neither of the two gregories, of nazianzus or of nyssa, were distinguished like basil
for practical ability or as ecclesiastical statesmen.
the subject of this chapter was of a retiring disposition
and would have preferred to remain quietly at nazianzus,
of which his father was for many years bishop:
even the priesthood was forced upon him against his wish.
yet for two years of his life he occupied an exceedingly prominent position as archbishop of constantinople,
president for a short time over the second ecumenical council;
and during that period he was mainly instrumental in reviving catholicism in the eastern capital.
this he did, not by skill in organizing or administration,
but by the flood of eloquence which he untiringly poured forth in defence of the doctrine of the trinity.
the roman breviary calls him 'the keenest champion of the consubstantiality of the Son'
(in other words, of the Homo-ousion)
and adds that 'while no one surpassed him in virtue..
so he easily surpassed all others in the solidity of his reasoning..'
he acquired the title of The theologian, which must be understood less in a general sense, than as
'defender of the Godhead of the word'
while de broglie says of him, 'in a few hours and a few pages gregory summed up and closed
the controversy of a whole century'.
in fact, he fixed permanently the lines on which the defence of the doctrine was hereafter to be made.
sometimes he has even shared with st. john the title 'Divine'
in many respects he was the opposite of basil, whom he so intensely admired.
in his personal appearance he is described as 'shor, meagre, sickly, prematurely old
(this was when he first appeared at constantinople),
with an aspect of habitual melancholy, with one eye gone, a scar on his face,
stooping shoulders, downcast look, and shabby clothes'.
again their literary style has been contrasted.
in a work published anonymously at lille in 1887, we read that
both have eloquence, culture, fine and delicate thought;
but B is more serious, G more joyous and lively;
the former tried to persuade, the latter to please.
B was majestic and tranquil; G had more movement and fire.
B liked gravity and shrank from raillery;
G made raillery innocent and subservient to virtue;
G commanded more respect, G more love.
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Friday, December 6, 2013
12.7.2013 CHURCH FATHERS 13 - basil the great; b329; archbishop of caesarea in cappadocia 370-379
three years before the death of athanasius,
basil became archbishop of caesarea (the capital of cappacodia)
and ex arch of pontus, athanasius congratulating the caesareans
on having found so glorious a bishop.
his episcopal work only extended over nine years;
but during that time he was the most prominent figure in the eastern,
if not in the whole, church.
some difficulty, however, in hes relations with the west prevented his influence
from being felt there as fully as it ought to have been,
so that possibly in the west ambrose was the recognized leader.
but the cloak of athanasius fell on basil;
and like A, basil maintained the authority of the church against the state,
and with a like courage and pertinacity.
only after his death did the result of his work appear, in the pacification of the east;
during his life he met with nothing but troubles and disappointments,
which were aggravated by wretched health
and shortly before his death he cried,
'for my sins i seem to succeed in nothing'.
his letters are full of his bodily troubles.
'it is the scourge of the Lord that goes on increasing my pains according to my deserts
i have had illness upon illness, so that now even a child may see
that this shell of mine must certainly fail, unless perhaps God's mercy
vouchsafe me in His long suffering time for repentance
and now, as often before, extricate me from ills beyond all human cure'.
and in the following letter,
'for a whole moth i have been treated by hot natural springs;
but as the saying is, 'warmth is no good to the dead'.
in the next he has had fever for 50 days, and his old plaque, the liver,
has held him on the confines of life and death.
for nine years, in this deplorable state of health,
with enemies besetting him on all sides both in church and state,
he defied successfully the imperial government;
carried out immense practical reforms;
wrote theological treatises of great excellence;
and paved the way for the reunion of the east.
and only when he was gone was his true greatness discovered.
after generations have known him as basil the Great,
while theodoret called him 'the light not only of cappacocia, but of the world.
and the council of chalcedon (450) called him 'the greatest of the Fathers'.
the map of asia minor shows that cappacocia was its most eastern central province;
and basil was ,to start with, essentially an eastern, grave, proud, ascetic.
but his orientalism was modified by an athenian education.
the gravity of the eastern was tempered by the politeness of the greek.
his eastern pride in his bearing towards the world was also tempered by a
true christian humility, amounting to self abasement.
he cried out for love and affection'
yet there was something austere about him, which seems to have wounded his friends
and made him difficult to get on with.
he was profoundly sensitive, yet his practical disposition could not sympathize with
the same quality in others.
he had also, in spite of his gravity, a keen sense of humour.
'who, said his friend gregory, could tell a story with more wit?
who could jest so playfully?'
fialon points out that in his athenian education he had acquired the greek love of his own city.
the affairs of the empire were of little importance to him,
compared with the welfare and interests of caesarea.
somewhat analogous to this was his attitude towards the west.
as an eastern by birth, he was full of zeal for the peace of the east.
'hitherto, he writes, i have been unable to give any adequate practical proof
of my earnest desire to pacify the churches of the Lord.
but from my heart i affirm that i have so great a longing,
that i would gladly give even my life, if thereby the flame of hatred,
kindled by the evil one, could be assuaged'.
and to this end, he always counsels patience and toleration.
'not that i think it is our absolute duty to cut ourselves off from those who do not accept the faith,
but rather to regard them with the old law of love
and to write to them with one consent,
giving them all exhortation with pity
and to propose to them the faith of the fathers,
and to invite them to union...
if they obey you this will be best;
if no, recognize the real author of the war and write me no more letters of reconciliation'.
yet when the west, and especially rome, would not do his bidding,
notably in the question of the schism of antioch,
he showed very little toleration.
his athenian education gave him very little consideration for the latins;
for while the latins looked on all the world as barbarians, except the greeks and themselves,
the greeks excepted only themselves.
basil apparently knew no latin; it is doubtful also whether he knew hebrew.
but in greek literature and philosophy he was thoroughly at home.
his letters abound with apt quotations, especially from homer;
he never, however, alludes to pagan deities in the conventional literary fashion of later times-
the Muses for instance;
he seemed to think it was too near pagan days to do so without danger.
basil, gregory or nazianzus, his most intimate friend and ardent admirer,
and gregory of nyssa, his own brother, are known as the three cappacocians,
forming together the cappadocian school, and their lives are much intertwined.
the birthplace of basil is a little uncertain.
his father, also a basil, a christian and rhetorician, had property near neo caesarea, the capital cappadocia.
but when basil was ready to go out into the world,
he was sent first to caesarea as being his birthplace.
probably, therefore, his father had property there as well.
his early education he received form his grandmother, macrina,
who taught him the faith as she had received it from gregory thaumaturgus,
at first the disciple of origen and afterwards bishop of neo caesarea.
as a young man he first studied at caesarea, then at constantinople
and finally in 350, when he was twenty one, he proceeded to the university of athens.
basil remained there for seven years-till357,
when he returned to caesarea to practice at the bar.
at caesarea and athens gregory of nazianzus was his constant companion,
and at athens gregory protected him as a freshman.
but another companion of both, and presumably friend,
though gregory from the first cordially distrusted him,
was julian, afterwards known as 'the apostate'.
it is recorded of the two future Fathers that at athens
the only public places they frequented were the lecture room and the church.
on basil's return, however, to caesarea, he seems to have caused anxiety to his sister,
who was called macrina after her grandmother,
on account of his worldliness and vanity.
becoming ashamed of himself, he carefully studied the gospel,
found an attraction in the monastic life
and in consequence retired to pontus.
'i awoke, he writes, as from deep sleep, and cast my eyes
on that admirable light of the truth, the Gospel.
then i saw the vanity of the wisdom of the princes of this world, who toil without result.
long i wept over the misery of my life,
and prayed that a hand should come and lead me.
and teach me the lessons of piety.
then when i had read the Gospel,
and learned that the best way of arriving at piety
was to sell my goods and give them to the poor
and to be no longer anxious about this life,
nor allow my soul to be distracted by any sympathy for earthly things,
i wanted to find a brother who had chosen that path,
that we might pass through the short agitations of life together'.
(note: this last my desire also. i wonder if he found a true friend and brother? i have not, but this is not all
bad, for it conduces in me a greater tendency to intimacy with the best brother a man can have, my elder
Brother, my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Firstborn of the brethren! oh Jesus if only i can abandon
all for You alone, that is pure Joy, that is satisfaction, may You ALONE become enough!)
by this time monasticism had spread very widely through the east.
in the district of nitria in the deserts of egypt alone, the monks numbered 5000
and in the whole of egypt there were computed to be 76,000 monks and 27,700 nuns.
in asia minor also communities were to be found in most provinces.
their influence was on the whole a good one,
and their chief utility lay in keeping up a supply of clergy
and in acting as missionary centers in the outlying country districts.
'the spread, says milman, a gradually increasing belt of christian worship
and were a quiet by successful aggression on the lurking paganism'.
for paganism (as the word implies) lingered on in the country
long after it had been formally ejected from the great cities.
besides this, the monastic system was constantly reorganizing itself
by the establishment of off shoots in which
'the bond of aggregation was the common religious fervour',
so that 'the system was continually being remodelled and reverting to its original purity'.
and again, from the earliest times, a certain influence was exercised by monks on literature.
basil and gregory, for instance, during their retreat in pontus,
applied themselves to producing that selection from the works of origen,
which they called the philocalia.
at the root, however, of monasticism lay a certain infection from gnosticism;
a feeling that there was inherent evil in matter,
and that christians must try to rid themselves of this
and elevate the soul into an abstract state of close communion with God
and isolation from the world.
the general celibacy of the clergy was probably a result of monasticism,
though neither basil nor even augustine insisted on it.
the life of seclusion and contemplation practised by many communities
had a tendency towards morbidity, ferocity sometimes and strange heresies,
such as anthropomorphism.
but basil's conception of it was free from these tendencies,
for with him PRAYER AND WORK went hand in hand.
when he fixed his retreat at annesi, near the family property in pontus,
he described to gregory his delight in the lovely scenery,
and begged him to come out and join him,
while he conceived and carried out grand projects for improving the country.
the monastic life for him consisted on the one side
of psalmodies, vigils, bible reading;
on the other, stone heaving, wood drawing, planting and draining.
gregory, unable to join him at first through family ties, came later,
and planted a tree to commemorate his visit.
the attitude of gregory towards basil at this time is amusing.
awe and admiration of his friend,
coupled with a mild protest against being expected to live up to his exalted standard.
his letters after his return recall the labour of pushing carts uphill
and how he would have had no dinner, if basil's mother had not fed him occasionally.
gregory was entirely human; basil a little above the ordinary level of humanity.
in 362 basil returned to caesaria to attend the death bed of the bishop, dianius,
who had ordained him deacon and whom basil loved
but from whom he had regretfully with drawn, owing to his heresy;
although dianius confessed the Homo-ousion at the end.
before leaving this subject it must be noted that basil was opposed to the solitary life
and though he founded man monasteries in pontus, he never encouraged it.
'how can one be last, he said, if he is alone? whose feet can he wash?'
also though he is said to have sold all his goods to feed the poor
and to have done so again, when he inherited property at his mother's death,
it is probable that he retained the administration of the funds in his own hands.
for he was essentially practical.
indeed he was especially so in regard to his monasteries.
life vows, once entered into, were binding,
but they were not to be taken too young or without the most careful preparation.
and although he approved under certain circumstances of education by monks,
he encouraged secular learning and the training of the universities in most cases.
and so did the gregories.
eusebius, at the time only a catechumen, was elected to succeed dianius at caesares,
and conscious of his inexperience, asked basil to help him.
he in consequence remained some time at caesarea
and became at once the leading personality of that church.
during this period he wrote the hexameron;
and every day he preached sermons suitable alike for the simple and the wise,
with workpeople crowding in the early morning to church to hear him.
the jealousy of eusebius caused him again to retire to pontus,
whereupon the bishops troubles recommenced.
after many year's interval among his monks, during three of which gregory was his companion,
the intervention of the latter brought about a reconciliation with eusebius,
and again (in 368) basil resumed his work in caesarea,
2where he exercised an immense influence over christians, jews and pagans alike,
by all or whom he was beloved.
during a famine he displayed his great practical ability,
by preventing a corner
(a monopoly-exclusive control- of the available supply of a commodity to a point permitting control of price)
in wheat, and by his skill in organizing the distribution of provisions.
in 370, on the death of eusebius, basil was his obvious successor.
but he did not succeed without strong opposition from the laxer among the clergy,
the worldly among the laity and from some who, on account of his tolerant spirit,
suspected his orthodoxy.
..the constructive work of basil during his episcopate,
and in spite of ill health and opposition, was splendid.
the Church he found full of scandals;
laxity in ordinations and simony were the worst.
any one could be a priest;
in one case he found a slave bishop;
in another a bishop without a flock.
yet before his death the clergy of caesarea were of such a high standard,
that other bishops used to send for them to assist in the work of their own dioceses.
in the state B was confronted with all the evils resulting fro extremes of wealth and poverty;
gambling and usury on one side, distress on the other.
to relieve distress he founded hospitals, even a leper hospital;
and his christian humility is said to have shown itself in kissing the lepers.
but his great achievement was the ptocho-tropheion, called sometimes the New Town,
and after his death the basileiad, which was a sort of combination of HOSPITAL AND WORKHOUSE!,
providing not only treatment for all diseases,
BUT WORK FOR THE UNEMPLOYED, WITH A CHURCH AND A CLERGY HOUSE.
in basil's contest with the arian emperor, valens and also with his emissary, the prefect modestus,
are the most vivid dramatic scenes in his life.
valens was determined to reduce cappadocia to the arian level,
and demanded from B the admission of arians to communion.
to enforce this he sent modestus, who summoned B before his tribunal,
first tried to bribe , and then proceeded to threaten him
with confiscation, torture, death.
as for confiscation, B replied that he owned nothing but a cloak and a few books;
as for torture, modestus had threatened to tear out his liver
and B said there was nothing gave him more trouble;
as for death, he would gladly welcome it.
when modestus complained that he was not used to such replies,
B retorted that perhaps he had never met a real bishop before.
so modestus reported him to valens as hopeless:
'we have been worsted, sir, by the prelate of this church.
he is superior to threats,
invincible in argument,
uninfluenced by persuasion. (note; the embodiment of I corinthians 16.13..BRAVO!)
we must make trial on some feebler character'.
he conceived a great respect for him and ultimately became his friend and correspondent.
then valens came himself, having first sent an advance guard of arian bishops;
to whom basil refused communion.
on epiphany, valens came to the church.
the sea of worshippers, the weird chanting, 'the unearthly majesty of the scene,
B, erect as a column,
celebrating (he would be behind the altar and facing the people),
the white robed ministers in the sanctuary, overawed the emperor'.
when he approached the altar with his offering and nobody came forward to receive it,
valens fainted.
B himself stretched out his hand and accepted the offering,
but of course communion was refused.
valens, however, like modestus, conceived a great respect for B;
was received by him to a theological discussion 'behind the veil';
but under bad advice decreed his exile.
however, the emperor's child fell ill;
B prayed over it, and it recovered.
B had made it a condition that he should baptize the child,
but an arian was allowed to do so instead,
and the child died.
again valens was on the point of exiling B;
but the pen he was suing to sign the warrant split,
and valens, taking it as an omen, reversed his decision,
and decided to let B alone.
already, previous to this, basil had withstood another emperor, julian.
remembering their old acquaintanceship at athens, this emperor invited B to visit him.
upon his deferring his visit from time to time and finally declining it,
julian became incensed and ordered him to contribute
a thousand pounds of gold towards one of his expeditions.
this is a specimen of the way B dared to address the Caesar:
'your serene highness did not find out for the first time yesterday
that i do not live in the midst of superabundant wealth.
my property amounts to so much,
that i shall really not have enough to eat as much as i should like today.
under my roof the art of cookery is dead.
my servant's knife never touches blood.
our most important viands are leaves of herbs, with very course bread
and sour wine...
it is a serious thing for a private person like me to speak to an emperor.
it will be more serious for you to speak to God'.
the attitude of B to julian, modestus and valens, show the enormous progress
that the church had made in the 60 years since the edict of milan.
bishop could now say these things to the ruling powers with impunity.
great annoyance was caused to basil by the ill will of many of the neighbouring bishops...
the people of caesarea, however, were from the first devoted to him
and when he resisted the vicar of pontus
in an attempt to force an undesirable marriage on a caesarean lady,
and the vicar tried to arrest him,
the whole population rose,
and only by B's mediation was this imperial officer rescued from the mob.
another sore trial to basil was the partition of cappadocia into two provinces.
the result, whether intended by valens or not, was that the bishop of the new capital
claimed to be metropolitan of the new province,
so that not only all the bishops on that side of the frontier
were exempted from B's influence,
but a bad influence was set up on ground which B had sown...
the chief remaining feature of basil's episcopate
was his appeal for help to rome and the western bishops..
after nine years of most arduous and disheartening work
and thoroughly broken health,
he died in 379 at the age of 50,
the whole population, christians, jews and pagans alike, following him to the grave.
'no author's writings makes a stronger impression than basil's.
he describes things so vividly,
he explains his arguments with so much force,
he pushes them so vigorously,
he draws such horrible pictures of vice
and exhorts so persuasively to virtue,
his instruction is so ample and profitable,
that it is impossible to read his works,
without conceiving a love of virtue and a hatred of vice...
his expressions are sublime,
his style is elegant, neat and convincing.
his discourse seems always natural and unaffected.
he persuades so pleasantly,
he explains things so clearly,
he seems to present things in so reasonable a light,
that he may be considered as a model to approach
demosthenes and the best orators of antiqity'.
yet it can hardly be said that his writings mark any new point of departure from christian thought.
