Homoiousians (Homeusians, Semi-Arians)

HOMOIOUSIANS (Homeusians, Semi-Arians). - They were followers of the Arianizing doctrine that rejects the consubstantiality of the Son, granting him only a nature similar (ὁμοιούσιος) to that of the Father.

Arianism (v.) did not end with the Council of Nicaea (325), but through the support first of Constantius, then of Valens, it managed to remain strong and threatening, giving rise to three main heretical currents: that of the Anomoeans, of the Homoeans, and of the H. The Anomoeans were pure Arians, who maintained precisely that the Son is in all things unlike (ἀνόμοιος) the Father. The Homoeans, caring little or not at all about doctrinal questions, were satisfied with a vague formula that specified nothing: the Son is like (ὁμοιος) the Father. The H., on the other hand, did not accept the consubstantial (ὁμοούσιος) out of horror of Sabellianism, yet on the other hand did not feel able to proclaim the Son outright unlike (ἀνόμοιος) the Father; they taught accordingly that the Son is like the Father in all things, even as regards essence (ὁμοιούσιος). They were at bottom almost all orthodox as regards the divinity of the Word, and differed from Catholics only in the term ὁμοιούσιος, which they substituted for the ὁμοούσιος of Nicaea with the aim of giving due emphasis to the personal distinction, which some pure Nicenes, in the heat of the struggle, had somewhat neglected. St. Athanasius himself and St. Hilary showed themselves conciliatory toward them. Later, however, a great number of them fell into the Pneumatomachian heresy, or Macedonianism.

Emanuele Chietti