BOOK II.

FROM CONSTANTINE TO THE DEATH OF THE EMPEROR THEODOSIUS I , A.D. 313-395.

CHAPTER IV.

FROM THE DEATH OF JULIAN TO THE END OF THE SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL A.D. 363-381.

 

The forced ascendency of paganism ended with the life of its patron. On the following day Jovian, a Christian, was chosen emperor. The army declared itself Christian; the labarum, which had been disused during the reign of Julian, was again displayed at its head; the philosophers and soothsayers, who had basked in the favour of the late emperor, retired into obscurity. Jovian, however, allowed full toleration to his pagan subjects; and with respect to the divisions among Christians, he declared that he would molest no one on account of religion, but would love all who should study the church’s peace.

On his arrival at Antioch, after an ignominious, though necessary, accommodation with the Persians, and a disastrous retreat, the new emperor was beset by representatives of the various Christian parties, each hoping to gain him to its side. His mind was, however, already decided in favour of the Nicene faith; he wrote to Athanasius, requesting instruction and advice, and inviting him to visit the court. The bishop complied, and by personal intercourse he gained an influence over Jovian which his enemies in vain attempted to disturb. The Acacians, with their usual suppleness, resolved to conform to the spirit of the time. They attended a synod held by Meletius at Antioch, and signed the Nicene creed, evasively explaining co-essential as meaning “begotten of the Father’s essence, and like the Father in essence”.

The reign of Jovian lasted somewhat less than eight months; he was found dead in his bed at Dadastana, in Bithynia, on February 17, 364. On February 26 Valentinian was elected by the army as his successor, and a month later the new emperor associated with him his brother Valens, to whom he assigned the eastern division of the empire. Valentinian was possessed of many great qualities. He vigorously and successfully defended the northern frontiers against the barbarians who were pressing on the empire; he was the author of wise and important regulations for its internal governments. But the justice on which he prided himself was relentlessly severe; the manner of its execution was often inhuman, and he was subject to violent fits of passion, by one of which his death was occasioned. Valens, until elevated by his brother’s favour, had been a person of little note. His capacity was inferior to that of Valentinian; he is described by Gibbon as “rude without vigour, and feeble without mildness”.

It is said that both the brothers had exposed themselves to danger by the profession of Christianity in the reign of Julian. Valentinian, when raised to the throne, adhered to the Nicene faith; but, warned by the ill-success of Constantius in enforcing conformity, he adopted a policy of general toleration, to which a severe law against the Manichaeans is not to be regarded as an exception, since it was rather directed against the magical practices of which they were suspected, than against their erroneous opinions. He invariably declined all interference in questions of doctrine, which he professed to leave to those who had been trained for the consideration of them. He allowed Auxentius, an Arian, to retain the important see of Milan—whether deceived by the bishop's specious professions, which might have been enough to satisfy an uncritical and somewhat indifferent soldier, or swayed by the influence of the empress Justina, who was a zealous Arian. But with this exception the western sees were, during Valentinian’s reign, in the possession of orthodox bishops.

In the east it was otherwise. Valens is said to have been originally a catholic, and appears to have been alike ignorant and careless of religion; but he was won over to Arianism by his wife, who in 367, as he was about to set out for the Gothic war, persuaded him to receive baptism from Eudoxius of Constantinople. It is said that the bishop exacted of him an oath to persecute the Catholics, and it is certain that the hostility which he had always shown towards them became from that time more bitter and more active.

Macedonius, on his ejection from the see of Constantinople by the Acacians, had connected himself with the Semiarians, and, although he himself died soon after, the party thenceforth took its name from him. The Macedonians had requested Jovian either to establish the “creed of the dedication”, agreeably to the original and unbiassed decision of the council of Seleucia; or, reverting to the condition in which things had stood before the meetings at Seleucia and Rimini, to summon a general synod, which should be free from all secular control. They now obtained leave from Valens to hold a council at Lampsacus—the emperor supposing that they would agree with Eudoxius and the Acacians, who had by this time retracted their subscriptions to the Nicene creed. The bishops who met at Lampsacus, however, took up the same position with the majority of the council of Seleucia. They signed the creed of the dedication, with the word homoiousios, which they declared to be necessary for preserving the personal distinction of the Godhead; they cited Eudoxius and his party before them, and on their non-appearance sentenced them to deposition. But on applying to Valens for a confirmation of their proceedings, they found that the Acacians had preoccupied his mind, and that they were themselves condemned to deprivation and banishment unless they would subscribe an Arian creed.

