Persecution of heresy—The Schism of the Donatists—The Arian Controversy—Athanasius—Distracted state of the Church and the Empire under Constantine and his sons—Toleration of Paganism
THE grateful applause of the clergy has consecrated the memory of a prince, who indulged their passions and promoted their interest. Constantine gave them security, wealth, honours, and revenge; and the support of the orthodox faith was considered as the most sacred and important duty of the civil magistrate. The edict of Milan, the great charter of toleration, had confirmed to each individual of the Roman world the privilege of choosing and professing his own religion. But this inestimable privilege was soon violated: with the knowledge of truth the emperor imbibed the maxims of persecution; and the sects which dissented from the Catholic church were afflicted and oppressed by the triumph of Christianity. Constantine easily believed that the heretics, who presumed to dispute his opinions or to oppose his commands, were guilty of the most absurd and criminal obstinacy; and that a seasonable application of moderate severities might save those unhappy men from the danger of an everlasting condemnation. Not a moment was lost in excluding the ministers and teachers of the separated congregations from any share of the rewards and immunities which the emperor had so liberally bestowed on the orthodox clergy. But as the sectaries might still exist under the cloud of royal disgrace, the conquest of the East was immediately followed by an edict which announced their total destruction.(1) After a preamble filled with passion and reproach, Constantine absolutely prohibits the assemblies of the heretics, and confiscates their public property to the use either of the revenue or of the Catholic church. The sects against whom the Imperial severity was directed appear to have been the adherents of Paul of Samosata; the Montanists of Phrygia, who maintained an enthusiastic succession of prophecy; the Novatians, who sternly rejected the temporal efficacy of repentance; the Marcionites and Valentinians, under whose leading banners the various Gnostics of Asia and Egypt had insensibly rallied; and perhaps the Manichaeans, who had recently imported from Persia a more artful composition of Oriental and Christian theology.(2) The design of extirpating the name, or at least of restraining the progress, of these odious heretics, was prosecuted with vigour and effect. Some of the penal regulations were copied from the edicts of Diocletian; and this method of conversion was applauded by the same bishops who had felt the hand of oppression, and had pleaded for the rights of humanity. Two immaterial circumstances may serve, however, to prove that the mind of Constantine was not entirely corrupted by the spirit of zeal and bigotry. Before he condemned the Manichaeans and their kindred sects, he resolved to make an accurate inquiry into the nature of their religious principles. As if he distrusted the impartiality of his ecclesiastical counsellors, this delicate commission was intrusted to a civil magistrate, whose learning and moderation he justly esteemed, and of whose venal character he was probably ignorant. (3) The emperor was soon convinced that he had too hastily proscribed the orthodox faith and the exemplary morals of the Novatians, who had dissented from the church in some articles of discipline which were not perhaps essential to salvation. By a particular edict he exempted them from the general penalties of the law; (4) allowed them to build a church at Constantinople; respected the miracles of their saints; invited their bishop, Acesius, to the council of Nice; and gently ridiculed the narrow tenets of his sect by a familiar jest, which from the mouth of a sovereign must have been received with applause and gratitude.(5)
African Controversy, A.D. 312.
The complaints and mutual accusations which assailed the
throne of Constantine, as soon as the death of Maxentius had
submitted Africa to his victorious arms, were ill adapted to
edify an imperfect proselyte. He learned with surprise that
the provinces of that great country, from the confines of
Cyrene to the Columns of Hercules, were distracted with
religious discord.(6) The source of the division was derived
from a double election in the church of Carthage, the second
in rank and opulence of the ecclesiastical thrones of the
West Caecilian and Majourinus were the two rival primates of
Africa; and the death of the latter soon made room for
Donatus, who, by his superior abilities and apparent
virtues, was the firmest support of his party. The advantage
which Cacilian might claim from the priority of his
ordination was destroyed by the illegal, or at least
indecent, haste with which it had been performed, without
expecting the arrival of the bishops of Numidia. The
authority of these bishops, who, to the number of seventy,
condemned Caecilian, and consecrated Majorinus, is again
weakened by the infamy of some of their personal characters;
and by the female intrigues, sacrilegious bargains, and
tumultuous proceedings, which are imputed to this Numidian
council. (7) The bishops of the contending factions
maintained, with equal ardour and obstinacy, that their
adversaries were degraded, or at least dishonoured, by the
odious crime of delivering the Holy Scriptures to the
officers of Diocletian. From their mutual reproaches, as
well as from the story of this dark transaction, it may
justly be inferred that the late persecution had embittered
the zeal, without reforming the manners, of the African
Christians. That divided church was incapable of affording
an impartial judicature; the controversy was solemnly tried
in five successive tribunals, which were appointed by the
emperor; and the whole proceeding, from the first appeal to
the final sentence, lasted above three years. A severe
inquisition, which was taken by the praetorian vicar and the
proconsul of Africa, the report of two episcopal visitors
who had been sent to Carthage, the decrees of the councils
of Rome and of Arles, and the supreme judgment of
Constantine himself in his sacred consistories were all
favourable to the cause of Caecilian; and he was unanimously
acknowledged by the civil and ecclesiastical powers as the
true and lawful primate of Africa. The honours and estates
of the church were attributed to his suffragan bishops, and
it was not without difficulty that Constantine was satisfied
with inflicting the punishment of exile on the principal
leaders of the Donatist faction. As their cause was examined
with attention, perhaps it was determined with justice.
Perhaps their complaint was not without foundation, that the
credulity of the emperor had been abused by the insidious
arts of his favourite Osius. The influence of falsehood and
corruption might procure the condemnation of the innocent,
or aggravate the sentence of the guilty. Such an act,
however, of injustice, if it concluded an importunate
dispute, might be numbered among the transient evils of a
despotic administration, which are neither felt nor
remembered by posterity.
Schism of the Donatists, A.D. 315.
But this incident, so inconsiderable that it scarcely
deserves a place in history, was productive of a memorable
schism, which afflicted the provinces of Africa above three
hundred years, and was extinguished only with Christianity
itself. The inflexible zeal of freedom and fanaticism
animated the Donatists to refuse obedience to the usurpers,
whose election they disputed, and whose spiritual powers
they denied. Excluded from the civil and religious communion
of mankind, they boldly excommunicated the rest of mankind
who had embraced the impious party of Caecilian, and of the
Traditors, from whom he derived his pretended ordination.
They asserted with confidence, and almost with exultation,
that the Apostolical succession was interrupted; that all
the bishops of Europe and Asia were infected by the
contagion of guilt and schism; and that the prerogatives of
the catholic church were confined to the chosen portion of
the African believers, who alone had preserved inviolate the
integrity of their faith and discipline. This rigid theory
was supported by the most uncharitable conduct. Whenever
they acquired a proselyte, even from the distant provinces
of the East, they carefully repeated the sacred rites of
baptism(8) and ordination; as they rejected the validity of those which he had already received from the hands of
heretics or schismatics. Bishops, virgins, and even spotless
infants, were subjected to the disgrace of a public penance
before they could be admitted to the communion of the
Donatists. If they obtained possession of a church which had
been used by their Catholic adversaries, they purified the
unhallowed building with the same jealous care which a
temple of idols might have required. They washed the
pavement, scraped the walls, burnt the altar (which was
commonly of wood), melted the consecrated plate, and cast
the Holy Eucharist to the dogs, with every circumstance of
ignominy which could provoke and perpetuate the animosity of
religious factions.(9) Notwithstanding this irreconcilable
aversion, the two parties, who were mixed and separated in
all the cities of Africa, had the same language and manners,
the same zeal and learning, the same faith and worship.
Proscribed by the civil and ecclesiastical powers of the
empire, the Donatists still maintained in some provinces,
particularly in Numidia, their superior numbers; and four
hundred bishops acknowledged the jurisdiction of their
primate. But the invincible spirit of the sect sometimes
preyed on its own vitals: and the bosom of their
schismatical church was torn by intestine divisions. A
fourth part of the Donatist bishops followed the independent
standard of the Maximianists. The narrow and solitary path
which their first leaders had marked out continued to
deviate from the great society of mankind Even the
imperceptible sect of the Rogatians could affirm, without a
blush, that when Christ should descend to judge the earth,
he would find his true religion preserved only in a few
nameless villages of the Caesarean Mauritania.(10)
The Trinitarian controversy.
The schism of the Donatists was confined to Africa; the more
diffusive mischief of the Trinitarian controversy
successively penetrated into every part of the Christian
world. The former was an accidental quarrel, occasioned by
the abuse of freedom; the latter was a high and mysterious
argument, derived from the abuse of philosophy. From the age
of Constantine to that of Clovis and Theodoric, the temporal
interests both of the Romans and barbarians were deeply
involved in the theological disputes of Arianism. The
historian may therefore be permitted respectfully to
withdraw the veil of the sanctuary, and to deduce the
progress of reason and faith, of error and passion, from the
school of Plato to the decline and fall of the empire.
The system of Plato. Before Christ 360.
The genius of Plato, informed by his own meditation or by
the traditional knowledge of :he priests of Egypt,(11) had
ventured to explore the mysterious nature of the Deity. When
he had elevated his mind to the sublime contemplation of the
first self-existent, necessary cause of the universe, the
Athenian sage was incapable of conceiving how the simple
unity of his essence could admit the infinite variety of
distinct and successive ideas which compose the model of the
intellectual world; how a Being purely incorporeal could
execute that perfect model, and mould with a plastic hand
the rude and independent chaos. The vain hope of extricating
himself from these difficulties, which must ever oppress the
feeble powers of the human mind, might induce Plato to
consider the divine nature under the threefold modification
— of the first cause, the reason, or The Logos Logos, and the soul
or spirit of the universe. His poetical imagination
sometimes fixed and animated these metaphysical
abstractions; the three archical or original principles
were represented in the Platonic system as three Gods,
united with each other by a mysterious and ineffable
generation; and the Logos was particularly considered under
the more accessible character of the Son of an Eternal
Father, and the Creator and Governor of he world. Such
appear to have been the secret doctrines which were
cautiously whispered in the gardens of the Academy; and
which, according to the more recent disciples of Plato,
could not be perfectly understood till after an assiduous
study of thirty years.(12)
taught in the scool of Alexandria. Before Christ 300.
The arms of the Macedonians diffused over Asia and Egypt the
language and learning of Greece; and the theological system
of Plato was taught, with less reserve, and perhaps with
some improvements, in the celebrated school of Alexandria.
(13) A numerous colony of Jews had been invited, by the favour
of the Ptolemies, to settle in their new capital.(14) While
the bulk of the nation practised the legal ceremonies, and
pursued the lucrative occupations of commerce, a few Hebrews
of a more liberal spirit devoted their lives to religious
and philosophical contemplation. (15) They cultivated with
diligence, and embraced with ardour, the theological system
of the Athenian sage. But their national pride would have
been mortified by a fair confession of their former poverty:
and they boldly marked, as the sacred inheritance of their
ancestors, the gold and jewels which they had so lately
stolen from their Egyptian masters. One hundred years before
the birth of Christ, a philosophical treatise, which
manifestly betrays the style and sentiments of the school of
Plato, was produced by the Alexandrian Jews, and unanimously
received as a genuine and valuable relic of the inspired
Wisdom of Solomon. (16) A similar union of the Mosaic faith
and the Grecian philosophy distinguishes the works of Philo,
which were composed, for the most part, under the reign of
Augustus.(17) The material soul of the universe(18) might
offend the piety of the Hebrews; but they applied the
character of the Logos to the Jehovah of Moses and the
Patriarchs; and the Son of God was introduced upon earth,
under a visible and even human appearance, to perform those
familiar offices which seem incompatible with the nature and
attributes of the Universal Cause.(19)
Revealed by the Apostle St John, A.D. 97.
The eloquence of Plato, the name of Solomon, the authority
of the school of Alexandria, and the consent of the Jews and
Greeks, were insufficient to establish the truth of a
mysterious doctrine, which might please, but could not
satisfy, a rational mind. A prophet, or apostle, inspired by
the Deity, can alone exercise a lawful dominion over the
faith of mankind: and the theology of Plato might have been
for ever confounded with the philosophical visions of the
Academy, the Porch, and the Lyccum, if the name and divine
attributes of the Logos had not been confirmed by the
celestial pen of the last and most sublime of the
Evangelists. (20) The Christian Revelation, which was
consummated under the reign of Nerva, disclosed to the world
the amazing secret, that the LOGOS, who was with God from
the beginning, and was God, who had made all things, and for
whom all things had been made, was incarnate in the person
of Jesus of Nazareth; who had been born of a virgin, and
suffered death on the cross. Besides the general design of
fixing on a perpetual basis the divine honours of Christ,
the most ancient and respectable of the ecclesiastical
writers have ascribed to the evangelic theologian a
particular intention to confute two opposite heresies, which
disturbed the peace of the primitive church.(21)
The Ebionites and Docetes
I. The faith of the Ebionites, (22) perhaps of the Nazarenes,(23) was gross
and imperfect. They revered Jesus as the greatest of the
prophets, endowed with supernatural virtue and power. They
ascribed to his person and to his future reign all the
predictions of the Hewbrew oracles which relate to the
spiritual and everlasting kingdom of the promised Messiah.
