The Dispute over “Of One Substance”

The reputation of Athanasius, however, was increased above all by the Arians and Melitians. Though they were always plotting against him, they never seemed able to catch him properly and make him their prisoner. In the first place, Eusebius wrote urging him to receive the Arians into communion, and threatened, without putting it in writing, to treat him badly if he refused. But Athanasius would not give way to his urging. He held that those who had devised a heresy by tampering with the truth, and who had been condemned by the Council of Nicaea, ought not to be received into the church. So Eusebius worked to win the emperor over to Arius, and so obtained his return. I will tell a little further on how all these things came about. [a]

At this time the bishops had another stormy dispute among themselves, about the precise meaning of the term “of one substance.” Some thought that the term could not be accepted without blasphemy: that it implied that the Son of God did not exist, and that it involved the error of Montanus and Sabellius. Those who defended the term, on the other hand, regarded their opponents as Greeks, and held that their views led to belief in many gods. Eusebius, called Pamphilus, and Eustathius, bishop of Antioch, took the lead in this dispute. Both of them confessed that the Son of God exists as a real and distinct being, and yet they fought each other as though they had misunderstood each other. Eustathius accused Eusebius of altering the doctrines ratified by the Council of Nicaea, while Eusebius declared that he approved all the doctrines of Nicaea, and reproached Eustathius for clinging to the heresy of Sabellius. [b]