History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0132/01324.txt

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Title:       First Nicene Council: Rise And Decline Of Arianism
Book:        By Johann Lorenz Von Mosheim
Author:      Von Mosheim, Johann Lorenz

By Johann Lorenz Von Mosheim

A.D. 325

Introduction

     Controversies in the Christian Church concerning the mystery of the
Trinity began in the second century, prior to which the word trinity - a term
not found in the Scriptures - had scarcely been used in Christian writings.
It was prominently introduced by theologians of the second century, who
employed new metaphysical methods in their attempts to explain the divine
nature.  The dispute turned upon the questions whether Christ was God or man
or an intermediate being, whether or not he was created, and like inquiries.
Arius, a deacon of Alexandria, early in the fourth century, held that Christ
was a created being, though superior to all other created beings.  The Son,
he maintained, is of a nature similar to - not the same as - that of the
Father, to whom the Son is subordinate.  This heresy obtained such currency
in the Church that, in 321, a provincial synod at Alexandria excommunicated
Arius, who in his learned writings had set them forth since 318.  Once
started among the people, the controversy begun in the schools became very
bitter, and in many of the churches partisans of the heretical view equalled
in number those of the orthodox.  Meanwhile Arius continued to publish his
doctrines.

     The emperor Constantine, having become the patron of Christianity,
conceived that the controversy might be settled by an assembly of the whole
Church, and in the year 325 he convoked the first council of Nicaea, which
was also the first ecumenical or general council.  At this council, before
which Arius defended his views, over three hundred bishops were in
attendance, and pronounced in favor of the orthodox doctrine - that of the
equality of the Son with the Father - and condemned the Arians to exile and
their books to be burned.  This council also promulgated the Nicene Creed in
its early form.  The chief opponent of the Arians was Athanasius, the "Father
of Orthodoxy," whose name was given to a modified creed later adopted into
the Greek, Roman, and English services.  The Arian heresy, however, continued
to spread in the East, and had the strong support of Constantine and his son
Constantius.  The controversy was renewed again and again, and for a long
time Arianism was an important factor in theological and political affairs.
Some phases of its peculiar doctrine have reappeared in various teachings and
sects of modern times.  But the orthodox doctrine affirmed at Nicaea has
prevailed in the great branches of the Christian Church, and the acceptance
of its fundamental principle - that of the Incarnation - in the
post-apostolic age was destined to have an incalculable influence upon the
development of individual and national life, civil as well as religious,
throughout the world.

     In the year 317 a storm arose in Egypt which spread its ravages over the
whole Christian world.  The ground of this controversy was the doctrine of
three persons in the Godhead, which during the three preceding centuries had
not been in all respects defined.  The doctors explained this subject in
different ways, and gave various representations of the difference between
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, without offence being taken.

     Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria - it is uncertain on what
occasion - expressed himself very freely on this subject in a meeting of
hispresbyters, and maintained, among other things, that the Son possesses not
only the same dignity as the Father, but also the same essence.  But Arius,
one of the presbyters, a man of an acute mind and fluent, at first denied the
truth of Alexander's positions, on the ground that they were allied to the
Sabellian errors, which were condemned by the Church; and then, going to the
opposite extreme, he maintained that the Son is totally and essentially
distinct from the Father; that he was only the first and noblest of those
created beings whom God the Father formed out of nothing, and the instrument
which the Father used in creating the material universe, and therefore that
he was inferior to the Father both in nature and in dignity.  No one of the
ancients has left us a connected and systematic account of the religion
professed by Arius and his associates.

     The opinions of Arius were no sooner divulged than they found very many
abettors, and among them men of distinguished talents and rank, both in Egypt
and the neighboring provinces.  Alexander, on the other hand, accused Arius
of blasphemy before two councils assembled at Alexandria, and cast him out of
the Church.  He was not discouraged by this disgrace; but retiring to
Palestine he wrote various letters to men of distinction, in which he labored
to demonstrate the truth of his doctrines, and with so much success that he
drew over immense numbers to his side, and in particular Eusebius, bishop of
Nicomedia, who was a man of vast influence.  The emperor Constantine, who
considered the discussion as relating to a matter of little importance and
remote from the  fundamentals of religion, at first addressed the disputants
by letter, admonishing them to desist from contention.  But when he found
that nothing was effected by this measure, and that greater commotion was
daily rising throughout the empire, he in the year 325 summoned that famous
council of the whole Church which met at Nice in Bithynia, to put an end to
this controversy.  In this council, after various altercations and conflicts
of the bishops, the doctrine of Arius was condemned, Christ was pronounced to
be of the same essence with the Father, Arius was sent into exile in
Illyricum, and his followers were compelled to assent to a creed or
confession of faith composed by the council.

