A Catechetical Address on the Nicene

Creed?
Daniel H. Williams
Baylor University

The anonymous “Incipit fides Nicaena” is a unique, though much ignored, Latin
text from the later fourth century. Its only critical edition, from a sole ninth
century codex, was first prepared in 1913 by Cuthbert H. Turner, under the title
of Commentarius in Symbolum Nicaeanum. Turner’s version was reprinted in the
first volume of the Patrologiae Latinae Supplementum (1958). There has been
almost no further scholarly work done on this text since Turner’s edition, nor has
it been translated into any European language. As a result, no questions have
been asked about the bearing of this work on post-Nicene doctrinal history as our
understanding of the Nicene-“Arian” conflicts has been reformulated over the last
two decades. In this essay, I want to address this gap in our understanding, although
it must be said that there are more questions than answers raised by the existence
of this small document. Specifically, we will see how this unique text sheds light
on the theological influence which the Nicene Creed began to have in western
churches in the second half of the fourth century. An attempt will also be made to
demonstrate how this primitive explanation of the Creed offers an indication of its
own approximate date and context.


Ecclesiae occidentalis monumenta iuris antiquissima. Canonum et conciliorum graecorum
interpretationes latinae [= EOMIA] (Oxford: Clarendon, 1899–1939) 1:2:1:330–47 (Appendix 10).
Edited from the ninth century Codex Vatican Regina 1997.

PLS 1:220–240. The size of the text in the PLS amounts to 21 columns.

With a minor exception in D. H. Williams, Ambrose of Milan and the End of the Nicene-Arian
Conflicts (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995) 94–96.

HTR 103:3 (2010) 271–89

 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

 Problems of Historical Context

It has been sufficiently established that the Nicene Creed had little hearing among
the majority of western churches prior to the mid-350s. When Hilary of Poitiers
sent his anthology and explanation on eastern councils to the Gallic bishops in
358, he commented that his reason for doing so was that they had “been ignorant
of written creeds.” After the acceptance of a Homoian creed at the Council of
Ariminum in 359 as the West’s officially acknowledged confession, however, a
new chapter opened concerning the general involvement of the western bishops in
what was thought to be eastern theological problems. In sum, a pro-Nicene reaction
was aroused against this new form of imperially-coerced orthodoxy. Thereafter,
we encounter a host of polemical writings designed to prove the sole veracity of
the Nicene Creed and its doctrinal implications.
The Commentarius is thought to have originated in North Italy during this same
period. As a literary unit, it is best described as an extended theological gloss
on the Nicene Creed, commenting on each clause of the creed—in some cases,
extensively—with the purpose of affirming the biblical veracity of the creed. The
author’s goal is announced from the beginning of the text:
The faith, which was established by our fathers, has expressed everything
(cuncta) in few words. For everything set forth spiritually (spiritualiter) in
the creed has been shown to be found within the whole teaching of the law,
prophets, gospels and the apostles when faithfully read. (Commentarius, 1;
EOMIA 1.2.1: 330)

Every clause is supported by quoting in whole or in part several scriptural proof-

texts from Old and New Testament, lest there be any doubt that the Nicene Creed


See Jorg Ulrich, “Nicaea and the West,” VC 51 (1997) 10–24; Hans Brennecke, Hilarius
von Poitiers und die Bischofsopposition gegen Konstantius II (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1984) 216–43;
Daniel H. Williams, “Another Exception to Later Fourth Century ‘Arian’ Typologies: The Case of
Germinius of Sirmium,” JECS 4 (1996) 335–57.

De synodis 63; PL 10.523B: “qui perfectam atque apostolicam fidem conscientiae professione
retinentes, conscriptas fides huc usque nescitis.” (You, who preserve the entire apostolic faith through
a familiar confession, have been ignorant of written creeds until now.)

The creed was officially ratified and publicly issued as “orthodoxy” at Constantinople, January
360. While it had been commonplace in the east to describe the Son as “like” (homoios) the Father
in all things, the employment of homoios or similis in the late 350s was intended to eliminate the
Nicene homoousios and other ousia-based credal terminology.

The actions taken at the Council of Paris in 361 demonstrate as much (Hilary of Poitiers,
Adversus Ursacium et Valentem, Collectanea antiariana parisina (ed. Alfred Feder; Vienna: Tempsky,
1916) Series A 1. 4; CSEL 65. 43-46).

I.e., Hilary of Poitiers, De Trinitate and Adversus Ursacium et Valentem; Ambrose, De fide;
Lucifer of Cagliari, De non parcendo in deum delinquentibus; Gregory of Elvira, De fide; De trinitate
(of uncertain authorship, often attributed to Eusebius of Vercelli; CCSL 9).

EOMIA 1.2,1:353; Charles Pietri, Roma christiana: Recherches sur l’église de Rome, son
organisation, sa politique, son idéologie de Miltiade à Sixte III (311–440) (Bibliothèque
������������������
des écoles
�������
françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 224; 2 vols.; Rome: École française de Rome, 1976) 1:731 n. 3.
 Daniel H. Williams 

