Gwatkin. The Arian Controversy. 1880.

^^
l^j
3
LIBRARY
i
Brigham Young University !
^^f^^'
!^^'« /viiv ills..
IN MEMORY OF:
Steven F. Christensen
s^
^
wm^mMm-m
i
6
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2011 with funding from
Brigham Young University
http://www.archive.org/details/ariancontroversyOOgwat
EDITED BY
PROFESSOR MANDELL CREIGHTON.
THE AHIAN CONTROVERSY.

Epochs of Church History.
Edited by Professor MANDELL CREIGHTON.
Fcp. 8vo, price 80 cents, each.
THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN OTHER LANDS. By the Rev.

H. W. Tucker, M.A.
THE HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.
By the Rev. George G. Perry, M.A.
THE CHURCH OF THE EARLY FATHERS. By Alfred
Plummer, D.D.
THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL IN THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY. By the Rev. J. H. Overton, M.A.
A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. By the
Hon. G. C. Brodrick, D.C.L.
A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. By
J. Bass Mullinger, M.A.
THE CHURCH AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE. By the Rev.
A. Carr.
THE CHURCH AND THE PURITANS, 1570-1660. By Henry
Offley Wakeman, M.A.
THE CHURCH AND THE EASTERN EMPIRE. By the Rev.
H. F. TozER, M.A.
HILDEBRAND AND HIS TIMES. By the Rev. W. R. W.
Stephens, M.A.
THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE MIDDLE AGES. By the
Rev. W. Hunt, M.A., Trinity College, Oxford.
THE POPES AND THE HOHENSTAUFEN. By Uco Balzani.
THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. By A. W. Ward, Litt.D.
WYCLIFFE AND MOVEMENTS FOR REFORM. By R. L.
Poole, M.A., Ph.D.
THE ARIAN CONTROVERSY. By H. M. Gwatkin, M.A.
:
ARIAN CONTROVERSY.
Bt
H. M. GWATKIN, M.A.
LECTURER AND LATE FELLOW OP ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE,
CAMBRIDGE.
NEW YORK
ANSON D. R RANDOPLH & COMPANY,
38 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET.
HAROLD B. LEE LIBRARY
BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY
PROVO. UTAH
1
COJ^TEKTS.
-M-
LIST OF WORKS ....... PAGE

ix
CHAPTER I.
THE BEGINNINGS OF ARIANISM . . . . . I
CHAPTER 11.
THE COUNCIL OF NICÂ . . . . . . l6
CHAPTER III.
THE EUSEBIAN REACTION 4
CHAPTER IV.
THE COUNCIL OF SARDICA . . . . . . 6l
CHAPTER V.
THE VICTORY OF ARIANISM 8o
CHAPTER VI.
THE REIGN OF JULIAN I05

viii Contents,
CHAPTEE YIL
THE RESTORED HOMCEAN SUPREMACY . . . . Il8
CHAPTEE VIII.
THE FALL OF ARIANISM . . . . . . I47
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 169
INDEX . . 173
LIST OF WORKS.
The following works will be found useful by students who

are willing to pursue the subject further. Some of special
interest or importance are marked with an asterisk.
(A.) Original Authorities and Translations.
The Church Histories of "^Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret,

and (for the Arian side) the fragments of Philostorgius
[translations in Bohn's Ecclesiastical Library],
"Êusebius, Vita Constantini and Contra Marcellum Ancy-
ranum,
Âthanasius, especially De Incarnatione Verhi Dei, De
Decretis Synodi NiccBnce, Orationes contra Arianos, De Synodis,
Ad Antioclienos, Ad Afros, Convenient editions of most of
these by Professor Bright of Oxford. [Translations of "^De
Incarnatione (Bindley in Christian Classics Series) and of the
Orationes and most of the historical works, Newman in
Oxford Library of the Fathers.]
Hilary, especially De Synodis, Cyril's Gatecheses [trans-
lation in Oxford Library of the Fathers], Basil, especially
Letters, Gregory of Nazianzus, especially Orationes iv. and
V. (against Julian). Of minor writers, Phoebadius and
Sulpicius Severus (for Council of Ariminum). Fragments
of Marcellus, by Eettberg (Gottingen, 1794).
collected
[German translations of most of these in Thalhofer's
Bibliothek der Kirchenvdter, English may be hoped for in
— —
X List of Works,
S chaff's Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers

Select
(vol. i. Buffalo, 1886) in 25 vols.]
Heathen vrriters : —
Zosimus (bitterly prejudiced) ; Ammi-
anus Marcellinus for 353-378 (cool and impartial); Julian,
especially Ccesares, Fragmentum Epistoloe, and E]p;p, 7, 25,
26, 42, 43, 49, 52.
(B.) Modern Writers.

I. For general reference :
Gibbon's Decline and Fall (prejudiced against the Christian

Empire, but narrative still unrivalled) ; Schiller Geschichte
der romischen Kaiserzeit, Bd. ii. (church matters a weak
point) Eanke, Weltgeschichte, Bd. iii. iv.
;
General Church Histories of Neander [translation in

Bohn's Standard Library"]; Kurtz (zehnte Aufl., 1887);
Fisher (New York, 1887); also Hefele, History of the
Church Councils [translation published by T. & T. Clark].
Articles in Dictionary of Christian Biography (especially
those by Lightfoot, Eeynolds, and Wordsworth), and in
Herzog^s Realencyclojpddie (especially Monchtum by Wein-
garten).
Weingarten's Zeittafeln z. Kirchengeschichte (3 Aufl. 1888).
(2.) For special use :
'•
The whole period is more or less covered by Kaye, Some

Account of the Nicene Council^ 1^53; ^Stanley, âsêrTZ Church
(best account of the outside of the council) ; Broglie, L^Jglise
et V Empire romain ; Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism, 1882.
On Constantine, Burckhardt, Die Zeit Constantins, 1853;
Keim, Der Uebertritt Constantins, 1862; Brieger, Const antin
der Grosse als Beligionspolitiker, 1880.
On Julian, English account 1879; Germanby "^Bendall,
lives by Neander, 1813 [translated 1850]; Miicke, 1867-69,
and Eode, 1877. The French books are mostly bad. For
the decline of heathenism generally, Merivale, Boyle Lectures
List of Works. xi
for 1864-65; Chastel, Destruction du Paganisme, 1850;

Lasaulx, Untergang des Hellenismus, 1854; Schultze,
GescMchte des Untergangs des griecMsch-rdmischen Heiden-
tums, 1887; also Capes, University Life in Ancient Athens,
1877 'i
Sievers, Lehen des Libanius, 1868.
Biographies : —Fialon,
Saint Athanase, 1877 (slight, but
suggestive); Zahn, Marcellus von Ancyra, 1867; Eeinkens,
Hilarius von Poitiers, 1864; Fialon, Saint Basile, 1868;
Ullmann, Ghregorius von Nazianz, 2 Aufl. 1867 [translated
1 851]; K.mgev, Lucifer von Calaris, 1886; Eichhorn, Atha-
nasii de vita ascetica Testimonia, 1886 (in opposition to
Weingarten and others); Guldenpenning u. Ifland, Theo-
dosius der Grosse, 1878; various of unequal merit in The
Fathers for English Readers,
On Teutonic Arianism :
— Scott, Ulfilas, Apostle of the
Goths, 1885; Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, 1880-85;
Eevillout, De VArianisme des Fewples germaniques, 1850.
For doctrine, the general histories in German of Baur,
ITitzsch, 1870; Hagenbach [translated in Clark's Foreign
Theological Library], and *Harnack, Bd. ii., 1887 ; Dorner's
Doctrine of the Person of Christ [translated in Clark's Foreign
Theological Library]; "^Hort, Two Dissertations, 1876 (on
Nicene and Constantinopolitan Creeds) ; Caspari, Quellen,
Bd. iii. (on Apostles' Creed).
On Athanasius, also Yoigt, Die Lehre von Athanasius,
1 861; Atzberger, Die Logoslehre des hi, Athanasius, 1880;
Wilde, Athanasius als Bestrijder der Arianen, 1868 (Dutch).

For the Eoman Catholic version of the history, Mohler,
Athanasius der Grosse, 1844; Newman, Arians of the
Fourth Century,
For short sketches giving the relation of Arianism to
Church history in general, "^ Allen, Continuity of Christian
Thought, 1884 (contrast of Greek and Latin Churches);
^Sohm, Kirchengeschichte im Abriss, 1888.
NOTE.
The present work is largely, though not entirely, an abridgement of
my Studies of Arianism.
The Conversion of the Goths, which gives the best side of Arianism,
has been omitted as belonging more properly to another volume of
the series.
THE AEIAN CONTROVERSY,
CHAPTER I.
THE BEGINNINGS OF ARTAN ISM.

Arianism is extinct only in the sense that it has long
ceased to furnish party names. It sprang from per-

manent tendencies of human nature^ and raised ques-
tions whose interest can never perish. As long as the
Agnostic and the Evolutionist are with us, the old
battlefields of Athanasius will not be left to silence.
Moreover, no writer more directly joins the new world
of Teutonic Christianity with the old of Greek and
Eoman heathenism. Arianism began its career partly
as a theory of Christianity, partly as an Eastern
reaction of philosophy against a gospel of the Son o
God. Through sixty years of ups and downs and
stormy controversy it fought, and not without success,
for the dominion of the world. When it was at last
rejected by the Empire, it fell back upon its converts
among the Northern nations, and renewed the contest
as a Western reaction of Teutonic pride against a
Roman gospel. The struggle went on for full three
hundred years in all, and on a scale of vastness never
C,H. A
2 The Arian Controversy,
seen again in history. Even
Reformation was
tlie
limited to the West, whereas Arianism ranged at one

time or another through the whole of Christendom.
Nor was the battle merely for the wording of anti-
quated creeds or for the outworks of the but
faith,
for the very life of revelation. If the Reformation

decided supremacy of revelation over church
the
authority, it was the contest with Arianism which
cleared the way, by settling for ages the deeper and
still more momentous question, which is once more
coming to the surface as the gravest doubt of our

time, whether a revelation is possible at all.
Unlike the founders of religions, Jesus of Nazareth
made his own person the centre of his message.
Through every and utterance recorded
act
Ths doctrinG
of the Lord's of Mm there rnns a clear undoubting self-
person,
assertion, utterly unknown to Moses or
Mahomet, He never spoke but with authority. His
first disciples told how he began his ministry by
altering the word which was said to them of old time,

and ended it by calmly claiming to be the future
Judge of all men. And they told the story of their own
life also how they had seen his glory while he dwelt
;
among them, and how their risen Lord had sent them
forth to be his witnesses to all the nations. Whatever
might be doubtful, their personal knowledge of the
Lord was sure and certain, and of necessity became
the base and starting-point of their teaching. In
Christ all things were new. From him they learned
the meaning of their ancient scriptures through him ;
they knew their Heavenly Father in him they saw ;
their Saviour from this present world, and to him

The Beginnings of A rianism. 3
they looked for the crown of life in that to come.

His word was law, his love was life, and in his name
the world was overcome already. What mattered it
to analyse the power of life they felt within them ?
It was enough to live and to rejoice and their works
;
are one long hymn of triumphant hope and overflow-

ing thankfulness.
It was what
easier for the first disciples to declare
their own eyes had seen and their own hands had
handled of the "Word of Life, than for
In contact • , , i -^
(i) with the another generation to take up a record

which to themselves was only history, and
to pass from the traditional assertion of the Lord's
divinity to its deliberate enunciation in clear conscious-
ness of the difficulties which gathered round it when
the gospel came under the keen scrutiny of thought-
ful heathens. Whatever vice might be in heathenism,
there was no want of interest in religion. If the
doubts of some were real, the scoffs of many were
only surface-deep. If the old legends of Olympus
were outworn, philosophy was still a living faith, and
every sort of superstition flourished luxuriantly. Old
worships were revived, the ends of the earth were
searched for new ones. Isis or Mithras might help
where Jupiter was powerless, and uncouth lustrations
of the blood of bulls and goats might peradventure
cast a spell upon eternity. The age was too sad to
be an irreligious one. Thus from whatever quarter
a convert might approach the gospel, he brought
earlier ideas to bear upon its central question of the
person of the Lord. Who then was this man who
was dead, whom all the churches affirmed to be alive
4 The Arian Controversy.
and worshipped as the Son of God ? If he was
divine^ there must be two Gods if not, his worship
;
was no better than the vulgar worships of the dead.

In either case, there seemed to be no escape from
the charge of polytheism.
The key of the difficulty is on its other side, in
the doctrine of the unity of God, which was not
(2)with the ^^ly taught by Jews and Christians, but
philosophers,
generally admitted by serious heathens.
The philosophers spoke of a dim Supreme far off
from men, and even the were not un-j
polytheists
willing to subordinate their motley crew of gods to/
some mysterious divinity beyond them all. So far
there was a general agreement. But underneath this
Beeming harmony there was a deep divergence.
Resting on a firm basis of historic revelation,
Christianity could bear record of a God who loved
the world and of a Redeemer who had come in human
flesh,. As this coming is enough to shovv^ that God
is something more than abstract perfection and in-
finity, there is nothing incredible in a real incarna-

tion, or in a real trinity inside the unity of God.
But the heathen had no historic revelation of a living
hope to sustain him in that age of failure and
exhaustion. Nature was just as mighty, just as
ruthless then as now, and the gospel was not yet
the spring of hope it is in modern life. In our time
the very enemies of the cross are living in its light,
and drawing at their pleasure from the well of
Christian was not yet so in that age.
hope. It
Brave men like Marcus Aurelius could only do their
duty with hopeless courage, and worship as they
might a God who seemed to refuse all answer to

the great and bitter cry of mankind. If he caês for •
men, why does he let Jbhem perish? The less he

has to dU"'With Tis, the better we can understand our
evil plight. Thus their Supreme was far beyond the
weakness of human sympathy. They made him less
a person than a thing or an idea, enveloped in clouds
of mysticism and abolished from the world by his
very exaltation over He must not touch it lest
it.
it perish. The Eedeemer whom the Christians wor-

ship may be a hero or a prophet, an angel or a demi-
god —anything except a Son of God in human form.
We shall have to find some explanation for the scandal
of the incarnation.
Arianism is Christianity shaped by thoughts like
these. Its author was no mere bustling schemer,
but a grave and blameless presbyter of
Alexandria. Arius was a disciple of the
greatest critic of his time, the venerated martyr Lucian
of Antioch. He had a name for learning, and his
letters bear witness to his dialectical skill and mastery
of subtle irony. At the outbreak of the controversy,
about the year 318, we find him in charge of the
church of Baucalis at Alexandria, and in high favour
with his bishop, Alexander. It was no love of
heathenism, but a real difficulty of the gospel whicli^
led him to form a new theory. His aim was not to
lower the person of the Lord or to refuse him
worship, but to defend that worship from the charge
of polytheism. Starting from the Lord's humanity, he
was ready to add to it everything short of the fullest
deity. He could not get over the philosophical difii-
culty that one who is man cannot be also God, and
therefore a second God. Let us see how high a creature
can be raised without making him essentially divine.
The Arian Christ is indeed a lofty creature. He
claims our worship as the image of the Father, begotten
before all worlds, as the Son of God, by
His doctrine. _
n • ^ n
whom ail
i
thmgs were made, who
^
for us
men took flesh and suffered and rose again, and sat
down hand of the Father, and remains
at the right
both King and God for ever. Is not this a good con-
fession ? What more can we want ? Why should all
this glorious language go for nothing ? God forbid
that it should go for nothing. Arianism
Its merits. rNi • •
i • i i n
was at least so lar Christian that it held
aloft the Lord's example as the Son of Man, and never
wavered in its worship of him as the Son of God.
Whatever be the errors of its creed, whatever the
scandals of its was a power
history, it of life among
the Northern nations. Let us give Arianism full
honour for its noble work of missions in that age of

deep despair which saw the dissolution of the ancient
world.
Nevertheless, this plausible Arian confession will
not bear examination. It is only the philosophy
Its real mean- ^^ ^^^ ^^7 P^^ ^^"^^ ^ Christian dress. It
"^^*
starts from the accepted belief that the
unity of God excludes not only distinctions inside the
divine nature, but also contact with the world. Thus
the God an unknown God, whose being is
of Arius is
hidden in eternal mystery. No creature can reveal

him, and he cannot reveal himself. But if he is not
to touch the world, he needs a minister of creation.
;
The Beginnings of A rianism. y
^ The Lord is rather sucli a minister than the conqueror

of death and sin. No doubt he is the Son of God,
and begotten before all worlds. Scripture is quite
clear so far but if he is distinct from the Father, he
;
is not God ; and if he is a Son, he is not co-eternal

with the Father. And what is not God is creature,
and what is not eternal is also creature. On both
grounds, then, the Lord is only a creature so that if ;
he is called God, it is in a lower and improper sense

and if we speak of him, as eternal, we mean no more
than the eternity of all things in God's counsel. Far
from sharing the essence of the Father, he does not
even understand his own. Nay, more he is not even ;
a creature of the highest type. If he is not a sinner,

(Scripture forbids at least that theory, though some
'Arians came very near it), his virtue is, like our own, a
constant struggle of free-will, not the fixed habit which
is the perfection and annulment of free-will. And now
that his human soul is useless, we may as well simplify
the incarnation into an assumption of human flesh
and nothing more. The Holy Spirit bears to the Son
a relation not unlike that of the Son to the Father.
Thus the Arian trinity of divine persons forms a
descending series, separated by infinite degrees of
honour and glory, resembling the philosophical triad
of orders of spiritual existence, extending outwards in
concentric circles.
Indeed the system is heathen to the core. The
Arian Christ is nothing but a heathen idol invented to
Criticism maintain a heathenish Supreme in heathen
^^^^'
isolation from the world.' Never was a
more illogical theory devised by the wit of man.
Arius proclaims a God of mystery, unfathomable to the
Son of God himself, and goes on to argue as if the divine
generation were no more mysterious than its human
type. He metaphor would cease to
forgets first that
be metaphor if there were nothing beyond it then ;
that it would cease to be true if its main idea were

misleading. He presses the metaphor of sonship as if
mere haman relations could exhaust the meaning of
the divine and soon works round to the conclusion
;
that it is no proper sonship at all. In his irreverent

hands the Lord's deity is but the common right of man-
kind, his eternity no more than the beasts themselves
may claim. His clumsy logic overturns every doctrine
he is endeavouring to establish. He upholds the
Lord's divinity by making the Son of God a creature,
and then worships him to escape the reproach of
heathenism, although such worship, on his own show-
ing, is mere idolatry. He makes the Lord's manhood
his primary fact, and overthrows that too by refusing
the Son of Man a human soul. The Lord is neither
truly God nor truly man, and therefore is no true
mediator. Heathenism may dream of a true com-
munion with the Supreme, but for us there neither is
nor ever can be any. Between our Father and our-V
selves there is a great gulf fixed, which neither he nor
we can pass. Now that we have heard the message
of the Lord, we know the final certainty that God is
darkness, and in himis no light at all. If this be

the sum whole matter, then revelation is a
of the
mockery, and Christ is dead in vain.
Arius was but one of many who were measuring
the heights of heaven with their puny logic, and
The Beginnings of A rianism, g
sounding the deeps of Wisdom with the plummet of

the schools. Men who agreed in nothing else agreed
Athanasius cZe
^^^ ^^^^ practical Subordination of revelation
jiicarnatione.
^^ philosophy. Sabollius, for example, had
reduced the Trinity to three successive manifestations
of the one God in the Law, the Gospel, and the
Church ; yet even he agreed with Arius in a philo-
sophical doctrine of the unity of God which was incon-
sistent with a real incarnation. Even the noble work
of Origen had helped to strengthen the philosophical
influences which were threatening to overwhelm the
definite historic revelation. Tertullian had long since
warned the churches of the danger but a greater ;
than Tertullian was needed now to free them from

their bondage to philosophy. Are we to worship the
Father of our spirits or the Supreme of the philoso-
phers ? Arius put the question the answer came :
from Athanasius. Though his Be Incarnatione Verhi

Dei was written in early manhood, before the rise of
Arianism, we can already see in it the firm grasp of
fundamental principles which enabled him so thoroughly
to master the controversy when it came before him.
He starts from the beginning, with the doctrine that
God is good and not envious, and that His goodness
is shown in the creation, and more especially by the
creation of man in the image of God, whereby he

was to remain in bliss and live the true life, the life
of the saints in Paradise. But when man sinned, he
not only died, but fell into the entire corruption summed
up in death ; for this is the full meaning of the threat
^
ye shall die with death.'-^ So things went on from
1 Gen. ii. 17, LXX.
lo The Arian Controversy,
bad to worse on earth. The image of God was dis-
appearing, and the whole creation going to destruction.
What then was God to do ? He could not take back
his sentence that death should follow sin, and yet he
could not allow the creatures of his love to perish.
Mere repentance on man's side could not touch the
law of sin a word from God forbidding the approach
;
of deathwould not reach the inner corruption. Angels

could not help, for it was not in the image of angels
that man was made. Only he who is himself the Life
could conquer death. Therefore the immortal Word
took human flesh and gave his mortal body for us all.
It was no necessity of his nature so to do, but a pure
outcome of his love to men and of the Father's loving
purpose of salvation. By receiving in himself the
principle of death he overcame it, not in his own
person only, but in all of us who are united with him.
If we do not yet see death abolished, it is now no more
than the passage to our joyful resurrection. Our mortal
human nature is joined with life in him, and clothed
in the asbestos robe of immortality. Thus, and only
thus, in virtue of union with him, can man become a
sharer of his victory. There is no limit to the sove-
reignty of Christ in heaven and earth and hell. Wher-
ever the creation has gone before, the issues of the
incarnation must follow after. See, too, what he has
done among us, and judge if his works are not the
works of sovereign power and goodness. The old fear
of death is gone. Our children tread it underfoot, our
women mock at it. Even the barbarians have laid
aside their warfare and their murders, and live at his
bidding a new life of peace and purity. Heathenism
The Beginnings of Arianism. i i
is fallen, the wisdom of the world is turned to folly,
the oracles are dumb, the demons are confounded. The

gods of all the nations are giving place to the one true
God of mankind. The works of Christ are more in
number than the sea, his victories are countless as
the waves, his presence is brighter than the sunlight.
'
He was made man that we might be made God.'-^
The great had been raging but a

persecution
few years back, and the changes which had passed
since then were enough to stir the enthusiasm
j^g
of the dullest Christian. These splendid
significance,
paragraphs are the song of victory over
the defeat of the Pharaohs of heathenism and the
deliverance of the churches from the house of bond-
age. Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed
'
gloriously.' There is something in them higher than

the fierce exultation of Lactantius over the sufferings
of the dying persecutors, though that too is impres-
sive. '
The Lord hath heard our prayers. The men
who strove with God lie low ; the men who overthrew
his churches have themselves fallen with a mightier
overthrow ; the men who tortured the righteous have
surrendered their guilty spirits under the blows of
Heaven and in tortures well deserved though long
delayed —
yet delayed only that posterity might learn
the full terrors of God's vengeance on his enemies.'
There is none of this fierce joy in Athanasius, though
he too had seen the horrors of the persecution, and
some of his early teachers had perished in it. His
eyes are fixed on the world-wide victory of the Eternal
Ath. De Tnc, 44: avrbs yccp ev^vOpdjiryjirev Xva Tifxets deoiroL'qdibiJLev,

^
Bold as this phrase is, it is not too bold a paraphrase of Heb. ii. 5-18.
Word, and he never lowers them to resent the evil
wrought by men of yesterday. Therefore neither
lapse of time nor multiplicity of trials could ever
quench in Athanasius the pure spirit of hope which
glows in his youthful work. Slight as our sketch
of it has been, it will be enough to show his com-
bination of religious intensity with a speculative in-
sight and a breadth of view reminding us of Origen.
If he fails to reach the mystery of sinlessness in man,
and is therefore not quite free from a Sabellianising
view of the Lord's humanity as a mere vesture of
his divinity, he at least rises far above the barren,
logic of the Arians. We shall presently have to
compare him with the next great Eastern thinker,
ApoUinarius of Laodicea.
Yet there were many men whom Arianism suited
by its shallowness. As soon as Christianity was
Attraction of established as a lawful worship by the edict
Milan in 312, the churches were crowded
fot rupTrkciai of
thinkers.
^^\\}^ couvcrts and inquirers of all sorts.
A church which claims to be universal cannot pick
and choose like a petty sect, but must receive all
comers. Now these were mostly heathens with the
thinnest possible varnish of Christianity, and Arianism
enabled them to use the language of Christians with-
out giving up their heathen ways of thinking. In
other words, the world was ready to accept the gospel
as a sublime monotheism, and the Lord's divinity was
the one great stumbling-block which seemed to hinder
its conversion. Arianism was therefore a welcome
explanation of the difficulty. Nor was the attraction
only for nominal Christians like these. Careless
The Beginnings of A rianism, 13
thinkers —sometimes thinkers who were not careless

•
—might Arianism hacj the best
easily suppose that
of such passages as The Lord created me/ or The
^ -^
'
Father is greater than I.'^ Athanasius constantly

complains of the Arian habit of relying on isolated
passages like these without regard to their context
or to the general scope and drift of Scripture.
Nor was even this The Lord's divinity was
all.
a real difficulty to thoughtful men. They were still

(2.)To thought- endeavouring to reconcile the philosophical
fuimen.
j^^^^ ^f Q.^^ ^\\h. the fact of the incarna-
tion. In point of fact, the two things are incompatible,
and one or the other would have to be abandoned.
The absolute simplicity of the divine nature is con-
sistent with a merely external Trinity, or with a merely
economic Trinity, with an Arian Trinity of one increate
and two created beings, or with a Sabellian Trinity of
three temporal aspects of the one God revealed in
history ; but not with a Christian Trinity of three
eternal aspects of the divine nature, facing inward on
each other as well as outward on the world. But this
was not yet fully understood. The problem was to
explain the Lord's distinction from the Father without
destroying the unity of God. Sabellianism did it at
the cost of his premundane and real personality, and
therefore by common consent was out of the question.
The Easterns were more inclined to theories of sub-
ordination, to distinctions of the derivatively from the
absolutely divine, and to views of Christ as a sort of
secondary God. Such theories do not really meet the
1 Prov. viii. 22, LXX mistranslation.

2 John xiv. 28.
difBculty. A secondary God is necessarily a second
God. Thus heathenism still held the key of the
position, and constantly threatened to convict them of
polytheism. They could not sit still, yet they could
not advance without remodelling their central doctrine
of the divine nature to agree with revelation. Nothing
could be done till the Trinity was placed inside the
divine nature. But this is just what they could not
for a long time see. These men were not Arians, for
they recoiled in genuine horror from the polytheistic
tendencies of Arianism ; but they had no logical defence
against Arianism, and were willing to see if some
modification of it would not give them a foothold of
some kind. To men who dreaded the return of Sabel-
lian confusion, Arianism was at least an error in the
right direction. It upheld the same truth as they the —
separate personality of the Son of God and if it went —
further than they could follow, it might still do service
against the common enemy.
Thus the new theory made a great sensation at
Alexandria, and it was not without much hesitation
Arianism at ^^^ delay that Alexander ventured to ex-
Aiexandria.
commuuicate his heterodox presbyter with
his chief followers, like Pistus, and the Carpones,
—
deacon Euzoius all of whom we shall meet again.
Arius was a dangerous enemy. His austere life and
novel doctrines, his dignified character and champion-
ship of ^
common sense in religion,' made him the idol
of the ladies and the common people. He had plenty
of telling arguments for them. '
Did the Son of God
exist before his generation ? ' Or to the women,
^
Were you a mother before you had a child? '
He knew
also how by pastoral visiting

to cultivate his popularity
— his enemies called it canvassing —
and by issuing a
multitude of theological songs for sailors and millers
'
and wayfarers/ as one of his admirers says. So he set

the bishop at defiance, and more than held his ground
against him. The excitement spread to every village
in Egypt, and Christian divisions became a pleasant
subject for the laughter of the heathen theatres.
The next step was to secure outside support. Arius
betook himself to Csesarea in Palestine, and thence
appealed to the Eastern churches generally.
Nor did he look for help in vain. His
doctrine fell in with the prevailing dread of Sabel-
lianism, his personal misfortunes excited interest, his
dignified bearing commanded respect, and his connection
with the school of Lucian secured him learned and
influential sympathy. Great Syrian bishops like those
of Csesarea, Tyre, and Laodicea gave him more or less
encouragement and when the old Lucianist Eusebius
;
of Nicomedia held a council in Bithynia to demand his

recall, it became clear that the controversy was more than
a local dispute. Arius even boasted that the Eastern

bishops agreed with him, except a few heretical and
'
ill-taught men,' like those of Antioch and Jerusalem.

The Eastern Emperor, Licinius, let the dispute take
its course. He was a rude old heathen soldier, and
constantine'a- ^^^^ Only let it alouo. If Euscbius of
interference.
Nicomedia tried to use his influence in
favour of Arius, he had small success. But when
the battle of Chrysopolis laid the Empire at
the feet of Constantino, it seemed time to
get the question somehow settled.
( i6 )
CHAPTER II.
THE COUNCIL OF NICJEA.
For nearly twenty years after the middle of the third

century, the Roman Empire seemed given over to
state of the destruction. It ishard to say whether
Empire.
^j^^ proviuccs Suffered more from the inroads
of barbarians who ravaged them almost at their will,
or from the exactions of a mutinous soldiery who set
up an emperor for almost every army ;
yet both calami-
ties were surpassed by the horrors of a pestilence
which swept away the larger part of mankind. There
was little hope in an effete polytheism, still less in a
corrupt and desponding society. The emperors could
not even make head against their foreign enemies.
Decius was killed in battle with the Goths, Valerian
captured by the Persians. But the Teuton was not
yet ready to be the heir of the wôrld. Valerian left
behind a school of generals who were able, even in
those evil days, to restore the Empire to something
like its former splendour. Claudius began by breaking
the power of the Goths at Naissus in 269. Aurelian
(270—275) made a firm peace with the Goths, and
also recovered the provinces. Tetricus and Zenobia,
The Council of Nicjea. ly
tlie Gaulish Caesar and the Syrian queen, adorned the

triumph of their conqueror. The next step was for
Diocletian (284—305) to reform the civil power and
reduce the army to obedience. Unfortunately his
division of the Empire into more manageable parts led
which lasted till its reunion
to a series of civil wars,
by Constantino in 323. His religious policy was a
still worse failure. Instead of seeing in Christianity
the one remaining hope of mankind, he set himself at
the end of his reign to stamp it out, and left his
successors to finish the hopeless task. Here again
Constantine repaired Diocletian's error. The edict of
Milan in 3 i 2 put an end to the great persecution, and
a policy of increasing favour soon removed all danger
of Christian disaffection.
When Constantine stood out before the world as
the patron of the gospel, he bound to settle the
felt
question of Arianism. In some ways he

was well qualified for the task. There can
be no doubt of his ability and earnestness, or of his
genuine interest in Christianity. In political skill he
was an overmatch for Diocletian, and his military suc-
cesses were unequalled since the triumph of Aurelian.
The heathens saw in him the restorer of the Empire,
(ê Christians their deliverer from persecution. Even
the feeling of a divine mission, which laid him so open
to flattery, gave him also a keen desire to remedy the
social misery around him and in this he looked for
;
help to Christianity. Amidst the horrors of Diocle-

tian's persecution a conviction grew upon him that
the power which fought the Empire with success must
somehow come from the Supreme. Thus he slowly
c. H. B
8

learned to recognise the God of the Christians in
his father's God, and in the Sun-god's cross of light
to see the cross of Christ. But in Christianity itself
he found little more than a confirmation of natural
religion. Therefore, with all his interest in the
churches, he could not reach the secret of their inner
life. Their imposing monotheism he fally appreciated,
but the person of the Lord was surely a minor question.
Constantino shared the heathen feelings of his time,
so that the gospel tohim was only a monotheistic
heathenism. Thus Arianism came up to his idea of
it, and the whole controversy seemed a mere affair of
words.
But if he had no theological interest in the question,
he could not overlook its political importance. Egypt
His view of the "^^^ always a difficult province to manage;
controversy.
^^^ ^£ thoso Ariau sougs causcd a bloody
tumult in Alexandria, he could not let the Christians
Jews were
fight out their quarrels in the streets, as the
used to do. The Donatists had given him trouble
enough over a disputed election in Africa, and he did
not want a worse than Donatist quarrel in Egypt.
Nor was the danger confined to Egypt it had already ;
spread through the East. The unity of Christendom

was at peril, and with it the support which the
shattered Empire looked for from an undivided church.
The state could treat with a definite organisation of
churches, but not with miscellaneous gatherings of
sectaries. The question must therefore be settled one
way or the other, and settled at once. Which way it
was decided mattered little, so that an end was made
of the disturbance.
The Council of Nicêa. 19
In this temper Constantine approached the diffi-

culty. His first step was to send Hosius of Cordova
to Alexandria with a letter to Alexander
attempt to and Arius representing the question as a
battle of words about mysteries beyond our
reach. In the words of a modern writer, It was the '
excess of dogmatism founded upon the most abstract

words in the most abstract region of human thought/
It had all arisen out of an over-curious question asked
by Alexander, and a rash answer given by Arius. It
was a childish quarrel and unworthy of sensible men
like them, besides being very distressing to himself.
Had the dispute been really trifling, such a letter might
have had a chance of quieting it. Instead of this, the
excitement grew worse.
Constantine enlarged his plans. If Arian doctrine
disturbed Alexandria, Meletius of Lycopolis was giving
Summons of
qîto as much trouble about discipline
the council.
farther up the
and the old disputes
Nile,
about the time of Easter had never been effectually
settled. There were also minor questions about the
validity of baptism administered by the followers of
Novatian and Paul of Samosata, and about the treat-
ment of those who had denied the faith during the
persecution of Licinius. Constantine, therefore, in-
vited all Christian bishops inside and outside the
Empire to meet him at Nicasa in Bithynia during the
summer of 325, in order to make a final end of all
the disputes which endangered the unity of Chris-
tendom. The city of victory bore an auspicious
'
'
name, and the restoration of peace was a holy

service, and would be a noble preparation for the
solemnities of the great Emperor's twentieth year upon
the throne.
The idea of a general or oecumenical council (the
words mean the same thing) may well have been Con-
stantino's own. It bears the mark of a
The first . ^ * c* • •
i i
cecumenicai Statesman s mind, and is oi a piece with the
rest of his life. Constantino was not think-
iug only of the questions to be debated. However
these might be settled, the meeting could not fail to
draw nearer to the state and to each other the churches
of that great confederation which later ages have so
often mistaken for the church of Christ. As regards
Arianism, smaller councils had been a frequent means
of settling smaller questions. Though Constantino had
not been able to quiet the Donatists by means of the
Council of Aries, he might fairly hope that the authority
of such a gathering as this would bear down all resist-
ance. If he could only bring the bishops to some

decision, the churches might be trusted to follow it.
An imposing list answered Constan-

of bishops
tino's call. The signatures are 223, but they are
not complete. The Emperor speaks of 300, and
tradition gives îS, like the number of
Abraham's servants, or like the mystic
number^ which stands for the cross of Christ. From
the far west came his chief adviser for the Latin
churches, the patriarch of councils, the old confessor
Hosius of Cordova. Africa was represented by Caecilian
of Carthage, round whose election the whole Donatist
controversy had arisen, and a couple of presbyters
answered for the apostolic and imperial see of Rome.
^ 318 ; iu Greek tit;.
The Council of Nicma, 21
Of the thirteen great provinces of theEmpire none

was missing except distant Britain but the Western
;
bishops were almost lost in the crowd of Easterns.

