His first letters to this purpose were mild and gentle,[[105]] but he was soon persuaded by his clergy into more violent measures; for out of his great zeal to extinguish heresy, he put forth public edicts, against the authors and maintainers of it; and particularly against the Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionists, and others, whom after reproaching “with being enemies of truth, destructive counsellors, and with holding opinions suitable to their crimes,” he deprives of the liberty of meeting together for worship, either in public or private places, and gives all their oratories to the orthodox church. And with respect to the Arians,[[106]] he banished Arius himself,[[107]] ordered all his followers, as absolute enemies of Christ, to be called Porphyrians, from [[R]]Porphyrius, an heathen, who wrote against Christianity; ordained that the books written by them should be burnt, that there might be no remains of their doctrine left to posterity; and most cruelly commanded, that if ever any one should dare to keep in his possession any book written by Arius, and should not immediately burn it, he should be no sooner convicted of the crime but he should suffer death. He afterwards put forth a fresh edict against the recusants, by which he took from them their places of worship, and prohibited not only their meeting in public, but even in any private houses whatsoever.
Thus the orthodox first brought in the punishment of heresy with death,[[108]] and persuaded the emperor to destroy those whom they could not easily convert. The scriptures were now no longer the rule and standard of the Christian faith. Orthodoxy and heresy were from henceforward to be determined by the decisions of councils and fathers, and religion to be propagated no longer by the apostolic methods of persuasion, forbearance, and the virtues of an holy life, but by imperial edicts and decrees; and heretical gainsayers not to be convinced, that they might be brought to the acknowledgment of the truth and be saved, but to be persecuted and destroyed. It is no wonder, that after this there should be a continual fluctuation of the public faith, just as the prevailing parties had the imperial authority to support them, or that we should meet with little else in ecclesiastical history but violence and cruelties committed by men who had left the simplicity of the Christian faith and profession, enslaved themselves to ambition and avarice, and had before them the ensnaring views of temporal grandeur, high preferments, and large revenues. “Since the time that avarice hath encreased in the churches,” says [[S]]St. Jerome,[[109]] “the law is perished from the priest, and the vision from the prophet. Whilst all contend for the episcopal power, which they unlawfully seize on without the church’s leave, they apply to their own uses all that belongs to the Levites. The miserable priest begs in the streets—they die with hunger who are commanded to bury others. They ask for mercy who are commanded to have mercy on others—the priests’ only care is to get money—hence hatreds arise through the avarice of the priests; hence the bishops are accused by their clergy; hence the quarrels of the prelates; hence the causes of desolations; hence the rise of their wickedness.” Religion and Christianity seem indeed to be the least thing that either the contending parties had at heart, by the infamous methods they took to establish themselves and ruin their adversaries.
If one reads the complaints of the orthodox writers against the Arians, one would think the Arians the most execrable set of men that ever lived, they being loaded with all the crimes that can possibly be committed, and represented as bad, or even worse, than the devil himself. But no wise man will easily credit these accounts, which the orthodox give of their enemies, because, as Socrates tells us,[[110]] “This was the practice of the bishops towards all they deposed, to accuse and pronounce them impious, but not to tell others the reasons why they accused them as such.” It was enough for their purpose to expose them to the public odium, and make them appear impious to the multitude, that so they might get them expelled from their rich sees, and be translated to them in their room. And this they did as frequently as they could, to the introducing infinite calamities and confusions into the Christian church. And if the writings of the Arians had not been prudently destroyed, I doubt not but we should have found as many charges laid by them, with equal justice, against the orthodox, as the orthodox have produced against them; their very suppression of the Arian writings being a very strong presumption against them, and the many imperial edicts of Constantine, Theodosius, Valentinian, Martian, and others, against heretics, being an abundant demonstration that they had a deep share in the guilt of persecution.
Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, in his letter to the bishop of Constantinople,[[111]] complains that Arius and others, desirous of power and riches, did day and night invent calumnies, and were continually exciting seditions and persecutions against him; and Arius in his turn, in his letter to Eusebius, of Nicomedia, with too much justice charges pope Alexander with violently persecuting and oppressing him upon account of what he called the truth, and using every method to ruin him, driving him out of the city as an atheistical person, for not agreeing with him in his sentiments about the Trinity. Athanasius also bitterly exclaims against the cruelty of the Arians, in his Apology for his flight.[[112]] “Whom have they not,” says he, “used with the greatest indignity that they have been able to lay hold of? Who hath ever fallen into their hands, that they have had any spite against, whom they have not so cruelly treated, as either to murder or to maim him? What place is there where they have not left the monuments of their barbarity? What church is there which doth not lament their treachery against their bishops?” After this passionate exclamation he mentions several bishops they had banished or put to death, and the cruelties they made use of to force the orthodox to renounce the faith, and to subscribe to the truth of the Arian doctrines. But might it not have been asked, who was it that first brought in excommunications, depositions, banishments, and death, as the punishments of heresy? Could not the Arians recriminate with justice? Were they not reproached as atheists, anathematized, expelled their churches, exiled, and made liable to the punishment of death by the orthodox? Did not even they who complained of the cruelty of the Arians in the most moving terms, create numberless confusions and slaughters by their violent intrusions into the sees of their adversaries? Was not Athanasius himself also accused to the emperor, by many bishops and clergymen, who declared themselves orthodox, of being the author of all the seditions and disturbances in the church,[[113]] by excluding great multitudes from the public services of it; of murdering some, putting others in chains, punishing others with stripes and whippings, and of burning churches? And if the enemies of Athanasius[[114]] endeavoured to ruin him by suborned witnesses and false accusations, Athanasius himself used the same practices to destroy his adversaries; and particularly Eusebius of Nicomedia, by spiriting up a woman to charge Eusebius with illicit connections, the falsehood of which was detected at the council of Tyre. His very ordination also to the bishopric of Alexandria, was censured as clandestine and illegal. These things being reported to Constantine,[[115]] he ordered a synod to meet at Cæsarea in Palestine, of which place Eusebius Pamphilus was bishop, before whom Athanasius refused to appear. But after the council was removed to Tyre, he was obliged by force to come thither, and commanded to answer to the several crimes objected against him. Some of them he cleared himself of, and as to others he desired more time for his vindication. At length, after many sessions, both his accusers, and the multitude who were present in the council, demanded his deposition as an impostor, a violent man, and unworthy the priesthood. Upon this, Athanasius fled from the synod; after which they condemned him, and deprived him of his bishopric, and ordered he should never more enter Alexandria, to prevent his exciting tumults and seditions. They also wrote to all the bishops to have no communion with him, as one convicted of many crimes, and as having convicted himself by his flight of many others, to which he had not answered. And for this their procedure they assigned these reasons; that he despised the emperor’s orders, by not coming to Cæsarea; that he came with a great number of persons to Tyre, and excited tumults and disturbances in the council, sometimes refusing to answer to the crimes objected against him, at other times reviling all the bishops; sometimes not obeying their summons, and at others refusing to submit to their judgment; that he was fully and evidently convicted of breaking in pieces the sacred cup, by six bishops who had been sent into Egypt to inquire out the truth. Athanasius, however, appealed to Constantine,[[116]] and prayed him, that he might have the liberty of making his complaints in the presence of his judges. Accordingly Eusebius of Nicomedia, and other bishops came to Constantinople, where Athanasius was; and in an hearing before the emperor, they affirmed that the council of Tyre had done justly in the cause of Athanasius, produced their witnesses as to the breaking of the sacred cup, and laid many other crimes to his charge. And though Athanasius seems to have had the liberty he desired of confronting his accusers, yet he could not make his innocence appear: for notwithstanding he had endeavoured to prejudice the emperor against what they had done, yet he confirmed their transactions, commended them as a set of wise and good bishops, censured Athanasius as a seditious, insolent, injurious person, and banished him to Treves, in France. And when the people of Alexandria, of Athanasius’s party, tumultuously cried out for his return, Antony the Great, a monk, wrote often to the emperor in his favour. The emperor in return wrote to the Alexandrians, and charged them with madness and sedition, and commanded the clergy and nuns to be quiet; affirming he could not alter his opinion, nor recall Athanasius, “being condemned by an ecclesiastical judgment as an exciter of sedition.” He also wrote to the monk, telling him it was impossible “he should disregard the sentence of the council,” because that though a few might pass judgment through hatred or affection, yet it was not probable that such a large number of famous and good bishops should be of such a sentiment and disposition; for that Athanasius was an injurious and insolent man, and the cause of discord and sedition.
