Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 April 2018
Twentieth-century scholars believed that Arnobius the Younger was an African monk living in Rome. This is untenable. There is now considerable doubt over the authorship of several works ascribed to him by Germain Morin: the Expositiunculae has been proved to date from the early medieval period, but the author of the anti-predestinarian Commentarii in Psalmos, one ‘Arnobius’, is also responsible for writing the mid fifth-century Praedestinatus, an attack on Augustine's predestinarian theology and its champion, Prosper of Aquitaine. The content of these works and related evidence point to Julian of Eclanum as the true author.
1 Important and insightful studies of this subject are provided by Brown, P., Augustine of Hippo: new edition with an epilogue, London 2000, 383–99Google Scholar, and Religion and society in the age of St Augustine, London 1972, 183–226Google Scholar, and J. Lössl, ‘Julian von Aeclanum: Studien zu seinem Leben, seinen Werk, seinen Lehre und ihrer Überlieferung’ (Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae lx, 2001). M. Lamberigts has also ranged widely over Julian's career in contributions listed comprehensively on the Catholic University of Leuven's website at <https://www.kuleuven.be/wieiswie/en/person/00018631>, accessed 6 July 2017. O. Wermelinger analyses the development of the conflict but does not explore the final stages of the struggle after the death of Celestine i: Rom und Pelagius: die theologische Position der römischen Bischöfe im pelagianischen Streit in den Jahren 411–432, Stuttgart 1975.
2 For Paulinus’ deathbed reconciliation of members of Julian's party see Uranius, De obitu sancti Paulini, PL xlv.1041–2.
3 Photius, Bibliotheca i.54, ed. R. Henry, Paris 1959, 44.
4 Epistula ad Demetriadem de vera humilitate, ed. M. K. C. Krabbe, Washington, DC 1965. Recent scholarship has generally failed to make the connection between the attack on superbia and elatio in this letter of spiritual advice to Demetrias and the danger from returning Italian exiles whom Prosper considered to be Pelagians. Elatio was linked to superbia, the characteristic sin with which the Pelagians were supposedly tarred: Epistula, cap. 10, pp. 168–74. This is in spite of the clear identification of the letter of spiritual advice as a counterblast to Pelagian tenets by P. Ballerini and H. Ballerini, Sancti Leoni magni romani pontificis opera omnia, Paris 1865, PL lv.425–6. An exception is Marín, R. Villegas, ‘En polémica con Julián de Eclanum: por una nueva lectura del Syllabus de gratia de Próspero de Aquitania’, Augustinianum xlii (2003), 81–124, esp. pp. 90, 100Google Scholar. The text of the Epistula needs to be read against a situation in which some were speaking up for Pelagian tenets in the Rome of Leo i (Photius, Bibliotheca i.54) whose correspondence with Septimus of Altinum about the reception of the exiled followers of Julian provides the wider context during the early 440s. Photius identifies Prosper as a key figure in countering the threat.
5 This is noted by Gumerlock, F. X., ‘Arnobius the Younger against the “predestined one”: was Prosper of Aquitaine the predestinarian opponent of Arnobius the Younger?’, Augustinian Studies xliv (2013), 249–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 See Klingshirn, W. E., Caesarius of Arles: the making of a community in late antique Gaul, Cambridge 1994Google Scholar, and Mathisen, R. W., ‘“For specialists only”: the reception of Augustine and his theology in fifth-century Gaul’, Collectanea Augustiniana ii (1993), 29–41Google Scholar.
7 Expositio libri Iob: tractatus prophetarum Osee, Ioel at Amos: operum deperditorum fragmenta (Iulianus Aeclanensis) and Expositio in Psalmos Iulianus Aeclanensi interprete (Theodorus Mopsuestenus), ed. L. de Coninck, CCSL lxxxviii, lxxxviiiA, Turnhout 1977.
8 Commentarii in Psalmos, ed. K.-D. Daur, CCSL xxv, Turnhout 1990; Conflictus, Liber ad Gregoriam and Expositiunculae in Evangelium, ed. K.-D. Daur in Arnobii Iunioris opera minora, CCSL xxvA, Turnhout 1992; Praedestinatus in Arnobii Iunioris Praedestinatus qui dicitur, ed. F. Gori, CCSL xxvB, Turnhout 2000.
