2. Methodology and Key Definitions

The analysis which follows studies the translation techniques Victorinus employed in introducing novel Latin words or meanings based upon Greek originals and how these compared with earlier authors composing philosophical and theological texts in Latin (chiefly Cicero, Seneca, Apuleius, and Tertullian). The main component of the methodology is ‘term-formation’, as discussed in Langslow (Reference Langslow2000: viii) as, ‘embracing all linguistic processes that lead to the creation of new terms in Latin’. Two of these processes include lexical ‘innovation’ and ‘augmentation’. In defining these mechanisms, I adopt the taxonomy proposed by Fruyt (Reference Fruyt2009).Footnote ¹⁰ Her research has suggested that neologised forms entered Latin largely through individual or technical contexts and many of them were ‘ephemeral’.Footnote ¹¹ Fruyt's scheme runs as follows:

1. 1. Lexical innovations enter via three main processes:

   1. a) borrowings of a signifier (‘les emprunts de signifiant’), e.g. borrowings that retain the phonology or orthography of the source language;

   2. b) morphological calques (‘calques morphologiques’); and

   3. c) semantic calques (‘calques sémantiques’).

2. 2. These mechanisms relate to ‘innovation’ to varying degrees, either by introducing a new:

   1. (a) sequence of phonemes into the target language;

   2. (b) term created out of existing morphemes in the target language; or

   3. (c) semantic layer by expanding what a pre-existing term signifies in the target language.

‘Lexical innovation’ is confined to 1b; that is, a term created from either of two forms of neologism: calquing or ‘sense translation’. Calques in this instance can be more precisely labelled as ‘morphological calques’ (‘calques morphologiques’), terms which result from translating ‘morphologically complex foreign expressions by means of novel combinations of native elements that match the meanings and the structure of the foreign expressions and their component parts’.Footnote ¹² A ‘sense’ translation, also known as a loan-rendition,Footnote ¹³ is another type of lexical innovation, which involves a new form which adapts the sense of the original term by a combination of native elements in the target language, but whose morphemes do not directly calque those in the source language. These are rare in Victorinus, but there are examples such as exsistentialis (from exsistentia) for ὑπαρκτός.Footnote ¹⁴

The second mechanism, lexical augmentation, includes what Fruyt refers to as a calque sémantique (1c and 2c), and is perhaps more interesting as a translation practice. Under this category falls a range of labels, e.g., loan-translation, semantic extension, or semantic shift. Durkin defines a loan-translation as the replication of the structure of a foreign-language word or expression by use of synonymous word forms in the borrowing language.Footnote ¹⁵ Some scholars in the field of modern linguistics have suggested a difference between a calque and loan-shift in that the former consists of a morpheme-by-morpheme translation of a morphologically complex expression, whereas a loan-shift represents a purely semantic transfer consisting entirely of ‘native material whose meaning has been shifted to encompass an introduced concept’.Footnote ¹⁶ Lexical augmentation in the creation of Latin philosophical terms was common, notably in Cicero's practice, which relied on the addition of a novel semantic layer to an established word.Footnote ¹⁷ Nicolas studied this phenomenon in Cicero's works, observing that, of his semantic calques (‘calques sémantiques’) or loan-shifts,Footnote ¹⁸ many ought to be counted as genuine neologisms given their newfound technical contexts.Footnote ¹⁹ I have chosen not to include in this analysis ‘phrasal terms’ or translations of a single Greek word with, for instance, prepositional phrases. So in Adv. Ar. 2.1.24f, where Victorinus renders ἀνούσιον with sine substantia and ὑπɛρούσιον with supra substantiam, these are not included as ‘terms’ for the purposes of this study. These kinds of translations are, however, interesting in their own right since we observe how Victorinus vacillated, albeit rarely, between the use of phrasal terms and individual words (lexical innovations or augmentations). For example, while rendering ἀνούσιος with the coinage insubstantialis in Ad Cand. 13.9, he later chooses to use the phrase sine substantia in the Adv. Ar. treatise.

I now proceed to outline the Latin tradition of philosophical translation from Greek preceding Victorinus. This will assist when comparing his approaches to term-formation in Latin with those of his predecessors.

