_THE RESTORED HOMOEAN SUPREMACY._
[Sidenote: Effects of Julian's reign.]
Julian's reign seems at first sight no more than a sudden storm which
clears up and leaves everything much as it was before. Far from
restoring heathenism, he could not even seriously shake the power of
Christianity. No sooner was he dead than the philosophers disappeared,
the renegades did penance, and even the reptiles of the palace came back
to their accustomed haunts. Yet Julian's work was not in vain, for it
tested both heathenism and Christianity. All that Constantine had given
to the churches Julian could take away, but the living power of faith
was not at Cæsar's beck and call. Heathenism was strong in its
associations with Greek philosophy and culture, with Roman law and
social life, but as a moral force among the common people, its weakness
was contemptible. It could sway the wavering multitude with
superstitious fancies, and cast a subtler spell upon the noblest
Christian teachers, but its own adherents it could hardly lift above
their petty quest of pleasure. Julian called aloud, and called in vain.
A mocking echo was the only answer from that valley of dry bones.
Christianity, on the other side, had won the victory almost without a
blow. Instead of ever coming to grapple with its mighty rival, the great
catholic church of heathenism hardly reached the stage of apish mimicry.
When its great army turned out to be a crowd of camp-followers, the
alarm of battle died away in peals of defiant laughter. Yet the alarm
was real, and its teachings were not forgotten. It broke up the revels
of party strife, and partly roused the churches to the dangers of a
purely heathen education. Above all, the approach of danger was a sharp
reminder that our life is not of this world. They stood the test fairly
well. Renegades or fanatics were old scandals, and signs were not
wanting that the touch of persecution would wake the old heroic spirit
which had fought the Empire from the catacombs and overcome it.
[Sidenote: Jovian Emperor (June 27, 363).]
As Julian was the last survivor of the house of Constantine, his
lieutenants were free to choose the worthiest of their comrades. But
while his four barbarian generals were debating, one or two voices
suddenly hailed Jovian as Emperor. The cry was taken up, and in a few
moments the young officer found himself the successor of Augustus.
[Sidenote: Jovian's toleration.]
Jovian was a brilliant colonel of the guards. In all the army there was
not a goodlier person than he. Julian's purple was too small for his
gigantic limbs. But that stately form was animated by a spirit of
cowardly selfishness. Instead of pushing on with Julian's brave retreat,
he saved the relics of his army by a disgraceful peace. Jovian was also
a decided Christian, though his morals suited neither the purity of the
gospel nor the dignity of his imperial position. Even the heathen
soldiers condemned his low amours and vulgar tippling. The faith he
professed was the Nicene, but Constantine himself was less tolerant than
Jovian. In this respect he is blameless. If Athanasius was graciously
received at Antioch, even the Arians were told with scant ceremony that
they might hold their assemblies as they pleased at Alexandria.
[Sidenote: The Anomoeans form a sect.]
About this time the Anomoeans organised their schism. Nearly four
years had been spent in uncertain negotiations for the restoration of
Aetius. The Anomoeans counted on Eudoxius, but did not find him very
zealous in the matter. At last, in Jovian's time, they made up their
minds to set him at defiance by consecrating Poemenius to the see of
Constantinople. Other appointments were made at the same time, and
Theophilus the Indian, who had a name for missionary work in the far
East, was sent to Antioch to win over Euzoius. From this time the
Anomoeans were an organized sect.
[Sidenote: Nicene successes.]
But the most important document of Jovian's reign is the acceptance of
the Nicene creed by Acacius of Cæsarea, with Meletius of Antioch and
more than twenty others of his friends. Acacius was only returning to
his master's steps when he explained _one in essence_ by _like in
essence_, and laid stress on the care with which 'the Fathers' had
guarded its meaning. We may hope that Acacius had found out his belief
at last. Still the connexion helped to widen the breach between Meletius
and the older Nicenes.
[Sidenote: Valentinian Emperor.]
All these movements came to an end at the sudden death of Jovian (Feb.
16, 364.) The Pannonian Valentinian was chosen to succeed him, and a
month later assigned the East to his brother Valens, reserving to
himself the more important Western provinces. This was a lasting
division of the Empire, for East and West were never again united for
any length of time. Valentinian belongs to the better class of emperors.
He was a soldier like Jovian, and held much the same rank at his
election. He was a decided Christian like Jovian, and, like him, free
from the stain of persecution. Jovian's rough good-humour was replaced
in Valentinian by a violent and sometimes cruel temper, but he had a
sense of duty and was free from Jovian's vices. His reign was a
laborious and honourable struggle with the enemies of the republic on
the Rhine and the Danube. An uncultivated man himself, he still could
honour learning, and in religion his policy was one of comprehensive
toleration. If he refused to displace the few Arians whom he found in
possession of Western sees like Auxentius at Milan, he left the churches
free to choose Nicene successors. Under his wise rule the West soon
recovered from the strife Constantius had introduced.
[Sidenote: Character of Valens.]
