Primary source · Latin
Phoebadius of Agen, Against the Arians
Phoebadius of Agen · AD 357–358
What this text is
A country bishop reads the Sirmium manifesto of 357 and writes the West's first point-by-point refusal — before Hilary's greater work, with Tertullian's old weapons. Jerome knew more of his books; only this one survived.
Profile of Phoebadius of Agen →
Public-domain translations
Working translation (from the Latin, CCSL 64)
[The tract dismantles the Sirmium formula clause by clause: to forbid the word 'substance' is to smuggle in the thing it denies.]
Manuscript witnesses
Medieval Latin tradition (long printed among Ambrose's works)
9th c. onwardAnother borrowed-name survival, sorted out by the moderns.
CCSL 64 (Demeulenaere)
1985The standard text.
Provenance
Gaul; the first Gallic answer to the 'Blasphemy' of Sirmium
Editions & scholarship
Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.
- Foebadius: Contra Arianos (CCSL 64)R. Demeulenaere (ed.), 1985Critical edition.
- Hilary of Poitiers and the Gallic resistance (in) The Search for the Christian Doctrine of GodR. P. C. Hanson, 1988Sets Phoebadius in the 357–360 crisis, party by party.