"[4] “The council was a disaster: the two sides, one from the west and the other from the east, never met as one.”[5][b] "Constans decided to take the initiative ... His brother Constantius … agreed to permit, at the suggestion of Constans, that a grand Ecumenical Council should take place, with the intention of resolving the tension between East and West in the Church, at Serdica, modern Sofia, a city carefully chosen as standing between the Eastern and Western halves of the Roman Empire.”[4]
It was a small group of Western bishops, influential with Constans, who planned the Council: Maximinus of Trier, Protasius of Milan, Ossius of Cordova, Fortunatianus of Aquileia and Vincent of Capua.
Julius of Rome was not a prime mover in the affair; he sent a comparatively minor delegation who kept a low profile.”[10]Since the "devisers" of the council were a small group of bishops who had Constans' ear, the question arises to what extent they represent the general view of the West.
He says it is an error to assume “that Greek-speaking areas of the east divided clearly in theology from the Latin-speaking west.
Constans himself, accompanied by Athanasius and several other Eastern bishops who had been deposed during the past twenty years, attended the encounter.
The ‘western’ council was as localized as most during this century.”[5]Julius I was represented by the priests Archidamus and Philoxenus, and the deacon Leo.
[14] Athanasius reported that bishops attended from Roman diocese of Hispania, Gaul, Britain, Italy, Africa, Egypt, Syria, Thrace and Pannonia.
"[21] Both sides took the most imprudent measures towards the others:[21] "The Western bishops examined the cases of Athanasius, of Marcellus, of Asclepas and of Lucius all over again and declared them innocent.
This dispute that prevented the entire council from meeting already began at Nicaea, where Alexander formed an alliance with Marcellus and some other Sabellians:“Simonetti estimates the Nicene Council as a temporary alliance for the defeat of Arianism between the tradition of Alexandria led by Alexander and 'Asiatic' circles (i.e. Eustathius, Marcellus) whose thought was at the opposite pole to that of Arius.
… But it is equally certain that he can have taken no prominent nor active part, in spite of later legends to this effect and the conviction of some scholars that he was the moving spirit in the Council.”[27] After Nicaea, Marcellus was deposed for Sabellianism.
The perception that these two trajectories held to very similar beliefs would help to shape widespread eastern antipathy to both in the years after Nicaea.”[31] "The fragments of Eustathius that survive present a doctrine that is close to Marcellus, and to Alexander and Athanasius.
Constantine was emperor of the entire Roman Empire and was able to limit religious disagreements between factions in the church.
This created the opportunity for theologies to develop in different directions in the eastern and western parts of the empire.
[citation needed] After the empire was divided, Athanasius was able to convince the bishop of Rome of his polemical strategy.
His success had a profound impact on the next few years of the controversy.”[34] He and Marcellus were also able to convince the bishop of Rome of their orthodoxy and of Athanasius’ innocence.
“Julius (bishop of Rome), in the year 341, summoned a council to Rome, which vindicated the orthodoxy of Marcellus, as well as that of Athanasius.”[35] However, since both Marcellus and Athanasius were Eastern bishops and were deposed by the Eastern Church, their vindication by the Western Church created tension between the East and the West.
“Early in the year 342 a delegation from the Eastern Church presented itself at the court of the Emperor Constans in Trier.
"[4] It was in this context that a small group of bishops convinced Constans to propose an “ecumenical council’ at Serdica.
If we ask the question, what was considered to constitute the ultimate authority in doctrine during the period reviewed in these pages, there can be only one answer.
[13] After the council, he "duly exiled Lucius of Adrianople and some Egyptian clergy who had met with the Easterners' disapproval.
"[21] "This formula is no more or less than the Fourth Creed of Antioch 341, the one sent vainly to Constans, with an addition to the anathemas at the end tacked on to it.
"[44] Ayres concludes:These events show that participants at Nicaea, “such as Ossius, Athanasius, and Marcellus” were “willing to turn to an alternative statement of faith, just as many of their eastern counterparts had done at Antioch two years before.” “This reflects … a context in which conciliar formulations were not seen as fixed.”[45]This council was held during the decades after Nicaea when nobody mentions homoousios, not even Athanasius.
(do we say), the artificer of archangels and angels and the world and the human race was begotten along with absolutely everything else which is called visible and invisible, because the text runs [Wisd 7:22] and [Jn 1:3]?
(10) But we believe and affirm and so think, that he uttered [Jn 10:30] with his sacred voice because of the unity of the hypostasis, which is a single one of Father and of Son.
But the divine utterance carefully distinguished: "they may be one in us”, It says; It did not say "we are one I and the Father"; but the disciples are linked and united among themselves by their confession of faith, so that they could be one in grace and worship of God the Father and ill the peace and love of our Lord and Saviour'.While the Eusebians taught that "the Son suffering as God and not only as man,"[47] this document claims that only "the man whom he put on" suffered.
both because it appears to commit the Western church to a form of Sabellianism, approved or at least not reproved by the Pope, and by a Council which had also passed canons so congenial to later Ultramontamsm.
"[47] "Ossius and Protogenes ... describe the formula with which the Encyclical ends as simply a justification and clarification of the creed of Nicaea.
[50] Nicaea I canon 5 "implied that" provincial synods "had an acknowledged authority to" judge the acts of individual bishops of their province.
[53] Overall, the Eastern bishops rejected the review of the Tyre I sentence and formulated a new creed at the Synod of Antioch in 341.
[14] They also desired to definitively settle the confusion arising from the many doctrinal formulas in circulation, and suggested that all such matters should be referred to an ecumenical council.