Tranquillity being restored, and Christians enjoying the smiles of imperial favor under Constantine, the churches, which had been thrown down by the rage of persecuting tyrants, were rebuilt with more than former splendor; festivities and dedications frequently occurred, and all was full of joy and promise. The change was, indeed, great; dungeons were exchanged for palaces, and the remembrance of past misery heightened the sense of present happiness. Eusebius depicts those halcyon days in warm and glowing colors.* He was now Bishop of Cæsarea, and for some time we hear little of him, except that he was present at the dedication of the

escape from prison, unless you promised our persecutors that you would do the nefarious thing, or did it?" (Epiph. Hær. Melit. 68, § 7.) Now, it is to be observed, not one word of proof is here offered. All is vague conjecture. Eusebius had found means of leaving prison, how, Potamon does not know; the circumstance, he says, looks suspicious.

No more does Athanasius, the determined foe of Eusebius, venture to affirm that there existed any evidence that the reproach was deserved. He simply quotes a letter of some Egyptian bishops, in which it is intimated that he was accused by their confessors of having sacrificed. (Apol. II. in Arianos.) But could not Athanasius, who, during the time he was seated on the Episcopal throne of Alexandria, might be regarded as the most powerful man in Egypt, easily have obtained proof of the impious act, had it been committed? The disposition surely was not wanting. "Was not Eusebius," it is asked in the Letter, "accused of offering sacrifice to idols?" And what then? Were not you, Athanasius, accused of foul crimes, and among others, treason, sacrilege, and murder? And were you not banished by your sovereign as a "pestilent fellow," the foe of all peace and order?

Origen, if we mistake not, before Eusebius, was reproached with having thrown incense to idols. The charge was easily made or insinuated, and appears to have been resorted to by the malignity of enemies to depress an adversary or rival.

Multitudes of Christians, and some who had been thrown into prison during the severe persecutions, escaped without any improper compliance. Why might not Eusebius have been of the number? It is certain that his fame stood high immediately after the persecution under Diocletian ceased, for he was very soon advanced to the bishopric of Cæsarea; he was afterwards invited to the see of Antioch; and, finally, enjoyed the confidence of Christians generally to the end of life, which could hardly have been the case had there been any good ground for the charge alluded to. We feel little hesitation, therefore, in pronouncing the insinuation of Athanasius and his friend Potamon a calumny.

* Lib. x. c. 1, 2, 3.

new and stately church at Tyre, erected, under the auspices of his friend Paulinus, and delivered, on the occasion, as is generally supposed, though we have not his express assertion for it, the oration or address, which he has recorded at length in the tenth book of his "History."* We may suppose that he passed his time chiefly in studious retirement, among the volumes collected by Pamphilus, to which he made large additions, examining the records deposited in the other principal sees, and occasionally visiting Jerusalem, where there is said to have been a voluminous library; thus gathering materials for his great works, some of which, as his "Evangelical Preparation," and the "Demonstration," and possibly his "History," may have been composed before the Council of Nice. Within a few years, however, the Arian controversy broke out, and in its progress must have occupied no small portion of his time and thoughts. For a brief history of this controversy we must refer our readers to a former number. † The part which

* Cap. 4. It has been usual with ecclesiastical writers to apply to this discourse the epithets "fine," "eloquent," and the like. Even Le Clerc calls it "une belle harangue,” and thinks that the author suppressed his name through "modesty." The general style of speaking and writing, at that time, however, was marked with bad taste, and the piece in question furnishes, in our opinion, no exception. It abounds with Eusebius' usual faults. It is exceedingly loose and immethodical, though not wanting in vivacity and warmth of expression. It is, too, full of the most extravagant panegyric, of which, however, Eusebius could be guilty on occasion. He exalts Paulinus, who seems to have been present and heard the whole, to a place next the Saviour of the world. The conclusion, however, is solemn and scriptural, and the whole breathes a strain of unaffected and fervent piety.

Christian Examiner, New Series, Vol. VII. p. 298. Arius, a priest of Alexandria, maintained, in opposition to the extravagant and, in certain respects, novel doctrines of his bishop, Alexander, that the Son was inferior to the Father, that he had a beginning, and was created out of nothing. The first of these propositions was agreeable to the prevailing doctrine of Christians of his time, and had been asserted by all the old fathers of the church. In regard to the second, though these fathers used the term created in application to the Son, and spoke of him as having had a beginning, that is, as being the beginning of the creation of God, as expressed in Prov. viii. 22, which was uniformly rendered, "The Lord created me the beginning of his ways to his works," - yet they supposed that he possessed from eternity a sort of metaphysical existence in the Father, that is, existed as an attribute of the Deity, his logos, reason, or wisdom; that it was, therefore, absurd to say that there was a time when he was not, since the

he took in it may be stated in few words. From first to last he was disposed to favor the Arians, either because he leaned to their opinions, though he seems not fully to have embraced them, or because, as some may think, he understood better than many of his cotemporaries the great principles of Christian liberty, which, however, may be doubtful.

Arius, after his expulsion from Egypt, found a warm and active friend in Eusebius of Nicomedia, who assembled a council in Bithynia, A. D. 323, which made an effort in his favor, but without success. Alexander still refused to restore him to communion. He then applied to some bishops of Palestine for permission to occupy a church, and perform among his adherents all the functions of a priest. The application was successful chiefly through the influence of Eusebius, the historian, who thus early embarked in the controversy.

