The Psychomachia of the fifth-century Latin poet Prudentius provides a straight-forward portrait of heresy generally shared in the west:
The wolf, with gory jaws, conceals himself in a soft fleece, Counterfeiting milk-white sheep while carrying on bloody murders by devouring lambs.
It is by this means that Photinus and Arrius disguise themselves, those wolves so wild and savage.1
Prudentius, Psychomachia 793–95 (LCL 15:188).
Each for its own reasons, Photinian and Arian theologies claimed that Christ as incarnate deity possessed necessary limitations, lest the divine be corrupted and mitigated by a human ontology. It was not surprising therefore that late-fourth-century versions of “Arianism” and monarchianism were often thrown together as essentially sharing the same heretical goals. In particular, the monarchial theology of Photinus became identified as among the chief heresies of the west. It seems that the leading criticism of Photinus was that he maintained the Son did not exist until his incarnation at Bethlehem. Zeno of Verona (c. 362–380) accused Photinus of teaching that “Jesus Christ assumed his beginning (principium) from the womb of the virgin Mary, and was made, not born, God, on account of his righteousness.”2
Zeno, Tractatus 2.8 (CCSL 22:177.37–38).
Filastrius, Diversarum haereseon liber 91.2 (CSEL 9:257). See Eusebius of Vercelli, De trinitate 3.47 (CCSL 9:42): “Interrogabo et te, Fotine, qui Christum verum deum abnegas et hominem purum tantummodo confiteris …?”
Lucifer of Calgari, De non parcendo in deum delinquentibus 28 (CCSL 8:250).
By the late 340s, Photinus's teaching had come to be the demonstration of monarchianism in the west. There certainly were other proponents of adoptionist christology in the fourth century, but none that are remembered so infamously.5
Doctrinal historians will know that Tertullian was the first to coin the name “Monarchians” (Adversus Praxean 10.2 [PL 164D]) to describe his opponents, claiming: “God himself made himself a Son to himself.” While the term “Monarchian” could be applied to any Christian, it came to characterize several theological strains all of which stressed the essential and inviolable unity of the divine being. The monarchia of God as the divine substance could not be fractured or divided into three, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. While the fragmented state of the patristic evidence prevents a nuanced understanding of the different strains, one can identify (from its opponents) what is called “modalist” monarchianism, also known to the ancients as patripassionism (the Father who suffers). This position protects the singularity of God by regarding the Trinity as three modes or manifestations of the one and same divine essence. Another strain is called “adoptionist” or “dynamic” monarchianism, which preserved divine unity in the Father whose spirit came upon the Son at some point after his human birth. The divinized human being or Christ regressed to his previous human state when the divine spirit abandoned his body on the cross. Yet a third strain, or perhaps another expression of modalism, emphasizes the outward movement of God's one substance in history for the purposes of creation and recreation and vivifying, whereafter the divine being contracts or withdraws into its original singularity.
While the importance of Marcellus of Ancyra to the doctrinal dynamics of the council of Nicaea and its aftermath have been recognized, the same cannot be said of the influence of adoptionist theologies in the west.
By the end of the fourth century, adoptionist monarchian theology in the form of Photinianism had come to be a stunted thing, summed up in pithy christological statements about the Son having his beginning from Mary. This theology had become narrowed down through the machinations of a handful of polemicists. I will, however, return to some further implications of this characterization toward the end of this essay. But later fifth and sixth century characterizations of Photinus created the impression that the views associated with Photinus had minor significance to the evolution of doctrine in the west, a view that patristic scholarship has more or less accepted as accurate. In the following pages, I would like to show that a more balanced perspective is warranted for the reason that it reveals 1) that Photinus was more than a heretical “straw man” who needed to be knocked down; and 2) that the ultimate hegemony of pro-Nicene theology was contingent upon its proving the dissimilarity between itself and monarchianism. This means that there had to be a deliberate and sustained confrontation with the monarchian trajectory that had been latent within pro-Nicene theology.
There is no doubt that the opposition Photinus stirred in the west was an oblique response to similar concerns voiced in the east over the doctrine of Marcellus of Ancyra, although such an explanation does not fully account for the evidence that suggests that subdued yet persistent monarchian theologies continued into the fourth century. The paucity of extant evidence makes linking this theology concretely between the third and fourth centuries uncertain. It is unfortunate that we know so little about Paul of Samosata's theology,7
For a critical review of the evidence see Frederick Norris, “Paul of Samosata: Procurator Ducenarius,” JTS 35 (1984) 50–70. One wonders if Paul's theology, as presented by Epiphanius, was largely modeled on Photinus when the latter is said to have taught that the Son was “not a subsistent entity but is in God himself,” (Panarion 65.6.1 [The Panarion of St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis (trans. P. R. Amidon; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990)]); that the Son was not begotten (65.3.2); that Jesus was a human being and was inspired by the divine Logos (65.7.3); that the model of the Son's incarnation was a psychological one: “that the Logos is like that in the human heart, and wisdom like that prudence in the human soul which every person has acquired from God” (65.3.4).
Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.28. The work attributed to Hippolytus, Adversus Noetum, distinguishes a certain Theodotus and those like him from the patripassionists who make use of the scriptural passages “to prove that Christ was a mere man.” Later Hippolytus says, “There was a certain Theodotus, a native of Byzantium, who introduced a novel heresy. He announces tenets concerning the originating cause of the universe, which are partly in keeping with the doctrines of the true Church, in so far as he acknowledges that all things were created by God…. he alleges that (our Lord) appeared in some such manner as I shall now describe. According to this, Theodotus maintains that Jesus was a (mere) man, born of a virgin, according to the counsel of the Father, and that after he had lived promiscuously with all men, and had become preeminently religious, he subsequently at his baptism in Jordan received Christ, who came from above and descended (upon him) in the form of a dove. And this was the reason, (according to Theodotus) why (miraculous) powers did not operate within him prior to the manifestation in him of that Spirit which descended (and) which proclaims him to be the Christ. But (among the followers of Theodotus) some are disposed (to think) that never was this man made God (even) at the descent of the Spirit; whereas others (maintain that he was made God) after the resurrection from the dead” (Adversus Noetum (3.5.224).
There are reports indicating that “Monarchianism” (mainly of the modalist variety) enjoyed popularity among some third-century Montanists in Rome, and perhaps earlier.9
Pseudo-Tertullian, Adversus omnes haereses 7 (21; CSEL 47:225); ANF 3.654.
A logion attributed to Montanus, “I am the Word, the Bridegroom, the Paraclete, the Omnipotent One, I am All Things” (fragment apud Theodore of Heraclea-Perinthus in Diaologo tra un montanista e un ortodosso [Berruto Martone and Anna Maria, eds.; Bologna: Ed. Dehoniane, 1999; 99), seems modalist in character. As does “For Montanus alleges he said: “I am the Father and the Son and the Paraclete” (Ps.-[?] Mont., fr. ap. Ps-[?] Didymus, De trinitate 3.41.1 [PG 39: 983B]). Given the Trinitarian content of this logion, it may have been composed (perhaps from elements of genuine formulaic logia uttered by Montanus) by a later anti-Montanist polemicist in the context of the controversies surrounding Modalism. Whereas critics have accused Montanus of arrogantly presuming to speak as the Father or the Spirit (see the reputed logion in Epiphanius, Pan. 48.11.9), it is likely that the prophet was claiming divine inspiration, uttering in the Spirit who spoke as the Father.
See William Tabbernee, “Portals of the Montanist New Jerusalem: The Discovery of Pepouza and Tymion,” JECS 11 (2003) 87–93.
Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeresium 10.22–23 (GCS 26). The authorship of this work is debated but for purposes of this essay I will attribute it to Hippolytus.
There were several unformed and diverse doctrines about God in the late second and early third centuries. We may recall the one theologically focused moment in the Shepherd of Hermas (c. 120) in which the author interprets the parable of the vineyard as God creating the world (e.g., the field), with the son of the owner being the Holy Spirit, and the servant being the Son of God. It is the Holy Spirit who is later said to have lived in the flesh and served the Spirit well (Similitude 5–6). That the Shepherd was read as a scriptural text in many churches indicates that its assertions of “Spirit-christology” were considered normative despite the ambiguities. But before they were categorized as elements alien to Christian orthodoxy, modalist and adoptionist forms of monarchianism were present in Rome by the time of the episcopates of Victor (189?–198) and Zephyrinus (198–217), and probably earlier. The unknown Roman author of an anti-adoptionist work entitled The Little Labyrinth,13
The few fragments against the adoptionism of Artemon that are preserved anonymously only in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.28.1–19, have been ascribed to Gaius of Rome (the same author of an anti-Montanist dialogue against Proclus, cited in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.25.6–7; 3.31.4; 6.20.3) by the Byzantine cataloguer Photius. Jerome does place Gaius at the time of Zephyrinus (De viris illustribus 59 [PL 23:669B]), but no patristic historian connects this work to Gaius and it may just as likely have been written by Hippolytus or an unknown contemporary familiar with the doctrinal situation in Rome.
Roman monarchians declared that both Victor and Zephyrinus had been swayed by their logic, though The Little Labyrinth disputes this claim on the grounds that Victor condemned Theodotus “the Cobbler,” who presumably taught the same views as Artemon (Fr. ap. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.28.6).
However, Hippolytus accused Zephyrinus of supporting monarchianism under the influence of his archdeacon and later successor, Callistus (Refut. 9.11).
Adversus Praxean 3.1 in Tertullian's Treatise against Praxeas (trans. E. Evans; London: SPCK, 1948) 91. Even though Tertullian combined his refutation of the monarchianism of Praxeas and the endorsement of Montanism, there is no need to assume that Montanism was fundamentally anti-modalistic. In fact, Tertullian sought to show in Adversus Praxean the implicit doctrinal significance of the Paraclete's prophecies and the monarchia of God in explicitly trinitarian terms of the economy. That Tertullian stresses how the two complimented each other, contra Praxeas's claims, may imply that theological distance had to be created between Montanism and monarchial modalism, at least as they existed in Carthage. This being said, we should not overstate the point by saying Montanism was the means by which monarchianism came to North Africa, rather, that the Montanism shared in the theological commerce and diversity of the late second and early third centuries, including Monarchianism.
