Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/679

 EUNOMIANISM

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EUNOMIANISM

Eunomjanism, a phase of extreme Arianism prev- alent amongst a section of Eastern churchmen from about 350 until 381 ; as a sect it is not heard of after the middle of the fifth century. The teaching of Arius was condemned by the Council of Nic»a, and the word homoousion adopted as the touchstone of orthodoxy. The subsequent history of the Arian heresy is the history of the endeavours of arianizing sympathizers to get rid of the obnoxious word. The diplomacy of court intriguers forms the dark back- ground against which stand out Eusebians and Semi- Arians. Imperial influence had been all-powerful too long in the official religion to allow imperial ingerence in church affairs to cease with the imperial change of attitude towards Christianity. That influence was exercised through the court prelates tinged with the fundamental rationalism underlying Arianisra. They skilfuU}' avoided the real issue, represented the w'hole affair as merely a question of the propriety of using particular terms, and for a time deluded those who were imfamiliar with the metaphysics of the question. St. Athanasius was represented as a political fire-brand whose watchword was Jwmoousion. The Emperor Constantius (337-361 ), to his great personal annoyance, was obliged to allow Athanasius to return from his second exile (339-346) to Alexandria (31 Oct., 346). The lull which seemed to follow the return of Atha- nasius was due to the political circumstances arising out of the disastrous Persian War and the civil war against Maxentius; and it was not until the victory of Mount Seleucus (13 Aug., 353) that the emperor's hands were freed.

In the meantime a new and more defiant Arian school was arising, impatient of diplomacy, and less pliant to imperial dictation. It frankly returned to the fullest expression of the errors of Arius, and sought to defend it on the rationalizing basis of Aristotelean dialectics. The history of the new school coincides with the life-history of Aetius and Eunomius. Aetius, its founder, successively a gohlsmith, physician, and grammarian, turned his attention to theology under Arian influences at Antioch and Alexandria. Aris- totle's categories henceforth formed the limits of his knowledge, and the abuse of the syllogism his principal weapon. Ordained deacon at Antioch in 350, he was deposed by Leontius and sought refuge at Alexandria, where he found a disciple in Eimomius. Radical and uncompromising in their heretical teaching, they asserted that in substance and in all else the Son is unlike the Father: avSfWios, "unlike", became their watchword as against the o/noowios {homoousios) of the Orthodox, the 6iwioi<nos ihomowusios) of the Semi-Arians, and the later Sfiotos (homoios) of the Acacians. Hence the Arian extremists became known as Aetians, and later as Eunomians and Anomceans. Their doctrines were received favourably by Eudoxius of Antioch and the Synod of Antioch in 358; but the formulation of their tenets produced a reaction, and in the same year they were condemned by the Semi- Arians al Ancyra and at the Third Synod of Sirmium, and the leaders were exiled for a short time to Pepuza. They reajipeared, however, at the Semi-.\rian Synod of Seleucia (Sept., 359), where Acacius of CiPsarea rejected the di'Ayxoios and the triumph of the Ilomoeans led to the exile of Aetius to Mopsuestia in Cilicia and later to .\mblada in Pisidia. After 360 the Anomcean Arians ceased to be formidable. Julian the Apostate (361-363) allowed .\etius to return; he was rehabili- tated in an .\rian synod, and died c. 370. Meanwhile Eunomius, supportcni by his friend Eudoxius, trans- ferred from .Vntioch to Constantinople (Jan., 360), became Bishop of the Orthodox See of Cyzicus in Mysia. His flock appealed to Constantius, who obliged Eudoxius to take action against him. Deposed in his absence and banislicd, I'jimomius founded a .sect of his own, ordained .ind consecrated some of his follow- ers. Julian recalled l)oth Aetius and Eunomius, who

acquired considerable importance in Constantinople. The Synod of Antioch, 362, explicitly set forth the Anomcean doctrine that "the Son is in all things un- like [kuto. Trdi'Ta aiil>iioioi\ the Father, as well in will as in substance". The death of Eudoxius in 370 marks the beginning of the end of Eunomianism. The sec- taries were excluded from the benefit of Gratian's edict of toleration (end of 378), were directly con- demned by the Council of Constantinople (381), and were the objects of special repressive measures in addition to those directed against Arians antl heretics in general. Moreover, disruptive forces were at work within the sect. Eunomius died about 395, and for all practical purposes the sect may be said to have died with him.

The dogmatic system of Eunomius is characterized at once by its presumptuous dialectics and its shal- lowness. His errors concerning Christ are founded upon his erroneous theodicy, which involves the as- sertion that a God of simplicity cannot be a God of mystery at all, for even man is as competent as God to comprehend simplicity. Eunomius proclaims the absolute intelligibility of the Divine Essence: "God knows no more of His own substance, than we do; nor is this more knowm to Him, and less to us: but whatever we know about the Divine Substance, that precisely is known to God; on the other hand, what^ ever He knows, the same also you will find without any difference in us" (Socrates, Hist. Eccl., IV. \ii). ' ^L-yivvqala, he maintains, perfectly expresses the Divine Essence: as the Unbegotten, God is an alisolutely simple being: an act of generation would involve a contradiction of His essence, by introducing duality into the Godhead. The Father is dy^mTiTos, the Son y^vvr)Tos] hence, he held, there must be diversity of substance. The general line of his sophistical reason- ing against the Orthodox was as follows: You allow iyefv-qaia to be a Divine attribute. Now the sim- plicity of God excludes all multiplicity of attributes. Consequently ayevvTiala is the only attribute which befits the Divine nature, the only one therefore essen- tial to Him. In other words, God is essentially i- ca- pable of being begotten. Hence it is folly to speak of a God begotten, of a Son of God. The one God, ayivtniTos and ivapxo^, unbegotten and without begin- ning, could not communicate His own substance, nor beget even a consubstantial Son; consequently there could be no question of identity of substance (liomoou- sios) or of likeness of substance (homoiousios) between the Father and the Son. There could be no essen- tial resemblance (kot' ova-iav), but at most a moral resemblance. For the Son is a being drawn forth from nothing by the will of the Father, yet superior to all Creation inasmuch as He alone was created by the One God to be the Creator of the world. He does not share in the incommunicable Divine Essence (dvffta), but he does partake in the communicable Divine creative power (iv^pyeia), and it is that par- taking which constitutes the Son's Divinity and establishes Him, as regards creation, in the posi- tion of Creator: and as the principle of paternity in God is not the ov<rla but the ivipytia, the sense in which the term Son of God may be used is clear.

The works of Eunomius are of less importance in tliemseK'cs than in the fact that they called forth the best efforts of St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nyssa. His Commentary on the Romans and his letters have perished. His " Apologeticus" (P. G., XXX, 835), written before 365, seeks to refute the Nicene teaching concerning the coeternal and consubstantial Divinity of the Son. It is extremely ob.scure, and has been frequently misunderstood. For example, Tillemont, VI, 501-516, needs careful checking. It was against this work of Eunomius that St. Ba.sil wrote his "Ad- versus Eunomium" ('AtTippTjTiifiSu) in five books. (It is clear, however, that books IV and V are from an- other pen.) Eunomius retorted with his 'AiroXoyla