Nicene faith in their dominions; but Constantius loudly proclaimed his adhesion to the Arian or Eusebian doctrine; and, perceiving that a numerous sect already professed it, he proceeded by every art to impose it upon the body of his people. It is admitted that Constantius possessed 'a vain and feeble mind, alike incapable of being moderated by reason or fixed by faith. 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.' And it is the complaint of Ammianus, a contemporary historian, that the highways were covered, and the establishment of posts almost exhausted, by the troops of Bishops, who were perpetually hurrying from synod to synod. These measures served only to animate dissension; and the evils and the odium which it produced are more justly charged upon the Prince who inflamed, than upon the parties who blindly waged it.

In the year 350 Constans was assassinated, and soon afterwards Rome and Italy, with a great part of the western Empire, fell into the hands of Constantius. Hitherto the Churches of the West had not been deeply agitated by the controversy, but having willingly embraced, had steadily maintained, the doctrine of Nice; but the first attention of the Emperor was directed to the disturbance of their repose and their faith.

In the mean time, an adversary, dangerous to the opinions, and not wholly subject even to the power, of the Sovereign, had

been raised up in the person of Athanasius. That great Athanasius. champion of Catholicism, the most distinguished among

the Fathers of the Church, not by his writings only but by his adventures and his sufferings, steadily defended the Nicene doctrine during forty-six years of alternate dignity and persecution. He succeeded Alexander in the See of Alexandria in the year 326; he succeeded also to his enmity against the opinions and person of Arius, and boldly raised his voice against his recall from banishment by Constantine. Some intemperance in his zeal seems soon afterwards to have given a pretext to the Asiatic Bishops, many of whom were still Arian; and in a Synod held at Tyre,§ they pronounced the sentence of degradation and exile, which was enforced by the Emperor. At the end of twenty-eight months, soon after the death of Constantine, he was restored; but in 341 he was once more exiled by the Synod of Antioch,|| acting under the influence of Constantius. The place of his former banishment was France; that of his second was Italy, and chiefly Rome; so that he became familiar with the language of the West, with the discipline and Primates of its Church, and

Eusebius of Nicomedia died in the year 342, after gaining some advantages over his great antagonist Athanasius.

+ Gibbon, c. 21.

His character is admirably described by Gibbon (chap. 21), and the history of his constancy and his misfortunes is written with splendour and impartiality, even when Julian becomes his persecutor.

It was held in the year 335. The most important of the charges brought against Athanasius were manifestly confuted, and the justice of his sentence is at least very questionable.

At this time, or soon afterwards, the Arians drew up a Creed in which they omitted the offensive word Consubstantial; but the terms which they applied to the Son, calling him ἀτρεπτόν τε καὶ ἀναλλοίωτον τῆς θεότητος, οὐσίας τε καὶ βουλῆς καὶ δυναμέως καὶ δόξης ἀπαράλλακτον εἰκόνα, καὶ πρωτότοκον πασῆς κτισεως—are such as might have been subscribed by the most zealous Catholic. See Le Clerc, ap. Jortin, E. H. b. iii.; and Tillemont. Sur les Ariens. Article xxxII. Also, Sozomen, 1. 3. c. 5′; and Athanas. de Synodis.

with the Court of its Emperor. He profited by all these advantages, and availed himself so effectually of the last, that Constans* at length prepared to interfere with arms in his favour. Threatened by the horrors of a religious war, Constantius reluctantly consented to his restorationt. In the year 349 he re-occupied his former throne. 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.'

It was immediately after this event that Constantius succeeded to the Western Empire; and in his zeal for the propagation of Arianism he presently renewed his attacks on Athanasius. He summoned Councils of the Western Bishops; he menaced and caressed and corrupted the Bishops whom he had summoned, and at length (in the year 356) with great difficulty succeeded in deposing for the third time his spiritual adversary.

