The Arian Controversy Part 9

[Footnote 16: Gal. v. 19-21.]

[Sidenote: Criticism of Apollinarianism.]

The system of Apollinarius is a mighty outline whose details we can hardly even now fill in; yet as a system it is certainly a failure. His own contemporaries may have done him something less than justice, but they could not follow his daring flights of thought when they saw plain errors in his teaching. After all, Apollinarius reaches no true incarnation. The Lord is something very like us, but he is not one of us. The spirit is surely an essential part of man, and without a true human spirit he could have no true human choice or growth or life; and indeed Apollinarius could not allow him any. His work is curtailed also like his manhood, for (so Gregory of Nyssa put it) the spirit which the Lord did not a.s.sume is not redeemed. Apollinarius understood even better than Athanasius the kinship of true human nature to its Lord, and applied it with admirable skill to explain the incarnation as the expression of the eternal divine nature. But he did not see so well as Athanasius that sin is a mere intruder among men. It was not a hopeful age in which he lived. The world had gone a long way downhill since young Athanasius had sung his song of triumph over fallen heathenism.

Roman vice and Syrian frivolity, Eastern asceticism and Western legalism, combined to preach, in spite of Christianity, that the sinfulness of mankind is essential. So instead of following out the pregnant hint of Athanasius that sin is no true part of human nature (else were G.o.d the author of evil), Apollinarius cut the knot by refusing the Son of Man a human spirit as a thing of necessity sinful.

Too thoughtful to slur over the difficulty like Pelagius, he was yet too timid to realize the possibility of a conquest of sin by man, even though that man were Christ himself.

[Sidenote: The Apollinarians.]

Apollinarius and his school contributed not a little to the doctrinal confusion of the East. His ideas were current for some time in various forms, and are attacked in some of the later works of Athanasius; but it was not till about 375 that they led to a definite schism, marked by the consecration of the presbyter Vitalis to the bishopric of Antioch. From this time, Apollinarian bishops disputed many of the Syrian sees with Nicenes and Anomoeans. Their adherents were also scattered over Asia, and supplied one more element of discord to the noisy populace of Constantinople.

[Sidenote: Last years of Athanasius (366-373).]

The declining years of Athanasius were spent in peace. Valens had restored him in good faith, and never afterwards molested him. If Lucius the Arian returned to Alexandria to try his chance as bishop, the officials gave him no connivance--nothing but sorely needed shelter from the fury of the mob. Arianism was nearly extinct in Egypt.

[Sidenote: Athanasius and Marcellus (before 371).]

One of his last public acts was to receive an emba.s.sy from Marcellus, who was still living in extreme old age at Ancyra. Some short time before 371, the deacon Eugenius presented to him a confession on behalf of the 'innumerable mult.i.tude' who still owned Marcellus for their father. 'We are not heretics, as we are slandered. We specially anathematize Arianism, confessing, like our fathers at Nicaea, that the Son is no creature, but of the essence of the Father and co-essential with the Father; and by the Son we mean no other than the Word. Next we anathematize Sabellius, for we confess the eternity and reality of the Son and the Holy Spirit. We anathematize also the Anomoeans, in spite of their pretence not to be Arians. We anathematize finally the Arianizers who separate the Word from the Son, giving the latter a beginning at the incarnation because they do not confess him to be very G.o.d. Our own doctrine of the incarnation is that the Word did not come down as on the prophets, but truly became flesh and took a servant's form, and as regards flesh was born as a man.' There is no departure here from the original doctrine of Marcellus, for the eternity of the Son means nothing more than the eternity of the Word. The memorial, however, was successful. Though Athanasius was no Marcellian, he was as determined as ever to leave all questions open which the great council had forborne to close. The new Nicenes of Pontus, on the other hand, inherited the conservative dread of Marcellus, so that it was a sore trial to Basil when Athanasius refused to sacrifice the old companion of his exile. Even the great Alexandrian's comprehensive charity is hardly n.o.bler than his faithfulness to erring friends. Meaner men might cherish the petty jealousies of controversy, but the veterans of the great council once more recognised their fellowship in Christ. They were joined in life, and in death they were not divided.

[Sidenote: Death of Athanasius (373).]

