As they would have said,
Arianism
was
not all false, though it went too far.
not all false, though it went too far.
Cambridge Medieval History - v1 - Christian Roman Empire and Teutonic Kingdoms
Optatus, praefect of Constantinople in 404 was a pagan.
In
A. D. 467 Isokasios, the quaestor of Antioch, was accused of paganism.
Phocas took poison to prevent himself being obliged to embrace
Christianity as late as the time of Justinian. Many of the more famous
literary men—Eunapius, Zosimus, perhaps Procopius—were strongly
anti-Christian. Pamprepius, a Neoplatonist, famed for his power of
divination, an avowed pagan, drew a salary from the public revenues
and, along with distinguished generals like Marsus and Leontius, aided
Hlus in his revolt against the Emperor Zeno in 484. But by the
end and indeed throughout the whole of the fifth century thoughtful
paganism had become a sort of Quietism and exercised no influence on
the public life of the population. When Theodosius the Great succeeded
in uniting the orthodox Church with the Imperial administration, when
the great bishops were placed in possession of powers almost equal to
those of the governors of provinces, the Church became the guardian of
the rights of the people and the interpreter of its wishes. The Church,
in that age of bureaucracy, had a popular constitution; its clergy came
from the people; the services were in the language of the district; its
bishops were the natural and sympathetic leaders of the people; and
the whole population gradually became included within the Christian
Church,
Athens and Achaia long remained the last stronghold of paganism
.
in the East. The Eleusinian and other mysteries, the great heathen
festivals celebrated in Athens and in other cities of Hellas, attracted crowds
of strangers from all parts of the Empire. Religious beliefs, patriotic
associations, thoughts of material prosperity combined to make the
people of the towns and districts resolute to maintain and defend them.
So strong were the popular feelings that it would have led to riots, probably
to attempted insurrection, to enforce the Imperial legislation against
temples, sacrifices and the celebration of pagan ceremonies by night.
The emperors found it necessary either to exempt Hellas from the
operation of these laws altogether or to suffer their non-enforcement.
The Eleusinian Mysteries continued until the famous temple was
destroyed by the Goths under Alaric. The Olympic Games were
celebrated until the reign of Theodosius I (394). The great and
venerated statue of Minerva remained to protect the city of Athens.
until about 480. The great temple of Olympia remained open until its
destruction—whether by the Goths or by command of Theodosius II is
unknown.
In the fourth and fifth centuries Athens remained the most distin-
guished intellectual centre of the time. The teachers in its schools, for
the most part Neoplatonists who resolutely refused to accept Christianity,
maintained the old pagan traditions. Their influence was recognised
and feared. Theodosius II forbade private teachers to give public
C. MED. H. VOL. I. CH. IV.
8
## p. 114 (#144) ############################################
114
Survivals of Paganism in the West
[375–383
lectures under pain of banishment. Justinian, determined to crush the
last remains of paganism, confiscated the funds which furnished the
salaries of the professors, seized on the endowments of the Academy
of Plato, and closed the schools. The persecuted philosophers fled to
Persia to avoid imprisonment or death and remained there until King
Chosroes obtained from the Emperor a promise that they would be
unmolested if they returned to their homes.
In the West paganism shewed itself much stronger. It displayed its
greatest tenacity in Rome itself, and there were many reasons why it
should do so.
The old paganism had been closely connected with the
State and when it ceased to be the privileged religion it had no common
centre round which to rally. In Rome it was otherwise. Its stronghold
was the Senate, and all the elements of opposition to Christianity could
group themselves round that venerable assembly. The Senate had lost
its powers but its prestige remained, and the Emperors were chary of
attacking its dignity. It represented the ancient grandeur of Rome and
was the heir and defender of old Roman traditions. The city was full
of monuments of Rome's past greatness. They were, for the most part,
temples built to commemorate signal victories, and were visible signs of
the old religion under which Rome had grown to greatness. The Senate
took pride in preserving these witnesses of the past splendours of the
Imperial city and in seeing that the old ceremonial rites were duly
performed in spite of anti-pagan legislation. During the second half of
the fourth century and into the fifth, the pagan senators of Rome
flaunted their religion in the face of the world. They were at pains to
record on their family tombstones and other private monuments that
they had been hierophants of Hecate, had been initiated at Eleusis,
had been priests of Hercules, Attis, Isis or Mithras. In spite of the
edicts and efforts of the sons of Constantine and of successors of
Julian paganism was the state religion of Rome down to 383. Its
worship was performed according to the old rites. The days consecrated
to the old gods, and others added in honour of the newer Oriental
deities, were the Roman holidays. Every year on 27 January the
Praefectus urbi went down to Ostia and presided over "games” in honour
of Castor and Pollux. All these costly ceremonies, sacrifices and shows
were provided for out of the Imperial treasury. They were part of the
state religion, and the Senate were determined that they should be so
regarded. The Emperor might be a Christian, but he was neverthe-
less Pontifex Maximus, the official head of the old pagan religion,
and they believed themselves justified in performing its rites in his
name.
The Emperor Gratian delivered the first effectual blow against this
state of matters. He refused to assume the office of Pontifex Maximus,
probably in 375. In 382 he ordered that the great pagan ceremonies
and sacrifices should no longer be defrayed out of the Imperial treasury,
## p. 115 (#145) ############################################
394]
Paganisin in Literature
115
new ones.
and saw that he was obeyed. He took from the ancient priesthoods
of Rome the emoluments and immunities which they had enjoyed for
centuries. He removed from the Senate House the statue of Victory
and its altar on which incense had been duly burnt since the days of
Octavius. The last great battle for the official recognition of paganism
raged over these decrees. It lasted about ten years. Symmachus and
Ambrose, both representatives of old Roman patrician families, were the
leaders on the pagan and on the Christian side. The pagan party in
the Senate fought every inch of ground against the advancing tide of
Christianity. Its leading members enrolled themselves in the ancient
priesthoods and assumed the dignities of the sacra peregrina. They
provided for the sacrifices and other sacred rites at their own expense.
They spent their means in restoring ancient temples and in building
They had high hopes of a pagan reaction under Maximus,
who had defeated and slain Gratian; under the short-lived Emperor
Eugenius, who promised on his leaving Milan to meet Theodosius in
battle that, on his return, he would stable his horses in Christian basilicas.
The victory of Theodosius (394) on the Frigidus ended these hopes.
They revived again for the last time when Alaric made Attalus a rival
emperor to Honorius and when that ruler gathered round him counsellors
who were for the most part pagans professed or secret. But paganism
was not destined to obtain even a temporary victory. Perhaps, as Augus-
tine said, it only desired to die honourably. Its political defeats did
not quench the zeal of its lessening number of votaries. They engaged
in polemical contests with their opponents. They wrote books to prove
that the invasions of the barbarians and the weakness of the Empire were
punishments sent by the gods for the abandonment of the ancient
religion, and called forth such replies as the Historia adversus paganos
of Paulus Orosius and the De Civitate Dei of St Augustine.
The tenacity of paganism in the West was not confined to Rome.
The poems of Rutilius, the Homilies of Maximus of Turin and of
Martin of Bracara, the Epistles of St Augustine, the history of Gregory
of Tours and the series of facts collected in the Anecdota of Caspari, all
shew that paganism lingered long in Italy, Gaul, Spain and North
Africa, and that neither the persuasions of Christian preachers nor
the penalties threatened by the State were able to uproot it altogether.
The records of district ecclesiastical councils tell the same tale.
Literature may almost be called the last stronghold of paganism
for the cultivated classes all over the Empire. It is hard for us to
sympathise with the feelings of Christians in the fifth century for whom
cultivated paganism was a living reality possessed of a seductive power ;
who could not separate classical literature from the religious atmosphere in
which it had been produced ; and who regarded the masterpieces of the
Augustan age as beautiful horrors from which they might hardly escape.
Jerome had fears for his soul's salvation because he could not conquer
CH. I.
842
## p. 116 (#146) ############################################
116
Paganism in Literature
his admiration for Cicero's Latin prose, and Augustine shrank within
himself when he thought on his love for the poems of Vergil. Had not
his classical tastes driven him in youth from the uncouth latinity of the
copies of the Holy Scriptures when he tried to read them ? Christianity
had mastered their heart, mind and conscience, but it could not stifle
fond recollection nor tame the imagination. In some respects paganism
ruled over literature. The poet Claudian, whether he was heathen or
Christian, lived and moved and had his being in the world of pagan
thought. Sidonius Apollinaris could not string verses without endless
mythological allusions. Rutilius, a hater of Christians and of their
religion, adored with heart and soul the Dea Roma, Urbs Aeterna.
Perhaps the dread of the power which seemed to lurk in literature was
heightened by the courteous and kindly intercourse of Christians with
pagans during the years of the last struggle. The Church owed much to
the schools and was almost afraid of the debt. Basil and Gregory had
been fellow-students with Julian at Athens. Chrysostom had been a
pupil of Libanius, and acknowledged how much he owed to the great
anti-Christian leader. Synesius had sat in the class-room of Hypatia at
Alexandria, and never forgot some of the lessons he had learned there.
And paganism never shewed itself to greater advantage than during its
last years of heroic but unavailing struggle. Its leaders, whether in the
Schools of Athens or among the Senatorial party at Rome, were for the
most part men of pure lives with a high moral standard of conduct-
men who commanded esteem and respect. Immorality abounded, but
the pagan standard had become much higher. Christians and heathen
were full of mutual esteem for each other. The letters exchanged between
Symmachus and Ambrose reveal the intimacy in which the nobler pagans
and earnest-minded Christians lived. Even the caustic Jerome seems to
have a lurking but sincere affection for some of the leaders of the pagan
Senatorial party. It is curious too to find that many of those stalwart
supporters of the old religion of Rome were married to Christian wives,
and that their daughters were brought up as Christians while the sons
followed the father's faith. Jerome has drawn no more charming picture
than that of the old heathen pontiff Albinus, the leader of the anti-
Christian party in Rome, sitting in his study with his small grand-
daughter on his knees, listening to the child while she repeated to him a
Christian hymn she had just been taught by her mother. Theodosius II,
most theological of emperors, married the daughter of a pagan who had
taught philosophy in the Schools of Athens.
