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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 March 2014
The writings of Gregory of Elvira are among the most important sources for understanding early Latin biblical exegesis as well as the culture and theology of the Spanish Church in the fourth century. The paucity of ancient sources on Gregory's episcopal career, however, renders a proper assessment of these works difficult, and he has not been well served by historians. In this essay, I propose a modified account of Gregory's life and career, arguing that the dates of his birth, ordination and death are fixed later than they should be and that his involvement with the ‘Luciferians’ has been significantly overestimated.
1 Wilmart, André, ‘Les Tractatus sur le Cantique attribuées à Gregoire d'Elvire’, Bulletin de la litérature ecclésiastique vii (1906), 233–99Google Scholar. Germanus Morin had earlier proposed Gregory as the author, but the attribution was widely discounted: ‘Les Nouveaux Tractatus Origenis et l'héritage littéraire de l’évêque espagnol Grégoire d'Illiberris’, Revue d'histoire et de littérature religeuse v (1900), 141–61. Wilmart's argument, which establishes strong philological and theological similarities between the Tractatus Origenis and the more securely Gregorian De fide, won over Morin's detractors. See LeJay, Pierre, ‘L'Heritage de Grégoire d'Elvire’, RBén xxv (1908), 435–57Google Scholar, and Butler, Cuthbert, ‘Tractatus de Epitalamio [sic.] and Tractatus Origenis’, JTS n.s. x (1909), 450–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Wilmart, André, ‘Arca Noe’, RBén xxvi (1909), 1–11Google Scholar. Wilmart first ‘discovered’ the text embedded in manuscripts of Beatus of Liebana's In Apocalypsin, as an independent homily following the commentary on the seven letters to the seven churches (Apocalypsin 2–3). The discovery of a manuscript in Spain further confirmed his suspicions of Gregorian provenance, on which see Wilmart, André, ‘Un Manuscrit du Tractatus du faux Origène espagnol sur L'Arche de Noé’, RBén xxix (1912), 47–59Google Scholar.
3 Wilmart, André, ‘Fragments du Ps-Origène sur le Psaume xci dans une collection espagnole’, RBén xxix (1912), 274–93Google Scholar.
4 The Tractatus de Epithalamio, which is extant in both a shorter and longer recension. Three manuscripts were discovered by Gotthold Heine in Spain and Portugal, and three more were uncovered a century later by A. C. Vega. Two manuscripts attribute the text to Gregory of Elvira, and three list Gregory the Great as the author. The latter attribution is surely an error on the part of the copyists. For an extended discussion of manuscripts and authorship see Schulz-Flügel, Eva, Gregorius Eliberritanus: Epithalamium sive explanatio in Canticis Canticorum, Freiburg 1994, 99–116Google Scholar.
5 Hilary of Poitiers's exegetical corpus is larger in terms of volume, but only commentaries on Matthew and the Psalms are extant.
6 The broad consensus is that Gregory first took up the anti-Arian cause in 360 after the capitulation of the Western bishops at Ariminum (359): Simonetti, Manlio, ‘Gregory of Elvira’, in Quaesten, Johannes (ed), Patrology, iv, South Bend 1986, 86–7Google Scholar, and, more recently, see Torró, J. Pascual, La fe, Madrid 1998, 12Google Scholar. Timothy D. Barnes has argued for a date of 358 – that is, following the dissemination of the Sirmian manifesto and not the Synod of Ariminum – on the grounds that Gregory defends the homoousion but ‘ignores the formula “alike in all things” officially adopted in 359’: Athanasius and Constantius: theology and politics in the Constantinian empire, Cambridge 1993, 143. This claim is problematic for two reasons. First, although the ‘dated’ creed, which was the subject of the initial discussion, contains the phrase ‘like the Father in all things’, the Nike creed that was adopted at both Ariminum and Constantinople (360) simply reads ‘like the Father’. Since ‘like the Father in all things’ was never officially ratified by a council of bishops, why should Gregory have felt the need to address it? Secondly, and perhaps more convincingly, Gregory quite clearly repudiates the use of the much stronger homoiousion on the grounds that likeness is not the same thing as equality: De fide 22. There would have thus been no need for him separately to condemn either ‘like the Father in all things’ or ‘like the Father’.
