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Christology and Church-State Relations in the Fourth Century*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
Extract
If we are correct in saying that for the Arians the relationship of the Logos-Son to the Father was primarily a cosmological problem and for the Catholics primarily a soteriological problem, we should be able to go on and point to corresponding differences in the liturgical ethos of the rival parties and more specifically to divergent conceptions and practices connected with the Eucharist, resulting from differing conceptions of the role of Logos-Son. We do find, despite the meagre materials on the Arian side, divergent emphases that will be seen to bear on the behavior of the two parties in the ecclesio-political struggle of the fourth century.
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- Copyright © American Society of Church History 1951
References
1 Hendrik Berkhof sees clearly the importance of the eultus for both Constantine and Constantius and observes that Athanasius' theological recalcitrance imperilling the cultic unity was one of the basic reasons for the struggle between him and Constantine: Für den Kaiser war die Kjrche vor allcm die Gerneinsehaft, weiche Gott mit dern richtigen Kult verehrt. Wer den Kult stört, wie es nach Konstantins Auffassung die Donatisten taten, weiche die Gültigkeit der kirchlichen Handlungen voa der moralischen Qualitht des Priesters abhangig machten, ist radikal in seine Sehranken zu weisen. Aber aller Streit urn ausserhalb des Kultes liegende Dinge ist als em Streit urn Nichtigkeitcn so rasch wie moglich abzubrechen. Kirehe und Kaiser, p. 76; cf. also p. 116: “Das Abendmahl war zu einem Opfer entartet …”
2 Cf. Athanasius, , Apologia contra Arianos, 19Google Scholar. I have found an exception in the Decreturm of the Oriental Synod of Sardica, 342/3, preserved among the Excerpta cx opere historico s. Hilarii deperdito, libris tribus, Ut videtur, adversum Valentem et Ursacium, ed. Feder, A., C.S.E.L, (Vienna, 1916), 48 ff.Google Scholar, esp. 58 f. (Hereafter cited as Fragmenta historica.) Herein the Easterners are manifestly offended at the thought of Eucharistic fellowship with Marcellus of Ancyra and Athanasius. The two most recent studies of the Decretum make no attempt to dispute or even evaluate the facts recounted therein but are concerned solely with the identification of the recipients thereof, among others Donatus of Carthage: Achelis, M., “Eine donatistische Fälsehung,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, XLVIII (1929), 344Google Scholar and Zeiller, Jacques, “Donatisme et arianisme des documents du concile arien de Sardique,” Comptes rendus, Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, 1939, p. 65.Google Scholar
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10 Ibid., 17, 20.
11 It may be that Constantius, the unbaptized, demanded the right of communion.
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19 Athanasius, , Historia Ariassorum, 56 f.Google Scholar
20 To be sure we have examples of excommunication on the Anian side (cf. above, p. 3, n. 2), but on the whole they were the latitudinanians of their time. The demand of Mercuninus-Auxentius that Catholics be rebaptized is atypical. It is an indication that Arianism has entered the sectarian phase, consequent upon the re-establishment of Orthodoxy in 380.
21 Cf. Themistius, , Oratio VIII, 139, 28 ff.Google Scholar
22 Cf. Florovsky, George, “Origen, Eusebius, and the Iconoclastic Controversy,” Church History, XIX (1950), 77CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Herein is shown that the Iconoclasts revived for polemical purposes the famous letter of Eusebius of Caesarea to Constantia Augusta, wherein the bishop declares that since the Resurrection no picture of Jesus can have divine significance. The historical Jesus is eclipsed by the eternal Christ, made manifest in each generation, according to the Iconoelasts, in imperial power. On this last point, see G. Ladner, op.cit.
23 Semi-Arian Eusebius of Caesarea, interestingly, claimed appointment to the episcopate from the Eternal Logos directly.
24 Cf. Lucifer, 160, 19: “possetis [Constantius] apostolicam traditionem destruire”; 265, 19; 329, 19: “et numquam mea statuta sed apostolica,” defending his action against Constantius. Cf. below, p. 16, n. 91.
