he was either of the same, or of a similar substance; CHAR XXI. sometimes boldly justifying their dissent, and sometimes objecting to the use of the word substance, which seems to imply an adequate, or at least a distinct, notion of the nature of the deity. 3,The sect which asserted the doctrine of a similar substance was the most numerous, at least in the provinces of Asia; and when the leaders of both parties were assembled in the council of Seleucia,” their opinion would have prevailed by a majority of one hundred and five to forty-three bishops, The Greek word, which was chosen to express this mysterious resemblance, bears so close an affinity to the orthodox symbol, that the profane of every age have derided the furious contests which the difference of a single diphthong excited between the homoousians and the homoiousians. As it frequently happens, that the sounds and characters which approach the nearest to each other accidently represent the most opposite ideas, the observation would be itself ridiculous, if it were possible to mark any real and sensible distinction between the doctrine of the semi-arians, as they were improperly styled, and that of the catholics themselves. The bishop of Poitiers, who, in his Phrygian exile, very wisely aimed at a coalition of parties, endeavours to prove that, by a pious and faithful interpretation, the homoiousion may be a Sabinus (ap. Socrat. 1. ii, c. 39) had copied the acts; Athanasius and Hilary have explained the divisions of this arian synod; the other circumstances which are relative to it are carefully collected by Baros nius and Tillemont. Fideli et pia intelligentia... De Synod. e. 77, p. 1193. In his short apologetical notes (first published by the benedictines from a us CHAP. reduced to a consubstantial sense. Yet he con XXI. fesses that the word has a dark and suspicious aspect; and, as if darkness were congenial to theological disputes, the semi-arians, who advanced to the doors of the church, assailed them with the most unrelenting fury. Faith of the west tin church. The provinces of Egypt and Asia, which culern or La- tivated the language and manners of the Greeks, "had deeply imbibed the venom of the arian controversy. The familiar study of the platonic system, a vain and argumentative disposition, a copious and flexible idiom, supplied the clergy and people of the East with an inexhaustible flow of words and distinctions; and, in the midst of their fierce contentions, they easily forgot the doubt which is recommended by philosophy, and the submission which is enjoined by religion. The inhabitants of the West were of a less inquisitive spirit; their passions were not so forcibly moved by invisible objects; their minds were less frequently exercised by the habits of dispute, and such was the happy ignorance of the Gallican church, that Hilary himself, above thirty years after the first general council, was still a stranger to the Nicene creed. The Latins had received of Charters) he observes, that he used this cautious expression, qui intelligerem et impiam, p. 1206. See p. 1146. Philostorgius, who saw those objects through a different medium, is inclined to forget the difference of the important diphthong. See in particular, viii, 17, and Godefroy, p. 352. ... Testor Deum cœli atque terræ mecum neutrum audissem, semper tamen utrumque sensisse. Regeneratus pridem et in episcopatu aliquantisper manens fidem Nicenam nunquam nisi exsulaturus audivi. Hilar. de Synodis, c. xci, p. 1205. The benedictines are persuaded that he governed the diocese of Poitiers several years before his exile. XXI. the rays of divine knowledge through the dark CHAP. and doubtful medium of a translation. The poverty and stubbornness of their native tongue was not always capable of affording just equivalents for the Greek terms, for the technical words of the platonic philosophy, which had been consecrated by the gospel or by the church, to express the mysteries of the christian faith; and a verbal defect might introduce into the Latin theology a long train of error or perplexity. But as the western provincials had the good for tune of deriving their religion from an orthodox source, they preserved with steadiness the doctrine which they had accepted with docility; and when the arian pestilence approached their frontier, they were supplied with the seasonable preservative of the homoousion, by the paternal care of the Roman pontiff. Their sentiments and their Council of temper were displayed in the memorable synod of Rimini, which surpassed in numbers the council of Nice, since it was composed of above four hundred bishops of Italy, Africa, Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Illyricum. From the first debates it appeared, that only fourscore prelates adhered to the party, though they affected to anathematise the name and memory of Arius. But this inferiority was compensated by the advantages of skill, of experience, d Seneca (Epist. lviii), complains that even the ro • of the platonists (the ens of the bolder schoolmen) could not be, expressed by a Latin noun. * The preference which the fourth council of the Lateran at length gave to a numerical rather than a generical unity (see Petav. tom. ij, 1. iv, c. 13, p. 424), was favoured by the Latin language: rgias seems to excite the idea of substance, trinitas of qualities. A. p. 360. XXI. CHAP. and of discipline; and the minority was conducted by Valens and Ursacius, two bishops of Illyricum, who had spent their lives in the intrigues of courts and councils, and who had been trained under the eusebian banner, in the religious wars of the East. By their arguments and negociations, they embarrassed, they confounded, they at last deceived, the honest simplicity of the Latin bishops, who suffered the palladium of the faith to be extorted from their hands by fraud and importunity, rather than by open violence. The council of Rimini was not allowed to separate, till the members had imprudently subscribed a captious creed, in which some expressions, susceptible of an heretical sense, were inserted in the room of the homoousion. It was on this occasion, that, according to Jerom, the world was surprised to find itself arian. But the bishops of the Latin provinces had no sooner reached their respective dioceses, than they discovered their mistake, and repented of their weakness. The ignominious capitulation was rejected with disdain and abhorrence; and the homoousian standard, which had been shaken, but not overthrown, was more firmly replanted in all the churches of the West." Conduct of the emperors in the arian contro versy Such was the rise and progress, and such were the natural revolutions of those theological dis Ingemuit totus orbis, et arianum se esse miratus est. Hieronym. adv. Lucifer. tom. i, p. 145. The story of the council of Rímini is very elegantly told by Sulpicius Severus (Hist. Sacra, 1. ii, p. 419-430, edit. Ludg. Bat. 1647), and by Jerom, in his dialogue against the luciferians. The design of the latter is to apologize, for the conduct of the Latin bishops, who were deceived, and who repented, XXI. putes, which disturbed the peace of christianity CHAP under the reigns of Constantine and of his sons. But as those princes presumed to extend their despotism over the faith, as well as over the lives and fortunes, of their subjects; the weight of their suffrage sometimes inclined the ecclesiastical balance; and the prerogatives of the king of heaven were settled, or changed, or modified, in the cabinet of an earthly monarch. tine. A. D. 324. The unhappy spirit of discord which pervaded Indifferthe provinces of the East interrupted the triumph Constanof Constantine; but the emperor continued for some time to view, with cool and careless indifference, the object of the dispute. As he was yet ignorant of the difficulty of appeasing the quarrels of theologians, he addressed to the contending parties, to Alexander and to Arius, a moderating epistle; which may be ascribed, with far greater reason, to the untutored sense of a soldier and statesman, than to the dictates of any of his episcopal counsellors. He attributes the origin of the whole controversy to a trifling and subtle question, concerning an incomprehensible point of the law, which was foolishly asked by the bishop, and imprudently resolved by the presbyter. He laments that the christian people, who had the same God, the same religion, and the same worship, should be divided by such inconsiderable h Eusebius, in Vit. Constant. 1. ii, c. 64-72. The principles of toleration and religious indifference, contained in this epistle, have given great offence to Baronius, Tillemont, &c, who suppose that the emperor had some evil counsellor, either Satan or Eusebius, at his elbow. See Jortin's Remarks, tom. ii, p. 183. |