3. Tradition of Translation: Greek Philosophical Vocabulary in Latin

Recent scholars have proffered various opinions on the relative importance of Victorinus to the development of Christian philosophy in the fourth century. Nares observed that it was in the elegance of Victorinus’ prose compositions that the combination of Platonism and the Christianity of the Latin West took place.Footnote ²⁰ Schanz and Monceaux highlighted the breadth of Victorinus’ work: his translations and original compositions on the topics ranging from rhetoric, grammar, and logic, up to his Christian period (c. 355–70), the latter period predominantly concerned with countering the doctrines of the Arians.Footnote ²¹ Sister Clark noted that the fourth century was one of deep conflict between pagans and Christians, which she summarises as ‘the renaissance of pagan culture [and] the birth of Christian culture,’ at the crossroads of which stood Victorinus.Footnote ²² Writing in the wake of the First Nicean Council, Victorinus composed his anti-Arian tracts in a transitional period between the traditions of classical Rome, the new trends in Neo-Platonic thought, found in e.g. Plotinus (c. 204/5–270 C.E.) and Porphyry (c. 234–305), and the vociferous doctrinal controversies within the Church.Footnote ²³ He was therefore well-placed to exert particular influence on the terminology of Christian philosophy, particularly Trinitarianism and, to be sure, we find that, as Church doctrine developed into the medieval and Renaissance periods, many sixteenth-century scholars would later adopt Victorinus’ terminology in varying measures.Footnote ²⁴ Bruce suggested that we ought to consider Victorinus as standing alongside ‘Cicero and Tertullian as creator of a new Latin vocabulary. …Victorinus was in considerable measure the author of the vocabulary of the schoolmen.’Footnote ²⁵ Yet, if authors like Cicero, Tertullian, and Victorinus had effectively sown the seeds of early Christian philosophy before Augustine, Victorinus’ fate was mostly to remain in obscurity during Late Antiquity.Footnote ²⁶ And yet his efforts in translating quosdam platonicorum libros Footnote ²⁷ had tangible repercussions for later Latin-speaking Church fathers.Footnote ²⁸ Augustine found his conversion to Christianity chiefly through the readings of Neo-Platonists such as Porphyry in Latin due to Victorinus’ Latin translations of them.Footnote ²⁹ Boethius reports that Victorinus translated Porphyry's introduction to Aristotle's Categoriae (named the Isagoge), with an eight-book commentary (according to Cassiodorus),Footnote ³⁰ as well as the Categoriae text of Aristotle's.Footnote ³¹ He also provided a commentary of Cicero's Topica Footnote ³² and, perhaps, a translation of Aristotle's Πɛρὶ Ἑρμηνɛίας.Footnote ³³ All of these, except what is preserved in various testimonia, have been lost.

The tradition of translating and re-interpreting Greek philosophical terms into Latin remained unbroken from, at least, Lucretius and Cicero up until Boethius and accelerated over time. In Cicero there was an ad hoc,Footnote ³⁴ but significant, re-interpretation of Greek philosophy, which would influence later writers such as Seneca and Apuleius. His (partial) version of Plato's Timaeus, for instance, demonstrated a careful but creative translator, rendering the philosophical terms using the lexical (and rhetorical) resources of Latin to their full extent, often imbuing existing terms with new meanings to prevent his translation becoming too dense with technical and unfamiliar vocabulary.Footnote ³⁵ Where Cicero resorted to neology, his natural rhetorical instincts were at play in his use of well-honed stratagems such as variatio, captatio benevolentiae, and praeteritio to ease his readers into accepting the ambitiousness of his lexical innovations in Latin. He was conscious of his philosophica as independent literary works designed for a well-educated Roman audience, and his translations of Greek technical terminology were guided by principles of style and intelligibility and balanced against the need for care in articulating the expressions of his Greek sources.Footnote ³⁶

In the second century C.E., Apuleius, like Cicero, preferred the use of existing morphological resources of Latin to create novel terms and meanings when translating Greek philosophy.Footnote ³⁷ He was reluctant to employ Greek loan-words outright and relied on morphological calques, sense translations and existing Latin words for novel applications. However, like Victorinus, Apuleius was not Italian by birth but was born in the Roman provinces (in this case, North Africa).Footnote ³⁸ Though the vocabulary Apuleius introduced in Latin would never exert the same influence as Cicero, his translations of Greek affected the writings of major Christian figures such as Tertullian and Augustine.Footnote ³⁹ There is also the fact that Apuleius was, much like Victorinus, three writers at once: a rhetorician, a literary figure, and a Platonist.Footnote ⁴⁰ The intersection of these personas produced a novel approach to the interpretation of Greek philosophy (especially Latin Platonism) and its renovation into his native vernacular.Footnote ⁴¹ For Apuleius, it was not simply a didactic matter of recapitulating Platonic doctrines for students or educated Roman elites, but rather a matter of making sense of these concepts and renovating them in his own way. He brought Greek philosophical expressions into new Latin contexts and blended Stoicism and Aristotelian thought in his translations.Footnote ⁴²