Yet however near pagans and Christians might approach each other
An life and standard of conduct, a great gulf separated them. In the
grey twilight of that fifth century, when men whose sight seemed
furthest looked forward to the coming of a night of chaos, the Christian
whisper of consolation was better than the pagan thought of destiny.
The difference went further than ideals. If it be strange to find practical
1
## p. 117 (#147) ############################################
The Triumph of Christianity
117
statesmen like Ambrose and Augustine, able to see that the pressing
need of the times was upright citizenship, defending that ascetic life
which threw aside all civic duties and responsibilities, surely it is
stranger still to find those pure-minded, noble pagans forced by religious
partizanship to be the zealous defenders of the bloody gladiatorial
spectacles and the untiring opponents of all attempts to better the
unhappy lot of actors and actresses condemned to life-long slavery in
a calling which then could not fail to be disgraceful. If the dying
world was to be requickened, it was not paganism that could bring
salvation. So it slowly, almost unconsciously, passed away before the
advancing tide of Christianity.
Means were found of reconciling many festivals to which the populace
was devoted, both in town and in country, with the prevailing Christian
sentiment. It was evil to fête Bacchus or Ceres, but there could be no
harm in rejoicing publicly over the vintage and the harvest. The
Lupercalia themselves were changed into a Christian festival by Pope
Gelasius. Many a tutelary deity became a patron saint. The people
retained their rustic processions, their feasts and their earthly delights.
The temples were left standing. They became public halls where the
citizens could meet, or exchanges where the merchants could congregate,
while the statues of the gods looked down from their niches undisturbed
and unheeded.
So when the Teutonic invasion seemed to overwhelm utterly the
ancient civilisation, the Church with its compact organisation was strong
enough to sustain itself amid the wreck of all things, and was able to
teach the barbarian conquerors to assimilate much of the culture, many
of the laws and institutions of the conquered, and in the end to rear a
new and Holy Roman Empire on the ruins of the old.
1
CEL. IV.
## p. 118 (#148) ############################################
118
CHAPTER V.
ARIANISM.
ARIANism finds its place in history as one of the four great contro-
versies which have done so much to shape the growth of Christian
thought. They all put the central question—das Wesen des Christen-
tums—but they put it from different points of view. For Gnosticism
-Is the Gospel history; or is it an edifying parable ? For Arianism
-Is it the revelation of a divine Son, which must be final; or is it
something short of this, which cannot be final ? For the Reformation
-Is its meaning to be declared by authority; or is it to be investigated
by sound learning ? The scientific (or more truly philosophical)
scepticism of our own time accepts the decision of the Reformation, but
raises afresh the issues of Gnosticism and Arianism as parts of the
deeper question, whether the reign of law leaves any freedom to either
God or man.
The Arian controversy arose on this wise. Both Greece and Israel
had long been tending in different ways to a conception of God as
purely transcendent. If the Stoics made him the immanent principle
of reason in the world, they only helped the forces which made for
transcendence by their utter failure to shew that the things in the world
are according to reason. As the Christians also accepted any current
beliefs which did not evidently contradict their doctrine of a historic
incarnation, all parties were so far generally agreed by the end of the
second century. In times of disillusion God seems far from men, and in
the deepening gloom of the declining Empire he seemed further off than
But a transcendent God needs some sort of mediation to connect
him with the world. There was no great difficulty in gathering this
mediation into the hand of a Logos, as was already done by Philo the
Jew in our Lord's time, and to assign him functions as of creation; and
of redemption, as Christians and Gnostics added. But then came the
question, Is the Logos fully divine, or not? If no, how can he create
—much less redeem ? If yes, then the purely transcendent God acts for
himself, and ceases to be transcendent. The dilemma was hopeless.
A transcendent God must have a mediator, and yet the mediator cannot
be either divine or undivine. Points were cleared up, as when Tertullian
shifted the stress of Christian thought from the Logos doctrine to the
ever.
## p. 119 (#149) ############################################
318–323]
Origin of Arianism
119
Sonship, and when Origen's theory of the eternal generation presented
the Sonship as a relation independent of time: but the main question
was as dark as ever at the opening of the fourth century. There could
be no solution till the pure transcendence was given up, and the Sonship
placed inside the divine nature: and this is what was done by Atha-
nasius. There was no other escape from the dilemma, that if the Son
is from the divine will, he cannot be more than a creature ; if not, God
is subject to necessity.
The controversy broke out about 318. Arius was no bustling
heresiarch, but a grave and blameless presbyter of Alexandria, and a
disciple of the learned Lucian of Antioch ; only–he could not under-
stand a metaphor. Must not a son be later than the father, and
inferior to him? He forgot first that a divine relation cannot be an
affair of time, then that even a human son is essentially equal to his
father. However, he concluded that the Son of God cannot be either
eternal or equal to the Father. On both grounds then he cannot be
more than a creature-no doubt a lofty creature, created before all time
to be the creator of the rest, but still only a creature who cannot reveal
the fulness of deity. “Begotten” can only mean created. He is not
truly God, nor even truly man, for the impossibility of combining two
finite spirits in one person made it necessary to maintain that the created
Son had nothing human but a body. Arius had no idea of starting a
heresy : his only aim was to give a commonsense answer to the pressing
difficulty, that if Christ is God, he is a second God. But if the churches
did worship two gods, nothing was gained by making one of them a
creature without ceasing to worship him, and something was lost by
tampering with the initial fact that Christ was true man. As Athanasius
put it, one who is not God cannot create-much less restore-while
one who is not man cannot atone for men. In seeking a via media
between a Christian and a Unitarian interpretation of the Gospel, Arius
managed to combine the difficulties of both without securing the ad-
vantages of either. If Christ is not truly God, the Christians are
.
,
convicted of idolatry, and if he is not truly man, there is no case for
Unitarianism. Arius is condemned both ways.
The dispute spread rapidly. At the first signs of opposition, Arius
appealed from the Church to the people. With commonsense doctrine
put into theological songs, he soon made a party at Alexandria; and
when driven thence to Caesarea, he secured more or less approval from
its learned bishop, the historian Eusebius, and from other conspicuous
bishops, including Constantine's chief Eastern adviser, Eusebius of
Nicomedia, who was another disciple of Lucian. As it appeared later,
few agreed with him; but there were many who saw no reason for
turning him out of the Church. So when Constantine became master of
the East in 323, he found a great controversy raging, which his own
interests compelled him to bring to some decision. With his view of
:
a
CH, P.
## p. 120 (#150) ############################################
120
The Council of Nicaea
(325
Christianity as essentially monotheism, his personal leaning might be to
the Arian side: but if he was too much of a politician to care greatly
how the question was decided, he could quite understand some of its
practical aspects. It was causing a stir in Egypt: and Egypt was not
only a specially important province, but also a specially troublesome
one—witness the eighty years of disturbance from Caracalla's massacre
in 216 to the suppression of Achillaeus in 296. More than this, Arianism
imperilled the imposing unity of the Church, and with it the support which
the Empire expected from an undivided Church. The State could deal
with an orderly confederation of churches, but not with miscellaneous
gatherings of schismatics. So he was quite sincere when he began by
writing to Arius and his bishop Alexander that they had managed to
quarrel over a trifle. The dispute was really childish, and most
distressing to himself.
This failing, the next step was to invite all the bishops of Christen-
dom to a council to be held at Nicaea in Bithynia (an auspicious name ! )
in the summer of 325, to settle all the outstanding questions which
troubled the Eastern churches. If only the bishops could be brought
to some decision, it was not likely to be disobeyed; and the State could
safely enforce it if it was. Local councils had long been held for the
decision of local questions, like Montanism or Paul of Samosata; but
a general council was a novelty. As it could fairly claim to speak for the
churches generally, it was soon invested with the authority of the ideal
Catholic Church; and from this it was an easy step to make its decisions
per se infallible. This step however was not taken for the present:
Athanasius in particular repudiates any such idea.
As we have already discussed the council as sealing the alliance of
Church and State, we have now to trace only its dealings with Arianism,
Constantine was resolved not only to settle the question of Arianism,
but to make all future controversies harmless; and this he proposed
to do by drawing up a test creed for bishops, and for bishops only.
This was a momentous change, for as yet no creed had any general
authority. The Lord's Baptismal Formula (Mt. xxviii. 19) was variously
expanded for the catechumen's profession at Baptism, and some churches
further expanded it into a syllabus for teaching, perhaps as long as our
Nicene Creed; but every church expanded it at its own discretion.
Now however bishops were to sign one creed everywhere. Whatever
was put into it was binding; whatever was left out remained an open
question. The council was to draw it up.
The bishops at Nicaea were not generally men of learning, though
Eusebius of Caesarea is hardly surpassed by Origen himself. But they
had among them statesmen like Hosius of Cordova, Eusebius of
Nicomedia, and the young deacon Athanasius from Alexandria ; and
men of modest parts were quite able to say whether Arianism was or
was not what they had spent their lives in teaching. On that question
## p. 121 (#151) ############################################
325]
The Creed of the Council
121
they had no doubt at all. The Arianizers mustered a score or so of bishops
out of about 300—two from Libya, four from the province of Asia,
perhaps four from Egypt, the rest thinly scattered over Syria from Mount
Taurus to the Jordan valley. There were none from Pontus or from any
part of Europe or Africa north of Mount Atlas. The first act of the
council was the summary rejection of an Arian creed presented to them.
The deity of Christ was not an open question in the churches. But was
it needful to put the condemnation of Arianism into the creed? Athana-
sius had probably but few decided supporters. Between them and the
Arianizers floated a great conservative centre party, whose chief aim
was to keep things nearly as they were. These men were not Arians,
for the open denial of the Lord's true deity shocked them: but neither
would they go with Athanasius. Arianism might be condemned in the
creed, if it could be done without going beyond the actual words of
Scripture, but not otherwise.