From Egypt came Alexander of Alexandria with his
jônng deacon Athanasius, and the Coptic confessors
Paphnutius and Potammon, each with an eye seared
out, came from cities farther up the Nile. All these
were resolute enemies of Arianism its only Egyptian
;
supporters were two bishops from the edge of the

western desert. Syria was less unequally divided. If
Eustathius of Antioch and Macarius of ^lia (we know
that city better as Jerusalem) were on Alexander's side,
the bishops of Tyre and Laodicea with the learned
Eusebius of Ca3sarea leaned the other way or took a
middle course. Altogether there were about a dozen
more or less decided Arianizers thinly scattered over
the country from the slopes of Taurus to the Jordan
valley. Of the Pontic bishops we need notice only
Marcellus of Ancyra and the confessor Paul of Neo-
csesarea. Arianism had no friends in Pontus to our
knowledge, and Marcellus was the busiest of its
enemies. Among the Asiatics, however, there was a
small but influential group of Arianizers, disciples of
Lucian like Arius himself. Chief of these was Eusebius
of Nicomedia, who was rather a court politician than a
student like his namesake of Caosarea, and might be
expected to influence the Emperor as much as any one.
With him went the bishops of Ephesus and Nicaea
itself, and Maris of Chalcedon. The Greeks of Europe
were few and unimportant, but on the outskirts of the
Empire we find some names of great interest. James
of Nisibis represented the old Syrian churches which
spoke the Lord's own native language. Eestacea
the Armenian could remind the bishops that Armenia
was in Christ before Eome, and had fought the perse-
cutors in their cause. Theophilus the Goth might tell
them the modest beginnings of Teutonic Christianity
among his countrymen of the Crimean undercliff. John
the Persian, who came from one or another of the many
distant regions which bore the name of India, may
dimly remind ourselves of the great Nestorian missions
which one day were to make the Christian name a
power in Northern China. Little as Busebius of
C^sarea liked some issues of the council, he is full of
genuine enthusiasm over his majestic roll of churches
far and near, from the extremity of Europe to the
farthest ends of Asia. Not without the Holy Spirit's
guidance did that august assembly meet. Nor was it^
meeting a day of hope for the churches only, but also for\
the weary Empire. In that great crisis the deep despair
of ageswas forgotten. It might be that the power
which had overcome the world could also cure its ancient
sickness. Little as men could see into the issues of the
future, themeaning of the present was beyond mistake.
The new world faced the old, and all was ready for the
league which joined the names of Eome and Christen-
dom, and made the sway of Christ and Ceesar one.
It seems to have been understood that the council
was to settle the question by drawing up a creed
The idea of a ^^ ^ ^^^^ -^^^ bishops. Here was a twofold
test creed.
novclty. In the first place, Christendom as
a whole had as yet no written creed at all. The so-
called Apostles' Creed may

be older than 340, but
then it first appears, and only as a personal confession
; ; ; ; ;
-
The Council of Nicâ. 23
of the heretic Marcellas. Every church taught its
catechumens the historic outlines of the faith^ and

referred to Scripture as the storehouse and final test
of doctrine. But that doctrine was not embodied in
forms of more than local currency. Thus different
churches had varvinof creeds to form the basis of the
catechumen's teaching, and placed varying professions in
his mouth at baptism. Some of these were ancient, and
some of widespread use, and all were much alike, for all
were couched in Scripture language, variously modelled
on the Lord's baptismal formula (Matt, xxviii. 19). At
Jerusalem, for example, the candidate declared his faith
in the Father
in the Son
in the Holy Spirit
and in one Baptism of Repentance.
The Roman form, as approximately given by Novatian

in the middle of the third century, was,
I believe in God the Father,

the Lord Almighty
in Christ Jesus his Son,
the Lord our God
and in the Holy Spirit.
Though these local usages were not disturbed, was it
none the less a momentous step to draw up a document

for all the churches. Its use as a test for bishops was
a further innovation. Purity of doctrine was for a
long time guarded by Christian public opinion. If
a bishop taught novelties, the neighbouring churches
(not the clergy only) met in conference on them, and
refused his communion if they proved unsound. Of
late years these conferences had been growing into
formal councils of bishops, and the legal recognition of
the churches by Gallienus had enabled them
to take the further step of deposing false
teachers. Aurelian had sanctioned this in the case of
Paul of Samosata by requiring communion with the
bishops of Eome and Italy as the legal test
of Christian orthodoxy. But there were
practical difficulties in this plan of government by
councils. A strong party might dispute the sentence,
or even get up rival councils to reverse The Afri-
it.
can Donatists had given Constantino trouble enough

of this sort some years before and now that the
;
Arians were following their example, it was evident

that every local quarrel would have an excellent chance
of becoming a general controversy. In the interest,
therefore, of peace and unity, it seemed better to adopt
a written test. If a bishop was willing to sign it
when asked, his subscription should be taken as a full
reply to every charge of heresy which might be made

against him. On this plan, whatever was left out of
the creed would be deliberately left an open question
in the churches. "Whatever a bishop might choose to
teach (Arianism, for example), he would have fall pro-
tection, unlesssome clause of the new creed expressly
shut it out. This is a point which must be kept
in view when we come to estimate the conduct of
Athanasius. Thus however Constantino hoped to
make the bishops keep the peace over such trumpery
questions as this of Arianism seemed to him. Had it
been a trumpery question, his policy might have had
The Council of N/câ. 25
some cliance of lasting success. For the moment, at

any rate, all parties accepted it, so tliat ttie council
had only to settle the wording of the new creed.
The Arians must have come full of hope to the
council. So far theirs was the winning side. They
Arianismcon- l^^d a powerful friend at court in the
demiied.
Empcror's sister, Constantia, and an in-
fluential connection in the learned Lucianic circle.
Reckoning also on the natural conservatism of Christian

bishops, on the timidity of some, and on the simplicity
or ignorance of others, they might fairly expect that
if their doctrine was not accepted by the council, it
would at least escape formal condemnation. They hoped,

however, to carry all before them. An Arianizing creed
was therefore presented by a score or so of bishops,
headed by the courtier Eusebius of Nicomedia. They
soon found their mistake. The Lord's divinity was
not an open question in the churches. The bishops
raised an angry clamour and tore the offensive creed
in pieces. Arius was at once abandoned by nearly
all his friends.
Arianism was condemned almost

This was decisive.
unanimously, and nothing remained but to put on record
the decision. But here besân the difliculty.
Eusebius pro-
poses the creed
tat
Marcellus and Athanasius wanted
•
-i
>
it
•
put into
the creed, but the bishops in general saw
no need of this. A heresy so easily overcome could
not be very dangerous. There were only half a dozen
Arians left in the council, and too precise a definition
might lead to dangers on the Sabellian side. At this
point the historian Eusebius came forward. Though
neither a great man nor a clear thinker, he was the
; ; —— ;

most learned student of tlie had been a
East. He
confessor in tlie persecution^ and now occupied an im-
portant see, and stood high in the Emperor's favour.
With regard to doctrine, he held a sort of intermediate
position, regarding the Lord not indeed as a creature,
but as a secondary God derived from the will of the
Father. This, as we havewas the idea then
seen,
current in the East, that it is possible to find some
middle term between the creature and the highest
deity. To a man of this sort it seemed natural to fall
back on the authority of some older creed, such as all
could sign. He therefore laid before the council that
of his own church of Csesarea, as follows :
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty,

maker of all things, both visible and invisible
And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Word of God,
God from God,
light from light,
life from life,
the only-begotten Son,

the first-born of all creation,
begotten of the Father before all ages,
by whom also all things were made

who for our salvation was made flesh,
and lived among men,

and suffered,
and rose again the third day,
and ascended to the Father,
and shall come again in glory, to judge quick
and dead
And in the Holy Spirit.
Had the council been drawing up a creed for popular

use, a short and simple document of this kind would
have been suitable enough. The undecided bishops
received it with delight. It contained none of the
vexatious technical terms which had done all the
mischief — nothing but familiar Scripture, which the
least them could understand. So far as
learned of
Arianism might mean to deny the Lord's divinity, it
was clearly condemned already, and the whole ques-
tion might now be safely left at rest behind the ambi-
guities of the Cassarean creed. So itwas accepted at
once. Marcellus himself could find no fault with its
doctrine, and the Arians were glad now to escape
a direct condemnation. But unanimity of this sort,
which really decided nothing, was not what Athanasius
and Marcellus wanted. They had not come to the
council to haggle over compromises, but to cast out the
blasphemer, and they were resolved to do it efiectually.
Hardly a more momentous resolution can be found

in history. The whole future of Christianity was
Persistence determined by it and we must fairly face
;
of Athanasius.
^.j^^ qucstiou whether Athanasius was right
or not. Would it not have been every way better

to rest satisfied with the great moral victory already
gained ? When were pressing into the
heathens
church in crowds, was that a suitable time to ofiend
them with a solemn proclamation of the very doctrine
which chiefly kept them back? It was, moreover, a
dangerous policy to insist on measures for which even
Christian opinion was not ripe, and it led directly to
the gravest troubles in the churches —troubles of which
no man then living was to see the end. The first
half century of prelude was a war of giants but the ;
main contest opened at Nicaea is not ended yet, or like

to end before the Lord himself shall come to end it.
It was the decision of Athanasius which made half
the bitterness between the Eoman and the Teuton,
between Christianity and Islam to this day. Even
now it is the worst stumbling-block of Western un-
belief. Many of our most earnest enemies would
gladly forget their enmity if we would only drop our
mysticism and admire with them a human Christ who
never rose with power from the dead. But we may
not do this thing. Christianity cannot make its peac^
with this world by dropping that message from the
other which is its only reason for existence. Atha-
nasius was clearly right. When Constantino had
fairly put the question, they could not refuse to
answer. Let the danger be what it might, they could
not deliberately leave it open for Christian bishops
(the creed was not for others) to dispute whether our
Lord is truly God or not. Those may smile to whom
all revelation is a vain thing but it is our life, and
;
we believe it is their own life too. If there is truth

or even meaning in the gospel, this question of all
others is most surely vital. Nor has history failed to
justify Athanasius. That heathen age was no time to
trifle with heathenism in the very citadel of Christian
life. Fresh from the fiery trial of the last great per-
secution, whose scarred and mutilated veterans were
sprinkled through the council-hall, the church of God
was entering on a still mightier conflict with the spirit
of the world. If their fathers had been faithful unto
death or saved a people from the world, their sons
— — ; —
The Council of NiCyEA. 29
would have to save the world itself and tame its

Northern conquerors. Was that a time to say of
Christ, '
But as for this man, we know not whence
he is'?
Athanasius and his friends made a virtue of neces-
sity, and disconcerted the plans of Eusebius by
promptly
^ acceptine:
r his creed. They were
Revision of the
csesarean
\/ & t
now able to proposo a lew amendments
,
m
. \
\
it, and in this way they meant to fight out
the controversy. It was soon found impossible to

avoid a searching revision. Ill-compacted clauses in-
vited rearrangement, and older churches, like Jerusalem
or Antioch, might claim to share with Ca3sarea the
honour of giving a creed to the whole of Christendom.
Moreover, several of the Ca3sarean phrases seemed to
favour the opinions which the bishops had agreed to
condemn. ^
First-born of all creation '
does not neces-
sarily mean more than that he existed before other
things were made. ^
Begotten before all worlds ' is
just as ambiguous, or rather worse, for the Arians

understood '
begotten to ' mean '
created.' Again, '
was
made flesh ' left it unsettled whether the Lord took
anything more than a human body. These were
serious defects, and the bishops could not refuse to
amend them. After much careful work, the following
was the form adopted :
^ We believe in one God, the Father Almighty,

maker of all things, both visible and invisible
The Nicene one Lord Jesus Christ,
A.wdL in
Creed. the Son of God,
begotten of the Father, an only-begotten
that is, from the essence (pusia) of the Father
—

God from God,
light from light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
being of one essence Qiomoousion) with the Father;
by whom all things were made,
both things in heaven and things on earth :
who for usmen and for our salvation came down and was made
flesh,
was made man, suffered, and rose again the third daj,
ascended into heaven,
Cometh to judge quick and dead ;
And in the Holy Spirit.
But those who say that

'there was once when he was not,' and
* before he was begotten he was not,' and
* he was made of things that were not,'
or maintain that the Son of God is of a different essence

(Jiij'postasis or ousia ^)
or created or subject to moral change or alteration

these doth the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematize.
It will be seen that the genuineNicene Creed here

given differs in almost every clause from the so-called
Nicene Creed of our Communion Service.
Leaving, however, the spurious Nicene Creed
till we come to it, let us see how the genuine Nicene
Creed dealt with Arianism. Its central phrases are

the two which refer to essence. Now the essence of a
thing is that by which it is what we suppose it to be.
We look at it from various points of view, and ascribe
to it first one quality and then another. Its essence
from any one of these successive points of view is that by
which it possesses the corresponding quality. About
1 The two words are used as synonyms.
The Council of Nicjea. 31
this unknown sometliing we make no assertion, so that

we are committed to no theory whatever. Thus the
essence of the Father as God (for this was the point of
view) isunknown and incommunicable something
that
by which He is God. If therefore we explain St. John's
^
an only-begotten who is God by inserting that is,
'
''
^
from the essence of the Father/ we declare that the

Divine Sonship no accident of will, but belongs to the
is
divine nature. It is not an outside matter of creation

or adoption, but (so to speak) an organic relation inside
that nature. The Father is no more God without the
Son than the Son is God without the Father. Again,
if we confess him to be of one essence with the Father,
we declare him the common possessor with the Father

of the one essence which no creature can share, and
thus ascribe to him the highest deity in words which
allow no evasion or reserve. The two phrases, how-
ever, are complementary. From the essence makes a
of one essence lays stress on the unity.
clear distinction :
The word had a Sabellian history, and was used by

Marcellus in a Sabellian sense, so that it was justly
discredited as Sabellian. Had it stood alone, the
creed would have been Sabellian ; but at Nicaea it was
checked by from the essence. When the later Nicenes,
under Semiarian influence, came to give the word
another meaning, the check was wisely removed.
Upon the whole, the creed is a cautious document.
Though Arianism is attacked again in the clause was
made man, which states that the Lord took
Its caution.
somethmg more than a human body, there
1 John i. 18 (the best reading, and certainly familiar in the Nicene
age).
—
is no attempt to forestall later controversies by a further
definition of tlie meaning of the incarnation. The
abrupt pause after the mention of the Holy Spirit is
equally significant, for the nature of his divinity was

still an open question. Even the heretics are not
cursed, for anathema in the Nicene age was no more
than the penalty which to a layman was equivalent to
the deposition of a meant more when it was
cleric. It
launched against the dead two hundred years later.
Our accounts of the debate are very fragmentary.
Eusebius passes over an unpleasant subject, and
^^...^^ Athanasius up and down his writings only
objections.
^^jjg ^g î^j^t immediate
he wauts for his
purpose. Thus we cannot trace many of the Arian
objections to the creed. Knowing, however, as we
do that they were carefully discussed, we may pre-
sume that they were the standing difficulties of the
next generation. These were four in number :
( I .) From the essence and of one essence are

^ ' ^ '
materialist expressions, implying either that the Son is

a separate part of the essence of the Father, or that
there is some third essence prior to both. This objec-
tion was a difficulty in the East, and still more in the
West, where essence was represented by the material-
' '
izing word suhstantia^ from which we get our unfor-

tunate translation '
of one substance.'
(2.) 'Of one essence ' is Sabellian. This was true ;
and the defenders of the word did not seem to care

if it was true. Marcellus almost certainly used in-
cautious language, and it was many years before even
Athanasius was fully awake to the danger from the
Sabellian side.
;
The Council of Nicâ, 33
(3.) The words êssence' and ^

of one essence' are
not found in Scripture. This is what seems to have
inflaenced the bishops most of all.
(4.)
'
Of one essence ' is contrary to church authority.
This also was true, for the word had been rejected as
materializing by a large council held at Antioch in
269 against Paul of Samosata. The point, however,
at present raised had been rejected for
was not that it
a good reason, but simply that it had been rejected

and this is an appeal to church authority in the style
of later times. The question was one of Scripture
against church authority. Both parties indeed accepted
Scripture as supreme, but when they differed in its
interpretation, the Arians pleaded that a word not
sanctioned by church authority could not be made a
test of orthodoxy. If tradition gave them a foothold
(and none could deny it), they thought themselves
entitled to stay; if Scripture condemned them (and
there could be no doubt of that), Athanasius thought
himself bound to turn them out. It was on the ground
of Scripture that the fathers of Nicaea took their stand,
and the works of Athanasius, from jSrst to last, are
one continuous appeal to Scripture. In this case he
argues that if the disputed word is not itself Scripture,
its meaning is. This was quite enough but if the ;
Arians chose to drag in antiquarian questions, they

might easily be met on that ground also, for the word
had been used or recognised by Origen and others
at Alexandria. With regard to its rejection by the
Syrian churches, he refuses all mechanical comparisons
of date or numbers between the councils of Antioch
and Nic86a, and endeavours to show that while Paul
C. H.
of Samosata had used the word in one sense, Arius
denied it in another.
The council paused. The confessors in particular
were an immense conservative force. If Hosius and
Hesitation of Eustathius had been forward in attacking
the council.
Ariauism, few of them can have greatly
wished to re-state the faith which had sustained them
in their trial. Now the creed involved something like
a revolution. The idea of a universal test was in itself
a great change, best softened as much as might be.
The insertion of a direct condemnation of Arianism
was a still more serious step, and though the bishops
had consented to it, they had not consented without
misgiving. But when it was proposed to use a word
of doubtful tendency, neither found in Scripture nor
sanctioned by church authority, it would have been
strange if they had not looked round for some escape.
Yet what escape was possible ? Scripture can be
used as a test if its authority is called in question,
Arian ^^^ ^^^ whcu its meaning is disputed,

evasions.
jf ^^ Ariaus wcro to be excluded, it
was useless to put into the creed the very words

whose plain meaning they were charged with evad-
ing. Athanasius gives an interesting account of
this stage of the debate. It appears that when the
bishops collected phrases from Scripture and set down
that the Son is ôf God,' those wicked Arians said
to each other, ^We can sign that, for we ourselves
also are of God. Is it not written, All things are
of God ?So when the bishops saw their impious
' ^
ingenuity, they put it more clearly, that the Son is

^ I Cor. viii. 6.
not only of God like the creatures, but of tlie essence

of God. And this was the reason why the word
'
was put into the creed. Again, the Arians
essence '
were asked if they would confess that the Son is not

a creature, but the power and eternal image of the
Father and true God. Instead of giving a straight-
forward answer, they were caught whispering to each
other. ^
This is true of ourselves, for we men are
called the image and glory of God."^ We too are
eternal, for we who live are always.^ powers And
of God are many. Is He not the Lord of powers
(hosts)? The locust and the caterpillar are actually
^'
my great power which I sent among you." ^ He
is true God also, for he became true God as soon
as he was created.' These were the evasions which

compelled the bishops to sum up the sense of Scripture
in the statement that the Son is of one essence with
the Father.
So far Athanasius. The longer the debate went on,
the clearer it became that the meaning of Scripture
Acceptance of could not bo defined without going outside
the creed.
Scripturo for words to define it. In the
end, they all signed except a few. Many, however,
signed with misgivings, and some almost avowedly
as a formality to please the Emperor. The soul is ^
none the worse for a little ink.' It is not a pleasant

scene for the historian.
Eusebius of Caesarea was sorely disappointed.
Instead of giving a creed to Christendom, he received
1 I Cor. xi. 7.
* 2 Cor. iv. II ; the impudence of the quotation is worth notice.
5 Joel ii. 25 (army).
back his confession in a form which at first he could
not sign at all. There was some ground for his
The letter of complaiut that, Under pretence of inserting
Eusebms.
^j^^ word of one essence, which our
single
wise and godly Emperor so admirably explained, the
bishops had in effect drawn up a composition of their
own. It was a venerable document of stainless
orthodoxy, and they had laid rude hands on almost
every clause of it. Instead of a confession which
secured the assent of all parties by deciding nothing,
they forced on him a stringent condemnation, not
indeed of his own belief, but of opinions held by
many of his friends, and separated by no clear logical
distinction from his own. But now was he to sign
or not ? Eusebius was not one of the hypocrites,
and would not sign till his scruples were satisfied.
He tells us them in a letter to the people of his
diocese, which he wrote under the evident feeling that
his signature needed some apology. First he gives
their own Caesarean creed, and protests his unchanged
adherence to it. Then he relates its unanimous
acceptance, subject to the insertion of the single word
of one essence^ which Oonstantine explained to be
directed against materializing and unspiritual views
of the divine generation. But it emerged from the
debates in so altered a form that he could not sign
it without careful examination. His first scruple was
at of the essence of the Father^ which was explained
as not meant to imply any materializing separation.
So, for the sake of peace, he was willing to accept
it, as well as of one essence, now that he could do it
with a good conscience. Similarly, hegotten^ not made,

was explained to mean

Son has nothing in
that tlie
common with the creatures made by him, but is of

a higher essence, ineffably begotten of the Father.
So on careful consideration, of one essence with the
also,
Father implies no more than the uniqueness of the

Son's generation, and his distinctness from the crea-
tures. Other expressions prove equally innocent.
Now that a general agreement had been reached,
it was time for Constantine to interpose. He had
constantine's summoncd the council as a means of union,
interference.
^^^ euforccd his exhortation to harmony by
burning the which the bishops
letters of recrimination
had presented to him. To that text he still adhered.
He knew too little of the controversy to have any very
strong personal opinion, and the influences which might
have guided him were divided. If Hosius of Cordova
leaned to the Athanasian side, Eusebius of Nicomedia
was almost Arian. If Constantine had any feeling in the
matter —
dislike, for example, of the popularity of Arius
— he was shrewd enough not to declare it too hastily.
If he tried to force a view of his own on the undecided
bishops, he might offend half Christendom but if ;
he waited for the strongest force inside the council to

assert itself, he might safely step in at the end to
coerce the recusants. Therefore whatever pleased the
council pleased the Emperor When they tore up
too.
the Arian creed, he approved. When they accepted
the Caesarean, he approved again. When the morally
strong Athanasian minority urged the council to put
in the disputed clauses, Constantine did his best to
smooth the course of the debate. At last, always in
the interest of unity, he proceeded to put pressure on
the few who still held out. Satisfactory explanations
were given to Eusebius of Csesarea, and in the end
they all signed but the two Egyptian Arians, Secundus
of Ptolemais and Theonas of Marmarica. These were
sent into exile, as well as Arius himself; and a quali-
fied subscription from Eusebius of Nicomedia only
saved him for the moment. An imperial rescript
also branded the heretic's followers with the name of
Porphyrians, and ordered his writings to be burnt.
The concealment of a copy was to be a capital
offence.
/Other _subjects decided by the council will not
detain us long, though some of members may have
its
Close of the thought One or two of them quite as

council.
important as Arianism. The old Easter
question was settled in favour of the Roman custom
of observing, day of the Jewish passover
not the
in memory of the crucifixion, but a later Sunday
in memory of the resurrection. For how, explains
Constantine —how could we who are Christians possibly
keep the same day as those wicked Jews ? The
council, however, was right on the main point, that the
feasts of Christian worship are not to be tied to those
of Judaism. The third great subject for discussion
was the Meletian schism in Egypt, and this was
settled by a liberal compromise. The Meletian pres-
byter might act alone if there was no orthodox
presbyter in the place, otherwise he was to be a
coadjutor with a claim to succeed if found worthy.
Athanasius (at least in later times) would have pre-
ferred more than once refers
severer measures, and
to these with unconcealed disgust. The rest of the
business disposed of, Constantine dismissed the bishops

with a splendid feast, which Eusebius enthusiastically
kingdom of heaven.
likens to the
Let us now sum up the results of the council, so far
as they concern Arianism. In one sense they were
Results of the decisivc.
Arianism was so sharply con-\
council.
demned by the all but unanimous voice oi
Christendom, that nearly thirty years had to pass be-
fore it was openly avowed again. Conservative feeling
in the West was engaged in steady defence of the
great council and even in the East its doctrine could
;
be made to wear a conservative aspect as the actual

faith of Christendom. On the other hand, were
serious drawbacks. The triumph jwas rather a sur-
prise than a solid victory. As it was a revolution
which a minority had forced through by sheer strength
of clearer thought, a reaction was inevitable when the
half-convinced majority returned home. In other
words, Athanasius had pushed the Easterns farther
than they wished to go, and his victory recoiled on
himself. But he could not retreat when once he had
put the disputed words into the creed. Come what
might, those words were irreversible. And if it was a
dangerous policy which won the victory, the use made
of it was deplorable. Though the exile of Arius and
his friends was Constantine's work, much of the dis-
credit must fall on the Athanasian leaders, for we can-
not find that they objected to it either at the time or

afterwards. It seriously embittered the controversy.
If the Nicenes set the example of persecution, the
other side improved on it till the whole contest
threatened to degenerate into a series of personal
quarrels and retaliations. The process was only
checked by the common hatred of all parties to
Julian, and by the growth of a better spirit among
the Nicenes, as shown in the later writings of Atha-
nasius.
( 4^ )
CHAPTER III.
THE EUSEBIAN REACTION.
At first sight the reaction which followed the Nicene

council is one of the strangest scenes in history. The
The problem decision was clear and all but unanimous,
stated.
Arianism seemed crushed for ever by the
universal reprobation of the Christian world. Yet it
instantly renewed the contest, and fought its con-
querors on equal terms for more than half a century.
A reaction like this is plainly more than a court
intrigue. Imperial favour could do a good deal in
the Nicene age, but no emperor could long oppose any
clear and definite belief of Christendom. Nothing
could be plainer than the issue of the council. How
then could Arianism venture to renew the contest ?
The answer is, that though the belief of the churches
was certainly not Arian, neither was it yet definitely
The reaction Niccne. The dominant feeling both in
BervativeThan ^^^t and Wcst was One of dislike to change,
Arian.
which we may conveniently call conser-
vatism. But here there was a difierence. Heresies
in the East had always gathered round the person of
the Lord, and more than one had already partly occu-
pled the ground of Arianism. Thus Eastern conser-
vatism inherited a doctrine from the last generation,
and was inclined on the Nicene decisions as
to look
questionable innovations. The Westerns thought
otherwise. Leaning on authority as they habitually
did, they cared little, to discuss for themselves an
unfamiliar question. They could not even translate
its technical terms into Latin without many misunder-
standings. Therefore Western conservatism simply

fell back on the august decisions of Nicaea. No later
meeting could presume to rival Hhe great and holy
council' where Christendom had once for all pro-
nounced the condemnation of Arianism. In short.
East and West were alike conservative but while ;
conservatism in the East went behind the council, in

the West it was content to start from it.
The Eastern reaction was therefore in its essence
not Arian but conservative. Its leaders might be
conservatives like Eusebius of Caesarea, or
influence of : court politicians like his successor, Acacius.
(i.) Heathens. * • , -n
They were never open Arians till 357.
The front and strength of the party was conservative,
and the Arians at its tail were in themselves only a
source of weakness. Yet they could enlist powerful
allies in the cause of reaction. Heathenism was still
a living power in the world. It was strong in numbers
even in the East, and even stronger in the imposing
memories of history. Christianity was still an upstart
on Cesar's throne. The favour of the gods had built
up the Empire, and men's hearts misgave them that
their wrath might overthrow it. Heathenism was still
an established religion, the Emperor still its official
The Eusebian Reaction. 43
head. Old Rome was still devoted to her ancient;

deities, her nobles still recorded their priesthoods and)
augurships among their proudest honours, and the
Senate itself still opened every sitting with an offering
of incense on the altar of Victory. The public service
was largely heathen, and the army too, especially its
growing cohorts of barbarian auxiliaries. Education
also was mostly heathen, turning on heathen classics
and taught by heathen rhetoricians. Libanius, the
teacher of Chrysostom, was also the honoured friend of
Julian. Philosophy too was a great influence, now that
it had leagued together all the failing powers of the
ancient world against a rival not of this world. Its

weakness as a moral force must not blind us to its
charm for the imagination. Neoplatonism brought
Egypt to the aid of Greece, and drew on Christianity
itself for help. The secrets of philosophy were set
forth in the mysteries of Eastern superstition. From
the dim background of a noble monotheism the ancient
gods came forth to represent on earth a majesty above
their own. No waverer could face the terrors of that
mighty gathering of infernal powers. And the Nicene
age was a time of unsettlement and change, of half-
beliefs and wavering superstition, of weakness and
unclean frivolity. Above all, sôciety ^was hea^hep. to
an extent we can hardly The two religions
realise.
were strangely mixeS. The heathens on their side
never quite understood the idea of worshipping one
God only; while crowds of nominal Christians never
asked for baptism unless a dangerous illness or an
earthquake scared them, and thought it quite enough
to show their faces in church once or twice a year.
Meanwhile, they lived just like the heathens round
them, steeped in superstitions like their neighbours,
attending freely their immoral games and dances, and
sharing in the sins connected with them. Thus^
Arianism had many affinities with heathenism, in its \
philosophical idea of the Supreme, in its worship of a/
demigod of the vulgar type, in its rhetorical methods,
and in its generally lower moral tone. Heathen influ-
ences therefore strongly supported Arianism.
The Jews Arian side.
also usually took the They
were still a power in the world, though it was long
since Israel had challenged Eome to seventy
years of internecine contest for the dominion
of the East. But they had never forgiven her the
destruction of Jehovah's temple. Half over-
come themselves by the spell of the eternal
Empire, they still looked vaguely for some Eastern
deliverer to break her impious yoke. Still more
fiercely they resented her adoption of the gospel,/

