a complete and coherent system of those religious CENT. tenets which were really held by Arius and his followers [m].

IV. PART II.

The pro

Arian sect.

XI. The opinions of Arius were no sooner divulged, than they found in Egypt, and the neigh-gress of the bouring provinces, a multitude of abettors, and among these, many who were distinguished as much by the superiority of their learning and genius, as by the eminence of their rank and station in the world. Alexander, on the other hand, in two councils assembled at Alexandria, accused Arius of impiety, and caused him to be expelled from the communion of the church. Arius received this severe and ignominious shock with great firmness and constancy of mind; retired into Palestine; wrote from thence several letters to the most eminent men of those times, in which he endeavoured to demonstrate the truth of his opinions, and that with such surprising success, that vast numbers were drawn over to his party; and among these Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia,

[m] For an account of the Arian controversy, the curious reader must consult the Life of Constantine, by Eusebius, the various libels of Athanasius, which are to be found in the first volume of his works; the Ecclesiastical Histories of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, the sixty-ninth Heresy of Epiphanius, and other writers of this and the following age. But among all these, there is none to whom the merit of impartiality can be attributed with justice; so that the Arian history stands yet in need of a pen guided by integrity and candour, and unbiassed by affection or hatred. Both sides have deserved reproach upon this head; and those who have hitherto written the history of the Arian controversy have only espied the faults of one side; e. g. it is a common opinion, that Arius was too much attached to the opinions of Plato and Origen (see Petav. Dogm. Theol. tom. ii. lib. i. cap. viii.); but this common opinion is a vulgar error. Origen and Plato entertained notions entirely different from those of Arius; whereas Alexander, his antagonist, undoubtedly followed the manner of Origen, in explaining the doctrine of the three persons. See Cudworth's Intellectual System of the Universe.

IV.

CENT. comedia, a man distinguished in the church by his influence and authority. The emperor ConstanPART II. tine, looking upon the subject of this controversy

The council Nice.

as a matter of small importance, and as little connected with the fundamental and essential doctrines of religion, contented himself at first with addressing a letter to the contending parties, in which he admonished them to put an end to their disputes. But when the prince saw that his admonitions were without effect, and that the troubles and commotions, which the passions of men too often mingle with religious disputes, were spreading and increasing daily throughout the empire, he assembled at length, in the year 325, the famous council of Nice in Bithynia, wherein the deputies of the church universal were summoned to put an end to this controversy. In this general council, after many keen debates, and violent efforts of the two parties, the doctrine of Arius was condemned; Christ declared consubstantial [n], or of the same essence with the Father; the vanquished presbyter banished among the Illyrians, and his followers compelled to give their assent to the creed [o], or confession of faith, which was composed by this council.

XII. The council assembled by Constantine at Nice, is one of the most famous and interesting events that are presented to us in ecclesiastical history; and yet, what is more surprising, there is no part of the history of the church that has been unfolded with such negligence, or rather passed over with such rapidity [p]. The ancient writers

[η] Ομούσιος.

are

[o] John Christ. Suicer has illustrated this famous creed from several important and ancient records in a very learned book published in 4to at Utrecht, in the year 1718.

[p] See Ittigii Historia Concilii Nicani which was published after his death. Le Clerc, Bibliotheque Histor. et Universelle, tom. x. p. 421. tom. xxii. p. 291. Beausobre, Histoire de Manichée, et de Manicheisme, tom, i. p. 520. The

accounts

pre

IV. PART II.

are neither agreed concerning the time nor place CENT. in which it was assembled, the number of those who sat in council, nor the bishop who sided in it. No authentic acts of its famous sentence have been committed to writing, or, at least, none have been transmitted to our times [9].

The eastern Christians differ from all others both concerning the number and the nature of the laws that were enacted in this celebrated council. The latter mention only twenty canons; but in the estimate of the former, they amount to a much greater number [r]. It appears, however, by those laws, which all parties have admitted as genuine, and also from other authentic records, not only that Arius was condemned in this council, but that some other points were determined, and certain measures agreed upon, to calm the religious tumults that had so long troubled the church. The controversy concerning the time of celebrating Easter was terminated [s]; the troubles which Novatian had excited, by opposing the re-admission of the lapsed to the communion of the church, were composed; the Meletian schism

was

accounts, which the Oriental writers have given of this council, have been collected by Euseb. Renaudot, in his History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, p. 69.

[q] See the Annotations of Valesius, upon the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, p. 223. Jos. Sim. Asseman. Bibl. Oriental. Clement. Vatican. tom. i. p. 195. The history of this council was written by Maruthus, a Syrian, but is long since lost.