was dependent on Biblical terminology.10 A few consecutive examples (sections

4–6) from the text will exhibit the author’s approach.
4. “God from God.” And he himself bears witness, “I proceeded from God and
came,” thus the Son is from the Father (John 8:42).11 When Abraham asked about
his offspring saying, “What will you do for me? Behold, I am without a son, so
my servant will be my heir: he will not be your heir, but another who will come
from you will be your heir” (Gen 15:3–4). His son was born of him as it says, “he
will come from you.” These things happened, not [for them] to disappear, but to
take place as stated. How a creature originates is far different (longe est) from a
son, since what is made is something created by a craftsman rather than what is
born of a father. And also David [said] about Absalom, “thus he said, ‘he who is
from me’ ” (2 Sam 16:11). Rightly recapitulating in this statement, therefore, what
He had already been said to Abraham, it shows that the Son is of God the Father,
who came from the Father [and] declared to the disciples that “he comes from the
Father” (John 16:28).12
5. Again, it says, “Light from Light.” We have [found] in the Psalm “in your
light we will see your light” (Ps 35:10 [36:9]). These words reveal what was written
about the faith, that God the Father is Light and from God the Father is the Son,
the Light. Because the blessed Apostle John explained that “God is light and in
him is no darkness” (John 1:9), from the gospel of John [comes], “He was the true
light that illumined every man” (he says “true” light, because he always was and
[always] will be). The Savior himself bears witness “I am the light which is come
into the world” (John 8:13; 12:46) and elsewhere, “walk while you have light, lest
the darkness overtake you” (John 12:35).
6. “True God,” they claimed, “from True God.” This [is what] the Savior [said]
in the gospel of John, “And this is eternal life; that they may know you, the only
and true God and who has sent Jesus Christ” (John 17:3). Thus he showed that
in whatever way [we regard] the Father he should be understood as “True God,”
repeating in whatever way and often what he declared in the Law, “You shall
love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul, and likewise your
neighbor” (Matt 22:37, 39).13
From these three passages we may observe that the exposition of the
Commentarius has a chiefly didactic function. Nowhere is it stated that Scripture
is being cited to counter particular heretical claims, though some heretical views
are confuted in passing. Biblical proof-texts appear at the very outset of the
work, functioning as explanations rather than refutations, and the Commentator
10
The accusation of non-scripturality is one of the earliest and more frequent complaints against
the Creed (Athanasius, Decr. 1 and 18).
11
John 8: 42b is “for I proceeded and came from God; I came not of my own accord, but he
sent me.”
12
The ending of this sentence is reconstructed by Turner: “and because the Son was manifested
to the Jews, it is said that ‘he came from God’ ” (John 8:42) (EOMIA 1.2, 1: 332)
13
The Commentarius clarifies that Christ was the “neighbor.”
 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

occasionally indicates the “perverse doctrines of the Arians,” who assert that the
Son is “made” or a “creature” (based on a reading of Prov 8:22) or who deny
that the Son is in the Father. Not unlike western writers of the 340s and 350s, the
Commentator warns his readers about anyone who weakens or diminishes the Son
of God on account of his incarnation:
But if the cunning mind of the heretics confesses that Christ is both Lord and
our God, Son of God, the Father Omnipotent, why is it said there was once
[when] he was not? . . . while they assert that the divine power (potentiam) is
comparable to human, they lose the very power they are trying to associate
with human weakness. (Comm. 1; EOMIA 1. 2,1: 330)

The reason for the heretics’ error is that “they compare the earthly to the heavenly,
frail things to the eternal, the immortal and divine to the perishable and mortal”
(sect. 1). Several such warnings are given to the reader; nevertheless, they function
in secondary roles as parts of the overall instruction.
We have only vague internal indicators when it comes to identifying the
authorship or the provenance of the Commentarius. Turner suggested that it was
directed against Urbanus of Parma, since at one point the work is directed against
one who propagated the “Arian” heresy “with sophistication” (urbanitate ch. 16,
16; see urbane 17, 5)—a peculiar designation that may function as a pun on the
name of the adversary. 14 It is true that a certain Urbanus15 was eventually deposed
by the North Italian bishops sometime before a Roman council met in 378 and that
council protested to the emperor Gratian that his condemnation had not yet resulted
in his ejection from Parma.16 Following a similar logic, Charles Pietri places the
Commentarius within this period of 366–378, which he calls the “reconquest” of
North Italy by pro-Nicenes.17 Linking our document to the bishop of Parma on the

14
“Refinement” or “sophistication,” used in the negative sense here akin to “knavery.”
15
Roger Gryson and Charles Pietri have identified this same Urbanus with the Urbanus who
was present at Niké in 359 when that assembly drafted the formula that became the basis of the
Ariminum Creed. “Eusebio et Ypatio conss. VI Idus Octobris” in Hilary, Collectanea antiariana
parisina A 5. 3 (CSEL 65. 85–86). See Roger Gryson,
�������� Le Prêtre selon Saint Ambroise (Louvain:
Édition orientaliste���������������������������������
, 1968) 175, and Charles Pietri, Roma christiana, 1:731 n. 3.
16
This unidentified council lamented to the emperor that “the bishop of Parma, who was ejected
from the church according to our judgment, nevertheless retains his see shamefully.” Quoted
������������
from
Francesco Lanzoni, Le origini delle diocesi antiche d’Italia. Studio critico (Roma: �����������
Poliglotta
Vaticana��������������������������������������������������������
, 1923) 444. A �������������������������������������������
rescript from the emperor Gratian to the vicarius Aquilinus echoes this
complaint of the Roman council and emphasizes the need for more severe measures: “The bishop of
Parma . . . by the judgment of the holy synod (sanctorum praesulum) was dejected from the church
which he disturbed, anticipating the empty glory of a more severe sentence; if there was anything
your predecessor of devoted vigor should have done, he ought to have expelled him well beyond the
boundaries [of the city].” “Gratianus et Valentinianus Augg. Aquilino vicario” 13. 6–7 in Epistolae
imperatorum, pontificum, aliorum inde ab a. CCCLXVII usque DLIII datae. Avellana quae dicitur,
(ed. Otto Guenther;Vienna: Tempsky, 1895); CSEL 35.55–56. Urbanus’ deposition was likewise
the subject of protest by fellow Homoians at the council of Aquileia in 381; see Scholia 344v, 82;
Scripta Arriana Latina (ed. Roger Gryson;Turnholt: Brepols, 1982); CCSL 87.188.
17
Roma christiana, 1:733.
 Daniel H. Williams 

basis of an allusive noun, while perhaps ingenious, is highly speculative. Indeed,

the evidence adduced by Turner and Pietri is too tenuous to be persuasive, and as
a result, the arguments for situating the Commentarius in the later fourth century
or North Italy evaporate.

