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They jested at the actors and the preachers without respect of persons, and followed with equal eagerness the races and the theological disputes. Anomoeans abounded in their noisy streets, and the graver Novatians and Macedonians were infected with the spirit of wrangling. Gregory's austere character and simple life were in themselves a severe rebuke to the lovers of pleasure round him.
The last of these condemns the Nicene of one essence clearly as Sabellian, though no reason is given. The synod broke up. Basil and Eustathius went to lay its decisions before the court at Sirmium. To conciliate the Nicenes, they left out the last six anathemas of Ancyra. They were just in time to prevent Constantius from declaring for Eudoxius and the Anomoeans.
Now, however, it was beginning to be seen that the theory of hypostatic distinctions must either be extended to the Holy Spirit or entirely abandoned. Athanasius took one course, the Anomoeans the other, but the Semiarians endeavoured to draw a distinction between the Lord's deity and that of the Holy Spirit. In truth, the two are logically connected.
First, if the comma is put before in all things, the next words will merely forbid any extension of the likeness beyond what Scripture allows; and the Anomoeans were quite entitled to sign it with the explanation that for their part they found very little likeness taught in Scripture.
Guided by Macedonius and Eleusius, the ejected bishops of Constantinople and Cyzicus, they gradually took up a middle position between Nicenes and Anomoeans, confessing the Lord's deity with the one, and denying that of the Holy Spirit with the other.
As Valens left no children, the Empire rested for the moment in the hands of his nephew, Gratian, a youth of not yet twenty. Gratian, however, was wise enough to see that it was no time to cultivate religious quarrels. He, therefore, began by proclaiming toleration to all but Anomoeans and Photinians.
His ideas were current for some time in various forms, and are attacked in some of the later works of Athanasius; but it was not till about 375 that they led to a definite schism, marked by the consecration of the presbyter Vitalis to the bishopric of Antioch. From this time, Apollinarian bishops disputed many of the Syrian sees with Nicenes and Anomoeans.
We anathematize also the Anomoeans, in spite of their pretence not to be Arians. We anathematize finally the Arianizers who separate the Word from the Son, giving the latter a beginning at the incarnation because they do not confess him to be very God.
The exiles were soon recalled, and the strife began again with more bitterness than ever. Here was an opening for a new party. Semiarians, Nicenes, and Anomoeans were equally unable to settle this interminable controversy. The Anomoeans indeed almost deserved success for their boldness and activity, but pure Arianism was hopelessly discredited throughout the Empire.
The Homoeans as a body had no consistent principle at all beyond the rejection of technical terms, so that their doctrinal statements are very miscellaneous. They began with the indefinite Sirmian creed, but the confession they imposed on Eustathius of Sebastia was purely Macedonian. Some of their bishops were Nicenes, others Anomoeans.
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