Nicea - heavenly witnesses use by Heraclianus contra the Arian Germinius / Germanus

Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Administrator
heavenly witnesses by Heraclianus contra arian Germinius, Nicea
https://www.facebook.com/groups/NTTextualCriticism/permalink/750599908360345/

We have two specific evidences of heavenly witnesses phrasing in the Nicean controversies. One, in Greek, is the Disputation between Athanasius and Arius at Nicea. Covered especially well by Charles Forster and hand-waved by being from a supposed later author, or ignored, by the contras.

Here is our new one today.

Germinius of Sirmium (fl 366 .. died 375/76)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germinius_of_Sirmium
"responsible for drafting the theological statement known as the Blasphemy of Sirmium in 357 ... He also appears in the Altercatio Heracliani laici cum Germinio episcopo Sirmiensi, which purports to be the minutes of a public disputation between Germinius and a Nicene layman called Heraclianus in January 366"

Carl Paul Caspari (1814–1892) is more famous on the heavenly witnesses for the Expositio Fidei, an incredibly important 4th century evidence. Here Caspari publishes in 1883 a Latin manuscript, a conversation of the dispute from Nicea. Heraclianus is one of the laymen disputing with Germinius.

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Kirchenhistorische anecdota, veröffentl. von C.P. Caspari. I. Lateinische Schriften (1883)
Carl Caspari
http://books.google.com/books?id=LL8UAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA142

Altercatio Heracliani Laici Cum Germino Episcopo Sirmiensi

To Germinius, Herclianus declares:

Her. d.: Non sic credimus. Sicut enim unus pater, unus et filius et spiritus sanctus, unus uigor. Nam et tres unum sunt
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Clearly the heavenly witnesses.

This leads to a long note from Caspari going into Tertullian, Cyprian, Facundus, Fulgentius and more.

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Another evidence of early century dispute in Greek on the heavenly witnesses. Allowing that we can not prove that it is a later creation, rather than a historical account.

This needed some documentation, more visible than the Facebook thread.

Gerhard Schmid offered some objections to this on the NT Textual Criticism forum:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/NTTextualCriticism/permalink/860548064032195/
which I will add. When I also offered the Expositio Fidei he really harumphed!

"We already know it was present in Latin witnesses even earlier than the fourth century"
Click to expand...

Actually you would not know that from Metzger, Ehrman, Wallace, Snapp, et al.

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Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Administrator
Last edited:
Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Administrator
The Witness of God is Greater -

Altercatio Heracliani Laici cum Germinio Episcopo Sirmiensi de fide Synodi Nicaenae (366 AD)

Germinius, born in Cyzicus,[1] (fl 366 .. died 375/76)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germinius_of_Sirmium

was bishop of Sirmium, (today the town Sremska Mitrovica, in the territory of Srem in Serbia)[2] and a supporter of Homoian theology, which is often labelled as a form of Arianism. Along with Valens of Mursa and Ursacius of Singidunum he was responsible for drafting the theological statement known as the Blasphemy of Sirmium in 357.[3][4] He also appears in the Altercatio Heracliani laici cum Germinio episcopo Sirmiensi, which purports to be the minutes of a public disputation between Germinius and a Nicene layman called Heraclianus in January 366.[5] He is believed to have died in 375 or 376.

[Labriolle] The most original of this group of anti-Arian writings is the "Altercatio Heracliani Laici cum Germinio Episcopo
Sirmiensi de fide Synodi Nicaenae et Arimensis Arianorum". It is dated the 6th of the Ides of January, 366. In it we must
see, not an imaginary dialogue but an authentic tilt between Heraclianus, a layman, representing the orthodoxy of Nicea,
and Germinius the Bishop of Sirmium 2 professing Arianism. Heraclianus who was thrown into prison with two other
confessors, vigorously kept up the dispute, which bore upon the divinity of the Holy Spirit as much as on that of the Son.
The arguments used are not those of dialectics : at a given moment at the Bishop's orders Heraclianus is boxed on the
ears by a reader and a deacon. Nevertheless Germinius refused to hand him over to the imperial justice as urged by the
shouts of the crowd. The whole setting of this colloquy has movement and life. It will be noticed that the profession of faith
pronounced in the course of the debate by Heraclianus is taken word for word from a passage of Terullian's
"Apologeticum" (Section XXI). Let me mention further among extant traces of anti-Arian literature a "Tractatus contra
Arianos", the fragments of which, included in a papyrus of the Vth century at Vienna (Cod. 2160, Theol.C 50a) following
after St Hilary's "De Trinitate", are not unworthy of our attention. This work seems to go back to the second half of the IVth
century.

