A Note on the term Homoousios

A Note on the Term Homoioousios by Timothy Barnes

All who study the theological controversies of the fourth century are familiar with Edward Gibbon’s jibe that ‘the profane of every age have derided the furious contests which the difference of a single diphthong excited between the Homoousians and the Homoiousians’, because it was impossible to ‘mark any real and sensible distinction’ between the two ecclesiastical parties1. More than two centuries after Gibbon, however, no serious historian (not even one with extremely ‘profane’ opinions) would seek to deny that there were serious and substantive differences of view in the theological debates of the middle of the fourth century, and in 1900 the so-called homoiousians received a detailed and sympathetic portrayal from the Finnish scholar Jaako Gummerus, who published a monograph on ‘the homoiousian party’ down to the death of Constantius2. But the modern term ‘homoiousian’ is far more problematical than has usually been realised. At the purely linguistic level, analogy with ÐmooÚsioj, on the pattern of which the newly invented word was undoubtedly formed, indicates that the original Greek spelling of the neologism must have been ÐmoiooÚsioj (with double omicron), while the manuscripts of the Contra Constantium of Hilary of Poitiers reflect an original Latin transliteration as omoeousios in six syllables3. But more than language and pedantry are involved in the fact that the adjective ‘homoi(o)ousian’ is a modern coinage, no matter how it is spelled. Although some Greek-speaking and Latin-

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E. Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 2, London 1781, Chapter 21 (1.787 Womersley = 2.373 Bury). J. Gummerus, Die homöusianische Partei bis zum Tode des Konstantius. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des arianischen Streites in den Jahren 356-361, Helsinki 1900. More recently, see W.A. Löhr, Die Entstehung der homöischen und homöusianischen Kirchenparteien – Studien zur Synodalgeschichte des 4. Jahrhunderts, Bonn 1986; id., A Sense of Tradition. The homoiousian Church Party, in: Arianism after Arius. Essays on the Development of the Fourth Century Trinitarian Conflicts, ed. by M.R. Barnes/D.H. Williams, Edinburgh 1993, 81-100. M. Durst, Die Epistula de synodis des Hilarius von Poitiers. Probleme der Textkonstitution, in: Textsorten und Textkritik. Tagungsbeiträge, ed. by A. Primmer/K. Smolak/D. Weber, Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Wien, Philosophisch-historische Klasse 693, Wien 2002, (59-87) 84f. In his edition of Athanasius, syn., in which the word occurs twelve times, H.-G. Opitz consistently printed the Greek original as ÐmoiooÚsioj (Athanasius Werke 2, Leipzig/Berlin 1935-1941, 231-278).

ZAC, vol. 10, pp. 276-285 © Walter de Gruyter 2007

DOI 10.1515/ZAC.2006.020

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speaking opponents of the Nicene formula in the 370s coined the terms Ðmoousiasta… and homousiani to describe the orthodox (Basilius, Epistulae 226,3; 244,7; Scholia Arriana in concilium Aquileiense 28 [CChr.SL 87,161 Gryson])4, no ancient upholder of orthodoxy appears ever to have coined the corresponding word for those whom modern students of the fourth century call ‘homoi(o)ousians’. Moreover, as Maurice Wiles acutely noted, ‘there is no extant example of the use of the word homoi(o)ousios by the homoi(o)ousians themselves’ to express the relationship between God the Son and God the Father5. On general and sociological grounds, therefore, it seems doubtful whether there ever was such an entity as ‘the homoi(o)ousian party’ at all. Moreover, the term homoioousios itself was current in live theological controversy for an extremely short period. The purpose of the present note is to expand upon a suggestion published some years ago to the effect that the term homoioousios was invented in the late spring or summer of 3586, not two or three years earlier in 355 or 356, as still tends to be asserted or assumed7, and to develop the historical implications of this lexical observation. Perhaps because the proposal was advanced as a mere suspicion in two endnotes of a book whose main subject was more historical than theological, it has rarely, if ever, been evaluated in print by any student of the Fathers or historian of Christian doctrine, and recent accounts and analyses of the theological controversies of the 350s pass it over in silence8. Yet the passage of time and recent reflections on the historical background of Hilary’s De Synodis leave me more convinced than I was in 1993 that my intuition was correct9. The word homoioousios is nowhere attested before the late 350s10, and from the fact that it is not attested earlier it is an obvious and ineluctable 4

