FIRST DIVISION. History of the Development of the Church during the Græco-Roman and Græco-Byzantine Periods. (continued 7)

Marcus Eremita, a like-minded younger contemporary of the preceding, lived about A.D. 400 as an inhabitant of the Scetic desert. We possess of his writings only nine tracts of an ascetic mystical kind, the second of which, bearing the title Περὶ τῶν οἰομένων ἐξ ἔργων δικαιοῦσθαι, has secured for them a place in the Roman Index with the note “Caute legenda.” However even in his mysticism contradictory views, Augustinian and Pelagian, in regard to human freedom and divine grace, on predestination and sanctification, etc., find a place alongside one another, and have prominence given them according to the writer’s humour and the requirement of his meditation or exhortation.

Synesius of Cyrene,139 subsequently bishop of Ptolemais in Egypt, was a disciple of the celebrated Hypatia (§ 42, 4) and an enthusiastic admirer of Plato. He died about A.D. 420. A happy husband and father, in comfortable circumstances and devoted to the study of philosophy, he could not for a long time be prevailed upon to accept a bishopric. He openly confessed his Origenistic heterodoxy in reference to the resurrection doctrine, the eternity of the world, as well as the pre-existence of the soul. He also publicly declared that as bishop he would continue the marriage relation with his wife, and no one took offence thereat. In the episcopal office he distinguished himself by noble zeal and courage which knew no fear of man. His 10 Hymns contain echoes of Valentinian views (§ 27, 4), and his philosophical tracts are only to a small extent dominated by Christian ideas. His 155 Epistles are more valuable as illustrating on every hand his noble character.

Nemesius, Bishop of Emesa in Phœnicia, lived in the first half of the 5th century. He left behind a brilliant treatise on religious philosophy, Περὶ φύσεως ἀνθρώπου. The traditional doctrine of the Eastern church is unswervingly set forth by him; still he too finds therein a place for the eternity of the world, the pre-existence of the soul, a migration of souls (excluding, however, the brute creation), the unconditional freedom of the will, etc.

Æneas of Gaza, a disciple of the Neo-Platonist Hierocles and a rhetorician in Alexandria, about A.D. 437 wrote a dialogue directed against the Origenistic doctrines of the eternity of the world and the pre-existence of the soul; as also against the Neo-Platonic denial of the resurrection of the body. It bore the title: Θεόφραστος.

§ 47.8. The Antiocheans.

Eusebius of Emesa was born at Edessa and studied in Cæsarea and Antioch. A quiet, peaceful scholar, and one who detested all theological wrangling, he declined the call to the Alexandrian bishopric in place of the deposed Athanasius in A.D. 341, but accepted the obscure bishopric of Emesa. He was not, however, to be left here. When, on account of his mathematical and astronomical attainments, the people there suspected him of sorcery, he quitted Emesa and from that date till his death in A.D. 360 taught in Antioch. Of his numerous exegetical, dogmatical and polemical writings only a few fragments are extant.

Diodorus of Tarsus, a scholar of the preceding, monk and presbyter at Antioch, was afterwards bishop of Tarsus in Cilicia, and died in A.D. 394. Only a few fragments of his numerous writings survive. As an exegete he concerned himself with the plain grammatico-historical sense and contested the Alexandrian mode of interpretation in the treatise: Τίς διαφορὰ θεωρίας καὶ ἀλληγορίας. By θεωρία he understands insight into the relations transcending the bare literal sense but yet essentially present in it as the ideal. By his polemic against Apollinaris (§ 52, 1), he imprinted upon the Antiochean school its specific dogmatic character (§ 52, 2), in consequence of which he was at a later period regarded as the original founder of the Nestorian party.

His scholar again was John of Antioch, whose proper name afterwards almost disappeared before the honourable title of Chrysostom. Educated by his early widowed mother Arethusa with the greatest care, he attended the rhetoric school of Libanius and started with great success as an advocate in Antioch. But after receiving baptism he abandoned his practice and became a monk. He was made deacon in A.D. 380 and presbyter in A.D. 386 in his native city. His brilliant eloquence raised him at last in A.D. 398 to the patriarchal chair at Constantinople (§ 51, 3). He died in exile in A.D. 407. Next to Athanasius and the three Cappadocians he is one of the most talented of the Eastern fathers, the only one of the Antiochean school whose orthodoxy has never been questioned. In his exegesis he follows the fundamental principles of the Antiochean school. He wrote commentaries on Isaiah (down to chap. viii. 10) and on Galatians. Besides these his 650 Expository Homilies on all the Biblical books and particular sections cover almost the whole of the Old and New Testaments. Among his other dogmatical, polemical and hortatory church addresses the most celebrated are the 21 De Statuis ad populum Antiochen, delivered in A.D. 387. (The people of Antioch, roused on account of the exorbitant tax demanded of them, had broken down the statues of Theodosius I.) The Demonstratio c. Julianum et Gentiles quod Christus sit Deus and the Liber in S. Babylam c. Judæos et Gentiles are apologetical treatises. Of his ethico-ascetic writings, in which he eagerly commends virginity and asceticism, by far the most celebrated is Περὶ ἱερωσύνης, De Sacerdotis, in 4 bks., in the form of a dialogue with his Cappadocian friend Basil (the Great) who in A.D. 370 had felt compelled to accept the bishopric of Cæsarea after Chrysostom had escaped this honour by flight.140

§ 47.9.

Theodore, bishop of Mopsuestia in Cilicia, was the son of respectable parents in Antioch, the friend and fellow-student of Chrysostom, first under Libanius, then under Diodorus. He died in A.D. 429. It was he who gave full development and consistent expression to the essential dogmatic and hermeneutical principles of the Antiochean theology. For this reason he was far more suspected of heresy by his Alexandrian opponents than even his teacher Diodorus, and they finally obtained their desire by the formal condemnation of his person and writings at the fifth œcumenical Synod in A.D. 553 (§ 52, 6). Leontius Byzantinus formulated his exegetical offence by saying that in his exposition he treated the Holy Scriptures precisely as ordinary human writings, especially that he interpreted the Song of Songs as a love poem, libidinose pro sua et mente et lingua meretricia, explained the Psalms after the manner of the Jews till he emptied them dry of all Messianic contents, Judaice ad Zorobabelem et Ezechiam retulit, denied the genuineness of the titles of the Psalms, rejected the canonical authority of Job, the Chronicles and Ezra as well as James and other Catholic Epistles, etc. In every respect Theodore was one of the ablest exegetes of the ancient church and the Syrian church has rightly celebrated him as the “Interpres” par excellence. He set forth his hermeneutical principles in the treatise: De Allegoria et Historia. Of his exegetical writings we have still his Comm. on the Minor Prophets, on Romans, fragments of those on other parts of the New Testament. Latin translations of his Comm. on the Minor Epp. of Paul, with the corresponding Greek fragments, are edited by Swete, 2 vols., Cambr., 1880, 1882. An introduction to Biblical Theology collected from Theodore’s writings and reproduced in a Latin form by Junilius Africanus (§ 48, 1) is still extant. His dogmatic, polemical and apologetical works on the Incarnation and Original Sin (§ 53, 4), against Eunomius (§ 50, 3), Apollinaris (§ 52, 1) and the Emperor Julian (§ 42, 5), are now known only from a few fragmentary quotations.

Polychronius, bishop of Apamea, was Theodore’s brother and quite his equal in exegetical acuteness and productivity, while he excelled him in his knowledge of the Hebrew and Syriac. Tolerably complete scholia by him on Ezekiel, Daniel and Job have been preserved in the Greek Catenæ (§ 48, 1). In regard to Daniel he maintains firmly its historical character and understands chap. vii. of Antiochus Epiphanes.

Theodoret, bishop of Cyrus in Syria, was Theodore’s ablest disciple, the most versatile scholar and most productive writer of his age, an original investigator and a diligent pastor, an upright and noble character and a man who kept the just mean amid the extreme tendencies of his times,―yet even he could not escape the suspicion of heresy (§ 52, 3, 4, 6). He died in A.D. 457. As an exegete he followed the course of grammatico-historical exposition marked out by his Antiochean predecessors, but avoided the rationalistic tendencies of his teacher. He commented on most of the historical books of the Old Testament, on the Prophets, the Song, which he understood allegorically of the church as the bride of Christ, and on the Pauline Epistles. Among his historical works the first place belongs to his continuation of the history of Eusebius (§ 5, 1). His Φιλόθεος ἱστορία, Hist. religiosa, gives a glowing description of the lives of 33 celebrated ascetics of both sexes. Of higher value is the Αἱρετικῆς κακομυθίας ἐπιτομή, Hæreticarum fabularum compendium. His Ἑλληνικῶν θεραπευτικὴ παθημάτων, De Curandis Græcorum Affectionibus, is an apologetical treatise. His seven Dialogues De s. Trinitate are polemics against the Macedonians and Apollinarians. The Reprehensio xii. Anathematismorum is directed against Cyril of Alexandria; and the Ἐρανιστὴς ἤτοι Πολύμορφος against monophysitism as a heresy compounded of many heresies (§ 52, 4). Besides these we have from him 179 Epistles.141

§ 47.10. Other Teachers of the Greek Church during the 4th and 5th Centuries.

Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, from A.D. 351 to A.D. 386, in the Arian controversy took the side of the conciliatory semi-Arians and thus came into collision with his imperious and decidedly Arian metropolitan Acacius of Cæsarea. During a famine he sold the church furniture for distribution among the needy, and was for this deposed by Acacius. Under Julian he ventured to return, but under Valens he was again driven out and found himself exposed to the persecution of the Arians, which was all the more violent because in the meantime he had assumed a more decided attitude toward Nicene orthodoxy. At the death of Valens in A.D. 378 he returned and became reconciled to the victorious maintainers of the Homoousion by fully accepting the doctrine at the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381 (§ 50, 4). We still have his 23 Catechetical Lectures delivered in A.D. 348 by him as presbyter to the baptized at Jerusalem. The first 18 are entitled: Πρὸς τοὺς φωτιζομένους, Ad Competentes (§ 35, 1); the last five: Πρὸς τοὺς νεοφωτίστους, Catecheses Mystagogicæ, on Baptism, Anointing and the Lord’s Supper. In their present form they afford but faint evidence of their author having surmounted the semi-Arian standpoint.142

Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis or Constantia in Cyprus, was born of Jewish parents in the Palestinian village Besanduce and was baptized in his sixteenth year. His pious and noble, but narrow and one-sided character was formed by his education under the monks. He completed his ascetic training by several years residence among the monks of the Scetic desert, then founded a monastery in his native place over which he presided for thirty years until in A.D. 367 he was raised to the metropolitan’s chair at Salamis, where he died in A.D. 403. In the discharge of his episcopal duties he was a miracle of faithfulness and zeal, specially active and self-denying in his care of the poor. But in the forefront of all his thinking and acting there ever stood his glowing zeal for ecclesiastical orthodoxy. The very soul of honour, truth-loving and courageous, but credulous, positive, with little knowledge of the world and human nature, and hence not capable of penetrating to the bottom of complicated affairs, he was all his days misused as a tool of the intriguing Alexandrian Theophilus in the Origenistic controversies (§ 51, 3). He was all the more easily won to this from the fact that he had brought with him from the Scetic desert the conviction that Origen was the prime mover in the Arian and all other heresies. In spite of all defects in form and contents his writings have proved most serviceable for the history of the churches and heresies of the first four centuries. The diligence and honourable intention of his research in some measure compensate for the bad taste and illogical character of his exposition and for his narrow, one-sided and uncritical views. His Πανάριον ἤτοι κιβώτιον κατὰ αἱρέσεων lxxx. is a full and learned though confused and uncritical work, in which the idea of heresy is so loosely defined that even the Samaritans, Pharisees, Essenes, etc., find a place in it. He himself composed an abridgment of it under the title: Ἀνακεφαλαίωσις. His Ἀγκυρωτός is an exposition of the Catholic faith, which during the tumults of the Arian controversy should serve as an anchor of salvation to the Christians. The book Περὶ μέτρων καὶ στάθμων, De mensuris et ponderibus, answers to this title only in the last chapter, the 24th; the preceding chapters treat of the Canon and translations of the Old Testament. There are two old codices in the British Museum which have in addition, in a Syriac translation, 37 chapters on biblical weights and measures and 19 on the biblical science of the heaven and the earth. The tract Περὶ τῶν δώδεκα λίθων (on the high-priest’s breastplate) is of little consequence.

