Read Ebook: The Arian Controversy by Gwatkin Henry Melvill

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Other subjects decided by the council will not detain us long, though some of its members may have thought one or two of them quite as important as Arianism. The old Easter question was settled in favour of the Roman custom of observing, not the day of the Jewish passover in memory of the crucifixion, but a later Sunday in memory of the resurrection. For how, explains Constantine--how could we who are Christians possibly keep the same day as those wicked Jews? The council, however, was right on the main point, that the feasts of Christian worship are not to be tied to those of Judaism. The third great subject for discussion was the Meletian schism in Egypt, and this was settled by a liberal compromise. The Meletian presbyter might act alone if there was no orthodox presbyter in the place, otherwise he was to be a coadjutor with a claim to succeed if found worthy. Athanasius would have preferred severer measures, and more than once refers to these with unconcealed disgust. The rest of the business disposed of, Constantine dismissed the bishops with a splendid feast, which Eusebius enthusiastically likens to the kingdom of heaven.

Let us now sum up the results of the council, so far as they concern Arianism. In one sense they were decisive. Arianism was so sharply condemned by the all but unanimous voice of Christendom, that nearly thirty years had to pass before it was openly avowed again. Conservative feeling in the West was engaged in steady defence of the great council; and even in the East its doctrine could be made to wear a conservative aspect as the actual faith of Christendom. On the other hand, were serious drawbacks. The triumph was rather a surprise than a solid victory. As it was a revolution which a minority had forced through by sheer strength of clearer thought, a reaction was inevitable when the half-convinced majority returned home. In other words, Athanasius had pushed the Easterns farther than they wished to go, and his victory recoiled on himself. But he could not retreat when once he had put the disputed words into the creed. Come what might, those words were irreversible. And if it was a dangerous policy which won the victory, the use made of it was deplorable. Though the exile of Arius and his friends was Constantine's work, much of the discredit must fall on the Athanasian leaders, for we cannot find that they objected to it either at the time or afterwards. It seriously embittered the controversy. If the Nicenes set the example of persecution, the other side improved on it till the whole contest threatened to degenerate into a series of personal quarrels and retaliations. The process was only checked by the common hatred of all parties to Julian, and by the growth of a better spirit among the Nicenes, as shown in the later writings of Athanasius.

At first sight the reaction which followed the Nicene council is one of the strangest scenes in history. The decision was clear and all but unanimous. Arianism seemed crushed for ever by the universal reprobation of the Christian world. Yet it instantly renewed the contest, and fought its conquerors on equal terms for more than half a century. A reaction like this is plainly more than a court intrigue. Imperial favour could do a good deal in the Nicene age, but no emperor could long oppose any clear and definite belief of Christendom. Nothing could be plainer than the issue of the council. How then could Arianism venture to renew the contest?

The answer is, that though the belief of the churches was certainly not Arian, neither was it yet definitely Nicene. The dominant feeling both in East and West was one of dislike to change, which we may conveniently call conservatism. But here there was a difference. Heresies in the East had always gathered round the person of the Lord, and more than one had already partly occupied the ground of Arianism. Thus Eastern conservatism inherited a doctrine from the last generation, and was inclined to look on the Nicene decisions as questionable innovations. The Westerns thought otherwise. Leaning on authority as they habitually did, they cared little to discuss for themselves an unfamiliar question. They could not even translate its technical terms into Latin without many misunderstandings. Therefore Western conservatism simply fell back on the august decisions of Nicaea. No later meeting could presume to rival 'the great and holy council' where Christendom had once for all pronounced the condemnation of Arianism. In short, East and West were alike conservative; but while conservatism in the East went behind the council, in the West it was content to start from it.