(Labriolle, The history and literature of Christianity, 2012, p. 257)

[Humfress] Compare the transcript of an interrogation by Germinius, Arian bishop of Sirmium, on 13 Jan. 366, of three "Catholics [Nicene Trinitarians]", Heraclianus, Firmianus, and Aurelianus, who had been arrested and brought before the bishop, who himself was seated on an episcopal chair in publis, surrounded by clergy. During the interrogation the crowd apparently demanded that the three "Catholics" be taken before the secular authorities to be executed as "disturbers of the peace".

(Humfress, Orthodoxy and the Courts, 2007, p. 252, fn 41)


Debate of Heracliani (the layman) with Germinio Bishop of Sirmium (366 AD)

Germ. d.: In what manner is the Holy Spirit God, since it is written in Jeremiah: "This is our God, and
there shall none other be accounted of in comparison of him. He hath found out all the way of
knowledge, and hath given it unto Jacob his servant, and to Israel his beloved. Afterward did he shew
himself upon earth, and conversed with men."? (Baruch 3.35-37)

Her. d.: For an ignorant man, well you have said, because truly the Son God prophesied, God will walk
among men (2 Cor 6:16; Ez 37:27). In fact, you know how, that the Father is in the Son, and the Son is in
the Father, are one with the Holy Spirit, because besides this Trinity, there is no other God which is to be
feared, worshipped, and respected.

Germ. d.: So Christ is the brother of the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit?

Her. d.: That is not our belief. For just as the Father is one, so the Son and the Holy Spirit are one, one energy. For the three are one.

Germ. d.: Where do you get the proof from?

Her. d.: By the apostle Paul.

Germ. d.: Where is this written?

Her. d.: To the Ephesians.

Germ. d.: Read.

Her. d.: There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, [and through all,] and in us all. (Ephesians 4:4-6)

Germ. d.: Heracliane, What is your explanation of the faith?

Her. d.: In fact, when the ray is shot from the sun, it is still part of the parent mass; the sun will still be in
the ray, because it is a ray of the sun—there is no division of substance, but merely an extension, but is
extended as light of light is kindled. Substance remains whole, indefeasible, matter, The material [matrix]
remains entire, unimpaired cause it to pass from thence, though there are several offshoots of its quality.
So, too, that which has come forth out of God is at once God and the Son of God, and the two are one. In
this way also, as He is Spirit of Spirit and God of God, He is made a second in manner of existence—in
position, not in nature; and He did not withdraw from the original source, but went forth. This Son of God,
then, as it was always foretold in ancient times, descending into a certain virgin, and made flesh in her
womb, is in His birth God and man united. The flesh formed by the Spirit is nourished, grows up to
manhood, speaks, teaches, works, and is the Christ. "This is my faith."

(Caspari, Kirchenhistorische Anecdota, 1883, p. 142; Translated by Jeroen Beekhuizen, correspondence, October 2019.)
 
