In the year 317 a storm arose in Egypt which spread its ravages over the whole Christian world. The ground of this controversy was the doctrine of three persons in the Godhead, which during the three preceding centuries had not been in all respects defined. The doctors explained this subject in different ways, and gave various representations of the difference between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, without offence being taken.
Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria—it is uncertain on what occasion—expressed himself very freely on this subject in a meeting of his presbyters, and maintained, among other things, that the Son possesses not only the same dignity as the Father, but also the same essence. But Arius, one of the presbyters, a man of an acute mind and fluent, at first denied the truth of Alexander's positions, on the ground that they were allied to the Sabellian errors, which were condemned by the Church; and then, going to the opposite extreme, he maintained that the Son is totally and essentially distinct from the Father; that he was only the first and noblest of those created beings whom God the Father formed out of nothing, and the instrument which the Father used in creating the material universe, and therefore that he was inferior to the Father both in nature and in dignity. No one of the ancients has left us a connected and systematic account of the religion professed by Arius and his associates.
The opinions of Arius were no sooner divulged than they found very many abettors, and among them men of distinguished talents and rank, both in Egypt and the neighboring provinces. Alexander, on the other hand, accused Arius of blasphemy before two councils assembled at Alexandria, and cast him out of the Church. He was not discouraged by this disgrace; but retiring to Palestine he wrote various letters to men of distinction, in which he labored to demonstrate the truth of his doctrines, and with so much success that he drew over immense numbers to his side, and in particular Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, who was a man of vast influence. The emperor Constantine, who considered the discussion as relating to a matter of little importance and remote from the fundamentals of religion, at first addressed the disputants by letter, admonishing them to desist from contention. But when he found that nothing was effected by this measure, and that greater commotion was daily rising throughout the empire, he in the year 325 summoned that famous council of the whole Church which met at Nice in Bithynia, to put an end to this controversy. In this council, after various altercations and conflicts of the bishops, the doctrine of Arius was condemned, Christ was pronounced to be of the same essence with the Father, Arius was sent into exile in Illyricum, and his followers were compelled to assent to a creed or confession of faith composed by the council.
No part of church history, perhaps, has acquired more celebrity than this assembly of bishops at Nice to settle the affairs of the Church; and yet it is very singular that scarcely any part of ecclesiastical history has been investigated and explained more negligently. The ancient writers are not agreed as to the time and year, nor the place, nor the number of the judges, nor the president of this council, nor as to many other particulars. No written journal of the proceedings of this venerable tribunal was kept—at least none has reached us. How many and what canons or ecclesiastical laws were enacted is not agreed on by the Eastern and Western Christians. The latter tell us they were only twenty in number, but the orientals make them far more numerous. From the canons universally received, and from the other monuments of the council, it appears not only that Arius was condemned, but that other things were decreed, with a view to settle the affairs of the Church. In particular, the controversy respecting the time of celebrating Easter, which had long perplexed Christians, was terminated; the jurisdiction of the greater bishops was defined, and several other matters of a like nature were determined.
But the passions of men were more efficient than either the decrees of the Nicene Council or the authority of the Emperor; for there were those who, though they did not fall in with the doctrine of Arius, yet were dissatisfied with some things in the decrees and the creed of the council, and the Arians left no means untried to free themselves from the evils inflicted on them by those decrees. And the issue was favorable to their wishes; for in a few years after the Nicene Council an Arian presbyter whom Constantia, the Emperor's sister, at her death had recommended to the care of her brother, succeeded in persuading Constantine the Great that Arius had been wrongfully condemned from personal enmity. Accordingly, in the year 330, the Emperor recalled Arius from exile, rescinded the decrees passed against his associates and friends, and permitted Eusebius of Nicomedia, the principal supporter of Arius, and his powerful faction, now thirsting for revenge, to persecute the defenders of the Nicene Council. They assailed no one more fiercely than Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria. When he could in no way be brought to restore Arius to his former honors and ecclesiastical standing, Athanasius was first deprived of his office, in a council held at Tyre, a.d. 335, and then banished to Gaul, while in the same year, by a numerous council held at Jerusalem, Arius and his friends were solemnly admitted to the communion of the Church. But by none of these proceedings could the Alexandrians be induced to receive Arius among their presbyters. Accordingly the Emperor called him to Constantinople, in the year 336, and ordered Alexander, the bishop of that city, to open the doors of his church to him. But before that could take place Arius died at Constantinople in a tragical manner;[49] and the Emperor himself closed life shortly after.
