Chapter 8

_THE RESTORED HOMOEAN SUPREMACY._

[Sidenote: Effects of Julian's reign.]

Julian's reign seems at first sight no more than a sudden storm which clears up and leaves everything much as it was before. Far from restoring heathenism, he could not even seriously shake the power of Christianity. No sooner was he dead than the philosophers disappeared, the renegades did penance, and even the reptiles of the palace came back to their accustomed haunts. Yet Julian's work was not in vain, for it tested both heathenism and Christianity. All that Constantine had given to the churches Julian could take away, but the living power of faith was not at Cæsar's beck and call. Heathenism was strong in its associations with Greek philosophy and culture, with Roman law and social life, but as a moral force among the common people, its weakness was contemptible. It could sway the wavering multitude with superstitious fancies, and cast a subtler spell upon the noblest Christian teachers, but its own adherents it could hardly lift above their petty quest of pleasure. Julian called aloud, and called in vain. A mocking echo was the only answer from that valley of dry bones. Christianity, on the other side, had won the victory almost without a blow. Instead of ever coming to grapple with its mighty rival, the great catholic church of heathenism hardly reached the stage of apish mimicry. When its great army turned out to be a crowd of camp-followers, the alarm of battle died away in peals of defiant laughter. Yet the alarm was real, and its teachings were not forgotten. It broke up the revels of party strife, and partly roused the churches to the dangers of a purely heathen education. Above all, the approach of danger was a sharp reminder that our life is not of this world. They stood the test fairly well. Renegades or fanatics were old scandals, and signs were not wanting that the touch of persecution would wake the old heroic spirit which had fought the Empire from the catacombs and overcome it.

[Sidenote: Jovian Emperor (June 27, 363).]

As Julian was the last survivor of the house of Constantine, his lieutenants were free to choose the worthiest of their comrades. But while his four barbarian generals were debating, one or two voices suddenly hailed Jovian as Emperor. The cry was taken up, and in a few moments the young officer found himself the successor of Augustus.

[Sidenote: Jovian's toleration.]

Jovian was a brilliant colonel of the guards. In all the army there was not a goodlier person than he. Julian's purple was too small for his gigantic limbs. But that stately form was animated by a spirit of cowardly selfishness. Instead of pushing on with Julian's brave retreat, he saved the relics of his army by a disgraceful peace. Jovian was also a decided Christian, though his morals suited neither the purity of the gospel nor the dignity of his imperial position. Even the heathen soldiers condemned his low amours and vulgar tippling. The faith he professed was the Nicene, but Constantine himself was less tolerant than Jovian. In this respect he is blameless. If Athanasius was graciously received at Antioch, even the Arians were told with scant ceremony that they might hold their assemblies as they pleased at Alexandria.

[Sidenote: The Anomoeans form a sect.]

About this time the Anomoeans organised their schism. Nearly four years had been spent in uncertain negotiations for the restoration of Aetius. The Anomoeans counted on Eudoxius, but did not find him very zealous in the matter. At last, in Jovian's time, they made up their minds to set him at defiance by consecrating Poemenius to the see of Constantinople. Other appointments were made at the same time, and Theophilus the Indian, who had a name for missionary work in the far East, was sent to Antioch to win over Euzoius. From this time the Anomoeans were an organized sect.

[Sidenote: Nicene successes.]

But the most important document of Jovian's reign is the acceptance of the Nicene creed by Acacius of Cæsarea, with Meletius of Antioch and more than twenty others of his friends. Acacius was only returning to his master's steps when he explained _one in essence_ by _like in essence_, and laid stress on the care with which 'the Fathers' had guarded its meaning. We may hope that Acacius had found out his belief at last. Still the connexion helped to widen the breach between Meletius and the older Nicenes.

[Sidenote: Valentinian Emperor.]

