_THE EUSEBIAN REACTION._
[Sidenote: The problem stated.]
At first sight the reaction which followed the Nicene council is one of
the strangest scenes in history. The decision was clear and all but
unanimous. Arianism seemed crushed for ever by the universal reprobation
of the Christian world. Yet it instantly renewed the contest, and fought
its conquerors on equal terms for more than half a century. A reaction
like this is plainly more than a court intrigue. Imperial favour could
do a good deal in the Nicene age, but no emperor could long oppose any
clear and definite belief of Christendom. Nothing could be plainer than
the issue of the council. How then could Arianism venture to renew the
contest?
[Sidenote: The reaction rather conservative than Arian.]
The answer is, that though the belief of the churches was certainly not
Arian, neither was it yet definitely Nicene. The dominant feeling both
in East and West was one of dislike to change, which we may conveniently
call conservatism. But here there was a difference. Heresies in the East
had always gathered round the person of the Lord, and more than one had
already partly occupied the ground of Arianism. Thus Eastern
conservatism inherited a doctrine from the last generation, and was
inclined to look on the Nicene decisions as questionable innovations.
The Westerns thought otherwise. Leaning on authority as they habitually
did, they cared little to discuss for themselves an unfamiliar question.
They could not even translate its technical terms into Latin without
many misunderstandings. Therefore Western conservatism simply fell back
on the august decisions of Nicæa. No later meeting could presume to
rival 'the great and holy council' where Christendom had once for all
pronounced the condemnation of Arianism. In short, East and West were
alike conservative; but while conservatism in the East went behind the
council, in the West it was content to start from it.
[Sidenote: Supported by influence of: (1.) Heathens.]
The Eastern reaction was therefore in its essence not Arian but
conservative. Its leaders might be conservatives like Eusebius of
Cæsarea, or court politicians like his successor, Acacius. They were
never open Arians till 357. The front and strength of the party was
conservative, and the Arians at its tail were in themselves only a
source of weakness. Yet they could enlist powerful allies in the cause
of reaction. Heathenism was still a living power in the world. It was
strong in numbers even in the East, and even stronger in the imposing
memories of history. Christianity was still an upstart on Cæsar's
throne. The favour of the gods had built up the Empire, and men's hearts
misgave them that their wrath might overthrow it. Heathenism was still
an established religion, the Emperor still its official head. Old Rome
was still devoted to her ancient deities, her nobles still recorded
their priesthoods and augurships among their proudest honours, and the
Senate itself still opened every sitting with an offering of incense on
the altar of Victory. The public service was largely heathen, and the
army too, especially its growing cohorts of barbarian auxiliaries.
Education also was mostly heathen, turning on heathen classics and
taught by heathen rhetoricians. Libanius, the teacher of Chrysostom, was
also the honoured friend of Julian. Philosophy too was a great
influence, now that it had leagued together all the failing powers of
the ancient world against a rival not of this world. Its weakness as a
moral force must not blind us to its charm for the imagination.
Neoplatonism brought Egypt to the aid of Greece, and drew on
Christianity itself for help. The secrets of philosophy were set forth
in the mysteries of Eastern superstition. From the dim background of a
noble monotheism the ancient gods came forth to represent on earth a
majesty above their own. No waverer could face the terrors of that
mighty gathering of infernal powers. And the Nicene age was a time of
unsettlement and change, of half-beliefs and wavering superstition, of
weakness and unclean frivolity. Above all, society was heathen to an
extent we can hardly realise. The two religions were strangely mixed.
The heathens on their side never quite understood the idea of
worshipping one God only; while crowds of nominal Christians never asked
for baptism unless a dangerous illness or an earthquake scared them, and
thought it quite enough to show their faces in church once or twice a
year. Meanwhile, they lived just like the heathens round them, steeped
in superstitions like their neighbours, attending freely their immoral
games and dances, and sharing in the sins connected with them. Thus
Arianism had many affinities with heathenism, in its philosophical idea
of the Supreme, in its worship of a demigod of the vulgar type, in its
rhetorical methods, and in its generally lower moral tone. Heathen
influences therefore strongly supported Arianism.
[Sidenote: (2.) Jews.]
The Jews also usually took the Arian side. They were still a power in
the world, though it was long since Israel had challenged Rome to
seventy years of internecine contest for the dominion of the East. But
they had never forgiven her the destruction of Jehovah's temple.
[Sidenote: A.D. 66-135.] Half overcome themselves by the spell of the
eternal Empire, they still looked vaguely for some Eastern deliverer to
break her impious yoke. Still more fiercely they resented her adoption
of the gospel, which indeed was no tidings of good-will or peace to
them, but the opening of a thousand years of persecution. Thus they were
a sort of caricature of the Christian churches. They made every land
their own, yet were aliens in all. They lived subject to the laws of the
Empire, yet gathered into corporations governed by their own. They were
citizens of Rome, yet strangers to her imperial comprehensiveness. In a
word, they were like a spirit in the body, but a spirit of uncleanness
and of sordid gain. If they hated the Gentile, they could love his vices
notwithstanding. If the old missionary zeal of Israel was extinct, they
could still purvey impostures for the world. Jewish superstitions were
the plague of distant Spain, the despair of Chrysostom at Antioch. Thus
the lower moral tone of Arianism and especially its denial of the Lord's
divinity were enough to secure it a fair amount of Jewish support as
against the Nicenes. At Alexandria, for example, the Jews were always
ready for lawless outrage at the call of every enemy of Athanasius.
[Sidenote: (3.) The court.]
The court also leaned to Arianism. The genuine Arians, to do them
justice, were not more pliant to imperial dictation than the Nicenes,
but the genuine Arians were only one section of a motley coalition.
Their conservative patrons and allies were laid open to court influence
by their dread of Sabellianism; for conservatism is the natural home of
the impatient timidity which looks round at every difficulty for a
saviour of society, and would fain turn the whole work of government
into a crusade against a series of scarecrows. Thus when Constantius
turned against them, their chiefs were found wanting in the self-respect
which kept both Nicene and Arian leaders from condescending to a battle
of intrigue with such masters of the art as flourished in the palace.
But for thirty years the intriguers found it their interest to profess
conservatism. The court was as full of selfish cabals as that of the old
French monarchy. Behind the glittering ceremonial on which the treasures
of the world were squandered fought armies of place-hunters great and
small, cooks and barbers, women and eunuchs, courtiers and spies,
adventurers of every sort, for ever wresting the majesty of law to
private favour, for ever aiming new oppressions at the men on whom the
exactions of the Empire already fell with crushing weight. The noblest
bishops, the ablest generals, were their fairest prey; and we have no
surer witness to the greatness of Athanasius or Julian than the
pertinacious hatred of this odious horde. Intriguers of this kind found
it better to unsettle the Nicene decisions, on behalf of conservatism
forsooth, than to maintain them in the name of truth. There were many
ways of upsetting them, and each might lead to gain; only one of
defending them, and that was not attractive.
[Sidenote: (4.) Asia.]
Nor were Constantius and Valens without political reasons for their
support of Arianism. We can see by the light of later history that the
real centre of the Empire was the solid mass of Asia from the Bosphorus
to Mount Taurus, and that Constantinople was its outwork on the side of
Europe. In Rome on one side, Egypt and Syria on the other, we can
already trace the tendencies which led to their separation from the
orthodox Eastern Church and Empire. Now in the fourth century Asia was a
stronghold of conservatism. There was a good deal of Arianism in
Cappadocia, but we hear little of it in Asia. The group of Lucianists at
Nicæa left neither Arian nor Nicene successors. The ten provinces of
Asia 'verily knew not God' in Hilary's time; and even the later Nicene
doctrine of Cappadocia was almost as much Semiarian as Athanasian. Thus
Constantius and Valens pursued throughout an Asiatic policy, striking
with one hand at Egypt, with the other at Rome. Every change in their
action can be explained with reference to the changes of opinion in
Asia.
[Sidenote: Conclusion.]