 Authorship and Identity

No individual is singled out in the Commentarius except the infamous figures of
Arius, Sabellius, and Marcion, and in these cases the writer is drawing on customary
arguments, both in describing their views and in refuting them. In fact, the modern
reader will find it difficult to locate specific references or allusions to the teaching
of the so-called Arians that bear any resemblance to the pro-Homoian posture
adopted in the councils of Sirmium 357 and 359, as well as Ariminum 359, which
confirmed the Son’s likeness to the Father by disallowing any other qualifications.
If this is strange, then it is stranger that the Commentarius is mute about the
West’s most indignant point of contention in aftermath of Ariminum, namely, that
the “Arians” committed fraud at Ariminum by declaring that the Son was not as
one of any other creatures while asserting him to be a creature.18 From accounts
of the council, it was this declaration by Valens of Mursa that convinced nearly
400 bishops that there was no harm in signing the Ariminum Creed. Finally, there
are no accusations in the Commentarius about the hypocrisy of the “Arians” who
shielded the true nature of their theology by taking an agnostic position vis-à-vis
how the Son was begotten.
This is not to say that the writer in any way approved of the “Arians’s” position.
But if our author were a contemporary of Homoian “Arianism,” it is curious that
there is no is any allusion or reference to the western creed of Ariminum (either
directly or allusively), since it is this formula which functioned as the West’s credal
alternative to Nicaea. On its authority Auxentius of Milan successfully claimed
to be the legitimate bishop of Milan against the attempts to remove him,19 and
Valentinian II issued an edict (23 January 386) sequestering one of the basilicas in
Milan for Homoian worship. How is it possible then for the Commentarius to have
been penned after these events while preserving absolutely no trace of them?
We would also expect some mention of Photinus, the Monarchian heresiarch of
the West, given the repeated condemnations of his position at the councils of Serdica
343 and Milan 345, Rome 347, and Sirmium 351.20 Likewise, why are there no
signs of the evolution of confessional language as a result of the anti-Apollinarian
or anti-Macedonian debates? For that matter, the Holy Spirit is hardly discussed at
all in our text (ch. 14). Quite precisely it follows the brevity of the earliest versions
of the Nicene Creed, with one major exception: the Commentarius refers to the
18
Jerome, Adv. �����
Lucif. 19; PL 23.172B–C.
19
Hilary of Poitiers, Contra Auxentium 15 (PL 10.618B–C).
20
D. H. Williams,“Monarchianism and Photinus as the Persistent Heretical Face of the Fourth
Century,” HTR 99 (2006) 213–15.
 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

Spirit as a “tertia persona,”21 which is the way Tertullian described it. No further
elucidation of the Spirit appears in the text. In the paltry four lines attributed to him,
the Holy Spirit is never defined in the same terms as Father and Son are: Only the
Son “is from the substance of the Father”, and is called “a second person”; he is
another who is divine (divinitas), not divided, nor is the Father’s power in the Son
separated, but “one in two persons, always remaining indivisibly one” (ch. 8).
It should be noted that the Commentarius freely uses the terms persona, res (=
nature), and substantia as if the meanings are self-evident. That is, the writer is
drawing on an established theological vocabulary that was familiar to him and his
readers. Reference to the Father, Son, and Spirit as distinct personae22 was well-
known to the Latin tradition.23 Natura functioned in the same way.24 Concerning
the term substantia, the Commentarius uses it (similarly to Tertullian) as that
which the Father and Son share and what each divine person possesses. When
qualifying the clause from the creed, “That is, from the substance of the Father,”
the Commentarius speaks of “the Son in his own [substance] (ut propriae filius),
who is declared “only begotten” and “first-begotten” (John 1:14; Col 1:15) and is
said to be alone “from the substance of the Father” (sect. 3). One can find parallels
in Latin expressions that reveal a theology indebted to Tertullian, Novatian, and
Hilary of Poitiers (who himself draws on the former two). 25
Yet another problem with locating this document in the later fourth century
is that the writer espouses the older Logos-theology model of the Father as the

