Roman authorities make an attempt on February 8, 356, to arrest Athanasius on the accusation of supporting the late usurper Magnentius.

Athanasius eludes them, fleeing to the desert to hide among the monks of Mount Nitria.

Aëtius of Antioch goes to Alexandria with his Cappadocian protégé Eunomius in order to advocate Arianism, but he is banished by Constantius.

Eunomius, who had studied theology at Alexandria under Aëtius, and afterwards come under the influence of Eudoxius of Antioch, who ordained him deacon, had in 360 been appointed bishop of Cyzicus, in Mysia, on the recommendation of Eudoxius.

Propounding an extreme form of Arianism that refutes the divinity of Christ and constructing his argument on a Platonist philosophical structure, Eunomius teaches that Christ was not equal to God the Father but only resembled him.

Here his free utterance of extreme Arian views have led to popular complaints, and Eudoxius is compelled, by command of Constantius, to depose him from the bishopric within a year of his elevation to it.

Eunomius of Cyzicus, deposed from his bishopric by Constantius for his extreme Arianist views, had resided in Constantinople during the reigns of Julian and Jovian, in close intercourse with his mentor Aëtius, consolidating an heretical party and consecrating schismatical bishops.

He had then gone to live at Chalcedon, whence in 367 he is banished to Mauretania for harboring the rebel Procopius.

He is recalled, however, before he reaches his destination.

The Nicene Creed prescribed in 380 is again defined at the beginning of 381 and ecclesiastically sanctioned, as it were, in the summer of this year by a church council summoned to Constantinople by Theodosius, chiefly to confront Arianism.

Meletius of Antioch presides but dies during the Council; Gregory of Nyssa, whose brother Basil had died early in 379, delivers Meletius’s funeral oration.

The Council, attended by more than 150 bishops, all from the Eastern portion of the empire, reaffirms the Nicene Creed, firmly rejecting Arianism, as well as Modalism and Monarchianism.

Apollinarianism, which had been opposed by Basil, together with Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Athanasius because of the doctrine’s implication that Christ was not fully human, is also condemned, as are the Eunomians, as the followers of Eunomius’s extreme brand of Arianism have become known.

In formulating the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, the Council defines the position of the Holy Spirit within the Trinity, describing the Holy Spirit as proceeding from God the Father.

It follows Athanasius in affirming the equality of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, declaring them separate persons but coequal and of one substance.

The council’s canons establish the authority of the metropolitan bishops over their dioceses and give the bishop of the capital a primacy similar to that of the bishop of Rome.

It also deposes Constantinople’s Arian bishop, Maximus.

Gregory of Nazianzus, who has influenced Jerome during the three years he has spent in Constantinople, plays a leading role at the council, but opposition to his claim to the Maximus’ vacated bishopric makes him decide to return to Nazianzus.

The gathering, considered the second ecumenical council, universally imposes the Nicaean faith: Christianity as preached by Peter is to be the sole official religion of the Roman Empire; orthodoxy is defined as the doctrines proclaimed by the bishops of Rome and Alexandria.

The Council’s new theological formulas persuade most Arians to convert to orthodoxy.

Eunomius, born at Dacora in Cappadocia early in the fourth century, had studied theology at Alexandria under Aetius, and afterwards had come under the influence of Eudoxius of Antioch, who had ordained him deacon, and on whose recommendation he had been appointed bishop of Cyzicus in 360, where his free utterance of extreme Arian views had led to popular complaints.

By command of the emperor, Constantius II, Eudoxius was compelled to depose Eunomius from the bishopric within a year of his elevation to it.

During the reigns of Julian and Jovian, Eunomius had resided in Constantinople in close intercourse with Aetius, developing what will come to be known as the anomoean party and helping to consecrate schismatical bishops.

The teaching of the Anomoean school, led by Aetius and Eunomius, starting from the conception of God as Creator, argued that between the Creator and created there could be no essential, but at best only a moral, resemblance.

"As the Unbegotten, God is an absolutely simple being; an act of generation.

would involve a contradiction of His essence by introducing duality into the Godhead."

He had then gone to live at Chalcedon, from whence in 367 he was banished to Mauretania for harboring the rebel Procopius.

He was recalled, however, before he reached his destination.

According to Socrates of Constantinople (v. 24), Eunomius carried his views to a practical issue by altering the baptismal formula.

Instead of baptizing in the name of the Trinity, he baptized in the name of the Creator and into the death of Christ.

This alteration was regarded by the orthodox as so serious that Eunomians on returning to the church were rebaptized, though the Arians were not.

The Eunomian heresy was formally condemned by the Council of Constantinople in 381.

In 383 the emperor Theodosius, who had demanded a declaration of faith from all party leaders, punished Eunomius for continuing to teach his distinctive doctrines, by banishing him to Halmyris in Scythia Minor.

He afterwards resided at Chalcedon and at Caesarea in Cappadocia, from which he had been expelled by the inhabitants for writing against their bishop Basil.

His last days are spent at his birthplace Dacora, where he dies about 393, after which Eutropius orders that Eunomius' body be moved to Tyana and his books be burned.

The sect will maintain a separate existence for some time, but will gradually fall away owing to internal divisions.