ill’s translation might lead an unwary reader to assume: Augustine says ‘eiusdem substantiae’ not ‘consubstantialis’ or even ‘una natura.’ It is, in any case, important to note that Augustine does not simply cite Nicaea: he makes an argument in language which seem s to belong within Nicene circles, but there is no invocation o f Nicaea.” M ichel R. Barnes, “E xegesis and Polemic in Augustine’s De Trinitate I,” Augustinian Studies 30: 1 (1999): 48-49.

479. Clark, 200. AA II 2,52-55. “Hie vero 6poouoiov significant consubstantiale, simul substantiatum, sine conposito vel discretione, sed simul semper quod sit rerum virtutibus actionibusque discretum.” CSEL 83/1, 172.


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theology, he has difficulty at times distinguishing between hypostasis and ousia

(though, as described above in chapter 3, “An Anomalous Trinitarian Formula,” there

are other instances in Against Arius where he does not). In II 5 and 6, he considers

whether the word substance is truly found in Scripture, this right after I I 4, in which he

takes pains to distinguish subsistentia, stating,“it is said: ‘From one substance there are

three subsistences..

More than any other, the Jeremiah 23:18,22 text mentions the substance of God, but in

II 6 Victorinus speaks of Luke’s Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15), in which a father

divided his hypostasis between his two sons.480 Hypostasis, he argues, should also be

understood as total power and virtue; this and more can be said of the Son:

If then the “riches of God” are “wisdom and knowledge”(Romans 11:33), and if “wisdom and knowledge” are “the power of God,” itself but the “power of God” is Christ, but Christ is Logos, and Logos indeed is Son, if die Son is himself in the Father, therefore this Son is the riches of die Father, he himself is his hupostasis [sic]. Henceforth it matters not at all whether we understand hupostasis as riches or as ousia, provided that there is signified by that God himself. Therefore we read in Scripture in reference to God either hupostasis or ousia. But this is also understood of Christ481

This convoluted paragraph speaks on behalf of the strong wish to prove divine unity, at

the cost of making a quasi-modalist construction. We can see this inchoate sort o f

modalist expression in the opening lines of Book III 4, where he speaks of the Logos as

the act of God, in power, but this power is the power of the Father, and it sounds as if

there is little distinction between the Father and the Son:

480. Victorinus creates an immediate problem o f textual criticism for what Greek version o f Lk. 15:12 he has in front o f him in the Latin West, in which he can find and read hypostasis. Nestle-Aland 27th edition text has ousia as the “property” o f which the Prodigal Son wants his share of; no variant readings are listed that would have hypostasis.

481. Clark, 206 AA n 6,12-19. “Si igitur divitiae dei, sapientia et scientia sunt, et si sapientia et scientia ipsa virtus dei est, virtus autem dei Christus est, Christus autem koyog est, X6yoq vero filius, filius autem in patre ipse est, ipse ergo divitiae patris, ipse im ooraatc; est. Iam igitur nihil interest, utrum uitooraoiv divitias intellegamus an o iio iav , dummodo id significetur quod ipse deus est. Ergo lectum est de deo vel im doraou; vel ouala. Hoc autem et de Christo intellegitur.” CSEL 83/1,179-80.


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Therefore the Logos who is like the seed and the power of the existing of those things which are and of those things which can be or which could have been, the Logos who is the “wisdom” and the “power” of all substances, the Logos which reaches from God to all acts, this Logos is God through the power of the Father and one sole God with the Father, by the veiy act by which he constitutes himself as Son.482

This use of I Corinthians 1:24 in Book III, for describing unity, may be because of

Victorinus’ efforts to define the dyads of Father-Son and Son-Spirit, as well as the

consubstantiality of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

A Son-Spirit dyad of sorts appears in Book IV, with Victorinus again describing the

Son as the power and wisdom of God, from I Corinthians 1:24. He connects his

observation on the Son and Holy Spirit with texts from Sirach 1:1 and 1:4:

And so that it may appear clearly that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are identical, let us pay attention to this. The Holy Spirit is, is he not, teaching, understanding, and wisdom itself; but wisdom is attributed also to Christ and to God, and Christ is called by that name, because it is “Gospel” that is the Son of God, because Gospel is defined: “Power and wisdom of God,” as Paul says to the Romans. Likewise Solomon: “All Wisdom comes from God and has always been with him, before all time.” Behold homoousion is evident since wisdom is given by God and from God to Christ and to the Holy Spirit. And since it was said that wisdom “has always been with God” it is evident that homoousion also signifies: together with the Father. Next, since it was said: “Before all time,” we see that Christ does not begin then when he is in the flesh. Likewise: “First of all things wisdom was brought forth.” If Christ is “firstborn,” Christ is “wisdom.” That which follows next designates the Holy Spirit: “And the understanding of pmdence is from everlasting.” If the Holy Spirit is “prudence” and understanding and knowledge and teaching, he is without doubt Christ, since Christ himself is “from everlasting,” that is, from eternity, and the “firstborn,” and, what is more, the only begotten.

These texts and others that I have commented upon in numerous other books well prove that not only are God and Christ homoousion, but also the Holy Spirit.”483

482. Clark, 226. AA III 4,1—5 “Aoyoc; igitur,quae sunt quaeque esse possunt quaeve esse potuerunt veluti semen ac potentia exsistendi, sapientia ac virtus omnium substantiarum, de deo ad actiones omnes, deus potentia patris, actuque quo filius ipse cum patre unus deus est.” CSEL 83/1,197.

483. Clark, 278. AA IV 18,24—44. “Atque ut idem manifestetur lesus et spiritus sanctus, adtendamus istum. Nempe spiritus sanctus doctrina est, intellegentia ipsaque sapientia et Christo et deo sapientia datur atque hoc Christus nomine nuncupatur, quod est evangelium Christum esse dei filinm; quod evangelium definitur: dei virtus atque sapientia, ut Paulus ad Romanos. Item Salomon: omnis sapientia a deo est et cum eo ju it semper ante aevum. Ecce 6poouoiov apparet, cum sapientia et de deo datur et a deo datur, utique Christo et spiritui sancto. Et cum dictum est quod cum deo semper fuerit, quod dpoouoiov est ostenditur simul cum patre. Deinde, cum dictum: ante aevum, non ergo cum in came, tunc Christus. Item: prior omnium creata est sapientia. Si primogenitus Christus, sapientia Christus. Deinde quod sequitur, spiritus sanctus: et intellectus prudentiae ab aevo. Si spiritus sanctus prudentia est et intellectus et scientia et doctrina, Christus est sine dubio, quia ipse est ab aevo, id est aetemo, et primigenitus et, quod et amplius, unigenitus. Haec et alia in m ultis tractata


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Christ and the Holy Spirit are homoousion, Victorinus argues; yet he seems to go too

far with this also, ostensibly stating that there is little or no difference between Christ and

the Holy Spirit. This portion of IV 18 concludes a section begun in IV 17, in which he

comments at length on the definite difference between Christ and the Holy Spirit, as well

as how they are nevertheless the same, the Holy Spirit somehow being identical to

Jesus.484 Christ lies in Victorinus’ triadic category of “life,” the Holy Spirit is the

understanding of that life (and wisdom) of God. Wisdom and understanding both spring

eternally from God the Father, as Sirach 1:1 and 1:4 state,485 so Son and Spirit together

proceed from the Father and are homoousios with the Father. The proof texts here are I

Corinthians 1:24, Sirach 1:1 and 1:4, and possibly Colossians 1:15, as the text whence he

uses the title “Firstborn” for Christ.

Something nearly overlooked is Victorinus’ conflation of two power texts. It is the

Gospel, he says, to assert that Christ is the Son of God, because the Gospel is the power

and wisdom of God, as Paul says to the Romans. “Power and wisdom” refers to I

Corinthians 1:24, and is not a statement of Paul to the Romans. But Christ being the

Gospel, and “Gospel” as the power of God, is from Paul to the Romans (Romans 1:16,

where Paul says that the “Gospel.. .is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who

believes...”). Another feature of the titles and realities about the Son versus Spirit is the

libris a me 6goouoiov probant non solum deum et Christum, sed etiam spiritum sanctum.” CSEL 83/1,251-52.

484. AA IV 18,14; 18,19: “Idem tam en... Ex hoc ostenditur quodammodo idem Iesus, idem spiritus sanctus.” CSEL 83/1,251.

485. “‘All wisdom comes from the Lord and is with him for ever.. ,4Wisdom was created before all things, and prudent understanding from eternity.” The value in using these verses lies in the mention o f “unto eternity” and “from eternity” but otherwise Victorinus should steer clear o f 1:4 which speaks o f Wisdom as something nonetheless created (“Wisdom was created before all things” in LXX reads “jipox£pa Tt&VTCDV E X T io ra i oocpla”), sounding dangerously similar to the early Arian locus o f Prov. 8:22.


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interplay between sapientia versus prudentia in his using of Sirach: If the Son is wisdom,

then the Spirit can be a prudential understanding (which is also eternal). This matches

with the vivere-intelligere of the Son-Spirit characteristics.486

I Corinthians 1:24 is the key text for Victorinus’ arguments for consubstantiality of the

Son and the Father, for the Father and the Son having the same divine power and

wisdom, and for the Son therefore to be as much “true God” as the Father. There remains

within Against Arius, however, one more substantive theme with which Victorinus can

confirm this point of his arguments for consubstantiality: that of “One Substance, One

Power.” This theme is not anomalous, since he uses it many times, but its use in the Latin

West of the early 360s is rather anachronistic, and shows Victorinus in his brief

theological career as among the most brilliant and prescient of Latin Neo-Nicenes.

“One Substance, One Power” Statements In Victorinus

A distinctive feature of Against Arius is the recurring statement of Victorinus that in the

Father and the Son there is one power and one substance. When closely examined within

the context of Latin theology of the late 350s and early 360s, this statement does not

seem to belong in a treatise written by such a supposedly isolated Western Nicene like

Victorinus 487 This kind of statement about divine identity and unity, so important

486. In Book IV there are two places where power and wisdom as the realities o f the Son are combined in lists with others, in these two instance in the same list o f “w ill, power, wisdom, word.” In IV 30, where Victorinus speaks o f the form o f God being a hidden form, but the Son o f God being a manifest form, the Son manifests existence, life, knowledge, and, besides other realities, “w ill, power, wisdom, word...” In IV 29, in describing movement and movement in repose, both Father and Son have “w ill and the same w ill, power, wisdom, word.”

487. Cf. John Voelker, “Marius Victorinus’ Exegetical Arguments for Nicene Definition mAdversus Arium," Studia Patristica 38 (2001): 496-502. After the 1999 13th International Conference on Patristic Studies in Oxford was when I first thought o f writing on this subject; that paper turned out to be a very useful think-piece on the crucial importance o f this theme in Victorinus.