Upon the whole, we may say that Arian hatred of the council would have
been powerless if it had not rested on a formidable mass of conservative
discontent, while the conservative discontent might have died away if
the court had not supplied it with the means of action. If the decision
lay with the majority, every initiative had to come from the court.
Hence the reaction went on as long as these were agreed against the
Nicene party; it was suspended as soon as Julian's policy turned another
way, became unreal when conservative alarm subsided, and finally
collapsed when Asia went over to the Nicene side.
[Sidenote: Sequel of the council.]
We may now return to the sequel of the great council. If Constantine
thought he had restored peace in the churches, he soon found out his
mistake. The literary war began again almost where his summons had
interrupted it. The creed was signed and done with and seemed forgotten.
The conservatives hardly cared to be reminded of their half unwilling
signatures. To Athanasius it may have been a watchword from the first,
but it was not so to many others. In the West it was as yet almost
unknown. Even Marcellus was more disposed to avoid all technical terms
than to lay stress on those which the council sanctioned. Yet all
parties had learned caution at Nicæa. Marcellus disavowed Sabellianism;
Eusebius avoided Arianism, and nobody seems to have disowned the creed
as long as Constantine lived.
[Sidenote: Athanasius bishop of Alexandria, A.D. 328.]
The next great change was at Alexandria. The bishop Alexander died in
the spring of 328, and a stormy election followed. Its details are
obscure, but the Nicene party put forward the deacon Athanasius, and
consecrated him in spite of a determined opposition from Arians and
Meletians. And now that we stand before the greatest of the Eastern
fathers, let us see how his character and training fitted him to be the
hero of the Arian controversy.
[Sidenote: Character of Athanasius.]
Athanasius was a Greek by birth and education, Greek also in subtle
thought and philosophic insight, in oratorical power and supple
statesmanship. Though born almost within the shadow of the mighty temple
of Serapis at Alexandria, he shows few signs of Coptic influence. Deep
as is his feeling of the mystery of revelation, he has no love of
mystery for its own sake, nothing of the Egyptian passion for things
awful and mysterious. Even his style is clear and simple, without a
trace of Egyptian involution and obscurity. We know nothing of his
family, and cannot even date his birth for certain, though it must have
been very near the year 297. He was, therefore, old enough to remember
the worst days of the great persecution, which Maximin Daza kept up in
Egypt as late as 313. Legend has of course been busy with his early
life. According to one story, Alexander found him with some other boys
at play, imitating the ceremonies of baptism--not a likely game for a
youth of sixteen. Another story makes him a disciple of the great hermit
Antony, who never existed. He may have been a lawyer for a time, but in
any case his training was neither Coptic nor monastic, but Greek and
scriptural, as became a scholar of Alexandria. There may be traces of
Latin in his writings, but his allusions to Greek literature are such as
leave no doubt that he had a liberal education. In his earliest works he
refers to Plato; in later years he quotes Homer, and models his notes on
Aristotle, his _Apology_ to Constantius on Demosthenes. To Egyptian
idolatry he seldom alludes. Scripture, however, is his chosen and
familiar study, and few commentators have ever shown a firmer grasp of
certain of its leading thoughts. He at least endeavoured (unlike the
Arian text-mongers) to take in the context of his quotations and the
general drift of Christian doctrine. Many errors of detail may be
pardoned to a writer who so seldom fails in suggestiveness and width of
view. In mere learning he was no match for Eusebius of Cæsarea, and even
as a thinker he has a worthy rival in Hilary of Poitiers, while some of
the Arian leaders were fully equal to him in political skill. But
Eusebius was no great thinker, Hilary no statesman, and the Arian
leaders were not men of truth. Athanasius, on the other hand, was
philosopher, statesman, and saint in one. Few great men have ever been
so free from littleness or weakness. At the age of twenty he had risen
far above the level of Arianism and Sabellianism, and throughout his
long career we catch glimpses of a spiritual depth which few of his
contemporaries could reach. Above all things, his life was consecrated
to a simple witness for truth. Athanasius is the hero of a mighty
struggle, and the secret of his grandeur is his intense and vivid faith
that the incarnation is a real revelation from the other world, and that
its issues are for life and death supreme in heaven and earth and hell
for evermore.