21
“[T]he Spirit is the third person, whom he sent from the Father when he ascended, he who
gave certain power to fulfill the faithful, making them declare his wonders” (qui conplens fideles
virtutes loqui fecit; ch. 19).
22
Tertullian, Adv. Prax. 6: “Wisdom, established as a second person;” ibid., 9: “the Lord used
this word regarding the person of the Paraclete”; ibid., 14: “” (Spiritus personae eius Christus
dominus. ergo si Christus persona paternae spiritus est, merito spiritus cuius persona erat, id est
patris eius). Zeno of Verona speaks of the “only‑begotten” and “Unbegotten,” and that they are
two personae. Zenonis Veronensis Tractatus (ed. Bengt Loefstedt, Turnholt: Brepols, 1971) CCSL
22. 177. 37–38). But the use of persona in the Nicene Creed is not in keeping with the version of
the fourth century.
23
Adv. Prax. 7.10: “Whatever therefore the substance of the Word was, that I call a Person,
and for it I claim the name of Son: and while I acknowledge him as Son I maintain he is another
beside the Father” (quaecunque ergo substantia sermonis fuit, illam dico personam et illi nomen
filii vindico, et dum filium agnosco secundum a patre).
24
Comm. 7: “Thus the apostle upholds the reality (res) of these two and announces he is the
Son of God in honor, as well as upholds the Son of man in [his] suffering. And by this, just as it
proved his nature as the Son of God so he was most manifestly made man”
25
Hilary, De synodis 9: “” (PL 10.�����������������������������������������������������������������
498A). ����������������������������������������������������������
(Propter hanc piam in Ecclesia intelligendam proprietatem
personae Patris et Filii, timens ne quando idem intelligatur Filius et Pater, similem non dicat etiam
juxta essentiam Patri: anathema sit)�������������������������������������������������������������
; �����������������������������������������������������������
“” (498B).�������������������������������������������������
��������������������������������������������������������
(�����������������������������������������������
non tamen damnum personae affert.); “” �����������
(505A).�
��������
(��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
Et Pater solus atque unus idem atque ipse haberet et Spiritus sancti nomen et Filii: idcirco tres
substantias esse dixerunt, subsistentium personas per substantias edocentes, non substantiam Patris
et Filii diversitate dissimilis essentiae separantes). ��������������������������������������������������
Novatian, De trinitate 11: “” (PL 3.904A). (Quasi
homines enim in illo fragilitates considerant, quasi Dei virtutes non computant; infirmitates carnis
recolant, potestates divinitatis excludunt.).
 Daniel H. Williams 

invisible God and the Son as the visible God as a means of rejecting modalism.
Thus the Son is said “to have shown himself to the fathers” (i.e., the Old Testament
patriarchs) because “he was the one who was supposed to be seen.”26 Along with
this, we may wonder at the absence of a doctrine of eternal generation in a document
that supposedly originates from the later fourth century. Rather, the Son’s divinity
is proven by his eternal nativity: “he was and will be, that is, that he is God from
God, the Son from the Father, for it is not possible for God to have once not have
existed” (ch. 1). Later on, we are told, because the Son “was born (natum) from
him who always was, it shows that he always was” (ch. 7). This perspective is
typical of earlier western tradition. For example, in his Matthew commentary,
Hilary declared: the process of divine birth is “from the eternal God . . . God the
Son has proceeded, to whom belongs eternity from his eternal Father” (16:4).
Novatian likewise taught that the Son receives his eternality from the eternity of
the Father (De trinitate 31).
With regard to Christology, our Commentator espouses a simple Logos-in-
flesh Christology, which was on its way out in the West by the late 370s. It is said
of the Son: “he assumed (susceptionem) a creature.”27 According to this familiar
way of interpreting Prov 8:22, “the Lord created me in the beginning of his ways”
can refer only to “his human body which he had assumed.” Because the Son is
both the “firstborn of God by whom all things were made” and also linked to all
creation, “it shows his two natures (duas res).” Thus, the Son, as the “Son of man,
who is created by the Son of God, assumed [it] into himself.”28 The only doctrinal
deviation about which our author warns his readers is “perversity of Marcion,
which denies that God can possess human flesh, that is, he is ashamed to ascribe
to God a human body.”29 It never occurs to our author to wonder whether Christ
had a human soul or not.

 Dating the Commentarius

There are a couple of internal features that may argue for a date later than the fourth
century. First, the “Arians” are described as “conquered heretics” (ch. 1) (revicti
heretici). If this remark is more than wishful thinking on the author’s part, it may
indicate that “Arianism” (at least as a political force) is a defeated foe, if not fully
eradicated through having lost imperial sanction. Gratian had brought legal support
of pro-Nicene ecclesiastical policies to bear on his enforcement of Theodosius’s
pro-Nicene legislation (10 January 381).30 Secondly, the Commentator observes

26
Turner 18. 7–11 (EOMIA 1.1,2:346).
27
Turner 7.51–58 (EOMIA 1.1,2:334).
28
Turner, 7.127–29.
29
Turner, 10.31–33 (p. 341).
30
Codex Theodosianus 16.5, 6. In response to Ambrose of Milan’s De fide I–II, a Homoian
bishop Palladius of Ratiaria blamed Ambrose for having obtained immunity from charges of impiety
through a “special order” of the emperor, so that “no catholic or doctor of the truth is heard if they
 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

