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OF
MGEVE AND POST-NICENE FATHERS
OF
Pere tino WEAN @CiLU RCH: Second Series.
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH WITH PROLEGOMENA AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
UNDER THE EDITORIAL SUPERVISION OF
Peeve AC ie DD) ee Anp. PRIUIP SCHAEP, DD. LED:
Principal of King’s College, Professor of Church History in the Union Theological Seminary, London. New Yorh.
IN CONNECTION WITH A NUMBER OP PATRISTIC SCHOLARS OF EUKOPE AND AMERICA.
VOLUME IV.
Sap PNAS TUS:
SELECT WORKS AND LETTERS.
NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1907
yA
COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY
THE CHRISTIAN LITERATURE COMPANY.
PRINTED BY MEssrs, PARKER & CO. AT THEIR
PRINTING OFFICE, CROWN YARD, CORNMARKET-STREET, OXFORD.
Ae oF Frank ob)
DOLORES PREBACE.
Ir is with a sense of deep obligation to Mr. Robertson, the special editor, that this volume of the Post-Nicene series of the Fathers is presented to the subscribers and the public. It will furnish, as is believed, a more comprehensive and thorough introduction to the study of Athanasius than is elsewhere accessible, and the labour and devotion bestowed upon it are beyond all acknowledgment. Thanks must also be expressed to the publishers, by whose liberality the ordinary limits of the volumes of this series have been extended, in order that so important a Father as Athanasius might be represented with as much fulness as possible.
Mr. Robertson’s Preface explains the care and respect with which the translation and notes of Cardinal Newman have been treated, in reprinting them for the purpose of this edition. But there appeared in some parts of the translation inaccuracies which could not be reproduced consistently with a faithful representation of the original; and so far, therefore, and so far only, it has been corrected. Where any correction has been made in the Cardinal’s notes, it is of course distinctly specified.
I must add an expression of particular gratitude to my friend, the Rev. J. H. Lupton, Surmaster of St. Paul’s School, for his generous help in reading the translations throughout, and for various valuable suggestions. The assistance of his scholarly learning gives me additional confidence in presenting this volume to the public.
I must take the opportunity of expressing my great regret that there has been so con- siderable an interruption in the issue of the series. But by the sudden failure, partly from illness, and partly from other unforeseen causes, of two important contributions at the very moment when they were needed, the editor and the publishers were exposed to dithculties which were for the time insuperable. But other volumes of the series are now Steadily progressing, and it is believed there will be no further interruptions in the publication.
HENRY WACE.
King’s College, London, 21 /Vov., 1801.
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2020 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation
https://archive.org/details/selectlibraryofnO000unse
6 1100
Pe PEC AVRIGINGSSAND “LETTERS
OF
ATHANASIUS, BISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA.
EDITED, WITH PROLEGOMENA, INDICES, AND TABLES,
BY
ARCHIBALD ROBERTSON,
PRINCIPAL OF BISHOP HATFIELD’S HALL, DURHAM, LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD.
PREFACE:
In preparing the present volume the Editor has aimed at providing the English reader with the most complete apparatus for the study of Athanasius, his life, and his theological influence, which could be brought within the compass ofa single volume of the ‘ Nicene and Post-Nicene Library.’ The volume contains all the most important treatises of Athanasius (in as nearly as possible their exact chronological order), with the exception of the ad Sera- pionem, the contra Apollinarium, the ad Marcellinum, and the exegetical remains. On these and other treatises omitted from the present collection the reader is referred to the Pro legomena, ch. iil. : : aate: ae
A great part of the volume, including the bulk of the historical and anti-Arian works, and the Festal Letters, consists.of a revision of translations and notes comprised in the Oxford Library of the Fathers. The notes to all, and the translation of most, of the works in question, excepting the Festal Letters, were prepared for that series by Mr. (since Cardinal) Newman. It was at first intended to incorporate his work without any change; but as the volume began to take shape this intention was inevitably to some extent modified ; moreover, the limits of space demanded the sacrifice of some of the less important matter. . The prin- ciples upon which the necessary changes have been made will be found stated on pp. 304, 305, 450. What is there said applies also to the de Decretis and Letter of Eusebius, as well as to the notes to the historical pieces; it may be added that the translation of the ‘Fourth Discourse’ has been very carefully revised, in order to secure the utmost closeness to the some- what difficult original. In all the new translations, as well as in the revision of earlier work, the aim has been to secure the strictest fidelity compatible with clearness. The easy assumption that distinctions of tenses, constructions, &c., count for little or nothing in patristic Greek has been steadily resisted. Doubtless there are passages where the distinction, for example, of aorist and perfect, seems to fade away; but generally speaking, Athanasius is fully sensitive to this and other points of grammar.
The incorporation in this volume of so much of the ample patristic learning of Cardinal Newman has inevitably involved some sacrifice of uniformity. To provide the new matter with illustrative notes on anything like the same scale, even had it been within the present ~ editor’s power, would have involved the crowding out of many works which the reader will certainly prefer to have before him. Again, many opinions are expressed by Cardinal Newman which the present editor is unable to accept. It may not be invidious to specify as an example the many cases in which the notes enforce views of Church authority, especially of papal authority, or again of the justifiableness of religious persecution, which appear to be at any rate foreign to the mind of Athanasius; or the tacit assumption that the men of the fourth century can be divided by a broad and fast line into orthodox and heretical, and that while everything may be believed to the discredit of the latter, the former were at once uniform in their convictions and consistently right in practice. Such an assumption operates with special injustice against men like Eusebius, whose position does not fall in with so summary a classification. But it has been thought better to leave the notes in nearly all such cases as they stand, only very rarely inserting a reference or observation to call attention to another aspect of the case. And in no instance has the editor forgotten the respect due to the theological learning and personal greatness of Cardinal Newman, or to his peculiar eminence as a religious thinker.
But this has made it inevitable that many matters are regarded in one way in the notes of Newman, and in quite another where the present editor speaks for himself. What the great Cardinal says of his ‘ Historical Sketches’ (Preface to vol. ii.) holds good to a large extent of his expositions of Athanasius, ‘Though mainly historical, they are in their form and character polemical, as being directed against certain Protestant ideas and opinions.’ The aim of the
PREFACE. vil present editor has been throughout exclusively historical. He has regarded any polemical purpose as foreign to the spirit in which this series was undertaken, and moreover as fated in the long run to defeat its own aim. Whatever results may ultimately be reaped from the field of patristic studies, whether practical, dogmatic, or controversial, they must be resolutely postponed or rather ignored, pending the application of strict method to the criticism and interpretation of the texts, and to the reconstruction of the history whether of the life or of the doctrine of the Church. For the latter purpose, ‘lucifera experimenta, non fructifera queerenda.’ To follow this method, without concealing, but without obtruding, his personal convictions, has been the endeavour of the present editor. That he has succeeded, it is not for him to claim: but his work has been in this respect disinterested, and he ventures to hope that readers of all opinions will at least recognise in it ‘un livre de bonne foy.’
The Prolegomena are not intended to be anything approaching to a complete treatise
upon the history, writings, or theology of S. Athanasius. They are simply what their title implies, an attempt to furnish in a connected form a preliminary account of the matters comprised in the text of the volume, such as on the one hand to reduce the necessity for a running historical commentary, on the other hand to prepare the reader for the study of the text itself. ___ Fullindices have been added for the same purpose. The general index comprises the lead- ing theological and historical topics, and a complete register of all personal names. This latter seemed requisite in order to escape the arbitrariness of any line which might have been drawn between important and insignificant characters. The nobodies of history may occasionally be important witnesses. The index of Scripture texts has been made with painful attention to detail, and contains no unverified reference. To draw the line in each case between formal citation and mere reminiscence would have involved too great an expenditure of time and space ; moreover there are many probable reminiscences of Scripture language which it would have been endless to include. But on the whole the index in question claims to be a complete synopsis of the use made of the Bible in the text of this volume. As such it is hoped that, with whatever occasional errors, it may be of use to the patristic and the biblical student alike.
For the original matter comprised in this volume the editor disclaims any credit of his own. He has aimed simply at consulting and comparing the best authorities, at sifting their conclusions, and at following those which seem best founded. ‘That in doing so the original sources are ready to hand throughout is the peculiar good fortune of those who work at Athanasius. It remains, then, for the editor to express his principal obligations to modern writers. To mention those of earlier date, such as Montfaucon and Tillemont, is merely to say that he has not neglected the indispensable foundations of his task. But Athanasius has also attracted to the study of his works much of the best patristic scholarship of recent times. Among the names mentioned in the first chapter of the Prolegomena, that of Cardinal Newman speaks for itself. No English student will neglect his Avzans, however much some of its views may require modification. Pre-eminent for accurate knowledge of the texts and for vivid presentment of the history is Dr. Bright, whose works have been constantly open before the present editor, and have secured him from many an oversight. His occasional divergence from Dr. Bright’s views, especially on points of chronology, has gone along with grateful appreciation of this scholar’s genuine historical interest, large theological grasp, and perhaps unequalled personal sympathy with Athanasius as a man and as a writer. (On the use made in this volume of his Later Treatises of S. Athanasius, the reader is referred to what is said, zr. p. 482.)
Last, but not least, the editor must acknowledge his obligations to Mr. Gwatkin. To say that that writer’s Studies of Arianism have done more than any one work with which he is acquainted to place the intricate story of the period on a secure historical footing is saying a great deal, but by no means too much. To say that whatever historical accuracy has been attained in this volume has been rendered possible by Mr. Gwatkin’s previous labours is to the present writer a matter of mere honest acknowledgment. Especially this is the case in chronological questions. Here Mr. Gwatkin has in no single instance been blindly followed, or without the attempt to interrogate the sources independently. But in nearly all cases Mr. Gwatkin’s results, which, it should be added, are those accepted by the best continental students also, have held their own. It has been the editor’s misfortune to differ from Mr. Gwatkin now and then, for example with regard to the Life of Antony: but even where he has differed as to conclusions, he has received help and instruction from Mr. Gwatkin’s ample command of material, and genuinely scientific method.
viil PREFACE.
In addition to the above writers, the manifold obligations of the editor are recorded in the introductions and notes: if any have been passed over, it has been due to inadvertence or to the necessity of condensation. For the suggestions and help of personal friends the editor’s gratitude may be here expressed without the mention of names. But he may specially mention the Rev. H. Ellershaw and Miss Payne Smith, to the former of whom he owes the translation of the Life of Antony, while the latter has kindly revised the Oxford translation of the bulk of the Festal Letters. Lastly, the many kindnesses, and uniform consideration, shewn to him by the English editor of this series call for his warmest recog- nition: that they may prove not wholly thrown away is the utmost that their recipient can
venture to hope.
Lhe University, Durham, A. R. 1891.
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A. SELECT WorKS OF ATHANASIUS*.
1. Adversus Gentes Libri duo ge Against the Heathens Contra) Gentes). sssdcnssdcessccsyssacecennstertencestiteeacee es ates sees jmOn the Incarmation (De! Incarmatione, Verbi; Del) sescas sees aaatatrsee een teeesaeeeeeee ees 2. Deposition of Arius, and circular letter (Oxford translation by Rev. M. Atkinson, with notes omNewman;, revised by RevarA 1 RODErSON) aannrysnenerer cee atadseaeeehce sinecite tise tee dee an eee sae ss 3. Council of Niczea. The ‘ Epistola Eusebii’ from Athanasius de Decretis, translation, notes, and excursus of Newman (revised by Rev. A. Robertson) .............6++8 Mea eeaeecenneseteeen pelea Ame oacementiot Haithy(Ecthesis, Ore ExpOsitioO, PIGel) ) inesachecsenasnnenssaruccaseneacesaneeenaessteesee : ReOnmuukercs22 (Lil ud sOmimia Occ.) lerpeseneceaessese sosnce same snare sstiten panne: soiah veonsigaseacaetecs 6. Encyclical Letter (Epistola Encyclica), Oxford translation by Rev. M. Atkinson, with notes OfeNewimai, TevIscd DY ICY. A. wRODEMSOM sosesc ne: aseeronrsatiscleleederererinsasslssisswsseleneiersiaceice en 7. Apology (Apologia contra Arianos), Atkinson’s translation, notes of Newman, revised by Rev ArA c INODET SOMME eeae. enter aurea onecscate tame ste risctrincbinnei ten re tencemeemrnanacn ties tees tee 8. Defence of the Nicene Council (de Decretis), translation and notes of Newman. (Appendix ADONE, NON). mole tly TeVvISed yet, socelsenlese sie senatbelectese nse s+s-snc4esses\es-riasseissansacdieneieneress g. Defence of Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria (de Sententia Diony sti) sastecneswsansass<assovsmensacers 10. Life of Antony (vita Antoni), translation by Rev. H. Ellershaw, M.A., with notes, &c., by evar Aelx ODELLSOLM Mees nearuance etree cercec ane’ traits eosin sie aclisniercleceorriaanaes siecle sises=ssiaceseisieaeincees 11. Circular to Bishops of Egypt and Libya (ad Episcopos Aigypti), Atkinson’s translation, notes of Newman, revised by Rev. A. Robertson .......ccsceeercrncseseeeer eee ees te eeesnen sense ese eea sense ern ees 12. Apology to the Emperor (Apologia ad Constantium), Atkinson’s translation, notes of New- man, revised by Rev. A. Robertson ..........esssnserseseeceesensrseneeessce ser esecesteesescesessssveeees 13. Defence of his flight (Apologia de Fuga), Atkinson’s translation, notes of Newman, revised by Rey. A. Robertson ........0..esccssncccsnnsressessecenaeeersroesstcesseeeessseeenersecennscessesseneescesseunes 14. Arian History (Historia Arianorum ad Monachos), Atkinson’s translation, with notes of Newman, revised by Rev. A. Robertson .....-..csscecesscneeneeseebecseseeeenece tenses cesses ees seeeneans 15. Against the Arians (Orationes contra Arianos IV.), translation and notes of Newman, revised by Rev. A. Robertson ....cccceceeceecee cee see nee enee nese ee rete neeeeeeee tenet neen ee aee nee nen cee eeetes 16. On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia (de Synodis), Newman’s translation, with notes, revised by Rev. A. Robertsom........:sesssesesssrssesseseeceesenersenn ceseeeeeceneesenseeeeeaesceesesenans 17. Synodal letter (Tomus ad Antiochemos) ............:::cseceeeeten eee ers seen ees cee cen eee tenn eee cee cece
18.
Appendix.—Account by Athanasius of his flight under Julian (Narratio ad Ammonium), translation by Rev. H. Ellershaw ........-ssssssscssesssaeonrssseeceeanenanesecescesanees seeeeeaeeuns Synodal letter (ad Afros)......scccescseceecesseeeesrsecesneeseneneceeeseceneaesentaeaenenscescecesensuesces oes ses
PAGF.
xi xiii Ixiii Ixvili Ixxx xc
31
68
73 83 86
gI 97
149 173
188 | 222 236 254 266 393
448 481
487
x
CONTENTS,
B. LETTERS OF ATHANASIUS *, PAGE 1—45. Festal or Easter Letters, the Oxford translation, revised by Miss Payne-Smith, edited,
with Introduction (including the Historia Acephala and ‘ Index’) and revised notes by Rey. A. Robertson. Introduction. Historia Acephala and Festal Index ............csessccsececcessersovecvese 495
Letters euces.merneacssosotaseabane deme cree nance eee Peco aes daeakteem mencrecees waste srens 506
46—64. Personal letters, translations with notes by Rey. A. Robertson. 462 Ad Eeclesias: MareoticaS!..c..cscccenrsncsares scsi vecservesescceese scemrart stead eseeiemal dees inecmestriasostiastan 2) 554 AvmpeA Cubs cclesiamyA lexand Dicey yemererslae cin sites serisantemie stealer eca shee enrrertseets eee tee tec Meni aaese ats 555 AS MACEATIUI eteeine stecaseess ceases svn esieseieiiececone elas ceaeteatessieeiraeeraecrratesttentelgane se ete een erect os seers 556 49. Ad Dracontiuna. «.gchez mages cat Bes hae te Reon Beh yeas ane eee ae se ate He aa ca secnaccinen une 557 Ose5 Dar Au citer tin tks piStOl ae. Clitccum rane ase eect iene ene heee an eee cei meee eter eerie ach eter netstat yarietter 561 52, 53. Ad monachos Epp. duz (No. 52, Oxford Translation, revised)... ..............secsssccnreeeerees 563 54. Ad Serapionem de morte Ari (Oxford Translation, revised) © .2..:.-0..c0-222er ers e- os sale sre seesres 564 Gh AG: Rufinianumy cer. o-corscosacacecactosssraceu taste sees svesacrece eeseactcs tose ae coe rat eeeE esaer iiamenses 566 560d) Imperatorem) Jovianum) (with ppendix)ieseusesses ene reres ete ree eee eee eee reece ee ere tae aeetee 567 SF 7s50> AG OFSISIUM a7 sieseesecneseee cos cease meee cemelacee aaceerien beens BONene ns Rea aT CROC eam CUE eee 569 Ufo }gy WG lal} oy Cela 1 ecoonpericacoanoobesuCeC ecu oemenbovantcsphe.asrctencduncd, de ouhond Adhdoanddadaos A645 oog460 0p 068606 570 Go. Ad Adel phitmis: a.cncauteetacevarcs snk teach ee meena er eet atm Res Renee eee nee ete eee 575 61;-Ad Maximum philosophumy, cree vaa seen eitec oi tcte ee aaa cane na Soper 578 627) Adsoannem et cAntiochumimcssaeecassseaetete eee en eee ae nem MEE eens sr eReeeas 579 63. PAG Palladiiim: siachecoseaiasn sate ee haere ce tee Oe ee eee eee neeeee 580 G4 FA: Diod oruin Sycccenca:ReessncoMe caek nee cette em eee eters Stee een eeeee 580
ADDITIONAL NOTES AND EXCURSUS:
Excursus A (Newman), on Hypostasis and Ousia in the Nicene formula .......s.sesescceecseeeesee 77 INCH GNA NS 151Glaley os jorestente Bho SEH KCECE, — coqsonaasadonsnoneunrudcotogdoetonelaubsbacpandmnansendansoacenecosn: 147 Excursus/Bi(Newman)jonimpivicevynonvanouc ny ee meee meee reece eee 343 Hxcursus| Gon the Hourth) Discourselagainst therArians sess, eee sacmeteees eeeeeneeneteeecemeceentes 431 INoteionWNewmanisHxcursusitomheacnSy770c is mate eeeereer tee eee neeeRee nee taeeere ne ene 480 INotctonslvettersmotmacl idedsinuthisicollectionmesen en acne eretenetee renee nee re eeneeeee ae eee 581 LN DICES:(£) of: Lexts.of- Scripture cigs. Wieser cis Rene ec eee ee ee 585 (2) of SubjectiMattettacc.cissuccs seater eee eee eee ee ee 592
*N.B. The Introductions are in every case by Rev. A. Robertson; the translations and the notes are by him
except where otherwise stated. All additions made by him to Dr. Newman’s notes are included in square brackets,
PROLEGOMENA.
SAE ha,
LITERATURE.
§ 1. EnpiTions, &c. (A) Before 1601 only Latin translations. The first, at VICENZA, 1482, completed by Barnabas Celsanus after the death of the translator OMNIBONUS of Lonigo ; dedicated to Paul II. Contained a few works only, viz. the ‘two books c. Gentes, the letter to Serapion de AZorte Artt, the De Incarn. adv. Arian. and adv. Apollin., the ‘ Dispute with Arius at the Council of Niczea.’ (2) PARIS, 1520, pub. by Jean PETIT: two books ¢. Gent. fragment of the ad Marcellin. and some ‘spuria.’ (3) Second edition at STRASS- BURG, 1522. (4) BASEL, 1527, by ERASMUS: Serap. iii. and iv., de Decr., Apol. Fug., Apol. c. Ar. (part of), ‘ad Monach.,’ and some ‘spuria’ (he rejected Sevag. i. as unworthy of Athan. !). (5) Lyons, 1532, same contents as numbers (2) and (4), but with renderings by Politian, Reuchlin, Erasmus, &c. (6) COLOGNE, 1632, similar contents. (7) 1556, BasEL (‘apud Frobenium’), by P. NANNIuS, in 4 volumes; great advance on previous editions. 3 vols. contain the version by Nannius of the ‘genuina,’ the fourth ‘spuria,’ rendered. by others. The Nannian version was ably tested, and found wanting, under the direction of the congregation of the Index (Migne xxv. pp. xviii. sgg.). (8) 1564 (or 1584?) BasEL (substantially the same). (9) 1570, PARIS, Vita Antonzi and ‘five dialogues de Tyin.,’ version of Beza. (10) 1572, PARIS, five volumes, combining Nos. 7 and 9. (i1) 1574, PARIS, Letter ad Amun, Letter 39 (fragment), Letter ad Rujfinianum. (12) 1581, PARIS, incorporating the latter with No. 10. (13) ROME, 1623, the spurious de variis gquestiontbus.
(B) The first Greek Edition (14) 1601 at HEIDELBERG by COMMELINUS, with the Nannian Latin version (2 vols. fo. with a supplement of fragments, letters, &c., communicated by P. Felckmann). This edition was founded upon Felckmann’s collation of numerous MSS., of which the chief were (a) that in the Public Library at Basel (seec. xiv., zof ix.—x. as Felck. states; formerly belonged to the Dominican Friary there). (8) The ‘Codex Christophorsoni,’ now at Trin. Coll., Camb., seec. xvi. izeunt. (y) A ‘Codex Goblerianus’ dated 1319, formerly 77s ovis Tov xup(Fov, and principally used by Nannius. Neither this nor the remaining MSS. of Felckmann are as yet, I believe, identified. (Particulars, Migne, P.G. xxv. p. xliii.) (15) 1608, PARIS, pub. by C. Chappelet, edited by Fronton le Duc, S.J., Latin only. (17) 1612, Paris, No. 15, with Vit. Ant, in Greek and Latin, from an edition (16) of 1611, AUGSBURG, by Hoschel, 4°. (18) 1627, Paris, Greek text of 1601 with version of Nannius from edition No. 17, both injudiciously revised by Jean le Pescheur, from the critical notes of Felckmann himself, which however are omitted in this edition. (19) ‘Cologne,’ or rather LEIPZIG, 1686, poor reprint of No. 18 with the Sy2tagma Doctrine which Arnold had published in the previous year (see below, ch. ii. § 9). (Montf. wrongly dates this 1681.)
(c) All the above were entirely superseded by the great (20) 1698 Paris Benedictine Edition. by Bernard de MontTFAUCON, aided, for part of vol. 1, by Jacques Loppin, 3 volumes fol. (i.e. vol. 1, parts 1 and 2, ‘genuina,’ vol. 2 ‘dubia et spuria’), with a NEW Latin Version and ample prolegomena, &c. Montlaucon took over, apparently without revision, the critical data of Felckmann (including his mistake as to the age of the Basel MS.), but collated very many fresh MSS. (principally Parisian, full particulars in Migne xxvi. pp. 1449, sgg.), and for the first time put the text on a fairly satisfactory footing. The Works of Athanasius were freshly arranged with an attempt at chronological order, and a ‘ Monitum’ or short introduction prefixed to each. Critical, and a few explanatory, notes throughout; also an ‘onomasticon’ or glossary. This splendid edition was far more complete than its predecessors, and beautifully printed. After its completion, Montfaucon discovered fresh material, most of which he published in vol. 2 of his ‘CoLLEcTIo Nova PATRUM,” Paris, 1706, with some further supplementary matter to his Prolegomena, partly in reply to Tillemont upon various critical questions ; small additions in his Bzd/ioth. Cotstiniana, 1715. (The letters to Lucifer, included in Mont- faucon’s edition, had already seen the light in vol. iv. of the Bibliotheca Maxima Patrum (Lyons, 1677, Greek fathers in Latin only), and the two notes to Orsisius were taken from the life of Pachomius in the Acta SS. for May.)
cian 1746, Rom, the de Titulis Psalmorum, edited from Barberini and Vatican MSS, by Cardinal Niccolo ANTONELLI. (22) 1769, VENICE, vol. v. of the ‘Bibliotheca Patrum’ of the Oratorian Andrea GALLANDI. Contains the works omitted in No. 20, chiefly from Montf. Cold. Mov., but with a few minor additions, and with the fragments and letters found by Maffei at Verona (see below, pp. 495, 554): (23) 1777, PADUA, by GIUSTINIANI, in four volumes, containing firstly Montfaucon’s ‘genuina’ in two volumes, the ‘dubia’ and ‘spuria’ in the third, and the supplementary matter from (21) and (22) in the fourth, ‘The printing of this standard edition is not equal to that of No. 20. (24) ‘1884’ (1857), PARIS, vols. xxv.—xxvill. of MIGNE’s Patrologia Greeca, a reprint of No. 23, but in a new order (see vol. xxviil. p. 1650), and with the addition of the Festal Letters from Mai (see below, p. 501). The merits and demerits of this series are well known. Of the latter, the most serious are the misprints, with which every page literally teems.
