# Two Tractates and a Letter to Athanasius - Author: [Potamius of Lisbon](https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/authors/potamius-of-lisbon/) - Latin title: *Tractatus duo et epistula ad Athanasium* - Date: ca. 350-360 (approximate) - Source: J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina, vol. 8 (Paris, 1845-1846), digital text of the printed volume; column range not yet checked (Latin text: Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 8, digitized by Open Greek and Latin (patrologia_latina-dev, University of Leipzig), CC BY-SA 4.0) - Translation: Claude, from the original text, unless a passage says otherwise; each passage below gives the translator - Work page: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/potamius-tractatus/ - Passages: 3 ## Two Tractates and a Letter 1 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/potamius-tractatus/1/#p-1 - Source: PL 8 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: Potamius describes in vivid, elaborate language the decay of Lazarus's body, Christ's weeping, and the raising of Lazarus. ### Latin text Grandi, fratres, stupore grandique miraculo per ambiguas curas hinc inde in concavo vertiginis sinu pronis fluctibus torqueor. Lazarus mortuus est, Deo hic familiaris, ut ferunt, teste Evangelio apud Joannem (Joan. ii, 24), cum quadragenariae voluntatis gestu carnis detrimenta pensasset. Nam sub occasu jam propero, quod terrenis artubus debebatur, hoc est ipsi humo magis, quam homini, ut nobis ipsis juxta librum Genesis (Gen. i), optimus luti liquor in causa est, longe alibi Christo cen– sore, dum Judaeae finibus salutaria foeneraret, sepultus est et humatus: hoc est, ut inciperet esse quod fuerat, lutum scilicet; dum desinit esse quod erat, forma vel fabula. Hic quippe per graves tenebrarum globos et nigri horroris umbracula, hoc est per quatuor dierum circulos, succidua incrementi et decrementi vicissitudine renascentes octo (ut ita dixerim) cum caerulis noctibus dies pendulo mandibularum rictu, elisis in ore dentibus, foetido ore sic jacuit. Vere quia de terrena labe confectus, putris gleba marcesceret; et nervorum traduces cum corporis qualitate miserabili lab(??) infelix sepultura damnaret. Contractis igitur membris inter jejunas et numerabiles costas pellis tetra distenditur, et humoris rivus qui de gurgite viscerum relaxatur, foetenti jam sentina per solum cadaveris teter et caeruleus labebatur. Heu quando non poterat cadaver quatuor diebus, et quatuor noctibus per totum oris, fellis et phlegmatis flumina sentinarum, corruptis artubus foetentia pulmonis spiramenta conflare? cum ipsa etiam rosa pudoris et venustatis fragranti folio in suo sibimet parato balsamo (ut ita dixerim) pretiosior, contra si fuerit de rosario falce pollicis vellicata, marcenti morte tristis albescat, ita ut et colore floris careat, et odore? Aqua Ipsa, si de flumine rapta sit in quo vivit, perit, natura dum desinit esse quod vixit. Mox ergo, quia elementi sui, dum rapitur, substantia caret; ubicumque jacuerit, limum liquor abducit: mox et foetore sordescit. Nemo ergo mirari debet, si hominis, quem spiritus sapientiae sale conditum redolenti aura servaverat, et ex coeli suavitate anima vivacitate nectarea, et balsami generositate melliflua rexerat, ne fieret divortio recedentis spiritus lutea moles et pigra glebositas, caduca linea defunctorum repugnantibus fabricae qualitatibus, corpus omne ad foetoris maculam sui de putredine relaxetur. Inde est, quod per distantiam rerum in unam glomerationem compacta omnis membrorum natura torpescit. Recedente igitur anima quae corporis floriarium recolebat, tuta materies liventi gena in putredinem relaxatur; et pro voce cadaveris nigri follis teter mortui foetor hauritur. Terra igitur, humore, frigore et calore composita corporis fabrica, quae quatuor partes semper sibimet repugnantes corpus criminum in procella subvertunt (calor frigus non amat, et frigus calore torquetur, contraria contrariis mancipantur: terra nimio humore vitiatur, et humor de terra sordescit) his quadriformibus elementis in unum quadripartita mole constantibus, dissociato per divortium mortis auriga, qui quatuor istis partibus loca dederat, ne quisquam mobilitatem sui vehementius tolleret, et dominante flagro divisis in unum concordanti junctura finibus agitabat; hae, inquam, quatuor partes, recedente anima, in globum corporis viduati, excusso societatis auctore, miscentur. Sed quia istum juvenem (Lazarum loquor) Dominus in saeculo dilexerat, praescius futurorum Apostolis suis dormisse Lazarum dixit (Joan. xi, 11 et seqq.), quem promisit, si ad illam civitatem