[r] Th. Ittigius Supplem. opp. Clement. Alex. p. 191. Jos. Sim. Asseman. Biblioth. Orient. Clement. Vatic. tom. i. p. 22. 195. Euseb. Renaudot. Histor. Patriarch. Alexandrinor. p. 71.

[s] The decision, with respect to Easter, was in favour of the custom of the western churches; and accordingly all churches were ordered to celebrate that festival on the Sunday which immediately followed the 14th of the first moon that happened after the vernal equinox,

CENT. was condemned [t]; the jurisdiction of the greater bishops precisely defined and determined [u]; PART II. with several other matters of a like nature. But

while these good prelates were employing all their zeal and attention to correct the mistakes and errors of others, they were upon the point of falling into a very capital one themselves. For they had almost come to a resolution of imposing upon the clergy the yoke of perpetual celibacy, when Paphnutius put a stop to their proceedings, and warded off that unnatural law [w].

The history XIII. But, notwithstanding all these determinaof Ariations, the commotions excited by this controversy council of remained yet in the minds of many, and the spirit

Nice.

of dissension and controversy triumphed both over the decrees of the council and the authority of the emperor,

[] Meletius, bishop of Lycopolis in Egypi, was accused and convicted of having offered incense to idols; and, in consequence thereof was deposed by Peter, bishop of Alexandria, whose jurisdiction extended throughout all Egypt. Meletius, upon this, became the head of a schism in the church by assuming to himself the power of ordination, which was vested in the bishop of Alexandria, and exercised by him in all the Egyptian churches. Epiphanius attributes the dissensions between Meletius and Peter to another cause (Hær. 68.): he alleges, that the vigorous proceedings of Peter against Meletius, were occasioned by the latter's refusing to re-admit into the church those who had fallen from the faith during Diocletian's persecutions, before their penitential trial was entirely finished. The former opinion is maintained by Socrates and Theodoret, whose authority is certainly more respectable than that of Epiphanius.

[u] The confusion that Meletius introduced, by presuming (as was observed in the preceding note) to violate the jurisdiction of Peter, the metropolitan of Alexandria, by conferring ordination in a province where he alone had a right to ordain, was rectified by the council of Nice, which determined, that the metropolitan bishops, in their respective provinces, should have the same power and authority that the bishops of Rome exercised over the Suburbicarian churches and countries.

[w] Socrates Hist. Eccles. lib. i. cap. viii. compared with Franc. Balduinus, in Constant. Magn. and George Calixtus, De conjugio Clericorum, p. 170.

emperor. For those who, in the main, were far from being attached to the party of Arius, found many things reprehensible, both in the decrees of the council, and in the forms of expression which it employed to explain the controverted points; while the Arians, on the other hand, left no means untried to heal their wound, and to recover their place and their credit in the church. And their efforts were crowned with the desired success: For a few years after the council of Nice, a certain Arian priest, who had been recommended to the emperor, in the dying words of his sister Constantia, found means to persuade Constantine the Great, that the condemnation of Arius was utterly unjust, and was rather owing to the malice of his enemies, than to their zeal for the truth. In consequence of this, the emperor recalled him from banishment in the year 330 [x], repealed

VOL. I.

Ee

[x] The precise time in which Arius was recalled from banishment, has not been fixed with such perfect certainty as to prevent a diversity of sentiments on that head. The Annotations of the learned Valesius (or Valois) upon Sozomen's History, p. 10. and 11. will cast some light upon this matter, and make it probable, that Dr. Mosheim has placed the recal of Arius too late, at least by two years. Valesius has proved, from the authority of Philostorgius, and from other most respectable monuments and records, that Eusebius of Nicomedia, and Theognis, who were banished by the emperor about three months after the council of Nice, i. e. in the year 325, were recalled in the year 328. Now, in the writing by which they obtained their return, they pleaded the restoration of Arius, as an argument for theirs, which proves that he was recalled before the year 330. The same Valesius proves, that Arius, the first head of the Arian sect, was dead before the council of Tyre, which was transferred to Jerusalem; and that the letters which Constantine addressed to that council in favour of Arius and his followers, were in behalf of a second chief of that name, who put himself at the head of the Arians, and who, in conjunction with Euzoius, presented to Constantine such a confession of their faith, as made him imagine their doctrine to be orthodox, and procured their reconciliation with the church at the council of Jerusalem. See Annot. Vales, ad Hist. Socrat. lib. i. cap. xxxiii. p. 16.

CENT.

IV. PART II.