(D) With Migne’s edition the publication of a complete Athanasius (so far as his works are known to be extant) is attained, although there is still everything to be done towards the revision of the text on a critical basis. Among modern editions of large portions of Athanasius from the Benedictine text may be mentioned (25) THILO, Athan. Opp. dogm. Selecta, Leipz, 1853. (26) BRiGHT, Ovations against the Arians (1873 and ed. 1883), and Aistorical Writings of Athanasius, 1881 (Oxf. Univ, Press), with Introductions ; both
xii PROLEGOMENA, CHAPTER I.
most convenient ; his Lessons from the lives of three great Fathers (Longmans, 1890) gives an eee ee study of Athan. Editions of separate books will be noticed in the short Introductions prefixed in this vo ae
§ 2. TRANSLATIONS. The principal. Latin versions have been referred to in § I. Of those in oe languages it is not easy to procure adequate information. Fialon, in the work mentioned below, aes oye Apol. Const. and Afol. Fug.; in German the ‘Bibliothek der Kirchenvater,’ vols. 13—18, Ausgew. i‘ eh a des h. Ath., contains translations of several works by FISCH, Kempten from | 1872. The principal Englis Translations are those in the ‘ Library of the Fathers.’ Of these, those edited or translated by ee are incorporated in this volume. Some letters included in this volume, as well as the work against ae - linarianism, are also comprised in the volume (Z2b. Fath. 46, 1831) by BRIGHT, with excellent notes, : C., and with a preface by Dr. Pusey (see below, p. 482). Translations of single books will be noticed in the respective Introductions. : . ; Gee oe
§ 3. Brocrapuies. (a.) Ancient, The writings of Athanasius himself, while seldom furnishing precise chronological data, furnish almost, all the primary information as to the facts of his eventful life. The ae ‘Life’ is the panegyric of GreGoRY of Nazianzus (Or. 21), delivered at CP. 379 or 380, rich in praises, | rut less so in historical material. More important in the latter respect is the Historia Acephala (probably earlier than 390) printed in this volume, pp. 496, sgg- (The Edition by SIEVERS in Zéschr. Sir Hist. Theol. fox 1868 is referred to in this volume as ‘Sievers’ simply.) It is a priceless source of chronological information, especially where it coincides with and confirms the data of the Festal Index (pp. 503, sgg.), document probably earlier than 400. A secondary place is occupied by the Church historians, especially Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, who draw largely from Athanasius himself, and from Rufinus, also in part from the Hist. Aceph. (especially Sozomen), and from Arian sources, which are mainly used by Philostorgius. More scattered notices in later ecclesiastical writers of the fourth century, especially Epiphanius ; also Synesius, Jerome, Basil, &c., in the documents of the Councils, &c., and in the Life of Pachomius and other early documents relating to Egyptian Monasticism (see below, Introd. to Vit. Anton. and Appendix, p. 188, 487). :
i (b) Wal Under this head we may notice the Lives printed by Montfaucon among his Prolegomena. The first, ‘Incerto Auctore,’ is dependent on the fifth-century historians and of no value. A second, preserved by Photius (c. 840) is in the judgment of that scholar, which Montfaucon endorses, ‘ unparalleled rubbish.’ That by the Metaphrast (} 967) is a patchwork from earlier writers made with little skill, and not of use to the historian. An Arabic Life current in the Coptic Church, communicated to Montf. by Renandot, is given by Montf., as he says, that his readers may appreciate the ‘ stupendous ignorance and triviality’ of that nation. Montf. mentions Latin ‘ Lives’ compiled from Rufinus and from the Hist. Tripartita, ‘ of no value whatever.
Of the Life of Athanasius ‘ by Pachomius,’ mentioned by Archd. Farrar (infra), I can obtain no particulars. ;
(c) Modern. The first was that by Tortelius prefixed to the edition of 1520 (§ 1 (2)), but compiled in the previous century and dedicated to Pope Eugenius IV. (‘good for its time,’ M.). Montf. mentions a valueless life by Lipomanus, and a worse one of unknown origin prefixed to other early editions. In 1671 HERMANT made the first attempt at a critical biography (Paris); in 1664 an English work, “ History of the Life and Actions of St. Athanasius by N.B. P.C. Catholick,” with the imprimatur of Abp. Sheldon, had been published at London, in 1677 the biography in Cave, Lives of the Fathers, and in 1686—1704 du Pin, Nouvelle Bibliotheque. About the same date appeared the first volume of the Acta SS. for May, which contains a careful life by PAPEBROCH (1685; ded. to Innocent XI.). But all previous (to say nothing of subsequent) labours were cast into the shade by the appearance of the ‘Vita’ of MONTFAUCON (Prolegg. to Tom. 1) in 1698, in which the chronology was reduced to order, and every particle of inform- ation lucidly digested; and by the ‘ Memoires’ of ‘M. Lenain de TILLEMONT’ (vol. viii. in 1702), which go over the ground with quite equal thoroughness, and on many points traverse the conclusions of Montfaucon, whose work came into Tillemont’s hands only when the latter was on his death-bed (1698). The ground was once more traversed with some fulness and with special attention to the literary and doctrinal work of Athan. by Remy CEILLIER (Aut. Sacrés, vol. v. 1735). After this nothing remained to be done until the revival of interest in patristic studies during the present century. In 1827 appeared the monograph of MOHLER ‘Ath. der Grosse’ (Mainz), a dogmatic (R.C.) rather than a historical study: in 1862 STANLEY (‘Eastern Church,’ Lect. vii.) BOHRINGER’s life (in vol. 6 of Atrchengesch. in Biographien, 1860—1879) is praised as ‘thoroughly good and nearly exhaustive.’ FIALON S¢. Athanase, Paris, 1877, is a most interesting and suggestive, though rather sketchy, treatment from an unusual point of view. P. BARBIER Vie de St. A. (Tours, 1888) I have not seen. The best English life is that of Dr. BRIGHT, first in the Introd. to the ‘Orations’ (supra, § 1, d. 26), but rewritten for the Dictionary of Christ. Biography. The same writer’s Introd. to the Zest. Writings (supra ib.) is equally good and should also be consulted. A lucid and able sketch by Dr. REYNOLDs has been published by the Religious Tract Society, 1889, and Archd. Farrar, Lives of the Fathers, 1, pp. 445 —571, is eloquent and sympathetic.
§ 4. HISTORY OF THE PERIOD, AND OF THE ARIAN CONTROVERSY. (a) Conflict of the Church with Heathenism. On the later persecutiors AuBE, Les Chrétiens dans ’ Emp. romain, Paris, 1881, id. ‘L’église et Pétat,’ ib. 1886, UHLHORN Der Kempf des Christeniums, &c. (4th. ed.), 1886, BERNHARDT, Gesch. Roms von Valerian bis Dioklet., 1876, GORRES, Licinianische Christenverfolgung, 1875. On Diocletian, Mason, Persec. of Diocl., 1876, Monograph; by VoGEL, 1857, PRruss, 1869. On the general subject of the decline of paganism, LASAULX, Untergang tes Hellenismus, 1854, Merivale’s Boyle Lectures, 1864-5, CHASTEL, De- struction du Paganisme, 1850, S-HULTZE, Gesch. des Untergangs des G.-R. Heidentums, 1887 (not praised), DOLLINGER, Gentile and Few (2. Tr.), 1862. On the revival of paganism under Julian, RENDALL, ¥u/ian, 1879, Bp. J. WorDsworri in D.C.B., vol. iii., lives of Julian by NEANDER, 1813, RODE, 1877, MUcKE, 1879, NAVILLE, 1877, Strauss, der Romantiker, u.s.w., 1847, Julian’s works, ed. HERTLEIN, 1875, and NEUMANN, 1880. Monographs by AUER, 1855, MANGOLD, 1862, SEMISCH, 1862, LUBKER, 1864; CAPES, University Life in Ancient Athens, 1877, SIEVERS, Leben des Libanius, 1868.
(b) Zhe Christian Empire. KEim, Uebertritt Konstantins, 1862, BRiEGER, Konst. der G., 1880, GIBBON’s chapters on the subject should be carefully read. CHAWNER’s Legis. of Constantine, DE BROGLIE, Liéglise et Demp. romain, iii., RANKE, Weltgesch. iv. pp. 1—100 (important), 1884, SCHILLER, Gesch. der’ rom. Katserzett (ii.), 1887. See also the full bibliography in vol. 1 of this series, p. 445—465.
(c) General History of the Church. It is unnecessary to enumerate the well-known general histories, all
LITERATURE. | xiii
of which devote special pains to Athanasius and the Arian controversy. This is especially the case with SCHAFF, Nicene Christ. ii. 616—678, 884—893, with full bibliography. See also supra § 3. BriGut’s Notes on the Canons (Oxf. 1882), and HEFELE, vol. 2 (E. Tra.), are most useful: also KAayE, Council of Nicea (Works, vol. v. ed. 1888). Card. HERGENROTHER’S Avrchengeschichte (allowing for the natural bias of the writer) is fair and able, with good bibliographical references in the notes (ed. 1884). By far the best modern historical monograph on the Arian period is that of GWATKIN, Studies of Arianism, 1882, constantly referred to in this volume, and indispensable. His Arian Controversy, 1889, is an abridgement, but with supplementary dis- cussions of importance on one or two points; very useful bibliography prefixed to both. (Cf. also below, Chap. us § 1) KOLLING’s Geschichte der Arianischen Haresie (1st vol., 1874, 2nd, 1883) is pretentious and uncritical.
§ 5. History oF DocTRINE. For ancient sources see articles HERESIOLOGY and PERSON OF CHRIST in D.C.B., vols. iii., iv. The modern classics are the works of PETAVIUS, de Trinitade (in vols. ii. and iii. of his De dogmat. Theol.) of THOMASSINUS, Dogmata Theologica, and of BULL, Defensio fidei Nicene (maintaining against Petay. the fixity of pre-Nicene doctrine). Under this head we include NEWMAN’s Arians of the Fourth Century, an English classic, unrivalled as a dogmatic and religious study of Arianism, although unsatisfactory on its purely historical side. (Obsolete chronology retained in all editions.) The general histories of Doctrine are of course full on the subject of Arianism ; for an enumeration of them, see Harnack, § 2 of his Prolegomena. In English we have SHEDD (N. Y., 1863, Edinb., 1884), HAGENBACH (Clark’s Foreign Theol. Lib.), and the great work of DORNER (id.). The most important re¢ent works are those of HARNACK, Dogmengeschichte (1886, third vol., 1890), a most able work and (allowing for the prepossessions of the Ritschl school) impartial and philosophical; and Loors, Lettfaden zur Dogmengeschichte (2 ed., 1890), on similar lines, but studiously temperate and fair. Both works are much used in this volume (quoted commonly as ‘ Harnack,’ ‘ Loofs,’ simply. Harnack, vol. i., is quoted from the /ivs¢ edition, but the later editions give comparative tables of the pages). For Councils and Creeds, in addition to the works of Hefele and Bright mentioned § 4 c., see HEURTLEY, Harmonia Symbolica ; HAHN, Bibliothek der Symbole; Hort, Two Dissertations (1876), indispensable for history of the Nicene Creed; Swartnson, WVicene and Apostles Creed, 1875; CASPARI, UOngedruckte u.s.w. Quellen zum Taufsymbol u.s.w. (3 vols. in 2, Christiania, 1866—1875), and Alte und Neue Quellen, ib. 1879 ; one of the most important of modern patristic works.
§ 6. PaTristic MonoGRAPHS. (a) Among the very numerous works of this kind, the most useful for our purpose are ZAHN, Marcellus von Ancyra, 1867, very important for doctrinal history ; REINKENS, /7larius von Poitiers, 1864; FIALON, St. Basile, 1868; ULLMANN, Gregorius von Nazianz (2 ed., 1867, part of earlier ed. trans. by Cox, 1855); KRrUGER, Lucifer von Calarts (excellent, especially for the Council of 362). Under this head may be mentioned the numerous excellent articles in Dict. Chr. Biog. referred to in their respective connexions.
(b) Ox the doctrine of Athanasius. In addition to the works of Ceillier and Mohler referred to above, ATZBERGER, Die Logoslehre des h. Ath. (Munich, 1880); Vorict, Die Lehre des Athan. (Bremen, 1861) ; PELL, Lehre des h. Ath. von der Siinde und Erlosung (Passau, 1888, a careful and meritorious analysis, candidly in the interest of Roman Catholicism. Difficulties not always faced).
The above list of authorities, &c., does not pretend to completeness, nor to enumerate the sources for general secular or Church history. But in what relates specially to Athanasius it is hoped that an approximation to either requirement has been attained. Works bearing on more special points are referred to in their proper places. In particular, a special BRIEF BIBLIOGRAPHY is prefixed to the VITA ANTONII.
CHAPTER II. Lire oF ST. ATHANASIUS AND ACCOUNT OF ARIANISM.
A. §§ 1—3. To THE CoUNCIL OF NICHA, 298—325. § 1. Early years, 298—319. § 2. The Arian controversy before Nicza (319—325). § 3. (1.) THe CounciL oF NIc/A (325). § 3. (2) Situation at the close of the Council (325—328). ; ; a. NOVELTY OF ARIANISM. Its ANTECEDENTS in the history of doctrine. b. The ‘‘Opoodcrov.’ . c. Materials for reaction. (1) Persecuted Arians. (2) Eusebius and the Court. (3) Eccle- siastical conservatism. Marcellus and Photinus.
B. §§ 4—8. THE CONFLICT WITH ARIANISM (328—361). § 4. Early years of his Episcopate (328—335), and first troubles. § 5. The Council of Tyre and First Exile (335 —337)- § 6. Renewed troubles and Second Exile (337—346)- (1) At Alexandria (337—339). (2) At Rome. Council of Antioch, &c. (339—342)- (3) Constans ; Council of Sardica, and its sequel (342 —346). § 7. The golden Decade (346—356). (1) Athanasius as bishop. (2) Sequel of the death of Constans. § 8. The Third Exile (356—-361). 1) Expulsion of Athanasius. ; e ; , Uy STATE OF THE ARIAN CONTROVERSY :—(a) ‘Anomceans’; (b) ‘ Homeeans’ ; (c) ‘Semi- Arians.’ (3) Athanasius in his retirement. Gs , 10. ATHANASIUS IN VICTORY (362—373): z i % g. Under Julian and his successors ; Fourth and Fifth Exiles (362—366). § 10. Last years. Basil, Marcellus, Apollinarius (366—373).
Xiv : PROLEGOMENA, CHAPTER II., § 1.
Id primum scitu opus est in proposito nobis minime fuisse ut omnia ad Arium Arianos aliosque haereticos illius aetatis itidemque Alexandrum Alexandrinum Hosium Marcellum Serapionem aliosque Athanasii familiares aut synodos spectantia recensere sed solummodo ea que uel ad Athanasii Vitam pertinent uel ad eam proxime accedunt. —-MONTFAUCON.
Athanasius was born between 296 and 298". His parents, according to later writers, were of high rank and wealthy. At any rate, their son received a liberal education. In his most. youthful work we find him repeatedly quoting Plato, and ready with a definition from the Organon of Aristotle. He is also familiar with the theories of various philosophical schools, and in particular with the developments of Neo-Platonism. In later works, he quotes Homer more than once (fst. Ar. 68, Orat. iv. 29), he addresses to Constantius a defence bearing unmistakeable traces of a study of Demosthenes de Corona (Fialon, pp. 286 sg. 293). His education was that of a Greek: Egyptian antiquities and religion, the monuments and their history, have no special interest for him : he nowhere betrays any trace of Egyptian national feeling, But from early years another element had taken a first place in his training and in his interest. It was in the Holy Scriptures that his martyr teachers had instructed him, and in the Scriptures his mind and writings are saturated. Ignorant of Hebrew, and only rarely appealing to other Greek versions (to Aquila once in the Ecthesis, to other versions once or twice upon the Psalms), his knowledge of the Old Testament is limited to the Septuagint. But of it, as well as of the New Testament, he has an astonishing command, ’Adeéavdpeds ro yéver, avnp dytos, Suvaris dv ev rais ypadais. The combination of Scriptural study and of Greek learning was what one expects in a pupil of the famous Alexandrian School; and it was in this School, the School of Clement and Origen, of Dionysius and Theognostus, that young Atha- nasius learned, possibly at first from the lips of Peter the bishop and martyr of 3112. The influence of Origen still coloured the traditions of the theological school of Alexandria. It was from Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria 312—328, himself an Origenist ‘of the right wing,’ that Athanasius received his moulding at the critical period of his later teens.
Of his first introduction to Alexander a famous story is told by Rufinus (A/7s¢. Zcc/. I. xiv.). The Bishop, on the anniversary of the martyrdom of his predecessor, Peter, was expecting some clergy to dinner after service in a house by the sea, Out of the window, he saw some boys at play on the shore: as he watched, he saw that they were imitating the sacred rites of the Church. Thinking at last that they were going too far, he sent some of his clergy to bring them in, At first his enquiries of the little fellows produced an alarmed denial. But at length he elicited that one of them had acted the Bishop and had baptized some of the others in the character of catechumens. On ascertaining that all details had been duly observed, he consulted his clergy, and decided that the baptisms should be treated as valid, and that the boy-bishop and his clergy had given such plain proof of their vocation that their parents must be instructed to hand them over to be educated for the sacred profession. Young Athanasius accordingly, after a further course of elementary studies, was handed over to the bishop to be brought up, like Samuel, in the Temple of God. This, adds Sozomen (ii. 17), was the origin of his subsequent attachment to Alexander as deacon and secretary. The story is credited by some writers of weight (most recently by Archdeacon Farrar), but seems highly improbable. It depends on the single authority of a writer not famed for historical judgment, and on the very first anniversary of Peter’s martyrdom, when Alexander had hardly ascended the episcopal throne, Athanasius was at least fourteen years old. The probability that the anniversary would have been other than the first, and the possibility that Athanasius was even older, coupled with the certainty that his theological study began before Peter’s martyrdom, compel us to mark the story with at least a strong note of interrogation. But it may be allowed to confirm us in the belief that Alexander early singled out the promise of ability and devotion which marked Athanasius for his right-hand man long before the crisis which first proved his unique value.
His years of study and work in the bishop’s household bore rich fruit in the two youthful works already alluded to. These works more than any later writings of Athanasius bear traces of the Alexandrian theology and of the influence of Origenism: but in them already we trace the independent grasp of Christian principles which mark Athanasius as the representative of something more than a school, however noble and many-sided. It was not as a theologian, but as a believing soul in need of a Saviour, that Athanasius approached the mystery of Christ. Throughout the mazes of the Arian controversy his tenacious hold upon this fundamental principle steered his course and balanced his theology. And it is this that above all else characterises the golden treatise on the Incarnation of the Word. ‘There is, however, one
x He was unable to speak from memory of the events of the persecution of 303 (Hist. Ar. 64), but (de Incarn. 56. 2) had been instructed in religion by persons who had suffered as martyrs. This must have been before 311, the date of the last persecution in Egypt under Maximin. Before 319 he had written his first books ‘against the Gentiles,’ the latter of which, on the In- carnation, implies a full maturity of power in the writer, while the former is full of philosophical and mythological knowledge such as argues advanced education. But from several sources we learn that his election to the episcopate in 328 was impugned, at any rate in after years, on the ground of his not having attained the canonical age of thirty, There is no ground for supposing
| that this was true: but such a charge would not be made without
some ground at least of plausibility. We must therefore suppose that on June 8, 328, he was not much beyond his thirtieth year. His parents, moreover, were living after the year 358 (see below, p. 562, note 6); allowing them over fourscore years at that date, we find in 298 a reasonable date for the birth of their son. We must remember that in southern climates mind and body mature somewhat more rapidly than with ourselves, and the ‘contra Gentes’ and ‘ de Incarnatione’ will scarcely appear precocious.
2 The statements of Greg. Naz. that he frequented classes of grammar and rhetoric is probable enough; that of Sulpitius Severus that he was ‘juris consultus’ lacks corroboration.
OUTBREAK OF THE ARIAN TROUBLES. XV ees ee ee icy element in the influence of Origen and and his successors which already comes out, and which never lost its hold upon Athanasius,—the principle of asceticism. Although the ascetic tendency was present in Christianity from the first, and had already burst forth into extrava- gance in such men as Tertullian, it was reserved for the school of Origen, influenced by Platonist ideas of the world and life, to give to it the rank of an acknowledged principle of Christian morals—to give the stimulus to monasticism (see below, p. 193). Among the acclamations which accompanied the election of Athanasius to the episcopate that of «fs rav aoxntdy was Conspicuous (Afo/. Ar. 6). In de Jncarn. 51. 1, 48. 2, we seem to recognise the future biographer of Antony:3.
$2. The Arian Controversy before Nicea, 319—-325.
At the time when Athanasius first appeared as an author, the condition of Christian Egypt was not peaceful. Meletius, bishop of Lycopolis, was accused of having sacrificed during the persecution in gor (pp. 131, 234); condemned by a synod under bishop Peter, he had carried on schismatical intrigues under Peter, Achillas, and Alexander, and by this time had a large following, especially in Upper Egypt. Many cities had Meletian bishops: many of the hermits, and even communities of monks (p. 135), were on his side.
_ The Meletian account of the matter (preserved by Epiphan. Her. 58) was different from this. Meletius had been in prison along with Peter, and had differed from him on the question of the lapsed, taking the sterner view, in which most of the imprisoned clergy supported him. It would not be without a parallel (D.C.B. art. Donatisrs, NovaTian) in the history of the burning question of the /ags7 to suppose that Meletius recoiled from a compromised position to the advocacy of impossible strictness. At any rate (de /ncarn. 24. 4) the Egyptian Church was rent by a formidable schism. No doctrinal question, however, was involved. ‘The alliance of Meletians and Arians belongs to a later date.
It is doubtful whether the outbreak of the Arian controversy at Alexandria was directly connected with the previous Christological controversies in the same Church. The great Dionysius some half-century before had been involved in controversy with members of his Church both in Alexandria and in the suffragan dioceses of Libya (in/fr. p. 173). Of the sequel of that controversy we have no direct knowledge: but we find several bishops and saneeae clergy and laity in Alexandria and Libya‘ ready to side with Arius against his
ishop.
The origin of the controversy is obscure. It certainly must be placed as early as 318 or 319, to leave sufficient time before the final deposition of Arius in the council of 321 (zufr. p. 234). We are told that Arius, a native of Libya, had settled in Alexandria soon after the origin of the Meletian schism, and had from motives of ambition sided at first with Meletius, then with Peter, who ordained him deacon, but afterwards was compelled to depose him (Epiph. Her. 69, Sozom. i. 15). He became reconciled to Achillas, who raised him to the presbyterate. Disappointed of the bishopric at the election of Alexander, he nurtured a private grudge (Thdt. H. £#. i. 2), which eventually culminated in opposition to his teaching. ‘These tales deserve little credit: they are unsupported by Athanasius, and bear every trace of inven- tion ex post facto. That Arius was a vain person we see from his Thalia (z#/r. p. 308): but he certainly possessed claims to personal respect, and we find him not only in charge of the urban parish of Baucalis, but entrusted with the duties of a professor of scriptural exegesis. There is in fact no necessity to seek for personal motives to explain the dispute. The Arian problem was one which the Church was unable to avoid. Not until every alternative had been tried and rejected was the final theological expression of her faith possible. Two great streams of theological influence had run their course in the third century : the subordinationist theology of Origen at Alexandria, the Monarchian theology of the West and of Asia which had found a logical expression in Paul of Samosata. Both streams had met in Lucian the martyr, at Antioch, and in Arius, the pupil of Lucian, produced a result which combined elements of both (see below, § 3 (2) a). According to some authorities Arius was the aggressor. He challenged some theological statements of Alexander as Sabellian, urging in opposition to them that if the Son were truly a Son He must have bad a beginning, and that there had been therefore a time
4 It is of interest to note the changed conditions. In 260 bishop Dionysius had to check the Monarchian tendency in Libya, and was accused by members of his own flock of separating the Son
from the Being (ovcia) of the Father. In 319 a Libyan, Arius,
| cries out upon the Sabellianism of his bishop, and formulates the very doctrine which Dionysius had been accused of main- taining.