The Eastern reaction was therefore in its essence not Arian but conservative. Its leaders might be conservatives like Eusebius of Caesarea, or court politicians like his successor, Acacius. They were never open Arians till 357. The front and strength of the party was conservative, and the Arians at its tail were in themselves only a source of weakness. Yet they could enlist powerful allies in the cause of reaction. Heathenism was still a living power in the world. It was strong in numbers even in the East, and even stronger in the imposing memories of history. Christianity was still an upstart on Caesar's throne. The favour of the gods had built up the Empire, and men's hearts misgave them that their wrath might overthrow it. Heathenism was still an established religion, the Emperor still its official head. Old Rome was still devoted to her ancient deities, her nobles still recorded their priesthoods and augurships among their proudest honours, and the Senate itself still opened every sitting with an offering of incense on the altar of Victory. The public service was largely heathen, and the army too, especially its growing cohorts of barbarian auxiliaries. Education also was mostly heathen, turning on heathen classics and taught by heathen rhetoricians. Libanius, the teacher of Chrysostom, was also the honoured friend of Julian. Philosophy too was a great influence, now that it had leagued together all the failing powers of the ancient world against a rival not of this world. Its weakness as a moral force must not blind us to its charm for the imagination. Neoplatonism brought Egypt to the aid of Greece, and drew on Christianity itself for help. The secrets of philosophy were set forth in the mysteries of Eastern superstition. From the dim background of a noble monotheism the ancient gods came forth to represent on earth a majesty above their own. No waverer could face the terrors of that mighty gathering of infernal powers. And the Nicene age was a time of unsettlement and change, of half-beliefs and wavering superstition, of weakness and unclean frivolity. Above all, society was heathen to an extent we can hardly realise. The two religions were strangely mixed. The heathens on their side never quite understood the idea of worshipping one God only; while crowds of nominal Christians never asked for baptism unless a dangerous illness or an earthquake scared them, and thought it quite enough to show their faces in church once or twice a year. Meanwhile, they lived just like the heathens round them, steeped in superstitions like their neighbours, attending freely their immoral games and dances, and sharing in the sins connected with them. Thus Arianism had many affinities with heathenism, in its philosophical idea of the Supreme, in its worship of a demigod of the vulgar type, in its rhetorical methods, and in its generally lower moral tone. Heathen influences therefore strongly supported Arianism.

The Jews also usually took the Arian side. They were still a power in the world, though it was long since Israel had challenged Rome to seventy years of internecine contest for the dominion of the East. But they had never forgiven her the destruction of Jehovah's temple. Half overcome themselves by the spell of the eternal Empire, they still looked vaguely for some Eastern deliverer to break her impious yoke. Still more fiercely they resented her adoption of the gospel, which indeed was no tidings of good-will or peace to them, but the opening of a thousand years of persecution. Thus they were a sort of caricature of the Christian churches. They made every land their own, yet were aliens in all. They lived subject to the laws of the Empire, yet gathered into corporations governed by their own. They were citizens of Rome, yet strangers to her imperial comprehensiveness. In a word, they were like a spirit in the body, but a spirit of uncleanness and of sordid gain. If they hated the Gentile, they could love his vices notwithstanding. If the old missionary zeal of Israel was extinct, they could still purvey impostures for the world. Jewish superstitions were the plague of distant Spain, the despair of Chrysostom at Antioch. Thus the lower moral tone of Arianism and especially its denial of the Lord's divinity were enough to secure it a fair amount of Jewish support as against the Nicenes. At Alexandria, for example, the Jews were always ready for lawless outrage at the call of every enemy of Athanasius.

The court also leaned to Arianism. The genuine Arians, to do them justice, were not more pliant to imperial dictation than the Nicenes, but the genuine Arians were only one section of a motley coalition. Their conservative patrons and allies were laid open to court influence by their dread of Sabellianism; for conservatism is the natural home of the impatient timidity which looks round at every difficulty for a saviour of society, and would fain turn the whole work of government into a crusade against a series of scarecrows. Thus when Constantius turned against them, their chiefs were found wanting in the self-respect which kept both Nicene and Arian leaders from condescending to a battle of intrigue with such masters of the art as flourished in the palace. But for thirty years the intriguers found it their interest to profess conservatism. The court was as full of selfish cabals as that of the old French monarchy. Behind the glittering ceremonial on which the treasures of the world were squandered fought armies of place-hunters great and small, cooks and barbers, women and eunuchs, courtiers and spies, adventurers of every sort, for ever wresting the majesty of law to private favour, for ever aiming new oppressions at the men on whom the exactions of the Empire already fell with crushing weight. The noblest bishops, the ablest generals, were their fairest prey; and we have no surer witness to the greatness of Athanasius or Julian than the pertinacious hatred of this odious horde. Intriguers of this kind found it better to unsettle the Nicene decisions, on behalf of conservatism forsooth, than to maintain them in the name of truth. There were many ways of upsetting them, and each might lead to gain; only one of defending them, and that was not attractive.

