The Arian Controversy Part 4

[Sidenote: Recall of Athanasius, 337.]

One of the first acts of the new Emperors was to restore the exiled bishops. Athanasius was released by the younger Constantine as soon as his father's death was known at Trier, and reached Alexandria in November 337, to the joy of both Greeks and Copts. Marcellus and the rest were restored about the same time, though not without much disturbance at Ancyra, where the intruding bishop Basil was an able man, and had formed a party.

[Sidenote: Character of Constantius.]

Let us now take a glance at the new Emperor of the East. Constantius had something of his father's character. In temperance and chast.i.ty, in love of letters and in dignity of manner, in social charm and pleasantness of private life, he was no unworthy son of Constantine; and if he inherited no splendid genius for war, he had a full measure of soldierly courage and endurance. Nor was the statesmans.h.i.+p entirely bad which kept the East in tolerable peace for four-and-twenty years. But Constantius was essentially a little man, in whom his father's vices took a meaner form.

Constantine committed some great crimes, but the whole spirit of Constantius was corroded with fear and jealousy of every man better than himself. Thus the easy trust in unworthy favourites, which marks even the ablest of his family, became in Constantius a public calamity. It was bad enough when the uprightness of Constantine or Julian was led astray, but it was far worse when the eunuchs found a master too weak to stand alone, too jealous to endure a faithful counsellor, too easy-tempered and too indolent to care what oppressions were committed in his name, and without the sense of duty which would have gone far to make up for all his shortcomings. The peculiar repulsiveness of Constantius is not due to any flagrant personal vice, but to the combination of cold-blooded treachery with the utter want of any inner n.o.bleness of character. Yet he was a pious emperor, too, in his own way.

He loved the ecclesiastical game, and was easily won over to the Eusebian side. The growing despotism of the Empire and the personal vanity of Constantius were equally suited by the episcopal timidity which cried for an arm of flesh to fight its battles. It is not easy to decide how far he acted on his own likings and superst.i.tions, how far he merely let his flatterers lead him, or how far he saw political reasons for following them. In any case, he began with a thorough dislike of the Nicene council, continued for a long time to hold conservative language, and ended after some vacillation by adopting the vague h.o.m.oean compromise of 359.

[Sidenote: Second exile of Athanasius, Lent, 339.]

Eusebian intrigue was soon resumed. Now that Constantine was dead, a schism could be set on foot at Alexandria; so the Arians were encouraged to hold a.s.semblies of their own, and provided with a bishop in the person of Pistus, one of the original heretics deposed by Alexander. No fitter consecrator could be found for him than Secundus of Ptolemais, one of the two bishops who held out to the last against the council. The next move was the formal deposition of Athanasius by a council held at Antioch in the winter of 338. But there was still no charge of heresy--only old and new ones of sedition and intrigue, and a new argument, that after his deposition at Tyre he had forfeited all right to further justice by accepting a restoration from the civil power. This last was quite a new claim on behalf of the church, first used against Athanasius, and next afterwards for the ruin of Chrysostom, though it has since been made a pillar of the faith. Pistus was not appointed to the vacant see. The council chose Gregory of Cappadocia as a better agent for the rough work to be done. Athanasius was expelled by the apostate prefect Philagrius, and Gregory installed by military violence in his place. Scenes of outrage were enacted all over Egypt.

[Sidenote: Athanasius and Marcellus at Rome.]

Athanasius fled to Rome. Thither also came Marcellus of Ancyra, and ejected clerics from all parts of the East. Under the rule of Constans they might meet with justice. Bishop Julius at once took the position of an arbiter of Christendom. He received the fugitives with a decent reserve, and invited the Eusebians to the council they had already asked him to hold. For a long time there came no answer from the East. The old heretic Carpones appeared at Rome on Gregory's behalf, but the envoys of Julius were detained at Antioch till January 340, and at last dismissed with an unmannerly reply. After some further delay, a synod of about fifty bishops met at Rome the following autumn. The cases were examined, Marcellus and Athanasius acquitted, and it remained for Julius to report their decision to the Easterns.

