The Pneumatology of Marius Victorinus

Abstract

Caius Marius Victorinus (c. 285-c.365CE), the famed professor of rhetoric in Rome who brought Neoplatonic philosophy into the Latin theological tradition, wrote several treatises of trinitarian theology shortly after his conversion late in life. The uniqueness and sophistication of his homoousian trinitarian thought has been recognized. His contribution to pro-Nicene theologies of the Holy Spirit has likewise been noticed in patristic scholarship, but has received little direct scholarly attention. The key contention of my dissertation is that in Book Three of Adversus Arium (written c. 361) Victorinus expounds a sophisticated pneumatology consonant with the developments in pro-Nicene theology. The true purport of his pneumatology is difficult to grasp because of Victorinus’s complex and fluid use of language which has led some scholars to consider his theology incoherent and his argumentation obscure. A careful reading of Adv. Ar. III allows us to assess his doctrine of the Holy Spirit for its precocious and idiosyncratic assertions while making a contribution to scholarship on early Christian thought, especially as relates to pro-Nicene Trinitarian theology and pneumatology before Constantinople I (381).