As is the thesis of Reinhard M. Hübner, Der paradox Eine. Antignostischer Monarchianismus im zweiten Jahrhundert (VC Supp 50; Leiden: Brill, 1999).
It is no surprise, therefore, that forms of monarchian theology endured into the fourth century. Proponents of Photinian theology continued to be active in the west long after the bishop's condemnation and deposition in 351, as evidenced by the proscriptions of Photinians (along with Arians, Donatists and Manichaeans) under emperors Constantius II,18
As a result of the council of Sirmium (351).
19 Jan. 379; 20 Aug. 379 (Socrates, Hist. eccl. 5.2; Sozomen, Hist. eccl. 7.1.3; Theodosiani Libri XVI cum constitutionibus Simondianis [CTh] 16.5.5 (ed. Theodor Mommsen and Paul M. Meyer; Berlin: Weidmann, 1905).
CTh 16.5.6 (10 Jan. 381). General anti-heretical edicts were frequently issued under Theodosius, e.g., CTh 16.5.15, 19, 20, 24. Under Theodosius II, the Photinians are listed among the proscribed heretical groups (CTh 16.5.65) (30 May 428) and again CTh, Novels of Theodosius 3.9 (31 Jan. 438).
Ep. 55, The Works of the Emperor Julian (LCL 29:188): “degenerum et imperitorum eius theologorum errorem.”
Ibid., “Tu quidem, o Photine, versimilis videris and proxime salvari, benefaciens nequaquam in utero inducere quem credidisti deum.” The Pagan intellectual, Celsus, had echoed the same disdain for the Christians' divine view of Jesus: “When they call him the Son of God, they are not really paying homage to God, rather, they are attempting to exalt Jesus to the heights.” Celsus: On True Doctrine (trans. R. J. Hoffmann; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987) 43.
There is no warrant to think that Photinus had been restored to the episcopacy of Sirmium under Julian as L. Speller proposed (“New Light of the Photinians: The Evidence of Ambrosiaster,” JTS 34 [1983] 101, 104). Germinius remained bishop of Sirmium until his death in c. 375/6. D. H. Williams, “Another Exception to Later Fourth Century ‘Arian’ Typologies: The Case of Germinius of Sirmium,” JECS 4 (1996) 335–57.
Of Illyricum (Socrates, Hist. eccl. 2.18).
Based on Jerome, De viris illust. 107 (PL 23:703B). Valentinian came into Illyricum in later 375, which is the time he would have likely been approached about continuing problems in Sirmium over Photinus. However, Valentinian was noted for involving himself as little as possible in theological affairs, and it is all but certain that his expulsion of Photinus was on the grounds of creating a civil disruption—a not uncommon means for emperors in the fourth century to treat dissident bishops whom they could not (or would not) otherwise touch.
Ep. 2.12 (CSEL 82:3).
De non parcendo in deum delinquentibus 26.13–5: “et libros scriptos dedisti et praedicatores benigni uoti tui omni in loco constituisti” (CCSL 8:245).
Gregory of Rome, Ep. 36; Council of Arles (late fifth century) where Photinians are also called Paulianists, or Bonosiacos (CCSL 148:117).
Sources
Oppositional
Reminiscent of the problems associated with reconstructing the origins of Montanism, Photinus is also said to have written a number of works in Greek and Latin,29
Sozomen, Hist. eccl. 4.6.
Jerome knew or had heard that Photinus had written a work called Contra gentes and a book addressed to the emperor Valentinian I (De viris Illust. 107; PL 23:703B).
Socrates, Hist. eccl. 2.29.
Partial critiques of Photinus are found in Hilary of Poitiers, Marius Victorinus, Lucifer of Cagliari, and the writer known as “Ambrosiaster.” In his Matthew commentary, Hilary shows that he was familiar first-hand with those who blaspheme the Spirit by denying “to Christ what is of God … since God is in Christ and Christ in God.”32
See “the one through whom God came into man” In Matthaeum 5.15 (SC 254:168).
Especially true in the first half of the commentary, see In Matthaeum 3.5: the temerity of the devil when he began to tempt Jesus was based on his erroneous conclusion that he was man only. The exegetical exercise of 3.1–5 is to show that Christ is the Lord God in a man. See 8.2; 8.6: “He who forgave, therefore, is God because no one forgives except God. Indeed, the Word of God which abides in the man offers to a man healing”; 9.8: “For never had they believed that God was in man, just as they rather laughed at the proceeding of the resurrection of the dead”; 12.11: “Although they [the Pharisees] were not able to attribute his works to a man, they refused to confess them of God, and claimed that all of his power against demons was from Beelzebub, the prince of demons”; 16.5: “The whole of the confession is that he had assumed a body and was made man, because just as eternity received a body of our nature, so it should be acknowledged that the nature of our body was able to assume the power of eternity”; 23.8: “Thus, the Pharisees should recall that in him who arose from David is contained the substance of the eternal power, authority and origin, and that God was going to reside in a man”; 31.2: “They want to attach neediness to [his] spirit because of the weakness of the body as if the taking of flesh (incarnation) in his helplessness corrupted that power of incorruptible substance and eternity was engulfed by a nature of fragility.