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G.W.H. Lampe, Patristic Greek Lexicon, Oxford 1968, 958; A. Rehm, ThTLL 6.3, 1942, 2891, referring forward to his entry homousianus in the Onomasticon which has still not been published. M. Wiles, Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries, Oxford 1996, 29 n. 8. T.D. Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius. Theology and Politics in the Constantinian Empire, Cambridge Mass. 1993, 281 n. 26.282 n. 32. As in the appendix ‘The Communion(s) of Liberius, Meletius and the Homoiousians’ in L.L. Field, On the Communion of Damasus and Meletius. Fourth-Century Synodal Formulae in the Codex Veronensis LX, Studies and Texts 145, Toronto 2004, 224-248. No mention, for example, in their quotations of the relevant passage by either H. Chadwick, The Church in Ancient Society. From Galilee to Gregory the Great, Oxford 2001, 271, or L. Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy. An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology, Oxford 2004, 137f. Before composing the present note I read J.H. Steenson, Basil of Ancyra and the Course of Nicene Orthodoxy, diss. Oxford 1983, from which I learned much. It is my fixed policy, however, not to cite specific passages in unpublished doctoral theses either for praise or criticism, and it is for this reason that I make no reference either to F. Dinsen, Homoousios. Die Geschichte des Begriffs bis zum Konzil von Konstantinopel (381), diss. Kiel 1976. The fact that Philost., h.e. I 9, uses it in his account of the Council of Nicaea in 325 is not valid evidence for fourth century usage at all, even though the passage is cited as the earliest attestation in Lampe, Lexicon (see note 4), 955, s. v. ÐmoioÚsioj.

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inference, disputed by no serious scholar, that it was invented during that decade. Can the date be determined more precisely? The foundation document of the theory that the Son was of similar essence to the Father is the letter composed by Basil of Ancyra and endorsed by the council of bishops over which he presided at Ancyra in Galatia shortly before Easter 358: this letter argues for this view of the relationship of Father and Son at some length, but it never uses the word homoioousios (Epiphanius, Panarion seu adversus lxxx haereses 73,2-11). From this otherwise rather surprising omission, it would normally be deduced that the word had not yet been invented when the Council of Ancyra met in the spring of 358. But this apparently natural inference encounters an obvious obstacle in that the word homoioousios occurs in the transmitted text of a document datable to the summer or early autumn of 357. This is the theological manifesto drawn up in Latin in Sirmium by the bishops Ossius and Potamius in the presence of Ursacius, Valens and Germinius several months before the Council of Ancyra (CPG 8578)11. This document, which is not formally a creed and is not described as a creed by the earliest witnesses, but a theological manifesto12, forbade the use of the concept represented by the Latin word substantia and the Greek word ousia in any creed on the grounds that it was unbiblical and led to confusion. As quoted by both Hilary, who was writing in the last months of 358 (De synodis 11)13, and Athanasius a year later (De synodis 28,2-12), the ‘blasphemy of Sirmium’ contains the following passage: Quod vero quosdam aut multos movebat de substantia, quae Graece usia appellatur, id est (ut expressius intelligatur), homousion, aut quod dicitur homoe(o)usion, nullam omnino fieri mentionem; nec quemquam praedicare ea de causa et ratione quod nec in divinis scripturis contineatur, et quod super hominis scientiam sit, nec quisquam possit nativitatem filii enarrare, de quo scriptum est, generationem eius quis enarrabit? (PL 10,488 reprinted from the Maurist edition by P. Coustant, Paris 1693) ™peid¾ d{ polloÚj tinaj kine‹ perˆ tÁj legomšnhj `Rwmaistˆ m{n “soubstant…aj”, `Ellhnistˆ d{ legomšnhj “oÙs…aj”, toutšstin †na ¢kribšsteron gnwsqÍ tÕ ÐmooÚsion À tÕ legÒmenon ÐmoiooÚsion, oÙ cr» tina toÚtwn pantelîj mn»mhn g…nesqai oÙd{ perˆ toÚtwn ™xhge‹sqai ™n tÍ ™kklhs…v di¦ taÚthn t¾n a„t…an kaˆ di¦ toàton tÕn logismÒn, Óti ™n ta‹j qe…aij grafa‹j oÙ gšgraptai perˆ toÚtwn, kaˆ Óti taàta Øp{r t¾n ¢nqrèpwn gnîsin kaˆ tÕn ¢nqrèpwn noàn ™sti, kaˆ Óti oÙdeˆj dÚnatai t¾n gene¦n toà uƒoà dihg»sasqai, kaqëj gšgraptai: “t¾n gene¦n aÙtoà t…j dihg»setai”; (De synodis 28,6 [257,2-10 O.]) But inasmuch as some or many were troubled about substance (substantia), which in Greek is called ousia, that is to make it more explicit, homoousion 11

