5-10. Pagan Persecution and the Nicene Revival
The Homoean domination never extended beyond the Alps. Gaul was firmly Nicene, and Constantius could do nothing there after the mutiny at Paris in Jan. 360 had made Julian independent of him. The few Western Arians soon died out. But in the East, the Homoean power lasted nearly twenty years. Its strength lay in its appeal to the moderate men who were tired of strife, and to the confused thinkers who did not see that a vital question was at issue. The dated creed seemed reverent and safe; and its defects would not have been easy to see if the Anomoeans had not made them plain.
But the position of parties was greatly changed since 356. First Hilary of Poitiers had done something to bring together conservatives and Nicenes; then Athanasius took up the work in his own de Synodis. It is a noble overture of friendship to his old conservative enemies. The Semiarians, or many of them, accepted of the essence and the Nicene anathemas. Such men, says he, are not to be treated as enemies, but reasoned with as brethren who differ from us only in the use of a word which sums up their own teaching as well as ours. When they confess that the Lord is a true Son of God and not a creature, they grant all that we are contending for. Their own homoiousion, or same in essence without of the essence does not shut out Arianism, but the two together amount to homoousion. Moreover, like in essence is illogical, for likeness is of properties and qualities, whereas the essence must be the same or different, so that the word rather suggests Arianism, whereas same in essence shuts it out effectually. If they accept our doctrine, sooner or later they will find that they cannot refuse its necessary safeguard.
But if Nicenes and Semiarians drew together, so did Homoeans and Anomoeans. Any ideas of conciliating Nicene support were destroyed by the exile of Meletius, the new bishop of Antioch, for preaching a sermon carefully modelled on the dated creed, but substantially Nicene in doctrine. A schism arose at Antioch ; and henceforth the leaders of the Homoeans were practically Arians.
The mutiny at Paris implied a civil war: but just as it was beginning, Constantius died at Mopsucrenae beneath Mount Taurus (3 Nov. 361) and Julian remained sole emperor. We are not here concerned with the general history of his reign, or even with his policy towards the Christians — only with its bearing on Arianism. In general, he held to the toleration of the Edict of Milan. The Christians are not to be persecuted — only deprived of special privileges — but the emperor's favour must be reserved for the worshippers of the gods. So the administration was unfriendly to the Christians, and left occasional outrages unpunished, or dismissed them with a thin reproof. But these were no great matters, for the Christians were now too strong to be lynched at pleasure. Julian's chief endeavour was to put new life into heathenism: and in this the heathens themselves hardly took him seriously. His only act of definite persecution was the edict near the end of his reign, which forbade the Christians to teach the classics; and this is disapproved by “the cool and impartial heathen” Ammianus.
Every blow struck by Julian against the Christians fell first on the Homoeans whom Constantius had left in power; and the reaction he provoked against Greek culture threatened the philosophical postulates of Arianism. But Julian cared little for the internal quarrels of the Christians, and only broke his rule of contemptuous impartiality when he recognised one greater than himself in “the detestable Athanasius.” Before long an edict recalled the exiled bishops, though it did not replace them in their churches. If others were in possession, it was not Julian's business to turn them out. This was toleration, but Julian had a malicious hope of still further embroiling the confusion. If the Christians were left to themselves, they would “quarrel like beasts.” He got a few scandalous wranglings, but in the main he was mistaken. The Christians only closed their ranks against the common enemy: the Arians also were sound Christians in this matter — blind old Maris of Chalcedon came and cursed him to his face.
Back to their cities came the survivors of the exiled bishops, no longer travelling in pomp and circumstance to their noisy councils, but bound on the nobler errand of seeking out their lost or scattered flocks. It was time to resume Hilary's interrupted work of conciliation. Semiarian violence had discredited in advance the new conservatism at Seleucia: but Athanasius had things more in his favour, for Julian's reign had not only sobered partisanship, but left a clear field for the strongest moral force in Christendom to assert itself. And this force was with the Nicenes.
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