Arius the Libyan: A Romance of the Primitive Church

by Nathan C. Kouns

But Arius only looked upon the furious bishop with a sad and pitying smile.

Then Constantine cried out: "Answer thou the bishop!"

Then, still quietly and pleasantly, with a peculiar, mesmeric light in his somber eyes, and strange, thrilling sibilation in his penetrating voice, Arius arose and said: "By the command of Augustus I answer that I have not censured the emperor, nor condemned the council. As to my being a heretic, I only reply that, if this thing be true, it is no concern of the emperor's, who hath never been ordained to be the keeper of my conscience. It is an affair entirely between the Master--Christ--and his servant Arius. For ye all do know that there is no Roman law prescribing what we must believe or disbelieve, since the persecutors lost power to enforce obedience to their laws prescribing faith in false gods, by the infliction of tortures and death, against those who for conscience' sake refused to obey. But ye know that neither Jesus nor his apostles ever denounced, nor authorized any human being to denounce, a temporal penalty for heresy; for the Church only prescribes that ye should refuse to fellowship the obdurate heretic, or disobedient person; and I trust you far enough to believe that if any pagan emperor, or any human authority, should enact laws requiring you to believe, or to do, anything contrary to good conscience, ye would be faithful Christians enough to refuse obedience to such laws, as our fathers from the beginning have gloriously done. For this is a matter between each man and his God only; not between him and the government which exercises dominion over him. This the Church hath held from the beginning; and when the heathen laws did prescribe that ye who are here assembled should do and believe things contrary to Christ and to conscience, ye did refuse, so that every bishop here, except those eleven who come from the remotest East, hath endured tortures rather than obey the human laws. If, therefore, I be a heretic, as brother Marcellus of Ancyra ignorantly supposeth, what have the empire or its laws to do with that? Why speak ye of orthodoxy, or of heterodoxy, in a great royal, political assembly like this; unless, perhaps, some of ye are willing to believe that the great and powerful emperor is also a god, having charge of your faith and conscience, as well as of your political condition; so that what the law of Constantine shall prescribe as right to be believed and done shall be your rule of faith and practice, and not what our Lord Christ hath prescribed? For me, a poor presbyter of the Christian Church, to assume the right to deliberate upon and prescribe laws for the empire would be gross impudence and arrogance; for any human authority to usurp the right to make laws controlling the faith of Christ's Church, would be as gross a sacrilege. Was Constantine crucified for you? Or were ye baptized into his name? And do ye hope for salvation by faith in and obedience to him? I was not. I have come, therefore, hither in obedience to the imperial mandate, and have spoken by the emperor's command. As to the empire, I have no authority and no desire to make laws for it; as to my Christian faith, no man nor angel hath right or power to meddle therewith, or to prescribe laws for it. It is a thing between my soul and its Saviour, whom I have served all my life long in spite of imperial laws, and whom I will continue to serve, no matter what laws may be enacted. Brethren, will ye do likewise? or will ye now deny the Christ?"

For an instant the old man raised his tall form upright, the shaggy head sprang forward upon the long, peculiar neck, and the somber, sad eyes rested upon almost every face. Then quietly he resumed his seat.

Athanasius, Hosius, Constantine, and others, saw at the same instant that against the impregnable position taken by Arius no assault could prosper. They knew that constant and almost imperceptible steps had been necessary for years to seduce any large section of the Western Church from that very position, and that the church which Ulfilas had planted among the Goths had only been driven therefrom by the merciless use of fire and sword. They knew well that the line of demarkation between all earthly kingdoms and the kingdom of Christ in the world was clearly and unmistakably drawn, consisting not alone in faith and sentiment, but in a social and political policy which had been for three centuries the glory of Christianity, and had been so fearfully illustrated by recent persecutions under Licinius in the East, that the council could not be deluded in reference thereto; and they were seeking with anxious solicitude to find some way to avoid further discussion upon the matter, which might arouse an interest in it that would dissolve the council upon the point which the Libyan urged, that the Church could not meet in oecumenical council at the order of an emperor, and make decrees to be forced by imperial law, without forsaking Christ. Long before the bold presbyter had ceased to speak, the emperor had determined in his own mind that it was necessary to gain time for consultation and for concerted action, and especially necessary to stop the discussion of this dangerous question as to the right of a royal council to legislate for the Church of Christ--the tendency of which was obviously to separate the Church from imperialism altogether, rather than to accomplish his determined purpose of blending the Church with imperial law and make himself head of both. As soon, therefore, as the heretic sat down, at a sign from the emperor, Alexander and Hosius adjourned the council until the following day.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ABDICATION OF CONSTANTINE.

There is little doubt but upon that night so many of the council favored the views of the Libyan, that if a vote had been taken upon the point urged by him, the council would have resolved that its own organization was contrary to Christ; was an effort thoughtlessly made to put Constantine in place of Jesus at the head of the Church, and would have dissolved itself, until summoned to convene by the agreement of the bishops only. Almost the whole night was spent in anxious consultation between those bishops who were ready to maintain the freedom of the Church at any hazard, and the great heresiarch, whom they instinctively recognized as leader of the struggle in favor of religious liberty, as to the most available path of escape from the dangerous and unchristian position into which they had been led by their zeal and love for the emperor who protected the Church from persecution. Arius told them plainly that if the Church of Christ was to be governed by an oecumenical or royal council, its independence was gone; and in place of being the "kingdom of heaven" upon earth, which our Lord had organized, the Church must become a human institution--part of the empire of Constantine, or of any other prince or power to whom its members might be subject; its faith and policy dictated by Roman law, not by the word of God; its doctrines dependent upon the mutations of government, not upon the teachings of Jesus: a thing by which the cause of Christ is verily betrayed. There were none in the council who did not perceive this truth, although there were some who were for Constantine, even against Jesus himself.

During nearly the whole night, also, Hosius, Athanasius, Eustatius, Marcellus, Constantine, and others, were engaged in eager consultation, but seemed unable to find any solution of the difficulty. And the next morning Athanasius reported to the emperor that the more they had considered the matter, the more difficult and dangerous it had appeared; and that the only way to avoid serious risk of dissolving the council was to avoid all discussion upon its right to sit for the Church, and to let Arius alone as long as he might appear disposed to remain quiet. Many hearts were burdened with anxiety, and Eusebius of Cæsarea was especially oppressed with deep concern.

"And if the council when assembled shall sustain the views of Arius," he had once asked Constantine, "what then?" and the emperor had answered, "A religious war, perhaps, or a return to paganism!"