Valens was a weaker character, timid, suspicious, and slow, yet not
ungentle in private life. He was as uncultivated as his brother, but not
inferior to him in scrupulous care for his subjects. Only as Valens was
no soldier, he preferred remitting taxation to fighting at the head of
the legions. In both ways he is entitled to head the series of financial
rather than unwarlike sovereigns whose cautious policy brought the
Eastern Empire safely through the great barbarian invasions of the fifth
century.
[Sidenote: Breach between church and state.]
The contest entered on a new stage in the reign of Valens. The friendly
league of church and state at Nicæa had become a struggle for supremacy.
Constantius endeavoured to dictate the faith of Christendom according to
the pleasure of his eunuchs, while Athanasius reigned in Egypt almost
like a rival for the Empire. And if Julian's reign had sobered party
spirit, it had also shown that an emperor could sit again in Satan's
seat. Valens had an obedient Homoean clergy, but no trappings of
official splendour could enable Eudoxius or Demophilus to rival the
imposing personality of Athanasius or Basil. Thus the Empire lost the
moral support it looked for, and the church became embittered with its
wrongs.
[Sidenote: Rise of monasticism.]
The breach involved a deeper evil. The ancient world of heathenism was
near its dissolution. Vice and war, and latterly taxation, had dried up
the springs of prosperity, and even of population, till Rome was
perishing for lack of men. Cities had dwindled into villages, and of
villages the very names had often disappeared. The stout Italian yeomen
had been replaced by gangs of slaves, and these again by thinly
scattered barbarian serfs. And if Rome grew weaker every day, her power
for oppression seemed only to increase. Her fiscal system filled the
provinces with ruined men. The Alps, the Taurus, and the Balkan swarmed
with outlaws. But in the East men looked for refuge to the desert, where
many a legend told of a people of brethren dwelling together in unity
and serving God in peace beyond the reach of the officials. This was the
time when the ascetic spirit, which had long been hovering round the
outskirts of Christianity, began to assume the form of monasticism.
There were monks in Egypt--monks of Serapis--before Christianity
existed, and there may have been Christian monks by the end of the third
century. In any case, they make little show in history before the reign
of Valens. Paul of Thebes, Hilarion of Gaza, and even the great Antony
are only characters in the novels of the day. Now, however, there was in
the East a real movement towards monasticism. All parties favoured it.
The Semiarians were busy inside Mount Taurus; and though Acacians and
Anomoeans held more aloof, they could not escape an influence which
even Julian felt. But the Nicene party was the home of the ascetics. In
an age of indecision and frivolity like the Nicene, the most earnest
striving after Christian purity will often degenerate into its ascetic
caricature. Through the selfish cowardice of the monastic life we often
see the loving sympathy of Christian self-denial. Thus there was an
element of true Christian zeal in the enthusiasm of the Eastern
Churches; and thus it was that the rising spirit of asceticism naturally
attached itself to the Nicene faith as the strongest moral power in
Christendom. It was a protest against the whole framework of society in
that age, and therefore the alliance was cemented by a common enmity to
the Arian Empire. It helped much to conquer Arianism, but it left a
lasting evil in the lowering of the Christian standard. Henceforth the
victory of faith was not to overcome the world, but to flee from it.
Even heathen immorality was hardly more ruinous than the unclean ascetic
spirit which defames God's holy ordinance as a form of sin which a too
indulgent Lord will overlook.
[Sidenote: New questions in controversy.]
Valens was only a catechumen, and had no policy to declare for the
present. Events therefore continued to develop naturally. The Homoean
bishops retained their sees, but their influence was fast declining. The
Anomoeans were forming a schism on one side, the Nicenes recovering
power on the other. Unwilling signatures to the Homoean creed were
revoked in all directions. Some even of its authors declared for
Arianism with Euzoius, while others drew nearer to the Nicene faith like
Acacius. On all sides the simpler doctrines were driving out the
compromises. It was time for the Semiarians to bestir themselves if they
meant to remain a majority in the East. The Nicenes seemed daily to gain
ground. Lucifer had compromised them in one direction, Apollinarius in
another, and even Marcellus had never been frankly disavowed; yet the
Nicene cause advanced. A new question, however, was beginning to come
forward. Hitherto the dispute had been on the person of the Lord, while
that of the Holy Spirit was quite in the background. Significant as is
the tone of Scripture, the proof is not on the surface. The divinity of
the Holy Spirit is shown by many convergent lines of evidence, but it
was still an open question whether that divinity amounts to co-essential
and co-equal deity. Thus Origen leans to some theory of subordination,
while Hilary limits himself with the utmost caution to the words of
Scripture. If neither of them lays down in so many words that the Holy
Spirit is God, much less does either of them class him with the
creatures, like Eunomius. The difficulty was the same as with the person
of the Lord, that while the Scriptural data clearly pointed to his
deity, its admission involved the dilemma of either Sabellian confusion
or polytheistic separation. Now, however, it was beginning to be seen
that the theory of hypostatic distinctions must either be extended to
the Holy Spirit or entirely abandoned. Athanasius took one course, the
Anomoeans the other, but the Semiarians endeavoured to draw a
distinction between the Lord's deity and that of the Holy Spirit. In
truth, the two are logically connected. Athanasius pointed this out in
the letters of his exile to Serapion, and the council of Alexandria
condemned 'those who say that the Holy Spirit is a creature and distinct
from the essence of the Son.' But logical connection is one thing,
formal enforcement another. Athanasius and Basil to the last refused to
make it a condition of communion. If any one saw the error of his Arian
ways, it was enough for him to confess the Nicene creed. Thus the
question remained open for the present.
[Sidenote: Council of Lampsacus (364).]
Thus the Semiarians were free to do what they could against the
Homoeans. Under the guidance of Eleusius of Cyzicus, they held a
council at Lampsacus in the summer of 364. It sat two months, and
reversed the acts of the Homoeans at Constantinople four years before.
Eudoxius was deposed (in name) and the Semiarian exiles restored to
their sees. With regard to doctrine, they adopted the formula _like
according to essence_, on the ground that while likeness was needed to
exclude a Sabellian (they mean Nicene) confusion, its express extension
to essence was needed against the Arians. Nor did they forget to
re-issue the Lucianic creed for the acceptance of the churches. They
also discussed without result the deity of the Holy Spirit. Eustathius
of Sebastia for one was not prepared to commit himself either way. The
decisions were then laid before Valens.
[Sidenote: The Homoean policy of Valens.]
But Valens was already falling into bad hands. Now that Julian was dead,
the courtiers were fast recovering their influence, and Eudoxius had
already secured the Emperor's support. The deputies of Lampsacus were
ordered to hold communion with the bishop of Constantinople, and exiled
on their refusal.
Looking back from our own time, we should say that it was not a
promising course for Valens to support the Homoeans. They had been in
power before, and if they had not then been able to establish peace in
the churches, they were not likely to succeed any better after their
heavy losses in Julian's time. It is therefore the more important to see
the Emperor's motives. No doubt personal influences must count for a
good deal with a man like Valens, whose private attachments were so
steady. Eudoxius was, after all, a man of experience and learning, whose
mild prudence was the very help which Valens needed. The Empress
Dominica was also a zealous Arian, so that the courtiers were Arians
too. No wonder if their master was sincerely attached to the doctrines
of his friends. But Valens was not strong enough to impose his own
likings on the Empire. No merit raised him to the throne; no education
or experience prepared him for the august dignity he reached so suddenly
in middle life. Conscientious and irresolute, he could not even firmly
control the officials. He had not the magic of Constantine's name behind
him, and was prevented by Valentinian's toleration from buying support
with the spoils of the temples.
Under these circumstances, he could hardly do otherwise than support the
Homoeans. Heathenism had failed in Julian's hands, and an Anomoean
course was out of the question. A Nicene policy might answer in the
West, but it was not likely to find much support in the East outside
Egypt. The only alternative was to favour the Semiarians; and even that
was full of difficulties. After all, the Homoeans were still the
strongest party in 365. They were in possession of the churches and
commanded much of the Asiatic influence, and had no enmity to contend
with which was not quite as bitter against the other parties. They also
had astute leaders, and a doctrine which still presented attractions to
the quiet men who were tired of controversy. Upon the whole, the
Homoean policy was the easiest for the moment.
[Sidenote: The exiles exiled again.]
In the spring of 365 an imperial rescript commanded the municipalities,
under a heavy penalty, to drive out the bishops who had been exiled by
Constantius and restored by Julian. Thereupon the populace of Alexandria
declared that the law did not apply to Athanasius, because he had not
been restored by Julian. A series of dangerous riots followed, which
obliged the prefect Flavianus to refer the question back to Valens.
Other bishops were less fortunate. Meletius had to retire from Antioch,
Eustathius from Sebastia.
[Sidenote: Semiarian embassy to Liberius.]
The Semiarians looked to Valentinian for help. He had received them
favourably the year before, and his intercession was not likely to be
disregarded now. Eustathius of Sebastia was therefore sent to lay their
case before the court of Milan. As, however, Valentinian had already
started for Gaul, the deputation turned aside to Rome and offered to
Liberius an acceptance of the Nicene creed signed by fifty-nine
Semiarians, and purporting to come from the council of Lampsacus and
other Asiatic synods. The message was well received at Rome, and in due
time the envoys returned to Asia to report their doings before a council
at Tyana.
[Sidenote: Revolt of Procopius, Sept. 365.]
Meanwhile the plans of Valens were interrupted by the news that
Constantinople had been seized by a pretender. Procopius was a relative
of Julian who had retired into private life, but whom the jealousy of
Valens had forced to become a pretender. For awhile the danger was
pressing. Procopius had won over to his side some of the best legions of
the Empire, while his connexion with the house of Constantine secured
him the formidable services of the Goths. But the great generals kept
their faith to Valens, and the usurper's power melted away before them.
A decisive battle at Nacolia in Phrygia (May 366) once more seated
Valens firmly on his throne.
[Sidenote: Baptism of Valens by Eudoxius (367).]
Events could scarcely have fallen out better for Eudoxius and his
friends. Valens was already on their side, and now his zeal was
quickened by the mortal terror he had undergone, perhaps also by shame
at the unworthy panic in which he had already allowed the exiles to
return. In an age when the larger number of professing Christians were
content to spend most of their lives as catechumens, it was a decided
step for an Emperor to come forward and ask for baptism. This, however,
was the step taken by Valens in the spring of 367, which finally
committed him to the Homoean side. By it he undertook to resume the
policy of Constantius, and to drive out false teachers at the dictation
of Eudoxius.
[Sidenote: Interval in the controversy (366-371).]
The Semiarians were in no condition to resist. Their district had been
the seat of the revolt, and their disgrace at court was not lessened by
the embassy to Rome. So divided also were they, that while one party
assembled a synod at Tyana to welcome the return of the envoys, another
met in Caria to ratify the Lucianic creed again. Unfortunately however
for Eudoxius, Valens was entangled in a war with the Goths for three
campaigns, and afterwards detained for another year in the Hellespontine
district, so that he could not revisit the East till the summer of 371.
Meanwhile there was not much to be done. Athanasius had been formally
restored to his church during the Procopian panic by Brasidas the notary
(February 366), and was too strong to be molested again. Meletius also
and others had been allowed to return at the same time, and Valens was
too busy to disturb them. Thus there was a sort of truce for the next
few years. Of Syria we hear scarcely anything; and even in Pontus the
strife must have been abated by the famine of 368. The little we find to
record seems to belong to the year 367. On one side, Eunomius the
Anomoean was sent into exile, but soon recalled on the intercession of
the old Arian Valens of Mursa. On the other, the Semiarians were not
allowed to hold the great synod at Tarsus, which was intended to
complete their reconciliation with the Western Nicenes. These years form
the third great break in the Arian controversy, and were hardly less
fruitful of results than the two former breaks under Constantius and
Julian. Let us therefore glance at the condition of the churches.
[Sidenote: New Nicene party in Cappadocia]
The Homoean party was the last hope of Arianism within the Empire. The
original doctrine of Arius had been decisively rejected at Nicæa; the
Eusebian coalition was broken up by the Sirmian manifesto; and if the
Homoean union also failed, the fall of Arianism could not be long
delayed. Its weakness is shown by the rise of a new Nicene party in the
most Arian province of the Empire. Cappadocia is an exception to the
general rule that Christianity flourished best where cities were most
numerous. The polished vice of Antioch or Corinth presented fewer
obstacles than the rude ignorance of _pagi_ or country villages. Now
Cappadocia was chiefly a country district. The walls of Cæsarea lay in
ruins since its capture by the Persians in the reign of Gallienus, and
the other towns of the province were small and few. Yet Julian found it
incorrigibly Christian, and we hear but little of heathenism from Basil.
We cannot suppose that the Cappadocian boors were civilized enough to be
out of the reach of heathen influence. It seems rather that the
_paganismus_ of the West was partly represented by Arianism. In
Cappadocia the heresy found its first great literary champion in the
sophist Asterius. Gregory and George were brought to Alexandria from
Cappadocia, and afterwards Auxentius to Milan and Eudoxius to
Constantinople. Philagrius also, the prefect who drove out Athanasius in
339, was another of their countrymen. Above all, the heresiarch Eunomius
came from Cappadocia, and had abundance of admirers in his native
district. In this old Arian stronghold the league was formed which
decided the fate of Arianism. Earnest men like Meletius had only been
attracted to the Homoeans by their professions of reverence for the
person of the Lord. When, therefore, it appeared that Eudoxius and his
friends were no better than Arians after all, these men began to look
back to the decisions of 'the great and holy council' of Nicæa. There,
at any rate, they would find something independent of the eunuchs and
cooks who ruled the palace. Of the old conservatives also, who were
strong in Pontus, there were many who felt that the Semiarian position
was unsound, and yet could find no satisfaction in the indefinite
doctrine professed at court. Here then was one split in the Homoean,
another in the conservative party. If only the two sets of malcontents
could form a union with each other and with the older Nicenes of Egypt
and the West, they would sooner or later be the arbiters of Christendom.
If they could secure Valentinian's intercession, they might obtain
religious freedom at once.
[Sidenote: Basil of Cæsarea.]