All these movements came to an end at the sudden death of Jovian (Feb. 16, 364.) The Pannonian Valentinian was chosen to succeed him, and a month later assigned the East to his brother Valens, reserving to himself the more important Western provinces. This was a lasting division of the Empire, for East and West were never again united for any length of time. Valentinian belongs to the better class of emperors. He was a soldier like Jovian, and held much the same rank at his election. He was a decided Christian like Jovian, and, like him, free from the stain of persecution. Jovian's rough good-humour was replaced in Valentinian by a violent and sometimes cruel temper, but he had a sense of duty and was free from Jovian's vices. His reign was a laborious and honourable struggle with the enemies of the republic on the Rhine and the Danube. An uncultivated man himself, he still could honour learning, and in religion his policy was one of comprehensive toleration. If he refused to displace the few Arians whom he found in possession of Western sees like Auxentius at Milan, he left the churches free to choose Nicene successors. Under his wise rule the West soon recovered from the strife Constantius had introduced.

[Sidenote: Character of Valens.]

Valens was a weaker character, timid, suspicious, and slow, yet not ungentle in private life. He was as uncultivated as his brother, but not inferior to him in scrupulous care for his subjects. Only as Valens was no soldier, he preferred remitting taxation to fighting at the head of the legions. In both ways he is entitled to head the series of financial rather than unwarlike sovereigns whose cautious policy brought the Eastern Empire safely through the great barbarian invasions of the fifth century.

[Sidenote: Breach between church and state.]

The contest entered on a new stage in the reign of Valens. The friendly league of church and state at Nicæa had become a struggle for supremacy. Constantius endeavoured to dictate the faith of Christendom according to the pleasure of his eunuchs, while Athanasius reigned in Egypt almost like a rival for the Empire. And if Julian's reign had sobered party spirit, it had also shown that an emperor could sit again in Satan's seat. Valens had an obedient Homoean clergy, but no trappings of official splendour could enable Eudoxius or Demophilus to rival the imposing personality of Athanasius or Basil. Thus the Empire lost the moral support it looked for, and the church became embittered with its wrongs.

[Sidenote: Rise of monasticism.]

The breach involved a deeper evil. The ancient world of heathenism was near its dissolution. Vice and war, and latterly taxation, had dried up the springs of prosperity, and even of population, till Rome was perishing for lack of men. Cities had dwindled into villages, and of villages the very names had often disappeared. The stout Italian yeomen had been replaced by gangs of slaves, and these again by thinly scattered barbarian serfs. And if Rome grew weaker every day, her power for oppression seemed only to increase. Her fiscal system filled the provinces with ruined men. The Alps, the Taurus, and the Balkan swarmed with outlaws. But in the East men looked for refuge to the desert, where many a legend told of a people of brethren dwelling together in unity and serving God in peace beyond the reach of the officials. This was the time when the ascetic spirit, which had long been hovering round the outskirts of Christianity, began to assume the form of monasticism. There were monks in Egypt--monks of Serapis--before Christianity existed, and there may have been Christian monks by the end of the third century. In any case, they make little show in history before the reign of Valens. Paul of Thebes, Hilarion of Gaza, and even the great Antony are only characters in the novels of the day. Now, however, there was in the East a real movement towards monasticism. All parties favoured it. The Semiarians were busy inside Mount Taurus; and though Acacians and Anomoeans held more aloof, they could not escape an influence which even Julian felt. But the Nicene party was the home of the ascetics. In an age of indecision and frivolity like the Nicene, the most earnest striving after Christian purity will often degenerate into its ascetic caricature. Through the selfish cowardice of the monastic life we often see the loving sympathy of Christian self-denial. Thus there was an element of true Christian zeal in the enthusiasm of the Eastern Churches; and thus it was that the rising spirit of asceticism naturally attached itself to the Nicene faith as the strongest moral power in Christendom. It was a protest against the whole framework of society in that age, and therefore the alliance was cemented by a common enmity to the Arian Empire. It helped much to conquer Arianism, but it left a lasting evil in the lowering of the Christian standard. Henceforth the victory of faith was not to overcome the world, but to flee from it. Even heathen immorality was hardly more ruinous than the unclean ascetic spirit which defames God's holy ordinance as a form of sin which a too indulgent Lord will overlook.