Palladius, born in Galatia, retired at an early age into the Nitrian desert, but lived afterwards in Palestine, where he was accused of favouring the heresy of Origen (§ 51, 2). Chrysostom consecrated him bishop of Hellenopolis in Bithynia. Latterly he administered a small bishopric in Galatia, where he died before A.D. 431. His chief writing is the Πρὸς Λαῦσον ἱστορία, Hist. Lausiaca, a historical romance on the hermit and monkish life of his times which is dedicated to an eminent statesman called Lausus.

Nilus, sprung from a prominent family in Constantinople, retired with his son Theodulus to the recluses of Mount Sinai. By a murderous onslaught of the Saracens his beloved son was snatched away from him, but an Arabian bishop bought him and ordained both father and son as priests. He died about A.D. 450. In his ascetical writings and specially in the 4 books of his Epistles, about 1,000 in number, he shows himself to be of like mind and character to his companion Isidore, but with a deeper knowledge and more sober conception of Holy Scripture. He himself describes the capture of his son in Narrationes de cæde monachorum et captivitate Theoduli.

§ 47.11. Greek Church Fathers of the 6th and 7th Centuries.

Johannes Philoponus was in the first half of the 6th century teacher of grammar at Alexandria, and belonged to the sect of tritheistic monophysites in that place (§ 52, 7). Although trained in the Neo-Platonic school, he subsequently applied himself enthusiastically to the Aristotelian philosophy, composed many commentaries on Aristotle’s writings, and was the first to apply the Aristotelian categories to Christian theology. Notwithstanding many heretical tendencies in his theology, among which is his statement in a lost work, Περὶ ἀναστάσεως, that for the saved at the last day entirely new bodies and an entirely new world will be created, his philosophical writings powerfully impelled the mediæval Greek Church to the study of philosophy. His chief doctrinal treatise Διαιτητὴς ἢ περὶ ἑνώσεως is known only from quotations in Leontius Byzantinus and Johannes Damascenus. Of his other writings the most important was the controversial treatise Contra Procli pro æternitate mundi argumenta in 18 bks. The 7 bks. Περὶ κοσμοποίας treat of the six days’ work of creation with great display of philosophical acuteness and acquaintance with natural history.

Dionysius the Areopagite. Under this name (Acts xvii. 34) an unknown writer, only a little earlier than the previously named, published writings of a decidedly mystico-theosophical kind. The first mention of them is at a conference of the monophysite Severians (§ 52, 7) with the Catholics at Constantinople in A.D. 533, where the former referred to them, while the other side denied their authenticity. Subsequently, however, they were universally received as genuine, not only in the East but also in the West. They comprise four tracts: 1. Περὶ τῆς ἱεραρχίας οὐρανίου; 2. Περὶ τῆς ἱεραρχίας ἐκκλησιαστικῆς; 3. Περὶ τῶν θείων ὀνομάτων; 4. Περὶ τῆς μυστικῆς θεολογίας; and also 12 Epp. to Apostolic men. Their author was a Monophysite-Christian Neo-Platonist, who transferred the secret arts of the Dionysian mysteries to Christian worship, monasticism, hierarchy and church doctrines. He distinguished a θεολογία καταφατική, which consisted in symbolic representations, from a θεολογία ἀποφατική, which surmounted the symbolical shell and rose to the perception of the pure idea by means of ecstasy. Side by side with the revealed doctrine of Holy Scripture he sets a secret doctrine, the knowledge of which is reached only by initiation. The primal mystagogue, who like the sun enlightens all spirits, is the divine hierarch Christ, and the primitive type of all earthly order in the heavenly hierarchy as represented in the courses of angels and glorified spirits. There is constant intercourse between the earthly and heavenly hierarchies by means of Christ the highest hierarch incarnate. The purpose of this intercourse is the drawing out of the θείωσις of man by means of priestly consecration and the mysteries (i.e. the Sacraments of which he reckons six, § 58). The θείωσις has its foundation in baptism as consecration to the divine birth, τελετὴ θεογενεσίας, and its completion in consecration of the dead, the anointing of the body. The historical Christ with His redeeming life, sufferings and death is at no time the subject of the Areopagite mysticism. It is always concerned with the heavenly Christ, not about the reconciliation but only about the mystical living fellowship of God and man, about the immediate vision and enjoyment of God’s glory. The monophysite standpoint of the author betrays itself in his tendency to think of the human nature of Christ as absorbed by the divine. His Christian Neo-Platonism appears in his fantastic speculations about the nature of God, the orders of angels and spirits, etc.; while his antagonism to the pagan Neo-Platonism is seen in his regarding the θείωσις not as a natural power proper to and dwelling in man, but as a supernatural power made possible by the ἐνσάρκωσις of Christ, but still more expressly by his emphatic assertion over against the Neo-Platonic depreciation of the body, of the resurrection of the flesh as the completion of the θείωσις. Hence also the importance which he attaches to the sacrament of the consecration of the dead.143

§ 47.12.

Leontius Byzantinus, at first an advocate at Constantinople, subsequently a monk at Jerusalem, wrote about the end of the 6th century controversial tracts against Nestorians, Monophysites and Apollinarians, and in his Scholia s. Liber de sectis presented a historico-polemical summary of all heresies up to that time.

Maximus Confessor, the scion of a well-known family of Constantinople, was for a long time private secretary to the Emperor Heraclius, but retired about A.D. 630 from love of a contemplative life into a monastery at Chrysopolis near Constantinople, where he was soon raised to the rank of abbot. The further details of his story are given in § 52, 8. He died in A.D. 662. In decision of character, fidelity to his convictions and courage as a confessor during the Monothelete controversy, he stands out among his characterless countrymen and contemporaries as a rock in the ocean. In scientific endowments and comprehensive learning, in depth and wealth of thought there is none like him, although even in him the weakness of the age, especially slavish submission to authority, is quite apparent. His scientific theology is built up mainly upon the three great Cappadocians, among whom the speculative Nyssa has most influence over him. His dialectic acuteness and subtlety he derived from the study of Aristotle, while his imaginative nature and the intensity of his emotional life which predestined him to be a mystic, found abundant nourishment and satisfaction in the writings of Dionysius. He was saved, however, by the manysidedness of his mind and the soundness of his whole life’s tendencies, from many eccentricities of the Areopagite mysticism, so that in his humility he thought that his soul was not pure enough to be able fully to penetrate and comprehend these mysteries. His numerous writings, of which more than fifty are extant, were in great part occasioned by the struggle against Monophysitism and Monotheletism. His mystico-ascetic writings are also important, such as his Μυσταγωγία, treatises on the symbolico-mystic meaning of the acts of church worship, his epistles and several beautiful hymns. He also wrote scholia and commentaries on the works of the Areopagite. He is weakest in exegesis, where the most wilful allegorizing prevails.

Johannes Climacus, abbot of the monastery at Sinai, died at an extremely old age in A.D. 606. Under the title Κλίμαξ τοῦ παραδείσου, Heavenly Guide, he composed a directory toward perfection in the Christian life in thirty steps, which became a favourite reading book of pious monks.

Johannes Moschus was a monk in a cloister at Jerusalem. Accompanying his friend Sophronius, afterwards patriarch of Jerusalem (§ 52, 8), he travelled through Egypt and the East, visiting all the pious monks and clerics. At last he reached Rome, where he wrote an account in his Λειμονάριον ἤτοι νέος παραδείσος, Pratum Spirituale, of the edifying discourses which he had had with famous monks during his travels, and soon thereafter, in A.D. 619, he died.

Anastasius Sinaita, called the new Moses, because like Moses he is said to have seen God, was priest and dweller on Mount Sinai at the end of the 7th century. His chief work Ὁδηγός, Viæ duæ, is directed against the Acephalians (§ 52, 5) and his Contemplationes preserved only in a Latin translation give an allegorico-mystical exposition of the Hexæmeron.

§ 47.13. Syrian Church Fathers.144

Jacob of Nisibis, as bishop of his native city and founder of the theological school there, performed most important services to the national Syrian Church. At the Council of Nicæa in A.D. 325 he distinguished himself by vindicating the homoüsion and also subsequently we find him sometimes in the front rank of the champions of Nicene orthodoxy. Of his writings none are known to us. He died in A.D. 338.

Aphraates was celebrated in his time as a Persian sage. As bishop of St. Matthew near Mosul he adopted the Christian name of Mar Jacob, and dedicated his 23 Homilies, which are rather instructions or treatises, to a certain Gregory. He wrote them between A.D. 336 and A.D. 345. The Sermones ascribed even by Gennadius at the end of the 5th century to Nisibis were composed by Aphraates. Although he lived when the Arian controversy was at its height, there is no reference to it in his treatises, which may be explained by his geographical isolation. The polemic against the Jews to which seven tracts are devoted ex professo, was one which specially interested him.

Ephraim the Syrian,145 called, on account of his importance in the Syrian Church, Propheta Syrorum, was born at Nisibis and was called by the bishop Jacob to be teacher of the school founded there by him. When the Persians under Sapor in A.D. 350 plundered the city and destroyed the school, Ephraim retired to Edessa, founded a school there, administered the office of deacon, and died at a great age in A.D. 378. As an exegete he indulged to his heart’s content in typology, but in other respects mostly followed the grammatico-historical method with a constant endeavour after what was edifying. Many of his writings have been lost. Those remaining partly in the Syriac original, partly in Greek and Latin translations, have been collected by the brothers Assemani. They comprise Commentaries on almost the whole Bible, Homilies and Discourses in metrical form on a variety of themes, of these 56 are against heretics (Gnostics, Manichæans, Eunomians, Audians, etc.), and Hymns properly so called, especially funeral Odes.

Ibas, bishop of Edessa, at first teacher in the high school there, translated the writings of Diodorus and Theodore into Syriac, and thus brought down upon himself the charge of being a Nestorian. Having been repeatedly drawn into discussion, and being naturally outspoken, he was excommunicated and deposed at the Robber Synod of Ephesus in A.D. 449, but his orthodoxy was acknowledged by the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451, after he had pronounced anathema upon Nestorius. He died in A.D. 457. An epistle, in which he gives an account of these proceedings to Bishop Meris of Hardashir in Persia, led to a renewal of his condemnation before the fifth œcumenical Council at Constantinople in A.D. 553 (§ 52, 4, 6).

Jacob, bishop of Edessa, a monophysite, is the most important and manysided among the later Syrians, distinguished as theologian, historian, grammarian and translator of the Greek fathers. He died in A.D. 708. Of his works still extant in MS.―scholia on the Bible, liturgical works and treatises on church law, revision of the Syrian Old Testament according to the LXX., continuation of the Eusebian Chronicle, etc.―only a few have been printed.

2. THE MOST IMPORTANT TEACHERS OF THE WESTERN CHURCH.

§ 47.14.

During the Period of the Arian Controversy. Jul. Firmicus Maternus. Under this name we have a treatise De errore profanarum religionum, addressed to the sons of Constantine the Great, in which the writer combats heathenism upon the Euhemerist theory (which traces the worship of the heathen gods from the deifying of famous ancestors), but besides reclaims many myths as corruptions of the biblical history, and shows that the violent overthrow of all idolatry is the sacred duty of a Christian ruler from God’s command to Joshua to destroy utterly the Canaanites. Lucifer of Calăris [Calaris] in Sardinia, was a violent, determined, and stubborn zealot for the Nicene doctrine, whose excessive severity against the penitent Arians and semi-Arians drove him into schism (§ 50, 8). He died in A.D. 371. In his tract, Ad Constantium Augustum pro S. Athansio, lb. ii., written in A.D. 360, he upbraids the emperor with his faults so bitterly as to describe him as a reckless apostate, antichrist, and Satan. He boldly acknowledged the authorship and, in prospect of a death sentence, wrote in A.D. 361 his consolatory treatise, Moriendum esse pro filio Dei. The early death of the emperor, however, permitted his return from exile (§ 50, 2, 4), where he had written De regibus apostaticis and De non conveniendo cum hæreticis. Marius Victorinus from Africa, often confounded with the martyr of the same name (§ 31, 12), was converted to Christianity when advanced in life, about A.D. 360, while occupying a distinguished position as a heathen rhetorician in Rome. He gave proof of his zeal as a neophyte by the composition of controversial treatises against the Manichæans, Ad Justinum Manichæum, and against the Arians, Lb. iv. adv. Arium, De generatione divina ad Candidum, De ὁμοουσίῳ recipiendo. In his treatise, De verbis scripturæ, Gen. i. 5, he shows that the creative days began not with the evening, but with the morning. He composed three hymns de Trinitate, and an epic poem on the seven brothers, the Maccabees. Hilary of Poitiers―Hilarius Pictavienses―styled the Athanasius of the West, and made doctor ecclesiæ by Pius IX. in A.D. 1851, was sprung from a noble pagan family of Poitiers (Pictavium). With wife and daughter he embraced Christianity, and was soon thereafter, about A.D. 350, made bishop of his native city. In A.D. 356, however, as a zealous opponent of Arianism, he was banished to Phrygia, from which he returned in A.D. 360. Two years later he travelled to Milan, in order if possible to win from his error the bishop of that place, Auxentius, a zealous Arian. That bishop, however, obtained an imperial edict which obliged him instantly to withdraw. He died in A.D. 366. The study of Origen seems to have had a decided influence upon his theological development. His strength lay in the speculative treatment of the groundworks of doctrine. At the same time he is the first exegete proper among the Western fathers writing the Latin language. He follows exactly the allegorical method of the Alexandrians. His works embrace commentaries on the Psalms and the Gospel of Matthew, several polemical lectures (§ 50, 6), and his speculative dogmatic masterpiece de Trinitate in xii. books. Zeno, bishop of Verona, who died about A.D. 380, left behind ninety-three Sermones which, in beautiful language and spirited style, treat of various subjects connected with faith and morals, combat paganism and Arianism, and eagerly recommend virginity and monasticism. Philaster, bishop of Brescia, contemporary of Zeno, in his book De hæresibus, described in harsh and obscure language, in an uncritical fashion and with an extremely loose application of the word heresy, 28 pre-Christian and 128 post-Christian systems of error. Martin of Tours,146 son of a soldier, had before baptism, but after his heart had been filled with the love of Christ, entered the Roman cavalry. Once, legend relates, he parted his military cloak into two pieces in order to shield a naked beggar from the cold, and on the following night the Lord Jesus appeared to him clothed in this very cloak. In his eighteenth year he was baptized, and for some years thereafter attached himself to Hilary of Poitiers, and then went to his parents in Pannonia. He did not succeed in converting his father, but he was successful with his mother and many of the people. Scourged and driven away by the Arian party which there prevailed, he turned to Milan where, however, he got just as little welcome from the Arian bishop Auxentius. He then lived some years on the island of Gallinaria, near Genoa. When Hilary returned from banishment to Pictavium, he followed him there, and founded in the neighbourhood a monastery, the earliest in Gaul. He was guilefully decoyed to Tours, and forced to mount the episcopal chair there in A.D. 375. He converted whole crowds of heathen peasants, and, according to the legend given by Sulpicius Severus and Gregory of Tours (§ 90, 2), wrought miracle after miracle. But he was himself with his holy zeal, his activity in doing good, his undoubted power over men’s hearts, and a countenance before which even the emperor quailed (§ 54, 2), the greatest and the most credible miracle. He died about A.D. 400 in the monastery of Marmontiers [Marmoutiers], which he had founded out from Tours. His tomb was one of the most frequented places of pilgrimage. He was wholly without scholarly culture, but the force of intellect with which he was endowed lent him a commanding eloquence. The Confessio de s. Trinitate attributed to him is not genuine.

§ 47.15.

Ambrose, bishop of Milan, sprung from a prominent Roman family, was governor of the province of Milan. After the death of the Arian Auxentius in A.D. 374 violent quarrels broke out over the choice of a successor. Then a child is said to have cried from the midst of the crowd “Ambrose is bishop,” and all the people, Arians as well as Catholics, agreed. All objection was vain. Up to this time only a catechumen, he received baptism, distributed his property among the poor, and eight days after mounted the episcopal chair. His new office he administered with truly apostolic zeal, a father of the poor, a protector of all oppressed, an unweariedly active pastor, a powerful opponent of heresy and heathenism. His eloquence, which had won him a high reputation in the forum, was yet more conspicuous in the service of the church. To ransom the prisoners he spared not even the furniture of the church. To a peculiarly winning friendliness and gentleness he added great strength of character, which prevented him being checked in his course by any respect of persons, or by any threatening and danger. He so decidedly opposed the intrigues of the Arian Empress Justina, during the minority of her son Valentinian II., that she, powerless to execute her wrath, was obliged to desist from her endeavours (§ 50, 4). With Theodosius the Great he stood in the highest esteem. When the passionate emperor had ordered a fearful massacre without distinction of rank, age and sex, without enquiry as to guilt or innocence, of the inhabitants of Thessalonica on account of a tumult in which a general and several officers had been murdered, Ambrose wrote him a letter with an earnest call to repentance, and threatened him with exclusion from the communion of the church and its services. The emperor, already repenting of his hastiness, took patiently the rebuke administered, but did nothing to atone for his crime. Some time after he went as usual to church, but Ambrose met him at the entrance of the house of God and refused him admission. For eight months the emperor refrained from communion; then he applied for absolution, which was granted him, after he had publicly done penance before the congregation and promised never in future to carry out a death sentence within thirty days of its being pronounced. Theodosius afterwards declared that Ambrose was the only one truly deserving the name of a bishop. Ambrose was also a zealous promoter of monasticism in the West. In his sermons he so powerfully recommended virginity that many families forbade their daughters attending them. He deserves special credit for his contributions to the liturgical services (Officium Ambrosianum, Cantus Ambr., Hymn Composition, § 59, 4-6). On all dogmatic questions he strongly favoured the realism of the North African school, while in exegesis he did not surmount the allegorical method of the Alexandrians. To the department of morals and ascetics belong the 3 bks. De Officiis Ministrorum, a Christian construction of Cicero’s celebrated work and the most important of all Ambrose’s writings; also several treatises in recommendation of virginity. The book De Mysteriis explains baptism and the Lord’s Supper to the neophytes. The 5 bks. De fide, the 3 bks. De Spiritu S. and the tract De incarnatîonis sacramento, treat of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith in opposition to Arians, Sabellians, Apollinarians, etc. These are somewhat dependent upon the Greeks, especially Athanasius, Didymus and Basil. His expositions of Old Testament histories (Hexaëmeron, De Paradiso, De Cain et Abel, De Noë et arca, De Abraham, De Jacob et anima, etc.) are allegorical and typical in the highest degree. More important are his Sermones and 92 Epistles. But all his writings are distinguished by their noble, powerful and popular eloquence.

Ambrosiaster is the name given to an unknown writer whose allegorizing Commentary on Paul’s Epistles was long attributed to Ambrose. This work, highly popular on account of its pregnant brevity, was perhaps the joint work of several writers. In its earliest portions it belongs to the age of Damasus, bishop of Rome, who died in A.D. 384, who is named as a contemporary. Augustine names a Hilary, not otherwise known, as author of a passage quoted from it.

Pacianus,147 bishop of Barcelona, who died about A.D. 390, wrote in a clear style and correct Latinity three Epistles against the Novatians, from the first of which, De Catholico nomine, is borrowed the beautiful saying: Christianus mihi nomen est, Catholicus cognomen. He also wrote a Liber exhortatorius ad pœnitentiam and a Sermo de baptismo.

§ 47.16. During the Period of Origenistic Controversy.