which indeed was no tidings of good- will or peace to
them, but the opening of a thousand years of persecu-
tion. Thus they were a sort of caricature of the
Christian churches. They made every land their own,
yet were aliens in all. They lived subject to the laws
of the Empire, yet gathered into corporations governed
by own.
their They were citizens of Rome, yet
strangers to her imperial comprehensiveness. In a
word, they were like a spirit in the body, but a spirit
of uncleanness and of sordid gain. If they hated the
Gentile, they could love his vices notwithstanding.
If the old missionary zeal of Israel was extinct, they
could still purvey impostures for the world. Jewish
The E usee Ian Reaction. 45
superstitions were the plague of distant Spain, the

despair of Chrysostom at Antioch. Thus the lower
moral tone of Arianism and especially its_ d?Bi?i_of
Ithe Lord's divinity were enough to secure it a fair
<smnount of Jewish support as against the Nicenes. At
Alexandria, for example, the Jews were always ready
for lawless outrage at the call of every enemy of
Athanasius.
The court also leaned to Arianism. The genuine
Arians, to do them justice, were not more pliant to
(3.) The court. ^

imperial
•
dictation
A 1
the genuine Arians were only
•
than the Nicenes, but
one section
\-
of a motley coalition. Their conservative patrons and
allies were laid open to court influence by their dread
of Sabellianism ; for conservatism is the natural home
of the impatient timidity which looks round at every
difficulty fora saviour of society, and would fain turn
the whole work of government into a crusade against
a series of scarecrows. Thus when Constantius turned
against them, their chiefs were found wanting in the
self-respect which kept both Nicene and Arian leaders
from condescending to a battle of intrigue with such
masters of the art as flourished in the palace. But
for thirty years the intriguers found it their interest
to profess conservatism. The court was as full of
selfish cabals as that of theFrench monarchy. old
Behind the glittering ceremonial on which the treasures
of the world were squandered fought armies of place-
hunters great and small, cooks ^.nd barbers, women
and eunuchs, courtiers and spies, adventurers of every
sort, for ever wresting the majesty of law to private
favour, for ever aiming new oppressions at the men on

whom the exactions of the Empire already fell with
crushing weight. The noblest bishops, the ablest
generals, were their fairest prey ; and we have no
surer witness to the greatness of Athanasius or Julian
than the pertinacious hatred of this odious horde.
Intriguers of this kind found it better to unsettle the
Nicene decisions, on behalf of conservatism forsooth,
than to maintain them in the name of truth. There
were many ways of upsetting them, and each might
lead to gain ; only one of defending them, and that
was not attractive.
Nor were Constantius and Valens without political
reasons for their support of Arianism. We can see
by the light of later history that the real
centre of the Empire was the mass of
solid
Asia from the Bosphorus to Mount Taurus, and that
Constantinople was its outwork on the side of Europe.
In Eome on one side, Egypt and Syria on the other,
we can already trace the tendencies which led to their
separation from the orthodox Eastern Church and
Empire. Now in the fourth century Asia was a
stronghold of conservatism. There was a good deal of
Arianism in Cappadocia, but we hear little of it in
Asia. The group of Lucianists at Nicaaa left neither
Arian nor Nicene successors. The ten provinces of
Asia Werily knew not God' in Hilary's time; and
even the later Nicene doctrine of Cappadocia was
almost as much Semiarian as Athanasian. Thus Con-
stantius and Valens pursued throughout an Asiatic
policy, striking with one hand at Egypt, with the other
at Rome. Every change in their action can be explained
with reference to the changes of opinion in Asia.
Upon the whole, we may say that Arian hatred of

the council would have been powerless if it had not
rested on a formidable mass of conservativev
discontent, while the conservative discon-)
tent might have died away if the court had not sup/
plied it with the means of action. If the decision lay
with the majority, every initiative had to come from
the court. Hence the reaction went on as long as
these were agreed against the Nicene party it was ;
suspended as soon as Julian's policy turned another

way, became unfeal when conservative alarm subsided,
and finally collapsed when Asia went over to the
Nicene side.
We may now return to the sequel of the great
council. If Constantino thought he had restored peace
Sequel of the i^ the churchcs, he soon found out his mis-
council.
The literary war began" again almost
âke.
where his summons had interrupted it. The creed
was signed and done with and seemed forgotten. The
conservatives hardlv cared to be reminded of their half
unwilling signatures. To Athanasius it may have
been a watchword from the first, but it was not so to
many others. In the West it was as yet almost un-
known. Even Marcellus was more disposed to avoid
all technical terms than to lay stress on those which
the council sanctioned. Yet all parties had learned
caution at Nicaea. Marcellus disavowed Sabellianism ;
Eusebius avoided Arianism, and nobody seems to have

disowned the creed as long as Constantino lived.
The next great change was at Alexandria. The
bishop Alexander died in the spring of 328, and a
stormy election followed. Its details are obscure, but
4S The Arian Controversy.
the Nicene party put forward the deacon Athanaslus,
and consecrated him in spite of a determined op-
Athanasius position from Arians and Meletians. And
AiSidria, ^^w that WO stand before the greatest of
A.D. 328.
^^ Eastern fathers, let us see how his
character and training fitted him to be the hero of
the Arian controversy.
Athanasius was a Greek by birth and education,
Greek also in subtle thought and philosophic insight,
Character of ^^ Oratorical power and supple statesman-
Athanasius.
gj^'p^ Though bom almost within the
shadow of the mighty temple of Serapis at Alexandria,
he shows few signs of Coptic influence. Deep as is his
feeling of the mystery of revelation, he has no love of
mystery for its own sake, nothing of the Egyptian
passion for things awful and mysterious. Even his
style is clear and simple, without a trace of Egyptian
involution and obscurity. We know nothing of his
family, and cannot even date his birth for certain,
though it must have been very near the year "l^^"].
He was, therefore, old enough to remember the worst
days of the great persecution, which Maximin Daza
kept up in Egypt as late as 313. Legend has of
course been busy with his early life. According to
one story, Alexander found him with some other boys
at play, imitating the ceremonies of baptism — not a
likelygame for a youth of sixteen. Another story
makes him a disciple of the great hermit Antony,
who never existed. He may have been a lawyer for a
time, but in any case his training was neither Coptic
nor monastic, but Greek and scriptural, as became a
scholar of Alexandria. There may be traces of Latin
The E useeIan Reaction. 49
in his writings, but his allusions to Greek literature are
such as leave no doubt that he had a liberal education.
In his earliest works he refers to Plato in later years ;
he quotes Homer, and models his notes on Aristotle, his

Apology to Constantius on Demosthenes. To Egyptian
idolatry he seldom alludes. Scripture, however, is hi^
chosen and familiar study, and few commentators hav^
ever shown a firmer grasp of certain of its leadinj
thoughts. He at least endeavoured (unlike the Arian
text-mongers) to take in the context of his quotations
and the general drift of Christian doctrine. Many
errors of detail may be pardoned to a writer who so
seldom fails in suggestiveness and width of view. In
mere learning he was no match for Eusebius of Ca3sarea,
and even as a thinker he has a worthy rival in Hilary
of Poitiers, while some of the Arian leaders were fully
equal to him in political skill. But Eusebius was no
great thinker, Hilary no statesman, and the Arian
leaders were not men of truth. Athanasius, on the
otherjhand^ was philosopher, statesman, and saint in one.
Few great meiT have""ever"'n5een so free from littleness
or weakness. At the age of twenty he had risen far
above the level of Arianism and Sabellianism, and
throughout his long career we catch glimpses of a
spiritual depth which few of his contemporaries could
reach. Above all things, his life was consecrated to a
simple witness for truth. Athanasius is the hero of a
mighty struggle, and the secret of his grandeur is his
intense and vivid faith that the incarnation is a real
revelation from the other world,and that its issues are
for life and death supreme in heaven and earth and
hell for evermore.
C, H. D
Sucli a bishop was sure to meet a bitter opposition,
and as sure to overcome it. Egypt soon became a
stronghold of the Nicene faith, for Athanasius
Early years of ai-< i t an
his rule at could swav the heart of Greek and Copt
alike. The pertinacious hatred of a few
was balanced by the enthusiastic admiration of the
many. The Meletians dwindled fast, the Arians faster
still. Nothing but outside persecution was needed now
to make Nicene orthodoxy the national faith of Egypt.
It will be remembered that Eusebius of Nicomedia
was exiled shortly after the council. His disgrace was
Beginnings of ^^^ ^ \oiig ouc. Ho had powcrful fricnds
the reaction.
^^ court, and it was not very hard for a man
who had signed the creed to satisfy the Emperor of his
substantial orthodoxy. Constantino was not unforgiv-
ing, and policy as well as easy temper forbade him to
scrutinize too closely the professions of submission laid
before him. Once restored to his former influence at
court, Eusebius became the centre of intrigue against
the council. Old Lucianic friendships may have led
him on. Arius was a Lucianist like himself, and the
Lucianists had in vain defended him before the council.
Eusebius was the ablest of them, and had fared the
worst. He had strained his conscience to sign the
creed, and his compliance had not even saved him from
exile. We cannot wonder if he brought back a firmV
determination to undo the council's hateful work. If/
it was too dangerous to attack the creed itself, its
defenders might be got rid of one by one on various

pretexts. Such was the plan of operations.
A party was easily formed. The Lucianists were its
nucleus^ and all sorts of malcontents gathered round
The E usee Ian Reaction, 51
them. The Meletians of Egypt joined the coalitioD,
and the unclean creatures of the palace rejoiced to

hear of fresh intrigue. Above all, the con-
Formation of . ,
•
i i rrî i
the Eusebian servativcs gavo extcnsivo help.Ihe charges
against the Nicene leaders were often more
than plausible, for men like the Caesarean Eusebius
dreaded Sabellianism, and Marcellus was practically
Sabellian, and the others aiders and abettors of his
misbelief. Some even of the darker charges may have
had some ground, or at least have seemed truer than
they were. Thus Eusebius had a very heterogeneous
following, and it would be scant charity if we laid on
all of them the burden of their leader's infamy.
They began with Eastathius of Antioch, an old

confessor and a man of eloquence, who enjoyed a great
Attacks on: ^^^ lasting popularity in the city. He was

(i.) Eustathius.
Q^^ ^^ ^^^ foremost enemies of Arianism at
Nicaea, and had since waged an active literary war with
the Arianizing clique in Syria. In one respect they
found him a specially dangerous enemy, for he saw
clearly the important consequences of the Arian denial
of the Lord's true human soul. Eustathius was there-
fore deposed (on obscure grounds) in 330, and exiled
with many of his clergy to Thrace. The vacant see
was offered to Eusebius of Csesarea, and finally accepted
by the Cappadocian Euphronius. But party spirit ran
high at Antioch. The removal of Eustathius nearly
caused a bloody riot, and his departure was followed
by an open schism. The Nicenes refused to recognise
Euphronius, and held their meetings apart, under the
presbyter Paulinus, remaining without a bishop for
more than thirty years.
;

The system was vigorously followed up. Ten of the
Nicene leaders were exiled in the next year or two.
But Alexandria and Ancyra were the e^reat
(2.) MarcelluS. tit r» i -vt* r» •
i t 1
strongholds 01 the JNicene laith, and the

Eusebians still had to expel Marcellus and Athanasius.
As Athanasius might have met a charge of heresy with
a dangerous retort, it was found necessary to take other
methods with him. Marcellus^ however, was so far the
foremost champion of the council, and he had fairly
exposed himself to a doctrinal attack. Let us therefore
glance at his theory of the incarnation.
Marcellus of Ancyra was already in middle life when
he came forward as a resolute enemy of Arianism at
Character of Nothiug is known of his early
Nicsea.
Marcellus.
years and education, but we can see some
things which influenced him later on. Ancyra was
a strange diocese, full of uncouth Gauls and chaffering
Jews, and overrun with Montanists and Manichees, and
votaries of endless fantastic heresies and superstitions.
In the midst of this turmoil Marcellus spent his life
and if he learned too much of the Galatian party spirit,
he learned also that the gospel is wider than the forms
of Greek philosophy. The speculations of Alexandrian
theology were as little appreciated by the Celts of Asia
as is the stately churchmanship of England by the
Celts of Wales. They were the foreigner's thoughts,
too cold for Celtic zeal, too grand for Celtic narrow-
ness. Fickleness is not inconsistent with a true and
deep religious instinct, and we may find something
austere and high behind the ever-changing phases of
spiritual excitement. Thus the ideal holiness of the
church, upheld by Montanists and Novatians, attracted
;
Th^ Eusebian Reaction, 53
kindred spirits at opposite ends of the Empire, among

the Moors of the Atlas ^nd the Gauls of Asia. Such
a people will have sins and scandals like its neighbours,
but very little indifference or cynicism. It will be
more inclined to make of Christian liberty an excuse
for strife and debate. The zeal which carries the
gospel to the loneliest mountain villages will also fill
them with the jealousies of endless quarrelling sects

and the Gaul of Asia clung to his separatism with all
the more tenacity for the consciousness that his race
was fast dissolving in the broader and better world of
Greece. Thus Marcellus was essentially a stranger to
the wider movements of his time. His system is an
appeal from Origen to St. John, from philosophy to
Scripture. Nor can we doubt the high character and
earnest zeal of the man who for years stood side by
side with Athanasius. The more significant therefore
is the failure of his bold attempt to cut the knot of
controversy.
Marcellus then agreed with the Arians that the idea
of sonship implies beginning and inferiority, so that
Doctrine of ^ ôu of God is neither eternal nor equal to
Marcellus.
^^^ Father. When the Arians argued on
both grounds that the Lord is a creature, the con-
servatives were content to reply that the idea of son-
ship excludes that of creation, and implies a peculiar
relation toand origin from the Father. But their own
position was weak. Whatever they might say, their
secondary God was a second God, and their theory
of the eternal generation only led them into further
difiicultieSj for their concession of the Son's origin from
the will of the Father made the Arian conclusion
irresistible. Marcellus looked scornfully on a lame
result like this. The conservatives had broken down
because they had gone astray after vain philosophy.
Turn we then to Scripture.In the beginning was/
'
not the Son, but the Word. It is no secondary or

accidental title which St. John throws to the front of
his Gospel,and repeats with deliberate emphasis three
times over in the first verse. Thus the Lord is
properly the Word of God, and this must govern the
meaning of all such secondary names as the Son.
Then he is not only the silent thinking principle
which remains with God, but also the active creating
power which comes forth too for the dispensation of
the world. In this Sabellianizing sense Marcellus
accepted the Nicene faith, holding that the Word is
one with God as reason is one with man. Thus he
explained the Divine Sonship and other difBculties by
limiting them The Word as such
to the incarnation.
is pure spirit, and only became the Son of God by
becoming the Son of Man. It was only in virtue of

this humiliating separation from the Father that the
Word acquired a sort of independent personality.
Thus the Lord was human on account of
certainly
his descent into true created human flesh, and yet
not merely human, for the Word remained unchanged.
Not for its own sake was the Word incarnate, but
merely for the conquest of Satan. The flesh profiteth
^
nothing/ and even the gift of immortality cannot make

it worthy of permanent union with the Word. God is
higher than immortality itself, and even the immortal
angels cannot pass the gulf which parts the creature
from its Lord. That which is of the earth is useless
for tlie Hence the human nature must

age to come.
be laid aside when its work is done and every hostile
power overthrown. Then shall the Son of God deliver
up the kingdom to the Father, that the kingdom of
God may have no end ; and then the Word shall
return, and be for ever with the Father as before.
A universal cry of horror rose from the conservative
ranks to greet the new Sabellius, the Jew and worse
The conserva- "^^^^ ^^^5 ^^® shameless miscroant who had
tive panic.
forswom the Son of God. Marcellus had
confused together all the errors he could find. The
faith itself was at peril if blasphemies like these were
to be sheltered behind the rash decisions of Nicaaa.
So thought the conservatives, and not without a reason,
though their panic was undignified from the first, and
became a positive calamity when taken up by political
adventurers for their own purposes. As far as doctrine
went, there was little to choose between Marcellus
and Arius. Each held firmly the central error of the
conservatives, and rejected as illogical the modifications
and side views by which they were finding their way
to something better. Both parties, says Athanasius,
are equally inconsistent. The conservatives, who refuse
eternal being to the Son of God, will not endure to
hear that his kingdom is other than eternal while the ;
Marcellians, who deny his personality outright, are

equally shocked at the Arian limitation of it to the
sphere of time. Nor had Marcellus escaped the diffi-
culties of Arius. If, for example, the idea of an

eternal Son is polytheistic, nothing is gained by trans-
ferring the eternity to an impersonal Word. If the
generation of the Son is materializing, so also is the
:

coming forth of tlie Word. If tlie work of creation is
unworthy of God, it may as well be delegated to a
created Son as to a transitory Word. So far Athana-
sius. Indeed, to Marcellus the Son of God is a mere
phenomenon of time, and even the Word is as foreign
to the divine essence as the Arian Son. If the one
can only reveal in finite measure, the other gives but
broken hints of an infinity beyond. Instead of de-
stroying Arianism by the roots, Marcellus had fallen
into something very like Sabellianism. He reaches
no true mediation, no true union of God and man, for
he makes the incarnation a mere theophany, the flesh
a useless burden, to be one day laid aside. The Lord
is our Redeemer and the conqueror of death and Satan,
but there is no room for a second Adam, the organic

head of regenerate mankind. The redemption becomes
a mere inter /ention from without, not also the planting
of a power of life within, which will one day quicken
our mortal bodies too.
Marcellus had fairly exposed himself to a doctrinal
attack ; other methods were used with Athanasius.
They had material enough without touch-
ing doctrine. His election was disputed
Meletians and Arians complained of oppression : there
were some useful charges of magic and political in-
trigue. At first, however, the Meletians could not
even get a hearing from the Emperor. When Eusebius
of Nicomedia took up their cause, they fared a little
better. The attack had to be put off till the winter
of 3 3 1 and was even then a failure.
5 Their charges
were partly answered by two presbyters of Athanasius
who were on the spot and when the bishop himself
;
was summoned to court, lie soon completed their dis-

comfiture. As Constantine was now occupied with the
Gothic war, nothing more could be done till 334.
"When, however, Athanasius was ordered to attend a
council at Caesarea, he treated it as a mere cabal of his
enemies, and refused to appear.
Next year the Eastern bishops gathered to Jerusalem
to keep the festival of the thirtieth year of Constantine's
The Council of I'îg^ ûd to dedicate his splendid church
Tyre (335).
Q^ Golgotha. But first it was a work of
charity to restore peace in Egypt. A
synod of about
150 bishops was held at Tyre, and this time the
appearance of Athanasius was secured by peremptory
orders from Emperor.
the The Eusebians had the
upper hand, though there was a strong minority.
Athanasius brought nearly fifty bishops from Egypt,
and others, like Maximus of Jerusalem and Alexander
of Thessalonica, were willing to do justice. Athanasius
was not accused of heresy, but, with more plausibility,
of episcopal tyranny. His friends replied with reckless
violence. Potammon aimed a bitter and unrighteous
taunt at Eusebius of Csesarea. You and I were once
'
in prison for the faith. I lost an eye how did you

:
escape? '
Athanasius might perhaps have been crushed
if his enemies had kept up a decent semblance of
truth and fairness. But nothing was further from

their thoughts than an impartial trial. Scandal suc-
ceeded scandal, till the iniquity culminated in the
dispatch of an openly partizan commission to super-
intend the manufacture of evidence in Egypt. Maximus
of Jerusalem and Paphnutius left the council, saying
that it was not good that old confessors like them
should share its evil deeds. The Egyptian bishops
protested. Alexander of Thessalonica denounced the
plot to the Emperor's representative. Athanasius him-
self took ship for Constantinople without waiting for
the end of the farce, and the council condemned him
by default. This done, the bishops went on to Jeru-
salem for the proper business of their meeting.
The concourse on Golgotha was a brilliant spectacle.
Ten years had passed since the still unrivalled assembly
Assembly at ^^ Nicasa, and the veterans of the last
Jerusalem.
great persccution must have been deeply
moved at their meeting once again in this world.
The stately ceremonial suited Maximus and Eusebius
much better than the noisy scene at Tyre, and may
for the moment have soothed the swelling indignation
of Potammon and Paphnutius. Constantino had once
more plastered over the divisions of the churches with
a general reconciliation, but this time Athanasius
was condemned and Arius received to communion.
The heretic had long since left his exile in Illyricum,
though we cannot fix the date of his recall. However,
one winter the Emperor invited Arius and his friend
Euzoius to Constantinople, where they laid before him
a short and simple confession of their faith. It said
nothing of the disputed points, but was not unorthodox
as far as it went. Nor were they bishops, that the
Nicene creed should be forced upon them. Constantino
was therefore satisfied, and now directed them to lay
it before the bishops at Jerusalem, who duly approved
of it and received its authors to communion.
In order
to complete the work of peace, Athanasius was con-
demned afresh on the return of the commission from
;
The E useeIan Reaction. 59
Egypt, and proceedings were begun against Marcellus

of Ancyra.
Meanwhile Oonstantine's dreams of peace were rudely
dissipated by the sudden appearance of Athanasius
First exile of bcforo Hm in the streets of Constantinople.

Athanasius.
"Whatever the bishops had done, they had
plainly caused dissensions just when the Emperor was
most anxious for harmony. An angry letter summoned
the whole assembly straight to court. The meeting,
however, was most likely dispersed before its arrival
at any rate, there came only a deputation of Eusebians.
The result was unexpected. Instead of attempting to
defend the council of Tvre, Eusebius of Nicomedia
suddenly accused Athanasius of hindering the supply
of corn for the capital. This was quite a new charge,
and chosen with much Athanasius was not
skill.
allowed to defend himself, but summarily sent away to

Trier in Gaul, where he was honourably received by
the younger Gonstantine. On the other hand, the
Emperor refused to let his place be filled up at
Alexandria, and exiled the Meletian leader, John
Archaph, '
for causing divisions.' To Constantinople
came also Marcellus. He had
kept away from the
councils of Tyre and Jerusalem, and only came now to
invite the Emperor's decision on his book. Gonstantine
referred it as usual to the bishops, who promptly con-
demned and deposed its author.
it
There remained only the formal restoration of Arius

to communion at Constantinople. But the heretic was
Death of taken ill suddenly, and died in the midst
Arms.
^f ^ procession the evening before the day
appointed. His enemies saw in his death a judgment
6o The Arian Controversy,
from heaven, and likened it to that of Judas. Only
Athanasius relates it with reserve and dignity.
Upon the whole, Oonstantine had done his best for
peace by leaving matters in an uneasy suspense which
Policy of satisfied neither party. This seems the
constantine.
|^gg^ explanation of his wavering. He had
not turned Arian, for there no sign that he ever
is
allowed the decisions of Nicaea to be openly rejected

inside the churches. Athanasius was not exiled for
heresy, for there was no question of heresy in the case.
The quarrel was ostensibly one of orthodox bishops, for
Eusebius had signed the Nicene creed as well as
Athanasius. Constantino's action seems to have been
determined by Asiatic feeling. Had he believed the
charge of delaying the corn-ships, he would have exe-
cuted Athanasius at once. His conduct does not look
like a real explosion of rage. The merits of the case
were not easy to find out, but the quarrel between
Athanasius and the Asiatic bishops was a nuisance, so
he sent him out of the way as a troublesome person.
The Asiatics were not all of them either Arians or
intriguers. It was not always furtive sympathy with
heresy which led them to regret the heresiarch's
expulsion for doctrines which he disavowed neither ;
was it always partizanship which could not see the

innocence of Athanasius. Constantino's vacillation is
natural if his policy was to seek for unity by letting

the bishops guide him.
( 6i )
CHAPTER IV.
THE COUNCIL OF SARDICA.
Constantine's work on earth was done. When the

hand of death was on him^ he laid aside the purple,
Death of
constantine,
-i.t-i
and the ambiofuous position of a Christian
(Jgesar With it, and passed away
-i
m i-
the white
robe of a simple convert. Long as he had
been a friend to the churches, he had till now put off
the elementary rite of baptism, in the hope one day to
receive it in the waters of the Jordan, like the Lord
himself. Darkly as his memory is stained with isolated
crimes, Constantine must for ever rank among the
greatest of the emperors ; and as an actual benefactor
of mankind, he stands alone among them. Besides
his great services to the Empire in his own time, he
gave the civilization of later days a new centre on the
Bosphorus, beyond the reach of Goth or Vandal.
Bulgarians and Saracens and Russians dashed them-
selves in pieces on the walls of Constantinople, and the
strong arms of Western and crusading traitors were
needed at last to overthrow the old bulwark
which for so many centuries had guarded
Christendom. Above all, it was Constantine who first
essayed the problem of putting a Christian spirit into
the statecraft of the world. Hard as the task is even
now, was harder
it still in times when the gospel had
not yet had time to form, as it were, an outwork of
common feeling against Yet
some of the grosser sins.
whatever might be his errors, his legislation was a
landmark for ever, because no emperor before him had
been guided by a Christian sense of duty.
The sons of Constantino shared the Empire among
them like an ancestral inheritance.' Thrace and Pontus
'
DivMon of ^^^ been assigned to their cousins, Dalmatius

the Empire.
^^^ Hannibaliauus but the army would
;
have none but Constantino's own sons to reign over

them. The whole house of Theodora perished in the
—
tumult except two boys Gallus and Julian, afterwards
the apostate Emperor. Thus Constantino's sons were
left in possession of the Empire. Constantino II. took
Gaul and Italy, the legions of Syria secured the East
for Constantius, and Italy and lUyricum were left for
the share of the youngest, Constans.

One of the first acts of the new Emperors was to
restore the exiled bishops. Athanasius was released
Recall of Atba- ^7 ^^
youuger Coustantiiie as soon as his
nasius, 337.
father's death was known at Trier, and
reached Alexandria in November 337, to the joy of
both Greeks and Copts. Marcellus and the rest were
restored about the same time, though not without much
disturbance at Ancyra, where the intruding bishop
Basil was an able man, and had formed a party.
Let us now take a glance at the new Emperor of the
East. Constantius had something of his father's
character. In temperance and chastity, in love of
The Council of Sardica. 63
letters and in dignity of manner, in social cliarrn and

pleasantness of private was no unworthy son of
life, lie
Character of Constantine and if he inherited no splendid

;
coiistantius.
ggnius for war, he had a fall measure of
soldierly courage and endurance. Nor was the states-
manship entirely bad which kept the East in tolerable
peace for four- and-t wen ty years. But Constantius was
essentially a little man, in whom his father's vices took
a meaner form. Constantine committed some great
crimes, but the whole spirit of Constantius was
corroded with fear and jealousy of every man better
than himself. Thus the easy trust in unworthy
favourites, which marks even the ablest of his family,
became in Constantius a public calamity. It was bad
enough when the uprightness of Constantine or Julian
was led astray, but it was far worse when the
eunuchs found a master too weak to stand alone, too
jealous to endure a faithful counsellor, too easy-
tempered and too indolent to care what oppressions
were committed in his name, and without the sense of
duty which would have gone far to make up for all
his shortcomings. The peculiar repulsiveness of Con-
stantius is not due to any flagrant personal vice, but
to the combination of cold-blooded treachery, with the
utter want of any inner nobleness of character. Yet
he was a pious Emperor, too, in his own way. He
loved the ecclesiastical game, and was easily won over
to the Eusebian side. The growing despotism of the
Empire and the personal unity of Constantius were
equally suited by the episcopal timidity which cried
for an arm of flesh to fight its battles. It is not easy
to decide how far he acted on his own likings and
superstitions, how far he merely let his flatterers lead
him, or how far he saw political reasons for following
them. In any case, he began with a thorough dislike
of the Nicene council, continued for a long time to
hold conservative language, and ended after some
vacillation by adopting the vague Homoean com-
promise of 359.
Eusebian intrigue was soon resumed. Now that
Constantino was dead, a schism could be set on foot at
Alexandria so the Arians were encouraged
;
Second exile of
Athanasius,
tit it pi* t
to liold assomblies 01 their own, and pro-
vided with a bishop in the person of Pistus,
one of the original heretics deposed by Alexander.
No fitter consecrator could be found for him than
Secundus of Ptolemais, one of the two bishops who
held out to the last against the council. The next
move was the formal deposition of Athanasius by a
council held at Antioch in the winter of 338. But
there was still —
no charge of heresy only old and new
ones of sedition and intrigue, and a new argument,
that after his deposition at Tyre he had forfeited all
right to further justice by accepting a restoration from
the civil power. This last was quite a new claim on
behalf of the church, first used against Athanasius, and
next afterwards for the ruin of Ohrysostom, though it
has since been made a pillar of the faith. Pistus was
not appointed to the vacant see. The council chose
Gregory of Cappadocia as a better agent for the rough
work to be done. Athanasius was expelled by the
apostate prefect Philagrius, and Gregory installed by
military violence in his place. Scenes of outrage were
enacted all over Egypt.
The Council of Sardica, 65
Athanasius fled to Rome. Thither also came Mar-

cellus of Ancyra, and ejected clerics from all parts of
the Bast. Under the rule of Constans they
Athanasius and
Marceiius at
, •,i».»
might mcct With justice.
-r»'T
JDishop
tt
Julius
an arbiter of
at once took the position of
Christendom. He received the fugitives with a decent
reserve, and invited the Eusebians to the council they
had already asked him to hold. For a long time there
came no answer from the East. The old heretic
Carpones appeared at Rome on Gregory's behalf, but
the envoys of Julius were detained at Antioch till
January 340, and at last dismissed with an unman-
nerly reply. After some further delay, a synod of about
fifty bishops met at Rome the following autumn. The
cases were examined, Marcellus and Athanasius acquit-
ted, and it remained for Julius to report their decision
to the Easterns.
His letterone of the ablest documents of the
is
entire controversy. Nothing can be better than the

Calm and high judicial tone in which he
The letter of
Julius.
jg^yg open every excuse of the Eusebians.
He was surprised, he says, to receive so discourteous

an answer to his letter. But what was their
grievance ? If it was his invitation to a synod,
they could not have much confidence in their cause.
Even the great had decided (and not
council of Niceea
without the will of God) that the acts of one synod
might be revised by another. Their own envoys had
asked him to hold a council, and the men who set
aside the decisions of Nicaoa by using the services of
heretics like Secundus Pistus and Carpones could
hardly claim finality for their own doings at Tyre.
C. H, E
Their complaint that he had given them too short a
notice would have been reasonable if the appointed day-
had found them on the road to Eome. ^But this
also, beloved, is only an excuse.' They had detained
his envoys for months at Antioch, and plainly did not
mean to come. As for the reception of Athanasius, it
was neither lightly nor unjustly done. The Eusebian
letters against him were inconsistent, for no two of
them ever told the same story and they were, more-
;
over, contradicted by letters in his favour from Egypt

and elsewhere. The accused had come to Rome when
summoned, and waited for them eighteen months in
vain, whereas the Eusebians had uncanonically ap-
pointed an utter stranger in his place at Alexandria,
and sent him with a guard of soldiers all the way from
Antioch to disturb the peace of Egypt with horrible
outrages. With regard to Marcellus, he had denied
the charge of heresy and presented a very sound con-
fession of his faith. The Eoman legates at Nica3a
had borne witness to the honourable part he had
also
taken in the council. Thus the Eusebians could not
say that Athanasius and Marcellus had been too hastily
received at Eome. Eather their own doings were the
cause of all the troubles, for complaints of their violence
came in from all parts of the East. The authors of
these outrages were no lovers of peace, but of con-
fusion. Whatever grievance they might have against
Athanasius, they should not have neglected the old
custom of writing first to Eome, that a legitimate
decision might issue from the apostolic see. It was
time to put an end to these scandals, as they would
have to answer for them in the day of judgment.
Severe as the letter is, it contrasts well with the

disingenuous querulousness of the Eusebians. Nor is
Julius unmindful to press as far as possible

the claims of the Koman see. His one
serious mistake was in supporting Marcellus. No
doubt old services at Nicêa counted heavily in the
West. His confession too was innocent enough, being
very nearly our so-called Apostles' Creed, here met for
the first time in history.-^ Knowing, however, what
his doctrine was, we must admit that the Easterns
were right in resenting its deliberate approval at
Eome.
The Eusebians replied in the summer of 341,
when ninety bishops met at Antioch to consecrate
the Golden Church, beo;un by Constantino.
Council of the _^- _
r> i -i •
it
dedication at iho character 01 the council is an old
question of dispute. Hilary calls it a
meeting of saints, and its canons have found their
way into the authoritative collections ;
yet its chief
work was to confirm the deposition of Athanasius and
to draw up creeds in opposition to the Nicene. Was
it Nicene or Arian ? Probably neither, but conserva-
tive. The Eusebians seem to have imitated Athanasius
in pressing a creed (this time an Arianizing one) on
unwilling conservatives, but only to have succeeded in
making great confusion. This was a new turn of
their policy, and not a hopeful one. Constantino's
death indeed left them free to try if they could replace
the Nicene creed by something else ; but the friends of
1 It has even been ascribed to Marcellus ; but it seems a little older.