Nor were Constantius and Valens without political reasons for their support of Arianism. We can see by the light of later history that the real centre of the Empire was the solid mass of Asia from the Bosphorus to Mount Taurus, and that Constantinople was its outwork on the side of Europe. In Rome on one side, Egypt and Syria on the other, we can already trace the tendencies which led to their separation from the orthodox Eastern Church and Empire. Now in the fourth century Asia was a stronghold of conservatism. There was a good deal of Arianism in Cappadocia, but we hear little of it in Asia. The group of Lucianists at Nicaea left neither Arian nor Nicene successors. The ten provinces of Asia 'verily knew not God' in Hilary's time; and even the later Nicene doctrine of Cappadocia was almost as much Semiarian as Athanasian. Thus Constantius and Valens pursued throughout an Asiatic policy, striking with one hand at Egypt, with the other at Rome. Every change in their action can be explained with reference to the changes of opinion in Asia.

Upon the whole, we may say that Arian hatred of the council would have been powerless if it had not rested on a formidable mass of conservative discontent, while the conservative discontent might have died away if the court had not supplied it with the means of action. If the decision lay with the majority, every initiative had to come from the court. Hence the reaction went on as long as these were agreed against the Nicene party; it was suspended as soon as Julian's policy turned another way, became unreal when conservative alarm subsided, and finally collapsed when Asia went over to the Nicene side.

We may now return to the sequel of the great council. If Constantine thought he had restored peace in the churches, he soon found out his mistake. The literary war began again almost where his summons had interrupted it. The creed was signed and done with and seemed forgotten. The conservatives hardly cared to be reminded of their half unwilling signatures. To Athanasius it may have been a watchword from the first, but it was not so to many others. In the West it was as yet almost unknown. Even Marcellus was more disposed to avoid all technical terms than to lay stress on those which the council sanctioned. Yet all parties had learned caution at Nicaea. Marcellus disavowed Sabellianism; Eusebius avoided Arianism, and nobody seems to have disowned the creed as long as Constantine lived.

The next great change was at Alexandria. The bishop Alexander died in the spring of 328, and a stormy election followed. Its details are obscure, but the Nicene party put forward the deacon Athanasius, and consecrated him in spite of a determined opposition from Arians and Meletians. And now that we stand before the greatest of the Eastern fathers, let us see how his character and training fitted him to be the hero of the Arian controversy.

Such a bishop was sure to meet a bitter opposition, and as sure to overcome it. Egypt soon became a stronghold of the Nicene faith, for Athanasius could sway the heart of Greek and Copt alike. The pertinacious hatred of a few was balanced by the enthusiastic admiration of the many. The Meletians dwindled fast, the Arians faster still. Nothing but outside persecution was needed now to make Nicene orthodoxy the national faith of Egypt.

A party was easily formed. The Lucianists were its nucleus, and all sorts of malcontents gathered round them. The Meletians of Egypt joined the coalition, and the unclean creatures of the palace rejoiced to hear of fresh intrigue. Above all, the conservatives gave extensive help. The charges against the Nicene leaders were often more than plausible, for men like the Caesarean Eusebius dreaded Sabellianism, and Marcellus was practically Sabellian, and the others aiders and abettors of his misbelief. Some even of the darker charges may have had some ground, or at least have seemed truer than they were. Thus Eusebius had a very heterogeneous following, and it would be scant charity if we laid on all of them the burden of their leader's infamy.