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A. Hahn/G.L. Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole und Glaubensregeln der alten Kirche, 3. Aufl. Breslau 1897, 200 no. 161. Barnes, Athanasius (see note 6), 116.232. On the date of composition, see T.D. Barnes, ‘Hilary of Poitiers on his Exile’, VigChr 46, 1992, (129-140) 140 n. 33.

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or the term homoioousion, there ought to be no mention at all and noone should preach for the reason and ground that it is not contained in holy scripture, and because it is beyond the knowledge of man and no-one can explain the nativity of the Son, of whom it is written ‘Who will explain his generation? (Isa 53,8)14.

Were the clauses ‘id est (ut expressius intelligatur), homousion, aut quod dicitur homoe(o)usion’ in the original document drawn up in Sirmium? At first sight, it seems obvious that they must have been: although some manuscripts of Hilary omit the words aut quod dicitur homoe(o)usion and others the words homousion, aut quod dicitur, these omissions are due to haplography in derivative manuscripts15, so that there is no reason to doubt that the whole clause stood in the document as quoted by both Hilary and Athanasius. On the other side stand only a priori considerations, but they are powerful ones. Would those who drew up and circulated the document have proclaimed so deliberately and explicitly that their aim was to set aside the creed of Nicaea once and for all? That was indeed their intent, and it was the realization that this was their purpose which produced an immediate outcry against their ‘blasphemy’. But they surely saw that it was politically unwise for them to say so explicitly until they had obtained acceptance of their central proposition that the term substantia (the grammatical subject of contineatur) was unscriptural and the cause of needless controversy. Better to leave others to draw the necessary inference for themselves. Hence it was, I suggest, those who rejected the document and argued against it who added the explanatory glosses for polemical purposes in order to make its true purpose obvious to all. The Contra Arrianos of Foebadius, the bishop of Agen in Gaul, may confirm this hypothesis. Foebadius was completely unaware of the Council of Ancyra when he composed his furious and polemical tract, which is directed specifically and solely against the ‘blasphemy of Sirmium’ (PL 20,1330 = CChr.SL 65,23-52). Its opening sentence indicates that Foebadius was writing in immediate reaction to reading the manifesto: Nisi illam zabolicae subtilitatis fraudem viderem, quae omnium fere sensibus occupatis, et haeresim persuadet ut fidem rectam et fidem rectam damnat ut haeresim, nullum omnino super his, quae nuper ad nos scripta venerunt, sermonem haberem, fratres carissimi. Did I not see that deceit of diabolical cleverness which, seizing the senses of almost everyone, both advocates heresy as true faith and condemns true faith as heresy, I would not now be speaking at all, dearest brothers, about those writings which have recently reached us. 14

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I translate Hilary’s version; my translation is based on that of J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 3. ed. London 1972, 285f., but I have changed Kelly’s plural verbs to the singular where the Latin has the latter. I am most grateful to Professor Michael Durst both for information about the manuscripts of Hilary and for sending me a preliminary copy of the relevant page from the edition which he is preparing for CSEL.