There are many who shun the apostolic dictum which says, “Christ is the power (virtutem) and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1: 24). In this manner, they are in the habit of saying that the wisdom and power of God had appeared efficaciously in him when he came forth from the virgin, such that it is in his nativity the work of divine wisdom and power is understood, and that there is in him the acquisition of wisdom rather than wisdom by nature.34
Ibid., 11.10 (SC 254:264).
According to the refutations of Marius Victorinus in Adversus Arium, the truth of the consubstantiality of the Father and Son is an argument against the “Arians” as well as the Photinians.35
Against those who claim Christ is made or born from nothing, Victorinus says this heresy is similar to the one that declares Christ began from Mary (Adversus Arium (2.2 [CSEL 83:1.170–71).
Adversus Arrium 1.10 (CSEL 83:1.66–67).
In the non-compromising treatises of Lucifer of Cagliari, he too is chiefly concerned with “Arians” and opponents of Athanasius, but, like Victorinus, he maintains that the theological upshot of Photinus's teaching vitiated the divinity of the Son, much like the “Arians” who also denied the pre-existence of the Son's divine being: “You who are Arians or who is Photinus of Sirmium … believe Him to be a creature, of whom (in eum) ‘who when he was, he once was not; of whom ‘who he created from nothing.’ ”37
De non parcendo 28.43–5 (CCSL 8:250): an awkward citation of the phrase, “qui fuerit quando non fuerit.” See 18.13–5: “Otherwise there is a single mind of belief and unbelief among you since you say that there is no (habere).” “God the true Son” (CCSL 8:229).
De non parcendo 18.15–29 (CCSL 8:229).
Lydia Speller has drawn attention to commentaries of “Ambrosiaster” whose arguments reveal that certain Johannine and Pauline passages were important to Photinian exegesis.39
For instance, the distinction between the first man who is earthly and the second, heavenly in 1 Cor 15:47 was apparently used by the Photinians as a proof text for showing that Adam came into existence before Christ. Ambrosiaster used Jn 3:31–32 and 16:6–30 attesting to Christ's heavenly origins and that coming from the Father demonstrates his pre-incarnate existence.
Speller, “New Light of the Photinians,” 106–7. The Photinian interpretation of the passage according to Ambrosiaster is: “doctrina quae venerat a deo, relicto mundo ad deum est regressa” (Quaest. vet. et nov. test. 91.2).
Conciliar Activity
Much more could be said about the above writers relative to their opposition to Photinus. Nonetheless, the conciliar activity of the 340s and that of Sirmium in 351 provides the earliest and most direct data for determining the kind of monarchianism that led to Photinus's final deposition and which laid the course for his damnatio memoriae. By retracing what are familiar steps to many doctrinal historians, we may find some fresh insights.
In the west, the 340s saw the rise of a number of initiatives addressing doctrinal matters. These were largely in response to the momentum begun at the council of Serdica (343).
41On the dating, see T. D. Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius: Theology and Politics in the Constantinian Empire (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993) 71ff.
, the western bishops, in a creed that was issued separately from the conciliar encyclical, rejected the notion that the Father ever existed without the Son, or that Christ has a beginning or an end, or that the Father is the Son or vice-versa.
42Following Stuart Hall's enumeration: 1.1.2; 3.1 and 3.5. “The Creed of Sardica,” Studia Patristica 19 (1989) 175–77.
It was shortly after Serdica that Photinus became bishop of Sirmium.43
If the “Euterius a Pannonias” (Collectanea Antiariana Parisina B 2.4; fragmenta historica of Hilary of Poitiers [CSEL 65:137]) named among those bishops condemned by the westerners at Serdica refers to Sirmium, then Photinus is not bishop until sometime soon after 343. Accordingly, Epiphanius's placement of Photinus's condemnation at Serdica is surely a mistake (Pan. 71.1.1–2.4) for the events at Sirmium 351.
CAP B 2.9.1. Assuming Athanasius wrote the third theological oration against the Arians in 345 and that it was, in part, against Photinus, it may serve as corroboration of Athanasius's split from Marcellus. Joseph T. Lienhard, “Did Athanasius Reject Marcellus?” in Arianism After Arius: Essays on the Development of the Fourth Century Trinitarian Conflicts (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993) 74.
The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988) 238. Also, that Photinus's views stem from Marcellus's early position, that is, before Marcellus moderated his views for the sake of his acceptance by Julius at Rome.
Hilary, CAP B 2.5 (4); Jerome, De vir. illust. 107 (PL 23:703B).
Athanasius, De synodis 26.5–6 (PG 26:730C; 731A).
Such words seem to describe Photinus as possessing a theology that was motivated primarily by christological concerns—or at least this is what his opponents remembered as the most objectionable.48
It is with respect to Photinus's christology that Augustine says he needed to learn how sharply it diverged from the catholic understanding of the Word that became flesh (Conf. 7.19.25).