7 Lozano, J. Collantes, San Gregorio de Elvira: estudio sobre su eclesiogía, Granada 1954, 21Google Scholar; Gómez, J. A. M., La exégesis como instrumento de creacíon cultural: el testimonio de las obras de Gregorio de Elbira, Murcia 2000, 20Google Scholar; Schulz-Flügel, Gregorius Eliberritanus, 20–3; Torró, J. Pascual, Gregorio de Elvira: tratados sobre los libros de las santas escrituras, Madrid 1997, 11–12Google Scholar. Buckley, Francis J.asserts that his birth could be set ‘as early as 320’: ‘Gregory of Elvira’, Classical Folia xviii (1964), 5Google Scholar. His death has been set as late as c. 410 because of a parallel between a passage in the Tractatus Origenis (3.15, CCSL lxix, 23) and Rufinus’ translation of Origen's Homilies on Genesis (7.3, SC vii.202–4): Dulaey, Martine, ‘Grégoire d'Elvire et le Commentaire sur la Genèse de Victorin de Poetovio’, Augustinus xxxviii (1993), 203Google Scholarn. 3. The translation was not completed until 403/4, which means that if Gregory did indeed use it, he could have died no earlier than 405.
8 Buckley, ‘Gregory’, 5–6; Collantes Lozano, Estudio, 19–20.
9 Hanson, R. P. C., The search for the Christian doctrine of God: the Arian controversy, 318–81, Grand Rapids 2005, 520Google Scholar; Schulz-Flügel, Gregorius Eliberritanus, 21; Simonetti, Manlio, Gregorio di Elvira: la fede, Turin 1975, 12–21Google Scholar. Barnes argues for a date of 358, following Ossius’ assent to the blasphemy of Sirmium: Athanasius, 143.
10 A long bibliography on the question of Gregory's Luciferianism can be found at Mazorra, E., El Luciferianismo de Gregorio de Elvira, Granada 1967, 19–25Google Scholar. Mazorra can name forty-four scholars (from as early as Paschasius Quesnel in the seventeenth century) who affirm Gregory's ‘Luciferianism’ – the vast majority also asserting that he became leader of the movement – whereas he lists only twelve who either doubt or deny the attribution. Two prominent sources to be added to those which affirm his participation in the Luciferian group are Chadwick, Henry, Priscillian of Avila: the occult and the charismatic in the early Church, Oxford 1975, 6Google Scholar, and Hanson, Search, 519. Mazorra himself argues that no clear decision can be rendered: ‘Probablemente no fue luciferiano, probablemente fue luciferiano. Es decir en la duda’: Luciferianismo, 61. Buckley denies that Gregory ever entered into communion with Lucifer: ‘Gregory of Elvira’, 14.
11 There are virtually no extant Latin works from this period apart from Hilary of Poitiers's Commentarius in Mattheum and the documents preserved in his Against Valens and Ursacius.
12 On the use of third-century Latin Christological sources see Shuve, K., ‘Origen and the Tractatus de Epithalamio of Gregory of Elvira’, Studia Patristica l (2011), 195Google Scholar. Gregory reproduces the Latin version of the creed at De fide praef.1, CCSL lxix. 221.
13 See n. 7 above for the discussion of M. Dulaey's late dating of the third Tractatus Origenis on the basis of a parallel with a homily of Origen translated by Rufinus. We would thus instead have to posit that either both were reliant on an earlier Latin translation of Origen, perhaps by Victorinus of Poetovio, or that Rufinus used the third Tractatus itself.
14 Mark DelCogliano, ‘George of Laodicea: a historical reassessment’, this Journal lxii (2011), 667–92.
15 In the essay the Luciferians are referred to as an ‘alliance’ rather than a schismatic ‘church’ or ‘party’, as this allows us to think in more nuanced ways about degrees of participation. I follow DelCogliano's definition of ‘alliance’ as a group that arises ‘because of some common value or [is] formed for the promotion of a specific agenda in the ecclesiastical sphere’ (ibid. 669). Members of an alliance would be bound by the ties of communion, friendship, shared doctrinal views, engagement with mutual enemies, public displays of support, and/or loyalty to a particular figure or figures (cf. 669).
16 ‘Gregorius, Baeticus, Eliberi Episcopus, usque ad extremam senectutem diversos mediocri sermone tractatus composuit, et de Fide elegantem librum, qui hodieque superesse dicitur’: De viris illustribus 105, PL xiii.703A.
17 On Nummius Aemilianus Dexter see PLRE, Dexter 3, 251, and Matthews, John, Western aristocracies and imperial court, AD 364–425, Oxford 1975, 111–12Google Scholar, 133, 259.
18 De viris illustribus 132. Matthews suggests that the exchange of courtesies may indicate that Dexter had visited Jerome in Bethlehem: Western aristocracies, 133.