3 The actual connection of Athanasius with Antony at this period is implied in the received text of ‘Vit. Anton.’ Prolog., for it could scarcely fall at any later date. At the same time the youthful life of Athanasius seems fully accounted for in such a way as to leave little room for it (so Tillemont). But our ig- norance of details leaves it just possible that he may for a time have visited the great hermit and ministered to him as Elisha did of old to Elijah. (Cf. p. 195, note 2.)
xvi _ PROLEGOMENA, CHAPTER II. § 2.
when He did not exist. According to others (Constantine in Eus. Vit. ii. 69) Alexander had demanded of his presbyters an explanation of some passage of Scripture which had led Arius to broach his heresy. At any rate the attitude of Alexander was at first conciliatory. Himself an Origenist, he was willing to give Arius a fair hearing (Sozom. dz supra). But the latter was impracticable. He began to canvass for support, and his doctrine was widely accepted. Among his first partisans were a number of lay people and virgins, five presbyters of Alexandria, six deacons, including Euzoius, afterwards Arian bishop at Antioch (A.D. 361), and the Libyan bishops Secundus of Ptolemais in Pentapolis (see p. 226) and Theonas of Marmarica (see p. 70). A letter was addressed to Arius and his friends by Alexander, and signed by the clergy of Alexandria, but without result. A synod was now called (ém/r. p. 70, Socr. i. 6) of the bishops of Egypt and Libya, and Arius and his allies deposed. Even this did not.check the movement. In Egypt two presbyters and four deacons of the Mareotis, one of the former being Pistus, a later Arian bishop of Alexandria, declared for Arius; while abroad he was in correspondence with influential bishops who cordially promised their support. Conspicuous among the latter was a man of whom we shall hear much in the earlier treatises of this volume, Eusebius, bishop of Berytus, who had recently, against the older custom of the Church (p. 103, note 6), but in accordance with what has ever since been general in the case of important sees, been translated to the imperial city of Nicomedia. High in the favour, perhaps related to the family, of Constantine, possessed of theological training and practical ability, this remarkable man was for nearly a quarter of a century the head and centre of the Arian cause. (For his character and history, see the excellent article in D.C.B. ii. 360—367.) He had been a fellow-pupil of Arius in the school of Lucian, and fully shared his opinions (his letter to Paulinus of Tyre, Thdt. H. £. i. 6). The letter addressed to him by Arius (ib. 5) is cne of our most important Arian monuments. Arius claims the sympathy of Eusebius of Czesarea and other leading bishops, in fact of all the East excepting Macarius of Jerusalem and two others, ‘heretical and untutored persons.’ Eusebius responded with zeal to the appeal of his ‘fellow-Lucianist.’ While Alexander was indefatigable in writing to warn the bishops every- where against Arius (who had now left Alexandria to seek foreign support, first in Palestine, then at Nicomedia), and in particular addressed a long letter to Alexander, bishop of Byzan- tium (Thdt. &. Z. i. 4), Eusebius called a council at Nicomedia, which issued letters in favour of Arius to many bishops, and urged Alexander himself to receive him to communion. Meanwhile a fresh complication had appeared in Egypt. Colluthus, whose name stands first among the signatures to the memorandum (to be mentioned presently) of the deposition of Arius, im- patient it would seem at the moderation of Alexander, founded a schism of his own, and although merely a presbyter, took upon himself to ordain. In Egypt and abroad. confusion reigned : parties formed in every city, bishops, to adopt the simile of Eusebius (V2#. Const.), collided like the fabled Symplegades, the most sacred of subjects were bandied about in the mouths of the populace, Christian and heathen.
In all this confusion Athanasius was ready with his convictions. His sure instinct and powerful grasp of the centre of the question made him the mainstay of his Bishop in the painful conflict. At a staget of it difficult to determine with precision, Alexander sent out to the bishops of the Church at large a concise and carefully-worded memorandum of the decision of the Exyptian Synod of 321, fortified by the signatures of the clergy of Alexandria and the Mareotis (see zfra, pp. 68—71).
This weighty document, so different in thought and style from the letter of Alexander pre- served by Theodoret, bears the clear stamp of the mind and character of Athanasius: it contains the germ of which his whole series of anti-Arian writings are the expansion (see introd. and notes, pp. 68—71), and is a significant comment on the hint of the Egyptian bishops (Afo/. ¢c. Ar. 6 ad init.).
Early in 324 a new actor came upon the scene. Hosius, bishop of Cordova and con- fessor (he is referred to, not by name, Vit. Const. ii. 63, 73, cf. ili. 7, 6 mdvv Bodpevos ; by name, Socr. 1. 7), arrived with a letter from the Emperor himself, intreating both parties to make peace,
t The chronology cannot be determined with precision, The] Arius in correspondence with Eusebius, &c. Leaves Alexandria Memorandum is signed by Colluthus and therefore precedes his | for Palestine and Nicomedia. Letters sent abroad by Alexander. schism. The letter to Alex. Byzant. was written after the Col- | Eusebius holds council and writes to Alexander. 322: Memor- luthian schism had begun. But the proceedings of Eusebius | andum drawn up; Alexandrian clergy assembled to sign it ; pre- described above had at least begun when the Memorandum was | fatory address to them by Alexander with reference to the Ma- circulated, which must, therefore, have been some time after | reotic defection which has just occurred ; circulation of Memor- the Synod of 321. The letter of Alexander to his clergy prefixed | andum; schism of Colluthus. | 323: Letter of Alexander to Alex- to the defosttio was drawn up after it, and includes the names | ander of Byzantium; (Sept.) Constantine, master of the East, of the Mareotic seceders, We may, theref>.e, tentatively adopt | and ready to intervene in the controversy. the following series :—321 A.D.: Egyptian Synod deposes Arius.
NICAA. PARTIES IN THE COUNCIL. XVii
and treating the matter as one of trivial moment. The letter may have been written upon information furnished by Eusebius (D.C.B. s.v.) ; but the anxiety of the Emperor for the peace of his new dominions is its keynote. On the arrival of Hosius a council (p. 140) was held, which produced little effect as far as the main question was concerned: but the claims of Colluthus were absolutely disallowed, and his ordination of one Ischyras (czfr. § 5) to the presbyterate pronounced null and void. Hosius apparently carried back with him a strong report in favour of Alexander; at any rate the Emperor is credited (Gelas. Cys. ii., Hard. Conc. i. 451—458) with a vehement letter of rebuke to Arius, possibly at this juncture. Such was the state of affairs which led to the imperial resolve, probably at the suggestion of Hosius, to summon a council of bishops from the whole world to decide the doctrinal question, as well as the relatively lesser matters in controversy.
‘ i § 3 (1) The Council of Nicea.
An ecumenical council was a new experiment. Local councils had long since grown to be a recognised organ of the Church both for iegislation and for judicial proceedings. But no precedent as yet prescribed, no ecclesiastical law or theological principle had as yet enthroned, the ‘General Council’ as the supreme expression of the Church’s mind. Constantine had already referred the case of the Donatists first to a select council at Rome under bishop Miltiades, then to what Augustine (Z/. 43) has been understood to call a ‘plenarium ecclesiz universe concilium’ at Arles in 314. This remedy for schism was now to be tried on a grander scale. That the heads of all the Churches of Christendom should meet in free and brotherly deliberation, and should testify to all the world their agree- ment in the Faith handed down independently but harmoniously from the earliest times in Churches widely remote in situation, and separated by differences of language, race and civilisation, is a grand and impressive idea, an idea approximately realised at Niczea as in no other assembly that has ever met. The testimony of such an assembly carries the strongest evidential weight ; and the almost unanimous horror of the Nicene Bishops at the novelty and profaneness of Arianism condemns it irrevocablyas alien to the immemorial belief of the Churches. But it was one thing to perceive this, another to formulate the positive belief of the Church in such a way as to exclude the heresy ; one thing to agree in condemning Arian formulz, another to agree upon an adequate test of orthodoxy. This was the problem which lay before the council, and with which only its more clearsighted members tenaciously grappled : this is the explanation of the reaction which followed, and which for more than a generation, for well nigh half a century after, placed its results in jeopardy. The number of bishops who met at Niczea was over 250%. ‘They represented many nationalities (Euseb. “dz supra), but only a handful came fiom the West, the chief being Hosius, Czcilian of Carthage, and the presbyters sent by Silvester of Rome, whose age prevented his presence in person. The council lasted from the end of May till Aug. 25 (see D.C.A., 1389). With the many picturesque stories told of its incidents we have nothing to do (Stanley’s Zastern Church, Socr.1. to—12, Soz. i. 17, 18, Rufin. H.Z. i. 3—5); but it may be well to note the division of parties. (1) Of thoroughgoing partisans of Arius, Secundus* and Theonas alone scorned all compromise. But Eusebius of Nicomedia, Theognis, Bishop of Nicza itself, and Maris of Chalcedon, also belonged to the inner circle of Arians by conviction (Socr. i. 8; Soz. i. 21 makes up the same number, but wrongly). The three last-named were pupils of Lucian (Philost. ii. 15). Some twelve others (the chief names are Athanasius of Anazarbus and Narcissus of Neronias, in Cilicia; Patrophilus of Scythopolis, Aetius of Lydda, Paulinus of Tyre, Theodotus of Laodicea, Gregory of Berytus, in Syria and Palestine ; Menophantus of Ephesus ; for a fuller discussion see Gwatk.’p. 31, n. 3) completed the strength of the Arian party proper. (2) On the other hand a clearly formulated doctrinal position in contrast to Arianism was taken up by a minority only, although this minority carried the day. Alexander of Alexandria of course was the rallying point of this wing, but the choice of the formula proceeded from other minds. ‘Ymécraous and ovcia are one in the Nicene formula: Alexander in 323 writes of rpeis irocrdcets.
The test formula of Niczea was the work of two concurrent influences, that of the anti- Origenists of the East, especially Marcellus of Ancyra, Eustathius of Antioch, supported by Macarius of ‘ Atlia,’ Hellanicus of ‘Iripolis, and Asclepas of Gaza, and that of the Western
bishops, especially Hosius of Cordova. ‘The latter fact explains the energetic intervention of nee ee ee
t So Eus. Vit. Const. iii. 8,—over 270, Eustath. in Thdt. i. 8,—, andria, 362, then in the Letter of Liberius to the bishops of Asia in fact more than 300 (de Decr. 3), according to Athanasius, who} in 365, infr. § 9), on grounds perhaps symbolical rather than again, toward the end of his life (ad. A/r. 2) acquiesces in the historical. as precise figure 318 (Genesis xiv. 14; the Greek numeral ty’ com- 2 The name of Secundus appears among the subscriptions bines the Cross with the initial letters of the Sacred Name) which | (cf. Soz. i. 21), but this is contradicted by the primary evidence a later generation adopted (it occurs already in Hilary de Syn. (Letter of the Council in Soc. i. 9, Thdt. i. 9); cf. Philost. i. 9, to. 86, afterwards in the alleged Coptic acts of the Council of Alex- | But there is evidence that there were two Secundi.
VOL. IV. b
Xviil PROLEGOMENA, CHAPTER IIL. § 3 (£).
Constantine at the critical moment on behalf of the test (see below, and Z/. Eus. p. 75); the word was commended to the Fathers by Constantine, but Constantine was ‘prompted’ by Hosius (Harnack, Dogmg. ii. 226); odros riv év Nexaia miorw e&ébero (tnfr. p. 285, § 42). Alexander (the Origenist) had been prepared for this by Hosius beforehand (Soc. iii. 7; Philost. i. 7; cf. Zahn Jarcell. p. 23, and Harnack’s important note, p. 229). Least of all was Athanasius the author of the dpootciv; his whole attitude toward the famous test (zz/fr. p. 303) is that of loyal acceptance and assimilation rather than of native inward affinity. ‘He was moulded by the Nicene Creed, did not mould it himself’ (Loofs, p. 134). The theological keynote of the council was struck by a small minority ; Eustathius, Marcellus, perhaps Macarius, and the Westerns, above all Hosius; the numbers were doubtless contributed by the Egyptian bishops who had condemned Arius in 321. The signatures, which seem partly incorrect, preserve a list of about 20. The party then which rallied round Alexander in formal opposition to the Arians may be put down at over thirty. ‘The men who best understood Arianism were most decided on the necessity of its formal condemnation.’ (Gwatkin.) To this compact and determined group the result of the council was due, and in their struggle they owed much—how much it is hard to determine— to the energy and eloquence of the deacon Athanasius, who had accompanied his bishop to the council as an indispensable companion (énfr. p. 103 ; Soz. i. 17 fiz.). (3) Between the con- vinced Arians and their reasoned opponents lay the great mass of the bishops, 200 and more, nearly all from Syria and Asia Minor, who wished for nothing more than that they might hand on to those who came after them the faith they had received at baptism, and had learned from their predecessors. These were the ‘conservatives 3,’ or middle party, composed of all those who, for whatever reason, while untainted with Arianism, yet either failed to feel its urgent danger to the Church, or else to hold steadily in view the necessity of an adequate test if it was to be banished. Simple shepherds like Spyridion of Cyprus; men of the world who were more interested in their /de//7 than in the magnitude of the doctrinal issue ; theologians, a numerous class, ‘who on the basis of half-understood Origenist ideas were prepared to recognise in Christ only the Mediator appointed (no doubt before all ages) between God and the World’ (Zahn Marc. p. 30); men who in the best of faith yet failed from lack of intellectual clearsightedness to grasp the question for themselves ; a few, possibly, who were inclined to think that Arius was hardly used and might be right after all ; such were the main elements which made up the mass of the council, and upon whose indefiniteness, sympathy, or unwillingness to impose any effective test, the Arian party based their hopes at any rate of toleration. Spokesman and leader of the middle party was the most learned Churchman of the age, Eusebius of Czsarea. A devoted admirer of Origen, but independent of the school of Lucian, he had, during the early stages of the controversy, thrown his weight on the side of toleration for Arius. He had himself used compromising language, and in his letter to the Cesarean Church (nfra, p. 76 sg.) does so again. But equally strong language can be cited from him on the other side, and belonging as he does properly to the pre-Nicene age, it is highly invidious to make the most of his Arianising passages, and, ignoring or explaining away those on the other side, and depreciating his splendid and lasting services to Christian learning, to class him summarily with his namesake of Nicomedia‘. (See Prolegg. to vol. 1 of this series, and above all the article in D.C.B.) The fact however remains, that Eusebius gave something more than moral support to the Arians. He was ‘neither a great man nor a clear thinker’ (Gwatkin) ; his own theology was hazy and involved ; as an Origenist, his main dread was of Monarchianism, and his policy in the council was to stave off at least such a condemna- tion of Arianism as should open the door to ‘confounding the Persons.’ Eusebius apparently represents, therefore, the ‘left wing,’ or the last mentioned, of the ‘conservative’ elements in the council (supra, and Gwatkin, p. 38) ; but his learning, age, position, and the ascendency of Origenist Theology in the East, marked him out as the leader of the whole. But the ‘conservatism’ of the great mass of bishops rejected Arianism more promptly than had been expected by its adherents or patrons. The real work of the council did not begin at once. The way was blocked by innumerable applications to
the Christian Emperor from bishops and clergy, mainly for the redress of personal grievances. Commonplace men often fail to see the proportion of things, and to rise to the magnitude of the events in which they play their
3 A term first brought into currency in this connection by | here as in other instances, failed to enlist the sympathy of the Mr, Gwatkin (p. 38, note), and since adopted by many writers | conservative rank and file. including Harnack ; _in spite of the obvious objection to the 4 The identity of name has certainly done Eusebius no good importations of political terms into the grave questions of this | with posterity. But no one with a spark of generosity can fail period, the term is too useful to be surrendered, and the ‘con- | to be moved by the appeal of Socrates (ii. 21) for common fairness servatives’ of the Post-Nicene reaction were in fact too often | toward the dead. political in their methods and spirit. The ¢72y conservative men,
PROCEEDINGS AT NICAA. xix
part. At last Constantine appointed a day for the formal and final reception of all personal complaints, and burnt the ‘libelli’ in the presence of the assembled fathers. He then named a day by which the bishops were to be ready for a formal decision of the matters in dispute. The way was now open for the leaders to set to work. Quasi-formal meetings were held, Arius and his supporters met the bishops, and the situation began to clear (Soz. i. 17). To their dismay (de Dec7. 3) the Arian leaders realised that they could only count on some seventeen supporters out of the entire body of bishops. They would seem to have seriously and honestly under- rated the novelty of their own teaching (cf. the letter of Arius in Thdt. i. 5), and to have come to the council with the expectation of victory over the party of Alexander. But they discovered their mistake :—
*Sectamur ultro, quos opimus Fallere et effugere est triumphus.’
‘Fallere et effugere’ was in fact the problem which now confronted them. It seems to have been agreed at an early stage, perhaps it was understood from the first, that some formula of the unanimous belief of the Church must be fixed upon to make an end of controversy. The Alexandrians and ‘Conservatives’ confronted the Arians with the traditional Scriptural phrases (pp. 163, 491) which appeared to leave no doubt as to the eternal God- head of the Son. But to their surprise they were met with perfect acquiescence. Only as each test was propounded, it was observed that the suspected party whispered and gesticulated to one another, evidently hinting that each could be safely accepted, sincé it admitted of evasion. If their assent was asked to the formula ‘like to the Father in all things,’ it was given with the reservation that man as such is ‘the image and glory of God.’ The ‘ power of God’ elicited the whispered explanation that the host of Israel was spoken of as duvapis xupiov, and that even the locust and caterpillar are called the ‘ power of God.’ The ‘ eternity’ of the Son was countered by the text, ‘We that live are alway (2 Coriv. rr)!’ The fathers were baffled, and the test of éuootcror, with which the minority had been ready from the first, was being forced (p. 172) upon the majority by the evasions of the Arians. When the day for the decisive meeting arrived it was felt that the choice lay between the adoption of the word, cost what it might, and the admission of Arianism to a position of toleration and influ- ence in the Church. But then, was Arianism all that Alexander and Eustathius made it out to be ? was Arianism so very intolerable, that this novel test must be imposed on the Church? The answer came (Newman 47.4 p. 252) from Eusebius of Nicomedia. Upon the assembling of the bishops for their momentous debate (as 8¢ é{nretro ris wictews 6 rpdros, Hustath.) he presented them with a statement of his belief. The previous course of events may have convinced him that half-measures would defeat their own purpose, and that a challenge to the enemy, a forlorn hope, was the only resort left to him#*. At any rate the statement was an un- ambiguous assertion of the Arian formule, and it cleared the situation at once. An angry clamour silenced the innovator, and his document was publicly torn to shreds (im der mavrov, says an eye-witness in Thdt. i. 8). Even the majority of the Anans were cowed, and the party were reduced to the inner circle of five (supra). It was now agreed on all hands that a stringent formula was needed. But Eusebius of Caesarea came forward with a last effort to stave off the inevitable. He produced a formula, not of his own devising (K6lling, pp. 208 sgg.), but consisting of the creed of his own Church with an addition intended to guard against Sabellianism (Hort, Zio Diss. pp. 56, sg. 138). The formula was unassailable on the basis of Scripture and of tradition. No one had a word to say against It, and the Emperor expressed his personal anxiety that it should be adopted, with the single improvement of the See The suggestion thus quietly made was momentous 1n Its result. We cannot Burau ime ‘prompter’ Hosius behind the Imperial recommendation : the print Ue vee < a patiently waited their time, and now their time was come : the two Eusebu had } ee result in their hands. But how and where was the necessary word to be inserte an if some change must be made in the Caesarean formula, would it not be as well 3 aa oe or two other details right? At any rate, the creed of Eusebius was carefully overhau e Nes by clause, and eventually took a form materially different from that in which # ee. rst pre- sented+’, and with affinities to the creeds of Antioch and Jerusalem as well as_ Paar
All was now ready ; the creed, the result of minute and careful deliberations (we do no eee ee eS ee
i 0 jovov TH WaTpl, f rovteatuv ex THs OvaLaS ae eae Se eee nae. $ 8), io RN eee ce rod SO Pence uaovann at ae ee a further Gia nbcalion
i y im ; é ecially against Euseb. Nicom.: see his letter in d it as evidence against him; | of yevyn9évta. (specia gainst Ex : i ; pabeitted oy Ee ee SS observes, his letter to | Thdt. i. 6). (3) Further explanation of ye ine te by y. cat mo ee oat pret e ns Ogvra, a glance at a favourite a ° Lis, as ms ey Be 59: ; well classified by | Asterius. (4) évav@pwxyjoavra added to explain gapkwleyTa, 2 4» Hort, pp- 138, peo? ae Sal bes een Miewton so to exclude the Christology which ae ere ae oy eee Se ae “Aeyos and substitution of | the first. (5) ence of anathematisms directed aga 2 mere -eimeipel place. This struck at the theology of Euse- | leading Arian doctrines. us .
bius even more directly than at that of Arius. (2) The addition
b2
PROLEGOMENA, CHAPTER IL, § 3 (1).
xe
know their history, nor even how long they occupieds), lay before the council. We are told ‘the council paused.’ The evidence fails us ; but it may well have been so. All the bishops who were genuinely horrified at the naked Arianism of Eusebius of Nicomedia were yet far from sharing the clearsighted definiteness of the few: they knew that the test proposed was not in Scripture, that it had a suspicious history in the Church. The history of the subsequent generation shews that the mind of Eastern Christendom was not wholly ripe for its adoption. But the fathers were reminded of the previous discussions, of the futility of the Scriptural tests, of the locust and the caterpillar, of the whisperings, the nods, winks, and evasions. Witha great revulsion of feeling the council closed its ranks and marched triumphantly to its conclusion. All signed,—all but two, Secundus and Theonas. Maris signed and Theognis, Menophantus and Patrophilus, and all the rest. Eusebius of Nicomedia signed ; signed everything, even the condemnation of his own convictions and of his ‘ genuine fellow-Lucianist’ Arius ; not the last time that an Anan leader was found to turn against a friend in the hour of trial. Eusebius justified his signature by a ‘ mental reservation ;’ but we can sympathise with the bitter scorn of Secundus, who as he departed to his exile warned Eusebius that he would not long escape the same fate (Philost. i. 9).
The council broke up after being entertained by the Emperor at a sumptuous banquet in honour of his Vicennalia. The recalcitrant bishops with Arius and some others were sent into exile (an unhappy and fateful precedent), a fate which soon after overtook Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis (see the discussion in D.C.B. ii. 364 sg.). But in 329 ‘we find Eusebius once more in high favour with Constantine, discharging his episcopal functions, persuading Constantine that he and Arius held substantially the Creed of Nicza.’
The council also dealt with the Paschal question (see Vit. Const. iil. 18; so far as the question bears on Athanasius see below, p. 500), and with the Meletian schism in Egypt. The latter was the main subject of a letter (Soc. ii 9; Thdt. i. 9) to the Alexandrian Church. Meletius himself was to retain the honorary title of bishop, to remain strictly at home, and to be in lay communion for the rest of his life. The bishops and clergy of his party were to receive a pvorikwrépa xetporovia (see Bright, Motes on Canons, pp. 25 sgg.; Gore, The Church and the Ministry, ed. 1, p. 192 note), and to be allowed to discharge their office, but in the strictest subordination to the Catholic Clergy of Alexander. But on vacancies occurring, the Meletian incumbents were to succeed subject to (1) their fitness, (2) the wishes of the people, (3) the approval of the Bishop of Alexandria. ‘The terms were mild, and even the gentle nature of Alexander seems to have feared that immediate peace might have been purchased at the expense of future trouble (his successor openly blames the compromise, p. 131, and more strongly p. 137); accordingly, before carrying out the settlement he required Meletius to draw up an exact list of his clergy at the time of the council, so as to bar an indefinite multiplication of claims. Meletius, who must have been even less pleased with the settlement than his metropolitan, seems to have taken his time. At last nothing would satisfy both parties but the personal presentation of the Meletian bishops from all Egypt, and of their clergy
5 The events have been related in what seems to be their most
likely order, but there is no real certainty in the matter. It is clear that there were at least two public sittings (Soz. i. 17, the language of Eus. V.C. iii. 10, is reconcileable with this) in the emperor’s presence, at the first of which the /zde72i were burned and the bishops requested to examine the question of faith. ‘This was probably on June 19. The tearing up of the creed of Eus. Nic. seems from the account of Eustathius to have come imme- diately before the final adoption of a creed. The creed of Eusebius of Czsarea, which was the basis of that finally adopted, must therefore have been propounded after the failure of his namesake. (Montfaucon and others are clearly wrong in supposing that this was the ‘blasphemy’ which was torn to pieces!) The difficulty is, where to put the dramatic scene of whisperings, nods, winks, and evasions which compelled the bishops to apply a drastic test. I think (with Kélling, &c.) that it must have preceded the pro- posal of Eusebius, upon which the 6400vcv0v was quietly insisted on by Constantine ; for the latter was the only occasion (mpéaccs) of any modification in the Casarean Creed, which in itself does not correspond to the tests described iz/r. p. 163. But Mont- faucon and others, followed by Gwatkin, place the scene in ques- tion after the proposal of Eus. Czes. and the resolution to modify his creed by the insertion of a stringent test,—in fact at the ‘pause’ of the council before its final resolution. This conflicts with the clear statement of Eusebius that the éuoovcvov was the ‘thin end of the wedge’ which led to the entire recasting of his creed (see i#/r. p- 73. The idea of Kélling, p. 208, that the creed of Eusebius was drawn up by him for the occasion, and that the pa@nua of the council was ready beforehand as an alternative document, is refuted by the relation of the two documents; see Hort, pp. 138, 139). It follows, therefore, from the combined accounts of Ath., Euseb, and Eustathius (our only eye-witnesses)
that (x) the fathers were practically resolved upon the ésoov¥cov before the final sitting. (2) That this resolve was clinched by the creed of Eusebius of Nicomedia. (3) That Eusebius of Caesarea made his proposal when it was too late to think of half-measures. (4) That the creed of Eusebius was modified at the Emperor's direction (which presupposes the willingness of the Council). (5) That this revision was immediately followed by the signatures and the close of the council. The work of revision, however, shews such signs of attention to detail that we are almost com- pelled to assume at least one adjournment of the final sitting. When the other business of the council was transacted, including the settlement of the Easter question, the Meletian schism, and the Canons, it is impossible to say. Kélling swo jure puts them at the first public session. The question must be left open, as must that of the presidency of the council. The conduct of the pro- ceedings was evidently in the hands of Constantine, so that the question of presidency reduces itself to that of identifying the bishop on Constantine’s right who delivered the opening address to the Emperor: this was certainly not Hosius (see V7t. C. iii. x1, and vol. 1 of this series, p. 19), but may have been Eusebius of Czsarea, who probably after a few words from Eustathius (Thdt.) or Alexander (Theod. Mops. and Philost.) was entrusted with so congenial a task. The name of Hosius stands first on the extant list of signatures, and he may have signed first, although the lists are bad witnesses. The words of Athanasius sometimes quoted in this connection (p. 256), ‘over what synod did he not preside?’ must be read in connection with the distinction made by Theodoret in quoting the passage in question (H.A&. ii. 15), that Hosius ‘was very prominent at the great synod of Nicza, and fresided over those who assembled at Sardica. This is the only evidence we possess to which any weight can be attached.
