Annotations on Theological Subjects in the foregoing Treatises, alphabetically arranged.

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Adam

{1} THOUGH the Fathers, in accordance with Scripture, hold that Adam was created sinless, they also hold that he could not have persevered in his state of innocence and uprightness without a special grace, which he lost upon his fall, and which is regained for us, (and that in far greater measure,) by our Lord's sufferings and merits.

The Catholic doctrine is, that Adam innocent was mortal, yet in fact would not have died; that he had no principle of eternal life within his body naturally, but was sustained continually by divine power till such time as immortality should have been given him. Vid. Incarn. 4. "If God accorded to the garments and shoes of the Israelites," says S. Augustine, "that they should not wear out during so many years, how is it strange that to man obedient should by His power be accorded, that, whereas his body was animal and mortal, it was so constituted as to become aged without decay, and at such time as God willed might pass without the intervention of death from mortality to {2} immortality? For as the flesh itself, which we now bear, is not therefore invulnerable, because it may be preserved from wounding, so Adam's was not therefore not mortal, because he was not bound to die. Such a habit even of their present animal and mortal body I suppose was granted also to them who have been translated hence without death; for Enoch and Elias too have through so long a time been preserved from the decay of age." De Pecc. Mer. i. 3. Adam's body, he says elsewhere, was "mortale quia poterat mori, immortale quia poterat non mori;" and he goes on to say that immortality was given him "de ligno vitæ, non de constitutione naturæ." Gen. ad Lit. vi. 36. This doctrine came into the controversy with Baius, and Pope S. Pius V. condemned the assertion, "Immortalitas primi hominis non erat gratiæ beneficium, sed naturalis conditio."

Then, as to his soul, S. Augustine says, "An aid was [given to the first Adam], but a more powerful grace is given to the Second. The first is that by which a man has justice if he will; the second does more, for by it he also wills, and wills so strongly, and loves so ardently, as to overcome the will of the flesh lusting contrariwise to the will of the spirit," &c. De Corr. et Grat. 31. And S. Cyril, "Our forefather Adam seems to have gained wisdom, not in time, as we, but appears perfect in understanding from the very first moment of his formation, preserving in himself the illumination, given him by nature from God, as yet untroubled and pure, and leaving the dignity of his nature unpractised on," &c. In Joan. p. 75. {3}

Alexander's Encyclical

Vid. supr. vol. i. p. 1, Prefatory Notice

I HERE set down the internal evidence in favour of this Letter having been written by Athanasius.

A long letter on Arius and his tenets, addressed by Alexander to his namesake at Constantinople, has been preserved for us by Theodoret, and we can compare the Encyclical on the one hand with this Letter, and with the acknowledged writings of Athanasius on the other, and thereby determine for ourselves whether the Encyclical does not resemble in style what Athanasius has written, and does not differ from the style of Theodoret's Alexander. Athanasius is a great writer, simple in his diction, clear, unstudied, direct, vigorous, elastic, and above all characteristic; but Alexander writes with an effort, and is elaborate and exquisite in his vocabulary and structure of sentences.

Thus, the Encyclical before us, after S. Athanasius's manner in treating of sacred subjects, has hardly one scientific term; its words, when not Arius's own, are for the most part from Scripture, such as [logos, sophia, monogenes, eikon, apaugasma], just as they are found in Athanasius's controversial Treatises; whereas, in Alexander's letter in Theodoret, phrases are found, certainly not from Scripture, perhaps of Alexandrian theology, {4} perhaps peculiar to the writer, for instance, [achorista pragmata duo; ho huios ten kata panta homoioteta autou ek phuseos apomaxomenos; di esoptrou akelidotou kai empsuchou theias eikonos; mesiteuousa physis monogenes; tas tei hypostasei duo physeis]. And, instead of the [ousia] of the Father, of the Son, of the Word, which is one of the few, as well as familiar, scientific terms of Athanasius (Orat. i. § 45, ii. 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 18, 22, 47, 56), and which the Encyclical uses too, we read in the Letter of Alexander, preserved by Theodoret, [hypostasis], and that again and again; e.g., [ten idiotropon autou hypostasin; tes hypostaseos autou aperiergastou; neoteran tes hyposteos genesin; he tou monogenous anekdiegetos hypostasis; ten tou logou hypostasin], phrases quite out of keeping with the style of the Encyclical. Nor is it only in the expression of theological ideas that the style of the Letter in Theodoret differs from the style of the Encyclical; thus, when the latter speaks of [phthoreas ton psuchon], the former uses the compound [phthoropoios]. Such, too, are [he philarchos kai philarguros prothesis; christemporian; phrenoblabous; idiotropon; homostoichois syllabais; theegorous apostolous; antidiastolen; tes patrikes maieuseos; philotheos sapheneia; anosiourgias; phlenaphon muthon]. It is very difficult to suppose that the same hand wrote this Letter to the Bishop of Constantinople and the Encyclical which is the subject of this note.

