THE COUNCIL OF NICÆA
Constantine’s letter was fruitless. Hosius sought to play the peacemaker
in vain. Neither Alexander nor Arius desired peace except at the price
of the other’s submission, and neither was prepared to submit. Hosius,
therefore, did not remain long in Alexandria, and, returning to
Constantine, recommended him to summon a Council of the Church. The
advice pleased the Emperor, who at once issued letters calling upon the
bishops to assemble at Nicæa, in Bithynia, in the month of June, 325.
The invitations were accepted with alacrity, for Constantine placed at
the disposal of the bishops the posting system of the Empire, thus
enabling them to travel comfortably, expeditiously, and at no cost to
themselves.
“They were impelled,” says Eusebius,[93] “by the anticipation of a
happy result to the conference, by the hope of enjoying present peace,
and by the desire of beholding something new and strange in the person
of so admirable an Emperor. And when they were all assembled, it
appeared evident that the proceeding was the work of God, inasmuch as
men, who had been most widely separated not merely in sentiment but by
differences of country, place, and nation, were here brought together
within the walls of a single city, forming as it were a vast garland
of priests, composed of a variety of the choicest flowers.”
-----
Footnote 93:
_De Vita Constant._, iii., 6.
-----
The Council of Nicæa was the first of the great Œcumenical Councils of
the Church. There had been nothing like it before; nor could there have
been, for no pagan Emperor would have tolerated such an assembly. The
exact number of those present is not known. Eusebius, with irritating
and unnecessary vagueness, says that “the bishops exceeded two hundred
and fifty, while the number of the presbyters and deacons in their train
and the crowd of acolytes and other attendants was altogether beyond
computation.” There are sundry lists of names recorded by the
ecclesiastical historians, but unfortunately all are incomplete.
However, as a confident legend grew up within fifty years of the Council
that the bishops were 318 in number, and as the Council itself became
known as “The Council of the 318,” we may accept that figure without
much demur. Very few came from the West. Hosius of Cordova seems to have
been the only representative of the Spanish Church, and Nacasius of
Divio the only representative of Gaul. The Bishops of Arles, Autun,
Lyons, Treves, Narbonne, Marseilles, Toulouse—all cities of first-class
importance—were absent. Eustorgius came from Milan; Marcus from
Calabria; Capito from Sicily. The aged Sylvester of Rome would have
attended, had his physical infirmities permitted, but he sent two
presbyters to speak for him, Vito and Vincentius. Bishop Domnus of
Stridon represented Pannonia, and Theophilus the Goth came on behalf of
the northern barbarians—probably to listen rather than to speak.
Evidently, then, the composition of the Council was overwhelmingly
Eastern. Greek, not Latin, was the language spoken, and certainly Greek,
not Latin, was the heresy under discussion, for the Arian controversy
could not have arisen in the western half of the Empire. For all
practical purposes the Council of Nicæa was a well-attended synod of the
Syrian and Egyptian Churches. The opinions there expounded were the
opinions of the Christian schools of Antioch and Alexandria.
[Illustration: GATE OF ST. ANDREW AT AUTUN.]
We may take the names of a few of the bishops as they pass through the
gates of Nicæa, each accompanied by at least two presbyters and three
slaves, riding on horseback or in carriages, with a train of baggage
animals following. Alexander was there, bringing with him fourteen
bishops from the valley of the Nile and five from Libya. The most
conspicuous of these were Potammon of Heracleopolis and Paphnutius from
the Thebaid, both of whom had lost an eye in the late persecution, while
Paphnutius limped painfully, for he had been hamstrung. Eustathius, the
Patriarch of Antioch, came at the head of the Syrian and Palestinian
bishops, some of whom, like Eusebius of Cæsarea, were gravely suspected
of being unsound in the Faith and of having been influenced by the
seductions of Arianism, while others, like Macarius of Jerusalem, were
staunch supporters of Alexander. Another group hailed from the far
Euphrates and Armenia—John of Persia, James of Nisibis in Mesopotamia,
Aitallaha of Edessa, and Paul of Neo-Cæsarea, the tendons of whose
wrists had been seared with hot irons. Another group came from near at
hand, the bishops of what we now call Asia Minor, within the sphere of
influence of the imperial city of Nicomedia and of its Bishop, Eusebius.