NOVELTY OF ARIANISM. Sexy ee ee from Alexandria itself, to Alexander (p. 137, tovrous Kal mapdvrus mapédoxer TO *AdeEdvdpo), who was thus enabled to check the Brevium or schedule handed in by their chief® All this must have taken a long time after Alexander's return, and the peace was soon broken by his death. Five months after the conclusion of the negotiations, Alexander having now died, the flame of schism broke out afresh (infr. p. 1 31. Montfaucon, in Migne xxv. p. lvii., shews conclusively that the above is the meaning of the pjvas mévre.) On his death-bed, Alexander called for Athanasius. He was away from Alexandria, but the other deacon of that name (see Signatures p. 71), stepped forward in answer to the call. But without noticing him, the Bishop repeated the name, adding, ‘ You think to escape, but it cannot be.’ (Sozom. ii. 17.) Alexander had already written his Easter Letter for the year 328 (it was apparently still extant at the end of the century, p. 503). He died on April 17 of that year (Pharmuthi 22), and on the eighth of June Athanasius was chosen bishop in his stead.
§ 3 (2). The sttuation after the Council of Nicea.
TuH= council (a) had testified, by its horrified and spontaneous rejection of it, that Arianism was a novelty subversive of the Christian faith as they had received it from their fathers. They had (b) banished it from the Church by an inexorable test, which even the leading supporters of Arius had been induced to subscribe. In the years immediately following, we find (c) a large majority of the Eastern bishops, especially of Syria and Asia Minor, the very regions whence the numerical strength of the council was drawn, in full reaction against the council; first against the leaders of the victorious party, eventually and for nearly a whole generation against the symbol itself; the final victory of the latter in the East being the result of the slow growth of conviction, a growth independent of the authority of the council which it eventually was led to recognise. To understand this paradox of history, which determines the whole story of the life of Athanasius as bishop, it is necessary to estimate at some length the theological and ecclesiastical situation at the close of the council: this will best be done by examining each point in turn (a) the novelty of Arianism, (b) the éuoovotoy as a theological formula, (c) the materials for reaction.
(a) ‘ Arianism was a new doctrine in the Church’ (Harnack, p. 218); but it claimed to be no novelty. And it was successful for a long time in gaining ‘conservative’ patronage. Its novelty, as observed above, is sufficiently shewn by its reception at the Council of Niczea. But no novelty springs into existence without antecedents. What were the antecedents of Arianism? How does it stand related to the history within the Church of the momentous question, ‘ What think ye of Christ ?’
In examining such a question, two methods are possible. We may take as our point of departure the formu- lated dogma say of Nicwa, and examine in the light of it variations in theological statements in preceding periods, to shew that they do not warrant us in regarding the dogma as aninnovation. ‘hat is the dogmatic method. Or we may take our start from the beginning, and trace the history of doctrine in the order of cause and effect, so as to detect the divergence and convergence of streams of influence, and arrive at an answer to the question, How came men to think and speak as they did? That is the historical method. Both methods have their recommendations, and either has been ably applied to the problem before us. In electing the latter I choose the more difficult road ; but I do so with the conviction, firstly, that the former has tended (and especially in the ablest hands) to obscure our perception of the actual facts, secondly, that the saving faith of Christ has everything to gain from a method which appeals directly to our sense of historical truth, and satisfies, not merely overawes, the mind.
Let us then go back to ‘ the beginning of the Gospel.’ Taking the synoptic gospels as our primary evidence, we ask, what did Christ our Lord teach about Himself? We do not find formal definitions of doctrine concerning His Person. Doubtless it may seem that such a definition on His part would have saved infinite dispute and searchings of heart in the history of the Church, But recognising in Him the unique and supreme Revealer of the Father, it is not for us to say what He should have taught ; we must accept His method of teaching as that which Divine Wisdom chose as the best, and its sequel in history as the way in which God willed man to learn. We find then in the materials which we possess for the history of His Life and Teaching fully enough to explain the belief of His disciples (see below) in His Divinity. %rstly, there is no serious doubt as to His claim to be the Messiah. (The confession of Peter in all four Gospels, Matt. xvi. 16 ; Mark viii. 29; Luke ix. 27 ; John vi. 69 ; ‘ Son of Man,’ Dan. vii. 13; ix. 24, &c.) In this character He is King in the kingdom of Heaven (Matt. xxv. 31—36, cf. Mk. viii. 38), and revises the Law with full authority (Matt. v. 21—44, cf. Luke v. 24 ; Matt. xii. 8). It may be added that whatever this claim conveyed to the Jews of His own time (see Stanton’s Fewish and Christian Messiah) it is impossible to combine in one idea the Old Testament traits of the Coming One if we stop short of the identification of the Messiah with the God of Israel (see Delitzsch, Psa/ms, vol. i. pp. 94, 95, last English ed.). Secondly, Christ enjoys and confers the full authority of God (Matt. x. go; Luke x. 16; cf. also Matt. xxiv. 35 ; Mk. xiii. 31; Luke xxi. 33), gives and promises the Holy Spirit (‘the Spirit of the Fathe,’ see Matt. x. 17, &c. ; Luke xii. 12, and especially xxi. 15, ¢y& yap 5éow, &c.), and apparently sends the prophets and holy men of old (cf. Matt. xxiii. 34, éy@ awooréAAw with Luke xi. 49). Thirdly, the foundation of all this is laid in a passage preserved by the first and third gospels, in which He claims the unqualified possession of the mind of the Father (Luke x. 22 ;
6 It is worth noting that the Nicene arrangement was successful in some few cases. See Index to this vol. s.v. Theon (ot
Nilopolis), &c.
xxii PROLEGOMENA, CHAPTER 11, § 3 (2).
Matt. xi. 27), ‘No man knoweth [who] the Son [is], save the Father, neither knoweth any man [who] the Father lis} save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will (GvJAnra:) reveal Him.’ Observe the veceprocily of know- ledge between the Son and the Father. This claim is a decisive zxstantia federis between the Synoptics and the Fourth Gospel, e.g. John xvi. 15; xiv. 9, &c. Fourthly, we observe the claim made by Him throughout the synoptic record to absolute confidence, absolute faith, obedience, self-surrender, such as no frail man is justified in claiming from another ; the absence of any trace in the mind of the ‘meek and lowly’ one of that consciousness of sin, that need of reconciliation.with God, which is to us an indispensable condition of the religious temper, and the starting-point of Christian faith (contrast Isa. vi. 5). :
We now turn to the Apostles. Here a few brief remarks must suffice. (A suggestive summary in Sanday, © What the first Christians thought about Christ,’ Oxford House Papers, First Series.) That S. Paul’s summary of the Gospel (1 Cor. xv. 3 sgg.) is given by him as common ground between himself and the older Apostles follows strictly from the fact that the verb used (rapéAaBor) links the facts of Redemption (v. 3, 4) with the personal experi- ences of the original disciples (5 sgg.). In fact it is not in dispute that the original Jewish nucleus of the Apostolic Church preached Jesus as the Messiah, and His death as the ground of forgiveness of sins (Pfleiderer, Urchrist. p. 20; Acts ii. 36,38; iii. 26; iv. 12, &c.; the ‘Hebraic colouring’ of these early chapters is very characteristic and important). The question is, however, how much this implied as to the Divine Personality of the Saviour ; how far the belief of the Apostles and their contemporaries was uniform and explicit on this point. Important light is thrown on this question by the controversy which divided S. Paul from the mass of Jewish Christians with respect to the observance of the Law. Our primary source of knowledge here is Galatians, ch. ii, We there learn that while S. Paul regarded this question as involving the whole essence of the Gospel, and resisted every attempt to impose circumcision on Gentile Christians, the older Apostles conceded the one point regarded as central, and, while reserving the obligation of the Law on those born under it (which S. Paul never directly assailed, 1 Cor. vii. 18) recognised the Gospel of the uncircumcision as legitimate. This concession, as the event proved, conceded every- thing; if the ‘gospel of the uncircumcision’ was sufficient for salvation, circumcision became a national, not a religious principle. Now this whole question was fundamentally a question about Christ. Men who believed, or were willing to grant, that the Law uttered from Sinai by the awful voice of the Most High Himself was no longer the supreme revelation of God, the one divinely ordained covenant of righteousness, certainly believed that some revelation of God different iz £2nd (for no revelation of God zo man could surpass the degree of Ex. xxxiii. 11) had taken place, an unique revelation of God zz man. The revelation of God in Christ, not the revelation of God to Moses, was the one fact in the world’s history ; Sinai was dwarfed in comparison of Calvary. But it must be observed that while the older Apostles, by the very recognition of the gospel of the uncircumcision, went thus far with S. Paul, S. Paul realised as a central principle what to others lay at the circumference. What to the one was a result of their belief in Christ was to him the starting-point, from which logical conclusions were seen to follow, practical applications made in every direction. At the same time S. Paul taught nothing about Christ that was not zmplied in the belief of the older Apostles, or that they would not have felt impelled by their own religious position to accept. In fact it was their fundamental union in the implicit belief of the divinity of the Lord that made possible any agreement between S. Paul and the Jewish Apostles as to the gospel of the uncircumcision.
The apostles of the circumcision, however, stood between S. Paul and the zealot mass of Jewish Christians (Acts xxi. 20), many of whom were far from acquiescing in the recognition of S. Paul’s Gospel. On the same principle that we have used to determine the belief of the 37dA0 with regard to Christ, we must needs recognise that where the gospel of the uncircumcision was still assailed or disparaged, the Divinity of Christ was appre- hended faintly, or not at all.
The name of the ‘Ebionite’ sect testifies to its continuity with a section of the Jerusalem Church (see Light- foot’s Galatians, S. Paul and the Three). It should be observed, however, firstly that between the clear-sighted Apostle of the Gentiles and the straitest of the zealots, there lay every conceivable gradation of intermediate positions (Loofs, Zeitfé § 11. 2, 3); secondly, that while emancipation from legalism in the Apostolic Church ee what has been said above, a belief in the divinity of Jesus was in itself compatible with strict Jewish observance.
The divinity of Christ then was firmly held by S. Paul (the most remarkable passage is Rom. x. 9, II, 13, where Kipioy *Inoody =aitév=Kupiov=fy71) Joel ii. 32), and his belief was held by him in common with the Jewish Apostles, although with a clearer illumination as to its consequences. That this belief was absolutely universal in the Church is not to be maintained, the elimination of Ebionism was only gradual (Justin, Déad. xlviii. ad fin.) ; but that it, and not Ebionism, represented the common belief of the Apostles and New Testament writers is not to be doubted. ;
But taking this as proved, we do not find an equally clear answer to the question Zz what sense is Christ God? The synoptic record makes no ex/icit reference to the pre-existence of Christ: but the witness of John and descent of the Spirit (Mark i. 7—11) at His baptism, coupled with the Virginal Birth (Mt., Lk.), and with the traits of the synoptic porirait of Christ as collected above, if they do not compel us to assert, yet forbid us to deny the presence of this doctrine to the minds of the Evangelists. In the Pauline (including Hebrews) and Johannine writings the doctrine is strongly marked, and in the latter (Joh. i. 1, 14, 18, novoryevys @céds) Jesus Christ is expressly identified with the creative Word (Palestinian M/emra, rather than Alexandrian or from Philo; see also Rev. xix. 13), and the Word with God. Moreover such passages as Philipp. ii. 6 sgg., 2 Cor. xiii. 14 (the Apostolic benediction), &c., &c., are significant of the impression left upon the mind of the infant Churches as they started upon their history no longer under the personal guidance of the Apostles of the Lord.
Jesus Christ was God, was one with the Father and with the Spirit : that was enough for the faith, the love, the conduct of the primitive Church. The Church was nothing so little as a society of theologians ; monotheists and worshippers of Christ by the same instinct, to analyse their faith as an intellectual problem was far from their thoughts: God Himself (and there is but one God) had suffered for them (Ign. Rom. vi.; Tat. Gr. 133 Melito Ar. 7), God’s sufferings were before their eyes (Clem. R. I. ii. 1), they desired the drink of God, even His blood (Ign. Rom. vii,, cf. Acts xx. 28); if enthusiastic devotion gave way for a moment to reflexion ‘ we must think of Jesus Christ as of God’ (‘Clem. R.’ II. 1).
_ The ‘Apostolic fathers’ are not theological in their aim or method. The earliest seat of theological reflexion in the primitive Church appears to have been Asia Minor, or rather Western Asia from Antioch to the Aigean, From this region proceed the Ignatian letters, which stand alone among the literature of their day in theological depth and reflexion. Their theology ‘is wonderfully mature in spite of its immaturity, full of reflexions and yet
ANTECEDENTS OF ARIANISM: THE APOLOGISTS. XXili
at the same time full of intuitive originality’ (Loofs, p. 61). The central idea is that of the renovation of man (Zh. 20), now under the power of Satan and Death (ib. 3, 19), which are undone (xaTéAvois) in Christ, the risen Saviour (Swzyrn. 3), who is ‘ our true Life,’ and endows us with immortality (Swzyr7. 4, Magn. 6, Eph. 17). This is by virtue of His Divinity (Zp. 109, Smyrn. 4) in union with His perfect Manhood. He is the only utter- - ance of God (Adyos amd avyiis mpoedddv, Magn. 8), the ‘ unlying mouth by which the Father spake’ (Rom. 8.)
‘God come (yevduevos) in the flesh,’ ‘our God’ (Zh. 7, 18). His flesh partaken mystically in the Eucharist unites our nature to His, is the ‘medicine of incorruption’ (Z~h. 20, Smyrn. 7, cf. Trail. 1). Ignatius does not distinguish the relation of the divine to the human in Christ ; he is content to insist on both: ‘one Physician, of flesh and of spirit, begotten and unbegotten’ (Zp. 7). Nor does he clearly conceive the relation of the Eternal Son to the Father. He is unbegotten (as God) and begotten (as man): from eternity with the Father (AZagz. 6) : through Him the One God manifested himself. The theological depth of Ignatius was perhaps in part called forth by the danger to the churches from the Docetic heretics, representative of a Judaic (Philad. 5, Magn. 8—10) syncretism which had long had a hold in Asia Minor (1 John and Lightfoot Coloss., p. 73, 81 5gq.). To this he opposes what is evidently a creed ( Zral. 9), with emphasis on the reality (aAnOa@s) of all the facts of Redemption comprised in it.
“i was in fact the controversies of the second century that produced a theology in the Catholic Church, — that in a sense produced the Catholic Church itself. The idea of the Church as distinct from and embracing the Churches is a New Testament idea (Eph. v. 25, cf. 1 Cor. xv. 9, &c.), and the name ‘ Catholic” occurs at the beginning of the second century (Lightfoot’s note on Ign. Swzyrn. 8) ; but the Gnostic and Montanist controversies compelled the Churches which held fast to the mapddoors of the Apostles to close their ranks (episcopal federation) and to reflect upon their creed. The Baptismal Creed (Rom. x. 9, Acts viii. 37, Zext. Rec., cf. 1 Cor. xv. 34) began to serve as a ¢essera or passport of right belief, and as a regulative standard, a ‘rule of faith.’ The ‘limits of the Christian Church’ began to be more clearly defined (Stanton, wi supr. p. 167). ;
Another influence which during the same period led to a gradual formation of theology was the necessity of defending the Church against heathenism. If the Gnostics were ‘the first Christian theologians aXe Harnack), the APOLOGISTS (120—200) are more directly important for our present enquiry. The usual title of Justin ‘Philosopher and Martyr’ is significant of his position and typical of the class of writers to which he belongs. On the one hand the Apologists are philosophers rather than theologians, Christianity is ‘the only true philosophy’ (Justin) ; its doctrines are found piecemeal among the philosophers (Adyos omepuarixds), who are so far Christians, just as the Christians are the true philosophers (Justin and Minuc. Felix). But the Logos, who is imparted fragmentarily to the philosophers, is revealed in His entire divine Personality in Christ (so Justin beyond the others, AZo/, ii. 8, 10). In the doctrine of God, their thought is coloured by the eclectic Platonism of the age before Plotinus. God, the Father of all things, is Creator, Lord, Master, and as sach known to man, but in Him- self Unoriginate (ayévntos), ineffable, mysterious (&ppyntos), without a name, One and alone, incapable of Incarna- tion (for references to Justin and to Plato, D.C.B. iii, 572). His ‘goodness’ is metaphysical perfection, or beneficence to man, His ‘righteousness’ that of Moral Governor of the Universe (contrast the deeper sense of St. Paul, Rom. iii. 21, &c.). But the abstractness of the conception of God gives way to personal vividness in the doctrine of the ‘visible God’ (Tert. Prax. 15 sq.), the Logos (the subject of the O. T. ‘ theophanies ' according to the Apologists) who was ‘with’ the Father before all things (Just. Déa/. 62), but was ‘ begotten’ or projected (mpoBAnGeis) by the will of the Father (ib. 128) as God from God, as a flame from fire. He is, like the ye ineffable (Xpiorés, Just. Afo/. ii. 6), yet is the &yyedos, banpérns of the Father. In particular He is the Father’s minister 7% Creation :; to create He proceeded from the Father, a doctrine expressly deduced from Prov. viii. 22 (Dial. 61, 129). Before this He was the Adyos évdia0eros, after it the Adyos Tpopopikds, the Word uttered (Ps. xlv. 1 LXX; this distinction is not in Justin, but is found Theophil. ad Autol. ii. 10, 22: it is the most marked trace of philosophic [Stoic] influence on the Apologists). The Apologists, then, conceive of ree theology as philosophers. Especially the Person of the Saviour is regarded by them from the cosmological, ae the soteriological view-point. From the latter, as we have seen, St. Paul starts ; and his view gradually embraces the distant horizon of the former (1 Cor. viii. 6, Coloss. i. 15); from the soteriological side also (directly) he reaches the divinity of Christ (Rom. v. 1—8; 1 Cor. i. 30; Rom. x. 13, as above). Here, as we shall see, Athanasius meets the Arians substantially by St. Paul’s method. But the Apologists, under the rue of their philosophy rather than of their religion, start from the cosmological aspect of the problem. o engraft upon an Apostolic (Johannine) title of the Saviour an Alexandrine group of associations : they eo towards transmuting the Word of St. John to the Logos of Philo and the Eclectics. Hence ue ise f er Divinity and of his relation to the Father is embarrassed. His eternity and His generation ore to s Ao compatible : His distinct Personality is maintained at the expense of His true Divinity. He is Go ie ae e One God; He can manifest Himself (Theophanies) in a way the One God cannot; He is ee e ween God and the world. The question has become philosophical rather than directly religious, and p aoe y a
lve it. But on the other hand, Justin was no Arian. If he was Philosopher, he was also I artyr. The serie sue d with Christian piety and personal enthusiastic devotion to Christ. Justin in eae Bnet ae ae wuts iat the life, the worship, the simple faith of the Primitive a ’ ? 2 5 . Chareh, and we can trace in him influences of ey re pec ee) of pe ee tee a ate an . article on Justin in D.C.B. vol. iii.). But our concern ; Ree Ger ot faith ; Te we see that unconsciously they have severed the pe on ae roe nal Father : not God (6 dvtws Aes) but a subordinate ae pene is revealed in Christ : the Logos, to adopt the word: ius, is no longer a true breach of the Divine Silence. > +f s eve a now Anse at the important period of pres os ee eee ac ees af IREN&ZUS, TERTULLIAN, and CLEMENT, the period of a conso : - . Da eee the New Testament, and a catholic rule of faith (see above, and Lumby, Cree ry ch. i. 5 Ys ae se ie +s : begins (180—250) was that of MONARCHIANISM ; the Symbolica, i, —viii,), The problem of the period which ae -chianism is in itself the expression of the
ivini i e reconciled with the Unity of God. Monarchianism is in itse p pet ection, that the &pxn or Originative Principle p oe nee Pere ee only. ia eee ere pou neyect ee eens a eae eae foe cphadice the distinction of jeli e contrary. «< sts, Z : 5 3 * ae : aca eee ti t Zz cts: of ee ike direction of ‘subordination ;’ and axy distinction of Sones Hyper the Godhead involves to a Monotheist some subordination, in order to save the principle
XXIV PROLEGOMENA, CHAPTER IL., § 3 (2).
The Monarchian denied any subordination or distinction of hypostases within the Godhead. This tendency we have now to follow up. We do not meet with it as a problem in IRENAUS. — oa ‘is said to have written against it,’ Newman, Av. 4, p. 117, citing Dodw. ix Zren.) This scholar of pupils o Apostles stands in the lines of the Asiatic theology. He is the successor of Ignatius and Polycarp. We find ae in sharp contrast to the Apologists, giving full expression to the revelation of God in Jesus (the ‘Son is the Measure of the Father, for He contains Him’), and the union of man with God in the Saviour, as the carrying out of the original destiny of man, by the destruction of sin, which had for the time frustrated it (III. xviii. p. 211, Deus antiquam hominis plasmationem in se recapitulans). Hence the ‘deification’ of man’s nature by union a Christ (a remarkable point of contact with Athanasius, see note on de /ncar. 54. 3) ; incorruption 1s attained to by the knowledge of God (cf. John xvii. 3) through faith (IV. xx.) ; we cannot comprehend God, but we learn to know Him by His Love (ib.). At the same time we trace the influence of the Apologists here and there in his Christology (III. 6, 19, and the explanation of the ‘Theophanies,’ iv. 20). But in his younger contemporary TERTULLIAN, the reaction of Monarchianism makes itself felt. He is himself one of the Apologists, and at the same time under Asiatic influences. The two trains of influence converge in the name 77712Zas, which he is the first to use (rplas first in the Aszatic Apologist Theophilus). In combating the Monarchian Praxeas (see below) he carries subordinationism very far (cf. Hermog. 3. ‘fuit tempus cum Ei filius non fuit ), he distinguishes the Word as ‘ rationalis deus’ from eternity, and ‘sermonalis’ not from eternity (cf. again, Theophilus, supra). The Generation of the Son is a mpoBoay (also ‘eructare’ from Ps. xlv. 1), but the divine * Substance remains the same (river and fountain, sun and ray, Prax. 8, 9). He aims at reconciling ‘subordination’ with the ‘Monarchia,’ (ib. 4). In the Incarnate Christ he distinguishes the divine and human as accurately as Leo the Great (ib. 27, 29). In spite of inconsistencies such as were inevitable in his strange individuality (Stoic, philosopher, lawyer, Apologist, ‘Asiatic’ theologian, Catholic, Montanist) we see in Tertullian the starting-point of Latin Theology (but see also Harnack ii. 287 note). . A Pe
We must now examine more closely the history of MONARCHIAN tendencies, and firstly in Rome. The sub- Apostolic Church, simply holding the Divinity of Christ and the Unity of God, used language (see above) which may be called ‘naively Monarchian.’ This holds good even of Asiatic theology, as we find it in its earlier stage. The baptismal creed (as we find it in the primitive basis of the Apostles’ Creed) does not solve the problem thus presented to Christian reflexion. Monarchianism attempted the solution in two ways. Zither the One God was simply identified with the Christ of the Gospels and the Creeds, the Incarnation being a mode of the Divine manifes- tation (Father as Creator, Son as Redeemer, Spirit as Sanctifier, or the like): ‘ Modalism’ or Modalistic Monarch- ianism (including Patripassianism, Sabellianism, and later on the theology of Marcellus) ; or (this being felt incompatible with the constant personal distinction of Christ from the Father) a special effluence, influence, or power of the one God was conceived of as residing in the man Jesus Christ, who was accordingly Sox of God by adoption, God by assimilation : ‘dynamic’ Monarchianism or Adoptionism (‘ Son’ and ‘ Spirit’ not so much modes of the Divine self-realisation as of the Divine Action). This letter, the echo but not the direct survival of Ebionism, was later on the doctrine of Photinus; we shall find it exemplified in Paul of Samosata ; but our present concern is with its introduction at Rome by the two Theodoti, the elder of whom (a tanner from Byzan- tium) was excommunicated by Bishop Victor, while the younger, a student of the Peripatetic philosophy and gram- matical interpreter of Scripture, taught there in the time of Zephyrinus. A later representative of this school, Artemon, claimed that its opinions were those of the Roman bishops down to Victor (Eus. 4.2. v. 28). This statement cannot be accepted seriously ; but it appears to be founded on a real reminiscence of an epoch in the action and teachings of the Roman bishops at the time. It must be remembered that the two forms of Monarch- ianism—modalism and adoptionism—are, while very subtly distinguished in their essential principle, violently opposed in their appearance to the popular apprehension. ‘Their doctrine of God is one, at least in its strict uni- tarianism; but while to the Modalist Christ is the one God, to the Adoptionist He is essentially and exclusively man’. Inthe one case His Personality is divine, inthe other human. Now there is clear proof of a strong Modalist tendency ? in the Roman Church at this time ; this would manifest itself in especial zeal against the doctrine of such men as Theodotus the younger, and give some colour to the tale of Artemon. Both Tertullian and Hippolytus complain bitterly of the ignorance of those responsible for the ascendancy which this teaching acquired in Rome (Zepupivoy avdpa 1d1d7T Hy Kal kreipov Ta&y exkAno.actixay bpwy, Hipp. ‘édotes quisque aut perversus,’ ‘ simplices, ne dicam smprudentes et tdiote.’ Tert.). The utterances of Zephyrinus support this: ‘I believe in one God, Jesus Christ’ (Hipp., see above on the language of the sub-Apost. Church). The Monarchian influences were strengthened by the arrival of fresh teachers from Asia (Cleomenes and Epigonus, see note 2) and began to arouse lively opposition. This was headed by Hippolytus, the most learned of the Roman presbytery, and eventually bishop 3 in opposition to Callistus, the successor of Zephyrinus. The theology of Hippolytus was not unlike that of Tertullian, and was hotly charged by Callistus with ‘Ditheism.’ The position of Callistus himself, like that of his predecessor, was one of compromise between the two forms of Monarchianism, but somewhat more developed. A distinction was made between ‘Christ’ (the divine) and Jesus (the human); the latter suffered actually, the former indirectly (‘filius patitur, pater vero compatitur.’ (Tert.) tov Marépa cuprenovOévac TG vig, Hipp.; it is clear that under ‘ Praxeas ’ Tertullian is combating also the modified Praxeanism of Callistus. See adv. Prax. 27, 29; Hipp. ix. 7) ; not without reason does Hippolytus charge Callistus with combining the errors of Sabellius with those of Theodotus. The compromise of Callistus was only partially successful. On the one hand the
of the Divine * Monarchia.’
t While yet the distinction between the ‘presence’ and ‘ex- istence’ of God in Christ (Newman, A+. 4. p. 123) is very delicate : both ideas are covered by ‘ Dasein.’ The two forms of Monarch- ianism are related exactly as the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity is to the Nestorian.