On the other hand, that Athanasius wrote the latter becomes almost certain when, in addition to what has been observed in Vol. i., supr., in the Prefatory Notice, the following coincidence of words and phrases is {5} considered, on comparing the Encyclical with Athanasius's acknowledged writings:—

{7}

Angels

ANGELS were actually worshipped, in the proper sense of the word, by Gnostics and other heretics, who even ascribed to them a creative power; and certainly, to consider them the source of any good to man, and the acceptable channel intrinsically of approaching God, in derogation of our Lord's sole mediation, is idolatry. However, their presence in and about the Church, and with all of us individually, is an inestimable blessing, never to be slighted or forgotten; for, as by our prayers and our kind deeds we can serve each other, so Angels, but in a far higher way, serve us, and are channels of grace to us, as the Sacraments also are. All this would doubtless have been maintained by Athanasius had there been occasion for saying it. For instance, in commenting on Psalm 49, Deus Deorum, he says so in substance:—

"'He shall summon the heaven from above.' When the Saviour manifested Himself, He kindled in us the light of true religious knowledge: He converted that which had wandered; He bound up that which was ailing; as being the Good Shepherd, He chased away the wild beasts from the sheepfold; He gave His people sanctification of the Spirit, and the protection of Angelic Powers, and He set those over them through the whole world who should be holy mystagogues. 'He will {8} summon,' He says, 'the Angels who are in heaven and the men on earth chosen for the Apostolate, to judge His people.' ... That with those mystagogues and their disciples Angels co-operate, Paul makes clear when he says, Heb. i. 14," &c., &c.

If it be asked why, such being his substantial teaching, his language in particular passages of his Orations tends to discourage such cultus Angelorum as the Church has since his time sanctioned, I answer first that he is led by his subject to contrast the Angelic creation with our Lord the Creator; and thus, while extolling Him as Supreme, he comes to speak with disparagement of those who were no more than works of His hands. And secondly, the idolatrous honour paid to Angels by the heretical bodies at that time made unadvisable, or created a prepossession against, what in itself was allowable. Moreover, the Church, as divinely guided, has not formulated her doctrines all at once, but has taken in hand, first one, and then another. As to S. Athanasius, if he seemingly disparages the Angels, it is in order to exalt our Lord. He is arguing against the Arians somewhat in this manner: "You yourselves allow that the Son is the Creator, and, as such, the object of worship; but, if He be the Creator, how can He be a creature? how can He be only a higher kind of Angel, if it was He who created Angels? If so, He must have created Himself. Why, it is the very enormity of the Gnostics, that they ascribe creative power and pay divine honours to Angels; how are you not as bad as they?" Athanasius does not touch the question whether, as Angels and Saints according to {9} him are (impropriè) gods (vid. next paragraph), so in a corresponding sense worship may (impropriè) be paid to them.

"The sacred writer, with us in view, says, 'O God, who is like unto Thee?' and though he calls those creatures who are partakers ([metochous]) of the Word gods, still those who partake are not the same as, or like, Him who is partaken. For works are made, and make nothing," ad Afros 7. "Not one of things which come-to-be is an efficient cause," [poietikon aition], Orat. ii. § 21; ibid. § 2, iii. 14, and contr. Gent. 9 init. "Our reason rejects the idea that the Creator should be a creature, for creation is by the Creator." Hil. Trin. xii. 5. [pos dunatai to ktizomenon ktizein? e pos ho ktizon ktizetai]; Athan. ad Afros, 4 fin. Vid. also Serap. i. 24, 6, iii. 4; Orat. ii. 21.

As to Angels, vid. August. de Civ. Dei xii. 24; de Trin. iii. 13-18; Damasc. F. O. ii. 3; Cyril in Julian. ii. p. 62. "For neither would the Angels," says Athan., Orat. ii. § 21, "since they too are creatures, be able to frame, though Valentinus, and Marcion, and Basilides think so, and you are their copyists; nor will the sun, as being a creature, ever make what is not into what is; nor will man fashion man, nor stone devise stone, nor wood give growth to wood." The Gnostics who attributed creation to Angels are alluded to in Orat. iii. 12; Epiph. Hær. 52, 53, 62, &c.; Theodor. Hær. i. 1 and 3. They considered the Angels consubstantial with our Lord, as the Manichees after them, seemingly from holding the doctrine of emanation. Vid. Bull. D. F. N. ii. 1, § 2, and {10} Beausobre, Manich. iii. 8. "If, from S. Paul saying better than the Angels, they should therefore insist that his language is that of comparison, and that comparison in consequence implies oneness of kind, so that the Son is of the nature of Angels, they will in the first place incur the disgrace of rivalling and repeating what Valentinus held, and Carpocrates, and those other heretics, of whom the former said that the Angels were one in kind with the Christ, and Carpocrates that Angels are framers of the world." Orat. i. § 56.

As to the sins incident to created natures, all creatures, says Athanasius, depend for their abidance in good upon the Word, and without Him have no stay. Thus, ad Afros 7, after, as in Orat. i. § 49, speaking of [angelon men parabanton, tou de Adam parakousantos], he says, "no one would deny that things which are made are open to change (Cyril. in Joan. v. 2), and since the Angels and Adam transgressed, and all showed their need of the grace of the Word, what is thus mutable cannot be like to the immutable God, nor the creature to the Creator." On the subject of the sins of Angels, vid. Huet. Origen. ii. 5; Petav. Dogm. t. iii. p. 73; Dissert. Bened. in Cyr. Hier. iii. 5; Nat. Alex. Hist. Æv. i. Dissert. 7.

So far Athanasius says nothing which the Church has not taught up to this day; but he goes further.

