Episcopal Interactions in the Late Antique West:

Niceta of Remesiana and Ambrose of Milan

Carmen Angela Cvetković, Georg-August University Göttingen,

Göttingen, Germany*

Abstract
This article investigates a possible connection between Ambrose of Milan and his
younger contemporary Niceta of Remesiana, a fourth century bishop from the Roman
province of Illyricum. There is no explicit reference to a relationship between the two
bishops in the extant sources; however, due to Ambrose’s episcopal activity which
extended on several occasions to the province of Illyricum and to his participation in
various councils dealing with matters of Illyrian churches (Sirmium c. 378?, Aquileia 381,
Capua c. 392) they would have had ample opportunity to meet each other. In an attempt
to shed new light on this issue, this article will rely on evidence deriving from their
respective works on faith and the Holy Spirit which present striking similarities, on their
activity as hymn writers, and on evidence from the manuscript tradition which mentions
an Ambrose from Milan as editor of one of Niceta’s works, De Lapsu Virginis.

Modern scholarship discovered the Illyrian bishop Niceta of Remesiana

(c. 334-c. 414) at the turn of the twentieth century when a series of studies by
E. Hümpel,1 G. Morin2 and A.E. Burn3 attributed to this obscure author a whole
corpus of writings based mainly on the ancient testimonies of Paulinus of
Nola,4 Gennadius of Marseille5 and Cassiodorus6 coupled with evidence from
the manuscript tradition. According to Gennadius, Niceta was the author of a

*  Research on this article has been conducted with the help of a generous grant awarded by
the Dorothea Schlözer Programme at Georg‐August University Göttingen.
1
  Ernest Hümpel, Nicetas, Bischof von Remesiana. Eine litterarkritische Studie zur Geschichte
des altkirchlichen Taufsymbols (Bonn, 1895).
2
  Germain Morin, ʻNouvelles recherches sur l’auteur du Te Deumʼ, RBen 11 (1894), 49-77,
337-45.
3
  Andrew E. Burn, Niceta of Remesiana: His Life and Works (Cambridge, 1905).
4
  Sancti Pontii Meropii Paulini Nolani epistulae, ed. G. de Hartel, CSEL ²29 (Wien, 1999);
Sancti Ponti Meropii Paulini Nolani carmina, ed. G. de Hartel, CSEL ²30 (Wien, 1999). Paulinus
mentions Niceta in Epistola 29.14 and he dedicates to him Carmen 17 and partially Carmen 27.
5
  Gennadius, De viris illustribus, 22 in Gennadius Massiliensis. De viris illustribus, ed.
E.C. Richardson, TU 14.1a (Leipzig, 1965).
6
 Cassiodorus, Institutiones, 1.16.3 in Cassiodor. Institutiones divinarum et saecularium litte­
rarum, ed. Wolfgang Bürsgens, FC 39.1 (Freiburg, 2003).

Studia Patristica 000, 1-00.

© Peeters Publishers, 2016.

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 2 C.A. Cvetković

brief work on virginity entitled De lapsu virginis and of a catechetical work of

instructions to candidates for baptism in six books referred to as Instructiones
ad competentes. The six books of Niceta’s major work survived fragmentarily.
Only Book 3, described by Gennadius as De fide unicae maiestatis, and Book 5,
a commentary on the symbol of faith, have been entirely preserved.7 Paulinus
described Niceta as a missionary bishop and as a hymn writer.8 This infor­
mation associated with the fact that a large number of manuscripts of Irish
provenance indicate a certain Niceta as the author of the famous Latin hymn
Te Deum, has been used by Dom G. Morin in order to ascribe the authorship
of this hymn to Niceta rather than to Ambrose who has been traditionally
regarded as the author of this hymn. Also confirming Niceta’s interest in hymn
writing are two brief treatises, De vigiliis and De utilitate hymnorum errone-
ously attributed to Nicetius of Trier (c. 525-c. 566), but which modern scholars
claimed convincingly for Niceta, Ambrose’s contemporary.
A brief glance at Niceta’s literary production reveals a preoccupation for the
investigation of topics strikingly similar to those discussed by his more illustri-
ous fellow bishop, Ambrose of Milan. Like Ambrose, whose dogmatic works
De fide and De Spiritu Sancto discuss the Trinitarian relationships between the
Father and the Son and defend the divinity of the Holy Spirit, Niceta wrote two
brief treatises on exactly the same subjects known today as De ratione fidei and
De Spiritu Sancti potentia, which form the third book of his work Instructiones
ad competentes, referred to by Gennadius as De fide unicae maiestatis. Cassi-
odorus refers to this book only as De fide and testifies that it circulated together
with Ambrose’s works dedicated to the emperor Gratian, namely the treatises
De fide and De Spiritu Sancto.9 Also, similarly to Ambrose who commented
on the symbol of faith in his Explanatio symboli ad initiandos,10 Niceta has
also produced a creedal commentary which corresponds to the fifth book of his
Instructiones ad competentes and which Gennadius names simply De symbolo.
In addition, both Ambrose and Niceta manifested interest in hymn writing and
produced works on virginity.
No doubt due to their treatment of similar topics, some of Niceta’s works
circulated together with those of Ambrose, as Cassiodorus testifies, but also,
on occasion, under Ambrose’s name.11 Hence the question of this study: is the
production of these works in close temporal and geographical proximity simply