accederet, protinus excitandum. Hunc ergo Lazarum, cui liventi errante connixu per caerulas venas membra labuerant, quem loculatum in specu incisae rupis, immani objectus ex pondere lapis perenni valva, gravis libra detruserat, resurgere posse, si ista crederent, sacratissima vera Dei pietas intonabat. Mox sorores constipatae turba, ejulatu. aestu, jejuniis, lacrymarum ubertatibus ebriatae, Dei genibus stratu totius corporis miserandae jactantur, et hebraeas voces graecessando fractis in unum singultibus mixtas Salvatoris in laudibus expiabant. Quantus illic, rogo vos, populi festinatus? Quae spectantium turba? Qualis tanti miraculi potuit esse concentus, ubi essent plangentes puellae, mortuus frater, et Christus hominem promitteret excitandum? Convenerunt (credo) ad hoc spectaculum servandas memoriae sempiternum milites, Judaei, gentiles, proselyti, clarissimi senatores, nobiles judices, servi, et omnis pene civitas certatim occurrit, ut viderent, an resurgere possit Lazarus, cujus foetor jam longius de sepulcro populos feriebat. Quo viso, tota civitas mirabatur. Qualis illic aras, Christe Jesu? quam croceus, quam decorus, fonte purior, nive candidior, sole candentior, et luna species clarior? Heu me, quid interrogo, quem tunc videre non merui? Nunc tamen, quis quantusve sis pietate, cognovi. Ecce inter haec Jesus Christus Salvator humani generis flevisse narratur (ibid. 15). Age, age, Potami, servus Dei vivi: si aliquid praevales, de laudibus Domini vel pauca narrato. Flebat Deus mortalium lacrymis excitatus; et cum Lazarum potestate sua fretus mortis de vinculo revocaret, praestabat pietatis officium solatio lacrymarum. Flebat Deus non quod ante se mortuum p(??)riisse cognosceret, sed quod sororum fletus temperaret. Flebat Deus, quod eos quibus omnia donaverat et in potestatem redegerat, paradiso etiam, floribus et liliis sine ullo labore praeposuerat, diabolus docendo peccatum de omnibus pene fecit extorres. Flebat Deus, quod eos quos fecerat innocentes, diabolus per malitiam fecit inveniri nocentes. Heu tenuis aura de coelo corpus quod rexeras, succiduis artibus deserebas. Sed non te, Pater, non Filius aliquando despexit. Pro tua morte factus est et Christus ipse mortalis. Harum ad lacrymas, et sparsam crinis miserandi caesariem Salvator pietate commotus, fletus fletibus recontrabat. Et quia ipse sororum fletibus movebatur, lacrymis filii sui Salvatoris nostri inter ipsos coelos ejus paternitas flectebatur. Mox ergo Jesus Christus ad sepulcrum Lazari accessit. Statim jussione ejus revolvuntur saxa; secretarium patescit horroris. Curiosi affatim in specum gementium populorum oculi mittebantur. Visus est Lazarus tecta facie, manibus pedibusque constrictus: et ad documenta virtutum ipse se mortuus, et adhuc pedibus vinctus, ut Christus jusserat, suis manibus resolvebat. Quae, rogo vos, fratres, illic voces? Quae pressura videntium? Quam curiosa mirantium lumina? Qualis in cervicibus praevenientium multitudo pendebat? Qui fletus? quae gaudia? quale murmur? quam novum et coeleste miraculum? Mors vincitur, homo redditur, infernorum catenae franguntur, et post quatriduum Lazari lingua movetur, manus officio praeparantur, oculi s(??)is in orbibus currunt, vestigia gressibus explicantur, auribus renovatur auditus, acies dirigatur in parentes, cognatio redivivis obtutibus numeratur, frigida poscitur, non respuitur panis, domus petitur, Christi miracula referuntur. ### English translation (Claude) With great amazement, brothers, and at a great miracle, I am whirled by headlong waves this way and that through doubtful cares in the hollow bosom of a whirlpool. Lazarus died, a friend of God here, as they report, on the witness of the Gospel according to John, when, at the bearing of a will of forty years, he had paid the losses of the flesh. For, hastening now toward his setting, he paid what was owed to earthly limbs, that is, to the earth itself rather than to man (since for us, according to the book of Genesis, the finest liquid of clay is the cause); and, with Christ his assessor far away elsewhere, while he was lending out saving gifts within the borders of Judaea, he was buried and laid in the earth: that is, so that he might begin to be what he had been, namely clay, while he ceased to be what he was, a form or a tale. Here indeed, through heavy masses of darkness and the shades of black horror, that is, through the circuits of four days, eight days (so to speak) reborn with their dark nights in the falling alternation of increase and decrease, he lay thus, with the hanging gape of his jaws, his teeth crushed in his mouth, with a fetid mouth. Truly, because, made