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because it asserts that a single power is the principle of unity in the divine nature, has

been termed a “consensus doctrine” of the category termed “Pro-Nicene.” “Pro-Nicene”

is not a theology merely sympathetic to the condemnations of Arius at Nicaea 325, or on

the side of what develops into Nicene orthodoxy in the decades immediately following

Nicaea, such as the Western Rome-Alexandria category of “Neo-Nicene.” “Pro-Nicene”

is a stage beyond Nicene and Neo-Nicene that appears first in the middle and late 350s,

reaching back to older precedents to argue that, because the Father and the Son have theiOO

same power as one another, they have the same nature. This awareness of the technical

sense of power is what some have argued for as a characteristic of “Pro-Nicene”

theology, where a sophisticated understanding of power language means understanding

that a connatural union exists between nature (or substance) and power. Thus such

statements can be found in “Pro-Nicene” polemic and exegesis among such figures as

Phoebadius of Agen, Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose of Milan and Gregory of Nyssa. Some

would attribute the appearance of such a self-conscious statement of trinitarian identity—

that in the Father and the Son there exist the same substance and same power—as nothing

more than an accidental assertion on the part of Victorinus. But there are regular

instances of Victorinus articulating this trinitarian truth appearing in Against Arius,

including one in his trinitarian Hymn I, and even in his retirement-era Pauline

commentaries. The level of sophistication of these statements warrants a close look at

each, including the selections of Scripture traveling with each statement.

488. Michel R. Barnes, “One Nature, One Power.” The stages o f Nicene development in the fourth century have not taken on agreed on meanings, versus the variant trajectories o f anti-Nicene or “Arian” theology that scholars have agreed on for their meanings. Some scholars say “Nicene” to mean sympathetic to Nicaea, while others say “Pro-Nicene” to mean the same thing. I believe it absolutely vital to adopt the distinction Bames makes for a far more determined sense o f “Pro-Nicene” in the technical vocabulary o f the Trinitarian Controversy.


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The first of the “One Substance, One Power” statements comes shortly after the

prologue of AA IA, where Victorinus begins his extended commentary on the Gospel of

John, selecting his favorite Johannine proof-texts to prove such things as the common

identity of the Logos, the Son of God and the Christ.489 The Johannine proof-texts are

brought up to substantiate Victorinus’ repeated assertions of christological identity

according to the titles that are assigned to the Second Person—for example,“that the Son

is God...,” “that the Son is life.. “that he is light.. “that Christ is Savior.. and

“that he is the Son of God.. ..”490 After citing these titles, Victorinus cites John 5:19,

“What the Father does, I also do. The Son does not act of himself unless he sees the

Father acting.” John 5:19 will be cited only three times in Against Arius, but the

passages in which it does appear are crucial, like the one here. The exegetical

understanding of John 5:19 was crucial in the late fourth century to the “consensus

doctrine” Barnes has called “One Nature, One Power.”491 Victorinus then returns to

titles, matched with appropriate Johannine texts, after which he proceeds to a

discussion of the Son as life just as the Father is life. He then moves on to statements of

the Father and the Son being within each other, and finally to statements about the Son

being the substance of the Father inAA IA 7: “Christ is therefore God, not coming from

any other substance; ‘The Father is living and I live because of the Father,’ and : ‘I am

the bread of life, the one who eats this will live for all time.’ All these statements

489. This begins in AA 1 3 and runs through half o f A A H S , where Victorinus then takes up the Synoptics (briefly) and then Pauline texts.

490. AA 15ff.491. The developed understanding o f Jn. 5:19 becomes the mature Nicene category o f “Pro-Nicene.” Barnes,

“One Nature, One Power,” 221. Cf. also his comment on 220: “If I were to speculate on what it is that turns power theology doctrine from its Nicene to its pro-Nicene understandings I would say that it was the new, late 350s, anti-Nicene appropriation o f Jn. 5:19, an exegesis which is common to Latin and Greek anti-Nicenes, and which focuses upon the question o f activity as revelatory o f nature.”


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signify one substance.”492 A few sentences later Victorinus will restate the assertion

“that Christ is the substance of the Father: ‘I in the Father and the Father in me.’ And

this is not through rank alone, but through substance.”493 But these statements are just

hints of a more clear and firm statement in IA 8 about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

being consubstantial, and the Father and the Son sharing the same substance and same

power 494 In the last sentence of AA IA 8 Victorinus begins to make his first statement

about one substance, one power:

That they are from the same substance and power: “I and the Father are one.” And again: “The Father is in me and I in Him.” Whence it is said in Paul: “Who being in die form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal to God.” These texts therefore signify both that they are one substance and one power. For how is it said: “I and the Father are one,” and “The Father in me and I in the Father,” if he did not have from the Father substance and power, wholly begotten from the All... For in God there is complete identity between power, substance, divinity, and act... For equal is joined to equal and like to like. Therefore the Father and Son are equal and on account of that also the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son, and both are one.”495

In this section Victorinus, in the midst of his running commentary on John 1-17,

speaks of the common substance and power of the Son and the Father, using as his proof

two Johannine texts (John 10:30 and 14:10) with the all-important Pauline text of

Philippians 2:6 (“He did not consider it robbery to be equal with God...”). Any statement

492. Clark, 98. AA 1 7,6-9. “Christus ergo deus, non ab alia substantia; vivens pater et ego vivo propter patrem, et: panis vitae sum ego, qui istum manducat vivet in saeculum; cuncta ista unam substantiam significant” CSEL 83/1,63.

493. Clark, 98. AA 1 7,18-19. “Quod substantia patris Christus: ego in patre et pater in me. Hoc non per dignitatem solum, sed per substantiam.” CSEL 83/1, 64.

494. This early section is a good example to cite for Victorinus’ pneumatology. I.e., Victorinus did not merely wait until he wrote Book III o f Against Arius to argue for the consubstantiality o f the Spirit. Cf., for example, 1 8,17-18, where he says “The three are therefore homoousioi and on that account in all there is one God.” A bold statement that not even the Creed o f Constantinople 381 could make about the consubstantiality o f the Spirit, in spite o f Gregory o f Nazianzus’ protestations.

495. Clark, 100-01. AA 18,37-9,7; 9,17—19; 9,22—24. (emphasis added) “Quod ex eadem substantia et potentia; ego et pate unum sumus. Et rursus: pate in me et ego in ipso. Unde dictum in Paulo: qui in forma dei exsistens non rapinam arbitratus est esse se aequalia deo. Ista igitur significant et unam esse substantiam et unam potentiam. Quomodo enim: ego et p ate unum sumus et quomodo: p a te in me et ego in patre, si non apatre substantiam habuisset et potentiam, genitus de toto totus?.. .dei enim idem ipsum est et potentia et substantia et divinitas et actio... Aequali enim aequale conectitur et sim ile simili. Aequalis igitur filius et pater et propteea et filius in patre et pate in filio et ambo unum.” CSEL 83/1,66-67.


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of one substance, one power would be significant in and of itself for what it claims for

trinitarian identity, but Victorinus’ statement is all the more remarkable for the

marshalling of such polemically-burdened proof-texts of the Trinitarian Controversy.

Victorinus will substantiate his other one substance, one power statements in Against

Arius with key Nicene texts of Scripture.

After his Johannine exposition in Book IA Victorinus proceeds to the Synoptics, and

then to Paul, employing the same method of posing the titles of Christ as indicative of his

identity, and proving so from relevant portions of the titles’ scriptural record.

To the Philippians. That he is Christ: “And in the support of die Spirit of Jesus Christ” That the Son is homoousios and together with the Father, powerful: ‘Tor, feel that in you which was also in Christ who, existing in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself taking the form of a slave, made in the likeness of man and found with the shape of a man.

First of all the Photinians and those after Photinus and before him who say that Jesus is mere man and also made from man recognize the blasphemy as impious. “In Christ who existing in the form of God.” “Existing” when? Before he came into the body. For he said that he had emptied himself and taken the form of a slave. Therefore he also existed before he became man. And what was he? The Logos of God, the “form of God.”

What is this: “existing equal to God?” That he is of the same power and substance of God. For he said: “being equal.”496

When he gets to the Epistle to the Philippians in Book 121, the key, immediate text to

comment on is Philippians 2:5-7, in which we find Victorinus’ second mention in Against

Arius of “one substance, one power.”497 For Victorinus, Paul’s witness proves “that the Son

496. Clark, 121. AA 121,27—41. (emphasis added) “Ad Philippenses. Quod [spiritus]: et in subministratione spiritus Iesus Ckristi. Quod dpootiaioq et sim ul potens patri filius: istud enim sapite in vobis quod et in Christo, qui form a dei exsistens non rapinam arbitratus est esse aequalia deo, sed semet ipsum exinanivitformam servi accipiens, in similitudine hominis effectus etfigura inventus sicuti homo. Primum Photiniani et ab isto et ante istum qui hominem dicunt Iesum et solum ab homine factum, cognoscant impiam blasphemiam. In Christo qui in form a dei exsistens. Quando exsistens! Antequam veniret in corpus. D ixit enim quod exinanierit semet ipsum et acceperit formam servi. Erat igitur et antequam homo fieret. Et qualis erat? Aoyoq dei, form a dei. Quid est istud: aequalia exsistens deo? Quod est eius ipsius et potentiae et substantiae. D ixit enim aequalia esse.” CSEL 83/1, 89-90.

497. Book 1 21,22-23,47. CSEL 83/1, 89-95. Hadot believes this extended section comments against Photinians, using “Form o f God,” against Homoiousians, using “equal,” against Marcellus and Photinus, using “he emptied him self” as w ell as his arguments for consubstantiality using Philippians. Hadot, Trades Theologiques, 768-72.


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is homoonsios and together with the Father powerful.”498 And Paul’s witness, Victorinus

mentions, disproves Photinus, and all before or after Photinus who believed his blasphemy of

Jesus being a mere man and being made merely from man. Christ, Victorinus asserts, existed

before he became man, and was therefore the Logos of God, i.e., the “form of God.”499 The

meaning of “existing equal to God,” according to Victorinus asks, is “that he is of the same

power and substance of God.. .”500 He further qualifies the meaning by specifying that divine

substance is different than the substance which makes up the human person, besides also the

obvious meaning that “equal to God” cannot be construed as meaning “like to God.” Except

for a passing reference to Ephesians 3:18, Victorinus employs no other Scripture

references except to comment on Philippians 2:5-7 through Book IA 21,27-22,55.502

The richest, most dense passage in Against Arius which makes use of “one substance,

one power” comes nearer the end of Book IA, in sections 37-39:

Whatever Paul attributed to the Son, he attributed toe same things also to toe Father, with those three prepositions, although in one of them he referred to paternal dignity so that there would be evident both one divinity and the substance and power proper to the Father. To toe Colossians he said toe former statements of toe Son. But to toe Romans he said toe same of toe Father: ‘Tor who has known toe mind of toe Lord or who has been his counselor, or who has first given to him and be recompensed, since from him and through him and for him are all things?” You see how he

498. Clark, 121. AA 121,28-29.499. Clark, 121.500. Clark, 121. AA 121,39-40. “Quod est eius ipsius et potentiae et substantiae.” CSEL 83/1, 90.501. Ephesians 3:18: “So that you may know the height, the length, the breadth, and the depth o f God.”

