Arianism Roman Heresy and Barbarian Creed (PDFDrive)

Arianism: Roman Heresy
and Barbarian Creed

Dedicated to the memory of Knut Schäferdiek (1930–2010)
Arianism: Roman Heresy
and Barbarian Creed
Edited by
Guido M. Berndt
Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany
and
Roland Steinacher
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria
© Guido M. Berndt and Roland Steinacher 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Guido M. Berndt and Roland Steinacher have asserted their right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Arianism: Roman Heresy and Barbarian Creed / edited by Guido M. Berndt and
Roland Steinacher.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Arianism – History. 2. Church history – Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600.
I. Berndt, Guido M. II. Steinacher, Roland.
BT1350.A75 2014
273’.4–dc23 2014008232
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ISBN 9781409446606 (ebk–PDF)
ISBN 9781409473282 (ebk–ePUB)
IV
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Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Notes on Contributors xi
Abbreviations xv
Preface xvii
Introduction: Framing the Historical and Theological Problems 1

Hanns Christof Brennecke
1a Ulfila und der sogenannte gotische Arianismus 21

Knut Schäferdiek (†)
1b Ulfila and the so-called ‘Gothic’ Arianism – English Summary 45

2 Was Ulfila Really a Homoian? 49

Sara Parvis
3 Sabas: ‘Orthodox’ or ‘Arian’? 67

Paul Parvis
4 The Homoians 85
Uta Heil
5 Deconstruction of the So-called Germanic Arianism 117

6 Vulfila pontifex ipseque primas Gothorum minorum, sed non

apostolus eorum. Vulfila, Bishop and Secular Leader of His People
but not Their Apostle 131
Herwig Wolfram
7 Barbarian ‘Arian’ Clergy, Church Organization, and Church

Practices 145
Ralph W. Mathisen
viii Arianism: Roman Heresy and Barbarian Creed
8 Germanic Language and Germanic Homoianism 193

Brendan Wolfe
9 The Non-Archaeology of Arianism – What Comparing Cases

in Carthage, Haïdra and Ravenna Can Tell Us about ‘Arian’
Churches 201
Ralf Bockmann
10 The ecclesia legis Gothorum and the Role of ‘Arianism’ in

Ostrogothic Italy 219
Guido M. Berndt and Roland Steinacher
11 Arrianorum abolevit heresem: The Lombards and the Ghost of

Arianism 231
Piero Majocchi
12 Arianism in Africa 239

Robin Whelan
13 Arianism and Ethnic Identity in Sixth-Century

Visigothic Spain 257
Manuel Koch
14 The Homoians in Gaul 271

Uta Heil
15 Britain: Approaching Controversy on the Western Fringes of the

Roman Empire 297
Meritxell Pérez Martínez
Conclusion: The Elusive Nature of an Orthodox Heresy 311

Yitzhak Hen
Bibliography 317
Index 367
List of Illustrations
7.1 Figure of Christ from the apse of the Church of St. Michael in
Ravenna; repaired and now in Berlin (copyright by the author) 176
9.1 Plan of the basilica of Mcidfa (basilica Maiorum), Carthage

Source: Ennabli 1982 (reprinted by kind permission of the
Ecole Française de Rome)205
9.2 Plan of Basilica I in Haïdra (Ammaedara)

Source: Duval 1981 (reproduced by kind permission of the
9.3 Memorial installations at the eastern end of Basilica I

in Haïdra
Source: Duval 1981 (reproduced by kind permission of the
9.4 Arian baptistery, Ravenna. Photo: Bartl, Neg. D-DAI-Rom

58.1635. (Courtesy of the Fotothek des Deutschen Archäologischen
Instituts Rom, reproduced by kind permission) 212
9.5 Orthodox baptistery, Ravenna. Photo: Bartl, Neg. D-DAI-Rom

58.824. (Courtesy of the Fotothek des Deutschen Archäologischen
Instituts Rom, reproduced by kind permission) 213
Notes on Contributors
Guido M. Berndt is Researcher at the Department of Ancient History, Friedrich-

Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg for the project ‘Gothic Warriors
in the Later Roman Empire’ funded by the German Research Foundation
(Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft). He has published his dissertation as
Konflikt und Anpassung. Studien zu Migration und Ethnogenese der Vandalen
(Husum, 2007), and is, together with Roland Steinacher, the editor of Das
Reich der Vandalen und seine (Vor-)Geschichten (Vienna, 2008). He is currently
writing a monograph on Late Antique and Early Medieval warlords and their
‘communities of violence’.
Ralf Bockmann holds a PhD in Classics from the University of Munich, where
he was a member of the Graduate School ‘Prestige in Ancient Cultures’ funded
by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft). He
worked on a number of archaeological projects in Carthage and is currently
conducting research at the German Archaeological Institute in Rome for a book
on the architecture of the early Christian period in North Africa. He is author
of Capital continuous. A Study of Carthage and Central North Africa from an
Archaeological Perspective (Wiesbaden, 2013).
Hanns Christof Brennecke is Professor Emeritus (Church History – Ältere

Kirchengeschichte) at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He graduated
from the Universities of Berlin and Bonn (Protestant Theology, Christian
Archaeology) and received a Dr. theol from Tübingen in 1980. After his
habilitation he became Professor of Church History at Heidelberg from 1988,
and at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg from 1989. Brennecke is a member
of the ‘Akademie gemeinnütziger Wissenschaften zu Erfurt’, a corresponding
member of the ‘Göttinger Akademie der Wissenschaften’, co-editor of ‘Patristische
Texte und Studien’ and the Zeitschrift für antikes Christentum. He has published
Geschichte des antiken und frühmittelalterlichen Christentums: Hilarius von
Poitiers und die Bischofsopposition gegen Konstantius II. Untersuchungen zur
dritten Phase des Arianischen Streites (337–361), Patristische Texte und
Studien 26 (Berlin and New York, 1984); Studien zur Geschichte der Homöer.
Der Osten bis zum Ende der homöischen Reichskirche, Beiträge zur Historischen
Theologie 73 (Tübingen, 1988); the collection of articles Ecclesia est in re
publica. Studien zur Kirchen- und Theologiegeschichte im Kontext des Imperium
Romanum, Uta Heil, Annette v. Stockhausen, and Jörg Ulrich (eds), Arbeiten
xii Arianism: Roman Heresy and Barbarian Creed
zur Kirchengeschichte 100 (Berlin and New York 2007); critical editions: Hanns
Christof Brennecke, Uta Heil, and Annette v. Stockhausen (eds), Athanasius von
Alexandrien, Die ‘Apologien’, AW II. 8. Lieferung (Berlin and New York, 2006);
Hanns Christof Brennecke, Uta Heil, Annette von Stockhausen, and Angelika
Wintjes (eds), Dokumente zur Geschichte des arianischen Streites, 3. Lieferung:
Bis zur Ekthesis makrostichos (Berlin and New York, 2007).
Uta Heil is Lecturer at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg

and Heisenbergscholar of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft). She has written her dissertation on Athanasius of
Alexandria and the Arian debate (Berlin and New York, 1999) and worked on
the critical edition of the writings of Athanasius (Athanasius Werke, Berlin and
New York, 2006, 2007, and 2013). Her habilitation deals with Avitus of Vienne
and the Homoian Church of the Burgundians (Berlin and Boston, 2011). She is
currently working on Fulgentius of Ruspe and his struggling with the Vandals
under Thrasamund.
Yitzhak Hen is Anna and Sam Lopin Professor of History at the Ben-Gurion
University of the Negev, Israel. He is the author of Culture and Religion in
Merovingian Gaul, AD 481–751 (Leiden, 1995); The Royal Patronage of
Liturgy in Frankish Gaul to the Death of Charles the Bald (877) (London, 2001);
and Roman Barbarians: The Royal Court and Culture in the Early Medieval
West (London and New York, 2007). He is currently working on a study of
Western Arianism.
Manuel Koch studied History and German philology in Marburg, Barcelona

and Paderborn. His major field of study is ethnic identity and its impact on the
history of the Visigothic kingdom in Spain (fifth to seventh century). Koch
works as a teacher at the Westfalen-Kolleg, Paderborn. He is the author of
Ethnische Identität im Entstehungsprozess des spanischen Westgotenreiches (Berlin
and Boston, 2012).
Piero Majocchi is a post-doctoral scholar at the University of Lausanne,

Switzerland, focusing on public ritual (funerals, weddings, tournaments etc.) in
the Milan courts of the Visconti in the fourteenth century. He is publishing
Rituali funerari e distinzione sociale in Italia nel Medioevo (ca. 500–1450), at the
Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medioevo, Rome. He has published Pavia città
regia. Storia e memoria di una capitale medievale (Rome, 2008), and La morte del
re. Rituali funerari regi e commemorazione dei sovrani nell’alto medioevo, Storica
n. 49, 17 (2011).
Notes on Contributors xiii
Ralph W. Mathisen is Professor of History, Classics, and Medieval Studies

at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a specialist in the
ancient world with particular interests in prosopography, numismatics, and
in the society, culture, and religion of Late Antiquity. His teaching experience
includes the Ancient Near East, Greece, Rome, Byzantium, coinage, and Roman
law. He has published more than 80 scholarly articles and written or edited 13
books, most recently Ancient Mediterranean Civilisations: Prehistory to 640 CE
(New York, 2011). He serves as Editor of Oxford Studies in Late Antiquity and
is Editor Emeritus of the Journal of Late Antiquity.
Meritxell Pérez Martínez is Researcher at the Department of History and Art

History, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Associate Researcher at the Insitut Català
d’Arqaeologica Clàssica and teaches Church History at the INSAF-Facultat
de Teologia de Catalunya, Spain. She has been awarded several research grants
in Spain, Italy and the UK, and has published her dissertation as Tarraco en la
Antigüedad tardía. Cristianización y organización eclesiástica (Tarragona, 2012).
Her research is mainly focused on Late Roman and Visigothic Hispania, with
special interest in Christianity and its role in the transformation of urban
landscapes in Late Antiquity.
Paul Parvis was formerly a member of the Faculty of Theology at the University
of Oxford and Lecturer in Patristics at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford. He is currently
an Honorary Fellow in the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh,
and teaches Patristics and Byzantine History. Parvis is the author of Justin,
Philosopher and Martyr: Apologies (Oxford, 2009); and, together with Kathleen
Marshall, Honouring Children: The Human Rights of the Child in Christian
Perstective (Edinburgh, 2004).
Sara Parvis is Senior Lecturer in Patristics in the School of Divinity, University

of Edinburgh. Her research interests within the Patristic period include the
development of orthodoxy and the construction of heresy, sources of authority
in the Church, the place of scriptural exegesis in Patristic thought, and the
search for some of the hidden voices of early Christianity, both doctrinal and
sociological. She is the author of Marcellus of Ancyra and the Lost Years of the
Arian Controversy 325–345 (Oxford, 2006), a study of the often neglected
period between Nicaea and the emergence of the theological stars of the latter
half of the Controversy.
Knut Schäferdiek († 14 August 2010) was Professor of Church History at

the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn from 1979 to 1996.
He is author of Die Kirche in den Reichen der Westgoten und Suewen bis zur
Errichtung der westgotischen katholischen Staatskirche (Berlin, 1967); a selection
xiv Arianism: Roman Heresy and Barbarian Creed
of his most important articles has been edited by Winrich A. Löhr and Hanns
Christof Brennecke Schwellenzeit. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Christentums in
Spätantike und Frühmittelalter (Berlin and New York, 1996). He was co-editor
of the Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte.
Roland Steinacher is a Historian specialising in Roman History at the Institut

für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften
(ÖAW – Austrian Academy of Sciences) and a Lecturer at the University of
Vienna. He graduated from the universities of Innsbruck and Vienna (PhD 2002).
Steinacher is the author of Die Vandalen. Aufstieg und Fall römischer Barbaren
(Stuttgart, forthcoming 2014) and is preparing a book on the Pannonian area
in Late Antiquity as well as his dissertation on names and identities in medieval
Eastern Europe for print. He published articles on early modern scholarship,
Roman Africa and the transformation of the Roman World.
Robin Whelan is Hulme University Fund and John Fell OUP Research Fund
Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at The Oxford Research Centre in
the Humanities (TORCH) and Brasenose College, Oxford. He has recently
completed a PhD in Classics at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. His thesis is
entitled ‘Contesting orthodoxy in late antiquity: Christian controversy, political
power and social identities in Vandal Africa’.
Brendan Wolfe (Wolfson College, Oxford) is a DPhil candidate in Late

Antique Studies and Historical Linguistics at the University of Oxford. He is
a regular contributor to the Bryn Mawr Classical Review and co-editor of the
Journal of Inklings Studies.
Herwig Wolfram is Professor Emeritus at the University of Vienna. He

was Director of the Austrian Institute for Historical Research (Institut für
Österreichische Geschichtsforschung) from 1983 to 2002. Wolfram is a member
of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (w.M. ÖAW) and corresponding member
of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, the Medieval Academy of America,
the British Academy and the Royal Historical Society. He is the author of Die
Goten. Von den Anfängen bis zur Mitte des sechsten Jahrhunderts. Entwurf einer
historischen Ethnographie (fifth edn, Munich, 2009, tr. History of the Goths, 1988);
Conrad II, 990–1039: Emperor of Three Kingdoms, Pennsylvania, 2006; The
Roman Empire and its Germanic Peoples, Berkeley, 1997; Salzburg, Bayern,
Österreich. Die Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum und die Quellen ihrer
Zeit (Oldenburg, 1995) and has edited 15 volumes of a new history of Austria
up to 2006.
Abbreviations
AASS Acta Sanctorum

ACO Acta conciliorum oecumenicorum
AKG Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte
AnTard Antiquité Tardive
AW Athanasius Werke
BBKL Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon
CCSL Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina
CCSG Corpus Christianorum: Series Graeca
CCCM Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio mediaevalis
CCCOGD Corpus Christianorum: Conciliorum
Oecumenicorum Generaliumque Decreta
CFHB Corpus fontium historiae Byzantinae
CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
CPG Clavis Patrum Graecorum
CPL Clavis Patrum Latinorum
CSCO Corpus scriptorum Christianorum orientalium
CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
CUF SG Collection des universités de France Série grecque
CUF SL Collection des universités de France Série latine
DHGE Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastique
EME Early Medieval Europe
FC Fontes Christiani
GCS Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller
GCS N. F. Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten
Jahrhunderte. Neue Folge
GRBS Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies
HZ Historische Zeitschrift
JAC Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum
JECS Journal of Early Christian Studies
JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History
JThS Journal of Theological Studies
LMA Lexikon des Mittelalters
MEFR Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome
MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historia
AA Auctores Antiquissimi
Epp. sel. Epistolae selectae
xvi Arianism: Roman Heresy and Barbarian Creed
LL nat. Germ. Leges nationum Germanicarum

SS rer. Germ. Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum
scholarum separatim editi
SS rer. Merov. Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum
SS rer. Lang. Scriptores rerum Langobardicarum et
Italicarum saec. VI–IX
NPNF Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the
Christian Church
PCBE Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire
PG Patrologia cursus completus, series Graeca
P.Ital. Jan-Olof Tjäder (ed.), Die nichtliterarischen
lateinischen Papyri Italiens aus der
Zeit 445–700, 3 vols (Lund and
Stockholm, 1954–82)
PL Patrologia cursus completus, series Latina
PLRE The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire
RAC Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum
RE Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie der
classischen Altertumswissenschaft
RGA Reallexikon der germanischen
Altertumskunde, 2nd edn
RGA Erg. Bd. Reallexikon der germanischen
Altertumskunde, Ergänzungsbände
RGG Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Fourth
edition 1998–2005
RHE Revue d’Histoire ecclesiastique
SC Sources Chrétiennes
SSCI Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studio
sull’alto medioevo
SP Studia Patristica
TRE Theologische Realenzyklopädie
TRW The Transformation of the Roman World
TTH Translated Texts for Historians
ZAC Zeitschrift für antikes Christentum
ZKG Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte
ZNW Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft
und die Kunde der älteren Kirche
Preface
This book is to some extent the result of a lack of understanding of Late Antique
Arianism. Scholars of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages have to deal
with a great variety of Christian doctrines and theological debates. This is not
always easy and religious and theological backgrounds are often simply ignored
or misunderstood. So we asked theologians and historians to explain the
phenomenon, and their answers fill the following pages.
Since the third century the relationship of Christ’s nature and person with
the nature and person of God the Father and the Holy Spirit had been a matter
of extensive discussion. Ariani was a polemical term coined by Catholic authors
to denounce their opponents as heretics. From a modern perspective ‘Homoians’
would be more precise. The term derives from the Greek homoios – similar.
The Catholic mainstream is labelled as homoiousios – like-in-essence. Who the
winner would be was not always clear. The emperors Valens and Constantius II
supported the Homoians, and the councils of Ariminum (Rimini) and Seleucia
in 359 declared the Homoian trinity as the right one. Two decades later in 381
at the council of Constantinople, emperor Theodosius declared the creed of
Nicaea as the only rightful one in the Roman Empire. In what followed many
Homoians joined barbarian military leaders and assumed integral roles in their
rising kingdoms.
A Gothic Homoian community outside the imperial borders was of special
importance for the later assertion of Arianism amongst barbarian military
circles. The cradle of Gothic-homoian Christendom is a small Christian group
of Goths which settled on Roman soil in Lower Moesia during the reign of
Emperor Constantius (337–61). Its leader was Ulfila (Vulfila, Οὐλφίλας, maybe
Gothic *Wulfila).1
The history of this book started in 2009. Its chapters mainly derive from
two interdisciplinary meetings on the history of the Arian churches. At the
International Medieval Congress Leeds 2009 we arranged, together with Thomas
Brown from the University of Edinburgh, a series of three sessions entitled
‘Arianism Revisited: Homoians and Homoousians in Late Antiquity’. In 2011
1
The chapters of this book use different variations of the bishop’s name for historical
and linguistic reasons: Ulfila is the form attested in Auxentius’ of Durostorum Dissertatio
Maximini (Codex Paris BN lat. 8907). This text includes Ulfila’s own confession of the
Christian faith. Nevertheless Ulfila’s name is attested as Vulfila and Οὐλφίλας as well. The
name may derive from the Gothic *Wulfila as a diminutive of wulfs, meaning little wolf.
Cf. Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Wulfila’, RGA, 34 (2007): pp. 318.
xviii Arianism: Roman Heresy and Barbarian Creed
the authors of this volume met at the Villa Vigoni in Loveno di Menaggio (Italy)
to discuss and enhance their contributions.
We take this opportunity to acknowledge the individuals and institutions
to whom we have owed so much during the last five years that we have
worked on Arianism. The German Research Foundation (DFG – Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft) sponsored the meeting in the Villa Vigoni. The ERC-
sponsored project SCIRE – Social Cohesion, Identity, and Religion in Europe
(as Walter Pohl) offered substantial financial help. Furthermore, the DFG-
funded project Gotische Kriegergruppen im spätrömischen Reich (as Hans-Ulrich
Wiemer), the Historisch-Kulturwissenschaftliche Fakultät of Vienna’s university
and its dean, Claudia Theune-Vogt, and the Jubiläumsfonds of the Österreichische
Nationalbank supported the preparation of the manuscripts, translations and
the editing process.
At the department of Ancient History at Erlangen we were assisted by
Johanna Pöhlmann, Julia Wecker and David Ganek. Albrecht Diem, Stefan
Donecker, Julia Ess, Kai Grundmann, Alexander O’Hara, Uta Heil, Nicole
High-Steskal, Ekaterina Nechaeva, Graeme Ward and Robin Whelan translated
texts, proofread, added and criticised. We would also like to thank Katharine
Bartlett, Kirsten Weissenberg, and last but not least John Smedley from Ashgate
for their dedicated work realizing this book.
The first chapter of this book is the very last essay by Knut Schäferdiek. He
passed away in the summer of 2010, having already given permission for us to
publish his text. Winrich Löhr (University of Heidelberg) kindly organised the
page proofs.

Introduction: Framing the Historical and
Theological Problems
Hanns Christof Brennecke1
‘Arianism’, as an umbrella term (Sammelbegriff) and as a label for particular

developments in late-classical Christian theology and doctrine (Lehrbildung),
has given rise to an abundance of misunderstandings – often conscious and even
deliberate misunderstandings. Since late antiquity, the term has been used as
a polemical catchword, and the resulting misconceptions have persisted, with
astonishing tenacity, up to the present day.
Therefore, it is necessary to clarify which theological positions and which
ecclesiastical structures are meant when the ambiguous term ‘Arianism’ is
invoked. In the literary tradition of late antiquity, there is only a single piece
of evidence for the word Ἀρειανισμός, in Gregory of Nazianzus.2 The derivative
neo-Latin term ‘Arianism’ was constructed during the early modern period, in
the context of the historiography of Christian dogma, and subsequently adopted
in the European vernaculars (Fr.: Arianisme, Ital.: Arianesimo; Ger.: Arianismus).
‘Arianism’, in its proper sense, both in the history of theology and in the history
of dogma, refers to the theological positions or teachings of the Alexandrian
presbyter Arius (Greek: Ἄρειος), which brought him into conflict with Bishop
Alexander. This dispute between bishop and presbyter – initially limited to
the Christian community in the city of Alexandria – triggered the so-called
‘Arian Controversy’ at the beginning of the fourth century, several years before
Constantine became sole emperor in 324. From Egypt, the conflict spread to the
East, and by the mid-fourth century it had encompassed the Christian church
of the entire Roman Empire, as a fundamental controversy about a Trinitarian
understanding of God.3 The conflict lasted for decades, until Emperor
Theodosius I assembled the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople
in 381, which resulted in an authoritative formulation of the Christian doctrine
1
Translation by Stefan Donecker.
2
Greg. Naz. or. 21.22.
3
The most comprehensive, although in some aspects obsolete, account is from Richard
P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God. The Arian Controversy 318–381
(Edinburgh, 1988).
2 Arianism: Roman Heresy and Barbarian Creed
concerning the Trinity, any departure from which would be considered heresy.4
Gregory of Nazianzus coined the term ‘Arianism’ in his eulogy for Athanasius of
Alexandria after the latter’s death in 373, and in so doing, he subsumed far more
under this polemical term than the actual teachings of Arius, who by then had
been dead for almost half a century (see below).
The history of the ‘Arian controversy’5 is inextricably linked to the so-
called ‘Constantinian shift’ (Konstantinische Wende). In the course of the
Christianisation of the Roman Empire, the conflict that had initially been
a purely theological debate within the church gained considerable political
relevance. As historians, we would be ill advised to view the theological debates
on Christian doctrine without taking the political framework and its strong
influence into consideration.
The concept of Ἀρειανισμός employed by Gregory of Nazianzus, as well as the
many other possibilities offered by the Greek language to insinuate similarities
between the beliefs of a person or group and the ideas of Arius,6 should be
considered primarily as theological polemics. It is indeed debatable whether
the polemical notion of ‘Arianism’ – or its verbal equivalents, which one might
encounter in the second half of the fourth century – has much to do with its
namesake, the Alexandrian presbyter Arius and his teachings. To be associated
spiritually with Arius – who had been condemned at the First Ecumenical
Council at Nicaea assembled by Constantine in 3257 – meant, since that time,
that one would be viewed by worldly powers as a heretic to be persecuted.
4
Adolf Martin Ritter, ‘Concilium Constantinopolitanum I 381’, in Giuseppe Alberigo
(ed.), Conciliorum oecumenicorum generaliumque decreta I. The Oecumenical Councils From Nicaea
I to Nicaea II (325–787) (Turnhout, 2006), pp. 35–80.
5
Key bibliographical references include: Adolf Martin Ritter, ‘Arianismus’, TRE, 3
(1978): pp. 692–719; Christoph Markschies, ‘Theologische Diskussionen zur Zeit Konstantins’,
in Christoph Markschies, (ed.), Alta Trinità Beata. Gesammelte Studien zur altkirchlichen
Trinitätstheologie (Tübingen, 2000), pp. 99–195; Hanns Christof Brennecke, Arius/Arianismus,
RGG, 1 (1998): pp. 738–43; Rowan Williams, Arius. Heresy and Tradition (London, 2001);
Winrich A. Löhr, ‘Arius Reconsidered’, ZAC, 9 (2005): pp. 524–60 and 10 (2006): pp. 121–57;
Rebecca J. Lyman, ‘Arius and Arians’, in David G. Harvey and Susan A. Hunter (eds), The Oxford
Handbook of Early Christian Studies (Oxford, 2008), pp. 237–57. Cf. also the bibliography in this
volume, and the chapter by Uta Heil, ‘The Homoians’, in this volume.
6
Greek variations: ἀρειανέω, ἀρειανίζω, ἀρειανικός, ἀρειανικῶς, ἀρειανίτης, ἀρειανός,
ἀρειανοφρονέω, ἀρειανόφρων, ἀρειανῶς, ἀρειοθολόω, ἀρειομανίτης, ἀρειομανῖτις, ἀρειοπλάνης;
cf. Geoffrey W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford, 1968), p. 224.
7
Giuseppe Alberigo, ‘Concilium Nicaenum I 325’, in G. Alberigo, (ed.), Conciliorum
oecumenicorum generaliumque decreta (Turnhout, 2006), pp. 1–15; Hanns Christof Brennecke,
‘Nicäa I. Ökumenische Synode von 325’, TRE, 24 (1994): pp. 429–41.
Introduction 3
The Sources and their Transmission
The Arian Controversy, up to the Council of Constantinople in 381, is arguably

one of the most well-documented conflicts of the classical period. After Arianism
was branded as heresy, however, this record is largely discontinued. In particular,
as regards the ‘Arian churches’ of the Germanic kingdoms, their structure and
their organisation, we have to rely on scant source material.8
It is particularly important to note that the institution of the synod – which
was initially a purely ecclesial assembly – developed, during the course of the
conflict of the fourth century, into an institutional link between the emperor
and the episcopate. In a historical reconstruction of this period, it is therefore
necessary to consult the great quantity of documents which emerged from the
activities of the synods.9
The countless synods of the fourth century pose considerable problems
for historical research. No records of these assemblies have been transmitted
(whether records existed at all will be discussed in individual cases), and historians
have to rely on secondary sources, such as later reports or collections that related
and preserved a selection of the synods’ individual documents. Several reports
on the synods’ proceedings exist, although only few of them were written by
participants. The majority were composed by late antique church historians,10
whose sources are rarely known.
These reports, naturally, are not neutral, but rather interpret and take
positions. Eusebius was the first who included documents (mainly letters) in his
account of church history, to prove the veracity of his report. This method, which
has previously been rather unusual in Greek historiography, was continued by the
church historians of the fifth century in their portrayal of the Arian controversy.
As the distance from the reported events grew, however, the accounts began
8
Cf. in this volume the chapters by Uta Heil and Ralph W. Mathisen.
9
Hans-Georg Opitz (ed.), Urkunden zur Geschichte des arianischen Streites 318–328,
Athanasius Werke III 1,1–2 (Berlin and Leipzig, 1934/35); work carried out by Hanns Christof
Brennecke, Uta Heil, Annette von Stockhausen, and Angelika Wintjes (eds), Dokumente zur
Geschichte des arianischen Streites. Bis zur Ekthesis makrostichos, Athanasius Werke III 1, 3 (Berlin,
and New York, 2007). The fourth instalment with the documents up to 362 will likely appear
in 2014; in preparation are also the fifth and sixth instalments with documents up to the decline of
Arianism at the turn of the seventh century. The documents will be cited according to this edition.
The extensive theological treatises of contemporaries who took part in these debates need not be
considered here. In the following the abbreviation Doc. refers to AW III, 1–3.
10
Socrates, Sozomenus, Theodoret, all of whom, however, composed their church histories
in the first half of the fifth century, at a considerable temporal distance from the events described.
The Byzantine historiographers were largely dependent upon these writers. The continuation of
the church history of Eusebius by his successor Gelasius of Caesarea is lost, although it was used
by the church historians of the fifth century.
to show more and more traces of legendary and hagiographic influences,

particularly when dealing with the later, so-called ‘ecumenical’ synods.11
In addition, there is an abundance of primary documents related to the
synods and transmitted in wholly other contexts. The synods communicated
their decisions – which were binding for the entire church – through letters,
which provide an important corpus of sources. Imperial letters instructing the
bishops have been preserved (especially instructions issued by Constantine and
Constantine II). Most important are the synodal letters themselves, addressed
to the whole church, to the emperor, to local churches particularly affected
by the decisions, as well as to individuals.12 The lists of signatories attached
to these letters have often been poorly transmitted.13 Since the circular letters
(Rundbriefe) of the synod were often very extensive, church historians tended to
provide only regesta or excerpts. In cases where the complete letter is not known,
this practice can lead to significant problems of interpretation.14
The theological declarations of the synods, usually known by the rather
inaccurate term ‘creed’, form a special category of texts. Among these ‘creeds’,
the Nicene declaration15 and the profession of Constantinople in 381,16 which
was later included in the liturgy as the ‘symbolum Nicenum’, proved to be most
influential. A great number of these statements of theological standpoints are
directly connected to the dogmatic disputes of the fourth century concerning
the Trinity.17 They provided the synods with normative criteria to distinguish
true belief from heresy. The oldest preserved synodal confession (which is
known only in a Syriac translation) was formulated at an Antiochean synod
shortly before the Council of Nicaea.18 In the case of some synods, we know
of individuals who had to profess such declarations, to prove their adherence
11
Cf., in particular, the late fifth-century church history of Pseudo-Gelasius Cyzicenus:
Günther Christian Hansen (ed.), Anonyme Kirchengeschichte. Gelasius Cyzikenus, CPG 6034,
GCS NF 9 (Berlin and New York, 2002).
12
Informative are especially the letters transmitted from the Synod of Serdica (343) as
Document 43.1–11, which ought to be considered as only one example among many.
13
Cf., e.g., from the Synod of Serdica, Doc. 43, Introduction.
14
Soz. HE 4.8 reports, for example, in brief on the synodal letter of an Antiochene synod,
which met at the end of the 340s or at the beginning of the 350s and protested against the return
of Athanasius to Alexandria.
15
Doc. 26 (= 24 Opitz).
16
Ritter, ‘Concilium’, p. 57.
17
After Nicaea, e.g., by the Synod of Antioch 341 (Doc. 41.4), Antioch (apparently in the
same year, Doc. 42), Serdica (Doc. 43.2.), Sirmium 351 (Doc. 47.3), Sirmium 357 (Doc. 51),
Sirmium 359 (Doc. 57.2); Rimini 359 (Doc. 59.11), Seleucia 359 (Doc. 60.2), Constantinople 360
(Doc. 62.5).
18
Doc. 20 (=18 Opitz).
Introduction 5
to the true faith.19 Epiphanius recorded a supposedly complete theological

debate between two disputants at the synod in Sirmium in 351, which appears,
however, to be edited in many places and does not provide an authentic account
of the discussion.20 Nevertheless, this problematic text shows that professional
scribes were taking down a protocol of such discussions.
The canones of a synod, short, thesis-like sentences that clarified disputed
questions, especially those related to the order of the church, pose particular
problems. In the available sources, these canones – the nucleus of which will
later become canon law – were wholly separated from the synod that decided
upon them. We are therefore unable to determine the place and position of
these canones in the course of a fourth-century synod, and in modern scholarly
depictions they appear strangely detached from the other synodal proceedings.21
Documents that were composed in the synodal context prove to be a highly
problematic corpus of sources. The reports of the synodal dealings held in
connection with the Arian controversy were not handed down. It was only later
that these reports were assembled, apparently from church archives, sometimes
with a completely different emphasis. Many of these documents were also
included in the collections of canon law that began to be assembled in the fifth
century. It is unknown, however, how the many letters addressed to the bishops
were preserved at the episcopal seats. In any case, they were produced in cases
of necessity, and cited. Again, the original wording of these letters has not been
preserved and researchers have to rely on secondary literary contexts.
As indicated above, the later church historians, following the example
of Eusebius, included synodal documents in their accounts – in many cases,
however, only in the form of regesta – where they were meant to support the
authors’ opinion. Occasionally, this entailed omissions of passages which did
not quite suit the authors’ purposes.
A typical trait of the Arian controversy is the transmission of synodal
documents in the writings of bishops who were immediately and actively
involved in the disputes. This includes, most importantly, the works of
Athanasius of Alexandria, who added whole collections of reports to his own
19
Regarding Eusebius at the Synod of Nicaea, cf. Doc. 24 (= 22 Opitz). At the Antiochian
Synod in 341, a certain Theophronius of Tyana, who is not mentioned in any other sources, had to
present such a confession (Doc. 41.3). At the Synod of Seleucia, Hilary of Poitiers – who was, at
that time, exiled to the east – made a similar statement (cf. Doc. 60, Introduction).
20
Doc. 47.2.
21
This category, which I do not intend to discuss in depth, has become an area set apart
for research by specialists. These canones have been compiled quite early in their own collections
and passed on in this way. The canones of individual synods which met in the context of the Arian
controversy, however, do not address the problem of the controversy directly. Regarding the
canones of the Synod of Nicaea in 325 and of Constantinople in 381, cf. Giuseppe Alberigo (ed.),
Conciliorum Oecumenicorum, pp. 6–30 (Nicaea), pp. 64–70 (Constantinople).
work, or embedded them in his own portrayal of events. In addition to his de

decretis Nicaenae synodi22 and his apologia secunda,23 his work de synodis,24 an
annotated collection of synodal documents pertaining to the Arian controversy
and meant to be used as a preparation for a specific later synod, needs to be
taken into consideration. In Alexandria, Athanasius could apparently rely on an
excellent archive.
During his exile in Asia Minor in the mid-fourth century (ca. 357), the
Gallic bishop Hilary of Poitiers created a similar annotated collection of
synodal documents translated into Latin, to inform his Gallic brothers about
the Arian controversy. Unfortunately, Hilary’s compilation survives only in a
very poor ninth-century manuscript that distorted the text to a considerable
degree.25 Nevertheless, it remains the only available source for a great number of
synodal documents. A second annotated collection of documents, which Hilary
compiled in preparation for the great Imperial synod of Rimini and Seleukia,26
again for the benefit of his brothers in Gaul, has been better preserved.27 The
sources from which Hilary, as an exile from Gaul, obtained these documents
are unknown.
Sabinus, the bishop of Heraklea in the 360s, prepared a similar annotated
compilation of synodal documents, in this case, however, from the perspective
of the critics of the decisions of Nicaea. The text is, unfortunately, wholly lost to
us, but it can be partially reconstructed through its use by later church historians.28
Another document of key importance for the synods connected to the
Arian controversy is a poorly preserved collection of Latin translations of Greek
synodal documents, which exists only in a single Veronese manuscript from
the seventh century (Codex Veronensis LX) and was linked to other similar
compilations.29 Thus, a large part of these synodal documents is no longer in
the original language, but rather in translations dating from the classical period.
22
Hans-Georg Opitz (ed.), Athanasius Werke II 1 (Leipzig and Berlin, 1935), pp. 1–45.
23
Hans-Georg Opitz (ed.), Athanasius Werke II 1 (Berlin, 1938), pp. 87–168.
24
Hans-Georg Opitz (ed.), Athanasius Werke II 1 (Berlin, 1940–41), pp. 231–78.
25
Hilary of Poitiers, Collectanea antiariana Parisina (Fragmenta historica), Alfred Feder
(ed.), CSEL 65 (Vienna and Leipzig, 1916), pp. 39–193; English translation with detailed
introduction and notes by Lionel R. Wickham, Hilary of Poitiers. Conflicts of Conscience and Law
in the fourth-century Church, TTH 25 (Liverpool, 1997).
26
Cf., in this volume, the chapter by Uta Heil, ‘The Homoians’.
27
Hilary of Poitiers, Liber de synodis, seu de fide Orientalium, PL 10, col. 479–546.
28
Cf. Wolf-Dieter Hauschild, ‘Die antinizänische Synodalaktensammlung des Sabinus
von Herakleia’, Vigiliae Christianae, 24 (1970): pp. 105–26; adding to this, Winrich A. Löhr,
‘Beobachtungen zu Sabinos von Herakleia’, ZKG, 98 (1987): pp. 386–91.
29
Regarding the Codex Veronensis LX, cf. Annik Martin, and Micheline Albert (eds),
Histoire ‘acéphale’ et Index syriaque des lettres festales d’Athanase d’Alexandrie, SC 317 (Paris, 1985),
pp. 11–19.
Introduction 7
Hilary translated from Greek into Latin, but also used, in part, originals that
were themselves translations, from Latin into Greek. This means that some of
the documents on the Arian controversy have undergone a double process of
translation – from Latin to Greek and then back to Latin – which, in certain
cases, led to serious distortions of the text. Through the multiple rounds of
translation, misunderstandings have found their way into the texts. In many
documents one cannot even determine the original language with certainty; in
some cases one has to conclude that the text was meant to be bilingual in the
first place.
A significant number of synodal documents exists only in Syriac translation,
in the late-classical Syriac collections of canon law, e.g., the confession of
an Antiochean synod shortly before Nicaea,30 or – in fragmented form –
Constantine’s letter of invitation to the Synod of Nicaea.31 Thus, since we lack a
coherent transmission of synodal texts, we are forced to reconstruct them from
the very different types of sources available to us.
The confession of the Synod of Nicaea, for example, is first found in a letter
by Eusebius of Caesarea sent from the synod to his brother bishops in Palestine.
It was included by Athanasius – Eusebius’ most forceful opponent – among
the documents he attached to his own writing on the Council of Nicaea.32 Two
Latin versions of this confession (not wholly identical) were cited by Hilary in
both of his compilations of synodal texts.33
The transmission of documents from the disastrous Synod of Serdica (Sofia)
is especially complicated;34 from the very beginning, the synod had divided
into two partial synods (East and West), which mutually excommunicated
each other. The church historians offer thorough but conflicting reports on
these events. Even the exact date of the synod raises problems, as does the list
of participants. The 11 known documents relating to these two divided synods
have been preserved in wholly different contexts; some of them have passed
through several rounds of translation. In some cases we are lucky enough that
a document is available in several versions; in contrast, special problems are
created by documents that are, for example, only known through the Verona
manuscript or the collections of Hilary or Epiphanius, in highly distorted form.
It is important to note that the documents available to us are those composed
by the Nicene faction which, in the long run, prevailed due to the support of
Theodosius. We have to assume that the documents of the opposition, those
30
Doc. 20 (= 18 Opitz).
31
Doc. 22 (= 20 Opitz).
32
Doc. 24 (= 22 Opitz). The letter of Eusebius is transmitted by Athanasius, de decretis
Nicaenae synodi 33 (28–31 Opitz).
33
Collectanea antiariana Parisina B II 10 (ed. Feder, CSEL 65, p. 150); De synodis 84,
PL 10, p. 536.
34
Cf. the Introduction to Doc. 43.
theologians who, after 381, were labelled as ‘Arians’, have not been preserved in
noteworthy numbers. In this case, the source material is particularly fragmentary.
Because of the extremely complicated state of the many fourth-century
documents that relate to the Arian controversy, Eduard Schwartz proposed in his
Athanasiusstudien (1904–1911) that a critical edition be made of these sources,
which come to us in very different secondary contexts.35 Hans-Georg Opitz
began this project which was sponsored by the Prussian Academy of Sciences,
but the Second World War and Opitz’s early death caused an interruption for
several decades. Several years ago, work on the edition resumed, albeit with a
somewhat different methodological framework and an extended scope that
should encompass all documents pertaining to Arianism, including those of the
gentile kingdoms that emerged on Western Roman territory.36 The entire process
from the beginning of the controversy between the Alexandrian presbyter Arius
and his bishop up to the full formation of what became known as Arianism, can
only be reconstructed through the synodal texts.
Arius of Alexandria
When the conflict over the description of the relationship between God the
Father and God the Son (Logos) broke out between Arius and his bishop,
Alexander, around the year 315, during the reign of Licinius,37 Arius was
presbyter at the Baukalis Church in Alexandria.38 Alexander had been appointed
bishop of the Egyptian metropolis in 313, after the short episcopate of Achilles
who, in 311, had succeeded Petrus, a martyr during the new flare-up of the
Diocletian persecution in the East under Maximinus Daia.39 Arius, who was
from Libya,40 by the time the controversy with his bishop began, was already
described as γέρων.41 We are only vaguely informed on the background that
led to the outbreak of the controversy and have to rely on speculation on this
35
Collected in: Eduard Schwartz, ‘Zur Geschichte des Athanasius’, in Walther Eltester and
Hans-Dietrich Altendorf (eds), Gesammelte Schriften III (Berlin, 1959).
36
Cf. Hanns Christof Brennecke, and Annette von Stockhausen, ‘Die Edition der
“Athanasius Werke’’, in Helmut Neuhaus (ed.), Erlanger Editionen. Grundlagenforschung durch
Quelleneditionen: Berichte und Studien, Erlanger Studien zur Geschichte 8 (Erlangen and
Jena, 2009), pp. 151–70.
37
Regarding the chronology, cf. ‘Bemerkungen zur Chronologie des arianischen Streites bis
zum Tode des Arius’, Athanasius Werke III 1, 3, pp. XIX–XXXVIII.
38
Epiphanius, haer. 69.1.2 (ed. Holl, GCS 37 p. 152, 21).
39
Alfons Fürst, ‘Das Christentum in Alexandrien bis ins frühe 4. Jahrhundert’, in Peter
Gemeinhardt (ed.), Athanasius Handbuch (Tübingen, 2011), pp. 21–31.
40
41
Introduction 9
matter. Arius’ teachings about God do not appear to have aroused the anger
of Alexander’s predecessors, which, given the Alexandrian theological tradition
since the middle of the third century, is hardly surprising.42
Very little has been preserved of Arius’ own writings, no more than four or
five pages of text. He was quoted by Alexander and his successor Athanasius
of Alexandria, but these citations must not be seen as unambiguous evidence
of Arius’ teachings, since neither Alexander nor Athanasius distinguished
between Arius’ actual statements and the theological consequences which, in
their opinion, resulted from these statements. The only two sources useable for
a reconstruction of his views are (a) the theological declaration which Arius
and his supporters read during an Alexandrian council, in order to justify their
theological position,43 and (b) a letter which Arius wrote to Eusebius, the bishop
at the Imperial residence in Nicomedia.44 Both Arius and his bishop Alexander
apparently stood in the Alexandrian tradition of the Theology of the Logos of
Origen. The legacy of Origen was somewhat ambiguous: it allowed different
possibilities for interpreting the relationship between God the Father and the
Logos.45 Arius wanted to emphasise the transcendence and sole divinity of
God as opposed to Alexander, who argued for a co-eternal (Gleichewigkeit)
state shared by God and the Logos (an opinion that does not correspond to
the homoousian creed of the Nicene council). God alone is, for Arius, without
beginning, unbegotten and eternal. In the terminology of negative theology,
Arius stresses monotheism with ever-renewed attempts. God can only be
understood as creator. He denies the co-eternal state of the Logos with God,
since otherwise God would be stripped of his absolute uniqueness. God alone
is ἀναρχῶς, and thus he was not always Father. Before all time, and before the
creation of the world, God called the Son into being ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων. Following
Proverbs 8:22–25, Arius is able to argue that the Son was created. For Arius the
Logos belongs wholly on the side of the Divine, but he is markedly subordinate
to God.
Arius does, on the one hand, oppose the school of theology common in Egypt
and in Libya that identifies God the Father and God the Son with one another
(Modalism/Sabellianism), since such a view negates the transcendence of God.
In his radical emphasis on God as Creator, he also repudiates the Manichaean
42
Cf. Fürst, ‘Das Christentum in Alexandrien’.
43
Doc. 1 (= 6 Opitz).
44
Doc. 15 (= 1 Opitz). The fragments of the so-called ‘Thaleia’, a sort of dogmatic poem, are
problematic in their classification and are therefore beyond the scope of this paper.
45
The notions of ‘right’ and ‘left’ Origenism, which can be found in scholarly literature,
are of very little use. Concepts that originate in nineteenth-century Parliamentarism
only lead to errors and misinterpretations and do not contribute to an understanding of
Origen’s teachings.
belief in emanation.46 Striving to maintain and emphasise the uniqueness of

God, Arius formulates a drastic separation between the Father and the Son/
Logos that seems unacceptable to his bishop, who reacts with a stern rebuke.
Alexander and his successor Athanasius, who, at the beginning of the
controversy, serves as deacon in Alexandria, essentially confirm these statements
of Arius, but they also sharpen them and draw from them what they consider to
be their theological consequences. According to Alexander, Arius has assigned
the Logos a place among created beings (which Arius explicitly denies); from
that, he draws the conclusion that the Son/Logos of Arius is merely a man.47
In this polemic, Arius appears as a representative of a judaising theology of
adoption, in line with Paul of Samosata, a bishop of Antioch who was decisively
condemned in 268 and since that time had come to be known as a sort of
heresiarch.48 Associating an opponent with a heretic condemned by the entire
church is a rather common feature in theological polemics. Just as the true
Church perceives herself as successor to the apostles, so also in the same way
heretics stand as successors of heretics. Yet through this and also later polemics,
one can clearly recognise the theological agenda of Arius.
In order to understand the virulence of the conflict in Alexandria one ought
not to neglect the fact that Arius, who had found considerable support in
Alexandria, had in essence refused to show his bishop obedience. Within the
ancient church, this act alone had to be considered heresy.
During an Egyptian synod called by Alexander, Arius and some of his
followers in the Alexandrian clergy were deposed, excommunicated, and
apparently even driven from the city.49 In many circles of Eastern bishops the
harsh actions of Alexander against his own clerics were criticised. Arius found
support among several prominent bishops of the East, including Eusebius of
Caesarea, Eusebius of Nicomedia, Paulinus of Tyrus, and others.50 A Bithynian
and a Palestinian synod expressed their explicit solidarity.51
The strong support that Arius received outside of the Egyptian metropolis,
and from a whole series of prominent bishops, proves that in this historical
situation, the theological ideas of Arius were not especially unusual. This
becomes apparent, for example, in the fragmentarily preserved writings of
46
Uta Heil, ‘“ … bloß nicht wie die Manichäer!” Ein Vorschlag zu den Hintergründen des
arianischen Streits’, ZAC, 6 (2002): pp. 299–319.
47
Doc. 17,35 (= 14 Opitz, a letter by Alexander of Alexandria to Alexander of Byzantium).
48
Eusebius of Caesarea cites from the letter of the Antiochian synod: Eusebius HE VII 30.
49
Doc. 15 (= 1 Opitz): Letter of Arius to Eusebius of Nicomedia.
50
Eusebius of Nicomedia: Doc. 4 (= 8 Opitz), Doc. 15 (= 1 Opitz), Doc. 16 (= 2 Opitz;
Paul of Tyrus: Doc. 4 (= 8 Opitz), Doc. 5 (= 9 Opitz), Doc. 8 (= 10 Opitz); Eusebius of Caesarea:
Doc. 9 (= 7 Opitz), Doc. 10 (= 3 Opitz); Athanasius of Anazarba: Doc. 11 (= 11 Opitz), Doc. 12;
Theognis of Nicaea: 13.
51
Doc. 3 (= 5 Opitz), Doc. 8 (= 10 Opitz).
Introduction 11
Asterius.52 Similar statements can be found half a century earlier in the works of
Dionysius of Alexandria;53 both Eusebius of Nicomedia and his far better known
namesake from Caesarea, as well as many others, considered the statements of
Arius to be at least conceivable even if they would not subscribe to his opinion.
And the two Eusebiuses were, after all, authoritative teachers who stood for a
great number of the Greek theologians of the time.
Therefore, the conflict that arose from a theological disagreement between
the bishop of Alexandria and one of his presbyters began to affect the whole
church within the eastern half of the Roman Empire, just as Constantine became
the sole ruler after his victory over Licinius.
It could not have taken long until Constantine heard about this conflict
dividing the church in the East, and sought to mediate. His theological advisor
Hosius of Corduba, a representative of the Western church, delivered an
Imperial letter to Alexandria, which showed how intensively the emperor had
read up on the controversy,54 even if he did not fully grasp the momentousness
of this theological conflict. Constantine perceived it as a rather marginal debate
on the interpretation of a particular verse of scripture (Prov. 8:22–25), which
theologians might explain in different ways. The whole mission turned out to
be a total failure, which can partly be blamed on Hosius’ theological cluelessness
and his lack of familiarity with the Eastern Church (die Ahnungslosigkeit des
Lateiners Hosius). On his journey, however, the emperor’s theological advisor
convened a synod in Antioch, which condemned Arius and his sympathisers
(including the well-known Eusebius), subject to the judgment of a larger synod;
this synod also ordained Eustathius as bishop of Antioch, who was known as an
outspoken opponent of Origenist theology. Here, it becomes apparent how the
character of the controversy began to shift – from a dispute among the adherents
of the Origenist tradition to a conflict between the heirs of Origen and their
theological opponents.55
In order to solve this question, as well as others, which were incidentally
far more important to the emperor (e.g., a more consistent date for Easter),
Constantine invited the bishops early in 325 to a council in his residence at
Nicaea, which would later be considered as the first ecumenical council.56 As
pontifex maximus the emperor was responsible for the external affairs of the
52
Asterius of Cappadocia, Markus Vinzent (ed.), Die theologischen Fragmente, Introduction,
critical text, translation and commentary, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae XX (Leiden, New
York and Köln, 1993).
53
Cf. Uta Heil, ‘Schrieb Dionys von Alexandrien τὸν Χριστὸν ὁμοούσιον εἶναι τῷ θεῷ (Ath.,
Dion. 18,2)?’, SP, 31 (1997): pp. 406–13.
54
Doc. 19 (= 17 Opitz).
55
A synodal letter which remains, in the secondary literature, controversial as regards its
authenticity, Doc. 20 (= 18 Opitz).
56
Cf. above fn. 7.
church, and in the West he had already converted the traditional ecclesial
institution of the synod into an institution between the emperor and the
church. His right to do such was, incidentally, uncontested. With the help of
the emperor, a strict anti-Arian majority was able to prevail and to formulate
a theological declaration,57 which, in opposition to the Origenist theological
heritage, removed the differentiation between the Father and the Son to a great
degree, describing the Son as ὁμοούσιος (one-in-essence) with the Father and
emphasising the co-eternity of the Son and the Father. Eusebius of Caesarea
signalled his agreement in a rather convoluted statement, but one can deduce
that he was not particularly happy about the decision.58
Previously, ὁμοούσιος had not been a term commonly applied to the Trinity,
and researchers have extensively debated where this new concept originated
from.59 Eusebius asserted that it was introduced by the emperor himself,60 but
this claim is problematic, at best. It seems more likely that the word ὁμοούσιος was
used just because Arius had polemically branded it as ‘Manichaean’.61 According
to custom, the conclusions of the synod were declared law,62 and Arius and a few
followers were sent into exile. Even this aspect became customary afterwards –
the emperor was actually obligated to exile those who were condemned by a
synod and could not allow them to return unless they were rehabilitated through
another synod.
After the Synod of Nicaea, Arius himself disappeared from the theological
discussion, but the debates continued unabated. In retrospect, one might even
say that the controversy between Arius and his bishop Alexander had, in fact,
been merely a prelude.
Arius himself recanted after two years and was rehabilitated by a small synod
assembled at the command of the emperor.63 Alexander was reluctant, however,
to allow him to return to Alexandria. It seems most probable that Arius died
shortly thereafter. The idea of a second condemnation at the beginning of
Cf. above fn. 15.

57
Cf. the letter of Eusebius of Caesarea to the church of Palestine, Doc. 24, 9–17
58
(= 22 Opitz).
59
Cf. George Christopher Stead, ‘Homousios’, RAC, 16 (1994): pp. 364–433.
60
Doc. 24, 7.
61
Cf. the theological statement issued, in all likelihood, at an Alexandrian synod by local
clerics under the direction of Arius, in an attempt to justify their position, Doc. 1, 3 (= 6 Opitz).
62
Doc. 28 (= 33 Opitz). Regarding the placement of this document in connection with the
Synod of Nicaea, ‘Bemerkungen zur Chronologie des arianischen Streites bis zum Tode des Arius’,
in Athanasius Werke III 1, 3, XIX–XXXVIII.
63
Doc. 34 (= 30 Opitz); cf. also the previous footnote.
Introduction 13
the 430s is, most likely, a modern construction caused by the lack of reliable
sources for this period, which create more problems than they solve.64
The interpretation that perceives Arius in the context of Origenist
Alexandrine teachings about the Logos was developed by scholars no earlier
than the second half of the twentieth century.65 Before that, researchers tended to
adhere to the polemical image of Arius framed by his contemporary opponents,
like Alexander of Alexandria and especially Athanasius, from whom we have a
rich and full corpus of texts.66 In dogmatic history, it was customary to portray
the conflict between Arius and his bishop as a conflict between the Alexandrian
and the Antiochean theological traditions.67 Researchers, following the polemic
of Alexander and Athanasius until well into the twentieth century, assumed
that Arius’ beliefs had been shaped by the Adoptionism of Paul of Samosata,
which emphasised only the humanity of Jesus. Thus, not only Arius himself,
but also all those Eastern theologians from the Origenist tradition, who had
been polemically grouped by Athanasius and others under the name ‘Arians’,
were considered to be representatives of a theology that saw Christ as a created
being, one who was incarnated only in the sense that he was a man adopted by
God. This view is still to be found in the realm of popular scholarship and most
recently led to the idea that ‘Arianism’, as a theology without a doctrine of the
Trinity that sees Christ merely as a man, could form a possible bridge to Islam.
The Developments after Nicaea
After the Synod of Nicaea, the debate shifted and became a debate over unity
and trinity in the Trinitarian notion of God – a debate which is considered,
unjustly, to be a further ‘Arian controversy’. A large number of the Eastern
theologians positioned themselves theologically in the diverse Origenist
tradition, which stressed the threefold nature of God and spoke of three distinct
divine hypostases. In opposition to these beliefs, groups formed who, in criticism
of Origen, emphasised the unity of God more strongly and spoke only of one
divine hypostasis. This anti-Origenist faction was by no means a monolithic
bloc, and we can find significant differences of opinion (e.g., Eustathius of
Antioch, Marcellus of Ancyra, or Photius).
Cf. Hanns Christof Brennecke, ‘Die letzten Jahre des Arius’, in H.C. Brennecke, and
64
Annette von Stockhausen (eds), Von Arius zum Athanasianum. Studien zur Edition der “Athanasius
Werke”, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur 164 (Berlin and
New York, 2010), pp. 63–83.
65
Ritter, ‘Arianismus’, p. 700; Hanson, Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, pp. 60–98.
66
Cf. the list of the writings we have of Athanasius in Gemeinhardt (ed.), Athanasius
Handbuch, pp. 465–67.
67
Cf. above fn. 65.
Only after researchers began to position Arius within the Origenist

tradition, did it become possible to see that the development after Nicaea was
not a conflict between ‘Nicenes’ and ‘Arians’, as common opinion claimed, but
rather a debate on the nature of divine hypostasis – in particular, on the question
whether it was appropriate to speak of one single or three distinct hypostases. A
detailed discussion of the complicated sequence of events in this conflict from
the beginning of the 330s through the 380s and individual portrayals of the key
protagonists would, however, be beyond the scope of this chapter.68
The text of the declaration of Nicaea and its definition of the relation
between God and the Logos/Son as ὁμοούσιος/one-in-essence, which was
apparently problematic for all participants, disappeared from the debates for
almost thirty years. The representatives of a position which strongly emphasises
the unity of God, that is to say a single hypostasis theology, denounced the
triple hypostasis doctrine, which remained popular in the East and probably
had the support of the majority of theologians there, as ‘Arian’ (an accusation
regularly used by Athanasius of Alexandria, among others) – in other words,
as fundamentally heretical. Conversely, the adherents of the triple hypostasis
theory characterised their opponents who argued for a single divine hypostasis
or ousia as ‘Sabellians’ – in other words, as followers of that repeatedly rejected
theology of identification, which identifies God and Christ in actuality,69 against
which Tertullian had written a well-known work, adversus Praxean.70
The emperor Constantine formally adhered to the decisions of Nicaea until
the end of his life. Eusebius of Nicomedia, however, who had intervened on the
side of Arius, became the most important theological advisor to the emperor
after 326 and acted as spokesman for a triple hypostasis theology. Due to his
important role, the representatives of this theory, who were critical of the
conclusions of Nicaea, were often labelled as ‘Eusebians’ (οἱ περὶ Εὐσἐβιον)
in contemporary polemics. This term evokes the image of a tightly knit and
homogeneous faction or party – an effect that was probably intended by
their critics – that does not correspond to the reality of the situation, which
was characterised by a great theological diversity in the ranks of these so-
called ‘Eusebians’.
Athanasius of Alexandria became the most important protagonist of the
single hypostasis theology. Personally, he thought otherwise, but he was almost
exclusively concerned with his struggle against ‘Arianism’. He consistently and
categorically denounced all of his opponents as ‘Arians’, and the tradition of those
Cf. above fnn. 3 and 5.

68
Christoph Markschies (taking up a terminology originally proposed by Luise

69
Abramowski), ‘Theologische Diskussionen zur Zeit Konstantins’, pp. 104–9.

70
Tertullian, Adversus Praxean, Hermann-Josef Sieben (ed.), Adversus Praxean – Gegen
Praxeas, FC 34 (Freiburg i. B., 2001).
Introduction 15
who wrote church history was to follow him on this point, almost unanimously,
for a very long time.
It was only after Constantine’s death in 337 that the Latin West was
confronted with this conflict. In many cases, the Latin tradition failed to grasp
the theological problem with which the Greeks were wrestling. In the West,
a theology of the Logos had been developed by third-century writers such as
Tertullian, Hippolytus (who wrote in Greek) and Novatian, but the heritage of
Origen, which so strongly influenced the East, had hardly any impact on Western
Christianity. There, theologians were usually content with simple proclamations
of the unity of God, and Trinitarian speculations in an Origenist vein tended
to be suspected of heresy. After 340, the West, guided by the exiles Marcellus
and Athanasius, sided entirely with the single hypostasis theologians. Thus, by
the 340s, West and East were not only opposed to one another in ecclesiastic
politics, but also with regard to theology.71
The political developments after the death of Constantine in 337, when
the Empire was ruled first by two, and then by three emperors, had a profound
influence on church politics. In their rivalries, the emperors did not hesitate to
exploit ecclesiastical conflicts to further their own agenda. Emperor Constans
supported ‘his’ church in the West, and his brother Constantius did the same in
the East. Thus, the theological antagonism gained a stronger political component
and developed into a conflict between the two parts of the Empire.
The Eastern – that is, Greek – representatives of the triple hypostasis
theory had defined their theological position at a synod on the occasion of
the dedication of the great Church of Antioch, the golden Octogon, of which
there is unfortunately no archaeological remnant.72 They rejected the charge
of Arianism with indignation: ‘We are not followers of Arius! How could
we, bishops all, follow a presbyter?’73 In their theological declaration,74 they
emphasised their agreement with the apostolic tradition, distanced themselves
clearly from Arius, and confessed the co-eternity of the Father and the Son, but
in the sense of a theology of three divine hypostases: one ought to bear witness
to the Trinity in three hypostases, which with regard to the συμφωνία are one.
The Synod of Serdica,75 convened by both emperors to settle the grievances
between the theological factions and to solve problems regarding the
appointment of church dignitaries, turned out to be a disaster. Right from
71
This division is somewhat simplified. Marcellus of Ankyra and Athanasius as represent-
atives of the ‘Westerners’ came from the East; Valens of Mursa and Ursacius of Singidunum were,
on the contrary, members of the ’Eastern’ faction, who had a personal background in the western
empire. Many similar examples could be named.
72
Doc. 41.
73
Doc. 41, 5,1.
74
Here we are dealing with the so-called second Antiochian formulation. Doc. 41, 4.
75
Doc. 43.
the beginning, the assembly split into an Eastern and a Western synod, both
of which excommunicated each other. The result of this synod was a schism,
which nearly led to war between the two brother emperors. The following years
were marked by various interesting efforts to reach a reconciliation, both in
theological matters and in the sphere of ecclesiastic politics.
In 350, Emperor Constans was murdered by the usurper Magnentius. After
a difficult war, Constantius was able to defeat the murderer of his brother,
and after 353 became sole ruler for almost a decade, like his father before
him. Theologically, it is significant that the declaration of Nicaea now became
important for the single hypostasis theologians, especially for the Western
representatives of this position.
The triple hypostasis theologians, on the other hand, searched for ways to
emphasise the unity of the divine Trinity, while still preserving the three divine
hypostases. This development was triggered by the theology of Eunomius,
who strictly divided the Logos/Son from God. This theology, misleadingly
labelled ‘Neo-Arianism’, had absolutely nothing to do with Arius. In several
very interesting texts dating from the 550s, which are, unfortunately, poorly
transmitted, there are various theologically complex attempts to describe
the divine hypostases in a different form as ‘alike’ (ὅμοιος). In this period, an
astounding differentiation occurred among Greek theologians in the East,
centred on the possible definitions of the likeness between these hypostases.
The differentiation between ‘Homoeousians’ and ‘Homoians’ turned out to be
crucial.76 In this context it is important to note that the question of the role of
the Holy Spirit within the Trinity became more and more critical.77 Emperor
Constantius supported the ‘Homoians’, whom he preferred both in terms of
personal piety and of church politics, and backed their theological teachings and
their most prominent representatives.
Immediately after the death of Constantius in 361 and Julian’s failed attempt
at an enforced restoration of paganism, we can observe a theological development
which did not aim to establish a compromise, but a true solution for the conflict
between single and triple hypostasis theories: the so-called ‘neo-Nicene’
theology. This solution was made possible by a differentiation of philosophical
terminology that distinguished between ousia and hypostasis and expressed the
unity of God through ousia and the Trinity through the hypostases: God is one
ousia in three hypostases. This is a distinction drawn by the Cappadocian fathers.
Representatives of this solution came, interestingly enough, from all different
76
These two groups are then named for the theological words they used in order to
describe the relationship between God and his Logos Son. These designations originate from
the modern scholarship. In contemporary texts, groups are always personalised and named
for important actors: Macedonians, Acacians, etc. Cf. in this volume the chapter by Uta Heil,
‘The Homoians’.
77
Ibid.
Introduction 17
theological schools. This solution, which also included the Holy Spirit, was
adopted in the confession of the Second Ecumenical Council in 381 and has
been regarded as a basic statement of faith by almost all Christian churches, up
to the present day. Nevertheless, at first, the other theological camps persisted,
both the strict single hypostasis theologians (the Antiochian Schism) and also
the different variations of the triple hypostasis theology, who refused to accept
this new solution.
It appears critically important to note that the name ‘Arians’ remains, but
only as a designator for the group of the Homoians. The other groups cast out
from the Imperial church as a result of the Trinitarian conflict were in most cases
named after their leading personalities.78 It remains uncertain why the name
‘Arians’ was applied only to this one group. The Homoians did play a leading role
in the Imperial church during the reign Valentinian and Valens, after the death of
Emperor Constantius. Nevertheless, the great range of theological and ecclesio-
political positions does not allow one to speak of one theological or ecclesio-
political party. The term ‘Homoians’ can, in a very general way, be applied to the
theologians and church leaders who brought about the confessions of Rimini
(359) and Constantinople (360).79
The ecclesio-political reversal to ‘Nicene orthodoxy’ under Emperor
Theodosius I marks a deep caesura. Up to the Council of Constantinople in 381,
the Homoians were a heterogeneous group within the one Imperial church,
based on the confessions of Rimini and Constantinople (360), and rather
active in church politics. Within this group, a broad spectrum of theological
opinions existed which were difficult to reconcile with each other. At the
Constantinopolitan Council of 381, however, the Homoians were branded as
‘Arians’ and thus declared to be heretics. Along with the other opponents of the
conclusions of Nicaea, they were expelled from the church.80
Nevertheless, the laws of heresy after the Council of Constantinople
distinguish terminologically with precision between ‘Arians’ and other anti-
Nicene groups, all of which Athanasius had lumped together as ‘Arians’.81 Only
now, after they had been outlawed, did the loose community of Homoians,
who had previously formed one group within the church, organise their own
‘Arian’ church. After 381, ‘Arians’ (Ἄριανοί, Lat.: Arriani) therefore are no
78
E.g., ‘Macedonians’ or ‘Eunomians’. The naming of a group after one of its most important
representatives is a sign of heresy in the whole church.
79
Cf. the chapter by Uta Heil, in which she indicates the theological differences which exist
within the broad theological spectrum of the Homoians.
80
Canon I of Constantinople, cf. Ritter, ‘Arianismus’, p. 64.
81
From the reign of Emperor Theodosius over the east alone, CTh 16.5.6: Fotiniani, Arriani,
Eunomiani; 16.5.8: Eunomiani, Arriani, Aetiani; 16.5.11: Eunomiani, Arriani, Macedoniani,
Pneumatomachi (and other groups that do not belong in this context), 16.5.12: Eunomiani,
Arriani, Macedoniani, Apolinaristi, 16.5.13: Eunomiani, Macedoniani, Arriani, Apolinaristi.
longer a theological category, but rather a juridical term for a church deemed
to be heretical and therefore illegal under Imperial law.82 This ‘Arian’ church
was based on the declarations of Rimini and Constantinople (359/360),83
which had nothing to do with the theology and the theological concerns of
Arius. If modern researchers wish to retain the name ‘Arian’ for this illegal
church persecuted by Imperial authorities – as an extraordinary polemical but
nevertheless contemporary designation – they need to be aware of the fact that
Arius himself was, in this sense, most certainly not an ‘Arian’. Apart from a
certain Trinitarian subordination, the post-381 ‘Arians’ had nothing in common
with Arius and his teachings.
At the Constantinople Synod of 360, which had formulated the confession
of this so-called Arianism, the Gothic bishop Wulfila had also been present as
a participant.84 Homoian Arianism later became the confession of the Goths
and, through the Goths, of most Germanic gentes later pouring into the Empire.
As foederati, they were not subject to the Imperial religious laws85 and held fast
to this form of Christian belief for over two hundred years, until – after the
military destruction of the Ostrogothic and Vandal kingdoms – they gradually
converted to Catholicism, a process which lasted up to the beginning of the
seventh century.86 In the East, no traces of this Arianism have been recorded
after Justinian, two generations before the rise of Islam.87
Augustine was also confronted with this Arianism near the end of his life.
He apparently had only a passing knowledge of Arianism from heresiological
textbooks and so he imputed these Arians with what he knew of the teachings of
Arius – an accusation which they could only note with puzzlement.88
82
The laws regarding heretics (cf. previous fn.), unambiguously define the former Homoians
exclusively as ‘Arians’. Modern scholarship should not fall behind these differentiations which are,
after all, contemporary to those times, as they seem to be doing in the latest research.
83
Doc. 60. 9; 62. 5.
84
Cf. the chapter by Knut Schäferdiek in this volume.
85
The foedus between Theodosius and the Goths (382) guaranteed the Goths full autonomy
in the land of their kingdom, which also included religious autonomy. Regarding the foedus of the
Goths, cf. Herwig Wolfram, Die Goten. Von den Anfängen bis zur Mitte des sechsten Jahrhunderts.
Entwurf einer historischen Ethnographie (Munich, 5th edn, 2009), pp. 138–45.
86
Cf., in this volume, Hanns Christof Brennecke, ‘The Deconstruction of so-called
Germanic Arianism’.
87
Regarding the literary heritage of homoian Arianism, especially in the Latin tradition,
cf. Uta Heil’s chapter ‘The Homoians’ in this volume.
88
Cf. Uta Heil’s chapter ‘The Homoians’ in this volume.
Introduction 19
Summary
The term Arianism – applied to representatives of the confessions of Rimini

and Constantinople – can be traced back to earlier polemics, but since the reign
of Theodosius it was defined as a juridical category under Imperial law. Their
theological position subordinated the (pre-existing) Son / Logos to the Father,
and strongly emphasised the triple nature (Dreiheit). Apart from the aspect
of subordinationism, these beliefs have nothing in common with Arius. The
synods of Rimini and Constantinople also entailed an ecclesio-political option:
hegemony in the Eastern Church during the reign of Constantius and Valens
(but no ‘Arian’ church).
Only through Theodosius’ religious policy was this position deemed heretical
and expelled from the church. Subsequently, an illegal ‘Arian’ church came into
existence, which became important in the gentile kingdoms of the West as a sort of
national church, with an apparently complete clerical infrastructure. This Arian
church contributed to the formation of identity – as part of the ethnogenesis
of various indigenous groups on the territory of the former Western Roman
Empire – through the denominational demarcation from Roman Catholicism.
In the sixth century, as soon as this need for demarcation was no longer given,
conversions to Catholicism began to increase markedly (with the Vandals and
Ostrogoths remaining the exceptions).
Chapter 1a
Ulfila und der sogenannte
gotische Arianismus
Für eine verhältnismäßig kurze Zeit hat das sogenannte gotisch-arianische

Christentum eine bedeutende geschichtliche Rolle gespielt. Mit Ausnahme
der Franken und Alemannen haben es sich die meisten der germanischen
Volksverbände zu Eigen gemacht, die sich vom vierten bis zum sechsten
Jahrhundert auf römischem Provinzialboden niedergelassen haben.1 Keine
wirklich tragfähigen Hinweise gibt es allerdings auf eine Annahme des gotisch-
arianischen Christentums durch die Rugier, Skiren und Heruler. Trotz der
schnellen und erfolgreichen Verbreitung hat sich der gotische Arianismus
auf die Dauer jedoch nicht behaupten können. Die Reiche der Wandalen in
Lateinafrika und der Ostgoten in Italien sind im Wandalen- (530–34) und
Ostgotenkrieg (535–53) der byzantinischen Rückeroberungspolitik Justinians
erlegen. Das Reich der Gepiden zwischen Theiß und Karpaten wurde 567 von
Langobarden und Awaren aufgerieben. Die jeweiligen Volksverbände lösten
sich darauf als eigenständige politische Einheiten auf. Ihre überdauernden
Angehörigen verloren in der Folge ihre kulturelle Identität. Damit erlosch
auch ihr arianisches Christentum. Für die Wandalen und Gepiden ist dieses
Geschehen nicht nachzuzeichnen. Das Erbe des ostgotischen arianischen
Christentums traten dagegen die Langobarden nach ihrer Reichsgründung in
Italien (568) an. Schon im Vorfeld hatte der Langobardenkönig Alboin seit
etwa 560 Beziehungen zu ostgotischen Arianern in Italien aufgenommen. In
den Reichen der Burgunder in Savoyen und Burgund, der Suewen in Galicien
und dem Norden des späteren Portugal sowie der Westgoten in Spanien
erlag das arianische Christentum im Verlauf des sechsten Jahrhunderts dem
kulturellen Assimilationsdruck der römischen Umgebung. Bei den Burgundern
erfolgte der Übergang zum lateinisch-katholischen Christentum während der
Herrschaft des Königs Sigismund (516–23), der schon als Prinz katholisch
geworden war. Im Reich der Suewen setzte er um 555 ein. Im Westgotenreich
trat König Rekkared (586–601) 587 zum katholischen Bekenntnis über.
Zuvor hatte Rekkareds Vater Leowigild (568–86) noch vergeblich versucht,
1
Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Germanenmission, arianische’, TRE, 12 (1984): pp. 506–10.
die spanische Kirche unter dem Zeichen des Arianismus zu einigen. Auf dem
dritten Konzil von Toledo (589) wurde der offizielle Übertritt eines großen
Teils der westgotischen arianischen Führungsschicht besiegelt. Allerdings stieß
diese Wende auch noch auf einzelne, aber vergebliche Versuche eines politischen
Widerstandes. Im Langobardenreich bahnte sich die Abkehr vom arianischen
Christentum bereits seit dem späten sechsten Jahrhundert an. Endgültig erfolgte
sie unter König Aribert (653–61). Eine Chance zu einer länger anhaltenden
europäischen Wirksamkeit des gotisch-arianischen Christentums ging verloren,
als im späten fünften Jahrhundert Versuche fehlschlugen, den aufstrebenden
Frankenkönig Chlodwig zu gewinnen. Er wandte sich dem lateinisch-
katholischen Christentum zu. Eine in jüngerer Zeit geäußerte Vermutung, er sei
zuvor allerdings schon arianischer Katechumene gewesen,2 hat keine einsichtig
zu machende Grundlage in den Quellen.3
Definiert wird das gotisch-arianische Christentum durch sein Bekenntnis
und durch seine gotische Gottesdienst- und Kirchensprache. Dabei ist das
Bekenntnis kein gotisches Sondergut. Es ist innerhalb der spätrömischen
Reichskirche ausgebildet worden und war von 359 bis 378 auch ihre kaiserlich
verordnete Glaubensnorm. Seine Kennzeichnung als arianisch ist eine
polemische Fremdbezeichnung durch die in den Lehrauseinandersetzungen des
vierten Jahrhunderts letztendlich siegreiche nikänische Kirchenpartei. Sie war
publizistisch sehr erfolgreich. Noch heute kann man auf die Schulbuchformel
stoßen, die gotischen Arianer hätten die Theologie des alexandrinischen
Presbyters Areios aufgenommen, der 325 auf dem Konzil von Nikaia verurteilt
worden war. Doch mit ihr hat dieser sogenannte Arianismus weder historisch
noch sachlich zu tun. Die moderne Dogmengeschichtsschreibung spricht daher
neutral von einem homöischen Bekenntnis nach seinem zentralen Schlagwort
ὅμοιος (gleich). Seine Anhänger haben sich selbstverständlich als rechtgläubig
verstanden. Der spanische Chronist Johannes von Biclaro führt einen Beschluss
einer westgotischen homöischen Synode vom Jahr 580 an, der den Übertritt
„von der römischen Religion zu unserem katholischen Glauben“ erleichtern
sollte.4 In zwei Ravennater Urkunden aus den Jahren 541 und 551, als Ravenna
schon unter byzantinischer Herrschaft stand, bezeichnen gotisch-homöische
Ian N. Wood, ‘Gregory of Tours and Clovis’, Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire, 83
2
(1985): pp. 249–72, hier 266–67.

3
Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Chlodwigs Religionswechsel. Bedingungen, Ablauf und
Bewegkräfte’, in Peter Gemeinhardt and Uwe Kühneweg (eds), Patristica et Oecumenica:
Festschrift für Wolfgang A. Bienert, Marburger Theologische Studien 85 (Marburg, 2004),
pp. 105–21.
4
Joh. Bicl. Chron. 580.2 (ed. Mommsen, p. 126): [ … ] de Romana religione ad nostram
fidem catholicam venientes. Der Herausgeber hat den Text durch die verfehlte Konjektur a
nostra catholica fide verunklart.
Ulfila und der sogenannte gotische Arianismus 23
Geistliche ihr Bekenntnis dagegen als lex Gothorum.5 Das ist jedoch kaum ein
Rückzug in eine nationalkirchliche Abkapselung. Es ist veranlasst durch eine
exklusive Inanspruchnahme des Begriffs „katholisch“ durch die römischen
Christen. Unausgesprochen steht dahinter die Überzeugung, dass es die
Goten sind, die mit ihrem homöischen Bekenntnis den rechten Glauben der
Kirche wahren.
Der Ursprungsort des gotisch-homöischen Christentums war eine kleine
christliche gotische Volksgruppe, die zur Zeit des Kaisers Konstantius (337–61)
auf römischem Reichsboden im nördlichen Balkanvorland in Niedermösien
angesiedelt wurde. Sein Schöpfer war deren geistlicher und weltlicher Leiter,
der Gotenbischof Ulfila. So nennt er sich selbst in seinem lateinisch abgefassten
persönlichen Bekenntnis. Die Germanistik bevorzugt demgegenüber mit
rein linguistischer Begründung mehrheitlich die Namenform Wulfila. In der
Überlieferung über ihn begegnet sie allerdings nur einmal in der Gotengeschichte
des Jordanes.6 Über Ulfilas Leben und Wirken unterrichtet eine Reihe von
Quellen. Die wichtigste ist eine bald nach seinem Tod verfasste apologetische
Streitschrift seines Schülers Auxentius von Durostorum (Silistra, Bulgarien).
Sie ist in der Mitte des fünften Jahrhundert verfassten sog. dissertatio des
homöischen Bischofs Maximinus enthalten, die als Randschrift im Codex Paris
BN lat. 8907 überliefert ist.7 Ulfila wird darin als streitbarer Wahrheitszeuge der
homöischen Lehre dargestellt. Dazu gehört auch ein biographischer Abriss mit
einer relativen Chronologie. Deren Zahlen sind jedoch der Bibel entnommen.
Sie sollen Ulfila in Bezug zu biblischen Personen bringen und damit sein Leben
als gottgeleitet erweisen. Mit den zu erschließenden absoluten Daten lassen sie
sich nicht ausgleichen. Daher können sie nicht verwertet werden, auch wenn
das in der Darstellungstradition immer wieder versucht worden ist. Wichtige
Nachrichten liefert sodann im zweiten Viertel des fünften Jahrhunderts
der anhomöische Kirchenhistoriker Philostorgios.8 Er kann offenbar auf
eine hagiographische Ulfilaüberlieferung zurückgreifen. Einzelne Angaben
über Ulfila bieten die ebenfalls im zweiten Viertel des fünften Jahrhunderts
entstandenen Kirchengeschichten des Sokrates,9 Sozomenos10 und Theodoret.11
Sie sind eingearbeitet in Ablaufbilder, die erst von diesen Historikern konstruiert
5
P.Ital. II, 33 und 34 (ed. Tjäder, pp. 83–90 und 91–104).
6
Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Die Überlieferung des Namens Ulfila. Zum linguistischen Umgang
mit der Überlieferungsgeschichte’, in K. Schäferdiek, Schwellenzeit. Beiträge zur Geschichte
des Christentums in Spätantike und Frühmittelalter, ed. Winrich A. Löhr und Hanns Christof
Brennecke, Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 64 (Berlin und New York, 1996), pp. 41–50.
7
Diss. Max. 24–41 (ed. Gryson, CCSL 87, pp. 160–66).
8
Philostorgios, HE 2.5 (ed. Bidez und Winkelmann, pp. 17–18).
9
Sokr. HE 2.41.23 und 4.33 (ed. Hansen, pp. 129 und 210).
10
Soz. HE 4.24.1 und 4.37.2–14 (ed. Bidez, pp. 178 und 294–96).
11
Theod. HE 4.37 (ed. Parmentier und Hansen, pp. 273–74).
worden sind, und müssen vor einer Verwertung aus dieser Einbindung gelöst
werden. Eine letzte Nachricht bringt Jordanes in seiner Gotengeschichte aus
der Mitte des sechsten Jahrhunderts.12 Spätere Erwähnungen haben keinen
selbständigen Wert.
Ulfilas Geburtsjahr ist unbekannt. Er war Nachkomme kappadokischer
Christen aus dem Gebiet des heutigen Şereflikoçhisar in Inneranatolien, die 257
bei einem Goteneinfall von den Invasoren mitgeschleppt wurden. Sie konnten
in der Fremde ihren Glauben bewahren und haben in Gotien (Gotqiva), dem
Machtbereich der gotischen Terwingen zwischen Alt, Dnjestr und Donau, eine
Diasporagemeinde bilden können. Zu einem unbekannten Zeitpunkt wurden sie
dabei von einem Abgesandten aus Kappadokien namens Eutyches unterstützt.13
Noch 373/4 fand die Verbundenheit der christlichen Diaspora in Gotien
mit Kappadokien Ausdruck in einer Translation der Reliquien des Märtyrers
Sabas aus Gotien nach Kappadokien.14 Er war kurz zuvor einer terwingischen
Christenverfolgung zum Opfer gefallen. Im Jahr 325 war die Gemeinde durch
einen Bischof Theophilos von Gotien auf dem Konzil von Nikaia vertreten. In
der Darstellungstradition hat man seinen Amtsbereich allerdings zumeist auf
der Krim gesucht. Anlass dazu war eine Bemerkung des Philostorgios, der erste
Bischof für Gotien sei Ulfila gewesen. Sie steht jedoch nur in einer redaktionellen
Fuge zwischen zwei von Philostorgios aufgenommenen Traditionsstücken und
ist mithin lediglich ein Urteil des Kirchenhistorikers, der von Theophilos nichts
wusste oder nichts wissen wollte. Überdies geht die Behauptung, Theophilos
müsse ein krimgotischer Bischof gewesen sein, von einem zu frühen Ansatz der
Ansiedlung von Goten auf der Krim aus.15
Zumeist wird angenommen, dass die Nachricht über Ulfilas Abkunft
seine Vorfahren mütterlicherseits meint und sein Vater Gote gewesen sei. Das
ist jedoch fraglich. Schon die Alternative gotisch oder kappadokisch ist im
Grunde falsch gestellt. Denn die Volksverbände der Völkerwanderung waren
offen für die Integrierung unterschiedlicher ethnischer Elemente. Zudem
ging es bei der herrschenden patriarchalischen Familienverfassung eher um
die väterlichen als um die mütterlichen Vorfahren. Ulfilas gotischer Name
(„Wölfle“) ist dann ein Hinweis auf eine fortgeschrittene gotische Assimilation
seines Elternhauses. Er ist in der christlichen Diaspora Gotiens aufgewachsen
Jord. Get. 51.267 (ed. Mommsen, pp. 53–138, hier 127).

12
Basileios von Kaisareia, Epist. 164.2 (ed. Courtonne, p. 98).

13
14
Vgl. dazu Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Märtyrerüberlieferungen aus der gotischen Kirche
des vierten Jahrhunderts’, in Hanns Christof Brennecke (ed.), Logos. Festschrift für Luise
Abramowski, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde
der älteren Kirche 67 (Berlin und New York, 1993), pp. 328–60, hier 330–31 = Ibid.,
Schwellenzeit, pp. 169–202, hier 171–72.
15
Ion Ioniţă, ‘Krimgoten. § 4 Archäologisches’, in RGA, 17 (Berlin und New
York, 2001): pp. 375–77.
und hat dort auch eine kirchliche Bildung erhalten. Für die gelegentlich
geäußerte Vermutung, er habe sich zeitweilig im Römischen Reich aufgehalten
und dort seine Bildung erfahren, gibt es keine Handhabe. Nach Auxentius hat
er drei Sprachen, Gotisch, Lateinisch und Griechisch, beherrscht. Wie sein
Name ist auch die Beherrschung des Gotischen ein Zeichen seiner gotischen
Assimilation. Lateinisch war an der unteren Donau die grenzüberschreitende
Verkehrssprache. Ulfila hat sie wahrscheinlich vor allem gebraucht, nachdem
er sein Wirkungsfeld auf römischen Boden verlegt hatte. Sein persönliches
Bekenntnis lässt erkennen, dass er auch eine Form der altlateinischen Bibel
gekannt und benutzt hat. Griechisch war, ihren Wurzeln entsprechend, sicher
die Kirchen- und Gottesdienstsprache der christlichen Diaspora Gotiens. Ulfila
könnte es, wie zumeist angenommen wird, aufgrund seiner Herkunft schon von
Haus aus gesprochen haben. Sicher ist das jedoch nicht. Es ist auch möglich, dass
er es erst im Zuge seiner kirchlichen Bildung erlernt hat.
Zu einem nicht bekannten Zeitpunkt trat Ulfila als Lektor in den geistlichen
Stand. Verfehlt ist die zuweilen begegnende Vorstellung, dieses Amt habe ihn
auch schon auf seine spätere Tätigkeit als Bibelübersetzer vorbereitet; denn er
habe die verlesenen Bibeltexte auch übersetzten müssen. Eine Übersetzung der
liturgischen Schriftlesungen in eine Volkssprache zählte jedoch nicht zu den
Aufgaben eines Lektors. Gegen Ende der Zeit Konstantins, wohl 336, gehörte er
zu einer terwingischen Gesandtschaft an den Kaiserhof. Bei dieser Gelegenheit
wurde er von Euseb von Nikomedien, dem bischöflichen Berater des Kaisers,
unter der Assistenz weiterer Bischöfe aus dem Umkreis Eusebs zum Bischof
geweiht – nicht zum Bischof der Goten und auch nicht, wie immer wieder
behauptet wird, zum Missionsbischof, sondern zum Bischof der bestehenden
Gemeinde der Christen im Gotenland. So vermerkt es die von Philostorgios
mitgeteilte Tradition über seine Weihe ausdrücklich. Sehr wahrscheinlich
wurde Ulfila damit Nachfolger von Theophilos von Gotien. Nach der älteren
Forschung soll diese Bischofsweihe allerdings erst 341 auf der Kirchweihsynode
von Antiochien stattgefunden haben. Diese Datierung zieht sich immer noch
durch die Hand- und Lehrbücher. Hinter ihr steht die Überlegung, dass Euseb
erst 338 von Nikomedien auf den bischöflichen Stuhl von Konstantinopel
übergewechselt ist und vorher die Weihe nicht habe vornehmen können. Euseb
hat jedoch seit 328 eine bedeutende Rolle als Kirchenpolitiker und Berater
Konstantins gespielt und war auch vor seinem Wechsel nach Konstantinopel
sehr wohl in der Lage, im Einvernehmen mit dem Kaiser Bischöfe zu weihen,
zumal er auch den Rang eines Metropoliten besaß. Irrig ist auch die Annahme,
die relative Ulfilachronologie des Auxentius stütze die Datierung seiner Weihe
auf 341. Da Auxentius unausgesprochen 383 als Todesjahr Ulfilas voraussetzt,
führt sie auf 343 oder 344, in eine Zeit, zu der Euseb von Nikomedien († 341)
nicht mehr lebte.
Theologisch war Euseb ein engagierter Verfechter der Drei-Hypostasen-

Theologie. Nach ihr sind der Vater, der Sohn und der Heilige Geist drei
Hypostasen, drei eigenständige Größen, mit je eigenem Rang. Der Sohn ist
demnach dem Vater und der Geist dem Sohn untergeordnet. Diese Drei-
Hypostasen-Theologie richtete sich gegen Markell von Ancyra. Der betonte die
göttliche Einheit und sprach von nur einer Hypostase Gottes. Man warf ihm vor,
im Sohn lediglich einen Wirkaspekt des Vaters zu sehen. Die Wendung gegen
ihn war zugleich eine Distanzierung von der – später auch von der orthodoxen
Theologie aufgegebenen – Sprachregelung des Konzils von Nikaia, die ebenfalls
von nur einer Hypostase redete. Euseb hat die Vertreter dieser Theologie
kirchenpolitisch mobilisiert. Sie werden daher auch Eusebianer genannt. Ihre
zeitgenössischen Gegner und die nikänische Tradition haben dagegen auch
sie als Arianer diskreditiert. Sie stellten jedoch in der östlichen Kirche die
Mehrheit der Bischöfe und Theologen. Auch die christliche Diasporagemeinde
Gotiens dürfte, bedingt durch ihr reichskirchliches Kontaktmilieu, unter dem
Einfluss dieser Theologie gestanden haben. Dem steht nicht entgegen, dass ihr
Bischof Theophilos 325 die Beschlüsse des Konzils von Nikaia unterzeichnet
hat. Die Kirchenhistoriker Sokrates und Sozomenos oder vielmehr ihre
gemeinsame Quelle haben daraus allerdings gefolgert, dass Ulfila als Anhänger
von Theophilos zunächst Nikäner war und erst viel später dem Arianismus
zugefallen ist. Doch das ist eine kurzschlüssige Folgerung. Tatsächlich haben
nicht wenige Drei-Hypostasen-Theologen unter dem Druck oder Eindruck des
auf dem Konzil anwesenden Kaisers die nikänischen Beschlüsse unterzeichnet,
ohne tatsächlich ihre eigene Position aufzugeben. Auch Euseb von Nikomedien,
der auf dem Konzil selbst noch seine Unterschrift verweigert hatte, hat sie
später aus offensichtlichem Opportunismus nachgeholt. Ulfilas Weihe durch
Euseb setzt einen theologischen Konsens voraus, und es gibt keinen Anlass
zu der gelegentlich geäußerten Vermutung,16 er habe dazu eine theologische
Kehrtwendung vollziehen müssen.
Zuweilen ist angenommen worden, er habe der terwingischen Gesandtschaft
als Dolmetscher angehört. So einfach verhält es sich aber sicher nicht. Einer
Gesandtschaft der terwingischen Führungsspitze an den Kaiserhof gehörte
ein Geistlicher der christlichen Diaspora in Gotien an, und er wurde bei
dieser Gelegenheit durch Konstantins kirchlichen Berater zum Bischof für
die Christen in Gotien geweiht. Das weist darauf hin, dass diese Weihe und
damit die Wiederbesetzung des vakanten Bistums für Gotien von vornherein
auch ein Gegenstand der mit dieser Gesandtschaft geführten Verhandlungen
war; denn Konstantin trat als Schutzherr der Christen außerhalb des Reiches
auf, und die Terwingen standen seit 332 als Föderaten in einer vertraglichen
16
Hagith Sivan, ‘Ulfila’s Own Conversion’, Harvard Theological Review 89 (1996):
pp. 373–86.
Bindung zum Reich. Bemerkenswert ist auch, dass die terwingische Führung
dabei einen eigenen gotischen Anwärter für das Bischofsamt präsentiert hat.
Anscheinend wollte sie sich nicht ohne weiteres einen Bischof von römischer
Seite zuweisen lassen.
Ob Ulfila während seiner Wirksamkeit als Bischof für Gotien auch
Mission getrieben hat, ist unbekannt. Es kann auch nicht ohne weiteres als
selbstverständlich vorausgesetzt werden. Sein dortiges Wirken fand ein Ende,
als der Gotenrichter, der politische Leiter des terwingischen Gesamtverbandes,
gegen die Christen in Gotien vorging. Auxentius nennt den Namen des Richters
nicht. Für seine häufiger vorgeschlagene Gleichsetzung mit dem erstmals
für 364 bezeugten Gotenrichter Athanarich gibt es keinen Anhaltspunkt.
Dieses Einschreiten der terwingischen Führung gegen die Christen erfolgte
spätestens 348 oder kurz zuvor; denn sehr wahrscheinlich hängt es mit einer
kurzzeitigen Störung des gotisch-römischen Verhältnisses zusammen, die der
Rhetor Libanios 348/9 in einer Lobrede auf Kaiser Konstantius erwähnt.17
Kyrill von Jerusalem weiß in seinen 348 oder 350 gehaltenen Taufkatechesen
von christlichen Märtyrern unter den Goten.18 Bei der Konfrontation mit dem
Römischen Reich wurde von den Christen in Gotien als Loyalitätsbekundung eine
formelle Beteiligung am überkommenen Kult gefordert. Es kam zu Martyrien.
Ulfila selbst erwarb sich den Ehrentitel eines Bekenners, musste aber auch mit
einer größeren Zahl von Christen Gotien verlassen. Von Kaiser Konstantius
wurden sie als eigene gotische Volksgruppe (gens) im nördlichen Balkanvorfeld
im Landgebiet der Civitas Nicopolis ad Istrum (Ausgrabungsstätte bei Nikjup
nahe Veliko Tărnovo, Bulgarien) in der Provinz Niedermösien angesiedelt. Im
sechsten Jahrhundert wurden ihre Nachkommen Kleingoten (Gothi minores)
genannt. Ulfila war als Primas auch ihr erster politischer Leiter.19 Zugleich
wurde durch diese Übersiedlung sein Bischofsamt neu bestimmt. Er war fortan
nicht mehr Bischof von Gotien, sondern Bischof der Goten, nicht der Goten
schlechthin, sondern eben der unter seiner Leitung reichsansässig gewordenen
neuen christlichen gotischen gens. Die Kirchenhistoriker Sokrates, Sozomenos
und Theodoret allerdings wussten offensichtlich nichts von deren Existenz.
Sie bezogen daher auch Ulfilas neue Amtsbezeichnung irrig auf die Goten
nördlich der Donau und haben daraus unterschiedliche, teilweise einander
widersprechende Behauptungen über sein weiteres vermeintliches Wirken unter
ihnen abgeleitet. Tatsächlich aber dürfte er nach der Ansiedlung im Reich nicht
17
Lib. or. 59.90 (ed. Malosse, p. 152).
18
Kyrill von Jerusalem, Katechesen 10.19 (ed. Reischl, p. 268).
19
Zur Bezeichnung primas siehe Richard Klein, Constantius II. und die christliche
Kirche (Darmstadt, 1977), p. 259 mit Nr. 148.
mehr unmittelbar in Gotien tätig geworden sein. Die dortige Gemeinde wurde
fortan von einem Presbyterkollegium geleitet.20
Spätestens seit der Niederlassung in Moesien hat Ulfila sich an den
zeitgenössischen theologischen Auseinandersetzungen innerhalb der
römischen Reichskirche beteiligt. Auxentius spricht von seiner Teilnahme
an Bischofsversammlungen. Entscheidend wurde, dass er sich der in den
Donauprovinzen stark vertretenen Gruppe der Homöer anschloss. Sie formierte
sich 357 auf einer Synode in Sirmium (Sremska Mitrovica, Serbien). Ulfilas
eigenes Bekenntnis zeigt enge Berührungen mit der Glaubensformel dieser
Synode. Das besagt allerdings nicht unbedingt, dass er auch selbst auf ihr
zugegen war. Belegt ist aber seine Teilnahme an der Konstantinopeler Synode
vom Januar 360.
In Gotien nördlich der Donaugrenze kam es bald nach 369 zu einem
Machtkampf zwischen Fritigern, dem Stammesfürsten eines der terwingischen
Kleinstämme, und dem Führer des gesamten terwingischen Volksverbandes, dem
Gotenrichter Athanarich. Fritigern suchte dabei römische Unterstützung und
nahm aus diesem Anlass mit seinen Leuten das Christentum an. Zur Umsetzung
dieses Schritts leitete Kaiser Valens (364–78) den Aufbau einer rudimentären
kirchlichen Organisation in die Wege, für die er sehr wahrscheinlich auf Kräfte
der ulfilanischen Gemeinschaft zurückgriff. Spätestens damit begann die
Ausbreitungsgeschichte des gotischen Arianismus.
Im Jahr 376 brach der terwingische Volksverband unter dem Hunnensturm
auseinander. Sein größter Teil bat daraufhin um Aufnahme ins Römische
Reich. Kaiser Valens kam dem nach, und im Herbst 376 überschritten große
Scharen von Goten die Donau. Nach Sozomenos und Theodoret war Ulfila
an der Verhandlung über ihre Aufnahme ins Reich beteiligt. Möglicherweise
haben sie oder ihre Quelle damit eine zutreffende Tradition aufgenommen.
Sie verbinden sie allerdings mit der irrigen Vorstellung, dass er damals noch als
Bischof für die Goten nördlich der Donau tätig war, und behaupten zudem, er
sei erst während dieser Verhandlungen von führenden Arianern zum Arianismus
verleitet worden.
Sehr bald nach dem gotischen Donauübergang kam es zum Konflikt mit
den römischen Behörden, weil Zusagen an die ins Reich aufgenommenen
Goten nicht eingehalten wurden und diese dadurch in Not gerieten. Es folgten
jahrelange Raubzüge durch die Balkanprovinzen. Erst 382 konnte Theodosius
d. Gr. (379–95) die Goten unter Vertrag nehmen und im Norden der
thrakischen Diözese ansiedeln. Während dieser Unruhejahre bildete sich auf
römischem Boden unter der Führung des Christen Fritigern ein neuer gotischer
Volksverband, die seit dem fünften Jahrhundert so genannten Visigoten
(Westgoten). Die ulfilanische Gotengemeinschaft ließ sich jedoch nicht in ihn
Passio s. Sabae 8 (ed. Delehaye, p. 221).

20
einbeziehen, sondern behauptete ihre Selbständigkeit. Ulfila hat damit an der

Loyalität zum Reich festgehalten. Kirchlich aber blieb er in Gemeinschaft mit
dem 380 von Theodosius d. Gr. abgesetzten homöischen Bischof Demophilos
von Konstantinopel, der nach seiner Absetzung eine Konstantinopeler
homöische Sondergemeinde ins Leben gerufen hatte. Offensichtlich folgte diese
kirchliche Option einer eigenständigen Begründung und ergab sich nicht aus
einem Streben nach politischer Unabhängigkeit vom Reich.
Auxentius berichtet, dass Ulfila sich am Ende seiner Amtszeit auf kaiserliche
Anordnung zu einem Streitgespräch nach Konstantinopel begab. Die Umstände
dieser Reise sind in der älteren Forschung lebhaft diskutiert worden. Maximinus
behauptet nämlich in einem Kommentar zu Auxentius, Ulfila habe die im
September 381 auf der Synode von Aquileia verurteilten Homöer Palladius
von Ratiaria (Arčar, Kreis Vidin, Bulgarien) und Secundianus von Singidunum
(Belgrad, Serbien) an den östlichen Kaiserhof begleitet, wo sie die Einberufung
einer neuen Synode erreichen wollten.21 Bei näherem Zusehen erweisen sich
diese Behauptungen Maximins allerdings als haltlose Konstruktion, die auf
einem Missverständnis der Angaben des Auxentius beruht.22 Nach diesen
selbst kann es bei der Reise Ulfilas nur um den Besuch der von Theodosius
aufgrund anhaltender kirchlicher Unruhen im Osten einberufenen, im Juni 383
eröffneten Synode aller kirchlichen Streitparteien gegangen sein. Die Homöer,
deren Delegation von dem Konstantinopeler Gegenbischof Demophilos geführt
wurde, erhofften von ihr eine Neuaufnahme der theologischen Diskussion.
Es gelang den Nikänern jedoch, das synodale Verfahren so zu beeinflussen,
dass es von vornherein auf eine Verurteilung der nichtnikänischen Gruppen
abgestellt war. Während sich das bereits abzeichnete, wurde Ulfila krank,
verstarb und wurde unter großer Ehrerbietung seitens seiner Glaubensgenossen
in Konstantinopel begraben.
Unmittelbar vor dem Tod verfasste er als Vermächtnis an seine Gemeinde
noch ein Bekenntnis in lateinischer Sprache.23 Gelegentlich ist allerdings
auch vermutet worden, der von Auxentius mitgeteilte lateinische Text sei
möglicherweise eine Übersetzung aus dem Gotischen. Doch er zeigt nicht nur
sachlich, sondern auch sprachlich enge Berührungen mit dem lateinischen
Bekenntnis der Synode von Sirmium von 357. Ulfila betont in diesem
Selbstzeugnis anfänglich die ungebrochene Kontinuität seiner Überzeugung:
„Ich, Ulfila, Bischof und Bekenner, habe stets so geglaubt und trete in diesem
alleinigen und wahren Glauben den Heimgang zu meinem Herrn an”.
21
Diss. Max. 23 and 41, (ed. Gryson, CCSL, 87 pp. 160 und 166).
22
Roger Gryson (ed.), Scolies ariennes sur le concile d’Aquilée, SC 267 (Paris, 1980),
pp. 162–65.
23
Diss. Max. 40 (ed. Gryson, CCSL, 87 p. 166).
Allgemein wird vermutet, dass Ulfila in seinem neuen Wirkungsfeld die

notwendige Ruhe für sein eigentliches Lebenswerk, die Übersetzung der Bibel
ins Gotische, gefunden hat. Das unmittelbar auslösende Motiv aber könnte
für ihn der erlebte Zusammenstoß mit der identitätsstiftenden Funktion des
überkommenen heidnischen Kultes gewesen sein. Diese Erfahrung konnte zu
dem Versuch herausfordern, den aufgebrochenen Konflikt zwischen gotischer
Identität und Christentum zu überwinden und eine gotische Möglichkeit
des Christentums aufzuweisen. Jedenfalls ist es das, was Ulfila am Ende
tatsächlich erreicht hat. Seit dem Ausgang des vierten Jahrhunderts galt das
homöische Christentum als Merkmal gotischer Identität. Das Vorhaben einer
Bibelübersetzung erforderte zugleich die Entwicklung einer dem gotischen
Lautstand angepassten Schrift. Beides wird von Philostorgios und Sokrates
Ulfila zugeschrieben, zudem auch von Sozomenos, der hier jedoch von
Sokrates abhängig und kein selbständiger Zeuge ist. Jordanes verweist auf eine
Überlieferung, die Ulfila nur als Urheber der gotischen Schrift nennt. Da deren
Entwicklung aber kein Selbstzweck war, kann auch das als ein verdunkelter
Hinweis auf die Bibelübersetzung gewertet werden.
Ulfilas Schüler Auxentius spricht demgegenüber ausführlich von dem
Eintreten seines Lehrers für die rechte Lehre. Sie habe er „in griechischer,
lateinischer und gotischer Sprache unentwegt in der einen und einzigen Kirche
Christi verkündet”.24 Der Hinweis auf die drei Sprachen unterstreicht dabei die
universale Geltung seiner Botschaft. Zudem habe er „zahlreiche Abhandlungen“
(plures tractatus) und „viele Erläuterungen“ (multas interpretationes) in eben
diesen Sprachen hinterlassen”.25 Rein lexikalisch kann interpretationes auch
„Übersetzungen“ bedeuten. Doch das ist hier wenig wahrscheinlich. Es geht um
den literarischen Niederschlag der Verkündigung Ulfilas. Am ehesten könnte es
sich dabei um Predigten gehandelt haben. Erhalten ist davon nichts. Dass Ulfilas
Schüler die Schaffung der gotischen Schrift und die Bibelübersetzung nicht
erwähnt, hat gelegentlich Anlass gegeben, sie dem Gotenbischof abzusprechen.26
Doch das ist unberechtigt. Auxentius richtet sein Interesse allein auf Ulfilas
24
Diss. Max. 33 (ed. Gryson, CCSL 87, p. 163).
25
26
Leon’ev Aleksei (Алексеевич), К проблеме авторства ‘вульфилианского’
перевода // Проблемы сравнительной филологии, Сборник статей к 70-летию члена-
корреспондента Академии Наук СССР В.М. Жирмунского (Москва, Ленинград, 1964),
pp. 271–6 (= K probleme avtorstva ‘vul’filianskogo’ perevoda, in Problemy sravnitel’noi
filologii, Sbornik statei k 70-letiiu chlena-korrespondenta Akademii Nauk SSSR
V.M. Zhirmunskogo [= On the problem of the translation of the ‘Ulfilian’ translation,
in Problems of the comparative philology, Collection of articles in honour of the 70th
anniversary of the member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR V.M. Zhermunskii],
(Moskva, Leningrad, 1964), pp. 271–76).
Lehre. Das Eintreten für sie war in seinen Augen das wesentliche Lebenswerk
seines Lehrers, und das wollte er seinen lateinischen Lesern vermitteln.
Ulfilas Übersetzung beruht auf einer griechischen Vorlage. Deren Stellung
in der neutestamentlichen Textgeschichte ist eine offene Frage.27 Einflüsse der
Vetus latina lassen sich aus Ulfilas Vertrautheit mit dieser Version erklären.
Sprachlich lehnt die Übersetzung sich eng an das Griechische an. Damit folgt
sie einem Übersetzungsprinzip, das eine mögliche Nähe zum geheiligten als
inspiriert geltenden Wortlaut der Heiligen Schrift sucht. Sie muss deshalb in
einer sakralsprachlichen Distanz zur gesprochenen terwingischen Volkssprache
verblieben sein. Auch war sie kein Medium der Missionsverkündigung oder
Volksunterweisung, sondern ein liturgisches Buch, das aber zugleich auch
Gegenstand theologischer Studien werden konnte. Fehlgeschlagen sind
Versuche, in der gotischen Bibel „arianische“ Tendenzen aufzuweisen.28
Eine offene Frage ist auch, welchen Umfang die Übersetzung gehabt hat
und ob und wie weit die Übersetzungsarbeit nach Ulfila fortgesetzt worden ist.
Erhalten sind große Teile der Evangelien und paulinischen Briefe, außerdem
Bruchstücke aus Nehemia 5–7.29 Darüber hinaus gibt es Indizien für eine
zumindest teilweise Übersetzung der Genesis und der Psalmen: Zu den gotischen
Sprachproben in der Salzburger Alkuin Handschrift Codex Vindobonensis 795
gehören eine Wendung und eine Reihe von Zahlen aus der Generationenliste
Gen. 5.30 Johannes Chrysostomus erwähnt in einer Homilie31 Psalmengesang
„in der Sprache der Barbaren“, und das heißt hier der Goten. Die im Codex
Brixianus überlieferte praefatio zu einer nicht erhaltenen gotisch-lateinischen
Bilingue (Brescia, Biblioteca civica Querinia; Cod. f der altlateinischen
Evangelien) setzt anscheinend eine Übersetzung des Alten Testaments oder
von Teilen davon voraus.32 Nach Philostorgios hat Ulfila die gesamte Bibel
27
Elfiede Stutz, ‘Das Neue Testament in gotischer Sprache’, in Kurt Aland (ed.), Die
alten Übersetzungen des Neuen Testaments, die Kirchenväterzitate und die Lektionare, Arbeiten
zur neutestamentlichen Textforschung 5 (Berlin, 1972); Institut für neutestamentliche
Textforschung/Kurt Aland, ‘Bibelübersetzungen I 10.1.1’, TRE, 6 (1980): pp. 211–13;
Roger Gryson, ‘La version gotique des évangiles. Essai de réévaluation’, Revue Théologique de
Louvain, 21 (1990): pp. 3–31.
28
Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Der vermeintliche Arianismus der Ulfila-Bibel. Zum Umgang mit
einem Stereotyp’, ZAC, 6 (2002): pp. 320–29; erweiterte Fassung in Christian T. Petersen
(ed.), Gotica Minora VI. Theologica & onomastica (Aschaffenburg, 2006).
29
Elfriede Stutz, ‘Codices Gotici’, RGA, 5 (Berlin und New York, 1984): pp. 52–60.
30
Alkuin-Briefe und andere Traktate. Im Auftrage des Salzburger Erzbischofs Arn
um 799 zu einem Sammelband vereinigt. Codex Vindobonensis 795 der Österreichischen
Nationalbibliothek. Faksimileausgabe, Codices selecti XX (Graz, 1969), fol. 20v.
31
Johannes Chrysostomos, Cum imperatrix media nocte, PG 63, p. 472.
32
Walter Henss, Leitbilder der Bibelübersetzung im 5. Jahrhundert, Abhandlungen der
Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Klasse 1973, 1 (Heidelberg, 1973),
übersetzt mit Ausnahme der Königsbücher. Diese habe er übergangen, damit

ihre Kriegsgeschichten nicht den ohnehin kriegsbegeisterten Goten noch
zusätzlichen Anreiz zur Kriegslust böten. Damit wird aber wohl nur versucht,
eine Lücke der jedenfalls unvollständigen gotischen Bibel mit hagiographischen
Stilmitteln und dem Topos vom kriegerischen Wesen barbarischer Völker
zu erklären.
Neben der Übersetzung von Teilen der Bibel wurde sicher auch eine gotische
Fassung der Liturgie erarbeitet. Eine Spur davon ist aus dem wandalischen
Nordafrika überliefert, die Formel froja arme, bibelgotisch frauja armai.33 Sie
ist die Wiedergabe des Κύριε ἐλέησον (domine miserere, Herr erbarme dich)
aus dem gottesdienstlichen Fürbittgebet. Dem liturgischen Gebrauch dient
auch eine nachulfilanische Übersetzung eines Martyrologs des frühen fünften
Jahrhunderts aus der Konstantinopeler homöischen Sondergemeinde. Davon
ist eine Seite erhalten.34
Ulfila hatte bei seiner Übersetzungsarbeit gewiss auch Helfer. Auf jeden Fall
ist ihr die Einrichtung eines Schulbetriebes zur Seite gegangen. Sie wird zwar
in den Quellen nicht erwähnt, ist aber zweifellos vorauszusetzen; denn es war
unausweichlich, Geistliche zum Umgang mit dem neuen Medium der gotischen
Kirchen- und Bibelsprache zu befähigen.
In den 350er Jahren zerfiel die Gruppierung der Drei-Hypostasen-Theologie
in mehrere Gruppen.35 Die erste und kleinste war die Gruppe der Anhomöer.
Nach ihrem wichtigsten Theologen, dem Bischof Eunomios von Kyzikos,
wurden sie auch Eunomianer genannt. Der Sohn war für sie dem Vater ἀνὅμοιος
κατ᾽ οὐσίαν (ungleich hinsichtlich des Wesens). Sie unterschieden zwischen je
einer οὐσία des Vaters und des Sohnes. Als nächste formierten sich 357 auf einer
Synode in Sirmium (Sremska Mitrovica in Serbien) die Homöer. An ihnen blieb
in der Folgezeit die Bezeichnung Arianer haften. Ulfila hat sich ihnen wohl
von Anfang an angeschlossen. Die größte und bedeutendste Gruppe der Drei-
Hypostasen-Theologen waren schließlich die Homöusianer. Sie formierten
sich 358 auf einer Synode in Ankyra (Ankara, Türkei). Von der nikänischen
Tradition wurden sie als Semiarianer diskreditiert, auch das mit Nachwirkungen
in der neuzeitlichen Darstellungstradition. Zur Verdeutlichung des Verhältnisses
des Sohnes zum Vater verwendeten sie die Formel ὅμοιος κατ᾽ οὐσίαν (gleich
hinsichtlich des Wesens), verkürzt zu ὁμοούσιος (wesensgleich). Auf ihrem
pp. 30–31.
33
Heinrich Tiefenbach, ‘Das wandalische Domine miserere’, Historische
Sprachforschung 104 (1991): pp. 251–68.
34
Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Das gotische liturgische Kalenderfragment – Bruchstück eines
Konstantinopeler Martyrologs’, Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 79 (1988):
pp. 116–37 = Ibid., Schwellenzeit, pp. 147–68.
35
Winrich A. Löhr, Die Entstehung der homöischen und homöusianischen Kirchenpartei,
Bonner Beiträge zur Kirchen- und Theologiegeschichte 2 (Witterschlick, 1986).
Boden erwuchs später die neunikänische Theologie, die 381 zur verbindlichen
reichskirchlichen Bekenntnisnorm wurde.
Neben diesen Gruppen der Drei-Hypostasen-Theologen bestand die der
sogenannten Altnikäner, die nach dem Schlagwort ὁμοούσιος (wesenseins) des
Bekenntnisses der Synode von Nikaia (325) Homousianer genannt wurden.
Ihr Vorkämpfer war Athanasios von Alexandrien. Sie hielten zunächst noch
an der nikänischen Sprachregelung von nur einer ὑπόστᾰσις des Vaters und des
Sohnes fest. Dabei wurden die Begriffe ὑπόστᾰσις und οὐσία als gleichbedeutend
im Sinne von Wesen verstanden. 362 öffnete sich Athanasios jedoch auch der
Rede von drei Hypostasen unter begrifflicher Differenzierung von ὑπόστᾰσις als
eigenständige Wesensindividuation und οὐσία als überindividuelle Wesensart.
Die homöische Gründungssynode formulierte als Programm ein lateinisch
abgefasstes Bekenntnis, die sogenannte zweite sirmische Formel. Das
ursprüngliche Ziel der Homöer war ein Ausgleich zwischen den zerstrittenen
kirchlichen Parteien. Einen grundlegenden Streitpunkt sahen sie in der
Verwendung des Begriffs οὐσία (Wesen). Ihn wollten sie als unbiblisch aus dem
theologischen Sprachgebrauch verbannen. Er war tatsächlich schillernd. Wie
die deutsche Entsprechung „Wesen“ konnte er einmal ein einzelnes Individuum
meinen und zum anderen eine mehrere Individuen verbindende Wesensart. Erst
später wurde seine theologische Verwendung auf die zweite Bedeutung festgelegt.
Zum maßgeblichen homöischen Bekenntnis wurde indessen eine griechische
Formel, die eine Bischofskommission auf Veranlassung des Kaisers Konstantius
(337–61) 359 in der Ortschaft Nike in Thrakien ausgearbeitet hat.36 Sie ist im
gleichen Jahr von Konstantius der Teilreichssynode von Rimini aufgenötigt
worden. Das auf ihrer Grundlage von dieser Synode verfasste Bekenntnis37
wurde als Bekenntnis von Rimini die Lehrnorm der gotisch-homöischen
Kirchen. Nach der Formel von Nike ist der Gottessohn dem Vater ὅμοιος κατὰ
τὰς γραφάς (gleich gemäß der Schrift). ὅμοιος ist hier mit „gleich“ wiederzugeben
und nicht, wie in der Darstellungstradition allerdings üblich, mit „ähnlich“. Es
geht um eine Gleichheit in einer für den Vergleich wesentlichen Beziehung. Das
gilt auch für die lateinische Entsprechung similis. Zugleich verwirft die Formel
grundsätzlich den theologischen Gebrauch des Begriffs οὐσία (Wesen), und sie
untersagt, vom Vater, dem Sohn und dem Heiligen Geist als nur einer ὑπόστᾰσις
(eigenständigen Größe) zu sprechen.
Im Januar 360 tagte in Konstantinopel eine Synode der Kirchenprovinz
Bithynien (Nordwestanatolien). An ihr nahm aus unbekannten Gründen
auch Ulfila teil und unterzeichnete ihre Beschlüsse. Sie ratifizierte die Formel
Theod. HE 2.21.3–7 (ed. Parmentier und Scheidweiler, pp. 145–46).

36
Hieronymus, Dialogus Contra Luciferianos 17, PL 23, p. 179.

37
von Nike in geringfügig abgewandelter Form.38 Zugleich verurteilte sie

den antiochenischen Diakon Aëtios, den Begründer der anhomöischen
Kirchenpartei. Trotz Ulfilas Zustimmung zu dieser Verurteilung ist er in der
Forschung gelegentlich, doch ohne tragfähige Begründung, in die Nähe der
anhomöischen Theologie gerückt worden.39 Das nimmt die ältere Fragestellung
auf, ob er radikaler oder gemäßigter Arianer gewesen sei. Sie steht im Bann des
Arianismusstereotyps der nikänischen Tradition.
Kurz vor seinem Tod im Juni 383 hat Ulfila in lateinischer Sprache ein
persönliches Bekenntnis als Vermächtnis an seine Gemeinde verfasst. Es ist
zugleich ein Kampfbekenntnis, ein Aufruf zur Standfestigkeit, nachdem die
Homöer infolge der von Theodosius d. Gr. vollzogenen kirchlichen Wende
zum nikänischen Bekenntnis in Bedrängnis geraten waren. Sein Text ist in der
überliefernden Handschrift teilweise gestört. Er lautet:
Ego Vlfila episkopus et confessor semper sic credidi et in hac fide sola et uera
transitum facio ad dominum meum. Credo unum esse deum patrem, solum
ingenitum et inuisiuilem, et in unigenitum filium eius, dominum et deum nostrum,
opificem et factorem uniuerse creature, non habentem similem suum, – ideo unus
est omnium deus pater, qui et dei nostri est deus, – et unum spiritum sanctum,
uirtutem inluminantem et sanctificantem, ut ait Cristus post resurrectionem ad
apostolos suos: Ecce ego mitto promissum patris mei in uobis, uos autem sedete in
ciuitatem Hierusalem, quoadusque induamini uirtutem ab alto (Luk. 14,49), item
et: Accipietis uirtutem superuenientem in uos sancto spirito (Act. 1,8), nec deum nec
deum nostrum, sed ministrum Cristi … subditum et oboedientem in omnibus filio, et
filium subditum et oboedientem et in omnibus deo patrique suo … per Cristum eius
in spirito sancto ordinauit.40
Ich, Ulfila, Bischof und Bekenner, habe stets so geglaubt und trete in diesem
alleinigen und wahren Glauben den Heimgang zu meinem Herrn an. Ich glaube,
daß ein Gott ist, der Vater, allein ungezeugt und unsichtbar, und an seinen
eingeborenen Sohn, unseren Herrn und Gott, den Erschaffer und Schöpfer der
gesamten Schöpfung, der nicht seinesgleichen hat – daher ist einer der Gott
aller, der Vater, der auch unseres Gottes Gott ist –, und einen heiligen Geist, die
erleuchtende und heiligmachende Kraft – so wie Christus nach der Auferstehung
zu seinen Aposteln sagt: „Siehe, ich sende die Verheißung meines Vaters auf euch;
ihr aber bleibt in der Stadt Jerusalem, bis daß ihr angetan werdet mit Kraft aus der
Höhe“ (Lk 24,49), ferner: „Ihr werdet aber Kraft empfangen, wenn der heilige
38
Athanasius, De synodis 30.2–10 AW II, 1, 258–9. Zur Unterzeichnung durch Ulfila:
Sokr. HE 2.41.23 (ed. Hansen, p. 178) und Soz. HE 4.24.1 (ed. Bidez und Hansen, p. 178).
39
Manlio Simonetti, ‘L’arianesimo di Ulfila”, Romanobarbarica, 1 (1976): pp. 297–323.
40
Geist auf euch herabkommt“ (Apg 1,8), weder Gott noch unser Gott, sondern
Diener Christi …, in allen Dingen dem Sohn untergeben und gehorsam und den
Sohn in allen Dingen seinem Vater untergeben und gehorsam … durch Christus
im heiligen Geist gefügt hat.
Anders als die zweite sirmische Formel und das Bekenntnis von Nike/
Konstantinopel klammert dieses Bekenntnis die Frage der theologischen
Begrifflichkeit aus und beschränkt sich strikt auf die trintätstheologischen
Aussagen. Dabei stehen die trinitarischen Personen in einer klaren Rangfolge.
Der Sohn ist dem Vater untergeben und gehorsam und der Heilige Geist dem
Sohn. Zugleich aber gehören Vater und Sohn kategorial zusammen; denn beide
sind Gott. Es besteht jedoch, wie es Auxentius in seinem Referat der Theologie
Ulfilas ausdrückt, eine Unterschiedlichkeit des Gottseins.41 Der Vater ist, wie
es traditionell heißt, ingenitus (ungezeugt oder ungeboren). Er hat den Grund
seiner Existenz in sich selbst. Ihm steht der Sohn als unser Gott gegenüber.
Er ist – auch das ein überkommener Begriff – unigenitus (einzig gezeugt oder
geboren); denn er hat den Grund seiner Existenz im Vater, der daher auch der
Gott unseres Gottes ist. Die Aussage, dass er damit nicht seinesgleichen hat,
nimmt vorweg, dass der Heilige Geist nicht als Gott gelten kann. Als Gott
aller ist der Vater Gott schlechthin. Der Sohn als unser Gott ist dagegen Gott
im Weltbezug. Dazu fügt sich, dass der Vater als allein unsichtbar bezeichnet
wird. Das schließt unausgesprochen ein, dass der Sohn sichtbar ist. Er wird es
nicht durch seine Inkarnation, sondern ist es wesenhaft als Mittler Gottes in die
Welt. Dahinter steht die Vorstellung, dass er das Subjekt der alttestamentlichen
Theophanien ist.
In den gleichen Zusammenhang gehört die Stellung der Schöpferbezeichnung
im Bekenntnis Ulfilas. Im Unterschied zur Bekenntnistradition wird sie nicht
dem Vater, sondern dem Sohn zugeordnet. Sie steht damit an der Stelle, die in
manchen Bekenntnissen, darunter auch in der Formel von Nike/Konstantinopel,
das Motiv einer Schöpfungsmittlerschaft einnimmt. Der Sohn ist „Erschaffer
und Schöpfer der gesamten geschaffenen Welt“; denn er ist Gott im Weltbezug.
Das heißt jedoch nicht, dass dem Vater die Schöpferbezeichnung abgesprochen
wird. Er ist nach dem Referat des Auxentius über Ulfilas Theologie „Schöpfer
des Schöpfers”.42 Er hat den Sohn „geschaffen und gezeugt, gemacht und
gegründet”.43 In dieser für Auxentius kennzeichnenden Worthäufung wird
geschaffen, gemacht und gegründet sinngleich mit der Metapher gezeugt
verwendet. Dahinter steht als biblischer Bezug Prov. 8,22–3 (Septuaginta und
41
Diss. Max. 27 (ed. Gryson, CCSL 87, p. 161): differentiam esse divinitatis.
42
Diss. Max. 27 (ed. Gryson, CCSL 87, p. 161): patrem quidem creatorem esse creatoris.
43
Diss. Max. 25 (ed. Gryson, CCSL 87, p. 160): unigenitum creavit et genuit, fecit
et fundavit.
altlateinische Übersetzung): „Der Herr erschuf mich als Anfang seiner Wege zu
seinen Werken. Vor der Weltzeit gründete er mich am Anfang”.44 Es gibt somit
zwei Weisen des Schaffens. Die eine vollzieht sich der Sphäre Gottes, und die
andere wendet sich der Welt zu.
In der zweiten sirmischen Formel und in der Formel von Nike/Konstantinopel
heißt es zudem, der Sohn sei vor den (sirmische Formel) oder vor allen (Nike/
Konstantinopel) Äonen, vor jeder der geschaffenen Welt zugeordneten Zeit,
gezeugt worden. Im Bekenntnis Ulfilas fehlt diese Aussage; doch Ulfila hat
sie sicher geteilt. Dennoch gibt es für ihn zwischen dem Vater und dem Sohn
eine zeitliches Nacheinander. Der Sohn ist „als zweiter Gott und Urheber aller
Dinge vom Vater und nach dem Vater”.45 Diese Vorstellung von einer zeitlichen
Nachordnung des Sohnes nach dem Vater hat Ende des vierten Jahrhunderts
zu einer Auseinandersetzung innerhalb der homöischen Sondergemeinde von
Konstantinopel geführt. Strittig war dabei, ob Gott die Vaterbezeichnung zeitlos
oder erst seit der Existenz des Sohnes zukomme. In diese Auseinandersetzung
schaltete sich auch Ulfilas Amtsnachfolger und ehemaliger Schreiber Selenas
ein. Er stützte die Behauptung der Zeitlosigkeit der Vaterbezeichnung Gottes.46
Einen besonderen Umfang widmet Ulfilas Bekenntnis den Aussagen über
den Heiligen Geist. Das entspricht der seinerzeitigen Diskussionslage, nachdem
das Konzil von Konstantinopel von 381 den Geist als Herren, und das heißt
als Gott, bezeichnet hatte. Demgegenüber hält Ulfila an der ihm geläufigen
Tradition fest. Er betont, dass der Geist „weder Gott noch unser Gott, sondern
Diener Christi“ und „in allen Dingen dem Sohn untergeben und gehorsam“
sei. Seine Bezeichnung als erleuchtende und heiligmachende Kraft beschreibt
unausgesprochen sein Wirkungsfeld, die Gemeinschaft der Christen.
Auf nationalromantisches und völkisch-ideologisches Gedankengut
geht die Vorstellung zurück, Ulfilas „arianische“ Theologie sei in besonderer
Weise „germanischen“ Denkvoraussetzungen entgegengekommen. Sie
beruht jedoch nur auf willkürlichen Annahmen über diese Voraussetzungen
und ist weder sachlich noch methodisch zu begründen.47 Verfehlt ist auch
Vigilius Thapsensis (Ps.), Contra Varimadum 1.4 (ed. Schwank, p. 19).

44
Diss. Max. 25 (ed. Gryson, CCSL 87, p. 161): secundum Deum et auctorem omnium
45
a patre et post patrem [ … ] esse.

46
Sokr. HE 5.23.1–8 (ed. Hansen, pp. 307–8); Soz. HE 7.17.9–14 (ed. Bidez und
Hansen, pp. 326–7). Beide verzeichnen aufgrund des Arianismusstereotyps. Sie unterstellen
der homöischen Theologie fälschlich die Meinung des Areios, der Sohn sei nicht aus Gott,
sondern aus nicht Seiendem.
47
Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Germanisierung des Christentums?’, Der Evangelische
Erzieher, 48 (1996): pp. 333–42; Hanns Christof Brennecke, ‘Christianisierung oder
“Germanisierung des Christentums”: Über Ideologisierung und Tabuisierung in der
Geschichtsschreibung’, Akademie gemeinnütziger Wissenschaften zu Erfurt. Sitzungsberichte
der geisteswissenschaftlichen Klasse 5 (Erfurt, 2006), pp. 153–72.
die gelegentlich geäußerte Annahme, der gotische „Arianismus“ habe sich

theologischen Spekulationen verweigert und ein besonderes Interesse an der
Anschaulichkeit der menschlichen Gestalt Christi gezeigt. Dahinter verbirgt
sich ein kulturprotestantisches dogmenkritisches Werturteil, verbunden mit der
romantischen Vorstellung von einer natürlichen Schlichtheit „germanischer“
Frömmigkeit. Zudem ist versäumt worden nachzufragen, welchen Anhaltspunkt
für eine Konzentration auf die geschichtliche Gestalt Jesu die homöische
Theologie überhaupt bieten könnte. Sie ist nicht weniger spekulativ als andere
zeitgenössische Entwürfe auch. Es mag auch daran erinnert werden, dass
sich die seinerzeitige Diskussion bei allen Gruppen überhaupt nicht um die
geschichtliche Gestalt des Menschen Jesus drehte, sondern um das theologische
Konstrukt eines präexistenten Christus und um die Eigenschaften, die man ihm
beilegen, und das Verhältnis zu Gott, das man ihm zusprechen könne. Absurd
ist es schließlich, Ulfilas homöisches Konzept als unchristlich zu bezeichnen.48
Auf der Ebene der Alltagsreligion und ihrer gelebten Frömmigkeit dürfte es
kaum Unterschiede zwischen römisch-nikänischen und gotisch-homöischen
Christen gegeben haben. Im Gottesdienst war die gotische Kirchensprache ein
zwar verbreitetes, aber keineswegs ein exklusives Unterscheidungsmerkmal.
Im Osten konnte das Gotische auch im nikänischen Gottesdienst verwendet
werden49 und für den Westen bezeugt die Existenz zweisprachiger, gotisch-
lateinischer Bibelhandschriften die Verwendung auch des Lateinischen im
homöischen Gottesdienst. Überliefert ist davon je ein kurzes Bruchstück
eines Evangeliars und eines Epistolars. Ein eindeutiges gottesdienstliches
Unterscheidungsmerkmal wurde dagegen die Form der kleinen Doxologie. Die
homöischen Kirchen verwendeten die altüberkommene präpositionale Form:
„Ehre sei dem Vater durch den Sohn im Heiligen Geist”. Die Nikäner machten
sich dagegen die in der zweiten Hälfte des vierten Jahrhunderts aufkommende
Neuerung einer kopulativen Form zu Eigen: „Ehre sei dem Vater und dem
Sohn und dem heiligen Geist”. Die Unterscheidung galt als kirchentrennend,
zumal es ein gottesdienstliches Glaubensbekenntnis noch nicht gab. Schlichten
Gemütern mag die jeweils andere Form der Doxologie gar als die eigentliche
Häresie erschienen sein. Erhebliche Bedeutung als unterscheidendes Merkmal
erhielt im Westen die Übung der gotischen Homöer, Übertretende aus
anderen christlichen Gemeinschaften erneut zu taufen. Sie ist nicht aus der
homöischen Theologie ableitbar, sondern ist ein beibehaltener östlicher
Brauch. In der westlichen Kirche war diese sogenannte Ketzertaufe dagegen
seit dem vierten Jahrhundert untersagt. Sie erkannte daher auch die homöische
48
So Adolf Lippold, ‘Ulfila’, RE, 9 A 1 (1961): pp. 512–32, hier p. 531. Im Übrigen
bietet der Artikel eine ausführliche Zusammenfassung der älteren Forschung zu Ulfila.
49
Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Johannes Chrysostomos und die ulfilanische Kirchensprache’,
ZAC, 117 (2006): pp. 289–96.
Taufe an. Beim Übertritt bedurfte sie lediglich noch einer Bestätigung durch
eine Handauflegung.
Die innere Geschichte der gotisch-homöischen Kirchen ist nur dürftig
dokumentiert. Sie waren auf jeden Fall autonom, doch über ihre innere
Organisation ist nichts bekann. Lediglich für die Kirche des nordafrikanischen
Wandalenreiches ist die Existenz eines hierarchischen Spitzenamtes mit dem
Titel eines Patriarchen überliefert. Es wurde vom homöischen Bischof von
Karthago wahrgenommen. Die Einrichtung dieses homöischen Patriarchats
entspricht der allgemeinen wandalischen Kirchenpolitik. In den anderen
Völkerwanderungsreichen ist es in der Regel zu einer Koexistenz von gotisch-
homöischer und römisch-nikänischer Kirche gekommen. Die wandalischen
Könige haben dagegen von Anfang an – 429 Beginn der wandalischen
Eroberung, 442 förmliche Lösung aus dem römischen Reichsverbund – die
Alleingeltung ihrer homöischen Kirche behauptet. Das führte zu einer teilweise
sehr brutalen Unterdrückungspolitik gegen die Nikäner, die in Phasen
wechselnder Intensität bis in die Endzeit des Wandalenreichs andauerte. Erst der
vorletzte König, Hilderich (523–30), hat einen Kurwechsel vollzogen und eine
Koexistenz angestrebt.50 Diese Behauptung einer Alleingeltung der homöischen
Kirche war ein religiöser Ausdruck des Anspruchs wandalischer Souveränität.
Ein Zeugnis gotisch-homöischer theologischer Arbeit sind Fragmente
einer gotischen Erklärung des Johannesevangeliums, die ihr Erstherausgeber
skeireins (Erläuterung) genannt hat.51 Sie war eine Übersetzung des nur noch in
Katenenfragmenten erhaltenen griechischen Johanneskommentars des Bischofs
Theodor von Herakleia (328/34–351/5). Zeit und Ort dieser Übersetzung sind
unbekannt. Theodor gehörte zum engeren Kreis um Euseb von Nikomedien.
Sein Kommentar hatte eine antimarkellische Tendenz, die auch für die Homöer
noch Aktualität besaß.52
Entgegen einer im Jahr 1900 von germanistischer Seite vorgetragenen
Annahme53 hat der Brief 106 des Hieronymus indessen nichts mit gotisch-
Andrew H. Merrills und Richard Miles, The Vandals (Chichester, 2010),

50
pp. 177–203; Yves Modéran, ‘Une guerre de religion: les deux églises d’Afrique à l’époque
vandale’, Antiquité Tardive, 11 (2003): pp. 21–44.
51
William Holmes Bennett, The Gothic Commentary on the Gospel of John (New
York, 1960).
52
Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Die Fragmente der “Skeireins” und der Johanneskommentar des
Theodor von Herakleia’, Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum 110 (1981): pp. 175–93 ( = Ibid.,
Schwellenzeit, pp. 69–87); Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Theologiegeschichtliche Bemerkungen zur
Skeireins’, in Christian T. Petersen (ed.), Gotica Minora. Miscellanea de lingua Ulfilae collecta,
ohne Bandpaginierung (Hanau, 2002).
53
Friedrich Kauffmann, ‘Der Codex Brixianus’, Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie, 31
(1900): pp. 305–35. Vgl. dazu Elfriede Stutz, Gotische Literaturdenkmäler (Stuttgart, 1966),
pp. 43–7.
homöischer Arbeit an der Bibel zu tun. Er ist an zwei gotische Mönche namens
Sunja und Fretela gerichtet und behandelt anhand des griechischen Textes
der Psalmen und des Psalterium Gallicanum des Hieronymus die Frage, wie
wörtlich eine Übersetzung sein muss. Von einem gotischen Text ist darin keine
Rede. Zudem ist es denkbar unwahrscheinlich, dass sich homöische Theologen
um Rat an Hieronymus gewendet haben, der in ihren Augen ein notorischer
Häretiker war. Die Weise wiederum, in der Hieronymus seine Adressaten
anspricht, schließt aus, der er seinerseits in ihnen Häretiker gesehen hat. Gotisch
bedeutetet nicht zwangsläufig auch homöisch. Es kann sich bei Sunja und
Fretela nur um gotische Nikäner gehandelt haben, die mit einer Bearbeitung der
lateinischen Psalmenübersetzung beschäftigt waren.54
Um die Mitte des fünften Jahrhunderts entstand die Schrift Contra
Varimadum.55 Der namentlich nicht genannte Verfasser war Lateinafrikaner,
schrieb aber, aus dem Wandalenreich vertrieben, in Neapel. Er setzt sich mit einer
umfangreichen Thesenreihe eines homöischen Theologen namens Varimadus
auseinander. In diesen Thesen begegnen dieselben Themen und Positionen,
die sich schon bei Ulfila finden. Dasselbe gilt für die Anathematismen des
dritten Konzils von Toledo von 58956 und auch für eine kurze Beschreibung des
„Arianismus“ der Goten, die Isidor von Sevilla in seiner Gotengeschichtet bietet.57
Im späten fünften Jahrhundert forderte der Wandalenkönig Thrasamund
(496–523) den katholischen Bischof Fulgentius von Ruspe zu einem
Streitgespräch heraus. Dazu hatte er sich eine Reihe theologischer Thesen
erarbeiten lassen.58 Sie kreisen um die Themen der Eigenständigkeit des Sohnes
und seines Verhältnisses zum Vater, so wie sie auch bei Ulfila begegnen. Dabei
wird das nikänische Kennwort ὁμοούσιος (wesenseins) mit der Begründung
verworfen, es sei heidnischer Herkunft, weil es schon vorchristlich gebraucht
worden sei.59 Dieses Argument ist für Ulfila nicht bezeugt. Möglicherweise
geht es auf Vertreter des sogenannten lateinischen Arianismus zurück, die
in den Völkerwanderungsreichen Anschluss an deren gotisch-homöische
Kirchen suchten.
Im Jahr 580 reiste ein westgotischer Gesandter namens Agila an den Hof
des Frankenkönigs Chilperich. Bei einem Aufenthalt in Tours forderte er
Gregor von Tours zu einem theologischen Streitgespräch heraus. Dessen Thema
war die Unterordnung des Sohnes unter den Vater. Nach der Darstellung, die
54
Siehe dazu bereits Adolf Jülicher, ‘Die griechische Vorlage der gotischen Bibel’,
Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum, 52 (1910): pp. 365–87.
55
Vigilius Thapsensis (Ps.), Contra Varimadum 7 (ed. Schwank, p. 134).
56
La colección canónica hispana, ed. Gonzalo Martínez Diéz and Felix Rodríguez, vol.
V, pp. 78–83.
57
Isidor von Sevilla, Historia Gothorum 6 (ed. Mommsen, MGH AA 11, pp. 270–71).
58
Fulgentius von Ruspe, Dicta regis Trasamundi (ed. Fraipont, CCSL 91, pp. 64–70).
59
Fulgentius von Ruspe, Dicta regis Trasamundi (ed. Fraipont, CCSL 91, p. 68).
Gregor von diesem Gespräch gibt60, betonte Agila, der Sohn sei dem Vater an
Alter und Macht nachgeordnet. Im weiteren Verlauf des Gesprächs soll er dann
erklärt haben: „Als er einen Menschen annahm, fing er an Gottes Sohn genannt
zu werden; denn es gab eine Zeit, da er nicht war“.61 Wenn Gregor hier nicht
frei gestaltet hat, wirft diese Aussage Fragen auf. Die Vorstellung, dass erst seit
der Annahme eines Menschen – zu ergänzen ist: durch eine unpersönliche
Kraft Gottes – von einem eigenständigen Gottessohn die Rede sein kann, wird
dem Markellschüler Photin von Sirmium nachgesagt. Sie steht in schroffem
Widerspruch zur homöischen Theologie. Entweder hat hier Gregor verzerrt
oder Agila hat sich aufgrund einer unzulänglichen theologischen Bildung eine
persönliche Deutung des Motivs einer zeitlichen Nachordnung des Sohnes
gegenüber dem Vater zurechtgelegt. Auf jeden Fall gibt der Bericht Gregors
keinen Grund zu der Annahme, die Position der westgotischen homöischen
Kirche habe sich geändert. Der zweite Teil der Aussage Agilas ist ein Areioszitat.62
Es ist allerdings aus seinem ursprünglichen Zusammenhang gelöst; denn Areios
war weit davon entfernt, den Anfang des Gottessohnes in der Inkarnation
zu sehen. Etwas abgewandelt begegnet das Zitat auch schon in Contra
Varimadum.63 Da die Homöer jedoch bestrebt waren, sich gegenüber dem ihnen
entgegengebrachten Arianismusvorwurf von Areios zu distanzieren, erscheint
die Verwendung eines Areioszitates überraschend. Wahrscheinlich aber handelt
es sich tatsächlich nur um eine antithetische Aufnahme des Anathematismus der
Synode von Nikaia, in dem dieses Zitat anonym begegnet,64 und man war sich der
Herkunft von Areios gar nicht bewusst. 584 hatte Gregor erneut eine Begegnung
mit einem westgotischen Gesandten namens Oppila. Der hatte sich zunächst
entsprechend homöischem Selbstverständnis als rechtgläubig bezeichnet, dann
aber im Gottesdienst die Gemeinschaft verweigert. Auf Nachfragen bekannte er
sich darauf nach einigen Ausweichversuchen schließlich zur Behauptung einer
untergeordneten Stellung des Sohnes gegenüber dem Vater und zur Bestreitung,
dass er diesem gleich im Sinne der nikänischen Tradition (aequalis) sei.65
Die angeführten Zeugnisse zeigen, dass die homöische Position, wie sie Ulfila
ausgeführt hat, von den gotisch-homöischen Kirchen getreulich bewahrt und
verteidigt worden sind. Sie sind allerdings auch dabei stehen geblieben. Zu ihrer
Tradition gehörte die zwar für Ulfila nicht belegte, aber wohl vorauszusetzende
60
Greg. Tur. Hist. 5.43 (ed. Buchner, pp. 358–62).
61
Greg. Tur. Hist. 5.43 (ed. Buchner, p. 360): Ex adsumptum hominem coepit Dei
filius vocitari.
62
Athanasius, Oratio contra Arianos I 5, 3, AW I, 2, p. 114, Zeile 14: ἦν ποτε ὅτε οὐκ ἦν.
63
Vigilius Thapsensis (Ps.), Contra Varimadum Arianum libri 3, 1.12 (ed. Schwank,
p. 25): Erat tempus antequam de patre nasceretur.
64
Synode von Nikaia, Anathematismus: ACO 1, 5.
65
Greg. Tur. Hist. 6.40 (ed. Buchner, pp. 70–74).
Behauptung, der Gottessohn sei nicht nur sichtbar,66 sondern auch leidensfähig.67
Dahinter steht die Vorstellung, er habe in der Inkarnation einen seelenlosen
menschlichen Leib angenommen und darin die Stelle einer menschlichen Seele
ausgefüllt, eine im vierten Jahrhundert verbreitete Vorstellung. Daher müsse ihm
auch die Emotionalität und Leidenserfahrung Christi zugerechnet werden. Wie
das Motiv der Sichtbarkeit dient auch das dem Ausweis seiner Unterlegenheit
gegenüber dem Vater. Indessen ist seit den 360er Jahren, allerdings vornehmlich
im Osten, eine heftige und lange anhaltende christologische Diskussion über
die Modalitäten der Inkarnation geführt worden.68 Dabei wurde auch die
Tauglichkeit des von der homöischen Tradition vorausgesetzten Denkmodells
in Frage gestellt. In den Nachrichten über die innere Geschichte der gotisch-
homöischen Kirchen findet sich jedoch keine Spur dieser Diskussion. Sie ist
nicht wahrgenommen worden.
Dagegen gibt es in der Spätzeit der westgotisch-homöischen Kirche einen
allerdings eher zaghaften Ansatz zu einer Aufweichung der ulfilanischen
Position. Im Westgotenreich gab es anfänglich, gleich nach der Loslösung
des westgotischen Machtbereichs aus dem römischen Reichsverbund (475),
einen Versuch, die nikänische Kirche als römische Institution durch ein
Besetzungsverbot für Bistümer lahmzulegen; doch bald schon entwickelte sich
eine Koexistenz beider Kirchen. Ihr kam die Geltung des Personalitätsprinzips
des Rechts mit je einer Kodifizierung für die Goten (Codex Euricianus) und
Römer (Lex Romana Visigothorum) entgegen. Diese Situation änderte sich,
als der letzte homöische Westgotenkönig, Leowigild, eine am oströmischen
Vorbild ausgerichtete Reichsreform durchführte. Dabei veranlasste er
eine Neukodifizierung des Rechts mit territorialer Geltung und strebte
kirchenpolitisch eine einheitliche westgotische Reichskirche unter homöischem
Vorzeichen an.69 Dazu suchte er die Nikäner oder deren Führungsschicht unter
Druck zum Übertritt zu bewegen, bemühte sich zugleich aber auch, ihnen
diesen Übertritt zu erleichtern. 580 berief er eine homöische Reichssynode nach
Toledo ein, die einzige aus der Überlieferung bekannte Synode einer gotisch-
homöischen Kirche. Sie beschloss nach dem Bericht des Chronisten Johannes
von Biclaro: „Die von der römischen Religion zu unserem katholischen Glauben
Kommenden sollen nicht getauft, sondern lediglich durch eine Handauflegung
66
Dazu s. o. Anm. 41.
67
Concilium III Toletanum, Anathematismus 9 (ed. Martínez Díez und Rodriguez,
Monumenta Hispaniae Sacra, Serie Canónica 5, p. 83): Quicumque Filium Dei secundum
diuinitatem suam uisibilem aut passibilem ausus fuerit profiteri, anathema sit.
68
Alois Grillmeier, Jesus der Christus im Glauben der Kirche, vol. 1 (Freiburg
i. Br. et al., 1979).
69
Knut Schäferdiek, Die Kirche in den Reichen der Westgoten und Suewen bis zur
Errichtung der westgotischen katholischen Staatskirche, Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 39
(Berlin, 1967).
und die Verfügung der Kirchengemeinschaft gereinigt werden und dem Vater
die Ehre durch den Sohn im Heiligen Geist darbringen“.70 Damit wurde die für
die westlichen Nikäner sehr anstößige homöische Praxis der Konvertitentaufe
aufgegeben. Mit einer Verpflichtung auf die homöische Form der Doxologie
wurde aber zugleich auch eine Bekenntniserklärung gefordert. Dennoch war die
Maßnahme nach Aussage des Chronisten erfolgreich.
Leowigild selbst ist aber noch einen Schritt weiter gegangen. 582 berichteten
aus dem Westgotenreich zurückkehrende fränkische Gesandte Gregor von
Tours, der König habe, um die Nikäner zu täuschen, erklärt: „Ich habe klar
erkannt, dass Christus, der Sohn Gottes, dem Vater gleich (aequalis) ist; doch
dass der Heilige Geist Gott ist, glaube ich keineswegs, weil in keiner biblischen
Schrift zu lesen ist, dass er Gott sei”.71 Hier wird der Begriff similis (gleich in
wesentlicher Beziehung) des Bekenntnisses von Rimini ersetzt durch aequalis
(vollumfänglich gleich, deckungsgleich). In der nikänischen Tradition des
Westens ist aequalis ein geläufiger Ausdruck für das Verhältnis des Sohnes
zum Vater und gleichbedeutend mit consubstantialis (ὁμοούσιος, wesenseins).
Im Gegensatz zu diesem theologisch präzisen Ausdruck enthält er jedoch
nicht den von der homöischen Theologie verworfenen Begriff der Substanz,
der westlichen Wiedergabe von οὐσία. Wie weit diese Leowigild nachgesagte
verbale Konzession allerdings für die westgotisch-homöische Kirche verbindlich
war oder von ihr aufgenommen wurde, steht dahin. Zwei Jahre später hat der
Gote Oppila Gregor von Tours gegenüber den Ausdruck aequalis als irrgläubig
abgetan,72 und das dritte Konzil von Toledo hat die Leugnung der Aussage, dass
der Sohn dem Vater aequalis ist, anathematisiert.73
Die gotisch-homöischen Kirchen sind kein kirchliches Ausstoßprodukt,
begründet in einer Abweichung von einer etablierten Trinitätslehre, die
es zur Zeit ihrer Entstehung noch gar nicht gab. Sie bilden vielmehr eine
eigenständige, aus einer bestimmten geschichtlichen Konstellation erwachsene
spätantike Kirchengemeinschaft. Dass sie nicht hat überdauern können, lag
an den geschichtlichen Bedingungen, unter denen sie stand. Dazu gehört eine
enge Verbindung mit dem Identitätsbewusstsein ihrer letztlich in anderen
70
Joh. Bicl. Chron. 580.2 (ed. Mommsen, p. 216): De Romana religione ad nostram
catholicam fidem venientes non debere baptizari, sed tantummodo per manus impositionem et
communionis praeceptione ablui et gloriam patri per filium in spiritu sancto dare.
71
Greg. Tur. Hist. 6.18 (ed. Buchner, p. 36): Manifeste cognovi, esse Christum filium Dei
aequalem Patri; sed Spiritum sanctum Deum penitus esse non credo, eo quod in nullis legatur
codicibus Deus esse.
72
Dazu s. o. Anm. 65.
73
Concilium III Toletanum, Anathematismus 2 (ed. Martínez Díez und Rodriguez,
Monumenta Hispaniae Sacra, Serie Canónica 5, p. 79): Quicumque Filium Dei Dominum
Iesum Christum negauerit a Paterna substantia sine initio genitum et aequalem Patri esse uel
consubstantialem, anathema sit.
Völkern aufgehenden Trägervölker. Sie äußert sich auch in der gelegentlichen

Selbstbezeichnung ihres Bekenntnisses als lex Gothorum.74 Andauernde
geschichtliche Nachwirkungen des gotisch-homöischen Christentums lassen
sich nicht aufspüren; doch hat es dingliche Zeugnisse hinterlassen wie die
Hofkirche Theoderichs des Großen in Ravenna (San Apollinare nuovo)75 oder
den zu 56 Prozent erhaltenen Codex Argenteus,76 wahrscheinlich das Evangeliar
für den Altar dieser Kirche.77 Sie sind Ausdruck einer hochentwickelten
Repräsentationskultur. Darin spricht sich das Selbstbewusstsein der gotisch-
homöischen Kirche aus, und zugleich veranschaulichen sie deren Einbindung
in ihr spätantikes kulturelles Umfeld. Im Übrigen stand bereits an ihrem
Anfang mit ihrem Anschluss an die spätantike Schriftkultur eine hochrangige
kulturelle Leistung.
74
Dazu s. o. Anm.5.
75
Friedrich Wilhelm Deichmann, Ravenna. Hauptstadt des spätantiken Abendlandes,
Vol. 2/1 (Wiesbaden, 1974), pp. 128–30.
76
Stutz, ‘Codices Gotici’, pp. 53–54.
77
Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Die Ravennater Papyrusurkunde Tjäder 34, der Codex argenteus
und die ostgotische arianische Kirche’, ZKG, 120 (2009): pp. 215–31.
Chapter 1b
Ulfila and the so-called ‘Gothic’
Arianism – English Summary
Knut Schäferdiek (†)1
Despite its fast and rapid dissemination Gothic Arianism did not prevail for
long in the Roman Empire: Justinian defeated both the Vandals in Africa and
the Ostrogoths in Italy. The ruling barbarian elites in Gaul decided rather early
on to become Catholics: Clovis was baptised on Christmas Day 496. During
the course of the sixth century the Burgundian, Suevic, and Visigothic realms
fell prey to the Roman pressure to assimilate. The third council of Toledo (589)
brought about the end of Visigothic Arianism. Only Lombardian Italy still had
some Arian communities by the middle of the seventh century.
Gothic Arianism is defined by its creed and its use of the Gothic language. Its
labelling as ‘Arian’, however, is a polemic imposition introduced by the victorious
Nicenes during the course of the controversies of the fourth century. Gothic
and other non-Nicene churches labelled themselves as ‘catholic’ or ‘orthodox’.
Even today one can come across the notion that Gothic Arians were followers of
the condemned presbyter Arius. Yet Gothic Arianism has no connection to the
preaching of the Alexandrine presbyter. Therefore one should use the neutral
term ‘homoian’.
The cradle of Gothic-homoian Christendom is a small Christian group
of Goths which settled on Roman soil in Lower Moesia during the reign of
Emperor Constantius (337–61). Its leader was Ulfila (Wulfila). The most
important source on Ulfila’s life and theology is Auxentius of Durostorum.
Parts of Auxentius’s text are included in the so-called dissertatio of the homoian
bishop Maximinus (Diss. Max., Codex Paris BN lat. 8907). Ulfila himself was an
offspring of Cappadocian Christians who were abducted by Gothic invaders from
Şereflikoçhisar in the year 257. They were able to keep their faith and founded
a diaspora community within the Tervingian sphere of influence between the
Olt, Danube and Dniester rivers. The translation of the remains of the martyr
1
Knut Schäferdiek (3. November 1930–14. August 2010) passed away shortly after having
finished ‘Ulfila und der sogenannte gotische Arianismus’ for this book. Ashgate agreed in printing
the text in German. David Ganek (Erlangen), Winrich Löhr (Heidelberg), Uta Heil (Erlangen)
and Roland Steinacher put together this English summary.
Sabas bears witness to the connection of this community to Cappadocia. At the

council of Nicaea in 325 these Christians were represented by bishop Theophilos
of Gothia. It is wrong, however, to locate the latter’s diocese in Crimea. It is a
frequent assumption that Ulfila’s mother was from Cappadocia, yet we cannot
be sure about that. In any case, that Ulfila was either Gothic or Cappadocian is
based on the false assumption that nations formed during the Migration Period
were not able to integrate elements of diverse ethnicities. Ulfila’s name (‘little
wolf ’) is an indication of prolonged assimilation.
In 336 Ulfila served as a Thervingian emissary to the imperial court. It was
on this occasion that he was appointed bishop by Eusebius of Nicomedia – not
bishop of the Goths and not, as some scholars believe, a missionary bishop, but
bishop of the congregations in Gothia. Philostorgios leaves no doubt on this.
Eusebius of Nicomedia was a committed advocate of the three-hypostasis-
theology, which means that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three distinct
hypostases, or three separate persons, each with its own rank. The Son is thus
subordinate to the Father, and the Spirit to the Son. Even if later authors labelled
this concept as an Arian heresy, the three-hypostasis-theology was the leading
Christian doctrine in the Roman East in those days. The Goths probably shared
it due to their close involvement with the Eastern Church. Ulfila was anointed
by Eusebius, and our evidence points to a theological consensus between Ulfila
and Eusebius.
Ulfila’s duties came to an end when a Thervingian iudex persecuted
Christians in 348. We cannot be sure whether this iudex was Athanarich. Both
Libanios and Cyrill, bishop of Jerusalem, seem to support the notion of a crisis
in Roman–Gothic relations at that time. The fleeing Christian Goths were
accepted on Roman soil. Ulfila was their – indeed their only – religious and
political leader. Since then Ulfila took part in the theological debates in the
empire and became a Homoian. The Homoians established themselves at the
Synod of Sirmium in 357 and Ulfila took part at their most important Synod of
Constantinople in 360.
In 369 Fritigern, leader of a Thervingian tribe, and Athanarich, iudex of
all the Thervingi, were engaged in a power struggle. In this context, Fritigern
asked Emperor Valens for help, converted to the Christian faith and demanded
theological teachers. Most likely Valens recruited these teachers among the
Goths of Ulfila. The history of Gothic ‘Arianism’, i.e. Homoianism, was about
to begin.
The year 376 deeply changed the situation. The majority of the Goths fled
to the empire. Shortly after they had crossed the Danube, conflicts with Roman
magistrates arose and Gothic hordes roamed the Balkans for years. It was not
until 382 that Theodosius the Great could settle the Goths in northern Thrace.
During these times the Visigoths were formed under their Christian leader
Fritigern. The Goths of Ulfila, however, kept their independence as minor
Ulfila and the so-called ‘Gothic’ Arianism – English Summary 47
Goths. Most likely Ulfila travelled to Constantinople in 383 to participate

in a synod called by Emperor Theodosius. The Homoians, however, failed
to secure their acceptance by the emperor. Ulfila became sick, died and was
buried – not without having drafted his creed in Latin which shows his devotion
to the Homoians.
Generally it is assumed that Ulfila translated the Bible into Gothic upon
his arrival in the Roman Empire. But why? Maybe it was the conflict he had
experienced in the defeated pagan cult’s search for an identity. In the hope of
bridging the divide between Christendom and Gothic identity Ulfila showed
a possible Gothic Christendom. In translating the Bible he developed a Gothic
liturgy as well. Traces of this liturgy are found in Vandal North Africa: the froja
arme, biblegothic frauja armai, translation of the Κύριε ἐλέησον (domine miserere)
sung during service.
In the 350s the three-hypostasis theologians had split into a number of
groups. The first and smallest were the Anomoeans led by Eunomius of Cyzicus
and Aëtius. They drew a sharp distinction between the οὐσία of the Father
and that of the Son (ἀνὅμοιος κατ᾽ οὐσίαν). At the Synod of Sirmium in 357
the second group, the Homoians, was formed. Ulfila was one of them and took
part in their decisive synod at Constantinople in 360. Their Nicene opponents
assigned them the polemical term ‘Arians’. The largest and most important
group, however, were the Homoiousians who constituted themselves at the
Synod of Ancyra in 358. The Nicenes called them semi-Arians.
Some studies affiliate Ulfila, despite his commitment to the Synod of
Constantinople in 360 and its condemnation of the Anhomoian Aëtius, with
a kind of Arianism, close to the Anhomoians. This view is, of course, deeply
rooted in the stereotype of Arianism fostered by the Nicene tradition. Ulfila’s
personal creed, formulated at the Synod of Constantinople 383, reiterates the
homoian position regarding the Trinity: The Son is subordinate and obedient
to the Father and the Holy Spirit to the Son. Father and Son are of the same
category; both are God. There is also a Auxentius states, a difference in their
manner of being God. There is also a connection between the two, the Father
being before the Son, who is ‘second God and Creator of all the things from
the Father and after the Father’. Ulfila’s creed talks a lot about the Holy Spirit.
This, of course, is due to the contemporary discourse following the Synod of
Constantinople of 381 which called the Holy Spirit Lord and thus God. Ulfila
remains faithful to the homoian tradition: he emphasises that the Holy Spirit
‘neither is God nor our God, but rather servant of Christ’.
It is an ideological misconception to believe that Ulfila’s ‘Arian’ theology
represents in some way a typically or characteristically ‘Germanic’ conception
of the Trinity. This misconception is based on arbitrary assumptions without
a factual or methodical base. Concerning day-to-day life there should
have been little difference between Roman-Nicene and Gothic-Homoian
Christians. Gothic language during service was a widespread, yet not exclusive
distinguishing feature.
An unambiguous distinguishing feature, however, is a small piece of doxology
that has survived: Homoian churches used the antiquated prepositional form
‘Glory to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit’. From the second half
of the fourth century Nicenes used the copulative form ‘Glory to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit’. As the creed was no part of the liturgy,
the doxology marked the schism. All this proves that the Gothic-Homoian
churches guarded their faith vigorously, also during the fifth and sixth centuries.
This traditionalism was a distinctive feature of their faith and hindered further
development of their faith. Thus they were not able to answer the questions that
were to arise in the future.
The Gothic-Homoian churches were not the product of a process of
exclusion from a dominant Trinitarian orthodoxy – if for no other reason than
an established Trinitarian dogma did not exist at the time. They do, however,
present a distinct and independent group of churches, produced by specific
historical circumstances. Their failure to stand the test of time is explained by
the conditions of their time: closely related as they were to the ethnic identity
of various Germanic (particularly Gothic) nations (this relation is expressed
by the phrase lex Gothorum), they vanished when these nations were absorbed
by other peoples. The Gothic-Homoian churches have left no traceable legacy
within Christianity. Only a few tangible remains are still extant: the church of
the court of Theoderic the Great in Ravenna (San Apollinare Nuovo), or the
Codex Argenteus, probably the gospel book that belonged to this church. Both
convey a pronounced culture of representation and provide evidence for a very
self-assured Gothic-Homoian church.
Chapter 2
Was Ulfila Really a Homoian?
Sara Parvis
Ulfila, or Wulfila, the ‘apostle of the Goths’, is one of the more intriguing unknown
quantities of the Arian controversy, the fourth-century all-in ecclesiastical fight
for an acceptable framework for Trinitarian theology.1 His political importance,
theological distinctiveness and pastoral effectiveness can all be maximised or
minimised on the basis of the evidence. 2 If the dials are set low, as they often
1
On the form of the name, see Ernst A. Ebbinghaus, ‘Ulfila(s) or Wulfila’, Historische
Sprachforschung, 104 (1991): pp. 236–38. The extraordinarily rich literature of the last thirty years
on the Arian controversy is too extensive to list here in any detail. Despite the plethora of more
recent work, including my own, taking issue over many of the details, two studies which take
very different theological views of the controversy remain unparalleled for their intelligent and
detailed historical coverage of the whole period: Manlio Simonetti, La crisi ariana nel IV secolo
(Rome, 1975), and Richard P.C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, The Arian
Controversy 318–381 (Edinburgh, 1988). I retain the title ‘Arian controversy’, despite its well-
documented inadequacies, because none of the proposed alternatives is easily recognisable to the
full range of scholars in different disciplines who have to consider the topic, and most are at least
equally contentious.
2
The national, linguistic and religious affinities of the scholars discussing him inevitably
play a part in this. As the first translator of the Bible into a Germanic language, Ulfila’s cultural and
linguistic importance to the German-speaking world is patent, and so his pastoral effectiveness
and historical significance do not tend to be undervalued in German scholarship, although his
exact theological tendencies remain a matter for debate: see e.g. Herwig Wolfram, Die Goten.
Von den Anfängen bis zur Mitte des sechsten Jahrhunderts. Entwurf einer historischen Ethnographie
(Munich: Beck, 1979; 5th edn 2009), and Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Wulfila: vom Bischof von Gotien
zum Gotenbischof ’, ZKG, 90 (1979): pp. 253–303. In French-, Italian- and English-speaking
scholarship, meanwhile, Ulfila’s importance is not self-evident, and must itself be argued for in the
very act of placing him in the narrative (or not). French historians of the rise of the Goths often
ignore him altogether (see Pierre Courcelle, Histoire littéraire des grandes invasions germaniques
(Paris, 1964), and Suzanne Teillet, Des Goths a la nation gothique: les origines de l’idée de nation
en Occident du Ve au VIIe siècle (Paris, 1984), among other examples), and French theologians
colour him as a clear Eunomian (see e.g. Roger Gryson, Scolies ariennes sur le concile d’Aquilée,
SC 267 (Paris, 1980), pp. 174–75), as does the Italian Manlio Simonetti (‘L’arianesimo di Ulfila’,
in Bruno Luiselli and Manlio Simonetti (eds), Romanobarbarica I, (Rome, 1976), pp. 297–323),
who nonetheless insists on his political importance. Anglophone scholarship is more variable
on these points: we might note the contrasting portraits of Peter Heather, who sees Ulfila as a
are, he can disappear completely from the narratives both of the rise of the
Goths and of the triumph of homoousian Christology. But if we set the dials
to the maximum, he can be argued to be the man ultimately responsible both
for the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and for the establishment of Nicene
Christianity as the normative form of Christianity up to the present day.3
It is not my intention to claim anything so sweeping here. Nonetheless, that
such claims may be made with any plausibility at all should give pause to those
tempted to ignore Ulfila altogether, and encourage those already convinced of
his significance to examine and weigh closely the religious and political evidence
regarding him.
My target here is to argue against the consensus which is taking ever firmer
hold with regard to Ulfila’s theological standpoint, a consensus which threatens
to cloud understanding both of Ulfila himself and of the religion of the Germanic
peoples of the fifth and sixth centuries. This consensus is that his (and their)
religion is best described as ‘homoian’.4
‘Homoian’, as we shall see, can be meant in a strict or a loose theological
sense, or in a historical-political sense, or in a combination of these. It presents
itself to historians of the fifth and sixth as well as the fourth centuries as a
more neutral alternative to the now discredited contemporary term ‘Arian’.
Homoian, but plays down his pastoral significance by attributing the Goths’ conversion above all
to Valens (P. J. Heather, ‘The crossing of the Danube and the Gothic conversion’, GRBS, 27 [1986]:
pp. 289–318), and Richard Vaggione, who argues that ‘the framework proclaimed by Wulfila was
substantially that defended by Eunomius’, and that Ulfila mainly differs from Eunomius in being
far more effective pastorally (Eunomius of Cyzicus and the Nicene Revolution (Oxford, 2000),
p. 288).
3
These cases would be made as follows: 1. Ulfila must have been a key figure in Valens’
decision to allow the Goths to cross the Danube in 376; he also provided the Germanic peoples and
individuals from them with a written language and the infrastructure of worship in the vernacular
that made it possible for them to swing easily between ‘Roman’ identity and a developed, diplomatic
and coherent alternative group identity, which was key to the military, political, diplomatic and
economic success of Gaiseric the Vandal in particular, the proximate agent in most regards of the
fall of the West. 2. The disastrous defeat and death of Valens at Adrianople at the hands of his co-
religionist Goths whose crossing he had sponsored two years earlier tipped the political balance
decisively against Valens’ form of Christianity, making Theodosius’ legal preference of Nicene
Christianity (hitherto marginalised) expedient in the short term, and a choice for ‘Roman’ over
against ‘barbarian’ identity in the medium and longer term. Needless to say, both these cases could
be assailed at many points, not least their common initial assumption of Ulfila’s involvement in
the crossing of 376.
4
Those who characterise Ulfila as ‘homoian’ include Edward A. Thompson, The Visigoths
in the Time of Ulfila (Oxford, 1966); Hanson, Search, pp. 557–61; Peter Heather and John
Matthews, The Goths in the Fourth Century, TTH 11 (Liverpool, 1991), pp. 128–31, and Michael
Kulikowski, Rome’s Gothic Wars (Cambridge, 2007), p. 108, as well as a number of the other
contributors to the present volume.
Was Ulfila Really a Homoian? 51
Nonetheless, I would argue that its use in Ulfila’s case should be discarded, for
the following reasons. First, true homoian theology was a political compromise,
which lasted a very short time and did not express anyone’s theology adequately,
certainly not Ulfila’s. Second, if we look carefully at his key alliances, we can
see that they are not well described in terms of the emerging ecclesiastical
groupings of 359–60 as they are normally portrayed. Ulfila’s ecclesiastical links
were initially forged in the 330s, or perhaps even the 320s. There is no evidence
that Ulfila had any connection with the key figures behind the new theological
groupings of the 340s and 350s in the East, Basil of Ancyra and friends, or the
mercurial Acacius of Caesarea, though he does have ongoing connections with
Maris of Chalcedon and perhaps Ursacius and Valens, and seems to forge new
ones with Eudoxius and, conceivably, Eunomius. Third, his own terminology
is closer to that of the early supporters of Arius (including Arius himself ) than
it is to the homoian creed of 360, though it also has certain points in common
with the heterousian Eunomius. Fourthly, the two writers who pass on most
of our information about Ulfila, Auxentius and Philostorgius, both of whom
are extremely warm in his praise, are both Eunomians (Philostorgius explicitly
so), and he is also called ‘sanctus Ulfila’ by the card-carrying Arian supporter
Maximinus.5 In this chapter I shall concentrate on demonstrating the first two
points, since the last point is not in doubt, and Manlio Simonetti has clearly
plotted the links between Ulfila’s theological terminology and that of Arius and
Eunomius, though his terminological similarities with Eusebius of Nicomedia,
Ursacius and Valens still remain to be spelled out in detail.6
For all these reasons, to call Ulfila a homoian is to interpret a long and
interesting theological, political and pastoral career, spanning most of the Arian
controversy, purely in terms of one action, the signing of the 360 creed, about
which there is some reason to think he felt rather ambivalent in any case, as we
shall see.
First, then, homoian theology. It is worth noting something of the
historiography of the term ‘homoian’, and the way in which its supposed
theological content has expanded over the years. Unlike the other theological
party terms among which it is normally placed, homoousians, homoiousians and
anhomoians, which are all of ancient coinage, it is a modern term, first coined
5
‘Card-carrying’ in the sense that he pronounces Arius’ First Creed to be ‘secundum
divinum magisterium’ (Diss. Max.: Roger Gryson (ed.), Scolies ariennes sur le concile d’Aquilée,
SC 267 (Paris, 1980), p. 234). Gryson’s text of Auxentius also appears, with different chapter
numbers, in Roger Gryson (ed.), Scripta Arriana Latina I, Collectio Veronensis, Scholia in
Concilium Aquileiense, Fragmenta in Lucam Rescripta, Fragmenta Theologica Rescripta, CCSL 87
(Turnhout, 1982). I cite by the page number of SC 267, followed by the SC chapter number and,
within parentheses, the CCSL chapter number – here 40 (22).
6
Simonetti, ‘L’arianesimo di Ulfila’.
in the late nineteenth century, and popularised by Harnack and Gwatkin.7 This
gave the stability of a theological name to what had hitherto been called the
‘court party’ (for example, by J.H. Newman), if they had been distinguished at
all from the ‘semiarians’, ‘Macedonians’, ‘homoiousians’ and simple ‘Arians’ of the
ancient texts.8 The name derives from the theology of the creeds of Ariminium
(359) and Constantinople (360), which describe the Son as ‘similem genitori
suo patri secundum scripturas’ and ὅμοιον τῷ γεννήσαντι αὐτὸν πατρὶ κατὰ τὰς
γραφάς respectively, the second creed also forbidding the use of the term ousia,
‘which was laid down in simplicity by the Fathers’.9 Both Gwatkin and Harnack
agree that the homoian party, though it was in political ascendancy in the
East for most of the twenty years from 358 to 378, ‘had no firm theological
conviction behind it’ (Harnack) and was ‘nothing … but specious charity and
colourless indefiniteness’ (Gwatkin), behind which bishops espousing radically
different theologies might unite.10 The insistence on holding entirely to the
language of Scripture was seen by Gwatkin, in particular, simply as a pretext for
avoiding the disputed theological issues. But later scholarship has prolonged the
life of homoianism, reified it and accorded it more theological weight. Hanns
Christof Brennecke’s full-scale study examined across the same time-span as
Gwatkin and Harnack, the years from 359 to 378, the ‘homöisch geprägten’
Imperial Church of the East, but saw theological homoianism as distinct from,
and outlasting, imperial Church homoianism.11 Hanson deemed all creeds and
Rules of Faith from 357 to 383 to be homoian which do not explicitly belong to
the homoousian, homoiousian or anhomoian parties, including Ulfila’s creed.12
Instead of viewing those who designed and promoted the homoian creeds, most
of whom, including Ursacius of Singidunum, Valens of Mursa and Acacius of
Caesarea, had been on the theological scene for some time and taken up a variety
of theological positions, in the light of their whole careers, Hanson apparently
deems that everyone who signed the creed of 360, and everyone who cannot
7
Henry Melvill Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism, Chiefly referring to the character and
chronology of the reaction which followed the Council of Nicaea (Cambridge, 1882; 2nd edn, 1900);
Adolf von Harnack, History of Dogma, tr. Neil Buchanan, 7 vols (London, 1894–99) – the first
edn of Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte was published in 1886–90.
8
A detailed survey of the historiography of later ‘Arians’ from the fourth century to John
Henry Newman’s Arians of the Fourth Century can be found in M. Slusser, ‘Traditional Views of
Late Arianism’, in Michel R. Barnes and Daniel H. Williams (eds), Arianism after Arius, essays on
the development of the fourth century Trinitarian conflicts (Edinburgh, 1994), pp. 3–30.
9
August Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole und Glaubensregeln der alten Kirche (Breslau, 1897),
pp. 208–9.
10
Harnack, History of Dogma IV, 80; Gwatkin Studies of Arianism, p. 168.
11
Hanns Christof Brennecke, Studien zur Geschichte der Homöer: Der Osten bis zum Ende
der homöischen Reichskirche, Beiträge zur historischen Theologie 73 (Tübingen, 1988), p. 1.
12
Hanson, Search, pp. 558–59.
be fitted into another category, is a homoian for life. By this logic, Eusebius of
Nicomedia and the other early supporters of Arius who signed the Creed of
Nicaea for political reasons were all homoousians.
Yet Gwatkin and Harnack were correct: the creeds of Ariminium and
Constantinople 359–60 are indeed theologically colourless compromises, to
which no one ever returns or refers with theological affection (though they
continued to be politically extremely useful).13 However long ‘homoianism’
lasted politically, theologically, in its strict sense, it lasted no longer than
Constantius. This is why contemporaries from Epiphanius to the legislators of
the Council of Constantinople of 381 to the fifth-century church historians of
all theological stripes have no name for this group. In their eyes, it was not a
coherent theological group at all.
We have several statements concerning Ulfila’s own faith, including one
which at least purports to be in his own words. Philostorgius, a summary of
whose description of Ulfila’s career is preserved in Photius’ ninth-century
epitome, is said by Photius to describe Ulfila’s theological opinions as ‘the same
as his own’; that would make them Eunomian.14 But the only detailed accounts
of his views come from Auxentius of Durostorum, who gives both a summary of
Ulfila’s theological teachings as he himself knew them, and what purports to be
Ulfila’s last creed in his own words.15 The latter may be given as follows:
Ego Ulfila episcopos et confessor semper sic credidi, et in hac fide sola et vera transitum
facio ad dominum meum. Credo unum esse deum patrem, solum ingenitum et
invisibilem Et in unigenitum filium eius dominum et deum nostrum, opificem et
factorem universe creature non habentem similem suum ideo unus est omnium deus
pater, qui et Dei nostri est Deus Et unum spiritum sanctum virtutem inluminantem
et sanctificantem, ut ait Christus post resurrectionem ad apostolos suos: Ecce ego mitto
promissum Patris mei in vobis, vos autem sedete in civitatem Hierusalem quoadusque
induamini virtutem ab alto, item et: Accipietis virtutem supervenientem in vos
Sancto Spiritu, Nec deum nec dominum sed ministrum Christi fidelem, nec equalem
sed subditum et oboedientem suo in omnibus filio Et filium subditum et oboedientem
in omnibus deo patrique suo.
We might note a few points here about this creed.16 Firstly, Ulfila claims that
it is what he has always believed: semper sic credidi. Secondly, the only mention
13
On the later political use of these creeds by non-Nicenes, see Knut Schäferdiek,
‘Germanenmission’, RAC, 10 (1978): pp. 492–548.
14
Philostorgius, HE 2.5, cited from Philostorgius: Kirchengeschichte, Mit dem Leben des
Lucian von Antiochien und den Fragmenten eines arianischen Historiographen, Joseph Bidez and
Felix Winkelmann (eds), GCS 21 (3rd edn, Berlin, 1981).
15
Scolies ariennes, 234–50 (41–63 [23–40]). The creed itself is 63 (40).
16
See further Simonetti, ‘L’arianesimo di Ulfila’.
of the Son being ‘like’ any other is a denial that this is the case: non habentem
similem suum. This may well be understood, on analogy with similar creeds (for
example, Arius’), to refer to the Son’s being unlike other creatures, and if this
creed has been translated from Gothic by Ulfila himself or someone else, it may
hide some more explicit clarification in this direction. However, as it stands, it
is a flat denial of the key term of the homoian creeds of 359 and 360. Finally,
it uses a technical philosophical term to describe the Father that is not found
in Scripture, ingenitum, clearly a translation of the Greek ἀγέννητος, crucial
to Arius’ own statements of faith, to the theology of Eunomius, and to that of
non-Nicenes throughout the controversy. If the 359–60 homoian creeds are
simply trying to preserve a primitive, Scripture-based Christology in the face
of inappropriately technical philosophical language (as some scholars are naïve
enough to believe), the same is not true of Ulfila. Ulfila’s creed is at least as
technical in its theological formulations as the original creed of Nicaea. (The
longer summary of his faith and preaching given by Auxentius is far more so.)
Let us turn now to Ulfila’s historical career, and look at him in the context
of his alliances. Ulfila first comes to our notice when he is ordained bishop by
‘Eusebius and the bishops with him’ in the context of an embassy to Constantine
from the Goths.17 There is a discrepancy between the evidence of Philostorgius
and Auxentius here, since Auxentius tells us that Ulfila had been bishop forty
years when he came to Constantinople and died in what is generally recognised
to be 383, but Constantine died in 337, and Eusebius of Nicomedia in 341.18
By dint either of emending Κωνσταντίνου to Κωνσταντίου,19 or of deeming the
text of Auxentius at this point to be so lacunose as to defy clarity as to exactly
which forty years he means,20 this allows us four plausible occasions for Ulfila’s
consecration, between 335 and 341: the synod of Tyre/Jerusalem of 335 (the
beginning of Constantine’s tricennalia), which deposed Athanasius and restored
Arius, and at which Ursacius of Singidunum and Valens of Mursa first appear on
the scene; the celebrations of the end of the tricennalia year at Constantinople
the following summer, or perhaps as part of the synod which took place just
before them and deposed Marcellus of Ancyra; the synod of Constantinople
of 337, immediately after Constantine’s death, which deposed Paul (later
restored by the demand of Constans and then executed by Constantius) as
bishop and replaced him with Eusebius of Nicomedia; or the Dedication Synod
at Antioch in 341.21
17
Philostorgius, HE 2.5.
18
Scolies ariennes, 242 (53 [33]), 248 (60–61 [38–39]); Sokr. HE 2.12.1.
19
Bidez and Winkelmann, GCS 21, p. 17, line 20 and note.
20
Scolies ariennes, 248, lines 11–13 (CCSL 165, lines 20–22).
21
On the bishops known to have attended each of these synods, see Parvis, Marcellus
of Ancyra and the Lost Years of the Arian Controversy (Oxford, 2006), p. 147, pp. 258–60.
If we can pinpoint one of these occasions over the others, it would make
a difference to our understanding of Ulfila’s theological context, because
attendance at the synod of Antioch of 341 (which, as Knut Schäferdiek points
out elsewhere in this volume, is still assumed in many surveys and handbooks)
would put him in the orbit of two of the key figures in the manoeuvring of the
theological parties of the 350s, Marcellus’ successor Basil of Ancyra (a leading
figure in the development of homoiousian theology), and Acacius of Caesarea,
the central bishop on the Eastern side behind the politics of the creed of 360,
both of whom first came to prominence at this synod.22 It would also mean
he had probably signed the Dedication Creed, the Second Creed of Antioch,
which was the preferred alternative to the Nicene Creed among those who
would eventually become the homoiousians (and whose language originally
found favour with Acacius).23 However, the case for Ulfila’s consecration in the
summer of 336 is too strong to gainsay.24 The political evidence, in particular,
clearly points to Constantine and the synod and celebrations of 336 as the
context for Ulfila’s consecration.25 Unlike any of the other synods, we also have a
contemporary description of the geographical provenance of those in attendance
at the Marcellus synod which leaves room for him: Eusebius of Caesarea tells
us that the bishops who condemned Marcellus included some from ‘Thrace
and the parts beyond’.26 We might add that a diplomatic ecclesiastical mission
of this sort to a client people would have an impetus for Constantine that
would not apply in the case of his son: Constantine’s predecessor Licinius had
himself already apparently sent out a bishop, Gregory the Illuminator, to foster
Christianity among a client people, in this case the Armenians, as early as 314,
an event which took place before Constantius was born.27
For a full discussion of the evidence for the circumstances and dates of each, see further
pp. 123–27, 127–33, 140–41,153, 160–77.
22
On the probable delivery of Acacius’ Against Marcellus at this synod, see Joseph Lienhard,
‘Acacius of Caesarea: Contra Marcellum. Historical and theological considerations’, Cristianesimo
nella storia, 10 (1989): pp. 1–22. For Basil’s memories of this synod, see Epiphanius, haer. 73.2.10.
23
Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology
(Oxford, 2004), pp. 117–22 and 157–66, has a good discussion of the Dedication Creed and of
the theological and political tenets and sticking-points of the homoiousian party who looked to it
for inspiration in the late 350s. On Acacius’ original acceptance of the language of the Dedication
Creed and subsequent repudiation of it, see Soz. HE 4.22, especially 4.22.20–22.
24
Schäferdiek, ‘Wulfila’, discusses the evidence at length, and shows that the case for 341
does not stand up.
25
See Timothy D. Barnes, ‘The consecration of Ulfila’, JThS, 41 (1990): pp. 541–5. On the
political context, see further Kulikowski, Rome’s Gothic Wars, pp. 83–6, 107.
26
Eusebius, Contra Marcellum 2.4.29.
27
See Timothy D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge, MA, 1981), p. 65.
We also have to consider the significance of Philostorgius’ expression

‘Eusebius and the bishops with him’. This seems to be another form of
Athanasius’ favourite term in these years (before he turns simply to the term
‘Arians’ in the early 340s), ‘those around Eusebius’.28 Eusebius of Nicomedia was,
of course, present on all four of these occasions, as were, it would seem, at least
two of his closest allies: the scripture scholar Theodore of Heraclea and Maris of
Chalcedon, the figure who accompanies Ulfila to the synod of 360 many years
later.29 But his leadership was clearer in the earlier synods and in Western Asia
Minor than it was by 341, the year in which he died, or in the East in general.
It was Flacillus of Antioch who presided at the Dedication Synod, and some
bishops there insisted, in writing to Julius, bishop of Rome, that they did not
belong to the group of ‘those around Eusebius’.30 Ulfila’s consecration in 336,
then, puts him very clearly in the same place that geography puts him: in the
orbit of Eusebius of Nicomedia, Theodore of Heraclea, Maris of Chalcedon,
Theognis of Nicaea, and bishops further West. We have no evidence to link
him with the changing and developing ecclesiastical networks of the 340s, with
the Dedication Creed or the so-called ‘Fourth Creed of Antioch’ in its various
incarnations. He is also absent from the lists of bishops at Serdica 343, the first
full conciliar bishop-lists we have since Nicaea, a council at which Acacius of
Caesarea dominated on the Eastern side.31 In other words, there is nothing to
suggest we should link Ulfila in any way with either the theology or the persons
of Basil of Ancyra and the other homoiousians, or with Acacius of Caesarea.
Ulfila’s actions and alliances during the 340s and 350s are a subject to which
we shall return. But first, it is worth taking a speculative look at possible alliances
during the late 320s. A Gothic bishop, Theophilus, attended the Council of
Nicaea and signed the Creed. His connections to Ulfila, like his theology, are
unknown, and his existence has been dealt with by scholars in a number of ways:
by assuming he comes from an entirely different group of Goths, perhaps in the
Crimea, and had no connection at all to the Tervingian Christian community
of which Ulfila was lector; by assuming the Goths (and perhaps also Ulfila
himself ) were initially Catholic and only later became ‘Arian’; or by assuming
that Gothic Christianity was theologically untutored (at least until Ulfila), and
28
There are numerous examples of this turn of phrase (οἱ περὶ Εὐσέβιον) in the different
documents dating from 338–341 given in Athanasius’ Apology against the Arians. Note the similar
expression used by Eustathius of Antioch in describing the events of Nicaea (see Theodoret,
HE 1.8.1–3 = fr. 79, in José H. Declerck (ed.), Eustathii Antiocheni, Patris Nicaeni, Opera quae
supersunt omnia, CCSG 51).
29
Soz. HE 4.24.1. On the evidence for those present at these four councils, see above,
note 20. Commentaries by Theodore on Matthew and John survive in the catenae (CPG 3562
and 3564), and Jerome also attributes a commentary on the Pauline epistles to him.
30
Athanasius, Apologia contra Arianos 26.1. (ed. Opitz, AW II, 1, pp. 87–168).
31
See Parvis, Marcellus, 222–23 for the demonstration of this.
that Theophilus did not really comprehend the theological matters the Council
had met to address.32 Philostorgius tells us that Ulfila was appointed ‘their first
bishop’, but the Greek does not make clear whether the antecedent of ‘their’
is the Goths or ‘the pious ones’ whom he led across the Danube in the time
of Constantius. Ulfila himself is clear that he always believed what he believed
at the time of his death; in the absence of any further evidence, we cannot be
sure of the nature of his relationship with Theophilus, if any, but it may not be
entirely unconnected with Ulfila’s expulsion in 343, as we shall see.
If what evidence we have bids us be wary of placing a loyal Ulfila at the right
hand of a convinced Nicene bishop in the late 320s, it is worth considering
other possible Christian links he may have had in this period. It is worth noting,
for example, the significance of Philostorgius’ placing of his short account of
Ulfila’s career in his Ecclesiastical History: during the exiles of Arius, Eusebius of
Nicomedia, Theognis of Nicaea and Maris of Chalcedon, after a discussion of
Arius’ theology, and immediately after Constantine’s execution of Crispus and
Fausta in 326.33 This is the only place where Philostorgius mentions Ulfila: he
does not mention his signing of the creed of 360, or introduce him into later
discussion of the Goths. It suggests that, for Philostorgius, Ulfila’s engagement
with the leading theological figures whose history he is telling began during the
years 326–328 when Ulfila was in his early twenties, presumably being educated
in advanced Latin and Greek.34
Eusebius of Nicomedia and the others who were exiled after Nicaea seem
to have been sent to Gaul, perhaps, like Athanasius a few years later, to Trier.35
Arius, meanwhile, together with the most loyal of his supporters, had been
exiled to Illyricum.36 The synod of Jerusalem of 335, which accepted him back
into communion, was attended by two young Pannonian bishops, Ursacius of
32
For Theophilus, see Heinrich Gelzer, Heinrich Hilgenfeld and Otto Cuntz (eds), Patrum
Nicaenorum Nomina Latine, Graece, Coptice, Syriace, Arabice, Armeniace (Leipzig, 1898), p. lxiv
(number 219 in the index restitutus). For a summary of the various theories on Theophilus,
see Andreas Schwarcz, ‘Cult and Religion among the Tervingi and the Visigoths and Their
Conversion to Christianity’, in Peter Heather (ed.), The Visigoths from the Migration Period to
the Seventh Century: An Ethnographic Perspective (Woodbridge, 1999), pp. 447–72, at 451–52.
33
Philostorgius, HE 2.1–5. Note that only Philostorgius has Maris sent into exile along
with Eusebius and Theognis.
34
According to Auxentius, Ulfila was thirty at the time of his consecration as bishop
(Scolies ariennes, 244 [56 (35)]), so would have been twenty in 326. Auxentius claims he was able
throughout the time of his episcopacy to preach and compose commentaries in fluent Latin and
Greek as well as Gothic (Scolies ariennes, 242–44, [53–54 (33)]). Though Ulfila may have spoken
some Greek in his own family circle, since they were of Greek origin, he is likely to have been able
to draw on formal education in both Latin and Greek in creating Gothic as a literary language.
35
36
Philostorgius, HE 1.9c.
Singidunum and Valens of Mursa (‘vipers from the Arian asp’, as the Western
Creed of Serdica put it), whose theology was radical throughout their careers.37
It is not too much of a stretch to imagine a vibrant community growing up in
the late 320s around Arius and his circle, of whom Ursacius and Valens were
a part, and outlasting his return East.38 It would be attractive to place Ulfila,
too, who would have been more or less the same age, in the same orbit: Gothic-
Roman traffic back and forth across the Danube (and no doubt also up and
down it) had been considerably increased by the use of Gothic auxiliaries in
the wars between Licinius and Constantine, and Constantine himself had the
Danube permanently bridged in 328.39 Intellectual traffic in the shape of young
Gothic men eager for an education and perhaps also for some patronage may
have taken the same route, particularly if they were conscious of having family
connections within the empire.40
We have clear theological patronage from Eusebius of Nicomedia and his
circle, then, and possible theological patronage from Arius, Ursacius and Valens
in Ulfila’s student days. There are also clear theological parallels between Arius
and Ulfila, as we shall see. It is to this period that we might assign the beginning
of Ulfila’s lifelong hatred of the homoousians, those who seemed to have won
at Nicaea.41 But if Ulfila did have any affection for Arius, the occasion of his
consecration would have been a sad one for him. Arius, who was meant to have
been publicly received into communion with the emperor and the church of
Constantinople, suddenly died, as his friends thought, of witchcraft (in other
words, poison).42 That the death took place in a public lavatory meant that it
also became very difficult for his friends to defend him from the claim that it was
divine retribution for a convicted heretic.
Once consecrated, Ulfila returned north of the Danube ut regeret et corrigeret
et doceret et aedificaret gentem Gothorum for what Auxentius designates as
seven years, though this may be affected by his desire to present Ulfila as a new
David, reigning seven years north of the Danube and thirty-three years south,
as David reigned seven years in Hebron and thirty-three years in Jerusalem.43
We may imagine that Ulfila received support, logistic and financial, first from
Constantine, and then from Constantius, and probably remained in contact
37
On the theology of Ursacius and Valens, see Manlio Simonetti, ‘Arianesimo latino’,
Studi Medievali, 11 (1967): pp. 663–774. For the Western Creed of Serdica, see Martin Tetz,
‘Ante omnia de sancta fide et de integritate veritatis: Glaubensfragen auf der Synode von Serdika’,
ZNW, 76 (1985): pp. 243–69.
38
Hanson, Search, 259, argues that this is implied by the Letter of the Egyptian Bishops.
39
Kulikowski, Rome’s Gothic Wars, p. 83.
40
41
Scolies ariennes, 238 (46 [27]).
42
Soz. HE 2.29.5.
43
Scolies ariennes, 244 (56 [35]), 248 (60 [38]); cf. 1 Kings 2: 11.
with the networks of friends he had made on the Roman side, but he must have
been busy to build up the large Christian community of whom he would become
the leader on the Roman side.
Auxentius tells us that completis septem annis tantummodo in episkopatum …
Ulfila cum grandi populo confessorum de uarbarico pulsus in solo Romanie athuc
beate memorie Constantio principe honorifice est susceptus.44
The political background to this would be well worth knowing, but we have
little to guide us but speculation and a close reading of the texts of Auxentius and
the epitome of Philostorgius, which may or may not bear such intense scrutiny.
In any case, it is important to note that both Auxentius and Philostorgius stress
this crossing from Gothic territory to Roman soil under Constantius: for both
writers, it is one of the most important events of Ulfila’s career, and both parallel
it with the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt through the Red
Sea.45 Philostorgius frames his whole narrative with it.
Philostorgius notes that Ulfila and his people are expelled δι’ εὐσέβειαν,46 but
Auxentius tells us rather more: Ubi et ex invidia et operatione Inimici thunc ab
inreligioso et sacrilego iudice Gothorum tyrannico terrore in uarbarico cristianorum
persecutio est excitata, ut Satanas qui male facere cupiebat nolens faceret bene, ut
quos desiderabat prevaricatores facere et desertores Cristo opitulante et propugnante
fierent martyres et confessores, ut persecutor confunderetur et qui persecutionem
patiebantur coronarentur, ut hic qui temtabat vincere victus erubesceret et qui
temtabantur victores gauderent. This episode is usually taken as an example of
persecution of Christians by a pagan Gothic ruler, like the later persecutions
of the early 370s, but that is not the only way it can be understood. We should
note the timing of this episode: 343, or shortly afterwards, the year of the synod
of Serdica. The ‘invidia’ may be the envy of Nicene Christians, either within or
without the Gothic territories, and the attempt to make them prevaricators and
deserters of Christ may be an attempt to make them sign up to the letter of the
Western Council of Serdica, as bishops across the region of Constans who had
not attended the Council were evidently asked to do. 47 This would assume that
the Goths were at this period being wooed by both Constans and Constantius,
since their territories bordered the regions of both emperors, and that either it
was Constans who had more successfully wooed the unnamed Tervingian leader
of the day, or that he was unhappy with the disturbance the Christian rivalries
were causing. Either way, Constantius seems to have welcomed Ulfila’s apparently
large party with open arms, allowing them to settle south of the Danube in
44
45
Philostorgius, HE 2.5; Scolies ariennes, 246–48 (59 [37]).
46
Philostorgius, HE 2.5 (Bidez and Winkelmann, GCS 21, p. 17, line 5).
47
Athanasius, Apologia contra Arianos 50 gives the names of a large number of bishops who
were not present at Serdica but signed its letter.
his part of the empire. Jordanes’ claim that Ulfila and his followers settled at
Nicopolis ad Istrum, not too far from the Danube and not too far East, seems
plausible.48 Constantius made liberal use of Gothic soldiers during his reign, and
it is possible that Ulfila’s community was able to help him in this regard.49
How Ulfila interacted with the bishops of Constantius’ region between 343
and 360 is hard to say. He is not mentioned in any of the ecclesiastical activity
of these years, but the widely held assumption that he made common cause with
Ursacius of Singidunum and Valens of Mursa is hard to resist, given how much
their theology has in common.50 However, no actual evidence links him either
with the gathering at Sirmium in 357, or with the Council of Ariminium in 359,
and we meet him at Constantinople in 360 explicitly in the company of the only
surviving member of the old Eusebian group, Maris of Chalcedon, which may
suggest he has continued to keep a certain distance from newer developments in
ecclesiastical politics up to this point. It is also possible that his political interest
during these years was largely taken up with Gothic rather than Roman church
politics, particularly after the death of Constans, when the situation north of the
Danube may have softened somewhat.51
Let us now turn to his signing of the 360 Creed of Constantinople. The pro-
Nicene fifth-century church historians Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret all
discuss this, but all seem convinced that Ulfila had originally been orthodox,
which they all interpret as having held to the faith of Nicaea. Socrates (II.41.23)
tells us that Ulfila had previously held to the faith of Nicaea because he was a
colleague of Theophilus who had signed the Nicene Creed; given Ulfila’s own
expressed views on the subject, this looks like a specious argument created by
some pro-Nicene or other on the basis of the Nicene bishop-lists, who may know
no more than we do about Theophilus and his relations with Ulfila. Sozomen
(who speaks warmly of his abilities and work) claims that, though he joined
with Eudoxius and Acacius at the Council of Constantinople, ‘he remained in
communion with the bishops of those who had assembled at Nicaea’ until a later
disputation at Constantinople (the Council of 383?) in which he was persuaded
to join the ‘Arian’ side.52 Theodoret, meanwhile, tells us that Eudoxius persuaded
48
Jord. Get. 51.267.
49
See Kulikowski, Rome’s Gothic Wars, p. 106.
50
See, e.g., Daniel H. Williams, Ambrose of Milan and the End of the Arian-Nicene Conflicts
(Oxford, 1995), pp. 25–35 and 85, note 61.
51
By 370 there is a Christian community again north of the Danube, and some of
its individuals at least are able to pass fairly freely from north to south and back (The Passion
of St Saba the Goth IV.2). When this became possible after the initial exodus is unknown, but
if Constans were its instigator, his death should have been a turning point for Ulfila and his
community. However, for whatever reason, the numbers of Christians north of the Danube seem
to have remained small.
52
Soz. HE 6.37.8.
the previously orthodox Ulfila to sign up to his theology on the grounds that
there was no real difference of doctrine, but only personal animosity, between
his own faith and that of Eudoxius (ἐκ φιλοτιμίας γεγενῆσθαι τὴν ἔριν, δογμάτων
δὲ μηδεμίαν εἶναι διαφοράν).53
Theodoret looks to be closest here to what must be the common source
for all of them for this account, the Synagoge of the non-Nicene Sabinus of
Heraclea, probably with some kind of pro-Nicene marginalia or gloss.54 The idea
that Ulfila once held to Nicene theology is contradicted by his own creed; the
idea that he continued in communion with the pro-Nicene party after signing
the creed of Constantinople of 360 strongly contradicts Auxentius’ account of
his detestation of the homoousians.55 However, Maris signed at Nicaea, as did
Theophilus: a marginal note could point out that Ulfila was in communion
with the Nicene tradition through Maris, as was the Gothic tradition in
general through Theophilus (whom the annotator might assume to be Ulfila’s
predecessor bishop, whom he could be presumed to have served as lector).56 Such
a note would be a plausible source for the accounts of Socrates and Sozomen; the
account to which it would have been appended would be Sabinus’ commentary
on the documents from the Council of 360, and it is here, I suggest, that we
can best situate Theodoret’s specific claims about Ulfila, without changing a
word of them.57 Eudoxius softened him up with words and gifts to persuade
the Goths to embrace the emperor’s communion (surely Constantius’, in the
original context), persuading him that the strife was born from ambition, and
there was not a single difference of doctrine. Ulfila, in persuading them to be in
communion with Eudoxius and Valens (Theodoret thinks this is the emperor
Valens, but it must be Valens of Mursa, from the context), said there was no
difference in teaching, but that the difference was the work of empty strife.
To whom is Ulfila referring? Not to his own doctrine and that of the
homoousians, certainly, as we have seen. Not, surely, to his own doctrine and that
of the homoiousians.58 Sabinus seems to be the origin of the statement made by
both Socrates and Sozomen that there were real differences of doctrine between
Theod. HE 4.38.1–5; the phrase quoted is from 4.38.4.

53
On the scope of this lost work from the non-Nicene side, and its use by Socrates and
54
Sozomen in their narratives of the years before 367, see Timothy D. Barnes, Athanasius and
Constantius: Theology and politics in the Constantinian empire (Cambridge, MA, 1993), pp. 203–8.
55
56
This sort of specious co-opting of famous spiritual figures for the Nicene camp was
something Athanasius, for example, excelled at: see his twitting of Acacius that his predecessor
and teacher Eusebius of Caesarea defends homoousios in De Decretis 3.
57
Theod. HE 4.38.3–4a, 5b.
58
Auxentius calls this omoeusianorum errorem et inpietatem which Ulfila flevit et devitavit,
and showed per sermones et tractatus suos that the divinity of the Father and the Son, Unbegotten
and Begotten, was different. Scolies ariennes, 238 (46 [27]).
Acacius and his party and the bishops they deposed at Constantinople 360,
including Macedonius of Constantinople and Basil of Ancyra, even though
all the depositions were made on disciplinary rather than doctrinal grounds.59
But Sozomen mentions a further figure who was deposed at Constantinople,
who, he claims, some (probably including Sabinus) thought did not really
differ in doctrine from those who deposed him: Aëtius the anhomoian, or
heterousian.60 This is a rather better candidate for a doctrine which does not
materially differ from Ulfila’s own, or, at this stage, apparently, from that of
Eudoxius of Constantinople, except in a strife born from ambition: the Council
of Constantinople promoted Eunomius to the bishopric of Cyzicus even as
it demoted his teacher Aëtius from the diaconate.61 Philostorgius tells us he
was ordained by ‘those around Maris of Chalcedon and Eudoxius, with the
knowledge of Constantius’.62 Eudoxius never made a clear break with Eunomius,
though he became increasingly lukewarm towards him.63 But Eunomius’ biggest
political problem was his dealings with the usurper Procopius, which finished
him politically as far as the emperor Valens was concerned.64 Procopius’ imperial
campaign was supported by the Goths in large numbers, and he found support
both at Cyzicus and at Chalcedon, specifically from Eunomius.65 Ulfila presents
himself as an attractive missing link here, but in the absence of evidence, we are
reduced to speculation; nonetheless, if Ulfila had fled north of the Danube in 366,
on Procopius’ death, that would give us something close to the missing seven
years of his episcopal career. Valens, by way of punishment, fought the Goths for
three seasons from 367 to 369, but made peace with them on reasonably lenient
terms in order to preserve for himself a suitable supply of soldiers.66 In particular,
imperial payments to translators from Greek to Gothic were to continue (this is
almost bound to have involved either Ulfila himself or connections of his).67 This
was followed by three years of persecution of Gothic Christians by their judex
Athanaric, and then the reverential reception of the remains of the martyrs on
Sokr. HE 2.42; Soz. HE 4.24.3–4.

59
Soz. HE 4.24.2. See Ayres, Nicaea, pp. 144–9 on the preferability of the term ‘heterousian’
60
over that of ‘anhomoian’, and on the key theological characteristics of the teachings of Aëtius
and Eunomius.
61
Vaggione, Eunomius, 226–27.
62
63
64
65
Amm. 26.6–10; Philostorgius, HE 9.5. On Gothic support for Procopius, see further Noel
Lenski, Failure of Empire: Valens and the Roman State in the Fourth Century A.D. (Berkeley, 2002),
p. 75 and pp. 151–2.
66
Kulikowski, Rome’s Gothic Wars, pp. 114–17.
67
Kulikowski, Rome’s Gothic Wars, p. 117 and note 32.
Roman soil, specifically in Cyzicus and Caesarea in Cappadocia.68 The politics

of martyr cults will surely have trumped any remaining anger Valens might have
had against the Gothic Christians, particularly since their faith (if they were
indeed non-Nicenes) was so close to his own.69
Ulfila’s name reappears in the sources in 376 as the advocate of the persecuted
Goths north of the river when they seek permission from the emperor Valens
to be allowed to settle on Roman soil.70 The propaganda of Ulfila as a new
Moses, leading his people to freedom, is clearly very well established by the
time Auxentius writes shortly after 383. Auxentius presents it entirely in the
context of the expulsion of the 340s.71 But surely it was originally developed to
match the much more significant moment when Ulfila, if we believe Sozomen,
won the Tervingi the right to cross the river and be granted land within the
Roman borders.72
Is it possible that all that Ulfila asked for, and all he won, was the right of
Christian Tervingi to take up land within the Roman Empire? That Ulfila
asked no more of Valens than that a second settlement of Christian Tervingi be
allowed to join the first one already settled in the mountains around Nicopolis?
A command that those allowed to cross be Christians only is implied by
Eunapius, who tells us that the barbarians, in crossing the river, falsely claimed to
be Christians, swore lying oaths and disguised some of their number as bishops
and monks, while keeping their own ancestral objects of worship with them, and
fooling the Romans.73
If so, it all went horribly wrong. As this group, apparently terrified at the
threat of the Huns, waited by the banks of the Danube while the embassy
travelled to Antioch, their numbers began to swell unstoppably.74 Perhaps what
happened was a haemorrhaging of the pagan followers of Athanaric towards
Fritigern’s Christian band. The supplicant group seem to have been led initially
by Alavivus; perhaps Fritigern was simply jumping on the Christian bandwagon.
In any case, Ammianus Marcellinus gives us a sense of what the crossing turned
68
See Hippolyte Delehaye, ‘Saints de Thrace et de Mésie’, Analecta Bollandiana, 31 (1912):
pp. 161–300, at 216–21, 279; on the politics of the reception of Sabas’ body in Caesarea, see Paul
Parvis’s chapter, Sabas: ‘Orthodox’ or ‘Arian’? in this volume.
69
See Paul Parvis, Sabas: ‘Orthodox’ or ‘Arian’?, for this argument.
70
Soz. HE 6.37.5–6.
71
Scolies ariennes, 246–48 (59 [37]).
72
For a good discussion of the politics and chronology of the crossing, and of the unfolding
of the disastrous events afterwards, see Kulikowski, Rome’s Gothic Wars, chapter 6. Kulikowski
offers a corrective to the earlier readings of Peter Heather, ‘The Crossing of the Danube and the
Gothic Conversion’, GRBS, 27 (1986): pp. 289–318, and Noel Lenski, ‘The Gothic Civil War and
the Date of the Gothic Conversion’, GRBS, 36 (1995): pp. 51–87.
73
Excerpta de sententiis 53 = Eunapius, frg. 48.2 (ed. Blockley, pp. 74–77).
74
Amm. 31.4.1–2.
into. One can sense the military man’s horror at being unable to get a reliable
handle on the sheer numbers involved. He compares them to grains of sand on
the Libyan plain; numbers of a sort to make one realise the ancients were not
lying after all when they wrote of the swarms of Medes invading Greece.75
How could any of it be stopped? As the group of new Israelites waited, whole
families and villages joined them on the banks, presumably all claiming that
they, too, were Christians. The expected manageable-sized band of well-ordered
and docile Christians would then have been swelled to tens, perhaps hundreds
of times the expected number. But once the order was given to allow them over,
and the mechanisms put in place, how could it be countermanded? Valens was
not there to respond quickly to the situation. The troops that were there were
inadequate for the sheer numbers. It became an unstoppable tide. For how could
the Roman soldiers overseeing the crossing tell who were Christians and who
were not, if they swore they were, with those kinds of numbers? Even when they
began to bar some people, as they seem to have, large numbers attempted to
swim, and many drowned, so Ammianus tells us.76
The Moses imagery applied to Ulfila by Auxentius would have carried on
having great resonance – all too much. As the people began to starve, biblical
episodes such as the flesh-pots of Egypt and the murmuring of the Israelites
against Moses in the wilderness would have become all too real. The David and
Joseph parallels evoked by Auxentius might also have come into play at this
point, with rough treatment, flight, and enmity from one’s own family. Even
the Christ parallel might have been apt, if Ulfila suffered opprobrium and
sacrificed his good name because of what he had done for his people.77 If, as
Michael Kulikowski suggests, the crossing was at Durostorum, Auxentius would
presumably have had as good information as anyone about the events involved.78
Ulfila did survive this episode, unlike at least one of the Tervingi leaders,
Alavivus, who disappeared early on in the disaster.79 We last meet him in
Constantinople in 383 trying to persuade Theodosius to give some leeway to
those of his own theological bent, dying there, and receiving a huge funeral,
which must in itself have presented a delicate political challenge for Theodosius.80
But he must have been a broken man. Having spent 47 years building up a
Romano-Gothic Christian community on both sides of the Danube, he had
seen Romans starve Goths into slavery, Goths slaughtering and pillaging Roman
communities, and the disaster for all sides of his cultural identity that was the
Battle of Adrianople of 378, all brought not only by Christians on one another,
75
Amm. 31.4.5–7.
76
Amm. 31.4.7.
77
Scolies ariennes, 244–8 (56–60 [35–8]).
78
Kulikowski, Rome’s Gothic Wars, p. 130.
79
Amm. 31.5.4–8.
80
Scolies ariennes, 248–50 (61–2 [39]).
but by Christians of the same theological bent – the true faith of Christ himself,
as Ulfila would have called it.81
If this picture is accurate, we do not have too far to look to explain the
subsequent total discrediting of Valens’ brand of Christianity, the brand he
largely shared with Ulfila. Whether his terrible defeat and death at the Battle
of Adrianople was seen as the wrath of God on a heretic, or the just deserts of a
monumentally stupid action, it would have been hard to find ways of seeing the
episode as a good omen. The Goths, meanwhile, particularly once they began to
settle as families, may have found the networks of this type of Christianity were
what saved them in the end, helping them to integrate (insofar as they did), as
one generation of immigrants can ease the passage of the next. However much
pretence had been originally involved, their conversion clearly took root, and
became ingrained in their sense of identity. Ulfila, his networks of Christian
contacts on the Roman side and his ready-made liturgical books in their own
language must surely take much of the credit for that.
To conclude, then, Ulfila is an excellent example of the unhelpfulness of
the category of ‘homoian’. His links with the early players and early years of the
Arian Controversy are, if anything, stronger than those of the later years, and
it is there, I would suggest, that his theology also best fits. It is by no means
certain that he was more drawn to the theology of the ‘homoian’ creeds of 359
and 360 than he was to the theology of Eunomius, if it even makes sense to
distinguish the two as sharply as is habitually done in scholarship today. Ulfila
was clearly and self-confessedly non-Nicene, and in so understanding him,
we understand him as he wanted to be understood. The exact theological
congruities of his philosophically literate and intellectually rich Christianity
with all the generations of opponents of the homoousion which emerged
throughout his lifetime await further demonstration. But if we want to have any
chance of understanding them properly, we must ditch the category ‘homoian’
as a helpful descriptor for Ulfila, as indeed of the theology of the Germanic
kingdoms which came after him. If we want to get to a nuanced appreciation
of these, theologically as historiographically, we should take the advice given in
the famous Irish answer to a request for directions: ‘I wouldn’t start from here’.

81
Chapter 3
Sabas: ‘Orthodox’ or ‘Arian’?
Paul Parvis
In this chapter I want to look at one rather puzzling text – the Martyrdom of
Sabas the Goth, who died on Thursday, 12 April 372,1 and I want to ask, first,
whether Sabas was, in some meaningful sense of the word, an ‘Arian’, and,
second, what difference it would make if he were. The inverted commas are of
course an essential part of the title, and, even when we invoke them, the first
of our questions still begs the rather more menacing question of what in 372
should be allowed to count as ‘Arian’ in the first place. But let’s leave the meta-
question for the moment.
Orthodox?
The Greek text of the Martyrdom we are dealing with here was first published
by the Bollandists in 1675, and a critical edition by Delehaye appeared in 1912.2
The Sabas who is the protagonist of the story was a Goth, living somewhere
north of the river. The persecution in which he perished had been launched
among the Tervingi by their leader Athanaric in the aftermath of the peace treaty
he had concluded with the Emperor Valens in 369 – a persecution well attested
but sketchily described in the Roman sources.3
1
The date is given in The Martyrdom of Sabas the Goth (henceforth simply Sabas) 12.6.
See Hippolyte Delehaye, ‘Saints de Thrace et de Mésie’, Analecta Bollandiana, 31 (1912):
pp. 161–230, at p. 221 note 48.
2
AASS, Aprilis II (1675), pp. 966–8; Delehaye, ‘Saints de Thrace et de Mésie’, pp. 216–21.
Delehaye’s edition and apparatus is reprinted in Rudolf Knopf and Gustav Krüger, Ausgewählte
Märtyrerakten (3rd edn, Tübingen, 1929), pp. 119–24. Peter Heather and John Matthews, The
Goths in the Fourth Century, TTH 11 (Liverpool, 1991), pp. 102–10, provide a translation with
useful introduction and notes. Unfortunately I have not yet been able to access Mario Girardi,
Saba il Goto martire di frontiera. Testo, traduzione e commento del dossier Greco (Iaşi, 2009). At the
time of writing there was, to the best of my knowledge, no copy in the United Kingdom.
3
For Valens’ Gothic war of 367–9 and the treaty signed on a boat in the middle of
the Danube off Noviodunum, see in general Peter J. Heather, Goths and Romans 332–489
(Oxford, 1991), pp. 115–20, and Michael Kulikowski, Rome’s Gothic Wars, From the Third
Century to Alaric (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 114–18.
Socrates in his brief account of the persecution notes that ‘there were then
barbarian, Arianising martyrs’ (Sokr. HE 4.33.7). But the consensus is that Sabas
was ‘orthodox’, in the rather question-begging sense of being Catholic or Nicene
or anti-Arian. That is, for example, the view of Thompson,4 Wolfram,5 Rubin,6
Alexe,7 Heather,8 Lenski,9 Kulikowski.10 Why that consensus?
The reasons Sabas is assumed to be orthodox would appear to be twofold. First,
the Martyrdom says that its hero was ‘orthodox in faith’ (ὀρθὸς τῇ πίστει, 2.1) –
but it would hardly say that he was ‘heretical in faith’, would it? – and, second,
the text ends with the presentation of the relics to someone addressed as ‘Your
Piety’, in Cappadocia (8.1–2). And it is clear from Basil’s Letters 155 and 164
that ‘Your Piety’ is, in fact, that doughty champion of orthodoxy, Basil of
Caesarea, who both received and honoured the relics. That presentation of the
case for Sabas’ orthodoxy goes back in essence to Pfeilschifter in 1907.11
A distinct view is that of the late Knut Schäferdiek. He would have regarded
the question in my title – inverted commas or not – as misguidedly anachronistic,
as the retrojection of ‘eine künstliche Schablonisierung’.12 Peter Heather, who
was convinced in 1986 that Sabas represented ‘orthodoxy’, had come to espouse
a rather more Schäferdiekian view five years later when he was content to say
that the affirmation in the Martyrdom of Sabas’ orthodoxy ‘is no doubt designed
to counter general associations of Gothic orthodoxy with Ulfila and, therefore,
Edward A. Thompson, The Visigoths in the Time of Ulfila (Oxford, 1966), p. 95.
4
Herwig Wolfram, History of the Goths, tr. Thomas J. Dunlap, New and completely revised
5
from the second German edition [1980] (Berkeley, 1988), p. 82.

6
Zeev Rubin, ‘The Conversion of the Visigoths to Christianity’, Museum Helveticum, 38
(1981): pp. 34–54, at p. 44 with note 56.
7
Stefan C. Alexe, ‘Saint Basile le Grand et le christianisme roumain au IVe siècle’, SP, 17.3
(1982): pp. 1049–59, at pp. 1055–6.
8
Or at least it was in 1986: Peter Heather, ‘The Crossing of the Danube and the Gothic
Conversion’, GRBS, 27 (1986): pp. 289–318, at p. 293 note 13 (‘orthodoxy was represented by …
the Goth St Saba’). As we will see, his view in 1991 was rather more nuanced.
9
Noel Lenski, ‘The Gothic Civil War and the Date of the Gothic Conversion’, GRBS, 36
(1995): pp. 51–87, at pp. 77–78.
10
Kulikowski, Rome’s Gothic Wars, p. 119: ‘a Nicene rather than a homoean Christian’.
11
That is the argument deployed by Georg Pfeilschifter, ‘Kein neues Werk des Ulfila’,
Veröffentlichungen aus dem Kirchenhistorischen Seminar München, III. Reihe, 1 (1907): pp. 191–3.
12
The phrase is from Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Wulfila, Vom Bischof von Gotien zum Gotenbishof ’,
ZKG, 90 (1979): pp. 253–92, at p. 127. He notes (pp. 126–27), ‘ … auch im Martyrium des Sabas
(372) hat die Kennzeichnung des Helden als rechtgläubig [his reference is to the phrase ὀρθὸς τῇ
πίστει in Sabas 2.1] wohl kein aktuelles Eigengewicht, sondern ist Stilelement eines Tugendkatalogs,
der Sabas als Heiligen charakterisieren soll. Erst später, als “gotisch” und “arianisch” schon fest
assoziierte Begriffe sind, wird in den Quellen die “Konfessionsfrage” gestellt … ’.
Sabas: ‘Orthodox’ or ‘Arian’? 69
with so-called ‘Arians’ …’.13 We will return to that view when we say something
about the meta-question later.
Is there anything to be said for the alternative answer – that Sabas was in fact,
in some meaningful sense of the word, ‘Arian’?
There are, I think, three considerations that might give us pause – three
factors that perhaps combine to create a sort of antecedent probability that that
might be the case: (1) Ulfila’s Arianism is much more red-blooded, much more
polemical and partisan, than is sometimes recognised; (2) There is no reason to
think Gothic Christians south of the river were in any way cut off from Gothic
Christians north of it; and (3) the evidence sometimes adduced for the existence
of non-Arian Catholic or orthodox Christianity among fourth-century Goths
is tenuous in the extreme. Each of those claims is contentious. I have neither
the space nor the inclination to deal fully with them here, and, in any event, to
do so would take us too far afield. Let me therefore offer just a couple of very
brief remarks.
(1) The Arianism of Ulfila
Sara Parvis explores this question in depth in her contribution to this volume.
I will only say that I cannot buy the assumption in some recent discussion that
he was an Arian simply because at the time of his consecration that was the only
game in town or that he was ‘one of the more traditional Christians’, unmoved by
the new-fangled theology of Nicaea.14 That is the phrase and the view of Heather,
who sees Ulfila as an old-fashioned Middle Platonist, clinging to a theology that
‘belongs to an older world’ and reluctant to be drawn – as he was eventually to
be, faute de mieux – into the homoian camp of Acacius and Eudoxius.15
That, I think, is to ignore the militancy of his theology as it appears in his
own creed and as it is presented in the document that preserves that creed,
the letter of Auxentius of Durostorum – an important and first-hand source,
however nuanced our reading of it must be.16
13
Heather and Matthews, The Goths in the Fourth Century, p. 104 note 20; see also p. 111.
14
Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire (London, 2005), p. 79.
15
Heather and Matthews, The Goths in the Fourth Century, pp. 136–41. The quotation is
from p. 139.
16
Edited by Roger Gryson in Scolies ariennes sur le Concile d’Aquilé, SC 267 (Paris, 1980),
and again in CCSL, 87 (Turnhout, 1982). Auxentius’ letter, containing the creed, is found in
SC 267 at pp. 236–51 and (with different chapter divisions) at CCSL 87, pp. 160–66; it is
translated, with good discussion, in Heather and Matthews, The Goths in the Fourth Century,
pp. 145–53.
(2) North and South of the River
Sabas was martyred on Easter Thursday. In one telling scene of the Martyrdom,
he sets out from his own village to another, where there is a presbyter named
Gouththikas, ‘to celebrate the festival with him’. What drives him to that is the
fact that his own presbyter, Sansalas, ‘had fled because of the persecution and
had spent time in Romania’, but, unbeknownst to Sabas, ‘had recently come
home because of the holy day of the Pasch’ (Martyrdom 4.1–2).
The ease with which Sansalas seems to pass back and forth between Gothic
territory on the left bank and imperial lands on the right and the nonchalance
with which the Martyrdom records his movements are – as has often been
pointed out – evidence for the fact that ‘Christians north of the Danube had
strong links with those south of it’.17
Sabas ‘sang in church, and that most carefully’ (2.2), which presumably
means he was a lector or cantor. And Sansalas and Sabas ‘together celebrated
the day of the Pasch’ (4.5). One wonders what texts Sabas sang and what liturgy
Sansalas used. By the time of the martyrdom Ulfila had been active – on any
chronology – for over thirty years. It is difficult to imagine they were not his
texts.18 There is simply no sign, in the Martyrdom at least, of a doctrinal divide
or different confessional groups.
(3) Orthodox Goths?
I would like to suggest – and here I can do no more – that evidence for the
existence of Catholic or non-Arian Goths in the fourth century is exiguous, at
least outside of Constantinople. Indeed, it virtually melts in the mouth.19
Let us look, for example, at the case, often cited, of a bishop named Godda,
together with the martyrs Inna, Rhima, and Pina, whose relics he recovered.
Inna, Rhima, and Pina are attested only in a short notice edited by Delehaye
from the eleventh-century menologion Parisinus graecus 1488,20 a notice which
also tells us that ‘Goddas the bishop’ – otherwise unknown – took their relics
to a port named Haliscus – itself otherwise unknown. Martyrs and bishop are
of unspecified date. Thompson thinks it likely they were all Catholics, but his
only reason for drawing that conclusion is that he thinks it ‘unlikely, that there
Heather, ‘Crossing of the Danube’, p. 317.

17
Rubin, ‘The Conversion of the Visigoths to Christianity’, p. 38 note 28, suggests that the
18
semantics of the use of ἄνομος and ἀνομία in the Martyrdom may reflect ‘a surprising hint of the
extent of the popularity of Ulfila’s Bible even among Catholics’.
19
See the list of candidates in Thompson, The Visigoths in the Time of Ulfila,
pp. 82, 95, 103–4, 161–4, and Wolfram, History of the Goths, p. 82.
20
Text in Delehaye, ‘Saints de Thrace et de Mésie’, pp. 215–16; translation and discussion in
Heather and Matthews, The Goths in the Fourth Century, pp. 130–31.
was a second Arian bishop in Gothia in the days of Ulfila’.21 The text itself is
very sketchy. It is clearly – as the MS rubric proclaims it to be – an ‘epitome’,
and while the rubric asserts that the three ‘suffered in Gothia’, the excerpted
text itself merely says that they ‘were from the northern land of the barbarians
and had become disciples of Andrew the apostle’.22 It is hard to draw very far-
reaching conclusions from that.
The existence of Arian martyrs does not of course imply the non-existence
of Catholic ones. But we might note that evidence for the former is quite firmly
grounded. In addition to Socrates’ remark about Arianising martyrs (IV.33.7),
we have, for example, the martyrdom of Werekas, Batwin, and their companions,
attested both in a synaxary edited by Delehaye23 and in the Gothic calendar
fragment.24 It is of some interest that the relics were, according to the synaxary,
taken by Gaatha, ‘queen of the Goths’, to Cyzicus – the home of Eunomius – and
venerated there.25
That isolated Goths or Gothic communities became Catholic once settled
on Roman soil is of course not at all implausible. But there is simply no solid
evidence, at least outside of Constantinople, for the existence of organised
Catholic Christianity among the Goths in the fourth century.
So was Sabas ‘orthodox’? If we allow that the hagiographer will of course
say that he was ὀρθὸς τῇ πίστει (2.1), we are left with Basil’s connection with the
relics of Sabas. So let us turn to Sabas and Basil.
Sabas and Basil
The Martyrdom itself is a sort of sandwich. The meat consists of a detailed and
circumstantial account of the course of the persecution as it impinged on one
village in Gothia. The pagan villagers try to protect Sabas, but he repeatedly
frustrates their sense of solidarity by his pious efforts to get himself martyred (the
account of which, according to Guy Halsall, ‘succeeds so well in putting modern
readers firmly on the side of Atharid and the pagan Goths’26). The account has
a ring of authenticity and has been convincingly used in reconstructions of
21
Thompson, The Visigoths in the Time of Ulfila, p. 163. Heather and Matthews, The Goths
in the Fourth Century, on the other hand, suggest ‘he might conceivably have succeeded Ulfila in
Gothia after the latter’s departure for Moesia’ (p. 131 note 70).
22
Delehaye, ‘Saints de Thrace et de Mésie’, p. 215, lines 25–26.
23
Ambrosianus Q. 40 sup., fol. 146v; Delehaye, ‘Saints de Thrace et de Mésie’, p. 279.
24
Delehaye, ‘Saints de Thrace et de Mésie’, p. 276.
25
For Eunomian veneration of relics, see Richard Paul Vaggione, Eunomius of Cyzicus and
the Nicene Revolution, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford, 2000), pp. 359–60.
26
Guy Halsall, Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376–568 (Cambridge, 2007),
p. 4.
Gothic society in the years preceding entry into the Empire.27 Wrapped around
that filling are an introduction and a conclusion which give it the form of a letter
from the church in Gothia to the church in Cappadocia and all churches and
advertise the role of ‘Junius Soranus, the most illustrious dux Scythiae’ in the
recovery of the relics.
Junius Soranus is otherwise unknown by name, but it has long been
recognised that the fit is too close for him not to be the person Basil addresses
in ep. 155.28 That he was dux Scythiae means he was military commander of
the Roman Province of Scythia, which had been carved out of Lower Moesia a
century before,29 on the right bank of the Danube at its mouth, bounded on the
north and north-west by the river and on the east by the Black Sea. Real military
power now lay with the field armies, but Scythia was an important salient on
a troubled frontier, and its dux, as the Notitia Dignitatum shows, had a not
insubstantial force at his command. From the Martyrdom (8.2) and the letter
alike, it is apparent that he was a Cappadocian, and from the letter in particular
it is clear that his home was Caesarea.
How had he come to be in a position to recover the relics? All we have to go
on is a rather unhelpful phrase in 8.1 about the sending of ‘trustworthy men’ (a
working translation of relevant sections of the Martyrdom is for convenience
included in the Appendix). But these were troubled years for the Goths, and at
some point between 369 and 376 there was a major political shift among the
Tervingi. In the war launched by Valens in 367, the Goths had effectively got
the better of a low-scoring draw, and their war leader Athanaric had emerged
with some credit – but within an increasingly divided society. The treaty of 369
that ended the war effectively limited Roman influence in Gothia, and the
persecution that ensued is only one indication of an anti-Roman tilt in Gothic
policy. But the terms of the treaty also included restrictions on trade across the
river and the end of Roman subsidies – measures which may not have been all
that popular with some of Athanaric’s nobles. And in any event, the Goths were
27
See especially Thompson, The Visigoths in the Time of Ulfila, chapter 3 (pp. 64–77) and
Heather, Goths and Romans, pp. 81–2 and 103–6.
28
As Heather and Matthews, The Goths in the Fourth Century, say, ‘Despite the anonymous
heading of the letter, this identification is certainly correct’ (p. 118). PLRE 1, 848 (‘Iunius
Soranus’) concurs: ‘certainly the recipient’. Philip Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea (Berkeley, 1994), is
slightly more cautious and speaks of it as ‘a letter addressed (probably) to Junius Soranus’ (p. 167).
He suggests rather optimistically that Soranus ‘may also have been a relative of Basil’ – a connection
not made explicit in the letter (as we might expect it to be) and an inference not required by the
reference to assorted relatives (in the third paragraph of the letter in the translation I have for
convenience included in the Appendix).
29
See Timothy D. Barnes, The New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine (Cambridge, 1982),
p. 222.
of course being squeezed by the Huns, and the great question of the day was how
to respond.
Socrates (HE 4.31.1) and Sozomen (HE 6.37.6–7) speak of a civil war
among the Goths; Ammianus is content simply to say that Athanaric was
‘expelled by a faction of his kindred’ (27.5.10) or that he was ‘deserted’ by the
majority of his people (31.3.8).30 In any event, by the time two large Gothic
blocks – of Tervingi and Greutungi – turned up on the north bank of the river
in early 376 and supplicated to be received into the Empire, the former were
under the leadership, not of Athanaric – though he was still alive and active –
but of Alavivus and Fritigern.
One could imagine that in the political turmoil – whatever its magnitude
and duration – there were ample reasons for the sending of diplomatic and
military missions of various sorts across the river into Gothia.31
However he acquired them, Soranus decided to present the relics to Basil
and to his native Caesarea. As we can see from Epist. 155, he had written Basil a
touchy and whinging letter. Basil’s reply, in tones of typically injured innocence,
is revealing for its coldness and for the distance he keeps.
In the first place, Soranus had obviously complained about the fact that Basil
had neglected to send a conventional letter of greeting, of the sort that would
have been full of the expected elegant but vapid pleasantries, via a party about to
set out for the Province of Scythia.32
Yet more revealing is Basil’s defensive remark that
it is impossible that we should be unmindful of you in our prayers … For since you
are by the grace of God faithful, you of course remember the acclamations of the
church – that we pray for brethren who are abroad and make supplication in the
church for those who are to be found on service and for those who act boldly for
the name of the Lord and for those who show spiritual fruit – in the majority or
even in all of which we reckon that Your Worthiness is assuredly included.
Clearly, Soranus is not just talking about Basil’s personal prayer life, or
the assurances of prayers that would have been a part of those vapid letters of
greeting. What is at stake is public commemoration in the intercessions of the
liturgy. As a prominent native of Caesarea and as, presumably, a benefactor of
the church of Caesarea, Soranus expects to be commemorated, and he sees the
omission of his name as a slight – as it was no doubt meant to be. And all Basil
See above all Lenski, ‘The Gothic Civil War’, replying to Heather, ‘Crossing of the Danube’.
30
Heather, ‘Crossing of the Danube’, p. 317, speaks rather speculatively of Soranus’ ‘agents
31
in Gothic lands’.
32
Presumably they would make their way across the mountains – two hundred miles or
so – from Caesarea to a Black Sea port like Amisus or Sinope and then sail to a port like Odessus
or Tomi.
says is that Soranus is included in most33 if not all of the general categories he
lists. We might wonder which of them he has doubts about.
Finally, the last sentence of the letter34 is worded in such a way as to keep the
credentials of the Gothic martyrs at arm’s length. And this remains true whether
εἴπερ is taken as a rather sceptical ‘if indeed’ – as I have translated it here – or as
an affirmative ‘if as is the case’: The ambiguity may be deliberate and, either way,
there remains a disclaimer in ‘as you wrote’.
The conclusion seems inescapable that Basil, for whatever reason, is suspicious
of Soranus and his claims. One obvious reason in the prevailing political climate
is that he has suspicions about Soranus’ ecclesiastical leanings.
Why, in those circumstances, would Soranus be at such pains to send the
relics of the martyr to Caesarea? One factor would, of course, be simple civic
pride and patriotism. Another must be the prestige that would accrue to such a
benefactor of the city and its church. But, in 372, there may be something else
involved as well.
In that year, Basil and Valens had confronted each other in Caesarea and
reached some sort of a modus vivendi, or at least acknowledged some sort of
stalemate. Indeed, Noel Lenski can say of that confrontation (so beloved by the
fifth-century Church historians) that ‘ultimately it seems less like a bold defense
of the faith than a courtship dance’.35 And one result of that accommodation
was that Valens entrusted Basil with a mission to sort out ecclesiastical affairs in
Armenia. Basil was away from June to August 373.36
Unfortunately, Epist. 155 cannot be precisely dated, but it makes sense to see
it in the context of these events, for it must be close in time to the martyrdom.37
After the confrontation with Valens, Basil’s position in Caesarea was even more
secure.38 Indeed, his stock was rising. In those circumstances, an ambitious
33
‘Majority’ is an emendation (see the accompanying note to the working translation of the
letter offered in the Appendix), but it seems a reasonably secure one. Some emendation is needed,
and the general sense of the clause has to be along these lines.
34
‘And you will do well if you also send to your home city the remains of martyrs if indeed,
as you wrote to us, the persecution there is even now making martyrs for the Lord’.
35
Lenski, Failure of Empire. Valens and the Roman State in the Fourth Century
A.D. (Berkeley, 2002), p. 254. For Valens and Basil in general, see pp. 252–55.
36
For Valens’ movements, see Timothy D. Barnes, Ammianus Marcellinus and the
Presentation of Historical Reality (Ithaca, N.Y., 1998), p. 252 with note 1; he is securely attested
in Caesarea on 6 January 372. For Basil, Valens, and Armenia, see Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea,
pp. 281–87.
37
Epist. 155 could even precede the martyrdom, since Basil speaks generally of Soranus’
intention to ‘send to your home city the remains of martyrs’.
38
And that remains true despite Valens’ purported intention to exile Basil – perhaps in the
early winter of 372 – a scheme frustrated, it is said, by the illness of Valens’ son. See Lenski, Failure
of Empire, p. 254, and Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea, pp. 251–53.
Caesarean might well have been anxious to make his peace with his bishop. And
what better way than by the pious benefaction of the relics of a martyr – an
orthodox martyr, of course?
In any event, the strategy worked. Basil writes Epist. 164 after the reception of
the relics, and he is now in possession of an account – presumably our account –
of the martyrdom of Sabas, for his reference to ‘the wood, the water, the events
that perfected the martyrs’ must be an echo of the manner of Sabas’ death as
retailed in 8.5.
Basil exults in his new treasure. But it is perhaps no accident that the
unnamed cleric to whom he is replying had made a point of bringing Basil
‘to remembrance of the blessed man Eutyches’ – about whom nothing else is
known – and that Basil makes a point of picking that up. Or that the ‘witness’
who brought the letter made ‘his own proclamation of the accuracy of the faith
that is lived there’ – and Basil makes a point of picking that up too. Perhaps the
unnamed cleric and his emissary were anxious to assure Basil that there were
orthodox Goths after all. Perhaps Basil was more than happy to take their word
for it. Relics were a valuable commodity, and it would have been in no one’s
interest in this particular transaction to spend too long staring into the gift
horse’s mouth.
Conclusion?
What difference does it make? I would like to suggest two areas in which there
might be a knock-on effect – in which there might be implications if Sabas was,
indeed, Arian.
But first I must say something at least about what I called in my introduction
the meta-question – what should be allowed to count as ‘Arian’ anyway. And
we must pick up the related but distinct claim that is the Schäferdiek argument.
Now, I do not want to get bogged down in the terminological discussion
as to whether the word ‘Arian’ – inverted commas or no – should be excised
from the historical lexicon altogether and replaced with a neologism that means
precisely the same thing. Nor do I want to deny that there were plenty of folk in
the fourth century – Roman and barbarian – who did not understand what all
the fuss was about, and did not really care. But Ulfila and Auxentius, let us say,
were men of strong views, and I can see no reason not to say that there is a line
to be drawn and that the vast bulk of the Gothic peoples were on one side of it
and Basil and later orthodoxy on the other. And both Basil and Soranus, I have
tried to suggest, at least thought there was a line to be drawn – even if in this
particular instance both were happy to be a bit fuzzy about where it should lie.
In any event, in a reductionist attitude to the theology we have to beware
of smuggling in covertly some sort of noble savage romanticism. Thus, Ulfilan
‘Arianism’ is, for both Schäferdiek39 and Heather, traditional, scriptural,

essentially conservative – old-fashioned and not quite up to speed with the
convolutions of theological development within the Empire.40
Now for my two possible implications – the first is that all this might have
some implications for our model of the conversion of the Goths. Two widely
held views of that much canvassed question would date the conversion of the
Goths – or rather, the conversion of a significant segment of the Tervingi elite
together with substantial blocs of their followers – to the earlier to mid-370s.
One view connects it with the struggle between Athanaric and Fritigern, while
the other links it firmly with events surrounding the Danube crossing itself.
The former is Schäferdiek’s view,41 the latter Heather’s.42 But both emphasise
the political dimension of the process – a process explicable in terms, indeed
purely in terms, of the ecclesiastical policies of Valens – and both make the shift
quite sudden when it comes. On Heather’s argument, for example, Ulfila had
effectively been kicked into touch when he was expelled from Gothia43 in 347
and he and his flock were settled south of the Danube, at Nicopolis-ad-Istrum.
Large-scale conversion, on this argument, was a consequence of the deal done
with Valens by the Tervingi leadership in 376 that led to their safe passage across
the Danube. The sources, according to Heather, suggest that
Fritigern and other leaders of the Tervingi changed their religion to that of the
Emperor as they crossed the Danube in 376. Religion had been an issue in Gotho-
Roman relations since the time of Constantine, and the decision to convert at this
moment was probably a gesture of good will. Doctrinal niceties may have mattered
little to Gothic nobles who had recently persecuted Christians, and it can surely be
no accident that they chose the branch of Christianity favoured by Valens.44
39
See especially Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Wulfila, Vom Bischof von Gotien zum Gotenbischof ’,
pp. 253–303.
40
An extreme instance would be the distinctively Germanic Arianism which Giesecke
detects in Ulfila, marked by such characteristics as an emphasis on the transcendence of God and
an absence of conceptual language. Manlio Simonetti (‘L’arianesimo di Ulfila’, in Bruno Luiselli
and Manlio Simonetti (eds), Romanobarbarica I (Rome, 1976), pp. 297–323, at p. 298) notes
tartly the year in which it was published: Heinz-Eberhard Giesecke, Die Ostgermanen und der
Arianismus (Leipzig and Berlin, 1939).
41
See, for example, Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Zeit und Umstände des westgotischen Übergangs
zum Christentum’, Historia, 28 (1979): pp. 90–97.
42
See especially ‘Crossing of the Danube’.
43
Heather does, however, note that Ulfila was ‘close to the Danube frontier and still in
contact with what must have been the many Christians who remained in Gothic territories’
(Heather, Fall, p. 78).
44
Heather, Goths and Romans, pp. 127–8. Heather develops the case most fully, with a clear
and thorough analysis of the sources, in ‘Crossing of the Danube’.
But Sabas was not alone: Sozomen notes that a ‘multitude’ (πλῆθος, 6.37.12)
of Christian Tervingi suffered in the persecution. If the faith of Sabas and that
of his fellow martyrs was, in fact, in a direct line of continuity with that of Ulfila
before him and that of the vast majority of Gothic Christians for many decades
after him, then it might be the case that the conversion of the Tervingi was a
more gradual process than Peter Heather for one suggests and that the Danube
crossing and reasons of state were of less importance in that process than his
model would imply.
It might also be the case that an ‘Arian’– Ulfilan – theology was throughout
central to the identity and perhaps even to the genesis of the Gothic people.
There is one more – highly speculative – point. There are, I think, traces of
an early Arian soteriology which depended on the fact that the flesh of Christ
was so transformed by its fusion with the divine as to be virtually swallowed
up. Such a soteriology would seem to be embedded in the letter of ‘Eusebius’
(which one, Caesarea or, just possibly, as Schäferdiek thought, Nicomedia?)45 to
the Empress Constantia and perhaps reflected in the anti-docetic polemic of the
new fragments of Eustathius of Antioch.46 Such a soteriology would run directly
counter to the view – recently espoused by Stuart Hall, for example47 – that the
point of an Arian Christology was precisely to put God back into the world – to
make it possible for God (not the God, but God nonetheless) – to be directly the
subject of the saving actions of Christ.
There is one rather curious feature of the Martyrdom. For in it we have
something approaching a docetic Sabas.
45
The fragments are collected and analysed by Annette von Stockhausen in Torsten
Krannich, Christoph Schubert, and Claudia Sode (eds), Die ikonoklastische Synode von
Hiereia 754 (Tübingen, 2002), pp. 91–112. Von Stockhausen adduces very persuasive linguistic
parallels between the letter and Eusebius of Caesarea, though it is not clear, to me at least, that
those phrases are being used to the same theological effect in the letter that they are in Eusebius of
Caesarea. Schäferdiek’s view, though not widely taken up, remains attractive: ‘Zu Verfasserschaft
und Situation der epistula ad Constantiam de imagine Christi’, ZKG, 91 (1980): pp. 177–86. It is
a question to which Sara Parvis and I hope soon to return.
46
The fragments, published in Eustathius Antiochenus, Eustathii Antiocheni, patris Nicaeni,
opera quae supersunt omnia, José H. Declerck (ed.), CCSG 51 (Turnhout, 2002), are discussed in
Karl-Heinz Uthemann, ‘Eustathios von Antiochien wider den seelenlosen Christus der Arianer.
Zu neu entdeckten Fragmenten eines Traktats des Eustathios’, ZAC, 10 (2006): pp. 472–545.
The supposed docetism that Eustathius combats relates to the body of Christ and not just to the
absence of a human soul. See Sophie Cartwright, ‘The Theological Anthropology of Eustathius of
Antioch’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2012), with an appendix containing
a full working translation of the fragments.
47
Stuart George Hall, ‘The Nicene Creed as a Symbol of Unity in Christology’, in Stuart
George Hall (ed.), Jesus Christ Today, Studies of Christology in Various Contexts (Berlin, 2009).
Look at the account of his sufferings in 4.5–5.2 and in 6.4–6.48 And add the
fact that his body, left unburied on the riverbank, is harmed by ‘neither dog nor
any wild beast’ (8.1). Now, the virtual exemption of martyrs from pain and the
healing of their mangled limbs overnight – so as to be fresh for the next day’s
round of tortures – are of course commonplaces of hagiography.49 But Sabas
takes that commonplace to extremes; he might as well be coated with Teflon –
or have turned in to a sort of hologram.
So I am, in short, suggesting that in the Martyrdom of Sabas we have a
reliable and highly circumstantial account of the way the persecution played out
in one village in Gothia in the spring of 372 – an account which comes from a
Christian community that was part of an organised and growing Arian church.
But that account – and the martyr himself – came to be packaged for the
needs of an ‘orthodox’ – anti-Arian, pro-Nicene – market, and in that fact we
have a vivid exemplification of the value of relics as hard currency in the late
antique struggle for status, favour, and prestige – one made all the more vivid
by the realisation of just how convenient would have been the posthumous
conversion of Sabas the Arian Goth.
Sabas’ posthumous conversion is to be seen as the result of collusion rather
than conspiracy. We needn’t assume some sort of ecclesiastical Murder on the
Orient Express. Rather, it was useful for all concerned – for Soranus’ emissaries,
Soranus himself, the unnamed cleric of the Province of Scythia, even Basil the
Great – that certain assumptions be made and certain questions not be pushed.
What harm would it do – except to distort the historical record? But then Basil
and Soranus were not thinking about us.
Appendix
For ease of reference, working translations are here included of Basil’s Letters 155
and 164 and of relevant sections of Sabas’ Martyrdom. The former is based
primarily on Courtonne’s text, with account taken of some readings in Deferrari;
the latter is based on Delehaye.
I have supplied a working translation in the Appendix.

