Eustathius of Antioch

• Born at Side in Pamphylia, he was the bishop of Beroea in Syria, then bishop of Antioch toward the end of 324.
• He was the first to speak at the Council of Nicaea in 325, and when the Emperor Constantine entered the assembly of the assembled bishops, he greeted him with a welcome address.
• It was the same emperor who in 330 drove him into exile to Trajanopolis in Thrace after the Arian synod at Antioch had deposed him, in 326.
• He must have died before the year 337, when Constantine recalled the banished bishops.
• Eustathius has been accused of being in his Christology a successor of Paul of Samosata, and a forerunner to Nestorius. Although the few fragments of his works make it very difficult to give a complete picture of his teaching, they suffice to refute this accusation.
• He unreservedly uses the title Theotokos for the Virgin Mary.
• He is the first to attempt a Logos-Man Christology against the

predominant Logos-Sarx doctrine. However, it is only by an isolation of these words from his other affirmations that he can be made suspect of Adoptionism and Nestorianism.

• He wrote many treatises against the Arians: 1. De Anima in two parts. The first is a refutation of the philosophers; the second attacks the Arians. 2. De Engastrmytho Adversum Origenem (On the Witch of Endor Against Origen) (1 Samuel 28). In it, he ridicules Origen with great vehemence and attacks his allegorical exegesis. 3. Adversus Arianos in at least eight books, is his most important work. 4. Exegetical treatises on the Psalms, especially Ps 15 and 92; and Proverbs 8:22. 5. A letter to Pope Alexander of Alexandria refuting the Melchisedechians, who were of the opinion that the Priest-King of Salem was greater than Christ.

• Fragments of his dogmatic writings show that his theology foreshadows Antiochian Christology.