Victorinus says that Paul makes this statement in Ephesians in order to describe toe quantities o f the substance o f God. Clark, 122.

502. The discussion carried on by Victorinus about Philippians 2, tying together these key themes o f Image, Form, Logos, power and substance, is toe very same in his Philippians commentary, written probably just a few years later, where he comments on 2:6-8: “Briefly, moreover, this having been set forth, who Christ is and was before he descended in the flesh, and what power and even substance he is, it has truly been said, what Form o f God Christ was. Moreover what is the Form o f God? It is not just the figure, nor the appearance, but rather the Image and the Power.” Liber ad Philippenses 1207B,3-7. “breviter autem hie exposition, quod Christus sit et antequam in came descenderet, et in qua sit virtute atque substantia, dictum est enim, quod forma dei Christus esset quid autem sit dei forma? non figura, non vultus, sed imago et potentia.” Marii Victorini Afri: Commentarii in Epistulas Pauli ad Galatas ad Philippenses ad Ephesios, ed. Albrecht Locher (Leipzig: Teubner Verlag, 1972), 85. Cf. also 1207C,22-23, “Haec igitur forma et imago dei. quanta potentia et quanta deitas vel virtus sit, alibi expressum”; 1210A,28-29 , “quoniam virtute dei ut deus ipse et forma dei, ipse deu s...”


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has attributed both to the Father and the Son the same things, but not precisely the same, for the sake of homoousion. First, there were three prepositions for one, and three for the other. Then the same prepositions were used for both Father and Son. But this: “Through whom are all things” is attributed to both the Father and the Son since the Son who is the Logos of all existents is the actual power in existents, and because the Father is in the Son, the Father also exists in him as actual power. For at the same time die Son is in the Father, and die Father in the Son. Therefore, there is one power, that is, one substance, for there, power is substance; for power is nothing else, other than substance. Therefore, this is the same for Father and for Son.”503

For the sake of defending the homoousios, Victorinus brings together a chain of texts,

beginning with I Cor. 15:24-28, proceeding to I Cor. 1:24, to John 5:19, and ending by

returning to I Cor. 1:24. Rather uniquely, this passage begins with a homoousios

commentary on what the apostle Paul intended in Rom. 11:34-36, when he said “since

from him and through him and for him are all things.” Victorinus interprets this as Paul’s

way of saying that whatever is attributed to the Son is also attributed to the Father;

therefore, they are one divinity. For the sake of homoousios the same things are attributed

to both Father and Son, especially what Victorinus terms “actual power.”504 This leads

into the most striking aspect of all of IA 37-39: not the way Victorinus interprets what

Paul intended, but his assertion which immediately follows the mention of actual power:

“For at the same time the Son is in the Father, and the Father in the Son. Therefore,

there is one power, that is, one substance; for there, power is substance; for power is

503. Clark, 150. AA 1 3 7 ,4 -2 1 . (emphasis added) “Esse autem et deum et Xoyov 6p.oovotov, hoc est patrem et filium, ex istis manifestum. Quae dedit filio Paulus, eadem dedit et patri, tria ista cum dignitate patema in uno, ut appareret et divinitas una et substantia et potentia paterna. Ad Colossenses istuc dixit de filio. Ad Romanos autem de patre eadem: quis enim cognovit mentem domini, aut quis fuit eius, aut quis prius dedit et reddetur ei, quoniam ex ipso et per ipsum e t in ipsum omnia Vides quemadmodum eadem et non sic eadem dedit et patri et filio, in 6poovonov. Primum tria et tria. Deinde eadem et patri et filio. Hoc autem per quern omnia et patri et filio datum est, quoniam filius, Xoyoq qui est omnium quae sunt, potentia actuosa in ea quae sunt, et quod in filio pater est, in ipso et pater actuosa potentia exsistit Simul enim et filius et in patre et pater in filio. Una ergo potentia hoc est una substantia exsistit; ibi enim potentia, substantia; non enim aliud potentia, aliud substantia. Idem ergo ipsum est et patri et filio.” CSEL 83/1,121-22.

504. “potentia actuosa” AA 1 37,16.


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nothing else, other than substance.”505 The acknowledgment of attributes common to both

Father and Son becomes even more intriguing when Victorinus speaks of “things being

made subject,” citing, of all texts, I Corinthians 15:28.5061 Corinthians 15:24-28 is a text

to which one could appeal for radical unity, but Victorinus does not argue, like

Marcellus, for I Corinthians 15 being merely an explanation of the history of salvation

and the eventual collapse of the Logos into the Father. Victorinus uses this text for

speaking of divine unity as well as diversity, when he shifts from “one power” language

to speaking, as he does at times, of multiple powers in God (such as the “paternal power”

and the “the Son’s own power”), and the Son as Wisdom, through whom, one day, all

things will be subjected.507 1 Corinthians 15:24—28 is given meaning here by an appeal to

I Corinthians 1:24: “Christ, the Power and the Wisdom of God.” Because of this

subjection of all things one day, both the Father’s enemies and the Son’s enemies,

Victorinus restates that each is in the other and therefore they are homoousioi. Before he

entirely finishes with I Corinthians 15:24—28, Victorinus will point out that the final

subjection of all things will also involve the destruction of death by Jesus who is life. He

fits this into his psychological analogy of the Trinity as Being, Life, and Understanding,

505. Clark, 150. AA 1 37,18—20. (emphasis added) “Simul enim et filius et in patre et pater in filio . Una ergo potentia hos est una substantia exsistit; ibi enim potentia, substantia; non enim aliud potentia, aliud substantia.” CSEL 83/1, 122.

506. A text which since the fourth century has been identified most o f all with the theology o f Marcellus o f Ancyra and the extreme modalist connotations attributed to it, especially his theory o f the reunion o f the Logos with God after the end o f the Economy.

507. It is, admittedly, a problem in Victorinus that he most often has a xpibuvapig /tripotens idea o f multiple powers versus his discussion o f one power in God, influenced by the Stoic tensile m odel o f expanding and contracting power. See M ichel R. Barnes, “Christ, the Wisdom and Faculty o f God: Victorinus and the Psychological M odel.” (paper presented at the annual meeting o f the North American Patristics Society, 1990).


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while also returning to a statement confirming that Jesus is homoousios with the Father

“by very substance and by very power.”508

The question is still at hand over what exactly Victorinus believes the apostle Paul

wishes us to understand, where the final link in the Scripture chain of this passage is

complete, with Victorinus citing the most important text of Scripture for late-Nicene

definition. Continuing with his power language, Victorinus speaks of the Father

accomplishing all things that the Son accomplishes, citing as his proof John 5:19—“the

Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because

whatever the Father does the Son also does....” Therefore, he maintains, all things done

by either are attributed “indifferently” to either, because each of them is in the other. The

qualifier on that idea is Victorinus’ added assertion that the Father “is by his own

subsistence, the Son by his own subsistence, from the one substance which is from the

Father.”509 This framing of attribution to Father and/or Son by emphasizing that there are

different subsistences//zy/?o5,toe^ but one substance precludes a Marcellan reading of

what Victorinus says about the shared power and substance of the Father and the Son.510

The remainder of this section (IA 37-39) involves a repeated statement of Christ

“triumphing” through, not surprisingly, the Power of the Father. From this section,

508. Clark, 152 .AA 1 38,27—28: “Sed quoniam opooijoiog patri et ipsa substantia et ipsa po ten tia ...” CSEL 83/1, 124. Hanson merely claims that Victorinus “characteristically plunges into an esoteric philosophical explanation,” proving again that it is typical to read Victorinus as an unintelligible philosopher rather than an adept exegete. Hanson, Search, 838.

509. Clark, 153. AA 1 39,8-10: “sed subsistentia propria et pater etfilius est ab una ex patre substantia” CSEL 83/1,125.

510. This is the late 350s/early 360s Latin language Victorinus uses for distinctions within the Trinity such as in AA II 4,51-52, where he defines “from one substance there are three subsistences” (“de una substantia, tres subsistentias esse”), or in AA III 4,38-39 where Victorinus quotes “how the Greeks say tln piag ouatag xpeig elvai unoordoEig”’ inAA III 4,38-39. Specifically where Victorinus acquired this Greek trinitarian formula for definition is a major point o f contention in Victorine scholarship Like other Neo-Nicenes Victorinus retains some semantic confusion over the distinction between ousia and hypostasis', numerous examples o f this can be seen especially in Book II o f Against Arius.


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Victorinus continues his defense of consubstantiality through discussing Power according

to I Corinthians 1:24, “Christ.. .the Power and Wisdom of God,” and this reality

compared to the analogy of vision.

“One Substance, One Power” serves a very different purpose when Victorinus uses it

next as a definition of trinitarian identity in Book III by means of describing a double

dyad in the Trinity of Father-Son and Son-Spirit.511 He begins Book III , a book devoted

to arguing for the consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit, with a summary of what he has

already detailed in Books I and II. Victorinus then describes the double dyads, speaks of

the unity of divine substance in three subsistences, including his triad of Being, Life and

Understanding, especially with emphasizing Christ as Life given to humanity as the

Mystery, or Economy, of Redemption. Divine unity in the sense of circumincessio is

what Victorinus will largely describe near the end of Book III. The unity of Father and

Son are justified by mentions of John 10:30, “the Father and I are one,” and 14:10, “I am

in the Father and the Father is in me.” Before speaking about one power for describing

one divine substance, however, he falls back into his other mode of speaking about

multiple powers in God: “Since it has therefore been proved that these three powers, both

by their common and their proper acts, and by the identity of their substance, constitute

the unity of divinity, it is not illogical to reduce them to two: to the Son and to the

Father.” This is unusual, but not uncommon for Victorinus.

511. Victorinus’ description o f the Son-Spirit dyad has modalist overtones to it, which is why Hanson accused Victorinus o f finding it “difficult to distinguish the precise o f mode o f proper existence o f the Holy Spirit and he appears at times to identify Christ and the Holy Spirit” Hanson, Search, 554. Cf., for example, AA HI 14, where Victorinus says, “Therefore, he (Christ) is also Spirit Paraclete, and die Holy Spirit is another Paraclete, and he is sent by the Father. The Holy Spirit is therefore Jesus.” Clark, 242-43.

