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48 its pompous opening, and for its assumption that the Catholic faith had, at the date given, been proclaimed for the first time. It is clear, he adds, from their own confession, that theirs is a new faith, not the old one.

We now enter upon the last stage of the controversy. It is marked by the first attempt to make a distinction between οὐσία and ὑπόστασις—terms which had hitherto been regarded as synonymous—and to use the former as indicating the nature which is common to beings of the same order, while the latter was used to express the diversities between these possessors of a common nature. The word οὐσία was used to indicate the Divine Nature, while ὑπόστασις was henceforth used by the Greeks of the Persons in the Trinity. (It should, however, be observed that substantia remained the Latin equivalent of οὐσια.) The first to press this use of language was Basil of Ancyra, at a council he had called to protest against the proceedings at Sirmium. He defends the new use of the word ὑπόστασις in an able minute he issued, criticizing the proceedings at Sirmium, by pointing out that a word was needed—and it must be neither οὐσία nor ἀρχή—to denote the underlying and definitely existing (ὑπαρχούσας) distinctions (ἰδιότητας) of the Persons (προσώπων); and he acutely remarks that if οὐσία was a term not to be found in Scripture, the Godhead was indicated there by the words ὁ ὤν. In the end, this new and more careful use of words completely revolutionized the situation. Henceforth the semi-Arians as a body not only laboured for an understanding with the orthodox, but also drew still more markedly apart from the Homoeans and Anomoeans. The calling of a new council in the same year at Rimini (Ariminum) in Italy brought these new tendencies very plainly to light. Constantius, finding it impossible to lay down a common basis for action between the East and the West, commanded the Eastern bishops to meet at Seleucia in Cilicia, a mountain fortress near the sea. Sozomen tells us that the reason for calling this council was the growing influence of Anomoeanism through the influence of Aetius. The Western bishops, who numbered more than 200, had no scruples in the matter. They boldly deposed Ursacius and Valens, who had been sent to bring them to submission, and as boldly reaffirmed the Nicene symbol, and they sent a deputation of 20 bishops to the emperor to defend their action. He was, however, (or pretended to be) too busy to see them. The Easterns were still inclined to hesitate. The semi-Arian majority desired to accept the Nicene Creed, with the omission of the obnoxious ὁμοούσιον. The Homoeans, under the leadership of Acacius of Caesarea in Cappadocia, condemned the expressions ὁμοούσιον and ὁμοιούσιον, but anathematized the expression ἀνόμοιον. "The Acacian [Homoean] party" (Socr. H. E. ii. 40) "affirmed that the Son was like the Father as respected His will only, and not in His substance or essence." And they tendered yet another creed in accordance with these views, which the council rejected, and deposed those who had tendered it.

Among those who were present at this council were men so diverse as the hated tyrant George of Alexandria, and Hilary of Poictiers, still exiled from his diocese. Meanwhile, Ursacius and Valens were engaged in the congenial task of endeavouring to persuade the deputies from Ariminum to sign yet another creed at Niké in Thrace, in the hope, if some authorities are to be trusted, of making the world believe, from the similarity of names, that it was the renowned document promulgated at the Nicene council. But this was surely an impossibility. The Nicene symbol was far too well known to the Christian world. Athanasius now intervened from his retreat, and wrote his famous treatise de Synodis, in which he reviewed the creeds and acts of the various councils. But he assumed no non-possumus attitude. He had even seemed inclined, for a moment, to admit the orthodoxy of the expression ὁμοιούσιον. But in this treatise he points out (c. 41) that though brass is like gold, tin like iron, and the dog like the wolf, yet they are of different natures, and no one could call the wolf the offspring of the dog. Nevertheless, he still endeavours to bridge over the gulf between himself and the semi-Arians.

These two councils were the final turning-point of the controversy. It had clearly appeared that, whenever the Nicene definitions had been rejected, Anomoeanism, which was Arianism in a more definite philosophical shape, came once more to the front, and this fact was increasingly seen to point to the Nicene symbol as the only safe way out of the difficulty. Henceforth the secular authority might retard, but it could not prevent, the victory of Athanasius and his followers. From this moment (see Socr. H. E. ii. 22) the Western churches definitely renounced communion with those of the East. The episode of Meletius of Antioch (not to be confounded with Meletius of Egypt) shewed plainly which way events were tending. He had been elected patriarch of Antioch by the Homoean party. But in his inaugural speech he frankly confessed his Nicene leanings, and when a busy archdeacon rushed up and closed his mouth, he continued by gestures to affirm what he had previously affirmed by his voice. Meletius was promptly banished, but before the year (361) was over Constantius was dead. The action of his successor Julian, who had renounced Christianity, gave a still further impulse to the policy of conciliation. As between heathenism and Christianity, impartiality cannot certainly be predicated of him. But he was impartial enough in his hostility to Christians of all shades of opinion. This threw them, for the time, into one another's arms. True, when the external pressure was removed, the suspicions and jealousies, as is commonly the case, broke out afresh. But none the less had an impulse been given towards union which henceforth never ceased to be felt. The oppressor George had been expelled from Alexandria by a rising of the populace as early as 358. In 361, on his return to Alexandria, he was seized and murdered by his exasperated flock. The edict of Julian (361) permitting the return of the exiles left the way open to Athanasius to rejoin 