Arius the Libyan: A Romance of the Primitive Church

by Nathan C. Kouns

The letter which Constantine addressed to the bishops was as follows: "That there is nothing more honorable in my sight than religion is, I believe, manifest to every man. Now, because the Synod of Bishops at Ancyra, of Galatia, consented formerly that it should be so, it hath now seemed unto us, on many accounts, that it would be well for it to be assembled at Nice, a city of Bithynia; because the bishops of Italy, and of the rest of the countries of Europe, are coming, and because of the excellent temperature of the air, and because I shall be at hand as a spectator and participator of what is done. Wherefore I signify to you, my beloved brethren, that ye, all of you, promptly assemble at the city I spoke of, that is Nice. Let every one of you, therefore, diligently inquire into that which is profitable, in order that, as I before said, without any delay, we may speedily come to be a present spectator of those things which are done by the same. God keep you, my beloved brethren!"

The reasons assigned by the emperor for calling the Council of Nicea were first and chiefly that "the Synod of Ancyra" (which had been called by the bishops without the interference of any secular authority) "had formerly consented" to meet in a general council at Nice, and that "the bishops of Italy and of Europe would be there," and that "the air of the place was of an excellent temperature," and that their coming into Bithynia would afford the emperor an opportunity to be "a spectator of their proceedings." There was no intimation given that the emperor desired to preside over their council, or to control its action, or to force its deliberations to assume any political significance whatever, or to compel it to take such action as must inevitably result in the subversion of the Christian polity and the establishment of an entirely different church system. The letter was based first upon the consent given by the Council of Ancyra and then upon matters of expediency, and in no respect did it question the absolute right of the bishops to meet where they might please, and to deliberate without the intermeddling of secular authority. So, at least, it seemed to all the bishops of the Eastern Church, except a small number who had been, to a greater or less degree, leavened by the leaven of ecclesiasticism. On the face of it the letter was as full a recognition of the freedom of the bishops, and as full a recognition of the Christian polity which had for three centuries held all property in common, as was the celebrated Edict of Milan, in which Constantine and Licinius had united in commanding the officers of the Roman world to restore the property of Christians as communal property, the language of that edict being as follows: "All of which will be necessary to be delivered up to the body of the Christians without delay. And since the Christians themselves are known to have had not only those places where they were accustomed to meet, but other places also, belonging not to individuals among them, but to the right of the whole body of Christians, you will also command all these, by virtue of the law before mentioned, without any hesitation, to be restored to the same Christians, that is to their body, and to each conventicle separately."

But already the bishops of the Western Empire, with Hosius and Eusebius at their head, had come to understand that while Constantine cared little about any matter of faith, he had determined to utterly destroy the Christian polity, especially in regard to communism and the refusal of Christians to bear arms. The regulations by which their journeys were governed prescribed that they should come at the emperor's expense, and that "each bishop should be accompanied by a retinue of two presbyters and three slaves."

At and near the appointed time there were bishops and presbyters assembled from the four quarters of the world--from Persia and from Gaul, from Scythia and from Africa. There were many who were the victims of pagan persecutions, and still bore in their own persons the marks of the tortures to which they had been subjected. This one had lost an eye, gouged out by the torturer's sword or pincers; that one had the sinews of his leg seared with hot iron to keep him from escaping from the mines, to which he had been condemned for the crime of being a Christian; and the other had had the flesh scraped off his ribs by the instruments of torture. Of the whole number present, it was believed that only the eleven who came from the remotest East had escaped mutilation in some ghastly form.

Arius, although not a bishop, was there by the express order of Constantine, who could always sleep upon his vengeance, but never could forget nor forego it. The place of the assembly's sessions was a great hall in the imperial palace of Nicea. The bishops and presbyters, assembled upon the emperor's order, traveling at his expense, to the immediate vicinity of Nicomedia, then the imperial residence, into a royal palace, and fed by his bounty, were from the very first the creatures of Constantine, so far as complete control of the political significancy of religion could make them so.

