ACACIUS OF CAESAREA

Disciple and successor of eusebius of caesarea and leader of the Homoean faction in the Arian controversy; d. after 365. Nothing is known of him before he succeeded Eusebius c. 340. He was present at the Council of Antioch in 341 and became one of the foremost bishops of the anti-Nicene party. As such he was condemned by name by the orthodox assembly of sardica in 343. Later he was involved in a bitter feud with St. cyril of jerusalem on jurisdictional and doctrinal grounds. His career reached a climax when the Homoean confession (the Son is "like to" the Father) became the official creed of the empire at the Synod of Constantinople in 360. When orthodoxy prevailed under the Emperor Jovian, Acacius had no scruples in signing the Nicene creed; but he returned to Homoean doctrine when valens became Emperor of the East in 364. However, he was condemned by the Homoiousian synod of Lampsacus in the summer of 365 but retained his see until his death (c. 366). He was noted for his eloquence and Biblical scholarship. He renovated the famous library of Caesarea, and he composed several works that are lost, except for a few exegetical fragments on Romans and the Octateuch.

Bibliography: j. quasten, Patrology 3:345–46. j. lebon, "La Position de saint Cyrille de Jérusalem dans les luttes provoquées par l'arianisme," Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique 20 (1924) 181–210, 357–86.

[v. c. de clercq]