that the “Arians” of his time deny some of the arguments which are commonly
attributed to them and thereby deceive the faithful by their evasions (ch. 16). “They
think that even now with sophistication (urbanitate), they can avoid the truth, so
that they do not speak of what they approve.” From the historian’s perspective, the
content of these denials sounds reminiscent of what Homoians had been accused
of in the late 350s. During the second half of the council of Ariminum 359, Valens
of Mursa categorically denied that he upheld any tenets of Arius when he claimed
that the Son is a creature but nothing like all other creatures. According to Jerome’s
and Sulpicius Severus’s accounts written at least two decades after the council,
Valens’s remarks were nothing more than a dodge to avoid the charge of rank
subordinationism.31 None of these considerations, however, allows us to determine
a precise date for our document.
Instead, I suggest that the writing of this work was prompted by arguments
published in the 350s by Latin writers who had begun to defend the Nicene Creed
as entirely scriptural. This activity must have been motivated by the blatant rejection
of the Nicene formula at the council of Milan 355 and especially by the Sirmium
doctrinal statements from councils at Sirmium in 357 and thereafter in 359. Later
known as the “Blasphemia,” or “Creed of Ignorance,” the Sirmium manifesto, issued
in 357 by a small council, declared that no use should be made of ousia (substantia),
homoousios, or homoiousios because they were unscriptural terms.32 The same logic
was invoked in the same city by another select council in May 359.
While it is unknown how much influence Athanasius had on western bishops
outside of Trier, Milan, and Rome, his letter De decretis Nicaenae synodi was
probably sent to (Julius of) Rome in the early 350s.33 Athanasius stated at the
outset that he was intent on refuting the accusation of the “Eusebians”: “Why did
the Fathers at Nicaea use terms not in Scripture; from the substance and of one
substance”?34 insinuating that the Biblical nature of the Nicene Creed had been
much criticized for lacking Biblical terminology. Greek conciliar and polemical
literature had been sensitized by the longstanding requirement that confessions
must be biblically based. Throughout the fourth century, it was understood that

speak against you” (Paris Latinus MS 8907, 337v, 44–45; CCSL 87.174).
31
Another Homoian, Palladius of Ratiaria, refused to accept Ambrose’s charges of “Arianism”
(De fide 1–2). A later apology was penned in defense of the Homoians who were wrongly condemned
as “Arians” at Aquileia (381) Scholia, 337r, 50–51 (Gryson, Scripta Arriana Latina, 274).
32
Hilary, De synodis 11; PL 10.488A: 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.
33
T. D. Barnes speculates that Athanasius wrote this letter to Liberius, the new bishop of Rome
in 352/3. Athanasius and Constantius: Theology and Politics in the Constantian Empire (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), 117. Although no addressee is named, the letter is written
to another bishop who requested information concerning the actual events at Nicaea (De decretis
2.3) presumably because the documents exposing Arius’ views were presently being circulated.
34
Decr. 1 (PG 25.416A) and 18 (PG 25.447A)
 Daniel H. Williams 

credal formulations should conform to the linguistic and conceptual limitations

of Scripture. For the Latin Christians, however, it was a different story. Until the
mid-fourth century, professions of faith were grounded in baptismal formulae of the
churches. Most western bishops35 were not acquainted with eastern credal history
or with the production of creeds that did not emerge from a church confession.
At Rome, the famous neo-platonist and former rhetor, Marius Victorinus, would
have been familiar with Athanasius’s arguments. He made a similar case about the
Nicene formulation for a western audience, though it went beyond the criticisms
of “Arians.” Basil of Ancyra had argued in 358 for the superiority of homoiousios:
that the Son was of similar-substance as the Father. Victorinus insisted that only
Nicene language did justice to the Son’s eternal being which was the same as the
Father’s.36 His plan for writing Contra Arium (IA) was to demonstrate “by using
all of the Scriptures” both how the Son was born and also how he was Son by the
substance of the Father.37 A different reaction to homoiousios (and homoousios)
was articulated by a Gallic contemporary of Victorinus, Hilary of Poitiers. In his De
synodis, Hilary finds compatibility between the theological intents of homoousios
and homoiousios. More important, however, is the theological intent and scriptural
foundation on which each term stands.38

 More Catechetical than Commentary

The enigmatic phrase revicti heretici of the Commentarius may just as easily
be explained as a triumphant observation of the galvanization of anti-Homoian
sentiment in the west. Through a synodical letter issued by the council of Paris
360, and also through a letter addressed to the “Catholic bishops of Italy” from
Liberius of Rome,39 the cunning tactics used at the council of Ariminum were
now unmasked and its perpetrators condemned as “Arian” heretics. Despite the
ratification of the Homoian creed at Constantinople (January 360) as the church’s
recognized statement of faith, a wave of pro-Nicene fervor swept through the west
during the 360s that was explicitly anti-monarchian and anti-“Arian.”40
Rather than seeing the Commentarius as a polemical commentary, pace Turner,
I propose that it was composed as a type of instructional catechism for explaining
the Biblical foundations of the Nicene Creed to fellow catholics. Whoever the

35
The exception would have been those bishops who were present at Serdica 343.
36
Epistula Ad Candidum 1A. 5.
37
Contra Arium 1A. Prol. 3.
38
De synodis 72 (PL 10.527B–C).
39
Both of these documents appear in the so-called third book of Hilary’s Adversus Ursacium
et Valentem in Collectanea antiariana parisiana (Historia Fragmenta) A 1 (CSEL 65.43–46) and
B 4 (CSEL 65.156–59).
40
The evangelistic missions of Eusebius of Vercelli and Hilary of Poitiers throughout the West
were an important part of informing and converting the post-Ariminum West to Nicene theology. See
D. H. Williams, “The Anti‑Arian Campaigns of Hilary of Poitiers and the Liber Contra Auxentium,”
Church History 61 (1992) 7–22.
10 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