[Sidenote: Early years of his rule at Alexandria.]
Such a bishop was sure to meet a bitter opposition, and as sure to
overcome it. Egypt soon became a stronghold of the Nicene faith, for
Athanasius could sway the heart of Greek and Copt alike. The
pertinacious hatred of a few was balanced by the enthusiastic admiration
of the many. The Meletians dwindled fast, the Arians faster still.
Nothing but outside persecution was needed now to make Nicene orthodoxy
the national faith of Egypt.
[Sidenote: Beginnings of the reaction.]
It will be remembered that Eusebius of Nicomedia was exiled shortly
after the council. His disgrace was not a long one. He had powerful
friends at court, and it was not very hard for a man who had signed the
creed to satisfy the Emperor of his substantial orthodoxy. Constantine
was not unforgiving, and policy as well as easy temper forbade him to
scrutinize too closely the professions of submission laid before him.
Once restored to his former influence at court, Eusebius became the
centre of intrigue against the council. Old Lucianic friendships may
have led him on. Arius was a Lucianist like himself, and the Lucianists
had in vain defended him before the council. Eusebius was the ablest of
them, and had fared the worst. He had strained his conscience to sign
the creed, and his compliance had not even saved him from exile. We
cannot wonder if he brought back a firm determination to undo the
council's hateful work. If it was too dangerous to attack the creed
itself, its defenders might be got rid of one by one on various
pretexts. Such was the plan of operations.
[Sidenote: Formation of the Eusebian coalition.]
A party was easily formed. The Lucianists were its nucleus, and all
sorts of malcontents gathered round them. The Meletians of Egypt joined
the coalition, and the unclean creatures of the palace rejoiced to hear
of fresh intrigue. Above all, the conservatives gave extensive help. The
charges against the Nicene leaders were often more than plausible, for
men like the Cæsarean Eusebius dreaded Sabellianism, and Marcellus was
practically Sabellian, and the others aiders and abettors of his
misbelief. Some even of the darker charges may have had some ground, or
at least have seemed truer than they were. Thus Eusebius had a very
heterogeneous following, and it would be scant charity if we laid on all
of them the burden of their leader's infamy.
[Sidenote: Attacks on: (1.) Eustathius.]
They began with Eustathius of Antioch, an old confessor and a man of
eloquence, who enjoyed a great and lasting popularity in the city. He
was one of the foremost enemies of Arianism at Nicæa, and had since
waged an active literary war with the Arianizing clique in Syria. In one
respect they found him a specially dangerous enemy, for he saw clearly
the important consequences of the Arian denial of the Lord's true human
soul. Eustathius was therefore deposed (on obscure grounds) in 330, and
exiled with many of his clergy to Thrace. The vacant see was offered to
Eusebius of Cæsarea, and finally accepted by the Cappadocian Euphronius.
But party spirit ran high at Antioch. The removal of Eustathius nearly
caused a bloody riot, and his departure was followed by an open schism.
The Nicenes refused to recognise Euphronius, and held their meetings
apart, under the presbyter Paulinus, remaining without a bishop for more
than thirty years.
[Sidenote: (2.) Marcellus.]
The system was vigorously followed up. Ten of the Nicene leaders were
exiled in the next year or two. But Alexandria and Ancyra were the great
strongholds of the Nicene faith, and the Eusebians still had to expel
Marcellus and Athanasius. As Athanasius might have met a charge of
heresy with a dangerous retort, it was found necessary to take other
methods with him. Marcellus, however, was so far the foremost champion
of the council, and he had fairly exposed himself to a doctrinal attack.
Let us therefore glance at his theory of the incarnation.
[Sidenote: Character of Marcellus.]
Marcellus of Ancyra was already in middle life when he came forward as a
resolute enemy of Arianism at Nicæa. Nothing is known of his early years
and education, but we can see some things which influenced him later on.