(24) Some of them might confess that he was born of a virgin;
but they obstinately rejected the preceding existence and
divine perfections of the logos, or Son of God, which are so
clearly defined in the Gospel of St. John. About fifty years
afterwards, the Ebionites, whose errors are mentioned by
Justin Martyr, with less severity than they seem to deserve,
(25) formed a very inconsiderable portion of the Christian
name. II. The Gnostics, who were distinguished by the
epithet of Docetes, deviated into the contrary extreme, and
betrayed the human, while they asserted the divine nature of
Christ. Educated in the school of Plato, accustomed to the
sublime idea of the Logos, they readily conceived that the
brightest Aeon, or Emanation of the Deity, might assume the
outward shape and visible appearances of a mortal;(26) but
they vainly pretended that the imperfections of matter are
incompatible with the purity of a celestial substance. While
the blood of Christ yet smoked on Mount Calvary, the Docetes
invented the impious and extravagant hypothesis, that,
instead of issuing from the womb of the Virgin,(27) he had
descended on the banks of the Jordan in the form of perfect
manhood; that he had imposed on the senses of his enemies
and of his disciples; and that the ministers of Pilate had
wasted their impotent rage on an airy phantom, who seemed to
expire on the cross, and, after three days, to rise from the
dead.(28)
Mysterious nature of the Trinity.
The divine sanction which the Apostle had bestowed on the
fundamental principle of the theology of Plato encouraged
the learned proselytes of the second and third centuries to
admire and study the writings of the Athenian sage, who had
thus marvellously anticipated one of the most surprising
discoveries of the Christian revelation. The respectable
name of Plato was used by the orthodox,(29) and abused by the
heretics,(30) as the common support of truth and error: the
authority of his skilful commentators and the science of
dialectics were employed to justify the remote consequences
of his opinions, and to supply the discreet silence of the
inspired writers. The same subtle and profound questions
concerning the nature, the generation, the distinction, and
the equality of the three divine persons of the mysterious
Triad, or Trinity,(31) were agitated in the philosophical and in the Christian schools of Alexandria. An eager spirit of
curiosity urged them to explore the secrets of the abyss;
and the pride of the professors and of their disciples was
satisfied with the science of words. But the most sagacious
of the Christian theologians, the great Athanasius himself,
has candidly confessed (32) that, whenever he forced his
understanding to meditate on the divinity of the Logos, his
toilsome and unavailing efforts recoiled on themselves; that
the more he thought, the less he comprehended; and the more
he wrote, the less capable was he of expressing his
thoughts. In every step of the inquiry we are compelled to
feel and acknowledge the immeasurable disproportion between
the size of the object and the capacity of the human mind.
We may strive to abstract the notions of time, of space, and
of matter, which so closely adhere to all the perceptions of
our experimental knowledge. But as soon as we presume to
reason of infinite substance, of spiritual generation, as
often as we deduce any positive conclusions from a negative
idea, we are involved in darkness, perplexity, and
inevitable contradiction. As these difficulties arise from
the nature of the subject, they oppress, with the same
insuperable weight, the philosophic and the theological
disputant; but we may observe two essential and peculiar
circumstances which discriminated the doctrines of the
catholic church from the opinions of the Platonic school.
Zeal of the Christians.
I. A chosen society of philosophers, men of a liberal
education and curious disposition, might silently meditate,
and temperately discuss in the gardens of Athens or the
library of Alexandria, the abstruse questions of
metaphysical science. The lofty speculations, which neither
convinced the understanding nor agitated the passions of the
Platonists themselves, were carelessly overlooked by the
idle, the busy, and even the studious part of mankind.(33)
But after the logos had been revealed as the sacred object
of the faith, the hope, and the religious worship of the
Christians, the mysterious system was embraced by a numerous
and increasing multitude in every province of the Roman
world. Those persons who, from their age, or sex, or
occupations, were the least qualified to judge, who were the
least exercised in the habits of abstract reasoning, aspired
to contemplate the economy of the Divine Nature: and it is
the boast of Tertullian (34) that a Christian mechanic could
readily answer such questions as had perplexed the wisest of
the Grecian sages. Where the subject lies so far beyond our
reach, the difference between the highest and the lowest of
human understandings may indeed be calculated as infinitely
small; yet the degree of weakness may perhaps be measured by
the degree of obstinacy and dogmatic confidence. These
speculations, instead of being treated as the amusement of a
vacant hour, became the most serious business of the
present, and the most useful preparation for a future life.
A theology which it was incumbent to believe, which it was
impious to doubt, and which it might be dangerous, and even
fatal, to mistake, became the familiar topic of private
meditation and popular discourse. The cold indifference of
philosophy was inflamed by the fervent spirit of devotion;
and even the metaphors of common language suggested the
fallacious prejudices of sense and experience. The
Christians, who abhorred the gross and impure generation of
the Greek mythology, (35) were tempted to argue from the
familiar analogy of the filial and paternal relations. The
character of Son seemed to imply a perpetual subordination
to the voluntary author of his existence;(36) but as the act
of generation, in the most spiritual and abstracted sense,
must be supposed to transmit the properties of a common
nature,(37) they durst not presume to circumscribe the powers
or the duration of the Son of an eternal and omnipotent
Father. Four-score years after the death of Christ, the
Christians of Bithynia declared before the tribunal of Pliny
that they invoked him as a god: and his divine honours have
been perpetuated in every age and country, by the various
sects who assume the name of his disciples.(38) Their tender
reverence for the memory of Christ, and their horror for the
profane worship of any created being, would have engaged
them to assert the equal and absolute divinity of the logos,
if their rapid ascent towards the throne of heaven had not
been imperceptibly checked by the apprehension of violating
the unity and sole supremacy of the great Father of Christ,
and of the Universe. The suspense and fluctuation produced
in the minds of the Christians by these opposite tendencies
may be observed in the writings of the theologians who
flourished after the end of the apostolic age and before the
origin of the Arian controversy. Their suffrage is claimed,
with equal confidence, by the orthodox and by the heretical
parties and the most inquisitive critics have fairly allowed
that, if they had the good fortune of possessing the
catholic verity, they have delivered their conceptions in
loose, inaccurate, and sometimes contradictory language.(39)
Authority of the church..
II. The devotion of individuals was the first circumstance
which distinguished the Christians from the Platonists: the
second was the authority of the church. The disciples of
philosophy asserted the rights of intellectual freedom, and
their respect for the sentiments of their teachers was a
liberal and voluntary tribute which they offered to superior
reason. But the Christians formed a numerous and disciplined
society; and the jurisdiction of their laws and magistrates
was strictly exercised over the minds of the faithful. The
loose wanderings of the imagination were gradually confined
by creeds and confessions; (40) the freedom of private judgment submitted to the public wisdom of synods; the
authority of a theologian was determined by his
ecclesiastical rank; and the episcopal successors of the
apostles inflicted the censures of the church on those who
deviated from the orthodox belief. But in an age of
religious controversy every act of oppression adds new force
to the elastic vigour of the mind; and the zeal or obstinacy
of a spiritual rebel was sometimes stimulated by secret
motives of ambition or avarice.
Factions
A metaphysical argument
became the cause or pretence of political contests; the
subtleties of the Platonic school were used as the badges of
popular factions, and the distance which separated their
respective tenets was enlarged or magnified by the acrimony
of dispute. As long as the dark heresies of Praxeas and
Sabellius laboured to confound the Father with the Son, (41)
the orthodox party might be excused if they adhered more
strictly and more earnestly to the distinction than to the
equality of the divine persons. But as soon as the heat of
controversy had subsided and the progress of the Sabellians
was no longer an object of terror to the churches of Rome,
of Africa, or of Egypt, the tide of theological opinion
began to flow with a gentle but steady motion toward the
contrary extreme; and the most orthodox doctors allowed
themselves the use of the terms and definitions which had
been censured in the mouth of the sectaries.(42) After the
edict of toleration had restored peace and leisure to the
Christians, the Trinitarian controversy was revived in the
ancient seat of Platonism, the learned, the opulent, the
tumultuous city of Alexandria; and the flame of religious
discord was rapidly communicated from the schools to the
clergy, the people, the provinces, and the East. The
abstruse question of the eternity of the logos was agitated
in ecclesiastic conferences and popular sermons; and the Arius heterodox opinions of Arius (43) were soon made public by his own zeal and by that of his adversaries. His most implacable adversaries have acknowledged the learning and blameless life of the eminent presbyter, who, in a former election,
had declined, and perhaps generously declined, his
pretensions to the episcopal throne. (44) His competitor Alexander assumed the office of his judge. The important
cause was argued before him; and if at first he seemed to
hesitate, he at length pronounced his final sentence as an
absolute rule of faith. (45) The undaunted presbyter, who
presumed to resist the authority of his angry bishop, was
separated from the communion of the church. But the pride of
Arius was supported by the applause of a numerous party. He
reckoned among his immediate followers two bishops of Egypt,
seven presbyters, twelve deacons, and (what may appear
almost incredible) seven hundred virgins. A large majority
of the bishops of Asia appeared to support or favour his
cause; and their measures were conducted by Eusebius of
Caesarea, the most learned of the Christian prelates; and by
Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had acquired the reputation of a
statesman without forfeiting that of a saint. Synods in
Palestine and Bithynia were opposed to the synods of Egypt.
The attention of the prince and people was attracted by this
theological dispute; and the decision, at the end of six
years,(46) was referred to the supreme authority of the general council of Nice.
Three systems of the Trinity.
When the mysteries of the Christian faith were dangerously
exposed to public debate, it might be observed that the
human understanding was capable of forming three distinct,
though imperfect, systems concerning the nature of the
Divine Trinity, and it was pronounced that none of these
systems, in a pure and absolute sense, were exempt from
heresy and error. (47)
Arianism. I. According to the first hypothesis, which was maintained by Arius and his disciples, the logos
was a dependent and spontaneous production, created from
nothing by the will of the Father. The Son, by whom all
things were made, (48) had been begotten before all worlds,
and the longest of the astronomical periods could be
compared only as a fleeting moment to the extent of his
duration; yet this duration was not infinite,(49) and there
had been a time which preceded the ineffable generation of
the logos. On this only begotten Son the Almighty Father had
transfused his ample spirit, and impressed the effulgence of
his glory. Visible image of invisible perfection, he saw, at
an immeasurable distance beneath his feet, the thrones of
the brightest archangels; yet he shone only with a reflected
light, and, like the sons of the Roman emperors, who were
invested with the titles of Caesar or Augustus, (50) he
governed the universe in obedience to the will of his Father
and Monarch. Tritheism.
II. In the second hypothesis, the logos
possessed all the inherent, incommunicable perfections which
religion and philosophy appropriate to the Supreme God.
Three distinct and infinite minds or substances, three
co-equal and co-eternal beings, composed the Divine Essence;
(51) and it would have implied contradiction that any of them
should not have existed, or that they should ever cease to
exist. (52) The advocates of a system which seemed to
establish three independent Deities attempted to preserve
the unity of the First Cause, so conspicuous in the design
and order of the world, by the perpetual concord of their
administration and the essential agreement of their will. A
faint resemblance of this unity of action may be discovered
in the societies of men, and even of animals. The causes
which disturb their harmony proceed only from the
imperfection and inequality of their faculties; but the
omnipotence which is guided by infinite wisdom and goodness
cannot fail of choosing the same means for the
accomplishment of the same ends.
Sabellianism.
III. Three beings, who, by the self-derived necessity of their existence, possess all the divine attributes in the most perfect degree, who are
eternal in duration, infinite in space, and intimately
present to each other and to the whole universe,
irresistibly force themselves on the astonished mind as one
and the same Being,(53) who, in the economy of grace, as well
as in that of nature, may manifest himself under different
forms, and be considered under different aspects. By this
hypothesis a real substantial trinity is refined into a
trinity of names and abstract modifications that subsist
only in the mind which conceives them. The logos is no
longer a person, but an attribute; and it is only in a
figurative sense that the epithet of Son can be applied to
the eternal reason which was with God from the beginning,
and by which, not by whom, all things were made. The
incarnation of the logos is reduced to a mere inspiration of
the Divine Wisdom, which filled the soul and directed all
the actions of the man Jesus. Thus, after revolving round
the theological circle, we are surprised to find that the
Sabellian ends where the Ebionite had begun, and that the
incomprehensible mystery which excites our adoration eludes
our inquiry(54)
Council of Nice, A.D. 325.