512. Clark, 250. AA III 17,10-13. “Cum igitur adprobatum sittres istas potentias et communi et proprio actu et substantia eadem unitatem deitatemque conficere, non sine ratione rerum in duo ista revocantur: in filium ac patrem.” CSEL 83/1,222.


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In spite of this divine unity coupled with multiple powers, Victorinus will still restate

the reality of the dyads in the Trinity, while also adding another salient feature:

Since this is so, if God and Christ are one, while Christ and the Spirit are one, one can rightly say that the three are one in power and substance. Nevertheless the first two are one yet differ insofar as the Father is actual existence, that is, substantiality, while the Son is existential act. But the two remaining ones are two in such a way that Christ and the Holy Spirit are two in one, that is, in movement, and thus they are two as a unity is two. But the first two are as a two which is one. Thus, since there are two in one and two which are one, the Trinity is one.513

This One Substance, One Power statement is embedded in Victorinus’ intentions to prove

the double dyad of Father-Son and Son-Spirit. Little Scripture is marshalled for the

purpose, except for two quotations of Paul two paragraphs before “one in substance and

power...” to prove the Father-Son dyad/unity, as well as John 10:30 (“I and the Father

are one”) and John 14:10 (“I am in the Father and the Father is in me”). This is not the

best use of exegesis for arguing trinitarian identity, since the Scripture texts appear to be

simply add-ons. Victorinus is far more concerned with discussing the Father, Son and

Spirit in terms of their interior versus exterior acts, aspects and movements.514

There exist two One Substance, One Power statements in Book IV of Against Arius,

though like the occurrence in Book III, they do not seem to fall within the occasion of

Victorinus defining such a statement by means of Scriptural exegesis. Book IV begins

with a discussion of “The Son, Consubstantial Form of the Father, as Life is Form of ‘to

live.’”515 According to his trinitarian model, the Father is “to live,” but the Son as the

513. Clark, 251—52. AA III 18,11—18. (emphasis added) “Quod cum ita sit, si deus et Christus unum, cum Christus et spiritus unum, iure tria unum, vi et substantia. Prima tamen duo unum diversa hoc, ut sit pater actualis exsistentia, id est substantialitas, filius vero actus exsistentialis. Duo autem reliqua ita duo, ut Christus et spiritus sanctus in uno duo sint, id est in motu, atque ita duo, ut unum duo. Prima autem duo, ut duo unum. Sic, cum in uno duo et cum duo unum, trinitas exsistit unum.” CSEL 83/1,223-24.

514. The last paragraph o f Book III (AA IE 18,18-28) contains the definition o f the Holy Spirit where Victorinus repeatedly uses his particular technical term “Christ in the Flesh.”

515. Clark, 253. Again, Clark is following the structural summary o f Hadot and a conceptual matrix o f her translation (and footnotes o f philosophical commentary).


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action of the Father is Life. These two persons of the Trinity are two, and yet they are

one; they are united. So shortly into this discussion in Book IV 3, Victorinus affirms,

almost in passing, that

If there is no difference between “to live” and life, if it suffices to posit the “to be” of life to have “to live” inherent in it, we shall justly and rightly say their “to be” which joins them to existence is one and not two.

But if, first of all, “to live” is other than life, if there is, besides, between them this difference, that at one time life is cause of “to live,” and at another time “to live” is the cause that there is life, then they are two, but redoubled one in the other and thus absolutely united in themselves. It matters indeed that they are double under the relationship of the Power and of his own divine Logos, double in such a way that the one who is produced by the other has the same nature and power as the one from which he proceeds.516

The Form of God, as indicative of the of the triad of existence, life and knowledge,

recurs in IV 26. Book IV concentrates largely on the Christ-Spirit dyad, with relentless

philosophical reflection on the meaning of Victorinus’ triad of being, life and

understanding; IV becomes far more interesting at its end, in IV 29-33, as Victorinus

gives his last, articulate attempt at arguing for the Son as consubstantial with the Father

and as the Form of God. But Form of God receives a distinctive mention in IV 26, where

speaks about his triad, relates the three persons to three powers, and repeats his argument

about how the attributes of God become manifest in the Son and Spirit. The Son is the

Form of God, and is in the Father, and has the same substance as the Father. Victorinus

concludes at the end of IV 26 that

since in God the mode of “to be” and “to be” are identical as to their power, it necessarily results that there is in God only one Logos, the form having the same power as the substance. Therefore, if the form of this substance has the same power and is the same as substance

516. Clark, 255—56. AA IV 3,6—14. (emphasis added) “Si nihil interest vivere et vita, sit et vitam esse ut insit et vivere, iure ac merito unam istorum, non geminam, copulam ad exsistentiam sui esse dicemus. Sin autem primum aliud est vivere, aliud vitam esse, et item, si distantia est, ut nunc vita causa sit ad vi[v]endum, nunc ipsum vivere causa sit ut vita sit, duo sunt ista, sed gemina inter se atque apud se simpliciter unita; potentia enim Xoycpque suo atque divino refert ista geminari, ut eiusdem naturae ac potentiae alteram cuius sit id a quo hoc alteram.” CSEL 83/1,227.


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itself—for it is substantial form—the Son will be the same as the Father, or there is neither Father nor Son before the going forth externally, but only one itself.517

One can gaze upon this statement for a long time to decide whether it is “One Substance,

One Power.” I say that One Substance, One Power, or in this case Same Substance, Same

Power, lies behind a rather recondite reasoning for the unity of Father and Son.

Substance and Power are dominant themes in Victorinus’ trinitarian Hymn I in desribing

the relations of the Father and the Son. Among many images, Christ is described as “die

Power of God” and “the whole Power of God.” Included in the hymn is a description of

the Son and Father being in each other, as well as a One Substance, One Power

statement: “There are therefore two singulars since they are always within each other/ For

both therefore, one is the power, one is the substance.”518

Readers of Victorinus might assume that this expression of his Nicene sophistication

would be limited to what have been named his “trinitarian treatises,” but this is a

mistaken notion. If we accept that his Pauline commentaries were the latest production of

his long career, after his forced resignation from his rhetor post circa 362, One Power,

One Substance, continues even in his commentaries. Victorinus’ Ephesians commentary,

for example, does not read merely as a commentarius simplex, with an austere Latin tone

of exegesis. It is a majestic meditation on the meaning of Paul’s exhortation to the

Ephesians to comprehend the meaning of the Son. In discussing Ephesians 2:3 (“And we

were natural sons of wrath, just as the others were”) he gets into language that

517. Clark, 292. AA IV 26,21-27. “quia eadem vi valet quomodo et quidque sit, necessario fit unus Xoyoq, idem valente forma quod substantia. Ergo si idem valet et idem est forma, istius tamen substantiae, quod ipsa substantia—substantial enim forma est—idem erit filius quod pater, aut neque pater neque filius ante egressum foras, sed unum ipsum solum.” CSEL 83/1,266.

518. Clark, 317. (emphasis added.) Hymnus 1 29-30: “Sunt ergo singuli atque, in semet semper cum sint singuli/ Hinc duobus una virtus, hinc una substantia est.” CSEL 83/1,286.


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distinguishes generate from ingenerate. It is here that the ingenerate realities are cast in

familiar language:

Whereas on the other hand in regard to the eternal realities, they are spoken of as if they were generated for this reason: because whatever these divine things are, they begin to appear by a certain process of division as it were. Nevertheless, because they exist by the same power and the same substance by which they existed previously, they are not like generated beings. For of course since God made all things, God made things eternal out of eternal realities, just as He had them; in fact God merely separated them, so to speak, and established them as individuals. In other books we think through these matters, how many and of what sort of beings there are. As it is, we take Christ, angels, souls and all other beings that are eternal to have been begotten in a certain way in the eternal realms—though this begetting or generation is a far cry from what constitutes begetting in the world.519

Victorinus speaks of divine versus worldly natures: higher realities that are

unbegotten, and lesser, worldly beings that are begotten according to the natural order.

Generation speaks of things that are from the created order, but divine, eternal realities

that are unbegotten are defined by inherent power and divine substance. He does not

name the Son solely as the matter on which he comments here, since the object o f his

thoughts at this moment is the notion of fallen human creatures, begotten of this world,

being objects of God’s wrath. But the notion of same power and same substance for that

which is begotten of the higher ingenitus reality: that is the notion Victorinus has

identified as having to do with the Son’s unity with the Father.

There is another single observation like this in Victorinus’ Galatians commentary.

Though Victorinus primarily speaks in depth about the function of God’s Law and of

519. Cooper, Ephesians, 65. In Epistulam Pauli adEphesios 1 2,3 21-31. (emphasis added.) “at vero in aetemis, quoniam quaecumque ilia divina sunt, quasi quadam discretione apparere incipient, ideo veluti generata dicuntur. Quoniam tam en eadem virtute sunt et eadem substantia, qua fuerunt, idcirco ut generata non sunt, neque enim cum deus omnia fecerit, non ea, quae aetema, fecit ex aetemis, ut habuit, sed tantummodo veluti separavit et singula constituit, quae quanta et qualia sint, aliis libris intellegimus. nunc vel Christum vel angelos vel animas ceteraque omnia, quae aetem a sunt, in aetemis quasi genita accipimus, cum longe aliter generatio sit, quae in mundo est.” Marius Victorinus, Marii Victorinini Afri: Commentarii in Epistulas Pauli ad Galatas ad Philippenses ad Ephesios, ed. Albrecht Locher (Leipzig: Teubner Verlag, 1972), 150.


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faith in Christ, the threefold mention of Father, Son and Spirit in Galatians 4:6 provides

the chance for his seminal observation:

But as you are God’s sons, God sent the Spirit of the Son into your hearts (4:6). Behold: the entire array of these three powers operating through their one power and one godhead. For God—says Paul—God, who is the Father, sent the Son, who is Christ. Christ in turn, who being the power of God is also himself God, Christ as God sent—says Paul, for now God and Christ are conjoined, especially with Christ’s having been sanctified after the Mystery—sent the Spirit o f the Son, says Paul, the Holy Spirit, who descending into our hearts easily makes the Father known.520

The speech about the three persons being ‘Three powers” can be ignored, since the

sentence continues as Victorinus asserts “these three” are one power and one deitas,

operating through this reality. The divine unity expressed here has to do with Christian

believers being made “sons of God” through the Son of God, besides the theology of

sending Victorinus describes: The Father sends the Son. Christ, being the power of God

and conjoined with the Father, sends the Holy Spirit, who descends into human hearts

and makes the Father known. This eloquent, if passing, statement expresses Victorinus’

confirmed notion of divine unity, with Father, Son and Spirit sharing the same power and

nature. It also reads as something rather remarkable because here again we see a

Victorine notion of Filioque, existing in the Latin West of the early 360s.521

Conclusion

520. In Epistuiam Pauli ad Galatas. II 4,6 33—8. (emphasis added) “Sed quoniam filii estis dei, m isit deus spiritum filii sui in corda vestra. ecce totus ordo trium istarum potentiarum per unam virtutem unamque deitatem . nam deus, inquit, qui pater est, misit filium suum, qui Christus est, rursusque Christus, qui ipse, cum est dei virtus, et ipse deus est, misit deus, inquit, iam enim iunctus est et deus et Christus et maxime post mysterium sanctificatus, misit, inquit, spiritum filii sui, qui est spiritus sanctus, qui in corda nostra descendens facile cognoscit patrem.” Locher, Marii Victorini Afri, 44-45.