author may have been, it was someone who had himself had little exposure to
the creed or to the details of the theological controversies surrounding the creed.
The propositions of the creed are presented as de facto extensions of biblical
teaching meant to fend off the falsehoods of heresy. Overall, the text exhibits a
crudity of Latin grammar, frequently awkward sentence structure, and limited
vocabulary.41 Whether this simplicity of expression is indicative of the writer’s
personal limitations or hints that Latin was not the author’s native language (as
was also the case of the rustic scripture commentary of Fortunatianus of Aquileia42)
is not clear. But what is remarkable about this text is how unremarkable it is for
informing us about contemporary Nicene or “Arian” theology contemporaneous
with the 360s and 370s.
We have already determined that the author has no apparent acquaintance with
Homoian Christianity. Despite the references to “Arians,” the Commentarius
exhibits little familiarity with early Arian theology aside from knowledge of Arius’s
letter to Alexander. This is not as strange as it may seem given the general lack of
acquaintance of Latin writers with Greek texts written in the 320s. Thus we learn
nothing new about the direction anti‑“Arian” polemics have taken since the 320s
for the reason that the “author does little more than present traditional ‘Arian’
objections to Homoousian theology with conventional refutations.”43 This may
reinforce Bardy’s contention that a small dossier of collected Latin translations
from the earliest “Arian controversy” was circulating in the west by the 350s. There
is evidence which suggests Hilary of Poitiers, Marius Victorinus, and others were
using Latin versions of select documents from Arius and his episcopal supporters.44
Of these texts, Arius’ letter to Alexander was most influential as a symbol of the
official doctrine of “Arianism.”45 Among the first known Latin versions is the one
found in Hilary’s De trinitate 12.12–13, perhaps the bishop’s own translation from

41
E.g., the author uses dicit or dixit a great deal, uses quia (“that”) instead of the accusative,
sometimes uses the accusative and an infinitive for indirect speech (and sometimes not), uses
prepositions oddly (e.g., exinde), uses de frequently to mean “about” or “concerning” in sentences
that contain a double accusative instead of accusative and the genitive (such as patrem cuius filium),
uses nec ut with the subjunctive, and uses dispotatio instead of disputatio (7.109).
42
Commentarii in evangelia. The title is taken from Jerome, Vir. ill. 97, who says to Fortunatianus
“” (in evangelia . . . brevi sermone et rustico scripsit commentaries) during the reign of Constantius
(in CCSL 9.367–70).
43
Williams, Ambrose of Milan, 95.
44
Gustave Bardy, “��������������������������������������������������������
���������������������������������������������������������
L’occident et les documents de la controverse arienne,��”� Revue des sciences
religieuses 20 (1940) 28–63. ���������������������������������������������������������������������
Bardy believed that the collection was made by Arius and later found
its way to the west where all or parts of it were rendered into Latin. Whoever the compiler may
have been, Marius Victorinus quotes from Arius’s letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia and Eusebius to
Paulinus (of Antioch) as a foil to refute his opponents. Candidi Epistola 2.1 (CSEL 83.������� 49–50).
45
On the influence of this letter of Arius, see Bardy, “����������������������������������������������
�����������������������������������������������
L’Occident et les documents de la controverse
arienne,�����������������������������������������������
”����������������������������������������������
30–31; Pierre Nautin, “����������������������
�����������������������
Candidus L’Arien,�����
”����
in L’homme devant Dieu. Mélanges offerts au
père Henri de Lubac (3 vols. ; Théologie 56–58 ; Paris: Aubier��, 1963) 1:312–14.
 Daniel H. Williams 11

the Greek.46 We also have a few fragments of the letter in Phoebadius of Agen.47
Also, in the minutes of council of Aquileia in 381, we are told that Ambrose of Milan
produced the letter, introducing it with the words: “It contains blasphemies from
the beginning because it says that the Father alone is eternal.”48 The Commentarius
offers confirmation that Arius’s letters from the 320s were available to western
readers and still regarded as relevant and requiring refutation. A serious problem,
according to the Commentarius, is that the Arians “try to throw lesser learned
people into confusion when they say if the Father is eternal, if the Son is eternal,
there are two principles” (ch. 1). Arius’s letter to Alexander accordingly reads: “He
is not eternal or co-eternal or co-unoriginate with the Father, nor has He His being
together with the Father, as some speak of relations, introducing two ingenerate
beginnings.” Of course it is possible that the contradiction of worshipping two
ingenerata continued to have currency against Nicene theology in the late fourth
century, but it is just as likely that the writer has learned about this argument from
the few Latin texts at his disposal. The same is true of the Commentarius’s treatment
of Prov 8:22, which rails extensively against the contention in Arius’s letter: “If he
was made, ‘there was [once] when he was not’, as the perverse mind of the Arians
claim.”49 Much is made of the different meanings of factum (“created”), since it
is critical to the Commentator’s argument that the Son as factus or principium is
relatable only to his incarnation. This too was another familiar doctrinal point.
As we might expect from a catechetical presentation, the Commentarius has
the express goal of explaining the defensibility of the creed according to Scripture.
The style of our text, although much more theologically primitive, is not unlike
Cyril’s catechism on the Jerusalem Creed, which seeks to prove the biblical nature
of each clause of the Creed. In the case of the Commentarius, the Nicene Creed is
treated according to its scriptural warrant in seventeen uneven sections, each one
drawing widely on both testaments. Some 150 partial and whole verses are quoted
throughout the text as proof of the Creed. Taken together, they are supposed to
bear out how the Son is “of one substance with the Father, which the Greeks call
‘homousion’ ”:
It says not only is “from the Father’s substance” but also “of one substance.”
The Son is born one (unum), which “is from the substance of the Father,”
and is a second person; he is another who is divine (divinitas), not divided,
and the Father’s power in the Son is not separated, but one in two persons,
always remaining indivisibly one (indivisa una), even if it will be performed
by means of another person. And so we commend [what is] in the law, and

46
SC 443.���
36.
47
Liber contra Arianos 8 (PL 20.18CD).
48
In the minutes of the council of Aquileia, Palladius responded to Ambrose, “You put forward
an unknown letter of Arius, one dead for a long time.” Scholia 337v, 45–46 (Gryson, Scripta Arriana
Latina, 276) (see also 337v, 47ff).
49
7. 222-24.
12 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

we affirm [what] is said by the prophets, and we prove (aperimus) [what] has
been manifested by the Savior.

