EUNOMIUS (d. c. 393) , a leader of the extreme or "ano moian" Arians, sometimes called Eunomians, was born at Dacora, Cappadocia, early in the 4th century. He studied at Alexandria and was ordained deacon at Antioch. Through Eudoxius he was appointed bishop of Cyzicus in 36o, but Eudoxius was compelled, by command of the emperor, Constantius II., to depose him from the bishopric a year later because of his extreme Arian views. Eunomius went to Constantinople and then to Chalceden, whence in 367 he was banished to Mauretania for harbouring the rebel Procopius. He was recalled, however, before he reached his desti nation. In 383 the emperor Theodosius banished him to Halmyris in Moesia. He afterwards resided at Chalcedon, at Caesarea in Cappadocia, from which he was expelled by the inhabitants for writing against their bishop Basil, and lastly at Dacora. The influence of his writings was so much dreaded by the orthodox, that more than one imperial edict was issued for their destruction (Cod. Theod. xvi. 34). Consequently his commentary on the epistle to the Romans, mentioned by the historian Socrates, and his epistles, mentioned by Philostorgius and Photius, are lost. His first apologetical work written c. 36o or 365, has been recovered from the celebrated refutation of it by Basil, and is in J. A. Fabricius, Bibl. Gr. viii. Of a second apology written before 379 ("1"ir4p (broXoylas ar-oXo-yia), there are only quota tions in a refutation by Gregory of Nyssa. The exposition of faith ("EKOEacs r;Ic Trio cos), demanded by Theodosius, has been edited by Valesius in his notes to Socrates, and by Ch. H. G. Rettberg in his Marcelliana.
The teaching of the Anomoians, led by Aetius and Eunomius, starting from the conception of God as o oryvvqros, argued that between the &yiVviros and ybnniros there could be no essential, but at best only a moral, resemblance. According to Socrates (v. 24), Eunomius, instead of baptizing in the name of the Trinity, baptized in the name of the Creator and into the death of Christ. The Eunomian heresy was formerly condemned by the council of Constantinople in 381.
See C. R. W. Klose, Geschichte and Lehre des Eumonius (Kiel, 1833) ; F. Loofs in Hauck-Herzog, Realencyk.; Whiston's Eunomian ismus redivivus contains an English translation of the first apology. See also ARIUS.