Marcellus pa.s.sed away in 371, and Athanasius two years later. The victory was not yet won, the goal of half a century was still beyond the sight of men; yet Athanasius had conquered Arianism. Of his greatness we need say no more. Some will murmur of 'fanaticism' before the only Christian whose grandeur awed the scoffer Gibbon. So be it that his greatness was not unmixed with human pa.s.sion; but those of us who have seen the light of heaven shining from some saintly face, or watched with kindling hearts and solemn thankfulness some mighty victory of Christian faith, will surely know that it was the spirit of another world which dwelt in Athanasius. To him more than any one we owe it that the question of Arianism did not lose itself in personalities and quibbles, but took its proper place as a battle for the central message of the gospel, which is its chief distinction from philosophy and heathenism.

[Sidenote: Extinction of the Marcellians (375).]

Instantly Alexandria was given up to the Arians, and Lucius repeated the outrages of Gregory and George. The friends of Athanasius were exiled, and his successor Peter fled to Rome. Meanwhile the school of Marcellus died away. In 375 his surviving followers addressed a new memorial to the Egyptian exiles at Sepphoris, in which they plainly confessed the eternal Sonship so long evaded by their master. Basil took no small offence when the exiles accepted the memorial. 'They were not the only zealous defenders of the Nicene faith in the East, and should not have acted without the consent of the Westerns and of their own bishop, Peter. In their haste to heal one schism they might cause another if they did not make it clear that the heretics had come over to them, and not they to the heretics.' This, however, was mere grumbling. Now that the Marcellians had given up the point in dispute, there was no great difficulty about their formal reconciliation. The West held out for Marcellus after his own disciples had forsaken him, so that he was not condemned at Rome till 380, nor by name till 381.

[Sidenote: Confusion of: (1) Churches.]

Meanwhile the churches of Asia seemed in a state of universal dissolution. Disorder under Constantius had become confusion worse confounded under Valens. The exiled bishops were so many centres of disaffection, and personal quarrels had full scope everywhere. Thus when Basil's brother Gregory was expelled from Nyssa by a riot got up by Anthimus of Tyana, he took refuge under the eyes of Anthimus at Doara, where a similar riot had driven out the Arian bishop. Pastoral work was carried on under the greatest difficulties. The exiles could not attend to their churches, the schemers would not, and the fever of controversy was steadily demoralizing both flocks and pastors.

[Sidenote: (2.) Creeds.]

Creeds were in the same confusion. The h.o.m.oeans as a body had no consistent principle at all beyond the rejection of technical terms, so that their doctrinal statements are very miscellaneous. They began with the indefinite Sirmian creed, but the confession they imposed on Eustathius of Sebastia was purely Macedonian. Some of their bishops were Nicenes, others Anomoeans. There was room for all in the happy family presided over by Eudoxius and his successor Demophilus. In this anarchy of doctrine, the growth of irreligious carelessness kept pace with that of party bitterness. Ecclesiastical history records no clearer period of decline than this. There is a plain descent from Athanasius to Basil, a rapid one from Basil to Theophilus and Cyril. The victors of Constantinople are but the epigoni of a mighty contest.

[Sidenote: Hopeful signs.]

Hopeful signs indeed were not entirely wanting. If the Nicene cause did not seem to gain much ground in Pontus, it was at least not losing.

While Basil held the court in check, the rising power of asceticism was declaring itself every day more plainly on his side. One schism was healed by the reception of the Marcellians; and if Apollinarius was forming another, he was at least a resolute enemy of Arianism. The submission of the Lycian bishops in 375 helped to isolate the Semiarian phalanx in Asia, and the Illyrian council held in the same year by Ambrose was the first effective help from the West. It secured a rescript of Valentinian in favour of the Nicenes; and if he did not long survive, his action was enough to show that Valens might not always be left to carry out his plans undisturbed.

CHAPTER VIII.

_THE FALL OF ARIANISM._

[Sidenote: Prospects in 375.]

The fiftieth year from the great council came and went, and brought no relief to the calamities of the churches. Meletius and Cyril were still in exile, East and West were still divided over the consecration of Paulinus, and now even Alexandria had become the prey of Lucius. The leaden rule of Valens still weighed down the East, and Valens was scarcely yet past middle life, and might reign for many years longer.

The deliverance came suddenly, and the Nicene faith won its victory in the confusion of the greatest disaster which had ever yet befallen Rome.

[Sidenote: The Empire in 376.]