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Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Administrator
https://www.facebook.com/groups/NTTextualCriticism/posts/860548064032195/?comment_id=861796007240734
AND THERE IS MUCH MORE IN THIS DISCUSSION ON A NUMBER OF EVIDENCES

James Snapp
"I would grant that the CJ was in a major branch of the African Old Latin"
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1 John 5:7
For there are three that bear record in heaven,
the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost:
and these three are one.
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James Snapp tries to limit the Old Latin supporting the heavenly witnesses to an African Latin origination. There are many problems with this attempt.
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First, the Council of Carthage, which James has studied, showed wide and full usage of the heavenly witnesses verse throughout the Meditteranean region, which includes European and island lands.
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Second, in a similar attempt to limit the heavenly witnesses, Karl Künstle (1859-1932) made an attempt to focus on Spain as the origin of the verse, and, last I checked, Spain had jumped from Africa to Europe
🙂
. This attempt was actually quite popular for a few years and is still occasionally echoed by various parrots who do not know the scholarship.
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Thus there is a *** huge irony *** in an attempt by James to echo Künstle ... but now with a different land!
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Third, Jerome's Vulgate and the Vulgate Prologue is not in any sense an African work, au contraire, it must be seen as based in Rome and Israel, with manuscripts from both hither and thither.
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Fourth, Frederick Nolan emphasized Italic antiquity for the verse.
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Fifth, the 10-or-so extant Old Latin mss en masse (notably excepting Codex Armagh) support the verse, from all regions and lineage. Old Latin references by ECW are similarly wide-ranging (allowing the report that Augustine deliberately avoided direct usage of the verse, which corroborates Jerome's concern and warning, as does the Codex Fuldensis internal discordance.)
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This could go on and on, with various other references, such as the Athanasius disputation and the Synopsis of Sacred Scripture, Cyprian writing for a wide-spread church community, and the evidences showing the Latin came from the Greek, and the dual-language savvy of so many in that time, and the antiquity usage of heavenly witnesses phrasing by Origen and Athenagoras and others .... I simply took out above five of the problems with the James Snapp attempted limitation.
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There is, in fact, a long and non-illustrious history of contra switching gears on supposed origination and transmission of the heavenly witnesses, as well as their rogue's gallery of proposed startups (e.g. Cyprian, Jerome, Priscillian, Tapsensis.)
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Oh, since Priscillian was referenced, let us mention that this forum is one of the only places where the earlier Heraclianus reference has been given.
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heavenly witnesses by Heraclianus contra arian Germinius, Nicea
https://www.facebook.com/groups/NTTextualCriticism/permalink/750599908360345/
.
Nicea - heavenly witnesses use by Heraclianus contra the arian Germinius
http://www.purebibleforum.com/showthread.php?p=144
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This writing is directly connected with Nicea and the Arian controversies, is 4th century, and is dated 366 before Priscillian (c. 380). Thus, once again, refuting various contra positions.
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The History and Literature of Christianity (1924, first published)
Pierre De Labriolle, translated by Herbert Wilson
https://books.google.com/books?id=bb77AQAAQBAJ&pg=PA257
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Nicea is in Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey, once again not Africa, or Spain. While Germinius was bishop in what is today Serbia.
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Oh, a translation of the work is given here:
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Emperors and Bishops in Late Roman Invective (2013)
Richard Flower
https://books.google.com/books?id=wpK8lG9GcFwC&pg=PA230
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However, with two pages missing, we need a library visit or another means of seeing if our text is in the translation, with the exact English given.
Non sic credimus. Sicut enim unus pater, unus et filius et spiritus sanctus, unus vigor. Nam et tres unum sunt.
I do not believe so. Just as one is the Father, one the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one of vigor. For the three are one.
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Now Heraclianus then defends that from Ephesians:
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Ephesians 4:4-6
There is one body, and one Spirit,
even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;
One Lord, one faith, one baptism,
One God and Father of all, who is above all,
and through all, and in you all.
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so that means either he was unsure of the heavenly witnesses being in his Bible, or he bypassed the verse, or he stumbled a bit in exposition.. However, you can not get there from Ephesians!
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There is a footnote in the Caspari book referencing 1 John 5:7, which a German speaker could translate. Caspari called the verse a "gloss" yet kept seeing the ancient evidences (a skilled writer could compare him with Charles Forster in looking at these confessions), there is more material on p. XXIV and also p. 304-309.
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Kirchenhistorische anecdota, veröffentl. von C.P. Caspari. I. Lateinische Schriften (1883)
http://books.google.com/books?id=LL8UAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA142
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Caspari also brought forth the Expositio Fidei from 380 AD.
.
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