As they would have said, Arianism was
not all false, though it went too far. It maintained the Lord's pre-
mundane and real personality, and might be useful as against the
Sabellianism which reduced him to a temporary appearance of the
one God. Athanasius and Marcellus of Ancyra were mistaken in
thinking Arianism a pressing danger, when it had just been so decisively
rejected. Only five bishops now supported it. So the conservatives
hesitated. Then Eusebius of Caesarea presented the catechetical creed
of his own church, a simple document couched in Scripture language,
which left Arianism an open question. It was universally approved :
Athanasius could find nothing wrong in it, and the Arians were glad
now to escape a direct condemnation. For a moment, the matter
seemed settled.
Never was a more illogical conclusion. If the Lord's full deity is
false, they had done wrong in condemning Arianism: if true, it must
be vital. The one impossible course was to let every bishop teach or
disown it as he pleased. So Athanasius and his friends were on firm
ground when they insisted on revising the Caesarean creed to remove its
ambiguity. After much discussion, the following form was reached :
be
tore
71
+
:
We believe in one God, the Father all-Sovereign,
maker of all things, both visible and invisible :
And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of God,
begotten of the Father, an only-begotten-
that is, from the essence (ovola) of the Father-
God from God,
Light from light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
being of one essence (óuocúolov) with the Father;
by whom all things were made,
both things in heaven and things on earth ;
CH. V.
## p. 122 (#152) ############################################
122
The Creed of the Council
[325
who for us men and for our salvation came down and was made flesh,
was made man, suffered, and rose again the third day,
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',
or created or subject to moral change or alteration-
These doth the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematize.
It will be seen at once that the creed of the council differs a good
deal from the “ Nicene Creed ” now in use, which is a revision of the
catechetical creed of Jerusalem, made about 362? . That is not the
work of the Council of Constantinople in 381, but displaced the genuine
Nicene Creed partly by its merits, and partly through the influence of
the capital. However, it will be noted further that (apart from the
anathemas) the stress of the defence against Arianism rests on the two
clauses from the essence of the Father, and of one essence with the Father;
to which we may add that begotten, not made contrasts the words which
the Arians industriously confused, and that the clause was made man
meets the Arian denial that he took anything human but a body.
Now the essence (ovoia) of a thing is that by which it is—whatever we
are supposing it to be. It is not the general ground of all attributes,
but the particular ground of the particular supposition we are making.
As we are here supposing that the Father is God, the statement will
be first that the Son is from that essence by which the Father is God,
then that he shares the possession of it with the Father, so that the
two together allow no escape from the confession that the Son is as
truly divine and as fully divine as the Father. The existence of the Son
not a matter of will or of necessity, but belongs to the divine nature
Two generations later, under Semiarian influences, a similar result was
reached by taking essence in the sense of substance, as the common
ground of all the attributes, so that if the Son is of one essence with the
Father, he shares all the attributes of deity without exceptions.
The conservative centre struggled in vain. The decisive word
(óuocúolov, of one essence with) is not found in Scripture. But there
was no dispute about the Canon, so that the Arians had their own
1 été pas ovoias ñ útootáoews. The two words are used here as synonyms.
? A comparison of our “Nicene" Creed, first with the Jerusalem Creed, then
with that of the Council, shews that it is the Jerusalem Creed with a few clauses
from that of the Council, and differs entirely in structure from the latter. It even
omits the central clause εκ της ουσίας.
3 Mr Bethune Baker (Texts and Studies, vi. 1) endeavours to shew that
ómootolov was practically a Latin word, and underwent no change of meaning.
a
## p. 123 (#153) ############################################
325]
Significance of the Creed
123
interpretations for all words that are found in Scripture. Thus to, The
Son is eternal, they replied, “So are we, for We which live are alway
(2 Cor. iv. 11, delivered unto death). The bishops were gradually forced
back on the plain fact that no imaginable evasion of Scripture can be
forbidden without going outside Scripture for a word to define the true
sense: and ouoouocov was a word which could not be evaded. No
doubt it was a revolution to put such a word into the creed: but now
that the issue was fairly raised by Constantine's summons, they could
not leave the Lord's full deity an open question without ceasing to be
Christians. Given the unity of God and the worship of Christ—and
even the Arians agreed to this—there was no escape from the dilemma,
ópooúolov or creature-worship. So they yielded to necessity. Eusebius
of Caesarea signed with undisguised reluctance, though not against his con-
science. To his mind the creed was not untrue, though it was revolutionary
and dangerous, and he was only convinced against his will that it was
needed. The emperor's influence counted heavily in the last stage of
the debates—for Constantine was too shrewd to use it before the
question was nearly settled—and in the end only two bishops refused to
sign the creed. These he promptly sent into exile along with Arius
himself; and Eusebius of Nicomedia shared their fate a few months
later. If he had signed the creed at last, he had opposed it too long
and been too intimate with its enemies.
Let us now look beyond the stormy controversies of the next half
century to the broad issues of the council. The two fundamental
doctrines of Christianity are the deity of Christ and the unity of God.
Without the one, it merges in philosophy or Unitarianism ; without the
other, it sinks into polytheism. These two doctrines had never gone
very well together; and now the council reconciled them by giving up
the purely transcendental conception of God which brought them into
collision with each other and with the historical facts of the Incarnation.
The question was ripe for decision, as we see from the prevalence of such
an unthinkable conception as that of a secondary God: and if the
conservatives had been able to keep it unsettled, one of the two
fundamental doctrines must before long have overcome the other. Had
the unity of God prevailed, Christianity would have sunk into a very
ordinary sort of Deism, or might possibly have become something like
Islam, with Jesus for the prophet instead of Mahomet. But it is much
more likely that the deity of Christ would have effaced the unity of
God, and in effacing it have opened a wide door for polytheism, and
itself sunk to the level of heathen hero-worship. As a matter of history,
the churches did sink into polytheism for centuries, for common people
made no practical difference between the worship of saints and that of
the old gods. But because the Council of Nicaea had made it impossible
to think of Christ simply as one of the saints, the Reformers were able
to drop the saint-worship without falling into Deism.
CH. V.
## p. 124 (#154) ############################################
124
The Conservative Reaction
(325
Further, the recognition of eternal distinctions in the divine nature
establishes within that nature a social element before which despotism
or slavery in earth or heaven stands condemned. It makes illogical the
conception of God as inscrutable Power in whose acts we must not presume
to seek for reason--a conception common to Rome, Islam, and Geneva.
Yet more, if God himself is not a despot, but a constitutional sovereign
who rules by law and desires his subjects to see reason in his acts, this is
an ideal which must profoundly influence political thought. True, there
was little sign for centuries of any such influence. The Empire did not
grow less despotic, and such ideas of freedom as the Teutons brought in
did not come out of the Gospel: and if Islam and the Papacy lean to
despotism, the Unitarians have done honourable work in the cause of
liberty. But thoughts which colour the whole of life may have to work
for ages before they are clearly understood. The Latin Church of the
Middle Ages was not a mere apotheosis of power like Islam ; and when
Teutonic Europe broke away from Latin tutelage, the way was prepared
for the slow recognition of a higher ideal than power, and our own age
is beginning to see better the profound and far-reaching significance of
the Nicene decision, not for religion only, but for political, scientific,
and social thought.
The victory won at Nicaea was decisive. Arianism started vigorously,
and seemed for awhile the winning side; but the moment it faced the
council, it collapsed before the all but unanimous reprobation of the
Christian churches. Only two bishops from the edge of the African
desert ventured to deny that it contradicts essentials of the Gospel.
The decision was free, for Constantine would not risk another Donatist
controversy by putting pressure on the bishops before he could safely
crush the remnant; and it was permanent, for words deliberately put
into a creed cannot be removed without admitting that the objection to
them is valid on one ground or another. Thus Arianism was not only
condemned, but condemned in the most impressive way by the assembly
which comes nearer than any other in history to the stately dream of a
concrete catholic church speaking words of divine authority. No later
gathering could pretend to rival the august assembly where Christendom
had once for all pronounced the condemnation of Arianism, and no later
movements were able definitely to reverse its decision.
But if the conservatives (who were the mass of the Eastern bishops)
had signed the creed with a good conscience, they had no idea of making
it their working belief. They were not Arians—or they would not
have torn up the Arianizing creed at Nicaea ; but if they had been
hearty Nicenes, no influence of the Court could have kept up an Arianiz-
ing reaction for half a century. Christendom as a whole was neither
Arian nor Nicene, but conservative. If the East was not Nicene,
neither was it Arian, but conservative: and if the West was not Arian,
neither was it Nicene, but conservative also. But conservatism was not
## p. 125 (#155) ############################################
325–363]
Course of the Reaction
125
the same in East and West. Eastern conservatism inherited its doctrine
from the age of subordination theories, and dreaded the Nicene definition
as needless and dangerous. But the Westerns had no great interest in
the question and could scarcely even translate its technical terms into
Latin, and in any case their minds were much more legal than the
Greek; so they simply fell back on the authority of the Great Council.
Shortly, “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 mainly conservative. The Arians
were the tail of the party; they were not outcasts only because conservative
hesitation at the Nicene Creed kept open the back door of the Church
for them. For thirty years they had to shelter themselves behind the
conservatives. It was not till 357 that they ventured to have a policy
of their own; and then they broke up the anti-Nicene coalition at once.
The strength of Arianism was that while it claimed to be Christian, it
brought together and to their logical results all the elements of heathen-
ism in the current Christian thought. So the reaction rested not only
on conservative timidity, but on the heathen influences around. And
heathenism was still a living power in the world, strong in numbers, and
still stronger in the imposing memories of history. Christianity was still
an upstart on Caesar's throne, and no man could yet be sure that victory
would not sway back to the side of the immortal gods. So the Nicene
age was pre-eminently an age of waverers; and every waverer leaned to
Arianism as a via media between Christianity and heathenism. The
Court also leaned to Arianism. The genuine Arians indeed were not
more pliant than the Nicenes ; but conservatives are always open to
the influence of a Court, and the intriguers of the Court (and under
Constantius they were legion) found it their interest to unsettle the
Nicene decisions—in the name of conservatism forsooth. To put it
shortly, the Arians could have done nothing without a formidable mass
of conservative discontent behind them, and the conservatives would
have been equally helpless if the Court had not supplied them with the
means of action. The ultimate power lay with the majority, which was
at present conservative, while the initiative rested with the Court, which
leaned on Asia, so that the reaction went on as long as both were agreed
against the Nicene doctrine. It was suspended when Julian's policy
turned another way, became unreal when conservative alarm subsided,
and came to an end when Asia went over to the Nicenes.
