106. "The Emperor himself presided over the critical session [at Nicaea], and it was he who proposed the reconciling word, homoousios (Greek for 'of one essence') to describe Christ's relationship to the Father (though it was probably one of his ecclesiastical advisers, Ossius [Hosius] of Cordova, who suggested it to him)." - Eerdman's Handbook to the History of Christianity, p. 134, 1977.
It is important to note that in the third century (about 50 years earlier) the Council of Antioch condemned the use of the term homoousios in describing the relationship of Jesus to God! It was proclaimed instead that the term heteras ousias ('different essence') must be used in describing Christ's relationship to God!! But, of course, fifty years later at Nicaea the new trinitarians managed to reverse this and institute the previously condemned term (homoousios) as the required term. Those who would disagree with the new reversal of terms were to be persecuted, banished, and their writings burned.
From an article in the Catholic Encyclopedia:
"(Gr. homoousion - from homos, same, and ousia, essence; Lat. consubstantialem, of one essence or substance), the word used by the Council of Nicaea (325) to express the Divinity of Christ. [Note that the trinitarian word is homo (same) ousia not homoi (similar but different) ousia]
....
"The question was brought into discussion by the Council of Antioch (264-272); and the Fathers seem to have rejected Homoousion, even going so far as to propose the phrase heteras ousias, that is, Heteroousion, "of other or different ousia [essence]". Athanasius and Basil give as the reason for this rejection of Homoousion the fact that the Sabellian Paul of Samosata took it to mean "of the same or similar substance". But Hilary says that Paul himself admitted it in the Sabellian sense "of the same substance or person", and thus compelled the council to allow him the prescriptive right to the expression. Now, if we may take Hilary's explanation, it is obvious that when, half a century afterwards, Arius denied the Son to be of the Divine ousia or substance, the situation was exactly reversed. Homoousion directly contradicted the heretic. In the conflicts which ensued, the extreme Arians persisted in the Heteroousion Symbol. But the Semi-Arians were more moderate, and consequently more plausible, in their Homoiousion (of like [similar] substance)." - http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07449a.htm
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