If the bishops of the council of Nice(55) had been permitted
to follow the unbiassed dictates of their conscience, Arius
and his associates could scarcely have flattered themselves
with the hopes of obtaining a majority of votes in favour of
an hypothesis so directly adverse to the two most popular
opinions of the catholic world. The Arians soon perceived
the danger of their situation, and prudently assumed those
modest virtues which, in the fury of civil and religious
dissensions, are seldom practised, or even praised, except
by the weaker party. They recommended the exercise of
Christian charity and moderation, urged the incomprehensible
nature of the controversy, disclaimed the use of any terms
or definitions which could not be found in the Scriptures,
and offered, by very liberal concessions, to satisfy their
adversaries without renouncing the integrity of their own
principles. The victorious faction received all their
proposals with haughty suspicion, and anxiously sought for
some irreconcilable mark of distinction, the rejection of
which might involve the Arians in the guilt and consequences
of heresy. A letter was publicly read and ignominiously
torn, in which their patron, Eusebius of Nicomedia,
ingenuously confessed that the admission of the HOMOOUSION, or Consubstantial, a word already familiar to the Platonists, was incompatible with the principles of their
theological system. The fortunate opportunity was eagerly
embraced by the bishops, who governed the resolutions of the
synod, and, according to the lively expressions of Ambrose,
(56) they used the sword, which heresy itself had drawn from the scabbard, to cut off the head of the hated monster. The consubstantiality of the Father and the Son was established
by the council of Nice, and has been unanimously received as
a fundamental article of the Christian faith by the consent
of the Greek, the Latin, the Oriental, and the Protestant
churches. But if the same word had not served to stigmatise
the heretics and to unite the catholics, it would have been
inadequate to the purpose of the majority by whom it was
introduced into the orthodox creed. This majority was
divided into two parties, distinguished by a contrary
tendency to the sentiments of the Tritheists and of the
Sabellians. But as those opposite extremes seemed to
overthrow the foundations either of natural or revealed
religion, they mutually agreed to qualify the rigour of
their principles, and to disavow the just, but invidious,
consequences which might be urged by their antagonists. The
interest of the common cause inclined them to join their
numbers and to conceal their differences; their animosity
was softened by the healing counsels of toleration, and
their disputes were suspended by the use of the mysterious
Homoousion, which either party was free to interpret
according to their peculiar tenets. The Sabellian sense,
which, about fifty years before, had obliged the council of
Antioch(57) to prohibit this celebrated term, had endeared it
to those theologians who entertained a secret but partial
affection for a nominal Trinity. But the more fashionable
saints of the Arian times, the intrepid Athanasius, the
learned Gregory Nazianzen, and the other pillars of the
church, who supported with ability and success the Nicene
doctrine, appeared to consider the expression of substance
as if it had been synonymous with that of nature; and they
ventured to illustrate their meaning by affirming that three
men, as they belong to the same common species, are
consubstantial or homoousian to each other.(58) This pure and
distinct equality was tempered, on the one hand, by the
internal connection and spiritual penetration which
indissolubly unites the divine persons; (59) and, on the
other, by the pre-eminence of the Father, which was
acknowledged as far as it is compatible with the
independence of the Son. (60) Within these limits the almost
invisible and tremulous ball of orthodoxy was allowed
securely to vibrate. On either side, beyond this consecrated
ground, the heretics and the daemons lurked in ambush to
surprise and devour the unhappy wanderer. But as the degrees
of theological hatred depend on the spirit of the war rather
than on the importance of the controversy, the heretics who
degraded were treated with more severity than those who
annihilated the person of the Son. The life of Athanasius
was consumed in irreconcilable opposition to the impious
madness of the Arians,(61) but he defended above twenty years
the Sabellianism of Marcellus of Ancyra; and when at last he
was compelled to withdraw himself from his communion, he
continued to mention with an ambiguous smile the venial
errors of his respectable friend.(62)
Arian Creeds.
The authority of a general council, to which the Arians
themselves had been compelled to submit, inscribed on the
banners of the orthodox party the mysterious characters of
the word Homoousion, which essentially contributed,
notwithstanding some obscure disputes, some nocturnal
combats, to maintain and perpetuate the uniformity of faith,
or at least of language. The Consubstantialists, who by
their success have deserved and obtained the title of
Catholics, gloried in the simplicity and steadiness of their
own creed, and insulted the repeated variations of their
adversaries, who were destitute of any certain rule of
faith. The sincerity or the cunning of the Arian chiefs, the
fear of the laws or of the people, their reverence for
Christ, their hatred of Athanasius, all the causes, human
and divine, that influence and disturb the counsels of a
theological faction, introduced among the sectaries a spirit
of discord and inconstancy which in the course of a few
years erected eighteen different models of religion,(63) and avenged the violated dignity of the church. The zealous Hilary, (64) who, from the peculiar hardships of his situation, was inclined to extenuate rather than to aggravate the errors of the Oriental clergy, declares that,
in the wide extent of the ten provinces of Asia to which he
had been banished, there could be found very few prelates
who had preserved the knowledge of the true God.(65) The oppression which he had felt, the disorders of which he was the spectator and the victim, appeased, during a short interval, the angry passions of his soul and in the
following passage, of which I shall transcribe a few lines,
the bishop of Poitiers unwarily deviates into the style of a
Christian philosopher.
"It is a thing," says Hilary, "equally deplorable and dangerous, that there are as many creeds as opinions among men, as many doctrines as inclinations, and as many sources of blasphemy as there are faults among us; because we make creeds arbitrarily, and explain them as arbitrarily. The Homoousion is rejected, and received, and explained away by successive synods. The partial or total resemblance of the Father and of the Son is a subject of dispute for these unhappy times. Every year, nay, every moon, we make new creeds to describe invisible mysteries. We repent of what we have done, we defend those who repent, we anathematise those whom we defended. We condemn either the doctrine of others in ourselves, or our own in that of others; and, reciprocally tearing one another to pieces, we have been the cause of each other's ruin." (66)
Arian Sects
It will not be expected, it would not perhaps be endured,
that I should swell this theological digression by. a minute
examination of the eighteen creeds, the authors of which,
for the most part, disclaimed the odious name of their
parent Arius. It is amusing enough to delineate the form,
and to trace the vegetation, of a singular plant; but the
tedious detail of leaves without flowers, and of branches
without fruit, would soon exhaust the patience and
disappoint the curiosity of the laborious student. One
question, which gradually arose from the Arian controversy,
may, however, be noticed, as it served to produce and
discriminate the three sects who were united only by their
common aversion to the Homoousion of the Nicene synod. 1/.
If they were asked whether the Son was like unto the Father,
the question was resolutely answered in the negative by the
heretics who adhered to the principles of Arius, or indeed
to those of philosophy, which seem to establish an infinite
difference between the Creator and the most excellent of his
creatures. This obvious consequence was maintained by
Aetius,(67) on whom the zeal of his adversaries bestowed the surname of the Atheist. His restless and aspiring spirit urged him to try almost every profession of human life. He
was successively a slave, or at least a husbandman, a
travelling tinker, a goldsmith, a physician, a schoolmaster,
a theologian, and at last the apostle of a new church, which
was propagated by the abilities of his disciple Eunomius.(68) Armed with texts of Scripture, and with captious syllogisms
from the logic of Aristotle, the subtle Aetius had acquired
the fame of an invincible disputant, whom it was impossible
either to silence or to convince. Such talents engaged the
friendship of the Arian bishops, till they were forced to
renounce and even to persecute a dangerous ally, who, by the
accuracy of his reasoning, had prejudiced their cause in the
popular opinion, and offended the piety of their most
devoted followers. 2/. The omnipotence of the Creator
suggested a specious and respectful solution of the likeness
of the Father and the Son; and faith might humbly receive
what reason could not presume to deny, that the Supreme God
might communicate his infinite perfections, and create a
being similar only to himself. (69) These Arians were
powerfully supported by the weight and abilities of their
leaders, who had succeeded to the management of the Eusebian
interest, and who occupied the principal thrones of the
East. They detested, perhaps with some affectation, the
impiety of Aetius; they professed to believe, either without
reserve or according to the Scriptures, that the Son was
different from all other creatures, and similar only to the
Father. But they denied that he was either of the same or of
a similar substance; sometimes boldly justifying their
dissent, and sometimes objecting to the use of the word
substance, which seems to imply an adequate, or at least a
distinct, notion of the nature of the Diety. 3/. The sect
which asserted the doctrine of a similar substance was the
most numerous, at least in the provinces of Asia; and when
the leaders of both parties were assembled in the council of
Seleucia, (70) their opinion would have prevailed by a majority of one hundred and five to forty-three bishops. The
Greek word which was chosen to express this mysterious
resemblance bears so close an affinity to the orthodox
symbol, that the profane of every age have derided the
furious contests which the difference of a single diphthong
excited between the Homoousians and the Homoiousians. As it
frequently happens that the sounds and characters which
approach the nearest to each other accidentally represent
the most opposite ideas, the observation would be itself
ridiculous, if it were possible to mark any real and
sensible distinction between the doctrine of the
Semi-Arians, as they were improperly styled, and that of the
Catholics themselves. The bishop of Poitiers, who in his
Phrygian exile very wisely aimed at a coalition of parties,
endeavours to prove that, by a pious and faithful
interpretation,(71) the Homoiousion may be reduced to a consubstantial sense. Yet he confesses that the word has a
dark and suspicious aspect; and, as if darkness were
congenial to theological disputes, the Semi-Arians, who
advanced to the doors of the church, assailed them with the
most unrelenting fury.
Faith of the Western or Latin church
The provinces of Egypt and Asia, which cultivated the
language and manners of the Greeks, had deeply imbibed the
venom of the Arian controversy. The familiar study of the
Platonic system, a vain and argumentative disposition, a
copious and flexible idiom, supplied the clergy and people
of the East with an inexhaustible flow of words and
distinctions; and, in the midst of their fierce contentions,
they easily forgot the doubt which is recommended by
philosophy, and the submission which is enjoined by
religion. The inhabitants of the West were of a less
inquisitive spirit, their passions were not so forcibly
moved by invisible objects, their minds were less frequently
exercised by the habits of dispute; and such was the happy
ignorance of the Gallican church, that Hilary himself, above
thirty years after the first general council, was still a
stranger to the Nicene creed.(72) The Latins had received the
rays of divine knowledge through the dark and doubtful
medium of a translation. The poverty and stubbornness of
their native tongue was not always capable of affording just
equivalents for the Greek terms, for the technical words of
the Platonic philosophy, (73) which had been consecrated, by
the Gospel or by the church, to express the mysteries of the
Christian faith, and a verbal defect might introduce into
the Latin theology a long train of error or perplexity.(74)
But as the western provincials had the good fortune of
deriving their religion from an orthodox source, they
preserved with steadiness the doctrine which they had
accepted with docility; and when the Arian pestilence
approached their frontiers, they were supplied with the
seasonable preservative of the Homoousion by the paternal
care of the Roman pontiff. Council of Rimi, A.D. 360 Their sentiments and their temper
were displayed in the memorable synod of Rimini, which
surpassed in numbers the council of Nice, since it was
composed of above four hundred bishops of Italy, Africa,
Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Illyricum. From the first debates
it appeared that only four score prelates adhered to the
party, though they affected to anathematise the name and
memory of Arius. But this inferiority was compensated by the
advantages of skill, of experience, and of discipline; and
the minority was conducted by Valens and Ursacius, two
bishops of Illyricum, who had spent their lives in the
intrigues of courts and councils, and who had been trained
under the Eusebian banner in the religious wars of the East.
By their arguments and negotiations they embarrassed, they
confounded, they at last deceived the honest simplicity of
the Latin bishops, who suffered the palladium of the faith
to be extorted from their hands by fraud and importunity,
rather than by open violence. The council of Rimini was not
allowed to separate till the members had imprudently
subscribed a captious creed, in which some expressions,
susceptible of an heretical sense, were inserted in the room
of the Homoousion. It was on this occasion that, according
to Jerom, the world was surprised to find itself Arian.(75)
But the bishops of the Latin provinces had no sooner reached
their respective dioceses than they discovered their
mistake, and repented of their weakness. The ignominious
capitulation was rejected with disdain and abhorrence, and
the Homoousian standard, which had been shaken but not
overthrown, was more firmly replanted in all the churches of
the West.(76)
Conduct of the emperors in the Arian controvesy
Such was the rise and progress, and such were the natural
revolutions, of those theological disputes which disturbed
the peace of Christianity under the reigns of Constantine
and of his sons. But as those princes presumed to extend
their despotism over the faith, as well as over the lives
and fortunes of their subjects, the weight of their suffrage
sometimes inclined the ecclesiastical balance: and the
prerogatives of the King of Heaven were settled, or changed,
or modified, in the cabinet of an earthly monarch.
Indifference of Constantine, A.D. 324
The unhappy spirit of discord which pervaded the provinces
of the East interrupted the triumph of Constantine; but the
emperor continued for some time to view with cool and
careless indifference the object of the dispute. As he was
yet ignorant of the difficulty of appeasing the quarrels of
theologians, he addressed to the contending parties, to
Alexander and to Arius, a moderating epistle;(77) which may
be ascribed with far greater reason to the untutored sense
of a soldier and statesman than to the dictates of any of
his episcopal counsellors. He attributes the origin of the
whole controversy to a trifling and subtle question
concerning an incomprehensible point of the law, which was
foolishly asked by the bishop, and imprudently resolved by
the presbyter. He laments that the Christian people, who had
the same God, the same religion, and the same worship,
should be divided by such inconsiderable distinctions; and
he seriously recommends to the clergy of Alexandria the
example of the Greek philosophers, who could maintain their
arguments without losing their temper and assert their
freedom without violating their friendship. The indifference
and contempt of the sovereign would have been, perhaps, the
most effectual method of silencing the dispute, if the
popular current had been less rapid and impetuous, and if
Constantine himself, in the midst of faction and fanaticism,
could have preserved the calm possession of his own mind.