The contest (325–381) falls into two main periods, separated by
the Council of Constantinople in 360, when the success of the reaction
seemed complete. We have also halts of importance at the return of
Athanasius in 346 and the death of Julian in 363.
The first period is a fight in the dark, as Socrates calls it, but upon
1 Studies of Arianism, p. 57.
CH. V.
## p. 126 (#156) ############################################
126
Course of the Reaction
[ 337-381
a
the whole the conservative coalition steadily gained ground till 357, in
spite of Nicene reactions after Constantine's death in 337 and the
detection of Stephen's plot in 344. First the Arianizing leaders had to
obtain their own restoration, then to depose the Nicene chiefs one after
another. By 341 the way was open for a series of attempts to replace
the Nicene Creed by something that would let in the Arians. But this
meant driving out the Nicenes, for they could not compromise without
complete surrender; and the West was with the Nicenes in refusing to
unsettle the creed. Western influence prevailed at Sardica in 343, and
Western intervention secured an uneasy truce which lasted till Constantius
became master of the West in 353. Meanwhile conservatism was
softening into a less hostile Semiarian form, while Arianism was growing
into a more offensive Anomoean doctrine. So the conservatives were
less interested when Constantius renewed the contest, and took alarm
at the open Arianism of the Sirmian manifesto in 357. This brought
things to a deadlock, and gave rise to a Homoean or professedly neutral
party supported by the Anomoeans and the Court. They were repulsed
at Seleucia by a new alliance of Semiarians and Nicenes, and at Arimi-
num by the conservative West; but their command of the Court enabled
them to exile the Semiarian leaders after the Council of Constantinople
in 360.
The second period of the reaction opens with a precarious Homoean
supremacy. It was grievously shaken at the outset by Julian's restora-
tion of the exiles. The Nicenes were making rapid progress, and might
have restored peace if Julian had lived longer. But Valens, with a
feebler character and a weaker position, returned to the policy of
Constantius. For the moment it may have been the best policy; but
the permanent forces were for the Nicenes, and their issue was only a
question of time. There were misunderstandings in abundance, but a
fairly united party hailed in Theodosius (379) an orthodox emperor from
the West. The Arians were first put out of the churches, then formally
condemned by the Council of Constantinople in 381. Henceforth
Arianism ceased to be a power except among its Teutonic converts. Now
we return to the morrow of the great council.
When the bishops returned home, they took up their controversies
just where the summons to the council had interrupted them. The
creed was signed and done with, and we hear no more of it. Yet both
sides had learned caution at Nicaea. Marcellus disavowed Sabellianism
and Eusebius avoided Arianism, and even directly controverted some of
its main positions. Before long however a party was formed against
the council. Its leader was Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had returned
from exile and recovered his influence at Court. Round him gathered
the bishops of the school of Lucian, and round these again all sorts
of malcontents. The conservatives in particular gave extensive help.
Charges of heresy against the Nicene chiefs were sometimes more than
## p. 127 (#157) ############################################
297–335]
Marcellus and Athanasius
127
plausible. Marcellus was practically Sabellian, and Athanasius at least
refused to disavow him. Some even of the darker charges may have
had truth in them, or at least a semblance of truth.
So in the next few years we have a series of depositions of Nicene
leaders. By 335 the Church was fairly cleared of all but the two chief
of them, Marcellus of Ancyra, and Athanasius of Alexandria (since 328).
Marcellus was already in middle life when he refuted the Arians at
Nicaea ; and in a diocese full of the strife and debate of endless Gaulish
sects and superstitions he had learned that the Gospel is wider than
Greek philosophy, and that simpler forms may better suit a rude flock.
So his system is an appeal from Origen to St John. He begins with the
Logos as impersonal —as at once the thinking principle which is in God
and the active creating principle which comes forth from God, and yet
remains with God. Thus the Logos came forth from the Father for the
work of creation, and in the fulness of time descended into human flesh,
becoming the Son of God in becoming the Son of Man. Only in virtue
of this humiliating separation did the Logos acquire personality for a
time: but when the work is done, the human flesh will be thrown aside,
and the Logos will return to the Father and be immanent and imper-
sonal as before. Marcellus has got away from Arianism as far as he
can: but he is involved in much the same difficulties. If for example
the idea of an eternal Son is polytheistic, nothing is gained by trans-
ferring the eternity to an impersonal Logos ; and if the work of creation
is unworthy of God, it matters little whether it is delegated to a created
Son or to a transitory Logos. Marcellus misses as completely as Arius
the Christian conception of the Incarnation.
Then they turned to a greater than Marcellus. Athanasius was a
Greek by birth and education ; Greek also in subtle thought and philo-
sophic insight, in oratorical power and skilful statesmanship. Of Coptic
influence he scarcely shows a sign. His very style is clear and simple,
without a trace of Egyptian involution and obscurity. Athanasius was
born about 297, so that he must have well remembered the last years of
the Great Persecution, which lasted till 313. He may have been a
lawyer for a short time, and seems to have known Latin; but his main
training was Greek and scriptural. As a man of learning or a skilful
party-leader Athanasius was not beyond the reach of rivals. But he
was more than this. His whole spirit is lighted up with vivid faith in
the reality and eternal meaning of the Incarnation. His small work
de Incarnatione, written before the rise of Arianism, ranks with the
Epistle to Diognetus as the most brilliant pamphlet of early Christian
times. Even there he rises far above the level of Arianism and Sabel-
lianism; and throughout his long career we catch glimpses of a spiritual
depth which few of his contemporaries could reach. “And Athanasius
was before all things a man whose life was consecrated to a single purpose.
Through five exiles and fifty years of controversy he stood in defence
а
CH. V.
## p. 128 (#158) ############################################
128
Death of Constantine
(335–340
of the great council. The care of many churches rested on him, the
pertinacity of many enemies wore out his life ; yet he is never soured
but for a moment by the atrocious treachery of 356. At the first gleam
of hope he is himself again, full of brotherly consideration and respectful
sympathy for old enemies returning to a better mind. Even Gibbon is
awed for once before “the immortal name of Athanasius. "
Marcellus had fairly exposed himself to a doctrinal attack, but
against Athanasius the most convenient charge was that of episcopal
tyranny. In 335 the Eastern bishops gathered to Jerusalem to dedicate
the splendid church which Constantine had built on Golgotha. First
however a synod was held at Tyre to restore peace in Egypt. The
Eusebians had the upper hand, and they used their power shamelessly.
Scandal succeeded scandal, till the iniquity culminated in the despatch
of an openly partizan commission (including two young Pannonian
bishops, Ursacius and Valens) to get up evidence in Egypt. Moderate
men protested, and Athanasius took ship for Constantinople. The
council condemned him by default and the condemnation was repeated at
Jerusalem, where also proceedings were commenced against Marcellus.
They also restored Arius; but his actual reception was prevented by his
sudden death the evening before the day appointed. Meanwhile Athana-
sius had appealed to Constantine in person, who summoned the bishops
at once to Constantinople. They dropped the charges of sacrilege
and tyranny, and brought forward a new charge of political intrigue.
Athanasius was allowed no reply, but sent into exile at Trier in Gaul,
where he was honourably received by the younger Constantine. The
emperor seems as usual to have been aiming at peace and unity.
Athanasius was evidently a centre of disturbance, and the Asiatic
bishops disliked him: he was therefore best kept out of the way
for
the present.
Constantine died 22 May 337, and his sons at once restored the
exiles. Presently things settled down in 340 with the second son Con-
stantius master of the East, and Constans the youngest holding the
three Western praefectures. So Eusebian intrigues were soon resumed.
Constantius was essentially a little man, weak and vain, easy-tempered
and suspicious. He had also a taste for church matters, and without
ever being a genuine Arian, he hated first the Nicene Council, and then
Athanasius personally. The intriguers could scarcely have desired a
better tool.
They began by raising troubles at Alexandria, and deposing Athana-
sius afresh (late in 338) for having allowed the civil power to restore
him. In Lent 339 Athanasius was expelled, and Gregory of Cappadocia
installed by military violence in his place. The ejected bishops-
Athanasius, Marcellus and others—fled to Rome. Bishop Julius at
once took up the high tone of impartiality which became an arbiter of
Christendom. He received the fugitives with a decent reserve, and
1
1
## p. 129 (#159) ############################################
340–343]
Council of the Dedication
129
a
a
invited the Easterns to the council they had asked him to hold. After
long delay, it was plain that they did not mean to come; so a council of
fifty bishops met at Rome in the autumn of 340, by which Athanasius
and Marcellus were acquitted. As Julius reported to the Easterns, the
charges against Athanasius were inconsistent with each other and con-
tradicted by evidence from Egypt, and the proceedings at Tyre were a
travesty of justice. It was unreasonable to insist on its condemnation
of Athanasius as final. Even the great council of Nicaea had decided
(and not without the will of God) that the acts of one council might be
revised by another: and in any case Nicaea was better than Tyre. As
for Marcellus, he had denied the charge of heresy and presented a sound
confession of his faith (our own Apostles' Creed, very nearly) and the
Roman legates at Nicaea had borne honourable witness to the part he
had taken in the council. If they had complaints against Athanasius,
they should not have neglected the old custom of writing first to Rome,
that a legitimate decision might issue from the apostolic see.
The Eusebians replied in the summer of 341, when some ninety
bishops met to consecrate the Golden Church of Constantine at Antioch.
Hence it is called the Council of the Dedication. Like the Nicene, it
seems to have been in the main conservative; but the active minority
was Arianizing, not Athanasian; and it was not quite so successful.
The bishops began as at Nicaea by rejecting an Arian creed. They next
approved a creed of a conservative sort, said to be the work of Lucian
of Antioch, the teacher of Arius. The decisive clause however was
rather Nicene than conservative. It declared the Son “morally un-
changeable, the unvarying image of the deity and essence of the Father.
