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)
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