Eunomius Banished, and the Arians Divided

Subjects like those above, however, are best left for each person to judge. [a]

About this time the emperor sentenced Eunomius to banishment. This heretic had settled in the suburbs of Constantinople and often held church gatherings in private houses, where he read out his own writings. He won many over to his views, so that the members of the sect named after him became very numerous. He died not long after his banishment and was buried at Dacora, his birthplace, a village of Cappadocia near Mount Argaeus, in the territory of Caesarea. Theophronius, who was also a Cappadocian and had been his disciple, went on spreading his teachings. Having picked up a smattering of learning from the writings of Aristotle, he composed an introduction to the study of the syllogisms in them, which he called “Exercises for the Mind.” But afterward, I understand, he took part in many useless disputes and soon stopped keeping to the teachings of his master. Being eager for new things, he tried to prove from the terms used in the Sacred Scriptures that although God foreknows what is not, and knows what is, and remembers what has happened, he does not always have this knowledge in the same way with respect to the future and the present, and that he changes his knowledge of the past. Since this theory seemed plainly absurd to the Eunomians, they excommunicated him from their church, and he made himself the leader of a new sect, called after his name the Theophronians. [b]

Not long afterward Eutychus, one of the Eunomians, started another sect in Constantinople, which was given his own name. The question had been raised whether the Son of God does or does not know the last hour. To settle it, they quoted the words of the evangelist, which say that the day and the hour are known only to the Father. Eutychus, however, argued that this knowledge belongs to the Son as well, since he has received all things from the Father. When the Eunomian leaders condemned this opinion, he broke off communion with them and went to join Eunomius in the place of his banishment. A deacon and some others, who had been sent from Constantinople to accuse Eutychus and, if need be, to argue against him, arrived at the place first. When Eunomius learned why they had come, he declared himself in favor of the views Eutychus put forward. When Eutychus arrived, Eunomius prayed with him, even though it was not lawful to pray with anyone traveling without letters written in sacred characters to show that he was in communion. Eunomius died soon after this dispute, and the Eunomian leader at Constantinople refused to receive Eutychus into communion. He opposed him out of jealousy, because Eutychus did not even belong to the clergy, and because he could not answer his arguments or find any way to solve the problems he raised. So Eutychus gathered those who shared his views into a heresy of his own. Many say that he and Theophronius were the first to put forward the particular views the Eunomians hold about divine baptism. This is a brief account of the details I have been able to give, to provide a short summary of the reasons why the Eunomians became divided among themselves. I would be long-winded if I went into further particulars; and indeed the subject would not be at all easy for me, since I have no such skill in logic.

Meanwhile the following question was being hotly debated among the Arians of Constantinople: before the Son existed (and they hold that he came out of nothing), should God be called the Father? Dorotheus, who had been brought from Antioch to lead them in place of Marinus, held that God could not have been called the Father before the Son existed, because the name Father is necessarily bound up with the name Son. Marinus, on the other hand, maintained that the Father was the Father even when the Son did not exist. He put forward this opinion either from conviction, or else from love of argument and from jealousy that Dorotheus had been preferred to him in the church. So the Arians were divided into two parties. Dorotheus and his followers kept possession of the houses of prayer, while Marinus and those who broke away with him built new buildings in which to hold their own church gatherings. The followers of Marinus were given the names “Psathyrians” and “Goths.” They were called Psathyrians because Theoctistus, a certain cake seller, in Greek a psathyropoles, was a zealous champion of their views; and Goths because their opinions were approved by Selenas, bishop of that nation. Almost all these barbarians followed the teaching of Selenas, and they gathered in the churches with the followers of Marinus. The Goths were drawn to Selenas especially because he had once been the secretary of Ulfilas and had succeeded him as bishop. He was able to teach in their churches not only in their own language but in Greek as well.

Soon afterward a contest over precedence arose between Marinus and Agapius, whom Marinus himself had ordained bishop over the Arians at Ephesus, and in the quarrel that followed the Goths took the side of Agapius. It is said that many of the Arian clergy of that city were so provoked by the ambition these two bishops showed that they joined in communion with the catholic church. Such was the origin of the division of the Arians into two factions, a division that still continues, so that in every city they have separate churches. The Arians at Constantinople, however, after being separated for thirty-five years, were reconciled to one another by Plintha, a former consul and general of both cavalry and infantry, a man of great influence at court. To keep the old quarrels from reviving among them, it was forbidden to raise the question that had caused the division. But these events took place later. [e]