HOMOOUSIOUS V. HOMOIOUSIOUS
These Greek words were first introduced in the Great Council of Nicaea (325 common era). The Council was ordered by Emperor Constantine for the sole purpose of forcing all the bishops in the empire to sit down and agree to a uniform set of beliefs. The bishops exerted tremendous religious and political power and their squabbling was causing a divisiveness in his empire, and he wanted to put a stop to it. There were approximately 280 or more bishops attending this council (although more than a thousand were invited ). At the time, the church was divided into two camps, one believing that Christ was God, and the other believing that Christ was a human being like the rest of us.
A group of bishops headed by Bishop Arius believed Christ was simply a creation of God, or as they preferred, a creation of the Father, while another group of bishops headed by the Bishop of Alexandria's theologian, Bishop Athanasius, believed that Christ was not a creation of God, but that Christ and God were the same. To emphasize his belief, Athanasius insisted that the creed that they were all there to agree upon, must contain the word "homoousious", which as applied to Christ, meant that Christ was of the "same essence or substance" (homoousious) as that of God. Arius wanted to substitute another word that had "almost" the same meaning. That spelling of the word was almost like the spelling of "homoousious", except that it contained an extra "i" after "homo", so it was spelled "homoiousious".
However, Arius's word with the extra "i", meant something entirely different - instead of meaning that Christ was of the same substance as God, it meant that Christ was of a "similar subtstance" to that of God. Boiled down, Athanasius wanted everyone at the council to affirm that Christ and God were the same, that is, the Father is the same as the son, and the son is the same as the Father with absolutely no differences, meaning they were equal to each other in every respect. Arius, on the other hand, wanted the council to affirm that Christ was generated by the Father, since the word "father" meant generator, and therefore, had to preexist the son, and therefore, Christ could not be co-eternal with the Father. Using that argument, Arius further explained that it would be impossible from a theological standpoint to state that there could be two beings who had no beginning, i.e., it would be theololgically impossible to support the notion that there were two innascent beings. Consequently, they argued, Christ had to exist "after" the Father and could not therefore, "exist with the Father from all eternity".
Although the bishops were civil at these councils, there were riots and attacks among these factions, including murders, pillaging, and calling each other names, such as heretics and blasphemers. So this controversy over the addition of the letter "i", was a matter of grave concern to the emperor who had enemies from without trying to invade his empire, so he could not accept a fracturing of his empire from within. The emperor was primarily concerned with unifying his empire by removing divisions within it.
So here is the word that caused all the divisions and bloodshed:
Homoousious (notice the one "i"): homo means "the same" and "ousious" means essence or substance.
The word that Bishop Arius wanted to use to replace "homoousious" was:
Homoiousious (notice there is an additional "i": homo means "the same" and "iousious" means similar in substance or essence.
This difference can be explained rather easily. For example, a bar of silver can produce several silver dollars. The silver dollars produced are similar, in essence or substance, to the bar of silver from which they were made - but they are not the bar of silver. This was Arius's contention, that Christ was made from God (the bar of silver), but was not the bar of silver, that is, Christ was not God, but was similar to God in essence and substance.
However, Athansius' argument was that Christ was in fact the bar of silver, and equal to it in all respects, so that the Father and the Son were the same bar of silver, so to speak. Athanasius' illogic infuriated the bishops who supported Arius's position, and both sides became more entrenched in their positions, and became more violent towards each other, and violence included riots and acts of murder against each other. Eventually, Athansius' followers, through a period of time, and with the aid of Roman emperors, eradicated the Arians, through butchery and other means.
That is the genesis of modern day heretical Christianity (the theologically unsupportable and blasphemous doctrine known as "the trinity doctrine"), a belief that states there are three gods in the godhead, "the father, the son, and the holy ghost". (Do a search on the internet using the words "Athanasian Creed", which is a profession of Christian faith that substantiates what I just stated, namely, belief in three gods, where it states in the creed Article 15 "So the Father is God, the Son God, the Holy Ghost God".)
May you find the one true God before it's too late,