[Sidenote: New questions in controversy.]

Valens was only a catechumen, and had no policy to declare for the present. Events therefore continued to develop naturally. The Homoean bishops retained their sees, but their influence was fast declining. The Anomoeans were forming a schism on one side, the Nicenes recovering power on the other. Unwilling signatures to the Homoean creed were revoked in all directions. Some even of its authors declared for Arianism with Euzoius, while others drew nearer to the Nicene faith like Acacius. On all sides the simpler doctrines were driving out the compromises. It was time for the Semiarians to bestir themselves if they meant to remain a majority in the East. The Nicenes seemed daily to gain ground. Lucifer had compromised them in one direction, Apollinarius in another, and even Marcellus had never been frankly disavowed; yet the Nicene cause advanced. A new question, however, was beginning to come forward. Hitherto the dispute had been on the person of the Lord, while that of the Holy Spirit was quite in the background. Significant as is the tone of Scripture, the proof is not on the surface. The divinity of the Holy Spirit is shown by many convergent lines of evidence, but it was still an open question whether that divinity amounts to co-essential and co-equal deity. Thus Origen leans to some theory of subordination, while Hilary limits himself with the utmost caution to the words of Scripture. If neither of them lays down in so many words that the Holy Spirit is God, much less does either of them class him with the creatures, like Eunomius. The difficulty was the same as with the person of the Lord, that while the Scriptural data clearly pointed to his deity, its admission involved the dilemma of either Sabellian confusion or polytheistic separation. Now, however, it was beginning to be seen that the theory of hypostatic distinctions must either be extended to the Holy Spirit or entirely abandoned. Athanasius took one course, the Anomoeans the other, but the Semiarians endeavoured to draw a distinction between the Lord's deity and that of the Holy Spirit. In truth, the two are logically connected. Athanasius pointed this out in the letters of his exile to Serapion, and the council of Alexandria condemned 'those who say that the Holy Spirit is a creature and distinct from the essence of the Son.' But logical connection is one thing, formal enforcement another. Athanasius and Basil to the last refused to make it a condition of communion. If any one saw the error of his Arian ways, it was enough for him to confess the Nicene creed. Thus the question remained open for the present.

[Sidenote: Council of Lampsacus (364).]

Thus the Semiarians were free to do what they could against the Homoeans. Under the guidance of Eleusius of Cyzicus, they held a council at Lampsacus in the summer of 364. It sat two months, and reversed the acts of the Homoeans at Constantinople four years before. Eudoxius was deposed (in name) and the Semiarian exiles restored to their sees. With regard to doctrine, they adopted the formula _like according to essence_, on the ground that while likeness was needed to exclude a Sabellian (they mean Nicene) confusion, its express extension to essence was needed against the Arians. Nor did they forget to re-issue the Lucianic creed for the acceptance of the churches. They also discussed without result the deity of the Holy Spirit. Eustathius of Sebastia for one was not prepared to commit himself either way. The decisions were then laid before Valens.

[Sidenote: The Homoean policy of Valens.]

But Valens was already falling into bad hands. Now that Julian was dead, the courtiers were fast recovering their influence, and Eudoxius had already secured the Emperor's support. The deputies of Lampsacus were ordered to hold communion with the bishop of Constantinople, and exiled on their refusal.

Looking back from our own time, we should say that it was not a promising course for Valens to support the Homoeans. They had been in power before, and if they had not then been able to establish peace in the churches, they were not likely to succeed any better after their heavy losses in Julian's time. It is therefore the more important to see the Emperor's motives. No doubt personal influences must count for a good deal with a man like Valens, whose private attachments were so steady. Eudoxius was, after all, a man of experience and learning, whose mild prudence was the very help which Valens needed. The Empress Dominica was also a zealous Arian, so that the courtiers were Arians too. No wonder if their master was sincerely attached to the doctrines of his friends. But Valens was not strong enough to impose his own likings on the Empire. No merit raised him to the throne; no education or experience prepared him for the august dignity he reached so suddenly in middle life. Conscientious and irresolute, he could not even firmly control the officials. He had not the magic of Constantine's name behind him, and was prevented by Valentinian's toleration from buying support with the spoils of the temples.

