Gaius Marius Victorinus
Gaius Marius Victorinus (also known as Victorinus Afer; fl. 4th century) was a
Life
Birth place and early career
Victorinus, at some unknown point, left his home of North
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]
Victorinus' historical milieu
Brought up a Christian, Emperor Julian had converted to a philosophical and mystical form of paganism; and once in power upon the providential death of Constantius 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 of Homer or Virgil with their religion being incongruous with the religion of Homer and Virgil).
Victorinus resigned his position as official rhetor of the
Works
After finishing this series of works (begun probably in late 357 A.D.), he turned his hand to writing commentaries on the
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 (
He retained his
For medieval authors, Victorinus' works became important to students of the Scholastic movement.[11] Later, they were widely exploited by Claudius of Turin at the beginning of the 9th century,[12] by Haimo of Auxerre[13] around 850 and by Atto of Vercelli around 920.[14]
Sister Mary T. Clark has identified the following works attributed to Victorinus:[15]
Theological works
- Candidi Arriani ad Marium Victorinum rhetorem de generatione divina (in Latin)
- De Generatione Divini Verbi. ad Candidum Arianum (in Latin)
- Marii Victorini rhetoris urbis Romae ad Candidum Arrianum
- Candidi Arriani epistola ad Marium Victorinum rhetorem (in Latin)
- Adversus Arium (in Latin)
- I. Liber Primus
- IA. pars prior
- IB. pars posterior
- II. Liber Secundus
- III. Liber Tertius
- IV. Liber Quartus
- I. Liber Primus
- De homoousio recipiendo
- Hymnus Primus
- Hymnus Secundus
- Hymnus Tertius
Exegetical works
- In epistolam Pauli ad Ephesios libri duo (in Latin)
- In epistolam Pauli ad Galatas libri duo (in Latin)
- In epistolam Pauli ad Philippenses liber unicus (in Latin)
Secular works
- Ars grammatica
- Explanationes in Ciceronis Rhetorica
- In Ciceronis Topica commenta (lost)
- De syllogismis hypotheticis (lost)
See also
Notes
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (January 2014) |
- ^ "Medieval Philosophy" (section 3), Plato.stanford.edu, Stanford University, December 2009, webpage: PS.
- ^ Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, VIII,II, 3-6.
- ^ Nello Cipriani, "Agostino lettore dei commentari paolini di Mario Vittorino", Augustinianum 38, no. 2 (1998): 413-428
- ^ a b Chisholm 1911.
- ^ Jer., Ad Gal., praefatio (p. 6, lines 26-31 Raspanti): Non quo ignorem Gaium Marium Victorinum, qui Romae me puero rhetoricam docuit, edidisse commentarios in Apostolum, sed quod occupatus ille eruditione saecularium litterarum Scripturas omnino ignorauerit et nemo possit, quamuis eloquens, de eo bene disputare, quod nesciat.
- ^ Clark (1978, 6)
- ^ See further discussion in Dowson (2022).
- ^ Usener (1877)
- ^ Cf. Copeland and Sluiter (2015, 104f).
- ^ Gilson (1952) 32; cf. Victorinus, "Liber de generatione Verbi divini", in Jacques Paul Migne, Patrologia Latina, VIII, col. 1022.
- ^ Cf. Bruce (1946, 140).
- ^ Pascal Boulhol, Claude de Turin: Un évêque iconoclaste dans l'Occident carolingien (Paris: Institut d'e?tudes augustiniennes, 2002), 250.
- ^ Raymond Étaix, "Les Homéliaires carolingiens de l'école d'Auxerre", en L'École carolingienne d'Auxerre, de Muretach à Rémy (830-908), ed. Dominique Iogna-Prat et al. (París: Beauchesne, 1991), 246.
- ^ Boucaud, P. (2013). The Corpus Paulinum: Greek and Latin Exegesis of the Epistles in the First Millennium. Revue de l’histoire des religions, 230, 299-332. https://doi.org/10.4000/rhr.8120
- ISBN 9780813211695. Retrieved 17 December 2016.
References
- Bruce, F. F. (1946), ‘Marius Victorinus and his works’, The Evangelical Quarterly 18, 132–53.
- Clark, M.T. (1978). Fathers of the Church: Theological Treatises on the Trinity. Washington, DC.
- Cooper, Stephen Andrew (2005). "The Life and Times of Marius Victorinus". Marius Victorinus' Commentary on Galatians : introduction, translation, and notes. Oxford early Christian studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 16–40.
- Copeland, Rita, and Ineke Sluiter (eds) (2015), 'Marius Victorinus, Commentary on the De inventione, Before 355', in Rita Copeland, and Ineke Sluiter (eds), Medieval Grammar and Rhetoric: Language Arts and Literary Theory, AD 300 -1475 (Oxford, 2012; online edn, Oxford Academic, 3 Mar. 2015).
- Dowson, C.J. (2022). 'The Translation of Greek Philosophical Terminology in Marius Victorinus’ Opera Theologica: A Quantitative and Qualitative Study,' Antichthon 56: 203–225.
- Gilson, Étienne (1952). Being and some philosophers (2nd ed., corr. and enl. ed.). Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. p. 32.
- Usener, H. (1877). Anecdoton Holderi: ein beitrag zur Geschichte Roms in ostgotischer Zeit. Leipzig: Teubner.
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Victorinus, Gaius Marius". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 46. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
External links
- Opera Omnia by Migne Patrologia Latina
- The Evangelical Quarterly. 18: 132–153. Retrieved 2008-06-01.
- Corpus Grammaticorum Latinorum: complete texts and full bibliography