25 Ibid., 17, 19.
26 Ibid., 6, 20; 20, 15.
27 The revulsion from the Arians is so intense in De non conveniendo curn haereticis that Lucifer tends to identify the heretics led by Constantius as the ethnici, par excellence, quite overlooking the outright pagans.
28 Ibid., 12, 7; 13, 8, etc.
29 He scorns the Arians' delight in rhetorical polish (scientia ethnicalium literarum), 386, 20 and 23.
30 It will be recalled that Lucifer and his followers eventually disassociated themselves from the principal Nicenes by rejecting the compromise with the conservative Homoiousians. An intensification of the separatist, puritan tendency of Lucifer's conception of the Church as the remnant of Israel comes out in Jerome's attack on his followers, Dialogus contra Luciferianos,—11. Cf. G. Krüger, op. cit., 66 ff. We have several times noted the close connection between the rigorist posture and prophetic criticism of the Christian State: i.e. on Origen, , Church History, September. 1951, p. 6, n. 10.Google Scholar
31 In connection with II Cor. 6:16 Lucifer asks indignantly: “Quomodo poteris portare deum, Constanti, in corpore tuo, cum apostolicam fidem reiciendo haereticamque suscipiendo non te illius esse dixeris, cuius se dixerunt patres nostri Abraham Isaac et Iacob, sed et cuncti prophetae apostoli ac martyres?” De non conveniendo cum haereticis, 25, 17ff.; cf. 160, 29 f.; 267, 1; 316, 1 f.
32 Ii, Ep., Ad Luciferum, C.S.E.L., XIV, 325, 29Google Scholar. The testimony of this letter to contemporary evaluation of Lucifer is only shifted if we accept Saltet's, L. thesis that it was a forgery of the Luciferians, “Fraudes littéraires des schismatiques lucifériens,” Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique, 1905, 222.Google Scholar
33 De non parcendo in Deum deliquentibus, 279, 5 ff
34 Ibid., 277, 17 ff
35 Morieadum esse pro dci filio, 311, 25
36 Ibid., 316, 2–10; 27–32: Non eris, Constanti, lila evasurus supplicia, nisi primo in loco unicum Dei filium verum esse Dei filium credideris, deinde, ut crebro dictum est, quod semper cam patre regnaverit ac sit regnans, hoe est sine initio ac fine confessus fueris atque te ad catholicam ecelesiam de nefando Arrianorum coetu transtuleris, de morte sdileet ad vitam, et confessus fueris ut nos confitemur eatholici patrem et fiium et spiritum sanctum perfectam esse tninitatem et unam habere deitatem… Nobis episcopis igitur scias magis datam divinitus potestatem, ut tu, dum damnare nos putas, damnemus, dum punire nos posse praesumis, te Constantium sacnilegum puniamus, siquidem ille quem negas dare nobis episeopis suis fuit dignatus auctoritatem, at quae ligaverimus in terris sint ligata et in eaelis.
37 Pointed out by J. Straub, op. cit. Lucifer is discussed at pp. 136–9. Straub indicates that to both priest and bishop is ascribed the power of the keys, but from all that Lucifer writes it seems clear that he means by sacerdos, bishop and not priest. Sacerdos was first used of priest by Optatus in 369. Cf. G. Dix, op. cit., p. 282, n. 1.
38 De non conveniendo, 5, 20; 6, 20; 20, 15; etc. Ambrose, without having the Arians specifically in mind, makes, however the Same point in De poenitentia, i, ii, 8: “Munus Spiritus sancti est officium sacerdotis, jus autem Spiritus sancti in solvendis ligandisque criminibus est; quomodo igitur munua eius vindicant, lie cuius diffidunt jure et potestate?” etc. Ambrose, without having the Arians specifically in mind, makes however the same point in De poenitentia, i, ii, 8: “Munus Spiritus Sancti est officium saeerdoits, jus autem Spirtius sancti in solvendis igtur munus eius vindicant, de cuius diffidunt jure et potestate?”