[Sidenote: The letter of Julius.]

His letter is one of the ablest doc.u.ments of the entire controversy.

Nothing can be better than the calm and high judicial tone in which he lays open every excuse of the Eusebians. He was surprised, he says, to receive so discourteous an answer to his letter. But what was their grievance? If it was his invitation to a synod, they could not have much confidence in their cause. Even the great council of Nicaea had decided (and not without the will of G.o.d) that the acts of one synod might be revised by another. Their own envoys had asked him to hold a council, and the men who set aside the decisions of Nicaea by using the services of heretics like Secundus, Pistus and Carpones could hardly claim finality for their own doings at Tyre. Their complaint that he had given them too short a notice would have been reasonable if the appointed day had found them on the road to Rome. 'But this also, beloved, is only an excuse.' They had detained his envoys for months at Antioch, and plainly did not mean to come. As for the reception of Athanasius, it was neither lightly nor unjustly done. The Eusebian letters against him were inconsistent, for no two of them ever told the same story; and they were, moreover, contradicted by letters in his favour from Egypt and elsewhere. The accused had come to Rome when summoned, and waited for them eighteen months in vain, whereas the Eusebians had uncanonically appointed an utter stranger in his place at Alexandria, and sent him with a guard of soldiers all the way from Antioch to disturb the peace of Egypt with horrible outrages. With regard to Marcellus, he had denied the charge of heresy and presented a very sound confession of his faith.

The Roman legates at Nicaea had also borne witness to the honourable part he had taken in the council. Thus the Eusebians could not say that Athanasius and Marcellus had been too hastily received at Rome. Rather their own doings were the cause of all the troubles, for complaints of their violence came in from all parts of the East. The authors of these outrages were no lovers of peace, but of confusion. Whatever grievance they might have 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. It was time to put an end to these scandals, as they would have to answer for them in the day of judgment.

[Sidenote: Criticism of it.]

Severe as the letter is, it contrasts well with the disingenuous querulousness of the Eusebians. Nor is Julius unmindful to press as far as possible the claims of the Roman see. His one serious mistake was in supporting Marcellus. No doubt old services at Nicaea counted heavily in the West. His confession too was innocent enough, being very nearly our so-called Apostles' Creed, here met for the first time in history.[12]

Knowing, however, what his doctrine was, we must admit that the Easterns were right in resenting its deliberate approval at Rome.

[Footnote 12: It has even been ascribed to Marcellus; but it seems a little older. Its apostolic origin is of course absurd. The legend cannot be traced beyond the last quarter of the fourth century.]

[Sidenote: Council of the dedication at Antioch (341).]

The Eusebians replied in the summer of 341, when ninety bishops met at Antioch to consecrate the Golden Church, begun by Constantine. The character of the council is an old question of dispute. Hilary calls it a meeting of saints, and its canons have found their way into the authoritative collections; yet its chief work was to confirm the deposition of Athanasius and to draw up creeds in opposition to the Nicene. Was it Nicene or Arian? Probably neither, but conservative. The Eusebians seem to have imitated Athanasius in pressing a creed (this time an Arianizing one) on unwilling conservatives, but only to have succeeded in making great confusion. This was a new turn of their policy, and not a hopeful one. Constantine's death indeed left them free to try if they could replace the Nicene creed by something else; but the friends of Athanasius could accept no subst.i.tute, and even the conservatives could hardly agree to make the Lord's divinity an open question. The result was twenty years of busy creed-making, and twenty more of confusion, before it was finally seen that there was no escape from the dilemma which had been decisive at Nicaea.

[Sidenote: The Lucianic creed (second of Antioch).]

The Eusebians began by offering a meagre and evasive creed, much like the confession of Arius and Euzoius, prefacing it with a declaration that they were not followers of Arius, but his independent adherents.

They overshot their mark, for the conservatives were not willing to go so far as this, and, moreover, had older standards of their own.