521. Though in the sentence which directly follows this passage the Spirit comes from the Father: “Therefore the Son Jesus Christ, in whom believers believe and are made sons o f God, was sent by God. To them is sent, also from God, the Spirit o f the Son—that is, the Holy Spirit—that they might hasten, hurry to the Father, and cry out with a kind o f inner sanctification, with an inner voice.”


The unity between the Father and the Son proves the case for homoousios most fully.

Victorinus argues for divine unity in his treatises and realizes that texts which describe

full knowledge and ontological unity between the Father, Son and Spirit are the best texts

of Scripture which will argue for the Neo-Nicene cause of consubstantiality — texts such

as Matthew 11:27 and John 10:30. Beyond these texts for divine unity, however,

Victorinus also understands the need to speak of divine power as a conceptual idiom and

trinitarian model.

Power as a trinitarian reality in Victorinus is possibly the best example that shows

various strands of his theological thought coming together for the sake of Neo-Nicene

definition. Victorinus’ theology includes an anachronistic, Porphyrian portrayal of the

Trinity as being three-powers, as well as an older, Nicene model of Power, where the Son

is the one power of God. But even with these older models, he also has an incipient, ‘Pro-

Nicene,’ technical sense of the One Power of God: of the Father and the Son (and the

Spirit) sharing the same nature and substance. Victorinus understands and uses

polemically-weighted texts about power such as Luke 1:35 and I Corinthians 1:24 (Christ

“the Power and Wisdom of God”), in his regular discussion surrounding “One Substance

One Power” statements throughout his works.522 He also uses unity texts such as John

5:19,10:30,14:10 and Philippians 2 to argue for divine unity, substance and power. And

it is in these arguments for divine unity, arguing from same substance, power and

operations, that Victorinus makes his very best contribution as a Neo-Nicene theologian

of Scripture.

522 It is too simplistic to view Victorinus as having ‘life’ as his dominant conceptual idiom in his theology. Power is just as common and constant in his work as life.


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Conclusions

In this thesis I have shown that the person and thought of Marius Victorinus was not so

isolated from and ignored on the scene of Western Latin Nicene-trinitarian theology in

the decades of the 350s and 360s as hitherto assumed in scholarship on the “Arian

Controversy.” Reconsiderations of the entire scope of the Trinitarian Controversy in

recent decades, combined with the thorough textual scholarship of fourth-century

patristic scholars such as Pierre Hadot, have reignited interest in Marius Victorinus and

other Western Latin Nicenes. A detailed reading of Victorinus’ post-conversion

trinitarian treatises, especially the four books that comprise Against Arius, shows a

brilliant rhetorical-philosophical scholar who quickly became conversant in the Nicene

and Anti-Nicene theological currents of the 350s; who was familiar with early Arianism

from documents circulating in the Latin West; and who understood Homoian,

Homoiousian and Western modalist Anti-Nicene trajectories in his sophisticated Nicene

reading and exegesis of Scripture. All of this he carried out in only the last ten years of

his life, including his penning of the first Latin commentaries ever on Pauline epistles. In

the space of only a few years (ca. 359 to 362 or 363), Victorinus wrote elaborate,

densely-argued Nicene-trinitarian treatises, employing a rich exegesis, for the sake of

engaging Anti-Nicenes who were briefly holding a certain ascendancy in the official

creedal theology of the Western and Eastern Church.


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Much has been made in constant, passing remarks about Victorinus being too obscure

and difficult to read, being read by virtually no one, and having no real contact or

engagement with “Arianism as it existed in his day” (Hanson). Such a shallow

understanding of Victorinus can be made only by those who have not read through his

treatises, and have unquestioningly accepted Jerome’s remarks of Victorinus. Victorinus

may well have used a fictional character, Candidus, in his first attempts at beginning to

form a polemic against Anti-Nicene theology, and giving a brief look at original

Arianism to frame out the later issues of the controversy. But once he began writing

Against Arius, he addressed Anti-Nicenes as they had defined themselves in later stages

of the controversy, especially in the conciliar events of 357 through 359. This close

engagement with Anti-Nicenes is a clear component of his treatises: Victorinus explicitly

names many figures involved in his period of the Trinitarian Controversy, except for

Neo-Arian figures such as Eunomius and Aetius. Opponents mentioned by name include

Paxil of Samosata, “Patripassians,” Arius, Eusebius, Marcellus, Photinus, Basil o f Ancyra,

Valens and Ursacius, and even a curious list of four characters that sounds like an

intentioned polemical device, when Victorinus rails in Book 143 against a category heM l

names as “Arians, ‘Lucianists,’ Eusebians, and ‘Illyrians.” The “Lucianist” term as

something lumped in with Arius and Eusebius of Nicomedia is predictable, based on the

Letter o f Arius to Eusebius, but the interesting, nuanced way Victorinus throws in a

geographical slur such as “Illyrian” shows how versed Victorinus is with his Anti-Nicene

523 This comes nearly at the end o f Book I, where he is summing up condemnations o f various heresies; in Book 143 he is summing up against those who argue for homoiousios: “There are Arians, there are Lucianists, there are Eusebians, there are Illyrians but in adding, subtracting and changing, all are o f diverse and heretical opinions.” Clark, 159. A A 1 4 3 , 1 1-14. “Isti Arriani, isti Lucianistae, isti Eusebiani, isti Illyriciani, sed adicientes aliqua, auferentes aliqua et mutantes, omnes diversae opinionis et haeretici.” CSEL 83/1, 132.


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opponents Valens and Ursacius, whose Anti-Nicene efforts in the 350s had concentrated

so much from a base of operations in this geographical region of the empire. Victorinus

clearly does know of his Anti-Nicene opponents — especially Marcellus, Homoians and

Homoiousians — and he engages them relentlessly throughout his works as he argues for

the consubstantiality of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Victorinus was reborn from his conversion circa 355 into a rich Latin scholarly legacy

of theology that had flourished most of all under “the Master” of the Latin West,

Tertullian. I have shown that there are clear instances in Victorinus’ works where he

harks back to Tertullian’s reading of Scripture, including in his use of specific trinitarian

Scripture texts and commonplaces (the same can be said about his familiarity and use of

Novatian). Victorinus’ conversion took place in an epochal moment of nascent Homoian

and Homoiousian definition in the late 350s, when the need for a polemical form would

be immediate. This is the same time period when a distinct group of Latin theologians,

such as Hilary of Poitiers, Marius Victorinus, Phoebadius of Agen and Gregory of Elvira,

were set to engage Anti-Nicene theology with a retrieval and defense of the doctrine of

homoousios. We can especially see this theme treated relentlessly by Victorinus in the

four books o f Against Arius, and in the short reprise summary he penned afterwards, The

Necessity o f Accepting Homoousios. Against Arius, looked at as a total work, improves

measurably as Victorinus continues through the four books. There are even unexpected

gems that are the by-product of his exegesis deployed as a polemic against Anti-Nicenes,

such as the “anomalous trinitarian formula” of Book III, “ex \Liaq ovoiaq xpeTg elvai

ujtocrcdaeig,” the brilliant explanation of divine visibility texts in Scripture, his One


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Substance One Power theology of divine unity, and the Nicene Pneumatology employing

a filioque element.

In speaking of divine substance, Victorinus never fully left the conceptual world of

Neo-Nicenes. He did, however, surprisingly manage to produce a “Cappadocian

Settlement”/3 81-sounding formula which distinguished substantive divine being from

real separate, hypostatic existence, something which no other Neo-Nicene was quite able

to do.524 This is obviously not solely to his credit, as he got it from somewhere else.

Further, he did not quite entirely know what to do with it, even though he compared this

one ousia in three hypostases formula, probably from Meletian sources,525 to his

rendering of it into a Latin formula of one substantia in three subsistences, in Books II

and III of Against Arius.526 Unfortunately, substantia had long been for Latins the

common translation not only of ousia but also hypostasis, so Victorinus could not quite

escape the semantic problems that were a handicap to Western Latins, including his clear

falling at times into modalist presentations of trinitarian persons.

One could argue that even this semi-modalist tendency shows a close similarity to other

Neo-Nicenes, who were seeking to redefine what Nicaea 325 had achieved, settling on

the meaning of key texts in Nicene-Arian debates, and groping toward their own

polemical form. Few scholars have clearly identified the Scripture texts that easily

defined all stages of the Trinitarian Controversy and its groups, both Nicene and various

524. See chapter 5, “Divine Unity in Victorinus”: Victorinus’ understanding and use o f connatural unity in his “one substance, one power” statements put him unexpectedly in die very advanced “Pro-Nicene” camp.

525. Again, this contact, probably because o f his skill with Greek, refutes the notion o f Victorinus isolated from theological currents o f his specific time in the late 350s/early 360s.

526. “de una substantia, tres subsistentias esse” in AA II 4,51-52; “ex p.iag obalag Tpag elvat ujtooraaeie” inAA III 4,38-39; “substantia unum, subsistentia tria sunt ista” in AA III 4,34—35; and “unam esse substantiam, subsistentias tres” in AA III 9 ,3-4 .


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anti-Nicene.527 1 have shown how Victorinus’ treatment of substance texts is closely

related to that of other Neo-Nicenes such as Phoebadius of Agen and Gregory of Elvira,

or Western Latins who preceded him, such as Tertullian and Novatian. Besides knowing

about Homoian and Homoiousian exegeses of his day, from Anti-Nicene creeds in an

extent dossier, Victorinus understood, and used, commonplace Nicene responses. Any

further development of his exegesis was stopped by his leaving his public teaching post

in 362 because of the Emperor Julian’s edict, and his probable death ca. 365, when he

departed from the late Neo-Nicene stage with very few clues as to his demise. If

Victorinus did have contact with Meletian sources ca. 362 to quote his Greek trinitarian

formula, he is especially unique for his witness to such a “moment of turning,” with

specific Meletian solutions to the problem of defining unity and distinction in divine

substance and being.