...fialon says that 'the originality of B's theology lies
in a firm alliance between greek philosophy and christian theology.
he invented nothing.
he used all the philosophers and doctors who preceded him;
yet he resembled none.
his doctrine comes entirely from plato, aristotle, plotinus, origen, athanasius;
yet it is entirely personal.
he belongs to no school: rather he founds a school of his own.
he is in fact an eclectic, who knows how to combine a wise independence of thought
with an intelligent respect for tradition.
he is at once a philosopher and a theologian.'
..beyond all..are basil's wonderful letters, in all about 350,
from which may be gathered his life, his character and his opinions.
..these letters were evidently intended, according to the fashion of the day, for publicity and general reading.
they are on all sorts of subjects.
the following extracts are from some of the most interesting: (they are noted by number)
25 gives an example of the gentle way in which B reasoned with his slanderers.
'they all agree that you, a man very dear to me do not mention me in very pleasant terms
and yet in such as your character would lead me to expect...
you would relieve me from my difficulty,
if you would tell me plainly what has stirred you to be thus offended with me'.
90 is his appeal to the western bishops to come to the aid of the catholic east,
and gives a graphic picture of the distracted state of the eastern church.
'the doctrines of the fathers are despised;
apostolic traditions are set at nought;
the devices of innovators are in vogue.
men are rather contrivers of cunning systems than theologians.
the wisdom of this world wins the highest prizes, and has rejected the glory of the cross..
houses of prayer have none to assemble in them.
desert places are full of lamenting crowds'.
when no help came from them, or even from pope damsus of rome,
whom he had reminded of the former charities of rome to distant christians,
his wrath found expression in 239-
'what hep can come to us from the frown (footnote: superciliousness...haughtily disdainful or contemptuous)
of the west? men who don't know the truth, nor wish to learn it,
but are prejudiced by false impressions,
are doing now as they did in the case of marcelus,
when they quarrelled with men who told them the truth
and by their own action strengthened the cause of heresy.
i would like to have written to their coryphaeus (the leader of a chorus in ancient greek drama)
, etc.
the coryphaeus is the bishop of rome!...
93 encourages frequent communion, basil's own habit being to communicate 4 times a week and on saints' days.
in case of need he allows the communion to be taken by any one privately from the reserved elements.
105 to two deaconesses occurs a definition of the trinity
'do not abandon this deposit;
the Father, the origin of all,
the Son only begotten, begotten of Him; very God; perfect of perfect; living image, showing the Father
as Himself:
the Holy Ghost having His subsistence of God, the fount of holiness, power that gives life,
grace that makes perfect, through whom man is adopted and the mortal made immortal,
conjoined with Father and Son in all things, in glory and eternity, in power and kingdom,
in sovereignty and Godhead, as is testified by the tradition of the baptism of salvation.
but all who maintain that either Son or Spirit is a creature,
or absolutely reduce the Spirit to ministerial or servile rank,
are far from the truth'.
..in spite of his familiarity with heathen philosophy and the free way in which he made use of it,
attributing, for example, much of the wisdom of moses and daniel
to their egyptian and chaldec learning
and advising young men not to be content with monkish teaching,
but to attend also one of the universities,
scripture was with him always paramount.
if science contradicted scripture, then science erred.
revelation came first;
reason was given us to help us to understand revelation.
yet apart from scripture, he distinctly recognized tradition
in the de spiritu 27 he says:
'of the beliefs and practices, whether generally accepted or universally enjoined,
which are preserved in the church,
some we possess derived from written teaching.
others we have received delivered to us 'in a mystery' by the traditions of the apostles;
and both of these in relation to true religion have equal force'. (?!)...
when he comes to deal with the great mystery of the trinity there is the usual reluctance to define
which is common to all the Fathers.
'if i laid down that all things were capable of being grasped by our knowledge,
i might be ashamed to confess my ignorance..
the peace of God passes all understanding,
yet eunomius will not allow that the very substance of God
is beyond all understanding and knowledge of me.
it is not in the invention of new names that our salvation lies,
but in the same confession of the divinity in whom we believed.'
theology with basil, as science had been with plato
was an aspiration towards God
and the first thing requisite was the purification of the soul.
the soul, when purified, will see God within itself in the conscience;
the soul is, in fact, a miniature world ruled over, as the universe is, by God.
but the soul will also see God in the visible world.
no one better understood the beauties of both animal and inanimate nature than basil
or delighted more in the works of creation.
gregory of nazianzus said of the hexameron,
'whenever i take his Hex in hand and quote its words,
i am brought face to face with my creator;
i begin to understand the method of creation;
i feel more awe than ever before, when i looked at God's work with my own eyes.'
the instruments of the soul's aspiration are reason and faith.
reason must be educated, yet by itself it can never find God.
it is a great undertaking, according to basil, to venture to speak of God,
because the subject is far beyond our intelligence,
and we have not even words in which to express our thoughts.
but revelation comes to the aid of reason in the scripture,
which is in its entirety inspired by God and composed by the Holy Spirit.
revelation thus illuminates the reason.
the functions of the three persons of the trinity are thus conceived by B:
the Father wills; the Son conceives and executes; the Holy Ghost vivifies.
in the books against eunomius he argues the whole arian question as regards the Son,
and finally discusses separately the various texts on which his opponents relied.
it may be useful to recall them.
*'then shall the Son also be made subject unto Him that put all things under Him,
that God may be all in all'. I corinthians 15.28
*'My Father is greater than I'. john 14.28
*'of that day and hour knoweth none, not even the Son'. mark 13.32
*'let this cup pass from Me'. matthew 26.39
*"I live by the Father'. john 6.57
*'the Son can do nothing by Himself'. john 5.19
*'I am the true vine, My Father is the husbandman.' john 15.1
*'why callest Thou me good? there is none good save One, that is God.' mark 10.18
*'Father, glorify Thy Son'. john 17.1
*'the first born (ie. Jesus) of every CREATURE' colossians 1.15
*'the Lord CREATED Me' proverbs 8.22, septuagint
*'that they may know Thee, the only true God' john 18.3
*'is not Mine to give' matthew 20.23
the subject of the Holy Spirit was one which basil wished to refrain from discussing.
it was only now becoming a prominent subject of controversy,
though it was the natural outcome of the arian position.
B seemed to think it would be better, in the prominent position which he held,
to steer clear of this new polemic
and he therefore made an arrangement with gregory to deal with it,
while he concentrated his own energy on teaching the eternity of the Son.
macedonius, a brutal persecutor of the catholics, had been deposed from the see of constantinople
by the extreme party for his supposed moderate views
(the ostensible cause was his removal of constantine's remains from a church which was falling,
without constantius' leave)
yet he taught plainly that the Holy Ghost was a creature.
this heresy was therefore known as the macedonian,
though the sect that sprang out of it was
generally known as the marathonian, after marathonius of nicomedia.
...B's reticence in public, though he defined his view carefully in his correspondence,
caused a suspicion of his orthodoxy
...his protege, amphilochius, entreated him to clear up any doubt,
by publishing his views in a treatise, and he accordingly did so in 374....
the schism at antioch was an important event in church history in B's time,
owing to the unusual features which it introduced,
and also to the effect it had of emphasizing the difference between the eastern and western churches.
some account of it falls naturally into a chapter on B,
owing to the strong support he gave to the side least popular at rome and the independent attitude that he took up against the pope.
B had apparently no knowledge of any DOCTRINAL claim on rome's part to rule the church at large.
'he desired, as fialon puts it, the same independent union for spiritual matters between east and west,
which since constantine had existed in politics.
the west and east were in his eyes two brothers, whose rights were equal,
neither owning supremacy nor the rights of an elder.
B recognized no necessity for a great central power to hold the church together,
though the western churches all did.
the greeks indeed have never completely consented to this sacrifice or renounced their autonomy.
they recognized nothing as paramount except a general council.
the decrees of nicaea bound B absolutely.'
basil became archbishop of caesarea (the capital of cappacodia)
and ex arch of pontus, athanasius congratulating the caesareans
on having found so glorious a bishop.
his episcopal work only extended over nine years;
but during that time he was the most prominent figure in the eastern,
if not in the whole, church.
some difficulty, however, in hes relations with the west prevented his influence
from being felt there as fully as it ought to have been,
so that possibly in the west ambrose was the recognized leader.
but the cloak of athanasius fell on basil;
and like A, basil maintained the authority of the church against the state,
and with a like courage and pertinacity.
only after his death did the result of his work appear, in the pacification of the east;
during his life he met with nothing but troubles and disappointments,
which were aggravated by wretched health
and shortly before his death he cried,
'for my sins i seem to succeed in nothing'.
his letters are full of his bodily troubles.
'it is the scourge of the Lord that goes on increasing my pains according to my deserts
i have had illness upon illness, so that now even a child may see
that this shell of mine must certainly fail, unless perhaps God's mercy
vouchsafe me in His long suffering time for repentance
and now, as often before, extricate me from ills beyond all human cure'.
and in the following letter,
'for a whole moth i have been treated by hot natural springs;
but as the saying is, 'warmth is no good to the dead'.
in the next he has had fever for 50 days, and his old plaque, the liver,
has held him on the confines of life and death.
for nine years, in this deplorable state of health,
with enemies besetting him on all sides both in church and state,
he defied successfully the imperial government;
carried out immense practical reforms;
wrote theological treatises of great excellence;
and paved the way for the reunion of the east.
and only when he was gone was his true greatness discovered.
after generations have known him as basil the Great,
while theodoret called him 'the light not only of cappacocia, but of the world.
and the council of chalcedon (450) called him 'the greatest of the Fathers'.
the map of asia minor shows that cappacocia was its most eastern central province;
and basil was ,to start with, essentially an eastern, grave, proud, ascetic.
but his orientalism was modified by an athenian education.
the gravity of the eastern was tempered by the politeness of the greek.
his eastern pride in his bearing towards the world was also tempered by a
true christian humility, amounting to self abasement.
he cried out for love and affection'
yet there was something austere about him, which seems to have wounded his friends
and made him difficult to get on with.
he was profoundly sensitive, yet his practical disposition could not sympathize with
the same quality in others.
he had also, in spite of his gravity, a keen sense of humour.
'who, said his friend gregory, could tell a story with more wit?
who could jest so playfully?'
fialon points out that in his athenian education he had acquired the greek love of his own city.
the affairs of the empire were of little importance to him,
compared with the welfare and interests of caesarea.
somewhat analogous to this was his attitude towards the west.
as an eastern by birth, he was full of zeal for the peace of the east.
'hitherto, he writes, i have been unable to give any adequate practical proof
of my earnest desire to pacify the churches of the Lord.
but from my heart i affirm that i have so great a longing,
that i would gladly give even my life, if thereby the flame of hatred,
kindled by the evil one, could be assuaged'.
and to this end, he always counsels patience and toleration.
'not that i think it is our absolute duty to cut ourselves off from those who do not accept the faith,
but rather to regard them with the old law of love
and to write to them with one consent,
giving them all exhortation with pity
and to propose to them the faith of the fathers,
and to invite them to union...
if they obey you this will be best;
if no, recognize the real author of the war and write me no more letters of reconciliation'.
yet when the west, and especially rome, would not do his bidding,
notably in the question of the schism of antioch,
he showed very little toleration.
his athenian education gave him very little consideration for the latins;
for while the latins looked on all the world as barbarians, except the greeks and themselves,
the greeks excepted only themselves.
basil apparently knew no latin; it is doubtful also whether he knew hebrew.
but in greek literature and philosophy he was thoroughly at home.
his letters abound with apt quotations, especially from homer;
he never, however, alludes to pagan deities in the conventional literary fashion of later times-
the Muses for instance;
he seemed to think it was too near pagan days to do so without danger.
basil, gregory or nazianzus, his most intimate friend and ardent admirer,
and gregory of nyssa, his own brother, are known as the three cappacocians,
forming together the cappadocian school, and their lives are much intertwined.
the birthplace of basil is a little uncertain.
his father, also a basil, a christian and rhetorician, had property near neo caesarea, the capital cappadocia.
but when basil was ready to go out into the world,
he was sent first to caesarea as being his birthplace.
probably, therefore, his father had property there as well.
his early education he received form his grandmother, macrina,
who taught him the faith as she had received it from gregory thaumaturgus,
at first the disciple of origen and afterwards bishop of neo caesarea.
as a young man he first studied at caesarea, then at constantinople
and finally in 350, when he was twenty one, he proceeded to the university of athens.
basil remained there for seven years-till357,
when he returned to caesarea to practice at the bar.
at caesarea and athens gregory of nazianzus was his constant companion,
and at athens gregory protected him as a freshman.
but another companion of both, and presumably friend,
though gregory from the first cordially distrusted him,
was julian, afterwards known as 'the apostate'.
it is recorded of the two future Fathers that at athens
the only public places they frequented were the lecture room and the church.
on basil's return, however, to caesarea, he seems to have caused anxiety to his sister,
who was called macrina after her grandmother,
on account of his worldliness and vanity.
becoming ashamed of himself, he carefully studied the gospel,
found an attraction in the monastic life
and in consequence retired to pontus.
'i awoke, he writes, as from deep sleep, and cast my eyes
on that admirable light of the truth, the Gospel.
then i saw the vanity of the wisdom of the princes of this world, who toil without result.
long i wept over the misery of my life,
and prayed that a hand should come and lead me.
and teach me the lessons of piety.
then when i had read the Gospel,
and learned that the best way of arriving at piety
was to sell my goods and give them to the poor
and to be no longer anxious about this life,
nor allow my soul to be distracted by any sympathy for earthly things,
i wanted to find a brother who had chosen that path,
that we might pass through the short agitations of life together'.
(note: this last my desire also. i wonder if he found a true friend and brother? i have not, but this is not all
bad, for it conduces in me a greater tendency to intimacy with the best brother a man can have, my elder
Brother, my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Firstborn of the brethren! oh Jesus if only i can abandon
all for You alone, that is pure Joy, that is satisfaction, may You ALONE become enough!)
by this time monasticism had spread very widely through the east.
in the district of nitria in the deserts of egypt alone, the monks numbered 5000
and in the whole of egypt there were computed to be 76,000 monks and 27,700 nuns.
in asia minor also communities were to be found in most provinces.
their influence was on the whole a good one,
and their chief utility lay in keeping up a supply of clergy
and in acting as missionary centers in the outlying country districts.
'the spread, says milman, a gradually increasing belt of christian worship
and were a quiet by successful aggression on the lurking paganism'.
for paganism (as the word implies) lingered on in the country
long after it had been formally ejected from the great cities.
besides this, the monastic system was constantly reorganizing itself
by the establishment of off shoots in which
'the bond of aggregation was the common religious fervour',
so that 'the system was continually being remodelled and reverting to its original purity'.
and again, from the earliest times, a certain influence was exercised by monks on literature.
basil and gregory, for instance, during their retreat in pontus,
applied themselves to producing that selection from the works of origen,
which they called the philocalia.
at the root, however, of monasticism lay a certain infection from gnosticism;
a feeling that there was inherent evil in matter,
and that christians must try to rid themselves of this
and elevate the soul into an abstract state of close communion with God
and isolation from the world.
the general celibacy of the clergy was probably a result of monasticism,
though neither basil nor even augustine insisted on it.
the life of seclusion and contemplation practised by many communities
had a tendency towards morbidity, ferocity sometimes and strange heresies,
such as anthropomorphism.
but basil's conception of it was free from these tendencies,
for with him PRAYER AND WORK went hand in hand.
when he fixed his retreat at annesi, near the family property in pontus,
he described to gregory his delight in the lovely scenery,
and begged him to come out and join him,
while he conceived and carried out grand projects for improving the country.
the monastic life for him consisted on the one side
of psalmodies, vigils, bible reading;
on the other, stone heaving, wood drawing, planting and draining.
gregory, unable to join him at first through family ties, came later,
and planted a tree to commemorate his visit.
the attitude of gregory towards basil at this time is amusing.
awe and admiration of his friend,
coupled with a mild protest against being expected to live up to his exalted standard.
his letters after his return recall the labour of pushing carts uphill
and how he would have had no dinner, if basil's mother had not fed him occasionally.
gregory was entirely human; basil a little above the ordinary level of humanity.
in 362 basil returned to caesaria to attend the death bed of the bishop, dianius,
who had ordained him deacon and whom basil loved
but from whom he had regretfully with drawn, owing to his heresy;
although dianius confessed the Homo-ousion at the end.
before leaving this subject it must be noted that basil was opposed to the solitary life
and though he founded man monasteries in pontus, he never encouraged it.
'how can one be last, he said, if he is alone? whose feet can he wash?'
also though he is said to have sold all his goods to feed the poor
and to have done so again, when he inherited property at his mother's death,
it is probable that he retained the administration of the funds in his own hands.
for he was essentially practical.
indeed he was especially so in regard to his monasteries.
life vows, once entered into, were binding,
but they were not to be taken too young or without the most careful preparation.
and although he approved under certain circumstances of education by monks,
he encouraged secular learning and the training of the universities in most cases.
and so did the gregories.
eusebius, at the time only a catechumen, was elected to succeed dianius at caesares,
and conscious of his inexperience, asked basil to help him.
he in consequence remained some time at caesarea
and became at once the leading personality of that church.
during this period he wrote the hexameron;
and every day he preached sermons suitable alike for the simple and the wise,
with workpeople crowding in the early morning to church to hear him.
the jealousy of eusebius caused him again to retire to pontus,
whereupon the bishops troubles recommenced.
after many year's interval among his monks, during three of which gregory was his companion,
the intervention of the latter brought about a reconciliation with eusebius,
and again (in 368) basil resumed his work in caesarea,
2where he exercised an immense influence over christians, jews and pagans alike,
by all or whom he was beloved.
during a famine he displayed his great practical ability,
by preventing a corner
(a monopoly-exclusive control- of the available supply of a commodity to a point permitting control of price)
in wheat, and by his skill in organizing the distribution of provisions.
in 370, on the death of eusebius, basil was his obvious successor.
but he did not succeed without strong opposition from the laxer among the clergy,
the worldly among the laity and from some who, on account of his tolerant spirit,
suspected his orthodoxy.