Indeed Athanasius, notwithstanding his sad complaints under persecution, and his expressly calling it a diabolical invention,[[117]] yet seems to be against it only when he and his own party were persecuted, but not against persecuting the enemies of orthodoxy. In his letter to Epictetus, bishop of Corinth, he saith,[[118]] “I wonder that your piety hath suffered these things,” (viz. the heresies he had before mentioned) “and that you did not immediately put those heretics under restraint, and propose the true faith to them; that if they would not forbear to contradict they might be declared heretics; for it is not to be endured that these things should be either said or heard amongst Christians.” And in another place[[119]] he says “that they ought to be had in universal hatred for opposing the truth;” and comforts himself, that the emperor, upon due information, would put a stop to their wickedness, and that they would not be long lived. And to mention no more, “I therefore exhort you,” says he,[[120]] “let no one be deceived; but as though the Jewish impiety was prevailing over the faith of Christ, be ye all zealous in the Lord. [[121]]And let every one hold fast the faith he hath received from the fathers, which also the fathers met together at Nice declared in writing, and endure none of those who may attempt to make any innovations therein.” It is needless to produce more instances of this kind; whosoever gives himself the trouble of looking over any of the writings of this father, will find in them the most furious invectives against the Arians, and that he studiously endeavours to represent them in such colours, as might render them the abhorrence of mankind, and excite the world to their utter extirpation.
I write not these things out of any aversion to the memory, or peculiar principles of Athanasius. Whether I agree with him, or differ from him in opinion, I think myself equally obliged to give impartially the true account of him. And as this which I have given of him is drawn partly from history, and partly from his own writings, I think I cannot be justly charged with misrepresenting him. To speak plainly, I think that Athanasius was a man of a haughty and inflexible temper, and more concerned for victory and power, than for truth, religion, or peace. The word “consubstantial,” that was inserted into the Nicene creed,[[122]] and the anathema denounced against all who would or could not believe in it, furnished matter for endless debates. Those who were against it, censured as blasphemers those who used it; and as denying the proper subsistence of the Son, and as falling into the Sabellian heresy. The consubstantialists, on the other side, reproached their adversaries as heathens, and with bringing in the polytheism of the Gentiles. And though they equally denied the consequences which their respective principles were charged with, yet as the orthodox would not part with the word “consubstantial,” and the Arians could not agree to the use of it, they continued their unchristian reproaches and accusations of each other. Athanasius would yield to no terms of peace, nor receive any into communion, who would not absolutely submit to the decisions of the fathers of Nice. In his letter to Johannes and Antiochus[[123]] he exhorts them to hold fast the confession of those fathers, and “to reject all who should speak more or less than was contained in it.” And in his first oration against the Arians he declares in plain terms,[[124]] “That the expressing a person’s sentiments in the words of scripture was no sufficient proof of orthodoxy, because the devil himself used scripture words to cover his wicked designs upon our Saviour; and even farther, that heretics were not to be received, though they made use of the very expressions of orthodoxy itself.” With one of so suspicious and jealous a nature there could scarce be any possible terms of peace; it being extremely unlikely, that without some kind allowances, and mutual abatements, so wide a breach could ever be compromised. Even the attempts of Constantine himself to soften Athanasius, and reconcile him to his brethren, had no other influence upon him, than to render him more imperious and obstinate; for after Arius had given in such a confession of his faith as satisfied the emperor,[[125]] and expressly denied many of the principles he had been charged with, and thereupon humbly desired the emperor’s interposition, that he might be restored to the communion of the church; Athanasius, out of hatred to his enemy, flatly denied the emperor’s request, and told him, that it was impossible for those who had once rejected the faith, and were anathematized, ever to be wholly restored. This so provoked the emperor that he threatened to depose and banish him, unless he submitted to his order;[[126]] which he shortly after did, by sending him into France, upon an accusation of several bishops, who, as Socrates intimates, were worthy of credit, that he had said he would stop the corn that was yearly sent to Constantinople from the city of Alexandria. To such an height of pride was this bishop now arrived, as even to threaten the sequestration of the revenues of the empire. Constantine also apprehended, that this step was necessary to the peace of the church, because Athanasius absolutely refused to communicate with Arius and his followers.