Its apostolic origin is of course absurd. The legend cannot be traced
beyond the last quarter of the fourth century.
Atlianasius could accept no substitute, and even the
conservatives could hardly agree to make the Lord's
divinity an open question. The
was twenty result
years of busy creed-making, and twenty more of con-
fusion, before it was finally seen that there was no
escape from the dilemma which had been decisive at
Nicaea.
The Eusebians began by offering a meagre and
evasive creed, much like the confession of Arius and
Euzoius, prefacing: it with a declaration
creed (second that they wcro not followers of Anus, but
of Antioch). .
his independent adherents. They overshot

their mark, for the conservatives were not willing to
go so had older standards
far as this, and, moreover,
of their own. Instead, therefore, of drawing up a new
creed, they put forward a work of the venerated
martyr Lucian of Antioch. Such it was said to be,
and such in the main it probably was, though the
anathemas must have been added now. This Lucianic
formula then is essentially conservative, but leans
much more to the Nicene than to the Arian side.
Its central clause declares the Son of God ^ not
subject to moral change or alteration, but the un-
varying image of the deity and essence and power
and counsel and glory of the Father,' while its
anathemas condemn those who say that there was
'
once a time when the Son of God was not, or that

he is a creature as one of the creaticresJ These are
strong words, but they do not in the least shut out
Arianism. No doubt the phrase ^ unvarying image
of the essence ' means that there
no change of is
essence in passing from the Father to the Son, and

is therefore logically equivalent to '

of one essence
Qiomoousion) ; but the conservatives meant nothing
more than '
of like essence ' (homoioicsion), which is
consistent with great unlikeness in attributes. The

anathemas also are the Nicene with insertions which
might have been made for the very purpose of letting
the Arians escape. However, the conservatives were
well satisfied with the Lucianic creed, and frequently
refer to it with a veneration akin to that of Athanasius
for the Nicene. But the wire-pullers were determined
to upset it. The confession next presented by Theo-
phronius of Tyana was more to their mind, for it
contained a direct anathema against " Marcellus and
those who communicated with him." It secured a
momentary approval, but the meeting broke up with-
out adopting it. The Lucianic formula remained the
creed of the council.
Defeated in a free council, the wire-pullers a few
months later assembled a cabal of their own, and
The fourth drew up a fourth which a deputation
creed,
creed.
^f notorious Ariauizers presented to Con-
stans in Gaul as the genuine work of the council.
It seems to have suited them better than the Lucianic,
for they repeated it with increasing series of anathemas
at Philippopolis in 343, at Antioch the next year,
and at Sirmium in 351. We can see why it suited
them. While in substance it is less opposed to
Arianism than the Lucianic, its wording follows the
Nicene, even to the adoption of the anathemas in a
weakened form. Upon the whole, it is a colourless
document, which left all questions open.
The wording of the creed of Tyana was a direct blow
;

at Julius of Eome, and is of itself enough to show
that its authors were no lovers of peace. But Western
suspicion was already
"^ ^
roused by the issue
Constans . .
mi
demands a 01 the Luciauic Creed. There could no
longer be any doubt that the Nicene faith
was the real object of attack. Before the Eastern
envoys reached had already
Constans in Gaul, he
written to his brother (Oonstantine II. was now dead)
to demand a new general council. Constantius was
busy with the Persian war, and could not refuse
so it was summoned to meet in the summer of 343.
To the dismay of the Eusebians, the place chosen
was Sardica in Dacia, just inside the dominions of
Constans. After their failure with the Eastern
bishops at Antioch, they could not hope to control
the Westerns in a free council.
To Sardica the bishops came. The Westerns were
about ninety-six in number, '
with Hosius of Cordova
Council of fo^ their father,' bringing with him Athana-
sardica (343). g'^g ^^^ Marccllus, and supported by the
chief Westerns — Gratus of Carthage, Protasius of
Milan, Maximus of Trier, Fortunatian of Aquileia, and
Vincent of Capua, the old Roman legate at Nicsea.
The Easterns, under Stephen of Antioch and Acacius
of Csesarea, the disciple and successor of Eusebius,
were for once outnumbered. They therefore travelled
in one body, more than seventy strong, and agreed
to act together. They began by insisting that the
deposition of Marcellus and Athanasius at Antioch
should be accepted without discussion. Such a
demand was absurd. There was no reason why the
deposition at Antioch should be accepted blindly
;
rather than the acquittal at Eome. At any rate^ the

council had an express commission to reopen the
whole case, and indeed had met for no other purpose
so, if they were not to do it, they might as well go
home. The Westerns were determined to sift the

whole matter to the bottom, but the Eusebians
refused to enter the council. It was in vain that
Hosius asked them to give their proofs, if it were
only to himself in private. In vain he promised
that if Athanasius was acquitted, and they were
still unwilling to receive him, he would take him
back with him to Spain. The Westerns began the

trial : the Easterns left Sardica by night in haste.
They had heard, forsooth, of a victory on the Persian
and must pay their respects to the Emperor
frontier,
without a moment's delay.
Once more the charges were examined and the
accused acquitted. In the case of Marcellus, it was
found that the Eusebians had misquoted
Acquittal of , . _, . .
Marcellus and his book, Setting dowu opinious as his own

which he had only put forward for dis-
cussion. Thus it was not true that he had denied
the eternity of the Word in the past or of his king-
dom in the future. Quite so : but the eternity of the
Sonship is another matter. This was the real charge
against him, and he was allowed to evade it. Though
doctrinal questions lay more in the background in the
case of Athanasius, one party in the council was for
issuing a new creed in explanation of the Nicene. The
proposal was wisely rejected. It would have made
the fatal admission that Arianism had not been clearly
condemned at Nicaea, and thrown on the Westerns the
odium of innovation. All that could be done was to
pass a series of canons to check the worst scandals or
late years. After this the council issued its encyclical
and the bishops dispersed.

Meanwhile the Easterns (such was their haste)
halted for some weeks at Philippopolis to issue their
own encyclical, falsely datingf it from Sar-
Rival council *; . . - , .
ofPhiiippo- dica. ihey beofin with their mam areû-

mentj that the acts of councils are irre-
versible. Next they recite the charges against Atha-
nasius and Marcellus, and the doings of the Westerns
at Sardica. Hereupon they denounce Hosius, Julius,
and others as associates of heretics and patrons of
the detestable errors of Marcellus. A few random
charges of gross immorality are added, after the
Eusebian custom. They end with a new creed, the
fourth of Antioch, with some verbal changes, and
seven anathemas instead of two.
The quarrel of East and West seemed worse than
ever. The Eusebians had
behaved discreditably
The fifth enough, but they had at least frustrated
Anti1)ch t^^ council, and secured a recognition of
(344).
their creed from a large body of Eastern
conservatives. So far they had been fairly successful,
but the next move on their side was a blunder and
worse. When the Sardican envoys, Vincent of Capua
and Euphrates of Cologne, came eastward in the spring
of 344, a harlot was brought one night into their
lodgings. Great was the scandal when the plot was
traced up to the Eusebian leader, Stephen of Antioch.
A new by which Stephen was deposed
council was held,
and Leontius the Lucianist, himself the subject of an
old scandaljwas raised to the vacant see. The fourth

creed of Antioch was also re-issued with a few changes,
but followed by long paragraphs of explanation. The
Easterns adhered to their condemnation of Marcellus,
and joined with him his disciple Photinus of Sirmium,
who had made the Lord a mere man like the Ebionites.
On the other hand, they condemned several Arian
phrases, and insisted in the strongest manner on the
mutual, inseparable, and, as it were, organic union of
the Son with the Father in a single deity.
This conciliatory move cleared the way for a general
suspension of Stephens crime had dis-
hostilities.
credited the whole sfano^ of Eastern court

Return of . .
t
i t i i
Athanasius intriguers who had made the quarrel, isov
were the Westerns unreasonable. Though
they still upheld Marcellus, they frankly gave up and
condemned Photinus. Meanwhile Oonstans pressed the
execution of the decrees of Sardica, and Constantius,
with a Persian war on his hands, could not refuse.
The last obstacle was removed by the death of Gregory
of Cappadocia in 345. It was not till the third in-
vitation that Athanasius returned. He had to take
leave of his Italian friends, and the Emperor's letters
were only too plainly insincere. However, Constantius
received him graciously at Antioch, ordered all the
charges against him to be destroyed, and gave him
a solemn promise of full protection for the future.
Athanasius went forward on his journey, and the old
confessor Maximus assembled the bishops of Palestine
to greet him at Jerusalem. But his entry into Alex-
andria (Oct. 346) was the crowning triumph of his life.
For miles along the road the great city streamed out to
meet him with enthusiastic welcome^ and the jealous
police of Constantius could raise no tumult to mar the
universal harmony of that great day of national rejoicing.
The next few years were an uneasy interval of sus-
pense rather than of peace, for the long contest had so
Interval of ^ ^^ decided nothing. If the Nicene exiles
rest (346-353-)
êre restored, the Eusebian disturbers were
not deposed. Thus while Nicene animosity was not
satisfied, the standing grounds of conservative distrust
were not removed. Above all, the return of Athana-

sius was a personal humiliation for Constantius, which
he was not likely to accept without watching his oppor-
tunity for a final struggle to decide the mastery of
Egypt. Still there was tolerable quiet for the present.
The court intriguers could do nothing without the

Emperor, and Constantius was occupied first with the
Persian war, then with the civil war against Magnentius.
If there was not peace, there was a fair amount of quiet
till the Emperor's hands were freed by the death of
Magnentius in 353.
The truce was hollow and the rest precarious, but
the mere cessation of hostilities was not without its
influence. As Nicenes and conservatives
Modification p t n t t t r»
of Nicene werc lundamentally agreed on the reality 01
the Lord's divinity, minor jealousies began
to disappear when they were less busily encouraged.
The Eusebian phase of conservatism, w^hich emphasised
the Lord's personal distinction from the Father, was
giving way to the Semiarian, where stress was rattier
laid on his essential likeness to the Father. Thus of
^
a like essence' Qiomoiousiori) and ^like in all things'

became more and more the watchwords of conservatism.
'
The Nicenes, on the other side, were warned by the

excesses of Marcellus that there was some reason for
the conservative dread of the Nicene ^
of one essence
Qiomoousion) as Sabellian. The word could not be
withdrawn, but it might be put forward less con-
spicuously, and explained rather as a safe and emphatic
form of the Semiarian of like essence than as a rival
' '
doctrine. Henceforth it came to mean absolute like-

ness of attributes rather than common possession of the
divine essence. Thus bv the time the war is renewed,
we can already foresee the possibility of a new alliance
between Nicenes and conservatives.
We see also the rise of a new and more defiant Arian
school, more in earnest than the older generation,
jîgg^f impatient of their shuffling diplomacy and

Anomoeans.
|ggg piia^f3 ^q court influenccs. Aetius was
a man of learning and no small dialectic skill, who had
passed through many troubles in his earlier life and
been the disciple of several scholars, mostly of the
Lucianic school, before he came to rest in a clear and
simple form of Arianism. Christianity without mystery
seems to have been his aim. The Anomoean leaders
took their stand on the doctrine of Arius himself, and
dwelt with most emphasis on its most offensive aspects.
Arius had long ago laid down the absolute unlikeness
of the Son to the Father, but for years past the
Arianizers had prudently softened it down. Now, how-
ever, ^ unlike became the watchword of Aetius and
'
Eunomius, and their followers delighted to shock all

sober feeling by the harshest and profanest declarations
of it. The scandalous jests of Eudoxius must have
given deep offence to thousands ; but the great novelty
—
^6 The Arian Controversy.
of the Anomoean doctrine was its audacious self-suffi-
ciency. Seeing that Arius was illogical in regarding

the divine nature as incomprehensible, and yet reason-
ing as if its relations were by human
fully explained
types, the Anomoeans boldly declared that it is no
mystery at all. If the divine essence is simple, man
can perfectly understand it. Canst thou by searching
'
find out God ? Yes, and know him quite as well as

'
he knows me. Such was the new school of Arianism

presumptuous and shallow, quarrelsome and heathenis-
ing, yet not without a directness and a firmness of con-
viction which gives it a certain dignity in spite of its
wrangling and irreverence. Its conservative allies it
despised for their wavering and insincerity to its ;
Nicene opponents it repaid hatred for hatred, and flung

back with retorted scorn their denial of its right to
bear the Christian name.
We may now glance at the state of the churches
at Jerusalem and Antioch during the years of rest.
Illustration Jcrusalcm had been a resort of pilgrims
of'':'^(i*) Jem-^ siuco the days of Origen, and Helena's
saiem.
^'gjî- gjôrtly after the Nicene council had
fully restored it to the dignity of a holy place. We

stillhave the itinerary of a nameless pilgrim who
found his way from Bordeaux to Palestine in 333.
The great church, however, of the Resurrection, which
Constantino built on Golgotha, was only dedicated by
the council of 335. The Catecheses of Cyril are a
series of sermons on the creed, delivered to the cate-
chumens of that church in 348. If it is not a work
of any great originality, it will show us all the better
what was passing in the minds of men of practical
and simple piety, who had no taste for the contro-

versies of the day. All through it we see the earnest
pastor who feels that his strength is needed to combat
the practical immoralities of a holy city (Jerusalem
was a scandal of the age), and never lifts his eyes to
the wild scene of theological confusion round him but
in fear and dread that Antichrist is near. *
I fear the
wars of the nations ; I fear the divisions of the
churches ; I fear the mutual hatred of the brethren.
Enough concerning this. God forbid it come to pass in
our days ;
yet let us be on our guard. Enough con-
cerning Antichrist.' Jews, Samaritans, and Manichees
are his chief opponents ;
yet he does not forget to
warn his hearers against the teaching of Sabellius and
Marcellus, *
the dragon's head of late arisen in Galatia.'
Arius he sometimes contradicts in set terms, though
without naming him. Of the Nicenes too, we hear
nothing directly, but they seem glanced at in the
complaint that whereas in former times heresy was
open, the church is now full of secret heretics. The
Nicene creed again he never mentions, but we cannot
mistake the allusion when he tells his hearers that
their own Jerusalem creed was not put together by
the will of men, and impresses on them that every
word of it can be proved by Scripture. But the most
significant feature of his language is its close relation
to that of the dated creed of Sirmium in 359. Nearly
every point where the latter differs from the Lucianic
is one specially emphasized by Cyril. If then the
Lucianic creed represents the earlier conservatism, it
follows that Cyril expresses the later views which had
to be conciliated in 359.
The condition of Antiocli under Leontius (344—357)
is equally significant. The Nicene was quite as strong
in the city as Arianism had ever been at Alex-
andria. The Eustathians formed a separate
and strongly Nicene congregation under the presbyter
Paulinus, and held their meetings outside the walls.
Athanasius communicated with them on his return
from exile, and agreed to give the Arians a church
in Alexandria, as Constantius desired, if only the
Eustathians were allowed one inside the walls of
Antioch. His terms were prudently declined, for the
Arians were a minority even in the congregation of
Leontius. The old Arian needed all his caution to
avoid offence. When this snow melts,' touching his
^
white head, there will be much mud.'

'
Nicenes and
Arians made a slight difference in the doxology ; and
Leontius always dropped his voice at the critical point,
so that nobody knew what he said. This policy was

successful in keeping out of the Eustathian communion
not only the indifferent multitude, but also many whose
sympathies were clearly Nicene, like the future bishops
Meletius and Flavian. But they always considered
him an enemy, and the more dangerous for the contrast
of his moderation with the reckless violence of Mace-
donius at Constantinople. His appointments were
Arianizing, and he gave deep offence by the ordination
of his old disciple, the detested Aetius. So great was
the outcry that Leontius was forced to suspend him.
The opposition was led by two ascetic laymen, Flavian
and Diodorus, who both became distinguished bishops
in later time. Orthodox feeling was nourished by a
vigorous use of hymns and by all-night services at the
tombs of the martyrs. As such practices often led to

great abuses, Leontius may have bad nothing more in
view than good order when he directed the services to
be transferred to the church.
The case of Antioch was not exceptional. Arians
and Nicenes were still parties inside the church rather
g^^^QQf than distant They still used the
sects.
parties.
same prayers and the same hymns, still
worshipped in the same buildings, still commemo-
rated the same saints and martyrs, and still con-
sidered themselves members of the same church. The
example of separation set by the Eustathians at Antioch
and the Arians at Alexandria was not followed till a
later stage of the controversy, when Diodorus and
Flavian on one side, and the Anomoeans on the other,
began to introduce their own peculiarities into the
service. And if the bitterness of intestine strife was
increased by a state of things which made every bishop
a party nominee, there was some compensation in the
free intercourse of parties afterwards separated by
barriers of persecution.Nicenes and Arians in most
places mingled freely long after Leontius was dead,
and the Novatians of Constantinople threw open their
churches to the victims of Macedonius in a way which
drew his persecution on themselves, and was remem-
bered in their favour even in the next century by
liberal men like the historian Socrates.
( 80 )
CHAPTER V.
THE VICTORY OF ARIANISM.
Meanwhile new troubles were gathering in the West.

While the Eastern churches were distracted with the
The West crimes or wrongs of Marcellus and Athana-
(337-350). g-^g^ Europe remained at peace from the
Atlantic to the frontier of Thrace. The western

frontier of Constantius was also the western limit of
the storm. Hitherto its distant echoes had been very
faintly heard in Gaul and Spain but now the time ;
was come for Arianism to invade the tranquil obscurity

of the West.
Constans was not ill-disposed, and for some years
ruled well and firmly. Afterwards — it may be that
Magnentian
war, 350-353-
^^^ health was bad —he lived in seclusion
ît}i }^Js Frankish guards, and left his sub-
jects to the oppression of unworthy favourites. Few
regretted their weak master's fate when the army of
Gaul proclaimed Magnentius Augustus (January 3 5 o).
But the memory of Constantine was still a power
which could set up emperors and pull them down.
The old Sirmium received the
general Vetranio at
purple from Constantine's daughter, and Nepotianus
The Victory of A rianism. 8i
claimed it at Eome as Constantine's nephew. The

Magnentian generals scattered the gladiators of Nepo-
tianus, and disgraced their easy victory with slaughter
and proscription. The ancient mother of the nations
never forgave the intruder who had disturbed her
queenly rest with civil war and filled her streets with
bloodshed. Meantime Constantius came up from Syria,
won over the legions of Illyricum, reduced Vetranio to
a peaceful abdication, and pushed on with augmented
forces towards the Julian Alps, there to decide the
strifebetween Magnentius and the house of Constantino.
Both parties tried the resources of intrigue ; but while
Constantius won over the Frank Silvanua from the
Western camp, the envoys of Magnentius, who sounded
Athanasius, gained nothing from the wary Greek.
The decisive battle was fought near Mursa, on the
Save (September 28, 351). Both armies well sus-
tained the honour of the Eoman name, and it was
only after a frightful slaughter that the usurper was
thrown on Aquileia.
back Next summer he was
forced to evacuate Italy, and in 353 his destruction
was completed by a defeat in the Cottian Alps. Mag-
nentius fell upon his sword, and Constantius remained
the master of the world.
The Eusebians were not slow to take advantage of
the confusion. The fires of controversy in the East
Renewal of the
wero smouldoriug through the years of rest,
contest.
gQ ^^^^ j|- ^g^g j^Q hdiYdi task to make them
blaze afresh. As the recall of the exiles was only due
to Western pressure, the death of Constans cleared the
way for further operations. Marcellus and Photinus
were again deposed by a council held at Sirmium in
C,H. F
351. Ancyra was restored to Basil, Sirmium given
to Germinius of Cyzicus. Other Eastern bishops were
also expelled, but there was no thought of disturbing
Athanasius for the present. Constantius more than
once repeated to him his promise of protection.
Maofnentius had not meddled with the controversy.
He was more likely to see in it the chance of an ally
The Western ^^ Alexandria
than a matter of practical
bishops.
interest in the West. As soon, however,
as Constantius was master of Gaul, he set himself to
force on the Westerns an indirect condemnation of the
Nicene faith in the person of Athanasius. Any direct
approval of Arianism was out of the question, for
Western feeling was firmly set against it by the council
of Nicasa. Liberius of Rome followed the steps of
his predecessor Julius. Hosius of Cordova was still
the patriarch of Christendom, while Paulinus of Trier,

Dionysius of Milan, and Hilary of Poitiers proved their
faith in exile. Mere creatures of the palace were no
match for men like these. Doctrine was therefore
kept in the background. Constantius began by de-
manding from the Western bishops a summary and
lawless condemnation of Athanasius. No evidence
was offered and when an accuser was asked for, the
;
Emperor himself came forward, and this at a time

when Athanasius was ruling Alexandria in peace on
the faith of his solemn and repeated promises of pro-
tection.
A
synod was held at Aries as soon as Constantius
was settled there for the winter. The bishops were
not unwilling to take the Emperor's word for the
crimes of Athanasius, if only the court party cleared
;
The Victory of Arianism. 83
itself from tlie suspicion of heresy by anatliematizing

Arianism. Much management and no little violence
was needed to get rid of this condition
Aries (Oct. but in the end the council yielded. Even
the Eoman legate, Vincent of Capua, gave
way with the rest, and Paulinus of Trier alone stood
firm, and was sent away to die in exile.
There was a sort of armed truce for the next two
years. Liberius of Rome disowned the weakness of
his legates and besought the Emperor to
Milan (Oct. hold a ucw couucil. But Constantius was
busy with the barbarians, and had to leave
the matter till he came to Milan in the autumn of
355. There Julian was invested with the purple and
sent as Caesar to drive the Alemanni out of Gaul, or,
as some hoped, to perish in the effort. The council,
however, was for a long time quite unmanageable, and
only yielded at last to open violence. Dionysius of
Milan, Eusebius of Vercellae, and Lucifer of Calaris in
Sardinia were the only bishops who had to be exiled.
The appearance of Lucifer is enough to show that
the contest had entered on a new stage. The law-
Luciferof ^^^^ tyranny of Constantius had roused an
Calaris.
aggTCSsivo fauaticlsm which went far beyond
the claim of independence for the church. Li daunt-
less courage and determined orthodoxy Lucifer may
rival Athanasius himself, but any cause would have been
disgraced by his narrow partisanship and outrageous
violence. Not a bad name in Scripture but is turned
to use. Indignation every now and then supplies the
place of eloquence, but more often common sense itself
is almost lost in the weary flow of vulgar scolding and
interminable abuse. He scarcely condescends to reason,
scarcely even to state his own but revels in the
belief,
more congenial occupation of denouncing the fires of

damnation against the disobedient Emperor.
The victorywas not to be won by an arm of flesh
like this. Arianism had an enemy more dangerous
Hilary of ^^^^ Lucifer. From the sunny land of
Poitiers.
Aquitaine, the firmest conquest of Roman
civilization in Atlantic Europe, came Hilary of Poitiers,
the noblest representative of Western literature in the
Nicene age. Hilary was by birth a heathen, and only
turned in ripe manhood from philosophy to Scripture,
coming before us in 355 as an old convert and a
bishop of some standing. He was by far the deepest
thinker of the West, and a match for Athanasius him-
self in depth of earnestness and massive strength of
intellect. But Hilary was a student rather than an
orator, a thinker rather than a statesman like Athanasius.
He had not touched the controversy till it was forced
upon him, and would much have preferred to keep out
of it. But when once he had studied the Nicene
doctrine and found its agreement with his own con-
clusions from Scripture, a clear sense of duty forbade
him to shrink from manfully defending it. Such was
the man whom the brutal policy of Constantius forced
to take his place at the head of the Nicene opposition.
As he was not present at Milan, the courtiers had to
silence him some other way. In the spring of 356
they exiled him to Asia, on some charge of conduct
^ unworthy of a bishop, or even of a layman.'
Meanwhile Hosius of Cordova was ordered to

Sirmium and there detained. Constantius was not
The Victory of A rianism. 85
ashamed to send to the rack the old man who had

been a confessor in his grandfather's days, more than
Hosiusand
Liberius.
6%
J^^rs before. He was brought at
jg^g^. ^^ communicate with the Arianizers,
but even in his last illness refused to condemn
Athanasius. After this there was but one power in
the West which could not be summarily dealt with.
The grandeur of Hosius was merely personal, but
Liberius claimed the universal reverence due to the
apostolic and imperial See of Eome. It was a great
and wealthy church, and during the last two hundred
years had won a noble fame for world-wide charity.
Its orthodoxy was without a stain for whatever
;
heresies might flow to the great city, no heresy had

ever issued thence. The strangers of every land who
found their way to Rome were welcomed from St.
Peter s throne with the majestic blessing of a universal
father. The church of God which sojourneth in
^
Eome was the immemorial counsellor of all the

'
churches and now that the voice of counsel was

;
passing into that of command. Bishop Julius had made

a worthy use of his authority as a judge of Christen-
dom. Such a bishop was a power of the first import-
ance now that Arianism was dividing the Empire round
the hostile camps of Gaul and Asia. If the Eoman
church had partly ceased to be a Greek colony in the
Latin capital, it was still the connecting link of East
and West, the representative of Western Christianity
to the Easterns, and the interpreter of Eastern to the
Latin West. Liberius could therefore treat almost on
the footing of an independent sovereign. He would
not condemn Athanasius unheard, and after so many
acquittals. If Constantius wanted to reopen tlie case,
he must summon a free council, and begin by expelling

the Arians. To this demand he firmly adhered. The
Emperor's threats he disregarded, the Emperor's gifts
he flung out of the church. It was not long before
Constantius was obliged to risk the scandal of seizing
and carrying off the bishop of Rome.
Athanasius was still at Alexandria. When the
notaries tried to frighten him away, he refused to take
their word aofainst
^ the repeated written
Third exile of . , . . \ .
t «
Athanasius promiscs 01 protcctiou he had received from
Constantius himself. Duty as well as
policy forbade him to believe that the most pious
Emperor could be guilty of any such treachery.
So
when SyrianuSj the general in Egypt, brought up
his troops, it was agreed to refer the whole question to
Constantius. Syrianus broke the agreement. On a
night of vigil (Feb. 356) he surrounded the church
8,
of Theonas with a force of more than five thousand
men. The whole congregation was caught as in a net.
The doors were broken open, and the troops pressed up
the church. Athanasius fainted in the tumult; yet
before they reached the bishop's throne its occupant
had somehow been safely conveyed away.
If the soldiers connived at the escape of Athanasius,
they were all the less disposed to spare his flock. The
George of outrages of Philagrius and Gregory were
Cappadocia.
repeated by Syrianus and his successor,
Sebastian the Manichee ; and the evil work went on
apace after the arrival of the new bishop in Lent 357«
George of Cappadocia is said to have been before this
a pork-contractor for the army, and is certainly no
The Victory of A rianism. Zj
credit to Arianism. Though Athanasius does injustice

to his learning, there can be no doubt that he was a
thoroughly bad bishop. Indiscriminate oppression of
Nicenes and heathens provoked resistance from the fierce
populace of Alexandria. George escaped with diflSculty
from one riot in August 358, and was fairly driven from
the city by another in October.
Meanwhile Athanasius had disappeared from the
eyes of men. A full year after the raid of Syrianus,
Athanasius in ^^ ^^^ still unconvinccd of the Emperor's
exile (356-362).
treachery. Outrage after outrage might
turn out to be the work of underlings. Constantino
himself had not despised his cry for justice, and if he
could but stand before the son of Oonstantine, his
presence might even yet confound the gang of eunuchs.
Even the- weakness of Athanasius is full of nobleness.
Not till the work of outrage had gone on for many
months was he convinced. But then he threw off all
restraint. Even George the pork-contractor is not
assailed with such a storm of merciless invective as
his holiness Constantius Augustus. George might sin
'
like the beasts who know no better/ but no wicked-
ness of common mortals could attain to that of the new
Belshazzar, of the Lord's anointed ^
self-abandoned to
eternal fire.'
The exile governed Egypt from his hiding in the

desert. Alexandria was searched in vain in vain the
;
malice of Constantius pursued him to the

mean-
...
Political ,
ing of his court of Ethiopia. Letter after letter issued

exile.
from his inaccessible retreat to keep alive
the indignation of the faithful, and invisible hands
conveyed them to the farthest corners of the land.
Oonstantius had his revenge, but it shook the Empire
to its base. was the first time since the fall of
It
Israel that a nation had defied the Empire in the
name of God. It was a national rising, none the less
real for not breaking out in formal war. This time
Greeks and Copts were united in defence of the Nicene
faith, so that the contest was at an end when the
Empire gave up Arianism. But the next breach was

never healed. Monophysite Egypt was a dead limb
of the Empire, and the Eoman power beyond Mount
Taurus fell before the Saracens because the provincials
would not lift a hand to fight for the heretics of
Chalcedon.
The victory seemed won when the last great enemy
was driven into the desert, and the intriguers hasted
TheSirmian *^ ^^ spoil. They forgot that the West
manifesto (357).
^^^ ^^^ ovorawcd for the moment, that
Egypt was devoted to its patriarch, that there was a
strong opposition in the East, and that the conserva-
tives, who had won the battle for them, were not likely
to take up Arianism at the bidding of their unworthy
leaders. Amongst the few prominent Eusebians of
the West were two disciples of Arius who held the
neighbouring bishoprics of Mursa and Singidunum,
the modern Belgrade. Valens and Ursacius were
young men in 33 5, but old enough to take a part in
the infamous Egyptian commission of the council of
Tyre. Since that time they had been well to the
front in the Eusebian plots. In 347, however, they
had found it prudent to make their peace with Julius of
Rome by confessing the falsehood of their charges
against Athanasius. Of late they had been active on
the winning side, and enjoyed much influence with Con-

stantius. Thinking it now more openly
safe to declare
for Arianism, they called a few bishops to Sirmium in
the summer of 357, and issued a manifesto of their
belief for the time being, to the following general effect.
'
We acknowledge one God the Father, also His only
Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. But two Gods must
not be preached. The Father is without beginning,
invisible, and in every respect greater than the Son,
who is subject to Him together with the creatures.
The Son is born of the Father, God of God, by an
inscrutable generation, and took flesh or body, that is,
man, through which he suffered. The words essence, of
the same essence^ of like essence^ ought not to be used,
because they are not found in Scripture, and because
the divine generation is beyond our understanding.'
Here is something to notice besides the repeated hints
that the Son is no better than a creature. It was a
new policy to make the mystery in the manner of the
divine generation an excuse for ignoring the fact. In
this case the plea of ignorance is simply impertinent.
The Sirmian manifesto is the turning-point of the
whole contest. Arianism had been so utterly crushed
Its results in ^^ Nicaga that it had never again till now
general.
appeared in a public document. Hence-
forth the conservatives were obliged in self-defence to
look for a Nicene alliance against the Anomoeans.
Suspicions and misunderstandings, and at last mere
force, delayed its consolidation till the reign of Theo-
Eusebian coalition fell to pieces the
dosius, but the
moment Arianism ventured to have a policy of its
own.
Ursacius and Valens had blown a trumpet whicH
was heard from one end of the Empire to the other,
(i.) In the
-"-^^ avowal of Arlanism caused a stir even
^^^*-
in the West.
Unlike the creeds of Antioch,
it was a Western document, drawn up in Latin by
Western bishops. The spirit of the West was fairly
roused, now that the battle was clearly for the faith.
The bishops of Eome, Cordova, Trier, Poitiers, Toulouse,
Calaris, Milan, and Vercelte were in exile, but Gaul
was now partly shielded from persecution by the vary-
ing fortunes of Julian's Alemannic war. Thus every-
thing increased the ferment. Phoebadius of Agen
took the lead, and a Gaulish synod at once condemned
the ^
blasphemy.'
If the Sirmian manifesto disturbed the West, it
spread dismay through the ranks of the Eastern con-