..the constructive work of basil during his episcopate,
and in spite of ill health and opposition, was splendid.
the Church he found full of scandals;
laxity in ordinations and simony were the worst.
any one could be a priest;
in one case he found a slave bishop;
in another a bishop without a flock.
yet before his death the clergy of caesarea were of such a high standard,
that other bishops used to send for them to assist in the work of their own dioceses.
in the state B was confronted with all the evils resulting fro extremes of wealth and poverty;
gambling and usury on one side, distress on the other.
to relieve distress he founded hospitals, even a leper hospital;
and his christian humility is said to have shown itself in kissing the lepers.
but his great achievement was the ptocho-tropheion, called sometimes the New Town,
and after his death the basileiad, which was a sort of combination of HOSPITAL AND WORKHOUSE!,
providing not only treatment for all diseases,
BUT WORK FOR THE UNEMPLOYED, WITH A CHURCH AND A CLERGY HOUSE.
in basil's contest with the arian emperor, valens and also with his emissary, the prefect modestus,
are the most vivid dramatic scenes in his life.
valens was determined to reduce cappadocia to the arian level,
and demanded from B the admission of arians to communion.
to enforce this he sent modestus, who summoned B before his tribunal,
first tried to bribe , and then proceeded to threaten him
with confiscation, torture, death.
as for confiscation, B replied that he owned nothing but a cloak and a few books;
as for torture, modestus had threatened to tear out his liver
and B said there was nothing gave him more trouble;
as for death, he would gladly welcome it.
when modestus complained that he was not used to such replies,
B retorted that perhaps he had never met a real bishop before.
so modestus reported him to valens as hopeless:
'we have been worsted, sir, by the prelate of this church.
he is superior to threats,
invincible in argument,
uninfluenced by persuasion. (note; the embodiment of I corinthians 16.13..BRAVO!)
we must make trial on some feebler character'.
he conceived a great respect for him and ultimately became his friend and correspondent.
then valens came himself, having first sent an advance guard of arian bishops;
to whom basil refused communion.
on epiphany, valens came to the church.
the sea of worshippers, the weird chanting, 'the unearthly majesty of the scene,
B, erect as a column,
celebrating (he would be behind the altar and facing the people),
the white robed ministers in the sanctuary, overawed the emperor'.
when he approached the altar with his offering and nobody came forward to receive it,
valens fainted.
B himself stretched out his hand and accepted the offering,
but of course communion was refused.
valens, however, like modestus, conceived a great respect for B;
was received by him to a theological discussion 'behind the veil';
but under bad advice decreed his exile.
however, the emperor's child fell ill;
B prayed over it, and it recovered.
B had made it a condition that he should baptize the child,
but an arian was allowed to do so instead,
and the child died.
again valens was on the point of exiling B;
but the pen he was suing to sign the warrant split,
and valens, taking it as an omen, reversed his decision,
and decided to let B alone.
already, previous to this, basil had withstood another emperor, julian.
remembering their old acquaintanceship at athens, this emperor invited B to visit him.
upon his deferring his visit from time to time and finally declining it,
julian became incensed and ordered him to contribute
a thousand pounds of gold towards one of his expeditions.
this is a specimen of the way B dared to address the Caesar:
'your serene highness did not find out for the first time yesterday
that i do not live in the midst of superabundant wealth.
my property amounts to so much,
that i shall really not have enough to eat as much as i should like today.
under my roof the art of cookery is dead.
my servant's knife never touches blood.
our most important viands are leaves of herbs, with very course bread
and sour wine...
it is a serious thing for a private person like me to speak to an emperor.
it will be more serious for you to speak to God'.
the attitude of B to julian, modestus and valens, show the enormous progress
that the church had made in the 60 years since the edict of milan.
bishop could now say these things to the ruling powers with impunity.
great annoyance was caused to basil by the ill will of many of the neighbouring bishops...
the people of caesarea, however, were from the first devoted to him
and when he resisted the vicar of pontus
in an attempt to force an undesirable marriage on a caesarean lady,
and the vicar tried to arrest him,
the whole population rose,
and only by B's mediation was this imperial officer rescued from the mob.
another sore trial to basil was the partition of cappadocia into two provinces.
the result, whether intended by valens or not, was that the bishop of the new capital
claimed to be metropolitan of the new province,
so that not only all the bishops on that side of the frontier
were exempted from B's influence,
but a bad influence was set up on ground which B had sown...
the chief remaining feature of basil's episcopate
was his appeal for help to rome and the western bishops..
after nine years of most arduous and disheartening work
and thoroughly broken health,
he died in 379 at the age of 50,
the whole population, christians, jews and pagans alike, following him to the grave.
'no author's writings makes a stronger impression than basil's.
he describes things so vividly,
he explains his arguments with so much force,
he pushes them so vigorously,
he draws such horrible pictures of vice
and exhorts so persuasively to virtue,
his instruction is so ample and profitable,
that it is impossible to read his works,
without conceiving a love of virtue and a hatred of vice...
his expressions are sublime,
his style is elegant, neat and convincing.
his discourse seems always natural and unaffected.
he persuades so pleasantly,
he explains things so clearly,
he seems to present things in so reasonable a light,
that he may be considered as a model to approach
demosthenes and the best orators of antiqity'.
yet it can hardly be said that his writings mark any new point of departure from christian thought.
...fialon says that 'the originality of B's theology lies
in a firm alliance between greek philosophy and christian theology.
he invented nothing.
he used all the philosophers and doctors who preceded him;
yet he resembled none.
his doctrine comes entirely from plato, aristotle, plotinus, origen, athanasius;
yet it is entirely personal.
he belongs to no school: rather he founds a school of his own.
he is in fact an eclectic, who knows how to combine a wise independence of thought
with an intelligent respect for tradition.
he is at once a philosopher and a theologian.'
..beyond all..are basil's wonderful letters, in all about 350,
from which may be gathered his life, his character and his opinions.
..these letters were evidently intended, according to the fashion of the day, for publicity and general reading.
they are on all sorts of subjects.
the following extracts are from some of the most interesting: (they are noted by number)
25 gives an example of the gentle way in which B reasoned with his slanderers.
'they all agree that you, a man very dear to me do not mention me in very pleasant terms
and yet in such as your character would lead me to expect...
you would relieve me from my difficulty,
if you would tell me plainly what has stirred you to be thus offended with me'.
90 is his appeal to the western bishops to come to the aid of the catholic east,
and gives a graphic picture of the distracted state of the eastern church.
'the doctrines of the fathers are despised;
apostolic traditions are set at nought;
the devices of innovators are in vogue.
men are rather contrivers of cunning systems than theologians.
the wisdom of this world wins the highest prizes, and has rejected the glory of the cross..
houses of prayer have none to assemble in them.
desert places are full of lamenting crowds'.
when no help came from them, or even from pope damsus of rome,
whom he had reminded of the former charities of rome to distant christians,
his wrath found expression in 239-
'what hep can come to us from the frown (footnote: superciliousness...haughtily disdainful or contemptuous)
of the west? men who don't know the truth, nor wish to learn it,
but are prejudiced by false impressions,
are doing now as they did in the case of marcelus,
when they quarrelled with men who told them the truth
and by their own action strengthened the cause of heresy.
i would like to have written to their coryphaeus (the leader of a chorus in ancient greek drama)
, etc.
the coryphaeus is the bishop of rome!...
93 encourages frequent communion, basil's own habit being to communicate 4 times a week and on saints' days.
in case of need he allows the communion to be taken by any one privately from the reserved elements.
105 to two deaconesses occurs a definition of the trinity
'do not abandon this deposit;
the Father, the origin of all,
the Son only begotten, begotten of Him; very God; perfect of perfect; living image, showing the Father
as Himself:
the Holy Ghost having His subsistence of God, the fount of holiness, power that gives life,
grace that makes perfect, through whom man is adopted and the mortal made immortal,
conjoined with Father and Son in all things, in glory and eternity, in power and kingdom,
in sovereignty and Godhead, as is testified by the tradition of the baptism of salvation.
but all who maintain that either Son or Spirit is a creature,
or absolutely reduce the Spirit to ministerial or servile rank,
are far from the truth'.
..in spite of his familiarity with heathen philosophy and the free way in which he made use of it,
attributing, for example, much of the wisdom of moses and daniel
to their egyptian and chaldec learning
and advising young men not to be content with monkish teaching,
but to attend also one of the universities,
scripture was with him always paramount.
if science contradicted scripture, then science erred.
revelation came first;
reason was given us to help us to understand revelation.
yet apart from scripture, he distinctly recognized tradition
in the de spiritu 27 he says:
'of the beliefs and practices, whether generally accepted or universally enjoined,
which are preserved in the church,
some we possess derived from written teaching.
others we have received delivered to us 'in a mystery' by the traditions of the apostles;
and both of these in relation to true religion have equal force'. (?!)...
when he comes to deal with the great mystery of the trinity there is the usual reluctance to define
which is common to all the Fathers.
'if i laid down that all things were capable of being grasped by our knowledge,
i might be ashamed to confess my ignorance..
the peace of God passes all understanding,
yet eunomius will not allow that the very substance of God
is beyond all understanding and knowledge of me.
it is not in the invention of new names that our salvation lies,
but in the same confession of the divinity in whom we believed.'
theology with basil, as science had been with plato
was an aspiration towards God
and the first thing requisite was the purification of the soul.
the soul, when purified, will see God within itself in the conscience;
the soul is, in fact, a miniature world ruled over, as the universe is, by God.
but the soul will also see God in the visible world.
no one better understood the beauties of both animal and inanimate nature than basil
or delighted more in the works of creation.
gregory of nazianzus said of the hexameron,
'whenever i take his Hex in hand and quote its words,
i am brought face to face with my creator;
i begin to understand the method of creation;
i feel more awe than ever before, when i looked at God's work with my own eyes.'
the instruments of the soul's aspiration are reason and faith.
reason must be educated, yet by itself it can never find God.
it is a great undertaking, according to basil, to venture to speak of God,
because the subject is far beyond our intelligence,
and we have not even words in which to express our thoughts.
but revelation comes to the aid of reason in the scripture,
which is in its entirety inspired by God and composed by the Holy Spirit.
revelation thus illuminates the reason.
the functions of the three persons of the trinity are thus conceived by B:
the Father wills; the Son conceives and executes; the Holy Ghost vivifies.
in the books against eunomius he argues the whole arian question as regards the Son,
and finally discusses separately the various texts on which his opponents relied.
it may be useful to recall them.
*'then shall the Son also be made subject unto Him that put all things under Him,
that God may be all in all'. I corinthians 15.28
*'My Father is greater than I'. john 14.28
*'of that day and hour knoweth none, not even the Son'. mark 13.32
*'let this cup pass from Me'. matthew 26.39
*"I live by the Father'. john 6.57
*'the Son can do nothing by Himself'. john 5.19
*'I am the true vine, My Father is the husbandman.' john 15.1
*'why callest Thou me good? there is none good save One, that is God.' mark 10.18
*'Father, glorify Thy Son'. john 17.1
*'the first born (ie. Jesus) of every CREATURE' colossians 1.15
*'the Lord CREATED Me' proverbs 8.22, septuagint
*'that they may know Thee, the only true God' john 18.3
*'is not Mine to give' matthew 20.23
the subject of the Holy Spirit was one which basil wished to refrain from discussing.
it was only now becoming a prominent subject of controversy,
though it was the natural outcome of the arian position.
B seemed to think it would be better, in the prominent position which he held,
to steer clear of this new polemic
and he therefore made an arrangement with gregory to deal with it,
while he concentrated his own energy on teaching the eternity of the Son.
macedonius, a brutal persecutor of the catholics, had been deposed from the see of constantinople
by the extreme party for his supposed moderate views
(the ostensible cause was his removal of constantine's remains from a church which was falling,
without constantius' leave)
yet he taught plainly that the Holy Ghost was a creature.
this heresy was therefore known as the macedonian,
though the sect that sprang out of it was
generally known as the marathonian, after marathonius of nicomedia.
...B's reticence in public, though he defined his view carefully in his correspondence,
caused a suspicion of his orthodoxy
...his protege, amphilochius, entreated him to clear up any doubt,
by publishing his views in a treatise, and he accordingly did so in 374....
the schism at antioch was an important event in church history in B's time,
owing to the unusual features which it introduced,
and also to the effect it had of emphasizing the difference between the eastern and western churches.
some account of it falls naturally into a chapter on B,
owing to the strong support he gave to the side least popular at rome and the independent attitude that he took up against the pope.
B had apparently no knowledge of any DOCTRINAL claim on rome's part to rule the church at large.
'he desired, as fialon puts it, the same independent union for spiritual matters between east and west,
which since constantine had existed in politics.
the west and east were in his eyes two brothers, whose rights were equal,
neither owning supremacy nor the rights of an elder.
B recognized no necessity for a great central power to hold the church together,
though the western churches all did.
the greeks indeed have never completely consented to this sacrifice or renounced their autonomy.
they recognized nothing as paramount except a general council.
the decrees of nicaea bound B absolutely.'
12.7.2013 CHURCH FATHERS 12 - cyril of jerusalem, b.313?; bishop of jerusalem 350; d386
the life and work of this Father present some points of great interest,
although he was neither a great writer nor a great leader of his time.
we know no theological work of any importance that emanated form him,
except hie 'catechetical lectures',
a series of short addresses delivered in 347, before he became bishop,
to candidates for baptism.
there are 24 in all; of which 19 are on the faith and the last 5, known as the mystalogical,
are explanations of the Mysteries,
(note: are these ever called 'mysteries' in the new testament? are they not simple 'teaching
pictures' of the inexplicable nature of God's love in saving a man from his sin?
just as there would be no grace come to a pig dunked in water or fed bread and wine,
so none comes mysteriously, or in any other manner to wretched sinners who have experienced
pardon for sin and
the reality of the life of God which they wonderingly realize is now in them.
they simply get baptized and take the bread and wine (as often as they do) in obedience to God
to remember Him and rejoice in Him alone.)
or Sacrament, of baptism and the eucharist,
and were delivered to the same candidates After their baptism.
these lectures, however, are extremely interesting,
because they give us in a concise form the whole catholic faith of that time,
and have been pronounced by the best authorities to be exactly orthodox.
...cyril's early environment was distinctly semi arian.
he was but a child at the date of the nicene council
and soon after that date palestine and syria and asia minor, in fact the east generally,
drifted into at least semi arian tendencies.
cyril himself received consecration from acacius...
and the validity of his consecration was accordingly at one time questioned.
also he always in his teaching avoided the word Homo-ousion,
though towards the close of his life he formally accepted it.
..his parentage and the exact date of his birth are uncertain,
but it is most probable that he was born at or near jerusalem of christian parents about 313.
at any rate his early life must have been spent in that neighbourhood,
for he recalls memories of what jerusalem had been like
before the building of the great church by constantine
and the alleged finding of the Cross by st. helena.
besides this it was customary at jerusalem to elect a bishop whose life was well known to the people
in the year 347 he was chosen for a task usually only undertaken by the bishop,
the preparation of candidates for baptism:
tow or three years afterwards he was elected bishop on the death of maximus.
...one of the earliest events of his episcopal life
was the appearance of some strange phenomenon in the atmosphere,
which, whether really supernatural or not, took the form of a cross in the sky.
C embraced the opportunity to write to constantius, describing the
and at the same time announcing his consecration.
...about 357 a dispute arose between cyril and acacius, who was bishop of caesarea,
over a matter of precedence.
when the metropolis of palestine
had been assigned to caesarea instead of jerusalem by the roman government,
in course of time caesarea became the ecclesiastical metropolis as well'
however, a canon of nicaea had given a precedence of honour to jerusalem,
but without prejudice to the rights of the bishop of caesarea.
when, therefore, C had repeatedly refused to appear before acacius at caesares,
the latter accused him to constantius of being 'orthodox' (?) and contumacious
and also of having sold a rich vestment which had been presented to his church by constantine.
this he had sold for the good of the poor.
he was consequently deposed and exiled and retired to tarsus,
where he was employed by the semi arian bishop silvanus.
with semi arians he always, like hilary, lived on the most friendly terms.
in 361 the council of seleucia reinstated him,
but in the following year again a council at constantinople confirmed his deposition.
when all the bishops returned to their sees under julian the apostate, cyril was among the number.
then followed the strange story of the attempt to rebuild the Temple,
in order to disprove once for all the christian interpretation of jewish prophecy.
cyril calmly assured his flock that it would never be permitted.
the story goes that, when they were at work on the foundations,
great balls of fire came up out of the ground, injuring and scaring the workmen.
this occurrence is not only vouched for by several christian writers,
but is confirmed by ammianus marcellinus, a heathen, who was known as the philosophic soldier.
but whatever happened, one thing is certain:
the enterprise had to be abandoned as C had foretold.
C was again deposed in 367 by valens;
but remained in peaceful possession of his see till his own death in 386.
...of the catechetical lectures 13 are on the clauses of the creed
and it is thus that we are able to put together the ancient creed of the mother church.
'we believe in one God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth
and all things visible and invisible.
and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten, the begotten of the Father,
very God before all the ages, by whom all things were made;
who was incarnate, made man, crucified and buried, rose again from the grave on the third day,
ascended into heaven and is seated on the right hand of the Father
and will come again in glory to judge the quick and the dead,
whose kingdom shall have no end.
and in the Holy Ghost, the paraclete, who spake by the prophets;
and in one baptism of repentance for the remission of sins;
and in one holy catholic church
and in the resurrection of the flesh and in life eternal.
this creed should be compared carefully with the caesarean creed
suggested by eusebius for adoption by the nicene council
and also with the original creed of nicaea.
it differs from the latter primarily in containing no clause in regard to Essence or ousia;
but it is also worth noticing that, instead of ending with a simple belief in the Holy Ghost,
it adds attributes to the Holy Ghost
and further clauses about the church, baptism, and the future life.
the third paragraph of the creed was now, in fact, expanding.
it is probable that by this time the eastern churches generally had imported into the creed
the article of belief not only in the church, but in one church and that the catholic,
in contrast to what cyril called 'other miserable gatherings'.