of earthly decay, the rotten clod was wasting away, and the unhappy burial condemned the channels of the sinews, together with the body's quality, to miserable decay. With the limbs contracted, then, the foul skin is stretched between the empty and countable ribs; and the stream of humour released from the gulf of the entrails was gliding, foul and livid, over the ground beneath the corpse, a bilge now stinking. Alas, how could a corpse not, in four days and four nights, through the whole of the mouth, the rivers of gall and phlegm of its bilges, blow out from the corrupted limbs the stinking breathings of the lungs? For even the rose itself, more precious (so to speak) with its leaf fragrant of modesty and loveliness in its own balsam prepared for itself, if on the contrary it is plucked from the rose-bed by the sickle of the thumb, turns pale and sad in a withering death, so that it lacks both the colour and the scent of the flower. Water itself, if it is taken from the river in which it lives, perishes, while by nature it ceases to be what it lived. Soon, then, since while it is taken away it lacks the substance of its element, wherever it lies the liquid gathers mud; soon it grows foul with stench. No one, therefore, should marvel if a man, whom the spirit of wisdom, seasoned with salt, had preserved with a fragrant breath, and whom the soul had ruled with nectar-like liveliness from the sweetness of heaven and with the honeyed nobility of balsam, so that he should not become, by the divorce of the departing spirit, a muddy mass and sluggish cloddiness, the perishable line of the dead, with the qualities of the structure fighting one another: if, I say, the whole body is loosed from its own rottenness into the stain of stench. Hence it is that, through the distance of things compacted into one ball, the whole nature of the members grows numb. When the soul, then, which tended the flower-garden of the body, departs, the matter, once safe, with livid cheek is loosed into rottenness; and instead of the voice of the corpse, the foul stench of the dead black bellows is breathed in. The body's structure, then, is composed of earth, moisture, cold and heat, four parts always fighting one another, which overturn the body of crimes in a storm (heat does not love cold, and cold is tortured by heat; contraries are made slaves to contraries; earth is spoiled by too much moisture, and moisture grows foul from earth). These four-formed elements stand together in one fourfold mass; when the charioteer is separated by the divorce of death, he who had given these four parts their places, lest any should raise its own motion too violently, and drove them with a ruling whip, their bounds divided, in one harmonious joining: then these four parts, I say, when the soul departs, are mixed into the mass of the widowed body, the author of their fellowship having been shaken off. But because the Lord had loved this young man (Lazarus, I mean) in the world, foreknowing the future he told his apostles that Lazarus had fallen asleep, and promised that he would be raised at once if he came to that town. This Lazarus, then, whose limbs had slid away through livid veins in a wandering, livid straining, whom, laid in a coffin in the cave of a hewn rock, a stone set against it of huge weight, a heavy balance with a perpetual door, had shut in: the most sacred, true goodness of God thundered that he could rise if they believed these things. Soon the sisters, pressed by the crowd, drunk with wailing, fever, fasting and abundance of tears, pitiable, throw themselves with their whole body prostrate at the knees of God, and, speaking Hebrew words in Greek fashion, mixed with broken sobs, they made amends in praise of the Saviour. How great, I ask you, was the rush of people there? What crowd of spectators? What harmony could there be of so great a miracle, where there were weeping girls, a dead brother, and Christ promising that a man would be raised? There came together, I believe, to this spectacle, to be kept in everlasting memory, soldiers, Jews, gentiles, proselytes, most illustrious senators, noble judges, slaves, and almost the whole city ran together eagerly to see whether Lazarus could rise, whose stench was already striking the people from the tomb at a distance. When this was seen, the whole city marvelled. What were you like there, Christ Jesus? How golden, how comely, purer than a spring, whiter than snow, more shining than the sun, brighter in appearance than the moon? Alas, why do I ask, I who did not deserve to see you then? Yet now I have come to know who and how great