  For an exact picture of Niceta’s extant corpus, see A.E. Burn, Niceta (1905), lix-lx.
7

  Paulinus of Nola, Carmen 27.193-99, 243-72 and 500-10.

8
9
  Cassiodorus, Institutiones 1.16.3.
10
  Ambrose’s authorship of the Explanatio symboli ad initiandos has been heavily debated.
The work has been also attributed to Niceta of Remesiana by Klaus Gamber, ‘Geht die Sog.
Explanatio symboli ad initiandos tatsächlich auf Ambrosius zurück?’ Byzantinische Forschungen 2
(1967), 184-203.
11
  This is the case of Niceta’s short treatise De lapsu virginis, see A.E. Burn, Niceta (1905),
cxxi-cxxxvi.

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 Episcopal Interactions in the Late Antique West 3

a sign of the general interest in addressing the topics mentioned above or is it

indicative of some sort of connection between the two contemporary bishops?
And if a connection between Ambrose and Niceta may be established what is
the nature of this connection, e.g. may be Niceta considered as one of the
numerous imitators of the influential bishop of Milan as it has been claimed?12
In order to answer this question, the sources documenting Illyrian and North
Italian ecclesiastical links in the last decades of the fourth century will be first
scrutinized. This will be followed by a close comparative look at some of
Ambrose’s and Niceta’s analogous treatises which may provide further evidence
for a literary connection between the two.
Niceta was a pro-Nicene bishop at a time when pro-Nicene Christianity in
Illyricum still faced strong opposition from active heterodox churches, particu-
larly Homoian. Ambrose’s ecclesiastical interferences in Illyricum on behalf of
the pro-Nicene faction are well documented. While scholars still debate the
reality of the council of Illyricum in 378 which allegedly deposed six Homoian
bishops and Ambrose’s participation in this synod,13 it is nevertheless clear that
around the same time Ambrose supported the election of the pro-Nicene bishop
Anemius on the episcopal throne of Sirmium which had remained vacant after
Germinius’s death.14 At the council of Aquileia in 381 Ambrose succeeded in
having deposed two other prominent Homoian bishops from Illyricum, Pal-
ladius of Ratiaria and Secundianus of Singidunum whose episcopal sees were
located not far from Niceta’s Remesiana. Another council at Capua in c. 392
headed by Ambrose deposed the schismatic Bonosus, the bishop of Naissus and
Niceta’s neighbor bishop on grounds of doctrinal and institutional matters.
Although Ambrose and Niceta would have had ample opportunity to meet
given the close ecclesiastical links between the Illyrian churches and Milan
during Ambrose’s episcopate, there is no trace in the surviving evidence to
point to an encounter between the two. The minutes of the council of Aquileia
do not record Niceta’s name among the participant bishops, of which only a
small number are remembered by name. There is not much information available
about the bishops who met at Capua where even Bonosus seems to have been
condemned in absentia.

12
  Manlio Simonetti, ‘Sul De Spiritu Sancti potentia di Niceta di Remesiana e sulle fonti del
De Spiritu Sancto di S. Ambrogio’, Maia: Rivista di Letterature Classiche 4 (1951), 239-48.
13
  Theodoret of Cyrrhus is the only ancient source that mentions an Illyrian synod that took
place at the time of the emperors Valens, Valentinian and Gratian, see Theodoret, Historia Ecclesi­
astica 4.8-9 in Theodoret: Kirchengeschichte, ed. L. Parmentier, GCS 19 (Leipzig, 1911). As the
documents presented by Theodoret are problematic, modern scholars’ opinion about the existence
of such a synod is hugely divided with some considering it pure fiction, see Neil McLynn,
Ambrose of Milan. Church and Court in a Christian Capital (Berkeley, 1994), 94.
14
  Ambrose’s intervention in Sirmium is documented by Paulinus of Milan, Vita Ambrosii
2.1-2 in Paulino di Milano. Vita di S. Ambroggio: introduzione, testo critico e note ed. M. Pellegrino
(Rome, 1960).