In the year 376 the Empire still seemed to stand unshaken within the limits of Augustus. If the legions had retired from the outlying provinces of Dacia and Carduene, they more than held their ground on the great river frontiers of the Euphrates, the Danube, and the Rhine. If Julian's death had seemed to let loose all the enemies of Rome at once, they had all been repulsed. While the Persian advance was checked by the obstinate patriotism of Armenia, Valens reduced the Goths to submission, and his Western colleague drove the Germans out of Gaul and recovered Britain from the Picts. The Empire had fully held its own through twelve years of incessant warfare; and if there were serious indications of exhaustion in the dwindling of the legions and the increase of the barbarian auxiliaries, in the troops of brigands who infested every mountain district, in the alarming decrease of population, and above all in the ruin of the provinces by excessive taxation, it still seemed inconceivable that real danger could ever menace Rome's eternal throne.

[Sidenote: The Gothic war (377-378).]

But while the imperial statesmen were watching the Euphrates, the storm was gathering on the Danube. The Goths in Dacia had been learning husbandry and Christianity since Aurelian's time, and bade fair soon to become a civilized people. Heathenism was already half abandoned, and their nomad habits half laid aside. But when the Huns came up suddenly from the steppes of Asia, the stately Gothic warriors fled almost without a blow from the hordes of wild dwarfish hors.e.m.e.n. The Ostrogoths became the servants of their conquerors, and the heathens of Athanaric found a refuge in the recesses of the Transylvanian forests. But Fritigern was a Christian. Rome had helped him once before, and Rome might help him now. A whole nation of panic-stricken warriors crowded to the banks of the Danube. There was but one inviolable refuge in the world, and that was beneath the shelter of the Roman eagles. Only let them have some of the waste lands in Thrace, and they would be glad to do the Empire faithful service. When conditions had been settled, the Goths were brought across the river. Once on Roman ground, they were left to the mercy of officials whose only thought was to make the famished barbarians a prey to their own rapacity and l.u.s.t. Before long the Goths broke loose and spread over the country, destroying whatever cultivation had survived the desolating misgovernment of the Empire.

Outlaws and deserters were willing guides, and crowds of fresh barbarians came in to share the spoil. The Roman generals found it no easy task to keep the field.

[Sidenote: Battle of Hadrianople (Aug. 9, 378).]

First the victories of Claudius and Aurelian, and then the statesmanship of Constantine, had stayed for a century the tide of Northern war, but now the Empire was again reduced to fight for its existence. Its rulers seemed to understand the crisis. The East was drained of all available troops, and Sebastian the Manichee, the old enemy of Athanasius, was placed in command. Gratian hurried Thraceward with the Gaulish legions, and at last Valens thought it time to leave his pleasant home at Antioch for the field of war. Evil omens beset his march, but no omen could be worse than his own impulsive rashness. With a little prudence, such a force as he had gathered round the walls of Hadrianople was an overmatch for any hordes of barbarians. But Valens determined to storm the Gothic camp without waiting for his Western colleague. Rugged ground and tracts of burning gra.s.s delayed his march, so that it was long past noon before he neared the line of waggons, later still before the Gothic trumpet sounded. But the Roman army was in hopeless rout at sundown. The Goths came down 'like a thunderbolt on the mountain tops,' and all was lost.

Far into the night the slaughtering went on. Sebastian fell, the Emperor was never heard of more, and full two-thirds of the Roman army perished in a scene of unequalled horror since the butchery of Cannae.

[Sidenote: Results of the battle.]

Beneath that crushing blow the everlasting Empire shook from end to end.

The whole power of the East had been mustered with a painful effort to the struggle, and the whole power of the East had been shattered in a summer's day. For the first time since the days of Gallienus, the Empire could place no army in the field. But Claudius and Aurelian had not fought in vain, nor were the hundred years of respite lost. If the dominion of Western Europe was transferred for ever to the Northern nations, the walls of Constantinople had risen to bar their eastward march, and Christianity had shown its power to awe their boldest spirits. The Empire of the Christian East withstood the shock of Hadrianople--only the heathen West sank under it. When once the old barriers of civilization on the Danube and the Rhine were broken through, the barbarians poured in for centuries like a flood of mighty waters overflowing. Not till the Northman and the Magyar had found their limit at the siege of Paris [Sidenote: 888.] and the battle of the Lechfeld [Sidenote: 955.] could Europe feel secure. The Roman Empire and the Christian Church alone rode out the storm which overthrew the ancient world. But the Christian Church was founded on the ever-living Rock, the Roman Empire rooted deep in history. Arianism was a thing of yesterday and had no principle of life, and therefore it vanished in the crash of Hadrianople. The h.o.m.oean supremacy had come to rest almost wholly on imperial misbelief. The mob of the capital might be in its favour, and the virtues of isolated bishops might secure it some support elsewhere; but serious men were mostly Nicenes or Anomoeans.

