Adolf Harnack · 5 of 19

1. From the Beginning of the Controversy to the Council of Nicæa · Part 3

Arius and Athanasius both indeed occupy the standpoint of the theology of Origen which no one could now abandon; but their religious and theological interests do not originate in it. In the gnosis of Origen everything spiritual stands to God in a two-fold relation; it is His created work and yet it is at the same time His nature. This holds good in a pre-eminent sense of the Logos, which comprises all that is spiritual in itself and connects the graduated spheres of the spiritual substances, which, like it, have an eternal duration, with the supreme God-head. To this idea corresponds the thought that the creatures are free and that they must return from their state of estrangement and their Fall to their original source. Of this we find nothing either in Arius or in Athanasius. In the case of the former, the sober Aristotelian philosophy on the one hand reacts against this fundamental thought, and on the other, the tradition of the Christ who is engaged in a conflict, who increases and progresses towards perfection. In the case of Athanasius what reacts against it is the ancient belief of the Church in the Father, the Almighty Creator of all things, and in the Son in whom the Father reveals Himself and has stooped to hold fellowship with man.

It is thus not the case that the gnosis of Origen was simply halved between Arius and Athanasius; on the contrary, it underwent a fundamental correction in the teaching of both. But it was no longer possible to avoid the “vis inertiæ.” of the gnosis of Origen, the contrary formulae which were held together by the idea of the Logos-cosmology as the basis for Christology. And now the question was which of the two was to be adopted, the Logos-κτίσμα or the Logos-ὁμοούσιος formula. The former freed from the latter was indeed deprived of all soteriological content, but was capable of intelligent and philosophical treatment—namely, rational-logical treatment; the latter taken exclusively, even supposing that the distinction between the Son and the Father and the superiority of the Father were maintained in connection with it, simply led to an absurdity.

Athanasius put up with this absurdity; without knowing it he made a still greater sacrifice to his faith—the historical Christ. It was at such a price that he saved the religious that Christianity is the religion of perfect fellowship with God, from being displaced by a doctrine which possessed many lofty qualities, but which had no understanding of the inner essence of religion, which sought in religion nothing but “instruction,” and finally found satisfaction in an empty dialectic.

It was intended that the General Church-Council which was summoned by the Emperor to meet at Nicæa should, besides settling some other important questions, compose the controversy which already threatened to produce division amongst the Eastern bishops. It met in the year 325, in summer apparently. There were present about 300 (250, 270) bishops, hardly so many as 318 as asserted by Athanasius at a later time; the correctness of this latter number is open to suspicion. The West was very poorly represented; the Roman bishop was not there, but he had sent two presbyters. The most important of the Eastern bishops were present. It is not clear how the business was arranged and conducted. We do not know who presided, whether Eustathius, Eusebius of Cæsarea, or Hosius, It is undoubted, however, that Hosius exercised a very important influence in the Council. The Emperor at first gave the Council a free hand, though he at once put a stop to private wrangling, and he energetically interfered at the most decisive moment, and in the character of a theologian interpreted himself the formula to be adopted. We may assume that at first he reckoned on the possibility that the Council would itself find some formula of agreement. He had, however, resolved, under the influence of Hosius, that in the case of this not being successfully carried out, he would enforce the formula which Hosius had agreed upon with Alexander. As regards the composition of the Council, the view expressed by the Macedonian Sabinus of Heraclea (Socr. I. 8), that the majority of the bishops were uneducated, is confirmed by the astonishing results. The general acceptance of the resolution come to by the Council is intelligible only if we presuppose that the question in dispute was above most of the bishops. Of the “cultured” we have to distinguish three parties—namely, Arius and the Lucianists, who had Eusebius of Nicomedia for their leader; the Origenists, the most important man amongst whom was Eusebius of Cæsarea, who was already highly celebrated; and Alexander of Alexandria with his following, to which the few Westerns also belonged. The Arians came to the Council confident of victory; as yet nothing was pre-judged; the Bishop of Nicæa himself was on their side and they had relations with the Court.