48
On the topos, see now Mario Girardi, ‘La Passio del “goto” Saba. Ideologia universalistica
49
sui confini dell’imperio fra memoria storica e trasfigurazione biblica’, Classica et Christiana, 4
(2009): pp. 279–94, at p. 290.
Basil of Caesarea
Epist. 155 (to Junius Soranus)
I am puzzled as to how to make my defence against the many accusations

presented in the letter – the first and only letter – which Your Excellency sent
us. Not because of the lack of a just reply, but because of the difficulty of picking
out in a multitude of imputations the principal ones and deciding where we have
to begin the healing process. Or perhaps it is necessary50 to take the route of the
very order in which they are written and meet them one by one. Until today we
were unaware of those who are setting off from here for Scythia. And they did
not even mention to us those of your household, so that we could address you
through them, although we are most anxious to greet Your Worthiness at every
opportunity. And it is impossible that we should be unmindful of you in our
prayers, unless we should first forget our work to which we were appointed by
the Lord. For since you are by the grace of God faithful, you of course remember
the acclamations of the church – that we pray for brethren who are abroad and
make supplication in the church for those who are to be found on service and for
those who act boldly for the name of the Lord and for those who show spiritual
fruit – in the majority51 or even in all of which we reckon that Your Worthiness
is assuredly included.
And how could we personally forget you when we have so many things
moving us to remember you – such a niece, such nephews, family so fine and
that loves us so, house, household, friends, by whom we are put in mind – even
if we did not want to be – of your good disposition?
Now on this matter – that particular brother caused us no grief, nor did we
produce any judgement that harmed him. So turn the grief you speak of against
those who spun lies and acquit both the chorepiscopos and me of any blame.
And if that lawyer deploys a lawsuit, he has public courts and laws. So I ask you
to find no fault in these matters.
And you yourself are treasuring up for yourself all the good you are doing,
and the refreshment you give to those who are being persecuted for the name
of the Lord – this you are preparing ahead of time for yourself on the day
of recompense.
And you will do well if you also send to your home city the remains of
martyrs if indeed, as you wrote to us, the persecution there is even now making
martyrs for the Lord.
50
Reading δεῖ αὐτῇ with Deferrari for Courtonne’s διὰ τὸ. The alternative offered by the
MSS L and C is δι᾽ αὐτὴν.
51
Reading πλείοσιν with Deferrari (and MSS V and L) for Courtonne’s χρόνοις.
Epist. 164 (to an unnamed cleric)52
(1) With what joy the letter of Your Holiness filled us we would not be able easily
to show since our discourse is too weak for the task. But you ought to guess for
yourself, basing your conclusion on the beauty of what you wrote. For what did
the letter not have? Did it not have love for the Lord? Did it not bring wonder
for the martyrs, tracing the manner of their contest53 so clearly as to bring the
events themselves to our sight? Did it not contain honour and goodwill for us
ourselves? Is there any of the most beautiful things one might speak of that it
did not have?
So that when we took the epistle in our hands and had read it many times
and learned the grace of the spirit welling up in it, we thought that we were in
times of old, when the churches of God blossomed, being rooted in the faith,
united in love as if there was in one body a single concord of various members –
times when the persecutors were manifest and the congregations multiplied
and the blood of the martyrs, watering the churches, nourished combatants for
piety many times more numerous, with those coming after stripping themselves
for the contest by the zeal of those who had gone before. Then we Christians
maintained peace with one another, that peace which the Lord left us. Of
which now we have not even a trace left, so cruelly have we chased it away from
one another.
Our souls all but returned to that ancient blessedness when from a far-off
land came the letter blooming with the beauty of love, and a witness made the
journey to us from the barbarians beyond the Ister, making his own proclamation
of the accuracy of the faith that is lived there. Who could relate the joy of our
souls which these matters occasioned? What power of words could be conceived
that would be able clearly to proclaim the feelings in the depth of our heart?
When indeed we saw the athlete, we called his trainer blessed, who will
himself also receive the crown of righteousness in the presence of the just Judge,
after strengthening many for the contest on behalf of piety.
(2) But when you brought us to remembrance of the blessed man Eutyches
as well and exalted our city as one which itself supplied the seeds of piety, you
made us rejoice with that reminder of things of old and made us grieve under the
exposure of what we see. For none of us is like Eutyches in virtue – we who are
so far from taming barbarians by the power of the Spirit and the working of the
gifts that come from him that even those who are tame are made wild through
Convincingly identified as an otherwise unknown presbyter named Ascolius of Scythia

52
by Constantine Zuckerman, ‘Cappadocian Fathers and the Goths’, Travaux et mémoires, 11

(1991): pp. 473–86, at 473–77. Zuckerman’s identification is accepted by Timothy D. Barnes,
Early Christian Hagiography and Roman History (Tübingen, 2010), p. 236 with note 6.
53
Reading ἀθλήσεως with Deferrari (and MSS L and C) for Courtonne’s φύσεως.
the superabundance of our sins. For we put down to our account and to our sins
the fact that the domain of the heretics has been poured forth so widely. For now
almost no part of the world has escaped the fire of the heresy.
But what you relate is athletic resistance, bodies being torn to pieces for the
sake of piety, barbarian wrath being scorned by those who are unconquerable54
of heart, the manifold torments from the persecutors, the constancy through it
all of those waging the contest, the wood, the water, the events that perfected
the martyrs.
But what are our affairs like? Love has grown cold. The teaching of the
Fathers is ravaged. Shipwreck about the faith is of frequent occurrence. The
mouths of the pious are silent. The congregations have been driven from the
houses of prayer and lift up their hands in the open air to the Master who is in
the heavens. And our afflictions are heavy, but nowhere is witness (μαρτύριον)
borne, because those who maltreat us have the same name that we do.
Pray for these things to the Lord yourself, and include all the noble athletes
of Christ in the prayer for the Church in order that, if there is some time left
for the present structure of the world and all things are not being driven in the
opposite direction, God might be reconciled to his churches and restore them
to their ancient peace.
Martyrdom of the Holy Sabas the Goth
Junius Soranus
(8.1) Then, after drawing him out of the water, the murderers left him unburied
and went away. But neither dog nor any wild beast touched him at all, but by the
hand of the brethren his remains were placed in a shroud and laid away. These
remains Junius Soranus, the most illustrious dux Scythiae, having sent trustworthy
men, conveyed from barbarian land to Romania. (8.2) And bestowing on his
own native city a precious gift and the glorious fruit of faith, he sent them to
Cappadocia to Your Piety, by the will of the presbytery (πρεσβυτερίου), the Lord
granting this economy of things that contribute to grace for the brethren who
await him and fear him.
Sufferings and Death of Sabas
(4.5) And they [Sabas and the presbyter Sansalas] celebrated the day of the
Pasch together. And on the third day after the festival – lo! – one of the band of
54
Courtonne and Deferrari read ἀκαταπλήκτων, ‘undaunted’; MS C reads ἀλήκτων. I have
emended to ἀκαταλήπτων.
the impious, Atharid, son of Rhothesteus the king’s man, appeared in that village
with a gang of lawless brigands. And when he found the presbyter in his house
asleep, he had him bound. Likewise Sabas too, snatched naked from his bed, he
threw in chains. (4.6) And the presbyter they held on a wagon, and Sabas, naked
as he had been born. And they led him off through the glens which they had
recently burnt, driving him on and beating him with clubs and whips, behaving
savagely and mercilessly against the servants of God.
(5.1) But the cruelty of his enemies displayed the endurance and faith of
the just man. For when day came, he said – boasting in the Lord – to those
who persecuted him, ‘Didn’t you beat me and drive me naked and bare-footed
through burnt wastes onto the sharp points of thorns? See if my feet were
harmed and if I have any marks on my body – even from the blows which you
brought down on me’.
(5.2) So when they saw that nothing appeared on his flesh from the things
they had done without mercy, they took the axle of a wagon and put it on his
shoulders, stretching out his hands, extending them to the ends of the axle. In
the same way they stretched out his feet too and tied them to another axle. And
finally, throwing him down on the axles, they left him lying on his back on the
ground. And for most of the night they tormented him unsparingly.
(5.3) And when the executioners had fallen asleep, a certain woman came up
and released him. She had arisen by night to prepare food for those in her house.
And when he had been set free, he remained on the spot without fear, working
with the woman at her work. And when day came, the impious Atharid found
this out and ordered that his hands be bound and he be hung up from the roof
beam of the house.
(6.4) And as Sabas was saying this, one of Atharid’s boys was enflamed with
wrath, and he took a club55 and threw it hard against the chest of the saint so that
the bystanders thought that he would have been crushed by the whistling blow
and would die at once. (6.5) But he was, through his longing for piety, victorious
over the pain of the things inflicted on him and said to the executioner, ‘You
think now that you struck me with the club. But know this – that I didn’t feel
pain, and that to such an extent that I thought you had hurled a skein of wool
at me’.
Heather and Matthews, Goths in the Fourth Century, translate ‘pestle’, which is the
55
primary meaning of ὕπερος, but ‘club’ or ‘cudgel’ is also well attested: cf. Henry George Liddell
and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon: With a revised supplement. Revised and augmented
throughout by Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie and with the cooperation
of many scholars (Oxford, 1996).
(6.6) And he showed in actual fact clear proof of what he said. For he neither
cried out nor groaned as if in pain, nor did any mark of a blow appear on his
body at all.
(7.5) Then they led him down into the water. He was giving thanks and
glorifying God – for the spirit served him to the end. And they threw him in and
put a piece of wood against his neck and pushed him down. And thus, having
been perfected through wood and water, he preserved undefiled the emblem of
salvation, being thirty-eight years old.
(7.6) And he was perfected on the fifth day of the week after the Pasch,
which is the day before the ides of April, in the consulship of Flavius Modestus
and Arintheus.56
(8.1) Then, after drawing him out of the water, the murderers left him
unburied and went away. But neither dog nor any wild beast touched him at
all, but by the hand of the brethren his remains were placed in a shroud and
laid away.
56
Thursday of Easter week, 12 April 372. There is a doublet in the MSS, garbling the
consular names. This translation corresponds in essence to Delehaye’s emendation.
Chapter 4
The Homoians
Uta Heil
In the 350s, in the middle of the Trinitarian conflict, there arose a new orientation,
which in modern research is called Homoian.1 The Trinitarian conflict was
1
Hanns Christof Brennecke, Hilarius von Poitiers und die Bischofsopposition gegen
Konstantius II.: Untersuchungen zur dritten Phase des Arianischen Streites (337–361), Patristische
Texte und Studien 26 (Berlin, 1984), pp. 337–61; Id., Studien zur Geschichte der Homöer:
Der Osten bis zum Ende der homöischen Reichskirche, Beiträge zur historischen Theologie 73
(Tübingen, 1988); Id., ‘Homéens’, DHGE, 24 (1993), pp. 932–60; Richard P.C. Hanson, The
Search for the Christian Doctrine of God. The Arian Controversy 318–381 (Edinburgh, 1988),
esp. pp. 557–97; Winrich A. Löhr, Die Entstehung der homöischen und homöusianischen
Kirchenparteien: Studien zur Synodalgeschichte des vierten Jahrhunderts, Bonner Beiträge zur
Kirchen- und Theologiegeschichte 2 (Bonn, 1986); Charles Piétri and Luce Piétri (eds), Das
Entstehen der einen Christenheit (250–430), Die Geschichte des Christentums 2 (Freiburg
i. B., Basel and Vienna, 1996). Cf. further Adolf Martin Ritter, ‘Arianismus’, TRE, 3 (1977):
pp. 692–719; Frances M. Young, From Nicaea to Chalcedon. A Guide to the Literature and Its
Background (Grand Rapids, Mich., 2nd edn 2010). The new analysis by Khaled Anatolios, Retrieving
Nicaea. The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine (Grand Rapids, Mich., 2011),
subsumes the different positions within the Trinitarian controversy in two plain categories: on
the one hand the representatives of the unity of will and on the other hand the representatives of
the unity of essence (Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine being members of the latter
group), and does not pay much attention to the Homoians and their significance. Cf. further
Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy. An Approach to Fourth Century Trinitarian Theology
(Oxford, 2004). The relevant documents are to be found in: Hans-Georg Opitz (ed.), Athanasius
Werke vol. 3, 1: Urkunden zur Geschichte des arianischen Streites 318–328. Lieferung 1 (1934) und
Lieferung 2 (1935) (Berlin and Leipzig, 1934–35); Hanns Christof Brennecke, Uta Heil, Annette
von Stockhausen, and Angelika Wintjes (eds), Athanasius Werke: Dokumente zur Geschichte des
arianischen Streites. Lieferung 3: Bis zur Ekthesis Makrostichos (Berlin and New York, 2007), on
behalf of the Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. The fourth section: up
to ‘Tomus ad Antiochenos’ (362), ed. on behalf of the Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der
Wissenschaften by H.C. Brennecke, U. Heil, A. von Stockhausen, A. Wintjes (Berlin and New
York, 2014) is in print. Source texts from this collection in future footnotes will be listed as AW
III and the appropriate number of the documents. The first two sections of vol. 3 contain the
documents (Urkunden) of the Arian controversy from its beginning until the Council of Nicaea
(Urk. 1–34); the following sections contain a translation of the documents edited by Opitz and
continue the collection in a bilingual edition (documents).
not won by the Homoians, however, but by the Neo-Nicenes.2 Nevertheless,

the Homoians dominated the theological discussion in the Roman Empire in
the 360s and 370s, and later on in the kingdoms of the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths,
the Burgundians, the Suebi and the Vandals; even the Lombards gave their views
some consideration. The label ‘Homoian’ takes up a central Greek term used
by them to describe the relationship between the Son, Christ, and God the
Father: The Son is similar (= ὅμοιος) to the Father. Although this description
is rather plain, and the concept ‘similar’ does not seem to be very spectacular, it
had a certain explosive power, especially because of particular unnamed aspects.
These aspects, however, are not comprehensible unless one takes a look at the
prehistory and the context in which the group of Homoians arose.
Genesis: The Sirmian Theological Declaration of 357
In the autumn of 357 AD, on the orders of the emperor Constantius II, a small
group of bishops assembled in the imperial residence of Sirmium: Valens of
Mursa; Ursacius of Singidunum; Germinius, bishop of Sirmium; and a few
others. The theological declaration they drafted appears to be the earliest report
regarding the homoian position and, as one might say, gives the basic genetic
code of that school of thought.3
Germinius was the successor of Photinus, who had been deposed at a synod at
Sirmium in 351 AD; with this declaration in 357, Germinius rose to prominence
for the first time.4 Valens und Ursacius, however, were already well-known
figures in the controversies of the fourth century: at a synod in Tyre in 335, they
sided with the so-called Eusebians, gathered around Eusebius of Nicomedia and
Eusebius of Caesarea,5 in favour of removing the bishop Athanasius of Alexandria
2
The name ‘Neo-Nicenes’ means those, who, since the 370s, began to describe the unity in
God as one οὐσία and the trinity as three ὑπoστάσεις of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
They developed new concepts but referred to the theological declaration of Nicaea 325, as well, to
describe the relationship of the eternally begotten Son and of the Holy Spirit to God the Father
in an adequate way. In the east, the three Cappadocians were the leading figures, Basil of Caesarea,
Gregory of Nazianz, and Gregory of Nyssa. In the west, after the preparatory works of Hilary of
Poitiers, Ambrose played a significant role. His contribution was developed further by Augustine
(see more on this point below, under the heading ‘Further Developments’).
3
Ossius of Cordoba and Potamius from Lisbon attended as well, thus two bishops from
Spain (Sokr. HE 2.29; Soz. HE 4.6.4f.). The Balkans would later become a centre of the Homoians,
in addition to northern Italy, see below pp. 102–105 and 109–111.
4
Daniel H. Williams, ‘Another Exception to Later Fourth Century ‘Arian’ Typologies: The
Case of Germinius’, JECS, 4 (1996): pp. 335–57. Regarding Germinius see below pp. 102–105.
5
Eusebius, bishop of Beirut; before 318 he was bishop of Nicomedia, and from 338, he
was bishop of Constantinople. He at first supported Arius, nevertheless, he signed the anti-Arian
The Homoians 87
(328–73). They also presided over the so-called Mareotis Commission, which
was installed by this synod to investigate the various accusations made against
the behaviour of the Alexandrian bishop. As a result, Emperor Constantine sent
the disputed bishop Athanasius into exile in Trier, from which he was able to
return in 337, after the death of the emperor. Meanwhile, in 356, Athanasius was
sent into exile for the third time or, more precisely, he took flight and was hidden
somewhere in Egypt: Emperor Constantius, who was the sole ruler of the empire
since 353, had renewed the orders for his removal at two synods (Arles in 353
and Milan in 355), and wanted to put him in prison.6 After the preliminary
‘purge’ of the most controversial person in the empire, Athanasius, the emperor
wanted to settle the debate regarding the Trinity, which had escalated since the
beginning of the fourth century. Appropriately, then, the theological declaration
of 357 begins with the following statement:
Because, obviously, some controversial questions have arisen regarding the faith,
an analysis and investigation of all these things was undertaken in Sirmium,
in the presence of our most holy brothers and fellow bishops Valens, Ursacius,
Germinius, and the others.7
theological declaration at Nicaea in 325. But after Nicaea, he sought to remove the opponents of
Arius, e.g., Eustathius of Antioch and Athanasius. He died around 341 (cf. AW III, docs. 35–36).
Eusebius of Caesarea, who wrote the first history of the church and also composed the well-
known encomium for Emperor Constantine, worked on two large polemics that were directed
against Marcellus of Ancyra; he achieved Marcellus’ condemnation in 336. Regarding the Eusebii
cf. Hanson, Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, pp. 46–59; regarding Eusebius of Caesarea
cf. Harold W. Attridge and Gohei Hata (eds), Eusebius. Christianity and Judaism, Studia post-
biblica 42 (Leiden, 1992); Hans Freiherr von Campenhausen‚ ‘Das Bekenntnis Eusebs von
Cäsarea (Nicaea 325)’, ZNW, 67 (1976): pp. 123–39; Colm Luibhéid, Eusebius of Caesarea and
the Arian Crisis (Dublin, 1981); Friede Ricken, ‘Die Logoslehre des Eusebios von Caesarea und
der Mittelplatonismus’, Theologie und Philosophie, 44 (1969): pp. 321–41; George Christopher
Stead, ‘Eusebius and the Council of Nicaea’, JThS, 24 (1973): pp. 85–100; David S. Wallace-
Hadrill, Eusebius of Caesarea (London, 1956); David M. Gwynn, The Eusebians: The Polemic
of Athanasius of Alexandria and the Construction of the ‘Arian Controversy’, Oxford Theological
Monographs (Oxford, 2007).
6
Germinius took part in the synod of Milan (AW III, docs. 50.3 und 50.4; about Germinius
see below p. 102–5). Regarding the controversies about Athanasius and the corresponding politics
of Emperor Constantius, cf. Timothy D. Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius: Theology and Politics
in the Constantinian Empire (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1993). Regarding Athanasius in
general cf. Peter Gemeinhardt (ed.), Athanasius Handbuch (Tübingen, 2011).
7
AW III, doc. 51 (from Hilarius Pictaviensis, Liber de synodis seu de fide orientalium 11,
PL 10, p. 487): Cum nonnulla putaretur esse de fide disceptatio, diligenter omnia apud Sirmium
tractata sunt et discussa praesentibus sanctissimis fratribus et coepiscopis nostris Valente, Ursacio
et Germinio.
The task of the bishops was therefore to identify problematic and controversial
aspects of the Christian faith, in order to recognise consensus and dissent, and
to reconcile the differences.
A brief historical review: The conflict regarding the Trinity had begun
in 3158 as a controversy between the Alexandrian presbyter Arius and his bishop,
Alexander (†328), the predecessor of Athanasius. The theological question was:
How can one describe the pre-existent generation of the Son from the Father
in an adequate manner? Arius wanted to emphasise the subordination and the
temporal posteriority of the Son to the Father, the creator of all. For Arius, the
Father is the absolutely transcendent and sole eternal source of all existence and
thus called the Son into being alone through his almighty will, without depriving
himself of his own essence. So the Son was neither a part, nor an emanation of
the Father.9 By contrast, for Alexander, the eternal generation of the Son from
the Father is the fundamental idea. It is impossible, according to Alexander, that
there was a time when the Son was not, and certainly it cannot be the case that
the Son comes into existence in the same way as the rest of creation does, namely
as being created by God out of nothing.
An Egyptian synod led by Alexander eventually excommunicated Arius
and his followers.10 But Arius did not accept his removal, and because he found
supporters outside of Egypt, especially the above-mentioned ‘Eusebians’, the
conflict widened, not only geographically but also with regard to its content.
Even the intervention of the Emperor Constantine, sole ruler after his defeat
of the Augustus of the East, Licinius, in 324, did not resolve the conflict.11
8
Regarding the chronological questions cf. the Introduction to the 3rd section of AW
III. On Arius cf. also Chapter 5 (Hanns Christof Brennecke) in this volume.
9
Cf. both of Arius’ letters in AW III, Urk. 6 = doc. 1 and Urk. 1 = doc. 15. Regarding
Arius, see Rowan Williams, Arius. Heresy and Tradition (2nd edition London, 2001); further
cf. Thomas Böhm, ‘The Exegesis of Arius: Biblical Attitude and Systematic Formation’, Handbook
of Patristic Exegesis II, The Bible in Ancient Christianity (vol. 1), ed. Charles Kannengießer (Leiden
and Boston, 2004), pp. 687–705; Uta Heil, ‘“ … bloß nicht wie die Manichäer!” Ein Vorschlag
zu den Hintergründen des arianischen Streits’, ZAC, 6 (2002): pp. 299–319; Winrich A. Löhr,
‘Arius Reconsidered’, ZAC, 9 (2005): 524–60 and 10 (2006), pp. 121–57; J. Rebecca Lyman,
‘Arius and Arians’, in Susan Ashbrook Harvey and David G. Hunter (eds), The Oxford Handbook
of Early Christian Studies (Oxford, 2008), pp. 237–57; Christopher Stead, ‘Arius on God’s
“Many Words”’, JThS, 36 (1985): pp. 153–7, again in C. Stead, Doctrine and Philosophy in Early
Christianity. Arius, Athanasius, Augustine, Variorum Collected Studies Series CS684 (Aldershot,
Hampshire et al., 2000), Nr. III; ibid., ‘The Word “From Nothing”. For Reinhard Hübner: amico
bene merito’, JThS, 49 (1998): pp. 671–84, again in C. Stead, Doctrine and Philosophy in Early
Christianity. Arius, Athanasius, Augustine, Nr. VII; M.F. Wiles, Archetypal Heresy: Arianism
Through the Centuries (Oxford, 1996).
10
Cf. the two letters of Alexander, AW III, Urk. 4 = doc. 2 and Urk. 14 = doc. 17.
11
Cf. the letter of Emperor Constantine to Arius and Alexander in AW III, Urk. 17 =
doc. 19 who warned them to settle their quarrel and not to provoke a schism.
The Homoians 89
Therefore, the matter was placed on the agenda of the first empire-wide Synod
of Nicaea in 325.12 This synod decided to condemn some of the ‘Arian’ claims
regarding the Son of God, for example, ‘there was a time when he was not’ or ‘he
is changeable’, because this would classify the Son as a created being. In contrast,
the theological declaration of Nicaea (Nizänum) emphasised the generation of
the Son from the Father: The Son is not created, but generated, and he does
not come into being ex nihilo, nor does he draw his existence from another
essence, but rather from the essence of the Father, so that the Son is ‘one-in-
essence’ with the Father (ὁμοούσιος).13 This concept, ὁμοούσιος, would have a
long history. Thirty years later, the Homoians rejected this term vehemently, but
later on it would eventually become a sort of shibboleth by which one could
detect the orthodox ‘Neo-Nicene’ true belief. Here, however, at the Synod of
Nicaea 325, it was evidently placed in the declaration only because Arius himself
and some surrounding him had rejected the description of the Son as ‘one-in-
essence’ (ὁμοούσιος) with the Father. They had repudiated this term for several
reasons: either the term ὁμοούσιος takes for granted Gnostic ideas and therefore
implies either a splitting and partition of the divine essence or an emanation
from the divine essence, or the term implies that the Son is ‘unbegotten’ and
‘not generated from anything’, just like the Father himself, but two unbegotten
beings cannot exist side-by-side.14
In the years after Nicaea (325), this term was not in use for almost thirty years,
because of the mentioned reservations. Moreover, the discussion had shifted to
the question, whether one ought to speak of three hypostases or subsistences,
or of only one hypostasis or subsistence. The above-mentioned ‘Eusebians’
12
On the synod of Nicaea, cf. Hanns Christof Brennecke, ‘Nicäa I. Ökumenische Synode
von 325’, TRE, 24 (1994), pp. 429–41; Mark Edwards, ‘The first Council of Nicaea’, The
Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 1: Origins to Constantine, Margeret Mary Mitchell and
Frances M. Young (eds.) (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 552–67; cf. further the detailed overview of the
Arian controversy from the first discussions until the death of Emperor Constantine by Christoph
Markschies, ‘Theologische Diskussionen zur Zeit Konstantins. Arius, der ‘arianische Streit’ und
das Konzil von Nicaea, die nachnizänischen Auseinandersetzungen bis 337’, in Markschies, C.,
Alta Trinità Beata. Gesammelte Studien zur altkirchlichen Trinitätstheologie (Tübingen, 2000),
pp. 99–195.
13
The theological declaration of Nicaea (the Nizänum) can be found in AW III, Urk. 24
= doc. 26. A fragment of an edict of the emperor against Arius and his followers can be found in
AW III, Urk. 33 = doc. 28.
14
Cf. Heil, ‘“ … bloß nicht wie die Manichäer!”’. Eusebius of Nicomedia wrote: Si verum
dei filium et increatum dicimus, ὁμοούσιος cum patre incipimus confiteri./If we truly call the Son of
God ‘unbegotten’, then we should also begin to confess that he is ‘one-in-essence’ with the Father.
(AW III, Urk. 21 = doc. 23). Arius wrote that the Son cannot be an offspring of the Father as the
Manichaeans assume, as a ‘one-in-essence’-part of the Father: οὐδ᾿ ὡς Μανιχαῖος ὁμοούσιον τοῦ
πατρὸς τὸ γέννημα (AW III, Urk. 6 = doc. 1).
were in the first camp, which emphasised the three different hypostases of the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the beginning, they had supported Arius,
because they regarded his condemnation as unjustified, but later they distanced
themselves from him. They accepted that the Son was generated from the Father
before all ages and not a created being at all. But they emphasised, in the tradition
of the great scholar Origen, the unambiguous differentiation of the Son from
the Father, as well as the Son’s subordination to the Father (Subordinationism).
The Son, therefore, was begotten by the Father before all ages, and has, along
with the Father, an independent subsistence (hypostasis).15
On the other side, Eustathius of Antioch and Marcellus of Ancyra16
understood themselves as strict anti-Origenists; for them, the views of the
Eusebians would be a sort of gateway for the re-entry of Arianism into the
church. They insisted upon the unity of God (one subsistence or ‘monas’),
because the Son is eternally ‘in the Father’ and is not to be distinguished from
him. One could allow a difference or a subordination of the Son only during
the time of his incarnation, namely in relation to the human being assumed by
the Son.
In the 330s these two contradictory theological traditions opposed each
other,17 and grew more and more antagonistic. In the end, at the Synod of
Serdica in 343,18 this led to the schism between East, supporting the Eusebians,
and West, supporting the anti-Origenists. Egypt was united with the western
position, because in 339 Athanasius sought refuge in the West with the Roman
bishop Julius, and showed his solidarity with Marcellus, who was in exile in
Rome as well.
Regarding the ‘Eusebians’ see fn. 5 above.

15
Richard P.C. Hanson, ‘The Fate of Eustathius of Antioch’, ZKG, 95 (1984): pp. 171–79;
16
Hanson, Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, pp. 208–35; Joseph T. Lienhard, Contra
Marcellum. Marcellus of Ancyra and Fourth-Century Theology (Washington, D.C., 1999); Sara
Parvis, Marcellus of Ancyra and the Lost Years of the Arian Controversy 325–345, Oxford Early
Christian Studies (Oxford, 2006).
17
Compare with this Joseph T. Lienhard, ‘The “Arian” Controversy: Some Categories
Reconsidered’, Theological Studies, 48 (1987): pp. 415–37.
18
Regarding the synod of Serdica, in 343, cf. AW III, doc. 43: 1–13, with a comprehensive
introduction. This synod was planned by Emperor Constans (in the West) and Emperor
Constantius (in the East), in order to settle the quarrels about various persons, especially about the
highly disputed theology of Marcellus. It turned into a fiasco, however, because the synod never
even reached the stage of collective negotiations. As the bishops from the East were somewhat
delayed, by the time they arrived, the bishops of the West had already received Athanasius and
Marcellus into communion. The Eastern bishops protested against this measure. So the schism
was brought about, and East and West mutually condemned each other: the East condemned the
West as ‘Sabellian’ and the West condemned the East as ‘Arian’.
The Homoians 91
It was precisely this rift that Emperor Constantius wanted to overcome

in 357. Yet, problematically, the bishops assigned to this project were not at all
neutral: Valens and Ursacius belong to the tradition of the Three-Hypostasis
theology of the Eusebians. Even Germinius can be assigned to this tradition, in
opposition to his predecessor Photinus, who had been a student of Marcellus.19
In their declaration in 357, they emphasised that they believed in one God, in
order to reject the accusation that their teaching regarding three hypostases
or subsistences means ‘Arianism’ or polytheism. At the same time, however,
they described the relationship of the Son to the Father as an unambiguously
subordinate one:
It is certain, that there is one God, Father, almighty, just as is believed in the
whole world, and that his only Son, Jesus Christ, the Lord, our Saviour, was
begotten from him before all ages. Two Gods, however, cannot and ought not
to be preached, because the Lord himself has said: ‘I am going to my Father and
to your Father, to my God and to your God’. ( John 20:17) Therefore, there is
one God of all, as the Apostle preached: ‘Is the God the God of Jews only? Is he
not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God,
who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith’.
(Romans 3:29–30) … There is no doubt that the Father is greater. For, no one
can doubt that the Father – with regard to honour, worth, glory, majesty, and
through the name ‘Father’ – is himself greater than the Son, who himself testifies:
‘He who sent me, is greater than I’. ( John 14:28) Also, each one knows that this
is catholic: that there are two persons, namely, the person of the Father and the
person of the Son, and that the Father is greater, that ‘the Son [is] subordinate
with all these things that the Father has made subordinate to him’. (cf. 1 Cor.
15:28); that the Father has no beginning, that he is invisible, that he is immortal
and impassible. The Son, however, is born from the Father, God from God, Light
from Light, and regarding this generation of the Son, as was said above, no one
knows it, except the Father. … This, however, is the main point of the entire belief
and its confirmation, that the Trinity must always be preserved, just as we read in
the Gospel: ‘Go out and baptise all men in the name of the Father, of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit’. (Mt. 28:19) Integral, and perfect is the number of the Trinity.
The Paraclete, the Spirit, exists through the Son, however; he came as the One
sent, in accord with the promise, so that he might teach the apostles, and all the
believers, instructing them and sanctifying them.20
19
Regarding Photinus, see AW III, docs. 45 and 47; cf., in addition, Hanson, Search for the
Christian Doctrine of God, pp. 235–38.
20
Text AW III, doc. 51 (from Hilarius Pictaviensis, Liber de synodis seu de fide orientalium 11,
PL 10, pp. 487–89): unum constat deum esse omnipotentem et patrem, sicut per universum orbem
creditur, et unicum filium eius Iesum Christum dominum salvatorem nostrum, ex ipso ante saecula
genitum, duos autem deos nec posse nec debere praedicari, quia ipse dominus dixit: ‘ibo ad patrem meum
Though this declaration emphasises consensus, and seems to collect

statements which are only obvious (it is certain … ; there is no doubt … ; each
one knows …), nevertheless, the declaration stands unmistakably in an Eastern
theological tradition, even when the notion of ‘three hypostases’ is not brought
forward and the subordination of the Son to the Father is described in terms of
his having less honour and value, and not in terms of a subordinate hypostasis.
Because of this, it is not at all surprising that there was much criticism shortly
after the publication of this text. Thus Emperor Constantius recognised very
quickly that there would be no reunification on the basis of this document.
But there is one passage in the declaration of 357 which was retained in later
homoian texts, and which became, in an expanded form, the core concern of
the Homoians:
What disturbs some, or even many, with regard to the concept substantia
(subsistence), which is in Greek called ousia (essence), i.e., to express it more
intelligibly, the concept homousion (one-in-essence) or homoeusion (like-in-
essence) no one ought to mention it at all, nor talk about it because it is not
contained in the divine scriptures, and it exceeds the knowledge of man, so that
nobody can narrate the birth of the Son about whom it is written: ‘Who will
explain his birth?’ (Isaiah 53:8). It is certain, that only the Father knows, how he
begat the Son, and only the Son, how he was begotten of the Father.21
This important passage shows that there was a new dispute regarding
the Nicene notion of ‘one-in-essence’/ὁμοούσιος. The Homoians, however,
et ad patrem vestrum, ad deum meum et deum vestrum’. ( Jn 20:17) Ideo omnium deus unus est, sicut
apostolus docuit: ‘An Iudaeorum deus tantum? nonne et gentium? imo et gentium. quoniam quidem
unus deus, qui iustificat circumcisionem ex fide et praeputium per fidem’. (Rom 3:29–30) … Nulla
ambiguitas est maiorem esse patrem. Nulli potest dubium esse patrem honore, dignitate, claritate,
maiestate et ipso nomine patris maiorem esse filio testante, ‘qui me misit maior me est’. ( Jn 14:28) Et
hoc catholicum esse nemo ignorat duas personas esse patris et filii, maiorem patrem, ‘filium subiectum
cum omnibus his quae ipsi pater subiecit’. (vgl. 1 Cor 15:28) Patrem initium non habere, invisibilem
esse, immortalem esse, impassibilem esse. Filium autem natum esse ex patre, deum ex deo, lumen
ex lumine, cuius filii generationem, ut ante dictum est, neminem scire nisi patrem suum. … Illa
autem clausula est totius fidei et illa confirmatio, quod trinitas semper servanda est, sicut legimus
in evangelio: ‘ite et baptizate omnes gentes in nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti’. (Mt 28:19)
Integer, perfectus numerus trinitatis est. Paracletus autem spiritus per filium est, qui missus venit iuxta
promissum, ut apostolus et omnes credentes instrueret, doceret, sanctificaret.
21
Quod vero quosdam aut multos movebat de substantia, quae graece 'usia’ appellatur, id
est, ut expressius intelligatur, 'homousion’, aut quod dicitur 'homoeusion’, nullam omnino fieri
oportere mentionem, nec quemquam praedicare ea de causa et ratione, quod nec in divinis scripturis
contineatur, et quod super hominis scientiam sit, nec quisquam possit nativitatem filii enarrare, de quo
scriptum est: 'generationem eius quis ennarabit?’ (Is 53:8) Scire autem manifestum est solum patrem
quomodo genuerit filium suum et filium quomodo genitus sit a patre. (cf. Mt 11:27).
The Homoians 93
demanded that one should refrain from using this terminology to avoid further
discord and because it is unbiblical. In addition, they argued, that no one is able
to penetrate how the Son was generated from the Father.
Two developments had led to the new debate about the Nicene theological
declaration (Nizänum 325) with its description of the Son as ‘one-in-essence’/
ὁμοούσιος with the Father in the 350s. On the one hand, those who had
sided with Athanasius, polemically linked his removal (in Arles, 353, and in
Milan, 355) with the annulment of the Nizänum itself, because those who were
now involved in his removal had long ago, in the 320s, sided with Arius. On the
other hand, there arose new theses of the so-called ‘An-Homoians’ (sometimes
called ‘New-Arians’ as well) around Aëtius and Eunomius, who claimed that
the Son must be un-similar (not ὅμοιος) to the Father according to essence,
because the essence of the Father is defined by them as his being ‘unbegotten’
or ‘ungenerated’ (Agennesie). Thus, for them, the Son as the Firstborn, or the
First-Begotten from the Father, could not have the same essence as the Father.22
This provoked a rediscovery of the Nizänum, even within the group of the
former Eusebians. Two bishops in particular are to be mentioned here: Basil of
Ancyra, the successor to the deposed Marcellus, and George of Laodicea. They
emphasised the generation of the Son from the Father, and stated that the Father
generated the Son from himself according to the likeness of his essence, as his
perfect and exact image. So the Son is not un-similar, but similar to the Father
with regard to his essence (ὅμοιος κατ᾿ οὐσίαν/ὁμοιούσιος). They declined to use
the Nicene term ‘one-in-essence’/ὁμοούσιος, however, because they thought
that this word would annul the independent existence of the Son. Or it would
lead, as in the Gnostic literature, to the error that a primary substance had to
be presumed, which then would be distributed to both Father and Son or from
which both, the Father and the Son, would be generated as brothers.23 So they
22
Richard Paul Vaggione, Eunomius of Cyzicus and the Nicene Revolution, Oxford Early
Christian Studies (Oxford, 2000); cf. the Introduction in Mark DelCogliano and Andrew
Radde-Gallwitz, Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, Fathers of the Church 122 (Washington,
D.C., 2011).
23
In a synodal declaration of 358 in Ancyra, they drafted the following Anathema
(Number 13): if someone, who understands that the Son is similar-in-essence to him whose Son
he is, says, the Son is either the same as the Father, or a part of the Father, or is a Son through an
emanation, or through passion as corporeal sons are, although the Son is without body and exists
from a bodiless Father, let him be anathema. καὶ εἴ τις υἱὸν ὅμοιον κατ᾿ οὐσίαν νοῶν ἐκείνου οὗ καὶ
νοεῖται υἱός, ἢ ταὐτὸν λέγοι τῷ πατρὶ τὸν υἱὸν ἢ μέρος τοῦ πατρὸς ἢ κατὰ ἀπόρροιαν καὶ κατὰ πάθος,
ὡς σωματικοὺς υἱούς, τὸν ἐκ τοῦ ἀσωμάτου πατρὸς ἀσώματον υἱὸν ὑποστάντα, ἀνάθεμα ἔστω. AW III,
doc. 5.26 (this text is taken from Epiphanius, haer. 73). Regarding the Homoiousians, cf. Löhr,
Die Entstehung, and Id., ‘A Sense of Tradition: The Homoiousian Church Party’, in Michel
Rene Barnes and Daniel H. Williams (eds), Arianism After Arius. Essays on the Development
of the Fourth Century Trinitarian Conflicts (Edinburgh, 1993), pp. 81–100. Regarding Basil of
preferred to talk of ‘like-in –essence’/ὅμοιος κατ᾿ οὐσίαν and are labelled in

modern research as ‘Homoiousians’.
The Homoians however, in contrast to those Homoiousians around Basilius
and George, tried to bring the debate to a close by excluding the disputed
terminology. Therefore, they added to the theological declaration of 357 the
above cited prohibition which forbade anyone to use the terminology of ‘one-
in-essence’/ὁμοούσιος or ‘like-in-essence’/ὁμοιούσιος.
Determinations: The Sirmian Formulation of 359 and the Synods of

Rimini, Seleucia, and Constantinople in 359/360
The opposition against the Sirmian formulation of 357 and the controversy about
the theses of the Anhomoians Aëtius and Eunomius led to further talks and
synodal activities. In the end, this resulted in an altered theological declaration,
the so-called Sirmian Formula of 359. In this declaration, the subordination
of the Son to the Father is stated less explicitly, first of all to oppose more
unambiguously the Anhomoians and, secondly, to achieve a broader consensus
beyond the narrow circle of the former ‘Eusebians’. In this declaration, one can
also encounter the central concept of ‘similar’/ὅμοιος, which gave to this school
its name (‘Homoian’).
Emperor Constantine, meanwhile, was planning to annul the theological
split of Serdica by means of a double synod in Rimini (West) and Seleucia (East).
West and East were supposed to negotiate independently of one another, without
interfering in the affairs of the other partial synod. This would hopefully prevent
the possibility of renewed mutual condemnation at the outset. Then, from each
partial synod, a ten-person delegation had to travel to Constantinople, in order
to achieve ecclesial unity. The Sirmian Formula of 359 served as the theological
basis for the negotiations. The double synod was the largest assembly in the
history of the Church up to that time: In Rimini, about 400 bishops gathered
together, in Seleucia approximately 150 to 160 bishops. The spokesmen for
the Homoians in Rimini were the already known bishops, Valens, Ursacius,
Germinius, and an unknown bishop named Gaius;24 in Seleucia, the prepared
declaration was presented to the gathering by Acacius of Caesarea, who was
Ancyra cf. Jeffrey Steenson, Basil of Ancyra and the Course of Nicene Orthodoxy, Dissertation
(London, 1984); regarding George of Laodicaea, cf. Mark DelCogliano, ‘The Literary Corpus of
Georg of Laodicea’, Vigiliae Christianae, 65 (2011): pp. 150–69.
24
Further persons mentioned in the sources as members of the delegation to the East,
after the formulation in Rimini was signed (Hilarius Pictaviensis, Collectanea antiariana Parisina
(Fragmenta historica), CSEL 65, B VIII 1), were a Migdonius, a Megasius, a Justinus, an Optatus,
and a Marcialis; regarding these individuals there is no further information. Auxentius of Milan was
perhaps present in Rimini, but it appears that he played no special role there (see below, p. 100).
The Homoians 95
the successor of Eusebius. The negotiations, both in Rimini and in Seleucia,

however, were quite complicated, and the prepared formulations were not at
all readily accepted. Both synods split into fractions at first, and the bishops
accepted a marginally altered version of the prepared declaration only when the
emperor pressed them to do so.25
The text of the declaration, as it was finally approved at the following Synod
in Constantinople in early 360, reads:
1. We believe in one God, the Father, almighty, from whom are all things,
2. and in the only-begotten Son of God, begotten from God before all ages and
before every beginning, by whom all things came into existence, both the visible
and the invisible; begotten as the only-begotten, the only one from the Father
alone, God from God, similar to the Father who begat him according to the
scriptures, whose begetting no one knows except the Father alone, who begot him.
3. We know, that he was the only-begotten Son of God, sent by the Father,
descended from the heavens, as it is written, in order to abolish sin and death;
and that he was born according to the flesh, from the Holy Spirit and the virgin
Mary, as it is written; that he conversed with the disciples, and fulfilling the whole
order of salvation according to the will of the Father he was crucified, died, and
buried, that he descended to the underworld, where Hades itself shuddered; that
he rose from the dead on the third day, abode with the disciples, and after 40 days
was taken up into heaven, sat at the right hand of the Father to come on the last
day of the resurrection with the glory of the Father, in order to render each one
according to his deeds.
4. And we believe in the Holy Spirit, whom the only-begotten Son of God,
Christ, the Lord and our God, promised to send to humankind; the comforter, as
it is written, ‘the Spirit of truth’, ( John 16:13) which he sent to humankind as he
had ascended into heaven.
5. This name ‘essence’, which was adopted by the fathers far too simple-minded
and was not understood by the people and caused offence, because the scriptures
do not contain it, is preferred to be done away, and for the future to make no
mention of it at all because the divine scriptures never mention the essence of the
Father and of the Son. Moreover, the term ‘hypostasis’ should not be used any
longer, for either the Father, the Son, or for the Holy Spirit. We name the Son
similar the Father, as the divine scriptures say and teach.
25
Regarding the events and the source-texts extant, cf. AW III, docs. 59–61 and the
literature mentioned in fn. 1.
6. All heresies, which were already condemned earlier, or which should arise in
the future, which contradict this declaration of belief, are damned.26
The first article, regarding God the Father, is very short, because there were
no points of dispute to negotiate. The second article emphasises the generation
of the Son from the Father before all ages. This draws a line at Arius, and is
done in order to repudiate the charge, made at the Synod of Serdica, that the
Eusebians in fact held Arian theses. Unlike the declaration at Nicaea (Nizänum),
however, this declaration continues to describe the Son as similar (ὅμοιος) to the
Father. Moreover, the Son is neither ‘one-in-essence’ (ὁμοούσιος) with the Father
nor like-in-essence’ (ὅμοιος κατ᾿ οὐσίαν or ὁμοιούσιος) to the Father; rather, he
is simply similar (ὅμοιος) to the Father. The rootedness to the sacred scriptures
is emphasised, which is a constant element in the theology of the Homoians.
Accordingly, in paragraph 5, all use of οὐσία is rejected as unbiblical, and it is
mentioned again that the Son ought to be described as similar to the Father, just
as the sacred scriptures teach.27
26
AW III, doc. 61.5 (the text is from Ath., syn. 30, 2–10 and Sokr. HE 2.41, 8–16): (1)
Πιστεύομεν εἰς ἕνα θεὸν πατέρα παντοκράτορα, ἐξ οὗ τὰ πάντα, (2) καὶ εἰς τὸν μονογενῆ υἱὸν τοῦ
Θεοῦ τὸν πρὸ πάντων αἰώνων καὶ πρὸ πάσης ἀρχῆς γεννηθέντα ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ, δι’ οὗ τὰ πάντα ἐγένετο,
τὰ ὁρατὰ καὶ τὰ ἀόρατα, γεννηθέντα δὲ μονογενῆ, μόνον ἐκ μόνου τοῦ πατρός, Θεὸν ἐκ Θεοῦ, ὅμοιον
τῷ γεννήσαντι αὐτὸν πατρὶ κατὰ τὰς γραφάς, οὗ τὴν γέννησιν οὐδεὶς οἶδεν εἰ μὴ μόνος ὁ γεννήσας
αὐτὸν πατήρ. (3) τοῦτον οἴδαμεν μονογενῆ Θεοῦ υἱὸν πέμποντος τοῦ πατρὸς παραγεγενῆσθαι ἐκ τῶν
οὐρανῶν, ὡς γέγραπται, ἐπὶ καταλύσει τῆς ἁμαρτίας καὶ τοῦ θανάτου, καὶ γεννηθέντα ἐκ πνεύματος
ἁγίου καὶ Μαρίας τῆς παρθένου τὸ κατὰ σάρκα, ὡς γέγραπται, καὶ ἀναστραφέντα μετὰ τῶν μαθητῶν
καὶ πάσης τῆς οἰκονομίας πληρωθείσης κατὰ τὴν πατρικὴν βούλησιν σταυρωθέντα καὶ ἀποθανόντα καὶ
ταφέντα καὶ εἰς τὰ καταχθόνια κατεληλυθέναι, ὅντινα καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ ᾅδης ἔπτηξεν, ὅστις καὶ ἀνέστη ἀπὸ
τῶν νεκρῶν τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ καὶ διέτριψεν μετὰ τῶν μαθητῶν καὶ πληρωθεισῶν τεσσαράκοντα ἡμερῶν
ἀνελήφθη εἰς τοὺς οὐρανοὺς καὶ καθέζεται ἐν δεξιᾷ τοῦ πατρός, ἐλευσόμενος ἐν τῇ ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ τῆς
ἀναστάσεως ἐν τῇ πατρικῇ δόξῃ, ἵνα ἀποδώσῃ ἑκάστῳ κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ. (4) [Πιστεύομεν] καὶ εἰς τὸ
ἅγιον πνεῦμα, ὅπερ αὐτὸς ὁ μονογενὴς τοῦ Θεοῦ υἱὸς ὁ Χριστός, ὁ κύριος καὶ ὁ Θεὸς ἡμῶν, ἐπηγγείλατο
πέμπειν τῷ γένει τῶν ἀνθρώπων παράκλητον, καθάπερ γέγραπται, τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας, ὅπερ
αὐτὸς ἔπεμψεν, ὅτε ἀνῆλθεν εἰς τοὺς οὐρανούς. (5) Τὸ δὲ ὄνομα τῆς οὐσίας, ὅπερ ἁπλούστερον ὑπὸ τῶν
πατέρων ἐνετέθη, ἀγνοούμενον δὲ τοῖς λαοῖς σκάνδαλον ἔφερεν, διότι μηδὲ αἱ γραφαὶ τοῦτο περιέχουσιν,
ἤρεσε περιαιρεθῆναι καὶ παντελῶς μηδεμίαν μνήμην τοῦ λοιποῦ τούτου γίνεσθαι, ἐπειδήπερ καὶ αἱ θεῖαι
γραφαὶ οὐδαμῶς ἐμνημόνευσαν περὶ οὐσίας πατρὸς καὶ υἱοῦ. Καὶ γὰρ οὐκ ὀφείλει ὑπόστασις περὶ πατρὸς
καὶ υἱοῦ καὶ ἁγίου πνεύματος ὀνομάζεσθαι. ὅμοιον δὲ λέγομεν τῷ πατρὶ τὸν υἱόν, ὡς λέγουσιν αἱ θεῖαι
γραφαὶ καὶ διδάσκουσιν. (6) πᾶσαι δὲ αἱ αἱρέσεις, αἵ τε ἤδη πρότερον κατεκρίθησαν καὶ αἵτινες ἐὰν
καινότεραι γένωνται, ἐναντίαι τυγχάνουσαι τῆς ἐκτεθείσης ταύτης φραφῆς, ἀνάθεμα ἔστωσαν.
27
Relevant passages were John 5:18 (he made himself equal with God) and Phil 2:6 (but he
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped at); nevertheless, the adjective used
here is ἴσος. In response to this homoian critique of the unbiblical terminology of the theological
declaration of Nicaea (Nizänum), the defenders of Nicaea sought to show, that ὁμοούσιος expresses
the sense of the scriptures quite well. Moreover, they also tried to show that the scriptures do speak
The Homoians 97
In a remarkable way, the third paragraph, which deals with the Incarnation
of the Son and his salvific deeds, begins with ‘we know’/οἴδαμεν. This is an
introductory word which is completely unusual in theological declarations or
confessions. Perhaps this verb stresses that there was no dissent regarding this
part; thus it reflects the concern of the formulation of 357 to take stock of
disputed and undisputed points in Christian belief. Moreover, the description of
the Incarnation of the Son and his salvific deeds is less theoretical or speculative,
because the sacred scriptures relate them, in contrast to the description of his
pre-existent birth from the Father, of which in fact only the Father knows, as
the text says at the end of paragraph two. Precisely this point had already been
emphasised in 357, with reference to Isaiah 53:8 and Mt 11:27.
The fourth paragraph deals briefly with the Holy Spirit, who was sent to
the believers by the Son after his ascension into heaven. The nascent conflict
at this time, regarding the third Trinitarian person of the Holy Spirit, is not yet
dealt with in this declaration, but it will be discussed in a later period of time
(see below).
The fifth paragraph generalises the ban of the declaration of 357 on use
of ‘one-in-essence’/ὁμοούσιος and ‘like-in-essence’/ὁμοιούσιος to encompass
all use of ‘essence’/οὐσία in general. Added to this is a remark that the Fathers
(the bishops of the Synod of Nicaea in 325 are meant here) had made use of
this concept without much consideration, and because of this, it could now be
dropped without any worries. It is also worthy of note that the term ‘hypostasis’
(subsistence)/ὑπόστασις ought not to be used any longer as well. Therefore,
the use of the central concept in the controversy between the Eusebians
and Marcellus, as to whether one should assume one hypostasis or three, is
banned, too.
The sixth paragraph condemns in a summary fashion all remaining heresies.
In contrast to this version of the declaration of Constantinople 360, the version
in Rimini was amended with further anathemas. A series of anti-Arian anathemas
are handed down, with which the members of the synod apparently wanted to
exclude ‘Arianism’.28 Obviously the bishops in Rimini demanded from Valens,
Ursacius, and Germinius unambiguously anti-Arian clarifications, before they
were ready to sign the declaration.
about God’s essence/οὐσία. Especially Athanasius and his writings De decretis Nicaenae synodi, De
sententia Dionysii, and Ad Afros were of importance. Cf. Uta Heil, Athanasius von Alexandrien,
De sententia Dionysii. Einleitung, Übersetzung und Kommentar, Patristische Texte und Studien 52
(Berlin and New York, 1999); cf. also Uta Heil, Athanasius von Alexandria, Gegen die Heiden, Über
die Menschwerdung des Wortes Gottes, Über die Beschlüsse der Synode von Nizäa, translated from
the Greek and edited (Frankfurt a. M. and Leipzig, 2008); Annette von Stockhausen, Athanasius
von Alexandrien. Epistula ad Afros. Einleitung, Kommentar und Übersetzung, Patristische Texte
und Studien 56 (Berlin and New York, 2002).
28
AW III, doc. 59.11 (the text is from Hieronymus, c. Lucif., 17–18).
In Constantinople, the members of the synod also dealt with the theses of
Aëtius, who was in the end condemned here. Possible adherents of Aëtius were
given six months, during which they could either distance themselves from him
or they would be condemned as well. This decision finally led to an independent
‘anhomoian’ church in the East. It is obvious therefore, that the Homoians were
neither ‘Arians’ nor ‘Anhomoians’ or ‘New-Arians’.
As a result the emperor Constantius was able to establish church unity
again in 360, just as Emperor Constantine had done in 325. On February 15,
he celebrated at last the dedication of the monumental Hagia Sophia church
in Constantinople, whose construction Constantine had originated.29 The
theological declaration was apparently sent as a circular letter throughout
the empire to be signed.30 It remained the official confession of the empire
for 20 years, also during the double headship of Emperor Valens (364–78) and
Valentinian (364–75), until the theological reversal under Theodosius (Edict
Cunctos populos in 380). This homoian period was interrupted only during
the years of Julian’s rule (361–63) and of Jovian (363–64). The double synod
remained central for the Homoians, and even in later times, the Homoians of
the West invoked the resolutions of Rimini.31 According to their understanding,
this declaration defends the old, established, and true Christian faith. It revokes
the errors of complicated conceptions about the Trinity, which had, since
the Synod of Nicaea, increasingly spread throughout Christendom, because
of a recourse to philosophical ideas and had caused much disturbance. The
extremes were excluded, e.g., the theses of Marcellus or Photinus (one-hypostasis
theology) and of Arius or the ‘neo-arian’ or ‘anhomoian’ thoughts of Aëtius,
though the Homoians were unilaterally discredited as ‘Arians’ in the polemic of
the ‘Nicenes’ or ‘Neo-Nicenes’.
The homoian theology can be described as an advice and a rough orientation
for adequate theological expressions rather than an explicit stated theological
definition of the Trinity, because one can actually know God only in a limited
way. The Son is therefore to be described in simple biblical terms, as being similar
29
The presence of Wulfila is attested here (Sokr. HE 2.41.23; Soz. HE 4.24.1); regarding
Wulfila see Chapter 1 (Knut Schäferdiek) in this volume.
30
Sokr. HE 2.43.9; Soz. HE 4.26.2.
31
Auxentius of Milan referred to Rimini, for example (see below, p. 101), as well as
Maximinus in his disputation with Augustine of Hippo, Collatio cum Maximino Arianorum
episcopo 2–4; 15, 13: Pierre-Marie Hombert (ed.), Sancti Aurelii Augvstini contra Arrianos opera,
CCSL 87 A (Turnhout, 2009), pp. 383–487, at pp. 384–86; 435–38; regarding this, see below,
p. 113; a recourse to Rimini happened again at a ‘Religionsgespräch’ during the kingdom of the
Vandals in 484 (Vict.Vit. HP 3.5; also, see Chapter 12 by Robin Whelan in this volume) and at
the Council of Toledo under Reccared in 589, in an anathema (Quicumque Ariminense concilium
non ex tot corde respuerit et damnaverit, anathema sit; regarding this, see Chapter 13 by Manuel
Koch in this volume).
The Homoians 99
to the Father. Also, one is advised to examine the witness of the scriptures, rather
than philosophical models or archetypes, which have only caused disputes
among the Christians. In the house of homoian theology there is nevertheless
some scope for different theological positions – how different will become
apparent later.
It ought also to be noted that the theological declaration of Rimini/
Seleucia/Constantinople was not intended to annul the already empire-wide
acknowledged theological declaration of Nicaea (Nizänum), for the Nizänum
did not have such a status at this point of time. The anathema on Arius, as it was
defined at the Synod of Nicaea in 325 was, to be sure, generally acknowledged,
even if Athanasius and Marcellus imputed ‘Arianism’ to all their opponents. The
theological declaration of the Synod, however, the Nizänum, was not viewed
as an authoritative agreement or obligatory text for every Christian.32 It was
only during the conflicts with the theses of the Homoians and the Anhomoians,
starting at the end of the 350s, that the prestige of the Nizänum grew in those
circles which did not want to enter into communion with Ursacius, Valens,
and Germinius (in the West) or Acacius (in the East). So only at this time, the
key word ‘one-in-essence’ (ὁμοούσιος) became a shibboleth of true belief for
the ‘Nicenes’ and was distinguished from ‘similar’. But in the 340s, Athanasius
himself, for example, used the plain adjective ὅμοιος unreservedly, in his three
great speeches ‘Against the Arians’.33
The approach of the Homoians was surely quite attractive, and it explains
adequately the adoption of homoian Christianity by the Goths. It was a mistake,
however, in previous research to assume that there was a special affinity among
the Germans for this homoian theology.34
Further Developments
Hilary of Poitiers vs. Auxentius of Milan
During the political disturbances in the western half of the Roman Empire,
while Caesar Julian usurped power in Gaul at the beginning of 360, the first
revocations of signatures to the declaration of Rimini took place. Synods in
Gaul, initiated by Hilary of Poitiers, were the beginning of a new controversy
about the homoian theology and its representatives in the Latin West. We have
32
Regarding the critique on the Nicene expression ‘one-in-essence’/ὁμοούσιος), see above,
p. 89.
33
For example, in Athanasius, Oratio contra Arianos I, 40, 5 and ibid. II, 18, 2, AW I, 2,
p. 149, 202.
34
Cf. Chapter 1 (Knut Schäferdiek) and Chapter 5 (Hanns Christof Brennecke) in this volume.
a document from a synod in Paris that defends the Nicene terminology with
its term of ‘one-in-essence’/ὁμοούσιος and at which five representatives of the
decisions of Rimini were excommunicated: Valens, Ursacius, the otherwise-
unknown bishops Megasius and Justinus, and Auxentius of Milan.35 Auxentius
was made Bishop of Milan in 355, after Dionysius, who did not want to sign the
document deposing Athanasius at the Synod of Milan 355 (see above), had been
excommunicated. Auxentius probably also took part at the Synod of Rimini, but
without playing a very important role. He signed the theological declaration,
and was evidently, as the homoian bishop of the most important northern
Italian imperial city a thorn in the side of the Nicene opposition gathered around
Hilary. The condemnation of a Gallic synod, however, could not do any damage
to Auxentius, because he was a well-known and beloved Bishop in Milan.
Probably in the autumn of 364, Hilary travelled in person to Milan, in order
to take action against Auxentius. After the death of Emperor Jovian in early 364,
Valentinian I (in the West) and Valens (in the East) had been declared emperors.
Apparently, Hilary hoped to influence the new western emperor, who had stayed
in and around Milan since autumn of that year. Hilary filed a petition with
Valentinian against Auxentius, accusing him of being a ‘godless Arian’. This led to
a trial, and two officials of the state and ten bishops investigated the theological
position of the Bishop of Milan, who nevertheless won his case. When Hilary
again accused Auxentius of heresy and of being an adept liar, the latter wrote a
letter to the emperor, distancing himself definitively from the charge of being an
‘Arian’, and was able to win the support of emperor Valentinian. Hilary, on the
contrary, was banned from Milan as an agitator, and thus he wrote in his defence
the work Contra Auxentium.36
Hilarius Pictaviensis, Collectanea antiariana Parisina, CSEL 65, A 1. See also above,
35
fn. 24. Cf., regarding Auxentius, Michael Durst, ‘Das Glaubensbekenntnis des Auxentius von
Mailand. Historischer Hintergrund – Textüberlieferung – Theologie – Edition’, JAC, 41 (1998):
pp. 118–68; Christoph Markschies, Ambrosius von Mailand und die Trinitätstheologie. Kirchen-
und theologiegeschichtliche Studien zu Antiarianismus und Neunizänismus bei Ambrosius und im
lateinischen Westen (364–381 n. Chr.), Beiträge zur historischen Theologie 90 (Tübingen, 1995);
Daniel H. Williams, ‘The Anti-Arian Campaigns of Hilary of Poitiers and the Liber contra
Auxentium’, Church History, 61 (1992): pp. 7–22.
36
Hilarius Pictaviensis, Contra Auxentium, PL 10, pp. 606–18. The confession of Auxentius
cited here is edited by Durst, and appears in the JAC, 41 (1998), on pp. 161–63. Regarding Hilary,
cf. Hanns Christof Brennecke, ‘Hilarius von Poitiers’, TRE, 15 (Berlin, 1986), pp. 315–22; Mark
Weedman, The Trinitarian Theology of Hilary of Poitiers, Supplements to Vigiliae Christanae 89
(Leiden and Boston, 2007). Valentinian’s policy in the western half of the empire was one of greater
tolerance (except regarding the Manichaeans and the Donatists), more than Constantius before,
and more than Valens in the eastern half of the empire. Cf. CTh 9.16.9 and Karl-Leo Noethlichs,
Die gesetzgeberischen Maßnahmen der christlichen Kaiser des vierten Jahrhunderts gegen Häretiker,
Heiden und Juden (Cologne, 1971), pp. 79–83. Regarding the emperor Valens, see below, fn. 43.
The Homoians 101
In his letter to the emperor, Auxentius emphasised the large number of 600
bishops, who were united in harmony at Rimini and supported his theological
position, and that Hilary, with his agitation, would put this consensus at risk.
He meant by this number either the double synod of Rimini-Seleucia in the East
and West or, more likely, the consensus of the western synod at Rimini alone.
In this case further signatures had to be added to those of the 400 bishops who
were present there (see above). In order to support his position, he sent, along
with his letter, the documents of the Synod of Rimini to the emperor. Auxentius
sketched briefly his own theological position as well, which followed in outline
the declaration of Rimini:
1. I believe in one true God, Father, who is almighty, invisible, impassible,

and immortal,
2. and in his only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, Only-Begotten, who was born from
the Father before all ages and before every beginning, God and true Son from true
God and Father, just as it is written in the Gospel: ‘That is eternal life, that they
know you, the only true God, and he whom you sent, Jesus Christ’, ‘through him
all things were made’, ‘the visible and the invisible’,
3. who descended from the heavens according to the will of the Father for our
salvation, was born from the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary according to the
flesh, just as it is written, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, was buried, and
he rose again on the third day, and ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of
the Father, and that he will come [again], to judge the living and the dead.
4. I believe also in the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, that was sent by the Lord and
God, our saviour Jesus Christ, to his disciples, the Spirit of Truth.37
In his explanation, Auxentius did not deal with the question of likeness at all;
but he nevertheless remained close to the homoian concepts and expressed his
37
The text of this letter is found in Michael Durst, ‘Das Glaubensbekenntnis des
Auxentius von Mailand’, JAC, 41 (1998): pp. 161–63: Credo in unum solum verum Deum patrem
omnipotentem, invisibilem, impassibilem, immortalem, et in filium eius unigenitum, Dominum
nostrum Iesum Christum, ante omnia saecula et ante omne principium natum ex Patre, Deum verum
filium ex vero Deo patre, secundum quod scriptum est in evangelio: ‘haec est autem vita aeterna, ut
cognoscant te solum verum Deum et quem misisti Iesum Christum’ ( Jn 17:3) per ipsum enim omnia
facta sunt ( Jn 1:3), visibilia et invisibilia (Col 1:16). Qui descendit de caelis voluntate Patris propter
nostram salutem, natus de Spiritu sancto ex Maria virgine secundum carnem, sicut scriptum est, et
crucifixum sub Pontio Pilato, sepultum, tertia die resurrexisse, ascendisse in caelis, sedere ad dexteram
Patris, venturus iudicare vivos et mortuos. Et in Spiritum sanctum paraclitum, quem misit Dominus
et Deus noster salvator Iesus Christus discipulis, Spiritum veritatis.
faith without using those terms like ‘essence’/οὐσία or subsistence/ὑπόστασις.

The claim, at the very beginning, that the Father alone is ‘true God’, is interesting;
this is further emphasised by the citation from the scriptures of John 17:3. By
comparison, the Son of God is not himself ‘true God’ but simply ‘God’, while
nevertheless being explicitly called God’s ‘true Son’. Auxentius wants to hint at
the subordination of the Son to the Father, namely that the Son owes his existence
to the Father and has received from the Father his divine existence. Later, in the
debate between Ambrose and the Homoians Palladius and Secundianus at the
Synod of Aquileia in 381, it is precisely this terminology that will be discussed
(see below).
The case of Auxentius, who was able to remain the undisputed Bishop of
Milan until his death in 374, shows that the decisions of Rimini were well
received in northern Italy. Moreover, it set a precedent that one could self-
confidently and cleverly use the peace achieved with 600 bishops to prove one’s
case to the new emperor Valentinian. Later attempts to depose Auxentius, made
by the Roman bishop Damasus (366–84) or the Alexandrian bishop Athanasius,
were not successful either.38
Conflicts between Valens, Ursacius, and Germinius about similis
In the year 366 there arose a conflict within the dominant group of Illyrian
Homoians: Germinius of Sirmium was criticised for having left the homoian
teachings, because he supposedly changed the meaning of the central term
‘similar’/ὅμοιος. Handed down are three documents about this controversy: (a) a
personal declaration of faith by Germinius himself; (b) a letter from a homoian
assembly, including Ursacius, Valens, Gaius, and an otherwise-unknown Paulus,
sent to Germinius, that exhorts Germinius to clear himself of the charges39
(dated December 18th, 36640); and (c) a letter from Germinius addressed to
eight bishops, which is, however, not an answer to (b). Germinius wrote the
letter (c) to a different group of Illyrian bishops, who wanted to get some more
38
Athanasius, in his letter Ad Afros (AW II, Apologien, Brennecke, Heil, and von
Stockhausen, eds (Berlin and New York, 2006), pp. 322–39; cf. also fn. 27, above), warned the
bishops of Northern Africa about the heretics Valens, Ursacius, and especially with Auxentius. The
letter Confidimus quidem is a document of a Roman synod led by Damasus, and was addressed to
bishops in Illyria, who should depose Auxentius. Cf. Ursula Reutter, Damasus, Bischof von Rom
(366–384). Leben und Werk, Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 55 (Tübingen, 2009),
pp. 253–59 (text and translation).
39
This letter indicates that Germinius had already been asked to take a position some time
before, but had avoided giving a clear answer. Thus, the conflicts had already been smouldering for
a while. Regarding Germinius see above, fn. 4.
40
We have no document which gives an answer from Germinius.
The Homoians 103
information about the accusations against Germinius.41 The results of these

disagreements are unclear, but Germinius remained bishop in Sirmium until his
death in the 370s. Valens, Ursacius, Gaius, and Paul wrote in December 366
to Germinius:
You are asked to signify more openly that you will not depart from the Catholic
faith expounded and confirmed by the holy council at Rimini, to which creed
all bishops of the East gave their united assent, as you yourself have already
acknowledged. However, there is in that creed the following provision: we call
the Son ‘similar to the Father in accordance with the scriptures’, not ‘similar-in-
essence’, or ‘similar-in all things’, but ‘similar’ without further qualification. For if
this expression is altered, clearly Basil’s declaration of false faith which produced
the synod and which was deservedly condemned will be restored.42
The four addressors insisted that it was only correct to describe the Son as
similar to the Father according to the scriptures, but it was not right to describe
him as similar to the Father according to substance or in all things. If one were to
do that, one would be teaching the same things as the damned ‘Homoiousians’
around Basil of Ancyra. The historical background was probably the increased
activities of the Homoiousians at this time (the middle of the 360s), who
assembled at several synods, repeated their criticisms of the decisions at Rimini,
and sought to gain further supporters.43 So for some of the homoian party,
e.g. Valens, the position of Germinius risked weakening the homoian position,
41
These documents come down to us from Hilary of Poitiers: a) Collectanea antiariana
Parisiana A III (ed. Feder, CSEL 65, pp. 4–9); b) Collectanea B V (ed. Feder, CSEL 65,
pp. 159–60); c) Collectanea B VI (ed. Feder, CSEL 65, pp. 160–64).
42
(ed. Feder, CSEL 65, p. 159: 18–160:2): Si a fide catholica, quae Arimini a sancto concilio
exposita confirmataque est, cui etiam universi Orientis episcopi consenserunt, sicuti iam professus, es te
non recessurum apertius quaeritur significes. Est autem hoc, sicut in ea cautum est: Similem dicimus
Filium Patri secundum Scripturas, non secundum substantiam, aut per omnia, sed absolute. Si enim
haec expositio immutata fuerit; manifeste quondam Basilii perfida adssertio, propter quam synodus facta
est, quae etiam merito damnata est, reparabitur. Translation by Lionel R. Wickham, Hilary of Poitiers,
Conflicts of Conscience and Law in the Fourth-century Church, TTH 25 (Liverpool, 1997), p. 100.
43
In Lampsakus on the Hellespont, there assembled a synod of homoiousian bishops
from Bithynia and Hellespont in the first half of 364. They distanced themselves from the
theological declaration of Rimini, and preferred to rely on an earlier declaration made in Antioch
in 341. The leading Homoians in the East, such as Acacius and Eudoxius were condemned (Sokr.
HE 4.2.2–4; 4.2–4.6; Soz. HE 6.7.1–9) as well. Besides this we have a letter, which was sent to
Liberius of Rome by a Homoiousian delegation in 366, in order to find further support in the
West (Sokr. HE 4.12:10–20; Soz. HE 6.11:1–3). After their visit to Liberius, the delegation
travelled to Sicily (Sokr. HE 4.12:38), and was able to establish church community there. The
efforts of the homoiousian delegation were supposed to lead eventually to a larger homoiousian
synod in Tarsus in Cilicia in the year 367. But this gathering was blocked by Emperor Valens (Sokr.
and endangered the consensus achieved at Rimini. Because of this, they accused
him of a homoiousian corruption of the homoian heritage.
In fact, the homoian declaration agreed upon in Constantinople in 360
says about the Son: ‘who is like the Father, who begot him, as is written in the
scriptures’ (see above). But in the formula prepared for the double synod in 359,
for which both Valens and Ursacius were also responsible, one can read: ‘We
call the Son similar to the Father in all things, just as the sacred scriptures say
and teach.44 This statement was taken from a former theological declaration
from 344, which had been written by the Eusebians, in order to repel the
accusations of Arianism made against them in Serdica in 343. In connection
with the description of the Son as eternal and divine, that text proclaims: ‘For
Christ did not achieve a new dignity, rather, we believe that he was perfect from
the beginning, and similar to the Father in all things’.45 This expression illustrates
the theological background of the Homoians, namely the Three-Hypostasis
theology of the Eusebians. During the long negotiations of the double synod
in 359, however, this formulation was altered, so that it repeated just the
homoian reference to the scriptures. The similarity according to the scriptures
of course does not rule out a similarity in every respect, even if the latter is not
directly mentioned.
Germinius could therefore claim to use the right formulation, which he
pointed out in his letter to the eight other bishops. It was Valens, according
to Germinius, who had changed his position. Germinius, however, believed
the following:
That Christ, the Son of God, our Lord, is similar to the Father in all things, except
ingeneracy, God from God, light from light, power from power, whole from
whole, perfect from perfect, begotten before all ages and before all things which
can be thought about and spoken of. His birth no one knows save the Father,
since the Son himself declares: ‘No one has known the Son except the Father,
nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son and him to whom the Son has
willed to reveal him’ (Mt 11–27) … .46
HE 4.12:39–41; Soz. HE 6.12:5), and with this, the activities of the Homoiousians ended for a
while. Regarding Emperor Valens, cf. Noethlichs (see above in fn. 36), 92–95.
44
Ath., syn. 8:7 (AW II 236, 14–5 Opitz) = AW III, doc. 57.2, 6: ὅμοιον δὲ λέγομεν τὸν υἱὸν
τῷ πατρὶ κατὰ πάντα ὡς καὶ αἱ ἅγιαι γραφαὶ λέγουσί τε καὶ διδάσκουσιν.
45
The so-called Ekthesis makrostichos, AW III, doc. 44,10: οὐδὲν γὰρ πρόσφατον ὁ Χριστὸς
προσείληφεν ἀξίωμα, ἀλλ᾿ ἄνωθεν τέλειον αὐτὸν καὶ τῷ πατρὶ κατὰ πάντα ὅμοιον εἶναι πεπιστεύκαμεν.
46
(ed. Feder, CSEL 65, p. 161:5–12): Christum Dei filium Dominum nostrum per omnia
Patri similem, excepta innativitate, Deum de Deo, lumen de lumine, virtutem de virtute, integrum de
integro, perfectum de perfecto, ante saecula et ante universa, quae intellegi vel dici possunt, genitum,
cuius nativitatem nemo scit nisi solus Pater, ipso Filio asserente: ‘quia nemo novit Filium nisi Pater,
The Homoians 105
Germinius emphasised that the Son as a perfect image of the Father is

similar to the Father in all aspects, except for one difference, that the Father is
unbegotten, while the Son is begotten. He accused Valens, however, of having
changed his position, and of being in error. For, if Christ is not similar to God in
all aspects, then he is only half similar, and half dissimilar. In Christ, however, is
the fullness of the Godhead, just as it says in Colossians 2:8, so that he cannot be
partially similar and partially dissimilar.
The dispute, therefore, is about the right understanding of the word ‘similar’/
ὅμοιος/similis and shows that inside the homoian party there existed a broader
theological spectrum, though Valens and Ursacius wanted to enforce a narrow
understanding of ‘similar’. The position of Germinius cannot be understood as a
rapprochement to the Homoiousians, as Valens insinuated, because he did not
use the criticised οὐσία-terminology and refrained from writing ‘like-in-essence’/
ὅμοιος κατ᾿ οὐσίαν. Besides this, Germinius emphasised the unknowability of
the generation of the Son from the Father as all Homoians did. The remarkable
abundance of biblical citations in his confession is in accord with homoian
tradition, too.
The Homoians and the Holy Spirit
Until now, only the relationship of the Son to God, the Father was addressed,
because the Holy Spirit and his relationship to the Father and the Son had not
yet become an issue. But this was changed in the middle of the fourth century
and, again, the beginning of the disputes was in the East:47 in Egypt, Athanasius
wrote his four long letters to Serapion against the ‘antagonists of the Spirit’,
or Pneumatomachists, around 358, and Didymus the Blind composed De
spiritu sancto. Some years later in Cappadocia, Basil of Caesarea defended the
divinity of the Holy Spirit in 374/375, in his work De spiritu sancto. The earliest
documents of the Homoians about this theme were the theological declaration
of Wulfila and passages from the so-called Fragmenta theological arriana, which
were written at the beginning of the 380s in the broader context of the Synod of
Constantinople in 381. There was not a special homoian synod or theological
declaration on this question. Those texts, however, show a certain homoian
consensus regarding the Holy Spirit: first, the subordination’s vein is developed
further in relation to the third person; second, there is also an anti-Nicene or
anti-homoousian attitude in these texts.
neque Patrem quis novit nisi Filius, et cui voluerit Filius revelare’ (Mt 10:27). Translation by
Wickham, Hilary of Poitiers, p. 101.
47
Cf. the overview and the bibliography in Uta Heil, Avitus von Vienne und die homöische
Kirche der Burgunder, Patristische Texte und Studien 66 (Berlin and Boston, 2011), pp. 139–76.
The Fragmenta theologica arriana stress that the Holy Spirit is in no way
the creator, nor does he have any creative power himself. For this reason, he is
third-named in the Creed and in Baptism.48 If the Spirit was not subject to the
Son, then God, the almighty Father, had not made all things subject to the Son,
as is written in 1 Cor 15:27.49 The Holy Spirit is therefore definitely subject
to the Son, and fulfils, as the gift of God to the believers, a duty, but does not
call anything into being as the creator. Rather, the Holy Spirit illuminates those
things created by God, the Father, through Christ.50
The Holy Spirit is therefore ‘third in rank’, the first work of the Son, and
he teaches, illuminates, and sanctifies. He is therefore not to be honoured
(colendus) or adored (adorandus) as the Father and the Son are.51 Attacked are all
those who call themselves orthodox and want to rule the Church in a tyrannical
way but teach falsely, that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are exactly identical
(aequalem).52 Wulfila also speaks of the Holy Spirit in his personal declaration:
… I believe in God being one, the Father, the only unbegotten and the invisible
one, and I believe in his only-begotten Son, our Lord and God, the creator and
craftsman of the whole creation, there is not one similar to Him; therefore there
is one God and Father of all, who is also the God of our God; I also believe in
Fragmenta theologica arriana = Frgm. theol. arr. 5: Unum autem imperium et unam
48
potestatem sic dicimus esse, quia secundum patris imperium filius omnia perficit, sed et spiritui sancto,
angelis et hominibus ea imperat filius facere secundum quod pater vult et iubet filio, ut filius imperet
ceteris omnibus. (Roger Gryson (ed.), Scripta Arriana Latina. Pars 1: Collectio Veronensis. Scholia
in concilium Aquileiense. Fragmenta in Lucam rescripta. Fragmenta theologica rescripta, CCSL 87
(Turnhout, 1982), pp. 236:10–237:22) … unum autem deum et patrem omnium sic dicimus et
credimus, ut istum spiritum sanctum, quem tertio loco a patre post filium in symbolo et in baptismo
tradimus, non esse deum creatorem dicimus, quia nihil ab illo et per illum creatum est, quia omnia a
patre per filium creata sunt … (5,237–49).
49
Frgm. theol. arr. 2: si autem spiritus sanctus filio non est subiectus, non omnia deus pater
omnipotens filio suo subiecit (ed. Gryson, CCSL 87/1, p. 233:31–34).
50
Frgm. theol. arr. 19: Hic spiritus non est deus nec dominus, quoniam nec creator; nec enim
eorum quae non erant ut essent aliquid fecit nec facere potest, quoniam non est deus, sed minister
Christi filii dei sui, in hoc ministrans ut ea quae per Christum voluntate dei facta sunt rationabilia
sanctificet et inluminet et doceat … (ed. Gryson, CCSL 87/1, p. 259:7–21).
51
Frgm. theol. arr. 21: Hic spiritus sanctus non Deus neque Dominus, non creator neque factor,
non colendus neque adorandus per divinas adnuntiatus agnoscitur scripturas, sed spiritus sanctus
qui que sunt et facta sunt per filium sanctificat et inluminat et consolatur, et interpellat gemitibus
inenarrabilibus pro nobis, et adiuvat infirmitatem orationis nostrae, et adducit ad filium Dei per
ducendos ad patrem. (ed. Gryson, CCSL 87/1 p. 262:1–20).
52
Frgm. theol. arr. 7: Causa nobis maxime est adversus eos qui se dicunt orthodoxos, qui
eclesias nostras invaserunt et more tyrannico obtinent, dicentes aequalem esse filium per omnia et in
omnibus Deo patri, et spiritum sanctum aequalem esse per omnia et in omnibus Deo patri et Deo filio.
(ed. Gryson, CCSL 87/1, p. 239: 14–28).
The Homoians 107
the Holy Spirit, the illuminating and sanctifying power, as it says … (it follows
citations of Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8), who is neither God nor Lord, but rather the
trusted minister of Christ, … in all things subject to the Son and obedient to him,
and the Son is also in all things subject and obedient to the Father … .53
A student of Wulfila, Auxentius of Durostorum, explained as well that,

for Wulfila, the Holy Spirit was created by the Father through the Son before
everything; therefore, he could be neither the Father nor the Son, neither be
unbegotten nor begotten, neither be called the first nor the second, rather, the
Holy Spirit was a creation of the first through the second, and stood on the third
level.54 So, the Holy Spirit himself is not a creator, but rather an inluminator,
sanctificator, doctor, adiutor and minister Christi.55
Two developments at this time are relevant for the later discussion. First,
the adjective aequalis and the noun aequalitas became the central terms in the
language of the Latin-speaking Neo-Nicenes, while at the same time, the forms
of the Latin word similis were the keywords for the Homoians in this dispute.56
The homoian critique, therefore, was directed not against the Greek essence-
terminology, or against the key term ὁμοούσιος, which was taken up in the Nicene
theological declaration (Nizänum), but rather against the term aequalis.57
Secondly, at this time, there arose a liturgical novelty, which was supported
by the Neo-Nicenes, but rejected by the Homoians. The point of contention
was the so-called ‘little Gloria Patri’. Until that time, a kind of ‘prepositional’
doxology was spoken in this way: ‘Glory be to the Father through the Son in the
Holy Spirit’. Basil of Caesarea gave rise to a different variant that he favoured,
53
From the text of Auxentius (Diss. Max.= De vita et obitu Ulfilae) in Scholia Arriana 63,
fol. 308r, 4–35 (ed. Gryson, SC 267, p. 250): … credo unum esse Deum Patrem, solum ingenitum et
invisibilem, et in unigenitum Filium eius, dominum et deum nostrum, opificem et factorem universe
creature, non habentem similem suum, ideo unus est omnium Deus Pater, qui et dei nostri est Deus, et
unum Spiritum Sanctum, virtutem inluminantem et sanctificantem, ut ait (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8) …
nec Deum nec deum nostrum, sed ministrum Christi … subditum et oboedientem in omnibus Filio,
et Filium subditum et oboedientem et in omnibus Deo Patri … . For the confession of Wulfila see
Chapter 1 (Knut Schäferdiek) in this volume.
54
Diss. Max. = Scholia arriana 50, fol. 305v, 26–37 (ed. Gryson, SC 267, p. 240): Sed et
Spiritum Sanctum non esse nec Patrem nec Filium, sed a Patre per Filium ante omnia factum, non esse
primum, nec secundum, sed a primo per secundum in tertio gradu subsistutum, non esse ingenitum nec
genitum, sed ab ingenito per unigenitum in tertio gradu creatum. See below, fnn. 63, 67.
55
Diss. Max. = Scholia arriana 63, fol. 308r, 26–33 (ed. Gryson, SC 267, p. 250): … sed
ministrum Cristi … subditum et oboedientem in omnibus Filio, et Filium subditum et oboedientem … .
56
Cf. Heil, Avitus, pp. 214–20 (the Exkurs: aequalitas); Cornelius Mayer and Basil Studer,
‘Aequalitas’, Augustinus Lexikon 1 (1980–1994), pp. 141–50.
57
Cf. the citation above in fn. 52.
namely ‘Glory be to the Father and the Son, and/with the Holy Spirit’ (De
spiritu sancto, 3), which caused some debate:
As I recently prayed with the community and prayed to God, the Father, the
doxology in two ways – namely, one time with the Son and with the Holy Spirit,
and one time through the Son and in the Holy Spirit, some of those present raised
their voices and accused me of having used foreign and contradictory words.58
Because the Homoians sought to show that the Son was subordinate
to the Father and the Holy Spirit was subordinate to the Father and the Son
with the help of the different prepositions, the Neo-Nicene side increasingly
preferred to use the version without prepositions. This difference remained a
decisive detail through the years and in the everyday lives of Christians became a
distinguishing feature between the homoian and Nicene churches. So when the
Visigoths converted to the ‘catholic’ faith under the reign of Reccared I, in 589,
this difference was explicitly mentioned in the anathemas:
Whoever still does not believe that the Son of God and the Holy Spirit are
to be glorified and honoured together with the Father, let him be anathema./
Quiquumque filium dei et spiritum sanctum cum patre non crediderit esse
glorificandos et honorandos, anathema sit. Whoever still does not say: ‘Glory
be to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, let him be anathema./
Quiquumque non dixerit: Gloria patri et filio et spiritui sancto, anathema sit.59
Ambrose of Milan against the Homoians
The time of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan (374–97), 60 marked the decisive turning
point for the Homoians in the Latin West. Only shortly after taking office,
Fontes Christiani 12, ed. Sieben, pp. 78–80: προσευχομένῳ μοι πρῴην μετὰ τοῦ λαοῦ, καὶ
58
ἀμφοτέρως τὴν δοξολογίαν ἀποπληροῦντι τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρί, νῦν μὲν μετὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ σὺν τῷ πνεύματι τῷ
ἁγίῳ, νῦν δὲ διὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ ἐν τῷ ἁγίῳ πνεύματι, ἐπέσκηψάν τινες τῶν παρόντων, ξενιζούσαις ἡμᾶς φωναῖς
κεχρῆσθαι λέγοντες, καὶ ἅμα πρὸς ἀλλήλας ὑπεναντίως ἐχούσαις. Regarding this, cf. Heil, Avitus,
pp. 205–9 with the literature referenced there.
59
Gonzalo Martínez Díez and Félix Rodríguez, La Colección canónica Hispana, vol. 5:
Concilios Hispanos secunda parte, Monumenta Hispaniae Sacra. Serie Canónica 5 (Madrid and
Barcelona, 1992), here p. 82.
60
Cf. the literature above in fn. 35; further, John H.G.W. Liebeschuetz (ed.), Ambrose of
Milan. Political Letters and Speeches, translated with an Introduction, TTH 43 (Liverpool, 2005);
Neil McLynn, Ambrose of Milan. Church and Court in a Christian Capital, The Transformation
of the Classical Heritage 22 (Berkeley, 1994), pp. 102–34 (about the Synod of Aquileia); Daniel
H. Williams, Ambrose of Milan and the End of the Nicene-Arian Conflicts (Oxford, 1995).
The Homoians 109
Ambrose turned against the vast majority of the Homoians in Milan (see above).61
Theologically, he inherited the Neo-Nicene argumentation of Basil of Caesarea.
His efforts were directed at the new emperor in the West, Gratian (375–383),
to persuade him to conduct an active, anti-homoian ecclesial politics. In order
to achieve this goal, Ambrose briefed him in his multi-volume work De fide and
received from him the permission in 381 to convene a synod in Aquila, at which
the leading representatives of the Homoians in Illyria were segregated. There
was another fierce dispute, accompanied by riots, about the use of a basilica in
Milan by the Homoians,62 who were led by Wulfila’s student, Auxentius,63 and
supported by the mother of the Emperor Justina, for the imperial court had
been transferred from the Illyrian city of Sirmium to Milan. These disputes
were characteristic of Ambrose’s anti-homoian route. In 386, Valentinian II
nevertheless passed a law that was meant to protect the homoian community.64
Thus Ambrose was not able to triumph until Emperor Theodosius – who since
his edict Cunctos populos in 380 and the Council of Constantinople in 381 had
favoured the Neo-Nicenes and excluded the Homoians as heretical ‘Arians’ in
the East – took control in the West in 388, because the emperor was just as
enthusiastic as Ambrose about a strict condemnation of these ‘heresies’. With
the anti-heretical laws that he passed between 389 and 391, when Theodosius
himself was present at Milan and Rome, the Homoians became, also in the
West, illegal, at last.65
The leading head of the Homoians on whom Ambrose had his sights was
Palladius, who came from Rathiaria in Illyria.66 He was the focus of the trial in
61
The ‘Great Illyrian Synod’, which is traditionally linked with Ambrose, should be
handled with caution, since documents were reworked later and the connection with Ambrose is
problematic. On this point, cf. Markschies, Ambrosius, pp. 109–34.
62
Regarding this point, cf. Daniel H. Williams, ‘Ambrose, Emperors and the Homoians
in Milan: The First Conflict over a Basilica’, in Michel R. Barnes and Daniel H. Williams (eds),
Arianism after Arius. Essays on the Development of the Fourth Century Trinitarian Conflicts
(Edinburgh, 1993), pp. 127–41; Timothy D. Barnes, ‘Ambrose and the Basilicas of Milan
in 385 and 386: The Primary Documents and their Implications’, ZAC, 4 (2000): pp. 282–99.
In connection with this, Ambrose wrote a sermon in 386, called Contra Auxentium de
Basilicis tradendis.
63
See above p. 107. This Auxentius is probably identical with Auxentius of Durostorum,
the student of Wulfila, who wrote De vita et obitu Ulfilae (see above, fn. 53).
64
CTh 16.1:4; cf. Soz. HE 7.13; cf. Noethlichs, Die gesetzgeberischen Maßnahmen,
pp. 121–5.
65
Cf. CTh 16.5:15–20. Regarding the earlier anti-heretical laws of Theodosius, see
Chapter 5 (Hanns Christof Brennecke) in this volume.
66
Ursacius and Valens, as well as Germinius, had, in the meantime, died; at the Synod of
Aquileia, an Anemius is present as the bishop of Sirmium, who supported Ambrose in Aquileia
in his interrogation of Palladius. The successor of Ursacius was Secundianus, who afterwards
was interrogated as well. Here, the report ceases. A further homoian bishop of this time whom
Aquileia in 381; he also wrote a refutation of the views of Ambrose in De fide,

and composed an apologia,67 objecting to the way he was treated in Aquileia. We
have his writings and the report of the negotiations at Aquileia68 only in a very
fragmentary form, but they offer, nevertheless, some good insights into the state
of the debate at that time.
Ambrose confronted Palladius at the Synod of Aquileia with the standard
charge that he was actually an ‘Arian’. He then ordered that, in support of his
charge, a text of Arius should be read out loudly,69 in order that Palladius should
be forced to take a position on this text. Palladius, however, defended himself
against this accusation, and emphasised that he knew neither Arius nor this text.
The further debate proceeds with a certain redundancy about the already known
question70 whether the Son is ‘truly God’ or simply ‘God’, to which Palladius
answered, the Son is ‘truly the Son’ and ‘God’. Then Palladius is further asked
whether he deprives the Son – in addition to truth and immortality – also of
eternity, wisdom, goodness, and almightiness. All these attributes occur in the
text of Arius and are used to heighten the transcendent God as creator of the
world. While Palladius insisted on a distinction and a subordination of the Son
to the Father (filius subiectus patri), for the Father is, according to John 14:28,
greater than the Son, Ambrose emphasised his full equality – aequalis is the
central key term. Palladius, against this, condemns the concept of three equal
ones (tres aequales; tres indifferentes) and distinguished between, for example, ‘to
be wise’ (God the Father is wise) and ‘wisdom’ (Son). He accused Ambrose of
believing that the Son and the Father are one and the same (unum eundemque),
and of ignoring the special characteristics of the persons (proprietates
personarum). He also refused to relate those texts that describe a subordination
of the Son under the Father, to the Incarnation of the Son (secundum carnem),
we know by name was Julianus Valens of Poetovio (Ambrosius, Epist. 4, 9–10; 5, 3, Faller and
Zelzer eds, CSEL 82, 3). Regarding Auxentius of Durostorum, see above, in fn. 63. Regarding
Maximinus, see below, in fn. 76.
67
The Apologia is edited by Roger Gryson (ed.), Scripta Arriana Latina. Pars 1: Collectio
Veronensis. Scholia in concilium Aquileiense. Fragmenta in Lucam rescripta. Fragmenta theologica
rescripta, CCSL 87 (Turnhout, 1982) and SC 267. Cf. Neil McLynn, ‘The Apology of Palladius:
Nature and Purpose’, JThS, 42 (1991): pp. 52–76. The history of the transmission of this text of
Palladius is interesting: in the margins of Cod. Par. lat. 8907, the Palladius fragments are located
on fol. 336r–349r as marginal notations to the gesta of Aquileia in 381. Also the letter of Auxentius
about the life of Wulfila is a marginal note in Cod. Par. lat. 8907 on fol. 304v–308r, namely on the
margins of Ambrose’s De fide.
68
Michaela Zelzer (ed.), CSEL 82/3 (Vienna, 1982), pp. 315–68.
69
This letter is the important one referred to in fn. 9, doc. 1 = Urk. 6, which Arius sent to
Alexander of Alexandria in about 318.
70
See above p. 101–2.
The Homoians 111
which was Ambrose’s solution. Interestingly, the issue of the Holy Spirit played
no role in this debate.
At the close of the negotiations and the trial, Palladius and Secundianus were
deposed, and the synod, in a letter to the emperor, asked for an appropriate law to
implement this decision.71 In result only Palladius’ defence, published after the
synod, is known further; it was later passed around and read in homoian circles.
Ambrose’s fight against the Homoians was not limited to the communities
in Illyria and in northern Italy; rather, he also fought against the Goths, who
were to be combated as heretics (Homoians) and as enemies of Rome. In De
fide (II 16,136–143), he encouraged Emperor Gratian to go to war against
the Goths under the leadership of Fritigern, who had already caused Emperor
Valens to suffer a disgraceful defeat in 378 at the battle of Hadrianopolis.
Gratian was to conquer the heretical and barbaric enemy in the name of Rome
and of orthodox Christianity. Here, as Ambrose represents it, one can detect
a combination of the ideology of Rome, clichés about cultureless barbarians,
together with a Christian salvation history, which lead to very negative view of
the Goths, who had, in the meantime, become Christians, but who were, for
Ambrose, still heretics.
Homoians in Conflict with Augustine
Despite the altered legal situation, there were also in later times communities
that were still homoian and significant spokesmen, of whom we have some
knowledge. The organisation and structure of their church is largely unknown;
probably some of the Latin-speaking Homoians affiliated themselves with Gothic
or other military groups, or were later assimilated among the settled gentes.72
As the reputation of Augustine of Hippo (354–430) as a learned bishop grew
and spread in North Africa, he was increasingly confronted with homoian texts
and representatives. Augustine came to Milan in 384 as a magister rhetoricae
when Ambrose had already been a bishop there for 10 years, and he remained
in the city until his conversion and baptism in 387. Eagerly he listened to the
sermons of Ambrose, and he was also a witness to the difficult conflicts regarding
the basilica, to which the Homoians laid claim (see above). Later as bishop in
North Africa, he pursued the anti-‘arian’ politics of Ambrose.
It was in particular the wave of emigration from Italy, caused by the plundering
of Rome by the Visigoths under Alaric I in 410, which led to an intensification
of this theological conflict in North Africa. Until then, this region had only
Ambrosius, Epistola 4, 8 (Faller and Zelzer [eds], CSEL 82, 3).

71
Regarding this point see Chapter 1 (Knut Schäferdiek) and Chapter 7 (Ralph Mathisen)
72
in this volume.
been confronted on the margins with the ‘Arian controversy’.73 The following
works and events are worth a mention:
(1) In the year 41974 Augustine was sent a piece of writing called the
Sermo Arrianorum, which inspired him to write his treatise Contra sermonem
Arrianorum.75 In the centre of this sermo is the statement about the Son of God,
that he, according to the will and on the authority of the Father, has brought
to completion the work of salvation (voluntate et praecepto). One also finds
the expression of the Son’s subordination to the Father and in consequence
the subordination of the Holy Spirit to the Son. The sermo also includes a
critique regarding the hermeneutic methods of the Homoousians, who relate
the biblical verses, which express the Son’s subordination and lowliness, to the
Incarnation: Instead, before the incarnation and also after the resurrection,
the Son shows his subordination and obedience to the Father.
(2) In the year 428, two years before his death, Augustine debated
publicly, in front of many attendees, with the important ‘Arian’ bishop named
Maximinus,76 who had come with the troops of the comes of Flavius Sigisvult
Cf. Heil, Avitus, pp. 258–62.

73
We know this date from Augustine’s letter 23A*, 3 (ed. Divjak, CSEL 88, pp. 122–23):
74
dictavi contra Arrianos ad illud quod mihi Dionysius noster de Vico Iuliani miserat et tres sermones
mittendos Carthaginem … . In all probability, what Augustine dictated against the ‘Arians’ was
the text Contra Sermonem Arrianorum. Augustine lists in this letter his writings, which he wrote
between September 11 and December 1, in 419. Regarding this point, cf. C. Weidmann (an
online publication from 2002: http://homepage.univie.ac.at/clemens.weidmann/augustinus/
vierpredigten.htm accessed 24 March 2014).
75
Augustinus, Sermo Arrianorum; Contra sermonem Arrianorum (ed. Suda, CSEL 92;
ed. Hombert, CCSL 87, pp. 1–126; pp. 159–255). An introduction and German translation
of these writings is offered by Hermann-Josef Sieben, Augustinus. Antiarianische Schriften,
eingeleitet und übersetzt, Augustinus Werke 48 H (Paderborn, 2008). An English introduction
and translation is presented by Roland J. Teske, Arianism and Other Heresies, The Works of Saint
Augustine I, 18 (New York, 1995).
76
The bishop Maximinus probably belonged to the cohort that crossed over to North
Africa in 428, under the command of Sigisvult, in order to put down the revolt of the commander
Bonifatius; cf. Hanns Christof Brennecke, ‘Maximinus, homöischer (“arianischer”) Bischof ’,
BBKL, 5 (1993), pp. 1082–84, and Id., ‘Maximinus, Homöer’, RGG, 5 (2002), pp. 933–35. This
conversation is also documented by Possidius, Vita Augustini 17. In all probability, this Maximinus
is identical with the author of the homoian fragment Diss. Max. (ed. Gryson, SC 267; CCSL 87,
pp. 204–327; pp. 147–96), which we have as marginal glosses in Cod. Par. lat. 8907 in the margins
of the documents of the Council of Aquileia (381), and in the margins of Ambrose of Milan’s
De fide, which, according to the editor, Gryson, can be dated to the middle of the fifth century
(see above, fn. 67). Maximinus was younger than Augustine (Augustinus, Collatio cum Maximino
Arianorum episcopo 11), and a very distinguished representative of the Latin Homoians, and he
must have had contact with the Italo-Illyrian Homoians as well. Whether he was a Goth himself,
we are unable to show. Regarding Maximinus’ other activities, cf. Ralph W. Mathisen, ‘Sigisvult
The Homoians 113
to North Africa. The notes of this debate have been transmitted among the
works of Augustine (Conlatio cum Maximino Arrianorum episcopo).77
After Maximinus had pointed to the Synod of Rimini as the basis of
orthodoxy,78 Augustine asked him whether he would characterise the Holy
Spirit as the only ‘illuminator’, but not the Son. Maximinus answered that the
illumination is to be traced back to an originator, namely, the Father, from
whom all illumination descends in stages or levels (a quo illuminatio omnis per
gradus descendit). Augustine in contrast insisted that Christ himself enlightens
through the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit through Christ. He concluded, if
their power is the same, so their substance is the same as well (nam par potestas
est, una substantia est, eadem divinitas). Maximinus wanted Augustine to give
proofs from the scriptures for his description of Father, Son and Holy Spirit as
three equal ones (aequales). Augustine then, in reply, likened the unity of the
human souls a minore ad maius with the unity in God according to Acts 4:32
‘All the believers were one in heart and in mind’. Maximinus protested that
in this passage, the writer was only describing the unity of concord and
agreement, but not the unity of substance. For him, clearly, the Holy Spirit
was subordinate to the other persons, because according to Romans 8:26, the
Holy Spirit pleads for us in front of the Father. Augustine rejected this passage
by reinterpreting it: It means that the Holy Spirit brings us to pray to God,
however, this reinterpretation was characterised immediately by Maximinus as
a mere rhetorical device. Maximinus admonished, further, that the ‘one God’
in Deut. 6:4 does not include the Son and the Holy Spirit as well. It is not by
uniting the Son and the Holy Spirit to the Father in equality that accounts for
the ‘one God’ but rather their subordination to the Father secures the God and
Father being one. He supplemented this claim with further passages from the
scriptures – John 5:26, which portrays the Father as giver of life; John 14:28,
which says the Father is greater than the Son; 1 Cor. 15:28, which notes
that all things are subject to the Father; John 1:18, where the Father alone is
invisible; 1 Tim. 6:15 ff., where the Father alone is powerful, immortal; and
Romans 16:27, where the Father alone is wise – which for the remainder of the
dialogue stood at the centre of the debate. Maximinus emphasised once again
the significance of relying only on the scriptures: profiteor quod lego … quod
docent nos sanctae scripturae, profiteor. Augustine, on the contrary, interpreted
the biblical verses expressing subordination as hints at the human nature of
the incarnated Christ, not at Christ as God, as Maximinus wanted to prove.
the Patrician, Maximinus the Arian, and political stratagems in the Western Roman Empire
c. 425–50’, EME, 8 (1999): pp. 173–96.
77
Augustine, Collatio cum Maximino Arianorum episcopo (ed. Hombert, CCSL 87,
pp. 383–470).
78
See above, fn. 31.
Since this debate did not end well for Augustine, because Maximinus made
the long and last speech, he wrote a two-volume treatise against Maximinus.
(3) Augustine also conducted a longer and very fierce debate at Carthage
with a certain Pascentius, an ‘Arian’ comes, which was continued with a short
exchange of letters (Epist. 238–241).79 The debate started in the morning and
was, with legal counsel, continued in the afternoon, but ended abruptly in
a quarrel. The Nicene concept of ὁμοούσιος lay at the centre of the debate,
apparently. Also later, in the discussions during the reign of the Vandals, this
Greek term would again be a subject of controversy.80
(4) An exchange of letters with a certain Elpidius is also relevant, of
which we hear about in one of Augustine’s letters (Epist. 242). Augustine
had received an ‘Arian’ book together with a letter from an unknown ‘Arian’
bishop, which was supposed to persuade Augustine of its views. Because we do
not have neither this book nor the letter from Elpidius, only the rather brief
answer of Augustine remains, which allows a short look at the themes of the
controversy. A central point of contention, clearly, is the description of the
Son as equal (aequalis) to the Father, for Augustine cites a question raised by
Elpidius: ‘How can the Son, who is begotten of the Father, be equal to him,
from whom he is born?’81
The texts from Augustine reveal a quite self-conscious erudition on the
part of the Homoians of his time. Their own theology was, on the one hand,
developed further concerning the Holy Spirit, and on the other hand they
responded to the new term now favoured by the Latin Nicenes, namely
aequalitas. In North Africa, moreover, it seems that a new debate had arisen
regarding the Greek expression ὁμοούσιος. Because the Homoians insisted on
their own ‘biblicality’ – that is, they insisted that only their positions were
based on the scriptures alone – this controversy is thoroughly interspersed
with lively discussion regarding the meaning of passages in scripture. Neo-
Nicene hermeneutics are criticised as captious evasions. Some of the more
distinguished representatives of the Homoians appear to have sought conflict
with Augustine on purpose. This interest in disputations occasionally occurs
later, namely in the succeeding kingdoms of the various gentiles, especially
in the kingdom of the Burgundians, under Gundobad, and also among the
Vandals. Augustine himself viewed the Homoians as new ‘Arians’, as did
Aug., Epist. 238–241 (ed. Goldbacher, CSEL 57, pp. 533–62). Bettina Windau,
79
‘Pascentius’, in Wilhelm Geerlings and Siegmar Döpp (eds), Lexikon der antiken christlichen
Literatur (3rd edn Freiburg i. B., 2002), p. 547.
80
Regarding this point see Chapter 12 (Robin Whelan) in this volume.
81
In Augustine’s Epist. 242:4 (ed. Goldbacher, CSEL 57, p. 566, 10–1) we find: quo modo
potuit de solo patre nasci filius aequalis ei, de quo natus est? One can also see here a missionary effort
on the part of the ‘Arians’.
The Homoians 115
Ambrose. Besides Ambrose’s invective, on the whole, we do not yet discern a

special identification of the Homoians with the Goths or Vandals, or vice versa.
Chapter 5
Deconstruction of the So-called
Germanic Arianism
At the turn of the sixth century the Franks accepted Christianity in its
‘Catholic’ form, as it was defined in 381 at the Second Ecumenical Council of
Constantinople.1 As a result, the establishment and consolidation of a Frankish
kingdom in Gaul took place without a confessional division between the Roman
majority and the new military elite, the Frankish minority.2 All other nations
that were occasionally called ‘Germanic’ by their Roman contemporaries and by
late antique historiographers3 accepted Christianity in its ‘Arian’ form after they
had entered the Imperium Romanum during the migration period4 to establish
thereafter their own kingdoms and to consolidate their rule.5
Religious legislation since Gratian and Theodosius I,6 which was repeatedly
confirmed by Roman Emperors until the rule of Justinian,7 defined Arianism as a
heresy8 that departed from the Imperial Church, and as strictly illegal, and called for
1
Cf. Adolf Martin Ritter, ‘Concilium Constantinopolitanum 381’, in Giuseppe Alberigo
(ed.), Conciliorum oecumenicorum generaliumque decreta I. The Oecumenical Councils from Nicaea
I to Nicaea II (325–787) (Turnhout, 2006), pp. 35–70.
2
There is no indication for a closer connection of this ‘Catholic’ Frankish Church to Rome
and the papacy.
3
Bruno Bleckmann, Die Germanen. Von Ariovist bis zu den Wikingern (Munich, 2009), pp. 11–47;
Walter Pohl, ‘Der Germanenbegriff vom 3. bis 8. Jahrhundert – Identifikationen und Abgrenzungen’,
in Heinrich Beck, Dieter Geuenich, Heiko Steuer, and Dietrich Hakelberg (eds), Zur Geschichte der
Gleichung ‘germanisch – deutsch’, RGA Erg. Bd. 34 (Berlin and New York, 2004), pp. 163–83.
4
The use of the term ‘migration period’ follows the definition of ‘Völkerwanderung’ by
Gerhard Wirth, ‘Völkerwanderung’, LMA, 8 (1997): pp. 1822–24.
5
On the term ‘Arianism’, cf. the Introduction (Hanns Christof Brennecke) and Chapter 4
(Uta Heil) in this volume.
6
Gratian was, until his death on August 25, 382, the higher ranked Augustus.
7
CTh 16.5: De haereticis; Cod. Iust. 1.5: De haereticis et Manichaeis et Samaritis.
8
Cf. Norbert Brox, ‘Häresie’, RAC, 13 (1986): pp. 248–97.
the persecution of its followers.9 After 381 the imperial Catholic Church considered
Arianism as synonymous with the Christianity of barbarians.10
Since the nineteenth century modern historiography has increasingly deployed
the notion of a so-called ‘Germanic Arianism’.11 The qualifier ‘Germanic’ was meant
to distinguish a special creed from the general notion of Arianism, which refers to
the theology that was inspired by the teachings of the Alexandrian priest Arius. It
first took root within the Imperial Church but was banned and declared heretical
by the Councils of Constantinople12 and Aquileia13 in 381 and subsequently by the
legislation of the Emperors Gratian and Theodosius.14 Germanic Arianism implies
much more than the mere assumption that a majority of peoples speaking a Germanic
language became Arian; it suggests that there was a specific Germanic form of
Arianism with its own contents and meanings.15
The very concept of a so-called Germanic Arianism referred to barbarian
political structures and kingdoms established within the boundaries of the Western
Roman Empire with their own Arian ecclesiastical organisation.16 It seems that
since the fifth century ecclesiastical organisations existing within the barbarian
kingdoms operated entirely independently. The Arian church was closely linked
to the rulers of the period.17 The ‘Arian’ churches18 established in Africa, Spain
CTh 16.5: De haereticis (contains 66 anti-heretical laws from the period of Constantine
9
the Great to Theodosius II (the earliest from 326; the last from 435).
10
P.Ital. 33: Lex gotica as a Gothic self-reference to their form of Christianity.
11
On the common use of this term today cf. Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Der germanische Arianismus.
Erwägungen zum historischen Verständnis’, in Miscellanea Historiae Ecclesiasticae III (Löwen, 1970),
pp. 71–83; Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Germanenmission’, RAC, 10 (1978): pp. 492–547, especially
pp. 497–531; Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Die geschichtliche Stellung des sogenannten germanischen
Arianismus’, in Id. (ed.), Kirchengeschichte als Missionsgeschichte 2 (Munich, 1978), pp. 70–90.
12
Ritter, ‘Concilium Constantinopolitanum 381’, pp. 35–70.
13
Gesta Concilii Aquileiensis, Michaela Zelzer (ed.), CSEL 82, 3 (Vienna, 1982), pp. 314–67.
14
CTh 16.1.3; 5.6–24.
15
Schäferdiek, ‘Germanenmission’, pp. 497–531; Schäferdiek, ‘Stellung des sogenannten
germanischen Arianismus’, pp. 70–90.
16
This is emphasised by Hans von Schubert, Das älteste germanische Christentum
(Tübingen, 1909); Id., Staat und Kirche in den arianischen Königreichen und im Reiche Chlodwigs,
Historische Bibliothek 26 (Munich and Berlin, 1912); cf. Kurt Dietrich Schmidt, Die Bekehrung
der Ostgermanen zum Christentum, vol 1: Der ostgermanische Arianismus (Göttingen, 1939).
17
On the establishment of barbarian kingdoms within the territory of the Western
Roman Empire cf. Guy Halsall, Barbarian migrations and the Roman West, 376–568, Cambridge
Medieval Textbooks (Cambridge, 2007); Peter J. Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire. A New
History of Rome and the Barbarians (Oxford and New York, 2005); Walter Pohl (ed.), Kingdoms
of the Empire. The Integration of Barbarians in Late Antiquity, TRW 1 (Leiden, Boston, and
Köln, 1997); Bleckmann, Germanen, pp. 232–316.
18
Scholarship occasionally used the term Landeskirche (‘National Church’), which has
been rooted in German Protestantism since the sixteenth century. It is anachronistic but in this
Deconstruction of the So-called Germanic Arianism 119
and Italy shared theological premises and liturgical practices and emerged in
interaction with each other. Nevertheless, the few sources we have do not indicate
that there were institutional or hierarchical connections between them. Each
church established its own hierarchy and held their own councils. It seems that
there were no Arian church councils attended by bishops from different kingdoms.
Yet the term ‘Germanic Arianism’ had theological implications as well, stating that
the religion practised within these Germanic kingdoms had its distinct theology,
which is not entirely congruent with Arianism in general – an assumption that
since the nineteenth century has given the term ‘Germanic Arianism’ a distinct
ideological dimension.19
II
The adoption of Christianity in its Arian form by barbarian groups since the
beginning of the fourth century was styled the first encounter between Germanic
peoples and Christianity on Roman soil;20 this would last for two centuries
but eventually became a historical episode. After the military defeat and the
annihilation of the Vandal and Ostrogothic kingdoms the remaining Germanic
churches turned over to the Catholicism of the Imperial Church. Due to a lack
of sources we do not fully understand this process. After the conversion of the
Lombards to Catholicism at the beginning of the seventh century the Arianism
of the so-called Germanic churches ceased to exist.21 Since the nineteenth
context it serves its purpose.
19
Cf. Hanns Christof Brennecke, ‘Der sogenannte germanische Arianismus als
“arteigenes” Christentum. Die völkische Deutung der Christianisierung der Germanen im
Nationalsozialismus’, in Thomas Kaufmann and Harry Oelke (eds.), Evangelische Kirchenhistoriker
im ‘Dritten Reich’, Veröffentlichungen der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft für Theologie 21
(Gütersloh, 2002), pp. 310–29; Hanns Christof Brennecke, ‘Lateinischer oder germanischer
“Arianismus”?’, in Hildegund Müller, Dorothea Weber, and Clemens Weidmann (eds), Collatio
Augustini cum Pascentio, Einleitung, Text, Übersetzung, Sitzungsberichte der Österreichischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften 779 = Veröffentlichungen der Kommission zur Herausgabe des
Corpus der lateinischen Kirchenväter 24 (Vienna, 2008), pp. 125–44. The following is based on
these publications. Spot checks using internet search engines show that the notion of a specific
‘Germanic Arianism’ is still prevalent among the general public. Scholarly research of the last 50
years has not had much impact.
20
On possible exceptions cf. Schäferdiek, ‘Germanenmission’, pp. 492–547.
21
Cf. Hanns Christof Brennecke, ‘Christianisierung und Identität – das Beispiel der
germanischen Völker’, in Ulrich van der Heyden and Heike Liebau (eds), Missionsgeschichte –
Kirchengeschichte – Weltgeschichte (Stuttgart, 1996), pp. 239–47. The specific example of the turn
of the Burgundians to Catholicism at the beginning of the sixth century is investigated by Uta
Heil, Avitus von Vienne und die homöische Kirche der Burgunder, Patristische Texte und Studien 66
(Berlin and Boston, 2011). The transition of the Visigoths from ‘Arianism’ to ‘Catholicism’ is
century historians have discussed – often with ideological undertones – how

the encounter between Germanic peoples and Christianity took place. Why
did Germanic gentes still embrace – after the religious legislation of Gratian and
Theodosius – a form of Christianity which at that point was considered a heresy?
Late antique church historians were already puzzled about this fact. Since their
sources could not provide an answer, they did not have an explanation either.
In their view one could become a heretic only by force, by seduction or by a
combination of both.22
Nineteenth-century European historiography in its pursuit of finding
the roots of nations asked a slightly different question: Is the adoption of
Christianity in its Arian shape by Germanic peoples a historical coincidence or
did their religious traditions predispose them to embrace Arianism, because it
suited their traditional religiosity better than Catholicism?23
There is a fundamental methodological error in this approach since it
presumes that the Goths made a conscious and theologically reflected choice for
Arianism. Neither the Goths nor other Germanic groups were in the situation
to choose. In their view they did – obviously – not become Arians but simply
Christians.24 This is reflected both in the position of the Gothic bishop Wulfila
within the Imperial Church and the circumstances in which the Goths were
first accepted in the East of the Empire under the Emperors Constantius II and
Valens. The blurriness of the term ‘Arianism’, which was used in predominantly
polemical late antique sources, makes it necessary first to get a grip on its content
and meaning before we start reconstructing the historical events.25
III
Around 430 the Cappadocian Philostorgios wrote a church history from

the perspective of the Eunomians, a group that was persecuted as heretical.
Presumably on the basis of Cappadocian traditions he gives an account of how
since the middle of the third century Cappadocian prisoners of war spread
Christianity among the Goths who had settled north of the Danube in the
marked by the third Council of Toldo in 589. Cf. Chapter 13 (Manuel Koch) in this volume
and José Orlandis and Domingo Ramos-Lisson, Die Synoden auf der Iberischen Halbinsel bis zum
Einbruch des Islam (711) (Paderborn, Munich, Vienna, and Zürich, 1981), pp. 95–117.
22
Sokr. HE 4.33; Soz. HE 6.37; Theod. HE 4.37.
23
This was claimed by some German scholars throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. It is based on the notion that there is a ‘Germanic’ religion which was in principle shared
by all Germanic peoples. Cf. Brennecke, ‘Der sogenannte germanische Arianismus’, pp. 310–29.
24
Knut Schäferdiek claimed this in numerous publications in opposition to older scholarship.
25
Cf. the Introduction to this volume as well as Uta Heil’s chapter, ‘The Homoians’.
former province of Dacia.26 The Council of Nicaea was attended by the Gothic
bishop Theophilos.27 Presumably during Emperor Constantine’s lifetime the
lector Wulfila - he may have been an interpreter for a Gothic embassy at the
Imperial Court - was ordained ‘Bishop of the Christians in the Gothic Land’s
by Eusebius of Nicomedia.28 It is noteworthy that Wulfila was ordained simply
bishop, not missionary bishop.
Christians were sporadically persecuted in the Gothic kingdom. Their
situation depended on the relationship with the Roman Empire since Goths
regarded Christians as being allied with the Romans.29 Because of persecution
Wulfila fled, presumably in the 340s, with a group of Goths into the Roman
Empire. Constantius II allowed them to settle in Moesia.30 From that point
onward Wulfila became a fervent adherent of the theology of the Three
Hypostases, which was at that point supported by the Emperor. This theology –
in the tradition of Eusebius of Caesarea and Eusebius of Nicomedia – merged
after the end of the 350s into the Homoian theology and church policy. Wulfila’s
support manifests itself in his participation in the Councils that were held in
26
Philostorgius HE 2.5; cf. Schäferdiek, ‘Germanenmission’, pp. 497–501. After 30 years
Schäferdiek’s article appears still to be the best collection of material as well as the best summary
on the conversion of the Germanic peoples. Cf. also his collected research in Knut Schäferdiek,
Schwellenzeit. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Christentums in Spätantike und Frühmittelalter,
Winrich. A. Löhr and Hanns Christof Brennecke (eds), Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 64
(Berlin and New York, 1996). Evidently we can’t assume that those Cappadocian Christians who
were abducted to Gothia had any confessional identity. It would be anachronistic to label them
‘Catholic’ or ‘orthodox’. On the Gothic raids of Cappadocia cf. Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Wulfila. Vom
Bischof von Gotien zum Gotenbischof ’, in Schwellenzeit, pp. 1–40.
27
Heinrich Gelzer, Heinrich Hilgenfeld, and Otto Cuntz (eds), Patrum Nicaeorum Nomina
Latine, Graece, Coptice, Syriace, Arabice, Armeniace: adiecta est tabula geographica. Neudruck der 1.
Aufl. (1898) mit einem Nachwort von Christoph Markschies, Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum
et Romanorum Teubneriana (Leipzig, 1995), pp. LXIV, pp. 56–7, and p. 70. An interesting –
though irresolvable – question is how a Gothic bishop, who was not part of the Imperial Church,
could partake in the Council of Nicaea.
28
Schäferdiek, ‘Wulfila’, pp. 1–40. This seems to be a massive intrusion of the Imperial
Church and of the Roman Empire into matters of the Gothic Church, which has to be seen in
the context of the Gothic politics of Constantine. On the supposed Arianism of Eusebius, cf. his
theological position. Literature still calls Eusebius erroneously an ‘Arian’ and Wulfila’s ordination
‘Arianic’. This is a misunderstanding of the late period of Constantine’s rule. See the chapters by
Sarah Parvis and Herwig Wolfram in this volume.
29
Cf. the Gothic martyr tradition: Hippolyte Delehaye, ‘Saints de Thrace et de Mésie’,
Analecta Bollandiana 31 (1912): pp. 161–300, especially Passio S. Sabae at pp. 216–24 (which is
the basis of all later editions), tr. Peter Heather and John Matthews, The Goths in the Fourth Century,
TTH 11 (Liverpool, 1991), pp. 96–110; cf. also Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Märtyrerüberlieferungen aus
der gotischen Kirche des vierten Jahrhunderts’, in Schwellenzeit, pp. 69–202.
30
Schäferdiek, ‘Wulfila’, pp. 1–40.
this period.31 Theologically he supported the Acts of the Council of Rimini

and Constantinople of 359/360 and he also kept close contact with the Illyrian
Homoians.32 It would be entirely misleading to date this positioning in theology
and church politics back to the period before the settlement in Moesia. Wulfila,
who was fluent in three languages,33 had organised within the framework of the
Imperial Church a presumably largely autonomous group of Gothic Christians,34
with its own Gothic liturgy that followed the customs of the Eastern Church. For
this purpose he used a partial translation of the Bible into the Gothic language.35
In 376 a political conflict within the Gothic kingdom – which may also
have been caused by religious dissent – prompted a group of mostly Christian
Goths under Fritigern36 to cross the Danube and to ask Emperor Valens for help.
They adopted from Wulfila and his followers a Homoian theology, which was
at that time prevalent in the East and supported by Emperor Valens. During the
decades which followed the Goths who had settled on Roman soil became the
vantage point for the Christianisation of a wide array of barbarian groups that
settled within the Empire.37
As foederati (federates), the Gothic, Vandalic or Herulian barbarians were
not bound to the religious legislation of the Emperors.38 For that reason they
just adhered to the form of Christian faith they had adopted in the first place.
Even after 381 Germanic military contingents in Roman service could officially
remain ‘Arian’. As we know, this is the background of the famous conflicts around
the basilicas in Milan between Bishop Ambrose and Valentian II’s mother
Justina.39 Since the shift of imperial church policy towards ‘orthodoxy’ under
Theodosius and Gratian, however, these barbarians became Arian heretics in the
eyes of the Imperial Church. Finally, the establishment of barbarian kingdoms
Wulfila participated in the Council of Constantinople at the beginning of 360; cf. Sokr.
31
HE 2.41; Soz. HE 4.24. On Wulfila’s participation in other Councils of the Imperial Church
cf. Auxentius of Dorostorum’s Life of Wulfila, Diss. Max. 27 (ed. Gryson, CCSL 87, p. 161).
32
Cf. Chapter 4 (Uta Heil) in this volume.
33
34
Jord. Get. 51.267; cf. Schäferdiek, ‚Wulfila’, p. 17.
35
Schäferdiek, ‘Wulfila’, pp. 1–40.
36
Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Zeit und Umstände des westgotischen Übergangs zum Christentum’,
in Schwellenzeit, pp. 97–113; Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Das gotische Christentum im 4. Jahrhundert’, in
Schwellenzeit, pp. 115–46.
37
Schäferdiek, ‘Germanenmission’, pp. 497–519.
38
On the Gothic foedus cf. Herwig Wolfram, Die Goten. Von den Anfängen bis zur Mitte
des sechsten Jahrhunderts. Entwurf einer historischen Ethnographie (Munich, 5th edn 2009),
pp. 149–58.
39
Ernst Dassmann, Ambrosius von Mailand. Leben und Werk (Stuttgart, 2004), pp. 92–108.
within the Western Roman Empire since the beginning of the fifth century led
to the rise of Arian Churches in Gaul, Spain, Italy and Africa.40
Barbarian contingents and, later, the ecclesiastical structures of the kingdoms,
could now offer a place to ‘hide’ – or even to retain their positions as priests and
bishops – for those Roman theologians who adhered to their Arianism despite
the fact that it had been declared heretical and illegal. They could enjoy the
protection of the barbarian reges. One example may have been a certain bishop
Maximinus who arrived in Africa in 428 in the company of the high-ranking
officer Sigisvult. Maximinus had a public debate with Augustine that did not
turn out favourably for the Bishop of Hippo.41 In all likelihood this Maximinus
was not of Germanic descent but a Roman ‘Arian’ under the protection of the
barbarian-military establishment. One could call him a sort of military bishop.42
The details of how federates and enemies of Rome accepted Christianity
over the course of two hundred years is extremely fascinating. All barbarian
peoples speaking a Germanic language who had entered the Western Roman
Empire – with the exception of the Franks – adopted Homoian Arianism within
a very short time – most likely mediated by the Goths. The last group were the
Lombards in the second half of the sixth century. This barbarian turn towards
Arianism can thus be found in the historic coincidence that the Goths adopted
Christianity during the reign of Constantius II und Valens.
IV
When the Goths moved into the Eastern part of the Roman Empire they took
over the form of Christian faith that under the emperors Constantius and
Valens was considered orthodox within the Imperial Church, and transmitted
it to other barbarians. The theological content of this Arianism was codified
at the Councils of Rimini/Seleucia in 359 and Constantinople in 360.43 We
cannot disregard the fact that the group around Wulfila was closely connected
Bleckmann, Germanen, pp. 232–316; Schäferdiek, ‘Germanenmission’, pp. 497–519.