He, too, was there with his friends, Theognis of Nicæa, Menophantus of
Ephesus, and Maris of Chalcedon, all committed to the cause and to the
doctrines of Arius. Then there were a group of Thracian, Macedonian, and
Greek bishops, a few from the islands, and Cæcilianus from Carthage.
Arius, too, was present with his few faithful henchmen from Egypt,
proudly self-confident as ever, but trusting mainly to the advocacy of
Eusebius of Nicomedia and to the influence of the moderates, like
Eusebius of Cæsarea. But during the years that he had been absent from
Alexandria a new protagonist had arisen among the ranks of his
opponents. Alexander, so runs the legend, had one day seen from the
windows of his house a group of boys playing at “church.” Thinking that
the imitation was too close to the reality and that the lads were
carrying the game too far, the Bishop went out to check them and got
into conversation with the boy who was taking the lead in their serious
sport. Impressed by his earnestness, he took him into his house and
trained him for the ministry. It was Athanasius, who now, as a young
deacon of twenty-five, accompanied Alexander to Nicæa, having already by
his cleverness and zeal gained a remarkable ascendency over the mind of
his superior. This slip of a man—for he was of very slender build and
insignificant stature—was to lay at Nicæa the sure foundations of his
extraordinary and unparalleled fame as the champion of the Catholic
Faith.
So the Council assembled in the June of 325 in the charming city of
Nicæa, on the shores of the Ascanian lake. The intense interest which it
aroused was not confined to those who were to take part in it, or even
to the Christian population of the city and district. It spread, so we
are expressly told, to those who still clung to the old religion.
Debates on the nature of the Fatherhood of God and the Sonship of Christ
would be almost as welcome and absorbing to a Neo-Platonist philosopher
as to a Christian bishop. His pleasure in the intellectual exercise was
marred by no anxiety lest it should result in disturbance of happy and
settled belief. When Greek met Greek they began forthwith to argue, and
so, without waiting for the Council formally to open, the early arrivals
at Nicæa commenced their discussions with all comers on the question of
the hour.
The story of one of these informal encounters is told by most of the
ecclesiastical writers. A certain pagan philosopher was holding forth
with great fluency and making mock of the Christian mysteries, to the
amusement of a number of bystanders. Finally, his challenge of
contradiction was accepted by “a simple old man, one of the confessors
of the persecution,” who knew nothing of dialectics. As he moved forward
to answer the scoffer there was a burst of laughter from some of those
present, while the Christians trembled lest their unskilled champion
should be turned to ridicule by his practised opponent. Their anxiety,
however, was soon set at rest. “In the name of Jesus Christ, O
philosopher, listen!” Such was the old man’s exordium, and the burden of
his few unstudied words was to restate his “artless, unquestioning
belief”[94] in the cardinal truths of Christianity. There was no
argument. “If you believe,” he said, “tell me so.” “I believe,” said the
philosopher, compelled, as he afterwards explained it, to become a
Christian by some marvellous power. Such is the version of Sozomen;
according to Socrates the old man said, “Christ and the apostles
committed to us no dialectical art and no vain deception, but plain,
bare doctrine, which is guarded by faith and good works.”[95] When we
consider the endless floods of dialectical subtlety which were poured
out during and after the Council of Nicæa by those engaged in the Arian
controversy, it seems rather biting irony that a pagan philosopher
should have been thus easily and rapidly converted from darkness to
light.
-----
Footnote 94:
ἀπεριέργως πιστείομεν.
Footnote 95:
γυμνὴν γνώμην, πίστει καὶ καλοῖς ἔργοις φυλαττομένην.—Socrates, i., 8.
-----
It is certain, however, that many of the bishops collected at Nicæa
belonged to the same class as this “simple old man,” peasants who had
had no theological training and owed their elevation—by the suffrages of
their congregations—to the conspicuous uprightness of their lives. Such
a one was Spyridion, of Cyprus, a shepherd in mind, speech, and dress,
but with a turn for rustic humour. Around his name many legends have
gathered, and none is more delightful than that which tells how he and
his deacon set out for Nicæa mounted on two mules, a white and a
chestnut. On the journey they came to an inn where they found a number
of other bishops bound on the same errand. These prelates feared that so
rustic a figure as Spyridion would bring discredit on their religion and
appear in grotesque contrast with the splendour of the Imperial Court.