Soon after these transactions Arius died,[[127]] and the manner of his death, as it was reported by the orthodox, Athanasius thinks of itself sufficient fully to condemn the Arian heresy, and an evident proof that it was hateful to God. Nor did Constantine himself long survive him; he was succeeded by his three sons, Constantine, Constantius, and Constans. Constantine the eldest recalled Athanasius from banishment,[[128]] and restored him to his bishopric; upon which account[[129]] there arose most grievous quarrels and seditions, many being killed, and many publicly whipped by Athanasius’s order, according to the accusations of his enemies. Constantius, after his elder brother’s death, convened a synod at Antioch in Syria, where Athanasius was again deposed for these crimes, and Gregory put into the see of Alexandria. In this council a new creed was drawn up,[[130]] in which the word “consubstantial” was wholly omitted,[[131]] and the expressions made use of so general, as that they might have been equally agreed to by the orthodox and Arians. In the close of it several anathemas were added, and particularly upon all who should teach or preach otherwise than what this council had received, because, as they themselves say, “they did really believe and follow all things delivered by the holy scriptures, both prophets and apostles.” So that now the whole Christian world was under a synodical curse, the opposite councils having damned one another, and all that differed from them. And if councils, as such, have any authority to anathematize all who will not submit to them, this authority equally belongs to every council; and therefore it was but a natural piece of revenge, that as the council of Nice had sent all the Arians to the devil, the Arians, in their turn, should take the orthodox along with them for company, and thus repay one anathema with another.
Constantius himself was warmly on the Arian side, and favoured the bishops of that party only, and ejected Paul the orthodox bishop from the see of Constantinople, as a person altogether unworthy of it, Macedonius being substituted in his room.[[132]] Macedonius was in a different scheme, or at least expressed himself in different words both from the orthodox and Arians,[[133]] and asserted, that the Son was not consubstantial, but ὁμοιουσιος, not of the same, but a like substance with the Father; and openly propagated his opinion, after he had thrust himself into the bishopric of Paul.[[134]] This the orthodox party highly resented, opposing Hermogenes, whom Constantius had sent to introduce him; and in their rage burnt down his house, and drew him round the streets by his feet till they had murdered him. But notwithstanding the emperor’s orders were thus opposed, and his officers killed by the orthodox party, he treated them with great lenity, and in this instance punished them much less than their insolence and fury deserved. Soon after this, Athanasius and Paul[[135]] were restored again to their respective sees; and upon Athanasius’s entering Alexandria great disturbances arose, which were attended with the destruction of many persons, and Athanasius accused of being the author of all those evils. Soon after Paul’s return to Constantinople he was banished from thence again by the emperor’s order, and Macedonius re-entered into possession of that see, upon which occasion 3150 persons were murdered, some by the soldiers, and others by being pressed to death by the croud. Athanasius,[[136]] also, soon followed him into banishment, being accused of selling the corn which Constantine the Great had given for the support of the poor of the church of Alexandria, and putting the money in his own pocket; and being therefore threatened by Constantius with death. But they were both, a little while after, recalled by Constans, then banished again by Constantius; and Paul, as some say, murdered by his enemies the Arians, as he was carrying into exile; though, as Athanasius himself owns,[[137]] the Arians expressly denied it, and said that he died of some distemper. Macedonius having thus gotten quiet possession of the see of Constantinople, prevailed with the emperor to publish a law,[[138]] by which those of the consubstantial, or orthodox party, were driven, not only out of the churches but cities too, and many of them compelled