Turner is correct in describing this work as a commentary but only in a very

general sense, since its format suggests specifically that it was a basic instructional
guide to the Nicene Creed for westerners. In fact, literarily speaking, we have
nothing comparable to this text among post-Nicene documents from the fourth
century.
To what degree might we consider this document to be a catechesis, given that
all the fourth and fifth century evidence for catechetical expositions in the West50 is
directly connected with preparation for baptism?51 Looking at the Commentarius,
there is no reference or allusion to the connection between the credal instruction
given and baptism. Nor is there any precedent in the West for the Nicene Creed
figuring as a catechetical curriculum. Not until the late sixth century does the
Nicaeanum serve in the West as a liturgical formula. None of these points, however,
rules out the possibility that the Commentarius was intended as a preparatio of
some kind for one or more Latin-speaking churches. The first line (quoted above,
beginning with “The faith . . . has expressed everything in few words . . .”) shows
a resemblance to Augustine’s preface to a small sermon series for catechumens
(212: 1): “It’s time for you to receive the Symbol in which is briefly contained
everything that is believed for the sake of eternal salvation.”52

 Versions of the Creed

Let us digress for a moment and ask about the version of the creed which appears
in the Commentarius. Similar versions of the Latin Nicene Creed are known to
and cited by writers who are roughly contemporary with the Commentarius. The
earliest and perhaps archetypal version appears twice among Hilary’s works: De
synodis 84 and the first installment of his Adversus Ursacium et Valentem, both
written in late 357 or 358 from his place of exile and meant to introduce western
bishops to the conciliar and credal activity in the East over the preceding 20 years.
Hilary cites the Nicene Creed in both texts with explanatory glosses. His citations
of the creed are nearly identical to each other, including the anathemas, excepting
the alternation of a few nearly synonymous prepositions (e.g., prius instead of
ante). Additionally, both versions include the explanation “quod Graece dicunt
50
I.e., Ambrose of Milan, Explanatio symboli ad initiandos; Rufinus, Commentarius in symbolum
apostolorum; Augustine, Serm. 212–215; Chrysologus, Sermons 55–62a.
51
An important point raised by Everett Ferguson in response to an earlier version of this paper
at the Development of Early Catholicism Seminar, Dallas, Tex. (April, 2009).
52
For polemical warnings against heretics in catechetical instruction, see Augustine, Serm. 214.2:
“All that you have heard so briefly you must not only believe, but also commit to memory word for
word and repeat by word of mouth. But it has to be defended against people who think differently,
having been taken prisoner by the devil; people who set traps for your faith in their opposition to
your salvation.” Sermons 184-229W: Part 3, Volume 6 in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation
for the 21st Century (Trans. Edmund Hill; New York: New City Press, 1993) 150.
 Daniel H. Williams 13

‘homousion’” immediately following “unius substantiae.” In the Adversus version

Hilary adds to the anathema those who say “et quia ex nullis exstantibus factus
est”, with the further qualification, “quod Graeci ‘ex uc ontwn’ dicunt.” There is
no question that Hilary is presenting information generally unfamiliar to Latin
readers as he argues for the importance of the Nicene Creed as a unique standard
of doctrinal authority.
A third Latin citation of the Nicene Creed, written ca. 359–360, is located in
Lucifer of Cagliari’s vitriolic treatise, On Not Sparing Those Who have Forsaken God
18.53 In this version, the anathema at the end of the creed is not mentioned. Instead,
Lucifer says in conclusion: “Conspicis fidem apostolicam, evangelicamque esse
hanc, quae semper Filium cum Patre regnasse et regnare defendat, quae fateatur
et perfectam esse divinam Trinitatem, et unam habere substantiam.54 Otherwise,
Lucifer’s text matches Hilary’s closely,55 as does another Latin version which
appears in Gregory of Elvira’s De fide.56 In this latter case, the creed concludes the
anathemas with “Amen deo,” which may indicate its use in public reading, that is,
in a congregational setting. Antony Piras has proposed that Lucifer of Cagliari’s
version of the Latin symbol was already in use in the churches of Sardinia (where
he was bishop), and the ending of Gregory’s version may lend specific credence
to this theory. There is extant another Latin version of the creed (once counted
among Ambrose’s works though probably dating to the early fifth century) which
also ends with an “Amen.”57 Finally, there is a fifth version of the Latin creed in the
so-called Tomus Damasi,58 a text with a convoluted and uncertain history, usually
dated to 377–378. The form of the creed cited in this text is much like Hilary’s and
the others except for one important difference: there is an expanded clause on the
Holy Spirit: “who proceeds from the Father uniquely (proprie), and is true God just
as the Son.” Though not the subject of this study, this addition implies the influence
of other sources on the earlier Latin text or is itself a gloss.59
In none of above cases is the creed elucidated clause-by-clause as done by our
Commentarius, leading to a tentative conclusion that the Latin Nicene Creed was
becoming established in the West by the 370s and read in churches as a means for
qualifying orthodox theology. Being read in church does not a catechism make,
53
De non parcendo in deum delinquentibus (CCSL 8:228–229).
54
“You
������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
see that this is the apostolic and evangelical faith, that the Son always reigned with the
Father, and upholds the rule, which acknowledges that He is a perfect divine Trinity and has one
substance” De non parc. (CCSL 8:229–30???NEED TO CHECK) [my translation].
55
In an unpublished paper by Antonio Piras, “Il Simbolo di Nicea secondo un’Antica Versione
Latina in Lucifero di Cagliari (Parc. �����������
18.16–36).”
56
See the preface of De fide, written in two redactions by same author between 359 and 370.
Gregorii Hispaniensis De fide (ed. Manlio Simonetti; Turin: Società Editrice Internazionale, 1975)
56–58.
57
“De fide orthodoxa . . . Tractatus” (PL 17.�������
549AB).
58
“Commentarius Alter in Symbolum Nicaenum.” Turner, EOMIA, 1.2, 1:355.
59
Piras argues Hilary’s version in fragmenta was probably the archetype version for Lucifer,
Gregory of Elvira and perhaps the Tomus.
14 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