"No one," he says, Orat. iii. § 12, "would pray to receive aught from 'God and the Angels,' or from any other creature, nor would he say 'May God and the Angel give thee.'" Vid. Basil de Sp. S. c. 13 (t. ii. p. 585). Also, "There were men," says {11} Chrysostom on Col. ii., "who said, We ought not to have access to God through Christ, but through Angels, for the former is beyond our power. Hence the Apostle everywhere insists on his teaching concerning Christ, 'through the blood of the Cross,'" &c. And Theodoret on Col. iii. 17, says: "Following this rule, the Synod of Laodicea, with a view to cure this ancient disorder, passed a decree against the praying to Angels, and leaving our Lord Jesus Christ." "All supp1ication, prayer, intercession, and thanksgiving is to be addressed to the Supreme God, through the High Priest who is above all Angels, the Living Word and God ... But Angels we may not fitly call upon, since we have not obtained a knowledge of them more than human." Origen. contr. Cels. v. 4, 5. Vid. also for similar statements Voss. de Idolatr. i. 9. These extracts are here made in illustration of the particular passage of Athan. to which they are appended, not as if they contain the whole doctrine of Origen, Theodoret, or S. Chrysostom, on the cultus Angelorum. Of course they are not really inconsistent with such texts as 1 Tim. v. 21, Eccl. v. 4.

Elsewhere Athan. says that "the Angel who delivered Jacob from all evil," from whom he asked a blessing, was not a created Angel, but the Angel of great Counsel, the Word of God Himself, Orat. iii. § 12; but he says shortly afterwards that the Angel that appeared to Moses in the Bush "was not the God of Abraham, but what was seen was an Angel, and in the Angel God spoke," § 14; vid. Monitum Bened. in Hilar. Trin. lib. iv. Thus Athan. does not differ from Augustine, vid. infr. art. Scripture Passages, No. i., p. 266. {12}

As to the word "worship," as denoting the cultus Angelorum, worship is a very wide term, and has obviously more senses than one. Thus we read in one passage of Scripture that "all the congregation ... worshipped the Lord, and the king" [David]. S. Augustine, as S. Athanasius, Orat. ii. § 23, makes the characteristic of divine worship to consist in sacrifice. "No one would venture to say that sacrifice was due to any but God. Many are the things taken from divine worship and transferred to human honours, either through excessive humility or mischievous adulation; yet without giving us the notion that those to whom they were transferred were not men. And these are said to be honoured and venerated; or were worshipped, if much is heaped upon them; but whoever thought that sacrifice was to be offered, except to Him whom the sacrificer knew or thought or pretended to be God?" August. de Civ. Dei, x. 4. "Whereas you have called so many dead men gods, why are ye indignant with us, who do but honour, not deify the martyrs, as being God's martyrs and loving servants? ... That they even offered libations to the dead, ye certainly know, who venture on the use of them by night contrary to the laws ... But we, O men, assign neither sacrifices nor even libations to the martyrs, but we honour them as men divine and divinely beloved." Theodor. contr. Gent. viii. pp. 908-910. It is observable that incense was burnt before the Imperial Statues, vid. art. Imperial Titles. Nebuchadnezzar offered an oblation to Daniel, after the interpretation of his dream. {13}

Antichrist

As the early Christians, in obedience to our Lord's words, were ever looking out for His second coming, and for the signs of it, they associated it with every prominent disturbance, external or internal, which interfered with the peace of the Church; with every successive persecution, heretical outbreak, or schism which befell it. In this, too, they were only following the guidance of our Lord and His Apostles, who told them that "great tribulation," "false prophets," disunion, and "apostasy" and at length "Antichrist," should be His forerunners. Also, they recollected S. John's words, "Omnis Spiritus qui solvit Jesum, ex Deo non est, et hic est Antichristus de quo audistis, quoniam, venit," &c. Hence "forerunner of Antichrist" was the received epithet employed by them to designate the successive calamities and threatenings of evil, which one after another spread over the face of the orbis terrarum.

Thus we have found S. Athanasius calling Arianism "the forerunner of Antichrist," Syn. § 5, [prodromos], præcursor; vid. also Orat. i. §§ 1 and 7; Ap. c. Ar. fin.; Hist. Ar. 77; Cyr. Cat. xv. 9; Basil. Ep. 264; Hilar. Aux. 5, no distinction being carefully drawn between the apostasy and the Antichrist. Constantius is called Antichrist by Athan. Hist. Arian. 67; his acts are the [prooimion kai paraskeue] of Antichrist, Hist. Arian. 70, {14} fin., 71 and 80. Constantius is the image, [eikon], of Antichrist, 74 and 80, and shows the likeness, [homoioma], of the malignity of Antichrist, 75. Vid. also 77. "Let Christ be expected, for Antichrist is in possession." Hilar. contr. Const. init., also 5. Speaking of Auxentius, the Arian Bishop of Milan, he says, "Of one thing I warn you, beware of Antichrist; it is ill that ... your veneration for God's Church lies in houses and edifices ... Is there any doubt that Antichrist is to sit in these? Mountains, and woods, and lakes, and prisons, and pits are to me more safe," &c., Contr. Auxent. 12. Lucifer. calls Constantius "præcursor Antichristi," p. 89; possessed with the spirit of Antichrist, p. 219; friend of Antichrist, p. 259. Vid. also Basil, Ep. 264. Again, S. Jerome, writing against Jovinian, says that he who teaches that there are no differences of rewards is Antichrist, ii. 21. S. Leo, alluding to 1 John iv. 10, calls Nestorius and Eutyches, "Antichristi præcursores," Ep. 75, p. 1022; again, Antichrist is whoever withstood what the Church has once settled, with an allusion to opposition to the see of S. Peter, Ep. 156, c. 2. Anastasius speaks of the ten horns of Monophysitism, Hodeg. 8 and 24; and calls Severus Antichrist, for usurping the judicial powers of the Church, ibid. p. 92. Vid. also Greg. I. Ep. vii. 33.

