Acacius of Caesarea

Acacius was the pupil, librarian and successor of Eusebius, the historian of the church. He took the see of Caesarea in Palestine about 340 and kept it until his death in 366. He was blind in one eye, and his enemies never let anyone forget it — the Greek nickname monophthalmos follows him through the histories. He inherited Eusebius's library, one of the greatest in the Christian world, and his learning was real. Jerome, who used that library himself, credits him with seventeen books on Ecclesiastes, six volumes of miscellanies, and a life of Eusebius. Almost all of it is lost. What survives is the record of his politics, and it is the record of a man on the wrong side of the great question. Acacius led the party that would not say the Son is homoousios — of the same substance — with the Father. His formula was that the Son is simply "like" the Father, which is why the group took his name: the Acacians, or Homoians. It was a compromise that sounded reasonable and gave away the point. He was effective. He deposed Cyril of Jerusalem in 357 in a quarrel that was partly doctrine and partly a fight over which see outranked which. At the twin councils of Seleucia and Ariminum in 359 he walked out with a minority, went to the emperor Constantius, and got his creed imposed on the whole church anyway — the year Jerome later said the world groaned to find itself Arian. He had a hand in deposing Macedonius and installing Eudoxius at Constantinople in 360. He was also flexible. When Jovian became emperor in 363 and Nicene faith was back in favor, Acacius signed the Nicene creed. When Valens turned the other way, Acacius turned with him. He was deposed at a synod in Lampsacus in 365 and died the next year. He is on this wall as data, not as a hero. The Arian controversy was not settled by men shouting slogans at each other; it was fought against opponents who were literate, well connected, and often more politically skilled than the orthodox. Acacius is what Athanasius was up against. Sources: Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History; Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History; Jerome, On Illustrious Men; Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion.