Why are we (Nicene) Christians? Part 5

“the Christians in their deadly hatred of one another”

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 6

Constantine’s decision to fasten the destiny of the Empire to Christianity was a turning point, not just in the history of the Roman Empire, but in world history: without a Christian Empire, there would have been no Islam, and Judaism would probably have died a natural death long ago.

Was Constantine’s decision political or religious? The distinction cannot be made sharply in those times, for every city, kingdom or empire was under the protection of its gods. Eusebius of Caesarea makes it clear that Constantine chose the Christian God, Christ, with the conviction that he had given his father and himself victory on the battlefield and would give him a secure and successful reign.

After defeating Maxentius, Constantine never set foot again in Rome, a city incorrigibly loyal to her pagan roots (see my previous post), and immediately after defeating Licinius in 324 he founded Constantinople, where no religious buildings would be erected but Christian ones. One year later, he took Church affairs into his own hands, and convened the first “ecumenical” council in Nicaea (today’s Iznik in Turkey). He presided over it, sat through some of the deliberations, and compelled all the bishops assembled to accept the final doctrinal statement, or be exiled.

The Arian dispute

The main issue was the dispute that had arisen in North Africa between the ascetic presbyter Arius and the bishop of Alexandria, Alexander. Both accepted that Christ, the Son of God, was also the Neoplatonic Logos, born prior to the creation of the universe. But while Arius maintained that the Son was inferior to the Father who engendered Him, Alexander insisted that the Son was coeternal with the Father and that both were of the same ousia (“substance” or “essence”). The dispute was not new, but had taken a political dimension with the imperial favor bestowed on Christianity. Alexander’s position was championed by the young deacon Athanasius, whom Harold Drake describes as “passionate, eloquent, and ruthless”, and having “the skills of a tough infighter and street politician.”[1]

Under the influence of Athanasius, the Council of Nicaea passed a resolution, now called the Nicene creed, stating that the Son is homoousios (of like substance or essence) with the Father. Arius was condemned to exile with his unyielding followers. It is important to understand, as Peter Heather underscores, that “the Arian dispute is not (as it is often presented) a story of deviation from a well- and long-defined mainstream Christian belief-set, but of an intense struggle to establish one for the first time.”[2] Also crucial is the fact that, by decision of the emperor, the right doctrine (orthe doxa) was not only declared necessary for salvation, but a matter of law.

Unfortunately for Constantine, religious beliefs are resistant to political authority. Many bishops who had been bullied into signing the Nicene creed later recanted. Under the intellectual leadership of the bishop of Nicomedia, Eusebius, a consensus arose for avoiding the use of the unevangelical term ousia and calling the Son simply “similar” (homoios) to the Father, while still admitting, against Arius, that the Son existed of all eternity. In 336, exasperated by the arrogance and intransigence of Athanasius, who had replaced Alexander as bishop of Alexandria in 328, Constantine deposed him and exiled him as far as possible from his Egyptian base, in Trier. He revoked Arius’ banishment, and entrusted his soul to Eusebius of Nicomedia, who baptized him on his deathbed. From then on, the Homoousian creed fell into disrepute in Constantinople, where everyone was satisfied with the vague, consensual Homoian (or Homoean) creed, though Alexandria remained divided.

Constantine died in 337, and his three sons shared the empire. Three years later, only two were left: Constantius ruled in the East, and Constans in the West, from Milan. Athanasius took advantage of Constantine’s death to sneak back to Alexandria, but was again banished by Constantius, who defended his father’s Homoian orthodoxy. However, the twice-deposed bishop took refuge in Rome and appealed to its bishop Julius (not yet called “pope”), who resented being sidelined from the discussions agitating the Greek-speaking Eastern Empire, and took the opportunity for asserting Rome’s primacy. “Are you ignorant,” Julius wrote to the pro-Eusebius bishop of Antioch, “that the custom has been for word to be written first to us, and then for a just sentence to be passed from this place?” (Epistle of Julius to Antioch, §35). The eighteen-year old Constans was dragged into the controversy on the pope’s side, in the context of his rivalry with his brother. Thus the dispute that had originated in Alexandria had escalated into an emerging schism between the Latin West and the Greek East.

Weak, inefficient, and suspected of homosexuality, Constans fell victim to a coup in 350. Constantius defeated the Western “usurper” Magnentius three years later and restored the unity of the Empire. Under his initiative, the Homoian Creed was consecrated at the Council of Sirmium (today in Serbia), imposed upon the Italian bishops at the Council of Rimini in Northern Italy (359), and reaffirmed at the general Council of Constantinople in 360 presided by the emperor. After Constantius’ death and the brief reign of his “apostate” cousin Julian, the Empire was split between two brothers again, Valentinian in the West and Valens in the East, each emperor siding with the view of his major bishop.