Ancyra was a strange diocese, full of uncouth Gauls and chaffering Jews,
and overrun with Montanists and Manichees, and votaries of endless
fantastic heresies and superstitions. In the midst of this turmoil
Marcellus spent his life; and if he learned too much of the Galatian
party spirit, he learned also that the gospel is wider than the forms of
Greek philosophy. The speculations of Alexandrian theology were as
little appreciated by the Celts of Asia as is the stately churchmanship
of England by the Celts of Wales. They were the foreigner's thoughts,
too cold for Celtic zeal, too grand for Celtic narrowness. Fickleness is
not inconsistent with a true and deep religious instinct, and we may
find something austere and high behind the ever-changing phases of
spiritual excitement. Thus the ideal holiness of the church, upheld by
Montanists and Novatians, attracted kindred spirits at opposite ends of
the Empire, among the Moors of the Atlas and the Gauls of Asia. Such a
people will have sins and scandals like its neighbours, but very little
indifference or cynicism. It will be more inclined to make of Christian
liberty an excuse for strife and debate. The zeal which carries the
gospel to the loneliest mountain villages will also fill them with the
jealousies of endless quarrelling sects; and the Gaul of Asia clung to
his separatism with all the more tenacity for the consciousness that his
race was fast dissolving in the broader and better world of Greece. Thus
Marcellus was essentially a stranger to the wider movements of his time.
His system is an appeal from Origen to St. John, from philosophy to
Scripture. Nor can we doubt the high character and earnest zeal of the
man who for years stood side by side with Athanasius. The more
significant therefore is the failure of his bold attempt to cut the knot
of controversy.
[Sidenote: Doctrine of Marcellus.]
Marcellus then agreed with the Arians that the idea of sonship implies
beginning and inferiority, so that a Son of God is neither eternal nor
equal to the Father. When the Arians argued on both grounds that the
Lord is a creature, the conservatives were content to reply that the
idea of sonship excludes that of creation, and implies a peculiar
relation to and origin from the Father. But their own position was weak.
Whatever they might say, their secondary God was a second God, and their
theory of the eternal generation only led them into further
difficulties, for their concession of the Son's origin from the will of
the Father made the Arian conclusion irresistible. Marcellus looked
scornfully on a lame result like this. The conservatives had broken down
because they had gone astray after vain philosophy. Turn we then to
Scripture. 'In the beginning was,' not the Son, but the Word. It is no
secondary or accidental title which St. John throws to the front of his
Gospel, and repeats with deliberate emphasis three times over in the
first verse. Thus the Lord is properly the Word of God, and this must
govern the meaning of all such secondary names as the Son. Then he is
not only the silent thinking principle which remains with God, but also
the active creating power which comes forth too for the dispensation of
the world. In this Sabellianizing sense Marcellus accepted the Nicene
faith, holding that the Word is one with God as reason is one with man.
Thus he explained the Divine Sonship and other difficulties by limiting
them to the incarnation. The Word as such is pure spirit, and only
became the Son of God by becoming the Son of Man. It was only in virtue
of this humiliating separation from the Father that the Word acquired a
sort of independent personality. Thus the Lord was human certainly on
account of his descent into true created human flesh, and yet not merely
human, for the Word remained unchanged. Not for its own sake was the
Word incarnate, but merely for the conquest of Satan. 'The flesh
profiteth nothing,' and even the gift of immortality cannot make it
worthy of permanent union with the Word. God is higher than immortality
itself, and even the immortal angels cannot pass the gulf which parts
the creature from its Lord. That which is of the earth is useless for
the age to come. Hence the human nature must be laid aside when its work
is done and every hostile power overthrown. Then shall the Son of God
deliver up the kingdom to the Father, that the kingdom of God may have
no end; and then the Word shall return, and be for ever with the Father
as before.
[Sidenote: The conservative panic.]
