Council of Sirmium

357. Technically in the jurisdictional sphere of the Western Empire, the city was the venue chosen by the emperor Constantius, an Arian sympathizer, to bring the Western bishops into Arian line. It began with the expurgation of the Greek concepts ousia (“substance”), homoousios, and homoiousios, on the ground that they were nonscriptural and above human understanding, substituting a baptismal Trinity and a subordinated, begotten Son. Hilary of Poitiers* who reports upon the events and gives the Latin text of the creed, identifies it as the “Blasphemy of Sirmium.”