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The writings (the plural scripta requires explanation) which have recently reached Foebadius are presumably the Sirmian manifesto itself and an accompanying letter explaining its purpose and requesting the Gallic bishops to subscribe their names. Hence Foebadius, as P. Smulders saw clearly, must be writing very soon after the manifesto was drawn up and at a date which almost certainly falls before the end of the calendar year 35716. Foebadius complains that the word ‘substance has been prohibited in order to divide the Son from the Father’ (Contra Arianos 2,2: nomen vero substantiae idcirco penitus eiuratur ut scindatur a Patre Filius) and that an edict that no-one should ‘speak of one substance’ has been issued by bishops (6,2); he names Ursacius, Valens and Potamius (3,2); he complains that Ursacius, Valens and Potamius are attempting to shelter behind the authority of Ossius despite the latter’s forthright condemnation of the Arians at Nicaea and Serdica (28,1); and he quotes many passages from the ‘blasphemy’ in order to refute it. Nowhere, however, does Foebadius use the terms homoousios or homoioousios from one end of his tract to the other. In itself of course, the absence of these two terms from Foebadius’ tract does not prove that they were absent from the version of the ‘blasphemy’ which he had read in 357, but he might have been expected to mention that fact that it forbade them – if indeed it did so. In the spring of 358 a small delegation of bishops went from Ancyra to the imperial court at Sirmium, where the emperor Constantius spent the winters of both 357/358 and 358/359, and from where he conducted an invasion of the territory of the Sarmatae Limigantes north of the Danube in the spring of 35817. Hilary names Basil of Ancyra, Eleusius of Cyzicus and Eusthathius of Sebasteia as members of the delegation who came from Ancyra (De synodis 90: nihil quidem in his quae vos, de Orientalium quorundam18 assensu, susceptae legationis ministri subscribenda Sirmium 16

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P. Smulders, Hilary of Poitiers’ Preface to his Opus Historicum. Translation and Commentary, SVigChr 29, Leiden/New York/Köln 1995, 17. Foebadius appears to have borrowed turns of phrase from Hilary’s work Adversus Valentem et Ursacium, which is now extant only in a fragmentary form (CSEL 65, 39-193 Feder): see the passages noted by R. Demeulenaere, CChr.SL 64, 23-52.424-425, and discussed by Smulders, Hilary (see above), 132-140. But that proves nothing about the date at which Foebadius was writing, only that the first book of Hilary’s work was published in 356 (ib. 18), perhaps after Hilary had composed it to use in his own defence at the Council of Baeterrae in the spring of 356 (for the date, see Barnes, Athanasius [see note 6], 227.317 n. 59). The discussion of the date and setting of Foebadius’ tract by J. Ulrich, Phoebadius. Contra Arianos/Streitschrift gegen die Arianer, FChr 38, Freiburg etc. 1999, 50-59, is unfortunately vitiated both by ignorance of Smulders’ monograph of 1995 and by some serious errors. See Barnes, Athanasius (see note 6), 222f. Constantius had returned to Sirmium by 21 June, where he remained until at least 23 June, and he was in Mursa on 27 June (Cod. Theod. 12,1,44f.; 8,13,4; 11,36,13; 12,1,46), but his movements during the summer of 358 are not otherwise attested. A palpable allusion to the small number of bishops who attended the Council of Ancyra: Epiph., haer. 73,12, lists precisely twelve signatories.

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detulistis, nihil suspicionis relictum est), though the possibility cannot be ruled out completely that the delegation also included other bishops. What happened in Sirmium? Clearly there were intense theological discussions between the eastern bishops who had come from the Council of Ancyra with a new, or at least newly formulated, theological definition and the three Illyrian bishops Ursacius of Singidunum, Valens of Mursa and Germinius of Sirmium and any others in attendance at the imperial court. Was a formal council held? A postulated ‘fourth council of Sirmium’ in 358 played a significant, sometimes very prominent, role in twentieth century accounts of the theological debates and ecclesiastical politics leading up to the double Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia in 35919, and this alleged ‘fourth council of Sirmium’ has been credited with a lost credal statement which earns an entry in a recent standard handbook of patristic texts and documents (CPG 8580). But the only explicit evidence that a formal council was held is a confused passage in the Ecclesiastical History of Sozomenus which appears to be Sozomenus’ own imaginative reconstruction and not based on documentary evidence (Historia ecclesiastica IV 15)20. Pierre Coustant saw the truth in the seventeenth century: the notes to his edition of Hilary’s De Synodis dispense with the non-existent council and explain that a delegation took the synodical letter of the Council of Ancyra to Sirmium, where they encountered opposition, and that they then published or circulated a revised version of the original letter with seven of its original anathemas removed (n. 1-5.18f.)21. Soon after its invention, the term homoioousios was used freely not only in Latin transliteration by Hilary writing in exile in Asia Minor (De synodis 10.77.79.81.87-89.91), but also by the recently converted grammarian Marius Victorinus in Rome, who composed an interlinked series of works attacking Arius and ‘Arianism’ which included a long argument that the term was illogical and impossible (Adversus Arium I 23-32). From explicit statements in their texts and from similarities in the material which they deploy it may be deduced that both writers had before them a dos19