you are in goodness. Behold, amid this, Jesus Christ the Saviour of the human race is said to have wept. Come, come, Potamius, servant of the living God: if you have any strength, tell at least a little of the Lord's praises. God wept, stirred by the tears of mortals; and while, relying on his own power, he was calling Lazarus back from the bond of death, he performed the duty of compassion by the consolation of tears. God wept, not because he knew that the dead man had perished in his absence, but to temper the sisters' weeping. God wept because the devil, by teaching sin, had made almost all of them exiles, those to whom he had given all things and whom he had brought into power, whom he had even set over paradise, its flowers and lilies, without any labour. God wept because the devil by his malice caused those whom he had made innocent to be found guilty. Alas, slender breath from heaven, you were deserting, as the limbs failed, the body you had ruled. But neither the Father nor the Son ever despised you. For your death Christ himself was made mortal. At their tears and the scattered locks of their pitiable hair, the Saviour, moved with compassion, met weeping with weeping. And because he himself was moved by the sisters' weeping, his Father's fatherhood, amid the very heavens, was bent by the tears of his Son, our Saviour. Soon, then, Jesus Christ came to the tomb of Lazarus. At once, at his command, the stones are rolled back; the secret chamber of horror lies open. The curious eyes of the groaning people were cast eagerly into the cave. Lazarus was seen with his face covered, bound hand and foot; and as a proof of the mighty works the dead man himself, still bound at the feet, was loosing himself with his own hands, as Christ had commanded. What voices were there, I ask you, brothers? What pressing of those who saw? How curious the eyes of those who marvelled? What a crowd hung on the necks of those in front? What weeping? What joys? What murmuring? How new and heavenly a miracle! Death is conquered, the man is restored, the chains of the underworld are broken, and after four days Lazarus's tongue moves, his hands are made ready for their work, his eyes run in their sockets, his footsteps unfold in walking, hearing is renewed in his ears, his gaze is directed at his kin, his kindred are counted by revived looks, cold water is asked for, bread is not refused, home is sought, Christ's miracles are told. ### Scripture references - John 11:1: allusion, high confidence - John 11:11: allusion, high confidence - John 11:17: allusion, high confidence - John 11:32: allusion, high confidence - John 11:35: allusion, high confidence - John 11:38: allusion, high confidence - John 11:39: allusion, high confidence - John 11:44: allusion, high confidence - Gen 2:7: allusion, medium confidence - Gen 3:19: echo, low confidence ### Translation notes - Potamius's Latin is famously contorted; the translation follows it closely and some phrases are obscure. "At the bearing of a will of forty years" is obscure (perhaps that Lazarus died at about forty). "Divorce" (divortium) is used figuratively of the soul's separation from the body. In John 11:44 Christ tells others to loose Lazarus; Potamius has Lazarus loose himself. The scriptural references printed by Migne ("Joan. ii, 24") are his, and partly wrong. ### Citation (SBL) Potamius, Tract. 1 (PL 8; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/potamius-tractatus/1). ## Two Tractates and a Letter 2 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/potamius-tractatus/1/#p-2 - Source: PL 8 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: Potamius describes the martyrdom of Isaiah, sawn in two by order of Belias, and his steadfast endurance. ### Latin text Isaias cum Christum praedicaret, vel cum futurae damnationis elogium israelitico populo nuntiasset, atroci feritate blasphemantium commota barbaries, sectum a capite duabus eum violento supplicio quasi offulis bilidavit, jussitque a capite per aures usque ad scapulas secari cervicem: quasi parum fuerit si immanitate lymphatica martyrem Dei acuto ense transfoderet, aut ipsa lamina insontis viri per jugerum fidiculae saevientis per costas stridente ictu sulcaret; nisi in unum corpus duas offulas gemini pene cadaveris scissae carnis ruptura truculentus appeteret, et duas de aequalitate juncturae quasi formulas exsecaret. Sed in tanto coelesti palestrae miraculo nullus, ut arbitror, spectaculo resultanti, ita videre eum poterit, nisi gesta numerare pertentet. Idcirco sollicitis visibus veteris disciplinae novam de passionibus celebritatem advertite; qualisque