Jerome148―Sophronius Eusebius Hieronymus―of Stridon in Dalmatia, received his classical training under the grammarian Donatus at Rome. In A.D. 360 he was baptized by bishop Liberius, but afterwards fell into sensual excesses which he atoned for by penitential pilgrimages to the catacombs. During a journey through Gaul and the provinces of the Rhine and Moselle he seems to have formed the fixed resolve to devote himself to theology and an ascetic life. Then for more than a year he stayed at Aquileia, A.D. 372, where he formed an intimate friendship with Rufinus. He next undertakes a journey to the East. At Antioch in a vision, during a violent fever, placed before the throne of the judge of all, having answered the question Who art thou? by the confession that he was a Christian, he heard the words distinctly uttered: Thou liest! thou art a Ciceronian and no Christian! He then sentenced himself to severe castigation and promised with an oath to give up the reading of the heathen classics which he had so much enjoyed. He afterwards indeed excused himself from the fulfilment of this twofold obligation; but this had sealed his devotion to an ascetic life, and the desert of Chalcis, the Syrian Thebaid, became for him during many years the school of ascetic discipline. Worn out with privations, penances and sensual temptations he returned in A.D. 379 to Antioch, where he was ordained presbyter but without any official district being assigned. Urged by Gregory of Nazianzum [Nazianzen], he next spent several years in Constantinople. From A.D. 382 to A.D. 385 he again lived in Rome, where bishop Damasus honoured him with his implicit confidence. This aroused against him the envy and enmity of many among the Roman clergy, while at the same time his zeal for the spread of monasticism and virginity, as well as his ascetic influence with women, drew upon him the hatred of many prominent families (§ 44, 4). On the death of his episcopal patron in A.D. 384 his position in Rome thus became untenable. He now returned to the East, visited all the holy places in Palestine, and also made an excursion to Alexandria where he stayed for four weeks in the school of the blind Didymus. He then settled down at Bethlehem, founded there with the means of his Roman lady friends an establishment for monks, over which he presided till his death in A.D. 420; and an establishment for nuns over which St. Paula presided, who with her daughter Eustochium had accompanied him from Rome. As to his share in the Origenistic controversies into which he allowed himself to be drawn, see § 51, 2. His character was not without defects: vanity, ambition, jealousy, passionateness, impatience and intense bitterness in debate, are only all too apparent in his life. But where these, as well as his scrupulous anxiety for the maintaining of a reputation for unwavering orthodoxy and by zeal for monasticism and asceticism, did not stand in the way, we often find in him an unexpected clearness and liberality of view. Comp. § 17, 6; 57, 6; 59, 1; 61, 1. To the instructions of the Jew Bar Hanina he was indebted for his knowledge of Hebrew and Chaldee. The greatest and most enduring service was rendered to the study of holy scripture by his pioneer labours in this direction. He is at his weakest in his dogmatic works, which mostly are disfigured by immoderately passionate polemic. In exegesis he represents the grammatico-historical method, but nevertheless frequently falls back again into allegorico-mystical explanations. His style is pure, flowing and elegant, but in polemic often reckless and coarse even to vulgarity. In the department of exegesis the first place belongs to his translation of the bible (§ 59, 1). We have also a number of Commentaries―on Genesis, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Minor Prophets, Matthew, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Philemon. His Onomasticon s. de situ et nominibus locorum Hebr. is a Latin reproduction of the Τοπικά of Eusebius. In the department of dogmatics we have polemics against Lucifer of Calaris (§ 50, 3), against Helvidius, Jovinian and Vigilantius (§ 63, 2), against John of Jerusalem (§ 51, 2) and in several treatises against Rufinus, and finally against the Pelagians (§ 53, 4). In the department of history we have his Latin adaptation and continuation of the second part of the Eusebian Chronicle, his Catalogus Scriptorum ecclest. s. de viris illustr., which tells in anecdotal form about the lives and writings of biblical and ecclesiastical writers, 135 in number, from Peter down to himself, with the avowed purpose of proving the falseness of the reproach that only ignorant and uncultured men had embraced Christianity. It was afterwards continued by the Gaul Gennadius of Marseilles down to the end of the fifth century. Finally, the romancing legendary sketches of the lives of the famous monks Paul of Thebes (§ 39, 4), Hilarion (§ 44, 3) and Malchus, were added. His 150 Epistles are extremely important for the church history of his times. Of his translations of the Greek fathers only those of Didymus, De Spiritu S. and that of 70 Homilies of Origen, are now extant.

§ 47.17.

Tyrannius Rufinus of Aquileia after receiving baptism lived for a long time in monastic retirement. His enthusiasm for monasticism and asceticism led him in A.D. 373 to Egypt. At Alexandria he spent several years in intercourse with Didymus. He contracted there that enthusiastic admiration of Origen which made his after life so full of debate and strife. He next went in A.D. 379 to Jerusalem, where bishop John ordained him presbyter. Here he found Jerome, with whom he had become acquainted at Aquileia, and the two friends were brought more closely together from their mutual love for Origen, although afterwards this was to prove the occasion of the most bitter enmity (§ 51, 2). About A.D. 397 he returned to Italy. He died in A.D. 410. His literary activity was mainly directed to the transplanting of the writings of Greek fathers to Latin soil. To his zeal in this direction we owe the preservation of Origen’s most important work Περὶ ἀρχῶν, De principiis, and of no fewer than 124 Homilies. The former, indeed, has been in many places altered in an arbitrary manner. He also translated several Homilies of Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, Pamphilus’ Apology for Origen, the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions (§ 28, 3), etc. There are extant of his own works: the Continuation of his Latin reproduction of the Church History of Eusebius, down to A.D. 388, the romancing Historia eremitica s. Vitæ Patrum, biographies of 33 saints of the Nitrian desert (§ 51, 1), an Apologia pro fide sua, the Invectivæ Hieron. in 2 bks. the treatise De benedictionibus Patriarcharum, an exposition of Genesis xlix. in the spirit and style of Origen, and an Expositio symboli apost.

Sulpicius Severus149 from Aquitania in Gaul, had gained great reputation by his eloquence as an advocate, when the death of his young wife disgusted him with the world, and led him to withdraw into a monastery. He died about A.D. 410. In his Chronica or Historia sacra (§ 5, 1), a summary of biblical and ecclesiastical history, he imitates not unsuccessfully the eloquence of Sallust, so that he has been called “the Christian Sallust.” His Vita of Martin of Tours is a panegyric overflowing with reports of miracles. The three dialogues on the virtues of Eastern Monks and on the merits of St. Martin, may be regarded as a supplement to the Vita.

Petrus [Peter] Chrysologus is the name by which Peter, bishop of Ravenna, is best known. He also received the title Chrysostomus Latinorum. He died in A.D. 450. Among the 176 Sermones ascribed to him, the discourses expository of the baptismal formula are deserving of special mention. Of his Epistles, one in Latin and Greek addressed to Eutyches (§ 52, 4) is still preserved, in which the writer warns Eutyches against doctrinal errors.

§ 47.18. The Hero of the Soteriological Controversy.―Augustine―Aurelius Augustinus―was born in A.D. 354 at Tagaste in Numidia. From his pious mother Monica he early received Christian religious impressions which, however, were again in great measure effaced by his pagan father the Decurio Patricius. While he studied in Carthage, he gave way to sensuality and worldly pleasure. Cicero’s Hortensius first awakened again in him a longing after higher things. From about A.D. 374 he sought satisfaction in the tenets of the Manichæan sect, strongly represented in Africa, and for ten years he continued a catechumen of that order. But here, too, at last finding himself cruelly deceived in his struggle after the knowledge of the truth, he would have sunk into the most utter scepticism, had not the study of the Platonic philosophy still for awhile held him back. In A.D. 383 he left Africa and went to Rome, and in the following year he took up his residence in Milan as a teacher of eloquence. An African bishop, once himself a Manichæan, had comforted his anxious mother, who followed him hither, by assuring her that the son of so many sighs and prayers could not be finally lost. At Milan too the sermons of Ambrose made an impression on Augustine’s heart. He now began diligently to search the scriptures. At last the hour arrived of his complete renewal of heart and life. After an earnest conversation with his friend Alypius, he hastened into the solitude of the garden. While agonizing in prayer he heard the words thrice repeated: Tolle, lege! He took up the scriptures, and his eye fell upon the passage Rom. xiii. 13, 14. This utterance of stern Christian morality seemed as if written for himself alone, and from this moment he received into his wounded spirit a peace such as he had never known before. In order to prepare for baptism he withdrew with his mother and some friends to the country house of one of them, where scientific studies, pious exercises and conversations on the highest problems of life occupied his time. Out of these conversations sprang his philosophical writings. At Easter A.D. 387 Ambrose baptized him, and at the same time his illegitimate son Adeodatus, who not long afterwards died. His return journey to Africa was delayed by the death of his mother at Ostia, and at last, after almost a year’s residence in Rome, he reached his old home again. In Rome he applied himself to combat the errors of Manichæism, arguing with many of his old companions whom he met there. After his return to Africa in A.D. 388, he spent some years on his small patrimonial estate at Tagaste engaged in scientific work. During a casual visit to Hippo in A.D. 391 he was, in spite of all resistance, ordained presbyter, and in A.D. 395 colleague of the aged and feeble bishop Valerius, whose successor he became in the following year. Now began the brilliant period of his career, in which he stands forth as a pillar of the church and the centre of all theological and ecclesiastical life throughout the whole Western world. In A.D. 400 began his battle against the Donatists (§ 63, 1). And scarcely had he brought this to a successful end in a religious discussion at Carthage in A.D. 411, when he was drawn into a far more important Soteriological controversy by Pelagius and his followers (§ 53), which he continued till the close of his life. His death occurred in A.D. 430 during the siege of Carthage by the Vandals. He has written his own life in his Confessiones (Engl. translat., Oxf., 1838; Edin., 1876). In the form of an address to God he here unfolds before the Omniscient One his whole past life with all its errors and gracious providences in the language of prayer full of the holiest earnestness and most profound humility, a lively commentary on the opening words: Magnus es, Domine, et laudabilis valde.... Fecisti nos ad te, et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te. The biography of his disciple Possidius may serve as a supplement to the Confessions.―Augustine was the greatest, most powerful, and most influential of all the fathers. In consequence of his thoroughly Western characteristics he was indeed less perfectly understood and appreciated in the East; but all the greater was his reputation in the West, where the whole development of church and doctrine seemed always to move about him as its centre. The main field of his literary activity in consequence of his own peculiar mental qualities, his philosophical culture, speculative faculty, and dialectic skill, as well as the ecclesiastical conflicts of his time, to which his most important works are devoted, was Systematic Theology, Dogmatics and Ethics, Polemics and Apologetics. He is weakest as an exegete; for he had little interest in philological and grammatico-historical research into the simple literal sense of scripture. He was unacquainted with the original language of the Old Testament, and even the New Testament he treats only in a popular way according to the Latin translations. Neither does he deal much with the exegetical foundations of dogmatics, which he rather develops from the Christian consciousness by means of speculation and dialectic, and from the proof of its meeting the needs of humanity. Over against philosophy he insisted upon the independence and necessity of faith as the presupposition and basis of all religious knowledge. Rationabiliter dictum est per prophetam: Nisi credideretis non intelligetis. Credamus ut id quod credimus intelligere valeamus.

§ 47.19. Augustine’s Works.

Philosophical Treatises belonging to the period preceding his ordination. The 3 bks. Contra Academicos combat their main position that men cannot attain to any certain knowledge; the treatise De Vita beata shows that true happiness consists in the knowledge of God; the 2 bks. De Ordine treat of the relation of good and evil in the divine order of the world; the 2 bks. Soliloquia are monologues on the means and conditions of the knowledge of supernatural truths, and contain beside the main question an Appendix De immortalitate animæ, etc.