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 4 C.A. Cvetković

While the historical evidence is not helpful in unveiling a relationship

between Ambrose and Niceta, their writings and in particular their treatise on
the Holy Spirit, to which I will turn next, have been already under scholarly
scrutiny in the attempt to establish a connection between the two bishops.
A.E. Burn was the first to observe that ‘it follows the same lines as the work
of S. Ambrose, using many of the same proof texts, and similar arguments, but
is more concise and more closely argued’.15 However, he goes on to conclude
that ‘there is no evidence of literary connection’ between the two works.
M. Simonetti in a more recent article advances a completely different view.
After identifying a number of passages in Niceta’s treatise absolutely identical
with passages from Books 10 and 12 of Pseudo-Athanasius’ De Trinitate, as
well as a number of similarities between Niceta’s and Ambrose treatises on the
Holy Spirit, Simonetti concludes that in his account of the Holy Spirit Niceta
draws extensively on these two sources and that far from being an original
writer he is nothing else than an abile compilatore.16
Indeed Ambrose’s and Niceta’s treatises on the Holy Spirit have much in
common. At the level of structure both treatises develop along the same
sequence: creation, deification, sanctification, judgment, worship. In stressing
the role of the Holy Spirit as creator both Ambrose and Niceta take as starting
point of their discussion John 1:3: Omnia per ipsum facta sunt – the verse used
by their Homoian opponents to deny the divinity of the Holy Spirit. They
develop their argument that the Holy Spirit participates in the divine work of
creation by relying on exactly the same main biblical passages, Ps. 103:30,
Ps. 32:6 and Job 33:4 – Spiritus divinis qui fecit me.17 While the first two
biblical quotations are frequently used in the fourth century debate regarding
the divinity of the Holy Spirit in order to argue that the Holy Spirit creates
together with the Father and the Son,18 it is only Ambrose and Niceta who
quote Job 33:4 in this context.19 Close similarity exists also between the pas-
sages where both Niceta and Ambrose claim that the Holy Spirit gives life
(vivificat) based on Rom. 8:11,20 judges (arguit)21 and speaks through the
prophets (they both invoke the words of the prophet Agabus from Acts 21:11

15
  A.E. Burn, Niceta (1905), lxiv.
16
  M. Simonetti, ‘Sul De Spiritu Sancti potentia’ (1951), 246.
17
  Dydimus the Blind named by Jerome as the main source for Ambrose’s De Spiritu Sancto
does not quote Job when discussing the role of the Holy Spirit in creation. Basil of Caesarea
quotes it in a different context in order to make a point regarding the divine names.
18
  For a list of fourth-century authors who make use of these biblical quotations see, Manlio
Simonetti, La crisi ariana nel IV secolo (Roma, 1975), 489-90.
19
  Niceta, De Spiritu Sancti potentia, 3.2.30 in Niceta von Remesiana: Instructio ad compe­
tentes, ed. Klaus Gamber, TPL 1 (Regensburg, 1964). Compare with Ambrose, De Spiritu Sancto,
2.5.44 in Sancti Ambrosii Opera, pars ix, ed. Otto Faller, CSEL 79 (Wien, 1964).
20
  Niceta, De Spiritu Sancti potentia, 3.2.34 compare with Ambrose, De Spiritu Sancto, 2.4.29-
31.
21
  Niceta, De Spiritu Sancti potentia, 3.3.8 compare with Ambrose, De Spiritu Sancto 3.7.6.

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 Episcopal Interactions in the Late Antique West 5

and quote also Acts 13:2).22 In addition, a number of similar turns of phrase
point out also in the direction of close literary connection between these works,
like the following example where after quoting Col. 1:16, Niceta and Ambrose
continue by asking the same question using a similar grammatical construction:

Niceta, De Spiritu Sancti potentia 3.2.11 Ambrose, De Spiritu Sancto 1.3.50:

Sive sedes, sive dominationes, sive princi­ Sive sedes, inquit, sive dominationes sive
patus, sive potestates: omnia per ipsum et principatus sive potestates, Omnia per
in ipso creata sunt. ipsum et in ipsum create sunt, et ipse est
ante omnes, et omnia in ipso constant.
Numquid inter omnia caelestia et terres­ Numquid ergo hic inter creaturas sanctum
tria etiam Spiritum Sanctum nominavit? spiritum conpraehendit?