The emperor had only two great purposes to accomplish in patronizing the Church and engineering the council: one of which was to make the Eastern Church as willingly and thoroughly dependent upon the imperial authority as he had already practically made that of the West, and to render it as much a bulwark of his government; the other was to render this condition of things, in appearance at least, the spontaneous and inspired action of a free conclave of bishops.

As for the theological verity of their doctrines or practice, the royal atheist cared not a denarius. His object was to make the Church as much a part of the imperial power as a legion might be, its bishops as much his agents and servants as the military officers; and to uproot and cast out the only essential features of Christianity which tended to segregate the Christians into a separate and distinct body in the empire, by subverting "the kingdom of heaven" with its communistic organization, that excluded war, slavery, and mammon-worship from the communities of the faithful, so that no man should feel that because he was a Christian he was therefore more free, or less a subject of the empire! This he proposed to do by inducing the council to define the faith and prescribe temporal penalties for heresy, which were to be enforced by the emperor's authority, just as were the judgments of the magistrates against violators of the criminal laws: the action of the council was to make an offense against the Church a crime against the imperial law. Subject to the accomplishment of these purposes, he really desired that they might reach conclusions as nearly unanimous as possible; for he was as anxious to avoid the creating of parties and classes in the Church as he was to avoid sowing discord among his other subjects.

Upon the assembling of the council, Eusebius of Cæsarea, "in metrical prose, if not in actual verses, recited an address to the emperor, and then a hymn of thanksgiving to the Almighty for the victory over Licinius." Thereupon Constantine addressed the council in the Latin language, which his dragoman immediately interpreted into Greek, as follows: "It has, my friends, been the object of my highest wishes to enjoy your sacred company, and, having obtained this, I confess my thankfulness to the King of all that, in addition to all my other blessings, he has granted to me this greatest of all--I mean, to receive you all assembled together, and to see one, common, harmonious opinion of all. Let, then, no envious enemy injure our happiness, and, after the destruction of the impious power of the tyrants by the might of God our Saviour, let not the spirit of evil overwhelm the divine law with blasphemies: for to me far worse than any war or battle is the civil war of the Church of God--yea, far more fearful than the wars which have waged without. As, then, by the assent and co-operation of a higher power, I have gained my victories over my enemies, I thought that nothing remained but to give God thanks, and to rejoice with those who have been delivered by me. But since I learned of your divisions, contrary to all expectation, I gave the report my first consideration; and, praying that this also might be healed through my assistance, I called you all together without delay. I rejoice at the mere sight of your assembly: but the moment that I shall consider the chief fulfillment of my prayers will be when I see you all joined together in heart and soul, and determining on one peaceful harmony for all, which it should well become you, who are consecrated to God, to preach to others. Do not, then, delay, my friends; do not delay, ministers of God, and good servants of our common Lord and Saviour, to remove all grounds of difference, and to wind up, by laws of peace, every link of controversy. Thus will you have done what is most pleasing to the God who is over all, and you will render the greatest boon to me your fellow-servant."

"The council was now formally opened, and the emperor gave permission to the presidents of the assembly to commence their proceedings"; and the Bishops of Alexandria, Cordova, Antioch, and Cæsarea, were chosen to preside over their deliberations: of whom Hosius, Alexander, and Eusebius, were politicians thoroughly imbued with the ecclesiastical spirit and purposes of the emperor, although the last-named bishop was the warm personal friend of Arius, and a follower of his theological tenets. Constantine himself assumed the functions of a bishop, and participated in all their debates, "directing all his energies to that one point which he himself described as his aim--a unanimity of decision" as to all merely theological disputes. For, even before the council had met, innumerable complaints of one bishop against another had been placed in his hands; so that he was satisfied that one great design he had in view was already accomplished: for this fact showed that already they regarded him as the ultimate judge--the real source of all authority in the Church (instead of Christ), as truly as he was in the state. All of these complaints, therefore, he publicly burned in their presence, with a solemn oath that he had not read any of them, and he said, "It is the command of Christ that he who desires to be himself forgiven, must first forgive his brother."

But the very strongest proof that the emperor was lying, was the fact that he made oath to his statement; and perhaps there was not a thing named in any of the complaints, that could give him a hold upon any bishop, that was not carefully preserved.