AETIUS (fl. 350)  , surnamed " the Atheist," founder of an extreme sect of Arians, was a native of Coele-Syria . After working as a vine-dresser and then as a goldsmith he became a travelling doctor, and displayed great skill in disputations on medical subjects; but his controversial power soon found a wider field for its exercise in the great theological question of the time . He studied successively under the Arians, Paulinus, bishop of Antioch, Athanasius, bishop of Anazarbus, and the presbyter Antonius of Tarsus . In 350 he was ordained a deacon by Leontius of Antioch, but was shortly afterwards forced by the orthodox party to leave that town . At the first synod of Sirmium he won a dialectic victory over the homoiousjan bishops, 13asilius and Eustathius, who sought in consequence to stir up against him the enmity of Caesar Gallus . In 356 he went to Alexandria with Eunomius (q.v.) in order to advocate Arianism, but he was banished by Constantius . Julian recalled him from exile, bestowed upon him an estate in Lesbos, and retained him for a time at his court in Constantinople . Being consecrated a bishop, he used his office in the interests of Arianism by creating other bishops of that party . At the accession of Valens (364) he retired to his estate at Lesbos, but soon returned to Constantinople, where he died in 367 . The Anomoean sect of the Arians, of whom he was the leader, are sometimes called after him Aetians . His work De Fide has been preserved in connexion with a refutation written by Epiphanius (Haer. lxxvi . 1o) .

Its

main thought is that the Homousia, i.e. the doctrine that the Son (therefore the Begotten) is essentially God, is self-contradictory, since the idea of unbegottenness is just that which constitutes the nature of God . See A . Harnack, History of Dogma, vol. iv. passim .