Such seems to have been the plan laid down by the man who was now
succeeding Athanasius as leader of the Nicene party. Basil of Cæsarea
was a disciple of the schools of Athens, and a master of heathen
eloquence and learning. He was also man of the world enough to keep on
friendly terms with men of all sorts. Amongst his friends we find
Athanasius and Gregory of Nazianzus, Libanius the heathen rhetorician,
the barbarian generals Arinthæus and Victor, the renegade Modestus, and
the Arian bishop Euippius. He was a Christian also of a Christian
family. His grandmother, Macrina, was one of those who fled to the woods
in the time of Diocletian's persecution; and in after years young Basil
learned from her the words of Gregory the Wonder worker. The connections
of his early life were with the conservatives. He owed his baptism to
Dianius of Cæsarea, and much encouragement in asceticism to Eustathius
of Sebastia. In 359 he accompanied Basil of Ancyra from Seleucia to the
conferences at Constantinople, and on his return home came forward as a
resolute enemy of Arianism at Cæsarea. The young deacon was soon
recognised as a power in Asia. He received the dying recantation of
Dianius, and guided the choice of his successor Eusebius in 362. Yet he
still acted with the Semiarians, and helped them with his counsel at
Lampsacus. Indeed it was from the Semiarian side that he approached the
Nicene faith. In his own city of Cæsarea Eusebius found him
indispensable. When jealousies arose between them, and Basil withdrew to
his rustic paradise in Pontus, he was recalled by the clamour of the
people at the approach of Valens in 365. This time the danger was
averted by the Procopian troubles, but henceforth Basil governed
Eusebius, and the church of Cæsarea through him, till in the summer of
370 he succeeded to the bishopric himself.
[Sidenote: Basil bishop of Cæsarea.]
The election was a critical one, for every one knew that a bishop like
Basil would be a pillar of the Nicene cause. On one side were the
officials and the lukewarm bishops, on the other the people and the
better class of Semiarians. They had to make great efforts. Eusebius of
Samosata came to Cæsarea to urge the wavering bishops, and old
Gregory[15] was carried from Nazianzus on his litter to perform the
consecration. There was none but Basil who could meet the coming danger.
By the spring of 371 Valens had fairly started on his progress to the
East. He travelled slowly through the famine-wasted provinces, and only
reached Cæsarea in time for the great winter festival of Epiphany 372.
The Nicene faith in Cappadocia was not the least of the abuses he was
putting down. The bishops yielded in all directions, but Basil was
unshaken. The rough threats of Modestus succeeded no better than the
fatherly counsel of Euippius; and when Valens himself and Basil met face
to face, the Emperor was overawed. More than once the order was prepared
for the obstinate prelate's exile, but for one reason or another it was
never issued. Valens went forward on his journey, leaving behind a
princely gift for Basil's poorhouse. He reached Antioch in April, and
settled there for the rest of his reign, never again leaving Syria till
the disasters of the Gothic war called him back to Europe.
[Footnote 15: The father of Gregory of Nazianzus the Divine, who was
bishop, as we shall see, of Sasima and Constantinople in succession, but
never of Nazianzus.]
[Sidenote: Basil's difficulties.]
Armed with spiritual power which in some sort extended from the
Bosphorus to Armenia, Basil could now endeavour to carry out his plan.
Homoean malcontents formed the nucleus of the league, but
conservatives began to join it, and Athanasius gave his patriarchal
blessing to the scheme. The difficulties, however, were very great. The
league was full of jealousies. Athanasius indeed might frankly recognise
the soundness of Meletius, though he was committed to Paulinus, but
others were less liberal, and Lucifer of Calaris was forming a schism on
the question. Some, again, were lukewarm in the cause and many sunk in
worldliness, while others were easily diverted from their purpose. The
sorest trial of all was the selfish coldness of the West. Basil might
find here and there a kindred spirit like Ambrose of Milan after 374;
but the confessors of 355 were mostly gathered to their rest, and the
church of Rome paid no regard to sufferings which were not likely to
reach herself.
Nor was Basil quite the man for such a task as this. His courage indeed
was indomitable. He ruled Cappadocia from a sick-bed, and bore down
opposition by sheer strength of his inflexible determination. The very
pride with which his enemies reproached him was often no more than a
strong man's consciousness of power; and to this unwearied energy he
joined an ascetic fervour which secured the devotion of his friends, a
knowledge of the world which often turned aside the fury of his enemies,
and a flow of warm-hearted rhetoric which never failed to command the
admiration of outsiders. Yet after all we miss the lofty self-respect
which marks the later years of Athanasius. Basil was involved in
constant difficulties by his own pride and suspicion. We cannot, for
example, imagine Athanasius turning two presbyters out of doors as
'spies.' But the ascetic is usually too full of his own plans to feel
sympathy with others, too much in earnest to feign it like a
diplomatist. Basil had enough worldly prudence to keep in the background
his belief in the Holy Spirit, but not enough to protect even his
closest friends from the outbreaks of his imperious temper. Small wonder
if the great scheme met with many difficulties.
[Sidenote: Disputes with: (1.) Anthimus.]
A specimen or two may be given, from which it will be seen that the
difficulties were not all of Basil's making. When Valens divided
Cappadocia in 372, the capital of the new province was fixed at Tyana.
Thereupon Bishop Anthimus argued that ecclesiastical arrangements
necessarily follow civil, and claimed the obedience of its bishops as
due to him and not to Basil. Peace was patched up after an unseemly
quarrel, and Basil disposed of any future claims from Anthimus by
getting the new capital transferred to Podandus.
