The Council of Lampsacus; Valens Sides with Eudoxius

When Valentinian was traveling from Constantinople to Rome, he had to pass through Thrace. The bishops of the Hellespont and of Bithynia, and others who held that the Son is of one substance with the Father, sent Hypatian, bishop of Heraclea in Perinthus, to meet him and to ask permission for them to meet together and discuss questions of doctrine. [a] When Hypatian had delivered the message he was entrusted with, Valentinian gave this reply: “I am only one of the laity, and so I have no right to meddle in these matters. Let the priests, whose business such things are, meet wherever they please.” When they received this answer through Hypatian, their envoy, the bishops met at Lampsacus.

After conferring together for two months, they cancelled everything that had been decreed at Constantinople through the scheming of the party of Eudoxius and Acacius. They also declared null and void the formula of faith that had been circulated under the false claim that the Western bishops had drawn it up. Many bishops had been got to sign it by the promise that the doctrine that the Son is unlike the Father in substance would be condemned, a promise that had never been kept. [b] They decreed that the doctrine that the Son is like the Father in substance should prevail. For they said it was necessary to use the term “like” as a way of speaking of the hypostases of the Godhead. They agreed that the form of belief confessed at Seleucia, and set out at the dedication of the church of Antioch, should be held by all the churches. [c]

They directed that all the bishops who had been deposed by those who hold that the Son is unlike the Father should at once be restored to their sees, since they had been unjustly thrown out of their churches. They declared that anyone who wished to bring charges against them would be allowed to do so, but on pain of suffering the same punishment as was due for the alleged crime, if the charge should prove false. The orthodox bishops of the province and of the neighboring countries were to sit as judges, and to meet in the church with the witnesses who were to give evidence. After making these decisions, the bishops summoned the party of Eudoxius and urged them to repent. But since they paid no attention to these appeals, the decrees passed by the council were sent to all the churches. Judging that Eudoxius would probably try to win the emperor over to his side and would slander them, they decided to get ahead of him and send an account of their proceedings at Lampsacus to the court.

Their envoys met the emperor Valens as he was returning from Heraclea to Thrace, where he had traveled in company with his brother, who had gone on to Old Rome. [d] Eudoxius, however, had already won the emperor and his courtiers over to his own views. So when the envoys of the Council of Lampsacus came before Valens, he merely urged them not to be at odds with Eudoxius. The envoys answered by reminding him of the tricks Eudoxius had used at Constantinople and of his schemes to overturn the decrees of the Council of Seleucia. These words so inflamed Valens’s anger that he condemned the envoys to exile and handed the churches over to the party of Eudoxius. He then crossed into Syria, because he feared the Persians might break the thirty-year truce they had made with Jovian. But when he found that the Persians were not inclined to make trouble, he settled at Antioch. He sent Meletius the bishop into exile, but spared Paul, because he admired the holiness of his life. Those who were not in communion with Euzoius were either thrown out of the churches or mistreated and harassed in some other way. [e]