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| Of Hilary Bishop of Poictiers.
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Chapter X.—Of Hilary
Bishop of Poictiers.
There, however, Hilary bishop
of Poictiers (a city of Aquitania Secunda) had anticipated him, having
previously confirmed the bishops of Italy and Gaul in the doctrines of
the orthodox faith; for he first had returned from exile to these
countries. Both therefore nobly combined their energies in defense of
the faith: and Hilary being a very eloquent man, maintained with great
power the doctrine of the homoousion in books which he wrote in
Latin. In these he gave sufficient support [to the doctrine] and
unanswerably confuted the Arian tenets. These things took place shortly
after the recall of those who had been banished. But it must be
observed, that at the same time Macedonius, Eleusius, Eustathius, and
Sophronius, with all their partisans, who had but the one common
designation Macedonians, held frequent Synods in various places.513
| 513Sozom. V. 14; Theodoret, Hæret. Fabul.
IV.
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Having called together those of Seleucia who embraced their views, they
anathematized the bishops of the other party, that is the Acacian: and
rejecting the creed of Ariminum, they confirmed that which had been
read at Seleucia. This, as I have stated in the preceding book,514
was the same as had been before promulgated at Antioch. When they were
asked by some one, ‘Why have ye, who are called Macedonians
hitherto, retained communion with the Acacians, as though ye agreed in
opinion, if ye really hold different sentiments?’ they replied
thus, through Sophronius, bishop of Pompeiopolis, a city of
Paphlagonia: ‘Those in the West,’ said he, ‘were
infected with the homoousian error as with a disease: Aëtius in
the East adulterated the purity of the faith by introducing the
assertion of a dissimilitude of substance. Now both of these dogmas are
illegitimate; for the former rashly blended into one the distinct
persons of the Father and the Son, binding them together by that cord
of iniquity the term homoousion; while Aëtius wholly
separated that affinity of nature of the Son to the Father, by the
expression anomoion, unlike as to substance or essence. Since
then both these opinions run into the very opposite extremes, the
middle course between them appeared to us to be more consistent with
truth and piety: we accordingly assert that the Son is “like the
Father as to subsistence.”’
Such was the answer the Macedonians made by Sophronius
to that question, as Sabinus assures us in his Collection of the
Synodical Acts. But in decrying Aëtius as the author of the
Anomoion doctrine, and not Acacius, they flagrantly disguise the truth,
in order to seem as far removed from the Arians on the one side, as
from the Homoousians on the other: for their own words convict them of
having separated from them both, merely from the love of innovation.
With these remarks we close our notice of these persons. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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