Saturday, February 19, 2022

Depiction of Eunomius in Church History Book 6 by Philostorgius (368-439)

  

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])