to communicate with the Arians by stripes and torments, by proscriptions and banishments, and other violent methods of severity. Upon the banishment of Athanasius,[[139]] whom Constantius, in his letter to the citizens of Alexandria, calls “an impostor, a corrupter of men’s souls, a disturber of the city, a pernicious fellow, one convicted of the worst crimes, not to be expiated by his suffering death ten times;” George was put into the see of Alexandria, whom the emperor, in the same letter, stiles “a most venerable person,[[140]] and the most capable of all men to instruct them in heavenly things;” though Athanasius, in his usual style, calls him “an idolater and hangman, and one capable of all violences, rapines, and murders;” and whom he actually charges with committing the most impious actions and outrageous cruelties. Thus, as Socrates observes,[[141]] was the church torn in pieces by a civil war for the sake of Athanasius and the word “consubstantial.”
The truth is, that the Christian clergy were now become the chief incendiaries and disturbers of the empire, and the pride of the bishops, and the fury of the people on each side were grown to such an height, as that there scarce ever was an election or restoration of a bishop in the larger cities, but it was attended with slaughter and blood. Athanasius was several times banished and restored, at the expense of blood; the orthodox were deposed, and the Arians substituted in their room, with the murder of thousands; and as the controversy was now no longer about the plain doctrines of uncorrupted Christianity, but about power and dominion, high preferments, large revenues, and secular honours; agreeably hereto, the bishops were introduced into their churches,[[142]] and placed on their thrones, by armed soldiers, and paid no regard to the ecclesiastical rules, or the lives of their flocks, so they could get possession, and keep out their adversaries: and when once they were in, they treated those who differed from them without moderation or mercy, turning them out of their churches, denying them the liberty of worship, putting them under an anathema, and persecuting them with innumerable methods of cruelty; as is evident from the accounts given by the ecclesiastical historians, of Athanasius, Macedonius, George, and others, which may be read at large, in the forementioned places. In a word, they seemed to treat one another with the same implacable bitterness and severity, as ever their common enemies, the heathens, treated them; as though they thought that persecution for conscience sake had been the distinguishing precept of the Christian religion; and that they could not more effectually recommend and distinguish themselves as the disciples of Christ, than by tearing and devouring one another. This made Julian,[[143]] the emperor, say of them, “that he found by experience, that even beasts are not so cruel to men, as the generality of Christians were to one another.”
This was the unhappy state of the church in the reign of Constantius, which affords us little more than the history of councils and creeds, differing from, and contrary to each other; bishops deposing, censuring, and anathematizing their adversaries, and the Christian people divided into factions under their respective leaders, for the sake of words they understood nothing of the sense of, and striving for victory even to bloodshed and death. Upon the succession of Julian to the empire, though the contending-parties could not unite against the common enemy, yet they were by the emperor’s clemency and wisdom kept in tolerable peace and order.[[144]] The bishops, which had been banished by Constantius his predecessor, he immediately recalled, ordered their effects, which had been confiscated, to be restored to them, and commanded that no one should injure or hurt any Christian whatsoever. And as Ammianus Marcellinus,[[145]] an heathen writer of those times, tells us, he caused the Christian bishops and people, who were at variance with each other, to come into his palace, and there admonished them, that they should every one profess their own religion, without hindrance or fear, provided they did not disturb the public peace by their divisions. This was an instance of great moderation and generosity, and a pattern worthy the imitation of all his successors.