“Restore me then my quiet days and untroubled nights, that I may retain my joy in the pure light and, for the rest of my days, enjoy the gladness of a peaceful life. Else I needs must groan and be diffused wholly in tears, and know no comfort of mind till I die. For while the people of God, my fellow-servants, are thus torn asunder in unlawful and pernicious controversy, how can I be of tranquil mind?”
Some have seen in this letter proof of the Emperor’s consummate wisdom, and have described its language as golden and the triumph of common sense. It seems to us a complete exposure of his profound ignorance of the subject in which he had interfered. It was easy to say that the question should not have been raised. “Quieta non movere” is an excellent motto in theology as in politics. But this was precisely one of those questions which, when once raised, are bound to go forward to an issue. The time was ripe for it. It suited the taste and temper of the age, and the resultant storm of controversy, so easily stirred up, was not easily allayed. For Constantine to tell Alexander and Arius that theirs was merely a verbal quarrel on an insignificant and non-essential point, or that they were really of one and the same mind, and held one and the same view on all essentials, was grotesquely absurd. The question at issue was none other than the Divine Nature of the Son of God. If theology is of any value or importance at all, it is impossible to conceive a more essential problem.
CHAPTER XI
THE COUNCIL OF NICÆA
Constantine’s letter was fruitless. Hosius sought to play the peacemaker in vain. Neither Alexander nor Arius desired peace except at the price of the other’s submission, and neither was prepared to submit. Hosius, therefore, did not remain long in Alexandria, and, returning to Constantine, recommended him to summon a Council of the Church. The advice pleased the Emperor, who at once issued letters calling upon the bishops to assemble at Nicæa, in Bithynia, in the month of June, 325. The invitations were accepted with alacrity, for Constantine placed at the disposal of the bishops the posting system of the Empire, thus enabling them to travel comfortably, expeditiously, and at no cost to themselves.
“They were impelled,” says Eusebius,[[93]] “by the anticipation of a happy result to the conference, by the hope of enjoying present peace, and by the desire of beholding something new and strange in the person of so admirable an Emperor. And when they were all assembled, it appeared evident that the proceeding was the work of God, inasmuch as men, who had been most widely separated not merely in sentiment but by differences of country, place, and nation, were here brought together within the walls of a single city, forming as it were a vast garland of priests, composed of a variety of the choicest flowers.”
The Council of Nicæa was the first of the great Œcumenical Councils of the Church. There had been nothing like it before; nor could there have been, for no pagan Emperor would have tolerated such an assembly. The exact number of those present is not known. Eusebius, with irritating and unnecessary vagueness, says that “the bishops exceeded two hundred and fifty, while the number of the presbyters and deacons in their train and the crowd of acolytes and other attendants was altogether beyond computation.” There are sundry lists of names recorded by the ecclesiastical historians, but unfortunately all are incomplete. However, as a confident legend grew up within fifty years of the Council that the bishops were 318 in number, and as the Council itself became known as “The Council of the 318,” we may accept that figure without much demur. Very few came from the West. Hosius of Cordova seems to have been the only representative of the Spanish Church, and Nacasius of Divio the only representative of Gaul. The Bishops of Arles, Autun, Lyons, Treves, Narbonne, Marseilles, Toulouse—all cities of first-class importance—were absent. Eustorgius came from Milan; Marcus from Calabria; Capito from Sicily. The aged Sylvester of Rome would have attended, had his physical infirmities permitted, but he sent two presbyters to speak for him, Vito and Vincentius. Bishop Domnus of Stridon represented Pannonia, and Theophilus the Goth came on behalf of the northern barbarians—probably to listen rather than to speak. Evidently, then, the composition of the Council was overwhelmingly Eastern. Greek, not Latin, was the language spoken, and certainly Greek, not Latin, was the heresy under discussion, for the Arian controversy could not have arisen in the western half of the Empire. For all practical purposes the Council of Nicæa was a well-attended synod of the Syrian and Egyptian Churches. The opinions there expounded were the opinions of the Christian schools of Antioch and Alexandria.
