Pagan Origin of Partialist Doctrines

by John Claudius Pitrat

Therefore in the Church of Rome herself, the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ was established only at about the year 180.

2d. We prove that in the council of Nice, held in 325, despite the efforts of the Bishop of Rome; and despite the tyranny of the emperor Constantine I., who convoked the council at his own expense, attended, surrounded, and enforced it with military force, it was with the greatest difficulty that the Church of Rome obtained, from the bishops who composed it, a decision in favor of the doctrine she held, that Jesus Christ was God.

Arius, a priest of Alexandria, surprised at hearing Alexander, his bishop, teaching in an assembly of priests, that Jesus Christ was God, protested against this new doctrine. An animated controversy between him and Alexander, and then between the friends of the Church of Rome, which held this doctrine, and other churches which did not, ensued. The council of Nice assembled, and there seventeen bishops boldly faced the legate of Sylvestre, the emperor Constantine and his military force; and they sided with Arius. Eusebe, bishop of Cesarea, the most learned of the bishops who composed the council, sided with Arius. He is the same Eusebe who wrote the Evangelical Preparation and Demonstration, in two volumes in folio; who wrote an Ecclesiastical History, the Life of Constantine, a Chronic and a Commentary on the Psalms and on Isaiah. Constantine forced them either to yield and to acquiesce to the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ, or to be expelled from their episcopal sees; and Arius, exiled, had to retire in Palestine.

Consequently, in the council of Nice, held in 325, despite the efforts of the Bishop of Rome; and despite the tyranny of the emperor Constantine I., who convoked the council at his own expense, attended, surrounded, and enforced it with military force, it was with the greatest difficulty that the Church of Rome obtained, from the bishops who composed it, a decision in favor of the doctrine she held, that Jesus Christ was God himself.

3d. We prove that it was only long after the council of Nice, that its decision in favor of the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ, prevailed among the churches which depended on the Emperor of Constantinople, and on the Bishop of Rome.

Bergier, despite his partiality in favor of the Church of Rome, is obliged to make the following avowal:

"The anathema pronounced against Arianism did not destroy it; the larger portion of those (bishops) who had signed the decision of the council, only for fear of being exiled, remained attached to the party of Arius. Constantine himself, influenced by an Arian priest, recommended to him by his sister Constantia, at her death bed, and who had gained his confidence, consented to the repeal of Arius from his exile, in 328. This heretic reunited to his partisans, and commenced spreading his errors with even more earnestness than before. But St. Athanase, who had succeeded to Alexander in the episcopal see of Alexandria, constantly refused to commune with him, and by this firmness displeased Constantine I.

"Since that time the Arians became a redoubtable party. They held several councils where they obtained the majority.... Arius died in a tragic manner, in the year 337. After the death of Constantine I., in 337, the party of the Arians was alternatively the stronger, in ratio of the less or greater protection extended to them or to the Orthodox by the Emperors. Under Constance, who favored them, they filled the Orient with seditions and troubles; but Constantine Junior and Constant, who reigned in Occident, prevented Arianism from spreading. In 351, Constance, who had become the master of the whole empire by the death of his two brothers, protected Arianism more openly than before. Several councils were held in Italy, in which the Arians had the majority; and others, in which the Catholics had the superiority.... Julian, who was emperor in 362, sided neither with one party nor with the other. Valens, emperor of the Orient, in 364, favored and embraced Arianism; whereas Valentinian, his brother, did all in his power to extirpate it from the Occident.

"Gratian, and afterwards Theodose, proscribed Arianism from the whole empire.... In the beginning of the fifth century, the Goths, the Burgundians, and the Vandals, spread it in Gaul and in Africa. The Visigoths introduced it in Spain, where it subsisted as long as the kings of that country were Arians themselves, until the year 660.

"Arianism was to be revived in the sixteenth century. It is probable that Arianism would have invaded the whole Orient if the Arians had been united."