This struggle must not be passed over with slight notice, since it presents to us an event, of which there had yet been no experience in the history of the Church, or in the history of Rome, or perhaps in the history of man. Hitherto, at least till a very short time previous, the Church had been a despised and seemingly defenceless community, subject, as a Body, to the capricious insults of every tyrant, and liable, in its individual members, to his arbitrary inflictions. Until very lately, the Emperor of the Roman world possessed authority uncontrolled over the liberty and life of his subjects, undisputed by any, except as rebels, or rivals for the throne. And certainly the monstrous evils of despotic government have never been more signally displayed, than during the dreary interval which separated. Augustus and Constantine. Still at the end of that period the rules of government remained the same as at the beginning-no civil revolution had assigned limits to the authority of the Prince, or introduced any counteracting power-no political change had given weight to popular opinion or honour to free principles. And yet scarcely forty years from the accession of Constantine had elapsed, when we behold his son and successor reduced to the employment of intrigue and artifice, for the deposition of a Magistrate whom he detested. The singularity of this circumstance is even increased by two other considerations—one of which is, that the Emperor had the cordial support of a considerable portion of his subjects, the Arian party, in this contest-and the other, that his adversary was not sustained by any armed force of soldiers or followers; nor is it probable even that his violent execution would have been followed

The celebrated Council held at Sardica, in Thrace, in 347, in which the great majority were Catholics, probably encouraged the Emperor of the West to this resolution.

It was on this occasion, that Constantius requested Athanasius to grant to the Arians one Church at Alexandria. This request the Patriarch answered by another, proposing a similar concession to the Catholics at Antioch. From this Conference we learn not only what high ground was assumed by the Prelate, in his transactions with the Emperor, but also with what different success the measures of the latter had been attended in the Capitals of Syria and of Egypt.

The most numerous Council assembled on this occasion appears to have been that of Milan in 355, which was attended by above 300 Western, as well as many Eastern Bishops. (See Maimb., Hist. Arian., b. iv. vol. i., p. 174., et seq.) In the same year Liberius, Bishop of Rome, was banished for his faithful attachment to the doctrine and cause of Athanasius; but he was presently recalled, through the intercession first of the matrons, and afterwards of the populace, of Rome. Sozom., lib. iv. c. 2. Theod lib. ii. c. 17.

by any serious insurrection. Yet Constantius, with a prudent respect both for the spiritual authority of the Bishop and the rights of the Church, proceeded to the accomplishment of his object by indirect and tedious and unworthy methods. Such circumstances become indeed familiar to us in the pages of later history; but we should not for that reason overlook their first occurrence, nor fail to record with pleasure and gratitude the earliest proof we possess of the political effect of Christianity in moderating the despotism with which it was associated.

The third banishment of Athanasius lasted six years, until the death of his persecutor in 362t. They were passed in the deserts of Upper Egypt, in concealment and dependence; and they were consoled by the pious exertions of the exile for the opinions for which he suffered-exertions, which the vigilance of the Imperial police could neither prevent nor neutralize. After his final restoration he enjoyed his See without interruption for eleven years, and at length died in peace and dignity.

In the mean time, as is natural among those who indulge in any laxity of speculation respecting mysteries really inscrutable, the Arians were divided among themselves almost as widely as the Divisions of more moderate among them varied from the Church. The the Arians. original and pure Arians, following the opinions of their founder, maintained not only that the substance of the Word was different from that of the Father, but that it did not even resemble it; while others, pretending the authority of Eusebius of Nicomedia, denied with equal confidence the Consubstantiality of the two Persons, but at the same time affirmed their perfect likeness. These last are commonly called Semiarians; and their doctrine appears to have been first proclaimed at the Synod of Ancyra in Galatia, held by Basil, the Bishop of that place, in the year 358; but the Council of Seleucia, by which their tenets were sanctioned in the following year, holds a more prominent place in ecclesiastical annals. They were very numerous during the reign of Constantius, who was their protector and proselyte; but they afterwards yielded in some measure to the pure Arianism of Valens and his Patriarch, Eudoxius. Again the Semiarians were not themselves entirely united; several among them maintained the preeternity of the Word; while others believed that, though it had subsisted before all ages, it had once had a beginning; and that party § was not inconsiderable which, admitting a general likeness between the Father and the Son, denied that there was any similarity of substance||.