The zeal which Valens soon after manifested in favour of Arianism induced the Macedonians to look towards the west for sympathy and support, and deputies were sent into Italy with letters for Valentinian and Liberius. The letters addressed to the emperor were not delivered; for the bearers, finding that he was in Gaul, did not follow him into that country. Liberius was at first distrustful of them; but on their anathematizing all heresies, and signing the homoousion (which they interpreted as equivalent to homoiousion), he acknowledged them as being in communion with him, and wrote to the bishops by whom they had been commissioned. A like recognition was obtained from other western bishops; and thus the Semiarians, with the exception ot a few who disavowed the late proceedings, were reunited with the orthodox.

In 367 Valens issued an order that such bishops as had been banished by Constantius, and had returned to their sees under Julian, should again be ejected. At Antioch, where he established his residence, he drove out Meletius, although he allowed Paulinus to remain. It was attempted under the same law to expel Athanasius, and he is said to have been driven to take refuge for a time in his father's tomb : but his people represented to the emperor that his case did not fall under the letter of the edict, and made such demonstrations of their attachment to the bishop in other ways, that Valens thought it well to permit his return. And thus, while the cause to which his life had been devoted was oppressed in all other parts of the eastern empire, the great champion of orthodoxy was allowed to spend his last years in undisturbed possession of his see.

The elder actors in the Arian controversy were now passing away. Liberius died in 366, and the succession to the see of Rome was disputed between Damasus and Ursinus, or Ursicinus. This contest, which arose out of the old rivalry between Liberius and Felix, and did not involve any question of doctrine, occasioned violent tumults, and even great slaughter. On one occasion a hundred and sixty partisans of Ursinus, men and women, were killed in the church which bore the name of Liberius (now St. Mary Major). At the end of three years Ursinus was banished to Gaul; but he repeatedly revived his claim to the bishopric of Rome, both during the lifetime of Damasus and at his death. Acacius died in 366; Hilary, in 367 or 368. The last mention of Ursacius and Valens as living is in the condemnation pronounced on them by synods at Rome and elsewhere about 369. Eudoxius of Constantinople died in 370 ; Lucifer of Cagliari, in 371; Euzoius of Antioch, in 376.

On the death of Eudoxius, Evagrius was set up as his successor by the Catholics of Constantinople, and Demophilus by the Arians; but Evagrius was soon driven out, and his adherents were subjected to a variety of outrages. A complaint of this usage was presented to Valens at Nicomedia by eighty presbyters of the orthodox party; but, instead of obtaining redress, they were compelled to embark on board a ship, which the crew (it is said, by command of one of the emperor’s officers) set on fire and deserted; and the whole company of ecclesiastics perished. Other barbarities are related of Valens—as that at Antioch he ordered many of the orthodox to be drowned in the Orontes. The monks of Egypt and Pontus were especially obnoxious to him—partly because the monastic profession afforded to many an excuse for indolence, and withdrew them from their duties to the state, and partly on account of their steady adherence to the Nicene faith and the exertion of their powerful influence in its behalf. The emperor in 373 ordered that monks should be dragged from their retreats, and should be compelled to perform their service as citizens, under the penalty of being beaten to death. The Egyptian deserts were invaded by soldiers commissioned to enforce the edict, and many of the monks suffered death in consequence.

Athanasius is supposed by the best authorities to have died in May, 373. He had designated as his successor one of his presbyters named Peter. The Arian Lucius, who had been set up as bishop after the murder of George, and had held possession of the see during the exile of Athanasius under Julian, was now brought back by his party, and Peter was driven out with circumstances of outrage and profanation similar to those which accompanied the expulsion of his great predecessor by Gregory and George. Peter took refuge at Rome, and after a time returned with letters of recommendation from the bishop, Damasus; whereupon, as Valens was then at a distance—having been diverted from theological controversies by the Gothic war—the people rose against Lucius and reinstated the orthodox bishop.