Instead, therefore, of drawing up a new creed, they put forward a work of the venerated martyr Lucian of Antioch. Such it was said to be, and such in the main it probably was, though the anathemas must have been added now. This Lucianic formula then is essentially conservative, but leans much more to the Nicene than to the Arian side. Its central clause declares the Son of G.o.d 'not subject to moral change or alteration, but the unvarying image of the deity and essence and power and counsel and glory of the Father,' while its anathemas condemn 'those who say that there was once _a time_ when the Son of G.o.d was not, or that he is a creature _as one of the creatures_.' These are strong words, but they do not in the least shut out Arianism. No doubt the phrase 'unvarying image of the essence' means that there is no change of essence in pa.s.sing from the Father to the Son, and is therefore logically equivalent to 'of one essence' (_h.o.m.oousion_); but the conservatives meant nothing more than 'of like essence' (_h.o.m.oiousion_), which is consistent with great unlikeness in attributes. The anathemas also are the Nicene with insertions which might have been made for the very purpose of letting the Arians escape. However, the conservatives were well satisfied with the Lucianic creed, and frequently refer to it with a veneration akin to that of Athanasius for the Nicene. But the wire-pullers were determined to upset it. The confession next presented by Theophronius of Tyana was more to their mind, for it contained a direct anathema against "Marcellus and those who communicated with him." It secured a momentary approval, but the meeting broke up without adopting it. The Lucianic formula remained the creed of the council.

[Sidenote: The fourth creed.]

Defeated in a free council, the wire-pullers a few months later a.s.sembled a cabal of their own, and drew up a fourth creed, which a deputation of notorious Arianizers presented to Constans in Gaul as the genuine work of the council. It seems to have suited them better than the Lucianic, for they repeated it with increasing series of anathemas at Philippopolis in 343, at Antioch the next year, and at Sirmium in 351. We can see why it suited them. While in substance it is less opposed to Arianism than the Lucianic, its wording follows the Nicene, even to the adoption of the anathemas in a weakened form. Upon the whole, it is a colourless doc.u.ment, which left all questions open.

[Sidenote: Constans demands a council.]

The wording of the creed of Tyana was a direct blow at Julius of Rome, and is of itself enough to show that its authors were no lovers of peace. But Western suspicion was already roused by the issue of the Lucianic creed. There could no longer be any doubt that the Nicene faith was the real object of attack. Before the Eastern envoys reached Constans in Gaul, he had already written to his brother (Constantine II.

was now dead) to demand a new general council. Constantius was busy with the Persian war, and could not refuse; so it was summoned to meet in the summer of 343. To the dismay of the Eusebians, the place chosen was Sardica in Dacia, just inside the dominions of Constans. After their failure with the Eastern bishops at Antioch, they could not hope to control the Westerns in a free council.

[Sidenote: Council of Sardica (343).]

To Sardica the bishops came. The Westerns were about ninety-six in number, 'with Hosius of Cordova for their father,' bringing with him Athanasius and Marcellus, and supported by the chief Westerns--Gratus of Carthage, Protasius of Milan, Maximus of Trier, Fortunatian of Aquileia, and Vincent of Capua, the old Roman legate at Nicaea. The Easterns, under Stephen of Antioch and Acacius of Caesarea, the disciple and successor of Eusebius, were for once outnumbered. They therefore travelled in one body, more than seventy strong, and agreed to act together. They began by insisting that the deposition of Marcellus and Athanasius at Antioch should be accepted without discussion. Such a demand was absurd. There was no reason why the deposition at Antioch should be accepted blindly rather than the acquittal at Rome. At any rate, the council had an express commission to re-open the whole case, and indeed had met for no other purpose; so, if they were not to do it, they might as well go home. The Westerns were determined to sift the whole matter to the bottom, but the Eusebians refused to enter the council. It was in vain that Hosius asked them to give their proofs, if it were only to himself in private. In vain he promised that if Athanasius was acquitted, and they were still unwilling to receive him, he would take him back with him to Spain. The Westerns began the trial: the Easterns left Sardica by night in haste. They had heard, forsooth, of a victory on the Persian frontier, and must pay their respects to the Emperor without a moment's delay.