[Sidenote: (2.) Eustathius.]
The dispute with Anthimus was little more than a personal quarrel, so
that it was soon forgotten. The old Semiarian Eustathius of Sebastia was
able to give more serious annoyance. He was a man too active to be
ignored, too unstable to be trusted, too famous for ascetic piety to be
lightly made an open enemy. His friendship was compromising, his enmity
dangerous. We left him professing the Nicene faith before the council of
Tyana. For the next three years we lose sight of him. He reappears as a
friend of Basil in 370, and heartily supported him in his strife with
Valens. Eustathius was at any rate no time-server. He was drawn to Basil
by old friendship and a common love of asceticism, but almost equally
repelled by the imperious orthodoxy of a stronger will than his own. And
Basil for a long time clung to his old teacher, though the increasing
distrust of staunch Nicenes like Theodotus of Nicopolis was beginning to
attack himself. His peacemaking was worse than a failure. First he
offended Theodotus, then he alienated Eustathius. The suspicious zeal of
Theodotus was quieted in course of time, but Eustathius never forgave
the urgency which wrung from him his signature to a Nicene confession.
He had long been leaning the other way, and now he turned on Basil with
all the bitterness of broken friendship. To such a man the elastic faith
of the Homoeans was a welcome refuge. If they wasted little courtesy
on their convert, they did not press him to strain his conscience by
signing what he ought not to have signed.
[Sidenote: Apollinarius of Laodicea.]
The Arian controversy was exhausted for the present, and new questions
were already beginning to take its place. While Basil and Eustathius
were preparing the victory of asceticism in the next generation,
Apollinarius had already essayed the christological problem of Ephesus
and Chalcedon; and Apollinarius was no common thinker. If his efforts
were premature, he at least struck out the most suggestive of the
ancient heresies. Both in what he saw and in what he failed to see, his
work is full of meaning for our own time. Apollinarius and his father
were Christian literary men of Laodicea in Syria, and stood well to the
front of controversy in Julian's days. When the rescript came out which
forbade the Galileans to teach the classics, they promptly undertook to
form a Christian literature by throwing Scripture into classical forms.
The Old Testament was turned into Homeric verse, the New into Platonic
dialogues. Here again Apollinarius was premature. There was indeed no
reason why Christianity should not have as good a literature as
heathenism, but it would have to be a growth of many ages. In doctrine
Apollinarius was a staunch Nicene, and one of the chief allies of
Athanasius in Syria. But he was a Nicene of an unusual type, for the
side of Arianism which specially attracted his attention was its denial
of the Lord's true manhood. It will be remembered that according to
Arius the created Word assumed human flesh and nothing more. Eustathius
of Antioch had long ago pointed out the error, and the Nicene council
shut it out by adding _was made man_ to the _was made flesh_ of the
Cæsarean creed. It was thus agreed that the lower element in the
incarnation was man, not mere flesh; in other words, the Lord was
perfect man as well as perfect God. But in that case, how can God and
man form one person? In particular, the freedom of his human will is
inconsistent with the fixity of the divine. Without free-will he was not
truly man; yet free-will always leads to sin. If all men are sinners,
and the Lord was not a sinner, it seemed to follow that he was not true
man like other men. Yet in that case the incarnation is a mere illusion.
The difficulty was more than Athanasius himself could fully solve. All
that he could do was to hold firmly the doctrine of the Lord's true
manhood as declared by Scripture, and leave the question of his
free-will for another age to answer.
[Sidenote: The Apollinarian system.]
The analysis of human nature which we find in Scripture is twofold. In
many passages there is a moral division into the spirit and the
flesh--all that draws us up towards heaven and all that draws us down to
earth. It must be carefully noted (what ascetics of all ages have
overlooked) that the flesh is not the body. Envy and hatred are just as
much works of the flesh[16] as revelling and uncleanness. It is not the
body which lusts against the soul, but the evil nature running through
them both which refuses the leading of the Spirit of God. But these are
practical statements: the proper psychology of Scripture is given in
another series of passages. It comes out clearly in 1 Thess. v.
23--'your whole spirit, and soul, and body be preserved blameless unto
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.' Here the division is threefold.
