Page "Semi-Arianism" Paragraph 6

In the Lent of 358, Basil with many bishops was holding the dedicatory feast of a new church he had built at Ancyra, when he received a letter from George of Laodicea, relating how Eudoxius had approved of Aëtius, and begging Macedonius of Constantinople, Basil and the rest of the assembled bishops to decree the expulsion of Eudoxius and his followers from Antioch, else that great see were lost.

In consequence, the Synod of Ancyra published a long reply addressed to George and the other bishops of Phoenicia, in which they recite the Creed of Antioch ( 341 ), adding explanations against the " unlikeness " of the Son to the Father taught by the Arians and Anomoeans, ( from anomoios ), and showing that the very name of father implies a son of like substance ( homoiousios, or homoios kat ousian ) Anathematisms are appended in which Anomoeanism is explicitly condemned and the teaching of " likeness of substance " enforced.

The nineteenth of these canons forbids the use also of homoousios and tautoousios ; this may be an afterthought due to the instance of Macedonius, as Basil does not seem to have insisted on it later.

Legates were dispatched to the Council at Sirmium: Basil, Eustathius of Sebaste, an ascetic of no dogmatic principles, Eleusius of Cyzicus, a follower of Macedonius, and the priest Leontius, one of the emperor's chaplains.

They arrived just in time, for the emperor had been lending his ear to an Eudoxian, but he now veered round, issuing a letter ( Sozomen, IV, xiv ) declaring the Son to be " like in substance " to the Father, and condemning the Arians of Antioch.