(2.) In the servatives. Plain men were weary of the
East.
strife, and only the fishers in troubled waters
wanted more of it. Now that Marcellus and Photinus
had been expelled, the Easterns looked for rest. But
the Sirmian manifesto opened an abyss at their feet.
The fruits of their hard-won victories over Sabellianism
were falling to the Anomoeans. They must even defend
themselves, for Ursacius and Valens had the Emperor's
ear. As if to bring the danger nearer home to them,
Eudoxius the new bishop of Antioch, and Acacius of
Caosarea convened a Syrian synod, and sent a letter of
thanks to the authors of the manifesto.
Next spring came the conservative reply from a knot
of twelve bishops who had met to consecrate a new
church for Basil of Ancyra. But its weight was far be-
yond its numbers. Basil's name stood high for learn-
The Victory of A rianism, 91
ing, and more than any man conld sway the

he
vacillating Emperor. Eustathius of Sebastia was an-
other man of mark. His ascetic eccentri-
Ancyra(Lent, citics, long ago Condemned by the council of
Gangra, were by this time forgotten or con-

sidered harmless. Above all, the synod represented most
of the Eastern bishops. Pontus indeed was devoted to
conservatism, and the decided Arianizers were hardly
more than a busy clique even in Asia and Syria. Its
decisions show the awkwardness to be expected from
men who have had to make a sudden change of front,
and exhibit well the transition from Eusebian to
Semiarian conservatism. They seem to start from the
declaration of the Lucianic creed, that the Lord's son-
ship is not an idle name. Now if we reject materiali-
sing views of the Divine Sonship, its primary meaning
will be found to lie in similarity of essence. On this
ground the Sirmian manifesto is condemned. Then
follow eighteen anathemas, alternately aimed at Aetius
and Marcellus. The last of these condemns the Nicene
of one essence — clearly as Sabellian, though no reason
is given.
The synod broke up. Basil and Eustathius went
to lay its decisions before the court at Sirmium. To
Victory of the Conciliate the Nicenes, they left out the last
semiarians. ^'^
auathomas of Aucyra. They were just
in time to prevent Constantius from declaring for
Eudoxius and the Anomoeans. Peace was made before
long on Semiarian terms. A collection was made of
the decisions against Photinus and Paul of Samosata,
together with the Lucianic creed, and signed by
Liberius of Eome, by Ursacius and Valens, and by all
the Easterns present. had not borne exile
Liberiiis
well. He had already signed some still more com-
promising document, and is denounced for it as an
apostate by Hilary and others. However, he was now
allowed to return to his see.
The Semiarians had won a complete victory. Their
next step was to throw it away. The Anomoean
wore Sent into exile.
The semiarian leaders After all,
failure.
thcse Eastcms only wanted to replace one
tyranny by another. The exiles were soon recalled,
and the strife began again with more bitterness than
ever.
Here was an opening for a new party. Semiarians,
Nicenes, and Anomoeans were equally unable to settle
Rise of the ^^^ interminable controversy. The Ano-
Homoeans.
moeans indeed almost deserved success for
their boldness and activity, but pure Arianism was
hopelessly discredited throughout the Empire. The
Nicenes had Egypt and the West, but they could
not at present overcome the court and Asia. The
Semiarians might have mediated, but men who began
with persecutions and wholesale exiles were not likely
to end with peace. In this deadlock better men than
Ursacius and Valens might have been tempted to try
some scheme of compromise. But existing parties
left no room for anything but vague and spacious
charity. If we may
say neither of one essence nor of
like essence^ nor yet unlike^ the only course open is to
say like^ and forbid nearer definition. This was the

plan of the new Homoean party formed by Acacius in
the East, Ursacius and Valens in the West.
Parties began to group themselves afresh. The
Anomoeans leaned to the side of Acacius. They

had no favour to expect from Nicenes or Semiarians,
New relations ^^^ *^ *^® Homoeans they conld look for
of parties.
connivance at least. The Semiarians were
therefore obliged to draw still closer to the Nicenes.
Here came in Hilary of Poitiers. If he had seen in
exile the worldliness many of the Asiatic
of too
bishops, he had also found among them men of a
better sort who were in earnest against Arianism, and
not so far from the Nicene faith as was supposed.
To soften the mutual suspicions of East and West,
he addressed his De Synodis to his Gaulish friends
about the end of 358. In it he reviews the Eusebian
creeds to show that they are not indefensible. He
also compares the rival phrases of one essence and of
like essence^ to shew that either of them may be rightly
or wrongly used. The two, however, are properly
identical, for there is no likeness but that of unity,
and no use in the idea of likeness but to exclude
Sabellian confusion. Only the Nicene phrase guards
against evasion, and the other does not.
Now that the Semiarians were forced to treat with
their late victims on equal terms, they agreed to hold
Summons for ^ general council. Both parties might

a council.
Jiopo for succoss. If the Homoean influence
was increasing at court, the Semiarians were strong in
the East, and could count on some help from the
Western Nicenes. But the court was resolved to
secure a decision to its own mind. As a council of
the whole Empire might have been too independent, it
was divided. The Westerns were to meet at Ariminum

in Italy, the Easterns at Seleucia in Isauria ; and in
case of disagreement, ten deputies from each side were
to hold a conference before the Emperor. A new
creed was also to be drawn up before their meeting
and laid before them for acceptance.
The Dated Creed was drawn up at Sirmium on
'
'
Pentecost Eve 3 59, by a small meeting of Homoean

and Semiarian leaders. Its prevailing^ char-
The Dated
•
. .
^ .
Creed '(May actcr IS conservativc, as we see from its
repeated appeals to Scripture, its solemn

tone of reverence for the person of the Lord, its
rejection of the word essence for the old conservative

reason that it is not found in Scripture, and above
all, from its elaborate statement of the eternity and
mysterious nature of the The divine generation.
chief clause however is, But we say that the Son is
'
like the Father in all things, as the Scriptures say and
teach.' Though the phrase here is Homoean, the

doctrine seems at first sight Semiarian, not to say
Nicene. In point of fact, the clause is quite am-
biguous. First, if the comma is put before in all
things^ the next words will merely forbid any extension

of the likeness beyond what Scripture allows and the ;
Anomoeans were quite entitled to sign it with the

explanation that for their part they found very little
likeness taught in Scripture. Again, likeness in all
things cannot extend to essence, for all likeness which
is not identity implies difference, if only the com-
parison is pushed far enough. So the Anomoeans

argued, and Athanasius accepts their reasoning. The
Semiarians had ruined their position by attempting to
compromise a fundamental contradiction. The whole
contest was lowered to a court intrigue. There is
grandeur in tlie flight of Atlianasius, dignity in the

exile of Eunomius ; but the conservatives fell ignobly
and unregretted, victims of their own violence and
unprincipled intrigue.
After signing the creed, Ursacius and Valens went
on to Ariminum, with the Emperor's orders to the
council to take doctrinal questions first, and
Council at not to meddle with Eastern affairs. They
found the Westerns waiting for them, to
the number of more than two hundred. The bishops
were in no courtly temper, and the intimidation was
not likely to be an easy task. They had even refused
the usual imperial help for the expenses of the journey.
Three British bishops only accepted on the ground
it
of poverty. The new creed was very ill received and ;
when the Homoean leaders refused to anathematize

Arianism, they were deposed, ^not only for their
present conspiracy to introduce heresy, but also for
the confusion they had caused in all the churches by
their repeated changes of faith.' The last clause was
meant for Ursacius and Valens. The Nicene creed
was next confirmed, and a statement added in defence
of the word essence. This done, envoys were sent to
report at court and ask the Emperor to dismiss them
to their dioceses, from which they could ill be spared.
Constantius was busy with his preparations for the
Persian war, and refused to see them. They were
sent to wait his leisure, first at Hadrianople, then at
the neighbouring town of Nice (chosen to cause con-
fusion with NicaGa), where Ursacius and Valens induced
them to sign a revision of the dated creed. The few
chancres madr» in it need not detain us.
Meanwliile the Easterns met at Seleucia near the
Cilician coast. It was a fairly central spot, and easy
and Syria by sea, but
of access from Eofvpt
°*^ "^ '
Eastern . _ . _ . •^ •^
Council at otherwiso most unsuitable. It was a mere

Seleucia. «
fortress, lymg
, .
m
.
a rugged country, where

-|
the spurs of Mount Taurus reach the sea. Around it

were the ever-restless marauders of Isauria. They had
attacked the place that very spring, and it was still
the headquarters of the army sent against them. The
choice of such a place is as significant as if a Pan-
Anglican synod were called to meet at the central and
convenient port of Souakin. Naturally the council
was a small one. Of 150 bishops present, about
the
1 1 o were Semiarians. The Acaciansf and Anomoeans
were only forty, but they had a clear plan and the
court in their favour. As the Semiarian leaders had
put themselves in a false position by signing the dated
creed, the conservative defence was taken up by men
of the second rank, like Silvanus of Tarsus and the old
soldier Eleusius of Cyzicus. With them, however,
came Hilary of Poitiers, who, though still an exile,
had been summoned with the rest. The Semiarians
welcomed him, and received him to full communion.
Next morning the first sitting was held. The
Homoeans began by proposing to abolish the Nicene creed
Its proceed- ^^ favour of One to be drawn up in scriptural
"^°^'
language. Some of them argued in defiance
of their own Sirmian creed, that generation is unworthy
'
of God. The Lord is creature, not Son, and his generation

is nothing but creation.' The Semiarians, however, had
no objection to the Nicene creed beyond the obscurity
of the word of one essence. The still more important
The Victory of A rianism, 97
of the essence of the Father seems to have passed with-

out remark. Towards evening Silvanus of Tarsus pro*
posed to confirm the Lucianic creed^ which was done
next morning by the Semiarians only. On the third
day the Count Leonas, who represented the Emperor,
read a document given him by Acacius, which turned
out to be the dated creed revised afresh and with a
new preface. In this the Homoeans say that they are
far from despising the Lucianic creed, though it was
composed with reference to other controversies. The
words of one essence and of like essence are next rejected
because they are not found in Scripture, and the new
Anomoean unlike is anathematized — but we clearly
'
confess the likeness of the Son to the Father, according

to the apostle's words. Who is the image of the invisible
God.' There was a hot dispute on the fourth day,
when Acacius explained the likeness as one of will
only, not extending to essence, and refused to be
bound by his own defence of the Lucianic creed
against Marcellus. Semiarian horror was not dimi-
nished when an extract was read from an obscene
sermon preached by Eudoxius at Antioch. At last
Eleusius broke in upon Acacius —
Any hole-and-
'
corner doings of yours at Sirmium are no concern of

ours. Your creed is not the Lucianic, and that is
quite enough to condemn it.' This was decisive.
Next morning the Semiarians had the church to
themselves, for the Homoeans, and even Leonas, refused
to come. '
They might go and chatter in the church
if they pleased.' So they deposed Acacius, Eudoxius,
George of Alexandria, and six others.
The exiled patriarch of Alexandria was watching
CH. G
;

from his refage in the desert, and this was the time,
he chose for an overture of friendship to his old conser-
Athanasius cê
vativo enemies. If he was slow to see his
synodis,
opportunity, at least he used it nobly. The
Eastern church has no more honoured name than that
of Athanasius, yet even Athanasius rises above him-
self in his De Synodis, He had been a champion of
controversy since his youth, and spent his manhood in
the forefront of its hottest battle. The care of many
churches rested on him, the pertinacity of many enemies
wore out his life. Twice he had been driven to the
ends of the earth, and twice come back in triumph
and now, far on in life, he saw his work again destroyed,
himself once more a fugitive. We do not look for calm
impartiality in a Demosthenes, and cannot wonder if
the bitterness of his long exile grows on even Athana-
sius. Yet no sooner is he cheered with the news of
hope, than the jealousies which had grown for forty
years are hushed in a moment, as though the Lord
himself had spoken peace to the tumult of the grey
old exile's troubled soul. To the impenitent Arians
he is as severe as ever, but for old enemies returning
to a better mind he has nothing but brotherly conside-
ration and respectful sympathy. Men like Basil of
Ancyra, says he, are not to be set down as Arians or
treated as enemies, but to be reasoned with as brethren
who from us only about the use of a word which
differ
sums up their own teaching as well as ours. When they
confess that the Lord is a true Son of God and not a
creature, they grant all that we care to contend for
Their own
of like essence without the addition of from
the essence does not exclude the idea of a creature, but
,
the two together are precisely equivalent to of one

essence. Our brethren accept the two separately we :
join them in a single word. Their of like essence is
by itself misleading, for likeness is of properties and

qualities, must be either the
not of essence, which
same or different. Thus the word rather suggests
than excludes the limited idea of a sonship which
means no more than a share of grace, whereas our of
one essence quite excludes it. Sooner or later they
will see their way to accept a term which is a neces-
sary safeguard for the belief they hold in common
with ourselves.
There could be no doubt of the opinion of the churches
when the councils had both so decidedly refused the
dated creed but the court was not yet at
;
End of the -^ r* ' mi Txr
Council of the end 01 its resources. The Western
deputies were sent back to Ariminum, and
the bishops, already reduced to great distress by their
long detention, were plied with threats and cajolery
till most of them yielded. When Phoebadius and a
score of others remained firm, their resistance was
overcome by as shameless a piece of villany as can be
found in history. Valens came forward and declared
that he was not one of the Arians, but heartily detested
their blasphemies. The creed would do very well as it
stood, and the Easterns had accepted it already but ;
if Phoebadius was not satisfied, he was welcome to pro-
pose additions. A stringent series of anathemas was

therefore drawn up against Arius and all his misbelief.
Valens himself contributed one against those who say '
that the Son of God is a creature like other creatures.'

The court party accepted everything, and the council
lOo The Arian Controversy.
met for a final reading of the amended creed.
Shout
after shout of joy rang through the church when Valens
protested that the heresies were none of his, and with
his own lips pronounced the whole series of anathemas ;
and when Claudius of Picenum produced a few more

rumours of heresy, which my lord and brother Valens
'
has forgotten/ they were disavowed with equal readi-

ness. The hearts of all men melted towards the old
dissembler, and the bishops dispersed from Ariminum
in the full belief that the council would take its place
in history among the bulwarks of the faith.
The Western council was dissolved in seeming har-
mony, but a strong minority disputed the conclusions
Conferences at ^^ ^^ Eastoms at Scleucia. Both parties,
Constantinople,
therefore, hurried to Constantinople. But
there Acacius was in his element. He held a splendid
position as the bishop of a venerated church, the dis-
ciple and successor of Eusebius, and himself a patron
of learning and a writer of high repute. His fine gifts
of subtle thought and ready energy, his commanding
influence and skilful policy, marked him out for a
glorious work in history, and nothing but his own
falseness degraded him to be the greatest living
master of backstairs intrigue. If Athanasius is the
Demosthenes of the Nicene age, Acacius will be its
.^schines. He had found his account in abandoning
conservatism for pure Arianism, and was now pre-
paring to complete his victory by a new treachery to
the Anomoeans. He had anathematized unlike at
Seleucia, and now sacrificed Aetius to the Emperor's
dislike of him. After this it became possible to en-
force the prohibition of the Nicene of like essence.
The Victory of A rianism. ioi
Meanwhile the final report arrived from Ariminum.

Valens at once gave an Arian meaning to the ana-
themas of Phoebadius. Not a creature like other
'
creatures.' Then creature he is. Not from nothing/

'
Quite so from the will of the Father.

: Eternal.' Of '
course, as regards the future. However, the Homoeans

repeated the process of swearing that they were not
Arians ; the Emperor threatened ; and at last the
Seleucian deputies signed the decisions of Ariminum
late on the last night of the year 3 59-
Acacius had won his victory, and had now to pass
sentence on his rivals. Next month a council was
Deposition of ^^^ ^t Constantinople. As the Semiarians
the Semiarians.
^^ ^^^^ wero prudeut ouough to abscut
themselves, the Homoeans were dominant. Its first
step was to re-issue the creed of Nice with a number
of verbal changes. The anathemas of Phoebadius hav-
ing served their purpose, were of course omitted. Next
Aetius was degraded and anathematized for his im-
pious and heretical writings, and as the author of
'
all the scandals, troubles, and divisions.' This was

needed to satisfy Oonstantius but as many as nine
;
bishops were found to protest against it. They were

given six months to reconsider the matter, and soon
began to form communities of their own. Having
cleared themselves from the charge of heresy by laying
the foundation of a permanent schism, the Homoeans
could proceed to the expulsion of the Semiarian leaders.
As men who had signed the creed of Nic4 could not
well be accused of heresy, they were deposed for various
irregularities.
The Homoean supremacy established at Constanti-
nople was limited to the East. Violence was its only-
resource beyond the Alps ; and violence was out of the

TheHomoean qi^^stion after the mutiny at Paris (Jan.
supremacy.
^ 6o) had made Julian master of Gaul. Now
that he could act for himself, common sense as well as
inclination forbade him go on with the mischievous
to
policy of Constantius. So there was no further question
of Arian domination. Few bishops were committed to
the losing side, and those few soon disappeared in the
course of nature. Auxentius the Oappadocian, who
held the see of Milan till 374, must have been one
of the last survivors of the victors of Ariminum. In
the East, however, the Homoean supremacy lasted
nearly twenty years. No doubt it was an artificial
power, resting partly on court intrigue, partly on the
divisions of its enemies; yet there was a reason for
its long duration. Eusebian conservatism was fairly-
worn out, but the Nicene doctrine had not yet re-
placed it. Men were tired of these philosophical
word-battles, and ready to ask whether the difference
between Nice and Nicaaa was worth fighting about.
The Homoean formula seemed reverent and safe, and
its bitterest enemies could hardly call it false. When
even the court preached peace and charity, the sermon
was not likely to want an audience.
The Horaoeans were at first less hostile to the
Nicene faith than the Eusebians had been. After
TheHomoean Sacrificing Aetius and exiling the Semi-
pohcy.
arians, they could hardly do without Nicene
support. Thus their appointments were often made
from the quieter men of Nicene leanings. If we have
to set on the other side the enthronement of Eudoxius
At Constantinople and the choice of Eunomius the

Anomcean for the see of Cyzicus, we can only say that
the Homcean party was composed of very discordant
elements.
The most important nomination ascribed to Acacius
is that of Meletius at Antioch to replace Eudoxius.
Appointment ^^^ was a man of distinguished
^^"^ bisliop
ofMeietms.
eloquence and undoubted piety, and further
suited for a dangerous elevation by his peaceful temper
and winning manners. He was counted among the
Homoeans, and they had placed him a year before in
the room of Eustathius at Sebastia, so that his un-
canonical translation to Antioch engaged him all the
more to remain on friendly terms with them. Such
a man — and of course Acacius was shrewd enough to
see it — would have been a tower of strength to them.
Unfortunately, for once Acacius was not all-powerful.
Some evil-disposed person put Constantius on demand-
ing from the new bishop a sermon on the crucial text
'
The Lord created me.' ^ Acacius, who preached first,
evaded the test, but Meletius, as a man of honour, could
not refuse to declare himself. To the delight of the con-
gregation, his doctrine proved decidedly Nicene. It was
a test for his hearers as well as for himself. He care-
fully avoided technical terms, repudiated Marcellus, and
repeatedly deprecated controversy on the ineffable mys-
tery of the divine generation. In a word, he followed
closely the lines of the Sirmian creed ; and his treat-
ment by the Homoeans is a decisive proof of their
insincerity. The people applauded, but the courtiers
were covered with shame. There was nothing for it
^ Prov. viii. 21, LXX. translation.

but to exile Meletius at once and appoint a new
bishop. This time they made sure of their man by
choosing Euzoius, the old friend of Arius. But the
mischief was already done. The old congregation of
Leontius was broken up, and a new schism, more dan-
gerous than the Eustathian, formed round Meletius.
Many jealousies still divided him from the Nicenes, but,
his bold confession was the first effective blow at the
Homoean supremacy.
The idea of conciliating Nicene support was not
entirely given up. remained
Acacius on friendly
terms with Meletius, and was still able to
name Pelagius for the see of Laodicea.
But Euzoius was an avowed Arian Eudoxius differed
;
little from him, and only the remaining scruples of
Constantius delayed the victory of the Anomoeans.

( 105 )
CHAPTER VI.
THE REIGN OF JULIAN.
Flavius Claudius Julianus was the son of Constan-

tine's half-brother, Julius Constantius, by his second
Earlier life wife, Basiliua, a lady of the great Anician

of Julian.
family. He was born in 331, and lost his
mother a few months later, while his father and other
relations perished in the massacre which followed
Constantine's death. Julian and his half-brother
Gallus escaped the slaughter to be kept almost as
prisoners of state, surrounded through their youth with
spies and taught by hypocrites a repulsive Christianity.
Julian, however, had a literary education from his
mother's old teacher, the eunuch Mardonius ; and this
was his happiness till he was old enough to attend the
rhetoricians at Nicomedia and elsewhere. Gallus was
for a while Csesar in Syria (351—354), and after his
execution, Julians own life was only saved by the
Empress Eusebia, who got permission him to retire
for
to the schools of Athens. In 355 he was made Cassar
in Gaul, and with much labour freed the province
from the Germans. Early in 360 the soldiers mutinied
at Paris and proclaimed Julian Augustus. Negotia-
io6 The Arian Controversy.
tions followed,and it was not till the summer of 361
that Julian pushed down the Danube. By the time
he halted at Naissus, he was master of three-quarters
of the Empire. There seemed no escape from civil
war now that the main armv of Constantius was
t/
coming up from Syria. But one day two barbarian

counts rode into Julian's camp with the news that
Constantius was dead. A
sudden fever had carried
him (Nov. 3, 361), and the Eastern army
off in Cilicia
presented its allegiance to Julian Augustus.
Before we can understand Julian's influence on the
Arian controversy, we shall have to take a wider view
Julian's ^^ ^^ Emperor himself and of his policy
heathenism,
ôwards the Christians generally. The life
of Julian is one of the noblest wrecks in history. The

years of painful self-repression and forced dissimulation
which turned his bright youth to bitterness and filled
his mind with angry prejudice, had only consolidated
his self-reliant pride and firm determination to walk
worthily before the gods. In four years his splendid
energy and unaffected kindliness had won all hearts
in Gaul; and Julian relaxed nothing of his sense of
duty to the Empire when he found himself master of
the world at the age of thirty.
But here came in that fatal heathen prejudice, which
put him in a false relation to all the living powers of
his time, and led directly even to his military disaster
in Assyria. Heathen pride came to him with Basilina's
Roman blood, and the dream-world of his lonely youth
was a world of heathen literature. Christianity was
nothing to him but '
the slavery of a Persian prison.'
Fine preachers of the kingdom of heaven were those
The Reign of Julian, 107
fawning eunuchs and episcopal sycophants, with Con-

stantius behind them, the murderer of all his family !
Every force about him worked for heathenism. The

teaching of Mardonius was practically heathen, and
the rest were as heathen as utter worldliness could
make them. He could see throughGeorge men like
the pork- contractor or the shameless renegade Hece-
bolius. Full of thoughts like these, which corroded
his mind the more for the danger of expressing them,
Julian was easily won to heathenism by the fatherly
welcome of the philosophers at Nicomedia (351).
Like a voice of love from heaven came their teaching,
and Julian gave himself heart and soul to the mysterious
fascination of their lying theurgy. Henceforth King
Sun was his guardian deity, and Greece his Holy Land,
and the philosopher's mantle dearer to him than the
diadem of empire. For ten more years of painful
dissimulation Julian walked with the gods in secret,
^
'
before the young lion of heathenism could openly throw

off the '
donkey's skin '
of Christianity.
Once master of the world, Julian could see its needs
without using the eyes of the Asiatic camarilla. First
of all, Christian domination must be put
Julian's re-
-vr i i n •
organisation of dowu. JNot that ho Wanted to raise a

heathenism. .
/^ i i t t
savage persecution. Cruelty had been well
tried before, and it would be a poor success to stamp
out the 'Galilean' imposture without putting some-
thing better in its place. As the Christians '
had filled
the world v/ith their tombs '
(Julian's word for churches),
so must it be with the knowledge of the living
filled
gods. Sacrifices were encouraged and a pagan hier-

archy set up to oppose the Christian. Heathen schools
io8 The Arian Controversy,
were to confront the Christian, and heathen almshouses
were to grow up round them. Above all, the priests
were to cultivate temperance and hospitality, and to
devote themselves to grave and pious studies. Julian
himself was a model of heathen purity, and spared no
pains to infect his wondering subjects with his own
enthusiasm for the cause of the immortal gods. Not
a temple missed its visit, not a high place near his
line of march was left unclimbed. As for his sacrifices,
they were by the hecatomb. The very abjects called
him Slaughterer.
Never was a completer Crowds of course
failure.
applauded Cgesar, but only with the empty cheers they
pâve the îockeys or the preachers.
r Multi-
His failure. ° _
J
, -, .
tudes came to see an Jiimperors devotions,

but they only quizzed his shaggy beard or tittered at
the antiquated ceremonies. Sacrificial dinners kept
the soldiers devout, and lavish bribery secured a good
—
number of renegades mostly waverers, who really had
not much to change. Of the bishops, Pegasius of
Ilium alone laid down his office for a priesthood but ;
he had always been a heathen at heart, and worshipped

the gods even while he held his bishopric. The
Christians upon the whole stood firm. Even the
heathens were little moved. Julian's own teachers
held cautiously aloof from his reforms ; and
meaner if
men paused in their giddy round of pleasure, it was

only to amuse themselves with the strange spectacle
of imperial earnestness. Neither friends nor enemies
seemed able to take him quite seriously.
Passing over scattered cases of persecution en-
couraged or allowed by Julian, we may state gene-
rally thathe aimed at degrading Christianity into a

vulgar superstition, by breaking its connections with
civilized government on one side, with
against Chris- liberal cducation on the other. One part
was to deprive the Galileans of state
of it '
'
support and weed them out as far as might be from

the public service, while still leaving them full freedom
to quarrel amongst themselves the other was to cut
;
them off from literature by forbidding them to teach

the classics. Homer and Hesiod were prophets of the
gods, and must not be expounded by unbelievers.
Matthew and Luke were good enough for barbarian
ears like theirs. We need not pause to note the
impolicy of an edict which Julian's own admirer
Ammianus wishes ^ buried in eternal silence.' Its
effect on the Christians was very marked. Marius
Victorinus, the favoured teacher of the Eoman nobles,
at once resigned his chair of rhetoric. The studies of
his old age had brought him to confess his faith in
Christ, and he would not now deny his Lord. Julian's
own teacher Proaoresius gave up his chair at Athens,
refusing the special exemption which was offered him.
It was not all loss for the Christians to be reminded
that the gospel is revelation, not philosophy life and —
not discussion. But Greek literature was far too
weak to bear the burden of a sinking world, and its
guardians could not have devised a more fatal plan
than this of setting it in direct antagonism to the
living power of Christianity. In our regret for the
feud between Hellenic culture and the mediaeval
churches, we must not forget that ifc was Julian who
drove in the wedge of separation.
no The Arian Controversy,
We can now sum up in a sentence. Every blow
struck at Christianity by Julian fell first on the
Julian's toiera- Ariauizers whom Constantius had left in
^^°^^*
power, and the reaction he provoked against
heathen learning directly threatened the philosophical
postulates of Arianism within the church. In both
ways he powerfully helped the Nicene cause. The
Homoeans could not stand without court support, and
the Anomceans threw away their rhetoric on men who
were beginning to see how little ground is really com-
mon to the gospel and philosophy. Yet he cared little
for the party quarrels of the Christians. Instead of
condescending to take a he told them con-
side,
temptuously to keep the peace. His first step was to
proclaim full toleration for all sorts and sects of men.
It was only too easy to strike at the church by doing
common justice to the sects. A few days later came
an edict recalling the exiled bishops. Their property
was restored, but they were not replaced in their
churches. Others were commonly in possession, and
it was no business of Julian's to turn them out. The
Galileans might look after their own squabbles. This
sounds fairly well, and suits his professions of tolera-
tion but Julian had a malicious hope of still further
;
embroiling the ecclesiastical confusion. If the Chris-

tians were only left to themselves, they might be trusted
^ to quarrel like beasts.'
Julian was gratified with a few unseemly wrangles,
but the general result of his policy was unexpected.
It took the Christians by
%i
surprise,
l i
and fairly
*i
Its results,
shamed them into a sort of truce. The
very divisions of churches are in some sense a sign of
The Reign of Julian, hi
life, for men who do not care about religion will
usually find something else to quarrel over. If nations
redeem each other, so do parties and the dignified ;
slumber of a catholic uniformity may be more fatal to

spiritual life than the vulgar wranglings of a thousand
sects. The Christians closed their ranks before the
common enemy. Nicenes and Arians forgot their
enmity in the pleasant task of reviling the gods and
cursing Julian. A yell of execration ran all along the
Christian line, from the extreme ApoUinarian right
to the furthest Anomcean left. Basil of Caesarea re-
nounced the apostate's friendship ; the rabble of Antioch
assailed him with scurrilous lampoons and anti-pagan
riots. Nor were the Arians behind in hate. Blind
old Maris of Chalcedon came and cursed him to his
face. The heathens laughed, the Christians cursed, and
Israel alone remembered Julian for good. Treasured '
in the house of Julianus Caesar/ the vessels of the temple

still await the day when Messiah-ben-Ephraim shall
take them thence.
Back to their dioceses came the survivors of the
exiled bishops,no longer travelling in pomp and
circumstance to their noisy councils, but
Return of _ _*^
_ .
'
Athaiiasius, bouud ou the uoblcr errand of seeking: ^ out

Feb. 362. .
their lost or scattered flocks. Eusebius of

Vercellae and Lucifer left Upper Egypt, Marcellus and
Basil returned to Ancyra, while Athanasius reappeared
at Alexandria. The unfortunate George had led a
wandering life since his expulsion in 358, and did not
venture to leave the shelter of the court till late in 361.
It was a rash move, for his flock had not forgotten him.
Three days he spent in safety, but on the fourth came
news that Constantius was dead aud Julian master of
the Empire. The heathen populace was wild with
delight, and threw George straight into prison. Three
weeks later they dragged him out and lynched him.
Thus when Julian's edict came for the return of the
exiles, Athanasius was doubly prepared to take advan-
tage of it.
It was time resume the interrupted work of the

to
council of Seleucia. Semiarian violence frustrated
Hilary's efforts, but Athanasius had thinp-s
Coimcilof •^.
, p .
T ,.
,
T -,
Alexandria moro lu his tavour, uow that Julian had

discusses: t rî • • •
-r^
i •
i
sobered Christian partizanship. ii he
wished the Galileans to quarrel, he also left them free to
combine. So twenty-one bishops, mostly exiles, met at
Alexandria in the summer of 3 62. Eusebius of Vercellse
was with Athanasius, but Lucifer had gone to Antioch,
and only sent a couple of deacons to the meeting.
Four subjects claimed the council's attention. The
first was the reception of Arians who came over to
(t.) Returning
^^® Niccno sidc. The stricter party was for
Arians.
treating all opponents without distinction
as apostates. Athanasius, however, urged a milder
course. was agreed that all comers were to be
It
gladly received on the single condition of accepting
the Nicene faith. None but the chiefs and active defen-
ders of Arianism were even to be deprived of any eccle-
siastical rank which they might be holding.
A second subject of debate was the Arian doctrine
of the Lord's humanity, which limited it to a human
(2.)The Lord's ôdij. In oppositiou to this, the council

hi'iman nature,
declared that the Lord assumed also a
human soul. In this they may have had in view,
besides Arianism, the new theory of ApoUInarius of

Laodicea, which we shall have to explain presently.
The third was an old
subject before the council
misunderstanding about the term hypostasis. It had
been used in the Nicene anathemas as equi-
(3.) The words j A A
•
. .
i
jêrson and valcut to oiLsia ov esseucc ; and so Atha-
nasius used it stilly to denote the common
deity of all the persons of the Trinity. So also the
Latins understood it, as the etymological representative
of substantia, which was their translation (a very bad one
by the way) of ousia (essence). Thus Athanasius and the
Latins spoke of one hypostasis (essence) only. Meantime
the Easterns in general had adopted Origen's limitation
of it to the deity of the several persons of the Trinity
in contrast with each other. Thus they meant by it
what the Latins called persona,^ and rightly spoke of
three hypostases (persons). In this way East and West
were at cross-purposes. The Latins, who spoke of one
hypostasis (essence), regarded the Eastern three hypostases
as tritheist ; while the Greeks, who confessed three
hypostases (persons), looked on the Western one hyp)o-'
stasis as Sabellian. As Athanasius had connections
with both parties, he was a natural mediator. As soon
as both views were stated before the council, both were
seen to be orthodox. One hypostasis (essence) was ' '
not Sabellian, neither was three hypostases (persons) '

'
Arian. The decision was that each party might keep

its own usage.
Antioch remained for discussion.
Affairs at Now
that Meletius was free to return, some decision had to
1 Persona, again, was a legal term, not exactly corresponding to its

Greek representative.
C, N. H
be made. The Eustatliianshad been faithful through
thirty years of trouble, and Athanasius was specially
(4.) The schism bound to his old friends yet, on the other
;
at Antioch.
Jiand, some recognition was due to the hon-
ourable confession of Meletius. As the Eustathians
had no bishop, the simplest course was for them to
accept Meletius. This was the desire of the council,
and it might have been carried out if Lucifer had not
taken advantage of his stay at Antioch to denounce
Meletius as an associate of Arians. By way of making
the division permanent, he consecrated the presbyter
Paulinus as bishop for the Eustathians. When the
mischief was done it could not be undone. Paulinus
added his signature to the decisions of Alexandria,
but Meletius was thrown back on his old connection
with Acacius. Henceforth the rising Nicene party
of Pontus and Asia was divided from the older Nicenes
of Egypt and Rome by this unfortunate personal ques-
tion.
Julian could not but see that Athanasius was master
in Egypt. He may not have cared about the council,
Fom-th exile ût the baptism of some heathen ladies at
of Athanasius.
Alexandria roused his fiercest anger. He
broke his rule of contemptuous toleration, and the ^
detestable Athanasius was an exile again before the

'
summer was over. But his work remained. The

leniency of the council was a great success, notwith-
standing the calamity at Antioch. It gave offence,
indeed, to zealots like Lucifer, and may have admitted
more than one unworthy Arianizer. Yet its wisdom
is evident. Pirst one bishop, then another accepted
the Nicene faith. Friendly Semiarians came in like
The Reign of Julian. 115
Cyril of Jerusalem, old conservatives followed like

Dianius of the Cappadocian Caesarea, and at last tlie
arch-heretic Acacius himself gave in his signature.