They began with Eustathius of Antioch, an old confessor and a man of eloquence, who enjoyed a great and lasting popularity in the city. He was one of the foremost enemies of Arianism at Nicaea, and had since waged an active literary war with the Arianizing clique in Syria. In one respect they found him a specially dangerous enemy, for he saw clearly the important consequences of the Arian denial of the Lord's true human soul. Eustathius was therefore deposed in 330, and exiled with many of his clergy to Thrace. The vacant see was offered to Eusebius of Caesarea, and finally accepted by the Cappadocian Euphronius. But party spirit ran high at Antioch. The removal of Eustathius nearly caused a bloody riot, and his departure was followed by an open schism. The Nicenes refused to recognise Euphronius, and held their meetings apart, under the presbyter Paulinus, remaining without a bishop for more than thirty years.

The system was vigorously followed up. Ten of the Nicene leaders were exiled in the next year or two. But Alexandria and Ancyra were the great strongholds of the Nicene faith, and the Eusebians still had to expel Marcellus and Athanasius. As Athanasius might have met a charge of heresy with a dangerous retort, it was found necessary to take other methods with him. Marcellus, however, was so far the foremost champion of the council, and he had fairly exposed himself to a doctrinal attack. Let us therefore glance at his theory of the incarnation.

Marcellus of Ancyra was already in middle life when he came forward as a resolute enemy of Arianism at Nicaea. Nothing is known of his early years and education, but we can see some things which influenced him later on. Ancyra was a strange diocese, full of uncouth Gauls and chaffering Jews, and overrun with Montanists and Manichees, and votaries of endless fantastic heresies and superstitions. In the midst of this turmoil Marcellus spent his life; and if he learned too much of the Galatian party spirit, he learned also that the gospel is wider than the forms of Greek philosophy. The speculations of Alexandrian theology were as little appreciated by the Celts of Asia as is the stately churchmanship of England by the Celts of Wales. They were the foreigner's thoughts, too cold for Celtic zeal, too grand for Celtic narrowness. Fickleness is not inconsistent with a true and deep religious instinct, and we may find something austere and high behind the ever-changing phases of spiritual excitement. Thus the ideal holiness of the church, upheld by Montanists and Novatians, attracted kindred spirits at opposite ends of the Empire, among the Moors of the Atlas and the Gauls of Asia. Such a people will have sins and scandals like its neighbours, but very little indifference or cynicism. It will be more inclined to make of Christian liberty an excuse for strife and debate. The zeal which carries the gospel to the loneliest mountain villages will also fill them with the jealousies of endless quarrelling sects; and the Gaul of Asia clung to his separatism with all the more tenacity for the consciousness that his race was fast dissolving in the broader and better world of Greece. Thus Marcellus was essentially a stranger to the wider movements of his time. His system is an appeal from Origen to St. John, from philosophy to Scripture. Nor can we doubt the high character and earnest zeal of the man who for years stood side by side with Athanasius. The more significant therefore is the failure of his bold attempt to cut the knot of controversy.

Marcellus then agreed with the Arians that the idea of sonship implies beginning and inferiority, so that a Son of God is neither eternal nor equal to the Father. When the Arians argued on both grounds that the Lord is a creature, the conservatives were content to reply that the idea of sonship excludes that of creation, and implies a peculiar relation to and origin from the Father. But their own position was weak. Whatever they might say, their secondary God was a second God, and their theory of the eternal generation only led them into further difficulties, for their concession of the Son's origin from the will of the Father made the Arian conclusion irresistible. Marcellus looked scornfully on a lame result like this. The conservatives had broken down because they had gone astray after vain philosophy. Turn we then to Scripture. 'In the beginning was,' not the Son, but the Word. It is no secondary or accidental title which St. John throws to the front of his Gospel, and repeats with deliberate emphasis three times over in the first verse. Thus the Lord is properly the Word of God, and this must govern the meaning of all such secondary names as the Son. Then he is not only the silent thinking principle which remains with God, but also the active creating power which comes forth too for the dispensation of the world. In this Sabellianizing sense Marcellus accepted the Nicene faith, holding that the Word is one with God as reason is one with man. Thus he explained the Divine Sonship and other difficulties by limiting them to the incarnation. The Word as such is pure spirit, and only became the Son of God by becoming the Son of Man. It was only in virtue of this humiliating separation from the Father that the Word acquired a sort of independent personality. Thus the Lord was human certainly on account of his descent into true created human flesh, and yet not merely human, for the Word remained unchanged. Not for its own sake was the Word incarnate, but merely for the conquest of Satan. 'The flesh profiteth nothing,' and even the gift of immortality cannot make it worthy of permanent union with the Word. God is higher than immortality itself, and even the immortal angels cannot pass the gulf which parts the creature from its Lord. That which is of the earth is useless for the age to come. Hence the human nature must be laid aside when its work is done and every hostile power overthrown. Then shall the Son of God deliver up the kingdom to the Father, that the kingdom of God may have no end; and then the Word shall return, and be for ever with the Father as before.

