§ 121. THE AEIAN AND SEMI-AIJIAN KEACTIUN. 63'i
riglit wing, the Eusebians or Semi-Arians, who were repr© sented by Basil of Ancjra and Gregory of Laodicea, main taiiied tliat the Son was not indeed of the same essence (ofio-ovaioi), yet of like essence {6/j,oi,-ouaio';), with the Father. To these belonged many who at heart agreed with the l^icene faith, but eitlier harbored prejudices against Athanasins, oi saw in the term ofMo-ovawi an approach to Sabellianisni ; for theological science had not yet duly fixed the distinction of substance (ovala) and person {y7r6aTaai<;), so that the homoousia might easily be confounded with unity of person. The left wing, or the decided Arians, under the lead of Eudoxius of Antioch, his deacon Aetius,' and especially the bishop Eunomius of Cyzicus in Mysia' (after whom they were called also JEunomians\ taught that the Son was of a different essence {eTepoovarwi), and even unlike the Father (avofxoio^;), and created out of nothing (e| ov/c outcov). They received also, from their standard terms, the names of Ileterousiasts, Anomoeans, and l^xukontians.
A number of councils were occupied witli this internal dissension of the anti-Nicene party : two at Sirmium (the second, a. d. 357 ; the third, a. d. 358), one at Antioch (358), one at Ancyra (358j, the double council at Seleucia and Rhni' ni (359), and one at Constantin02)le (360). But the division was not healed. The proposed compromise of entirely avoiding the word ovaCa^ and substituting 6fj.oio<;^ like, for ofj-oiovaLo^y of like essence^ and dvofioio'i, unlike, satisfied neither party. Constantius vainly endeavored to suppress the quarrel by his imperio-episcopal power. His death in 361 opened the way for tiie second and permanent victory of the Nicene orthodoxy.
* He was hated among the orthodox and Semi-Arian?, and called oSeoj. He waa an accomplished dialectician, a physician and theological author iu Antioch, and died about 3*70 in Constantinople.
^ He was a pupil and friend of Aotius, and popularized his doctrine. He died in 392. Concerning him, comp. Klose, Geschichte u. Lehre des Eunomius, Kiel» 1 833, and Dorner, 1. c. vol. i. p. 853 sqq. Domer calls him a deacon ; but through the mediation of the bishop Eudoxius of Constantinople (formerly of Antioch) he received the bishopric of Cyzicus or Cjzicum as early as 360, before he became tLe Seud of the Arian party, Theodoret, H. E. 1. ii. c. 29.
638 THIRD PEEIOD A,D. 311-590.
§ 122. The Final Victory of Orthodoxy^ and the Council of Constantinople^ 381.
Juliiin the Apostate tolerated all Christian i)artics, in the hope that they wouM destroy one another. With this view he recalled the orthodox bishops from exile. Even Athanasius returned, but was soon banished again as an " enemy of the gods," and recalled by Jovian. Now for a time the strife of the Christians among themselves was silenced in their common warfare against paganism revived. The Arian controversy took its own natural course. The truth regained free play, and the Nicene spirit was permitted to assert its intrinsic power. It gradually achieved the victory ; first in the Latin church, which lield several orthodox synods in Kome, Milan, and Gaul ; then in Egypt and the East, through the wise and energetic administration of Athanasius, and through the eloquence and the writings of the three great Cappadocian bishops Basil, Gregory of Nazianzum, and Gregory of Nyssa.
After the death of Athanasius in 373, Arianism regained dominion for a time in Alexandria, and practised all kinds of violence upon the orthodox.
In Constantinople Gregory Nazianzen labored, from 379, with great success in a small congregation, which alone remained true to the orthodox faith during the Arian rule; and he delivered in a domestic chapel, which he significantl}' named Anastasia (the church of the Resurrection), those renowned discourses on the deity of Christ which won him the title of the Divine, and with it many persecutions.
The raging fanaticism of the Ai-ian emperor Valens (364-378) against both Semi-Arians and Athanasians wrought an approach of the former party to the latter. His successor, Gratian, was orthodox, and recalled the banished bishops.
Thus the heretical party was already in reality intellectually and morally broken, when the emperor Theodosius I., or the Great, a Spaniard by birth, and educated in the Nicone faith, ascended the throne, and in his long and powerful reign (379-395) externally completed the triumph of orthodoxy in