A. D. 467 Isokasios, the quaestor of Antioch, was accused of paganism.
Phocas took poison to prevent himself being obliged to embrace
Christianity as late as the time of Justinian. Many of the more famous
literary men—Eunapius, Zosimus, perhaps Procopius—were strongly
anti-Christian. Pamprepius, a Neoplatonist, famed for his power of
divination, an avowed pagan, drew a salary from the public revenues
and, along with distinguished generals like Marsus and Leontius, aided
Hlus in his revolt against the Emperor Zeno in 484. But by the
end and indeed throughout the whole of the fifth century thoughtful
paganism had become a sort of Quietism and exercised no influence on
the public life of the population. When Theodosius the Great succeeded
in uniting the orthodox Church with the Imperial administration, when
the great bishops were placed in possession of powers almost equal to
those of the governors of provinces, the Church became the guardian of
the rights of the people and the interpreter of its wishes. The Church,
in that age of bureaucracy, had a popular constitution; its clergy came
from the people; the services were in the language of the district; its
bishops were the natural and sympathetic leaders of the people; and
the whole population gradually became included within the Christian
Church,
Athens and Achaia long remained the last stronghold of paganism
.
in the East. The Eleusinian and other mysteries, the great heathen
festivals celebrated in Athens and in other cities of Hellas, attracted crowds
of strangers from all parts of the Empire. Religious beliefs, patriotic
associations, thoughts of material prosperity combined to make the
people of the towns and districts resolute to maintain and defend them.
So strong were the popular feelings that it would have led to riots, probably
to attempted insurrection, to enforce the Imperial legislation against
temples, sacrifices and the celebration of pagan ceremonies by night.
The emperors found it necessary either to exempt Hellas from the
operation of these laws altogether or to suffer their non-enforcement.
The Eleusinian Mysteries continued until the famous temple was
destroyed by the Goths under Alaric. The Olympic Games were
celebrated until the reign of Theodosius I (394). The great and
venerated statue of Minerva remained to protect the city of Athens.
until about 480. The great temple of Olympia remained open until its
destruction—whether by the Goths or by command of Theodosius II is
unknown.
In the fourth and fifth centuries Athens remained the most distin-
guished intellectual centre of the time. The teachers in its schools, for
the most part Neoplatonists who resolutely refused to accept Christianity,
maintained the old pagan traditions. Their influence was recognised
and feared. Theodosius II forbade private teachers to give public
C. MED. H. VOL. I. CH. IV.
8
## p. 114 (#144) ############################################
114
Survivals of Paganism in the West
[375–383
lectures under pain of banishment. Justinian, determined to crush the
last remains of paganism, confiscated the funds which furnished the
salaries of the professors, seized on the endowments of the Academy
of Plato, and closed the schools. The persecuted philosophers fled to
Persia to avoid imprisonment or death and remained there until King
Chosroes obtained from the Emperor a promise that they would be
unmolested if they returned to their homes.
In the West paganism shewed itself much stronger. It displayed its
greatest tenacity in Rome itself, and there were many reasons why it
should do so.
The old paganism had been closely connected with the
State and when it ceased to be the privileged religion it had no common
centre round which to rally. In Rome it was otherwise. Its stronghold
was the Senate, and all the elements of opposition to Christianity could
group themselves round that venerable assembly. The Senate had lost
its powers but its prestige remained, and the Emperors were chary of
attacking its dignity. It represented the ancient grandeur of Rome and
was the heir and defender of old Roman traditions. The city was full
of monuments of Rome's past greatness. They were, for the most part,
temples built to commemorate signal victories, and were visible signs of
the old religion under which Rome had grown to greatness. The Senate
took pride in preserving these witnesses of the past splendours of the
Imperial city and in seeing that the old ceremonial rites were duly
performed in spite of anti-pagan legislation. During the second half of
the fourth century and into the fifth, the pagan senators of Rome
flaunted their religion in the face of the world. They were at pains to
record on their family tombstones and other private monuments that
they had been hierophants of Hecate, had been initiated at Eleusis,
had been priests of Hercules, Attis, Isis or Mithras. In spite of the
edicts and efforts of the sons of Constantine and of successors of
Julian paganism was the state religion of Rome down to 383. Its
worship was performed according to the old rites. The days consecrated
to the old gods, and others added in honour of the newer Oriental
deities, were the Roman holidays. Every year on 27 January the
Praefectus urbi went down to Ostia and presided over "games” in honour
of Castor and Pollux. All these costly ceremonies, sacrifices and shows
were provided for out of the Imperial treasury. They were part of the
state religion, and the Senate were determined that they should be so
regarded. The Emperor might be a Christian, but he was neverthe-
less Pontifex Maximus, the official head of the old pagan religion,
and they believed themselves justified in performing its rites in his
name.
The Emperor Gratian delivered the first effectual blow against this
state of matters. He refused to assume the office of Pontifex Maximus,
probably in 375. In 382 he ordered that the great pagan ceremonies
and sacrifices should no longer be defrayed out of the Imperial treasury,
## p. 115 (#145) ############################################
394]
Paganisin in Literature
115
new ones.
and saw that he was obeyed. He took from the ancient priesthoods
of Rome the emoluments and immunities which they had enjoyed for
centuries. He removed from the Senate House the statue of Victory
and its altar on which incense had been duly burnt since the days of
Octavius. The last great battle for the official recognition of paganism
raged over these decrees. It lasted about ten years. Symmachus and
Ambrose, both representatives of old Roman patrician families, were the
leaders on the pagan and on the Christian side. The pagan party in
the Senate fought every inch of ground against the advancing tide of
Christianity. Its leading members enrolled themselves in the ancient
priesthoods and assumed the dignities of the sacra peregrina. They
provided for the sacrifices and other sacred rites at their own expense.
They spent their means in restoring ancient temples and in building
They had high hopes of a pagan reaction under Maximus,
who had defeated and slain Gratian; under the short-lived Emperor
Eugenius, who promised on his leaving Milan to meet Theodosius in
battle that, on his return, he would stable his horses in Christian basilicas.
The victory of Theodosius (394) on the Frigidus ended these hopes.
They revived again for the last time when Alaric made Attalus a rival
emperor to Honorius and when that ruler gathered round him counsellors
who were for the most part pagans professed or secret. But paganism
was not destined to obtain even a temporary victory. Perhaps, as Augus-
tine said, it only desired to die honourably. Its political defeats did
not quench the zeal of its lessening number of votaries. They engaged
in polemical contests with their opponents. They wrote books to prove
that the invasions of the barbarians and the weakness of the Empire were
punishments sent by the gods for the abandonment of the ancient
religion, and called forth such replies as the Historia adversus paganos
of Paulus Orosius and the De Civitate Dei of St Augustine.
The tenacity of paganism in the West was not confined to Rome.
The poems of Rutilius, the Homilies of Maximus of Turin and of
Martin of Bracara, the Epistles of St Augustine, the history of Gregory
of Tours and the series of facts collected in the Anecdota of Caspari, all
shew that paganism lingered long in Italy, Gaul, Spain and North
Africa, and that neither the persuasions of Christian preachers nor
the penalties threatened by the State were able to uproot it altogether.
The records of district ecclesiastical councils tell the same tale.
Literature may almost be called the last stronghold of paganism
for the cultivated classes all over the Empire. It is hard for us to
sympathise with the feelings of Christians in the fifth century for whom
cultivated paganism was a living reality possessed of a seductive power ;
who could not separate classical literature from the religious atmosphere in
which it had been produced ; and who regarded the masterpieces of the
Augustan age as beautiful horrors from which they might hardly escape.
Jerome had fears for his soul's salvation because he could not conquer
CH. I.
842
## p. 116 (#146) ############################################
116
Paganism in Literature
his admiration for Cicero's Latin prose, and Augustine shrank within
himself when he thought on his love for the poems of Vergil. Had not
his classical tastes driven him in youth from the uncouth latinity of the
copies of the Holy Scriptures when he tried to read them ? Christianity
had mastered their heart, mind and conscience, but it could not stifle
fond recollection nor tame the imagination. In some respects paganism
ruled over literature. The poet Claudian, whether he was heathen or
Christian, lived and moved and had his being in the world of pagan
thought. Sidonius Apollinaris could not string verses without endless
mythological allusions. Rutilius, a hater of Christians and of their
religion, adored with heart and soul the Dea Roma, Urbs Aeterna.
Perhaps the dread of the power which seemed to lurk in literature was
heightened by the courteous and kindly intercourse of Christians with
pagans during the years of the last struggle. The Church owed much to
the schools and was almost afraid of the debt. Basil and Gregory had
been fellow-students with Julian at Athens. Chrysostom had been a
pupil of Libanius, and acknowledged how much he owed to the great
anti-Christian leader. Synesius had sat in the class-room of Hypatia at
Alexandria, and never forgot some of the lessons he had learned there.
And paganism never shewed itself to greater advantage than during its
last years of heroic but unavailing struggle. Its leaders, whether in the
Schools of Athens or among the Senatorial party at Rome, were for the
most part men of pure lives with a high moral standard of conduct-
men who commanded esteem and respect. Immorality abounded, but
the pagan standard had become much higher. Christians and heathen
were full of mutual esteem for each other. The letters exchanged between
Symmachus and Ambrose reveal the intimacy in which the nobler pagans
and earnest-minded Christians lived. Even the caustic Jerome seems to
have a lurking but sincere affection for some of the leaders of the pagan
Senatorial party. It is curious too to find that many of those stalwart
supporters of the old religion of Rome were married to Christian wives,
and that their daughters were brought up as Christians while the sons
followed the father's faith. Jerome has drawn no more charming picture
than that of the old heathen pontiff Albinus, the leader of the anti-
Christian party in Rome, sitting in his study with his small grand-
daughter on his knees, listening to the child while she repeated to him a
Christian hymn she had just been taught by her mother. Theodosius II,
most theological of emperors, married the daughter of a pagan who had
taught philosophy in the Schools of Athens.