Under these circumstances, he could hardly do otherwise than support the Homoeans. Heathenism had failed in Julian's hands, and an Anomoean course was out of the question. A Nicene policy might answer in the West, but it was not likely to find much support in the East outside Egypt. The only alternative was to favour the Semiarians; and even that was full of difficulties. After all, the Homoeans were still the strongest party in 365. They were in possession of the churches and commanded much of the Asiatic influence, and had no enmity to contend with which was not quite as bitter against the other parties. They also had astute leaders, and a doctrine which still presented attractions to the quiet men who were tired of controversy. Upon the whole, the Homoean policy was the easiest for the moment.

[Sidenote: The exiles exiled again.]

In the spring of 365 an imperial rescript commanded the municipalities, under a heavy penalty, to drive out the bishops who had been exiled by Constantius and restored by Julian. Thereupon the populace of Alexandria declared that the law did not apply to Athanasius, because he had not been restored by Julian. A series of dangerous riots followed, which obliged the prefect Flavianus to refer the question back to Valens. Other bishops were less fortunate. Meletius had to retire from Antioch, Eustathius from Sebastia.

[Sidenote: Semiarian embassy to Liberius.]

The Semiarians looked to Valentinian for help. He had received them favourably the year before, and his intercession was not likely to be disregarded now. Eustathius of Sebastia was therefore sent to lay their case before the court of Milan. As, however, Valentinian had already started for Gaul, the deputation turned aside to Rome and offered to Liberius an acceptance of the Nicene creed signed by fifty-nine Semiarians, and purporting to come from the council of Lampsacus and other Asiatic synods. The message was well received at Rome, and in due time the envoys returned to Asia to report their doings before a council at Tyana.

[Sidenote: Revolt of Procopius, Sept. 365.]

Meanwhile the plans of Valens were interrupted by the news that Constantinople had been seized by a pretender. Procopius was a relative of Julian who had retired into private life, but whom the jealousy of Valens had forced to become a pretender. For awhile the danger was pressing. Procopius had won over to his side some of the best legions of the Empire, while his connexion with the house of Constantine secured him the formidable services of the Goths. But the great generals kept their faith to Valens, and the usurper's power melted away before them. A decisive battle at Nacolia in Phrygia (May 366) once more seated Valens firmly on his throne.

[Sidenote: Baptism of Valens by Eudoxius (367).]

Events could scarcely have fallen out better for Eudoxius and his friends. Valens was already on their side, and now his zeal was quickened by the mortal terror he had undergone, perhaps also by shame at the unworthy panic in which he had already allowed the exiles to return. In an age when the larger number of professing Christians were content to spend most of their lives as catechumens, it was a decided step for an Emperor to come forward and ask for baptism. This, however, was the step taken by Valens in the spring of 367, which finally committed him to the Homoean side. By it he undertook to resume the policy of Constantius, and to drive out false teachers at the dictation of Eudoxius.

[Sidenote: Interval in the controversy (366-371).]

The Semiarians were in no condition to resist. Their district had been the seat of the revolt, and their disgrace at court was not lessened by the embassy to Rome. So divided also were they, that while one party assembled a synod at Tyana to welcome the return of the envoys, another met in Caria to ratify the Lucianic creed again. Unfortunately however for Eudoxius, Valens was entangled in a war with the Goths for three campaigns, and afterwards detained for another year in the Hellespontine district, so that he could not revisit the East till the summer of 371. Meanwhile there was not much to be done. Athanasius had been formally restored to his church during the Procopian panic by Brasidas the notary (February 366), and was too strong to be molested again. Meletius also and others had been allowed to return at the same time, and Valens was too busy to disturb them. Thus there was a sort of truce for the next few years. Of Syria we hear scarcely anything; and even in Pontus the strife must have been abated by the famine of 368. The little we find to record seems to belong to the year 367. On one side, Eunomius the Anomoean was sent into exile, but soon recalled on the intercession of the old Arian Valens of Mursa. On the other, the Semiarians were not allowed to hold the great synod at Tarsus, which was intended to complete their reconciliation with the Western Nicenes. These years form the third great break in the Arian controversy, and were hardly less fruitful of results than the two former breaks under Constantius and Julian. Let us therefore glance at the condition of the churches.

[Sidenote: New Nicene party in Cappadocia]

The Homoean party was the last hope of Arianism within the Empire. The original doctrine of Arius had been decisively rejected at Nicæa; the Eusebian coalition was broken up by the Sirmian manifesto; and if the Homoean union also failed, the fall of Arianism could not be long delayed. Its weakness is shown by the rise of a new Nicene party in the most Arian province of the Empire. Cappadocia is an exception to the general rule that Christianity flourished best where cities were most numerous. The polished vice of Antioch or Corinth presented fewer obstacles than the rude ignorance of _pagi_ or country villages. Now Cappadocia was chiefly a country district. The walls of Cæsarea lay in ruins since its capture by the Persians in the reign of Gallienus, and the other towns of the province were small and few. Yet Julian found it incorrigibly Christian, and we hear but little of heathenism from Basil. We cannot suppose that the Cappadocian boors were civilized enough to be out of the reach of heathen influence. It seems rather that the _paganismus_ of the West was partly represented by Arianism. In Cappadocia the heresy found its first great literary champion in the sophist Asterius. Gregory and George were brought to Alexandria from Cappadocia, and afterwards Auxentius to Milan and Eudoxius to Constantinople. Philagrius also, the prefect who drove out Athanasius in 339, was another of their countrymen. Above all, the heresiarch Eunomius came from Cappadocia, and had abundance of admirers in his native district. In this old Arian stronghold the league was formed which decided the fate of Arianism. Earnest men like Meletius had only been attracted to the Homoeans by their professions of reverence for the person of the Lord. When, therefore, it appeared that Eudoxius and his friends were no better than Arians after all, these men began to look back to the decisions of 'the great and holy council' of Nicæa. There, at any rate, they would find something independent of the eunuchs and cooks who ruled the palace. Of the old conservatives also, who were strong in Pontus, there were many who felt that the Semiarian position was unsound, and yet could find no satisfaction in the indefinite doctrine professed at court. Here then was one split in the Homoean, another in the conservative party. If only the two sets of malcontents could form a union with each other and with the older Nicenes of Egypt and the West, they would sooner or later be the arbiters of Christendom. If they could secure Valentinian's intercession, they might obtain religious freedom at once.

[Sidenote: Basil of Cæsarea.]

Such seems to have been the plan laid down by the man who was now succeeding Athanasius as leader of the Nicene party. Basil of Cæsarea was a disciple of the schools of Athens, and a master of heathen eloquence and learning. He was also man of the world enough to keep on friendly terms with men of all sorts. Amongst his friends we find Athanasius and Gregory of Nazianzus, Libanius the heathen rhetorician, the barbarian generals Arinthæus and Victor, the renegade Modestus, and the Arian bishop Euippius. He was a Christian also of a Christian family. His grandmother, Macrina, was one of those who fled to the woods in the time of Diocletian's persecution; and in after years young Basil learned from her the words of Gregory the Wonder worker. The connections of his early life were with the conservatives. He owed his baptism to Dianius of Cæsarea, and much encouragement in asceticism to Eustathius of Sebastia. In 359 he accompanied Basil of Ancyra from Seleucia to the conferences at Constantinople, and on his return home came forward as a resolute enemy of Arianism at Cæsarea. The young deacon was soon recognised as a power in Asia. He received the dying recantation of Dianius, and guided the choice of his successor Eusebius in 362. Yet he still acted with the Semiarians, and helped them with his counsel at Lampsacus. Indeed it was from the Semiarian side that he approached the Nicene faith. In his own city of Cæsarea Eusebius found him indispensable. When jealousies arose between them, and Basil withdrew to his rustic paradise in Pontus, he was recalled by the clamour of the people at the approach of Valens in 365. This time the danger was averted by the Procopian troubles, but henceforth Basil governed Eusebius, and the church of Cæsarea through him, till in the summer of 370 he succeeded to the bishopric himself.