Valentinian was succeeded in 375 by his son Gratian, who had already for eight years held the dignity of Augustus. The new emperor, whose own age was only sixteen, admitted as a nominal colleague his half-brother, the younger Valentinian, a child four years old. By the death of Valens, at the disastrous battle of Adrianople, Aug. 9, Gratian became in 378 master of the whole empire; but he hastened to relieve himself of a part of his cares by bestowing the sovereignty of the east on Theodosius, son of a general of the general of the same name, whose distinguished services in Britain and in Africa had been requited by his execution at Carthage three years before. The younger Theodosius had since lived in retirement on his estates in Spain, until he was summoned to share the empire, in the hope that his abilities might avert the dangers with which it was threatened by the Gothic invaders.

Gratian, on succeeding to the dominions of Valens, proclaimed liberty of religion to all except Manichaeans, Eunomians, and Photinians, and recalled the banished bishops of the east. The Semiarians, on being thus freed from the oppression of Valens, broke off the connection which they had so eagerly formed with the orthodox; but many refused to join in this movement, and remained united to the catholic body.

It would seem to have been about this time that a denial of the Divinity of the Holy Ghost became the chief characteristic of the party. Heterodox opinions on that subject had been implied in all the varieties of Arianism; but as the nature of the Third Person in the Trinity had not been brought into discussion while the Godhead of the Son was in question, nothing had been defined respecting it in the Nicene creed. Athanasius, however, with his characteristic perception of consequences, had always strenuously asserted the equal and co-essential Godhead of the Spirit, as well as that of the Son, and, in a treatise written from the desert during his exile under Constantius, had confuted the error of the Pneumatomachi (or adversaries of the Spirit), which was then acquiring distinctness. Although the name of Macedonianism, which was afterwards attached to this heresy, would naturally convey the idea that it was invented by Macedonius, it was really nothing more than a remnant of Arianism retained by a party which had shaken off the other errors of that system; for the Semiarians now acknowledged the Godhead of the Son, while they maintained that the Spirit was as a servant—as one of the angels. Nor do we even know what opinion Macedonius himself held on the question; for it was not until some years after his death that his name was connected with the heretical tenet, through the circumstance that the Semiarians happened to be called after him at the time when this tenet became the prominent mark of their party.

In the meanwhile the Nicene faith had made progress. The consistency of its supporters stood in advantageous contrast with the continual variations of their opponents. The monks lent to it the great and growing authority of their reputation for sanctity; and, as has been mentioned, a large portion of the Semiarians adhered to the orthodox connection into which they had been driven by the tyranny of Valens. Throughout all the long controversy the belief of the great mass of Christians had been very little affected. In their pastoral teaching, as in their creeds, the Arian bishops and clergy had usually studied to observe orthodoxy of statement and language, so that their doctrine, although incomplete, was not untrue. Thus their flocks received the words in the sound meaning which was apparent on the surface, so that, according to a celebrated expression of St. Hilary, “The ears of the people were holier than the hearts of the priests”. And now, although Athanasius was gone, the great weight of ability and learning among the Christians was on the side of orthodoxy, which had lately gained a very important accession in the east. A class of theologians had arisen, who, born and educated in countries where Semiarianism prevailed, had in their earlier years been connected with that system—trained up according to its sound though imperfect creeds, in such a manner that one of them, when he had become an eminent champion of the Nicene doctrine, could yet speak of his opinions as having undergone no other change than a development like that of the plant from the seed. The members of this school maintained the identity of homoousion with homoiousion they brought with them into the orthodox communion many of their old associations; and through their influence it was that several Semiarians came to be acknowledged by the church as saints, and that the canons of the Semiarian councils of Antioch (A.D. 341) and Laodicea (A.D. 372?) gained a reception in the east, which was eventually extended to the west. The most distinguished of the “later Nicene” teachers were three Cappadocians—Basil, his brother Gregory of Nyssa, and his friend Gregory of Nazianzus or Nazianzum. Of these eminent men the first and the last must be here more particularly noticed.

Basil and the Nazianzen Gregory were born about the same time—probably in the year 329. Basil was of a noble Christian family. The father of Gregory had belonged to a sect known by the name of hypsistarians, whose creed was a strange medley of Jewish and Persian notions he had been converted by his wife Nonna, a woman of remarkable piety, and had been appointed to the bishopric of Nazianzum, a poor diocese, which had fallen into great disorder in consequence of long vacancy and neglect. An acquaintance formed between the youths at the schools of Caesarea, in their native province, ripened into the closest intimacy at Athens, where they spent several years. They were distinguished in all the studies of that city, and withstood the influences by which many who, like themselves had been trained in the Christian faith, were there drawn away to heathenism. During a part of the time Julian was their fellow-student; and Gregory professes to have already observed in the future emperor indications of the evil which was manifested in his later career. Both Basil and Gregory resolved to renounce the hopes of secular eminence, and to embrace a religious life. Each was baptized after leaving Athens, and Gregory promised at the font to devote all his gifts and powers to the service of God. Basil, after having travelled in Egypt and elsewhere, returned to his native country, and became one of the clergy of Caesarea. He withdrew for five years into the desert of Pontus, where he founded monastic establishments, monachism having been lately introduced into that country by Eustathius, bishop of Sebaste. The system which Basil adopted was the caenobitic (or that of living in communities) as being in his judgment more conducive to the exercise of graces than the solitary life, which in Egypt had been regarded as the higher of the two. "God," he said, "has made us—even like the bodily members—to need one another's help. For what discipline of humility, of pity, or of patience can there be, if there be no one towards whom these virtues can be practised? Whose feet wilt thou wash, whom wilt thou serve, how canst thou be the last of all—if thou art alone?". In his rule practical industry was combined with religious exercises, and by the labours of his monks a barren tract was brought into cultivation and fertility. Basil returned to Caesarea in 362, and was ordained presbyter; but after a short time he again retired into the desert for three years, in consequence of some unexplained jealousy on the part of his bishop, Eusebius. In each of his retreats he was accompanied for a time by Gregory, who, however, was on both occasions called away by disagreements between his father and the monks of Nazianzum, originating in the circumstance that the aged bishop had been induced to sign the creed of Rimini. Gregory by his ascetic life had gained a powerful influence over the monks; he convinced them that his father had been deceived through ignorance of controversial subtleties, and had acted without any heretical intention; and he twice succeeded in establishing peace. He also reconciled Basil with Eusebius; and on that bishop's death he effected the promotion of his friend to the see of Caesarea, to which was attached the primacy of the greater part of Asia Minor.

The indefatigable labours of Basil, his controversies, his endeavours to unite the orthodox among themselves, to gain over sectaries to the church, and to establish peace between the east and the west, must be passed over with a mere allusion. During the short time between his elevation and the death of Athanasius he enjoyed the confidence of that great prelate; and he succeeded the Alexandrian bishop as leader of the eastern orthodox. Like Athanasius, he was able to preserve his church from the Arianism which was triumphant throughout the east during the reign of Valens. While a presbyter under Eusebius, he had baffled the theologians of the emperor's train in disputation; but soon after his advancement to the episcopate a fresh attempt was made on him. Valens, determined that Caesarea alone should not continue to resist him, sent Modestus, prefect of Cappadocia, with a commission to expel Basil if he should refuse to conform to the dominant religion, and Modestus summoned the archbishop to appear before him. To his threats Basil replied that he did not fear them; confiscation, he said, could not touch a man who had no property except a single suit of ragged clothes and a few books; as for banishment, he denied that such a thing was possible—go where he might, he could find a home, or rather he regarded the whole earth as God’s, and himself as a stranger everywhere; his feeble body could bear no tortures beyond the first stroke; and death would be a favour, since it would conduct him to God. The prefect, who had opened the conference in a very peremptory tone, was subdued by the archbishop’s firmness, and reported the result to his master, who soon after arrived at Caesarea. Valens himself was awed by the presence of Basil and the solemnity of the catholic worship, which he witnessed on the feast of the Epiphany, but without being admitted to communicate. The impression thus made is said to have been heightened by miracles; and not only was Basil left unmolested in his see, but the emperor bestowed a valuable estate on a large hospital which the archbishop's charity had founded.

Soon after this Valens divided Cappadocia into two provinces; whereupon Anthimus, bishop of Tyana, which became the capital of the second division, asserted that the ecclesiastical government ought to follow the arrangements of the civil, and claimed for himself the rights of a metropolitan. Finding that the claim revived some jealousies which had been felt at his election to Caesarea, Basil resolved to strengthen himself by erecting new bishoprics; and one of the places chosen for this purpose was Sasima, an outpost on the border of his opponent’s province—the meeting-place of three great roads, a posting station and the seat of a frontier custom-house; a wretched little town, dry, dusty, and continually disquieted by the brawls of waggoners, travellers, and revenue officers. Here Basil, with that disregard for the character and feelings of others which is not uncommon in persons of a strongly practical nature, determined to place Gregory, who had some years before been forcibly ordained1 a presbyter by his own father. Gregory made no secret of his repugnance to the execution of this scheme; he said that the archbishop's elevation had caused him to forget what was due to their ancient and equal friendship; he resisted until he was overpowered by the united urgency of his father and Basil; and he afterwards traced all the troubles of his later life to the consent which was at length extorted from him. After his consecration he felt himself oppressed by his high views of the episcopal responsibility, by his love for a life of contemplation, and by the sense of his unfitness to dispute his position with Anthimus. He refused to proceed to Sasima, and was then persuaded by his father to assist him in the care of Nazianzum. After the old man's death, which took place in 374, Gregory continued for some time to administer the diocese, while he endeavoured to obtain the appointment of a regular bishop; but, finding his exertions for this purpose vain, he withdrew to Seleucia, where he spent three or four years in retirement.

Theodosius, as a Spaniard, belonged to the Nicene party, but at the time of his elevation to the empire was only a catechumen. In the beginning of 380 he fell dangerously sick at Thessalonica; when he sent for the bishop of the place, and, after having ascertained his orthodoxy, received baptism at his hands. His admission to the church was followed by an edict, which was at first limited to Constantinople, but in the following year was extended to all his dominions—that those only should be acknowledged as catholic Christians who adhered to the faith of the co-essential Trinity, as it had been taught by St. Peter to the Romans, and was then held by Damasus of Rome and Peter of Alexandria; that all who denied this doctrine should be reputed as heretics and discouraged. Gratian also—at the instigation (it is supposed) of Ambrose, bishop of Milan— limited by later edicts the toleration which he had announced in 378.

In November 380, Theodosius arrived at Constantinople. About two years before, when the death of Valens appeared to open a new prospect to the orthodox, Gregory of Nazianzum had been induced by Basil and other leaders of the party to undertake a mission to that capital. He entered on the enterprise with much distrust of his qualifications. Arianism was in great strength at Constantinople, where the see had for nearly forty years been filled by its partisans. The Novatianists had some churches; the Apollinarians were gaining a footing in the city; but the orthodox were very few, and even these were divided among themselves by sympathy with the opposite parties in the schism of Antioch. Gregory was obliged at first to officiate in the house of a relation—which, from the resurrection (anastasis) of the true faith, acquired the name of Anastasia, and was afterwards enlarged into a splendid church. At the outset he had to encounter much prejudice. His austere, simple, and recluse life appeared in unpopular contrast with the free and secular habits of the Arian clergy. His doctrine was regarded as polytheistic. He was repeatedly assaulted by the populace, and by the staff of the Arian establishment—monks, virgins, and beggars; he was stoned, he was carried before magistrates as a disturber of the peace, his church was invaded by night and profaned. But he persevered in his mission, and, although the object of it was controversial, he earnestly endeavoured to counteract in his hearers the prevailing habit of familiarly discussing the highest mysteries of religion—exhorting them “not to make a sport of the things of God, as if they were matters of the theatre or of the race-course”. By degrees, his eloquence, the practical and religious tone of his doctrinal teaching, and the influence of his mild and serious character, began to tell, so that the little Anastasia became unable to contain the crowds which resorted to it. The progress of this success had, indeed, been slightly interrupted by one Maximus, an Egyptian, who had formerly been a cynic philosopher. This man, after having insinuated himself into Gregory’s confidence, was ordained bishop in a disorderly manner by some emissaries of Peter of Alexandria, although Peter had before approved of Gregory's mission. But the pretender was rejected by the people, and in vain endeavoured to find support from the emperor and from the bishop of Rome.

