Part 9 (1/2)
[Footnote 16: Gal. v. 19-21.]
[Sidenote: Criticism of Apollinarianism.]
The system of Apollinarius is a mighty outline whose details we can hardly even now fill in; yet as a system it is certainly a failure. His own contemporaries may have done him something less than justice, but they could not follow his daring flights of thought when they saw plain errors in his teaching. After all, Apollinarius reaches no true incarnation. The Lord is something very like us, but he is not one of us. The spirit is surely an essential part of man, and without a true human spirit he could have no true human choice or growth or life; and indeed Apollinarius could not allow him any. His work is curtailed also like his manhood, for (so Gregory of Nyssa put it) the spirit which the Lord did not a.s.sume is not redeemed. Apollinarius understood even better than Athanasius the kins.h.i.+p of true human nature to its Lord, and applied it with admirable skill to explain the incarnation as the expression of the eternal divine nature. But he did not see so well as Athanasius that sin is a mere intruder among men. It was not a hopeful age in which he lived. The world had gone a long way downhill since young Athanasius had sung his song of triumph over fallen heathenism.
Roman vice and Syrian frivolity, Eastern asceticism and Western legalism, combined to preach, in spite of Christianity, that the sinfulness of mankind is essential. So instead of following out the pregnant hint of Athanasius that sin is no true part of human nature (else were G.o.d the author of evil), Apollinarius cut the knot by refusing the Son of Man a human spirit as a thing of necessity sinful.
Too thoughtful to slur over the difficulty like Pelagius, he was yet too timid to realize the possibility of a conquest of sin by man, even though that man were Christ himself.
[Sidenote: The Apollinarians.]
Apollinarius and his school contributed not a little to the doctrinal confusion of the East. His ideas were current for some time in various forms, and are attacked in some of the later works of Athanasius; but it was not till about 375 that they led to a definite schism, marked by the consecration of the presbyter Vitalis to the bishopric of Antioch. From this time, Apollinarian bishops disputed many of the Syrian sees with Nicenes and Anomoeans. Their adherents were also scattered over Asia, and supplied one more element of discord to the noisy populace of Constantinople.
[Sidenote: Last years of Athanasius (366-373).]
The declining years of Athanasius were spent in peace. Valens had restored him in good faith, and never afterwards molested him. If Lucius the Arian returned to Alexandria to try his chance as bishop, the officials gave him no connivance--nothing but sorely needed shelter from the fury of the mob. Arianism was nearly extinct in Egypt.
[Sidenote: Athanasius and Marcellus (before 371).]
One of his last public acts was to receive an emba.s.sy from Marcellus, who was still living in extreme old age at Ancyra. Some short time before 371, the deacon Eugenius presented to him a confession on behalf of the 'innumerable mult.i.tude' who still owned Marcellus for their father. 'We are not heretics, as we are slandered. We specially anathematize Arianism, confessing, like our fathers at Nicaea, that the Son is no creature, but of the essence of the Father and co-essential with the Father; and by the Son we mean no other than the Word. Next we anathematize Sabellius, for we confess the eternity and reality of the Son and the Holy Spirit. We anathematize also the Anomoeans, in spite of their pretence not to be Arians. We anathematize finally the Arianizers who separate the Word from the Son, giving the latter a beginning at the incarnation because they do not confess him to be very G.o.d. Our own doctrine of the incarnation is that the Word did not come down as on the prophets, but truly became flesh and took a servant's form, and as regards flesh was born as a man.' There is no departure here from the original doctrine of Marcellus, for the eternity of the Son means nothing more than the eternity of the Word. The memorial, however, was successful. Though Athanasius was no Marcellian, he was as determined as ever to leave all questions open which the great council had forborne to close. The new Nicenes of Pontus, on the other hand, inherited the conservative dread of Marcellus, so that it was a sore trial to Basil when Athanasius refused to sacrifice the old companion of his exile. Even the great Alexandrian's comprehensive charity is hardly n.o.bler than his faithfulness to erring friends. Meaner men might cherish the petty jealousies of controversy, but the veterans of the great council once more recognised their fellows.h.i.+p in Christ. They were joined in life, and in death they were not divided.
[Sidenote: Death of Athanasius (373).]