[Sidenote: Acquittal of Marcellus and Athanasius.]

Once more the charges were examined and the accused acquitted. In the case of Marcellus, it was found that the Eusebians had misquoted his book, setting down opinions as his own which he had only put forward for discussion. Thus it was not true that he had denied the eternity of the Word in the past or of his kingdom in the future. Quite so: but the eternity of the Sons.h.i.+p is another matter. This was the real charge against him, and he was allowed to evade it. Though doctrinal questions lay more in the background in the case of Athanasius, one party in the council was for issuing a new creed in explanation of the Nicene. The proposal was wisely rejected. It would have made the fatal admission that Arianism had not been clearly condemned at Nicaea, and thrown on the Westerns the odium of innovation. All that could be done was to pa.s.s a series of canons to check the worst scandals of late years. After this the council issued its encyclical and the bishops dispersed.

[Sidenote: Rival council of Philippopolis.]

Meanwhile the Easterns (such was their haste) halted for some weeks at Philippopolis to issue their own encyclical, falsely dating it from Sardica. They begin with their main argument, that the acts of councils are irreversible. Next they recite the charges against Athanasius and Marcellus, and the doings of the Westerns at Sardica. Hereupon they denounce Hosius, Julius, and others as a.s.sociates of heretics and patrons of the detestable errors of Marcellus. A few random charges of gross immorality are added, after the Eusebian custom. They end with a new creed, the fourth of Antioch, with some verbal changes, and seven anathemas instead of two.

[Sidenote: The fifth creed of Antioch (344).]

The quarrel of East and West seemed worse than ever. The Eusebians had behaved discreditably enough, but they had at least frustrated the council, and secured a recognition of their creed from a large body of Eastern conservatives. So far they had been fairly successful, but the next move on their side was a blunder and worse. When the Sardican envoys, Vincent of Capua and Euphrates of Cologne, came eastward in the spring of 344, a harlot was brought one night into their lodgings. Great was the scandal when the plot was traced up to the Eusebian leader, Stephen of Antioch. A new council was held, by which Stephen was deposed and Leontius the Lucianist, himself the subject of an old scandal, was raised to the vacant see. The fourth creed of Antioch was also re-issued with a few changes, but followed by long paragraphs of explanation. The Easterns adhered to their condemnation of Marcellus, and joined with him his disciple Photinus of Sirmium, who had made the Lord a mere man like the Ebionites. On the other hand, they condemned several Arian phrases, and insisted in the strongest manner on the mutual, inseparable, and, as it were, organic union of the Son with the Father in a single deity.

[Sidenote: Return of Athanasius (Oct. 346).]

This conciliatory move cleared the way for a general suspension of hostilities. Stephen's crime had discredited the whole gang of Eastern court intriguers who had made the quarrel. Nor were the Westerns unreasonable. Though they still upheld Marcellus, they frankly gave up and condemned Photinus. Meanwhile Constans pressed the execution of the decrees of Sardica, and Constantius, with a Persian war on his hands, could not refuse. The last obstacle was removed by the death of Gregory of Cappadocia in 345. It was not till the third invitation that Athanasius returned. He had to take leave of his Italian friends, and the Emperor's letters were only too plainly insincere. However, Constantius received him graciously at Antioch, ordered all the charges against him to be destroyed, and gave him a solemn promise of full protection for the future. Athanasius went forward on his journey, and the old confessor Maximus a.s.sembled the bishops of Palestine to greet him at Jerusalem. But his entry into Alexandria (Oct. 346) was the crowning triumph of his life. For miles along the road the great city streamed out to meet him with enthusiastic welcome, and the jealous police of Constantius could raise no tumult to mar the universal harmony of that great day of national rejoicing.

[Sidenote: Interval of rest (346-353.)]