The great passage of S. Paul about the [apostasia], 1 Tim. iv. 1, 2, is taken to apply to the Arians in Orat. i. § 8, cf. ad Ægypt. § 20, 21; but the Fathers more commonly refer it to the Oriental sects of the early centuries, who fulfilled one or other of those conditions {15} which it specifies. It is predicated of the Marcionists by Clement, Strom. iii. 6. Of the Valentinians, Epiph. Hær. 31, 34. Of the Montanists and others, ibid. 48, 8. Of the Saturnilians (according to Huet), Origen in Matt. xiv. 16. Of apostolic heretics, Cyril. Cat. iv. 27. Of Marcionites, Valentinians, and Manichees, Chrysost. de Virg. 5. Of Gnostics and Manichees, Theod. Hær. ii. præf. Of Encratites, ibid. v. fin. Of Eutyches, Ep. Anon. 190 (apud Garner. Diss. v. Theod. p. 901). Pseudo-Justin seems to consider it fulfilled in the Catholics of the fifth century, as being Anti-pelagians, Quæst. 22; vid. Bened. note in loc. Besides Athanasius, no early author by whom it is referred to the Arians, occurs to the writer of this, except S. Alexander's Letter ap. Socr. i. 6; and, if he may hazard the conjecture, there is much in that letter like Athan.'s own writing. Vid. supr. art. Alexander. {16}

Apostle

"THE Apostle" is the usual title of S. Paul in antiquity, as "the Philosopher" at a later date is appropriated to Aristotle. "When 'the Apostle' is mentioned," says S. Augustine, "if it is not specified which, Paul only is understood, because he is more celebrated from the number of his Epistles, and laboured more abundantly than all the rest," ad Bonifac. iii. 3. E.g. "And this is what Peter has said, 'that ye may be partakers in a divine nature;' as says also the Apostle, 'know ye not that ye are the Temple of God,'" &c. Orat. i. § 16. Vid. also Enc. supr. vol. i. p. 6; Decr. §§ 15 and 17. "The Apostle himself, the Doctor of the Gentiles," Syn. §§ 28 and 39. "John saying and the Apostle," Orat. i. § 47.

However, S. Peter also is called the Apostle, Orat. i. § 47. {17}

Arius

IT is very difficult to gain a clear idea of the character of Arius. Athanasius speaks as if his theological song, or Thalia, was but a token of his personal laxity; and certainly the mere fact of his having written it seems incompatible with any remarkable seriousness and strictness. "He drew up his heresy on paper," Athan. says, "and imitating, as if on a festive occasion ([hos en thaliai]) no grave writer, but the Egyptian Sotades, in the character of his music, he writes at great length," &c. De Syn. § 15. Again, Orat. i. §§ 2-5, he calls him the Sotadean Arius; and speaks of the "dissolute manners," and "the effeminate tone," and the "jests" of the Thalia; a poem which, he says shortly before, "is not even found among the more respectable Greeks, but among those only who sing songs over their wine, with noise and revel." Vid. also de Sent. D. 6. Constantine also, after the [Ares Areie], proceeds, [epischeto de se he goun Aphrodites homilia]. Epiph. Hær. 69, 9 fin. Socrates too says that "the character of the book was gross and dissolute." Hist. i. 9. The Arian Philostorgius tells us that "Arius wrote songs for the sea, and for the mill, and for the road, and set them to suitable music," Hist. ii. 2. It is remarkable that Athanasius should say the Egyptian Sotades, as again in Sent. D. 6. There were two Poets of the {18} name; one a writer of the Middle Comedy, Athen. Deipn. vii. 11; but the other, who is here spoken of, was a native of Maronea in Crete, according to Suidas (in voc.), under the successors of Alexander, Athen. xiv. 4. He wrote in Ionic metre, which was of infamous name from the subjects to which he and others applied it. Vid. Suid. ibid. Some read "Sotadicos" for "Socraticos," Juv. Satir. ii. 10. Vid. also Martial, Ep. ii. 86. The characteristic of the metre was the recurrence of the same cadence, which virtually destroyed the division into verses, Turneb. in Quinct. i. 8, and thus gave the composition that lax and slovenly air to which Athanasius alludes. Horace's Ode, "Miserarum est neque amori," &c., is a specimen of this metre, and some have called it Sotadic; but Bentley shows in loc. that Sotades wrote in the Ionic à majore, and that his verse had somewhat more of system than is found in the Ode of Horace. Athenæus implies that all Ionic metres were called Sotadic, or that Sotades wrote in various Ionic metres. The Church adopted the Doric music, and forbade the Ionic and Lydian. The name "Thalia" commonly belonged to convivial songs; Martial contrasts the "lasciva Thalia" with "carmina sanctiora," Epigr. vii. 17. Vid. Thaliarchus, "the master of the feast," Horat. Od. i. 9. This would be the more offensive among Christians in Athan.'s day, in proportion to the keener sensibilities of the South, and the more definite ideas which music seems to have conveyed to their minds; and more especially in a case where the metre Arius employed had obtained so shocking a reputation, and was associated in the minds {19} of Christians with the deeds of darkness, in the midst of which in those heathen times the Church lived and bore her witness.

Such is Athan.'s report, but Constantine and Epiphanius speak of Arius in very different terms, yet each in his own way, as the following extracts show. It is possible that Constantine is only declaiming, for his whole invective is like a school exercise or fancy composition. Constantine too had not seen Arius at the time of this invective, which was prior to the Nicene Council, and his account of him is inconsistent with itself, for he also uses the very strong and broad language about Arius quoted above. "Look then," he says, "look all men, what words of lament he is now professing, being held with the bite of the serpent; how his veins and flesh are possessed with poison, and are in a ferment of severe pain; how his whole body is wasted, and is all withered and sad and pale and shaking, and fearfully emaciated. How hateful to see, how filthy is his mass of hair, how he is half dead all over, with failing eyes, and bloodless countenance, and woe-begone! so that all these things combining in him at once, frenzy, madness, and folly, for the continuance of the complaint, have made thee wild and savage. But not having any sense what bad plight he is in, he cries out, 'I am transported with delight, and I leap and skip for joy, and I fly:' and again, with boyish impetuosity, 'Be it so,' he says, 'we are lost.'" Harduin. Conc. t. i. p. 457. Perhaps this strange account may be taken to illustrate the words "mania" and "Ariomaniacs." S. Alexander too speaks of Arius's melancholic {20} temperament, [melangolikois hermosmenes doxes kenes]. Theod. Hist. i. 3, P. 741. S. Basil also speaks of the Eunomians as [heis lampran melangolian parenechthentas]. Contr. Eun. ii. 24. Elsewhere he speaks of the Pneumatomachists as worse than [melangolontes]. De Sp. S. 41.

Epiphanius's account of Arius is as follows:—"From elation of mind the old man swerved from the mark. He was in stature very tall, downcast in visage, with manners like a wily serpent, captivating to every guileless heart by that same crafty bearing. For ever habited in cloak and vest, he was pleasant of address, ever persuading souls and flattering; wherefore what was his very first work but to withdraw from the Church in one body as many as seven hundred women who professed virginity?" Hær. 69, 3. Arius is here said to have been tall; Athanasius, on the other hand, would appear to have been short, if we may so interpret Julian's indignant description of him, [mede aner, all' anthropiskos euteles], "not even a man, but a common little fellow." Ep. 51. Yet S. Gregory Nazianzen speaks of him as "high in prowess and humble in spirit, mild, meek, full of sympathy, pleasant in speech, more pleasant in manners, angelical in person, more angelical in mind, serene in his rebukes, instructive in his praises," &c. &c. Orat. 21. 9. There is no proof that S. Gregory had ever seen him. {21}

The Arians

1. Their Ethical Characteristics

WHEN we consider how grave and reverent was the temper of the Ante-Nicene Church, how it concealed its sacred mysteries from the world at large, how writers such as Tertullian make the absence of such a strict discipline the very mark of heresy, and that a vulgar ostentation and profaneness was the prominent charge brought against the heretic Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch, we need no more ready evidence or note against the Arian party than our finding that the ethical character, which is in history so intimately associated with Paul and the heretics generally of the first three centuries, is the badge of Arianism also.

1. Athan. in various passages of his Theological Treatises refers to it, and it is one of the reasons why he speaks so familiarly of their "madness." "What pressed on us so much," he says of the Councils of Seleucia and Ariminum, "was that the whole world should be thrown into confusion, and those who then bore the profession of ecclesiastics should run about far and near, seeking forsooth how best to learn to believe in our Lord Jesus Christ. Certainly, if they were believers already, they would not have been seeking, as though they were not. And to the catechumens, this was no small scandal; but to the heathen, it was {22} something more than common, and even furnished broad merriment, that Christians, as if waking out of sleep at this time of day, should be making out how they were to believe concerning Christ, while their professed clergy, though claiming deference from their flocks, as teachers, were unbelievers on their own showing, in that they were seeking what they had not." Syn. § 2.

The heathen Ammianus supports this complaint in the well-known passage which tells of "the troops of Bishops hurrying to and fro at the public expense," and "the Synods, in their efforts to bring over the religion everywhere to their side, being the ruin of the posting establishments." Hist. xxi. 16. Again, "The spectacle proceeded to that pitch of indecency," says Eusebius, "that at length, in the very midst of the theatres of the unbelievers, the solemn matters of divine teaching were subjected to the basest mockery." In Vit. Const. ii. 61.

Also Athan., after speaking of the Arian tenet that our Lord was once on His probation and might have fallen, says, "This is what they do not shrink from conversing about in full market." Orat. i. § 37. And again, "When they commenced this heresy, they used to go about with dishonest crafty phrases which they had got together; nay, up to this time some of them, when they fall in with boys in the market-place, question them, not out of divine Scripture, but thus, as if bursting out with the abundance of their heart:—'He who is, did He, from Him who is, make him who was not, or him who was?" Orat. i. § 22. {23}

Alexander speaks of the interference, even by legal process, against himself, of disobedient women, [di' entuchias gunaikarion atakton ha epatesan], and of the busy and indecent gadding about of the younger, [ek tou peritrochazein pasan aguian asmenos]. Ap. Theod. Hist. i. 3, p 730; also p. 747; also of the men's buffoon conversation, p. 731. Socrates says that "in the Imperial Court the officers of the bedchamber held disputes with the women, and in the city in every house there was a war of dialectics." Hist. ii. 2. This mania raged especially in Constantinople; and S. Gregory Nazianzen speaks of these women as "Jezebels in as thick a crop as hemlock in a field." Orat. 35. 3. He speaks of the heretics as "aiming at one thing only, how to make good or refute points of argument," making "every market-place resound with their words, and spoiling every entertainment with their trifling and offensive talk." Orat. 27. 2. The most remarkable testimony of the kind, though not concerning Constantinople, is given by S. Gregory Nyssen, and often quoted, "Men of yesterday and the day before, mere mechanics, off-hand dogmatists in theology, servants too and slaves that have been flogged, runaways from servile work, are solemn with us and philosophical about things incomprehensible ... With such the whole city is full; its smaller gates, forums, squares, thoroughfares; the clothes-venders, the money-lenders, the victuallers. Ask about pence, and he will discuss the Generate and Ingenerate; inquire the price of bread, he answers, Greater is the Father, and the Son is subject; say that a bath would suit you, and he {24} defines that the Son is made out of nothing." t. 2, p. 898. (de Deitate Fil. &c.)