39 De Trinitate, vi, 37f. “This is the Father's revelation [to Peter], this the foundation of the Church, this the assurance of her permanence. Hence has she the keys of the kingdom of heaven, hence judgment in heaven and judgment on earth.”
40 Historia Arianorum, 77, etc.
41 As Pnlanque points ont, Ambrose, unlike Augustine, for example, was anti-Barbarian and his opposition to Arianism was snstained in part by his Roman pride. Op. cit.
42 Ep. xli, 2–3.Google Scholar
43 De mystcriis, v. 26.
44 Ambrose is exceedingly fond of citing Elijah. Many of his acts were clearly patterned on the ancient model. Paulinus, his biographer, recounts several examples of such parallelism with Elijah or Elisha, including the resuscitation of a child by lying upon it, by virtue of his possession of the Spirit and hence of Life. Paulinus, , Vita, 28 and 47Google Scholar; De officiis, 2, 14, 14; 3, 1, 4; De Nab. 12, 150; 15, 64; 17, 70; In Luc. 1, 36; 8, 96; 1, 3; 3, 14; De Elia 2 and 3; De fide i, 13, 81; iii, 14 30; ep. lxiii, 67–78. We have already noted that Athanasius calls Lucifer the Elijah of his times. Above, p. 8, n 32.
45 De mystcriis, v, 27
46 Ambrose' intolerant demands (Contra Symmachum) that the State not countenance the presence of the statue of Victory in Rome fits in here very well as also his rebuke of Theodosius for indemnifying the Jewish synagogue for its losses at the hands of Christians (ep. xl).
47 Contra Auxcntium, 17 f.
48 The courageous and saintly Nieene Eusebius of Vercelli had insisted on a reaffirmation of saccrdotalis fides, i.e., the faith of authentic bishops. Fragmenta historica, 187.
49 Ep. xl, 2.
50 Oratio 43, 50; quoted by Reilly, Gerald F., Imperium and Saccrdotium according to St. Basil the Great, The Catholic University of America Studies in Christian Antiquity, VII (Washington, 1945), p. 57.Google Scholar
51 Gregory Dix has assembled the numerous references to imperial interference in episcopal elections. Op. cit., p. 278, n. 1.
52 Dix cites the canons, Ibid. As Campenhausen observes, Arianism is to the rise of the metropolitanates as, before it, the Gnostic crisis to the monarchical episcopate, and, after it, the christological controversies to the rise of patriarchates.
53 Ambrose, , Contra Auxentium, 31Google Scholar: “isti imperatori volunt dare ius ecclesiae.”
54 Athanasius chides the Arians who claim they cannot attend Pope Julius' council because of their duty on the Persian front: But “what have bishops to do with war?” Historia Arianorum, ii.
55 G. Dix, op. cit., p. 279.
56 For the Greek, cf. Constantine's addressing his edict of 333 concerning Anus (Socrates, , H. B., i, 9Google Scholar) “to bishops and laois.” Later in the century it will be more difficult to distinguish (Christian) laity from (the still pagan) populace or citizenry of a town. Cf. two Latin versions of this address in the edict rendering the key word plebibus (undated, but probably preserving an earlier usage) and popalis (787) in Opitz, Hans-Georg, Athanasius' Werke, III:1 (Berlin and Leipzig, 1935), 66fGoogle Scholar. Cf. above, p. 9, n.48.
57 Cf. the quite impartial pagan Ammianus, op. cit., xv. 7, 10.
58 Athanasius, , Historia Arianorum, 75Google Scholar; Socrates, , H. E., ii, 37Google Scholar; Sozomen, , H. E., iv, 11Google Scholar; Theodoret, , H. E., ii, 17Google Scholar. The whole Liberius-Felix episode is succinctly handled by Feder, Alfred, “Studien zu Hilarius von Poitiers, I,” S. B., Wiener Akademie der Wissensehaf ten, phil.-hist. KI., CLXII (1909/1910), p. 174.Google Scholar
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60 Ep. xxi, 17.