[Sidenote: Basil bishop of Cæsarea.]

The election was a critical one, for every one knew that a bishop like Basil would be a pillar of the Nicene cause. On one side were the officials and the lukewarm bishops, on the other the people and the better class of Semiarians. They had to make great efforts. Eusebius of Samosata came to Cæsarea to urge the wavering bishops, and old Gregory[15] was carried from Nazianzus on his litter to perform the consecration. There was none but Basil who could meet the coming danger. By the spring of 371 Valens had fairly started on his progress to the East. He travelled slowly through the famine-wasted provinces, and only reached Cæsarea in time for the great winter festival of Epiphany 372. The Nicene faith in Cappadocia was not the least of the abuses he was putting down. The bishops yielded in all directions, but Basil was unshaken. The rough threats of Modestus succeeded no better than the fatherly counsel of Euippius; and when Valens himself and Basil met face to face, the Emperor was overawed. More than once the order was prepared for the obstinate prelate's exile, but for one reason or another it was never issued. Valens went forward on his journey, leaving behind a princely gift for Basil's poorhouse. He reached Antioch in April, and settled there for the rest of his reign, never again leaving Syria till the disasters of the Gothic war called him back to Europe.

[Footnote 15: The father of Gregory of Nazianzus the Divine, who was bishop, as we shall see, of Sasima and Constantinople in succession, but never of Nazianzus.]

[Sidenote: Basil's difficulties.]

Armed with spiritual power which in some sort extended from the Bosphorus to Armenia, Basil could now endeavour to carry out his plan. Homoean malcontents formed the nucleus of the league, but conservatives began to join it, and Athanasius gave his patriarchal blessing to the scheme. The difficulties, however, were very great. The league was full of jealousies. Athanasius indeed might frankly recognise the soundness of Meletius, though he was committed to Paulinus, but others were less liberal, and Lucifer of Calaris was forming a schism on the question. Some, again, were lukewarm in the cause and many sunk in worldliness, while others were easily diverted from their purpose. The sorest trial of all was the selfish coldness of the West. Basil might find here and there a kindred spirit like Ambrose of Milan after 374; but the confessors of 355 were mostly gathered to their rest, and the church of Rome paid no regard to sufferings which were not likely to reach herself.

Nor was Basil quite the man for such a task as this. His courage indeed was indomitable. He ruled Cappadocia from a sick-bed, and bore down opposition by sheer strength of his inflexible determination. The very pride with which his enemies reproached him was often no more than a strong man's consciousness of power; and to this unwearied energy he joined an ascetic fervour which secured the devotion of his friends, a knowledge of the world which often turned aside the fury of his enemies, and a flow of warm-hearted rhetoric which never failed to command the admiration of outsiders. Yet after all we miss the lofty self-respect which marks the later years of Athanasius. Basil was involved in constant difficulties by his own pride and suspicion. We cannot, for example, imagine Athanasius turning two presbyters out of doors as 'spies.' But the ascetic is usually too full of his own plans to feel sympathy with others, too much in earnest to feign it like a diplomatist. Basil had enough worldly prudence to keep in the background his belief in the Holy Spirit, but not enough to protect even his closest friends from the outbreaks of his imperious temper. Small wonder if the great scheme met with many difficulties.

[Sidenote: Disputes with: (1.) Anthimus.]

A specimen or two may be given, from which it will be seen that the difficulties were not all of Basil's making. When Valens divided Cappadocia in 372, the capital of the new province was fixed at Tyana. Thereupon Bishop Anthimus argued that ecclesiastical arrangements necessarily follow civil, and claimed the obedience of its bishops as due to him and not to Basil. Peace was patched up after an unseemly quarrel, and Basil disposed of any future claims from Anthimus by getting the new capital transferred to Podandus.