But his ecclesiastical ministers soon contrived to seduce
the impartiality of the magistrate, and to awaken the zeal
of the proselyte. His zeal. A.D. 325 He was provoked by the insults which had
been offered to his statues; he was alarmed by the real as
well as the imaginary magnitude of the spreading mischief;
and he extinguished the hope of peace and toleration, from
the moment that he assembled three hundred bishops within
the walls of the same palace. The presence of the monarch
swelled the importance of the debate; his attention
multiplied the arguments; and he exposed his person with a
patient intrepidity which animated the valour of the
combatants. Notwithstanding the applause which has been
bestowed on the eloquence and sagacity of Constantine,(78) a
Roman general, whose religion might be still a subject of
doubt, and whose mind had not been enlightened either by
study or by inspiration, was indifferently qualified to
discuss, in the Greek language, a metaphysical question, or
an article of faith. But the credit of his favourite Osius,
who appears to have presided in the council of Nice, might
dispose the emperor in favour of the orthodox party; and a
well-timed insinuation, that the same Eusebius of Nicomedia,
who now protected the heretic, had lately assisted the
tyrant,(79) might exasperate him against their adversaries.
The Nicene creed was ratified by Constantine; and his firm
declaration, that those who resisted the divine judgment of
the synod must prepare themselves for an immediate exile,
annihilated the murmurs of a feeble opposition; which, from
seventeen, was almost instantly reduced to two, protesting
bishops. Eusebius of Casarea yielded a reluctant and
ambiguous consent to the homoousion; (80) and the wavering
conduct of the Nicomedian Eusebius served only to delay
about three months his disgrace and exile.(81)He persecutes the Arian The impious Arius was banished into one of the remote provinces of Illyricum; his person and disciples were branded, by law,
with the odious name of Porphyrians; his writings were
condemned to the flames, and a capital punishment was
denounced against those in whose possession they should be
found. The emperor had now imbibed the spirit of
controversy, and the angry sarcastic style of his edicts was
designed to inspire his subjects with the hatred which he
had conceived against the enemies of Christ.(82)
and the orthodox party, A.D. 328-337
But, as if the conduct of the emperor had been guided by
passion instead of principle, three years from the council
of Nice were scarcely elapsed before he discovered some
symptoms of mercy, and even of indulgence, towards the
proscribed sect, which was secretly protected by his
favourite sister. The exiles were recalled; and Eusebius,
who gradually resumed his influence over the mind of
Constantine, was restored to the episcopal throne, from
which he had been ignominiously degraded. Arius himself was
treated by the whole court with the respect which would have
been due to an innocent and oppressed man. His faith was
approved by the synod of Jerusalem; and the emperor seemed
impatient to repair his injustice, by issuing an absolute
command that he should be solemnly admitted to the communion
in the cathedral of Constantinople. On the same day which
had been fixed for the triumph of Arius, he expired; and the
strange and horrid circumstances of his death might excite a
suspicion that the orthodox saints had contributed more
efficaciously than by their prayers to deliver the church
from the most formidable of her enemies. (83) The three
principal leaders of the catholics, Athanasius of
Alexandria, Eustathius of Antioch, and Paul of
Constantinople, were deposed on various accusations, by the
sentence of numerous councils; and were afterwards banished
into distant provinces by the first of the Christian
emperors, who, in the last moments of his life received the
rites of baptism from the Arian bishop of Nicomedia. The
ecclesiastical government of Constantine cannot be justified
from the reproach of levity and weakness. But the credulous
monarch, unskilled in the stratagems of theological warfare,
might be deceived by the modest and specious professions of
the heretics, whose sentiments he never perfectly
understood; and while he protected Arius, and persecuted
Athanasius, he still considered the council of Nice as the
bulwark of the Christian faith, and the peculiar glory of
his own reign.(84)
Constantius favours the Arians, A.D. 337-361.
The sons of Constantine must have been admitted from their
childhood into the rank of catechumens, but they imitated,
in the delay of their baptism, the example of their father.
Like him, they presumed to pronounce their judgment on
mysteries into which they had never been regularly
initiated:(85) and the fate of the Trinitarian controversy
depended, in a great measure, on the sentiments of
Constantius, who inherited the provinces of the East, and
acquired the possession of the whole empire. The Arian
presbyter or bishop, who had secreted for his use the
testament of the deceased emperor, improved the fortunate
occasion which had introduced him to the familiarity of a
prince whose public counsels were always swayed by his
domestic favourites. The eunuchs and slaves diffused the
spiritual poison through the palace, and the dadangerous
infection was communicated by the female attendants to the
guards, and by the empress to her unsuspicious husband.(86)
The partiality which Constantius always expressed towards
the Eusebian faction was insensibly fortified by the
dexterous management of their leaders; and his victory over
the tyrant Magnentius increased his inclination, as well as
ability, to employ the arms of power in the cause of
Arianism. While the two armies were engaged in the plains of
Mursa, and the fate of the two rivals depended on the chance
of war, the son of Constantine passed the anxious moments in
a church of the martyrs, under the walls of the city. His
spiritual comforter, Valens, the Arian bishop of the
diocese, employed the most artful precautions to obtain such
early intelligence as might secure either his favour or his
escape. A secret chain of swift and trusty messengers
informed him of the vicissitudes of the battle; and while
the courtiers stood trembling round their affrighted master,
Valens assured him that the Gallic legions gave way; and
insinuated, with some presence of mind, that the glorious
event had been revealed to him by an angel. The grateful
emperor ascribed his success to the merits and intercession
of the bishop of Mursa, whose faith had deserved the public
and miraculous approbation of Heaven. (87) The Arians, who
considered as their own the victory of Constantius,
preferred his glory to that of his father.(88) Cyril, bishop
of Jerusalem, immediately composed the description of a
celestial cross, encircled with a splendid rainbow, which,
during the festival of Pentecost, about the third hour of
the day, had appeared over the Mount of Olives, to the
edification of the devout pilgrims and the people of the
holy city. (89) The size of the meteor was gradually
magnified; and the Arian historian has ventured to affirm
that it was conspicuous to the two armies in the plains of
Pannonia; and that the tyrant, who is purposely represented
as an idolater, fled before the auspicious sign of orthodox
Christianity.(90)
Arian Councils
The sentiments of a judicious stranger, who has impartially
considered the progress of civil or ecclesiastical discord,
are always entitled to our notice: and a short passage of
Ammianus, who served in the armies, and studied the
character, of Constantius, is perhaps of more value than
many pages of theologic invectives.
"The Christian religion, which, in itself," says that moderate historian, "is plain and simple, he confounded by the dotage of superstition. Instead of reconciling the parties by the weight of his authority, he cherished and propagated, by verbal disputes, the differences which his vain curiosity had excited. The highways were covered with troops of bishops galloping from every side to the assemblies, which they call synods; and while they laboured to reduce the whole sect to their own particular opinions, the public establishment of the posts was almost ruined by their hasty and repeated journey." (91)
Our more intimate knowledge of the ecclesiastical transactions of the reign of Constantius would furnish an ample commentary on this remarkable passage; which justifies the rational apprehensions of Athanasius, that the restless activity of the clergy, who wandered round the empire in search of the true faith, would excite the contempt and laughter of the unbelieving world. (92) As soon as the emperor was relieved from the terrors of the civil war, he devoted the leisure of his winter quarters at Arles, Milan, Sirmium, and Constantinople, to the amusement or toils of controversy: the sword of the magistrate, and even of the tyrant, was unsheathed, to enforce the reasons of the theologian; and as he opposed the orthodox faith of Nice, it is readily confessed that his incapacity and ignorance were equal to his presumption.(93) The eunuchs, the women, and the bishops, who governed the vain and feeble mind of the emperor, had inspired him with an insuperable dislike to the Homoousion; but his timid conscience was alarmed by the impiety of Aetius. The guilt of that atheist was aggravated by the suspicious favour of the unfortunate Gallus; and even the deaths of the Imperial ministers who had been massacred at Antioch were imputed to the suggestions of that dangerous sophist. The mind of Constantius, which could neither be moderated by reason nor fixed by faith, was blindly impelled to either side of the dark and empty abyss by his horror of the opposite extreme; he alternately embraced and condemned the sentiments, he successively banished and recalled the leaders, of the Arian and Semi-Arian factions. (94) During the season of public business or festivity, he employed whole days, and even nights, in selecting the words, and weighing the syllables, which composed his fluctuating creeds. The subject of his meditations still pursued and occupied his slumbers: the incoherent dreams of the emperor were received as celestial visions, and he accepted with complacency the lofty title of bishop of bishops, from those ecclesiastics who forgot the interest of their order for the gratification of their passions. The design of establishing an uniformity of doctrine, which had engaged him to convene so many synods in Gaul, Italy, Illyricum, and Asia, was repeatedly baffled by his own levity, by the divisions of the Arians, and by the resistance of the catholics; and he resolved, as the last and decisive effort, imperiously to dictate the decrees of a general council. The destructive earthquake of Nicomedia, the difficulty of finding a convenient place, and perhaps some secret motives of policy, produced an alteration in the summons. The bishops of the East were directed to meet at Seleucia, in Isauria; while those of the West held their deliberations at Rimini, on the coast of the Hadriatic, and instead of two or three deputies from each province, the whole episcopal body was ordered to march. The Eastern council, after consuming four days in fierce and unavailing debate, separated without any definite conclusion. The council of the West was protracted till the seventh month. Taurus, the Praetorian praefect, was instructed not to dismiss the prelates till they should all be united in the same opinion; and his efforts were supported by a power of banishing fifteen of the most refractory, and a promise of the consulship if he achieved so difficult an adventure. His prayers and threats, the authority of the sovereign, the sophistry of Valens and Ursacius, the distress of cold and hunger, and the tedious melancholy of a hopeless exile, at length extorted the reluctant consent of the bishops of Rimini. The deputies of the East and of the West attended the emperor in the palace of Constantinople, and he enjoyed the satisfaction of imposing on the world a profession of faith which established the likeness, without expressing the consubstantiality, of the Son of God.(95) But the triumph of Arianism had been preceded by the removal of the orthodox clergy, whom it was impossible either to intimidate or to corrupt; and the reign of Constantius was disgraced by the unjust and ineffectual persecution of the great Athanasius.
Character and adventures of Athanasius
We have seldom an opportunity of observing, either in active
or speculative life, what effect may be produced, or what
obstacles may be surmounted, by the force of a single mind,
when it is inflexibly applied to the pursuit of a single
object. The immortal name of Athanasius (96) will never be
separated from the catholic doctrine of the Trinity, to
whose defence he consecrated every moment and every faculty
of his being. Educated in the family of Alexander, he had
vigorously opposed the early progress of the Arian heresy:
he exercised the important functions of secretary under the
aged prelate; and the fathers of the Nicene council beheld
with surprise and respect the rising virtues of the young
deacon. In a time of public danger the dull claims of age
and of rank are sometimes superseded; and within five months
after his return from Nice the deacon Athanasius was seated
on the archiepiscopal throne of Egypt. He filled that
eminent station above forty-six years, and his long
administration was spent in a perpetual combat against the
powers of Arianism. Five times was Athanasius expelled from
his throne; twenty years he passed as an exile or a
fugitive; and almost every province of the Roman empire was
successively witness to his merit, and his sufferings in the
cause of the Homoousion, which he considered as the sole
pleasure and business, as the duty and as the glory of his
life. Amidst the storms of persecution, the archbishop of
Alexandria was patient of labour, jealous of fame, careless
of safety; and although his mind was tainted by the
contagion of fanaticism, Athanasius displayed a superiority
of character and abilities which would have qualified him,
far better than the degenerate sons of Constantine, for the
government of a great monarchy. His learning was much less
profound and extensive than that of Eusebius of Caesarea,
and his rude eloquence could not be compared with the
polished oratory of Gregory or Basil; but whenever the
primate of Egypt was called upon to justify his sentiments
or his conduct, his unpremeditated style, either of speaking
or writing, was clear, forcible, and persuasive. He has
always been revered in the orthodox school as one of the
most accurate masters of the Christian theology; and he was
supposed to possess two profane sciences, less adapted to
the episcopal character — the knowledge of jurisprudence,(97)
and that of divination. (98) Some fortunate conjectures of
future events, which impartial reasoners might ascribe to
the experience and judgment of Athanasius, were attributed
by his friends to heavenly inspiration, and imputed by his
enemies to infernal magic.
But as Athanasius was continually engaged with the prejudices and passions of every order of men, from the monk to the emperor, the knowledge of human nature was his first and most important science. He preserved a distinct and unbroken view of a scene which was incessantly shifting; and never failed to improve those decisive moments which are irrecoverably past before they are perceived by a common eye. The archbishop of Alexandria was capable of distinguishing how far he might boldly command, and where he must dexterously insinuate; how long he might contend with power, and when he must withdraw from persecution; and while he directed the thunders of the church against heresy and rebellion, he could assume, in the bosom of his own party, the flexible and indulgent temper of a prudent leader. The election of Athanasius has not escaped the reproach of irregularity and precipitation; (99) but the propriety of his behaviour conciliated the affections both of the clergy and of the people. The Alexandrians were impatient to rise in arms for the defence of an eloquent and liberal pastor. In his distress he always derived support, or at least consolation, from the faithful attachment of his parochial clergy; and the hundred bishops of Egypt adhered, with unshaken zeal, to the cause of Athanasius. In the modest equipage which pride and policy would affect, he frequently performed the episcopal visitation of his provinces, from the mouth of the Nile to the confines of Ethiopia; familiarly conversing with the meanest of the populace, and humbly saluting the saints and hermits of the desert.(100) Nor was it only in ecclesiastical assemblies, among men whose education and manners were similar to his own, that Athanasius displayed the ascendancy of his genius. He appeared with easy and respectful firmness in the courts of princes; and in the various turns of his prosperous and adverse fortune he never lost the confidence of his friends, or the esteem of his enemies.
