Principium and Praeprincipium in the Trinitarian Theology of Marius Victorinus

with Stephen Cooper

Vidéo disponible dans le lien : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrqqAMnrXJA

The surviving writings of Marius Victorinus, both those covering the areas of his professional pre-Christian activity as a rhetor as well his post-conversion works, all mention the principia of the objects of his authorial concerns: rhetoric, dialectic, theology, and the Christian life. While it is with slight exception only his trinitarian treatises that explicitly discuss principia in the ontological or metaphysical sense, all of his works show a distinct inclination to express what comes first — in argumentation, in knowledge, and in reality — as a necessary step to grasping the consequences relative to each sphere of inquiry or action. This paper will survey his writings for their various usages of the term principium (and related vocabulary), with the goal of ascertaining how his articulation of the principia of rhetoric, dialectical argumentation, trinitarian theology, and Christian ethics reveals his philosophical sources, his theological commitments, and his aims as an author.

Conférence donnée dans le cadre du Projet « Les Platonismes de l’Antiquité Tardive » et le cycle de conférences 2022-2023 « Interactions Philosophies et Religieuses : Les Principes ».

Projet pluriannuel de recherches dirigé par Luciana Gabriela Soares Santoprete (CNRS – LEM), Anna Van den Kerchove (IPT), George Karamanolis (Université de Vienne), Éric Crégheur (Université Laval) et Dylan Burns (Université d’Amsterdam).

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