Some of the clergy of Cyzicus
accused Eunomius to Eudoxius of teaching that the Son is unlike the Father;
they did this by turning his doctrine of “unlike in substance” into a
prediction of the unlikeness of the Father to the Son. They also said that he was
changing the traditional customs and getting rid of those who refused to share
in his heresy. The charges threw the church in Constantinople into turmoil; it
was one of its presbyters. Hesychius, who stirred it up on purpose. So Eudoxius
sent for Eunomius, who when he arrived accused Eudoxius of being slow and
negligent in carrying out the promises he had made. The other replied that e
was not ignoring them but that the uproar that he had occasioned had first to
be settled. Thus Eunomius appeared before the clergy of Constantinople to defend
himself, and he so won over those who had been protesting that he not only
brought them round in the opposite point of view, but he even transformed them
into fervent witnesses to his orthodoxy. For not only was he never caught
teaching that the Son is unlike the Father in any of his discourses; he even
openly declared that he taught his likeness according to the scriptures. He did
not of course accept the doctrine of “like in substance,” saying that it was
equally blasphemous to teach that the Son is like the Father in substance and
to regard him as completely similar in accordance with those arguments that
concern the Only Begotten God in relation to the Father who begot him without
passions. Not only did he win over the clergy in this way, but he produced in
the whole church a great and delighted astonishment at his wisdom and orthodoxy
by saying these very things. Eudoxius was so very pleased at this that he cried,
“This is my defense to those who would examine me!” to the applause of the
crowd for his apt and timely citation of holy writ. (Philostorgius, Church
History [trans. Philip R. Amidon; Writings From the Greco-Roman World 23;
Atlanta, Ga.: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007], Book 6, 1 [pp. 79-80])
