Synodal Letter against Paul of Samosata

Conciliar · Letter · 268 · Greek

The bishops who deposed Paul of Samosata wrote to Rome and Alexandria to explain why, and Eusebius copied a long stretch of it into his history — which is the only reason the case survives in the accusers' own words. It is as much a character sketch as an indictment: the throne he built himself, the hymns he had sung in his own honour, the women who travelled with him. Preserved in Eusebius, HE 7.30. The council also rejected the word homoousios, which Nicaea would adopt fifty-seven years later.