So during the night they caused the two mules to be decapitated,
thinking that they would thus prevent Spyridion from resuming his
journey. The good Bishop was aroused before daybreak by his deacon, who
told him of the disaster. Spyridion simply bade him attach the heads to
the dead bodies, and, on this being done, the mules rose to their feet
as though nothing unusual had happened. When day broke, it was found
that the deacon had attached the heads to the wrong shoulders; the white
mule now sported a chestnut head and the chestnut a white. Still, it was
not thought necessary to repeat the miracle and change the heads, for
the mules apparently suffered no inconvenience.
The preliminary meetings of the Council were held in the principal
church of Nicæa and continued until the arrival of the Emperor, which
was not until after July 3rd, the anniversary of his victory over
Licinius. Then the state opening took place in the great hall of the
palace. Eusebius gives us a graphic account of the memorable scene.[96]
Special invitations had been sent to all whose presence was desired, and
these had entered and taken their places in grave and orderly fashion on
either side of the hall. Then expectant silence fell upon the company.
As the moment for the Emperor’s entry approached, some of the members of
his immediate entourage began to arrive, but Eusebius is careful to
mention that there were no guards or officers in armour, “only friends
who avowed the faith of Christ.” At the signal that Constantine was at
hand, the whole assembly swept to its feet, and the Emperor passed
through their midst like “some heavenly angel of God, clad in glittering
raiment that seemed to gleam and flash with bright effulgent rays of
light, encrusted as it was with gold and precious stones.” Yet, though
Constantine was thus dazzling in externals, it was evident—at-least to
the penetrating eye of the courtier bishop—that his mind was “beautified
by pity and godly fear.” For was not this revealed by his downcast eyes,
his heightened colour, and his modest bearing? Advancing to the upper
end of the hall, Constantine stood facing the assembly, while a low
golden stool was brought for him, and then, when the bishops motioned to
him to be seated, he took his seat, and the whole audience followed his
example. Beyond doubt, most of the bishops then gazed for the first time
upon the Emperor to whom they could not be sufficiently grateful for all
he had done for the Church, and Constantine himself might well be
flattered and pleased at the homage, evidently sincere, that was being
offered to him, as well as a little nervous at the thought that these
were the principal ministers and representatives of the God to whom he
had tendered allegiance. There would have been no downcast eye, no
blush, no marked modesty of carriage, we may suspect, if it had been a
council of augurs and flamens that Constantine had summoned. In that
case the Emperor would have been perfectly at his ease as he advanced up
the hall, conscious that he was the supreme head of all the priesthoods
represented in his presence, and that he was not only worshipper but
worshipped.
-----
Footnote 96:
_De Vita Constant._, iii., 10.
-----
Then, says Eusebius, after a few introductory words of welcome had been
spoken, the Emperor rose and delivered a brief address in Latin which
was presently translated into Greek. He expressed his delight at finding
himself in the presence of such a Council, “united in a common harmony
of sentiment,” and prayed that no malignant enemy might avail to disturb
it, for “internal dissensions in the Church of God were far more to be
feared than any battle or war.” In well chosen language he explained the
overwhelming importance of unity and implored his hearers as “dear
friends, as ministers of God, and as faithful servants of their common
Lord and Saviour,” to begin from that moment to “discard the causes of
dissension which had existed among them and loosen the knots of
controversy by the laws of peace.” The excellent impression created by
this speech was intensified by the next act of the Emperor. On his
arrival at Nicæa he had found awaiting him a great number of petitions
addressed to him by the bishops accusing one another of heresy, or
political intrigue, or too strenuous activity on behalf of the fallen
Licinius. Socrates, indeed, says that “the majority of the Bishops” were
levelling charges against one another. But they received no
encouragement from Constantine. Seated there among them he produced the
incriminatory documents from the folds of his toga, called for a
brazier, and threw the rolls upon the fire, protesting with an oath that
not one of them had been opened or read. “Christ,” he said, “bids him
who hopes for forgiveness forgive an erring brother.” It was a dignified
and noble rebuke. The story reads best in this, its simplest form.