Even the creeds of the churches were remodelled in a
Nicene interest, as at Jerusalem and Antioch, in Cap-
padocia and Mesopotamia.
Nor were the other parties idle. The Homoean
coalition was even more unstable than the Eusebian.
TheArians Already before the death of Constantius
under Julian,
^j^gj-g \^^^ been quarrcls over the appoint-
ment of Meletius by one section of the party, of

Eunomius by another. The deposition of Aetius was
another bone of contention. Hence the coalition broke
up of itself as soon as men were free to act. Acacius
and his friends drew nearer to Meletius, while Eudoxius
and Euzoius talked of annulling the condemnation
of the Anomoean bishops at Constantinople. The Semi-
arians were busy too. Guided by Macedonius and
Eleusius, the ejected bishops of Constantinople and
Cyzicus, they gradually took up a middle position be-
tween Nicenes and Anomoeans, confessing the Lord's
deity with the one, and denying that of the Holy
Spirit with the other. Like true Legitimists, who had
learned nothing and forgotten nothing, they were
satisfied to confirm the Seleucian decisions and re-issue
their old Lucianic creed. Had they ceased to care
for the Nicene alliance, or did they fancy the world
had stood still since the Council of the Dedication ?
Meanwhile the Persian war demanded Julian's atten-
tion. An emperor so full of heathen enthusiasm was
not likely to forego the dreams of conquest which
had brought so many of his predecessors on the path
ii6 The Arian Controversy.
of glory in the East. His own part of the campaign
was a splendid success. But when he had fought
Julian's cam- ^^^ waj through the desert to the Tigris,
(SS^ftoJuiTeb^ looked in vain for succours from the

26, 363)-
north. The Christians of Armenia would not
fight for the apostate Emperor. Julian was obliged
to retreat on Nisibis through a wasted country^ and
with the Persian cavalry hovering round. The cam-
paign would have been at best a brilliant failure, but
it was only converted into absolute disaster by the
chance arrow (June 26, 363) which cut short his

busy life. After all, he was only in his thirty-second
year.
Christian charity will not delight in counting up
the outbreaks of petty spite and childish vanity which
Julian's disfiguro a noble character of purityand
character.
self-dovotiou. Still less need we presume
to speculate what Julian would have done if he had

returned in triumph from the Persian war. His
bitterness might have hardened into a renegade's
malice, or it might have melted at our Master's touch.
But apart from what he might have done, there is
matter for the gravest blame in what he did. The
scorner must not pass unchallenged to the banquet of
the just. Yet when all is said against him, the clear
fact remains that Julian lived a hero's life. Often as
he was blinded by his impatience or hurried into in-
justice by his heathen prejudice, we cannot mistake a
spirit of self-sacrifice and earnest piety as strange to
worldling bishops as to the pleasure-loving heathen
populace. Mysterious and full of tragic pathos is the
irony of God in history, which allowed one of the very
The Reign of Julian. 117
noblest of the emperors to act the part of Jeroboam,

and brought the old intriguer Maris of Chalcedon to
cry against the altar like the man of God from Judah.
But Maris was right, for Julian was the blinder of
the two.
( ii8 )
CHAPTER VII.
THE RESTORED HOMCEAN SUPREMACY.
Julian's reign seems at first sight no more than a

sudden storm which clears up and leaves everything
Effects of
much as it was before. Far from restoring
Julian's reign.
Jieathenism, he could not even seriously
shake the power of Christianity. No sooner was he
dead than the philosophers disappeared, the renegades
did penance, and even the reptiles of the palace came
back to their accustomed haunts. Yet Julian's work
was not in vain, for it tested both heathenism and
Christianity. All that Constantino had given to the
churches Julian could take away, but the living power
of faith was not at Caesar's beck and call. Heathenism
was strong in its associations with Greek philosophy
and culture, with Roman law and social life, but as
a moral force among the common people, its weakness
was contemptible. It could sway the wavering multi-
tude with superstitious fancies, and cast a subtler spell
upon the noblest Christian teachers, but its own
adherents it could hardly lift above their petty quest
of pleasure. Julian called aloud, and called in vain.
A mocking echo was the only answer from that valley
The Restored Homcean Supremacy, 119
of dry bones. Christianity, on tlie other side, had won

the victory almost without a blow. Instead of ever
coming to grapple with its mighty rival, the great
catholic church of heathenism hardly reached the stage
of apish mimicry. When its great army turned out
to be a crowd of camp-followers, the alarm of battle
died away in peals of defiant laughter. Yet the
alarm was real, and its teachings were not forgotten.
It broke up the revels of party strife, and partly roused
the churches to the dangers of a purely heathen educa-
tion. Above all, the approach of danger was a sharp
reminder that our life is not of this world. They stood
the test fairly well. Renegades or fanatics were old
scandals, and signs were not wanting that the touch of
persecution would wake the old heroic spirit which had
fought the Empire from the catacombs and overcome it.
As Julian was the last survivor of the house of
Constantino, his lieutenants were free to choose the
worthiest of their comrades. But while his
Jovian Em- r> i i •
i t i •
peror(june four barbarian generals were debating, one

or two voices suddenly hailed Jovian as Em-
peror. The cry was taken up, and in a few moments the
young officer found himself the successor of Augustus.
Jovian was a brilliant colonel of the guards. In
all the army there was not a goodlier person than
jovian's ^®- Jnlian's purple was too small for his

toleration.
gigantic Hmbs. But that stately form was
animated by a spirit of cowardly selfishness. Instead
of pushing on with Julian's brave retreat, he saved the
relics of his army by a disgraceful peace. Jovian was
also a decided Christian, though his morals suited
neither the purity of the gospel nor the dignity of his
I20 The Arian Controversy,
imperial position. Even tlie heathen soldiers con-
demned hislow amours and vulgar tippling. The
faith he professed was the Nicene, but Constantino
himself was less tolerant than Jovian. In this respect
he is blameless. If Athanasius was graciously received
at Antioch, even the Arians were told with scant cere-
mony that they might hold their assemblies as they
pleased at Alexandria.
About this time Anomoeans organised their
the
schism. Nearly four years had been spent in uncertain
The Anomoeans negotiations for the restoration of Aetius.
form a sect. fjij^^
Auomoeans counted on Eudoxius, but
did not find him very zealous in the matter. At last,
in Jovian's time, they made up their minds to set him
at defiance by consecrating Pcemenius to the see of
Constantinople. Other appointments were made at
the same time, and Theophilus the Indian, who had
a name for missionary work in the far East, was sent
to Antioch to win over Euzoius. From this time the
Anomoeans were an organized sect.
But the most important document of Jovian's reign
is the acceptance of the Nicene creed by Acacius of
Nicene sue- Caesarca, with Meletius of Antioch and more

cesses.
th.2in. twenty others of his friends. Acacius
was only returning to his master's steps when he ex-
plained one in essence by like in and laid stress
essence,
on the care with which the Fathers had guarded its

^
'
meaning. We may hope that Acacius had found out

his belief at last. Still the connexion helped to widen
the breach between Meletius and the older Nicenes.

All these movements came to an end at the sudden
death of Jovian (Feb. 1 6, 3 64.) The Pannonian Valen-
The Restored Homcean Supremacy. 121
tinian was chosen to succeed him, and a month later

assigned the East to his brother Valens, reserving to
vaientinian
himsclf the moro important Western pro-
Emperor.
yinccs. This was a lasting division of the
Empire, for East and West were never again united for
any length of time. Vaientinian belongs to the better
class of emperors. He was a soldier like Jovian, and,
held much the same rank at his election. He was a
decided Christian like Jovian, and, like him, free from
the stain of persecution. good-humour
Jovian's rough
was replaced in Vaientinian by a violent and sometimes
cruel temper, but he had a sense of duty and was free
from Jovian's vices. His reign was a laborious and
honourable struggle with the enemies of the republic
on the Rhine and the Danube. An uncultivated man
himself, he still could honour learning, and in religion
his policy was one of comprehensive toleration. If he
refused to displace the few Arians whom he found in
possession of Western sees like Auxentius at Milan,
he left the churches free to choose Nicene successors.
Under his wise rule the West soon recovered from the
strife Constantius had introduced.
Valens was a weaker character, timid, suspicious,

and slow, yet not ungentle in private life. He was as
Character of Uncultivated as his brother, but not inferior
Valens.
^^ j^'^^ :^^ scrupulous caro for his subjects.
Only as Valens was no he preferred remitting
soldier,
taxation to fighting at the head of the legions. In
both ways he is entitled to head the series of financial
rather than unwarlike sovereigns whose cautious policy
brought the Eastern Empire safely through the great
barbarian invasions of the fifth century.
The contest entered on a new stage in the reign of
Valens. The friendly league of church and state at
Nicsea had become a struggle for supremacy.
tween church Constautius ondeavoured to dictate the faith
and state. p /><i •
t
Christendom according to the pleasure
01
of his eunuchs, while Athanasius reigned in Egypt
almost like a rival for the Empire. And if Julian s
reign had sobered party spirit, it had also shown that
an emperor could sit again in Satan's seat. Valens
had an obedient Homoean clergy, but no trappings
of official splendour could enable Eudoxius or Demo-
philus to rival the imposing personality of Athanasius
or Basil. Thus the Empire lost the moral support it
looked for, and the church became embittered with its
wrongs.
The breach involved a deeper evil. The ancient
world of heathenism was near its dissolution. Vice
Riseofmonas- ^^^ ^^^; ^^^ had dried
latterly taxation,
ticisrn.
^p ^^ spriugs of prosperity, and even of
population, till Rome was perishing for lack of men.
Cities had dwindled into villages, and of villages the
very names had often disappeared. The stout Italian
yeomen had been replaced by gangs of slaves, and these
again by thinly scattered barbarian serfs. And if
Rome grew weaker every day, her power for oppression
seemed only to increase. Her fiscal system filled the
provinces with ruined men. The Alps, the Taurus,
and the Balkan swarmed with outlaws. But in the
East men looked for refuge to the desert, where many
a legend told of a people of brethren dwelling together
in unity and serving God in peace beyond the reach
of the officials. This was the time when the ascetic
spirit,which had long been hovering round the out-

skirts of Christianity, began to assume the form of
monasticism. There were monks in Egypt monks of —
Serapis —
before Christianity existed, and there may
have been Christian monks by the end of the third
century. In any case, they make little show in history
before the reign of Valens. Paul of Thebes, Hilarion
of Gaza, and even the great Antony are only characters
in the novels of the day. Now, however, there was
in the East a real movement towards monasticism.
All parties favoured it. The Semiarians were busy
inside Mount Taurus and though Acacians and
;
Anomceans held more aloof, they could not escape an

influence which even Julian felt. But the Nicene
party was the home of the ascetics. In an age of
indecision and frivolity like the Nicene, the most
earnest striving after Christian purity will often de-
generate into its ascetic caricature. Through the
selfish cowardice of the monastic life we often see the
loving sympathy of Christian self-denial. Thus there
was an element of true Christian zeal in the enthusiasm
of the Eastern Churches; and thus it was that the
rising spirit of asceticism naturally attached itself to
the Nicene faith as the strongest moral power in
Christendom. It was a protest against the whole
framework of society in that age, and therefore the
alliance was cemented by a common enmity to the
Arian Empire. It helped much to conquer Arianism,
but it left a lasting evil in the lowering of the Christian
standard. Henceforth the victory of faith was not to
overcome the world, but to flee from it. Even heathen
immorality was hardly more ruinous than the unclean
ascetic spiritwhich defames God's holy ordinance as a
form of sin which a too indulgent Lord will overlook.
Valens was only a catechumen, and had no policy
to declare for the present. Events therefore continued
Mew questions ^^ dovelop naturally. The Homoean bishops
in controversy,
retained their sees, but their influence was
fast declining.The Anomoeans were forming a schism
on one side, the Nicenes recovering power on the
other. Unwilling signatures to the Homoean creed
were revoked in all directions. Some even of its
authors declared Arianism with Euzoius, while

for
others drew nearer to the Nicene faith like Acacius.
On all sides the simpler doctrines were driving out
the compromises. It was time for the Semiarians to
bestir themselves if they meant to remain a majority
in the East. The Nicenes seemed daily to gain
ground. Lucifer had compromised them in one
direction, ApoUinarius in another, and even Marcellus
had never been frankly disavowed yet the Nicene;
cause advanced. A new question, however, was be-

ginning to come forward. Hitherto the dispute had
been on the person of the Lord, while that of the
Holy Spirit was quite in the background. Significant
as is the tone of Scripture, the proof is not on the
surface. The divinity of the Holy Spirit is shown
by many convergent lines of evidence, but it was still
an open question whether that divinity amounts to
co-essential and co-equal deity. Thus Origen leans
to some theory of subordination, while Hilary limits
himself with the utmost caution to the words of
Scripture. If neither of them lays down in so many
words that the Holy Spirit is God, much less does
either them class him with the creatures, like

of
Eunomius. The difficulty was the same as with the
person of the Lord, that while the Scriptural data
clearly pointed to his deity, its admission involved the
dilemma of either Sabellian confusion or polytheistic
separation. Now, however, it was beginning to be
seen that the theory of hypostatic distinctions must
either be extended to the Holy Spirit or entirely
abandoned. Athanasius took one course, the Ano-
moeans but the Semiarians endeavoured
the other,
to draw a distinction between the Lord's deity and
that of the Holy Spirit. In truth, the two are
logically connected. Athanasius pointed this out in
the letters of his exile to Serapion, and the council of
Alexandria condemned '
those who say that the Holy
Spirit is a creature and distinct from the essence of
the Son.' But logical connection is one thing, formal
enforcement another. Athanasius and Basil to the
last refused to make it a condition of communion.
If any one saw the error of his Arian ways, it was
enough for him to confess the Nicene creed. Thus
the question remained open for the present.
Thus the Semiarians were free do what they
to
could against the Homoeans. Under the guidance of
Eleusius of Cyzicus, they held a council
Council of
Lampsacus Lampsacus
at m
.
the summer of 364.

,
It
sat two months, and reversed the acts of
the Homceans at Constantinople four years before.
Eudoxius was deposed (in name) and the Semiarian
exiles restored to their sees. With regard to doctrine,
they adopted the formula like according to essence, on
Ihe ground that while likeness was needed to exclude
a Sabellian (they mean Nicene) confasion, its express
extension to essence was needed against the Arians.
Nor did they forget to re-issue the Lucianic creed for
the acceptance of the churches. They also discussed
without result the deity of the Holy Spirit. Eustathius
of Sebastia for one was not prepared to commit him-
self either way. The decisions were then laid before
Valens.
But Valens was already falling into bad hands.
Now that Julian was dead, the courtiers were fast
recovering their influence, and Eudoxius
The Homoean
policy of had already secured the Emperor s support.
The deputies of Lampsacus were ordered to
hold communion with the bishop of Constantinople,
and exiled on their refusal.
Looking back from our own time, we should say
that it was not a promising course for Valens to
support the Homoeans. They had been in power
before, and if they had not then been able to establish
peace in the churches, they were not likely to succeed
any better after their heavy losses in Julian's time.
It is therefore the more important to see the Emperor's
motives. No doubt personal influences must count
for a good deal with a man like Valens, whose private
attachments were so steady. Eudoxius was, after all,
a man of experience and learning, whose mild prudence
was the very help which Valens needed. The Empress
Dominica was also a zealous Arian, so that the cour-
tiers were Arians too. No wonder if their master was
sincerely attached to the doctrines of his friends. But
Valens was not strong enough to impose his own
likings on the Empire. No merit raised him to the
tlirone no education or experience prepared him for

;
the august dignity he reached so suddenly in middle

life. Conscientious and irresolute, he could not even
firmly control the officials. He had not the magic of
Constantino's name behind him, and was prevented by
Valentinian's toleration from buying support with the
spoils of the temples.
Under these circumstances, he could hardly do
otherwise than support the Homoeans. Heathenism
had failed in Julian's hands, and an Anomoean course
was out of the question. A Nicene policy might
answer in the West, but it was not likely to find much
support in the East outside Egypt. The only alterna-
tive was to favour the Semiarians ; and even that was
full of difficulties. After all, the Homoeans were still
the strongest party in 365. They were in possession
of the churches and commanded much of the Asiatic
influence, and had no enmity to contend with which
was not quite as bitter against the other parties.
They also had astute leaders, and a doctrine which
still presented attractions to the quiet men who were
tired of controversy. Upon the whole, the Homoean
policy was the easiest for the moment.
In the spring of 365 an imperial rescript commanded
the municipalities, under a heavy penalty, to drive out
The exiles ^^ bishops who had been exiled by Con-
exiied again,
gântius and restored by Julian. There-
upon the populace of Alexandria declared that the law
did not apply to Athanasius, because he had not been
restored by Julian. A series of dangerous riots
followed, which obliged the prefect Flavianus to refer
the question back to Valens. Other bishops were
less fortunate. Meletius had to retire from Antioch,
Eustathius from Sebastia.
The Semiarians looked to Valentinian for help. He
had received them favourably the year before, and his
intercession was not likely to be disreoârded
Semiarian
embassy to
c^
t* -k
*
now. iLustathius of bebastia was therefore

in
Liberius. i i •
sent to lay their case before the court of

Milan. As, however, Valentinian had already started
for Gaul, the deputation turned aside to Rome and
offered to Liberius an acceptance of the Nicene creed
signed by fifty-nine Semiarians, and purporting to
come from the council of Lampsacus and other Asiatic
synods. The message was well received at Rome, and
in due time the envoys returned to Asia to report their
doings before a council at Tyana.
Meanwhile the plans of Valens were interrupted by
the news that Constantinople had been seized by a
pretender. Procopius was a relative of
Revolt of
Procopius,
TT ITT 1• • TCI •
Julian who had retired into private lite, but

whom the jealousy of Valens had forced to
become a pretender. For awhile the danger was
pressing. Procopius had won over to his side some of
the best legions of the Empire, while his connexion
with the house of Constantino secured him the for-
midable services of the Goths. But the great generals
kept their faith to Valens, and the usurper's power
melted away before them. A decisive battle at Nacolia
in Phrygia (May 366) once more seated Valens firmly
on his throne.
Events could scarcely have fallen out better for
Eudoxius and his friends. Valens was already on
their side, and now his zeal was quickened by the
mortal terror had undergone, perhaps also by

lie
shame at the unworthy panic in which he had already
Baptism of
vaiensbyEu-
iii
allowed the exiles to return.
whcu the larger
\
number
In an age
(* (* *
01 professing Chris-
r\^ *
most of their
tians were content to spend
lives as catechumens, it was a decided step for an
Emperor to come forward and ask for baptism. This,
however, was the step taken by Valens in the spring
of 367, which finally committed him to the Homoean
side. By it he undertook to resume the policy of Con-
stantius, and to drive out false teachers at the dicta-
tion of Eudoxius.
The Semiarians were in no condition to resist. Their
district had been the seat of the revolt, and their dis-
grace at court was not lessened by the em-
Interval in the r^
controversy bassy to Jtiome.
otT'Tni
bo divided also were they,
that while one party assembled a synod at
Tyana to welcome the return of the envoys, another
met in Caria to ratify the Lucianic creed again. Un-
fortunately however for Eudoxius, Valens was entangled
in a war with the Goths for three campaigns, and
afterwards detained for another year in the Hellespon-
tine district, so that he could not revisit the East till
the summer Meanwhile there was not much

of 371.
to be done. Athanasius had been formally restored to
his church during the Procopian panic by Brasidas
the notary (February 366), and was too strong to be
molested again. Meletius also and others had been
allowed to return at the same time, and Valens was
too busy to disturb them. Thus there was a sort of
truce for the next few years. Of Syria we hear
scarcely anything ; and even in Pontus the strife must
C,H. I
I30 The Arian Controversy.
have been abated by the famine of 368. The little
we find to record seems to belong to the year 367.
On one side, Eunomius the Anomoean was sent into
exile,but soon recalled on the intercession of the old
Arian Valens of Mursa. On the other, the Semiarians
were not allowed to hold the great synod at Tarsus,
which was intended to complete their reconciliation
with the Western Nicenes. These years form the
third great break in the Arian controversy, and were
hardly less fruitful of results than the two former
breaks under Constantius and Julian. Let us there-
fore glance at the condition of the churches.
The Homoean party was the last hope of Arianism
within the Empire. The original doctrine of Arius
had been decisively reiected at Nicaoa '_
the
New Nicene
party in
__. ., ^ ,
'^
Ji/usebian coalition was broken up by the

. .
;
Sirmian manifesto and if the Homoean

;
union also failed, the fall of Arianism could not be

long delayed. Its weakness is shown by the rise of a
new Nicene party in the most Arian province of the
Empire. Oappadocia an exception to the general
is
rule that Christianity flourished best where cities were

most numerous. The polished vice of Antioch or
Corinth presented fewer obstacles than the rude igno-
rance of jpagi or country villages. Now Cappadocia was
chiefly a country district. The walls of Csesarea lay
in ruins since its capture by the Persians in the reign
of Gallienus, and the other towns of the province were
small and few. Yet Julian found it incorrigibly
Christian, and we hear but little of heathenism from
Basil. We cannot suppose that the Cappadocian
boors were civilized enough to be out of the reach of
lieathen influence. paganismus

It seems rather that the
of the West was partly represented by Arianism. In
Cappadocia the heresy found its first great literary
champion in the sophist Asterius. Gregory and
George were brought to Alexandria from Cappadocia,
and afterwards Auxentius to Milan and Eudoxius to
Constantinople. Philagrius also, the prefect who
drove out Athanasius in 339, was another of their
countrymen. Above all, the heresiarch Eunomius
came from Cappadocia, and had abundance of admirers
In this old Arian stronsfhold
in his native district.
the league was formed which decided the fate of
Arianism. Earnest men like Meletius had only been
attracted to the Homoeans by their professions of
reverence for the person of the Lord. When, there-
appeared that Eudoxius and his friends were
fore, it
no better than Arians after all, these men began to
look back to the decisions of Hhe great and holy
council' of Nicgea. There, at any rate, they would
find something independent of the eunuchs and cooks
who ruled the palace. Of the old conservatives also,
who were strong in Pontus, there were many who felt
that the Semiarian position was unsound, and yet
could find no satisfaction in the indefinite doctrine
professed at court. Here then was one split in the
Homoean, another in the conservative party. If only
the two sets of malcontents could form a union with
each other and with the older Nicenes of Egypt and
the West, they would sooner or later be the arbiters
of Christendom. If they could secure Valentinian's
intercession, they might obtain religious freedom at
once.
n2 The Arian Controversy,
Such seems to have been the plan laid down by
the man who was now succeeding Athanasius as leader
Basil of of ^^® Nicene party. Basil of Csesarea was
csesarea.
^ disciplo of the schools of Athens, and a
master of heathen eloquence and learning. He was
also man of the world enough to keep on friendly
terms with men of all sorts. Amongst his friends we
find Athanasius and Gregory of Nazianzus, Libanius the
heathen rhetorician, the barbarian generals Arinthseus
and Victor, the renegade Modestus, and the Arian
bishop Euippius. He was a Christian also of a Chris-
tian family. His grandmother, Macrina, was one of
those who fled to the woods in the time of Diocletian's
persecution and in after years young Basil learned
;
from her the words of Gregory the Wonder worker.

The connections of his early life were with the con-
servatives. He owed his baptism to Dianius of
Csesarea, and much encouragement in asceticism to
Eustathius of Sebastia. In 359 he accompanied Basil
of Ancyra from Seleucia to the conferences at Con-
stantinople, and on his return home came forward as a
resolute enemy of Arianism at Ca3sarea. The young
deacon was soon recognised as a power in Asia. He
received the dying recantation of Dianius, and guided
the choice of his successor Eusebius in 362. Yet he
still acted with the Semiarians, and helped them with
his counsel at Lampsacus. Indeed it was from the

Semiarian side that he approached the Nicene faith.
In his own city of Ceesarea Eusebius found him in-
dispensable. When jealousies arose between them,
and Basil withdrew to his rustic paradise in Pontus,
he was recalled by the clamour of the people at the
approach of Valens in 365. This time the danger

was averted by the Procopian troubles, but henceforth
Basil governed Eusebius, and the church of Caesarea
through him, till in the summer of 370 he succeeded
to the bishopric himself.
The election was a critical one, for every one knew
that a bishop like Basil would be a pillar of the
Basil bishop Niccue cause. On one side were the officials
of Caesarea.
^^^ ^^^ lukcwarm bishops, ou the other the
people and the better class of Semiarians. They had
to make great efforts. Eusebius of Samosata came
to Caesarea to urge the wavering bishops, and old
Gregory ^ was carried from Nazianzus on his litter
to perform the consecration. There was none but
Basil who could meet the coming danger. By the
spring of 3 7 1 Valens had fairly started on his progress
to the East. He travelled slowly through the famine-
wasted provinces, and only reached Caesarea in time
for the great winter festival ofEpiphany 372. The
Nicene faith in Cappadocia was not the least of the
abuses he was putting down. The bishops yielded in
all directions, but Basil was unshaken. The rough
threats of Modestus succeeded no better than the
fatherly counsel of Euippius and when Valens him-
;
self and Basil met face to face, the Emperor was

overawed. More than once the order was prepared for
the obstinate prelate's exile, but for one reason or
another it was never issued. Valens went forward
on his journey, leaving behind a princely gift for
1 The father of Gregory of Nazianzus the Divine, who was bishop, as

we shaU see, of Sasima and Constantinople in succession, but never
of Nazianzus.
Basil's poorhouse. He reached Antioch in April, and
settled there for the rest of his reign, never again
leaving Syria till the disasters of the Gothic war called
him back to Europe.
Armed with power which in some sort
spiritual
extended from the Bosphorus to Armenia, Basil could
Basirsdiffi. ^^w cudeavour to carry out his plan.
cuities.
Homoean malcontents formed the nucleus
of the league, but conservatives began to join it, and
Athanasius gave his patriarchal blessing to the scheme.
The difficulties, however, were very great. The league
was full of jealousies. might
Athanasius indeed
frankly recognise the soundness of Meletius, though
he was committed to Paulinus, but others were less
liberal, and Lucifer of Calaris was forming a schism on
the question. Some, again, were lukewarm in the

cause and many sunk in worldliness, while others were
easily diverted from their purpose. The sorest trial of
all was the selfish coldness of the West. Basil might
find here and there a kindred spirit like Ambrose
of Milan after 374; but the confessors of 355 were
mostly gathered to their rest, and the church of Eome
paid no regard to sufferings which were not likely to
reach herself.
Nor was Basil quite the man for such a task as
this. His courage indeed was indomitable. He ruled
Cappadocia from a sick-bed, and bore down opposition
by sheer strength of his inflexible determination. The
very pride with which his enemies reproached him was
often no more than a strong man's consciousness of
power and to this unwearied energy he joined an
;
ascetic fervour which secured the devotion of his

friends, a knowledge of the world wliicli often turned

aside the fury of his enemies, and a flow of warm-
hearted rhetoric which never failed to command the
admiration of outsiders. Yet after all we miss the lofty-
self-respect which marks the later years of Athanasius.
Basil was involved in constant diflSculties by his own
pride and suspicion. We cannot, for example, imagine
Athanasius turning two presbyters out of doors as
'
spies.' But the ascetic is usually too full of his own
plans to feel sympathy with others, too much in earnest
to feign it like a diplomatist. Basil had enough
worldly prudence to keep in the background his belief
in the Holy Spirit, but not enough to protect even
his closest friends from the outbreaks of his imperious
temper. Small wonder if the great scheme met with
many difficulties.
A specimen or two may be given, from which it will

be seen that the were not all of Basil's
difficulties
Disputes with leaking.