C himself emphasizes the authority of the one church.
'learn, he says, from the church what are the books of the old and new testaments.
'being a child of the church, trench not on (to encroach or infringe upon) her statutes.'
again he fully explains what the church is and enjoins them
'not to ask where the church is, but where the catholic church is',
so entirely has the word catholic come to mean the orthodox body.
but there is no allusion whatever to rome as the source of authority.
'in this holy catholic church receiving instruction and living virtuously we shall inherit
the kingdom of heaven and eternal life'...
...on the doctrine of free will he writes,
'we come into such holy worship not of necessity but choice...
the adoption is in our power, for 'to as many as received Him gave He power.'
'sin is an evil of man's own choosing, and offspring of the will.'
'know also that thou hast a soul self governed, the noblest work of God,
made after the image of its creator, immortal because of God that gives it immortality;
a living being, rational and imperishable, because of Him that bestowed these gifts;
having free power to do what it willeth'.
'learn also that the soul, before it came into this world had committed no sin,
but having come in sinless, we sin of our own free will'.
in the last of these quotations it may seem the C is denying original sin,
but it is more probable that, while emphasizing the doctrine of free will,
he is at the same time refuting origen's idea that the fall took place in a prior existence
and that this life was a discipline of the soul for sins committed in a previous existence.
..on scripture and the canon..
no one has previously insisted on the paramount importance of scripture so strongly as cyril does.
we from him hear nothing of the oral tradition.
'concedrning the holy and divine mysteries of the faith,
not even a casual statement must be delivered without the holy scriptures, (note: wow, amen!!)
nor must we be drawn aside by plausibility and subtleties of speech.
even to me, who tell you these things, give not absolute credence,
unless you find the proof of the things which i announce in the divine scriptures.
(note: AAA+ !!!)
for this salvation, which we believe, depends not on ingenious reasoning but on the demonstration of the holy scriptures'.
the canon of both testaments is the same as that given by athanasius,
except for a slight difference in the order of the books of the old,
the number of which he gives as 22.
this is, however, because certain books are grouped together,
such as the two books of kings, which count as one.
the minor prophets all together also count as one.
also ezra and nehemiah are omitted;
while two books of esdras are included and to jeremiah and the lamentations (as one book)
is added the book of baruch.
the new testament is the same as our own, except that it lacks the revelation.
..regarding relics..
it seems probable that in the church of the third century,
considerable importance was attached to relics and efficacy imputed to them;
but however that may have been, this idea was certainly strongly developed in the fourth.
the worship of relics and faith in their healing powers was taught by
cyril, basil, chrysostom, ambrose and augustine.
here is an argument of C for the truth of the story of II kings 13
of the dead man who was restored to life by touching the bones of elisha.
'though the soul is not present, a virtue resides in the bodies of the saints,
because of the righteous soul which has for so many years dwelt in it or used it as its minister.
(note: bible?)
and let us not foolishly disbelieve this, as though it had not happened;
for if handkerchiefs and aprons, which are from without,
touching the bodies of he diseased, raise up the sick,
how much more should the very body of the prophet (elisha) raise the dead?'
here, then, is the whole case for the possibility, as it is put by a modern scientist,
of virtue, emanating from mind or spirit, attaching itself to matter!
a special instance of relic worship also in this century was connected with the finding,
or supposed finding, of the true cross, fragments of which were distributed,
as cyril says, throughout the whole world
'by means of those who in faith take portions of it'.
faith in what?
surely in some power residing in the wood.
eusebius, while recording the finding of the sepulchre, ignores the cross altogether;
by chrysostom gives a full account of the discovery;
while ambrose records that st. helena made a horse's bit from one nail
and a diadem from the other.
apparently, therefore, something like a cross was found,
but eusebius probable though the evidence of its being the cross of Christ insufficient.
akin to the question of relics was that of the intercession of saints.
cyril does not contribute much to this question,
but a strong protest was made against the prevalence of the belief
by a gallican priest, vigilantius, toward the end of the century.
he disputed their powers of intercession, since they were not yet in heaven with Christ.
to this, however, jerome replied that they were wherever Christ was.
the practical result was the careful distinction drawn by the eastern church
between latria, the worship of God
and the becoming reverence (timA sketiEkA or dUlia) due to the saints.
(footnote: '(we ask)that at their prayers and intercessions God would receive our petitions'.)
(note: bible?)
but by far the greatest interest connected with the study of cyril lies in the last 5 or mystalogical lectures;
for here we have something quite fresh,
the unfolding of all the deep hidden meaning that underlay (note: bible?)
the symbolism and ritual of the sacraments.
harnack claims that from the fourth century interest was more and more transferred
from the regulation of the whole life by religion
to its external consecration through the mysteries.
gregory of nyssa indeed said that christianity had its strength in the mystic symbols.
the sacramental idea was later expressed by augustine...
one thing is seen, another understood.
with the early christians the sacramental idea was not limited to two or even seven definite mysteries.
whenever the passing event portrayed to them some deep meaning behind it,
the idea of something sacramental was conveyed to them.
in one place Christ's life and death are called a mystery of sacrament.
still the mysteries of the two great rites which our lord Himself had instituted
would naturally be those which most needed careful and detailed explanation.
(note: the main point of the Lord's supper is simple: what is the current status of fellowship
between the believers gathered together? I corinthians 11.28-32)
all this focus on the supposed esoteric meaning
is nothing but smoke and mirrors
to get the focus off of what is the real focus.
what group do you know
where the people (or any one person) PRACTICE luke 17.3 and matthew 18.15
ON A DAILY BASIS?)
although he was neither a great writer nor a great leader of his time.
we know no theological work of any importance that emanated form him,
except hie 'catechetical lectures',
a series of short addresses delivered in 347, before he became bishop,
to candidates for baptism.
there are 24 in all; of which 19 are on the faith and the last 5, known as the mystalogical,
are explanations of the Mysteries,
(note: are these ever called 'mysteries' in the new testament? are they not simple 'teaching
pictures' of the inexplicable nature of God's love in saving a man from his sin?
just as there would be no grace come to a pig dunked in water or fed bread and wine,
so none comes mysteriously, or in any other manner to wretched sinners who have experienced
pardon for sin and
the reality of the life of God which they wonderingly realize is now in them.
they simply get baptized and take the bread and wine (as often as they do) in obedience to God
to remember Him and rejoice in Him alone.)
or Sacrament, of baptism and the eucharist,
and were delivered to the same candidates After their baptism.
these lectures, however, are extremely interesting,
because they give us in a concise form the whole catholic faith of that time,
and have been pronounced by the best authorities to be exactly orthodox.
...cyril's early environment was distinctly semi arian.
he was but a child at the date of the nicene council
and soon after that date palestine and syria and asia minor, in fact the east generally,
drifted into at least semi arian tendencies.
cyril himself received consecration from acacius...
and the validity of his consecration was accordingly at one time questioned.
also he always in his teaching avoided the word Homo-ousion,
though towards the close of his life he formally accepted it.
..his parentage and the exact date of his birth are uncertain,
but it is most probable that he was born at or near jerusalem of christian parents about 313.
at any rate his early life must have been spent in that neighbourhood,
for he recalls memories of what jerusalem had been like
before the building of the great church by constantine
and the alleged finding of the Cross by st. helena.
besides this it was customary at jerusalem to elect a bishop whose life was well known to the people
in the year 347 he was chosen for a task usually only undertaken by the bishop,
the preparation of candidates for baptism:
tow or three years afterwards he was elected bishop on the death of maximus.
...one of the earliest events of his episcopal life
was the appearance of some strange phenomenon in the atmosphere,
which, whether really supernatural or not, took the form of a cross in the sky.
C embraced the opportunity to write to constantius, describing the
and at the same time announcing his consecration.
...about 357 a dispute arose between cyril and acacius, who was bishop of caesarea,
over a matter of precedence.
when the metropolis of palestine
had been assigned to caesarea instead of jerusalem by the roman government,
in course of time caesarea became the ecclesiastical metropolis as well'
however, a canon of nicaea had given a precedence of honour to jerusalem,
but without prejudice to the rights of the bishop of caesarea.
when, therefore, C had repeatedly refused to appear before acacius at caesares,
the latter accused him to constantius of being 'orthodox' (?) and contumacious
and also of having sold a rich vestment which had been presented to his church by constantine.
this he had sold for the good of the poor.
he was consequently deposed and exiled and retired to tarsus,
where he was employed by the semi arian bishop silvanus.
with semi arians he always, like hilary, lived on the most friendly terms.
in 361 the council of seleucia reinstated him,
but in the following year again a council at constantinople confirmed his deposition.
when all the bishops returned to their sees under julian the apostate, cyril was among the number.
then followed the strange story of the attempt to rebuild the Temple,
in order to disprove once for all the christian interpretation of jewish prophecy.
cyril calmly assured his flock that it would never be permitted.
the story goes that, when they were at work on the foundations,
great balls of fire came up out of the ground, injuring and scaring the workmen.
this occurrence is not only vouched for by several christian writers,
but is confirmed by ammianus marcellinus, a heathen, who was known as the philosophic soldier.
but whatever happened, one thing is certain:
the enterprise had to be abandoned as C had foretold.
C was again deposed in 367 by valens;
but remained in peaceful possession of his see till his own death in 386.
...of the catechetical lectures 13 are on the clauses of the creed
and it is thus that we are able to put together the ancient creed of the mother church.
'we believe in one God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth
and all things visible and invisible.
and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten, the begotten of the Father,
very God before all the ages, by whom all things were made;
who was incarnate, made man, crucified and buried, rose again from the grave on the third day,
ascended into heaven and is seated on the right hand of the Father
and will come again in glory to judge the quick and the dead,
whose kingdom shall have no end.
and in the Holy Ghost, the paraclete, who spake by the prophets;
and in one baptism of repentance for the remission of sins;
and in one holy catholic church
and in the resurrection of the flesh and in life eternal.
this creed should be compared carefully with the caesarean creed
suggested by eusebius for adoption by the nicene council
and also with the original creed of nicaea.
it differs from the latter primarily in containing no clause in regard to Essence or ousia;
but it is also worth noticing that, instead of ending with a simple belief in the Holy Ghost,
it adds attributes to the Holy Ghost
and further clauses about the church, baptism, and the future life.
the third paragraph of the creed was now, in fact, expanding.
it is probable that by this time the eastern churches generally had imported into the creed
the article of belief not only in the church, but in one church and that the catholic,
in contrast to what cyril called 'other miserable gatherings'.
C himself emphasizes the authority of the one church.
'learn, he says, from the church what are the books of the old and new testaments.
'being a child of the church, trench not on (to encroach or infringe upon) her statutes.'
again he fully explains what the church is and enjoins them
'not to ask where the church is, but where the catholic church is',
so entirely has the word catholic come to mean the orthodox body.
but there is no allusion whatever to rome as the source of authority.
'in this holy catholic church receiving instruction and living virtuously we shall inherit
the kingdom of heaven and eternal life'...
...on the doctrine of free will he writes,
'we come into such holy worship not of necessity but choice...
the adoption is in our power, for 'to as many as received Him gave He power.'
'sin is an evil of man's own choosing, and offspring of the will.'
'know also that thou hast a soul self governed, the noblest work of God,
made after the image of its creator, immortal because of God that gives it immortality;
a living being, rational and imperishable, because of Him that bestowed these gifts;
having free power to do what it willeth'.
'learn also that the soul, before it came into this world had committed no sin,
but having come in sinless, we sin of our own free will'.
in the last of these quotations it may seem the C is denying original sin,
but it is more probable that, while emphasizing the doctrine of free will,
he is at the same time refuting origen's idea that the fall took place in a prior existence
and that this life was a discipline of the soul for sins committed in a previous existence.
..on scripture and the canon..
no one has previously insisted on the paramount importance of scripture so strongly as cyril does.
we from him hear nothing of the oral tradition.
'concedrning the holy and divine mysteries of the faith,
not even a casual statement must be delivered without the holy scriptures, (note: wow, amen!!)
nor must we be drawn aside by plausibility and subtleties of speech.
even to me, who tell you these things, give not absolute credence,
unless you find the proof of the things which i announce in the divine scriptures.
(note: AAA+ !!!)
for this salvation, which we believe, depends not on ingenious reasoning but on the demonstration of the holy scriptures'.
the canon of both testaments is the same as that given by athanasius,
except for a slight difference in the order of the books of the old,
the number of which he gives as 22.
this is, however, because certain books are grouped together,
such as the two books of kings, which count as one.
the minor prophets all together also count as one.
also ezra and nehemiah are omitted;
while two books of esdras are included and to jeremiah and the lamentations (as one book)
is added the book of baruch.
the new testament is the same as our own, except that it lacks the revelation.
..regarding relics..
it seems probable that in the church of the third century,
considerable importance was attached to relics and efficacy imputed to them;
but however that may have been, this idea was certainly strongly developed in the fourth.
the worship of relics and faith in their healing powers was taught by
cyril, basil, chrysostom, ambrose and augustine.
here is an argument of C for the truth of the story of II kings 13
of the dead man who was restored to life by touching the bones of elisha.
'though the soul is not present, a virtue resides in the bodies of the saints,
because of the righteous soul which has for so many years dwelt in it or used it as its minister.
(note: bible?)
and let us not foolishly disbelieve this, as though it had not happened;
for if handkerchiefs and aprons, which are from without,
touching the bodies of he diseased, raise up the sick,
how much more should the very body of the prophet (elisha) raise the dead?'
here, then, is the whole case for the possibility, as it is put by a modern scientist,
of virtue, emanating from mind or spirit, attaching itself to matter!
a special instance of relic worship also in this century was connected with the finding,
or supposed finding, of the true cross, fragments of which were distributed,
as cyril says, throughout the whole world
'by means of those who in faith take portions of it'.
faith in what?
surely in some power residing in the wood.
eusebius, while recording the finding of the sepulchre, ignores the cross altogether;
by chrysostom gives a full account of the discovery;
while ambrose records that st. helena made a horse's bit from one nail
and a diadem from the other.
apparently, therefore, something like a cross was found,
but eusebius probable though the evidence of its being the cross of Christ insufficient.
akin to the question of relics was that of the intercession of saints.
cyril does not contribute much to this question,
but a strong protest was made against the prevalence of the belief
by a gallican priest, vigilantius, toward the end of the century.
he disputed their powers of intercession, since they were not yet in heaven with Christ.
to this, however, jerome replied that they were wherever Christ was.
the practical result was the careful distinction drawn by the eastern church
between latria, the worship of God
and the becoming reverence (timA sketiEkA or dUlia) due to the saints.
(footnote: '(we ask)that at their prayers and intercessions God would receive our petitions'.)
(note: bible?)
but by far the greatest interest connected with the study of cyril lies in the last 5 or mystalogical lectures;
for here we have something quite fresh,
the unfolding of all the deep hidden meaning that underlay (note: bible?)
the symbolism and ritual of the sacraments.
harnack claims that from the fourth century interest was more and more transferred
from the regulation of the whole life by religion
to its external consecration through the mysteries.
gregory of nyssa indeed said that christianity had its strength in the mystic symbols.
the sacramental idea was later expressed by augustine...
one thing is seen, another understood.
with the early christians the sacramental idea was not limited to two or even seven definite mysteries.
whenever the passing event portrayed to them some deep meaning behind it,
the idea of something sacramental was conveyed to them.
in one place Christ's life and death are called a mystery of sacrament.
still the mysteries of the two great rites which our lord Himself had instituted
would naturally be those which most needed careful and detailed explanation.
(note: the main point of the Lord's supper is simple: what is the current status of fellowship
between the believers gathered together? I corinthians 11.28-32)
all this focus on the supposed esoteric meaning
is nothing but smoke and mirrors
to get the focus off of what is the real focus.
what group do you know
where the people (or any one person) PRACTICE luke 17.3 and matthew 18.15
ON A DAILY BASIS?)
Thursday, December 5, 2013
12.5.2013 CHURCH FATHERS 11 - hilary of poitiers, b 300-20; bishop of poitiers 353-368
what athanasius did in the defence of orthodoxy for the whole Church, but especially the east,
that hilary did for the west, but more especially gaul.
in fact he was the great catholic champion of the west against arianism.
athanasius and hilary never met,
yet the former must have been well aware of the work of the latter
and hilary recognized A as his chief.
hilary was both a man of action and theologian,
but he is best known to us in the latter capacity..
he was converted in350, consecrated, while still a layman, in 353..
five years of his episcopate were also passed in exile,
although they were actively employed.
hilary was born in or near poitiers, but whether he was by origin a gaul or a roman, we do not know,
nor the exact time of his birth.
his parents were in a good position and he had an excellent education
and was trained for the profession of rhetoric, or in modern words, for the bar.
here it must be observed, that the civilization of gaul at this date was of a very high order.
no sooner was gaul finally conquered by rome and brought within the empire,
than the gauls at once rose to their position at roman citizens.
their advance was very rapid and by this time they were at least
on a level in point of culture with the romans themselves,
the chief centre of that culture being bordeaux.
about the christianity of gaul we have heard nothing since the time of irenaeus
and it will be remembered that, when he was consecrated to the see of lyons,
he was the only bishop in the province.
by this time there were of course many bishops,
but even now they were much fewer and farther between than in the east,
but owing to distances, exercised less personal influence, except in his cathedral city.
thus when H was exiled to asia minor, he continued to administer his diocese from afar.
no one thought of intruding another bishop.
