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Research atlas for early Christianity. Claims are tagged attested, traditional, or disputed. Copyrighted full texts, including CCEL editions, are not included.

Council

Seleucia

359 · Seleucia in Isauria

Attested. The session and the split are well reported. Faction names in later textbooks are simpler than the votes.

Seleucia: for and against

Neither column is a Nicene ballot. The majority was Homoiousian. The minority, under Acacius, was Homoian. No roll call survives.

For the Nicene side

No one in this column. A blank is not a hidden vote.

Against

  • Acacius of Caesarea

    Attested

    Bishop of Caesarea after Eusebius. Led the minority that rejected substance language.

  • Eudoxius of Constantinople

    Attested

    Then bishop of Antioch, later of Constantinople. With Acacius's Homoian minority.

Reservations or a third party

  • Basil of Ancyra

    Attested

    Leader of the homoiousios party. The Seleucia majority stood with that line. He is not Basil of Caesarea, and this was not a compromise made in 325.

Convened by. Constantius II, as the eastern twin of Rimini

Issues. The eastern twin of Ariminum. Constantius wanted one creed without ousia. The bishops who met did not agree with each other, and most of them were not arguing for Nicaea's homoousios.

Outcomes. The majority stood with the Homoiousian party of Basil of Ancyra: the Son is like the Father in substance. That party had taken shape at Ancyra in 358, decades after Nicaea. Acacius of Caesarea led a minority that wanted a Homoian formula with no substance word. Aetius's 'unlike' theology was a further extreme, and he was not a bishop casting this vote. A court council at Constantinople in 360 then imposed the Homoian line and deposed Homoiousian leaders. It did not hold.

Canons or creeds. No canon of scripture. Do not read Seleucia as a vote for or against the Nicene creed. It was a fight between homoiousios and the Homoians.

Show Seleucia in Isauria on the map

Also named, not in the vote columns

Sources

DeChurched Atlas — Early Christianity as history, from every source