40
Hanns Christof Brennecke, ‘Maximinus’, BBKL 5 (1993): pp. 1082–84. Erroneously

41
this article has been listed under ‘Maximilianus’. This wrong placement led to the publication
of another article on Maximinus: Josef Madey, BBKL 16 (1999): p. 1092 which represents an
older state of research. Cf. Ralph W. Mathisen, ‘Sigisvult the Patrician, Maximinus the Arian,
and political stratagems in the Western Roman Empire c. 425–440’, EME, 8 (1999): pp. 173–96
and Chapter 7 (Ralph Mathisen) in this volume with more examples of Arian ‘military bishops’
and priests.
42
The commonly assumed identity with the author of the Dissertatio Maximini is feasible
but not provable.
43
to Constantius II and that Fritigern and his followers had first been invited by
Valens,44 even if this later caused a conflict that would eventually cost Valens’ life.45
The idea that Arian Christianity had a special affinity with Germanic
religious notions has been expressed since the middle of the nineteenth
century, especially in German historiography. Some German scholars described
Arianism as artgemäß (‘naturally suitable’) to Germanic religion.46 Are there any
indications that the shape and transformation of Arianism, that was adopted
by peoples speaking a Germanic language, was indeed influenced by Germanic
religious needs? Are there specifically Germanic features in their Christianity?
The answer is clearly no: None of the few preserved Gothic and Latin
fragments of theological texts can confirm this idea, which was itself rather a
product of nineteenth-century nationalistic (völkisch) ideologies. We have a
number of fragments of a commentary to the Gospel of John by Theodor of
Heraclea, which are preserved in the Gothic language.47 Another Gothic
fragment of a liturgical calendar, which lists feasts of martyrs and saints, is in fact
a translation of a Greek martyrology from Constantinople.48 Both fragments
make it clear how closely the Gothic Church since Wulfila had been connected
to the Greek theological and liturgical traditions of the Imperial Church. A
manuscript containing anti-Arian texts from the late fourth century (Paris, BN
lat. 8907)49 contains in the margins a most polemical reply to the Acts of the
Council of Aquileia (381), which was written by a certain Maximinus. This
text quotes fragments of Palladius of Ratiara and a longer text of an otherwise
unknown Auxentius on the Gothic bishop Wulfila.50 The author, Auxentius of
Dorostorum, was clearly a follower of Latin Homoian Arianism and certainly
neither Gothic nor otherwise Germanic but a Roman. Nevertheless he describes

44
Konstantinopeler Martyrologs’, in Schwellenzeit, pp. 147–68. Nov. 3 in this Gothic fragment of a

martyrology is listed as the day of the death of Emperor Constantius II.
45
Valens was killed on August 9, 378 in the Battle of Adrianopel against the Goths. Cf. Otto
Seeck, Regesten der Kaiser und Päpste für die Jahre 311–476 n. Chr. (Stuttgart, 1919), p. 251.
46
Brennecke, ‘Der sogenannte germanische Arianismus’. This is based on an entirely
anachronistic construct of ‘Germanic’ religion based on medieval sources.
47
Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Die Fragmente der Skeireins und der Johanneskommentar des
Theodor von Herakleia’, in Schwellenzeit, pp. 69–87.
48
Cf. note 44.
49
Roger Gryson, Scolies ariennes sur le concile d’Aquilée, SC 267 (Paris, 1980), pp. 25–200.
A helpful overview on the outline of these marginalia can be found in Christoph Markschies,
Ambrosius von Mailand und die Trinitätstheologie, Beiträge zur historischen Theologie 90
(Tübingen, 1995), p. 217.
50
Diss. Max. 23–42 (ed. Gryson, CCSL 87, pp. 160–67 = ed. Gryson, SC 267, pp. 234–63).
himself as a student of Wulfila.51 He provides an account of his teacher’s life52

and inserts the confession of faith that Wulfila most likely had phrased for the
religious disputes that the Emperor had intended to set up after the Councils
of Constantinople and Aquileia.53 This confession of faith shows how closely
Wulfila was linked to the tradition of the Greek and Latin Homoians:
Ego Vlfila episkopus et confessor semper sic credidi et in hac fide sola et uera transitum
facio ad d(omi)n(u)m meum. Credo unum esse d(eu)m patrem, solum ingenitum
et inuisiuilem, et in unigenitum filium eius, d(omi)n(u)m et d(eu)m n(ostrum),
opificem et factorem uniuerse creature, non habentem similem suum, – ideo unus est
omnium d(eu)s pater, qui et d(e)i nostri est d(eu)s, – et unum sp(iritu)m s(an)c(tu)
m, uirtutem inluminantem et sanctificantem, ut ait Chr(istu)s post resurrectionem
ad apostolos suos: Ecce ego mitto promissum patris mei in uobis, uos autem sedete in
ciuitatem Hierusalem, quoadusque induamini uirtutem ab alto, item et: Accipietis
uirtutem superuenientem in uos s(an)c(t)o sp(irit)u, nec d(eu)m nec d(eu)m
nostrum, sed ministrum Cr(ist)i [ … ] subd[i]tum et oboedient[em] in omnibus
fili[o], et filium subdit[um] et oboedientem e[t] in omnibus d(e)o patr[i] que suo [ …
]e[ … ]s[ … ]c[ … ]eri[ … ]s[ … ]i[ … ]i[ … ] per Cr(istu)m e[i]us [in] sp(irit)u s(an)
c(t)o o[rdi]nauit.54
Unfortunately the third paragraph on the Holy Spirit has been largely
destroyed. What we have shows nevertheless how the Homoians – Wulfila
included – had interiorised and continued the theological debates about the
Holy Spirit that had taken place especially in the Greek Church since the 350s
and 360s.55 The properties of negative theology (ingenitus; invisibilis) were
only to be related to God; God’s son is unigenitus filius, dominus, deus noster;
opifex et factor universae creaturae. The statement non habentem similem suum
is noteworthy since it emphasises the Divine nature and the uniqueness of the
Son. God-Father is the God of our God. The Son is clearly subordinate to the
Father and the Holy Spirit is clearly subordinate to the Son. Wulfila expresses
here – with very minute differences in phrasing – the Homoian theology of
the Councils of Rimini and Constantinople, which at that point had been
defined as Arian heresy.56 This places the Gothic bishop Wulfila entirely within
51
52
53
Diss. Max. 23–42 (ed. Gryson, CCSL 87, pp. 149–71); Schäferdiek, ‘Germanenmission’,
p. 500; Id., ‘Wulfila’, pp. 27–9.
54
Diss. Max. 40 (ed. Gryson, CCSL 87, p. 166). The edition Gryson, SC 267, p. 250 has a
different chapter division (ch. 63). I provide a simplified version of Gryson’s diplomatic edition of
the manuscript. Cf. Chapter 1 (Knut Schäferdiek) in this volume.
55
On the continuation of the debates on paragraph 3, cf. Heil, Avitus, pp. 66–192.
56
the Homoian tradition of theological disputes inside the Imperial Church.

Neither the text of the Roman Auxentius, nor its transmission in the context of
Maximinus’ polemic reply to the Council of Aquileia in 381 show any distinctly
Germanic theology. What they represent stands entirely in the tradition of
Homoian Arianism. Wulfila’s Gothic background had absolutely no impact on
his theology or his position in ecclesiastical politics.
All statements of this theology – even those expressed in a Gothic context
(by Wulfila or others) – were preserved either in Latin or in a handful of Gothic
translations from Greek texts. This should make us at least cautious when talking
about ‘Germanic Arianism’. The manuscript LI from the Biblioteca Capitolare
in Verona is a collection of Latin Homoian texts compiled in Ostrogothic
Verona at the beginning of the sixth century. It contains catechetical works and
short dogmatic, exegetical and ethical treatises. All of them are transmitted
anonymously.57 A number of manuscripts from Bobbio, presumably produced
in the seventh century, contain palimpsests of a Homoian commentary on the
Gospel of Luke and other theological fragments.58 Those texts were most likely
written in Ostrogothic Italy.59 They make it clear that the Arian Church in
Ostrogothic Italy was embedded in the Latin tradition of Homoian Arianism
and did not show any distinctly Germanic traces.
Another example is the Vandal kingdom in North Africa.60 The religious
conflicts between Arians and Catholics in Africa emerged along the same line
as the clash between the Roman upper class and the Vandal conquerors. Our
sparse sources indicate that the Vandals adopted the Christian faith in the 420s
in the form of Homoian Arianism while still in Spain and under the influence of
the Visigoths.61 Some of the very fragmentary tradition indicates that there may
also have been contacts with Catholic Christianity;62 nevertheless, the Vandals
in Africa appeared as (Homoian) Arians.63
The Vandals arrived in Africa as victors in a long war and conquerors. One
of the strengths of the Vandal kingdom was its political stability. The Catholic
Roman upper class in particular politically opposed Vandal rule but that
should not lead us to take the religious conflicts on both sides too seriously.
Both sides were interested in theological aspects. Even the king himself took
57
Collectio Arriana Veronensis (ed. Gryson, CCSL 87, pp. 1–145). The so-called Collectio
Arriana: Verona, Bibl. Capit., ms. 51.
58
Arriani cuiusdam expositionis evangelii secundum Lucam fragmenta rescripta: Milano,
Bibl. Ambr., S. P. 9/9; Fragmenta theologica arriana e codice Bobiensi rescripto: Roma, Bibl. Vat.,
ms. lat. 5750; Milano, Bibl. Ambr., S. P. 9/1–2 (ed. Gryson, CCSL 87, pp. 197–265).
59
Cf. Chapter 10 (Berndt and Steinacher) in this volume.
60
Cf. Chapter 12 (Robin Whelan) in this volume.
61
Schäferdiek, ‘Germanenmission’, pp. 506–8.
62
Hydatius, Chron. 89.
63
Schäferdiek, ‘Germanenmission’.
part in theological disputes. Thrasamund (reigned 496–523) ‘further refined

a strategy that had first been used against the Nicene Church by Huneric
(reigned 477–484). The king ordered that a theological debate was to be held
with Fulgentius of Ruspe, the best African Nicene theologian of the time. The
bishop was specially recalled from exile between 517 and 519 so that he could
take part in this discussion. Where Huneric had satisfied himself with the
prospect of a mass debate between the assembled bishops of the two churches,
however, Thrasamund put himself forward as Fulgentius’ Arian disputant. First
Fulgentius was given a book containing ten objections that the king had raised
regarding the question of the Trinity – issues which suggest that the king had a
good knowledge of the Homoousian position.64
Following the example of the Roman Emperors of the fifth century, the
Vandal kings Huneric and Thrasamund organised grand religious debates65
between Arians and Catholics in which the victory of the Vandal ‘Arians’ was
pre-determined. Not only did those debates take place in Latin but both parties
developed their arguments out of Latin theological traditions.
Vigilius of Thapsus, who was for a long period presumed to be the author of
the fictitious dialogue between Augustine and Pascentius,66 participated at the
theological debate that took place in Carthage in 484. Basically every treatise
against the Arians that was ascribed to him67 was rooted in the works of the
Greek and Latin anti-Arian authorities of the past: Athanasius, Augustine,
Ambrose. The same can be stated about the Altercatio, the fictitious dialogue
between Augustine and Pascentius (who was a historical figure and theological
opponent of Augustine).68 Fulgentius of Ruspe placed himself in the same
tradition. Marginalia indicate that he was the owner of a – still preserved – codex
with works of Hilary of Poitiers.69 Fifth-century Arians and Catholics held their
disputes on the basis of the Greek and Latin theological heritage of the fourth
64
Andrew H. Merrills and Richard Miles, The Vandals, (Chichester, 2010), p. 197 (cited
passage) as well as Chapter 12 (Robin Whelan) in this volume.
65
Merrills and Miles, Vandals, pp. 177–203; Heil, Avitus, pp. 251–69.
66
The first critical edition with a German translation: Collatio Augustini cum Pascentio,
Hildegund Müller, Dorothea Weber, and Clemens Weidmann (eds), pp. 74–121; cf. also Uta
Heil, ‘Augustin-Rezeption im Reich der Vandalen. Die Altercatio sancti Augustini cum Pascentio
Arriano’, ZAC, 11 (2007): pp. 6–29; Heil, Avitus provides the first historical and theological
analysis of this text.
67
CPL, pp. 806–12. There is no critical edition of this text. Its authorship remains unclear.
68
Hanns Christof Brennecke, ‘Augustin und der Arianismus’, in Therese Fuhrer (ed.), Die
christlich-philosophischen Diskurse der Spätantike, Philosophie der Antike 28 (Stuttgart, 2008),
pp. 175–87.
69
It is Roma, Bibl. Vat., Basilicanus D 182 with Hilarius of Poitiers, De trinitate, PL 10,
pp. 25–472. Cf. Mark Weedman, The Trinitarian theology of Hilary of Poitiers, Supplements to
Vigiliae Christianae 89 (Leiden, 2007).
century. The Germanic descent of some of the participants did not in fact play
a role. They placed themselves just as much in the Latin theological tradition.
Anti-Arian polemic did never play the ‘Germanic’ card. The target of Catholics
who fought against the Arianism of barbarian peoples remained the doctrine of
the Alexandrian presbyter Arius who was condemned at the council of Nicaea.70
The kingdoms of the Vandals and the Ostrogoths were defeated by military
means and annihilated by Emperor Justinian. Their visible history ends with the
Byzantine conquest. We do not know about the fate of their Arian churches,
which simply disappear from history, aside from a few papyri from Ravenna
that indicate that the Ostrogothic church at the former royal residence survived
for a few years after 550.71 Starting with the Burgundians in the early sixth
century and ending with the Lombards in the early seventh century, all other
barbarian kingdoms converted from Arianism to Catholicism, though it is in
many regards unclear how this process took place. The confessional difference,
which at first contributed to the shape of barbarian collective identities, faded
away at the beginning of the Middle Ages when people of barbarian and Roman
descent started to shape new nations. Arianism, with its conservative traits, was
considered more and more unsuitable and sterile – probably also because it
could not fit the needs of new forms of piety.72
Based on these observations, does it make sense to continue using the notion
of a Germanic Arianism that was deployed by scholars for almost two hundred
years? Certainly not! Wulfila played a central role in linguistically transmitting
Christianity to the Goths but he was entirely rooted in the Greek and Latin
theological tradition. His pupil Auxentius was a Roman. The liturgy and the
liturgical calendar of the Gothic Christians were modelled after what was
common in the Greek Church. The Skeireins, Gothic Fragments of a commentary
to the Gospel of John, are a translation of a Greek commentary to the Gospel
of John written by Theodor of Heraclea who has to be regarded as a follower
of the Eusebian theology of the Three Hypostases in the Greek Church of the
fourth century. The Arian collection in the manuscript Verona LI, a collection of
Latin Arian authors of the late fourth and early fifth century, was likely collected
in the beginning of the sixth century, presumably by Ostrogothic clerics, as the
marginal glosses indicate. And Wulfila’s Gothic translation of the Bible follows
This is, of course, a polemical simplification. The Homoian theology has hardly anything
70
in common with the Alexandrian presbyter Arius. Cf. Chapter 4 (Uta Heil) in this volume.
71
Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Die Ravennater Papyrusurkunde Tjäder 34, der Codex argenteus und
die ostgotische arianische Kirche’, ZKG, 120 (2009): pp. 215–31.
72
Cf. Brennecke, ‘Christianisierung und Identität’. On the transition of the Burgundians to
Catholicism cf. Heil, Avitus, pp. 47–115.
closely the Greek original and shows, aside from that, some influence of the Old-
Latin Bible translation.73
The theological debates in Vandal North Africa and in the Burgundian
kingdoms took place within the framework of the Latin theological tradition
and called upon it. The Homoian Arianism of the barbarian churches on the
soil of the former Western Roman Empire, has, as far as we can see, nothing
distinctly Germanic in it and stands entirely in the Greek and Latin heritage.
There are simply no Germanic theological traditions. The same can be said of the
archaeological remains of the Ostrogothic Church in Ravenna.74
Some scholars describe the organisational structure of the church in the
different barbarian kingdoms and its close connection to the respective rulers as
a typical trait of Germanic Arianism. This is simply not the case. The structure
and the organisation of the Arian Churches in the barbarian successor states of
the Western Roman Empire were entirely modelled after the Imperial Church.
Since Constantine, the Church was as closely connected to the Emperor as
the Homoian Churches of Spain, Africa and Italy were to the king. The only
difference was that the barbarian kingdoms did not only have their own ‘National’
Churches (Landeskirchen) but were also inhabited by Catholic Romans who
were now living outside the Imperial Church of the Roman Empire and who
started to find a new focal point in the Bishop of Rome.75
The use of the term ‘Germanic Arianism’ is in fact no more than a product
of the nationalist ideologies of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, which claimed that there is a natural affinity between Germanic
identity (Germanentum) and Arianism. This assumption culminated in the
period of National-Socialism in the – more than questionable – idea that all
‘Arian’ texts can be ascribed to a ‘School of Wulfila’.76 The ideological purpose
of this construct was not only to claim a proximity between Latin Arianism
and Germanic culture but to claim that Arianism was in fact a product of a
genuinely Germanic religiosity and the Germanic nature (germanisches Wesen).
This should prove that the traditional Roman-Catholic and Protestant notions
of Christian faith were in fact alien (wesensfremd) to a true Germanic culture
73
Cf. Waldtraut Ingeborg Sauer-Geppert, ‘Bibelübersetzungen III.1’, TRE, 6 (1980):
pp. 229–30.
74
Deborah Mauskopf-Deliyannis, Ravenna in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2010),
pp. 106–200. See Chapter 9 (Ralf Bockmann) in this volume.
75
This is, interestingly enough, not the case for the Catholic Franks. The situation of the
Catholic Romans in the ‘Arian’ Germanic kingdoms, who were not part of the Church of the
Imperium Romanum supported and accelerated the rise of ‘Papacy’.
76
Cf. especially Heinz-Eberhard Giesecke, Die Ostgermanen und der Arianismus
(Leipzig, 1939); Brennecke, ‘Der sogenannte germanische Arianismus’.
and should be abandoned and replaced by a new cult around the Führer in the
disguise of a ‘Germanic Arianism’.77
The (Homoian) Arianism of the barbarian churches of the fourth to the
seventh centuries was eventually nothing more than a typical Homoian Latin
theology (self-evidently with its Greek roots). Arianism underwent remarkably
little change when it was adopted by barbarian peoples and there is no
indication at all that it became Germanised.78 For all these reasons, any notion
of a ‘Germanic Arianism’ needs to be abandoned.
Brennecke, ‘Der sogenannte germanische Arianismus’.

77
Cf. Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Germanisierung des Christentums’, TRE, 12 (1984): pp. 521–24.
78
Chapter 6
Vulfila pontifex ipseque primas Gothorum
minorum, sed non apostolus eorum.
Vulfila, Bishop and Secular Leader of His
People but not Their Apostle
Herwig Wolfram
Describing the ethno-political situation in the aftermath of the battle of Nedao

(454 rather than 455)1 Jordanes finally mentions ‘other Goths called the minor
ones, an extremely numerous people, with their pontifex ispeque primas Vulfila
who is said to have taught them the letters’.2 For the last part of the sentence
Jordanes relies on Socrates’ Historia ecclesiastica: ‘Vulfila, the bishop of the
Goths, invented the Gothic letters, γράμματα ἔφευρε Γοτθικὰ’.3 Since Jordanes
also provides important information we may ask two further questions: First,
what did Jordanes mean by calling Vulfila’s people the minor Goths? They were
in his own words an extremely numerous but unwarlike pastoral people, semi-
nomads who did not cultivate vines but drank only milk. They were settled in
Roman Moesia around Nicopolis/Stari Nikub between the right bank of the
Lower Danube and the Balkan mountain range.4 In other words they lived in
the ripa Gothica, a fortified military zone installed by Emperor Constantine
the Great which Jordanes did not mention at all.5 Instead, the author calls this
gens multa sed paupera the Gothi minores. In antique and medieval political
1
Herwig Wolfram, History of the Goths (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1988), p. 258.
Cf. Herwig Wolfram, The Roman Empire and its Germanic Peoples (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and
London, 1997), pp. 75–9. I wish to thank Alexander O’Hara (St. Andrews and Vienna) for
proofreading this chapter and improving its English as well as Roland Steinacher for improving
the footnotes and the critical apparatus.
2
Jord. Get. 267 (ed. Mommsen, p. 127), cf. Index IV ‘Lexica et Grammatica’, p. 195,
s.v. primas.
3
Sokr. HE 4.33.
4
Wolfram, Goths, pp. 63–64.
5
Evangelos K. Chrysos, ‘Ripa Gothica and litus Saxonicum’, in Walter Pohl, Ian N. Wood,
and Helmut Reimitz (eds) The Transformation of Frontiers, TRW 10 (Leiden et al., 2001),
pp. 69–72; Wolfram, Goths, pp. 60, 65, and 72.
theory and geographical terminology the adjectives small, minor and suchlike
were used to name those peoples that were us and those lands that were part
of our world as opposed to the big, huge, and greater areas in the outer-world,
beyond the confines of the Romania or Oecumene or simply colonised land.
One instance of this is Magna Graecia which referred to the many Greek
colonies in Sicily and Italy south of the River Volturno. The area to the east
of the Rhine River was called Germania magna/Γερμανíα μεγάλη as opposed
to the two Roman provinces Germania superior and Germania inferior. Asia
minor belonged to the Roman Empire while Asia magna was the huge continent
beyond the Roman boundaries, nay, properly speaking, beyond the River Don.
The same held true for Scythia minor as opposed to Scythia magna. Still Snorri
Sturluson speaks of Russia as Greater Sweden.6 Consequently, the Gothi minores
were the Roman Goths. They consisted of Gothic groups who had been already
admitted to the Roman Empire before 376 when the great invasions started that
affected not only the Balkan Peninsula but the whole Roman world. Among the
first newcomers were those Gothic warriors and their families who under the
leadership of Fritigern sought refuge with the Romans to avoid getting subdued
by the Huns. Having arrived south of the lower Danube they tried in vain to
force the Gothi minores to join them. Their former Gothic compatriots had long
since become ‘peace-loving and unwarlike’ shepherds7 and refused to leave their
new homeland; instead, they offered refuge to newcomers tired of wandering
around. Rural people from the villages north of the Danube must have been
only too glad to join them and Vulfila, pontifex ipseque primas, their bishop and
secular leader.8
Second question: What does this double title mean in Gothic as well as
in institutional history? I tentatively suggest aípiskaúpus jah kindins Gutani
seinaize, bishop and exarch of his Goths. To prove the point let’s start with
kindins. Vulfila’s aim in life was certainly not ‘to lay the foundation for “Grimm’s
Law” of the transmutation of consonants’, as Thomas Hodgkin put it.9 But Vulfila
and his helpers did translate the Bible into Gothic, which reflected a barbarian
segmentary society and necessarily provided a rich political terminology, too.
How then are we to determine Vulfila’s social and official position using the
biblical Gothic he created? Elsewhere in his Getica Jordanes refers to primates
and duces who reigned over the Gothic peoples vice regum, instead of kings. So
Vulfila’s being the only primas of his people makes him a king-like figure.10 The
confederation of the Danubian Goths of the fourth century had no monarchical
6

Wolfram, Goths, p. 81 with no. 304; Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla cap. 1, tr. Laing.
7

Jord. Get. 267 (ed. Mommsen, p. 127).
8

Wolfram, Goths, pp. 117–9, esp. pp. 121 and 134.
9

Wolfram, Goths, p. 75 with no. 218; Thomas Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders 1
(Oxford, 1880), p. 70.
10
Jord. Get.124 (ed. Mommsen, pp. 93 and 195 s.v. primas).
Vulfila, Bishop and Secular Leader of His People but not Their Apostle 133
king, no thiudans, but in times of external and/or internal threat they elected
a ‘judge of the people’ or even a ‘judge of (petty) kings’.11 In 348 Vulfila and
his followers were driven from their homeland by a ‘godless and law-breaking
judge of the Goths’.12 There is good reason to assume that the Goths called this
monarchical judge their kindins. In deviation from the etymology, the word
meant no longer the lord of a *kinds, a kin, a community of common descent,
but the judge with authority over a people or province. Consequently, Gerhard
Köbler’s Gotisches Wörterbuch equates kindins with ‘governor, ruler, ethnarch’,
and the biblical ἐθνάρχης was exactly the position Vulfila held when he and his
people crossed the Danube to the south. On Roman soil he was welcomed by
Constantius II as the Moses of his time and probably officially installed by the
same emperor as a sort of iudex gentis since his words ‘were like law to them’.13
Probably, Vulfila can be compared with other late-antique bishops and clerics
whom the imperial government bestowed upon the cura provinciae so that they
functioned as local or regional governors also called iudices.14 In fact, in the
Gothic Bible it is the governors and iudices provinciae Cyrinus (Lc. 2, 2) and
above all Pontius Pilate who are called kindins. Such a functionary received his
commission from the Roman emperor in his role as ‘judge among the children
of the Jews’ – as Pontius Pilate is still called in the Saxon Heliand of the ninth
century.15 We can therefore see reflected here the constitutional reality of the
Danubian Goths of the fourth century north as well as south of the Danube.
Although Pontius Pilate is certainly no good example for a Christian bishop
the term kindins is not monopolised let alone damaged by this less sympathetic
iudex provinciae. Likewise the royal title is used for Jesus, King of the Jews, and
Herod, King of Judaea, who are called thiudans as any king in the Gothic Bible
and, moreover, Emperor Constantius II in a non-biblical Gothic text.16 In fact,
both Vulfila’s worldly leadership and spiritual-linguistic heritage succeeded
in safeguarding the Gothic identity of his people so that they survived for
11
12
Wolfram, Goths, pp. 78–9 and 95 with no. 199.
13
Sokr. HE 4.37; Gerhard Köbler, Gotisches Wörterbuch (Leiden, 1989), p. 55.
14
A comparison with Severinus of Noricum seems possible: Herwig Wolfram, Salzburg,
Bayern, Österreich. Die Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum und die Quellen ihrer Zeit,
Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, Suppl. 31 (Vienna, 1995),
pp. 109–10 with no. 41–2; Alexander Demandt, Die Spätantike. Römische Geschichte von
Diocletian bis Justinian 284–565 n. Chr., Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft, Abt. 3/6 (2nd
edn, Munich, 2007), p. 412; Friedrich Lotter, Völkerverschiebungen im Ostalpen-Mitteldonau-
Raum zwischen Antike und Mittelalter (375–600). Unter Mitarbeit von Rajko Bratož und Helmut
Castritius, RGA Erg. Bd. 39 (Berlin and New York, 2003), pp. 58–9 and no. 145, 76–78.
15
Wolfram, Goths, p. 94.
16
Herwig Wolfram, Gotische Studien. Volk und Herrschaft im frühen Mittelalter
(Munich, 2005), p. 74 with no. 41.
centuries. Not only Jordanes in the sixth century but even Walahfrid Strabo in
the ninth century mentions these Balkan Goths as having religious texts in their
own language.17 In summary: It certainly does not do justice to the evidence to
belittle the bishop’s secular position. Of course, the same goes even more for
Vulfila as bishop.
Vulfila’s episcopacy and biography are intrinsically interwoven with each
other. As a young man Vulfila made his first trip to Constantinople between 332
and 337. This date can be derived from the statement that ‘the barbarian peoples
were at that time subject to the emperor’, which was the case only after the
treaty of 332, which Constantine, who died 337, concluded with a kindins
of peoples we call the Visigoths north of the Lower Danube. The purpose of
Vulfila’s first visit to Constantinople was to accompany a delegation of the
Gothic tribal federation to the emperor. The young man was only in his late
twenties then. Therefore, we may assume from this early activity that Vulfila was
not a nameless upstart. His name is Gothic and means ‘little wolf ’, a diminutive
that, nevertheless, reveals nothing about the social stratum he belonged to
(cf. Attila’s name as a diminutive from Gothic atta = father). But he could never
have become a member of an official Gothic delegation without a certain social
standing; otherwise the emperor would have been insulted and might have
turned down the Gothic emissaries or not even admitted them.18
But what is really known about Vulfila’s origin? Philostorgius, to whom we
are indebted for much important information about him, was a Cappadocian.
He knew that the ancestors of Vulfila had also come from Cappadocia, a region
in Asia Minor with which the Gothic community had always maintained
close ties. Vulfila’s πρόγονοι were captured by plundering Goths in the village
of Sadagolthina in the city district of Parnassus and were carried off to trans-
Danubia in 257. Vulfila’s birth is placed around 311, which is why a conference
took place at the University of Uppsala between June 16 and 18, 2011. Vulfila
himself was already Gothic by three generations. It is generally believed that he
was Cappadocian on his mother’s line and Gothic through his father; this is
probably no more than an inference from analogy, for Vulfila’s successor Selenas
who still bore an un-Gothic name was in fact the son of a Gothic father and a
Phrygian mother. Whatever Vulfila’s Cappadocian ancestors meant to him, he
was by birth a Goth, about whose grandparents we have reliable information,
in contrast to the ancestry of many of his fellow tribesmen. So we may infer:
Vulfila did not win renown among Goths and Romans solely as a result of
Wolfram, Gotische Studien, pp. 246 and 262.
17
Wolfram, Goths, pp. 76–77; Knut Schäferdiek‚ ‘Wulfila. Vom Bischof von Gotien
18
zum Gotenbischof ’, in Winrich A. Löhr and Hanns Christof Brennecke (eds), Schwellenzeit.
Beiträge zur Geschichte des Christentums in Spätantike und Frühmittelalter, Arbeiten zur
Kirchengeschichte 64 (Berlin and New York, 1996), pp. 1–40; Peter J. Heather, ‘The Crossing of
the Danube and the Gothic Conversion’, GRBS, 27 (1986): pp. 289–318.
his episcopal office and the way he administered it; rather, he became bishop
because he already possessed some standing. He rose from lector to bishop
without ever having been deacon or presbyter. To be sure, because of the
shortage of ecclesiastical personnel, the opportunity for competent people to
rise rapidly had existed since 332, when ‘the Goths, under the impact of their
defeat by Constantine, first believed in the Christian religion’.19 Since Vulfila’s
episcopal commission was apparently valid not only for the Gothic peoples but
for all of the ‘Getic land’, he must have been recognised also by the non-Gothic
peoples of the Gútthiuda, above all by the Romans. His career was only possible
because he already had certain financial resources that made it possible for him
to avail himself of the best literary education. In the somewhat old-fashioned
terminology of the sixth century he must have belonged to the economically
strongest stratum of the ‘curly-haired’.20
But who were the Christians in the ‘Getic land’, and could Vulfila really have
been ordained for all of them? In theory probably yes, in reality certainly not.
Apart from Vulfila having predecessors this statement is enough to prove that
he was not the apostle of the Goths. North of the Danube there lived Christians
of at least three different denominations, as we would say today: Vulfila’s
homoian ‘orthodox’ followers, Catholics and Audaians. Constantius II sent the
aged Mesopotamian Audaios into exile in the province of Scythia minor (the
Dobrudja). The Audaians, a sect named after him, advocated obsolete ideas
about the corporeality of God (anthropomorphism), rejected the new regulation
of Easter made by the Council of Nicaea, and distinguished themselves through
their ascetic way of life. From the Dobrudja Audaios began his mission across the
Danube among the pagan Goths. His austere bearing exerted a great attraction
on the Tervingi. Audaios’s place was taken by a certain Silvanus; one Uranius
is also mentioned. The Audaian sect suffered greatly under the persecution
of Athanaric. Their way of life seemed to pose a particular threat to Gothic
tribal tradition. After their expulsion the Audaians went to Mesopotamia, the
homeland of the founder of their sect, or to Syria, because their community was
considered part of the Syrian church.21
The differentiation between the three denominations is only revealed by
the history of the two persecutions of Gothic Christians. As in the Roman
Empire the conversion of the Goths began ‘from below to the top’. This made
19
Philostorgius HE 2.5; Diss. Max. 53–55; Wolfram, Goths, p. 77 with no. 259;
Ludwig Schmidt, Geschichte der deutschen Stämme bis zum Ausgang der Völkerwanderung. Die
Ostgermanen (Munich, 1941), p. 215.
20
Wolfram, Goths, pp. 75–77 with no. 242–61. As to Gútthiuda see Wolfram, Goths,
pp. 91–3.
21
Wolfram, Goths, p. 79 with no. 281; Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Germanenmission’, RAC, 10
(1978): pp. 492–548, at p. 502; Otto Gschwantler, ‘Bekehrung und Bekehrungsgeschichte’, RGA, 2
(1976): pp. 175–80.
all the difference between the Tervingi and all other Germanic peoples, and was
certainly due to their strong Romanisation. Therefore, the elite of the Danubian
Goths considered Christianity a threat to the social order and persecuted the
Christians as the pagan Roman Emperors did. The first persecution of Gothic
Christians took place in 348. It was said that this persecution also claimed
some lives, but we know no details or names. In the story of the martyrdom of
the Gothic saints Inna, Rhima, and Pina, we read about a bishop – no doubt
Catholic – with the name Goddas, which is probably Gothic. Seven years after
the martyrdom of these saints Goddas saw to it that their bones found a safe
and worthy resting place. The three Goths, who were also considered Catholics,
had resisted all persuasion and threats from the ‘prince of the barbarians’ and
had remained loyal to their faith. As punishment they were drowned in a river.
Recently this story of martyrdom has been linked to the first persecution of
Christian Goths, but placing it in the time of Athanaric seems more plausible.22
In 369 Athanaric took up the policy of his reputed father and on behalf of
the Gothic oligarchy conducted the second persecution of Christians. The
fury raged for three years and was directed indiscriminately against Arians,
Catholics, and Audaians. Since Fritigern opposed Athanaric and adopted the
faith of the Arian emperor, he gave the missionaries from the Gothi minores a
chance to regain lost ground. While Augustine claimed to know only Catholic
martyrs, according to other sources only Arians suffered the fate of martyrdom.
But in fact confessors of all three faiths were victims of the persecution.23 Of the
Catholic faith were certainly Saba, who suffered martyrdom on April 12, 372;
the two presbyters Sansalas and Gutthikas; possibly also Inna, Rhima, Pina;
and Bishop Goddas, who recovered their remains and brought them into the
empire. Niketas probably adhered to the Catholic faith, but his passio has little
historical value. The Catholic Goths, who according to Isidore refused to follow
Fritigern, owe their existence to Isidore’s wish to explain something he did not
understand, namely, a struggle among Arian Goths who held different attitudes
toward the Roman Empire.24
These events were the prologue to the Gaatha story, which took place
between 383 and 392 in a Gothic land north of the Danube. But who was the
princess Gaatha, reported to have been ‘an orthodox Christian?’ Is this to be
understood to mean Catholic, in the sense of 381, or to mean Arian, from the
standpoint of a conservative Roman? If we start from the second possibility,
Passio sanctorum Innae, Rhimae et Pinae, Hippolyte Delehaye (ed.), ‘Saints de Thrace et de
22
Mésie’, Analecta Bollandiana, 31 (1912): pp. 215–6; cf. Wolfram, Goths, pp. 79–80; Gschwantler,
‘Bekehrung’, p. 176; Schäferdiek, ‘Germanenmission’, pp. 499 and 501; Edward A. Thompson, The
Visigoths in the Time of Ulfila (2nd edn, London, 2009), pp. 161–64.
23
Aug. civ. 18.52.56–58; Soz. HE 6.37.12–14; cf. Wolfram, Goths, p. 82 with no. 310.
24
Thompson, Visigoths, p. 82 and no. 3; Delehaye, ‘Saints de Thrace et de Mésie’, pp. 209
and 215–18.
the difficult Gaatha story seems far less puzzling. Between 383 and 392 the
Gothic lady travelled in the company of her daughter Dulcilla and the Goth
Wella from Gothia into the Roman Empire, having first transferred ‘dominion’
to her son Arimir. The aim and purpose of the trip was the transfer of the
remains of 26 martyrs to Cyzicus, where Roman Arians were still to be found.
The Gothic martyrs who had been burned to death by the chieftain Winguric –
the ‘colleague’ of Gaatha’s deceased husband – had been Arians and had met
their deaths between 367 and 378. No less than three different sources, among
them the liturgical calendar of the Goths, report this ‘murder by burning’. After
accomplishing her mission, Gaatha returned home; she left her daughter behind
in Cyzicus, informed her son that he should pick her up at the border, and
went together with Wella into old Gothia. There her companion was stoned to
death.25 The murderers must have still been pagans of Athanaric’s type. It is safe
to see in this story a bypassing of Fritigern’s Arian Goths and of Vulfila’s people.
Obviously Arian Goths who lived north of the Danube directly approached
like-minded believers in the Roman Empire. The Gothia of the princess Gaatha
was not situated in Moesia or in Dacia ripensis; it was also full of pagans, even
though the Huns had not yet arrived. Finally the act of the Gothic lady was part
of the religious tradition of both the Gothi minores and the Visigoths. The 26
martyrs became the saints of all Roman Goths.26 As it was, the Visigoths were
badly in need of divine protection. Having penetrated farther into the empire,
they were caught up in the fierce controversy that Ambrose and his supporters
were waging with all means at their disposal. Only now did Vulfila’s legacy
assume its historical significance.27
The Catholic mission, however, had already achieved some successes in
trans-Danubian Gothia. Vetranio, the anti-Arian bishop of Tomi, supported
by the commander of the Dobrudja, the dux Soranus, was Vulfila’s competitor
for the Gothic souls. Needless to say both Roman dignitaries came from
Cappadocia; Soranus, moreover, had previously recovered the relics of St. Saba
from the Gothic land and had had this saint’s legend written down for the
Cappadocian church. The bond between the Gothic church and the church
of Asia Minor was very close.28 The foundation for this relationship had been
laid during the Gothic invasions of the third century. Perhaps the Christians
of Asia Minor regarded Gothia – which had become a missionary country
Soz. HE 6.37.14; Delehaye, ‘Saints de Thrace et de Mésie’, pp. 276–79; Wolfram, Goths,
25
p. 81–2.
26
Wolfram, Goths, p. 82 with no. 314; Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Das gotische liturgische
Kalenderfragment – Bruchstück eines Konstantinopeler Martyrologs’, Zeitschrift für die
neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, 79 (1988): pp. 116–37.
27
Wolfram, Goths, pp. 82–3 with no. 315.
28
Schäferdiek, ‘Germanenmission’, pp. 502–3; Schmidt, Ostgermanen, pp. 234–36;
Wolfram, Goths, p. 83 with no. 316.
with the abduction of their ancestors – as their special responsibility. But in

general there were still no Christian missions across the imperial borders.
Nevertheless, Christendom in Asia Minor seems to have offered a constant
supply of messengers of the faith. Among them were laymen, monks, and also
priests. The Phrygian mother of Selenas was certainly not carried off to the
Goths. The 26 martyrs under Winguric have partly Gothic, partly Phrygian,
Cappadocian, and Syrian names.29 The harsh punishment inflicted on them
shows that they must have been considered Goths. The same goes for Inna,
Rhima, and Pina, who suffered the same fate as Saba. In contrast, Saba’s
companion, the presbyter Sansalas, was obviously no Goth, as is revealed by
the remarkably mild treatment he received from the same warriors who killed
the saint. There were therefore among the trans-Danubian Christians people
who belonged to a village community and thus to a Gothic tribal group and
others who were considered outsiders and who were punished during the
persecutions with various degrees of severity. Athanaric’s persecution did not
succeed in exterminating the Gothic Christians. Christian dignitaries were
among the Goths who crossed the Danube in 376. The priest whom Fritigern
sent to Valens was a Goth like Vulfila, though the two are not identical.30 If
our interpretation of the report about Goddas is correct, there must have
been a Catholic chorepiscopus among the Goths at that time, even if he did
not stay with the main tribe at all times.
According to Saba’s passio the Christians formed only a minority. But Saba’s
martyrdom occurred in the Gothic hinterland, whereas the situation on the
Danube could have been very different. The persecution that Athanaric and
other Gothic chieftains carried out shows that the majority of Tervingians
were still pagans who felt threatened by an ever growing Christian minority.
The pagan Goths were more inclined to leave individual Christians alone,
especially if they had completely isolated themselves through their behaviour
and their inferior economic status. The story of Saba reflects this as well.
Only those who could be ‘dangerous or helpful’ were persecuted, in other
words, only those whose actions presented a threat to the gens and its gods.
But a single person could be such a threat if he violated the tribal religio
with impunity. It is therefore probable that it was only Fritigern’s decision
that brought about the ‘breakthrough of Christianity’. Eunapius reports
on the Tervingian tribe’s sacred objects in the keeping of pagan priests and
priestesses. In his opinion the Tervingian refugees of 376 had only feigned
Delehaye, ‘Saints de Thrace et de Mésie’, p. 279; Thompson, Visigoths, pp. 48 and 173.
29

30
their Christianity in order to be admitted by the Romans. He might not have

been far from the truth as far as the majority of the Tervingi was concerned.31
In the eyes of Auxentius (Mercurinus), the bishop of Durostorum-Silistria,
Vulfila was a saint, and so he wrote his biography according to hagiographic
models: Vulfila was consecrated a bishop at the age of 30. He stayed north of the
Danube for seven years, was then driven away to Moesia where he settled and
led the Gothic community for another 33 years. Vulfila died after having been a
bishop for a total of 40 years. This biography follows the model of David, who
stepped into public light at the age of 30, ruled over Hebron for seven years and
over all of Israel for 33 years. Christ too began to preach the gospel at 30.32
When Auxentius was writing his pro-Arian tract, the Arians were already
a beleaguered minority and had to make credible points to back their cause.
Auxentius must therefore have avoided excessive invention. Still, we may expect
that he may have manipulated the time-scale of Vulfila’s biographical profile. But
on the whole his biography of Vulfila, which could have been easily checked by
any contemporary reader, must have been reasonably accurate. There are some
chronological problems remaining. We read: When the lector Vulfila came
to Constantinople with a (or another) Gothic delegation, he was consecrated
a bishop ‘by Eusebius and the bishops who were with him’. The Goths came
to see Constantine in his imperial city, which they could have done in 337 at
the latest. But it was not until 338, one year after the death of his father, that
Constantius II made Eusebius, then bishop of Nicomedia, the imperial bishop
of Constantinople. If we calculate the date of Vulfila’s consecration as bishop
from the forty-odd-year period he served in that capacity, we once again come
up with a date when the great Constantine was already long dead. It is generally
believed that Vulfila was made bishop in 341 at the Council of Antioch. Thus
Vulfila must have come into the Roman Empire once as a member of the Gothic
delegation before 337 and then in 341 to Antioch where Eusebius the imperial
not the local bishop ordained him ‘bishop of the Christians in the Getic land’.
Still the second canon of the ecumenical council of Constantinople in 381
decreed that the ‘churches of God among the barbarian peoples … are to be
governed in the manner that already existed among their forefathers’. This
included the authority of the imperial bishop over the churches in barbaricis
and was explicitly laid down in the canon of Chalcedon in 451; and that is where
31
Delehaye, ‘Saints de Thrace et de Mésie’, p. 218; Wolfram, Goths, pp. 83–84; Zeev Rubin,
‘The Conversion of the Visigoths to Christianity’, Museum Helveticum, 38 (1981): pp. 34–54, at
pp. 36–38.
32
Diss. Max. 23–41; Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Wulfila’, RGA, 34 (2007): pp. 318–21,
at. pp. 318–19; Adolf Lippold, ‘Ulfila’, RE, 9 A 1 (1961): pp. 512–32.
the matter rested. Vulfila’s ordination in 341 reveals that an imperial, i.e. Arian,
mission to the Goths was planned.33
Vulfila’s consecration as bishop in itself attests to the existence of a Christian
community in the Gothic land, and the translation of the Bible also reflects
earlier efforts of both Latin and Greek missionaries among the Goths. Thus the
Cappadocian Eutyches, whom the anti-Arian apologetic made into ‘the apostle
of the Goths’, was probably an older contemporary of Vulfila’s. Of course, the
beginnings of the Christianisation of the western Goths reach back as far as the
third century. Supposedly as early as 251 trans-Danubian Goths dragged off
Roman Christians who then turned ‘their masters into brothers’. Where precisely
the captured Christians were taken at first is difficult to say. The majority of
Gothic plundering expeditions of the late 250s started in the Crimea, so many
captured Romans were transplanted into the area of this peninsula and its
hinterland. In addition, the Bosporanian kingdom had recognised Christianity
as the official religion around 300. Among the fathers gathered in Nicaea in 325
the bishop of the Crimea is immediately listed before Bishop Theophilus from
Gothia. Although it was the result of Catholic apologetics which made him
Vulfila’s predecessor and teacher, this report might be true.34
The first persecution of Gothic Christians took place in 348, most likely after
a war with the Romans. Vulfila was among those expelled, and for the remainder
of his life he bore the honorary title ‘confessor’.35 In Moesia Vulfila did not
change his conception of his mission, namely, as the Christian leader of his gens
to resolve in Christo the ethnic difference between Goths and Romans. Thus the
parents of the Roman provincial Mercurinus – who later in Milan called himself
Auxentius – brought their son to Vulfila, who raised him and was in return loved
and revered by Mercurinus beyond his death.36
The Catholic authors of the early fifth century turned Vulfila into a supporter
of Fritigern who led the Gothic majority to Moesia in 376 and into an enemy
of Athanaric, the persecutor of Gothic Christians. The latter was probably
true, although there is as little proof for such enmity as there is for the direct
cooperation between Fritigern and Vulfila before or after 376. Besides, Fritigern
acted in an Arian role solely to please Emperor Valens and gain his support against
33
Theod. HE 4.37; cf. Evangelos K. Chrysos, Tò Βυζάντιον καἰ οἱ Γότθοι (Thessalonikē, 1972),
pp. 103–5 and 112; Wolfram, Goths, pp. 77–8, esp. no. 267; Lippold, ‘Ulfila’, pp. 519–20;
Thompson, Visigoths, pp. 157–5; Schäferdiek, ‘Germanenmission’, pp. 504–5.
34
Basileios von Kaisareia, epist. 164, Yves Courtonne (ed.), Lettres Saint Basile. Texte
établi et traduit vol. 2, CUF SG 149 (Paris, 1961), p. 89; Wolfram, Goths, p. 78; Schäferdiek,
‘Germanenmission’, pp. 497–9 and 503.
35
36
Diss. Max. 55; Wolfram, Goths, p. 78 with no. 269; Wilhelm Streitberg, Die gotische
Bibel. 1. Der gotische Text und seine griechische Vorlage, Germanische Bibliothek. Neue Folge
Reihe 4, Texte und Kommentar (6th edn, Heidelberg, 1971), p. XVI; Lippold, ‘Ulfila’, p. 519.
Athanaric in a civil war that was still taking place north of the Danube. Although
Fritigern’s Arianism was not in line with Vulfila’s homoian theology, the bishop’s
Moesian Goths were vital to Fritigern if he wanted to live up to his promise that
his Goths would accept the imperial creed. Only Vulfila and his people had the
personnel and the means to carry out missionary work. Fritigern’s decision in
favour of Arianism represented the first internal Gothic encouragement for the
work of conversion that Vulfila had begun a generation before.37
In the battle of Adrianople of August 378 the Arian Emperor Valens lost
his life and was succeeded by the most Catholic Emperor Theodosius I. So the
Ambrosian offensive received imperial support in its fight against conservative
Arianism. But Theodosius had to act cautiously lest he drive the Gothic barbarians
and the Roman opposition into each other’s arms. Nevertheless, the emperor
took the first anti-Arian measures and in the spring of 381 convened a synod at
Constantinople, which is known as the second ecumenical council. Among the
Arian bishops who interceded with Theodosius was Vulfila. The emperor had
called for him explicitly, which would at least indicate some sort of connection
of the Gothic bishop to the warlike bands of Fritigern. The Arians were also
promised a new council in 382. Vulfila probably died in Constantinople in 383
during the third synod convened to deal with this religious controversy. Vulfila’s
burial witnessed large-scale participation by the citizens of Constantinople and
perhaps also by the authorities. His cause, however, was doomed, for the synod
of 383 followed the council of 381 in condemning any sort of Arianism.38
Let us consider Vulfila as theologian. After having been ordained bishop he
composed theological tracts and exegetical writings in both Latin and Greek;
thus he had not only learned the classical languages but must have also enjoyed
some kind of rhetorical training. He also preached in the three languages he
knew.39 The majority of his theological works, as well as the translation of the
Bible were probably written in Moesia. The task of inventing and spreading the
Gothic alphabet, which added to its base of Greek characters elements from
Latin and runic writing, must have taken some time before he could start the
translation. Vulfila translated from Greek; his source for the New Testament
‘should be sought in the so-called koine version of the fourth century’. Our
knowledge of biblical Gothic rests primarily on the famous Codex Argenteus,
which was written in Ostrogothic Italy and which shows the influence of the
vetus Latina. Surviving fragments of parallel passages confirm the impression
of a subsequent Latinisation, which probably reached its height at the time of
Wolfram, Goths, pp. 81–82 and 84.
37
Diss. Max. 62; CTh 16.1.4.; Wolfram, Goths, pp. 84–7, and 126–31; Lippold, ‘Ulfila’,
38
pp. 524–6; Streitberg, Die gotische Bibel, p. XVII; Knut Schäferdiek, Die Kirche in den Reichen der
Westgoten und Suewen bis zur Errichtung der westgotischen katholischen Staatskirche, Arbeiten zur
Kirchengeschichte 39 (Berlin, 1967), p. 9.
39
Theoderic the Great who died in 526. To be sure, ‘the Gothic Bible offers only
in part an idiomatic and for the most part a Graecising Gothic’.40 In accordance
with the ‘fundamentalism’, with which all translators before Jerome approached
the original, Vulfila and his assistants paid scrupulous attention to bringing the
Gothic Bible as close as possible to the Greek source. A translation was made of
both the Old and the New Testament, but only the greater part of the latter has
survived. According to Philostorgius, Vulfila deliberately left out the Book of
Kings, ‘which contains the history of the wars, in order to dampen the battle lust
of a people who delighted in warfare, instead of stirring them up for it’. What
strikes us as intentional could be the result of incomplete survival. Nonetheless,
biblical Gothic does lack certain military terms, the reason for which one could
assume to be deliberate omission. It is also possible that Philostorgius’s story
was meant to emphasise the pacifying effect of Vulfila’s mission on his Gothic
followers who were ‘peace-loving’ as the Romans saw with relief.41
Vulfila’s independent theological achievement, however, ranks much lower
at least in the eyes of the Catholic apologetics from the fifth century onward.
Auxentius claims that Bishop Vulfila participated in many synods. His presence
is attested to at the Council of Antioch in 341, at the ‘Arian’ Council of
Constantinople in 360, and finally at the councils of Constantinople in the
early 80s. In the presence of Emperor Constantius II and presided over by
Bishop Eusebius, the fathers at the Council of Antioch in 341were trying to
reach a compromise between the Nicene Creed and dissenting pre- or anti-
Nicene Creeds. Vulfila’s dogmatic doctrine, to which he adhered throughout his
life, agrees completely with the theological position of the Council of Antioch.
Again the council of 360 settled on a similar compromise formula which
posterity labelled Arian. The same happened to all mediators, who in one way or
another subordinated the Son to the Father. There is no doubt that Vulfila did
believe in the Son’s subordination. Still on his deathbed he declared his creed:
‘There is one eternal, unbegotten, and invisible God, who exists before time.
Within time he created the Son, the only-begotten God. He is the creator of
all things, the Lord of the Holy Spirit whom the Father created through the
Son before all things. The Holy Spirit is obedient and subject to the Son like
the Son to the Father’.42 But Vulfila was no Arian properly speaking; he rejected
the homoousian position and regretted the Arian homoiousian doctrine.43 The
Arians also used substantia and οὐσία to confess the similarity of God Father
and God Son who was created within time. Vulfila’s position was pre-Nicene.
That means he was against borrowing the concepts of substantia and οὐσία
40
Elfriede Stutz, ‘Codices Gotici’, RGA, 5 (1984): pp. 52–60, at p. 57.
41
Philostorgius HE 2.5; Wolfram, Goths, p. 75 and 80–81.
42
Wolfram, Goths, pp. 84–85. Cf. Chapter 1 (Knut Schäferdiek) in this volume.
43
from Greek philosophy to confess the Holy Trinity, the essential identity of the
three divine persons as the Church fathers did in 325.44 Vulfila was, rather, a
homoian from Greek ὁμομοĩος, similar, and believed himself to be Catholic as
did his fellow-believers into the sixth century.45 Only years before the Spanish
Visigoths officially converted to Catholicism in 589 King Leovigild still speaks
of the Gothic homoian creed as catholica fides as opposed to the religio Romana
that we would call the Catholic confession.46 In any case, neither Vulfila’s
contemporaries nor the next generations were ready to accept his traditional,
but outdated theology as a compromise. At most they would concede either
that Vulfila was originally Catholic and well meaning in his error, or that he was
intellectually incapable of understanding the only true and correct Christology.47
On the other hand Vulfila was not only called the Moses of his time but was
also compared to Elijah, both evoking Messianic expectations.48 This was the
heritage Vulfila left to his followers, which enabled them to lay the foundation
from which the highly successful Gothic mission started. Initially it reached
only the other Gothic peoples, especially the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Gepids and
Vandals. Vulfila’s charismatic personality; the standardising force of the Gothic
Bible; the religious zeal of the new converts; the support of the Roman crypto-
Arians in the settlement areas of the Gothic peoples; a Gothic faith, lex Gothica,
as a means of preserving ethnic identity while the Roman environment became
more and more radically Catholic – all these reasons and motifs together were
responsible for the conversion to homoian Christianity of the overwhelming
majority of the Gothic-Germanic peoples on Roman soil and beyond. Even
the Frankish king Clovis very nearly converted to the Gothic faith as one of
his sisters certainly did.49 In the Bavarian-Austrian language we have still some
remainders of the Gothic mission; for example Pfoad, shirt, from paida that you
wear going to the Dult, to the feast deriving from Gothic dulth for Eucharist,
Iritag/Irchtag from Day of Ares for Tuesday, Pfinztag from Πέμπτη (sc. ἡμέρα)
for Thursday, muta-Maut instead of Zoll-toll from teloneum, Pfaffe from papa for
priest. Little wonder that Saint Boniface was horrified when in the first half of
the eighth century he came to Bavaria only to discover how much the Bavarians
seemed to enjoy their religious nonconformity. Meanwhile things have changed.
44
Arnold Hugh Martin Jones, The Later Roman Empire 284–602. A Social, Economic and
Administrative Survey, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1964), p. 87.
45
Cf. Introduction (Hanns Christof Brennecke), Chapter 1 (Knut Schäferdiek), and
Chapter 4 (Uta Heil) in this volume.
46
Markus Müller, ‘Romana religio und catholica fides? Der Westgotenkönig Leovigild und
das arianische Reichskonzil von 580 n. Chr. in Toledo’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 43 (2009):
pp. 53–69.
47
48
49
Wolfram, Goths, pp. 84–85 Wolfram, The Roman Empire, pp. 210–11 with no. 35–38.
The Bavarians have long since ceased baptising in nomine patria et filia et spiritus
sancti and founding bishoprics in the middle of nowhere.50 Not long ago one of
them was even elected bishop of Rome and no longer denies that the earth is a
globe as the Irish abbot Virgil knew already before becoming bishop of Salzburg
on June 15, 749.51
Herwig Wolfram, Grenzen und Räume. Geschichte Österreichs vor seiner

50
Entstehung 378–907, Österreichische Geschichte 1 (Vienna, 1995), pp. 114–15, after Bonifatius,
Epist. 68, Michael Tangl (ed.), S. Bonifatii et Lulli epistolae – Die Briefe des Heiligen Bonifatius und
Lullus, MGH Epp. sel. 1 (Berlin, 1916; repr. 1989, p. 141).
51
Wolfram, Grenzen und Räume, p. 116.
Chapter 7
Barbarian ‘Arian’ Clergy, Church
Organization, and Church Practices1
Ralph W. Mathisen
The history of the relations between Nicenes and so-called Arians in the fourth
through the sixth centuries CE had two aspects: (1) relations between Roman
Nicenes and Roman Arians, which began with the original Arian controversy in
the early 320s, and (2) relations between Roman Arians and barbarian Arians,
which dated back at least to the mission of Ulfila to the Goths in the 340s, and
became of great significance when barbarian people began entering the Roman
Empire in large numbers as of 376.2
1
Sections of this study are based upon Ralph W. Mathisen, ‘The “Second Council of
Arles” and the Spirit of Compilation and Codification in Late Roman Gaul’, JECS, 5 (1997):
pp. 511–54; Ralph W. Mathisen, ‘Barbarian Bishops and the Churches “in barbaricis gentibus”
during Late Antiquity’, Speculum, 72 (1997): pp. 664–97; Ralph W. Mathisen and Hagith Sivan,
‘Forging a New Identity: The Kingdom of Toulouse and the Frontiers of Visigothic Aquitania’,
in Alberto Ferreiro (ed.), The Visigoths. Studies in Culture & Society (Leiden, 1999), pp. 1–62;
Ralph W. Mathisen, ‘Sigisvult the Patrician, Maximinus the Arian, and Political Stratagems in
the Western Roman Empire ca. 425–440’, EME, 8/2 (1999): pp. 173–96; Ralph W. Mathisen,
‘Priests, Bishops, and Monks: Military Chaplains in the Roman Empire’, in Doris L. Bergen
(ed.), The Sword of the Lord. Military Chaplains from the First to the Twenty-First Century
(Notre Dame, 2004), pp. 3–28; Ralph W. Mathisen, ‘D’Aire-sur-l’Adour à Agde: Les relations
entre la loi séculaire et la loi canonique au fin du royaume de Toulouse’, in Michel Rouche and
Bruno Dumézil (eds), Le Bréviare d’Alaric. Aux origines du Code civil, Cultures et civilisations
médiévales 44 (Paris, 2008), pp. 41–52; Ralph W. Mathisen, ‘Ricimer’s Church in Rome: How
an Arian Barbarian Prospered in a Nicene World’, in Andrew Cain and Noel Lenski (eds), The
Power of Religion in Late Antiquity (Farnham and Burlington, 2009), pp. 307–26; and Ralph
W. Mathisen, ‘The Creed of Rimini and the Place of “Arianism” in a Nicene World’ (unpublished
paper, Leeds, International Medieval Congress, July, 2009).
2
For Roman Arianism and the significance of the term ‘Arian’ see, inter alios, Michel
Meslin, Les Ariens d’Occident 335–430, Patristica Sorbonensia 8 (Paris, 1967); Charles
Kannengiesser, ‘Athanasius of Alexandria: Three Orations against the Arians: A Reappraisal’,
SP, 17/3 (1982): pp. 981–95; Richard P.C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine
of God: The Arian Controversy (Edinburgh, 1988); Michel R. Barnes and Daniel H. Williams
(eds), Arianism after Arius: Essays in the Development of the Fourth-Century Trinitarian Conflicts
(Edinburgh, 1993); Maurice Wiles, ‘Attitudes to Arius in the Arian Controversy’, in Barnes and
The Condemnation and Legitimation of Barbarian Arianism
It is not the purpose of this study to dwell on just what is meant by the term
‘Arian’, a designation that was imposed by Nicenes (as well as by modern
scholars): no ancient ‘Arians’ called themselves that.3 So it will suffice here to
say the term ‘Arian’ can cover many forms of Christian belief. Briefly stated,
in the modern pantheon of ‘Arians’, one has (1) ‘homoi-ousians’ (such as Basil
of Ancyra), who argued, as did Arius, that God and Christ were homoi-ousios,
of a similar substance rather than homo-ousios, of the same substance, as the
Nicenes argued; there also are (2) ‘homoians’ (such as Valens of Mursa, Ursacius
of Belgrade, Germinius of Sirmium, Acacius of Caesarea, and Eudoxius of
Constantinople), later called ‘Eudoxians’, who believed that the father and son
were similar in nature, but eschewed using the controversial -ousios terminology,
as well as (3) ‘anomoians’ (such as Eunomius of Cyzicus and Aëtius of Antioch),
later generically dubbed Eunominians, who argued that God and Christ were
anomoios, of different substances. In addition, other groups – Photinians,
Apollinarians, Macedonians or Pneumatomachi, Sabellians, and Marcellians –
also were tarred with the Arian brush.
A series of councils looking to find a unifying creed culminated with
a synod at Rimini, in northeastern Italy, in the west in July, 359.4 Arianizing
bishops such as Ursacius and Valens presented a creed that condemned the
Williams, Arianism, pp. 31–43; David M. Gwynn, The Eusebians: The Polemic of Athanasius of
Alexandria and the Construciton of the Arian Controversy (Oxford, 2007); Mark Weedman,
‘Hilary and the Homoiousians: Using New Categories to Map the Trinitarian Controversy’,
Church History, 76/3 (2007): pp. 491–510. For barbarian Arianism, see Manlio Simonetti,
‘L’incidenza dell’arianesimo nel rapporto tra Romani e barbari’, in Passaggio dal mondo antico
al Medio Evo da Teodosio a San Gregorio Magno, Atti dei convegni Lincei 45 (Rome, 1980),
pp. 367–79; and Mathisen, ‘Ricimer’s Church’.
3
See references in previous note.
4
See Timothy D. Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius. Theology and Politics in the
Constantinian Empire (Cambridge, MA and London, 1993), pp. 145–49; Hubert Silvestre,
‘A propos d’une récente édition de la “Damnatio Arii” de Rimini’, RHE, 68 (1973):
pp. 102–4; Yves-Marie Duval, ‘La “manoeuvre frauduleuse” de Rimini: A la recherche
du Liber adversus Ursacium et Valentem’, in Hilaire et son temps, Actes du Colloque de
Poitiers 1968 à l’occasion du XVIe Centenaire de la mort de Saint Hilaire (Paris, 1969),
pp. 51–103; Yves-Marie Duval, ‘Une traduction latine inédite du symbole de Nicée et une
condemnation d’Arius à Rimini: Nouveaux fragments historiques d’Hilaire ou pièces des actes
du concile?’, Revue Bénédictine, 82 (1972): pp. 7–25; Meslin, Les Ariens, pp. 285–91; Edward
Rochie Hardy and Cyril Charles Richardson, Christology of the Later Fathers (Philadelphia
and Westminster, 1954), p. 341: ‘During the sole reign of Constantius … a confusing series of
Arian and Semi-Arian creeds were issued, many of them prepared at what has been called “the
imperial creed factory” at Sirmium in the western Balkans’. The significance of the Council of
Rimini is often unappreciated in modern scholarship, as in J. Rebecca Lyman, ‘Arius and Arians’,
Barbarian ‘Arian’ Clergy, Church Organization, and Church Practices 147
terms ‘homoousios’ (‘of the same substance’ ) and ‘homoiousios’ (‘of a similar
substance’ ) as unbiblical, and proposed the term ‘homoios’ (‘similar’). They and
their supporters prevailed upon the emperor Constantius II (337–61) to support
this creed, and at Nicaea in Thrace, and again in 360, in Constantinople, the
Creed of Rimini was validated for the entire empire.5 Jerome later commented,
‘The whole world groaned, and it was Arian’.6 But this all was reversed under the
emperor Theodosius I (379–95). Two imperial rulings condemning Arianism
were followed in May, 381, by the ecumenical Council of Constantinople, which
definitively stated, ‘every heresy shall be anathematized, particularly that of the
Eunomians or Anomaeans, the Arians or Eudoxians, and that of the Semi-Arians
or Pneumatomachi, and that of the Sabellians, and that of the Marcellians, and
that of the Photinians, and that of the Apollinarians’.7 These rulings marked the
death of Roman Arianism, and although some die-hard Roman Arians hung
on, primarily in eastern cities, and especially in Constantinople, most remaining
Roman Arians would have been resorbed into the Nicene church.
This study will focus on barbarian Arianism, which was a very different
matter. Barbarians espousing the creed of Ulfila, that is, the Creed of Rimini, not
only came into the empire as groups under their own chieftains, they also served
in the Roman army in large numbers.8 Arian barbarian soldiers hardly could be
relegated to some kind of untenable ‘heretic’ category, so the Roman government
looked for ways to exempt them from the condemnations of heretics. Indeed, an
attempt to do so may lie behind a curious rider attached to the second canon
of the Council of Constantinople of 381 that dealt with the jurisdictions of
eastern bishops: ‘Furthermore, it is fitting that the churches established among
barbarian peoples (in barbaricis gentibus) be governed according to the custom
(consuetudo) that was instituted by the (or their) fathers’.9
in David G. Hunter and Susan A. Harvey (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies
(Oxford, 2008), pp. 237–57, at p. 248.
5
Socr. HE 1.37.
6
Hieronymus, Dialogus Contra Luciferianos 19, PL 23, pp. 171–72: Ingemuit totus orbis, et
Arianum se esse.
7
CTh 16.1.2 (380); CTh 16.5.6 (381); tr. Henry R. Percival and Henry Wace (eds), The Seven
Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church, NPNF 14 (Grand Rapids, 1901), pp. 269–94.
8
Ulfila had subscribed to the Council of Constantinople in 360, which validated the Creed
of Rimini (Socr. HE 2.41); Peter Heather, Goths and Romans 332–489 (Oxford, 1991), p. 182,
characterizes Ulfilan Christianity as ‘a traditional, non Nicene Christianity sometimes described
as “semi-Arianism”’.
9
Concilium Constantinopolitanum I – 381, canon 2, Adolf Martin Ritter (ed.), The
Oecumenical Councils from Nicaea I to Nicaea II (325–787), CCCOGD I (Turnhout, 2006),
pp. 36–70, at p. 65: Ecclesias autem Dei in barbaricis gentibus constitutas gubernari convenit iuxta
consuetudinem, quae est patribus instituta. See Mathisen, ‘The Churches “in barbaricis gentibus”’.
More specifically, the government conciliated these barbarian ‘Arians’ with

a law issued from the chancery of Valentinian II at Milan in 386 that legalized
the homoian Creed of Rimini: ‘We grant a full right of gathering to those
who believe according to those things that in the time of Constantius [II] of
blessed memory … were decreed, to remain valid for eternity, at the Council of
Rimini [and] indeed were confirmed at Constantinople’.10 This rehabilitation
of barbarian Arianism was reflected in imperial legislation. In the Theodosian
Code, after 388, Arianism-qua-Arianism was condemned along with other
heresies in only three constitutions,11 no doubt so as not to offend barbarian
Arians; Eunomianism, the Anomoian version of Arianism, to which barbarian
Arians did not subscribe, was condemned in 15 constitutions, and in 11 of
these it was the only heresy cited.12 The inclusion of the Rimini exception in the
Theodosian Code in 437 indicates that it was still valid as of the 430s. Barbarian
Arianism thus came to be defined by adherence to the Creed of Rimini, as
attested in the debate between Augustine and the Arian bishop Maximinus
circa 427, in Vandal Africa in the 480s, and in Visigothic Spain in 589.13
Barbarian Arians, therefore, were a legally recognized group of Christians in
the Roman Empire as of the late 380s, and there were no legal incompatibilities
privileging Nicenes over them. This is an important point, because in the past,
comparative studies of Nicenes and Arians have assumed that there were great
incompatibilities between Roman Nicenes and barbarian Arians, with a great
deal of segregation between the two groups.14 But these earlier assumptions that
CTh 16.1.4 (386): Damus copiam colligendi his, qui secundum ea sentiunt, quae temporibus
10
divae memoriae Constanti … Ariminensi concilio … decreta sunt; note also CTh 16.4.1 (386), from the
same law, erroneously attributed to Constantinople.
11
CTh 16.5.59 (423); CTh 16.5.60 (423); CTh 16.5.6 = CJ 1.5.5 (428); also CTh 16.5.66
= CJ 1.5.6 (435), a literary reference. These are the only two mentions of Arianism in the Code
of Justinian.
12
CTh 16.5.17* (389), 16.5.23* (394), 16.5.25* (395), 16.5.27* (395), 16.5.31*
(396), 16.5.32* (396), 16.4.34 (398), 16.5.36* (399), 16.5.49* (410), 16.5.58* (415), 16.5.59
(423), 16.5.60 (423), 16.5.61* (423), 16.5.65 (428), 16.6.7* (413); an asterisk indicates that
Eunomianism was the only heresy mentioned in the law.
13
Maximinus responded to Augustine, Si fidem meam postulas, ego illam teneo fidem quae
Arimini a trecentis et triginta episcopis firmata est. Augustine of Hippo, Collatio cum Maximino
Arianorum episcopo 2, PL 42, pp. 710–11; see Mathisen, ‘Sigisvult’; Carthage in 484: Vigilius
Thapsensis, De trinitate 5, PL 62, p. 267, defines Arian beliefs secundum professionem synodi
Ariminensis; Concilium III Toletanum can. 17, PL 84, p. 344: 13. Quicunque Ariminense concilium
non ex toto corde respuerit et damnaverit, anathema sit.
14
E.g., inter alios, Herwig Wolfram, History of the Goths (Berkeley, 1988), p. 232: ‘Social
relations between Romans and Goths revealed for a long time a feeling of separateness, intensified
by the religious differences: the Romans were Catholics [that is, Nicenes], the Goths Arians’;
Jocelyn N. Hillgarth (ed.), Christianity and Paganism, 350–750: The Conversion of Western Europe
(2nd edn, Philadelphia, l986), p. 73: ‘the Vandal and Ostrogoth kingdoms perished, at least in
Arians and Nicenes were segregated from each other in late antique society, have
been belied by more recent study demonstrating that, except for a few hard-line
bishops, Arians and Nicenes got along quite well.
In addition, discussions of barbarian Arianism, usually revolve around
political, social, or theological issues. But behind this high-profile facade lay
the day-to-day operation of church structures that served the same purpose as
church structures of the Nicene church. Arian clergy performed spiritual and
pastoral duties. Arian churches were constructed. An Arian liturgy developed.
And Arians and Nicenes interacted with each other in a cooperative and
non-confrontational manner. But the nature of Arian ecclesiastical practices
relating to iconography, scripture, liturgy, and church organization, has been
little studied,15 and when it has, it has almost always been with an implicit
assumption that such practices must have been in some manner different from
each other. For example, earlier efforts to find differences between Nicene and
Arian iconographical representations of Christ (or anything else) have proven
fruitless, in spite of the survival of excellent examples of ‘Arian’ art in Ravenna
and Rome.16
One reason for this is the dearth of contemporary source material; another,
perhaps, is that by the end of the sixth century most such churches had been
assimilated into the Nicene church and left little trace or heritage.17 But in spite
of these caveats, one nonetheless can attempt to understand the structures that
held Arian churches together as Arian clergy ministered to their Arian flocks.
part, because of the religious division between the Arian barbarians and their Roman subjects’;
Walter Goffart, Rome’s Fall and After (London, 1989), p. 22, no. 61, ‘barbarian Arianism …
barbarian Arians’.
15
Jill Harries, Sidonius Apollinaris and the Fall of Rome (Oxford, 1994), p. 63, no. 27, notes
regarding Sigesarius, ‘this is one of the few references to Gothic bishops’; Meslin, Ariens, p. 92,
mentions only two Gothic bishops briefly and in passing.
16
For attempts to identify ‘Arian’ iconography, see Neil MacGregor and Erika Langmuir,
Seeing Salvation: Images of Christ in Art (Yale, 2000), p. 80, ‘the [heresy] that most affected visual
art was Arianism … [the mosaics] distinguish the two (for the Arians) separable natures of Jesus
Christ, human and divine’; also Otto G. von Simson, Sacred Fortress: Byzantine Art and Statecraft
in Ravenna (Chicago, 1948), p. 73; and Corrado Ricci, Ravenna (Bergamo, 1912), p. 25. For
rebuttal, see Robin M. Jensen, ‘The Economy of the Trinity at the Creation of Adam and
Eve’, JECS, 7/4 (1999): pp. 527–46, at p. 528, ‘Attempts to distinguish something particularly
Arian have been somewhat strained’, and Arthur Urbano, ‘Donation, Dedication, and Damnatio
Memoriae: The Catholic Reconciliation of Ravenna and the Church of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo’,
JECS, 13/1 (2005): pp. 71–110, at p. 88: ‘There is no convincing evidence that Arian Goths …
employed significantly different symbology or iconography in Italy as an expression of an Arian
theology’; and Mathisen, ‘Ricimer’s Church’.
17
See, e.g., Piergiuseppe Scardigli, Die Goten. Sprache und Kultur (Munich, 1973),
p. 333, for the lack of information on the ‘Organisation, Verfassung und Tätigkeit’ of the
Ostrogothic church.
The following study first will focus on the clergy of barbarian Arians and then
turn to a consideration of barbarian scripture and liturgy, and, in this context,
the nature of the interactions between barbarian Arians and Roman Nicenes.
Arian Clergy of Barbarians on the Move
The episcopus Gothorum of the Danubian Goths
The first Gothic bishops were Nicenes, at least one of whom attended the
Council of Nicaea in 325.18 The first Arian Gothic bishops were of peoples,
the Visigoths in particular, who were in motion. The best known of these was
Ulfila, a third-generation Goth whose forebears had been kidnapped from
Cappadocia in a Gothic raid of circa 257.19 According to Auxentius, initially
bishop of Durostorum in Moesia Secunda and then Arian bishop of Milan
as of 382, Ulfila was ordained as episcopus and sacerdos of the Goths circa the
late 330s – notwithstanding later Nicene propaganda that attempted to claim
that it was Valens who had induced the Visigoths, including Ulfila himself, to
become Arian.20 The Arian church historian Philostorgius called Ulfila the ‘first
bishop appointed among [the Goths]’, and the Nicene Goth Jordanes referred to
him as the Goths’ pontifex and primas.21 Seven years after his ordination, Ulfila
See Mathisen, ‘Barbarian Bishops’.

18
For Ulfila, see especially Philostorgius HE 2.5; and Auxentius of Milan in Friedrich
19
Kauffmann (ed.), Aus der Schule des Wulfila. Auxenti Dorostorensis Epistula de fide, vita et obitu
Wulfilae, im Zusammenhang der Dissertatio Maximini contra Ambrosium (Strasbourg, 1899);
translated in Peter Heather and John Matthews, The Goths in the Fourth Century, TTH 11
(Liverpool, 1991), pp. 145–53. See also Dom Bernard Capelle, ‘La lettre d’Auxence sur Ulfila’,
Revue Bénédictine, 34 (1922): pp. 224–33; and Karl K. Klein, ‘Die Dissertatio Maximini als
Quelle der Wulfilabiographie’, Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum, 83 (1951/52): pp. 239–71.
20
Oros. Hist. 7.32.19: Valens imperator exitiabili pravitate doctores Ariani dogmatis misit;
Soz. HE 6.37, suggested that Ulfila was initially Nicene and only became Arian under Valens: ‘In
acknowledgment of the timely succor afforded by Valens, Phritigernes embraced the religion of
the emperor … Ulphilas, their bishop, originally held no opinions at variance with those of the
catholic church … Ulphilas entered into communion with the Arians … It was on this account,
that the barbarians on the banks of the Ister followed the tenets of Arius’.
21
Episkopus est ordinatus … sacerdos Cr(ist)i ordinatus, ut regeret … gentem Gothorum: Diss.
Max. 35 (ed. Gryson, CCSL 87, p. 164) = Auxentius, Epistula 56 (ed. Gryson, SC 267, pp. 244);
Philostorgius, HE 2.5; Jord. Get. 267: cum suo pontifice ipsoque primate Vulfila; see also Socr.
HE 2.41; Theod. HE 4.33; the Passio S. Nicetae, Hippolyte Delehaye (ed.), ‘Saints de Thrace et de
Mésie’, Analecta Bollandiana, 31 (1912): pp. 209–15, at p. 210; see Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Wulfila.
Vom Bischof von Gotien zum Gotenbischof ’, in Winrich A. Löhr and Hanns Christof Brennecke
(eds), Schwellenzeit. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Christentums in Spätantike und Frühmittelalter,
Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 64 (Berlin and New York, 1996), pp. 1–40.; Timothy D. Barnes,
and the so-called ‘lesser Goths’ (Gothi minores) were expelled by the Gothic
leader Ermaneric from trans-Danubian Gothia and settled south of the Danube
in Moesia.22
As for the Goths who remained north of the Danube, the Life of St. Sabas,
which describes local life in trans-Danubian Gothia circa 370, mentions the
presbyters Gouththikâs and Sansalâs – but no bishops.23 After Sabas’ martyrdom
in 372, the governor Junius Soranus sent his remains to Cappadocia, ‘at the
desire of the “college of presbyters” (πρεσβυτέριov)’.24 In the New Testament, the
presbyterion seems to have been a sort of council of elders, which often acted
independently.25 If this Gothic example is at all similar, the use of this term could
indicate, along with the presbyters’ independence of action, that at this time there
was no trans-Danubian Nicene Gothic bishop.26
Subsequently, a fragmentary fifth-century Arian Gothic liturgical calendar
lists for the years 369/375, the priests (presbyteroi) Bathousês and Wêrkas, and
the monk (monazontos) Arpulas. Furthermore, a fragment of an Arian Gothic
ecclesiastical calendar mentions ‘Werekas the papan (priest) and Batwin the
bilaif (minister?)’.27 Again, no indication of bishops. This slim evidence could
‘The Consecration of Ulfila’, JThS, 41 (1990): pp. 541–55; and Hagith Sivan, ‘The Making of
an Arian Goth: Ulfila Reconsidered’, Revue Bénédictine, 105 (1995): pp. 280–92. At the time of
Ulfila’s ordination, of course, Arianism was orthodoxy.
22
Diss. Max. 37 (ed. Gryson, CCSL 87, p. 165) = Auxentius, Epistula 59 (ed. Gryson,
SC 267, pp. 246): c[om]pletis septem annis tantummodo in episkopatum … de barbarico pulsus in
solo Romanie … in montibus; Philostorgius HE 2.5; and Jord. Get. 267: alii Gothi, qui dicuntur
minores, populus inmensus … hodieque sunt in Moesia regionem incolentes Nicopolitanam ad pedes
Emimonti [Haemus mountains] gens multa.
23
Passio S. Sabae, Hippolyte Delehaye (ed.), ‘Saints de Thrace et de Mésie’, Analecta
Bollandiana, 31 (1912): pp. 216–24; see also Heather and Matthews, Goths, pp. 109–17; and
Edward A. Thompson, ‘The Passio S. Sabae and Early Visigothic Society’, Historia, 4 (1955):
pp. 331–38.
24
Passio S. Sabae 8, Delehaye (ed.), ‘Saints de Thrace et de Mésie’, p. 221: διὰ θελήματoς τoῦ
πρεσβυτέριoυ (presumably in Gothia).
25
Lk 22:66; Acts 22:5.1, see also 1 Tim 4:14.
26
Heather and Matthews, Goths, p. 117, suppose that this ‘college of presbyters’ belonged
to a ‘church of Scythia, possibly Tomi’. But Tomi had a bishop, Vetranio, and it would be most
irregular for his presbyters to be acting independently in such a matter.
27
Preserved in a sixth-century palimpsest from Milan, see Hippolyte Delehaye,
tr. V. M. Crawford, The Legends of the Saints: An Introduction to Hagiography (1907, repr.
Dublin, 1998), pp. 275–81; and George W. S. Friedrichsen, ‘Notes on the Gothic Calendar
(Cod. Ambros. A)’, Modern Language Review, 22 (1927): pp. 90–93: compiled after 406 CE. The
Ravenna papyri indicate that papan, or papa, was the equivalent of presbyter, see Scardigli, Goten,
p. 277, p. 281, and p. 288. For bilaif, see Ute Schwab, ‘Bilaif im gotischen Kalendar (29. Oktober)’,
Helikon Rivista di tradizione e cultura classica dell’ università di Messina, 7 (1967): pp. 357–94. For
suggest that the trans-Danubian Goths either had no bishops or, perhaps, were
under the nominal ecclesiastical authority of the episcopus Gothorum Ulfila.
But a Menologium, which survives only in a Paris manuscript of the eleventh
century, offers another possibility.28 It tells of three Gothic martyrs ‘who died
in Gothia … in the northern land of the barbarians’. Seven years later, ‘Goddas,
elected as bishop (episcopos) and bearing the relics on his own shoulders, laid
them to rest in their own country’. Subsequently, ‘the same Goddas the bishop
[transported] the relics to the place called Haliscus, which is a harbor’. Haliscus
is otherwise unknown,29 and this undated incident might be connected to
the persecution of Ermaneric in the late 340s.30 Goddas, moreover, has been
identified variously as a Nicene bishop among the Goths, or as an Arian successor
to Ulfila.31
Back on the Roman side of the frontier, Ulfila died in Constantinople in 383.32
He was succeeded by the Gotho-Phrygian Selenas who, according to Socrates,
was ‘of mixed descent, a Goth by his father’s side, and by his mother’s a Phrygian’
and ‘had formerly been the secretary of Ulfila’.33 Circa 400, the Nicene bishop
John Chrysostom attempted to subvert the Arian Goths, many of whom would
have had connections in the Roman army: ‘Appointing [Nicene] presbyters and
deacons and readers who spoke the Scythian tongue, he assigned a church to
them34 … He used [to] preach there, using an interpreter who was skilled in both
the same episode, see Soz. HE 6.37.14; and note Jacques Zeiller, Les origines chrétiennes dans la
province romaine de Dalmatie (Paris, 1878), pp. 426–27.
28
Delehaye, ‘Saints de Thrace et de Mésie’, pp. 215–16; see Schäferdiek, ‘Wulfila’, p. 128.
29
Zeiller, Origines, p. 439, suggests Alisca on the Danube in Hungary.
30
Edward A. Thompson, The Visigoths in the Time of Ulfila (Oxford, 1966), pp. 161–65,
dates the episode to 347/8.
31
Nicene: Thompson, Visigoths, pp. 161–5; Jean-Rémy Palanque, Gustave Bardy and Pierre
Champagne de Labriolle, De la paix constantinienne à la mort de Théodose, Augustin Fliche and
Victor Martin (eds), Histoire de l’église depuis les origines jusqu’a nos jours, vol 3 (Paris, 1950),
p. 499; Zeiller, Origines, p. 438. Arian: Heather and Matthews, Goths, p. 131, no. 70.
32
Diss. Max. 39 (ed. Gryson, CCSL 87, p. 165) = Auxentius, Epistula 61 (ed. Gryson,
SC 267, pp. 248): Qui cu[m] precepto inperiali … ad Constantinopolitanam urbem ad disputationem;
the Council of 383 was intended to reconcile the leaders of the various heterodox groups, see Socr.
HE 5.10; Soz. HE 7.12; Greg. Naz. Epist. 175, PG 37, pp. 285–88; also Louis Duchesne, Early
history of the Christian Church from its foundation to the end of the fifth century (3 vols, 4th edn,
New York, 1920), vol. 2, p. 452; Palanque, Bardy, and Champagne de Labriolle, Histoire de l’église,
vol 3, p. 296. It failed, of course. The result was a spate of laws forbidding heretics to assemble
(CTh 15.5.11–3, 383–84). See Franz Jostes, ‘Das Todesjahr des Ulfilas und der Übertritt der
Goten zum Arianismus’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, 22 (1897):
pp. 158–87.
33
Socr. HE 4.22; Soz. HE 7.17; see Meslin, Ariens, pp. 59–99: ‘Les communautés
hétérodoxes d’Illyricum’.
34
John Chrysostom, Homilia 8: ‘Church at the Tomb of St. Paul’, PG 63, 290–8.
languages, and he got other good speakers to do the same’.35 There is no indication
whether Selenas, if he was still alive and if he was in Constantinople, attempted
to oppose this initiative. Many of these Goths would have perished, moreover,
when the Gothic church was burned during rioting in 400 CE associated with
the defeat of the Gothic general Gaïnas by Fravitta, another Goth.36
After the Council of Constantinople in 381, the Roman Arian community
hung on in Constantinople. The Arian bishop Demophilus died circa 38637 and
the Arians then called a bishop Marinus from Thrace, but soon, circa 387/8, they
replaced him with Dorotheus, Arian bishop of Antioch.38 Some Arians refused
to accept Marinus’ deposition. Marinus’ party was called the ‘Goths’, because
‘Selenas bishop of the Goths adopted the views of this party’.39 So the Gothic
Arians, too, were drawn into this quarrel. Dorotheus died in 409 and later
appeared sainted in the aforementioned Gothic calendar, along with the apostle
Philip, some Gothic martyrs, and even the Arianizing emperor Constantius
II. He was succeeded as Arian bishop of Constantinople by Barba, who died
in 430 and was himself succeeded as ‘bishop of the Arians’ by Sabbatius.40 The
last known Roman Arian bishop of Constantinople, Deuterius, appears in
the reign of Anastasius (491–518), demonstrating the survival of the Arian
church there.41
The next attested eastern Arian bishop of barbarians is seen, apparently,
in 455, when ‘the ambassador Bleda, a bishop (ἐπίσκoπoς) of the heresy of
Geiseric’, was sent to the Vandals.42 Because Bleda spoke out in favor of the
imperial position, he would seem to have been bishop of an eastern Arian
community, and not of the Vandal king Geiseric. Moreover, his name, as well
Theod. HE 5.30.
35
See Zos. Hist. 5.20–2; Eunapius, frg. 69.4 (ed. Blockley, p. 110–3); Philostorgius
36
HE 11.8; Socr. HE 6.39; John of Antioch, Fragment 190; and Alan Cameron and Jacqueline
Long, Barbarians and Politics at the Court of Arcadius (Berkeley, 1993), pp. 224–39.
37
One must distinguish bishops of barbarian gentes from Roman Arian bishops, whose
genesis came in the mid-fourth century when Arianism was ‘orthodoxy’ and who, like Nicene
bishops, were bishops of cities.
38
Socr. HE 5.12, and 7.6; Soz. HE 7.17; Philostorgius HE 9.19.
39
Soz. HE 7.17; Socr. HE 7.22.
40
Socr. HE 7.30; see Zeiller, Origines, p. 523, for Barba as ‘possibly a Goth’.
41
Theodorus Lector, HE frg. 55 (ed. Hansen, GCS n.s. 3, p. 136) for the abortive Arian
baptism of a certain Barbas (cf. the earlier Arian bishop Barba of Constantinople). See Vict.
Tonn. Chron. s.a. 500 (ed. Mommsen, MGH AA 11, p. 191). No other Arian bishops are attested
elsewhere in the east after the early fifth century.
42
Priscus, frg. 31.1 (ed. Blockley, p. 333–35). Note also Frithela, bishop of Heraclea in
Thrace, who attended the Council of Ephesus in 431; see ACO 4.3.2, pp. 399–400. Given his
name and the concentration of Gothic Christians in the area, it has been suggested that he was a
Goth (Zeiller, Origines, p. 478, no. 4, and p. 568).
as his mission, in which knowledge of Gothic would have been useful, would
suggest that Bleda was of barbarian extraction.43 Perhaps he was the current
‘bishop of the Goths’ in the east. The subsequent fate of the Gothic Arian
church in the east is unknown. The next reference to an attempt to create a
barbarian Arian church in Constantinople does not come until the late sixth
century, when Gothic mercenaries, now identified only as ‘a barbarian people
from the west’, appealed to the emperor for a church outside the walls.44 Given
that these were foreigners, one might suggest that they were recent arrivals, and
not remnants of a local Arian population.
The Arian Goths of Constantinople and the east, then, were overseen
by a single episcopus Gothorum who does not seem to have been attached to
any particular location or city. The Roman Arians, on the other hand, were
administered by traditional bishops of cities, and in particular, by an Arian bishop
of Constantinople. There do not appear to have been any incompatibilities in
the functioning of these two systems. Selenas, for example, was able to take sides
in the quarrels among the Roman Arians in Constantinople. Furthermore, this,
along with the inclusion of Romans in Gothic ecclesiastical calendars, indicate
that these Goths saw themselves as part of an Arian church writ large, not part
of a separatist Gotho-Arian church.
Arian Clergy of Barbarian Armies
Discussion now can turn to other groups of barbarians, and in particular to the
Arian Visigoths who wandered about on Roman soil after 376, referred to below
as the intrusive Goths. What kind of Christian hierarchy did they employ? Any
discussion of this issue must begin with a curious passage from Eunapius, who
reports that when Fritigern’s Visigoths crossed the Danube in 376, they brought
with them several religous: ‘They all claimed to be Christians and some of their
number they disguised as if they were their bishops (ὡς ἐπισκόπoυς). They also
had with them some so‑called monks, whom they had decked out in imitation
of the monks among their enemies … it sufficed for them to trail long grey cloaks
and tunics. The barbarians used these devices to deceive the Romans’.45
Eunapius therefore believed that these Gothic bishops and monks were
somehow not the real thing. Bishops also were mentioned by Orosius, who, after
gleefully discussing Valens’ defeat and death at the hands of the Visigoths in 378,
recalled, ‘The Goths previously had requested through suppliant ambassadors
For the barbarian origin of the name, note Bleda, king of the Huns and brother of Attila,
43
murdered in 445 see PLRE II (Bleda), p. 230; also Ernst Förstemann, Altdeutsches Namenbuch
(Bonn, 1901), p. 313.
44
John of Ephesus, HE 3.26; see Herrin, Church, 31; Thompson, Visigoths, p. 95 and 99.
45
Eunapius, frg. 48.2 (ed. Blockley, pp. 75–7); see also Philostr. V. soph. 476 C.
that bishops (episcopi) be sent to them, from whom they could learn the precepts
of Christian faith’.46 This tale, even though it sounds suspiciously like a doublet
of Ulfila’s mission, nonetheless is consistent with the imperial practice of sending
bishops to groups of barbarians,47 and provides another indication that the
Goths had bishops of some sort at the time they entered the empire.
Another account of Gothic clergy occurs just two years later. Ammianus
Marcellinus reports that when Fritigern attempted to make peace just before
Adrianople in 378, ‘A priest (presbyter) (so they call themselves) of the Christian
religion was sent as an ambassador by Fritigern; along with other humble ones
(humiles) he came to the emperor’s camp’.48 Perhaps these humiles included
some of the aforementioned ‘monks’.49 And one might wonder why, if the Goths
had bishops, a mere presbyter was sent. Or was this presbyter a representative
of a Gothic presbyterion analogous to the one that only a few years before had
organized the transfer of the remains of St. Sabas, and now was carrying out
missions for the king?
In the early fifth century, one finds another bishop of a Visigothic army, this
time the main body of Visigoths in the west. In 409/10, the puppet emperor
Priscus Attalus was ‘baptized by Sigesarius, the bishop of the Goths, to the
great satisfaction of Alaric and the Arian party’.50 This same ‘bishop Sigesarius’
(ἐπισκόπoυ Σιγησάρoυ) appears again in the troubled times following the death
of Athaulf in the summer of 415, when he unsuccessfully attempted to keep
the murdered King Athaulf ’s children from falling victim to the sword of King
Sigeric.51 There can be no doubt that Sigesarius was an Arian bishop of a group
of intrusive Goths. Other intrusive Arian gentes also had their own ‘national’
46
Oros. Hist. 7.33: Gothi antea per legatos supplices poposcerunt, ut illis episcopi, a quibus
regulam Christianae fidei discerent, mitterentur.
47
See Mathisen, ‘Barbarian Bishops’.
48
Amm. 31.12.8: Christiani ritus presbyter (ut ipsi appellant), missus a Fritigerno legatus,
cum aliis humilibus venit ad principis castra … . See Heather and Matthews, Goths, p. 113, no. 24,
for the suggestion that St. Sabas was such a ‘Gothic monk’.
49
There continued to be orthodox Gothic monks in the Dobrudja:
circa 519, a group of so-called ‘Scythian monks’ from the neighbourhood of Tomi
stirred up great controversy in their attempts to oppose ‘Nestorianism’: Epistulae
imperatorum 107, 109, 187, 191, 216–17, 224, 227, 230–31 (ed. Otto, CSEL, 35, 2
pp. 499–500, 501–2, 644–45, 648–49, 675–76, 685–87, 692–93, 695–700); see also Peter the
Deacon, Epistula scytharum monachorum ad episcopos (ed. Glorie, CCSL 84 A, p. 172); and
Johannes Maxentius, Epistula ad legatos sedis apostolicae, PG 86; and Responsio adversus epistulam
Hormisdae (ed. Glorie, CCSL 85 A, pp. 123–53). Note also Thomas A. Smith, De Gratia (Notre
Dame, 1990 pp. 3–5).
50
Soz. HE 9.9.1; see Wolfram, Goths, p. 158 and 166.
51
Olympiodorus, frg. 26.1 (ed. Blockley, p. 189).
bishops: in the late sixth century Trasaricus, ‘bishop of the Arian sect’, delivered
the treasury of the Gepids to Constantinople after their defeat by the Lombards.52
The preceding discussion would indicate not only that groups of Arian
barbarians had their own bishops, but also that Arian bishops accompanied
western barbarian armies in the late fourth and early fifth centuries in the
capacity of military chaplains. Perhaps this was for a very pragmatic reason:
Nicene troops (if they did not happen to have their own Nicene chaplains)
could certainly anticipate having their spiritual needs met, even by bishops if
necessary, wherever they were on the road. But Arian armies could have no such
expectations, so as a result they brought their prelates with them.53 The presence
of Arian bishops with Gothic armies would only be consistent with barbarian
practice. So perhaps the western Germanic Arian churches evolved in part from
this original wish to minister to the religious needs of peoples on the move and
armies on the march.
Arian Bishops of Roman Soldiers
Arian bishops also appear with Roman armies that included Arian barbarians. A
report of a possible Arian bishop of barbarians in Roman service occurs in 382,
when Ambrose of Milan reported to the emperors Gratian, Valentinian II, and
Theodosius I about the activities of the Arian bishop Julianus Valens. According
to Ambrose, Valens had been made Arian bishop (episcopus) of Poetovio (Pettau)
in Pannonia Superior, had betrayed his city (to the Goths?), and had been
expelled. He now was getting into mischief around Milan, consorting variously
with Milanese Arians and with Goths.54
Joh. Bicl. Chron. s.a. 572 (ed. Mommsen, p. 212): Per Trasaricum Arianae sectae
52
episcopum. Zeiller, Origines, p. 585, suggests not only that bishops such as Ulfila, Selenas,
Maximinus, Sigisharius, and Transaricus ‘non point à des circonscriptions territoriales fixes’, but
also (pp. 528–9) that Sigesarius may have been the successor to Selenas, and that Alaric may have
had several bishops.
53
A practice followed by pagan barbarians; see Jord. Get. 195–97 for the Hunnic
consultation of soothsayers before battles.
54
Ambrosius, Epistula 10.10; see 11.3; see Peter J. Heather, ‘The Crossing of the Danube
and the Gothic Conversion’, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 27 (1986): pp. 314–5;
and Duchesne, History, vol. 2, p. 436, who describes him as an ‘unattached bishop’ who had
made himself ‘half a Goth’. Meslin, Ariens, pp. 66–7, supposes that Julianus was ‘le chef de la
communauté homéenne de Milan’, but this position already was held by Auxentius, a pupil of
Ulfila. See Heather and Matthews, Goths, p. 146; Karl K. Klein, ‘Ist der Wilfilabiograph Auxentius
von Durostorum identisch mit dem mailändischen Arianerbischof Auxentius Mercurinus?’,
Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, 75 (1953): pp. 165–91. According to
Ambrosius Mediolanensis, Sermo contra Auxentium, De basilicis tradendis 26, PL 16, pp. 1007–18,
Auxentius had in his flock four or five gentiles (that is, barbarian soldiers), surely Visigoths, as his
Profaned by Gothic impiety, clothed in the manner of the barbarians (more …

gentilium)55 in a torque and armband, [he] dared to go forth in the sight of the Roman
army. This, doubtless, is sacrilege not only in a bishop, but even in any Christian;
indeed, he recoiled from Roman practice – unless by chance the idolatrous prelates of
the Goths (sacerdotes Gothorum) are accustomed to go forth thus.56
Ambrose’s final comment would indicate that Valens was not only a bishop,
but also a sacerdos Gothorum. If so, he could only have been ministering to a
band of Goths in imperial service – in this case as a kind of religious counselor
or senior chaplain.57 Indeed, perhaps Valens’ military position might help to
explain the restrained treatment he received from Ambrose.58 Moreover, not
only does Ambrose’s reference to sacerdotes Gothorum suggest that such persons
were a well known phenomenon, but his failure to call them episcopi may indicate
a desire to distance them from Nicene bishops, no surprise, perhaps, given his
insinuation that they were still pagan.59 As already noted above, the presence of
representatives (cognitores). Also to be mentioned, if not fully explicated, is CIL 5.1623, from the
area of Aquileia and dating to the early fifth century, which commemorates the sacerdos Amantius,
whom a ‘ple[b]s aliena’ chose as its prelate, who was dign[u]s ita geminis ducibus / consortia sacra
parti/cipare, and who binis populis presidit. The word sacerdos, it will be seen, could suggest that his
congregation included Goths.
55
The word gentiles also was a technical term referring to units of barbarian soldiers; see
Jones, Later Roman Empire, p. 54.
56
Ambrosius, Epistula 10.9–10: Qui etiam torquem, ut asseritur, et brachiale, Gothica
profanatus impietate, more indutus gentilium, ausus sit in conspectu exercitus prodire Romani: quod
sine dubio non solum in sacerdote sacrilegium, sed etiam in quocumque Christiano est, etenim abhorret
a more Romani, nisi forte sic solent idolatrae sacerdotes prodire Gothorum. For this passage, see
Philipp von Rummel, ‘Ambrosius, Julianus Valens und die ‘gotische Kleidung’. Eine Schlüsselstelle
historisch-archäologischer Interpretation’, in Sebastian Brather (ed.), Zwischen Spätantike und
Mittelalter, RGA Erg. Bd. 57 (Berlin and New York, 2008), pp. 45–64. For Goths as part of the
Arian opposition to Ambrose in the mid 380s, see Heather, Goths, pp. 340–41.
57
The use of such chaplains (presbyters and deacons) in the Nicene army at least as of the
time of Constantine has been demonstrated by Arnold H.M. Jones, ‘Military Chaplains in the
Roman Army’, Harvard Theological Review, 46 (1953): pp. 239–40. Only the Goths, it seems,
used bishops as their chaplains; a result, perhaps, of their past tradition of having bishops for entire
gentes. See also Mathisen, ‘Priests, Bishops, and Monks’, pp. 3–28.
58
Meslin, Ariens, p. 67, discusses ‘l’absence de sentence ecclésiastique’ against Valens and
Ambrose’s request that the emperor merely compel him to return home (where he already had
caused so much trouble!). Meslin attributes this treatment to the influence of the Arian empress
Justina, still resident in Milan, but Julianus’ position as bishop of Gothic troops may have worked
to greater effect. For Ambrose in this regard, see also Karl K. Klein, ‘Ambrosius von Mailand und
der Gotenbischof Wulfila’, Südost-Forschungen, 22 (1963): pp. 14–47.
59
Ambrose also refers to Valens’ illicitis ordinationibus in Italy: either these refer to Goths,
or he was ministering both to Romans and Goths equally, like Auxentius and Amantius above.
so many Arian barbarians in the Roman army induced the western government
to issue a law validating the Creed of Rimini of 359, as this Arianizing creed was
used by many barbarian Arians.
Another Arian bishop, Maximinus, is found accompanying Count Sigisvult’s
Roman army of Goths to North Africa, where Sigisvult – a barbarian himself
and probably a Goth – was sent in 427 to take charge of the war against the rebel
Count Boniface.60 So once again, it would seem that a Roman army of Arian
Goths was accompanied by its own Arian bishop.61 But in 536, after the fall of
the Vandal kingdom, Arian clerics in the Roman army in Africa were excluded
from performing the sacraments and not permitted to baptize at Easter. This
may have occurred because of the abrogation of the Rimini exception of 386,
which was not included in the Code of Justinian. During the resultant unrest,
the Arians were urged by Vandal priests (τῶν Βανδίλων ἱερεῖς) to revolt.62
The earliest attested use of Arian bishops, therefore, seems to have originated
in the Roman method for dealing with peoples who lived beyond the Roman
frontier and thus outside the territorial Roman provincial organizational model
that assigned individual bishops to individual civitates. For the exterae gentes,
the Romans appointed bishops of peoples, in a sort of ethnic model. Following
the conversion of the Goths, and other barbarian peoples, to the Rimini form of
Arianism, this ethnic model was adopted by Arian armies on the march, whose
Arian bishops accompanied them. This model applied not only to barbarian
peoples but also to units in the Roman army. In both cases, there was a need to
have clergy to minister to the sacramental and spiritual needs of Arian soldiers.
In this usage, the role of Arian bishops was quite different from that of Nicene
bishops, who did not travel about the countryside but remained in one place.
Arian Clergy in Barbarian Kingdoms
One now might ask what happened once the various Arian Germanic peoples
settled down and established their own kingdoms in the West. Did they retain
60
Possid. Vita Augustini 17.7 notes, cum ipsorum quoque Arianorum episcopo quodam
Maximino cum Gothis ad Africam veniente, and at this time, of course, it was not unusual for
western military units under barbarian command to be heavily barbarian: see John Bagnell Bury,
History of the Later Roman Empire from the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian A.D. 395
to A.D. 565 (2 vols, London, 1923 and 1958), vol. 1, p. 245.
61
Meslin, Ariens, p. 94, suggests that Maximinus had been ‘required, or invited, to exercise
the function of “Ordinaire des Armées”, and that he served as “chapelain militaire”. He was no
‘grateful hanger-on’ (as Neil McLynn, ‘From Palladius to Maximinus: Passing the Arian Torch’,
JECS, 4 (1996): pp. 477–93, at p. 485).
62
Proc. BV 4.14.12–13.
the custom of having one bishop for each people (or military unit), or did they
adopt the Roman practice of placing bishops in cities?
Arian Clergy in the Visigothic Kingdom
There is little evidence for a strongly developed church hierarchy in the

Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse; indeed, we do not have the name of any fifth-
century Visigothic bishop. In the 460s, Arian services for the Visigothic king
at Toulouse were presided over by ‘his own prelates’ (sacerdotes suos).63 Gothic
sacerdotes again were present in 474, when bishop Epiphanius of Pavia visited.64
In these Tolosan royal cases, the sacerdotes appeared in groups, never singly,65 and
one wonders whether these royal sacerdotes ought to be considered bishops or
presbyters.66 However that may be, they were in personal attendance on the king.
Outside Toulouse, moreover, there is some evidence for Arian clergy, but
none for bishops. The late vita of bishop Vincentius of Agen tells how an Arian
cleric (sacerdos), named Wietharius, Guetarius, or Nicasius, unsuccessfully
attempted to make off with the martyr’s remains.67 In the 450s, the presbyter
Othia, apparently a Visigoth and therefore an Arian, dedicated a church – a
bishop’s task in the imperial church – to the popular saints Felix, Agnes, and
Eulalia near the oppidum of Ensérune, between Narbonne and Béziers.68 Othia’s
unprecedented practice of dating by the years of his presbyterate, a clear
emulation of the practice of the Nicene bishop Rusticus of Narbonne,69 suggests
63
Sidon. Epist. 1.2.4: Antelucanos sacerdotum suorum coetus minimo comitatu expetit.
64
Ennodius, Vita Epiphanii (opusc. 3) 92 (ed. Vogel, MGH AA 7, p. 95): Iugiter per
sacerdotes suos polluta habere convivia.
65
The late Vita Bibiani vel Viviani episcopi Santonensis 6 (ed. Krusch, MGH SS rer. Merov. 3,
pp. 96–8) notes that bishop Vivianus of Saintes attended a royal banquet at Toulouse in the 460s
cum reliquis episcopis: the king demanded to be offerred a cup ab his qui aderant episcopis. It is
unclear, however, whether the bishops were Nicene or Arian. If the latter, this would be another
example of a group of high-ranking ecclesiastics in attendance upon a barbarian king. See Pierre
Courcelle, ‘Trois diners chez le roi wisigoth d’Aquitaine’, Revue des études anciennes, 49 (1947):
pp. 169–77.
66
Hence the occasional use of the word ‘prelate’ here when the meaning is in doubt.
67
Vita Vincentii 6, AASS June II, p. 164: Ariane legis potentissimum et iniquissimum
sacerdotem; see Louis Duchesne, Fastes épiscopaux de l’ancienne Gaule (3 vols, 2nd edn,
Paris, 1907–1915), vol. 2, p. 143.
68
CIL 12.4311: Othia presbyter anno XXXIII presbyteratus. A Gothic nationality is
suggested not only by his name, but also by the fact that such establishments by any other than
bishops were forbidden in the Nicene church, see Concilium Arausicanum, can. 9 and 10 (441
CE), Concilia Galliae a.314–a.506 (ed. Munier, CCSL 148, pp. 80–81).
69
See Henri‑Irenée Marrou, ‘Le dossier épigraphique de l’évêque Rusticus de Narbonne’,
Rivista di archeologia cristiana, 3–4 (1970): pp. 331–49.
that he was not only blatantly underscoring his independence but also portraying
himself, a Gothic presbyter, as the equal of a Nicene bishop.
Nor is there evidence where one might expect to find it for any Arian bishops
of Gallic cities. For example, when Sidonius Apollinaris, bishop of Clermont,
discussed Euric’s refusal to permit the ordination of Nicene bishops in the cities
under his jurisdiction in the early 470s, he made no mention of Arian bishops
installed in their stead, and he surely would not have missed the opportunity to
do so had such existed’.70 So, if there were any Arian bishops in Visigothic Gaul,
where were they?71 They do not seem to have been stationed in cities.72 It seems
that the most likely candidates for Arian bishops – if they existed – would be
among the sacerdotes who attended the king in Toulouse. Perhaps they formed
a sort of sacerdotal college, conceptually related to the presbyterion of the time
of Sabas that performed duties for the king, in the same way that Maximinus
had performed his for Sigisvult. One such duty may have been to accompany
Visigothic armies on campaign, as Arian bishops had done in the past.
This hypothesis might draw support from a report of Gregory of Tours, in
which a group of Visigoths arrived at Rions, in the Gironde, and occupied a
Nicene church. When Easter came (it is unclear how much time intervened),
‘they, with their heretical prelates (cum hereticorum sacerdotibus) baptized the
infants in our church, so that the people might be more easily entangled in their
sect’.73 Some parts of this entertaining anecdote do have a certain ring of truth,
such as the appearance of a group of Goths – in this interpretation, an army on
the march – accompanied by their sacerdotes-cum-chaplains, who proceeded to
occupy a church for their own, apparently short-term, use.74 Indeed, perhaps the
approach of Easter was the reason for their doing so in the first place.75
Sidon. Epist. 7.6.6.
70
Nor is there any reference to bishops in Gothic legislation prior to the conversion
71
of 589; see the Codex Euricianus and Lex Visigothorum (ed. Zeumer, MGH LL nat. Germ. 1).
Note also John Wallace-Hadrill, ‘Gothia and Romania’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 44
(1961): pp. 219–37, at p. 233, ‘As a rule, the Arian hierarchy (if we can speak of such) kept
remarkably quiet’.
72
Alaric II did intervene on behalf of the church of Narbonne, note Cassiod. Var. 4.17.2
(ed. Mommsen, MGH AA 12, p. 122), addressed to the dux Ibba, Atque ideo praesenti tibi
auctoritate praecipimus, ut possessiones Narbonensis ecclesiae secundum praecelsae recordationis
Alarici praecepta, a quibuslibet pervasoribus occupatae teneantur, aequitatis facias contemplatione
restitui. It is unclear, however, whether the Arian or Nicene church is meant.
73
Greg. Tur. Glor. conf. 47 (ed. Krusch, MGH SS rer. Merov. 1, 2, pp. 326–27): Ad suam sectae
inmunditiam eam transtulerunt … cumque adveniret vigilia pascha, hi cum hereticorum sacerdotibus
parvulos in ecclesia nostra tinguebant, ut … facilius ad hanc sectam populus implicaretur … .
74
And one notes the use of the word sacerdos for the Visigothic clerics, but presbyter for
the Nicene.
75
And, for that matter, the Visigothic Arian date of Easter may even have been different
from the Nicene, see Greg. Tur. Hist. 5.17: Eo anno dubietas paschae fuit. In Galliis vero nos cum
If this interpretation is correct, then one is left wondering whether the

