AEZIO. — Heretic of the fourth century. According to some, he was born in Antioch and, according to others, in its vicinity, into a very modest family. Educated by Arian teachers, he had to procure the means of subsistence and study through his work: he was a coppersmith, servant, goldsmith, and physician. While earning his livelihood as a goldsmith, he helped the poor gratuitously as a physician. He later became acquainted with the Peripatetics, attended their schools, and studied in Antioch under Paolino and Leonzio, in Anazarbus under Atanasio, and in Tarsus under Antonio. Neglecting the sacred sciences, whose ignorance Socrates harshly reproaches him for (Hist. eccles., II, 35; PG 67, 300), he cultivated dialectic above all, in which he became highly expert. His supreme satisfaction was to provoke his opponents and then reduce them to silence with compelling and exceedingly subtle arguments. S. Epifanio states that he set forth his doctrine in 300 tightly constructed syllogisms and reports 47 of them.
Leonzio, bishop of Antioch, ordained him deacon and entrusted him with teaching publicly. But the exceedingly bold ideas of A., who taught that « the Son is neither like the Father nor identical with the Father, in respect of divinity » (Epifanio, Hoeres, 76, n. 2; PG 42, 517), from which it followed that he was of another substance (ἐτέρας οὐσίας « eterusiani ») and, as a created being, brought forth from nothing (ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων « esuconziani »), scandalized the people. Having been removed from his office, he took refuge with the Arian Giorgio, intruding bishop of Alexandria, until, in 358, Eudossio, Leonzio’s successor, recalled him to Antioch. But his excessively rash doctrines displeased the Arians themselves, who condemned him at the Third Council of Sirmium and had him exiled to Pepuza in Phrygia. In 359 A. took part in the Synod of Seleucia, where the Acacians took a clearly hostile stand against him. The following year he was deposed from the diaconate and confined first to Mopsuestia in Cilicia and then to Amblada in Pisidia. In 361, under Julian the Apostate, he was consecrated bishop without a see. He died in Constantinople between 366 and 370.
The adherents of strict Anomoeanism and the most radical Arianism were called Aeziani after A. They were also called Eunomians, after Eunomio, A.’s disciple and bishop of Cyzicus.