illic fuerit martyrii nobilitas, quam praeclara, quam fortis. Cum in capite, hoc est, collectae sensualitatis umbilico serra viam faceret, et stridore reciproco sulcos dentium duceret, labebatur (credo) lamina, dum dentes infigit, et per messem capillamenti crassumque tegminis velamentum, vel callosae glutinum cutis Hebraeas capitis litteras textum verticis mersit. Mox se ut ad cubile cordis concinuamenti nisu sector sollicitus defixisset, fontis fluenta purpurei laxatis venarum lapsibus, ne venas vermiculatim pollice profanus intenderet, croceus se affatim imber infudit, ut tecta gurgite sanguinis venarum pictura non tremeret, neque miraretur, quale esset illud unde victus erubescere cogeretur. Patuerunt quippe internorum viscerum castidici juvenis laqueata commercia, sonus buccinae ferientis. profunda vivacitas et sicca jejunia voluptatum. Sed Belias, filius Erechiae, vir cruentus, et prodigus genealogiae, mathematicus catabolicorum, fatidicorum, et pythonicorum antistes intra loricam sacri pectoris fidei comitium, praedicationis politicae litterarum curiam requirebat. Et licet jam esset membratim corporis divisa possessio, in(??)erna proderet, abdita revelaret, obscura porrigeret, et quale esset illud, unde victus erubescere cogeretur. ut persecutor infamis hominem Dei dentibus dis– cerperet alienis; propheta tamen egregius et illustris inter resupinatos sectores, et pendulos tamdiu immobili inconcussi corporis perduravit statu, quamdiu duo esse inciperent, qui figuras gentium cum suo persecutore damnarent. ### English translation (Claude) When Isaiah was preaching Christ, or had announced to the people of Israel the sentence of future condemnation, the barbarity of the blasphemers, stirred with atrocious ferocity, split him from the head, as it were into two morsels, by a violent punishment, and ordered his neck to be sawn from the head through the ears down to the shoulders: as if it were too little to run God's martyr through with a sharp sword in frenzied savagery, or for the blade itself to furrow the innocent man's ribs with a grating stroke through the frame of the raging rack, unless the savage man sought, by the rending of cut flesh, two morsels of an almost twin corpse in one body, and cut out two shapes, as it were, from the equality of the joining. But in so great a miracle of the heavenly arena no one, I think, will be able to see him thus while the spectacle resounds, unless he tries to recount the deeds. Therefore turn your attentive eyes to the new celebration of the sufferings of the old discipline, and see what the nobility of martyrdom there was, how splendid, how brave. When the saw was making its way in the head, that is, the navel of gathered sensation, and was drawing the furrows of its teeth with its grating to and fro, the blade, I believe, slipped as it fixed its teeth, and through the harvest of hair and the thick covering of the scalp, or the glue of the callous skin, sank into the Hebrew letters of the head, the texture of the crown. Soon, when the careful cutter had fixed himself with continuous effort to reach the couch of the heart, the streams of the purple fountain, the courses of the veins loosed, lest the profane man stretch out the veins like worms with his thumb, a golden shower poured itself out abundantly, so that the painting of the veins, covered by the flood of blood, did not tremble, nor marvel at what that was by which, conquered, it was forced to blush. For there lay open the panelled exchanges of the inner entrails of the chaste-speaking young man, the sound of the striking trumpet, deep liveliness, and dry fastings from pleasures. But Belias, son of Erechia, a bloody man, prodigal of genealogy, an astrologer of the catabolici, high priest of soothsayers and of those with a python spirit, was searching within the breastplate of the sacred breast for the assembly of faith, the senate-house of the letters of public preaching. And though the possession of the body was already divided limb by limb, so that it should betray its inner parts, reveal hidden things, lay open obscure things, and what that was by which, conquered, he was forced to blush, so that the infamous persecutor might tear the man of God with the teeth of others: yet the excellent and illustrious prophet, among the cutters bending back and hanging over him, endured in the unmoved posture of an unshaken body for as long as it took for there to begin to be two who would condemn the figures of the nations together with their persecutor. ### Scripture references - Heb 11:37: allusion, high confidence ### Extrabiblical texts - Ascen. Isa. 5.1 (Ascension of Isaiah): allusion, high confidence ### Translation notes - The tradition that Isaiah was sawn in two (compare Heb 11:37) is told in the Ascension of Isaiah, where his accuser is Belkira (here "Belias, son of Erechia"). The Latin is extremely obscure in places; translated literally. "Catabolici" (literally "those who throw down") are probably demons or those possessed by them. ### Citation (SBL) Potamius, Tract. 