A universal cry of horror rose from the conservative ranks to greet the new Sabellius, the Jew and worse than Jew, the shameless miscreant who had forsworn the Son of God. Marcellus had confused together all the errors he could find. The faith itself was at peril if blasphemies like these were to be sheltered behind the rash decisions of Nicaea. So thought the conservatives, and not without a reason, though their panic was undignified from the first, and became a positive calamity when taken up by political adventurers for their own purposes. As far as doctrine went, there was little to choose between Marcellus and Arius. Each held firmly the central error of the conservatives, and rejected as illogical the modifications and side views by which they were finding their way to something better. Both parties, says Athanasius, are equally inconsistent. The conservatives, who refuse eternal being to the Son of God, will not endure to hear that his kingdom is other than eternal; while the Marcellians, who deny his personality outright, are equally shocked at the Arian limitation of it to the sphere of time. Nor had Marcellus escaped the difficulties of Arius. If, for example, the idea of an eternal Son is polytheistic, nothing is gained by transferring the eternity to an impersonal Word. If the generation of the Son is materializing, so also is the coming forth of the Word. If the work of creation is unworthy of God, it may as well be delegated to a created Son as to a transitory Word. So far Athanasius. Indeed, to Marcellus the Son of God is a mere phenomenon of time, and even the Word is as foreign to the divine essence as the Arian Son. If the one can only reveal in finite measure, the other gives but broken hints of an infinity beyond. Instead of destroying Arianism by the roots, Marcellus had fallen into something very like Sabellianism. He reaches no true mediation, no true union of God and man, for he makes the incarnation a mere theophany, the flesh a useless burden, to be one day laid aside. The Lord is our Redeemer and the conqueror of death and Satan, but there is no room for a second Adam, the organic head of regenerate mankind. The redemption becomes a mere intervention from without, not also the planting of a power of life within, which will one day quicken our mortal bodies too.

Marcellus had fairly exposed himself to a doctrinal attack; other methods were used with Athanasius. They had material enough without touching doctrine. His election was disputed: Meletians and Arians complained of oppression: there were some useful charges of magic and political intrigue. At first, however, the Meletians could not even get a hearing from the Emperor. When Eusebius of Nicomedia took up their cause, they fared a little better. The attack had to be put off till the winter of 331, and was even then a failure. Their charges were partly answered by two presbyters of Athanasius who were on the spot; and when the bishop himself was summoned to court, he soon completed their discomfiture. As Constantine was now occupied with the Gothic war, nothing more could be done till 334. When, however, Athanasius was ordered to attend a council at Caesarea, he treated it as a mere cabal of his enemies, and refused to appear.