9 Morin, G., ‘Arnobe le Jeune’, Ėtudes, textes, découvertes, i, Paris 1913, 309–439Google Scholar, and ‘L'Origine africaine d'Arnobe le Jeune’, Revue des sciences religeuses xvi (1936), 177–84Google Scholar.
10 See, for example, the doubts expressed in Cooper, K., The fall of the Roman household, Cambridge 2007, 220Google Scholar.
11 Dorfbauer, L. J., ‘Neues zu den Expositiunculae in Evangelium Iohannis evangelistae Matthaei et Lucae (CPL 240) und ihrem vermeintlichen Autor “Arnobius Iunior”’, Revue bénédictine cxxiv (2014), 65–102, 261–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12 Ibid. 261–97, esp. pp. 265ff.
13 It is notable however, that the Conflictus Arnobii Catholici cum Serapione, which seeks to position the author as a champion of Catholic orthodoxy against Eutyches in the era of the Council of Chalcedon (451), uses the same method of argumentation as the Praedestinatus. For the construction of Serapion's dialogue to provide material solely for refutation, as in Praedestinatus ii, see Lambert, D., ‘Augustine and the Predestinatus: heresy, authority and reception’, Millennium yearbook on the culture and history of the First Millennium CE, v (2008), 149–62, esp. pp. 155Google Scholar.
14 Gumerlock, ‘Arnobius the Younger’, 249–63.
15 Expositio psalmorum a centesimo usque ad centesimum quinquagesimum, ed. P. Callens and M. Gastaldo, CCSL lxviiiA. 1–211, Turnhout 1972.
16 Gumerlock, ‘Arnobius the Younger’, 252, 254.
17 Ibid. 252–3.
18 As established ibid. 261.
19 Commentarii in Psalmos, CCSL xxv.137 (91), line 27 ‘moras alieni opera’; 210 (126), line 8 ‘sed alio proposito res agitur’.
20 Gumerlock cites Prosper and Hilary: ‘Arnobius the Younger’, 254. n. 21. Rufinus is the only other named supporter of the doctrine whom we know of, although he is not heard of after Augustine's death in 430.
21 Ibid. 257 (predestination essential to the faith and irenic attitude), 258 (use of authority rather than theological argument), 259 (general and special grace).
22 On Prosper's development of the concept of special grace see P. de Letter, St Prosper of Aquitaine: the call of all the nations, Westminster, Md–London 1952, 15–19.
23 H. von Schubert, Der sogennante Praedestinatus: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Pelagianismus, Leipzig 1903, 95–114.
24 McHugh, M. P., ‘Arnobius the Younger’, in Fitzgerald, A. D. (ed.), Augustine through the ages: an encyclopedia, Grand Rapids–Cambridge 1999, 62–3Google Scholar.
25 Morin, ‘L'Origine africaine', 177–84. He retracts his earlier view (1902) that Arnobius was of Gallic or Illyrian origin.
26 Idem, ‘Ėtudes’, and ‘L'Origine africaine’.
27 Dorfbauer, ‘Neues zu den Expositiunculae’, 264–5.
28 Conflictus Arnobii catholici cum Serapione i.I and i.18, lines 1191–2, CCSL xxvA. 43, 86; Leo, Tractatus 96, in Sancti Leonis magni tractatus septem et nonaginta, ed. A. Chavasse, CCSL, cxxxviiiA, Turnhout 1973, 593–5.
29 C. Pietri and L. Pietri, Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire, II/2: Prosopographie de l'Italie chrétienne (313–604), 1237, 1952, entries for Laurentius 9bis and Rusticus; A. Mandouze, Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire: prosopographie de l'Afrique chrétienne, 628, 630 (Laurentius I and Laurentius IV), 1013, 1016 (Rusticus 5, 13).
30 On Prosper's later change in attitude see de Letter, St Prosper, introduction at pp. 3–20, esp. pp. 9–19.
31 Arnobii Iunioris Praedestinatus qui dicitur 3, 8, CCSL, xxvB. 76–7.
32 Praedestinatus iii.8, pp. 76–7. Arnobius’ arguments are outlined in Gumerlock: ‘Arnobius the Younger’, 252–4, 261–2.
33 Gumerlock, ‘Arnobius the Younger’, 262.
34 Celestine, ep. xxi, PL l.528–30.
35 R. Villegas Marín, ‘En polémica con Julián’, Augustinianum xliii (2003), 81–124.
36 See the discussion by R. J. Teske and D. Weber in De vocatione omnium gentium, CSEL xcvii. 9–44, Vienna 2009, and A. Hwang, ‘Prosper of Aquitaine and the fall of Rome’, Studia Patristica, lxix, Leuven 2013, 277–81. Hwang sees the De vocatione as written in response to the sacking of Rome by the Vandals in 455. On the concept of special grace as Prosper's distinctive contribution see Gumerlock, ‘Arnobius the Younger’, 259–60.
