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By Archibald Robertson.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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128 Pages (Part I)
Page 15
But then, was Arianism all that Alexander and Eustathius made it out to be? was Arianism so very intolerable, that this novel test must be imposed on the Church? The answer came (Newman Ar. 4 p. 252) from Eusebius of Nicomedia. Upon the assembling of the bishops for their momentous debate (hos de ezeteito tes pisteos ho tropos, Eustath.) he presented them with a statement of his belief. The previous course of events may have convinced him that half-measures would defeat their own purpose, and that a challenge to the enemy, a forlorn hope, was the only resort left to him [10] . At any rate the statement was an unambiguous assertion of the Arian formulae, and it cleared the situation at once. An angry clamour silenced the innovator, and his document was publicly torn to shreds (hup' opsei panton, says an eye-witness in Thdt. i. 8). Even the majority of the Arians were cowed, and the party were reduced to the inner circle of five (supra). It was now agreed on all hands that a stringent formula was needed. But Eusebius of Caesarea came forward with a last effort to stave off the inevitable. He produced a formula, not of his own devising (Koelling, pp. 208 sqq.), but consisting of the creed of his own Church with an addition intended to guard against Sabellianism (Hort, Two Diss. pp. 56, sq. 138). The formula was unassailable on the basis of Scripture and of tradition. No one had a word to say against it, and the Emperor expressed his personal anxiety that it should be adopted, with the single improvement of the homoousion. The suggestion thus quietly made was momentous in its result. We cannot but recognise the 'prompter' Hosius behind the Imperial recommendation: the friends of Alexander had patiently waited their time, and now their time was come: the two Eusebii had placed the result in their hands. But how and where was the necessary word to be inserted? and if some change must be made in the Caesarean formula, would it not be as well to set one or two other details right? At any rate, the creed of Eusebius was carefully overhauled clause by clause, and eventually took a form materially different from that in which it was first presented [11] , and with affinities to the creeds of Antioch and Jerusalem as well as Caesarea.
[10] Or possibly Theodoret, &c., drew a wrong inference from the words of Eustathius (in Thdt. i. 8), and the gramma was not submitted by Eusebius, but produced as evidence against him; in this case it must have been, as Fleury observes, his letter to Paulinus of Tyre.
[11] , vol. 2, p. 227. The main alterations were (1) The elimination of the word logos and substitution of hui& 231;s in the principal place. This struck at the theology of Eusebius even more directly than at that of Arius. (2) The addition not only of homoousion to patri, but also of toutestin ek tes ousias tou patros between monogene and theon as a further qualification of gennethenta (specially against Euseb. Nicom.: see his letter in Thdt. i. 6). (3) Further explanation of gennethenta by g. ou poiethenta, a glance at a favourite argument of Arius, as well as at Asterius. (4) enanthropesanta added to explain sarkothenta, and so to exclude the Christology which characterised Arianism from the first. (5) Addition of anathematisms directed against all the leading Arian doctrines.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/athanasius/athanasius-life-arianism.asp?pg=15