Arius set the example of all this in his Thalia; Leontius, Eudoxius, and Aetius, in various ways, followed it faithfully.

2. Another characteristic of the Arian party was their changeableness, insincerity, and want of principle (vid. Chameleons). This was owing to their fear of the Emperor and of the Christian populations, which hindered them speaking out; also, to the difficulty of keeping their body together in opinion, and the necessity they were in to deceive one party and to please another, if they were to maintain their hold upon the Church. Athanasius observes on their reluctance to speak out, challenging them to present "the heresy naked," de Sent. Dionys. 2, init. "No one," he says elsewhere, "puts a light under a bushel; let them show the world their heresy naked." Ad. Ep. Æg. 18. Vid. ibid. 10. In like manner, Basil says that though Arius was, in faith, really like Eunomius (contr. Eunom. i. 4), Aetius his master was the first to teach openly ([phaneros]) that the Father's substance was unlike, [anomoios], the Son's. Ibid. i. 1. Epiphanius too, Hær. 76, p. 949, seems to say that the elder Arians held the divine generation in a sense in which Aetius did not; that is, they were not boldly consistent and definite as he was. Athan. de Decret. § 7, enumerates some of the attempts of the Arians to find some theory short of orthodoxy, yet short of that extreme heresy, on the other hand, which they felt ashamed to avow.

The Treatise De Synodis, above translated, supplies {25} abundant proof of their artifices and shuffling. (Vid. art. Hypocrites.)

3. Cruelty, as in the instance of George of Cappadocia and Macedonius of Constantinople, is another charge which falls heavily on both Arians and Semi-Arians.

"In no long time," Athan. says, anticipating their known practice, de Decret. § 2, "they will be turning to outrage." As to the Council of Tyre, A.D. 335, he asks, Apol. contr. Arian. § 8, "How venture they to call that a Council in which a Count presided, and an executioner was present, and a registrar [or jailer] introduced us instead of the deacons of the Church?" Vid. also § 10 and 45; Orat. ii. § 43; Ep. Encycl. § 5. Against employing violence in religious matters, vid. Hist. Arian. § 33, 67. (Hil. ad Const. i. 2.) On the other hand, he observes, that at Nicæa, "it was not necessity which drove the judges to" their decision, "but all vindicated the truth from deliberate purpose." Ad Ep. Æg. 13.

4. They who did not scruple to use force were consistent in their use of bribes also. S. Athanasius speaks of them as [dorodokoi], and of the [kerdos tes philochrematias] which influenced them, and of the [prostasias philon]. Orat. i. §§ 8, 10, and 53; also ii. § 43.

And so S. Hilary speaks of the exemptions from taxes which Constantius granted to the Clergy as a bribe for them to Arianize: "You concede taxes as Cæsar, thereby to invite Christians to a denial; you remit what is your own, that we may lose what is God's," contr. Const. 10. Again, he speaks of {26} Constantius as "hostem blandientem, qui non dorsa cædit, sed ventrem palpat, non proscribit ad vitam, sed ditat in mortem, non caput gladio desecat, sed animam auro occidit." Ibid. 5. Vid. Coustant. in loc. Liberius says the same, Theod. Hist. ii. 13. And S. Gregory Naz. speaks of [philochrusous mallon e philochristous]. Orat. 21. 21. It is true that, Ep. Æg. 22, Athan. contrasts the Arians with the Meletians in this respect, as if, unlike the latter, the Arians were not influenced by secular views. But there were, as was natural, two classes of men in the heretical party:—the fanatical class who began the heresy and were its real life, such as Arius, and afterwards the Anomœans, in whom misbelief was a "mania;" and the Eusebians, who cared little for a theory of doctrine or consistency of profession, compared with their own aggrandizement. With these must be included numbers who conformed to Arianism lest they should suffer temporal loss.

Athan. says, that after Eusebius (Nicomed.) had taken up the patronage of the heresy, "he made no progress till he had gained the Court," Hist. Arian. 66, showing that it was an act of external power by which Arianism grew, not an inward movement in the Church, which indeed loudly protested against the Emperor's proceeding, &c. (Vid. Catholic Church.)

2. The Arian Leaders

Arius himself refers his heresy to the teaching of Lucian, a presbyter of Antioch (Theod. Hist. i. 4 and 5), {27} who seems to have been the head of a theological party, and a friend of Paulus the heretical Bishop, and out of communion during the time of three Bishops who followed. Eusebius of Nicomedia, who seems to have held the Arian tenets to their full extent, is claimed by Arius as his "fellow-Lucianist." Pronounced Arians also were the Lucianists Leontius and Eudoxius. Asterius, another of his pupils, did not go further than Semi-Arianism, without perhaps perfect consistency; nor did Lucian himself, if the Creed of the Dedication (A.D. 341) comes from him, as many critics have held. He died a martyr's death. (Vid. supr. vol. i. p. 96, Syn. § 23, and notes.)