After the death of Constantine the Great, one of his sons, Constantius, the Emperor of the East, with his wife and his court, was very partial to the Arian cause, but Constantine and Constans supported in the western parts, where they governed, the decisions of the Nicene Council. Hence the broils, the commotions, the plots, the injuries had neither measure nor bounds, and on both sides councils were assembled to oppose councils. Constans died in the year 350, and two years afterward a great part of the West, particularly Italy and Rome, came under the dominion of his brother Constantius. This revolution was most disastrous to the friends of the Nicene Council; for this Emperor, being devoted to the Arians, involved the others in numerous evils and calamities, and by threats and punishments compelled many of them to apostatize to that sect to which he was himself attached. The Nicene party made no hesitation to return the same treatment as soon as time, place, and opportunity were afforded them, and the history of Christianity under Constantius presents the picture of a most stormy period, and of a war among brethren which was carried on without religion or justice or humanity.
On the death of Constantius, in the year 362, the prosperous days of the Arians were at an end. Julian had no partiality for either, and therefore patronized neither the Arians nor the orthodox. Jovian espoused the orthodox sentiments, and therefore all the West, with no small part of the East, rejecting Arian views, reverted to the doctrines of the Nicene Council. But the scene was changed under the two brothers Valentinian and Valens, who were advanced to the government of the Empire in the year 364. Valentinian adhered to the decisions at Nice, and therefore in the West the Arian sect, a few churches excepted, was wholly extirpated. Valens, on the contrary, took sides with the Arians, and hence in the eastern provinces many calamities befell the orthodox. But when this Emperor had fallen in a war with the Goths, a.d. 378, Gratian—who succeeded Valentinian in the West, in the year 376, and became master of the whole empire in 378—restored peace to the orthodox. After him Theodosius the Great, by depriving the Arians of all their churches and enacting severe laws against them, caused the decisions of the Nicene Council to triumph everywhere, and none could any longer publicly profess Arian doctrines except among the barbarous nations, the Goths, the Vandals, and the Burgundians. That there were great faults on both sides in this long and violent contest no candid person can deny, but which party was guilty of the greatest wrong it is difficult to say.
The Arians would have done much more harm to the Church if they had not become divided among themselves, after the Nicene Council, and split into sects which could not endure each other. Unhappily the Arian contests produced, as was very natural, some new sects. Some persons, while eager to avoid and to confute the opinions of Arius, fell into opinions equally dangerous. Others, after treading in the footsteps of Arius, ventured on far beyond him and became still greater errorists. The human mind, weak and subject to the control of the senses and the imagination, seldom exerts all its energies to comprehend divine subjects in such a manner as to be duly guarded against extremes. In the former class I would reckon Apollinaris the Younger, bishop of Laodicea, though otherwise a man of great merit, and one who in various ways rendered important service to the Church. He manfully asserted the divinity of Christ against the Arians, but by philosophizing too freely and too eagerly he almost set aside the human nature of the Saviour. This great man was led astray, not merely by the ardor of debate, but likewise by his immoderate attachment to the Platonic doctrine concerning a twofold soul, from which if the divines of the age had been free they would have formed more wise and more correct judgments on many points. The doctrine of Apollinaris met the approbation of many in nearly all the eastern provinces, and, being explained in different ways, it became a source of new sects. But as it was assailed by the laws of the emperors, the decrees of councils, and the writings of learned men, it gradually sunk under these united assaults.
At the head of those whom the contests with Arius led into still greater errors may undoubtedly be placed Photinus, bishop of Sirmium, who in the year 343 advanced opinions concerning God equally remote from those of the orthodox and those of the Arians. The temerity of the man was chastened not only by the orthodox, in their councils of Antioch in 345, of Milan in 347, and of Sirmium, but also by the Arians in a council held at Sirmium in 351. He was deprived of his office, and died in exile in the year 372. After him Macedonius, bishop of Constantinople, a distinguished semi-Arian teacher, being deprived of his office by the Council of Constantinople, in the year 360, in his exile founded the sect of the Pneumatomachi. He openly professed that the Holy Spirit is a divine energy diffused throughout the universe, and not a person distinct from the Father and the Son. This doctrine was embraced by many in the Asiatic provinces; but the Council of Constantinople, assembled by Theodosius the Great, in the year 381, and which is commonly considered as the second ecumenical council, early dissipated by its authority this young and immature sect. One hundred and fifty bishops present in this council defined fully and perfectly the doctrine of three persons and one God, as it is still professed by the great body of Christians, which the Nicene Council had only in part performed. They also anathematized all the heresies then known.