The Council of Ariminum and Homoian Supremacy

This chapter analyzes the events leading to the establishment of a Homoian identity that was crystallized through the successes of the council of Ariminum. It shows that the churches in the west were not unified theologically in an indebtedness to the Nicene creed as a general confessional standard. By the winter of ad 360 one can speak of what Gwatkin called the ‘Homoian supremacy’ in the west, though for only a very short time. Even before the death of Constantius (3 November 361), one is confronted with the fragmentary evidence of a mounting opposition to the recent successes of the Homoian bishops, a process that resulted in a hardening of theological affiliations. And by the beginning of the reign of Valentinian I, only three years later, the credal affirmations of the late 350s have formed into definable parties — Homoian and Neo-Nicene, inter alia — with distinct churches, liturgies, and literature. As the parties took shape, so did the controversy that produced them.

Political science · Classical Antiquity Studies · History