...his exile was providential.
it bought him into direct touch with the eastern arians,
whose teaching he was better able to examine and refute
and with the semi arians, for whom he had much sympathy,
believing them to be heretics only from a misunderstanding of terms,
and not from any intellectual depravity.
..towards the extreme party, however, he adopted quite another attitude;
for them no words were bad enough.
he was summoned during his exile to the council of seleucia (359)
as a leading western authority who was in the neighbourhood,
although it was supposed to be an exclusively eastern council
and discovered to his horror ..that the Homoion(the likeness of Father and Son),
which the Homoean party were introducing as a watchword
that should bind all parties, meant no more than a likeness of will.
...it is admitted on all sides that gaul was freed from the guilt of heresy
solely by the good work of hilary...and the council of paris which he called (361)
had already made the first decided step towards the purification of the western church when it
excommunicated saturninus and proclaimed the Homo-ousion.
...in spite of the importance of knowledge as a guide to conduct, hilary showed, like athanasius,
a true catholic reluctance to the multiplication of dogmas,
or to scientific explanations of the traditional faith.
such explanations were forced by heretic quibbles.
-'in simplicity is faith; God does not call us to the blessed life through the investigation of difficult questions.
-'the errors of heretics and blasphemers force us to deal with unlawful matters,
to scale perilous heights, to speak unutterable words, to trespass on forbidden ground.
faith ought in silence to fulfill the commandments,
worshipping the Father, reverencing with Him the Son, abounding in the Holy Ghost,
but we strain the poor resources of our language to express thoughts too great for words.
the error of others compels us to embody in human terms truths
which ought to be hidden in the silent veneration of the heart.
and again, after writing of the Father, he says,
-it is easier for me to feel this concerning the Father than to say it.
i am well aware that no words are adequate to describe His attributes.
-again, 'neither speech of man nor analogy of human nature can give us a full insight into the things of God.
the ineffable cannot submit to the bounds and limits of definition.
-and, 'God cannot be known except by devotion.'
..hilary is quoted by the 'catholic dictionary' as
one of the chief patristic authorities or the catholic view of the eucharist.
there is not much allusion to it in his works, but in Trin. viii.13 he says,
'for if in truth the word has been made flesh,
and we in very truth receive the word made flesh as food from the Lord,
are we not bound to believe that he abides in us naturally,
who, born as a man, has assumed the nature of our flesh now inseparable from Himself,
and has conjoined the nature of His own flesh to the nature of the eternal Godhead
in the sacrament by which His flesh is communicated to us?...
whoever then denies that the Father175
that hilary did for the west, but more especially gaul.
in fact he was the great catholic champion of the west against arianism.
athanasius and hilary never met,
yet the former must have been well aware of the work of the latter
and hilary recognized A as his chief.
hilary was both a man of action and theologian,
but he is best known to us in the latter capacity..
he was converted in350, consecrated, while still a layman, in 353..
five years of his episcopate were also passed in exile,
although they were actively employed.
hilary was born in or near poitiers, but whether he was by origin a gaul or a roman, we do not know,
nor the exact time of his birth.
his parents were in a good position and he had an excellent education
and was trained for the profession of rhetoric, or in modern words, for the bar.
here it must be observed, that the civilization of gaul at this date was of a very high order.
no sooner was gaul finally conquered by rome and brought within the empire,
than the gauls at once rose to their position at roman citizens.
their advance was very rapid and by this time they were at least
on a level in point of culture with the romans themselves,
the chief centre of that culture being bordeaux.
about the christianity of gaul we have heard nothing since the time of irenaeus
and it will be remembered that, when he was consecrated to the see of lyons,
he was the only bishop in the province.
by this time there were of course many bishops,
but even now they were much fewer and farther between than in the east,
but owing to distances, exercised less personal influence, except in his cathedral city.
thus when H was exiled to asia minor, he continued to administer his diocese from afar.
no one thought of intruding another bishop.
...his exile was providential.
it bought him into direct touch with the eastern arians,
whose teaching he was better able to examine and refute
and with the semi arians, for whom he had much sympathy,
believing them to be heretics only from a misunderstanding of terms,
and not from any intellectual depravity.
..towards the extreme party, however, he adopted quite another attitude;
for them no words were bad enough.
he was summoned during his exile to the council of seleucia (359)
as a leading western authority who was in the neighbourhood,
although it was supposed to be an exclusively eastern council
and discovered to his horror ..that the Homoion(the likeness of Father and Son),
which the Homoean party were introducing as a watchword
that should bind all parties, meant no more than a likeness of will.
...it is admitted on all sides that gaul was freed from the guilt of heresy
solely by the good work of hilary...and the council of paris which he called (361)
had already made the first decided step towards the purification of the western church when it
excommunicated saturninus and proclaimed the Homo-ousion.
...in spite of the importance of knowledge as a guide to conduct, hilary showed, like athanasius,
a true catholic reluctance to the multiplication of dogmas,
or to scientific explanations of the traditional faith.
such explanations were forced by heretic quibbles.
-'in simplicity is faith; God does not call us to the blessed life through the investigation of difficult questions.
-'the errors of heretics and blasphemers force us to deal with unlawful matters,
to scale perilous heights, to speak unutterable words, to trespass on forbidden ground.
faith ought in silence to fulfill the commandments,
worshipping the Father, reverencing with Him the Son, abounding in the Holy Ghost,
but we strain the poor resources of our language to express thoughts too great for words.
the error of others compels us to embody in human terms truths
which ought to be hidden in the silent veneration of the heart.
and again, after writing of the Father, he says,
-it is easier for me to feel this concerning the Father than to say it.
i am well aware that no words are adequate to describe His attributes.
-again, 'neither speech of man nor analogy of human nature can give us a full insight into the things of God.
the ineffable cannot submit to the bounds and limits of definition.
-and, 'God cannot be known except by devotion.'
..hilary is quoted by the 'catholic dictionary' as
one of the chief patristic authorities or the catholic view of the eucharist.
there is not much allusion to it in his works, but in Trin. viii.13 he says,
'for if in truth the word has been made flesh,
and we in very truth receive the word made flesh as food from the Lord,
are we not bound to believe that he abides in us naturally,
who, born as a man, has assumed the nature of our flesh now inseparable from Himself,
and has conjoined the nature of His own flesh to the nature of the eternal Godhead
in the sacrament by which His flesh is communicated to us?...
whoever then denies that the Father175
Monday, December 2, 2013
12.2.2013 CHURCH FATHERS 10 - athanasius, b 297; archbishop of alexandria 328-373
Note: see timeline in the preceding article that covers this time period.
with the early years of the fourth century the history of the Church passes into an entirely new phase.
no longer is she persecuted by outsiders;
the persecution of the future is to be practised by christians on each other,
except during the two years' interlude covered by the reign of julian the apostate.
in 313 the edict of milan decreed absolute toleration for all creeds;
but not long afterwards constantine advised all persons to become christians.
consequently, although the struggle between christian and pagan modes of thought and systems of morality had still to be fought for many a year,
not only was the opposition of the roman government with drawn,
but christianity actually became the religion of the Court.
naturally, therefore, the world poured into the church,
and to a corresponding extent the Church was corrupted.
the depravation of character was reflected in that depravation of creed which was known as arianism.
from 319 to 381 the main interest in Church and to a very large extent in roman, history
is bound up with the arian struggle,
and for half a century that struggle centered around the person of athanasius.
it was on that account that when an unknown author compiled a century or two afterwards
(no one exactly knows when)
a statement of the doctrine of the trinity, which the western church accepted as a creed,
he called it athanasian,
as a word almost synonymous with Catholic;
although to one important statement in it, at any rate,
the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son,
athanasius would probably not have subscribed,
nor has the eastern church at any period of her history.
nobody can tell to what extent the conversion of constantine
was influenced by conviction or by motives of state policy...probably..both.
for a long time past the attitude of the emperors towards the church had been gradually changing,
as the chances of suppressing christianity became more and more hopeless.
since the time of trajan several emperors had appeared on the scene
who desired to restore old rome
and with this view recognized the necessity of a state religion.
naturally they would turn first to the old gods of rome.
but the empire included distant races, who knew not roman gods, but had other gods of their own.
then came the idea of the divinity of the caesars.
here was a cult, of the head of the empire, in which all classes throughout the empire might join.
but the ever spreading religion of Christ opposed this cult more strenuously even than the other,
and it was found by long experience that to suppress christianity was impossible.
the question then would naturally arise-cannot this new religion, which extends its branches everywhere,
be made the religion of the empire and hold the empire together in the way we desire?
no doubt constantine was to a great extent influence by this motive.
at the same time, though he always regarded the Church from outside,
deferring baptism till he was at the point of death;
though he could never understand the importance of the controversial questions
though he so far failed to imbibe the christian spirit as to be guilty of horrible murders,
and even on his death bed to order the execution of members of the imperial family,
whom he suspected of poisoning him;
yet it is clear that he had a great reverence and admiration for the Church, to which on the whole
he was a true friend.
the edict of toleration was soon followed by important acts
for the observance of sunday
for the institution of public prayers in the army
for the abolition of crucifixion
for the encouragement of the emancipation of slaves
for the suppression of infanticide
for the prohibition of private divinations, licentious and cruel rites and gladiatorial games.
he also curiously showed his zeal by preaching.
...besides all this, he seems firmly to have believed that his armies had been led by the christians' God
and he was duly grateful.
but his great disappointment..that this marvellous instrument for effecting the cohesion of the empire,
was itself rent by internal dissensions..donatism..arianism.
what then was arianism?
in the year 319, when alexander was bishop of alexandria and athanasius his deacon,
one arius, priest of the bacaulis church in that city began preaching to this effect:
if the son is a real
Son, then a Father must exist before a Son;
therefore the divine Father must have existed before the divine son.
therefore, there was when the Son did not exist.
therefore he is a creature; the greatest indeed and the eldest of all creatures and himself a God,
but still created
therefore, like all creatures, of an essence (ousia) which previously had not existed.
and he added that any other statement confounded the persons,
by making the Son only a self manifestation of the Father,
which was the Sabellian heresy.
for the sabellians said that God was the Monad
and extended Himself into the Trinity,
the Persons being only like stage characters assumed on different occasions to represent the deity to man.
this was the first position of arianism.
later on it assumed various phases; but one idea runs through them all.
it was not by any means a denial of the trinity or of our Lord's divinity.
it was an exaggeration of the trinity at the expense of the Unity, as sabellianism was the reverse.
it did not by any means go so far as the heresy which precede it by half a century at antioch,
when paul of samosata had taught that the Impersonal Logos temporarily resided in Jesus
who 'by moral advancement' became the Son of God.
the counter position of alexander and athanasius was
that the keynote of christianity was the Incarnation of Almighty God.
this must be stated, they said, quite simply.
it was not of a secondary or created God,
but the One God Himself;
that the difference between the persons was something that transcended all human logic,
and could not be explained by it;
and that this was the traditional faith of the Church.
further, they said the standpoint of arius was polytheistic, and struck at the roots of the faith.
'we are fighting, said athanasius later, 'for our all'.
so arius , with two bishops, secundas and theonas and 12 other clergy were excommunicated.
arius went to caesarea, and enlisted the sympathy of eusebius of caesarea;
then to other eastern bishops and finally to eusegius of nicmedia,
in which city he published certain scurrilous poems, of which the worst was the thalia.
everywhere he roused considerable sympathy on the ground that he was protesting against sebellianism.
the result of all this was the council of nicaea.
now here it is important to observe that it was not athanasius or the catholic party,
that commenced dogmatizing in this controversy.
the arians at one time or another produced 10 different creeds,
all endeavouring to get away by different dogmatic statements from the one simple statement of the catholics that the Father and Son were essentially the same.
it was hardly to be expected that constantine, an outsider,
could appreciate the minute difference, one of words only, as it seemed to him,
by which the church was divided;
and as he was under the influence of both the eusebii,
he expressed his vexation chiefly against the alexandrian church.
..the first act of the emperor was remarkable.
he had received a great number of letters from bishops making accusations against their colleagues
and these he had carefully folded into one packet,
which he burnt in their presence, as unworthy of them, before proceeding to business.
the next question was, how to begin.
as was natural, several bishops produced the creeds of their own churches,
and suggested them as a starting point.
among them was the creed of caesarea, the metropolitan church of palestine,
produced by eusebius, than which nothing seemed more appropriate.
it may, in fact, be taken as a representative ante nicene document and ran thus:
'we believe in one God the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible,
and in one Lord Jesus Christ, Word of God,
God of God, Light from Light, Life from Life,
Son only begotten, first born of every creature,
before all the ages begotten of the Father,
by whom also all things were made'.
the remaining clauses do not affect the controversy,
but it ended, 'believing each of these to be and to exist,
the Father truly Father , the Son truly Son, the Holy Ghost truly Holy Ghost.
a great advantage claimed for this creed
was that it included no new terminology which went beyond scripture.
yet although it said 'begotten before all ages'
it did not explicitly state the eternal generation of the Son;
and 'first born of every creature' was liable to misconstruction.
but it might have passed, had not the watchful athanasius discovered
that it was being interpreted by many as covering the arian view.
a determined stand was therefore made for the introduction
of the essential identity of Father and Son,
even though it necessitated the use of a technical term which went beyond the scripture:
for it scripture was interpreted in different ways,
the Church must explain scripture by a term outside it.
in the course of discussion, eusebius of nicomedia objected that
to call the Son uncreated, would imply that He was Homo-ousios (of the same essence)
with the Father;
and that word had formerly been condemned as materialistic.
but now it was eagerly taken up as being just the word wanted:
and from that moment it became the watchword and symbol of the catholic party.
the creed was then fixed as follows, which is the original nicene creed.
'we believe in one God the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible.
and in one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God,
begotten of the Father,
only begotten,
that is from the essence (ousia) of the Father,
God from God,
light from light,
very God from very God,
being of one essence with the Father,
by whom all thins were made, both in heaven and earth
who for us men and for our salvation came down, was incarnate and made man,
suffered and rose again the third day,
ascended into heaven,
and shall come again to judge the quick and the dead
and in the Holy Spirit.
on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit there was as yet no controversy.
then followed certain anathemas, on those who say,
'there was a time when He was not' or
'before He was begotten He was not or
'He came into existence out of what was not' or
'He came into existence out of what was not' or
'He was of a different essence or
'He was created, or was capable of change.
this, then, was the settlement of nicaea, which was signed by all the 318 present,
except theonas and secundus, who, along with arius, were exiled.
here, let us note, was the first act of christian persecution
and it proceeded from the catholic side
although most of the persecution afterwards came from the other side.
exile was a civil punishment pronounced by the state with the concurrence of the Council.
pressure of public opinion seems to have carried away a great number of bishops,
like eusebius of nicomedia, who were certainly unconvinced
but from the explanatory letter sent by the other eusebius to his church,
it seems doubtful whether even he quite realized all that was implied
and doubtless many others were like him, who afterwards formed
the semi arian or eusebian party.
but for the moment everything seemed satisfactorily settled
although really it was exactly the reverse, for nicaea was only the preface to
the great arian struggle, which was to last for 56 years.
the chronological sketch in the last chapter (included with 10 cyprian in this blogsite)
should be closely followed both for the history of arianism and the life of athanasius.
although the nicaene, like all the great councils, was eastern, the creed itself being originally in greek,
the greater part of the east was dissatisfied
and before long the east generally became arian or semi arian,
though there was everywhere a catholic minority.
on the other hand, the west, with whom went alexandria,
was during most of the time catholic, although for a short time under court influence
it went astray and even a pope lapsed.
the three grades of arianism were
1. the eusebians or as they were called later, semi arians..conservatives.
on the whole their views were honest.
they wished to maintain the old catholic creeds
and considered the word Homo-ousion as a dangerous innovation,
not warranted by scripture, and likely to be misconstrued.
they wished to insert instead the word HomOI-ousian (of LIKE essence with the Father)
and this became their watchword...
2. the anomaean (unlike) party, the later development of pure arianism,
who were generally content to say that Christ was unlike essentially to the Father...
3. quite late in the day an Homaean party was formed, which theologically was a party of despair:
proposing, as it were, to compromise the matter by leaving out all reference to Essence
and simply saying that the Son was like the Father.
but really it was a political attempt, in the reign of constantius,
to combine the whole Church by a vague expression,
and then bring it under state control.
4. against all these parties the catholics, under the lead of athanasius,
supported mainly by hilary of poitiers, eusebius of vercellae, lucifer of cagliari in sardinia,
cyril of jerusalem and at the end basil and the gregories, firmly stood
upholding always against the various arian proposals
the nicene creed and generally the Homo-ousion.
towards the close of athanasius life, the semi arians grew alarmed and drew nearer to the catholics
influenced in great measure by the diplomacy of athanasius,
who at the synod at alexandria offered to sacrifice words,
so long as he could retain meanings.
the words which caused the difficulty were ousia (essence)
and especially hypostasis or substantia, the greek and latin respectively for substance.
athanasius found that some, in using the word substance, meant essence
and some meant person.
thus we speak now in our creed of 'one substance with the Father'
because the latin theologians came to use substancia
where the greeks used ousia, or essential being, as meaning the same thing.
it is easy to smile at the immense importance which the theologians of the fourth century
attached to differences of dogma on the inexplicable mystery of the trinity;
but we have the verdict of such an impartial modern critic as carlyle,
that if arianism had not been conquered,
christianity would in time have dwindled into a legend.
if anything short of the full catholic position had been conceded,
then it must be admitted that the complete revelation of God to man had never been made,
for the Son was something short of the Supreme and so the Supreme was inaccessible to man.
indeed the arians said that Christ did not perfectly know the Father;
how then could he reveal Him?
the idea of the inaccessibility of the supreme God was a concession to platonism;
the idea of a secondary God a concession to Gnosticism;
the idea of the trinity without the unity a concession to polytheism.
in short, the worship of Christ would be idolatry, if He were only a creature.
athanasius, who is commonly thought of as a typical dogmatist,
was in fact much more a man of action.
he would have been quite content to leave dogmas alone
and teach a simple traditional faith, if the other side would have allowed him.
his life was full of intensely dramatic incidents.
as a child he attracted the notice of bishop alexander by 'playing at Church' on the seashore.
the bishop found that he had been baptizing other children
and decided after careful enquiry that the baptisms were valid.
so he took him into his house and trained him for the ministry.
born in 297, he was only 28 when he exercised such a strong influence at the nicaene council,
and it was probably 5 years before that, that he compose his famous treatise
on the 'incarnation of the word.'
in the year after the council, he succeeded to the bishopric,
and almost immediately he became so identified with the catholic cause,
that the way to attack the cause was to attack him personally.
the most ridiculous charges were brought against him
(for these as well as dramatic incidents, see timeline included with cyprian)
..on another occasion the church at alexandria in which he was enthroned was attacked
during the service by the soldiers of constantine:
yet he ordered the service to proceed
and the choir continued to chant 'for His mercy endureth forever'
till the soldiers reached the chancel;
when he was smuggled away by the monks and mysteriously disappeared.
for some years he was in hiding among the monasteries in the egyptian desert,
ruling his diocese all the time.
one, coming down stream, he met his pursuers sailing up the nile.
not recognizing him they asked him where athanasius was.