37 Praedestinatus, CCSL, xxvB, prolegomena, p. xiii.
38 Duchesne, L., The early history of the Christian Church, London 1924Google Scholar, iii. 199. B. J. Kidd also suggested that the Praedestinatus was written by a hidden Pelagian disappointed with the papal ruling against Julian in 439: A history of the Church to AD 461, Oxford 1922, iii. 156.
39 ‘Hac tempestate Iulianus Eclanensis, iactantissimus Pelagiani erroris adsertor, quem dudum amissi episcopatus intemperans cupido exagitabat, multimoda arte fallendi correctionis spem praeferens, molitus est in communione ecclesiae inrepere. sed his insidiis Xystus papa [diaconi Leonis hortatu] vigilanter occurrens nullum aditum pestiferis conatibus patere permisit et ita omnes catholicos de reiectione fallacis bestiae gaudere fecit, quasi tunc primum superbissimam haeresim apostolicus gladius detruncavisset’: Monumenta Germaniae historica, auctores antiquissimi, chronica minora, ed. T. Mommsen, Berlin 1892, ix/2, 477. The best manuscripts omit the reference to Leo's intervention but this might represent a later re-editing by Prosper.
40 ‘audite, calumniosi …. quid conuertitis caput ad calumnias, et Pelagii nobis dogma obicitis?’: Praedestinatus iii.29.9; iii.30, CCSL xxvB. 113, 116; ‘age et non calumniose’: Commentarii in Psalmos, Psalm cxlvi, CCSL xxv.250.
41 N. W. James, ‘Who were the Pelagians found in Venetia during the 440s?’, Studia Patristica, xxii, Leuven 1989, 271–6. Villegas Marín casts doubt on the evidence of Quodvultdeus and Photius for the pursuit of Julian's followers by Leo i as pope in the 440s, instead claiming that this campaign occurred in 439 while Leo was archdeacon, but they include circumstantial detail which is convincing and which is not derived from Prosper's Chronicon: ‘En polémica con Julián’, 111–15.
42 ‘In Italiam quoque, nobis apud Campaniam constitutis, dum venerabilis et apostolico honore nominandus papa Leo Manichaeos subuerteret et conteret Pelagianos et maxime Iulianum ambientem, quidam Florus nomine spiritu seductionis adreptus … haud procul a Neapolitana ciuitate in subuersionem animarum … a praefatae prouinciae liminibus pulsus est’: De promissionibus et praedictionibus Dei, dimidium temporis 6, 12, CCSL lx.198, lines 81–91. Pietri and Pietri favour the identification of this Florus with the bishop allied to Julian: Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire, II/2: Prosopographie de l'Italie chrétienne (313–604), 851, 1543–4.
43 Photius, Bibliotheca, i.54, edited by R. Henry as Bibliothèque, Paris 1959, 44.
44 PL liv.593–8.
45 Augustine, ep. cxciv, in S. Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis Episcopi epistulae, ed. A. Goldbacher, Leipzig 1911, CSEL lvii.176–214.
46 Hwang, A. Y., Intrepid lover of perfect grace: the life and thought of Prosper of Aquitaine, Washington, DC 2009, 202Google Scholar.
47 The pseudo-augustinian Hypomnesticon against the Pelagians and Celestians, ed. Chisholm, J. E., Fribourg 1967, 1980Google Scholar.
48 See the summary in Hwang, Intrepid lover of perfect grace, 22–5. The objections given there to Chisholm's case are insubstantial. They include a lack of endorsement from Georges de Plinval, who taught him at Fribourg, and other arguments relating to the authorship of the De vocatione omnium gentium where Chisholm's contention that this work is by Prosper has since been vindicated. Chisholm's error was to assume that the monastic opponents of predestination in Gaul were a principal target, whereas it was in fact the Italian opponents of predestination who were the adversaries.
49 ‘Ausculta … Audi igitur’: Pseudo-augustinian Hypomnesticon ii, responsio iv, p. 154, lines 19, 26.