J. Lienhard, Contra Marcellum: Marcellus of Ancyra and Fourth-Century Theology (Washington, DC: CUA Press, 1999) 50. See 49–67 for a presentation of Marcellus's views from his own works.
CAP B 2.9.1–3 (CSEL 65:146–47).
While we know more about Marcellus than we do of Photinus, the “success” in undermining their views lay in the blurring of distinctions that existed between Sabellius, Paul of Samosata, Photinus and Marcellus.51
Winrich A. Löhr, “A Sense of Tradition: The Homoiousian Church Party,” Arianism After Arius (ed. M. R. Barnes and D. H. Williams; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993) 99.
See Eusebius of Vercelli (c. 362), De trinitate 3.55, which joins Hebion and Photinus as rejecting and agreeing to the same doctrines (CCSL 9:44); Filastrius of Brescia (c. 380), Diversarum hereseon 65, catalogues Photinus as a follower of Paul of Samosata (see 91.2; CCSL 9:244); Ambrose of Milan (c. 397), De obitu Theodosii 49 (PL 16:1403A) identifies Photinus as the heretic who denied the Son's divinity; Rufinus of Aquileia (c. 404) in his Expositio Symboli 37 mentions Photinus as the successor of Paul of Samosata (CCSL 20:172).
Besides the link with Marcellus, it seems that Photinus had begun in the mid-340s to preach a theology which was one of the few issues both eastern and western bishops at Serdica agreed was worthy of condemnation. And yet we may assume Photinus won his new appointment by accepting prima facie the decisions of western Serdica, a point that must have worked in his favor when he was initially suspected of heresy. The close relation that Photinian views shared with a mia-hypostatic position made it seemingly compatible with early pro-Nicene theology, a point that clearly undermined those who advocated the innocence of Marcellus and Athanasius at Serdica. The same may be said of Euphratas of Cologne, a bishop who subscribed to the western creed of Serdica while also espousing monarchian views.
We have the proceedings of a small Gallic council that convened in 346 (or 345) in Cologne (Coloniae Agrippinae) in response to letters of complaint (epistola) against the bishop of that city, Euphratas (or Eufratas), the metropolitan bishop of Gallia Secunda. Little is known of Euphratas except that he subscribed to the decisions of (western) Serdica and had been sent as one of two delegates to Antioch in order to communicate the emperor Constans's support of the Serdican resolutions.53
Athanasius, Historia Arianorum 20 (PG 26:716C-D); Theodoret, Hist. eccl. 2.7 (PG 82:1019A). Euphratas, along with Vincentius of Capua, are referred to as “admirable men,” representing the integrity of the council's decisions.
There is no agreement on the authenticity of these acta, which are preserved only in a tenth-century codex, though they are acknowledged in the eighth-century Life of Maximus of Trier (CCSL r 148:26; SC 241:68–9). For the negative position, see L. Duchesne, “Le faux concile de Cologne (346)” Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique 3 (1902) 16–29, and Hanns C. Brennecke, “Synodum congregavit contra Euphratam nefandissimum episcopum” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 90 (1979) 30–54. The introduction to the acta places the proceedings on 12 May 346 (“Post consulatum Amanti et Albani, iiii Idus Maias”), although it could have been the previous year. Fl. Amantius, who was consul in 345 with Numinius Albinus, might be identical with the Amantius of 346. See Arnold H. M. Jones, John R. Martindale, and J. Morris, The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971) 1:51. Moreover, the exact identity of the Albinus of 346 is not certain. It may or may not be the same as the M. Nummius Albinus of 345 (Ibid., 1.37). See Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio (ed. Johannes D. Mansi; Florence, 1759) 2:1371, n. 1; Concilia Antiqua Galliae (ed. Jacques Sirmond; Paris, 1629) 11–3.
1) that he denied Christ is God (Christum Deum negat) (ch. 2; 3; 5) and that by denying that Christ is God he was blaspheming the Holy Spirit (ch. 6; 9; 10; 14);
2) that he denied Christ “was first of all our Lord and God” (primordialem Dominum et Deum nostrum) and “that he has existed from the beginning” (ch. 8);55
To which the council replied, “cum per uniuersos prophetas manifestetur illum ante mundi constitutionem fuisse cum Deo Patre omnipotente …” (“although it was made plain through all the prophets that had been with God the Father Almighty before the foundation of the world …”)
3) that “he asserted that Christ was only a man” (tantum nudum hominem asserit Christum) (ch. 8).56
The letter from the eastern bishops from Serdica (c. 343) condemn the views as most heinous (aimed implicitly Marcellus); anyone who says, “Christum non esse Deum, aut ante aevum non fuisse Christum, neque filium dei …” (CAP A 4.2 (CSEL 65:73).
Euphratas had already been condemned by five bishops in an unknown location prior to the Cologne assembly (ch. 10), but this seems to have had little effect against his claim of orthodoxy, nor did it extricate him from the city. In the condemnations attested in the acta, several bishops bear witness to Euphratas's unabated activity. The council held in Cologne, Euphratas's own see, was a forceful maneuver, though we do not know how successful it was in removing him once and for all.