'not far away', he replied
and glided past them into alexandria.
he is described as a little man, with an auburn beard and a very beautiful face.
'despicable little mannikin' julian the apostate called him
yet gibbon, who had a profound admiration for him,
said that he was much better qualified to rule the empire than constantius.
no doubt for a long period his was the most important personality in the empire.
the various returns of athanasius to his see mark the different period of his career,
the first period coinciding within a year with the death of constantine.
soon after nicaea, constantine seems to have concluded that the only solution of the difficulty \
would be the abandonment of the Homo-ousion,
and he was therefore inclined to support the eusebians,
while giving all respectful consideration to athanasius.
at last, for the peace, as he thought, of the Church,
he removed him to an honourable retirement at treves;
but constantine II, on his succession to the west, reinstated him.
this was his first return (338).
but two years afterwards, when the arian gregory was intruded into his see,
athanasius went to rome, to obtain the assistance of julius of rome,
and generally to strengthen the brethren in orthodoxy.
in 346, constantius being somewhat alarmed at the western opposition to his arianism
and the deposition of stephen arian bishop of antioch,
permitted athanasius' return...the second return.
from 346 to 356 he enjoyed in alexandria what he called ten years of deep and wondrous peace,
although the storm raged all round him
and at one time he was abandoned by almost the entire western church.
the culmination of this period was the attack on the church from which he mysteriously disappeared.
then followed the period of hiding in the egyptian desert till in 361 julian the apostate
allowed all bishops to return...the third
from 361 to his death in 373 he was practically left undisturbed.
..there is not much in athanasius' writings bearing on eucharistic controversy
..nor did he take any action either in assisting or protesting against,
the growth of roman supremacy.
he always showed great reverence for rome as an apostolic throne
and recognized the close relations of rome and alexandria.
he was also always, except for the unhappy lapse of liverius,
well treated by the roman church, especially by pope julius.
but during the period embraced by his life,
a great number of events took place bearing very closely on the papal question....
among the literary works of athanasius is a rather curious life of the hermit anthony.
curious, because it is full of grotesque stories of temptation,
by devils in various shapes, of a medieval character.
it is therefore unlike the usual practical style of A.
possibly they may have been interpolated,
especially as regards a certain story of a dragon.
but, apart from the dragon, the idea that daemons or evil spirits, in whatever form they might appear,
were always intervening in the affairs of men,
had come down from the three previous centuries and was generally accepted.
a more important thought, in connection with this work,
is the growth of monasticism, which was now a well established institution in the east,
athanasius being the first of the Fathers with whose history it is connected.
we hear of him hiding in the egyptian monasteries or lauras
and taking two monks with him to rome, the first probably who had appeared there.
it remained, however, for jerome a little later to familiarize the roman mind with the monastic idea.
lauras were a number of cells, near one another, in which monks lived alone,
but met for worship.
the first hermit had been paul, in the time of emperor valerius.
anthony became one about 270.
at first it was an entirely solitary life;
but gradually the hermits drew together into settlements.
in 325 pachomius founded the first regularly organized settlement at tabennae in egypt
and within quite a short time a number of other settlements were formed on its model
so that by the end of the fourth century the egyptian monasteries were numerous and celebrated
and a century later monasticism had become a power throughout the Church.
it is difficult to avoid the reflection that the Church in early days
was very ready to accept the assistance of the state in the management of her affairs.
the only serious protest that we find against state interference came from the donatists,
who once resented the action of the state in regard to charity.
'what, they said, have emperors to do with the church?'
but the arians became mere servants of the emperor
and were anxious to submit even their creeds to him for his approval.
the catholic party would never do this
but even they used the state support for all that it was worth
and allowed constantine to be the presiding genius at nicaea.
indeed, during the bad years (350-360) when the catholic party in the west fell so low,
the fall was entirely due to Court influence.
(note: set this next to peter and john, 'whether it be right in the sight of God
to hearken unto you more than unto God,
judge ye. acts 4.19)
with the early years of the fourth century the history of the Church passes into an entirely new phase.
no longer is she persecuted by outsiders;
the persecution of the future is to be practised by christians on each other,
except during the two years' interlude covered by the reign of julian the apostate.
in 313 the edict of milan decreed absolute toleration for all creeds;
but not long afterwards constantine advised all persons to become christians.
consequently, although the struggle between christian and pagan modes of thought and systems of morality had still to be fought for many a year,
not only was the opposition of the roman government with drawn,
but christianity actually became the religion of the Court.
naturally, therefore, the world poured into the church,
and to a corresponding extent the Church was corrupted.
the depravation of character was reflected in that depravation of creed which was known as arianism.
from 319 to 381 the main interest in Church and to a very large extent in roman, history
is bound up with the arian struggle,
and for half a century that struggle centered around the person of athanasius.
it was on that account that when an unknown author compiled a century or two afterwards
(no one exactly knows when)
a statement of the doctrine of the trinity, which the western church accepted as a creed,
he called it athanasian,
as a word almost synonymous with Catholic;
although to one important statement in it, at any rate,
the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son,
athanasius would probably not have subscribed,
nor has the eastern church at any period of her history.
nobody can tell to what extent the conversion of constantine
was influenced by conviction or by motives of state policy...probably..both.
for a long time past the attitude of the emperors towards the church had been gradually changing,
as the chances of suppressing christianity became more and more hopeless.
since the time of trajan several emperors had appeared on the scene
who desired to restore old rome
and with this view recognized the necessity of a state religion.
naturally they would turn first to the old gods of rome.
but the empire included distant races, who knew not roman gods, but had other gods of their own.
then came the idea of the divinity of the caesars.
here was a cult, of the head of the empire, in which all classes throughout the empire might join.
but the ever spreading religion of Christ opposed this cult more strenuously even than the other,
and it was found by long experience that to suppress christianity was impossible.
the question then would naturally arise-cannot this new religion, which extends its branches everywhere,
be made the religion of the empire and hold the empire together in the way we desire?
no doubt constantine was to a great extent influence by this motive.
at the same time, though he always regarded the Church from outside,
deferring baptism till he was at the point of death;
though he could never understand the importance of the controversial questions
though he so far failed to imbibe the christian spirit as to be guilty of horrible murders,
and even on his death bed to order the execution of members of the imperial family,
whom he suspected of poisoning him;
yet it is clear that he had a great reverence and admiration for the Church, to which on the whole
he was a true friend.
the edict of toleration was soon followed by important acts
for the observance of sunday
for the institution of public prayers in the army
for the abolition of crucifixion
for the encouragement of the emancipation of slaves
for the suppression of infanticide
for the prohibition of private divinations, licentious and cruel rites and gladiatorial games.
he also curiously showed his zeal by preaching.
...besides all this, he seems firmly to have believed that his armies had been led by the christians' God
and he was duly grateful.
but his great disappointment..that this marvellous instrument for effecting the cohesion of the empire,
was itself rent by internal dissensions..donatism..arianism.
what then was arianism?
in the year 319, when alexander was bishop of alexandria and athanasius his deacon,
one arius, priest of the bacaulis church in that city began preaching to this effect:
if the son is a real
Son, then a Father must exist before a Son;
therefore the divine Father must have existed before the divine son.
therefore, there was when the Son did not exist.
therefore he is a creature; the greatest indeed and the eldest of all creatures and himself a God,
but still created
therefore, like all creatures, of an essence (ousia) which previously had not existed.
and he added that any other statement confounded the persons,
by making the Son only a self manifestation of the Father,
which was the Sabellian heresy.
for the sabellians said that God was the Monad
and extended Himself into the Trinity,
the Persons being only like stage characters assumed on different occasions to represent the deity to man.
this was the first position of arianism.
later on it assumed various phases; but one idea runs through them all.
it was not by any means a denial of the trinity or of our Lord's divinity.
it was an exaggeration of the trinity at the expense of the Unity, as sabellianism was the reverse.
it did not by any means go so far as the heresy which precede it by half a century at antioch,
when paul of samosata had taught that the Impersonal Logos temporarily resided in Jesus
who 'by moral advancement' became the Son of God.
the counter position of alexander and athanasius was
that the keynote of christianity was the Incarnation of Almighty God.
this must be stated, they said, quite simply.
it was not of a secondary or created God,
but the One God Himself;
that the difference between the persons was something that transcended all human logic,
and could not be explained by it;
and that this was the traditional faith of the Church.
further, they said the standpoint of arius was polytheistic, and struck at the roots of the faith.
'we are fighting, said athanasius later, 'for our all'.
so arius , with two bishops, secundas and theonas and 12 other clergy were excommunicated.
arius went to caesarea, and enlisted the sympathy of eusebius of caesarea;
then to other eastern bishops and finally to eusegius of nicmedia,
in which city he published certain scurrilous poems, of which the worst was the thalia.
everywhere he roused considerable sympathy on the ground that he was protesting against sebellianism.
the result of all this was the council of nicaea.
now here it is important to observe that it was not athanasius or the catholic party,
that commenced dogmatizing in this controversy.
the arians at one time or another produced 10 different creeds,
all endeavouring to get away by different dogmatic statements from the one simple statement of the catholics that the Father and Son were essentially the same.
it was hardly to be expected that constantine, an outsider,
could appreciate the minute difference, one of words only, as it seemed to him,
by which the church was divided;
and as he was under the influence of both the eusebii,
he expressed his vexation chiefly against the alexandrian church.
..the first act of the emperor was remarkable.
he had received a great number of letters from bishops making accusations against their colleagues
and these he had carefully folded into one packet,
which he burnt in their presence, as unworthy of them, before proceeding to business.
the next question was, how to begin.
as was natural, several bishops produced the creeds of their own churches,
and suggested them as a starting point.
among them was the creed of caesarea, the metropolitan church of palestine,
produced by eusebius, than which nothing seemed more appropriate.
it may, in fact, be taken as a representative ante nicene document and ran thus:
'we believe in one God the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible,
and in one Lord Jesus Christ, Word of God,
God of God, Light from Light, Life from Life,
Son only begotten, first born of every creature,
before all the ages begotten of the Father,
by whom also all things were made'.
the remaining clauses do not affect the controversy,
but it ended, 'believing each of these to be and to exist,
the Father truly Father , the Son truly Son, the Holy Ghost truly Holy Ghost.
a great advantage claimed for this creed
was that it included no new terminology which went beyond scripture.
yet although it said 'begotten before all ages'
it did not explicitly state the eternal generation of the Son;
and 'first born of every creature' was liable to misconstruction.
but it might have passed, had not the watchful athanasius discovered
that it was being interpreted by many as covering the arian view.
a determined stand was therefore made for the introduction
of the essential identity of Father and Son,
even though it necessitated the use of a technical term which went beyond the scripture:
for it scripture was interpreted in different ways,
the Church must explain scripture by a term outside it.
in the course of discussion, eusebius of nicomedia objected that
to call the Son uncreated, would imply that He was Homo-ousios (of the same essence)
with the Father;
and that word had formerly been condemned as materialistic.
but now it was eagerly taken up as being just the word wanted:
and from that moment it became the watchword and symbol of the catholic party.
the creed was then fixed as follows, which is the original nicene creed.
'we believe in one God the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible.
and in one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God,
begotten of the Father,
only begotten,
that is from the essence (ousia) of the Father,
God from God,
light from light,
very God from very God,
being of one essence with the Father,
by whom all thins were made, both in heaven and earth
who for us men and for our salvation came down, was incarnate and made man,
suffered and rose again the third day,
ascended into heaven,
and shall come again to judge the quick and the dead
and in the Holy Spirit.
on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit there was as yet no controversy.
then followed certain anathemas, on those who say,
'there was a time when He was not' or
'before He was begotten He was not or
'He came into existence out of what was not' or
'He came into existence out of what was not' or
'He was of a different essence or
'He was created, or was capable of change.
this, then, was the settlement of nicaea, which was signed by all the 318 present,
except theonas and secundus, who, along with arius, were exiled.
here, let us note, was the first act of christian persecution
and it proceeded from the catholic side
although most of the persecution afterwards came from the other side.
exile was a civil punishment pronounced by the state with the concurrence of the Council.
pressure of public opinion seems to have carried away a great number of bishops,
like eusebius of nicomedia, who were certainly unconvinced
but from the explanatory letter sent by the other eusebius to his church,
it seems doubtful whether even he quite realized all that was implied
and doubtless many others were like him, who afterwards formed
the semi arian or eusebian party.
but for the moment everything seemed satisfactorily settled
although really it was exactly the reverse, for nicaea was only the preface to
the great arian struggle, which was to last for 56 years.
the chronological sketch in the last chapter (included with 10 cyprian in this blogsite)
should be closely followed both for the history of arianism and the life of athanasius.
although the nicaene, like all the great councils, was eastern, the creed itself being originally in greek,
the greater part of the east was dissatisfied
and before long the east generally became arian or semi arian,
though there was everywhere a catholic minority.
on the other hand, the west, with whom went alexandria,
was during most of the time catholic, although for a short time under court influence
it went astray and even a pope lapsed.
the three grades of arianism were
1. the eusebians or as they were called later, semi arians..conservatives.
on the whole their views were honest.
they wished to maintain the old catholic creeds
and considered the word Homo-ousion as a dangerous innovation,
not warranted by scripture, and likely to be misconstrued.
they wished to insert instead the word HomOI-ousian (of LIKE essence with the Father)
and this became their watchword...
2. the anomaean (unlike) party, the later development of pure arianism,
who were generally content to say that Christ was unlike essentially to the Father...
3. quite late in the day an Homaean party was formed, which theologically was a party of despair:
proposing, as it were, to compromise the matter by leaving out all reference to Essence
and simply saying that the Son was like the Father.
but really it was a political attempt, in the reign of constantius,
to combine the whole Church by a vague expression,
and then bring it under state control.
4. against all these parties the catholics, under the lead of athanasius,
supported mainly by hilary of poitiers, eusebius of vercellae, lucifer of cagliari in sardinia,
cyril of jerusalem and at the end basil and the gregories, firmly stood
upholding always against the various arian proposals
the nicene creed and generally the Homo-ousion.
towards the close of athanasius life, the semi arians grew alarmed and drew nearer to the catholics
influenced in great measure by the diplomacy of athanasius,
who at the synod at alexandria offered to sacrifice words,
so long as he could retain meanings.
the words which caused the difficulty were ousia (essence)
and especially hypostasis or substantia, the greek and latin respectively for substance.
athanasius found that some, in using the word substance, meant essence
and some meant person.
thus we speak now in our creed of 'one substance with the Father'
because the latin theologians came to use substancia
where the greeks used ousia, or essential being, as meaning the same thing.
it is easy to smile at the immense importance which the theologians of the fourth century
attached to differences of dogma on the inexplicable mystery of the trinity;
but we have the verdict of such an impartial modern critic as carlyle,
that if arianism had not been conquered,
christianity would in time have dwindled into a legend.
if anything short of the full catholic position had been conceded,
then it must be admitted that the complete revelation of God to man had never been made,
for the Son was something short of the Supreme and so the Supreme was inaccessible to man.
indeed the arians said that Christ did not perfectly know the Father;
how then could he reveal Him?
the idea of the inaccessibility of the supreme God was a concession to platonism;
the idea of a secondary God a concession to Gnosticism;
the idea of the trinity without the unity a concession to polytheism.
in short, the worship of Christ would be idolatry, if He were only a creature.
athanasius, who is commonly thought of as a typical dogmatist,
was in fact much more a man of action.
he would have been quite content to leave dogmas alone
and teach a simple traditional faith, if the other side would have allowed him.
his life was full of intensely dramatic incidents.
as a child he attracted the notice of bishop alexander by 'playing at Church' on the seashore.
the bishop found that he had been baptizing other children
and decided after careful enquiry that the baptisms were valid.
so he took him into his house and trained him for the ministry.
born in 297, he was only 28 when he exercised such a strong influence at the nicaene council,
and it was probably 5 years before that, that he compose his famous treatise
on the 'incarnation of the word.'
in the year after the council, he succeeded to the bishopric,
and almost immediately he became so identified with the catholic cause,
that the way to attack the cause was to attack him personally.
the most ridiculous charges were brought against him
(for these as well as dramatic incidents, see timeline included with cyprian)
..on another occasion the church at alexandria in which he was enthroned was attacked
during the service by the soldiers of constantine:
yet he ordered the service to proceed
and the choir continued to chant 'for His mercy endureth forever'
till the soldiers reached the chancel;
when he was smuggled away by the monks and mysteriously disappeared.
for some years he was in hiding among the monasteries in the egyptian desert,
ruling his diocese all the time.
one, coming down stream, he met his pursuers sailing up the nile.
not recognizing him they asked him where athanasius was.
