THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 068
The First Nicene Council
5-2. The First Nicene Council
The dispute spread rapidly. At the first signs of opposition, Arius appealed from the Church to the people. With common-sense doctrine put into theological songs, he soon made a party at Alexandria; and when driven thence to Caesarea, he secured more or less approval from its learned bishop, the historian Eusebius, and from other conspicuous bishops, including Constantine's chief Eastern adviser, Eusebius of Nicomedia, who was another disciple of Lucian. As it appeared later, few agreed with him; but there were many who saw no reason for turning him out of the Church.
So when Constantine became master of the East in 323, he found a great controversy raging, which his own interests compelled him to bring to some decision. With his view of Christianity as essentially monotheism, his personal leaning might be to the Arian side: but if he was too much of a politician to care greatly how the question was decided, he could quite understand some of its practical aspects. It was causing a stir in Egypt: and Egypt was not only a specially important province, but also a specially troublesome one — witness the eighty years of disturbance from Caracalla's massacre in 216 to the suppression of Achillaeus in 296. More than this, Arianism imperilled the imposing unity of the Church, and with it the support which the Empire expected from an undivided Church. The State could deal with an orderly confederation of churches, but not with miscellaneous gatherings of schismatics. So he was quite sincere when he began by writing to Arius and his bishop Alexander that they had managed to quarrel over a trifle. The dispute was really childish, and most distressing to himself.
This failing, the next step was to invite all the bishops of Christendom to a council to be held at Nicaea in Bithynia (an auspicious name!) in the summer of 325, to settle all the outstanding questions which troubled the Eastern churches. If only the bishops could be brought to some decision, it was not likely to be disobeyed; and the State could safely enforce it if it was. Local councils had long been held for the decision of local questions, like Montanism or Paul of Samosata; but a general council was a novelty. As it could fairly claim to speak for the churches generally, it was soon invested with the authority of the ideal Catholic Church; and from this it was an easy step to make its decisions per se infallible. This step however was not taken for the present: Athanasius in particular repudiates any such idea.
As we have already discussed the council as sealing the alliance of Church and State, we have now to trace only its dealings with Arianism. Constantine was resolved not only to settle the question of Arianism, but to make all future controversies harmless; and this he proposed to do by drawing up a test creed for bishops, and for bishops only. This was a momentous change, for as yet no creed had any general authority. The Lord's Baptismal Formula (Mt. xxviii. 19) was variously expanded for the catechumen's profession at Baptism, and some churches further expanded it into a syllabus for teaching, perhaps as long as our Nicene Creed; but every church expanded it at its own discretion. Now however bishops were to sign one creed everywhere. Whatever was put into it was binding; whatever was left out remained an open question. The council was to draw it up.
The bishops at Nicaea were not generally men of learning, though Eusebius of Caesarea is hardly surpassed by Origen himself. But they had among them statesmen like Hosius of Cordova, Eusebius of Nicomedia, and the young deacon Athanasius from Alexandria; and men of modest parts were quite able to say whether Arianism was or was not what they had spent their lives in teaching. On that question they had no doubt at all. The Arianisers mustered a score or so of bishops out of about 300 — two from Libya, four from the province of Asia, perhaps four from Egypt, the rest thinly scattered over Syria from Mount Taurus to the Jordan valley. There were none from Pontus or from any part of Europe or Africa north of Mount Atlas.
The first act of the council was the summary rejection of an Arian creed presented to them. The deity of Christ was not an open question in the churches. But was it needful to put the condemnation of Arianism into the creed? Athanasius had probably but few decided supporters. Between them and the Arianisers floated a great conservative centre party, whose chief aim was to keep things nearly as they were. These men were not Arians, for the open denial of the Lord's true deity shocked them: but neither would they go with Athanasius. Arianism might be condemned in the creed, if it could be done without going beyond the actual words of Scripture, but not otherwise. As they would have said, Arianism was not all false, though it went too far. It maintained the Lord's premundane and real personality, and might be useful as against the Sabellianism which reduced him to a temporary appearance of the one God. Athanasius and Marcellus of Ancyra were mistaken in thinking Arianism a pressing danger, when it had just been so decisively rejected. Only five bishops now supported it. So the conservatives hesitated.
Then Eusebius of Caesarea presented the catechetical creed of his own church, a simple document couched in Scripture language, which left Arianism an open question. It was universally approved: Athanasius could find nothing wrong in it, and the Arians were glad now to escape a direct condemnation. For a moment, the matter seemed settled
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