The end of the acta breaks off suddenly and so the council's deposition is missing, though it is clear from each bishop's subscription that Euphratas was ultimately condemned on doctrinal grounds. Nothing is said about others in league with him, nor is there any mention of Photinus. However, there is a correlation between the charges made against Euphratas and what is usually ascribed to Photinus.
Photinus too was under investigation in the mid-340s, and he had been condemned by name for the first time in the (so-called) Macrostich creed in 344 and at least at two other times, once in Milan (345)57
CAP B 2.4 (19); CSEL 65:142. Corroboration may be found in Liberius's remarks of 353 that it had been eight years previously at Milan that [the council] failed to condemn Arius. Ep. ad Constantium imperatorem per Luciferium episcopum (CAP A 7; CSEL 65:89–93).
CAP B 2.7: “Haec epistula (of Valens and Ursacius to Julius) post biennium missa est, quam heresies Fotini a Romanis damnata est.” (CSEL 65:145).
There is little agreement among scholars over the exact number and locations of councils that dealt with Photinus. Besides Milan 345, Charles Pietri argues for another council in Milan two or three years later. Roma Christiana. Recherches sur l'Église de Rome, son organization, sa politique, son idéologie de Miltiade à Sixte III (311–440) (Rome: École française de Rome, 1976) 1:232–34. John N. D. Kelly inserts another council at Sirmium in 347, Early Christian Creeds (rev. ed.; London: Longman, 1978) 281, which is the least likely of scenarios given the level of support Photinus enjoyed in Sirmium during this period. And Speller interprets the passage indicated in n. 24 as a reference to another council of Milan in 347 and follows Kelly for the convention of the Sirmium council (“New Light of the Photinians,” 101).
Joseph Lienhard, “The ‘Arian’” Controversy: Some Categories Reconsidered,” Theological Studies 48 (1987) 415–37.
Athanasius, De synodis 26.5 (NPNF 4:463).
Despite organized action against Photinus, the councils suffered from impotence because of popular support for the bishop. At least twice he was condemned, as Hilary reports: “Fotinus, apprehended as a heretic, and a long time earlier pronounced guilty and for some time cut off from united communion, could not even then be brought through a popular faction …”62
CAP B 2.9 (1); CSEL 65.146.6–8. There is a break in the text at the end of the sentence, leaving the direction of Hilary's thought not completely clear.
The synod at Sirmium in 351 was a bid for unity along several lines.63
Greek version in Athanasius, De synodis 26; Latin in Hilary, De synodis 38–61.
As per Epiphanius, Pan. 71.1ff., though Epiphanius is confused about the council's location, which he places at Serdica.
According to Hilary's commentary on the Sirmium 351 creed, written just seven years after the event, Photinus's teaching forced the council to “set forth a wider and broader exposition of the creed65
The fourth creed of Antioch, which Hilary had just discussed in De synodis 34.
De synodis 39: “Necessitas et tempus admonuit eos, qui tum conuenerant, per multiplices quaestiones latius ac diffusius expositionem fidei ordinare; quia multis et occultis cuniculis in catholicam domum ea, quae per Photinum renouabatur, heresis tentaret irrepere” (PL 10:512C–513A).
“Multi ex nobis, Fratres charissimi, ita unam substantiam Patris et Filii praedicant, ut uideri possint non magis id pie quam impie praedicare” (PL 10. 525A).
“At uero si idcirco unius substantiae Pater et Filius dicatur, ut hic subsistens, sub significatione licet duum nominum, unus ac solus sit” De synodis 68 (PL 10:25B).
“Quin etiam et hujus statim erroris occurrit occasio, ut diuisus a sese Pater intelligatur, et partem exsecuisse quae esset sibi filius” De synodis 68 (PL 10:525C); c. 71, “Sit una substantia ex naturae genitae proprietate; non sit aut ex portione, aut ex unione, aut ex communione … Una sit ex similitudine, non ex solitudine” (PL 10:527B). See Victorinus, Candidi Arriani ad Marium Victorinum rhetorem 9 (CSEL 83:1.11).
Returning to the Sirmium council, modalism, adoptionism, and the movement of dilation-contraction are all identified in the anathemas. This does not necessarily imply that there existed three separate monarchian positions as much as three emphases among proponents of monarchianism. There was certainly some coinherence among the emphases. Among the number of unacceptable theological propositions listed at Sirmium are: 1) the Son did not collaborate with the Father at creation; 2) the Logos was not begotten by the Father before all ages; and 3) the Father, Son and Spirit are one prosopōn. The last of the 26 anathemas of Sirmium sums up the Photinian position: “Whosoever shall deny that Christ is God, Son of God, as being before the ages, and having subserved the Father in the framing of the world; but [after] that time he was born of Mary he was thereafter called Christ and Son, and took an origin of being God, is anathema.”