In the post-classical periods, the development of new schools of thought such as Neo-Platonism required the continuation of the former tradition, with Victorinus, inter alios, taking it upon himself to reinterpret these philosophical trends into his own vernacular.Footnote ⁴³ With this lineage of translation came the accompanying contributions to Latin's philosophical word-stock, filling the metaphorical – yet no less genuine – topos of the patrii sermonis egestas, oft-repeated in Latin authors since Lucretius. In this context, Victorinus was not unprecedented compared with his precursors. He was another rhetorician-turned-philosopher continuing the project initiated in the late Republican era and taken up in earnest by Latin-speaking authors in the Roman provinces throughout the post-Classical era, especially from North Africa. His exceptionality lay rather in his effect upon (particularly pedagogical) strands of Christian doctrine, as well as the language of logic and metaphysics into the Middle Ages,Footnote ⁴⁴ only to be rivalled by Boethius.Footnote ⁴⁵

4. Collection of Lexical Data

The Victorinian terms collected below are the results of both lexical innovation and lexical augmentation mechanisms, directly or indirectly corresponding to specific Greek words.Footnote ⁴⁶ This is the first step in a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the vocabulary first found in Victorinus. For the most part, the terms have been sourced from Victorinus’ theologica, although some other works (e.g., his translation of Porphyry's Isagoge, preserved in Boethius, and the De Definitionibus) also serve as sources. I include in some references the letters of the fictional Candidus the Arian to Victorinus and all terms in this work I attribute to Victorinus.Footnote ⁴⁷ His grammatical corpus has not been included in the analysis. Similar word-lists can be found in the works of e.g. Hadot (Reference Hadot1968: 169–72; Reference Hadot1971: 383–92) and Campos (Reference Campos1971), though these are of a different scope. The data below represent the first compilation into a single resource of Latin first attestations found in Victorinus’ theological works and their equivalents in Greek, together with a description of their morphological characteristics. It should not be construed as exhaustive for two reasons: (i) The terms chosen are only those from which we can deduce direct or indirect equivalence with a Greek original (e.g., from a Neo-Platonic or Christian source); and (ii) The scope of this study is almost exclusively confined to Victorinus’ theological treatises. In total, 35 lemmata have been collected. Those with the symbol ‡ indicate hapaxes and with asterisks (*) indicate lexical augmentations (established terms with new technical meanings added, e.g., semantic calques; see 1c of Fruyt's scheme discussed above in section 2). Those with superscript ^MC indicate morphological calques (1b of Fruyt's scheme), and those with ^ST indicate ‘sense translations’ (also labelled a ‘loan-rendition’, see discussion above).

• -ia

• beneolentia ^MC (ɛὐωδία) > beneolens + -ia (Adv. Ar. 1.53.18; 4.25.42)Footnote ⁴⁸

• cognoscentia ^ST (γνῶσις) > cognoscens + -ia (Ad Cand. 1.13;Footnote ⁴⁹ Adv. Ar. 1.31.36, passim)

• consistentia* (σύστασις) > consistens + -ia (Adv. Ar. 1.49.22)Footnote ⁵⁰

• effulgentia ^MC (ἀπαύγασμα) > ex- + fulgens + -ia (Candid. epist. 4.9; Adv. Ar. 1.27.18)Footnote ⁵¹

• praenoscentia ^MC (πρόγνωσις) > prae- + noscens + -ia (Adv. Ar. 1.33.12)Footnote ⁵²

• refulgentia* (ἀπαύγασμα) > re- + fulgens + -ia (Candid. epist. 4.9; Adv. Ar. 1.27.18)

• subintelligentia ^MC ‡ (ὑπόνοια) > sub- + intellegens + -ia (Ad Cand. 5.8; 5.10)

• -alis/-aliter

• consubstantialis ^MC (ὁμοούσιος) > con- + substantia + -alis (Adv. Ar. 2.10–11, passim)

• exsistentialis ^ST (ὑπαρκτός) > exsistentia + -alis (Adv. Ar. 3.18.14)

• inexsistentialiter ^ST (ἀνυπάπκτως) > in- + exsistentialis + -ter (Adv. Ar. 1.50.25)Footnote ⁵³

• insubstantialis ^MC (ἀνούσιος) > in- + substantia + -alis (Ad Cand. 13.9)Footnote ⁵⁴

• -tio /-atio

• indeterminatio ^MC ‡ (ἀοριστία) > in- + determinatus + -tio (Adv. Ar. 4.23)