Theodoretus amplifies the Emperor’s rebuke and puts into his mouth the
dangerous doctrine that, if bishops sin, their offences ought to be
hushed up, lest their flock be scandalised or be encouraged to follow
their example. He would even, he said, throw his own purple over an
offending bishop to avoid the evils and contagion of publicity.
Such was the opening of the Council. The Emperor had scored a great
personal triumph and had set the bishops a notable example of
magnanimity. But it was not imitated. No sooner had the actual business
of the Council begun than the flood-gates of controversy were opened.
According to Eusebius, the Emperor remained to listen to their mutual
recriminations, giving ear patiently to all sides, and doing what he
could to assuage animosities by making the most of everything that
seemed to tend towards compromise. Unfortunately, the reports of the
Council are strangely incomplete. It is not even explicitly stated who
presided. The presidency of the Emperor was one only of honour; the
actual presidents were probably the legates of Pope Sylvester, viz.,
Hosius of Cordova and the two presbyters, Vito and Vincentius. But into
the controversy which rages round this point we need not enter.
The general feeling of the Council was not long in declaring itself.
Arius, who was regarded as a defendant on his trial, made his position
absolutely clear. He did not envelop himself, as he might have done, in
a cloud of metaphysics from which it would have been difficult to gather
his precise meaning. On the contrary, he seems to have come prepared
with a résumé of his doctrines, and to have been ready to defend his
outposts as resolutely as his citadel. Immediately, therefore, the
Council became split up into contending parties. There were the
out-and-out Arians, few but formidable, and the out-and-out
Trinitarians, led with great ability by the young Athanasius, whose
reputation steadily rose as the days passed by. There was also a middle
party, led by Eusebius of Nicomedia and supported by Eusebius of
Cæsarea, whose intellectual and personal sympathies lay with Arius
rather than with Athanasius, though they saw that the great majority of
the Council were against them, and that Arius and his opinions were sure
of excommunication. Theirs was what we may call the “cross-bench mind.”
They doubtless felt, what many who approach this controversy at the
present day feel, that if once appeal is made to Reason, there must be
no further appeal beyond that to Faith, as to a higher Court. Those who
invoke Reason must not turn round, when they find themselves driven into
an ugly corner, and condemn “the Pride of Reason.” In our view, Eusebius
of Nicomedia was not the malignant, self-seeking, and entirely worldly
prelate he is so often represented as having been, but a Bishop who
honestly regretted that this question had been raised at all, inasmuch
as he foresaw that it must rend the Church in twain. He would have
preferred, that is to say, that the exact nature of the Sonship of
Christ should not be made a matter of close definition, should not be
made a point of doctrine whereon salvation depended, should not be
inserted in a creed, but left rather to the individual conscience or to
the individual intellect. Once the question was raised, his intellectual
honesty led him to side with Arius, but he considered that to tear the
indivisible garment of Christ was a crime to be avoided at any cost.
Eusebius was bent upon a compromise. Arius was his old friend, and his
patron, the Emperor, passionately desired unity. The personal wish of
the monarch would be sure to have some, though we cannot say precisely
how much, weight with him in determining his policy.
Some of the sessions of the Council were marked by uproar and violence.
Athanasius declares that when the bishops heard extracts read from the
_Thalia_ of Arius, they raised the cry of “impious,” and closed their
eyes and shut their ears tight against the admission of such appalling
blasphemy. There is a legend, indeed, that St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra,
was so carried away by his indignation that he smote Arius a terrific
blow upon the jaw for daring to give utterance to words so vile.
Theodoretus declares that the Arians drew up the draft of a creed which
they were willing to subscribe and had it read before the Council. But
it was at once denounced as a “bastard and vile-begotten document” and
torn to pieces. Then a praiseworthy attempt was made to begin at the
beginning. The proposition was put forward that the Son was from God.
