In Ep. ccxlii.
written in 376, St. Basil says: “This is the
thirteenth year since the outbreak of the war of heretics against
us.” 363 is the date of the Acacian Council of
Antioch; 364 of the accession of Valens and Valentian, of the
Semi-Arian Synod of Lampsacus, and of St. Basil’s ordination
to the priesthood and book against Eunomius. On the
propagation by scission and innumerable subdivisions of Arianism
Cannon Bright writes:
The extraordinary versatility, the argumentative
subtlety, and the too frequent profanity of Arianism are matters of
which a few lines can give no idea. But it is necessary, in even
the briefest notice of this long-lived heresy, to remark on the
contrast between its changeable inventiveness and the simple
steadfastness of Catholic doctrine. On the one side, some twenty
different creeds (of which several, however, were rather negatively
than positively heterodox) and three main sects, the Semi-Arians, with
their formula of Homoiousion, i.e. the Son is like in essence to
the Father; the Acacians, vaguely calling Him like (Homoion); the
Aetians, boldly calling Him unlike, as much as to say He is in no sense
Divine. On the other side, the Church with the Nicene Creed,
confessing Him as Homoousion, ‘of one essence with the
Father,’ meaning thereby, as her great champion repeatedly bore
witness, to secure belief in the reality of the Divine Sonship, and
therefore in the real Deity, as distinguished from the titular deity
which was so freely conceded to Him by the Arians.” Cannon
Bright, St. Leo on the Incarnation, p. 140
Socrates (ii. 41), pausing at 360, enumerates, after
Nicæa:
1. 1st of Antioch (omitted the ὁμοούσιον,
a.d. 341).
2. 2d of Antioch (omitted the ὁμοούσιον,
a.d. 341).
3. The Creed brought to Constans in Gaul by
Narcissus and other Arians in 342.
4. The Creed “sent by Eudoxius of
Germanicia into Italy,” i.e. the “Macrostich,”
or “Lengthy Creed,” rejected at Milan in 346.
5. The 1st Creed of Sirmium; i.e. the
Macrostich with 26 additional clauses, 351.
6. The 2d Sirmian Creed. The
“manifesto;” called by Athanasius (De Synod. 28)
“the blasphemy,” 357.
7. The 3d Sirmian, or “dated Creed,”
in the consulship of Flavius Eusebius and Hypatius, May 22d, 359.
8. The Acacian Creed of Seleucia, 359.
9. The Creed of Ariminum adopted at
Constantinople, as revised at Nike.