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To cite just two recent examples: H.C. Brennecke, Hilarius von Poitiers und die Bischofsopposition gegen Konstantius II. Untersuchungen zur dritten Phase des arianischen Streites (337-361), PTS 26, Berlin/New York 1984, 274-276.340-345.348-350; R.P.C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God. The Arian Controversy 318-381, Edinburgh 1988, 357-362. On the other hand, the council is silently discarded by U. Heil, Athanasius von Alexandrien. De Sententia Dionysii, PTS 52, Berlin/New York 1999, 28: “Eine Delegation aus Ankyra zu Konstantius nach Sirmium gewinnt den Kaiser zunächst für die Absichten des Basilios.” See Barnes, Athanasius (see note 6), 232. Sozomenus places the council before the release of Liberius, the exiled bishop of Rome, who returned to Rome in August 357; for proof that the date was 357 rather than 358, see T.D. Barnes, The Capitulation of Liberius and Hilary of Poitiers, Phoenix 46, 1992, 256-265. See especially the notes reprinted as PL 10,489-490 (h). (i). 541-542 (i): Hilary knew only the twelve anathemas that he quotes and discusses (syn. 27: percucurrimus, carissimi fratres, omnes Orientalium episcoporum editas fidei definitiones, quas adversum emergentem proxime haeresim, congregata intra se synodo condiderunt).

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sier compiled in Sirmium and circulated in a Latin translation (Hilary, De synodis 9). Its contents can plausibly be reconstructed as follows22: (1) An introductory letter composed by Basil of Ancyra explaining the purpose of the dossier; (2) a modified version of the anathemas of the Council of Ancyra, i.e., the twelve out of the original nineteen anathemas which were quoted and discussed by Hilary in his De Synodis (12-27); (3) the creed of the ‘Dedication Council’ which met in Antioch in 341; (4) the creed adopted at the Council of Sirmium in 351 and its anathemas; (5) a letter justifying the theology set out at the Council of Ancyra written by Basil of Ancyra in his own name and that of other eastern bishops composed for use during the intense theological debates among the bishops present in Sirmium during the summer of 358. In the closing section of his De Synodis, which is addressed to eastern bishops (77: reliquus mihi sermo ad sanctos viros Orientales episcopos dirigendus est; 80: sanctissimi viri), Hilary describes the last document as epistulam quam a vobis de homousii et de homoe(o)usii expositione apud Sirmium Valens et Ursacius et Germinius poposcerunt legi (De synodis 81).

Although it might not be legitimate to deduce from what Hilary says that Basil himself actually used the term homoioousios, Hilary’s implication that Basil justified the concept is confirmed by Marius Victorinus, who, in several passages of his Adversus Arium, refers to an opponent in the second person singular who has very recently advocated in writing the false theory that the Son is of like essence to the Father (I 28,9-12; 28,32: tu autem scribis ista et dicis etc.; 29,1-1023; 29,34f.; 30,4f.: dicis etc.; 32,1-3: ut dicis). In one of these passages, Victorinus complains of his adversary substantiam deum esse et tu fateris; Ðmoi(o)oÚsion enim dicis et patrem et filium (29, 34f.).

Is Victorinus quoting Basil verbatim? Again, it is impossible to be completely certain. Yet it is clear from Hilary and Victorinus that the word homoioousios had been invented before Hilary wrote and that it was already being used in Sirmium during the summer of 358, either by Basil 22

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This is essentially the reconstruction offered by P. Hadot, in his introduction to P. Henry/ P. Hadot, Marius Victorinus. Traités théologiques sur la Trinité 1, SC 68, Paris 1960, 33.36 (where Hadot acknowledges that he owes the idea to Paul Séjourné), but I have made the modifications required as a result of discarding the traditional but false assumption, which Hadot shared, that there was a formal Council of Sirmium in 358 which promulgated a creed. This passage contains the one certain verbatim quotation from Basil (cf. Mar. Vict., Ar. I 29,1f.: videamus ergo etiam et hoc quod dicis et quomodo dicis: sic sapiunt et Afri et Orientales omnes).