'not far away', he replied
and glided past them into alexandria.
he is described as a little man, with an auburn beard and a very beautiful face.
'despicable little mannikin' julian the apostate called him
yet gibbon, who had a profound admiration for him,
said that he was much better qualified to rule the empire than constantius.
no doubt for a long period his was the most important personality in the empire.
the various returns of athanasius to his see mark the different period of his career,
the first period coinciding within a year with the death of constantine.
soon after nicaea, constantine seems to have concluded that the only solution of the difficulty \
would be the abandonment of the Homo-ousion,
and he was therefore inclined to support the eusebians,
while giving all respectful consideration to athanasius.
at last, for the peace, as he thought, of the Church,
he removed him to an honourable retirement at treves;
but constantine II, on his succession to the west, reinstated him.
this was his first return (338).
but two years afterwards, when the arian gregory was intruded into his see,
athanasius went to rome, to obtain the assistance of julius of rome,
and generally to strengthen the brethren in orthodoxy.
in 346, constantius being somewhat alarmed at the western opposition to his arianism
and the deposition of stephen arian bishop of antioch,
permitted athanasius' return...the second return.
from 346 to 356 he enjoyed in alexandria what he called ten years of deep and wondrous peace,
although the storm raged all round him
and at one time he was abandoned by almost the entire western church.
the culmination of this period was the attack on the church from which he mysteriously disappeared.
then followed the period of hiding in the egyptian desert till in 361 julian the apostate
allowed all bishops to return...the third
from 361 to his death in 373 he was practically left undisturbed.
..there is not much in athanasius' writings bearing on eucharistic controversy
..nor did he take any action either in assisting or protesting against,
the growth of roman supremacy.
he always showed great reverence for rome as an apostolic throne
and recognized the close relations of rome and alexandria.
he was also always, except for the unhappy lapse of liverius,
well treated by the roman church, especially by pope julius.
but during the period embraced by his life,
a great number of events took place bearing very closely on the papal question....
among the literary works of athanasius is a rather curious life of the hermit anthony.
curious, because it is full of grotesque stories of temptation,
by devils in various shapes, of a medieval character.
it is therefore unlike the usual practical style of A.
possibly they may have been interpolated,
especially as regards a certain story of a dragon.
but, apart from the dragon, the idea that daemons or evil spirits, in whatever form they might appear,
were always intervening in the affairs of men,
had come down from the three previous centuries and was generally accepted.
a more important thought, in connection with this work,
is the growth of monasticism, which was now a well established institution in the east,
athanasius being the first of the Fathers with whose history it is connected.
we hear of him hiding in the egyptian monasteries or lauras
and taking two monks with him to rome, the first probably who had appeared there.
it remained, however, for jerome a little later to familiarize the roman mind with the monastic idea.
lauras were a number of cells, near one another, in which monks lived alone,
but met for worship.
the first hermit had been paul, in the time of emperor valerius.
anthony became one about 270.
at first it was an entirely solitary life;
but gradually the hermits drew together into settlements.
in 325 pachomius founded the first regularly organized settlement at tabennae in egypt
and within quite a short time a number of other settlements were formed on its model
so that by the end of the fourth century the egyptian monasteries were numerous and celebrated
and a century later monasticism had become a power throughout the Church.
it is difficult to avoid the reflection that the Church in early days
was very ready to accept the assistance of the state in the management of her affairs.
the only serious protest that we find against state interference came from the donatists,
who once resented the action of the state in regard to charity.
'what, they said, have emperors to do with the church?'
but the arians became mere servants of the emperor
and were anxious to submit even their creeds to him for his approval.
the catholic party would never do this
but even they used the state support for all that it was worth
and allowed constantine to be the presiding genius at nicaea.
indeed, during the bad years (350-360) when the catholic party in the west fell so low,
the fall was entirely due to Court influence.
(note: set this next to peter and john, 'whether it be right in the sight of God
to hearken unto you more than unto God,
judge ye. acts 4.19)
Sunday, December 1, 2013
12.1.2013 CHURCH FATHERS 9 - cyprian, bishop of carthage, 248-258, martyr + TIMELINE (313-373) athanasius
it is not so much as a theologian or writer that we have to regard cyprian, but as a great administrator;
the greatest in fact that the church had known since paul.
under him the power of the episcopate was thoroughly consolidated
and what is known as monarchical episcopacy,
in contrast to the presidential episcopacy attributed to earlier times,
became an established and permanent fact.
he was essentially an organizer and a statesman.
under him we find the church going forth as an organized body of active workers to relieve suffering.
from him we get an account of the diseased state of the body politic and of the attitude the church should take towards social questions.
by him the essential unity of the church was emphasized
and the importance of the sacramental system as a bond of that union.
(note: great, up to the last sentence...is not the person of Christ alone the bond between any two believers?)
thascius cyprianus was born probably about the beginning of the third century;
for he was certainly in advanced middle life, when, in 246, being at that time
a lawyer, man of property and cultivated gentleman of carthage,
he was converted to christianity by caecilianus, whose name he took at his baptism.
in the following year he was ordained priest,
and in the second of his christian life he became by popular acclamation
bishop or pope of carthage and so head of the great african church.
..the title of pope which was usually given to cyprian, rather than bishop, is not without interest.
in the early church the two titles were often interchangeable, pope giving the idea of Father in God.
it was found in many french sees;
at jerusalem, alexandria and elsewhere; generally, however, in important sees.
it is rather strange that it does not appear in the catacombs till about 300,
although it was evidently the formal mode of addressing cyprian in 250.
rome, therefore, was rather late in adopting the title,
and not till 1073 did gregoryVII forbid any other see to use it,
although about 400 the bishop of rome began to be known as THE pope.
early in 250 the storm of the decian persecution fell on the church throughout the empire.
nothing like it had been known before.
hitherto christianity had been unlawful, but emperors had generally discouraged
persecution or punishment where it could be legally avoided.
the persecutions were generally local,
and it is doubtful whether they came seriously under the notice of the emperors in most cases.
magistrates had been incited to punish by the populace;
now it was the magistrates that incited the mob.
for decius, in his desire to restore ancient rome and to follow out the ideal of trajan,
found that 'pagan society was in the meshes of a net,
whose steadily increasing strength and extent had baffled all attempts to destroy it'.
for the next 60 years, therefore, there is a 'fight to the finish'
between the organized forces of the empire and the Church,
instituted by the powers at rome and ending in 313 with the final triumph of the Church.
orders were now given everywhere to attack the bishops.
cyprian prudently retired from carthage and ruled his church from a distance,
preferring to choose his own time for martyrdom.
during the whole of this year there was no bishop of rome at all;
fabian was martyred in january and it was thought prudent to leave the see vacant.
the presbyters who temporarily governed the roman church wrote two simultaneous letters to cyprian;
one describing the death of fabian, which he warmly acknowledged;
the other hinting that cyprian would do well to follow his example;
which C in his reply trusted might be a forgery,
as it had neither authentication, nor address, nor style.
this gentle irony brought the roman clergy, with whom...'the aroma of infallibility lingered,
to a truer appreciation of cyprian's position.
at carthage, while many of the christians, the Stantes (?) or Standfasts, behaved splendidly,
endured both torture and martyrdom,
the numbers of the Lapsed were far greater than C had expected,
even among the clergy, most of whom deserted or lapsed;
one country bishop carrying most of his flock over to paganism.
but this principally happened during the initial panic.
the passion for martyrdom soon began to spread,
and alongside of it the heartbroken remorse of the Lapsed,
who had excommunicated themselves and sought restoration.
the Lapsed were divided into three classes:
the sacrificati, who had actually joined in the pagan sacrifices
the thurificati, who had thrown incense on the altar
the Libellatici, who had received certificates,
or Libelli of paganism.
the word libellus sometimes referred to the certifying document received
and sometimes to the written statement they presented. it came to the same thing.
but there was another libellus, the libellus pacis, which caused great trouble.
a custom arose, comparatively innocent at first, for the martyrs and confessors
to give a letter, or libellus pacis, to a lapsed friend,
which he was to take to the bishop, entreating restoration on their intercession
and through the merit of their martyrdom or confession.
this rapidly grew into a right to absolve the lapsed,
and eventuated in a general absolution by those in prison of all the Lapsed outside.
the result, of course, was the complete dissolution of discipline.
the statesmanship of cyprian was pre eminently displayed in the way he dealt with this difficulty in
the first three councils of carthage.
but from this custom dates, in history at any rate, the whole roman catholic theory of
superfluous Merit, Supererogation and Indulgences;
the Treasury of the Merits of the Saints, which the church on earth can apply.
in a modified form the practice had existed in tertullian's time but it is only from now
that it becomes a serious question.
in the early part of 251 decius left rome to fight the goths,
and the persecution almost ceased in carthage.
cyprian returned and a number of bishops assembled at carthage to hold a council.
the romans also ventured to elect a bishop, cornelius;
a man of gentle character, inclined to forgiveness and therefore too mild for the puritan party of rome,
who considered apostasy a crime that men could never absolve.
the persecution of decius soon passed away and from 253-60 valerian was on the throne.
at first he acted with much toleration, but later he was induced to change his policy.
the decian attack on the bishops had been found fruitless.
either the bishops disappeared as missionaries to another field
or they actively governed their dioceses from hiding places;
or, if they were killed, fresh bishops immediately took their place.
in 258 therefore, orders were issued for the destruction of all the clergy;
and it was in this persecution that cyprian fell.
in the previous year he had been exiled to curubis, a town about 50 miles away.
here he had a dream of martyrdom, in which he foresaw the manner in which it was to take place
and which therefore he regarded as an intimation that his time was come.
a year after he had gone into exile a new proconsul, galerius, sent for him;
but being ill at utica, told him to remain in his own house at carthage.
shortly afterwards he ordered him to come to utica;
but C, determined to die among his own people, disappeared.
so soon as galerius reappeared in carthage, cyprian was at home again.
after a short trial, he was condemned to be beheaded.
..he is the only latin Father really recognized by the east;
and he is the only saint commemorated in the roman mass by name,
who was neither a member of the roman church nor martyred at rome.
and this is the more wonderful, because apparently he died excommunicated by rome.
as cyprian is the last great Father before the close of the period of persecution,
it will be useful to give here a short summary of the remaining persecutions.
gallienus (260-8) in effect, though not formally, made christianity a lawful religion.
aurelian (270-5) not only left christians alone, but decided a lawsuit about church property in their favour.
he was, however, on the point of initiating a new persecution when he was murdered.
diocletian (284-305), like his predecessors, decius and trajan, made a grand attempt to restore old rome
by a reconstitution of the empire and therefore desired a national religion.
he was naturally averse from bloodshed, but persecution became necessary to his plan.
at the feast of the terminalia in 303, a concerted attempt was made to destroy all churches,
and especially all copies of the scripture.
those who gave up copies were called Traditores, and at this time many old and independent manuscripts
were lost.
all clergy were to be imprisoned and held as hostages.
at last came an edict that chirstians were everywhere to be exterminated unless they sacrificed,
and christian virgins sent to houses of ill fame.
this was probably the most terrible period of all and known as the tenth wave.
but it was the last that counted.
in 311 galerius issued a curious edict of toleration.
christians were reviled as obstinate diddenters;
but persecution having failed, they were to be tolerated, if they did not break the discipline
and would pray for the imperial house.
in 312 and 313 came at last the edicts of constantine for universal toleration of all religions.
chronological sketch from 313-373
314 edict of milan. toleration of all creeds by constantine and his brother in law, licinius, emperors.
319 arius, priest of the bacaulis church in alexandria, begins preaching that the Lon is not eternal but created
320 arius, secundus (bishop) and theonas (bishop)
and 12 clergy excommunicated by a synod at alexandria.
*arius, retires to palestine and enlists the sympathy of many eastern bishops.
*rise of athanasius as deacon of bishop alexander of alexandria.
*within a few years the whole east is infected with arianism.
*alexandria the home of orthodoxy
*constantine, under influence of eusebius of nicomedian
writes a vexed letter to alexander that the church was rent over a foolish question
and finally consents to a council of the whole church.
324 toleration of all creeds enforced, by pagans are strongly advised by the emperor to adopt christianity.
325 the council of nicaea establishment of the catholic creed
and the HOMO-OUSION ('being of the same substance or essence with the Father.
*secundus, theonas and arius exiled.
326 constantine summons arius to argue before him.
death of alexander
athanasius, bishop (archbishop?) of alexandria
329 eusebius of nicomedia in court favour, a decided arian.
*growth of semi-arian party under eusebius of caesarea who hold the Homo-ousion (of like substance.).
and arian synod at antioch slanders eustathius, the catholic bishop, at court and he is deposed.
*split of the church of antioch.
331 arius returns to alexandria.
*athanasius rejects him.
*all sorts of trumpery (something without use or value) charges raised against athanasius
-that he had taxed the egyptian to provide linen vestments
-that he had sent a box of gold to a rebel
-that he had broken the chalice and spit the elements of an arian eucharist
-that he had murdered arsenius, a monk , and used his dead hand for magic, etc.
*he is summoned to court and all charges refuted.
*eusebius of nicomedia demands a council, which is held at tyre
at which athanasius produces arsenius with both hands on.
*a commission appointed which collects evidence in egypt from jews, pagans and catechumens.
evidence of catholics not accepted.
*athanasius stops the cavalcade of constantine in constantinople and demands justice.
the council at tyre condemns athanasius on the evidence of the commission.
333..all charges against athanasius dropped and a new one raised,
that he had tried to stop the corn ships.
335 constantine in despair sends athanasius to treves.
335-8 arius at constantinople.
*bishop alexander refuses him communion
*arius threatens to enforce it
*alexander prays that either arius or himself may die, rather than this happen.
*arius dies suddenly on his way to church.
*death of alexander in 336
*his catholic successor, paul, deposed and an arian appointed.
*the east generally is now arian: the west, catholic
337 death of constantine
338 first return of athanasius
*athanasius accused of appropriating charities
*protest against his resuming his see after being deposed by the recent council
*he appeals to bishop julius of rome.
*eusebius of nicomedia bishop of constantinople
340 gregory (arian) intruded into see of alexandria by the state with a guard of soldiers.
*riot and persecution of catholics
*athanasius goes to rome with two monks. (first monk there)
*death of eusebius of caesarea
341 julius invites the arians to a council at rome.
*after making all sorts of excuses, especially that christianity started in the east and not rome,
they hold a council of their own at antioch...the dedication council
this was semi arian, but was called by st. hilary of poitiers a synod of holy men
and its canons are still respected in the east.
-it confirmed the deposition of athanasius on the basis of the 28th apostolic canon,
which was afterwards used against chrysostom.
-it also issued a creed based on that of lucian of antioch, generally catholic, but refusing the word
Homo-ousion.
-the trinity three in person, one in concord.
*julius calls a council of 50 westerns, who acquit athanasius
342 constans now rules in the west alone.
*death of eusebius of nicomedia.
*semi arians present a creed to constans, which condemns the arian postition:
'there was a TIME when He was not. (ie. it was before time.
*creed rejected.
343 athanasius retires from rome to milan.
*the council of sardica. 170 bishops with a small western majority came.
-easterns refuse to act with them and adjourn to philippopolis,
where they hold one of their own, which the call 'of sardica'.
*the west refuses to alter or add to the nicene creed.
344 much eastern persecution of catholics
scandalous treachery of stephen, arian bishop of antioch, who is deposed.
*this, followed by western deputation to constantius, supported by constans,
causes former to recall athanasius.
346 second return of athanasius, followed by his 10 years of 'deep and wondrous peace'.
350 death of constans. constantius, after a struggle with magnentius, becomes sole emperor.
-under his influence, the west and even italy, is infected with arianism:
and from this point there is a steady fall in the catholic fortunes for 10 years.
paul of constantinople exiled for second time, and constantinople the stronghold of arianism for 30 years.
352 liverius pope
353 athanasius sends envoys to the emperor, who refuses to receive them and orders him to milan.
*councils of the westerns at arles. nearly all the west gives up athanasius
on condition that the east abandons its heresy, which condition entirely fails.
*liberius in disgust disowns the council and calls for another.
*eusebius of vercellae and lucifer of cagliari in sardinia become the two strongest supporters of orthodoxy.
355 council at milan (300 westerns and a few easterns)
-in spite of a bold stand by a small minority against the emperor,
the council condemns athanasius and agrees to communion with arians.
*lucifer, eusebius of vercellae and dionysius of milan exiled.
*hillary, for calling it 'a synagogue of malignants' is scourged.
*general persecution.
*liberius and hosius exiled.
*felix, anti pope
*hilary writes his first book to constantius, being a defence of religious freedom of opinion.
356 an arian council at beziers refuses to hear him and he is banished to phrygian
where he writes his book on the trinity.
*state officials attack church of theonas at alexandria during service.
*athanasius, smuggled away by the monks, escapes to the egyptian monasteries,
where he writes the arian history and the discourses against the arians.
*george intruded in his place.
*persecution of catholics.
357 council of sirmium (called the third).
*the blasphemia creed
'subjection of the Son in common with all the things which the Father hath made subject to Himself.'
358 fall of pope liberius, who owns communion with leading arians
and is therefore reinstated at rome.
*cyril of jerusalem becomes very influential about now.
he had been consecrated in 351, and was reputed a great saint,
although he disliked the word homo-ousion.
*semi arians ask for a general council,
but it is decided to hold a western council at ariminum and an eastern council at seleucia.
*hillary writes 'on the faith of the easterns',
an attempt to establish mutual concessions between catholics and semi arians.
*'the Dated Creed' prepared at court to be presented for acceptance at both councils.
it was generally catholic, but omitted all mention of ousia.
