Isabella Image: Fraud at the council of Rimini (359 AD)

The council of Rimini (359 AD) marked a turning point in the fortunes of the Nicene party.  Although originally the Nicene Symbol was accepted as the doctrinal definition for the council, the delegates eventually were persuaded to do a U-turn and countersign a homoian creed that was definitive for many decades after (e.g. by Empress Justina at her famous confrontation with Ambrose). 

The action of the delegates baffled later generations; contemporary accounts (e.g. the letter from the Gaulish bishops preserved by Hilary) and later historical narrative (e.g. Rufinus, Jerome) alike suggest fraud and trickery.  Modern assessments on Rimini, almost always following the seminal work by Duval (“La manoeuvre frauduleuse de Rimini...” in Hilaire et son temps: Actes du Colloque de Poitiers 29 Sep – 3 Oct 1968, p.51-103), suggest that elements of the fraud regarded the addition of an anathema denying the Son was a creature “like the other creatures” or the deception of delegates as to what was happening at the sister Greek council in Seleucia.

This paper will consider some of the events of the council and will suggest a more general reading of the ‘fraud’, in that the purpose of the council was originally presented as seeking compromise but turned out to be used to condemn many of the key players (e.g. Basil of Ancyra); although indeed allegations of fraud are a trope now as then for explaining the disagreeable actions of one’s political or theological bedfellows.