Visigothic sacerdotes did anything else besides pay court to the king, and trail
along with military forces. An example of a different kind of role might be
found during the Visigothic occupation of Spain. Under the year 466, Hydatius
reported, ‘Ajax, by nationality a Gaul, after becoming an apostate and the senior
Arianus, appeared among the Suevi with the help of his king as an enemy of
the Catholic faith and the divine trinity’.76 This passage has several suggestive
elements. For one thing, Ajax is described not as a bishop or even a priest, but as
a ‘senior Arianus’. Does this mean ‘the senior Arian’ or ‘an Arian senior’? If the
latter, then one wonders what a ‘senior’ was. A layman? A cleric?77 Whatever
the case may be, it would seem that Hydatius either did not know what his
position was or did not want to acknowledge it. Furthermore, Ajax was said to
have come ‘with the support of his king’, that is, the Visigothic king Theoderic II
(453–66). He thus may have been one of the members of Theoderic’s sacerdotal
college – were they called seniores? – sent on a special mission to the Suevi. For
the Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse, therefore, one encounters no episcopi,
but only sacerdotes, who seem to have formed a group that waited upon and
performed duties for the king.
There is one possible exception. An intriguing anomaly is seen at the Council
of Agde of 506, which had been convened specifically ‘with the permission
of our Lord King Alaric’.78 The last bishop to subscribe to the acta was an
otherwise unknown Petrus episcopus de Palatio (‘Bishop Peter from the Palace’).79
Now, one must suppose that the ‘palatium’ refers to the palace of the Visigothic
king at Toulouse, but Petrus could not have been the bishop of Toulouse – that
multis civitatibus quarto decimo Kalendas Maias sanctum paschae celebravimus. Alii vero cum Hispanis,
duodecimo Kalendas Aprilis solemnitatem hanc tenuerunt: tamen ut ferunt, fontes illi, qui in Hispaniis
nutu Dei complentur, in nostro Pascha repleti sunt. The adversarial nature of this anecdote suggests that
the different Spanish Easter was that of the Arians. Procopius, BV 14.21, however, seems to suggest
that the Nicene and Vandal Easters were at the same time, at least in the late 530s in North Africa.
76
Hyd. Chron. 232, s.a. 466: Ajax, natione Galata, effectus apostata et senior Arianus, inter
Suevos regis sui auxilio hostis catholicae fidei et divinae trinitatis emergit. A Gallicana Gothorum
habitatione hoc pestiferum inimici hominis virus adfectum. See Isidore of Seville, Historia
Gothorum, Wandalorum, Sueborum (ed. Mommsen, MGH AA 11, p. 302). Pierre Champagne de
Labriolle, Gustave Bardy, Louis Bréhier and Georges de Plinval, De la mort de Théodose à l’élection
de Grégoire le Grand, Augustin Fliche and Victor Martin (eds), Histoire de l’église depuis les origines
jusqu’a nos jours, vol 4 (Paris, 1948), p. 375 describe him as ‘un prêtre – ou un évêque’.
77
In Nicene circles, the term senior could refer to a presbyter, as Verecundus of Junca, In
canticam Deuteronimi 8 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 93, p. 24), nam quod nos seniores in latino
dicimus, Graeci presbyteros nuncupant.
78
Ex permissu domni nostri … regis [Alarici]: Concilium Agathense, Concilia Galliae
a.314–a.506 (ed. Munier, CCSL 148, pp. 189–219).
79
Concilium Agathense, Concilia Galliae a.314–a.506 (ed. Munier, CCSL 148, p. 195).
was Heraclianus, who also was present. Petrus apparently, then, was the personal
delegate of the Arian Visigothic king, Alaric II,80 and he may well have been an
Arian bishop to boot, one of the college of bishops that attended the king.81 If
so, it would mean that in order to receive the king’s permission to meet, the Nicene
bishops of the Visigothic kingdom had permitted the attendance of an Arian
bishop at their council.
But any such attempt at a rapprochement between Nicenes and Arians ended
when the kingdom of Toulouse was effectively destroyed by the Franks at the battle
of Vouillé in 507, and the subsequent history of the Visigothic church was written
in the Spanish Kingdom of Toledo.82 The first Visigothic bishops-qua-bishops are
not attested until the reign of Leovigild (572–86), who initiated an aggressive
attempt to create a unified Arian church.83 In 580, for example, he summoned
at Toledo the first known Visigothic Arian synod, where the Arians decided to
accept Nicene conversions without rebaptism.84 At this point, however, there were
no attested bishops of cities, so the ‘council’ may have consisted of the sacerdotes at
Leovigild’s own court. Subsequently, instead of merely appointing Arian bishops
to cities, Leovigild attempted to induce Nicene bishops to convert. In the case of
Vincent of Saragossa, he was successful.85 But, in the mid-580s, he failed to subvert
the Goth Masona, Nicene bishop of the strategic metropolitan see of Merida.
Only then did he take the step of appointing Sunna ‘as bishop of the Arian party’
in Merida, the first attested case of a named Arian Gothic bishop in Spain.86
But Leovigild died in 586, and the next year King Reccared ordered the
sacerdotes sectae Arianae to convert; in 589 another council at Toledo, attended
80
See Edictum Chlotharii II (614 CE): de palatio … de palatio nostro. Concilium Parisiense
A. 614, Concilia Galliae a.511–a.695 (ed. De Clercq, CCSL 148 A, pp. 283–84).
81
For the suggestion, see Mathisen, ‘D’Aire-sur-l’Adour à Agde’, pp. 41–52.
82
For the battle, see Ralph W. Mathisen and Danuta Shanzer (eds), The Battle of Vouillé, 507
CE: Where France Began (Berlin and Boston, 2012). For Visigothic Spain, see Roger Collins,
Early Medieval Spain. Unity in Diversity, 400–1000 (New York, 1983); Knut Schäferdiek, Die
Kirche in den Reichen der Westgoten und Suewen bis zur Errichtung der westgotischen katholischen
Staatskirche (Berlin, 1967); and Edward A. Thompson, The Goths in Spain (Oxford, 1969).
83
Greg. Tur. Hist. 9.15, and Greg. Tur. Glor. conf. 13 (ed. Krusch, MGH SS rer. Merov. 1, 2,
pp. 305–6), tell how, during the reign of Leovigild, an Arian bishop failed to cure a blind man.
See also Collins, Early Medieval Spain, p. 41, ‘before 589 there are no references to named Arian
bishops at all, with the exception of Sunna of Merida in the 580s’.
84
Joh. Bicl. Chron. s.a. 580 (ed. Mommsen, MGH AA 11, p. 216): In urbem Toletanum
synodum episcoporum sectae Arianae congregat … ; see Thompson, Spain, pp. 94–95; Collins, Early
Medieval Spain, p. 51 and 59.
85
Vincentium, Caesaraugustanae urbis episcopum, qui ex catholico in Arianam pravitatem
fuerat devolutus (Isidore of Seville, De viris inlustribus 30). Greg. Tur., Glor.mart. 81 (ed. Krusch,
MGH SS rer. Merov. 1, 2, p. 93) reports a failed attempt at episcopal conversion in Spain.
86
Vita Masonae 5–7: Vitae patrum Emeretensium A3–b (ed. Maya Sánchez, CCSL 116,
p. 57) also called Siuma; see Thompson, Spain, pp. 101–3.
by both Arian and Nicene bishops, ratified his decision.87 Paradoxically, it is in

these very last days of Visigothic Arianism that we have our best evidence for
named Arian bishops of cities. Ugnus of Barcelona, Ubiligisclus and Murila
of Valencia, Sunila of Viseo, Gardingus of Tuy, Bechila of Lugo, Argiovitus of
Oporto, and Fruisclus of Tortosa renounced Arianism at once.88 All were bishops
of cities, but not without another anomaly: there were two Arian bishops from
Valencia. Furthermore, at the immediately subsequent unified synod, six of these
cities – all but Barcelona – were represented by both Visigothic and Roman
bishops, a situation that could have arisen only if Leovigild had in fact installed
rival Arian bishops.
The conversion was resisted, however, by others, including the
aforementioned Sunna, who was exiled to Mauretania where he subsequently
made many converts to Arianism;89 Athalocus, Arian bishop of Narbonne;90 and
a bishop Uldida (or Uldila) of an unknown see, who also was exiled.91 Given
that Sunna and Athalocus were both bishops of metropolitan cities, and that no
Gothic metropolitans apostacized in 589, one might speculate that Uldida was
bishop of one of the remaining metropolitan cities: Toledo, Seville, or Braga.
Certainly, the Gothic metropolitans would have had the most to lose by the
Gothic conversion.
All of this evidence for Arian bishops of cities at this particular time could
suggest that their appointment was an innovation of Leovigild. For one thing,
Sunna had to confiscate Nicene churches, which would not have been necessary
had there been Arian bishops at Merida in the past.92 Furthermore, only ten
Arian bishops are attested, either as hold-outs or as converts at the council
of 589, where all the converts certainly would have appeared and where 58
Nicene bishops were represented.93 The installation of Sunna and a few other
Arian bishops thus may have been a last-ditch effort of Leovigild at unification,
87
Joh. Bicl. Chron. s.a. 587 (ed. Mommsen, MGH AA 11, p. 217–18); see also Greg.
Tur. Hist. 9.15: Richaredus rex … convocatis episcopis religionis suae. See Schäferdiek, Westgoten,
pp. 214–28.
88
Concilium Toletanum III, PL 84, pp. 349–60; see Collins, Early Medieval Spain, p. 54;
Thompson, Spain, p. 40.
89
Joh. Bicl. Chron. s.a. 588 (ed. Mommsen, MGH AA 11, p. 218).
90
Arianae sectae episcopus Athalocus (Greg.Tur. Franc. 9.15); see also Vitae patrum
Emeretensium 5.12.1–5 (ed. Maya Sánchez, CCSL 116, p. 44): Arianorum episcopum
nomine Athalocum.
91
Joh. Bicl. Chron. s.a. 589 (ed. Mommsen, MGH AA 11, p. 218): Uldida episcopus cum
Gosuintha regina insidiantes Reccaredo; see Thompson, Spain, p. 101.
92
Sunna, says the vita, had been appointed pro seditiosis simultatibus excitandis (Vita
Masonae 5.5.2–4).
93
For a list of bishops, sees, and affiliations, see Schäferdiek, Westgoten, pp. 252–57.
in this case, unification by appropriating the Nicene hierarchy in a few cities.94

But even then, vestiges of a sacerdotal college might have remained, as evidenced
by the two Arian bishops of Valencia.
Arian Clergy in the Vandal Kingdom
If Leovigild attempted, however unsuccessfully, to merge the Arian and Nicene

churches under Arian leadership, the Vandal kings of North Africa took a rather
different approach, and made the most concerted attacks of all the barbarian
rulers upon the Nicene hierarchy. Their tactics, graphically documented by
Victor of Vita, included the use of bishops.95 For the reign of Geiseric (429–77),
there are only generalized references to Arian bishops – referred to as episcopi by
Victor, but as sacerdotes by the Vandals – as advisers, and to a church hierarchy
that included presbyters (such as Anduit and Jocundus), and deacons (such
as Marivadus).96
Under Huneric (477–84), the picture becomes clearer, with references,
analogous, perhaps, to the Visigoths, to a band of Arian bishops – sometimes
even accompanied by armed men – attendant upon, and seconding, the king.97
On 1 February 484, Huneric convoked a council where these Arians met with
the Nicenes.98 The presiding bishop was the Vandal patriarcha Cyrila, described
not as the bishop of some city but as the bishop (episcopum) of Huneric.99 In
several instances, exercising his patriarchal role, Cyrila was depicted by Victor as
94
Perhaps these were cities with a sizable Visigothic population. Any other unattested
Arian bishop would have been as guilty of high treason as Sunna, Athalocus, and Uldida, so these
ten may be all that there were.
95
Vict. Vit. HP; see Champagne de Labriolle, Bardy, Bréhier, and de Plinval, Histoire
de l’église, vol 4, pp. 378–85, and note also African apologists such as Vigilius of Thapsus,
PL 62. Victor’s account is stridently tendentious, yet it does include Vandal primary evidence that
illustrate the differences between Nicene and Arian terminology.
96
Vict. Vit. HP 1.6: praesentibus sacerdotibus nostris; 1.13 (Anduit), 1.14, suadentibus
episcopis suis ( Jocundus); 1.16 (Marivadus); also 2.1, presbyteros et diaconos Arianae haereseos.
97
Vict. Vit. HP 2.39: cum consensu sanctorum episcoporum nostrorum hoc nos
statuisse; 2.51, dicuntque Arianorum episcopi: hoc Eugenius per maleficia fecit; 3.38, episcopis
Arianorum suggerentibus; 3.42, plus Arianorum episcopi, presbyteri et clerici quam rex et Wandali
saeviebant; 3.47, episcopi atque presbyteri illorum cum armatorum manu … vicos vel oppida
circuibant … ; 3.54, vade ad episcopos nostros.
98
Vict.Vit. HP, 2.52–4. The list of Nicene clerics summoned to Carthage for the council
survives (ed. Halm, MGH AA 3.1, pp. 63–71).
99
Vict. Vit. HP 2.22: Huniricum regem et Cyrilam episcopum eius; 2.54, patriarcha Cyrila
dixit. Nor is there any doubt about Cyrila’s Germanic origin, as at the council he purportedly
claimed not to know Latin (ibid. 2.55).
overseeing the nefarious activities of the other Vandal bishops.100 Subsequently,

the exiled Nicene bishop Eugenius of Carthage carried on the dispute cum
Arianorum praesulibus per internuntios.101 Here, the word episcopi once again
was avoided in a reference to a group of Arian prelates.
A few other Arian bishops also are individually attested. On one occasion
Cyrila appointed one of his notaries as Arian bishop of Tipasa, with the
result, says Victor, that nearly the entire population departed for Spain.102 The
promotion of this individual would suggest not only that Arian bishops could
come from very modest professional backgrounds, but also that the Arian
episcopal cursus must have been rather different from the Nicene one.103 There
also is the case of Antonius, an Arian bishop of Tamullumum described as ‘more
cruel than the others’.104 He was chosen by Huneric to be the jailer of the exiled
Nicene bishops Habetdeus, who was bishop ‘of the city of Tamallumum, where
Antonius was’, and of Eugenius of Carthage.105 Both these cases show Arian
bishops being assigned a special mission by a barbarian king.106
Moreover, another thing that Antonius and the ex-notary had in common is
that their assignment, according to Victor, was not to minister to local Arians
or perform any kind of liturgical function but to attempt to convert the Nicene
population to Arianism.107 Antonius even went so far as to baptize Habetdeus
forcibly as an Arian, thus, to the Vandal way of thinking, making Habetdeus a
second Arian bishop of Tamallumum.108 Indeed during the reign of Huneric the
Nicene bishop Revocatus did convert to Arianism, and thus become another
Arian bishop.109 Subsequently, during the reign of Thrasamund (496–523), the
episcopus Pinta may have been the successor to Cyrila as the Vandal patriarcha.110
100
Vict.Vit. HP 2.8: Arianorum episcopi … cum Cyrila calumniis insectantes; 2.54, Cyrila
cum suis satellibus. His reputation extended even to Gaul: see Greg. Tur. Hist. 2.3: Cyrola, falso
vocatus episcopus, hareticorum tunc maximus habebatur assertor … . Note Gregory’s contention that
an Arian episcopus somehow was not a true bishop.
101
Gennadius, De viris inlustribus 98.
102
Vict.Vit. HP 3.29: In Tipasensi … civitate … Arianum episcopum ex notario
Cyrilae … ordinatum.
103
Nicene bishops nearly always had risen through the ecclesiastical ranks, or had been
high-ranking laymen.
104
Vict.Vit. HP 3.42: Quidam episcopus, inter illos ceteris crudelior, Antonius nomine … .
105
Tamallumensis civitatis, in qua Antonius fuerat … (ibid.).
106
See Vict.Vit. HP 3.54, sed neque Antonium haec res ab insania potuit revocare, sciens se
magis imperioso regi ob hoc multum posse placere.
107
The ex-notary labored ut eos faceret Arianos (Vict.Vit. HP 3.29); Antonius promised, nisi
eum [Habetdeum] nostrae fecero religionis, non sit Antonius (ibid. 3.45).
108
Vict.Vit. HP 2.37; perhaps analogous to the situation at Valencia in Spain in 589. For
similar activity by Cyrila, see ibid. 3.49.
109
Greg.Tur. Hist. 1.3: Infelix ille episcopus nomine Revocastus est revocatus a fide catholica.
110
V.Fulg.47–48, PL 65, p. 141.
There are some differences between Arian and Nicene titulature and practice.
For one thing, although Victor referred to Arian episcopi, the word used by the
Vandals themselves, in Huneric’s decree of 24 February 484, was the typical
sacerdos.111 The mid-sixth-century writer Verecundus of Junca also consistently
referred to heretical sacerdotes, never to episcopi.112 This might suggest, again, as
already seen in Gaul, that sacerdos was the barbarian Arians’ preferred Latin term
for their senior ecclesiastics.
Moreover, Cyrila’s designation as patriarcha would be consistent not only with
the role of ‘primate’ assigned by Jordanes to Ulfila, but also with the traditional
barbarian practice of having only one primary bishop for each people. Cyrila
is portrayed as the leader of a gang of Arian bishops-cum-sacerdotes attendant
upon the king. And one might wonder whether there lay behind the use of the
term patriarcha a Vandal attempt to establish a sixth, Arian, patriarchate, at
Carthage as a counterpart to the Nicene patriarchate at Rome. In addition, only
two appointments of Vandal bishops in cities are attested, and one of them, at
least, seems to have had no pastoral duties. One wonders whether the designation
episcopus was simply an idiosyncrasy of Victor, who perhaps was unfamiliar with
whatever Vandal designation was used. Certainly, no other Vandal bishops of
cities are known, and it thus appears, again, that the Arian successor kingdoms
did not follow the practice of having bishops of cities.
Arian Clergy in the Burgundian Kingdom
The evidence for Arian clergy in other barbarian kingdoms is more scanty.
In the short-lived Burgundian kingdom of Gaul, the Arian king Gundobad
(ca. 474–516) was advised on theological matters by a group of clerics whom
Avitus of Vienne referred to as ‘his sacerdotes, or rather his seducers, as one may
more accurately describe his co-religionists’.113 These sacerdotes would seem to
be, once again, a group of Arian prelates advising a barbarian king. Whether, as
in the case of the Vandals, each group of Burgundians also had a chief bishop
is unclear, although this might have been the case. Gregory of Tours notes that
when Gundobad captured Vienne circa 500, ‘[king] Godegisel fled to a church
111
Vict.Vit. HP 3.12: Concilio tantorum numero sacerdotum, 3.14, Maiestatis divinae
cultoribus, id est sacerdotibus nostris; Nicene bishops, however, were referred to as antistites
and episcopi.
112
E.g., Verecundus, In canticam Exodi 16 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 93, p. 13): Haeretici
scilicet sacerdotes; In canticam Azariae 19 (ibid., p. 101): Iudaica atque haeretica sacerdotia, In
canticam Habacue 15 (ibid., p. 140): De haereticis … agnoscitur, quorum principibus, utique
sacerdotibus, mortem veritatis agnitor ministravit; In canticam Debborae 15 (ibid., p. 189), Haeretici
sacerdotes, habentes partes fidelium, infidelium partem.
113
Avitus Epist. 23: Adjecit simpliciter sic scriptum misisse sacerdotibus, immo magis
seductoribus, ut adhuc verius dicamus sectatoribus suis.
of the heretics, and there was killed cum episcopo ariano’.114 Perhaps this faithful
Arian episcopus was the chief bishop of Godegisel’s sacerdotal college. Otherwise,
however, Burgundian Arian bishops are difficult to find.115
Additional testimony regarding Burgundian Arian church administration
comes from a pamphlet entitled ‘On not Assimilating Basilicas of the Heretics’
written by Avitus in 517.116 In response to the question of whether, after the
conversion to Nicene Christianity of Gundobad’s son Sigismund (516–23),
‘oratories or basilicas of the heretics aught to be converted to the use of
our religion’, Avitus first asked whether the king ‘had consulted his prelates
(antistites)’.117 He also worried that problems could arise should the area be
occupied by the Ostrogoths and their sacerdotes.118 In these cases Avitus refers
not to Arian episcopi, but to sacerdotes and antistites. Indeed, Avitus indicates
that the churches in question, described as oratories, basilicas, and ‘little basilicas’
(basiliculae), had been built by and remained under the jurisdiction of private
persons (privati), who chose the clergy themselves, suggesting, again, a much
looser ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the Arian as opposed to the Nicene church.119
Shortly thereafter, in 532, the Burgundian kingdom was absorbed by the Franks,
and became thoroughly Nicene.
Arian Clergy in the Ostrogothic Kingdom
In Italy, there seems to have been an episcopus Gothorum at Rome during

the 490s, for a document written circa 557 refers to a time ‘more than sixty
years earlier’ when the son of the Gothic count Tzalico and a certain Gudila,
probably also a Goth, made restitution to ‘the papa and bishop of the Goths
114
Godegiselus ad ecclesiam hereticorum confugit, ibique cum episcopo Ariano interfectus est
(Greg.Tur. Hist. 2.33).
115
Flodoardus mentions an Arianus episcopus supposedly converted by Avitus (Flodoardus,
Historiae ecclesiae remensis 1.16, (ed. Stratmann, MGH SS 36, p. 94). Nor do any Arian bishops
appear in the Lex constitutionum, and the only bishops in the Lex Romana Burgundionum are
Nicenes from the Theodosian Code.
116
De basilicis haereticis non recipiendis: Avitus Epist. 7, (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2,
pp. 35–39).
117
Sigismund even became a monk; see PLRE II, pp. 1009–10; Passio s. Sigismundi 9;
Marius Aventicensis Chron. s.a. 523 (ed. Mommsen, MGH AA 11 pp. 225–39). Avitus is very
clear that the conversion of the king did not mean the conversion of the people, and that the Arian
religion continued to be practiced.
118
Quid tamen si nunc quisquam de vivis regibus legis alienae ulcisci in regione sua similiter
velit, quod hic sacerdotibus suis doluerit inrogari? Avitus Epist. 7 (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2,
pp. 35–39). The most obvious ‘living king’ who met this requirement was Theoderic the Ostrogoth.
119
Avitus Epist. 7 (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2 pp. 35–9): Haereticorum oratoria sive basilicae …
cum conditores earum ad catholicam se legem … transtulerint … de oratoriis vel basiliculis privatis.
(episcopus Gothorum)’ of so many ounces of gold.120 This Gothic bishop would

have overseen a rather sizable population of barbarian Arians in Rome who at
this time attended at least one Arian church, which was known as the ecclesia
Gothorum and later became the church of Sant’Agata dei Goti.121 Not only was
this bishop referred to as the ‘bishop of the Goths’, that is, the bishop of a people,
not as the ‘bishop of Rome’ but he also bore the title of ‘papa’, which had applied
to Gothic priests in the past. It is unclear whether this event occurred during
the time of Odovacer or Theoderic, both of whom claimed to rule in Italy in the
early 490s.
As of 493, however, the Ostrogothic king Theoderic (493–523) was the
undisputed master of Italy. In spite of how well Ostrogothic Italy is documented,
there is only very scanty evidence for Gothic bishops. Theoderic did grant a tax
exemption to the Arian antistes Unscila, who has been taken for a bishop, but
whose residence and actual status is unclear.122 And the ninth-century writer
Agnellus of Ravenna reports that the Arian bishop (episcopus) Unimundus built
a church of St. Eusebius at Ravenna in 514.123 On this sparce evidence, one might
suggest that Ostrogothic Italy followed the pattern seen in other barbarian
kingdoms, with an Arian bishop in the royal capital city, perhaps attached to
the barbarian court. The existence of an Arian lower clergy is inferred not only
from the existence of Arian churches, as at Ravenna and Rome, but also from
the presence of clerics with Germanic names, and even Gothic clerical offices,
P.Ital. II 49, p. 198 = Luigi G. Marini, I papiri diplomatici (Rome, 1805), no. 119,
120
p. 376: sunt anni sexsaginta et amplius … sic reconciliatus fecit in aecl. sce. in Nepe ambulavit ipse
reconciliatus Romae et rogavit Papae et Episc. X Guthor X et dederunt illi iussionem recipere uncias
suas et recepit postea; see Jacques Zeiller, ‘Étude sur l’arianisme en Italie à l’époque ostrogothique
et à l’époque Lombarde’, MEFR, 25 (1905): pp. 127–46, at pp. 130–31; and Jacques Zeiller, ‘Les
églises ariennes de Rome à l’époque de la domination gothique’, MEFR, 24 (1904): pp. 17–34.
Christian Hülsen, Carlo Cecchelli, Gustavo Giovannoni, Ugo Monneret de Villard, and Antonio
Muñoz, S. Agata dei Goti, Monografie sulle chiese di Roma 1 (Rome, 1924), p. 26, interpret the
passage to mean that the restitution was made to both a ‘papa’ that is, the bishop of Rome, and
also to a Gothic bishop, but it seems clear from context that the title papa et episcopus Gothorum
refers to a single person.
121
See Mathisen, ‘Ricimer’s Church in Rome’.
122
Cassiod. Var. 1.26 (ed. Mommsen, MGH AA 12, p. 28–29): Ut quae dudum ecclesiae
viri venerabilis Unscilae antistitis praestitimus, valere in perpetuum censeamus … ad ecclesiam
nostram … ; see Georg Pfeilschifter, Der Ostgotenkönig Theoderich der Grosse und die katholische
Kirche (Münster, 1896), p. 51, no. 8, and p. 230; Scardigli, Goten, 332–333; and Zeiller, ‘Étude’,
pp. 130–31..
123
Agnellus, Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis 86 (ed. Holder-Egger, MGH SS
rer. Lang. 1, p. 334): Quam aedificavit Unimundus episcopus anno xxiii Theoderici regis, absque
fundamentis. See Pfeilschifter, Theoderich, p. 50; Scardigli, Goten, p. 332; and Zeiller, ‘Étude’,
pp. 130–31. The superscription to Cassiod. Var. 10.34, Episcopis suis Witigis rex (536/537 CE),
apparently refers to Nicene bishops; see Zeiller, Origines, pp. 533–34.
in Nicene churches after the destruction of the Ostrogothic kingdom in 554.

The Documentum Neapolitanum, for example, relating to the formerly Arian
church of St. Anastasia in Ravenna, refers to Optarit et Vitalianus praesb(yteri),
Suniefridus diac(onus), Petrus subdiac(onus), Uuiliarit et Paulus clerici nec non
et Minnulus et Danihel, Theudila Mirica et Sindila spodei, Costila, Gudelivus,
Guderit, Hosbut et Benenatus ustiarii, Viliarit et Amalagheus idem spodei.124
Moreover, Agnellus reports that four other churches, one with an episcopium
and a baptistery, were built at Ravenna by ‘Arians’; it is unclear whether, as with
the Burgundians, they were privately owned and administered.125
Arian Clergy in the Lombard Kingdom
Which leaves the Lombards, supposedly the last of the Arian Germanic gentes.
Lombard Arianism, however, is very problematic.126 For one thing, Procopius
indicates that in the late fifth century some Lombards already were Nicene
Christians.127 There is also much evidence that many Lombards remained pagan
through the sixth century.128 Only in the mid-seventh century does Paul the
Deacon note that in some Lombard cities, duo episcopi erant, unus catholicus et
alter Arianus.129 But only two of these Arian bishops can be identified, one who
unsuccessfully attempted to set himself up at Spoleto circa 600, and another,
Anastasius of Pavia, who converted to Nicene Christianity.130 It would appear,
therefore, not only that Arianism never really caught on among the Lombards,
124
Documentum Neapolitanum 82–85; also the Documentum Aretinum, with the Gothic
names Angelfrid, Alamoda, and Gudilebus: Scardigli, Goten, pp. 277–81, q.v. also for the use
of Gothic terminology. See Pfeilschifter, Theoderich, pp. 47–54; Thomas Burns, History of the
Ostrogoths (Bloomington, 1984 p. 161); Zeiller, ‘Étude’, pp. 130–36.
125
Agnellus, Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis 86 (ed. Holder-Egger, MGH SS rer.
Lang. 1, p. 334). Anticipated, perhaps, by the patronage of the church later known as Sant’Agata
dei Goti in Rome by Ricimer ca. 470, see no. 115 above.
126
See Amadeo Crivellucci, ‘Le chiese cattoliche e i Langobardi ariani in Italia’, Studi
storici, 4 (1895): pp. 391–6; Steven Fanning, ‘Lombard Arianism Reconsidered’, Speculum, 56
(1981): pp. 241–58 and Piero Majocchi’s chapter in this volume.
127
Procop. BG II.14.9.
128
See Fanning, ‘Lombard Arianism’.
129
Paulus Diaconus Hist. Lang. 4.42; see Fanning, ‘Lombard Arianism’, p. 252; and Zeiller,
‘Étude’, pp. 137–8.
130
Spoleto: Greg. M., Dialogi 3.29; Pavia: Carlo Cecchelli, ‘L’arianesimo e le chiese
ariane d’Italia’, in Le chiese dei regni dell’Europa occidentale e i loro rapporti con Roma sino
all’800, Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo 7 (Spoleto, 1960),
pp. 743–74.
but also that by the end of the sixth century Germanic Arianism writ large had
run its course.131
Barbarian Arian Clergy: Synthesis
As seen, several Latin words, including episcopus, sacerdos, antistes, patriarcha,

pontifex, praesul, primas, and presbyter, and senior were used to describe senior
barbarian Arian clerics (see Appendix). In the east, writers referred to barbarian
bishops almost exclusively as episcopi, suggesting that they were perceived as
equivalent to bishops within the Roman world. In the west, however, where
the barbarian Arian church experienced its full development, the situation
was rather different. There is evidence for a head bishop, that is, a primas or
patriarcha, perhaps a relic of an original ‘one people, one bishop’ custom.
Now, the use of such terms for chief clerics is in fact not inconsistent with early
Christian practices, in which the words presbyter and episcopus appear to have
been equivalent. In fifth-century Gaul, a Nicene cleric, apparently a presbyter
himself, emphatically made the point in the De septem ordinibus ecclesiae.
Concerning the sixth order of the church, which is the order of the priests
(sacerdotes). The sixth order of seniority is that given to the priestly (sacerdotalibus)
individuals who are called presbyters (presbyteri) … They share the ministries
with the bishops … because (episcopi) bishops themselves, we read, are referred
to as presbyters … Do you therefore understand that the height of the priesthood
(sacerdotium) is gathered into the presbyterate? … For presbyter is a name
denoting age, and bishop [denotes] authority.132
In other contexts, too, a bishop was referred to as a co-presbyter, or as a

summus sacerdos.133
The multi-purpose denotation of the word sacerdos would have made it
a useful choice for Nicenes who were uncertain as to just what the real status
See Fanning, ‘Lombard Arianism’, p. 258, for the Lombards as ‘a largely heathen people
131
who slowly and almost imperceptibly adopted the Catholic faith’.

132
De septem ordinibus ecclesiae 6, PL 30, pp. 148–62: De sexto gradu ecclesiae, qui sacerdotum
ordo est. Sextus seniorum ordo est qui sacerdotalibus datur, qui presbyteri dicuntur … cum episcopis
consortes ministeriorum sunt … quoniam et ipsi presbyteri, ut legimus, episcopi nuncupantur …
intellegis ergo in presbytero summam sacerdotii collocari? … nam presbyter aetatis est nomen, episcopus
dignitatis … .
133
Summus sacerdos: Concilium Agathense, can.6, Concilia Galliae a.314–a.506 (ed. Munier,
CCSL 148, p. 194). Compresbyteri: Ruricius of Limoges, Epist. 2.8 (ed. Krusch, MGH AA 8,
p. 301).
of Germanic Arian ‘bishops’ was.134 And this would have been even more the
case if, as it seems, the Gothic sacerdos functionally combined elements of the
Nicene episcopus and presbyter. Fastidious Nicenes also may have avoided the
word episcopus when referring to Arians in order to make it clear that, in their
opinion, Arian bishops were not the real thing.135 In such a fluid context, one
can place Hydatius’ reference to a senior Arrianus, the priest Othia’s emulation
of a Nicene bishop, and even Eunapius’ reference to Gothic bishops.136
As for the Germanic Arians, their own terminology was often different from
the Nicene. Some clerical offices, such as bilaif and spodeus, did not have exact
Roman equivalents.137 For priest (presbyter), the Arian term was papas, or papan.
Now, in the Nicene Roman church, the word papa was used only for the highest
ranking ecclesiastics, that is, for bishops; by the sixth century it was increasingly
limited to the bishop of Rome.138 So its use for priests among the Goths is
instructive, perhaps indicating that the highest clerical office was, again, not
referred to as episcopus, but as papan in Gothic, or sacerdos or presbyter in Latin.
All of this helps to explain why Arian senior clerics can be difficult both
to identify and to categorize. Indeed, given the state of our understanding of
barbarian Arian clerical functions, one might choose to use the word ‘bishop’
when referring to senior barbarian clerics only with caution, and with the
realization that, terminologically, a barbarian Arian episcopus or sacerdos was
something quite different from a Roman Nicene episcopus. Moreover, except in
extraordinary circumstances, barbarian rulers did not appoint Arian bishops of
cities. And even when they did, it was only on a small-scale and apparently ad hoc
basis, never with the idea of placing Arian bishops in all, or even an appreciable
number, of the cities in their domains. Nor did barbarian bishops monopolize
church construction the way Nicenes did. Indeed, barbarian churches were not
only often constructed by laity and lesser clergy, but the laity even appears to
have maintained some control over them. These lesser clerics also seem to have
been responsible for meeting Arian religious needs on the local level.
As a result, Arian bishops in barbarian kingdoms were nearly always ‘bishops
without portfolio’. They were primarily attendant upon the king, as a sacerdotal
college, perhaps still called a presbyterion as in the days of Ulfila, and they
134
And Nicenes continued, of course, to use sacerdos to refer to Nicenes as well.
135
A similar Nicene chauvinism is seen in an assertion that only Nicenes had ‘churches’;
heretics merely had ‘meeting places’ (conciliabula): Statuta ecclesiae antiqua no. 81, Concilia
Galliae a.314–a.506 (ed. Munier, CCSL 148, p. 179): conventicula haereticorum non ecclesias sed
conciliabula appellanda.
136
For Eunapius’ possible difficulties with Christian terminology, see Schäferdiek, ‘Wulfila’,
p. 128.
137
For bilaif, see Schwab, ‘Bilaif ’. Zeiller, ‘Étude’, p. 131, sees spodei as ‘ascètes attachés à une
église’; Scardigli, Goten, p. 286, as perhaps equivalent to lectors.
138
See Scardigli, Goten, p. 281.
undertook special missions on his behalf.139 Indeed, it may be that barbarian

rulers, too, given their adverse experiences with powerful and froward Nicene
episcopi saw certain advantages to keeping their own senior clerics as ‘prelates
of the second order’.140 The Arian prelates’ only known liturgical responsibility
was to conduct services for the king, and perhaps for the army. They, or perhaps
only the primate, probably also had some role in the ordination of lesser Arian
clergy. Other assignments included missionary work, seeking conversions that
were voluntary, as in the case of Ajax’s mission to the Suevi, or, coerced, as with
the Vandals in Africa.
Barbarian Arian Church Practices
One now might turn to the operation and functioning of barbarian Arian
churches, and, at the same time, to a consideration of how Arian churches
interacted in the midst of the much more widespread and pervasive Nicene
church and society. Like Roman Nicenes, Arian barbarians participated in a
world of intellectual and social activity that included (1) engaging in theological
debates with Christians who had different perceptions, in this case regarding the
nature of the relationship between the father (God) and the son (Christ), (2)
study of Christian scriptures, and (3) interacting with Nicenes in the course of
their everyday lives.
Theological Debates between Barbarian Arians and Roman Nicenes
During and after the barbarian settlements in the west, Arians and Nicenes
regularly engaged in theological debates on behalf of their respective theological
interpretations of scripture. An early example of such a debate occurred in Milan
during the early 380s, it seems, when two Arian imperial chamberlains – were
they barbarians? – challenged Ambrose to a public debate on the incarnation.
According to Ambrose’s biographer, on the appointed day, ‘with the plebs
waiting in the church’, the two chose rather to flee in a carriage from the city; the
For colleges of bishops in early Christian times, see Duchesne, History, vol 1, pp. 62–70.
139
A remnant of such colleges might be seen in the chorepiscopi who flourished in the east in the
late third and the fourth centuries; see Franz Gillmann, Das Institut der Chorbischöfe im
Orient (Munich, 1903); perhaps they had some conceptual role in the creation of bishops of
gentes barbarici.
140
See Statuta ecclesiae antiqua no. 11, Concilia Galliae a.314–a.506 (ed. Munier,
CCSL 148, p.168) for inferioris … gradus sacerdotes and Sidon. Epist. 4.11.3: antistes fuit in ordine
secundo for this terminology referring to a priest.
carriage overturned and both were killed.141 One might wonder what this deus
ex machina outcome was intended to conceal.
A debate that actually took place occurred at some point between 427
and 429/430 during Count Sigisvult’s campaigns in North Africa. Sigisvult
sent the aforementioned elderly Arian bishop Maximinus, who may have been a
Goth himself, on a mission to Hippo Regius to effect a reconciliation between
the rebel Count Boniface and the imperial government.142 While he was in
Hippo, a friendly discussion with the Nicene priest Heraclius soon turned into
an impromptu debate in which Heraclius was soundly thrashed. Heraclius
then appealed to Augustine, and the result was a debate between Maximinus
and Augustine himself.143 The extant minutes begin, ‘When Augustine and
Maximinus met together at Hippo Regius, Maximinus said, “I have not come
to this city for the purpose of instigating an altercation with Your Reverence,
but, sent by Count Sigisvult, I have come with thoughts of peace”’.144 In spite
of his disclaimer, Maximinus proceeded to dominate the discussion. His haste
to depart left Augustine protesting that he had not had enough time to make
his case, but that could not conceal the fact that Maximinus had departed as
the victor. Augustine subsequently published, at his leisure, a separate tract
expressing what he would have liked to have said.145
In the barbarian kingdoms, Arian bishops also participated in debates with
Nicenes, although not with the same success as Maximinus. In Vandal Africa,
141
Vita Ambrosii 18, PL 14, p. 42: Fuerunt etiam duo cubicularii tunc temporis Gratiani
imperatoris de haeresi Arianorum, qui tractanti episcopo quaestionem proponerent … ascendentes
in rhedam, quasi gratia gestandi, civitatem egressi sunt, exspectante sacerdote et plebe in ecclesia
constituta; Meslin, Ariens, p. 47, suggests a date of 381.
142
For his possible Gothic ethnicity, see Zeiller, Origines, p. 441, no. 1: a ‘Goth à demilatinisé’.
This embassy would have foreshadowed Bleda’s similar mission in 455. See McLynn, ‘Maximinus’,
pp. 477–93, who assumes pp. 484 and p. 488 that Maximinus was a Roman with a see in Illyricum.
143
Revera enim Heraclio presbytero amicali pactione mecum tractanti, responsum dedi ut
valui, ita tamen ab ipso provocatus, quique in tantum exarsit, ut etiam adventum tuum contra me
provocaret (Augustine of Hippo, Collatio cum Maximino Arianorum episcopo 1, PL 42, p. 742).
Note also a spurious debate between Augustine and another Arian, the vir spectabilis Pascentius
(PL 33), pp. 1156–58.
144
Cum Augustinus et Maximinus Hippone regio unum in locum convenissent, Maximinus
dixit, ‘Ego non ob istam causam in hanc civitatem adveni, ut altercationem proponam cum religione
tua, sed missus a comite Sigisvulto contemplatione pacis adveni’ (Augustine, Collatio 1). See William
A. Sumruld, Augustine and the Arians: The Bishop of Hippo’s Encounters with Ulfilan Arianism
(Selnisgrove, Pa., 1994).
145
Augustine, Collatio 26 (et tu remeare festinas), see also Augustine, Contra Maximinum
Arianum (PL 42, pp. 743–5) and Sermo 140 (PL 38), p. 773–75. For Maximinus as the ‘victor
of the encounter’, see McLynn, ‘From Palladius to Maximinus’, p. 488. And the African bishop
Cerealis, having been asked ab Maximino Arianorum episcopo if he could defend the Nicene faith,
wrote a libellus, sicut Maximinus irridens petierat (Gennadius, De viris inlustribus 97).
during a ‘miracle contest’ of the early 480s, bishop Eugenius of Carthage was
said to have cured a blind man, at which ‘the bishops of the Arians said that
Eugenius did this using magic’.146 At the Council of Carthage of 484, the Arian
patriarcha Cyrila hardly covered himself with glory by pretending that he did
not know Latin in order to avoid debating with the Nicene bishops; the Nicenes,
however, responded, ‘We know very well that you always have spoken Latin’.147
After the resulting exile of 348 Nicene bishops, Eugenius continued ‘debates
with Arian praesules through messengers’.148 Subsequently, during the reign of
Thrasamund, Fulgentius of Ruspe debated with a group of Arian bishops led by
the episcopus Pinta.149
But in other regards, theological exegesis in the barbarian kingdoms often
was left to junior clergy and laypersons. Fulgentius also disputed the topic of the
Holy Spirit with the Vandal presbyter Abragila and published a refutation of an
extant sermo of Fastidiosus, a Nicene presbyter who had converted to Arianism.150
And an anonymous North African writer of the mid-fifth century, for example,
wrote a lengthy response to the propositions against the unity of the trinity put
forth by ‘Varimadus, deacon of the Arian sect’.151
In Gaul, Modaharius, with whom the Nicene bishop Basilius of Aix had a
celebrated Christological debate circa the early 470s, was described by Sidonius
Apollinaris not as a bishop, or even as a cleric, but as a ‘Gothic citizen’ (civem
Gothum).152 In the Burgundian kingdom, a number of debates took place before
the Arian king Gundobad (ca. 474–516).153 Gundobad was also advised on
theological matters by a group of sacerdotes whom Avitus of Vienne referred
to as ‘his prelates, or rather his seducers, as one may more accurately describe
Vict.Vit. HP 2.51: Dicuntque Arianorum episcopi: hoc Eugenius per maleficia fecit.
146
Vict.Vit. HP 2.55: Cyrila dixit, nescio latine. nostri episcopi dixerunt: semper te latine esse
147
locutum manifesto novimus … .

148
Gennadius, De viris inlustribus 98: altercationes quoque quas cum Arianorum praesulibus
per internuntios habuit.
149
V.Fulg. 47–8, PL 65, p. 141.
150
V.Fulg. 47–8, PL 65, p. 141; Fulgentius Ruspensis, Ad Thrasamundum regem Vandalorum
libri tres (ed. Fraipont, CCSL 91, pp. 97–99); Sermo Fastidiosi Ariani; and Idem, Contra sermonem
Fastidiosi (ed. Fraipont, CCSL 91, pp. 280–308). Pinta’s name is reminiscent of the eastern Master
of Soldiers Plinta of 419 CE, who intervened in the Patripassian dispute.
151
Varimadi Arianae sectae diaconi: Vigilius Thapsensis (Ps.), Contra Varimadum praef.
(ed. Schwank, CCSL 90, p. 9). The author encountered the tract in Naples, but it is unclear where
Varimadus himself was stationed.
152
Sidon. Epist. 7.6.2–3: Modaharium, civem Gothum, haereseos Arianae iacula vibrantem.
See Wallace-Hadrill, ‘Gothia’, p. 232.
153
Avitus Epist. (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2, pp. 29–34).
his co-religionists’.154 Later in Gaul, a debate between an Arian presbyter and

two Nicene deacons was eventually settled with a trial by ordeal.155 Another
such debate seems not to have had such an extreme conclusion.156 And Gregory
himself claims to have debated with Agilanis, not even a cleric, but a Visigothic
ambassador to the Frankish king Chilperic, quoting John 10:30: ‘You who say,
“The father is greater than I’” ( John 14.28) ought to remember that he says
elsewhere, “I and the father are one”’ Greg. Tur. Hist. 5.54.
Theological debates also could have an iconographical dimension. In Rome,
for example, the Arian patrician and master of soldiers Ricimer suggested that
the true Christ was the Arian Christ by underwriting a mosaic in what was to
become the church of Sant’Agata dei Goti that portrayed Christ as the ruler of
the world, seated on a globe and with the inscription Salus totius generis humani
(‘Salvation of the entire human race’).157 And in May of 545, the argentarius
(banker) Julianus and his wife Bacauda underwrote the construction of a church
of San Michele in Ravenna. The church was dedicated by bishop Maximinus –
who appears with Justinian in the famous mosaic of San Vitale – in 547.158 The
centerpiece of the church was a magnificent apse mosaic displaying Christ
holding in his right hand a long cross and flanked by the angels Michael on
his right and Gabriel on his left. Most strikingly, Christ holds in his left hand a
book open to a passage reading Qui vidit me vidit et patrem. Ego et pater unum
sumus. This was a conflation of John 14:9 (Qui vidit me vidit et patrem) and
John 10:30 (Ego et pater unum sumus), two clear, uncompromising, and ultimate
condemnations of the Arianism that had been favored by the Ostrogoths, and
this at a time when the reconquest of Italy was not yet complete.
Debates were widely attended and provided a form of popular entertainment.
Indeed, bishop Severus of Minorca, speaking of a proposed debate between
Christians and Jews in 418, noted ‘this was to be a most modest debate about the
law, not for the purpose of arousing quarrels but for the sharing of discussion’.159
154
Avitus Epist. 23 (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2, pp. 55–56), to the Nicene king Sigismund,
sacerdotibus, immo magis seductoribus, ut adhuc verius dicamus sectatoribus suis. The mention in
Epist. 22, addressed to Gundobad, of scitos … sacerdotes, however, seems to be a generic reference
to knowledgeable clerics in general, without indication of doctrinal affiliation.
155
Greg.Tur. Glor.mart. 80 (ed. Krusch, MGH SS rer. Merov. 1, 2, p. 92): Arianorum
presbyter cum diaconon nostrae religionis altercationem habebat.
156
Greg.Tur. Glor.conf. 14 (ed. Krusch, MGH SS rer. Merov. 1, 2, p. 306).
157
See Mathisen, ‘Ricimer’s Church’.
158
See Claudio Spadoni and Linda Kniffitz (eds), San Michele in Africisco e l’età
giustinianea a Ravenna: atti del Convegno ‘La diaspora dell’arcangelo, San Michele in Africisco e
l’età giustinianea’ (Milan, 2007).
159
Epistula Severi 6: Futurum autem esse modestissimum de lege conflictum, nec excitandas
lites sed fabulas esse miscendas, see Scott Bradbury (ed. and tr.), Severus of Minorca. Letter on the
Conversion of the Jews (Oxford, 1996 p. 91).
Figure 7.1 Figure of Christ from the apse of the Church of St Michael
in Ravenna
And the Arian bishop Maximinus noted that his debate with Augustine in the
late 420s began with an ‘amicable discussion’.160 If one discounts the typical
Nicene accounts of miraculous Nicene victories in these debates, there is nowhere
in them much indication of real animus on the part of the participants. Rather,
such debates seem to have been a common, and perhaps even expected, aspect of
encounters between Arians and Nicenes who had any pretensions to intellectual
ability. By this time, everyone of course knew what standard scriptural tags
would be used by each side, so it was unlikely that anyone was going to come up
with any new arguments on one side or the other. It was rather that the two sides
presented the familiar material that provided the entertainment, not the nature
of the evidence itself. And woe betide the debater who left out an important
scriptural citation. But, needless to say, and in spite of Nicene propoganda to
the contrary, nothing was ever settled in these debates, and one might wonder
160
Augustine, Collatio cum Maximino Arianorum episcopo 1, PL 42, pp. 707–42: Revera
enim Heraclio presbytero amicali pactione mecum tractanti.
whether any in the audience were induced to abandon their own favorite speaker
for the other side.
Barbarian Arian Scripture and Commentary
The topic of theological debate raises another important issue, that of just what
was the language of barbarian Arian theological discourse. Back in the mid-
fourth century, when Ulfila was initially bringing Arian Christianity to the
previously pagan Goths, Ulfila created a Gothic alphabet,161 translated the Bible
into Gothic, and, according to Auxentius, wrote other ‘tractates’, and ‘preached …
in the Greek, Latin, and Gothic languages’.162 Ulfila is but one representative
of an often overlooked tradition of Gothic intellectual activity. Other known
writings in Gothic include the skeireins, commentaries on the gospels, and
vulthres, Gothic annotations to translated passages.163 The Gothic ecclesiastical
calendar and Gothic martyrs have already been mentioned.
But the question also arises of just how widespread the use of the Gothic
language actually was in barbarian Arian churches. The best known barbarian
intellectuals of the fourth and fifth centuries, including Ulfila himself, were
at least bilingual and probably trilingual, and often, or even usually, wrote in
Latin. One such would have been Auxentius, bishop of Durostorum (Silistra)
in Moesia Secunda who lost his see circa 380 as a result of the anti-Arian
legislation.164 Subsequently, perhaps in 384 or 385, he became the Arian bishop
161
See, in general, Henri-Irenée Marrou, Histoire de l’éducation dans l’Antiquité (Paris: Le
Seuil, 1948); tr. A History of Education in Antiquity (Madison, WI, 1982 p. 423).
162
Diss. Max. 27 (ed. Gryson, SC 267, p. 46): Et haec omnia de diuinis scribturis eum
dixisse et nos describsisse, qui legit, intellegat; qui et ipsis tribus linguis plures tractatus et multae
interpretationes uolentibus ad utilitatenn ed ad aedificationem … dereliquid.
163
Skeireins: William Holmes Bennett, The Gothic Commentary on the Gospel of John:
skeireins aiwaggeljons pairh iohannen: a Decipherment, Edition, and Translation (New York, 1960).
Vulthres: referred to in the Codex Brixianus, which preserves two pages of the Latin preface to a
sixth-century codex purpureus, probably of the Latin-Gothic Bible (see Heather and Matthews,
Goths, pp. 169–73). The diction suggests authorship by a Goth, see Friedrich Kauffmann, ‘Beiträge
zur Quellenkunde der gotischen Bibeluebersetzung’, Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie, 31 (1898):
pp. 305–35, as well as ibid. 32 (1900): pp. 306–11; see also Francis Crawford Burkitt, ‘The Vulgate
Gospels and the Codex Brixianus’, JTS, 1 (1900): pp. 129–34; and Michael Metlen, ‘A Natural
Translation of the Praefatio attached to the Codex Brixianus’, Journal of English and Germanic
Philology, 37 (1938): pp. 355–66. For Gothic fragments, see also Heather and Matthews, Goths,
pp. 156–57; Michiel van den Hout, ‘Gothic Palimpsests of Bobbio’, Scriptorium, 6 (1952):
pp. 213–24; and James W. Marchand, ‘Notes on Gothic Manuscripts’, Journal of English and
Germanic Philology, 56 (1957): pp. 213–24. For Gothic biblical exegesis inferred from Salv.
Gub. 5.2.5–9; see Heather and Matthews, Goths, p. 155; Wallace-Hadrill, ‘Gothia’, p. 234
(at Toulouse).
164
E.g., CTh 16.1.3 (381), 16.5.6,8 (381), and passim.
of Milan in opposition to the zealous Nicene bishop Ambrose (374–98).165 He

was the author of a ‘Letter on the Faith, Life, and Death of Ulfila’.166 Ambrose
polemicized him as a native of ‘Scythia’, that is, as a Goth, and reported that he
had ‘four or five gentiles (barbarians) as his cognitores (spokesmen), if he chose
any at all’.167 Another Arian author was the bishop Maximinus who debated
Augustine in the 420s and went on to write, at some time after 438, an extant
Arian commentary on the Council of Aquileia of 381.168 Nearly 30 Arian
sermons in Latin also survive.169
The actual use of Gothic in Arian barbarian kingdoms is very poorly attested.
Indeed, the best known example is not even religious, but the work of three
geographers, the ‘philosophers’ Athanarid, Heldebald, and Marcomir, who
worked at the court of King Theoderic – their works were excerpted by an
anonymous eighth-century cosmographer of Ravenna, who, it seems, understood
Gothic.170 And there is in fact no evidence that in any of the celebrated debates
Heather and Matthews, Goths, p. 146. He generally is distinguished from the Auxentius
165
who preceded Ambrose as bishop of Milan.

166
Epistula de fide vita et obitu Ulfilae: Kauffmann, Schule, pp. 304–8. But see Karl
K. Klein, ‘Ist der Wulfilabiograph Auxentius von Durostorum identisch mit dem mailändischen
Arianerbischof Auxentius Mercurinus?’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und
Literatur, 75 (1953): pp. 165–91.
167
Ambrose, Sermo contra Auxentium, de basilicis tradendis, appended to Ambrosius,
Epistula 21 to Valentinian (PL 16), pp. 1007–18: (22) ergo Auxentius eicitur, Mercurinus
excluditur … alius in Scythiae partibus dicebatur, alius hic vocatur … minora fecit in Scythia … 26.
gentiles quosdam quattuor aut quinque ferme homines elegit cognitores sibi, si tamen aliquos elegit.
Wolfram, Goths, p. 78, suggests that ‘Mercurinus’ was his original name, but perhaps it was a
cognomen or signum. See Gert Händler, Wulfila und Ambrosius (Stuttgart, 1961); and Meslin,
Ariens, pp. 44–58. For Goths as part of the Arian opposition to Ambrose in the mid 380s, see
Heather, Goths, pp. 340–41.
168
Commentary: Roger Gryson (ed.), Scolies ariennes sur le concile d’Aquilée, SC 267
(Paris, 1980); Leon Gilissen, ‘Les scolies ariennes du Parisinus Latinus 8907: Un énchantillonnage
d’écritures latins du Ve siècle’, Armarium codicum insignium, 1 (1980): pp. 5–23. The commentary
cites the Theodosian Code, published in the west in 438. See also Neil B. McLynn, ‘The ‘Apology of
Palladius’: Nature and Purpose’, JThS, 42 (1991): pp. 52–76.
169
Sermons: see Roger Gryson (ed.), Scripta Ariana latina, CCL 87 (Turnholt, 1982) (15
sermons from a Verona manuscript); and Raymond Étaix, ‘Sermons ariens inédits’, Recherches
augustiniennes, 26 (1992): pp. 143–79 (12 sermons from a Freising manuscript). See also Roger
Gryson, ‘Les sermons ariens du Codex latinus monacensis 6329. Etude critique’, Revue des Etudes
Augustiniennes, 39 (1993): pp. 333–58, who suggests the author came from the ‘communautés
gotiques établies en Illyricum oriental’.
170
See Franz Staab, ‘Ostrogothic Geographers at the Court of Theoderic the Great: A Study
of Some Sources of the Anonymous Cosmographer of Ravenna’, Viator, 7 (1976): pp. 27–58;
the author may have been a cleric in a Gothic church. See also Alfred Jacobs, Gallia ab anonymo
ravennate descripta (Paris, 1858), p. 27, patriam plurimi descripserint phylosophi ex quibus ego legi
between Arian and Nicene bishops anything but Latin scripture was used. This
certainly was the case in the debates between Maximinus and Augustine and
Agilanis and Gregory of Tours, and would appear likewise to have been the case
in the debates in Vandal Africa, Visigothic Gaul, and Burgundian Gaul. For
example, the claim of the Vandal patriarcha Cyrila at the Council of Carthage
of 484 that he did not know Latin – made for political rather than linguistic
reasons – was dismissed by the Nicene bishops, who responded, ‘We know very
well that you always have spoken Latin’.171And no hint anywhere of any Gothic
scripture being cited. In fact, one might well ask whether these Arian clerics even
knew Gothic well enough to be able to argue in Gothic, and that even assuming
that they possessed any Gothic texts.
The best discussion of the Arian use of scripture comes, in typically disparaging
fashion, from Salvian of Marseille, who noted, regarding the Visigoths of Gaul
in the 430s:
You say that they read the same things that are read by us. How can they be the
same things when they were both wickedly interpolated and badly transmitted by
authors who at the time were wicked? And because of this they are not now the
same, because in no way can those things be called completely the same that in
some part have been corrupted. Indeed, those things that are not complete lose
their completeness, nor do those things that have been deprived of the virtue of
the sacraments preserve their validity. We, therefore, have only scriptures that are
complete, unchanged, and whole … We alone read them rightly …’.172
This observation about translated scripture most likely refers to Ulfila’s

translation of the Bible into Gothic. Subsequently, however, Salvian conceded,
Even if there are those of the barbarian peoples who in their books seem to have
sacred scripture that is less interpolated or broken up, they nevertheless have
prenominatos Anaridum et Eldebaldum atque Marcomirum Gothorum philosophum. For another

geographical work, that ‘might have originated in Ostrogothic Italy’ circa 520, see Walter Goffart,
‘The Supposedly “Frankish” Table of Nations: An Edition and Study’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien
(1983): pp. 98–130.
171
Vict. Vit. HP 2.55: Cyrila dixit, nescio latine. Nostri episcopi dixerunt: semper te latine esse
locutum manifesto novimus. The Visigothic king Euric likewise insisted in carrying out diplomatic
exchanges in Gothic even though he would have understood and spoken Latin perfectly well.
Ennodius, Vita Epiphanii 89–90 (ed. Vogel, MGH AA 7, p. 95).
172
Salv. Gub. 5.2.6–7: Eadem, inquis, legunt illi quae leguntur a nobis. Quomodo eadem, quae
ab auctoribus quondam malis et male sunt interpolata et male tradita? ac per hoc iam non eadem, quia
non possunt penitus dici ipsa quae sunt in aliqua sui parte vitiata. Incolumitatem enim non habent quae
plenitudinem perdiderunt, nec statum suum omnino servant quae sacramentorum virtute privata sunt.
Nos ergo tantum Scripturas sacras plenas, inviolatas, integras habemus … Nos tantummodo bene legimus.
[scripture] that has been corrupted by the traditions of their ancient teachers,
and because of this they have tradition rather than scripture, because they do
not retain what the truth of the law teaches, but what the depravity of wicked
tradition has inculcated. For barbarians are men lacking in Roman, or rather
human, erudition, who know nothing at all except for what they hear from their
teachers, and what they hear, this they follow’.173
Now, given that Salvian already had explicitly condemned the Gothic
translation of scripture, one might wonder whether here he is speaking of Arian
barbarians who used Latin scripture: in that case, even if the scripture was
perfectly canonical, Salvian avers, the barbarian interpretations of it were not.
But in point of fact, there is no the evidence that the Gothic Bible in any way
altered Christian scripture to make it more favorable to the Arian point of view.
To take the most extreme case, the keystone of any anti-Arian argument came
from the two passages cited above in the Gospel of John: John 14:9 (Qui vidit
me vidit et patrem) and John 10:30 (Ego et pater unum sumus), the most clear
and uncompromising condemnations of the argument that the Father and Son
were in any way different. Yet, the Gothic Bible retained and translated these
passages exactly the same, apparently without any concern for how it might
affect their theology, viz. John 14:9, translated, ‘saei gasahv mik, gasahv attan’,
from the Greek, ὁ ἑωρακὼς ἐμὲ ἑώρακεν τὸν πατέρα: πῶς σὺ λέγεις, δεῖξον ἡμῖν τὸν
πατέρα (‘He that has seen me has seen the Father’), and John 10:30, translated ik
jah atta meins ain siju from the Greek, ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ἕν ἐσμεν (‘I and the Father
are one’).174 So no Arian barbarian would have gained any tactical advantage by
using Gothic scripture in a debate anyway.
Thus, it seems likely that many, if not most or even nearly all, Arian
barbarians took the path of least resistance and used Latin scripture. Indeed,
the only evidence for the use of Gothic in Arian churches comes from post-
Ostrogothic Italy. But even there, if some Ostrogoths wrote in Gothic, others
wrote in Latin.175 In Ravenna, for example, ‘Master Viliaric the copyist’ (magister
Viliaric antiquarius, or, in Gothic, Wiljarith bokareis), oversaw a scriptorium that
173
Salv. Gub. 5.2.6–7: etsi qui gentium barbararum sunt qui in libris suis minus videantur
scripturam sacram interpolatam habere vel laceram, habent tamen veterum magistrorum traditione
corruptam, ac per hoc traditionem potius quam scripturam habent, quia hoc non retinent quod veritas
legis suadet, sed quod pravitas malae traditionis inseruit. Barbari quippe homines Romanae immo potius
humanae eruditionis expertes, qui nihil omnino sciunt nisi quod a doctoribus suis audiunt; quod audiunt,
hoc sequuntur. Small matter that this is exactly what Nicene bishops expected their own flocks
to do.
174
For the Gothic text, see http://www.wulfila.be/gothic/browse/. For Gothic scripture
likening the father and son, see Maurice F. Wiles, Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the
Centuries (Oxford, 1996), p. 50.
175
P.Ital. especially II 34, pp. 95–104.
produced manuscripts including a Latin text of Orosius, now in Florence, and

several copies of the Gothic Bible, partly extant, including the famous Codex
argenteus, an elaborately produced and illustrated edition from which 188
of 336 leaves still are extant in Uppsala.176 And one might suggest that these
deluxe editions of the Gothic Bible were more for show than for actual use.177
Barbarian Arian Liturgy and Ritual
If there is little evidence regarding the nature of barbarian Arian scripture,

there is even less relating to liturgy and ritual. The aforementioned scrap of
a Gothic liturgical calendar shows that, not surprisingly, barbarian Arians
commemorated some different saints from their Nicene cousins. Celebrated in
November were the homoian emperor Constantius II (3 Nov.), the late fourth-
century bishop Dorotheus of Antioch and Constantinople (6 Nov.), the apostle
Philip (15 Nov.), 40 old women of Beroea in Macedonia (19 Nov.), and the
apostle Andrew (29 Nov.). Some of these also appeared in Nicene liturgical
calendars. Philip, for example, was commemorated in the Nicene church on 14
November and Andrew on 30 November. The one-day discrepancy between the
two calendars does seem worthy of mention. And curiously, perhaps, Philip’s
primary appearance in scripture, at John 14:8–11, is at the Last Supper, where
he asks Christ to show the Father. This gives Christ the opportunity to make the
purportedly anti-Arian observation, qui videt me, videt et Patrem … ego in patre
et pater in me est. Any knowledgeable homoian would have known this and,
apparently, have found it unobjectionable. The 40 women of Beroea, moreover,
would seem to overlap with 40 women of Beroea supposedly martyred under
Licinius.178 But Constantius II and Dorotheus were uniquely homoian saints.
176
P.Ital. II, p. 95–96; Jan-Olof Tjäder, ‘Der Codex Argenteus und der Buchmeister Viliaric
in Ravenna’, in Ulf Erik Hagberg (ed.), Studia gotica. Die eisenzeitlichen Verbindungen zwischen
Schweden und Südosteuropa. Vorträge beim Gotensymposium im Statens Historiska Museum
(Stockholm, 1972), pp. 144–64; also Wolfram, Goths, p. 325. In general, see Charles Merritt
Carlton, A Linguistic Analysis of a Collection of Late Latin Documents Composed in Ravenna
CE 445–700 (The Hague, 1973); George Washington Salisbury Friedrichsen, The Gothic Version
of the Gospels: A Study of its Style and Textual History (Oxford, 1926), pp. 157–9; and Rudolf
Plate, Geschichte der gotischen Literatur (Berlin, 1931). The subscription to the beginning of
book 6 of the Orosius ms. (Vindobonensis 847) reads confectus codex in statione magistri Viliaric
antiquarii, ora pro me scribtore sic dno habeas protectorem (Tjäder, ‘Der Codex Argenteus und der
Buchmeister Viliaric’, p. 148).
177
Lyman, ‘Arius’, p. 252, however, supposes that Gothic was used in Arian churches ‘in
liturgy and scripture’.
178
Delehaye, ‘Saints’, pp. 207–9.
Some evidence also suggests that aspects of the liturgy were adapted to Arian
needs. The ecclesiastical historian Socrates, for example, noted regarding the
Arian Goths of Constantinople circa 400 CE:
The Arians, as we have said, held their meetings outside the city. As often therefore
as the festal days occurred – I mean Saturday and the Lord’s day – in each week,
on which assemblies are usually held in the churches, they congregated within
the city gates about the public squares, and sang responsive verses adapted to the
Arian heresy. This they did during the greater part of the night: and again in the
morning, chanting the same songs which they called responsive, they paraded
through the midst of the city, and so passed out of the gates to go to their places
of assembly.179
No indication is given here, or in any other source, however, as to how such

verses were ‘adapted’ to homoian theology. But, on the other hand, Orosius
reports that during the Visigothic incursion into Rome in 410, Nicene Romans
and homoian Goths sang hymns together, which would suggest that both groups
had some familiarity with each other’s liturgy.180
There also is some evidence that barbarian Arian liturgy could differ from
Nicene liturgy in other ways. Gregory of Tours reported that it was the custom
among the Arian Ostrogoths of Italy to have one eucharistic chalice for the royal
family and another for the ‘lesser people’.181 But this practice was not limited to
homoians, as it seems to have been prevalent among Nicene barbarian peoples
as well. In 726, for example, in a reply to questions posed by Boniface, the
missionary to the Germans, Gregory II of Rome noted, ‘It is not fitting to put
two or three chalices on the altar when the solemnities of the mass are being
celebrated’.182 In other regards, however, there is little evidence for marked
differences between Nicene Roman and Arian barbarian liturgies and rituals.
179
Socr. HE 6.8.
180
Oros. Hist. 7.39: Hymnum deo Romanis barbarisque concinentibus publice canitur.
181
Greg. Tur. Hist. 3.31: Erant autem sub Ariana secta viventes. Et quia consuetudo eorum est, ut
ad altarium venientes, de alio calice reges communicent, et de alio populus minor … .
182
Bonifatius, Epist. 26 (ed. Dümmler, MGH Epp. 3, p. 276): Desiderabilem mihi’: ‘In
missarum autem solempniis illud observandum est, quod dominus noster Iesus Christus sanctis suis
tribuit discipulis. Accepit namque calicem et dat eis, dicens, ‘Hic calix novi testamenti est in meo
sanguine, hoc facite, quotiescumque sumitis’. Unde congruum non est, duos vel tres calices in altario
ponere, cum missarum solempnia celebrantur’.
Interactions Between Barbarian Arians and Roman Nicenes
Reciprocal ‘Persecutions’
In the past, it commonly was assumed that their respective Nicene and Arian
beliefs created an insurmountable social gap between Nicene Romans and
Arian barbarians, a gap that was only consistent with their natural inclinations
to remain isolated from each other. In this view, there existed a collective form
of barbarian Arianism with distinctly barbarian attributes, and some barbarian
Arians were actively hostile to Roman Nicenes.183 Assumptions such as these are
based on long-held preconceptions regarding what relations between Romans
and barbarians must have been like, such as a desire by barbarians to use religion
to preserve their ‘ethnic identity’.184 This view has been sustained by a few
spectacular often cited examples of antipathies, such as the massacre of 7,000
Goths who, led by Count Gaïnas, wanted an Arian church in Constantinople
in the year 400.185
Also cited as evidence for the presumed bad relations between barbarian
Arians and Roman Nicenes are the supposed ‘persecutions’ of Romans by Arian
barbarian kings, most notably in Vandal Africa, where jingoistic authors such as
Victor of Vita painted a dire picture of Roman-barbarian relations. Although
Victor asks, ‘If barbarian ferocity could dispute with us over faith and if the
Arian heresy disputed rationally, what need is there for trickery and calumny?
183
Walter Goffart, ‘Rome’s Final Conquest: The Barbarians’, History Compass, 6/3 (2008):
pp. 855–83, ‘no compromise was entertained between Nicene Christianity and the Arianism of
the Goths and Vandals’; Wolfram, Goths, p. 325, ‘The lex [gothica] is as inconceivable without its
Latin and especially Greek roots as it is without its opposition to Catholic-Roman Christianity’.
184
James Russell, The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity: A Sociohistorical
Approach to Religious Transformation (New York, 1996), pp. 139–40, citations of acceptance of
Arianism as a means of preserving ethnic identity. For Germanic ‘nationalism’ see, inter alios,
Burns, Ostrogoths, p. 160; Duchesne, History, vol. 2, p. 451 (‘Arianism synonymous with Gothic
patriotism’); Ernest L. Woodward, Christianity and Nationalism in the Later Roman Empire
(London, 1916), p. 70 (Arianism used to ‘preserve their own nationality’); Thompson, Spain,
p. 40 (‘To become a Nicaean was, so to speak, to become a Roman, to cease to be a Goth’); and
Zeiller, Origines, p. 585 (‘églises nationales’). And one must remember that not even barbarian
peoples were religiously united: Burgundians and Lombards, for example, included both Nicenes
and Arians.
185
This incident, however also has to be interpreted against the background of the
insurrection of Tribigild. And the opposition to an Arian church in Constantinople in 399
was not based on legal prohibitions but on popular opinion: see Zos. Hist. 5.20–22; Eunapius,
frg. 69.4; Philostorgius HE 11.8; Socr. HE 6.39; John of Antioch, frg. 190; and Alan Cameron and
Jacqueline Long, Barbarians and Politics at the Court of Arcadius (Berkeley, 1993), pp. 224–39.
Why the hangings, the fires, the hooks and crosses?’,186 one might wonder just
how far beyond the exiling of bishops – in which the Vandal kings certainly did
engage – the Vandal persecution went. And one also might ask whether Victor
might be attempting to whitewash the fact that a good number of Nicenes
actually did convert to Arianism.
The Visigothic king Euric (466–84) likewise was accused by Sidonius
Apollinaris – albeit without even mentioning Arianism – of ‘plotting against
Christian regulations’.187 And, at the end of the next century, Gregory of Tours,
likewise without mentioning the ‘A’ word, recalled these Visigothic practices as
a ‘grave persecution of the Christians in Gaul’.188 But Euric was not attacking
Catholic orthodoxy per se but the Catholic leadership, and for essentially
political rather than religious reasons.189 And the only punishment that Euric,
and later his successor Alaric II (484–507), is known to have inflicted on
troublesome Nicene bishops was exile, albeit on not nearly the same scale as
by the Vandals.190 But these cases of Vandal and Visigothic ‘persecution’ clearly
resulted from matters of state policy, and were much more about politics. It
remains to be seen how barbarian Arians and Roman Nicenes interacted ‘on the
ground’, so to speak.
Fraternization
Christian identity was established by affiliation with a creed. Thus, ‘Arian’

Homoians subscribed to the Creed of Rimini of 359 whereas Nicenes subscribed
to the Creed of Nicaea of 325. It thus was always absolutely clear which Christian
camp an individual belonged to; there was no ‘middle ground’. This did not
mean, however, that there was any ban against attending each other’s churches,
or participating in each other’s liturgy or even sacraments.
As might be expected in a world where Roman Nicenes and barbarian
Arians regularly encountered each other in the course of their daily lives, there
was a good deal of fraternization. The official Nicene view was that this was to be
avoided, especially by clergy. Nicene writers cited many examples of how Nicene
Vict.Vit. HP 5.18: Si disputare nitebatur nobiscum de fide barbara ferocitas, et haeresis

186
Ariana rationabiliter disputaret … quare dolis et calumniis egerunt? … quare suspendia, quare ignes,
quare ungulae simul et cruces?’
187
Sidon. Epist. 7.6.6: Legibus Christianis insidiaturum.
188
Greg. Tur. Hist. 2.25: Gravem in Galliis super Christianos … persecutionem. Also Greg.
Tur. Hist. 2.9: Ultra Ligerim vero Gotthi dominabantur. Burgundiones quoque Arianorum sectam
sequentes, habitabant trans Rhodanum, qui adjacet civitati Lugdunensi; Greg. Tur. Hist. 2.37: Igitur
Chlodovechus rex ait suis: Valde moleste fero, quod hi Ariani partem teneant Galliarum.
189
See Ralph W. Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats in Barbarian Gaul: Strategies for Survival in an
Age of Transition (2nd edn, Austin, 2011), pp. 32–34.
190
See Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats.
bishops had avoided contact with, and presumably contamination by, Arians.
During the reign of the Visigothic king Theoderic II (453–66), for example, bishop
Vivianus of Saintes was invited to dine with the king at Toulouse. He accepted,
but was put in an awkward position when he was offered a cup that had been
shared by the Arian clerics in attendance. He had no choice but to refuse, and as
a result was imprisoned for this insult to the king.191 In 475, bishop Epiphanius of
Pavia, like Vivianus before him, likewise was invited to dinner with the Visigothic
king. Epiphanius, however, was more discreet. Rather than openly refusing to sup
with the Arian clergy whom he knew would be there, he dissembled, saying that
‘he was not accustomed to eating out and wanted to get an early start two days
hence’.192 Later in the same year four Gallic bishops then were sent to complete the
negotiations; to one of them, Sidonius wrote, ‘Through you, the evils of treaties
are expedited, through you, the agreements and conditions of both kingdoms
are channeled’.193 One wonders whether they broke down and had dinner with
the Arians.
In spite of the views of Nicene hard-liners, it would have been difficult to
keep Nicenes and Arians apart. An unofficial list of southern Gallic canons
of circa 500 CE, for example, admonished clerics to ‘avoid banquets and the
companionship of heretics [which in context must have meant Arians] and
schismatics equally’, and also included the prohibition, ‘There must be no
praying or chanting of Psalms with heretics’.194 Which only suggests that this
must have in fact have been happening, as suggested by analagous cases involving
Christians and Jews: in 393, when the relics of the martyrs Vitalis and Agricola
were disinterested from a Jewish cemetery in Milan, Christians and Jews chanted
Old Testament passages responsively,195 and in 418, Christians on their way to a
Jewish synagogue to witness a debate began to sing Psalm 9, ‘which the people
of the Jews repeated with a wonderful sweetness’.196 Other anecdotal evidence
also suggests that on a day-to-day and individual basis, barbarian Arians and
Nicene Romans mixed and interacted quite happily. As already seen during
191
Vita Bibiani vel Viviani episcopi Santonensis 6 (ed. Krusch, MGH SS rer. Merov. 3,
pp. 96–98).
192
Ennodius, Vita Epiphanii 92 (ed. Vogel, MGH AA 7, p. 95): Cui excusavit dixitque sibi
non esse in more positum alienis aliquando prandiis vesci, perendie se magis velle proficisci.
193
Sidon. Epist. 7.6.10: Per vos mala foederum currunt, per vos regni utriusque pacta
condicionesque portantur; for discussion see Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factionalism and Religious
Controversy in fifth-century Gaul (Washington DC, 1989) pp. 268–71.
194
Conciliae Galliae, Statuta ecclesiae antiqua no. 80, 82 (ed. Munier, CCSL 148, p. 179):
Cum haereticis neque orandum neque psallendum.
195
Ambrose, Exhortatio ad virginitatem 7–8, PL 16, p. 353.
196
Epistula Severi 13.2, Scott Bradbury (ed. and tr.), Severus of Minorca. Letter on the
Conversion of the Jews, Oxford Early Christian Texts (Oxford, 1996), p. 91: Quem mira iucunditate
etiam Iudaeorum populus decantabat.
the ‘sack’ of Rome in 410, for example, it was said that ‘[Nicene] Romans and
[Arian] barbarians in concert publicly raised a hymn to God’.197 The pseudo-
Augustinian ‘Encounter of the blessed Augustine with the Arian Pascentius’,
noted that Romans attending Nicene North African churches used the Germanic
phrase sihora armen rather than the Latin domine miserere198 indicating not only
that Roman Nicenes were quite familiar with Arian barbarian church services
but also that barbarian Arians may have been attending Nicene services.199
Although hard-line Nicene bishops would not have approved of this, even they
acknowledged that heretics were welcome at their services, at least up to the
address to the catechumens.200 Thus, Sidonius Apollinaris reports that circa 469
the Visigothic Arians of Bourges approved the election of a new Nicene bishop.201
And Sidonius Apollinaris himself let slip that in the 460s he had attended
an Arian service with the Visigothic king Theoderic II at Toulouse: did he
understand it if it was in Gothic?202 And Gregory of Tours repeats an anecdote
about a dinner party that assembled a Nicene woman, her Arian husband, and
presbyters of both faiths.203 Gregory also noted an Arian tolerance of variant
theologies when the Visigothic ambassador Agilanis observed, ‘Truly, we do
not blaspheme those things that you believe even if we do not believe them,
becauseeven if thus and such things are reverenced, they are are not considered
to be criminal.204
Even the sacraments seem to have been performed irrespective of confessional
status. Gregory’s tale of the Arian baptism at Riom not only indicates no Arian
Oros. Hist. 7.39: Hymnum Deo Romanis barbarisque concinentibus publice canitur.
197
Collatio beati Augustini cum Pascentio Ariano, habita in domo Anicia Hippone Regio,
198
presente Laurentio iudice delecto a Pascentio viro spectabili = Ps.-Aug., Epist. 178.16, PL 33,
pp. 1156–62: si enim licet dicere, non solum barbaris lingua sua, sed etiam Romanis, ‘sihora armen’,
quod interpretatur, ‘domine miserere’: see Gerhard Eis, ‘Der wandalische Gebetsruf Froja armës’,
Forschungen und Fortschritte, 34 (1960): pp. 183–5; also William A. Sumruld, Augustine and the
Arians: The Bishop of Hippo’s Encounters with Ulfilan Arianism (Selnisgrove, PA, 1994).
199
Note also Vict.Vit. HP 2.8–9.
200
Conciliae Galliae, Statuta ecclesiae antiqua no. 16 (ed. Munier, CCSL 148, p. 169),
applying also to pagans and Jews.
201
Sidon. Epist. 7.8.3: At postquam aemulos eius nihil vidi amplius quam silere, atque eos
maxume, qui fidem fovent Arianorum. These Arians of Bourges traditionally are interpreted as
Romans, although without any explanation as to how Roman Arianism would have survived for
nearly a century in Bourges after it had died out nearly everywhere else. No. These are almost
certainly Visigothic Arians happily participating in Nicene church activities.
202
Sidon. Epist. 1.2.4: antelucanos sacerdotum suorum coetus minimo comitatu expetit, grandi
sedulitate veneratur: quamquam, si sermo secretus, possis animo advertere quod servet istam pro
consuetudine otius quam pro ratione reverentiam.
203
Greg.Tur. Glor.mart. 79: fama refert; the story even then may have been apocryphal.
204
Greg. Tur. Hist. 5.44: nos vero quae creditis, etsi non credimus, non tamen
blasphemamus, quia non deputatur crimini, si et illa et illa colantur.
objections to using the same churches as Nicenes but also relates that God
threatened to kill the children, which could suggest that the parents were
themselves in some way culpable: perhaps they had voluntarily sought out
the Arian sacerdos.205 And Gallic conciliar canons made it easy for heretics to
be received into the Nicene church by a simple laying on of hands, even by a
presbyter especially on their deathbed.206
Such socialization, of course, was officially frowned upon, although the
repetitious restrictions against it only serve to suggest how common it must
have been.207 In a tacit acknowledgment of this, Nicenes who fraternized too
enthusiastically and actually converted to heresy (which in a Gallic context
generally meant Arianism or one of its presumed off-shoots),208 were treated
quite leniently. The Council of Epâon in 517, for example, decreed that lapsi,
‘who having been baptized in the Catholic religion subsequently migrated to
heresy’, could be fully readmitted after a two-year penance, during which they
were to fast every third day, humbly attend church regularly, and depart from the
mass with the catechumens – even though ‘antiquity sanctioned that they could
return only with great difficulty’.209 The Council of Orléans of 541, however,
merely left it up to the bishop to determine a suitable penance.210 It may be that
fraternization was a problem primarily for Nicene bishops who were concerned
more about their local authority than about theological or ideological subtleties.
Greg.Tur. Glor.conf. 47.

205
Conciliae Galliae, Concilium Arausicanum a. 441, can.1 (ed. Munier, CCSL 148,
206
p. 78) = Concilium Arelatensis II, can. 26 (ed. Munier, CCSL 148, p. 119): Haereticos in mortis
discrimine positos, si catholici esse desiderant, si desit episcopus, a presbyteris cum chrismate et
benedictione consignari placuit, a ruling reiterated by the Council of Epâon in 517 (can.16 ed. De
Clercq, CCSL 148 A, p. 28); see also Avitus, Epist. 26.
207
In the Burgundian kingdom, the Council of Epâon decreed in 517 that a bishop or priest
who attended a banquet of any heretic was to be excommunicated for one year; junior clerics were
to be beaten. Note also Avitus of Vienne’s complaint to king Sigismund (Epist. 31) about Arian
and Nicene fraternization at Geneva.
208
For haeretici as referring to Arians in such canons, note Concilium Arausicanum a. 529,
can. 5 (ed. De Clercq, CCSL 148 A, p. 80): propter haereticorum astutiam, qui dei filium non semper
cum patre fuisse … For the equation of Bonosiacs with Arians, see Concilium Arelatensis II, can. 17
(ed. Munier, CCSL 148, p. 117).
209
Concilium Epaonense, can. 29 (ed. De Clercq, CCSL 148 A, p. 31): Lapsis, id est qui
in catholica baptizati … post in haeresem transierunt, grandem redeundi difficultatem sanxit
antiquitas … .
210
Concilium Aurelianense a. 541, can. 8 (ed. De Clercq, CCSL 148 A, p. 134).
Conclusion: The Reconciliation Between Arians and Nicenes
The differences in the nature of the episcopate in the barbarian Arian and
Roman Nicene churches arose not because of anything inherent in Arian beliefs
per se but because of the special needs of barbarian gentes. The function of
barbarian Arian bishops originally was to meet the needs of armies and peoples
on the move and subsequently to perform missions for Arian barbarian kings.
The special circumstances surrounding the initial formation and subsequent
development of the barbarian, Arian church suggest that, except for occasional
political as opposed to religious reasons, it was not intended in some way to
‘compete’ with the Nicene church. Except for the rare occasions when they were
installed as rival bishops of cities, Arian bishops did not contend with Nicene
bishops. The two kinds of bishops did not have the same kinds of duties, nor did
they have much if any occasion to interact. This could help to explain the curious
lack of animus toward barbarian Arianism expressed by Nicene writers, who
seem largely to have been content to express their disdain by means of genteel
debating and pampleteering.211
Any role that religion played as a segregating factor would have been the
result not of theological differences or official policies, but of organizational
structure, which may have had very little meaning at the local level. Indeed,
contrary to what Nicene bishops looking for a sermon topic might lead one
to believe, anecdotal evidence for fraternization suggests that the degree of
religious incompatibility between Nicene Romans and barbarian Arians has
been greatly exaggerated.
The lack of incompatibility between barbarian Arian and Roman Nicene
church practices certainly is one factor that lies behind the ease of reconciliation
between Arians and Nicenes both before and after the eventual conversion of
barbarian Arian kingdoms to Nicene Christianity. In 517, the Council of Epâon,
influenced by the hard-line Nicene brothers Avitus of Vienne and Apollinaris
of Valence, recommended that Nicene churches that had been appropriated
by the Arians, but not Arian churches that were constructed de novo, were to
be reconsecrated by the Nicene church.212 Bishops in the Frankish kingdom,
however, took a more liberal view. After the Frankish conquest of much of the
Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse in 507 at the Battle of Vouillé, Gothic Arian
Note the examples cited above, and see also Jones, Later Roman Empire, p. 262, for the
211
‘cordial relations’ of Roman Nicenes with Burgundian Arians, and see François Chatillon, ‘Sur un
passage d’Avit de Vienne concernant l’Arianism’, Revue du moyen age latine, 20 (1964): pp. 261–75,
for Avitus’ tactfully rare references to Arianism; see also Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats, p. 48.
212
Concilium Epaonense, can. 33 10 (ed. De Clercq, CCSL 148 A, p. 33): Basilicas hereticorum,
quas tanta execrationem habemus exosas, ut pollutionem earum purgabilem non putemus, sanctis
usibus applicare dispicimus. sane quas per violentiam nostris tulerant, possumus revocare.
churches were simply reconsecrated as Nicene churches.213 The same held true in
the case of Ostrogothic churches after the Byzantine reconquest.214
As for Arian clergy, after the fall of the kingdom of Toulouse it was
determined at the Council of Orléans in 511 that Arian clerici could be received
into the Nicene church simply by the imposition of hands and assigned to
whatever church office a bishop wished.215 It may be that barbarian priests such
as Othia served Nicene and Arian, Roman and barbarian, equally: as late as 538,
heretical sacerdotes still were ministering to Nicenes in Gaul.216 These cases all
demonstrate the existence of an Arian clergy. But in none of them is there any
evidence for bishops. Once again, it would appear that barbarian bishops were
not pastors in a Roman sense, a role that was filled by lesser Arian clergy, who, in
and of themselves, posed little threat to the Nicene church hierarchy.
If this was the case, and if Roman Nicenes and barbarian Arians did in fact
associate rather freely, it would go far toward explaining the remarkable lack of
impact that most barbarian peoples had on the landscape. Instead of being a
segregating factor, religion provided a unifying element. And once the political
authority of barbarian rulers had disappeared, populations such as the Vandals,
Burgundians and Ostrogoths, along with their clerics, soon were absorbed into
the general population. And as for the Visigoths, the longest-surviving of the
Arian barbarian kingdoms in Europe, the last-ditch attempt of Leovigild to place
bishops in cities, on the Nicene model, was primarily political, and, if anything,
was counterproductive. For the placing of bishops in cities, the holding of church
councils, and the acceptance of Nicene baptism all would have demonstrated
how little difference there now was between the Arian and Nicene churches, and
the demise of the Arian church of Spain followed with little fuss.
Which leaves a final question of what role, if any, Arianism based on the
Creed of Rimini played in establishing barbarian identity. The observation of
213
Concilium Aurelianense a. 511, can. 10 (ed. De Clercq, CCSL 148 A, pp. 7–8): De
basilicis, quas in perversitate sua Gothi hactenus habuerunt, id censuimus observari, ut … ecclesias
simili, quo nostrae innovari solent, placuit ordine consecrari.
214
Agnellus, Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis 86; Liber diurnus Romanorum
pontificum 39; Liber pontificalis 66; Greg. M., Epist. 3.19 (Ewald and Hartmann eds, MGH
Epp. 1, 1, p. 177); see Zeiller, ‘Étude’, p. 135.
215
Concilium Aurelianense a. 511, can.10 (ed. De Clercq, CCSL 148 A, pp. 7–8): De
haereticis clericis, qui ad fidem catholicam plena fide ac voluntate venerint … id censuimus observari,
ut si clerici fideliter convertuntur ad fidem catholicam integrae confitentur vel ita dignam vitam
morum et actuum probitate custodiunt, officium quo eos episcopus dignos esse censuerit, cum inpositae
manus benedictione suscipiant … . See also Avitus of Vienne, Epist. 26.
216
Concilium Aurelianense a. 538, can. 34 (ed. De Clercq, CCSL 148 A, p. 126): Si
haereticum aut Bonosiacum vel cuiuslibet alterius haeresis sacerdotem quamcumque personam de
catholicis rebaptizasse cognoverit … . For Arian clergy ministering to Romans and barbarians, note
also the case of Auxentius of Milan, cited above.
Gregory of Tours, in regard to Visigothic Spain, that ‘the Goths called men of our
religion “Romans”’,217 leads to the inescapable corollary that the Goths likewise
defined themselves in terms of their own Rimini-based ‘Arianism’. But one
need not see any sort of adversarialness between these forms of identification.
At a time when ethnic identity still mattered – the Visigothic law codes are
replete with distinctions between Gothi and Romani – and when other kinds of
identifying marks, such as language, dress, and personal grooming, simply were
not good indicators of ethnicity, it may be that identification as an adherent
of Rimini or Nicaea – something that could be concretely determined, served
primarily as a means of establishing or declaring ethnic identity, and really had
little to do with theology at all.
217
Greg.Tur. Glor.mart. 24, Romanos enim vocitant [Gothi] nostrae homines religioni’,
i.e. Nicene Christianity is the religion of the ‘Romans’.
Appendix
Terms Used for Barbarian Arian Clerics
BISHOPS
antistes Avitus of Vienne, Cassiodorus
episcopus Auxentius, Menologium, Socrates, Sozomen, Priscus, Eunapius,
Orosius, Olympiodorus, John of Biclara, Victor of Vita, Agnellus
patriarcha Victor of Vita, Jordanes
praesul Victor of Vita, Gennadius
primas Jordanes
sacerdos Auxentius, Ambrose, Sidonius, Ennodius, Vita Vincentii, Gregory of
Tours, Victor of Vita, Verecundus of Junca, Avitus of Vienne
PRIESTS
papan* Gothic calendar
presbyter Gothic calendar, Ammianus, CIL, Documentum Neapolitanum
MISCELLANEOUS CLERGY
bilaif *Gothic calendar
humilis Ammianus
senior Hydatius
diaconus, subdiaconus, ostiarius Documentum Neapolitanum
MONKS
monachos Eunapius
monazontos* Gothic calendar
*
Gothic term
Chapter 8
Germanic Language and
Germanic Homoianism
Brendan Wolfe
There is a strong and noteworthy correlation between Germanic barbarians1

and Homoian believers2 in the Late Antique world. When Germanic groups
converted officially, they did so to Homoian Christianity, from the Goths in
the late fourth century until the late fifth when the Franks broke the pattern.
Champions of Homoianism within the Roman Empire were often (and after
a point exclusively) either Germanic themselves or patronised by Germanic
individuals or groups. Homoianism became the state religion of important
Germanic successor states, such as the Ostrogoths in Italy, the Visigoths in
Gaul and Hispania, and the Vandals in Africa, and was promoted to a varying
degree by these polities. Perhaps most significantly, long after Homoianism and
other forms of non-Nicene Christianity had ceased to be a living issue among
Romans, Germanic peoples and states remained Homoian officially and in
practice. A correlation of this type requires an historical account. This chapter
will consider possible means of accounting for this correlation, will suggest a
new, linguistic possibility, and will explore the limits of linguistically informed
history and theology.
Paganism
Since the question is why a certain group behaved more uniformly than
another group, it is reasonable to consider whether the pre-existing state of the
first group somehow conditioned their subsequent behaviour. In the case of a
religious conversion, the pre-existing state is the abandoned belief system of the
1
Germanic barbarians are for the purposes of this chapter defined as speakers of an Indo-
European language which has experienced Grimm’s Law. Similarly the Goths may be defined
absolutely as those speaking the language attested in the Gothic Version of the New Testament,
and relatively as those who identified as Goths.
2
Defined for the purposes of this chapter as those who believe that the statement ‘the Son
is like the Father’ best captures their relationship in divinity, including as expressed in the creedal
formulations of e.g. Ariminium (Rimini).
convert: For the Germanic peoples, this was paganism. Could Germanic pagan
stories and practices have been a better praeparatio for the Homoian than for the
Nicene Evangelium?
It is worth recalling that paganism was influential not only prior to
conversion: Not only did Germani not all convert at once, but the culture
created by paganism was not replaced overnight, even by new Christians.
Cultural events such as Alaric’s burial in the Busento3 continued to reflect pagan
sensibilities for decades after a given group’s Christianisation.4 If there is some
resonance between Homoianism and paganism, it would have continued to
be heard long after the first encounter with Christianity, with both elements
reinforcing each other as one worldview.
E.A. Thompson, the distinguished historian of the Goths, tentatively
made such an association: He echoes earlier authors in suggesting that pagan
Visigothic society might have been attracted to the strict hierarchy of the Trinity,
as reflected in Wulfila’s creed, mirroring as it did their own command structures.
Furthermore, he quotes the Victorian scholar Scott: ‘an anthropomorphic
conception of the deity would recommend itself … as more nearly related to
their own conception, wherein the full deity was only a step from the demi-god,
and removed from the hero more by antiquity than by omnipotence, infinity,
or incomprehensibility’.5
Perhaps a simpler statement of this thesis is that, given a long tradition
of stories of divine ancestry, a created, human Son of God was intuitively
acceptable to the Germanic peoples. Unfortunately, all of the above points rest
on misconceptions. It is not clear that a hierarchy of honour within the Trinity
was an un-Nicene doctrine in this period, let alone a distinctive reason to prefer
Homoianism. Meanwhile, Scott has confused Wulfila’s beliefs with Arius’;
Homoianism is anthropomorphic only in its insistence on the primacy of the
language of paternity in describing the relation of the Father to the Son – and
in any case the Romans had been pagans as well, to whom the same arguments
would have applied. Similarly, the emphasis on hierarchy and obedience cannot
possibly have been stronger in Germanic society than in the Late Roman Empire.
The link between the belief that the Son is ‘like’ the Father (rather than ‘like-
in-essence’) and the riverbed burial of a barbarian king with his captive foes is
thus difficult to detect.
Jord. Get. 30.158 (ed. Giunta and Grillone, p. 68).

3
Cf. Carole Cusack, Conversion among the Germanic Peoples (London, 1998), p. 48;
4
Christopher Dawson, The Making of Europe (Washington, 2003), pp. 93f.

5
E.A. Thompson, The Visigoths in the Time of Ulfila (London, 2009), p. 109; Charles
A.A. Scott, Ulfilas, Apostle of the Goths (Cambridge, 1885), pp. 50f.
Germanic Language and Germanic Homoianism 195
Gothic Influence and Example
Although the conversion of the Goths is one of the most studied such episodes
in history, many accounts continue to be offered as to why the Goths converted
officially when they did, and why they did so to Homoianism. Many of these
accounts present as incompatible causes what are in fact mutually reinforcing
contributions. The conversion of the trans-Danubian refugee Goths is
historically over-determined; the question is not, why did Fritigern’s Goths
become converts as Homoians, but rather, why would we imagine them
converting as anything else?
For now, all that is relevant is that a large group of Goths did become
Homoians around the time of their migration into the Roman Empire in the
year AD 376. Can the fact that these Goths had become Homoians be used to
account for the general Germanic Homoian preference? There are a few possible
ways in which such an account could be constructed.
According to Jordanes,6 the Goths preached the Gospel to other Germanic
peoples shortly after their conversion. It is noteworthy that we have Wulfila’s
(pre-Visigothic) translation of the New Testament through Ostrogothic
transmission; indeed some scholars have claimed to find evidence of adaptation
to different dialects in the text.7 Some of the few words which we have of Vandalic
are liturgical, and could just as easily be mistranscribed Gothic, leading some
to argue that the Vandals used Gothic as a liturgical language, which would be
excellent evidence that Christianity had come to the Vandals from the Goths.8
Meanwhile some German religious terms, particularly in southern dialects,
are said to show evidence of borrowing from Gothic. The best-known example
is perhaps NHG taufen ‘to baptise’ derived according to this theory from
Gothic daupjan ‘to baptise’ (cf. English ‘to dip’).9 Since no comparable Nicene
missionaries were sent, the only form of Christianity to which the Germanic
peoples were exposed was Homoianism.
However, such exclusiveness of contact is untenable in worlds as tightly
interwoven as the Germanic and Roman; Germani who had served in the
Roman army and returned to their lands of origin, traders, captured slaves, and
any number of other points of contact must have existed to showcase ‘the other
side’. The putative linguistic links are meanwhile very thin.
Is it possible, however, that the Goths’ example was enough for other
Germanic groups? The Goths were a prestigious people, and remained so for
6
Jord. Get. 25.133 (ed. Giunta and Grillone, p. 58).
7
Richard D’Alquen, Gothic ai and au (The Hague, 1974).
8
Of course, it is more likely that the dialects of the two groups were simply indistinguishable,
as claimed already by Proc. BG 3.2.5.
9
The etymology is rejected with full citations and discussion in Dennis Howard Green
Language and history in the early Germanic World (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 314–16.
hundreds of years. It was the group of Goths under Alaric that established a
pattern for barbarian-Roman interaction later to be emulated.10 Leaders may
have gravitated to Homoianism to associate themselves with its most numerous
and notable exponents.
Differentiation from Romans
This association with the Goths could have been invaluable to barbarian leaders
who wished to maintain the integrity and cohesion of their groups (on whom
they depended for power) by distinguishing them from the Romans onto whose
soil they had moved. Homoianism, associated as it was with an important
Germanic group, was reached for. Evidence of such a policy could be found in
Victor of Vita, who records that in the Vandal kingdom of North Africa, people
wearing Vandal garb were prevented from entering Nicene churches by soldiers
posted for that purpose.11 One may think also of the Ostrogothic nobility who
insisted on a Gothic upbringing for the heir to the throne.12
On the other hand, it is unclear why groups such as the Vandals who often
warred with the Goths would have wished to associate themselves with their
enemies. Nor is there much evidence outside of North Africa for this type
of differentiation, in laws or other state instruments. Since Victor of Vita
deliberately elides confessional and political terminology, he may not be the
best witness for this purpose.13 Nor is it clear that leaders really determined
their subjects’ religion: In fact a leader could be highly constrained in his own
religious choices by his people’s beliefs, as was the case with the Burgundian king
Gundobad, who believed he could not act on his personal preference for Nicene
Christianity while king of a Homoian people.14
Thompson advances a slightly different version of the differentiation
argument when he claims that joining the Nicene confession would have
inevitably subsumed the Gothic church into the wider ecclesiastical world, which
was a Roman state church. Homoianism was a local, un-Imperial phenomenon,
Thompson avers. The work of Hanns Christof Brennecke on the Homoian
Imperial church15 has made it clear that Thompson’s picture is inaccurate for
10
Michael Kulikowski, Rome’s Gothic Wars (Cambridge, 2007).
11
Vict.Vit. HP 2, 8 (ed. Lancel, p. 125).
12
Proc. BG 5.2.
13
One of the general conclusions of Tankred Howe, Vandalen, Barbaren und Arianer bei
Victor von Vita, Studien zur Alten Geschichte 7 (Frankfurt a.M., 2007).
14
Ian Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms, 450–751 (London, 1994), p. 45.
15
Hanns Christof Brennecke, Studien zur Geschichte der Homöer: der Osten bis zum Ende
der homöischen Reichskirche, Beiträge zur historischen Theologie 73 (Tübingen, 1988).
the early conversions (notably the Goths), though it may be more relevant to
later periods.
Language
There are many cases of linguistically conditioned theological disputes, perhaps

most famously the Syriac-Coptic preference for Miaphysitism, often said to
be related to the problematic translation of certain Greek terms into those
languages. Late Antique Greek was, after all, a language with centuries of
literary and specifically philosophical usage behind it. Almost any relevant term
carried metaphysical baggage; it was difficult or impossible to speak in ‘everyday’
language about even the simplest questions of being, because even the simple
selection of words implied adherence to one philosophical position or another.
A metaphysical tradition must exist in a language if mutually interacting but
distinct concepts of being, personhood, nature, and essence are to be discussed.
Gothic had no such tradition, and neither did any other Germanic language.
This paradigm may be applied to the Germanic peoples in a strong and
a weak form. The weak form avoids making statements about the content of
Homoian theology. The key concepts of Homoianism are simply easier to
translate, since words for ‘alike’ exist in every language. Although to the Greek-
speaking Homoian philosopher, homoios had a specialist meaning, no specialised
philosophical language was required to provide a fair translation. Perhaps
homoousios seemed affected or simply nonsensical to Gothic speakers. Homoios,
on the other hand, has an easy Gothic translation. This claim does not have
to imply that educated, intelligent Homoian theologians rejected philosophy
and Greek terminological niceties, merely that their terms at least appeared less
philosophical when translation was required.
The strong form of the argument meanwhile states: A clear rejection of
philosophy is enunciated by the so-called Blasphemy of Sirmium of AD 357.16
Homoian preachers to Germanic potential converts could thus have made
much of the philosophical adherence implicitly required by homoousians –
perhaps stereotyping it as Greek sophistry. One might imagine a Gepid or a
Burgundian who has been convinced of the essential story of salvation in Christ,
who is then told by his Nicene interlocutor that adherence to a particular,
complex philosophical system is required to avoid falling into error. Meanwhile,
16
‘But as for the fact that some, or many, are concerned about substance (substantia), which
is called usia in Greek, that is, to speak more explicitly, homousion, or homoeusion as it is called,
there should be no mention of it whatever, nor should anyone preach it. And this is the cause
and reason, that it is not included in the divine Scriptures, and it is beyond man’s knowledge … ’
translated in Richard P.C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God (Edinburgh, 1988),
pp. 344f.
the competing Homoian preacher can not only present his position as an
uncomplicated commonplace, but can also mock the Nicene for his muddying
of the pure water of the Gospel.
The overreliance of the homoousian position on philosophy was a general
flaw in this period, though at least in Greek, the Nicene position could
be sustained by some degree of beneficial ambiguity: homoousios could be
interpreted in a variety of ways, and many laypeople must have spoken the Creed
with an unphilosophical understanding of this term. This ambiguity cannot
have translated well, especially in an environment where alternate translations
could be offered by theological opponents.
Galeiks
The Gothic translation of homoios in the New Testament is galeiks. The

Germanic word that gives this Gothic form and modern English ‘like, alike’ is
related to another word, represented by Gothic leik and modern English ‘lich,
lych’, meaning ‘body’.17 The Gothic remained the standard word; the English is
represented only in archaic compounds such as ‘lichhouse’, ‘lychgate’, ‘lichbell’.
To say something was ‘like’ something else was to say metaphorically that it
was ‘bodied’ as something else. Metaphors form an important part of human
communication. They range from those still clearly metaphorical but clichéd
(‘Achilles’ heel’) and those whose analogy is generally ignored (‘to break the
ice’), to those embedded in languages as lexical items. ‘To grasp a concept’
uses a physical motion to describe an intellectual one, but ‘grasp’ would not be
described by most English-speakers as a metaphor: It simply has the secondary
meaning ‘understand’. Some metaphors are completely dead and obscure, such
as ‘like, alike ~lich’, as mentioned above, in modern English usage. Gothic,
however, is quite another matter.
The derivation of galeiks from leik was still entirely transparent in Gothic,
since leik was a common word, and the ga- prefix the most common derivational
tool in Gothic (comparable and related to German ge- as in gesungen ‘sung’). Is it
possible therefore that the ‘like’ of Homoianism meant rather more to the Goths
than the simple Greek form, or the English dead metaphor? The Gothic word
was unlikely to have been understood as referencing actual bodies, but even with
It is disputed whether the ‘like’ or the ‘lych’ meaning is original and gave rise to the other,
17
but in synchronic Biblical Gothic galeiks would seem unambiguously derived from leik. For the
etymology, see Antje Casaretto, Nominale Wortbildung der Gotischen Sprache, Indogermanische
Bibliothek 3. Reihe (Heidelberg, 2004), pp. 83f. and Winfred P. Lehman, A Gothic Etymological
Dictionary (Leiden, 1986), p. 142.
the reminder that God was spirit, the Gothic form still offered a concrete image
of the interrelation of the Father and the Son.
The only significant Gothic text to survive, apart from the New Testament
translation, is a fragmentary commentary on the Gospel of John, to which
scholars refer as the Skeireins (Gothic ‘Explanation’).18 The surviving fragments
never comment directly on the key distinctions concerning ousia and hypostases
which divided Homoian and Nicene Christians, but one passage has often been
discussed as though it did:
þata qiþano: ‘ei allai sweraina sunu, swaswe swerand attan’, ni ibnon ak galeika
sweriþa usgiban uns laiseiþ. jah silba nasjands bi siponjans bidjands du attin qaþ: ‘ei
frijos ins, swaswe frijos mik’. ni ibnaleika frijaþwa ak galeika þairh þata ustaikneiþ.
… the passage, ‘that all may honour the Son as they honour the Father’ teaches us
to offer not the same but a similar honour, and the Saviour Himself praying for the
disciples said to the Father ‘that You love them even as You love Me’. Through that He
designates not equal but similar love
Although the underlined terms are fundamental to understanding the

theological position of the commentary, their semantic relationships have proven
very difficult to delineate, and cannot be treated here.19 On the assumption that
the metaphor implicit in the word was still living in the Gothic mind, two brief
theological observations about galeiks may be offered instead: One, if something
is ‘bodied’ as something else, even if the thing in question is not corporeal, a high
degree of independence is suggested. This may have been a happy connotation
for Homoian three-hypostases theologians. On the other hand, one of the major
criticisms of the term homoousios was that it implied God had a physical body, or
was at least made up of physical substance, since ousia was often used of material
things; any degree to which this accusation was recalled by galeiks would have
been embarrassing to the Homoian Goths.
Conclusion
Among the various elements of an explanation for the overlap between Homoian
believers and Germanic barbarians in Late Antiquity, the linguistic divide must
18
The most comprehensive resource on the Skeireins is the website www.gotica.de/skeireins,
which presents the various translations of leading scholars.
19
The reader is referred to the summary by Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Theologiegeschichtliche
Bemerkungen zur Skeireins’, in Christian T. Petersen, Gotica Minora Prima (Hanau, 2002), and
the present author’s ‘The Skeireins: A Neglected Text’, SP, LXIV (2013): pp. 127–32.
be given important consideration. At a minimum, there are sound reasons for

thinking Homoianism might have translated better into any language lacking
a philosophical tradition. And, as the example of galeiks has shown, there is
also scope for considering the particular aspects of the Germanic languages
in question.
Chapter 9
The Non-Archaeology of Arianism –
What Comparing Cases in Carthage,
Haïdra and Ravenna Can Tell Us about
‘Arian’ Churches
Ralf Bockmann
In this chapter, I will take a look at a number of basilicas that served Arian
communities.1 Two examples come from Vandal North Africa: The large
coemeterial and martyrial basilica at Mcidfa outside Carthage and the smaller
central basilica of Ammaedara, now Haïdra, in what is today south-western
Tunisia. Historic and epigraphic evidence indicate Arian usage in these cases.
I will then turn to Ravenna, where historic sources transmit Arian origins for
two church buildings that preserved at least some of their original mosaic
accoutrements, the so-called baptistery of the Arians and Sant’Apollinare
Nuovo. Reviewing the archaeological material, I will argue that we should
accept that the Arian-Nicene conflict was a theological-philosophical dispute
that did not produce any iconographic or architectural differentiation.2 I will
then turn to the question of what made an Arian church an Arian church in
Late Antiquity and how it could be perceived as such. This thread will put the
emphasis on the performance of church service, in other words, on the clerics
and especially the bishops. The very fact that creedal affiliation in the Arian-
Nicene conflict might have been difficult to specify at first sight in many cases
could have been detrimental and counterproductive, from a practical point of
view, for the enforcement of universal claims in a multi-creedal environment.
Or, to put it more simply: ‘good’ and ‘bad’ or ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ were sometimes
1
Although it may appear repetitive and futile at this point in a volume such as this, I have
to point out the inadequacy of the term ‘Arian’ from a terminological point of view and wish
to underline that it will be used in this article in awareness of its originally dismissive character
as counterpart to the Nicene creed considered ‘orthodox’. I will mostly abstain from inverted
commas when using both terms.
2
A point recently made again by Bryan Ward-Perkins, ‘Where is the Archaeology and
Iconography of Germanic Arianism?’, in David Gwynn and Susanne Bangert (eds), Religious
Diversity in Late Antiquity (Leiden and Boston, 2010), pp. 265–89.
not easy to tell, and probably mattered less to community members than bishops
would have liked.
‘Arianism’ and ‘Arian Churches’ – General Remarks
The theological concept that came to be known as the Arian creed, differing
from the canons of the council of Nicaea in its evaluation of the relation between
God-Father, Son and Holy Spirit, went through different phases. Created in the
early fourth century, the concept was developed considerably and intermittently
favoured by a large number of bishops in the Roman Empire and even by
the imperial court itself, but finally declared heretic at the end of the fourth
century.3 It did not vanish, though. This had much to do with the persistence of
non-Nicene creeds among large contingents in the Roman army, many of which
had non-Roman backgrounds. Within this specific military context, Arianism
still remained the prevailing religion in the fifth century and beyond. The Arian
contingents within the army were the only groups exempt from the anti-Arian
legislation within the empire in the later fourth and early fifth centuries and
were allowed to continue Arian church services, being accompanied by Arian
clergy.4 After the end of the western Empire, Arian Christianity became the first
creed of the ruling houses in the successor states. The question of how to identify
churches for Arian congregations comes mainly into focus now, with two distinct
church organisations existing side by side in the newly founded kingdoms.5
Churches of known Arian origin survived in some cities of the Mediterranean
(although in many cases changed extensively in their appearance), for example
in Italy in Ravenna, Milan or in Rome, where the name of S. Agata dei Goti until
today recalls its origin as a foundation of Ricimer for a specific community of
Arians within the city.6 In the successor states, Arian Christianity could become
On the fourth century see David M. Gwynn, ‘Archaeology and the “Arian Controversy”
3
in the fourth century’, in Gwynn and Bangert, Religious Diversity in Late Antiquity, pp. 229–63.
4
This was for example the case with Sigisvult’s troops sent to North Africa in 427 against
the rebellious comes Boniface who were accompanied by the Arian bishop Maximinus: Ralph
Mathisen, ‘Sigisvult the Patrician, Maximinus the Arian, and political stratagems in the Western
Roman Empire, c. 425–40’, EME, 8/2 (1999): pp. 173–96, esp. pp. 176–77.
5
Contrary to what the defenders of the Nicene creed wanted to make their readers later
believe, no securely established Trinitarian church came into being in direct consequence of the
council of Nicaea – a universal doctrine was only developed over a long time, and was fiercely
disputed in the process, as for example Richard P.C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine
of God. The Arian Controversy, 318–381 (Edinburgh, 1988) and Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and its
Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford, 2006) have shown.
6
Christian Hülsen et al., S. Agata dei Goti (Rome, 1924). Ricimer’s church was founded
while the western empire still existed, and belongs rather to the category of churches that served
The Non-Archaeology of Arianism 203
a serious adversary of the established Nicene church due to its connection with
the ruling courts. Identifying churches of rival congregations is interesting
especially in these situations of conflict, when topography and symbolism of
power become more important. Ground plans alone do not allow us to interpret
a given church as Arian.7 However, historical or material circumstances in some
cases provide conclusive data for identifications of ecclesiastical buildings that
have been built for or used by Arian congregations.8 In this chapter, I will first
take a look at two examples in North Africa. Here, the Vandal kingdom is an
especially interesting case for the Arian-Nicene conflict, because of the harsh
pro-Arian and anti-Nicene policy carried out by the first two Vandal kings in
Carthage, Geiseric and Huneric, with the conflict lingering in a less aggressive
form, eventually until the end of the Vandal kingdom.9
Arian Churches in Vandal North Africa
In North Africa, Arianism played only a marginal role before the Vandal kingdom
was established. The Vandal court, however, favoured and supported the Arian
church over the later fifth and into the early sixth century, at least in central parts
of the kingdom, to the detriment of the Nicene church that was marginalised
here, at least temporarily.10 By the late fifth century, Arianism seems to have been
established on a broader basis also within the Romano-African elite.11 Perhaps
the most influential text on the Vandal kingdom in North Africa was Victor of
parts of the regular Roman army. Remains of two other known Arian churches in Rome have
been recorded but not preserved: one during construction works at Termini station, that may be
identified as the remains of S. Agata in Esquilino, with the other being S. Matteo on Via Merulana,
destroyed shortly after 1800, probably the Arian foundation posta iuxta domum Merulanam in
regione tertia that Gregory the Great mentions, see Margherita Cecchelli, ‘Spazio cristiano e
monumenti eretici in Roma’, in: Atti del VI Congresso nazionale di archeologia cristiana, Pesaro –
Ancona 19–23 settembre 1983 (Florence, 1986), pp. 287–96, esp. pp. 294–95.
7
Bryan Ward-Perkins, ‘Where is the Archaeology and Iconography of Germanic Arianism?’,
p. 267; Margherita Cecchelli and Gioia Bertelli, ‘Edifici di culto ariano in Italia’, in Noël Duval
(ed.), Actes du XIe Congrès international d’archéologie chrétienne: Lyon, Vienne, Grenoble, Genève
et Aoste (21–28 septembre 1986) (Rome, 1989), pp. 233–47, esp. p. 234.
8
Cecchelli and Bertelli, ‘Edifici du culto ariano in Italia’ discuss the evidence for Milan,
Turin, Aquileia, Bergamo, Pavia, Verona, Brescia, and in the south Naples and Benevento.
9
See the chapter ‘Religion and the Vandal Kingdom’ in Andrew H. Merrills and Richard
Miles, The Vandals (Chichester, 2010), pp. 177–203.
10
Cf. Chapter 12 (Robin Whelan) in this volume with a different approach and Roland
Steinacher, Die Vandalen. Aufstieg und Fall römischer Barbaren (forthcoming 2014), chapters ‘Der
vandalische Arianismus als politische Religion’ and ‘Erste Konflikte mit der katholischen Kirche’.
11
Leslie Dossey, ‘The Last Days of Vandal Africa: An Arian Commentary on Job and its
Historical Context’, JThS, N.S. 54 (2003): pp. 60–138, esp. pp. 111–12. See also ch. 3 ‘The old
Vita’s History of the Vandal persecution, a text composed by a Nicene cleric in

Carthage in the late 480s at the end of the reign of Huneric, functioning in many
ways as a hagiographic text to support and encourage the Nicene opposition.12
The favouring of the Arian church by the Vandal kings concentrated mainly
on Carthage, where the great basilicas were confiscated for the Arian church,
and on the central province of Africa Proconsularis, where tax-free estates were
handed over to the military elite of the Vandals and royal legislation aimed at
excluding the Nicene church.13
Victor of Vita states that Geiseric confiscated the major part of the Christian
basilicas of Carthage for the Vandal church early in his reign, among those the
main martyr churches for Cyprian and the so-called basilica Maiorum, where
the very popular Perpetua and Felicitas and their companions were venerated.14
A large basilica at Mcidfa to the north outside the city walls of Carthage has been
identified with the basilica Maiorum on the basis of an inscription found here
naming the martyrs and referring to their place of burial.15 Unfortunately, the
basilica at Mcidfa was excavated at an early date, like many other Carthaginian
basilicas, so that information on the internal development of the building is very
limited. Probably erected already in the fourth century as a coemeterial basilica
on a large scale, with seven aisles and a quadratum populi measuring ca. 61 x 45m,
the basilica received a subterranean crypt as a new martyr memorial in the early
Byzantine period.16
ruling class under the Vandals’ in Jonathan Conant, Staying Roman. Conquest and Identity in
Africa and the Mediterranean, 439–700 (Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 130–95.
12
Modern edition and commentary: Serge Lancel (ed.), Victor de Vita, Histoire de la
persecution Vandale en Afrique. La passion des sept martyrs. Registre des provinces et cités d’Afrique,
(Paris, 2002). References in this chapter are made to this edition as ‘Vict. Vit. HP’. On the political
dimensions of the text see Danuta Shanzer, ‘Intentions and Audiences: History, Hagiography,
Martyrdom, and Confession in Victor of Vita’s Historia Persecutionis’, in Andrew H. Merrills (ed.),
Vandals, Romans and Berbers. New perspectives on Late Antique North Africa (Aldershot, 2004),
pp. 271–90, esp. pp. 279 and 288.
13
On the religious conflict see Yves Modéran, ‘Une guerre de religion: les deux églises
d’Afrique à l’époque vandale’, AnTard, 11 (2003): pp. 21–44 and Yves Modéran, ‘La Notitia
provinciarum et civitatum Africae et l’Histoire du Royaume Vandale’, AnTard, 14 (2006):
pp. 165–85.
14
Vict. Vit. HP 1, 5 and 16; on Perpetua and Felicitas Yvette Duval, Loca Sanctorum
Africae. Le culte des martyrs en Afrique du IVe au VIIe siècle (Rome, 1982), vol. 2, pp. 682–83.
15
Liliane Ennabli, Les inscriptions funéraires chrétiennes de Carthage II. La Basilique de
Mcidfa (Rome, 1982), no. 1.
16
An overview on the basilica can be found in Liliane Ennabli, Carthage, une métropole
chrétienne du IVe à la fin du VIIe siècle (Paris, 1997), pp. 132–35.
Figure 9.1 Plan of the basilica of Mcidfa (basilica Maiorum), Carthage.

