A Note on the Term Homoioousios

by Timothy Barnes

All who study the theological controversies of the fourth century are
familiar with Edward Gibbons 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 moosioj, on
the pattern of which the newly invented word was undoubtedly formed,
indicates that the original Greek spelling of the neologism must have been
moioosioj (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-

1
E. Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 2, London 1781,
Chapter 21 (1.787 Womersley = 2.373 Bury).
2
J. Gummerus, Die homusianische 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. Lhr, Die Entstehung der homischen und homusianischen 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.
3
M. Durst, Die Epistula de synodis des Hilarius von Poitiers. Probleme der Textkonstitution,
in: Textsorten und Textkritik. Tagungsbeitrge, 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 moioosioj
(Athanasius Werke 2, Leipzig/Berlin 1935-1941, 231-278).

ZAC, vol. 10, pp. 276-285 DOI 10.1515/ZAC.2006.020

Walter de Gruyter 2007
 A Note on the Term Homoioousios 277

speaking opponents of the Nicene formula in the 370s coined the terms
moousiasta and homousiani to describe the orthodox (Basilius, Epistu-
lae 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 histori-
cal 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 Hilarys 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
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.
5
M. Wiles, Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries, Oxford 1996, 29 n. 8.
6
T.D. Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius. Theology and Politics in the Constantinian
Empire, Cambridge Mass. 1993, 281 n. 26.282 n. 32.
7
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 For-
mulae in the Codex Veronensis LX, Studies and Texts 145, Toronto 2004, 224-248.
8
No mention, for example, in their quotations of the relevant passage by either H. Chad-
wick, 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.
9
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.
10
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. moiosioj.
278 Timothy Barnes

inference, disputed by no serious scholar, that it was invented during that

decade. Can the date be determined more precisely? The foundation docu-
ment 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 appel-
latur, 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 sci-
entiam 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)
peid d{ polloj tinaj kine per tj legomnhj `Rwmaist m{n soubstantaj,
`Ellhnist d{ legomnhj osaj, toutstin na kribsteron gnwsq t moo-
sion t legmenon moioosion, o cr tina totwn pantelj mnmhn gnesqai
od{ per totwn xhgesqai n t kklhsv di tathn tn atan ka di toton
tn logismn, ti n taj qeaij grafaj o ggraptai per totwn, ka ti tata
p{r tn nqrpwn gnsin ka tn nqrpwn non sti, ka ti odej dna-
tai tn genen to uo dihgsasqai, kaqj ggraptai: tn genen ato tj
dihgsetai; (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
A. Hahn/G.L. Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole und Glaubensregeln der alten Kirche,
3. Aufl. Breslau 1897, 200 no. 161.
12
Barnes, Athanasius (see note 6), 116.232.
13
On the date of composition, see T.D. Barnes, Hilary of Poitiers on his Exile, VigChr
46, 1992, (129-140) 140 n. 33.
 A Note on the Term Homoioousios 279

or the term homoioousion, there ought to be no mention <of it> at all and no-
one should preach <it> 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 Hil-
ary 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 sub-
stantia (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 di-
rected specifically and solely against the blasphemy of Sirmium (PL 20,13-
30 = 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 hae-
resim, 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 writ-
ings which have recently reached us.

14
I translate Hilarys version; my translation is based on that of J.N.D. Kelly, Early Chris-
tian Creeds, 3. ed. London 1972, 285f., but I have changed Kellys plural verbs to the
singular where the Latin has the latter.
15
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.
280 Timothy Barnes

The writings (the plural scripta requires explanation) which have recently
reached Foebadius are presumably the Sirmian manifesto itself and an ac-
companying 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 latters 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 Foeba-
dius 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
P. Smulders, Hilary of Poitiers Preface to his Opus Historicum. Translation and Com-
mentary, SVigChr 29, Leiden/New York/Kln 1995, 17. Foebadius appears to have
borrowed turns of phrase from Hilarys 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 Hilarys 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 unfortu-
nately vitiated both by ignorance of Smulders monograph of 1995 and by some serious
errors.
17
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.
18
A palpable allusion to the small number of bishops who attended the Council of Ancyra:
Epiph., haer. 73,12, lists precisely twelve signatories.
 A Note on the Term Homoioousios 281

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 Ger-
minius 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 So-
zomenus 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 Hilarys De Synodis dispense with the non-existent council and
explain that a delegation took the synodical letter of the Council of An-
cyra 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 gram-
marian 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 dos-

19
To cite just two recent examples: H.C. Brennecke, Hilarius von Poitiers und die Bischofs-
opposition 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, Edin-
burgh 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 zunchst
fr die Absichten des Basilios.
20
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.
21
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, caris-
simi fratres, omnes Orientalium episcoporum editas fidei definitiones, quas adversum
emergentem proxime haeresim, congregata intra se synodo condiderunt).
282 Timothy Barnes

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 anathe-
mas;
(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 diri-
gendus est; 80: sanctissimi viri), Hilary describes the last document as
epistulam quam a vobis de homousii et de homoe(o)usii expositione apud Sir-
mium 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, Hilarys 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; moi(o)osion enim dicis et patrem et filium
(29, 34f.).

Is Victorinus quoting Basil verbatim? Again, it is impossible to be com-

pletely 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
This is essentially the reconstruction offered by P. Hadot, in his introduction to P. Henry/
P. Hadot, Marius Victorinus. Traits thologiques sur la Trinit 1, SC 68, Paris 1960,
33.36 (where Hadot acknowledges that he owes the idea to Paul Sjourn), but I have
made the modifications required as a result of discarding the traditional but false assump-
tion, which Hadot shared, that there was a formal Council of Sirmium in 358 which
promulgated a creed.
23
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).
 A Note on the Term Homoioousios 283

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 scrip-
serunt, an coactus a magistr<ian>is24 legatus venisti in defensionem proditionis
(Adversus Arium I 28,24-29).
You remained silent you, your allies, your disciples and your fellow-doctri-
naires. 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.

24
Since Victorinus is clearly alluding to agentes in rebus, to whom Constantine and Con-
stantius 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 magistr<ian>is (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 impri-
aux (Marius Victorinus. Traits thologiques 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.
Traits thologiques sur la Trinit 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 nomina-
tive 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 <of the Of-
fices>, 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.
25
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.
284 Timothy Barnes

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 ecclesias-
tica 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 homoio-
ousian party in 358 and 359 agree that the Council of Constantinople
marked the end of the Homoiousian church party as an important fac-
tor of fourth century church politics27. 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 360s29. 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

26
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.
Traits thologiques 1 (see note 22), 269 (restant en communion avec ces gens-l que,
maintenant, tu excommunies), but must intend something close to the primary meaning
of the word, which is dinner companions (ThLL 4, 879f.).
27
Lhr, Arianism after Arius (see note 2), 86.
28
As by Lhr, Arianism after Arius (see note 2), 100.
29
J. Zachhuber, Human Nature in Gregory of Nyssa. Philosophical Background and Theo-
logical Significance, Leiden 2000, 24f.
30
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 285

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 ecclesi-
astica 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 fr die Annahme einer homusianischen Partei im
Trinitarischen Streit des 4. Jahrhunderts. Hierfr ist besonders zu beachten, da das
Wort moioosioj (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 lt 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 vertrauenswrdig.

31
I ignore Soz., h.e. VI 22,2, where Sozomenus uses the word moioosion (so ms. B) in an
explanatory passage of his own composition which is not derived from a fourth century
source.