On his arrival at Constantinople, Theodosius summoned before him the Arian bishop, Demophilus, and required him to subscribe the Nicene creed, on pain of deprivation. Demophilus assembled his flock, and reminded them of the Saviour's charge “when persecuted in one city to flee to another”. The Arians were forthwith turned out of all the churches, and began to hold their meetings without the walls of the capital. A few days after this, Theodosius formally put Gregory into possession of the principal church of Constantinople. The morning was gloomy, Gregory was suffering from illness, and, as the procession passed through streets lined with troops, he was dismayed by the thought that a bishop should need such a protection against his own flock. But at the moment of his entrance into the choir, a sudden burst of sunshine lighted up the building, and the people, catching enthusiasm from the change, cried out that the emperor should place him on the episcopal throne. Gregory, however, declined to take his seat, and feeling himself, from agitation and bodily weakness, unable to address the congregation, he employed the voice of another to speak for him—“Now it is time to acknowledge the benefits which the blessed Trinity has bestowed on us; but of the throne we will consider hereafter”. Such was the exasperation of the Arians that attempts were made to assassinate him.

Theodosius proceeded to assemble a council, which met at Constantinople on May 2, 381. It was composed of oriental bishops only; but its decrees were afterwards gradually received throughout the west, and it is consequently acknowledged as the second general council. A hundred and fifty orthodox prelates attended. Among them were Meletius, Gregory of Nyssa (whose brother Basil had died in the preceding year), and Cyril of Jerusalem, who had formerly been connected with the Semiarian party. The Macedonians had been invited, in the hope that they might renew the union which they had formed with the Catholics in the reign of Valens; but, although thirty-six of them appeared in answer to the summons, it was found that they would not submit to a reconciliation.

The earlier sessions were held under the presidency of Meletius, to whom the see of Antioch had lately been adjudged by an imperial commissary; and by him, after an examination of the pretensions of Maximus, Gregory was solemnly enthroned as bishop of Constantinople. But Meletius died while the council was sittings and deplorable dissensions followed. With a view to healing the schisms which had so long afflicted the church of Antioch, six of its clergy, who were regarded as the most likely to be raised to the episcopate, had lately entered into an engagement, which is said to have been even ratified by an oath, that on the death of either Paulinus or Meletius, they would acknowledge the survivor as rightful bishop; but a jealousy which had arisen between the Asiatic bishops and those of Egypt and the west now interfered with the execution of this arrangement. The Asiatics objected to Paulinus as having been ordained by a Latin, Lucifer, and as being connected with the Latin party; and, notwithstanding the earnest remonstrances of Gregory, now president of the council, whose natural inclination towards the Meletian party was overpowered by his desire of peace and by his sense of the impropriety of the proceeding—they consecrated Flavian, one of the six who are represented as having bound themselves to renounce their pretensions to the see.