The body we know pretty well, as far as concerns its material form. The
soul however, is not the 'soul' of common language. It is only the seat
of the animal life which we share with the beasts. Above the soul,
beyond the ken of Aristotle, Scripture reveals the spirit as the seat of
the immortal life which is to pass the gate of death unharmed. Now it is
one chief merit of Apollinarius (and herein he has the advantage over
Athanasius) that he based his system on the true psychology of
Scripture. He argued that sin reaches man through the will, whose seat
is in the spirit. Choice for good or for evil is in the will. Hence Adam
fell through the weakness of the spirit. Had that been stronger, he
would have been able to resist temptation. So it is with the rest of us:
we all sin through the weakness of the spirit. If then the Lord was a
man in whom the mutable human spirit was replaced by the immutable
Divine Word, there will be no difficulty in understanding how he could
be free from sin. Apollinarius, however, rightly chose to state his
theory the other way--that the Divine Word assumed a human body and a
human soul, and himself took the place of a human spirit. So far we see
no great advance on the Arian theory of the incarnation. If the Lord had
no true human spirit, he is no more true man than if he had nothing
human but the body. We get a better explanation of his sinlessness, but
we still get it at the expense of his humanity. In one respect the
Arians had the advantage. Their created Word is easier joined with human
flesh than the Divine Word with a human body and a human soul. At this
point, however, Apollinarius introduced a thought of deep
significance--that the spirit in Christ was human spirit, although
divine. If man was made in the image of God, the Divine Word is not
foreign to that human spirit which is in his likeness, but is rather the
true perfection of its image. If, therefore, the Lord had the divine
Word instead of the human spirit of other men, he is not the less human,
but the more so for the difference. Furthermore, the Word which in
Christ was human spirit was eternal. Apart then from the incarnation,
the Word was archetypal man as well as God. Thus we reach the still more
solemn thought that the incarnation is not a mere expedient to get rid
of sin, but the historic revelation of what was latent in the Word from
all eternity. Had man not sinned, the Word must still have come among
us, albeit not through shame and death. It was his nature that he should
come. If he was man from eternity, it was his nature to become in time
like men on earth, and it is his nature to remain for ever man. And as
the Word looked down on mankind, so mankind looked upward to the Word.
The spirit in man is a frail and shadowy thing apart from Christ, and
men are not true men till they have found in him their immutable and
sovereign guide. Thus the Word and man do not confront each other as
alien beings. They are joined together in their inmost nature, and (may
we say it?) each receives completion from the other.
[Footnote 16: Gal. v. 19-21.]
[Sidenote: Criticism of Apollinarianism.]
The system of Apollinarius is a mighty outline whose details we can
hardly even now fill in; yet as a system it is certainly a failure. His
own contemporaries may have done him something less than justice, but
they could not follow his daring flights of thought when they saw plain
errors in his teaching. After all, Apollinarius reaches no true
incarnation. The Lord is something very like us, but he is not one of
us. The spirit is surely an essential part of man, and without a true
human spirit he could have no true human choice or growth or life; and
indeed Apollinarius could not allow him any. His work is curtailed also
like his manhood, for (so Gregory of Nyssa put it) the spirit which the
Lord did not assume is not redeemed. Apollinarius understood even better
than Athanasius the kinship of true human nature to its Lord, and
applied it with admirable skill to explain the incarnation as the
expression of the eternal divine nature. But he did not see so well as
Athanasius that sin is a mere intruder among men. It was not a hopeful
age in which he lived. The world had gone a long way downhill since
young Athanasius had sung his song of triumph over fallen heathenism.
Roman vice and Syrian frivolity, Eastern asceticism and Western
legalism, combined to preach, in spite of Christianity, that the
sinfulness of mankind is essential. So instead of following out the
pregnant hint of Athanasius that sin is no true part of human nature
(else were God the author of evil), Apollinarius cut the knot by
refusing the Son of Man a human spirit as a thing of necessity sinful.
Too thoughtful to slur over the difficulty like Pelagius, he was yet too
timid to realize the possibility of a conquest of sin by man, even
though that man were Christ himself.
[Sidenote: The Apollinarians.]
Apollinarius and his school contributed not a little to the doctrinal
confusion of the East. His ideas were current for some time in various
forms, and are attacked in some of the later works of Athanasius; but it
was not till about 375 that they led to a definite schism, marked by the
consecration of the presbyter Vitalis to the bishopric of Antioch. From
this time, Apollinarian bishops disputed many of the Syrian sees with
Nicenes and Anomoeans. Their adherents were also scattered over Asia,
and supplied one more element of discord to the noisy populace of
Constantinople.
[Sidenote: Last years of Athanasius (366-373).]
The declining years of Athanasius were spent in peace. Valens had
restored him in good faith, and never afterwards molested him. If Lucius
the Arian returned to Alexandria to try his chance as bishop, the
officials gave him no connivance--nothing but sorely needed shelter from
the fury of the mob. Arianism was nearly extinct in Egypt.
[Sidenote: Athanasius and Marcellus (before 371).]