[Sidenote: (2.) Eustathius.]

The dispute with Anthimus was little more than a personal quarrel, so that it was soon forgotten. The old Semiarian Eustathius of Sebastia was able to give more serious annoyance. He was a man too active to be ignored, too unstable to be trusted, too famous for ascetic piety to be lightly made an open enemy. His friendship was compromising, his enmity dangerous. We left him professing the Nicene faith before the council of Tyana. For the next three years we lose sight of him. He reappears as a friend of Basil in 370, and heartily supported him in his strife with Valens. Eustathius was at any rate no time-server. He was drawn to Basil by old friendship and a common love of asceticism, but almost equally repelled by the imperious orthodoxy of a stronger will than his own. And Basil for a long time clung to his old teacher, though the increasing distrust of staunch Nicenes like Theodotus of Nicopolis was beginning to attack himself. His peacemaking was worse than a failure. First he offended Theodotus, then he alienated Eustathius. The suspicious zeal of Theodotus was quieted in course of time, but Eustathius never forgave the urgency which wrung from him his signature to a Nicene confession. He had long been leaning the other way, and now he turned on Basil with all the bitterness of broken friendship. To such a man the elastic faith of the Homoeans was a welcome refuge. If they wasted little courtesy on their convert, they did not press him to strain his conscience by signing what he ought not to have signed.

[Sidenote: Apollinarius of Laodicea.]

The Arian controversy was exhausted for the present, and new questions were already beginning to take its place. While Basil and Eustathius were preparing the victory of asceticism in the next generation, Apollinarius had already essayed the christological problem of Ephesus and Chalcedon; and Apollinarius was no common thinker. If his efforts were premature, he at least struck out the most suggestive of the ancient heresies. Both in what he saw and in what he failed to see, his work is full of meaning for our own time. Apollinarius and his father were Christian literary men of Laodicea in Syria, and stood well to the front of controversy in Julian's days. When the rescript came out which forbade the Galileans to teach the classics, they promptly undertook to form a Christian literature by throwing Scripture into classical forms. The Old Testament was turned into Homeric verse, the New into Platonic dialogues. Here again Apollinarius was premature. There was indeed no reason why Christianity should not have as good a literature as heathenism, but it would have to be a growth of many ages. In doctrine Apollinarius was a staunch Nicene, and one of the chief allies of Athanasius in Syria. But he was a Nicene of an unusual type, for the side of Arianism which specially attracted his attention was its denial of the Lord's true manhood. It will be remembered that according to Arius the created Word assumed human flesh and nothing more. Eustathius of Antioch had long ago pointed out the error, and the Nicene council shut it out by adding _was made man_ to the _was made flesh_ of the Cæsarean creed. It was thus agreed that the lower element in the incarnation was man, not mere flesh; in other words, the Lord was perfect man as well as perfect God. But in that case, how can God and man form one person? In particular, the freedom of his human will is inconsistent with the fixity of the divine. Without free-will he was not truly man; yet free-will always leads to sin. If all men are sinners, and the Lord was not a sinner, it seemed to follow that he was not true man like other men. Yet in that case the incarnation is a mere illusion. The difficulty was more than Athanasius himself could fully solve. All that he could do was to hold firmly the doctrine of the Lord's true manhood as declared by Scripture, and leave the question of his free-will for another age to answer.

[Sidenote: The Apollinarian system.]

