age. The arguments which they employ to demon- strate this last position are founded upon the second title of the Epistola ml Athanasium as given above, but this title Galland, Schonemann, and others hold to be the blunder of an ignorant transcriber. The S will he found in Galland, and the discussions with re- gard to the real author in the Prolegomena to the vol- ume, eh. x. p. xviL— Smith, Diet, of Gr. and Myihol. s. v. See [Jeberweg, Hist, of Philosophy, voL i; Hefele, Conciliengesch. vol. i.
Potamo (Jlordfiwv), a Greek philosopher of the Alexandrian school, lived in the 3d century of the Chris- tian sera, and was a native of Alexandria. According to Suidas. under A'iotmc and Worajuor. lie was a con- temporary of the emperor Augustus; hut Porphyry, in his life of Plotinus, slates positively that Plotinus de- lighted in listening to Potamo's exposition of a new philosophy, of which he was laying the foundations. What was the purport of this new philosophy? It was developed in two treatises, one of which w as a commen- tary on Plato's Timasus, the other a treatise on the first principles. 2roiX€iw(ri£. Both works are lost ; hut
si ithing is known of the second by a passage of Di-
ogeni - Laertius in the introduction to his book On t}„- Lift mill Doctrines of Illustrious Philosophers. "Of late." says the biographer, "an eclectic school. tK\tK-t- Kf) nc diptaiQ, was founded by Potamo of Alexandria, which makes a choice among the doctrines of all sects. Two tilings, so he explains in his Treatise •»< the First Principles (2roix«wffic), are required to discern the truth: that which judges, reason in'i qyc/toviKUl I, and that by the means of which we judge, i. e. the accurate representation of the objects of our judgments. As to the principles of things, lie recognises four of them — matter, quality, action, and place (tiiv ti vknv, Kal to -on r. Koinaiv re, mi 7. irov) ; in other words, out of what, and by whom. how. and where a thing is done (tt, oil yap, Kai i'<j> or. K<ii -wc, Krti iv <;j). The aim towards which everything should tend, according to him, is a life perfect in virtues, without discarding, how- ever, the good of the body, nor general material inter- ests." It follows from this passage of Diogenes Laertius, combined with the testimony of Porphyry, 1st. that Potamo was the founder ofthe eclectic school ,-it Rome; 2d, that he combined the doctrines of Plato with the Stoical and Aristotelian, and was not without original views of his own: 3d, that in ethics he attempted " kind of conciliation of Stoicism and Epicurism.— Hoe- fer. Hut Potamo had no followers in his peculiar com- binations. They were supplanted by the school that endeavored to engraft Christianity upon the older sys- tem of philosophy. See Porphyry, Vita Plotini, e. g. in Fabricius, Bibl. Grcec. ii. 109; Diogenes Laertius, I'm, in,, i 21; hut especially Brucker, Uistoria <'/iti<-<r Philosophies, ii. 193 sip; Glockner. /'< Potamonis Alex. Philosophia Eclectica, recentiorum Platonicorvm J'isii- plina admodum <!i.<.--iini/i, Ditput. (Leips. 17 1.'.. liin.au abstract of which is in Fabricius, iii. 184 sip For the statement that there were two or three Potamos there is no ground. See the examination of this point in Smith, Diet, ofGr. mid Rom, Biog. ii, 513.
Potent, Cross, in heraldry, a cross crutch-shaped at each extremity. It is also called a Jerusalem cross, from its occur- rence in the insignia of the < 'hris- tian kingdom of Jerusalem, which are. Argent a cross potent between four crosslets or. This coat is re- markable as being a departure from the usual heraldic rule which pro- hibits the placing of metal upon metal. Chambers.
Potential is opposed to actual. This antithesis is
a fundamental doctrine ofthe Peripatetic philosophy.
•■Aristotle saith that divided they | i. e. bodies) he in infinitum potentially, but actually not" (Holland's Plu-
1'oUllt.
POTHIER
449
POTIPHERAH
tarch, p. 667). "Anaximander's infinite was nothing else but an infinite chaos of matter, in which were either actually or potentially contained all manner of qualities" (see Cudworth, Intellectual System, i, 128).
Pothier, Rkmi, a French theologian, was born at Rheims in 1727. After entering the service of the Church he was successively curate of Betheniville and canon of Laon. At the outbreak of the Revolution he retired to Belgium. After his return to his native country he did not again discharge any sacerdotal functions. He en- tertained original and often strangely bold opinions, and his obstinate character and polemical mania made him the terror of all who approached him. He was con- vinced that no one before him had made out the true meaning of the Bible ; he undertook to make it known to the world, and started with his alleged Explication de V Apocalypse, the plan of which, published in 1773, was burned by order of the Parliament of Paris at the requisition of the advocate-general Se'guier, who pro- nounced it a masterpiece of human extravagance. Nev- ertheless Pothier had his work clandestinely printed in extenso (Douai, 1773, 2 vols. 8vo); he translated it into Latin (Augsburg, 1797, 2 vols., and 1798, 12mo), and published an extract of it, with the title Les Trois Derni'eres Plaies—The Three Last Plagues (1798, 12mo), in which he calls Bonaparte the precursor of the Anti- christ. In 1802 he published in Latin an Explanation of the Psalms of David (Augsburg, 8vo). Under the empire two of his pamphlets against the four articles of the Gallican Church were confiscated by the police. Pothier died at Rheims June 23, 1812.— Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generate, s. v.