Audentius () was

bishop A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...

of Toledo (

Hispania Hispania was the Ancient Rome, Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula. Under the Roman Republic, Hispania was divided into two Roman province, provinces: Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior. During the Principate, Hispania Ulterior was divide ...

), according to tradition in the years 385-395 AD. In the ''

Catholic Encyclopedia ''The'' ''Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church'', also referred to as the ''Old Catholic Encyclopedia'' and the ''Original Catholic Encyclopedi ...

'' (1912), the Count of Cedillo places his episcopate around the year 376. In the 17th century,

William Cave William Cave (30 December 1637 – 4 August 1713) was an English Anglicanism#Anglican divines, divine and Patristics, patristic scholar. Life Cave was born at Pickwell, Leicestershire, of which parish his father, John Cave was Vicar (Anglicani ...

supposed him to have lived about 260 AD. The historian

Gennadius of Massilia Gennadius of Massilia (died c. 496), also known as Gennadius Scholasticus or Gennadius Massiliensis, was a 5th-century Christian priest, monk, and historian. His best-known work is ''De Viris Illustribus'' ("Of Famous Men"), a biography of over 9 ...

mentions in ''De viris illustribus'' (ch. 14 ; ca. 480 AD) that a certain Audentius wrote the book ''De fide adversus haereticos'', in which he wrote against the

Manichaeans Manichaeism (; in ; ) is an endangered former major world religion currently only practiced in China around Cao'an,R. van den Broek, Wouter J. Hanegraaff ''Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times''. SUNY Press, 1998 p. 37 found ...

, the

Sabellians Sabellians is a collective ethnonym for a group of Italic peoples or tribes inhabiting central and southern Italy at the time of the rise of Rome. The name was first applied by Niebuhr and encompassed the Sabines, Marsi, Marrucini and Vest ...

, the

Arians Arianism (, ) is a Christological doctrine which rejects the traditional notion of the Trinity and considers Jesus to be a creation of God, and therefore distinct from God. It is named after its major proponent, Arius (). It is considered h ...

, and, with especial energy, against the Photinians. Audentius's object was to show that the second person in the Trinity is co-eternal with the Father. The book has been lost. In the book ''De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis'' (1494),

abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the head of an independent monastery for men in various Western Christian traditions. The name is derived from ''abba'', the Aramaic form of the Hebrew ''ab'', and means "father". The female equivale ...

Johannes Trithemius Johannes Trithemius (; 1 February 1462 – 13 December 1516), born Johann Heidenberg, was a German Benedictine abbot and a polymath who was active in the German Renaissance as a Lexicography, lexicographer, chronicler, Cryptography, cryptograph ...

styles this Audentius as "''vir in divinis scripturis exercitatum habens ingenium''." In the ''

'' (1912), the Count of Cedillo considers both Audentius's to be the same person.

References

Archidiócesis de Toledo: Los Arzobispos de Toledo
(in Spanish).

(in Spanish). * William Smith, ''

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology The ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'' is a biographical dictionary of classical antiquity, edited by William Smith (lexicographer), William Smith and originally published in London by John Taylor (English publisher), Tayl ...

'', vol. I, p. 418. — Boston, Little, Brown & co., 1870. . *

, 1912
Toledo
Archbishops of Toledo 4th-century archbishops 4th-century writers in Latin {{EarlyChurch-bishop-stub