(Ennabli, 1982, 11, fig. 5)
Reprinted by kind permission of the Ecole Française de Rome
The prominence of the church, both topographically on a small hill to the

north of the city, as well as for the Christian community that venerated some
of its oldest and most important martyrs here, was probably the major reason
for its confiscation for the Arian church by the Vandal king Geiseric.17 Apart
from the symbolic value, we should not forget that confiscation included the
access to the resources of the churches, both financially and in real estate.18 In
the case of the basilica Maiorum, we know from historical sources that it served
the Arian congregation of Carthage between the 440s or 450s and 523, having
been annexed by Geiseric early in his reign and probably returned to the Nicene
church by Hilderic.19 There are no installations or architectural activities
indicating these creedal changes in the basilica at Mcdifa. Nevertheless, the case
of the basilica Maiorum shows how important churches especially with symbolic
and ideological functions, like the great martyr churches, were in the conflicts
between Arian and Nicene church in Vandal North Africa.20
The research history at Mcidfa, as impressive as the building might still be
from its reconstructed plan, has many lacunae due to the early excavations carried
out mainly in the early twentieth century. A church in Ammaedara, modern
Haïdra, presents better evidence for its Arian phase, having been excavated
to modern standards.21 In the so-called basilica of Melleus, the recorded
stratigraphy and the inscriptions in situ allow a reconstruction of its internal
development and provide a dating frame. The basilica of Melleus in Haïdra was
considerably smaller than the large coemeterial basilica at Mcidfa in Carthage,
with only three aisles, a length of 40m, width of 15m, and preceding courtyard.22
For a basilica situated in the centre of a regional hub, well connected though far
from the coast, the church was well built and sized.23
See on Carthage in the Vandal era the chapter ‘Carthage, royal capital’ in Ralf Bockmann,
17
Capital continuous. A Study of Carthage and Central North Africa from an Archaeological Perspective
(Wiesbaden, 2013), pp. 23–129, esp. pp. 87–117 on the religious policy of the kings and the
archaeological remains in the city.
18
The wealth of the churches might have been a decisive reason for the confiscations early
in the Vandal reign, Merrills and Miles, The Vandals, p. 181.
19
Vict. Vit. HP 1.3.9. On the restitution of Nicene property under Hilderic see Merrills
and Miles, The Vandals, p. 201.
20
Bockmann, Capital continuous, pp. 116–7.
21
Noël Duval, ‘Historique des Recherches’, in Duval, N. (ed.), Recherches archéologiques à Haïdra
II. La basilique I dite de Melléus ou de Saint-Cyprien (Rome, 1981), pp. 18–26 for a history of research.
22
Noël Duval, ‘La situation de l’église et les constructions antérieures’, in Duval,
N. (ed.), Recherches archéologiques à Haidra II. La basilique I dite de Melléus ou de Saint-Cyprien,
(Rome, 1981), p. 37.
23
Noël Duval, ‘Topographie et urbanisme d’Ammaedara (actuellement Haidra, Tunisie)’,
in Hildegard Temporini (ed.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt II.10.2 (Berlin and
New York, 1982), pp. 633–71.
Figure 9.2
Plan of Basilica I in Haïdra
(Ammaedara) (Duval,
1981, 20, fig. 24)
Reproduced by kind
permission of the Ecole
Française de Rome
At both ends of Basilica I, inside the altar enclosure in the West, but also in
a separate enclosure in the East in the entrance area, honorific burials and relics
were placed. Here, a bishop was buried, with his name and affiliation given in his
funerary inscription: Victorinus/ episc[opus] in pace/ Vandalorum.24
Victorinus, being the ‘bishop of the Vandals’, apparently belonged to the
Arian church. The word vandalorum seems to have been added at a later stage
judged by the differing appearance of the word compared to the rest of the
inscription. The fact that Victorinus was labelled as ‘Vandal’ bishop, not ‘Arian’
or ‘heretic’, or ‘barbarian’, might express a certain respect towards him even after
his death. This is also reflected in the fact that his burial had not been touched,
but was left intact when the whole area was restructured. This restructuring
was done when relics of Cyprian, the most venerated Carthaginian saint, were
inserted in the eastern end of the church in 568/9, a generation after the Vandal
kingdom had seized to exist.25 With this installation, the burial of Victorinus
moved to a more peripheral position, but nevertheless stayed near the relics of
the important African martyr. Also in the enclosed choir area, relics of Cyprian
were placed under the altar, transferred by bishop Melleus, as the inscription
states.26 Melleus himself was interred nearby, between the altar and the apse.27
The funerary inscription of Melleus also received an addition: the word unitatis
was added to his title of episcopus apparently at a later date, being inserted
between the original words. The label unitatis had been used in North Africa
to distinguish Catholic (or ‘Caecilianist’) clerics from Donatists – in this case it
seems to have referred to the ‘Vandal’ bishop Victorinus though.28
In both cases, the additions stylistically fit the original inscriptions, which
would speak against a joint addition of the labels vandalorum and unitatis at a
given point, but would rather indicate a slightly, but not too much later addition
of the labels distinguishing the two affiliations after the respective burials.
Victorinus had served as bishop at Ammaedara for a certain period and received
an honorific burial in an enclosure opposite the apse. Even when the orthodox
bishop Melleus had relics of Cyprian inserted here, his burial was respected.
24
Noël Duval and François Prévot, Les inscriptions chrétiennes. Recherches archéologiques à
Haidra I (Rome, 1975), no. 58, pp. 87–88.
25
Noël Duval, ‘Les installations liturgiques et les tombes privilégiées’, in N. Duval
(ed.), Recherches archéologiques à Haidra II. La basilique I dite de Melléus ou de Saint-Cyprien
(Rome, 1981), pp. 121–4.
26
HIC ABENT[ur] / RELIQVIE BEAT[i or (issim)i] / MARTIRIS ET AN / TISTITIS
CYPRIA / NI D(e)P(osite) A BEAT(o) MEL / LEO EP(i)SC(op.)O AN(no) IIII / D(o)M(in)
I IVSTINI IMP(eratori)S, Duval and Prévot, Inscriptions, no. 1, pp. 20–22.
27
MELLEVS EP(is)C(opus) VN(i)T(a)T(i)S RE / QVIEBIT IN P(a)C(e) BIXIT ANN(i
or o)S / PL(u)S M(i)N(u)S LXX( … ?) D(e)P(o)S(i)T(u)S S(ub) D(i)E / V ID(u)S AGVSTAS
IND(ictione) XII, Duval and Prévot, Inscriptions, no. 3, pp. 25–7.
28
Duval and Prévot, Inscriptions, p. 27.
Figure 9.3 Memorial installations at the eastern end of Basilica I in Haïdra

(Duval, 1981, 117, fig. 130)
Reproduced by kind permission of the Ecole Française de Rome
Nevertheless, it seemed important at some point for members of the Christian

community in Ammaedara to distinguish between the affiliations of the two.
The Melleus basilica at Ammaedara is a good example of how church buildings
could change between being served by an Arian or a Nicene bishop without any
alterations to its inner or outer appearance. After a while, only inscriptions giving
clear labels for the bishops could remind visitors of the church of its history.
‘Arian’ Mosaics in Ravenna?
The cases of Ammaedara and Carthage have shown that the different
denominations did not leave perceptible traces in the ground plans of churches
that would make them distinguishable when they became ‘Arian’, or likewise
when they became ‘Nicene’ again, and that it would have been difficult for
visitors to say if a certain installation was initiated by an Arian or a Nicene
bishop. Nevertheless, creedal affiliations did matter sometimes, as the labels
in the Haïdra inscriptions or texts like Victor of Vita’s Historia persecutionis,
dealing with the situation in Carthage, have shown. North African churches
did not preserve any wall decorations. Considering the importance that images
could play in representation, it is worthwhile to turn to Ravenna, where mosaic
accoutrements of the fifth and sixth centuries in ecclesiastical buildings erected
for Arian congregations survived.
At Ravenna, it is possible to study at least two ecclesiastical buildings in their
more or less original conception for the Arian church of the Ostrogothic capital,
and furthermore compare them with buildings for the orthodox community
of the same or slightly later periods. The ‘Arian baptistery’, which originally
belonged to the Arian cathedral, was later dedicated to S. Maria in Cosmedin
whereas the church itself is today S. Spirito. It was erected around 500, its
orthodox counterpart already in 458.29 Baptisteries were important installations
for the Arian congregations that demanded rebaptisms for converts.30 Both
29
The Arian baptistery is described in detail by Friedrich Wilhelm Deichmann, Ravenna.
Hauptstadt des antiken Abendlandes. Band I. Geschichte und Monumente (Wiesbaden, 1969),
pp. 209–12 and Friedrich Wilhelm Deichmann, Ravenna. Hauptstadt des antiken Abendlandes.
Band II. Kommentar, 1. Teil (Wiesbaden, 1974), pp. 251–58, with plates 249–73 in Friedrich
Wilhelm Deichmann, Ravenna. Hauptstadt des antiken Abendlandes. Band III. Frühchristliche
Bauten und Mosaiken von Ravenna. 405 Tafeln nach unveröffentlichten Aufnahmen von Franz
Bartl unter Mitarbeit von Julie Boehringer (Wiesbaden, 1958); the orthodox baptistery is
described in detail in Deichman, Ravenna I, pp. 130–51, Deichmann, Ravenna II.1, pp. 15–47
with plates 36–95 in Deichmann, Ravenna III.
30
Knut Schäferdiek, ‘L’arianisme germanique et ses conséquences’, in Michel Rouche (ed.),
Clovis, Histoire et Mémoire 1. Le baptême de Clovis, l’événement (Paris, 1997), pp. 185–96 at p. 186;
a very divergent baptismal rite had been demanded by the Arian Eunomius, who wanted new
baptisteries are situated in central-plan buildings. In the baptistery, only the

cupola mosaic survived from the original decoration, partly restored, though
apparently closely following the original mosaics.31 The cupola mosaic in the
orthodox baptistery shows a very similar imagery.
Both mosaics have the baptism of Christ by John in the river Jordan in
their centres. At a lower level, figures representing the apostles are shown. This
imagery was very fitting for baptisteries in general, and both versions show only
minor differences in the iconography, although their style is diverging. In the
orthodox baptistery, the apostles are shown in lavish costumes in front of a blue
background with curtains and acanthus plants between them. In the Arian
baptistery, the apostles wear mainly white costume and are presented in front
of a golden background with palm trees set between them.32 The mosaic in the
Arian baptistery shows a throne with a cross on it towards which the apostles are
moving, whereas in the orthodox baptistery, the apostles alone fill out the band
below the cupola. As Ward-Perkins has rightfully pointed out, the erection of
the Arian baptistery would have presented an opportunity to depict this decisive
scene, the baptism of Christ, in a way more fitting for the Arian creed, as this is
one of the few passages in the bible, in which God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit
appear together (Mark 1:9–11).33 However, both mosaics show basically the
same scene: Christ standing in the river Jordan, with John baptising him, and a
dove from above symbolising the Holy Spirit. Differences lie in the composition
of the two scenes. In the orthodox baptistery, Jordan is a small figure in the
waves, whereas in the ‘Arian’ baptistery, Jordan is sitting opposite John at the
other side, similar in size to the other two figures. John and the personification
of Jordan are on different sides of Christ in both baptisteries. However, these
differences cannot be connected to specific Arian interpretations of the passage.34
Instead, a recent study proposed to view a representation of ethnic differences
in the two mosaics of Christ’s baptism and the apostles, arguing that at least
two of the apostles in the Arian baptistery that do not have names inscribed
next to them as in the orthodox baptistery, might also have been interpreted
as representing Goths in a generic form as followers of Christ, because of their
unusual beards.35 Although there are references in images and texts regarding
barbarians wearing beards, no clear iconography can be distinguished for certain
converts to dive only once into the water instead of the usual three times; however, he remained
without lasting influence, see The ecclesiastical history of Sozomen, comprising a history of the church
from A.D. 324 to A.D. 440, trans. Edward Walford (London, 1855), XXVI.
31
Deborah M. Deliyannis, Ravenna in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2010), p. 181
32
Ward-Perkins, ‘Archaeology and Iconography of Arianism?’, p. 268.
33
Ward-Perkins, ‘Archaeology and Iconography of Arianism?’, pp. 269–71.
34
Deliyannis, Ravenna, pp. 184–85.
35
Deliyannis, Ravenna, pp. 186–87.
Figure 9.4 Arian baptistery, Ravenna, Bartl, Neg. D-DAI-ROM 58.1635.

Courtesy of the Fotothek des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Rom, reproduced by kind
permission
Figure 9.5 Orthodox baptistery, Ravenna, Bartl, Neg. D-DAI-ROM 58.824

Courtesy of the Fotothek des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Rom, reproduced by kind
permission
beard types, for example specific ‘Gothic beards’.36 I think we have to be careful
with ethnic interpretations in this context – the apostles both in the Arian and
orthodox baptisteries show all kinds of beards that distinguish them from each
other, but can be similarly found in the mosaics in both baptisteries.37 Ward-
Perkins is surely right in pointing to the fact that the Arian baptistery is a direct
response to the orthodox baptistery copying its imagery – the fact that Jesus
plays the same prominent role in this mosaic, making him literally an Arian
Jesus, is indeed of high importance.38 Jesus Christ as the saviour seems to be even
more stressed in the Arian baptistery by the fact that the jewelled cross on the
throne, the symbol of Jesus’ triumph and resurrection, is placed right opposite
him on the lower register.
The other ecclesiastical building in Ravenna that preserved its Arian imagery
at least in part is the basilica today known as Sant’Apollinare Nuovo.39 It had
been dedicated by Theoderic, probably to Christ, as the inscription in the apse
recorded by the chronicler Agnellus in the ninth century before this part of the
building collapsed, seems to indicate.40 A good part of the mosaic imagery in
Sant’Apollinare Nuovo is in general as it was in the sixth century,41 but was partly
changed when the building fell under supervision of the sixth-century bishop
Agnellus. Both triple mosaic bands on the northern and southern side walls of
the main aisle above the colonnades have in their composition – and in great part
in their original mosaic settings – survived from the sixth century, some parts
having been changed by Agnellus, others having remained as they were in the
age of Theoderic.42 None of these scenes would have been offensive for orthodox
Christians, however, the fact that Christ is shown as a young and beardless man
36
Philipp von Rummel, Habitus barbarus. Kleidung und Repräsentation spätantiker Eliten
im 4. und 5. Jahrhundert, RGA Erg. Bd. 55 (Berlin and New York, 2007), pp. 193–95.
37
Compare the apostles in the Arian baptistery Deliyannis refers to, published in
Deichmann, Ravenna III, pl. 261, 262 with comparable ones in the orthodox baptistery,
Deichmann, Ravenna III, pl. 46 (Philippus), pl. 48 ( Judas Zelotes), pl. 50 ( Jacobus Alfei).
38
Ward-Perkins, ‘Archaeology and Iconography of Arianism?’, pp. 270–71 and pp. 286–7.
39
The basilica is described in detail by Deichmann, Ravenna I, pp. 125–89, Deichmann,
Ravenna II.1, pp. 171–200, with plates 97–213 in Deichmann, Ravenna III; see also Otto von
Simson, Sacred Fortress: Byzantine Art and Statecraft in Ravenna (Princeton, NJ, 1948, 1987),
pp. 70–110, and more recently Emmanuela Penni Iacco, La basilica di S. Apollinare Nuovo di
Ravenna attraverso i secoli (Bologna, 2004), and Deliyannis, Ravenna, pp. 146–74.
40
Deichmann, Ravenna II.1, pp. 127–29.
41
With some restorations, see Deichmann, Ravenna II.1, pp. 140–41 and the following
pages until 189 for a detailed discussion of the mosaics; see also Deichmann, Ravenna
I, pp. 175–200 on the mosaics.
42
The mortar used to set the mosaic stones in the time of Theoderic differed from that used
in the time of Agnellus, so that it was possible in the analysis of the mosaics to separate both phases
clearly, Deichmann, Ravenna II.1, pp. 139–40.
in the miracle scenes on one side of the upper main nave wall and as a bearded
man in the passion scenes has been interpreted as showing his divine nature
on one side and his human nature on the other, according to a supposed Arian
theology of Theoderic’s time.43 This view has been rejected again recently,44 and
rightfully from my perspective – at the council of Chalcedon in 451, both the
divine and human nature of Christ had been accepted as genuine and co-existent
in Christ.45 In the sixth century, it would therefore have been perfectly orthodox
to depict Christ also in his human nature, getting older. Furthermore, we simply
lack enough detailed information on the Arian positions of the time to infer
a depiction in possible conflict with orthodox theology in the Christological
imagery at Sant’Apollinare Nuovo.46 Furthermore, a representation of a bearded
Christ would by no means have been uniquely Arian – certain iconographical
traditions showed Christ bearded in certainly non-Arian contexts of the
fourth century.47
The Perception of an Arian Church
The examples from Carthage, Ammaedara and Ravenna illustrate clearly that
Arian and Nicene churches are physically not distinguishable, neither in ground
plans or liturgical installations, nor in the iconography of their accoutrements.
Differences in liturgy, if they existed, at least did not manifest in specific
installations. Unfortunately, we do not know much about the liturgy of the
Arian church in the fifth century, or about the specific liturgy in many parts
of the orthodox communities either at this point.48 Changes and differences
in its performance seem to have been rather subtle. In Visigothic Spain, Arians
demanded from new converts that they use the formula Gloria patri per Filium
43
Argued by von Simson, Sacred Fortress, pp. 73–74.
44
Deliyannis, Ravenna, p. 156 with n. 84.
45
Ignazio Ortiz de Urbina, ‘Das Symbol von Chalkedon. Sein Text, sein Werden, seine
dogmatische Bedeutung’, in Alois Grillmeier and Heinrich Bacht (eds), Das Konzil von Chalkedon.
Geschichte und Gegenwart. Band I: Der Glaube von Chalkedon (Würzburg, 1951), pp. 389–90.
46
Deliyannis, Ravenna, p. 157.
47
Especially the ‘judge’ type depictions portray Christ with a beard, see in general on the
development Robin Jensen, Understanding Early Christian Art (London and New York, 2000),
chapter 4, esp. pp. 94–103. Actually, the earliest known portrait of Christ shows him bearded, in
the catacomb of Comodilla in Rome, dated to the fourth century, Jensen, Understanding Early
Christian Art, p. 103. Compare also the apse mosaic, dated to around 400, in Santa Pudenziana in
Rome, in which a bearded Christ presides over the apostles, see Figure 35 in Jensen, Understanding
Early Christian Art, p. 109.
48
Josef Andreas Jungmann, Liturgie der christlichen Frühzeit bis auf Gregor den Großen
(Freiburg, 1967), esp. pp. 224–25.
in Spirito Sancti during the doxology (the final praise to God at the end of church
service), a formulation that was originally not in any sense anti-Nicene but was
interpreted in Arian circles as expressing the subordination of Christ to God –
as a reaction, this formulation was more and more avoided in Nicene services in
favour of a statement using ‘God and Son’.49 The difference, in other words, lay
in a single word. A more obvious and perceptible indication of distinction might
have been language. Presumably, the Gothic bible translation of Ulfilas was
spread together with Arianism among the barbarian federates of the empire.50
Gothic may therefore have been used at least in parts of the Arian liturgy. For
Vandal Africa, the use of the Vandalic-Gothic froia arme for kyrie eleison is
transmitted.51 The Arian patriarch Cyrila of Carthage even tried to discuss with
his Nicene counterparts in Vandalic, denying (unsuccessfully) a knowledge of
Latin.52 In Ostrogothic Italy, at least some members of the Arian clergy used
Gothic. A sixth-century papyrus from Ravenna documenting a sale by the
clergy of the (still) Arian church of St. Anastasia was signed by 17 members of
the clergy of that church, four of which signed in Gothic, the others in Latin,
among these many who nevertheless carried non-Latin names.53 More evidence
from North Africa indicates that also in the eastern Mediterranean, Gothic
might have been used in clerical contexts: In exchange for giving permission to
ordain a new Nicene bishop for Carthage, the Vandal king Huneric demanded
from the eastern emperor that church service in the Arian congregations at
Constantinople and in the eastern provinces might be held in their preferred
language,54 which presumably was neither Greek nor Latin. Even though some
members of the Arian clergy were able to speak Vandalic or Gothic and used
it, although presumably most of all in the ecclesiastical context, it seems unlikely
that church services in places like Ammaedara would have been held in Vandalic
by people like Victorinus. Nevertheless, in the political and religious centres
of the successor states, like Ravenna or Carthage, Christians entering an Arian
church service might have heard Gothic or Vandalic in parts of the liturgy. This
seems to be most likely the case when in the same cities other churches served
49
Jungmann, Liturgie der christlichen Frühzeit bis auf Gregor den Großen (Freiburg, 1967),
pp. 219, 179–81; Schäferdiek, ‘L’arianisme germanique’, p. 186. Cf. Chapter 13 (Manuel Koch)
in this volume.
50
Schäferdiek, ‘L’arianisme germanique’, p. 86.
51
Nicoletta Francovich Onesti, I Vandali: Lingua e Storia (Rome, 2002), pp. 137–39.
Vandalic is considered to have been a Gothic dialect, or closely related at least, Merrills and Miles,
The Vandals, p. 94.
52
Vict. Vit. HP 2.55; see also HP 2.4 and the discussion in Merrills and Miles, The Vandals,
p. 95.
53
The document is reproduced in Deliyannis, Ravenna, p. 145.
54
Vict. Vit. HP 2.4.
the Nicene communities, like in Ravenna or in Carthage.55 The Arian church

in Africa was doing missionary work, and apparently was quite successful in it.56
An exclusive use of Vandalic in Arian church services in Africa is thereby not
very likely.
Arian and Nicene churches basically looked the same, both in architecture
and imagery. Arian and Nicene followers both used the bible, in most cases
even the same passages, interpreting them differently. Was it even possible to
distinguish the creeds if one walked into one of the churches in North Africa in
the later fifth, or in parts of Italy in the sixth century, without further knowledge?
It seems that the only way to notice would be to pay careful attention to what
was said during church service.
The fact that so little divided the denominations from a material and even
liturgical point of view puts a focus on the people who were most involved in the
performance of rites and the organisation of the communities: the bishops. In
Ammaedara, people wanted visitors to the basilica to know which of the bishops
had been ‘orthodox’ and which had been ‘Vandal’. Considering the influential
position bishops had in the cities already in the later fourth and fifth centuries,
and the role bishops could play in the communication between the state and
its subjects, the question which creed a bishop was affiliated to mattered for
political leaders.57 But how much did it matter for the ordinary member of the
congregation? Slight and subtle changes in the performance of the rites might
have shown to the attentive participant of a church service where the leaders
of the congregation stood theologically. But if a Christian entered a church in
a city unknown to him, he would probably in most cases not know if he was
in an ‘Arian’ or ‘Catholic’ church, or more precisely, which theological order
the bishop and his clergy approved of, until someone told him. This might
be especially true in smaller cities for example in North Africa, where Arian
priests were not called ‘Cyrila’ or ‘Anduit’, but ‘Felix’ and ‘Victorinus’. In more
peripheral and rural regions of Vandal North Africa that, central churches might
have been visited by members of both congregations – the Arian commentator
on Iob writing in the later period of the Vandal kingdom warns his congregation
not to visit the other congregation’s church services.58 Members of the Romano-
African elite had become Arians, were well educated and rhetorically trained
55
In Carthage, the basilica Fausti served the Nicene community under its bishop Deogratias,
who was consecrated here in 454, see Ennabli, Carthage, p. 28.
56
Merrills and Miles, The Vandals, p. 180; Schäferdiek, ‘L’arianisme germanique’, p. 188.
57
The literature on the role of bishops in Late Antiquity is vast, see for example the
classic studies of Timothy Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge, MA, 1981), John
H.W.G. Liebeschuetz, The Decline and Fall of the Roman City (Oxford, 2001) or Claudia Rapp,
Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 2005).
58
Dossey, ‘The Last Days of Vandal Africa’, pp. 109–10.
and socially highly influential.59 The similarity in architecture, iconography and

even liturgy must have facilitated interchange across denominational boundaries
especially in contexts that were not politically dominated, like in the everyday
life on the estates and in the cities and villages of inland Byzacena and Numidia.
It is easy to picture a mixed congregation in a church like the central basilica of
Ammaedara. Even in Carthage, it is hard to imagine that the festivals of the great
martyrs, like Perpetua and Felicitas or Cyprian, were only attended by Arian
Christians in the large basilicas before the Byzantine army entered the city. If
we take seriously what archaeology tells us, we have to presume that churches
not only could switch easily from one denomination to another, but also that
they could be used by members of both denominations at the same time if the
circumstances allowed. In the strict sense of the term, ‘Arian churches’ did not
exist at all, but churches could have Arian bishops.
We should not underestimate the degree of religiosity in Antiquity. Being
of the right religion meant salvation in the eyes of clergy and laymen. However,
the material evidence makes it clear that the Arian-Nicene dispute was a
theological-philosophical one that was mainly fought in word and scripture,
not in architecture and image. This does not mean that the question of whether
certain churches belonged to the Arian or Nicene denomination is meaningless.
Important church buildings that served popular martyrs could become
powerful symbols in the conflict, especially because there was nothing at first
sight indicating the doctrine the bishop followed. The power of the bishops
in the religious and social spheres made the difference important, if less from
the view of the congregation, then more from the view of the political leaders.
Controlling wealth and holding influence in communities undoubtedly was an
importance governance tool, still in Late Antiquity, when the role of the bishops
gained importance in comparison with traditional communal authorities and
local office holders. The creedal affiliation of the bishops therefore mattered
for the government. However, one cannot avoid the impression that many
Christians probably did not bother too much with the theological differences
competing bishops discussed.60 For local communities, the integrity, actions
and connectedness of their spiritual leaders must have mattered more than their
views on specific theological questions. That is exactly what made the problem
so dangerous for some ecclesiastical leaders in North Africa and Italy in the fifth
and sixth centuries. And it is exactly what makes it still interesting for us today.
See the discussion in Merrills and Miles, The Vandals, p. 198

59
Merrills and Miles, The Vandals, p. 194 point out that Nicene writers in North Africa
60
constantly reminded their readers what the differences between their views and the Arian
views were.
Chapter 10
The ecclesia legis Gothorum and the Role of
‘Arianism’ in Ostrogothic Italy
This chapter discusses some basic sources as well as the most relevant recent scholarly
discussions on the role of Arianism in Ostrogothic Italy.
In the aftermath of the death of Attila (d. 453) and the subsequent fall of the
Hunnic empire three Amal brothers,1 who were of the generation of Theoderic’s father,
tried to establish their people as the new dominating power in the Danube basin. In
the fifth century the Goths had already been Christians for several generations. More
than a few members of the huge Hunnic warrior-society were Christians and we do not
know of any religious problems as a result of this fact. The former Roman Pannonian
provinces and the attached frontier zones were crucial for barbarian warrior groups.
Whoever held the gates to Italy had a better chance of entering the empire and
serving as a privileged soldier there. Eventually the Ostrogoths did not prevail in the
Eastern part of the Roman Empire and left for Italy in 488. Emperor Zeno (474–91)
succeeded in having two barbarian leaders – Odoacer and Theoderic – grimly fighting
each other.2
After four years of fierce war, Theoderic finally defeated Odoacer, the master
of Italy (rex Italiae) in 493 and assassinated him at a banquet in the royal palace at
Ravenna and also killed some of his family members and retainers.3 Some years later
the emperor Anastasios I (491–518) finally recognised the new political situation
1
Thiudimir, Valamir, and Vidimir. For their careers see Guido M. Berndt, ‘Aktionsradien
gotischer Kriegergruppen’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 47 (2013), pp. 7–52.
2
Guy Halsall, Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376–568, Cambridge
Medieval Textbooks (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 284–8; Peter J. Heather, Goths and
Romans 332–489 (Oxford, 1991), pp. 227–308; Henning Börm, Westrom. Von Honorius bis
Justinian (Stuttgart, 2013), pp. 129–31.
3
Herwig Wolfram, Die Goten. Von den Anfängen bis zur Mitte des sechsten Jahrhunderts.
Entwurf einer historischen Ethnographie (5th edn, Munich, 2009), pp. 278–84; Theoderic:
PLRE 2, pp. 1077–84. See further Guido M. Berndt, ‘Murder in the Palace. Some Considerations
on Assassinations in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages’, in Cora Dietl (ed.), Regeln der
Gewalt / Rules of Violence (Berlin and Boston, 2014), pp. 31–47. For the significance of Ravenna
as Gothic capital see Andrea Augenti, ‘Nasciata e sviluppo di una capitale: Ravenna nel V secolo’,
in Paolo Delogu and Stefano Gasparri (eds), Le trasformazioni del V secolo. L’Italia, i barbari
in 497–8 by sending the ornamenta palatii to the Amal king. In 476 Odoacer had these
highly loaded symbols of power shipped to Constantinople after the deposition of
Romulus Augustulus and the ejection of the last legitimate Western Roman Emperor,
Julius Nepos (d. 480).4 Theoderic’s juridical status resembled very much the Western
Roman patricii.5 The Gothic ruler had not only Italy in mind, but he longed as well
for dominance in the former West of the empire. After Alaric II fell in the Battle of
Vouillé in 507 Theoderic took over his throne and in 511 proclaimed himself king of
the Visigoths.6 Another victorious war against the Franci and the Burgundiones made
it possible to set up again the Gallic praefectura. Theoderic was the factual ruler over a
regnum Hesperiae, an ‘empire reborn’.7
It has been argued that ‘Ostrogothic Italy was the most conspicuously Roman of
the successor states to the Western Roman Empire’.8 At first, Theoderic’s rule had a
‘quasi-imperial style’.9 After Gothic power was secured, not only in Italy but all over
e l’Occidente romano. Atti del Seminario di Poggibonsi, 18–20 ottobre 2007 (Turnhout, 2010),
pp. 343–69.
4
Anonymus Valesianus II.64 (= Excerptum Valesianum II, 64), Theodor Mommsen (ed.), MGH
AA 9, Anonymous Valesianus Pars Posterior (Berlin, 1892; ND 1981, pp. 306–28); Ingemar König (ed.,
and trans.), Aus der Zeit Theoderichs des Großen. Einleitung, Text, Übersetzung und Kommentar einer
anonymen Quelle (Darmstadt, 1997), p. 82; There are different opinions as to what the ornamenta palatii
exactly might have been. Cf. Jan Prostko-Prostynski, Utraeque res publicae. The Emperor Anastasius I’s
Gothic Policy (491–518) (Posen, 1994), pp. 155–68; Mischa Meier, Anastasios I. Die Entstehung des
Byzantinischen Reiches (Stuttgart, 2009), pp. 97–9; Börm, Westrom, pp. 131–32.
5
Theodor Mommsen, ‘Ostgothische Studien’, Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere
deutsche Geschichtskunde, 14 (1889): pp. 225–49, and pp. 453–544 [with addendum 15 (1890),
pp. 181–6] (reprinted: Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 6: Historische Schriften [Berlin, 1910], pp. 362–484):
Theoderic holds the well paid position of a magister militum, his soldiers are the emperor’s foederati; a
different view: Arnold Hugh Martin Jones, The Constitutional Position of Odoacer and Theoderic,
Journal of Roman Studies, 52 (1962): pp. 126–30. Theoderic as an independent rex. To some
extent in between these positions: Dorothee Kohlhaas-Müller, Untersuchungen zur Rechtsstellung
Theoderichs des Großen, Rechtshistorische Reihe 119 (Frankfurt a. M., 1995).
6
Ralph Mathisen, and Danuta Shanzer (eds), The Battle of Vouillé, 507 CE. Where France
Began, Millenium-Studien 37 (Berlin, 2012).
7
Peter J. Heather, The Goths (Oxford, 2nd edn. 1998), pp. 230–35. ‘An empire reborn’ is
the chapter’s title; See further Jonathan J. Arnold, ‘The Battle of Vouillé and the Restoration of the
Roman Empire’, in Mathisen and Shanzer (eds), Vouillé, pp. 111–36; Wolfram, Goten, 308–24;
Halsall, Barbarian Migrations, pp. 288–90; Cassiod. Var. 1.1 (ed. Mommsen, p. 10): alias
gentes anteimus, ‘we go ahead of other peoples’; for juridical status of Theoderic’s rule in this
regard see Fiona K. Haarer, Anastasius I: politics and empire in the late Roman world, Arca 46
(Cambridge, 2006), pp. 80–89.
8
Heather, Goths, p. 221.
9
Halsall, Barbarian Migrations, p. 290.
Role of ‘Arianism’ in Ostrogothic Italy 221
the West, the language of power became more contained.10 Theoderic labelled himself
Flavius Theodoricus rex, never, as far as we know, a rex Gothorum (‘king of the Goths’).
No formal law code was issued in the king’s name.11 Generally speaking Theoderic
strove for a reconciliation of Gothic and Roman interests. The Gothic army received
one third of the tax revenues and land in a way not yet completely understood.12
Overall the Roman governmental structure remained. However, the Goths, who
made up the army, and the Romans remained separate, as did jurisprudence. The
civilitas was the basis of the coexistence of the two groups.13
What was the position of the Arian church in these structures? Thomas Brown
put it like this: ‘The role of the Arian church has been one of the most obscure and
tendentious aspects of the history of the Ostrogothic kingdom. This despite the
fact that the evidence is relatively plentiful’. Brown alludes to some papyri, the Arian
churches in Ravenna and the Gothic-Arian manuscripts from Italy to be discussed
below.14 The Arian king was delicate in his dealings with ecclesiastical questions, for
example in the papal controversy of the Laurentian schism from 501 to circa 506/7.
Later religious tensions must be seen against the backdrop of the conflict with
Byzantium, beginning in 523. All in all Theoderic aimed for the maintenance
of a Roman order and represented the interests of the Roman Church against
Constantinople and the emperor Anastasios in the Acacian schism. This gained him
the support of the Senate and the Italian clergy throughout most of his reign. It was
in Theoderic’s interest to maintain not only peaceful, but friendly relations with the
Italian Catholic bishops. This was, as Andreas Schwarcz pointed out, not only typical
10
Halsall, Barbarian Migrations, pp. 332–34; Wolfram, Goten, pp. 288–89; Michael
McCormick, Eternal Victory. Triumphal Rulership in late antiquity, Byzantium, and the early
medieval West (Cambridge and Paris, 1986), pp. 278–80 mentioning CIL 10.6850–2: A member
of the powerful senatorial family of the Decii erected an inscription labelling Theoderic augustus.
11
Wolfram, Goten, pp. 286–8; Herwig Wolfram, Intitulatio I., Mitteilungen des Instituts
für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, Suppl. 21 (Vienna, 1967), pp. 56–75.
12
The literature on this topic is vast. A new compilation of all arguments is to found in
Pierfrancesco Porena, ‘Voci e silenzi sull’insediamento degli Ostogoti in Italia’, in Pierfrancesco Porena,
and Yann Rivière (eds), Expropriations et confiscations dans les Royaumes barbares. Une approche régionale,
Collection de l’École française de Rome 470 (Rome, 2012), pp. 227–78 and Pierfrancesco Porena,
L’insediamento degli ostrogoti in Italia, Saggi di Storia Antica 33 (Rome, 2012).
13
Cassiod. Var. 8.20 (ed. Mommsen, p. 521); Massimiliano Vitiello, Il principe,
il filosofo, il guerriero: lineamenti di pensiero politico nell’Italia ostrogota, Hermes
Einzelschriften 97 (Stuttgart, 2006), pp. 82–110; Biagio Saitta, La civilitas di Teodorico.
Rigore amministrativo, ‘tolleranza’ religiosa e recupero dell’antico nell’Italia ostrogota, Studia
Historica 128 (Rome, 1993); Aarne Stüven, Rechtliche Ausprägungen der civilitas im Ostgotenreich.
Mit vergleichenden Berücksichtigungen des westgotischen und des burgundischen Rechts (Frankfurt
a. M. and Bern 1995).
14
Thomas S. Brown, ‘The Role of Arianism in Ostrogothic Italy. The Evidence from
Ravenna’, in Sam J. Barnish and Federico Marazzi (eds), The Ostrogoths from the Migration Period
to the Sixth Century: An Ethnographic Perspective (Woodbridge, 2007), pp. 417–26, here at p. 417.
for his reign, but one of its basic conditions as the bishops had an important role in
the civic administration.15
Generally speaking religious differences had much less impact on Italian politics
and society than in Africa or Spain. The Byzantine church historian Theodorus wrote
around 518 that the ruler of Rome, Theuderichos, although an Arian was a close
friend of the Catholic Church. According to Theodorus the king acted prudently and
justly. For decades the elites in Constantinople accepted the Goths in Italy and so his
mistaken belief could be ignored.16 Gelasius (Roman bishop, c. 492–6) wrote several
letters to Theoderic. He praised the king’s pietas Christianae mentis and addressed him
as filius meus, thus claiming to be his spiritual father.17
Theoderic acted like a Roman ruler in various ways. He protected and supported
members of the Catholic Church as well as its property. Thus Catholic writers
stressed the legitimate position of Theoderic and provided his regime with ideological
support. Theoderic’s policy of tolerance and the abolition of proselytism gained the
support of the Catholic mainstream. Furthermore, the ruler of Italy depended –
at least for the first decades – on good relations with the East. There is no trace of
Arian religious triumphalism in Italy. The Gothic takeover was much less violent
and destructive than the takeover of the Vandals in Africa. No violent dispossession
took place. The new government found reliable confederates amongst the Italian
senatorial elites. The Pretorian Prefect Liberius managed to accommodate the Gothic
soldiers without provoking harsh protests from the wealthy landowning aristocracy.18
Similarly the Arian clergy seems not to have felt the need to attack or expropriate the
Catholic Church.19
Andreas Schwarcz, ‘Beato Petro devotissimus ac si catholicus. Überlegungen zur

15
Religionspolitik Theoderichs des Großen’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische

Geschichtsforschung, 112 (2004): pp. 36–52; Biagio Saitta, ‘“Religionem imperare non possumus”.
Motivi e momenti della politica di Teoderico il Grande’, Quaderni Catanesi di Studi Classici e
Medievali, 8 (1986): pp. 63–88.
16
Theodorus Lector, HE 461–3; Andreas Goltz, Barbar – König – Tyrann. Das Bild
Theoderichs des Großen in der Überlieferung des 5. bis 9. Jahrhunderts, Millennium-Studien 12
(Berlin, 2008), pp. 56–63.
17
Cassiod. Var. 1 (ed. Mommsen, p. 389); Shane Bjornlie, Politics and Tradition Between
Rome, Ravenna and Constantinople. A Study of Cassiodorus and the Variae 527–554, Cambridge
Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series 89 (Cambridge, 2012); Goltz, Barbar –
König – Tyrann, pp. 308–10; Patrick Amory, People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489–554
(Cambridge, 1997), p. 201.
18
Wolfram, Goten, pp. 295–9; Heather, Goths, p. 236–48; Vitiello, Il principe, il
filosofo, il guerriero, pp. 39–40, 71–78, and 145–51; John Moorhead, Theoderic in Italy
(Oxford, 1992), pp. 32–5; Hans-Ulrich Wiemer, ‘Die Goten in Italien. Wandlungen und Zerfall
einer Gewaltgemeinschaft’, HZ, 296 (2013): pp. 593–628, here at pp. 609–10; Brown, ‘The Role
of Arianism’, p. 420
19
Pfeilschifter, Georg, Der Ostgotenkönig Theoderich der Grosse und die katholische Kirche
(Münster, 1896). It is not possible to deal with Theoderic’s policy toward the Jews in this chapter, a
In the time of king Theoderic the Arian church was an important and rich
institution, maybe not everywhere in Italy, but at least in the Gothic hotspots such as
Ravenna, Milan, Verona or Pavia. Whether being a member of this community was
limited only to Goths is not clear, nor is the significance of Arianism in the shaping
of Gothic identity. In 1997 Patrick Amory raised questions about the importance
of confessing the Homoian trinity for being or becoming a Goth. Amory claimed
that ‘the name Goth appealed to the Arian church in Italy as a means of preserving
its identity. This statement is an exact reversal of the traditional interpretation of the
“church of the Goths”’.20 Most Goths were – according to Amory – Catholics, like the
majority of the Italian population. The Italian Arians, however, used the opportunity
to transform their church into an ecclesia legis Gothorum and furthermore they
preserved the Gothic texts that they used. This highlighted – again according to
Amory – the power of ethnographic traditions and the diversity of culture in the later
Roman Empire.21
In contrast most scholars follow a paradigm which considers the preservation
of Arianism as a means to maintain and shape Gothic group identity as well
as to differentiate the military elite from the Roman (Catholic) population.
Peter Heather’s reading differs from Amory’s. ‘Although the Goths probably
first accepted “Arianism” because it was the religion of the emperor Valens
(364–78), they later clung to it with such tenacity that it surely became a means
of differentiating themselves from inhabitants of the Empire’.22 Amory’s ideas
were rejected in various ways. On the other hand Amory’s suggestions helped
to relativise exaggerated assessments of the Homoian confession for Gothic
identity. Thomas Burns, for example, published his study on Ostrogothic
history approximately 10 years before Amory. He defined the Arian church
as an ‘institutional focus and a shelter for the Goths as a people’. Furthermore,
he labelled Gothic Arianism as a ‘tribal religion’.23 The possible answer lies in
between these two poles. Arianism remained a rallying point for some Goths,
good starting point would be Hanns Christof Brennecke, ‘Imitatio – reparatio – continuatio. Die
Judengesetzgebung im Ostengotenreich Theoderichs des Großen als reparatio imperii?’, ZAC, 4
(2000): pp. 133–48.
20
Amory, People and Identity, p. 275.
21
Amory, People and Identity, pp. 236–76.
22
Heather, Goths and Romans, p. 327.
23
Brown, ‘The Role of Arianism’, p. 417–19; Moorhead, Theoderic, p. 93–94; Heather, The
Goths, p. 245, 312–7: ‘using religion to express separation’; Peter J. Heather, ‘The Crossing of
the Danube and the Gothic Conversion’, GRBS, 27 (1986): pp. 289–318, at pp. 316–17; James
Russell, The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity: A Sociohistorical Approach to Religious
Transformation (New York, 1996), pp. 139–40; Thomas Burns, A History of the Ostrogoths
(Bloomington, 1984), p. 161: ‘institutional focus and a shelter for the Goths as a people’; Henry
Chadwick, Boethius: The consolations of music, logic, theology, and philosophy (Oxford, 1981), p. 3:
‘national identity-card for the Goths’; Edward A. Thompson, The Visigoths in the Time of Ulfila
although perhaps not all.24 At the same time an Arian church had existed in Italy
before Theoderic arrived.
Thus, the Goths did not reintroduce Arianism to the heartland of the Western
Empire in 489. It has to be stressed again that Homoian theology was accepted
and supported by several emperors before Theodosius I (379–95). Furthermore,
the imperial government had reluctantly allowed federates and barbarian
soldiers to follow the Homoian Creed of Rimini even after the strict laws of the
year 381.25 Arian clerics worked and wrote in Italy as well as in Illyricum. They
delivered Latin and Greek texts and were at the same time interested in Ulfila’s
project of translating the Scriptures into the Gothic tongue. Barbarians serving
in the armed forces were Arians in no small numbers before the arrival of the
Goths.26 Ricimer, Gundobad and Odoacer not only supported the Arian clergy,
but presumably also paid and cared for places to worship. At Rome and Ravenna
Arian churches existed before the Gothic period. We know, for example, of
Sant’Agata dei Goti at Rome. At a certain point this chapel was decorated and
equipped by the powerful magister militum Ricimer. Another Arian church at
the old capital was located on the Via Merulana and later named San Severino.27
(Oxford, 1966), pp. 109–10; Zeev Rubin, ‘The Conversion of the Visigoths to Christianity’,
Museum Helveticum, 38 (1981): pp. 34–54, at p. 54.
24
Yitzhak Hen, Roman Barbarians. The Royal Court and Culture in the Early Medieval
West, Medieval Culture and Society (Basingstoke, 2007), pp. 54–56.
25
E.g. CJ 1.5.12.17. See Chapter 7 (Ralph Mathisen) in this volume.
26
Claire Sotinel, ‘Die Katholizität im Westen und die Rückkehr des Arianismus.
Kapitel 3: Rom und Italien am Übergang vom Römischen Reich zum Gotenreich’, in Luce Pietri
(ed.), Die Geschichte des Christentums: Religion, Politik, Kultur. Bd. 3: Der lateinische Westen und
der byzantinische Osten (431–642) (Freiburg et al., 2001), pp. 300–342, here at p. 301; Brown,
‘The Role of Arianism’, p. 419; Amory, People and Identity, p. 237–47; Peter Heather and John
Matthews, The Goths in the Fourth Century, TTH 11 (Liverpool, 1991), pp. 135–41; Thompson,
The Visigoths in the Time of Ulfila, pp. 19–21; Michel Meslin, Les Ariens d’Occident 335–430,
Patristica Sorbonensia 8 (Paris, 1967), pp. 220–32, and p. 416; Herwig Wolfram, Gotische
Studien. Volk und Herrschaft im frühen Mittelalter (Munich, 2005), pp. 66–113 analysed specific
words used in Ulfila’s translation to understand the society at the Roman borders.
27
Ralph W. Mathisen, ‘Ricimer’s Church in Rome: How an Arian Barbarian Prospered in
a Nicene World’, in Andrew Cain and Noel Lenski (eds), The Power of Religion in Late Antiquity
(Farnham and Burlington, 2009), pp. 307–26; Christian Hülsen, Carlo Cecchelli, Gustavo
Giovannoni, Ugo Monneret de Villard, and Antonio Muñoz, S. Agata dei Goti, Monografie
sulle chiese di Roma 1 (Rome, 1924); Jacques Zeiller, ‘Étude sur l’Arianisme en Italie à l’époque
Ostrogothique et l’époque Lombarde’, MEFR, 24 (1905): pp. 128–30; Jacques Zeiller, ‘Les
églises ariennes de Rome a l’époque de la domination Gothique’, MEFR, 24 (1904): pp. 17–33,
Sant’Agata dei Goti: pp. 19–20, San Severino: pp. 23–25.
Furthermore there might have been an episcopus Gothorum at Rome during

the 490s. But this see is only attested in a document from the mid-sixth century.28
As a matter of fact most Gothic texts we know were copied or written in late
fifth- and sixth-century Italy. Biblical, liturgical and calendric texts are preserved
in several European libraries. Unfortunately these texts do not reveal much
about the role of the Arian church in the politics or ideology of Ostrogothic
Italy.29 Milan, Pavia, Verona and Aquileia were centres of Arian activity. Seven
Arian churches are known in Ravenna.30 The cathedral of Santo Spirito, the
Arian Baptistry and the palatine church (today Sant’Apollinare Nuovo) are
still preserved, the four other churches were only mentioned in the history of
the see written in the ninth century by Agnellus. Whether these churches were
privately owned and administered, as was the case with Burgundian churches,
remains unclear.31
Some Arian Christians in the West used vernacular languages, Gothic in our
case, for church services as well as liturgical and biblical texts. This is not at all
exceptional. Syriac and Coptic, for example, were commonly used in the East
by Nicaean Christians. In Italy Gothic persisted in some places as a liturgical
language of the Gothic-Arian church. At the same time Gothic writers were
bilingual and wrote in Latin as well.32 As late as 551 Gothic was used by four
clerics of the Arian church of Sant’Anastasia at Ravenna to confirm their mainly
Latin charters, labelled frabaúhtaboka in written Gothic. Maybe one of them,
Master Viliaric the copyist, Wiljarith bokareis, was the same magister Uiliaric
antiquarius who presided over the scriptorium which produced not only a
Latin text of Orosius, but also high quality copies of the Gothic Bible.33 One of
28
See paragraph Arian Clergy in the Ostrogothic Kingdom in Chapter 7 (Ralph Mathisen) of
this volume. P.Ital. II, 49 (ed. Tjäder, pp. 198); Zeiller, ‘Étude sur l’arianisme en Italie’, pp. 130–31;
Zeiller, ‘Les églises ariennes de Rome’, pp. 20–22.
29
Still a good overview: Elfriede Stutz, ‘Codices Gotici’, RGA, 5, (1984): pp. 52–60;
Brown, ‘The Role of Arianism’, p. 417.
30
See Chapter 9 of this volume (Ralf Bockmann). Thomas S. Brown, ‘Everyday Life in
Ravenna under Theoderic: An Example for his “Tolerance” and “Prosperity”?’, in Teoderico
il Grande e i Goti d’Italia. Atti del XIII Congresso internazionale di studi sull’Alto Medioevo,
Milano 2–6 novembre 1992 (Spoleto, 1993), pp. 77–99.
31
Agnellus, Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis 86 (ed. Holder-Egger, MGH SS rer.
Lang. 1, p. 334), Alessandro Zironi, ‘Verona und die arianische Kultur in dem ostgotischen Reich’,
Speculum medii aevi, 3 (1997): pp. 139–45.
32
Hanns Christof Brennecke, ‘Lateinischer oder germanischer “Arianismus”?’, in
Hildegund Müller, Dorothea Weber, and Clemens Weimann (eds), Collatio Augustini cum
Pascentio, Einleitung, Text, Übersetzung, Sitzungsberichte der Österreichischen Akademie der
Wissenschaften 779 = Veröffentlichungen der Kommission zur Herausgabe des Corpus der
lateinischen Kirchenväter XXIV (Vienna, 2008), pp. 128–30.
33
P.Ital. II, 34 (ed. Tjäder, p. 104): ik wiljariþ bokareis handau meinai ufmelida … =
I, Wiljarith the master of books, did sign with my own hand …; cf. Piergiuseppe Scardigli, Die Goten.
these was the well-known Codex Argenteus. Of its originally 336 leaves 188 are
preserved today in Uppsala. Most likely the codex was produced for the court of
Ravenna.34 The bilingual (Latin and Gothic) Codex Brixianus seems to be close
to the Codex argenteus. This is true for its language as well as its decoration and
palaeography.35 The Verona codex LI contains the so-called Gotica Veronensia.
This collection of Latin Arian sermons for the major Christian feasts is
supplemented by Gothic glosses and derives from early sixth-century Italy.36
The so-called Gothic calendar is preserved only in fragments.37 Nevertheless,
these fragments clearly show, that the liturgical calendar of the Gothic church
differed from the Catholic one. Most likely the first version of this Gothic
martyrology was compiled after the time of Ulfila, but still outside the empire.
The manuscript preserved today derives from an early sixth-century scriptorium
in Northern Italy.38 It is striking that the catalogue of martyrs in the Gothic
calendar order of their anniversaries or feasts has major gaps. Most likely, the
Arian church did not adapt a greater number of Catholic martyrs. Since the late
fourth century many new martyrs had been added. A prominent example is the
wondrous discovery of the relics of the saints Protasius and Gervasius in Milan
by Ambrosius (bishop 374–97).39 Yet, we can only find entries for apostles, a
Sprache und Kultur (Munich, 1973), p. 275; Wolfram, Goten, pp. 325 and 501, note 121; Jan-Olof
Tjäder, ‘Der Codex Argenteus und der Buchmeister Viliaric in Ravenna’, in Ulf Erik Hagberg
(ed.), Studia gotica. Die eisenzeitlichen Verbindungen zwischen Schweden und Südosteuropa.
Vorträge beim Gotensymposium im Statens Historiska Museum (Stockholm, 1972), pp. 143–64;
Elfriede Stutz, Gotische Literaturdenkmäler (Stuttgart, 1966), pp. 16–54.
34
Jan-Olof Tjäder, ‘Studier till Codex Argenteus’ historia’, Nordisk Tidskrift för Bok- och
Biblioteksväsen, 61 (1974): pp. 51–99; Tönnes Kleberg, Codex Argenteus. Silver Bibeln i Uppsala.
Universitets Bibliotek, Uppsala 1954 (4th edn., Uppsala, 1981); Lars Munkhammar, Silverbibeln.
Theoderiks bok (Stockholm, 1998).
35
Stutz, ‘Codices Gotici’, pp. 57–8; cf. for the relation of the Gothic and the Latin bible see
Chapter 1 (Knut Schäferdiek) in this volume.
36
Roger Gryson, Le recueil arien de Vérone. (Ms. 51 de la Bibliothèque capitulaire et feuillets
inédits de la Collection Giustiniani Recanati.) Étude codicologique et paléographique, Instrumenta
patristica 13 (The Hague, 1982); Roger Gryson (ed.), Scripta Arriana Latina. Pars 1: Collectio
Veronensis. Scholia in concilium Aquileiense. Fragmenta in Lucam rescripta. Fragmenta theologica
rescripta, CCSL 87 (Turnhout, 1982), pp. 1–145; James W. Marchand, ‘On the Gotica Veronensia’,
New Testament Studies, 19 (1972–3): pp. 465–68.
37
Easily accessible in Die gotische Bibel, ed. Wilhelm Streitberg, Germanische Bibliothek, 2.
Abteilung, 3. Band, 1. Teil: Der gotische Text und seine griechische Vorlage. Mit Einleitung, Lesarten
und Quellennachweisen sowie den kleineren Denkmälern als Anhang (Heidelberg, 1919), pp. 472–4.
38
Konstantinopeler Martyrologs’, Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, 79 (1988):
pp. 116–37.
39
For this episode see Neil B. McLynn, Ambrose of Milan. Church and Court in a Christian
Capital (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1994), pp. 212–15.
Roman emperor and a few Gothic martyrs. Therefore we can assume that the
liturgical year substantially differed from that of the Catholic Church, which
was markedly richer in terms of feast days.40
What is known about the structure of the ecclesia legis Gothorum? In contrast
to his predecessor in Italy, Odoacer, Theoderic was a member of a Christian
denomination which explicitly understood itself as a ‘church of Gothic law’, as
ecclesia legis Gothicae, a term which refers to the army of the king, the exercitus
Gothorum. The so-called Anonymus Valesianus indicates that Theoderic set
value on a peaceful coexistence of Goths and Romans: Sic gubernavit duas
gentes in uno, Romanorum et Gothorum, dum ipse quidem Arrianae sectae esset,
tamen nihil contra religionem catholicam temptans. ‘He so governed two races at
the same time, Romans and Goths, that although he himself was of the Arian
sect, he nevertheless made no assault on the Catholic religion’.41 Cassiodor’s
Variae are very reluctant in this regard as there are only two passages about the
confession of the Gothic kings.42 The Variae present a picture of Gothic kings
who refrain from strong influence on their subjects concerning their personal
confession. Theoderic is said to have followed the slogan: Religionem imperare
non possumus, quia nemo cogitur ut credat invitus. ‘I cannot command your faith,
for no one is forced to believe against his will’.43 A good deal more significant is
what Theodahad was writing in a letter to Justinian, shortly before the outbreak
of the Gothic War:
Earum siquidem rerum iudicium non praesumimus, unde mandatum specialiter

non habemus. Nam cum divinitas patiatur diversas religiones esse, nos unam
non audemus imponere. Retinemus enim legisse nos voluntarie sacrificandum
esse domino, non cuiusquam cogentis imperio: quod qui aliter facere temptaverit,
evidenter caelestibus iussionibus obviabit. Merito ergo pietas vestra invitat nos ad
talia quae nobis praecipiunt divina mandata.
40
To a certain extent one can compare this calendar with the Roman Martyrologium
Hieronymianum, Giovanni Battista de Rossi and Louis Duchesne (eds), Martyrologium
Hieronymianum. Acta Sanctorum, November, T. 2, ps. 1 (Brussels, 1894); Hippolyte Delehaye,
Commentarius perpetuus in Martyrologium Hieronymianum. Acta Sanctorum, November, T. 2,
ps. 2 (Brussels, 1931).
41
Anonymus Valesianus II.60 (ed. Mommsen, p. 322). The same source conveys that
Theoderic’s mother Erelieva was a catholic, II.58, p. 322.
42
Cassiod. Var. 8.15.1 (letter of Athalaric) (ed. Mommsen, p. 246) and Var. 10, 34 (written
communication of king Witigis), p. 320.
43
Cassiod. Var. 2.27.2 (ed. Mommsen, p. 62); trans. Sam J. B. Barnish, Selected Variae of
Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator, TTH 12 (Liverpool, 1992), here at p. 35.
Indeed, I do not presume to exercise judgement in those cases where I have no

special mandate, for, since the Deity allows various religions to exist, I do not dare
to impose one alone. For I remember reading that we should sacrifice to the Lord
of our own will, not at the command of anyone who compels us [Psalm 53.8/54.6].
He who tries to do otherwise clearly opposes the heavenly decree. Rightly, then,
your piety requests me to do what is enjoined on me by the religious ordinances.44
These are clear signs of a form of religious tolerance in Ostrogothic Italy.

This Homoian Christian denomination had a similar structure with its own
sanctuary, own liturgy – as stated above most probably in the Gothic language45 –
and its own clergy,46 led in Ravenna and other cities by a bishop. The kingship
of Theoderic was probably grounded in the worship of the church which also
encompassed the military, about which, however, we can only say little. We also
know little about Theoderic’s own practice of worship. There are a few remarks
about his knowledge of the Bible, when, for instance, he used the scripture for
the sake of argument.47 As a Christian, we can imagine him praying daily, just
as Sidonius Apollinaris says about the Visigothic king Theoderic II (453–6),
but this is, however, no more than speculation.48 The Basilica of Sant’Apollinare
Nuovo was endowed richly with an elaborate iconographic program, yet we
cannot find anything ‘Arian’ in its mosaics.49
We also do not know very much about the Gothic episcopacy. Theoderic
granted tax exemption to a certain Unscila. This man could have been an
Arian bishop, but this is not completely clear. It is very probable that as in
other barbarian kingdoms an Arian bishop resided in the capital attached to
the royal court.50 We know a little more about Arian priests thanks to surviving
Italian papyri. Gothic subscriptions to some of the Ravennate papyri hint at the
existence of an Arian lower clergy. Interestingly enough Goths with Germanic
Cassiod. Var. 10.26.4 (ed. Mommsen, p. 314); trans. Barnish, Selected Variae, p. 141.
44
Much better is the evidence for Gothic as a liturgical language in Constantinople

45
around 400. Bishop Johannes Chrysostomos, for instance, conceded that the Christian message
is a universal one and therefore could be transmitted in every possible language. Occasionally he
preached in the Gothic Paulus church assisted by interpreters. See Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Johannes
Chrysostomos und die ulfilanische Kirchensprache’, ZAC, 117 (2006): pp. 289–96.
46
See Chapter 7 (Ralph Mathisen) in this volume, pp. 168–69.
47
Acta Synhodorum Habitarum Romae, Anagnosticum Regis, Theodor Mommsen (ed.),
MGH AA 12, (Berlin, 1894; repr. Munich, 1981, p. 425–26).
48
Sidon. Epist. 1, 2 (ed. Luetjohann, p. 2–4).
49
Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis, Ravenna in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2010),
pp. 146–73 and Chapter 9 (Ralf Bockmann) in this volume.
50
See Chapter 7 (Ralph Mathisen) in this volume. Cassiod. Var. 1, 26 (ed. Mommsen,
p. 28–9); cf. Georg Pfeilschifter, Der Ostgotenkönig Theoderich der Grosse und die katholische Kirche
(Munster, 1896), p. 51, no. 8, and p. 230; Scardigli, Goten, 332–333; Zeiller, ‘Étude’, pp. 130–31.
names writing in Gothic language and script served at Sant’Anastasia even after
the destruction of the Ostrogothic kingdom in 554. The formulas were Ego
X, clericus eclesie … legis Gothorum s[an]c[t]e Anastasie … and Signum + X spodei
/ ustiarii … basilicae Gothorum … .51
51
P.Ital. II, 34 (ed. Tjäder, pp. 91–104), the formulae at p. 102. Cf. Knut Schäferdieck,
‘Die Ravennater Papyrusurkunde Tjäder 34, der Codex argenteus und die ostgotische arianische
Kirche’, ZKG, 120/2 (2009): pp. 215–31; Amory, People and Identity, p. 251–6; Scardigli, Goten,
pp. 277–81; Pfeilschifter, Theoderich, pp. 47–54; Zeiller, ‘Étude’, pp. 130–36.
Chapter 11
Arrianorum abolevit heresem:
The Lombards and the Ghost of Arianism*
Piero Majocchi
This chapter intends to review the different scholarly opinions held on the issue
of Lombard Arianism, and then to briefly discuss the sources attesting (nor
not) the diffusion of Arian belief and worship in the Lombard Kingdom in
Italy (568–774).
In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, German historians had
already noted the ambiguity of the available evidence on Lombard Arianism and
had come to a number of possible conclusions: in 1849 Otto Abel focused on
the lacklustre adoption of Christianity and especially the absence of a coherent
royal policy on religion. This position was reiterated by Carl Blasel later in 1903,
who claimed moreover that the Lombards were already Catholics before their
arrival in Italy, whereas Ludwig Schmidt in 1941 believed them to be pagan at
that stage.1
A fundamentally opposing view was put forward by Thomas Hodgkin
in his seminal 1895 work Italy and her Invaders, underlining the adoption of
Arian Christianity by the Lombard rulers as a pivotal moment for the religious
developments during the first 150 years of Lombard suzerainty over Italy.
This interpretation was adopted by many British and continental European
historians. In the 1950s, Giampiero Bognetti was the leading Italian scholar
to hold this opinion. According to him, Arianism was the official religion of
the Lombard kings when they invaded the peninsula – a mere hypothesis based
*
The author would like to thank Roland Steinacher and Guido M. Berndt for organising
the splendid Villa Vigoni conference, Igor Santos for his usual support, and Tommaso Leso for his
great contribution to the translation of this paper. I am also greatly indebted to Kai Grundmann
who kindly read the text and improved its English.
1
Otto Abel, Paulus Diakonus und die übrigen Geschichtsschreiber der Langobarden
(Berlin, 1849), p. 241; Carl Blasel, ‘Der Übertritt der Langobarden zu Christentum bis
zur Okkupation Italiens’, Archiv für katholisches Kirchenrecht, 83 (1903): pp. 579–634,
here pp. 580–612; Ludwig Schmidt, Geschichte der deutschen Stämme bis zum Ausgang der
Völkerwanderung. Die Ostgermanen (Munich, 1941), pp. 577–621; Francesco Mores, ‘Streghe:
Appunti per una storia del ‘paganesimo’ longobardo’, Rivista di storia della chiesa in Italia, 64
(2010): pp. 329–46, here pp. 530–32.
foremost on a letter sent by Bishop Nicetius of Trier to Queen Clodosuintha,

King Alboin’s wife, who was about to convert to Arianism in an attempt to
enlist the support of the ‘Gothic’ population in Italy. In Bognetti’s opinion this
conversion only involved some members of the aristocracy and the royal family,
while the majority of the Lombard ‘people’ remained pagan.2
The first deconstruction of this interpretation was offered by Steven
Fanning’s ‘Lombard Arianism reconsidered’ in 1981, which demonstrated
that the sources contemporary to the Lombard settlement in Italy and the first
decades of their kingdom – Procopius of Caesarea, Gregory of Tours, and the
epistles of popes such as Pelagius II and Gregory I – do not characterise the
Lombards as Arians, but as ‘generally’ Christians, or Catholics, or (mostly)
pagans. Nicetius’ letter seems to point in the same direction, as it proves the
existence of contacts between Pannonian Lombards and the Arian clergy of the
Ostrogothic Kingdom but does not explicitly mention any profession of Arian
faith by Alboin and the Lombard elites. In the same year, Chris Wickham in his
reconstruction of early medieval Italy argued for the almost total insignificance
of the personal religious beliefs held by the monarchs and elites since political
choices and opportunities for social mobility occurred in a completely secular
institutional system.3
Bognetti’s vision has also been challenged by the Italian scholar Stefano
Gasparri in his articles ‘Roma e i Longobardi’ (2001) and ‘Culture barbariche,
modelli ecclesiastici, tradizione romana nell’Italia longobarda e franca’
(2005). In his opinion Arianism was only marginally rooted in Lombard
society, contrary to the Goths under Theoderic, for whom the Ravenna Papyri
suggest the total interdependence of Gothic ethnic identity and Arian belief.
The religious preferences of Lombard rulers were, however, purely individual
and never affected their political decisions. While Alboin and his army may
have been predominantly pagan by the time of their invasion, his successors
alternatively adopted policies in favour of Arianism (Authari, Arioald, Rotari),
Catholicism (Theodelinda, Adaloald), and the ‘Three Chapters’ (Agilulf and
Theodelinda again), thereby revealing the peaceful coexistence of different
2
Gian Piero Bognetti, ‘Santa Maria Foris Portas di Castelseprio e la storia religiosa dei
Longobardi’, in Gian Piero Bognetti (ed.), L’età longobarda, II (Milano, 1966), pp. 12–673;
for a critical discussion of his thesis see Giovanni Tabacco, ‘Espedienti politici e persuasioni
religiose nel medioevo di Gian Piero Bognetti’, Rivista di storia della chiesa in Italia, 24 (1970):
pp. 504–23; Stefano Gasparri, ‘Culture barbariche, modelli ecclesiastici, tradizione romana
nell’Italia longobarda e franca’, Reti Medievali. Rivista, 6/2 (2005): pp. 1–56, see http://www.
rm.unina.it/rivista/dwnl/Gasparri.pdf (accessed 26 March 2014), here pp. 51–52.
3
Steven Fanning, ‘Lombard Arianism Reconsidered’, Speculum, 56 (1981):
pp. 241–58; Chris Wickham, Early Medieval Italy: Central Power and Local Society (400–1000)
(London, 1981).
The Lombards and the Ghost of Arianism 233
faiths and disproving the existence of ‘Arian’ and ‘Catholic’ factions among the
Lombard aristocracy as outlined by Bognetti.4
At the same time Walter Pohl, in his articles ‘Deliberate Ambiguity: the
Lombards and Christianity’ (2000) and ‘Memory, Identity and Power in
Lombard Italy’ (2000), pointed out the apparent lack of conversions enforced
by the crown or decisive missionary intervention in the religious history of the
Lombard kingdom, a phenomenon which indicates that neither Arianism nor
Catholicism were deeply rooted among the Italic population of the sixth and
seventh century. The evidence for the religious preferences of the Lombards is
indeed rather ambiguous, even contradictory, because they could be members
of the three different Christian communities (Arianism, Catholicism, Three
Chapters schism). The choice of their religious identity was largely guided by
political pragmatism as can be seen in the correspondence between Frankish
kings and the popes in the later sixth century. The existence of an Arian clergy
in this period, even if disgraced and deprived of their churches in Italy in the
aftermath of the Gothic downfall after 553, is well attested by the letters of
Nicetius of Trier, those of Gregory the Great, and a Ravenna papyrus with a
list of confiscated Arian church properties. The reign of Authari (584–90)
then saw a policy of royal support for the Arian clergy again, while that of
Agilulf and Theodelinda in the early seventh century can be characterised by
the support for the Three Chapters schismatic clergy, which de facto was the
local clergy of the kingdom. Considerable religious tolerance was supposedly
practised by the Lombard kings in these periods: in the famous Columbanus
letter to Pope Boniface IV for example, the presumably pagan king Agilulf asks
a Catholic abbot to admonish the pope in Rome for his poor efforts to form a
compromise with the schismatic clergy of northern Italy, once more illustrating
the complexity of the religious affairs in the kingdom at that stage.5
In 2007 a volume dedicated to the Three Chapters schism confirmed the
absence of any official documentation of Arian faith in the kingdom, concluding
however that religious affiliation was a matter of personal choice, and not directly
4
Stefano Gasparri, ‘Roma e i Longobardi’, in Roma nell’alto medioevo, Settimane di studio
del Centro italiano di studio sull’alto medioevo 48 (2 vols, Spoleto, 2001), pp. 219–47; Gasparri,
‘Culture barbariche’, pp. 4–19.
5
The list of confiscated Arian Church properties in Die nichtliterarischen lateinischen
Papyri Italiens aus der Zeit 445–700, 2 vols., ed. Jan-Olaf Tjäder (Uppsala 1955, reprinted
Lund, 1982), I, n. 3; cf. Walter Pohl, ‘Deliberate Ambiguity: The Lombards and Christianity’,
in Guyda Armstrong and Ian Wood (eds), Christianizing Peoples and Converting Individuals
(Turnhout, 2000), pp. 47–58; Walter Pohl, ‘Memory, Identity and Power in Lombard
Italy’, in Yitzhak Hen and Matthew Innes (eds), The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages
(Cambridge, 2000), pp. 9–28, here pp. 17–19.
related to political and institutional issues.6 The most recent contribution on

the subject, Thomas Brown’s 2009 ‘Lombard Religious Policy’, put an emphasis
on the exceptional nature of Lombard Arianism, because it would last until
at least the mid-seventh century, as opposed to the much earlier sixth-century
rejection of Arianism in the Burgundian, Vandal and Visigothic post-Roman
kingdoms. Brown agrees with the notion of a Lombard society in which various
religions coexisted peacefully (Paganism, Arianism, Catholic orthodoxy and
Three Chapters schism) and identifies external factors (the population of Rome,
Byzantium, the Roman papacy) as driving forces of transformational processes
in the religious history of the kingdom.7
Even a brief review of the evidence of Arianism in the sources can do little but
expose how few these attestations actually are in number, and how difficult to
understand and explain. To begin with, there is no Arian theological or liturgical
manuscript for all the Lombard history on Italian soil (568–774); Arianism is
also curiously absent in legislative sources, nor is it present in public or private
charters, notably during the sixth and seventh centuries. What little evidence is
left then can be found in historiographical accounts and other narratives, but, as
stressed time and again in the aforementioned debates, these can be interpreted
in many and varied ways, leading to some controversy.
For example, in an account of the embassy sent by the Lombard King
Audoin to the Roman Emperor Justinian in 548, Procopius of Caesarea makes it
a central argument in the negotiations that the Lombards were Catholics unlike
their common enemy, the Arian Gepids.8 Yet only a few years later, in 560,
Nicetius of Trier sent a letter to Queen Clodosvinta, wife of Alboin, revealing
the influence of the Arian clergy over the Lombard kingdom in Pannonia and
the contacts between the monarchy and the Arian clergy in the Ostrogothic
kingdom of Italy.9 By contrast, later evidence in royal epistolae does not betray
such ambiguity, but still remains remarkably vague: the letter of Childebert
II, Frankish king of Austrasia, to Laurentius II, the bishop of Milan exiled in
Genoa, dated between 587 and 589, finally makes the first mention of the
6
Claire Sotinel, ‘The Three Chapters and the Transformation of Italy’, in Celia Chazelle
and Catherine Cubitt (eds), The Crisis of the Oikoumene: The Three Chapters and the Failed Quest
for Unity in the Sixth-Century Mediterranean (Turnhout, 2007), pp. 85–120; Claudio Azzara,
‘Il regno longobardo in Italia e i Tre Capitoli’, in Chazelle and Cubitt, Crisis of the Oikoumene,
pp. 209–21; Walter Pohl, ‘Heresy in Secundus and Paul the Deacon’, in Chazelle and Cubitt,
Crisis of the Oikoumene, pp. 243–64.
7
Thomas S. Brown, ‘Lombard Religious Policy in the Late Sixth and Seventh Centuries:
the Roman Dimension’, in Giorgio Ausenda, Paolo Delogu, and Chris Wickham (eds), The
Langobards before the Frankish Conquest. An Ethnographic Perspective (Woodbridge, 2009),
pp. 289–308, here pp. 293–5.
8
Proc. BG 6.14.9; cf. Mores, ‘Streghe’, pp. 330–31.
9
Epistola Austrasica 8 (ed. Gundlach, MGH Epp. 3, pp. 119–22).
gentem Langobardorum religioni ac fidei iniquissimae perfidam (‘the perfidious

Lombard people’s mistaken religion and belief ’), however fails to specify what
faith exactly is meant by that. And when the Visigothic King Sisebut chastises
his Lombard equal Adaloald for falling back to the Arian heresy, he most likely
mistook Arianism for the Three Chapters schismatic confession.10
Frankish sources of the sixth and seventh century never bring up Arianism
in relation to Lombard rulers or aristocratic elites: while Gregory of Tours
overtly affirms, on several occasions, the adherence to Arianism of the Vandalic,
Suebic, Burgundian, Visigothic and Ostrogothic kings, he falls completely silent
on the Lombards. And although Fredegar exhaustively relates the different
successions to the throne through the sixth and seventh century, again there is
no information on whether these kings and queens were Arian believers or not.
Interestingly he does inform us about the general Christian values displayed by
queen Gundiperga, rather than those of his mother Theodelind – ‘traditionally’
the Catholic Lombard queen ‘par excellence’.11
The works of Pope Gregory I include many references to the religious choices
of the Lombards, but in most cases they are described as pagans, not as Arians.
Moreover, these texts are built upon fragments of the Bible aimed at demonising
political enemies, and therefore do not necessarily reflect the religious reality of
the time: actually, they remain somehow vague and general. However Gregory
tells the story of the Arian bishop of Spoleto who had tried to occupy a Catholic
church and was struck with blindness as a divine warning not to bother Catholic
places of worship. At first glance the story seems to rely on typical narrative
patterns of hagiography, but Stefano Gasparri saw in it an indication of the
gradual rapprochement between the duchy of Spoleto and the Roman Catholic
notables, which is also revealed by an episode regarding St. Savinus in Paul the
Deacon’s Historia Langobardorum. The most problematic evidence for Arianism
in Gregory’s works is his famous epistle to the Italian bishops, in which the pope
rejoices over the death of the nefandissimus King Authari, who had forbidden
the Lombards to baptise their children in Catholic ritual. Additionally Gregory
invites his bishops to convert the Lombards now. Yet even in this case, however,
Arianism is not explicitly brought up, and the complicated religious situation
in northern Italy, torn apart by the Three Chapters schism which the epistle
10
Epistola Austrasica 46 (ed. Gundlach, MGH Epp. 3, pp. 151); Epistola Wisigothica 2
(ed. Gundlach, MGH Epp. 3, pp. 662–63).
11
For Gregory of Tours’ lack of evidence on Lombard Arianism, Walter Pohl, ‘Gregory
of Tours and Contemporary Perceptions of Lombard Italy’, in Kathleen Mitchell and Ian
Wood (eds), The World of Gregory of Tours, Cultures, Beliefs and Traditions 8 (Leiden,
Boston, and Cologne, 2002), pp. 131–43. Fredegar, Chron. 4.50–1, 69–71 (ed. Krusch, SS
rer. Merov. 2, pp. 145–6, 155–6): Gundiperga regina … benigna in cunctis et pietate plenissima
christiana, aelimosinis larga, p. 145.
may refer to, does not actually permit us to automatically assume that Authari
was Arian.12
King Arioald’s Arianism is attested only by Jonas of Bobbio’s Vita Columbani,
yet another hagiographic source, but we know from the same source that this
king appealed to Pope Honorius about problems in the jurisdiction between
the Catholic bishop of Tortona and the monastery of Columbanus. Besides,
both him and his successor Rotari (‘Arian’ kings), were married to the Catholic
Gundiperga, daughter of queen Theodelind, again indicating how little their
alleged Arianism impinged on their political choices.13
Neither the Origo gentis Langobardorum, nor the Historia Langobardorum
codicis Gothani present any evidence for Arianism.14 The latter may indeed date
the end of paganism among the Lombards to the Reign of Rotari, but the only
statement to the official end of Arianism, following a decision by King Aripert
in the mid-seventh century, is found in the Carmen de synodo Ticinensi, a short
metric laudatory text underlining the efforts of the crown to ‘Christianise’ the
kingdom in the second half of the seventh century. This text starts by asserting
the legitimacy of Lombard kingship before the Lombards’ arrival in Italy, in order
to praise the rulers of the ‘Bavarian’ dynasty. Each of them would distinguish
himself with a vigorous policy of Christianisation of the kingdom: Aripert lifted
Arianism – sublimes ortus in finibus Europe / Langibardorum regale prosapia /
rex Hariberthus pius et catholicus / Arrianorum abolevit heresem / et christianam
fidem fecit crescere (‘King Aripert, pious and Catholic, abolished the Arian heresy
and increased the Christian faith’) – Perctarit forced Jews to convert, and finally
Cunipert, called piissimus / devotus fidem christianam colere / ecclesiarum ditator
et opifex (‘pious, devoted to Christian faith, founder and patron of churches’),
held a synod sanctioning the end of the Three Chapters schism and the return of
the ecclesiastical provinces of northern Italy to the Roman orthodoxy. Primarily
devised for legitimating and glorifying the ‘Bavarian’ dynasty and its members,
the text culminates in an image materialising their efforts: Cunipert sits in
heaven at the right hand of Christ. It can hardly be overlooked that all these
actions enforcing Catholicism (the abolition of Arianism, the conversion of the
Jews, and the synod of Pavia) are attested in this source only, and nowhere else.
Even Paul the Deacon diverges from this Carmen, saying that Aquileia was the
Greg. M., Epist. 1.17; cf. Gasparri, ‘Culture barbariche’; Brown, ‘Lombard Religious
12
Policy’; Claudio Azzara, ‘Gregorio Magno, i Longobardi e l’Occidente barbarico’, Bullettino

dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo e Archivio Muratoriano, 97 (1991): pp. 1–74.
13
Vita Columbani 2.9.23–4, pp. 247, 280–89.
14
For the lack of evidence of Arianism in the Origo gentis Langobardorum and the Historia
Langobardorum Codicis Gothani, see Gasparri, ‘Culture barbariche’, pp. 4–19; Pohl, ‘Heresy’,
pp. 259–61.
seat of this synod, and referring to a theological dispute that had never been
debated in it.15
Finally, the most controversial and most discussed evidence consists of the
rare notes on Arianism in Paul the Deacon’s Historia Langobardorum, written
nearly two centuries after the reported events. Paul neither mentions Arianism
among the Lombards in the sixth century (such as Authari’s prohibition of
the Catholic baptismal ceremony), nor its abolition by Aripert in the seventh.
Arianism is quite absent in the events of Grimoald’s coup d’état, while the
accusation of Arianism against duke Alahis seems to be, at the end of the seventh
century, little more than a denigrating literary topos. The evidence for Arianism
in Paul’s work is thus limited to the presentation as an Arian of king Rotari,
during whose reign a network of Arian bishops is supposed to have existed in
the kingdom’s cities; Paul also tells us the story of Anastasius, a bishop of Pavia –
actually attested in other sources – who would have converted from Arianism
to Catholicism, but who, it should be stressed, continued to act institutionally
as bishop of the kingdom’s capital just the same. According to Stefano Gasparri,
Paul knew so little about Arianism in the seventh century that he invented an
organised structure of Arian bishops widespread throughout the territory;
in fact, however, there is no other evidence of Arian bishops in the Lombard
kingdom. Lastly, if Rotari really was Arian, he certainly does not appear to have
acted or governed as such: on the contrary, the king issued diplomas for the
Catholic monastery of Bobbio, allowed the Lombard bishops to participate in
the synod of Rome in 649, and, above all, it is only after his reign that we have
evidence for a structured hierarchy of Catholic bishops in the kingdom. Paul’s
portrait of Rotari ends with the famous story of the desecration of his burial and
the intervention of St John, the official patron and defender of the Lombards. The
anecdote, albeit chararacterised by hagiographic literary patterns, nevertheless
provides an interesting reference to an Arian king’s burial in a Catholic church
with ‘traditionally pagan’ grave-goods, and it shows St John as the protector of
the monarchy in the sixth and seventh century, regardless of Arian and Catholic
factions among the aristocracy of the kingdom. Recently Walter Pohl has finally
unveiled the vagueness, errors, and lack of reliable data in Paul the Deacon’s
works on the Three Chapters schism and Arianism: Paul’s main source on these
matters was Secundus of Non’s history, focused on the Three Chapters schism –
consequently Paul also concentrated on it, never even mentioning Arianism
in the parts of the Historia Langobardorum based on Secundus. It seems both
considered the Three Chapters schism a far greater problem in the Lombard
kingdom than Arianism. Actually the only noteworthy presence of Arianism in
15
Carmen de synodo Ticinensi (ed. Waitz, MGH SS rer. Lang 1), see vv. 1–25, 31–35;
cf. Nicholas Everett, Literacy in Lombard Italy, c. 568–774, (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 262–65.
Paul’s narration concerns the mid-seventh century, i.e. the reign of Rotari, only
for it to entirely disappear afterwards.16
This review of the evidence on Lombard Arianism leads to a few concluding
remarks. In general, it is relatively safe to infer that there was no form of
‘institutional’ Arianism in the Lombard kingdom, as it could be found in the
Vandal, Visigothic, Burgundian, and Ostrogothic kingdoms, where it seems to
have served to ensure the preservation of a distinct ethnic identity among the
new military elites settled in the western territories of the Roman empire, until at
least the mid-sixth century. The scarcity of the evidence on Lombard Arianism,
its ambiguities and inconsistencies, may allow for the assumption that a clerical
and Episcopal Arian structure in the kingdom between the sixth and the seventh
century simply never existed. This assumption gains further weight by the
seeming lack of support from the ‘Arian’ kings (although there is no certainty
if these kings really were Arian) for the (equally uncertain) Arian clergy in the
kingdom.17 During the first two centuries after the Lombard arrival, we have no
evidence for any persecutions of Catholics or Arians in northern Italy, nor of any
anti-Arian theological debates, nor of any disputes over Church property related
to Arian clergy. When the very few notices in the sources on Arianism come to
an end in the middle of the seventh century, it may have effectively already been
abandoned. Paul the Deacon’s accusing the Dukes Grimoald and Alahis of being
Arians still in the second half of the seventh century is thus better interpreted as
a strategy in order to gain moral high ground against their political opposition
to the Bavarian dynasty.
The most striking characteristic of religion in the Lombard kingdom during
the sixth and seventh centuries is its remarkable openness, with the peaceful
coexistence of different religious cults and beliefs, and various possibilities of
affiliating oneself with them. Such choices of religious identity were foremost
grounded on considerations of political and social practicalities, and those of
the Lombard kings and aristocracy remained decidedly ambiguous, to be never
officially declared until at least the end of the seventh century, suggesting the
continuity of a Roman secular political and institutional system in the Italic
post-Roman kingdoms. Religion in Lombard Italy seems to be regarded as
instrumental in integrating and merging individual identities; it was not a
divisive instrument creating impenetrable borders between social groups
and individuals.
16
Paulus Diaconus Hist. Lang. 4.42–47; cf. Pohl, ‘Memory, Identity and Power’, pp. 19–21;
Gasparri, ‘Roma e i Longobardi’, pp. 225–32; Pohl, ‘Heresy’, pp. 262–3.
17
See Chapter 7 (Ralph Mathisen) in this volume.
Chapter 12
Arianism in Africa
Robin Whelan
The history of ‘Arianism’ in Africa is curious. The African Church was at

something of a remove from fourth-century Christological debate. It still played
an important role in the so-called ‘Arian Controversy’, but its initiatives were
generally directed towards its own dispute, the ‘Donatist’ schism.1 After Africa’s
conquest by the Vandals between 429 and 439, this situation was reversed. Under
Vandal rule (439–534), Africa witnessed a sustained effort to turn Homoian
Christianity into the orthodoxy of the new kingdom.2 Donatism slides out of
focus as Arianism dominates the surviving Christian literature of the period.
Finally, once the Vandal kingdom was erased by Justinian’s reconquest of 533/4
and Africa reintegrated into the Roman Empire, so too Africa’s Homoian
Christians disappear without trace.
In making sense of this narrative, most accounts turn to the Vandals, on
whose arrival and departure it hinges. Late Roman Africa plays understudy to the
movements of Geiseric’s warband in the early fifth century, the broader context
of barbarian Christianity, and the search for a moment of conversion. While the
influence of the Vandals and the milieux which produced their Christianity is
undeniable, this alternative angle of approach risks bypassing the African history
of Homoian Christianity and its heresiological shadow, Arianism. Throughout
late antiquity, both were embedded in African society and in the politics and
culture of the African Church. ‘Arianism’ did not arrive on a boat in 429.
1
Care will be taken to avoid improper use of heresiological terminology to describe
Christian groups and individuals. Catholic and Donatist are used, without scare quotes, in lieu of
better replacements. Cf. Brent D. Shaw, Sacred violence: African Christians and sectarian hatred in
the age of Augustine (Cambridge, 2011), pp. 5–6.
2
On Homoian and Arian, see Chapter 4 (Uta Heil) and the Introduction (Hanns Christof
Brennecke) in this volume. Homoian and Nicene are used here as neutral terms to describe these
two forms of Christianity. Arian is still used when considering Nicene thought on heresy and
depictions of contemporary Homoians as heretics and ‘Arian’ as shorthand for the conjoined
phenomena of Homoian Christianity and Arian heresiology.
(Not) Waiting for the Barbarians
In 325, Caecilian, bishop of Carthage for the Catholic faction favoured by

Constantine, attended the Council of Nicaea, bringing its canons back to his
province.3 The creed he signed helped to shape the self-identity of the African
Catholic Church – but not for several decades. As in the wider imperial
Church, a Nicene consensus only gradually emerged in the latter part of the
fourth century (and is generally labelled pro- or neo-Nicene in recognition).4
Before then, it is not clear that the Latin-speaking Western churches knew much
about Nicene doctrine, never mind showed strong commitment to it.5 Africa
conformed to this broader course of development. At councils at Aquileia (381),
Carthage (390 and 397) and Hippo Regius (393), African bishops expressed
the unanimous support of the province for Trinitarian doctrine and the Nicene
Creed.6 Such conciliar statements cannot tell us anything about the actual
relationship of African Christians to Nicaea, or the presence or absence of non-
Nicenes in the province. They do show that the African Catholic Church as an
institution had become stridently Nicene.
The same cannot be said for the preceding half-century. Vociferous late
fourth-century claims to Nicene orthodoxy and unanimity conceal earlier
involvement with empire-wide attempts to find a new compromise formula.
More precisely, they hide the engagement of leading African bishops with
Homoian Christianity, identified by Constantius II and many churchmen in
the 350s as the best means of unifying the church – but already denounced
by some contemporaries as Arian heresy. Africans were implicated in these
complex ecclesiastical negotiations.7 Strikingly, the two most senior bishops
of the province played central roles in the Western meeting of the twin
Richard P.C. Hanson, The search for the Christian doctrine of God: the Arian
3
controversy, 318–381 AD (Edinburgh, 1988), pp. 156–57; Jane E. Merdinger, Rome and the
African Church in the time of Augustine (New Haven, 1997), p. 115.
4
See in particular Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and its legacy: an approach to fourth-century
Trinitarian theology (Oxford, 2006), pp. 133–269, esp. 167–8, 236–40, and 260–67. Christoph
Markschies, ‘Was ist lateinischer ‘Neunizänismus’?: ein Vorschlag für eine Antwort’, ZAC, 1
(1997): pp. 73–95.
5
Daniel H. Williams, Ambrose of Milan and the end of the Arian-Nicene conflicts
(Oxford, 1995), pp. 12–8; Jörg Ulrich, ‘Nicaea and the West’, Vigiliae Christianae, 51 (1997):
pp. 10–24; Ayres, Nicaea and its legacy, pp. 135–6.
6
Aquileia (381): Gesta concilii Aquileiensis 16 (ed. Zelzer, CSEL 82.3, p. 335). Carthage
(390): Concilia Africae a. 345–525 (ed. Munier, CCSL 149, p. 12). Carthage (397) and Hippo
(393): Ibid. p. 30, cf. p. 53.
7
Ecclesiastical politics of the 350s: Hanson, The search, pp. 315–86; Williams, Ambrose
of Milan, pp. 11–37; Ayres, Nicaea and its legacy, pp. 133–66. See Chapter 4 (Uta Heil) in this
volume. Fourth-century African involvement: Uta Heil, Avitus von Vienne und die homöische
Arianism in Africa 241
ecclesiastical councils of Rimini and Seleucia (359), convoked by Constantius II

to consider a Homoian creedal document.8 Restitutus, bishop of Carthage and
Muzonius, primate of Byzacena, helped to mediate the creed’s difficult process
of acceptance. A Homoian creed became imperial orthodoxy – due in no small
part to African intervention.
The immediate reception of this creed is simply unknowable in Africa. The
next sightings of African involvement in Christological politics are the strong
pro-Nicene statements of the 380s. But there are hints of tensions in the interim.
Athanasius of Alexandria’s Ad Afros (366/7) assumes – on what information is
not stated – that African Christians needed support against contemporaries
who cited the Creed of Rimini as orthodox.9 Conflicting later treatments of
Restitutus also suggest broader repercussions. An apocryphal letter of Jerome
to Damasus (plausibly hypothesised by Donatien de Bruyne as a fifth-century
Donatist polemical tractate) attacked Restitutus, saying that he was ‘a teacher, I
do not say a disciple, of Arius … who … compelled the whole synod of Africa to
deny the church of God at Rimini’.10 The bishop was later the subject of a sermon
by Augustine on his burial, suggesting his reputation was posthumously cleansed
of any such taint.11 Something similar could be said of the African Church more
broadly. In the last decades of the fourth century, its clerics may have displayed
a united face to the world – and against their Donatist opponents – which had
not always been present.
Africa’s Catholic Church continued to define itself not only against
Donatism, but also Arianism. This is evident from the writings of Augustine
where, if not as well represented as other controversies, anti-Arian polemic and
Trinitarian doctrine were a recurring theme.12 Again and again, the bishop of
Kirche der Burgunder (Berlin, 2011), pp. 258–61. Cf. also Georges Folliet, ‘L’episcopat africain et
la crise arienne au IVe siècle’, Revue des études byzantins, 24 (1966): pp. 196–223, at p. 212.
8
On the councils of 359–60: Hanns Christof Brennecke, Studien zur Geschichte der
Homöer: der Osten bis zum Ende der homöischen Reichskirche (Tübingen, 1988), pp. 5–86;
Hanson, The search, pp. 348–86; Williams, Ambrose of Milan, pp. 11–37; Ayres, Nicaea and its
legacy, pp. 157–66. See also Chapter 4 (Uta Heil) in this volume.
9
Athanasius, Epistula ad Afros, AW II, Apologien.
10
Ps.-Hier. Epist. ad Damasum papam PLS 1, pp. 303–4. Donatien De Bruyne, ‘Une lettre
apocryphe de Jérôme fabriquée par un Donatiste’, Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft
und die Kunde der älteren Kirche, 30 (1931): pp. 70–76; PCBE I: 968–70 (Restitutus 1 and 2).
11
Possidius of Calama, Operum sancti Augustini elenchus 16.52, André Wilmart (ed.),
Miscellanea Agostiniana, vol. 2 (Rome, 1931, p. 195).
12
Overviews: Maria G. Mara, ‘Arriani, Arrius’, in Cornelius Mayer (ed.), Augustinus-Lexikon
I (Basel, 1986), pp. 449–59; Michel R. Barnes, ‘The Arians of book V, and the genre of De trinitate’,
JThS, 44 (1993): pp. 185–95; Neil B. McLynn, ‘From Palladius to Maximinus: passing the Arian
torch’, JECS, 4 (1996): pp. 485–8; Serge Lancel, Saint Augustine, trans. A. Nevill (London, 2002),
pp. 377–80; Hermann-Josef Sieben, ‘Augustins Auseinandersetzung mit dem Arianismus
Hippo channelled illustrious predecessors and conjured imaginary Arians to

refute before his congregation. Modern commentators have come to contrasting
conclusions on the extent, quality and timing of Augustine’s Arian knowledge,
and its exact relationship to genuine contemporary Homoians – noting his
tendency in the first half of his episcopate to refer to Arianism in the past
tense.13 What is incontestable is that Arianism represented a significant element
in his Christian field of vision and an error against which he often formulated
Catholic Christianity.
Augustine’s writings also bring clear evidence of Homoians in late Roman
Africa. They emerge in public debates, epistolary exchanges and dramatic
homiletic set-pieces. These varied circumstances make it difficult to characterise
neatly Homoian Christianity, while permitting a sense of the diversity of its
adherents. Some appear in military contexts. Augustine debated a Homoian
bishop, Maximinus who had travelled with an imperial army.14 He heard that
enterprising Donatists had tried to convince Homoian Gothic troops that
they shared the same faith,15 and Homoian priests might have (re-)baptised
the daughter of the comes Africae, Boniface.16 Boniface’s familial arrangements
also reflect the diversity and autonomy of worship in late-antique aristocratic
households, as with Maximus, an illustrious doctor praised for converting to
Nicene Christianity, but chastised for his dependents’ continuing Arianism.17
A Homoian imperial count, Pascentius, also challenged Augustine to a
public debate – intriguingly, the cream of Carthaginian society is said to have
spectated.18 Augustine could receive notice of Homoians from far away, as with
the Sermo Arrianorum sent by a friend from the small town of Vicus Juliani
außerhalb seiner explizit antiarianischen Schriften’, Theologie und Philosophie, 81 (2006):

pp. 181–212; Hanns Christof Brennecke, ‘Auseinandersetzung mit sogenannten “Arianern”’, in
Volker Henning Drecoll (ed.), Augustin Handbuch (Tübingen, 2007), pp. 208–12; Hanns Christof
Brennecke, ‘Augustin und der “Arianismus”’, in Therese Fuhrer (ed.), Die christlich-philosophischen
Diskurse der Spätantike: Texte, Personen, Institutionen (Stuttgart, 2008), pp. 175–88; Lewis Ayres,
Augustine and the Trinity (Cambridge, 2010), pp. 171–73.
13
Past tense: Sieben, ‘Augustins Auseinandersetzung’: pp. 188–9.
14
McLynn, ‘From Palladius to Maximinus’; cf. Ralph W. Mathisen, ‘Sigisvult the patrician,
Maximinus the Arian, and political stratagems in the Western Roman Empire c. 425–40’, EME, 8
(1999): pp. 173–96.
15
Aug., Epist. 185.1.
16
Aug., Epist. 220.4.
17
Aug., Epist. 170, esp. at 10. On elite household worship, see Kimberly Bowes, Private
worship, public values, and religious change in late antiquity (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 61–216, esp.
pp. 162–69 and pp. 189–202.
18
Aug., Epist. 238–41; Possidius, Vita Augustini 17.1–6 (ed. Bastiaensen, Scrittori greci e
latini, Vite dei santi 3, pp. 170–72).
at the southernmost extent of his diocese.19 Homoians were also closer to

home: a sermon from the years after 410 speaks of Arian peregrini (plausibly
refugees from the sack of Rome) ‘who could be in this multitude right now’;
one local Arian converted publicly in his church; others attended his debate
with Maximinus.20 Some Homoian churchmen are visible in private contexts
as dependents, but more than once individuals are described as bishops, hinting
at an institutional framework.21 These fleeting glimpses suggest autonomous or
semi-autonomous groups of Christians who had found spaces in African society
for their religious observance in spite of imperial prohibitions.22 They exhibit
striking self-confidence, challenging Augustine to debate or even seeking his
conversion to their orthodoxy.23 Homoians may not have been as significant a
Christian group as the Donatist Church, but they were an important and active
minority nonetheless. Likewise, although Arian heresy was not the first target of
African Christian polemicists, it figured consistently in their understanding of
the church and its opponents – before the Vandals had even set foot on African
soil. ‘Arianism’ in Roman Africa should not be reduced to a mere prologue.
Heresy, Persecution and Tyranny
The Vandal conquest of Africa changed ecclesiastical politics in the province.

Whereas before, the split between Catholic and Donatist Churches had been
the defining feature of Christian debate, it was now adherence to a Homoian
or Nicene confession. Across a century of Vandal rule, the Hasding dynasty
supported Homoian Christianity as the orthodoxy of their realm.24 They used
their power to assist the development of a Homoian Church in Africa. As a
necessary corollary, the Vandal kings treated the Nicene Church as a heretical
19
Sermo Arrianorum and Augustine of Hippo, Contra sermonem Arianorum (ed. Hombert,
CCSL 87 A, pp. 159–236); Lancel, Augustine, p. 378.
20
Augustine of Hippo, Tractatus in Iohannis Evangelium 40.7 (ed. Willems, CCSL 36,
p. 354); Aug. Serm. Guelf. 17.4, PLS 2: 584–85; Augustine of Hippo, Collatio cum Maximino
Arianorum episcopo 15, lines 780–88 (ed. Hombert, CCSL 87 A, pp. 464–65) with McLynn,
‘From Palladius to Maximinus’: p. 487.
21
Aug., Epist. 242.1. Maximinus: above, n. 14 (although he came from elsewhere).
22
On these laws, cf. Chapter 7 (Ralph Mathisen) in this volume: above, pp. 146–50. In
spite of CTh 16.1.4 (granting tolerance to those who professed the Creed of Rimini), Homoians
would still have been vulnerable to accusations of Arianism. After all, even those who professed
the Nicene Creed could be made into heretics.
23
Aug., Epist. 238.1–9, 240, 242.1.
24
Hilderic (523–30) granted greater tolerance to the Nicene Church: e.g. Andrew
H. Merrills and Richard Miles, The Vandals (Malden, 2010), p. 201. Nevertheless, nowhere is it
said that he personally adhered to Nicene Christianity or proclaimed it the orthodox faith.
sect. Repeatedly, edicts proscribed its worship, bishops and clerics were sent
into exile, adherents ordered to convert, property confiscated, and the proceeds
given to the ‘orthodox’ Church.25 Catholic supremacy was overturned. The still
functioning machinery of the late Roman state in Africa was mobilised to make
Homoian Christianity into orthodoxy.26
African Nicene clerics responded with hostility. It is their voices (with
very few exceptions) which can still be heard, and in great numbers.27 Political
support for Homoian Christianity incited a volley of polemical anti-Arian
literature unparalleled in the post-Roman West.28 The kings, the new Vandal
military elite and other adherents to Homoian Christianity were often called
Arians; Nicene authors frequently sought to define, explain and refute Arianism.
In addition, familiar modes of apologetic Christian discourse were employed
to characterise contemporary events. The actions of the Vandal kings and the
Homoian Church they backed were portrayed as persecution.29 The kings were
thus cast as illegitimate tyrants, equals of hated monarchs of biblical and early
Christian history.30 Nicene Christians were the suffering martyrs and confessors
of the true faith. This is Vandal Africa as presented by a number of influential
Nicene texts, not least Victor of Vita’s History of the persecution of the African
province, the only detailed narrative account of Vandal rule.31 For these authors,
Homoian Christianity was a heretical creed enforced by persecuting tyrants.
This Arian persecution has cast a long shadow over Vandal Africa. An earlier
generation of scholarship – often itself grounded in Catholic conviction – took
these claims at face value. Vandal rule was characterised as a reign of terror: a
monolithically Catholic population suffered under the domination of ‘fanatical’
Arian overlords. Others sought to defend the Vandal kings by blaming the clerics
for their own ill-treatment, but this still meant acceptance that persecution
See best: Jonathan Conant, Staying Roman: conquest and identity in Africa and the
25
Mediterranean, 439–700 (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 161–70.

26
Government machinery: Arnold Hugh Martin Jones, The later Roman Empire, 284–602:
an administrative, social and economic history 1 (Oxford, 1964), pp. 259–60; Merrills and Miles,
Vandals, pp. 78–82; Conant, Staying Roman, pp. 44–46 and pp. 143–46.
27
For Homoian voices, below: pp. 249–53.
28
Conant, Staying Roman, pp. 173–76.
29
Danuta Shanzer, ‘Intentions and audiences: history, hagiography, martyrdom and
confession in Victor of Vita’s Historia persecutionis’, in Andrew H. Merrills (ed.), Vandals, Romans
and Berbers: new perspectives on late antique North Africa (Aldershot, 2004), pp. 271–90; Éric
Fournier, ‘Victor of Vita and the Vandal “persecution”: interpreting exile in late antiquity’
(University of California unpubl. diss., 2008); Merrills and Miles, Vandals, pp. 190–92.
30
Tankred Howe, Vandalen, Barbaren und Arianer bei Victor von Vita, Studien zur Alten
Geschichte 7 (Frankfurt, 2007), pp. 125–32, pp. 255–63.
31
Vict. Vit. HP (ed. Lancel). On Victor, see esp. Howe, Victor von Vita; Fournier, ‘Victor
of Vita’.
was widespread.32 Recently, Vandal Africa has undergone a thoroughgoing

rehabilitation, with important implications for how its Homoian Christianity
should be understood. To challenge the idea of persecution as a universal feature
of life under the Vandals, historians have moved in several complementary
directions. Firstly, they have limited the chronological and geographical extent
of coercive state interventions in ecclesiastical politics. In a series of important
articles, Yves Modéran argued that the articulation and enforcement of anti-
Nicene measures was at most intermittent and frequently limited to the province
of Africa Proconsularis. These measures found their broadest and strongest
expression at the end of the reign of Huneric (477–84) – not coincidentally,
the culmination of Victor of Vita’s History.33 But Huneric had earlier conciliated
the Nicenes, and the reigns of Geiseric (427/428–77), Gunthamund (484–96)
and Thrasamund (496–523) also saw cycles of greater and lesser activity and
enforcement.34 The broader late-antique context is useful here. The likelihood
of the articulation and application of anti-heretical legislation was socially
and politically contingent and varied considerably.35 Coercion in favour of the
Homoian Church and against the Nicene was far from ever-present.
This coercion can in itself be recontextualised. Persecution is a deeply
problematic concept. Any action prejudicial to ‘true’ Christianity could
be, and usually was, construed thus. Ascriptions of persecution against
‘orthodox’ Christians to ‘heretical’ Christians always bear a double layer of
subjectivity. As Éric Fournier has demonstrated, the Vandal kings adopted late
Roman methods to prosecute the heretics of their realm.36 The high watermark
of religious coercion also represented the most intense engagement of any
Vandal ruler with the imperial political legacy. Huneric called an ecclesiastical
conference at Carthage for the year 484 to resolve Homoian-Nicene conflict
(undoubtedly a re-enactment of the Catholic-Donatist meeting of 411).37 After
32
Catholic and anti-clerical scholarship: Yves Modéran, ‘Une guerre de religion: les deux
Eglises d’Afrique à l’époque Vandale’, AnTard, 11 (2003): pp. 21–3. ‘Fanatical Arianism’: L. Johan
Van Der Lof, ‘Der fanatische Arianismus der Wandalen’, Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche
Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche, 64 (1973): pp. 146–51. Broader historiography:
Merrills and Miles, Vandals, pp. 1–23.
33
Vict. Vit. HP 2.38–3.60.
34
Most recently Modéran, ‘Une guerre de religion’: pp. 23–25, with earlier work at no. 25
and 29.
35
Above all: Caroline Humfress, Orthodoxy and the courts in late antiquity (Oxford, 2007),
pp. 217–68.
36
Fournier, ‘Victor of Vita’, esp. pp. 212–63.
37
Events around the Conference (in two versions): Vict. Vit. HP 2.38–3.14. 411: Brent
D. Shaw, ‘African Christianity: disputes, definitions and Donatists’, in Malcolm R. Greenshields
and Thomas A. Robinson (eds), Orthodoxy and heresy in religious movements: discipline and dissent
(Lampeter, 1992), pp. 5–34 (repr. in Brent D. Shaw, Rulers, nomads and Christians in Roman
the conference, he published an edict proscribing the Nicenes as ‘Homoousians’

(the heretics of ὁμοούσιος) throughout the kingdom. This law drew extensively
and explicitly upon late Roman legislation and particularly Honorius’ 412 edict
of unity, promulgated following the 411 conference.38 The motives of Vandal
rulers are better understood as attempts to fulfil Christian expectations of post-
Constantinian monarchs than as the malevolent actions of fanatical persecutors.
Like their predecessors, they sought to ensure the orthodoxy of the territory
they ruled.
Finally, it is stressed that ecclesiastical politics were only part of Vandal rule,
and not necessarily fundamental to how all Africans perceived them. These
policies have fruitfully been set within Vandal power politics.39 The kings’ self-
presentation was also broader than simply pious Christian rule. Triumphal
kingship, imperial epithets and Carthaginian imagery are evident in edicts,
coinage and the panegyrics of the African elite.40 This image management,
backed by skilful political manoeuvring, seems to have worked. After initial
conflict, the Hasdings were remarkably successful in co-opting a significant
segment of the Romano-African aristocracy within their new ruling class.41
This is the backdrop against which Nicene apologetics should be read. Their
complaints were less a reflection of a broader African response than a refraction
of it, motivated by fear regarding the consequences of unqualified acquiescence.
North Africa (Aldershot, 1995), XI); Shaw, Sacred violence, pp. 544–86; Erika T. Hermanowicz,
Possidius of Calama: a study of the North African episcopate at the time of Augustine (Oxford, 2008),
pp. 188–220. 484 as re-enactment: Howe, Victor von Vita, pp. 275–76; Fournier, ‘Victor of Vita’,
pp. 113–5 and pp. 253–60.
38
Vict. Vit. HP 3.3–14. Compare 3.10 with CTh 16.5.52 preface, ed. Theodor Mommsen
and Paul M. Meyer (Berlin, 1905), p. 872. See best: Mechtild Overbeck, Untersuchungen zum
Afrikanischen Senatsadel in der Spätantike (Frankfurt, 1973), pp. 77–79; Serge Lancel, Histoire de
la persécution vandale en Afrique (Paris, 2002), pp. 177–79, pp. 372–80; and now Éric Fournier,
‘Victor of Vita and the Conference of 484: a pastiche of 411?’, SP, 62 (2013): pp. 395–408.
39
Peter Heather, ‘Christianity and the Vandals in the reign of Geiseric’, in John Drinkwater
and Benet Salway (eds), Wolf Liebeschuetz reflected: essays presented by colleagues, friends &
pupils (London, 2007), pp. 137–46; Roland Steinacher, ‘Gruppen und Identitäten. Gedanken
zur Bezeichnung “vandalisch”’, in Guido M. Berndt and Roland Steinacher (eds), Das Reich der
Vandalen und seine (Vor-)Geschichten (Vienna, 2008), pp. 249–51; Merrills and Miles, Vandals,
p. 181; Roland Steinacher, ‘Der vandalische Königshof als Ort der öffentlichen religiösen
Auseinandersetzung’, in Matthias Becher and Alheydis Plassmann (eds), Streit am Hof im frühen
Mittelalter (Bonn, 2011), pp. 49–56.
40
Frank M. Clover, ‘Felix Carthago’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 40 (1986): pp. 1–16;
Steinacher, ‘Gruppen und Identitäten’, pp. 256–58; Merrills and Miles, Vandals, pp. 70–73;
Steinacher, ‘Der vandalische Königshof ’, pp. 61–66; Conant, Staying Roman, pp. 43–47,
pp. 64–6, pp. 146–59, pp. 183–84.
41
Ibid., pp. 130–95. Merrills and Miles, Vandals, pp. 78–82, pp. 219–27.
Critical reading of Nicene texts and interrogation of their assumptions has

produced much more sensitive readings of Vandal religious policies. These
conclusions can and should be pushed further. All three revisionist manoeuvres
follow Victor of Vita by tying Homoian Christianity and Arianism closely to the
Vandals and their political decisions. In considering the Homoian confession
in Africa in its own right, it is profitable to decouple it from both Vandal
Christianity and Vandal power. Homoian Christianity neither was, nor was
perceived as, inherently barbarian or Vandal in fifth- and sixth-century Africa.42
The impression of two coterminous ethnic and religious groups conveyed by
Victor of Vita’s History is an apologetic construct and one which Victor’s own text
undermines.43 The Vandals were never the only Homoians in Africa. There were
Homoians amongst the Romano-African population even before their arrival
(although Geiseric’s warband contained the most prominent, and probably the
largest, group of Homoians in 430s Africa). Over the Vandal century, there is
evidence for an increasing adherence of Romano-Africans, both lay and clerical,
to Homoian Christianity.44 Victor’s reference to ‘Catholic’ Vandal confessors
reinforces the point that confessional boundaries did not match up to ethnic
ones, which themselves were increasingly blurred.45 Of course, contemporary
perceptions of group definition are still important even if misconceived. Yet
even here Homoians and Vandals are normally distinguished. Vandal kings
and Homoian clerics sought to gain adherents amongst the Romano-African
population.46 When Huneric’s edict of 484 uses ‘us’ and ‘them’, he means ‘true
Christians’ and ‘Homoousian heretics’ – not Vandals and Romans.47 There
is some evidence that this faith represented for some Vandals an important
element of their identity, but it does not follow that ‘Vandalness’ was crucial
to a Homoian Christian.48 From the other side, a number of Nicene writers do
See Chapter 5 (Hanns Christof Brennecke) in this volume.

42
Peter Heather, ‘The barbarian in late antiquity: image, reality and transformation’, in
43
Richard Miles (ed.), Constructing identities in late antiquity (London, 1999), p. 245 and p. 248;
Shanzer, ‘Intentions and audiences’, pp. 286–7; Howe, Victor von Vita, pp. 120–82; Fournier,
‘Victor of Vita’, pp. 205–11; Conant, Staying Roman, pp. 180–5.
44
Conant, Staying Roman, p. 172 for references.
45
Vict. Vit. HP 3.38; Howe, Victor von Vita, pp. 156–59. Blurred boundaries: Steinacher,
‘Gruppen und Identitäten’, pp. 252–6; Merrills and Miles, Vandals, pp. 83–108; Steinacher, ‘Der
vandalische Königshof ’, pp. 66–73; Conant, Staying Roman, pp. 47–66; Philipp von Rummel,
‘Where have all the Vandals gone? Migration, Ansiedlung und Identität der Vandalen im Spiegel
archäologischer Quellen aus Nordafrika’, in Berndt and Steinacher (eds), Reich der Vandalen,
pp. 151–82.
46
Modéran, ‘Une guerre de religion’, esp. pp. 36–42; Shanzer, ‘Intentions and audiences’,
pp. 287–8; Conant, Staying Roman, pp. 166–70, p. 172.
47
Vict. Vit. HP 3.3–14.
48
Conant, Staying Roman, pp. 180–84.
associate the Vandals/barbarians with Arianism. But only Victor makes Arianism
fundamentally barbarian and Catholicism Roman. Other Nicene authors
preserve confession and ethnicity as separate categories, and most discussions
of Arian heresy do not even mention Vandals or barbarians.49 For most Nicene
clerics, Arianism had enough cultural force: it did not need to be ‘barbarised’ for
them to make their point. For all parties in this Christian conflict, the matter at
stake was the true Christian faith. Ethnicity and Romanness might sometimes
enter the equation, but its key term was orthodoxy.
Similarly, Homoian Christianity should be set at a remove from Vandal
power. Nicene polemic often emphasised the close relationship between Arian
Church and Vandal court. Arian clerics are depicted as a royal coterie and worldly
power is often adduced as a motive for adherence.50 The broader late-antique
and specifically African Christian inheritance renders such claims intrinsically
suspicious. Accusations of improper association with secular power were
commonly used to delegitimise rival Christian groups.51 Given the inevitable
implication of the church in late-antique politics, such claims were all too easily
made;52 but however closely allied, church and state always represented separate
bodies with divergent interests. The Homoian Church of Vandal Africa is no
exception. It represented an autonomous institution throughout the Vandal
period.53 While some of its clerics possessed considerable political influence,
this did not make them creatures of the king. Neither can the Homoian Church
be presented as a homogeneous bloc. Homoian practitioners can be seen in a
range of contexts divorced from the palace at Carthage: geographically or
socially distant, or engaged in more pastoral activities.54 This is not to deny the
A concise survey: Howe, Victor von Vita, pp. 147–53.