2 (PL 8; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/potamius-tractatus/2). ## Two Tractates and a Letter 3 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/potamius-tractatus/1/#p-3 - Source: PL 8 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: Potamius praises Athanasius for condemning the Arian heresy and argues from Scripture for the Son's unity of substance with the Father. ### Latin text Domino Fratri gloriosissimo ac beatissimo Athanasio episcopo Potamius. Tanti carceris fossa crudam illuviem damnabilis officinae coacervatam, ut recte conscribis, exordium et stercoris cruento de foetore cadaverum mortuorum, quae(??)magis manus potuisset igneis virtutibus extricare vel radere, nisi illa tua castis de exsilio capitis coronali perennata titulis exclusisset haeresis sectam anathema maranatha? Arrisisti, inquam, nobis catholica virginitate perfectus, jugulando perfidos, damnando perjuros: corruptas adulterio mentes ambiguas, maledicti pecoris libidinoso commercia veneno damnabiliter sarcinata, unius fidei rumphaea feriente vicisti. Jaceat serpens, et terra quae illum susceperit, purulento veneno nigrescat: jaceat serpens coelesti ictu damnatus, jaceat serpens sanguineo horrore contactus: jaceat serpens eliso luminum sinu, trisulci oris patefacta sentina vomat, defluat: torqueatur culparum auctor, cui parum fuerat, quod protoplastum aeternitate privaverat, nisi et contra Salvatorem hydra virosior prorupisset. Separare voluit Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, quasi verbum Christi posset incidere, substantiae fibula concatenata Trinitatis unitate, ut ait (Joan. x, 30) Ego et Pater unum sumus. Et (Joan. xiv, 9): Qui me videt, videt et Patrem. Et (Ibid., v. 11): Ego in Patre, et Pater in me. Et (Joan. i, 1): In principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat Verbum. Lanio truculentus, parricida desertor, milvinis, ut reor, unguibus; vel dentibus male sanis, si potuisset, tentavit scindere. Et post haec quid opposuero blasphemiis? (Joan. xiv, 28) Qui me misit, inquiunt, major me est. Ex quo genitus est Pater? utique quia Filius confitetur; major ergo quia Pater Filio? ordo praeponitur, non substantia separatur. Quid ad haec dicis, adulter infamis? Bene quod te antiquitas patrum in synodo sanctiori, voluntate viperea impurae virositatis inflata, castis etiam te transfixere missilibus. Nam et hic doceris calumniandi pedicas praetendisse, quod Salvator ait (Joan. vi, 38): Non veni opera mea facere, sed ejus qui misit me. Quid dicis serpens? Numquid in hac luce tenebras infundis simplici huic professioni, quam quaestiunculam putant? Tempus in causa est: Salvator apud homines, quia hominum corpus induerat, videbatur in corpore; ideo dixit: Non veni facere opera mea: hominis in se negavit officia? Clamat ergo, ut illum ordinatorem in se praedicet, quem in se sibi meminit auctorem Patrem; quia Filius sequitur vocabulo, Ita major est ille qui praevenit; sed et mittentis et missi, quia tres unum sunt, de divinitatis unitate una substantia est (Joan., x, 30): Ego et Pater unum sumus. Et (Joan. xiv, 9): qui me videt, videt et Patrem. Et ipse Salvator ad Apostolos: Tanto tempore, inquit, vobiscum sum, et Patrem non nostis? Dicunt etiam quod in libris dominicis substantia numquam videatur esse conscripta. Redde quod involaveras, furacissime tentator: ecce vinceris confutare de substantia; etenim boni clamant sanctorum antiqui greges prophetarum tota praeconia, ut ait; vocem substantiae a volatilibus coeli usque ad pecora expaverunt, et vociferabantur (Exech., XII, 11): Ego dabo Jerusalem in transmigrationem. Ecce cum Christus Deus anteriori de populo minime esset auditus, tabefactis commanentibus, Jerosolymae columnae ceciderunt. Ecce miser, adime licet una Dei sententia sufficere debuit, quod propheta sanctus intonuit (Jer. xxiii, 22): Si stetissent in substantia mea, et audissent sermones meos, et docuissent populum meum, avertissem eos a multis studiis eorum. Ecce hic felix de substantia infelicibus populis prorupit auditus, ut et propheta ex persona Adae Christum requirat in lacrymis (Psal. lxviii, 3): Infixus sum, inquit, in limo profundi, et non est substantia. Scilicet quia necdum Patris