learning, and zealous enough for the interests of the church of Rome, who deny Hosius to have been the pope's legate in that council, and affirm him to have subscribed only in the name of the province for which he served, and that whatever precedency or authority he had in that synod, it was derived upon him by the fathers of the council, and that only upon account of his excellent learning, and eminent confessorship in the times of persecution. VI. Hosius, thus furnished with the imperial commission, takes his journey for Alexandria, where being arrived, he delivered the emperor's letters, and it was determined, that the matter should be again examined by a public convention. Hereupon a synod of the bishops of those parts was assembled,* which Baronius (who traded no farther than in Latin translations) calls a general council,' and that for this reason, because it was held by the legate of the apostolic see; both certainly true alike: for neither did Hosius preside in this synod as the papal legate, nor is this synod in Athanasius styled a general council, things being only said to be managed ὑπὸ κοινῆς συνόδου, in a common assembly of the Egyptian bishops. What was particularly transacted in this synod, we nowhere find, more than that Colluthus was deposed, who having been presbyter of one of the parish-churches in Alexandria, had arrogantly assumed to himself the place and title of a bishop, and as such had consecrated many into holy orders, for which he was here censured and reduced to his former station, and the ordination of those who had been consecrated by him declared null and void. As for the Arian controversies, we may guess by the event what was the issue of this meeting, no good being done in it; neither the care and authority of the emperor, nor the presence and persuasions of Hosius, being able to prevail, the full deciding of the case being reserved to a more public and solemn determination. j Fr. Bivar. Comm. in Dextr. Chron. ad Ann. 324. p. 376. ubi alii citantur. Vid. Athan. c. Arian. s. 74 et 75. Ad Ann. 318. num. 88, 89. et Ann. 319. num. 23. SECTION III. THE ACTS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE COUNCIL OF NICE. A general council summoned at Nice from all parts of the Christian church. The different accounts of the numbers that met in that synod. Whence this arose. How many took part with Arius. The time and place of their meeting. A busy philosopher silenced and convinced by an illiterate confessor. The preliminary disputes with Arius. The vigour and briskness of Athanasius in those disputes. The manner of the emperor's entrance into the synod, and the effects of his speech to them. Their mutual heats and accusations quashed by Constantine. The Arian doctrine more solemnly debated by the fathers. The Arian formula, by whom brought into the synod. The subtle evasions of Arians in the niceties of the difference between them and the Catholics. The Nicene creed drawn up by Hosius, and approved by the council. By whom rejected. Arius and his associates banished by the emperor. Constantine's edict against them and their writings, and command that they should be styled Porphyrians. What determination the synod made in the case of Meletius, and the person ordained by him. Their decision of the Paschal controversy. The number of the canons made by them. What passed between Constantine and Acesius the Novatian bishop. No reason to question the truth of that story. The synodical epistle to the church of Alexandria, concerning the transactions of the council. The effects of some of Constantine's letters to the same purpose. The end and duration of the synod: the fathers magnificently treated by the emperor. Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nice recant their subscription to the decrees of the synod, and are banished by the emperor; their boldness and impiety. The true account of that matter. AFTER Hosius had in vain attempted to make up the breach, he returned back to the court at Nicomedia, to give the emperor an account of his unsuccessful transaction at Alexandria. But Constantine desiring, if possible, to stop the gangrene from spreading farther, and finding that no private method would effect the cure, resolved, for the suppressing this and some other controversies then on foot, to call in the assistance of the whole Christian church. To which purpose he presently issued out his letters into all parts of the Christian world," commanding the bishops and clergy to meet together by a day appointed: who no sooner received the summons, but flocked out of all provinces, from Syria, Cilicia, Phoenicia, Arabia, Pontus, Galatia, Pamphylia, Cappadocia, Asia, Phrygia, Persia, Scythia, Egypt, Libya, Thracia, Macedonia, Epirus, Italy, and whence not? So that Eusebius compares this council to the great apostolical m Euseb. de vit. Const. l. iii. c. 6, 7, etc. assembly that met together upon the day of Pentecost, where there were Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea and Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the part of Libya about Cyrene, strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, men out of every nation under heaven. Only herein (as he observes) this had the advantage of the other, that in that the greatest part were laics, and they but proselytes; in this they were the guides and ministers of religion; men venerable for their age, and their confessions and constancy in the faith, for the gravity of their manners, the wisdom, learning, and reason of their arguments and discourses; who meeting together out of the remotest and most distant parts, made up a variegated garland (as he styles it) of the most beautiful and curious flowers which the Christian world ever beheld, either before or since. The place appointed for the assembly was Nice, the metropolis of Bithynia, (as Strabo calls it,") situate upon the banks of the Ascanian lake, in the same province with Nicomedia, where the emperor then kept his court. It was a city large, and exactly four-square, and seated in a