: When Valens divided Cappadocia
(i.) Anthimus.
j^ ^72, the Capital of the new province was
fixed at Tyana. Thereupon Bishop Anthimus argued
that ecclesiastical arrangements necessarily follow civil,
and claimed the obedience of its bishops as due to

him and not to Basil. Peace was patched up after
an unseemly quarrel, and Basil disposed of any future
claims from Anthimus by getting the new capital trans-
ferred to Podandus.
The dispute with Anthimus was little more than a
personal quarrel, so that it was soon forgotten. The
old Semiarian Eustathius of Sebastia was
(2.) Eustathius. t t . .
tt
able to give more serious annoyance, lie
was a man too active to be ignored, too unstable to be
;

trusted, toofamous for ascetic piety to be lightly made
an open enemy. His friendship was compromising,
his enmity dangerous. We left him professing the
Nicene faith before the council of Tyana. For the
next three years we lose sight of him. He reappears
as a friend of Basil in 370, and heartily supported
him in his strife with Valens. Eustathius was at any
rate no time-server. He was drawn to Basil by old
friendship and a common love of asceticism, but almost
equally repelled by the imperious orthodoxy of a stronger
will than his own. And Basil for a long time clung
to his old teacher, though the increasing distrust of
staunch Nicenes like Theodotus of Nicopolis was
beginning to attack himself. His peacemaking was
worse than a failure. First he offended Theodotus,
then he alienated Eustathius. The suspicious zeal of
Theodotus was quieted in course of time, but Eustathius
never forgave the urgency which wrung from him his
signature to a Nicene confession. He had long been
leaning the other way, and now he turned on Basil
with all the bitterness of broken friendship. To such
a man the elastic faith of the Homoeans was a welcome
refuge. If they wasted little courtesy on their con-
vert, they did not press him to strain his conscience by
signing what he ought not to have signed.
The Arian controversy was exhausted for the present,
and new questions were already beginning to take its
Apoiiinarius placo. While Basil and Eustathius were
ofLaodicea.
preparing the victory of asceticism in the
next generation, Apoiiinarius had already essayed the
christological problem of Ephesus and Chalcedon
and Apoiiinarius was no common thinker. If his
efforts were premature, he at least struck out the most

suggestive of the ancient heresies. Both in what he
saw and in what he failed to see, his work is full of
meaning for our own time. Apollinarius and his
father were Christian literary men of Laodicea in
Syria, and stood well to the front of controversy in
Julian s days. When the rescript came out which
forbade the Galileans to teach the classics, they
promptly undertook to form a Christian literature by
throwing Scripture into classical forms. The Old
Testament was turned into Homeric verse, the New into
Platonic dialogues. Here again Apollinarius was pre-
mature. There was indeed no reason why Christianity
should not have as good a literature as heathenism,
but it would have to be a growth of many ages.
In doctrine Apollinarius was a staunch Nicene, and
one of the chief allies of Athanasius in Syria. But
he was a Nicene of an unusual type, for the side of
Arianism which specially attracted his attention was
its denial of the Lord's true manhood. It will be
remembered that according to Arius the created Word
assumed human flesh and nothing more. Eustathius
of Antioch had long ago pointed out the error, and
the Nicene council shut it out by adding was made
man to the was made fiesh of the Caesarean creed. It
was thus agreed that the lower element in the incar-
nation was man, not mere flesh in other words, the
;
Lord was perfect man as well as perfect God. But

in that case, how can God and man form one person ?
In particular, the freedom of his human will is incon-
sistent with the fixity of the divine. Without free-
will he was not truly man yet free-will always leads
;
to sin. If all men and the Lord was not
are sinners,
a sinner, it seemed to follow that he was not true man
like other men. Yet in that case the incarnation is a
mere illusion. The difficulty was more than Atha-
nasius himself could fully solve. All that he could do
was to hold firmly the doctrine of the Lord's true man-
hood as declared by Scripture, and leave the question
of his free-will for another age to answer.
The analysis of human nature which we find in
Scripture is twofold.In many passages there is a
moral division into the spirit and the flesh
TheApoiii-
narian system.—^ ^^^ draws US up towards heavcn and
all that draws us down to earth. It must be carefully
noted (what ascetics of all ages have overlooked) that
the flesh is not the body. Envy and hatred are just
as much works of the flesh as revelling and un-
•"•
cleanness. It is not the body which lusts against the

soul, but the evil nature running through them both
which refuses the leading of the Spirit of God. But
these are practical statements the proper psychology
:
of Scripture given in another series of passages. It

23 —
is
comes out clearly in i Thess. v. 'your whole

spirit, and and body be preserved blameless unto
soul,
the cominof of our Lord Jesus Christ.' Here the
division is threefold. The body we know pretty well,
as far as concerns its material form. The soul how-
ever, is not the '
soul ' of common language. It is
only the seat of the animal life which we share with
the beasts. Above the soul, beyond the ken of
Aristotle, Scripture reveals the spirit as the seat of
the immortal life which is to pass the gate of death
1 Gal. V. 19-21,
unharmed. Now
one chief merit of Apollinarius
it is
(and herein he has the advantage over Athanasius)

that he based his system on the true psychology of
Scripture. He argued that sin reaches man through
the will, whose seat is in the spirit. Choice for good
or for evil is in the will. Hence Adam fell through
the weakness of the spirit. Had that been stronger,
he would have been able to resist temptation. So it
is with the rest of us we all sin through the weakness
:
of the spirit. If then the Lord was a man in whom

the mutable human spirit was replaced by the im-
mutable Divine Word, there will be no difficulty in
understanding how he could be free from sin. Apolli-
narius, however, rightly chose to state his theory the
other way —that the Divine Word assumed a human
body and a human soul, and himself took the place of
a human spirit. So far we see no great advance on the
Arian theory of the incarnation. If the Lord had no
true human spirit, he is no more true man than if he
had nothing human but the body. We get a better
explanation of his sinlessness, but we still get it at the
expense of his humanity. In one respect the Arians
had the advantage. Their created Word is easier
joined with human flesh than the Divine Word with a
human body and a human soul. At this point, how-
ever, Apollinarius introduced a thought of deep signi-
ficance — that the spirit in Christ was human spirit,
although divine. man was made in the image of

If
God, the Divine Word is not foreign to that human
spirit which is in his likenesss, but is rather the true
perfection of its image. If, therefore, the Lord had
the divine Word instead of the human spirit of other
merLj he is not tlie less human, but the more so for the
difference. Furthermore, the Word which in Christ
was human spirit was eternal. Apart then from the
incarnation, the Word was archetypal man as well as
God. Thus we reach the still more solemn thought
that the incarnation is not a mere expedient to get
rid of sin, but the historic revelation of what was latent
in the Word from all eternity. Had man not sinned,
the Word must still have come among us, albeit not
through shame and death. was his nature that he
It
should come. If he was man from eternity, it was
his nature to become in time like men on earth,
and it is his nature to remain for ever man. And
as the Word looked down on mankind, so mankind
looked upward to the Word. The spirit in man is a
frail and shadowy thing apart from Christ, and men
are not true men till they have found in him their
immutable and sovereign guide. Thus the Word and
man do not confront each other as alien beings. They
are joined together in their inmost nature, and (may
we say it ?) each receives completion from the other.
The system of ApoUinarius is a mighty outline whose
details we can hardly even now fill in ;
yet as a system
it is His own contem-
certainly a failure.
Apoiiinari-
anism. ..,
porarics may have done him something less
,-, ^,, ,.
than justice, but they could not loilow his
daring flights of thought when they saw plain errors
in his teaching. After all, ApoUinarius reaches no true
incarnation. The Lord is something very like us, but
he is not one of us. The spirit is surely an essential
part of man, and without a true human spirit he could
have no true human choice or growth or life; and
indeed Apollinarius could not allow him any. His

work is manhood, for (so
curtailed also like his Gregory
of Nyssa put it) the spirit which the Lord did not
assume is not redeemed. Apollinarius understood even
better than Athanasius the kinship of true human
nature to its Lord, and applied it with admirable skill
to explain the incarnation as the expression of the

eternal divine nature. But he did not see so well as
Athanasius that sin is a mere intruder among men. It
was not a hopeful age in which he lived. The world
had gone a long way downhill since young Athanasius
had sung his song of triumph over fallen heathenism.
Eoman and Syrian frivolity, Eastern asceticism
vice
and Western legalism, combined to preach, in spite of
Christianity, that the sinfulness of mankind is essential.
So instead of following out the pregnant hint of Atha-

nasius that sin is no true part of human nature (else
were God the author of evil), Apollinarius cut the knot
by refusing the Son of Man a human spirit as a thing
of necessity sinful. Too thoughtful to slur over the
difSculty like Pelagius, he was yet too timid to real-
ize the possibility of a conquest of sin by man, even
though that man were Christ himself.
Apollinarius and his school contributed not a little
to the doctrinal confusion of the East. His ideas were
TheApoiii- current for some time in various forms, and
iiarians.
^^^ attacked in some of the later works of
Athanasius; but it was not till about 375 that they
led to a definite schism, marked by the consecration
of the presbyter Vitalis to the bishopric of Antioch.
From this time, Apollinarian bishops disputed many of
the Syrian sees with Nicenes and Anomoeans. Their
adherents were also scattered over Asia, and supplied
one more element of discord to tlie noisy populace of
Constantinople.
The declining years of Athanasius were spent in
peace. Valens had restored him in good faith, and
never afterwards molested him. If Lucius
Last years of . . -, . -, .
t t
Athanasius the Arian returned to Alexandria to try
his chance as bishop, the officials gave him
no connivance — nothing but sorely needed shelter from
the fury of the mob. Arianism was nearly extinct in
Egypt.
One of his last public acts was to receive an embassy
from Marcellus, who was still living in extreme old
age at Ancyra. Some short time before
Athanasius .
and Marcellus 3/1, the dcacon Eugcnius presented to
him a confession on behalf of the innumer- ^
able multitude ' who still owned Marcellus for their

father. 'We are not heretics, as we are slandered.
We specially anathematize Arianism, confessing, like
our fathers at Nicaea, that the Son is no creature, but
of the essence of the Father and co-essential with the
Father; and by the Son we mean no other than
the Word. Next we anathematize Sabellius, for we
confess the eternity and reality of the Son and the
Holy Spirit. We anathematize also the Anomceans,
in spite of their pretence not to be Arians. We
anathematize finally the Arianizers who separate the
Word from the Son, giving the latter a beginning at
the incarnation because they do not confess him to
be very God. Our own doctrine of the incarnation
is that the Word did not come down as on the prophets,
but truly became flesh and took a servant's form, and

as regards flesh was born as a man.' There is no

departure here from the original doctrine of Marcellus,
Son means nothing more than
for the eternity of the
the eternity of the Word. The memorial, however,
was successful. Though Athanasius was no Marcellian,
he was as determined as ever to leave all questions
open which the great council had forborne to close.
The new Nicenes of Pontus, on the other hand,
inherited the conservative dread of Marcellus, so that
it was a sore trial to Basil when Athanasius refused
to sacrifice the old companion of his exile. Even the
great Alexandrian's comprehensive charity is hardly
nobler than his faithfulness to erring friends. Meaner
men might cherish the petty jealousies of controversy,
but the veterans of the great council once more recog-
nised their fellowship in Christ. They were joined in
life, and in death they were not divided.
Marcellus passed away in 371, and Athanasius two
years later. The victory was not yet won, the goal of
Death of Atha- ^^^ ^ ccutury was still bcyoud the sight
nasius(373).
^£ men; yet Athanasius had conquered
Arianism. Of his greatness we need say no more.
.
Some will murmur of *

fanaticism ' before the only
Christian whose grandeur awed the scofier Gibbon.
So be it that his greatness was not unmixed with
human passionbut those of us who have seen the
;
light of heaven shining from some saintly face, or

watched with kindling hearts and solemn thankfulness
some mighty victory of Christian faith, will surely know
that it was the spirit of another world which dwelt in
Athanasius. To him more than any one we owe it
that the question of Arianism did not lose itself in
and quibbles, but took its proper place
personalities
as a battle for the central message of the gospel,
which is its chief distinction from philosophy and
heathenism.
Instantly Alexandria was given up to the Arians,
and Lucius repeated the outrages of Gregory and
George. The friends of Athanasius were
Extinction of m t t i •
n t
-r-» t-i
the Marcel- exiled, and his successor Feter tied to Kome.
Meanwhile the school of Marcellus died
away. In 375 his surviving followers addressed a
new memorial to the Egyptian exiles at Sepphoris,
in which they plainly confessed the eternal Sonship
so long evaded by their master. Basil took no small
offence when the exiles accepted the memorial. They '
were not the only zealous defenders of the Nicene

faith in the East, and should not have acted without
the consent of the Westerns and of their own bishop,
Peter. In their haste to heal one schism they might
cause another if they did not make it clear that the
heretics had come over and not they to the
to them,
heretics.' This, however, was mere grumbling. Now
that the Marcellians had given up the point in dispute,
there was no great difficulty about their formal re-
conciliation.The West held out for Marcellus after
his own disciples had forsaken him, so that he was
not condemned at Rome till 380, nor by name till
381.
Meanwhile the churches of Asia seemed in a state
of universal dissolution. Disorder under Constantius
Confusion of: ^^^ bccomo coufusiou worso coufouuded
(I.) Churches,
q;^^^^^ Valeus. The exiled bishops were
so many centres of disaffection, and personal quarrels
Thr Restored Homcean Supremacy, 145
had full scope everywhere. Thus when Basil's brother

Gregory was expelled from Nyssa by a riot got up
by Anthimus of Tyana, he took refuge under the eyes
of Anthimus at Doara, where a similar riot had
driven out the Arian bishop. Pastoral work was
carried on under the greatest difficulties. The exiles
could not attend to their churches^ the schemers would
not, and the fever of controversy was steadily demora-
lizing both flocks and pastors.
Creeds were in the same confusion. The Homoeans
as a body had no consistent principle at all beyond
the rejection of technical terms, so that their
doctrinal statements are very miscellaneous.
They began with the indefinite Sirmian creed, but
the confession they imposed on Eustathius of Sebastia
was purely Macedonian. Some of their bishops were
Nicenes, others Anomoeans. There was room for all
in the happy family presided over by Eudoxius and his
successor Demophilus. In this anarchy of doctrine,
the growth of irreligious carelessness kept pace with
that of party bitterness. Ecclesiastical history records
no clearer period of decline than this. There is a
plain descent from Athanasius to Basil, a rapid one
from Basil to Theophilus and Cyril. The victors of Con-
stantinople are but the epigoni of a mighty contest.
Hopeful signs indeed were not entirely wanting.
If the Nicene cause did not seem to gain much ground
in Pontus, it was at least not losinof.
Hopeful signs. m m
-t-» tt i t
While Basil held the court m it
•
check, the
t
rising power of asceticism was declaring itself every

day more plainly on his side. One schism was healed
by the reception of the Marcellians and if ApoUinarius
;
C. H, K
was forming another, lie was at least a resolute enemy
of Arianism. The submission of the Lycian bishops
in 375 helped to isolate the Semiarian phalanx in
Asia, and the Illyrian council held in the same year
by Ambrose was the first effective help from the
West. It secured a rescript of Valentinian in favour
of the Nicenes; and if he did not long survive, his
action was enough to show that Valens might not
always be left to carry out his plans undisturbed.
( 147 )
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FALL OF ARIANISM.
The fiftieth year from the great council came and

wentj and brought no relief to the calamities of the
Prospects churches. Meletius and Cyril were still in
m 375. exile, East and West were still divided over
the consecration of Paulinus, and now even Alexandria
had become the prey of Lucius. The leaden rule of
Valens still weighed down the East, and Valens
was scarcely yet past middle life, and might reign
for many years longer. The deliverance came sud-
denly, and the Nicene faith won its victory in the
confusion of the greatest disaster which had ever yet
befallen Rome.
In the year 376 the Empire still seemed to stand
unshaken within the limits of Augustus. If the legions
The Empire ^^^ retired from the outlying provinces of
111376.
Dacia and Carduene, they more than held
their ground on the great river frontiers of the Euphrates,
the Danube, and the Rhine. If Julian's death had
seemed to let loose all the enemies of Rome at once, they
had all been repulsed. "While the Persian advance was
checked by the obstinate patriotism of Armenia, Valens
;

reduced Goths to submission, and his Western
tlie
colleague drove the Germans out of Gaul and recovered

Britain from the Picts. The Empire had fully held
its own through twelve years of incessant warfare
and if there were serious indications of exhaustion in

the dwindling of the legions and the increase of the
barbarian auxiliaries, in the troops of brigands who
infested every mountain district, in the alarming de-
crease of population, and above all in the ruin of the
provinces by excessive taxation, it still seemed incon-
ceivable that real danger could ever menace Eome's
eternal throne.
But while the imperial statesmen were watching
the Euphrates, the storm was gathering on the Danube.
The Gothic ^ho Goths in Dacia had been learning hus-
war
"bandry and Christianity since Aurelian's
(377-378).
time, and bade fair soon to become a civilized people.

Heathenism was alreadv half abandoned, and their
nomad habits half laid aside. But when the Huns
came up suddenly from the steppes of Asia, the stately
Gothic warriors fled almost without a blow from the
hordes of wild dwarfish horsemen. The Ostrogoths
became the servants of their conquerors, and the
heathens of Athanaric found a refuge in the recesses
But Fritigern was a
of the Transylvanian forests.
Christian. Eome had helped him once before, and
Rome might help him now. A whole nation of panic-
stricken warriors crowded to the banks of the Danube.
There was but one inviolable refuge in the world, and
that was beneath the shelter of the Eoman eagles.
Only let them have some of the waste lands in Thrace,
and they would be glad to do the Empire faithful ser-
The Fall of A rianism, 149
vice. When conditions had been settled, the Goths

were brought across the river. Once on Eoman ground,
they were left to the mercy of officials whose only
thought was to make the famished barbarians a prey
to their own rapacity and lust. Before long the Goths
broke loose and spread over the country, destroying
whatever cultivation had survived the desolating mis-
government of the Empire. Outlaws and deserters
were willing guides, and crowds of fresh barbarians
came in to share the spoil. The Roman generals found
it no easy task to keep the field.
First the victories of Claudius and Aurelian, and

then the statesmanship of Constantino, had stayed for a
century the tide of Northern war, but now
Battle of Ha- , _*^ . .
^ ^ n n ^
drianopie the Jiimpiro was again reduced to nght for
its existence. Its rulers seemed to under-
stand the crisis. The East was drained of all available
troops, and Sebastian the Manichee, the old enemy of
Athanasius, was placed in command. Gratian hurried
Thraceward with the Gaulish legions, and at last Valens
thought it time to leave his pleasant home at Antioch
for the field of war. Evil omens beset his march,
but no omen could be worse than his own impulsive
rashness. With a little prudence, such a force as he
had gathered round the walls of Hadrianople was an
overmatch for any hordes of barbarians. But Valens
determined to storm the Gothic camp without waiting
for his Western colleague. Rugged ground and tracts
of burning grass delayed his march, so that it was long
past noon before he neared the line of waggons, later
still before the Gothic trumpet sounded. But the
Roman army was in hopeless rout at sundown. The
Goths came down like a thunderbolt on the moun-
'
tain tops/ and all was lost. Far into the night the
slaughtering went on. Sebastian fell, the Emperor
was never heard of more, and full two-thirds of the
Roman army perished in a scene of unequalled horror
since the butchery of Cannaa.
Beneath that crushing blow the everlasting Empire
shook from end to end. The whole power of the East
Results of the ^^^ been mustered with a painful effort to
battle.
^Yi^ struggle, and the whole power of the
East had been shattered in a summer's day. For the

first time since the days of Gallienus, the Empire could
place no army in the field. But Claudius and Aurelian

had not fought in vain, nor were the hundred years of
respite lost. If the dominion of Western Europe was
transferred for ever to the Northern nations, the walls
of Constantinople had risen to bar their eastward
march, and Christianity had shown its power to awe
their boldest spirits. The Empire of the Christian
East withstood the shock of Hadrianople only the —
heathen West sank under it. When once the old
barriers of civilizationon the Danube and the Rhine
were broken through, the barbarians poured in for
centuries like a flood of mighty waters overflowing.
Not till the Northman and the Magyar had found
883^ their limit at the siege of Paris and the
955- battle of the Lechfeld could Europe feel
secure. The Roman Empire and the Christian Church
alone rode out the storm which overthrew the ancient
world. But the Christian Church was founded on
the ever-living Rock, the Roman Empire rooted deep
in history. Arianism was a thing of yesterday and
The Fall of A rianism. 151
had no principle of life, and therefore it vanished

in the crash of Hadrianople.The Homoean supre-
macy had come to rest almost wholly on imperial
misbelief. The mob of the capital might be in its
favour, and the virtues of isolated bishops might secure
it some support elsewhere but serious men were
;
mostly Nicenes or Anomoeans. Demophilus of Con-

stantinople headed the party, and his blunders did it
almost as much harm as the profane jests of Eudoxius.
At Antioch Euzoius, the last of the early Arians, was
replaced by Dorotheus. Milan under Ambrose was
aggressively Nicene, and the Arian tyrants were very
weak at Alexandria. On the other hand, the greatest
of the Nicenes had passed away, and few were left who
could remember the great counciFs meeting. Athana-
sius and Hilary were dead, and even Basil did not live
to greet an orthodox Emperor. Meletius of Antioch
was and Cyril of Jerusalem and the venerated
in exile,
Eusebius of Samosata, while Gregory of Nazianzus had
found in the Isaurian mountains a welcome refuge from
his hated diocese of Sasima. If none of the living
Nicenes could pretend to rival Athanasius, they at least
outmatched the Arians.
As Valens left no children, the Empire rested for the
moment in the hands of his nephew, Gratian, a youth
Gratian's ^^ ^^t yct tweuty. Gratiau, however, was

toleration.
^jg^ euough to SCO that was no time to
it
cultivate religious quarrels. He, therefore, began by

proclaiming toleration to all but Anomoeans and
Photinians. As toleration was still the theory of the
Empire, and none but the Nicenes were practically
molested, none but the Nicenes gained anything by
the edict. But mere toleration was all they needed.
The exiled bishops found little difficulty in resuming
the government of their flocks, and even in sending
missions to Arian strongholds. The Semiarians were
divided. Numbers went over to the Nicenes, while
others took up an independent or Macedonian position.
The Homoean power in the provinces fell of itself
before it was touched by persecution. It scarcely even
struggled against its fate. At Jerusalem indeed party
spirit ran as high as ever, but Alexandria was given
up to Peter almost without resistance. We find one
or two outrages like the murder of Eusebius of
Samosata by an Arian woman in a country town, who
threw down a tile on his head, but we hardly ever find
a Homoean bishop heartily supported by his flock.
Constantinople itself was now the chief stronghold of
the Arians. They had held the churches since 340,
Gregory of ^^^ werc stcadily supported by the court.
Nazianzus.
Thus the city populace was devoted to
Arianism, and the Nicenes were a mere remnant,
without either church or teacher. The time, however,
was now come for a mission to the capital. Gregory
of Nazianzus was the son of Bishop Gregory, born
about the time of the Nicene council. His father
was already presbyter of Nazianzus, and held the
bishopric for nearly half a century. Young
Gregory was a student of many schools.
From the Cappadocian Csesarea he went on to the
Palestinian, and thence to Alexandria but Athens ;
was the goal of his student-life. Gregory and Basil

and Prince Julian met at the feet of Proasresius. They
all did credit to his eloquence, but there the likeness
ends. Gregory disliked Julian's strange, excited

manner, and persuaded himself in later years that he
had even then foreseen the evil of the apostate's reign.
With Basil, on the other hand his friendship was for
life. They were well-matched in eloquence, in asce-
tic zeal, and in opposition to Arianism, though Basil's
imperious ways were a trial to Gregory's gentler and

less active spirit. During the quarrel with Anthimus
of Tyana, Basil thought fit to secure the
disputed possession of Sasima by making
it a bishopric. It was a miserable post-station No — '
water, no grass, nothing but dast and carts, and groans

and howls, and small officials with their usual instru-
ments of torture.' Gregory was made bishop of
Sasima against his will, and never fairly entered on
his repulsive duties. After a few years' retirement,
he came forward to undertake the mission
to Constantinople. The great city was a
city of triflers. They jested at the actors and the
preachers without respect of persons, and followed
with equal eagerness the races and the theological
disputes. Anomoeans abounded in their noisy streets,
and the graver Novatians and Macedonians were
infected with the spirit of wrangling. Gregory's aus-
tere character and simple life were in themselves a
severe rebuke to the lovers of pleasure round him.
He began his work in a private house, and only built
a church when the numbers of his fiock increased.
—
He called it his Anastasia, the church of the resur-
rection of the faith. The mob was hostile — one nisfht
they broke into his church —but the fruit of his labours
was a growing congregation of Nicenes in the capital.
154 ^^^ Arian Controversy.
Gratian's next step was to share his burden with a
colleague. If the care of the whole Empire had been
too much for Diocletian or Valentinian,
Theodosius r^ i^' >
i t t
Emperor in wcro not the Atlantean shoulders
(jrratian s
which could bear its undivided weight. In

the far West, at Oauca near Segovia, there lived a
son of Theodosius, the recoverer of Britain and Africa,
whose execution had so foully stained the opening of
Gratian's reign. That memory of blood was still fresh,
yet in that hour of overwhelming danger Gratian
called young Theodosius to be his honoured colleague
and deliverer. Early in 379 he gave him the con-
duct of the Gothic war. "With it went the Empire
of the East.
Theodosius was neither Greek nor Asiatic, but a
stranger from the Spanish West, endued with a full
End of the mcasuro of Spanish courage and intolerance.
Gothic war.
^g ^ general he was the most brilliant Eome
had seen since Julian's death. Men compared him to
Trajan, and in a happier age he might have rivalled
Trajan's fame. But now the Empire was ready to
perish. The beaten army was hopelessly demoralized,
and Theodosius had to form a new army of barbarian
legionaries before the old tradition of Eoman superiority
could resume its wonted sway. It soon appeared that
the Goths could do nothing with their victory, and
sooner or later would have to make their peace with
Eome. Theodosius drove them inland in the first
campaign and while he lay sick at Thessalonica in
;
the second, Gratian or his generals received the sub-

mission of the Ostrogoths. Fritigern died the same
year, and his old rival Athanaric was a fugitive before
;
it ended. When tlie returning Ostrogoths dislodged

him from he was welcomed
his Transylvanian forest,
with honourable courtesy by Theodosius in person at
Constantinople. But the old enemy of Eome and
Christianity had only come to lay his bones on Eoman
soil. In another fortnight the barbarian chief was
carried out with kingly splendour to his Roman funeral.
Theodosius had nobly won Athanaric's inheritance.
His wondering Goths at once took service with their
conqueror chief after chief submitted, and the work
:
of peace was completed on the Danube in the autumn

of 382.
We can now return to ecclesiastical affairs. The
dangerous illness of Theodosius in 380 had important
Baptism of consequcnces, for his baptism by Aschclius
Theodosius.
^^ Thessalouica was the natural signal for a
more decided policy. Ascholius was a zealous Nicene,
so that Theodosius was committed to the Nicene side
as effectually as Valens had been to the Homoean
and Theodosius was less afraid of strong measures
than Valens. His first rescript (Feb. 27, 380) com-
mands all men to follow the Nicene doctrine committed '
by the apostle Peter to the Eomans, and now professed

by Damasus of Eome and Peter of Alexandria/ and
plainly threatens to impose temporal punishments on
the heretics. Here it will be seen that Theodosius
abandons Constantine's test of orthodoxy by subscrip-
tion to a creed. It seemed easier now, and more in the
spirit of Latin Christianity, to require communion with
certain churches. The choice of Rome is natural, the
addition of Alexandria shows that the Emperor was
still a stranger to the mysteries of Eastern partizanship.
There was no reason for delay wlien the worst
dangers of the Gothic war were over. Theodosius
made his formal entry into Constantinople,
"^
Suppression of .
Arian worship ôvember 2 A. 380, and at once required the
inside cities.
i . , . , -^-y, n * •,
bishop either to accept the iSlicene faith or

to leave the city. Demophilus honourably refused to
give up his heresy, and adjourned his services to the
suburbs. So ended the forty years of Arian domina-
tion in Constantinople. But the mob was still Arian,
and their stormy demonstrations when the cathedral
of the Twelve Apostles was given up to Gregory of
Nazianzus were enough to make Theodosius waver.
Arian influence was still strong at court, and Arian
bishops came flocking to Constantinople. Low as
they had fallen, they could still count among them
the great name of Ulfilas. But he could give them
little help, for though the Goths of Moesia were faith-
ful to the Empire, Theodosius preferred the stalwart

heathens of Athanaric to their Arian countrymen.
Ulfilas died at Constantinople like Athanaric, but
there was no royal funeral for the first apostle of the
Northern nations. Theodosius and even
hesitated,
consented to see the heresiarch Eunomius, who was
then living near Constantinople. The Nicenes took
alarm, and the Empress Flaccilla urged her husband on
the path of persecution. The next edict (Jan. 381)
forbade heretical discussions and assemblies inside cities,
and ordered the churches everywhere to be given up

to the Nicenes.
Thus was Arianism put down, as it had been set
up, by the civil power. Nothing now remained but to
clear away the disorders which the strife had left
behind. Once more an imperial summons went forth

for a council to meet at Constantinople in May 381.
It was a sombre gathering. The bright
Constantinople hopo which lig:hted the Empire at NicsBa had
(May 381). . ^ ;i- .i
out, and even the con-
;i ;i
4.
long ago died
querors now had no more joyous feeling than that of
thankfulness that the weary strife was coming to an
end. Only a hundred and fifty bishops were present,
all of them Easterns. The West was not represented
even by a Eoman legate. Amongst them were Mele-
tius of Antioch, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Jerusalem,
Gregory of Nazianzus as elect of Constantinople, and
Basil's unworthy successor, Helladius of Cêsarea.
Timothy of Alexandria came later. The Semiarians
mustered thirty-six under Eleusius of Cyzicus.
The bishops were greeted with much splendour, and
received a truly imperial welcome in the form of a new
Appointments ^clict of pcrsecution against the Manichees.
FiaîaS! and Moletius of Autioch presided in the council,

Nectanus.
^^^ PauHuus was ignored. Theodosius was
no longer neutral between Constantinople and Alex-
andria. The Egyptians were not invited to the earlier
sittings, or at least were not present. The first act of
the assembly was to ratify the choice of Gregory of
Nazianzus as bishop of Constantinople. Meletius died
as they were coming to discuss the aflfairs of Antioch,
and Gregory took his place as president. Here was
an excellent chance of putting an end to the schism,
for Paulinus and Meletius had agreed that on the death
of either of them, the survivor should be recognised
by both parties as bishop of Antioch. But the council
was jealous of Paulinus and his Western friends, and
broke the agreement by appointing Flavian, one of
the presbyters who had sworn to refuse the office.
Gregory's remonstrance against this breach of faith
only drew upon him the hatred of the Eastern bishops.
The Egyptians, on the other hand, were glad to join
any attack on a nominee of Meletius, and found an
obsolete Nicene canon to invalidate his translation from
Sasima to Constantinople. Both parties were thus
agreed for evil. Gregory cared not to dispute with
them, but gave up his beloved Anastasia, and retired
to end his days at Nazianzus. The council was not
worthy of him. His successor was another sort of
man. Nectarius, the praetor of Constantinople, was a
man of the world of dignified presence, but neither
saint nor student. Him, however, Theodosius chose
to fill the vacant see, and under his guidance the
council finished its sessions.
The next move was to find out whether the Semi-

arians were willing to share the victory of the Nicenes.
Retirement of As they wero stiU a strong party round the

the semiarians.
jjellcspont, their friendship was important.
Theodosius also was less of a zealot than some of his
admirers imagine. The sincerity of his desire to con-
ciliate Eleusius is fairly guaranteed by his effort two
years later to find a scheme of comprehension even for
the Anomoeans. But the old soldier was not to be
tempted by hopes of imperial favour. However he
might oppose the Anomoeans, he could not forgive the
Nicenes their inclusion of the Holy Spirit in the sphere
of co-essential deity. Those of the Semiarians who
were willing to join the Nicenes had already done so,
and the rest were obstinate. They withdrew from the
council and gave up their cHurclies like the Arians.

They comforted themselves with those words of Scrip-
^
ture, The churchmen are many^ but the elect are few.'
'
Whatever jealousies might divide the conquerors,

the Arian contest was now at an end. Pontus and
Close of the
Syria were still divided from Rome and
council.
Egypt on the question of Flavian's appoint-
ment, and there were the germs of many future troubles
in the disposition of Alexandria to look for help to
Rome against the upstart see of Constantinople ; but
against Arianism the council was united. Its first
canon is a solemn ratification of the Nicene creed in
its original shape, with a formal condemnation of all
the heresies, ' and specially those of the Eunomians or

Anomoeans, of the Arians or Eudoxians {Homoeans)^ of
the Semiarians or Pneumatomachi ; of the Sabellians,
Marcellians, Photinians, and ApoUinarians.'
The bishops issued no new creed. Tradition indeed
ascribes to them the spurious Nicene creed of our
The spurious Commuuion Service, with the exception of

Nicene creed.
^^^ ^^^^^ insertions— the clause 'God of
God/ and the procession from the
of the Holy Spirit '
Son' as well as 'from the Father.' The story is an

old one, for it can be traced back to one of the
speakers at the council of Chalcedon in 451. It
caused some surprise at the time, but was afterwards
accepted. Yet it is beyond all question false. This
is shown by four convergent lines of argument. In
the first place, (l.) it is (X 'priori unlikely. The
Athanasian party had been contending all along, not
vaguely for the Nicene doctrine, but for the Nicene
1 Matt. XX. 16.
i6o The Arian Controversy.
creed, the wHole Nicene creed, and nothing but the
Nicene creed. Athanasius refused to touch it at Sar-
dica in 343, refused again at Alexandria in 362, and
to the end of his life refused to admit that it was
in any way defective. Basil himself as late as 377
declined even to consider some additions to the incar-
nation proposed to him by Epiphanius of Salamis. Is
it would straightway revise
likely that their followers
the creed the instant they got the upper hand in 3 8 I ?
And such a revision The elaborate framework of
!
Nicaoa is completely shattered, and even the keystone

clause ^
of the essence Father is left out.
of the '
Moreover, no contemporary evidence that

(2.) there is
they did revise it. No historian mentions anything

of the sort, and no single document connected with
the council gives the slightest colour to the story.
There is neither trace nor sign of it for nearly seventy
years. The internal evidence (3.) points the same
way. Deliberate revision implies a deliberate purpose
in the alterations made. Now in this case, though we
have serious variations enough, there is another class
of differences so meaningless that they cannot even be
represented in an English translation. There remains
(4.) one more argument. The spurious Nicene creed
cannot be the work of the fathers of Constantinople in
381, because it is given in the Ancoratus of Epiphanius,
which was certainly written in 374. But if the council
did not draw up the creed, it is time to ask who
did. Everything seems to show that it is not a
revision of the Nicene creed at all, but of the local
creed of Jerusalem, executed by Bishop Cyril on his
return from exile in 362. This is only a theory, but
The Fall of A rianism. i6i
it has all the evidence which a theory can have — it
explains the whole matter. In the first place, the

meaningless changes disappear if we compare the
spurious Nicene creed with that of Jerusalem instead
of the genuine Every difference can be
Nicene.
accounted for by reference to the known position and
opinions of Cyril. Thus the old Jerusalem creed says
that the Lord 'sat down at the right hand of the
Father
;
our Nicene/ that he sitteth!
'
^
Now this is
^
a favourite point of Cyril in his Catecheses — that the

Lord did not sit down once for all, but that he sitteth
so for ever. Similarly other points. We also know
that other local creeds were revised about the same
time and in the same way. In the next place, the
occurrence of a revised Jerusalem creed in the Ancorahcs
is natural. Epiphanius was past middle life when he
left Palestine for Cyprus in 368, and never forgot the
friends he left behind at Lydda. We are also in a

position to account for its ascription to the council of
Constantinople. was a troubled life, and there
Cyril's
are many indications that he was accused of heresy in
381, and triumphantly acquitted by the council. In
such a case his creed would naturally be examined and
approved. It was a sound confession, and in no way
heretical. Prom this point its history is clearer. The
authority of Jerusalem combined with its own intrinsic
merits to recommend it,and the incidental approval of
the bishops at Constantinople was gradually developed
into the legend of their authorship.
The remaining canons are mostly aimed at the
disorders which had grown up during the reign of
Yalens. One of them checks the reckless accusations
C, H, L
1 62 The Arian Controversy.
which were brought against the bishops by ordering
that no charge of heresy should be received from heretics
The rest of ^^^ ^Vich. like. Such a disqualification of
the canons.
accusers was not unreasonable, as it did not
apply to charges of private wrong; yet this clerical
privilege grew into one of the worst scandals of the
Middle Ages. The forged decretals of the ninth century
not only order the strictest scrutiny of witnesses against
a bishop, but require seventy-two of them to convict
him of any crime except heresy. Another canon forbids
the intrusion of bishops into other dioceses. Never- '
theless, the bishop of Constantinop]e shall hold the

first rank after the bishop of Eome, because Constanti-
nople is New Eome.' This is the famous third canon,
which laid a foundation for the ecclesiastical authority
of Constantinople. It was extended at Chalcedon into
a jurisdiction over the whole country from
Mount Taurus to the Danube, and by
Justinian into the supremacy of the East. The canon,
therefore, marks a clear step in the concentration of
the Eastern Church and Empire round Constantinople.
The blow struck Eome on one side, Alexandria on the
other. It was the reason why Eome withheld for
centuries her full approval from the council of Con-
stantinople. She could not safely give it
till her Eastern rival was humiliated and ;
this was not till the time of the Latin Emperors in the
thirteenth century.
The council having ratified the Emperor's work, it
only remained for the Emperor to complete that of the

council. A
new edict in July forbade Arians of every
sort to build churches. Even their old liberty to build
The Fall of A rian ism. 163
outside the walls of cities was now taken from them.

