FIRST HYMN 1 RUE LIGHT, ASSIST US, a God the Father all powerful! Light of light, assist us, mystery and power of God! 2 Holy Spirit, assist us, the bond between Father and Son! In repose3 you are Father, in your procession,4 Son, And bindingS all in One, you are the Holy Spirit. a God, you are the First One,6 the One come forth from itself, the One before the One. 7 1 The general structure of this hymn is close to that of adv. Ar. Book III, where the divine triad is shown to be constituted of two dyads: the One (Father-Son) and the One-Many (Son-Spirit). The hymn is Christocentric. It is not impossible that the hymns were composed before the theological treatises; cf. Hadot, MV 259, n.24 and 280. 2 Cf. Rom 1.16; 1 Cor 1.24; Eph 3.9. 3 W. Theiler, Die chaldaischen Orakel, p. 15, n. 3 compares the present passage with Synesius, Hymn 9.63. 4 This is one of Victorinus's constant themes, namely, the opposition between the Father as repose or hidden motion and the Son as externalized motion; cf. ad Cando 21,5;adv. Ar. 14,15; I 34,9-12; I 42,2-11; III 2,33; IV 8,26-27. 5 Victorinus emphasizes here the binding or sanctifying role of the Holy Spirit. He is the copula as the movement of knowledge or return to the Father, linking Son to Father, and all others as well. Yet the Son is the "mean" between Father and Holy Spirit because the Son communicates to the Holy Spirit what he receives from the Father. 6 For Victorinus the three Ones, deriving from the Neo-pythagorean tradition , represent the Father, the Son and the World since the second dyad comprises the Son and the Holy Spirit. On this tradition of the three ones, cf. E. Dodds, "The Parmenides of Plato and the Origin of the Neoplatonic 'One' " Classical Quarterly 22 (1928) 136-9. 7 This expression, according to adv. Ar. III 1,28 and IV 19,11 can signify either that the Father is prior to the second One or that he is prior to all determination, even that of "one." The first sense corresponds to a wellestablished Neo-pythagorean tradition; cf. A. Festugiere, 23 ff. The second is witnessed to by the anonymous commentary on the Parmenides, Kroll, 315 316 MARIUS VICTORINUS You precede all plurality, known even though limitless. In you no plurality, for no plurality even proceeds from you. This plurality, indeed, the One born of you begets rather than possesses. Without measure is the Father then, but the Son is both measured and measureless. You yourself, 0 Father, are One, and One is the Son whom you beget. One also what your Son begets: the One whether Multiple or Whole, For he is the seed of the ontos (existence) for all things. But you are the interior power of this seed; In this seed, from this seed are born all things which the "Power of God" produces; Towards this seed return8 again all those things it has begotten. Christ therefore does all things, he who is the whole "Power of God."9 For Christ as movement 1 0 in repose is none other than the God Supreme. But when he is movement in movement, Christ is the "Wisdom and Power" of God In no way distant from the substance, for movement is very substance. And because this movement is in God and is very God, It is called "God from God," born, however, because it is movement -For every movement is born-and since God and the movement Of God are one, God and the movement of God are one same God. Yet the movement of God is also movement itself. But as movement of God, this movement has God within it, and Again, God has movement in himself since this movement is "Ein neuplatonischer Parmenidescommentar," 603 and this text is cited in adv. Ar. IV 23,17-18. 8 The return of all things to God is a concern of Victorinus and this return to the original seed is achieved through spiritualization, the proper work of the Holy Spirit. 9 After stressing the identity of movement and substance, Victorinus asserts that the Father's movement is Christ. 10 1 Cor 1.24. [3.230.76.153] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 19:51 GMT) HYMN I movement of God. Thus in...