2 Our authorities are Hippolytus Philosophum., Tertullian Against Praxeas, and the early fragment ‘against heresies’ printed in Tertullian’s works. The statements of Tertullian and Hippolytus agree remarkably, though obviously independent. The first (modalist) Monarchian teacher in Rome was Praxeas (Tert.) from Asia, who was followed by the pupils of Noetus, also an Asiatic (Hippol.), Epigonus (Renan Marc-Auréle 230, note, identifies ‘Praxeas’ with Epigonus; I cannot undertake to pronounce upon the point, but see Harnack, Dagwg. 11. p. 608),
and Cleomenes. Praxeas arrived in Rome under Victor (or earlier, Harnack, p. 610), and combined strong opposition to Montanism, with equally strong modalism in his theology. In both respects his influence told upon the heads of the Church. Montanism was expelled, Modalism tolerated, Theodotus excommunicated; ‘Duo negotia diaboli Praxeas Rome procuravit: prophetiam expulit et heresin intulit: Paracletum fugavit et Patrem crucifixit.’ (Tert.) ‘Praxeas heresin introduxit quam Victor[inus] (perhaps a Confusion with Zephyrinus) corroborare curavit’ (‘ Tertullian’ adv. Her.)
3 This point is still in debate. Against it, see Lightfoot, S. Clement of Rome (ed. 1890), for it, Dillinger Hipp. and Call., and Neumann, Der Rom. Staat u. d. Allg. Kirche (Leipz. 1890).
ANTECEDENTS OF ARIANISM: ORIGEN. KKV
strictly modalist SABELLIUS, who from about 215 takes the place of Cleomenes at the head of Roman Monarch- ianism (his doctrine of the viowdrwp, of the Trinity as successive mpdowma, ‘aspects,’ of the One God, pure modalism as defined above) scorned compromise (he constantly reproached Callistus with having changed his front, fipp.) was excommunicated, and became the head of a sect. And the fierce opposition of Hippolytus failed to command the support of more than a limited circle of enthusiastic admirers, or to maintain itself after his death. On the other hand (the process is quite in obscurity: see Harnack 1’, p. 620) the theology of Hippolytus and Tertullian eventually gained the day. NovaTIAn, whose ‘grande volumen’ (Jer.) on the Trinity represents the theology of Rome about 250 a.D., simply ‘epitomises Tertullian,’ and that ix explanation of the Rule of Faith. As to the Generation of the Son, he drops the ‘quando Ipse [Pater] voluit’ of Tertullian, but like him combines a (modified) ‘ subordination ’ with the ‘commaumnio substantia ’—in other words the éuootctv. Monarchianism was condemned in the West ; its further history belongs to the East (under the name of Sabellianism first in Libya: see pp. 173, sgg.). But the hold which it maintained upon the Roman Church for about a generation (190—220) left its mark. Rome condemned Origen, the ally of Hippolytus ; Rome was invoked against Dionysius of Alex- andria ; (Rome and) the West formulated the éueovcrov at Niczea; Rome received Marcellus ; Rome rejected the tpets bmoatacers and supported the Eustathians at Antiochj; it was with Rome rather than with the prevalent theology of the East that Athanasius felt himself one. (Cf. also Harnack, Deg. 1, p. 622 sgg.) Monarchianism was too little in harmony with the New Testament, or with the traditional convictions of the Churches, to live as a formulated theology. The ‘naive modalism’ of the ‘simplices quae major semper pars credentium est’ (Tert.) was corrected as soon as the attempt was made to give it formal expression 3", But the attempt to do so was a valuable challenge to the comception of God involved in the system of the Apologists. To their abstract, trans- cendent, philosophical first Principle, Monarchianism opposed a living, self-revealing, redeeming God, made known in Christ. This was a great gain. But it was obtained at the expense of the divine immutability. A God who passed through phases or modes, now Father, now Son, now Spirit, a God who could suffer, was not the God of the Christians. There is some justice in Tertullian’s scoff at their ‘ Deum versipellem.’
The third great name associated with the end of the second century, that of Clement, is important to us chiefly as that of the teacher of ORIGEN, whose influence we must now attempt to estimate. Origen (185—254) was the first theologian in the full sense of the term; the first, that is, to erect upon the basis of the rule of faith (Preface to de Princ.) a complete theological system, synthesising revealed religion with a theory of the Universe, of God, of man, which should take into account the entire range of truth and knowledge, of faith and philosophy. And in this sense for the Eastern Church he was the last theologian as well. In the case of Origen the Vincentian epigram, absolvuntur magistrt condemnantur discipuli (too often applicable in the history of doctrine) is reversed. Ina modified form his theology from the first took possession of the Eastern Church ; in the Cappadocian fathers it took out a new lease of power, in spite of many vicissitudes it conquered opposing forces (the sixth general council crushed the party who had prevailed at the fifth) ; John of Damascus, in whom the Eastern Church says its last word, depends upon the Origenist theology of Basil and the Gregories, But this theology was Origenism with a difference. What was the Origenism of Origen? To condense into the compass of our present purpose the many-sidedness of Origen is a hopeless task. The reader will turn to the fifth and sixth of Bige’s Bampton Lectures for the best recent presentation ; to Newman’s A7zazs (I. § 3), especially the ‘apology’ at the end); to Harnack (ed. 1, pp. 510—556) and Loofs (§ 28) ; Shedd (vol. i. 288—305, should be read before Bigg and corrected by him) and Dorner ; to the sections in Bull (Defens. ii. 9, ili. 3) and Petavius (who in Zin. I. iv. pursues with fluent malignity ‘omnigenis errorum portentis infamem scriptorem’); to the Origeniana of Huet and the dissertations of the standard editors ; to the article ORIGENIST CONTROVERSIES, and to the comprehensive, exact, and sympathetic article ORIGEN in the Dictionary of Christian Biography. The fundamental works of Origen for our purpose are the de Principiis, the contra Celsum, and the de Oratione ; but the exegetical works are necessary to fill out and correct first impressions. _
The general position of Origen with regard to the Person of Christ is akin to that of Hippolytus and Ter- tullian. It is to some extent determined by opposition to Gnosticism and to Monarchianism. His visit to Rome (Eus. Z. Z., vi. 14) coincided with the battle of Hippolytus against Zephyrinus and his destined suc- cessor: on practical as well as on doctrinal points he was at one with Hippolytus. His doctrine of God is reached by the soteriological rather than the cosmological method. God is known to us in the Incarnate Word ; ‘his point of view is moral, not ... pseudo-metaphysical.’ The impassibility of the abstract philoso- phica! idea of God is broken into by ‘the passion of Love’ (Bigg, p. 158). In opposition to the perfection of God lies the material world, conditioned by evil, the result of the exercise of will. This cause of evil is antecedent to the genesis of the material universe, the «a7 a Boa?) do mov ; materiality is the penalty and measure of evil. (This part of Origen’s doctrine is markedly Platonic. Plotinus, we read, refused to observe his own birthday; in like manner Origen quaintly notes that only wicked men are recorded in Scripture to have kept their birthdays; Bigg, 203, note; cf. Harnack, p. 523, note.) The soul (yuxh as if from yixerbat) has in a previous state ‘waxed cold,’ i.e, lost its original integrity, and in this condition enters the body, i.e. ‘is sub- jected to vanity’ in common with the rest of the creature, and needs redemption (qualify this by Bigg, pp. 202 sgg-, on Origen’s belief in Original Sin). To meet this need the Word takes a Soul (but one that has never swerved from Him in its pre-existent state: on this antinomy Bigg, 190, note, 199) and mediante Anima, or rather mediante hac substantia anime (Prin. II. vi.) unites the nature of God and of Man in One. (On the union of the two natures in the Oedv@pwros, in Lzek. iii. 3, he is as precise as Tertullian : we find the Aypostatic Union and Communicatio Zdiomatum formally explicit; Bigg, 190.) The Word ‘deifies’ Human Nature, first His Own, then in others as well (Cels. iii. 28, va yévnrat Geta: he does not use GeororetoOar; the thought is subtly but really different from that whicb we found in Irenzus : see Harnack, p. 551), by that perfect appre- hension of Him 87ep fv mply yévntat odpt, of which faith in the Incarnate is the earliest but not the final stage (applying 2 Cor. v. 16; cf. the Commentary on the Song of Songs). ;
What account then does Origen give of the beginning and the end of the great Drama of existence? He starts from the end, which is the more clearly revealed ; ‘ God shall be all in all.’ But ‘the end must be like the beginning ;’ One is the end of all, One is the beginning. From 1 Cor. xv. he works back to Romans viii. : the one is his key to the eternity after, the other, to the eternity before (Bigg pp. 193 sg.). Into this scheme he brings creation, evil, the history of Revelation, the Church and its life, the final consummation of all things.
A 3° But only at Aquileia was the rule of faith adapted by the insertion of ivzpassibilis.
XXvi
PROLEGOMENA, CHAPTER IL, § 3 (2).
The Universe is eternal: God is prior to it in conception, yet He was never other than Creator. But in the history of the Universe the material world which we know is but a small episode. It began, and will end. It began with the estrangement of Will from God, will end with its reconciliation : God, from Whom is the beginning of all, ‘will be all in all.’ (For Origen’s eschatology see Bigg, 228—234.) From this point of view we must approach the two-sided Christology of Origen. To him the two sides were aspects of the same thing: but if the subtle presupposition as to God and the Universe is withdrawn, they become alternative and inconsistent Christologies, as we shall see to have actually happened. As God is eternally Creator, so He is efernally Father (Bigg, 160, note). The Son proceeds from Him not as a@ part of His Essence, but as the Ray from the Light at cannot be rightly or piously said that He had a beginning, #y bre vd« Hy (cf. De Princ. i. 2, iv. 28, and ifr. p. 168) ; He is begotten from the Essence of the Father, He is of the same essence (Suoobows) (Fragm. 3 12 FHeb., but see Bigg, p. 179), there is xo wnlikeness whatever between the Son and the Father (Princ. i. 2, 12). He was be- gotten éx Tod beAhuatos tod Marpds (but to Origen the @¢Anua was inherent in the Divine Nature, cf. Bigg, 161, Harnack, p. 534 against Shedd, p. 301, note) of dy mpoBoAy or emanation (Princ. iv. 23, 1. 2. 4), as though the Son’s generation were something that took place once for all, instead of existing continuously. The Father is in the Son, the Son in the Father: there is ‘coinherence.’ On the other hand, the Word is God derivatively not absolutely, ‘O déyos Hv mpds T dy Bedv, Kal Ocds Hv 6 Adyos. The Son is @eds, the Father alone 6 @eds. He is of one ovcla with the Father as compared with the creatures ; but as contrasted with the Father, Who may be regarded as éwéxeiva ovclas*, and Who alone is adrébeos, abroayabds, &Andivds Geds, the Son is 6 debrepos Deds (Ceéls. v. 39, cf. Philo’s Sevrepevwy Oeds). As the Son of God, He is contrasted with all yevnrd ; as contrasted with the Ingenerate Father, He stands at the head of the series of yevyyrd; He is weratd rijs tod ayev[y]nrou kat THs Tay yevnrav ovcews?. He even explains the Unity of the Father and the Son as moral (500 TH bwocTdoe mpdypata, év 88 TH Spovola Kal rh radrérqts tod Bovdnuatos, Ce/s. viii. 12). The Son takes His place even in the cosmic process from Unity to Unity through Plurality, ‘God is in every respect One and Simple, but the Saviour by reason of the Many becomes Many’ (on John i. 22, cf. Index to this vol., s.v. Christ). The Spirit is subordinated to the Son, the Son to the Father (€Adrtwv mapa tev matepa 6 vids... Er BE Frtov To Tvedpa Td Gyiov, Princ. I. 3, 5 Gk.), while to the Spirit are subordinated created spirits, whose goodness is relative in comparison with God, and the fall of some of whom led to the creation of matter (see above). Unlike the Son and the Spirit they are mutable in will, subject to tpoxewf, capable of embodiment even if in themselves immaterial. — f
The above slender sketch of the leading thoughts of Origen will suffice to show how intimately his doctrine of the Person of Christ hangs together with his philosophy of Religion and Nature. That philosophy is the philosophy of his age, and must be judged relatively. His deeply religious, candid, piercing spirit embodies the highest effort of the Christian intellect conditioned by the categories of the best thought of his age. Everywhere, while evading no difficulty, his strenuous speculative search is steadied by ethical and religious instinct. As against Valentinian and the Platonists, with both of whom he is in close affinity, he inexorably insists on the self-consciousness and moral nature of God, on human freewill. As against all contemporary non-Christian thought his system is pure monism. Yet the problem of evil, in which he merges the anti- thesis of matter and spirit, brings with it a necessary dualism, a dualism, however, which belongs but to a moment in the limitless eternity of God’s all-in-allness before and after. Is he then a pantheist? No, for to him God is Love (iz Zzek. vi. 6), and the rational creature is to be made divine and united to God by the reconciliation of Wi// and by conscious apprehension of Him. The idea of Will is the pivot of Origen’s system, the centripetal force which forbids it to follow the pantheistic line which it yet undoubtedly touches. The ‘ moral’ unity of the Father and the Son (see above, tavrérns BovAnuaros and ék Tod PeAnuatos) is Unity in that very respect in which the Creator stands over against the self-determining rational creature. Yet the im- mutability, the Oneness of God, must be reconciled with the plurality, the mutability of the creature ; here the Logos mediates, 514 7& moAAG yiverat ToAAG: but this must be from eternity :—accordingly creation ts eternal too. Here we see that the cosmological idea has prevailed over the religious, the Logos of Origen is still in important particulars the Logos of the Apologists, of Philo and the philosophers. The difference lies in His co-eternity, upon which Origen insists without wavering. The resemblance lies in the intermediate3 position ascribed to Him between the &yévvnros, (6 Oeds), and the yeynrd ; He is, as Hypostasis, subordinate to the Father.
Now it is evident that the mere intellectual apprehension of a system which combines so many opposite tendencies, which touches every variety of the theological thought of the age (even modalism, for to Origen ¢he Father is the Movds, the avrd@eos, while yet He is no abstraction but a God who exists in moral activity, s¢pra) and subtly harmonises them all, must have involved no ordinary philosophical power. When we add to this fact the further consideration that precisely the fundamental ideas of Origen were those which called forth the liveliest opposition and were gradually dropped by his followers, we can easily understand that in the next gene- ration Origenism was no longer either the system of Origen, or a single system at all.
In one direction it could lend itself to no compromise ; in spite of the justice done by Origen to the funda- mental ideas both of modalism and of emanative adoptionism (cf. Harnack, pp. 548, note, and 586), to Monarch- janism in either form he is diametrically opposed. The hypostatic distinctness of Son and Spirit is once for all made good for the theology of Eastern Christendom. We see his disciples exterminate Monarchianism in the East. On the left wing Dionysius refutes the Sabellians of Libya, on the right Gregory Thaumaturgus, Firmilian, and their brethren, after a long struggle, oust the adoptionist Paul from the See of Antioch. But its influence on the existing Catholic theology, however-great (and in the East it was very great), inevitably made its way in the face of opposition, and at the cost of its original subtle consistency. The principal opposition came from Asia Minor, where the traditions of theological thought (see above, on Ignatius and Irenzeus, below on Marcellus) were not in sympathy‘ with Origen. We cannot demonstrate the existence of a continuous theological school in Asia ; but
1 See Newman’snote d7. p. 186, where the additions in brackets seriously modify his statement in the text. Also cf. za/fr. ch. iv. § 3, and Bigg, p. 179, note 2.
Chalcedonists of the sixth century, but is probably a ‘ consequenz- macherei’ from the above; see*Caspari Ate u. V. Quellen, p. 60, note. But xrioma was sometimes applied to the Son in a vague 2 Cels. i. 34, cf. Alexander’s peottevouca pious Movoyerns. | Sense, on the ground of Prov. viii. 22, a text not used in this way But observe that the passage insisted on by Shedd, 294, erepos | by Origen.
Kar ovglayv kat VTOKELMEVOY 6 Vids TOD Tarpds, does not bear 4 Compare the strong Origenist rejection of Chiliasm, the
the sense he extracts from it. ovata here is not ‘essence’ but ‘hypostasis.’ be 2 3 The formula xriopa o vids is ascribed to Origen by the anti-
spiritualism of Origen as contrasted with the realism of Asia Minor, the Asiatic origin of Roman Monarchianism, of Montan- ism.
ANTECEDENTS OF ARIANISM: PAUL AND ‘LUCIAN.
iS (270— 300) certainly speaks with the voice of Ignatius and Ireneus. He deals with Origen much as renzeus dealt with the Gnostics, defending against him the current sense of the regula Jjidei, and especially th literal meaning of Scripture, the origination of the soul along with the body, the resurrection of the re ti the Foner sense, and generally opposing realism to the spiritualism of Origen. But in thus opposing Origen : fat) os not oo re by him (see Socr. vi. 13). He, too, isa student of Plato (with ‘little of his style or e J a realism ° is speculative.’ He no longer defends the Asiatic Chiliasm, his doctrine of the Logos is coloured by Origen as that of Irenzeus was by the Apologists. Ze legacy of Methodius and of his Origenist contem- poraries to the Eastern Church was a modified Origenism, that is a theology systematised on the intellectual basis of the Platonic philosophy, but expurgated by the standard of the regula fide’. This result was a compromise, and was at first attended with great confusion. Origen’s immediate following seized some one side, some another of his system ; some were more, some less influenced by the ‘ orthodox’ reaction against his teaching. We may distinguish an Origenist ‘ right’ and an Origenist ‘left.’ Ifthe Origenist view of the Universe was gi h coeternity of the S d Spirit wi ; : i i eee eternity he Son and Spirit with the Father was less firmly grasped. Origen had, if we may use the expres- sion, ‘levelled up.’ The Son was mediator between the Ingenerate God and the created, but eternal Universe. If the latter was not eternal, and if at the same time the Word stood in some essential correlation to the creative energy of God, Origen’s system no longer implied the strict coeternity of the Word. Accordingly we find Dionysius (see below, p- 173 sgg.) uncertain on this point, and on the essential relation of the Son to the Father. More cautious in this respect, but tenacious of other startling features of Origen, were Pierius and Theognostus, who presided over the Catechetical School at the end of the century 5. as On the other hand, very many of Origen’s pupils, especially among the bishops, started from the other side of Origen’s teaching, and held tenaciously to the coeternity of the Son, while they abandoned the Origenist paradoxes’ with regard to the Universe, matter, pre-existence, and restitution. Typical of this class is Gregory Thaumaturgus, also Peter the martyr bishop of Alexandria, who expressly opposed many of Origen’s positions (though hardly with the violence ascribed to him in certain supposed fragments in Routh, Red. iv. 81) and Alexander himself. It was this ‘wing’ of the Origenist following that, in combination with the opposition represented by Methodius, bequeathed to the generation contemporary with Nicza its average theological tone. The coeternity of the Son with the Father was not (as a rule) questioned, but the essential relation of the Logos to the Creation involved a strong subordination of the Son to the Father, and by consequence of the Spirit to the Son. Monarch- ianism was the heresy most dreaded, the theology of the Church was based on the philosophical categories of Plato applied to the explanation and systematisation of the rule of faith. This was very far from Arianism. It lacked the logical definiteness of that system on the one hand, it rested on the other hand on a different concep- tion of God; the hypostatic subordination of the Son was insisted upon, but His true Sonship as of one Nature with the Father, was held fast. In the slow process of time this neo-Asiatic theology found its way partly to the Nicene formula, partly to the illogical acceptance of it with regard to the Son, with refusal to apply it to the Spirit (Macedonius). To the men who thought thus, the blunt assertion that the Son was a creature, not coeternal, alien to the Essence of the Father, was a novelty, and wholly abhorrent. Arius drew a sharper line than they had been accustomed to draw between God and the creature; so did Athanasius. But Arius drew his line without flinching between the Father and the Son. This to the instinct of any Origenist was as revolting as it would have been to the clear mind and Biblical sympathy of Origen himself, In theological and philosophical principles alike Arius was opposed even to the tempered Origenism of the Nicene age, The latter was at the furthest remove from Monarchianism, Arianism was 77 i¢s essential core Monarchian; the common theology borrowed its philosophical principles and method from the Platonists, Arius from Aristotle. To anticipate, Arianism and (so-called) semi- Arianism have in reality very little in common except the historical fact of common action foratime. Arianism guarded the transcendence of the divine nature (at the expense of revelation and redemption) in a way that ‘semi-Arianism,’ admitting as it did inherent inequality in the Godhead, did not. They therefore tended in opposite directions; Arianism to Anomceanism, ‘semi-Arianism’ to the Nicene faith; their source was different. ‘Aristotle made men Arians,’ says Newman with truth, ‘Plato, semi-Arians’ (Arians 4, p. 335, note): but to say this is to allow that if Arianism goes back to Lucian and so to Paul of Samosata, semi-Arianism is a fragment from the wreck of Origen,
The Origenist bishops of Syria and Asia Minor had in the years 269—272, after several efforts, succeeded in deposing PAUL of Samosata from the See of Antioch. This remarkable man was the ablest pre-Nicene represen- tative of Adoptionist Monarchianism. The Man Jesus was inhabited by the ‘ Word,’ i.e. by an impersonal power of God, distinct from the Aéyos or reason (wisdom) inherent in God as an attribute, which descended upon him at His Baptism. His union with God, a union of Will, was unswerving, and by virtue of it He overcame the sin of man- kind, worked miracles, and entered on a condition of Deification, He is God é« mpoxomijs (cf. Luke ii. 52) by virtue of progress in perfection. That is in brief the system of Paul, and we cannot wonder at his deposition. For the striking points of contact with Arianism (two ‘Wisdoms,’ two ‘ Words,’ mporoma : cf. Orat. c. Ar, i. 5, &c.) we have to account®, The theology of Arius is a compromise between the Origenist doctrine of the Person of Christ and the pure Monarchian Adoptionism of Paul of Samosata ; or rather it engrafts the former upon the latter as the
eee ee
XXvii
5 The position of Eusmsius of Czsarea is at the ‘extreme left’ of the Origenist body. (‘A reflex of the unsolved problems of the Church of that time,’ Dorner.) It is as though Dionysius instead of withdrawing and modilying his incriminated statements, had involved them ia a haze of explanations and biblical phrases which left them where they were. But this is not so much Arian- ism as confusion. ‘All is hollow and empty, precarious and am- biguous. With a vast apparatus of biblical expressions and the use of every possible formula, Monotheism is indeed maintained, but practically a created subordinate God is inserted between God and mankind’ (Harnack, p.648). See also Dorner, Lehre der Pers. Chr. Pt. 1, pp. 793798. The language quoted by Ath. below, p. 459, was doubtless meant by Eusebius in an Origenist sense. 6 The theological genesis of Paul’s system is obscure. The theory of Newman that he was under strong Jewish influences
,is largely based upon the late and apparently quite erroneous
tradition that his patroness Zenobia was a Jewess; see p. 296, note 9*, and Gwatkin, p. 57, and note 3. Harnack regards him as the representative of ‘archaic’ EHast-Syrian adoption- ism such as pervades the ‘ Discussion of Archelaus with Manes 3’ see Routh, RedZ. v. especially pp. 178—184. But Paul would not have spoken of Mary as ‘ Dei Genetrix,’ p, 128; 1 cannot see more in these ‘Acta’ than a naive adoptionism homologous to the ‘naive modalism’ of much early Christian language, but like it not representative of the entire view of those who use it; we must also note that the statements of ‘ Archelaus’ are coloured by reaction against the docetism of ‘ Manes ;’ but Paul may well have taken up this naive adoptionism, and, dy strict Aristotelian logic, developed it as the exclusive basis of his system. Whether Paul’s use of the idea of the Logos betrays the faintest influence of Origen is to me, at least, extremely uncertain.
