The Debate over the Repetition of Baptism between Homoians and Nicenes at the End of the Fourth Century

Among the differences that separated the Nicenes and the Homoians, their approach to converts baptized in another church was one of the most evident. This article argues that their adherence to contrary opinions on heretical baptism was not a consequence of a straightforward inheritance of two incompatible theologies of the past, but a direct result of the fourth-century debates over rebaptism that took place in the last phase of the Trinitarian controversy. A careful examination of those discussions makes it possible also to assess the role of such aspects as innovativeness, custom, and tradition in the forming of orthodoxy.