The Council of Antioch and Its Two Creeds

Soon after these events the emperor went to Antioch, a city of Syria. A church had just been completed there that excelled in size and beauty. Constantine had begun building it in his lifetime, and since his son Constantius had just finished it, Eusebius and his party, who had long been eager for this, thought it a good opportunity to call a council. So they met at Antioch together with those from various regions who shared their views; their bishops numbered about ninety-seven. Their stated purpose was the dedication of the newly finished church, but they intended nothing other than the abolition of the decrees of the Council of Nicaea, as what followed fully proved. The church of Antioch was then governed by Placitus, who had succeeded Euphronius. The death of Constantine the Great had taken place about five years before. [a]

When all the bishops had gathered in the presence of the emperor Constantius, most of them expressed great indignation and vigorously accused Athanasius of having despised the priestly rule they had enacted, and of having taken possession of the bishopric of Alexandria without first obtaining the approval of a council. They also testified that he was responsible for the deaths of several people who fell in a riot stirred up by his return, and that many others had on the same occasion been arrested and handed over to the courts. By these accusations they managed to make Athanasius hated, and it was decreed that Gregory should be given the government of the church of Alexandria.

Then they turned to questions of doctrine, and found no fault with the decrees of the Council of Nicaea. They sent letters to the bishops of every city, declaring that, being bishops themselves, they had not followed Arius. “For how,” they said, “could we have been his followers, when he was only a presbyter and we were placed above him?” Rather, since they had been the examiners of his faith, they had readily received him; and they believed in the faith that had been handed down by tradition from the beginning. They explained this further at the end of their letter, but without mentioning the substance of the Father or of the Son, or the term “of one substance.” In fact they used such ambiguous expressions that neither the Arians nor those who followed the decrees of the Council of Nicaea could fault the arrangement of their words as showing ignorance of the holy Scriptures. They deliberately avoided every expression that either party rejected, and used only those that all accepted. They confessed that the Son is with the Father, that he is the only Son, that he is God and existed before all things, and that he took flesh and fulfilled his Father’s will. They confessed these and similar truths, but they did not set out the doctrine that the Son is coeternal with the Father or of one substance with him, nor the opposite.

Later, it seems, they changed their minds about this statement and issued another, which in my opinion came very close to that of the Council of Nicaea, unless some hidden meaning lies in the words that is not apparent to me. Although they refrained, for what reason I do not know, from saying that the Son is of one substance, they confessed that he is unchangeable, that his divinity is not subject to change, that he is the perfect image of the Father’s substance, counsel, power and glory, and that he is the firstborn of all creation. They said they had found this statement of faith, and that it had been written entirely by Lucian, who was martyred at Nicomedia, a man highly approved and extremely exact in the sacred Scriptures. I do not know whether this claim was really true, or whether they put it forward simply to give weight to their own document by attaching the dignity of a martyr to it.

Taking part in this council were not only Eusebius, who after Paul’s expulsion had been moved from Nicomedia to the throne of Constantinople, but also Acacius, the successor of Eusebius Pamphilus; Patrophilus, bishop of Scythopolis; Theodore, bishop of Heraclea, formerly called Perinthus; Eudoxius, bishop of Germanicia, who later led the church of Constantinople after Macedonius; and Gregory, who had been chosen to preside over the church of Alexandria. Everyone acknowledged that all these bishops held the same views, as did Dianius, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, George, bishop of Laodicea in Syria, and many others who served as bishops of metropolitan and other leading churches.