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and one of his theological allies or, more probably, by someone opposed to the new theology. Its invention, therefore, can be dated precisely to the summer of 358. A further passage in Victorinus appears to confirm the thesis that the word homoioousios had not yet been invented in the summer of 357. Victorinus ridicules Basil over the claim made in the dossier compiled in Sirmium that this new theological term has a respectable ancestry because the concept which it encapsulated was employed in the third century in the condemnation of Paul of Samosata (Adversus Arium I 28,8-43). Specifically, Victorinus taunts Basil for not using the term on several occasions before 358, including the Council of Nicaea, when, for all he knows, Basil may already have been a bishop (in fact, Basil became bishop of Ancyra when he succeeded the deposed Marcellus in 336). Basil and his allies remained silent while the theology which they currently espouse was condemned in 325 and for long afterwards: tacuisti et tu et socii et discipuli et condoctores. et toto tempore postea, usque quo imperator Romae fuit, praesens audisti multa contraria, conviva existens istorum hominum quos nunc anathemetizas, iratus vel quod sine te fidem scripserunt, an coactus a magistris24 legatus venisti in defensionem proditionis (Adversus Arium I 28,24-29). You remained silent – you, your allies, your disciples and your fellow-doctrinaires. And during the whole of the subsequent period, right up to the time when the emperor was in Rome25, you heard many counter-arguments voiced in your presence, passing your time as a boon-companion of those men whom you now anathematize, either out of anger because they wrote a creed without you or because, compelled by agents of the Master of the Offices, you have come as an envoy to defend your betrayal.

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Since Victorinus is clearly alluding to agentes in rebus, to whom Constantine and Constantius often entrusted the delivery of letters on ecclesiastical business (e.g., Gaudentius and Syncletius: H.-G. Opitz, Urkunden zur Geschichte des arianischen Streites, Leipzig/ Berlin 1934, no. 34.43; [Gelasius of Cyzicus], h.e. III 19,43), the transmitted magistris, which is printed by all modern editors, should be emended to magistris (cf. ThLL 8, 1966, 99). The French translation of P. Hadot correctly renders Victorinus’ intended meaning (though not the text printed by P. Henry) as ‘contraint par les agents impériaux’ (Marius Victorinus. Traités théologiques 1 [see note 22], 269). In his commentary, however, Hadot adduces as a parallel to Victorinus’ magistri a fragment of Hilary of Poitiers which complains about Constantius’ harrying of bishops (Marius Victorinus. Traités théologiques sur la Trinité 2, SC 69, Paris 1960, 785-786: rex angitur, palatium fervet, episcopi circumcursant, officiales magistri volitant [CSEL 65,110,9-11 Hadot]). That is misleading, because magistri in this passage is a genitive singular, not a nominative plural (see ThLL 8, 1966, 81 lines 76-81; 9/2, 1981, 512 lines 44-55), so that the phrase officiales magistri is to be translated as ‘subordinates of the Master ’, not ‘attendant magistrates’ as it is by L.R. Wickham, Hilary of Poitiers. Conflicts of Conscience and Law in the Fourth-century Church, Translated texts for historians 25, Liverpool 1997, 18. For the meaning of usque quo, which should be printed as two words, see the passages quoted in P.G.W. Glare, Oxford Latin Dictionary, Oxford 1982, 2109, s.v. usque 3-7.

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This is clearly a very tendentious passage, in which Victorinus calls the Sirmian manifesto of 357 a creed, which it was not. But it reveals some very significant facts that are not otherwise on record. First, that when Constantius visited Rome in April-May 357, his entourage included not only Eudoxius of Germanicia, whose presence in Rome is explicitly certified (Socrates, Historia ecclesiastica II 37,7-9; Philostorgius, Historia ecclesiastica IV 4; Theodoretus, Historia ecclesiasctica II 25,1; Sozomenus, Historia ecclesiastica IV 12,3-5, cf. IV 11,3), but also Ursacius, Valens and Basil of Ancyra (the tu of Victorinus and those whom he now denounces)26. Second, and more important in the present context, Victorinus writes as if Basil had not yet discovered the term homoioousios when he was in Rome with Ursacius and Valens. If that inference is correct, then the word was invented after 28 May 357. There is little point in the present context of summarising yet again the complicated manoeuvres which led to the condemnation and deposition of Basil of Ancyra and his theological allies at the Council of Constantinople in January 360, where the homoean majority conducted a veritable purge of their opponents. Even scholars who believe that there was a ‘homoioousian party’ in 358 and 359 agree that the Council of Constantinople marked ‘the end of the Homoiousian church party as an important factor of fourth century church politics’27. It is commonly assumed that ‘the homoioousians’ were still a coherent party in ecclesiastical politics after the death of Constantius28, and sometimes supposed that the ‘ecclesiastical party led by Basil of Ancyra’ must have continued in existence until ‘the latter half of the 360s’29. The reality was rather different. The word homoioousios is never used by Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa or Gregory of Nazianzus30, and its last occurrence in the ecclesiastical history of Socrates comes in his narrative of events in 361, before the death of Constantius (Historia ecclesiastica II 45,11). It is true that Sozomenus does use the word three times in his account of events after the death of