Dogmatic Treatises. The most important are: De Trinitate in 15 bks. (Engl. transl., Edin., 1874), a speculative dogmatic construction of the dogma, of great importance for its historical development; De doctrina christiana in 4 bks. (Engl. transl., Edin., 1875), of which the first three bks. form a guide to the exposition of scripture after the analogy of faith, while the 4th book shows how the truth thus discovered is to be used (Hermeneutics and Homiletics); finally, the two bks. Retractationes, written in his last years, in which he passes an unfavourable judgment on his earlier writings, and withdraws or modifies much in them. Among his Moral-ascetic writings the bk. De bono conjugali is of special interest, called forth by Jovinian’s utterances on non-meritoriousness of the unmarried state (§ 62, 2); he admits the high value of Christian marriage, but yet sees in celibacy genuinely chosen as a means to holiness a higher step in the Christian life. Also the bk. De adulterinis conjugis against second marriages, and two treatises De Mendacium and Contra Mendacium ad Consentium, which in opposition to the contrary doctrine of the Priscillianists (§ 54, 2), unconditionally repudiates the admissibility of equivocation.

Controversial Treatises. Of 11 treatises against the Manichæans (§ 54, 1) the most important is that C. Faustum in 33 bks. (Engl. transl., Edin., 1875), interesting as reproducing in quotations the greater part of the last work of this great champion of the Manichæans. Then came the discussion with the Donatists (§ 63, 1), which he engaged in with great vigour. We have ten treatises directed against them (Engl. transl., Edin., 1873). Of far greater importance was the conflict which soon after broke out against the Pelagians and then against the semi-Pelagians (§ 53, 4, 5), in which he wrote fourteen treatises (Engl. transl., 3 vols., Edin., 1873-1876). Also the Arians, Priscillianists, Origenists and Marcionites were combated by him in special treatises, and in the bk. De hæresibus he gave a summary account of the various heresies that had come under his notice.

Among his Apologetical Treatises against pagans and Jews, by far the ablest and most important is the work De Civitate Dei, in 22 bks., a truly magnificent conception (Engl. transl., 2 vols., Edin., 1873), the most substantial of all apologetical works of Christian antiquity, called forth by the reproach of the heathens that the repeated successes of the barbarians resulted from the weakening and deteriorating influence of Christianity upon the empire. The author repels this reproach in the first four bks. by showing how the Roman empire had previously in itself the seeds of decay in its godless selfishness, and thence advancing immorality; Ilium was and continued pagan, but its gods could not save it from destruction. Ilium’s Epigone, haughty Rome, meets the same fate. It owed its power only to God’s will and His government of the world, and to His using it as a scourge for the nations. The next five books show the corruption of the heathen religions and the inadequacy of heathen philosophy. Then the last 12 bks. point out the contrast between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world in respect of their diverse foundations, their entirely different motive powers, their historical development and their ultimate disposal in the last judgment.

The most important and complete of his Exegetical Works are the 12 bks. De Genesi ad litteram, a gigantic commentary on the three first chapters of Genesis, which in spite of its title very often leaves the firm ground of the literal sense to revel in the airy regions of spiritualistic and mystical expatiation. Of his Sermones, 400 are recognised as genuine (Engl. transl., Hom. on N.T., 2 vols., Oxf., 1844 f.; Hom. on John and 1st John, 2 vols., Oxf., 1848; Comm. on Psalms, 6 vols., Oxf., 1847 f.; Harmony of Evangelists, and Serm. on Mt., Edin., 1874; Commentary on John, 2 vols., Edin., 1875). His correspondence still preserved comprises 270 Epistles (Engl. transl., 2 vols., Edin., 1874, 1876).

§ 47.20. Augustine’s Disciples and Friends.

Paulinus, deacon of Milan, who wrote, at Augustine’s request, the life of Ambrose, awakened in A.D. 411 the Pelagian controversy by the charges which he made, and took part in it himself by writing in A.D. 417 the Libellus c. Cœlestium ad Zosimum Papam.

Paulus [Paul] Orosius, a Spanish presbyter, who visited Augustine in Africa in A.D. 415 to urge him to combat Priscillianism, took part with him there in his conflict with the Pelagians. He has left behind a Commonitorium de errore Priscillianistarum et Origenistarum ad Augustinum; an Apologeticus de arbitrii libertate c. Pelagium and Hist. adv. Paganos in 7 bks. The last named work was written at Augustine’s urgent entreaty, and pursues in a purely historical manner the same end which Augustine in his City of God sought to reach in a dogmatico-apologetic way.

Marius Mercator was a learned and acute layman, belonging to the West, but latterly resident in Constantinople. He made every effort to secure the condemnation of Pelagianism even in the East, and so wrote not only against its Western leaders but also against its Antiochean supporters, Nestorius and Theodore of Mopsuestia (§ 53, 4).

Prosper Aquitanicus, also a layman and an enthusiastic follower of Augustine, not only wrote several treatises against the semi-Pelagians of his native Gaul (§ 53, 5), but also poured out the vials of his wrath upon them in poetic effusions (§ 48, 6). He died about A.D. 460.

Cæsarius, bishop of Arelate, now Arles in Gaul, originally a monk in the monastery of Larinum, was one of the most celebrated, most influential, and in church work most serviceable of the men of his times. It is also mainly due to him that in A.D. 529 moderate Augustinianism gained the victory over semi-Pelagianism. He died in A.D. 543. His treatise De gratia et libero arbitrio is no longer extant, but two rules for monks and nuns composed by him, Ad monachos, Ad virgines, as well as a considerable number of Sermones, the best of their time, are still preserved.

Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspe in Africa, on account of his zeal for the Catholic doctrine, was banished by the Arian Vandal king Thrasimund, but returned after the king’s death in A.D. 523. He was one of the stoutest champions of Augustinianism. His writings against Arians and semi-Pelagians have been often printed. He died in A.D. 555. His scholar and biographer was Fulgentius Ferrandus, deacon at Carthage about A.D. 547. Alongside of and after him we meet with bishop Facundus of Hermiane, and the archdeacon Liberatus of Carthage, who with characteristic African energy defend the Tria Capitula (§ 52, 6) basely surrendered by the Roman bishop Vigilius.

§ 47.21. Pelagians and semi-Pelagians.

Pelagius, a British monk, the originator of the heresy named after him (§ 53, 3, 4), left behind a considerable number of writings, of which, however, for the most part we have now only fragments in the works of his opponents. References in Augustine, Marius Mercator, and others show that to him belong the Lb. xiv. Expositionum in Epistt. Pauli, which have been ascribed to Jerome and included among his works, scholia-like explanations with good sound grammatico-historical exegesis. The wish to make this useable and safe for the Catholic church led at an early date to various omissions and alterations in it. Afterwards its heretical origin was forgotten which notwithstanding the purifying referred to is still quite discernible. Two epistles addressed to Roman ladies recommending virginity have also got a place among the works of Jerome.―Julianus, bishop of Eclanum in Italy, is the only one among the followers of Pelagius who can be regarded as of scientific importance. He was an acute but frivolous and vulgar opponent of Augustine, whom he honoured with the epithets amentissimus et bardissimus (comp. § 53, 4).

At the head of the semi-Pelagians or Massilians stands: Johannes Cassianus. Gennadius designates him as natione Scythus; but he received his early education in a monastery at Bethlehem. He then undertook a journey in company with the abbot to visit the Egyptian monks, stayed next for a long time with Chrysostom at Constantinople, and after his banishment resided some years in Rome, and finally in A.D. 415 settled down at Massilia (Marseilles), where he established a monastery and a nunnery, and organised both after the Eastern model. He died about A.D. 432. His writings were held in high esteem throughout the Middle Ages. In the De institutis Cœnobiorum he describes the manner of life of the Palestinian and Egyptian monks, and then treats of the eight vices to which the monks were specially exposed. The 24 Collationes Patrum report the conversations which he had with the Eastern monks and hermits about the ways and means of attaining Christian perfection. The 13th Collatio is, without naming him, directed against Augustine’s doctrine, and develops semi-Pelagian Synergism (§ 53, 5). Both writings, however are certainly calculated to serve the development of his own monkish ideal as well as his own dogmatic and ethical views, rather then to afford a historically faithful representation of the life and thinking of oriental monasticism of that time. The 7 bks. De incarnatione Christi combat not only Nestorianism but also Pelagianism as in its consequences derogatory to the divinity of Christ. Vincentius [Vincent] Lerinensis, monk in the Gallic monastery of Lerinum, was Cassianus’ most distinguished disciple. He died about A.D. 450. On his often printed Commonitorium pro cath. fidei antiquit. et universit., comp. § 53, 5. Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, left behind him several ascetical works (De laude eremi; De contemtu mundi), Homilies, and a Liber formularum spiritualis intelligentiæ as guide to the mystico-allegorical interpretation of Scripture. He died about A.D. 450. Salvianus, presbyter at Marseilles, was in his earlier days married to a heathen woman whom he converted, and with her took the vow of continency. He died about A.D. 485. He wrote Adv. avaritiam Lb. iv., in which the support of the poor and surrender of property to the church for pious uses are recommended as means of furthering the salvation of one’s own soul. In consequence of the oppression of the times during the convulsions of the migration of the peoples and the reproach of the heathen again loudly raised that the weakness of the Roman empire was occasioned by the introduction of Christianity, he wrote De providentia s. de gubernatione Dei et de justo præsentique judicio, Lb. viii., which in rhetorical and flowery language depicted the dreadful moral condition of the Roman world of that day. Faustus of Rhegium, now Riez in Provence, in his earlier years an advocate, then monk and abbot of the cloister of Lerinum, and finally bishop of Rhegium, was the head of the Gallic semi-Pelagians of his times. In his writings he stated this doctrine in a moderate form. He died in A.D. 493. Arnobius the Younger, the contemporary and fellow-countryman of Faustus, wrote a very important work entitled Prædestinatus, which in a very thorough and elaborate manner contests the doctrines of Augustine. Comp. § 53, 5.

§ 47.22. The Most Important Church Teachers among the Roman Popes.

Leo the Great occupied the papal chair from A.D. 440 to A.D. 461. While but a deacon he was the most distinguished personage in Rome. On assuming the bishopric he gave the whole powers of his mind to the administration of his office in all directions. By the energy and consistency with which he carried out the idea of the Roman primacy, he became the virtual founder of the spiritual sovereignty of Rome. With a strong arm he guided the helm of the church, reformed and organized on every side, settled order and discipline, defended orthodoxy, contended against heretics (Manichæans, Priscillianists, Pelagians, Eutychians), and appeased the barbarians (Attila). Of his writings we have 96 Sermones and 173 Epistles, which last are of the utmost importance for the church history of his times. He is also supposed to be the author of a talented work De vocatione Gentium (§ 53, 5).

