The Council of Sardica

The Western bishops, because they spoke another language and did not understand this statement, would not accept it. They said that the Nicene Creed was enough, and that they would not waste time on anything beyond it. The emperor had written again, insisting that Paul and Athanasius be given back their sees, but without effect, because the people were in constant uproar. So these two bishops demanded that another synod be called, so that their case, along with other questions about the faith, might be settled by an ecumenical council. For they made it plain that they had been deposed for no other reason than to make it easier to corrupt the faith. Another general council was therefore summoned to meet at Sardica, a city of Illyricum, by the joint authority of the two emperors: the one asked for it by letter, and the other, the emperor of the East, readily agreed. It was in the eleventh year after the death of the father of the two emperors, in the consulship of Rufinus and Eusebius, that the Synod of Sardica met. [a]

According to Athanasius, about 300 bishops from the western parts of the empire were present; but Sabinus says that only seventy came from the eastern parts. Among these was Ischyras of Mareotis, who had been ordained bishop of that country by those who deposed Athanasius. Of the rest, some pretended to be ill. Others complained that too little notice had been given and laid the blame on Julius, bishop of Rome, although a year and a half had passed since the council was summoned; during that time Athanasius stayed at Rome, waiting for the synod to meet.

When at last they had gathered at Sardica, the Eastern bishops refused either to meet or to hold any discussion with those of the West unless they first shut Athanasius and Paul out of the assembly. But Protogenes, bishop of Sardica, and Hosius, bishop of Cordova, a city in Spain, would on no account allow them to be absent. So the Eastern bishops withdrew at once and went back to Philippopolis in Thrace, where they held a separate council. There they openly anathematized the word homoousios, and having brought the Anomoean opinion into their letters, they sent them out in every direction. Those who stayed at Sardica, on the other hand, first condemned their departure, and then stripped the accusers of Athanasius of their rank. Then, confirming the Nicene Creed and rejecting the word anomoion, they acknowledged more distinctly the teaching that the Son is of one substance with the Father, and they wrote it into letters addressed to all the churches.

Both parties believed they had acted rightly. Those of the East did, because the Western bishops had supported men whom they had deposed. The Western bishops did, both because the men who had deposed Paul and Athanasius withdrew before the matter had been examined, and because they themselves were the defenders of the Nicene faith, which the other party had dared to corrupt. So they restored Paul and Athanasius to their sees, and also Marcellus of Ancyra in Lesser Galatia, who had been deposed long before, as we have told in the previous book. At that time Marcellus did everything in his power to have the sentence against him reversed. He declared that the suspicion that he held the error of Paul of Samosata came from a misunderstanding of some expressions in his book. It must be noted, however, that Eusebius Pamphilus wrote three whole books against Marcellus, in which he quotes Marcellus’s own words to prove that he holds, with Sabellius the Libyan and Paul of Samosata, that the Lord Jesus was a mere man.