pleasant champaign, highly commended by an old geographer for the neatness, elegancy, evenness, and regularity of its buildings, so as scarce any other place could equal it. Hither came three hundred and eighteen bishops, besides an innumerable company of presbyters, deacons, and inferior orders. Indeed the number of the Nicene fathers is uncertainly delivered by the ancients. Eusebius makes them more than two hundred and fifty.P Eustathius, bishop of Antioch, two hundred and seventy, (but withal tells us, that by reason of the greatness of the number he could give no certain account, nor was he very exact and curious about this matter.) Athanasius, three hundred,' more or less; Sozomen about three hundred and twenty. A manuscript collection of synodical acts, which Mr. Selden conjectures to have been written about the time of the council of Chalcedon,* makes the bishops to have been two hundred and thirty-two; the priests, deacons, and monks, eighty-six in all, three hundred and n Lib. xii. p. 565. q • Vet. Orb. descript. Gr. Lat. à Gothofred. edit. p. 28. 9 Ap. Theodor. 1. i. c. 8. P De vit. Const. 1. iii. c. 8. t Comment. in Eutych. p. 72. Lib. i. c. 17. eighteen. With him concurs a modern Greek historian, who adds," that the reason why just so many met, was because there were just so many years expired from the birth of Christ to the convening of that synod, which he makes to have been called anno 318. On the other hand, Eutychius the Arabic historian, and Ismael Ibn Ali a Mahometan historian, mentioned by Mr. Selden, enlarge the number to two thousand and forty-eight." Out of which they tell us, the emperor selected three hundred and eighteen. Though whence this variety of reports should arise, whether from the great numbers of inferior clergy that came thither, but had no votes in the council, or from the dissenting parties in the synod, not taken into account, is hard to say. The first is most probable, especially since Eusebius tells us, that the number of presbyters, deacons, acolythi, and others that attended the bishops thither, was so great, that they could not well be reckoned up. Nicetas Choniates gives this reason,* why no more bishops met in so venerable an assembly, because age and sickness detained many at home, and that bishoprics were then but thin sowed, every little city not being then advanced into an episcopal see, as it was afterwards; some whole countries having no more than one bishop to preside over them, The number that has gained the general suffrage in all ages of the church, is that there were three hundred and eighteen bishops, and with this Athanasius himself elsewhere concurs." And to make it the more sacred and venerable, Liberius, with his council of Western bishops," has found out a mystery in it, it being exactly the same number wherewith the patriarch Abraham went out and overcame the vast army of the infidels. Of this number there were that espoused the cause of Arius in the council, nine (say some,a) thirteen (say others,”) fifteen," or seventeen (as others, d) Philostorgius reckons up twenty-two, whose names he sets down, together with the provinces from whence they came. They were all together, with their attendants and followers, transported thither by public conveyances at Loc. supra citat. - Doroth. Monemb. Σύνοψ. διαφ. ἱστος. p. σλή. * Thes. Orth. Fid. l. v. c. 5. Epist. ad episc. Macedon. ap. Socrat. L. iv. c. 12. y Epist. ad Afric. episc. s. 2. a Theod. Mops. apud Nicet. Thes. Orth. fid. 1. v. c. 7. b Theodor. ap eundem. d Act. Synod. ibid. Rufin. l. i. c. 5. • Hist. Eccl. 1. i. ap. Nicet. Thes. Orth. fid. 1. v. c. 7. c Sozom. ibid. the emperor's charge, as they were maintained at his cost during their being there. II. This venerable synod began upon the twentieth day of May, or, as others more probably, on the nineteenth of June, Ann. Chr. 325. They met (as the ecclesiastic historians generally affirm) in the great hall of the palace; though a learned man thinks it highly improbable, that such sublime and sacred matters should be debated any where but in the church; and that it was only on the final and conclusive day that they assembled in the palace. But wherever it was, it was a place which this great transaction recommended to the respect and reverence of posterity, some part of it yet standing in the last age, and which Busbequius, the emperor's ambassador, supposes to be the place he lodged in in his Amasian journey to the grand seignior's court. The bishops, before they formally met in a solemn council, spent some days in preliminary discourses and disputations," wherein they were first attacked by certain philosophers, men versed in subtleties and the arts of reasoning, whom either curiosity had drawn hither, or, as some suspect, Arius had brought along with him to plead his cause, and to retard and entangle the proceedings of the synod. One of which, priding himself in the neatness and elegancy of his discourses, reflected with scorn upon the fathers of the council: a piece of insolence so intolerable, that an ancient confessor then in the company, a man plain, and unskilled in the tricks and methods of disputing, not being able to bear it, offered himself to undertake him. For which he was laughed at by some, while others, more modest and serious, feared what would be the success of his entering the lists with so able and famed a disputant. The good man however went on with his resolution, and bluntly accosted his adversary in this manner. Christ, philosopher, give ear. heaven and earth, and of all created all these things by the power of his Word, and ratifies them by the sanctity of his Holy Spirit. This Word, which we call the Son of God, pitying the apostacy and brutish state of mankind, condescended to be born of a woman, to dwell amongst "In the name of Jesus There is one God, maker of things visible and invisible, who f H. Val. Annot. in Eus. de vit. Const. 1. iii. c. 10. 8 De Legat. Turc. Epist. i. p. 56. ed. 1605. h Socrat. 1. i. c. 8. Sozom. 1. i. c. 17. Rufin. Hist. Eccl. 1. i. c. 3. |