Gelasius I., A.D. 492 to A.D. 496, left behind him a treatise Adv. hæresin Pelagianem, another De duabus in Christo naturis, and a work against the observance of the Lupercalia which some prominent Romans wished to have continued. He also wrote 18 Decretals. The celebrated Decretum de libris recipiendis et non recipiendis, in a sense the oldest Index prohibitorum, is ascribed to him. The first section, wanting in the best MSS., contains a biblical canon corresponding to that of the Synod of Hippo, A.D. 393 (§ 59, 1); the second section treats of the pre-eminence of the Church of Rome granted by our Lord Himself in the person of Peter; the third enumerates the œcumenical Councils; and the fourth, the writings of the fathers received by the Roman Church; the Chronicle and Church History of Eusebius are found fault with (quod tepuerit) but not rejected; in respect to the writings of Origen and Rufinus the opinion of Jerome is approved. The fifth section gives a list of books not to be received―the New Testament Apocrypha, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Arnobius, Cassianus, Faustus of Rhegium, etc.

Gregory the Great, A.D. 590 to A.D. 604, born in Rome about A.D. 540, sprung from a distinguished old Roman family, held about A.D. 574 the office of city prefect, after his father’s death founded on his inherited estates, six monasteries, and himself withdrew into a seventh, which he built in Rome. Ordained deacon against his will in A.D. 579, he was entrusted with the important and difficult office of a papal apocrisiarius in Constantinople, and was constrained in A.D. 590, after a long persisted-in refusal, to mount the papal chair, which obliged him to abandon the long-cherished plan of his life, the preaching of the gospel to the Anglo-Saxons (§ 77, 4). Gregory united a rare power and energy of will with real mildness and gentleness of character, deep humility and genuine piety with the full consciousness of his position as a successor of Peter, insight, circumspection, yea even an unexpected measure of liberal-mindedness (comp. e.g. § 57, 4; 75, 3) with all monkish narrowness and stiff adherence to the traditional forms, doctrines and views of the Roman Church. He himself lived in extremest poverty and simplicity according to the strictest monastic asceticism, and applied all that he possessed and received to the support of the poor and the help of the needy. It was a hard time in which he lived, the age of the birth throes of a new epoch of the world’s history. There is therefore much cause to thank the good providence which set such a man as spiritual father, teacher and pastor at the head of the Western Church. He took special interest in fostering monasticism and such-like institutions, which were, indeed, most conducive to the well-being of the world, for during this dangerous period of convulsion, monasticism was almost the only nursery of intellectual culture. The Roman Catholic church ranks him as the last of the Fathers, and places him alongside of Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine, the four greatest teachers of the church, Doctores ecclesiæ, whose writings have been long reverenced as the purest and most complete vehicles of the Catholic tradition. Among the Greeks a similar position is given to Athanasius, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen and Chrysostom. The rank thus assigned to Gregory is justifiable inasmuch as in him the formation and malformation of doctrine, worship, discipline and constitution peculiar to the ancient church are gathered up, completed and closed. His most complete work is the Expositio in b. Jobum s. Moralium, Ll. xxxv., (Engl. transl., Lib. of Fath., 3 vols., Oxf., 1844-1850) which, by dragging in all possible relations of life which an allegorical interpretation can furnish, is expanded into a repertory of moral reflections. His Regula pastoralis s. Liber curæ pastoralis obtained in the West a position of almost canonical authority. In his “Dialogues,” of which the first three books treat “de vita et miraculis Patrum Italicorum,” and the 4th book mostly of visionary views of the hereafter (heaven, hell and purgatory), “de æternitate animarum,” we meet with a very singular display of the most uncritical credulousness and the most curious superstition. Besides these we have from him Homilies on Ezekiel and the Gospels, as well as a voluminous correspondence in 880 Epistles of great importance for the history of the age. To Gregory also is attributed the oft quoted saying which compares holy scripture to a stream in quo agnus peditat et elephas natat.

§ 47.23. The Conservators and Continuators of Patristic Culture.

Boëthius, Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus, was descended from a distinguished Roman family, and stood high in favour with the Ostrogoth Arian king Theodoric. Accused, however, by his enemies of treasonable correspondence with the Byzantine court, he was, after a long imprisonment, condemned unheard and executed, A.D. 525. In prison he composed the celebrated treatise, De consolatione philosophiæ, which, written in pure and noble language, was the favourite book of the Latin Middle Ages, and was translated into all European languages: first of all by Alfred the Great into Anglo-Saxon, and often reprinted in its original form. The book owed its great popularity to the mediæval tradition which made its author a martyr for the Catholic faith under Arian persecution; but modern criticism has sought to prove that in all probability he was not even a Christian. Still more decidedly the theological writings on the Trinity and the Two Natures of Christ bearing his name are repudiated as irreconcileable with the contents and character of the De consolatione; though, on the other hand, their authenticity has again found several most capable defenders. Finally, Usener has conclusively, as it seems, in a newly discovered fragment of Cassiodorus, brought forward a quite incontestable witness for their authenticity. In any case Boëthius did great service in preserving the continuity of Western culture by his hearty encouragement and careful prosecution of classical studies at a time when these were threatened with utter neglect. Of special importance was his translation of a commentary on the logical works of Aristotle as the first and for a long time almost the only philosophical groundwork of mediæval scholasticism (§ 99, 2).

Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus, surnamed Senator, belonged to Southern Italy and held the highest civil offices under Odoacer and Theodoric for fifty years. About A.D. 540, he retired to the cloister of Vivarium founded by him in Southern Italy, and devoted the rest of his life to the sciences and the instruction of the monks. He collected a great library in his monastery, and employed the monks in transcribing classical and patristic writings. He died about A.D. 575 when almost a hundred years old. His own writings show indeed no independence and originality, but are all the more important as concentrated collections of classical and patristic learning for the later Latin Middle Ages. His twelve books of the History of the Goths have come down only in the condensed reproduction of Jordanes or Jornandes. His twelve books Variarum (sc. epistolarum et formularum), which consist of a collection of acts and ordinances of the period of his civil service, are important for the history of his age. His Historia ecclest. tripartita (§ 5, 1), was for many centuries almost the only text book of church history, and his Institutiones divinarum et sæcularum litterarum had a similar position as a guide to the study of theology and the seven liberal arts (§ 90, 8). Also his commentary on the Psalms and the most of the books of the New Testament, made up of compilations, was held in high esteem.

Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian by birth, who became a Roman abbot, and died about A.D. 566, may also be placed in this group. He translated many Greek patristic writings, by his Cyclus paschalis became founder of the Western reckoning of Easter (§ 56, 3), and also the more universally adopted so-called Dionysian era. By his Codex Canonum he is also the founder of the Western system of Canon Law (§ 43, 3).

§ 48. Branches of Theological Science and Christian Poetry.

§ 48.1. Exegetical Theology.―Nothing was done in the way of criticism of the original biblical text. Even Jerome was only a translator. For the Old Testament the LXX. sufficed, and the divergences of the Hebrew text were explained as Jewish alterations. Hebrew was a terra incognita to the fathers, Polychronius and Jerome only are notable exceptions. The allegorical method of interpretation was and continued to be the prevalent one. The Antiocheans, however, put limits to it by their theory and practice of the right of historico-grammatical interpretation. Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia contested the principles of Origen, while Gregory of Nyssa in his Proemium in Cant. undertook their defence. The first attempt at a system of Hermeneutics was made by the learned Donatist Tychonius in his book the Regulæ vii. ad investigandam intelligentiam ss. Scr. More profound is Augustine’s De Doctrina Chr. The Εἰσαγωγὴ τῆς θείας γραφῆς of the Greek Adrianus with its opposition to the immoderate allegorizing that then prevailed, deserves mention here. Jerome contributed to biblical Introduction by his various Proœmia. The first attempt at a scientific introduction to biblical study (isagogical and biblico-theological in the form of question and answer), is met with in the 2 bks. Instituta regularia div. legis of the African Junilius, a prominent courtier at Constantinople, about A.D. 550. There is a Latin rendering made by Junilius at the request of Primasius, bishop of Adrumetum, of a treatise composed originally in Syriac, by Paul the Persian, teacher of the Nestorian seminary at Nisibis, which he had collected from the works of Theodore of Mopsuestia, for the purposes of instruction. The title Departibus div. legis, usually given to the whole, properly belongs only to the first part of the treatise. A more popular guide is Cassiodorus’ Institutio divinarum litt. Some contributions were made to biblical archaeology by Eusebius and Epiphanius. Of the allegorical Exegetes of the East, the most productive was Cyril of Alexandria. The Antiochean school produced a whole series of able expositors of the grammatico-historical sense of scripture. In the commentaries of Chrysostom and Ephraem [Ephraim] the Syrian, that method of interpretation is applied in a directly practical interest. The Westerns Hilary, Ambrose, Ambrosiaster, Jerome and Augustine, as well as their later imitators, all allegorize; yet Jerome also applied himself very diligently to the elucidation of the grammatical sense. Only Pelagius is content to rest in the plain literal meaning of scripture. From the 6th century, almost all independent work in the department of exegesis ceased. We have from this time only Catenæ, collections of passages from commentaries and homilies of distinguished fathers. The first Greek writer of Catenæ, was Procopius of Gaza, in the 6th century; and the first Latin writer of these was Primasius of Adrumetum, about A.D. 560.

§ 48.2. Historical Theology.―The writing of Church history flourished especially during the 4th and 5th centuries (§ 5, 1). For the history of heresies we have Epiphanius, Theodoret, Leontius of Byzantium; and among the Latins, Augustine, Philastrius [Philaster], and the author of Prædestinatus (§ 47, 21f). There are numerous biographies of distinguished fathers. On these compare the so-called Liber pontificalis, see § 90, 6. Jerome laid the foundation of a history of theological literature in a series of biographies, and Gennadius of Massilia continued this work. With special reference to monkish history, we have among the Greeks, Palladius, Theodoret and Joh. Moschus; and among the Latins, Rufinus, Jerome, Gregory the Great and Gregory of Tours (§ 90, 2). Of great importance for ecclesiastical statistics is the Τοπογραφία χριστιανική in 12 bks., whose author Cosmas Indicopleustes, monk in the Sinai peninsula about A.D. 540, had in his earlier years as an Alexandrian merchant travelled much in the East. The connection of biblical and profane history is treated of in the Chronicle of Eusebius. Orosius too treats of profane history from the Christian standpoint. The Hist. persecutionis Vandalorum (§ 76, 3), of Victor, bishop of Vita in Africa, about A.D. 487, is of great value for the church history of Africa. For chronology the so-called Chronicon paschale, in the Greek language, is of great importance. It is the work of two unknown authors; the work of the one reaching down to A.D. 354, that of the other, down to A.D. 630. These chronological tables obtained their name from the fact that the Easter cycles and indictions are always carefully determined in them.

§ 48.3. Systematic Theology.

