Christ, when viewed as the Wisdom or Logos of God, was by a natural transition of thought placed within the effulgence of the divine glory; but when viewed not as an Attribute but as a Person, the Son and Messiah of the Father, this dim idea would pass away, and the distinction between God and Christ become too visible to be confused. In this state of opinion two parties naturally appeared, separating the two ideas that entered into the prevalent conception of Christ, each taking up one of them as representing the whole truth respecting his nature and person. The Arians, alarmed at the idea of two Gods, inclined to that part of the conception which represented Jesus as the Son and Messenger of the Father, but at the same time elevating him above all other created beings, and giving him an existence before the worlds were. The Athanasians, on the other hand, inclined to that part of the conception which represented him as the Logos of the Deity, and under the reaction, and the necessity for more strictly defining the hidden sense of doctrines, produced by the Arian Creed, attempted to conquer the difficulty of his Sonship by representing him as an eternal emanation from the very substance of the Deity, and exalted him into an equality with God, though at the same time they described it as a derived and subordinate equality. It is unavoidable in describing these views to make use of contradictory words. The ideas are irreconcilable, and were only saved from plainly appearing so by being involved in a cloud of mystical or rather no meaning words; for words must either be significant of ideas, or no-sense. This then was the subject of the great Arian and Trinitarian Controversy, which in the fourth Century shook the peace of the world. It turned upon this point, whether Christ was of the same essence as the Father, and therefore not created but begotten or emanating; or whether he was as the Arians thought, made out of nothing, and therefore a created Being. Neither of them contemplated him as independent of the Supreme Deity, but the Athanasians regarded him as a con-substantial and co-eternal emanation; the Arians, though assigning him the highest rank, regarded him as created like other beings. Such are the great questions of a metaphysical and dogmatical religion. Such are the mysteries on which Synods and Councils have legislated. Such are the subjects in which Ecclesiastics have shown more interest than in the spirit of the life of Christ, and the moral hopes and preparations of Immortality. Such are the subject matter of Creeds, the dry husks of doctrine, the spiritless formulas on which souls are starved, the bread of Christ converted into a stone, and yet in the eyes of many, superior to practical discipleship, to Charity and the Love of God, to the spirit of Brotherhood and the trustful faith of Duty.
It was to settle this dispute that the first general Council of the Church was assembled at Nice A. D. 325. The Emperor Constantine attended in person. He had previously remonstrated with the contending parties, and entreated them not to disturb the peace of the Empire and of the Church, for matters the most insignificant and small.[[487]] But he did not know the temper of Controversialists; nor what things become important in their eyes.[[488]] The Athanasians prevailed, and “the con-substantiality of the Father and the Son was established by the Council of Nice.” Under this word however lurked future Controversies, and by con-substantiality the Council of Nice meant, not the present doctrine of three persons in one God, but merely sameness of nature or kind, such a sameness as three men may possess who are generically the same but numerically different; and this is openly admitted by the highest authorities, Petavius, Cudworth, Le Clerc, Jortin. “The majority,” says Gibbon, “was divided into two parties, distinguished by a contrary tendency to the sentiments of the Tritheists, and of the Sabellians. But as those opposite extremes seemed to overthrow the foundations either of natural or revealed religion, they mutually agreed to qualify the rigour of their principles; and to disavow the just, but invidious, consequences which might be urged by their antagonists. The interest of the common cause inclined them to join their numbers, and to conceal their differences; their animosities were softened by the healing counsels of toleration, and their disputes were suspended by the use of the mysterious Homoousion (Consubstantial), which either party was free to interpret according to their peculiar tenets. The Sabellian sense, which about fifty years before had obliged the Council of Antioch to prohibit this celebrated term, had endeared it to those theologians who entertained a secret but partial affection for a nominal Trinity. But the more fashionable saints of the Arian times, the intrepid Athanasius, the learned Gregory Nazianzen, and the other pillars of the Church, who supported with ability and success the Nicene doctrine, appeared to consider the expression of substance as if it had been synonymous with that of nature; and they ventured to illustrate their meaning, by affirming