Persecution against Athanasius, A.D. 330
In his youth the primate of Egypt resisted the great
Constantine, who had repeatedly signified his will that
Arius should be restored to the catholic communion.(101) The
emperor respected, and might forgive, this inflexible
resolution; and the faction who considered Athanasius as
their most formidable enemy were constrained to dissemble
their hatred, and silently to prepare an indirect and
distant assault. They scattered rumours and suspicions,
represented the archbishop as a proud and oppressive tyrant,
and boldly accused him of violating the treaty which had
been ratified in the Nicene council with the schismatic
followers of Meletius.(102) Athanasius had openly disapproved
that ignominious peace, and the emperor was disposed to
believe that he had abused his ecclesiastical and civil
power to persecute those odious sectaries; that he had
sacrilegiously broken a chalice in one of their churches of
Maraeotis; that he had whipped or imprisoned six of their
bishops; and that Arsenius, a seventh bishop of the same
party, had been murdered, or at least mutilated, by the
cruel hand of the primate.(103) These charges, which affected
his honour and his life, were referred by Constantine to his
brother Dalmatius, the censor, who resided at Antioch; the
synods of Caesarea and Tyre were successively convened; and
the bishops of the East were instructed to judge the cause
of Athanasius before they proceeded to consecrate the new
church of the Resurrection at Jerusalem. The primate might
be conscious of his innocence; but he was sensible that the
same implacable spirit which had dictated the accusation
would direct the proceeding and pronounce the sentence. He
prudently declined the tribunal of his enemies, despised the
summons of the synod of Caesarea; and, after a long and
artful delay, submitted to the peremptory commands of the
emperor, who threatened to punish his criminal disobedience
if he refused to appear in the council of Tyre.(104) Before
Athanasius, at the head of fifty Egyptian prelates, sailed
from Alexandria, he had wisely secured the alliance of the
Meletians; and Arsenius himself, his imaginary victim, and
his secret friend, was privately concealed in his train. The
synod of Tyre was conducted by Eusebius of Caesarea, with
more passion, and with less art, than his learning and
experience might promise; his numerous faction repeated the
names of homicide and tyrant; and their clamours were
encouraged by the seeming patience of Athanasius, who
expected the decisive moment to produce Arsenius alive and
unhurt in the midst of the assembly. The nature of the other
charges did not admit of such clear and satisfactory
replies; yet, the archbishop was able to prove that, in the
village where he was accused of breaking a consecrated
chalice, neither church nor altar nor chalice could really
exist. The Arians, who had secretly determined the guilt and
condemnation of their enemy, attempted, however, to disguise
their injustice by the imitation of judicial forms; the
synod appointed an episcopal commission of six delegates to
collect evidence on the spot; and this measure, which was
vigorously opposed by the Egyptian bishops, opened new
scenes of violence and perjury.(105) After the return of the
deputies from Alexandria, the majority of the council
pronounced the final sentence of degradation and exile
against the primate of Egypt. The decree, expressed in the
fiercest language of malice and revenge, was communicated to
the emperor and the Catholic church; and the bishops
immediately resumed a mild and devout aspect, such as became
their holy pilgrimage to the Sepulchre of Christ.(106)
His first exile, A.D. 336
But the injustice of these ecclesiastical judges had not
been countenanced by the submission, or even by the
presence, of Athanasius. He resolved to make a bold; and
dangerous experiment, whether the throne was inaccessible to
the voice of truth; and before the final sentence could be
pronounced at Tyre, the intrepid primate threw himself into
a bark which was ready to hoist sale for the Imperial city.
The request of a formal audience might have been opposed or
eluded; but Athanasius concealed his arrival, watched the
moment of Constantine's return from an adjacent villa, and
boldly encountered his angry sovereign as he passed on
horseback through the principal street of Constantinople. So
strange an apparition excited his surprise and indignation;
and the guards were ordered to remove the importunate
suitor; but his resentment was subdued by involuntary
respect; and the haughty spirit of the emperor was awed by
the courage and eloquence of a bishop who implored his
justice and awakened his conscience. (107) Constantine
listened to the complaints of Athanasius with impartial and
even gracious attention; the members of the synod of Tyre
were summoned to justify their proceedings and the arts of
the Eusebian faction would have been confounded if they had
not aggravated the guilt of the primate by the dexterous
supposition of an unpardonable offence — a criminal design
to intercept and detain the corn-fleet of Alexandria, which
supplied the subsistence of the new capital.(108) The emperor
was satisfied that the peace of Egypt would be secured by
the absence of a popular leader but he refused to fill the
vacancy of the archiepiscopal throne; and the sentence
which, after long hesitation, he pronounced, was that of a
jealous ostracism rather than of an ignominious exile. In
the remote province of Gaul, but in the hospitable court of
Treves, Athanasius passed about twenty-eight months. and restoration, A.D. 338. The
death of the emperor changed the face of public affairs;
and, amidst the general indulgence of a young reign, the
primate was restored to his country by an honourable edict
of the younger Constantine, who expressed a deep sense of
the innocence and merit of his venerable guest.(109)
His second exile, A.D. 341
The death of that prince exposed Athanasius to a second
persecution; and the feeble Constantius, the sovereign of
the East, soon became the secret accomplice of the
Eusebians. Ninety bishops of that sect or faction assembled
at Antioch under the specious pretence of dedicating the
cathedral. They composed an ambiguous creed, which is
faintly tinged with the colours of Semi-Arianism, and
twenty-five canons, which still regulate the discipline of
the orthodox Greeks. (110) It was decided, with some
appearance of equity, that a bishop, deprived by a synod,
should not resume his episcopal functions till he had been
absolved by the judgment of an equal synod; the law was
immediately applied to the case of Athanasius; the council
of Antioch pronounced, or rather confirmed, his degradation:
a stranger, named Gregory, was seated on his throne; and
Philagrius,(111) the praefect of Egypt, was instructed to
support the new primate with the civil and military powers
of the province. Oppressed by the conspiracy of the Asiatic
prelates, Athanasius withdrew from Alexandria and passed
three years(112) as an exile and a suppliant on the holy
threshold of the Vatican.(113) By the assiduous study of the
Latin language he soon qualified himself to negotiate with
the western clergy; his decent flattery swayed and directed
the haughty Julius: the Roman pontiff was persuaded to
consider his appeal as the peculiar interest of the
Apostolic see; and his innocence was unanimously declared in
a council of fifty bishops of Italy. At the end of three
years the primate was summoned to the court of Milan by the
emperor Constans, who, in the indulgence of unlawful
pleasures, still professed a lively regard for the orthodox
faith. The cause of truth and justice was promoted by the
influence of gold,(114) and the ministers of Constans advised
their sovereign to require the convocation of an
ecclesiastical assembly, which might act as the
representatives of the Catholic church. Ninety-four bishops
of the West, seventy-six bishops of the East, encountered
each other at Sardica, on the verge of the two empires, but
in the dominions of the protector of Athanasius. Their
debates soon degenerated into hostile altercations; the
Asiatics, apprehensive for their personal safety, retired to
Philippopolis in Thrace; and the rival synods reciprocally
hurled their spiritual thunders against their enemies, whom
they piously condemned as the enemies of the true God. Their
decrees were published and ratified in their respective
provinces: and Athanasius, who in the West was revered as a
saint, was exposed as a criminal to the abhorrence of the
East.(115) The council of Sardica reveals the first symptoms
of discord and schism between the Greek and Latin churches,
which were separated by the accidental difference of faith
and the permanent distinction of language.
and restoration, A.D. 349
During his second exile in the West, Athanasius was
frequently admitted to the Imperial presence — at Capua,
Lodi, Milan, Verona, Padua, Aquileia, and Treves. The bishop
of the diocese usually assisted at these interviews; the
master of the offices stood before the veil or curtain of
the sacred apartment; and the uniform moderation of the
primate might be attested by these respectable witnesses, to
whose evidence he solemnly appeals. (116) Prudence would
undoubtedly suggest the mild and respectful tone that became
a subject and a bishop. In these familiar conferences with
the sovereign of the West, Athanasius might lament the error
of Constantius, but he boldly arraigned the guilt of his
eunuchs and his Arian prelates; deplored the distress and
danger of the Catholic church; and excited Constans to
emulate the zeal and glory of his father. The emperor
declared his resolution of employing the troops and
treasures of Europe in the orthodox cause; and signified, by
a concise and peremptory epistle to his brother Constantius,
that, unless he consented to the immediate restoration of
Athanasius, he himself, with a fleet and army, would seat
the archbishop on the throne of Alexandria.(117) But this
religious war, so horrible to nature, was prevented by the
timely compliance of Constantius; and the emperor of the
East condescended to solicit a reconciliation with a subject
whom he had injured. Athanasius waited with decent pride
till he had received three successive epistles full of the
strongest assurances of the protection, the favour, and the
esteem of his sovereign; who invited him to resume his
episcopal seat, and who added the humiliating precaution of
engaging his principal ministers to attest the sincerity of
his intentions. They were manifested in a still more public
manner by the strict orders which were despatched into Egypt
to recall the adherents of Athanasius, to restore their
privileges, to proclaim their innocence, and to erase from
the public registers the illegal proceedings which had been
obtained during the prevalence of the Eusebian faction.
After every satisfaction and security had been given which
justice or even delicacy could require, the primate
proceeded, by slow journeys, through the provinces of
Thrace, Asia, and Syria; and his progress was marked by the
abject homage of the Oriental bishops, who excited his
contempt without deceiving his penetration.(118) At Antioch
he saw the emperor Constantius; sustained, with modest
firmness, the embraces and protestations of his master; and
eluded the proposal of allowing the Arians a single church
at Alexandria by claiming, in the other cities of the
empire, a similar toleration for his own party; a reply
which might have appeared just and moderate in the mouth of
an independent prince. The entrance of the archbishop into
his capital was a triumphal procession; absence and
persecution had endeared him to the Alexandrians; his
authority, which he exercised with rigour, was more firmly
established; and his fame was diffused from Ethiopia to
Britain, over the whole extent of the Christian world(119)
Resentment of Constantius, A.D. 351
But the subject who has reduced his prince to the necessity
of dissembling can never expect a sincere and lasting
forgiveness; and the tragic fate of Constans soon deprived
Athanasius of a powerful and generous protector. The civil
war between the assassin and the only surviving brother of
Constans, which afflicted the empire above three years,
secured an interval of repose to the Catholic church; and
the two contending parties were desirous to conciliate the
friendship of a bishop who, by the weight of his personal
authority, might determine the fluctuating resolutions of an
important province. He gave audience to the ambassadors of
the tyrant, with whom he was afterwards accused of holding a
secret correspondence; (120) and the emperor Constantius
repeatedly assured his dearest father, the most reverend
Athanasius, that, notwithstanding the malicious rumours
which were circulated by their common enemies, he had
inherited the sentiments, as well as the throne, of his
deceased brother.(121) Gratitude and humanity would have
disposed the primate of Egypt to deplore the untimely fate
of Constans, and to abhor the guilt of Magnentius; but as he
clearly understood that the apprehensions of Constantius
were his only safeguard, the fervour of his prayers for the
success of the righteous cause might perhaps be somewhat
abated. The ruin of Athanasius was no longer contrived by
the obscure malice of a few bigoted or angry bishops, who
abused the authority of a credulous monarch. The monarch
himself avowed the resolution, which he had so long
suppressed, of avenging his private injuries;(122) and the
first winter after his victory, which he passed at Arles,
was employed against an enemy more odious to him than the
vanquished tyrant of Gaul.
Councils of Arles and Milan, A.D. 353-355
If the emperor had capriciously decreed the death of the
most eminent and virtuous citizen of the republic, the cruel
order would have been executed without hesitation by the
ministers of open violence or of specious injustice. The
caution, the delay, the difficulty with which he proceeded
in the condemnation and punishment of a popular bishop,
discovered to the world that the privileges of the church
had already revived a sense of order and freedom in the
Roman government. The sentence which was pronounced in the
synod of Tyre, and subscribed by a large majority of the
Eastern bishops, had never been expressly repealed; and as
Athanasius had been once degraded from his episcopal dignity
by the judgment of his brethren, every subsequent act might
be considered as irregular, and even criminal. But the
memory of the firm and effectual support which the primate
of Egypt had derived from the attachment of the Western
church engaged Constantius to suspend the execution of the
sentence till he had obtained the concurrence of the Latin
bishops. Two years were consumed in ecclesiastical
negotiations; and the important cause between the emperor
and one of his subjects was solemnly debated, first in the
synod of Arles, and afterwards in the great council of
Milan,(123) which consisted of above three hundred bishops.
