Donatus, bishop of Cosae Nigrae, placed himself at the head of the Carthaginian faction. Secundus, primate of Numidia, at the summons of Donatus, appeared in Carthage at the head of seventy bishops. This self-installed council, cited Caecilian before them; alleging that he ought not to have been consecrated except in their presence and by the primate of Numidia and inasmuch as he had been consecrated by a bishop who was a Tradator, the council declared his election void. Caecilian refused to acknowledge the authority of the council; but they proceeded to elect Majorinus to the see, declared to be now vacant by the excommunication of Caecilian. But, unfortunately for the credit of the bishops, Majorinus was a member of Lucilla’s household, who, to support the election, gave large sums of money, which the bishops divided among themselves. A decided schism was now formed, and many persons who before stood aloof from Caecilian returned to his communion.
Some reports of these discords reached the ears of Constantine. He had just become master of the West; and had sent a large sum of money for the relief of the African churches. They bad suffered greatly during the late persecutions. But as the Donatists were considered sectaries, or dissenters from the true Catholic Church, he ordered that the gifts and privileges conferred on the Christians by the late edicts should be confined to those in communion with Caecilian. This led the Donatists to petition the Emperor, desiring that their cause might be examined by the bishops of Gaul, from whom it was supposed that impartiality might be expected. Here, for the first time, we have an application to the civil power, to appoint a Commission of Ecclesiastical Judges.
Constantine agreed; a council was held at Rome in 313, consisting of about twenty bishops. The decision was in favor of Caecilian, who thereupon proposed terms of reconciliation and reunion; but the Donatists disdained all compromise. They prayed the Emperor for another hearing, declaring that a synod of twenty bishops was insufficient to overrule the sentence of seventy who had condemned Caecilian. On this representation Constantine summoned another council. The number of bishops present was very large, from Africa, Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, but especially from Gaul. This was the greatest ecclesiastical assembly which had yet been seen. They met at Aries in 314. Caecilian was again acquitted, and several canons were passed with a view to the African dissensions.
In the meantime, Majorinus died, and a second Donatus was appointed his successor. He was surnamed by his followers “the Great,” for the sake of distinction from the first Donatus. He is described as learned, eloquent, of great ability, and as possessing the energy and fiery zeal of the African temperament. The sectaries, as they were called, now assumed the name of the Donatists, and took their character, as well as their name, from their chief.
CONSTANTINE AS ARBITER OF ECCLESIASTICAL DIFFERENCES.
The Emperor was again entreated to take up their cause, and on this occasion to take the matter entirely into his own hands; to which he agreed, though offended by their obstinacy. He heard the case at Milan in the year 316; where he gave sentence in accordance with the councils of Rome and Aries. He also issued edicts against them, which he afterward repealed, from seeing the dangerous consequences of violent measures. But Donatism soon became a fierce, wide-spread, and intolerant schism in the Church. As early as 330 they had so increased that a synod was attended by two hundred and seventy bishops; in some periods of their history they numbered about four hundred. They proved a great affliction to the provinces of Africa for above three hundred years: indeed down to the time of the Mahommedan invasion.
Reflections on the first great schism in the church.
As this was the first schism that divided the Church, we have thought it well to give a few details. The reader may learn some needed lessons from this memorable division. It began with an incident so inconsiderable in itself that it scarcely deserves a place in history. There was no question of bad doctrine, or of immorality, but only a question of a disputed election to the see of Carthage. A little right feeling; a little self-denial; a true desire for the peace, unity, and harmony of the Church; and above all, a proper care for the Lord’s glory, would have prevented hundreds of years of inward sorrow, and outward disgrace to the Church of God. But pride, avarice, and ambition—sad fruits of the flesh—were allowed to do their fearful work. The reader will also see, from the place that the Emperor had in the councils of the Church, how soon her position and character were utterly changed. How strange it must have appeared to Constantine, that immediately on his adopting the cross as his standard, an appeal should be made from an episcopal decision on ecclesiastical matters to his own tribunal! This proved the condition of the clergy: but mark the consequences which such an appeal involves; if the party against whom the sentence of the civil power is given refuse to yield they become transgressors against the laws. And so it was in this case.
