Semi-Arians

 THE Semi-Arian symbols admitted of an orthodox interpretation, but they also admitted of an heretical. They served as a shelter for virtual Arians, and as a refuge for those who feared the orthodox homoüsion, as either materialistic or Sabellian. In the first years of the controversy they were tokens of a falling short of the true faith, in the later years tokens of an approaching to it. Hence Athanasius is severe with Eusebius and Asterius, and kind in his treatment of Basil and his party.

 Accordingly, these symbols in no way served the necessity of the time as a test to secure the Church against a dangerous and insidious heresy. Eusebius of Cæsarea could have no difficulty in professing our Lord was God, and like in His nature to the Father, yet his heterodoxy has been shown in art. Eusebius . Still more openly heterodox was Eusebius of Nicomedia; yet such statements as occur in the Semi-Arian Councils and Creeds would give him no annoyance. These men did but scruple at the one word homoüsion .

 The Catholic Theologians taught, with our Lord, that "He and the Father are one;" and, when asked in what sense one, they answered "numerically one, else were there two Gods;" that is, they were [ homoousioi ]. The Arians considered them numerically two, and only in agreement one with each other. Either then they held that there were two Gods, or that our Lord was God only in name and not true God. They would answer that that dilemma was none of their making; that is, the idea of incomprehensibility in the Infinite, and of mystery in what was predicated of Him, does not seem to have had a place in their reasonings.

 So far Semi-Arians agreed with Arians, in holding a greater God and a less, a true God and a so-called God; a God of all, and a Divine Mediator and representative God; but when Catholics questioned them more closely on their belief, as, for instance, whether the Son was a creature, and what was meant by His being "like" the Father, the Arians proper said boldly that He was a creature, though the first of creatures and unlike other creatures, and not the Son of God except figuratively, as men were His sons, and that, moreover, as a creature He had been liable to fall, as the Angels fell and Adam; but from such blasphemy others shrank, and thus in consequence they were called Semi-Arians, holding that, though our Lord was not in being from everlasting, and though He had been brought into being at the will of the Father, still a gennesis was a divine act in kind different from a creation; not indeed an emanation, else, He was not only like, but the same as the Father in essence, and if so, why had Euseb. Nic. from the first protested against [ ex aporrhoias ] and [ meros homoousion ], and why did Euseb. Cæs. so evidently evade the [ ex ousias ] (as shown supr. art. Eusebius )? In short they were driven by their remaining religiousness, unlike the Arians proper, (who in the later shape of Eunomianism expressly denied that God was incomprehensible) into the admission that there was mystery in the revealed doctrine. And this Eusebius confesses in a passage which will be quoted infr. art. Son of God .

 Recurring to the dilemma insisted on against the Arian disputant, it will be observed that the clear-headed Arians grasped fearlessly the conclusion that our Lord was not God, while the more pious and timid Semi-Arians could not extricate themselves from the charge of holding two Gods.

 Eusebius (vid. art. Euseb .) calls our Lord a second substance, another God, a second God. And it was in this sense his co-religionists used such epithets as [ teleios ] of our Lord, and called Him, as in Lucian's creed, "perfect from perfect, king from king," etc. viz. under the impression, or with the insinuation, that the [ homoousion ] diluted belief in His divinity into a sort of Sabellianism. Whether in giving these high titles to our Lord, Eusebius and his party used them in a Catholic sense, would also be seen in their use and interpretation of the word [ perichoresis ], co-inherence, (vid. art. Coinherence ), which was a practical equivalent to [ homoousion ], though it too they could explain away, and did. Accordingly viewing Father and Son as distinct substances, and rejecting both [ homoousion ] and [ perichoresis ], they certainly considered them, as far as words go, to be distinct Gods. Such strong expressions as [ homoiousios ], and [ aparallaktos eikon ], which they used, would but increase the evil, as Athanasius argues against them. "If all that is the Father's is the Son's, as in an Image and Impress," he says, "let it be considered dispassionately, whether a substance foreign to the Father's substance admits of such attributes; and whether such a one can possibly be other in nature and alien in substance, and not rather one in substance with the Father." Syn. § 50. vid. also Orat. iii. 16. vid. art. Idolatry .

 However, Athan., and Hilary too, saw enough of what was good and promising in the second generation of Semi-Arians to adopt a kind tone towards them, which they could not use in speaking of the followers of Arius. Athan. calls certain of them "brethren" and "beloved," and Hilary "sanctissimi," and the events in many cases justified their anticipation.

 They guard, however, their words, lest more should be understood by others than the language of charity and hope. Athan. speaks severely of Eustathius and Basil. Ep. Æg. 7, and Hilary explains himself in his notes upon his de Syn., from which it appears that he had been expostulated with on his conciliatory tone. Indeed all throughout he had betrayed a consciousness that he should offend some parties, e.g. § 6. In § 77, he had spoken of "having expounded the faithful and religious sense of 'like in substance,' which is called HomSüsion." On this he observes, note 3, "I think no one need be asked to consider why I have said in this place ' religious sense of like in substance,' except that I meant that there was also an irreligious ; and that therefore I said that 'like' was not only equal but the 'same.'" vid. also supr. vol. i. p. 134, note. In the next note he speaks of them as not more than hopeful. Still it should be observed how careful the Fathers of the day were not to mix up the question of doctrine which rested on Catholic tradition, with that of the adoption of a certain term which rested on a Catholic injunction. Not that the term was not in duty to be received, but it was to be received mainly on account of its Catholic sense, and where the Catholic sense was held, the word might for a while by a sort of dispensation be waived. It is remarkable that Athanasius scarcely mentions the word "One in substance" in his three Orations, as has been already observed; nor does it occur in S. Cyril's Catecheses, of whom, as being suspected of Semi-Arianism, it might have been required, before his writings were received as of authority. The word was not imposed upon Ursacius and Valens, A.D. 349, by Pope Julius; nor, in the Council of Aquileia in 381, was it offered by St. Ambrose to Palladius and Secundianus. S. Jerome's account of the apology made by the Fathers of Arminum is of the same kind. "We thought," they said, "the sense corresponded to the words, nor in the Church of God, where there is simplicity, and a pure confession, did we fear that one thing would be concealed in the heart, another uttered by the lips. We were deceived by our good opinion of the bad." ad Lucif. 19. The same excuse avails for Liberius.