One of his last public acts was to receive an embassy from Marcellus,
who was still living in extreme old age at Ancyra. Some short time
before 371, the deacon Eugenius presented to him a confession on behalf
of the 'innumerable multitude' who still owned Marcellus for their
father. 'We are not heretics, as we are slandered. We specially
anathematize Arianism, confessing, like our fathers at Nicæa, that the
Son is no creature, but of the essence of the Father and co-essential
with the Father; and by the Son we mean no other than the Word. Next we
anathematize Sabellius, for we confess the eternity and reality of the
Son and the Holy Spirit. We anathematize also the Anomoeans, in spite
of their pretence not to be Arians. We anathematize finally the
Arianizers who separate the Word from the Son, giving the latter a
beginning at the incarnation because they do not confess him to be very
God. Our own doctrine of the incarnation is that the Word did not come
down as on the prophets, but truly became flesh and took a servant's
form, and as regards flesh was born as a man.' There is no departure
here from the original doctrine of Marcellus, for the eternity of the
Son means nothing more than the eternity of the Word. The memorial,
however, was successful. Though Athanasius was no Marcellian, he was as
determined as ever to leave all questions open which the great council
had forborne to close. The new Nicenes of Pontus, on the other hand,
inherited the conservative dread of Marcellus, so that it was a sore
trial to Basil when Athanasius refused to sacrifice the old companion of
his exile. Even the great Alexandrian's comprehensive charity is hardly
nobler than his faithfulness to erring friends. Meaner men might cherish
the petty jealousies of controversy, but the veterans of the great
council once more recognised their fellowship in Christ. They were
joined in life, and in death they were not divided.
[Sidenote: Death of Athanasius (373).]
Marcellus passed away in 371, and Athanasius two years later. The
victory was not yet won, the goal of half a century was still beyond the
sight of men; yet Athanasius had conquered Arianism. Of his greatness we
need say no more. Some will murmur of 'fanaticism' before the only
Christian whose grandeur awed the scoffer Gibbon. So be it that his
greatness was not unmixed with human passion; but those of us who have
seen the light of heaven shining from some saintly face, or watched with
kindling hearts and solemn thankfulness some mighty victory of Christian
faith, will surely know that it was the spirit of another world which
dwelt in Athanasius. To him more than any one we owe it that the
question of Arianism did not lose itself in personalities and quibbles,
but took its proper place as a battle for the central message of the
gospel, which is its chief distinction from philosophy and heathenism.
[Sidenote: Extinction of the Marcellians (375).]
Instantly Alexandria was given up to the Arians, and Lucius repeated the
outrages of Gregory and George. The friends of Athanasius were exiled,
and his successor Peter fled to Rome. Meanwhile the school of Marcellus
died away. In 375 his surviving followers addressed a new memorial to
the Egyptian exiles at Sepphoris, in which they plainly confessed the
eternal Sonship so long evaded by their master. Basil took no small
offence when the exiles accepted the memorial. 'They were not the only
zealous defenders of the Nicene faith in the East, and should not have
acted without the consent of the Westerns and of their own bishop,
Peter. In their haste to heal one schism they might cause another if
they did not make it clear that the heretics had come over to them, and
not they to the heretics.' This, however, was mere grumbling. Now that
the Marcellians had given up the point in dispute, there was no great
difficulty about their formal reconciliation. The West held out for
Marcellus after his own disciples had forsaken him, so that he was not
condemned at Rome till 380, nor by name till 381.
[Sidenote: Confusion of: (1) Churches.]
Meanwhile the churches of Asia seemed in a state of universal
dissolution. Disorder under Constantius had become confusion worse
confounded under Valens. The exiled bishops were so many centres of
disaffection, and personal quarrels had full scope everywhere. Thus when
Basil's brother Gregory was expelled from Nyssa by a riot got up by
Anthimus of Tyana, he took refuge under the eyes of Anthimus at Doara,
where a similar riot had driven out the Arian bishop. Pastoral work was
carried on under the greatest difficulties. The exiles could not attend
to their churches, the schemers would not, and the fever of controversy
was steadily demoralizing both flocks and pastors.
[Sidenote: (2.) Creeds.]
Creeds were in the same confusion. The Homoeans as a body had no
consistent principle at all beyond the rejection of technical terms, so
that their doctrinal statements are very miscellaneous. They began with
the indefinite Sirmian creed, but the confession they imposed on
Eustathius of Sebastia was purely Macedonian. Some of their bishops were
Nicenes, others Anomoeans. There was room for all in the happy family
presided over by Eudoxius and his successor Demophilus. In this anarchy
of doctrine, the growth of irreligious carelessness kept pace with that
of party bitterness. Ecclesiastical history records no clearer period of
decline than this. There is a plain descent from Athanasius to Basil, a
rapid one from Basil to Theophilus and Cyril. The victors of
Constantinople are but the epigoni of a mighty contest.
[Sidenote: Hopeful signs.]
Hopeful signs indeed were not entirely wanting. If the Nicene cause did
not seem to gain much ground in Pontus, it was at least not losing.
While Basil held the court in check, the rising power of asceticism was
declaring itself every day more plainly on his side. One schism was
healed by the reception of the Marcellians; and if Apollinarius was
forming another, he was at least a resolute enemy of Arianism. The
submission of the Lycian bishops in 375 helped to isolate the Semiarian
phalanx in Asia, and the Illyrian council held in the same year by
Ambrose was the first effective help from the West. It secured a
rescript of Valentinian in favour of the Nicenes; and if he did not long
survive, his action was enough to show that Valens might not always be
left to carry out his plans undisturbed.