50 Hypomnesticon, second person/vocative singular: responsio iv. 1: ‘quaeris a me’ (p. 154, line 17), and ‘Quapropter interrogo, responde’ (p. 154, line 21); responsio iv. 2: ‘Quod si credere non vis, quaero ut dicas’ (p. 155, line 42); responsio iv. 3: ‘Sed respondas forsitan’ (p. 155, line 49); responsio iv. 8: ‘haeretice’ (p. 168, line 386); responsio iv. 6: ‘Gratia est, haeretice’ (p. 164, line 291).
51 For this analysis of the text see ibid. i. 18–23, 108 n. 5.
52 Chisholm noted the use of the argument in responsio vi. 8, but not the parallel with the Praedestinatus: Pseudo-augustinian Hypomnesticon i. 37. He favoured an earlier date, around 435, for the composition of the Hypomnesticon.
53 Photius, Bibliotheca, i. 54, p. 44.
54 Gumerlock, ‘Arnobius the Younger’, 253.
55 See Lambert, ‘Augustine and the Predestinatus’, 149–62.
56 M. Abel, ‘Le “Praedestinatus” et le pélagianisme’, Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale xxv (1968), 5–25 at pp. 21–2. Lössl also doubts Abel's arguments against Julian's authorship of the Praedestinatus: ‘Julian’ 323–4.
57 Photius, Bibliotheca, i. 54.
58 ‘Et cum inter nostros originalis peccati vulnera faterentur, inter suos tamen hoc tenere ostenderunt: quod primorum hominum praevaricatio solis imitatoribus obfuisset, naturalem autem facultatem nihil sui in alieno amisse peccato, cui possibile esset et liberum per voluntariam devotionem promereri gratiae largitatem’: Epistula ad Demetriadem, 172–5, trans. in Hwang, Intrepid lover, 206. Hwang erroneously takes this as a reference to Cassian's followers, but the work in question is part of the anti-Pelagian polemic at Rome, where the threat was from the returning exiles of Julian's party and the sympathy shown to them. ‘Cum inter nostros’ is most obviously a reference to the previous physical presence of these unorthodox elements in Demetrias's own place of residence, namely Rome. R. Villegas Marín correctly identifies this chapter of the Epistula as an attack on Julian's doctrines: ‘En polémica con Julián’, Augustinianum xliii (2003), 90, 100.
59 Leo, ep. i, PL liv.593–7. The pope is here condemning the readmission of those implicated in the Pelagian or Celestian heresy into catholic communion without a clear condemnation of such opinions, so that ‘Nihil in verbis eorum obscurum, nihil inveniatur ambiguum’ (594B).
60 Abel, ‘Le “Praedestinatus” et le pélagianisme’, 5–25.
61 Steinhauser, K. B., ‘Job in patristic commentaries and theological works’, in Harkins, F. T. and Canty, A. (eds), A companion to Job in the Middle Ages, Leiden 2016, 57Google Scholar.
62 ‘eos non de potestate, sed de ratione vera damnauimus’: Praedestinatus iii. 2, CCSL xxvB.66–7. Compare the Epistula ad Demetriadem, where the author apparently counter-attacks against such reliance on reason (‘per dolos falsae rationis armarent): Epistula ad Demetriadem, 172, line 46.
63 Arnobius Iunior, CCSL xxvB. Praedestinatus iii. 37, 8 = Augustine, Contra Iulianum 4, 8, 52; Praedestinatus iii. 37, 36–7 = Contra Iulianum 5,16, 62; Praedestinatus iii.8, 146–50 = Augustine, Opus imperfectum 1,32; Praedestinatus iii.19, 51–2 = Opus imperfectum 1,67, 40ff.; Praedestinatus i, 90,18–19 = i.97, 4ff.; Praedestinatus iii.6, 2–13 = i. 134, 15–30; Praedestinatus ii.7 = ibid. iii. 184. Praedestinatus ii.7, 35–41 (shaven hair) = Augustine, Contra duas ep. Pelagianorum 1,13, 26; Praedestinatus iii.30, 50–4 = Contra duas epp. 1, 22, 40.