“Agreed,” said the Trinitarians; “Agreed,” said the Arians, on the
authority of such texts as “There is but one God, the Father, of whom
are all things,” and “All things are become new and all things are of
God.” “But will you agree,” asked the Trinitarians, “that the Son is the
true Power and Image of the Father, like to Him in all things, His
eternal Image, undivided from Him and unalterable?” “Yes,” said the
Arians after some discussion among themselves, and they quoted the
texts: “Man is the glory and image of God,” “For we which live are
always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake,” and “In him we live and
move and have our being.” “But will you admit,” continued the
Trinitarians, “that the Son is Very God?” “Yes,” replied the Arians,
“for he is Very God if he has been made so.” Athanasius tells us that
while these strange questions and answers were being tossed from one
side of the Council to the other, he saw the Arians “whispering and
making signals one to the other with their eyes.” It is to be regretted
that we have no independent account. The savage abuse with which
Athanasius attacks the Arians in his “Letter to the African Bishops”
makes his version of what took place at the Council exceedingly suspect.
He speaks of their “wiliness,” and delivers himself of the sarcasm that
as they were cradled in ordure their arguments also partook of a similar
character.[97] Most of the vilification in the opening stages of the
Arian controversy—at any rate most of that which has survived—seems to
have been on the Trinitarian side.
-----
Footnote 97:
αὐτὸι μὲν ὥς ἐκ κοπρίας ὄντες ἐλαλησαν ἀληθῶς ἀπο γῆς.
-----
The word “Homoousion” had at length been uttered and, strangely enough,
by Eusebius of Nicomedia, though it was soon to become the rallying cry
of his opponents. He had employed it, apparently, to clinch the argument
against the Trinitarians, for, he said, if they declared the Son to be
Very God, that was tantamount to declaring that the Son was of one
substance with the Father. Greatly, no doubt, to his surprise, it was
seized upon by his opponents as the word which, of all others, precisely
crystallised their position and their objections to Arianism. But before
the fight began to rage round this word, the moderates came forward with
another suggestion of compromise. Eusebius of Cæsarea read before the
Council the confession of faith which was in use in his diocese, after
having been handed down from bishop to bishop. The Emperor had read it
and approved; perhaps, he urged, it might similarly commend itself to
the acceptance of all parties in the Council. The creed began as
follows:
“I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things both
visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God,
God of God, Light of Light, Life of Life, the only-begotten Son, the
First-born of every creature, begotten of the Father before all
worlds, by whom also all things were made. Who for our salvation was
made flesh and lived amongst men, and suffered, and rose again on the
third day, and ascended to the Father, and shall come in glory to
judge the quick and the dead. And I believe in the Holy Ghost.”
Eusebius, in writing later to the people of his diocese, said that when
this creed was read out,
“no room for contradiction appeared; but our most pious Emperor,
before any one else, testified that it comprised most orthodox
statements. He confessed, moreover, that such were his sentiments, and
he advised all present to agree to it, and subscribe to its articles
with the insertion of the single word ‘one in substance.’”
Indeed, little objection could be taken to the creed of Eusebius, which
might have been subscribed to with equal sincerity by Arius and
Alexander. But the great problem, which had brought the Council
together, would have remained entirely unsettled. The creed was not
sufficiently precise. It left openings for all kinds of heresies. The
Trinitarians, therefore, insisted upon inserting a few words which
should more precisely define the relationship between the Father and the
Son and their real nature and substance, and should retain undiminished
the majesty and Godhead of the Son. They put forward the simple
antithesis “begotten not made” in reference to the Son, whereby the
Arian doctrine that the Son was a creature was effectually negatived.
And they also adopted as their own the word which has made the Council
famous alike with believers and with sceptics—the word “Homoousion.”
Dean Stanley, in his _History of the Eastern Church_,[98] has well said
that this is “one of those remarkable words which creep into the
language of philosophy and theology and then suddenly acquire a
permanent hold on the minds of men.” It was a word with a notable, if
not a very remote past. It had been orthodox and heretical by turns, a
fact which is not surprising when we consider the vagueness of the term
“ousia” and the looseness with which it had been employed by
philosophical writers.
“It first distinctly appeared,” says Dean Stanley, “in the statement,
given by Irenæus, of the doctrines of Valentius; then for a moment it
acquired a more orthodox reputation in the writings of Dionysius and
Theognostus of Alexandria; then it was coloured with a dark shade by
association with the teaching of Manes; next proposed as a test of
orthodoxy at the Council of Antioch against Paul of Samosata, and then
by that same Council was condemned as Sabellian.”
