He and Arius were old friends, for they had been fellow-pupils of the famous Lucian of Antioch. It has been suggested that Eusebius was rather the teacher than the pupil of Arius, but probably neither word expresses the true relationship. They were simply old friends who thought very much alike. Arius’s letter to Eusebius asking for his help is one of the most interesting documents of the period. Arius writes with hot indignation of the persecution to which he has been subjected by Alexander, who, he says, had expelled him and his friends from Alexandria as impious atheists because they had refused to subscribe to the outrageous doctrines which the Bishop professed. He then gives in brief his version of Alexander’s teaching and of his own, which he declares is that of Eusebius of Cæsarea and all the Eastern bishops, with the exception of a few. “We are persecuted,” he continues, “because we have said, ‘the Son has a beginning, but God is without a beginning,’ and ‘the Son is made of that which is not,’ and ‘the Son is not part of God nor is he of any substance.’” It is the letter of a man angry at what he conceives to be the harsh treatment meted out to him, and it has the ring of honesty about it, for even though it distorts the views put forward by Alexander, there never yet was a convinced theologian who stated his opponent’s case precisely as that opponent would state it for himself.
We have not Eusebius’s answer to this letter, the closing sentence of which begged him as “a true fellow-pupil of Lucian” not to fail him. But we know at least that it was favourable, for we next find Arius at Nicomedia itself, under the wing of the popular and powerful Bishop, who vigorously stood up for his friend. Eusebius wrote more than once to Alexander pleading the cause of the banished presbyter, and Arius himself also wrote to his old Bishop, restating his convictions and reopening the entire question in a temperate form. The tone of that letter certainly compares most favourably with that of the famous document which Alexander addressed to his namesake at Byzantium, warning him to be on guard against Arius and his friends. He can find no epithets strong enough in which to describe them. They are possessed of the Devil, who dwells in them and goads them to fury; they are jugglers and tricksters, clever conjurors with seductive words; they are brigands who have built lairs for themselves wherein day and night they curse Christ and the faithful; they are no better than the Jews or Greeks or pagans, whose good opinion they eagerly covet, joining them in scoffing at the Catholic doctrine and stirring up faction and persecution. The Bishop in his fury even declares that the Arians are threatening lawsuits against the Church at the instance of disorderly women whom they have led astray, and accuses them of seeking to make proselytes through the agency of the loose young women of the town. In short, they have torn the unbroken tunic of Christ. And so on throughout the letter.
The historians of the Church have done the cause of truth a poor service in concealing or glossing over the outrageous language employed by the Patriarch, whose violence raises the suspicion that he must have been conscious of the weakness of his own dialectical power in thus disqualifying his opponents and ruling them out of court as a set of frantic madmen. “What impious arrogance,” he exclaims. “What measureless madness! What vainglorious melancholy! What a devilish spirit it is that indurates their unholy souls!” Even when every allowance is made, this method of conducting a controversy creates prejudice against the person employing it. It is, moreover, in the very sharpest contrast with the method employed by Arius, and with the tenor of the letter written by Eusebius of Nicomedia to Paulinus of Tyre, praying him to write to “My lord, Alexander.” Eusebius hotly resented the tone of the Patriarch’s letter, and, summoning a synod of Bithynian bishops, laid the whole matter before them for discussion. Sympathising with Arius, these bishops addressed a circular letter “to all the bishops throughout the Empire,” begging them not to deny communion to the Arians and also to seek to induce Alexander to do the same. Alexander, however, stood out for unconditional surrender.
Arius returned to Palestine, where three bishops permitted him to hold services for his followers, and the wordy war continued. Alexander drew up a long encyclical which he addressed “to all his fellow-workers of the universal Catholic Church,” couched in language not quite so violent as that which he had employed in writing to the Bishop of Byzantium, yet denouncing the Arians in no measured terms as “lawless men and fighters against Christ, teaching an apostasy which one may rightly describe as preparing the way for anti-Christ.” In it he attacks Eusebius of Nicomedia by name, accusing him of “believing that the welfare of the Church depended upon his nod,” and of championing the cause of Arius not because he sincerely believed the Arian doctrine so much as in order to further his own ambitious interests. Evidently, this was not the first time that the two prelates had been at variance, and private animosities accentuated their doctrinal differences. The more closely the original authorities are studied, the more evident is the need for caution in accepting the traditional character sketches of Arius and Eusebius of Nicomedia. Alexander declares that he is prostrated with sorrow at the thought that Arius and his friends are eternally lost, after having once known the truth and denied it. But he adds, “I am not surprised. Did not Judas betray his Master after being a disciple?” We are sceptical of Alexander’s sorrow. He closes his letter with a plea for the absolute excommunication of the Arians. Christians must have nothing to do with the enemies of Christ and the destroyers of souls. They must not even offer them the compliment of a morning salutation. To say “Good-morning” to an Arian was to hold communication with the lost. Such a manifesto merely added fuel to the fire, and the two parties drew farther and farther apart.
Nor was Arius idle. It must have been about this time that he composed the notorious poem, Thalia, in which he embodied his doctrines. He selected the metre of a pagan poet, Sotades of Crete, of whom we know nothing save that his verses had the reputation of being exceedingly licentious. Arius did this of deliberate purpose. His object was to popularise his doctrines. Sotades had a vogue; Arius desired one. What he did was precisely similar to what in our own time the Salvation Army has done in setting its hymns to the popular tunes and music-hall ditties of the day. This was at first a cause of scandal to many worthy people, who now admit the cleverness and admire the shrewdness of the idea. Similarly, Arius got people to sing his doctrines to the very tunes to which they had previously sung the indecencies of Sotades. He wrote ballads, so we are told by Philostorgius—the one Arian historian who has survived—for sailors, millers, and travellers. But it is certainly difficult to understand their popularity, judging from the isolated fragments which are quoted by Athanasius in his First Discourse Against the Arians (chap. xi.). According to Athanasius, the Thalia opened as follows:
“According to faith of God’s elect, God’s prudent ones,
Holy children, rightly dividing, God’s Holy Spirit receiving,
Have I learned this from the partakers of wisdom,
Accomplished, divinely taught, and wise in all things.
Along their track have I been walking, with like opinions.