     No part of church history, perhaps, has acquired more celebrity than
this assembly of bishops at Nice to settle the affairs of the Church; and yet
it is very singular that scarcely any part of ecclesiastical history has been
investigated and explained more negligently.  The ancient writers are not
agreed as to the time and year, nor the place, nor the number of the judges,
nor the president of this council, nor as to many other particulars.  No
written journal of the proceedings of this venerable tribunal was kept - at
least none has reached us.  How many and what canons or ecclesiastical laws
were enacted is not agreed on by the Eastern and Western Christians.  The
latter tell us they were only twenty in number, but the orientals make them
far more numerous.  From the canons universally received, and from the other
monuments of the council, it appears not only that Arius was condemned, but
that other things were decreed, with a view to settle the affairs of the
Church.  In particular, the controversy respecting the time of celebrating
Easter, which had long perplexed Christians, was terminated; the jurisdiction
of the greater bishops was defined, and several other matters of a like
nature were determined.

     But the passions of men were more efficient than either the decrees of
the Nicene Council or the authority of the Emperor; for there were those who,
though they did not fall in with the doctrine of Arius, yet were dissatisfied
with some things in the decrees and the creed of the council, and the Arians
left no means untried to free themselves from the evils inflicted on them by
those decrees.  And the issue was favorable to their wishes; for in a few
years after the Nicene Council an Arian presbyter whom Constantia, the
Emperor's sister, at her death had recommended to the care of her brother,
succeeded in persuading Constantine the Great that Arius had been wrongfully
condemned from personal enmity.  Accordingly, in the year 330, the Emperor
recalled Arius from exile, rescinded the decrees passed against his
associates and friends, and permitted Eusebius of Nicomedia, the principal
supporter of Arius, and his powerful faction, now thirsting for revenge, to
persecute the defenders of the Nicene Council.  They assailed no one more
fiercely than Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria.  When he could in no way
be brought to restore Arius to his former honors and ecclesiastical standing,
Athanasius was first deprived of his office, in a council held at Tyre, A.D.
335, and then banished to Gaul, while in the same year, by a numerous council
held at Jerusalem, Arius and his friends were solemnly admitted to the
communion of the Church.  But by none of these proceedings could the
Alexandrians be induced to receive Arius among their presbyters.  Accordingly
the Emperor called him to Constantinople, in the year 336, and ordered
Alexander, the bishop of the city, to open the doors of his church to him.
But before that could take place Arius died at Constantinople in a tragical
manner; ^1 and the Emperor himself closed life shortly after.

[Footnote 1: Some of the old writers declared that Arius died by the falling
out of his bowels, as if by a miracle.  The matter became a subject of much
controversy.  Mosheim thinks it most probable that Arius was poisoned by his
enemies.  Most recorders of the present day are content to say simply that
"he died suddenly."]

     After the death of Constantine the Great, one of his sons, Constantius,
the Emperor of the East, with his wife and his court, was very partial to the
Arian cause, but Constantine and Constans supported in the western parts,
where they governed, the decisions of the Nicene Council.  Hence the broils,
the commotions, the plots, the injuries had neither measure nor bounds, and
on both sides councils were assembled to oppose councils.  Constans died in
the year 350, and two years afterward a great part of the West, particularly
Italy and Rome, came under the dominion of his brother Constantius.  This
revolution was most disastrous to the friends of the Nicene Council; for this
Emperor, being devoted to the Arians, involved the others in numerous evils
and calamities, and by threats and punishments compelled many of them to
apostatize to that sect to which he was himself attached.  The Nicene party
made no hesitation to return the same treatment as soon as time, place, and
opportunity were afforded them, and the history of Christianity under
Constantius presents the picture of a most stormy period, and of a war among
brethren which was carried on without religion or justice or humanity.

     On the death of Constantius, in the year 362, the prosperous days of the
Arians were at an end.  Julian had no partiality for either, and therefore
patronized neither the Arians nor the orthodox.  Jovian espoused the orthodox
sentiments, and therefore all the West, with no small part of the East,
rejecting Arian views, reverted to the doctrines of the Nicene Council.  But
the scene was changed under the two brothers Valentinian and Valens, who were
advanced to the government of the Empire in the year 364.  Valentinian
adhered to the decisions at Nice, and therefore in the West the Arian sect, a
few churches excepted, was wholly extirpated.  Valens, on the contrary, took
sides with the Arians, and hence in the eastern provinces many calamities
befell the orthodox.  But when this Emperor had fallen in a war with the
Goths, A.D. 378, Gratian - who succeeded Valentinian in the West, in the year
376, and became master of the whole empire in 378 - restored peace to the
orthodox.  After him Theodosius the Great, by depriving the Arians of all
their churches and enacting severe laws against them, caused the decisions of
the Nicene Council to triumph everywhere, and none could any longer publicly
profess Arian doctrines except among the barbarous nations, the Goths, the
Vandals, and the Burgundians.  That there were great faults on both sides in
this long and violent contest no candid person can deny, but which party was
guilty of the greatest wrong it is difficult to say.