61 Among them, the poor. Cf. Historia Arianorum, 61 f.
62 Epistola cncyclica, 2.
63 Athanasius, , Historia Arianorum, 74Google Scholar. Here and in 75 he enumerates the imperial appointments, among them that of Felix chosen to succeed Liberius. Athanasius says that Epictetus, bishop of Civitaveechia, a favorite of Coastantius, summoned three “kataskopoi”—he is unwilling to call them episcopoi—to ordain Felix in the palace instead of the church, while court eunuchs took the part of the people in the ceremony.
64 Athanasius, , Historia Arianorum, 7Google Scholar; Socrates, , H. B., ii, 13.Google Scholar
65 Fragmcnta historica, 187. Lucifer says that Constantius “ordained” his Arian successor, Auxeatius. De sancto Athanasio, 162, 3.
66 Op. cit., part iv.
67 As Dix remarks, “When the Church entered into an alliance with the State under Constantine, its old cellular organization with its self-sufficiency and intense local vitality was an anachronism …” Op. cit., p. 276.
68 Ep. xxi, 15.Google Scholar
69 Iccireo laboratis … ut omnes, quibus imperatis, dulcissima libertate potiantur. Non alia ratione, quae turbata sunt, componi, quae divulsa sunt, coherceri, nisi unusquisque nulla servitutis necessitate astrictus integrum habeat vivendi arbitrium. Fragmcnta historica, 182, 6 ff. It was A. Wilmart who showed that the whole piece was written by the Nicene bishops at Sardica. “L'Ad Constantinuni liber I de Saint Hilaire de Poitiers et les fragments historiques.” Revue Bénédictine, XXIV (1907), 149Google Scholar. Cf., on the liberty of clergy as bulwark of civil liberty, H. von Campenhausen, op. cit., p. 271.
70 Dix, op. cit., p. 278: “When at the end of the century the bishops were given by imperial constitutions the office of defensores of their see cities, practically replacing the old elected local magistrates as the bulwark of local liberty against the oppression of the elected bureaucracy, it was a natural step. They were virtually the only elected representatives of the cities who had survived the flood of officialdom.” But on St. Augustine as a rather indifferent defensor of Hippo and further literature see Combès, Gustave, La doctrine politique de Saint Augustin (Paris, 1927), pp. 320 ff.Google Scholar
71 For a recent discussion of the problem, see Dvornik, Francis, “The Authority of the State in Ecumenical Councils,” The Christian East, XIV (1933), p. 98Google Scholar: “… in convoking the Ecumenical Councils the Emperors judged themselves not to be exercising a power delegated to them, but a power which was an attribute of and, as it were, emanating from their of fiee as Emperor.”
72 Apologia contra Arianos, 3, 7 and 11, 19.
73 Historia Arianorum, 52.
74 Hagel, op. cit., section 13 and pp. 65, 69. Athanasius objects against the Meletians allied with the Arians that they consider the Church as a civil senate. Historia Arianorum, 78.
75 Geschichte des Papsttums von den Anfängen bis zur Höhe der Weltherrschaft, I, Römische Kirche und I'mperium Romanum (Tübingen, 1930), ch. iv.Google Scholar
76 See his well-conceived letter to the Eusehians in Athanasius, , Apologia contra Arianos, 21 ff.Google Scholar
77 Theodoret, , H. E., ii, 13Google Scholar. We pass over the less valorous sequel.
78 J. Straub has connected a number of examples of Lucifer's setting divina lex (=the Bible) over against the auctoritas regalis. Op. cit., 249, n. 303.
79 De non parcendo in Deum deliquentibus, 273, 18ff.: “Videmus vos lupos [the Roman emperors, in allusion to Acts 20:29 in Paul's charge to the elders of Ephesus] quos praesostendere est dignatus spiritus sanctus per vas electionis apostolum omnem comprehendere onatos dei gregem; et nos, episcopos quos spiritus sanctus ad regendam dei ecclesism costituerit, quod dicit beatus apostolus, debemus tibi lupo parcere, debemus vereri regni tui diademam, inaurem etiam et dextrocheria, debemus insigues quas esse ceases vestes tuas honorare et despicere rerum creatorem atque rectorem?”
