Ticonius

(Also TYCONIUS, TYCHONIUS, etc.)

An African Donatist writer of the fourth century who appears to have had some influence on St. Augustine. He defended a milder form of Donatism than Parmenianus. He admitted a church outside his own sect and rejected the re-baptism of Catholics. Parmenianus wrote a letter against him, quoted by St. Augustine (Contra ep. Parmeniani, I, i; P.L., XVIII, 33). Otherwise almost all we know of him is contained in Gennadius (De vir illustr., XVIII):

This gives us 379-423 as extreme dates. Ticonius's best known work is the "Seven rules of interpretation" (for the Bible). They are quoted and explained by St. Augustine in "De doctrina christiana" (III, 30-37; P.L., XXIV, 81-90) and his authority gave them great importance for many centuries in the West. St. Bede too quotes them (Explanatio apocalpsis; P.L., XCIII, 130-132). Ticonius's "Commentary on the Apocalypse" (Bede, op. cit., 132-134) is now lost. It was extant in the library of St. Gallen in the ninth century (No. 242; cf. G. Becker, "Catalogi biblioth. antiqui.", Bonn, 1885, p. 48) and is used by Primasius of Hadrumetum (P.L., LXVIII, 793-936), Ambrose Autpert (Bibl. Max., XIII, 403-657), and others. The "Commentary" ascribed to St. Augustine (P.L., XXXV, 2415-52) is believed to be a modified version of Ticonius. St. Augustine reproaches Ticonius with an anticipation of Pelagian ideas (De doctr. Christ., III, 33).

BURKITT, The Book of Rules of Ticonius (Cambridge, 1894); P.L., XVIII, 15-66; SCHANZ, Gesch. der rom. Litt., IV (Munich, 1904), 350-53; HAUSLEITER, Die Kommentare des Victorinus. Ticonius u. Hieronymus zur Apokalypse in Ztschr. fur kirchl. Wissenschaft u. Leben (1886), 239-57; HAHN, Tyconius-Studien (Leipzig, 1900); TILLEMONT, Memoires pour servir, etc., VI, 145-50; FESSLER-JUNGMANN, Institutiones Patrologiae, II (Innsbruck, 1892), A, 355.

ADRIAN FORTESCUE