It is true that some popular commotions did at last attend the execution even of the legal order for the deposition of the Bishop, which were suppressed by force; but they were of very short duration, and entirely confined to Alexandria.

It is asserted by Tillemont (Sur les Ariens, Art. 103) that during the neutrality of Julian, the Catholics gained considerable ground upon their adversaries.

In the fourth century were held thirteen Councils against Arius, fifteen for him, and seventeen for the Semiarians; in all forty-five. Jortin, Ecc. Hist., b. iii.

§ It would appear that Constantius himself belonged to this sect of the Semiarians. See Gibben, chap. 21.

The Consubstantialists are known in history by the Greek term HoмOOUSIANS; those who asserted the similarity of the substances, by the name of HOMOIOUSIANS; those who denied any sort of resemblance were called ANOMOIANS; and, to complete the confusion, the last mentioned Sectarians are sometimes denominated-from the name of one of their most popular teachers-Eunomians. The unimportance of the verbal difference might provoke our ridicule, did we not reflect how much the angry application of those terms tended to prolong and embitter the controversy. See Semler, cent. iv. chap. 4., ad finem. The distinction which Tillemont (Sur les Ariens, Art. 66) draws between the Arians and Eusebians refers rather to their situation in respect to the Church than to their doctrine.

H

Athanasius, in his Epistle respecting the Synods of Seleucia and Rimini exposes the great variety of the Arian Creeds, and the subject has been enlarged upon by Catholic Historians, to shew the inevitable perplexities of those who have once permitted themselves to deviate from the established doctrine.

Having succeeded in his attack on the Consubstantialists (and, we might add, on the pure Arians) of the East, Constantius Council of removed the scene of action to the Western Provinces, and Rimini. convoked a Council at Rimini in the year 360: by nearly the same arts which he had employed to procure the condemnation of Athanasius*, supported by a moderate, but firm exertion of the civil authority, he succeeded in influencing the members to the subscription of a Creed, containing some expressions capable of heretical interpretation. The whole world groaned (says St. Jerome) and wondered to find itself Arian!' But this conversion was neither sincere nor lasting; and however opinions may have been divided in the East-for even there, though the majority of the Bishops † followed the faith of the Emperor, there is reason to believe that many among the people remained Catholic-we may safely infer from the small number of Arian prelates who were found willing to proclaim that doctrine, even under an Arian Emperor, that it had yet made little progress in the Latin Church§. For we should always bear in mind, that any sudden change in the opinions of the vulgar respecting an abstruse mystery must necessarily be preceded by the same change in their spiritual directors.

The path of intolerance, which had been pointed out and abandoned by Constantine, but so steadily followed by his heretical successor, was trodden with equal diligence in the Eastern Empire by Valens. That Prince, who is believed to have been converted to Arianism by the influence of his Empress Dominica, in the year 367, permitted considerable licence.

By the Arians we mean those who were expelled from the Church by the Council of Niceby the Eusebians those who remained in communion with the Church, but who bent themselves insidiously to ruin its doctrine, by the invention of new formularies, who endeavoured to expel Athanasius, and who communicated with the original Arians. So that these two formed only one sect in intrigue, and perhaps in belief too-though the one party appeared in the Church, and the other was visibly separated from it. The word uses is interpreted-habens simul essentiam, i. e. eandem essentiam.

*He directed Taurus, the Governor of the Province, to confine the Bishops, until they should be all of one mind, that is, until they should be all of the Emperor's mind. The conditions of concord on which they at length agreed amounted to this: that the Catholics conceded the offensive term (Consubstantialism), and the Arians to all appearance the doctrine; at least all parties agreed in anathematizing the name of Arius, while they professed, as it would seem, the Semiarian opinions. Sulpic. Sever. lib. ii. Maimb. Hist. Arian., b. iii. Gibbon, chap. 21.

The throne and principal Churches of Constantinople were occupied by Arian Patriarchs from the year 342 till their restoration to the Catholics by Theodosius nearly forty years afterwards. Semler, Epit. sec. iv.