but it is reasonable to place the Commentarius in this context. There is a similar

approach in Augustine’s address (ca. 391) to the North African bishops in De fide
et de symbolo: here he uses the Nicene Creed (de fide) as the chief hermeneutic
for interpreting the African baptism formula (de symbolo):
For the exposition of the fides serves to fortify the symbolum, not that the
former is supposed to be committed to memory or repeated instead of the
latter by those who obtain the grace of God. But the fides guards the things
contained in the symbolum with full catholic authority and with a stronger
defense against the deceit of heretics.60

The influx of heresy required a more exacting definition of the church’s confessions
than previously needed. In the case of Augustine, Nicene theology is used to
interpret the North African creed; for the Commentarius, the lines of the Nicene
Creed are simply being buttressed by scriptural references with minimal and out-
dated explanations.

 Conclusion
It may rightly be said that the entire Commentarius serves as a riposte to any
suspicion that the language of the creed—particularly “one substance,” which had
been criticized since the 320s—lacks biblical precedent. But its purpose is broader,
offering simple and scriptural interpretation on each clause of the Nicene Creed to
an audience that has had little or no exposure to it. In doing so, the Commentator
may well be drawing his understanding of past controversies from a dossier of
Arius’s letters which is regarded as a timeless guide to the present.
To describe the Commentarius as a catechism in the usual sense of the term
seems strained and artificial. Nor is it a biblical commentary according to the
usual meaning of that term. But it was clearly prepared as an instructional guide
for rightly interpreting the faith professed in biblical language. In light of the
preceding, there is no need to place this work any later than the 360s, when pro-
Nicene theology was on the ascendancy, though still defending itself in certain
western locales. Given that the author was an anonymous yet functionally literate
(in Latin) cleric, or perhaps bishop, his limited acquaintance with Nicene theology
was not an isolated case but another manifestation of a new awareness among most
western bishops concerning doctrinal developments that had been transpiring for
thirty years. Putting Latin literacy aside, such a person would have been the most
common kind of western ecclesiastic, quite unlike skilled and informed authors
such as Hilary of Poitiers or Gregory of Elvira.
Without the invasive force of ecclesiastical politics that had so permeated sees
in the East, western bishops had little need of Nicaea prior to the late 350s. This
situation changed in the aftermath of Ariminum 359 and with the brief rise of
Homoian confessions. There also came, however, a new-found and widespread

60
De fide et symbolo 1.1 (CSEL 41.����
4.).
 Daniel H. Williams 15

acceptance of the Nicene formula in light of neo-Nicene theology among western

churches. The Commentarius in Symbolum Nicaeanum is a small though unique
witness to the new set of circumstances.

Incipit fides Nicaena

(reconstructed from the text)

We believe in one God, Father Almighty, maker of things visible and invis-
ible/

and in our one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of the Father/ That
is, from the substance of the Father/ God from God/ Light from Light/ True
God from True God/ born (natus) not made/61 of one substance with the Fa-
ther, which the Greeks call homousion/ through whom all things were made
whether in heaven or on the earth/ who for us men and for our salvation came
down and was incarnate, he was made man/ He suffered, he arose again on
the third day/ he ascended into heaven/ he will come to judge the living and
the dead/

And in the Holy Spirit/62

Those who say “there was once [when] he was not”/ and “before he was
born he was not”/ and “that he was made from nothing (nullis extantibus) or
from another substance”/ the Son of God is mutable and subject to change
(convertibilem)./63

Fides Catholica aput Nicheam Exposita

Explicit

Amen.

[The Catholic Faith Established at Nicaea

End

Amen.]

61
“Born not made” receives the longest set of comments on any section of the creed (262 lines),
followed by the next clause of the creed (243 lines). The rest of the clausal glosses (except on the
Holy Spirit) range from a surprising five lines for hoc est ex substantia Patris to qui propter . .
.homo factus est (139 lines).
62
This clause receives four lines of commentary.
63
16 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

------------------------------

Hilary of Poitiers’ citation of the Nicene Creed (De synodis 84; PL

10. 536A–B), the first known Latin translation of the creed.
We believe in one God the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and
invisible.

And in our one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born only-begotten of the
Father, that is, from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from
light, true God from true God, indeed, born not made, of one substance with
the Father, as the Greeks say, homousion, through whom all things in heaven
and earth were made, who descended for our salvation, was incarnate, and
was made man, he suffered and on the third day, he was resurrected and as-
cended into heaven, he will come to judge the living and the dead.

And in the Holy Spirit.

But those who say there was [once] when he was not, and before he was
born he was not, and that he was made from nothing (non exstantibus), or
from another substance or essence, saying he is God, mutable and subject
to change (convertibilem et demutabilem): these things the catholic church
anathematizes.