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See Barnes, Athanasius (see note 6), 143.283 n. 56.284 n. 1, where I note that Victorinus cannot be using conviva in a loose metaphorical sense to mean merely ‘with whom you were in communion’, as is assumed in the French translation by Hadot, Marius Victorinus. Traités théologiques 1 (see note 22), 269 (‘restant en communion avec ces gens-là que, maintenant, tu excommunies’), but must intend something close to the primary meaning of the word, which is ‘dinner companions’ (ThLL 4, 879f.). Löhr, Arianism after Arius (see note 2), 86. As by Löhr, Arianism after Arius (see note 2), 100. J. Zachhuber, Human Nature in Gregory of Nyssa. Philosophical Background and Theological Significance, Leiden 2000, 24f. I rely on an electronic search in the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, which registers a single occurrence of the word in all three writers (PG 44,1336), but that is from a homily whose true author is not Gregory of Nyssa, but Anastasius Sinaita (CPG 7747).

A Note on the Term Homoioousios

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the emperor Julian in 363, but it seems clear that he did not find it in his sources for the period. The three passages run as follows31: (1) Basil of Ancyra, Silvanus of Tarsus, Sophronius of Pompeiopolis ‘and those with them who accepted the homoioousion’ sent a petition to Jovian asking him to affirm the validity of the decisions of the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia in 359 (Historia ecclesiastica VI 4,3-4); (2) Sozomenus refers back to the reign of Constantius, when some were asserting that the Son was homoousios with the Father, others that he was homoioousios before the Council of Ariminum (Historia ecclesiastica VI 26,13); (3) According to Sozomenus, a council of bishops at Antioch in Caria decreed that ‘the Son should not be called homoousios with the Father, but homoioousios as before’ (Historia ecclesiastica VII 2,4), but Socrates, whom Sozomenus is here paraphrasing closely, does not use the latter term (Historia ecclesiastica V 4,3: ‘meeting in Carian Antioch they again laid down that the word homoousios should be avoided and that they would in no way communicate with those who accepted the creed of Nicaea’). None of these passages shows that the term homoioousios was still in current use after the Councils of Seleucia, Ariminum and Constantinople in 359/360. Taken as a whole, therefore, the ancient evidence implies that the ‘homoioousians’ were never a firmly defined and cohesive party in ecclesiastical politics; rather, they were either a small group centered around Basil of Ancyra or a wider coalition which was both fragile and very short-lived. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Der Artikel analysiert die Quellen für die Annahme einer homöusianischen Partei im Trinitarischen Streit des 4. Jahrhunderts. Hierfür ist besonders zu beachten, daß das Wort ÐmoiooÚsioj (mit doppeltem Omikron, parallel zu einer lateinischen Umschreibung homoeousios) erst im Sommer 358 erfunden wurde (nicht schon 355 oder 356), nur wenige Jahre lang benutzt wurde, bevor es sehr bald verschwand. Dies läßt sich anhand von Hilarius und Marius Victorinus erkennen, besonders aber am kompletten Fehlen des Wortes bei den Kappadokiern. Anderslautende Nachrichten in der Kirchengeschichte des Sozomenus sind hingegen nicht vertrauenswürdig.

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I ignore Soz., h.e. VI 22,2, where Sozomenus uses the word ÐmoiooÚsion (so ms. B) in an explanatory passage of his own composition which is not derived from a fourth century source.