At the end of the month Theodosius issued an amended
definition of orthodoxy. Henceforth sound
Second edict ,,. ^ , i ^ i. i
defining ortho- Deliei was to DO guaranteed by communion,
doxv.
no longer with Eome and Alexandria, but
with Constantinople, Alexandria, and the chief bishop-
rics of the East. The choice of bishops was decided
partly by their own importance, partly by that of their
sees. Gregory of Nyssa may represent one class,
Helladius of Caesarea the other. The omissions, how-
ever, are significant. We miss not only Antioch and
Jerusalem, but Ephesus and Hadrianople, and even
Nicomedia. There is a broad space left clear around
the Bosphorus. If we now take into account the
third canon, we cannot mistake the Asiatic policy of
endeavouring to replace the primacy of Eome or
Alexandria by that of Constantinople.
The tolerance of Theodosius was a little, though
only a little, wider than Though the
it seems.
Novatians were not in communion with
The Novatians. ^ ,
^ ,
JNectarius, they were durmg the next half

century a recognised exception to the persecuting
laws. They had always been sound as against
Arianism, and their bishop Agelius had sufiered
exile under Valens. His confession was approved by
Theodosius, and several of his successors lived on
friendly terms with liberal or worldly patriarchs like
Nectarius and Atticus. They sufiered something from
the bigotry of Chrysostom, something also from the
greed of Cyril, but for them the age of persecution only
began with Nestorius in 428.
So far as numbers went, the cause of Arianism was
not even yet hopeless. It was still fairly strong in
Syria and Asia, and counted adherents as far west as the
banks of the Danube. At Constantinople it could raise
Decay of dangerous riots (in one of them Nectarius
Ariamsm.
j^^^ j^-g houso burDt), and even at the court
of Milan had a powerful supporter in Valentinian's
it
widow, the Empress Justina. Yet its fate was none the
less a mere question of time. Its cold logic generated
no such fiery enthusiasm as sustained the African
Donatists; the newness of its origin allowed no venerable
traditions to grow up round it like those of heathenism,
while its imperial claims and past successes cut it off
from the appeal of later heresies to provincial separat-
ism. When, therefore, the last overtures of Theodosius
fell through in 383, the heresy was quite unable to bear
the strain of steady persecution.
But Arianism soon ceased to be a power inside
if
the Empire, it remained the faith of the barbarian

invaders. The work of Ulfilas was not in
Arianism: (i.) vaiu. Not the Goths Only, but all the
earlier Teutonic converts were Arians. And
the Goths narrow miss of empire.
had a The
victories of Theodosius were won by Gothic strength.
It was the Goths who scattered the mutineers of Britain,
and triumphantly scaled the impregnable
^ '
walls of Aquileia the Goths who won the
;
hardest battle of the century, and saw the Franks

themselves go down before them on the
^^^*
Frigidus. The Goths of Alaric plundered
Eome itself; the Goths of Gainas entered Constanti-
nople, though only to be overwhelmed and slaughtered
round the vain asylum of their burning church.
In the next century the Teutonic conquest of the

West gave Arianism another lease of power. Once
(2.) In the
more the heresy was supreme in Italy, and
^®®^*
Spain, and Africa. Once more it held and
lost the future of the world. To the barbarian as well
as to the heathen it was a half-way halt upon the road to
Christianity and to the barbarian also it was nothing
;
but a source of weakness. It lived on and in its

turn perpetuated the feud between the Roman and the
Teuton which caused the destruction of the earlier
Teutonic kingdoms in Western Europe. The pro-
vincials or their children might forget the wrongs of
conquest, but heresy was a standing insult to the
Roman world. Theodoric the Ostrogoth may rank
with the greatest statesmen of the Empire, yet even
Theodoric found his Arianism a fatal disadvantage.
And if the isolation of heresy fostered the beginnings
of a native literature, it also blighted every hope of
future growth. The Goths were not inferior to the
English, but there is nothing in Gothic history like
the wonderful burst of power which followed the con-
version of the English. There is no Gothic writer to
compare with Bede or Caedmon. Jordanis is not much to
set against them, and even Jordanis was not an Arian.
The sword of Belisarius did but lay open the
internal disunion of Italy and Africa. A single blow
destroyed the kingdom of the Vandals, and
Teutonic all the valour of the Ostrogoths could only
win for theirs a downfall of heroic grandeur.
Sooner or later every Arian nation had to purge itself
of heresy or vanish from the earth. Even
589. .
the distant Visigoths were forced to see

1 66 The Arian Controversy,
that Arians could not hold Spain. The Lombards in
Italy were the last defenders of the hopeless cause,
and they too yielded a few years later to the eflForta
of Pope Gregory and Queen Theudelinda.
Of Continental Teutons, the Franks alone
escaped the divisions of Arianism. In the strength
of orthodoxy thev drove the Goths before
them on the field of Vougl^, and brought
the green standard of the Prophet to a halt upon the
Loire. The Franks were no better than
their neighbours — rather worse — so that it
was nothing but their orthodoxy which won for them
the prize which the Lombard and the Goth had missed,
and brought them through a long career of victory to
that proud day of universal reconciliation
when the strife of ages was forgotten, and
Arianism with it —
when, after more than three hundred
years of desolating anarchy, the Latin and the Teuton
joined to vindicate for Old Eome her just inheritance
of empire, and to set its holy diadem upon the head
of Karl the Frank.
Now that we have traced the history of Arianism
to its final overthrow, let us once more glance at
the causes of its failure. Arianism, then,
was an illogical compromise. It went too
far for heathenism, not far enough for Christianity.
It conceded Christian worship to the Lord, yet made
him no better than a heathen demigod. It con-
fessed a Heavenly Father, as in Christian duty
bound, yet identified Him with the mysterious and
inaccessibleSupreme of the philosophers. As a
scheme of Christianity, it was overmatched at every
point by the Nicene doctrine ; as a concession to

heathenism, itwas outbid by the growing worship of
saints and relics. Debasing as was the error of
turning saints into demigods, it seems to have shocked
Christian feeling less than the Arian audacity which
degraded the Lord of saints to the level of his creatures.
But the crowning weakness of Arianism was the in-
curable badness of its method. Whatever were the
errors of Athanasius —and in details they were not a
few — work was without doubt a faithful search for
his
truth by every means attainable to him. He may be
misled by his ignorance of Hebrew or by the defective
exegesis of his time ; but his eyes are always open to
the truth, from whatever quarter it may come to him.
In breadth of view as well as grasp of doctrine, he is
beyond comparison with the rabble of controversialists
who cursed or still invoke his name. The gospel was
truth and life to him, not a mere subject for strife and
debate. It was far otherwise with the Arians. On
one side their doctrine was a mass of presumptuous
theorizing, supported by alternate scraps of obsolete
traditionalism and uncritical text-mongering on the ;
other it was a lifeless system of spiritual pride and

hard unlovingness. Therefore Arianism perished. So
too every system, whether of science or theology, must
likewise perish which presumes like Arianism to dis-
cover in the feeble brain of man a law to circumscribe
the revelation of our Father's love in Christ.
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.
269. Claudius defeats the Goths at Naissus.

272. Aurelian defeats Zenobia.
284-305. Diocletian.
Cir. 297. Birth of Athanasius.
303-313. The great persecution,
306-337. Constantine (in Gaul).
311. First edict of toleration (by Galerius).

312-337. Constantine (in Italy).
312. Second edict of toleration (from Milan),
314. Council of Aries, on the Donatists, &c.
315-337. Constantine (in Illyricum).
Cir. 317. Athanasius de Incarnatione Verbi Dei,
Cir. 318. Outbreak of Arian controversy.
323-337. Constantine (in the East).

325 (June). Council of Nicsea.
328-373. Athanasius bishop of Alexandria.
330. Foundation of Constantinople.
Cir. 330. Deposition of Eustathius of Antioch.
335. Councils of Tyre and Jerusalem.
336 (Feb.)-337 (Nov.) First exile of Athanasius.
337 (May 22). Death of Constantine.
339 (Lent)-346 (Oct.) Second exile of Athanasius.
341. Council of the Dedication at Antioch. Consecration
of Ulfilas.
170 Chronological Table.
343. Councils of Sardica and Philippopolis.

350 Death of Constans.
351. Battle of Mursa.
353. Death of Magnentius.
355. Julian Csesar in Gaul.
Council at Milan.
356 (Feb. 8)-362 (Feb. 22). Third exile of Athanasius.
357. Sirmian manifesto.
358. Council at Ancyra.
Hilary de Synodis.
359 (May 22). Conference at Sirmium. The dated creed.
Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia.
Athanasius de Synodis,
360 (Jan.) Julian Augustus at Paris.
Council at Constantinople. Exile of Semiarians.
361. Appointment and exile of Meletius.
(Nov.) Death of Constantius.
362. Council at Alexandria. Fourth exile of Athanasius.
363 (June 26). Death of Julian. Jovian succeeds.

364 (Feb. 16). Death of Jovian. Valentinian succeeds.
365-366. Eevolt of Procopius. Fifth exile and final restora-
tion of Athanasius.
367-369. Gothic war.
370-379. Basil bishop of Csesarea (in Cappadocia).
371. Death of Marcellus.
372. Meeting of Basil and Valens.

373 (May 2). Death of Athanasius.
374. Epiphanius Ancoratus,

374-397. Ambrose bishop of Milan.
375. Death of Valentinian. Gratian succeeds.
376. Goths pass the Danube.
378 (Aug. 9). Battle of Hadrianople. Death of Valens.
379-395. Theodosius Emperor.
381 (May.) Council of Constantinople.
Chronological Table. 171
383. Last overtures of Theodosius to the Arians.

397. Chrysostom bishop of Constantinople.
410. Sack of Eome by Alaric.
451. Council of Chalcedon.

487-526. Eeign of Theodoric in Italy.
507. Battle of Vougl^.
589. Visigoths abandon Arianism.
599. Lombards abandon Arianism.
800. Coronation of Karl the Frank.
I <
43 a
p . *-+a M c«
rt CO C5
- O)
I?- H ^
O
i^
09
CO
CC 00 ^
II
II
— 1— lO
_.2
;3
^
*^ CO
o
d I
-f-s
-^ P . II
o
H "^
c3
IS
!<.
(6
-^
H
6:1
N
w
;^
O
O 11
•-»
II
c3
— 03
CO
"
i^
-M \*
,c
O 'c3
o >^ p f^
o en
o O CO
l>H -~-
M
*—'
.
I— c
eS
s
cfl
•»
TO
«^
:^ «k
tn 1^- 1°
CO
a
•4-3
en ^ CO
II
1
>^
II
0)
^ja
CO
CO
CO
fl
•rt
.
t^
g
o
O
II
fl o
5 CO 05 «\
o3 Q 13
p^
\-^
»-H
II
0)
o
H
• Q> ^ CO
1 i
;; ;;;
INDEX.
-fv
ACACIUS, Bishop of Caesarea, 42, 49; in Egypt, 50, 87, 114, 122; at Tyre,
at Sardica, 70, 90; forms Homcean 57 flees to Constantinople, 58, 87
;
party, 92 ; at Seleucia, 97 ; charac- first exile, 59 ; return, 62 ; second

ter, 100 ; at Constantinople, loi ; and exile, 64, 68 at Sardica, 70 second
; ;
Meletius, 103, 104; accepts Nicene return, 73 ; overtures of Magnentius,

faith, 115, 120, 124. 81 expelled by Syrianus, 86 ; third
;
Aetius, Anomoean doctrine, 75 ; or- exile, 87 on Homoean reasoning, 94 ;

;
dained by Leontius, 78 ; 100 ; de- de Synodis, 97, 98; third return,

graded, 101. III at council of Alexandria, 112 ;
;
Agelius, Novatian bishop of Constan- fourth exile, 114; fourth return,

tinople, 163. 120, 122 ; on the Holy Spirit, 125 ;
Alaric, 164. troubles with Valens, 127 ; final re-
Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, 5 storation, 129 ; and Basil, 132, 134
excommunicates Arius, 14, 19 ; at and ApoUinarius, 137-141 last years, ;
Niceea, 21 death of, 47

; ; and Atha- reception of Marcellus, 142 ; death,
nasius, 48. 143 ; 151 ; holds to Nicene creed,
Alexander, Bishop of Thessalonica, at 160.
Tyre, 57, 58. Aurelian, Emperor (270-275), services,
Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, 122, 134 16 test of Christian orthodoxy, 24.
;
lUyrian council, 146 ; 151. Auxentius, Arian bishop of Milan, 102,

Ammianus, historian, 109. 121; Cappadocian, 131.
Anastasia church, 153.
Anthimus, Bishop of Tyana, quarrels Baptismal professions, 23.
with Basil, 135, 153 ; with Gregory of Basil, Bishop of Ancyra, expelled, 62 ;
Nyssa, 145. restored, 82 at synod of Ancyra, 90,

;
Antony, legendary hermit, 48, 123. 132 ; 98, returns, m.

ApoUinarius of Laodicea, 12, 113, 124 ;
Basil, Bishop of Caesarea (Cappadocia),
doctrine, 136-142, 145. 109 ; on the Holy Spirit, 125 ; life
Arinthaeus the Goth, 132. and work, 132-136; on reception of
Arius, early life and doctrine, 5 ; ex- Marcellians, 144, 145 ; death, 151
communicated, 14 ; flees to Csesarea, student life, 152 ; holds to Nicene
15, 19 ; exiled, 38 ; restored at Jeru- creed, 160.
salem, 58; death, 59; 68, 75, 77; and Basilina, mother of Julian, 105, 106.
ApoUinarius, 137. Belisarius, 165.
Ascholius,Bishop of Thessalonica, bap-
tizes Theodosius, 155. CiEClLlAN, Bishop of Carthage, at
Asterius, Cappadocian sophist, 131. Nicaea, 20.
Athanaric, Goth, 148 ; death, 155. Cappadocia, 130.
Athanasius, de Incarnatione, 9-12 Carpones, an early Arian, 14 ; at Rome,
as a commentator, 13, 49, 167 ; at 65.
Nicsea, 21 persistence, 27 account
; ; Chrysostom (John), 43, 46, 163.
of Nicene debates, 34 ; dislikes Mele- Claudius, Bishop in JPicenum, 100.
tian settlement, 38 ; policy at Nicsea, Constans, Emperor (337-350), 62, 69,
39 46, 47 Bishop of Alexandria, 48
; ; ; 73 death, 80.
;
character and early life, 48; power Constantia, sister of Constantice, 25.
: : , ;; ;
;
174 Index,
Constantine, Emperor (306-337), char- Demophilus, Bishop of Constantinople,
acter, 17 ; dealings with Arianism, 122, 14s, 151 ; gives up the churches,
18 ; summons Nicene council, 19 156.
action there, 36, 37, 47 ; church on Dianius, Bishop of Csesarea (Cappa-
Golgotha, 57, 76 ; exiles Athanasius, docia), 115; baptizes Basil, 132.
59; work and death, 61; church at Diocletian, Emperor (284-305), persecu-
Antioch, 67, 87 power of his name,
; tion, 9 ; reign, 17.
80, 127, 128 ; 148. Diodorus, Bishop of Tarsus, 78.
Constantine II., Emperor (337-340), 62 Dionysius, Bishop of Milan, exiled,
death, 70. 82, 83, 90.
Constantius, Emperor (337-361), 45 46 ; Dominica, Empress, 126.
accession and character, 62 ; calls Donatists, 18, 20.
Sardican council, 70; recalls Atha- Dorotheus, Arian bishop of Antioch,
nasius, 73 ; defeats Magnentius, 81 151-
pressure on the West, 82 ; exiles
Liberius, 85 ; expels Athanasius, 86, Eleusius, Bishop of Cyzicus, at Seleu-
loi, 103 ; death of, 106, 112. cia, 96, 97, 115 at Lampsacus, 125 ;
;
Councils at Constantinople, 157, 158.

Alexandria (362), 112. Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, 160,
Ancyra (358), 90. 161.
Antioch (269), 33. Eudoxius, Bishop of Constantinople,
» (338), 64. 75 Bishop of Antioch, 90, 97 ; trans-
;
M (341), 67. lated to Constantinople, 102; 104, IIS,

», (344)> 72. 120; 122; deposed at Lampsacus, 125;
Ariminum (359), 93. influence with Valens, 126, 129 ; Cap-
Ai'les (314), 20. padocian, 131, 145.
„ (353), 70- Eugenius, deacon, 142.
, ^
Constantinople (360), loi. Euippius, Arian bishop, 132, 133.
„ (381), 157- Eunomius, Anomoean, 75, 95 ; Bishop
Lampsacus (364), 125. of Cyzicus, 103, 115; on the Holy
Jerusalem (335), 58. Spirit, 125; exiled, 130; Cappadocian,
Milan (355), 83. 131; 156.
Nicsea(325), 19-40. Euphrates, Bishop of Cologne, 72.
Sardica (343), 70. Euphronius, Bishop of Antioch, 51.
Seleucia (359), 93. Eusebia, Empress, 105.
Tyre (335), 57. Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea (Pales-
Creeds tine), countenances Arius, 15, 21
Antioch (first), 68. action at Nicaea, 25 ; proposes Caesa-
„ (second =Lucianic), 68. rean creed, 35 signs Nicene, 36 ; 42 ;
;
„ (third =Tyana), 69. caution after Nicaea, 47 ; 49, 51 at ;
,, (fourth), 69. Tyre, 57, 58 ; succeeded by Acacius,

„ (fifth), 72. 70, 100.
Apostles' (Marcellus), 22, 67. Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea (Cappa-
Csesarea, 26. docia), 132.
Constantinople (360), loi. Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia, favoura
"Constantinople" (381), 159. Arius, 15 ; at Nicaea, 21 presents ;
Jerusalem, 77, 159. Arianizing creed, 25 ; 37 exiled, 38 ;

;
Nic8ea (genuine), 29. organizes new party, 50; attacks

„ (spurious), 159. Athanasius, 56, 59.
Nic6j 95. Eusebius, Bishop of Samosata, 133, 151
Sardica (Philippopolis), 72. murder of, 152.
Seleucia, 97. Eusebius, Bishop of Vercellae, exiled, 83,
Sirmium (manifesto), 88. 90; restored, in; at Alexandria, 112.
,, (dated), 94. Eustathius, Bishop of Antioch, at
Cyril,Bishop of Alexandria, 163. Nicaea, 21, 34 ejdled, 51 ; and Apol-
;
Cyril,Bishop of Jerusalem, Caiecheses, linarius, 137.

•j6;accepts Nicene faith, 115 ; 147, Eustathius, Bishop of' Sebastia, at
151; at Constantinople, 157; and Ancyra, 91, 103 at Lampsacus, 126
;
"Nicene" creed, 160, 161. exiled by Valens, goes to Liberius,

128,132; quarrels with Basil, 135, 136,
Dalmatius, 62. 145.
Damasus, Bishop of Rome, 155. Euzoius, an early Arian, 14, 58, 68;
;; ;
Index. 175
Bishop of Antioch, 104, 115, 120, 124; 118, 122; and Cappadocia, 130; stu.
death, 151. dent life, 152.
Julius, Bishop ofRome, receives Atha-
Flavian, Bishop of Antioch, 78, 158. nasius and Marcellus, 65 ; 70, 72, 85,
Flavianus, prefect of Egypt, 127. 88.
Fortunatian, Bishop of Aquileia, 70. Julius Constantius, 105.
Fritigern, Goth, 148; death, 154. Justina, Empress, 164.
GAiNAS, 164. Karl the Great, coronation of, 166.

Galatia,'52.
Gallus, Caesar, 62, 105. Lactantius on the persecutors, 11.
George of Cappadocia, Arian bishop of Leonas, 97.
Alexandria, 86, 87; deposed at Se- Leontius, Bishop of Antioch, appointed,
leucia, 97 ; and Julian, 107 ; lynched, 72 ; management, 78 ; 104.
III, 112 ; 131. Libanius, heathen rhetorician, 43;
Germinius, Bishop of Cyzicus, trans- friend of Basil, 132.
lated to Sirmium, 82. Liberius, Bishop of Rome, 82 ; dis-
Gothic wars, first, 129 ; second (Had- avows Vincent, 83; exile of, 85, 90;
rianople), 149-155. signs Sirmian creed, 91 ; receives
Gratian, Emperor (375-383)) ^49 edict *» Semiarian deputation, 128.
of toleration, 151 ; takes Theodosius Licinius, Emperor (306-323), 15, 19.
for colleague, 154. Lucian of Antioch, teacher of Arius, 5
Gratus of Carthage, 70 of Eusebius of Nicomedia, 15 dis- ;
Gregory, Bishop of Nazianzus, conse- ciples at Nicaea, 21 ; left no succes-

crates Basil, 133 ; 152. sors, 46; disciples after Nicsea, 50;
Gregory of Nazianzus (son of the above), connection with Aetius, 75.
151 ; life and work at Constantinople, Lucianic creed, at Antioch, 68 ; 77, 91
152, 156; Bishop of Constantinople, at Seleucia, 97, 115; at Lampsacus,
i57> 158- 126.
Gregory, Bishop of ISTyssa, 141, 145 at Lucifer, Bishop of Calaris, exile and
Constantinople, 157, 163.
Gregory, Bishop of Rome, 166.
;
writings, 83, 90; returns, ; ab-

sent from Alexandria, 112 ; conse-
m
Gregory of Cappadocia Arian bishop
; crates Paulinus, 114; forms schism,
of Alexandria, 64 ; death of, 73 ; 86, 124, 134.
131.
*
Lucius, Arian bishop of Alexandria,
Gregory the Wonder-worker, 132. 142, 144, 147.
Hannibalianus, 62. Macarius, Bishop of ^lia (Jerusa-

Hecebolius, renegade, 107. lem), 15 at Mcaea, 21.
;
Helladius, Bishop of Csesarea (Cappa- Macedonius, Bishop of Constantinople,

docia), 157, 163. 79) "5-
Hilarion, legendary hermit, 123. Magnentius, Emperor (350-353), 74*.
Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, 46, 67, 82 80, 82.
exile and character, 84, 90 ; de- Marcellus, Bishop of Ancyra, at Nicsea,
nounces Liberius, 92 ; his de Synodis, 21 and Apostles' creed, 23, 67 per-
; ;
93 ; at Seleucia, 96 ; 112 ; on the Holy sistence, 27 ; 31, 32 ; andNicene creed,

Spirit, 124. 47, 51 ; character and doctrine, 52-
Hosius, Bishop of Cordova, at Nicsea, 56 ; exiled, 59 ; restored, 62 ; flees to
20 34, 37
; at Sardica, 70, 72, 82
; Rome, 65 ; at Sardica, 70, 72 ; at-
exile and death, 85, 90. tacked by Cyril, 77 ; deposed, 81 ; 90,
James, Bishop of Nisibis, at Nicsea, 21.

103 ; returns, ;membassy to Atha-
nasius, 142 ; death, 143 ; extinction
Jerusalem in 348, 76. of his school, 144.
John Archaph, Meletian, exiled, 59. Mardonius, 105, 107.
John the Persian at Nicsea, 22. Maris, Bishop of Chalcedon, at Nicaea,
Jordanis, 165. 21 ; curses Julian, m,
117.
Jovian, Emperor (363-364), 119, 120. Maximin (Daza), Emperor (305-313),
Julian, Emperor (361-363), 40, 43, 46, 47, 48.
62 ; made Caesar, 83 ; Augustus, 102 ; Maximus, Bishop of Jerusalem, 57, 58 ;
his reign, 105-117; ascetic leanings, receives Athanasius, 73.
108, 123 ; education edict, 109, 137 Maximus, Bishop of Trier, 70.
exiles Athanasius, 114, 127; results. Meletius, Bishop of Antioch, 78 ; tran*
;;; ;;
176 Index.
lated from Sebastia, 103^ exiled, 104 Egypt, 86 ; commands against Goths
return, 113, 115; accepts Nicene 149.
creed, 120 ; exiled by Valens, 128 Secundus, Bishop of Ptolemais, at
restored, 129; 131, 134, 147, 151; death Nicaea, 21; refuses Nicene creed,
at Constantinople, 157. 38 consecrates Pistus, 64, 65.
;
Meletius, Bishop of Lycopolis, 19 Serapion, Bishop of Thmuis, 125.

Nicene settlement, 38. Silvanus the Frank, 81.
Modestus, renegade, 132, 133. Silvanus, Bishop of Tarsus, at Seleucia,
„ 95, 97. ^ . .
Nectarius, Bishop of Constantinople, Socrates, historian, 79.
158, 163, 164. Stephen, Bishop of Antioch, at Sardica,
Nepotianus, Emperor (350), 80. 70 deposed, 72.
;
Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, Syrianus, dux JEgypti^ expels Atha-

163. nasius, 86.
Origen, 9, 33, 76, 113 ; on the Holy Tertullian, 9.

Spirit, 124. Theodoric, 165.
Theodosius, Emperor (379-395), choice
Paphnutius, confessor, at Nica3a, 21 of and character, 154 first rescript, ;
at Tyre, 57, 58. 155 calls council of Constantinople,

;
Paul, Bishop of Neocsesarea, at Nicsea, 157 second rescript, 163.

;
21. Theodotus, Bishop of Nicopolis, 136.

Paul of Samosata, 33, 91. Theonas, Bishop of Marmarica, at
Paul of Thebes, legendary hermit, 123. Nicaea, 21 ; refuses Mcene creed, 38.
Paulinus, 51 consecrated by Lucifer,
; Theophilus the Goth, at Nicaea, 22.
114, 147; ignored at Constantinople, Theophilus the Indian, 120.
157J158. Theophronius, Bishop of Tyana, 69.
Paulinus, Bishop of Trier, 82, 83, 90. Theudelinda, Lombard queen, 166.
Pegasius, Bishop of Ilium, apostate, Timothy, Bishop of Alexandria, 157
108.
Pelagius, Bishop of Laodicea, 104. Ulfilas, death, 156, 164.
Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, 144, 152, Ursacius, Bishop of Singidunum, and
155- Sirmian manifesto, 88, 90, 91 forms ;
Philagrius, expels Athanasius, 64, 86. Homoean party, 92 ; at Ariminum, 95.

Phcebadius, Bishop of Agen, condemns
Sirmian manifesto, 90 ; at Ariminum, Valens, Emperor (364-378), 46 charac- ;
99, 101. ter, 121 church and state under, 122,

;
Photinus, Bishop of Sirmium, con- 144, 161 ; 124 ; Homcean policy, 126
demned, 73 deposed, 81 90, 91.
; ;
fresh exiles, 127; Procopian panic,
Pistus, an early Arian, 14 Arian ; 128 baptism and first Gothic war,
;
bishop of Alexandria, 64, 65. 129 overawed by Basil, 133 second

; ;
Poemenius, Anomcean bishop of Con- Gothic war, 149 death at Hadrian- ;
stantinople, 120. ople, 150.

Potammon, confessor, at Nicsea, 21 Valens, Bishop of Mursa, and Sirmian
at Tyre, 57, 58. manifesto, 88, 90, 91 forms Homoean ;
Proseresius, teacher of Julian, 109, 152. party, 92 ; at Ariminum, 95, 99, loi,
Procopius, revolt of, 128. 130.
Protasius, Bishop of Milan, 70. Valentinian, Emperor (364-375), char-
acter and policy, 121 Semiarian ;
Eestaces, Armenian bishop at Nicsea, deputation to, 128, 131 death, 146. ;
Vetranio, Emperor (350), 80, 81.

Victor, a Sarmatian, 132.
Sabellianism, its meaning, 9; rela- Victorinus, Marius, 109.
tion of Athanasius to, 12, 32 general ;
Vincent, Bishop of Capua, at Nicaea,
dislike of, 13 ; relation of Marcellus 20 at Sardica, 70 at Antioch, 72
; ;
to, 32. yields at Aries, 83.

Sasima, 153. Vitalis, ApoUinarian bishop of An-
Sebastian the Manichee, outrages in tioch, 141.
fM ^0^^li^z £!^!» JmiPC""*5wWH'-***^""ii'!ffl^1Li5*^^
Ww^^^^%
^g 4^^^^^^^^^^^^H
*^3M
K'Si.K:;.r3JKy:»
m^
DATE DUE
QPC ItoI
r; -.Ofo
FEBlOflK
^'nv 2 2 gjjiVlJsjf fW cr^

II
^ '30ttB
Dec 1 ^ ^^ <«ni^
OFC 1 1»9 ,
D 1997
i^V *'"3ri^«,
«^
PgC 10^1991 JU N 2 R 1999
JU^ i c isjj
AM 8 1991
PEC 2
r J'-:
1^f?lS mum- OliJl
>4FR0e
M ^? "^
mmlM ÔV 8 1993
:^m^^ mCTgU
IHTO
w to
8 2004
DEMCO 38-297

Gwatkin. The Arian Controversy. 1880.

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Gwatkin. The Arian Controversy. 1880.

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Gwatkin. The Arian Controversy. 1880.

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

^^

Brigham Young University !

!^^'« /viiv ills..

PROFESSOR MANDELL CREIGHTON.

THE AHIAN CONTROVERSY.

THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN OTHER LANDS. By the Rev.

LIST OF WORKS ....... PAGE

THE BEGINNINGS OF ARIANISM . . . . . I

THE COUNCIL OF NIC^A . . . . . . l6

THE EUSEBIAN REACTION 4

THE COUNCIL OF SARDICA . . . . . . 6l

THE VICTORY OF ARIANISM 8o

THE REIGN OF JULIAN I05

THE FALL OF ARIANISM . . . . . . I47

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 169

The following works will be found useful by students who

(A.) Original Authorities and Translations.

The Church Histories of "^Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret,

S chaff's Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers

(B.) Modern Writers.

Gibbon's Decline and Fall (prejudiced against the Christian

General Church Histories of Neander [translation in

The whole period is more or less covered by Kaye, Some

for 1864-65; Chastel, Destruction du Paganisme, 1850;

Wilde, Athanasius als Bestrijder der Arianen, 1868 (Dutch).

THE BEGINNINGS OF ARTAN ISM.

ceased to furnish party names. It sprang from per-

limited to the West, whereas Arianism ranged at one

for the very life of revelation. If the Reformation

coming to the surface as the gravest doubt of our

altering the word which was said to them of old time,

they knew their Heavenly Father in him they saw ;

their Saviour from this present world, and to him

they looked for the crown of life in that to come.

are one long hymn of triumphant hope and overflow-

(i) with the another generation to take up a record

was no better than the vulgar worships of the dead.

finity, there is nothing incredible in a real incarna-

might a God who seemed to refuse all answer to

men, why does he let Jbhem perish? The less he

it perish. The Eedeemer whom the Christians wor-

honour for its noble work of missions in that age of

hidden in eternal mystery. No creature can reveal

The Beginnings of A rianism. y

^ The Lord is rather sucli a minister than the conqueror

is not God ; and if he is a Son, he is not co-eternal

he is called God, it is in a lower and improper sense

a creature of the highest type. If he is not a sinner,

that it would cease to be true if its main idea were

that it is no proper sonship at all. In his irreverent

darkness, and in himis no light at all. If this be

sounding the deeps of Wisdom with the plummet of

than Tertullian was needed now to free them from

from Athanasius. Though his Be Incarnatione Verhi

creation of man in the image of God, whereby he

of deathwould not reach the inner corruption. Angels

is fallen, the wisdom of the world is turned to folly,

the oracles are dumb, the demons are confounded. The

The great had been raging but a