Important to the bishops' concerns over Photinus was his apparent use of the Old Testament in showing the absence of an actual hypostatic existence of the Son. The same passages others read as christophanies via the Logos before his physical birth, Photinus interpreted as the activity of one Unbegotten God. Abraham did not see the begotten Son in Gen 18.1, nor was it the Son who rained fire from heaven (Gen 19.24), nor did Jacob wrestle with the Son as man (Gen 32.26) In each case it was a manifestation of the one God and one divine spirit. In Hilary's gloss of the Sirmium creed he notes that these passages constituted points of denial on Photinus's part and that it was necessary for the council to list each one lest anyone interpret the Scripture to mean the Son of God did not exist before the Son of the Virgin, or that the “substance of the Son” should be denied and applied to the Unborn Father.70
De synodis 50 (PL 10:517B).
Panarion 71. 2, 3 (Amidon, 280).
Photinian (and apparently Marcellan) exegesis, however, was not oblivious to the prophetic nature of the Old Testament prophesy about the Son. The fifth anathema of Sirmium condemns anyone who says “the Son existed before Mary only according to foreknowledge and predestination.” There were two crucial implications to this view, both of which are commented upon by Hilary. First, to say that the Son was ordained as an integral stage of God's prophetic plan of redemption, need not necessitate that the Son had a pre-incarnate substantial existence. “He existed according to foreknowledge and predestination, and not according to the essence of his subsistent nature” (non secundum naturae subsistentis essentiam).72
De synodis 43 (PL 10:514B).
The second implication of the foreknowledge and predestination of the Son before Mary is that Mary's birth of the Son is the progressive realization of God in history. That is, the Son born of the Virgin is the result of God's substantial expansion or dilation.73
See Pseudo-Athanasius, Oratio IV. 13 (PG 26:485A).
De synodis 45 (PL 10:514C).
About the very time Hilary was writing these words, Marius Victorinus in Rome was trying to show why this particular understanding of divine movement was inadequate for a proper interpretation of homoousios. In doing so, Victorinus observed that “the heretics” used a Stoic formulary known as typus for their enumeration of the Father and Son within the Spirit of God. This was a double movement—a movement intrinsic to spirit (or divinity)—that was realized through a binary rhythm of dilation and contraction, diastolic and systolic, a progression to the outside and then a regression to the inside. The Logos of God signified that movement. It is an extension of God that is entirely immanent to the divine substance and consistent with divine immutability: ab istius modi motione repente erumpit filietas quaedam.75
Candidi Ariani ad Marium Victorinum 9 (CSEL 83:1.11).
Adversus Arium 1. 21 (CSEL 83:1.89).
More polemically damaging than linking Photinus with the dubious reputation of Marcellus of Ancyra, the former was identified by his contemporaries as the theological successor of Paul of Samosata and Sabellius, and in fact it went all the way back to Hebion. This sort of “anti-succession” of doctrinal error served to create an association of damnation,77
See Damasus of Rome's ‘confessio’ (or Tome, A.D. 377) in a letter to Paulinus (of Antioch): “We anathematize the Photinus who is renewing the heresy of Hebion, confessed that our Lord Jesus Christ was only of Mary” (Theodoret, Hist. eccl. V. 11; NPNF 3:139); Rufinus, Expositio Symboli 37: “It is an empty council that asserts what Paul of Samosata and his latter-day successor, Photinus, taught” (CCSL 20:172); and the Epistola legatorum Lampsacenae synodi ad Liberium papa, which condemned Photinus, Marcion, patripassionists, Marcellus and Sabellius—“omnes haereses aduersantes praedictae sanctae fidei, quae pie et catholice a sanctis patribus Nicanae exposita est” (PL 8.1377B).
Proponents of Marcellus wrote an exposition of the bishop's faith in order to show his orthodoxy and his differences with Photinus. Martin Tetz, “Markellianer und Athanasios von Alexandrien. Die markellianische Expositio fidei ad Athanasium des Diakons Eugenios von Ankyra,” Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 64 (1973) 75–121.
Hilary makes it clear in his thumbnail sketch of Sabellius and Photinus, who he sees as having similar theologies but for different reasons, that they both supported the full divinity of Christ as manifested in his works. De trinitate. 7.5–7 (SC 448:285–90).
First, Ambrose of Milan, writing about a decade after Hilary, explains in the beginning of his defense of the Nicene faith that the doctrine of God's unity had to avoid three extremes: 1) confusing the Father with the Verbum, as Sabellius did; 2) holding that the Son's first manifestation (initium fili) was in the Virgin's [womb], as Photinus taught; and 3) Arius's contention of dissimilar powers, which thus divided the Son's nature from the Father's.80
De fide 1.1.6 (CSEL 78:7). See 2.3.33. Books I–II of De fide were written and submitted to the emperor Gratian in 378. See D. H. Williams, Ambrose of Milan and the End of the Nicene-Arian Conflicts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995) 141–45.
De fide 1.2.16 (CSEL 78:10).
De fide 2.3.33, “Pater enim et filius distinctionem habent ut pater et filius, separationem divinitatis no habent.” (CSEL 78:68).