A universal cry of horror rose from the conservative ranks to greet the
new Sabellius, the Jew and worse than Jew, the shameless miscreant who
had forsworn the Son of God. Marcellus had confused together all the
errors he could find. The faith itself was at peril if blasphemies like
these were to be sheltered behind the rash decisions of Nicæa. So
thought the conservatives, and not without a reason, though their panic
was undignified from the first, and became a positive calamity when
taken up by political adventurers for their own purposes. As far as
doctrine went, there was little to choose between Marcellus and Arius.
Each held firmly the central error of the conservatives, and rejected as
illogical the modifications and side views by which they were finding
their way to something better. Both parties, says Athanasius, are
equally inconsistent. The conservatives, who refuse eternal being to the
Son of God, will not endure to hear that his kingdom is other than
eternal; while the Marcellians, who deny his personality outright, are
equally shocked at the Arian limitation of it to the sphere of time. Nor
had Marcellus escaped the difficulties of Arius. If, for example, the
idea of an eternal Son is polytheistic, nothing is gained by
transferring the eternity to an impersonal Word. If the generation of
the Son is materializing, so also is the coming forth of the Word. If
the work of creation is unworthy of God, it may as well be delegated to
a created Son as to a transitory Word. So far Athanasius. Indeed, to
Marcellus the Son of God is a mere phenomenon of time, and even the Word
is as foreign to the divine essence as the Arian Son. If the one can
only reveal in finite measure, the other gives but broken hints of an
infinity beyond. Instead of destroying Arianism by the roots, Marcellus
had fallen into something very like Sabellianism. He reaches no true
mediation, no true union of God and man, for he makes the incarnation a
mere theophany, the flesh a useless burden, to be one day laid aside.
The Lord is our Redeemer and the conqueror of death and Satan, but there
is no room for a second Adam, the organic head of regenerate mankind.
The redemption becomes a mere intervention from without, not also the
planting of a power of life within, which will one day quicken our
mortal bodies too.
[Sidenote: (3.) Athanasius.]
Marcellus had fairly exposed himself to a doctrinal attack; other
methods were used with Athanasius. They had material enough without
touching doctrine. His election was disputed: Meletians and Arians
complained of oppression: there were some useful charges of magic and
political intrigue. At first, however, the Meletians could not even get
a hearing from the Emperor. When Eusebius of Nicomedia took up their
cause, they fared a little better. The attack had to be put off till the
winter of 331, and was even then a failure. Their charges were partly
answered by two presbyters of Athanasius who were on the spot; and when
the bishop himself was summoned to court, he soon completed their
discomfiture. As Constantine was now occupied with the Gothic war,
nothing more could be done till 334. When, however, Athanasius was
ordered to attend a council at Cæsarea, he treated it as a mere cabal of
his enemies, and refused to appear.
[Sidenote: The Council of Tyre (335).]
Next year the Eastern bishops gathered to Jerusalem to keep the festival
of the thirtieth year of Constantine's reign and to dedicate his
splendid church on Golgotha. But first it was a work of charity to
restore peace in Egypt. A synod of about 150 bishops was held at Tyre,
and this time the appearance of Athanasius was secured by peremptory
orders from the Emperor. The Eusebians had the upper hand, though there
was a strong minority. Athanasius brought nearly fifty bishops from
Egypt, and others, like Maximus of Jerusalem and Alexander of
Thessalonica, were willing to do justice. Athanasius was not accused of
heresy, but, with more plausibility, of episcopal tyranny. His friends
replied with reckless violence. Potammon aimed a bitter and unrighteous
taunt at Eusebius of Cæsarea. 'You and I were once in prison for the
faith. I lost an eye: how did you escape?' Athanasius might perhaps have
been crushed if his enemies had kept up a decent semblance of truth and
fairness. But nothing was further from their thoughts than an impartial
trial. Scandal succeeded scandal, till the iniquity culminated in the
dispatch of an openly partizan commission to superintend the manufacture
of evidence in Egypt. Maximus of Jerusalem and Paphnutius left the
council, saying that it was not good that old confessors like them
should share its evil deeds. The Egyptian bishops protested. Alexander
of Thessalonica denounced the plot to the Emperor's representative.
