5-8. Arianism and the Emperor
The next few years were an interval of suspense, for nothing was decided. Conservative suspicion was not dispelled, and the return of Athanasius was a personal humiliation for Constantius. But the mere cessation of hostilities was not without influence. The conservatives were fundamentally agreed with the Nicenes on the reality of the Lord's divinity; and minor jealousies abated when they were less busily encouraged. The Eusebian phase of conservatism, which dreaded Sabellianism and distrusted the Nicenes, was giving place to the Semiarian, which was coming to see that Arianism was the more pressing danger, and slowly moving towards an alliance with the Nicenes. We see also the rise of a more defiant Arianism, less patient of conservative supremacy, and less pliant to imperial dictation. The Anomoean leaders emphasised the most offensive aspects of Arianism, declaring that the Son is unlike the Father, and boldly maintaining that there is no mystery at all in God. Their school was presumptuous and shallow, quarrelsome and heathenising, yet not without a directness and firm conviction which compares well with the wavering and insincerity of the conservative chiefs.
Meanwhile new troubles were gathering in the West. Constans was deposed (Jan. 350) by Magnentius. After a couple of minor claimants were disposed of, the struggle lay between Magnentius and Constantius. The decisive battle was fought (28 Sept. 351) near Mursa in Pannonia, but the destruction of Magnentius was not completed till 353. Constantius remained the master of the world. The Eusebians now had their opportunity. Already in 351-2 they had reissued the fourth creed of Antioch from Sirmium, with its two anathemas grown into twenty-seven. But as soon as Constantius was master of Gaul, he determined to force on the Westerns an indirect condemnation of the Nicene faith in the person of Athanasius. A direct approval of Arianism was out of the question, for Western conservatism was firmly set against it by the Nicene and Sardican councils. The bishops were nearly all resolute against it. Liberius of Rome followed in the steps of Julius, Hosius of Cordova was still the patriarch of Christendom, and the bishops of Trier, Toulouse and Milan proved their faith in exile. So doctrine was kept in the background. Constantius came forward personally before a council at Aries (Oct. 353) as the accuser of Athanasius, while all the time he was giving him solemn and repeated promises of protection. The bishops were not unwilling to take the emperor's word, if the Court party would clear itself of Arianism; and at last they gave way, the Roman legate with the rest. Only Paulinus of Trier had to be exiled. For the next two years Constantius was busy with the barbarians, so that it was not till the autumn of 355 that he was able to call another council at Milan, where Julian was made Caesar for Gaul. It proved quite unmanageable, and only yielded at last to open violence. Three bishops were exiled, including Lucifer of Calaris in Sardinia.
Lucifer's appearance is a landmark. The lawless despotism of Constantius had roused an aggressive fanaticism. Lucifer had all the courage of Athanasius, but nothing of his wary self-respect and moderation. He scarcely condescends to reason, but revels in the pleasanter work of denouncing the fires of damnation against the disobedient emperor. A worthier champion was Hilary of Poitiers, the noblest representative of Western literature in the Nicene age. Hilary was by birth a heathen, coming before us in 355 as an old convert and a bishop of some standing. In massive power of thought he was a match for Athanasius; but he was rather student and thinker than orator and statesman. He had not studied the Nicene Creed till lately; but when he found it true, he could not refuse to defend it. He was not at the council, but was exiled to Asia a few months later, apparently on the charge of immorality, which the Eusebians usually brought against obnoxious bishops.
When Hosius of Cordova had been imprisoned, there remained but one power in the West which could not be summarily dealt with. The grandeur of Hosius was personal, but Liberius claimed the universal reverence due to the apostolic and imperial see of Rome. Such a bishop was a power of the first importance, when Arianism was dividing the Empire round the hostile camps of Gaul and Asia. Liberius was a staunch Nicene. When his legates yielded at Aries, he disavowed their action. The emperor's threats he disregarded, the emperor's gifts he cast out of the Church. It was not long before the world was scandalised by the news that Constantius had arrested and exiled the bishop of Rome.
Attempts had already been made to dislodge Athanasius from Alexandria, but he refused to obey anything but written orders from the emperor. As Constantius had given his solemn promise to protect him in 346, and three times written to repeat it since his brother's death, duty as well as policy forbade him to credit officials. The most pious emperor could not be supposed to mean treachery; but he must say so himself if he did. The message was plain enough when it came. A force of 5000 men surrounded the church of Theonas on a night of vigil (8 Feb. 356). The congregation was caught as in a net. Athanasius fainted In the tumult: yet when the soldiers reached the bishop's throne, its occupant had somehow been conveyed away.
For six years Athanasius disappeared from the eyes of men, while Alexandria was given over to military outrage. The new bishop George of Cappadocia (formerly a pork-contractor) arrived in Lent 357, and soon provoked the fierce populace of Alexandria. He escaped with difficulty from one riot in 358, and was fairly driven from the city by another in October. Constantius had his revenge, but it shook the Empire to its base. The flight of Athanasius revealed the power of religion to stir up a national rising, none the less real for not breaking out in open war. In the next century the councils of the Church became the battlefield of nations, and the victory of Hellenic orthodoxy at Chalcedon implied sooner or later the separation of Monophysite Egypt and Nestorian Syria.
To obtain a deluxe leatherbound edition of THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE, subscribe to Castalia History.