The gist of the question to be settled by the Coun- cil of Nice lay in the summary argument of Arius : "The Father is a Father; the Son is a Son; there- fore the Father must have existed before the Son ; therefore once the Son was not; therefore he was made, like all creatures, of a substance that had not previously existed." This was the substance of the doctrine of Arius. His intellect, logical, but not pro- found or intuitive, could not embrace the lofty doc- trine of an eternal, unbeginning generation of the Son. In a truly rationalistic way, he thought that he could argue from the nature of human generation to divine ; not seeing that his argument, while insisting on the truth of the Sonship of Christ, ended by alienating Him wholly from the essence of the Father. "The Arian Christ was confessedly lacking in a divine na- ture, in every sense of the term. Though the Son of God was united with human nature in the birth of Jesus, yet that Son of God has a Kriapa. He indeed existed long before that birth, but not from eternity. The only element, consequently, in the Arian con- struction of Christ's person that was preserved intact and pure was the humanity" (Shedd, History of Doc- trines, i, 393). Of the debates upon these great ques- tions in the Council of Nice no full account is extant. Athanasius, who was then a deacon under Alexander, bore a prominent part in the council, and contributed largely to its decisions, in defence of which the re- mainder of his life was chiefly occupied. See Atha- nasius. For an account of the proceedings, as far as known, see Kaye, Council of Nicwa (Lond. 1853). Eusebius of Cassarea was also a chief actor in the council, and sought, in harmony with his character and habits, to act as mediator. He proposed, finally, a creed which he declared he had "received from the bishops who had preceded him and from the Scriptures" (Socrates, Eccl. Hist, i, 8), which received the imme- diate approbation of Constantine. It did not, how- ever, contain the word bpoovaaoc, which was insisted upon by the orthodox. (It is given in parallel col- umns with the Nicene Creed in Christian lu-mem- brancer, January, 1854, p. 133.) The Creed, as finally
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adopted, condemned the heresy of Arias, and fixed the doctrine of the person of Christ as it has been held in the church to this day, declaring the Son to be "be- gotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made" (see Socrates, Eccl. Hist, i, 8 ; and article Creed, Nicene). According to Sozomen (i, 20), all the bishops but fifteen, according to Socrates (i, 8), all but five, signed the Creed. These five were Eusebius of Nicomedia, Theognis of Nice, Maris of Chalcedon, Thomas of Marmarica, and Secundus of Ptolemais; and of these only the two last held out against the threat of banishment made by the emperor. Arius was excommunicated and banished, and his books ordered by the emperor to be burnt.
2. From the Council of Nice to the Council of Milan. — Soon after the close of the Council of Nice, Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nice, being found to continue their countenance of the Arian cause by re- fusing to carry out its anathemas, were deposed, were both subjected to the same penalty of exile by the em- peror, and had successors appointed to their sees. By imposing upon the credulity of Constantino, they were in three years restored, and gained considerable in- fluence at court (Sozom. ii, 16, 27). The indulgent emperor, on the statement being made to him (by a presbyter of the household of his sister Constantia, who herself favored Arianism, and on her death-bed recommended this presbyter to Constantine) that Ari- us had been misrepresented, and differed in nothing that was important from the Nicene fathers, had him recalled from banishment, and required him to present in writing a confession of his faith (Socrates, Hist. Ec- cles. i, 25). He did this in such terms as, though they admitted a latent reservation, yet appeared entirely orthodox, and therefore not only satisfied the emperor, but offended some of his own friends, who from that time separated from him (see the Creed in Socrates, i, 26). Athanasius, now bishop of Alexandria, was not so easily imposed upon, but was resolute in refusing Arius admission to the communion, since the Nicene Council had openly condemned him, until a similar synod should receive his submission and restore him. The Synod of Tyre, convened A.D. 335 by the em- peror, tried Athanasius on trumped-up charges of im- morality, and he was banished. The emperor then sent for Arius to Constantinople, and, after receiving his signature to the Nicene Creed, insisted on his be- ing received to communion by Alexander, the bishop of that city. On the day before this reception was to have taken place Arius died suddenly (A.D. 336) (Soc- rates, i, 26-38).
Constantine died A.D. 337, and the empire fell to his three sons, Constantine II in Gaul; Constantius in the East ; Constans in Italy and Gaul. The latter was a friend and protector of Athanasius. The relig- ious question was now greatly mixed up with politics. On the death of the younger Constantine, the emperor of the East, Constantius (340), took the Arians formal- ly under his protection (Sozom. iii, 18). Eusebius ob- tained great influence with Constantius, and became bishop of Constantinople A.D. 339, and secured per- mission for the Arians to celebrate public worship at Alexandria and other places of the Eastern empire. Nevertheless, a council was held at Antioch, A.D. 341, in which the Eastern bishops declared that they could not be followers of Arius, because "how coidd we, being bishops, be followers of a presbyter?" In this synod four creeds were approved, in which an endeavor was made to steer a middle course between the Nicaean Eomoousm and the definitions of Arius, which two points were considered to be the two ex- tremes of divergence from the standard of ecclesiasti- cal orthodoxy in the Fast. These four Antiochene creeds are extant in Athanasius, //, Synodis, § 22-25 (sec Gieseler, Ch. History, i, § 80). As this middle