• unitio ^MC (ἕνωσις) > unus + -tio (Adv. Ar. 1.33.30)Footnote ⁵⁵

• -bilis/-biliter

• impassibiliter ^MC (ἀπαθῶς) > in- + passibilis + -ter (Adv. Ar. 1.41.26)Footnote ⁵⁶

• indiscernibilis ^MC (ἀδιάκριτος) (cf. indiscretus) > in- + discerno + -bilis (Adv. Ar. 1.49.19; 4.23.14)Footnote ⁵⁷

• intellectibilis ^MC (νοητός) > intellectus + -bilis (Ad Cand. 7.13; Adv. Ar. 1.24.16, passim)

• -ivusFootnote ⁵⁸

• constitutivus ^MC (συστατικός) > constitutus + -ivus (Ad Cand. 19.1; defin. p. 25.24)Footnote ⁵⁹

• descriptivus ^MC (ὑπογραφικός) de- + scriptus + -ivus (defin. p. 38.8)

• postnativus ^MC ‡ (ὑστɛρογɛνής) > post- + nativus (Isag. 21.14)

• -tas/-itas

• alteritas ^MC (ἑτɛρότης) > alter + -itas (Adv. Ar. 1.23.13, passim)

• essentialitas ^MC (ὀντότης) > essentialis + -tas (Adv. Ar. 3.7.12)

• exsistentialitas ^ST ‡ (ὑπαρκτότης) > exsistentialis + -tas (Adv. Ar. 3.7.12, passim)

• filietas ^MC (υἱότης) > filius + -tas (Ad Cand. 30.36; Adv. Ar. 1.24.3, passim)

• identitas ^MC (ταὐτότης) > idem + -itas (Adv. Ar. 1.48.25, passim)

• inqualitas ^MC (ἄποιος) > in- + qualitas (Adv. Ar. 1.49.22)

• substantialitas ^MC (οὐσιότης) > substantialis + -tas (Adv. Ar. 1.50.18, 3.7.12, passim)

• unalitas ^ST ‡ (ἑνάς/μόνος) > unus + -alis + -tas (Adv. Ar. 1.49.9, passim)Footnote ⁶⁰

• vitalitas* (ζωότης) > vitalis + -tas (Adv. Ar. 4.5.37)

• Miscellaneous

• adintellego ^MC ‡ (προσνοέω) > ad- + intellego (Adv. Ar. 1.42.12)

• imparticipatus ^MC (ἀμέθɛκτος) > in- + participatus (Adv. Ar. 4.19.10)Footnote ⁶¹

• indiscretus* (ἀδιάκριτος) > in- + discretus (Adv. Ar. 4.20.16)Footnote ⁶²

• praeaeternus ^MC (προαιώνιος) > prae- + aerternus (Adv. Ar. 1.56)

• praenoscor ^MC (προɛπινοέομαι) > prae- + noscor (Isag. 21.12)

• praeprincipium ^MC ‡ (προαρχή) > prae- + principium (Adv. Ar. 1.33.9, passim)Footnote ⁶³

• proexsilio ^MC (ἐκπροθρῴσκω) > pro - + exsilio (Adv. Ar. 1.50.22)Footnote ⁶⁴

5. Quantitative Analysis

The collected data suggest that Victorinus favoured the creation of new terms using morpheme-for-morpheme calques (‘calques morphologiques’, as in Fruyt's scheme above) of Greek terms wherever he was required to express these in Latin (e.g., indeterminatio: ἀοριστία). Substantives were the favoured part of speech translated from Greek to Latin, constituting 19 of the 35 lemmata collected above, with adjectives or adverbs totalling 13. Victorinus’ preference for literal translation was a kind of didacticism, which explains the productivity of his vocabulary among later Scholastic authors. The preference for didactic translation also distinguishes him from predecessors such as Cicero writing in classical Latin, who favoured a balance between the use of existing lexical material (semantic calquing and sense translation) and literal morphological calquing or the importation of loan-words. Victorinus occasionally had recourse to loan-words (e.g., ὁμοούσιος),Footnote ⁶⁵ but this was largely for specific doctrinal reasons. However, even when relying on the Greek, he was not averse to providing a Latin equivalent through lexical innovation (hence consubstantialis). However, over a quarter of all the terms were formed from freer processes of translation: sense translation (or loan-renditions) and lexical augmentation (or ‘calques sémantiques’, per Fruyt's scheme above). This suggests that Victorinus had occasion to use the existing Latin lexicon of his time (augmentation) or native elements to form a new term, not directly calquing the Greek source term but certainly influenced by it (sense translation). The latter is ‘a more dynamic and imaginative kind of calque’.Footnote ⁶⁶

Table 1: Summary of translation techniques from Greek terms in the Ad. Cand. and Adv. Ar.