Obviously, therefore, it was not a word to command instantaneous
acceptance; its old associations lent a certain specious weight to the
repeated accusation of the Arians that the Trinitarians were importing
into the Church fantastic subtleties borrowed from Greek philosophy, and
were encrusting the simple faith and the simple language of Christ and
the apostles with alien thoughts and formulæ. Athanasius meets that
argument with a “_tu quoque_,” asking where in Scripture one can find
the phrases which Arius had made his own. Modern theologians have
replied with much greater force that this importation of philosophy into
the Christian religion was inevitable.
-----
Footnote 98:
Lecture iv.
-----
“The Church,” says Canon Bright,[99] “had come out into the open, had
been obliged to construct a theological position against the
tremendous attacks of Gnosticism and to provide for educated enquirers
in the great centres of Greek learning. She had become conscious of
her debt to the wise.”
Elsewhere, in the same chapter, he says: “It would, indeed, have been
childish to attempt to banish metaphysics from theology. Any religion
with a doctrine about God or man must, as such, be metaphysical.” And
for the Arians to complain of the borrowing of technical terms from
philosophy by their opponents was palpably absurd. The whole _raison
d’être_ of the Arian movement was its professed rationalism, its appeal
to reason and logic, its consciousness, in other words, “of its debt to
the wise,” and its desire to be able to debate boldly with the enemy in
the gate. Really, therefore, the adoption of such a term was of great
practical convenience, especially when once its meaning was rigidly
defined. The Homoousion, whereby the Word or the Son was declared to be
of one essence or substance with the Father, asserted the undiminished
Divinity of the Son of God, through whom salvation came into the world.
-----
Footnote 99:
_Age of the Fathers_, chap. vi.
-----
It is for theologians to expand upon such a text, but it needs no
theologian to point out the obvious truth that any diminution of the
majesty of the Son of God must have impaired the vitality and converting
power of Christianity. The word, therefore, was eagerly adopted by those
who had been commissioned to draw up a creed to meet the views of the
orthodox majority of the Council. That creed was at length decided upon;
Hosius of Cordova announced its completion; and it was read aloud for
the first time to the Council, apparently by Hermogenes, subsequently
Bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia. It ran as follows:
“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things both
visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
begotten of the Father, only begotten, that is from the substance of
the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten
not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things
were made, both in heaven and earth. Who for us men and for our
salvation came down and was made flesh, and was made man, suffered and
rose on the third day, ascended into the heavens and will come again
to judge the quick and the dead. And we believe in the Holy Ghost.”
Such was the text of the famous document which ever since has borne the
title of the Nicene Creed. It has been added to during the centuries. It
has even lost one or two of its qualifying and explanatory sentences.
But these modifications have not touched its central theses, and, above
all, the Homoousion remains.
In order to make the position absolutely clear and preclude even the
most subtle from placing an heretical interpretation upon the words
employed, there was added a special anathema of the Arian doctrines.
“But those who say, ‘Once He was not,’ and ‘Before He was begotten, He
was not,’ and ‘He came into existence out of what was not,’ or those
who profess that the Son of God is of a different ‘person’ or
‘substance,’ or that He was ‘made,’ or is ‘changeable’ or
‘mutable’—all these are anathematised by the Catholic Church.”
This was the formal condemnation of Arianism in all the Protean shapes
it was capable of assuming, and the vast majority of the bishops
cordially approved.
But what of Arius and his friends, and what of the Eusebian party?
Interest centred in the action of the latter. Would they accept the text
and sign? Or would they hold fast to the condemned doctrines? They
loudly protested, of course, against the anathema, and the Homoousion in
the creed itself was repugnant to their intellect. Eusebius of Cæsarea
asked for a day in which to consider the matter. Then he signed, and
wrote a letter to his flock at Cæsarea excusing and justifying his
conduct, and explaining in what sense he could conscientiously subscribe
to the Homoousion. He bowed to the clear verdict of the majority and to
the passionate wish of the Emperor. Constantine insisted that the creed
should be accepted as the final expression of Catholic belief, though he
would have been just as ready to accept the creed of Eusebius himself.