Demophilus of Constantinople headed the party, and his blunders did it almost as much harm as the profane jests of Eudoxius. At Antioch Euzoius, the last of the early Arians, was replaced by Dorotheus. Milan under Ambrose was aggressively Nicene, and the Arian tyrants were very weak at Alexandria. On the other hand, the greatest of the Nicenes had pa.s.sed away, and few were left who could remember the great council's meeting. Athanasius and Hilary were dead, and even Basil did not live to greet an orthodox Emperor. Meletius of Antioch was in exile, and Cyril of Jerusalem and the venerated Eusebius of Samosata, while Gregory of n.a.z.ianzus had found in the Isaurian mountains a welcome refuge from his hated diocese of Sasima. If none of the living Nicenes could pretend to rival Athanasius, they at least outmatched the Arians.

[Sidenote: Gratian's toleration.]

As Valens left no children, the Empire rested for the moment in the hands of his nephew, Gratian, a youth of not yet twenty. Gratian, however, was wise enough to see that it was no time to cultivate religious quarrels. He, therefore, began by proclaiming toleration to all but Anomoeans and Photinians. As toleration was still the theory of the Empire, and none but the Nicenes were practically molested, none but the Nicenes gained anything by the edict. But mere toleration was all they needed. The exiled bishops found little difficulty in resuming the government of their flocks, and even in sending missions to Arian strongholds. The Semiarians were divided. Numbers went over to the Nicenes, while others took up an independent or Macedonian position. The h.o.m.oean power in the provinces fell of itself before it was touched by persecution. It scarcely even struggled against its fate. At Jerusalem indeed party spirit ran as high as ever, but Alexandria was given up to Peter almost without resistance. We find one or two outrages like the murder of Eusebius of Samosata by an Arian woman in a country town, who threw down a tile on his head, but we hardly ever find a h.o.m.oean bishop heartily supported by his flock.

[Sidenote: Gregory of n.a.z.ianzus.]

Constantinople itself was now the chief stronghold of the Arians. They had held the churches since 340, and were steadily supported by the court. Thus the city populace was devoted to Arianism, and the Nicenes were a mere remnant, without either church or teacher. The time, however, was now come for a mission to the capital. Gregory of n.a.z.ianzus was the son of Bishop Gregory, born about the time of the Nicene council. His father was already presbyter of n.a.z.ianzus, and held the bishopric for nearly half a century. [Sidenote: 329-374.] Young Gregory was a student of many schools. From the Cappadocian Caesarea he went on to the Palestinian, and thence to Alexandria; but Athens was the goal of his student-life. Gregory and Basil and Prince Julian met at the feet of Proaeresius. They all did credit to his eloquence, but there the likeness ends. Gregory disliked Julian's strange, excited manner, and persuaded himself in later years that he had even then foreseen the evil of the apostate's reign. With Basil, on the other hand his friendship was for life. They were well-matched in eloquence, in ascetic zeal, and in opposition to Arianism, though Basil's imperious ways were a trial to Gregory's gentler and less active spirit. During the quarrel with Anthimus of Tyana, Basil thought fit to secure the disputed possession of Sasima by making it a bishopric. [Sidenote: 372.] It was a miserable post-station--'No water, no gra.s.s, nothing but dust and carts, and groans and howls, and small officials with their usual instruments of torture.' Gregory was made bishop of Sasima against his will, and never fairly entered on his repulsive duties. After a few years' retirement, he came forward to undertake the mission to Constantinople. [Sidenote: 379.] The great city was a city of triflers. They jested at the actors and the preachers without respect of persons, and followed with equal eagerness the races and the theological disputes. Anomoeans abounded in their noisy streets, and the graver Novatians and Macedonians were infected with the spirit of wrangling. Gregory's austere character and simple life were in themselves a severe rebuke to the lovers of pleasure round him. He began his work in a private house, and only built a church when the numbers of his flock increased. He called it his Anastasia,--the church of the resurrection of the faith. The mob was hostile--one night they broke into his church--but the fruit of his labours was a growing congregation of Nicenes in the capital.