Apologetics. The controversial treatises of Porphyry and Hierocles were answered by many (§ 23, 3); that of the Emperor Julian also (§ 42, 5), especially by Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostum [Chrysostom] (in the Discourse on St. Babylas), and most powerfully by Cyril of Alexandria. Ambrose and the poet Prudentius answered the tract of Symmachus, referred to in § 42, 4. The insinuations of Zosimus, Eunapius, and others (§ 42, 5) were met by Orosius with his Historiæ, by Augustine with his Civ. Dei, and by Salvian [Salvianus] with his De gubernatione Dei. Johannes Philoponus wrote against Proclus’ denial of the biblical doctrine of creation. The vindication of Christianity against the charges of the Jews was undertaken by Aphraates, Chrysostom, Augustine, and Gregentius, bishop of Taphne in Arabia, who, in A.D. 540, disputed for four days amid a great crowd with the Jew Herban. Apologies of a general character were written by Eusebius of Cæsarea, Athanasius, Theodoret and Firmicus Maternus.

In Polemics against earlier and later heretics, the utmost energy and an abundance of acuteness and depth of thought were displayed. See under the history of theological discussions, § 50 ff.

Positive Dogmatics. Origen’s example in the construction of a complete scientific system of doctrine has no imitator. For practical purposes, however, the whole range of Christian doctrine was treated by Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nyssa, Apollinaris, Epiphanius, Rufinus (Expositio Symboli Apost.), Augustine (in the last book of the Civ. Dei, in first book of his De Doctrina Chr., and in the Enchiridium ad Laurentium). The African Fulgentius of Ruspe (De regula veræ fidei), Gennadius of Massilia (De fide sua), and Vincentius [Vincent] of Lerinum in his Commonitorium. Much more important results for the development of particular dogmas were secured by means of polemics. Of supreme influence on subsequent ages were the mystico-theosophical writings of the Pseudo-Areopagite. This mysticism, so far as adopted, was combined by the acute and profound thinker Maximus Confessor with the orthodox theology of the Councils.

Morals. The De officiis ministr. of Ambrose is a system of moral instruction for the clergy; and of the same sort is Chrysostom’s Περὶ ἱερωσύνης; while Cassianus’ writings form a moral system for the monks, and Gregory’s Exposit. in Jobum a vast repertory on general morality.

§ 48.4. Practical Theology.―The whole period is peculiarly rich in distinguished homilists. The most brilliant of the Greek preachers were: Macarius the Great, Basil the Great, Gregory Nazianzen, Ephraem [Ephraim] the Syrian, and above all Chrysostom. Of the Latins the most distinguished were Ambrose, Augustine, Zeno of Verona, Petrus [Peter] Chrysologus, Leo the Great, and Cæsarius of Arles. A sort of Homiletics is found in the 4th of Augustine’s De Doctr. Chr., and a directory for pastoral work, in the Regula pastoralia of Gregory the Great. On Liturgical writings, comp. § 59, 6; on Constitutional works, § 43, 3-5.

§ 48.5. Christian Poetry.―The beginning of the prevalence of Christianity occurred at a time when the poetic art had already ceased to be consecrated to the national life of the ancient world. But it proved an intellectual power which could cause to swell out again the poetic vein, relaxed by the weakness of age. In spite of the depraved taste and deteriorated language, it called forth a new period of brilliancy in the history of poetry which could rival classical poetry, not indeed in purity and elegance of form, but in intensity and depth. The Latins in this far excelled the Greeks; for to them Christianity was more a matter of experience, emotion, the inner life, to the Greeks a matter of knowledge and speculation. Among the Greeks the most distinguished are these: Gregory Nazianzen. He deserves notice mainly for his satirical Carmen de vita sua, περὶ ἑαυτοῦ. Among his numerous other poems are some beautiful hymns and many striking phrases, but also much that is weak and flat. The drama Χριστὸς πάσχων, perhaps wrongly bearing his name, modelled on the tragedies of Euripides and in great part made up of Euripidean verses, is not without interest as the first Christian passion-play, and contains some beautiful passages; e.g. the lament of Mary; but it is on the whole insipid and confused. Nonnus of Panopolis, about A.D. 400, wrote a Παράφρασις ἐπικὴ τοῦ Εὐαγγ. κατὰ Ἰωάννην, somewhat more useful for textual criticism and archaeology, than likely to afford enjoyment as poetry. Of the poetical works of the Empress Eudocia, wife of Theodosius II., daughter of the pagan rhetorician Leontius of Athens, hence called Athenais (she died about the year 460), only fragments of their renderings in the Cyprian legends have come down to us. The loss of her Homero-centoes celebrated by Photius, i.e. reproductions of the biblical books of the New Testament in pure Homeric words and verses, is not perhaps to be very sorely lamented. On the other hand, the poetic description of the church of Sophia, built by Justinian I. and of the ambo of that church which Paulus Silentiarius left behind him, is not only of archaeological value, but also is not without poetic merit.

§ 48.6. Christian Latin Poetry reached its highest excellence in the composition of hymns (§ 59, 4). But also in the more ambitious forms of epic, didactic, panegyric, and hortatory poems, it has respectable representatives, especially in Spain and Gaul, whose excellence of workmanship during such a period of restlessness and confusion is truly wonderful. To the fourth century belongs the Spaniard Juvencus, about A.D. 330. His Hist. evangelica in 4 books, is the first Christian epic; a work of sublime simplicity, free of all bombast or rhetorical rant, which obtained for him the name of “the Christian Virgil.” His Liber in Genesin versifies in a similar manner the Mosaic history of the patriarchs. His countryman Prudentius, who died about A.D. 410, was a poet of the first rank, distinguished for depth of sensibility, glowing enthusiasm, high lyrical flow, and singular skill in versification. His Liber Cathemerinon consists of 12 hymns, for the 12 hours of the day, and his Liber Peristephanon, 14 hymns on the same number of saints who had won the martyr’s crown; his Apotheosis is an Anti-Arian glorification of Christ; the Hamartigenia treats of the origin of sin; the Psychomachia describes the conflict of the virtues and vices of the human soul; and his 2 bks. Contra Symmachum combat the views of Symmachus, referred to in § 42, 4.―In the fifth century flourished: Paulinus, bishop of Nola in Campania, who died in A.D. 431. He left behind him 30 poems, of which 13 celebrate in noble, enthusiastic language, the life of Felix of Nola, martyr during the Decian persecution. Coelius Sedulius, an Irishman (?), composed in smooth dignified verse the Life of Jesus, and the Mirabilia divina s. Opus paschale, so called from 1 Cor. v. 7 in 5 bks.; and a Collatio V. et N.T. in elegiac verse. The De libero arbitrio c. ingratos of the Gaul Prosper Aquitanicus lashes with poetic fury the thankless despisers of grace (§ 53, 5).―The most important poet of the sixth century was Venantius Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers, Vita Martini, hymns, elegies, etc.

§ 48.7. In the National Syrian Church, the first place as a poet belongs to Ephraem [Ephraim], the Propheta Syrorum. In poetic endowment, lyrical flow, depth and intensity of feeling, he leaves all later writers far behind. Next to him stands Cyrillonas, about A.D. 400, a poet whose very name, until quite recently, was unknown, of whose poems six are extant, two being metrical homilies. Of Rabulas of Edessa, who died in A.D. 435, the notorious partisan of Cyril of Alexandria (§ 53, 3), and of Baläus, about A.D. 430, we possess only a number of liturgical odes, which are not altogether destitute of poetic merit. This cannot, however, be said of the poetic works of Isaac of Antioch, who died about A.D. 460, filled with frigid polemics against Nestorius and Eutyches, of which their Catholic editor (Opp. ed. G. Bickell, Giess., 1873 f.) has to confess they are thoroughly “insipid, flat and wearisome, and move backwards and forwards in endless tautologies.” Less empty and tiresome are the poetic effusions of the famous Jacob of Sarug, who died in A.D. 521; biblical stories, metrical homilies, hymns, etc. Most of the numerous liturgical odes are the compositions of unknown authors.

§ 48.8. The Legendary History of Cyprian.―At the basis of the poetic rendering of this legend in 3 bks. by the Empress Eudocia, about A.D. 440, lay three little works in prose, still extant in the Greek original and in various translations. In early youth Cyprian, impelled by an insatiable craving after knowledge, power and enjoyment, seeks to obtain all the wisdom of the Greeks, all the mysteries of the East, and for this purpose travels through Greece, Egypt, and Chaldæa. But when he gets all this he is not satisfied; he makes a compact with the devil, to whom he unreservedly surrenders himself, who in turn places at his disposal now a great multitude of demons, and promises to make him hereafter one of his chief princes. Then comes he to Antioch. There Aglaidas, an eminent heathen sophist, who in vain abandoned all to win the love of a maiden named Justina, who had taken vows of perpetual virginity, calls in his magical arts, in order thereby to gain the end so ardently desired. Cyprian enters into the affair all the more eagerly since he himself also meanwhile has entertained a strong passion for the fair maiden. But the demons sent by him, at last the devil himself, are forced to flee from her, through her calling on the name of Jesus and making the sign of the cross, and are obliged to own their powerlessness before the Christians’ God. Now Cyprian repents, repudiates his covenant with the devil, lays before an assembly of Antiochean Christians a confession inspired by the most profound despairing sorrow of the innumerable mischiefs wrought by him with the help of the demons, is comforted by the Christians present by means of consolatory words of scripture, receives baptism, enters the ranks of the clergy as reader, passes quickly through the various clerical offices, and suffers the death of a martyr as bishop of Antioch, along with Justina, under the Emperor Claudius II.―Gregory Nazianzen too in a discourse delivered at Constantinople in A.D. 379, “on the day of the holy martyr and bishop Cyprian,” treated of the legend, in which without more ado he identifies the converted Antiochean sorcerer with the famous Carthaginian bishop of that name, and makes him suffer martyrdom under Decius (?).―The romance may have borrowed the name of its hero from an old wizard; but his type of character is certainly to be looked for in the philosophico-theurgical efforts of the Syrio-Neoplatonic school of Iamblichus (§ 24, 2), in which the then expiring heathenism gathered up its last energies for conflict with victorious Christianity. The conception of the heroine on the other hand, is with slight modifications borrowed from the Thecla legend (§ 32, 6). By the Legenda aurea (§ 104, 8), which is just an adaptation of this earlier one, the legend of Cyprian was carried down even beyond the time of the Reformation. Calderon’s “Wonder-working Magician” presents a Spanish-Catholic, as the Faustus legend of the 16th century presents a German Protestant construction, which latter, however, in direct opposition to the tendency of the early Christian legend, allows the magician to drop into hell because his repentance came too late. The Romish Church, however, still maintains the historical genuineness of the old legend, and celebrates both of the supposed saints on one day, 25th September.

IV. DOCTRINAL CONTROVERSIES AND HERESIES.

§ 49. The Development of Doctrine Generally.

When a considerable fulness of Christian doctrine had already in previous periods found subjective and therefore variously diversified development, it had now, besides being required by the altered condition of things, become necessary that the church should sift and confirm what was already developed or was still in the course of development. The endeavour after universal scientific comprehension and accurate definition became stronger every day. The lively intercourse between the churches, which prevented the various doctrinal types from being restricted to particular countries, brought opposite views into contact and conflict with one another. The court, the people, the monks took parts, and so the church became the scene of passionate and distracting struggles, which led to the issuing of a canon of orthodoxy recognised by the whole Catholic church of the West and of the East, and to the branding every deviation therefrom with the mark of heresy.