The presence or absence of the Homoousion was of little consequence to
him. What he wanted was unity, and he was determined to have it, for he
was already threatening recalcitrants with banishment. Eusebius of
Cæsarea signed. He submitted, in other words, when the Church, meeting
in Council, had spoken. The Palestinian and Syrian bishops who had
supported him in the debates followed his example, complying, we are
told, with eagerness and alacrity.
Eusebius of Nicomedia, Theognis of Nicæa, and Maris of Chalcedon made a
rather more resolute stand. According to one account, they consulted
Constantia, the Emperor’s sister, and she persuaded them to sign on the
ground that they ought to merge their individual scruples in the will of
the majority, lest the Emperor should throw over Christianity in disgust
at the dissension among the Christians. According to another story,
Constantia recommended them to insert an “iota” into the text of the
creed, and thus change the Homoousion into the Homoiousion, to which
they could subscribe without violence to their consciences. They could
admit, that is to say, that the Son was of “like” substance to the
Father when they could not admit that He was of the “same” substance.
The story is obviously a fiction and part of the campaign of calumny
against Eusebius of Nicomedia. He and his two friends signed the
creed—not fraudulently or with mental reservations as the story
suggests—but for precisely the same reason that Eusebius of Cæsarea had
signed it. It was the Emperor’s wish and they were willing to accept the
decision of the Council, but they still stood out against signing the
anathema. Two of them, Eusebius and Theognis, were deprived of their
sees and sent into exile. Whether their degradation and exile were due
wholly to this refusal is doubtful, though as an interesting parallel it
may be pointed out that Eusebius, Bishop of Vercellæ, and Dionysius,
Bishop of Milan, were exiled by the Emperor Valens in 355 because they
refused to subscribe the condemnation of Athanasius at the Third Council
of Milan. Arius and his two most faithful supporters were excommunicated
and banished and their writings, notably the _Thalia_, were burnt with
ignominy.
The labours of the Council were not yet concluded. The Bishops decided
that Easter should be observed simultaneously throughout the Church, and
that the Judaic time should give way to the Christian. They then drew up
what are known as the Canons of Nicæa. We may indicate some of the more
important, as, for example, the fifth, which provided that all questions
of excommunication should be discussed in provincial councils to be held
twice a year; the fourth, that there should be no less than three
bishops present at the consecration of every bishop, and the fifteenth,
which prohibited absolutely the translation of any bishop, presbyter, or
deacon from one city to another. Some of the canons, such as the
twentieth, which prohibited kneeling during church worship on Sundays
and between Easter and Pentecost; and the eighteenth, which rebuked the
presumption of deacons, have merely an antiquarian interest. The
seventeenth forbade all usury on the part of the clergy; the third
enacted that no minister of the Church, whatever his rank, should have
with him in his house a woman of any kind, unless it were a mother, a
sister, or an aunt, or some one quite beyond suspicion. While this canon
was under discussion, one of the most exciting debates of the Council
took place. The proposal was made that all the married clergy should be
required to separate from their wives, and this received a considerable
measure of support. But the opposition was led by the confessor
Paphnutius, whose words carried the more weight from the fact that he
himself had been a lifelong celibate. He debated the subject with great
warmth, maintaining at the top of his shrill voice that marriage was
honourable and the bed undefiled,[100] and so brought a majority of the
assembly round to his way of thinking.
-----
Footnote 100:
τίμιον εἵναι καὶ τὴν κόιτην καὶ αὐτὸν ἀμίαντον τὸν γάμον.
-----
Then at last this historic Council was ready to break up. But before the
bishops separated, the Emperor celebrated the completion of his
twentieth year of reign by inviting them all to a great banquet.
“Not one of them,” says Eusebius,[101] “was missing and the scene was
of great splendour. Detachments of the bodyguard and other troops
surrounded the entrance of the palace with drawn swords and through
their midst the men of God proceeded without fear into the innermost
apartments, in which were some of the Emperor’s own companions at
table, while others reclined on couches laid on either side.”