Next year the Eastern bishops gathered to Jerusalem to keep the festival of the thirtieth year of Constantine's reign and to dedicate his splendid church on Golgotha. But first it was a work of charity to restore peace in Egypt. A synod of about 150 bishops was held at Tyre, and this time the appearance of Athanasius was secured by peremptory orders from the Emperor. The Eusebians had the upper hand, though there was a strong minority. Athanasius brought nearly fifty bishops from Egypt, and others, like Maximus of Jerusalem and Alexander of Thessalonica, were willing to do justice. Athanasius was not accused of heresy, but, with more plausibility, of episcopal tyranny. His friends replied with reckless violence. Potammon aimed a bitter and unrighteous taunt at Eusebius of Caesarea. 'You and I were once in prison for the faith. I lost an eye: how did you escape?' Athanasius might perhaps have been crushed if his enemies had kept up a decent semblance of truth and fairness. But nothing was further from their thoughts than an impartial trial. Scandal succeeded scandal, till the iniquity culminated in the dispatch of an openly partizan commission to superintend the manufacture of evidence in Egypt. Maximus of Jerusalem and Paphnutius left the council, saying that it was not good that old confessors like them should share its evil deeds. The Egyptian bishops protested. Alexander of Thessalonica denounced the plot to the Emperor's representative. Athanasius himself took ship for Constantinople without waiting for the end of the farce, and the council condemned him by default. This done, the bishops went on to Jerusalem for the proper business of their meeting.

The concourse on Golgotha was a brilliant spectacle. Ten years had passed since the still unrivalled assembly at Nicaea, and the veterans of the last great persecution must have been deeply moved at their meeting once again in this world. The stately ceremonial suited Maximus and Eusebius much better than the noisy scene at Tyre, and may for the moment have soothed the swelling indignation of Potammon and Paphnutius. Constantine had once more plastered over the divisions of the churches with a general reconciliation, but this time Athanasius was condemned and Arius received to communion. The heretic had long since left his exile in Illyricum, though we cannot fix the date of his recall. However, one winter the Emperor invited Arius and his friend Euzoius to Constantinople, where they laid before him a short and simple confession of their faith. It said nothing of the disputed points, but was not unorthodox as far as it went. Nor were they bishops, that the Nicene creed should be forced upon them. Constantine was therefore satisfied, and now directed them to lay it before the bishops at Jerusalem, who duly approved of it and received its authors to communion. In order to complete the work of peace, Athanasius was condemned afresh on the return of the commission from Egypt, and proceedings were begun against Marcellus of Ancyra.

Meanwhile Constantine's dreams of peace were rudely dissipated by the sudden appearance of Athanasius before him in the streets of Constantinople. Whatever the bishops had done, they had plainly caused dissensions just when the Emperor was most anxious for harmony. An angry letter summoned the whole assembly straight to court. The meeting, however, was most likely dispersed before its arrival; at any rate, there came only a deputation of Eusebians. The result was unexpected. Instead of attempting to defend the council of Tyre, Eusebius of Nicomedia suddenly accused Athanasius of hindering the supply of corn for the capital. This was quite a new charge, and chosen with much skill. Athanasius was not allowed to defend himself, but summarily sent away to Trier in Gaul, where he was honourably received by the younger Constantine. On the other hand, the Emperor refused to let his place be filled up at Alexandria, and exiled the Meletian leader, John Archaph, 'for causing divisions.' To Constantinople came also Marcellus. He had kept away from the councils of Tyre and Jerusalem, and only came now to invite the Emperor's decision on his book. Constantine referred it as usual to the bishops, who promptly condemned it and deposed its author.

There remained only the formal restoration of Arius to communion at Constantinople. But the heretic was taken ill suddenly, and died in the midst of a procession the evening before the day appointed. His enemies saw in his death a judgment from heaven, and likened it to that of Judas. Only Athanasius relates it with reserve and dignity.

Upon the whole, Constantine had done his best for peace by leaving matters in an uneasy suspense which satisfied neither party. This seems the best explanation of his wavering. He had not turned Arian, for there is no sign that he ever allowed the decisions of Nicaea to be openly rejected inside the churches. Athanasius was not exiled for heresy, for there was no question of heresy in the case. The quarrel was ostensibly one of orthodox bishops, for Eusebius had signed the Nicene creed as well as Athanasius. Constantine's action seems to have been determined by Asiatic feeling. Had he believed the charge of delaying the corn-ships, he would have executed Athanasius at once. His conduct does not look like a real explosion of rage. The merits of the case were not easy to find out, but the quarrel between Athanasius and the Asiatic bishops was a nuisance, so he sent him out of the way as a troublesome person. The Asiatics were not all of them either Arians or intriguers. It was not always furtive sympathy with heresy which led them to regret the heresiarch's expulsion for doctrines which he disavowed; neither was it always partizanship which could not see the innocence of Athanasius. Constantine's vacillation is natural if his policy was to seek for unity by letting the bishops guide him.