It is noteworthy that Ambrose never uses the actual term homoousios or consubstantiality in this treatise (De fide, books I–II) even though he signals in the very beginning that he is taking the Nicene creed as his point of departure.83
De fide 1.prol. 5.
Books 3–5 were written at the end of 379 or early 380 were later appended to the earlier books in order to form a literary whole. See “Polemics and Politics in Ambrose of Milan's De fide,” JTS (1995) 519–31.
“Recte ergo homousion patri filium dicimus, quia verbo eo personarum distinctio et naturae unitas significatur” De fide 3.15.126 (CSEL 78:152). For a pro-”Arian” argument against Photinus's views of una substantia, see Scripta Arriana Latina 5 (CCSL 87:236–37).
Our second example comes from the homilies of Zeno of Verona, a contemporary of Ambrose and a fellow northern Italian. For the sake of creation (ordinem rerum), the Word (verbum) is said to have burst forth directly from the “heart” (cor) of the Father, with the process being described as “omnipotence propagating itself.” There is no question that the Son possesses everything of the Father being generated by him (de deo nascitur deus), while the Father is diminished in nothing by the procession of the Son.86
Tractatus 1.56.1 (CCSL 12:131.2–6). See the tractate entitled De Genesi (1.17) which, despite its title, is Zeno's defense of the language of the Nicene Creed, and how the begotten Son “possessed everything of the Father's, subtracting nothing from the Father.” I. 17.2 (CCSL 12:64.7–10).
Zeno is most concerned with those who try to demean the person of the Christ because of his work as the incarnate Son. But he also identifies the error that marks the existence of the Son with his nativity. Regarding this latter view, Zeno is aware of those who assert “Jesus Christ assumed his beginning (principium) from the womb of the virgin Mary, and was made, not born, God on account of his righteousness”87
Tractatus 2.8 (CCSL 12).
Martin Stepanich, Christology of Zeno of Verona (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1948) 60.
Conclusion
While we must not overstate the implications of the above evidence by portraying Photinus as a more influential figure than he really was, modern patristic interpretations of the theological dynamics of the fourth century has usually suffered from just the opposite problem. The question is, how successful were pro-Nicene/anti-“Arian” polemics in portraying monarchianism as an isolated phenomenon and completely aberrant from the theology of its time? We are left with the impression that the theology associated with Photinus is easily dismissed as a minor but chronic irritation in the search for the Christian doctrine of God. Just as in the case of Arius, the linkage of Photinus with heretical characters meant that any extended refutation of his theology—where it was actually known—was redundant to what supposedly everyone already knew. Although the danger that a monarchian interpretation of God presented to Nicene theology lay just beneath the surface, it was important to treat it as ephemeral to the concerns of the Church. Photinus's views, therefore, were reduced and simplified to a few choice slogans that were easily read as a position completely decontextualized from the church's tradition and scripture.
By gathering the various strands of disparate evidence from the third and fourth centuries, it is plausible to maintain that Photinus and his doctrinal sympathizers represented and continued the theological tradition of what we know of earlier monarchian trajectories. They were not islands of heresy, cut off from the sea of the church's tradition as their adversaries sought to show. Witness the warning Rufinus of Aquileia makes in his opening remarks concerning the necessity of providing an orthodox exposition of the Apostles' or (old) Roman creed:
It has come to my attention that quite a few prominent writers have published concise and doctrinally sound manuals on the subject. But I know that the heretic Photinus, has composed [his own work], not for explaining the sense of the words to his listeners, but, in the guise of simple and faithful statements, he directs their attention to the reasoning of his teaching.89
Expositio Symboli 1 (CCSL 20:133). No other heretical figures are mentioned in this opening chapter.
It was not only the Nicene creed that concerned pro-Nicene commentators. It seems that Photinian assemblies90
Photinus had been dead for about two decades when Rufinus wrote this exposition circa 404.
As contemporary scholarship is rewriting the way in which Marcellus of Ancyra significantly influenced the direction of fourth-century trinitarian theology in the east,91
E.g., Lienhard, Contra Marcellum; Alastair H. B. Logan, “Marcellus of Ancyra and the Councils of A.D. 325: Antioch, Ancyra and Nicaea,” JTS 43 (1992) 428–46; Kelley McCarthy Spoerl, “Apollinarian Christology and the Anti-Marcellan Tradition,” JTS 45 (1994) 545–68.
Tomus Athanasii Alexandrini ad Antiochenos11 (PG 26:809B; trans. NPNF 4:486).
Certainly one of the most enduring aspects is found in the gospel prologues of some codices of the Vulgate.Novum Testamentum Latine, (ed. John Wordsworth; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1889–98) 15–17. The preface to Matthew is particularly striking for evidence of a strong Monarchian theology. According to this writer, there are two beginnings (principia) in the generation of Christ: the first dealing with his incarnation and the other according to his election, both manifesting that Christ is “in the fathers.” Since the early twentieth century, these prologues have been identified as Priscillian in their origination. Germain Morin, Études, Textes, Découvrertes: Contributions à la littérature et à l'histoire des douze premiers siècles (Paris: A. Picard, 1913) 151–205; Henry Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976) 103–4.