It is readily apparent that divine visibility is better understood and presented by

Victorinus than his attempts at attempts at exegesis of divine substance texts in Scripture,

especially for the sake of an apologetic retrieval of the Nicene homoousios. The way in

which he arranges texts for visibility, and the chains of texts he uses, are marvelous. One

question that remains unanswered, though, is why there is so little use of Philippians 2:5-

8 by Western Latin exegetes before Victorinus and Hilary of Poitiers. The paucity of their

use of Philippians 2 is inexplicable, and its non-use was possibly occasioned by other

concerns prior to the fourth century. The Nicene “search for the Christian doctrine of

527. Michel Barnes has given the clearest examples o f exegetical loci that Nicenes favored, compared to, for example, the texts favored by Anti-Nicenes as outlined by M ichel M eslin, in his 1967 work, Les Ariens d ’Occident, 231-34. Cf. also D.H. W illiams, “Defining Orthodoxy in Hilary o f Poitiers’ Commentarium in Matthaeum.” Williams sees the most central Nicene texts Hilary could appeal to in his Matthew commentary as being only made up o f Jn. 6:38,10:30,10:38 and 14:11, with no mention o f other texts, such as Jn. 5:19,14:9 and others that were clearly more important in the exegetical polemics o f the Trinitarian Controversy.


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God” during the fourth century certainly required a text such as Philippians 2 to be placed

within the arsenal of divine sonship texts, but prior to the fourth century there does not

seem to be sufficient use of such a salient text. Years before he would write a

commentary on Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians, Victorinus made full use of the

Philippians 2 Christ Hymn to argue for the Son being the Image and Form of God. He

also linked this combined Image/Form of God to divine substance and power, and to

other vital visibility texts such as Colossians 1:15, John 14:9, Exodus 33:20, Matthew

11:27, John 1:18 and I Timothy 6:16. Victorinus uses Philippians 2 mostly as a visibility

text, and somewhat as a unity text, and it is apparent to him that this is a Pauline locus

that deserves attention and exegesis.

Victorinus’ arguments for and commentary on divine unity make use of classic unity

texts, expressing a Nicene theology of full unity and consubstantiality between Father,

Son and Holy Spirit. Most of all, the late-stage, “Pro-Nicene,” “One Substance, One

Power” theology—statements of which appear at regular intervals throughout his

writings, including in his three surviving Pauline commentaries—place Victorinus

slightly ahead of his time, almost into a Pro-Nicene camp of Western Latins that included

Hilary, Ambrose, and Augustine. But only almost: Victorinus obviously understood One

Substance, One Power/Nature as key to expressing the full divinity of the Son, but his

Nicene exegesis and theology does not equal that of Hilary. Also, Victorinus, while

working on a coalescing polemical form, never fully frees himself from Western Latin


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miahypostatic theology, which influenced the West even into the 360s, around the time

when Victorinus is about to depart from the theological scene.528

The world of Victorine scholarship is a small one within current theological

reconsiderations of fourth-century Anti-Nicene and Nicene-trinitarian theologies. Interest

in Victorinus is strong, but the actual number of scholars who do Victorine research is

rather circumscribed. There well may still remain a reflexive idea that Victorinus is too

difficult to delve into. This reality, combined with a decline in work being done in Latin

Patristics, makes for a dearth of Victorine scholarship. More work is warranted,

however, in Victorinus’ Nicene theology, in his Pneumatology, and in his Pauline

commentaries.530 The Nicene-trinitarian witness and work of Marius Victorinus was

evidently strong in the late 350s and early 360s, most of all in his formation of an

exegetical polemic for the sake of Neo-Nicene redefinition in the context of a maturing

Nicene orthodoxy in the last decades leading up to 381 and beyond.

528. There are further qualifications I can make about Victorinus’ surprisingly Nicene exegesis, such as his brief exegesis o f Jn. 5:19 in Against Arius I and III, using it as the premier proof-text to speak o f the connatural power between the Father and the Son.

529. Peter Gemeinhardt o f the University o f Jena observed to me after the 2003 Oxford International Conference on Patristic Studies that Western Latin trinitarian theology papers were far few er than at the Oxford conference four years before in 1999, and that this whole subject area “seems to be on holiday.”

530. Stephen Cooper’s most recent work on Victorinus’ Galatians commentary complements w ell other work on Victorinus’ Ephesians commentary. In fourth-century Nicene-Trinitarian scholarship there has been little attention paid any clear Nicene theological content in Victorinus’ Pauline commentaries. Stephen A. Cooper, Marius Victorinus ’ Commentary on Galatians: Introduction, Translation, And Notes (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). There is still reasonable hope that Victorinus’ lost commentaries on Romans, I Corinthians and n Corinthians may still turn up somewhere someday.


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Appendix A: The Spirit’s Procession As Evidence Of Unity

In the four books of Against Arius, there is an intense effort to argue for the shared nature

of Father and Son, and of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Victorinus’ theology of the Holy

Spirit may have a secondary role within his entire treatise, but he makes it quite clear that

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—not just the Father and the Son—are consubstantial.

Victorinus makes this point relentlessly throughout Against Arius, as well as in a smaller,

summary treatise that followed, The Necessity o f Accepting the Homousios and in three

trinitarian hymns written around the same time.

It is not only the consubstantiality of the Spirit that marks Victorinus’ reflection on the

Trinity; he also comments upon the source of the Spirit’s procession in three of the four

books of Against Arius.

In Book I, Victorinus rallies the scriptural evidence for the begetting of the Son of

God, with extended exegesis and commentary on the Gospels and the Pauline Epistles. In

Book I Victorinus argues for consubstantiality of the Father, Son and Spirit immediately

after introductory remarks. In Book I 8, for example, Victorinus nearly equates Son and

Spirit as being almost the same distinct reality from the Father, commenting on the Son

being from within “the bosom of the Father” (John 1:18). Victorinus says that since “just

as the Son is from the bosom of the Father and ‘in the bosom’ of the Father, so the Spirit

is from within the Son. The three are therefore homoousioi. . .”531

Various passing comments of Victorinus speak of the Spirit’s identity in relation to the

Son as Victorinus continues his discussion of the divine identity of the Son: He says

531. Clark, 99—100. AA 1 8,16-18. “Sicuti enim a gremio patris et in gremio filius, sic a ventre filii spiritus. '0 |io o tjo io l ergo tres et idcirco in omnibus unus deus.” CSEL 83/1, 65.


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“That the Paraclete is the power of Christ.. as he comments on John 14:17, “But you

know him because he dwells with you...” He says “that the Holy Spirit is from Christ

as Christ is from God.. .That the Paraclete is from the Son...” and that “Christ is

Paraclete and the Holy Spirit is Paraclete” as he comments on the sending language in

John 14. But it is in this discussion of consubstantiality that he makes his most explicit

reference so far to the Spirit’s procession, in Book 113:

That there is a twofold power of the Logos with God, one visible, Christ in the flesh, the other in hiding, the Holy Spirit—therefore while the Logos was in presence, that is, Christ, the Logos in hiding, that is, the Holy Spirit, could not come: “Indeed, if I do not go, the Paraclete will not come to you.” Therefore these are also two, one coming from the other, the Holy Spirit from the Son just as the Son comes from God and, as a logical consequence, the Holy Spirit also comes from the Father.534

Later in Book I, as he discusses the Logos as proper name for the Son, Victorinus will

restate this:

The Son is therefore both word and voice, he is life, he is Logos, he is movement, he is Nous, he is wisdom, he is existence and first substance, he is the action of power, he is the first on (Existent), the true on (Existent) from whom, through whom, in whom are all onta (existents); he is the mid-angle of the Trinity; he reveals the preexisting Father and sends forth the Holy Spirit for the sake of perfection.535

There is no mention of the Spirit’s procession from the Father or the Son in Book II of

Against Arius, as Victorinus specifically turns his focus on Latin Homoians. But in Book

III, as he speaks about the dual theme of a Father-Son dyad and Son-Holy Spirit dyad,

532. Clark, 103. AA 11,27—28 “Quod potentia Christi sit paraclitus: vos autem cognoscitis ipsum, quoniam apud vos manet.” CSEL 83/1,69.

533. Clark, 104. AA 1 12,3-4,7,10-12. “Quod a Christo sanctus spiritus, sicuti Christus a deo...Q uod a filio paraclitus... paraclitus Christus, paraclitus sanctus spiritus.” CSEL 83/1, 70.

534. Clark, 106. AA 1 13,23—30. “Quod duplex potentia t o o Xoyov ad deum, una in manifesto, Christus in came, alia in occulto, spiritus sanctus— in praesentia ergo cum erat k6yoq, hoc est Christus, non poterat venire X6yoq in occulto, hoc est spiritus sanctus — : etenim si non discedo, paraclitus non veniet ad vos. Duo ergo et isti, ex alio alius, ex filio spiritus sanctus, secuti ex deo filius, et conrationaliter et spiritus sanctus ex patre.” CSEL 83/1,72.

535. Clark, 181-82. AA 1 56,15-20. “Verbum igitur et vox filius est, ipse vita, ispe hSyoq, ipse motus, ipse vouq, ipse sapientia, ipse exsistentia et substantia prima, ipse actio potentialis, ipse ov primum, vere 6 v ex quo omnia 6vxa et per quern et in quo, qui est medius in angulo trinitatis, patrem declarat praeexsistentem et conplet sanctum spiritum in perfectionem.” CSEL 83/1, 154.


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Victorinus also speaks of the consubstantiality of the Son and the Spirit. In speaking of

the Logos as the act, or movement, or existence, Victorinus sees the Logos as being

twofold (III 8). For example, he states “that there are two existences: that of Christ, that

of the Holy Spirit, in one movement which is Son,” but he adds that “the Holy Spirit is

also from the Father.”536

The unity of Son and Spirit exists in life, and in knowledge, Victorinus describes; and

Father and Son are one, just as Son and Spirit are one. In order to speak of the unity of Son

and Spirit, Victorinus takes up John 14 again, to consider the identity of Jesus and the Holy

Spirit, and specifically the title of “Paraclete” in Book III 14.537 The “Paraclete” is

Someone near the Father who defends and upholds all faithful and believing men. Who is this? Is it the Holy Spirit alone? Or is he also identical with Christ? Indeed, Christ himself said: “God will give you another Paraclete.” Insofar as he said “another,” he spoke of one other than himself. Insofar as he said “Paraclete,” he expressed the likeness of their work and the identity of their actions in some manner. Therefore, he is also Spirit Paraclete, and the Holy Spirit is another Paraclete, and he is sent by the Father. The Holy Spirit is therefore Jesus.538

This passage is clarified in the following paragraph, where Victorinus emphasizes that

the Holy Spirit is movement, just as Jesus Christ is a movement of God. Victorinus

speaks of the Son and the Spirit by their acts of exterior manifestation and movement:

Jesus and the Holy Spirit are movement, movement which is truly in movement, therefore a movement acting externally; but Jesus is manifested Spirit, since he is in the flesh; the Holy Spirit is Jesus hidden, since he is Jesus infusing knowledge, no longer Jesus performing miracles or

536. Clark, 234. AA III 8 ,41-42 ,43 . “ut sint exsistentiae duae, Christi et spiritus sancti, in uno motu qui filius e st...e t spiritus sanctus etiam ipse apatre.” CSEL 83/1,205.