XXViii
PROLEGOMENA, CHAPTER II, § 3 (2).
foundation principle, seriously modifying each to suit the necessity of combining the two. This compromise was not due to Arius himself but to his teacher, LucrAN the Martyr. A native himself of Samosata, he stood in some relation of attachment (not clearly defineabie) to Paul. Under him, he was at the head of a critical, exegetical, and theological school at Antioch. Upon the deposition of Paul he appears not so much to have been formally excommunicated as to have refused to acquiesce in the new order of things. Under Domnus and his two successors, he was in a state of suspended communion? ; but eventually was reconciled with the bishop (Cyril ?) and died as a martyr at Nicomedia, Jan. 7,312. The latter fact, his ascetic life, and his learning secured him wide- spread honour in the Church ; his pupils formed a compact and enthusiastic brotherhood, and filled many of the most influential Sees after the persecution. That such a man should be involved in the reproach of having given birth to Arianism is an unwelcome result of history, but one not to be evaded’. The history of the Lucianic com- promise and its result in the Lucianic type of theology, are both matters of inference rather than of direct knowledge. As to the first, whatever evidence there is connects Lucian’s original position with Paul. His reconciliation with Bishop Cyril must have involved _a reapproachment to the formula of the bishops who deposed Paul,—a thoroughly Origenist document. We may therefore suppose that the identification ot Christ with the Logos, or cosmic divine principle, was adopted by him from Origenist sources. But he could not bring himself to admit that He was thus essentially identified with God the eternal ; he held fast to the idea of mpoxown as the path by which the Lord attained to Divinity ; he distinguished the Word or Son who was Christ from the immanent impersonal Reason or Wisdom of God, as an offspring of the Father’s Wil/, an idea which he may have derived straight from Origen, with whom of course it had a different sense. For to Origen Will was the very essence of God; Lucian fell back upon an arid philosophical Monotheism, upon an abstract God fenced about with negations (Harnack 2?, 195, note) and remote from the Universe. It was counted a departure from Lucian’s principles if a pupil held that the Son was the ‘perfect Image of the Father’s Essence’ (Philost. ii. 15) ; Origen's formula, ‘ distinct in hypostasis, but one in will,’ was apparently exploited in a Samosatene sense to express the relation of the Son to the Father. Te only two points in fact in which Lucian appears to have modified the system of Paul were, firstly in hypostatising the Logos, which to Paul was an impersonal divine power, secondly in abandon- ing Paul’s purely human doctrine of the historical Christ. To Lucian, the Logos assumed a body (or rather ‘Deus sapientiam suam misit in hunc mundum carne vestitam, wii infra, p.6), but itself took the place of a soul? ; hence all the tamewa) aégers of the Gospels applied to the Logos as such, and the inferiority and essential differ- ence of the Son from the Father rigidly followed.
The above account of Lucian is based on that of Harnack, Dogmg. ii. 184, sgg. It is at once in harmony with all our somewhat scanty data (Alexander, Epiphanius, Philostorgius, and the fragment of his last confession of faith preserved by Rufin. in Eus. #. Z. ix. 9, Routh, Rell. iv. pp. 5—7, from which Harnack rightly starts) and is the only one which accounts for the phenomena of the rise of Arianism, We find a number of leading Churchmen in agreement with Arius, but in no way dependent on him. They are Eusebius of Nicomedia, Maris, Theognis, Athanasius of Anazarba, Menophantus ; all Lucianists; The first Arian writer, Asterius (see below), is a Lucianist. (The Egyptian bishops Secundus and Theonas cannot be put down to any school; we do not know their history ; but they are distinguished from the Lucianists by Philost. ii. 3.) It has been urged that, although Arius brought away heresy from the school of Lucian, yet he was not the only one that did so. True; but then the heresy was al/ of the same kind (list of pupils ‘of Lucian in Philost. ii. 14, iii, 15). Aetius, the founder of logical ultra-Arianism and teacher of Eunomius, was taught the exegesis of the New Testament by the Lucianists Athanasius of Anazarba and Antony of Tarsus, of the Old by the Lucianist Leontius. This fairly covers the area of Arianism proper. But it may be noted that some Origenists of the ‘left wing,’ whose theology emphasized the subordination, and vacillated as to the eternity of the Son, would find little to shock them in Arianism (Eusebius of Caesarea, Paulinus of Tyre), while on the other hand there are traces of a Lucianist ‘ right wing,’ men like ASTERIUS, who while essentially Arian, made concessions to the ‘ conservative’ position chiefly by emphasising the cosmic mediation of the Word and His ‘ exact likeness’ to the Father3. The Theology of the Eastern Church was suffering from the effort to assimilate the Origenist theology: it could not do so without eliminating the underlying and unifying idea of Origenism ; this done, the overwhelming influence of the great teacher remained, while dissonant fragments of his system, vaguely comprehended in many cases, permeated some here, some there+, Meanwhile the school of Lucian had a method and a system; they knew their own minds, and relied on reason and exegesis. ‘This was the secret of their power. Had Arius never existed, Arianism must have tried its strength under such conditions. But the age was ready for Arius; and Arius was ready. The system of ARIUS was in effect that of Lucian: its formulation appears to have been as much the work of Asterius as of Arius himself. (Cf p. 155, § 8, 6 d¢’Ap. weraypdibas dé5wxe rots idiots. The extant writings of Arius are his letters to Eus. Nic. and to Alexander, preserved by Theodoret and Epiph. Her. 69, and the extracts from the ‘Thalia’ in Ath., pp. 308—311, 457, 458; also the ‘confession’ in Socr. i. 26, Soz. ii. 27. Cf. also references to his dicta in Ath. pp. 185, 229, &c.) Arius started from the zdea of God and the predicate ‘Son.’ God is above all things uncreated, or unoriginate, ayév[v]nros, (the ambiguity of the derivatives of yevvac@a: and
7 amoavvaywyos éwervey, Alex. Alexand. in Thdt.}; the objec- tions of Gwatkin, p. 18, note, are generously meant rather than convincing: the ‘creed of Lucian’ is not usable without dis- crimination for Lucian’s position: see discussion by Caspari A.u.N.Q. p. 42, note.
x It was pointed out clearly by Newman, Arians, pp. 8, 403, but with an eagerly drawn inference to the discredit of the later Antiochene School and of the genuine principles of exegesis as recognised at the present day by Protestants and Catholics alike (see Wetzer und Welte-Kaulen, Airchen-Lexicon, i. 953 sqg., iv. 1116, and Patrizzi as abridged in Cornel. a Lap. 2% Afoc. ed. Par. 1859, pp. xvi. sgg. The Lucianic origin of Arianism was denied by Gwatkin in his Studies, but the denial is tacitly with- drawn in his Avian Controversy. Harnack, Dogimgesch. 11. 598, ii2, 183 sgg. must, I think, convince any open mind of the fact. Consult his article on Lucian in Herzog2. viii. 767 (the best investigation), also Neander 7. Z£. ii. 198, iv. 108; Maller K.G. i. 226, D.C.B. iti. 748; Kélling, vol. 1, pp. 27—31, who makes the mistake of taking the ‘ Lucianic creed’ as his point of departure,
_ ? This is ascribed to Lucian by Epiph. Amcor. 33, and there is no reason whatever to doubt it. The tenet was part of the Arian system from the first, and was attacked already by Eusta- thius, Fragm. apud That. Dial. iii., but often overlooked, e.g. even by Athanasius in his writings before 362, but see p. 352, note s. It came to the front in the system of Eunomius, and was much discussed in the last decade of the life of S. Athan. The system of Apollinaris was different. (See pp. 570, note x, 575, note r.)
3 amapddAaxTov eikéva, which an Arian would be prepared to admit as the result of the mpoxom7j. (See below, § 6, on the Creeds of 341). I cannot regard Asterius as a ‘ semi-Arian :’ the only grounds for it are the above phrase and the statement (Z2b. Syn.) that he attended the Council of 341 with the Con- servative Dianius. But Asterius was as ready to compromise with conservatism as he had formerly been with heathenism, and his anxiety for a bishopric would carry him to even greater lengths in order to attend a council under influential patronage.
4 The letter of Alexander to his namesake of Byzantium in That. i. 4, cannot be exempted from this generalisation.
THEOLOGY OF ARIUS,
XXIX
yeverOa area very important element in the controversy. See p. 475, note 5, and Lightfoot, Zena. ii. p. 90 sag.
Everything else is created, yeynrdv. The name ‘Son’ ata cys act of Aropreations: Therefore, ie a a there was no Son, nor was God properly speaking a Father. The Son is not coeternal with Him. He was originated by the Father's will, as indeed were all things. He is, then, ray yevntSv, He came into being from non-existence (é ovk dvtwy), and before that did not exist (ob jv mply yévnrat). But His relation to God differs from that of the Universe generally. Created nature cannot bear the awful touch of bare Deity. God therefore created the Son that He in turn might be the agent in the Creation of the Universe—‘ created Him as the beginning of His ways,’ (Prov. viii. 22, LXX.). This being so, the nature of the Son was in the essential point of ayevunoia unlike that of the Father; (&évos rod viot kar? odolay 5 Mathp br. &vapxos): their substances (6mo- ordoets) are avemluixrot,—have nothing in common. The Son therefore does not possess the fundamental property of sonship, identity of nature with the Father. He is a Son by Adoption, not by Nature; He has advanced by moral probation to be Son, even to be povoyerhs eds (Joh. i. 14). He is not the eternal Adyos, reason, of God, but @ Word (and God has spoken many): but yet He is ¢he Word by grace ; is no Jonger, what He is dy nature, subject to change. He cannot know the Father, much less make Him known to others. Lastly, He dwells in flesh, not in full human nature (see above, p. xxviii. and note 2). The doctrine of Arius as to the Holy Spirit ae ca but probably He was placed between the Son and the other «ricuata (yet see Harnack ii.
, note 2).
Arian Literature. Beside the above-mentioned letters and fragments of Arius, our early Arian documents arescanty. Very important is the letter of Eus. Nic. to Paulinus, referred to above, § 3(1), pp. xvi., xvili., other fragments of letters, p. 458 sy. The writings 5 of ASTERIUS, if preserved, would have been an invaluable source of information °. Asterius seems to have written before the Nicene Council ; he may have modified his language in later treatises. He was replied to by Marcellus in a work which brought him into controversy (336) with Eusebius of Czsarea. With the creeds and Arian literature after the death of Constantine we are not at present concerned.
Arianism was a novelty. Yet it combines in an inconsistent whole elements of almost every previous attempt to formulate the doctrine of the Person of Christ. Its sharpest antithesis was Modalism : yet with the modalist Arius maintained the strict personal unity of the Godhead. With dynamic monarchianism it held the adoptionist principle in addition; but it personified the Word and sacrificed the entire humanity of Christ. In this latter respect it sided with the Docetze, most Gnostics, and Manichzeans, to all of whom it yet opposes a sharply-cut doctrine of creation and of the transcendence of God. With Origen and the Apologists before him it made much of the cosmic mediation of the Word in contrast to the redemptive work of Jesus ; with the Apologists, though not with Origen, it enthroned in the highest place the God of the Philosophers : but against both alike it drew a sharp broad line between the Creator and the Universe, and drew it between the Father and the Son. Least of all is Arianism in sympathy with the theology of Asia,—that of Ignatius, Irenseus, Methodius, founded upon the Joannine tradition. The profound Ignatian idea of Christ as the Adyos amd ovyijs mpocA@év is in impressive con- cae with the shallow challenge of the 7zalia, ‘Many words hath God spoken, which of these was manifested in the flesh ?
Throughout the controversies of the pre-Nicene age the question felt rather than seen in the background is that of the IDEA OF Gop. The question of Monotheism and Polytheism which separated Christians from heathen was not so much a question of abstract theology as of religion, not one of speculative belief, but of worship. The Gentile was prepared to recognise in the background of his pantheon the shadowy form of one supreme God, Father of gods and men, from whom all the rest derived their being. But his religion required the pantheon as well ; he could not worship a philosophic supreme abstraction. The Christian on the other hand was prepared in many cases to recognise the existence of beings corresponding to the gods of the heathen (whether 1 Cor. viii. 5 can be quoted here is open to question). But such beings he would not worship. To him, as an object of religion, there was one God. The one God of the heathen was no object of practical personal religion ; the One God of the Christian was. He was the God of the Old Testament, the God who was known to His people not under philosophical categories, but in His dealings with them as a Father, Deliverer, He who would accomplish all things for them that waited on Him, the God of the Covenant. He was the God of the New Testament, God in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, manifesting His Righteousness in the Gospel of Christ to whosoever believed. In Christ the Christian learned that God is Love. Now this knowledge of God is essentially religious ; it lies in a different plane from the speculative dropfa: as to God’s transcendence or immanence, while yet it. steadies the religious mind in the face of speculations tending either way. A God who is Love, if immanent, must yet be personal, if transcendent, must yet manifest His Love in such a way that we can know it and not merely guess it. Now as Christian instinct began to be forced to reflexion, in other words, as faith began to strive for expression in a theology?, it could not but be that men, however personally religious, seized hold of religious problems by their speculative side. We have seen this exemplified in the influence of Platonic philosophy on the Apologists and Alexandrine Fathers. But to Origen, with all his Platonism, belongs the honour of enthroning the God of Love at the head and centre of a systematic theology. Yet the theology of the end of the third century assimilated secondary results of Origen’s system rather than his underlying idea. On the one hand was the rule of faith with the whole round of Christian life and worship, determining the religious instinct of the Church ; on the other, the inability to formulate this instinct in a coherent system so long as the central problem was overlooked or inadequately dealt with. God is One, not more; yet how is the One God to be conceived of,
5 They appear to have comprised the Arian appeal to Scrip- ture of which (considering the Biblical learning of Lucian and what we hear of the training of Aetius, to say nothing of the exegetical chair held by Arius at Alxa.) their use must be pro- nounced meagre and superficial. In the O.T. they harped upon three texts, Deut. vi. 4 (Wonotheism), Ps. xlv. 8 (Adopiionism), and Prov. viii. 22, LXX. (the Word a Creature). In the N.T. they appeal for Monotheism (in their sense) to Luke xviii. 19,
ohn xvii. 33 The Son a Creature, Acts il. 36, 1 Cor. i. 24, Col. 1. 15, Heb. iii. 2; Adoptionism, Matt. xii. 28; mpoxomn, Luke ii. 52; also Matt. xxvi. 41, Phil. il. 6, sg., Heb. i. 4; The Son tpentos, &c., Mark xiii. 32, John xiil. 31, x1. 345 inferior to the Father, John xiv. 48, Matt. xxvii, 46, also x1, 27 a, Xxvl. 29,
xxviii. 18, John xii. 27, and 1 Cor. xv. 28 (cf. pp. 407, sg.). In this respect Origen is immeasurably superior.
6 They are regarded by Athan., a generation after they were written, as the representative statement of ‘ the case’ for Arianism (pp. 459 S¢-3 324 sgg., 361, 363, 368, &c., from which passages and Eus. c. Marcell. a fragmentary restoration might be at- tempted). For what is known of his history (not in D.C.B.) see Gwatkin, p. 72, note; for his doctrinal position see above, p- Xxviii.
7 A theology which aims at consistency must bo1row a method, a philosophy, from outside the sphere of religion. The most de- veloped system of Catholic theology, that of S. Thomas Aquinas, borrows its method from the same source as did Arius,—Aristotle.
PROLEGOMENA, CHAPTER IL, § 3 (2).
XXX
what is His relation to the Universe of yéveois and p@dpa? and the Son is God, and the Spirit ; how are they One, and if One how distinct ?. How do we avoid the relapse into a polytheism of secondary gods ? What is—not the essential nature of Godhead, for all agreed that that is beyond our ken—but the mp@rov juiv, the essential idea for us to begin from if we are to synthesise belief and theology, rieris and yvaots ? ,
Arianism stepped in with a summary answer. God is one, numerically and absolutely. He is beyond the ken of any created intelligence. Even creation is too close a relation for Him to enter into with the world. In order to create, he must create an instrument (pp. 360 sgg.), intermediate between Himself and all else. This instrument is called Son of God, i.e. He is not coeternal (for what son was ever as old as his parent ?), but the result of an act of creative will. Howthen is He different from other creatures? This is the weak point of the system; He is not really different, but a difference is created by investing Him with every possible attribute of glory and divinity except the possession of the incommunicable nature of deity. He is merely ‘anointed above His fellows.’ His ‘ divinity’ is acquired, not original; relative, not absolute; in His character, not in His Person. Accordingly He is, as a creature, immeasurably far from the Creator ; He does not know God, cannot declare God tous. The One God remains in His inaccessible remoteness from the creature. But yet Arians worshipped Christ ; although not very God, He is God tous. Here we have the exact difficulty with which the Church started in her conflict with heathenism presented again unsolved. The desperate struggle, the hardly earned triumph of the Christians, had been for the sake of the essential principle of heathenism ! The One God was, after all, the God of the philosophers ; the idea of pagan polytheism was realised and justified in Christ®! To this Athanasius returns again and again‘(see esp. p. 360) ; it is the doom of Arianism as a Christian theology.
If Arianism failed to assist the thought of the Church to a solution of the great problem of God, its failure was not less conspicuous with regard to revelation and redemption. The revelation of the Gospel stopped short _ in the person of Christ, did not go back to the Father. God was zo¢ in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, we have access in Christ to a created intelligence, not to the love of God to usward, not to the everlasting Arms, but to a being neither divine nor human. Sinners against heaven and before God, we must accept an assurance of reconciliation from one who does not know Him whom we have offended ; the kiss of the Father has never been given to the prodigal. Men have asked how we are justified in ascribing to the infinite God the attributes which we men call good: mercy, justice, love. If Christ is God, the answer lies near; if He is the Christ of Arius, we are left in moral agnosticism. Apart from Christ, the philosophical arguments for a God have their force ; they proffer to us an ennobling belief, a grand ‘perhaps’; but the historical inability of Monotheism to retain a last- ing hold among men apart from revelation is an impressive commentary on their compelling power. In Christ alone does God lay hold upon the soul with the assurance of His love (Rom. v. 5—8; Matt. xi.28; John xvii. 3). The God of Arius has held out no hand toward us; he is a far-off abstraction, not a living nor a redeeming God.
The illogicality of Arianism has often been pointed out (Gwatkin, pp. 21 sgg. esp. p. 28); how, starting from the Sonship of Christ, it came round to a denial of His Sonship; how it started with an interest for Monotheism and landed in a vindication of polytheism ; how it began from the incomprehensibility of God even to His Son, and ended (in its most pronounced form) with the assertion that the divine Nature is no mystery at all, even to us. It is an insult to the memory of Aristotle to call such shallow hasty syllogising from ill-selected and unsifted first principles by his name. Aristotle himself teaches a higher logic than this. But at this date Aristotelianism proper was extinct. It only survived in the form of ‘ pure’ logic, adopted by the Platonists, but also studied for its own sake in connection with rhetoric arid the art of arguing (cf. Socr. ii. 35). Such an instru- ment might well be a cause of confusion in the hands of men who used it without regard to the conditions of the subject-matter. An illogical compromise between the theology of Paul of Samosata and of Origen, the marvel is that Arianism satisfied any one even in the age of its birth. What has been said above with regard to the conception of God in the early Church may help to explain it; the germ of ethical insight which is latent in adoptionism, and which when neglected by the Church has always made itself felt by reaction, must also receive justice ; once again, its inherent intellectualism was in harmony with the dominant theology of the Eastern Church, that is with one side of Origenism. Where analogous conditions have prevailed, as for example in the England of the early eighteenth century, Arianism has tended to reappear with no one of its attendant incongruities missing,
But for all that, the doom of Arianism was uttered at Niczea and verified in the six decades which followed. Every possible alternative formula of belief as to the Person of Christ was forced upon the mind of the early Church, was fully tried, and was found wanting. Arianism above all was fully tried and above all found lacking. The Nicene formula alone has been found to render possible the life, to satisfy the instincts of the Church of Christ. The choice lies—nothing is clearer—between that and the doctrine of Paul of Samosata. The latter, it has been said, was misunderstood, was never fairly tried, Asa claimant to represent the true sense of Christianity it was I think once for all rejected when the first Apostles gave the right hand of fellowship to S. Paul (see above, p. xxii.) ; its future trial must be in the form of yaturalism, as a rival to Christianity, on the basis of a denial of the claim of Christ to be the One Saviour of the World, and of His Gospel to be the Absolute Religion. But Arianism, adding to all the difficulties of a supernatural Christology the spirit of the shallowest rationalism and the fundamental postulate of agnosticism, can surely count for nothing in the Armageddon of the latter days,
Spiacente a Dio ed a’ nemici suoi.
(b) Zhe duoova.ov as a theological formula*,
The distinction, which in the foregoing discussion
we have frequently had under our notice, between the
8 This illustrates the famous paradox of Cardinal Newman (Development, ed. 1878, pp.142-4), that the condemnation of Arian Christology /eft vacant a throne in heaven which the medieval Church legitimately filled with the Blessed Virgin ; that the Nicene condemnation of the Arian theology is the vindication of the medieval ; that ‘the votaries of Mary do not exceed the true faith, unless the blasphemers of her Son come up to it.’ But the qestion here was one of worship, not of theology. The Arians worshipped Christ, whom they regarded as a created being:
therefore, the Nicene fathers urge with one consent, they were idolaters. The idea of a created being capable of being worshipped was an Arian legacy to the Church, no doubt. But this very idea, to Athanasius and Hilary, marked them out as idolaters. It was reserved for later times ‘to find a subject for an Arian predicate’ (Mozley). The argument is an astonishing admission.
t The enormous literature of the subject is partly given by Harnack, ii. p. 182, Schaff, Micene Christ. §§ 119, 120. The student will find great help from Bigg, Bamfz. Lect. pp. 179, note,
THE HOMOUSION: ITS MEANING. XXXi
r a mes = yvaors of the early Church, the mior.s common to all, and formulated in the /essera or rule of faith, the yvaors the property of apologists and theologians aiming at the expression of faith in terms of the thought of their age, and at times, though for long only slightly, reacting upon the rule of faith itself (Aquileia, Cxesarea Gregory Thaumaturgus), makes itself felt in the account of the Nicene Council. ‘That the legacy of the first world-wide gathering of the Church’s tulers isa Rule of Faith moulded by theological reflexion, one in which the yrdois of Se Church supplements her wiotis, is a momentous fact ; a fact for which we have to thank not Athanasius but : rius. The miotis of the Fathers repudiated Arianism as a novelty ; but to exclude it from the Church some ee indispensable ; and to find a test was the task of theology, of yv@o1s. The Nicene Confession is the Rule of Faith explained as against Arianism. Arianism started with the Christian profession of belief in our Lord’s Sonship. If the result was incompatible with such belief, it was inevitable that an explanation should be given, not indeed of the full meaning of divine Sonship, but of that element in the idea which was ignored or assailed by the misconception of Arius. Such an explanation is attempted in the words é« tis ovolas Tod matpds, bpoovotuy 7@ Marpi, and again in the condemnation of the formula é& érépas Sroardcews 7 ovotas. This explanation was not adopted without hesitation, nor would it have been adopted had any other barrier against the heresy, which all but very few wished to exclude, appeared effective. We now have to examine firstly the grounds of this hesi- tation, secondly the justification of the formula itself,
a The objections felt to the word duoovevoy at the council were (1) philosophical, based on the identification of ovata with either eldos (i.e. as implying a “formal essence’ prior to Father and Son alike) or An; (2) dogmatic, based on the identification of ovcia with 7éSe 71, and on the consequent Sabellian sense of the éuoodcioy ; (3) Scriptural, based on the non-occurrence of the word in the Bible; (4) Ecclesiastical, based on the condemnation of the word by the Synod which deposed Paul at Antioch in 269.
