Christopher Sweeney : Potamius of Lisbon's Return to Orthodoxy?: Reconsidering Potamius' Career in Light of New Understandings' of Arian Identity

Potamius of Lisbon, a fourth century bishop, is known in the ancient sources as an Arian heretic, yet on the basis of his own surviving writings, modern scholars argue that later in his career the renegade bishop returned to orthodoxy. While no direct testimony of such a conversion survives, scholars suggest that his use of the word substantia in his surviving works and the lack of any obvious subordinationist claims are evidence of this conversion. In this paper, I re-examine the evidence for Potamius’ supposed conversion in light of new understandings of Arian identity and belief in the fourth century. Where scholars once understood Arianism as a heresy whose theological core was the rejection of the teaching that the Son was “consubstantial” with the Father, scholars of Arianism have come to recognize a number of aspects of Arian identity of at least equal importance, especially their soteriology and philosophy of emotion. Re-examining Potamius’ small surviving corpus, I argue that Potamius’ thought corresponds with this new assessment of Arianism and that his works need to be reevaluated as an important source for understanding the nature of fourth century Arianism.