Asterius is the foremost writer on the Arian side, on its start. He was by profession a sophist; he lapsed and sacrificed, as Athan. tells us, in the persecution of Maximian. His work in defence of the heresy was answered by Marcellus of Ancyra, to whom Eusebius of Cæsarea in turn replied. Athan. quotes or refers to it frequently in the treatises translated supr. Vid. Decr. § 8, 20; Syn. § 18-20; Orat. i. § 30, 31; ii. § 24. fin., 28, 37, 40; iii. § 2, 60; Nicen. 13, 28; Arim. 23 and 24; Disc. 47, 58, 60, 135, 139, 151, 155, 226, according to Bened. Ed., and according to this translation respectively. Asterius and Eusebius of Cæsarea seem to be Semi-Arians of the same level.

We must be on our guard against confusing the one Eusebius with the other. He of Nicomedia was an Arian, a man of the world, the head of the Arian party; he of Cæsarea was the historian to whom we are so much indebted—learned, moderate, liberal, the {28} private friend of Constantine, a Semi-Arian. (Vid. infr., art. Semi-Arianism and Eusebius.)

The leading Arians at the time of the Nicene Council, besides Eusebius Nicom., were Narcissus, Patrophilus, Maris, Paulinus, Theodotus, Athanasius of Nazarba, and George (Syn. § 17).

Most of these original Arians were attacked in the work of Marcellus which Eusebius (Cæsar.) answers. "Now," says the Cæsarean Eusebius, "he replies to Asterius, now to the great Eusebius," [of Nicomedia,] "and then he turns upon that man of God, that indeed thrice blessed person, Paulinus (of Tyre). Then he goes to war with Origen ... Next he marches out against Narcissus, and pursues the other Eusebius," i.e. himself. "In a word, he counts for nothing all the Ecclesiastical Fathers, being satisfied with no one but himself." Contr. Marc. i. 4. Vid. art. Marcellus. There is little to be said of Maris and Theodotus. Nazarba is more commonly called Anazarbus, and is in Cilicia.

As is observed elsewhere, there were three parties among the Arians from the first:—the Arians proper, afterwards called Anomœans; the Semi-Arian reaction from them; and the Court party, called Eusebians or Acacians, from their leaders, Eusebius of Nicomedia and Acacius of Cæsarea, which sometimes sided with the Semi-Arians, sometimes with the Arians proper, sometimes attempted a compromise of Scripture terms. The six named by Athanasius as the chief movers in the Bipartite Council of Seleucia and Ariminum, were Ursacius, Valens, Germinius, Acacius, Eudoxius, and Patrophilus. He numbers also among the Bishops at {29} Ariminum, Auxentius, Demophilus, and Caius. And at Seleucia, Uranius, Leontius, Theodotus, Evagrius, and George. Eusebius of Nicomedia was a kinsman of the Imperial family and tutor to Julian. He was, as has been already said, a fellow-disciple with Arius of Lucian. He was Bishop, first of Berytus, then of Nicomedia, and at length of Constantinople. He received Arius with open arms, on his expulsion from the Alexandrian Church, put himself at the head of his followers, corrected their polemical language, and used his great influence with Constantine and Constantius to secure the triumph of the heresy. He died about the year 343, and was succeeded in the political leadership of the Eusebians by Acacius and Valens.

George, whom Athanasius, Gregory Naz., and Socrates, call a Cappadocian, was born, according to Ammianus, in Epiphania of Cilicia, at a fuller's mill. He was appointed pork-contractor to the army, Syn. § 12, Hist. Arian. 75, Naz. Orat. 21. 16, and, being detected in defrauding the government, he fled to Egypt. Naz. Orat. 21. 16. How he became acquainted with the Eusebian party does not appear. Sozomen says he recommended himself to the see of Alexandria instead of Athan. by his zeal for Arianism and his [to drasterion]; and Gregory calls him the hand of the heresy, as Acacius (?) was the tongue. Orat. 21. 21. He made himself so obnoxious to the Alexandrians, that in the reign of Julian he was torn to pieces in a rising of the heathen populace. He had laid capital informations against many persons of the place, and he tried to persuade Constantius that, as the successor of Alexander its founder, he was proprietor {30} of the soil and had a claim upon the houses built on it. Ammian. xxii. 11. Epiphanius tells us, Hær. 76, 1, that he made a monopoly of the nitre of Egypt, farmed the beds of papyrus, and the salt lakes, and even contrived a profit from the undertakers. His atrocious cruelties to the Catholics are well known. Yet he seems to have collected a choice library of philosophers and poets and Christian writers, which Julian seized on. Vid. Pithæus in loc. Ammian.; also Gibbon, ch. 23.

Acacius was a pupil of Eusebius of Cæsarea, and succeeded him in the see of Cæsarea in Palestine. He inherited his library, and is ranked by S. Jerome among the most learned commentators on Scripture. Both Sozomen and Philostorgius speak, though in different ways, of his great talents. He seems to have taken up, as his weapon in controversy, the objection that the [homoousion] was not a word of Scripture, which is indirectly suggested by Eusebius (Cæsar.) in his letter to his people, supr. vol. i. p. 59. His formula was the vague [homoion] (like), as the Anomœan was [anomoion] (unlike), as the Semi-Arian was [homoiousion] (like in substance), and the orthodox [homoousion] (one in substance). However, like most of his party, his changes of opinion were considerable. At one time, after professing the [kata panta homoion], and even the [tes autes ousias], Soz. iv. 22, he at length avowed the Anomœan doctrine. Ultimately, after Constantius's death, he subscribed the Nicene formula. Vid. "Arians of the Fourth Century," p. 275, 4th ed.