that three men, as they belong to the same common species, are con-substantial or homoousian to each other. This pure and distinct equality was tempered on the one hand by the internal connection, and spiritual penetration, which indissolubly unites the divine persons, and on the other by the pre-eminence of the Father, which was acknowledged as far as it is compatible with the independence of the son. Within these limits the almost invisible and tremulous ball of Orthodoxy was allowed securely to vibrate. On either side beyond this consecrated ground the heretics and the dæmons lurked in ambush to surprise and devour the unhappy wanderer. But as the degrees of theological hatred depend on the Spirit of the war, rather than on the importance of the Controversy, the heretics who degraded, were treated with more severity than those who annihilated the person of the Son.”[[489]]
We are now arrived at that great period in the faith of the Church, when the dignity of the Son was authoritatively settled by the Nicene Council. Here is a brief account of its proceedings. “The Bishops began by much personal dissension, and presented to the Emperor a variety of written accusations against each other; the Emperor burnt all their libels and exhorted them to peace and unity. They then proceeded to examine the momentous question proposed to them. It was soon discovered that the differences which it was intended to reconcile might in their principle be reduced to one point, and that point might be expressed by one word, and thus the question appears to have been speedily simplified (as indeed was necessary that so many persons might come to one conclusion on so mysterious a subject) and reduced to this—whether the Son was or was not consubstantial with the Father. Then arose subtile disceptations respecting the meaning of the word, ‘about which some conflicted with each other, dwelling on the term and minutely dissecting it; it was like a battle fought in the dark; for neither party seemed at all to understand on what ground they vilified each other.’ However the result was perfectly conclusive; they finally decided against the Arian opinions, and established respecting the two first persons in the Trinity, the doctrine which the Church still professes in the Nicene Creed.”[[490]]
This doctrine is as follows:—you will perceive that it is partly Trinitarian, and only partly, a derived deity being attributed to the Son, and no deity whatsoever attributed to the Holy Spirit. Changes were afterwards introduced into this Creed to adapt it to the growing orthodoxy of the times. I shall mention these in their proper places; meanwhile I give the Nicene Creed of the Nicene Council:—
The Nicene Creed, A.D. 325.
“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten and only begotten of the Father; that is of the substance of the Father, God of (out of) God, Light of (from) Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father, by whom all things were made both in heaven and in earth: who for us men, and for our salvation, descended and was incarnate, and was made man, suffered, and rose again the third day, ascended into the heavens, and will come to judge the living and the dead. (We believe) also in the Holy Ghost.
“The holy Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes those who say that there was a time when the Son of God was not, and that before he was begotten he was not, and that he was made out of nothing, or out of another substance or essence, and is created, changeable, or alterable.”
“Such,” says Jortin, “was the Nicene Creed, as it stood originally and before it was interpolated by subsequent Councils. Our church hath dropped the anathematizing clauses at the end, and one cannot help wishing that the Nicene Fathers had done the same. The Christians in times following were perpetually making anathematisms, even upon the slightest and poorest occasions; and it is really a wonder that they did not at last insert in their Litanies, ‘We beseech Thee to curse and confound the Pelagians, Semi-pelagians, Nestorians, Eutychians, Monothelites, Jacobites, Iconoclasts, and all heretics and schismatics.’”[[491]]
The history of the fourth century is almost entirely taken up with the persecutions of Consubstantialists against Arians, Arians against Consubstantialists, and the minor strifes of the subdivisions of these sects. After the death of Constantine, the Emperor Constantius sided with the Arians, and then the persecuted became the persecutors, for wherever a dogmatical Religion is held, wherever Creeds are the Essentials of Salvation, of course no Charity can be learned in the School of Suffering. There is an admirable passage contained in Archdeacon Jortin’s most instructive remarks on Ecclesiastical History. It extorts a smile to observe with what unconsciousness dogmatic Theologians of all ages insult their fellow-disciples, in the name and for the love of God, and close their acts of persecution with the words of affection and blessing:—
“In the fourth century were held thirteen Councils against Arius, fifteen for him, and seventeen for the Semiarians; in all forty-five.[[492]]