A Dissertation Concerning The Eternal Sonship Of Christ by Dr. John Gill

50 CHAPTER FIVE THE VICTOY OF ARIANISM A synod was held at Arles as soon as Constantius conquest of Roman civilization in Atlantic Europe, came was settled there for the winter. The bishops were not Hilary of Poitiers, the noblest representative of Western unwilling to take the Emperor’s word for the crimes of literature in the Nicene age. Hilary was by birth a heaAthanasius, if only the court party cleared itself from then, and only turned in ripe manhood from philosothe suspicion of heresy by anathematizing Arianism. phy to Scripture, coming before us in 355 as an old convert and a bishop of some standing. He was by far the Much management and no little violence was needdeepest thinker of the West, and a match for Athanasius ed to get rid of this condition; but in the end the counhimself in depth of earnestness and massive strength of cil yielded. Even the Roman legate, Vincent of Capua, intellect. But Hilary was a student rather than an orator, gave way with the rest, and Paulinus of Trier alone stood a thinker rather than a statesman like Athanasius. He firm, and was sent away to die in exile. had not touched the controversy till it was forced upon Council of Milan (Oct. 355) him, and would much have preferred to keep out of it.

But once he had studied the Nicene doctrine and found There was a sort of armed truce for the next two its agreement with his own conclusions from Scripture, years. Liberius of Rome disowned the weakness of his a clear sense of duty forbade him to shrink from manlegates and besought the Emperor to hold a new coun- fully defending it. Such was the man whom the brutal cil. But Constantius was busy with the barbarians, and policy of Constantius forced to take his place at the had to leave the matter till he came to Milan in the au- head of the Nicene opposition. As he was not present at tumn of 355. There Julian was invested with the purple Milan, the courtiers had to silence him some other way. and sent as Caesar to drive the Alemanni out of Gaul, In the spring of 356 they exiled him to Asia, on some or, as some hoped, to perish in the effort. The council, charge of conduct ‘unworthy of a bishop, or even of a however, was for a long time quite unmanageable, and layman.’ only yielded at last to open violence. Dionysius of MiMeanwhile Hosius of Cordova was ordered to Sirmilan, Eusebius of Vercellae, and Lucifer of Calaris in Sarum and detained there. Constantius was not ashamed dinia, were the only bishops who had to be exiled. to send to the rack the old man who had been a conLucifer of Calaris (Cagliari). fessor in his grandfather’s days, more than fifty years before. He was brought at last to communicate with the The appearance of Lucifer is enough to show that Arianizers; but even in his last illness, he refused to conthe contest had entered on a new stage. The lawless tyr- demn Athanasius. After this there was but one power in anny of Constantius had roused an aggressive fanati- the West which could not be summarily dealt with. The cism which went far beyond the claim of independence grandeur of Hosius was merely personal; but Liberius for the church. In dauntless courage and determined claimed the universal reverence due to the apostolic orthodoxy, Lucifer may rival Athanasius himself, but and imperial See of Rome. It was a great and wealthy any cause would have been disgraced by his narrow par- church, and during the last two hundred years had tisanship and outrageous violence. Not a bad name in won a noble fame for world-wide charity. Its orthodoxy Scripture, but is turned to use. Indignation every now was without a stain; for whatever heresies might flow and then supplies the place of eloquence; but more of- to the great city, no heresy had ever issued there. The ten, common sense itself is almost lost in the weary flow strangers of every land who found their way to Rome of vulgar scolding and interminable abuse. were welcomed from St. Peter’s throne with the majestic blessing of a universal father. ‘The church of God which He scarcely condescends to reason, scarcely even to sojourns in Rome’ was the immemorial counsellor of state his own belief, but revels in the more congenial ocall the churches; and now that the voice of counsel was cupation of denouncing the fires of damnation against passing into that of command, Bishop Julius had made the disobedient Emperor. a worthy use of his authority as a judge of Christendom.

Hilary of Poitiers Such a bishop was a power of the first importance now that Arianism was dividing the Empire round the hosThe victory was not to be won by an arm of flesh tile camps of Gaul and Asia. If the Roman church had like this. Arianism had an enemy more dangerous than partly ceased to be a Greek colony in the Latin capital, it Lucifer. From the sunny land of Aquitaine, the firmest was still the connecting link of East and West, the rep-