     The Arians would have done much more harm to the Church if they had not
become divided among themselves, after the Nicene Council, and split into
sects which could not endure each other.  Unhappily the Arian contests
produced, as was very natural, some new sects.  Some persons, while eager to
avoid and to confute the opinions of Arius, fell into opinions equally
dangerous.  Others, after treading in the footsteps of Arius, ventured on far
beyond him and became still greater errorists.  The human mind, weak and
subject to the control of the senses and the imagination, seldom exerts all
its energies to comprehend divine subjects in such a manner as to be duly
guarded against extremes.  In the former class I would reckon Apollinaris the
Younger, bishop of Laodicea, though otherwise a man of great merit, and one
who in various ways rendered important service to the Church.  He manfully
asserted the divinity of Christ against the Arians, but by philosophizing too
freely and too eagerly he almost set aside the human nature of the Saviour.
This great man was led astray, not merely by the ardor of debate, but
likewise by his immoderate attachment to the Platonic doctrine concerning a
twofold soul, from which if the devines of the age had been free they would
have formed more wise and more correct judgments on many points.  The
doctrine of Apollinaris met the approbation of many in nearly all the eastern
provinces, and, being explained in different ways, it became a source of new
sects.  But as it was assailed by the laws of the emperors, the decrees of
councils, and the writings of learned men, it gradually sunk under these
united assaults.

     At the head of those whom the contests with Arius led into still greater
errors may undoubtedly be placed Photinus, bishop of Sirmium, who in the year
343 advanced opinions concerning God equally remote from those of the
orthodox and those of the Arians.  The temerity of the man was chastened not
only by the orthodox, in their councils of Antioch in 345, of Milan in 347,
and of Sirmium, but also by the Arians in a council held at Sirmium in 351.
He was deprived of his office, and died in exile in the year 372.  After him
Macedonius, bishop of Constantinople, a distinguished semi-Arian teacher,
being deprived of his office by the Council of Constantinople, in the year
360, in his exile founded the sect of the Pneumatomachi.  He openly professed
that the Holy Spirit is a divine energy diffused throughout the universe, and
not a person distinct from the Father and the Son.  This doctrine was
embraced by many in the Asiatic provinces; but the Council of Constantinople,
assembled by Theodosius the Great, in the year 381, and which is commonly
considered as the second ecumenical council, early dissipated by its
authority this young and immature sect.  One hundred and fifty bishops
present in this council defined fully and perfectly the doctrine of three
persons and one God, as it is still professed by the great body of
Christians, which the Nicene Council had only in part performed.  They also
anathematized all the heresies then known.

     In the fifth century the Arians, oppressed and persecuted by the
imperial edicts, took refuge among those barbarous nations who gradually
overturned the Roman Empire in the West, and found among the Goths, Heruli,
Suevi, Vandals, and Burgundians a fixed residence and a quiet retreat.  Being
now safe, they treated the orthodox with the same violence which the orthodox
had employed against them and other heretics, and had no hesitation about
persecuting the adherents to the Nicene doctrines in a variety of ways.  The
Vandals, who had established their kingdom in Africa, surpassed all the rest
in cruelty and injustice.  At first Genseric, their king, and then Huneric,
his son, demolished the temples of such Christians as maintained the divinity
of the Saviour, sent their bishops into exile, mutilated many of the more
firm and decided, and tortured them in various ways; and they expressly
stated that they were authorized to do so by the example of the emperors, who
had enacted similar laws against the Donatists in Africa, the Arians, and
others who dissented from them in religion.

     At the beginning of the sixth century the Arians were triumphant in some
parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe.  Not a few of the Asiatic bishops favored
them.  The Vandals in Africa, the Goths in Italy, many of the Gauls, the
Suevi, the Burgundians, and the Spaniards openly espoused their interests.
The Greeks indeed, who approved of the Nicene Council, oppressed and also
punished them wherever they were able; but the Arians returned the like
treatment, especially in Africa and Italy.  Yet this prosperity of the Arians
wholly terminated when, under the auspices of Justinian, the Vandals were
driven from Africa and the Goths from Italy.  For the other Arian kings,
Sigismund, king of the Burgundians, Theodimir, king of the Suevi in
Lusitania, and Receared, king of Spain, without violence and war, suffered
themselves to be led to a renunciation of the Arian doctrine, and to efforts
for its extirpation among their subjects by means of legal enactments and
councils.  Whether reason and arguments or hope and fear had the greater
influence in the conversion of these kings, it is difficult to say; but it is
certain that the Arian sect was from this time dispersed and could never
after recover any strength.