ACACIUS, Bishop of Caesarea. - A disciple and then, from 340, the successor of Eusebius the historian in the see of Caesarea in Palestine. In the Arian controversy he was not on the side of Nicene orthodoxy, but he did not range himself explicitly and consistently in favor of Arius either. In a council held at Constantinople (360) and presided over by himself, he succeeded, protected by the emperor Constantius II, in having the formula of faith of the Council of Rimini adopted, in which the Son of God was proclaimed like to the Father, forbidding the use of the terms ousia and hypostasis. At the Council of Antioch (363) he drew near to the Nicene faith by admitting that the Son was in substance like to the Father (ὕρωτος κατὰ ὠνῶν); cf. Epistola synodalis, in Mansi, III, 372), opportunistically deferential to the orthodoxy of the emperor Jovian; but he immediately reverted to his earlier view under the successor Valens. He died around 366.
From him were named Acacians those who in the Arian controversy refused to admit either the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, defined by the Nicene council, or the substantial likeness maintained by the Semi-Arians, or the unlikeness affirmed by the Anomoeans, confining themselves to asserting that the Son was like to the Father, persuaded that in this they were faithful to the language of Sacred Scripture. They were therefore called Homoeans (from the Greek ὕρωτος). St. Jerome (De Viris illustr., 98) and Socrates (Hist. eccl., II, 4) point out some of the numerous writings of A., among them a biography of his master and predecessor Eusebius, some commentaries on Eccles. and "Various Questions" (Συμμετὰ ζητήματα).
Bibliography2 works
Gaetano Corti