The next few years were an uneasy interval of suspense rather than of peace, for the long contest had so far decided nothing. If the Nicene exiles were restored, the Eusebian disturbers were not deposed. Thus while Nicene animosity was not satisfied, the standing grounds of conservative distrust were not removed. Above all, the return of Athanasius was a personal humiliation for Constantius, which he was not likely to accept without watching his opportunity for a final struggle to decide the mastery of Egypt. Still there was tolerable quiet for the present. The court intriguers could do nothing without the Emperor, and Constantius was occupied first with the Persian war, then with the civil war against Magnentius. If there was not peace, there was a fair amount of quiet till the Emperor's hands were freed by the death of Magnentius in 353.

[Sidenote: Modification of Nicene position.]

The truce was hollow and the rest precarious, but the mere cessation of hostilities was not without its influence. As Nicenes and conservatives were fundamentally agreed on the reality of the Lord's divinity, minor jealousies began to disappear when they were less busily encouraged. The Eusebian phase of conservatism, which emphasised the Lord's personal distinction from the Father, was giving way to the Semiarian, where stress was rather laid on his essential likeness to the Father. Thus 'of a like essence' (_h.o.m.oiousion_) and 'like in all things' became more and more the watchwords of conservatism. The Nicenes, on the other side, were warned by the excesses of Marcellus that there was some reason for the conservative dread of the Nicene 'of one essence' (_h.o.m.oousion_) as Sabellian. The word could not be withdrawn, but it might be put forward less conspicuously, and explained rather as a safe and emphatic form of the Semiarian 'of like essence' than as a rival doctrine. Henceforth it came to mean absolute likeness of attributes rather than common possession of the divine essence. Thus by the time the war is renewed, we can already foresee the possibility of a new alliance between Nicenes and conservatives.

[Sidenote: Rise of Anomoeans.]

We see also the rise of a new and more defiant Arian school, more in earnest than the older generation, impatient of their shuffling diplomacy and less pliant to court influences. Aetius was a man of learning and no small dialectic skill, who had pa.s.sed through many troubles in his earlier life and been the disciple of several scholars, mostly of the Lucianic school, before he came to rest in a clear and simple form of Arianism. Christianity without mystery seems to have been his aim. The Anomoean leaders took their stand on the doctrine of Arius himself, and dwelt with most emphasis on its most offensive aspects. Arius had long ago laid down the absolute unlikeness of the Son to the Father, but for years past the Arianizers had prudently softened it down. Now, however, 'unlike' became the watchword of Aetius and Eunomius, and their followers delighted to shock all sober feeling by the harshest and profanest declarations of it. The scandalous jests of Eudoxius must have given deep offence to thousands; but the great novelty of the Anomoean doctrine was its audacious self-sufficiency.

Seeing that Arius was illogical in regarding the divine nature as incomprehensible, and yet reasoning as if its relations were fully explained by human types, the Anomoeans boldly declared that it is no mystery at all. If the divine essence is simple, man can perfectly understand it. 'Canst thou by searching find out G.o.d?' Yes, and know him quite as well as he knows me. Such was the new school of Arianism--presumptuous and shallow, quarrelsome and heathenising, yet not without a directness and a firmness of conviction which gives it a certain dignity in spite of its wrangling and irreverence. Its conservative allies it despised for their wavering and insincerity; to its Nicene opponents it repaid hatred for hatred, and flung back with retorted scorn their denial of its right to bear the Christian name.

[Sidenote: Ill.u.s.tration from the state of: (1.) Jerusalem.]

We may now glance at the state of the churches at Jerusalem and Antioch during the years of rest. Jerusalem had been a resort of pilgrims since the days of Origen, and Helena's visit shortly after the Nicene council had fully restored it to the dignity of a holy place. We still have the itinerary of a nameless pilgrim who found his way from Bordeaux to Palestine in 333. The great church, however, of the Resurrection, which Constantine built on Golgotha, was only dedicated by the council of 335.