Although I was not able to identify identical passages in these texts, the
similarities mentioned above may be considered as indicative of literary connec-
tion as claimed by M. Simonetti. However, in order to establish the direction of
this literary connection, it is necessary to approximate as well as possible the
date not only of Niceta’s and Ambrose’s treatises on the Holy Spirit but also
of the Books 10 and 12 of Pseudo-Athanasius’ De Trinitate. Of all these works
mentioned we may be sure only of the date of Ambrose’s treatise which was
written in 381. There is no scholarly agreement regarding the date for Niceta’s
treatise. Burn considers that it has been written between 370-375,23 Patin claims
that it had been written in the 80s of the fourth century because of some vague
similarities with the Tomus Damasi issued in 382,24 while Klaus Gamber,
Niceta’s German editor, suggest that Niceta’s Instructiones ad competentes
have been composed after 416.25 The attempts to date the Books 10 and 12 of
the De Trinitate vary also widely, from Simonetti who suggests an earlier date
than Ambrose’s treatise produced in 381 to Christian Müller whose guess is the
very end of the fourth century.26
After a comparative look at all these texts it seems to me that Niceta’s text
is the earliest of all mentioned, because his Trinitarian language, albeit deci-
sively pro-Nicene, is nevertheless utterly cautious. He applies the expression
unius substantiae the Latin equivalent for homoousios to the relationship

22
  Niceta, De Spiritu Sancti potentia, 3.3.12-13 compare with Ambrose, De Spiritu Sancto,
2.13.145.
23
  A.E. Burn, Niceta (1905), lxvii.
24
  Wilhelm August Patin, Niceta, Bischof von Remesiana als Schriftsteller und Theologe
(München, 1909), 33-8.
25
  Klaus Gamber, Niceta von Remesiana: Instructio ad competentes (Regensburg, 1964), 6.
26
  M. Simonetti, ‘Sull De Spiritu Sancti potentia’ (1951) 248; Christian Müller, ‘Das Pheno–
män des “lateinischen Athanasius”’, in Annette von Stockhausen und Hanns Christof Brennecke
(eds), Von Arius zum Athanasianum: Studien zur Edition der „Athanasius Werke“ (Berlin, 2010),
3-42, 37.

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 6 C.A. Cvetković

between the Father and the Son,27 but he stops short of describing the Holy
Spirit in such terms, reminding in a way of Basil of Caesarea who did not
described the Holy Spirit as homoousios. Similarly to Athanasius, Niceta does
not refer explicitly to the Holy Spirit as deus. Throughout his works he uses
the terms persona when he refers to the individual persons of the Trinity, to
the Father, the Son and to the Holy Spirit.28 The term substantia is used exclu-
sively when describing the relationship between the Father and the Son,29 how-
ever he does not apply it to the Holy Trinity or to the Holy Spirit. When he
stresses the oneness of the Trinity he uses the terms maiestas,30 operatio and
potentia.31 Based on Niceta’s choice of vocabulary, I am inclined to believe
that his work has been written at an early stage in the evolution of the Trinitar-
ian terminology on Latin ground. When compared to Niceta, the theological
language of the other texts is much less reticent. Ambrose describes the Holy
Spirit as unius substantiae32 with the Father and the Son and even the Tomus
Damasi describes the Holy Spirit as being de divina substantia.33 It seems to
me that Pseudo-Athanasius’ De Trinitate is the latest of all these texts because
it shows an advanced stage in the Trinitarian debate when the terminology of
substantia and persona has been well established. Let us take for instance the
following passage where the Holy Trinity is referred to as una substantia, tres
personae subsistentes, perfectas, aequales, coaeternas.34 Such straightforward
definitions of the Trinity as oneness of substance and trinity of persons cannot
be found in Ambrose nor the Tomus Damasi, not to speak of Niceta. If Niceta
had indeed as Simonetti claimed followed both Ambrose and Pseudo-Athana-
sius, why did he so carefully avoid the use of the expression unius substantiae
in regard with the Holy Spirit, which has been already sanctioned by a creedal
document such as the Tomus Damasi? In my view he did not do so because
his treatise has been written earlier than that of Ambrose and earlier than Tomus
Damasi. Thus, I am inclined to believe like A.E. Burn that it has to be dated
to the seventh decade of the fourth century. If this is the case, then Niceta could
not have followed Ambrose.
Among the passages identified by Simonetti in Niceta’s treatise as reproduc-
ing word by word a paragraph from Book 10 of the De Trinitate there is one

 Niceta, De ratione fidei, 3.1.10-11.

