MACEDONIUS and MACEDONIANS. — Bishop
of Constantinople from 342 to 360, from whom, starting
from around 380, ecclesiastical historians derived the
then-current designation of “Macedonians” to indicate the
Pneumatomachi.
The information about the life and doctrine of M. is
quite uncertain, because the sources from the 4th century are scarce (Jerome, *Chronicon*, for the years 342 and 360 AD [ed. R. Helm (CB, 24, Eusebius 7), Leipzig 1913, pp. 235–47]; Athanasius, *Historia arianorum*, 7: PG 25, 701), while those of later historians are indeed more abundant, but often certainly inaccurate or even erroneous, so that caution is required of the historian (Philostorgius, *Hist. eccl.*, IV, 9; V, 1; VIII, 17; ed. J. Bidez [CB 21], Leipzig 1913; Socrates, *Hist. eccl.*, II, 6, 12, 13, 15, 16, 27, 38, 42, 45; PG 67; Sozomen, *Hist. eccl.*, III, 3, 4, 7, 9, 24; IV, 2, 56).
The term “Macedonians” was first used by Socrates and Sozomen to denote a party that had been discussed in the region of Constantinople and in Asia Minor while M. was still alive. Socrates shows a group of Homoiousian bishops adhering to M. and called “Macedonians,” among whom were Eleusius of Cyzicus, Eustathius of Sebaste, Sophronius of Pompeiopolis, Marcian of Lampsacus, holding councils from the time of Julian the Apostate (361–63) and again at Lampsacus in 366, without Socrates—who here explicitly cites Sabinus the “Macedonian” as his informant—making it appear that they concerned themselves with anything other than the question of the Son or made any special mention of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, he explicitly states that only shortly after the Council of Lampsacus “the doctrine of M. became more openly manifest” (*Hist. eccl.*, II, 10; IV, 4).
All this makes it difficult to trace back to M. himself the specifically Pneumatoma position and thus justify the title bestowed upon him by later history.
It is, however, beyond dispute that at Constantinople explicit Pneumatomachism first flourished precisely among those Homoiousians who had been in the circle of M. and who, according to Sozomen (*Hist. eccl.*, IV, 27; VIII, 1), though forming a distinct party, were unable, mainly because of opposition from the Arians, to secure an officially recognized bishop or to have their own churches.
Around 373, Eustathius of Sebaste appears as the leader of the party, whom Basil calls “leader of the heresy of the Pneumatoma” (*Ep. 263, 13; PG 32, 977*). He was a friend of M. and was deposed with him in 360. Also among M.’s followers was that Eleusius of Cyzicus who appears as leader of the Pneumatoma at the time of the Council of 381. The designation “Macedonians” given to the Pneumatoma thus did not at first likely have the meaning of making M. himself the proper founder of Pneumatomachism, but probably only that this new heresy, in what was specific to it and distinguished it from ordinary Arians, had flourished at Constantinople among the adherents of the party originally formed around M.