Yet however near pagans and Christians might approach each other
An life and standard of conduct, a great gulf separated them. In the
grey twilight of that fifth century, when men whose sight seemed
furthest looked forward to the coming of a night of chaos, the Christian
whisper of consolation was better than the pagan thought of destiny.
The difference went further than ideals. If it be strange to find practical
1
## p. 117 (#147) ############################################
The Triumph of Christianity
117
statesmen like Ambrose and Augustine, able to see that the pressing
need of the times was upright citizenship, defending that ascetic life
which threw aside all civic duties and responsibilities, surely it is
stranger still to find those pure-minded, noble pagans forced by religious
partizanship to be the zealous defenders of the bloody gladiatorial
spectacles and the untiring opponents of all attempts to better the
unhappy lot of actors and actresses condemned to life-long slavery in
a calling which then could not fail to be disgraceful. If the dying
world was to be requickened, it was not paganism that could bring
salvation. So it slowly, almost unconsciously, passed away before the
advancing tide of Christianity.
Means were found of reconciling many festivals to which the populace
was devoted, both in town and in country, with the prevailing Christian
sentiment. It was evil to fête Bacchus or Ceres, but there could be no
harm in rejoicing publicly over the vintage and the harvest. The
Lupercalia themselves were changed into a Christian festival by Pope
Gelasius. Many a tutelary deity became a patron saint. The people
retained their rustic processions, their feasts and their earthly delights.
The temples were left standing. They became public halls where the
citizens could meet, or exchanges where the merchants could congregate,
while the statues of the gods looked down from their niches undisturbed
and unheeded.
So when the Teutonic invasion seemed to overwhelm utterly the
ancient civilisation, the Church with its compact organisation was strong
enough to sustain itself amid the wreck of all things, and was able to
teach the barbarian conquerors to assimilate much of the culture, many
of the laws and institutions of the conquered, and in the end to rear a
new and Holy Roman Empire on the ruins of the old.
1
CEL. IV.
## p. 118 (#148) ############################################
118
CHAPTER V.
ARIANISM.
ARIANism finds its place in history as one of the four great contro-
versies which have done so much to shape the growth of Christian
thought. They all put the central question—das Wesen des Christen-
tums—but they put it from different points of view. For Gnosticism
-Is the Gospel history; or is it an edifying parable ? For Arianism
-Is it the revelation of a divine Son, which must be final; or is it
something short of this, which cannot be final ? For the Reformation
-Is its meaning to be declared by authority; or is it to be investigated
by sound learning ? The scientific (or more truly philosophical)
scepticism of our own time accepts the decision of the Reformation, but
raises afresh the issues of Gnosticism and Arianism as parts of the
deeper question, whether the reign of law leaves any freedom to either
God or man.
The Arian controversy arose on this wise. Both Greece and Israel
had long been tending in different ways to a conception of God as
purely transcendent. If the Stoics made him the immanent principle
of reason in the world, they only helped the forces which made for
transcendence by their utter failure to shew that the things in the world
are according to reason. As the Christians also accepted any current
beliefs which did not evidently contradict their doctrine of a historic
incarnation, all parties were so far generally agreed by the end of the
second century. In times of disillusion God seems far from men, and in
the deepening gloom of the declining Empire he seemed further off than
But a transcendent God needs some sort of mediation to connect
him with the world. There was no great difficulty in gathering this
mediation into the hand of a Logos, as was already done by Philo the
Jew in our Lord's time, and to assign him functions as of creation; and
of redemption, as Christians and Gnostics added. But then came the
question, Is the Logos fully divine, or not? If no, how can he create
—much less redeem ? If yes, then the purely transcendent God acts for
himself, and ceases to be transcendent. The dilemma was hopeless.
A transcendent God must have a mediator, and yet the mediator cannot
be either divine or undivine. Points were cleared up, as when Tertullian
shifted the stress of Christian thought from the Logos doctrine to the
ever.
## p. 119 (#149) ############################################
318–323]
Origin of Arianism
119
Sonship, and when Origen's theory of the eternal generation presented
the Sonship as a relation independent of time: but the main question
was as dark as ever at the opening of the fourth century. There could
be no solution till the pure transcendence was given up, and the Sonship
placed inside the divine nature: and this is what was done by Atha-
nasius. There was no other escape from the dilemma, that if the Son
is from the divine will, he cannot be more than a creature ; if not, God
is subject to necessity.
The controversy broke out about 318. Arius was no bustling
heresiarch, but a grave and blameless presbyter of Alexandria, and a
disciple of the learned Lucian of Antioch ; only–he could not under-
stand a metaphor. Must not a son be later than the father, and
inferior to him? He forgot first that a divine relation cannot be an
affair of time, then that even a human son is essentially equal to his
father. However, he concluded that the Son of God cannot be either
eternal or equal to the Father. On both grounds then he cannot be
more than a creature-no doubt a lofty creature, created before all time
to be the creator of the rest, but still only a creature who cannot reveal
the fulness of deity. “Begotten” can only mean created. He is not
truly God, nor even truly man, for the impossibility of combining two
finite spirits in one person made it necessary to maintain that the created
Son had nothing human but a body. Arius had no idea of starting a
heresy : his only aim was to give a commonsense answer to the pressing
difficulty, that if Christ is God, he is a second God. But if the churches
did worship two gods, nothing was gained by making one of them a
creature without ceasing to worship him, and something was lost by
tampering with the initial fact that Christ was true man. As Athanasius
put it, one who is not God cannot create-much less restore-while
one who is not man cannot atone for men. In seeking a via media
between a Christian and a Unitarian interpretation of the Gospel, Arius
managed to combine the difficulties of both without securing the ad-
vantages of either. If Christ is not truly God, the Christians are
.
,
convicted of idolatry, and if he is not truly man, there is no case for
Unitarianism. Arius is condemned both ways.
The dispute spread rapidly. At the first signs of opposition, Arius
appealed from the Church to the people. With commonsense doctrine
put into theological songs, he soon made a party at Alexandria; and
when driven thence to Caesarea, he secured more or less approval from
its learned bishop, the historian Eusebius, and from other conspicuous
bishops, including Constantine's chief Eastern adviser, Eusebius of
Nicomedia, who was another disciple of Lucian. As it appeared later,
few agreed with him; but there were many who saw no reason for
turning him out of the Church. So when Constantine became master of
the East in 323, he found a great controversy raging, which his own
interests compelled him to bring to some decision. With his view of
:
a
CH, P.
## p. 120 (#150) ############################################
120
The Council of Nicaea
(325
Christianity as essentially monotheism, his personal leaning might be to
the Arian side: but if he was too much of a politician to care greatly
how the question was decided, he could quite understand some of its
practical aspects. It was causing a stir in Egypt: and Egypt was not
only a specially important province, but also a specially troublesome
one—witness the eighty years of disturbance from Caracalla's massacre
in 216 to the suppression of Achillaeus in 296. More than this, Arianism
imperilled the imposing unity of the Church, and with it the support which
the Empire expected from an undivided Church. The State could deal
with an orderly confederation of churches, but not with miscellaneous
gatherings of schismatics. So he was quite sincere when he began by
writing to Arius and his bishop Alexander that they had managed to
quarrel over a trifle. The dispute was really childish, and most
distressing to himself.
This failing, the next step was to invite all the bishops of Christen-
dom to a council to be held at Nicaea in Bithynia (an auspicious name ! )
in the summer of 325, to settle all the outstanding questions which
troubled the Eastern churches. If only the bishops could be brought
to some decision, it was not likely to be disobeyed; and the State could
safely enforce it if it was. Local councils had long been held for the
decision of local questions, like Montanism or Paul of Samosata; but
a general council was a novelty. As it could fairly claim to speak for the
churches generally, it was soon invested with the authority of the ideal
Catholic Church; and from this it was an easy step to make its decisions
per se infallible. This step however was not taken for the present:
Athanasius in particular repudiates any such idea.
As we have already discussed the council as sealing the alliance of
Church and State, we have now to trace only its dealings with Arianism,
Constantine was resolved not only to settle the question of Arianism,
but to make all future controversies harmless; and this he proposed
to do by drawing up a test creed for bishops, and for bishops only.
This was a momentous change, for as yet no creed had any general
authority. The Lord's Baptismal Formula (Mt. xxviii. 19) was variously
expanded for the catechumen's profession at Baptism, and some churches
further expanded it into a syllabus for teaching, perhaps as long as our
Nicene Creed; but every church expanded it at its own discretion.
Now however bishops were to sign one creed everywhere. Whatever
was put into it was binding; whatever was left out remained an open
question. The council was to draw it up.
The bishops at Nicaea were not generally men of learning, though
Eusebius of Caesarea is hardly surpassed by Origen himself. But they
had among them statesmen like Hosius of Cordova, Eusebius of
Nicomedia, and the young deacon Athanasius from Alexandria ; and
men of modest parts were quite able to say whether Arianism was or
was not what they had spent their lives in teaching. On that question
## p. 121 (#151) ############################################
325]
The Creed of the Council
121
they had no doubt at all. The Arianizers mustered a score or so of bishops
out of about 300—two from Libya, four from the province of Asia,
perhaps four from Egypt, the rest thinly scattered over Syria from Mount
Taurus to the Jordan valley. There were none from Pontus or from any
part of Europe or Africa north of Mount Atlas. The first act of the
council was the summary rejection of an Arian creed presented to them.
The deity of Christ was not an open question in the churches. But was
it needful to put the condemnation of Arianism into the creed? Athana-
sius had probably but few decided supporters. Between them and the
Arianizers floated a great conservative centre party, whose chief aim
was to keep things nearly as they were. These men were not Arians,
for the open denial of the Lord's true deity shocked them: but neither
would they go with Athanasius. Arianism might be condemned in the
creed, if it could be done without going beyond the actual words of
Scripture, but not otherwise.