6. Qualitative Analysis

In the translation of Greek, earlier Latin authors would often use rhetorical stratagems when introducing novel terminology, feigning a politeness to readers and seeking rhetorical permission for coinages, for instance, the use of phrases such as ut ita dicam, si placet or simply quasi x (= neologism) to soften the obtrusiveness of a new word.Footnote ⁶⁷ Cicero and Apuleius would also insert their own coinages along with other established terms as a form of multiple translation to render a single Greek word.Footnote ⁶⁸ When it came to lexical augmentations too, one mechanism Cicero favoured was the use of metaphor, extending a common Latin word's semantic field by the use of figurative language. For instance, the imagery of the artifex and aedificator in his Timaeus translation, used to render the mythical δημιουργός and abstract τὸ αἴτιον of the Platonic creation narrative.Footnote ⁶⁹ By contrast, Victorinus does not use rhetorical techniques, nor does he feel the need to apologise for neologisms or mollify their use for the benefit of his readers. He also rarely adopts metaphorical translations in extending the meaning of a Latin wordFootnote ⁷⁰ and seldom glosses Greek terms with periphrases to ameliorate the strangeness of his coinages.Footnote ⁷¹ It is, perhaps, for these reasons that Jerome describes Victorinus’ Latin vocabulary as follows: scripsit adversus Arium libros more dialectico valde obscuros, qui nisi ab eruditis non intelliguntur (De vir. ill. 101). His work was not intended for a general audience, which might explain the unapologetic way he introduces such unfamiliar vocabulary. Rather, it was a kind of advanced didactic writing for subject-matter experts or students studying the metaphysical debates of the time period.Footnote ⁷² As discussed below (Adv. Ar. 3.7), there are occasions when Victorinus expressly draws the reader's attention to the novelty and abstractness of certain Latin terms he employs to render Greek, but rarely does he resort to Ciceronian rhetorical strategies such as praeteritio or captatio benevolentiae.Footnote ⁷³ Victorinus’ terminology also followed established Latin morphological conventions of composition and derivation, avoiding what Fruyt describes as, ‘les emprunts de signifiant’ (1a above) nor outright nonce-formations or compound words.Footnote ⁷⁴ The first-attested Greek loan-words in Victorinus appear to be confined to his Ars Grammatica predominantly, in his discussions of Greek metrical vocabulary. These types of termini technici are not included in this study.Footnote ⁷⁵ In such contexts, he was not hesitant in introducing a Greek term and transliterating it into Latin, although in most of these instances, where the loan appears for the first time transliterated into Latin, Victorinus generally glosses it.

The formations in -ia and -tas were more productive in Victorinus than Classical abstract substantives in -tio. The -ia suffix is a versatile morpheme in Victorinus’ hands, with a range encompassing the Greek -ια/-ία, -σις, and -μα. Cicero used it in a similar way, albeit more sparingly, limiting the equivalence to the -ια/-ία and -σις suffixes and placing greater reliance on -tio as correspondent with -ια/-ία, -σις, and -μα.Footnote ⁷⁶ Imparticipatus, perhaps translating ἀμέθɛκτος or ἀμɛθɛξία, is formed along similar lines to the practice of Latin translators of Irenaeus in the term infiguratus for ἀνɛίδɛος (Iren. 1.15.5), a term which Victorinus also uses for the same Greek expression, both applied to descriptions of God's being.Footnote ⁷⁷

Ontological Terminology

Two principal Latin terms in Victorinus’ vocabulary, used as tools in his philosophical vocabulary to underscore the unity of the Trinity, are exsistentialitas and essentialitas. The notion of ‘existence’ incorporates the physical reality of a thing, for instance Christ's human form and the distinguishing accidents of a thing. ‘Essentiality’ is the intrinsic characteristic or essence of a thing (Christ's divinity, man's humanity, etc.). The term derives from essentia, a calque of οὐσία, first attributed to Cicero, according to Seneca (Ep. 58.6), and later used (again, according to Seneca) by the orator C. Papirius Fabianus.Footnote ⁷⁸ The adjectival derivative essentialis is decisively post-Classical and appears exclusive to Christian writers.Footnote ⁷⁹ The substantive essentialitas is unattested prior to Victorinus and is perhaps derived from the adjectival form essentialis, attested first in some uncertain letters of Ambrose, contemporary with or slightly earlier than Victorinus’ own writings. The derivatives of exsistentia Footnote ⁸⁰ in Victorinus’ terminology include the adjectival, nominal, and adverbial derivatives exsistentialis, exsistentialitas, and exsistentialiter, all occurring first in his anti-Arian works. The manner in which the abstract nouns are introduced is noteworthy:

Therefore no-one may separate the Holy Spirit … because it is itself also of the Father and because it is also itself of the Son (which is of the Father). They are then after that which is ‘to be’, that is exsistentia or substantia, or (if by some fear of [these terms’] notoriety) you may use a higher register and say either exsistentialitas or substantialitas, that is ὑπαρχτότητα, οὐσιότητα, ὀντότητα.

Adv. Ar. 3.7.6–12.Footnote ⁸¹

Victorinus signals that one may figuratively ‘ascend’ into an abstract realm of linguistic expression (conscendas) and uses the substantives with the -tas suffixes to render the triad of theological terms ὑπαρκτότης, οὐσιότης, and ὀντότης. In the passage, he provides the three Greek synonyms for only the two of his Latin lexical innovations, conflating the terminology to a certain degree. The sense of the passage appears to be that God has both ‘substance’ and ‘essence’ and hence the conflation of the Greek terms. In Adv. Ar. 1.30, Victorinus acknowledges the interchangeable usage of the terms in his time.Footnote ⁸² Similarly, in Adv. Ar. 2.6, he writes why the distinction is not necessary when discussing the ‘being’ of God or Christ: nihil interest, utrum ὑπόστασιν … intellegamus an οὐσίαν, dummodo id significetur quod ipse deus est. However, earlier in the same work Victorinus summarises his views of the doctrine of the Trinity and we find exsistentia and substantia are distinct. In Adv. Ar. 1.30, he discusses how the ‘wise men’ and the ‘ancients’ (sapientes et antiqui) defined the terms:

They define exsistentia and exsistentialitas as pre-existing subsistence, without accidents, i.e., those things which themselves, pure and without addition, subsist in that which is only being. But they define substantia as the subject taken with all the accidents, which are inseparably existent in the substance itself.Footnote ⁸³

Adv. Ar. 1.30.21–26

This distinction is found in Tertullian, with the notion of substantia and its derivatives referring to the physical predication rather than the moral or spiritual. So in the Res. 45, 15: ‘We claim that both the oldness of man and his newness imply not a substantial (sc. physical) but a moral difference’ (tam vetustatem hominis quam novitatem ad moralem non ad substantialem differentiam defendimus).Footnote ⁸⁴ Victorinus seems nonetheless aware of the distinction in the Latin philosophical tradition. However, can we use Adv. Ar. 3.7 to understand exsistentialitas as the translation of ὑπαρκτότης and substantialitas of οὐσιότης? We might turn to other non-theological works of his to find that he did recognise a distinction between the two and, through some inductive reasoning, we may construe exsistentialitas as corresponding to ὑπαρκτότης in the Adv. Ar. In De Definitionibus (p. 7, 16 and p. 16, 18, Stangl), Victorinus translates οὐσιώδης with substantialis to refer to the ‘essential’ characteristic (what he calls the genus) of a thing, rather than its accidents (differentiae).Footnote ⁸⁵ Not to be confused with Aristotle's primary and secondary substances,Footnote ⁸⁶ Victorinus construes the ‘genus’ as the prima definitio, the ‘first’ substantia of being, whereas material corporality was a secondary kind of substantia. In the passage above, we might understand substantialitas as a translation of οὐσιότης in the same vein as the translation of οὐσιώδης in the De Definitionibus. This leaves ὑπαρκτότης corresponding with exsistentialitas, and as for essentialitas, it appears that exsistentialitas was viewed as synonymous with it, as implied in Adv. Ar. 4.5: ergo ὀντότης, id est, exsistentialitas, vel essentialitas.