At Antioch at least the dissent of the people from the established Arianism was strongly and violently expressed, and at Constantinople itself, the very citadel of the heresy, in spite of the savage edicts of Constantius, some very sanguinary tumults still proved the steady perseverance of many Catholics. In one of these 3150 persons were killed.

§ Of the four hundred Bishops assembled at Rimini eighty only were Arians.

The Arians had no cause to blush at the obligations which they likewise owed to two preceding Empresses. Constantia protected their infancy and their misfortunes during the reign of Constantine, and Eusebia promoted their prosperity under the sceptre of Constantius. The Catholics could also boast of similar patronage; but Maimbourg (Book vi.) establishes a very broad distinction as to the agency by which such aid was in each case administered; as the devil (says that very rigid Catholic) had employed the assistance of Princesses to introduce Arianism into the Court of Constantine, of Constantius and Valens, so God made use of the Empress Elia Flaccilla in order to prevent it from

against the Catholics to his Patriarch Eudoxius, even during the beginning of his reign, and proceeded, after a few years, to more direct and intemperate measures*. Alexandria, by whose pernicious fertility the controversy was first engendered, remained however, through the influence of Alexander and Athanasius, strongly attached to the Nicene faith. It became the scene of frightful disorder, as soon as the civil authorities added strength to the malignity of the Arians, and proceeded again to expel Peter, the orthodox Patriarch. The calamities thus occasioned were undoubtedly heightened by the zealous interference of the Jews and Pagans, who derived their best argument against Christianity from the furious dissensions of its professors, and who were, on all occasions, anxious from other motives to join in the assault on the stronger and wealthier party. On the other hand, the Monks, a new but numerous Body, continued faithful to the doctrine of Athanasius, and loved it the more because they suffered for it. Peter avoided the tempest by a hasty retreat to Rome, and the success of the Arians does not appear permanently to have increased either their numbers or their popularity. However, there can be no doubt that the profession of Arianism was common, and even general, throughout the East during the reign of Valens, and that in some of the Asiatic Provinces, especially Syria, such may have been the real belief of the majority; but its progress was attended with perpetual tumults, and at the death of Valens in 378 it had reached the highest point of prevalence which it was destined in those regions to attain.

Two years afterwards, Theodosius the Great proclaimed his adhesion to the doctrine of Nice, and immediately prepared to establish

it as the Creed of his subjects. I will not permit (thus he Theodosius addressed certain Arians in the year† 383) throughout my the Great. dominions any other religion than that which obliges us to worship the Son of God in unity of essence with the Father and Holy Ghost in the adorable Trinity-as I hold the Empire of Him, and the power which I have to command you, he likewise will give me strength, as he hath given me the will, to make myself obeyed in a point so absolutely necessary to your salvation, and to the peace of my subjects.' The peace of his subjects was not indeed the immediate reward of his violent measures, but, on the contrary, general confusion and much individual suffering was occasioned by them. Still, as he persevered inflexibly, as he was supported even in the East by the more zealous, and, in some places, the more numerous party, and as he was seconded almost by the unanimity` of the Western Empire, his severities were attended by general and lasting success, and the doctrine of Arius, if not perfectly extirpated, withered from that moment rapidly and irrecoverably throughout the Provinces of the East. The work of Theodosius was considerably promoted by the Council which he assembled at Constantinople in the year 381, and which stands in the history of the Church as the Second General Council. Its object, besides the regulation of several points of ecclesiastical discipline, was to confirm the decision of Nice against the Arians, and especially to promulgate the doctrine of the Divinity of the Third Person, against the creeping into the Court of Theodosius.' In a later page (b. xii. a. D. 590) the same author again alludes to the diabolical agency which introduced the Arian heresy into the East by the means of three women,' and which was afterwards compensated by the divine benevolence in raising up three Princesses, Clotilda, Indegonda and Theodelinda for the purification of France, Spain and Italy.

They are enlarged upon by Tillemont, Sur les Arieus, Art. 115.

See Maimb., Hist. Arian., b. vi.