The Arians

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

S. Athanasius speaks of them as [ dorodokoi ], and of the [ kerdos tes philochrematias ] which influenced them, and of the [ prostasias philon ]. Orat. i. §§ 8, 10, and 53; also ii. § 43.

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

 Athan. says, that after Eusebius (Nicomed.) had taken up the patronage of the heresy, "he made no progress till he had gained the Court," Hist. Arian. 66, showing that it was an act of external power by which Arianism grew, not an inward movement in the Church, which indeed loudly protested against the Emperor's proceeding, etc. (Vid. Catholic Church .) 2. The Arian Leaders

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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