Athanasius himself took ship for Constantinople without waiting for the
end of the farce, and the council condemned him by default. This done,
the bishops went on to Jerusalem for the proper business of their
meeting.
[Sidenote: Assembly at Jerusalem.]
The concourse on Golgotha was a brilliant spectacle. Ten years had
passed since the still unrivalled assembly at Nicæa, and the veterans of
the last great persecution must have been deeply moved at their meeting
once again in this world. The stately ceremonial suited Maximus and
Eusebius much better than the noisy scene at Tyre, and may for the
moment have soothed the swelling indignation of Potammon and Paphnutius.
Constantine had once more plastered over the divisions of the churches
with a general reconciliation, but this time Athanasius was condemned
and Arius received to communion. The heretic had long since left his
exile in Illyricum, though we cannot fix the date of his recall.
However, one winter the Emperor invited Arius and his friend Euzoius to
Constantinople, where they laid before him a short and simple confession
of their faith. It said nothing of the disputed points, but was not
unorthodox as far as it went. Nor were they bishops, that the Nicene
creed should be forced upon them. Constantine was therefore satisfied,
and now directed them to lay it before the bishops at Jerusalem, who
duly approved of it and received its authors to communion. In order to
complete the work of peace, Athanasius was condemned afresh on the
return of the commission from Egypt, and proceedings were begun against
Marcellus of Ancyra.
[Sidenote: First exile of Athanasius.]
Meanwhile Constantine's dreams of peace were rudely dissipated by the
sudden appearance of Athanasius before him in the streets of
Constantinople. Whatever the bishops had done, they had plainly caused
dissensions just when the Emperor was most anxious for harmony. An angry
letter summoned the whole assembly straight to court. The meeting,
however, was most likely dispersed before its arrival; at any rate,
there came only a deputation of Eusebians. The result was unexpected.
Instead of attempting to defend the council of Tyre, Eusebius of
Nicomedia suddenly accused Athanasius of hindering the supply of corn
for the capital. This was quite a new charge, and chosen with much
skill. Athanasius was not allowed to defend himself, but summarily sent
away to Trier in Gaul, where he was honourably received by the younger
Constantine. On the other hand, the Emperor refused to let his place be
filled up at Alexandria, and exiled the Meletian leader, John Archaph,
'for causing divisions.' To Constantinople came also Marcellus. He had
kept away from the councils of Tyre and Jerusalem, and only came now to
invite the Emperor's decision on his book. Constantine referred it as
usual to the bishops, who promptly condemned it and deposed its author.
[Sidenote: Death of Arius.]
There remained only the formal restoration of Arius to communion at
Constantinople. But the heretic was taken ill suddenly, and died in the
midst of a procession the evening before the day appointed. His enemies
saw in his death a judgment from heaven, and likened it to that of
Judas. Only Athanasius relates it with reserve and dignity.
[Sidenote: Policy of Constantine.]
Upon the whole, Constantine had done his best for peace by leaving
matters in an uneasy suspense which satisfied neither party. This seems
the best explanation of his wavering. He had not turned Arian, for there
is no sign that he ever allowed the decisions of Nicæa to be openly
rejected inside the churches. Athanasius was not exiled for heresy, for
there was no question of heresy in the case. The quarrel was ostensibly
one of orthodox bishops, for Eusebius had signed the Nicene creed as
well as Athanasius. Constantine's action seems to have been determined
by Asiatic feeling. Had he believed the charge of delaying the
corn-ships, he would have executed Athanasius at once. His conduct does
not look like a real explosion of rage. The merits of the case were not
easy to find out, but the quarrel between Athanasius and the Asiatic
bishops was a nuisance, so he sent him out of the way as a troublesome
person. The Asiatics were not all of them either Arians or intriguers.
It was not always furtive sympathy with heresy which led them to regret
the heresiarch's expulsion for doctrines which he disavowed; neither was
it always partizanship which could not see the innocence of Athanasius.
Constantine's vacillation is natural if his policy was to seek for unity
by letting the bishops guide him.