Although Victorinus conflates many of these terms to denote ‘being’ in general, he is aware of, and plays upon, a distinction, at least for the purpose of his Trinitarian theory. So in Adv. Ar. 4.33.31–3: ita tamen ut, quomodo pater et filius unum cum sint, sit tamen pater, sit etiam filius, exsistentia unusquisque sua, sed ambo una eademque substantia. Earlier (Adv. Ar. 1.31), Victorinus wrote that the specific ‘substance’ of God and Christ are certain things which Scripture tell us, namely lumen and spiritus, and both of these are shared between the two, but he also argues ‘light’ is a form of God's οὐσία (Adv. Ar. 2.7). Despite the confusion in the use of ontological labels, we can resolve this with the conceptualisation noted above in the De Definitionibus: the prima definition of God is, for Victorinus, vita and lumen, essence or ‘first substantia’. His material existence became the Son, who, though assuming the accidents of a male individual on earth, was divine and participatory in God's ‘life’ and ‘light’ (sc. οὐσία). Note also that Victorinus’ terminology (and that of other Christian writers of his time and later) acknowledges a distinction between the subsistences (exsistentiae) of God and Christ and the shared substantia that binds them.Footnote ⁸⁷ We may view exsistentialitas and essentialitas as denoting the ‘reality’ of a thing's being (ὑπαρκτότης or ὀντότης),Footnote ⁸⁸ whereas substantialitas refers to a thing's what-ness (quid sit) and ‘essentiality’ (οὐσιότης).Footnote ⁸⁹

Let us consider Victorinus’ use of the substantia element in his derived metaphysical terminology and how it aligned with (or differed from) the tradition before him. Two studies are useful as a more complete background to what follows, namely Arpe (Reference Arpe1941) and Dörrie (Reference Dörrie1976: 13–69), the latter examining the diachrony of ὑπόστασις more generally. A glance at the Oxford Latin Dictionary's entry on the word is of little help, with the various meanings often incongruously defined, e.g.: ‘1. The quality of being real or having an actual existence; also, of having a corporeal existence’ and ‘2. (usu, w. ref, to absts.) Underlying or essential nature, make-up, constitution, that which makes a thing what it is.’ We can accept that the aims of lexicographers are not those of philosophers, but the conflation of English terms like ‘underlying’, ‘real’, ‘essential’, ‘actual’, ‘corporeal’ etc. all add to the confusion.Footnote ⁹⁰ Yet this confusion cannot be blamed on the compilers of a dictionary, given the way in which the earliest usages of the term in a philosophical sense are confused. In Seneca, the term is applied (the first in Latin literature apparently) to the ‘being’ of all things in letter 58 of his Epistulae Morales when outlining Platonic ontology. Seneca's use in this letter is so broad as to be practically useless, conflating substantia with ὑπόστασις, τὸ ὄν and οὐσία in the space of a few lines. Arpe (Reference Arpe1941: 67) holds that we can infer in Seneca that he was either translating (directly or indirectly) the expression ὑπόστασις, and this might have been the case, but Seneca's writings do not give us any definitive equivalence.Footnote ⁹¹ In Quintilian, the term applies to homines, res, and mental concepts (Inst. 6, praef. 7), similarly without distinction. In legal terminology, the sense of the word could refer to the concept of property or real goods, so the Vocabularium Iurisprudentiae Romanae (vol. 5) defines substantia in a fourfold manner: 1. Material; 2. Force, effect; that which is, not which appears to be; 3. Quantity, sum, that which is contained in some aggregate of things or persons; and 4. Goods, patrimony. By Tertullian's period (c. 155–220 C.E.), the interpretation of substantia proved to be a decisive indication of the term's gradual disentanglement in Latin when referring to the Greek expressions οὐσία and ὑπόστασις, though his use of it remained somewhat ‘elastic’.Footnote ⁹²