The _Catecheses_ of Cyril are a series of sermons on the creed, delivered to the catechumens of that church in 348. If it is not a work of any great originality, it will show us all the better what was pa.s.sing in the minds of men of practical and simple piety, who had no taste for the controversies of the day. All through it we see the earnest pastor who feels that his strength is needed to combat the practical immoralities of a holy city (Jerusalem was a scandal of the age), and never lifts his eyes to the wild scene of theological confusion round him but in fear and dread that Antichrist is near. 'I fear the wars of the nations; I fear the divisions of the churches; I fear the mutual hatred of the brethren. Enough concerning this. G.o.d forbid it come to pa.s.s in our days; yet let us be on our guard. Enough concerning Antichrist.' Jews, Samaritans, and Manichees are his chief opponents; yet he does not forget to warn his hearers against the teaching of Sabellius and Marcellus, 'the dragon's head of late arisen in Galatia.' Arius he sometimes contradicts in set terms, though without naming him. Of the Nicenes too, we hear nothing directly, but they seem glanced at in the complaint that whereas in former times heresy was open, the church is now full of secret heretics. The Nicene creed again he never mentions, but we cannot mistake the allusion when he tells his hearers that their own Jerusalem creed was not put together by the will of men, and impresses on them that every word of it can be proved by Scripture. But the most significant feature of his language is its close relation to that of the dated creed of Sirmium in 359. Nearly every point where the latter differs from the Lucianic is one specially emphasized by Cyril. If then the Lucianic creed represents the earlier conservatism, it follows that Cyril expresses the later views which had to be conciliated in 359.

[Sidenote: (2.) Antioch.]

The condition of Antioch under Leontius (344-357) is equally significant. The Nicene was quite as strong in the city as Arianism had ever been at Alexandria. The Eustathians formed a separate and strongly Nicene congregation under the presbyter Paulinus, and held their meetings outside the walls. Athanasius communicated with them on his return from exile, and agreed to give the Arians a church in Alexandria, as Constantius desired, if only the Eustathians were allowed one inside the walls of Antioch. His terms were prudently declined, for the Arians were a minority even in the congregation of Leontius. The old Arian needed all his caution to avoid offence. 'When this snow melts,'

touching his white head, 'there will be much mud.' Nicenes and Arians made a slight difference in the doxology; and Leontius always dropped his voice at the critical point, so that n.o.body knew what he said. This policy was successful in keeping out of the Eustathian communion not only the indifferent mult.i.tude, but also many whose sympathies were clearly Nicene, like the future bishops Meletius and Flavian. But they always considered him an enemy, and the more dangerous for the contrast of his moderation with the reckless violence of Macedonius at Constantinople. His appointments were Arianizing, and he gave deep offence by the ordination of his old disciple, the detested Aetius. So great was the outcry that Leontius was forced to suspend him. The opposition was led by two ascetic laymen, Flavian and Diodorus, who both became distinguished bishops in later time. Orthodox feeling was nourished by a vigorous use of hymns and by all-night services at the tombs of the martyrs. As such practices often led to great abuses, Leontius may have had nothing more in view than good order when he directed the services to be transferred to the church.

[Sidenote: State of parties.]

The case of Antioch was not exceptional. Arians and Nicenes were still parties inside the church rather than distant sects. They still used the same prayers and the same hymns, still wors.h.i.+pped in the same buildings, still commemorated the same saints and martyrs, and still considered themselves members of the same church. The example of separation set by the Eustathians at Antioch and the Arians at Alexandria was not followed till a later stage of the controversy, when Diodorus and Flavian on one side, and the Anomoeans on the other, began to introduce their own peculiarities into the service. And if the bitterness of intestine strife was increased by a state of things which made every bishop a party nominee, there was some compensation in the free intercourse of parties afterwards separated by barriers of persecution. Nicenes and Arians in most places mingled freely long after Leontius was dead, and the Novatians of Constantinople threw open their churches to the victims of Macedonius in a way which drew his persecution on themselves, and was remembered in their favour even in the next century by liberal men like the historian Socrates.