537. AA III 14 begins with Victorinus quoting John 14:15-16, “If indeed you love me, keep my commandments. And I shall ask the Father and he w ill give you another Paraclete, to dwell with you forever.” It is good that we are reminded that Christ in John 14 says “another” Paraclete when he speaks o f the Holy Spirit, because it makes sense then to refer to Christ as a Paraclete from the Father, and not just the Holy Spirit.

538. Clark, 242-43. AA in 14,4-12. (emphasis added) “Quid est paraclitus? Qui adserat adstruatque apud patrem homines omnes fideles atque credentes. Qui iste est? Unusne solus spiritus sanctus? An idem et Christus? Etenim ipse dixit: alium paraclitum dabit vobis dens. Dum dixit alium, se dixit alium. Dum dixit paraclitum , operam sim ilem declaravit et eandem quodammodo actionem . Ergo et spiritus paraclitus et spiritus sanctus alius paraclitus et ipse a patre mittitur. Iesus ergo spiritus sanctus.” CSEL 83/1,214.


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speaking in parables. That the Spirit is Jesus himself, Jesus himself teaches thus: “I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you.” That he is himself hidden in the Holy Spirit, he teaches thus: “The world will see me no longer...”539

Movement and act are the unity language on which Victorinus expatiates, as well as an

involved exegesis of the Spirit statements of Jesus to his disciples in the last chapters of

the Gospel of John. In Book III this unity language Victorinus uses between the Son and

the Spirit is a consequence of his rather involved work at describing the Son-Holy Spirit

dyad. It also sounds dangerously modalistic, a small problem evident throughout the four

books of Against Arius. As previously mentioned, this is the result of Victorinus, as a

Neo-Nicene, coming out of a tradition of a miahypostatic milieu, in which the Latin

understanding of speaking about three subsistences in God was a tool for trinitarian

reflection still rather new.

Victorinus includes sending language in Book III 15 that usually involves the Father

sending the Son and the Son sending the Spirit. At times, however, he qualifies this to say

that they are all three linked together: The Spirit is sent from the Father, but also Jesus

himself sends the Spirit. (More of this sending language appears in Book IV.) He

concludes Book III with another statement that reiterates the unity of Son and Spirit:

From him Christ in the flesh is conceived; from him Christ in the flesh is sanctified in baptism; he himself is Christ in the flesh; he is given to the apostles by Christ in the flesh, so that they may baptize in the name of God, of Christ, and of the Holy Spirit; he is the one whom Christ in the flesh promised would come; with a certain difference of acting, die same one is both Christ and the Holy Spirit, and because Spirit, on that account also God, because Christ insofar as he is Spirit is therefore God. That is why the Father and the Son and the Spirit are not only one reality, but also one God.540

539. Clark, 243. AA in 14,20-27. “At vero Iesus et spiritus sanctus motio, vere mota motio, unde foris operans, sed Iesus spiritus apertus, quippe et in came, spiritus autem sanctus occultus Iesus, quippe qui intellegentias infundat, non iam qui signa faciat aut per parabolas loquatur. Ipsum autem se esse ipse sic docet: non vos dimittam orfanos, veniam ad vos. Ipse autem in spiritu sancto esse occultum sic docet: mundus me iam non videbit. ..” CSEL 83/1,215.

540. Clark, 252. AA III 18,20-28. “Ex ipso concipitur Christus in came; ex ipso sanctificatur in baptismo Christus in came; ipse est in Christo qui in came; ipse datur apostolis a Christo qui in cam e est, ut baptizent in deo et in Christo et spiritu sancto; ipse est quem Christus in came promittit esse


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The unity language of this passage—versus its language of distinction—is almost side

tracked by the economical term “Christ in the flesh” which Victorinus uses, a term that

appears elsewhere in this work and in his Pauline commentaries. But Victorinus here

asserts that Christ and the Holy Spirit are both act and movement, though of different

kinds. I would compare it to Book IV 18, when Victorinus cautions that even though “the

Holy Spirit is somehow identical of Jesus.. .they are different through the proper

movement of their action.”541 Interestingly, in the paragraph before this one in Book III

there appears one of Victorinus’ statements of shared nature/shared operations in the

Trinity: “the three are one in power and substance.”542 This theme of connaturality is key

for Victorinus’ arguments on behalf of the consubstantiality of the hypostases o f the

Trinity, an advanced feature of his theology that somehow pushes him out of the Neo-

Nicenes of the Latins to the Pro-Nicene camp of a decade or so later.

Book IV of Against Arius concentrates on the Son-Holy Spirit dyad, resumes sending

language of Father and Son and Spirit, and sums up the argument of all four books in its

last several pages. The statements of sending may speak, for example, that “all that the

Holy Spirit possesses he has received from Christ, and Christ from the Father.”543 Or it

may be reversed, as in IV 18, when Victorinus recalls Johannine language of Christ

having “all things” the Father has, Victorinus says that “from the Father comes the Son,

venturum; quadam agendi distantia idem ipse et Christus et spiritus sanctus et, quia spiritus, idcirco et deus, quia Christus, quod spiritus, ideo deus. Unde pater et filius et spiritus, non solum unum, sed et unus deus.” CSEL 83/1,224.

541. Clark, 277. AA IV 18,19-20. “quodammodo idem Iesus, idem spiritus sanctus, actu scilicet agendi diversi” CSEL 83/1, 251.

542. Clark, 251. “Since this is so, if God and Christ are one, while Christ and the Spirit are one, one can rightly say that the three are one in power and substance.” AA in 18,11-12. CSEL 83/1, 223.

543. Clark, 275. AA IV 16,26—28. “omnia tamen spiritus sanctus quae habet a Christo accepit, Christus a patre.” CSEL 83/1,249.


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and from the Son, the Holy Spirit.”544 This is also comparable to Victorinus’ trinitarian

Hymn I (“Hence Christ has all from the Father, hence the Spirit has all from

Christ.. .”),545 Hymn III (“the Father sent Christ, Christ sent the Paraclete. That Christ

might appear by the Paraclete/That the Father might appear by Christ.. .”),546 and, also in

Hymn III (“the supreme Father sends the Logos as sent, he creates and serves all/Taking

a body unto himself for our salvation, as well as the holy cross/Retuming to the Father as

victor, he sent another self to save us”).547

In summation of Book IV Victorinus closes with the theme of hidden versus

manifested realities in speaking of the Spirit:

As to the Holy Spirit, we have already set forth in many books that he is Jesus Christ himself but in another mode, Jesus Christ hidden, interior, dialoguing with souls, teaching these things and giving these insights; he has been begotten by the Father through the mediation of Christ and in Christ since Christ is the only begotten Son. We have explained this in many books and it is quite clear that we have proved it by many examples.. .548

The presence of what might be called a Latin Neo-Nicene Filioque pneumatology of

the late 350s and early 360s may be as hard to explain as it is to fit Victorinus into a

category with other Latin Neo-Nicenes. This simple but striking pneumatology of

Victorinus can find an easy explanation in the Son-Spirit dyad of his theology. Victorinus

is carrying out a close exegesis of key texts for the sake of deploying a Neo-Nicene

polemic against Anti-Nicenes. For him there is an obvious need to argue for the

544. Clark, 277. AA IV 18,9—10. “id est de patre filius, de filio spiritus sanctus.” CSEL 83/1,251.545. Clark, 318. Hymnus Primus: De Trinitate 1 62 “Hinc patris cuncta Christus, hinc habet Christi cuncta

spiritus.” CSEL 83/1,288.546. Clark, 331. Hymnus Tertius 196-98. “Hinc Christum m isit pater, Christus paraclitum, Christus ut

paraclito, Christo ut appareret pater” CSEL 83/1, 302.547. Clark, 333. Hymnus Tertius 252-57. “Hinc pater summus mittit ov; missus creat et ministrat

omnia, Portans in salutem nobis camem, simul et sanctam crucem, Remeans victor ad patrem, salvandis nobis [se]se m isit alterum” CSEL 83/1,304.

548. Clark, 302. AA TV 33,20-25. “Iam vero spin turn sanctum alio quodam modo ipsum esse Iesum Christum, occultum, interiorem, cum animis fabulantem, docentem ista intellegentiasque tribuentem, et a patre per Christum genitum et in Christo, quippe cum unigenitus filius Christus sit, multis nos libris exposuimus, et quod exemplis plurimis adprobavimus satis clarum est.” CSEL 83/1,276.


consubstantiality not only of Father and Son but of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit Key texts

from the Fourth Gospel that speak of unity of persons in the Trinity, especially the

Paraclete statements of the latter chapters of that Gospel, are tempered with Victorinus’

important theme one substance one power statements about the hypostases of the Godhead.


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Appendix B: Recalling the Nicene Council

As a Neo-Nicene who takes up the cause of the homoousios and tries to defend the cause

of Nicaea in the late 350s against coalescing parties of Anti-Nicenes theology, we would

expect Marius Victorinus to know the details of the 325 council, and to reproduce the 325

creed of Nicaea somewhere within the lengthy four books of Against Arius. But we do

not find it anywhere within Against Arius or his other trinitarian treatises, making us

wonder whether or not he has it at hand.

