L'extirpation de l'Arianisme en Italie du Nord et en Occident: Rimini (359/60) et Aquilée (381) Hilaire de Poitiers (+367/8) et Ambroise de Milan (+397) (review)

Yves-Marie Duval. L'extirpation de l'Arianisme en Italie du Nord et en Occident: Rimini (359/60) et Aquilée (381) Hilaire de Poitiers (+367/8) et Ambroise de Milan (+397) Variorum Collected Studies Series CS 611 Brookfield: Ashgate Publishing, 1998. Pp xii + 386. $112.95.

L'extirpation de l'Arianisme en Italie du Nord et en Occident: Rimini (359/60) et Aquilée (381) Hilaire de Poitiers (+367/8) et Ambroise de Milan (+397) is a collection of ten articles written by Yves-Marie Duval and published in various journals between 1969 and 1985. In addition, an eleventh essay explicitly written for publication in the present volume is included. All the articles deal with Western or homoian Arianism, which toward the end of the fourth century, was incredibly strong in Illyricum, south of the Danube, and in northern Italy.

Three of the articles are critical in-depth reviews. "Sur l'arianisme des Ariens d'Occident" (1969), appropriately the first article in the collection, praises Michel Meslin's Les Ariens d'Occident (335-450) for its innovative methodology and its ground-breaking thesis. By investigating the Arian texts themselves, and thus securing an Arian point of view, Meslin exploded the proposition that Western Arianism had been essentially a Gothic phenomenon bound to Germanic culture. There was indeed a Roman and Latin Arianism. "La présentation arienne du concile d'Aquilée de 381: à propos des 'Scolies ariennes sur le concile d'Aquilée' par R. Gryson" (1981) deals with Gryson's edition and translation of Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 8907 and his lengthy introductory study of the manuscript, which is a transcription of the Acts of the Council of Aquileia containing contemporary scholia written by Arians, probably Maximinus and Palladius. Duval deals briefly with the text, but extensively with the manuscript itself, as physical evidence shedding light on the historical events of the council and its aftermath. "Sur quelques études récentes concernant Ambroise et l'arianisme occidental" (1998), the last article of the collection first published here, is a lengthy critical review of three recent publications on homoianism: Christoph Marskschies (Ambrosius von Mailand und die Trinitätstheologie, Tübingen 1995), Daniel H. Williams (Ambrose of Milan and the End of the Nicene-Arian Conflicts, Oxford 1995), and Neil B. McLynn (Ambrose of Milan, Church and Court in a Christian Capital, Berkeley 1994). Discussing eleven specific issues in detail, Duval stakes out his position vis-à-vis contemporary scholarship. He insists that certain aspects of history and chronology still remain clouded, and he faults both Williams and McLynn for adopting the point of view of Ambrose, who was not immune from intrigue.

Eight remaining articles represent the research of Duval himself. Of the council of Rimini Jerome wrote: "The whole world groaned, and was astonished to find itself Arian." The vast majority of Western bishops had signed the formula of the council of Rimini, which was overtly homoian. Some fraus or deceit had misled the bishops into this Arian stance. "La 'manoeuvre frauduleuse' de Rimini: à la recherche du Liber aduersus Vrsacium et Valentem" (1968) is Duval's very careful attempt to precisely identify the nature of the deceit, which he sees as inextricability linked to Ursacius and Valens. Indeed this connection is already implicit in Jerome. Regarding the statement denying that the Son was a creature like other creatures, Ambrose had appropriately pointed out that one could affirm the statement and yet still hold that the Son was a creature as long as he was not "like other creatures." Ultimately Hilary opened his eyes to the possibility of an anomoian reading of the formula, and his now lost Liber aduersus Vrsacium et...