As they would have said, Arianism was
not all false, though it went too far. It maintained the Lord's pre-
mundane and real personality, and might be useful as against the
Sabellianism which reduced him to a temporary appearance of the
one God. Athanasius and Marcellus of Ancyra were mistaken in
thinking Arianism a pressing danger, when it had just been so decisively
rejected. Only five bishops now supported it. So the conservatives
hesitated. Then Eusebius of Caesarea presented the catechetical creed
of his own church, a simple document couched in Scripture language,
which left Arianism an open question. It was universally approved :
Athanasius could find nothing wrong in it, and the Arians were glad
now to escape a direct condemnation. For a moment, the matter
seemed settled.
Never was a more illogical conclusion. If the Lord's full deity is
false, they had done wrong in condemning Arianism: if true, it must
be vital. The one impossible course was to let every bishop teach or
disown it as he pleased. So Athanasius and his friends were on firm
ground when they insisted on revising the Caesarean creed to remove its
ambiguity. After much discussion, the following form was reached :
be
tore
71
+
:
We believe in one God, the Father all-Sovereign,
maker of all things, both visible and invisible :
And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of God,
begotten of the Father, an only-begotten-
that is, from the essence (ovola) of the Father-
God from God,
Light from light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
being of one essence (óuocúolov) with the Father;
by whom all things were made,
both things in heaven and things on earth ;
CH. V.
## p. 122 (#152) ############################################
122
The Creed of the Council
[325
who for us men and for our salvation came down and was made flesh,
was made man, suffered, and rose again the third day,
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',
or created or subject to moral change or alteration-
These doth the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematize.
It will be seen at once that the creed of the council differs a good
deal from the “ Nicene Creed ” now in use, which is a revision of the
catechetical creed of Jerusalem, made about 362? . That is not the
work of the Council of Constantinople in 381, but displaced the genuine
Nicene Creed partly by its merits, and partly through the influence of
the capital. However, it will be noted further that (apart from the
anathemas) the stress of the defence against Arianism rests on the two
clauses from the essence of the Father, and of one essence with the Father;
to which we may add that begotten, not made contrasts the words which
the Arians industriously confused, and that the clause was made man
meets the Arian denial that he took anything human but a body.
Now the essence (ovoia) of a thing is that by which it is—whatever we
are supposing it to be. It is not the general ground of all attributes,
but the particular ground of the particular supposition we are making.
As we are here supposing that the Father is God, the statement will
be first that the Son is from that essence by which the Father is God,
then that he shares the possession of it with the Father, so that the
two together allow no escape from the confession that the Son is as
truly divine and as fully divine as the Father. The existence of the Son
not a matter of will or of necessity, but belongs to the divine nature
Two generations later, under Semiarian influences, a similar result was
reached by taking essence in the sense of substance, as the common
ground of all the attributes, so that if the Son is of one essence with the
Father, he shares all the attributes of deity without exceptions.
The conservative centre struggled in vain. The decisive word
(óuocúolov, of one essence with) is not found in Scripture. But there
was no dispute about the Canon, so that the Arians had their own
1 été pas ovoias ñ útootáoews. The two words are used here as synonyms.
? A comparison of our “Nicene" Creed, first with the Jerusalem Creed, then
with that of the Council, shews that it is the Jerusalem Creed with a few clauses
from that of the Council, and differs entirely in structure from the latter. It even
omits the central clause εκ της ουσίας.
3 Mr Bethune Baker (Texts and Studies, vi. 1) endeavours to shew that
ómootolov was practically a Latin word, and underwent no change of meaning.
a
## p. 123 (#153) ############################################
325]
Significance of the Creed
123
interpretations for all words that are found in Scripture. Thus to, The
Son is eternal, they replied, “So are we, for We which live are alway
(2 Cor. iv. 11, delivered unto death). The bishops were gradually forced
back on the plain fact that no imaginable evasion of Scripture can be
forbidden without going outside Scripture for a word to define the true
sense: and ouoouocov was a word which could not be evaded. No
doubt it was a revolution to put such a word into the creed: but now
that the issue was fairly raised by Constantine's summons, they could
not leave the Lord's full deity an open question without ceasing to be
Christians. Given the unity of God and the worship of Christ—and
even the Arians agreed to this—there was no escape from the dilemma,
ópooúolov or creature-worship. So they yielded to necessity. Eusebius
of Caesarea signed with undisguised reluctance, though not against his con-
science. To his mind the creed was not untrue, though it was revolutionary
and dangerous, and he was only convinced against his will that it was
needed. The emperor's influence counted heavily in the last stage of
the debates—for Constantine was too shrewd to use it before the
question was nearly settled—and in the end only two bishops refused to
sign the creed. These he promptly sent into exile along with Arius
himself; and Eusebius of Nicomedia shared their fate a few months
later. If he had signed the creed at last, he had opposed it too long
and been too intimate with its enemies.
Let us now look beyond the stormy controversies of the next half
century to the broad issues of the council. The two fundamental
doctrines of Christianity are the deity of Christ and the unity of God.
Without the one, it merges in philosophy or Unitarianism ; without the
other, it sinks into polytheism. These two doctrines had never gone
very well together; and now the council reconciled them by giving up
the purely transcendental conception of God which brought them into
collision with each other and with the historical facts of the Incarnation.
The question was ripe for decision, as we see from the prevalence of such
an unthinkable conception as that of a secondary God: and if the
conservatives had been able to keep it unsettled, one of the two
fundamental doctrines must before long have overcome the other. Had
the unity of God prevailed, Christianity would have sunk into a very
ordinary sort of Deism, or might possibly have become something like
Islam, with Jesus for the prophet instead of Mahomet. But it is much
more likely that the deity of Christ would have effaced the unity of
God, and in effacing it have opened a wide door for polytheism, and
itself sunk to the level of heathen hero-worship. As a matter of history,
the churches did sink into polytheism for centuries, for common people
made no practical difference between the worship of saints and that of
the old gods. But because the Council of Nicaea had made it impossible
to think of Christ simply as one of the saints, the Reformers were able
to drop the saint-worship without falling into Deism.
CH. V.
## p. 124 (#154) ############################################
124
The Conservative Reaction
(325
Further, the recognition of eternal distinctions in the divine nature
establishes within that nature a social element before which despotism
or slavery in earth or heaven stands condemned. It makes illogical the
conception of God as inscrutable Power in whose acts we must not presume
to seek for reason--a conception common to Rome, Islam, and Geneva.
Yet more, if God himself is not a despot, but a constitutional sovereign
who rules by law and desires his subjects to see reason in his acts, this is
an ideal which must profoundly influence political thought. True, there
was little sign for centuries of any such influence. The Empire did not
grow less despotic, and such ideas of freedom as the Teutons brought in
did not come out of the Gospel: and if Islam and the Papacy lean to
despotism, the Unitarians have done honourable work in the cause of
liberty. But thoughts which colour the whole of life may have to work
for ages before they are clearly understood. The Latin Church of the
Middle Ages was not a mere apotheosis of power like Islam ; and when
Teutonic Europe broke away from Latin tutelage, the way was prepared
for the slow recognition of a higher ideal than power, and our own age
is beginning to see better the profound and far-reaching significance of
the Nicene decision, not for religion only, but for political, scientific,
and social thought.
The victory won at Nicaea was decisive. Arianism started vigorously,
and seemed for awhile the winning side; but the moment it faced the
council, it collapsed before the all but unanimous reprobation of the
Christian churches. Only two bishops from the edge of the African
desert ventured to deny that it contradicts essentials of the Gospel.
The decision was free, for Constantine would not risk another Donatist
controversy by putting pressure on the bishops before he could safely
crush the remnant; and it was permanent, for words deliberately put
into a creed cannot be removed without admitting that the objection to
them is valid on one ground or another. Thus Arianism was not only
condemned, but condemned in the most impressive way by the assembly
which comes nearer than any other in history to the stately dream of a
concrete catholic church speaking words of divine authority. No later
gathering could pretend to rival the august assembly where Christendom
had once for all pronounced the condemnation of Arianism, and no later
movements were able definitely to reverse its decision.
But if the conservatives (who were the mass of the Eastern bishops)
had signed the creed with a good conscience, they had no idea of making
it their working belief. They were not Arians—or they would not
have torn up the Arianizing creed at Nicaea ; but if they had been
hearty Nicenes, no influence of the Court could have kept up an Arianiz-
ing reaction for half a century. Christendom as a whole was neither
Arian nor Nicene, but conservative. If the East was not Nicene,
neither was it Arian, but conservative: and if the West was not Arian,
neither was it Nicene, but conservative also. But conservatism was not
## p. 125 (#155) ############################################
325–363]
Course of the Reaction
125
the same in East and West. Eastern conservatism inherited its doctrine
from the age of subordination theories, and dreaded the Nicene definition
as needless and dangerous. But the Westerns had no great interest in
the question and could scarcely even translate its technical terms into
Latin, and in any case their minds were much more legal than the
Greek; so they simply fell back on the authority of the Great Council.
Shortly, “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 mainly conservative. The Arians
were the tail of the party; they were not outcasts only because conservative
hesitation at the Nicene Creed kept open the back door of the Church
for them. For thirty years they had to shelter themselves behind the
conservatives. It was not till 357 that they ventured to have a policy
of their own; and then they broke up the anti-Nicene coalition at once.
The strength of Arianism was that while it claimed to be Christian, it
brought together and to their logical results all the elements of heathen-
ism in the current Christian thought. So the reaction rested not only
on conservative timidity, but on the heathen influences around. And
heathenism was still a living power in the world, strong in numbers, and
still stronger in the imposing memories of history. Christianity was still
an upstart on Caesar's throne, and no man could yet be sure that victory
would not sway back to the side of the immortal gods. So the Nicene
age was pre-eminently an age of waverers; and every waverer leaned to
Arianism as a via media between Christianity and heathenism. The
Court also leaned to Arianism. The genuine Arians indeed were not
more pliant than the Nicenes ; but conservatives are always open to
the influence of a Court, and the intriguers of the Court (and under
Constantius they were legion) found it their interest to unsettle the
Nicene decisions—in the name of conservatism forsooth. To put it
shortly, the Arians could have done nothing without a formidable mass
of conservative discontent behind them, and the conservatives would
have been equally helpless if the Court had not supplied them with the
means of action. The ultimate power lay with the majority, which was
at present conservative, while the initiative rested with the Court, which
leaned on Asia, so that the reaction went on as long as both were agreed
against the Nicene doctrine. It was suspended when Julian's policy
turned another way, became unreal when conservative alarm subsided,
and came to an end when Asia went over to the Nicenes.
