A.D. 381 heretics, pagans, and the dawn of the monotheistic state ( PDFDrive )

philosophy, not from scripture. It had been used by pagan writers such as
Plotinus to describe the relationship between the soul and the divine. Even the
most ingenious biblical scholars combing their way through the Old and New
Testaments could find no Christian equivalent. Quite apart from this the word
had actually been condemned by a council of bishops meeting in Antioch in 268
on the grounds that it failed to provide sufficient distinction between Father and
Son, and users of the term risked being associated with a view that had already
been condemned in the third century, Sabellianism. Sabellius, who had taught in
Rome, had argued that Jesus appeared on earth simply as a temporary
manifestation of God. The word ‘substance’ also suggested some kind of
physical material, yet could one talk of God as in any way material?
Furthermore, how had Jesus become distinct from his Father - had there been,
for instance, an original ousios that was somehow split into two? One of the
arguments against the term put by Arius and Eusebius was that if Jesus came
from the same substance as God, then his creation, by detracting from the
‘substance’ of God, must have diminished the deity. Cumulatively these
arguments made it formidably difficult for the homoousion to be accepted in the
wider Church.
It is always hard for historians to recreate the mood of a meeting in which
high drama, the grand surroundings and the sheer unfamiliarity of the occasion
must have swept events along. The emperor issued his own warning of the perils
of continuing disagreement. ‘For to me,’ the emperor told his audience, ‘internal
division in the Church of God is graver than any war or secular battle, and these
things appear to cause more pain than secular affairs.’ This must have had its
own effect in achieving a consensus. One catalyst for the change in mood may
have been a document mentioned in one account of the council as having been
put forward by Eusebius of Nicomedia, the supporter of Arius, which was
considered so blasphemous as to evoke a reaction against its author and his
views. There was now a groundswell of opinion against Arius, and the Nicene
statement specifically condemned some of his beliefs, notably that there had
been a time when Christ had not existed. Arius and two of his closest supporters
were excommunicated by Constantine himself when they refused to sign the
document. Later, Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had refused to endorse the
specific condemnations of Arius, was also banished from his see. While it is
clear that many of the bishops were uneasy about the use of homoousios, a
consensus of sorts appeared to have been achieved. The council ended with the
remaining bishops summoned to a great victory feast by the emperor.