Theological Treatises on the Trinity

Introduction

INTRODUCTION The name of Marius Victorinus1 is not a familiar one2 in the history of ideas or of education. He was, nevertheless, an outstanding educator of the late Roman Empire and an important link in intellectual history with the periods that would follow. He formed a new philosophical language which was of great help to the logicians and the metaphysicians of the Middle Ages. Indeed, it has been said that he should have a place among those whom E. K. Rand has called the Founders of the Middle Ages.3 Long passages from Victorinus were copied by Alcuin in his De fide4 and a citation from Victorinus appears in Hincmar, while, earlier, Boethius borrowed heavily from Victorinus. Not only is he important in the history of Latin and Greek Neoplatonism by reason of his translation of the "Platonic books" significantly mentioned by Augustine5 -books now believed to be treatises ofPlotinus and Porphyry-but Victorinus also made use of traditional themes from the entire philosophical and religious tradition in new ways. Philosopher and theologian, he affirmed the Neoplatonic distinction between, on the one hand, "To 1 From C. Gore, "Victorinus," DCB 4.1129, we learn that he was called Caius Marius as well as Marius Fabius; he is known as Afer from the region of his birth. 2 From Latin grammarians Victorinus deserves special consideration for his pioneering exploitation of the substantive infinitive, a syntactical device especially important for the expression of philosophical and theological ideas. For more than eighty years, however, this distinction was denied him, and through an unfortunate confusion, granted instead to the FifthCentury rhetor and poet Claudius Marius VictorCius}. See M. Metzger, "Marius Victorinus and the Substantive Infinitive," Eranos 72 (1974) 65-70. 3 P. Hadot, "Un vocabulaire raisone de Marius Victorinus Afer," Studia Patristica 1 (Texte und Untersuchungen 63) 194-208. 4 Ibid. 200; see below, sect. 107. 5 Augustine, Confessions 7.9.13 (trans. V. Bourke, FC 21.177); cf. below, n. 11. 3 4 MARIUS VICTORINUS Be," pure Act transcending every form, and, on the other, being, a subject receiving a determined form of "to be." In asserting the direct derivation of the "to be,,6 of beings from the first "To Be," he transmitted through Boethius one of the great insights of medieval metaphysics.7 The importance Victorinus gave to existence and his effort to understand existence put him in touch with the Twentieth Century.8 (2) Born and married in Africa, Victorinus later moved to Italy. The date of his birth has been placed between A.D. 281 and 291. He is first heard of around 350, in Rome, where his statue in the Forum of Trajan is a tribute to his eloquence and to the gratitude of the senators he taught. He was steeped in Neoplatonism and was initiated into the mysteries of Osiris.9 His exaggerated spiritual philosophy made him hostile to the body and therefore to the "Word made flesh," and to the Christian obligation of external worship. In reading the Christian Scriptures, however, Victorinus discovered a deep harmony with his own philosophical ideas on the first principles. Apparently this reading of Scripture opened the mind and heart of Victorinus to receive the gift of faith in Christ as the Divine Son of God. The year 356 has been declared the most likely date for this conversion, so sympathetically described by St. Augustine of Hippo in Book VIII of his Confessions, for it seems to be the case that Victorinus's Letter to Candidus was written around 359. Victorinus lived under three Emperors: Constantine, Constantius and Julian, disciple of the Neoplatonic philosopher, Iamblichus. We know that Victorinus had to abandon his teaching in 362, when the Emperor Julian forbade Christians to teach. Victorinus chose, as Augustine said, "to give up his wordy school rather than God's Word."lo Although as a teacher Victorinus had found time to write grammatical and logical treatises, commentaries and translations of philosophical treatises, he had begun, since his conversion, to write 6 "To be" is used in the same sense as "l'etre" is used by Scipion Du Pleix as cited by E. Gilson, in L 'etre et ['essence (Paris 1948) 15. See also below, sect. 110. 7 Cf. J. Pieper, Guide to Thomas Aquinas (New York 1964) 122-25. 8 Cf. J. Mihalich, Existentialism and Thomism (New York 1960) 73-75. 9 P. Sejourne, "Victorinus Afer," DTC 15.2887. 10 Augustine, Confessions 8.5.10 (trans. Bourke, FC 21.206). [18.117...