substantia apud Christum in carne convenerat. Sicut et ille Evangelista (Luc. xv), cum vastatis rebus luxuriose vivendo perdidit omnem substantiam suam, ut sanctus Dei vates scripsit (Sap. i, 5): Spiritus Dei effugiet fictum. Inde ergo substantiam perdidit, quia per luxuriam sanctitate caruit: si tibi sufficit, dixit; quibus si jam palpitas, plena sunt omnia: si adhuc torqueris, intendo; scriptum legimus (Eccle. ii, 8): Congregavi enim aurum atque argentum et substantiam regum et regionum. Haec est illa substantia, quam propheta meminit dicens (Psal. lxi, 12): Semel locutus est Deus, duo hoec audivi. In una quippe voce duo haec audisse se propheta testatur, ut ait David (Psal. xliv, 2): Lingua mea calamus scriboe. Ut enim calamus denticulorum subdivisa aequalitate ducitur, et radiis consonantibus expeditur; ita Salvator indivisibili connexione cum Patris operibus unitatur. Quod enim pater dixit. Filius exclamavit; et quod Filius locutus est, Pater implevit. Merito, inquit. Semel locutus est Deus, duo hoec audivi. Duae personae unum tulere judicium, ut in decalogo una sententia duplices tabulae conscribuntur. Obmutescat haeresis aeterno silentio praedamnata, divinis ictibus caesa, barathro tartarisque deposita. Sola semper cum laureis suis virgo puerpera, Deo una, nobis columba fecunditate numerosior, usque ad nubes coeli caput coronatum attollat. Sit benedicta cum populis Trinitatis unitate consegregata justissimus; cujus laude plena est, a nunc et in aeterna semper saecula saeculorum beatificet Pater et Filius et Spiritus sanctus. ### English translation (Claude) To his most glorious and most blessed lord and brother Athanasius, bishop, Potamius. The pit of so great a prison, the raw filth of a damnable workshop heaped up, as you rightly write, beginning even from the bloody stench of the dung of dead corpses: what hand could better have disentangled or scraped it away with fiery powers, had not that sentence of yours, made perpetual by the chaste titles of the crown of your head in exile, shut out the sect of heresy, "anathema maranatha"? You have smiled upon us, I say, perfected in catholic virginity, by slaying the faithless and condemning the perjured; minds ambiguous and corrupted by adultery, the dealings of an accursed herd damnably laden with lustful poison, you have conquered with the sword of the one faith striking. Let the serpent lie prostrate, and the earth that received him grow black with purulent poison; let the serpent lie, condemned by a heavenly stroke; let the serpent lie, touched with bloody horror; let the serpent lie, the hollows of his eyes crushed; let the opened bilge of his three-forked mouth vomit and flow away; let the author of guilt be tortured, for whom it had been too little to have deprived the first-formed man of eternity, unless he had also burst forth as a more poisonous hydra against the Saviour. He wished to separate our Lord Jesus Christ, as if he could cut the Word of Christ, chained by the clasp of substance in the unity of the Trinity, as he says: "I and the Father are one." And: "He who sees me sees the Father also." And: "I am in the Father, and the Father in me." And: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The savage butcher, the parricide deserter, tried, I think, with a kite's claws or with unsound teeth, to tear him apart, if he could. And after this, what shall I oppose to their blasphemies? "He who sent me," they say, "is greater than I." Of whom was the Father begotten? Of none; surely the Father is greater because the Son confesses it. Greater, then, because he is Father to the Son? Order is put first; substance is not separated. What do you say to this, infamous adulterer? It is well that the antiquity of the fathers in the holier synod pierced you too with chaste missiles, puffed up as you were with the viperous will of impure poison. For here too you are shown to have stretched out the snares of slander, because the Saviour says: "I did not come to do my own works, but those of him who sent me." What do you say, serpent? Do you pour darkness into this light, onto this simple profession, which they think a little question? Time is the reason: the Saviour among men, because he had put on the body of men, was seen in the body; therefore he said, "I did not come to do my own works." Did he deny in himself the offices of a man? He cries out, then, so as to proclaim as the orderer in himself the one whom he remembers as his author, the Father in himself; because the Son follows in name, so he who goes before is greater. But of the sender and the sent, since the three are one, there is one