Their integrity was gradually undermined by the arguments of
the Arians, the dexterity of the eunuchs, and the pressing
solicitations of a prince who gratified his revenge at the
expense of his dignity, and exposed his own passions whilst
he influenced those of the clergy. Corruption, the most
infallible symptom of constitutional liberty, was
successfully practised; honours, gifts, and immunities were
offered and accepted as the price of an episcopal vote;(124)
and the condemnation of the Alexandrian primate was artfully
represented as the only measure which could restore the
peace and union of the Catholic church. The friends of
Athanasius were not, however, wanting to their leader, or to
their cause. With a manly spirit, which the sanctity of
their character rendered less dangerous, they maintained, in
public debate, and in private conference with the emperor,
the eternal obligation of religion and justice. They
declared that neither the hope of his favour, nor the fear
of his displeasure, should prevail on them to join in the
condemnation of an absent, an innocent, a respectable
brother.(125) They affirmed, with apparent reason, that the
illegal and obsolete decrees of the council of Tyre had long
since been tacitly abolished by the Imperial edicts, the
honourable re-establishment of the Archbishop of Alexandria,
and the silence or recantation of his most clamorous
adversaries. They alleged that his innocence had been
attested by the unanimous bishops of Egypt, and had been
acknowledged in the councils of Rome and Sardica(126) by the
impartial judgment of the Latin church. They deplored the
hard condition of Athanasius, who, after enjoying so many
years his seat, his reputation, and the seeming confidence
of his sovereign, was again called upon to confute the most
groundless and extravagant accusations. Their language was
specious; their conduct was honourable: but in this long and
obstinate contest, which fixed the eyes of the whole empire
on a single bishop, the ecclesiastical factions were
prepared to sacrifice truth and justice to the more
interesting object of defending or removing the intrepid
champion of the Nicene faith. The Arians still thought it
prudent to disguise, in ambiguous language, their real
sentiments and designs; but the orthodox bishops, armed with
the favour of the people and the decrees of a general
council, insisted on every occasion, and particularly at
Milan, that their adversaries should purge themselves from
the suspicion of heresy, before they presumed to arraign the
conduct of the great Athanasius.(127)
Condemnation of Athanasius, A.D. 355.
But the voice of reason (if reason was indeed on the side of
Athanasius) was silenced by the clamours of a factious or
venal majority; and the councils of Arles and Milan were not
dissolved till the archbishop of Alexandria had been
solemnly condemned and deposed by the judgment of the
Western, as well as of the Eastern, church. The bishops who
had opposed were required to subscribe the sentence; and to
unite in religious communion with the suspected leaders of
the adverse party. A formulary of consent was transmitted by
the messengers of state to the absent bishops: and all those
who refused to submit their private opinion to the public
and inspired wisdom of the councils of Arles and Milan were
immediately banished by the emperor, who affected to execute
the decrees of the catholic church. Among those prelates who
led the honourable band of confessors and exiles, Liberius
of Rome, Osius of Cordova, Paulinus of Treves, Dionysius of
Milan, Eusebius of Vercellae, Lucifer of Cagliari, and
Hilary of Poitiers, may deserve to be particularly
distinguished. The eminent station of Liberius, who governed
the capital of the empire; the personal merit and long
experience of the venerable Osius, who was revered as the
favourite of the great Constantine, and the father of the
Nicene faith, placed those prelates at the head of the Latin
church: and their example, either of submission or
resistance, would probably be imitated by the episcopal
crowds. But the repeated attempts of the emperor to seduce
or to intimidate the bishops of Rome and Cordova were for
some time ineffectual. The Spaniard declared himself ready
to suffer under Constantius, as he had suffered three-score
years before under his grandfather Maximian. The Roman, in
the presence of his sovereign, asserted the innocence of
Athanasius, and his own freedom. When he was banished to
Beraea in Thrace, he sent back a large sum which had been
offered for the accommodation of his journey; and insulted
the court of Milan by the haughty remark, that the emperor
and his eunuchs might want that gold to pay their soldiers
and their bishops. (128) The resolution of Liberius and Osius
was at length subdued by the hardships of exile and
confinement. The Roman pontiff purchased his return by some
criminal compliances; and afterwards expiated his guilt by a
seasonable repentance. Persuasion and violence were employed
to extort the reluctant signature of the decrepit bishop of
Cordova, whose strength was broken, and whose faculties were
perhaps impaired, by the weight of an hundred years; and the
insolent triumph of the Arians provoked some of the orthodox
party to treat with inhuman severity the character, or
rather the memory, of an unfortunate old man, to whose
former services Christianity itself was so deeply indebted.
(129)
Exiles
The fall of Liberius and Osius reflected a brighter lustre
on the firmness of those bishops who still adhered, with
unshaken fidelity, to the cause of Athanasius and religious
truth. The ingenious malice of their enemies had deprived
them of the benefit of mutual comfort and advice, separated
those illustrious exiles into distant provinces, and
carefully selected the most inhospitable spots of a great
empire.(130) Yet they soon experienced that the deserts of
Libya, and the most barbarous tracts of Cappadocia, were
less inhospitable than the residence of those cities in
which an Arian bishop could satiate, without restraint, the
exquisite rancour of theological hatred. (131) Their
consolation was derived from the consciousness of rectitude
and independence, from the applause, the visits, the
letters, and the liberal alms of their adherents;(132) and
from the satisfaction which they soon enjoyed of observing
the intestine divisions of the adversaries of the Nicene
faith. Such was the nice and capricious taste of the emperor
Constantius, and so easily was he offended by the slightest
deviation from his imaginary standard of Christian truth,
that he persecuted, with equal zeal, those who defended the
consubstantiality, those who asserted the similar substance,
and those who denied the likeness, of the Son of God. Three
bishops, degraded and banished for those adverse opinions,
might possibly meet in the same place of exile; and,
according to the difference of their temper, might either
pity or insult the blind enthusiasm of their antagonists,
whose present sufferings would never be compensated by
future happiness.
Third expulsion of Athanasius from Alexandria, A.D. 356
The disgrace and exile of the orthodox bishops of the West
were designed as so many preparatory steps to the ruin of
Athanasius himself.(133) Six-and-twenty months had elapsed,
during which the Imperial court secretly laboured, by the
most insidious arts, to remove him from Alexandria, and to
withdraw the allowance which supplied his popular
liberality. But when the primate of Egypt, deserted and
proscribed by the Latin church, was left destitute of any
foreign support, Constantius despatched two of his
secretaries with a verbal commission to announce and execute
the order of his banishment. As the justice of the sentence
was publicly avowed by the whole party, the only motive
which could restrain Constantius from giving his messengers
the sanction of a written mandate must be imputed to his
doubt of the event; and to a sense of the danger to which he
might expose the second city and the most fertile province
of the empire, if the people should persist in the
resolution of defending, by force of arms, the innocence of
their spiritual father. Such extreme caution afforded
Athanasius a specious pretence respectfully to dispute the
truth of an order which he could not reconcile either with
the equity or with the former declarations of his gracious
master. The civil powers of Egypt found themselves
inadequate to the task of persuading or compelling the
primate to abdicate his episcopal throne; and they were
obliged to conclude a treaty with the popular leaders of
Alexandria, by which it was stipulated that all proceedings
and all hostilities should be suspended till the emperor's
pleasure had been more distinctly ascertained. By this
seeming moderation the catholics were deceived into a false
and fatal security; while the legions of the Upper Egypt,
and of Libya, advanced, by secret orders and hasty marches,
to besiege, or rather to surprise, a capital habituated to
sedition, and inflamed by religious zeal.(134) The position
of Alexandria, between the sea and the lake Mareotis,
facilitated the approach and landing of the troops, who were
introduced into the heart of the city before any effectual
measures could be taken, either to shut the gates, or to
occupy the important posts of defence. At the hour of
midnight, twenty-three days after the signature of the
treaty, Syrianus, duke of Egypt, at the head of five
thousand soldiers, armed and prepared for an assault,
unexpectedly invested the church of St. Theonas, where the
archbishop, with a part of his clergy and people, performed
their nocturnal devotions. The doors of the sacred edifice
yielded to the impetuosity of the attack, which was
accompanied with every horrid circumstance of tumult and
bloodshed; but, as the bodies of the slain, and the
fragments of military weapons, remained the next day an
unexceptionable evidence in the possession of the catholics,
the enterprise of Syrianus may be considered as a successful
irruption rather than as an absolute conquest. The other
churches of the city were profaned by similar outrages; and,
during at least four months, Alexandria was exposed to the
insults of a licentious army, stimulated by the
ecclesiastics of an hostile faction. Many of the faithful
were killed, who may deserve the name of martyrs if their
deaths were neither provoked nor revenged; bishops and
presbyters were treated with cruel ignominy; consecrated
virgins were stripped naked, scourged, and violated; the
houses of wealthy citizens were plundered; and under the
mask of religious zeal, lust, avarice, and private
resentment were gratified with impunity, and even with
applause. The Pagans of Alexandria, who still formed a
numerous and discontented party, were easily persuaded to
desert a bishop whom they feared and esteemed. The hopes of
some peculiar favours, and the apprehension of being
involved in the general penalties of rebellion, engaged them
to promise their support to the destined successor of
Athanasius, the famous George of Cappadocia. The usurper,
after receiving the consecration of an Arian synod, was
placed on the episcopal throne by the arms of Sebastian, who
had been appointed count of Egypt for the execution of that
important design. In the use, as well as in the acquisition,
of power, the tyrant George disregarded the laws of
religion, of justice, and of humanity; and the same scenes
of violence and scandal which had been exhibited in the
capital were repeated in more than ninety episcopal cities
of Egypt. Encouraged by success, Constantius ventured to
approve the conduct of his ministers. By a public and
passionate epistle, the emperor congratulates the
deliverance of Alexandria from a popular tyrant, who deluded
his blind votaries by the magic of his eloquence; expatiates
on the virtues and piety of the most reverend George, the
elected bishop; and aspires, as the patron and benefactor of
the city, to surpass the fame of Alexander himself. But he
solemnly declares his unalterable resolution to pursue with
fire and sword the seditious adherents of the wicked
Athanasius, who, by flying from justice, has confessed his
guilt, and escaped the ignominious death which he had so
often deserved.(135)
His behaviour
Athanasius had indeed escaped from the most imminent
dangers; and the adventures of that extraordinary man
deserve and fix our attention. On the memorable night when
the church of St. Theonas was invested by the troops of
Syrianus, the archbishop, seated on his throne, expected,
with calm and intrepid dignity, the approach of death. While
the public devotion was interrupted by shouts of rage and
cries of terror, he animated his trembling congregation to
express their religious confidence by chanting one of the
psalms of David which celebrates the triumph of the God of
Israel over the haughty and impious tyrant of Egypt. The
doors were at length burst open: a cloud of arrows was
discharged among the people; the soldiers, with drawn
swords, rushed forwards into the sanctuary; and the dreadful
gleam of their armour was reflected by the holy luminaries
which burnt round the altar.(136) Athanasius still rejected
the pious importunity of the monks and presbyters who were
attached to his person; and nobly refused to desert his
episcopal station till he had dismissed in safety the last
of the congregation. The darkness and tumult of the night
favoured the retreat of the archbishop; and though he was
oppressed by the waves of an agitated multitude, though he
was thrown to the ground, and left without sense or motion,
he still recovered his undaunted courage, and eluded the
eager search of the soldiers, who were instructed by their
Arian guides that the head of Athanasius would be the most
acceptable present to the emperor. From that moment the
primate of Egypt disappeared from the eyes of his enemies,
and remained above six years concealed in impenetrable
obscurity.(137)
His retreat, A.D. 356-362
The despotic power of his implacable enemy filled the whole
extent of the Roman world and the exasperated monarch had
endeavoured, by a very pressing epistle to the Christian
princes of Ethiopia, to exclude Athanasius from the most
remote and sequestered regions of the earth. Counts,
praefects, tribunes, whole armies, were successively
employed to pursue a bishop and a fugitive; the vigilance of
the civil and military powers was excited by the Imperial
edicts; liberal rewards were promised to the man who should
produce Athanasius, either alive or dead; and the most
severe penalties were denounced against those who should
dare to protect the public enemy. (138) But the deserts of
Thebais were now peopled by a race of wild, yet submissive
fanatics, who preferred the commands of their abbot to the
laws of their sovereign. The numerous disciples of Antony
and Pachomius received the fugitive primate as their father,
admired the patience and humility with which he conformed to
their strictest institutions, collected every word which
dropped from his lips as the genuine effusions of inspired
wisdom; and persuaded themselves that their prayers, their
fasts, and their vigils, were less meritorious than the zeal
which they expressed, and he dangers which they braved, in
the defence of truth and innocence.(139) The monasteries of
Egypt were seated in lonely and desolate places, on the
summit of mountains, or in the islands of the Nile; and the
sacred horn or trumpet of Tabenne was the well-known signal
which assembled several thousand robust and determined
monks, who, for the most part, had been the peasants of the
adjacent country. When their dark retreats were invaded by a
military force which it was impossible to resist, they
silently stretched out their necks to the executioner; and
supported their national character, that tortures could
never wrest from an Egyptian the confession of a secret
which he was resolved not to disclose.(140) The archbishop of
Alexandria, for whose safety they eagerly devoted their
lives, was lost among a uniform and well-disciplined
multitude; and on the nearer approach of danger, he was
swiftly removed, by their officious hands, from one place of
concealment to another, till he reached the formidable
deserts, which the gloomy and credulous temper of
superstition had peopled with daemons and savage monsters.