Valens, Bishop of Mursa, and Ursacius, Bishop of {31} Singidon, are generally mentioned together. They were pupils of Arius, and, as such, are called young by Athan. ad Episc. Æg. 7; and in Apol. contr. Arian. § 13, "young in years and mind;" by Hilary, ad Const. i. 5, "imperitis et improbis duobus adolescentibus;" and by the Council of Sardica, ap. Hilar. Fragm. ii. 12. They first appear at the Council of Tyre, A.D. 335. The Council of Sardica deposed them; in 349 they publicly retracted their charges against Athanasius, who has preserved their letters. Apol. contr. Arian. 58. Valens was the more prominent of the two; he was a favourite Bishop of Constantius, an extreme Arian in his opinions, and the chief agent at Ariminum in effecting the lapse of the Latin Fathers.

Germinius was made Bishop of Sirmium by the Eusebians in 351, instead of Photinus, whom they deposed for a kind of Sabellianism. However, in spite of his Arianism, he was obliged in 358 to sign the Semi-Arian formula of Ancyra; yet he was an active Eusebian again at Ariminum. At a later date he approached very nearly to Catholicism.

Eudoxius is said to have been a pupil of Lucian, Arius's master, though the dates scarcely admit of it. Eustathius, Catholic Bishop of Antioch, whom the Eusebians subsequently deposed, refused to admit him into orders. Afterwards he was made Bishop of Germanicia in Syria, by his party. He was present at the Council of Antioch in 341, the Dedication, vid. not. supr. vol. i. p. 94, and he carried into the West, in 345, the fifth Confession, called the Long, [makrostichos], Syn. § 26. He afterwards passed in succession {32} to the sees of Antioch and Constantinople, and baptised the Emperor Valens into the Arian confession.

Patrophilus was one of the original Arian party, and took share in all their principal acts, but there is nothing very distinctive in his history. Sozomen assigns to the above six Bishops, of whom he was one, the scheme of dividing the Council into two, Hist. iv. 16; Valens undertaking to manage the Latins, Acacius the Greeks.

There were two Arian Bishops of Milan of the name of Auxentius, but little is known of them besides. S. Hilary wrote against the elder; the other came into collision with S. Ambrose. Demophilus, Bishop of Berea, was one of those who carried the "Long Confession" into the West, though Athan. only mentions Eudoxius, Martyrius, and Macedonius, Syn. § 26. He was afterwards claimed by Aetius, as agreeing with him. Of Caius, an Illyrian Bishop, nothing is known except that he sided throughout with the Arian party.

Euzoius was one of the Arian Bishops of Antioch, and baptised Constantius before his death. He had been excommunicated with Arius in Egypt and at Nicæa, and was restored with him to the Church at the Council of Jerusalem. He succeeded at Antioch S. Meletius, who, on being placed in that see by the Arians, professed orthodoxy, and was forthwith banished by them.

The leaders of the Semi-Arians, if they are on the rise of the heresy to be called a party, were in the first instance Asterius and Eusebius of Cæsarea, of whom I have already spoken, and shall speak again. Semi-Arianism {33} was at first a shelter and evasion for pure Arianism, or at a later date it was a reaction from the Anomœan enormities. The leading Semi-Arians of the later date were Basil, Mark, Eustathius, Eleusius, Meletius, and Macedonius. Basil, who is considered their head, wrote against Marcellus, and was placed by the Arians in his see; he has little place in history till the date of the Council of Sardica, which deposed him. Constantius, however, stood his friend till the beginning of the year 360, when Acacius supplanted him in the Imperial favour, and he was banished into Illyricum. This was a month or two later than the date at which Athan. wrote his first draught or edition of his De Synodis. He was condemned upon charges of tyranny and the like, but Theodoret speaks highly of his correctness of life, and Sozomen of his learning and eloquence. Vid. Theod. Hist. ii. 20; Soz. ii. 33. A very little conscientiousness, or even decency of manners, would put a man in strong relief with the great Arian party which surrounded the Court, and a very great deal would not have been enough to secure him against their unscrupulous slanders. Athan. reckons him among those who "are not far from accepting even the phrase, 'One in substance,' in what he has written concerning the faith," vid. Syn. § 41. A favourable account of him will be found in "The Arians," &c., ed. 4, p. 300, &c., where vid. also a notice of the others. Of Macedonius little is known except his cruelties. Vid. "The Arians," p. 311.

The Anomœans, with whose history this work is scarcely concerned, had for their leaders Aetius and {34} Eunomius. Of these Aetius was the first to carry out Arianism in its pure logical form, as Eunomius was its principal apologist. He was born in humble life, and was at first a practitioner in medicine. After a time he became a pupil of the Arian Paulinus; then the guest of Athanasius of Nazarba; then the pupil of Leontius of Antioch, who ordained him deacon, and afterwards deposed him. This was in 350. In 351 he seems to have held a dispute with Basil of Ancyra, at Sirmium, as did Photinus; in the beginning of 360 he was formally condemned in that Council of Constantinople which confirmed the Creed of Ariminum, and at the time when Eudoxius had been obliged to anathematise his confession of faith. This was at the time Athan. wrote the De Syn.

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