Homoousion

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Homoousion (Gk., ‘of one substance’). The word in the Nicene Creed to express the relation in the one Godhead of the Father and Son. It was accepted as an anti-Arian formula at the Council of Nicaea at the urging of the emperor, although many bishops preferred the looser term homoiousion, ‘of like substance’. Thus its sense may have been broadly ‘of the same nature’, rather than ‘of the identical substance’ as later theology took it. Homoousion was used again at Chalcedon to express the relation of Christ to people; and it was extended to the Holy Spirit during the 4th cent.