The Donatists were henceforth treated as offenders against the imperial laws: they were deprived of their churches; many of them suffered banishment and confiscation; even the punishment of death was enacted against them, although it does not appear that this law was enforced in any case during the reign of Constantine. Strong measures, however, were resorted to by the state, with the view of compelling the Donatists to reunite with the Catholics, but, as is usual in such cases, and as experience has taught ever since, the force that was used to compel them only served to develop the wild spirit of the faction that already existed among them. Aroused by persecution, stimulated by the discourses of their bishops, and especially by Donatus who was the head and soul of his party, they were hurried on to every species of fanaticism and violence.
Constantine at length, taught by experience, that although he could give the Church protection, he could not give her peace, issued an edict, granting to the Donatists full liberty to act according to their own convictions, declaring that this was a matter which belonged to the judgment of God.
the Arian controversy.
Scarcely had the outward peace of the Church been secured by the edict of Milan, when it was distracted by internal dissensions. Shortly after the breaking out of the Donatist schism in the province of Africa, the Arian controversy, which had its origin in the East, extended to every part of the world. We have already spoken of these angry contentions as the bitter fruit of the unscriptural union of the Church with the state; not that they necessarily sprang from that union, but from Constantine becoming the avowed and ostensible head of the Church, and presiding in her solemn assemblies: questions of doctrine and practice produced an agitation throughout the whole Church, and not the Church only, but they exercised a powerful political influence on the affairs of the world. This was unavoidable from the new position of the Church. The empire being now christian, at least in principle, such questions were of world-wide interest and importance. Hence, the Arian controversy was the first that rent asunder the whole body of Christians, and arrayed in almost every part of the world the hostile parties in implacable opposition.
Heresies, similar in nature to that of Arius, had appeared in the Church before its connection with the state; but their influence seldom extended beyond the region and period of their birth. After some noisy debates and angry words were discharged, the heresy fell into dishonor, and was soon almost forgotten. But it was widely different with the Arian controversy. Constantine, who sat upon the throne of the world, and assumed to be the sole head of the Church, interposed his authority, in order to prescribe and define the precise tenets of the religion he had established. The word of God, the will of Christ, the place of the Spirit, the heavenly relations of the Church, were all lost sight of, or rather had never been seen, by the Emperor. He had probably heard something of the numerous opinions by which the Christians were divided; but he saw at the same time, that they were a community who had continued to advance in vigor and magnitude; that they were really united in the midst of heresies, and strong under the iron hand of oppression. But he could not see, neither could he understand, that then, spite of her failure, she was looking to the Lord and leaning on Him only in the world. Every other hand was against her, and was led on by the craft and power of the enemy. But, professedly, she was going up through the wilderness leaning on her Beloved, and no weapon formed against her could prosper.
The Emperor, being entirely ignorant of the heavenly relation of the Church, may have thought that as he could give her complete protection from outward oppression, he could also by his presence and power give her peace and rest from inward dissensions. But he little knew that the latter was not only far beyond his reach, but that the very security, worldly ease, and indulgence, which he so liberally granted to the clergy, were the sure means of fomenting discords, and of inflaming the passions of the disputants. And so it turned out; he was continually assailed by the complaints and mutual accusations of his new friends.
THE BEGINNING OF ARIANISM.
Arianism was the natural growth of the gnostic opinions; and Alexandria—the hotbed of metaphysical questions and subtle distinctions—its birthplace. Paul of Samosata, and Sabellius of Libya, in the third century, taught similar false doctrines to Arius in the fourth. The Gnostic sects in their different varieties, and the Manichean—which was the Persian religion with a mixture of Christianity—may be considered rather as rival religions, than as christian factions; nevertheless they did their evil work among Christians as to the doctrine of the Trinity. Nearly all of these heresies, as they are usually called, had fallen under the royal displeasure, and their followers subjected to penal regulations. The Montanists, Paulites, Novations, Marcionites, and Valentinians, were amongst the proscribed and persecuted sects. But there was another, a deeper, a darker, and a much more influential heresy than had yet arisen, about to burst forth, and that from the very bosom of the so-called holy Catholic Church. It happened in this way.
Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria, in a meeting of his presbyters, appears to have expressed himself rather freely on the subject of the Trinity; when Arius, one of the presbyters, questioned the truth of Alexander’s positions, on the ground that they were allied to the Sabellian errors, which had been condemned by the Church. This disputation led Arius to state his own views of the Trinity; which were substantially the denial of the Savior’s Godhead—that He was, in fact, only the first and noblest of those created beings whom God the Father formed out of nothing—that though He is immeasurably superior in power and in glory to the highest created beings, He is inferior in both to the Father. He also held, that though inferior to the Father in nature and in dignity, He is the image of the Father, and the vicegerent to the divine power, by whom He made the worlds. What his views were of the Holy Spirit are not so plainly stated.