He gave gifts to each according to his rank, singling out a few for
special favour. Among these was Paphnutius. Socrates says that the
Emperor had often sent for him to the palace and kissed the vacant eye
socket of the maimed and crippled confessor. Acesius the Novatian was
another, though he steadily refused to abate one jot or tittle of his
old convictions. Constantine listened without offence, as the old man
declared his passionate belief that those who after baptism had
committed a sin were unworthy to participate in the divine mysteries,
and merely remarked, with sportive irony, “Plant a ladder, then,
Acesius, and climb up to Heaven alone!”[102]
-----
Footnote 101:
_De Vita Constant._, iii., 15.
Footnote 102:
θὲς, ὦ Ἀκέσιε, κλίμακα καὶ μόνος ἀνάβηθι εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν.
-----
At the closing session the Emperor delivered a short farewell speech, in
which his theme was again the urgent need of unity and uniformity within
the Christian Church. He implored the bishops to forget and forgive past
offences and live in peace, not envying one another’s excellencies, but
regarding the special merit of each as contributing to the total merit
of all. They should leave judgment to God; when they quarrelled among
themselves they simply gave their enemies an opportunity to blaspheme.
How were they to convert the world, he asked, if not by the force of
their example? And then he went on to speak plain common sense. Men do
not become converts, he said, from their zeal for the truth. Some join
for what they can get, some for preferment, some to secure charitable
help, some for friendship’s sake. “But the true lovers of true argument
are very few: scarce, indeed, is the friend of truth.”[103] Therefore,
he concluded, Christians should be like physicians, and prescribe for
each according to his ailments. They must not be fanatics: they must be
accommodating. Constantine could not possibly have given sounder advice
to a body of men whose besetting sin was likely to be fanaticism and not
laxity of doctrine. The passage, therefore, is not without significance.
The Church had already begun to act upon the State; here was the State
palpably beginning to react upon the Church—in the direction of
reasonableness, compromise, and an accommodating temper. Then, after
begging the bishops to remember him in their prayers, he dismissed them
to their homes, and they left Nicæa, says Eusebius, glad at heart and
rejoicing in the conviction that, in the presence of their Emperor, the
Church, after long division, had been united once more.
-----
Footnote 103:
καὶ σπάνιος αὖ τῆς ἀληθείας φίλος.
-----
Constantine evidently shared the same conviction. He had no doubt
whatever that the Arian heresy was finally silenced. So we find him
writing to the church at Alexandria, declaring that all points which
seemed to be open to different interpretations have been thoroughly
discussed and settled. All must abide by the _chose jugée_. Arius had
been proved to be a servant of the Devil. Three hundred bishops had said
it, and “that which has commended itself to the judgment of three
hundred bishops cannot be other than the doctrine of God, seeing that
the Holy Spirit, dwelling in the minds of so many honourable men, must
have thoroughly enlightened them as to the will of God.”[104] He took
for granted, therefore, that, those who had been led away by Arius would
return at once to the Catholic fold. The Emperor also wrote another
letter, which he addressed “To the Churches,” in which he declared that
each question at issue had been discussed until a decision was arrived
at “acceptable to Him who is the inspector of all things,” and added
that nothing was henceforth left for dissension or controversy in
matters of faith.[105] Most of the letter, indeed, consists of argument
shewing the desirability of a uniform celebration of Easter, but one can
see that the leading thought in the writer’s mind is that the last word
had at length been uttered on the cardinal doctrines of the Christian
Faith. The Council had been a brilliant success. The three hundred
bishops announced to the Catholic Church the decisions of their “great
and holy Synod,” with the explicit declaration that “all heresy has been
cut out of the Church.”[106] Arius was banished and Eusebius of
Nicomedia with him. The triumph of orthodoxy seemed finally assured.
-----
Footnote 104:
ὅ γὰρ τοῖς τριακοσίοις ἐπισκόποις ἤρεσεν οὔδεν ἔστιν ἕτερον ἤ τοῦ θεοῦ
γνώμη (Soc., i., 9).
Footnote 105:
ὡς μηδὲν ἔτι πρὸς διχόνοιαν ἢ πίστεως αμφισβητησιν ὑπολείπεσθαι
(_ibidem_).
Footnote 106:
ἐπὶ τὸ πὰσαν αἵρεσιν ἐκκοπῆναι (Soc., i., 9).
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