27

 Niceta, De ratione fidei, 3.1.4; Niceta, De Spiritu Sancti potentia, 3.2.1; 3.3.12; Niceta,
28

De symbolo, 5.3.16.
29
 Niceta, De ratione fidei, 3.1.7-11.
30
  Niceta, De Spiritu Sancti potentia, 3.3.23.
31
  Niceta, De Spiritu Sancti potentia, 3.3.21.
32
  Ambrose, De Spiritu Sancto, 1.16.160: Dic sane et tu spiritum sanctum unius cum filio die
et deo patre esse substantiae, unius claritatis et gloriae.
33
  Tomus Damasi 16, in Ecclesiae occidentalis Monumenta iuris antiquissima I/2, ed. Cuthbert
Turner (Oxford, 1913).
34
  Pseudo-Athanasius, De Trinitate 10.1, in Eusebii Vercellensis episcopi quae supersunt,
ed. Vincentius Bulhart, CChr.SL 9 (Turnholt, 1957).

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 Episcopal Interactions in the Late Antique West 7

which briefly summarizes and recapitulates in exactly the same order all the
points discussed by Niceta in his defense of the divinity of the Holy Spirit.35
It does not make any sense to argue that Niceta has borrowed this passage from
somewhere else when it is quite obvious that it follows quite logically Niceta’s
line of argument. Most likely it has been used by later authors because of the
convenient way in which the arguments in favor of the divinity of the Holy
Spirit have been enumerated.
Based on these observations, in my opinion Niceta’s treatises has been writ-
ten first being followed by Ambrose, while the Books 10 and 12 of Pseudo-
Athanasius’ De Trinitate are compilations of a later date (possibly end of 400
as Christian. Müller suggests) which draw on previous Greek but also Latin
pro-Nicene authors, such as Niceta and Ambrose which they quote verbatim.
Similarities between the two authors are not limited to their treatises on the
Holy Spirit, but may be detected also between Niceta’s treatise De ratione fidei
and Ambrose’s first two books of the De fide, especially in the way in which
they refer to the same religious opponents (Sabellius, Photinus and the Arians)
and in the way they interpret a number of biblical passages, in particular John
16:25. This research, however, as well as a comparative investigation of their
works on virginity or of their creedal commentaries remains to be done.
Before reaching a conclusion, it is worth mentioning that the shorter recen-
sion of the letter-treatise De lapsu virginis which attributes the work to Niceta,
contains also a colophon stating that Niceta’s text has been corrected by
Ambrose of Milan when it had been corrupted by unskilled scribes: hanc epis­
tolam sanctus emendavit Ambrosius quia ut ab ipso autore fuerat edita non erat
ita, quoniam ab imperitissimis fuerat viciata. Emendavi Mediolano.36 Although
modern scholars are slightly puzzled by this colophon and reluctant to accept
it as it stands, C.H.Turner has observed that ‘it is impossible to refuse it all
credence’ and that the formula Emendavi Mediolano ‘has all the ring of genu-
ineness’.37 If the colophon were regarded as authentic, this would provide
important information about Ambrose reading directly Niceta. Furthermore, if
Ambrose took the trouble to correct a relatively minor work of Niceta such as
De lapsu virginis, it would be possible to assume that he had made this effort
because the latter’s work was known to him, having come in contact with some
of Niceta’s major treatises, such as De Spiritu Sancto potentiae. Finally, even
if the Ambrose mentioned in this colophon is not the bishop of Milan, this is
still valuable testimony that Niceta’s letter-treatise travelled soon after its com-
position far away from Remesiana all the way to Milan, thus pointing out to
the existence of literary networks that disseminated theological works between
Illyricum and North Italy. In fact, the existence of such Illyrian and North Italian

35
  Pseudo-Athanasius, De Trinitate, 10.28.
36
  A.E. Burn, Niceta (1905), 128.
37
  C.H. Turner, Niceta and Ambrosiaster, JTS 7 (1906), 203-19, 217.

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 8 C.A. Cvetković

literary networks could also explain the interest of ecclesiastical authors from
these regions in addressing similar topics in their works.
In conclusion, although the historical evidence does not offer any solid trace
for a relationship between Ambrose and Niceta, the investigation of their works
reveals close similarities which support the idea that there is literary connection
between these authors. While in their defense of the divinity of the Holy Spirit,
it is Ambrose who most likely follows Niceta, their treatment of similar topics
may also be explained by their active involvement in a North Italian and Illyr-
ian literary ecclesiastical network.

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