19 PLRE, Dexter 3, 251.
20 It must be placed between the deaths of Gratian (25 Aug 383) and Damasus (11 Dec 384).
21 Libellus 24.86.
22 Libellus 3.5–13.50.
23 Libellus 9.33–11.41.
24 Libellus 14.51–2.
25 ‘Sed ad sanctum Gregorium, Eliberitanae civitatis constantissimum episcopum, fidelis nuntius detulit impiam Osii praevaricationem; unde et non adquiescit, memor sacrae fidei ac divini iudicii, in eius nefariam communionem’: Libellus 9.33, SC div.140.
26 Libellus 9.32, SC div.140.
27 He is otherwise unattested; cf. PLRE, Clementinus 1, 215.
28 Libellus 10.34–5, SC div.142.
29 Libellus 10.34, SC div.142.
30 Libellus 10.36.
31 Ibid.
32 ‘Ecce repente Osius, cum sententiam conatus exprimere, os vertit, distorquens pariter et cervicem de sessu in terram eliditur atque illic expirat’: Libellus 10.38, SC div. 144.
33 Ibid.
34 Collantes Lozano, Estudio, 18–19; Pascual Torró, Tratados, 11–12; Clercq, Victor De, Ossius of Cordova: a contribution to the history of the Constantinian period, Washington 1954, 527–8Google Scholar.
35 Historia Arianorum 45.
36 He died sometime in late 357, before Athanasius completed his Historia Arianorum (cf. Barnes, Athanasius, 126). De Clercq not only argues that Ossius was insincere in his support of the Sirmian manifesto and was therefore unlikely to persecute pro-Nicene Christians in Spain, but he is also inclined to believe the veracity of Athanasius’ testimony that Ossius recanted publicly before his death: Ossius, 526–7.
37 ‘Inde est quod solus Gregorius ex numero vindicantium integram fidem, nec in fugam versus, nec passus exilium’: Libellus 10.40, SC div. 146.
38 Preserved in Hilary of Poitiers's Collectanea antiariana parisina A II.1.5, CSEL lxv. 46–7. Some scholars have alleged that the letter is a Luciferian forgery; most notable is Saltet, Louis, ‘Fraudes littéraires des schismatiques lucifériens’, Bulletin de la littérature ecclésiastique iii (1906), 300–26Google Scholar at pp. 315–26. Daniel H. Williams has made a compelling argument in favour of the authenticity of the letter, arguing that Eusebius clearly presupposes that repentant bishops can remain in their office – a point firmly opposed by the Luciferians: Ambrose of Milan and the end of the Arian-Nicene conflict, Oxford 1995, 51 n. 66. It is, indeed, not surprising that Eusebius, currently in his third region of exile (the Thebaid), would take a rather dim view of the bishops who lapsed at Ariminum (and remained unrepentant) and were comfortably presiding in their own churches.
39 ‘Lucifer Caralitanus episcopus moritur, qui cum Gregorio episcopo Hispaniarum, et Philone Libyae, numquam se Arianae miscuit pravitati’: Chronicon, PL xxvii. 695.
40 Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila, 6.
41 Buckley, ‘Gregory of Elvira’, 15.
42 ‘eo quod beatissimo Gregorio communicaret’: Libellus 20.73, SC div.176.
43 DelCogliano, ‘George of Laodicea’, 669.
44 On Lucifer's ordination of Paulinus (without the consent or knowledge of Eusebius of Vercelli) see Socrates, HE 3.6.1–3; 9.1–10; Sozomen, HE 5.12–13; Theodoret, HE 3.5.1–4; Rufinus, HE 10.28. Theodoret and Rufinus make the claim – contra Socrates and Sozomen – that Eusebius had requested that Lucifer accompany him to Alexandria, and that Lucifer instead went to Antioch of his own accord. None of the historians attest the presence of any other bishops at the consecration of Paulinus other than Lucifer.
45 Socrates, HE 3.10.9; Sozomen, HE 5.13. Rufinus notes that Lucifer felt injured by Eusebius’ disapproval, but makes no mention of a break in communion: HE 1.31.
46 Sozomen, HE 5.13.4 (SC cdxcv. 195) is clearest on this point: ‘And as though from a spirit of jealousy, he attempted to reproach the decisions [τά δὸξαντα] of the synod in Alexandria. This apparently was the cause of the sect [ὅ δὴ πρόϕασις ἐγένετο τῆς ἁιρέσεως] of those who were called Luciferians after him’. Socrates, HE 3.9.6 (SC cdxciii. 290), is slightly more elliptical, writing that the conflict in Antioch drove people from the church [τῆς έκκλησίας ἀπέστησεν] and that in the wake of this a sect [ἁίρεσις] of Luciferians arose.
47 Socrates 5.5.7; Sozomen, 7.3.5. The event in question occurred upon Meletius’ return to the city following Gratian's edict of 378 that recalled all exiled bishops to their sees (cf. Sozomen, 7.2.3).
