On Thu, 7 Jan 1999, Greg Nowell wrote:
> Are we to be homoousian or homoiusian [sic]?
In spite of Gibbon's famous gibe ("... the profane of every age have derided the furious contests which the difference of a single diphthong excited between the Homoousians and the Homoiousians"), the fourth century debate really was of world-historical importance. The partisans of homoiousian stood for a universe that was fundamentally hierarchical, while those of homoousian argued for an equality of the divine and human that immediately relativized all lesser distinctions. "Take but degree away, untune that string, / And, hark! what discord follows..."
That's why the cold-eyed imperialists of the day -- perspicacious as our own -- opted for the former party. They simply recognized their own interest in doing so, because the anarchist impulses of the traditional underground Christian movement of the eralier centuries flowed into the latter.
--C. G. Estabrook