The retirement of Athanasius, which ended only with the life
of Constantius, was spent, for the most part, in the society
of the monks, who faithfully served him as guards, as
secretaries, and as messengers; but the importance of
maintaining a more intimate connection with the catholic
party tempted him, whenever the diligence of the pursuit was
abated, to emerge from the desert, to introduce himself into
Alexandria, and to trust his person to the discretion of his
friends and adherents. His various adventures might have
furnished the subject of a very entertaining romance. He was
once secreted in a dry cistern, which he had scarcely left
before he was betrayed by the treachery of a female slave;
(141) and he was once concealed in a still more extraordinary
asylum, the house of a virgin, only twenty years of age, and
who was celebrated in the whole city for her exquisite
beauty. At the hour of midnight, as she related her story
many years afterwards, she was surprised by the appearance
of the archbishop in a loose undress, who, advancing with
hasty steps, conjured her to afford him the protection which
he had been directed by a celestial vision to seek under her
hospitable roof. The pious maid accepted and preserved the
sacred pledge which was intrusted to her prudence and
courage. Without imparting the secret to any one, she
instantly conducted Athanasius into her most sacred chamber,
and watched over his safety with the tenderness of a friend
and the assiduity of a servant. As long as the danger
continued, she regularly supplied him with books and
provisions, washed his feet, managed his correspondence, and
dexterously concealed from the eye of suspicion this
familiar and solitary intercourse between a saint whose
character required the most unblemished chastity, and a
female whose charms might excite the most dangerous
emotions.(142) During the six years of persecution and exile,
Athanasius repeated his visits to his fair and faithful
companion; and the formal declaration, that he saw the
councils of Rimini and Seleucia, (143) forces us to believe
that he was secretly present at the time and place of their
convocation. The advantage of personally negotiating with
his friends, and of observing and improving the divisions of
his enemies, might justify, in a prudent statesman, so bold
and dangerous an enterprise: and Alexandria was connected by
trade and navigation with every seaport of the
Mediterranean. From the depth of his inaccessible retreat
the intrepid primate waged an incessant and offensive war
against the protector of the Arians; and his seasonable
writings, which were diligently circulated and eagerly
perused, contributed to unite and animate the orthodox
party. In his public apologies, which he addressed to the
emperor himself, he sometimes affected the praise of
moderation; whilst at the same time, in secret and vehement
invectives, he exposed Constantius as a weak and wicked
prince, the executioner of his family, the tyrant of the
republic, and the Anti-christ of the church. In the height
of his prosperity, the victorious monarch, who had chastised
the rashness of Gallus, and suppressed the revolt of
Sylvanus, who had taken the diadem from the head of
Vetranio, and vanquished in the field the legions of
Magnentius, received from an invisible hand a wound which he
could neither heal nor revenge; and the son of Constantine
was the first of the Christian princes who experienced the
strength of those principles which, in the cause of
religion, could resist the most violent exertions of the
civil power.(144)
Arian Bishops
The persecution of Athanasius and of so many respectable
bishops, who suffered for the truth of their opinions, or at
least for the integrity of their conscience, was a just
subject of indignation and discontent to all Christians,
except those who were blindly devoted to the Arian faction.
The people regretted the loss of their faithful pastors,
whose banishment was usually followed by the intrustion of a
stranger(145) into the episcopal chair, and loudly complained
that the right of election was violated, and that they were
condemned to obey a mercenary usurper, whose person was
unknown and whose principles were suspected. The catholics
might prove to the world that they were not involved in the
guilt and heresy of their ecclesiastical governor, by
publicly testifying their dissent, Divisions or by totally separating
themselves from his communion. The first of these methods
was invented at Antioch, and practised with such success
that it was soon diffused over the Christian world. The
doxology, or sacred hymn, which celebrates the glory of the
Trinity, is susceptible of very nice, but material,
inflections; and the substance of an orthodox or an
heretical creed may be expressed by the difference of a
disjunctive or a copulative particle. Alternate responses
and a more regular paslmody (146) were introduced into the
public service by Flavianus and Diodorus, two devout and
active laymen, who were attached to the Nicene faith. Under
their conduct a swarm of monks issued from the adjacent
desert, bands of well-disciplined singers were stationed in
the cathedral of Antioch, the Glory to the Father, AND the
Son, AND the Holy Ghost (147) was triumphantly chanted by a full chorus of voices, and the catholics insulted, by the
purity of their doctrine, the Arian prelate who had usurped
the throne of the venerable Eustathius. The same zeal which
inspired their songs prompted the more scrupulous members
the orthodox party to form separate assemblies which were
governed by the presbyters, till the death of their exiled
bishop allowed the election and consecration of a new
episcopal pastor.(148) The revolutions of the court multiplied the number of pretenders, and the same city was often disputed, under the
reign of Constantius, by two, or three, or even four
bishops, who exercised their spiritual jurisdiction over
their respective followers, and alternately lost and
regained temporal possessions of the church. The abuse of
Christianity introduced into the Roman government new causes
of tyranny and sedition; the bands of civil society were
torn asunder by the fury of religious factions; and the
obscure citizen, who might calmly have surveyed the
elevation and fall of successive emperors, imagined and
experienced that his own life and fortune were connected
with the interests of a popular ecclesiastic. The example of
the two capitals, Rome and Constantinople, may serve to
represent the state of the empire and the temper of mankind
under the reign of the sons of Constantine.
Rome
I. The Roman pontiff, as long as he maintained his station
and his principles, was guarded by the warm attachment of a
great people, and could reject with scorn the prayers, the
menaces, and the oblations of an heretical prince. When the
eunuchs had secretly pronounced the exile of Liberius, the
well-grounded apprehension of a tumult engaged them to use
the utmost precautions in the execution of the sentence. The
capital was invested on every side, and the praefect was
commanded to seize the person of the bishop, either by
stratagem or by open force. The order was obeyed, and
Liberius, with the greatest difficulty, at the hour of
midnight, was swiftly conveyed beyond the reach of the Roman
people before their consternation was turned into rage. As
soon as they were informed of his banishment into Thrace, a
general assembly was convened, and the clergy of Rome bound
themselves, by a public and solemn oath, never to desert
their bishop, never to acknowledge the usurper Felix, who,
by the influence of the eunuchs, had been irregularly chosen
and consecrated within the walls of a profane palace. At the
end of two years their pious obstinacy subsisted entire and
unshaken; and when Constantius visited Rome, he was assailed
by the importunate solicitations of a people who had
preserved, as the last remnant of their ancient freedom, the
right of treating their sovereign with familiar insolence.
The wives of many of the senators and most honourable
citizens, after pressing their husbands to intercede in
favour of Liberius, were advised to undertake a commission
which in their hands would be less dangerous and might prove
more successful. The emperor received with politeness these
female deputies, whose wealth and dignity were displayed in
the magnificence of their dress and ornaments; he admired
their inflexible resolution of following their beloved
pastor to the most distant regions of the earth, and
consented that the two bishops, Liberius and Felix, should
govern in peace their respective congregations. But the
ideas of toleration were so repugnant to the practice, and
even to the sentiments, of those times, that, when the answer of Constantius was publicly read in the Circus of Rome, so reasonable a project of accommodation was rejected with contempt and ridicule. The eager vehemence which animated the spectators on the decisive moment of a horserace was now directed towards a different object, and the Circus resounded with the shout of thousands, who repeatedly exclaimed "One God, One Christ, One Bishop!" The zeal of the Roman people in the cause of Liberius was not confined to words alone, and the dangerous and bloody sedition which they excited soon after the departure of Constantius determined that prince to accept the submission of the exiled prelate, and to restore him to the undivided dominion of the capital. After some ineffectual resistance, his rival was expelled from the city by the permission of the emperor and the power of the opposite faction; the adherents of Felix were inhumanly murdered in the streets, in the public places, in the baths, and even in the churches; and the face of Rome, upon the return of a Christian bishop, renewed the horrid image of the massacres of Marius and the proscriptions of Sylla.(149)
Constantinople
II. Notwithstanding the rapid increase of Christians under
the reign of the Flavian family, Rome, Alexandria, and the
other great cities of the empire, still contained a strong
and powerful faction of Infidels, who envied the prosperity,
and who ridiculed, even in their theatres, the theological
disputes of the church. Constantinople alone enjoyed the
advantage of being born and educated in the bosom of the
faith. The capital of the East had never been polluted by
the worship of idols, and the whole body of the people had
deeply imbibed the opinions, the virtues, and the passions
which distinguished the Christians of that age from the rest
of mankind. After the death of Alexander the episcopal
throne was disputed by Paul and Macedonius. By their zeal
and abilities they both deserved the eminent station to
which they aspired; and if the moral character of Macedonius
was less exceptionable, his competitor had the advantage of
a prior election and a more orthodox doctrine. His firm
attachment to the Nicene creed, which has given Paul a place
in the calendar among saints and martyrs, exposed him to the
resentment of the Arians. In the space of fourteen years he
was five times driven from his throne, to which he was more
frequently restored by the violence of the people than by
the permission of the prince, and the power of Macedonius
could be secured only by the death of his rival. The
unfortunate Paul was dragged in chains from the sandy
deserts of Mesopotamia to the most desolate places of Mount
Taurus,(150) confined in a dark and narrow dungeon, left six
days without food, and at length strangled, by the order of
Philip, one of the principal ministers of the emperor
Constantius.(151) The first blood which stained the new
capital was spilt in this ecclesiastical contest, and many
persons were slain on both sides in the furious and
obstinate seditions of the people. The commission of
enforcing a sentence of banishment against Paul had been
intrusted to Hermogenes, the master-general of the cavalry,
but the execution of it was fatal to himself. The catholics
rose in the defence of their bishop; the palace of
Hermogenes was consumed; the first military officer of the
empire was dragged by the heels through the streets of
Constantinople, and, after he expired, his lifeless corpse
was exposed to their wanton insults. (152) The fate of
Hermogenes instructed Philip, the Praetorian praefect, to
act with more precaution on a similar occasion. In the most
gentle and honourable terms he required the attendance of
Paul in the baths of Zeuxippus, which had a private
communication with the palace and the sea. A vessel, which
lay ready at the garden stairs, immediately hoisted sail,
and, while the people were still ignorant of the meditated
sacrilege, their bishop was already embarked on his voyage
to Thessalonica. They soon beheld, with surprise and
indignation, the gates of the palace thrown open, and the
usurper Macedonius seated by the side of the praefect on a
lofty chariot, which was surrounded by troops of guards with
drawn swords. The military procession advanced towards the
cathedral, and the Arians and the catholics eagerly rushed
to occupy that important post, and three thousand one
hundred and fifty persons lost their lives in the confusion
of the tumult. Macedonius, who was supported by a regular
force, obtained a decisive victory, but his reign was
disturbed by clamour and sedition, and the causes which
appeared the least connected with the subject of dispute
were sufficient to nourish and to kindle the flame of civil
discord. As the chapel in which the body of the great
Constantine had been deposited was in a ruinous condition,
the bishop transported those venerable remains into the
church of St. Acacius. This prudent and even pious measure
was represented as a wicked profanation by the whole party
which adhered to the Homoousian doctrine. The factions
immediately flew to arms, the consecrated ground was used as
their field of battle, and one of the ecclesiastical
historians has observed, as a real fact, not as a figure of
rhetoric, that the well before the church overflowed with a
stream of blood which filled the porticoes and the adjacent
courts. The writer who should impute these tumults solely to
a religious principle would betray a very imperfect
knowledge of human nature; yet it must be confessed that the
motive which misled the sincerity of zeal, and the pretence
which disguised the licentiousness of passion, suppressed
the remorse which, in another cause, would have succeeded to
the rage of the Christians of Constantinople.(153)
Cruelty of the Arians
The cruel and arbitrary disposition of Constantius, which
did not always require the provocations of guilt and
resistance, was justly exasperated by the tumults of his
capital and the criminal behaviour of a faction which
opposed the authority and religion of their sovereign The
ordinary punishments of death, exile, and confiscation were
inflicted with partial rigour, and the Greeks still revere
the holy memory of two clerks, a reader and a subdeacon, who
were accused of the murder of Hermogenes, and beheaded at
the gates of Constantinople. By an edict of Constantius
against the catholics, which has not been judged worthy of a
place in the Theodosian code, those who refused to
communicate with the Arian bishops, and particularly with
Macedonius, were deprived of the immunities of ecclesiastics
and of the rights of Christians; they were compelled to
relinquish the possession of the churches, and were strictly
prohibited from holding their assemblies within the walls of
the city. The execution of this unjust law in the provinces
of Thrace and Asia Minor was committed to the zeal of
Macedonius; the civil and military powers were directed to
obey his commands; and the cruelties exercised by this
Semi-Arian tyrant in the support of the Homoiousion exceeded
the commission and disgraced the reign of Constantius. The
sacraments of the church were administered to the reluctant
victims, who denied the vocation and abhorred the principles
of Macedonius. The rites of baptism were conferred on women
and children who, for that purpose, had been torn from the
arms of their friends and parents; the mouths of the
communicants were held open by a wooden engine while the
consecrated bread was forced down their throat; the breasts
of tender virgins were either burnt with red-hot eggshells,
or inhumanly compressed between sharp and heavy boards.(154)
The Novatians of Constantinople and the adjacent country, by
their firm attachment to the Homoousian standard, deserved
to be confounded with the catholics themselves. Macedonius
was informed that a large district of Paphlagonia was almost
entirely inhabited by those sectaries. He resolved either to
convert or to extirpate them, and, as he distrusted on this
occasion the efficacy of an ecclesiastical mission, he
commanded a body of four thousand legionaries to march
against the rebels, and to reduce the territory of Mantinium
(155) under his spiritual dominion. The Novatian peasants,
animated by despair and religious fury, boldly encountered
the invaders of their country, and, though many of the
Paphlagonians were slain, the Roman legions were vanquished
by an irregular multitude, armed only with scythes and axes,
and, except a few who escaped by an ignominious flight, four
thousand soldiers were left dead on the field of battle. The
successor of Constantius has expressed, in a concise but
lively manner, some of the theological calamities which
afflicted the empire, and more especially the East, in the
reign of a prince who was the slave of his own passions, and
of those of his eunuchs.