Soon after the deaths of Valentinian (375) and Valens (378), Theodosius became emperor in the East, and immediately began a campaign to bring the Eastern bishops back to the Nicene Creed, slightly improved at the Council of Constantinople (381). He exiled the Homoian bishop of Constantinople, appointed the Homoousian Gregory of Nazianzus instead, and quelled the popular riots that ensued. When his western co-emperor Gratian (Valentinian’s son) died in 383, Theodosius declared himself sole emperor over East and West, and the Nicene Creed became the bedrock of imperial orthodoxy for the first time again after fifty years.

The triumph of the Homoousians

This, however, failed once more to solve dissensions. In the 380s, the non-Christian Ammianus Marcellinus observed, as had his mentor the emperor Julian, that “no wild beasts are such enemies to mankind as are most of the Christians in their deadly hatred of one another” (Roman History XII.5). Augustine sadly remarked a few years later that Christians have only one god but are more disunited than pagans who have many. His writings testify that the “City of God” (the Church) was resounding with sectarian hate speech, ecclesiastical coups, lynching and murder.[3] If we take into account the revisionist scholarship on the persecution of Christians before 312,[4] it is fair to say that the Empire became much deadlier for Christians as it became Christianized.

The most powerful churchman under Valentinian, Gratian and Theodosius—because the closest to them—was Ambrose of Milan. The son of a praetorian prefect, Ambrose was no theologian, but the local provincial governor and a shrewd politician. When the imperial city of Milan lost its Homoian bishop in 374, Ambrose intervened to keep order, claimed the bishopric for himself—he was acclaimed by the crowd, hagiographers tell us—and obtained the imprimatur of emperor Valentinian. “He was not even a baptized Christian at the time,” notes Charles Freeman, “but within a week he had been baptized and installed. His sudden elevation is an example of just how far political needs, above all the need to keep good order, now predominated in church appointments.”[5] Ambrose kept a strong influence on Valentinian’s son, Gratian, who succeeded his father at the age of eight, and his influence only increased under Theodosius.

Because the Homoian party was ultimately defeated, and because the winner writes history, the homoios formula became the “blasphemy of Sirmium”. And in a strategy of damning by association, Ambrose denigrated its defenders as “Arians”, although “there is no evidence that Homoean Christianity had any direct connection with Arius’ teachings at all,” according to Peter Heather.[6] Thus, Charles Freeman confirms, “the Homoeans, who stressed the ‘likeness’ of Father and Son, were grouped with those, closer to the original tradition of Arius, who stressed the unlikeness of the two.”[7] Ariani became a polemical catchword used by Catholics for all sorts of heresies; as late as the thirteenth century, even the Cathars were declared Ariana haeresis.[8] Under the influence of their clerical sources, Church historians have continued to refer to the Homoians as “Arians” or “moderate Arians” until recent scholars such as Peter Heather and Charles Freeman put a stop to that sloppy habit.

It is difficult for us today to understand why people would even think of making statements about such mystery as the relationship between Father and the Son—not to forget the Holy Spirit—and condemn to hell those who disagreed. But we must understand that orthodoxy was then ultimately a matter of imperial authority, and therefore a test of political loyalty. From the time of Constantine, bishops were influential political figures; having the last word in a council and gaining the emperor’s nod, brought them prestige and power. Winning the crowd was also desirable, and popular opinion has a natural tendency toward polarization. No one feels strongly for a religious opinion unless the rival clan holds the opposite opinion. Such considerations may help to explain why the Trinitarian debate became violently polarized between the Homoousians and the Homoians.

They also explain why Nicene Christianity, far from achieving unity under Theodosius, was torn apart by new schisms. The Council of Euphesus (431) condemned the Nestorians who thought that the Virgin of Mary was the mother of Christ but not the “Mother of God”, and the Council of Chalcedon (451) condemned the Monophysites who refused the concept of two natures in one person. The Nestorians found refuge in Persia, and would later turn influential at the court of the Golden Horde. The Monophysites remained strong in Egypt, Syria, Armenia and Asia Minor, and would oppose no resistance to Islamic domination, finding it preferable to Byzantine oppression.

Meanwhile, anti-Nicene Homoian Christianity had not said its last word. In the last decade of the fifth century, by an astonishing inversion of the previous East-West division, Homoian Christianity was the official religion of all Western parts of the Empire, while in the East Nicene-Chalcedonian Christianity was the imperial orthodoxy. We now turn to this largely forgotten part of our bloody religious history.