Before looking at Tertullian's formulation, we might compare the metaphysical terminology of the Trinity in the Greek-speaking works of the Byzantine bishop Basil of Caesarea (330–379 C.E.), who interpreted οὐσία as a vague expression (Ep. 38: ὁ ἀόριστος τῆς σημασίας) denoting ‘essence’, perhaps synonymous with Aristotle's secondary ‘substance’.Footnote ⁹³ However, ὑπόστασις, for Basil, was closer to ‘subsistence’ (res subsistens in later Church theology) or some individual reality.Footnote ⁹⁴ When it came to articulating these concepts in Latin, Tertullian's substantia applies generally to, as Braun describes it, ‘telle ou telle réalité concrètement et individuellement existante’, but also to non-physical ‘realities’ such as the soul, angelica substantia, among others.Footnote ⁹⁵ In all cases, it must be kept in mind that Tertullian's substantia denoted a thing's ‘fundamental reality’ (res).Footnote ⁹⁶ Stead suggested that, since Tertullian was attempting to refute Monarchianism,Footnote ⁹⁷ his usage of substantia apropos the Trinity cannot be in the Aristotelian sense of the πρώτη οὐσία. This was because, Stead argues, if his arguments for una substantia (Adv. Prax. 2.4) were construed as chronological (i.e., primary versus secondary substance), this would actually confirm the Monarchian view that God was singular and not of three persons.Footnote ⁹⁸ Stead's assertion perhaps assumes that una substantia referred to something like a single, primary ‘person’ in a corporeal sense, whence arose the Son and the Holy Spirit. It is rather that there is a single res or reality of the Trinity, manifest through three distinct personae simultaneously.Footnote ⁹⁹ Tertullian construed the single substantia of the Father as Basil and Origen had construed the οὐσία.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ He understands οὐσία as a thing's ‘reality’ and employs substantia rather than essentia – a key semantic difference (‘essence’, properly construed, is the second Aristotelian category whereas substantia seems to encompass both first and second categories).Footnote ¹⁰¹ In Tertullian's formulation, God's reality was indisputable and the same applied to that of the Son and the Holy Spirit. All three share one substantia but have always manifested themselves through three distinct forms (what Tertullian described with personae). In the Greek formulation, Basil's interpretation eventually became that the ὑπόστασις may be pluralised (into three ὑποστάσɛις or ‘realities’ or ‘persons’), whereas the οὐσία may not (a single divine ‘essence’, shared by all three realities [ὑποστάσɛις] of the Trinity, just as all Pauls share the common essence of being ‘man’ or ‘animal’ etc.).Footnote ¹⁰² For Tertullian, ὑποστάσɛις was correspondent with personae and οὐσία with substantia. Thus, whereas Greek-speaking Christian thinkers such as Basil construed οὐσία as the ‘essence’, a more general referent synonymous with Aristotle's secondary category of ‘substance’, Tertullian understood οὐσία as indisputable ‘reality’, i.e., as Aristotle's primary category of ‘substance’.

Victorinus’ terminology follows in this tradition, attempting to refute certain heresies (in this case Arianism) by the use of substantia in a specific way. Substantia, for Victorinus, comes to signify not the physical ‘reality’ of a thing, but rather its underlying and essential nature (οὐσία), characteristic or ‘genus’, which makes a thing what it is. Christ is divine because he is of a divine substantia, although his outward reality (what Tertullian had called the persona) was that of a man. So we might expect that those terms in Greek dealing with essence or essentiality (οὐσία and its derivatives) would be translated with substantia and its derivatives. A survey of the translations shows that this is, in fact, exactly what we see, with occasional conflation with the Greek notion of ὑπόστασις.Footnote ¹⁰³

It is understandable that substantia and its derivatives might be conflated in Victorinus with what is the morphological equivalent of ὑπόστασις in Greek. However, the (apparent) confusion lies in the distinction between substantialitas and ὑπαρκτότης, since both have similar forms and the Latin term could, feasibly, be a morphological calque of the Greek (sub = ὑπό and stantia = ἀρχή), just as substantia could be a calque of ὑπόστασις. Victorinus, however, uses ex(s)isto (from which, exsistens, exsistentia, exsistentialitas) as conceptually closer to ὑπάρχω (ὑπαρκτότης). His theory is that a thing's essence is that which ‘stands beneath’ it (substantia).Footnote ¹⁰⁴ Yet that which is corporeally there is perceptible, i.e., something which ‘stands out’ (exsisto), due to the accidents or physical characteristics which are inseparably linked to its underlying reality (cf. Adv. Ar. 1.30). Similarly in Greek, that which already exists is ‘established under’ (ὑπό- + ἀρχή), which is, for Victorinus, its exsistentialitas.Footnote ¹⁰⁵

Figure 1: Schema of Victorinus’ Ontological Terminology in the Opera Theologica.

There is additionally a broader issue as to why Victorinus made the switch from the singular essentia to substantia. This concerns the centrality of the Greek term ὑπόστασις in the fourth century C.E. to the Arians, who held that God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit possessed separate ὑποστάσɛις.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ Victorinus was not only balancing the weight of tradition in Latin metaphysical terminology regarding substantia but also seeking to wrest control of the term from the Arians in their demarcation of the ὑποστάσɛις of the Son and the Holy Spirit from God's insubstantialis existence. If Victorinus was to continue the arguments of Greek apologists such as Athanasius of Alexandria and their defence of the unity of the Trinity's ὑπόστασις,Footnote ¹⁰⁷ then the move from essentia to substantia (and so from οὐσία to ὑπόστασις) as the underlying essentiality of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit was imperative to reclaiming this doctrinal ground.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ This shift would have some influence on later Latin authors, but in general, Victorinus’ attempts at a kind of terminological paradigm shift with respect to οὐσία to ὑπόστασις found few imitators.Footnote ¹⁰⁹