All these objections were made and felt dona fide, although Arians would of course make the most of them. The subsequent history will shew that their force was outweighed only for the moment with many of the fathers, and that to reconcile the ‘ conservatism’ of the Asiatic bishops to the new formula must be a matter of time. The third or Scriptural objection need not now be discussed at length. Precedent could be pleaded for the introduc- tion into creeds of words not expressly found in Scripture (e.g. the word ‘catholic’ applied to the Church in many ancient creeds, the creed of Gregory Thaumaturgus with tpios reAela, &c. &c.); the only question was, were the non-scriptural words expressive of a Scriptural idea ? This was the pith of the question debated between Athanasius and his opponents for a generation after the council; the ‘conservative’ majority eventually came round to the conviction that Athanasius was right. But the question depends upon the meaning of the word itself.
The word means sharing in a joint or common essence, ovata (cf. dudévupos, sharing the same name, &c. &c.). What then is otcfa? The word was introduced into philosophical use, so far as we know, by Plato, and its technical value was fixed for future ages by his pupil Aristotle. Setting aside its use to express ‘existence’ in the abstract, we take the more general use of the word as indicating that which exists in the concrete. In this sense it takes its place at the centre of his system of ‘ categories,’ as the something to which all determinations cf quality, quantity, relation and the rest attach, and which itself attaches to nothing ; in Aristotle’s words it alone is self-existent, ywpiordv, whereas all that comes under any of the other categories is &yapioTov, non-existent except as a property of some odaia. But here the difficulty begins. We may look at a concrete term as denoting either this or that individual simply (réde 7), or as expressing its nature, and so as common to more individuals than one. Now properly (xpétws) ovcta is only appropriate to the former purpose. But it may be employed in a secondary sense to designate the latter; in this sense species and genera are dedrepar ovata, the wider class being less truly ovcfo: than the narrower. In fact we here detect the transition of the idea of obaia from the category of ovota proper to that of rody (cf. Athan. p. 478 sg.; he uses ovcla freely in the secondary sense for non- theological purposes in contra Gentes, where it is often best rendered ‘nature ’). Aristotle accordingly uses ovola freely to designate what we call substances, whether simple or compound, such as iron, gold, earth, the heavens, 7d kxlyytov, &c., &c. Corresponding again, to the logical distinction of ‘yévos and éidos is the metaphysical distinction (not exactly of matter and form, but) of matter simply, regarded as rd imoxenwevov, and matter regarded as existing in this or that form, 7d rowdy 7d ev rH odcig, 7d 7/ av eivas, the meeting-point of logic and metaphysics in Aristotle’s system. Agreeably to this distinction, odoia is used sometimes of the latter—the concrete thing regarded in its essential nature, sometimes of the former 4 broxemévn ovata &s An, An being in fact the semmum genus of the material world.
Now the use of the word in Christian theology had exemplified nearly every one of the above senses. In the quasi-material sense éuootovov had been used in the school of Valentinian to express the homogeneity of the two factors in the fundamental dualism of the Universe of intelligent beings. In a somewhat similar sense it is used in the Clementine Homilies xx. 7. The Platonic phrase for the Divine Nature, éewéxewa méons ovaias, adopted by Origen and by Athanasius contra Gentes, appears to retain something of the idea of odoia as implying material
existence; and this train of associations had to be expressly disclaimed in defending the Nicene formula. In the
sense of homogeneity the word duoovc.or is expressly applied by Origen, as we have seen, to the Father and the
Son: onthe other hand, taking oda/a in the ‘primary’ Anistotelian sense, he has repos kar’ ovalay kal bmoKemevor. In the West (see above on Tertullian and Novatian) the Latin substantia (Cicero had in vain attempted to give currency to the less euphonious but more suitable essentia) had taken its place in the phrase wnzus substanti@ ox com- munio substantia, intended to denote not only the homogeneity but the Unity of Father and Son, Accordingly we find Dionysius of Rome pressing the test upon his namesake of Alexandria and the latter not declining it (below, p. 183). But a few years later we find the Origenist bishops, who with the concurrence of Dionysius of Rome deposed Paul of Samosata, expressly repudiating the term. This fact, which is as certain as any fact in Church history (see Routh Re//. iii. 564 &c., Caspari Alte u. Neue. Q., pp. 161 5qJ-), Was a powerful support to the Arians in their subsequent endeavours to unite the conservative East in reaction against the council. Scholars are fairly equally divided as to the explanation of the fact. Some hold, foliowing Athanasius
i he . 42, sgg.; Newman’s Arians4, | Shedd i. 362—372 5 and the Introduction to the Tomus and ad ele ee are and eds embodied in this | A/vosin this volume pp. 482, 488. The use of oveia in Aristotle is ities especially that appended to Lpist. Euseb. p. 77; Zabn's tabulated by Bonitz in the fifth volume (index) to the Berlin Marcellus pp. 11 —27 (also p. 87), perhaps the best modern dis- | edition: its use in Plato is less srequent and less technical, but cussion 3 Harnack ii. pp. 228—230, and note 3; Loofs $§ 32—34; | see the brief account in Liddell and Scott.
xxxii PROLEGOMENA, CHAPTER IL, § 3 (2).
in A ee ee a ee
and Basil, that Paul imputed the duoodcoy (in a materialising sense) to his opponents, as a consequence of the doctrine they Peace to his own, and that ‘the 80’ in repudiating the word, repudiated the ea es the divine nature could be divided by the emanation of a portion of it in the Logos. Hilary, on the other and, tells us that the word was used by Paul himself (‘male é400dc10v Paulus confessus est, sed numquid melius Arii negaverunt?’) If so, it must have been meant to deny the existence of the Logos as an otcla (i.e. Hypostasis) distinct from the Father. Unfortunately we have not the original documents to refer to. But in either case the word was repudiated at Antioch in one sense, enacted at Niczea in another. The fact however remains that the term does not exclude ambiguity. Athanasius is therefore going beyond strict accuracy when he erie (p. 164) that no one who is not an Arian can fail to be in agreement with the Synod. Marcellus and Photinus alone prove the contrary. But he is right in regarding the word as rigidly excluding the heresy of Arius. . This brings us to the question in what sense odola‘is used in the Nicene definition. We must remember t . strong Western and anti-Origenist influence which prevailed in the council (above, p. xvii.), and the use 0 $réo7acts and ovata as convertible terms in the anathematism (see Excursus A, pp. 77, sgg. below). Now going back for a moment to the correspondence of the two Dionysii, we see that Dionysius of Rome had contended not so much against the sulordination of the Son to the Father as against their undue separation (wemepiomevan Stoordoets). In other words he had pressed the 6uoodcwv upon his namesake in the interest rather of the zzzzty than of the eyuality of the Persons in the Holy Trinity. At Nicwa, the problem was (as shewn above) to explain (at least negatively) how the Church understood the Generation of the Son. Accordingly we find Athanasius in later years explaining that the Council meant to place beyond doubt the Zssential Relation of the Divine Persons to one another (rd Ydiov rs odaias, tabrérys, see de Decr. pp. 161, 163 sg., 165, 168, 319 ; of course including identity of Nature, pp. 396, 413, 232), and maintaining to the end (where he expresses his own view, P. 490, &c.) the convertibility of ovata and brdoracrs for this purpose. By the word 6 6eds or Oeds he understands ovdev Erepov } thy ovatav rod bvros (de Decr. 22). The conclusion is that in their original sense the definitions of Nica assert not merely the sfecific identity of the Son with the Father (as Peter gva man is of one odofa with Paul, or the Emperor’s statue of one form with the Emperor himself, p. 396), but the full unbroken continuation of the Being of the Father in the Son, the inseparable unity of the Son with the Father in the Oneness of the Godhead. Here the phrase is ‘balanced’ by the é« rs [brocrdoews 4] ovclas rod Marpds, not as though merely one obcia had given existence to another, but in the sense that with such origination the viaia remained the same. This isa ‘first approximation to the mysterious doctrine of the wepsxdépnous,’ coinherence, or ‘ circuminsessio,’ which is necessary to guard the doctrine of the Trinity against tritheism, but which, it must be observed, lifts it out of the reach of the categories of any system of thought in which the workings of human intelligence have ever been able to organise themselves. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity vindicated by the Nicene formula on the one hand remains, after the exclusion of others, as the one direction in which the Christian intellect can travel without frustrating and limiting the movement of faith, without bringing to a halt the instinct of faith in Christ as Saviour, implanted in the Church by the teaching of S. Paul and of S. John, of the Lord Himself: on the other hand it is not a full solution of the intellectual difficulties with which the analysis of that faith and those instincts brings us face to face. That God is One, and that the Son is God, are truths of revelation which the category of ‘ substance’ fails to synthesise. The Nicene Definition furnishes a basis of agreement for the purpose of Christian devotion, worship, and life, but leaves two theologies face to face, with mutual recognition as the condition of the healthy life of either. The theology of Athanasius and of the West is that of the Nicene formula in its original sense. The inseparable Unity of the God of Revelation is its pivot. The conception of Zersonality in the Godhead is its difficulty. The distinctness of the Father, Son, and Spirit is felt (AAos 6 Marhp &AAos 6 vids), but cannot be formulated so as to satisfy our full idea of personality. For this Athanasius had no word; mwpécwroy meant too little (implying as it did no more than an aspect possibly worn but for a special period or purpose), imdéoracis (implying such personality as separates Peter from Paul) too much. But he recognised the admissibility of the sense in which the Nicene formula eventually, in the theology of the Cappadocian fathers, won its way to supre- macy in the East. To them trdoracts was an appropriate term to express the distinction of Persons in the God- head, while odefa expressed the divine Mature which they possessed in common (see Excursus A. p. 77 s99.). This sense of otcla approximated to that of species, or eldos (Aristotle’s ‘secondary’ ovcta), while that of bnéorac.s gravitated toward that of personality in the empirical sense. But in neither case did the approximation amount to complete identity. The idea of trine personality was limited by the consideration of the Unity; the mepixdpnois was recognised, although in a somewhat different form, the prominent idea in Athanasius being that of covnherence or immanence, whereas the Cappadocians, while using, of course, the language of John xiv. 11, yet prefer the metaphor of successive dependence bomep e& adrtoews (Bas. Ep. 38, p. 118 D). To Athanasius, the Godhead is complete not in the Father alone, still less in the Three Persons as parts of the one ovcia, but in each Person as much as in a//. The Cappadocian Fathers go back to the Origenist view that the Godhead is complete primarily in the Father alone, but medva¢ely in the Son or Spirit, by virtue of their origination from the Father as myn or airla rhs Oedtntos. To Athanasius the distinct Personality of Son and Spirit was the difficulty ; his difference from Origen was wide, from Marcellus subtle. To the Cappadocians the difficulty was the Unity of the Persons; to Marcellus they were ¢oto c@lo opposed, they are the pupils of Origen?. Accordingly when Basil makes a distinction between odofa and ixédorasis in the Nicene anathematism, he is giving not historical exegesis but his own opinion. ai) ee eicane iN in ae eee the Unity of the Godhead in Three Persons, against e Rpt an oe on saat : ather. How then did it escape the danger of lending countenance Re aaa hanasius teels t See without solving it, for the distinction given by him, p. 84, Bere a ss ae hout real meaning (ze say with Tertullian ‘of one substance’). On the eee a ma ie _ at the iE < Son was sufficient to secure the Trinity of Persons. ‘By the name council in its revision netic Ge oe d shift eee Snort (P-434 Cra et) wenn ist ie oe etl Peer eet eesarean creed shifted vids to the principal position where it took the place of Adyos. y eed imposed no additional test in that direction (the é« ts ovolas is important but not
2 Gregory Thaumaturgus was the great Origenist influence 9, edited by Draseke in Z¢schr. fier K.G. viii. 85sgg.- Apollinarius
in northern Asia Minor: the Cappadocian fathers wer r Minc appac 2 ere also | was of S iani igen : influenced in the direction of the 6foov¥cvoy by Apollinarius: see | also p. Fist: SE ee a ene eee ee
the correspondence between Basil and the latter, Bas. EAA. 8 »
THE HOMOUSION: ITS JUSTIFICATION. XXxili
decisive in this respect). This was felt as an objection to the Creed, and the objection was pointed by the influence of Marcellus at the council. The historical position of Marcellus is in fact, as we shall see, the principal key to the ‘conservative’ reaction which followed. The insertion into the conservative creeds of a clause asserting the endlessness of Christ’s Kingdom, which eventually received ecumenical authority, was an expression of this feeling. But a final explanation between the Nicene doctrine and Monarchianism could not come about until the idea of Personality had been tested in the light of the appearance of the Son in the Flesh. The solution, or rather definition, of the problem is to be sought in the history of the Christological questions which began with Apollinarius of Laodicea,
The above account of the anti-Arian test formulated at Niczea will suffice to explain the motives for its adoption, the difficulties which made that adoption reluctant, and the fact of the reaction which followed. One thing is clear, namely that given the actual conditions, nothing short of the test adopted would have availed to exclude the Arian doctrine. It is also I think clear, that not only was the current theology of the Eastern Church unable to cope with Arianism, but that it was itself a danger to the Church and in need of the corrective check of the Nicene definition. Hellenic as was the system of Origen, it was in its spirit Christian, and saturated with the influence of Scripture. It could never have taken its place as the expression of the whole mind of the Church; but it remains as the noblest monument of a Christian intellect resolutely in love with truth for its own sake, and bent upon claiming for Christ the whole range of the legitimate activity of the human spirit. But the age had inherited only the wreck of Origenism, and its partial victory in the Church had brought confusion in its train, the leaders of the Church were characterised by secular knowledge rather than grasp of first principles, by dogmatic intellectualism rather than central apprehension of God in Christ. Eusebius of Czsarea is their typical repre- sentative. The Nicene definition and the work of Athanasius which followed were a summons back to the simple first principles of the Gospel and the Rule of Faith. What then is their value to ourselves? Above all, this, that they have preserved to us what Arianism would have destroyed, that assurance of Knowledge of, and Reconciliation to, God in Christ of which the divinity of the Saviour is the indispensable condition ; if we are now Christians in the scnse of S. Paul we owe it under God to the work of the great synod. Not that the synod explained all; or did more than effectually ‘block off false forms of thought or avenues of unbalanced inference’ which ‘chal- lenged the acceptance of Christian people.’ The decisions of councils are ‘primarily not the Church saying ““yes”’ to fresh truths or developments or forms of consciousness ; but rather saying ‘“‘no” to untrue and misleading modes of shaping and stating her truth,’ (Lax Mundi, ed.i. p. 240, cf. p. 334). It is objected that the Nicene Formula, especially as understood by Athanasius, is itself a ‘false form of thought,’ a flat contradiction in terms. That the latter is true we do not dispute (see Newman’s notes infra, p. 336, note 1, &c.). But before pro- nouncing the form of thought for that reason a false one, we must consider what the ‘terms’ are, and to what they are applied. To myself it appears that a religion which brought the divine existence into the compass of the categories of any philosophy would by that very fact forfeit its claim to the character of revelation. The categories of human thought are the outcome of organised experience of a sensible world, and beyond the limits of that world they fail us. This is true quite apart from revelation. The ideas of essence and substance, personality and will, separateness and continuity, cause and effect, unity and plurality, are all in different degrees helps which the mind uses in order to arrange its knowledge, and valid within the range of experience, but which become a danger when invested with absolute validity as things in themselves. Even the mathematician reaches real results by operating
with terms which contain a perfect contradiction (e.g. /—1, and to some extent the ‘calculus of operations’). The idea of Will in man, of Personality in God, present difficulties which reason cannot reconcile.
The revelation of Christ is addressed primarily to the will not to the intellect, its appeal is to Faith not to Theology. Theology is the endeavour of the Christian intellect to frame for itself conceptions of matters belonging to the immediate consequences of our faith, matters about which we must believe something, but as to which the Lord and His Apostles have delivered nothing formally explicit. Theology has no doubt its certainties beyond the express teaching of our Lord and the New Testament writers ; but its work is subject to more than the usual limitations of human thought: we deal with things outside the range of experience, with celestial things ; but ‘we have no celestial Janguage.’ To abandon all theology would be to acquiesce in a dumb faith: we are to teach, to explain, to defend ; the Adyos coglas and Adyos yyécews have from the first been gifts of the Spirit for the building up of the Body. But we know in part and prophesy in part, and our terms begin to fail us just in the region where the problem of guarding the faith of the simple ends and the inevitable metaphysic, into which all pure reflexion merges, begins. Eire obv pidocopytéov elite ui piAocopntéoy, pirocopntéov, ‘man is metaphysical nolens volens y only let us recollect that when we find ourselves in the region of antinomies we are crossing the frontier line between revelation and speculation, between the domain of theology and that of ontology. That this line is approached in the definition of the great council no one will deny. But it was reached by the council and by the subsequent consent of tne Church reluctantly and under compulsion. The bold assumption that we can argue from the revelation of God in Christ to mysteries beyond our experience was made by the Gnostics, by Arius : the Church met them by a denial of what struck at the root of her belief, not by the claim to erect formulze applied merely for the lack of better into a revealed ontology. In the terms Person, Hypostasis, Will, Essence, Nature, Generation, Procession, we have the embodiment of ideas extracted from experience, and, as applied to God, representing merely the best attempt we can make to explain what we mean when we speak of God as Father and of Christ as His Son. Even these last sacred names convey their full meaning to us only in view of the historical person of Christ and of our relation to God through Him. That this meaning is based upon an absolute relation
of Christ to the Father is the rock of our faith, That relation is mirrored in the name Son of God: but what it is in itself, when the empirical connotations of Sonship are stripped away, we cannot possibly know. ‘Opootiotos Te Tarpt, 2 zfs ovcias tod Marpdés* these words assert at once our faith that such relation exists and our ignorance of its nature. To the simplicity of faith it is enough to know (and this knowledge is what our formula secures) that in Christ we have not only the perfect Example of Human Love to God, but the direct expression and
assurance of the Father’s Love to us. (c) Materials for Reaction. ‘The victory of Niczea was rather a surprise than a solid conquest. As it was not the
VOL, IV. ¢
XXXiV PROLEGOMENA, CHAPTER IL, § 3 (2).
spontaneous and deliberate purpose of the bishops present, but a revolution which a minority had forced through by sheer strength of clearer Christian thought, a reaction was inevitable as soon as the half-convinced conservatives returned home’ (Gwatkin). The reaction, however, was not for a long time overtly doctrinal. The defeat, the moral humiliation of Arianism at the council was too signal, the prestige of the council itself too overpowering, the Emperor too resolute in supporting its definition, to permit of this. Not till after the death of Constantine in 337 does the policy become manifest of raising alternative symbols to a coordinate rank with that of Niczea ; not till six years after the establishment of Constantius as sole Emperor,—1.e. not till 357,—did Arianism once again set its mouth to the trumpet. | During the reign of Constantine the reaction, though doctrinal in its motive, was personal in its ostensible grounds. The leaders of the victorious minority at Nicaea are one by one attacked on this or that pretence and removed from their Sees, till at the time of Constantine’s death the East is in the hands of their opponents. What were the forces at work which made this possible ?
(1) Persecuted Arians. Foremost of all, the harsh measures adopted by Constantine with at least the tacit approval of the Nicene leaders furnished material for reaction, Arius and his principal friends were sent into exile, and as we have seen they went in bitterness of spirit. Arius himself was banished to Illyricum, and would seem to have remained there five or six years. (The chronology of his recall is obscure, but see 1D)3@. Baar. 364, and Gwatkin, p. 86, note 2). It would be antecedently very unlikely that a religious exile would spare exertions to gain sympathy for himself and converts to his opinions. As a matter of fact, Arianism had no more active sup- porters during the next half-century than two bishops of the neighbouring province of Pannonia, VALENS of Mursa (Mitrowitz), and Ursactus? of Singidunum (Belgrade). Valens and Ursacius are described as pupils of Arius, and there is every reason to trace their personal relations with the heresiarch to his Illyrian exile. The seeds sown in Illyria at this time were still bearing fruit nearly 50 years later (pp. 489, 494, note). Secundus nursed his bitterness fully thirty years (p. 2943; cf. 456). Theognis grasped at revenge at Tyre in 335 (pp. 104, 114). Eusebius of Nicomedia, recalled from exile with his friend and neighbour Theognis, not long after the election of Athanasius in 328, was ready to move heaven and earth to efface the results of the council. The harsh measures against the Arians then, if insufficient to account for the reaction, at any rate furnished it with the energy of personal bitterness and sense of wrong.
(2) The Eusebians and the Court. Until the council of Sardica (i.e. a short time after the death of Eusebius of Nicomedia), the motive power of the reaction proceeded from the environment of Eusebius, of wep) Evo€Biov. It should be observed once for all that the term ‘ EUSEBIANS’ is the later and inexact equivalent of the last named Greek phrase, which (excepting perhaps p. 436) has reference to Eusebius of Nicomedia only, and not to his namesake of Cesarea. The latter, no doubt, lent his support to the action of the party, but ought not to suffer in our estimation from the misfortune of his name. Again, the ‘ Eusebians’ are not a heresy, nor a theological party or school; they are the ‘ring,’ or personal entourage, of one man, a master of intrigue, who succeeded in combining a very large number of men of very different opinions in more or less close association for common ecclesiastical action. The ‘ Eusebians’ sezsa Jatiori are the majority of Asiatic bishops who were in reaction against the council and its leaders; in the stricter sense the term denotes the pure Arians like Eusebius, Theognis, and the rest, and those ‘ political Arians’ who without settled adherence to Arian principles, were, for all practical purposes, hand in glove with Eusebius and his fellows. To the former class emphatically belong Valens and Ursacius, whose recantation in 347 is the solitary and insuffi- cient foundation for the sweeping generalisation of Socrates (ii. 37), that they ‘always inclined to the party in power,’ and George, the presbyter of Alexandria, afterwards bishop of the Syrian Laodicea, who, although he went through a phase of ‘conservatism,’ 357—359, began and ended (Gwatkin, pp. 181—183) as an Arian, pure and simple. Among ‘ political Arians’ of this period Eusebius of Czesarea is the chief. He was not, as we have said above, an Arian theologically, yet whatever allowances may be made for his conduct during this period (D.C.B., ii. 315, 316) it tended all in one direction. But on the whole, political Arianism is more abundantly exemplified in the Homeeans of the next generation, whose activity begins about the time of the death of Constans. The Eusebians proper were political indeed «2 tues kat &Aot, but their essential Arianism is the one element of principle about them. Above all, the employment of the term ‘SEMI-ARIANS’ as a synonym for Eusebians, or indeed as a designation of any party at this period, is to be strongly deprecated. It is the (possibly somewhat mis- leading, but reasonable and accepted) term for the younger generation of convinced ‘ conservatives,’ whom we find in the sixth decade of the century becoming conscious of their essential difference in principle from the Arians, whether political or pure, and feeling their way toward fusion with the Nicenes. These are a definite party, with a definite theological position, to which nothing in the earlier period exactly corresponds. The Eusebians proper were not semz-, but vea/ Arians. Eusebius of Cesarea and the Asiatic conservatives are the predecessors of the semi- Arians, but their position is not quite the same. Reserving them fora moment, we must complete our account of the Eusebians proper. Their nucleus consisted of the able and influential circle of ‘ Lucianists ;’ it has been remarked by an unprejudiced observer that, so far as we know, not one of them was eminent as a religious character (Harnack, i. 185); their strength was in fixity of policy and in ecclesiastical intrigue ; and their battery was the imperial court. Within three years of the Council, Constantine had begun to waver, not in his resolution to maintain the Nicene Creed, that he never relaxed, but in his sternness toward its known opponents. His policy was dictated by the desire for unity : he was made to feel the lurking dissatisfaction of the bishops of Asia, perhaps as his anger was softened by time he missed the ability and ready counsel of the extruded bishop of his residential city. An Arian presbyter (‘ Eustathius’ or ‘ Eutokius’?), who was a kind of chaplain to Constantia, sister of Con- stantine and widow of Licinius, is said to have kept the subject before the Emperor’s mind after her death (in 328 BeeNS OG 1.25). _ At last, as we have seen, first Eusebius and Theognis were recalled, then Arius himself was pardoned upon his general assurance of agreement with the faith of the Synod.
1 They were probably not yet bishops at this time, as they | (unlike the obscure Secundus and Theonas, and the later gener-
were young bishops at Tyre in 335 ; evidently they are ‘the fairest | ation of Eunomians) are open to the i of God’s youthiul flock’ (!) alluded to in Eus. V.C, iv. a2. a pinch, ) P charge of subserviency at
: } ‘ ; a 2 At the same tim? Arius himself and all his fellow acianiets
VAC ee UsomOh ANG Y WA XXXV
The atmosphere of a court is seldom favourable to a high standard of moral or religious principle ; and the place-hunters and hangers-on of the imperial courts of these days were an exceptionally worthless crew (see Gwatkin, p. 60, 110, 234). It is a tribute to the Nicene cause that their influence was steadily on the other side, and to the character of Constantine that he was able throughout the greater part of the period to resist it, at any rate as far as Athanasius was concerned. But on the whole the court was the centre whence the webs of Eusebian intrigue extended to Egypt, Antioch, and many other obscurer centres of attack.