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

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.

Let us now take a glance at the new Emperor of the East. Constantius had something of his father's character. In temperance and chastity, in love of 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 statesmanship 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 nobleness of character. Yet he was a pious emperor, too, in his own way. He loved the ecclesiastical game, and was easily won over to the Eusebian side. The growing despotism of the Empire and the personal 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 superstitions, how far he merely let his flatterers lead him, or how far he saw political reasons for following them. In any case, he began with a thorough dislike of the Nicene council, continued for a long time to hold conservative language, and ended after some vacillation by adopting the vague Homoean compromise of 359.

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 assemblies 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.

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.

His letter is one of the ablest documents 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 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.

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

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 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 substitute, 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.

Defeated in a free council, the wire-pullers a few months later assembled 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 document, which left all questions open.

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

To Sardica the bishops came. The Westerns were about ninety-six in number, 'with Hosius of Cordova 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.

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 Sonship is another matter. This was the real charge against him, and he was allowed to evade it. Though doctrinal questions lay more in the background in the case of Athanasius, one party in the council was for issuing a new creed in explanation of the Nicene. The proposal was wisely rejected. It would have made the fatal admission that Arianism had not been clearly condemned at Nicaea, and thrown on the Westerns the odium of innovation. All that could be done was to pass a series of canons to check the worst scandals of late years. After this the council issued its encyclical and the bishops dispersed.

Meanwhile the Easterns 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 associates of heretics and patrons of the detestable errors of Marcellus. A few random charges of gross immorality are added, after the Eusebian custom. They end with a new creed, the fourth of Antioch, with some verbal changes, and seven anathemas instead of two.

The quarrel of East and West seemed worse than ever. The Eusebians had behaved discreditably 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.

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 assembled the bishops of Palestine to greet him at Jerusalem. But his entry into Alexandria was the crowning triumph of his life. For miles along the road the great city streamed out to meet him with enthusiastic welcome, and the jealous police of Constantius could raise no tumult to mar the universal harmony of that great day of national rejoicing.

The next few years were an uneasy interval of 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.

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' 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' 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.

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 passed through many troubles in his earlier life and been the disciple of several scholars, mostly of the Lucianic school, before he came to rest in a clear and simple form of Arianism. Christianity without mystery seems to have been his aim. The Anomoean leaders took their stand on the doctrine of Arius himself, and dwelt with most emphasis on its most offensive aspects. Arius had long ago laid down the absolute unlikeness of the Son to the Father, but for years past the Arianizers had prudently softened it down. Now, 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 God?' 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.

The condition of Antioch under Leontius 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 nobody knew what he said. This policy was successful in keeping out of the Eustathian communion not only the indifferent multitude, but also many whose sympathies were clearly Nicene, like the future bishops Meletius and Flavian. But they always considered him an enemy, and the more dangerous for the contrast of his moderation with the reckless violence of 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.

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 worshipped 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.

Meanwhile new troubles were gathering in the West. While the Eastern churches were distracted with the crimes or wrongs of Marcellus and Athanasius, Europe remained at peace from the Atlantic to the frontier of Thrace. The western frontier of Constantius was also the western limit of the storm. Hitherto its distant echoes had been very faintly heard in Gaul and Spain; but now the time was come for Arianism to invade the tranquil obscurity of the West.

