RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Arianism
attention of the Emperor Constantine was called to the controversy, and in a letter to Alexander and Alius he pronounced it a mere logomachy, a wrangle over things incomprehensible; he also sent Hosius of Cordova to Egypt to mediate between the contending parties (Socrates, i. 7, gives the letter, as does also Eusebius, Vita Const., ii.). From political considerations, however, at the suggestion of certain bishops, he called the first ecumenical council of the Church, to settle the Arian controversy together with the question of the time of celebrating Easter and the Meletian schism in Egypt.
2. The Council of Nicasa, 325: The council met at Nicaea in Bithynia. It consisted of three hundred and eighteen bishops (about one-sixth of all the bishops of the Greco-Roman Empire), resulted in the formal condemnation of Arius, and the adoption of the " Nicene Creed," which affirms in unequivocal terms the doctrine of the eternal deity of Christ in these words: " [We believe] 3. The in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son Nicene of God, begotten of the Father, Light Creed. of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down and was incarnate, and was made man; he suffered, and the third day he rose again, and ascended into heaven; from thence he cometh to judge the quick and the dead." To the original Nicene Creed is added the following anathema: "And those who say there was a time when he [the Son] was not; and he was made out of nothing, or out of another substance or thing, or the Son of God is created, or changeable, or alterable; —they are condemned by the holy catholic and apostolic Church." This anathema was omitted in that form of the Nicene Creed which is usually, though incorrectly, traced to the Constantinopolitan Synod of 381, and which after the Council of Chalcedon, in 451, entirely superseded the Nicene Creed of 325, in its primitive form. (See below, § 8.)
It is possible that Alexander and Hosius had come to an understanding, before the council met, concerning the use of the term homoousios (Socrates, i. 7, says they discussed the ousia and hypostasis); Harnack positively takes this position, Loofs hesitates. The creed was signed by nearly all the bishops, Hosius at the head, even by 4- Accept- Eusebius of Csesarea, who, before and ance of the afterward, occupied a middle position Creed. between Athanasius and Arius. This is the first instance of such signing of a doctrinal symbol. Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nicaea signed the creed, but not the condemnatory formula appended, and for this they were deposed, and banished for a short time. Two Egyptian bishops— Theonas and Secundus— persistently refused to sign, and were banished, with Anus, to Illyria. This is the first example of the civil punishment of heresy, and opened the long and dark era of persecution for all departures from the catholic or orthodox faith. The books of Arius We^e burnt, and his followers branded as enemies of Christianity. The Nicene Creed has outlived all the subsequent storms, and, in the improved form
recognized at Constantinople in 381, it remains to this day the most generally received creed of Christendom; and, if the later Latin insertion, the filioque, be omitted, a bond of union between the Greek, the Roman, and the orthodox Protestant Churches.
3. From the Council of Nicaea, 325, to the Council of Constantinople, 381 : Not long after the Nicene Council an Arian and semi- Arian reaction took place, and acquired for a time the ascendency in the empire. Arianism now entered the stage of its political power. This was a period of the greatest excitement in Church and State: Council was held against council; creed was set up against creed; anathema was hurled against anathema. " The highways," says the impartial heathen historian, Ammianus Marcellinus, " were covered with galloping bishops." The churches, the theaters, the hippodromes, the feasts, the mar- 5. Arian kets, the streets, the baths, and the Reaction, shops of Constantinople and other Athana- large cities were filled with dogmatic sius. disputes. In intolerance and violence the Arians even exceeded the orthodox.) The interference of emperors and their courts only poured oil on the flames, and heightened the bitterness of contest by adding confiscation and exile to the spiritual punishment of synodical excommunication. The unflinching leader of the orthodox party was Athanasius (q.v.), a pure and sublime character, who had figured at the Council of Nica?a as a youthful archdeacon, in company with Alexander, whom he succeeded as bishop (326);) but he was again and again deposed by imperial despotism, and spent twenty years in exile. /He sacrificed everything to his conviction, and had the courage to face the empire in arms (hence the motto: Athanasius contra mundum). He was a man of one idea and one passion, — the eternal divinity of Christ, — which he considered the corner-stone of the Christian system. The politicoecclesiastical leader of the Arian party was Eusebius of Nicomedia who, probably owing to the influence of the Emperor Constantine (Socrates, i. 25 etc.), was recalled from exile and baptized Constantine on his death-bed. Constantine was turned favorably to Arius, accepted a confession he prepared, recalled him from exile, and ordered him to be solemnly restored to the communion of the catholic Church at Constantinople; he even demanded his restoration in Alexandria by Athanasius; but, on the day preceding his intended restoration, the heretic suddenly died (336). In the year following, Constantine himself died, and his son Constantine II. recalled Athanasius from his first exile. In the West the Nicene statement found universal acceptance. But in the East, where Constantius, the second son of Constantine the Great, ruled, opposition to the Nicene formula was well-nigh universal, and was maintained ' with fanatical zeal by the court and by Eusebius of Nicomedia, who was transferred to Constantinople in 338. Athanasius was attacked on personal charges with great vehemence by the Eusebians, who sought to supersede the doctrine of the homoousia by indirect methods. He was banished to Gaul in 335. Eustathius of Antioch, a supporter of Athanasius, had been de-
Arianism