The predicative function of ἔλεγχος in fragment 79 of Eustathius of Antioch: a key to interpreting the Council of Nicaea

Abstract

It is proposed that the term ἔλεγχος contained in Eustathius of Antioch’s fragment 79 (Declerck’s edition) offers an outstanding hermeneutical key to understanding what happened at the Council of Nicaea (325). It is argued that, in this fragment, the classical meaning of the word ἔλεγχος (refutation, shame) implied a concomitant juridical meaning of ‘rebuttal evidence’, which is deduced from the predicative function that ἔλεγχος has in the linguistic context in which the appearance of such a word is framed, as well as from the peculiarities of the historical framework of the year 325. Specifically, Eustathius links the main purpose of the conciliar convocation to the linguistic formalisation of the faith and, in turn, indicates that such formalisation was set in contrast with some sort of impious document written by an unidentified Eusebius. Thus, the textual composition of a formula of faith at Nicaea was not an abstract process, but instead was based on the specific study of a concrete creed that was already composed, which was challenged by a text that, precisely, came as an ἔλεγχος. That creed was the one written by Eusebius of Caesarea.