Not only is Arianism fundamentally inconsistent with the place given to the Son from first to last throughout scripture, as well as with the infinite work of reconciliation and new creation, for which the old creation furnished but the occasion, but it is distinctly refuted beforehand by many passages of holy writ. A few of these it may be well here to cite. Him, who, when born of woman, was named Jesus, the Spirit of God declares (John 1:1-31In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2The same was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. (John 1:1‑3)) to be in the beginning the Word who was with God and was God. “All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.” Impossible to conceive a stronger testimony to His uncreated subsistence to His distinct personality when He was with God before creation, and to Η is divine nature. He is here spoken of as the Word, the correlate of which is not the Father but God (and thus leaving room for the Holy Spirit); but, lest His own consubstantiality should be overlooked, He is carefully and at once declared to be God. Go back beyond time and the creature, as far as one may in thought, “in the beginning was the Word.” The language is most precise; he was in the beginning with God, not ἐγένετο “He was,” in the sense of coming into being or caused to be, but ῆν, ‘He was’ in His own absolute being. All things ἐυένετο ‘came into being’ through Him. He was the Creator so completely that St. John adds, “and without him not one thing came into being which is come into being.” On the other hand, when the incarnation is stated in verse 14, the language is, the Word was made flesh, not ῆν but ἐυένετο. Further, when come among men, He is described as “the only begotten Son ‘who is’ [ not merely who was] in the bosom of the Father”—language unintelligible and misleading unless to show that His manhood in no way detracted from His Deity, and that the infinite nearness of the Son with the Father ever subsists.
Again, Rom. 9:55Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. (Romans 9:5) is a rich and precious expression of Christ’s underivative and supreme Godhead, equally with the Father and the Spirit. “Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever, Amen.” The efforts of heterodox critics bear witness to the all-importance of the truth, which they vainly essay to shake by unnatural efforts which betray the dissatisfaction of their authors. Their is no such emphatic predication of supreme Deity in the Bible: not of course that the Father and the Holy Spirit are not co-equal, but because the humiliation of the Son in incarnation and the death of the cross made it fitting that the fullest assertion of divine supremacy should be used of Him.
Next, the apostle says of Christ, “who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature; for by him were all things created, that are in heaven and that are on earth visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him and for him; and he is before all things, and by him all things subsist.” Col. 1:15-1715Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: 16For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: 17And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. (Colossians 1:15‑17). The reveries of the Gnostics are here anticipatively cut off; for Christ is shown to have been chief of all creation, because He was Creator, and this of the highest invisible beings as well as of the visible: all things are said to have been created for Him as well as by Him: and as He is before all, so all subsist together in virtue of Him.
The only other passage I need now refer to is Heb. 1, where the apostle illustrates the fullness of Christ’s person among other Old Testament scriptures by Psalm 45 and 102. In the former He is addressed as God and anointed as man; in the latter He is owned as Jehovah, the Creator, after He is heard pouring out His affliction as the rejected Messiah to Jehovah.
It is impossible then to accept the Bible without rejecting Arianism as a heinous libel against Christ and the truth; for it is not more certain that He became a man than that He was God before creation, Himself the Creator, the Son, and Jehovah.
(From unpublished MSS of W. K.)
Alexander, indignant at the objections of Arius to himself, and because of his opinions, accused him of blasphemy. “The impious Arius,” he exclaimed, “the forerunner of Antichrist, had dared to utter his blasphemies against the divine Redeemer.” He was judged by two councils assembled at Alexandria, and cast out of the Church. He retired into Palestine, but in nowise discouraged by the disgrace. Many sympathized with him, among whom were the two prelates named Eusebius; one of Caesarea, the ecclesiastical historian; the other, bishop of Nicomedia, a man of immense influence. Arius kept up a lively correspondence with his friends, veiling his more offensive opinions, and Alexander issued warnings against him, and refused ah the intercessions of his friends to have him restored. But Arius was a crafty antagonist. He is described in history as tall and graceful in person; calm, pale, and subdued in countenance; of popular address, and an acute reasoner; of strict and blameless life, and agreeable manners; but that under a humble and mortified exterior, he concealed the strongest feelings of vanity and ambition. The adversary had skillfully selected his instrument. The apparent possession of so many virtues fitted him for the enemy’s purpose. Without these fair appearances he would have had no power to deceive.