*

At the Council of Nice, as Sozomen informs us, he occupied a seat on the right of the emperor, whom he addressed in a short speech. Of the part he took in the deliberations of the council we have his own account in his apologetic Letter to his people, already alluded to. In this letter he inserts at

Father was never without reason or wisdom. A little before the creation of the material world, as they generally asserted, this attribute was thrown out, or prolated, as it was expressed, that is, acquired, by a voluntary act of the Father, a separate being, became a personal agent, possessing individual consciousness. This was what they meant, when they spoke of the Son as made or begotten of the Father. They regarded him as a "hypostatized attribute." This metaphysical nicety Arius discarded, maintaining that though the Son was, next to God, the greatest and best of beings, ranking both in time and dignity as the first and chief of his creation, and immutable, yet he existed not from eternity, nor was made of things that were, but was called into being from nothing, by an act of the Supreme Infinite One, and that he did not exist before he was begotten, and moreover that Alexander himself formerly preached the same doctrine. Arius did not choose to retract; he was popular and much caressed; subtile in argument, keen, discriminating, of irreproachable life, exhibiting all the marks of warm and sincere piety; of a grave aspect, but possessing winning powers of conversation; and altogether a formidable opponent of his bishop, who, failing to convince his reason, assembled a council of neighbouring bishops, A. D. 322, and drove him and his adherents from the city.

* Eusebius himself simply says, "He of the bishops on the right" rose and addressed the Emperor, suppressing the name.-Life of Constantine, Lib. iii. c. 11.

VOL. XVIII.

N. S. VOL. XIII. NO. I.

12

length the form of a creed, which he proposed to the council, and which contained, as he affirms, the sentiments he had always believed and preached, and which, he adds, at first met the approbation of all present. Both the members of the council and the emperor, he tells us, appeared satisfied. But it was soon discovered, it seems, that the Arians could subscribe it, putting their own construction on its language. This, no doubt, Eusebius foresaw, and it was precisely what he wished. But such a creed was not what the majority, who were determined to cut off Arius from the communion of the church, wanted. They were for a time, it appears, at a loss for some epithet to apply to the Son, which the Orthodox could, and the Arians could not adopt, till it was at length discovered from a letter of Eusebius of Nicomedia, that the latter objected to saying that he was consubstantial with the Father, upon which they eagerly pounced upon the term as exactly suited to their purpose. It is true, the term had been condemned, about fifty years before, by the fathers of the Council of Antioch, in the case of Paul of Samosata; but that circumstance might not have been recollected, or if recollected, it mattered little, they might think. The word was convenient now, though it might not have been so then.

Constantine, who, from the first, had conceived the whole controversy to be of a very frivolous nature, and who was not disposed to stand on niceties of expression, which he probably very imperfectly understood, and who was, moreover, sincerely desirous to accommodate' matters, readily adopted the word and advised the rest to do the same. Eusebius, after a good deal of hesitation, subscribed the symbol in its new dress, containing the obnoxious word and two or three others, which from his tenderness for the Arians, whom he was reluctant to condeinn, he had avoided introducing into his proposed creed. He was, in consequence, afterwards accused by his enemies of insincerity and bad faith; for, though he seems to have avoided the use of expressions peculiarly Arian, he continued, as far as he could, without committing his own safety, to befriend the Arians, and his heart appears to have been always with them.

He seems to have himself thought, that some explanation was due to his friends for his consent to the act of subscription, and, in the letter he sent home on the occasion, he put the best face he could on the matter. He tells his people, that he

long resisted,, but that his scruples as to the use of the terms, deemned exceptionable, (“consubstantial,” and “begotten, not made,") were at length removed by the exposition given by the council of the sense in which they were to be taken, that is, as implying that the Son had no resemblance or community with the things made by him (as the agent of the Father in the creation of the material universe), that he is of like substance with the Father, though not a part of his substance, resembling him, but not identical with him. This explanation, though it would hardly pass for orthodox now, was consistent enough with the spirit of the Platonizing theology from Athenagoras down to the time of Eusebius, and with it he professed to be satisfied, and finally assented to the whole, as he says, for the sake of peace!

In regard to the anathemas at the end of the creed, he says that he felt no difficulty, as they only condemned the use of certain Arian expressions not found in the Scriptures. But Eusebius should have recollected, while holding this language, that the term the fathers of the council had adopted as a test of orthodoxy, and to the use of which he had assented, was also an unscriptural term, and on this very ground the Arians objected to it, and begged that it might not be imposed. They were ready, they said, in speaking of the Son, to employ all those terms, and ascriptions of dignity which were found in the Bible. The subject of their complaint was, that with this their opponents were not satisfied, but insisted that they should adopt expressions of which there was no example in Scripture or antiquity.

The question of Eusebius sincerity or insincerity, we have no intention to discuss. It would be no difficult matter, we suppose, to defend him upon Dr. Paley's principle, or on the principle sanctioned, it seems, by some high Orthodox authorities among ourselves. He was willing to subscribe the propositions contained in the creed as "articles of peace," and no doubt believed them "for substance of doctrine." As explained by its friends, the creed probably contained no doctrines, which he did not admit, though in regard to the philosophy of some of those doctrines, he might, very probably, differ from them. If so, his conduct admits of as good a defence as that of most persons who have had to do with creeds and confessions, in ancient or modern times.

We could wish, to be sure, that he had manifested a little