80 Ibid., 278, 25 f. Cf. De non conveniendo cum haereticis, 12, 13 f.
81 Athanasius, , Historia Arianontm, 34Google Scholar
82 Op. cit., p. 68, n. 31
83a Historia Arianorum, 74
83b Gigas. Cf. Athanasius, , De decretis, 32Google Scholar; Oratio II, 32Google Scholar
83c Historia Arianorum, 36, 74, etc.
83d Ibid., 77
84 Ibid., 74. Cf. Lucifer on Constantius' ordinations, Church History, Sept. 1951, p. 248, n. 122.Google Scholar
85 Contra Auxentium, 3; cf. also ep. xxi, 17
86 Epp. ii. 15 and xii, 6. Cf. H. von Campenhausen, op. cit., p. 213.
87 op. cit., p. 131.
88 On the way in which the authority of the Holy Spirit passes from the whole church at Pentecost, to the episcopate, then to the councils (and finally the Bishop of Rome) see Koeniger, Albert M., “Prima sedes a nemine judicatur,“ Beitädge zur Geschichte des christilchen Altertums und der byzantinischen Literatur:Festgabe Albert Ehrhard (Bonn and Leipzig, 1922), 273.Google Scholar
89 Cf. Cerfaux, L., “Regale sacerdotium,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, xxviii (1939), p. 5.Google Scholar
90 So the Council of Sardica. Socrates, H. E.
91 De sancto Athanasio, 6.6. Cf. above p. 7, a. 24. (Lucifer) and p. 14 (Athaaasius).
92 De non conueniendo cum haereticis, 14, 21 ff.
93 De non parcendo in Deum deliquentibus, 262.
94 Apologia ad Constantium, xi, xii.Google Scholar
95 Vita sancti Antoni, liii.
96 Expositto in psalmum cxviii, sermo xv, 35
97 Migne, , P.C., XXX, esp. 5.Google Scholar
98 Esp. 41. Gaudel, A. touches upon the problem in “La théologie du Logos chez saint Athanase: Une synthèse christologique à la veille de l'arianisme,” Revue des sciences religieuses, XI (1931), esp. 6–9.Google Scholar
99 De Spiritu sancto, v, 9 and xviii, 45Google Scholar; Migne, , P.C., XXXII, coil. 84 and 149.Google Scholar
100 Adversus Eunomium, 4; Migne, , P.C., XXIX, col. 700Google Scholar. Noted by G. Reilly, who devotes a whole chapter to Christ's Headship of the Church, op. cit., ch. ii.
101 Migne, , P.G., XXX, col. 865Google Scholar. Eunomius is briefly discussed at this point by Peterson, E., Monotheismus, p. 94.Google Scholar
102 De Trinitate, xi, 4, 21, and 25. It should be remarked here that the altogether ambiguous Marcellus of Aneyra, from whom Athanasius was slow to dissociate himself, attached a very special importance to I Cor. 15 and was in consequence charged with denying the eternity of Christ's Kingdom by the Easterners themselves in their separate council of Sardica. Fragmenta historica, 49, 25 ff. and 63, 15. But for the specialized sense Marcellus gave the text in support of biblical monotheism, see W. Gerioke, op. cit., pp. 142 ff.
103 De Trinitate, xi, 39. Migne, , P. L., X, 424Google Scholar. The whole of liber xi is devoted to our problem with mention of principalities and powers, 32 and passim. For a recent pertinent discussion of Hilary, see Smnlders, Pierre, La doctrine trinitaire de S. Hilaire de Poitiers, Analeeta Gregoriana, XXXII, series theologiea, Seetlo B (n.14) (Rome, 1944), esp. p. 29.Google Scholar