49
Homoian clerics as court creatures: Vict. Vit HP 1.19–21, 1.43–44,

50
1.48, 2.8–9, 2.13, 3.1, 3.29–30, 3.43, 3.54; V.Fulg. (ed. Lapeyre, p. 43, pp. 103–7). Arianism
and secular power: e.g. Vigilius Thapsensis (Ps.), Contra Varimadum Arianum libri 3, praef. 22–5
(ed. Schwank, CCSL 90, p. 9); Fulgentius of Ruspe, Psalmus abecedarius, lines 288–92 (ed. Isola,
Corona patrum 9, p. 52).
51
Excellent synthesis: Michael Gaddis, There is no crime for those who have Christ: religious
violence in the Christian Roman empire, (Berkeley, CA, 2005), esp. pp. 68–130.
52
Michael Gaddis, ‘The political Church: religion and the state’, in Philip Rousseau (ed.), A
companion to late antiquity (Malden, 2009), p. 512.
53
Modéran, ‘Une guerre de religion’.
54
Homoian sermons: Fastidiosus, Sermo (= an attachment to Fulgentius of Ruspe,
Epist. 9, ed. Fraipont, CCSL 91, pp. 280–3); the plausibly Vandal African Commentarius in
Iob (ed. Steinhauser, CSEL 96), with Leslie Dossey, ‘The last days of Vandal Africa: an Arian
commentary on Job and its historical context’, JTS, 54 (2003): pp. 60–138. Also attributed
to 380s Milan: Commentarius (ed. Steinhauser, CSEL 96, pp. 9–47). Theological texts: below,
n.78. Charity: Modéran, ‘Une guerre de religion’: pp. 41–42.; Shanzer, ‘Intentions and audiences’,
pp. 287–88 with n. 134.
importance of Homoian orthodoxy as a political issue for Vandal kings, nor their
crucial role in setting the terms of ecclesiastical conflict. But, as Yves Modéran
forcefully argued, Vandal Africa’s ‘guerre de réligion’ was fought, not between a
state and a church, but between two churches:55 Christian interest groups which
sought political favour for its obvious benefits but often acted independently of
king and court.
African Churches
In the century following Constantine’s dramatic conversion, Africa became

accustomed to ecclesiastical conflict. The quarrel started by rival ordinations in
Carthage following the Great Persecution snowballed into a contest over the
identity of the church, which profoundly affected politics, society and culture in
the province.56 Parallel ecclesiastical hierarchies developed and grew ever larger.57
These two institutions were theoretically unified in 412, but such a merger could
hardly happen overnight. Tensions are evident right up to the Vandal conquest.58
Nevertheless, flesh and blood ‘Donatists’ disappear after 430, and so, at least for
modern historians, ends an intractable dispute.59
The dispute between Homoian and Nicene ecclesiastical factions was not a
replay of this great schism. The Catholics and Donatists cannot straightforwardly
be mapped onto the new parties,60 and many aspects of the new contest
were different. Yet much can still be gained by keeping these earlier African
Modéran, ‘Une guerre de religion’.
55
See Hermanowicz, Possidius, pp. 83–228; Shaw, Sacred violence. William Hugh Frend,
56
The Donatist Church: a movement of protest in Roman North Africa (Oxford, 1952) is still best for
narrative orientation.
57
Leslie Dossey, Peasant and empire in Christian North Africa (Berkeley, CA, 2010),
pp. 125–41; Shaw, Sacred violence, p. 354, pp. 569–73.
58
Serge Lancel, ‘Le sort des évêques et des communautés donatistes après la Conférence de
Carthage en 411’, in Cornelius Mayer and Karl Heinz Chelius (eds), Internationales Symposion
über den Stand der Augustinus-Forschung (Würzburg, 1989), pp. 149–67; Shaw, Sacred violence,
p. 803 on an important funerary inscription.
59
Donatist disappearance (and strange reappearance in 590s): Shaw, ‘African Christianity:
disputes, definitions and Donatists’, p. 33; Robert A. Markus, Gregory the Great and his world
(Cambridge, 1997), pp. 188–202.
60
Compare Fournier, ‘Victor of Vita’, pp. 117–18, pp. 154–63; Éric Fournier, ‘Rebaptism
as a ritual of cultural integration’, in David Brakke, Deborah M. Deliyannis, and Edward Watts
(eds), Shifting cultural frontiers in late antiquity (Aldershot, 2012), pp. 243–54. (Donatists to
Homoians); with Frend, Donatist Church, p. 301; Markus, Gregory, pp. 191–3; Conant, Staying
Roman, p. 180, p. 184. (Donatists to Catholics); and cf. Jonathan K. Parsons, ‘The African
Catholic Church under the Vandals, 429–533’, (unpubl. diss., University of London, 1994), p. 43,
pp. 56–60; Howe, Victor von Vita, p. 263, n. 93.
ecclesiastical politics in mind. The approaches developed in excellent studies of

the Donatist schism are useful for the analysis of similar phenomena in Vandal
Africa. Both conflicts inhabited the same African environment, albeit one which
changed over the fifth century. Fundamentally, many arguments, strategies and
tactics from that previous conflict were re-used under the Vandals.61 This should
not be surprising, as once again competing claims were made to ecclesiastical
status in Africa.
The major structural difference, and the greatest area of uncertainty, regards
the shape and extent of the Homoian Church. Until the crucial interjection
of imperial power, the Catholic and Donatist factions were relatively evenly
matched.62 The extant literary and archaeological evidence reveals very little
about the size and structure of the Homoian church hierarchy in Vandal Africa,
but it seems likely that it was always smaller than the notional full strength of
a Nicene Church which listed 459 bishops in 484.63 This might suggest that
the Homoian Church was considerably the weaker party. Then again, the
not infrequent absence of Nicene bishops through exile and prohibitions on
ordination, the threat of legal sanction and – if Yves Modéran’s interpretation
of a gnomic abbreviation is correct – the transfer of 88 Nicene bishops would
lessen this imbalance.64 Moreover, it should be noted that Nicene writers seeking
to belittle their opponents emphasised their weakness outside Africa (a classic
anti-Donatist argument) rather than inside the kingdom.65 The frustrating
obliqueness of Nicene texts regarding the parallel Homoian organisation
inhibits the sort of carefully geographically and chronologically differentiated
account which can be undertaken for the Donatist schism. What can be said
is that the Homoians were sufficiently numerous and widespread, even as a
minority church, that their ecclesiastical claims worried their opponents.66
While this contest for African Christianity can rarely be set in a concrete time
and place, Nicene texts make it evident that it had practical consequences similar
to late Roman Africa. Charity was an important concern for both parties as they
61
For a more detailed treatment of this issue, see Robin Whelan, ‘African controversy:
the inheritance of the Donatist schism in Vandal Africa’, JEH, 65.3 (2014), forthcoming.
62
For a concise illustration: Shaw, Sacred violence, pp. 809–11.
63
Notitia provinciarum et civitatum Africae (ed. Lancel, Collection des universités de
France, série latine 368, pp. 221–72).
64
Exile and prohibitions: above, n. 29. In the Notitia provinciarum et civitatum Africae 88
bishops are listed as prbt. Yves Modéran, ‘La Notitia provinciarum et civitatum Africae et l’histoire
du royaume vandale’, AnTard, 14 (2006): pp. 165–85 persuasively suggested that this abbreviation
(most likely peribit = periuit) stood for spiritual death, i.e. conversion.
65
See below.
66
E.g. Fulgentius (Ps.), Liber de Trinitate 1–5 (ed. Fraipont, CCSL 90, pp. 239–43).
sought to build and maintain Christian followings.67 The politics of church

occupation and use also seem important.68 Unfortunately, outside Carthage, it is
impossible to say whether it was common to have Homoian and Nicene bishops,
churches and congregations in the same city – as in the Donatist schism – or
if the norm was a church or churches occupied solely by one or the other.69
Nicene admonitions to their congregations not to attend Homoian churches
imply that some African Christians may have had a choice. Their repetition also
suggests that some previous or continuing members of Nicene congregations
were in fact defying them – although these Christians may not have thought it
a transgression, especially if the only church in a settlement were the purview
of a Homoian cleric.70 Both sides sought to mobilise and monopolise Africa’s
Christian population; as ever, the firm communal boundaries of clerical rhetoric
were easier said than accomplished.
Crucial to the conflict was self-representation through sermons, tractates and
petitions. Like the Catholics and Donatists, Homoian and Nicene writers strove
for recognition that they were the true church of Africa and their opponents
were heretics. The balance of surviving material tilts heavily in the Nicenes’
favour, but again this one-sidedness is unrepresentative: the fragmentary extant
Homoian texts represent only a segment of a much larger set of tracts and public
debate encounters mentioned by their Nicene opponents.71 Just as much as
67
Nicene charity and miracle-working: e.g. Vict. Vit. HP 2.6–7, 2.33, 2.47–57.
Homoian charity.
68
E.g. Vict. Vit. HP 1.15–16, 1.41–42; Laterculus regum Vandalorum et Alanorum a. 496,
Roland Steinacher (ed.), ‘The so-called Laterculus regum Vandalorum et Alanorum: a sixth-
century addition to Prosper Tiro’s Chronicle?’, in Andrew H. Merrills (ed.), Vandals, Romans and
Berbers: new perspectives on late antique North Africa (Aldershot, 2004), p. 165. See Chapter 9
(Ralf Bockmann) in this volume.
69
Shaw, Sacred violence, p. 354 estimates 230 sees with both Catholic and Donatist bishops
in late Roman Africa. Rival Nicene and Homoian churches in Carthage: Conant, Staying Roman.
For the fundamental problem of identification: Anna Leone, Changing townscapes in North
Africa from late antiquity to the Arab conquest (Bari, 2007), pp. 149–54. Cf. the Homoian bishop,
Victorinus at Ammaedara (Haïdra); it is unclear whether he had a contemporary Nicene rival.
70
Merrills and Miles, Vandals, pp. 194–96.
71
Surviving Homoian writings: Fastidiosus, Sermo; Fulgentius of Ruspe, Dicta
regis Trasamundi et responsiones Fulgentii (ed. Fraipont, CCSL 91, pp. 65–94); Vict. Vit.
HP 2.39, 3.3–14; and possibly Commentarius in Iob (ed. Steinhauser, CSEL 96). Lost Homoian
texts (normally referenced during rebuttal by Nicene authors): Vigilius Thapsensis (Ps.), Contra
Varimadum Arianum libri 3, praef.1–5 (ed. Schwank, CCSL 90, pp. 4–5); Vigilius Thapsensis,
Contra Arianos, Sabellianos, Photinianos dialogus 2.45, cf. praef., PL 62, 226D, 179C; Fulgentius,
Contra Fabianum (ed. Fraipoint, CCSL 91 A, pp. 761–866); V.Fulg. 21. The late fourth-century
Homoian bishop Palladius of Ratiaria’s work against Ambrose of Milan was also circulating:
Vig. Dial. 2.50 with Roger Gryson, Scolies ariennes sur la Concile d’Aquilée, SC 267 (Paris, 1980,
pp. 80–81). Public debates: Gennadius, De viris inlustribus 98 (ed. Richardson, p. 95); V.Fulg. 20.
their opponents in Vandal Africa – not to mention their predecessors in Roman

Africa – Homoians were keen to stress the orthodoxy of their faith and church.72
A deacon called Fastidiosus even claimed their Catholicity.73 Such statements
represented an entry-level requirement for legitimacy within the Christian
communities of late antiquity. Rarely could Christian disputants assume their
orthodoxy would be tacitly assumed.
Genuine doctrinal differences separated the two groups of clerics and shaped
their institutional identities. The specific issues which split them and the ways
authors presented these divergences are familiar from late fourth-century Italy
and early fifth-century Africa.74 In their polemical writings, the two sides appear
as the successors to Nicene-Homoian conflict in the Latin West. Nicene authors
drew on a rich tradition of anti-Arian heresiology to combat their opponents.
They sought inspiration from the actions, words and stratagems of heroic Father
figures like Athanasius of Alexandria, Ambrose of Milan and Augustine of
Hippo.75 In their surviving writings, Homoians also took up this fourth- and
early fifth-century inheritance. Huneric’s edict of 484 in their support explicitly
refers to the joint council of Rimini-Seleucia (359), whose creed represented
the touchstone of orthodox doctrine for Homoians in the late Roman West.76
Intermingled with confident statements of orthodoxy come attacks on the
‘Homoousian’ heretics by whom true Christianity was particularly threatened.
This heresiological label had a long history within Homoian circles as, of course,
did debate over ὁμοούσιος itself.77 This term, bound up with arguments about
the Creeds of Nicaea (325) and Rimini (359), also seems to have been a crucial
part of this debate.78 The issues which had always separated orthodox Christians
72
Fastidiosus, Sermo; Fulgentius, Dicta regis Trasamundi 1–9, (ed. Fraipoint, CCSL 91, 91A,
pp. 568–80); Vict. Vit. HP 2.39, 3.5, 3.12, 3.14. See too Commentarius in Iob, esp. 1.73–5.
73
Fastidiosus, Sermo 3.43–4, 5.88–90; cf. Fulgentius, Epistulae 9: Victoris 4.72–3
(ed. Fraipoint, CCSL 91, 91A, p. 279). See too Vict. Vit. HP 2.3–4, 2.23–4, 3.1.
74
Nicenes and Homoians in Italy: McLynn, Ambrose of Milan: church and court in a
Christian capital (Berkeley, CA, 1994); Williams, Ambrose of Milan.
75
Athanasius: Vig. Dial. (a critical edition is in preparation by Pierre-Marie Hombert
for CCSL). Ambrose: Ibid. 2.50; Fulgentius (Ps.), Liber de Trinitate 3.85–96. Augustine’s
influence is implicit throughout Vandal-era Nicene texts; more explicitly: Collatio Augustini cum
Pascentio Ariano (ed. Müller, Weber, and Weidmann). See also the Introduction (Hanns Christof
Brennecke) in this volume.
76
Vict. Vit. HP 3.5, 3.12. Creed of Rimini: Chapter 4 (Uta Heil) in this volume.
77
‘Homoousian’ as a name Homoians commonly called Nicenes: e.g. Augustine of Hippo,
Contra Iulianum opus imperfectum 1.75 (ed. Zelzer, CSEL 85, pp. 91–92).
78
‘Homoousian’ and ὁμοούσιος in Vandal Africa: Fulgentius (Ps.), Liber de
Trinitate 2; Fulgentius, Dicta regis Trasamundi 568–666; Fastidiosus, Sermo 2.36–43; Fulgentius,
Epistulae 9.1.17–18; Vict. Vit. HP 2.39, 3.4, 3.12; Collatio Augustini cum Pascentio Ariano 4, 18
and passim; V.Fulg. 21; Commentarius in Iob 1.75. Nicaea and Rimini: Fulgentius (Ps.), Liber de
Trinitate 3.
from Arians and Homoousians were once more used by clerics to draw the
boundaries of their communities. This was a conflict fundamentally grounded
in the fourth-century ecclesiastical debates which had first defined the divergent
Christian identities of both groups of clerics.
It is important to emphasise that the same issues characterised encounters
between Augustine and his Homoian opponents.79 The inheritance of the
Donatist schism similarly gave Vandal church conflict an African tinge.80
Nicenes often complained that Homoians rebaptised Christians who joined
their congregations from Nicene ones.81 This Homoian practice may stem from
the influence of their African Christian environment: the baptism of those
already baptised by clerics in some way compromised had long been practised
in Africa, in particular by Donatists. It was also carried out at least once by
Homoians in Augustine’s time. Then again, it may simply reflect broader trends
in early Christianity, as rebaptism appears in many contexts across the late-
antique Mediterranean.82 What is definitively African is the emphasis Nicene
writers placed on it. Catholic portrayals of rebaptism as a heretical praxis had
been critical in convincing the imperial court that Donatists were heretics, not
schismatics, and thus subject to imperial anti-heretical legislation.83 Now, the
heirs of Augustine and Possidius made rebaptism central to their new opponents’
heresy. Another anti-Donatist argument was similarly re-used. Optatus and
Augustine had repeatedly affirmed that the Catholic Church had to fill the
whole world to fulfil Scripture, whereas the Donatists only inhabited Africa.84
In the Vandal period, the same point was made of Africa’s Arians.85 Homoians
too engaged with the cultural heritage of African ecclesiastical conflict. In his
sermon, Fastidiosus carved a via media for orthodoxy between Homoousians
and Donatists, and the Vandal King Huneric staged his own re-enactment of
the Conference of 411.86 Africa’s long tradition of Christian disputation had not
been forgotten; it helped to shape the ecclesiastical culture of the two churches
of Vandal Africa as they fought for supremacy.
79
Brennecke, ‘Auseinandersetzung’, pp. 210–12.
80
On all this: Whelan, ‘African controversy’.
81
On rebaptism in Vandal Africa: Fournier, ‘Rebaptism’.
82
Everett Ferguson, Baptism in the early church: history, theology, and liturgy in the first five
centuries, (Grand Rapids, MI, 2009), p. 451, p. 470, pp. 575–76, p. 761.
83
On this turn from schism to heresy, see esp. Humfress, Orthodoxy and the courts,
pp. 266–8; Hermanowicz, Possidius, p. 89, pp. 97–155; Shaw, Sacred violence, pp. 532–9.
84
E.g. Robert A. Markus, Saeculum: history and society in the theology of St Augustine
(Cambridge, 1970), pp. 113–14; Lancel, Augustine, p. 283; Daniel E. Doyle, ‘Spread throughout
the world: hints on Augustine’s understanding of Petrine ministry’, JECS, 13 (2005): pp. 233–40.
85
Cf. Parsons, ‘African Catholic Church’, p. 156; Modéran, ‘Une guerre de religion’: p. 36.
86
Above, notes 73 and 78.
Epilogue
Vandal Africa came to an abrupt end. In 533, the imperial army under Belisarius
took Carthage with surprising ease. An insurgency led by Gelimer was soon put
down. The ousted Vandal king and his troops were shipped off to the East –
pensioned off and enlisted respectively.87 The speed with which Vandal power
folded has sometimes been read as the sign of a failed state, but military defeats
could topple even the most successful ancient and early medieval regimes.
Vandal rule cannot be judged by its ending.
Homoian Christianity also breaks off suddenly in the 530s. Justinian
returned the Nicenes to their erstwhile ascendancy and granted the return of
all church property taken over by Arians.88 There are a few hints of a continuing
presence of Homoians in Africa. Procopius alludes to Arian soldiers amongst the
occupying Eastern forces, and attributes a military revolt to a harsh anti-Arian
law.89 Ferrandus, a Nicene cleric active across the late Vandal and early Byzantine
periods, advised an imperial count, Reginus, on how to treat heretical ‘soldiers’
and what to do when sent to a region populated by heretics.90 That the creed
he supplies to Reginus is explicitly contra Arium might indicate the heretical
communities he had in mind.91 For African Catholics, Arianism remained
on the radar. Its history and associations were rhetorical weapons available to
discredit opponents in the new controversy over the Three Chapters.92
Indeed ‘Arianism’ was present in Africa from Constantius to Justinian. It
influenced African Christian culture, whether as a heresiological concept which
helped ‘Catholics’ to define their church, or in the form of Christians understood
by those Catholics as the distant descendants of Arius. These conjoined histories –
of Homoian Christianity and the heresy Nicenes understood it to be – show
considerable continuity. Catholic and Homoian clerics across the period looked
to Nicaea and Rimini as defining moments in the history of the church. Nicene
clerics in Vandal Africa drew on the legacy of Augustine and, like the bishop
of Hippo, presented their church as Catholic because Nicene. Their picture of
Arianism incorporated features of Donatist heresy and took into account the
changed circumstances of Vandal rule, both political and, sometimes, ethnic.
87
Merrills and Miles, Vandals, pp. 228–55; Conant, Staying Roman, pp. 196–99,
pp. 306–16; p. 242, p. 255.
88
Iust. Nov. 37 (ed. Schöll, Corpus juris civilis 3 pp. 244–5); Merrills and Miles, Vandals,
pp. 239–52.
89
Proc. BV 2.1.4, 2.14.12–21.
90
Ferrandus epist. 7.5.11–14 (PL 67 pp. 939A–942) D; Kate Cooper, The fall of the Roman
household (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 31–37.
91
Ferrandus epist. 7.5.12 (PL 67 p. 939 B).
92
E.g. Facundus of Hermiane, Contra Mocianum 64 (Clement and Vander Plaetse, eds,
CCSL 90 A, p. 415).
Yet this picture was still fundamentally that of the influential churchmen of the
fourth and early fifth centuries from whom they took inspiration. As to those
to whom they affixed this image, Homoian Christians were rooted in African
society from the time of Augustine at the latest, first as a small if occasionally
vociferous minority, and then as a fully fledged church. Throughout, they
stressed their own orthodoxy and their opponents’ heresy. The difference was
that, after 439, they could seek the enforcement of those views on African society.
Huneric’s justification of pro-Homoian policies using Catholic laws against the
Donatists is yet another link back to late Roman Africa. The church politics of
Vandal Africa were the product of a specifically African Christian culture which
had coalesced within the post-Constantinian Empire. It is within this culture
that the province’s Homoian Christianity, and its Arianism, must be set.
As to concrete reports regarding the fate of ‘Arians’ in Byzantine Africa,
silence reigns. The powerful heretics who had populated the pages of Nicene
polemic simply vanish, as if a mirage. Christian individuals and groups defined
as heretics with a retrospectively normative certainty often shrink in a historical
record dominated by triumphalist Catholic authors. Those were the writers
whose church survived in the following centuries and perpetuated its version of
Christianity and ecclesiastical history to the exclusion of others. Two decades
after they assembled nearly 300 bishops for a public meeting, the Donatists
similarly vanish. Just as it would be imprudent to suggest that the Vandals’ final
military defeat by Justinian’s troops defines their polity’s entire lifespan, so it
would be unwise to argue that later disappearance makes Homoian Christianity
in Vandal Africa a mere chimera. After all, absence can be just as much of an
optical allusion as presence.
Chapter 13
Arianism and Ethnic Identity in
Sixth-Century Visigothic Spain*
Manuel Koch
The traditional and still dominant view of scholars concerning ethnic identity
in sixth-century Visigothic Spain can roughly be described as follows: Ethnic
duality defining the internal structure of the Visigothic kingdom is said to be
one of its most characteristic features, at least up until the beginning of the
seventh century. Approaching the topic from this perspective, the population
of the kingdom was ethnically divided into a huge majority of so-called
Hispano-Romans, representing the established population of the peninsula
on the one hand and a minority of Visigoths, generally emigrating from Gaul
after the Visigothic defeat against the Franks in 507, on the other hand.1 As
Spanish sources from the second half of the sixth century suggest the existence
of a Visigothic identity to the leading magnates of the emerging kingdom, these
people are generally understood to be an ethnically defined elite of Visigothic
descent. Thus, according to its political and social impacts, great importance
*
I am greatly indebted to Graeme Ward who kindly read the text and improved its English.
1
Edward A. Thompson, The Goths in Spain (Oxford, 1969), pp. 114–52; Luis A. García
Moreno, ‘Gothic Survivals in the Visigothic Kingdoms of Toulouse and Toledo’, Francia, 21/1
(1994): pp. 1–15; Wolf Liebeschuetz, ‘Citizen Status and Law in the Roman Empire and the
Visigothic Kingdom’, in Walter Pohl and Helmut Reimitz (eds), Strategies of Distinction. The
Construction of Ethnic Communities (300–800), TRW 2 (Leiden, Boston, and Cologne, 1998),
pp. 130–52; Maria R. Valverde Castro, Ideología, simbolismo y ejercio del poder real en la monarquía
visigoda. Un proceso de cambio, Acta Salmanticensia. Estudios Históricos y Geográficos 110
(Salamanca, 2000), pp. 163–77; José J. Caerols, ‘El encuentro entre godos e hispanorromanos.
Un análisis filológico’, in Gianpaolo Urso (ed.), Integrazione, mescolanza, rifiuto: incontri di
popoli, lingue e culture in Europa dall’antichità all’umanesimo (Rome, 2001), pp. 199–238; Isabel
Velázquez, ‘Pro patriae gentisquae Gothorum statu’, in Hans-Werner Goetz, Jörg Jarnut, and
Walter Pohl (eds), Regna and gentes. The Relationship between Late Antique and Early Medieval
Peoples and Kingdoms in the Transformation of the Roman World, TRW 13 (Leiden, Boston, and
Cologne, 2003), pp. 161–217; José Orlandis, Historia del reino visigodo español. Los acontecimientos,
las instituciones, la sociedad, los protagonistas (Madrid, 2003), pp. 167–80; Wolfram Drews, The
Unknown Neighbour. The Jew in the Thought of Isidore of Seville, The Medieval Mediterranean –
Peoples, Economies and Cultures 59 (Leiden and Boston, 2006), p. 9–10 and 257–59; Gerd
Kampers, Geschichte der Westgoten (Paderborn et al., 2008), pp. 272–80.
is attributed to a specific ethnic identity. Though some still claim that this
dichotomy lasted throughout the whole existence of the Visigothic kingdom,2
which came to an end in 711 following the Muslim conquest, scholars now
point out that based on certain developments within the kingdom, especially
in the last third of the sixth century, ethnic duality crumbled over the decades
which followed: ‘The Gothic kingdom of c. 700 no longer comprised an inner
core of ethnically defined migrants. It was a unified state which defined itself as
Gothic, not by reference to a Roman stratum within its own population, but
against outsiders’.3
Ethnic identity must have been recognisable and articulated by a flexible
variety of signs.4 If in sixth-century Visigothic Spain Romans and Goths were two
ethnically separated groups, ‘signs of identity’ must have existed which defined
these groups and made them distinguishable. In this context Arianism – in the
same way as other ethnic markers – is supposed to have formed an important
sign for Gothic identity within the kingdom. To illustrate this point of view it
may be helpful to have a brief look at the history of Gothic Arianism. In 376
a considerable part of the Goths entered the Roman Empire – among them
groups that would later comprise the core of what was to become the Visigoths –
gradually accepted Christianity in the mid 370s. They adopted the Arian form
of Christianity, which at that time was the belief of the Roman Emperor Valens,
in keeping with their political aims. Hence, scholars have stressed the fact that at
this time there was nothing specifically Gothic about this form of Christianity.
Far from it, the adoption of this religious doctrine has to be seen as an act of
assimilation into the Roman world, of which the Goths wanted to become a
part.5 But as is known, the Arian doctrine did not last long as the belief of the
Roman emperors because from the first council of Constantinople in 380 AD
onwards, under the conduct of Emperor Theodosius, the Nicene Creed was
established as the official doctrine and Arianism was condemned as heresy. The
fact that the Visigoths still stuck to the Arian doctrine for more than 200 years
while the majority of the Roman population around them became or continued
2
E.g. Joaquín Martínez Pizarro, The Story of Wamba. Julian of Toledo’s Historia Wambae
regis (Washington, 2005), pp. 10–11 and 36–37.
3
Peter Heather, The Goths (2nd edn, Oxford, 1998), p. 298; also Dietrich Claude, ‘Remarks
about Relations Between Visigoths and Hispano-Romans in the Seventh Century’, in Pohl
and Reimitz, Strategies of Distinction, pp. 117–30; Roger Collins, Visigothic Spain (409–711)
(Oxford, 2004), pp. 239–46.
4
See Walter Pohl, ‘Telling the Difference. Signs of Ethnic Identity’, in Pohl and Reimitz,
Strategies of Distinction, pp. 17–69.
5
See Chapter 1 (Knut Schäferdiek) and Chapter 5 (Hanns Christof Brennecke) in
this volume; cf. Thompson, The Visigoths in the Time of Ulfila, pp. 115–17; John H.G. Wolf
Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops. Army, Church, and State in the Age of Arcadius and
Chrysostom (Oxford, 1990), pp. 49–50; Heather, The Goths, p. 313.
Arianism and Ethnic Identity in Sixth-Century Visigothic Spain 259
to be Catholics, has led to the following conclusion: For the Visigoths Arian
belief had completely changed its political and social purpose. While at first it
was an instrument of assimilation into the Roman world, it later became a means
of differentiation between Visigoths and Romans within it.6 The importance of
Arianism as an identifying feature is even stressed by the fact that other potential
ethnic markers such as language – in particular names – and material culture –
for instance dress – in the case of the Visigoths in the sixth century had already
ceased to prove any differentiation between the two ethnic groups.7 Therefore,
‘threatened with disappearance through assimilation’, Arianism is understood
to have built ‘a wall around the Gothic people, an artificial fortification like
the Berlin wall, that presumably seemed indispensable to preserve the ethnic
consciousness and cohesion of a group’.8
If we look at this line of argumentation it is noticeable that it is based
on the premise that in Gaul and Spain, the areas in which the Visigoths
established their realms, Arianism had ceased to be a religious doctrine held by
a considerable part of the Roman population and was thus clearly identified as
the belief of the Visigoths. Although at first sight the sources seem to verify this
premise, it is worthwhile challenging it. A reason for doing so is that studies
related to similar questions in other fields of research linked to Late Antiquity
such as archaeology and philology, which over the last years have shown that a
critical examination of the methods of interpretation, may cast doubt on well-
established assumptions.9 Another reason is based on the sources themselves.
6
See among others John M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Barbarian West (A.D. 400–1000), (New
York, 1984 (1st edition London, 1952), p. 25; Heather, The Goths, pp. 313–15; Liebeschuetz,
Barbarians and Bishops, p. 49; Luis A. García Moreno, ‘Etnia goda y iglesia hispana’, Hispania
Sacra, 54 (2002): pp. 415–42, here p. 430; Maria R. Valverde Castro, ‘Leovigildo. Persecución
religiosa y defensa de la unidad del reino’, Iberia, 2 (1999): pp. 131–32; Karen Carr, ‘From
Alaric to the Arab Conquest. Visigothic Efforts to Achieve Romanitas’, in Linda Jones
Hall (ed.), Confrontation in Late Antiquity. Imperial Presentation and Regional Adaptation
(Cambridge, 2003), pp. 103–16, here p. 104; Drews, The Unknown Neighbour, p. 263.
7
For a general discussion concerning supposed ethnic markers in Visigothic Spain see
Manuel Koch, Ethnische Identität im Entstehungsprozess des spanischen Westgotenreiches, RGA
Erg. Bd. 75 (Berlin and New York, 2012), pp. 130–216.
8
Liebeschuetz, ‘Citizen Status and Law’, p. 141.
9
In the first case, a considerable number of archaeologists nowadays point out that
certain material sources, as for instance dress, do not per se reflect influences due to ethnicity,
something which until recently has been regarded as an unmovable cornerstone of archaeological
interpretation; for recent overviews see Florin Curta, ‘Some Remarks About Ethnicity in
Medieval Archaeology’, EME, 15 (2007): pp. 159–85; Philipp von Rummel, ‘Gotisch, barbarisch
oder römisch? Methodologische Überlegungen zur ethnischen Interpretation von Kleidung’,
in Walter Pohl and Mathias Mehofer (eds), Archaeology of Identity – Archäologie der Identität,
Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Kl. 406 = Forschungen zur Geschichte
des Mittelalters 17 (Vienna, 2010), pp. 51–77. To a certain degree the same is true for the ethnic
This refers to the well-known fact that our written sources largely only reflect a
very blurred picture of a multifaceted historical ‘reality’. Although this may be
stating the obvious, it nevertheless has consequences for our reception of that
reality. Besides acknowledging the accidental loss of sources, one also has to
keep in mind structural influences.10 So, trying to examine questions related to
Arianism means looking for information about a doctrine and an ecclesiastical
organisation that in the long term did not establish any institutions such as
scriptoria, libraries or archives that could have established a tradition of sources.
Furthermore, we have to be aware of the fact that nearly all of our written
information about this period came down to us through the hands of Catholic
writers and institutions. Transcription and transmission of texts throughout
the Middle Ages was a laborious and expensive business. We can be sure that a
Catholic institution only under very special circumstances considered preserving
a text from an Arian background. But tradition was not only shaped passively,
but also actively. A canon of a provincial synod held in Saragossa in 592 and a
comment by Fredegar reveals that after the general conversion to Catholicism
in 589 all traces of Arianism were meant to disappear.11 Our scanty information
is based on the testimonies of Catholic writers only. Under these circumstances
it is hardly surprising that there are only very scarce notes about Arianism in
Spain, if any. Therefore, the question is, to what point should we trust the overall
view we have of the religious situation in Visigothic Spain from our sources,
and to what extent should it be regarded as the manufactured story told by the
Catholic victors.
In general the religious situation in Visigothic Spain before 580 is
characterised by a relatively peaceful coexistence of both creeds.12 In fact, there
is some evidence which suggests not only an acceptance of Catholicism on the
identification of names, see below. In both cases ethnicity now is regarded to be one possible
influence among many others.
10
In general see Arnold Esch, ‘Überlieferungschance und Überlieferungszufall als
methodisches Problem des Historikers’, Historische Zeitschrift, 240 (1985): pp. 529–70.
11
Second canon of the Concilium Caesaraugustanum II (ed. Vives, España cristiana 1,
p. 154f ): Statuit sancta synodus ut reliquiae in quibuscumque locis de Arrianam haeresem inventae
fuerint prolate a sacerdotibus, in quorum ecclesias repperiuntur pontificibus praesentatae igne
probentur quod si a quibuslibet occul[ta]tae fuerint et deteguntur a sacrosanctae ecclesiae coetu
segregentur. Fredegar tells us in his chronicle that king Reccared instructed all converts to collect
their Arian books in order to burn them. Fredegar, Chron. 4.8 (ed. Krusch, MGH SS rer. Merov. 2,
p. 125): … et omnes libros Arrianos precepit ut presententur; quos in una domo conlocatis incendio
concremare iussit … .
12
Jacques Fontaine, ‘Conversion et culture chez les wisigoths d’Espagne’, in La conversione
al cristianesimo nell’Europa dell’alto mediovo, SSCI 14 (Spoleto, 1967), pp. 88–147, here p. 105;
Thompson: Goths in Spain, pp. 78–87; Schäferdiek, Die Kirche, pp. 87–96 and pp. 139–40.
part of the Visigothic kings, but also a certain degree of cooperation.13 From 580
onwards, however, this situation changes: at the behest of King Leovigild in
that year, an Arian synod assembled in the town of Toledo. According to the
chronicle of John of Biclaro, at this assembly the king himself declared: ‘Those
coming from the Roman religion to our Catholic faith ought not be baptised, but
ought to be cleansed only by means of the imposition of hands and the receiving
of communion, and be given the “Glory to the Father through the Son in the
Holy Spirit”’.14 This modification of Arian doxology and the renouncement
of rebaptism for potential converts clearly aimed to facilitate a conversion of
Nicenes to a slightly modified form of Arianism. This interpretation is also
confirmed by the view of the Catholic bishops assembled nine years later at
the famous Third Council of Toledo, who declared that the assembly of 580
had attempted to draw over Nicenes to the Arian heresy.15 Scholars rightly
have stressed that this facilitation of apostasy was a means to end the religious
fragmentation of the realm. From 580 on Leovigild intended to build one united
church to which all the people of the kingdom should belong. This endeavour
relied on a modified form of the Arian doctrine.16 Of course, this development
provokes the question, what motivation did Leovigild have for making this
turn in matters of church policy after he had already reigned for more than a
decade? This question must be answered on two different levels. The first level is
connected with its direct cause, the revolt of Leovigild’s first son Hermenegild.
He was the central figure in an uprising against Leovigild which started in 579
and which the king could settle only in 584. This rebellion, which most probably
was caused by dynastic conflicts, has a strong link to religious matters due to
the fact that Hermenegild converted to Catholicism during the revolt.17 Though
Koch, Ethnische Identität, pp. 191–95.
13
Joh. Bicl. Chron. 57 (de Hartmann and Collins eds, CCSL 173 A, p. 55): Leouegildus rex
14
in urbem Toletanam sinodum episcoporum secte arriane congregat … dicens de Romana religione ad
nostram catholicam fidem uenientes non debere baptizari, sed tantummodo per manus impositionem
et communionis preceptione ablui, et gloriam Patri per Filium in Spiritu Sancto dare. English
translation: Kenneth B. Wolf (ed. and tr.), Conquerors and Chroniclers of Early Medieval Spain,
TTH 9 (Liverpool, 1990 p. 72).
15
Concilium III Toletanum 82f. (Diez and Rodrigues (eds), Monumenta Hispaniae Sacra,
Serie Canónica 5, pp. 382–7).
16
Edward A. Thompson, ‘The Conversion of the Visigoths to Catholicism’, Nottingham
Medieval Studies, 4 (1960): pp. 4–35, here 19–21; Schäferdiek, Die Kirche, pp. 157–64; Roger
Collins, ‘¿Dónde estaban los arrianos en el año 589?’, in Concilio III de Toledo. XIV centenario
(589–1989), Arzobispado de Toledo (ed.), (Toledo, 1991), pp. 211–22, here p. 216f.; Heather,
Goths, 280f.; Valverde Castro, Ideología, simbolismo y ejercio del poder real, p. 164–66; Santiago
Castellanos, Los Godos y la cruz. Recaredo y la unidad de Spania (Madrid, 2007), pp. 188f.
17
For a short overview of events see Collins, Visigothic Spain, pp. 56–59, and for a detailed
discussion Hillgarth, ‘Coins and Chronicles. Propaganda in Sixth-Century Spain and the Byzantine
Background’, Historia, 15 (1966): pp. 483–508; Fontaine, ‘Conversion et culture’, pp. 108–23;
religious issues were not the reason for this conflict, Hermenegild nevertheless
took advantage of his new religious denomination to justify the revolt and to
find support against his father.18 In other words this means Hermenegild used
the religious fragmentation within the kingdom for a political purpose. Thus,
Leovigild’s attempt to unify the church in the first place was a reaction to this
revolt and its confessional implications. Concerning the second level to the
answer, one can assume that to Leovigild this particular revolt brought to light
a general structural problem which ought to be solved in the interest of a long-
term stabilisation of the king’s power. To understand this, it is important to
be aware of the fact that the exertion of any central power was dependent on
collaboration with local magnates, in many cases bishops.19 Thus, the existence
and possible rivalry of two different creeds and church structures potentially
represented a permanent threat for central power, because both could not be
controlled to the same extent.20
Although Catholic writers such as Isidore of Seville and Gregory I intended
to portray Leovigild as a fanatic adherent of Arianism and a furious persecutor
of Catholics, actually the measures he took to accomplish his aim of confessional
Schäferdiek, Die Kirche, pp. 140–57; Luis Vázquez de Parga Iglesias, San Hermenegildo ante las
fuentes historicas (Madrid, 1973); Biagio Saitta, ‘Un momento di disgregazione nel regno visigoto
di Spagna. La rivolta di Ermenegildo’, Quaderni Catanesi di Studi Classici e Medievali, 1/1 (1979):
pp. 81–134; Pedro Juan Galán Sánchez, El género historiográfico de la chronica. Las crónicas
hispanas de época visigoda (Cáceres, 1994), pp. 145–66; Koch, Ethnische Identität, pp. 196–99.

Coming back for a short moment to the methodological problems discussed earlier one
should note that it is only due to sources stemming from outside Hispania, notably a comment
from Pope Gregory I (Greg. M., Dialogi 3.31, ed. de Vogüé, SC 251, p. 388), that we know
about the conversion of Hermenegild and its connection to the conflict with Leovigild. All
Hispanic sources describe Hermenegild’s revolt as an unlawful rebellion, concealing the fact
that he presented himself as a righteous fighter for the Nicene creed against his heretic father.
See Castellanos, La hagiografía visigoda. Dominio social y proyección cultural (Logroño, 2004),
pp. 165–79.
18
Heather, The Goths, pp. 281f.; Kampers, Westgoten, p. 177.
19
See Chapter 7 (Ralph Mathisen) in this volume.
20
Castellanos, Los Godos y la cruz, p. 207: ‘El control de los obispados, ése era el objetivo
de Leovigildo. … En tiempos de Leovigildo, al igual que sucedería en la época de Recaredo,
que una iglesia católica pasara a ser arriana (o al revés) suponía no sólo un cambio de fe, sino
también un trasvase en el control de las rentas, salvo que, naturalmente, los protagonistas fueran
los mismos’. See also Céline Martin, ‘Les évêques visigothiques dans leur espace. De l’autonomie
à l’intégration’, in Philippe Depreux, François Bougard, and Régine Le Jan (eds), Les élites et leurs
espaces. Mobilité, Rayonnement, Domination (du VIe au XIe siècle), Collection Haut Moyen Âge 5
(Turnhout, 2007), pp. 207–23; Pablo C. Díaz, Maria R. Valverde, ‘The Theoretical Strength and
Practical Weakness of the Visigothic Monarchy of Toledo’, in Frans Theuws and Janet Nelson
(eds), Rituals of Power. From Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, TRW 8 (Leiden, Boston,
and Cologne, 2000), pp. 59–93.
unity reveal a different picture.21 Even though some Arian bishops, for example
Leander of Seville, John of Biclaro or Masona of Mérida, were exiled after 580,
scholars have already stressed the fact that Leovigild’s policy generally was of a
different nature.22 In a certain way this is also confirmed by Isidore, who reports
that Leovigild had pushed many people to the Arian heresy by threat but that
he seduced even more with gold and riches.23 Thus, what Leovigild was trying
to achieve, was a reinforcing of the unity of the kingdom and a strengthening
of royal power. To achieve this major aim he executed many more measures,
for example his many military campaigns, as well as the reissue of parts of the
legal code and the adaption of an imperial ceremonial.24 His attempt to unite
religiously all the people of his kingdom fits well into this policy.
Ultimately, however, Leovigild’s efforts to establish of universal Arian
Church in the Visigothic kingdom failed. Nevertheless, it is important to note
that following the comments of Catholic writers Leovigild’s policy obviously
produced a considerable number of conversions. This is documented by the
above-mentioned statement by Isidore, to which he adds that Leovigild not only
rebaptised laymen but also clerics.25 A further hint is given by a comment made
by Leander of Seville at the Council of Toledo, at which the final conversion
of all Arians to Catholicism took place under the leadership of Leovigild’s son
Reccared. In the context of his concluding homilia, Leander encourages the
Catholic Church not to be hostile to those who had abandoned the church and
had now come back.26 Furthermore, John of Biclaro also complained about the
fact that due to Leovigild’s seduction many Catholics were inclined towards
the Arian doctrine.27 And finally, this phenomenon was also noticed beyond
21
See e.g. Isidore of Seville, Historia Gothorum 50 (ed. Mommsen, MGH AA 11, p. 287f.);
Greg. Tur. Hist. 5.38.
22
For details see among others Schäferdiek, Die Kirche, pp. 172–82; Thompson, Goths in
Spain, pp. 78–87; Maria R. Valverde Castro, ‘Leovigildo’, pp. 123–32; Caerols, El encuentro entre
godos e hispanorromanos, pp. 225f.; Castellanos, Los Godos y la cruz, pp. 204–12.
23
Isidore of Seville, Historia Gothorum 50 (ed. Mommsen, MGH AA 11, p. 287f.):
Multos quoque terroribus in Arrianam pestilentiam inpulit, plerosque sine persecutione inlectos auro
rebusque decepit.
24
Collins, Visigothic Spain, pp. 50–63; Manuel Koch, ‘La imperialización del reino visigodo
bajo Leovigildo. ¿Es la imitatio imperii de Leovigildo la manifestación de un momento de cambio
en la pretensión de poder y la ideología visigodas?’, Pyrenae, 39/2 (2008): pp. 101–17.
25
Isidore of Seville, Historia Gothorum 50 (ed. Mommsen, MGH AA 11, p. 287f.): Ausus
quoque inter cetera haeresis suae contagia etiam rebaptizare catholicos et non solum ex plebe, sed etiam
ex sacerdotalis ordinis dignitate … .
26
Concilium III Toletanum (Diez and Felix Rodrigues (eds), Monumenta Hispaniae Sacra,
Serie Canónica 5, pp. 151–52): Tu proinde iam ne fleas, ne lugeas temporaliter quosdam recessisse a
te, quos cernis cum magnis lucris redisse ad te.
27
Joh. Bicl. Chron. 57 (ed. de Hartmann and Collins): Per hanc ergo seductionem plurimi
nostrorum … in arrianum dogma declinant.
the Iberian Peninsula, as shown by a question from Gregory of Tour directed

towards two Frankish messengers who had just returned to Gaul from the
Visigothic kingdom. The bishop was keen to know whether the true Christian
belief had stayed strong with the few orthodox believers remaining there.28
The existence of two churches represented a potential weakness of central
power. After Leovigild’s death in 586 his son Reccared made further efforts
to solve the problem. Like Leovigild he intended to eliminate the religious
divide in order to exercise more control, but he had learned the lesson from the
failure of his father and supported the Catholic side. In 587, just 10 months
after his accession, he personally converted to the Nicene Creed and in the two
years that followed he prepared the conversion of all Arians in his kingdom,
which finally took place at the famous Third Council of Toledo.29 This time
the attempt was successful and the Arian Church was completely integrated
into the Catholic Church, the latter now collaborating with the Visigothic
king. Except for a handful of revolts led by Arian archbishops, there was
remarkably little resistance by the Homoians.30 After more than 100 years of
largely tolerant and indifferent coexistence, this change in the religious policy
of the Visigothic kings demonstrated a very pragmatic handling of confessional
issues.31 Corresponding to this attitude of the Visigothic kings was the reaction
of the majority of the population, as proved by the above-mentioned number of
mutual conversions and the quick dissolution of the Arian Church. This raises
some interesting questions. As we have seen, religious affiliation was understood
to be one decisive marker of ethnic identity. Correspondingly ethnic identity
is held to have had a great impact on a person’s social and political position.
Because of the fact, therefore, that a change of creeds would have more than just
religious implications, would that not imply that the borderline between these
confessions had been well defined and conversions to a different faith were not
that easy? And would one not expect that the quick abandonment of Arianism,
which supposedly as a fides Gothica was giving identity to the Visigoths, would
cause massive resistance?
Such thoughts lead to this question: To what extent was religious confession
actually an ethnic marker? In order to serve as such a sign, there ought to have
existed a certain exclusivity for Arian belief and consequently a likely congruence
between ethnic and religious affiliation. As shown above, our Catholic sources
28
29
For details see Collins, Visigothic Spain, pp. 66–69.
30
Schäferdiek, Die Kirche, pp. 199–205; Thompson, Goths in Spain, pp. 101–4; Collins,
Visigothic Spain, pp. 68f.; Rachel L. Stocking, Bishops, Councils, and Consensus in the Visigothic
Kingdom, 589–633, History, Languages, and Cultures of the Spanish and Portuguese Worlds
(Ann Arbor, 2000), pp. 60f.; Kampers, Westgoten, pp. 182f.
31
This attitude can also be seen in matters of political decisions. That is to say, confessional
differences were not decisive in terms of political decisions, Koch, Ethnische Identität, pp. 211f.
are problematic. Some scholars note that probably even before 589 there had
been a certain number of conversions, yet this issue has not been explored in any
detail.32 Even though the veiled character of our sources may not allow a detailed
and satisfactory exploration, scattered references to conversions nevertheless
may help to shed light on the question.
Focusing on the Goths, the illustrious Catholic bishops Masona of Mérida
and John of Biclaro come to mind. In case of the latter, who in 589 already had
been confirmed as being Catholic for nearly 20 years, Isidore of Seville in his De
viris illustribus informs us of John’s Gothic affiliation.33 With respect to Masona
the remarkable source named ‘The Lives of the Fathers of Mérida’ provides
us with an inside-view into one particular civitas in sixth-century Visigothic
Spain. Masona, who since 573 was bishop of this important diocese,34 was also
presented as genere quidem Gothus.35 The same source provides further evidence
of Goths of Nicene belief before 589, namely Renovatus, one of Masona’s
successors, who before becoming bishop had been the abbot of the monastery at
Cauliana long before 589.36 In this source we finally find a whole group of Goths
who had been Catholics before the general conversion. Ironically, however, this
is known from a report about the appointment of a Goth as an Arian bishop in
the city. That happened in the context of the religious struggles during the reign
of Leovigild.37 In this passage the author mentions that Sunna controlled a huge
group of Goths, composed both of nobles, some of them holding the prestigious
position of comites, and common people, which he separated from the ranks of
the Catholics and within the fold of the Catholic Church.38 Unfortunately, the
inside-view of Visigothic society offered by ‘The Lives of the Fathers of Mérida’
is exceptional and unparalleled: we do not posses comparable information about
any other city. This is one of the reasons why we have barely any prosopographical
32
Jocelyn N. Hillgarth, ‘La conversión de los Visigodos. Notas críticas’, Analecta Sacra
Tarraconensia, 34 (1961): pp. 21–46, here p. 32; Fontaine: Conversion et culture, pp. 106f.; Abilio
Barbero de Aguilera, ‘El pensamiento político visigodo y las primeras unciones regias en la Europa
medieval’, Hispania, 30 (1970): pp. 245–326, here p. 246; Collins, Visigothic Spain, pp. 64f.
33
Isidore of Seville, De viris illustribus 31: Iohannes, Gerundensis ecclesiae episcopus, natione
Gothus … . For more biographical information see Galán Sánchez: El género historiográfico, pp. 81f.
34
Luis A. García Moreno, Prosopografía del reino visigodo de Toledo, Acta Salmanticensia,
Filosofía y Letras 17, (Salamanca, 1974), no. 435.
35
Vitas Sanctorum Patrum Emeretensium 5.2 (ed. Sánchez, CCSL 116, p. 48).
36
Vitas Sanctorum Patrum Emeretensium 2.14 (ed. Sánchez, CCSL 116, p. 32); García
Moreno, Prosopografía, no. 438.
37
Schäferdiek, Die Kirche, pp. 165–73.
38
Vitas Sanctorum Patrum Emeretensium 5.10.81 (ed. Sánchez, CCSL 116, p. 51):
Sunna … quosdam Gotorum nobiles genere opibusque perquam ditissimos, e quibus etiam nonnulli
in quibusdam ciuitatibus comites a rege fuerant constituti, consilio diabolico persuasit eosque de
catholicorum hagmine ac gremio catholice eclesie cum innumerabile multitudine populi separauit … .
information at all about Visigothic Spain up until the end of the sixth century.
Of course it is problematic either to extrapolate conclusions from this single
example or project this evidence onto the whole of Visigothic Spain. On the
other hand, however, it appears to be most likely that the case of Mérida is not
to be regarded as an isolated one and given our general lack of information, the
relatively small number of identifiably Catholic Visigoths before 589 does not
mean that there were not many more.
There are more indications that confirm this thesis. One of the very
few preserved letters of this time was written in 531 by bishop Montanus of
Toledo and addressed to a certain Turibius. The latter cannot definitely be
identified as being the bishop of the diocese Palencia, but in any case he was
an influential cleric in that civitas.39 In this letter Montanus praises Turibius for
his achievements, such as guiding a number of potentates ad salubrem regulam
et normam regularis disciplinae.40 Given that Palencia at that time was part
of the Visigothic kingdom, it seems that the most probable interpretation of
this phrase is that, under Turibius’ guidance, Gothic magnates converted to
Catholicism. There are some cases, moreover, in which we can find Germanic
names associated with Catholic belief. As studies over the last decades have
shown, a personal name per se does not provide sufficient information regarding
the ethnic identity of its bearer. But in our context, nevertheless, these cases are
of interest, because names indeed can show a certain affiliation.41 An example
of a person who most probably was Catholic and had a Germanic name was a
famula Dei named Hilduarens. After she died on 5 March 504 in Arahal, her
sarcophagus was reused for the sepulture of a Catholic monk, Fulgentius.42 It
seems very unlikely that this would have been done if the sarcophagus had had
an Arian link. Equally, a certain Ringilio very likely was Catholic due to the fact
Gerd Kampers, Personengeschichtliche Studien zum Westgotenreich in Spanien, Spanische

39
Forschungen der Görresgesellschaft, Zweite Reihe 17 (Münster, 1979), no. 67.

40
Montanus, Epistula Toribio (Diez and Rodrigues (eds), Monumenta Hispaniae Sacra,
41
Jörg Jarnut, ‘Petronaci qui Flavipert. Der Name als sozialer und kultureller Indikator’,
in Uwe Ludwig and Thomas Schilp (eds), Nomen et Fraternitas, RGA Erg. Bd. 62 = Festschrift
für Dieter Geuenich (Berlin and New York, 2008), pp. 99–105; Hans-Werner Goetz, ‘Gentes
in der Wahrnehmung frühmittelalterlicher Autoren und moderner Ethnogeneseforschung. Zur
Problematik einer gentilen Zuordnung von Personennamen’, in Dieter Geuenich, Wolfgang
Haubrichs, and Jörg Jarnut (eds), Person und Name. Methodische Probleme bei der Erstellung
eines Personennamenbuches des Frühmittelalters, RGA, Erg. Bd. 32 (Berlin and New York, 2002),
pp. 204–20.
42
Inscripciones cristianas de la España romana y visigoda (ed. Vives, Monumenta Hispania
Sacra 2, no. 149 and 150).
that he was buried in a Catholic cemetery in Tarragona.43 Furthermore, among

the 62 bishops who attended the Third Council of Toledo there are six Catholic
bishops with Germanic names.44 Finally, there is the first canon of the council
in Valencia (546), which deals with the issue of when and to whom a sermon
should be delivered during a church service. The canon states that some people
of a different belief had become Catholics as a result of hearing the sermon.45 Of
course, this ‘different belief ’ need not necessarily have been Arianism.
When evaluating the possible congruence between ethnic and religious
identity all examples of mutual conversions are of interest. As well as the
examples of Catholics who converted to Arianism in the context of Leovigild’s
reforms, there are further suggestions which indicate that this had happened
previously. For instance, three canons of the Council of Lérida, assembled
in the year 546, note such a phenomenon. As is already known, Catholics
converting to Arianism were forced to be rebaptised and only the decision at
the Arian synod of Toledo in 580 cancelled this requirement. The council of
Lérida, however, also dealt with the issue of rebaptism. Canon 13 prohibited
Catholics from sitting at the same table as the rebaptised and Canon 14 forbade
the rebaptised from accepting sacrificial offerings from Catholic parents whose
children have been baptised heretically.46 An even more complicated situation
is revealed by Canon 9. This canon is directed towards people who explicitly
have been rebaptised by free will and obligated them to pray for seven years
among the catechumen and then two more years among fellow Christians
before they could join Eucharist again.47 This paragraph implies conversion
first to Arianism, and then a following reconversion to the Nicene Creed. This
evidence from a provincial synod perhaps suggests that this was only a regional
phenomenon. But once again the Third Council of Toledo demonstrates that
the Arian rebaptism of Catholics must have been relatively widespread. This can
be concluded by the fact that the bishops abjuring Arian belief cursed all those
43
Inscripciones cristianas de la España romana y visigoda (ed. Vives, Monumenta Hispania
Sacra 2, no. 214).
44
Masona of Mérida, Nitigisius of Lugo, Neufila of Tuy, Ermaricus of Laniobriaga (?),
Leuterius of Salamanca and Commundus of Baira. For the signatories see Concilium III Toletanum
(Diez and Rodrigues (eds), Monumenta Hispaniae Sacra, Serie Canónica 5, pp. 139–48), and also
Schäferdiek, Die Kirche, Anhang C, pp. 252–59, and Kampers, Personengeschichtliche Studien,
pp. 176f.
45
Concilium Valletanum I, 314 (Diez and Rodrigues (eds), Monumenta Hispaniae Sacra,
46
Concilium Ilerdense 13–14, 305 f. (Diez and Rodrigues (eds), Monumenta Hispaniae
Sacra, Serie Canónica 4, pp. 123–28).
47
Concilium Ilerdense 9, 304 (Diez and Rodrigues (eds), Monumenta Hispaniae Sacra,
who approved and practised rebaptism.48 It should be noted that this anathema
must not be linked to the Arian policy of Leovigild, since, according to the
decisions of the assembly of 580, rebaptism was no longer necessary to become
Arian and further, because the next anathema articulated at the Third Council
of Toledo explicitly is dedicated towards these circumstances.
On the whole, this evidence does not question the fact that the majority
of the people of Gothic affiliation were Arians up to the Third Council of
Toledo.49 Nevertheless, scholars have overstated the relationship between ethnic
identity and ethnic affiliation. This overestimation partly seems to be due to the
circumstances among which all our sources have been passed down to us over
the centuries, the bias of sources themselves, and finally because of the premises
under which scholars have studied this subject: over the past few decades
scholars have been looking for signs of ethnic duality, which they tended to
regard as fact. Given the inherent tendency of our source material it is important
also to read these texts carefully; recent studies have shown the necessity of such
an approach.50 Admittedly, our evidence is scattered, but keeping in mind the
very few pieces of information we possess of Visigothic Spain dealing with the
period before the end of the sixth century, it seems enough to conclude that in
fact religious affiliation cannot be considered as an effective or distinctive sign
of identity. The borderlines between Arianism and Catholicism appear to have
been quite flexible and the sources provide sufficient evidence to imply that
mutual conversions did happen more frequently than the sources at first might
suggest.51 Hence, there does not seem to have been sufficient coherence between
Concilium III Toletanum 82 (Diez and Rodrigues (eds), Monumenta Hispaniae Sacra,
48
Serie Canónica 5, pp. 380–81): Quicumque rebaptizandi sacrilegum opus bonum esse credit aut
crediderit, agit aut egerit, anathema sit.
49
Koch, Ethnische Identität, pp. 335–53.
50
Cf. Tankred Howe, Vandalen, Barbaren und Arianer bei Victor von Vita, Studien zur
Alten Geschichte 7 (Frankfurt a. M., 2007) and Chapter 12 (Robin Whelan) in this volume.
Victor of Vita is important to understand how Arianism has been used as a sign of ethnic identity
in the barbarian kingdoms. The Historia persecutionis clearly identifies Arianism as a ‘barbarian’
creed and thus as a distinguishing feature between Romans and Vandals. Howe has shown that
this severe distinction does not properly reflect the religious situation in the Vandal kingdom
at the end of the fifth century. On the contrary: there have been many Roman converts (ibid.,
pp. 342f.). So it was the conversion of Catholics and accordingly the increasing dissolution of
religious borderlines Victor felt as a threat for the Catholic Church and this situation prompted
his depiction. In other words, he was trying to defame Arianism as a barbarian and thus ‘unroman’
creed just because more and more Romans in fact started to think differently.
51
The same phenomenon can be observed if one compares the importance writers ascribe
to religion concerning political issues with the political decisions made. For then it is shown that
confessional accordance or discordance obviously did not determine political decisions as the tone
of the sources suggests. For more details see Koch, Ethnische Identität, pp. 211f.
religious denomination and ethnic identity as to take it as a premise that Arians

were Goths and Catholics were Hispano-Romans, or vice-versa.
Concerning the ethnic implications of their religious policies, this
understanding might also reveal the attempts of both Leovigild and Reccared
in a different light. Scholars generally understand the policies of both Leovigild
and Reccared as an attempt to resolve the religious boundaries between Arians
and Catholics and a decisive measure to overcome the last major division
between Goths and Romans.52 Before the reign of Leovigild this has not been
the case.53 Many authors thus point out that the universal religious conversion
at the Third Council of Toledo was the decisive step towards the dissolution
of ethnic boundaries.54 But the lack of any liable markers of ethnic separation
between Visigoths and Romans in Visigothic Spain means we should turn this
argument upside down. Instead of taking ethnic segregation as a given fact and
understanding confessional unification as a means to dissolve this ‘apartheid’, we
should ask whether an already largely accomplished ethnic coalescence had been
the premise for the very pragmatic and flexible handling of religious issues. In
the case that Arianism, understood ethnically, would indeed have been a highly
symbolic confession of a clearly distinguishable minority of Visigoths, one
wonders how Leovigild believed he could possibly lead the abundant majority of
Catholic Romans to that creed. One wonders also how, in only two years under
the leadership of Leovigild’s son, this powerful minority quietly bade farewell
to this crucial sign of identity and adopted the belief of the Hispano-Romans.
On the basis of the evidence displayed above it appears to be more likely that
both ethnic and religious boundaries in course of the fifth and sixth centuries
had already become blurred. Therefore, a supposed dissolution of a religiously
marked ethnic segregation was not the aim but the basis of the attempts of both
Leovigild and Reccared. This situation formed the precondition for the kings to
be able to pursue their underlying aim: to end the existence of two ecclesiastical
structures as a hindrance to the expansion of central royal power. In this context
the exceptional ‘Lives of the Fathers of Mérida’ shows how the local resources
of the churches could be used either to support or to destabilise central power.
The existence of two churches potentially offered the possibility that the one
less influenced by the king could be used by rivals. As the characteristic closing
of ranks between regnum and sacerdotium in Visigothic Spain after the general
52
Valverde Castro, Ideología, simbolismo y ejercio del poder real, 168; Wolfgang Giese, Die
Goten (Stuttgart, 2004), p. 148; Kampers, Westgoten, p. 175.
53
Collins ‘¿Dónde estaban los arrianos?’, p. 213; Valverde Castro, ‘Leovigildo’, pp. 131f.
54
Fontaine, Conversion et culture, pp. 139f.; Galán Sánchez, Género historiográfico,
pp. 166–72; Valverde Castro, Ideología, simbolismo y ejercio del poder real, pp. 201f. with further
lit. no. 152; Drews, The Unknown Neighbour, pp. 9 and 32; Alexander P. Bronisch, ‘El concepto
de España en la historiografía visigoda y asturiana’, Norba, 19 (2006): pp. 9–42, here 27; Kampers,
Westgoten, p. 187.
conversion testifies, the main goal of religious unification was to strengthen

royal power against a powerful nobility.55
One could finally ask why these measures were taken just at that specific
moment. Besides the triggering pulse given by the aforementioned uprising led
by Hermenegild, we have to be aware of the fact that it was only in the extremely
successful and thus stable reigns of Leovigild and Reccared that it was possible
to think of conducting such a complicated political manoeuvre.
See also Stocking, Bishops, Councils, and Consensus.

55
Chapter 14
The Homoians in Gaul
Uta Heil
The church in Gaul distanced itself very early from the Homoians,1 especially
because of the works and writings of Hilary of Poitiers. At a synod in the
year 358 the Gallic bishops had already rejected the first theological draft of the
Homoians of Sirmium in 357.2 At another synod – which possibly took place
in Paris at the beginning of 361 after Julian had been proclaimed Augustus in
Gaul in February 360 – they dissociated themselves further from the decisions
of the Homoian double synod in Rimini and Seleucia in 359 by defending the
Nicene keyword ‘same nature’/homousios and tried to contact other critics of
the Homoians in the east.3 Since that point Christianity in Gaul was considered
‘Nicene’. Only because of the settlement of Visigoths and Burgundians in
Gallic provinces was Homoian-‘Arian’ Christianity encountered and dealt with
in the area again. But what is known about the Christianity of the Visigoths
and Burgundians?
The sources only provide a scant illustration since there are no sources from
these gentes themselves, and the (Catholic) Gallic population did not pay enough
attention or show enough interest to report on the inner conditions of the
Visigoths or Burgundians. Although some outstanding bishops are known from
Gaul, statements concerning the Visigoths or Burgundians can only be found
occasionally. Likewise the canons of the (Catholic) synods mainly deal with their
own organisational questions or disciplinary issues. One exception is the preserved
writings of Avitus, who was bishop of Vienne during the greatest political expansion
of the Burgundians around 500. His letters and a few surviving fragments of his
writings reveal an intense theological discourse, in particular with the Burgundian
king Gundobad, and expose the controversial theological questions of the period
(see third section below on the Burgundians in Gaul).
1
On the Homoians see Chapter 4 (Uta Heil) in this volume.
2
Cf. Hilarius Pictaviensis, Liber de synodis seu de fide orientalium 2, PL 10, pp. 481–82.
3
A written text from the synod is quoted by Hilarius Pictaviensis, Collectanea antiariana
Parisina A 1 (ed. Feder, CSEL 65, pp. 43–6).
‘Great Invasion’ – The Rhine Crossing of 406
Probably on December 31, 406 a large group of Vandals, Suebi and Alans
crossed the Rhine near Mainz and reached northern Gaul. Battles ensued with
the Franks living in the area but they were defeated. As a result the Rhine border
was open and the so-called ‘Great Invasion’ took place. The consequences of
this event were massive and the invaders could no longer be simply repelled.
The Suebi and Vandals moved on to modern-day Spain after spending two years
plundering Gaul. The Vandals later crossed over to North Africa. Similarly the
Alans and Burgundians began to create their own kingdoms along the Rhine.
The ‘Great Invasion’ of 406/407 was the decisive prelude to the creation of the
successor kingdoms in the West of the Roman Empire. Amidst these events
Constantine (III) crossed over to Gaul after being newly proclaimed emperor by
the troops of Britannia. He was able to gain control of Gallia and marched south
to Arles but this sparked a conflict with the emperor of the west, Honorius, and
his general Stilicho. The situation had in no way calmed down when in 408 a
group of the ‘barbarian’ invaders overpowered Constantine’s troops close to the
Pyrenees before they continued on into modern-day Spain. The new general
of the west after Stilicho, Flavius Constantius, finally conquered the usurper
Constantine in Gaul in 411.4
Worries about the destruction and political upheavals in the region
influenced the thinking of the authors of the period. Many of the texts convey
a sense of the end of times so that the dominating topics are advice about the
preparation for the afterlife and suggestions to evade the world through a life in a
convent or according to an ascetic life style. Additionally the invading or passing
groups were largely viewed negatively as barbarians and enemies of Rome. ‘Since
the barbarians were mainly heathens or heretical Christians and did not yet
participate in any form of the Roman culture but instead threatened to destroy it
Cf. esp. Pierre Courcelle, Histoire littéraire des grandes invasions germaniques
4
(2nd edn, Paris, 1964); Guy Halsall, Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376–568
(Cambridge, 2007), pp. 210–14; Peter J. Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire. A New History
of Rome and the Barbarians (Oxford and New York, 2005), ch. 5: The City of God, pp. 228–93
with map 245; Walter Goffart, Barbarian Tides. The Migration Age and the Later Roman
Empire (Philadelphia, 2006), pp. 73–118; Michael Kulikowski, ‘Barbarians in Gaul, Usurpers
in Britain’, Britannia, 31 (2000): pp. 325–45; Edward James, Europe’s Barbarians AD 200–600
(Harlow, 2009), pp. 50–63; Walter Pohl, Die Völkerwanderung. Eroberung und Integration (2nd
edn, Stuttgart, 2005), pp. 70–75. On Stilicho cf. Ian Hughes, Stilicho. The Vandal Who Saved
Rome (Barnsley, 2010). An overview of the church history of the fifth century is detailed by: Luce
Piétri, ‘Gallien’, in Jean-Marie Mayeur, Charles Piétri, André Vauchez, and Marc Venard (eds), Der
lateinische Westen und der byzantinische Osten (431–642), Die Geschichte des Christentums 3
(Freiburg, Basel and Vienna, 1998), pp. 222–63.
The Homoians in Gaul 273
the Christian inhabitants loathed and hated them’.5 As a result at the beginning
of the fifth century there was a lack of interest in dealing with the gentes.
The immediate adversity is expressed in some of the texts of the period as, for
example, the epic work Commonitorium by Orientus of Auch (Gascogny)
who was bishop in Aquitaine in the first half of the fifth century.6 The book is a
large moral sermon with partially gruesome descriptions of punishments to be
expected in hell. The terrible destruction of his homeland in the years since 407
appear to have shocked him tremendously:
This brief life which we now enjoy has nothing long about it, although it is passed
in a long revolution of days. All things, weary, look to the aging end, and already
the hour of the last day is passing. See how rapidly death has oppressed the whole
world and how many peoples the violence of war has stricken down. Neither the
wild tracts of dense woods nor … avail to frustrate the barbarian hordes. … What
was not conquered by force was conquered by starvation … . Throughout villages
and farms, throughout the countryside and crossroads, and through all districts,
on all highways leading from this place or that, there was death, sorrow, ruin, fires,
mourning. All Gaul smoked as one funeral pyre.7
He had seen the funerary procession of the foundering world. And the
barbarians were war-mongering hordes devastating large areas of land. Orientus
of Auch correlates the situation with the approach of the end of the world. In
view of the approaching end of all things he paints an image of the memento
moriendum: Life is ephemeral and only the hope of eternity can help in
overcoming the suffering of the present.
5
Ilona Opelt, Wolfgang Speyer, ‘Barbar I’, RAC Suppl. 1 (2001): pp. 813–95, at p. 859. It
is even the case that the crisis of the empire by the invasions increased the negative view on the
barbarians. Cf. also the attitude of Ambrosius in Chapter 4 (Uta Heil) in this volume.
6
Martin Heinzelmann, ‘Prosopographica IV: Gallische Prosopographie 260–527’,
Francia, 10 (1982): pp. 531–718, at pp. 659–60; Michael Roberts, ‘Barbarians in Gaul: The
Response of the Poets’, in John Drinkwater and Hugh Elton (eds), Fifth Century Gaul: A Crisis
of Identity? (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 97–106. Cf. also Herwig Wolfram, Die Goten. Von den
Anfängen bis zur Mitte des sechsten Jahrhunderts, Entwurf einer historischen Ethnographie (5th
edn, Munich, 2009), pp. 181–82.
7
Orientius, Commonitorium 2.161–184, (ed. Tobin, Patristic Studies 74, pp. 92–95):
Nil habet haec longum, longo licet acta rotatu, quo nunc perfruimur tempore, vita brevis. Lassa
senescentem respectant omnia finem et iam postremo volvitur hora die. Respice quam raptim totum
mors presserit orbem, quantos vis belli perculerit populos. Non densi nemoris, celsi non aspera montis, …
ludere barbaricas praevaluere manus. … Robore quae non sunt, sunt superata fame. … Per vicos villas,
per rura et compita et omnes per pagos, totis inde vel inde viis, mors dolor excidium … incendia luctus:
uno fumavit Gallia tota rogo.
The Gallic aristocrat Eucherius of Lyon – born around 380 – and his family
became part of the ascetic community of Lérins in 410. In addition to a few
exegetical works and the famous report on the martyrs of the Theban legion he
mainly wrote works in praise of asceticism.8 In a protreptic treaty De contemptu
mundi formulated as a letter he petitions a relative to also turn away from the
world: Given the advance of the barbarians and the general moral decline,
salvation can only be found in solitude and asceticism. The end of the world is
close; the bounty of the world is destroyed since the world itself is also nearing
its end and the last phase is ebbing away. So the world is only filled with suffering
similar to that of an old person afflicted with sickness and the dying world is
drawing its last breaths – therefore it is even more urgent to take care of heavenly
matters that lead to salvation since earthly matters will soon decay.
It is not known whether Eucherius changed his views later on. For the
last 15 years of his life – from about 435 up until his death around 450 – he
was bishop of Lyon and witnessed the settling of the Visigoths in Aquitania as
well as the Burgundians in Sapaudia on Lake Geneva. But at the beginning of
the fifth century the Gallo-Romans were still preoccupied with the hardship of
their period.
Visigoths in Gaul (418–507)9
After the well-known sack of Rome in 410 Alaric’s Gothic army trekked to
southern Italy. But the crossing to Sicily (the goal was probably North Africa and
its grain bounty) failed and Alaric died. Thus in 411 his brother-in-law Athaulf
led the Goths to Gaul, where after a few initial fights and some destruction they
settled in the area of Narbonne. In an attempt to indicate his political demands,
he married Galla Placidia, the sister of the emperor Honorius and a hostage of
the Goths since the sack of Rome. But when the heir to the throne (a boy named
Cf. John M. Pepino, St. Eucherius of Lyons: Rhetorical Adaptation of Message to Intended
8
Audience in Fifth Century Provence (Washington DC, 2009), esp. pp. 100–141; Salvatore
Pricoco (ed.), Eucherio di Lione: Il rifiuto del mondo: De contemptu mundi, Biblioteca patristica 16
(Firenze, 1990); Karl Wotke (ed.), Eucherius von Lyon, Opera omnia, CSEL 31 (Vienna, 1894);
Heinzelmann, ‘Prosopographica IV’, p. 598 (Eucherius 3).
9
Cf. on Visigoths in general: Dietrich Claude, Geschichte der Westgoten (Stuttgart, 1970);
Peter Heather, The Goths (Oxford, 1996); Ralph W. Mathisen and Hagith Sivan, ‘Forging a
New Identity: The Kingdom of Toulouse and the Frontiers of Visigothic Aquitania’, in Alberto
Ferreiro (ed.), The Visigoths. Studies in Culture and Society, The Medieval Mediterranean 20
(Leiden, 1999), pp. 1–62; Knut Schäferdiek, Die Kirche in den Reichen der Westgoten und Suewen
bis zur Errichtung der westgotischen katholischen Staatskirche (Berlin, 1967); Wolfram, Goten;
Manuel Koch, Ethnische Identität im Entstehungsprozess des spanischen Westgotenreiches, RGA
Erg. Bd. 75 (Berlin and Boston, 2012).
Theodosius) died soon after birth and Athaulf fell victim to an inside coup by
the Goths his successor negotiated a peace treaty with the emperor Honorius
in exchange for the widow Galla Placidia. Thus in the years 416–418 the Goths
fought for Rome against the Vandals and Suebi in Spain. They finally received
permission to settle in Aquitania in the valley of the Garonne between Toulouse
and Bordeaux. This initiated a new chapter of Gothic history that later resulted
in the Gothic kingdom of Toulouse.
The Visigoths attempted to enlarge their territory multiple times. In addition
to the conquest of Spain, Arles was a preferred target and the Visigoths were
most likely vying for access to the Mediterranean. But Theoderic (418–451)
unsuccessfully besieged Arles in 425 and 430 and Narbonne in 436/437 and
then had to deal with the Roman counteroffensive and siege of the Visigothic
capital Toulouse in 439. So in 451 he again fought as an ally of Rome against
the Huns in the battle of the Catalaunian Fields. Theoderic II (453–66) tried to
establish the Visigoths as an important power within the Roman Empire through
military campaigns and the participation in the coronation of the Roman
emperor and thus took control of the area around Narbonne at the beginning
of the 460s. Under Euric (466–84) – who completely eliminated the status of
foederati – a triumphal advance of the Visigoths began, particularly in the 470s.
The Visigoths controlled the west of Gaul from the Atlantic to the estuary of the
Loire – bordered by the Rhône in the east – all the way to Provence. In the north
was the kingdom of the Franks and in the east the kingdom of the Burgundians.
Theoderic’s successor Alaric II (484–507) stabilised the achievements but had
to confront the expansion of the Franks in the north. The Franks together with
the Burgundians were finally able to defeat the Visigoths in 507 and force them
into Spain.
Following the accommodation of the Visigoths in Gaul in 418 the attitudes
of the Gallic Romans towards their neighbours varied between concord and
critique just as the Visigothic politics switched between Roman and their
own interests. The Homoian ‘Arianism’ of the Visigoths was only noticed and
commented on peripherally; comments on the structure of the church and on
the theological convictions of the Visigoths at this period can only be formulated
with caution.
Hilary – like Eucherius, a monk in Lérins – was the bishop of Arles
from 430 († 449)10 and was primarily interested in reinforcing the supremacy
of Arles over the entire Gallic (Catholic) church. While ignoring the new
political developments he organised multiple councils (Riez 439, Orange 441,
10
Heinzelmann, ‘Prosopographica IV’, p. 625 (Hilarius 3); Thomas Graumann, ‘Hilarius
von Arles’, RGG, 3 (2000): p. 1732. Cf. also the portrayal of Piétri, ‘Gallien’, pp. 237–49.
Vaison 442, Besançon 44411) but only in Orange in 441 was a single canon
passed that is relevant to our question. This canon explains the procedure for
the admittance of a heretic: If a heretic in mortal danger wishes to become a
Catholic and there is no bishop within reach, then a presbyter is allowed to give
the sacrament of confirmation.12 This ruling expands the existing practice to
include the possibility that in case of emergency a presbyter could confirm the
acceptance.13 But since this ruling only addresses heretics in a very broad sense
it is not helpful in understanding the Homoian Visigoths because other heresies
could also be meant. However, a certain anti-Arian tendency is reported in the
vita of Hilary that was written by Honoratus of Marseille (475–96). One remark
is fairly general and notes that Hilary had guided the iron tip of the spiritual
sword against the ‘poisonous errors of the heretics’.14 A little further on he
explains a bit more clearly that Hilary freed the mother of a certain Heliodorus
from the snares of the Arian heresy and won her over for a spiritual life.15 But
since the purpose of this passage is to demonstrate the spiritual power of Hilary
it does not explain the background of this conversion. The vita ends with the
appeal of Hilary, shortly before his death, to prepare for future misery and to
uphold the faith in the Trinity in a steadfast manner.16 It is difficult to draw
further conclusions from these scant suggestions, especially since the last remark
was written from the perspective of the author of the vita, Honoratus, who was
the bishop of Marseille when the Visigoths controlled the Mediterranean coast.
The aforementioned Orientus of Auch appears to no longer have been
averse to Visigothic rule in Gaul a few years after the completion of the
Commonitorium. When Theoderic was besieged in Toulouse by the comes
Litorius, on behalf of the general Aëtius, Orientus transmitted a peace offer
to the Roman officer. The hope for peaceful relations might have lessened
Orientus’s reservations against the ‘heretical barbarians’ – after all the Visigoths
The synod had been summoned due to a controversial consecration of a bishop; this
11
dispute resulted in a rebuke of Hilary by the pope because of his demands of supremacy over Gaul;
Leo I subsequently removed Hilary’s higher rank.
12
Concilium Arausiacum a. 441, can. 1, Concilia Galliae (ed. Munier, CCSL 148, p. 78):
Haereticos in mortis discrimine positos, si catholici esse desiderant, si desit episcopus, a presbyteris cum
chrismate et benedictione consignari placuit.
13
Cf. Concilium Arelatense a. 314, can. 9 (8), Concilia Galliae (ed. Munier, CCSL 148,
pp. 10–11.)
14
Honoratus, Vita S. Hilarii episcopi Arelatensis 14, 5–7 (Cavallin and Jacob (eds), SC 404,
p. 120): ferreum spiritalis gladii acumen in truncandis haereticorum venenatis erroribus exercuerit.
15
Honoratus, Vita S. Hilarii 20, 1–4, (Cavallin and Jacob (eds), SC 404, p. 132): In his
profectibus constitutum subitus ardor accendit, ut Heliodori matrem gaeresis arrianae vinculis
conligatam expeteret, inluminaret, attraheret, et in aeternum oblaturus in praesentia consecraret.
16
Honoratus, Vita S. Hilarii 26, 60–61, (Cavallin and Jacob (eds), SC 404, p. 154): Ad
omnia contraria adversaque vos iugiter praeparate: fidem Trinitatis immobiliter retinete … .
were Christians in contrast to the ‘heathen’ Hunnic troopers in Litorius’s army.

In the end Theoderic defeated the comes after having rejected the peace offer
and thus secured his rule over Toulouse.17
Salvian of Marseille († around 480) described the gentes, such as the Visigoths,
not only as acceptable regents but even as God-sent defeaters of the Romans.
He had fled from the Rhine to southern Gaul at the beginning of the century,
later lived as an ascetic monk in Lérins and became Presbyter in Marseille. In
his work De gubernatione Dei, written around 450, he compares the degenerate
Christians of the Roman Empire with the morally superior barbarians who were
either heathens or heretics: Duo enim genera in omni gente omnium barbarorum
sunt, id est aut haereticorum aut paganorum).18 His description of the heretic
barbarians imitates the clichés of the culturally advanced Romans and excuses
their heresies on grounds of their ignorance, since they are not able to read or
write and therefore hold firmly to the wrong beliefs. Erroneously they think of
themselves as orthodox; therefore God is lenient and patient and has temporarily
granted them military success as a divine rod of castigation and divine judgment
over the Romans. He only briefly describes their teachings: they believe the son
to be inferior to the father and consider the idea of aequalitas as an insult to
the father: Nos eos iniuriam diuinae generationi facere certi sumus quod minorem
patre filium dicant; illi nos iniuriosos patri existimant quia aequales esse credamus.19
This shows that Salvian had the Homoian ‘Arians’ in mind.
From the relative distance of the south (Marseille and Arles were conquered
by Euric as late as 473) Salvian perceived Arianism as less of a danger
than individuals of a later generation, as for example Perpetuus, bishop of
Tours 458/459–488/489. Tours was conquered by the Visigoths in 465, was
lost in 469 and became Visigothic again in the 470s. In this politically insecure
period he promoted the reputation of the (Catholic) Saint Martin of Tours. He
dedicated to him a larger, new basilica and wanted to transform Tours into a
supra-regional centre of pilgrimage.20 In addition he commissioned Paulinus
17
Vita Orientii 3–4 (AASS Mai I, 63); cf. also Schäferdiek, Kirche in den Reichen der
Westgoten und Suewen, p. 10; Wolfram, Goten, pp. 181–82.
18
Salv. Gub. 4.13.61; cf. Salvian about Heinzelmann, ‘Prosopographica IV’, p. 688; Philippe
Badot and Daniel De Decker, ‘Salvien de Marseille: Note critique’, Augustinianum, 38 (1998):
pp. 223–77; David Lambert, ‘The Use of Decay: History in Salvian’s De gubernatione Dei’,
Augustinian Studies, 30 (1999): pp. 115–30; Adolf Martin Ritter, ‘Salvian von Marseille’, RGG, 7
(2007): p. 811.
19
Salv. Gub. 5.2.9.
20
Cf. Sidon. Epist. 4.18 (from 470); Greg. Tur. Hist. 2.14, 10.31.6. Cf. Karl Suso Frank,
‘Martin von Tours und die Anfänge seiner Verehrung’, in Werner Gross and Wolfgang Urban
(eds), Martin von Tours. Ein Heiliger Europas (Ostfildern, 1997), pp. 21–61; Dieter von der
Nahmer, ‘Martin von Tours’, LMA, 6 (1993): pp. 344–5; Eugen Ewig, ‘Der Martinskult im
Frühmittelalter’, Archiv für mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte, 14 (1962 pp. 11–30), repr. in Eugen
of Perigueux with the revision of the vita of Martin in which he emphasised

his anti-‘Arian’ involvement among other things. This concerns the part of his
life when Martin lived in northern Italy and was driven away by Auxentius of
Milan.21 He then retreated to the island of Gallinaria until he returned to Gaul
with Hilary of Poitiers. Paulinus vividly describes how the flood of the Arian
sect would be broken by the incredible strength of the chest of Martin.22 In the
sixth book about the wonders of Martin at his grave even an anti-Gothic wonder
is recounted: when the Visigoths again laid siege to Arles in 459 the general
Aegidius was able to free himself from the Gothic dominance through the help
of Martin and was thus able to break through the siege.23
Although Perpetuus devoted considerable efforts towards strengthening his
own Catholic, Gallic-Roman tradition with the help of a saint there is very little
evidence to suggest that any missionising attempts to dissuade the Visigoths
from their heresies actually took place.24 This also applies to the Visigoths
themselves: there is absolutely no evidence that might suggest that their rulers or
other prominent personalities had any intention of converting the local Gallic-
Roman inhabitants to Homoian ‘Arianism’. A religiously uniform kingdom does
Ewig, Spätantikes und fränkisches Gallien 2, Beihefte der Francia 3, 2 (Munich, 1979 pp. 371–92).
On Perpetuus and Paulinus cf. Heinzelmann, ‘Prosopographica IV’, pp. 666–68.
21
On Auxentius see Chapter 4 (Uta Heil) in this volume.
22
Paulinus Petricordiae, De vita Martini 1.238–59 (ed. Petschenig, CSEL 16, 1, pp. 28–9).
The corresponding description by Sulpicius Severus, Vita sancti Martini 6.4–7.1 is somewhat more
demure and not poetic. Paulinus paraphrases Sulpicius Severus’ vita of Martin in books 1–3, the
three dialogues with Martin by Sulpicius in books 4 and 5. Book 6 is a poetic version of the miracle
stories from the grave of Martin in Tours, assembled by Perpetuus himself. Cf. Raymond Van
Dam, ‘Paulinus of Périgueux and Perpetuus of Tours’, Francia, 14 (1986): pp. 567–73; Meinolf
Vielberg, Der Mönchsbischof von Tours im ‘Martinellus’. Zur Form des spätantiken Dossiers und
seines spätantiken Leitbilds, Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte 79 (Berlin and
New York, 2006), pp. 172–73.
23
Paulinus Petricordiae, De vita Martini 6.111–51 (ed. Petschenig, CSEL 16, 1,
pp. 143–44). Cf. the inclusion by Gregory of Tours, Liber I de virtutibus s. Martini, MGH SS
rer. Merov. 1, 2, p. 137: Egidius quoque cum obsederetur ab hostibus et, exclusa solatia, turbatus
inpugnaretur, per invocationem beati viri, fugatis hostibus, liberatus est. Idque daemoniacus in medio
basilicae ipsa hora qua gestum fuerat est professus sancti Martini obtentu fuisse concessum.
24
The above mentioned single example in the Vita Hilarii forms an exception. The
benefactress Glismoda, named in the inscription as having financially supported the construction
of a church in Narbonne does not belong to the fifth but instead to the eighth or ninth century
(Heinzelmann, ‘Prosopographica IV’, p. 618; contra Schäferdiek, Kirche in den Reichen der
Westgoten und Suewen, pp. 10–11; Wolfram, Goten, pp. 201–2). Othia, the founder of a
basilica in the vicinity of Narbonne and known by name through an inscription dating to 455
(Heinzelmann, ‘Prosopographica IV’, p. 660) appears not to have been an ‘Arian’ Visigoth, despite
his Gothic name, because the coast by Narbonne came under Visigothic control as late as 462
(contra: Mathisen and Sivan, ‘Kingdom of Toulouse’, p. 40).
not appear to have been the aim of their (church) politics. Actual conversions
are not known.25 The only evidence of missionary activity was aimed at other
gentes, in this case at the Suebi in Spain. A short note by Hydatius26 mentions
that in the last year of the rule of Theoderic the Visigoths sent a ‘missionary’
named Aiax, senior Arrianus, to the Suebi (466). The circumstances were likely
a political and religious rapprochement of the Suebi under Rechimund with
the Visigoths in those years that was further supported by marriage politics.
Aiax’s effectiveness was considerable – the Suebi are considered ‘Arians’ after
this period – though sadly very little is known about him except for the fact that
he was from Galatia. His title senior may indicate a widely respected position
among the Visigoths.
During the time of the Visigothic kingdom in Toulouse there is only one
report of a real debate or religious discussion between the Homoian-‘Arian’ and
Catholic parties. An unfortunately short mention in a letter (ep. VII 6,2) by
Sidonius refers to a Goth named Modahari who was active in Provence and had
a public dispute there with Basil of Aix.27 It is only a short laudatory mention
since Sidonius was happy for Basil that he came out of this dispute as the superior
winner. There is no information about the topics and theses or about Modahari,
who is only referred to as the civem Gothorum by Sidonius Apollinaris. Also the
place and time of this discussion (before 475) can only be surmised.
Disputes are known to have taken place in the 470s between Euric and a few
bishops. These disputes though do not indicate any intended church politics of
the Visigothic rulers but instead demonstrate the important social position of
the (catholic) bishops in Gaul.28 At the beginning of the 470s Euric crossed the
Rhône in multiple attacks in order to enlarge the Visigothic area to the east and
south. Sidonius Apollinaris, who had just become bishop of Clermont, together
with his brother-in-law Ecidicius, a military strategist, led a Gallic opposition
against the expansion endeavours of the Visigoths and was therefore exiled for
25
Cf. also Mathisen and Sivan, ‘Kingdom of Toulouse’, p 38–39. This topic is of specific
interest to Schäferdiek, Kirche in den Reichen der Westgoten und Suewen, and he discusses the
situation of the Catholic Church during the time of the Gallic Visigothic kingdom on pp. 8–67.
26
Hydatius, Chron. 228/232 (ed. Burgess, p. 118): Aiax natione Galata effectus apostata et
senior Arrianus inter Suevos regis sui auxilio hostis catholicae fidei et divinae trinitatis emergit. De
Gallicana Gothorum habitatione hoc pestiferum inimici hominis virus advectum. Cf. Schäferdiek,
Kirche in den Reichen der Westgoten und Suewen, pp. 110–11.
27
Cf. Heinzelmann, ‘Prosopographica IV’, p. 570; Wolfram, Goten, pp. 211–12;
Schäferdiek, Kirche in den Reichen der Westgoten und Suewen, p. 29, no. 83.
28
Cf. Mathisen and Sivan, ‘Kingdom of Toulouse’, p 42: ‘… the Arian Euric was not
attacking Catholic orthodoxy per se but the Catholic leadership, and for essentially political
rather than religious reasons’. Cf. Wolfram, Goten, pp. 201–6; Schäferdiek, Kirche in den Reichen
der Westgoten und Suewen, pp. 8–67.
about two years after the capture of Clermont.29 In the meantime the emperor
Julius Nepos allowed peace talks to take place with the Visigoths that were mainly
led by respected (catholic) bishops. In return for Auvergne, including Clermont,
Euric would pull out of Provence. Leontius of Arles, Graecus of Marseille, the
aforementioned Basil of Aix, and Faustus of Riez, all from Provence, were
the delegates of a second attempt at mediation. In a dramatic letter to Basil30
Sidonius Apollinaris outlined a very negative image of life under the rule of
the Visigoth Euric which would also eradicate the Catholic Church. This letter
likely intended to discourage the delegation from an attempted peace treaty with
Euric and the surrendering of Clermont. An agreement was only reached in 475
after the arrival of another imperial delegate, the respected bishop Ennodius of
Pavia. The agreement conceded those areas to Euric which he had seized except
for the strip of Provence south of the Durance (this was however taken by Euric
only a year later when Odoacer became the ruler of Italy).
During this expansion phase Euric appears to have tried to lessen the
influence of the Catholic Church within his area of rule by not filling vacant
bishoprics. Sidonius Apollinaris describes in the abovementioned letter to Basil
that in the meantime multiple bishoprics were vacant (Bordeaux, Périguex,
Rodez, Limoges, Mende, Eauze, Bazas, St. Bertrand-de-Comminges, Auch).31
Persecution or forceful conversion to ‘Arianism’ did not take place and the
positions were later filled. At the Catholic synod of Agde in 506, convoked by
Alaric II, 34 bishoprics were present, even those that had been vacant in the
meantime (only Ruricius of Limoges excused himself due to illness). Forty-
nine canons were passed that only dealt with disciplinary matters of their
own (catholic) community; no canon addresses the relationship to the ‘Arian’
neighbours that could provide information about the situation within the
Visigothic church.
After all, a few laws in the Codex Euricianus must be taken into consideration
even if it cannot be exactly determined whether this codification of laws took
place at the time of Euric or Alaric. Along with Knut Schäferdiek it must be
assumed that the three laws of the fragmentary codex on church matters ‘must
be primarily understood as issued with particular regard to the Arian church’.32
Codex Euricianus 335 states that clerics (clerici, monaci vel sanctimoniales) that
pass away without heirs to the seventh degree or testamentary provision will
entail their entire wealth to the church that they served (totam sibi ecclesia, cui
Cf. Jill Harries, Sidonius Apollinaris and the Fall of Rome (Oxford, 1994); Wolfram,
29
Goten, pp. 189–92.

30
Sidon. Epist. 7.6, cf. Schäferdiek, Kirche in den Reichen der Westgoten und Suewen,
pp. 18–31.
31
Cf. Mathisen and Sivan, ‘Kingdom of Toulouse’, pp. 41–2; Wolfram, Goten, pp. 203–4.
32
Schäferdiek, Kirche in den Reichen der Westgoten und Suewen, p. 16.
servierunt, eorum substantiam vindicabit).33 This regulation appears to have been

drawn from the Codex Theodosianus V 3.1. Interestingly the Codex Euricianus
only refers to churches as possible heirs but in contrast to the Codex Theodosianus
does not mention monasteries (bona … sacrosanctae ecclesiae vel monasterio, cui
fuerat destinatus, omnifariam socientur). Possibly this omission was purposely
done: the Homoian-‘Arian’ church apparently had no monasteries. This would
support Schäferdiek’s view that the laws refer to the Visigothic church. If this is
the case then we can presume that the Visigoths had a church structure similar to
that of the Catholic Church (with the exception of the monasteries).
Another law (Codex Euricianus 306) deals with the protection of church
property. It is forbidden that clerics pass on their property to descendants. Only
if these descendants remain in the duty of the church can a heritage be accepted
by them. Furthermore it is specified that a bishop or presbyter (episcopus vel
presbyter) cannot make decisions regarding the asset management on his own
without the consent of the entire clergy (praeter consensu omnium clericorum). A
third relevant law explains the conditions for asylum in churches.34
In retrospect the expansion of churches can be confirmed from another
perspective. In July 511 the (catholic) bishops from Gaul – now under the
control of the Franks – gathered for a synod in Orléans. Canon 10 of the synodal
acts treats the handling of church buildings of the Homoian-‘Arian’ church of
the Visigoths (de basilicis, quas in peruersitate sua gothi hactenus habuerunt).
The following can be read there: ‘When former Arian clerics decide to return
to the true church of their own volition and are an integrated personality,
they must receive the ministry for which the bishop deems them worthy and
the dedication through the laying on of hands. Their church buildings are to
be consecrated as our own’.35 Since a decision on this matter was needed, there
appears to have been a larger number of both clerics and church buildings whose
further disposal needed to be regulated. In view of this the opinion voiced by
Ralph Mathisen is in need of correction: ‘The structure and hierarchy of the
Arian church appear to have been rather different than that of the Catholic: a
33
The text of the Codex Euriciani (Legum codicis Euriciani fragmenta): MGH LL
nat. Germ. 1, § 306, p. 17; § 335, p. 27; Álvaro d’Ors (ed.), Estudios Visigóticos. El codigo de
Eurico, Edición, Palingenesia, Indices, Cuardernos del Instituto Juridico Espanol 12 (Rome and
Madrid, 1960), § 306, pp. 31–3, § 335, p. 43.
34
To be deduced from Codex Euriciani 9.3.1–4, MGH LL nat. Germ. 1, pp. 379–81;
compare d’Ors, El codigo de Eurico, pp. 81–83.
35
Concilium Aurelianense 511, can. 10 (ed. De Clercq, CCSL 148 A, pp. 7, 85–8, 92): De
hereticis clericis, qui ad fidem catholicam plena fide ac uoluntate uenerint, uel de basilicis, quas in
peruersitate sua gothi hactenus habuerunt, id censuimus obseruari, ut si clereci fideliter conuertuntur
et fidem catholicam integrae confitentur uel ita dignam uitam morum et actuum probitate custodiunt,
officium, quo eos episcopus dignos esse censuerit, cum impositae manus benedictione suscipiant; et
ecclesias simili, quo nostrae innouari solent, placuit ordine consecrari.
church, centred on the person of the king, accompanied by some sacerdotes,

but without bishops.36 During the migration of the Visigoths from the eastern
Balkans all the way to Gaul it is possible to refer to a mobile ‘royal chapel’, but
with the settlement and growth in power these conditions would likely have
changed. The specific Homoian-‘Arian’ trait does not consist of a critique of the
structure of offices of the Catholic Church or in the dissolution of the episcopate
but instead in a different understanding of the relationship between the pre-
existent Christ and between the Holy Spirit and God, the father.
As we do not know polemics (Streitschriften) from the Visigothic realm it
is difficult to reconstruct the Catholic or Homoian standpoints on theological
differences. One person though deserves closer consideration: Faustus of Riez (†
around 490),37 one of the aforementioned peace negotiators with Euric in 474.
He was abbot at the monastery of Lérins before he became bishop of Riez
in 460. Faustus was also exiled for a while by Euric as described by his letters
(Epist. 6.2; 9.1; 12.1) but it is not possible to say anything about the reasons for
it, the background or the date of his exile. Faustus’s part in the delegation displays
an attitude towards accepting Visigothic rule rather than opposing it, as with
Sidonius Apollinaris. As was the case concerning Caesarius of Arles, accusations
of betrayal loomed large due to the proximity of Riez to the area ruled by the
Burgundians. Whether a particular anti-‘Arian’ and therefore anti-Visigothic
activity was of importance is speculative. It is also known through Gennadius
of Marseille (vir. ill. 86) that Faustus wrote a treatise against the Arians and
Macedonians. This writing did not survive but his other writing, De spiritu
sancto, and another letter (ep. 3) – better referred to as a theological treatise –
are of relevance. The addressee of this letter is not known. Faustus answers three
questions that someone posed and which originated from a theological
discussion. The answer to the third question regarding the physicality of the soul
caused Claudianus Mamertus to react with his writing De statu animae but since
36
Mathisen and Sivan, ‘Kingdom of Toulouse’, p. 39. There is no reason to interpret the few
references to clerics in the vicinity of the king (sacerdotes suos, cf. Sidon. Epist. 1.2.4; Ennodius,
Vita Epiphanii 92), in this way. See Chapter 7 (Ralph Mathisen) in this volume.
37
On Faustus cf. Heinzelmann, ‘Prosopographica IV’, p. 607 (Faustus 2); Volker H. Drecoll,
‘Faustus von Reji’, RGG, 3 (2000): pp. 52–53; Thomas A. Smith, De gratia: Faustus of Riez’s
Treatise on grace and its place in the history of theology, Christianity and Judaism in antiquity 4
(Notre Dame, Ind., 1990); Claudio Micaelli (ed.), Fausto di Riez. Lo Spirito Santo. Introduzione,
traduzione e note, Collana di testi patristici 136 (Rome, 1997). Faustus works: August Engelbrecht
(ed.), Fausti Reiensis praeter Sermones Pseudo-Eusebianos opera, CSEL 21 (Vienna, 1891); most of
his letters are trans. by Ralph W. Mathisen (ed.), Ruricius of Limoges and Friends. A Collection of
Letters from Visigothic Gaul, TTH 30 (Liverpool, 1999).
he died in 474, the original letter must have been written some time before the
death of Claudianus.38
In his writing De spiritu sancto Faustus defends the absolute divinity of
the Holy Spirit against various objections. This writing therefore supports the
tendency in later theological discussions regarding the Trinity that the Holy
Spirit played a central role in the dispute. Since the surviving writing begins
without a preface or accompanying letter, the occasion and possible adversary
cannot be defined. The recited theses give the writing a dialogue structure and
are attributed to an anonymous ‘you’. Faustus sometimes refers to ‘Macedonian’
or a ‘Macedonius’ with the intention of associating his opponent with the heresy
of the ‘Pneumatomachians’, also referred to as ‘Macedonians’.39 Faustus deals
with the following objections against the divinity of the Holy Spirit as far as this
can be evaluated from De spiritu sancto (abbreviated as spir. in the following):
• Not only credo et in spiritum sanctum is written in the creed but also
credo in sanctam ecclesiam catholicam. This formulation does not imply
the divinity of the Holy Spirit since the church would have to be equally
divine (spir. I.2).
• The Holy Spirit does not have any power of creation, but only the Father
(through the son: spir. I.3.6).
• The Holy Spirit is a created being as mentioned in Amos 4:13: ecce ego
firmans tonitruum et creans spiritum, although superior to all other beings,
creaturam, inquis, dico, sed excellentiorem omnibus creaturis (spir. II.3).
• The passage John 3:5 renatus fuerit ex aqua et spiritu sancto proves that
the Holy Spirit is created due to the implied equation of water and the
Holy Spirit (spir. II.5).
• The Holy Spirit is not an independent person because in Scripture one
always reads: ‘Spirit of the Father’, ‘my spirit’ or ‘Spirit of God’ (spir.
I.7; II.4).
• The biblical description of the Holy Spirit as the finger of God
(cf. Lk 11:20) expresses his lowliness, ideo minor filio et patre (spir. I.8).
• The various prepositions in Rom. 11:36: quoniam ex ipso et per ipsum et
in ipso sunt omnia displays the differences between Father, Son and Holy
Spirit (spir. II.4).
• If the Holy Spirit is supposed to be viewed as a separate Trinitarian
person how would he need to be described; as begotten like the son or
as unbegotten like the Father (spir. I.9)? Additionally in the Scripture (1
38
In 474 Faustus was also asked for a statement concerning the teaching on grace
(Gnadenlehre), cf. Smith, De gratia and Micaelli (ed.), Fausto di Riez. Lo Spirito Santo.
39
Faustus, De spiritu sancto 2.4.10–9 (ed. Engelbrecht, CSEL 21, p. 138); Makedonius:
p. 104, 1; p. 105, 16; p. 135, 5; p. 138, 18.
Cor. 1:1; Gal. 1:1 and Eph. 4:6) only the Father and Son were mentioned
together. Only the Father and the Son should be understood as persons
but not the Holy Spirit: Deinde dualitatem intromittis et dicis spiritum
sanctum propriam non habere personam (spir. II.4).
• A Holy Spirit poured into humans cannot be completely God (spir. II.1).
Many arguments against the divinity of the Holy Spirit are traditional and had
already been refuted by earlier theologians in the fourth century (Athanasius of
Alexandria, Didymus the Blind, Ambrosius of Milan) but the discussion about
the formulation in the creed is new and displays a current and continued debate
surrounding the Holy Spirit in Gaul in the fifth century. Faustus appears to be
reacting to a debate with Homoian-‘Arian’ scholars likely under the influence of
the Visigoths and wanted to provide his Catholic colleagues with an arsenal of
arguments in order to successfully participate in the discussions.
In spir. I.6 Faustus summarises an opposing thesis that is also mentioned
in a similar formulation in the aforementioned letter: sed dicis: si ex illo est,
iunior illo est.40 It is likely that Faustus here includes the first question directed
at him from the letter because he begins the letter with the words: ‘You ask
me, most reverend of pontiffs, how one should respond to the Arians, who with
a blasphemous tongue attempt to assert: He is unable, one says, to exist unless
as a iunior created from the one who was not created’.41 The vocabulary senior/
iunior is unusual because other texts dealing with analogous Homoian-‘Arian’
thesis generally use maior/minor or prior/posterior. And both times Faustus
replies to this thesis among others with the comparison that an arm from a body
does not reveal its subordination. In this case Faustus emphasises that the ex in
the description of the son as ‘God from God’ / deum ex deo does not indicate
any separation, submission or posteriority but instead implies the one divinity
and complete equality (aequalitas) between the Father and the Son.42 The
addressee as well as the circumstances and the occasion for which he wanted
these theological explanations from Faustus are not known. As a result it is only
possible to conclude that similar discussions probably took place in Visigothic
Gaul in the 470s.
Faustus, De spiritu sancto 1.6.7 (ed. Engelbrecht, CSEL 21, p. 110).

40
Faustus, Epist. 3 (ed. Engelbrecht, CSEL 21, p. 168); tr. Mathisen, Ruricius of Limoges
41
and Friends, p. 239: Quaeris a me, reverentissime sacerdotum, quomodo Arrianis respondendum sit,
qui blasphemo ore conantur asserere: non potest, inquit, fieri, nisi ut iunior sit genitus ab ingenito.
42
The second question addresses a statement from Faustus himself that he had mentioned
in a letter to Graecus of Marseille (Epist. 7): ‘He feels nothing with the feeling of a sufferer,
but he feels through his connection with a fellowsufferer’. This deals with a question from the
christological dispute that was started by Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, and dealt with the
relationship between the two natures in Christ, the incarnated. So Epist. 3 was perhaps another
answer to Graecus or can be taken as a hint to broader circulation of the letters to Graecus.
About one hundred years later Gregory of Tours stylised the battle of the
Franks against the Visigoths in 507 as a one-sided religious war of the orthodox
Franks against the heretical Visigothic ‘Arians’ for the protection of the Gallic-
Roman Catholics – although the Franks had led the war in alliance with the
likewise ‘Arian’ Burgundians.43 The depiction by Gregory is quite biased since
already in the preceding year 506 the convocation of the (Catholic) council of
Agde revealed that the Catholic Church had generally accepted the status quo
and was beginning to adjust its structures parallel to its new political boundaries.
In the Praefatio of the canones the glorious and pious king is thanked for the
possibility of coming together at the council. The bishops pray for his long life
and God’s support for his empire. The danger of the decline of the Catholic
Church in Gaul did not exist.
The Burgundians in Gaul
The 90-year reign of the Burgundians in Gaul along the Rhône began in 443 with
the settling of the remaining groups of the conquered Burgundians from the
Rhine in the Sapaudia west of Lake Geneva as federates of the Roman Empire.44
This small area was militarily important due to the intersection between the
Rhône and Rhine areas as well as the Gallic and Italic regions. It appears likely
that the Burgundians had to secure the border of the Roman Empire against
the Alamanni. In 451 the Burgundians as well as the Visigoths and the Franks
fought for the general Aëtius against the Huns under the leadership of Attila
who had invaded Gaul in the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains. This stopped the
advances of the Huns into Gaul, and in 456 the Burgundians fought for the
emperor Avitus together with the Visigoths against the Suebi in Spain. At this
point the first Burgundian kings are known: Gundowech († around 470) and his
brother Chilperic (I.; † around 480). After a first unsuccessful attempt in 457,

43
Chronica Gallica a. 452, a. 443, MGH AA 9, p. 660; Richard W. Burgess (ed.), ‘The
44
Gallic Chronicle of 452: A New Critical Edition with a Brief Introduction’, in Ralph W. Mathisen
and Danuta Shanzer (eds), Society and Culture in Late Antique Gaul. Revisiting the Sources
(Aldershot, 2001), pp. 52–84, at p. 80: Sapaudia Burgundionum reliquiis datur cum indigenis
dividenda. ‘The remaining Burgundians receive the Sapaudia and gave to share it with the locals’.
For the history of the Burgundian kingdom cf. Hans Hubert Anton, ‘Burgunden II. Historisches’,
RGA, 4 (1981): pp. 235–48; Justin Favrod, Histoire politique du royaume burgonde (443–534)
(Lausanne, 1997); Volker Gallé (ed.), Die Burgunder. Ethnogenese und Assimilation eines Volkes,
Schriftenreihe der Nibelungengesellschaft Worms 5 (2nd ed. Worms, 2009); Uta Heil, Avitus von
Vienne und die homöische Kirche der Burgunder, Patristische Texte und Studien 66 (Berlin and
Boston, 2011), pp. 1–28; Reinhold Kaiser, Die Burgunder, Kohlhammer Urban-Taschenbuch 586
(Stuttgart, 2004).
the Burgundians were able to expand their power west into Lyon and south into
Valence at the beginning of the 460s. A diarchy with seats in Lyon and Geneva
was established. At the same time, however, the Burgundians defined themselves
as part of the Roman Empire: Gundowech was a magister militum per Gallias
and his son Gundobad received this title after the usual career steps in Italy. These
Burgundian royals were closely connected to Ricimer in Italy. The Burgundians
appear to have challenged the expansion efforts of the Visigoths and partially
also supported the population in war-torn regions. In the 470s during the decay
of the imperial power structures in Gaul the situation in Gaul changed and the
Burgundians were able to expand their area again under Chilperic I. The Rhône
constituted the western border of the Burgundian area from Avignon to Lyon.
Further north they most likely controlled the area from Nevers to Langres, and
Lake Neuchâtel to the west and east of the Saône. North of the Durance, the
eastern frontier of the Burgundian territory was marked by Sisteron, Embrun
and Moutiers en Tarentaise in the Alps. Around 480 Gundobad became king
together with his brother Godegisel. They tried to consolidate the kingdom
through new alliances with the Visigoths, Ostrogoths and Franks accompanied
by appropriate marriages.
Around 500 a war between the brothers Godegisel and Gundobad unsettled
the Burgundian kingdom. Godegisel was not satisfied being only a co-regent
under his brother Gundobad and thus allied himself with the Franks. In a battle
against the Franks Godegisel switched sides so that Gundobad lost. Gundobad
prevailed in defeating his brother only with Visigothic help. After this event
Gundobad’s son Sigismund became the co-regent beside Gundobad in Geneva
and Gundobad’s niece Chrodechilde was given to the Frankish king Chlodwig
as his wife to reinforce the peace with the Franks. In the great battle against
the Goths in 507 the Burgundians fought alongside the Franks against the
Visigoths and were able to occupy the small strip south of the Durance to the
Mediterranean Sea for a short time. But an Ostrogothic offensive dislodged them
again from Arles, Marseille, Narbonne and Avignon so that the Durance became
the borderline of a southern Gallic prefecture under Italian (Ostrogothic)
control. The Burgundians under Sigismund had to accept further territorial
losses: In 522 Sigismund had his son Sigeric, the grandson of Theoderic,
killed due to conspiracy theories. This challenged an offensive from both the
Ostrogoths as well as the Franks and Sigismund was defeated (523). The rest of
the kingdom, ruled by Sigismund’s brother Godomar was finally conquered by
the Franks in 534.
Compared to the Visigoths the religious situation in fifth- and early sixth-
century Burgundy was more ambiguous. Most probably the Burgundians were
already Christians before they were accepted in the Sapaudia by the imperial
authorities45 but the exact differentiation between the Homoian-‘Arian’ and the
Catholic denomination probably was not known to them at this point. Not until
the reign of Gundobad can a clearer religious profile be recognised. This suggests
that the Burgundians consciously chose the Homoian-‘Arian’ denomination
sometime after their settlement in the Sapaudia by contacts with the Homoian-
‘Arian’ Visigoths and Ostrogoths due to political convergence. Uniquely among
the Burgundians both Catholic as well as Homoian-‘Arian’ Christians lived side
by side. This can be seen even in the ruling family, namely among the women:
the wife of Chilperic I was Catholic, as was the wife of Gundobad, Caretena,
and Theodelinde, the wife of Godegisel and both daughters of Chilperic
II, Chrodechilde and Crona. Furthermore it is interesting that Sigismund
switched over to the Catholic faith between 501 and 507 but was nevertheless
able first to become co-regent beside Gundobad and then later the sole ruler.46
In this respect the Homoian-‘Arian’ Christianity only sporadically appears to
have been of political importance and was of less significance to Burgundian
identity than to the Visigoths or Vandals.
The information about a Burgundian Homoian-‘Arian’ church is sparse.
The most important sources are the writings recorded by Avitus,47 bishop of
Vienne (before 494 to shortly before 519).48 He descended from a Gallo-Roman
Oros. Hist. 7.32.13; 41.8; Sokr., HE 7.30.