Constans was not ill-disposed, and for some years ruled well and firmly. Afterwards--it may be that his health was bad--he lived in seclusion with his Frankish guards, and left his subjects to the oppression of unworthy favourites. Few regretted their weak master's fate when the army of Gaul proclaimed Magnentius Augustus . But the memory of Constantine was still a power which could set up emperors and pull them down. The old general Vetranio at Sirmium received the purple from Constantine's daughter, and Nepotianus claimed it at Rome as Constantine's nephew. The Magnentian generals scattered the gladiators of Nepotianus, and disgraced their easy victory with slaughter and proscription. The ancient mother of the nations never forgave the intruder who had disturbed her queenly rest with civil war and filled her streets with bloodshed. Meantime Constantius came up from Syria, won over the legions of Illyricum, reduced Vetranio to a peaceful abdication, and pushed on with augmented forces towards the Julian Alps, there to decide the strife between Magnentius and the house of Constantine. Both parties tried the resources of intrigue; but while Constantius won over the Frank Silvanus from the Western camp, the envoys of Magnentius, who sounded Athanasius, gained nothing from the wary Greek. The decisive battle was fought near Mursa, on the Save . Both armies well sustained the honour of the Roman name, and it was only after a frightful slaughter that the usurper was thrown back on Aquileia. Next summer he was forced to evacuate Italy, and in 353 his destruction was completed by a defeat in the Cottian Alps. Magnentius fell upon his sword, and Constantius remained the master of the world.

The Eusebians were not slow to take advantage of the confusion. The fires of controversy in the East were smouldering through the years of rest, so that it was no hard task to make them blaze afresh. As the recall of the exiles was only due to Western pressure, the death of Constans cleared the way for further operations. Marcellus and Photinus were again deposed by a council held at Sirmium in 351. Ancyra was restored to Basil, Sirmium given to Germinius of Cyzicus. Other Eastern bishops were also expelled, but there was no thought of disturbing Athanasius for the present. Constantius more than once repeated to him his promise of protection.

Magnentius had not meddled with the controversy. He was more likely to see in it the chance of an ally at Alexandria than a matter of practical interest in the West. As soon, however, as Constantius was master of Gaul, he set himself to force on the Westerns an indirect condemnation of the Nicene faith in the person of Athanasius. Any direct approval of Arianism was out of the question, for Western feeling was firmly set against it by the council of Nicaea. Liberius of Rome followed the steps of his predecessor Julius. Hosius of Cordova was still the patriarch of Christendom, while Paulinus of Trier, Dionysius of Milan, and Hilary of Poitiers proved their faith in exile. Mere creatures of the palace were no match for men like these. Doctrine was therefore kept in the background. Constantius began by demanding from the Western bishops a summary and lawless condemnation of Athanasius. No evidence was offered; and when an accuser was asked for, the Emperor himself came forward, and this at a time when Athanasius was ruling Alexandria in peace on the faith of his solemn and repeated promises of protection.

A synod was held at Arles as soon as Constantius was settled there for the winter. The bishops were not unwilling to take the Emperor's word for the crimes of Athanasius, if only the court party cleared itself from the suspicion of heresy by anathematizing Arianism. Much management and no little violence was needed to get rid of this condition; but in the end the council yielded. Even the Roman legate, Vincent of Capua, gave way with the rest, and Paulinus of Trier alone stood firm, and was sent away to die in exile.

There was a sort of armed truce for the next two years. Liberius of Rome disowned the weakness of his legates and besought the Emperor to hold a new council. But Constantius was busy with the barbarians, and had to leave the matter till he came to Milan in the autumn of 355. There Julian was invested with the purple and sent as Caesar to drive the Alemanni out of Gaul, or, as some hoped, to perish in the effort. The council, however, was for a long time quite unmanageable, and only yielded at last to open violence. Dionysius of Milan, Eusebius of Vercellae, and Lucifer of Calaris in Sardinia were the only bishops who had to be exiled.

The appearance of Lucifer is enough to show that the contest had entered on a new stage. The lawless tyranny of Constantius had roused an aggressive fanaticism which went far beyond the claim of independence for the church. In dauntless courage and determined orthodoxy Lucifer may rival Athanasius himself, but any cause would have been disgraced by his narrow partisanship and outrageous violence. Not a bad name in Scripture but is turned to use. Indignation every now and then supplies the place of eloquence, but more often common sense itself is almost lost in the weary flow of vulgar scolding and interminable abuse. He scarcely condescends to reason, scarcely even to state his own belief, but revels in the more congenial occupation of denouncing the fires of damnation against the disobedient Emperor.

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