48 Theodoret, HE 3.5.3–4; Rufinus, HE 1.31.
49 ‘Sed post aliquot annos beatus Lucifer, de quarto exilio Romam pergens…’: Libellus 16.63, SC div.163.
50 On Liberius’ adoption of the ‘laxist’ position promulgated by the Synod of Alexandria (362) see the letter of Liberius to the bishops of Italy in Collectanea antiariana parisina B IV.1.1–2, CSEL lxv. 156–7. He argued that the many bishops at Ariminum who were acting in ignorance were to be spared [‘multos parcendum’] whereas the instigators of the heresy were to be condemned [‘auctores vero esse damnandos’].
51 See Liberius’ letter to the Eastern presbyters and bishops: ‘dominus et frater meus communis Demofilus quia dignatus est pro sua benivolentia fidem vestram et catholicam exponere…hanc ego libenti animo suscepi’: Collectanea antiarian parisina B VII.8.1–2, CSEL lxv. 168–9. The fifth-century ecclesiastical historians whitewash Liberius’ capitulation. Socrates asserts that it was solely because of the will of the Roman people that Constantius restored him (HE 2.37.94), whereas Sozomen reports that Eudoxius circulated a false report that Liberius renounced the homoousion, on the basis of which Constantius reinstated him (HE. 4.15.3).
52 On the exile of Liberius and the installation of Felix see Socrates, HE 2.37.91–4; Sozomen, HE 4.11.1–12; Theodoret, HE 2.14.
53 Libellus 25.89, SC div.194.
54 Libellus 24.86, SC div.190.
55 Libellus 23.84, SC div.188.
56 ‘For Damasus, who received the authority of a king [accepta auctoritate regali], sent catholic presbyters and even the laity into exile, having come after them [insecutus] as well. He brought this about by means of pagan advocates before judges who were favourable to them [perorans hoc ipsum per gentiles scolasticos, faventibus sibi iudicibus], although your constitutions [constitutiones] were enacted [decretae sint] against heretics, not against catholics, and such catholics who did not abandon the true faith even under heretical emperors’: Libellus 23.83, SC div. 186.
57 Libellus 24.86, SC div.190.
58 Libellus 20.73–6, SC div.176–8.
59 Libellus 21.77, SC div.180.
60 Libellus 26.93–28.101.
61 Libellus 26.96.
62 Libellus 27.98, SC div. 206.
63 ‘cum magno fletu deduxit proficiscentem’: Libellus 29.105, SC div.214.
64 His connection to Lucifer may have been somewhat stronger than to Aurelius and Heraclides. The Libellus makes the claim that Gregory visited Lucifer in Sardinia, which, if true, would indicate a bond of personal friendship and public support, but we simply have no way of knowing whether or not this story was apocryphal.
65 ‘Iam quantus vir Lucifer fuerit, cum illum admiretur et Gregorius, qui apud cunctos admirabilis est non solum ex conlisione illa Osii sed etiam ex divinis virtutibus, quas habens in se gratiam Sancti Spiritus exsequitur’: Libellus 25.90, SC div.194. Nearly twenty years would have elapsed between the time of the alleged visit and the writing of the Libellus, and it may be based more in legend than in fact.
66 PLRE, Maternus Cynegius 3, 255–6.
67 ‘In quo petentum laudanda illatio est qui, communicantes Gregorio Hispaniensi et Heraclidae Orientali, sanctis sane et laudabilibus episcopis, optant in fide catholica sine oppugnatione alicuius ac molestia viver nullisque’: Lex 6, SC div.240.
68 There is quite literally no evidence for communion with Gregory, and the closest they can come in regard to Heraclides is the claim that the ‘holy people of Oxyrynchus in communion with blessed Heraclides [beato Heraclidae] approved [probavit] him’: Libellus 29.105, SC div.214. That is indeed a tenuous link between Ephesius and Heraclides.
69 Chadwick, Priscillian, 7.
70 Tract. 4; 6.
71 Tract. 3.32–4; 6.35; 20.16.
72 Tract. 17.2–4.
73 The most striking example comes from the fifth Tractatus, of which nearly a third of the homily (5.3–13) is a verbatim repetition of the pseudo-Cyprianic De bono pudicitiae 8, 10–11. There is also a near verbatim borrowing from Tertullian's De resurrectione 8–9, and Minucius Felix's Octavius 34 in Tractatus Origenis 17.25–7, 29–30. There are also parallels with Tertullian's Adversus Iudaeos 2 (Tract. 4.4), Novatian's De Trinitate 6 and 18 (Tract. 1.1–2; 3.32–3) and De cibis Iudaiciis (Tract. 10.34).