The Heresies of the previous period were mainly of a syncretic kind (§ 26). Those of the period now under consideration have an evolutionary or formatory character. They consist in the construction of the system of doctrine by exclusive attention and extreme estimation of the one side of the Christian truth that is being developed, which thus passes over into errors; while it is the task of orthodoxy to give proportionate development to both sides and to bring them into harmony. Of syncratic heresies only sporadic traces from the previous period are found in this (§ 54). The third possible form of heresies is the revolutionary or reformatory. Heretics of this class fancy that they see in the developed and fixed system of the Catholic church excrescences and degenerations which either do not exist, so that by their removal the church is injured and hindered in her essential and normal functions, or do really exist, but for the most part are not now duly distinguished from the results of sound and normal development, so that the good would be removed with the bad. During the period under consideration only isolated instances of this kind of heresy are met with (§ 62).

§ 50. The Trinitarian Controversy, A.D. 318-381.150

The series of doctrinal contendings opened with the Trinitarian or Arian controversy. It first of all dealt with the nature and being of the Logos become man in Christ and the relation of this Logos to the Father. From the time of the controversy of the two Dionysiuses (§ 33, 7) the idea of the consubstantiality of the Son and the Father had found supporters even in Alexandria and a new school was formed with it as the fundamental doctrine (§ 47, 1). But the fear excited by Sabellius and the Samosatians (§ 33, 8), that the acknowledgment of the Homoousia might lead to Monarchianism, caused a strong reaction and doomed many excellent fathers to the bonds of subordinationism. It was pre-eminently the school of the Antiochean Lucian (§ 31, 9) that furnished able contenders against the Homoousia. In Origen the two contraries, subordination and the eternal generation from the substance of the Father, had been still maintained together (§ 33, 6). Now they are brought forward apart from one another. On the one side, Athanasius and his party repudiate subordination but hold firmly by the eternal generation, and perfected their theory by the adoption of the Homoousia; but on the other side, Arius and his party gave up the eternal generation, and held fast to the subordination, and went to the extreme of proclaiming the Heteroousia. A third intermediate party, the semi-Arians, mostly Origenists, wished to bind the separated contraries together with the newly discovered cement of the ὁμοιουσία. In the further course of the controversies that now broke out and raged throughout the whole church for almost a century, the question of the trinitarian position of the Holy Spirit was of necessity dragged into the discussion. After various experiences of victory and discomfiture, the Homoousia of the Son and of the Spirit was at last affirmed and became the watchword of inviolable orthodoxy.

§ 50.1. Preliminary Victory of the Homoousia, A.D. 318-325―Arius, a disciple of Lucian, from A.D. 313 presbyter at Alexandria, a man of clear intellect and subtle critical spirit, was in A.D. 318 charged with the denial of the divinity of Christ, because he publicly taught that while the Son was indeed before all time yet He was not from eternity (ἦν ὅτε οὐκ ἦν), that by the will of the Father (θελήματι θεοῦ) He was created out of nothing (κτίσμα ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων), and that by His mediating activity the world was called into being; as the most perfect created image of the Father and as executor of the Divine plan of creation, He might indeed in an inexact way be called θεός and λόγος. Alexander, bishop of Alexandria at that time, who maintained the doctrine of the eternal generation and consubstantiality, convened a synod at Alexandria in A.D. 321, which condemned the doctrine of Arius and deposed him. But the people, who revered him as a strict ascetic, and many bishops, who shared his views, took part with him. He also applied for protection to famous bishops in other places, especially to his former fellow student (Συλλουκιανίστης) Eusebius of Nicomedia, and to the very influential Eusebius of Cæsarea (§ 47, 2). The former unreservedly declared himself in favour of the Arian doctrine; the latter regarded it as at least not dangerous. Arius spread his views among the people by means of popular songs for men of various crafts and callings, for millers, sailors, travellers, etc. In this way a serious schism spread through almost all the East. In Alexandria the controversy was carried on so passionately that the pagans made it the subject of reproach in the theatre. When Constantine the Great received news of this general commotion he was greatly displeased. He commanded, fruitlessly, as might be expected, that all needless quarrels (ἐλάχισται ζητήσεις) should be avoided. Hosius, bishop of Cordŏva, who carried the imperial injunction to Alexandria, learnt the state of matters there and the serious nature of the conflict, and brought the emperor to see the matter in another light. Constantine now summoned in A.D. 325 an Œcumenical Council at Nicæa, where he himself and 318 bishops met. The majority, with Eusebius of Cæsarea at their head, were Origenists and sought, as did also the Eusebians, the party of Eusebius of Nicomedia, to mediate between the opposing views, the latter, however, being much more favourable to the Arians. The maintainers of the Homoousia were in a decided minority, but the vigorous eloquence of the young deacon Athanasius, whom Alexander brought with him, and the favour of the emperor, secured complete ascendancy to their doctrine. Upon the basis of the baptismal formula proposed by Eusebius of Cæsarea to his own congregation, a new confession of faith was sketched out, which was henceforth used to mark the limits of this trinitarian discussion. In this creed several expressions were avoided which, though biblical, had been understood by the Arians in a sense of their own, such as πρωτότοκος πάσης τῆς κτίσεως πρὸ πάντων τῶν αἰώνιων, and in their place strictly Homoousian formulæ were substituted, ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ πατρός, γεννηθεὶς οὐ ποιηθεὶς, ὁμοούσιος τῷ πατρί; while with added anathemas those entertaining opposite views were condemned. This was the Symbolum Nicænum. Arius was excommunicated and his writings condemned to be burnt. Dread of deposition and love of peace induced many to subscribe who were not convinced. Only Arius himself and two Egyptian bishops, Theonas and Secundus, refused and went into exile to Illyria. Also Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nicæa, who subscribed the Symbol but refused to sign the anathematizing formula, were three months afterwards banished to Gaul.151

§ 50.2. Victory of Eusebianism, A.D. 328-356.―This unity under the Nicene Symbol was merely artificial and could not therefore be enduring. The emperor’s dying sister Constantia and the persuasion of distinguished bishops induced Constantine to return to his earlier view of the controversy. Arius agreed to a Confession drawn up in general terms and was, along with the other banished ones, restored in A.D. 328. Soon thereafter, in A.D. 330, the emperor commanded that Arius should be restored to office. But meanwhile, in A.D. 328, Athanasius himself had become bishop and replied with unfaltering determination that he would not comply. The emperor threatened him with deposition, but by a personal conference Athanasius made such an impression upon him that he gave way. The enemies of Athanasius, however, especially the Meletians driven on by Eusebius of Nicomedia (§ 41, 4), ceased not to excite suspicion about him as a disturber of the peace, and got the emperor to reopen the question at a Synod at Tyre, in A.D. 335. consisting of pure Arians. Athanasius appealed against its verdict of deposition. A new Synod was convened at Constantinople in A.D. 335 and the emperor banished him to Treves in A.D. 336. It was now enjoined that, notwithstanding the opposition of the bishop of Constantinople, Arius should be there received back again into church fellowship, but on the evening before the day appointed he died suddenly, being over eighty years old. Constantine the Great soon followed him, A.D. 337, and Constantine II. restored Athanasius to his church which received him with enthusiasm. Constantius, however, was decidedly favourable to the Eusebians, and this gave tone to the court and to the capital where in all the streets and markets, in all the shops and houses, the questions referred to were considered and discussed. The Eastern bishops for the most part vacillated between the two extremes and let themselves be led by Eusebius of Nicomedia. He and his party managed for a time to set aside the Homoousian formula and yet to preserve an appearance of orthodoxy. Eusebius, who from A.D. 338 was bishop in the capital, died in A.D. 341, but his party continued to intrigue in his spirit. The whole West, on the other hand, was strictly Nicæan. The Eusebians in A.D. 340 opened a Council at Antioch, which anew deposed Athanasius, and put in his place a rude Cappadocian, Gregorius [Gregory]. Athanasius fled to Rome, where a Council under bishop Julius in A.D. 341 solemnly acknowledged his orthodoxy and innocence. A new Council convened at Antioch in A.D. 340 for the consecration of a church, sketched four creeds one after another, approaching indeed, in order to conciliate the West, as closely as possible that of Nicæa, but carefully avoiding the term ὁμοούσιος. In the interests of unity Constantius and Constans jointly convened an Œcumenical Council at Sardica in Illyria in A.D. 344. But when the Westerns under the presidency of Hosius, disregarding the Antiochean anathema, allowed a seat and vote to Athanasius, the Easterns withdrew and formed an opposition Council at Philippopolis in Thrace. At Sardica where important privileges were granted to the Roman bishop Julius (§ 46, 3), the Nicene creed was renewed and Athanasius was restored. Constantius, after Gregorius [Gregory] had died, who meanwhile had become doubly hated because of his violent deeds, confirmed Athanasius’ restoration, and the Alexandrian church received again their old pastor with shouts of joy. But after the death of Constans in A.D. 350, Constantius was again won over to the side of the Arians. They assembled at the Council of Sirmium in Pannonia in A.D. 351, where, however, they did not strike directly at Athanasius but at first only at a friend of his who presented to them a weak spot. The bishop Marcellus of Ancyra in Galatia by his zealous defence of the Nicene Homoousia had been betrayed into the use of Sabellian expressions and views. At a Synod at Constantinople in A.D. 336 he was on this account suspended, and then contended with by Eusebius of Cæsarea in the course of this Council; but in the West and at the Council of Sardica he had been defended. Afterwards, however, one of his own scholars Photinus, bishop of Sirmium, had drifted into unmistakable, and indeed into dynamic Monarchianism (§ 33, 1). His doctrine had been already rejected as heretical at a Council at Antioch in A.D. 344 and also in the West at a distinctly Nicæan Council at Milan in A.D. 345. The Council of Sirmium now formally deposed him and with his condemned also Marcellus’ doctrine.152 The Eusebians, however, were not satisfied with this. So soon as Constantius by the conquest of the usurper Magnentius got an absolutely free hand, he arranged at their instigation for two Eusebian Synods, one at Arles in Gaul, A.D. 353, the other at Milan, A.D. 355, where Athanasius was again condemned. The emperor now commanded that all Western bishops should subscribe his condemnation. Those who refused were deposed and banished. Among them were, the Roman bishop Liberius, Hosius of Cordova, Hilary of Poitiers, Eusebius of Vercelli, and Lucifer of Calăris [Calaris]. And now a second Gregorius [Gregory], a Cappadocian, not less rude and passionate than the first, was forcibly installed bishop of Alexandria. Athanasius performed the service in a quiet and dignified manner, and then withdrew to the monks in the Egyptian desert in A.D. 356. Thus it seemed that Arianism in the modified or rather concealed form of Eusebianism had secured a final victory throughout the whole range of the Roman Empire.