The contest (325–381) falls into two main periods, separated by
the Council of Constantinople in 360, when the success of the reaction
seemed complete. We have also halts of importance at the return of
Athanasius in 346 and the death of Julian in 363.
The first period is a fight in the dark, as Socrates calls it, but upon
1 Studies of Arianism, p. 57.
CH. V.
## p. 126 (#156) ############################################
126
Course of the Reaction
[ 337-381
a
the whole the conservative coalition steadily gained ground till 357, in
spite of Nicene reactions after Constantine's death in 337 and the
detection of Stephen's plot in 344. First the Arianizing leaders had to
obtain their own restoration, then to depose the Nicene chiefs one after
another. By 341 the way was open for a series of attempts to replace
the Nicene Creed by something that would let in the Arians. But this
meant driving out the Nicenes, for they could not compromise without
complete surrender; and the West was with the Nicenes in refusing to
unsettle the creed. Western influence prevailed at Sardica in 343, and
Western intervention secured an uneasy truce which lasted till Constantius
became master of the West in 353. Meanwhile conservatism was
softening into a less hostile Semiarian form, while Arianism was growing
into a more offensive Anomoean doctrine. So the conservatives were
less interested when Constantius renewed the contest, and took alarm
at the open Arianism of the Sirmian manifesto in 357. This brought
things to a deadlock, and gave rise to a Homoean or professedly neutral
party supported by the Anomoeans and the Court. They were repulsed
at Seleucia by a new alliance of Semiarians and Nicenes, and at Arimi-
num by the conservative West; but their command of the Court enabled
them to exile the Semiarian leaders after the Council of Constantinople
in 360.
The second period of the reaction opens with a precarious Homoean
supremacy. It was grievously shaken at the outset by Julian's restora-
tion of the exiles. The Nicenes were making rapid progress, and might
have restored peace if Julian had lived longer. But Valens, with a
feebler character and a weaker position, returned to the policy of
Constantius. For the moment it may have been the best policy; but
the permanent forces were for the Nicenes, and their issue was only a
question of time. There were misunderstandings in abundance, but a
fairly united party hailed in Theodosius (379) an orthodox emperor from
the West. The Arians were first put out of the churches, then formally
condemned by the Council of Constantinople in 381. Henceforth
Arianism ceased to be a power except among its Teutonic converts. Now
we return to the morrow of the great council.
When the bishops returned home, they took up their controversies
just where the summons to the council had interrupted them. The
creed was signed and done with, and we hear no more of it. Yet both
sides had learned caution at Nicaea. Marcellus disavowed Sabellianism
and Eusebius avoided Arianism, and even directly controverted some of
its main positions. Before long however a party was formed against
the council. Its leader was Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had returned
from exile and recovered his influence at Court. Round him gathered
the bishops of the school of Lucian, and round these again all sorts
of malcontents. The conservatives in particular gave extensive help.
Charges of heresy against the Nicene chiefs were sometimes more than
## p. 127 (#157) ############################################
297–335]
Marcellus and Athanasius
127
plausible. Marcellus was practically Sabellian, and Athanasius at least
refused to disavow him. Some even of the darker charges may have
had truth in them, or at least a semblance of truth.
So in the next few years we have a series of depositions of Nicene
leaders. By 335 the Church was fairly cleared of all but the two chief
of them, Marcellus of Ancyra, and Athanasius of Alexandria (since 328).
Marcellus was already in middle life when he refuted the Arians at
Nicaea ; and in a diocese full of the strife and debate of endless Gaulish
sects and superstitions he had learned that the Gospel is wider than
Greek philosophy, and that simpler forms may better suit a rude flock.
So his system is an appeal from Origen to St John. He begins with the
Logos as impersonal —as at once the thinking principle which is in God
and the active creating principle which comes forth from God, and yet
remains with God. Thus the Logos came forth from the Father for the
work of creation, and in the fulness of time descended into human flesh,
becoming the Son of God in becoming the Son of Man. Only in virtue
of this humiliating separation did the Logos acquire personality for a
time: but when the work is done, the human flesh will be thrown aside,
and the Logos will return to the Father and be immanent and imper-
sonal as before. Marcellus has got away from Arianism as far as he
can: but he is involved in much the same difficulties. If for example
the idea of an eternal Son is polytheistic, nothing is gained by trans-
ferring the eternity to an impersonal Logos ; and if the work of creation
is unworthy of God, it matters little whether it is delegated to a created
Son or to a transitory Logos. Marcellus misses as completely as Arius
the Christian conception of the Incarnation.
Then they turned to a greater than Marcellus. Athanasius was a
Greek by birth and education ; Greek also in subtle thought and philo-
sophic insight, in oratorical power and skilful statesmanship. Of Coptic
influence he scarcely shows a sign. His very style is clear and simple,
without a trace of Egyptian involution and obscurity. Athanasius was
born about 297, so that he must have well remembered the last years of
the Great Persecution, which lasted till 313. He may have been a
lawyer for a short time, and seems to have known Latin; but his main
training was Greek and scriptural. As a man of learning or a skilful
party-leader Athanasius was not beyond the reach of rivals. But he
was more than this. His whole spirit is lighted up with vivid faith in
the reality and eternal meaning of the Incarnation. His small work
de Incarnatione, written before the rise of Arianism, ranks with the
Epistle to Diognetus as the most brilliant pamphlet of early Christian
times. Even there he rises far above the level of Arianism and Sabel-
lianism; and throughout his long career we catch glimpses of a spiritual
depth which few of his contemporaries could reach. “And Athanasius
was before all things a man whose life was consecrated to a single purpose.
Through five exiles and fifty years of controversy he stood in defence
а
CH. V.
## p. 128 (#158) ############################################
128
Death of Constantine
(335–340
of the great council. The care of many churches rested on him, the
pertinacity of many enemies wore out his life ; yet he is never soured
but for a moment by the atrocious treachery of 356. At the first gleam
of hope he is himself again, full of brotherly consideration and respectful
sympathy for old enemies returning to a better mind. Even Gibbon is
awed for once before “the immortal name of Athanasius. "
Marcellus had fairly exposed himself to a doctrinal attack, but
against Athanasius the most convenient charge was that of episcopal
tyranny. In 335 the Eastern bishops gathered to Jerusalem to dedicate
the splendid church which Constantine had built on Golgotha. First
however a synod was held at Tyre to restore peace in Egypt. The
Eusebians had the upper hand, and they used their power shamelessly.
Scandal succeeded scandal, till the iniquity culminated in the despatch
of an openly partizan commission (including two young Pannonian
bishops, Ursacius and Valens) to get up evidence in Egypt. Moderate
men protested, and Athanasius took ship for Constantinople. The
council condemned him by default and the condemnation was repeated at
Jerusalem, where also proceedings were commenced against Marcellus.
They also restored Arius; but his actual reception was prevented by his
sudden death the evening before the day appointed. Meanwhile Athana-
sius had appealed to Constantine in person, who summoned the bishops
at once to Constantinople. They dropped the charges of sacrilege
and tyranny, and brought forward a new charge of political intrigue.
Athanasius was allowed no reply, but sent into exile at Trier in Gaul,
where he was honourably received by the younger Constantine. The
emperor seems as usual to have been aiming at peace and unity.
Athanasius was evidently a centre of disturbance, and the Asiatic
bishops disliked him: he was therefore best kept out of the way
for
the present.
Constantine died 22 May 337, and his sons at once restored the
exiles. Presently things settled down in 340 with the second son Con-
stantius master of the East, and Constans the youngest holding the
three Western praefectures. So Eusebian intrigues were soon resumed.
Constantius was essentially a little man, weak and vain, easy-tempered
and suspicious. He had also a taste for church matters, and without
ever being a genuine Arian, he hated first the Nicene Council, and then
Athanasius personally. The intriguers could scarcely have desired a
better tool.
They began by raising troubles at Alexandria, and deposing Athana-
sius afresh (late in 338) for having allowed the civil power to restore
him. In Lent 339 Athanasius was expelled, and Gregory of Cappadocia
installed by military violence in his place. The ejected bishops-
Athanasius, Marcellus and others—fled to Rome. Bishop Julius at
once took up the high tone of impartiality which became an arbiter of
Christendom. He received the fugitives with a decent reserve, and
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340–343]
Council of the Dedication
129
a
a
invited the Easterns to the council they had asked him to hold. After
long delay, it was plain that they did not mean to come; so a council of
fifty bishops met at Rome in the autumn of 340, by which Athanasius
and Marcellus were acquitted. As Julius reported to the Easterns, the
charges against Athanasius were inconsistent with each other and con-
tradicted by evidence from Egypt, and the proceedings at Tyre were a
travesty of justice. It was unreasonable to insist on its condemnation
of Athanasius as final. Even the great council of Nicaea had decided
(and not without the will of God) that the acts of one council might be
revised by another: and in any case Nicaea was better than Tyre. As
for Marcellus, he had denied the charge of heresy and presented a sound
confession of his faith (our own Apostles' Creed, very nearly) and the
Roman legates at Nicaea had borne honourable witness to the part he
had taken in the council. If they had complaints against Athanasius,
they should not have neglected the old custom of writing first to Rome,
that a legitimate decision might issue from the apostolic see.
The Eusebians replied in the summer of 341, when some ninety
bishops met to consecrate the Golden Church of Constantine at Antioch.
Hence it is called the Council of the Dedication. Like the Nicene, it
seems to have been in the main conservative; but the active minority
was Arianizing, not Athanasian; and it was not quite so successful.
The bishops began as at Nicaea by rejecting an Arian creed. They next
approved a creed of a conservative sort, said to be the work of Lucian
of Antioch, the teacher of Arius. The decisive clause however was
rather Nicene than conservative. It declared the Son “morally un-
changeable, the unvarying image of the deity and essence of the Father.