Marcellus pa.s.sed away in 371, and Athanasius two years later. The victory was not yet won, the goal of half a century was still beyond the sight of men; yet Athanasius had conquered Arianism. Of his greatness we need say no more. Some will murmur of 'fanaticism' before the only Christian whose grandeur awed the scoffer Gibbon. So be it that his greatness was not unmixed with human pa.s.sion; but those of us who have seen the light of heaven s.h.i.+ning from some saintly face, or watched with kindling hearts and solemn thankfulness some mighty victory of Christian faith, will surely know that it was the spirit of another world which dwelt in Athanasius. To him more than any one we owe it that the question of Arianism did not lose itself in personalities and quibbles, but took its proper place as a battle for the central message of the gospel, which is its chief distinction from philosophy and heathenism.
[Sidenote: Extinction of the Marcellians (375).]
Instantly Alexandria was given up to the Arians, and Lucius repeated the outrages of Gregory and George. The friends of Athanasius were exiled, and his successor Peter fled to Rome. Meanwhile the school of Marcellus died away. In 375 his surviving followers addressed a new memorial to the Egyptian exiles at Sepphoris, in which they plainly confessed the eternal Sons.h.i.+p so long evaded by their master. Basil took no small offence when the exiles accepted the memorial. 'They were not the only zealous defenders of the Nicene faith in the East, and should not have acted without the consent of the Westerns and of their own bishop, Peter. In their haste to heal one schism they might cause another if they did not make it clear that the heretics had come over to them, and not they to the heretics.' This, however, was mere grumbling. Now that the Marcellians had given up the point in dispute, there was no great difficulty about their formal reconciliation. The West held out for Marcellus after his own disciples had forsaken him, so that he was not condemned at Rome till 380, nor by name till 381.
[Sidenote: Confusion of: (1) Churches.]
Meanwhile the churches of Asia seemed in a state of universal dissolution. Disorder under Constantius had become confusion worse confounded under Valens. The exiled bishops were so many centres of disaffection, and personal quarrels had full scope everywhere. Thus when Basil's brother Gregory was expelled from Nyssa by a riot got up by Anthimus of Tyana, he took refuge under the eyes of Anthimus at Doara, where a similar riot had driven out the Arian bishop. Pastoral work was carried on under the greatest difficulties. The exiles could not attend to their churches, the schemers would not, and the fever of controversy was steadily demoralizing both flocks and pastors.
[Sidenote: (2.) Creeds.]
Creeds were in the same confusion. The h.o.m.oeans as a body had no consistent principle at all beyond the rejection of technical terms, so that their doctrinal statements are very miscellaneous. They began with the indefinite Sirmian creed, but the confession they imposed on Eustathius of Sebastia was purely Macedonian. Some of their bishops were Nicenes, others Anomoeans. There was room for all in the happy family presided over by Eudoxius and his successor Demophilus. In this anarchy of doctrine, the growth of irreligious carelessness kept pace with that of party bitterness. Ecclesiastical history records no clearer period of decline than this. There is a plain descent from Athanasius to Basil, a rapid one from Basil to Theophilus and Cyril. The victors of Constantinople are but the epigoni of a mighty contest.
[Sidenote: Hopeful signs.]
Hopeful signs indeed were not entirely wanting. If the Nicene cause did not seem to gain much ground in Pontus, it was at least not losing.
While Basil held the court in check, the rising power of asceticism was declaring itself every day more plainly on his side. One schism was healed by the reception of the Marcellians; and if Apollinarius was forming another, he was at least a resolute enemy of Arianism. The submission of the Lycian bishops in 375 helped to isolate the Semiarian phalanx in Asia, and the Illyrian council held in the same year by Ambrose was the first effective help from the West. It secured a rescript of Valentinian in favour of the Nicenes; and if he did not long survive, his action was enough to show that Valens might not always be left to carry out his plans undisturbed.
CHAPTER VIII.
_THE FALL OF ARIANISM._
[Sidenote: Prospects in 375.]
The fiftieth year from the great council came and went, and brought no relief to the calamities of the churches. Meletius and Cyril were still in exile, East and West were still divided over the consecration of Paulinus, and now even Alexandria had become the prey of Lucius. The leaden rule of Valens still weighed down the East, and Valens was scarcely yet past middle life, and might reign for many years longer.
The deliverance came suddenly, and the Nicene faith won its victory in the confusion of the greatest disaster which had ever yet befallen Rome.