Timothy, who had just succeeded his brother Peter at Alexandria, soon after arrived, with a train of bishops. The Egyptians were offended at not having been earlier summoned to the council, and were greatly exasperated by the late proceedings. They resolved once more to set up their countryman Maximus, and to depose Gregory, under the pretext that his appointment to Constantinople was in breach of a Nicene canon, which forbade the translation of bishops. The malice and unfairness of this objection were palpable; for the canon had often been disregarded in practice, and Gregory’s acceptance of the see hardly came even within its letter, inasmuch as he had neither acted in the diocese of Sasima, nor been appointed to that of Nazianzum; much less did it violate the intention of the canon, which was to check the ambition of bishops. But he was not disposed to contest the question. He was sick both in body and in spirit, and even before the opening of the council had attempted to withdraw from his stormy position of eminence to the quiet life of contemplation which he best loved; he had accepted the bishopric only in the hope that he might be able to mediate between the eastern party and that which was formed by the junction of the western with the Egyptian bishops. Both now turned against him—the Asiatics, because he had opposed them in the matter of Antioch; the bishops of Egypt and Macedonia, because, although opposed to the election of Flavian, he had presided over the council by whose members it was determined. Gregory entreated that no one would attempt to maintain his rights, and declared that he would gladly become a Jonah to appease the furious waves of party strife. His resignation was accepted —reluctantly by the emperor, but with an indecent eagerness by the majority of the bishop; and he took leave of the council in an eloquent and pathetic discourse—stating his orthodox faith, recounting his labours at Constantinople, and strongly denouncing the luxury and secularity, the jealousies and corruptions, which disgraced the church and her rulers. A list of persons qualified to succeed to the bishopric was drawn up, and from it the emperor selected Nectarius, a man of senatorial rank, who, being as yet only a catechumen, was forthwith baptized, and within a few days was consecrated—wearing the episcopal robes over the white dress of a neophyte. Gregory, after leaving Constantinople, again assumed the charge of Nazianzum, until he succeeded in obtaining the appointment of a regular bishop. He spent his last years in retirement, soothing himself with the composition of poetry, and died in 389 or 390.

The council of Constantinople, by additions to the article on the Holy Ghost (which were in substance taken from a work of Epiphanius, written some years before), brought the Nicene creed to its present form, except that the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son was not mentioned. Among its canons was one which assigned to the bishop of Constantinople a precedence next after the bishop of Rome—“forasmuch as it is a new Rome”. Of the heresies condemned by the council, the only one which has not been already noticed is the Apollinarian. The founder of this, Apollinarius or Apollinaris, was son of an Alexandrian rhetorician of the same name, who settled at Laodicea in Syria. Both father and son were distinguished as writers; they were the chief authors of the ingenious substitutes for the classics by which the Christians endeavoured to baffle Julian’s intention of excluding them from the cultivation of literature; and the younger Apollinarius especially had gained a high reputation by his controversial works against various forms of heresy. He was honoured with the friendship of St. Athanasius, and in 362 was appointed to the bishopric of Laodicea.

An opinion condemned by the Alexandrian council of 362 has been wrongly identified with the error of Apollinarius, which was not put forth until later. It was, however, current during the last years of Athanasius, who wrote in refutation of it, although—probably from considerations of old friendship, and of the services which Apollinarius had formerly rendered to the orthodox cause—he abstained from mentioning his name.

While the Arians altogether denied the existence of a human soul in Christ, and employed the texts which relate to his humanity as proofs of the imperfection of his higher nature, Apollinarius followed the Platonic school in dividing the nature of man into body, animal or vital soul and intellectual or rational soul (nous). From the variableness and sinfulness of man's rational soul he argued that, if the Saviour had had such a soul, he must together with it have had its freedom of will, and therefore a tendency to sin; consequently (he proceeded to say), that part of man's nature was not assumed by the Saviour, but the Divine Logos supplied its place, controlling the evil impulses of the animal soul, of which the body is the passive instrument. Some of the followers of Apollinarius, if not he himself, maintained that the flesh of Christ existed before his appearance in the world, and was not taken by him of the substance of the blessed Virgin, but was brought down from heaven—a notion for which they professed to find authority in some texts of Scripture.

After the death of Athanasius, Apollinarius published his opinions more openly. He did not suppose himself to be opposed to the catholic faith, but rather to have discovered the true grounds on which it was to be maintained. Finding however that this view of the matter was not generally accepted, he formed a sect of his own, setting up bishops at Antioch and elsewhere; and, like Bardesanes and Arius, he procured currency for his doctrines by embodying them in hymns and popular songs. Notwithstanding the anathemas pronounced against Apollinarianism by many synods, and at last by the general council of Constantinople, its founder retained his bishopric until his death, which took place before the year 392. The sect appears to have run into further errors, but did not long survive him.

 

CHAPTER V. FROM THE END OF THE SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL TO THE DEATH OF THEODOSIUS—ST. AMBROSE. A.D. 381-395.