The analysis of human nature which we find in Scripture is twofold. In many passages there is a moral division into the spirit and the flesh--all that draws us up towards heaven and all that draws us down to earth. It must be carefully noted (what ascetics of all ages have overlooked) that the flesh is not the body. Envy and hatred are just as much works of the flesh[16] as revelling and uncleanness. It is not the body which lusts against the soul, but the evil nature running through them both which refuses the leading of the Spirit of God. But these are practical statements: the proper psychology of Scripture is given in another series of passages. It comes out clearly in 1 Thess. v. 23--'your whole spirit, and soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.' Here the division is threefold. The body we know pretty well, as far as concerns its material form. The soul however, is not the 'soul' of common language. It is only the seat of the animal life which we share with the beasts. Above the soul, beyond the ken of Aristotle, Scripture reveals the spirit as the seat of the immortal life which is to pass the gate of death unharmed. Now it is one chief merit of Apollinarius (and herein he has the advantage over Athanasius) that he based his system on the true psychology of Scripture. He argued that sin reaches man through the will, whose seat is in the spirit. Choice for good or for evil is in the will. Hence Adam fell through the weakness of the spirit. Had that been stronger, he would have been able to resist temptation. So it is with the rest of us: we all sin through the weakness of the spirit. If then the Lord was a man in whom the mutable human spirit was replaced by the immutable Divine Word, there will be no difficulty in understanding how he could be free from sin. Apollinarius, however, rightly chose to state his theory the other way--that the Divine Word assumed a human body and a human soul, and himself took the place of a human spirit. So far we see no great advance on the Arian theory of the incarnation. If the Lord had no true human spirit, he is no more true man than if he had nothing human but the body. We get a better explanation of his sinlessness, but we still get it at the expense of his humanity. In one respect the Arians had the advantage. Their created Word is easier joined with human flesh than the Divine Word with a human body and a human soul. At this point, however, Apollinarius introduced a thought of deep significance--that the spirit in Christ was human spirit, although divine. If man was made in the image of God, the Divine Word is not foreign to that human spirit which is in his likeness, but is rather the true perfection of its image. If, therefore, the Lord had the divine Word instead of the human spirit of other men, he is not the less human, but the more so for the difference. Furthermore, the Word which in Christ was human spirit was eternal. Apart then from the incarnation, the Word was archetypal man as well as God. Thus we reach the still more solemn thought that the incarnation is not a mere expedient to get rid of sin, but the historic revelation of what was latent in the Word from all eternity. Had man not sinned, the Word must still have come among us, albeit not through shame and death. It was his nature that he should come. If he was man from eternity, it was his nature to become in time like men on earth, and it is his nature to remain for ever man. And as the Word looked down on mankind, so mankind looked upward to the Word. The spirit in man is a frail and shadowy thing apart from Christ, and men are not true men till they have found in him their immutable and sovereign guide. Thus the Word and man do not confront each other as alien beings. They are joined together in their inmost nature, and (may we say it?) each receives completion from the other.

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

[Sidenote: Criticism of Apollinarianism.]

The system of Apollinarius is a mighty outline whose details we can hardly even now fill in; yet as a system it is certainly a failure. His own contemporaries may have done him something less than justice, but they could not follow his daring flights of thought when they saw plain errors in his teaching. After all, Apollinarius reaches no true incarnation. The Lord is something very like us, but he is not one of us. The spirit is surely an essential part of man, and without a true human spirit he could have no true human choice or growth or life; and indeed Apollinarius could not allow him any. His work is curtailed also like his manhood, for (so Gregory of Nyssa put it) the spirit which the Lord did not assume is not redeemed. Apollinarius understood even better than Athanasius the kinship of true human nature to its Lord, and applied it with admirable skill to explain the incarnation as the expression of the eternal divine nature. But he did not see so well as Athanasius that sin is a mere intruder among men. It was not a hopeful age in which he lived. The world had gone a long way downhill since young Athanasius had sung his song of triumph over fallen heathenism. Roman vice and Syrian frivolity, Eastern asceticism and Western legalism, combined to preach, in spite of Christianity, that the sinfulness of mankind is essential. So instead of following out the pregnant hint of Athanasius that sin is no true part of human nature (else were God the author of evil), Apollinarius cut the knot by refusing the Son of Man a human spirit as a thing of necessity sinful. Too thoughtful to slur over the difficulty like Pelagius, he was yet too timid to realize the possibility of a conquest of sin by man, even though that man were Christ himself.

[Sidenote: The Apollinarians.]

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

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

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

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

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

[Sidenote: Death of Athanasius (373).]

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

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

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

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

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

[Sidenote: (2.) Creeds.]

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

[Sidenote: Hopeful signs.]

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