 | This article includes a list ofgeneral references, butit lacks sufficient correspondinginline citations. Please help toimprove this article byintroducing more precise citations.(January 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Gaius Marius Victorinus (also known asVictorinus Afer;fl. c. 355) was aRomangrammarian,rhetorician andNeoplatonic philosopher. Victorinus was African by birth and experienced the height of his career during the reign ofConstantius II. He is also known for translating two ofAristotle's books fromancient Greek into Latin: theCategories andOn Interpretation (De Interpretatione).[1] Victorinus had areligious conversion, from being apagan to aChristian, "at an advanced old age" (c. 355), which has been described in Augustine'sConfessions.
Victorinus, at some unknown point, left his home ofNorth Africa to live permanently inRome (hence some modern scholars have dubbed himAfer), probably for a teaching position, and had great success in his career, eventually being promoted to the lowest level of the senatorial order. That promotion probably came at the time when he received an honorific statue in theForum of Trajan in 354. Victorinus'religious conversion toChristianity (c. 355), "at an advanced old age" according toJerome, made a great impression onAugustine of Hippo, as recounted in Book 8[2] of the latter'sConfessions. Marius Victorinus developed a theology of predestination and justification that anticipated St. Augustine, as well as themes that we find again in the anti-Pelagian treatises of Augustine.[3] His conversion is historically important in foreshadowing the gradual conversion to Christianity of the traditionallypagan intellectual class.
Jerome, who was his student of rhetoric,[4] dedicated the following words to him:
I am not unaware that Gaius Marius Victorinus, who taught me rhetoric in Rome when I was a young man, has published commentaries on the apostle; but, versed as he was in knowledge of secular literature, he was completely ignorant of the Scriptures; and no one, no matter how eloquent, can correctly discuss something he knows nothing about.[5]
Brought up aChristian, Emperor Julian had converted to a philosophical and mystical form of paganism; and once in power upon the providential death ofConstantius II, Julian attempted to reorganize the highly decentralized pagan cults, on lines analogous to the Christian Church. The emperor, wanting to purge the schools of Christian teachers, published an edict in June 362 mandating that all state appointed professors receive approval from municipal councils (the emperor's accompanying brief indicated his express disapproval of Christians lecturing on the poems ofHomer orVirgil, because their religion was considered incongruous with the religion of Homer and Virgil).
Victorinus resigned his position as officialrhetor of thecity of Rome, a professor of rhetoric, not an orator. He continued writing treatises onTrinitarianism to defend the adequacy of theNicene Creed's definition of Christ the Son being "of the same substance" (Gr.homoousios) with the Father. His writings illustrate a crucial fusion of Neo-Platonic philosophy and Christian theology, in which Victorinus effectively weaponized the former to prove and disprove arguments of the various Trinitarian debates raging during the fourth century. Sister Mary Clark has noted that the fourth century was one of deep conflict between pagans and Christians, which she summarized as "the renaissance of pagan culture [and] the birth of Christian culture", at the crossroads of which stood Victorinus.[6] His importance is also seen in his large-scale use oflexical innovation (e.g. neologisms) to introduce new technical terms into Christian theological debates, especially in his translation of Greek theological and philosophical expressions (e.g.consubstantialis from ὁμοούσιος,consistentia from σύστασις,essentialitas from ὀντότης).[7]
After finishing this series of works (begun probably in late 357), he turned his hand to writing commentaries on thePauline Epistles, the first in Latin. Although it seems from internal references that he wrote commentaries on Romans and the Corinthians letters as well, all that remains are works, with some lacunae, on Galatians, Ephesians, and Philippians (the comments from the first 16 verses of this latter are missing).
We are fairly well informed on his previous works, mostly texts for his teaching areas of grammar and rhetoric. His most important works from the standpoint of the history of philosophy were translations of Platonist authors (Plotinus andPorphyry at least), which are unfortunately lost. They greatly moved Augustine and set him on a road of creating a careful synthesis of Christianity and Neoplatonism that was very influential. Victorinus wrote a brief treatiseDe Definitionibus (On Definitions), which lists and discusses various types of definitions used by rhetoricians and philosophers; he recommends thesubstantial definitions preferred by the latter (prior to the late 19th century, this work was ascribed toBoethius).[8] Victorinus' manual ofprosody, in four books, taken almost literally from the work ofAphthonius, still exists. His commentary onCicero'sDe Inventione is very diffuse.[4] It incorporates many paraphrases to enable students to understand Cicero's text, along with philosophical explanations and digressions that reflect its Neoplatonist character.[9]
He retained hisNeoplatonic philosophy after becoming Christian, and inLiber de generatione divini Verbi, he argues that God is above Being, and thus it can be said that He is not. Victorinus noted, "Since God is the cause of Being, it can be said in a certain sense, that God truly is (vereων), but this expression merely means that Being is in God as an effect is in an eminent cause, which contains it though being superior to it."[10] As well, Victorinus'Adversus Arium books ("AgainstArius") would prove influential in blending Neo-Platonism and Christianity in the Latin West.
For medieval authors, Victorinus' works became important to students of theScholastic movement.[11] Later, they were widely exploited byClaudius of Turin at the beginning of the 9th century,[12] byHaimo of Auxerre[13] around 850 and byAtto of Vercelli around 920.[14]
Sister Mary T. Clark has identified the following works attributed to Victorinus:[15]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Victorinus, Gaius Marius".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 46.