64 Paucker, C., Vorarbeiten zur lateinische Sprachgeschichte, ed. Rönsch, H., Berlin 1884, iii/2, 53Google Scholar; Bouwman, G., Das Julian von Aeclanum Kommentar zu den Propheten Osee, Joel und Amos: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Exegesis, Rome 1958, esp. pp. 28–37Google Scholar; Baxter, J. H., ‘Notes on the Latin of Julian of Eclanum’, Bulletin du Cange xxi (1949), 5–54Google Scholar; Morin, G., ‘Un Ouvrage restituté à Julien d'Eclanum’, Revue bénédictine xxx (1913), 1–24, esp. pp. 9–17Google Scholar.
65 Morin, ‘Ouvrage’, 14–16. A word search has been carried out in the Commentarii in Psalmos (excluding biblical quotations) along with the preface and book iii of Praedestinatus. These are the most pertinent sections for the analysis of style as book i draws information on heresies from other sources and book ii is deliberately written in the style of Augustine. There are 83 separate words with the suffix -tas, 114 with -tio and 50 with -tor. Many terms (for example, ‘voluntas’) are used repeatedly.
66 Morin, ‘Ėtudes’, 334, and ‘Ouvrage’, 16. Arnobius uses 14 separate verbs ending in -escere within the sections of the two works under consideration (ardescere, arescere, erubescere (repeatedly), evanescere, exardescere, fulgescere, innotescere, liquescere, lucescere, mollescere, quiescere, requiescere, tabescere and torpescere).
67 Baxter cites Praedestinatus iii. I (PL liii.633B); iii. 3 (637A); and iii. 10 (618C) = CCSL xxB, Praedestinatus iii. 6, 8, 15 (72. 8–9; 77. 115–16; 93. 47–8): ‘Notes’, 18–19.
68 Cooper, K., The fall of the Roman household, Cambridge 2007, 270–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and sources there cited.
69 Pseudo-augustinian Hypomnesticon, ii. 164.
70 For Augustine's charge of ‘loquacitas’ against Julian see Contra Iulianum opus imperfectum 3.20; 4.57; 5.26; 5.39 (CSEL lxxxv.1.363; lxxxv.2.63, lines 219–23, 237–9), together with M. Lamberigts, ‘The Italian Julian of Aeclanum against the African Augustine of Hippo’, in Augustinus Afer, Fribourg 2003, 83–93. Chisholm notes that Marius Mercator uses the term once in relation to Celestius who is not mentioned again after the Council of Ephesus in 431: Pseudo-augustinian Hypomnesticon, 148 n. 2.
71 Morin, ‘L'Origine’, 177–84, esp. pp. 180–4. ‘Et in sacerdotalis vox ad percipienda mysteria nobis omnibus clamat: Sursum cor’: Commentarii in Psalmos, Psalm cxx, CCSL xxv.205, lines 8–9.
72 Augustine, Opus imperfectum contra Iulianum 5, 26, CSEL lxxxv.1.220, lines 25–30.
73 ‘quod Graeci canunt: Anima mea in minibus meis semper, secundum illam sententiam’: Commentarii in Psalmos, Psalm cxviii, CCSL xxv.190*; ‘Dissipata insunt ossa nostra secus infernum. Graecus dicit ossa eorum’: Palm cxl* (239, lines 37–9); ‘Sic enim in Graeco psallitur: Dirigatur oratio in conspectus dei sicut thymiana’: Psalm cxl (239, lines 65–7).
74 ‘nec in tabernaculis viri beneplacitum est ei, id est, in confidentia suae habitationis. Unde et Graecis non dicit in tabernaculis, sed in tibiis’: Commentarii in Psalmos, Psalm cxlvi, CCSL xxv.249, lines 70–2:
75 See ibid. 178–9, lines 38–46.
76 Bouwman, Julian von Aeclanum, 18.
77 The African Arnobius of Sicca, a rhetorician and teacher of Lactantius, and a defender of Christianity in the early fourth century, might well have inspired a suitable fictional persona for the classically educated Julian who also interpreted Christianity in the light of ancient learning and philosophy. Erasmus confused this figure with the fifth-century author of the Commentarii in Psalmos.
78 Augustine describes the reconciliation of Turbantius: ep. x*, CSEL lxxxviii.46. This letter dates from 422 or 423.
79 Quodvultdeus, De promissionibus et praedictionibus Dei 6.12, CCSL lx. 198.
80 Gennadius, De viris illustribus 46, ed. E. C. Richardson, Leipzig 1896, 78.
81 Baxter, ‘Notes’, 10.