All were apparently at one in thinking that the Council could not break up without establishing a standard of doctrine, (πίστις, μάθημα) Those in the East possessed neither a uniform nor a sufficiently authoritative symbol by which the controversy could be settled. The Lucianists accordingly—who may have been about twenty in number, not more at any rate—produced, after deliberation, a confession of faith which was communicated by Eusebius of Nicomedia and embodied their doctrine in unambiguous terms. They did this without having previously come to an understanding with the Origenists. This was a tactical blunder. The great majority of the bishops rejected this rule of faith which was decisively in favour of Arianism. Even the “Conservatives” must have been unpleasantly affected by the naked statement of the Arian doctrinal system. The supporters of Arius were now in the greatest perplexity owing to the unforeseen turn which events had taken. In order to be able to keep their position at the Council at all, they, with the exception of two who remained firm, withdrew this sketch of their doctrine, and now made up their minds to follow the lead of the Origenists in order to secure at least something. Eusebius of Cæsarea now came to the front. No one was more learned than he; no one was more intimately acquainted with the teaching of the Fathers. He had good reason to hope that he would be able to speak the decisive word. If there was a general conviction that in everything it was necessary to by the ancient doctrine of the Church, then there seemed to be no one more fitted to define that ancient doctrine than the great scholar who was also, moreover, in the highest favour with the Emperor. His formulæ were, “the created image”, “the reflection originating in the will”, “the second God” etc. He could, if needful, have accepted the Arian formula; those of Alexander he could not adopt, for he saw in them the dreaded Sabellianism which meant the death of theological science. Eusebius accordingly laid a creed before the Council. He was convinced that all could and must unite on the basis supplied by it, and as a matter of fact no better conciliatory formula could be imagined. Still Eusebius considered it necessary to tack on to it an anti-Sabellian addition. According to Eusebius the Creed was unanimously pronounced orthodox, still the imperial will already made its influence felt here. The Arians were doubtless well pleased to get off on these terms. But Alexander and his following demanded a perfectly plain rejection of Arianism. They went about it in an extremely adroit fashion inasmuch as they accepted the basis of the Creed of Cæsarea, but demanded that its terms should be made more precise. We know from Eusebius himself that the Emperor sided with them, and so far as he was concerned resolved to incorporate in the Creed the word “ὁμοούσιος”, which was suggested to him by Hosius. But the matter was not settled by the mere insertion of a word. It was pointed out that the Creed of Cæsarea contained formulæ which might favour the Arian view. Its supporters were already put in the position of defendants. Accordingly, the Alexandrian party presented a very carefully constructed doctrinal formula which was represented as being a revised form of the Creed of Cæsarea and in which some think they can recognise, in addition to the contributions of the Alexandrians, the hand of Eustathius of Antioch and of Makarius of Jerusalem. (1) In place of ἀπάντων ὁρατῶν etc., (“of all seen things whatsoever”), there was put by preference πάντων ὁρατῶν (“of all seen things”), in order to exclude the creation of the Son and Spirit; (2) in place of the Logos at the beginning of the second article, the “Son” was put, so that all that follows refers to the Son; (3) the words Θεὸν ἐκ Θεοῦ (“God of God”) were extended to γεννηθέντα ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς μονογενῆ Θεὸν ἐκ Θεοῦ (“begotten of the Father only begotten God of God”), but in the final discussion, however, between μονογενῆ and Θεόν the words τοῦτ᾽ ἐστὶν ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ πατρός (“that is of the substance of the Father”) were further inserted, because it was observed that otherwise the opposition party might be able to put their doctrine into the proposition; (4) the unsatisfactory descriptions ζωὴν ἐκ ζωῆς (“life of life”), πρωτότοκον πάσης κτίσεως (“the first-born of every creature”), πρὸ πάντων αἰώνων ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς γεγεννημένον (“begotten of the Father before all ages”), before δι᾽ οὗ, etc., were deleted, and in their place the following was put: Θεὸν ἀληθινὸν ἐκ Θεοῦ ἀληθινοῦ, γεννηθέντα, οὐ ποιηθέντα, δι᾽ οὗ τὰ πάντα ἐγένετο (“true God of true God, begotten, not made, by whom all things were”). At this point, however, a further insertion was made, and this once more in the course of the discussion itself, at what too was not at all a suitable place—namely, after “ποιηθέντα” (“made”), the words ὁμοούσιον τῷ πατρί (“of the same substance with the Father”), because it was observed that none of the other terms excluded the Arian evasions; (5) the indefinite ἐν ἀνθρώποις πολιτευσάμενον (“having lived amongst men”) was replaced by the definite ἐνανθρωπήσαντα (“having become ”); and (6) finally, in order to exclude all ambiguity, the condemnation of the Arian catchwords was added on to this.

The opposition parties did not yield without debates, in which the Emperor himself took part. We do not know the details of the discussions, but we gather from the accounts of Athanasius that the Eusebians made still further proposals of a conciliatory kind and attempted to produce new catchwords. The nature of their objections to the Alexandrian outline of doctrine may be gathered from the irenic explanation which Eusebius gave to his Church in Cæsarea as well as from the objections which later on were brought against the Nicene Creed. They fought against ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας (“of the substance”) and ὁμοούσιος because (1) they believed they saw in these words a materialising of the Godhead, which made it a composite substance comprising emanations or parts; because (2) they could not help seeing in the ὁμοούσιος a Sabellian definition too, and because (3) the words did not occur in Holy Scripture. This last reason was specially decisive. In many parts of the Church there was still a shrinking from the definite of unbiblical terms for the expression of the Faith. In addition to this there was the fact that the ὁμοούσιος had before this been rejected at Antioch. But the will of the Emperor decided the matter. Respect for the Emperor, his express declaration that there was a desire not to endanger the absolute spirituality of the Godhead, the wish to conclude a grand work of peace—this doctrinal declaration of the entire Church was, moreover, something new and imposing—induced the Conservatives, i.e., the Origenists and those who did not think for themselves, to fall in with what was proposed. They all subscribed with the exception of two, and at the same time salved their consciences in different ways by mental reservations. The Lucianists who up till now had to all appearance been united together in an indissoluble friendship, were unprincipled enough to sacrifice their old comrade Arius. He was condemned as the scapegoat, and the Emperor, anxious to protect with the strong hand the unity which had been won, gave orders that the books of Arius should be burned and that his adherents should henceforth be called “Porphyrians”, i.e., should be placed on a level with the worst enemies of Christ. To the Alexandrian Church he wrote: ὅ τοῖς τριακοσίοις ἤρεσεν ἐπισκόποις ὀυδὲν ἔστιν ἔτερον ἤ τοῦ Θεοῦ γνώμη, μάλιστά γε ὅπου τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμα τοιούτων καὶ τηλικούτων ἀνδρῶν ταῖς διανοίαις ἐγκείμενον τὴν θείαν βούλησιν ἐξεφώτισεν (“what satisfied the three hundred bishops is nothing else than the judgment of God, but most of all where the Holy Spirit being present in the thoughts of men such as these and so ripe in years, made known the Divine will”). He persecuted the Arians, and the orthodox approved of what he did. They are thus responsible along with him for the persecution. The Arians at a later date only carried on what the orthodox had begun.

The correct faith had triumphed and—the Bishop of Alexandria. The Council of Nicæa is the first step taken by the Bishop of Alexandria in aspiring to the primacy of the East.