Life of St Athanasius the Great and Account of Arianism

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128 Pages (Part I)

Page 12

These were the 'conservatives [8] ,' or middle party, composed of all those who, for whatever reason, while untainted with Arianism, yet either failed to feel its urgent danger to the Church, or else to hold steadily in view the necessity of an adequate test if it was to be banished. Simple shepherds like Spyridion of Cyprus; men of the world who were more interested in their libelli than in the magnitude of the doctrinal issue; theologians, a numerous class, 'who on the basis of half-understood Origenist ideas were prepared to recognise in Christ only the Mediator appointed (no doubt before all ages) between God and the World' (Zahn Marc. p. 30); men who in the best of faith yet failed from lack of intellectual clearsightedness to grasp the question for themselves; a few, possibly, who were inclined to think that Arius was hardly used and might be right after all; such were the main elements which made up the mass of the council, and upon whose indefiniteness, sympathy, or unwillingness to impose any effective test, the Arian party based their hopes at any rate of toleration. Spokesman and leader of the middle party was the most learned Churchman of the age, Eusebius of Caesarea. A devoted admirer of Origen, but independent of the school of Lucian, he had, during the early stages of the controversy, thrown his weight on the side of toleration for Arius. He had himself used compromising language, and in his letter to the Caesarean Church (infra, p. 76 sq.) does so again. But equally strong language can be cited from him on the other side, and belonging as he does properly to the pre-Nicene age, it is highly invidious to make the most of his Arianising passages, and, ignoring or explaining away those on the other side, and depreciating his splendid and lasting services to Christian learning, to class him summarily with his namesake of Nicomedia [9] .

[8] A term first brought into currency in this connection by Mr. Gwatkin (p. 38, note), and since adopted by many writers including Harnack; in spite of the obvious objection to the importations of political terms into the grave questions of this period, the term is too useful to be surrendered, and the 'conservatives' of the Post-Nicene reaction were in fact too often political in their methods and spirit. The truly conservative men, here as in other instances, failed to enlist the sympathy of the conservative rank and file.

[9] The identity of name has certainly done Eusebius no good with posterity. But no one with a spark of generosity can fail to be moved by the appeal of Socrates (ii. 21) for common fairness toward the dead.

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