"Many were imprisoned, and persecuted, and driven into exile. Whole troops of those who are styled heretics were massacred, particularly at Cyzicus and at Samosata. In Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Galatia, and in many other provinces, towns and villages were laid waste and utterly destroyed." (156)
The revolt and fury of the Donatists Circumcellions, A.D. 345 etc
While the flames of the Arian controversy consumed the vitals of the empire, the African provinces were infested by their peculiar enemies, the savage fanatics, who, under the name of Circumcellions, formed the strength and scandal of the Donatist party. (157) The severe execution of the laws of Constantine had excited a spirit of discontent and resistance; the strenuous efforts of his son Constans to restore the unity of the church exasperated the sentiments of mutual hatred which had first occasioned the separation; and the methods of force and corruption employed by the two Imperial commissioners, Paul and Macarius, furnished the schismatics with a specious contrast between the maxims of the apostles and the conduct of their pretended successors. (158) The peasants who inhabited the villages of Numidia and Mauritania were a ferocious race, who had been imperfectly reduced under the authority of the Roman laws, who were imperfectly converted to the Christian faith, but who were actuated by a blind and furious enthusiasm in the cause of their Donatist teachers. They indignantly supported the exile of their bishops, the demolition of their churches, and the interruption of their secret assemblies. The violence of the officers of justice, who were usually sustained by a military guard, was sometimes repelled with equal violence, and the blood of some popular ecclesiastics, which had been shed in the quarrel, inflamed their rude followers with an eager desire of revenging the death of these holy martyrs. By their own cruelty and rashness the ministers of persecution sometimes provoked their fate, and the guilt of an accidental tumult precipitated the criminals into despair and rebellion. Driven from their native villages, the Donatist peasants assembled in formidable gangs on the edge of the Gaetulian desert, and readily exchanged the habits of labor for a life of idleness and rapine, which was consecrated by the name of religion, and faintly condemned by the doctors of the sect. The leaders of the Circumcellions assumed the title of captains of the saints; their principal weapon, as they were indifferently provided with swords and spears, was a huge and weighty club, which they termed an 'Israelite', and the well-known sound of "Praise be to God!" which they used as their cry of war, diffused consternation over the unarmed provinces of Africa. At first their depredations were coloured by the plea of necessity, but they soon exceeded the measure of subsistence, indulged without control their intemperance and
avarice, burnt the villages which they had pillaged, and reigned the licentious tyrants of the open country. The occupations of husbandry and the administration of justice were interrupted; and, as the Circumcellions pretended to restore the primitive equality of mankind, and to reform the
abuses of civil society, they opened a secure asylum for the
slaves and debtors who flocked in crowds to their holy
standard. When they were not resisted they usually contented
themselves with plunder, but the slightest opposition
provoked them to acts of violence and murder; and some
catholic priests, who had imprudently signalised their zeal,
were tortured by the fanatics with the most refined and
wanton barbarity. The spirit of the Circumcellions was not
always exerted against their defenceless enemies; they
engaged, and sometimes defeated, the troops of the province,
and in the bloody action of Bagai they attacked in the open
field, but with unsuccessful valour, an advanced guard of
the Imperial cavalry. The Donatists who were taken in arms
received, and they soon deserved, the same treatment which
might have been shown to the wild beasts of the desert. The
captives died, without a murmur, either by the sword, the
axe, or the fire; and the measures of retaliation were
multiplied in a rapid proportion, which aggravated the
horrors of rebellion and excluded the hope of mutual
forgiveness. In the beginning of the present century the
example of the Circumcellions has been renewed in the
persecution, the boldness, the crimes and the enthusiasm of
the Camisards; and if the fanatics of Languedoc surpassed
those of Numidia by their military achievements, the
Africans maintained their fierce independence with more
resolution and perseverance.(159)
Their religious suicides
Such disorders are the natural effects of religious tyranny;
but the rage of the Donatists was inflamed by a frenzy of a
very extraordinary kind; and which, if it really prevailed
among them in so extravagant a degree, cannot surely be
paralleled in any country or in any age. Many of these fanatics were possessed with the horror of life, and the desire of martyrdom; and they deemed it of
little moment by what means, or by what hands, they
perished, if their conduct was sanctified by the intention
of devoting themselves to the glory of the true faith, and
the hope of eternal happiness. (160) Sometimes they rudely
disturbed the festivals, and profaned the temples of
Paganism, with the design of exciting the most zealous of
the idolaters to revenge the insulted honour of their gods.
They sometimes forced their way into the courts of justice,
and compelled the affrighted judge to give orders for their
immediate execution. They frequently stopped travellers on
the public highways, and obliged them to inflict the stroke
of martyrdom, by the promise of a reward if they consented,
and by the threat of instant death if they refused to grant
so very singular a favor. When they were disappointed of
every other resource, they announced the day on which, in
the presence of their friends and brethren, they should cast
themselves headlong from some lofty rock; and many
precipices were shown which had acquired fame by the number
of religious suicides. In the actions of these desperate
enthusiasts, who were admired by one party as the martyrs of
God, and abhorred by the other as the victims of Satan, an
impartial philosopher may discover the influence and the
last abuse of that inflexible spirit which was originally
derived from the character and principals of the Jewish
nation.
General character of the Christian sects, A.D. 312-361.
The simple narrative of the intestine divisions which
distracted the peace and dishonoured the triumph of the
church, will confirm the remark of a Pagan historian, and
justify the complaint of a venerable bishop. The experience
of Ammianus had convinced him that the enmity of the
Christians towards each other surpassed the fury of savage
beasts against man; (161) and Gregory Nazianzen most
pathetically laments that the kingdom of heaven was
converted by discord into the image of chaos, of a nocturnal
tempest, and of hell itself. (162) The fierce and partial
writers of the times, ascribing all virtue to themselves,
and imputing all guilt to their adversaries, have painted
the battle of the angels and daemons. Our calmer reason will
reject such pure and perfect monsters of vice or sanctity,
and will impute an equal, or at least an indiscriminate,
measure of good and evil to the hostile sectaries, who
assumed and bestowed the appellations of orthodox and
heretics. They had been educated in the same religion and
the same civil society. Their hopes and fears in the
present, or in a future life, were balanced in the same
proportion. On either side the error might be innocent, the
faith sincere, the practice meritorious or corrupt. Their
passions were excited by similar objects; and they might
alternately abuse the favour of the court, or of the people.
The metaphysical opinions of the Athanasians and the Arians
could not influence their moral character; and they were
alike actuated by the intolerant spirit which has been
extracted from the pure and simple maxims of the Gospel.
Toleration of paganism
A modern writer, who, with a just confidence, has prefixed
to his own history the honourable epithets of political and
philosophical, (163) accuses the timid prudence of
Montesquieu, for neglecting to enumerate, among the causes
of the decline of the empire, a law of Constantine, by which
the exercise of the Pagan worship was absolutely suppressed,
and a considerable part of his subjects was left destitute
of priests, temples, and of any public religion. The zeal of
the philosophic historian for the rights of mankind has
induced him to acquiesce in the ambiguous testimony of those
ecclesiastics who have too lightly ascribed to their
favourite hero the merit of a general persecution.(164)
Instead of alleging this imaginary law, which would have
blazed in the front of the Imperial codes, we may safely
appeal to the original epistle which Constantine addressed
to the followers of the ancient religion, at a time when he
no long disguised his conversion, nor dreaded the rivals of
his throne. He invites and exhorts, in the most pressing
terms, the subjects of the Roman empire to imitate the
exampleby Constantine, of their master; but he declares that those who still refuse to open their eyes to the celestial light may free enjoy their temples and their fancied gods. A report
that the ceremonies of Paganism were suppressed is formally
contradicted by the emperor himself, who wisely assigns, as
the principle of his moderation, the invincible force of
habit, of prejudice, and of superstition. (165) Without
violating the sanctity of his promise, without alarming the
fears of the Pagans, the artful monarch advanced, by slow
and cautious steps, to undermine the irregular and decayed
fabric of polytheism. The partial acts of severity which he
occasionally exercised, though they were secretly prompted
by a Christian zeal, were coloured by the fairest pretences
of justice and the public good; and while Constantine
designed to ruin the foundations, he seemed to reform the
abuses, of the ancient religion. After the example of the
wisest of his predecessors, he condemned, under the most
rigorous penalties, the occult and impious arts of
divination, which excited the vain hopes, and sometimes the
criminal attempts, of those who were discontented with their
present condition. An ignominious silence was imposed on the
oracles, which had been publicly convicted of fraud and
falsehood; the effeminate priests of the Nile were
abolished; and Constantine discharged the duties of a Roman
censor, when he gave orders for the demolition of several
temples of Phoenicia, in which every mode of prostitution
was devoutly practised in the face of day, and to the honour
of Venus.(166) The Imperial city of Constantinople was, in
some measure, raised at the expense, and was adorned with
the spoils, of the opulent temples of Greece and Asia; the
sacred property; was confiscated; the statues of gods and
heroes were transported, with rude familiarity, among a
people who considered them as objects, not of adoration, but
of curiosity; the gold and silver were restored to
circulation; and the magistrates, the bishops, and the
eunuchs, improved the fortunate occasion of gratifying, at
once, their zeal, their avarice, and their resentment. But
these depredations were confined to a small part of the
Roman world; and the provinces had been long since
accustomed to endure the same sacrilegious rapine, from the
tyranny of princes and proconsuls who could not be suspected
of any design to subvert the established religion.(167)
and his sons.
The sons of Constantine trod in the footsteps of their
father with more zeal and with less discretion. The
pretences of rapine and oppression were insensibly multiplied (168); every indulgence was shown to the illegal behaviour of the Christians; every doubt was explained to the disadvantage of Paganism, and the demolition of the temples was celebrated as one of the auspicious events of the reign of Constans and Constantius. (169) The name of Constantius is prefixed to a concise law, which might have superseded the necessity of any future prohibitions.
"It is our pleasure that in all places, and in all cities, the temples be immediately shut and carefully guarded, that none may have the power of offending. It is likewise our pleasure that all our subjects should abstain from sacrifices. If any one should be guilty of such an act, let him feel the sword of vengeance, and, after his execution, let his property be confiscated to the public use. We denounce the same penalties against the governors of the provinces, if they neglect to punish the criminals." (170)
But there is the strongest reason to believe that this formidable edict was either composed without being published, or was published without being executed. The evidence of facts, and the monuments which are still extant of brass and marble, continue to prove the public exercise of the Pagan worship during the whole reign of the sons of Constantine. In the East as well as in the West, in cities as well as in the country, a great number of temples were respected, or at least were spared; and the devout multitude still enjoyed the luxury of sacrifices, of festivals, and of processions, by the permission, or by the connivance, of the civil government. About four years after the supposed date of his bloody edict, Constantius visited the temples of Rome; and the decency of his behaviour is recommended by a Pagan orator as an example worthy of the imitation of succeeding princes.
"That emperor," says Symmachus, "suffered the privileges of the vestal virgins to remain inviolate; he bestowed the sacerdotal dignities on the nobles of Rome, granted the customary allowance to defray the expenses of the public rites and sacrifices; and, though he had embraced a different religion, he never attempted to deprive the empire of the sacred worship of antiquity." (171)
The senate still presumed to consecrate, by solemn decrees, the divine memory of their sovereigns; and Constantine himself was associated, after death, to those gods whom he had renounced and insulted during his life. The title, the ensigns, the prerogatives, of SOVEREIGN PONTIFF, which had been instituted by Numa, and assumed by Augustus, were accepted, without hesitation, by seven Christian emperors, who were invested with a more absolute authority over the religion which they had deserted than over that which they professed. (172)
The divisions of Christianity suspended the ruin of Paganism; (173) and the holy war against the infidels was less vigorously prosecuted by princes and bishops who were more immediately alarmed by the guilt and danger of domestic rebellion. The extirpation of idolatry (174) might have been justified by the established principles of intolerance: but the hostile sects, which alternately reigned in the Imperial court, were mutually apprehensive of alienating, and perhaps exasperating, the minds of a powerful, though declining faction. Every motive of authority and fashion, of interest and reason, now militated on the side of Christianity; but two or three generations elapsed before their victorious influence was universally felt. The religion which had so long and so lately been established in the Roman empire was still revered by a numerous people, less attached indeed to speculative opinion than to ancient custom. The honours of the state and army were indifferently bestowed on all the subjects of Constantine and Constantius; and a considerable portion of knowledge and wealth and valour was still engaged in the service of polytheism. The superstition of the senator and of the peasant, of the poet and the philosopher, was derived from very different causes, but they met with equal devotion in the temples of the gods. Their zeal was insensibly provoked by the insulting triumph of a proscribed sect; and their hopes we revived by the well-grounded confidence that the presumptive heir of the empire, a young and valiant hero, who had delivered Gaul from the arms of the barbarians, had secretly embraced the religion of his ancestors.