104 Ibid., 20.
105 De fide, iv, 2 (24).
106 Ibid., iv, 3 (33).
107 Ibid., v, 14 (180).
108 Contra Auxentium, 1. On Christ as irnperator, see Dölger, Franz, “Zur antiken und frühehristliehen Auffassung der Herrschergewalt von Gottes,” Antike und Christeatum, III, 117.Google Scholar
109 De fide, iii, 17 (137 ff).
110 Acts 7:55.
111 De fide, iii, 17 (137).
112 Ep. lxiii, 5 f.
113 For the literature on sitting and standing gods and emperors, see A. Noek, op. cit., p. 103, n. 18.
114 De fide, ii, 12, (100).
115 See, then, how unwilling he [God the Father] was that thou shouldst dishonour his Son—even so that he gave him to he thy judge…. Raise thine eyes to the Judge, see who it is that is seated, with whom he is seated, and where. Christ sitteth at the right hand of the Father… Tell me now, thou who holdest that the things of God are to be judged of from the things of this world—say whether thou thinkest him who sits at the right hand to be lower? Is it any dishonour to the Father that he sits at the Son's left hand? The Father honours the Son, and thou makest it to he an insult? The Father would have this invitation to be a sign of love and esteem, and thou wouldst make it an overlord's command! Christ hath risen from the dead, and sitteth at the right hand of God. De fide, ii, 12 (102). The discussion here is probably related to the Roman feeling for the superiority of the left hand to the right. See Frothingham, A., “Ancient Orientation Unveiled,” American Journal of Archaeology, XXI (1917), p. 325.Google Scholar
116 Defide, ii,12 (103).
117 Ibid., 11 (96).
118 De fide, v. 12 (147).
119 Ibid., (146), (149).
120 Ibid., (147).
121 Ibid., (151). Cf. (149): “When I am on the way [that is, on earth], I am Christ's; when I have passed through, I am the Father's; but everywhere through Christ, and everywhere under him.’
122 Ibid., iii, 12 (92).
123 Ibid., v, 11 (144).
124 De fide, 12 (152).
125 Ibid., i, 20 (137), (138), (139), (140); ii, 16 (136).
126 Ibid., ii, 16 (141), (142).
127 Ibid., (142)f.
128 De Obitu Theodosii, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 56. L. Laurand holds that this section on the Cross is an addendum by Ambrose to the oration as actually delivered. “L'oraison funèbre de Théodose par saint Ambroise,” Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique, XVII (1921), 349.Google Scholar
129 See above, p. 19, n. 1.
130 There seems to be no comprehensive study of the fourth century political behavior of what modern religious sociology calls the sects. Here it would be the Mnnichaeans, the Montanists, the Novatianists, the Donatists, and the Priseillianists.
131 Cf. Ambrose on the canons of Rimini: “The law did not gather the Church together, but the faith of Christ. For the law is not by faith, but ‘the just shall live by faith.’” Contra Auxentium, 24.
132 “Kurz gesagt: alle arianisehe und semi-nrianische Theologie hat eine wesensmässige Tendenz zum Byzantinismus; die athanasische und westliche Theologie hat cine wesensmässige Tendenz zur Theokrntie” (p. 200), “Im Byzantinismus dient die Kirche dem Staatsplan. In der Thcokratie [hoffentlieh mit Toleranz und sieher auch Freiheit] dient der Stant Gottcs Heilsplan” (p. 209). Berkhof suggests a parallel in the controversy between the strict Calvinists and Remonstrnnts in his native Holland. The former because of their more pessimistic view of human nature were intolerant of state interference, while the more confident Armininns were Ernstians.
133 In the East, it was monasticism, as George Florovsky has recently shown, which wns the bearer of the principle of freedom but at the expense of the theoerntie concern. Moreover, monastic protest and withdrawal is not to be explained in terms of the soteriologiealcosmological tension basic to the Catholie-Arinu controversy. Needless to say, the object of the monks wns salvation, but their justification for indifference or hostility toward the State goes back to Origen's doctrine that in the measure one is withdrawn from the world one is freed from paying tribute to Caesar.
134 Contra Auxontium, 37. Significantly, it was also Ambrose who had prevailed upon Gratian to divest himself (382) of the title pontifex maximus and to relinquish any control over Christian cultus, canon, and creed that the title might have implied.
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