substance from the unity of the divinity: "I and the Father are one." And: "He who sees me sees the Father also." And the Saviour himself to the apostles: "Have I been with you so long, and you do not know the Father?" They say also that in the Lord's books "substance" is never seen to be written. Give back what you had stolen, most thievish tempter: see, you are conquered and refuted about substance. For the good ancient flocks of the holy prophets proclaim it in all their heraldings, as he says; they dreaded the voice of substance from the birds of heaven down to the cattle, and cried out: "I will give Jerusalem into exile." See, when Christ God was not heard by the former people, the inhabitants wasted away and the pillars of Jerusalem fell. See, wretch, although one sentence of God ought to have sufficed, what the holy prophet thundered: "If they had stood in my substance, and heard my words, and taught my people, I would have turned them from their many pursuits." See, here a happy hearing of "substance" broke out to unhappy peoples, so that the prophet too, in the person of Adam, seeks Christ in tears: "I am stuck," he says, "in the mire of the deep, and there is no substance"; clearly because the substance of the Father had not yet come together with Christ in the flesh. So too in the evangelist, when the prodigal, having wasted his goods by living luxuriously, lost all his substance; as the holy prophet of God wrote: "The Spirit of God will flee the deceitful." He lost his substance, then, because through luxury he lacked holiness. If it is enough for you, he said. If you are already trembling at these things, everything is full; if you are still tormented, I press on: we read it written, "For I gathered gold and silver and the substance of kings and of provinces." This is the substance which the prophet recalls, saying: "God has spoken once; these two things I have heard." For the prophet testifies that he heard these two things in one voice, as David says: "My tongue is the pen of a scribe." For as a pen is drawn with the equal division of its little teeth and runs with strokes in harmony, so the Saviour is united with the Father's works in an indivisible connection. For what the Father said, the Son proclaimed; and what the Son spoke, the Father fulfilled. Rightly, then, he says: "God has spoken once; these two things I have heard." Two persons gave one judgment, as in the Decalogue one sentence is written on two tables. Let heresy fall dumb, condemned beforehand to eternal silence, cut down by divine strokes, cast down into the abyss and Tartarus. Let the virgin mother alone, always with her laurels, one with God, for us a dove more numerous in fruitfulness, raise her crowned head to the clouds of heaven. May she be blessed with the peoples, gathered together in the unity of the Trinity, most just; of whose praise she is full; and from now and for ever, for ages of ages, may the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit bless her. ### Scripture references - 1 Cor 16:22: allusion, high confidence - Gen 3:1: echo, low confidence - John 10:30: quotation, high confidence - John 14:9: quotation, high confidence - John 14:10: quotation, high confidence - John 1:1: quotation, high confidence - John 14:28: quotation, high confidence - John 6:38: quotation, high confidence - Ezek 12:11: allusion, low confidence - Jer 23:22: quotation, high confidence - Ps 69:2 (68:3 LXX): quotation, high confidence - Luke 15:13: allusion, high confidence - Eccl 2:8: quotation, high confidence - Ps 62:11 (61:12 LXX): quotation, high confidence - Ps 45:1 (44:2 LXX): quotation, high confidence - Exod 31:18: allusion, medium confidence - Song 6:9: echo, low confidence ### Extrabiblical texts - Wis 1:5 (Wisdom of Solomon): quotation, high confidence - Conc. Nic. (Creed and Canons of the Council of Nicaea (325)): allusion, low confidence ### Translation notes - The letter belongs to Potamius's Nicene period. The "holier synod" is probably Nicaea (325). Potamius gathers verses containing the Latin word substantia to answer the claim that "substance" is not in Scripture; most are from the Latin versions of the Septuagint (Jer 23:22, ὑπόστασις; Ps 69:2 [68:3 LXX]). The words "Of whom was the Father begotten? Of none" render an obscure passage (Ex quo genitus est Pater?) by sense. The "virgin mother" at the end is probably the church (compare Song 6:9, "my dove"). Migne's reference "Ezech. xii, 11" for "I will give Jerusalem into exile" is uncertain. ### Citation (SBL) Potamius, Tract. 3 (PL 8; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/potamius-tractatus/3).