45
Cf. Heil, Avitus von Vienne, pp. 48–65; on Sigismund cf. Reinhold Kaiser, ‘Der
46
Burgunderkönig Sigismund (523/24): erster heiliger König des Mittelalters und erster königlicher
Romfahrer, Bußpilger und Mönch’, in Andreas Meyer, Constanze Rendtel, and Maria Wittmer-
Butsch (eds), Päpste, Pilger und Pönitentiarie, Festschrift für Ludwig Schmugge zum 65. Geburtstag
(Tübingen, 2004), pp. 199–210.
47
On Avitus cf. Max Burckhardt, Die Briefsammlung des Bischofs Avitus von Vienne († 518),
Abhandlungen zur mittleren und neueren Geschichte 81 (Berlin, 1938), pp. 27–35; Heil, Avitus
von Vienne, pp. 29–45; Martin Heinzelmann, Bischofsherrschaft in Gallien. Zur Kontinuität
römischer Führungsschichten vom 4. bis zum 7. Jahrhundert. Soziale, prosopographische und
bildungsgeschichtliche Aspekte, Beihefte der Francia 5 (Zürich and Munich, 1976), pp. 220–22;
Uwe Kühneweg, ‘Alcimus Acdicius Avitus von Vienne, Kirchenpolitiker und Bibeldichter’, in
Peter Gemeinhardt and Uwe Kühneweg (eds), Patristica et Oecumenica, Festschrift für Wolfgang
A. Bienert zum 65. Geburtstag, Marburger theologische Studien 85 (Marburg, 2004), pp. 124–27;
Danuta Shanzer and Ian N. Wood (eds), Avitus of Vienne. Letters and Selected Prose, TTH 38
(Liverpool, 2002), pp. 4–10; PLRE 2 (Avitus 4), p. 195–6; Heinzelmann, ‘Prosopographica IV’,
p. 568. The writings of Avitus are edited by Rudolf Peiper, Alcimi Ecdicii Aviti Viennensis episcopi
Opera quae supersunt, MGH AA 6, 2 (Berlin, 1883; repr. Munich, 1985), pp. 1–103 (letters);
pp. 103–57 (Homilia); pp. 200–94 (Poemata). In addition this volume contains pp. 161–4 the
faked Collatio (dialogue between Avitus and Gundobad on the trinity), the acts from the synods of
Epao and Lyon pp. 165–77, the Vita Aviti pp. 177–81 and finally various epitaphs on pp. 183–96.
48
In 519 Avitus’s successor Julianus signed the resolutions of the synod of Lyon as bishop
of Vienne: Acta concilii Lugdunensis (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2, p. 175–77 at p. 176, 23). Thus
Avitus died shortly before the synod.
aristocratic family and his father Hesychius/Isicius had already been the bishop
of Vienne. His brother also became a bishop of Valence;49 one of his sisters
became a nun at the age of 10.50 The godfather and spiritual mentor of Avitus was
Mamertus, the predecessor of Hesychius as bishop of Vienne and the brother of
Claudianus Mamertus, whose writing De statu animae was of great importance.51
The pinnacle of his career as bishop was most likely the (Catholic) synod of Epao
in 517 that Avitus – together with Viventiolus of Lyon – summoned shortly
after the Catholic Sigismund became sole ruler.52 The towns from where the
bishops travelled reflect the expansion of the Burgundian kingdom at the time.
Similarly to the Visigothic kingdom (synod of Agde in 506) it displays the way
in which the circumstances of the Gallic church at the beginning of the sixth
century were adapted to the political environment.
In contrast to his earlier Gallic colleagues Avitus displays a certain effort to
missionise the settled ‘heretical barbarians’ and the fairly tolerant conditions
in the kingdom of the Burgundians supported such a theological exchange.
Remarkably the Burgundian king Gundobad even became interested in
Christian teachings, particularly in knowledge of the bible, and wanted to
discuss this with the well-respected bishop Avitus.
Sometimes Avitus referred to clerics who supported the king Gundobad
among others as theological advisors. In one letter for example, Avitus mentions
priests, sacerdotes of Gundobad who had brought forth objections against the
divinity of the Holy Spirit.53 Maybe Gundobad relayed this information to him.
Avitus ended the letter with a harsh request to the king: the ruler is strongly
advised to chase away these sacerdotes and to take care that they no longer have
any further influence on him or instruct him, so that his conversion (perfectiam
PLRE 2 (Apollinaris 5), p. 115; Heinzelmann, ‘Prosopographica IV’, pp. 556–57

49
(Apollinaris 6). Avitus wrote letters to him (Epist. 13; 14; 27; 61; 71; 72; 87; 88), Epist. 13 and 71
are letters of Apollinaris to Avitus, and Avitus dedicated his two writings De spiritalis historiae
gestis and De consolatoria castitatis laude to him.
50
Avitus wrote the poem De virginitate/De consolatoria castitatis laude (ed. Peiper, MGH
AA 6, 2, pp. 275–94) for her.
51
Claudianus Mamertus, De statu animae, August Engelbrecht (ed.), Claudiani Mamerti
opera, CSEL 11 (Vienna, 1885), pp. 18–197; cf. Heinzelmann, ‘Prosopographica IV’, p. 585.
52
Avitus, Epist. 90 (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2, pp. 167–75); Concilium Epaonense a. 517
(ed. De Clercq, CCSL 148 A, pp. 22–37). Forty canones were passed that give direct insight into
the organisational problems of the (Catholic) Church of the time.
53
Avitus, Epist. 1, 16–9 (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2, p. 13): … potius revolvamus, quod a
sacerdotibus vestris scripsistis obiectum. Igitur discutientibus vobis, utrum spiritus sanctus … creatur
an creatura credendus sit. Cf. sacerdotalis auctoritas (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2, p. 14, 21); cf. Heil,
Avitus von Vienne, p. 80.
vestram, professio – confessio) is not delayed any further or even prevented.54 In

another letter, addressed to Sigismund, Avitus mentions sacerdotes in the vicinity
of Gundobad with whom he would like to discuss a certain collection of quotes
from the bible.55 And finally, in letter 28, Avitus supports former clerics from
Homoian-‘Arian’ congregations assuming a spiritual position in the Catholic
Church as long as their way of life was not criticised. This supports the idea that
a separate Burgundian church structure existed parallel to the Catholic one: on
both sides there are clerics who herd a flock and preside over a congregation.56
The general term ‘cleric’ can be substantiated by a short note from Gregory
of Tours: In connection with a report about Gundobad’s conquest of Vienne
during the war against his brother in 500/501, Gregory mentions the flight of
Godegisel into the church of the ‘Arians’. In this church however, Godegisel
and the local ‘Arian’ bishop (cum episcopo arriano) were killed. This reference
is interesting because Avitus does not mention an ‘Arian’ bishop in Vienne
although he is the (Catholic) bishop of this city and remained in Vienne during
its siege in 501.57 The ‘Arian’ bishop in question could have entered the city
with Godegisel but could just as well have been there before. The mention of
ad ecclesiam hereticorum does indeed indicate that a Homoian-‘Arian’ church
existed in Vienne with its own bishop. Godegisel would not have fled into a
recently seized church.
Interestingly there appear to have been regular or annual meetings of the
Homoian church in Geneva. In a letter to Sigismund Avitus is anxious about
these meetings and the decisions made but the actual circumstances are no
longer certain.58 In any case he is worried about the expansion of the ‘Arian’
heresy and would like to put pressure on Sigismund since he as the Catholic
king should prevent this in his seat of residence.
54
Avitus, Epist. 1, 38–9 (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2, p. 14–15): … ne diutius sacerdotes vestri
dicantur, qui sancto spiritui contradicunt: ne deinceps coram vobis putentur docere … .
55
On these letters cf. below p. 289. Avitus, Epist. 23, 34–5 (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2,
p. 55) polemically plays with the word sacerdotes: Si scriptum misissem, sacerdotibus, immo magis
seductoribus et, ut adhuc verius dicamus, sectatoribus suis se velle proponere.
56
Concilium Epaonense a. 517 can. 29 (ed. De Clercq, CCSL 148 A, p. 31) deals with the
readmittance of individuals who had drifted into ‘heresy’.
57
Greg. Tur. Hist. 2.33; Avitus, Epist. 95 and 96 (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2, pp. 102–3):
Heraclius accuses him of having hidden himself. Avitus accuses Heraclius of having fled. On
Heraclius cf. below fn. 65.
58
Avitus, Epist. 31, 9–14 (ed. Peiper, MGH AA, 6, 2, p. 62): Si quidem per annuum
quoddam contagium congregatis adversis attento vobis labore curandum est, ne alienae calliditatis
fraude pullulet, quod in dei nomine iam vestra victoria celebrabili virtute succidit, quamlibet Christo
propitio praesentibus vobis absistat. Hinc illa sollicitudine priscior constipatio Genavensis, quae in
more originis primae virilibus animis virus anguis sibilo feminei sermonis insonuit. Cf. Heil, Avitus
von Vienne, pp. 80–85. Cf. Shanzer and Wood, Avitus, p. 231.
In a letter (Epist. 7) Avitus considers a question asked by Victorius of

Grenoble. He is wondering whether under the rule of the Catholic Sigismund
the Catholic Church should take over or continue using former buildings and
the liturgical paraphernalia of the Homoian-‘Arian’ church:
You asked or actually forced me, most pious brother, to inform you in this letter,
addressed to our Blessedness, whether the chapels and basilicas of the heretics can
be admitted into the service of our religion when their founders have joined the
Catholic faith through a correction of their errors’.59
Chapels, or private oratoriae, and small basilicae, or small churches, are

buildings that were constructed by landowners on their estates. The question
is thus what to do with prayer houses that wealthy Burgundian masters had
constructed and what must be done with them after the landowner switched
confession. In his answer Avitus includes besides oratoriis vel basiliculis privatis
also public churches (de ecclesiis eorum), probably those under the authority of
the king (fabricas a patre suo [= Gundobad] haereticis institutas). Avitus advises
the addressee to distance himself from this idea and to allow the churches to
collapse. The Catholic Church should avoid potential acts of revenge by the
‘Arians’ since no one can be sure how the political and religious situation will
develop. Later at the synod of Epao the assembled bishops came to a slightly
different conclusion. According to Canon 33 only the buildings constructed by
‘heretics’ themselves could not be reused but churches that had originally been
built by the Catholic Church could.60 This letter of Avitus is interesting because
he assumes the existence of many private chapels and churches in the possession
of wealthy Burgundian ‘heretical’ landowners. Otherwise this question would
be irrelevant. If we join these pieces of evidence together it can be concluded
that during the rule of Gundobad a well-structured and organised Homoian-
Avitus, Epist. 7, 7–10 (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2, p. 35): Petisti, immo potius praecepisti,
59
frater piissime, ut datis ad beatitudinem tuam litteris indicarem, utrum haereticorum oratoria sive
basilicae ad usus possent nostrae religionis aptari, cum conditores earum ad catholicam se legem erroris
correctione transtulerint. Cf. Heil, Avitus von Vienne, pp. 92–111. Cf. Shanzer and Wood, Avitus,
p. 296.
60
Concilium Epaonense a. 517 can. 33 (ed. De Clercq, CCSL 148 A, p. 33); (ed. Peiper,
MGH AA 6, 2, pp. 172, and 18–20): Basilicas haereticorum, quas tanta execratione habemus
exosas, ut pollutionem earum purgabilem non putemus, sanctis usibus adplicare despicimus. Sane
quas per violentiam nostris tulerant, possumus revocare. Cf. as well the translation into German:
Josef Limmer, Konzilien und Synoden im spätantiken Gallien von 314 bis 696 nach Christi
Geburt, 1: Chronologische Darstellung, 2: Zusammenschau wichtiger Themenkreise, Wissenschaft
und Religion 10 (2 vols, Frankfurt and Vienna, 2004), vol. 1, p. 181. In general the opinion
of Avitus did not prevail as can be seen particularly well in the reused churches of Theoderic
in Ravenna.
‘Arian’ church of the Burgundians had been established along with a clergy,
annual meetings and numerous church buildings.
Many letters of Avitus refer to theological debates that he as well as others
had led with the Burgundians. Of central importance were the discussions
between Avitus and the ruler Gundobad that took place either in letters or in
direct conversation.
Avitus reports to the co-regent Sigismund of an intense but not public
theological conversation with Gundobad in the above mentioned letter 23.
Avitus refers to long and difficult negotiations after a temporary break with
the result that Gundobad asked Avitus to send him his exegetical arguments
in written form so that he would be able to discuss them with his ‘Arian’ priest.
Besides this Avitus mentions a direct inquiry from Gundobad in letter 30:
When the holy bishop Cartenius61 returned from Lyon where he had stayed to
arrange some private affairs after we had already parted ways after the synod, he
reported that you had asked him – or more accurately us – a question. … You
command that you are shown the reason or more so the authority whereby it
should become clear that the son of God already had substance in the deity before
he took on the nature of the incarnation.62
The biblical evidence for an already explained and discussed thesis was
pivotal to Gundobad, which might refer to a conversation at the synod in Lyon:
‘You command therefore that we teach with (biblical) authority what we have
already deduced rationally’.63 Complying with this request Avitus offers in his
letter various pieces of biblical evidence for the divinity of the son before the
incarnation but also announces a more detailed writing that would include
further counter arguments.
In the ninth century Agobard of Lyon cited a passage from a dialogue
between Avitus and Gundobad concerning the correct worship of God. The
introductory sentence reads: … sicut Alcimus Avitus episcopus Viennensis in
61
This Cartenius is otherwise unknown. There is nothing known of the synod in Lyon
besides this note.
62
Avitus, Epist. 30, 2–4, 9–10 (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2, p. 60): Rediens ab urbe Lugdunensi
sanctus Cartenius episcopus, in qua nobis de concilio discedentibus ad privata quaedam negotia
expedienda resederat, quaestionem sibi, immo magis omnibus nobis proposuisse vos retulit. … Iubetis
igitur ostendi vobis rationem vel potius auctoritatem, qua pateat dei filium habuisse in divinitate
substantiam, priusquam sumeret de incarnatione naturam … . Cf. Heil, Avitus von Vienne,
pp. 74–75. Cf. Shanzer and Wood, Avitus, p. 204.
63
Avitus, Epist. 30, 20–1 (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2, p. 60): Iubetis ergo, ut haec, quae
ratione colligimus, auctoritate doceamus.
dialogo, ubi cum Gundobado rege loquitur, dicit … .64 In his Liber adversus legem
Gundobadi 13 the same Agobard cites from another dispute between Avitus
and Gundobad: Cum de his inter utrumque sermo esset et beatus Avitus talia
certamina reprehenderet, respondit et Gundobadus … Ad quod beatus Avitus
intulit dicens … . The fragment deals with the connection between fortunes of
war and the judgment of God: Avitus denies that God’s judgment is completely
expressed in the victor. In some cases God also judges without war and often
even the right side suffers in war. Thus the aspects that were discussed between
Avitus and Gundobad went beyond the actual theological differences between
the Catholic and the Homoian-‘Arian’ church.65
Further theological fragments from Avitus have survived through the
Carolingian collection of excerpts compiled by Florus of Lyon. These texts
partially exhibit dialogue elements but cannot be assigned to conversations
preserved in the letters.66
Besides Avitus another man, Heraclius,67 participated in the discussions. He
was a vir illustrissimus, from senatorial nobility and probably also from Vienne.
Avitus writes to Heraclius when he hears about the latter’s conversation with
Avitus, frg. 2, 8–9 (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2, p. 2); Agobardus Lugdunensis, Liber
64
de imaginibus sanctorum (= De picturis et imaginibus) 9, Lieven van Acker (ed.), Agobardi

Lugdunensis opera omnia, CCCM 52 (Turnhout, 1981), pp. 149–81, at p. 159–60. Agobard
was bishop of Lyon during the so-called Carolingian Renaissance and passed away in 840. He is
known particularly for his anti-jewish writings and activities. Cf. Egon Boshof, Erzbischof Agobard
von Lyon. Leben und Werk, Kölner historische Abhandlungen 17 (Cologne, 1967). The fragment of
Avitus deals with a special liturgical expression, a sufficiently controversial topic for such an event.
See Chapter 4 (Uta Heil) in this volume and below p. 295.
65
Avitus, frg. 3A [Liber adversus legem Gundobadi 13], 30–31, 35 (ed. Peiper, MGH
AA 6, 2, p. 2). In Epist. 1 Avitus on the one hand informs Gundobad about the meaning of the
Hebrew keyword ‘Korban’ (offering) in Mk 7:11–2, before he continues with a discussion on
the Holy Spirit. In epist. 2 and 3 Avitus answers an inquiry from Gundobad about the Eutychian
dispute in the east during the time of Anastasius in 511. In Epist. 4 De subitanea paenitentia Avitus
writes to Gundobad about repentance, faith and the role of good deeds at the moment of death.
Epist. 5 is a letter of condolence from Avitus to Gundobad after the death of his daughter. In
Epist. 6 Avitus writes about the hundredfold heavenly reward for the sacrifices, the martyrdom,
the conversion and abandonment of the family (Mt 19:27–30). In Epist. 21 Gundobad asks for
an exegesis of Mi 4:2–4. Avitus answers in Epist. 22 with an interpretation of Is 2:3–4 and 2
Kgs 18:31.
66
Avitus, frg. 14, 23 (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2, p. 6) refers to a conversation that had already
taken place (ut nuper habita conlocutione tractavimus). Also Avitus, frg. 15, 1 (ed. Peiper, MGH
AA 6, 2, p. 7) alludes to an earlier discussion (quia posueram de evangelio). Cf. and tr. Shanzer and
Wood, Avitus, pp. 163–93; Heil, Avitus von Vienne, pp. 68–72.
67
Heraclius: PLRE 2 (Heraclius 5), pp. 542–43; Heinzelmann, ‘Prosopographica IV’,
p. 623 (Heraclius 5).
Gundobad (habuistis igitur, ut audio, cum rege tractatum).68 In this conversation

Heraclius had defended the ‘Catholic’ cause and receives praise from Avitus
for his rhetorical skills. In his response Heraclius confirms that he had given a
speech before Gundobad and mentions a heretical document that he referred
to (denique incidi chartam, vacuam et chaere oblatrante).69 According to him
the document was not hard to refute since it had numerous but only weak
arguments (quae excogitatis multiplicibus argumentis divinae instructionis non
inopem turbare non valuit).70
In the above mentioned letter 28, to Stephanus of Lyon, Avitus answers an
unpreserved letter in which Stephanus informs Avitus about the conversion
of an ‘Arian’ and inquires whether an ‘Arian’ cleric could be accepted into the
Catholic Church.
The varied confessions and the relatively late adoption of the Homoian-
‘Arian’ Christianity encouraged mutual tolerance71 and enabled an intense
theological exchange. Central to the discussion was still the controversial
understanding of the Holy Spirit. Quite a lot of fragments are preserved in which
Avitus emphasises the complete equality (aequalitas) of the Holy Spirit to God,
the Father, and his Son and consequently refuses any differentiation, division or
subordination (maior-minor) in the Trinity.72 The specific inquiry of Gundobad
(as in letter 1) has already been pointed out above in which Avitus is supposed to
take a stand whether the Holy Spirit is a creator or created (creator an creatura)
since Gundobad had discussed precisely this topic with ‘his’ clerics. On the one
hand this is a well-known and a contentious issue that has been debated for a
long time between the Nicene-Catholic and Homoian-‘Arian’ theology, but
on the other hand this topic appears to have been a still agonising issue in the
Burgundian kingdom. Thus Avitus cites an argument of the opposition: ‘But
if God’s Spirit is not a creation and if the spirit in the human cannot be called
68
Avitus, Epist. 53, 4–5 (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2, p. 82).
69
Avitus, Epist. 54, 16 (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2 , p. 83). Cf. the comment on the corrupted
text by Shanzer and Wood, Avitus, p. 319, no. 9.
70
Avitus, Epist. 54, 21–2 (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2, p. 83). Cf. Heil, Avitus von Vienne,
pp. 77–78.
71
Cf. also the reference to the freedom of speech Avitus, Epist. 1, 36–9 (ed. Peiper, MGH
AA 6, 2, p. 14) allowed by Gundobad and even personally demanded: Sed cum incomparabiliter
plura sint, quae sub praesentia gloriae vestrae suggeri queant, illud in fine sermonis, cui non solum
tribuitis, sed iniungitis libertatem, deum vosque divina vestraque promissione fretus obsecro, ne diutius
sacerdotes vestri dicantur, qui sancto spiritui contradicunt. ‘Even if incomparably many things exist
that could be addressed in presence of your honour, I entreat at the end of my speech, for which
you not only allowed but demanded frank speech, God and yourself, relying on the divine and
your promise, that no longer those individuals are called your priests who gainsay the Holy Spirit’.
Cf. Shanzer and Wood, Avitus, p. 186.
72
Avitus, frg. 9; Ex sermone de symbolo (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2, pp. 5, 122).
a creature who then has God breathed into you?’73 The Homoian-‘Arian’ side
used the passage Wisdom 15:11 ‘God breathed the Spirit into the soul of life’ –
a biblical passage not yet used in the debate – to describe the Spirit as a gift of
God to the Christians that was granted and instilled into them as the time of the
creation. The point of critique thus continued to be the allotment of full divine
powers of creation to the Holy Spirit. Therefore the Homoian ‘Arians’ hinted
at the ‘participation’ of the Holy Spirit in the creation to call into question his
divinity: the spirit is breathed in by God; so the spirit is God’s spirit but then
dwells in the humans through God’s breathing. Since the Holy Spirit enters into
the humans, and forms a natural unity with the spirit of the humans he must be a
creature. In this sense the Spirit is a gift to the humans but not a divinity in itself.
In contrast to this subordination of the Holy Spirit as a creature and gift for
the humans Avitus, similar to Faustus Riez a generation earlier,74 emphasises the
double emergence of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son (filioque): nos
vero spiritum sanctum dicimus a filio et patre procedure.75 Avitus appears to have
discussed the very topic with Gundobad as can be suggested from fragment 14
(cf. above). In his discussion with Gundobad Avitus underscores the eternal,
everlasting emergence of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son (… sed
praeterito futuroque submoto sub interminabilis aeternitate praesentiae virtutem
processionis ostendit …) so that the Holy Spirit does not emerge after a certain
period of time which would make him into a creature that is created and passes
away.76 This could be quickly recognised since in the appropriate passage about
the Holy Spirit John 15:26 (‘… who I will send to you’), procedure is used in the
present tense and not in the past tense. Thus for Avitus the eternal emergence of
the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son (a patre filioque procedure) is a basic
element of the Catholic teaching that is defined by the Lord himself with his
statement in John 15:26 and cannot be given up.77
This teaching about the double emergence of the Holy Spirit out of the Father
and the Son is a Trinitarian model adopted from Augustine (De trinitate). For
Augustine the idea of the community of the Trinitarian persons and the mutual
references were essential so that he described the Holy Spirit as a tie holding
together the community and as hypostasised love. Since the Father loves the Son
and the Son also loves the Father the Holy Spirit arose from both. Augustine
compares the salvific emergence of the Holy Spirit through the Father and the
Son with the inner-Trinitarian relationship so that the Spirit of the Father is the
73
Avitus, Epist. 1, 9–10 (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2, p. 14): Quod si dei spiritus creatura non
est, ac si nec in homine creatura poterat dici spiritus, quem deus insufflasse perhibetur. Cf. Heil, Avitus
von Vienne, pp. 132–80.
74
On Faustus cf. above p. 282; Heil, Avitus von Vienne, pp. 170–76; pp. 187–92.
75
Avitus, frg. 12–3 (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2, p. 6).
76
Avitus, frg. 13 (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2, p. 6).
77
Cf. Heil, Avitus von Vienne, pp. 180–92.
same as the Spirit of the Son and emerges out of both.78 Since the discussion
about the status of the Holy Spirit was still vivid among the Burgundians
and Visigoths (and Vandals), western theologians such as Faustus and Avitus
adopted the trinitarian theology of Augustine and strengthened the conception
of the double emergence of the Holy Spirit out of the Father and Son. As a
result we also encounter this understanding in the texts of the synod of Toledo
in 589 which document the change of confession of the Visigoth Reccared.79
This item of Augustinian theology had far-reaching consequences because the
Latin theology of the West alienated itself from the Greek theology of the East.
The introduction of the filioque in the creed of Constantinople in 381 in the
western tradition played a significant role in the schism between the eastern and
western church in 1054 and has remained an obstacle in ecumenical dialogue
till this day.80
The texts by Avitus also demonstrate that the discussion about the liturgical
differences in the so-called ‘small Gloria’ which began with the innovation by
Basil of Caesarea in the fourth century, went on.81 While the Homoian-‘Arian’
side kept the old-fashioned form ‘Glory be to the Father through the Son in the
Holy Ghost’, the Nicene-Catholic side preferred the wording ‘Glory be to the
Father and the Son and/with the Holy Ghost’ in order to avoid any subordination
of the Son and the Holy Spirit under the Father. This small liturgical detail was
the only apparent difference between the Catholics and the Homoians in their
daily life in church. Avitus argued for example:‘When the angels came down to
earth they proclaimed: ‘Glory to God in the highest’. If the Father and the Son
78
Cf. esp. Bernd Oberdorfer, Filioque. Geschichte und Theologie eines ökumenischen
Problems, Forschungen zur systematischen und ökumenischen Theologie 96 (Göttingen, 2001),
pp. 107–28; Volker Henning Drecoll, ‘Trinitätslehre’, in Volker Henning Drecoll (ed.), Augustin-
Handbuch (Tübingen, 2007), pp. 447–61.
79
Concilium III Toletanum, Gonzalo Martínez Diez and Felix Rodrigues (eds), La colección
canónica hispana, vol. 5: Concilios hispanos: segunda parte, Monumenta Hispaniae Sacra, Serie
Canónica 5 (Madrid, 1992), pp. 55, 71–73; p. 79, 350–52. It was confessed: Spiritus aeque sanctus
confitendus a nobis et praedicandus est a Patre et Filio procedere et cum Patre et Filio unius esse
substantia. Condemned : quicumque Spiritum sanctum non credet aut non crediderit a Patre et Filio
procedere, eum non dixerit coaeternum esse Patri et Filio et quoessentialem. Cf. José Orlandis and
Domingo Ramos-Lisson, Die Synoden auf der Iberischen Halbinsel bis zum Einbruch des Islam
(711) (Paderborn, 1981), pp. 105–11.
80
On the debate surrounding filioque cf. Oberdorfer, Filioque; Peter Gemeinhardt, Die
Filioque-Kontroverse zwischen Ost- und Westkirche im Frühmittelalter (Berlin and New York, 2002);
Michael Böhnke (ed.), Die filioque-Kontroverse. Historische, ökumenische und dogmatische
Perspektiven 1200 Jahre nach der Aachener Synode, Quaestiones disputatae 245 (Freiburg, 2011);
Anthony Edward Siecienski, The filioque. History of a doctrinal controversy (Oxford, 2010).
81
Cf. this volume p. 108. Avitus, frg. 2; 6; 11; 25 (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, pp. 2–10).
and the Holy Spirit are in the highest then we correctly say: “Glory to the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit”.’82
According to fragment 2 (cf. above) the question about how much honour to
bring which Trinitarian person and angel-like creature was the topic of a debate
between Avitus and Gundobad.
The remaining texts of Avitus prove the great extent to which Avitus’
arguments follow the ideas of Ambrosius and Augustine. In contrast to the
Homoian-‘Arian’ subordination of the Son under the Father he emphasises the
equality of the Trinitarian persons (aequalitas) and their unity of substance
(una substantia in trinitate).83 The biblical statements regarding the lowliness
and subordination of the Son and his obedience towards the Father, according
to Avitus, must be related to the humanity of Christ. He applies therefore the
hermeneutics frequently criticised by the Homoians. It became clear to what
extent Gundobad asked Avitus for biblical references and that the discussion
of these passages determined the disputes. This conformed to the Homoian
tradition since the insistence on strict biblical language was an important
element of the Homoian cause right from the beginning.
Once Sigismund switched to the Catholic confession, especially after the
defeat of the Burgundian kingdom through the Franks, the Homoian-‘Arian’
Christianity disappeared from Gaul. Only Gregory of Tours reports a discussion
that he had with ‘Arians’ at the end of the sixth century, namely in 580 with
an Agila and in 584 with an Oppila;84 both were emissaries of the Visigothic
king Leovigild to the Frankish court of Chilperic I.85 These reports reflect the
religious politics of the Visigoths in the 580s in Spain and belong to the last
phase of the Homoian-‘Arian’ consolidation of the Spanish Visigothic kingdom
under Leovigild.
Avitus, frg. 11 (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2 pp. 5–6): Cum apparuissent angeli in terra,
82
clamaverunt: Gloria in excelsis deo (Lk 2:14). Si pater et filius et spiritus sanctus in excelsis est, bene
dicimus: gloria patri et filio et spiritu sancto. Cf. Heil, Avitus von Vienne, pp. 192–209. Cf. Shanzer
and Wood, Avitus, p. 171.
83
Avitus, frg. 19 (ed. Peiper, MGH AA 6, 2, p. 8).
84
Greg. Tur. Hist. 5.43; 6.40.
85
Cf. Martin Heinzelmann, ‘Heresy in Books I and II of Gregory of Tours’ Historiae’, in
Alexander Callander Murray (ed.), After Rome’s Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval
History. Essays presented to Walter Goffart (Toronto, 1998), pp. 67–82; Edward James, ‘Gregory
of Tours and “Arianism”’, in Andrew Cain and Noel Lenski (eds), The Power of Religion in Late
Antiquity (Farnham, 2009), pp. 327–38; Schäferdiek, Kirche in den Reichen der Westgoten und
Suewen, pp. 186–9; cf. general: Martin Heinzelmann, Gregor von Tours (538–594): Zehn Bücher
Geschichte. Historiographie und Gesellschaftskonzept im 6. Jahrhundert (Darmstadt, 1994);
Kathleen Mitchell and Ian N. Wood (eds), The World of Gregory of Tours, Cultures, Beliefs and
Traditions. Medieval and Early Modern Peoples 8 (Leiden, 2002); Ian N. Wood, Gregory of Tours
(Bangor, 1994).
Chapter 15
Britain: Approaching Controversy on the
Western Fringes of the Roman Empire
Meritxell Pérez Martínez
Gildas and Bede are the only insular writers to make an explicit reference to the
impact of Arianism in the Roman provinces of Britannia.1 Both references suffer
from serious problems of interpretation, as a result of the time when they were
written and the peculiarities of the works they appear in. However, analysing
a series of textual sources, written in continental Europe in the course of the
fourth century, gives strong evidence proving that the acceptance and diffusion
of the model of orthodoxy designed in the first Ecumenical Council of Nicaea
(325) was a long-lasting and tumultuous process, which settled only after many
tensions and difficulties were overcome. The atmosphere of unrest and division,
caused by the aftermath of the Arian controversy, is still visible in the sources of
Gallia and Hispania during the last third of the century. This time, the problems
that derived from the necessity to find a permanent solution to the consequences
of the theoretical disputes coexisted with other ecclesiastical conflicts
characteristic of the end of the century, such as the reconciliation of repentant
schismatics within the church, the definition of an orthodox asceticism and the
organisation of the cult of martyrs and relics. The main purpose of this chapter is
to draw attention to the impact of the Arian controversy in the Romano-British
church of the fourth century through the evidence provided by its continental
counterparts during the same years. To accomplish this, it is necessary to put
the insular experience into the broader ecclesiastical context which followed
the Council of Rimini (359) in the West. Continental literary sources provide
us with an outstanding witness to incorporate Britain in the frame of the
continuation of the tensions ushered in by the Christological polemics of the
century. This task allows us to confront the inherent dysfunctions of a western
church in an unfinished process of institutionalisation, and, at the same time,
it provides the keys to reinterpret Romano-British church history in a more
precise and comprehensive context.
1
Gildas, De excidio Britanniae 12; Beda Venerabilis, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis
Anglorum 1.8.
The evidence of three Romano-British bishops attending the Council

of Rimini in 359 has often been interpreted as a proof of the existence of a
well-organised church operating in Britain, as well as a demonstration of the
orthodoxy of its bishops, counted amongst the western Nicenes who put up
resistance to the pressure exerted by Constantius II’s religious advisers to impose
the Homoian creed in the West.2 Modern historians have also mentioned the
allusion included in Sulpicius Severus’ Chronicle (written c. 400), according
to which the British travelled to Rimini thanks to imperial transport because
of the genuine poverty their original sees were plunged into.3 As some scholars
have rightly pointed out, the acceptance of the imperial offer by these three
clerics does not exclude the existence of other Nicene bishops in Britain.4 The
expression used by Sulpicius (tres tantum ex Britannia) seems clear on this
respect. However, the argument of the general poverty of the British church
does not seem to fit in properly with the whole picture provided by both literary
sources and archaeology.5
In the introductory pages of his book about the church factions of Gaul
in the fifth century, Mathisen was in favour of the unity of the Gallo-Roman
episcopacy in its opposition to Arianism while acknowledging, following
Jerome’s testimony, the existence of a rival factio around Saturnine of Arles,
which was responsible for some exiles and confiscations such as that of Hilary
of Poitiers.6 The author also mentioned the references concerning the call for
church councils against Arianism in Gaul, which suggest the validity of the
2
Arthur W. Haddan and William Stubbs (eds), Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents
relating to Great Britain and Ireland, I (Oxford, 1869), p. 9; Maurice W. Barley and Richard
P.C. Hanson (eds), Christianity in Britain, 300–700 (Leicester, 1968); Charles Thomas,
Christianity in Roman Britain to AD 500 (London, 1981).
3
Sulpicius Severus, Chronica 2.41: Tres tantum ex Britannia inopia proprii publico usi sunt.
4
William H.C. Frend, ‘The Christianization of Roman Britain’, in Maurice W. Barley and
Richard P. C. Hanson (eds), Christianity in Britain, 300–700 (Leicester, 1968), p. 39; Thomas,
Christianity in Roman Britain, chap. VII; Richard S. Sharpe, ‘Martyrs and Local Saints in Late
Antique Britain’, in Alan Thacker and Richard S. Sharpe (eds), Local Saints and Local Churches in
the Early Medieval West (Oxford, 2002), p. 78.
5
William H.C. Frend, ‘Pagans, Christians and “the Barbarian Conspiracy” of
AD 367 in Roman Britain’, Britannia, 23 (1992): p. 122. About the existence of wealthy Christian
communities in Britain during the central years of the century see Jocelyn M.C. Toynbee,
‘Christianity in Roman Britain’, The Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 16 (1953):
pp. 1–29; Thomas, Christianity in Roman Britain, pp. 180–84; David Petts, Christianity in
Roman Britain (Stroud, 2003), p. 82.
6
Ralph W. Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factionalism and Religious Controversy in fifth-century
Gaul (Washington, 1989), pp. 11–18; Hieronymus, De viris illustribus 100, PL 23, p. 699.
On this respect, Richard P.C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God. The Arian
Controversy, 318–381 (Edinburgh, 1988), p. 462.
Britain: Approaching Controversy on the Western Fringes 299
Arian problem in these territories during much of the fourth century.7 Even as
scarce as they are, available textual sources do contain some traces of evidence
worth considering in regard to the impact of Arianism and the subsequent
environment of division generated by the Arian controversy in the provincial
churches of the West. For its complete success, the religious policy promoted
by Constantius II from the imperial court needed to demand and to obtain
fidelity and obedience from the leading groups in the provinces. At the end of
the council held in Constantinople in 360, the emperor himself caused the new
official doctrine of the state to be circulated throughout the churches of the
Roman Empire, together with an imperial epistle which forced its addressees
to make sure that it would be observed and spread.8 As has been suggested, the
most relevant cities in the West would have had supporters of the Homoian
doctrine within the local leading groups by then, notably in those cities which
excelled in administrative and military importance.9
In his Liber de synodis, written while exiled in Phrygia in 358/359, Hilary
of Poitiers includes the provinciarum Britanniarum episcopi amongst those
who were fighting the battle against Arianism in the neighbouring provinces of
Germania, Belgica, Lugdunensis, Aquitania, Novempopulania and Narbonensis.10
Hilary is delighted to know that the aforementioned bishops remain intact
from the contact with heresy, and he firmly encourages them to maintain their
decision of rejecting the philoarian Saturnine of Arles and his partisans from
their communion.11 According to Sulpicius Severus’ Chronicle, the division
not only affected the relationship between Nicenes and Arians in the churches,
but it was a source of major problems within the ranks of the Catholics as well.
With the aim of obtaining the highest attendance to the Council of Rimini,
Constantius ordered that imperial subsidies were distributed amongst those
bishops who were unable to attend through their own means.12 Sulpicius tells us
that the imperial decision was not well received in the churches of Aquitania and
7
Sulpicius Severus, Chronica 2.45; Councils of Arles (353), Béziers (356), and
Paris (360–61).
8
John N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds (Harlow, 1972), p. 295.
9
Michel Meslin, Les Ariens d’Occident (335–430) (Paris, 1967), p. 59.
10
Hilarius Pictaviensis, Liber de synodis, praefatio. Haddan and Stubbs (eds), Councils and
Ecclesiastical Documents, I, pp. 7–9.
11
Hilarius Pictaviensis, Liber de synodis 2: Incontaminatos vos et illaesos ab omni contagio
detestandae haeresos perstitisse.
12
Sulpicius Severus, Chronica, 2.41: Quibus omnibus annonas et cellaria dare
imperator praeceperat.
Britannia.13 Only three British bishops agreed to the imperial offer.14 As already
mentioned, the British decision appears to be justified in the text because of
the poverty they were living in.15 Modern historians have interpreted this as a
reference to the particular difficulties of the church in Britain during the fourth
century. However, Sulpicius clearly demonstrates that that kind of situation was
not only peculiar to the British, when he mentions them along with nostri (id est
Aquitani) Galli.16
Other continental sources inform us about the deplorable situation of certain
western churches during the central years of the fourth century. The proceedings
of the Council of Rimini, as they have been transmitted, include an epistle for the
emperor Constantius, written by the Nicene bishops convened at the occasion.
The Nicenes proclaimed their reverence to the Council of Nicaea, while begging
the emperor’s mercy in allowing the bishops convened for the council to return
to their own episcopal sees, because there were many amongst them who were
poor and old men.17 Bishops complained about the difficulties much of them
were suffering and the situation of disturbance they were living in.18 According
to Hilary of Poitiers, some had been deprived of their own churches for quite a
long time and even sent into exile.19 The removal of Nicene bishops from their
sees also appears in the Council of Paris of 360/361.20 Likewise, Sulpicius tells
us about the diverse acts of humiliation that Nicenes had to put up with after
being deprived of their episcopal sees and sent to exile, while their churches were
seized by others.21 These matters appeared as a consequence of the incipient stage
of ecclesiastical institutionalisation of the western churches of the period and,
Sulpicius Severus, Chronica 2.41: Sed id nostris (id est Aquitanis) Gallis ac Britannis
13
indecens visum.
14
Sulpicius Severus, Chronica 2.41: Hoc ego Gavidium episcopum nostrum quasi obtrectantem
referre solitum audivi.
15
Sulpicius Severus, Chronica 2.41: Laudique attribuo episcopis tam pauperes fuisse, ut nihil
proprium haberent.
16
Sulpicius Severus, Chronica 2.41.
17
Epistola Arimiensis Concilii ad Constantium Imperatorem (ed. Mansi III, pp. 307–8):
Oramus etiam, ut praecipias tot episcopos, qui Arimino detinentur, inter quos plurimi sunt qui aetate
et paupertate defecti sunt, ad suam provinciam remeare.
18
Epistola Arimiensis Concilii ad Constantium Imperatorem (ed. Mansi III, pp. 307–8): Nec
iam nos fatigari aut convelli a sedibus nostris tua sancta prudentia permittat.
19
Hilarius Pictaviensis, Ad Constantium Augustum 1.4: Ut eos qui adhuc … aut in exsilio, aut
in desertis locis tenentur, iubeas ad sedes suas remeare.
20
Concilia Galliae, Conc. Parisiense 4, (ed. Munier, CCSL 148, p. 34): Damnamus
maximeque eorum sacerdotes apostatas respuentes, qui in loca fratrum indignissime exulantium
quorundam aut ignoratione aut impietate sunt substituti.
21
Sulpicius Severus, Chronica 2.45: Plerique abnuentes, iniuriosa custodia ac fame vexati,
captivam conscientiam dedere; multi constantius retinentes, adempto episcopatu, in exsilium detrusi,
atque in eorum locum alii dati.
more precisely, they reveal the presence of rival churches in the contemporary
context of division generated by the Arian controversy.22
The unexpected end of the Council of Rimini made the discord worse. The
major cause of dissent that the Nicene church had to face from that moment
on was the establishment of precise rules that regulated the relations with the
Homoians inside their own churches. In the atmosphere of division prior to
the call of that council, it is worth emphasising the manifest interest of some
sectors of the church in the Arians’ complete exclusion. Some churchmen,
as Hilary himself for a while, advocated a total separation from the heretics
against the proceedings of moderation and conciliation established at Nicaea.23
Nevertheless, after profiting from the imperial indulgence which, at the end
of the Council of Constantinople of 360, allowed him to put an end to his
eastern exile and come back to Gaul, Hilary of Poitiers would openly declare the
benefits of the moderate orthodoxy and a much more conciliatory stance.24 The
evolution of Hilary’s attitude coincides in time with the issuance, by Liberius
of Rome, of the Decreta Generalia, which were sent to all the western provinces
after the synod of Rimini.25 Many bishops in the provincial churches aligned
themselves with the moderation party. Others, conversely, would continue
to opt resolutely for the separation, doubting the capacity of the church in
rehabilitating schismatics.26 As we shall see next, the division between those
in favour of re-integrating the schismatics and those who opposed an easy
reconciliation was doomed to persist.
Around 396, bishop Victricius of Rouen went to Britain in order to try to
solve some religious problems which were threatening the island’s peace and
stability. Victricius himself tells us about his stay in Britain in the preface of his
Liber de Laude Sanctorum, written on the occasion of the arrival (adventus) of a
group of relics donated by Ambrose of Milan to the church of Rouen, over which
Victricius presided.27 Some authors have rightly pointed out the links established
between the De Laude Sanctorum and some of the contemporary controversies
22
The emperors’ philoarianism resulted in the deployment of substantial advantages for
the bishops supporting the official Homoian doctrine and their churches. In Hilarius Pictaviensis,
Collectanea antiariana Parisina 1.3 criticism of the Arian church and that of the secular ambition
of its bishops are part of the same controversy.
23
Hilarius Pictaviensis, Liber de synodis 4.
24
Sulpicius Severus, Chronica 2.45.
25
Liber Pontificalis 40.4.
26
Sulpicius Severus, Chronica 2.45: Caeterum Lucifer tum Antiochiae longe diversa sententia
fuit: nam in tantum eos qui Arimini fuerant, condemnavit, ut se etiam ab eorum communione
secreverit, qui eos sub satisfactione vel poenitentia recepissent.
27
About the date for the visit, see Gillian Clark, ‘Victricius of Rouen: Praising the Saints’,
Journal of Early Christian Studies, 7/3 (1999): pp. 365–99; David G. Hunter, ‘Vigilantius of
Calagurris and Victricius of Rouen: Ascetics, Relics and Clerics in late Roman Gaul’, Journal
with major significance in the western church of the period.28 According to the
common opinion, the arrival of the relics in the city was the excuse that allowed
the bishop to articulate a comprehensive theological and philosophical defence
of the cult and the translatio of the relics of the martyrs, as well as of the ascetic
practices which used to be related to these kinds of ceremonies.29 However,
one of the major uncertainties still concerns the nature of the matter which
took Victricius to British lands.30 Even if Victricius’ reference to Britain is not
as explicit as we would like it to be, it is my purpose to call the attention to
a series of indications from which a new hypothesis regarding the work could
be considered.31
The De Laude Sanctorum begins with the visit of Victricius of Rouen to
Britain to act as mediator in the prevailing atmosphere of episcopal division.
Victricius himself tells us about the request for help formulated by part of the
of Early Christian Studies, 7/3 (1999): pp. 401–30. On the problems of transmission and the
available editions, see Clark, ‘Victricius of Rouen’, pp. 375–76.
28
In recent times, Victricius’ piece has been linked to the ecclesiastical debates of the period
in Gaul along the same lines as were presented in the 1980s by Ralph W. Mathisen, Ecclesiastical
Factionalism and Religious Controversy in fifth-century Gaul (Washington, 1989), and Raymond
Van Dam, Leadership and Community in Late Antique Gaul (Berkeley, 1985), and Saints and their
Miracles in Late Antique Gaul (Princeton, 1993). In Clark’s opinion, Victricius would compose
his piece as a form of reply against those sectors reluctant to accept any sign of reverence to the
remains of the martyrs: Clark, ‘Victricius of Rouen’, pp. 365–99; ‘Translating relics: Victricius
of Rouen and fourth-century debate’, EME, 10/2 (2001): pp. 161–76. Hunter, ‘Vigilantius of
Calagurris and Victricius of Rouen’, pp. 401–30 has expressed in the same direction, while noticing
a comprehensive defence of the practice of asceticism in the context of the anti-priscillianist
propaganda of the period.
29
Clark, ‘Translating relics’, pp. 161–76.
30
According to Frend, ‘The Christianization of Roman Britain’, pp. 43–4: Victricius
continued in Britain the work against paganism started by Martin of Tours in northern Gaul.
For John Morris, The Age of Arthur. A History of the British Isles from 350 to 650 (London, 1973),
p. 337: Victricius’ mission was a diffusion on a large scale of the Martinian reforms in relation
to the veneration of the martyrs, the organisation of monastic life and the Christianisation of
peasants and barbarians.
31
While Victricius’ allusion seems too early to respond to a period of division caused
by Pelagianism (Gerald Bonner, ‘The Pelagian Controversy in Britain and Ireland’, Peritia, 16
(2002): pp. 144–55), it is rarely linked with problems derived from the impact of the Arian
controversy in Britain. In his edition, with French translation, René Herval, Origines Chrétiennes.
De la IIe Lyonnaise gallo-romaine à la Normandie ducale (IVe – XIe siècles) avec le texte complet et
la traduction intégrale du ‘De Laude sanctorum’ de Saint Victrice (Rouen, 1966), p. 25, holds that
the British appealed to the bishop of Rouen ‘pour qu’il les aidât à extirper de leurs diocèses les
séquelles de l’arianisme’. Recently, Clark, ‘Victricius of Rouen’, p. 374: has mentioned Arianism
as a possibility amongst others.
British episcopacy, asking him to contribute to restore peace amongst them.32

According to Victricius, both the reason for the visit and the restoration
of episcopal peace in Britain were closely dependent on the presence and
veneration of the martyrs.33 In fact Victricius raises his mission to Britain as part
of his service (obsequium) to the martyrs.34 Victricius went to Britain, where he
himself stayed for some time, in fulfilment of the precepts (praecepta) of the
martyrs.35 The bishop could not refuse the request of his British counterparts for
his militancy in favour of the martyrs.36 The same militancy which led him to
Britain brought him back to Gaul afterwards on the occasion of the reception of
the new relics coming from Milan.37 Victricius acknowledges too the mediating
role of the martyrs in restoring episcopal peace in Britain, in which process he
presents himself as a mere interpreter of their commands.38 Victricius instructed
the British in the precepts of the Lord Jesus Christ and the martyrs, instilling
the love of peace in the prudent, bringing together the docile, indoctrinating
the ignorant and constraining the recalcitrant.39 Victricius’ task in Britain did
not develop without opposition, which he was able to overcome thanks to the
martyrs’ assistance.40 Finally, Victricius withdraws from his mission having done
as much as he could, although not all that was necessary.41
Victricius provides scarce details regarding the nature of the episcopal division
in Britain, although a reference to both doctrinal and disciplinary matter may
be inferred from his account.42 One interesting passage, in this regard, appears
32
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 1 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, p. 70): Pacis me
faciendae consacerdotes mei salutares antistites evocarunt.
33
Sharpe, ‘Martyrs and Local Saints’, pp. 105–54, has pointed out the link between
Victricius’ visit and his interest in the local martyrs and their relics.
34
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 1 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, p. 70): Dilatio ista
desiderium meum laesit, non praetermisit obsequium.
35
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 1 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, p. 71): Nam quod ad
Britannias profectus sum, quod ibi moratus sum, vestrorum fecit exsecutio praeceptorum.
36
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 1 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, p. 71): Hoc negare non
poteram qui vobis militabam.
37
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 1 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, p. 70): Vestrum est quod
abfui, vestrum est quod redivi.
38
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 1 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, p. 71): Pacis Domini
estis auctores, cuius me sententiae velut interpretem delegistis.
39
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 1 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, p. 71): Sapientibus
amorem pacis infudi, docilibus legi, nescientibus inculcavi, ingessi nolentibus.
40
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 1 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, p. 71): Ubi me tamen
locus et fragilitas humana tentavit, vestri spiritus praesidium flagitavi.
41
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 1 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, p. 71): Si non ut debui,
tamen ut potui.
42
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 1 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, p. 71): In eorum animas
doctrina et palpatione perveni … Nec sane mihi iam circa eos laborandum est qui absolute disciplinae
at the end of his first chapter, where Victricius is confident that the power and
authority of the martyrs could complete the task that he had just started.43 The
text in question is the object of a rather complicated interpretation due to certain
transmission problems, as the studies in textual criticism interested in it have
rightly pointed out.44 Even so, it is precise in acknowledging the existence of
certain disciplinary problems as the source of the episcopal division in Britain.
In short, the task carried out by Victricius of Rouen in Britain was part of his
militancy in favour of spreading and strengthening the cult of the martyrs. The
atmosphere of episcopal division in Britain was caused by both doctrinal and
disciplinary problems, the resolution of which was proving difficult because of
the resistance from those who were in opposition to reconciliation. However,
the presence of the saints was powerful enough to mediate in the episcopal
schism and to restore the peace lost. The division amongst bishops, the existence
of groups opposing reconciliation and the invocation of the mediation of the
saints in solving ecclesiastical conflicts appear in other contemporary sources
of the period, in which the sequels of the Arian controversy are still a problem
waiting to be resolved. Overcoming the problems derived from the emperors’
philoarianism was a long and tumultuous process that led to one of the periods of
major theological and disciplinary definition in the western post-Nicene church.
The obstacles resulting from the definition of an orthodox asceticism offered
new arguments to the debate, which were blown out of proportion after the
secular sentence against Priscillian and his supporters at Trier in 385. Victricius
of Rouen’s piece makes sense in the core of these polemics, while confirming
the leading role achieved by the cult of martyrs and relics in the process. As we
shall see next, analysing the general contents of the De Laude Sanctorum on this
light provides us with some interesting indications to link the references about
Britain within the same debates.
The death of the emperor Constantius II, in 361, entailed a temporary respite
to the Nicenes in the West, although it increased the rift between those who
advocated re-integrating the supporters of the Homoian doctrine (already seen as
being Arians) into the church, and those who were against an easy reconciliation
of the schismatics.45 The official attitude of reconciliation reached its solemn
expression at the second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 381. But, in
copula exciderunt.
43
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 1 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, p. 71): Nec sane mihi
iam circa eos laborandum est qui absolute disciplinae copula exciderunt. Habeo vestrarum praesentiam
maiestatum: in quibus apparitor religionis excusat, compleat vestrae potestatis auctoritas.
44
A presentation of the concordance problems of this text may be found in Clark,
‘Victricius of Rouen’, footnote 57. We follow the traditional reading, as quoted above, which
appears in Demeulenaere (ed.), CCSL 64, p. 71.
45
Ramon Teja, ‘El cristianismo y el Imperio romano’, in Manuel Sotomayor and José
Fernández (eds), Historia del cristianismo, I (Granada, 2003), pp. 442–43.
spite of the efforts of the emperors’ high religious policy in favour of restoring
unity and episcopal concord, there arose a whole literature against the policy
of official compromise, which did not hesitate to attack it. The authors of the
Libellus Precum, written in 384, did not trust the resulting church hierarchy,
packed with former repentant Arians, and they asked for imperial protection
to cope with the persecution that some Catholic sectors were inflicting upon
them.46 They also demanded that these individuals, who were driven further
by fame and wealth rather than religion, were immediately removed.47 The
perpetuation of the debate may also be inferred from Jerome’s Dialogus contra
Luciferianos.48 The text refers precisely to schismatic bishops, doubting their
capacity for penitence.49 As in the Libellus Precum, the defence consubstantiality
and the refusal to readmit clerics coming from Arianism in their same degrees
clearly appear as being two polemics organically linked.
Other textual sources allow us to attest the ongoing debate disclosed
by the Arian controversy in the provincial churches of Gallia and Hispania
at Constantius II’s death. The proceedings of the Council of Paris, held
around 360/361, provide evidence of the existing tension within the Nicene
structure of the West as a result of the Council of Rimini.50 The bishops
assembled at Paris advocated complete separation from the apostates.51 The
permanent solution to the Arian problem demanded a wide purgation within
the church, as well as the deployment of a strict control over the bishoprics. But
the procedure to be adopted in such circumstances did not spark an immediate
consensus amongst bishops. In accordance with Sulpicius Severus, the order
truncated in Rimini was partially restored in Gaul thanks to Hilary of Poitiers,
who, by means of calling many councils, succeeded in making the bishops who
had surrendered to declare their error, subjected the offenders to correction and
46
The Libellus Precum is preserved in the Collectio Avellana 2.74 (= Epistulae imperatorum
pontificum aliorum, ed. Günther, CSEL 35, 1, p. 56–58). M. Victoria Escribano, ‘Heresy and
Orthodoxy in Fourth-Century Hispania: Arianism and Priscillianism’, in Kimberly Bowes and
Michael Kulikowski (eds), Hispania in Late Antiquity. Current Perspectives (Leiden, 2005),
pp. 121–49.
47
On the craving for wealth as a driving force for those bishops belonging to former
administrations: Libellus Precum 83, 85, 97, 106, 110, and 114.
48
The date of the piece was established by Hanson, The Search of the Christian Doctrine of
God, p. 516 around 392.
49
Hieronymus, Dialogus Contra Luciferianos 13, PL 23, pp. 175–76.
50
The conciliar acts are preserved thanks to the epistle that the Gaulish bishops sent to
the easterners at the end of the council: Incipit fides catholica exposita apud Pariseam civitatem ab
episcopis Gallicanis ad orientales episcopos.
51
Concilia Galliae, Conc. Parisiense 4 (ed. Munier, CCSL 148, p. 34).
penitence, and restored the faith of the churches to its primeval status.52 Hilary’s
intervention met a good deal of opposition from the bishops loyal to the imperial
cause in the West, such as Saturninus of Arles and Paternus of Périgueux, who
were expelled from priesthood.53 Notwithstanding this apparent strictness,
Sulpicius attests that some of the bishops involved were given forgiveness.54
The episcopal division regarding the reconciliation of schismatics stands at the
origin of the call for the Council of Valence in 374.55 Ecclesiastical disorder and
episcopal dissent were still a cause for concern at the Council of Nîmes, held
around 394/396.56
The decretal epistle that pope Siricius sent to Himerius of Tarragona at the
beginning of 385 allows us to trace the sequels of the division aroused in Hispania
on the occasion of the reconciliation of schismatics coming from Arianism.57
Siricius conducted, in the epistle, a systematisation of the conciliatory attitude of
the official church, the roots of which are to be found in the Council of Nicaea.
At the time, that was a theoretical model of operation, which was not widespread
by any means. However, the provincial churches in Africa, Gallia and Hispania
accepted progressively Siricius’ guidelines of reform and they appealed to the
pontifical directives on several occasions in order to get their internal problems
solved.58 The sources of the period show that Siricius’ decretal gave a definitive
impetus to the spread of Nicaea, whose policy of moderation and reconciliation
would be decisive in the peaceful settlement of the episcopal schism and the
definition of an orthodox hierarchy and asceticism in the western territories.59
Protecting and organising the cult of the saints figured prominently in the
atmosphere of opposition to Arianism in the Roman West. The consolidation
of the cult of the saints was part of a much more general context of asserting
52
Sulpicius Severus, Chronica 2.45: Optimum factu arbitratus revocare cunctos ad
emendationem et poenitentiam, frequentibus intra Gallias conciliis, atque omnibus fere episcopis
de errore profitentibus, apud Ariminum gesta condemnat, et in statum pristinum ecclesiarum
fidem reformat.
53
Sulpicius Severus, Chronica 2.45: Resistebat sanis consiliis Saturninus, Arelatensium
episcopus, vir sane pessimus et ingenio malo pravoque; verum etiam, praeter haeresis infamiam, multis
atque infandis criminibus convictus Ecclesia eiectus est … Paternus etiam a Petrocoriis aeque vecors,
nec detrectans perfidiam profiteri, sacerdotio pulsus.
54
Sulpicius Severus, Chronica 2.45: Caeteris venia data.
55
Concilium Valletanum I, praefatio and 3 (Martinez Diez and Rodrigues eds, Monumenta
Hispaniae Sacra, Serie Canónica 4, pp. 15 and 20).
56
Concilia Galliae, Conc. Nemausense praefatio, 5–6 (ed. Munier, CCSL 148, pp. 50–51).
57
Epistola I. Siricii Papae ad Himerium Episcopum Tarraconensem 1, PL 13, pp. 1131–32.
58
Council of Carthage (ann. 390); Council of Turin (ann. 398); Council of Toledo I
(ann. 400).
59
Meritxell Pérez, Tarraco en la Antigüedad Tardía. Cristianización y organización
eclesiástica (Tarragona, 2012), pp. 77–93.
bishops’ authority, which found in the cult to the martyrs of Christianity a

very useful instrument to strengthen episcopal power in the cities and the fight
against heresy. Preserved sources provide us with a series of contradictory pieces
of information regarding the Arians’ relationship with the cult of the martyrs.60
Notwithstanding this ignorance, we know that the church fathers promoted
the cult of the saints as a good vehicle of protest in the atmosphere of hostility
generated by Arianism, whereas it brought them the opportunity of benefiting
from an increasing social support. In his opuscule against Constantius II, written
in 360, Hilary of Poitiers had stressed the necessity that the relics of the martyrs
were venerated.61 Because of his proclivity towards Arianism, the emperor
himself was described as being ‘an opponent to the divine religion’ and ‘an enemy
of the memory of the saints’.62 Ambrose of Milan devoted a particular attention
to organising the cult of the saints, while insisting upon its great potential in
fighting Arianism.63 His intervention at the head of the Milanese episcopacy
perfectly proves this. In the Vita Ambrosii, written by Paulinus in 422, the cult
of the martyrs restores the unity corrupted by Arianism, and it provides the
necessary instruments to sweep it away completely.64
The De Laude Sanctorum of Victricius of Rouen portrays the attitude of the
western official church in the last third of the fourth century, with regard to the
diffusion of the Nicene model of moderate orthodoxy, and the promotion of the
cult of the saints in the contemporary context of episcopal division generated
by the opposition to Arianism. Victricius’ piece puts the martyrs in a central
position. However, his line of argument over the divinity of the relics of the
martyrs rests on proclaiming the unity of the divine persons of the Trinity and
their identity of substance.65 According to Victricius, the martyrs share the
unity of divinity because of their imitation of Christ himself, who possesses the
same substance as the Father. The martyrs have achieved immortality because
60
Meslin, Les Ariens d’Occident, p. 406.
61
Hilarius Pictaviensis, Ad Constantium Imperatorem 8 (ed. Feder, CSEL 658, p. 145):
Sanctus ubique beatorum Martyrum sanguis exceptus est, et veneranda ossa quotidie testimonio sunt.
62
Hilarius Pictaviensis, Ad Constantium Imperatorem 8 (ed. Feder, CSEL 658, p. 145):
Divinae religionis hostis, inimicus memoriis sanctorum.
63
Ambrosius, Epistola 22.16–23 (Faller and Zelzer eds, CSEL 82, 1, pp. 56–58).
64
Vita Ambrosii 6 and 14.3, PL 14, pp. 29 and 32.
65
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 4 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, p. 74–75): Confitemur
Deum Patrem; confitemur Deum Filium, confitemur sanctum Spiritum Deum. Confitemur quia tres
unum sunt … Una deitas, una substantia quia unum principium, et una perpetuitas, sive ante omnia,
sive per quem omnia … Tres nominibus, tres uno principio, tres una perfectione, tres una Deitate, tres
uno lumine, tres una virtute, tres una operatione, tres una substantia, tres una perpetuitate, quia ut tres
ex uno, ita unitas in tribus … In haec unitate venerabilium passionum vestrarum lumina confitemur.
of their triumph over death, the same as Christ, who is God.66 Accordingly, the
relics of the martyrs are consubstantial with God.67 Victricius makes it clear that
such a gift came to the martyrs from adoption, and not from nature.68 This is
the basis which allows Victricius to conclude that the translation and dispersal
of relics did not imply a loss of their primeval character, because every single
fragment was part of the divinity of the whole.69 The pronounced role of the
theory of consubstantiality in the elaboration of a new theology over the cult of
the relics of the martyrs is an exclusive feature of Victricius’ piece, although, as
already mentioned, the identity of substances of the divine persons appears as a
theological argument in other works of the same period (Libellus Precum and
Dialogus contra Luciferianos).
The observance of a Nicene model of orthodoxy coexists in the De Laude
Sanctorum with a central preoccupation for the Nicene attitude of moderation
concerning the capacity of the church to reconcile offenders through
administering the forgiveness of sins. The most significant novelty introduced
by Victricius, in this respect, is the leading role granted to the relics of the
martyrs in the process. Under Victricius’ pen, the martyrs are the intermediaries
between God and men, and, therefore, the former may mediate in the most
varied matters.70 The culmination of this mediating role is exemplified in
the text through the saints’ capacity of intercession in forgiving sins. This is
Victricius’ first petition to the saints.71 The martyrs are the advocates of sinners
before God.72 For that reason, it is necessary to beg for their mercy.73 The saints’
intercessory potential in the absolution of sins provides the arms to defeat the
opponents of the church, too.74 This is also the last request to appear at the
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 9 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, p. 84): Sanctorum
66
autem passio, imitatio Christi est, et Christus est Deus.

67
Clark, ‘Victricius of Rouen’, p. 367.
68
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 7 and 8 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, pp. 79–82): Dico
idem esse per beneficium, non per proprietatem; per adoptionem, non per naturam.
69
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum, 9 and 10 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, pp. 82–86).
70
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 1 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, p. 70): Quia vos estis
corpus Christi, et Spiritus divinus est qui habitat in vobis. (I Cor 3 :16)
71
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 1 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, p. 70): Haec nostra sit
apud sanctos prima petitio, ut peccata nostra pia miseratione advocationis excusent.
72
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 12 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, p. 90): Adsunt
advocati, delictorum nostrorum gesta oratione pandamus.
73
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 4 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, p. 75–76): Prosit
peccatoribus ista confessio … Delicta nemo discutiat, veniam postulamus.
74
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 6 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, p. 78): Maior tamen erit
vestrarum gloria potestatum, si defendatis laboriosos, si tuemini hostibus subiacentes. Tegant arma,
quos volunt: nos vestrae acies, vestra signa custodient. Nullus est hostis, si tribuatis indulgentiam
peccatorum. Ex vestris manibus nostrae vitae retinacula detinentur. Remittite delicta, et nulla nos
bella turbabunt.
end of the De Laude Sanctorum, where Victricius concludes that ‘it remains
for the confession of our sins to follow’ because ‘the beginning of the new
law is the cleansing of past faults’.75 Victricius’ view on the intercessory ability
of saints in granting forgiveness presupposes a determined attitude towards
the contemporary dispute over the capacity of the church in providing the
reconciliation of schismatics coming from rival churches. Victricius’ attitude,
on this point, adheres to the stance of the official church in the West during
the last third of the fourth century. The absolute conviction in the ability of the
saints to resolve problems and to defeat enemies was, as a last resort, equivalent
to proposing a new ecclesiastical model, in which the role attributed to the cult
of the saints could not be absent anymore.
The reference to the episcopal division prevailing in the Roman provinces
of Britannia at the end of the fourth century, which heads the De Laude
Sanctorum, provides, despite its laconism, interesting data to link the insular
debate with the contemporary ecclesiastical controversies of their counterparts
in the Continent. While it is true that Victricius never mentions the source of
the discord amongst the Romano-British, his stay in Britain is closely connected
with his general policy aimed at stimulating the cult of the martyrs and relics.
The restoration of episcopal peace in Britain is also presented as an objective
difficult to achieve, as a result of the opposition of those who were against
reconciliation.76 As in the Continent, the episcopal division in Britain was also
due to certain disagreements in the disciplinary sphere.77 The continuation
of the disputes and debates was not helping to put an end to the division
between bishops, but only the active fight in the company of the saints under
Christ’s command.78 The ultimate solution to the conflict was dependent on
the observance of the precepts of orthodoxy, the presence of the saints and the
invocation of their capacity to intercede in the forgiveness of sins.79 Confronting
chapters I and VI of the De Laude Sanctorum allows us to reveal that the unity
of faith and the forgiveness of sins were the precepts (praecepta) of the martyrs
that led Victricius’ mission to Britain.80 Victricius appealed to a Nicene-cut
75
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 7 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, p. 79): Initium novae
legis est praeteritorum ablutio delictorum 12, p. 92: Superest, amantissimi, ut et peccatorum nostrorum
confessio subsequatur. Translation by Clark, ‘Victricius of Rouen’, pp. 386 and 39.
76
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum, 1 and 12 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64).
77
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 1 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, p. 71) : Nec sane mihi
iam circa eos laborandum est qui absolute disciplinae copula exciderunt.
78
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 1 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, p. 71): Pacis Domini
estis auctores, cuius me sententiae velut interpretem delegistis; 12, p. 94: Certa victoria est cum talibus
commilitonibus, et cum Christo imperatore pugnare.
79
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 1 and 6 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64).
80
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum, 1 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, p. 70): Nam quod ad
Britannias profectus sum, quod ibi moratus sum, vestrorum fecit exsecutio praeceptorum. 6, p. 78:
moderate model of orthodoxy, which recognised the capacity of the church

in reconciling schismatics into a single body of Christ. Granting pardon for
sinners made it possible to start again.81 To accomplish this, it was necessary
to proceed to institutionalise the cult of the martyrs and relics. As already
stated, the acceptance of Nicaea’s moderate orthodoxy was a long-lasting and
tumultuous process in the West, which gave rise to many conflicts inside the
provincial churches. Victricius’ reference to Britain allows us to incorporate the
insular debate into the frame of the perpetuation of the problems arising from an
unfinished process of ecclesiastical institutionalisation where it is still possible to
perceive the sequels of the episcopal division resulting from the theological and
disciplinary controversies that characterised western church history throughout
the fourth century. The link established by Victricius himself between the
reason of his visit to Britain and his militancy at the saints’ service suggests that
the British debate could be related to the problems derived from the presence of
rival churches in the context immediate to the public condemnation of Arianism
by law. On the other hand, the solutions proposed by Victricius to restore the
order in Britain match up with the mechanisms introduced in the Continent.
The saints were also capable of mediating in the episcopal division and restoring
the order lost in Britain. The need to establish the same solutions to the crisis
suggests also a comparable reality in these territories, too.
Acknowledgement
Part of this text was written while holding a postdoctoral research fellowship at
the University of Leeds (EX-2006-1432). I warmly wish to express my gratitude
to Professor Ian N. Wood for his dedication and advice, and to Dr Erin T. Dailey
for his generous assitance with the translation.
Vestra sunt haec praecepta … Unitatis nulla subiectio est. Nec mirum, si nihil est vobis in substantia
terrena difficile, quibus totum est in spiritus luce commune. Maior tamen erit vestrarum gloria
potestatum, si defendatis laboriosos, si tuemini hostibus subiacentes. Tegant arma, quos volunt, nos
vestrae acies, vestra signa custodient. Nullus est hostis, si tribuatis indulgentiam peccatorum.
81
Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum 7 (ed. Demeulenaere, CCSL 64, p. 79): Initium novae
legis est praeteritorum ablutio delictorum.
Conclusion: The Elusive Nature of an
Orthodox Heresy
Yitzhak Hen
Arianism was a major concern in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages.
Although it started as a local theological debate among the clergy of Alexandria,
it rapidly spread far and wide. By 325, when Emperor Constantine convened
the first ecumenical council in Nicaea, Arianism or, more precisely, the doctrine
associated with Arius and his followers, was already a distinctive feature of the
Christian profile of the later Roman Empire.1 It managed to attract numerous
adherents from among the Christian clergy, the Roman aristocracy and the
imperial court; it infuriated the orthodox leaders of the Christian Church and
their imperial supporters; and it was constantly and passionately debated.2 The
brutal offensive against Arianism that was launched by Athanasius of Alexandria
and was subsequently kept alive by numerous orthodox bishops throughout
the fourth and the early fifth century forced the Arians to think, re-think, and
formulate their doctrine, and sure enough they were soon debating their beliefs
among themselves. Arianism, it appears, meant different things to different
people, and our tendency to approach it as a coherent Christian phenomenon
distorts a much more complex and nuanced reality.3
The various chapters in this volume give an informed appraisal of current
research on Arianism. They delineate the evolvement of the so-called Arian
doctrine and its derivative Christologies; they question the nature of Ulfila’s
beliefs; they re-examine the notion of ‘Germanic Arianism’ and give it the
proper burial it deserves; and they survey the evidence for Arianism in the post-
Roman West, from Britain in the north to North Africa in the south, from
1
On the council of Nicaea, see Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to the
Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford, 2004), and see there for further bibliography.
2
The amount of literature on the Arian controversy is enormous and cannot be listed here.
For a useful survey, see Richard P.C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The
Arian Controversy, 318–381 (London, 1988). See also the various papers in Robert C. Gregg
(ed.), Arianism: Historical and Theological Reassessments. Papers from the Ninth International
Conference on Patristic Studies, September 5–10, 1983 (Philadelphia, 1985; reprinted with an
updated bibliography 2006).
3
See the introduction to this volume, as well as the chapters by Hanns Christof Brennecke,
Uta Heil, and Sara Parvis.
Visigothic Spain in the west to Ostrogothic and Lombard Italy in the east. In
what follows, rather than summarising the various chapters (all of which speak
clearly for themselves), I should like to comment on a handful of issues raised by
some of the contributors, and suggest further lines of inquiry.
One of the major stumbling blocks in any attempt to get a better
understanding of Arianism, its emergence and subsequent formation, is the
nature and character of our evidence, which is extremely fragmentary and
biased. Although Arian authors produced numerous theological treatises
and biblical commentaries, in which they displayed their uncompromised
theological stance,4 not a single complete Arian tract from the fourth century
came down to us. All that survives of this wave of Arian creativity is a pile of
fragments (mostly in palimpsest form), and a plethora of biased (and in many
respects intentionally twisted) citations in the works of orthodox polemicists.
As often happens with heresies and unorthodox beliefs, our knowledge of Arian
theology derives almost exclusively from the writings of orthodox figures, such
as Athanasius, the Cappadocian Fathers, Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose of Milan,
and several less familiar anti-Arian authors,5 all of whom wrote ferociously
and spitefully against a belief they deemed heretical, and hence can hardly be
regarded as a paragon of writing on Arianism sine ira et studio. Whether we like
it or not, one has to admit that we all suffer from what I would term ‘Nicene
myopia’, that tacitly dictates the questions we ask, the answers we are looking for,
and the image of Arianism (or one should say Arianisms) we disseminate.
Combing through the various studies of Arianism that were published in
the past century or so, two clear trends of analysis can be observed. On the one
hand, those who study Arianism in the fourth and the early fifth century tend
to focus either on the formation of Arian theology from Arius onwards, or on
the orthodox reaction to the emergence of Arianism as an attractive alternative
Christology. On the other hand, scholars who look beyond the fifth century,
tend to gather bits and pieces of evidence not only for the existence of Arianism
in the post-Roman Barbarian kingdoms, but also for the structure of the Arian
Church and the Arian clerical hierarchy, or for the persecution of Catholics
by Arian rulers and vice versa. Both trends are clearly reflected in the papers
gathered here, and in both the ‘Nicene myopia’ takes its toll.
See for example, Knut Schäferdiek, ‘Theodor von Herakleia (328/34–351/55): Ein wenig
4
beachteter Kirchenpolitiker und Exeget des 4. Jhs’., in Idem, Schwellenzeit, pp. 51–68 (originally
published in Romanitas Christianitas: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Literatur der römischen
Kaiserzit. Johannes Staub zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Gerhard Wirth (Berlin and New York, 1982
pp. 393–410).
5
See, for example, Daniel H. Williams, Ambrose of Milan and the End of the Arian-Nicene
Conflict (Oxford, 1995); David M. Gwynn, The Eusebians: The Polemic of Athanasius of Alexandria
and the Construction of the ‘Arian Controversy’ (Oxford, 2007); Sara Parvis, Marcellus of Ancyra
And the Lost Years of the Arian Controversy, 325–345 (Oxford, 2006).
Conclusion 313
Let us take, for example, the study of the Arian doctrine. Although scholars
constantly moan over the quality and availability of their sources, or lack thereof,
they completely ignore a huge corpus of Arian literature that was copied and
partially composed for the first time in the post-Roman West (mainly in Vandal
North Africa and Ostrogothic Italy), that is, outside the familiar Nicene orbit.6
The so-called Arian disputationes that took place in Vandal North Africa under
the auspices of the Vandal king are, perhaps, the largest corpus of Arian theology
that came down to us from Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, larger
than any Arian theological evidence that survives from the fourth century.7 Even
if one accepts the fact that these disputationes were nothing but carefully staged
theological debates, surely they must have had some significance.
The so-called Arian Codex of Verona (Verona, Biblioteca capitulare, LI
[49]), to give just one more example, is a unique collection of Arian texts that
was copied around 500, possibly in Verona or in Ravenna. 8 It contains, amidst a
thoughtful selection of excerpts from Augustine and Jerome, two series of Arian
homilies, one on various passages from the Gospels,9 and the other dedicated to
the various festivals of the liturgical year.10 It also contains a treatise against Jews,11
another one against pagans,12 and a third against heretics (i.e. Nicene orthodoxy),13
and it concludes with some passages from the Apostolic Constitutions, another
distinctive Arian composition.14 And yet, although it transmits several unique
texts, the Verona Codex has largely been ignored by those who study the
evolution of Arian thought. Once again, scholars were drawn to the familiar
and comfortable anti-Arian writings, and consequently the highly sophisticated
6
A welcome exceptional, although at the time extremely controversial is Michel Meslin, Les
ariens d’Occident, 335–430 (Paris, 1967).
7
See Fulgentius of Ruspe, Opera, ed. Jean Fraipont, CCSL 91 and 91A (Turnhout, 1968–87).
On these debates, see Yitzhak Hen, Roman Barbarians: The Royal Court and Culture in the Early
Medieval West (London and New York, 2007), pp. 87–93.
8
See Scripta Arriana latina I, ed. Roger Gryson, CCSL 87 (Turnhout, 1982, pp. 1–145).
On this codex, see Roger Gryson, Le receuil arien de Vérone (ms. LI de la Bibliothèque Capitulaire
et feuillets inédits de la collection Giustiniani Recanati). Étude codicologique et paléographique,
Instrumenta Patristica XIII (Steenbrugge and The Hague, 1982).
9
Scripta Arriana latina, ed. Gryson, pp. 7–46.
10
11
12
13
14
See Cuthbert H. Turner, Ecclesiae occidentalis monumenta iuris antiquissima, I
(Oxford, 1913), pp. 32a–32hh. On this version of the Apostolic Constitutions, see Cuthbert
H. Turner, ‘A primitive edition of the Apostolic Constitutions and Canons: an early list of apostles
and disciples’, JThS, 15 (1914): pp. 53–65.
and exceedingly nuanced reconstruction of Arius’ theology and its derivative

Christologies relies almost exclusively on the writings of Nicene authors.
Likewise, our ‘Nicene myopia’ dictates our obsessive search for structure.
We are all familiar with the parochial structure and clerical hierarchy of the
Orthodox Church, but that, we must constantly bear in mind, was a rather late
development.15 In his lucid chapter, Ralph Mathisen has clearly demonstrated
how different was the organisation and hierarchy of the Arian Church from the
Nicene model we are familiar with, that is, the Roman administrative model for
organising things.16 Yet, these differences must not be taken to imply that the
Arian Church was less organised than the Nicene Church, unless one believes
that the Arian Church had to be modelled on the Nicene model, and that the
Nicene model should be the yardstick according to which every Church should
be measured. This assumption is implicit in Mathisen’s analysis, and he attributes
the differences between the two Churches to the special needs of the Barbarian
gentes. This may well be true, but such an assumption is not intrinsic. Could it be
that the Arian Church was structured differently from the beginning, like, for
example, the early Ethiopian Church or the early Church of Armenia?17
Similarly, there is the issue of Roman Arians. What happened to them? After
all, Ambrose of Milan was wrestling with a significant Arian community and
Augustine of Hippo was debating theology with Arians. Are we to assume that
Ambrose and his contemporaries were so efficient in converting all the Roman
Arians to the Nicene orthodoxy? Did they completely disappear from the West
as soon as the Barbarians established their independent kingdoms? Although
the available sources tell us very little, our tendency to ignore the existence of
Arians in the Roman camp undoubtedly distorts the picture. An argument
of silence is extremely hazardous, and more work is needed in order to solve
this riddle.
This brings me to the final point I would like to raise, that is, our dichotomic
vision of the religious scene in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages.
Obviously, according to the Nicene bishops and their followers one could either
be a Nicene orthodox, or a heretic Arian of some sort. What is amazing is that
modern scholarship adopted this strict dichotomy without even questioning its
validity. In that respect, we are all direct disciples of the notorious Lucifer of
Cagliari.18 However, the reality that emerges from our sources was much more
15
See, for example, Jean Gaudemet, L’Église dans l’empire romain (Paris, 1958).
16
See Chapter 7, Ralph Mathisen, in this volume.
17
On the early Ethiopian and Armenian Churches, see Heinzgerd Brakmann, To para
tois barbarois ergon theion: Die Einwurzelung der Kirche im spätantiken Reich von Aksum
(Bonn, 1994) and Nina G. Garsoïan, Armenia between Byzantium and the Sassanians
(Aldershot, 1985) respectively.
18
See, for example, Lucifer of Cagliari, De non conveniendo cum haereticis, ed. Gerardus
F. Diercks, CCSL 8 (Turnhout, 1978), pp. 163–92.
Conclusion 315
complex and flexible. Boundaries were constantly crossed, Nicenes and Arians
lived together, and more importantly they worshipped together. It seems that
for the vast majority of the population, the theological debates that preoccupied
the highest level of the Christian clergy (Nicene and Arian alike) were of very
little relevancy, if at all.
To sum up, the study of Arianism and the systematic analysis of the anti-
Arian literature began in the latter part of the seventeenth century, with the
emergence of anti-Nicene movements that across post-Reformation Europe.19 It
was further boosted in the early eighteenth century by the adoption of various
Arian ideas by leaders of the new scientific Enlightenment, such as Isaac Newton
and his students, William Whiston and Samuel Clarke.20 It took almost two
centuries for historians and theologians to break away from the imposing shadow
of the Reformation and the Enlightenment, and only at the beginning of the
twentieth century did new rigorous philological tendencies come to dominate
the study of Arianism.21 It is about time to cross the lines to the next phase of
Arian studies, in which scholars will abandon the ‘Nicene myopia’ altogether,
and concentrate less on theology, and more on the political, social and cultural
function of Arianism in Late Antiquity and the post-Roman Barbarian World.22
The chapters in this volume provide a solid basis for such a transformation.
19
See Maurice Wiles, Archetypal Heresy: Arianism through the Centuries (Oxford, 1996),
especially pp. 53–61.
20
See Wiles, Archetypal Heresy, pp. 62–164.
21
See, for example, Jacques Zeiller, ‘Étude sur l’arianisme en Italie à l’époque ostrogothique
et à l’époque Lombarde’, MEFR, 25 (1905): pp. 127–46; idem, ‘L’Arianisme en Afrique avant
l’invasion vandale’, Revue Historique, 173 (1934): pp. 535–40.
22
Some of these issues are discussed in my Western Arianism: Politics and Religious Culture
in the Early Medieval West (Cambridge, forthcoming).
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Index
References to figures as well as elaborate Alaric I (king of the Visigoths, r. 395–410)

passages on the entry are in bold 112, 155, 156 n. 52, 194, 196, 274
Alaric II (king of the Visigoths, r. 484–507)
Abragila (homoian presbyter, a Vandal) 174 160 n. 72, 162 and n. 78, 184, 220,
Acacius of Caesarea (bishop, d. 366) 51–52, 275, 280
55 n. 22/23, 56, 60, 61 n. 56, 62, Alavivus (a leader of the Tervingi) 63–64,
69, 94, 99, 104 n. 43, 146 73
Achilles (bishop of Alexandria, 311–313) 8 Alboin (king of the Lombards, r. around
Adaloald (king of the Lombards, r. 560–572) 22, 232, 234
616–626) 232, 235 Alexander (bishop of Alexandria, 313–328)
Adrianople (Hadrianopolis/Αδριανούπολις) 1, 8–10, 12–13, 88 and n. 11, 110
50 n. 3, 64, 65, 111, 141, 155 n. 69
Aëtios (deacon) 34 Amalagheus (Arian cleric in Ravenna) 169
Aëtius of Antioch (4th c. theologian) 47, Ambrose (bishop of Milan, 374–397) 86
62, 93, 94, 98, 146 n. 2, 102, 109 and n. 61/62, 110
Aëtius, Flavius (magister utriusque militum, and n. 66/67, 111–12, 113 n.
patricius, d. 454) 276, 285 76, 115, 122, 127, 137, 156, 157
Agde (synod of 506) 162, 280, 285, 288 and n. 56/58/59, 173, 178 and n.
Agilanis/Agila (Visigothic ambassador 165/167, 191, 251 n. 71, 252, 301,
580) 39–40, 175, 179, 296 307, 312, 314
Agilulf (king of the Lombards, r. 590–615) Amisus (Samsun, city on north coast of
232–33 Turkey) 73 n. 32
Agnellus of Ravenna (bishop of Ravenna, Ammaedara vide Haïdra
557–570) 214 and n. 42 Ammianus Marcellinus (4th c. historian)
Agnellus of Ravenna (9th c. chronicler) 63–64, 73, 155, 191
169, 191, 214, 225 Anastasios I (Roman emperor, r. 491–518)
Agnes (saint) 159 153, 220–21, 292 n. 65
Agobard of Lyon (bishop, d. 840) 291–92, Anastasius (bishop of Pavia, d. 628) 170,
292 n. 64 237
Agricola (martyr) 185 Ancyra (synod of 358) 47
Aiax/Ajax (5th c. Arian missionary) 161, Andrew (apostle) 71, 181–82
172, 297 Anduit (Arian presbyter) 164, 217
Alahis (Arian duke of Trent and Brescia, Anemius (bishop of Sirmium) 110 n. 66
king of the Lombards in 689) 237, Antioch (synod of 341) 25, 54, 55, 104 n.
238 43, 139, 142
Alamanni 21, 285 Antioch (synod shortly before Nicaea) 4,
Alans 272 7, 11
Antioch 15, 63 86–88, 90 and n. 18, 93, 97 n. 27,

Antonius (bishop of Tamullumum) 99–100, 102 and n. 38, 105, 127,
165–166, 166 n. 107 241, 252, 284, 311–12
Apollinarians 146–147 Atharid (Gothic prince) 71, 82
Apollinaris of Valence (bishop, d. 520) 189 Athaulf (king of the Goths, r. 410–415)
Aquileia 158 n. 61, 203 n. 8, 225 155, 274–75
Aquileia (council of 381) 29, 102, 109 and Attila (king of the Huns, d. 453) 134, 119,
n. 60, 110, 113, 118, 124–26, 157, 285
178, 236, 240 Auch (Midi-Pyrénées, France) 280
Aquitania 274, 275, 299 Audaians (sect named after Audaios)
Areios vide Arius 135–136
Argiovitus of Oporto (Arian bishop, Audaios (heretic from Mesopotamia) 135
around 600) 163 Audoin (king of the Lombards, r. ca.
Aripert I (king of the Lombards, r. 546–560) 234
653–661) 22, 236–37 Augustine of Hippo (354–430) 111–15,
Ariminium (Rimini, council of 359) 52–53, 127, 148, 173–74, 176, 186,
60, 193 241–43, 252–53, 294
Arimir (son of Gaatha, a 4th c. Gothic Authari (king of the Lombards, r. 584–590)
queen) 137 232–233, 235–36, 237
Arintheus, Flavius (consul 372) 83 Auvergne 280
Arioald (king of the Lombards, r. 626–636) Auxentius of Durostorum (4th c. Arian
232, 236 bishop) 17 n. 1, 23, 25, 27–29,
Arius (priest in Alexandria, 250 or 30, 35, 45, 47, 51, 53–54, 58–59,
256–336) 1, 2, 8, 9–16, 18–19, 22, 61–64, 69, 75, 107, 109, 124, 126,
36 n. 46, 40, 46, 51, 53–54, 57–58, 128, 142, 150, 156 n. 54, 177–78
86–90, 93, 96, 98–99, 110 and n. Auxentius of Milan (Arian theologian and
69, 118, 128 and n. 70, 146, 194, bishop of Milan, d. 374) 95 n. 24,
241, 254, 311–12, 314 98 n. 31, 100–102, 139–40, 156 n.
Arles (Arelate, Bouches-du-Rhône, France) 54, 157 n. 59, 178 n. 165/166, 189
271–72, 275, 277–78, 286 n. 216, 278
Arles (council of 353) 87, 93, 99 Avignon 286
Armenia/Armenians 55, 74, 314 Avitus (Western Roman emperor, r.
Arpulas (4th c. Arian monk) 151 455–456) 285
Asterius of Cappadocia/the Sophist (Arian Avitus of Vienne (archbishop, ca. 470–517
theologian, d. ca. 341) 11 or 519) 167 and n. 117, 175, 187
Athalocus (6th c. Arian bishop of n. 205, 188 n. 210, 189, 191, 271,
Narbonne) 163, 164 n. 94 287–96
Athanaric (Gothic iudex 365–376/381) Avars 21
27, 28, 46, 62–63, 67, 72–73, 76,
135–38, 140–41 Bacauda (wife of the banker Julianus, 6th
Athanarid (geographer, ‘philosopher’ at c.) 175
Theoderic’s court) 179 Balkans 23, 27, 28, 46, 86 n. 3, 131–32,
Athanasius of Alexandria (bishop, 134, 146 n. 4, 282
328–373) 2, 4 n. 14, 5–10, 13–15,
17, 54, 56–57, 61 n. 56, 85 n. 1,
Index 369
Barba (Arian archbishop of 234–35, 238, 271, 274, 275, 282,

Constantinople, 407–430) 153 and 285–96
n. 40/41 Busento (river in Calabria, southern Italy)
Barcelona 163 194
Basil of Ancyra (4th c. Christian priest) 51, Byzacena (Roman African province) 218,
55 and n. 22, 56, 62, 93, 94 and n. 241
23, 103, 146 Byzantium 221, 234
Basil of Caesarea (bishop, d. 379) 68, 71, 72
and n. 28, 73–81, 86 n. 2, 106, 108, Caecilian (bishop of Carthage) 240
109, 295 Caesarea 73, 74
Basilius of Aix (5th c. bishop) 174, 279–80 Cappadocia/Cappadocian fathers 16, 24,
Bathousês (4th c. Arian presbyter) 151 45, 46, 63, 68, 72, 81, 106, 120,
Batwin (Arian minister) 71, 151 121 n. 26, 134, 137–38, 140, 150,
Bavarians 143, 144, 236, 238 151, 312
Bazas (Gironde, France) 280 Caretena (wife of Gundobad) 287
Bechila of Lugo (6th c. Arian bishop) 163 Cartenius (bishop) 291
Bede the Venerable 297 Carthage 114, 166, 201–6, 210, 215–18,
Belisarius (6th c. magister militum) 254 240–41, 248, 249, 251, 254
Benenatus (Arian cleric in Ravenna) 169 Carthage (council of 484) 127, 174, 179,
Benevento 203 n. 8 248
Bergamo 203 n. 8 Cassiodorus 191
Beroea (Macedonia) 181–82 Comodilla (catacomb in Rome) 215 n. 47
Besançon (council of 444) 276 Catalaunian Fields (battle of 451) 275, 285
Béziers (concil of 356) 160, 299 n. 7 Cauliana (monastery in Spain) 265
Bleda (Arian bishop, ambassador to the Chalcedon (council of 451) 139, 215
Vandal court in 455/456) 153–54, Childebert II (Frankish king of Austrasia, d.
173 n. 142 596) 234
Bleda (king of the Huns and brother of Chilperic I (Frankish king of Neustria, r.
Attila, d. 445) 154 n. 43 561–584) 39, 175, 296
Bobbio 126, 237 Chilperic I (Burgundian king, d. around
Bollandists 67 480) 286–87
Boniface IV (pope, 608–615) 233 Chilperic II (Burgundian king in Valence, r.
Boniface (Bonifatius), comes Africae (d. 473–493) 287
432) 112 n. 76, 158, 173, 202 n. Chrodechilde (daughter of Chilperic II)
4, 242 287
Boniface (Saint, 8th c. Anglo-Saxon Claudianus Mamertus (theologian, d. ca.
missionary) 143, 182 473) 282–83, 288, 319
Bourges (Cher, France) 186 and n. 200 Clermont (Puy-de-Dôme, France) 160,
Braga (Bracara Augusta, Portugal) 163 279, 280
Brescia 31, 203 n. 8 Clodosuintha/Clodosvinta (Lombard
Britannia 272, 297–98, 300, 309 queen, wife of Alboin) 232, 234
Burgundy/Burgundians/Burgundian Clovis (Frankish king, ca. 466–ca. 511) 45,
kingdom 21, 45, 86, 115, 119 n. 21, 143, 286
128–29, 167–68, 175, 179, 187 Codex argenteus 43, 48, 141, 181, 225–26,
n. 205, 190, 196–197, 220, 225, 229
Codex Euricianus 41, 280–81 Cyzicus (Mysia, today Balıkesir Province,

Commundus of Baira (Catholic bishop at Turkey) 62–63, 71, 137
the Third Council of Toledo 589)
267 n. 44 Dacia (Roman province at the Danube)
Constans (Roman emperor, r. 337–350) 121, 137
15–16, 54, 59–60, 90 n. 18 Damasus I (pope, 366–384) 102, 241
Constantia (empress 361/362–383) 77 Danihel (Arian cleric in Ravenna) 169
Constantine the Great (Roman emperor, Danube (river) 24–28, 45, 46, 50 n. 3,
r. 306–337) 1, 2, 4, 7, 11, 14–15, 57, 60, 62–63, 67 n.3, 70, 72–73,
25, 26, 54–55, 57–58, 76, 87 and 76–77, 120, 122, 131–32, 134–35,
n. 5, 88, 98, 121 n. 28, 129, 131, 138, 141, 151, 154, 219
134–35, 139, 157 n. 57, 240, 249, David (biblical figure) 58, 64, 139
311 Demophilos (Homoian bishop of
Constantine II (Roman emperor, r. Constantinople, deposed in 380) 29
337–340) 4 Deogratias (5th c. bishop of Carthage) 217
Constantine III (usurper, Roman emperor, Deuterius (Roman Arian bishop of
r. 407–411) 272 Constantinople in the reign of
Constantius II (Roman emperor, r. Anastasius I) 153
337–361) 23, 27, 33, 94, 98 Didymus the Blind (Egyptian theologian,
Constantinople 17, 25, 28–29, 32–33, 35, ca. 313–398) 105, 284
36, 53, 60, 64, 70–71, 94, 98, 124, Diocletian (Roman emperor, r. 284–305) 8
134, 139, 141, 147, 152, 154, 156, Dionysius of Alexandria (saint, bishop d.
182, 183 n. 184, 216, 220–22, 225 264) 11
Constantinople (first council of 381) 1, 3, Dionysius (bishop of Milan, 349–355) 100,
4, 5 n. 21, 17, 19, 47, 53, 106, 109, 112 n. 74
117, 139, 141–42, 147, 153, 258, Dniester (river) 24, 45
299, 304 Donatist (church, schism, Donatists) 101 n.
Constantinople (synod 360, creed of ) 36, 208, 239, 241–43, 249, 250–55
17–19, 46, 47, 53, 62, 94–97, 99, (Catholic-Donatist meeting at
104, 122 and n. 31, 123, 125, 142, Carthage 411) 245
148, 295, 360 Dorotheus (Arian bishop of Antioch, d.
Coptic (language) 197, 225 409, sainted in a Gothic calendar)
Costila (Arian cleric in 6th c. Ravenna) 169 153, 181, 182
Crimea 24, 46, 56, 140 Dulcilla (4th c. Gothic lady) 137
Crispus (caesar, son of Constantine I, killed Durance (river in south-eastern France)
in 326) 57 280, 286
Crona (daughter of Chilperic II) 287
Cunipert (king of the Lombards, r. Eauze (Gers, France) 280
688–700) 236 Ecidicius (brother-in-law of Sidonius
Cyprian (African saint) 204, 208, 218 Apollinaris) 279
Cyril of Jerusalem (saint, 4th c. theologian) Egypt 1, 8–10, 59, 64, 87–88, 90, 105
27 Elijah (biblical prophet) 143
Cyrila (Vandal, Arian patriarch of Elpidius (received a letter from Augustine)
Carthage) 165–166, 174, 179, 216, 114
217 Embrun (Hautes-Alpes, France) 286
Index 371
Ennodius of Pavia/Magnus Felix Ennodius Eustathius (4th c. bishop of Antioch) 11,

(bishop, writer, 473/474–521) 280 13, 56 n. 28, 77 and n. 46, 87 n. 5,
Ensérune (oppidum near Nissan-lez- 90
Enserune, Hérault, France) 160 Eutyches (follower of Ulfila) 24, 75, 80, 140
Epaon (council of 517) 187, 189, 288–90
Epiphanius (bishop of Salamis, Cyprus, Fastidiosus (Arian presbyter in Africa) 174,
around 310/320–403) 5, 7, 53 251 n. 71, 252–53
Epiphanius (bishop of Pavia, 439–496) Fausta (Roman empress, 289–326) 57
159, 185 Faustus of Riez (bishop, d. around 490)
Ermaneric/Ermanaric (Greuthungian 280, 282–84, 294 and n. 74, 295
Gothic king) 151–52 Felicitas (martyr) 204 and n. 14, 218
Ermaricus of Laniobriaga (Catholic bishop Felix (saint) 159
at the Third Council of Toledo, Ferrandus of Carthage (author of the Vita
589?) 267 Fulgentii) 254
Ethiopian Church 314 Flacillus of Antioch (4th c. bishop) 56
Eucherius of Lyon (Gallic aristocrat, monk Flodoard(us) of Reims (10th c. French
at Lérins) 274–75 chronicler) 167 n. 115
Eudoxius (bishop of Antioch/ Florus of Lyon (9th c. ecclesiastical writer)
Constantinople, d. 370) 60–62, 69, 292
104 n. 43, 146 Franks 22, 39, 42, 117 and n. 2, 123, 129 n.
Eugenius of Carthage (bishop, d. 505) 165, 75, 143, 162, 168, 175, 189, 193,
174 233–35, 257, 264, 272, 275, 281,
Eulalia (saint) 160 285–86, 296
Eunapius (4th c. writer, philosopher) 63, Fravitta (Gothic leader, d. 402/403) 153
138, 154, 171 and n. 136, 191 Fredegar 235, 260 and n. 11
Eunomius of Cyzicus (Arian theologian, Fretela (Gothic monk) 39
bishop, d. ca. 393) 16, 32, 47, 50 Fritigern (Thervingian Gothic leader) 28,
n. 2, 51, 54, 62 and n. 60, 65, 71, 46, 63, 73, 76, 111, 122, 124, 132,
93–94, 146, 210 n. 30 136–38, 140–41, 154–55, 195,
Euric (king of the Visigoths, r. 466–484) 258 n. 5
160, 179 n. 171, 184, 275, 277, Fruisclus of Tortosa (6th c. Arian bishop in
279–80, 282 (Codex of Euric vide Spain) 163
Codex Euricianus) Fulgentius of Ruspe (6th c. African bishop)
Eusebius of Nicomedia (bishop, leading 39, 127, 174
Arian at the council of Nicaea, d. Fulgentius (6th c. Catholic monk in Spain)
341) 10, 11, 14, 25–26, 38, 46, 51, 266
53, 56–58, 77, 86, 121, 128, 139
Eusebians (followers of Eusebius’s of Gaatha (4th c. Gothic queen) 71, 136–37
Nicomedia theology) 86, 88–94, Gabriel (Archangel) 175
97, 104, 128 Gaïnas (5th c. Gothic general) 153, 183
Eusebius of Caesarea 3 and n. 10, 5, 7, 10, Gaius (bishop, spokesman for the
12, 26, 55, 61 n. 56, 77, 86, 87 n. Homoians at the council of Rimini
5, 121 359) 94, 103
Galatia (Anatolia) 279
Gallaecia (territory in the north-west of 56–82, 99, 111, 119, 120–26, 128,
Hispania) 21 131–44, 145, 148 n. 14, 150, 153,
Galla Placidia (imperial princess, daughter 158, 161, 163, 168, 173, 175, 177,
of Theodosius I, 392–450) 274–75 182–83, 190, 211, 214, 219, 220,
Gaul/Gallia 57, 100, 123, 160–61, 166, 222–24, 229, 232, 242, 258, 265,
170, 174–75, 179, 184, 189, 193, 268–69, 274–75, 278–79, 286
257, 259, 264, (Homoians in Gaul) Gothic church/lex Gothorum 23, 43,
271–96, 298, 301, 302 n. 28/30, 223–25, 227
303, 305, 306 Gothic bishops 149 n. 15, 150, 152–57,
Gallinaria (Gallinara, island in the Ligurian 163, 168
Sea, Italy) 278 Gothic language 154, 169, 177–81
Gardingus of Tuy (6th c. Arian bishop in Gothic clergy 160, 189 fides Gothica 264
Spain) 163 Gothi minores 27, 131–32, 136–37, 151
Geiseric (king of the Vandals, r. 429–477) Gouththikas/Gouththikâs (4th c. Gothic
153, 164, 203–204, 206, 240, 245, presbyter) 70, 151
247 Graecus of Marseille (5th c. bishop) 280,
Gelasius I (pope, 492–496) 222 284 n. 42
Gelasius, bishop of Caesarea (d. 395) 3 n. Gratian (Roman emperor, r. 375–383) 109,
10 111, 117 and n. 6, 118, 120, 122,
Gelasius of Cyzicus (=Pseudo-Gelasius, 5th 156
c. ecclesiastical writer) 4 n. 11, 323 Gregory I (pope, 590–604) 203 n. 6,
Gelimer (king of the Vandals, r. 530–533) 232–33, 235, 262 and n. 17
254 Gregory II of Rome (pope, 715–731) 182
Geneva 187 n. 205, 286, 289 Gregory of Nazianzus (4th c. theologian)
Gennadius of Marseille/Scholasticus (priest 1–2, 86 n. 2
and historian, d. ca. 496) 191, 282 Gregory of Nyssa (bishop, Cappadocian
George of Laodicea (bishop, d. ca. 361) 93, Father, d. ca. 395) 85 n. 1, 86 n. 2
94 n. 23 Gregory of Tour (6th c. historian) 39–40,
Gepids 21, 143, 156, 197, 234 42, 160, 165 n. 100, 167, 175, 179,
Germinius (Homoian bishop of Sirmium, 182, 184, 186, 190–91, 232, 235
d. ca. 376) 86 and n. 4, 87 and n. and n. 11, 264, 285, 289, 296
6, 91, 94, 98, 99, 102–5, 110 n. 66, Gregory the Great vide Gregory I
146 Gregory the Illuminator (Patriarch of
Gervasius (saint) 226 Armenian Church, d. ca. 331) 55
Gildas 297 Grimm’s Law/Grimm, Jacob Ludwig Carl
Gironde (department in the Aquitaine (German philologist, 1785–1863)
region, France) 160 132, 193 n. 1
Godda/Goddas (Arian? bishop) 70, 136, Grimoald (duke of Benevento, 647–662,
138, 152 king of the Lombards, 662–671)
Godegisel (king of the Burgundians, r. 237–38
473–501) 167, 286–87, 289 Gudelivus (Arian cleric in Ravenna) 169
Godomar (king of the Burgundians, r. Guderit (Arian cleric in Ravenna) 169
523–534) 286 Gundiperga (queen of the Lombards)
Goths 18 n. 85 (foedus of 382) 23–25, 235–36
27–32, 39, 41–42, 45–49, 50, 54,
Index 373
Gundobad (king of the Burgundians, r. ca. Hilderic (king of the Vandals, r. 523–530)
474–516) 115, 167, 175 and n. 38, 206 and n. 19, 243 n. 24
154, 196, 224, 271, 286–93, 294, Hilduarens (Catholic nun in Spain, d. 504)
296 266
Gundowech (king of the Burgundians, d. Himerius of Tarragona (4th c. bishop) 306
ca. 470) 286 Hippo Regius (south of Annaba, Algeria)
Gunthamund (king of the Vandals, r. 173, 240
484–496) 245 Hippolytus of Rome (3rd c. theologian) 15
Gutthikas (4th c. Gothic presbyter) 136 Honoratus of Marseille (bishop, 475–496)
Gwatkin, Henry Melvill (English 276
theologian and church historian, Honorius (Roman emperor, r. 395–423)
1844–1916) 52–53 246, 272, 274–75
Honorius (pope, 625–638) 236
Habetdeus (Arian bishop of Tamallumum) Hosbut (Arian cleric in Ravenna) 169
165, 166 Hosius of Corduba (bishop, d. 359) 11
Haïdra (Ammaedara, Tunisia) 201, Huneric (king of the Vandals, r. 477–484)
206–207, 209, 210, 251 n. 69 127, 164–66, 203–204, 216, 245,
Haliscus (harbour, semel dictum) 71, 152 247, 252–53, 255
Harnack, Adolf von (German Lutheran Huns 63, 73, 132, 137, 154 n. 43, 275, 285
theologian and church historian, Hydatius (chronicler, bishop of Aquae
1851–1930) 52–53 Flaviae, Chaves, Vila Real, Portugal,
Hasdings 243, 246 ca. 400–ca. 469) 161, 171, 279
Hebron 58, 139 Hydatius (Arian priest) 191
Heldebald (geographer, ‘philosopher’ at
Theoderic’s court) 179 Inna (martyr) 70, 136, 138
Heliand (epic poem in Old Saxon) 133 Isidore of Seville 39, 136, 262–63, 265
Hellespont 104 n. 43
Heraclianus (usurper, r. 412–413) 162 Jerome 38–39, 56 n. 29, 142, 147, 241, 298,
Heraclius (Catholic priest in conflict with 305, 313
the Arian bishop Maximinus) 173 Jesus 13, 37, 91, 101, 133, 149 n. 16, 211,
Heraclius (vir illustrissimus in 5th c. Gaul) 214, 303
289 n. 57, 292–93 Jocundus (Arian presbyter) 164 and n. 96
Hermenegild (martyr, son of king Leovigild John Chrysostom/Chrysostomus
of Visigothic Spain, d. 585) (archbishop of Constantinople, ca.
261–62, 262 n. 17, 270 347–407) 31, 152, 228 n. 45
Herod (King of Judaea, r. 37–4 BCE) 133 John of Biclaro (6th/7th c. Spanish
Heruls 22, 122 chronicler) 22, 41, 191, 261, 263,
Hesychius (5th c. bishop of Vienne) 288 265
Hieronymus vide Jerome John the Baptist 211
Hilary of Arles (bishop, 430–449) 275, 276 Jonas of Bobbio (7th c. monk and writer)
and n. 11 236
Hilary of Poitiers (bishop, d. ca. 368) 5 n. Jordan (river) 211
19, 6–7, 86 n. 2, 100–101, 103 n. Jordanes 23–24, 30, 60, 131–32, 134, 150,
41, 127, 271, 278, 298–301, 305–6, 166, 191, 195
307, 312 Joseph (biblical) 64
Jovian (Roman emperor, r. 363–364) 98, Liberius (praetorian prefect, ca. 465–ca.
100 554) 222
Julian, the Apostate (Roman emperor, r. Licinius (Roman emperor, r. 308–324) 8,
361–363) 16, 98, 100, 271 11, 55, 58, 88, 182
Julianus Valens of Poetovio (Ptuj/Pettau, Limoges (Haute-Vienne, France) 280
Slovenia, 4th c. Homoian bishop) Litorius (comes, d. 439) 276–277
110 n. 66, 156 and n. 54, 157 n. Loire 275
56/58 Lombards/Lombard Italy 10, 22, 86, 119,
Julianus (argentarius, banker in 6th c. 123, 128, 156, clergy in Lombard
Ravenna) 175 Italy 169–70, 183 n. 183, 188 n.
Julianus (bishop of Vienne) 287 n. 48 211, Arianism 231–238, 312
Julius Nepos (Roman emperor, r. 474–475, Lugdunensis (Gallia Lugdunensis, Roman
475–480 from Dalmatia) 220, 280 province) 299
Julius (bishop of Rome, d. 352) 56, 90 Lyon 286, 291 (synod of 519) 287 n. 48,
Junius Soranus (4th c. dux Scythiae) 72 and 291
n. 28, 79, 81, 151
Justina (empress, ca. 340–ca. 391) 109, 122, Macedonians or Pneumatomachi/Semi-
157 n. 58 Arians 16 n. 76, 17 n. 78/81, 52,
Justinian I (Roman emperor, r. 527–565) 105, 146, 147, 282–83
18, 21, 45, 117, 128, 148 n. 11, 158, Macedonius I of Constantinople (bishop,
175, 227, 234, 239, 254, 255 founder of the Macedonians, d.
Justinus (4th c. bishop) 94 n. 24, 100 after 360) 16, 283
Magnentius (usurper, 350–353) 16
Lake Geneva 274, 285 Mainz (Mogontiacum, Rhineland-
Lake Neuchâtel 286 Palatinate, Germany) 272
Lampsakus on the Hellespont 104 n. 43 Marcellians (followers of Marcellus of
Langres (Haute-Marne, France) 286 Ancyra, labeled as Arians) 146–47
Laurentius II (bishop of Milan, ca. 573–ca. Marcellus of Ancyra (bishop, d. ca. 374) 13,
593) 234 15 and n. 71, 26, 38, 40, 54–55, 87
Leander of Seville (Arian bishop, d. n. 5, 90 and n. 18, 91, 93, 97–99
600/601) 263 Marcialis (bishop? at the council of Rimini
Leo I (pope, 440–461) 276 n. 11 359) 94 and 95 n. 24
Leovigild (king of the Visigoths, r. Marcomir (geographer, ‘philosopher’ at
568–586) 21, 41–42, 143, Theoderic’s court) 179
162–164, 190, 261–64, 265, Marinus of Thrace (Arian archbishop of
267–270, 296 Constantinople ca. 386–388, d.
Lérida (Catalonia, Spain, council of 546) 420/423) 153
267 Maris of Chalcedon (4th c. Arian bishop)
Lérins 274, 275, 277, 282 51, 56–60, 62
Leuterius of Salamanca (Catholic bishop at Marivadus (Arian deacon in Vandal Africa)
the Third Council of Toledo 589) 164 and n. 96
267 Martin of Tours 277, 302 n. 30
Libanios (rhetor, d. 393) 27, 46 Mary (virgin) 95, 101
Liberius of Rome (pope, 352–366) 104 n.
43, 301
Index 375
Masona of Mérida (Arian bishop, ca. Naples 39, 174 n. 151, 203
570–ca. 600/610) 163, 263, 265, Narbonensis (Gallia Narbonensis, Roman
267 n. 44 province) 299
Maximinus (5th c. Arian bishop, debated Narbonne (Languedoc-Roussillon, France)
with Augustinus) 98, 112–13 and 160 and n. 72, 163, 274–75, 278 n.
n. 76, 123, 148 and n. 13, 156 n. 52, 24, 286
158, 160, 173–76, 178–79, 202 n. Nedao (battle at the, 454) 131
4, 242–43 Neufila of Tuy (Catholic bishop at the
Maximinus (author of the Diss. Max., Third Council of Toledo 589) 267
Codex Paris BN lat. 8907) 23, 29, Nevers (Burgundy, France) 286
45, 51, 124, 126 Nicaea (synod of 325) 2, 4 and n. 17, 5
Maximinus Daia (Roman Emperor, r. n. 19/21, 6, 7, 11, 12 and n. 62,
308–313) 8 13–14, 16, 17, 22, 24, 26, 40, 46, 56
Mcidfa (basilica Maiorum, Carthage) 201, and n. 28, 57–58, 60–61, 69, 85 n.
204–206 (plan: 205) 1, 86 n. 2, 87 n. 5, 89, 96, 97 and n.
Megasius (4th c. bishop) 94 n. 24, 100 27, 98, 99, 121 and n. 27, 128, 135,
Melleus (basilica of, at Haïdra, Ammaedara, 140, 150, 202 and n. 5, 240, 254,
Tunisia) 206, 208, 210 297, 300–301, 306, 311 (creed of
Mende (Lozère, France) 280 Nicaea) xvii, 7, 33, 53, 54, 56, 60,
Mérida (Extremadura, Spain) 163–64, 265, 183 n. 183, 185, 188 n. 211, 225,
266, 269 252, 310
Michael (archangel) 175 Nicetius (bishop of Trier, d. ca. 566)
Migdonius 94 n. 24 232–34
Milan 100–2, 109–10, 111, 122, 140, 148, Nicomedia 9
150, 151 n. 27, 156, 157 n. 58, 173, Nicopolis (Ulpia Nicopolis ad Istrum, north
178 n. 165, 185, 202, 203 n. 8, 223, of Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria) 27, 60,
225–26, 234, 248 n. 54, 303, 307 63, 76, 131
(synod of 355) 87 and n. 6, 93 Nikaia vide Nicaea
Minnulus (Arian cleric in Ravenna) 169 Nitigisius of Lugo (Catholic bishop at the
Mirica (Arian cleric in Ravenna) 169 Third Council of Toledo 589) 267
Modahari/Modaharius (5th c. Goth) 174, Numidia 218
279
Modestus, Flavius (consul 372) 83 Odoacer/Odovacer (king in Italy, r.
Moesia xvii, 28, 45, 71 n. 21, 72, 121–22, 476–493) 168, 169 n. 122, 219,
131, 137, 139, 140–41, 150–51, 220 and n. 5, 224, 227, 280
178 Olt (Alt, Alutus, river in Romania) 24, 45
Montanus (bishop of Toledo, 522–ca. 531) Olympiodorus of Thebes 191
266 Opitz, Hans-Georg (German church
Moses 59, 63–64, 133, 143 historian 1905–1941) 8
Moutiers en Tarentaise (Savoie, Rhône- Oppila (6th c. Goth) 40, 42, 296
Alpes, France) 286 Optarit (Arian presbyter in 6th c. Ravenna)
Murila of Palencia (6th c. Arian bishop) 169
163 Optatus (Optate, saint, 4th c. bishop of
Muzonius (4th c. primate of Byzacena) 241 Milevis in Numidia) 253
Orange (council of 441) 275–276
Orientus of Auch (5th c. bishop in Perpetuus (bishop of Tours,

Aquitaine) 273, 276 458/59–488/89) 277, 278 and n.
Origen (early Christian theologian 20/22
184/185–253/254) 9 and n. 45, Petrus (Arian subdeacon in Ravenna) 169
11–13, 15, 90 Petrus (Arian? bishop at the council of
Orléans (council of 511) 189 (council of Agde 506) 162 and n. 78
541) 187, 281 Petrus (a martyr) 8
Orosius (historian and theologian, ca. Philip/Philippus (apostle) 153, 181–82,
375–after 418) 154, 181–82, 191, 214 n. 37
225 Philostorgius (Church historian, 368–ca.
Ossius of Cordoba (bishop, 296–ca. 358) 439) 23–25, 30–31, 46, 51, 53–54,
86 56–57, 59, 62, 120, 134, 142, 150
Othia (5th Arian presbyter) 159, 160 n. 68, Photin of Sirmium 40, 86, 91 and n. 19, 98
189, 278 n. 24 Photinians 146–47
Photius 13, 53
Palencia (diocese in Spain) 266 Phrygia 134, 138, 152, 299
Palestine 7, 10, 12 n. 58 Pina (Gothic martyr) 70, 136, 138
Palladius of Ratiara (Homoian condemned Pinta (episcopus in Carthage) 166, 174 and
at the Council of Aquileia 381) 29, n. 150
102, 110–111, 124, 251 n. 71 Pneumatomachi vide Macedonians
Pannonia/Pannonian provinces 57, 156, Pontius Pilate (biblical) 101, 133
219, 232, 234 Possidius of Calama (d. 437) 112 n. 76, 253
Paris 124, 152, 271 Potamius of Lisbon (bishop) 86 n. 3
Paris (synod 360/361) 100, 300, 305 Priscus (5th c. historian) 191
Pascentius (Arian comes in North Africa) Priscus Attalus (usurper, Roman emperor
114, 127, 173 n. 143, 186, 242 409/414) 155
Paul the Deacon 169, 235–38 Procopius of Caesarea 169, 232, 234, 254
Paulinus of Milan (author of the Vita Procopius (usurper, 366) 62
Ambrosii dated 422) 307 Protasius (saint, buried in Milan) 226
Paulinus of Périgueux (Petricordia, 5th c. Provence 275, 279–80
Christian writer) 277–78
Paul of Samosata (bishop of Antioch Ratiaria/Rathiaria (Bulgary) 29, 110
260–68) 10, 13 Ravenna 22, 43, 48, 128–29, 149, 151 n.
Paulinus of Tyrus (327 bishop of 27, 169, 175–76, 179, 181, 201,
Antiochia) 10, 54 210, 212, 214–17, 219 and n. 3,
Paulus (Arian cleric in Ravenna) 169 221, 223–26, 228, 232–33, 313
Pavia 170 n. 130, 203 n. 8, 223, 225, 236 Rechimund (military leader of the Suebi,
Pelagius II (pope, 579–590) 232 457–ca. 464) 279
Perctarit (king of the Lombards, r. 661/62, Reginus (imperial count in 6th c. North
671–88) 236 Africa) 254
Périguex (Dordogne, France) 280 Reccared/Rekkared (king of the Visigoths,
Perpetua (martyr in North Africa, d. 203) r. 586–601) 21, 98 n. 31, 108, 163,
204 and n. 14, 218 260 n. 11, 263–64, 269, 270, 295
Renovatus (bishop of Mérida) 265
Restitutus (bishop of Carthage) 241
Index 377
Revocatus (Nicene bishop under the S. Spirito (church in Ravenna) 210, 225
Vandals) 166 S. Agatha dei Goti (church in Rome) 169 n.
Rhima (Gothic martyr) 70, 136, 138 125, 168, 175, 202, 224
Rhine (river) 132, 272, 277, 285 Santa Anastasia (church in Ravenna) 169,
Rhône (river) 275, 279, 285–86 216, 225, 229
Rhothesteus (a Gothic warrior) 82 Santa Pudenziana (church in Rome) 215
Ricimer, Flavius (magister militum) 169 n. n. 47
125, 175, 202 and n. 6, 224, 286 Saba/Sabas (martyr) 24, 46, 63 n. 68,
Riez 282 67–78, 81–83, 136, 137, 138, 151,
Riez (council 439) 275 155 and n. 48, 160,
Rimini vide Ariminium Sabbatius (Arian bishop in Constantinople)
Ringilio (a Catholic buried in Tarragona) 153
266 Sabellians 14, 146–47
Riom (Puy-de-Dôme, France) 186 Sabinus (bishop of Heraklea) 6, 61–62
Rions (Gironde, France)160 Sadagolthina (village in the city district of
ripa Gothica (fortified military zone Parnassus) 134
installed by Constantine, r. Salvian of Marseille 179–80, 277
306–337) 131 Salzburg 31, 144
Rodez (Midi-Pyrénées, France) 280 San Apollinare Nuovo (church in Ravenna)
Romania 70, 81, 132 43, 48, 201, 214–15, 225, 228
Romans 41, 63–64, 121, 129 and n. 75, San Vitale (church in Ravenna) 175
132, 135, 139–40, 142, 148 n. Sansalas/Sansalâs (Gothic presbyter) 70,
14, 154, 157 n. 59, 158, 182–84, 81, 136, 138, 151
186, 188, 189 n. 216, 190 and n. Saône (river) 286
217, 193–94, 196, 221, 227, 247, Sapaudia 274, 285–87
257–59, 268 n. 50, 269, 274, 275, Saragossa (synod 592) 260
277 Saturnine of Arles 298–99, 306
Rome 90, 110–112, 123, 129, 144, 149, Savoy 21
166, 168–69, 171, 175, 182, 186, Scott, Charles A. A. (Victorian scholar)
202, 203 n. 6, 215 n. 47, 222–25, 194
233–34, 237, 243, 272, 274–75 Scythia (magna et minor) 72–73, 78–79,
Romulus Augustulus (Roman emperor, r. 81, 132, 135, 151 n. 26, 152, 155 n.
475–476) 220 49, 178
Rotari (king of the Lombards, r. 636–652) Secundianus (bishop of Singidunum,
232, 236–38 Belgrade, Serbia, deposed at the
Rugians 21 council of Aquileia 381) 29, 102,
Ruricius of Limoges 280 110 n. 66, 111
Russia 132 Secundus of Non 237
Rusticus (bishop of Narbonne) 160 Selenas (successor of Vulfila) 36, 134, 138,
152–53, 154 and n. 52
S. Agata in Esquilino (church in Rome) Seleucia/Seleukia (council of 359) XVii,
203 n. 6 4 n. 17, 5 n. 19, 6, 94, 95, 99, 101,
S. Maria in Cosmedin (church in Ravenna) 123, 241, 252, 271
210 Serapion 105
S. Matteo (Via Merulana, Rome) 203 n. 6
Serdica (Sofia, council of 343) 4 n. 85, 165, 166 n. 108, 190, 215, 222,
12/13/17, 7, 15, 56, 58 and n. 37, 257–70, 272, 275, 279, 285, 296,
59 and n. 47, 90 and n. 18, 94, 96, 312
104 Spoleto 170 and n. 130, 235
Şereflikoçhisar (Ankara, Turkey) 24, 45 St John 56 n. 29, 91, 95, 96 n. 27, 102, 110,
Severinus of Noricum 133 n. 14 113, 124, 128, 175, 180, 182, 199,
Severus of Minorca 176 237, 283, 294
Seville, 163 St. Anastasia (church in Ravenna) 169, 216,
Sicily 104 n. 43, 132, 274 225, 229
Sidonius Apollinaris (bishop of Clermont) St. Bertrand-de-Comminges 280
160, 174, 184–86, 191, 228, St. Eusebius at Ravenna 169
279–280, 282 St. Savinus 235
Sigeric (king of the Visigoths, d. 415) 155 Stephanus of Lyon 293
Sigeric (son of king Sigismund) 286 Stilicho (magister militum, d. 408) 272 and
Sigesarius (Gothic bishop) 149 n. 15, 155, n. 4
156 n. 52 Suebi/Suevi 21, 45, 86, 161, 172, 235, 272,
Sigismund (king of the Burgundians, r. 275, 279, 285
516–23) 21, 167 n. 117, 175 n. Sulpicius Severus 278 n. 22, 298–300,
154, 187 n. 205, 286, 287 n. 46, 305–306
288–91, 296 Suniefridus (Arian deacon in Ravenna) 169
Sigisvult, Flavius (count in North Africa) Sunila of Viseo 163
112 n. 76, 113, 123, 158, 160, 173, Sunja (Gothic monk) 39
202 n. 4 Sunna of Mérida (Arian bishop in 6th c.
Silistra (ancient Durostorum, Bulgaria) 23, Spain) 162 n. 83, 163–64, 265
178
Silvanus (a Goth) 135 Tarragona 267, 306
Sindila (Arian cleric in Ravenna) 169 Tarsus, Cilicia (synod of 367) 104 n. 43
Sinope 73 n. 32 Tertullian 14, 15
Siricius (bishop of Rome, 384–99) 306 Tervingi/Thervingi (Gothic confederacy)
Sirmium (Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia) 4 n. 45–46, 56, 59, 138
17, 5, 28–29, 32, 40, 46–47, 60, Tisza (river in Hungary) 21
86–87, 102–103, 109, 110 n. 66, Theodahad (king of the Goths, r. 534–536)
146 n. 4, 197, 271 227
Sisebut (king of the Visigoths, r. 612–21) Theodelind (Lombard queen, ca. 570–628)
235 232–33, 235–36
Sisteron (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Theoderic I (king of the Visigoths, r.
France) 286 418–451) 275
Snorri Sturluson 132 Theoderic II (king of the Visigoths, r.
Socrates/Sokrates 3 n. 10, 23, 26–27, 30, 453–66) 161, 185, 186, 228, 275,
60, 61 n. 54, 68, 71, 73, 131, 152, 279
182, 191 Theoderic/Theodoricus the Great (king of
Sozomenos/Sozomenus 3 n. 10, 23, 26–28, the Goths since 474/5, ruler of Italy
30, 60, 61 n. 54, 62–63, 73, 77, 191 493–526) 43, 48, 142, 167 n. 118,
Spain 86 n. 3, 118, 123, 126, 129, 143, 148, 168, 179, 214, 219–24, 227–28,
161 and n. 75, 162 n. 82, 163 n. 232, 290
Index 379
Theodore of Heraclea (bishop Ubiligisclus (6th c. Arian bishop of

328/34–351/5) 38, 56, 124, 128 Valencia) 163
Theodoret (theologian, bishop of Cyrrhus Ugnus of Barcelona (6th c. Arian bishop)
423–457) 23, 27–28, 60–61 163
Theodorus (6th c. church historian) 222 Uldida or Uldila (6th c. bishop) 163, 164
Theodosius (son of Athaulf and Galla n. 94
Placidia) 275 Unimundus (6th c. Arian bishop of
Theodosius I (Roman emperor, r. 379–395) Ravenna) 169
xvii, 1, 7, 17 and n. 81, 18 n. 85, 19, Unscila (Arian bishop) 168, 228
28–29, 34, 46–47, 50 n. 3, 64, 98, Ursacius of Singidunum (4th c. Arian
109, 110 n. 65, 117–118, 120, 122, bishop, mentioned together with
141, 147, 156, 258 Valens of Mursa) 15 n. 71, 51, 52,
Theodosius II (Eastern Roman Emperor, r. 54, 57–58, 58 n. 37, 60, 86–87, 91,
408–450) 118 n. 9 94, 98–100, 102–5, 110 n. 66, 146
Theognis of Nicaea (4th c. bishop) 56, 57 Uuiliarit (Arian cleric in 6th c. Ravenna)
and n. 33 169
Theophilus (Gothic bishop at the council of
Nicaea) 24–26, 46, 56–57, 60–61, Vaison (council of 442) 276
121, 140 Valamir (5th c. Gothic leader) 219
Theophronius of Tyana (4th c. bishop) 5 Valence 286, 288 (council of 374) 306
n. 19 Valencia 163, 164, 166 n. 108 (council of
Theudila (Arian cleric in 6th c. Ravenna) 546) 267
169 Valens (Roman emperor, r. 364–378) xvii,
Thiudimir (5th c. Gothic leader) 219 17, 19, 28, 46, 50 n. 2/3, 61–65, 67
Thrace 46, 55, 147 and n. 3, 72, 76, 98, 100, 101 n. 36,
Thrasamund (king of the Vandals, r. 104 n. 43, 111, 120, 122–24, 124
496–523) 39, 127, 166, 174, 245 n. 45, 138, 140–41, 150 n. 20, 154,
Tipasa (Tibasa, Algeria) 156 223, 258
Toledo (council of 400) 306 n. 58 Valens of Mursa (4th c. Arian bishop,
Toledo (council of 580) 41, 162, 261, 267 mentioned together with Ursacius
Toledo (council of 589) 22, 39, 42, 45, 98 n. of Singidunum) 15 n. 71, 74, 51,
31, 163, 261–64, 267, 268–69, 295 52, 54, 58 and n. 37, 60, 61, 86–87,
Tomi (Constantiana, today Constanța, 91, 94, 98–100, 102–105, 110 n.
Romania) 73 n. 32, 137, 151 n. 26, 66, 146
155 n. 49 Valentinian I (Roman emperor, r. 364–375)
Tortona (Piemonte, Alessandria, Italy) 236 17, 98, 100, 101 n. 36, 102
Tours (Indre-et-Loire, France) 39, 277, 278 Valentinian II (Roman emperor, r.
n. 22 375–392) 109, 148, 156
Trasaricus (6th c. Arian bishop linked to Vandals/Vandal kingdom in Africa 19, 21,
the Gepids) 156 32, 38–39, 45, 86, 114–15, 126,
Trier 57, 87, 304 128, 143, 153, 164, 166, 167, 172,
Turibius (cleric in Palencia in 531) 266 183 n. 182, 184, 189, 193, 195.
Turin 203 n. 8, (council of 398) 306 n. 58 196, 204 and n. 11, 208, 222, 239,
Tyre (synod of Tyre/Jerusalem 335) 54, 86 243, 245, 247–48, 250, 255, 268 n.
Tzalico (5th c. Gothic count) 168 50, 272, 275, 287, 295
Varimadus (5th c. homoian theologian) 39, Vivianus (bishop of Saintes, Charente-

174 and n. 151 Maritime, France, d. 490) 159 n.
Verecundus of Junca (6th c. writer) 161 n. 65, 185
77, 166, 191 Volturno (river in south-central Italy) 132
Verona (city) 203 n. 8, 223, 225, 313 Vouillé (battle of 507) 162 and n. 82, 189,
Verona (so-called Arian Codex of Verona 220 and n. 7
Biblioteca capitulare LI [49]) 7,
126 and n. 57, 128, 178 n. 169, Walahfrid Strabo 134
226, 313 Wella (4th c. Gothic lady) 137
Vetranio (4th c. bishop of Tomi, Constanța, Werekas/Wêrkas (Arian martyr) 71, 151
Romania) 137, 151 n. 26 Wietharius (Arian cleric in Spain) 159
Victor of Vita (5th c. African bishop) Winguric (Thervingian leader, persecutor
164–66, 184, 191, 196, 203–204 of Christians 369/372) 137–38
and n. 12, 210, 244–45, 247–48,
268 n. 50 Zeno (Eastern Roman emperor, r. 474–475
Victorinus (Arian Vandal bishop) 208, and 476–491) 219
216–17, 251 n. 69
Victorius of Grenoble (6th c. bishop) 290
Victricius of Rouen (bishop, 393–407) Bible Citations
301–4, 307–10
Vicus Juliani (African town) 242 Amos
Vidimir (5th c. Gothic leader) 219 4:13: 283
Vigilius of Thapsus 127
Viliaric (head of a scriptorium in 6th c. Deut
Ravenna) 181 and n. 176, 225 6:4: 113
Viliarit (Arian cleric in 6th c. Ravenna) 169
Vincent of Saragossa (martyr, d. ca. 304) Is
163 53:8: 92, 97
Vincentius of Agen (bishop) 159
Virgil (bishop of Salzburg, 749–784) 144 1. Kings
Visigoths/Visigothic Spain 21, 28, 41–42, 2:1: 58
45–46, 86, 108, 112, 119 n. 21,
126, 134, 137, 143, 148, 150, 2. Kings
154–55, 156 n. 54, 159–64, 175, 18:31: 292
179, 182, 184–85, 186 and n.
200, 189–90, 193–95, 215, 220, Nehemia
228, 234–35, 238, 257–70, 271, 5–7: 31
274–85, 286–88, 295–96, 312
Vitalianus (Arian presbyter in 6th c. Proverbs
Ravenna) 169 8:22–23: 35
Vitalis (martyr) 185 8:22–25: 9, 11
Viventiolus of Lyon (archbishop, 514–524)
288 Psalm
9: 186
53:8: 228
Index 381
54:6: 228 14:28: 91, 110, 113, 175

14:28: 92
Acts 15:26: 294
1:8: 34, 35, 107 16:13: 95
4:32: 113 17:3: 102
22:5: 115 20:7: 92
20:17: 91
Col
1:16: 102 Luke/Lk
2:8: 105 2:14: 296
11:20: 283
1. Cor 14:49: 34
1:1: 284 22:66: 151
3:16: 308 24:49: 107
15:27: 106 24:49: 34, 37
15:28: 91, 92, 113
Mark/Mk
Eph 1:9: 11
4:6 284 7:11: 2, 292
Gal Mt.
1:1: 284 10:27: 105
11:27: 92, 97, 105
John/Jn 19:27–30: 292
1:3: 102 28:19: 91, 92
1:18: 113
3:5: 283 Romans
5:18: 96 3:29–30: 91, 92
5:26: 113 8:26: 113
10:30: 175, 180 16:27: 113
14:8: 182 11:36: 283
14:9: 175, 180

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Arianism: Roman Heresy

and Barbarian Creed

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

ISBN 9781409446590 (hbk)

Printed in the United Kingdom by Henry Ling Limited,

Introduction: Framing the Historical and Theological Problems  1

1a Ulfila und der sogenannte gotische Arianismus  21

1b Ulfila and the so-called ‘Gothic’ Arianism – English Summary  45

2 Was Ulfila Really a Homoian?  49

3 Sabas: ‘Orthodox’ or ‘Arian’?  67

5 Deconstruction of the So-called Germanic Arianism  117

6 Vulfila pontifex ipseque primas Gothorum minorum, sed non

7 Barbarian ‘Arian’ Clergy, Church Organization, and Church

8 Germanic Language and Germanic Homoianism  193

9 The Non-Archaeology of Arianism – What Comparing Cases

10 The ecclesia legis Gothorum and the Role of ‘Arianism’ in

11 Arrianorum abolevit heresem: The Lombards and the Ghost of

12 Arianism in Africa  239

13 Arianism and Ethnic Identity in Sixth-Century

14 The Homoians in Gaul  271

15 Britain: Approaching Controversy on the Western Fringes of the

Conclusion: The Elusive Nature of an Orthodox Heresy  311

9.1 Plan of the basilica of Mcidfa (basilica Maiorum), Carthage

9.2 Plan of Basilica I in Haïdra (Ammaedara)

9.3 Memorial installations at the eastern end of Basilica I

9.4 Arian baptistery, Ravenna. Photo: Bartl, Neg. D-DAI-Rom

9.5 Orthodox baptistery, Ravenna. Photo: Bartl, Neg. D-DAI-Rom

Guido M. Berndt is Researcher at the Department of Ancient History, Friedrich-

Hanns Christof Brennecke is Professor Emeritus (Church History – Ältere

Uta Heil is Lecturer at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg

Manuel Koch studied History and German philology in Marburg, Barcelona

Piero Majocchi is a post-doctoral scholar at the University of Lausanne,

Ralph W. Mathisen is Professor of History, Classics, and Medieval Studies

Meritxell Pérez Martínez is Researcher at the Department of History and Art

Sara Parvis is Senior Lecturer in Patristics in the School of Divinity, University

Knut Schäferdiek († 14 August 2010) was Professor of Church History at

Roland Steinacher is a Historian specialising in Roman History at the Institut

Brendan Wolfe (Wolfson College, Oxford) is a DPhil candidate in Late

Herwig Wolfram is Professor Emeritus at the University of Vienna. He

AASS Acta Sanctorum

LL nat. Germ. Leges nationum Germanicarum

Guido M. Berndt and Roland Steinacher

‘Arianism’, as an umbrella term (Sammelbegriff) and as a label for particular

The Sources and their Transmission

The Arian Controversy, up to the Council of Constantinople in 381, is arguably

to show more and more traces of legendary and hagiographic influences,

to the true faith.19 Epiphanius recorded a supposedly complete theological

work, or embedded them in his own portrayal of events. In addition to his de

belief in emanation.46 Striving to maintain and emphasise the uniqueness of

Cf. above fn. 15.

The Developments after Nicaea

Only after researchers began to position Arius within the Origenist

Cf. above fnn. 3 and 5.

Christoph Markschies (taking up a terminology originally proposed by Luise

Abramowski), ‘Theologische Diskussionen zur Zeit Konstantins’, pp. 104–9.

The term Arianism – applied to representatives of the confessions of Rimini

Für eine verhältnismäßig kurze Zeit hat das sogenannte gotisch-arianische

(1985): pp. 249–72, hier 266–67.

Introduction: Framing the Historical and Theological Problems 1

1a Ulfila und der sogenannte gotische Arianismus 21

1b Ulfila and the so-called ‘Gothic’ Arianism – English Summary 45

2 Was Ulfila Really a Homoian? 49

3 Sabas: ‘Orthodox’ or ‘Arian’? 67

5 Deconstruction of the So-called Germanic Arianism 117

8 Germanic Language and Germanic Homoianism 193

12 Arianism in Africa 239

14 The Homoians in Gaul 271

Conclusion: The Elusive Nature of an Orthodox Heresy 311