POTAMIUS. — First bishop of Lisbon, d. 360. As with Priscillian, there is a critical disagreement between the testimonies of contemporaries and the ideology of his writings regarding the literary personality of P.
Those discovered so far recommend him for his unassailable orthodoxy. Instead, a group of contemporary writers, including the Luciferians Faustinus, Marcellinus and St Hilary of Poitiers, attribute to him the drafting of the second formula of Sirmium (a. 357) together with Ossius, bishop of Córdoba (PL 10, 487), and Phoebadius of Agen (a. 357–58). Perhaps what most condemns P. is a fragment of a letter that St Athanasius wrote to him and which has recently been given weight, in which the Saint clearly accuses him of considering Christ as a creature, thereby denying His divinity: «... qua ratione ilipse quem creaturam putas, caro sit factus ex virgine...» (Epistola ad Potamium episcopum, in Alcunio, Liber adversus haeresim Felicis, 61: PL 101, 113). Perhaps also P., an affected and extravagant stylist, orthodox in his first phase, later turned to Arianism out of greed for certain possessions, subscribed—without being its author—to the second formula of Sirmium and seduced Ossius. Ignored by ancient literature and a not insignificant actor during the Arian struggles, P. left as a brief literary legacy of his early years as a writer two sermons: *De Lazaro* and *De martyrio Esaiae prophetae*, and two dogmatic letters: *Epistola ad Athanasium episcopum* and *De substantia Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti*.