359 ariminum and seleucia before the dated creed arrived at ariminum,
the west had strongly declared for the nicene.
there were 320 catholics and 80 arians present and each side sent reports to court.
meanwhile at seleucia the Dedication (semi arian) creed was confirmed.
the catholic envoys to court were made to sign a Homaean Creed and take it back to ariminum
where the council first disowned it, but were subsequently coerced into it.
360 this is the lowest point touched by catholicism,
and the time at which jerome said, 'the world groaned and was astonished to find itself arian.'
*liberius refused to sign the new creed.
*a council at paris votes strongly for the Homo-ousion, and encourages a recovery of catholicism.
*meletius appointed bishop of antioch,
and in spite of semi arian antecedents takes a strong catholic position.
361-3 reign of julian the apostate. unsuccessful attempt to rebuild the temple.
all exiled bishops allowed by julian to return, in order to cause confusion in the church.
362 third return of athanasius.
*small council at alexandria, at which Hypostasis is understood
by some to mean Essence and by some Person.
much difficulty is removed and a great step made towards drawing parties together.
*julian at antioch discovers the faded reputation of the daphne.
*translation of the remains of st. babylas.
*julian tries to attack athanasius, "the despicable little mannikin'
*athanasius says the cloud will soon pass, and julian, though a young man, shortly after dies.
363 jovian, emperor for only a few months; a catholic who receives instruction in the faith from athanasius.
364 valentinian, emperor in west (catholic)
*valens, emperor in east (arian).
*hilary banished for his attack on auxentius, arian bishop of milan.
*the alexandrian council also had tried to deal with the schism at antioch;
with help of lucifer, who goes there to try and mend matters.
he finds the eustathians (strict catholics) in schism against meletius
and foolishly consecrates paulinus, their chief.
*rome supports paulinus, and excommunicates meletius.
370 athanasius very reluctantly follows rome and narrowly escapes a quarrel with basil,
who becomes bishop of caesarea in cappadocia from now to 379 and is a great friend of meletius.
371 great persecution of catholics by valens.
*rise about this time of the macedonian heresy, that the holy Ghost was created.
373 death of athanasius.
*basil in the east and ambrose in the west become now the principal church leaders.
the greatest in fact that the church had known since paul.
under him the power of the episcopate was thoroughly consolidated
and what is known as monarchical episcopacy,
in contrast to the presidential episcopacy attributed to earlier times,
became an established and permanent fact.
he was essentially an organizer and a statesman.
under him we find the church going forth as an organized body of active workers to relieve suffering.
from him we get an account of the diseased state of the body politic and of the attitude the church should take towards social questions.
by him the essential unity of the church was emphasized
and the importance of the sacramental system as a bond of that union.
(note: great, up to the last sentence...is not the person of Christ alone the bond between any two believers?)
thascius cyprianus was born probably about the beginning of the third century;
for he was certainly in advanced middle life, when, in 246, being at that time
a lawyer, man of property and cultivated gentleman of carthage,
he was converted to christianity by caecilianus, whose name he took at his baptism.
in the following year he was ordained priest,
and in the second of his christian life he became by popular acclamation
bishop or pope of carthage and so head of the great african church.
..the title of pope which was usually given to cyprian, rather than bishop, is not without interest.
in the early church the two titles were often interchangeable, pope giving the idea of Father in God.
it was found in many french sees;
at jerusalem, alexandria and elsewhere; generally, however, in important sees.
it is rather strange that it does not appear in the catacombs till about 300,
although it was evidently the formal mode of addressing cyprian in 250.
rome, therefore, was rather late in adopting the title,
and not till 1073 did gregoryVII forbid any other see to use it,
although about 400 the bishop of rome began to be known as THE pope.
early in 250 the storm of the decian persecution fell on the church throughout the empire.
nothing like it had been known before.
hitherto christianity had been unlawful, but emperors had generally discouraged
persecution or punishment where it could be legally avoided.
the persecutions were generally local,
and it is doubtful whether they came seriously under the notice of the emperors in most cases.
magistrates had been incited to punish by the populace;
now it was the magistrates that incited the mob.
for decius, in his desire to restore ancient rome and to follow out the ideal of trajan,
found that 'pagan society was in the meshes of a net,
whose steadily increasing strength and extent had baffled all attempts to destroy it'.
for the next 60 years, therefore, there is a 'fight to the finish'
between the organized forces of the empire and the Church,
instituted by the powers at rome and ending in 313 with the final triumph of the Church.
orders were now given everywhere to attack the bishops.
cyprian prudently retired from carthage and ruled his church from a distance,
preferring to choose his own time for martyrdom.
during the whole of this year there was no bishop of rome at all;
fabian was martyred in january and it was thought prudent to leave the see vacant.
the presbyters who temporarily governed the roman church wrote two simultaneous letters to cyprian;
one describing the death of fabian, which he warmly acknowledged;
the other hinting that cyprian would do well to follow his example;
which C in his reply trusted might be a forgery,
as it had neither authentication, nor address, nor style.
this gentle irony brought the roman clergy, with whom...'the aroma of infallibility lingered,
to a truer appreciation of cyprian's position.
at carthage, while many of the christians, the Stantes (?) or Standfasts, behaved splendidly,
endured both torture and martyrdom,
the numbers of the Lapsed were far greater than C had expected,
even among the clergy, most of whom deserted or lapsed;
one country bishop carrying most of his flock over to paganism.
but this principally happened during the initial panic.
the passion for martyrdom soon began to spread,
and alongside of it the heartbroken remorse of the Lapsed,
who had excommunicated themselves and sought restoration.
the Lapsed were divided into three classes:
the sacrificati, who had actually joined in the pagan sacrifices
the thurificati, who had thrown incense on the altar
the Libellatici, who had received certificates,
or Libelli of paganism.
the word libellus sometimes referred to the certifying document received
and sometimes to the written statement they presented. it came to the same thing.
but there was another libellus, the libellus pacis, which caused great trouble.
a custom arose, comparatively innocent at first, for the martyrs and confessors
to give a letter, or libellus pacis, to a lapsed friend,
which he was to take to the bishop, entreating restoration on their intercession
and through the merit of their martyrdom or confession.
this rapidly grew into a right to absolve the lapsed,
and eventuated in a general absolution by those in prison of all the Lapsed outside.
the result, of course, was the complete dissolution of discipline.
the statesmanship of cyprian was pre eminently displayed in the way he dealt with this difficulty in
the first three councils of carthage.
but from this custom dates, in history at any rate, the whole roman catholic theory of
superfluous Merit, Supererogation and Indulgences;
the Treasury of the Merits of the Saints, which the church on earth can apply.
in a modified form the practice had existed in tertullian's time but it is only from now
that it becomes a serious question.
in the early part of 251 decius left rome to fight the goths,
and the persecution almost ceased in carthage.
cyprian returned and a number of bishops assembled at carthage to hold a council.
the romans also ventured to elect a bishop, cornelius;
a man of gentle character, inclined to forgiveness and therefore too mild for the puritan party of rome,
who considered apostasy a crime that men could never absolve.
the persecution of decius soon passed away and from 253-60 valerian was on the throne.
at first he acted with much toleration, but later he was induced to change his policy.
the decian attack on the bishops had been found fruitless.
either the bishops disappeared as missionaries to another field
or they actively governed their dioceses from hiding places;
or, if they were killed, fresh bishops immediately took their place.
in 258 therefore, orders were issued for the destruction of all the clergy;
and it was in this persecution that cyprian fell.
in the previous year he had been exiled to curubis, a town about 50 miles away.
here he had a dream of martyrdom, in which he foresaw the manner in which it was to take place
and which therefore he regarded as an intimation that his time was come.
a year after he had gone into exile a new proconsul, galerius, sent for him;
but being ill at utica, told him to remain in his own house at carthage.
shortly afterwards he ordered him to come to utica;
but C, determined to die among his own people, disappeared.
so soon as galerius reappeared in carthage, cyprian was at home again.
after a short trial, he was condemned to be beheaded.
..he is the only latin Father really recognized by the east;
and he is the only saint commemorated in the roman mass by name,
who was neither a member of the roman church nor martyred at rome.
and this is the more wonderful, because apparently he died excommunicated by rome.
as cyprian is the last great Father before the close of the period of persecution,
it will be useful to give here a short summary of the remaining persecutions.
gallienus (260-8) in effect, though not formally, made christianity a lawful religion.
aurelian (270-5) not only left christians alone, but decided a lawsuit about church property in their favour.
he was, however, on the point of initiating a new persecution when he was murdered.
diocletian (284-305), like his predecessors, decius and trajan, made a grand attempt to restore old rome
by a reconstitution of the empire and therefore desired a national religion.
he was naturally averse from bloodshed, but persecution became necessary to his plan.
at the feast of the terminalia in 303, a concerted attempt was made to destroy all churches,
and especially all copies of the scripture.
those who gave up copies were called Traditores, and at this time many old and independent manuscripts
were lost.
all clergy were to be imprisoned and held as hostages.
at last came an edict that chirstians were everywhere to be exterminated unless they sacrificed,
and christian virgins sent to houses of ill fame.
this was probably the most terrible period of all and known as the tenth wave.
but it was the last that counted.
in 311 galerius issued a curious edict of toleration.
christians were reviled as obstinate diddenters;
but persecution having failed, they were to be tolerated, if they did not break the discipline
and would pray for the imperial house.
in 312 and 313 came at last the edicts of constantine for universal toleration of all religions.
chronological sketch from 313-373
314 edict of milan. toleration of all creeds by constantine and his brother in law, licinius, emperors.
319 arius, priest of the bacaulis church in alexandria, begins preaching that the Lon is not eternal but created
320 arius, secundus (bishop) and theonas (bishop)
and 12 clergy excommunicated by a synod at alexandria.
*arius, retires to palestine and enlists the sympathy of many eastern bishops.
*rise of athanasius as deacon of bishop alexander of alexandria.
*within a few years the whole east is infected with arianism.
*alexandria the home of orthodoxy
*constantine, under influence of eusebius of nicomedian
writes a vexed letter to alexander that the church was rent over a foolish question
and finally consents to a council of the whole church.
324 toleration of all creeds enforced, by pagans are strongly advised by the emperor to adopt christianity.
325 the council of nicaea establishment of the catholic creed
and the HOMO-OUSION ('being of the same substance or essence with the Father.
*secundus, theonas and arius exiled.
326 constantine summons arius to argue before him.
death of alexander
athanasius, bishop (archbishop?) of alexandria
329 eusebius of nicomedia in court favour, a decided arian.
*growth of semi-arian party under eusebius of caesarea who hold the Homo-ousion (of like substance.).
and arian synod at antioch slanders eustathius, the catholic bishop, at court and he is deposed.
*split of the church of antioch.
331 arius returns to alexandria.
*athanasius rejects him.
*all sorts of trumpery (something without use or value) charges raised against athanasius
-that he had taxed the egyptian to provide linen vestments
-that he had sent a box of gold to a rebel
-that he had broken the chalice and spit the elements of an arian eucharist
-that he had murdered arsenius, a monk , and used his dead hand for magic, etc.
*he is summoned to court and all charges refuted.
*eusebius of nicomedia demands a council, which is held at tyre
at which athanasius produces arsenius with both hands on.
*a commission appointed which collects evidence in egypt from jews, pagans and catechumens.
evidence of catholics not accepted.
*athanasius stops the cavalcade of constantine in constantinople and demands justice.
the council at tyre condemns athanasius on the evidence of the commission.
333..all charges against athanasius dropped and a new one raised,
that he had tried to stop the corn ships.
335 constantine in despair sends athanasius to treves.
335-8 arius at constantinople.
*bishop alexander refuses him communion
*arius threatens to enforce it
*alexander prays that either arius or himself may die, rather than this happen.
*arius dies suddenly on his way to church.
*death of alexander in 336
*his catholic successor, paul, deposed and an arian appointed.
*the east generally is now arian: the west, catholic
337 death of constantine
338 first return of athanasius
*athanasius accused of appropriating charities
*protest against his resuming his see after being deposed by the recent council
*he appeals to bishop julius of rome.
*eusebius of nicomedia bishop of constantinople
340 gregory (arian) intruded into see of alexandria by the state with a guard of soldiers.
*riot and persecution of catholics
*athanasius goes to rome with two monks. (first monk there)
*death of eusebius of caesarea
341 julius invites the arians to a council at rome.
*after making all sorts of excuses, especially that christianity started in the east and not rome,
they hold a council of their own at antioch...the dedication council
this was semi arian, but was called by st. hilary of poitiers a synod of holy men
and its canons are still respected in the east.
-it confirmed the deposition of athanasius on the basis of the 28th apostolic canon,
which was afterwards used against chrysostom.
-it also issued a creed based on that of lucian of antioch, generally catholic, but refusing the word
Homo-ousion.
-the trinity three in person, one in concord.
*julius calls a council of 50 westerns, who acquit athanasius
342 constans now rules in the west alone.
*death of eusebius of nicomedia.
*semi arians present a creed to constans, which condemns the arian postition:
'there was a TIME when He was not. (ie. it was before time.
*creed rejected.
343 athanasius retires from rome to milan.
*the council of sardica. 170 bishops with a small western majority came.
-easterns refuse to act with them and adjourn to philippopolis,
where they hold one of their own, which the call 'of sardica'.
*the west refuses to alter or add to the nicene creed.
344 much eastern persecution of catholics
scandalous treachery of stephen, arian bishop of antioch, who is deposed.
*this, followed by western deputation to constantius, supported by constans,
causes former to recall athanasius.
346 second return of athanasius, followed by his 10 years of 'deep and wondrous peace'.
350 death of constans. constantius, after a struggle with magnentius, becomes sole emperor.
-under his influence, the west and even italy, is infected with arianism:
and from this point there is a steady fall in the catholic fortunes for 10 years.
paul of constantinople exiled for second time, and constantinople the stronghold of arianism for 30 years.
352 liverius pope
353 athanasius sends envoys to the emperor, who refuses to receive them and orders him to milan.
*councils of the westerns at arles. nearly all the west gives up athanasius
on condition that the east abandons its heresy, which condition entirely fails.
*liberius in disgust disowns the council and calls for another.
*eusebius of vercellae and lucifer of cagliari in sardinia become the two strongest supporters of orthodoxy.
355 council at milan (300 westerns and a few easterns)
-in spite of a bold stand by a small minority against the emperor,
the council condemns athanasius and agrees to communion with arians.
*lucifer, eusebius of vercellae and dionysius of milan exiled.
*hillary, for calling it 'a synagogue of malignants' is scourged.
*general persecution.
*liberius and hosius exiled.
*felix, anti pope
*hilary writes his first book to constantius, being a defence of religious freedom of opinion.
356 an arian council at beziers refuses to hear him and he is banished to phrygian
where he writes his book on the trinity.
*state officials attack church of theonas at alexandria during service.
*athanasius, smuggled away by the monks, escapes to the egyptian monasteries,
where he writes the arian history and the discourses against the arians.
*george intruded in his place.
*persecution of catholics.
357 council of sirmium (called the third).
*the blasphemia creed
'subjection of the Son in common with all the things which the Father hath made subject to Himself.'
358 fall of pope liberius, who owns communion with leading arians
and is therefore reinstated at rome.
*cyril of jerusalem becomes very influential about now.
he had been consecrated in 351, and was reputed a great saint,
although he disliked the word homo-ousion.
*semi arians ask for a general council,
but it is decided to hold a western council at ariminum and an eastern council at seleucia.
*hillary writes 'on the faith of the easterns',
an attempt to establish mutual concessions between catholics and semi arians.
*'the Dated Creed' prepared at court to be presented for acceptance at both councils.
it was generally catholic, but omitted all mention of ousia.
359 ariminum and seleucia before the dated creed arrived at ariminum,
the west had strongly declared for the nicene.
there were 320 catholics and 80 arians present and each side sent reports to court.
meanwhile at seleucia the Dedication (semi arian) creed was confirmed.
the catholic envoys to court were made to sign a Homaean Creed and take it back to ariminum
where the council first disowned it, but were subsequently coerced into it.
360 this is the lowest point touched by catholicism,
and the time at which jerome said, 'the world groaned and was astonished to find itself arian.'
*liberius refused to sign the new creed.
*a council at paris votes strongly for the Homo-ousion, and encourages a recovery of catholicism.
*meletius appointed bishop of antioch,
and in spite of semi arian antecedents takes a strong catholic position.
361-3 reign of julian the apostate. unsuccessful attempt to rebuild the temple.
all exiled bishops allowed by julian to return, in order to cause confusion in the church.
362 third return of athanasius.
*small council at alexandria, at which Hypostasis is understood
by some to mean Essence and by some Person.
much difficulty is removed and a great step made towards drawing parties together.
*julian at antioch discovers the faded reputation of the daphne.
*translation of the remains of st. babylas.
*julian tries to attack athanasius, "the despicable little mannikin'
*athanasius says the cloud will soon pass, and julian, though a young man, shortly after dies.
363 jovian, emperor for only a few months; a catholic who receives instruction in the faith from athanasius.
364 valentinian, emperor in west (catholic)
*valens, emperor in east (arian).
*hilary banished for his attack on auxentius, arian bishop of milan.
*the alexandrian council also had tried to deal with the schism at antioch;
with help of lucifer, who goes there to try and mend matters.
he finds the eustathians (strict catholics) in schism against meletius
and foolishly consecrates paulinus, their chief.
*rome supports paulinus, and excommunicates meletius.
370 athanasius very reluctantly follows rome and narrowly escapes a quarrel with basil,
who becomes bishop of caesarea in cappadocia from now to 379 and is a great friend of meletius.
371 great persecution of catholics by valens.
*rise about this time of the macedonian heresy, that the holy Ghost was created.
373 death of athanasius.
*basil in the east and ambrose in the west become now the principal church leaders.
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