[Sidenote: Theodosius Emperor in the East (379).]

Gratian's next step was to share his burden with a colleague. If the care of the whole Empire had been too much for Diocletian or Valentinian, Gratian's were not the Atlantean shoulders which could bear its undivided weight. In the far West, at Cauca near Segovia, there lived a son of Theodosius, the recoverer of Britain and Africa, whose execution had so foully stained the opening of Gratian's reign. That memory of blood was still fresh, yet in that hour of overwhelming danger Gratian called young Theodosius to be his honoured colleague and deliverer. Early in 379 he gave him the conduct of the Gothic war. With it went the Empire of the East.

[Sidenote: End of the Gothic war.]

Theodosius was neither Greek nor Asiatic, but a stranger from the Spanish West, endued with a full measure of Spanish courage and intolerance. As a general he was the most brilliant Rome had seen since Julian's death. Men compared him to Trajan, and in a happier age he might have rivalled Trajan's fame. But now the Empire was ready to perish. The beaten army was hopelessly demoralized, and Theodosius had to form a new army of barbarian legionaries before the old tradition of Roman superiority could resume its wonted sway. It soon appeared that the Goths could do nothing with their victory, and sooner or later would have to make their peace with Rome. Theodosius drove them inland in the first campaign; and while he lay sick at Thessalonica in the second, Gratian or his generals received the submission of the Ostrogoths.

Fritigern died the same year, and his old rival Athanaric was a fugitive before it ended. When the returning Ostrogoths dislodged him from his Transylvanian forest, he was welcomed with honourable courtesy by Theodosius in person at Constantinople. But the old enemy of Rome and Christianity had only come to lay his bones on Roman soil. In another fortnight the barbarian chief was carried out with kingly splendour to his Roman funeral. Theodosius had n.o.bly won Athanaric's inheritance. His wondering Goths at once took service with their conqueror: chief after chief submitted, and the work of peace was completed on the Danube in the autumn of 382.

[Sidenote: Baptism of Theodosius.]

We can now return to ecclesiastical affairs. The dangerous illness of Theodosius in 380 had important consequences, for his baptism by Ascholius of Thessalonica was the natural signal for a more decided policy. Ascholius was a zealous Nicene, so that Theodosius was committed to the Nicene side as effectually as Valens had been to the h.o.m.oean; and Theodosius was less afraid of strong measures than Valens. His first rescript (Feb. 27, 380) commands all men to follow the Nicene doctrine 'committed by the apostle Peter to the Romans, and now professed by Damasus of Rome and Peter of Alexandria,' and plainly threatens to impose temporal punishments on the heretics. Here it will be seen that Theodosius abandons Constantine's test of orthodoxy by subscription to a creed. It seemed easier now, and more in the spirit of Latin Christianity, to require communion with certain churches. The choice of Rome is natural, the addition of Alexandria shows that the Emperor was still a stranger to the mysteries of Eastern partizanship.

[Sidenote: Suppression of Arian worship inside cities.]

There was no reason for delay when the worst dangers of the Gothic war were over. Theodosius made his formal entry into Constantinople, November 24, 380, and at once required the bishop either to accept the Nicene faith or to leave the city. Demophilus honourably refused to give up his heresy, and adjourned his services to the suburbs. So ended the forty years of Arian domination in Constantinople. But the mob was still Arian, and their stormy demonstrations when the cathedral of the Twelve Apostles was given up to Gregory of n.a.z.ianzus were enough to make Theodosius waver. Arian influence was still strong at court, and Arian bishops came flocking to Constantinople. Low as they had fallen, they could still count among them the great name of Ulfilas. But he could give them little help, for though the Goths of Moesia were faithful to the Empire, Theodosius preferred the stalwart heathens of Athanaric to their Arian countrymen. Ulfilas died at Constantinople like Athanaric, but there was no royal funeral for the first apostle of the Northern nations. Theodosius hesitated, and even consented to see the heresiarch Eunomius, who was then living near Constantinople. The Nicenes took alarm, and the Empress Flaccilla urged her husband on the path of persecution. The next edict (Jan. 381) forbade heretical discussions and a.s.semblies inside cities, and ordered the churches everywhere to be given up to the Nicenes.