Ticonius, also spelled Tyconius or Tychonius (active 370–390 AD), was a major theologian of 4th-century North African Latin Christianity.[1] He was a Donatist writer whose conception of the City of God influenced St. Augustine of Hippo (who wrote a book on the same topic).
Ticonius subscribed to a milder form of Donatism than Parmenianus, admitting a church outside his own sect and rejecting the rebaptism of Catholics. Parmenianus wrote a letter against him, quoted by Augustine.[2] [3]
He also defended the Nicene doctrine of the homoousios, stating:
The main source on Ticonius is Gennadius:[4]
This gives 379–423 AD as extreme dates of his life.
Ticonius's best known work was his commentary on the Revelation, which, like Origen, he interpreted almost entirely in a spiritual sense. He asserted that the book depicts the spiritual controversy over the kingdom of God. This work is lost, but some essential parts survive as quotes in Augustine, Primasius, Bede,[5] and Beatus of Liébana's Commentary on the Apocalypse.
To outline his general conceptions, he laid down his Seven Rules, quoted and explained by Augustine in De doctrina christiana.[6] Augustine's authority gave them great importance for nearly a thousand years in the West.