The influences outside the Church were less directly operative in the campaign, but such as they were they served the Eusebian plans. The expulsion of a powerful bishop from the midst of a loyal flock was greatly assisted by the co-operation of a friendly mob; and Jews (pp. 94, 296), and heathen alike were willing to aid the Arian cause. The army, the civil service, education, the life of society were still largely heathen ; the inevitable influx of heathen into the Church, now that the empire had become Christian, brought with it multitudes to whom Arianism was a more intelligible creed than that of Nicsea ; the influence of the philosophers was a serious factor, they might well welcome Arianism as a ‘ Selbstersetzung des Christentums.’ ‘This is not inconsistent with the instances of persecution of heathenism by Arian bishops, and of savage heathen reprisals, associated with the names of George of Alexandria, Patrophilus, Mark of Arethusa, and others. (For a fuller discussion, with references, see Gwatkin, pp. 53—59.)
(3.) Zhe Lcclesiastical Conservatives. Something has already been said in more than one connection to explain how it came to pass that the very provinces whose bishops made up the large numerical majority at Niczea, also furnished the numbers which swelled the ranks of the Eusebians at Tyre, Antioch, and Philippopolis. The actual men were, of course, in many cases 3 changed in the course of years, but the sees were the same, and there is ample evidence that the staunch Nicene party were ina hopeless minority in Asia Minor 4 and but little stronger in Syria. The indefiniteness of this mass of episcopal opinion justifies the title ‘Conservative.’ In adopting it freely, we must not forget, what the whole foregoing account has gone to shew, that their conservatism was of the empirical or short-sighted kind, prone to acquiesce in things as they are, hard to arouse to a sense of a great crisis, reluctant to step out of its groove. If by conservatism we mean action which really tends to preserve the vital strength of an institu- tion, then Athanasius and the leaders of Niceea were the only conservatives. But it is not an unknown thing for vulgar conservatism to take alarm at the clear grasp of principles and facts which alone can carry the State over a great crisis, and by wrapping itself up in its prejudices to play into the hands of anarchy. Common men do not easily rise to the level of mighty issues. Where Demosthenes saw the crisis of his nation’s destiny, Alschines saw materials for a personal impeachment of his rival. In the anti-Nicene reaction the want of clearness of thought coincided with the fatal readiness to magnify personal issues. Here was the oppor- tunity of the Arian leaders: a confused succession of personal skirmishes, in which the mass of men saw no religious principle, nor any combined purpose (Soc. i. 13, vverowayias te ov8ey dmeixe Ta ywipeva), was conducted from headquarters with a fixed steady aim. But their machinations would have been fruitless had the mass of the bishops been really in sympathy with the council to which they were still by their own action committed. ‘ 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 sup- plied it with the means of action’ (Gwatkin, p. 61. He explains the policy of the court by the religious sympathies of Asia Minor $ and its political importance, pp. 90-91.) But the authority of the council remained unchallenged during the lifetime of Constantine. and no Arian raised his voice against it. One doctrinal controversy there was, of subordinate importance, but of _akind to rivet the conservatives to their attitude of sullen reaction.
It follows from what has been said of the influence of Origen in moulding the current theology of the Eastern Church, that the one theological principle which was most vividly and generally grasped was the horror of Monarchian and especially of ‘Sabellian’ teaching. Now in replying to Asterius the spokesman of early Arianism, no less a person than MARCELLUS, bishop of Ancyra (Angora) in Galatia, and one of the principal leaders of Niczea, had laid himself open to this charge. It was brought with zeal and learning (in 336) in two successive works by Eusebius of Czesarea, which, with Ath., Ovat. iv. are our principal source of information as to the tenets of Mar- cellus (see D.C.B. ii. 341, sg., Zahn Marcellus 99 sqq., fragments collected by Rettberg Marcelliana). On the other hand he was uniformly supported by the Nicene party, and especially by Athanasius and the Roman Church. His book was examined at Sardica, and on somewhat ex parte grounds (p. 125) pronounced innocent : a personal estrangement from Athanasius shortly after (Hilar. Aragm. ii. 21, 23) on account of certain ‘ambiguze preedi- cationes eius, in quam Photinus erupit, doctrinze,’ did not amount to a formal breach of communion (he is mentioned 14 years later as an exiled Nicene bishop, pp. 256, 271), nor did the anxious questioning of Epiphanius (see Her. 72. 4) succeed in extracting from the then aged Athanasius more than a significant smile. He refuses
to condemn him, and in arguing against opinions which appear to be his, he refrains from mentioning the name
3 Alexander of Thessalonica had been at Nicewa, Dianius 5 Always an important factor in the stability of the Byzantine
of Caes. Capp. had not. The two are typical of the better sort of | throne, see, on Justinian, D.C.B. ili. 5y5a, sad fin. Newman, conservatives Arians, Appendix y., brings no conclusive proof of strong Nicene
4 For Asia besides Marcellus we have only Diodorus of ‘Tene- | feeling among the masses of the laity in this region. But ‘ the dos, not at Niczea, but expelled soon after 330, p. 2715 signs at people’ in Galatia, according to Basil, remained devoted to Sardica, p. 147, banished again p. 276, not in D.C.B.; for Syria | Marcellus. the names p. 271, cf. p. 256.
C2
XXXVi PROLEGOMENA, CHAPTER IL, § 4.
ft Re OTS og ph ee seee hoe Te = a ie eee ee
even of Photinus®. It may be well therefore to sketch in a few touches what we know of the system of Mar- cellus, in order that we may appreciate the relative right of Eusebius in attacking, and of Athanasius and the Romans in supporting him. “Marcellus is a representative of the traditional theology of Asia Minor, as we find it in Ignatius and Irenzeus (see above, pp. xxii. —xxiv., xxvi. /iz.), and is independent of any influence of, or rather in conscious reaction against, Origenism. We cannot prove that he had studied either Ignatius or Irenzeus, but we find the doctrine of avaxe@adalwots with reference to Creation and the Incarnation, and the Ignatian thought of the Divine Silence, and a general unmistakeable affinity (cf. Zahn 236—244). _Marcellus ‘appeals from Origen to S. John.’ He begins with the idea of Sonship, as Arius and the Nicene Council had done. Perceiving that on the one hand Arians and Origenists alike were led by the idea of Sonship as dependent on paternal will to infer the inferiority of the Son to the Father, and in the more extreme case to deny His coeternity, feeling on the other hand (with Ireneus II. xxviii. 6) our inability to find an idea to correspond with the relation implied in the eternal Sonship, he turns to the first chapter of S. John as the classic passage for the pre-existent nature of Christ. He finds that defore the Incarnation the Saviour is spoken of as Logos only: accordingly all other designations, even that of Son, must be reserved for the Incarnate. Moreover (Joh. i. 1) the Word is strictly coeternal, and no name implying an acé (such as yévvnots) can express the relation of the Word to God. But in view of the Divine Purpose of Creation and Redemption (for the latter is involved in the former by the doctrine of avaxepaaalw- o1s) there is a process, a stirring within the divine Monad. The Word which is potentially (Svvaper) eternally latent in God proceeds forth in Actuality (évepyeta), yet without ceasing to be potentially in God as well. In this évépy cia Spactih, to which the word yévynois may be applied, begins the great drama of the Universe which rises to the height of the Incarnation, and which, after the Economy is completed, and fallen man restored (and more than restored) to the Sonship of God which he had lost, ends in the return of the Logos to the Father, the handing over of His Kingdom by the Son, that God may be all in all.
What strikes one throughout the scheme is the intense difficulty caused to Marcellus by the unsolved problem which underlies the whole theology of the Nicene leaders, the problem of personality. The Manhood of Christ was to Marcellus fev se non-personal. The seat of its personality was the indwelling Logos. But in what sense was the Logos itself personal? Here Marcellus loses his footing : in what sense can any idea of personality attach to a merely potential existence? Again, if it was only in the évépyera dpacTmy that the personality of the Word was realised, and this only reached its fulness in the Incarnation of Christ, was the transition difficult to the plain assertion that the personality of the Son, or of the Word, originated with the Incarnation? But if this were not so, and if the Person of the Word was to recede at the consummation of all things into the Unity of the Godhead, what was to become of the Nature He had assumed? That it too could merge into a potential existence within the Godhead was of course impossible ; what then was its destiny ?. The answer of Marcellus was simple: he did not know (Zahn, 179) ; for Scripture taught nothing beyond 1 Cor. xv. 28.
We now perceive the subtle difference between Marcellus and Athanasius. Neither of them could formulate the idea of Personality in the Holy Trinity. But Athanasius, apparently on the basis of a more thorough intelli- gence of Scripture (for Marcellus, though a devout, was a partial and somewhat ignorant biblical theologian), felt what Marcellus did not, the steady inherent personal distinctness of the Father and the Son. Accordingly, while Athanasius laid down and adhered to the doctrine of eternal yévyynots, Marcellus involved himself in the mystical and confused idea of a divine wAatvopbs and cvotoAh. Moreover, while Athanasius was clearsighted in his apprehension of the problem of the day, Marcellus was after all merely conservative: he went behind the con- servatism of the Origenists,—behind even that of the West, where Tertullian had left a sharper sense of personal distinction in the Godhead,—to an archaic conservatism akin to the ‘naive modalism’ of the early Church ; upon this he engrafted reflexion, in part that of the old Asiatic theology, in part his own. As the result, his faith was such as Athanasius could not but recognise as sincere ; but in his attempt to give it theological expression he split upon the rocks of Personality, of Eschatology, of the divine immutability. His theology was an honest and interesting but mistaken attempt to grapple with a problem before he understood another which lay at its base. In doing so he exposed himself justly to attack; but we may with Athanasius, while acknowledging this, retain a kindly sympathy for this veteran ally of many confessors and sturdy opponent of the alliance between science and theology.
The feeling against Marcellus might have been less strong, at any rate it would have had less show of reason, but for the fact that he was the teacher of PHOTINUS. This person became bishop of Sirmium between 330 and 340, gave great offence by his teaching, and was deposed by the Arian party ineffectually in 347, finally in 351. After his expulsion he occupied himself with writing books in Greek and in Latin, including a work ‘ against all heresies,’ in which he expounded his own (Socr. ii. 30). None of his works have survived, and our information is very scanty (Zahn, /7arc. 189—196 is the best account), but he seems to have solved the central difficulty of Marcellus by placing the seat of the Personality of Christ in His Human Soul. How much of the system of his master he retained is uncertain, but the result was in substance pure Unitarianism. It is instructive to observe that even Photinus was passively supported for a time by the Nicenes. He was apparently (Hil. 7% ii. 19, sgq.) condemned at a council at Milan in 345, but not at Rome till 380. Athanasius (pp. 444—447) abstains from mentioning his name although he refutes his opinions ; once only he mentions him asa heretic, and with apparent reluctance (¢c. Afoll. il. 19, TOD Aeyouévou Pwrevov). The first? condemnation of him on the Nicene side in the East is by Paulinus of Antioch in 362 (p. 486). On the other hand the Eusebians eagerly caught at so irresistible a weapon. Again and again they hurled anathemas at Photinus, at first simply identifying him with Marcellus, but afterwards with full appreciation of his position. And even to the last the new Nicene party in Asia were aggrieved at the refusal of the old Nicenes at Alexandria and Rome to anathematise the master of such a heretic. Photinus was the scandal of Marcellus, Marcellus of the Council of Niczea.
§ 4. arly years of his Episcopate. The Anti-Nicene reaction, 328—335.
Athanasius was elected bishop by general consent. Alexander, as we have seen, had practically nominated him, and a large body of popular opinion clamoured for his election,
© Atthe same time he adopts a certain reserve in speaking of 7 But he is condemned by name in the alleged Coptic Acts of Marcellus, and his name is absent from the roll of the orthodox, the Council of 362; moreover Eustathius appears to have written Pp. 227 against him, see Cowper, Sy7, Mzs¢ 60.
BEGINNING OF EPISCOPATE OF ATHANASIUS. XXXVil ce : eles saree good, the pious, a Christian, one of the ascetics, a genuine bishop.” The actual on appears (p. 103) to have rested with the bishops of Egypt and Libya, who testify ten years later (ib.) that the majority 7 of their body elected him. re The see to which he succeeded was the second in Christendom ; it had long enjoyed direct Jurisdiction over the bishops of all Egypt and Libya (p. 178, Socr. i. 9), the bishops of Alexandria enjoyed the position and power of secular potentates, although in a less degree than those of Rome, or of Alexandria itself in later times (Socr. vii. 11, cf. 7). The bishop had . command of large funds, which, however, were fully claimed for church purposes and alms (see p. 105). In particular, the ‘pope’ of Alexandria had practically in his hands the appointment to the sees in his province: accordingly, as years go on, we find Arianism disap- pear entirely from the Egyptian episcopate. The bishop of Alexandria, like many other influential bishops in antiquity, was commonly spoken of as Papa or Pope ; he also was known as the ’Apxvemicxoros, as we learn from a contemporary inscription (see p. 564, note 2. ee. lce earliest biographer of Athanasius (seeIntroduction to Hist. Aceph. p. 495, 496, below) divides the episcopate of Athanasius into periods of ‘ quiet’ and of exile, marking the periods of each according to what appears to be the reckoning officially preserved in the episcopal archives. His first period of ‘quiet’ lasts from June 8, 328, to July rs, 335 (departure for Tyre), a period of seven years, one month and three days ; it is thus the third longest period of undisturbed occupancy of his see, the next being the last from his final restoration under Valens till his death (seven years and three months), and the longest of all being the golden decade (346—356, really nine years and a quarter) preceding the Third Exile.
Of the internal events of this first septennium of quiet we know little that is definite. At the end of it, however, we find him supported by the solid body of the Egyptian episcopate: and at the beginning one of his first steps (autumn of 329) was to make a visitation of the province ‘to strengthen the churches of God’ (Vit. Pach., cf. also Epiph. Her. 68.6). We learn from the life of Pachomius (on which see below, p. 189), that he penetrated as far as Syene on the Ethiopian frontier, and, as he passed Tabenne, was welcomed by Pachomius and his monks with great rejoicings. At the request of Saprion, bishop of Tentyra, in whose diocese the island was, he appears to have ordained Pachomius to the presbyterate, thus con- stituting his community a self-contained body (Acta SS. Mai. iil. 30, Appx.). The supposed consecration of Frumentius at this time must be reserved, in accordance with preponderating evidence, for § 7.
Meanwhile, the anti-Nicene reaction was being skilfully fostered by the strategy of Eusebius of Nicomedia. Within a year of the election of Athanasius we find him restored to imperial favour, and at once the assault upon the Nicene strongholds begins. The controversy between Marcellus and Eusebius of Czsarea (supra, p. xxxv.), appears to have begun later, but the latter was already, in conjunction with his friend Paulinus of Tyre and with Patrophilus, at theological war with Eustathius of Antioch, A synod of Arian and reactionary bishops assembled at Antioch, and deposed the latter on the two charges (equally de rigueur in such cases) of Sabellianism and immorality. Backed by a complaint (possibly founded on fact) that he had indiscreetly repeated a current tale (p. 271, n. 2) concerning Helena, the Emperor’s mother, the sentence of the council had the full support of the civil arm, and Eustathius lost his see for ever. Although he lived till about 358, no council ven- tured to ‘restore’ him (discussed by Gwatkin, pp. 73, 74, note), but the Christian public of Antioch violently resented his extrusion, and a compact body of the Church-people steadily refused to recognise any other bishop during, and even after, his lifetime (2/r. p. 481). Asclepas of Gaza was next disposed of, then Eutropius of Hadrianople, and many others (names, p. 271). Meanwhile everything was done to foment disturbance in Egypt. The Meletians had been stirring ever since the death of Alexander, and Eusebius was not slow to use such an opportune lever. The object in view was two-fold, the restoration of Arius to communion in Alexandria, without which the moral triumph of the reaction would be unachieved, and the extrusion of Athanasius. Accordingly a fusion took place* between the
crated before the other side considered the question as closed,
7 Eager opposition, however, was not lacking. The accounts are confused, but the statement of the bishops leaves room tor a strong minority of malcontents, who may have elected ‘Theonas’ (was he the exiled Arian bishop of Marmarica? the electors of
Theonas’ in Epiph. Her. 68 are Meletians, but there is no Theonas in the Meletian catalogue of 327; the Arians and Mele- tians very likely combined ; the latter properly had no votes, but they were not likely to regard this; see Gwatkin, p. 66, note, Church Quarterly Review. xvi. p. 393). The protests of the poposition were apparently disregarded and Athanasius conse-
(The statement of Epiph. Yer, 69, that the Arians chose one Achillas, is unsupported.) Athanasius was probably only just thirty years old, and his opponents did not fail to question whether he were not under the canonical age.
t Soz. ii. 21, 22: the account is not very clear; probably there was a gradual approximation, the first step being the Meletian support of the Arian Theonas agaiust Athanasius in 328, if the view suggested above is correct.
Xxxviii PROLEGOMENA, CHAPTER IL, § 4.
. a ’ Arians of Egypt and the Meletians, now under the leadership of John ‘Arcaph,’ whom Meletius on his death-bed lad consecrated as his successor against the terms of the Nicene settlement. At any rate, the Meletians were attached to the cause by Eusebius by means of large promises. At the same time (330?) Eusebius, having obtained the recall of Arius from exile, wrote to Athanasius requesting him to admit Arius and his friends (Euzolus, Pistus, &c.) . to communion; the bearer of the letter conveyed the assurance of dire consequences in the event of his non-compliance (p. 131). Athanasius refused to admit persons convicted of heresy at the Ecumenical Council. This brought a letter from the Emperor himself, : a : s ihe
threatening deposition by an imperial mandate unless he would freely admit all who should desire it ;7—a somewhat sweeping demand. Athanasius replied firmly and, it would seem, with effect, that ‘the Christ-oppdsing heresy had no fellowship with the Catholic Church. There- upon Eusebius played what proved to be the first card of a long suit. A deputation of three Meletian bishops arrived at the Palace with a complaint. Athanasius had, they said, levied a precept (xayév) upon Egypt for Church expenses: they had been among the first victims of the exaction. Luckily, two Presbyters of Alexandria were at court, and were able to disprove — the charge, which accordingly drew a stern rebuke upon its authors. Constantine wrote to - Athanasius summoning him to an audience, probably with the intention of satisfying himself as to other miscellaneous accusations which were busily ventilated at this date, e.g., that he was too young (cf. p. 133) when elected bishop, that he had governed with arrogance and violence, that he used magic (this charge was again made 30 years later, Ammuan. xv. 7), and sub- sidised treasonable persons. Athanasius accordingly started for court, as it would seem, late in 330 (see Letter 3, p. 512°sg.). His visit was successful, but matters went slowly ; Athanasius himself had an illness, which lasted a long time, and upon his recovery the winter storms made communication impossible. Accordingly, his Easter letter for 332 (Letter 4) was sent unusually late—apparently in the first navigable weather of that year—and Athanasius reached home, after more than a year’s absence, when Lent was already half over.
The principal matters investigated by Constantine during the visit of Athanasius were certain charges made by the three Meletian bishops, whom Eusebius had detained for the purpose ; one of these, the story of Macarius and the broken chalice, will be given at length presently. All alike were treated as frivolous, and Athanasius carried home with him a commendatory letter from Augustus himself. Defeated for the moment, the puppets of Eusebius matured their accusations, and ina year’s time two highly damaging stories were ripe for an ecclesiastical investigation.
(a) Zhe case of Ischyras. This person had been ordained presbyter by Colluthus, and his ordination had been, as we have seen (§ 2), pronounced null and void by the Alexandrian Council of 324. In spite of this he had per: sisted in carrying on his ministrations at the village where he lived (Irene Secontaruri, possibly the hamlet ‘ Irene belonged to the township of S., there was a presbyter for the township, pp. 133, 145, but none at Irene, p 106). His place of worship was a cottage inhabited only by an orphan child; of the few inhabitants of the place, only seven, and those his own relations, would attend his services. During a visitation of his diocese, Athanasius had heard of this from the presbyter of the township, and had sent Macarius, one of the clergy who were attending him on his tour (cf. pp. 109, 139), to summon Ischyras for explanations. Macarius found the poor man ill in bed and unable to come, but urged his father to dissuade him from his irregular proceedings. But instead of desisting, Ischyras joined the Meletians. His first version of the matter appears to have been that Macarius had used violence, and broken his chalice. The Meletians communicate this to Eusebius, who eggs them on to get up the case. The story gradually improves. Ischyras, it now appeared, had been actually celebrating the Eucharist ; Macarius had burst in upon him, and not only broken the chalice but upset the Holy Table. In this form the tale had been carried to Constantine when Athanasius was at Nicomedia. The relations of Ischyras, however, prevailed upon him to recall his statements, and he presented the Bishop with a written statement that the whole story was false, and had been extorted from him by violence. Ischyras was forgiven, but placed under censure, which probably led to his eventually renewing the charge with increased bitterness. Athanasius now was accused of personally breaking the chalice, &c. In the letter of the council of Philippopolis the cottage of Ischyras becomes a * basilica’ which Athanasius had caused to be thrown down.
(b) The case of Arsentus, Arsenius was Meletian bishop of Hypscele (not in the Meletian catalogue of 327). By a large bribe, as it is stated, he was induced by John Arcaph to go into hiding among the Meletian monks of the Thebaid ; rumours were quietly set in motion that Athanasius had had him murdered, and had procured one of his hands for magical purposes. A hand was circulated purporting to be the very hand in question. A report of the case, including the last version of the Ischyras scandal, was sent to Constantine, who, startled by the new accusation, sent orders to his half-brother, Dalmatius, a high official at Antioch, to enquire into the case. He appears to have suggested a council at Caesarea under the presidency of Eusebius, which was to meet at some time in the year 334 (répuow, p- 141, cf. note 2 there, also Gwatkin, p. 84 note ; the ‘30 months’ of Soz. ii, 25 isan exaggeration). Athanasius, however, obstinately declined a trial before a judge whom he regarded as biassed ; his refusal bitterly offended the aged historian. Accordingly the venwe was fixed for Tyre in the succeeding year ; a Count Dionysius was to represent the Emperor, and see that all was conducted fairly, and Athanasius was stringently (p. 137) summoned to
2 Fest. Ind. iii, The /dex is of course right in giving 330—331 | Letter for hat year instead of for the following one. See p. 512 as the year of his departure for Nicomedia, but makes a slip in | note 1, assigning his absence as the cause of delay in the despatch of the
COUNCIL OF TYRE. Sx Saxe
peend _Meanwhile a trusted deacon was on the tracks of the missing man. Arsenius was traced to a ‘monastery’ of Meletian brethren in the nome of Anteopolis in Upper Egypt. Pinnes, the presbyter of the community, got wind of the discovery, and smuggled Arsenius away down the Nile ; presently he was spirited away to Tyre. The deacon, however, very astutely made a sudden descent upon the monastery in force, seized Pinnes, carried him to Alexandria, brought him before the ‘ Duke,’ confronted him with the monk who had escorted Arsenius away, and forced them to confess to the whole plot. As soon as he was able to do so, Pinnes wrote to John Arcaph, warn- ing him of the exposure, and suggesting that the charge had better be dropped (p. 1353 the letter is an amusingly naive exhibition of human rascality). Meanwhile (Socr. i. 29) Arsenius was heard of at an inn in Tyre by the servant of a magistrate ; the latter had him arrested, and informed Athanasius3, Arsenius stoutly denied his identity, but was recognised by the bishop of Tyre, and at last confessed. The Emperor was informed and wrote to Athanasius (p. 135), expressing his indignation at the plot, as also did Alexander, bishop of ‘Thessa- lonica. Arsenius made his peace with Athanasius, and in due time succeeded (according to the Nicene rule) to the sole episcopate of Hypsele (p. 548). John Arcaph even admitted his guilt and renounced his schism, and was invited to Court (p. 136); but his submission was not permanent.
According to the 4 [pology of Athanasius, all this took place some time before the council of Tyre; we cannot fix the date, except that it must have come after the Easter of 332 (see above). It appears most natural, from the language of Afol. Ar. 71, to fix the exposure of Arsenius not very long before the summoning of the council of Tyre, but long enough to allow for the renewed intrigues which led to its being convened. But this pushes us back behind the intended council of Cxesarea in 334 3 we seem therefore compelled to keep Arsenius waiting at Tyre from about 333 to the summer of 335.
It must be remembered that the Council of Tyre was merely a rdpepyov to the great Dedication Meeting at Jerusalem, which was to celebrate the Z?icennalia of Constantine’s reign by consecrating his grand church on Mount Calvary. On their way to Jerusalem the bishops were to despatch at Tyre their business of quieting the Egyptian troubles * (Eus. V.C. lv. 41). To Tyre accordingly Athanasius repaired.