In the four books of Against Arius, Victorinus strenously defends and explains the

homoousios of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and in Against Arius Book I this takes the

form of a lengthy exegesis of New Testament books that engages all of his opponents

who represent Non-Nicene and Anti-Nicene trajectories, especially in 121-23 where he

discusses the meaning of the Christ Hymn of Philippians 2. Besides Arius and those

originally sympathetic with Arius’ theology, the list comprehensively names all o f the

opponents of the 350s, and just few pages later in 128, when Victorinus again addresses

Homoiousians, Victorinus appeals to the memory of the Nicene council:

But then, forty years ago, where was it hidden, where was it dormant when, in the city of Nicaea, the formula of faith which excommunicated the Arian faction was approved by more than three hundred bishops? In this synod of illustrious men there were present all the luminaries of the Church and the of the entire world. Where then had this ancient doctrine fled? But if it did not exist, it was not condemned, and then it must be a recent doctrine! If it already existed, either it escaped discussion or it was put to flight by right thinking and true opinion. And perchance then you, the defender of this doctrine, were not only alive but already a bishop! You kept silence, you as well as your colleagues, disciples and fellowteachers! And during the whole time that followed, as long as the Emperor was in Rome, you heard said in your presence many things contrary to this doctrine, living in communion with those men whom now you anathematize. Furious either that without you they wrote their confession of faith, or constrained by imperial agents you have come as a legate to defend treachery. But what difference where there are thirty or seventy participants, or more; what difference whether it is more or less often! The same faith has been established for the annihilation of all haireseon, one because it both originates from the One and has been effective until now. You, however, you write and say this: that Paul of Samosata and Marcellus and Photinus, and now Valens and Ursacius and others of this kind who were found impious in heresy have been refuted. Were they not saying homoousionl No. But then


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how were they blasphemous? Like Arius Paul of Samosata held: “The Son comes from nothing; there was a time when he was not; the Son is a creature; he is in every way totally unlike the Father.” What did Marcellus and Photinus hold? That Jesus is merely a man from a man and Jesus is outside the Trinity. And now, Valens and Ursacius, the dregs of Arius. Therefore each had his own blasphemy for which he was excommunicated. But you, for this reason have you conquered them, because you say homoiousiorrt Indeed they have not said homoousion and thus they have been conquered!

The memory of the Nicene council was all-important, but Victorinus can actually

describe no details of it apart from commonplaces remembered about it, that it was a

gathering of important bishops in the city of Nicaea some “forty years ago.” This council

involved “more than three hundred bishops,” he cites, but like others who wrote about

Nicaea during the decades of the fourth century, Victorinus actually does not know the

traditional number of bishops present.550 Victorinus knows Nicene theology that speaks

549. Clark, 133-35. AA 1 28, 14-43. “Ubi latuit, ubi dormiit, ante quadraginta annos, cum Nicea civitate fides confirmata per trecentos et plures episcopos, Arrionitas excludens, in qua truv68(p istorum virorum ecclesiae totius orbis lumina faerunt? Vetus igitur dogma quo fagerat? Si non fuit, non victum est et nunc coepit. Si fuit, aut contentione siluit, aut cognitionis et veritatis sententia fagatum est. Forte et tunc tu, patrone dogmatis, non solum in vita, sed episcopus fuisti. Tacuisti et tu et socii et discipuli et condoctores. Et toto tempore postea, usquequo imperator Romae fait, praesens audisti multa contraria, conviva exsistens istorum hominum quos nunc anathematizas, iratus vel quod sine te fidem scripserunt, an coactus a magistris legatus venisti in defensionem proditionis. Sed quid differt sive triginta sive septuaginta sive amplius et sive saepius! Eadem fides in destructionem aliarum alpeaecov effecta est, una cum sit et ab uno incipiens et operata usque rnmc. Tu autem scribis ista et dicis quod Samosateus Paulus et Marcellus et Photinus et nunc Valens et Ursacius et alii istius modi in haeresi inreligiosi inventi destructi sunt. Numquid dpoovoiov dicentes? Non. Quomodo autem blasphemantes? Samosateus sicuti Arrius: ex nihilo et quod fu it quando non fu it et quod factura filius et omnino omnimodis dissim ilis patri. Quid Marcellus et Photinus? Tantum hominem ex homine Iesiun et esse triadem extra Iesum. Et nunc, Valens et Ursatius (sic), reliquiae Arrii. Propria ergo blasphemia, propter quam eiecti sunt Tu autem idcirco vicisti eos, quod 6poioi3oiov dicis? Non enim dixerunt dpoouoiov et sic victi sunt!” CSEL 83/1,103-05.

550. “We cannot calculate the number o f bishops present at the Council with complete accuracy, because die earliest witnesses give us only round figures and it is the later ones who provide factitious accuracy. One o f the earliest witnesses must be the statement o f Eustathius o f Antioch given to us in its original form by Theodoret... Eustathius says that about 270 bishops were present, though he could not calculate the exact numbers. A version o f the Creed o f Nicaea was attached to the Letter o f the Council o f Nicaea to the Church o f Alexandria, and a short introductory sentence to this Creed describes the number o f bishops present as ‘nearly 300’. Eusebius o f Caesarea in his Vita Constantini (III.8) says ‘more than 250’. Athanasius in his Historia Arianorum 66 says ‘about 300’ attended, though in his later Letter to the Bishops o f Africa he gives the number as 318. Hilary in his Collectio Antiariana says ‘three hundred or more’. By about 370 the conventional number o f 318, the same number as the men o f Abraham’s household whom he led out to rescue Lot (G en.l4:14), had been accepted everywhere, and this became traditional. Several other legends accumulated round this Council in course o f time.


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of “X from X” causality, and he makes statements of the Son being such things as “God

from God, light from light,” but the only ways in which he reproduces the original 325

creed is when he quotes the commonplace condemnations of Arius, where Arius was

accused of saying that there was a time when the Son did not exist, or the Father created

the Son out of nothing. Victorinus apparently does not know the 325 creed, but he does

know a tradition of harking back to the Nicene council as a standard for orthodoxy. The

extended comments about Nicaea in 128 as part of an attack against Homoiousians says

far more what Victorinus knew about events of 358 in Ancyra and Sirmium: Victorinus

depicts Nicaea as an ancient doctrine, as opposed to an innovation, that annihilates all

heresy, and his description of Nicaea as a universal standard for orthodoxy in 128

becomes a tirade against Basil of Ancyra and his party, where he addresses Basil about

the events of Basil’s local Ancyran council of 358 and subsequent delegation to the

emperor at Sirmium in the same year.551 The memory of Nicaea here is a tool for

Victorinus to condemn not just Arius, but contemporary Anti-Nicenes such as Marcellus

and Photinus (and their ostensible forerunner in heresy, Paul of Samosata), as well as

Valens and Ursacius. The other mention Victorinus makes in Book I of Against Arius is

just in passing, but here again it is part of a series of condemnations he repeats o f these

Ambrose (loc. c it) already calls it an ‘oracle’ (oraculum) ... A ll that we can say is that the number o f bishops at the Council o f Nicaea probably fell between 250 and 300.” Hanson, Search, 155-56.

551. While it was still winter in 358 Basil summoned a council o f bishops to meet in Ancyra, and thestatement that emerged from that council marked the appearance o f a new and coherent Homoiousian theology. Basil and his companions followed this up by forming a delegation the emperor’s court in Sirmium just few months later, where the emperor was persuaded to support Basil’s theology o f the Son as xax’ouoiav bpoiog xffi jiaxpl, and to call a council in the city o f Sirmium that summer that would issue a creed supporting the temporary ascendancy o f that theology (though that creed, the Third Creed o f Sirmium, does not survive). Cf. Hanson, Search, 348-62.


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same opponents, after which he makes his positive creedal statement “For we affirm the

homoousion both because of truth and because of the synod of Nicaea.”552

In Book II Victorinus appeals to Nicaea again, and the accusation that the homoousios

is a recent innovation, as he defends the notions of ousia and hypostasis as part o f

defending the homoousios:

This term which has been used by our Fathers as a wall and rampart? But it was used only recently. That is because only recently the poinsonous pack of heretics has been let loose. And yet it was established in conformity with die ancient faith—for it had also been taught previously— established then by many bishops (three hundred and fifteen) of the world, in the city of Nicaea, who afterwards, sending to all the churches across the entire world the profession of faith that they had defined, kept thousands of bishops both in those days and in succeeding years in one same faith. Moreover, this term was approved by the emperor, the father of our emperor.

Book II of Against Arius was written possibly as much as two years after 128, ca. 361 or

362. This time Victorinus has a better estimate of the number of bishops attending the

325 council (315), but still he shows little other knowledge of what really happened at the

council, and what statement of faith it issued. Nicaea as a standard of orthodoxy is

reiterated in the final profession of faith in Book II, a book where Victorinus concentrates

on responding to Latin Homoians’ insistence that unscriptural terms such as ousia and

hypostasis never be employed:

Let one persevere in using it in speaking of God and of Our Lord! But, in truth, may homoousion be more and more maintained, written, affirmed, explained, announced in all the Churches. For this is the faith of Nicaea, this the faith of the Apostles, this is the Catholic faith. In this way the Arians, in this way all heretics are vanquished.5 4

552 Clark, 163. AA 1 45,23-24. “Nos enim bpooucnov dicimus et veritate et iuxta synodum in N iceapoli.” CSEL 83/1, 137.

553 Clark, 212. AA I I9,43-51 “Quod a maioribus positum, ut mums et propugnaculum? Sed nuper est positum. Quia nuper erupit venenata cohors haereticorum. Quod tamen conditum iuxta veterem fidem—nam et ante tractatum—a multis orbis episcopis trecentis quindecim in civitate N icea qui per totum orbem decretam fidem mittentes, episcoporum m ilia in eadem habuerunt vel illius temporis vel sequentium annorum; probatum autem ab imperatore imperatoris nostri patre.” CSEL 83/1, 185.

554 Clark, 216-17. AA II 12,30-35. “placet manere, de deo et domino nostro perseveret, opoouoiov vero magis ac magis teneatur, scribatur, dicatur, tractetur, in ecclesiis omnibus praedicetur. H aec enim fides apud Niceam, haec fides apostolorum, haec fides catholica. Hinc Arriani, hinc haeretici vincuntur universi.” CSEL 83/1,190.


246

Here the cause of Nicaea is equated with the faith of Christ’s Apostles that is the

universal, Catholic, faith. Nicaea has assumed its greatest proportions as a universal

standard of faith, something that was unheard of in the 330s and 340s, even into the 350s,

where Hilary said that he had never heard of the creed of Nicaea until he was about to go

into exile in 356. But the Neo-Nicene cause existed to retrieve Nicaea, after it had shed

its modalist connotations in saying that the Son was even of the same hypostasis as the

Father, and make it into a universal rallying standard.

Victorinus has the ideal of Nicaea in his historical memory. Possibly he even

possessed the text of the 325 creed, if he could quote the condemnations of Arius

mentioned in the creed that had become commonplaces. But to quote a creed that had an

embarassing modalist element would certainly serve against his interest, especially when

among his stated opponents in arguing for the Neo-Nicene cause in the 350s are old

Nicene figures such as Marcellus and Photinus. It was better to recreate a certain memory

of Nicaea as a rallying standard of orthodoxy in the trinitarian definition finally emerging

after the high-handed Anti-Nicene efforts that culminated in the brief Homoian

supremacy of the last years of the 350s decade.


MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY

This is to certify that we have examined this copy of the dissertation by

John Voelker, B.A., M.Div.

and have found that it is complete and satisfactory in all respects.

The dissertation has been approved by:

Dr. Michel Barnes, Director

Rev. Alexander Gdlitzin

UJLRev. Joseph Mueller, S .J.

Dr. Rail Del Colie

Approved on £>


trinitarian theology marius victorinus

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