Potamius

POTAMIUS. - First bishop of Lisbon, d. 360. As with Priscillian, there is a critical disagreement over P.'s literary personality between the testimonies of his contemporaries and the ideology of his writings.

Those discovered so far commend him for his unassailable orthodoxy. On the other hand, a group of contemporary writers, among them the Luciferians Faustinus, Marcellinus and St. Hilary of Poitiers, attribute to him the drafting of the second formula of Sirmium (a. 357) together with Hosius, bishop of Cordova (PL. 10, 487) and Phoebadius of Agen (a. 357-58). Perhaps what condemns P. most is a fragment of a letter that St. Athanasius wrote to him and which has recently been brought to prominence, in which the Saint clearly accuses him of considering Christ as a creature, thereby denying his divinity "... qua ratione ille ipse quem creaturam putas, caro sit factus ex virgine..." (Epistola ad Potassium episcopum, in Alcuin, Liber adversus haeresim Felicis, 61: PL. 101, 113). Perhaps P. too, an affected and extravagant stylist, orthodox in his first phase, later turned to Arianism out of greed for certain possessions, subscribed to, without being its author, the second formula of Sirmium and seduced Hosius. Ignored by ancient literature and a not negligible actor during the Arian struggles, P. left as a brief literary legacy from his early years as a writer two sermons: De Lazaro or De martyrio Easiae prophetiae and two dogmatic letters: Epistola ad Athanasium episcopum and De substantia Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.

Giuseppe Madoz