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Updated: June 29, 2025
Valens was only a catechumen, and had no policy to declare for the present. Events therefore continued to develop naturally. The Homoean bishops retained their sees, but their influence was fast declining. The Anomoeans were forming a schism on one side, the Nicenes recovering power on the other. Unwilling signatures to the Homoean creed were revoked in all directions.
They were in possession of the churches and commanded much of the Asiatic influence, and had no enmity to contend with which was not quite as bitter against the other parties. They also had astute leaders, and a doctrine which still presented attractions to the quiet men who were tired of controversy. Upon the whole, the Homoean policy was the easiest for the moment.
Valens had an obedient Homoean clergy, but no trappings of official splendour could enable Eudoxius or Demophilus to rival the imposing personality of Athanasius or Basil. Thus the Empire lost the moral support it looked for, and the church became embittered with its wrongs. The breach involved a deeper evil. The ancient world of heathenism was near its dissolution.
The chief clause however is, 'But we say that the Son is like the Father in all things, as the Scriptures say and teach. Though the phrase here is Homoean, the doctrine seems at first sight Semiarian, not to say Nicene. In point of fact, the clause is quite ambiguous.
We find one or two outrages like the murder of Eusebius of Samosata by an Arian woman in a country town, who threw down a tile on his head, but we hardly ever find a Homoean bishop heartily supported by his flock. Constantinople itself was now the chief stronghold of the Arians. They had held the churches since 340, and were steadily supported by the court.
Many jealousies still divided him from the Nicenes, but his bold confession was the first effective blow at the Homoean supremacy. Viii. 21. The idea of conciliating Nicene support was not entirely given up. Acacius remained on friendly terms with Meletius, and was still able to name Pelagius for the see of Laodicea.
This, however, was the step taken by Valens in the spring of 367, which finally committed him to the Homoean side. By it he undertook to resume the policy of Constantius, and to drive out false teachers at the dictation of Eudoxius. The Semiarians were in no condition to resist. Their district had been the seat of the revolt, and their disgrace at court was not lessened by the embassy to Rome.
The Homoean party was the last hope of Arianism within the Empire. The original doctrine of Arius had been decisively rejected at Nicæa; the Eusebian coalition was broken up by the Sirmian manifesto; and if the Homoean union also failed, the fall of Arianism could not be long delayed. Its weakness is shown by the rise of a new Nicene party in the most Arian province of the Empire.
Auxentius the Cappadocian, who held the see of Milan till 374, must have been one of the last survivors of the victors of Ariminum. In the East, however, the Homoean supremacy lasted nearly twenty years. No doubt it was an artificial power, resting partly on court intrigue, partly on the divisions of its enemies; yet there was a reason for its long duration.
In any case, he began with a thorough dislike of the Nicene council, continued for a long time to hold conservative language, and ended after some vacillation by adopting the vague Homoean compromise of 359. Eusebian intrigue was soon resumed.
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